Mikhail Popkov found out that one his victims was a music teacher when his young daughter told him her school was collecting money for a funeral.

She asked me for money for the funeral fund, and I gave it to her, Popkov allegedly confessed to investigators.

The Werewolf, as Popkov is known, is suspected of killing more than 80 women over 18 years. Popkov worked as a police officer in Angarsk, Irkutsk Oblast, was sentenced to life in prison for 22 murders in 2015. Dozens of his shocking confessions to police were revealed in the Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper, after written confessions were allegedly leaked to the paper ahead of court proceedings.

The investigation tracked Popkov's murders back to 1992, when he allegedly found out about his wife cheating on him with a colleague. The confessions say he became compulsively controlling, constantly reminding her about the affair. He went for his first kill just months later, motivated by a deep and abiding hatred of women who didn't fear him.

"My victims were women who walked the streets at night alone, without men, and not sober, who they behaved thoughtlessly, carelessly, not afraid to engage in a conversation with me, sit in the car, and then go for a drive in search of adventure, just for fun," he said.

He'd have sex with them, and then decide whether to murder them, according to the confessions.

In this way, not all women became victims, but women of certain negative behavior, and I had a desire to teach and punish them, he said. So that others would not behave in such a way and so that they would be afraid.

In January, prosecutors said Popkov had been charged with 47 new murders, but that hed confessed to as many as 59 more than the 22 hed already been convicted of. The victims ranged in age from 17 to 38.

The period of his murders also has changed, Irkutsk Investigative Committee spokeswoman Karina Golovacheva said at the time. He was killing women from 1992 to 2010, so he did not stop in 2000.

In his confession, the former police officer admitted that hed menaced women on the streets of Irkutsk in his cop clothes.

I was in uniform. I decided to stop and give a woman a ride, I frequently did that before, he said. The woman began talking to me, I offered to give her a lift, she agreed... That same morning, I drove the head of the criminal investigation to the murder scene.

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He was able to kill his victims and observe the investigations from his official post. Popkov even confessed to taking weapons from the police evidence storage to help with his dirty deeds.

But even the methodical killer slipped up on occasion. Once, Popkov realized that a commemorative chain hed kept wasnt around his neck anymore when he returned from the scene of a double homicide.

I realized that I lost it in a forest glade when I killed two women, he said. I realized that I would absolutely be identified by the lost token, and experienced the greatest stress. I realized that I should return to the scene of the crime, if the police or the prosecutor's office did not do so yet.

He found his lost necklace quickly, but saw that one of the women was still breathing.

I was again shocked by the fact that she was alive. I beat her to death with a shovel, he confessed.

And Popkov had no plans of getting caught. It was science that finally put an end to his evil deeds.

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I couldnt predict DNA tests, he told a Komsomolskaya Pravda correspondent in a jailhouse interview. I was born in the wrong century.

When he pleaded guilty to the two dozen earlier murder charges, the judge asked Popkov how many murders were under his belt in total. The bloodthirsty killer shrugged.

I can't say exactly, he said. I didn't write them down.
Taylor Huddleston woke early on December 6th, hours before the Arkansas winter morning would stir to life with the sound of roosters and dogs. Since selling off the last piece of his software business two months earlier, Huddleston had nothing in particular to do, and hed been keeping odd hours. While his girlfriend slept in the next room, he browsed Reddit and YouTube, then sat down with a microwaved Jimmy Dean Breakfast Bowl to start the day right.

Something crunched in his mouth, and he spat out a wad of breakfast bowl into a napkin, just as the pounding started at his front door.

Huddlestons first thought was that somebody had crashed their car and needed to use his phone. But when he opened the door, he was met by about two dozen serious-looking men and women, some in bulletproof vests, holding handguns at the ready, one shouldering an assault rifle, another carrying a battering ram. He was accustomed to seeing uniformed sheriffs deputies in his neighborhooddrugs, he assumedbut most of these cops wore suits. More suits than hed ever seen in one place.

The visitors were from the FBI, and after a 90-minute search of his house, they left with his computers, only to return two months later with handcuffs. Now free on bond, Huddleston, 26, is scheduled to appear in a federal courtroom in Alexandria, Virginia on Friday for arraignment on federal charges of conspiracy and aiding and abetting computer intrusions.

Huddleston, though, isnt a hacker. Hes the author of a remote administration tool, or RAT, called NanoCore that happens to be popular with hackers. NanoCore has been linked to intrusions in at least 10 countries, including an attack on Middle Eastern energy firms in 2015, and a massive phishing campaign last August in which the perpetrators posed as major oil and gas company. As Huddleston sees it, hes a victim himselfhackers have been pirating his program for years and using it to commit crimes. But to the Justice Department, Huddleston is an accomplice to a spree of felonies.

Depending on whose view prevails, Huddleston could face prison time and lose his home, in a case that raises a novel question: when is a programmer criminally responsible for the actions of his users? Everybody seems to acknowledge that this software product had a legitimate purpose, says Travis Morrissey, a lawyer in Hot Springs who represented Huddleston at his bail hearing. Its like saying that if someone buys a handgun and uses it to rob a liquor store, that the handgun manufacturer is complicit.

Some experts say the answer to that question could have far reaching implications for developers, particularly those working on new technologies that criminals might adopt in unforeseeable ways. The chill would be felt most profoundly by independent coders without ready access to legal support, but eventually even large corporations like Facebook or Google could face new uncertainty. Can a social networking site face charges when members stalk or threaten an ex? If ISIS starts using an encrypted messaging app, should the developer start looking for a good bail bondsman? Even if prosecutors dont plan to use their discretion against big companies, it can have a chilling effect, says Cornell law professor James Grimmelmann. Because you never know for sure.

Huddleston began coding NanoCore in late 2012 in a bid to lift himself out of a hardscrabble life. He was a high-school dropout and struggling programmer, working and living in a run down trailer slowly rusting on his mothers property. Until then, his most ambitious project as a newbie coder had been a low-cost license management system called Net Seal that allowed developers to control access to their products, letting them shut down, for example, a copy that was bought with a stolen PayPal account. Making Net Seal taught Huddleston to code well, and when he discovered that people were making money selling Windows remote management tools, he thought hed give it a try.

His first version was weak, but after months of work NanoCore developed into a full featured product, with a plug-in capability that made it endlessly flexible, and a user interface that one computer security firm praised as simple yet robust. Install a NanoCore client on a Windows box, and you can remotely log keystrokes, download stored passwords, turn on the web cam, access files, and watch the users screen in real time. NanoCores powers mirror some of the functionality in popular commercial offerings like GoToMyPC, and Huddleston says he had high hopes that his $25 tool might be adopted by budget-conscious school IT administrators, tech support firms, server farms, and parents worried about what their kids are doing online.

Security experts who have examined NanoCore say theres nothing in the code to disprove Huddlestons claim that he intended it for lawful use, though theyre inherently skeptical. It is plausible the tool was created for legitimate reasons, says Anthony Kasza, a senior threat researcher at Palo Alto Networks. However, this is a common claim amongst RAT authors.  Features of RATs are not inherently malicious or benign. It all comes down to intent.

Prosecutors say they have no doubt about Huddlestons intent. Huddleston designed the NanoCore RAT for the purpose of enabling its users to commit unauthorized and illegal intrusions against victim computers, wrote Assistant U.S. Attorney Kellen Dwyer in Huddlestons 14-page indictment, which was unsealed last month. Because NanoCore has both legal and illegal uses, establishing that Huddleston wrote it for criminals is crucial for prosecutors. Its a dual-use technology case, says Grimmelman. And you typically dont get criminal liability in dual-use technology cases unless theres a pretty clear intent to promote the criminal use instead of the legitimate ones.

The court filings dont detail why the government is so certain that Huddleston wanted to help hackers, but the indictment mentions eight times the name of the website where Huddleston announced and supported NanoCore: HackForums.net.

HackForums is a popular site, boasting over three million registered users, and housing well-trafficked forums on coding, computer gaming, even financial investment strategies. With long threads about PokeMon and how to craft a cool YouTube page, HackForums is several shades too light for the Dark Web. But, true to its name, the first subject category listed on its homepage is a forum called Hack, with individual bulletin boards like Beginner Hacking and Website and Forum Hacking.

This isnt hacking in the innocent innovative coding sense of the word. The participants in these particular sub forums are largely discussing computer intrusion, some academically, others practically. You wont find Russian super-hackers on HackForums, but computer crime newbies and amateurs building their very first botnet appear to be commonplace. One recent thread posed the question, How would you spread malware through iframe tags? and drew knowing advice: serve malicious Java on a fake Minecraft landing page; lure victims with a bogus ad for a recent movie.

Huddleston joined the site in 2009 under the nickname Aeonhack. Online communities were important to him. In childhood, he and his two brothers relocated frequently as their single mother pursued job opportunities through a tumble of small towns and cities in New Mexico and Arkansas. The frequent moves coupled with his inherent shyness left Huddleston virtually friendless in school, and he finally dropped out in the 12th Grade. Throughout it all, the internet was his lifeline. When he started learning to program, he says, he gravitated to the large and helpful community in the coding section of HackForums.

So when he was ready with the alpha version of NanoCore in January 2013, it only made sense that hed announce it in a place where he was known and liked, and that had nurtured him as a beginner.

It would soon become clear that it was a terrible place to launch a legitimate remote administration tool. There arent a lot of corporate procurement officers on HackForums. Instead, many of Huddlestons new customers had purely illicit uses for a slick remote access tool. In short order, Huddleston found himself routinely admonishing people not to use his software for crime. NanoCore does not permit illegal use, he wrote in one post. In another, NanoCore is NOT malware. It is intended to be used legitimately and I dont want to see words like slave and infect. Huddleston backed his words with action. Whenever he saw evidence that a particular buyer was using the product to hack, hed log in to Net Seal and disable that users copy, cutting the hacker off from his infected slaves.

I had a very strict zero tolerance policy, he says.

He was fighting an uphill battle. Tutorials on how to covertly infect a victims machine appeared on YouTube by the thousands; Huddleston responded by quietly changed NanoCores control panel to display the users license ID, so he could revoke that copy when he saw it in a video. His righteous attitude started to irk some of NanoCores fans. What the hell do you expect? Youre selling a Remote Administration Tool on a hacking forum, one wrote in 2015. Thats like selling guns in a warzone but making a policy, Youre not allowed to use these guns for dangerous purposes only target shooting. Still more gripes came when Huddleston removed the tools ability to steal passwords and log keystrokes. You cant do any blackhat activities with it, one user complained. No one who buys a RAT wants one with the main features taken out.

The users who got cut off were even more angry, and sometimes inclined to retaliate. Id get these really threatening emails and people harassing me just viciously, Huddleston says. They would go and send me dozens of fraudulent payments in PayPal and charge them back. PayPal interprets chargebacks as a sign of a fraudulent vendor who might have to be cut off, making that ploy an existential threat to Huddlestons budding business. Theres no defense against it. You cant block someone from sending you money.

When Huddlestons crackdowns became too troublesome, the hackers cracked his Net Seal code and distributed pirated versions of the product on other sites. Computer security companies spotted a new trend in attacks. Every time a new cracked version of NanoCore appeared, a huge spike in the codes use in computer intrusion attempts followed. In early March 2015, Symantec detected a mysterious phishing campaign flinging NanoCore at energy companies in Asia and the Middle East. Symantec researcher Mark Balanza charted the pattern and penned a 900-word paean to Aeonhacks persistence in the face of endless setbacks.

It seems that every time the author tries to develop and improve NanoCore, one of the customers invariably ends up leaking a copy of it for free, Balanza wrote. This surely has to be a major disincentive for the original developer, but they seem to possess endless optimism and persist to create new versions with enhanced capabilities, maybe in the hope that eventually enough customers will pay.

Early the next year, Palo Alto Networks caught NanoCore starring in a phishing campaign tied to tax season. By then, Huddlestons optimism had already run dry. I was just in way over my head, he says.

I loved creating it. I loved learning how to create it, Huddleston recalls. You get that rush from solving all these complex issues, and this is by far, hands down, the most difficult and the biggest project that I ever created. I learned so much from it that I could never have learned otherwise.

But he was weary of all the drama, coupled with the pressure of running a small business on his own, Huddleston began divesting himself from NanoCore in early 2015. First he handed off the business end to another HackForum member, while continuing to develop the code as an advisor in exchange for 60 percent of every sale. It wasnt until years end that he finally divorced himself entirely from the project , accepting a $5,000 buy-out from the new owner. Last October, he sold off Net Seal for $3,000.

In the end, Huddleston got what he wanted from both projects. He scrimped and saved enough from his NanoCore and Net Seal income that he and his girlfriend were able to move out of the trailer and buy a $60,000 house in a low-income corner of Hot Springs, Arkansas.

Now even Huddlestons modest home is in jeopardy. As part of their case, prosecutors are seeking forfeiture of any property derived from the proceeds of NanoCore, as well as from Huddlestons anti piracy system, which is also featured in the indictment. Net Seal licensing software is licensing software for cybercriminals, the indictment declares. For this surprising chargeremember, Huddleston use the licenses to fight crooks and piratesthe government leans on the conviction of a Virginia college student named Zachary Shames, who pleaded guilty in January to selling hackers a keystroke logging program called Limitless. Unlike Huddleston, Shames embraced malicious use of his code. And he used Net Seal to protect and distribute it.

Huddleston admits an acquaintanceship with Shames, who was known on HackForums as Mephobia, but bristles at the accusation that Net Seal was built for crime. Net Seal is literally the exact opposite of aiding and abetting criminals, he says. It logs their IP addresses, it block their access to the software, it stops them from sharing it with other cyber criminals. I mean, every aspect of it fundamentally prevents cybercrime. For them to say that [crime] is its intention is just ridiculous.

Grimmelman, a specialist in technology law, says the case may fit a trend hes noticed in online law enforcement: prosecute the defendants you can easily find as proxies for those you cant. The governments frustration with criminal users who are anonymous splashes back in a variety of ways on targets who are easier to identify, says Grimmelman. Its kind of unusual to target a software developer, but I definitely feel thats the way the winds are blowing.

Huddleston suspects the entire prosecution is the FBIs way of saving face after raiding him. He thinks the feds expected to uncover evidence on his computer, like chat logs or private message, showing that he was secretly colluding with hackers even as he publicly battled them. When they didnt, they decided to charge him anyway.

Another motive for the indictment might be found in the 2012 prosecution of Michael xVisceral Hogue, who once helped create and sell a remote access program called Blackshades. Sold in the underground for $40, Blackshades was blatant malware, implicated in attacks on one million computers around the world. It was particularly favored in online ransom schemes, where an attacker freezes a victims machine and demands a payoff to set it free.

The government made a cooperation deal with Hogue, and with his help U.S. and European law enforcement rounded up 100 Blackshades users in a two-year-long investigation. It was a masterful play by the bureau that multiplied one bust into scores. It also worked out well for Hogue, who was sentenced to probation in 2014.

The feds may have hoped to do the same with Huddleston and NanoCore. If so, they might have done better leaving the assault rifle at the office. By his account, Huddleston was himself a victim of his hacker users, and he might have welcomed a chance to help the FBI make some arrests.

Instead, his most vivid memory of the December raid involves sitting down with the lead agent, whod come in from Washington D.C. to execute the search warrant personally.

Huddleston was still in his pajamas, and obsessing over the embarrassing blob of meat sitting on the table, as the agent explained that NanoCores abuse had international implications. This is a global thing. Were working with other countries, Huddleston remembers the agent saying. Youre a little fish in a big pond Are you going to cooperate?

When Huddleston replied that he wouldnt talk to the FBI without a lawyer, the agent became visibly irritated, he says. In February the bureau returned with an arrest warrant, and Huddleston spent a week in jail before a judge released him on a $5,000 signature bond.

Now hes anxious about the future. Before the raid, he was pondering his next project. I wanted to get into game development. When The Daily Beast spoke to Huddleston last week, he was planning his 16-hour road trip to Arlington, Virginia for arraignment. Hell have to make the trip without Google Mapsthe judge ordered him to stay completely off the Internet, whether by computer or smartphone. Part of him seems not to believe the whole thing is really happening.

Theres a corporate-friendly double standard at play in the charges, he argues. Hackers have used commercial remote administration tools for years. Big name brands like TeamView and VNC have figured in malware campaigns even more insidious than those waged by NanoCore hackers. But the FBI doesnt show up at their corporate headquarters with guns drawn.

NanoCore is abused in the same way that those are, says Huddleston, his good humor finally breaking into exasperation. The difference is I proactivity go after these people and build security into the software to catch these people. His corporate competitors had money and thousands of employees. Huddleston had a trailer and microwavable food. Im just one guy.
Hollywood loves nothing better than celebrating itself, and the new three-part Netflix documentary Five Came Back is a veritable orgy of self-congratulation. The noteworthy thing is, all the love is well deserved.

With a screenplay by Mark Harris based on his excellent book of the same name, Five Came Back tracks the efforts of five great American directors who put their careers on hold and went to work for the Pentagon during World War II.

John Ford, George Stevens, Frank Capra, William Wyler, and John Huston all became commissioned officers in the war, and all shot footage or complete documentaries supporting the war effort. The films they made were not what we would call documentaries, which is to say, they made no effort to be impartial. Those films werent even just this side of propaganda. Quite often they were propaganda (unless you believe that propaganda is only something the other side does). But there is no disputing that these filmmakers contributed mightily to the war effort and in some cases made movies so vivid that even today they continue to move us. For their deft, heartfelt, and always intelligent documentation of this achievement, Harris and company deserve a rousing cheer (full disclosure: one of the docs producers is Barry Diller, whose IAC is the parent company of The Daily Beast).

Nothing, really, can diminish the achievements or the sacrifices those artists made on behalf of their country (Ford was wounded while filming the battle of Midway, and Wyler permanently lost his hearing after going up in a bombing run over Europe). Nor does it overshadow the equally real, albeit less life-threatening, conflicts these volatile men endured in their battles with the military brass.

Had it been left up to the generals, all the films would have been propaganda and not even very good propaganda at that. The military was always willing to lie when it came to leveling with the American people about what soldiers were enduring on the front lines. The filmmakers, on the other hand, wanted desperately to show the bravery and suffering they saw first-hand in Europe and the Pacific. And based on the evidence they got on film, they were absolutely right.

One of the finest things about Five Came Back is the way in which it gently schools us about how different life was in America during the war era. The best example comes early in the first installment of the documentary, when we are reminded that in the 40s, Americans got their filmed visual news from one source: the newsreels that played before the cartoons and features in movie theaters. In our media saturated age, its hard to imagine such a world, much less fathom the enormous power movie makers had back then to sway public opinion. Five Came Back wonderfully illuminates that distant reality.

The audiences who saw Fords Battle of Midway had rarely if ever seen footage of men badly wounded or dead. They had never even seen combat footage in color, or footage where the cameraman gets jolted sideways by an artillery explosion and the film in his camera comes loose from the sprockets. Ford, mindful that what he was showing a naive American audience might well strain credulity, inserted a line in the script at the moment an American flag is being raised in the midst of battle: This really happened.

Fords film, marred only a little by its gung ho narration, survives as one of the best films made by the five directors, none of whom had any experience shooting documentaries, much less filming while under fireCapra admitted that he had never even seen a documentary before he went to work creating the seven movies that made up Why We Fight. But their inexperience was in fact an asset: In Midway, for example, no attempt is made to corral the chaos and confusion of the battle being filmedchaos and confusion become the subject, in fact, which is the only honest way to shoot a battle.

Shaking cameras and all the rest of wars messiness are also present in Hustons The Battle of San Pietro, but there was just one problem: Huston faked the whole thing. He arrived at the Italian village after the battle was over, and then proceeded to recreate it, accurately enough that for years people mistook his film for the real thing. Admirably, those who made Five Came Back address this issue head on and the talking heads who guide us through the story (directors Steven Spielberg, Paul Greengrass, Lawrence Kasdan, Guillermo del Toro, and Francis Ford Coppola) are equally candid about their misgivings. In the end, the film leaves it to the viewer to decide if Huston was justified.

A more clear-cut problem arose concerning another Huston film, Let There Be Light, surely the first movie ever made about what we now call PTSD. No one has ever accused him of faking any of that heartbreaking footage, but then again, no one saw the film for 30 years because the military took the footage away from Huston and shelved it. The consequences of war were not deemed suitable for the public in the eyes of the Pentagon.

Five Came Back makes no grandiose claims for the effects of the filmmakers efforts, with one exception: George Stevens filmed the liberation of Dachau and remained there for weeks filming survivors and taking their testimony, and when that footage was shown at the Nuremberg trials, it was said to be the crucial piece of evidence that convinced the judges to convict.

Perhaps the wars greatest impact was on the five directors themselves. The war changed all of them, darkening their vision and honing their determination to make movies that told the truth. Stevens never made another comedy. Ford immediately made They Were Expendable, an underrated masterpiece about the loss of the Philippines. And Wyler made The Best Years of Our Lives, a movie so agelessly potent that Spielberg says he makes a point of watching it at least once a year. So, in a sense, the wartime service of five very talented men bore directly on the maturation of American cinema, so much so that even if you have never seen any of the films they shot during the war, you have felt the impact of their service through the timeless films they went on to make in peacetime. Explaining how that all happened, Five Came Back supplies an invaluable chapter in the history of American moviemakingand American life.
Eighty-eight years after Boris Karloff uttered the line Kill the white man and take his women as a villainous Chinese caricature in The Mask of Fu Manchu, whitewashing and tone-deaf depictions of Asian culture still thrive in Hollywood.

Ghost in the Shell, director Rupert Sanderss glitzy live-action adaptation of the beloved manga and anime franchise, stars Scarlett Johansson as cyborg assassin Motoko Kusanagi, here renamed Mira Killian. Her casting in a story so quintessentially Japaneseone that critiques a cultures overreliance on technology to rebuild its identity post-World War IIwas swiftly met by accusations of whitewashing.

Sanders & Co. are well aware of the backlash. Theyve probably even seen the memes. (Johansson has defended her role by equating it to a win for feminism. Director Mamoru Oshii, the man behind the original, wildly influential 1995 anime film, likewise dismissed American concerns: In the movies, John Wayne can play Genghis Khan, he reasoned, presumably without irony.)

Onscreen in Sanderss film, the matter of Johanssons whiteness actually becomes a plot pointor rather, a plot twist. And boy, does it somehow manage to make everything worse. Warning: Spoilers ahead for this silly movies even sillier ending ahead.

A quick primer on the basics of the plot: The Major, aka Mira Killian, works as an elite counterterrorism operative in Tokyo in the year 2029, when cybernetic body enhancements have become a way of life. Everyone wandering the streets likely has artificially improved vision, speed, strength, mental prowess, and so onits a common way of life.

Miras body, however, is more than just enhanced: Its all-synthetic, implanted with the human mind of a woman whose body was allegedly destroyed in an accident (her consciousness is the ghost in her bodys shell). Shes the first of her kind, were told, and the future of humanity. She remembers little before joining her comrades in Section 9, until glitches in her mind begin to reveal flashbacks of her past.

A supposedly villainous hacker named Kuze (Michael Pitt) warns Mira not to trust her makers, and to investigate the memories theyve hidden from her. She does, and eventually discoversyou ready for this?that her brain originally belonged to a young Japanese woman named Motoko Kusanagi who was kidnapped and killed by Hanka Industries, the corporation that made Miras body.

We never get a full glimpse of Motokos face, but we learn she was an anti-technology anarchist who spent her days with a community of like-minded runaways, one of whom was also kidnapped and repurposed into an ultimately failed cyborg. That young mans name was Hideo. Now, hes known as Kuze. Dozens of men and women died before them, we learn, in Hanka Industries quest to create the perfect living weapon: a quest now fulfilled with Mira.

Bizarrely, the race-bending twist was conceived specifically for this American retelling; its nowhere in Oshiis film, or in Masamune Shirows original manga. The film itself seems unsure what to do with it, ultimately leaning into a half-baked statement about consent (Mira verbally gives or declines her consent whenever scientists alter her data)one of about a dozen unexplored themes left dangling throughout.

Were then given a parting shot of Mira and Motokos mother hugging in front of Motokos grave. Mira decides to remain in her Caucasian shell, rather than fuse with Kuze in his human-made network of minds, and dedicates herself to spare any more Japanese runaways of Motokos fate. How heroic. And trendy! Between Marvels Iron Fist and Matt Damon Saves China: The Movie, white saviors are all the rage in 2017.

That Motoko was murdered is a horrible thing, the film ultimately concludes, miraculously. The most visible boss at Hanka Industries emerges as the real villain and is killed in a by-the-numbers climactic battle. But Sanders and writers Jamie Moss and William Wheeler are less harsh on the scientist who actually designed Mira: Dr. Ouelet, played by Juliette Binoche. She dies too, but heroically, after sacrificing herself to give Mira the keys to her past.

No one answers for (or even really mentions) the erasure of Motokos race. The implied assumption that Western beauty ideals are somehow an upgrade on Eastern ones goes unchallenged. And thats a shame. There was room for a smart, meta statement in here about a society that chooses white bodies as ideal embodiments of human minds, but nothing so intelligent (or hell, interesting) ever happens.

Instead, the twist only becomes more tone-deaf in retrospect. Knowing theres a murdered Japanese womans mind inside a shell that looks like Scarlett Johansson makes the half-dozen or so times that other characters harp on about her divine beauty and specialness all the more uncomfortable. Bonus cringe points for having Kuzo, who we later learn was Japanese, stare at her new form in wonder and say, I am not beautiful like you.

And yet, astoundingly, none of this ends up being Ghost in the Shells biggest problem. Whitewashing aside, the film fundamentally misunderstands (or simply doesnt give a shit about) the ideas at the heart of Oshiis 1995 masterpiece. It sands down the strange, striking subtleties of the anime in favor of razzle-dazzle CGI, slick aesthetics, and unimaginative gun-fu sequences.

Where the original is a deeply philosophical meditation on isolation, technology, and the nature of the self, 2017s Ghost in the Shell boils down those ideasso ripe for exploration in todays world!to two-line soundbites. Characters pay lip service to an incoherent jumble of themes while the plot itself carries on, unconcerned.

This is partly because Sanders never aims for more than aesthetics-driven cherry-picking of famous images from the anime. Iconic objects like the tarantula typing hands and detachable eyes, so unsettling in Oshiis film, are here repackaged as shiny, cool toys. Motokos invisible fight in the water, her fishing trip with Batou, their battle with a giant robot spiderentire scenes are lifted and grafted onto a largely meaningless story about a Tokyo Jason Bourne.

Its such a cynical, depressing take on a sci-fi classic. Its visually stunning, to be sure, in everything from its costume design to its Blade Runner-inspired vision of Tokyo: all grime and neon lights and towering holograms. And yet its also hopelessly stale. Every idea or action scene it attempts has been done better elsewhere, from Ex Machina to The Matrix.

Oshiis film is full of quiet, contemplative moments that convey Motokos alienation: looking up at pink-tinged clouds above the city, for example, or a lingering look at her own reflection before resurfacing from underwater. It also isnt afraid to be ugly: In the climax of that last spider-bot battle, the muscles of Majors body expand, bulge, and burst grotesquely in a feat of strength. Its hideous, yet thrilling in the best body-horror way.

In Sanderss version, when the camera pans up toward the sky, its only to show off the pretty lights of his meticulously designed city. And when Major faces the spider-bot, her body, the object of so much verbal admiration throughout, transforms much, much less gruesomely. Its almost funny. This movie, so eager for explosions and mayhem elsewhere, suddenly turns faint-hearted.

This isnt to nitpick how faithfully an adaptation stuck to its source material. Usually, its better for everyone when projects like this expand and build on what weve already seen or read. But the 2017 Ghost in the Shell is, unfortunately, its own apt metaphor: Its a shell without a soul.

It does manage to condemn the transplant of Motokos brain into Miras body. But in refusing to look the uneasiness of those racial dynamics in the eye, the film also ends up undermining itself. The crime isnt just that a girl was murdered, as it tells us. Its also that a Japanese womans mind was put in the body of a white woman and then treated as inherently superior.

You know what we call that back here in 2017? Whitewashing. The cultural crime Ghost in the Shell unwittingly condemns is exactly what it did in casting Johansson, and hopes to continue to do in would-be sequels. Luckily, to understand why thats wrong, you need look no further than this blockbuster blunder.
Smokey the Bear is in trouble, and his wild cousins in Alaska are really in trouble. Republicans in the U.S. Senate this week followed an earlier House move to strip away protections for bears (as well as wolves and other predators) in national wildlife refuges in Alaska. As a result, cruel practices such as chasing and shooting bears from aircraft, gunning down bears at bait stations, and killing cubs and their mothers in their dens are just a Trump signature from becoming the law of the land. Even for those observers acquainted with the ever-increasing pressure on our nations public lands, this brazen, partisan move was shocking.

But if there is a potential silver lining to this latest Trump administration attack on the health and wellbeing of our nations environment, it may be the increased attention Americans are now paying to the future of our protected areas. Maybe, strangely, this is exactly what our public lands need right now. While still spectacularly beautiful, vitally important for ecosystem health, and loved by many millions of visitors from all over the world, the survival of such protected grounds is increasingly in question.

In a mind-boggling move most Americans probably missed during the madhouse atmosphere of Trumps first weeks in office, Republicans in the House of Representative voted for a rule change that would essentially erase the value of federal lands, with the goal of making it easier for the new administration to give away more than 600 million acres to individual states. Included are National Forest and Federal Wildlife Refuge acres, as well as huge tracts of Bureau of Land Management land. Never mind the studies showing that our public lands contribute more than $600 billion and 6 million jobs to the nations economy.

This seemingly insatiable desire to privatize public land comes at a time when our public lands are already stressed by human development. For example, while the percentage of population density increase in the United States since 1940 has been 113 percent, around national parks it has been nearly double that, at 224 percent. And while the percentage increase in population densities around the parks varied (for example, 210 percent around Glacier and 246 percent around Yellowstone to more than 3,000 percent around Mojave National Preserve), every park in the national system saw human development increase around its borders. As a result, the grounds we have designated as protected are slowly becoming islands of wildness in an otherwise tame sea.

While the House bill was quietly withdrawn after intense pressure from interest groupsincluding many traditionally right-leaning hunting and fishing organizationsits only a matter of time before such legislation reappears. Other threats to public lands include the introduction of invasive species, subsidized predators such as feral cats, and chemical pollution from pesticides and fertilizers. But it is the steady loss of wild ground available to Smokey and his companions that has scientists especially worried. If wildlife cannot move along historical migratory routes to mate or feed, their ability to survive will diminish in a world rapidly being changed by a disrupted climate.

Ah, the subject we suddenly arent to talk about or study: climate disruption caused by our burning of fossil fuels, the greatest threat to our public lands. The new president has said climate change is a hoax, his director of OMB has declared that budgeting to fight climate change is a waste of your money, and his new EPA administrator believes that the extent of human responsibility is still subject to continuing debate. Of course, this simply isnt true: 97 percent of climate scientists say climate change is real and is human-caused.

The debate we ought to be having right now is how best to slow climate disruption so that we can build resilience and create strategies to adapt to the inevitable changes to come. Instead, the Trump administration appears intent not only on stifling debate but on shuttering any scientific research that might drive such a debate. If they can control the message, they seem to imagine, they can control reality. If we dont study and engage with climate change, in other words, maybe it wont happen.

But for our national parks and other protected areas, the changes are happening already. The threats are real, whether we acknowledge them or not. And maybe outrageous votes to kill bear cubs and wolf pups in their dens will help us to take these other threats more seriously. Maybe we need the new administration to immediately threaten the parks we love. May that love now increasingly show up in our voices as we refuse to ignore the looming existential threat to Smokey, his home, and to us all.

Paul Bogard is the author of The Ground Beneath Us: From the Oldest Cities to the Last Wilderness, What Dirt Tells Us About Who We Are (Little, Brown), from which this essay is partly adapted.
On the night of March 21, 2017, U.S. military helicopters airlifted fighters from the Syrian Democratic Forces rebel group in a daring attack on a strategic dam outside the town of Tabqa, just 20 miles west of Raqqa, the de facto capital of ISISs self-declared caliphate in central Syria.

The initial fighting ended quickly. With U.S. Army Apache gunships flying top cover, SDF troops had seized the southern approach to the Tabqa dam, aka the Euphrates dam, within three days.

Seizing Tabqa dam will isolate Raqqa from three sides and give the SDF the strategic advantage and launching point needed for the liberation of the city, the headquarters of the U.S.-led coalition stated.

As both sides settled in for a potentially lengthy siege, their respective propaganda arms flew into action. By all accounts, the ground combat at the Tabqa dam has ebbed. But the war of words is escalating quickly, as the SDF and ISIS try to leverage for their own gain the dam and the millions of gallons of water in Lake Assad that it holds backand activist groups add their own alarm and accusations to the turbulent flow of information.

Its not clear whos telling the truth. Both combatants would have the world believe they are trying to preserve the dam, while their enemy aims to cause its failureand send a wave of water crashing downstream.

The battle over Tabqa and its dam was long in coming. Since early in the civil war, ISIS has dominated, sparsely-populated central Syriaincluding the town of Tabqa and its roughly 60,000 residents. But for the first three years of the conflict, the Syrian government managed to hang onto an air base just outside of Tabqa.

Following a bloody battle in August 2014, ISIS finally overran the air baseand subsequently beheaded nearly 200 Syrian soldiers it captured there. For three years ISIS maintained full control of Tabqa, its airfield and the dam.

The town is a kind of buffer on Raqqas western side. The dam supplies electricity to the citys hundreds of thousands of residents, including potentially thousands of ISIS fighters. The militant group has also used the dam as a headquarters, training facility and makeshift prison, according to the coalition.

Even after the recent SDF assault, ISIS still controls the main portion of the dam, including the control room. The rebels hold ground on both ends of the dam that includes several spillwaysrelief valves that can release water from Lake Assad in order to reduce pressure on the dam itself.

The SDFs control of the spillwayand the near-constant presence of U.S. and allied warplanes in the sky over Tabqa and Raqqagive the coalition a great deal of control over the dams fate, and thus the fate of Raqqa and other downstream communities.

If the dam fails, either from neglect or as a result of a deliberate attack, water from Lake Assad could inundate Raqqa and kill or displace thousands. The United Nations warned that flooding from a dam breach could be Biblical in scale. That would certainly make the coalition look bad and undermine whatever popular support it enjoys in Syria.

But if the dam is a weapon, its a two-edged onewith potential to harm both the enemy and the wielder, as both seek legitimacy with the local populace and neither can be sure who the local people will choose to blame for any flood.

ISIS and the coalition both surely appreciate this truth. In 2014, the militant group briefly controlled a hugeand, according to some experts, structurally unsounddam outside of Mosul in Iraq. Tellingly, ISIS made no obvious attempts to weaken the dam, and today the giant structure is under Iraqi control and receiving extensive repairs.

In the days following the SDFs advance on Tabqa, water and power in Raqqa abruptly shut off. A rumor spread through Raqqa that the Euphrates dams systems had stopped working and the whole structure was in danger of collapsing. Activists from the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights claimed they monitored a state of confusion and panic in Raqqaand that so many people tried to flee the city that ISIS patrols couldnt stop them all.

The outages and worry over the dams condition have taken their toll on Raqqa residents. Resentment is prevailing, the observatory reported.

Raqqa Is Being Slaughtered Silently, an anti-ISIS activist group in Raqqa, claimed that the SDFand, by extension, the U.S.-led coalitionwas trying to encourage the resentment and presumably direct it at ISIS by deliberately bombing the dam and undermining accurate reporting on the structures condition. It seems that the coalition [doesnt] want the engineers to repair the dam, so [it] can make it as a pressure tool on ISIS, Raqqa Is Being Slaughtered Silently tweeted on March 28.

ISIS has encouraged the perception that the coalition is trying to make people Raqqa afraid of the dam, apparently hoping the coalitions apparent propaganda campaign will backfire.

On March 26, the pro-ISIS Amaq news agency circulated imagery it claimed depicted the aftermath of a U.S. air raid on the dams control room. The imagery included shots of an apparently fire-damaged control panel, as well as pictures of what appear to be fragments of an American-made BLU-109, a kind of bomb designed to destroy heavily-protected targetsincluding, yes, dams.

But Tom Cooper, an independent expert on Syria and the author of several books on Middle East air wars, told The Daily Beast he doubted ISIS claim that the Americans had dropped BLU-109s on the control room. My impression is that the damage inside the control room is not consistent with hits by such weapons, Cooper said. Everything inside wouldve been smashed by them, not only burned.

The U.S.-led coalition admitted to conducting more than 300 air strikes in and around Tabqa and near Raqqa since December 2016, but denied targeting the dam. The coalition is taking every precaution to ensure the integrity of Tabqa dam, the headquarters tweeted on March 27. To our knowledge, the dam has not been structurally damaged.

Indeed, the SDF claimed its forces worked quickly on March 29 to repair damaged spillways it controls near Tabqa, pausing only to take cover from ISIS shelling.

But when the SDF tweeted a picture it claimed showed its personnel inspecting a spillway or similar facility, Raqqa Is Being Slaughtered Silently insisted the photo was fake. Its a lie, the group tweeted. This is not the Euphrates dam.

ISIS rejoined the propaganda battle on March 28 when it made a show of negotiating a brief ceasefire with the SDF in order to bring in Ahmed Al Hussein, the dams overseer, to inspect the structure it claimed the coalition had damaged.

Tragedy struckor so Raqqa Is Being Slaughtered Silently would have the world believe. The activist group reported that a coalition air raid struck the dam during Al Husseins visit, killing the overseer. The Daily Beast could not independently verify Al Husseins death.

In allegedly attacking the dam and covering up the attacksostensibly in order to undermine local support for the Islamists who control the main part of the damthe coalition is risking the lives of millions of people in Raqqa and Syria, the activist group tweeted.

Or maybe ISIS is responsible for risking those lives as it tries, clumsily at times, to pin blame for the dams potential failure on the rebels and their American backersif indeed the dam really has suffered major damage.

In the verbal scuffle over a strategic dam overlooking the Islamic groups capital and final stronghold, the claims come rapid-fire. The truth is one possible casualty.
Few musicians have had as long a streak of classics as Bruce Springsteen.

Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J. is the Dylanesque debut that spawned some of the Bosss signature songs. The Wild, the Innocent, & the E Street Shuffle is a hallowed exercise in freewheeling party music. Born to Run is among the greatest rock records ever, and so is Darkness on the Edge of Town. The River is a double-disc rock milestone. Nebraska spawned countless lo-fi bedroom folk-rock imitators. Born in the U.S.A. is what catapulted Bruce to pop stardom. And Tunnel of Love was his epochal divorce record.

But too often overlooked was his ninth record: Lucky Town.

It was released on March 31, 1992, alongside Human Touch, a more middling collection of peppy E Street-less tunes that is often considered Springsteens worst effort. (Human Touch is often considered the ninth album because it was recorded first; but since they were put out on the same day, its fair game to consider one or the other the ninth.)

Despite getting mostly positive reviews, Lucky Town is overlooked by Bruce himself, getting barely a mention in his 2016 memoir Born to Run. Songs from the album have received few live performances since the E Street Band reunited in 1999.

Among the likeliest explanations for Lucky Towns obscurity among Springsteen fans are that it was his first post-E Street Band record; that the only E Streeters present on the record were Patti Scialfa and keyboardist Roy Bittan; that the album artwork is pretty embarrassing; and, perhaps most of all, that the autobiographical LP was too goddamn happy.

I tried [writing happy songs] in the early 90s and it didnt work, Bruce admitted during his 1999 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction. The public didnt like it.

Sure, it may not have the bubbling social and emotional angst or operatics of his classics, but Lucky Town represented a momentous change of pace for Springsteen. As a married man now with two kids (and a third one coming a few years later), a more domestic Bruce here demonstrated a profound understanding of the double-edged power of love, its life-changing magic and the ever-present fear of losing it.

The album opens with the snare-shot of its best track and lead single Better Days, a rock spiritual about Bruces own redemption through his love for Patti. (She appears prominently in the song, singing shimmering, gospel-like backup vocals along with Lisa Lowell and future E Street fixture Soozie Tyrell.)

Even though the lyrics are tender and introspective, Springsteen shout-sings with a ferocity that sounds at times like a growlthe guitars and drums carry the intensity of Adam Raised a Cain (off Darkness), and the bass (provided by a then-little-known sessions musician named Randy Jackson) careens wildly like its about to come off the rails.

And yet, this is unequivocally a love song. These are better days, baby / Theres better days shining through, he sings in the irresistible chorus. These are better days, baby / Better days with a girl like you.

Its a masterful flipping of Springsteens own tried-and-true script of setting angst-ridden lyrics to anthemic melodies (see Born in the U.S.A.). The song practically begs for live performances, and yet its only been played on-stage 20 times since the conclusion of his 1992-93 world tour.

Following that is the albums title track and fourth single Lucky Town, about the power of tearing down loose ends to rebuild your life. The slide guitars and introduction of Bruces now-ubiquitous faux-Okie-by-way-of-Jersey accent preview whats to come with 1995s The Ghost of Tom Joad. But for that moment, the song stood as a straight-shooting pop tune about reclamation. When it comes to luck, you make your own, he drawls in the final verse. Tonight I got dirt on my hands but Im building me a new home.

Local Hero, the third track, sounds like a stadium-aspiring heartland rocker, but is, perhaps ironically, a clever commentary on Springsteens discomfort with his own celebrity status. He recalls seeing a portrait of himself at a local store and the grimaces at the resulting alienation from his self. And once again, he sings about being brought out of that darkness by the humility and grace of those closest to him.

Of all the songs from Lucky Town, the one that has experienced the longest shelf life among fans is If I Should Fall Behind, a heartrending ballad about the core promise of devoted relationships: when one person falls behind, the other person shall lift them up. Till death do you part.

The lyrics read like that of a folk standard: Now theres a beautiful river in the valley ahead / There neath the oaks bough, soon we will be wed / Should we lose each other in the shadow of the evening trees / Ill wait for you / Should I fall behind / Wait for me.

Because of its lyrical timelessness, the song has been reincarnated in many forms by Springsteen: as a minimalist hymn about human connection during the E Street Reunion tour and shortly after 9/11; a waltz-tempo folk song on the 2006 Seeger Sessions tour; and as an oft-used acoustic tribute to fallen soldiers.

As a master of peaks and valleys, Springsteen placed directly after If I Should Fall Behind the jangly pop-rock song Leap of Faith. Going beyond the redemptive power of love explored on the rest of the album, here Bruce tackles the redemptive power of sex and, uh... the female anatomy.

Now your legs were heaven / Your breasts were the altar / Your body was the holy land, he croons. You shouted jump but my heart faltered / You laughed and said Baby, dont you understand?

Taking it up a notch in the bridge, Springsteen delivers a slightly provocative metaphor about boning: Now you were the Red Sea / I was Moses / I kissed you and slipped into a bed of roses / The waters parted and love rushed inside / I was Jesus son, yeah, sanctified.

The singles shimmying music video gave worldwide audiences a glimpse of Bruce (in an embarrassingly frilly pirate shirt and vest combo) giddily performing with a backing group derisively known to diehards as The Other Band (fun fact: that touring act included Carol Dennis, the secret second wife of Bob Dylan).

While maintaining the up-tempo vibe of the albums first five tracks, the back half dwells on the flip-side to everlasting love: its fragility.

On The Big Muddy, Bruce tackles lust and greed as loves own Achilles heel. Waist deep in the big muddy, he howls in the chorus, cribbing the title of a Pete Seeger song of the same name. How beautiful the river flows and the birds they sing, he juxtaposes with an admission of imperfection: But you and I, were messier things.

Remove the synth and polished production, and throw in the hiss of a 4-track cassette recorder, and The Big Muddy could easily have fit on Nebraska alongside stark examinations of flawed humans like State Trooper or Highway Patrolman.

Similarly, the albums penultimate track, Souls of the Departed, takes on darker subject matter near and dear to Springsteens heart: the wars at home and in the desert abroad. As a spiritual successor to Born in the U.S.A, the song is a snarling piece of commentary that weaves between lamenting the Gulf War and senseless violence taking place just miles from his mansion in the Hollywood Hills.

In one of the final verses, Springsteen neatly reflects upon his own life to tie this anti-war song back to the albums dominant theme. Tonight as I tuck my own son in bed, he intones, All I can think of is what if it wouldve been him instead / I want to build me a wall so high nothing can burn it down / Right here on my own piece of dirty ground.

Further contemplating his high-society standing and the innate fear that it could all come crumbling down, Springsteen confesses on My Beautiful Reward, the albums closer, how he sought gold and diamond rings, my own drug to ease the pain that living brings. He hints at a feeling of imposter syndromethat his success and fame belie the truth that hes really just like a drunk on a barroom floorbut is lifted up to the sky, in the form of a soaring bird, thanks to his wifes love.

Its an admission of having essentially married upone that is equally expressed in Book of Dreams, the understated retelling of their wedding. Tonight Im drinkin in the forgiveness this life provides, he toasts Patti, basking in his admiration for her. The scars we carry remain / but the pain slips away, it seems / Oh, wont you, baby, be in my book of dreams?

But the albums back half is bolstered the most by Living Proof, the song that spawned this entire album. During the Human Touch sessions, Springsteen felt moved to write this song about his first child Evans birthso moved, in fact, that he ended up with all ten of Lucky Towns tracks.

Continuing the stomping rock n roll and near-shouted vocals of Better Days, the song juxtaposes the angst of knowing deep down hes a troubled, self-destructive man with the sheer beauty of this boy sleeping in our bed. He commends Patti for how she shot through my anger and rage / To show me my prison was just an open cage / There were no keys, no guards / Just one frightened man and some old shadows for bars.

And as he holds his wife and baby boy tightly in bedJust a close band of happy thieveshe cracks a smile, likely shedding a tear as he realizes: Looking for a little bit of Gods mercy / I found living proof.

The truth is, putting aside the fact that most of its songs were perhaps too earnestly autobiographical for his audience at the time, Lucky Town is in some ways no different than many of Bruces classic full-lengths.

This isnt some doe-eyed, lovey-dovey record, despite Springsteens self-deprecating too happy jab. Its a big-hearted exploration of love and its many complicationsmuch like The River, which spawned many of Bruces live staples, and was also in part about loves many obligations. Shouldnt Lucky Town be appreciated at least half as much, or have its songs performed live more often?

As Bruces core audience has long grown up and experienced their own versions of the jubilation they cynically dismissed in the 90s, now is the time to hail it as among the great works of his career.
ROME  Sicilian prosecutor Carmelo Zuccaro has nothing against migrants and refugees, per se; just against those who save them. He has started a fracas in Italy by leveling charges of serious wrongdoing against the non-governmental organizations whose so-called charity boats trawl the Mediterranean searching for migrant and refugee vessels in distress.

Not only does Zuccaro imply that the charities are working directly with traffickers to determine where to pick up migrants at sea, rather than waiting for the Italian Maritime Rescue Coordination Center in Rome to dispatch them, he also questions who is paying these benevolent organizations.

I am convinced that it is not always the operational center that calls on the NGOs, he told a parliamentary committee in Rome this week. We also need to investigate the evolution of the phenomenon and find out why there has been such a noted proliferation of these ships and how they deal with such high operational costs without having a return in terms of economic profit.

Zuccaro has not yet launched a formal criminal investigation, but he has given every indication that he will, recently telling the Times of London that he would not rule out sequestering the rescue vessels if he finds just cause.

The charity ship rescuers, unintimidated, say, Bring it on.

On Friday, rescuers with the joint operation between Doctors Without Borders and SOS Mediterranee held a press conference on their rescue vessel Aquarius that had just brought several hundred migrants and refugees rescued at sea to Catania, Sicily.

We are surprised at the timing of these allegations, more than a year after we and others have been in service, Sophie Beau, co-founder and vice-president of SOS Mediterranee told The Daily Beast by telephone after the press conference.

The Aquarius is the only rescue boat that runs year-round, and Beau believes that Zuccaros public accusations are meant to coincide with the spring season when many of the other boats will be joining the rescue efforts.

We are here out of a moral and legal obligation after a failure of the European Union states to tackle the problem, she said. Everything we do is transparent; we have nothing to hide.

The other rescue teams agree, wondering why anyone would accuse them of profiting from what is a dangerous job rescuing desperate migrants and refugees from sinking ships, often in grueling sea conditions. It is not exactly happy work.

Mobile Offshore Aid Station or MOAS, was the first such private rescue ship, founded in 2014 by American Christopher Catambrone and his Italian wife Regina.

Zuccaro has questioned how MOAS can afford a 400,000 a year budget on donations alone. MOAS, which adamantly denies allegations of wrongdoing and quite openly honors its many financial supporters, including Coldplay on its website, will introduce a fixed-wing maritime surveillance aircraft to its assets when it begins its first mission for 2017 this weekend. It says its donations are high because people are frustrated seeing lives lost at sea while Europe looks on.

Other rescue boats expected to be in operation in the coming weeks include the German-flagged Sea Watch, Sea Eye, and Jugend, the Spanish Proactiva Open Arms, and the Dutch Lifeboat Project. Zuccaro says they all run at a minimum of 11,000 a day.

What makes Zuccaros accusations so frustrating for the rescuers is that they are not the only boats out there. The Italian Coast Guard says that charity boats saved just 26 percent of the 181,436 migrants and refugees who came into Europe through Italy last year.

The other refugees and migrants are rescued by Italian Coast Guard and Navy boats, the European Unions Frontex border control assets, and by random merchant ships that are obligated by maritime law to answer a distress call if they are the closest vessel.

The merchant ships are often ill equipped to handle medical emergencies that many of those rescued need. Four babies have been born on the Aquarius since it started rescues a year ago, all safely because of the ships trained medical staff.

For years, Frontex has been a strong opponent of those ships waiting at sea for boats in distress. It claims that the phenomenon creates a pull factor that enables human trafficking by providing what amounts to a taxi service straight to Italy. Frontex also criticized the Italian Navys 9 million a month Mare Nostrum program that saved scores of people between 2013 and 2014 before being decommissioned for budgetary reasons. But even when Frontex vessels save people at sea, they are directed to take them to the Italian mainland.

The concept of a pull factor is hard to prove one way or another.

Migrants and refugees who make the journey from whatever hellish place they are leaving dont have the luxury of choosing the safest route. Those rescued at sea are rarely from Libya even though the boats leave there, so returning them to such a lawless place is not seen as a humanitarian option.

Italy operates a safe corridor program for some Syrian refugees from camps in Lebanon, but no one offers such an option for sub-Sahran Africans, who make up the bulk of the arrivals.

Joy, a young Nigerian woman who crossed the sea this winter, told The Daily Beast that no one told her how she would get to Italy beyond getting on a rubber dinghy. I didnt think anyone would rescue us, I thought we would hit land or die, she said. The traffickers dont give you detailed information, they just say that they can get you to Europe.

Joy was rescued by the Italian Coast Guard in January, not by a charity ship. When asked if she would come if there hadnt been a rescue boats at sea, she said she didnt understand the difference.

It doesnt work like that, she said. Libya is a horrible place, but so is Nigeria, so any risk seems better than where we were. But its not like you have a catalogue to look through for the best way over. You just pay your money and eventually someone comes to get you if no one puts you in jail or kills you first.

Zuccaros focus so far has been on the migrants and refugees brought to Italy who were saved, not those who died trying.

The death toll would invariably increase without the presence of these rescue boats at sea, just as it did when Mare Nostrum stopped. And the death toll already is astronomical. The International Organization for Migration estimates that more than 46,000 people have died crossing the Mediterranean Sea in the last 15 years. To put that number in perspective, thats the equivalent of about 200 passenger jets crashing into the water.

There is no solid evidence that removing rescue vessels decreases migration. When Mare Nostrum was decommissioned in 2014, the migrants kept coming, just as they did before it started. And if the charity boats are pulled, Beau says that wont stop them from trying to escape their hell.

We know exactly what will happen if we are not out there, Beau says. More people will die. We know we need to be out there, we have to be out there.
Nothing exposed President Donald Trump as adrift at sea more than his performance Tuesday evening at his first White House reception for the Senate just after his epic failure to repeal Obamacare.

Cradling a hand-held mike, he promised a quick new health-care bill, an easy one, and marveled over all the semi-bipartisan friends in the room, 16 Democrats among the 56. He showered love on one in particular. We are going to have some very good relationships, he announced. I see Chuck, he said, ignoring those on his own team to show love to Minority Leader Chuck Schumer. Right, Chuck? he asked in a lilting voice.

He then moved right in front of him and purred: Hello, Chuck.

Its way too late for Trump to have Schumer at hello. A few weeks ago, Trump called Schumer a crybaby for tearing up over the immigrant travel ban. He fired the Senators former aide, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York Preet Bharara, after saying he wouldnt. And he called Schumer a clown.

But Trumps clumsy extension of an olive branch is a sign that he gets, for the moment anyway, how much trouble hes in for having placed his fate in the hands of his adopted party.

Hes canny and clever but hes punching above his weight in the White House having until now run only a family company without a board or shareholders to answer to. His needs are simple. Hes yearning to be recognized for the great man he knows himself to bethe Mount Rushmore worthy president lurking beneath the Queens real estate developer.

Hes a dealmaker who doesnt speak the arcane language of reconciliation or political horse-trading. Hes used to peering across the negotiating table at a person with the straightforward goal of walking away with more money than he walked in with but instead encounters the hydra-headed behemoth of Congressional Republicans whose multiple opaque motives are hard for him to fathom, let alone credit.

But he does know when hes been fed a bill of goods. Too late, he saw hed staked his young presidency on strangers like Speaker Paul Ryan, a chipper Boy Scout from Janesville he never liked, who presented him with a bill crammed with tax cuts for the wealthy, the precise opposite of the pledge he made to the welder in Michigan to lower his familys health care costs with a benefit package he would love. Ryan told Trump to go all out to support it or else. He did, which he brought him to this unhappy pass.

Meanwhile Trump spent another week substituting motion for progress, hosting meetings with disparate groups ranging from female CEOs to the fraternal order of policewho disappointed him when they warned his funding cuts to sanctuary cities would drive crime up, not down. His rollback of clean air and water regulations will have us buying surplus surgical masks from the Chinesesuddenly the worlds leaders in green technology production. Hes poised to sign a bill to remove rules that keep Internet providers from selling the personal information they glean from monitoring your web browsing.

In other bad news, Trumps son-in-law has been summoned to Capitol Hill to be grilled about a meeting with a Russian banker while House Intelligence Chair, Devon Nunes, Trumps obsequious ally on investigations into Putins election hacking, has shown hes a bumbling boob whos cant keep a story straight. Now comes Michael Flynn, given immunity on Thursday, likely to spill his borscht Trump also found himself having to assert his own immunity under the Supremacy Clause which his lawyers argue shields him from a slander lawsuit brought by a former Apprentice contestant who he called a liar after she alleged he forced himself on her.

Good news would be if hes hit bottom with a frighteningly low 36 percent favorability rating.

In this hot mess, there arent enough hours in the day to sort through the competing factions in his own White House who daily spill their guts to the dishonest media, nor enough family members, even if Tiffany should join, to protect him. Exposed as one of the losers he hates,  he is reconsidering who it is he should be cutting deals with.

On Thursday morning Ryan expressed his fear it wont be him. He told CBSs Nora ODonnell that the health care debacle will push the president into working with Democrats, hes been suggesting as much. Trump may, but Ryan will never, see that what we need is a minor bipartisan tune-up to Obamacare. .

Tuesday, the White House announced that Ivanka, who insisted for months she would be a daughter, never an adviser, will move into a prized West Wing office as an unpaid employee to avoid violating ethics and nepotism laws. Shell either cut through the madness or be one more power center creating additional chaos. Someday Press Secretary Sean Spicer may demand she turnover her cell phone for a leak check.

Trump will remain in search of someone to trust who knows how to play his populist game and who can save him lurching from ideological purists like strategist Steve Bannon who wants to tear it all down to trickle-down technocrats like Ryan who want to turn it all over to free marketeers who will reverse the New Deal, and pragmatists like Reince Priebus who just want to get through another day with their jobs intact.

Trumps plaintive words to Schumer this week didnt move the Democrat, who announced he will filibuster his Supreme Court nominee. Trumps best hope on that front may be Sen. Mitch McConnell. Yes, hes a killjoy sourpuss, but he has several advantages over Schumer. First, hes the majority, not minority, leader, and of the party Trump says he belongs to. McConnell is a grownups grownup who can teach Trump how a bill becomes a law and steer the House away from authoring another piece of unpassable dreck and towards something useful on taxes and infrastructure.

If Trump heeds McConnell and stops tweeting, the Majority Leader might find some loose change under the sofa cushions in his office and appropriate it for the Wall.
BRUSSELS  You know those awkward large family dinners around the holidays, with the one loud, boorish relative that everyone dreads but is studiously polite to? In the picturesque cobblestone-lined streets of Brussels, thats what NATO officials are expecting when President Donald Trump visits in roughly two months time.

He doesnt know what he doesnt know, and he doesnt care, one top Western official told The Daily Beast.

At least Tillerson knows what he doesnt know, and hes keeping his mouth shut, the official said of Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, citing preliminary conversations with the former oil executive.

Were worried about what [Trump] might promise, or what he might be goaded or baited into pledging, said a U.S. official.

All of the officials interviewed spoke anonymously in order to speak frankly about unclassified matters, fearing, as do many serving officials, future retaliation by the Trump administration.

The Secretary of State was clearing the way for Trumps visit with his Friday trip to Brussels, but European officials are still bracing for an unwelcome public dressing down when Trump gets here, and the way the Friday meeting came about hasnt helped.

Tillerson followed Art of the Deal-style rules by forcing a change in the date when all 28 NATO foreign ministers would meet, moving it to this Friday, though it was originally scheduled next week. The White House said Tillerson couldnt attend then because it conflicts with the Chinese premiers visit to Washington. So, everyone else had to change their schedules to accommodate the American.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said the fact that he was coming at all shows a clear signal that the U.S. values NATO, but the message received by other NATO representatives was that Washington calls the shots.

When he arrived, Tillerson repeated his bosss mantra that NATO members have to do more to fight terrorism, and that they also have to map out exactly how they plan to ramp up to investing 2 percent of their GDP in defense in the next decade, or sooner.

Our goal should be to agree at the May leaders meeting that by the end of the year all allies will have either met the pledge guidelines or will have developed plans that clearly articulate how, with annual milestone progress commitments, the pledge will be fulfilled, he told the ministers.

All 28 NATO members already committed at the 2014 Wales Summit to reach the full investment target by 2024, but Trump as well as Britains Prime Minister Theresa May have said other countries are not moving fast enough, a bit like being reminded by your neighbor that you said youd paint your house sometime this year.

Unfortunately, whether its intended or not, Secretary Tillerson has some ground to make up because of the presidents views on NATO, said Derek Chollet, a former Obama administration official now at the German Marshall Fund. It didnt help that after meeting with Germanys Chancellor Angela Merkel, Trump tweeted that Germany owes vast sums of money to NATO & the United States must be paid.

That was strongly rebuffed by German Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen, who explained in a statement that there is no debt account in NATO, i.e. Trump misunderstood that each country is supposed to invest that 2 percent of GDP in its own military, not send it to an uber-NATO budget. Its not a question of dues.

The defense spending also goes to UN peace missions, into European missions, and towards our contributions to the fight against ISIS terrorism, she said.

While weve been trying to get our allies to spend more since the 90s, I think the way Trumps been going about it has been counterproductive, says Mark Jacobson, former NATO senior civilian representative to Afghanistan. While only five out of 28 are spending 2 percent, you motivate with a private scolding, he said, adding that what Germany had done was making sure they have a smaller, but expeditionary force. Two percent doesnt mean squat if your forces arent deployable.... Its an imperfect metric.

NATO members also dont appreciate the lecture when they feel like theyve already invested heavily in fighting terrorism, losing roughly 1,000 troops in the war in Afghanistan. They were answering Washingtons call to fight the Taliban and al Qaeda after the 9/11 attacks, the first time NATOs Article 5 ever was triggered.

But the nagging from Uncle Sam is preferable to what many NATO members fearedthat the Trump administration would look the other way on the annexation of Crimea simply to achieve better relations with Russia.

We no longer think theyll do that, one of the top Western officials said, because of reassuring anti-Moscow comments in closed-door conversations with Vice President Mike Pence and Defense Secretary James Mattis in Munich.

Its the wild-card tweets and offhand comments that have NATOand Americanofficials worried.

We just never know what hes going to say, one of the senior Western officials said.

I always thought that the word of the president of the United States was the ultimate guarantor of NATO, said British Parliamentarian and ex-UKIP Brexiteer Douglas Carswell, someone who would have seemed a natural ally for Trump. I look at [his] tweets, and Im not quite sure what the word of the president of the United States constitutes anymore, he told an audience at the Marshall Funds Brussels Forum last week.

White House press secretary Sean Spicer, announcing Trumps attendance at the upcoming NATO meeting, insisted Trump is looking forward to the chance to reaffirm our strong commitment to NATO, and to discuss issues critical to the alliance, especially Allied responsibility sharing and NATOs role in the fight against terrorism.

Theres a fear among U.S. officials that Trump may get in over his head, and be baited into promising more than the U.S. can deliver.

One U.S. official imagined a conversation like the French asking, "Mr. President, we really need help from your military to stop the refugee flow," and Trump replying, "We have the greatest military in the world. Absolutely." And then sending U.S. warships to help. What he would likely not be aware of is that if refugees get picked up by U.S. warships, they have to be flown to the United States, and repatriated from U.S. soil.
The trailer of 1971: Beyond Borders starring Mohanlal, Allu Sirish and Arunoday Singh was released today.

Mohanlal in a still from 1971: Beyond Borders

Mohanlal is back, this time as an Indian Army commander who leads his troops against Pakistan in the 1971 Indo-Pak war. The trailer of the film 1971: Beyond Borders was shared by Mohanlal on his Facebook page today.

Mohanlal plays Mahadevan, a character he has essayed in multiple films directed by 1971 Beyond Borders director Major Ravi.

Major Ravi and Mohanlal first collaborated in the 2006 film Keethi Chakra followed by 2008's Kurukshetra and 2010's Kandahar. 1971 Beyond Borders is the fourth collaboration between Mohanlal and Major Ravi.

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Joining Mohanlal is Arunoday Singh who plays Mohanlal's Pakistani counterpart in the film. Telugu actor Allu Sirish also plays a major role in the film.

1971: Beyond Borders is scheduled to release in Indian theatres on April 7. The film will be released in three languages; Malayalam, Telugu and Hindi.

Watch 1971: Beyond Borders trailer here:

ALSO READ: Mohanlal to team up with Manju Warrier for Odiyan

ALSO SEE: Mohanlal's salt-and-pepper look in Villain ups curiosity

WATCH: Baahubali 2's Saahore song out!

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By Press Trust of India: New Delhi, Mar 31 (PTI) Two Indian petroleum engineers who were abducted in South Sudan have been released, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj said today.

"I am happy to inform about the release of two Indian nationals Midhun and Edward who were abducted in South Sudan. They have reached the Indian embassy in Khartoum.

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"I appreciate the efforts of Indian Ambassador in South Sudan Srikumar Menon for the release of Indian nationals," she said in a series of tweets.

Indians Midhun Ganesh and Edward Ambrose along with a Pakistani, Ayaz Hussein Jamali, were abducted by rebels from near their workplaces earlier this month in oil-rich Upper Nile state. Jamali has also been reportedly released. PTI PYK KR GVS

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By Press Trust of India: New Delhi, Mar 31 (PTI) Two Indian petroleum engineers who were abducted in South Sudan have been released, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj said today.

"I am happy to inform about the release of two Indian nationals Midhun and Edward who were abducted in South Sudan. They have reached the Indian embassy in Khartoum.

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"I appreciate the efforts of Indian Ambassador in South Sudan Srikumar Menon for the release of Indian nationals," she said in a series of tweets.

Indians Midhun Ganesh and Edward Ambrose along with a Pakistani, Ayaz Hussein Jamali, were abducted by rebels from near their workplaces earlier this month in oil-rich Upper Nile state. Jamali has also been reportedly released.

"Following requests from Indian and Pakistani governments, the Sudanese and Ethiopian governments coordinated together to secure the release of the three oil workers," Sudans National Intelligence and Security Service said in a statement.

However, it did not specify when the hostages were released. PTI PYK KR ASK

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In its report, the Vigilance Department has raised serious questions over AAP government's Feedback Unit. The report points towards huge financial discrepancies in the special unit which functioned directly under the CM office.

By Kumar Kunal: The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) is facing yet another major embarrassment. A day after Lieutenant Governor Anil Baijal ordered Rs 97 crore be recovered from AAP, the Vigilance Department today exposed several loopholes in the party's Feedback Unit.

India Today has accessed exclusive copy of vigilance department's recommendation to the CBI on Feedback Unit formed by the Arvind Kejriwal government. The Vigilance Department, in its report, has highlighted that funds were misused by the unit in what it described as a 'serious violation' of rules.

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The AAP government's Feedback Unit was constituted to gather the relevant information and feedback regarding the working of departments under the Delhi government.

HERE'S WHAT VIGILANCE DEPARTMENT REPORT SAID:

The Feedback Unit was constituted in task to gather the relevant information and feedback regarding the working of departments falling under the Delhi government. Separate posts were created for the unit. Initially, 20 posts were created for the unit against some of the positions abolished in the industry department. But later on, these posts were adjusted against 88 posts created in the Anti-Corruption Branch (ACB). No permission was sought from Delhi LG for creation of new posts. There were no recruitment rules framed either. In Budget 2016-17, Rs 1 crore was assigned for this unit. Out of the allocated money, Rs 10 lakh was released and Rs 5.5 lakh reported to be spent. The last expenditure from the fund was of Rs 50,000 given to one Kailash Chand of ACB for payment of second installment of bribe on a complaint. A probe revealed that there was no such person in the ACB. The details of utilisation of Rs 5.5 lakh not available with the concerned department except Rs 50,000 mentioned above. The special unit was functioning under direct control of the CM office, the vigilance department was kept in dark about this unit's functioning. Remuneration of feedback unit was paid on attendance sheet and staff has been recorded 100 per cent attendance during the period.

Meanwhile, taking note of prima facie evidence of impropriety and violation of rules, the LG has ordered that the matter be referred to the CBI.

Lieutenant Governor Anil Baijal on Thursday (March 30) directed concerned departments that Rs 97 crore be recovered from AAP that was allegedly "splurged" by the city government on advertisements in violation of the Supreme Court guidelines.

Baijal also ordered an inquiry into the spending on advertisements projecting Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and his party and asked the chief secretary to fix responsibility.

WATCH: Is Delhi LG Anil Baijal's order to recover Rs 97 crore from AAP unbiased?

ALSO READ:

Delhi LG orders recovery of Rs 97 crore from Arvind Kejriwal's AAP for 'splurging' on ads

MCD polls: BJP, Congress turned Delhi into garbage house, says Kejriwal in video message

No residential house tax if AAP wins Delhi civic polls, says Kejriwal

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By Press Trust of India: From Kishor Dwivedi

Abuja/New Delhi, Mar 31 (PTI) Amid attacks on Africans in India, the Indian community in Nigeria today voiced support for Nigerians living in the country saying such a trend was "disturbing" as Africans never mistreat foreigners.

Asserting that the conception about Africa and Africans among many Indians is incorrect, the Indians living in Nigeria have strongly condemned the attacks on Nigerians in Greater Noida.

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"I was deeply disturbed by the attacks on the Nigerian students in India. But I feel Indians mistreat the Africans anyway. Their conception about Africa and Africans is wrong. There has never been a case where an African has mistreated a foreigner in their country," said Arunraj Muruganandam, who is based in Lagos for the last 15 years.

"The whole fact that we somehow feel we are superior to them is very uncomforting. Even when I first went from Nigeria, there were racist jokes played on me...I feel the Indians apart from those who have lived in Africa will never treat the Africans well," he told PTI over phone.

Asked if he ever felt discriminated or harassed in Nigeria, the 25-year-old mechanical engineer hailing from Chennai said, "Never. I have felt more at home here."

Resource-rich Nigeria is a major trading partner of India having footprints of many leading Indian companies including Tata and Bharti Airtel.

While over 35,000 Indians live in the East African country, around 30,000 Nigerians travel to India for education, medical tourism and business.

Nigerian students were attacked by several people during a candle-light march for a 17-year-old Indian boy, who died of suspected drug overdose last week in Greater Noida.

The boys parents alleged that the foreigners had kidnapped him and given him drugs which led to his death.

51-year-old Sanjeev Purwar, who has been staying in Abuja, the Nigerian capital, for over two decades, said when Indians are troubled or assaulted due to apartheid in the US, the UK or Australia all countrymen raise their voice in unison.

"But why dont we feel the same angst when such incidents take place in our own country against outsiders? Why we cant tolerate (the difference in race) and become violent? This is not our culture," said Purwar, an engineer.

"At a time when Indians are being accepted globally, why are we unable to lead with an example? Every society in the world has a different culture and we must learn to appreciate it," he said.

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Purwar, who hails from Kanpur in Uttar Pradesh and stays in Abuja with his wife, said incidents like these do not auger well for the image of the country and particularly its diaspora who may have to "pay the price" for it.

He also called for the media to exercise caution in covering of such events, saying repeatedly showing pictures and videos of violence may not have an impact in India, but outside the country "it may create ripples".

"Nigerians are mostly good people. When you repeatedly show such pictures, some people who are short-tempered may react. The media should have a discussion on such incidents but should not show pictures," he said.

Purwar recalled how Indians living in Nigeria were harassed back in 2013 after a Nigerian was reportedly killed in Goa. "It was one rare such happening here," he said.

Another Indian-origin man Gulrez Singh, who is based in Port Harcourt in the southern part of the country, said he has sympathy for the Nigerians and felt embarrassed over the unfortunate incidents taking place in India.

Singh, whose family is based in Chandigarh, attributed such attacks to the "backwards mentality" of some people.

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"The thinking of some Indians is backwards and racist...A random black man automatically becomes a drug lord. This needs to stop but how to make people aware of it I do not know," he told PTI.

Nigeria had yesterday called in the Indian High Commissioner in Abuja to register its protest over the attacks on its nationals in India and sought "diligent prosecution" against the perpetrators.

External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj also assured Parliament of a fair probe into the assault on Nigerians.

The Indian Cultural Association in Nigeria, in a letter to Indias High Commissioner to Nigeria B N Reddy on Wednesday, categorically condemned the incidents.

"We bring to place on record our condemnation towards this incident which happened in Noida, Delhi (our national capital). Sir, we are staying in Nigeria for many years. Some of us have spent here over 50 years and we never faced this kind of problem any time," the letter said.

"On behalf of the entire Indian community, we wish to convey our complete condemnation towards this incident. We expect that the same should be conveyed to Ministry of External Affairs vehemently and properly," the association said.

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It has also called on the Ministry of External Affairs to issue an appropriate advisory to the schools, colleges and general public in India, stating that "your own countrymen are respected in these African countries always and such incidents and unruly behaviour may change their perspective towards us."

"And above all, taking the law into hands may not solve the problem. It should be tackled within the legal framework of the country," the letter said. PTI KIS ASK AKJ ASK

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Lexie Valadez wasn't pregnant, but she gave birth to a beautiful baby doll on Thursday morning.

"I was a laboring mother today. I had a baby," said the Texas A&M University College of Nursing senior.

Valadez was playing a role in A&M's ninth annual Disaster Day, a mass casualty disaster training exercise that aims to teach students vital skills needed to respond to emergency situations. More than 300 students from A&M's nursing and medical schools, the Irma Lerma Rangel College of Pharmacy and the College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences participated in the event, and around 400 community members played the role of survivors. The scenario -- unknown to the students until 9:30 a.m. Thursday -- was that a Category 5 hurricane had hit Houston, turning the Central Baptist Church into an emergency medical response unit. For the next few hours, students would treat hundreds of survivors who had been left in the faux hurricane's wake.

Shortly after incident commander Erica Cashion announced the event's onset -- "Ready, set, save lives!" she told the students -- the church's gymnasium became a scene of manufactured and controlled chaos: A blonde college-aged woman rocked back and forth and stared silently at the floor, her hands folded on her lap above her knees, which were made to look as if they had been scraped; omnipresent shouts and screams of agony reverberated off the gym's walls; a twenty-something woman gripped her right leg and begged for help as the skin above a purple wolf bite on her calf was simulated to appear swollen; and disaster survivors looked dazed and scared as their extremities were wrapped with medical supplies and their wounds sterilized by future health care professionals from several of A&M's medical specialization programs.

Valadez, in character, begged a group of nursing and medical students for help.

"I fell, is the baby OK?" Valadez asked. "My water broke on the way here."

Students communicated with one another and their patient before holding up a sheet to shield the public from her labor. Minutes later, Valadez swaddled a doll and thanked the students for their cool composure and care.

Margaret Bosenbark, clinical assistant professor at A&M's nursing school, said the teamwork and communicative skills like those required to deliver Valadez's character's baby are why the school hosts Disaster Day.

"The best way to educate healthcare professionals is together," said Bosenbark, speaking of the importance of Inter-Professional Education, or IPE. Bosenbark said the disaster scenarios students must respond to annually help them develop valuable skills, such as communicating with other medical professionals, performing quick, thorough and accurate assessments of patients and thinking quickly under pressure.

"Those are skills they can take with them to any practice," she said. "We're trying to train all students in the health science center what their role would look like in a disaster scenario."

Responding to disastrous events hasn't always been theoretical for A&M's students in medical disciplines: Students from medical, nursing and veterinary medicine schools were called to Reed Arena in 2008 to provide medical care for survivors of Hurricane Ike. When she was a student at the nursing school, Bosenbark traveled with her classmates to College Station's Large Animal Hospital in 2005 to provide care for survivors of Hurricane Katrina.

"I think it's reassuring for the community to know we are prepared," said Beth Hudson, a senior at A&M's nursing school.

Third and fourth-year students from A&M's veterinary school provided support for animals during the disaster simulation. Students received survivors referred to the animal tents outside the church and gave them advice on how to recover and care for their pets. Though there were no animal actors at Thursday's disaster scenario, Deb Zoran, professor at the vet school, said the training still got students to "do the entire thinking process."

"You have to put a lot of hats on," she said, referring to the critical thinking and communicative skills required to successfully save the hypothetical animals.

During the disaster scenario, Matthew Tjahja walked into the veterinary medicine tent and asked students about his two dogs, who were vomiting and had diarrhea. After listening to him describe how his pets' symptoms mirrored his own, students told him he showed signs of a zoonotic disease, where illnesses are spread between animals and people. The students referred him back to the human doctors and nurses inside the church's gym for further treatment.

After the morning's scenario, third-year medical student Shyam Murali said he appreciated the opportunity to better prepare for his career in emergency medicine.

"This is a great way for people to learn good inter-professional skills," he said.

Out of character, Valadez said she liked pretending to be a patient during the mock hurricane. A few months from starting a job as a labor and delivery nurse at a Scott & White clinic in Waco, Disaster Day gave the soon-to-be A&M graduate the chance to see what treatment looks like from the patients' eyes.

"It was nice to see it from the other side," she said.
A Texas A&M University regents professor of chemistry has been named as one of 14 recipients of the 2017 SEC Faculty Achievement Awards.

David Bergbreiter, who joined the university's chemistry department in 1974 and is considered an expert in organic chemistry and polymer science, will receive a $5,000 honorarium from the SEC along with the award.

This is the sixth year for the SEC to give out the awards, which were designed to recognize one professor from each of the conference's 14 universities for excellence in teaching, research and scholarship.

Thanks to his selection, Bergbreiter will also be submitted as Texas A&M's nominee for the SEC Professor of the Year, an honor that comes with a $15,000 prize and is expected to be announced in April.
Leaders in Texas A&M's Student Government Association responded to recent criticism of the university's student body president election Thursday, seeking to clarify the process behind the system.

After initially receiving more votes in the February election for student body president, candidate Robert McIntosh was ultimately disqualified over campaign expenses -- leaving runner-up Bobby Brooks, an openly gay A&M student, the winner.

Before the student-led panel at Texas A&M made its election night ruling in February, the final vote count had McIntosh with 51 percent compared to his closest opponent, Brooks at 49 percent, according to SGA documents. The difference between the two was 262 ballots in the election that drew more than 12,100 students to vote.

A&M's student newspaper, The Battalion, reported in February that McIntosh had been disqualified from the race on election night after 14 incidents of voter intimidation were filed against him by students on the university's election website. The following week, the SGA's Judicial Court overturned the initial disqualification, dropping the accusations of voter intimidation, but upheld a second charge involving an expense report violation.

In an open letter to the student community, current student body president Hannah Wimberly, speaker of the Student Senate Joseph Hood and vice-chief justice Laura Durie emphasized there is "no individual, party or faction [that] is able to exercise undue influence on any process."

In their letter, Wimberly, Hood and Durie specifically focused on the composition of the Judicial Court and the role of the elections commission in "executing the election regulations."

They explained the "checks and balances" in place for the selection of justices on the court, noting that four of the nine students were nominated by Wimberly, four were nominated by her predecessor and one was nominated by the student's body president from two years ago. Each of the justices, along with the elections commissioner, were selected following a "campus-wide application and interview process" and confirmed by the Student Senate.

McIntosh, in a public statement of his own released Wednesday, once again laid out his grievances with how the election turned out, explaining he is "fighting the theft of this election" to "serve and defend the interests and the rights of all Aggies."

"All of us, whatever our candidate preferences, deserve better than what the SGA and the administration have given us," McIntosh said. "We have a right to fair outcomes. We have a right to free elections. And when rights are not respected -- that's when we, as Aggies and as Texans, stand up."

While he said he "understand[s] we're talking about a student election," McIntosh said he believes it is the principle behind this specific incident that is important.

Setting aside his personal stake in the situation -- which he said has caused him to suffer "reputational damage along the way" -- McIntosh said he hopes to see reforms made to student organizations that govern the election process.

"It's my belief that a violation of free and fair elections in one place is a threat to free and fair elections everywhere," McIntosh said. "The student decision makers who saw fit to ignore and overturn the will of the student body need to answer for their decisions. The administration that condoned and counseled them must do the same. And the university must take steps to ensure this never happens again."

Contrasting McIntosh's calls for reform, Wimberly, Hood and Durie wrote that they look forward to seeing the student government institutions take this experience and use it as a catalyst for continued discussion in the future.

"The nature of elections means that there will be differences of opinion and beliefs," Wimberly, Hood and Durie wrote. "It is our utmost hope that we can take these differences and turn them into powerful conversations that generate great progress."

The controversial election received national attention last week after Secretary of Energy, former Texas governor and class of '72 A&M graduate Rick Perry, wrote a column in the Houston Chronicle protesting McIntosh's disqualification.

McIntosh has since hired College Station lawyer Gaines West to seek depositions by student body president adviser Amy Loyd, election commissioner Rachel Keathley and former speaker of the Student Senate Aaron Mitchell.
The triggering of Article 50 earlier this week starts a new phase in the arguments about Brexit. The various negotiations that are now going to take place will in a big way determine what sort of country the UK becomes - and even whether it continues to exist at all.

Several different types of future are possible. The ones already on the political agenda are easy to outline:

(1) The UK does a deal with Trump's America to become effectively the 51st state - lowering environmental, labour, and corporate standards in order to get a deal done.

(2) The UK pursues the fantasy of Empire 2.0' but finds that Australia, Canada, India, Nigeria and the rest have all found different places in world trade that don't require them to link back to Britain.

(3) The UK has a deal with the EU that creates a soft Brexit' that divides the Tory Party and ends up not changing much except for costing money and cutting Britain out of influencing the decision-making.

(4) The UK gets no deal at all. The subsequent public revolt, and Parliament or a new referendum, ends up choosing not to go ahead with Brexit. Loss of face for Theresa May and cries of anger from the hard Right but sighs of relief from many other people.

(5) England and Wales go ahead with Brexit but Scotland breaks away and Northern Ireland joins up with the Irish Republic, staying in the EU.

Those are the options being talked about now. But we have written a new report Brexit Trade published by Molly Scott Cato, a Green Member of the European Parliament, that puts forward a different alternative: an alternative Brexit'.

We have assumed in our report that Brexit does go ahead and asked how it could be made a success if we face up to the reality that any trade deals done by the UK with larger economic blocs are bound to be one-sided once we are no longer negotiating as part of the EU. In these circumstances, the rational response is to see if the UK's dependence on international trade can be reduced.

This in turn would depend on developing a UK economy with greater national self-reliance, deliberately building up economic sectors which can make substitutes for goods that would otherwise be imported.

This of course is what many Greens, Transition activists and others have argued for over many years: a less globalised, more localised, economy, based on thriving local communities; one that would reduce the power of unaccountable multinational corporations and make "taking back control" of the economy realistically possible.

Like most things, this would be a matter of balance. Of course we don't advocate eliminating imports altogether. But it would involve abandoning the dogma that maximising international trade is necessarily a good thing, and recognising that globalisation needs to be tamed - in some ways democratised and in some ways reversed.

Our report sets this out, including the implications for the environment and migration, and the wider context of the arguments about neoliberalism and populism. We want to add a new flavour, a new colour, to the Brexit debate. Why not read our report for yourself: Brexit Trade

These Authors

Victor is a Research Fellow at the Centre for the Understanding of Sustainable Prosperity (CUSP), and used to be a Green member of the London Assembly. Rupert chairs the Green House think-tank and was Green Party candidate for Cambridge at the 2015 general election.

Green House think-tank

http://www.greenhousethinktank.org/
This week has seen Carbon Brief publish analyses of the Department of Energy, Business and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) energy use. The subsequent news reports have been focused on the UK's collapsing coal industry and the consequent impact on the environment. It has been reported that the use of coal fell by a record 50% in 2016, principally as a result of increased domestic carbon taxes. The result, a drop in carbon emissions to 19th century lows. To provide some perspective, UK windfarms generated more power than coal in 2016 - a real feat for the renewable energy industry. However, even with the decline it has been suggested that carbon emissions were still 381 million tonnes.

As more gas and coal plants are decommissioned, the reliance on renewable energy sources such as solar and wind power is increasing. Energy storage technology will play a crucial role in the management of the demand for energy supplies in the UK and will contribute vastly to the reduction of the UK's carbon emissions.

Store it or lose it

Fundamentally, countries worldwide are actively making steps towards creating more energy efficient and yet cleaner cities. The UK is placing energy storage at the heart of its new Modern Industrial Strategy, due to its potential to support smart energy systems and the automotive sector. As the energy industry moves away from carbon-heavy production, the twin-approach of renewable energy and storage will be critical for delivering on the demand while securing the future of UK energy.

Energy storage has a central role to play in creating a new, evolved UK energy system and will make a significant contribution to decarbonising our energy supply as a whole. Falling costs of battery technology and the new opportunities opening up in this market mean that there is an ever-growing business case for investment in this area.

Storage systems can fulfil multiple roles within the energy market. Energy can be stored when prices are low and used on site when they are high to save consumers and businesses money on their bills. Given the potential of energy storage to stabilise energy supply during periods of high and low demand, suppliers and consumers would be ill-advised to ignore its significance.

Storage enables more renewable energy sources to be integrated into the UK's overall power supply. This is in addition to helping to balance energy supply and demand more effectively and increasing energy security for an evolving power network.

The National Grid has made a significant move towards a future that embraces energy storage. By committing to support battery storage on a large scale, the increased investment will mean a reliable source of real-time energy to balance the entire grid.
New Delhi, Mar 31 (PTI) The army has started the long-delayed process to procure around 1,500 anti-materiel lightweight rifles capable of damaging targets like battle tanks, low-flying helicopters and bunkers.

The rifles are being procured to strengthen the armys overall infantry and will particularly help it in operations in Jammu and Kashmir.

A Request for Information (RFI) for purchasing the rifles has been issued today according to which the weapons should have a range of at least 1.8 kilometres with a calibre of 12.7 mm/0.50.

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At present, the army is using South African weapons which are not very light and that is why, it was decided to procure the lightweight rifles whose weight will not be more than 15 kg each.

As per the RFI, the ammunition which should be available for the riffles include armour piercing incendiary and tracer, saboted light armour penetrator, armour piercing explosive incendiary and high explosive armour piercing incendiary.

The interested manufactures have been asked to respond to the RFI by May 15.

The procurement of the anti-materiel rifles has been long overdue after the government had scrapped a deal for it in 2005.

South African firm Denel was banned by the UPA government in 2005 after allegations that it had paid kickbacks to secure a deal with the Indian Army in 2002 to sell 1,000 NTW-20 anti-materiel rifles, along with 3,98,000 rounds of ammunition.

Under the deal, 700 rifles were to be purchased directly and the remaining 300 licence-produced in one of the factories of Indias state-owned Ordnance Factory Board.

Only 400 rifles had been inducted into the army and the remainder put on hold after the 2005 blacklisting.

An anti-materiel rifle (AMR) is a rifle that is designed for use against military equipment (materiel) than against enemy troops.

As per the RFI, in case of foreign vendors, the army asked them to explain whether they will be ready to offer transfer of technology (ToT) to the Indian industry for licenced manufacturing of the weapons. They have also been asked to whether ToT will be offered for sub-systems.

The manufacturers have also been asked to give details about cost of annual maintenance, product support package and training of the crew.

State-run Ordnance Factory, in association with the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), had developed an anti-materiel rifle called Vidhwansak in 2007. The rifle was offered to the Indian Army but it chose not to induct it due weight issues. PTI MPB SMN

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Virginia Delegate Charles D. Poindexter, R-Franklin County, issued the following statement regarding the Governors veto of HB 2000.

The Governor has vetoed my HB 2000, which states in its entirety, No locality shall adopt any ordinance, procedure, or policy that restricts the enforcement of federal immigration laws. The Governors veto statement does not seem to apply to the text of the bill. I am baffled at the logic in his statement that, somehow, the bill imposes a requirement upon localities regarding the enforcement of federal immigration laws. Rather, the bill simply says that localities may not adopt any ordinance, procedure or policy that restricts the enforcement of existing federal law. In other words, by the Governors logic, it would appear he supports localities taking action that are contrary to law!

That is unacceptable. In light of what we continue to see across the nation, from the death of Kate Steinle in California to our neighboring state of Marylands reported rape in Rockville last week, it is unacceptable to provide sanctuaries (hideouts) to illegal criminals who take advantage of our largesse and assistance in otherwise law-abiding immigrant communities.

We should not have sanctuary localities in Virginia. HB 2000 is a reasonable and common-sense bill to help keep Virginians safe. Yes, we are a caring and welcoming Commonwealth but, at the same time, those in governance must execute our #1 responsibility: public safety.
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 ...
By Bedika

Guwahati, Mar 31 (PTI) President Pranab Mukherjee today said Assam, which is emerging as economic hub of India, is perfectly positioned to become the corridor of the country to the ASEAN nations as the Act East policy takes forefront.

Speaking at the inaugural ceremony of the Namami Brahmaputra festival here, Mukherjee said India would soon celebrate 25 years of its link with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).

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He said the countrys traditions, including the teachings of Assams great scholar and social reformer Shankaradev, never allowed the practice of intolerance.

The President said South East Asia is an important destination for Indias investment and trade.

Stating that Assam has "immense development potential", Mukherjee added the inland water transport system in the National Waterways can change its economic scenario.

"The development of this national waterway can give Assam access to international ports like Chittagong in Bangladesh. This will give Assam an exposure to international trade and commerce. With the Act East Policy taking forefront, Assam is perfectly positioned to become the corridor of the country to the ASEAN nations," he said.

Mukherjee hailed Assams richness in natural resources and its hardworking people to underline that all it needed was "strong drive, right policies and effective implementation."

"We have to join hands to make the dream of Bharat Ratna Gopinath Bordoloi -? first Chief Minister of Assam becoming a front runner in the field of socio-economic progress-- a reality," he said.

The President said Assam has overcome a prolonged spell of insurgency and the central government is supportive in rebuilding the state.

However, he added that it was now time for Assam to emerge as a business hub and take centre stage in the socio-economic scenario of the country.

"It is time for this state to establish its enduring mark in the international economic domain as the link between the North Eastern part of the country and the ASEAN nations," he remarked.

The President said the Brahmaputra river, which is the lifeline of Assam and the region, is intertwined into the economy, culture and day-to-day life of the people of the areas through which it flows.

He also complimented the state government for having started Namami Brahmaputra as an annual festival to showcase Assams culture as well as potential.

"Starting of Namami Brahmaputra as an annual festival will popularise the natural beauty and holy character of this river," he said. PTI BK JCH ABS KIS

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The Supreme Court questioned Bharatiya Janata Party MP Subramanian Swamy locus and said his application can not be entertained for urgent hearing.

By India Today Web Desk: The Supreme Court while refusing an urgent hearing in the Ayodhya dispute today questioned the role of Bharatiya Janata Party MP Subramanian Swamy in the issue.The top court questioned if Swamy has any locus and said that his intervention application at this stage cannot be put for urgent hearing.

The Supreme Court on March 21 had asked Swamy to consult all the concerned parties about their views while suggesting an out of the court settlement of the long pending issue.

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"Those who wanted delay have succeeded for now but I will try another route again. I told the court I am fo fundamental right to worship and not interested in the property," Swamy said reacting to Supreme Court's observations.

MUST READ: The day of Ram's tigers

Today the SC asked me if I was a party in the Ayodhya dispute. I said I had made clear that I was on Fundamental Right to worship issue- Subramanian Swamy (@Swamy39) March 31, 2017

The judges said they have no time and adjourned the matter. In other words those who wanted delay succeeded. I will try another route soon- Subramanian Swamy (@Swamy39) March 31, 2017

The apex court had observed that the Ayodhya dispute must be settled amicably through "a cordial meeting" of all parties while Chief Justice JS Khehar offered his personal mediation to help resolve the matter.

"These are issues of religion and sentiments. These are issues where all the parties can sit together and arrive at a consensual decision to end the dispute. All of you may sit together and hold a cordial meeting," the court had said.

The Allahabad High Court had ruled in 2010 that the disputed Ayodhya land be divided equally into three parts among Hindus and Muslims.

Earlier, the son of one of the main litigants in the Ram Janam Bhumi-Babri Masjid land dispute wrote to the Supreme Court raising objections to Swamy seeking urgent hearing in the case without informing all the parties concerned.

Mohammad Hashim Ansari's son has written to the Secretary General of the apex court that time and again the Rajya Sabha MP mentioned the matter before the Chief Justice of India without even informing the Advocate On Record including the lawyer who has been appearing for his father.

Ansari, one of the oldest litigant in the Ayodhya dispute, died in July last year at the age of 95. He was first to file the suit in the court of civil judge of Faizabad on the matter.

ALSO READ:

Supreme Court suggests out-of-court settlement of Ayodhya dispute, calls Ram Mandir matter of sentiment

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After landslide win in UP, BJP could soon face demand to build Ayodhya temple

Babri Masjid demolition: Supreme Court wants trial against Advani, Joshi, Uma, other accused expedited

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What issue do Iowa voters most often say is critical? You might be surprised
When you think about building your brand, what comes to mind? Flashy graphics? A gripping mission statement? Social media followers?

Related: A Simple 4-Step Process for Writing Your First Book in 100 Days

While all of those things are incredibly important, theres one old-school, yet powerful brand-building tactic: Write a best-selling book.

Sounds good, but exactly how do you do that? To tackle this question, I nterviewed Wall Street Journal best-selling author Nick Nanton. I also set about collecting points of wisdom from other best-seller books, to convey how writing a book can truly build your brand. Here are six strategies my research revealed that can turn your book into a certified bestseller.

1. Stand out from the crowd.

Standing out doesnt apply just to business. You need to write something very different from whats being written by the competition. Its fine to write n the same genre, but if youre basically writing just another version of a book that already exists, you may want to rethink your strategy.

Nanton explained: Tell your story from a point of view that youve experienced firsthand. This is your unique selling proposition, and its the single biggest reason why someone should buy your book."

So the lesson here is, dont add to the noise.

Action steps:

Consider what unique value your book adds to the world.

Include those unique, valuable nuggets that readers can receive only from you.

When pitching and promoting the book, always come back what sets it -- and you -- apart.

2. Send out advance copies.

Best-selling authors think larger than themselves. So they tap into those who are bigger and better known than they. Nanton told me about how he was able to write his first book by partnering with self-help guru Jack Canfield:
At least two Tamil news channels said the man, Karunamurthi, was a supporter of TTV Dinakaran, the deputy general secretary of the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) and the nephew of Jayalalithaa's friend and confidante VK Sasikala.

Chennai police today arrested a man who allegedly bribed voters in former Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalitha's former constituency, RK Nagar, less than two weeks ahead of a symbolic by-election, Tamil media reports said.

At least two Tamil news channels said the man, Karunamurthi, was a supporter of TTV Dinakaran, the deputy general secretary of the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) and the nephew of Jayalalithaa's friend and confidante VK Sasikala.

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Dinakaran is also one of the 62 by-poll candidates.

Late on Friday afternoon, the channel Puthiya Thalaimurai tweeted what it said was exclusive footage of the alleged election fraud.

Dinakaran, who leads a party faction called 'AIADMK Amma,' didn't take too long to categorically deny his camp's involvement.

"We aren't responsible for those who wear hats (the AIADMK Amma's temporary election symbol) and distribute money in RK Nagar," he said, Thanthi TV reported.

But this isn't the first time the Dinakaran-led camp has been accused of trying to buy votes in the run-up to the by-poll.

In fact, two other contenders for Jayalalithaa's now-vacant Assembly seat - the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) and a rebel faction of the AIADMK led by former Chief Minister O Panneerselvam - have complained to the Election Commission that AIADMK Amma has been deploying a cash-for-votes strategy in RK Nagar.

Meanwhile, a case has been filed against Karunamurthi, who will be in judicial custody till April 13, Thanthi TV reported.

RK Nagar goes to the polls on April 12.

Also read:

RK Nagar by-polls: Dinakaran-led AIADMK camp distributed money, DMK tells state EC with video evidence

RK Nagar by-poll: Armed with new 'twin lights' symbol, Panneerselvam says they represent Jayalalithaa and MGR

Battle for Jayalalithaa's Assembly seat: Final list of candidates for RK Nagar by-polls out today

WATCH THE VIDEO:

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Imagine youre a first-time entrepreneur, excited about your product idea and optimistic about the state of the market for small businesses: Your product has been tested and is ready to go, and your launch date has been set, but you still have one tiny challenge ahead of you: your go-to-market plan.

Related: Plan How to Take Your Product to Market, Not Just to Potential Investors.

Okay, maybe the challenge is not that tiny and not limited to just one thing. And maybe, regardless of your enthusiasm as a small business owner, you've actually got a mountain of challenges awaiting you in an overcrowded market.

Yet, while market saturation is often a deterrent for small business hopefuls, it doesnt have to be. Yes, developing your go-to-market plan entails a ride down a a bumpy road that requires trial and error and a strain on your budget. But, you can succeed if you steer clear of several easily avoidable traps along the way:

1. Your plan doesn't promote a unique value proposition.

Regardless of which niche you are trying to enter, theres likely some existing competition waiting for you. Too many first-time entrepreneurs follow the leads of existing competitors and fail to differentiate their brands from the start.

They find it easier to follow a defined path set by other brands than to pave a new one. Yet, sticking to the status quo is a missed opportunity. After all, if you didnt believe you had something unique to offer, you likely wouldnt be launching a business in the first place.

You cant expect to siphon market share away from existing competitors if customers dont understand what makes your brand or product different. Determining your UVP from the onset is the key to developing a strong marketing plan. Just such a Unique Value Proposition is the way in which your brand will create a distinct value for potential customers. To create one, first answer three simple questions:

What is the problem your product is fixing, or the gap in the market your brand will assume?

What can customers expect from your product or service?

Why should customers purchase your product or service over a competitors?

Once you have a firm grasp on the value your brand will bring to the market, you can create a solid marketing plan that will not only support your unique attributes but will also resonate with existing customers wants and needs.

Related: Use These 5 Steps to Create a Marketing Plan

2. You haven't mapped your customers' journey.

Once youve put into words what your product potential is, you can start to build a multi-channel marketing plan to promote that definition. Rarely does marketing success come as a result of winging it. Creating a comprehensive plan will help you set realistic timelines and budgets and will also keep you accountable.

The first area your plan needs to address is your customer base; because youve already developed a unique value proposition, you should have a good idea as to who your customers are. But, have you thought about what your customers' journey will look like? Clearly define each step along the customer sales path, from awareness through action.

At this point you might be wondering why its necessary to map out your customers' journey before they take it. But, the better you understand the sequence of events in your unique sales cycle, the smoother you can make each step along the way for your customers.

By mapping out how your customers will discover your brand, what will ignite their interest, what will motivate them to explore your product and, finally, drive them to buy, youll be able to create unique marketing initiatives that layer on top of one another and support each step.

Taking the time to dive into your customer personas and map out their probable journeys will save you from spending money on big marketing too quickly.

3. You haven't prioritized social media.

Social media may have been considered a nicety a few short years ago, but today -- regardless of your product or service -- its a necessity. Too many small brands make the mistake of putting off social media due to a lack of budget or time, or fear of not being able to keep up with larger brands.

Even if youre not ready to devote large portions of your marketing budget to paid campaigns or influencer outreach, its still necessary to build up your presence across social media channels. Why? Because in todays environment, social channels are often the first places consumers look to on their hunt for information about emerging brands.

In fact, todays customers often rely on social pages to look up reviews, promotions and basic company information like location, history and customer service contacts.

When local New York City matcha cafe, Cha Cha Matcha, first burst on to the scene, it could have taken a more traditional approach to social media marketing: creating profiles, sharing product shots and running a few paid ads.

The business, however, (named for a traditional Japanese tea drink) prioritized social media, particularly Instagram, because it saw a distinct opportunity to rely on the platform to initiate brand growth, rather than just support it. Cha Cha Matcha uses social media as a tool to build a lifestyle around its brand -- its social media pages are an extension of the fun and colorful brand it's built.

Cha Cha Matcha also knew that to make a splash in New York's restaurant scene, it would have to get creative with its photography choices and experiment with original angles and photo concepts. The light and playful quality of its feed has helped it distinguish itself from other restaurants that lean toward content with a more subdued aesthetic.

Cha Cha Matchas pictures are ripe for regrams; and, often, people experience the brand through its feed before they ever walk through the doors.

4. You haven't shared your story with the media.

Yes, social media, word-of-mouth and traditional advertising tactics are necessary components to launching a small business. But you dont have to rely just on your own channels to communicate your new ventures value. When leveraged correctly, local media streams can be a fruitful tactic. Local outlets are always on the hunt for interesting community spotlights and entrepreneurial success stories.

So, entrepreneurs should take advantage of issuing press releases and launch invitations for media members. They'll be opening their doors to what could be a long and mutually beneficial partnership. Before inviting reporters in, however, they need to prepare themselves for media interviews by nailing down their story and preparing a few soundbites.

Theres always a deeper story involved in building a business from the ground up, and small businesses shouldnt shy away from expounding on their unique origins. When jewelry company Bird + Stone first launched in 2014, it could have taken the typical route and promoted its jewelry collections through its media communications.

Related: The Ingredients of a Marketing Plan

But Bird + Stones founders knew that what really set their brand apart was its socially conscious aspect brand; 15 percent of the companys profits are used to fund female entrepreneurs in developing nations through microloans. This altruistic angle immediately caught the attention of several mainstream media outlets, which subsequently boosted awareness of the brand following its launch.

Its always going to be difficult for small businesses and first-time entrepreneurs to compete with the likes of well-established market entities. But avoiding the common pitfalls described here will help you establish a solid presence in the market. By understanding your UVP and sharing that angle with the media, youre already setting yourself up to receive interest and traction.

Furthermore, putting your customers first and investing in social strategies will make audiences take notice of your commitment to offering sound product and service experiences.

Related:

Stop! Avoid These 4 Mistakes Before You Put Your Small Business on the Map.

7 Things I Wish I Knew When I Began as an Entrepreneur

3 Reasons Why Small Businesses Crash and Burn Online



Copyright 2017 Entrepreneur.com Inc., All rights reserved
Westport Police / Contributed Photo

WESTPORT  A Milford contractor allegedly stole a high-end coat, boots and sunglasses from a Woodway Lane home where he was hired to work.

Jeffrey Chirillo, a Milford man working at the home as a contractor, had been left alone at the residence multiple times before items were discovered missing Jan. 1, according to police.
Emma Watson was beyond beautiful in the movie, and you too can pull off the Disney-inspired look.

By Indo-Asian News Service: Hollywood actress Emma Watson is not only championing gender equality as the UN Women Goodwill Ambassador, but is also impressing Indian fashionistas with her Disney princess look in musical romantic fantasy film "Beauty and the Beast". Experts suggests that the easy ways to look like her in real life.

Sushma Khan, National Creative Director Make-up Lakme Salon, and Audrey Dsouza, a TIGI Educator, have rounded up her statement beauty and hair looks respectively that have left many inspired!

Photo : Youtube

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For make-up:

Use a lightweight foundation blended well that will give you a healthy and moisturized look paired with a concealer under your eyes.

Brush out your brows and fill them in softly with a brow pencil.

To achieve the modern graphic eye liner, line your eyes with a soft brown gel liner and flick it out like a cat eye, except leave the flick unfilled.

Complete the look with a coral lipstick which will balance out the eyeliner

Also Read : Feeling beautiful begins with feeling confident: Deepika Padukone

Photo : Youtube

For hair:

Make sure you have some tools handy when you decide to do this on yourself; a dryer, a medium sized tongs, bobby pins, u-pins and a back-combing brush. It's always better if your hair is a day old and not washed the same day.

Make sure your hair has enough texture to work with; take large sections and spray every section with a heat protected product that will make your curls last more longer and define them. Use the medium tongs on every section and curl it away from the face giving it a looser texture to work with.

Once you're done with the style, open it using some smoothing cream to loosen the curls and add more shine and softness.

Tie a ponytail at your occipital bone and fix the hair around the ponytail to create more texture and definition to the style. Take smaller pieces of the sections and dress them around the ponytail for better grip and a much fuller look making sure all the hair in the ponytail is incorporated.

Once the back is complete, take smaller sections from the front and dress it away from the face. You can twist and open the twist slightly teasing it with your fingers and then fix it on the ponytail making sure the whole look comes together.

The front section has to be raised while blow drying to make sure that extra volume is created on the roots. Once that's done, hold the hair in the same position and spray it to create a wave and fix it in the same position.

Fix the front section towards the side or towards the ponytail depending on how long or short the hair is.

At the end spritz a shine or setting spray to lock in the moisture and the look.

--- ENDS ---
This story told by Carolyn C. Kendrick in the Christian Science Monitor caught my attention.

It was Sunday morning. Usually a quiet time, even on the subway. An old man lumbered onto the car and sat in a heap across the aisle. His exhaustion and crumpled clothes clung to him in layers. He sat mumbling to himself, looking at nothing. Fitfully, he reached into his canvas bag, and sighed. Everyone on the subway ignored him.

At the next stop a little girl, all dressed up for Sunday school, stepped aboard. She stood behind her father, shyly watching the old man. Her eyes rested gently on his face.

Suddenly, leaning in her direction, the old man grumbled, Do you like jam? The girl nodded timidly, glancing up to her father. The old man grunted and proceeded to rummage through his frazzled bag. In a moment, he elaborately presented her with a brand new jar of strawberry preserves.

By this time all the passengers on the car were watching attentively, smiling to themselves. Without any hesitation, the father nodded to his daughter and she accepted the jar, smiling her thanks. The old mans face brightened for a moment. At the next stop, the little girl glanced back as she and her dad stepped off the car. The old mans eyes lingered with her until she disappeared. Then he lumbered off into the station, cradling his canvas bag.

I wondered if he saw in her another little girl he had once loved. And if she  and her understanding father  had recognized, beneath his tatters and gloom, a grandfathers warmth. Even on Sunday morning the subway can offer unexpected views.

The old man reminded me of a group of people that someone called the invisible ones of society. Its an interesting concept I havent been able to get out of my mind. The invisible people are the ones who others tend to ignore or exclude. You dont have to be a hobo or bag lady to be invisible; all you have to be is lonely, left out or cast away by someone else. A lot of us feel invisible at times.

Jesus had an amazing way to make invisible people visible again. Jesus could reach out in a crowd of people and see those that no one else could see. Some had almost faded completely from life, but Jesus took them by the hand and spoke words of faith and confidence.

A good example might be the story of Jesus and the woman at the well in the book of John, chapter four. The woman was an outcast from society: she went to get water at the well when no one else was around. Even though a Jewish teacher such as Jesus would ordinarily never speak to her, Jesus not only spoke to her but also He gave her the living water of God. She came to life, she became visible again.

The world is full of hostility; the gospel works on hospitality. There are many systems that exclude others, but Jesus always included people.

Prayer: Our Lord, help us, like you, to reach out to include an ever-broader circle of people. Amen.

The Rev. Dan Safarik serves St. Luke United Methodist Church in Lincoln. Email him at dan@stlukelincoln.org
Susan Hageman really became invested in the human trafficking problem when she learned the average age of a beginning victim is 12 to 14.

That statistic makes one both angry and sick to your stomach, Hageman said.

She decided she would do what she could to stop it.

Those are kids. They deserve to be children, Hageman said.

Hageman was also motivated by a quote from William Wilberforce: You may choose to look the other way, but you can never say again that you did not know.

Once you learn the details of human trafficking, you can no longer find solace in blissful ignorance, she said.

Hagemans friend, Cyndi Wieseman, shares her distaste for human trafficking.

Its just a horrific thing, Wieseman said.

The two Grand Island women and their husbands have started a fund called STOP, which stands for Stop Trafficking on the Plains. The fund is administered by the Grand Island Community Foundation.

Donations to the fund will help local nonprofit organizations assist trafficking survivors.

The women realized that local nonprofits come across people who have escaped from trafficking and are skilled at dealing with such individuals.

What is needed, Hageman said, is funding to help those organizations.

Its a way that we feel like we can do something, said Wieseman, whose husband is Dale.

Helping people return to normal life is very expensive, Hageman said.

The trauma is so great, she said, that it takes them a long time to recover and transition back into society. Counseling and medical care cost a lot of money, she said. Curing someone of herpes, for example, is expensive.

Former human trafficking victims also need food, clothing and shelter, Hageman said. Sometimes, those individuals are taken to restorative shelters, so money is needed for transportation, Hageman said.

The two couples are planning to have a couple of fundraisers. Those kind of events take work. But its worth it, Wieseman said.

The Grand Island Community Foundation is excited to work with the STOP Fund, Chief Executive Officer Melissa DeLaet said.

Its fun to see people with so much passion for something, DeLaet said of the Wiesemans and Hagemans.

Human trafficking is an important cause in Grand Island, DeLaet said.

Once the STOP Fund builds up, the Community Foundation will distribute the money through its normal grant process.

The Salvation Army, which is involved in thwarting human trafficking, will receive some of the funds. But the money will also go to a number of other nonprofits and service organizations.

Those organizations already have the expertise to help people, said Hageman, who is married to Travis Hageman.

To contribute to the STOP fund, you may visit the foundations website at www.gicf.org. You may also call the foundation at (308) 381-7767 or send a contribution to Grand Island Community Foundation, 1811 W. Second St., Suite 365.

The STOP Fund also has a Facebook page.

On Tuesday morning, the Heartland United Way will host an education and awareness meeting about human trafficking in Central Nebraska. It will be from 9 to 11 a.m. at Home Federal Bank, 3311 W. Stolley Park Road.

If you are interested in attending, contact Valerie Roth at vista@heartlandunitedway.org or call the United Way at (308) 382-2675.

Human trafficking meeting

What: Heartland United Way Human Trafficking Education and Awareness meeting

When: 9 to 11 a.m. Tuesday, April 4

Where: Home Federal Bank, 3311 W. Stolley Park Road
I have often wondered why policymakers in Washington repeatedly fail to seriously address problems with our Social Security and Medicare programs, despite repeated warnings by economists and the programs administrators that the programs will begin spending more than they take in by the end of the decade.

Then I wrote a column advocating entitlement reform. Now I get it.

Given the many strongly worded responses I received, I have a better understanding, at least on some very small scale, what politicians are facing when they so much as whisper the words Social Security and Medicare in the same breath as the word reform.

Indeed, the topic truly is the third rail of Americans politics.

In a recent column, I explained how President Donald Trumps promise to make no changes to Social Security and Medicare was going to be a problem, given the programs trajectories.

I assumed, perhaps incorrectly, that fixing these programs so they serve the populations that rely upon them and are around for future generations is a largely uncontroversial idea  especially when so many Americans are concerned about federal debt.

Then a piece about entitlement spending written by my favorite economist and Washington Post columnist, Robert Samuelson, reminded me of something very important: public opinion is awash in contradictions.

My inbox quickly filled with diatribes like this one: Entitlement (expletive), its our money, and lawmakers robbed (the trust fund) and (it) is owed what was taken from it and to be given back with interest, and youll be old some day.

First off, I find it astounding that anyone would trust the government to return to us money that it siphons out of our paychecks each month.

I doubt lawmakers ever met a dollar they didnt promptly spend.

Even if we assume the government holds our money for safekeeping while we age and pays us back with interest, studies show average Social Security and Medicare payouts are significantly higher than what recipients paid in via taxes.

The Urban Institute, a nonpartisan think tank, estimated that contingent upon income and lifespan, the average Social Security and Medicare benefits for a couple can be as little as three times their investment and as much as 14 times what they paid in.

While many people contend the monies are in a trust fund, they arent. Most revenues are paid out to current beneficiaries, while the government and future workers are left with an IOU to cover the next generation of beneficiaries.

And the shrinking workforce means that wont be possible at current levels much longer, meaning future generations cant depend on the programs.

In my column, I did not advocate any particular policy changes, but I am not aware of any that call for changes to the benefits of current and near-term beneficiaries. So the angry diatribes of seniors, or near-seniors, are entirely misplaced.

Most proposals suggest modest changes, like means testing or raising the retirement age for Americans still years away from retirement, which are reasonable given the nature of the problem.

No Labels, a bipartisan policy organization headed by former Utah governor Jon Huntsman and former senator Joseph I. Lieberman, has made Social Security and Medicare reform one of its top policy priorities. It advocates higher payroll taxes, among other policy tweaks, to help shore up Social Security.

This wouldnt impact current seniors.

As to the repeated critique by many readers that calling Social Security and Medicare entitlements is a misnomer, I understand the objection.

In his column on entitlement spending, Samuelson suggested we drop the whole notion of entitlement. Just eliminate it. ... This would encourage clarity and candor, and force politicians to name specific policy programs.

He then added that it wont happen. Generally, Americans dont want clarity and candor in their fiscal debates.

Call it whatever you want, reform needs to happen.

And lawmakers must risk the deluge of nasty emails and phone calls and start talking about it more.
On behalf of the League of Women Voters of Nebraska, I write in strong opposition to LR 1CA, a constitutional amendment introduced by Sen. John Murante.

Approving such an amendment is like asking consumers to purchase a pig in a poke. Essentially, it asks voters to approve Voter ID as a permanent requirement for all elections. The senators argument for voter ID is to prevent voter impersonation fraud in elections. However, the belief that voter impersonation fraud exists is a myth.

Nebraskas Secretary of State John Gale has testified on numerous occasions that Nebraskas elections are secure and that no intentional voter fraud exists. There are com-pelling reasons to not let this resolution be passed and signed by the governor.

First, this bill would create a new government program requiring voters to show government-issued photo IDs in order to exercise their constitutional right to vote. For over 95 years the League has fought for free, fair and accessible elections for all eligible citizens and we believe that this legislation is an attack on the very foundation of our great democracy.

Second, instituting voter ID requirements could stop tens of thousands of eligible voters who do not have a valid voter photo ID due to disability, age, illness, transportation challenges, college enrollment, or financial issues from voting. It is estimated that as many as 200,000 Nebraska voters would not have the required photo identification on Election Day. For many, obtaining such a state-issued ID could be a hardship in terms of getting to a DMV office or paying for a birth certificate issued in another state.

Third, the Declaration of Independence says that all men are created equal. If America wants to live up to its promise to treat all citizens equally, then we cannot stand by as politicians pass laws that block eligible voters from voting, thus denying them the opportunity to participate equally in our great democracy. Elections are the one time that all citizen electors have an equal voice. Voter photo ID requirements are in direct conflict with our own state Constitution, which guarantees there shall be no impediment or hindrance to voting.

Lastly, this voter photo ID bill is a prime example of wasteful use of taxpayers money. Voters want responsible, cost-efficient government, particularly when our legislators are trying to cover a huge gap in income for state programs, while reducing property taxes. Wasting precious taxpayer dollars to pay for implementation of a voter photo ID, when our state has effective identification safeguards already in place, will be seen by voters for what it really is  politicians gaming the system for their own personal gain.

There is no such thing as a free voter ID; there are significant ongoing costs for state and local governments, as well as indirect costs for citizens who apply for the ID. It is estimated it will cost the state $5.2 million in expenses and lost revenue to implement a free voter photo ID program.
Election Day 2022: The stakes are high with all eyes on Pennsylvania

Pennsylvania voters on Election Day will make decisions that could reshape the future of both the commonwealth and nation.
Guwahati, Mar 31 (PTI) Bhutan is keen to set up a consulate in Guwahati, its Prime Minister Tshering Tobgay said today.

"I have asked the Government of India to allow us to set up a consulate in Guwahati", Tobgay said while speaking as guest of honour at the Inauguration ceremony of the five-day river festival Namami Brahmaputra(Obesiance to Brahmaputra) here.

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"We share a lot. We have a lot of historical ties of cooperation and friendship. There is a 255 km border between Bhutan and Assam where people of the two countries interact friendly, he pointed out.

"Raw silk processed in Assam is woven by Bhutanese women. Bhurtal (big cymbals) which are symbols in every household and temple in Bhutan have come from Assam. These are clear symbols of the cooperation between the people of Assam and Bhutan", he said.

Terming Brahmaputra as a store house of potentiality and prosperity, Prime Minister Tobgay professed on the need of spreading its benefits to the neighbouring states and country. "Bhutan and Bangladesh will benefit from your (Assams) progress. As Assam grows Bhutan gets benefit and progresses. We look forward to working closely with India", he said.

He also said that Assam is not only gateway but also hub of all activities as he urged upon Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal to work together in the fields of bio-diversity and other aspects of trade to forward the common interests of Assam and Bhutan.

Namami Brahmaputra was inaugurated by President Pranab Mukherjee on the banks of the mighty river Brahmaputra in Guwahati. PTI ESB RG

--- ENDS ---
BJP MLA Neeraj Kumar Singh Bablu rained blows on party MLC Lal Babu Prasad in the Legislative Council premises on Wednesday after Bablu's wife Nutan Singh, a Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) MLC, complained to him about Prasad sexually harassing her.

Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MLC Lal Babu Prasad who is in the eye of storm for assaulting a fellow woman legislator Nutan Singh inside the lobby of the Bihar Legislative Council has been suspended by the state unit. Cracking down further, the party has also removed him from the post of vice president.

BJP MLA Neeraj Kumar Singh Bablu rained blows on party MLC Lal Babu Prasad in the Legislative Council premises on Wednesday after Bablu's wife Nutan Singh, a Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) MLC, complained to him about Prasad sexually harassing her.

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HERE'S WHAT HAPPENED:

MLC Nutan Singh complained to her husband BJP MLA Niraj Kumar Singh Bablu about BJP MLC Lal Babu Prasad harassing her. An infuriated Neeraj Singh thrashed Prasad in the presence of some other legislators inside the Assembly. Soon after the incident, Nutan Singh and her husband Neeraj Singh reported the matter to the Chairman of the Bihar Legislative Council asking him take action against the guilty BJP MLC but senior BJP leader and former deputy Chief Minister Sushil Modi intervened and tried to sort the matter amicably. The initiative of Sushil Modi worked momentarily as all the parties involved in the incident denied any incident having taken place. Ruling party leaders like deputy CM Tejaswi Yadav, however, raised the issue, slamming the BJP of skirting the issue of a woman MLC being sexually assaulted by their own leader. Embarrassed by the incident, BJP state unit leadership called both Lal Babu Prasad and Neeraj Kumar to discuss the matter but to no avail. Taking action against Lalu Babu, the party removed him from the post of vice president of Bihar BJP and also suspended him.

ALSO READ:

JD (U) leader's tweets indicate all is not well with grand alliance in Bihar

Bihar: Clamour grows within RJD for Tejaswi as CM, Lalu says he is the future

With JDU-RJD on warpath post UP verdict, BJP says Nitish Kumar won't complete his tenure as CM

--- ENDS ---
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Linkedin Linda Yulisman (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Fri, March 31, 2017

Indonesians are slowly changing their eating habits as their incomes rise. Still counted among the biggest rice eaters in the world, they are starting to put more beef on the table. Not steaks, burgers or roast beef, but beef dishes such as gulai (curry) or semur (stew in soy sauce) and dendeng ( jerky).

What prevents them from eating even more beef is not so much health concerns as the steep prices they have to pay for the meat. This is partly because of the supply and demand situation, the governments rigid beef import policy, and a conspiracy between some beef importers and corrupt politicians.

Indonesians trail behind their neighbors when it comes to meat consumption, averaging 2.61 kilogram per person each year, against 15 kg for Singaporeans and 7 kg for Filipinos.
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Linkedin EDITORIAL (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Fri, March 31, 2017

The administration of President Joko Jokowi Widodo is starting to redistribute state land to farmers as part of poverty alleviation measures. The measure is part of an agrarian reform program Jokowi publicly announced in his 2014 presidential inauguration speech that involves the redistribution of roughly 22 million hectares of undisputed state land  13 million hectares to indigenous people and the remaining 9 million to impoverished farmers.

As part of the realization of the Presidents commitment, the Environment and Forestry Ministry transferred land to 11 indigenous groups in December. The granted property was largely expropriated from forestry businesses whose concessions had expired. The next crucial agenda is the arduous distribution of 9 million hectares in 33 provinces, where idle land starkly differs in size and in agricultural suitability while the provinces populations are no less complex in terms of size and needs.

Jokowi has announced that land redistribution will start as soon as this year, with Coordinating Economic Minister Darmin Nasution saying the land will be granted to farmer associations instead of to individuals so as to minimize cases of illegal sales. Sizes of land to be redistributed will vary by region: On large but scarcely populated islands, each farmer group consisting of 30-40 families may receive about 50 hectares, while it could be much less in densely inhabited areas like Java.
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Linkedin Simon Tay and Chen Chen Lee (The Jakarta Post) Singapore  Fri, March 31, 2017

Southeast Asias skies over the last twelve months have mostly been free of haze pollution. This is a relief for the warming planet as forest fires, particularly on peatlands, typically release huge amounts of carbon dioxide and cause acrid smog.

Efforts by the Jokowi administration in Indonesia to tackle the fires at source are one reason for the improvement. Wetter weather conditions have also played a major part in the good results. But the weather is changing, and not all for the better.

This year, experts predict the conditions will be drier than normal and fear that the extreme dry weather phenomenon called El Nino will return as early as July. Concerns arise, therefore, that severe fires will break out across plantation and forestry concessions across Indonesia, causing a return of the haze.

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Linkedin Alif Satria (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Fri, March 31, 2017

The argument that the Blasphemy Law is necessary to mediate parties and decrease violence is at best unproven and at worst, the complete opposite of what is occurring in reality. Reports of violence from institutions such the Wahid Foundation and studies such as the National Violence Monitoring System (NVMS) indicate a steady and constant rise of religious violence in the past decade.

Data from the NVMS shows an average 31.7 percent increase of religious violence in Indonesia per year since 2003 until 2014, even when the usage of the Blasphemy Law within the same year range also increases.

What further solidifies the argument against the correlation of the law and decreasing violence is the fact that the bulk of religious violence (76.5 percent) actually occurred in 2011 to 2014, after the law attained nationwide notoriety on account of its judicial review in 2010. The Constitutional Court rejected requests to have it annulled and instead upheld the 1965 law.

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Linkedin Carla Bianpoen (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Fri, March 31, 2017 09:44 2048 a291276806121264c0bd211cde6ff6f0 4 Art & Culture art-and-culture,panji-and-genji,eddy-susanto,Literature,Javanese-culture,japanese-culture,history,the-tales-of-genji,babad-tanah-jawi Free

The phenomenon of the Javanese script on the canvases of Eddy Susanto has been a tool for unifying cultures from the farthest corners of the eastern and western hemispheres.

Such is again reinforced in his work for the Tokyo Art Fair, which was held from March 17-19. Infusing the Japanese story of Genji with that of the Javanese saga of Panji, Eddy Susanto fused the identical characters into one by using the narrative of Panji in Javanese script to shape the Genji figures on canvas. A history and literature freak, Eddy found that the Panji story from his native Java has features similar to the Japanese Genji story. Although he found it intriguing that both sagas narrate identical lives of pleasure, love, life and adventure, he insisted the tales go beyond love stories  they involve heroic incidents and elements of ethical value.

Panji was a legendary prince from East Java, the protagonist of the Panji cycle that developed from a relief found in Gembyok/ Kediri in East Java.

Lord Panjis tales emerged at the end of the golden era of the Majapahit kingdom. It spread through oral storytelling, poetry and song, expanding to Bali, and on to the region encompassing Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Cambodia and Myanmar.

While it became a lingua franca in the Southeast Asian region, each country and culture added its own characteristic features.

Read also: Indonesian gamelan masters tour UK universities

Eddy visualized the flow in his fascinating work at the recent Singapore Biennale, where the Javanese letters changed to Thai, Cambodian and Vietnamese letters according to where the story was featured on the canvas. The Tale of Genji also narrates the story of a prince. He was the son of an ancient Japanese emperor and his beloved concubine. His mother died when he was three years old, and his father remarried with someone matching the beauty of his late wife. Genji in the story loved his stepmother, first as a mother and later as a lover.

Up close: Details of Genji and Panji by Eddy Susanto.(Andonowati/File)

As the story is told, he had many romances. The tale was written by Murasaki Shikibu, who may have delivered the tale in installments, describing the customs of aristocratic society at the time, which was eagerly consumed by women of the aristocracy.

Critics have almost consistently described The Tale of Genji as the oldest, first and/or greatest novel in Japanese literature.

The Tale of Genji is set during the end of the ninth century until the early 10th century. Besides being recorded as the first novel in the world, The Tale of Genji is also known as the first romance novel of the genre.

Eddy revealed he had found old yellowed pages recounting the Genji story. Fascinated, he gave it new life by re-shaping the images with Javanese script along the contours, and adding adequate color.

The result is a work of subtle aesthetics and refined finishing.

Eddys obsession with the Javanese script stems from his love of reading. He discovered that it was the first tool of communication in the olden days, and artistically it is the most beautiful, he states.

Read also: The evolution of 'ogoh-ogoh'

Writing it gives one the chance to meditate while drawing the letters from arch to arch, he reveals.

His use of the Javanese script for his contemporary works first drew attention when he was among the awardees of the Bandung Contemporary Art Awards in 2011.

At that time he used Javanese script to form the images of Albrecht Duerers The Mens Bath revealing the narrative of Babad Tanah Jawi (History of Java). This was inspired by his finding through research of the liberating spirit of the Renaissance in Europe and Islam in his native Java, which occurred in about the same period of time.

In the West, the spirit of the Renaissance swept away the conventional culture of memento mori with its focus on the soul and the afterlife, while the spirit of Islam blew fresh wind over the lives of ceremonies and religious rituals, bringing along a transformation into hard work and industrial foci.

Since then Eddy has created many works highlighting how cultural situations in Java correlate with those in other parts of the world occurring at about the same period of time. In so doing, he actually points out how art can play an important role in opening dialogue, or conversations that advocate cultural pluralism in a climate of nationalism.
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Linkedin Stanley Widianto (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Fri, March 31, 2017 13:23 2047 a291276806121264c0bd211cde70c865 4 Art & Culture indie-music,local-musician,scaller,rock Free

In its journey, rock music continues crowning performers the one. Like electronic-rock band The Upstairs and retro-pop outfit White Shoes & The Couples Company were the staples of the 2005 independent scene, or when Koes Plus Beat led the way into a mainstay spot, rock in Indonesia has seen many names adorn festival posters. The names change all the time, but the music remains.

Now Im not sure whether Scaller, a Jakarta alternative rock band that surprise-released its first LP Senses early this year after its mini-album 1991 could claim a sturdy spot here.

But the crowd at its first solo concert, held recently at the Soehanna Hall with the title Spirit of the Thing, euphorically danced, clapped, cheered for more, just like they did with their predecessors.

Bands like Scaller (Barasuara, Polka Wars, Tigapagi, too) are making the most of the present tense  making the wait for new signs of activities less tiresome, more anticipated.

Read also: The flaming spirit of Barasuara

The proceedings got off to a good start with Anomalyst, an indie rock band that is currently working on its first LP. Listening to Anomalyst will probably remind you of the band Interpol, because of the constant dips and turns one traditional indie rock song can take.

New blood: Scaller unleashes their brand of alternative rock in an exhilarating concert in Jakarta.(Irvan Suta/File)

Even so, the concert didnt move me as much as I had expected. Stella Gareth (keyboard/piano/vocals) and Reney Karamoy (guitar/vocals) were confident (You have no idea how nervous I am, Karamoy said at one point. Couldve fooled me) and electric at the show that bore their name, but the first half of it was sculpted, jumbled.

They were searching for a sound to stick to and their performance (mostly consisting of songs from the bands fine debut record) suffered because of it. Still, it was great to see people in the crowd enjoying themselves.

Then the second half (starting from the great piano-and-guitar showing Lotis Dream) benefitted from a much-needed refocus. Haunting, anthemic and energetic, Scaller performed with a swagger that some bands took years to convincingly pull off.

Most importantly, Scallers strength lies in the attention and work put into the instrumentation: Reneys guitar wails and dances, as Stella jumps up and down, her whispers turning into bellows. The songs Upheaval and Dawn Is Coming, hookless as they are, become some really legitimate alt. rock monsters on stage.

Speaking of hookless, I dont think I heard more than a couple of hooks in a given Scaller song at the show. Listening to Senses wouldnt convince me otherwise either.

Together: Reney Karamoy (right) and Stella Gareth are supplying new energy to the Indonesian independent music scene with Scaller.(Scaller/File)

Scaller is not an acquired taste  the band has a way of working the crowd, as the show attested  but its songs arent pretty either: synths gurgle eerily in a winded intro and the guitar doesnt bend for a comfortable position.

Reney and Stellas vocals unfortunately didnt always hold, but it was nice to see them shift to screams and shouts (especially in the encore Live and Do and Stay on the Track).

Read also: Album Review: The Backstage Session by Bangkutaman

The best part of the show worth mentioning is the guy behind the drums: Enrico Octaviano. He gave Scaller a singular, distinct sound  ominous, anthemic percussive sound  at the show and made it stick. The last song before the encore The Youth exemplified that sound perfectly.

I saw a lot of familiar faces at the show  senior music journalists, band managers, fellow musicians, long-time fans. Ask any of them on a given day not long after Spirit of the Thing and theyll speak of this concert that they just went to.

The most common adjective that was attached to Scaller was the one that gave one of the bands songs its name: Youth. Now in their 20s, Reney and Stella still have a long way to go to remain with their good music on the scene, but, as Spirit of the Thing showed, its happy to have them there.
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Fri, March 31, 2017 10:38 2048 a291276806121264c0bd211cde703ce6 4 Art & Culture Makassar,antique-style-bicycle,antique-style-bicycle-community,sepeda-ontel,community,bicycle,festival,#festival Free

Thousands of antique-style bicycle (sepeda ontel) enthusiasts are set to gather at the Ontel Celebes Festival in Fort Rotterdam, Makassar, South Sulawesi, on April 1-2.

The event, part of the 12th anniversary celebration of Makassar Antique-style Bicycle Community (Kostum) and the fourth congress of the Indonesia Antique-style Bicycle Community (Kosti), will feature cultural performances, such as the Paduppa dance and the Paraga dance. Traditional food dishes such as coto Makassar (beef soup), the spicy nasu palekko (duckling dish) and the sweet bassang (white corn porridge) with chocolate or cheese will also be sold at the event.

Read also: Hutaginjang village, North Sumatra, hosts Starbucks Original Experience 2017

Traditional performances will be held on the opening day and a parade is scheduled the day after in some areas across Makassar.

Nojeng, a Kostum committee member, told tempo.co that festival participants would come from various areas in South Sulawesi. (wir/kes)
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Fri, March 31, 2017 14:11 2047 a291276806121264c0bd211cde70f6b2 1 National KPK,graft,PAL,corruption,corruption-case,#KPK,PAL-Indonesia Free

The Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) said it arrested 17 people during stings conducted in Jakarta and Surabaya, East Java, on Thursday.

A team from Surabaya and several people arrested during an operation on Thursday arrived this morning. The investigation will be continued at the KPK building, including with those arrested in Jakarta, KPK spokesperson Febri Diansyah said as quoted by kompas.com on Friday.

He said the 17 people arrested comprised high-ranking officials and employees of a state-owned company and private parties.

It is suspected the arrests are related to a bribery case surrounding a procurement project at state shipbuilder PT PAL Indonesia, which is headquartered in Surabaya.

(Read also: KPK takes PAL officials in for questioning)

As reported earlier, KPK investigators have taken PAL Indonesia president director Firmansyah Arifin in for questioning. Firmansyah was reportedly picked up from the companys headquarters in Surabaya, East Java, at around 11 p.m. local time on Thursday, accompanied by PAL Indonesia corporate secretary Elly Dwiratmanto.

It is highly suspected the KPKs move to take Firmansyah and Elly in for questioning is connected to a recent operation in which antigraft personnel arrested PAL officials on allegations of bribery in relation to the sale of warships produced by the company for the Philippines.

The KPK is scheduled to give a press conference on the arrests on Friday afternoon. The status of those arrested in the operation will be determined within 24 hours from the arrests, said Febri. (hol/ebf)

-----

Wahyoe Boediwardhana contributed to this story from Surabaya, East Java.
By Press Trust of India: From K J M Varma

Beijing, Mar 30 (PTI) China today hinted at commissioning its first indigenously-built aircraft carrier next month as it strengthens its powerful navy which plays a more dominant role in projecting the nations power overseas.

The "outfitting work" is going on smoothly for Chinas first domestically made aircraft carrier, Chinese military spokesman Col Wu Qian told media briefing here today.

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Asked whether the aircraft carrier will be launched on the 68th anniversary of the PLA Navy on April 23, he said, "We wont be kept waiting for long."

Some reports said President Xi Jinping may attend the launch ceremony.

Earlier reports in the official media said it may take few years for the new aircraft carrier to become fully operational.

China currently has one aircraftcarrier, which is a refurbished vessel from former Soviet Union. It is building a second one while the third is in the pipeline.

Reports also said China has started building a new generation of large amphibious assault vessels including a helicoptercarrierthat will strengthen the navy.

The 075 Landing Helicopter Dock is now under construction by a Shanghai-based shipbuilding company, South China Morning Post reported yesterday.

The amphibious vessel is far larger than similar ships previously constructed for the PLA Navy.

The 075 can serve as a form of aircraftcarrierand military experts said it would give Chinas navy the ability to launch various types of helicopters to attack naval vessels, enemy ground forces or submarines in the East or South China Sea.

About the stealth aircraft J-20 which made waves in the international media recently, Wu said it is undergoing test flights.

The J-20 will improve comprehensive capability of the Chinese air force, he said, adding that "it will shoulder the responsibility of national sovereignty territorial integrity".

Official media reports this month said China has operationalised its first stealth aircraft.

Once commissioned, it will have major implications for India as it was earlier tested near the border in Tibet for its endurance in high altitude.

The plane isregarded as major breakthrough for China as it will take it at a next level in the region. It is otherwise mostly reliant on Russian aircraft including advanced versions of Sukois like the Indian Air Force.

Avideo footage from CCTV Channel 7 showedJ-20fighters joining the PLA Air Force with Y-20 transport planes and H-6K bombers. PTI KJV PMS

--- ENDS ---

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Linkedin Panca Nugraha (The Jakarta Post) Mataram, West Nusa Tenggara  Fri, March 31, 2017 21:50 2047 a291276806121264c0bd211cde71eacb 1 National Saudi-Arabia,migrant-protection,migrant-workers,MigrantWorkers,#SaudiArabia Free

The government is investigating reports that around 300 Indonesian citizens seeking to work in Saudi Arabia have been locked up in Riyadh, the largest city in the country.

The Foreign Ministry is still working with the Saudi Arabian Police to process the reports, an official has said.

We received reports two weeks ago that around 300 Indonesian citizens seeking to work in Saudi Arabia had been locked up. Our Indonesian Embassy has coordinated with police authorities there to investigate the matter, said the ministrys director for the protection of Indonesian nationals and entities abroad, Lalu Muhammad Iqbal.

He was speaking after the close of a coordination meeting for the protection of Indonesian citizens in Mataram on Friday.

Iqbal said that most of the 300 Indonesians detained were from West Nusa Tenggara.

Based on information received by the Foreign Ministry, Iqbal said, the 300 people were sent to Saudi Arabia by a recruitment company. They had been locked up in a temporary shelter provided by the company for Indonesian migrant workers.

Reports also revealed that in the shelter, the Indonesian citizens had suffered abuse, Iqbal said. There are several issues that have developed concerning their condition, including information that some of them had been killed and their bodies thrown away. I cannot yet give you the details because the investigation is still in process, said Iqbal.

It was suspected that they were victims of a transnational human trafficking network, he added. (ebf)
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Linkedin Nani Afrida (The Jakarta Post) Madiun, East Java  Fri, March 31, 2017 11:46 2048 a291276806121264c0bd211cde70932d 1 National Air-Force,TNI-AU,Halim-Perdanakusuma-Airbase,halim,Halim-Perdanakusuma-Airport Free

Jakarta residents may suffer from buzzing in their ears on April 4 as 80 military planes will be dispatched to Halim Perdanakusuma Air Base in East Jakarta from across Java for a celebration to mark the 71th anniversary of the Indonesian Air Force on April 9.

Among the military planes prepared include dozens of jet fighters such as an F-16, Hawk, and Super Tucano.

The Air Force has gathered jets, helicopters and transport planes for the event in Madiun, East Java, and Bandung and Bogor in West Java. All of the planes will undergo practice sessions before they perform air attractions during the event.

The planes will fly together to Jakarta on April 4. We understand there will be heavier air traffic at the commercial airport in Halim, Air Force chief operation assistant Air Vice Marshal Bahrim told journalists at Iswahjudi Air Base in Madiun, East Java, on Thursday.

He said the commercial airports operator understood the situation because it had received notification of the potential for air traffic congestion before the commercial airport was established near Halim.

During certain periods, Halim Perdanakusuma will be busy with air activity so it [the commercial airport's management] may have to postpone their flights, Bahrim said. (ebf)
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Fri, March 31, 2017 19:50 2047 a291276806121264c0bd211cde71cd18 1 City rally,313-rally,#313-rally Free

Some school-age boys were seen among a demonstration demanding non-active Jakarta Governor Basuki "Ahok" Tjahaja Purnama's arrest for alleged blasphemy.

They were spotted participating in Fridays Aksi 313 protest against the governor, who is on trial for allegedly blaspheming Islam by misquoting a Quranic verse.

The young boys claimed that they came of their own will.

Rizky Ramadhan, 16, came from Cibubur, East Jakarta on his own initiative with a schoolmate to defend religion and the Al Maidah verse.

Rizky said on Friday that he had participated in similar rallies previously, such as Aksi 411 on Nov. 4 and Aksi 212 on Dec. 2 last year.

Although they came without any adult accompanying them, he  like other young participants -- said that his parents had given him permission to travel to Istiqlal Grand Mosque in Central Jakarta, the center of the rally, to join other protesters.

My school finished earlier than usual, so I was able to come to Istiqlal [mosque] to join the rally, Rizky told The Jakarta Post.

Other kids were also willing to go to Istiqlal mosque because their teachers told students to go home earlier due to the protest in Central Jakarta, according to Rizky. Like him, Asep Saputra, 12, and his three schoolmates attended the rally without any adult chaperone.

We also heard the information from our religion teacher at school, Asep said.

The Aksi 313 rally, referring to March 31, was expected to draw more than 20,000 people. It was a follow-up of two protests last year. (kkk/dan)
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Linkedin Winny Tang (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Fri, March 31, 2017 14:40 2047 a291276806121264c0bd211cde712b5e 1 Business technology,smartphone,Apple,iphone-7,iphone-7-plus,sales Free

United States technology giant Apple Inc. has returned to Indonesia, resuming sales by delivering its latest products, the iPhone 7 and 7 plus.

The move comes after Apple fulfilled the requirement to use minimum 30 percent local components in its smartphones by building a US$44 million research and development (R&D) center in BSD City, Tangerang, Banten.

(Read also: Apples first R&D center to operate in second quarter)

Hundreds of people flocked to Galeri Smartfren on Jl. Sabang, Central Jakarta, on Friday, eagerly waiting to get their hands on an iPhone 7 or iPhone 7 plus. Pre-orders were on offer between March 24 and March 30 by Apples official partner, local telecommunication operator PT Smartfren Telecom.

Karina Dwi Handayani, 32, left her house in Pondok Bambu, East Jakarta early in the morning and arrived at the location at 6:20 a.m. She could not hide her enthusiasm about her dream gadget, an iPhone 7 128 GB.

I bought this because I need a new phone. Previously I had an iPhone 4s, said Karina, a loyal fan of Apple products.

Like many other Apple consumers, she believes the latest version of the smartphone applies the most advanced technology.

Smartfren offers the iPhone 7 and iPhone plus in two one-year bundling data plan packages, namely the iPlan 350 and iPlan 485,.

The iPhone 7 32GB is the lowest priced at Rp 13.19 million (US$1,043) with a iPlan 350 bundling plan, while the iPhone 7 Plus 256 GB with a iPlan 485 bundling plan is priced the highest at Rp 19.02 million. (lnd)
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Fri, March 31, 2017

With growing concerns over rising bad debts, state-owned lender Bank Mandiri is seeking the support of law enforcers in its effort to deal with problematic debtors.

The publicly listed bank sealed on Thursday a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the Attorney Generals Office (AGO) signed in Jakarta aimed to help optimize the formers effort to optimize asset recovery.

Bank Mandiri corporate secretary Rohan Hafas said the lender would chase the problematic debtors very aggressively.

He said although exposing non-performing loans (NPL) to the public was taboo for banks, Bank Mandiri wanted to make a breakthrough.

(Read also: Bank Mandiri sees profit nosedive in 2016 amid rising NPL)

Non-performing loans are a normal thing for banks but now we would like to show that we will deal with this very seriously, he said on the sidelines of the MoU signing.

We will not keep silent anymore by following the problematic debtors scenarios. We will conduct further audits and report to the AGO in case we find any criminal elements involved.

Bank Mandiri saw its net profit plummet 32.1 percent year-on-year to Rp 13.8 trillion (US$1.03 billion) last year on the back of rising bad debts. Its NPL ratio soared to 4 percent in 2016 from 2.6 percent a year earlier, while its net NPL ratio increased to 1.53 percent from 0.9 percent.

Rohan said Bank Mandiri had recently caught a debtor who transferred money as bribe to one of the banks analysts. He said law enforcers had detained both people but he refused provide further details. (dra/hwa)
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Linkedin Winny Tang (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Fri, March 31 2017

Publicly listed lender Bank Permata will conduct a rights issue in the first half of this year to boost capital and restructure its business to reduce mounting non-performing loans.

With the rights issue planned in June, Permata is aiming to raise Rp 3 trillion (US$225.29 million) in fresh funds.

The two main shareholders of Permata, diversified conglomerate PT Astra International and British lender Standard Chartered Bank, will be the standby buyers.

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Linkedin Dylan Amirio (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Fri, March 31, 2017 16:36 2047 a291276806121264c0bd211cde7165bc 1 Business BSD,Sinar-Mas-Land,smart-city Free

Indonesian property conglomerate Sinar Mas Land launched a mobile smartcity app for the area of BSD City in South Tangerang, Banten, called the OneSmile App, which aims to optimize living standards in the area.

With the OneSmile app available on both Android and iOS platforms, Sinar Mas is aiming to make BSD City the first integrated smart digital city in Indonesia. It was created to answer the increasing development of digital technology in affecting the daily lives of BSD residents and facilitates such services as paying bills, looking up public transport schedules, checking road conditions and even purchasing groceries, tickets and takeaway food.

The launch of the smartcity app is only the beginning as updates to the app are in development to make it an essential companion for BSD residents, said the apps developer PT Kresna Graha Investamas managing director Jahja Suryandy.

(Read also: Sinar Mas Land to spend Rp 7t on digital city project)

Some of those additions include GPS tracking, CCTV camera viewing and a smart home button. All of these innovations aim to give solutions and convenience to all BSD City residents to assist them in their daily lives, Jahja said in a statement on Friday.

Sinar Mas Land CTO Irvan Yasni reiterated his pride in the app, saying that a digitally enhanced convenient lifestyle could drive the areas living standards higher.

OneSmiles features also include an e-wallet feature, a community platform, loyalty programs and a business performance management solution on top of the ability to pay water and environmental maintenance (IPL) bills. (bbn)
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Linkedin Nani Afrida (The Jakarta Post)  Fri, March 31 2017

While other countries have addressed problems of land reform and land titling, Indonesia is still struggling with these issues. From the colonial era until the current reform period, it has been trying to find the best way to eradicate poverty by means of land policy, which has proven to be tricky. Below is a summary of land reform dynamics in Indonesia.

Colonial era

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Linkedin (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Fri, March 31 2017

Online grocery startup HappyFresh has introduced a more personalized app in a bid to strengthen its presence in Indonesia, one of its key markets.

The upgraded app provides new features, such as a list of customers frequently bought products and a tracker of orders, to allow easier and more convenient shopping with delivery in less than one hour. In addition, it also offers notifications about the latest promotion and voucher codes.

HappyFresh Group CEO Guillem Segarra Lopez said that the improved app was part of its efforts to better understand what customers wanted. It was made based on feedback gained from a direct survey of its customers, he added.

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Linkedin Indra Budiari (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Fri, March 31, 2017 13:31 2047 a291276806121264c0bd211cde70d6d8 1 City anti-ahok-demo,protester Free

Despite previously claiming that 100,000 people would take part in Friday's protest against Jakarta Governor Basuki "Ahok" Tjahaja Purnama, fewer than 10,000 have showed up at Istiqlal Grand Mosque, Central Jakarta.

In a rally scheduled to start at 1 p.m., protesters in white attire started to gather at the mosque in the morning. However, participants number far below those in previous anti-Ahok rallies.

Helmy, 50, who came from Depok, West Java, said he thought there would be as many protesters as in previous rallies in Nov. 4 and Dec. 2, which were claimed to be two of the largest protests the country had ever seen.

"It is discouraging too see this, but the message is still clear, we want Ahok arrested as soon as possible," he told The Jakarta Post.

He was also upset that the police had arrested rally initiators from the Muslim People's Forum (FUI), including secretary-general Muhammad Al Khaththath, the day before the rally, saying he was worried there would be no coordination during the rally.

The FUI previously claimed that at least 100,000 people would take part in Fridays protest to demand the government remove Ahok from his post. The police, however, expect the number to be far lower.

The police arrested Khaththath and four other people on Thursday night on treason and conspiracy charges.
A fourlane flyover will be constructed on the carriageway from airport to Dhaula Kuan to allow unhindered movement in traffic.

By Rakesh Ranjan: Delhiites can expect an uninterrupted drive up to the airport from next year.

With the proposed construction of two flyovers and two underpasses, ride along one of the city's most stressful stretches - Dhaula Kuan to IGI Airport - is likely to get much smoother.

Over three lakh motorists passing through this section daily may head for their destinations - Gurugram, airport, Delhi Cantonment and Janakpuri - without stopping at the Dhaula Kuan- Cariappa Marg intersection. The National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) has finalised a project that will rid this stretch of traffic snarls.

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As per the plan, a fourlane flyover will be constructed on the carriageway from airport to Dhaula Kuan. This will allow unhindered movement of traffic coming from Gurugram and the airport to Dhaula Kuan and further up to central Delhi via Sardar Patel Marg. Free left turn will be provided to motorists headed for Janakpuri and Delhi Cantt.

HERE IS ALL YOU NEED TO KNOW About 8.5 million vehicles ply the traffic-choked roads of Delhi and its surrounding areas every day as the congestion adds to the toxic air in the city that is one of the most polluted in the world, according to international agencies. Also, the traffic bound to Gurugram and the airport will have signal-free run at the Dhaula Kuan intersection while motorists destined to Cariappa Marg (Delhi Cantt) and Janakpuri will use the underpass. Officials say the underpass on the Dhaula Kuan-Cariappa Marg crossing will be exclusively for light vehicles while a separate one for heavy vehicles and public transport buses will be constructed near Manekshaw Centre for which the defence ministry has agreed to provide land. According to the NHAI, a three-lane flyover will be built to facilitate traffic coming from Delhi Cantt and turning left to Sardar Patel Marg. However, vehicles going from the cantonment to the airport will have to take a left turn near Dhaula Kuan and then a U-turn for airport and Gurugram. The plan will be submitted to the ministry of road transport and highways by next month and work is likely to start by August. The project was earlier planned to be executed by the Delhi government's public works department. But owing to prolonged delays and involvement of multiple agencies, it was handed over to the NHAI. Road transport and highways minister Nitin Gadkari and urban development minister M Venkaiah Naidu have also expressed displeasure over the holdup. The project will offer relief to lakhs of motorists on the corridor coming from areas like Moti Bagh, Karol Bagh, Rajendra Place, AIIMS, Janak Puri, etc, to go to Gurugram and the airport. Given the heavy volume of vehicles and narrow road space on the intersection, there is always heavy traffic turning right on to Cariappa Marg from Sardar Patel Marg. Similarly, the traffic going straight towards the airport and Gurugram remains slow for most part of the day. The situation worsens during the morning and evening peak hours, resulting in travellers missing flights. Officials said all these projects were conceived by the erstwhile Sheila Dikshit government but they got stuck due to shortage of funds and three consecutive elections. However, a committee formed by the union urban development ministry had recommended revival of these projects as a long-term solution to Delhi's persistent traffic snarls. A senior official said some road-widening will also be done near Dhaula Kuan metro station for uninterrupted movement of traffic from SP Marg to NH-8. According to officials, decongestion of Delhi has been a key concern of the Narendra Modi government and several projects have been planned to turn it into reality. Last year, the Centre sanctioned Rs3,250 crore for unclogging the city. The fund was meant for road-widening projects to eliminate gridlocks at 200 spots identified by the Delhi traffic police. Sources said funds for most of these projects will be provided by the Centre. Last year, UD minister Naidu announced Rs3,250 crore for Delhi's decongestion. The Centre has released Rs1,500 crore for the state government. The government had also granted Rs1,665 crore for DDA and Rs100 crore for north MCD. The DDA and Delhi Police have also been asked to suggest measures to unclog city roads, officials said. North MCD has been asked to complete remaining work of grade separator at Rani Jhansi Road (flyover from St Stephen's Hospital to Filmistan). This will cut travel time from Karol Bagh to north Delhi from one hour to just 10 minutes.

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In a move that is likely to reduce tensions over its future operations, major mining company PT Freeport Indonesia has agreed to convert its contract, paving the way to a resolution in its prolonged dispute with the government.

Energy and Mineral Resources Minister Ignasius Jonan claims that in a change to months of resistance, Freeport Indonesia, a subsidiary of United Statesbased gold and copper mining giant Freeport-McMoRan (FCX), has agreed to allow its contract of work (CoW) to be converted into a special mining permit (IUPK).

In principle, they have already agreed to convert to an IUPK. Hopefully, they do not change their mind, Jonan said during a hearing with House of Representatives Commission VII on Thursday.

The conflict between the two parties built up after the mineral export ban took effect in mid-January in compliance with Government Regulation (PP) No. 1/2017.

Freeport Indonesia, the operator of the worlds largest gold and second-largest copper mine in Grasberg, Papua, is required to divest 51 percent of its shares, build a smelter within five years and convert its contract in exchange for a permit to export copper concentrate.

Freeport Indonesia spokesman Riza Pratama separately confirmed that the firm had agreed to convert its CoW into an IUPK, though it was still negotiating the terms with the government.

Freeport Indonesia is willing to convert its CoW to an IUPK so long as it is granted investment stability, entailing legal and fiscal certainty, equal to the certainties outlined in our [current] CoW, he told The Jakarta Post.

Although Riza declined to disclose its proposed terms, Jonan revealed that the firm had asked to pay the fixed tax as stipulated in its CoW although it is higher than the prevailing tax. Furthermore, it also wants to continue talks on levies imposed in Papua, he added.

The firms acquiescence marks a milestone after weeks of tough negotiations to settle the dispute out of court after both Freeport and the government have pledged to bring the dispute to the United Nations arbitration tribunal.

The progress in the negotiations comes just before US Vice President Mike Pences visit to Indonesia next month. Indonesian officials have said the Freeport dispute is likely to be high on the vice presidents agenda

FCX is known to be politically connected as US billionaire Carl Icahn, special adviser on regulatory reform to US President Donald Trump, is the third major FCX shareholder.

Previously, with strong support from its parent company, Freeport Indonesia had consistently rejected the governments requirements, which the company argued had violated the investment certainty provided by the present CoW dating back to 1991.

As a result of the standstill, the miner had been unable to sell its copper concentrates overseas, leading to a large pile up that put a brake on its mining operations.

Earlier this month, Freeport Indonesia, Indonesias biggest oldest foreign investor, resumed production at 40 percent of its normal rate after securing an export permit for anode slime, a byproduct of copper processing.

During the hearing, Jonan also told legislators that the government might allow the miner to ship its copper concentrate while negotiations on the other terms continued so long as the latter officially agreed to the contract conversion.

As they have technically agreed to an IUPK, they will be able to export so long as they submit a proposal to build a smelter within the next five years following government regulation [PP] No. 1/2017. The government must be firm [in this case]. The company must own an IUPK, Jonan said.

House Commission VII, meanwhile, called on the central government to seek input from the Papuan people before making any future policy about the miner.

We ask the energy and mineral resources minister to involve Papuan locals in any decision-making process pertaining to Freeport Indonesia in order to comply with the Regional Autonomy Law, chairman Gus Irawan Pasaribu said.

Separately, a coalition of civil societies officially submitted a proposal to the Supreme Court to review PP No. 1/2017 and its subsequent regulations, claiming that they violated the 2009 Mining Law and offered excessive leeway for miners to continue selling raw and semi-processed minerals abroad.
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Linkedin Simon Tay and Chen Chen Lee (The Jakarta Post) Singapore  Fri, March 31 2017

Southeast Asias skies over the last twelve months have mostly been free of haze pollution. This is a relief for the warming planet as forest fires, particularly on peatlands, typically release huge amounts of carbon dioxide and cause acrid smog.

Efforts by the Jokowi administration in Indonesia to tackle the fires at source are one reason for the improvement. Wetter weather conditions have also played a major part in the good results. But the weather is changing, and not all for the better.

This year, experts predict the conditions will be drier than normal and fear that the extreme dry weather phenomenon called El Nino will return as early as July. Concerns arise, therefore, that severe fires will break out across plantation and forestry concessions across Indonesia, causing a return of the haze.

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Linkedin Nurul Fitri Ramadhani (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Fri, March 31 2017

The government-sanctioned team tasked with selecting the General Elections Commission (KPU) and Elections Supervisory Agency (Bawaslu) commissioner candidates came under fire from lawmakers after they scrapped unqualified candidates preferred by the politicians.

During Thursdays hearing, all factions at the House of Representatives Commission II lambasted the teams work that resulted in 14 KPU commissioner candidates and 10 Bawaslu member candidates. The politicians blatantly accused the team of being partial and said the candidates were not qualified.

The team consists of notable figures known for their integrity and credibility, such as Andalas University law expert Saldi Isra, former Constitutional Court justice Harjono, Islamic scholar Komaruddin Hidayat and former member of the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) selection team Betti Alisjahbana, yet the legislators accused them of being incompetent.

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Linkedin Farida Susanty (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Fri, March 31 2017

Less than 48 hours before the implementation of a regulation that stipulates a fleet quota and price floor for ride-hailing services, the government gave its public reassurance on Thursday that the new rule was intended to accommodate the interests of all stakeholders in the industry, including price-concious customers.

In a proposed revision to Transportation Ministerial Regulation No. 32/2016 on taxi businesses, set to become effective on April 1, the government seeks to replace the current pricing mechanism employed by ride-hailing application providers with minimum and maximum fares determined by regional administrations.

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Linkedin Anton Hermansyah (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Fri, March 31, 2017

Indonesia will not solely use cash to pay for its purchase of French-made weaponry but also use commodities such as rubber.

Under a defense agreement signed between the French defense ministry and Indonesian Defense Ministry on Wednesday, the two countries will work on maritime security, antiterrorism efforts and military equipment.

Defense Minister Ryamizard Ryacudu said under the terms of the military equipment purchase, Indonesia must pay with either technology transfer or commodities.

"If we purchase their weapons, we must pay 35 percent of the price with technology or commodities, like rubber or whatever else," he said at the State Palace in Jakarta on Thursday.

"For the commodities, I will talk to the trade minister first," he said.

The MoU was signed during French President Francois Hollandes one-day visit to Jakarta on Wednesday.

Aside from the defense agreement, four other government-to-government (G2G) agreements, namely in tourism, fisheries, research and city development were signed. (tas)
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Linkedin Stefani Ribka (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Fri, March 31, 2017 10:31 2048 a291276806121264c0bd211cde702e3a 1 Business rice-production,self-sufficiency,central-bank,prediction Free

Bank Indonesia (BI) projects the country will achieve rice self-sufficiency by 2020 if paddy conversion stops and the government is consistent in its efforts to increase the size of paddy and develop irrigation infrastructure.

Agriculture infrastructure projects are ongoing. It will take three to five years for us to reap the results. Indonesia can be a rice self-sufficient country by 2020, Dody Budi Waluyo, assistant to the BI governor for monetary and economic policy, told a media briefing on Thursday.

The central bank predicts rice production will reach more than 50 million tons in 2020, while consumption will reach fewer than 43 million tons.

(Read also: Government to buy all paddy produced by farmers: Minister)

One Indonesian is assumed to consume 144-kilograms of rice per year, while the population is expected to reach 300 million people in 2020. Rice is used for direct consumption, animal feed and industrial use.

In 2015, rice production reached 43.9 million tons coming from 75.4 million tons of paddy. The government aims to produce 80 million tons of paddy this year.

The Agriculture Ministry aims to open another 80,000 hectares of new paddy and 500 water deposits after opening 128,441 ha and 1,714 water deposits last year.

Dody emphasizes that land conversion should also stop to realize the projection. Each year, up to 110,000 ha of agricultural land is converted for other use, mainly residential areas. (bbn)
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Linkedin (The Jakarta Post) Medan  Fri, March 31 2017

North Sumatra Polices violent crime unit arrested the alleged murderer of journalist Amran Parulian Simanjuntak whose motive is suspected to be personal grudge and not a reaction to Amrans articles.

A team of investigators arrested Timbul Sihombing, 39, on Wednesday evening, 10 hours after Amran was found dead at Jl. Medan-Binjai, Deli Serdang regency, earlier that day.

North Sumatra Police chief Inps. Gen. Rycko Amelza Dahniel said personal issues are suspected as the motives.

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Linkedin Indra Budiari (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Fri, March 31, 2017 19:38 2047 a291276806121264c0bd211cde71be05 1 City anti-ahok-demo,Istiqlal-Mosque Free

The management of Istiqlal Mosque told thousands of protesters gathered at the mosque on Friday to maintain peace during the rally and avoid any kind of provocation.

In a statement signed by the Istiqlal management body head Muhammad Muzamil Basyuni that was read just before the rally, the mosque said that it was important not to engage in any kind of violent behavior as it could tarnish the image of Muslims.

"We welcome you this Friday to this mosque, but please remember Muslims in Indonesia must be seen by the world as people with good behavior," the statement said.

(Read also: Thousands to hit capital for anti-Ahok rally on Friday)

Thousands of people hit the streets on Friday for a rally that was scheduled to end at 6 p.m., demanding that the government dismiss Jakarta Governor Basuki "Ahok" Tjahaja Purnama due to his suspect status in an ongoing blasphemy case.
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Fri, March 31, 2017 15:44 2047 a291276806121264c0bd211cde7146be 1 Business tax,tax-avoidance,tax-collections,taxation Free

To achieve this years tax revenue target, the Jakarta Taxation and Retribution Agency (BPRD) is laying out four programs: optimizing revenue through fiscal cadastre, enforcing the law against tax evaders, encouraging integration of business licensing in the form of fiscal linkages and optimizing information-based services.

The agency is working with the Asian Development Bank (ADB) to complete its database of real property data in order to decide land values (fiscal cadastre). Four districts have been mapped, including Tanah Abang, Kebayoran Lama and Setiabudi, said the agencys Head Edi Sumantri, as quoted by beritajakarta on Friday.

According to him, all potential taxes can be identified through fiscal cadastre. The mapping will be continued until 44 districts are covered by mid-2018.

For the law enforcement program, the agency will conduct vehicle tax raids, prepare 60 confiscators and work with the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) to deal with tax evaders.

(Read also: Businessman detained for tax evasion)

The third program, fiscal linkages concerning integrated business licensing, means that taxpayers who have not paid their dues will not be able to obtain business licenses.

Last but not least, well improve our information-based services, said Edi.
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Linkedin Apriadi Gunawan (The Jakarta Post) Toba Samosir  Fri, March 31 2017

The central governments plan to turn the famed Lake Toba in North Sumatra into an Asian version of Monaco will not be easy. The resort area, which attracts holidaymakers from across the world, is riddled with customary land disputes.

Toba is home to dozens of native groups, each laying claim to their own land. The nonprofit Indigenous Peoples Alliance of the Archipelago (AMAN) lists at least 25 different communities.

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By Press Trust of India: Chennai, Mar 30 (PTI) The appointment of five observers for the April 12 RK Nagar bypoll here is the highest in the countrys electoral history.

After a high-level review meeting chaired by Deputy Election Commissioner Umesh Sinha today, the government said such a deployment was "highest" in the countrys "history of elections".

Following complaints by parties, including the DMK and the CPI(M), of alleged money distribution to the voters, the EC had days ago appointed two Special Observers to monitor expenditure in addition to the three deployed already.

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Also, more than a dozen Income Tax officials have been assigned to look into complaints of money distribution, the Greater Chennai Corporation, which is the District Election Office, said in an official release here tonight.

The DEC directed deputation of two IAS and IPS officers on night rounds in the constituency, deploying micro-observers in all the 256 polling stations and web-casting in all the booths.

Already, there more than 25 flying squads and static surveillance teams. VVPAT will be in place in the constituency alongside EVMs, the release said.

Adequate companies of CAPF personnel are also being deployed, the release added. PTI VGN AAR

--- ENDS ---
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Linkedin Andi Hajramurni (The Jakarta Post) Makassar, South Sulawesi  Fri, March 31, 2017 20:12 2047 a291276806121264c0bd211cde71cd86 1 National Kendeng-farmers,Rembang-factory,cement,cement-factory,semen-indonesia,Semen-Rembang Free

To show their solidarity with Kendeng farmers from Pati, Central Java, who are fighting against the construction of a cement factory in their area, dozens of students under the banner of the Indonesian Islamic Students Movement (PMII) Makassar staged a rally on Thursday, during which they cemented their feet into blocks.

This is a form of our solidarity with our sisters and brothers from Kendeng, said rally coordinator Anzal. He was one of 10 students who cemented their feet into blocks during the rally held under a flyover in Makassar, South Sulawesi.

They criticized Central Java Governor Ganjar Pranowos decision to give permission to state-owned cement maker Semen Indonesia to build a cement factory in Rembang despite a Supreme Court ruling in favor of the lawsuit filed by the Kendeng farmers against the project.

The Central Java governors policy, which allows the construction of the cement factory in Kendeng is a human rights violation. It will also damage the environment, said Anzal.

(Read also: Jokowis short meeting with Kendeng farmers ends in tears)

PMII Makassar called on President Joko Jokowi Widodo to cancel the construction permit of the Rembang cement factory. They also rejected the eviction of local residents by using development and urban planning as a pretext.

In the rally, protesters also chanted shalawat (Islamic songs in praise of Prophet Muhammad) and read out Surah Al Fatihah to commemorate Patmi, 48, a female farmer from Kendeng who died of a heart attack after staging a rally in front of the State Palace on March 21. (ebf)
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Fri, March 31, 2017 13:12 2047 a291276806121264c0bd211cde70b994 1 National hacker,hackers,MuhadjirEffendy,national-exam,UN,Education-and-Culture-Ministry,#NationalExams,#nationalexam Free

Education and Culture Minister Muhadjir Effendy has warned hackers to refrain from any activities that could disrupt the implementation of the computer-based national exam (UNBK) for students of junior and senior high schools or other institutions of the same level, which will take place from April to May.

To secure the UNBK, we have partnered with the National Encryption Agency [Lemsaneg]. Still, we are asking hackers not to disrupt the implementation of the exam, he said as quoted by Antara on Thursday. The minister urged all related parties to avoid any misdeeds.

Muhadjir, who is also former Malang Muhammadiyah University (UMM) rector, acknowledged that the technology used by the Education and Culture Ministry was not advanced. That was why the ministry had also involved the Indonesian Ombudsman and graft watchdog Indonesian Corruption Watch (ICW) to participate in monitoring the implementation of the national exam.

So far we have not found any obstacles for the UN. For paper-based exams at senior high schools, all materials have been delivered to provinces and they will later be delivered to schools. At the junior high school level, all materials are being packed at printing houses, said Muhadjir.

Exams for vocational school students will be conducted from April 3 to 6 while senior high schools and Madrasah Aliyah (Islamic senior high schools) will hold them on April 10 to 13.

The UN for junior high school students will be held in two rounds. First, it will take place from May 2 to 4 and on May 15 while the second round is from May 8 to 10 and on May 16. (mrc/ebf)
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Fri, March 31, 2017 14:33 2047 a291276806121264c0bd211cde7122e1 1 Business chicken-farmers,oversupply,chicken-meat,Regulations Free

The Agriculture Ministry has issued a ministerial decree to address the oversupply of chicken, which has sparked complaints by businesspeople about decreasing prices of the commodity.

The regulation reduces the supply of day old chickens (DOC), the ministrys livestock and animal health director general, I Ketut Diarmita, said on Thursday.

The breeders of parent stock broilers are required to reduce the production of DOCs by 8 percent of total production, the official said in a press statement.

(Read also: Chicken price drops due to oversupply)

The issuance of Ministerial Decision No. 3035/2017 is in response to complaints by chicken breeders after prices decreased to below production costs.

Currently, the production of DOCs reaches 63 million broilers per week, which will be decreased by 5 million to balance supply and demand.

The reduction will be implemented gradually starting from March 27 and will be reviewed every two weeks by the directorate general, he added.

Breeders are also required to report the reduction process to the government. Supervision will be done by a team, whose members come from relevant officials at the provincial, regental and mayoral level, Diarmita added. (bbn)
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Linkedin (The Jakarta Post) Mataram  Fri, March 31 2017

Health Minister Nila Moeloek has named West Nusa Tenggara (NTB) Governor Muhammad Zainul Majdi a Special Envoy for Breastfeeding to honor his administrations successful efforts in achieving a high rate of exclusive breastfeeding in the province.

The exclusive breastfeeding rate in NTB was 78.2 percent in 2015, data shows.

Its higher than the average national rate, which is only 61.8 percent, said Nila during the launch of the Healthy Lifestyle Peoples Movement (Germas) in Mataram on Wednesday.

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Linkedin Fadli (The Jakarta Post) Batam  Fri, March 31 2017

In order to enhance security in the Strait of Malacca, one of the busiest trade routes in the world, the Indonesian Navy launched two new fast patrol boats at the Batu Ampar seaport on Batam Island, Riau Islands province, on Thursday.

Navy chief of staff Adm. Ade Supandi led the inauguration of the 40-meter patrol boats equipped with cannons with calibers of 20 mm and 12.7 mm purchased from Italian defense company OTO Melara.

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Linkedin Nethy Dharma Somba and Jon Afrizal (The Jakarta Post) Jayapura/Jambi  Fri, March 31 2017

Conflict triggered by allegedly unfair practices during recent regional elections in Papua has worsened after the police named all 19 district heads in Jayapura regency, Papua, suspects for violating the 2016 Law on Regional Elections.

The police have charged them with intentionally rejecting a re-run of the vote as recommended by the local elections supervisory committee (Panwaslu). If found guilty, the district heads could face six months in prison.

Under a group named the Districts Head Forum, [the suspects] made public statements that they rejected a re-vote and said they would not be held responsible should there be conflicts due to an election re-run, Jayapura Police chief Adj. Sr. Comr. Gustav Urbinas said on Thursday.

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Linkedin Callistasia Anggun Wijaya (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Fri, March 31, 2017 14:38 2047 a291276806121264c0bd211cde7125b1 1 City anti-ahok-demo,ban Free

The Jakarta Police have prohibited people taking part in a demonstration against Jakarta Governor Basuki "Ahok" Tjahaja Purnama from protesting in front of the State Palace in Central Jakarta.

Police Chief Insp. Gen. Iriawan said the decision was made to avoid a mass concentration.

"The Horse Statue area is wider [than the State Palace]. We don't want them to jostle each other [while protesting]," Iriawan said at the National Monument (Monas) park on Friday.

Iriawan said 15 people representing the protesters would be invited to the palace to deliver their aspirations.

However, Iriawan had yet to reveal their names.

The protest to demand the dismissal of Ahok was initiated by an organization called the Muslim Peoples Forum (FUI).

FUI secretary-general Muhammad Al Khaththath was arrested on Thursday evening for alleged treason.
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Fri, March 31, 2017 19:34 2047 a291276806121264c0bd211cde71b46a 1 City anti-ahok-demo,demand,protester Free

Protesters at a rally against Jakarta governor Basuki "Ahok" Tjahaja Purnama demanded the authorities release Muslim People's Forum (FUI) secretary-general Muhammad Al Khaththath before 6 p.m. on Friday.

Rally coordinator Usamah Hisyam said the protesters would refuse to halt the rally called "Aksi 313" in reference to the days date at 6 p.m. if Al Khaththath and four other activists were not released by the police.

Al Khaththath was arrested by the Jakarta Police on Thursday evening, one day before the rally, for conspiracy to commit treason. He and the other four detainees are being held at the Mobile Brigade Command detention center (Mako Brimob) in Kelapa Dua, Depok.

"It is impossible. In every meeting Al Khaththath never conspired to commit treason because our sole agenda is to demand Ahok be dismissed from his position," Usamah, who is also the chairman of the United Development Party (PPP)-affiliated Indonesian Muslims Association (Parmusi), said on Friday. "We are sad because our democracy is experiencing a setback," he added.

(Read also: Four arrested before Friday anti-Ahok protest)

He delivered the statement following a closed-door meeting with Coordinating Political, Legal, and Security Affairs Minister Wiranto on Friday.

Wiranto was firm that the protest be halted at 6 p.m. in accordance with a law that was passed to protect national security and order. He went on to say that the authorities might take firm action should the protesters violate the law.

However, the minister assured the public that he would immediately coordinate with National Police chief Gen. Tito Karnavian to discuss whether the evidence was sufficient to indicate that the activists had conspired to commit treason.
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Linkedin Kim Tong-hyung (Associated Press) Seoul, South Korea  Fri, March 31, 2017

A corroding 6,800-ton ferry raised from the bottom of the sea off South Korea last week is now heading to port, where it will be searched for the remains of nine missing passengers from a 2014 sinking that killed 304.

The Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries said a heavy lift transport vessel carrying the ferry Sewol departed early Friday and is expected to reach a port in Mokpo in the afternoon.

Finding the remains of the missing victims would bring a measure of closure to one of the country's deadliest disasters.

Most of those who died when the Sewol sank on April 16, 2014, were teenagers on a school trip, triggering a national outpouring of grief and outrage over what was seen as poor rescue efforts by the government. The anger contributed to the ouster of President Park Geun-hye, who earlier on Friday was arrested over allegations of corruption.

"He was in the dark and frightening deep seas for three years, but he's now going to Mokpo," Yoo Baek-hyeong, the wife of a missing teacher, told reporters on a patrol boat where they watched the transport vessel depart for port.

"I want to find even just a piece of his hair. He would have been wearing his wedding ring ... I want to find all of those things," she said.

Salvage crews on two barges completed a massive operation raising the Sewol from sea last week, rolling up nearly 70 cables connected to metal beams divers spent months installing beneath the ferry, which was lying on its left side under 44 meters (144 feet) of water.

Once the Sewol arrives at port, it's expected to take several days for workers to disconnect it from the transport vessel, where it had been welded in place in order to maintain balance during the trip, and further empty it of water and fuel.

The ferry will then be moved to a dry dock where workers are expected to spend weeks cleaning it and evaluating it for safety.

Investigators will then begin searching for the remains of the missing victims and for clues that could further explain the cause of the sinking, which has been blamed on excessive cargo, improper storage and other negligence.

According to the oceans ministry, the searches will be conducted by a team of 100 government investigators, including experts from the National Forensic Service. An eight-member civilian panel was formed to monitor their efforts.

There are disagreements over how to proceed with the searches, which could take months.

Government officials favor cutting off the ferry's passenger cabin areas and raising them upright before searching for the missing victims, which they say would improve efficiency and also be safer for the investigators. Families fear that cutting into the ship might harm any victims' remains. (**)
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Linkedin Fedina S. Sundaryani (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Fri, March 31 2017

The hassle of long-winded bureaucracy coupled with the necessity of applying for nearly 300 permits remains a major bane to investors wishing to funnel investment into the countrys oil and gas sector.

Investment in the upstream sector has continued to decline despite the governments efforts to make it more enticing for business players, indirectly causing a fall in production and retarding new discoveries vital to fulfilling skyrocketing domestic demand.

Indonesian Petroleum Association (IPA) director Ronald Gunawan claims the sizeable number of permits that need to be secured by investors to work in the upstream oil and gas sector was a major turn-off for many, as it significantly cut down on production periods, which meant less time to obtain profits.

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Goa CM Manohar Parrikar said it was due to Digvijaya Singh's incompetence that the BJP formed government in his home state with the support of other parties. Congress had emerged as the single largest party in Goa winning 17 seats.

Goa Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar visited the Parliament today where the former Defence Minister took a dig at Congress general secretary Digvijaya Singh for 'helping' the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) form government in his home state.

Rubbing salt into Congress's wounds, Parikar thanked Digvijaya Singh and said it was because of the Congress leader's incompetence that the BJP formed government in Goa with support from other parties.

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"He spent 48 hours in travelling and in the meantime we formed the government," Parrikar told reporters outside the Parliament while refuting the charge that democracy was murdered Goa.

Speaking inside the Rajya Sabha, Parrikar once again thanked Digvijaya triggering a protest by Congress members.

"My special thanks to honourable member Digvijaya Singh, who happened to be in Goa but did nothing so that I could form the government," quipped Parrikar following which Congress members rushed to the Chairman's desk in protest.

Despite the BJP ending up second behind the Congress in a split mandate in Goa, Parrikar had claimed the support of 22 legislators, two more than the half-way mark in the 40-member Assembly. The Congress won 17 seats but was not able to prove majority.

Not only the BJP, Digvijaya Singh had come under heavy criticism from within his party when local leaders blamed him for taking government formation in Goa too casualy especially when Congress needed just three votes to win the floor test.

While Digvijaya Singh faced flak for his handling of state of affairs in Goa, he had hit out at his own party by saying that his proposal of pre-poll alliance with Goa Forward Party was sabotaged by some party leaders.

ALSO READ:

Congress leader Digvijaya Singh just declared 'Rahul Gandhi cabinet' on Twitter

BJP stole mandate like thief, they will now pay for it: Congress leader Digvijaya Singh on Goa government

Shameful: Digivijaya Singh slams IT minister Ravi Shankar Prasad for 'leaking' MS Dhoni's Aadhaar details

Also read:

Was sure about the floor test result: Manohar Parrikar

--- ENDS ---
A nationwide survey has revealed that at least one third of women in the country have experienced violence in their lives, inflicted mostly by their spouses and those who are closest to them.

The survey, commissioned by the Womens Empowerment and Child Protection Ministry and conducted by the Central Statistics Agency (BPS), interviewed 9,000 women between the ages of 15 and 64 from various economic and educational backgrounds and found that 33.4 percent of the respondents had experienced violence in their lifetimes.

BPS also found that of the 33.4 percent of respondents, 15.3 percent had fallen victim to sexual violence, while 9.1 percent had been subjected to physical abuse.

Women interviewed for the survey revealed that the sexual violence ranged from people groping women and making unwanted sexual advances toward them to husbands forcing their spouses to have intercourse.

In the results for married women, at least 7.8 percent of them agreed to have intercourse because they were scared, BPS head Suhariyanto said in a press briefing on Thursday.

As for single or unmarried women, sexual abuse took the form of groping, getting obscene messages, receiving pornographic pictures or videos and being forced to have intercourse.

Ten percent of the respondents said that they got lewd messages, while 7.1 percent said they were subjected to touching and groping, Suhariyanto said.

The survey also found that sexual abuse happened more often in urban areas, with 36 percent of reported abuse taking place in cities, while only 19.8 percent happened in villages.

Respondents in the survey also identified the perpetrators of abuse as neighbors, friends, teachers, law enforcement officers, partners outside of marriage, sexual partners, parents, in-laws and other family members including grandfathers, uncles and cousins.

We have to do more to make violence against women an extraordinary crime, said the BPS head.

The survey also revealed the difficulty of getting information from the female respondents, who had to answer questions from interviewers with spouses or partners closely watching.

The BPS survey appears to support findings from the National Commission on Violence Against Women (Komnas Perempuan), which reported an increase of 8.5 percent of reports of violence against women last year. Komnas Perempuan registered 1,354 cases throughout 2016.

Responding to the growing trend of violence against women, a number of female lawmakers from across the political factions have taken the initiative to propose a bill that would make sexual violence against women a serious criminal offense.

The bill also includes stipulations that will encourage women to speak up about their experiences by setting up a sanctuary for victims of abuse where they could speak about the crimes without risking their safety.

Legal counsel assigned to the sanctuary would be responsible for making reports and making sure that legal processes would start against the people accused of the crime.

In order to encourage more women to report their cases, the bill will also mandate the government to pay for the medical costs needed as part of any investigation.

Lawmaker Ammy Amalia Fatma Surya, one of the initiators of the bill, said it would also require the police to assign trained and certified investigators to handle sex crimes. She said such investigators are currently in short supply.

We want to prevent victims from becoming subject to more abuse during investigations, Ammy told The Jakarta Post.

The National Mandate Party (PAN) politician, however, acknowledged that there was only minor interest in the bill. There has been no progress in the deliberation of the bill since the House of Representatives agreed to include it in the National Legislation Program (Prolegnas) in early February.

I thought it would take two sitting sessions to complete the deliberations. Unexpectedly, it is harder than I thought to make it a priority of the House, Ammy told the Post.
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Fri, March 31, 2017 15:26 2047 a291276806121264c0bd211cde714462 1 Business tax-amnesty,service Free

Tax offices will remain open until midnight to facilitate people wanting to avail of the nine-month long tax amnesty, which ends on Friday.

We are extending our services. We call on taxpayers to use this opportunity to avail of the amnesty, said Directorate General of Taxation spokesman Hestu Yoga Saksama as reported by tribunnews.com on Friday.

He said the number of participants had increased two days before the end of the amnesty. He did not mention the details.

(Read also: Repatriated funds from Singapore reaches Rp 84.52 trillion)

By Thursday, the Directorate General of Taxation had recorded Rp 146 trillion (US$10.95 billion) in repatriated funds from across the world, mostly from Singapore.

With the tax amnesty, tax revenue would increase 9 to 10 percent in 2017, according to the Indonesia Deposit Insurance Corporation (LPS), while without the tax amnesty, growth would only be 6 to 7 percent.

Meanwhile, Finance Ministry expert staff member on tax compliance Suryo Utomo said many people did not pay taxes.

He estimated that 60 million people had not registered to pay tax, explaining that only 36 million taxpayers were registered.

A total of 196,786 tax amnesty participants were people who had previously not filed annual tax returns , 635,845 people who regularly reported their wealth and 16,709 people who did not pay taxes. (bbn)
The city is gearing up for another large protest with Islamic conservative groups planning to stage a rally on Friday to demand President Joko Jokowi Widodo unseat incumbent Jakarta Governor Basuki Ahok Tjahaja Purnama from his post.

Initiated by the Muslim People Forum (FUI), the rally will start from Istiqlal Grand Mosque in Central Jakarta right after Friday prayer and will end in front of the State Palace.

The rally will pass Jl. Merdeka Timur, the US Embassy on Jl. Merdeka Selatan, City Hall and the Horse Statue.

The FUI claimed that at least 100,000 people will join Fridays protest. However, the police have predicted the number would be much smaller.

A number of well-known figures, including National Mandate Party (PAN) patron Amien Rais and Rizieq Shihab, the firebrand leader of the hard-line group Islam Defenders Front (FPI), are expected to join the rally.

The FUI ensures that the protest will not turn violent as the participants have no intentions other than to ask Jokowi to dismiss Ahok due to his status as a defendant in a blasphemy case, according to the rallys coordinator and FUI secretary-general, Muhammad Al Khaththath.

I am aware there are rumors circulating, which say tomorrows rally will turn chaotic. But this is a peaceful rally asking the President to comply with the law, he told reporters on Thursday.

Khaththath referred to Article 83 of Law No. 23/2014 on regional administration, which says that a regional head should be temporarily dismissed if named a suspect of a crime with a prison sentence of at least five years, corruption, terrorism, treason and/ or other actions that could divide the nation.

Ahok is currently being tried for alleged blasphemy that angered conservative Muslim groups. The case triggered at least two rallies considered among the largest protests the country had ever seen, on Nov. 4 and Dec. 2 last year.

The rally is going to be held in less than three weeks before the Jakarta Gubernatorial Election runoff voting day, in which Ahok is trying to keep his gubernatorial seat from being taken by his rival, Anies Baswedan.

While the police have called on the protest to not be politicallymotivated, Khaththath said that after the rally ended, the protesters would gather at a mosque to show their support for a Muslim to be the next governor of Jakarta.

Ahok is a Christian of Chinese-descent, while Anies is a Muslim of Arab descent, who has voiced his agreement of the belief that it is haram (forbidden) for a Muslim to vote for non-Muslim leaders.

[Having] a Muslim Jakarta governor is in accordance to the edict from the Indonesian Ulema Council [MUI]. We just carry out the edict, Khaththath said.

However, two of the countrys largest Islamic organizations, Nadhlatul Ulama (NU) and Muhammadiyah, as well as the MUI itself, have denounced the rally, with MUI chairman Maruf Amin saying the rally is unnecessary.

Speaking after a meeting with Jokowi on Thursday, Maruf asked everyone to wait for the court to proceed with Ahoks trial, expected to end in May.

To anticipate any violent breakout during the rally, the Jakarta Police have coordinated with the National Police and the Indonesian Military to secure the area around the State Palace.

We will close the area around the palace within a 500 meter radius to give the protesters more space, Jakarta Police chief Insp. Gen. Mochamad Iriawan said on Thursday, adding that the protesters would not be allowed to divert to other routes, such as Jl. MH Thamrin in Central Jakarta, as it would cause a public disturbance. (dea)
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Fri, March 31, 2017 12:30 2048 a291276806121264c0bd211cde70b33a 1 City anti-ahok-demo,traffic-rerouting Free

On account of Fridays rally in which protesters will march from the Istiqlal Grand Mosque to the State Palace in Central Jakarta to demand the dismissal of Jakarta Governor Basuki Tjahaja Purnama, several roads in the proximity of both venues have been closed as personnel from the National Police, Jakarta Police, Indonesian Army and Jakarta Public Order Agency safeguard the area.

All vehicles, including public transportation, coming from North and West Jakarta were redirected to the only open street in the area, Jl. Medan Merdeka Selatan, south of the National Monument (Monas).

The rerouting has caused congestion on Jl. Medan Merdeka Selatan. As of 9 a.m., the street was crowded with cars, motorbikes and buses heading toward Jl. MH Thamrin and Jl. Budi Kemuliaan in Central Jakarta.

The traffic rerouting will be applied until late afternoon, as the rally, which will commence at 1 p.m. after Friday prayers, is permitted to run until 6 p.m., according to regulations. (dea)
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Linkedin Edith M. Lederer (Associated Press) United Nations  Fri, March 31, 2017

The United States wants China to prove that it is really seeking to stop North Korea's nuclear testing with actions  and that's what President Donald Trump will be pressing China's President Xi Jinping to do when they meet in Florida next week, US Ambassador Nikki Haley said Thursday.

Haley said the Trump administration has "no patience" for the "cat and mouse situation" where North Korea provocations including banned nuclear and ballistic missile tests are met with UN Security Council resolutions that Pyongyang ignores.

She said the US can't change the way North Korea thinks but "China can." And that will be the focus of the president's April 6-7 meeting with Xi at his Florida resort.

In a wide-ranging interview with four news agencies, Haley also talked about the new US priorities in Syria, American efforts "to create balance" at the UN on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and her focus on UN peacekeeping and human rights when the US takes over the Security Council presidency in April. She also spoke about her hatred for bureaucracy, which she says she's avoided so far at the UN.

Haley's comments on North Korea reflect growing frustration in the Security Council and internationally at the failure of six UN sanctions resolutions to stop Pyongyang's nuclear and missile testing and the expansion of its nuclear program.

Tensions have escalated over North Korean moves to accelerate its weapons development. The North conducted two nuclear tests and 24 ballistic missile tests last year, deepening concern in Washington that it could soon develop a nuclear-tipped missile capable of reaching the US mainland.

"I know China wants to see North Korea stop with the testing," the US ambassador said.

"Prove it! Prove it! They need to prove with their actions that they want to see that stopped ... and proving it can't just be stopping the coal intake but allowing it to go through other ways," Haley said.

"Proving it really is showing them through pressure that you are going to cut them off, and that you take this as seriously as the rest of the world does," Haley said.

China is North Korea's most important source of diplomatic support and economic assistance and has long urged a resumption of six-nation denuclearization talks on hold since North Korea withdrew from them in 2009.

Beijing says its leverage over Pyongyang is limited. Despite that, China last month suspended imports of North Korean coal for the rest of the year, depriving Kim Jong Un's regime of a crucial source of foreign currency though Haley's comments indicate that Beijing is allowing imports in other ways.

Haley said she expects Trump and Xi to "talk very much about the responsibility that we believe China has  the fact that we don't have the patience to sit here and see it go round and round anymore and the fact that that we want action."

She said she expects them to discuss "how that action can come about, and discuss what level of action president Trump thinks it should be."

Haley said she has also told Chinese and Russian diplomats at the UN that "they are the answer to some solutions and ... we want to see action."

She warned that if North Korea launches an intercontinental ballistic missile, which could reach the US, or conducts another test, "we are not just going to sit down and say, 'Oh, that they did it again.'"

"This is something this administration is making a priority and this is something that we absolutely expect China and Russia to respond to," Haley said.

On Syria, she said the Trump administration is changing US priorities, "and our priority is no longer to sit there and focus on getting (Syrian President Bashar) Assad out."

"What we are going to focus on is putting the pressure in there so that we can start to make a change in Syria," she said. "We want to get the Iranian influence out because that is really a problem. We want to see how we're going to be dealing with Turkey on this, how we're going to be dealing with the different players on this, and at the end of the day try and work with everyone to bring peace and stability back to the area." (**)
Business people have played down concerns over a potential shortage in fruit and vegetable supply after the government revoked a number of horticulture import permits.

The Trade Ministry scrapped last week the import permits of 31 firms that violated rules of overseas purchase, such as the requirement to own proper warehouses and transportation facilities.

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Linkedin (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Sat, April 1 2017

Bank Indonesia (BI) projects the country will achieve rice self-sufficiency by 2020 if paddy conversion stops and the government is consistent in its efforts to increase the size of paddy and develop irrigation infrastructure.

Agriculture infrastructure projects are ongoing. It will take three to five years for us to reap the results. Indonesia can be a rice self-sufficient country by 2020, Dody Budi Waluyo, BI executive director for monetary and economic policy, told a media briefing on Thursday.

The central bank predicts rice production will reach more than 50 million tons in 2020, while consumption will be less than 43 million tons. One Indonesian is assumed to consume 144 kilograms of rice per year, while the population is expected to be 300 million people in 2020. Rice is used for direct consumption, animal feed and industrial use.

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Linkedin Haeril Halim and Wahyoe Boediwardhana (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta/Surabaya  Sat, April 1 2017

The ambition of state-owned shipbuilder PT PAL Indonesia (PAL) to become a leading industry player in the region is in question following the arrest of its top officials for alleged graft pertaining to the firms export of warships to the Philippines, the first nation to order its warships.

PT PAL exported its first warship to Manila in May last year. The second order of the same type of warship, which was allegedly plagued with graft, is slated for delivery next month.

The Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) detained PT PAL president director M. Firmansyah Arifin on Friday evening, along with general manager treasury Arif Cahyana. The firms director of finance, Saiful Anwar, who has also been named a suspect in the case, is reportedly abroad.

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Linkedin Markus Makur (The Jakarta Post) West Sumba, NTT  Sat, April 1 2017

Pristine beaches and giant komodo dragons are arguably the most popular things to see in East Nusa Tenggara (NTT).

But the countrys southernmost province has more than just stunning beaches and spectacular underwater objects.

The local administration is currently stepping up efforts to boost other kinds of experiences on Sumba Island. One of the main attractions on the island is the Lapopu waterfall, the highest in the province that has attracted both domestic and foreign tourists thanks to its unique character.

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Linkedin Ruslan Sangadji (The Jakarta Post) Palu  Sat, April 1 2017

The end of Operation Tinombala in Poso, Central Sulawesi, is nowhere in sight. The police have recently added more personnel to the operations task force.

Central Sulawesi Police chief Brig. Gen. Rudy Sufahriadi said on Friday that 109 personnel from the mobile brigade would team up with the task force to hunt down the remaining members of the Santoso terror group and handle security in the provinces terrorist hotbed.

Besides adding more personnel to the task force, the police will also withdraw 410 personnel assigned to Poso from Jan. 3 to April 3.

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In a tweet on Thursday evening, Trump said the highly anticipated meeting between the leaders of the world's two largest economies, which is also expected to cover differences over North Korea and China's strategic ambitions in the South China Sea, "will be a very difficult one."

By Reuters: US President Donald Trump set the tone for a tense first meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping next week by tweeting on Thursday that the United States could no longer tolerate massive trade deficits and job losses.

The White House said Trump would host Xi next Thursday and Friday at his Mar-a-Lago retreat in Florida. It said Trump and his wife, Melania, would host Xi and his wife, Peng Liyuan, at a dinner next Thursday.

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In a tweet on Thursday evening, Trump said the highly anticipated meeting between the leaders of the world's two largest economies, which is also expected to cover differences over North Korea and China's strategic ambitions in the South China Sea, "will be a very difficult one."

"We can no longer have massive trade deficits and job losses," he wrote, adding in apparent reference to US firms manufacturing in China: "American companies must be prepared to look at other alternatives."

US-CHINA MEETINGS

Despite a string of US-China meetings and conversations that have appeared aimed at mending ties after strong criticism of China by Trump during his election campaign, US officials have said the Republican president will not pull his punches in the meeting.

General Electric Co Chief Executive Officer Jeff Immelt on Thursday urged Trump to maintain the country's economic relationship with China, saying the United States has much to gain from globalization.

"The country loses if we don't trade. The relationship with China is key," Immelt said at an aviation panel hosted by industry group the Wings Club. "If you give up on trade, you give up on the best lever that the president of the United States has in negotiating around the world. I just think that President Trump is too smart to give up on that."

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang gave no details of the agenda, but spoke of the need to see the big picture while fostering mutual interests in trade relations.

"The market dictates that interests between our two countries are structured so that you will always have me and I will always have you," he told a regular briefing.

"Both sides should work together to make the cake of mutual interest bigger and not simply seek fairer distribution," he said.

BIG ISSUES

Trump administration officials say the need for China to do more to rein in the nuclear and missile programs of its neighbor and ally North Korea will top the agenda, along with trade. The US side is also expected to criticize Beijing for its pursuit of expansive claims in the South China Sea.

White House spokesman Sean Spicer told a news briefing the meeting would be an opportunity for Trump "to develop a relationship in person with President Xi."

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"He's spoken to him on the phone a few times, but we have big problems ... everything from the South China Sea, to trade, to North Korea. There are big issues of national and economic security that need to get addressed."

Asked if the administration had a vision, or a description for its China policy like the "pivot" or "rebalance" to Asia touted by former President Barack Obama, Spicer said: "Right now we're not worried so much about slogans as much as progress.

"There's a lot of big things that we need to accomplish with China, and I think that we will - we will work on them."

US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson agreed in Beijing this month to work with China on North Korea and stressed Trump's desire to enhance understanding.

China has been irritated at being told repeatedly by Washington to rein in North Korea's nuclear and missile programs, or face US sanctions on Chinese businesses trading with North Korea, and by the US decision to base an advanced missile defense system in South Korea.

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Beijing is also deeply suspicious of US intentions toward self-ruled Taiwan, which China claims as its own, after Trump, as president-elect, broke with decades of US policy by taking a phone call from Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen and saying Washington did not have to stick to a "one China" policy.

Trump later agreed in a phone call with Xi to honor the long-standing policy and has also written to him since seeking "constructive ties."

Also read

US President Donald Trump calls PM Modi to congratulate him on Uttar Pradesh poll victory

--- ENDS ---
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Linkedin Jessicha Valentina (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Fri, March 31, 2017 13:53 2047 a291276806121264c0bd211cde70e9cf 1 Activities Kota-Tua,jakarta,#Jakarta,travel,#travel,tourism,#tourism,Jakpost-guide-to,#kotatua,#JakpostGuideTo Free

Home to historic buildings, Kota Tua in West Jakarta is a popular destination for both local and foreign tourists. Its main attraction is Fatahillah Square, an open space area surrounded by colonial buildings. There, visitors can do some museum hopping and stroll around the outdoor area.

In addition to visiting museums, Kota Tua is also known as a favorite spot for lovebirds to take pre-wedding photos.

Those wanting to explore every nook and cranny of this old town area may consult the list below.

How to get there

Kota Tua is strategically located in the heart of Jakarta, which makes it easy for both local and foreign tourists to visit.

Those coming from Bogor or Bekasi in West Java can board a train to the nearby Jakarta Kota station.

From South Jakarta, visitors can hop on the Transjakarta Blok M to Kota route.

Those residing in Central Jakarta can opt to ride mikrolet (public minivan) M12 from Pasar Senen to Kota or the M08 from Tanah Abang to Kota. Meanwhile, North Jakarta residents can hop on mikrolet M15 from Tanjung Priok to Kota.

As for those who live in East Jakarta, the recommended option is a public bus, the Mayasari Bakti AC70 from Kampung Rambutan to Sarinah. From Sarinah, passengers can continue on Transjakarta to Kota Tua.

What to wear

The open space area usually gets hot during the day. Hence, casual outfits like T-shirts, short pants and sandals are highly recommended.

An alley at Kota Tua. (JP/Wienda Parwitasari)

(Read also: Jakpost guide to Blok M Square)

What to see

Museum hopping is a recommended activity while visiting Kota Tua. There are three museums located in Fatahillah Square: the Jakarta History Museum (Museum Sejarah Jakarta), the Museum of Fine Arts and Ceramics (Museum Seni Rupa dan Keramik) and the Puppet Museum (Museum Wayang). The entrance fee for each museum is Rp 5,000 (less than 50 US cents) for adults, Rp 3,000 for college students and Rp 2,000 for children and students.

History buffs may want to visit the Jakarta History Museum as it has exhibits about the history of the capital from Dutch colonization to the Japanese occupation.

A visitor takes photos on the second floor of the Jakarta History Museum.(JP/Wienda Parwitasari)

In addition to Jakartas history, the place also showcases antique furniture on the second floor, such as the the large Schepenkast bookcase made in 1748. In the backyard, visitors can visit an underground dungeon, where Indonesian heroes Pangeran Diponegoro and Untung Suropati were said to have been imprisoned.

Tourists visit the underground prison at the Jakarta History Museum.(JP/Wienda Parwitasari)

The Museum of Fine Arts and Ceramics is a must-visit place for art enthusiasts. There, visitors can marvel at paintings by Basuki Abdullah, Antonio Blanco, Lee Man Fong and Henk Ngantung.

Two visitors regard Antonio Blanco's painting at the Museum of Fine Arts and Ceramics.(JP/Wienda Parwitasari)

As the name implies, the museum also exhibits ceramics from various cities across the archipelago, including Malang in East Java, Yogyakarta and Bandung in West Java.

Those wanting to learn about wayang (traditional puppets) should schedule a visit to the Puppet Museum. Originally built by the East Indies Company (VOC), the building is now home to more than 6,500 wayang. Every Sunday, the place also hosts a wayang performance, which is free for museum patrons to enjoy.

A visitor marvels at the puppet collection at the Puppet Museum. (JP/Wienda Parwitasari)

In addition to those three museums, visitors can also drop by the Bank Mandiri Museum and Bank Indonesia Museum that are located opposite the Jakarta Kota train station.

Meanwhile, those wanting to take pre-wedding photos may consider Rumah Akar, an empty building on a corner of Kota Tua that has giant roots growing inside. Available for rent for Rp 200,000 per hour, the place is tad creepy, but it is popular for both photos and video shoots.

The exterior of Rumah Akar. (JP/Wienda Parwitasari)

What to do

In the square's open space, visitors will spot more than a handful of colorful sepeda ontel (antique bikes) that are available for rent for Rp 20,000 per 30 minutes. Those wanting to explore Kota Tuas surroundings can also join a guided bicycle tour. Priced at Rp 70,000, the owner of the bicycles is the tour guide who brings visitors to five spots, namely Toko Merah, Jembatan Kota Intan, Sunda Kelapa Port, Menara Syahbandar and the Maritime Museum (Museum Bahari).

Colorful antique bikes for rent. (JP/Wienda Parwitasari)

Other interesting attractions in the area are the living human statues. Scattered around the open space, visitors can take photos with these unique performers for a fee.

(Read also: Indonesia postpones plan to propose Kota Tua as world heritage site until next year)

What to eat

Cafe Batavia has become an iconic culinary spot in Kota Tua. In 1884, the building was used as a trading office for E. Dunlop & Co and later turned into Kantor Kapal Hadji (Kongsin Tiga) in 1920. It was then changed into a restaurant in 1992 and today serves a plethora of dishes, including bitterballen (a Dutch meat-based snack), pasta, classic eggs Benedict, steak and egg, dim sum set and fried rice.

A post shared by Cafe Batavia Jakarta (@cafe_batavia) on Jul 30, 2016 at 11:45pm PDT

Meanwhile, those craving Indonesian comfort foods like nasi goreng (fried rice), mie goreng (fried noodles), soto Betawi (Betawi beef soup) and sop buntut (oxtail soup) can visit Kedai Seni Djakarte.

What to shop

Since Kota Tua is a historic area, the choices to shop are quite limited. However, those wanting to bring one or two souvenirs home may want to purchase wayang from the Puppet Museum where the prices start at Rp 15,000.

In the outdoor area, visitors can also buy a number of souvenirs like rings, bracelets and necklaces, as well as temporary tattoos.

Temporary tattoo artists wait for customers. (JP/Wienda Parwitasari)

Tips

- The museums are closed on Monday.

- History buffs are advised to go on weekdays to avoid the crowds.

- Kota Tua frequently hosts art exhibitions. During our visit, the Museum of Fine Arts and Ceramics planned to host an exhibition by high school students. Meanwhile, a temporary exhibition titled the "Forsaken Children of the Compagnie" is currently on display at the Tjipta Niaga building until May 14.

- It is suggested to bring a bottle of mineral water while exploring Kota Tua as the weather could be quite hot. (kes)
By Press Trust of India: London, Mar 31 (PTI) Eating over three servings of legumes like lentils, chickpeas, beans and peas every week may significantly reduce the risk of developing type 2 diabetes, a new study has found.

Legumes are a food group rich in B vitamins, contain different beneficial minerals (calcium, potassium and magnesium) and sizeable amounts of fibre and are regarded as a low-glycemic index food, which means that blood glucose levels increase only slowly after consumption.

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Due to these unique nutritional qualities, eating legumes regularly can help improve human health.

In fact, the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the UN (FAO) declared 2016 as the international year of legumes to raise peoples awareness of their nutritional benefits.

Although legumes have long been thought to offer protection against type 2 diabetes (which is a significant health problem worldwide affecting more than 400 million adults in 2015), to date there has been little research to confirm this association.

To increase the general level of knowledge in this area, researchers from Rovira i Virgili University in Spain evaluated the association between the consumption of the different sub-types of non-soy legumes and the risk of type 2 diabetes among individuals at high cardiovascular risk.

They also evaluated the effect of replacing other protein- and carbohydrate-rich foods with legumes on the development of the disease.

Researchers analysed 3,349 participants at high risk of cardiovascular disease but without type 2 diabetes at the beginning of the study.

After 4 years of follow-up, the results showed that compared to individuals with a lower consumption of total legumes (12.73 grammes per day, about 1.5 servings per week of 60 grammes of raw legumes), individuals with a higher consumption (28.75 grammes per day, equivalent to 3.35 servings per week) had a 35 per cent lower risk of developing type 2 diabetes.

Of the different subtypes of legume, lentils in particular were associated with a lower risk of type 2 diabetes.

Those participants who had a higher consumption of lentils during the follow-up (nearly one serving/week) compare to those individuals with a lower consumption (less than half a serving per week), had a 33 per cent lower risk of developing the disease.

The researchers also found that the effect of replacing half a serving per day of foods rich in protein or carbohydrates, including eggs, bread, rice and baked potato, for half a serving per day of legumes was also associated with a lower risk of type 2 diabetes incidence. PTI MHN MHN

--- ENDS ---
The same thing can be different every night

A purple poster hangs on the wall behind us, look how big it is says Charlotte Ritchie as she realises it is the new poster for Simon CallowsThe Philanthropist, with her face sitting proudly in the forefront.

Unlike some of her on-stage colleagues inThe Philanthropist, Ritchies background on stage is just as impressive as on screen. Her theatre experience features the successful production of Private Lives, as well as a role in One Night in November.

The line learning thing is huge, its really scary even in filming Ive heard about some actors who have genuinely had people holding up signs by the camera because they cant be bothered to learn their lines and you can get away with it because they can just edit around your terrible mistakes.

I love theatre because I think both things inform each other, I think they make each thing better each time. I love having a rehearsal process, but also knowing that the same thing can be different every night and thats quite an exciting thing.

I think once this is really under our belts we will start getting into the pleasure of doing it every night, knowing we can play it slightly differently.

The main thing is the possibility of japes is higher, tricks and jokes are a higher chance in theatre.

As well as working alongside a wealth of talented individuals from the world of television, one thing Ritchie is looking forward to getting to grips with is her portrayal of Phillips (Simon Bird) fiance Celia, something which first attracted her to the role.

Theres a few things that come through every now and then and this in particular was exciting because I thought it was a very clear and a very funny play.

I really loved the character of Celia, I just found her to be very interesting and unlike a character I have played before so that was very attractive for me.

Simon Callows direction of Christopher Hamptons The Philanthropist  a comedic tale about a group of young university academics  is one of the playwrights most celebrated performances, opening for the first time at the Royal Court in 1970.

Despite the rich success of the play in its original form, Ritchie feels the cast are up for doing the original performance justice.

Everyones been working fairly hard. Three weeks is not a huge amount of time to rehearse something so we have been fairly focused and serious.

We are having a great time.

Something audiences are bound to experience when the visit Trafalgar Studios themselves.

Christopher Hamptons The Philanthropist, directed by Simon Callow is at The Trafalgar Studios from 3rd April until 22nd July. Tickets: www.atgtickets.com/the-philanthropist / 0844 871 7632
A group of feminists are handing out free and discounted sex toys to women in an effort to help sexually liberate them.

SexyLiberation was created by a number of women who work and live together in Indiana with the hope of not only normalising womens sexual heath and exploration, but promoting it too.

For most of my life, womens pleasure has been a topic that was either ignored or treated as taboo. This became especially clear to my friends and I during school, where in sexual education courses, female orgasm was never once discussed, Jannet of SexyLiberation said.

The friends  who are all software developers  had endless conversations on the topic before deciding to try to make a change.

And so SexyLiberation was born.

This org offers free/low cost sex toys on the basis that money shouldn't be a barrier to orgasms! https://t.co/rddEttZMHo  kaiii (@Betty_Shocker) March 29, 2017

SexyLiberation offers an array of sexy toys to choose from and theres no need to worry, all the orders are shipped in discreet packaging.

The website reads: Many people dont have access to  or havent been exposed to  the exciting world of sexual exploration, we want to help people, especially women, by being a stepping stone.

Personal experimentation with sex aids can help women discover and embrace their own sources of pleasure.

(golubovy/Thinkstock)

Its safe to say SexyLiberation has been well received.

Weve been bombarded by emails from people whove read about SexyLiberation online and are excited about our initiative, Jannet said.

They almost always tell us they are thrilled with, and grateful for, the accessibility and affordability of sex toys at SexyLiberation  with people loving the free items!

Jannet said they also get lots of emails telling them people appreciate someone is doing something to normalise and promote womens sexual health.
Its not the beginning of a new punk movement with people in tuxedos and dickie-bows, its just a bit of fun, serious fun but fun nonetheless.

Punk legend Glenn Matlock is on the line to discuss The Anarchy Arias, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestras album of full-blown orchestral, operatic reworkings of tunes from the classic punk song-book.

As bassist in the Sex Pistols and the Rich Kids, and playing on albums from Iggy Pop and The Damned, Matlock has a history of inspiring people from the heart of the punk scene. Although this new operatic outing is not his work, he again inspired the ideas.

About a year ago I did a little gig, something to do with Marshall headphones, a friend of mine from Scandinavia and I did a version of Pretty Vacant with a string quartet that was pretty interesting. It went down really well and somebody saw it and they took the idea and ran with it, explains Matlock.

I got approached a while back saying we are doing this thing, would you be interested in speaking about it I was like well, I havent heard it, you know, but they sent me some stuff over and it sounded really good. I loved the string arrangements. I thought yeah, alright, cool. Its as simple as that really.

I am not the driving force behind it, but I think its good and I think people should check it out.

For those scene-punks taking the thats not punk line with this new album Matlock takes the expected confrontational stance.

I think they should get some business and mind it. We always did what we wanted. With the Pistols, if wed done what was going down at the time we would have ended up sounding like a light jazz combo like Kokomo or something like that. Which wasnt going to happen, we just did what we wanted to do.

In fact, he points out that breaking the expected punk template is nothing new.

Yeah definitely, its not the first time. Even on the Rock n Roll Swindle album, which was done after I left, that has strings on it. Theres a fantastic version of Anarchy in the UK by a guy called Jerzimy and he sings Anarchy in the UK in French, in waltz time and on accordion and its great. I hadnt even thought of that when I came up with all the chord changes, it just puts a different slant on things.

Anarchy Arias takes in a fine selection of classic punk tunes from the likes of the Sex Pistols, The Clash, The Stranglers, X-Ray Spex and The Damned  songs that, despite the simplistic reputation of punk music, have good arrangements and incredible lyrics. This has to be the case for them to be so easily transformed into such a different style.

Punk has always been about challenging the norms and Anarchy Arias certainly offers the chance to see these songs in a new light.

Matlock says: I think the best things in art, in music, in popular culture are the things that stick out like a sore-thumb and thats what I like about this, its just come out of nowhere and its interesting. Theres a great selection of songs on it  a couple of Pistols ones, a couple of Clash ones, but I like stuff like Ce Plane Un Moi by Plastic Bertrand and its great to see Sound of the Suburbs on there, I think thats a very clever song. It was written about people from the satellite towns who got wind of the punk thing a little bit too late and spent all that time catching up, its great.

Punk itself (or at least the British incarnation) celebrated 40 years last year and still reverberates around popular culture. Commentators still constantly ask if something like it could happen again; for Matlock the answer is both yes and no.

You cant take it out of the time and place, the people that were involved - its not something that you can manufacture. People say nothing has come along since but I disagree. The heavy rap stuff in the States, N.W.A, to me theyre pretty punk. I am sure theres someone beavering away in the living room, or garage thats got something to say. Eminem had a punk attitude, its not safety pins and things but I never subscribed to that. I saw Steve Jones not long ago and he has a book out and it decries the carbon copy punks, it was never about that. The whole idea was to be forward looking and not be the modern-day equivalent of the Teddy Boys, where if you dont get the seam on your coat exactly right you are not one.

Although he is endorsing Anarchy Arias Matlock is clear that this is not his work, and he has other exciting things on the horizon.

I have a great album in the can. Slim Jim Phantom from the Stray Cats playing drums, also Earl Slick from Bowies band is all over it playing guitar and I am just really chuffed at getting that all together. This things just come up and its probably helped me out in a strange kind of way. That wasnt the intention but these things work out like that sometimes.

I am really proud of it, its a real departure for me it doesnt sound like anything else around and its back to sticking out like a sore thumb.

Anarchy Arias is out 9th June on Universal Music.

Full tracklisting:

1) Pretty Vacant (originally performed by Sex Pistols)

2) No More Heroes (originally performed by The Stranglers)

3) Should I Stay Or Should I Go (originally performed by The Clash)

4) Ca Plane Pour Moi (originally performed by Plastic Bertrand)

5) Teenage Kicks (originally performed by The Undertones)

6) The Sound Of The Suburbs (originally performed by The Members)

7) Ever Fallen In Love(With Someone You Shouldntve) (originally performed by Buzzcocks)

8) God Save The Queen (originally performed by Sex Pistols)

9) London Calling (originally performed by The Clash)

10) Babylons Burning (originally performed by The Ruts)

11) Oh Bondage Up Yours! (originally performed by X Ray Spex)

12) Love Will Tear Up Apart (originally performed by Joy Division)

13) Neat Neat Neat (originally performed by The Damned)
The Government has published details of proposed legislation to transfer the whole of EU law on to the UK statute book as Britain leaves the European Union.

Brexit Secretary David Davis told the House of Commons that the Great Repeal Bill will provide clarity and certainty for businesses and citizens as Brexit takes place, with standards and rules maintained until Parliament decides to amend or remove them.

The Bill will repeal the European Communities Act 1972, which provides legal underpinning for Britains EU membership.

Heres everything you need to know:

What was Daviss message in the House of Commons?

David Davis (Yui Mok/PA)

Davis told MPs: We have been clear that we want a smooth and orderly exit, and the Great Repeal Bill is integral to that approach.

It will provide clarity and certainty for businesses, workers and consumers across the United Kingdom on the day we leave the EU. It will mean that as we exit the EU and seek a new deep and special partnership with the European Union, we will be doing so from the position where we have the same standards and rules.

He added that the bill would also ensure that the Government delivered on its promise to end the supremacy of EU law in the UK as we exit.

He said: Our laws will then be made in London, Edinburgh, Cardiff and Belfast and interpreted not by judges in Luxembourg but by judges across the United Kingdom.

What did the Prime Minister have to say?

Theresa May (Christopher Furlong/PA)

Davis published details of the proposed bill in a white paper entitled Legislating For The United Kingdoms Withdrawal From The European Union.

In a foreword to the paper, PM Theresa May said the bill would provide maximum certainty as we leave the EU, allowing businesses, public officials and individuals to plan for the future while Brexit negotiations are ongoing.

The Great Repeal Bill is an important part of our plan to deliver a smooth and orderly Brexit that commands the confidence of all, she said.

The task ahead may be significant, but I am confident we can make it a success. This white paper is an essential step along the way.

What will the Great Repeal Bill do?

Davis said the Great Repeal Bill will provide a power to correct the statute book where necessary using secondary legislation  which critics have warned will not allow full parliamentary scrutiny of the process.

He added: This power will be time limited and Parliament will need to be satisfied that the procedures in the Bill for making and approving the secondary legislation are appropriate.

There was a balance to be struck between the importance of scrutiny and correcting the statute book in time, he said.

What about the European Court of Justice?

The European Court of Justice (Cedric Puisney/ Flickr

Davis said the Bill will not give the European Court of Justice (ECJ) a future role in the interpretation of UK laws, and courts will not be obliged to consider cases decided by the ECJ after Brexit.

But while EU-derived law is on the UK statute book it is essential that there is common understanding of that legislation, so courts will refer to ECJ case law as it exists on the day we leave the EU.

This approach maximises legal certainty at the point of departure, but our intention is not to fossilise the past decisions of the ECJ, he said.

ECJ case law would be given the same status as Supreme Court decisions, which can be overruled by subsequent rulings in the UKs highest court.

What major changes are expected?

UK Government will "remove" the Charter of Fundamental Rights from UK law pic.twitter.com/aqqrLAMfHT  Faisal Islam (@faisalislam) March 30, 2017

Davis reiterated the Prime Ministers intention to grant significant extra decision-making powers to the devolved administrations as jurisdiction returns from Brussels.

But he stressed that common UK frameworks may be needed in some areas in order to preserve the working of the internal market.

The white paper confirmed that the Government intends to pass a number of further bills over the next two years to prepare for specific aspects of Brexit, including a customs bill and an immigration bill.

While making clear that there are no plans to pull the UK out of the European Convention on Human Rights, it stated that the EUs Charter of Fundamental Rights will not be converted into UK law.

The loss of charter protections will not affect individuals substantive rights, which are already covered by human rights legislation in the UK or international agreements to which Britain is a signatory, said the paper.

How challenging will it be?

There are currently more than 12,000 EU regulations in force (Yui Mok/PA)

Although it had no precise figure for the number of EU rules which will be transferred into domestic law, it noted that there are currently more than 12,000 EU regulations in force, while Parliament has passed 7,900 statutory instruments implementing EU legislation and 186 Acts which incorporate a degree of EU influence.

A very significant proportion of EU-derived laws contain provisions which will not function effectively without amendment, but which are not appropriate for primary legislation, said the paper.

Attempting to make technical changes of this kind through primary legislation would create a prohibitively large amount of work for Parliament.

Instead, around 800 to 1,000 statutory instruments will be introduced  almost as many as Parliament passes in an average year  in an effort to strike a balance between the importance of scrutiny and the speed of this process.

Whats been the reaction?

Gina Miller (Yui Mok/PA)

Campaigner Gina Miller, who successfully took the Government to court over its plans to trigger Brexit without parliamentary approval, said she was considering legal action to challenge the use of Henry VIII powers to alter individuals rights.

Speaking to Emma Barnett on BBC Radio 5 Live Daily, she said: The Government has already blotted its copybook by trying to bypass Parliament and use the Royal Prerogative, so if there is any sniff that they are trying to use Henry VIII powers, that would be profoundly unparliamentary and undemocratic, and I would seek legal advice, because what you are doing is setting a precedent that Government could bypass Parliament.

Labour MP Chuka Umunna, chairman of Vote Leave Watch, described the Great Repeal Bill as an immense undertaking, fraught with danger.

Right-wing Tory Brexiteers like Liam Fox and Priti Patel have spent years waiting for this moment to cut the rights of British working people, said Umunna. From anti-discrimination laws to the Social Chapter to ECJ case law providing holiday pay, too many Conservatives see Brexit as a chance for a damaging bonfire of regulations.
There will be no change in the manner of filing of ITR Forms and all the returns are to be filed electronically.

The government today notified a simpler, one-page form for filing income tax returns while making it mandatory to quote Aadhaar number and disclose bank deposits of more than Rs 2 lakh post demonetisation.

The Income Tax Return Form-1 (Sahaj) will replace the 7-page form, removing a plethora of columns on deductions from income claimed.

Sahaj can be filed by an individual having income of up to Rs 50 lakh from salary, house property and interest.

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Currently, SAHAJ (ITR 1) is filed by salaried employees and ITR 2 by individuals and HUFs whose income does not include income from business.

ITR 1-SAHAJ: For individuals having income from salaries, one house property, other sources (interest, etc) and having total income upto Rs 50 lakh

The government has done away with form ITR 2A (used by individuals & HUFs not having income from business or profession and capital gains and by those who do not hold foreign assets).

Sahaj makes quoting of 12-digit biometric identifier Aadhaar number mandatory along with Permanent Account Number (PAN) and also seeks details of cash in excess of Rs 2 lakh that was deposited in bank accounts in the 50-day post demonetisation window.

ITR 2 and ITR 3 have a Schedule AL requiring assessees to declare their assets and liabilities at the end of the fiscal.

Form No.:ITR-2: For individuals and HUFs not carrying out business or profession under any proprietorship

The e-filing facility for ITR-1 is enabled from April 1 and ITRs can be filed till the stipulated deadline of July 31.

Besides personal details, an income tax filer needs to disclose only his income from salary or pension, one house property and other sources like interest. Thereafter,deduction claims are to be stated, followed by computation of taxable income.

Bank details are to be filled in the column following that. Details of advance tax, self-assessment tax payments and tax deducted at source come next.

In the column for providing bank details, cash deposited in excess of Rs 2 lakh during November 9 to December 30, 2016 has to be mentioned.

The rationalised ITR will "reduce the compliance burden to a significant extent on the individual tax payer," the CBDT said, adding that the move would benefit more than two crore tax-payers who will be eligible to file their return of incomein this simplified Form.

Form No.:ITR-3: For individuals and HUFs having income from a proprietary business or profession

"Simultaneously, the number of ITR Forms have been reduced from the existing nine to seven forms. The existing ITR Forms ITR-2, ITR-2A and ITR-3 have been rationalised and a single ITR-2 has been notified in place of these three forms,"it said.

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ITR 4 (filed by Individuals & HUFs having income from a proprietary business or profession) will now be known as 'Sugam' and ITR-4S will be substituted.

"Going forward for AY 2017-18, the benefit of using the simplest ITR form i.e. ITR-Sahaj shall not be available to the following category of taxpayers: those earning total income of more than Rs 50 Lakh, those earning dividend income of morethan Rs 10 lakh and those whose total income includes cash credits, unexplained investments, unexplained money etc," said Nangia & Co Partner Suraj Nangia.

Similarly, ITR 4 (Sugam) cannot be used by the following category of taxpayers -- those earning dividend income of more than Rs 10 lakh, those whose total income includes cash credits, unexplained investments, unexplained money etc.

ITR-4: Sugam for presumptive income from business and profession

At the time of filing the form, the taxpayer has to fill in PAN, Aadhaar number, personal information and information on taxes paid. TDS will be auto-filled in the form.

ITR-5: For persons other than - (i) individual, (ii) HUF, (iii) company and (iv) person filing Form ITR-7

(Inputs from PTI)

--- ENDS ---
Nicola Sturgeon has written a letter to Theresa May formally requesting a second Scottish independence referendum.

The Scottish Government tweeted a picture of the First Minister with her feet up on a couch in her Bute House residence writing the Section 30 letter on Thursday evening.

First Minister @NicolaSturgeon in Bute House, Edinburgh, working on final draft of Section 30 letter to Prime Minister Theresa May pic.twitter.com/Blj7jlDpDT  Scottish Government (@scotgov) March 30, 2017

This week, MSPs voted by 69 to 59 in favour of seeking permission for an independence referendum to take place between autumn 2018 and spring 2019.

Sturgeon said her mandate for another vote is now beyond question, and warned it would be democratically indefensible and utterly unsustainable to attempt to stand in the way.

(Scottish Government)

Scottish Secretary David Mundell said the UK Government would decline the request.

Sturgeon is pressing ahead with a formal approach for a section 30 order  the mechanism for the powers to hold a referendum.

It is expected to be sent to Downing Street today.
Amsterdam is a great place to go unwind and relax for the weekend while enjoying fantastic architecture on a canal cruise, or taking the tram down to the Van Gogh Museum. Whether visiting during the snowy season of winter or in spring when the flowers begin to bloom, Amsterdam is well worth a visit any time of year.

To learn about the city I cruised along a few of the canals to see a tonne of different locations where I could visit during my stay, but was also able to find out about the history of Amsterdam and what makes it such a free city where people can partake in numerous activities.

Throughout the city you'll see intricate graffiti on cafes and coffee shops. These images provide a nice contrast to the fantastic architecture and well preserved buildings that can usually be found on the same streets.

Without a plan, navigating the city becomes easier the longer you're there. Eventually a grand building such as the Royal Palace will be standing in front of you in all of its glory. The square out front is great to relax in, so long as there is not snow on all of the sitting areas. I can only imagine how beautiful it must be during the spring when the tulips begin to pop up.

While in his country, I had to visit the museum which pays homage to the man with whom I share a name. The Van Gogh Museum is stunning and it tells the story of the artist in a great chronological fashion that allows you to understand why he produced the artwork he did - I highly recommend taking an hour and a half to see the entire museum. My particular highlight was the end, where the artwork from when Vincent was in jail towards the end of his life is on display. Amazing.

I was lucky enough to have the sun come out on the final day of our stay and it really did make all the difference for how I saw the city. The snow makes it quite mellow and beautiful, but with the sun the buildings are able to show their real beauty and more people come out to enjoy themselves. I would certainly like to return to see the city in spring, but anytime you go you are sure to enjoy it for all it has to offer.
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The vacant Taylor Ford property on Telegraph Road north of Goddard will soon see some new life according to Mayor Rick Sollars.

DriveTime Automotive Group will soon begin renovating the location and eventually bring up to 80 jobs to the area. The renovations are expected to cost about $600,000.

DriveTime was a challenging new business to bring into the City, Sollars said. We essentially have an ordinance against new used car lots, but DriveTime appealed and the Zoning Board granted a variance. This is going to be more than your typical used car lot. DriveTime plans to renovate the facility consistent with our new Goddard Road guidelines, which includes decorative fencing, new trees, landscaping and sidewalks.

Sollars said that the DriveTime model is competitive on the national stage with businesses like CarMax and AutoNation. This will be the second location in Michigan.

The site has been empty for about three years. The dealership moved to southbound Telegraph, south of North Line Road, during an $8M consolidation, expansion and modernization project. The old site was owned by the Whitfield family, another auto dealer.

DriveTime is a private company headquartered in Tempe, Arizona, with a business model is focused on selling previously owned vehicles to car-buyers with poor credit. It uses a proprietary credit scoring model to finance car purchases at its dealerships in-house, and also leases vehicles.

DriveTime buys 150,000 cars annually at various auctions, puts them through a 14-day inspection at one of 24 centers and makes necessary repairs before sending the vehicles to its dealerships.
From K J M Varma

Beijing, Mar 31 (PTI) France today warned its citizens in China to maintain "utmost vigilance" after a Chinese man injured a French national in a blade attack in Shanghai.

The 27-year-old attacker, surnamed Mao, attacked the French national on Wednesday after a Chinese national was shot dead in Paris, Shanghai police said.

The victim was slightly injured on his neck.

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In response to the incident, the French Consulate in Shanghai issued a warning to its citizens in China, asking them to be on guard.

"Given the situation, the French embassy in China calls on members of the French community to exercise the utmost vigilance," it said in a statement.

Mao, who is suffering from mental disorder, allegedly slashed a French national with a blade at the intersection of Yongjia street and Jiashan street in Shanghais Xuhui district.

The attacker fled the scene, but was caught on the same day, state-run Xinhua news agency reported, adding that an investigation was going on into the incident.

It is not clear whether the attack on the French national was connected to the death of Chinese national in Paris.

Liu, 56-year-old Chinese national and a father of five, was shot dead on Sunday in his apartment by a policeman after a neighbour had called the police to report a domestic dispute, the report said.

According to police, Liu was killed after he tried to attack the officer with a pair of scissors "as soon as the door was opened."

However, Lius daughter said the police had burst through the door and "the shot was gone and my father found himself on the ground," the report said.

The girl said her father was holding the scissors as he had been preparing fish for cooking.

French Interior Minister Matthias Fekl on Tuesday said an inquiry was going on after the shooting, promising full respect for the law "to establish the facts."

Earlier on Tuesday, the Chinese Foreign Ministry called on the French government to ascertain the truth in a quick manner and effectively protect safety and legitimate rights and interests of the Chinese citizens residing in France. PTI KJV MRJ AKJ MRJ

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Home >Camera Enforcement > Red Light Cameras > OPINION: Road And Track Is Wrong About Red Light Cameras
Shiv Sena MP Ravindra Gaikwad has tried at least four times to book a seat on the national carrier, using a new alias each time.

By Press Trust of India: Barred from flying by domestic airlines and booked by police for assaulting an Air India staffer, Shiv Sena MP Ravindra Gaikwad has tried at least four times to book a seat on the national carrier, using a new alias each time.

Earlier this week, a staff member of the Sena politician dialled Air India's call centre to book flight AI 806 from Mumbai to Delhi for the following day, i.e. Wednesday, and dictated the passenger's name as Ravindra Gaikwad. The ticket was promptly cancelled, an airline source said.

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Thereafter, a seat was booked on flight AI 551 from Hyderabad to Delhi in the name of Professor V Ravindra Gaikwad. This ticket was cancelled too.

A third attempt was made the next day for travel from Nagpur to Delhi via Mumbai when the MPs staff contacted a travel agent to book a flight for "Professor Ravindra Gaikwad".

The travel agent immediately contacted the local station manager and the information was forwarded to Air India's headquarters here, the source said.

His last attempt to book a ticket was on March 30th when he made a failed bid to fly from Mumbai to Nagpur.

The airline had earlier issued a "non-acceptance order" to all its station managers and booking offices, instructing them to ensure that "restriction on acceptance and travel of potentially unruly and unsafe passengers is being followed on Air India flights for Mr Ravindra Gaikwad".

In an unprecedented step in Indian aviation history, the Sena MP was earlier barred from flying by all major domestic airlines for assaulting an elderly Air India employee last Thursday.

The MP was angry at not being given a business class seat though he had boarded an economy flight.

Also watch:

Mystery over Ravindra Gaikwad's whereabouts: MP not on Duronto Express

Also read:

Ravindra Gaikwad barred from flying: Speaker seeks report from Aviation ministry, puts privilege motion on hold

Mumbai to Delhi via train for Ravindra Gaikwad after Air India cancels ticket for third time

Ravindra Gaikwad row: Shiv Sena meets speaker to demand action, not against MP, but against Air India

--- ENDS ---
The state Assembly today amended the Gujarat Cow Protection Act to make laws even more stringent.

By Gopi Maniar Ghanghar : Cow slaughter is now a non-bailable offence and punishable with life imprisonment in Gujarat, after the state Assembly today amended the Gujarat Animal Preservation Act of 1954 to make laws even more stringent. The Act was last amended in 2011.

As well, people found to be in possession of beef will be slapped with a fine that can range from Rs 1 lakh to Rs 5 lakh, and imprisoned for seven to 10 years. And that, too, is a non-bailable offence.

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Until now, the maximum jail term for possession was seven years, and the minimum term was three years. The penalty was Rs 50,000.

Earlier this month, Gujarat Chief Minister Vijay Rupani hinted that his government was thinking about introducing a Bill with stringent provisions to save cows.

This amendment comes at a time when Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Aditynath has ordered a crackdown on illegal slaughterhouses in his state, just days into his tenure.

(Inputs from PTI)

Watch Video: Now cow slaughter will attract life imprisonment in Gujarat

ALSO READ | Cow protection very important for us, says Uttar Pradesh CM Adityanath Yogi

ALSO READ | Haryana cow protection group to ask state government to stop providing commercial licenses for slaughterhouses

ALSO WATCH | Uttar Pradesh: Cow protection massive on Yogi Adityanath's agenda

--- ENDS ---
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By Press Trust of India: From Youssra El-Sharkawy

Cairo, Mar 30 (PTI) India and Egypt should unify their efforts to face challenges like terrorism, extremism and radicalisation, Indias envoy here said today.

The historical bilateral relationship since the time of Mahatma Gandhi and Egyptian leader Saad Zaghloul is continuing to this time, Ambassador of India to Egypt Sanjay Bhattacharyya said.

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India and Egypt should unify their efforts to face challenges like radicalisation, extremism and terrorism, he said during a business seminar on India-Egypt engagement at British University in Egypt (BUE) in the presence of Indian and Egyptian businessmen.

"India has 50 joint projects in Egypt. The total of Indian investments here is USD three billion. Trade exchange between Egypt and India was USD 5.6 billion but dropped recently due to the decline of global oil prices," Bhattacharyya said.

The seminar focused on potential areas for enhancement of bilateral trade and investments in the context of Indias initiatives such as Make in India, Digital India, Skill India, Startup India Standup India and Smart City Mission.

The event provided investors with updates on Indian government policies and initiatives aimed at increasing the ease of doing business in India.

Ambassador Mahmoud Karem, advisor to the president of BUE for foreign affairs, said the seminar aims at discussing investment opportunities in the two countries.

Mostafa El-Fiki, former Egyptian ambassador to India and BUE board member spoke about his experience in India during 1997, saying India is one of the biggest industrial countries in Asia.

"India has a very dear part in our hearts," he said.

Indian governments representative Anna Roy gave a presentation about investment opportunities in India.

President of the BUE Professor Ahmed Hamad said the British university in Cairo, which started 11 years ago, not only provides education but also plays a society service role.

"We are happy to have here Egyptian and Indian businessmen to activate the successful Indian model that we are proud of as we hear about its great progress in IT and medicine industry," Hamad said. PTI YES CPS

--- ENDS ---
Rollover results in passenger being injured after being enjected

The highway patrol and Watertown Fire Rescue responded to a rollover accident on Saturday. Passenger was thrown from the vehicle, sustaining injuries.
By Press Trust of India: New Delhi, Mar 30 (PTI) India held foreign office consultations with Zimbabwe and Zambia, discussing a gamut of issues ranging from high-level political exchanges to matters related to economic and commercial matters.

The External Affairs Ministry said foreign office consultations have also enabled to lay a roadmap for further enhanced cooperation in view of Indias outreach to Africa post the India Africa Forum Summit (IAFS)-III Summit.

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Led by Neena Malhotra, Joint Secretary (East and Southern Africa), the first round of foreign office consultations with Zimbabwe and second round with Zambia were held on March 20 and March 24, respectively.

The Zimbabwean side was led by Ambassador Jonathan Wutawunashe and the Zambian side was led by Ambassador Chalwe Lombe, Permanent Secretary in the Zambian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

During the meeting, the two sides discussed a gamut of issues including high-level political exchanges, development cooperation programmes, projects under India Africa Forum Summit (IAFS) mechanism.

Discussion on cooperation in the multilateral fora and trade, economic and commercial matters were also held.

"Both sides exchanged views on issues of regional and global importance while acknowledging the commonality of positions on matters of reform of international institutions and cooperation in regional grouping," a statement by the Ministry of External Affairs said. PTI PR AAR

--- ENDS ---
Guwahati, Mar 31 (PTI) President Pranab Mukherjee today said intolerance has never been allowed in India and unity in diversity with mutual coexistence and understanding is the strength of the country.

Mukherjee said the mutual co-existence and understanding is the countrys strength and managing this diversity its greatest power.

"If it is said Indians are argumentative, I will agree. But if it is said Indians are intolerant, I refuse to agree. Intolerance has never been allowed," he said.

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"There will be diversity of opinion. People of India have the capacity to find the bond of unity", the President said here after inaugurating the five-day river festival Namami Brahmaputra.

He said there are 200 languages spoken across the length and breath of India while all major seven religions are practised in the country.

"Nowhere in the world is found so much ethnic diversity," Mukherjee said.

"Despite that we are one nation, have one Constitution, living under one flag, one system maintaining regional identity. We are one nation," he said.

"The emergence of Neo Vaishnavism on the banks of river Brahmaputra by polymath Mahapurush Srimanta Sankardeb and others has given a new direction and a new regularity to our culture," the President said.

Mukherjee said during his visits to Assam earlier, "I have seen greatness, kindness of heart. In times of agitation, tension I faced no problem as a political activist."

Noting that the culture and economy of Northeast are essential ingredients of the Brahmaputra civilisation, he said, "The river witnessed the rise and fall of mighty empires, heroism of men and women, individual spirit challenging invaders."

Because of this the Moghuls could not establish their empire in Assam where the Battle of Saraighat was fought (in 1671 between the Mughal empire and Ahom kings in Assam), Mukherjee said.

Appreciating the cultural tradition of the Brahmaputra civilisation, he asked the Assam Government to have a cruise along the Brahmaputra showcasing its culture.

"Brahmaputra has legends, history, tradition, tales to tell visitors national or international. It will boost tourism here," the President said.

Assam has the most influential location to put in place Prime Minister Narendra Modis Act East Policy, he said.

"People here are hard working and natural resources are available here. An appropriate policy needs to be built up backed by appropriate technology," Mukherjee suggested.

The President was also appreciative of Bhutan, whose Prime Minister Tshering Tobgay was present in the festival, introducing gross national happiness of people in place of GDP.

"Bhutans former King Jigme Singye Wangchuk had said in the UN measuring GDP in his Himalayan kingdom as gross national happiness. Thanks to his contribution is indication in various UN reports about gross national happiness of people," he added. PTI ESB PR KIS

--- ENDS ---

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Chandu explained that it was the night of September 29 last year and he was patrolling on the LoC. Chandu mistakenly ventured into the area controlled by Pakistan on the other side of the LoC. immediately three Pakistani Rangers captured him.

Pakistani Rangers took away Chandu's rifle. He was beaten black and blue with no one asking any question about anything. This continued till he started bleeding profusely. Then one of the Pakistani soldiers asked his co-trooper to shoot Chandu. The other Ranger agreed and aimed at Chandu with his rifle. He cocked his gun and was about to fire when the third Pakistan Ranger stopped him from killing Chandu.

The three Pakistani Rangers agreed to take a final call about killing him later on. They covered Chandu's face and whisked him away to some unknown location. Here, Chandu was interrogated. Chandu was asked whether he had come for the assault. Did he enter to kill? Was he part of the surgical strike team? Interestingly, when Pakistan Rangers were posing these questions to Chandu, the country's leaders refuted the reports of surgical strike by Indian Army's special commandos.

Chandu kept telling his interrogators that he crossed the LoC by mistake. He stood by his word even though they kept torturing him and threatened to kill him. The threat was repeated so many times that Chandu believed that he would be shot dead any moment. He believed that there was no hope to go back alive from their captivity. Questions about surgical strike continued during the interrogation.

Chandu was taken to different locations by road during his long interrogation and torture. These were short journeys, not of more than two hours at one stretch. Chandu recalls hearing sound of some other vehicles following the one he was transported from one place to other. Chandu does not remember the people who interrogated him as their faces were always covered except for their eyes.

Chandu was kept in small room having high ceiling. The room did not have a fan. There was no light and no ventilation. His room was stinky as he was made to relieve himself inside the room. At night, Chandu heard voices of other people held captive in other rooms. The screams would echo as the captives were tortured. Chandu heard people shouting, crying and sometimes singing loudly.

Chandu told India Today that he too cried a lot and shouted wildly. Chandu would sing National Anthem loudly to keep himself motivated. But, whenever he sang National Anthem, someone from the Pakistani side would come to him asking to stop singing. Chandu continued to defy his captors, he said.

During his first interrogation after being caught by the Pakistani Rangers, Chandu misled his captors saying that he was alone in his family. But as the news flashed on Indian TV channels and media showed details of his family revealing that even Chandu's brother worked for Indian Army, his torture increased.

Chandu was tied by a rope upside down and was beaten by thick rubber belts as the Pakistanis came to know about his family. Chandu says that during the four months in captivity there was not a single day when he was not beaten up by Pakistanis. Chandu would not be given food for days at a stretch. He used to bang his head on the wall and scream as loud as he could. Chandu says that he was injected some drugs that made him semiconscious.

After initial days of his torture, Chandu says, he became accustomed to their techniques and routine. Chandu would often challenge the Pakistanis to beat him up with all their strength. He would shout back at Pakistanis while he was being beaten and tortured using expletives that he knew. The sense of belongingness to India and the flair of patriotism kept him going and gave strength to bear all the torture, Chandu told India Today.

There were several emotional moments for Chandu, who would often fall into the spells of his childhood memories. In the captivity, Chandu felt alone, recollected incidents from his childhood, his friends, schools, granny, grandfather and family. Revisiting olden days brought smiles on Chandu's face and helped him forget, momentarily, the pain that he suffered at the enemy's hands. Chandu recited Ganesha aarti or sang bollywood songs or pray to the almighty.

Chandu even started doing 'absurd' things in Pakistan's captivity. He would kill mosquitoes by clapping turning it into a game. Later, he would catch the mosquitoes and talk to them placing the blood-suckers between his palms. Speaking to India Today, Chandu said, so much of drugs were injected into his body that even now he senses stinky burps while having food. His feet and waist still pain badly.

Tired with the monotonous answers by Chandu Chouhan, Pakistani Rangers forced him to go several tests administering him drugs that made him lose consciousness. He was made to sleep on a stretcher as wires were attached to his body. Chandu thinks he was forced to undergo narco and polygraph tests.

Chandu told India Today that Pakistani army officers talked about Prime Minister Narendra Modi. However, he refused to divulge the details saying that the content and import of the conversation have been conveyed to Indian Army authorities.
The government has approved five proposals, including those of Oracle India and L&T Construction Equipment, for setting up IT special economic zones (SEZs).

These SEZs were given approval by the Board of Approval (BoA), chaired by Commerce Secretary Rita Teaotia, at its meeting on March 8.

Oracle India has proposed to set up IT and ITeS zone in Karnataka. L&T Construction Equipment has planned two similar zones in the state, too, according to the minutes of the meeting.

Modern Asset and Modern Asset (Phase II) received the BoA approval for their IT zone in Karnataka as well.

Further, the BoA has given more time to as many as 10 SEZ developers and units to implement their projects.

The Kandla Port Trust, developer of multi product SEZ at Kandla, in Gujarat got one year extra window till May 6, 2018, to execute its project.

The others that got additional time include Golden Tower Infratech, Brookefield Real Estate and Projects and SEZ Biotec Services.

During April-September, exports from these zones stood at Rs.2.21 lakh crore as against Rs 4.63 lakh crore in 2014-15.

Nearly 500 proposals for SEZs have been formally approved by the government, of which over 200 are operational.
India and Afghanistan on March 30 held discussions on ways to facilitate transit of goods, business visas and trade in pharmaceutical products.

Both the sides also agreed for further cooperation in sectors such as renewable energy, power, standards, agriculture, transportation and public health.

These issues were discussed in the second meeting of the Joint Working Group on Trade, Commerce and Investment between India and Afghanistan, at the level of commerce secretary.

The two sides had extensive discussions on a variety of issues concerning bilateral trade and economic relations, the commerce ministry said in a statement.

The Indian delegation was led by Commerce Secretary Rita Teaotia and the Afghan delegation was headed by Mohammad Qurban Haqjo, Deputy Minister for Commerce.

Both the countries also deliberated upon ways to increase trade of rough gemstones, increasing customs cooperation, besides opportunities for investments.
The Springdales School in Dhaula Kuan, New Delhi joined hands with the Indian Red Cross Society for a noble cause as they organised a blood donation camp on Friday.

Parent body, faculty members and class IV staff participated in the compassionate cause and deepened social awareness among the blood donors.

For every blood-donor, the school made sure that they go through adequate check-ups before donating blood.
In a major setback to Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh, the Delhi High Court on Friday refused to quash the disproportionate assets case against him and his wife.

The court also dismissed his plea challenging an FIR by the CBI against him and vacated the Himachal Pradesh High Court's order restraining the CBI from arresting, interrogating or filing charge sheet against him and his wife.

The Himachal Pradesh High Court on December 2, 2015, had also dismissed the petitions filed by Singh, his wife Pratibha and son Vikramaditya, challenging the orders of the income tax department to reassess their revised returns.

The 81-year-old chief minister had on December 2, 2015, filed a plea seeking directions to the CBI to supply a complete copy of the FIR, including statements relating to assets at the beginning and end of the check period.

(With inputs from agencies)
Japan has showed interest in investing in Punjab and partnering the state across key segments of growth and development, with a high-level delegation of the Japanese envoy and Mitsubishi Managing Director meeting Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh on Thursday to discuss a range of possible areas of investment and collaboration.

The meeting between CM and Kenji Hiramatsu, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary, Embassy of Japan, along with Kazunori Konishi, Managing Director Mitsubishi Heavy Industries India Private Limited, was described by both sides as preliminary but paved the way for more intensive discussions going forward.

Discussions at the meeting, which came within days of the CM government taking over the states reins, covered a wide range of subjects, which the two sides agreed to deliberate further to work out a collaborative mechanism.

An official spokesperson said that after the meeting that Mitsubishi made a presentation to the CM listing several important areas for possible investment.

These included Power, Smart Cities, (Automated Guideway Transit), Industrial Parks and Captive Power Plants, besides strengthening of some existing projects.

The CM showed interest in the AGT  a public transportation system based on Transit Oriented Development (TOD)  as a cheaper alternative to Metro Rail to offer an affordable and easy commuting option to people in the congested cities of Punjab, such as Ludhiana, Amritsar and Jalandhar.

Amarinder also discussed development of roads and highways as a key step towards improvement of Punjabs infrastructure. The CM also showed interest in Japanese investment in the development of economic corridors in the state.

Another important area that came up for discussion during the meeting was improvement in agriculture and horticulture, with the CM noting that despite small land holdings, Japanese farmers were able to deliver high yields.

Punjabs farmers could learn from the Japanese and use new methods to adopt a similar approach, he said, adding that the paddy and wheat cycle was no longer viable for the farming community and needed to be replaced with something more lucrative, such as horticulture.

The two sides decided to explore possible cooperation in agriculture and the CM invited Japanese experts to visit the state, particularly the Punjab Agriculture University, to examine the feasibility of agricultural cooperation. An exchange programme for agricultural scientists could be worked out, he added.

Recalling the cold chain capabilities development programme initiated by his government during his previous CM tenure, Amarinder suggested reviving the cold chain to drive agricultural exports from Punjab to Japan and other countries.
More than 30 Naxals attacked Doikallu railway station in Odishas Rayagada district on Friday in protest against Prime Minister Narendra Modis upcoming visit to the state on April 15. Reports suggest that there were two explosions at the site of the attack.

The naxals are reported to have fled the place with two walkie-talkies and also left posters protesting Prime Minister Modi's Odisha visit on railway station walls.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) will hold its two-day national executive meeting in the state from April 15, which will be attended by Prime Minister Modi, party national president Amit Shah, senior leader LK Advani among other party members.

Earlier Union Petroleum Minister Dharmendra Pradhan, had said that the prime minister will come to Odisha to thank the people for their unprecedented support to BJP in the recent panchayat polls. Pradhan said that chief ministers of all the BJP ruled states will attend the meet.
With 240 tip-offs received in just two days the number of arrests in drug cases in Punjab has gone up to nearly 500. Talking to mediapersons in New Delhi, Chief Minister (CM) Captain Amarinder Singh said that the anti-drugs campaign kick started by his government was yielding results and would get a further boost with the Special Task Force (STF) Chief Harpreet Sidhu taking charge on Friday.

CM said he had directed the police and intelligence departments to reach out to the people even more aggressively in the coming days. The government has assured that the identity of anyone reporting any drugs related crime on the helpline 181 would be protected. "The tip-offs received so far were being verified and stern action would be initiated in cases where the information is verified," said Punjab CM. He further reiterated that no drugs user would be harassed by the police or other agencies involved in the drugs crackdown.

Providing an update on the drugs campaign, an official spokesperson from the Chief Ministers Office (CMO) later disclosed that till from March 16 to March 29, 497 drugs traders and peddlers had been booked, with 449 cases registered under the NDPS Act.

Giving break-up of the drugs seizures made during this period, the spokesperson said, 4.034 kilogram (kg) of heroin and 0.605 kg of smack were recovered from those arrested. Other seizures included 2.22 kg of charas (cannabis), 24.46 kg of opium, 715.31 kg of poppy husk, bhang 1.879 kg of Bhang (cannabis). The police has also recovered 12.519 kg of intoxicant powder, 1576 injections, 111893 pills and capsules, 72.78 kg of ganja (cannabis) and 133 syrup bottles.

He further said, a multi-state agency operation is under way in the state to deal with the drugs menace. SHO level teams, backed by CIA and Anti-Narcotics Cell units, have been formed in every district to wipe out drugs from the state in four weeks. "State Special Operations (SSOP) cells has also joined the drive, and the civil administration is also extending its full support to the anti-drugs campaign by the various police and intelligence agencies," he said.

The CM has directed the state agencies to coordinate with central agencies such as the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB), the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) and the Customs Department to check the supply and smuggling of drugs into the state from other parts of India and abroad, said the spokesperson.
According to reports the student was beaten on Wednesday night at the Jezycki Market Square in Poznan.

In yet another case of attack on Indians, an Indian student has been beaten in Poland's Poznan city. External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj has asked for a report from Ajay Bisaria, the Indian Ambassador in Poland.

"I have just spoken to the Indian Ambassador in Poland and asked for a report," Swaraj tweeted.

According to reports the student was beaten on Wednesday night at the Jezycki Market Square in Poznan.

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Swaraj's comment came in response to a tweet by a netizen who approached her with a news item in Polish media about the incident.

According to the local media report in Poland, the police dismissed the case because despite recordings from the surveillance cameras, the perpetrators could not be found.

I have just spoken to the Indian Ambassador in Poland and asked for a report. @IndiaPoland https://t.co/tywhkJFSPq- Sushma Swaraj (@SushmaSwaraj) March 31, 2017

There was an incident of beating. Fortunately, he has survived. We are inquiring into all aspects of the incident. https://t.co/uO9hJ171aB- Sushma Swaraj (@SushmaSwaraj) March 31, 2017

It is not yet known what led to the gruesome killing.

In the US, hate crimes against Indian seem to have risen in the last few months.

On February 22, Indian engineer Srinivas Kuchibhotla was shot dead in Kansas in one such case of hate crime.

Also read:Swaraj on US attacks on Indians: FBI probing hate crimes, India engaging with Trump regime

Also watch:

Indian government engaging with Trump administration on hate crimes in US: Sushma Swaraj

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Lasya Kalas artistic director Saswat Joshi of Bhubaneswar was recently in Kuala Lumpur with the ninth edition of the Aekalabya Festival in honour of his guru Ileana Citaristi. Joshi is a natural dancer and leaves no stone unturned to improve his skill  he has extended his boundaries by planning his annual in a foreign land with a view to address his art to a global audience.

The festival was held at the Temple of Fine Arts in Kuala Lumpur. TS Tirumurti, high commissioner of India, was the chief guest. The piece-de-resistance of the evening was the very first dance performed by Joshi. It was a self-choreographed piece on the theme of rain. Predictably the raagas Megha Mallar Mian ki Mallar were chosen to move together. The three bends of Odissi or tribhangi were incorporated with the greatest ease, which happens only if one is obsessed with his practice. The personification of rain reached a climax when Joshi engaged in a conversation with it  Ghana ghana rasa barase. With the use of picture perfect poses, rain was described in all its glory.

Joshis Odissi performances have been improving by leaps and bounds. Guru Ileana Citaristi must be quite happy with her most talented disciple. She in turn performed Navarasa, a masterpiece composition of her guru Kelucharam Mohapatra. The nine basic emotions were brought alive from the different stories in the great epics. Each emotion merged into another and that was made possible because of Citaristis performance. However, the piece made a mark on the audience, because soon after the performance, people surrounded her wanting to take selfies.

Kathak dancer Manisha Gulyani of the Jaipur Gharana delighted the audience with the purest form of Kathak. Some shlokas are eternal in their beauty and Gulyani with her impressive stage presence became the connoisseurs delight making an impressive start on Nagendra haraya trilochanaya. With great style, she entered the stage with aamad in a slow tempo and rendering thaat with picture perfect poses. Farmaishi bandish, choot, tipalli  three tempo layas one after the other  endeared her to the public, specially the rendition of Bedam Tehais without any gap. When the dancer took chakkars non-stop, which a Kathaka is practised to do, it was a jaw-dropping moment. Mayur paran, farmaisi tukras, gat nikas, chals or basic ang movements and tatkar in the end, elevated the evenings renditions. Next up, Hori in Jayajayanti raga and keharba taal of eight beats, Ae ri aaj hori mein khelunga dat ke, was a catchy tune  with the youthful dancing of Gulyani, the audience became a part of the performance.

Sandhya Manoj, a resident of Malaysia for almost 17 years, hones her Odissi skills from Ratikant Mohapatra. She is proficient in other classical forms but Odissi is her first love. Seeing her perform Adi Parashakti or Dasam Mahavidya, there was no doubt in any ones mind as to why she richly deserved the Aekalabya Award this year. Her dance, though not self-choreographed, possessed happiness through the perfect rendition of the piece.

Jhilik Bhattacharya has a long way to go in her journey as a Bharatnatyam dancer. She has good stage presence but cannot hope to stand at par with long practiced performers. On the other hand, Praveen Gangani is an accomplished Kathak teacher who has made Kuala Lumpur his home and teaches Kathak at the Temple of Fine Arts. Bharatanatyam dancer Sri Kandaswamy is a product of the Temple of Fine Arts and his flawless rendition of Ardhanariswar left me amazed.

Joshis troupe was invited by the Odia Association at Sembilan, a village in Malaysia, to present this unique art of their home country for them. Parti Makkal Sakti Malaysia Persatuan Kaum welcomed Joshi with great fanfare. After paying his humble obeisance to the audience who were practically not exposed to the beauties of Odissi, he commenced eulogising Ganesha, which is a custom amongst all Indian classical dancers. Thus Mushika Vahana, Uma Sutas Chaturbhuja Mangal Murti, was prayed to. An Odissi performance has to be dedicated to Lord Jagannatha of Puri. Therefore the dancers had actually entered the proscenium stage with folded hands and dance bhangis in the Odissi style with Jagannatha Swamy Nayanapatha gami bhavatumei on their lips.

Nothing can equal the dance involving the nine cosmic avatars of Ma Durga and Jaya Bhagavata Devi Namaha was a great hit with the audience. The dancers bow down to the slayer of the demons Shumbha Nishumbhas various incarnations in myriads of brilliant poses with the popular chant Ya Devi Sarvabhuteshu Matri/Sakti/Santi Rupena Sansthitha Namasthasayi, namo namaha.

Joshi who is proficient in the folk dances of Odisha, had planned to show the simple village folks of Malaysia their heritage. But having satiated themselves with the rich classical culture of their homeland, they made a beeline for the rich spread that was served to them in a makeshift pavilion.
Actor-cum-business woman Shilp Shetty, along with her husband, was chosen a brand ambassdor for Yakult Danone India, a joint venture of Yakult Honsha, Japan and Groupe Danone, France in the Capital. The celebrity couple also launched the probiotics drink, and talked about its various health benefits of the drink. Excited about associating with Yakult, Shilpa Shetty remarked, "I was overawed by the scientific revelation about probiotics and intrigued to know that a healthy intestine is the key to good health not only because it is responsible for absorption of nutrients but also for the fact that more than 70 per cent of the immune cells are found there." During the launch the actor informed that she is very careful about her association with brands and, therefore, she visited the Yakult factory first before giving her nod.
One hopes that the drought, which has hit the film society scene, will come to an early end. Bengal showed the way after Independence when the Calcutta Film Society was pioneered by Satyajit Ray (then an aspiring filmmaker), RP Gupta and Bansi Chandragupta. Visiting stalwarts like Renoir, John Huston and Cherkasov contributed to the excitement with which film lovers began to get exposed to trends prevailing outside Hollywood. The movement gathered momentum as more cine clubs were established with the Federation of Film Societies, the apex body that had been formed by then, playing a leading role in bringing well organised movements in France, Italy and Germany to the city. There were also films from East European countries like Poland, Hungary and Czechoslovakia that left lasting impressions.

It was a pity that the excitement that lasted till the 80s began to subside with the arrival of television and, more emphatically, after the arrival of digital technology. Films that were seen with great interest outside the commercial circuit could be downloaded from diverse sources and seen at ones convenience. The experience was not the same as seeing offbeat films from countries ranging from Mexico to Sweden and by directors ranging from Bresson to Kurosawa in the company of like minded people. There was also a healthy discussion that flowed into the assessment of the Indian cinema. Onecan recall the spontaneous response to Pather Panchali when it appeared in Kolkata with the cityswalls being plastered with appeals to see the film. All this was the outcome of a passionate commitment to the enhancement of a cinematic awareness outside the popular cinema. But technology did take a heavy toll that led to the virtual eclipse of film societies despite the interest in world cinema that was conspicuous at every film festival in the city.

To that extent, it is a good sign that, while many of the film societies formed in the 60s and later have left the scene, some of them along with other organisations committed to the task of sustaining a serious interest in the medium have persisted with festivals and other events. One such organisation is the Forum for Film Studies and Allied Arts that has been organising lectures, seminars and events like the festival of award-winning films that was held recently at the Satyajit Ray Film and Television Institute. Films that come with recognition from Cannes, Venice, Montreal and Toronto get a mixed response. Some measure up to standards that audiences expect while there could be a feeling that festivals have had to make some compromises under force of circumstances. All this becomes the focus of animated debates in a climate that is not possible to find in the interiors of a drawing room where much-discussed films from festivals or the Oscars are seen by small groups. The growth of a cinematic consciousness is best rooted in prolonged and lively exchanges after the screenings and even later. That is what makes the experience more rewarding.

This was evident at the last festival organised by the Forum at which films from Spain, Finland, South Korea, France, Turkey, Croatia and Mexico were included. It did seem that most of the selections had varied themes on the experiences of women. Pedro Almodovars Julieta had been shown at Cannes and had come with recognition from San Diego.

The central figure is a woman and it speaks of a mid-life crisis in which her personal life is curiously affected by the events taking place around her. In much a similar way, though in a different social context, the protagonist in The Girl King, a film from Finland, is torn between reason and passion after the responsibilities of power are thrust upon her in an environment dominated by a conservative male establishment.

In a wholly different setting, Kim Ki-duk pursues a social agenda in tracing the roots of crime after a schoolgirl is abducted in the opening scene of One On One. The South Korean director has made it to many festivals and this film drew a noticeable crowd partly because it was the best film at Venice in 2014. Kim has a style that is quite infectious, especially in its impact on the young, and it grabs attention though the audience can barely relate to the violence that marks the social environment.

Paul Verhoeven is remembered for Basic Instinct that came 25 years ago. Elle was made in France in 2016 and was a story of vengeance in which the central figure is a woman who is quite ruthless in running a video parlour as much as she is in her personal affairs. It was shown at Cannes and this was a rare opportunity to catch up with a controversial director in a non-commercial circuit.

The films from Croatia (Zvizdan) and Mexico (Desierto) had unconventional narrative structures and surprising twists that kept teasing the mind while Mustang, from Turkey, raised moral questions on the society that is still rooted in traditional values, resulting in a bold statement that grabbed an award at Cannes. That is why festivals still arouse curiosity while packaging the diversity of cultures.
The Union Government today reviewed the power situation in the country, with special focus on Uttar Pradesh, and told states to upgrade their infrastructure to ensure smooth supply of power during peak demand in summer.

The Power Ministry told the UP government to augment the intra-state transmission systems expeditiously. Similar instructions were given to states which have poor infrastructure.

The Ministry said since the prime reason for shortage of power supply was due to lack of the necessary transmission and distribution infrastructure within the states, it should be augmented during summer.

The Jammu and Kashmir government was also advised to undertake planned sub-transmission and distribution system within the state. Delhi, which reports power failures, asked the Centre to ensure smooth supply of gas to its combined cycle gas stations within Delhi for uninterrupted supply from Badarpur thermal power station.

The meeting was called on the observation of the Indian Meteorological Department (IMD), which had noted that there might be a severe heat wave in Northern India this year. The meeting, chaired by the Union Power Secretary, Mr P.K. Pujari, was attended by the representatives from state governments, IMD, CEA, POSOCO, various regional and state load dispatch centres (RLDCs/SLDCs).

According to the Power Ministry, while the power demand in Northern Region would peak to the extent of 56 GW during April to September 2017 period, the Southern region would peak at 42 GW, peak power demand would reduce in Western region by 4 GW. All India peak demand during the summer is expected to be of the order of 165 GW, said a senior officer of the Power Ministry.

The ministry said there was enough power supply to meet state governments' demand, but the main constraint was the transmission and distribution network at the intra-state level. The state utilities were advised to complete the transmission systems in the pipeline, the Ministry said.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi today exhorted BJP MPs to strike a chord with the masses by directly communicating with them on the governments plans and programmes using mobile phones and social media platforms.

Modis advice to his party MPs came during his fifth and final round of informal consultations at the Prime Minister's residence-cum-office here today. BJP Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha members from Jharkhand, Odisha, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Telangana besides all the nominated members of Parliament were present at the meeting.

The Prime Minister primarily spoke about the plight of farmers in the country. He apprised the members about the salient features of his governments plans to provide irrigation facilities to farmers and Ek Bharat Shreshta Bharat plans. Modi sought to impress upon the members the need to work towards fulfilling the aspirations of the masses through effective implementation of the governments various welfare programmes at the grassroots level.

Informing the party MPs about the Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sichayee Yojana, Modi said his government is committed to ameliorate the economic conditions of farmers by finding ways of saving and making optimum use of water resources for irrigation purposes. Modi exhorted the MPs to launch a campaign to link the governments agriculture irrigation programme with MGNREGA (Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act). He also underlined the need for building an institutional framework for implementing the governments agricultural irrigation programme till 2022 and beyond 2025 across the country.

Modi told the BJP parliamentarians how to strengthen the unity among the countrys 125 crore population representing Indias unique socio-cultural might under the governments Ek Bharat, Shreshtha Bharat initiative.

Union Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ananth Kumar was present at the PMs interaction with party MPs. The members gave details about the changes being brought about in the lives of the people through the governments poverty alleviation programme.
Gorakhpur, the constituency of new Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, is fast becoming popular ever since the controversial figure, a Hindu hardliner, came to power in the state. News of his coming into power as a state chief minister shocked not only the Indian media but also the international media. And, probably, his own people might never have thought that this son of the soil would shake the country's politics to an extend that it would make world news.

And, it did not take long for the man in power now to set new orders and rules and he continued to hog the limelight. First, it was the crackdown on illegal abattoirs and setting up of the Anti-Romeo Squad to whip eve-teasers. He claims that the squad was formed to ensure protection of women, though many sees it as a part of the 'love jihad' which he launched some years ago.

Well, seen as the Robinhood of the region, even before he became the 21st chief minister of UP, Adityanath did bring about a lot of changes to the place, and he did it his way. Five-time MP from Gorakhpur before he became CM, Adityanath has an appeal that attracts the youth. He could reach out to them and transformed many goons for the welfare of the region. He changed the names of many roads in his home town, from Arabic and Urdu to Hindu names. He also runs morcha and small systems in Gorakhpur for the welfare of the people there. Be it against a certain cmmunity or for the welfare of his people, the steps that he took often created controvies and made headlines.

After the crackdown on meat sellers, he made big news again with the attempt to reach out to them and abattoir owners, as meat crisis troubles his state.

As the media continues to feed on the news of Adityanath. we bring you glimpses of the little known place that has brought forth a figure hard to accept, yet hard to ignore.

Where is Gorakhpur?

The city is about 273 km away from Lucknow, the capital of Uttar Pradesh. It lies close to Nepal border, along the Rapti river banks in the northeastern part of Uttar Pradesh. It is said that Lord Buddha renounced his princely costumes at the junction of rivers Rapti and Rohini to move on to his spiritual journey.

The meaning of Gorakhpur

The name Gorakhpur originated from the Sanskrit word Gorakshapuram, meaning the abode of ancient saint Gorakshanath.

What is Gorakhpur famous for?

Life in the city centers around Gorakshanath Temple or Gorakhnath Math, a place of worship of the Nath tradition founded by Guru Matsendranath. Various cultural and social activities are carried out in the temple.

The people and community

It has a population of 673,446 (2011). Majority of them are Hindus and Muslims. Christians and other communities are a minority there.

Historical relevance of Gorakhpur

The ancient Gorakhpur comprised the districts of Basti, Deoria, Azamgarh and some parts of Nepal Tarai. These region called as Gorakhpur-Janpad was an important centre of Aryan culture and civilisation. It holds a connection with Lord Buddha, founder of Buddhism, who renounced his princely costumes at the junction of rivers Rapti and Rohini to proceed on in the quest of truth in the year 600 BC. It is also associated with 24th Tirthankar Lord Mahavir, founder of Jainism.

Gorakhpur during British Raj

On February 4, 1922, the infamous Chauri Chaura incident took place in Gorakhpur district. This made Mahatma Gandhi call off the Non-Cooperation Movement. The fight between police and civilians took an ugly turn and caused the halt of this major movement.
Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi on Friday met protesting Tamil Nadu farmers at Jantar Mantar in New Delhi and sought drought relief funds from Prime Minister Narendra Modi for the farmers.

"PM Modi has given debt relief to richest people in the country, why not for people who have built this country, the farmers," Rahul said after meeting the agitating farmers.

Announcing the partys package of relief measures for the affected farmers, Tamil Nadu Congress Committee (TNCC) president Su Thirunavukkarasar on Wednesday had said, If the government has helped the family, we will give Rs.10,000 each. If government aid has not reached them, we will give Rs.25,000 each.

Stating that 250 farmers have died as a result of the agricultural crisis thus far, Thirunavukkarasar had said that the TNCC will spend around Rs.2 crore on welfare measures for the affected farmers.

Meanwhile, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami on Tuesday reviewed drought relief measures taken up by various government departments to tackle the drought situation in the state.

Nearly two weeks now, a group of farmers from Tamil Nadu are protesting in New Delhi demanding drought relief from the government.
The Supreme Court on Friday denied urgent hearing on appeal by senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Subramanian Swamy on the Ram Temple issue.

The apex court, earlier, agreed to hear Swamys appeal to build the Ram Temple on Friday. The appeal has been pending since 2010.

However, the Supreme Court on March 21 termed the Ram Mandir issue "sentimental and sensitive" and said that the matter should be settled amicably.

"It is an issue of sentiment and religion. First sit together and sort out. Both sides employ moderators and hold meetings," Chief Justice JS Khehar said.

The apex court suggested that the matter should be settled through discussion and would only step in if the issue is not resolved through talks.

Chief Justice Khehar even offered to act as a mediator between the parties to resolve the decade-old issue.

"Any person of your choice. You want me to mediate (but) I will not hear (on judicial side). You want my brother (Judge). There are issues. You all sit together across the table and decide, Khehar said.

After hearing the Supreme Courts response, Swamy said it is a strenuous effort to make both the contradicting parties sit together and judicial judgment is required.

The dispute started when hundreds of RSS karsevaks in 1992 demolished the 16th century Babri Mosque in Ayodhya, claiming that the mosque was built in the holy birthplace of the Hindu deity Lord Rama.

The Supreme Court in 2010 put a freeze on the Allahabad High Court order in the same year, saying Lord Ram was born in Ayodhya and Hindus have the right to build a temple and worship there.
The incident of 28 March of attacks on students of African origin at a shopping mall in Greater NOIDA has shocked everybody in India and has created a serious image problem for the country, especially in Africa. Clearly a manifestation of racial prejudice, it is also of a piece with deepening prejudices in India, be they linguistic, communal, casteist, regional or in any other form. Looking at it another way, it is also a manifestation of a vast underbelly of lawlessness and crime which has developed in our large, not easily governable urban conurbations. The city authorities and the grassroots level police or the magistracy are overworked, under-resourced and are in a constant firefighting mode. This abhorrent incident fits into that larger picture.

The incident took place against a background of simmering tension between the local residents and the African students. The relationship has been fraught for some time and the unfounded accusations of complicity of Nigerian nationals in the death of a local teenager became a flashpoint leading to a candlelight march by the agitated residents, on 27 March. It was accompanied by stray incidents of attacks and followed the next day by a violent attack on some Nigerian students who were out shopping. The police and the district magistrate brought the situation under control and followed it up with meetings with the Nigerian Students Association, the Nigerian High Commission and others, including the universities concerned as well as RWAs, to prevent future flare-ups. The African Students Association has threatened to write to all African Heads of State about barbaric racism practised in India and that they should all, collectively, downgrade relations with India. The External Affairs Minister spoke to the UP Chief Minister to bring the situation under control and to punish the guilty expeditiously. At a subsequent meeting with the District Magistrate, RWA representatives have reiterated their accusation against the afore-mentioned Nigerian students and have alleged that the police is being unfair to them. The situation has become further aggravated following the registration of an FIR by a Kenyan woman on 29 March, about being beaten by some unknown assailants in the township; the Association of African Students in India has cautioned African nationals in Greater NOIDA to stay indoors until the situation calms down.

Violent incidents of any kind, in the final analysis, boil down to issues of maintenance of law and order and the management of the passions of the parties involved. They also put the spotlight on the functioning of the systems in place and their ability to prevent violence from breaking out. In the Greater NOIDA incidents, the spotlight has been more on the police, the magistracy, the RWAs and the African students and their associations. However, the formal arrangements concerning the stay and the welfare of foreign students are much more extensive as they involve different units of the Ministry of External Affairs, The Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR), the various university authorities as well as the concerned diplomatic representations in India; all of these agencies remain in touch with the students as well as the local authorities to coordinate their welfare.

As evident in the media reports, the action to bring the situation under control appears to be confined to the law and order machinery, the RWAs and the students. There is no media report about the role and the arrangements put in place by the concerned universities where the African students are studying. The deans of the universities, dealing with foreign students, need to be especially proactive in ensuring that their foreign students are staying in safe residential areas if they cannot be accommodated on the university campus itself. If the students are staying outside the campus, the deans ~ as well as student representatives of the universities at responsible levels ~ need to maintain close and continuous contact with the RWA concerned so that the perception issues on both sides can be properly addressed. Suitable advisories about lifestyle adjustments on the part of the foreign students go a long way in ensuring that there are better relations and easier communications between them and the larger host communities. The deans need to be proactive in ensuring that, when a situation is boiling over as in this particular incident, proper advisories are issued and acted upon so that foreign students are particularly careful in their movements outside the campus for their various requirements.

They are also the nodal points for the diplomatic missions, the foreign office officials as well as the higher and grassroots authorities to sort out any adjustment issues for young foreigners coming to live in India. They alert the local authorities about any possible signs of danger. They also ensure that the students do not indulge in any illegal and unbecoming activity and that they have a continuing legal residential status. It is a universal practice for ambassadors to call on high dignitaries in the state where the students from their countries are studying. The government as well as foreign missions, in coordination with their home governments, need to ensure that no educational institution accepts foreign students if it does not have suitable arrangements to ensure their welfare.

There is no doubt that such recurring incidents will negatively impact on India-Africa relations and, possibly, the interest of the vast Indian diaspora in that continent. Diplomats and other expatriates from India, who have lived in various African countries, find their experience as pleasant, as India is held in very high esteem both in the larger communities as well as at higher levels of government. In the interest of keeping IndiaAfrica relations in good repair, it is necessary that there is a concerted effort involving the government, the various educational institutions, the ICCR, business chambers and others to expose the wider Indian community to the rainbow culture that Africa represents. This can be in the form of music festivals, various academic seminars involving scholars from Africa as well as promoting tele-serials from Africa on our TV channels as they do in respect of other foreign countries. One cannot close without recalling the haunting comment made by one African student ~ In India, guests are considered gods, all we want is to be treated as humans! Emblematic of the larger problem of urban governance, it is critical that this problem be addressed both at the local management level as well as the perception level.

The writer is former High Commissioner to Namibia.
The unprecedented ruling of the constitutional court of the Republic of Korea (ROK) on March 10 made Park Geun Hye the first president to be removed from office after impeachment.

The ROK has to complete a presidential by-election within 60 days, and the next president faces the formidable task of righting the wrongs of the Park administration.

From a geopolitical perspective, the decision to deploy an advanced US missile defence system tops the series of mistakes committed by Park during her four years in office.

The move caused the relationship between Beijing and Seoul to plummet to its lowest level since the establishment of diplomatic ties in 1992.

On February 28, the ROKs retail giant Lotte Group agreed to a land swap deal with the government, paving the way for the deployment of the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) anti-missile system in the country.

In fact, a part of the THAAD battery and other related equipment have already reached the country  on March 6, to be precise.

With Seoul expediting the process of deploying the US missile shield under the pretext of guarding against the military threat from the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea (DPRK), its ties with Beijing have soured further.

As China was forced to take necessary counter measures, more and more Chinese consumers have shunned retail stores operated by Lotte on the Chinese mainland as well as the companys duty-free shops in the ROK.

Chinese have also cancelled tourist trips to the neighbouring country, and Korean celebrities found their concerts and television appearances in China cancelled one after another. However, Chinese officials publicly denied a ban on the entertainers was in place.

The tense atmosphere between the two countries is now being felt even in some remote areas in China, while ROK officials talked about taking countermeasures to Chinas countermeasures.

To the Chinese, the antiROK sentiment is justified. Take Lottes dilemma in China as an example. By jumping on the governments bandwagon to help deploy THAAD, Lotte is seen to have crossed the bottom line of business operations and ethics.

It has acquired the hallmark of a company out to harm another countrys security interest. Therefore, it is only natural that its businesses in China have been dealt a heavy blow.

Worse, the severe consequences of THAADs deployment go far beyond the economic and trade fields, for it poses a threat to the security of countries in the region, including China.

Some in the ROK deem the introduction of THAAD an internal affair, to which China cannot possibly agree.

One countrys security apparatus should never threaten, let alone sabotage, those of other countries. This is the overriding principle defining international relations. And history warns us that even one misstep in this regard could push friendly countries to the brink of war.

The excuse used by the ROK and the United States to deploy THAAD does not hold water either. Even ROK citizens know the US anti-missile system can only intensify tensions with their neighbour in the north and thus make the country more insecure.

The developments on the Korean Peninsula in recent months show that responding to an arms threat with a counter-threat will not ease the long-standing hostility between the two neighbours. It also generates more reasons for the DPRK to continue its nuclear ambitions and missile program.

Although both Washington and Seoul refuse to concede that the deployment of THAAD poses a severe threat to Chinas security interests, there is no denying that it could be used to spy on Chinese territory.

The anti-missile system can detect the launch of missiles as far as 3,000 kilometers away, George Nelson Lewis, a physicist and expert on missile defence at Cornell University in New York, was quoted on March 9 by the London-based Financial Times as saying.

If that were even half true, it would mean a large part of Chinese territory would be under THAADs surveillance. No country will tolerate such an act of blatant infringement on its national security.

More seriously, many in China believe the US anti-missile system, as part of the pivot to Asia policy implemented by the previous US administration, serves as the US strategic hedging against China.

In response to potential missile threats from the DPRK, Japan has also openly showed its interests in introducing the THAAD system. In recent years, the US has strengthened its military alliances in the Asia Pacific in an apparent move to counter Chinas rise. No doubt, its military alliance with the ROK and Japan has assumed a rising importance in implementing its regional strategy. By placing the anti-missile system in Chinas neighborhood, Washington can fill the missing link of its global missile defense system and contribute to its strategic maneuvering in the Asia Pacific as well. But its regional allies will have to face the backlash and even take the risks. Seoul's icy-cold relationship with Beijing is a case in point. Thanks to efforts by both neighbours, China has become the ROKs largest trading partner, the largest destination of its overseas investment and its largest source of overseas students. At the same time, the country is one of Chinas most important partners in investment and trade and people-topeople exchanges.

The current difficulty in bilateral ties has been the result of the ROKs cooperation with the US in deploying the missile defense system on its soil in disregard of Chinas rightful concerns and legitimate interests. Beijing has repeatedly demanded Seoul value bilateral ties, take anti-THAAD voices from people on both sides seriously and stop the process of deployment.

The ball is now in the ROKs court. Given that a political transition could naturally lead to major policy changes, the ouster of Park has created an opportunity to change the THAAD policy. The next ROK president should seize this opportunity so that ties with China can be repaired, because amiable Beijing-Seoul relations will benefit both countries.

A sensible approach for Seoul would be to mitigate the THAAD security threat to China by canceling the wrong decision or at least postponing its deployment permanently.

As Chinas Foreign Minister Wang Yi has put it, the stubborn deployment of the THAAD system by the US and the ROK is now the biggest issue affecting Beijing-Seoul ties.

China strongly advised the ROK to halt the deployment and not stray further down the wrong path, otherwise it will only end up hurting itself and others, Wang warned.

The ROK presidential election is due to be held on May 9. Moon Jae-in, the liberal politician tipped to become the next president, is a well-known advocate of a sunshine policy of engagement with the DPRK. He has said that if elected, he would review how the government would deploy the US missile defence system and would consult China.

As the presidential election unfolds, the outside world will have a clearer idea about the policy orientation of the ROKs next leader. For whoever wins the election, how to improve ties with Beijing will be a major challenge ahead.

It is hoped he or she will come up with a solution that could address the concerns of both countries through peaceful negotiations.

After all, the relationship between China and the ROK has bilateral and regional significance because both play an important role in stabilising the situation on the Korean Peninsula as well as in East Asia cooperation and development.

The writer is Senior Editorial Writer, China Daily (Asia), Hong Kong. This is a series of columns on global affairs written by top editors and columnists from members of the Asia News Network and published in newspapers and websites across the region.
The rescued Indians were abducted by South Sudanese rebels, earlier this month.

By India Today Web Desk: Two Indian nationals who were abducted by rebels in South Sudan earlier this month, have been released with the intervention of Government of India.

The External Affairs minister, Sushma Swaraj, in a tweet conveyed the information of their release. The tweet read, "I am happy to inform about the release of two Indian nationals Midhun and Edward who were abducted in South Sudan."

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In an another tweet, she lauded the Indian Ambassador in Sudan, for his efforts to rescue the abducted.

"I appreciate the efforts of Indian Ambassador in South Sudan Srikumar Menon for the release of Indian nationals", she tweeted.

Even yesterday, she took to twitter to convey that the workers from Telangana, who were held captive by their employer in Saudi Arabia, have been rescued.

"We have rescued those 29 workers from Saudi Arabia. We are paying for their air tickets as well," she tweeted.

ALSO READ| Sushma refuses to accept US' list of 271 'illegal' Indians, seeks more details

ALSO READ| Nigerians attacked near Delhi: Sushma Swaraj speaks to UP CM Adityanath, asks for report

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With the recent announcement of Odishas Industry Minister Devi Prasad Mishra that South Koreas POSCO had confirmed its withdrawal from the steel project near Paradip, forest dwellers, fisherfolk and peasants in the area engaged in a long struggle to protect their land, livelihood and environment can breathe a sigh of relief. The Rs 52,000-crore project, considered the largest investment by any multinational in the country, violated the Forest Rights Act, 2006, as no forest land can be allotted to anyone until all the rights of the people are protected and their consent obtained. The environment clearance given by the Ministry of Environment and Forest on 31 January 2011 was suspended by the National Green Tribunal on 30 March 2012. The project would not have brought much benefit to the local people or to the country.

On the contrary, it was a plunder of the countrys natural resources and deprivation of the peoples livelihood. The government was committed to hand over to POSCO 4,000 acres of land for the steel plant, 2,000 acres for a township near the plant and 25 acres in Bhubaneswar for its offices. The plant would have drawn 12,000 crore litres of water a day from the Mahanadi, posing a threat to drinking water supply to Bhubaneswar and Cuttack. The government was to allocate captive mines to exploit 600 million tonnes of iron ore on a pittance as royalty which alone would have given POSCO an estimated net profit of Rs 96,000 crore. According to POSCO, the company would have provided 13,000 jobs while land acquisition would have displaced 40,000 people and 20,000 of them would have lost their employment. This was considered development by the UPA government at the Centre and the state government in Odisha.

While pulling out of the project by POSCO is to be welcomed, the Odisha governments decision to fence the land transferred to POSCO and keep it in its Land Bank is to be condemned. The land acquired by coercion or intimidation should be returned gracefully to owners so that they can resume cultivation and reconstruct their demolished homes. The Supreme Court of India has set a healthy precedent by ordering the West Bengal government to return the land acquired from farmers for Tatas Nano plant to their original owners. In Odisha, forest dwellers and betel farmers whose lands were illegally acquired for POSCO have been agitating peacefully for the last 12 years to protect their habitats for future generations. The Jagatsinghpur district administration and the Industrial Development Corporation of Odisha had let loose a reign of terror to force people to part with their lands. Four people were killed and scores injured in the violence unleashed by the authorities. About 2,000 warrants were issued and 400 false cases registered. More than 800,000 trees were cut down to clear the land for the POSCO plant, rendering the people vulnerable to cyclones. The government should compensate families of those killed in the agitation and withdraw all false cases registered against protesters. Also the people whose betel vines were destroyed should be paid adequate compensation.
China has reinforced its authority over Hong Kong with the choice of Beijing-backed civil servant Carrie Lam as the new Chief Executive who plays a pivotal role in the affairs of the protectorate. The Umbrella Movement of 2014, the spirited peoples upheaval for independence from Chinas overbearing tutelage, has been reduced to irrelevance. It is Hong Kongs misfortune that exactly 20 years after Britain gave up its control, it is still floundering in its quest for freedom in terms of governance. The new leader lacks the support of the people. Small wonder that Ms Lams appointment has been greeted with charges of Chinas interference and not least in the regions financial hub. The 1200-member election committee is stacked with Beijing loyalists and is, therefore, anything but an independent entity. The choice of a loyalist Chief Executive reaffirms the deference to the Beijing establishment. True independence still eludes Hong Kong; its population of 7.3 million does not have a say in deciding their leader. This is the quirk of geopolitics that has for the past two decades been manifest to suit the strategy of the mainlands inherently expansionist design. The formula of one country, two systems remains a signal of intent that was emitted by China in 1997 as does the promise of universal suffrage. In the event, Hong Kong boasts neither which is perhaps the worst of both worlds. And judging by ground realities, it is doubtful if the new Chief Executive will have a free hand to execute her agenda ~ Hong Kong, our home, is suffering from quite a serious divisiveness. My priority will be to heal the divide and to ease the frustration. Hong Kong needs new thinking. On the surface, her victory speech has not played to the Beijing gallery. In terms of diagnosis, she has hit the bulls eye; but as she sets about to implement her plan of action, it is open to question whether she will be able to fulfill the promise to defend the rule of law and freedom of expression. Ms Lam will, above all, have to countenance the prodemocracy activists who have ratcheted up the pressure since last Sunday, when the result of the election was announced.

Indeed, the scale of Ms Lams victory beggars belief ~ she has won 777 votes, against 365 scored by her closest rival, John Tsang. The activists have denounced what they call Beijings interference amidst reports of lobbying of voters to back Ms Lam, instead of Mr Tsang. In a word, Hong Kongs dilemma persists ~ to balance the agenda of Chinas Communist Party leaders with the wishes of the people, indeed to preserve the global financial hubs liberal values and the rule of law.
Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak met superstar Rajinikanth at his residence here on Friday.

"Just had a very warm and friendly meeting with Rajinikanth, the Tamil superstar, at his home," Razak tweeted on Friday.

He also shared a photo that features him along with the 66-year-old actor.

Razak is in the city to receive an honorary doctorate from Thanjavur University.

As part of his two-day visit, Razak is believed to have met Governor C Vidyasagar Rao and Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Edappadi Palaniswami.

According to sources close to Rajinikanth, he met Razak over breakfast at his residence.

Razak became a fan of Rajinikanth during the latter's long stay in Malacca, Malaysia for the shoot of the 2016 film "Kabali".

"When we were shooting for Kabali in Malaysia, we were touched by the support Malaysian government extended to us. Due to our busy shooting schedule, I couldn't meet and thank him (Razak) in Malaysia.

"When I learnt he was coming to Chennai, I invited him home. He accepted my invitation and came home. He even saw some portion of Kabali," Rajinikanth told reporters here.

Asked if the rumour that he was going to replace actor Shah Rukh Khan as the brand ambassador of Malaysian tourism was true, Rajinikanth trashed such reports.
At least 33 militants were killed by security forces in Afghanistan's Nangarhar province, a military officer said on Friday.

"The forces launched operations in Chaparhar and Pachiragam districts on Thursday night and so far 33 militants have been killed, six injured and 22 others arrested," the official told Xinhua news agency.

The victims included key militant commanders, the officer added.
China is planning to create a preserve for the giant panda that will be three times the size of Yellowstone National Park in the western US.

The Xinhua News Agency says the panda preserve will incorporate parts of three western provinces to provide an unbroken range for the endangered animals in which they can meet and mate in the interests of enriching their gene pool.

Xinhua said about 170,000 people will have to be moved elsewhere to make way for the 27,134-square kilometer (10,476-square mile) preserve.

Giant pandas are China's unofficial national mascot and live mainly in the mountains of Sichuan, with some in neighboring Gansu and Shaanxi provinces.

An estimated 1,864 live in the wild, where they are threatened chiefly with habitat loss, and another 200 in captivity.
For the second time in a month, China on Friday warned India of "serious damage" to bilateral ties if it allows the Dalai Lama to visit Arunachal Pradesh as Beijing asked New Delhi to honour its "political pledges" on the Tibet issue.

"We are seriously concerned about the news. On the eastern section of the China-India border, China's position is clear and consistent," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang told media here on Friday, responding to a question on the Dalai Lama's upcoming visit to Arunachal Pradesh.

China claims Arunachal Pradesh as part of south Tibet.

"The Dalai clique has long been engaging in separatist activities with inglorious record. India should be very clear with the true nature of the Dalai clique," Lu said.

"But despite this India still invited the Dalai Lama to visit the region. This will have serious damage on bilateral relations," Lu said.

The Dalai Lama will visit Arunachal Pradesh from April 4 to 13.

This is the second time this month Chinese Foreign Ministry has aired its objections to the Dalai Lama's visit to Arunachal Pradesh.

"China is gravely concerned over information that India has granted permission to the Dalai to visit Arunachal Pradesh," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang had said on March 3.

China has protested to India last year also when New Delhi cleared his visit to Arunachal Pradesh.

"Such visits will have deep damage on China India relations. We have asked India to stick to its political pledges and not to hurt China-India relations. It will come down to India to make a choice," Lu said.

"China firmly opposes the Dalai Lama carrying out any activities in the relevant region and we have expressed our concerns to the Indian side. We urge India to stick to its political statements, respect the consensus and avoid doing anything that might further complicate the matter," Lu said.

He said India should not provide any platform for the "Dalai clique and only that way can China-India relation can move forward in a sound and steady way".

"China and India are two major developing countries and we are close neighbors". It is very important for the two peoples to maintain sound and steady China India relations.

But such relationship has to be built on certain foundation," Lu said.

Last year, China also protested the visit of then American Ambassador to India Richard Verma to the area.

The India-China border dispute covers the 3,488 km long Line of Actual Control (LAC).

While China claims Arunachal Pradesh as Southern Tibet, India asserts that the dispute covered Aksai Chin area which was occupied by China during the 1962 war.
President Donald Trump has said that the next week's high-profile summit with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping will be a very difficult one as the US can no longer afford massive trade deficits and job losses.

Given that the United States has a massive trade deficit with China, American companies must be prepared to look at other alternatives, Trump tweeted.

Trump is scheduled to meet Xi at his Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida on April 6 and 7. This would be the first summit meeting between the two leaders.

The meeting next week with China will be a very difficult one in that we can no longer have massive trade deficits and job losses, Trump said.

Earlier, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer told reporters that Trump looks forward to meeting President Xi and exchanging views on each other's respective priorities and to chart a way forward for bilateral ties.

They will discuss the issues of mutual concern, including North Korea, trade, and regional security, he said. Noting that Trump has spoken to Xi over the phone a few times, Spicer said this was an opportunity for the President to develop a relationship in person with his Chinese counterpart.

But we have big problems, and  I mean, everything from the South China Sea, to trade, to North Korea. There are big issues of national and economic security that need to get addressed, and I think there's going to be a lot on the table when it comes to that over the two days that they will talk, Spicer said in response to a question.

There are a lot of big things that the US needs to accomplish with China, and it will work on them, he said. China-US trade in goods amounted to $519.6 billion in 2016. China has a large share in the bilateral trade with its exports to the US amounting to over $400 billion.

The meeting will follow a recent trip to China by US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.

Ahead of the summit with Trump, Xi will visit Finland and hold talks with his counterpart Sauli Niinisto.
The European Union demanded that Britain make "sufficient progress" on its divorce before any talks on a future trade deal can start as it laid out its tough Brexit negotiating plans on Friday.

EU president Donald Tusk's draft guidelines say the other 27 countries are ready for a transitional deal after Britain's exit in March 2019, but that such an arrangement would have to be under EU rules.

British Prime Minister Theresa May had in her letter triggering the two-year exit process on Wednesday called for talks on the divorce and a future deal to run in parallel as soon as negotiations start.

The EU has proclaimed its unity on Brexit, even as it reels from Britain's intention to become the first member state to leave in the bloc's 60-year history.

Tusk's strategy will now be sent out to the leaders of the 27 remaining EU countries ahead of a special summit on April 29 when they will agree on them so that talks can start in May.

Germany and France had already set out a united and uncompromising stance against May's demands.

Tusk's guidelines say that the EU called for a "phased approach" that prioritises an orderly withdrawal that reduces the disruption caused by Britain's departure in March 2019.

"The European Council will monitor progress closely and determine when sufficient progress has been achieved to allow negotiations to proceed to the next phase" on a future relationship," the draft guidelines say.

The EU said that no trade deal can be agreed on before Brexit takes effect.

But it is also open to a transitional arrangement after Brexit as a "bridge" to a future deal some years down the line, but said that it would have to be under EU rules.

It said it is making preparations in case talks break down.

Tusk was due to give a press conference in Malta with Maltese Prime Minister Joseph Muscat, whose country holds the EU's rotating presidency, to discuss the strategy.

The EU's chief negotiator, France's Michel Barnier, is expected to get the green light to start talks with Britain on May 22, an EU official said.

May formally notified the EU of Britain's intention to leave in a letter to Tusk on Monday that diplomats described as surprisingly conciliatory in tone for the most part.

But May's warning in the letter that failure to clinch a deal on trade would affect Britain's cooperation on terrorism and security still rankled with many.

"It's not a threat," Brexit minister David Davis told BBC radio after warnings from Brussels against using security as a bargaining chip in the talks.

The EU insists it is unified ahead of the negotiations.

"Brexit is not the end of everything, but we must make it a beginning of something that will be new, stronger and better," European Commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker said in Malta yesterday
Nine Malaysians freed by Pyongyang made an emotional return home on Friday, after Kuala Lumpur sent back the body of the assassinated half-brother of North Korea's leader to end a bitter diplomatic feud.

Kim Jong-Nam was killed with the lethal nerve agent VX on February 13 at Kuala Lumpur airport, triggering a major clash between Malaysia and North Korea, which saw them expel each other's ambassadors and bar citizens from leaving.

But a deal announced by Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak and confirmed by North Korean state media on Thursday said the two countries had lifted their respective travel bans, and Kuala Lumpur would send Kim's body to North Korea.

The Malaysians  three embassy staff and six family members, including a baby and three other children  landed in Kuala Lumpur before sunrise where they were met on the tarmac by Foreign Minister Anifah Aman.

There were emotional scenes as they were embraced by tearful relatives who had also gathered to meet them.

Mohamad Nor Azrin, counsellor of the Malaysian embassy in Pyongyang, said that while they had not been threatened and were free to move around they were not allowed to leave.

"We were very concerned because we had done no wrong. But we had to keep our spirits up," he told reporters.

Najib yesterday said his government "worked intensively behind the scenes" to bring its citizens home and vowed "to bring those responsible for this murder to justice".

The Malaysians were flown out on a government-owned business jet piloted by a senior Royal Malaysian Air Force officer.

Lieutenant Colonel Hasrizan Kamis said the Bombardier jet left for Pyongyang from a Malaysian airbase yesterday, apparently after talks reached a breakthrough.

The jet turned around in the evening with the nine on board, making a two-hour refuelling stop in the southeastern Chinese city of Fuzhou.

"There was a feeling of nervousness until we exited North Korean airspace," Kamis told AFP. "Everyone felt relieved."

Najib on Thursday declared on Twitter that the diplomatic crisis with North Korea was over.

He had earlier announced that the body was being sent back "following the completion of the autopsy on the deceased and receipt of a letter from his family requesting the remains be returned to North Korea".

He did not specify who in the family had made the request. Kim's wife and children, who were living in exile in the Chinese territory of Macau, are believed to be in hiding after the murder.

On Friday, foreign minister Anifah confirmed the body was on its way back to North Korea after being kept in a hospital morgue in Kuala Lumpur for more than six weeks.(AFP)
Norway's prime minister on Friday said she will travel to China next week to meet President Xi Jinping, as part of repairing ties more than six years after Beijing froze Oslo out over the Nobel Peace Prize award to an imprisoned Chinese dissident.

Erna Solberg says she is "happy that we now normalise our diplomatic and political relations with China."

"Direct contact with the Chinese leadership is important for a solid and predictable relationship characterised by mutual interests, trust and understanding," Solberg said of the April 7-10 visit.

In 2010, Norway's Nobel committee awarded Liu Xiaobo the peace prize, infuriating China. Liu is still imprisoned in northern China. Although Norway's government has no say over the Nobel panel's choices, China suspended a bilateral trade deal and restricted imports of Norwegian salmon.

Liu was convicted of subversion in 2009 and sentenced to 11 years in prison after he wrote and disseminated Charter '08, a document calling for democracy.

Beijing had always demanded that Norway recognise the error of awarding the prize to Liu, but was not specific about what it wanted. China had characterised prize award as "gross interference" in its affairs.

In December, the countries said normal relations have resumed. The Chinese Foreign Ministry then said that Norway "made important and explicit statements on issues concerning China's sovereignty and territorial integrity."

Solberg noted it would be the first visit to by a Norwegian prime minister in a decade. She will be accompanied by Foreign Minister Borge Brende and a trade delegation.

"China is our largest trading partner in Asia. The normalisation will create significant opportunities for Norwegian industry and workplaces. We want to resume negotiations on a free trade agreement with China," she said.

Solberg's visit to Beijing comes after Xi plans to meet US President Donald Trump in Florida April 6-7.
The Karnataka government is now replicating the 'Amma canteen' model in the hope of attracting voters, ahead of the 2018 Assembly elections.

Jayalalithaa or 'Amma' herself at one of her canteens

By Rohini Swamy: Karnataka has borrowed the idea of 'Amma canteens,' which were set up in Tamil Nadu during the tenure of former Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa. But the state's food and supplies minister UT Khader has said its service - called 'Indira' canteen - will be much better than the one that inspired it.

Each portion of food served at these canteens is expected to weigh around 300 to 450 grams. The food will be sold at subsidised rates, without any compromise on quality.

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The Karnataka government was in talks with ISKON (International Society for Krishna Consciousness), Bangalore, which runs one of the biggest midday-meal schemes in the state - Akshaya Patra.

The scheme serves close to 1.6 million children each day, but there was an important hurdle: meals are cooked without garlic and onions.

KARNATAKA GOVERNMENT AIMS TO REPLICATE SUCCESS OF AMMA CANTEENS

The success of 'Amma canteens' in Tamil Nadu led to the introduction of several other Amma schemes, such as Amma salt, water and vegetables.

The Karnataka government is now replicating the model in the hope of attracting voters, ahead of the 2018 Assembly elections.

Amma canteens serve sambar rice, curd rice and idlis at Rs 5 per plate. Indira canteens will provide a breakfast of bisi bele bhaat, pongal, or vegetable pulao at at rate of Rs 5

Full afternoons meals - which will include sambar, rice, a vegetable side dish, and curds - will cost Rs 10. A similar meal will also be served at night, for the same price.

The main difference Amma and Indira canteens will be the portions of the food served at subsidized rates.

ALSO READ | Chennai is all shut, but Amma canteens continue to serve food to people

ALSO READ | Jayalalithaa's Amma eateries a super hit in Chennai even as Sonia's Food Security Bill faces teething problems

ALSO READ | Amma's Canteen serving breakfast and lunch at rock-bottom rates turns out to be a huge hit in Tamil Nadu

ALSO WATCH | After Amma water, Jaya launches Amma salt

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A prominent Taiwanese activist-turned-lawmaker who stormed parliament in 2014 protesting a China trade pact was acquitted with 21 other demonstrators on Friday over their roles in the so-called "Sunflower Movement".

The rallies three years ago, which saw thousands take to the streets and some 200 people occupy parliament for weeks, expressed growing anti-China public sentiment and contributed to the plummeting popularity of Taiwan's former Beijing-friendly Kuomintang government.

Taiwan, now under a Beijing-sceptic leadership, has been self-ruling since splitting from the mainland in 1949 after a civil war  but it has never formally declared independence and China still sees it as part of its territory.

Prosecutors charged Huang Kuo-chang  an academic who was a key face of the movement and has since joined parliament  with incitement and interfering with public functions in 2015, along with 21 others.

But Taipei District Court found them not guilty Friday, saying their actions were justified out of interest for the public.

"Expressing their political views on public affairs is in line with the social interest," the court said in a statement.

Huang is now chairman of the pro-independence New Power Party (NPP) founded after the protests, which is now the third-largest in the legislature after winning five seats in elections last year that toppled the Kuomintang (KMT) from power.

"This ruling affirms the spirit of the civil movement," Huang said in a statement after the verdict.

Protesters in the Sunflower Movement complained that the KMT had agreed to a trade deal in secret that would leave export-reliant Taiwan vulnerable to Chinese influence.

Days after taking office in May last year, the new Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) government dropped a separate lawsuit against Sunflower protesters for infiltrating the cabinet headquarters.

Premier Lin Chuan said at the time the movement has "legitimacy and social contribution".

Cross-strait ties have deteriorated since Tsai came to power with all official communications cut off, ending an eight-year rapprochement.(AFP)
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Thursday visited Baghdad and met with top Iraqi officials to show support for the Iraq's fight against the Islamic State (IS) militant group.

Iraq is currently facing a growing humanitarian crisis following fierce battles in Mosul.

During his visit, Guterres held a meeting with Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi.

The two reviewed the humanitarian situation and the protection of civilians as the Iraqi forces are fighting to retake control of the western side of Mosul, Xinhua news agency reported.

"The Iraqi people have proved their ability to defeat terrorism and to expel IS militants. We are in the final stage of liberating Mosul and our forces are exerting their utmost efforts to protect the civilians," Abadi said.

Abadi accused IS militants of "intentionally using civilians as human shields, while intensifying their propaganda machine to spread rumours" that Iraqi forces and international aircraft caused casualties among civilians.

He also called on the UN and its Security Council to "issue a resolution to prosecute (IS) for its crimes against civilians."

Guterres expressed support for Iraq's efforts to liberate its territories from IS militants, saying that "our visit to Iraq is to show solidarity at a historic moment, and we hope to liberate Mosul and let normal life return soon."

Guterres also said that he was "extremely encouraged by the commitment that expressed by the Abadi about the protection of civilians during the military operations."

The UN chief asserted the need for the international community to provide relief efforts to about three million Iraqis who were displaced by clashes against the IS, which seized large areas in northern and western part of the country in 2014.

Guterres also met with Iraqi Foreign Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari and the two sides reviewed "the humanitarian, security and political situations in Iraq as well as the victories of the Iraqi forces against IS," according to a statement by Jaafari's office.

Jaafari stressed on Iraq's call on the international organisation to "adopt a draft to criminalise the terrorist ideology and fight extremism in order to protect the societies from the risk of recruiting their sons in terrorist groups," the statement said.

"Iraq needs a plan similar to Marshall Plan to assist the people of Iraq and to support development to overcome impacts of the war against terrorist gangs," the statement added.

The Marshall Plan was an initiative launched by the US to aid Western Europe to recover from devastation after the World War II.

During his visit, Guterres also met Iraqi President Fuad Masoum and the speaker of the parliament, Salim al-Jubouri, who expressed hope that the international organisation would increase its humanitarian aid in Iraq.
The husband of an Indian-origin woman killed along with her son last week in New Jersey is being allowed to go to India for the funeral, according to an official.

Hanumantha Rao Narra's "movements are not restricted in any way by the criminal justice system," according to Joel Bewley, the Burlington County Prosecutor's spokesperson, quoted by CBSPhilly TV. "He has not been charged with a crime."

The channel quoted a source involved in the investigation as saying that Narra had a strong alibi. The source was not identified.

The channel said that Narra is expected to attend the funeral in India of his wife, Sasikala,38, and son Anish,6, who were found stabbed to death on March 23 in their Maple Shade home.

Post-mortems were done on the bodies of the victims and the remains were sent to a funeral home, according to the channel.

Bewley told the channel he would not comment on whether Narra is a suspect because his office does not comment on past, present, or future suspects.

CBSPhilly said that the source confirmed that Hanumantha Narra "was involved in a relationship with another woman as of last week". The woman was not identified.
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The Animal Rescue League posted these photos of a deer that got itself stuck between two fences at 191 Mechanic Street.


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A Malayalam channel that aired an audio clip, allegedly of former Kerala minister AK Saseendran asking a 'housewife' for sexual favours, has revealed that the woman was one of its journalists.

By India Today Web Desk: After a Malayalam channel that aired a controversial audio clip as part of its news bulletin, saying the voice heard was that of senior CPI(M) leader AK Saseendran seeking sexual favours from a housewife, the MLA resigned from his post of transport minister.

In a press conference called after Mangalam Television made the allegation, Saseendran said the party and Chief Miinister Pinarayi Vijayan may order an inquiry into the matter, and that it wasn't right on his part to continue as a minister during that time.

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He resigned on moral grounds, but now, a report in The News Minute says the 'housewife' was actually a journalist working with Mangalam TV.

After members of the Malayalam commentariat expressed skepticism about the 'complaint', Mangalam TV CEO Ajith Kumar said the journalist volunteered to be part of a sting operation, apologized to women journalists, and said his organisation shouldn't made public only a partial clip, the report said.

So, did Mangalam TV use a 'honey-trap'? The News Minute report says the channel hasn't said anything about that yet.

JUDICIAL COMMISSION CONSTITUTED

Mangalam Television's admission comes two days after Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan's government on Wednesday constituted a judicial commission to probe the allegations against 72-year old Saseendran, who stepped down immediately after the scandal broke.

However, Saseendran has said his resignation doesn't amount to an admission of guilt.

Saseendran is the second minister to quit after Industries Minister E P Jayarajan, who resigned over charges of nepotism.

(With inputs from PTI)

ALSO READ | Kerala transport minister quits after audio emerges of lewd conversation with woman

ALSO READ | Sexual harassment complaint catches up with top Indian-born executive at Uber

ALSO READ | Sexual harassment at TVF: Advocate registers complaint with Mumbai PoliceALSO WATCH | Sex scandal: AAP Minister Sandeep Kumar sacked after CD shows him having illicit affair

--- ENDS ---
In an unique swap deal, Malaysian authorities cleared the name of three North Korean nationals detained in suspect of Kim Jong-Nam's murder and sent them home along with the dead body of Kim Jong-Un's half brother.

Malaysian authorities released Kim's body on Thursday in a deal that secured the release of nine Malaysian citizens held in Pyongyang after a drawn out diplomatic spat.

Three North Koreans wanted for questioning over the murder of the estranged half-brother of their country's leader returned home on Friday along with the body of victim Kim Jong-Nam after Malaysia agreed a swap deal with the reclusive state.

Malaysian police investigating what US and South Korean officials say it was an assassination carried out by North Korean agents took statements from the three before they were allowed to leave the country.

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"We have obtained whatever we want from them...They have assisted us and they have been allowed to leave," police chief Khalid Abu Bakar told a news conference in the capital, Kuala Lumpur, saying there were no grounds to hold the men.

Kim Jong-Nam, the elder half-brother of the North's young, unpredictable leader Kim Jong-Un, was killed at Kuala Lumpur's airport on Feburary 13 in a bizarre assassination using VX nerve agent, a chemical so lethal the UN has listed it as a weapon of mass destruction.

China's Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang said the remains of a North Korean citizen killed in Malaysia were returned to the North via Beijing along with "relevant" North Korean citizens.

THE SWAP DEAL

Malaysian authorities released Kim's body on Thursday in a deal that secured the release of nine Malaysian citizens held in Pyongyang after a drawn out diplomatic spat.

Malaysian police had named eight North Koreans they wanted to question in the case, including the three given safe passage to leave.

A van believed to be carrying the body of Kim Jong Nam, leaves the Kuala Lumpur Hospital in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Television footage obtained by Reuters from Japanese media showed Hyon Kwang Song, the second secretary at the North Korean embassy in Kuala Lumpur, and Kim Uk Il, a North Korean state airline employee on the flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.

The police chief confirmed they were accompanied by compatriot Ri Ji U, also known as James, who had been hiding with them at the North Korean embassy in Kuala Lumpur.

KIM JONG-NAM HAD SURVIVED AN ATTACK IN 2012

Malaysian prosecutors have charged two women - an Indonesian and a Vietnamese - with killing Kim Jong-Nam, but South Korean and US officials had regarded them as pawns in an operation carried out by North Korean agents.

Kim Jong-Nam, who had been living in exile in the Chinese territory of Macau for several years, survived an attempt on his life in 2012, according to South Korean lawmakers.

They say Kim Jong-Un had issued a "standing order" for the assassination in order to consolidate his own power after the 2011 death of the father of both.

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The other North Koreans named by Malaysian investigators are all back in North Korea.

Police believe four fled Malaysia on the same day as the murder and another was held for a week before being released due to insufficient evidence.

Angered by the probe, North Korea ordered a travel ban on Malaysians this month, trapping three diplomats and six family members - including four children - in Pyongyang.

Malaysia, which previously had friendly ties with the unpredictable nuclear-armed state, responded with a ban of its own, but was left with little option but to accede to the North's demands for the return of the body and safe passage for the three nationals hiding in the embassy.

NO DIPLOMATIC TIES SNAPPED

Malaysia will not snap diplomatic ties with North Korea following the row, Prime Minister Najib Razak said during an official visit to India, state news agency Bernama reported.

"We hope they don't create a case like this again," Najib told reporters in the southern city of Chennai. "It will harm the relationship between the two countries."

On Thursday, Najib had announced the return of the body, but did not mention Kim by name.

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"Following the completion of the autopsy on the deceased and receipt of a letter from his family requesting the remains be returned to North Korea, the coroner has approved the release of the body," Najib said, adding that the murder investigation would continue but the travel ban on North Koreans was lifted.

North Korea has maintained that the dead man is not Kim Jong-Nam, saying instead the body is that of Kim Chol, the name on the victim's passport.

Malaysian police used a DNA sample to establish the victim was Kim Jong-Nam. Police chief Khalid said the North Korean embassy had at first confirmed the identity, but changed its stance the next day.

The swap agreement brings to an end a diplomatic standoff that has lasted nearly seven weeks.

Both countries managed to "resolve issues arising from the death of a DPRK national," a North Korean statement said on Thursday, referring to the country by the abbreviation of its official name.

"It is a win (for North Korea), clearly," Andrei Lankov, North Korea expert at Seoul's Kookmin University, said on the swap deal. "I presume the Malaysians decided not to get too involved in a remote country's palace intrigues, and wanted their hostages back."

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SIMULTANEOUS TAKE-OFF

The nine Malaysians who had been trapped in Pyongyang arrived in Kuala Lumpur early on Friday on board a small Bombardier business jet operated by the Malaysian air force.

Pilot Hasrizan Kamis said the crew dressed in civilian clothes as a "precautionary step" for the mission.

The Plane Finder tracking website showed the Bombardier took off from Pyongyang at the same time the Malaysian Airlines flight MH360 left Kuala Lumpur for Beijing.

Mohd Nor Azrin Md Zain, one of the returning diplomats, said it had been an anxious period but they "were not particularly harassed" by the North Korean authorities.

The episode, however, is likely to have cost North Korea one of its few friends.

"I think this relationship is going to go into cold storage for a very long time," said former Malaysian diplomat Dennis Ignatius.

Watch the video: Malaysian Police Confirm VX Nerve Agent Used to Kill Kim Jong-Nam

Also read: After Kim Jong Nam's murder, Malaysia to cancel visa-free entry for North Koreans

Also read: Interpol issues 'red notice' for 4 North Koreans over Kim Jong Nam murder

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Alifia, a prospective customer was hopping from one store to another to get the scooty of her choice. She said, "I have heard that there is discount on the vehicles and I am here to see it. If I find it reasonable, I will purchase it. I may get a nice car at a lower rate".

Hundreds of vehicle showrooms attend thousands of calls for selling lakhs of vehicles to crores of prospective buyers.

Believe it or not, from two wheelers to four wheelers, they could be of any range but if the vehicles were of Bharat Stage III norms it was the last day of sale for them.

Showrooms were busy responding to queries for discounts.

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Om Prakash Todi who deals in Honda two-wheelers in Kolkata said, "All the two-wheelers have been sold out and this is the last bike that I have left which too I believe will be sold out within the next ten minutes with several phone calls coming. It is because of the discount that people are flocking in and enquiring about availability of the vehicles which sadly we do not have anymore".

Honda had a lot of BS-III emission norms vehicles which have been barred from sale from April 1 in India as per the Supreme Court directions.

Ramesh Agarwal, another dealer in vehicles of Honda and Maruti, too said, "After the order passed by the Supreme Court yesterday a lot of queries have come up. I am associated with many brands also. I do not have BS-III stock in cars but in two-wheelers I have. People are trying to purchase and take the advantage of the discount. Some people are even buying more than one vehicle. We had to come up with something as the year end is here."

Alifia, a prospective customer was hopping from one store to another to get the scooty of her choice. She said, "I have heard that there is discount on the vehicles and I am here to see it. If I find it reasonable, I will purchase it. I may get a nice car at a lower rate".

Ankita Agarwal, proprietor of Nexa showroom in Park Street, said, "demonetisation has affected us in no way but discount is playing a major role if talked about two-wheelers. People still want to buy the cars with proper finance loan. This is however a little different."

Shreya, a two wheeler owner already said, "This is my third store that I have visited but unfortunately the stock here is no more available. I wanted to purchase an Activa for my sister. I read the newspaper late and so I am pretty late in the purchase. I wanted to buy one since a long time and the discounts have been a benefit for me and the major reason. If I get a good price for it, I will buy it."

Some like Rohan had even preponed there plans of buying the vehicle, "I wanted to purchase a bike and I preponed the purchase because of the discount. But disappointingly, all of them have been sold out."

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Also read:

BS-III ban: Honda Navi selling for less than a OnePlus3T. Only for today

BS-III vehicle ban: These two-wheelers are going cheap, buy them today

--- ENDS ---
It's the second day of the rally where more than thousand TMC supporters walked on the streets under the leadership of senior leaders.

The protest march of Trinamool supporters demanding stringent probe in the Narda, Saradha and Rose Valley scams continues across West Bengal.

It's the second day of the rally where more than thousand TMC supporters walked on the streets under the leadership of senior leaders.

The rally similar to that on Thursday started from College Square and ended in Dharmatala, Esplanade.

Mahila Morcha of Trinamool staged a protest rally from College Square to Dharmatala on Thursday in Kolkata.

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Mahila Morcha demanded strict investigation and alleged involvement of BJP and Congress in the Narada, Saradha and Rose Valley scandals.

Around 500 women members of the party gathered to stage the protest.

The rally was led by Chandrima Bhattacharjee, minister of law, judicial affairs and health.

Apart from Bhattacharjee, MLA of Jorasanko,Smita Bakshi and Dr Shashi Panja - women and child welfare minister were also present in the rally.

''Our protest is regarding the financial neglect that Bengal is going through right now. Our request is that proper investigation and strict action should be taken against the people involved in the Narada , Saradha and the Rose Valley scandals. We can know the correct facts only after proper interrogation is done," said Chandrima Bhattacharjee.

According to Sovan Chatterjee, environment minister and also mayor of Kolkata Municipal Corporation, there are possibly many leaders from the Bharatiya Janata Party, CPM and Congress who are also involved in these scandals, but TMC leaders were falsely alleged.

The women also demanded CBI investigation into the scams.

Also read:

Bring Mamata under CBI probe into Narada, Saradha scams: CPI-M

--- ENDS ---
But the tribe has a long way to go
Come April 1 and it will become illegal to have in possession more than 10 notes of the demonetised Rs. 500 and Rs. 1,000 denominations. The penalties include a fine of Rs. 10,000 or five times the face value of the demonetised notes, whichever is higher.

To avoid such unpleasant consequences, a sea of people were seen queuing up every day at the RBI office in New Delhi. According to officials, the queue starts from 6 am in the morning on the pavement outside the RBI office on Parliament Street, even though the counters open only by 10 am.

On Thursday afternoon, the serpentine queue extended for more than a kilometre. The young, old and women were seen braving the scorching mid-day sun in the hope that they would be able to secure the value of their hard earned money.

"We are here from Uttarakhand. We found Rs. 50,000 in the belongings of our deceased father and want to change these old notes," said Pradip Rawat, who was in the queue outside the RBI office, along with his brother who lives in Delhi.

"The queue is moving very slowly and most people are unable to get their old notes exchanged. There is a lot of bureaucracy," complained Purushottam Adhikari, a former colonel of the Indian Army.

"I was abroad, visiting my daughter in November and December when this happened. After coming back, I discovered some gift money received during my daughter's marriage still lying in the house. I am apprehensive that they will find some reason to not accept them," Adhikari said.

Like him, most people said they had missed the earlier December 31 deadline for reasons ranging from illness to travel. The central bank allowed Indian residents, who were abroad during November-December 2016, to exchange the scrapped notes up to March 31.

For NRIs, the window to exchange old notes is till June 30. However, the NRIs coming to India are required to come through 'Red Channel' after declaring to Customs authorities at the airport the amount of defunct notes they are carrying and then secure a certificate from them which needs to be produced at the time of depositing the old currency notes at the RBI.

On Thursday, some NRI families were seen queuing outside the RBI, trying to work out the one-page form that they must fill up and submit with required documents.

People waiting in queue outside the RBI office to exchange their old notes in New Delhi | Arvind Jain

"It is a hassle. They did not accept my Indian currency. I had not declared the money at the airport at the time of coming to India. Now, I have to to get the certificate from Customs authorities. If I am unable to get the money deposited, I will have to throw them away," said Kaushal Bhavnani, a software engineer working in San Fransisco.

So far, there is no monetary limit for exchange for eligible resident Indians, but the limit for NRIs have been set as per relevant Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA) regulations, i.e. Rs. 25,000 per person. This rule, too, caused some heartburn as people who had showed up with more than that amount were turned away from the RBI counters.

"Several people, who are ineligible, are queuing up at the RBI counters, making the queue longer," Minister of State for Finance Arjun Ram Meghwal said in a written reply to a Rajya Sabha question on the problems that people are facing in depositing the old notes in their possession. "Each application has to be checked at the counters for his/her absence from the country from passport stamp marks. It is taking considerable time for the counter staff," he added.

Currently, a PIL is being pursued in the Supreme Court, on the deadline for people to get their old notes exchanged. The apex court had pulled up the Centre earlier in March for not allowing the general public to exchange their notes till March 31 as was promised by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in his November 8 address to the nation.

When asked if the RBI would consider extending the dates for submitting or bring about relaxations in the eligibility criteria it had set for people who can deposit their old notes, RBI spokesperson Alpana Kilawalla said the central bank has not considered any such possibility. "The eligibility criteria were set from before hand and they are not a new addition. Every one was aware of the guidelines that allowed you to deposit old notes after December 31. On extension of dates for submitting old notes, you should ask the finance ministry," said Kilawalla.

The facility to exchange old notes is available at the RBI offices in Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata, Chennai and Nagpur. In case a person is refused deposit at these centres, he/she can appeal to the Central Board of the Reserve Bank within 14 days of such refusal.

These representations would need to be addressed to the Central Board, Reserve Bank of India, Secretary's Department, a RBI circular said.
Jammu and Kashmir government issued fresh orders prohibiting the assembly of more than four people within three kilometers from the site of an encounter.

The move comes after the death of three young boys in Budgamsecurity forces had opened fire on mobs of youth who had come support a trapped militant.

On Thursday, DGP S.P.Vaid said that youngsters rushing to the encounter sites were committing suicide.

The prohibitory orders have been issued under section 144 CrPC by Baramulla Deputy Commissioner Nisar Ahmed Naqash. The ban on the assembly of people will continue for two months. The order will not apply to the movement of ambulances, medical staff, and government employees.

The district administration has also established an assistance cell for help in case of emergencies.

In case of any an exigency, the local population can seek the assistance from the district administration or police, a government statement said.

The latest advisory came 24 hours after police chief advised the people, especially the youth, to stay away from encounter sites. Twelve civilians have been killed after getting fired upon by security forces during encounters.

When an encounter happens, even security forces take cover," Vaid said. "Bullets make no distinction. So my appeal to all these young boys is, as in the past, they should remain in their homes and not swarm the encounter sites."

More than 63 security personnel including 43 CRPF men and 20 cops were injured in stone pelting incidents near the encounter site at Chadoora on Tuesday.

The government's repeated request, however, has not dissuaded the protesters from staying away from the encounter sites. Police sources said more and more youths were engaging them during encounters, which often distracts from the anti-militancy operations.
In a major embarrassment to the Karnataka assembly speaker, health minister Ramesh Kumar has refused to chair the 13-member Joint House Committee constituted to regulate the media.

In a letter to Speaker K.B.Koliwad, Kumar urged him to call a meeting of media representatives to resolve the issue. I am grateful to you for reposing faith in me and appointing me as the chairman of the committee. However, there has been no clear terms of reference mentioned in the notice. I personally believe there should be a harmonious relation between the media and the legislature and the matter can be sorted out with discussions. Any attempt to infringe the freedom of the press would endanger democracy and I don't want to be a party to it.

Recalling the daywhen a debate on the decline in quality of reportage in both print and electronic media was held in the lower houseKumar said, I was not present in the assembly as I had to attend the upper house proceedings. However, when the issue was raised in the upper house, I had contended that it was not an issue to be resolved through a legislation but a matter of morality and professional ethics. I have also narrated incidents of media sensationalism that had caused adverse impact.

Kumar, also a former speaker, attributed the changing socio-economic situation in the country to the overall decline in value system and noted that media was no exception. Any debate should be based on facts and in the larger good of the people. Media should not indulge in flattery, and the politician should not crave for publicity either, said the minister, adding that some sections of the media expressing concern that legislature was trying to rein in media would send a wrong message to the people too.

Referring to the legislators' outcry in the House, Kumar said people in public life should neither be afraid of the media, nor try to control them. We, as elected representatives, should know that respect does not come as a privilege, but is earned through our behaviour.
More than a year after a 38-year-old woman from Uttarakhand, Shayara Bano, moved Supreme Court challenging the Islamic practices of triple talaq, polygamy and nikah halala, the case has moved to a decisive phase. The Supreme Court, on Thursday, referred the case to a five-judge constitution bench, which will conduct final hearing from May 11 to 19.

The Supreme Court judgment in the coming months could have wide social and political ramifications.

The religious issue had assumed political hue after BJP supported the move to abolish the practice, saying it was against the interests of women. Party chief Amit Shah, during his campaign in Uttar Pradesh elections, had thrown his weight behind abolition of triple talaq, a move which the party later claimed paid dividends during the polling. The saffron party claimed that Muslim women had silently voted for them.

Some Muslim bodies, particularly the All Indian Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB), feel that by pushing the ban of triple talaq, the government was also setting the stage for a uniform civil code (UCC).

The instant triple talaq is only recognised by the SunnisShia Muslims support its repeal. Many women bodies are also pushing for a ban on the practice, on the grounds of gender equality and women rights.

The AIMPLB is opposing Bano's contention saying that any change in the triple talaq would be anti-Islamic. Supreme Court in its various judgments had upheld the personal law. We are arguing that the court see this case in light of its previous judgments," Zafaryab Jilani, secretary of AIMPLB, told THE WEEK.

He added that there were prescribed norms under which talaq could be given and it was condemnable if no justification was given for the talaq.

Bano had been married for 13 years, before her husband divorced her on October 10, 2015. He sent her a letter pronouncing talaq. She had alleged that she was continuously subjected to cruelty by her huband. In February 2016, she filed a petition challenging the three practices, Talaq-e-Bidat, Nikah-Halala (a practice requiring a woman to mary another person before she can return to her former husband) and polygamy, asking that these be termed as illegal. They violated articles 14, 15, 21 and 25 of the Constitution, she said.

Many Islamic nations, including Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and Iraq, have banned or restricted such practice, while it continues to vex the Indian society in general and Indian Muslim women in particular, Bano's petition, filed by her counsel Balaji Srinivasan, in Supreme Court, said.



Muslim women have been given talaq over Skype, Facebook and even text messages. There is no protection against such arbitrary divorce. Such discrimination and inequality, hoarsely expressed in the form of unilateral triple-talaq, is abominable when seen in light of the progressive 21st century," the petition added.

Modi government, too, favoured repealing the practice. In its affidavit before the court, last year, the government said, gender equality and diginity of women are non-negotiable, overarching, constitutional values and can brook no compromise".

The AIMPLB argued before the court that personal laws of a community cannot be re-written in the name of social reform, and courts cannot supplant its own interpretations over the scriptures. Unique importance has been attached to religious scriptures in the Indian legal system and in Indian culture. Muslim personal law provides for the practices to be followed on the issues of marriage, divorce and maintenance and these practices are based on holy scripturesAl-Quran and sources based on Al- Quran, the AIMPLB counsel Ejaz Maqbool, in his written submission before the court, said.

Maqbool told THE WEEK that Supreme Court can deliver its judgment after the hearing gets over on May 19. The case is in its final stage.

Another case had come to light where a Muslim woman, Shagufta, wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and UP CM Yogi Adityanath urging him to ban the triple talaq after she was was abandoned by her husband.
Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath's first ever meeting with meat sellers and slaughter house owners, after the crackdown on illegal slaughter houses in the state, ended with both the factions softening their stance on the issue.

The CM assured them that They will not be harassed unnecessarily and no action will be taken against them in the name of religion and community, and urged them to Get the old slaughter houses modernised.

Those who do their business in the ambit of law and those who procure licences by legal means to run these abattoirs will have no problems, the CM told them.

In the wake of this assurance, meat sellers and slaughter house owners decided to end their indefinite strike. With this, the situation in the state is expected to be back to normal and the supply of meat restored in the coming days.

It may be recalled that soon after assuming power, Adityanath had initiated a stern crackdown on illegal abattoirs as was promised by the BJP during the election campaigns.

Cow slaughter is banned in UP, but slaughtering of buffaloes is allowed. The move by the government had caused panic among meat sellers and abattoir owners and adversely affected the business in the state.

Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority (APEDA) data shows that UP leads the market in meat production and export with 19 per cent of the entire meat produced in the country coming from the state. UP Animal Husbandry Department data reveals that the state exports meat worth Rs. 26,685 crore annually.

All India Meat and Livestock Exporters Association said a ban on meat exports would cause a loss of about Rs. 11,350 crore annual revenue to the state.

According to UP Pollution Control Board, there are 72 government-approved slaughter houses which have the No Objection Certificate issued by the government in the country of which 38 are in the state.

A rough estimate indicates that there are 140 slaughter houses and over 50,000 meat shops which are illegal in UP. The state has about 25 lakh people associated directly or indirectly with the meat industry.

All India Jamiatul Quresh president Sirajuddin Qureshi, who had represented the abattoir owners and meat sellers in the meeting with the chief minister, said the meeting with the CM has been successful and urged the meat sellers to end the strike.

It may be recalled that as a mark of protest against the crackdown by the government, meat sellers of the state had announced an indefinite strike.

Lucknow Bakra Gosht Vypar Mandals Mubeen Qureshi said, Meat sellers never wanted to lock horns with the government, but the move by the government is crippling the industry and the livelihood of lakhs of people are at stake.

In the wake of inadequate supply meat after the ban, many famous non-veg outlets of Lucknow, including Tundey kebab and Dastarkhawan, either remained closed or failed to offer their special dishes.
US President Donald Trump predicted a "very difficult" meeting with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping, whom he has invited to his mansion in Florida (Mar-a-Lago) in early April.

"The meeting next week with China will be a very difficult one in that we can no longer have massive trade deficits and job losses. American companies must be prepared to look at other alternatives," Donald Trump said in two Twitter messages.

The meeting agenda will have a strong economic and commercial nature, Xinhua news agency reported on Friday.

During his campaign and also as President, Trump has been blaming Chinain addition to Mexicofor the US trade deficit and job losses due to offshore outsourcing, a trend that he has promised to change.

However, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lu Kang said, "40 per cent of China's trade surplus with the United States came from US companies in China."

Lu also argued that bilateral trade has created 2.6 million jobs in the US and said the two countries "are highly complementary."
While the Opposition members in the Legislative Assembly have been boycotting House proceedings over the issue, the Congress, NCP-led Opposition had been forcing the adjournment of the Legislative Council, demanding that the suspensions be revoked.

Maharashtra chief minister Devendra Fadnavis on Friday hinted that the suspension of 19 Opposition members in the Legislative Assembly will be revoked by Friday, ending days of deadlock between the ruling and Opposition parties.

While the Opposition members in the Legislative Assembly have been boycotting House proceedings over the issue, the Congress, NCP-led Opposition had been forcing the adjournment of the Legislative Council, demanding that the suspensions be revoked.

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"Some members had indulged in irresponsible behaviour and were thus suspended. However, we are of the opinion that there should be Opposition parties in the House in the absence of which we too are facing difficulties," Fadnavis said, making a statement in the Legislative Council.

"Even before this episode, suspensions have happened and they were even revoked later. This time too we (ruling and Opposition parties) had a positive discussion over the issue in the Chairman's chamber," he added.

Fadnavis said that despite the positive discussions, the revocation could not take place as some members who were not privy to the discussions had raked up other issues.

"However, we have decided to take a positive decision over the issue by tomorrow," he said.

Earlier, while speaking over the issue, senior Congress leader Narayan Rane had taken a jibe at the government, saying that for a democracy both government and Opposition had equal importance.

"Work happening in Assembly but without Opposition. This is not right. The suspensions of MLAs should be revoked," he had demanded.

Also read

Deadlock continues in Maharashtra Assembly over demand for a loan waiver for farmers

--- ENDS ---
Bhangale created a furore when he alleged that BJP leader Ekanath Khadse had been speaking to underworld don Dawood Ibrahim.

Mumbai Police cyber cell on Thursday arrested hacker Jalgaon resident Manish Bhangale, who created a furore when he alleged last year that BJP leader Ekanath Khadse had been speaking to underworld don Dawood Ibrahim.

Bhangale had created a fake mobile bill on a computer to show call records between Khadse and Dawood's residence in Pakistan, an official said.

An offence was registered against Bhangale under IPC sections 468 (forgery for purpose of cheating), 471 (using as genuine a forged document or electronic record) read with 66 D of the Information Technology Act, the official said.

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Khadse, who held several key portfolios in the state Cabinet, resigned in June 2016 after facing a string of allegations including irregularities in a land deal.

ARRESTED FOR CHEATING

At a press conference that he gave with Aam Aadmi Party spokesperson Preeti Sharma Menon, Bhangale had said that between September 2015 to April 2016, Khadse and Dawood had been in touch with each other.

The Maharashtra government ordered an investigation in the case.

Bhangale later said the time period was actually January to April in 2015. It took investigating agencies a while retrieve records.

Bhangale produced documents to show that the Pakistan landline number that Khadse was allegedly calling was registered in the name of Dawood's wife Mehjabeen. He also claimed he'd ethically hacked a Pakistan-based telecom operator, and showed documents with call data records from that operator.

However, the cyber cell which was investigating the case noticed that all the documents he'd produced were forged.

"The Pakistan telecom papers had been picked up from the Internet. So we registered a case sometime back and arrested him on Thursday for cheating. We have also applied the IT act against him." said Joint police Commissioner of Mumbai Police Sanjay Saxena.

"We need to know what his intentions were for doing this. Till now we were checking the authenticity of documents," he added.

The agency wants to find out whether Bhangale had any malafide intentions for levelling such allegations against Khadse, and if someone had instigated him to do so.

Police will produce Bhangale in court and will seek further custody.

Preeti Sharma Menon was unavailable for comment.

(Inputs from PTI)

ALSO READ | Dawood-Khadse call link: Vadodara hacker Manish Bhangale files PIL against Eknath Khadse

ALSO WATCH | Bombay High Court to hear hacker Manish Bhangale's plea

--- ENDS ---
By Press Trust of India: Bhubaneswar, Mar 31 (PTI) Maoists attacked a railway station in Odishas Rayagada district early today, triggered a blast and put up posters protesting against the proposed visit of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to the state next month.

Around 15-20 Maoists stormed Doikalu railway station under Sambalpur Division shortly after mid-night and ransacked the station masters office, Chief Public Relations Officer of East Coast Railway (ECoR), J P Mishra said.

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The ultras pulled out station master S K Parida and triggered an explosion in the station premises. Parida and a token porter Gobind Hikaka were also detained by them for a brief period, he said.

The attackers snatched the walkie-talkie of the station master, and forced staff of a goods train standing outside the station to shut down the engine, Mishra said.

Rayagada Superintendent of Police K Siva Subramani, who rushed to the spot, said minor damage was caused to the engine of the goods train.

No railway staff or local people was, however, hurt in the incident, the CPRO said adding control room has been able to speak to the staff.

Train services through Daikallu, located between Rayagada and Titlagarh stations, were disrupted for quite sometime. A number of trains were stranded at Muniguda station, railway officials said.

The Maoists left behind handwritten posters opposing the policies of Narendra Modi government at the Centre and Naveen Patnaik regime in Odisha, officials said.

In one of the posters, the attackers opposed the proposed two-day visit of the Prime Minister to Odisha on April 15 and 16 to attend BJPs national executive meeting.

Some posters also criticised non-Odia officers being appointed to senior posts in the state police as well as administration, they said.

Director General of Police K B Singh said combing operation has been launched in the area by CRPF and Special Operation Group (SOG) personnel after the incident.

Railway officials said that movement of goods trains with restricted speed had resumed after security clearance, while steps are being taken for resumption of express and passenger trains soon. PTI AAM SKN NN LNS

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Before crackdown on slaughter houses in Uttar Pradesh, the state was the leading producer and exporter of meat in the country. While implementing the law strictly, Yogi Adityanath government has a mammoth task to find new income opportunities for more than 25 lakh people directly or indirectly employed by this Rs 26,000 crore industry of Uttar Pradesh.

Butchers sit idle after slaughter houses were closed in Malihabad, on the outskirts of Lucknow. (Photo: AP)

There is panic among the meat sellers and people involved in animal-slaughter business in Uttar Pradesh as Yogi Adityanath government has ordered a crackdown on all illegal abattoirs.

The BJP had promised action against illegal slaughterhouses in its poll manifesto. Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath defended the action against slaughter houses citing a two-year-old order of the National Green Tribunal.

The NGT had in May 2015 directed the authorities to ensure that the meat shops were properly regulated.

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The slaughterhouses having no permission from the UP Pollution Control Board (UPPCB) and environmental clearance from State Level Environment Impact Assessment Authority (SEIAA) were barred from operation by the NGT.

Akhilesh Yadav government did not do much. Adityanath chose to fulfill his poll promise.

HOW MANY SLAUGHTERHOUSES ARE IN UP

The Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority (APEDA) is the regulatory body at the Centre's level for keeping a tab on slaughterhouses. It monitors exports of all meat products.

There are 72 government approved slaughterhouses in the country. Uttar Pradesh has the largest number with more than half the share. According to the Uttar Pradesh Pollution Control Board 38 abattoirs have been issued no-objection certificates.

Buffaloes meant for slaughter stand tethered in Malihabad, on the outskirts of Lucknow. (Photo: AP)

Two of the slaughterhouses in Uttar Pradesh are government run - at Saharanpur and Agra. Two more are proposed at Lucknow and Bareilly.

There is no clear data on the illegal abattoirs in Uttar Pradesh. But it is estimated that there could be 14-150 functional slaughter houses in Uttar Pradesh that do not have requisite permissions from concerned departments and authorities.

In addition to illegal abattoirs, there are about 50,000 meat shops without proper license in Uttar Pradesh.

According to the All India Meat and Livestock Exporters' Association, the meat industry of Uttar Pradesh provides jobs to nearly 25 lakh people. This explains the scale of panic in the state after Yogi Adityanath government cracked its whip against slaughterhouses and meat shops running without permission.

Workers stand outside a closed slaughter house in Allahabad. (Photo: AP)

HOW MEAT BUSINESS BECOMES ILLEGAL

Setting up a slaughterhouse with all requisite permission and no-objection certificate is a tedious process. The applicant has first to seek permission for procuring land for the unit. If he owns the land, he needs to get clearance.

The application is submitted at the district industries centres. It is then forwarded to the UPPCB, which directs the DM to carry out inspection of the site and submit report for clearance.

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The UPPCB also sends its team to check air, water, land and other pollution at the site of the proposed unit. If both reports - from the DM and the UPPCB team - are favourable, the applicant is granted permission to set up a slaughter house.

A meat transporter rests on his cycle-cart in front of a slaughter house that was shutdown by authorities in Allahabad. (Photo: AP)

If the applicant wants to export meat, his application would be forwarded to APEDA under the government of India. APEDA sends its own team to check the quality of slaughterhouse, meat and meat products. If the APEDA is satisfied with everything, it grants permission for export of meat.

Most of the small scale meat traders and exporters do not follow the procedure and run without permission - the illegal slaughterhouses.

WHAT THEY KILL AT SLAUGHTERHOUSES

Killing cows are outlawed in Uttar Pradesh since 1955 when Sampurnanand of Congress was the Chief Minister of the state. He passed the law against the wishes of the then Prime Minister Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru.

According to the prevailing law, the slaughterhouse can kill buffalo, goat, pig and sheep. They also have the permission to kill bull which is more than 15 years old or is unhealthy and certified to be killed.

Workers remove ropes of slaughtered animals at a slaughter house that was shutdown by authorities in Allahabad. (Photo: AP)

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WHAT HAS KEPT ILLEGAL ABATTOIRS GOING IN UP

Uttar Pradesh is the leading meat producer and exporter in the country with little less than 20 per cent share in annual meat production at the national level.

According to the UP government's data, the state produced 7.5 billion kg of buffalo meat between 2008-09 and 2014-15. Buffalo meat from Uttar Pradesh is in great demand among the Gulf countries.

Economically, the low labour cost in Uttar Pradesh gives the state advantage over other competitive Indian states like Andhra Pradesh and West Bengal.

Secondly, the buyers in the Gulf countries are more comfortable importing meat from Uttar Pradesh for their religious belief. As the UP meat production and export business is dominated by Muslims, the buyers in the Gulf remain assured that the meat would be 'halal' (fit to eat according to Islamic belief).

Workers at closed abattoir in Allahabad. (Photo: AP)

HOW MUCH MONEY IT GENERATES

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The data of the animal husbandry department of Uttar Pradesh puts the annual meat export from the state at Rs 26,685 crore. UP exported about 5.65 lakh tonnes of buffalo meat in 2015-16.

The All India Meat and Livestock Exporters' Association has estimated that a total ban on meat export from Uttar Pradesh would lead to a loss of over Rs 11,000 crore every year.

ALSO WATCH | Now cow slaughter will attract life imprisonment in Gujarat

--- ENDS ---
The United Nations and human rights groups have accused Gazas Hamas rulers of endangering their own people by closing the territorys main crossing with Israel.

Hamas imposed the lockdown in the wake of the mysterious killing of a senior commander last week. It has accused Israel of being behind the killing.

Movement in and out of Gaza is already tightly restricted by Israel and Egypt, which have maintained a blockade on the seaside territory since the Hamas terror organization took power a decade ago.

Now, Hamas has further tightened movement with its rare closure of the Erez crossing  the main point for Gazans who need to enter Israel for medical care or to travel to the West Bank or Jordan.

Hamas has been on high alert since the body of Mazen Faqha, 38, was found with four gunshots at the entrance of his Gaza City home on Friday night. Faqhas killers, who used a silencer and fled the scene before the body was discovered, remain at large.

After the killing, Hamas set up military-style checkpoints throughout Gaza, prevented fishermen from going out to sea and barred all residents and foreign aid workers from leaving the coastal strip. On Monday, it eased the closure to allow some patients and families of prisoners held by Israel to exit Gaza. But male patients between the ages of 15 and 45 are still barred.

The World Health Organization said Thursday that 79 patients have missed medical appointments, meaning they will have to reapply for hard-to-get travel permits from Israel. OCHA said international experts have been unable to enter Gaza, delaying much-needed aid projects, while local union officials say 4,000 fishermen have not set sail since Saturday.

Akram Attallah, a Gaza-based columnist, wrote that the closure of Gaza was a collective punishment that the Palestinians should not be conducting.

The Independent Commission for Human Rights, a Palestinian watchdog, called on Hamas to end the closure, while Gisha, an Israeli human rights group that usually battles the Israeli closure, strongly condemned Hamas restrictions.

Security concerns do not give any actor free reign to violate human rights, Gisha said. Freedom of movement is a fundamental human right.

Hamas Interior Ministry says the restrictions will remain in place until further notice. It has imposed a gag order barring publication of details into the investigation.

COGAT, the Israeli defense body that coordinates movement through the crossing, said the number of people passing through each day has dropped from over 1,000 to 230. It said Kerem Shalom, the main cargo crossing for deliveries into Gaza, has been operating as normal.

The agency accused Hamas, which is sworn to Israels destruction, of causing a constant tension between the will to help the civilian Gaza residents and our duty to protect the citizens of Israel.

Faqha, who was originally from the West Bank, was released by Israel along with more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners in exchange for a captive Israeli soldier in 2011. He had been serving nine life sentences for his role in planning suicide bombings in Israel.

Israel has not commented on the killing.

Faqhas father told The Associated Press that Israeli intelligence agents raided their West Bank home three times between 2014 and 2015 and threatened his son over the telephone.

Hamas said Faqha resumed his militant work after his release and was a senior leader of its military wing.

(AP)
Wizz Air, which advertises as the largest low-cost airline in Central and Eastern Europe announced three new low-fare rotes to Tel Aviv:

Lublin, Poland -Tel Aviv From NIS 154* one way;

Craiova, Romania  Tel Aviv From NIS 179* one way

Kosice, Slovakia  Tel Aviv From NIS 154* one way

Three New Low-Cost Routes

Lublin-Tel Aviv From NIS 154* One Way

Craiova  Tel Aviv From NIS 179* One Way

Kosice- Tel Aviv From NIS 154* One Way

In Addition, Wizz Air Increases Frequency on These Routes:

Bucharest-Tel Aviv, From 4 To 7 Weekly Flights from September 18

Budapest-Tel Aviv, From 7 To 10 Weekly Flights from October 29

Tel Aviv, 28 March:

In addition, Wizz Air announced it will increase frequency on the following routes:

Bucharest-Tel Aviv, from 4 to 7 weekly flights from September 18

Budapest-Tel Aviv, from 7 to 10 weekly flights from October 29.

Wizz Air noted that these new routes are some of many that the company has opened to Israel and more new routes are planned, in the framework of the companys cooperation with the Tourism Ministry. Wizz Air also announced that the new routes would operate twice a week and that passengers wishing to purchase flights for their vacations/city-breaks in Tel Aviv/Lublin/Craiova and Kosice can do so on the company website wizzair.com, with flights beginning at NIS 154 one way.

Tourism Minister Yariv Levin: I congratulate Wizz Air on its decision to continue expanding operations in Israel and to open three new direct routes into Ben Gurion airport, joining the existing routes. I am pleased that cooperation between the Tourism Ministry and Wizz Air has moved up a level, as the company expresses confidence in the Israeli tourism product and significantly expands its operations in Israel.

The tourism industry is currently going through a great transformation and the expansion of Wizz Air operation is a testament to the significant improvement in the attractiveness of Israel as a tourism destination. The opening of the new routes, which will bring further increases in incoming tourism, joins the exceptional marketing efforts that we are implementing, efforts that have already led to a 25% increase in incoming tourism this year.

Owain Jones, Chief Corporate Officer at Wizz Air, said: We are thrilled to be adding today three new European destinations to Wizz Airs low-fare network. WIZZs new services to Lublin, Kosice and Craiova will be operated twice a week, further stimulating bi-directional tourism between the countries and creating more truly affordable travel opportunities for our Israeli customers. Starting today, our Israeli passengers can discover 17 exciting destinations across 9 countries in Europe from Tel Aviv and Eilat airports through WIZZs network with fares starting from as low as ILS 129. We remain committed to the country and we look forward to bringing more positive news in the future.

Wizz Air also noted that, since opening its first route to Budapest in 2012, together with todays announcement, the company is becoming the largest low cost airline in the Israeli market in terms of seat capacity. Operating a fleet of brand new Airbus A320 and A321 aircraft the average age of which is 4 years, in only five years the airline has carried more than 1.2 million passengers traveling to and from Israel.

* One way including all taxes and non-optional charges

About Wizz Air

Wizz Air is the largest low-cost airline in Central and Eastern Europe, operates a fleet of 77 Airbus A320 and Airbus A321 aircraft, and offers more than 500 routes from 28 bases, connecting 137 destinations across 40 countries. At Wizz Air, a team of approximately 3,000 aviation professionals delivers superior service and very low ticket prices making Wizz Air the preferred choice of 23 million passengers in 2016. Wizz Air is listed on the London Stock Exchange under the ticker WIZZ and is included in the FTSE 250 and FTSE All-Share Indices. Wizz Air is registered under the International Air Transport Association (IATA), Operational Safety Audit (IOSA), the global benchmark in airline safety recognition. The company was recently named 2016 Value Airline of the Year by the editors of Air Transport World, one of the leading airline trade magazines, as well as 2016 Low Cost Airline of the Year by the Center for Aviation (CAPA), a leading provider of independent aviation market intelligence.

Wizz Air, always looking for opportunities that can accommodate the strong growth of its low-fare network, has already announced seven new routes to six countries in Europe, starting in 2017 from Tel Aviv. Furthermore, the popular route from Tel Aviv to Budapest will be operated with 10 frequencies a week starting from 29 October, while the connection to Romanias capital, Bucharest will have 6 weekly frequencies a week, from 17 June and daily flights starting 19 September. Proving its commitment to the Israel market, Wizz Air offers 800,000 seats on sale in 2017 on 16 routes to nine countries available from Tel Aviv airport, which represents a 70% increase year-over-year. The low-fare travel opportunities created by WIZZ in Israel will further stimulate the tourism industry and boost the trade and business links between the countries.

In 2016, nearly 418,000 passengers have enjoyed WIZZs low fares, easy booking system and excellent on-board service to and from Israel, supporting 310 indirect jobs** in airport operations, transportation, hospitality and tourism industries. Since the first WIZZ flight from Tel Aviv to Budapest in 2012, the airline is continuously looking to bring more travel opportunities that can best meet its Israeli customers needs, offering now a total of 17 low-fares routes to nine countries across Europe from Tel Aviv and Eilat airports, including the upcoming services from Tel Aviv to London-Luton and Varna, starting in June and July respectively.

(YWN  Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie denied any tension between him and senior presidential adviser Jared Kushner as the two prepare to team up in a new White House initiative to combat the nations opioid epidemic, telling ABC News David Muir on Good Morning America today that they get along just great.

When he was the U.S. attorney for New Jersey, Christie prosecuted Kushners father, real estate mogul Charles Kushner, who was sentenced to prison in 2005 on 18 counts of tax evasion, witness tampering and making illegal campaign contributions.

Christie was one of the biggest supporters of Donald Trumps presidential campaign last year and, according to two top Republican officials, was vetted as a possible vice presidential pick. Trump ultimately chose Mike Pence as his running mate and asked Christie to head his transition team. Just days after Trumps election victory over Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton, Trump asked Pence to take over transition team efforts from Christie.

The staff shakeup coincided with unconfirmed reports that Jared Kushner, who is married to Ivanka Trump, was at the center of infighting among transition team members. But in a rare interview with Forbes last year, Kushner denied that he was behind Christies ouster.

Six months ago, Gov. Christie and I decided this election was much bigger than any differences we may have had in the past, and we worked very well together, Kushner told Forbes last November. The media has speculated on a lot of different things, and since I dont talk to the press, they go as they go, but I was not behind pushing out him or his people.

Now Christie is set to lead a new White House commission tasked with tackling opioid addiction nationwide. The commission will fall under the White House Office of American Innovation, which Trump unveiled Monday. The president appointed Kushner to lead the office.

The Office of American Innovation will bring a creative and strategic approach to many critical issues and intractable problems that affect Americans quality of life, Kushner said in a statement issued by the White House on Monday. We have an opportunity to identify and implement solutions by combining internal resources with the private sectors innovation and creativity, enabling the federal government to better serve Americans.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 91 Americans die every day from overdosing on opioids, including heroin and prescription opioids. Deaths in the United States from prescription opioids such as oxycodone, hydrocodone and methadone have more than quadrupled since 1999.

They do need the help, and this White House is going to step up to help them, Christie told GMA.

In addition to addressing the epidemic of opioid and other drug use, the White House Office of American Innovation will create task forces to focus on other initiatives, including reforming care for veterans.

When asked on GMA today whether things were tense with Kushner, given their history, Christie replied, Not at all.

Listen, that stuff is ancient history. Its over 12 years ago. And Jared and I have worked incredibly well on this issue and, by the way, on a whole bunch of other issues during the campaign, Christie added. We are working hard because we know our job is to try to make sure that this White House is as successful as it can be for the people of this country who elected Donald Trump to bring change to our country and bring change to this town. And anything I can do to help, I will, and Jared and I get along just great.

(AP)
Israel Police earlier in the week received a call from a lottery booth in southern Jerusalem after a youth tried to grab tickets from the vendor.

The youth filled out a number of Lotto tickets in the amount of NIS 3,000 and then gave them to the vendor who validated them, and then he grabbed them and fled without paying.

Police began searching the area and the youth was nabbed trying to cash the tickets at another booth, nearby. He was placed under arrested and arraigned.

The irony is that had he paid he would have won quite a bit more as one of his tickets was a winner. Now, he alone is the big loser.

(YWN  Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
A number of months ago, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu signed an agreement with residents of Amona promising them a new community would be built for them in another location. This led to them leaving their homes in line with the High Court of Justice ruling amid the realization they would be given a new place to live, one that is not the subject of controversy. The deadline stipulated in the agreement is 31 March 2017.

During a press conference on Thursday 3 Nissan with a visiting dignitary, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu stated I promised at the outset that we would build a new community. I believe that I first gave that promise back in December and we will uphold it today. In a few hours you will know all the details.

This has led the expellees of Amona to believe that all has not be lost and a new community will be constructed for them. Since leaving their homes, the families have been living under extremely difficult conditions in a girls high school dormitory in Yishuv Ofra.

(YWN  Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
Israel is putting its money where its mouth is amid a decision to cut funding to the United Nations. During his remarks at the start of a press conference with Slovak President Andre Kiska, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu stated in response to a question about the Foreign Ministry funds, I am not prepared to pay for and finance the attacks against us at the UN. We are changing the rules. There are venomous attacks against us there and, therefore, I have already directed that $6-7 million be cut from our UN dues.

After the vote in the UN Human Rights Council, I decided to cut another $2 million. This considerable sum, almost NIS 40 million, will be transferred to the Foreign Ministry, which is doing exceptional work. They will use it to develop our relations with countries that want to be close to Israel and are cultivating friendship with it.

(YWN  Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
A Jerusalem chessed organization that assists thousands of families ahead of Yomtov is being held hostage by hackers. The hackers have penetrated the organizations system, demanding ransom to release the system ahead of Pesach.

The organization has been working without its computers over recent days as the hackers have taken over their system. It is reported the hacker attack originates outside of Israel. Time is running out as the computer system is required to assist the families as the distribution of Pesach items is set to being next week.

It remains to be seen what will occur as the organizations entire database has been taken over and it does not have a backup.

(YWN  Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
Note to President Donald Trump and House Republicans: People really dont like your approach to overhauling Americas health care. If youre hoping to revive the effort, you may want to try something different.

Sixty-two percent of Americans turned thumbs down on Trumps handling of health care during the initial weeks of his presidency, according to a poll by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research released Wednesday. It was his worst rating among seven issues the poll tested, including the economy, foreign policy and immigration.

Of six changes the failed House GOP bill would have made to President Barack Obamas law, five drew more negative than positive reviews.

An overwhelming 8 in 10 opposed the Republican proposal to let insurers boost premiums on older people. Seven in 10 disapproved of premium surcharges for people whose coverage lapses.

By wide margins, people also disliked proposed cuts in Medicaid, which helps lower-earning people cover medical costs, a halt in federal payments to Planned Parenthood and a transformation of the Obama laws subsidies  based on income and premium costs  into aid linked to age.

His campaign promise was great health care for everyone, for all Americans at great prices, said Raymond Brown, 64, a Republican and retired truck driver from Rio Grande, New Jersey. He isnt fulfilling his campaign promise.

Overall, just over half in the poll said they worry many Americans would have lost coverage had the GOP bill become law. Would their own families and average Americans have been better or worse off? More said worse.

The results underscore that annulling Obamas statute is not an issue to be trifled with. More people support than oppose that law by 45 percent to 38 percent, a slightly narrower margin than in January. And a slender majority say covering all Americans is a federal responsibility  a view embraced by Democrats but not Republicans, who instead focus on access and lower premiums.

The survey was conducted over five days preceding and following last Fridays withdrawal of the GOP health care bill. Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., short-circuited a House vote that would have spelled defeat for the Republican legislation because of opposition from conservative and moderate Republicans. It was a mortifying setback for Trump and his party.

The poll suggests that health care is damaging Trumps image.

Fifty-eight percent disapproved of his overall performance as president, not much different from his negative grade on health care. Even among those approving the job hes doing in office, about 1 in 5 was unhappy with his approach to health care.

The GOP bill scared off many Republican lawmakers after the Congressional Budget Office projected there would be 24 million more uninsured people over a decade and a boost in out-of-pocket costs for many, especially poorer people and Americans nearing retirement age.

The negative views in the poll make any new GOP effort embracing pieces of the crumbled legislation potentially perilous for the party.

Nearly all Democrats and most independents disapproved of Trumps performance on health care, but so did around 1 in 3 Republicans.

In addition, Republicans had mixed views on the collapsed House GOP bill. Clear majorities of them opposed boosting premiums for older people and those whove had gaps in coverage. They were more likely to oppose than support cutting Medicaid and were divided over linking subsidies to age more than income.

Republicans did mostly back the Republican bills blocking of federal payments to Planned Parenthood. And they were likelier to say their own families and average Americans would have been better off, not worse, under the legislation.

Rosiland Russell, 71, a retired apartment complex manager from Clifton, Texas, said she was glad to see the attempt to unravel Obamas law.

Its not cheap, its not what its cracked up to be, Russell, a Republican, said of Obamas statute. Weve got to have change, its ridiculous.

Of the proposed Republican changes examined by the poll, only one received a positive reception. That was its elimination of the tax penalty on people who dont buy coverage, though by a modest 48 percent to 35 percent margin.

Strong majorities backed two Obama requirements the GOP would have left in place: Insurers cant deny policies to sick people and must cover children up to age 26 under their parents plans.

(AP)
On Wednesday afternoon, fifty by-invitation-only guests gathered at the White House as Vice President Mike Pence swore in David Friedman, a frum Jew, as the new U.S. Ambassador to Israel.

Among this exclusive group of attendees was Duvi Honig, Founder and CEO of the Orthodox Jewish Chamber of Commerce. Duvi is a close friend of the new Ambassador, who lobbied aggressively to Senators and the general public on behalf of his confirmation.

While in the White House, Duvi wasted no time in his efforts to influence U.S. public policy on behalf of our communitys economic interests, both domestically and as it relates toboosting U.S.-Israel economic ties and the battle against the BDS movement. Duvi held a meeting with Vice President Pences staffers in his office, and conversed with the Vice President himself during the swearing in ceremony.

The Vice President and White House staffers expressed great interest in our efforts, Duvi relates. We look forward to meeting again in the near future and working together to boost economic opportunity for our community and the entire nation.




By India Today Web Desk: Oh yes. The global superstar is all set to come to India to shoot Mission: Impossible 6, the next film of the Mission: Impossible franchise.

Apart from India, the upcoming action-adventure thriller will be shot in London, Paris and New Zealand, according to The Tracking Board's Jeff Sneider.

Mission: Impossible 6 filming in London, India, Paris & New Zealand. Will be released in IMAX 3D on July 27, 2018. NO MENTION of Renner!- Jeff Sneider (@TheInSneider) March 29, 2017

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Back in 2011, the fourth Mission: Impossible film Ghost Protocol starred Anil Kapoor in a small, negative role. Bits of the film were also shot in India.

In recent times, with actors like Irrfan, Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Deepika Padukone, Huma Qureshi and Priyanka Chopra acting in Hollywood films, Cruise shooting in India is only going to strengthen the existing relations between Hollywood and Bollywood.

Interestingly, Henry Cavill who plays Superman in Warner Bros./DC's latest productions is part of the cast of Mission: Impossible 6.

David Ellision, producer of the film told Collider.com, "We're thrilled. Chris is back, obviously, writing and directing after Rogue Nation. We could not be more excited about the character Henry Cavill's going to play. And I will say after the Burj (Khalifa) we thought it was going to be impossible to top that stunt, and then Tom did the A400M for the plane. What Tom is doing in this movie I believe will top anything that's come before. It is absolutely unbelievable - he's been training for a year. It is going to be, I believe, the most impressive and unbelievable thing that Tom Cruise has done in a movie, and he has been working on it since right after Rogue Nation came out. It's gonna be mind-blowing."

As of now, no release date has been announced for M:I 6.

OPINION: The impossible life of an action star; Tom Cruise

ALSO SEE: Tom Cruise and Russell Crowe join forces in The Mummy trailer

WATCH: Tom Cruise jumps off Burj Khalifa

--- ENDS ---
President Donald Trumps nominee for Air Force secretary came under scrutiny Thursday as Democrats questioned her work as a defense industry consultant and a conversation she had a decade ago with a federal prosecutor during a corruption probe.

During her confirmation hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Heather Wilson defended her performance, telling the panel she did nothing improper. To avoid any potential conflicts of interest, Wilson has committed to selling stocks she holds in more than a dozen companies that have Defense Department contracts.

Wilson is the first service secretary selected by Trump to appear before the committee. The presidents nominee to lead the Army, Vincent Viola, withdrew in early February because of financial entanglements, and about three weeks later Philip B. Bilden, the Navy secretary nominee, withdrew for similar reasons.

After serving five terms in Congress from New Mexico, Wilson collected nearly half a million dollars in questionable payments from federally funded nuclear labs, the Energy Departments inspector general said in a 2013 report. Wilson failed to provide documentation for the consulting work she did to earn $20,000 a month from the Los Alamos and Sandia national labs in New Mexico from January 2009 to March 2011, the report said.

Contractors, including Lockheed Martin and Bechtel, reimbursed the government for most of the $464,203 paid to Wilson, the report said.

Sen. Jack Reed of Rhode Island, the committees top Democrat, pressed Wilson on her arrangement with Sandia, asking her if she could provide proof she performed the work required under the arrangement. Reed said the question is relevant because Wilson, if shes confirmed, will be responsible for holding contractors accountable when they dont submit the required paperwork yet still want to be paid.

I did the work. I complied with the contract. The review found no fault with me, Wilson said. She said auditors from the Energy Department never contacted her.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., cited instances where invoices Wilson submitted for work at the labs lacked sufficient detail to know exactly what she had done.

It was difficult to discern what service you provided to whom and when, Blumenthal. Shouldnt there be better oversight of contractor billing and documentation? And isnt this a bad example  of how billing and invoice submission should be conducted?

Wilson repeated the answer she gave Reed.

Reed also focused on an October 2006 telephone call Wilson made while still a member of Congress to David Iglesias, a U.S. attorney in New Mexico. Iglesias was one of seven federal prosecutors fired a few months later by the Bush administration.

At the time, Iglesias was handling a number of politically charged public corruption cases. I have concerns about this action in terms of House ethics rules, and the possibility a federal prosecutor may have felt pressured by Congress in an ongoing investigation, Reed said.

Wilson said she placed the call after being told by an individual or constituent with knowledge of ongoing investigations that Iglesias was intentionally delaying prosecution of the cases.

Reed wanted to know the name of the individual because knowing that might shed light on Wilsons motivation for making the call. But she refused.

I didnt betray them then and Im not going to betray them now, Wilson said.

Wilson informed the Defense Departments general counsel last week that she would divest of stocks she holds in companies that do work for the department, including Intel, IBM, Honeywell and Raytheon.

Wilson, who graduated from the Air Force Academy in 1982, also said she would resign her current position as president of the South Dakota School of Mines & Technology.

(AP)
As he tries to line up enough votes to block President Donald Trumps Supreme Court nominee, the Senate Democratic leader is strongly warning Republicans against changing Senate rules to confirm Judge Neil Gorsuch.

Minority Leader Chuck Schumer lost two in his caucus Thursday when Democratic Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota said they would vote for the Colorado jurist. But Schumer still appears to be on track to amass enough Democratic votes to block the nomination, which could prompt Republicans to change Senate rules so that Gorsuch could be confirmed.

Schumer, of New York, had tough words for his Republican counterpart, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, in an interview with The Associated Press.

Hes bound and determined to change the rules and trample on Senate tradition to get a conservative nominee approved, Schumer said of McConnell. Let the public judge whether that is a good thing.

Manchin and Heitkamp join all 52 Senate Republicans, who argue the Denver-based federal appeals court judge is impeccably qualified to succeed the late Justice Antonin Scalia on the high court. Republicans accuse Democrats, and Schumer in particular, of playing politics by opposing Gorsuch.

The Senate confirmation vote is expected late next week. Unless 60 senators support Gorsuch  which would require six more Democrats to join Heitkamp and Manchin  Republicans would have to unilaterally change Senate rules to allow Gorsuch to be confirmed with a simple majority vote in the 100-member Senate.

That scenario is looking increasingly inevitable, even though it is known on Capitol Hill as the nuclear option because it would amount to a dramatic departure from Senate norms of bipartisanship and collegiality. Although McConnell has yet to formally announce plans to take the step, Republican senators fully expect it and are prepared, even if regretful.

Schumer conducted back-to-back interviews with several major news outlets Thursday to argue that it will be the fault of Republicans, not Democrats, if the rules change happens.

Senate Republicans are acting like if Gorsuch doesnt get 60 votes they have no choice but to change the rules, Schumer said. That is bunk. He claimed that Trump should produce a more mainstream nominee instead.

As for Manchin and Heitkamp, Schumer said: Ive made my arguments to every member including them and each member is going to make his or her own decision.

In his statement, Manchin said: I hold no illusions that I will agree with every decision Judge Gorsuch may issue in the future, but I have not found any reasons why this jurist should not be a Supreme Court Justice.

Heitkamp said she expects Gorsuch to follow through on his promise of an independent judiciary that acts as a proper check and balance on the other two branches of government.

In all, 35 Democrats have said so far that they definitely will oppose Gorsuch.

Connecticut Sen. Richard Blumenthal announced his opposition Friday, saying he believes Gorsuch would not be an independent voice from Trump.

Missouri Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill, who says she is torn over how to vote, highlighted the dilemma for Democratic senators running next year in states that Trump won in last Novembers presidential election.

Should they vote for Gorsuch and anger their liberal base? Or vote to block Gorsuch and prompt Republicans to permanently change Senate rules to eliminate the filibuster?

It is obviously a really difficult situation, McCaskill told reporters.

McCaskills comments came after The Kansas City Star released audio of her talking to donors over the weekend. In the recording, which the Missouri Republican Party gave to the newspaper, McCaskill says the decision is difficult because if the filibuster is eliminated, Trump could nominate another justice without having to compromise with Democrats, and all of a sudden, the things I fought for with scars on my back to show for it in this state are in jeopardy.

If confirmed, Gorsuch would replace Scalia, who died in February 2016. But if one of the more liberal justices dies or retires, Trumps next pick could fundamentally alter the balance of the court. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is 84 and fellow liberal Justice Stephen Breyer is 78. Justice Anthony Kennedy, the pivotal vote closest to the courts center, is 80.

Changing Senate rules would not be unprecedented. In 2013, Democrats were in the majority under the leadership of Sen. Harry Reid of Nevada and upset about the blockage of President Barack Obamas nominees to a powerful appellate court. The Democrats pushed through a rules change lowering the vote threshold on all nominees except for the Supreme Court from 60 to a simple majority.

Schumer conceded Thursday that We made one mistake, we shouldnt have changed the rules for lower court judges  but we never did it for Supreme Court. This is a much bigger mistake on their behalf.

And he defended Democratic plans to filibuster Gorsuch, even though that step has very rarely been used against Supreme Court nominees. Schumer pointed to the treatment last year of Merrick Garland, Obamas Supreme Court nominee, who never got a hearing as McConnell led a Republican blockade.

Judge Garland didnt even get the opportunity to be filibustered, so lets not say this is unprecedented, Schumer said.

(AP)
Camp seasons typically conclude with three exciting days of Color War during the final week. The few remaining days following that event are somewhat anticlimactic; it is hard to match the emotion and joy of the competitions concluding event, the Grand Sing.

The past summer at Camp Agudah, the final days of camp were anything but anticlimactic. The very last night of camp, at the grand end-of-season banquet, staff members and masmidim joined together in a siyum haShas in memory of our beloved Mara DAsra, Harav Chaim Yisroel Belsky ztl.

At that siyum, Harav Elimelech Belsky shlita, who succeeded his father as Rosh HaMasmidim, explained that a summer is actually a siyum of the entire year. How one chooses to spend his summer is a measure of his attitude towards Torah and mitzvos all year long. Someone who, with his parents guidance and encouragement, spends his summer in Ruach Country is making a statement that Torah is geshmak, that learning Torah and being involved with mitzvos is something that he wants to do all year long.

This message was especially appropriate because of the special event that took place in the camps main dining room on the previous night, the last motzaei Shabbos of the camp season. Camp Agudahs first ever Chag HaSiyum melava malka was held, at which 19 campers and staff members celebrated individual siyumim on various masechtos of Gemara and sedarim of Mishnayos. Parents and rebbeim of the mesyamim joined the camp family for this beautiful event which concluded with a lively rikud that lasted well past midnight.

What an inspiring sight it was to see 19 bachurim of various ages seated on an upper dais, beaming with joy over their great accomplishments in limud haTorah. And on the lower dais sat many of their parents and rebbeim whose faces shone with pride.

Each masyem was presented with a sefer as a gift from the camp, a token of appreciation for helping to add even more ruach to Ruach Country.

We are sure that as the summer quickly approaches, many campers and staff members are already preparing for the grand siyum of 5777 which hopefully, will surpass last years chag hasiyum.

(YWN Headquarters  NYC)
Metropolitan Council on Jewish Poverty (Met Council), continues its annual tradition of providing kosher for Passover food to the poor and near-poor throughout New York City. This year, the Met Council Kosher Food Network will provide kosher for Passover food to approximately 104 food pantry sites citywide.

Met Council believes it is unacceptable that any Jew go hungry, or be deprived of the food needed to create their seders and other Passover meals, stated Alan Schoor, Chief Executive Officer of Met Council. Everyone should have the opportunity to celebrate the holiday with dignity and joy. In one of the wealthiest cities in the world, there are more than 500,000 poor and near-poor individuals living in Jewish households. It is not only our mission, but our obligation, to ensure that the most vulnerable New Yorkers, no matter their circumstances, have access to kosher for Passover food, and to kosher food year round. 

The cost of kosher for Passover food is considerably higher than kosher food during the rest of the year, which makes it impossible for many to purchase the ingredients needed for the holiday. Last year, Met Council distributed approximately 1.8 million pounds of kosher for Passover food through our 110 food pantries, providing food to nearly 160,000 people.

It takes months to prepare for Passover, said Allison Deal, Director, Kosher Food Network. Our goal is to serve as many people as possible. We understand the financial challenges our clients and others face at this holiday. With the help of our partners in government, private donors and local Jewish Community Councils, we are able to work towards meeting this need, in each community throughout the city.

It is estimated that 400 volunteers will assist at 40 sites throughout the five boroughs. More than 25 community partners will spread the word to their constituents to enlist volunteers. Met Councils Volunteer Services Department will coordinate all volunteer activities including assisting at local pantries by stocking pantry shelves and organizing food, as well as distributing food directly to individuals in need. To ensure that families in need are assisted year round, volunteers will also screen clients for all available government benefits, including SNAP (formally Food Stamps).

Passover begins at sunset on Monday, April 10. If you or someone you know needs food or other assistance during this holiday, please call 212-453-9539. If you would like to volunteer at a Passover Food Distribution, please email [email protected].

(YWN Headquarters  NYC)
[By Rabbi Yair Hoffman for the Five Towns Jewish Times]

The Hebrew Academy of Five Towns and Rockaway Poland Prague Mission in memory of Abraham Scharf Zl was scheduled to return early Friday from a trip to Poland and Prague. Unfortunately, and to the grave consternation of parents, the flight experienced delays and is scheduled now to arrive at 6:54 PM. The sun sets today in New York at 7:19 PM

Achiezer, under the direction of Rabbi Boruch Ber Bender, and with the assistance of Misaskim arranged for expedited customs, two buses with gentile drivers and police assistance in ensuring a timely arrival.

The HAFTR parents were informed of the plans on WhatsApp.

This author was told by Rav Shlomo Miller SHlita that in North America, in situations of great need one may ask a gentile to transport a person up until 30 minutes after sundown (amirah lakum on a Torah prohibition). This author was told by Rav Scheinberg ztl that one may ask a gentile to do so up until 71 minutes.

Achiezer also arranged for food availabilty at the airport for those who do not avail themselves of the transportation.

On the positive side, the group had a packed five day mission visiting concentration camps, graves of prominent Rabbis and beautiful Shuls. They spent time reflecting on everything as well. These students are the future leaders of the Jewish people and these trips are a formative experience in their Jewish education.

BEzras Hashem they will arrive home in a timely fashion.

The author can be reached at [email protected]
The Siwan muscleman is furious over Rajan being provided a TV in his cell. Shahabuddin has written to jail authorities that he feels lonely inside the jail and he should also be provided a television set.

By India Today Web Desk: Delhi's high security Tihar Jail is home to two of the most dreaded criminals - former Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) MP Mohammad Shahabuddin and underworld don Chhota Rajan. Both are lodged in separate cells but Shahabuddin has approached the jail authorities with a complaint against Rajan.

Apparently, the Siwan muscleman is furious over Rajan being provided a TV in his cell. Shahabuddin, in his complaint, has told the jail officials that loud music being played inside Rajan's lockup is troubling him.

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Sources said that Shahabuddin has now demanded jail authorities that he should also be provided with a TV set as he feels lonely in the jail. Shahabuddin has been kept in Tihar's jail no. 1. Tamil Nadu special police jawans have been deployed to manage the security of the jail housing high-profile criminals.

While Chhota Rajan was arrested in November 2015 from a resort in Bali, Indonesia, Shahabuddin was shifted to Tihar jail in February following a Supreme Court order.

The Supreme Court on 15 February ordered shifting of Shahabuddin, who is facing trial in 45 criminal cases, from Siwan jail in Bihar to Tihar jail within a week.

The order came on the pleas by Siwan-based Chandrakeshwar Prasad, whose three sons were killed in two separate incidents, and Asha Ranjan, the wife of journalist Rajdeo Ranjan who was murdered in Siwan in May 2016.

The Supreme Court in its ruling had said that no special privilege shall be extended to Shahabuddin, considered close to RJD boss Lalu Prasad.

ALSO READ:

RJD strongman Shahabuddin's jail-selfie goes viral, sends cops into a tizzy

Murdered Bihar journalist's wife says she's being threatened by Shahabuddin

Siwan journalist Rajdeo Ranjan was No. 7 on Shabuddin's hit list of 23

We will kill Rajan in Tihar jail, says Chhota Shakeel

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In a shocking incident, around 70 girl students of a residential school in Uttar Pradesh's Muzaffarnagar were stripped by the warden to check for menstrual blood.

The incident has triggered protests by kin of the students. The incident took place at Kasturba Gandhi Girls Residential School.

According to the students, the female warden rounded them up and asked them to strip and also threatened them of dire consequences if they disobeyed.

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"Some blood was found in the bathroom. The warden ordered us to remove our clothes. It was very humiliating for all of us. We want action against her," a report in CNN-News18 quoted one of the students saying.

Following the incident the warden was suspended, however, she denied any such incident. She said that after blood was found on the wall of the bathroom, she just wanted to check if everything was alright.

She rubbished the claims made by the students by saying that they were young and were unable to express themselves. She went on to say that the girls made the claims as she was strict with them.

WATCH| Warden of residential school in UP makes girls attend classes without clothes

ALSO READ| India Today Expose: How Uttar Pradesh's money-for-marks mafia works

ALSO READ| Bengaluru teacher doles out corporal punishment to teach nursery school kids a lesson

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DISRUPTION



1 Henderson Global Technology To aim to provide capital growth by investing in companies worldwide that derive, or are expected to derive, profits from technology.

2 Baillie Gifford International The Fund aims to produce attractive returns over the long term by investing principally in companies worldwide, excluding the United Kingdom.

3 Polar Capital Global Insurance To achieve capital growth through investment in companies operating in the international insurance sector.

EUROPEAN RECOVERY

4 Henderson European Selected Opportunities The fund aims to provide long-term capital growth by investing in European company shares.

5 Old Mutual Europe (ex UK) Smaller Companies The aim is to achieve long term capital growth through investing primarily in an equity portfolio of smaller companies incorporated in Europe (ex UK) or incorporated outside of Europe (ex UK) which have a predominant proportion of their assets and/or business operations in Europe (ex UK).

6 BlackRock Continental European Income The aim is to achieve an above average income from its equity investments, compared to the income yield of European equity markets (excluding the UK), without sacrificing long term capital growth.

7 Jupiter European Special Situations The Fund's investment policy is to attain the objective by investing principally in European equities, in investments considered by the manager to be undervalued.

GLOBAL INCOME

8 Artemis Global Income The fund aims to achieve a rising income combined with capital growth from a wide range of investments. The fund will mainly invest in global equities but may have exposures to fixed interest securities.

9 Veritas Global Equity Income The investment objective of the fund is to provide a high and growing level of income and thereafter to preserve capital in real terms over the long term.

10 Royal London UK Equity Income The investment objective and policy of the Fund is to achieve a combination of income and some capital growth by investing mainly in UK higher yielding and other equities, as well as convertible stocks.

11 Threadneedle UK Equity Income The fund seeks to achieve an above average rate of income combined with sound prospects for capital growth. The ACDs investment policy is to invest the assets of the Fund primarily in UK equities.

12 Schroder Income The fund aims to provide income. At least 80% of the fund will be invested in shares of UK companies. The fund aims to provide an income in excess of 110% of the FTSE All Share index yield.

13 JPM Emerging Markets Income The fund seeks to provide a portfolio designed to achieve income by investing primarily in Equity and Equity-Linked Securities of Emerging Markets companies in any economic sector whilst participating in long-term capital growth.

14 Schroder Asian Income The Funds investment objective is to provide a growing income and capital growth for Investors over the long term primarily through investment in equity and equity-related securities of Asian companies which offer attractive yields and growing dividend payments.

15 First State Global Listed Infrastructure The Fund invests in a diversified portfolio of listed infrastructure and infrastructure related securities from around the world.

16 L&G UK Property The objective of this fund is to provide a combination of income and growth by investing solely in the Legal & General UK Property Fund (the Master Fund). It may also hold cash where necessary to enable the making of payments to unitholders or creditors.

17 Fidelity Strategic Bond The fund invests in a portfolio primarily of sterling denominated (or hedged back to sterling) fixed interest securities. Derivatives and forward transactions may also be used for investment purposes.

18 M&G Global Emerging Markets At M&G, fund manager Matthew Vaight likes investing in cheaper companies and is encouraged by their improving capital management trend. Plus, emerging markets help to diversify investment is a good portfolio diversifier.

19 CF Woodford Income Focus Fund A new fund from Neil Woodford launched 20th March 2017 is proving popular with our customers. Developed to meet investor demand for a fund offering a higher level of income and follows the launch of the CF Woodford Equity Income Fund, in June 2014, and the Woodford Patient Capital Trust in April of the following year.

SMALL CAP RECOVERY

20 Liontrust UK Smaller Companies Fund The investment objective of the Fund is to provide long-term capital growth by investing primarily in smaller UK companies displaying a high degree of Intellectual Capital and employee motivation through equity ownership in their business model.

21 MFM Slater Growth The investment objective of the Scheme is to achieve capital growth. The Scheme will invest in companies both in the UK and overseas but concentrating mainly on UK shares.

22 Legg Mason ClearBridge US Aggressive Growth Fund The Funds investment objective is to generate long-term capital appreciation. The Fund invests at least 70 per cent of its Total Asset Value in common stocks of US Companies.

23 Franklin UK Mid Cap Fund The fund will primarily invest in the equity securities of UK companies listed in the FTSE 250 Index.

SUSTAINABILITY

24 WHEB Sustainability The aim of the Fund is to achieve capital growth over the medium to longer term. The Fund will invest predominantly in global equities and in particular will invest in such equities in those sectors identified by the investment manager as providing solutions to the challenges of sustainability.

25 Kames Ethical Equity The investment objective is to maximise total return. The fund invests in equities and equity type securities in companies based in the UK, principally conducting business in the UK or listed on the UK stock market which meets the Fund's predefined ethical criteria.

26 Royal London Sustainable Leaders The fund seeks to provide above-average capital growth through investment in companies that have a positive effect on the environment, human welfare and quality of life.

CONTRARIAN

27 Fidelity Money Builder Fund Manager Ian Spreadbury has gained valuable perspective through his long tenure at Fidelity, his 10 prior years at L&G, and his earlier actuarial career. Having built the team at Fidelity in the 1990s, he is able to get the most out of the analyst team. He also designed the investment process, which remains in place.

28 Veritas Global Equity Income The funds standout characteristic is the extent to which the managers aim to deliver real returns to investors. They invest in companies with durable competitive advantages and strong, sustainable cash flows that can lead to dividend payments.

29 Man GLG Undervalued Assets Henry Dixon buys companies that are cheap, have been forgotten by the markets and have a promising upside. He has a disciplined approach and conducts thorough analysis of company balance sheets to understand the companys assets and liabilities.

30 Guinness Global Energy The portfolio is concentrated, with only 30 names in it and is managed by a highly experienced and dedicated team of three: Wil Riley, Jonathan Waghorn and Tim Guinness.

BEST OF BRITISH

31 CF Lindsell Train UK Equity Nick Train is a highly experienced manager. His process is differentiated and has proved successful over a number of market cycles. Train seeks companies with unique and strong franchises which can prosper through a number of business cycles. Turnover is very low, with positions only sold if the managers no longer consider a company to be of sufficient quality.

32 Liontrust Special Situations Cross has a wealth of experience investing in small-cap companies and has been supported by Julian Fosh since May 2008. His process focuses on the importance of intangible assets and how key employees are motivated and retained. The fund has large active positions, and therefore tends to have a very different performance profile to the benchmark and its peer group.

33 Majedie UK Equity The fund is structured into four sub-portfolios; three large cap and one small cap, with each manager given the freedom to run their sub-portfolio as they deem appropriate. The common philosophy is the desire to be pragmatic and flexible. The fund has delivered consistent returns across different market environments with relatively low volatility.

34 Schroder UK Dynamic Smaller Companies Paul Marriage has generated substantial outperformance in different market conditions since taking control of this fund in 2006, though he has proved particularly effective during falling markets. Marriage seeks companies that offer differentiated products, are leaders within niche markets, exhibit margin growth, and have high-quality management. While the funds core holdings will fit these criteria, he can also invest in companies on a shorter-term view, aiming to take advantage of value opportunities.

35 Troy Trojan Income Troy has a culture based on capital preservation, strong risk-adjusted returns, and steady long-term capital and income growth. Brooke has been consistent in his approach through market conditions both favourable and unfavourable to his style. The fund is a relatively concentrated portfolio of quality companies which have to meet strict criteria before being considered for investment.

36 Schroder Recovery Kirrage and Murphy have demonstrated a strong working relationship and shared a sound investment philosophy since taking over the management of this fund in July 2006. They employ a deep value approach to investing in recovery or special situations, seeking to identify unloved companies that are trading at a discount to their fair value but have good long-term prospects. While their deep value style does lead to shorter periods of underperformance, their core discipline of buying cheap stocks gives good long-term outperformance.

37 SLI UK Smaller Companies Having run this fund since its launch in 1997, Nimmo is a highly experienced small-cap investor. While his process has led to strong long-term performance, the funds quality growth tilt, with valuation a secondary consideration, can at times cause performance issues.

38 JOHCM UK Opportunities Wood has more than 25 years investment experience and has stuck to his investment approach through multiple market cycles. The portfolio features stocks across the equity style spectrum, and Woods willingness to sell aggressively, and his bias towards quality stocks, have helped the fund in the long term.

39 Jupiter UK Special Situations Whitmore's approach reflects his genuinely contrarian and value-oriented investment philosophy. He looks for companies that are intrinsically undervalued but are nevertheless well-run and have sound balance sheets. Whitmore has proved an astute investor over the years, with a clear ability to select stocks in a dispassionate and disciplined fashion. He has shown the courage of his convictions in constructing the portfolio, which can look quite different to the benchmark, including high levels of cash (typically 10%) when he feels there are insufficient opportunities.

40 Schroder UK Alpha Income Hudson has run the fund since its launch in 2005. He positions the fund in line with where he feels the market is in the business cycle. This is reflected in a weighting to seven different buckets: commodity cyclicals, consumer cyclicals, industrial cyclicals, growth, financials, growth defensives and value defensives.

41 Old Mutual UK Smaller Companies Nickolls is an experienced small-cap investor who benefits from the input of the wider Old Mutual team, including Richard Buxton. He seeks companies for the fund that have the ability to grow earnings faster than average over time, the scope to generate a positive surprise, or the potential to be re-rated relative to the market.

42 IP UK Strategic Income Barnett has managed the fund since January 2006 and is a skilled UK equity investor. He has a long-term focus and a contrarian style, mixing a high-level macro view with bottom-up stock picking, and copes well with the large amount of assets he is responsible for.

43 CF Woodford Equity Income Woodford is one of the UKs most experienced equity income managers. The fund aims to deliver a positive capital return while growing income, and Woodford has proved willing to stick to his strategy even during periods of poor performance.

44 Investec UK Special Situations Mundy is a seasoned and talented manager who has achieved considerable success across a variety of market conditions. He has a deep value, contrarian approach, seeking companies whose share prices have fallen at least 50% relative to the market. Mundy also places importance on dividend yield, which has helped reduce volatility of returns.

45 Old Mutual UK Alpha Buxton is a hugely talented UK equity manager with many years experience. His established and proven process combines stock-level analysis with top-down insights, taking a long-term approach to identifying undervalued companies often with a contrarian angle. His approach typically leads to outperformance in rising markets but lags in falling markets.

46 AXA Framlington UK Select Opportunities Thomas is one of the markets most experienced and talented managers. His investment philosophy emphasises diversification via a multi-cap approach, with a focus on medium and smaller companies. The long-term, high-conviction approach can lead the funds performance to differ significantly from its peers.

47 Liontrust Macro Equity Income A focus on certain parts of the market via themes can lead the fund to have significant active positions at a sector level. The team has shown it can add value through both top-down economic themes and stock selection.

48 JOHCM UK Growth Costar uses a clear, well-executed process which he has used throughout his career. His analysis is focused on what drives a share price and he attempts to determine what is already priced in and what is yet to be recognised. Given his distinctive style performance can be volatile, but the fund has a strong long-term cumulative performance record.

49 Schroder UK Smaller Companies Brough seeks to build the core of the portfolio around companies operating in areas of secular growth with strong business franchises. A smaller allocation is made to firms that may benefit from a cyclical upturn or rerating. The fund invests lower down the market-cap scale than many of its peers. The fund's long-term performance remains solid relative to the benchmark index and peers.

50 Artemis UK Special Situations A highly experienced manager, Stuart runs the fund with a small- and mid-cap bias, seeking companies which are unloved or undervalued, or undergoing change. Stuart has managed the fund since 2000 and has demonstrated the ability to add value in a variety of market conditions, although performance can be volatile.
By Suhani Singh: Director: Shivam Nair

Cast: Taapsee Pannu, Manoj Bajpayee, Akshay Kumar, Prithviraj Sukumaran, Anupam Kher

Rating: (2/5)

What does it take to be a spy? A disturbing, mopey past, a reserved disposition, a blank look, an aversion to laughs, no presence on social media, an obedient student, tendency to give monosyllabic answers and training in some martial arts should do you well. That's what the makers of Naam Shabana depict through the course of two hours and twenty right minutes as they reveal how the character seen briefly in Baby (2015) came to be. In that film she was a kickass, mystifying woman; here she struggles to hold your attention with a protracted saga.

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Shabana (Taapsee Pannu) is a college student who lives with her widowed mother and has a classmate who dotes on her so much that he is happy to chaperone her from home to college. A woman of few words, Shabana lets her action do the talking in this case with her skills in kudo, a Japanese martial art known for its kicks and punches. Shivam Nair, directing the story, screenplay and dialogues by Neeraj Pandey, doesn't waste any time in establishing that she is the chosen one: photographs of Shabana going about life are deployed periodically. These images also invariably normalise constant surveillance as a reality of life today. When Shabana's first date goes terribly wrong, the intelligence agency finally decides to let her in on their presence and plan. Loss, grief and revenge are enough reasons for Shabana to take up their offer.

What's refreshing about Naam Shabana is that it is keen to establish the recruitment and making (briefly) of a spy. Though going by the training sequences, it appears that our secret service imports the physical instructors. The filmmakers for most part don't waver much from their own mission: the female protagonist is the star in what is a man's domain. So even as you see male operatives come and go including Manoj Bajpayee as the man who spots her talent and hurls instructions via phone, Shabana stands tall.

Naam Shabana is more of an origins story and less of an action thriller which is all fine, only if it wasn't so terribly transpicuous and its execution mired with trivial dialogues and dull moments. At one point when Bajpayee's character explains to Shabana why she has made the cut, his explanation is that "women are born spies", are "prefigured" with "a sixth sense"" compared to men who rely on gadgets. Ok then.

The agency's male operatives drop like flies to arms dealer, drugs supplier and womaniser Mikhail (Prithviraj Sukumaran) who gets facial surgery and a hair transplant to not just escape detection but also to look more 'handsome'. Such an insecure villain doesn't seem a fitting adversary for Shabana.

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Taapsee Pannu's steely and measured performance is noteworthy. Making most of the limited material she has at her disposal, she shoulders the physical demands of playing the titular character with assuredness. Akshay Kumar makes a serviceable cameo as the experienced agent who gets Shabana out of trouble after the messy job is done and indulges in some banter with Anupam Kher. That she is the most reliable asset of a below par film is non-negotiable.

The action sequences, choreographed by Abbas Ali Moghul, here are realistic hand-to-hand combat scenes, a refreshing change from the parkour-laden rooftop scenes in other spy thrillers. The innumerable secretive operations themselves are not as enthralling and emphatic as the ones seen in Baby. Barring the climax, the others lack hardly stand out. The insertion of two club-set songs is a major misfire that steers the drama off course and negates the good intent of being a powerful woman-driven story. But for its markedly different leading lady, Naam Shabana despite its flaws deserves a chance.

MOVIE REVIEW: Naam Shabana

ALSO READ: 5 reasons we are looking forward to Naam Shabana

ALSO READ: Taapsee Pannu in Naam Shabana is the latest entrant to the on-screen warrior-women club

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ALSO WATCH: Before Naam Shabana, Taapsee Pannu has some work for you

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MBABANE  Malawi is feeling the Swazi theatre touch, as Macford Sibandze has been given the task to direct a drama series for the countrys national TV station.



Macford Sibandze was in Blantyre, Malawi for the past two weeks where he was contracted by an independent TV House, Landline Production, that does work between Malawi, Tanzania and Kenya to direct a 13-episode drama series.

The name of the series is titled KWACHA and has stories that revolve around fake doctors, fake pastors, blessers, lecturers selling marks at universities, multiple concurrent relationships and the scourge of unemployment. It is basically a daily life drama focused on the youth.

Sibandze said the opportunity came about after a few of his producer friends in South Africa mentioned him to the Malawi TV executives. Malawi wanted a change of creativity for their national TV drama series which I hear attracts a lot of viewers just like soapies attract Swazis and South Africans. So my Swazi authenticity was refreshing for them as I came with a totally different approach, and Im gladly raising, my countrys flag while at it, said Sibandze.

Sibandze was part of the auditioning where aspirants came in numbers and only selected 12 main characters, mostly university students from Exploit and Colombian University.

This project has the full endorsement of the Minister of Arts and Culture, Patricia Kaliati, who Sibandze met. He also met CEO of Malawi Broadcasting, CEO of Malawi Arts and Culture and the two principals of the two universities. Commenting on this, Sibandze said he loved the experience though he found himself not only directing but writing. He said the project will be more like the storyline on Skeem Saam in South Africa.

He also said the minister was so ecstatic when she saw the five minutes edition of the series and could not believe that the cast are all Malawians. The country has a lot of growing to do in terms of the arts but talents are amazing and I cannot share some clips with Swaziland via social network, he added. Other countries that have invited Sibandze for his production talents are Zambia and Tanzania where he will be doing similar projects. It is this commitment that will see him forced to difer some of the projects he has in the country. He said such opportunities have been opened by digital migration and urged locals not to only look at Swaziland but the whole of Africa.
NHLANGANO  Prior to killing himself, a man is said to have dialled the police emergency line 999, informing them about his decision to end his life.



Hundreds of textile workers were yesterday treated to a rare suicide and some serious drama when the man hanged himself about 10 metres high-up a tall tree, in a forest located about 200 metres away from three firms.

The victim has been identified as a regular who assisted a vendor with selling her wares at the entrance of Zheng Yong garment factory in Nhlangano.



He was found hanging by a rope from a tall tree at around 9:30am yesterday, already dead.

Disturbingly, the man tried to flag down a police van which did not stop, before he further dialled 999 to inform the police that he was going to commit suicide.

Apart from calling the police, the suicidal man also notified his mother through a phone call about his decision.



Police officers reportedly arrived at the scene about an hour and a half later, only to find the man hanging from the tall tree.

This was after about three further calls from people who saw that the man was about to commit suicide.



By the time the officers arrived, the man had died, according to witnesses.

The dangling body of the man was only discovered by the police after a search by vendors stationed at the industrial area failed to locate him.

This was after he dashed towards the forest while carrying a rope.



The chain of dramatic events set-off shortly after 8am, when the visibly upset and emotional man threatened to kill himself around the busy industrial area, which is home to about three textile firms in the outskirts of Nhlangano.

Witnesses said the man was telling anyone he came across about his intention to end his life.



He was making frantic calls, telling people he was going to kill himself, while moving up and down the area. It all started when he arrived here crying hysterically. He hinted that he had a misunderstanding with his landlord over a missing umbrella at home.




LOBAMBA  In an unprecedented move, Nkilongo MP Hans Steffen yesterday displayed an array of products made from cannabis, as he successfully moved a motion calling his colleagues to look into conditions of granting a special licence for the commercial growth of marijuana.



From olive oil, shampoo, carpets, milk and insulators which the MP carried into the House of Assembly in a shopping bag, Steffen said the committee should look into the issue of the licence for purposes of medicinal and industrial use and table a report within eight weeks.



I havent said much in four years and we all had many plans when we came here, and I am sure that getting the elderly only E400 was not one of them, he said. He highlighted that he had just paid E500 lunch for three people and said the decisions that MPs now made had to be 2022 oriented instead of 1922. He said the granting of such licences would ensure that the countrys Gross Domestic Product (GDP) was doubled.



Sugar cane turnover is E64 000 per hectare yet the turnover on cannibas is E1.2 million per hectare and we are sitting on a natural resource which is our gold or oil, said Steffen.

He said he hoped that the 10th Parliament would be bold enough to make difficult decisions so that they would be known as the Parliament that had made a difference. He said the 10th Parliament should not be scared to make such bold decisions, change the economy and not even drive Dubais.



As an example, he said such changes were being made in Israel as medicinal marijuana in capsule pills were being made, and unfortunately his father had died because of chemical medicines.

He said organic medicine was the way to go and that the country needed a biodiversity centre where even hair products could be manufactured. This is a sensitive issue to talk about and at the moment people are still thinking 1922, but I just want to highlight that at USA Distillers they make whisky out of maize. He said he was concerned that out of the marula tree (umganu) people made so many products such as the Swazi Secrets, which produced oils, sweets and chocolates yet another tree was being discriminated against.



We can make our own army uniforms from this product and I want to highlight that the first Bible was written on hemp paper, said Steffen.

He said many people were illegally visiting Swaziland to steal the hemp and make their own products which they could sell to the country.



Steffen said the region of Kwazulu-Natal (KZN) had already legalised some transactions of marijuana at the end of last year.

He said the milk made out of cannibas was already selling at E100 and that this movement was referred to as the green rush as opposed to the gold rush. Steffen said he was not calling for the plant to be legalised but that its uses be considered legal such as it was in other countries like Israel, Mauritius and parts of America.



We have to be brave because this plant is 26 per cent more profitable than sugar and as the 10th Parliament we have to be reminded of our bravery, he said.
MPOLONJENI  A hardware shop manager was killed in cold blood after her throat was slit, almost leaving her beheaded, allegedly by her lover who is employed as a groundsman at a police station, who later attempted to kill himself.



Zanele Simelane (25) reportedly died instantly following the brutal attack, which was said to have been sparked by a WhatsApp message sent to her phone by a male.

The gruesome incident occurred on Wednesday night at Simelanes flat  which is situated at Mpolonjeni area, along the Siteki-Big Bend public road.



According to a source, Simelane was relaxing inside the flat with a colleague when her lover arrived unexpectedly.

Upon getting into the flat, the source said, the lover complained about exhaustion and thirst before asking for water.

The source said the other woman who is Simelanes colleague then left the couple and went to her own flat situated nearby.



Thereafter, the couple started arguing and loud noise was overheard coming from their flat. Earlier, Simelane had told her colleagues that she had argued with her lover some days before over a WhatsApp message, said the source.

Simelanes colleague reportedly called for help from neighbours after she overheard the loud noise inside her colleaguess flat.



Worried members of the public reportedly descended at the entrance of Simelanes flat and tried to talk to the couple.

However, there was no response, sources said.

Police were then called to the scene and they reportedly arrived promptly.



Before the police arrived, the noise inside the flat subsided and the people outside could feel that the people inside the flat no longer had the energy to shout, added a source.

Police are said to have forcefully gained entry into the flat by breaking the door and upon entry, they are said to have been shocked by the gruesome scene which welcomed them.

There was reportedly blood everywhere and Simelanes body was lying in a pool of blood on the floor.



It is said that the lover was also bleeding profusely from a couple of stab wounds on his chest.

He was immediately rushed to Good Shepherd Hospital in Siteki, sources said.

Chief Police Information and Communications Officer Superintendent Khulani Mamba confirmed the incident.



He said police currently do not have many details about what exactly transpired, following that Simelanes lover has been hospitalised.

Simelane was a manager at Baceth Hardware and she is originally from the Shiselweni region.



Baceth Hardware General Manager Philile Dlamini said the company management was shocked by the incident.

She said the company has since sent some of its staffers to officially report Simelanes death to her family.



Meanwhile, her family said it was hard to believe that their beloved daughter had died.

Silimele kakhulu (We are very much hurt). We are still going to visit her flat to clean the blood and also find out from neighbours about what exactly happened, said an aunt to the deceased, who only identified herself as Make Simelane.
Nine JNU students, who have been accused of assaulting missing student Najeeb Ahmed, have been ordered to give their consent on the lie detector test.

By Mail Today Bureau: Nine JNU students accused of assaulting missing student Najeeb Ahmed have been ordered to appear before the Chief Metropolitan Magistrate before April 6 and confirm whether they will give consent or refuse to undergo a lie detector test.

The court on Thursday dismissed the plea of students in which they had claimed that they cannot be asked by Delhi Police to give their consent for the test.

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Students, however, have put forward a condition.

"Najeeb's roommate with whom he was last seen should go for a test first. Only then we will go for it. We have no qualms in going for a test but we have one condition which involves his roommate to go for the test before us," one of the accused told Mail Today.

"We are yet to discuss if the nine accused will go for a lie-detection test. We have a week to reach a consensus," said Saurabh Sharma, ABVP leader and former joint secretary of JNUSU.

Blaming the Delhi police for carrying out an ineffective investigation, Fatima Nafees, Najeeb Ahmed's mother, said that the court's order has failed to bring respite to her.

"Court can take care of the legal proceedings with due diligence and wait for the accused's approval to undergo the lie-detector test but this should not stop the Delhi Police from acting," Fatima Nafees told Mail Today.

"I have been waiting for over five months now to see my son's face but it is getting tiring now looking at the inaction of Delhi Police," Fatima added.

In its notice issued on January 23, the probe agency had claimed that their lie detector test was required to get information about Najeeb's whereabouts.

Najeeb Ahmed, a first year M.Sc Biotechnology student from Jawaharlal Nehru University, has been missing since October 14-15 last year after a scuffle at his hostel, allegedly with ABVP activists.Also read

All you need to know about Najeeb Ahmed, the JNU student who is missing

Missing JNU student Najeeb Ahmed reportedly seen in Darbhanga today, says Delhi L-G Najeeb Jung

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A letter written by an Electronics and IT ministry official on March 25, appears to contradict the UIDAI's refutation of reports that Aadhar information data had been breached.

A official in the Narendra Modi government has acknowledged that Aadhar information has been published on the Web, the New Indian Express (NIE) reported today.

This revelation comes just weeks after the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) - the organization that handles the Aadhar project - refuted reports claiming that that Aadhaar data had been breached, and that biometrics were misused for creation of parallel databases.

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Earlier this month, the agency asserted that there was "no incident of misuse of Aadhaar biometrics leading to identity theft and financial loss."

But a letter written by an employee of the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology on March 25, and obtained by NIE, appears to contradict that statement.

"There have been instances wherein personal identity or information of residents, including Aadhaar number and demographic information and other sensitive personal data such as bank account details etc. collected by various Ministries/Departments... has been reportedly published online and is accessible through an easy online search," wrote Archana Dureja, a scientist in the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, in a letter the NIE obtained.

Dureja acknowledged in her letter that such a leak was in violation of Aadhar Act, 2016 provisions and told states and government departments to put an end to such transgressions, the report said.

MS DHONI'S AADHAR REGISTRATION DETAILS LEAKED

This revelation comes just days after CSC e-governance services on Tuesday tweeted a photo in which Dhoni was seen authenticating fingerprints to avail Aadhaar services.

However, along with the photo of Dhoni, CSC's official Twitter account also tweeted his Aadhaar registration details in a screenshot, which then prompted his wife Sakshi to post a series of furious tweets.

Sakshi tagged Law minister Ravi Shankar Prasad in her tweets, forcing him to take prompt action.

The Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) - the organization that handles the Aadhar project - has blacklisted the agency that leaked the Aadhaar receipt Dhoni for 10 years. UIDAI's CEO said an inquiry has also been ordered.

ALSO READ | Aadhaar will soon be aadhaar of your existence: Why you cannot afford to live without the 12-digit number

ALSO READ | Centre that leaked MS Dhoni's private Aadhaar info blacklisted for 10 years

ALSO WATCH | Government accidentally tweets Dhoni's Aadhaar details, wife Sakshi complains

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Each week since Queens native Donald Trump was elected president, the scorecard has shown his approval ratings stuck at 40 percent but consumer confidence rising to a now 17-year-high.

In Queens, the countrys most ethnically diverse borough where nearly half the residents are foreign-born, there is palpable relief that judges far west of the Mississippi have declared his travel ban against Muslims unenforceable. But many immigrants living in Queens  documented as well as undocumented  fear they will be targeted by ICE agents and deported.

The boroughs elected officials have held meetings to inform the newcomers of their rights, but a sense of unease mixed with uncertainty grips neighborhoods where some parents are supposedly keeping their children home from school and skipping church to avoid immigration officers.

After Homeland Security raided a Long Island City bakery recently, nearly 30 workers faced mass firings unless they could produce papers validating their immigration status.

Trumps anti-immigrant push has produced relatively few arrests outside of the travel ban busts at JFK, but it has created widespread anxiety in Queens as some residents return to their home countries.

New York takes pride in its stance as a sanctuary city, where officials from the mayor on down have pledged not to release information about undocumented immigrants to federal officials.

As U.S. Attorney General Jeff sessions threatened to crack down on sanctuary cities by withholding federal grant money for law enforcement, legislators from 30 urban centers met in New York Monday and vowed not to bend to the Trump agenda. They fine-tuned strategies to defend immigrants instead.

Mayor Bill de Blasio said New York, the nations top terrorism target, would fight any federal attempt to cut police funding in court. It was not lost on New Yorkers that Trumps efforts to pare down funds for the NYPD followed his stinging defeat at the polls in his hometown, which now has to shell out $600 million a year to protect him and his extended family.

Trump appears to have been chastened by the GOPs disastrous campaign to torpedo Obamacare, which tarnished his reputation as a deal maker. But he can always fall back on his dismantling of President Obamas climate change policy and his predecessors protections for Internet browsers. And Wall Street still loves him.

In less than 100 days Trump has turned America upside down where corporate interests count more than the people and fear is a federal instrument of cruelty. Its a real shame.
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By Mark Hallum

Amtrak and the Greater Astoria Historical Society celebrated the 100th anniversary of the construction of the Hell Gate Bridge Monday with not only experts on the history of the railroad overpass, but engineers and thrill-seekers sharing their love for the steel arch that connects Queens to Randalls Island.

The first passenger train made the crossing over Hell Gate in April 1917 after construction was completed as a joint venture between the Pennsylvania and the New Haven Railroads, Deputy Chief Engineer of Structures for Amtrak Jim Richter.

In those days, the railroads were one of the most powerful and influential businesses in the country because they moved everybody. So, if you study up on the history of the railroads, it was really instrumental in the development of this country, Richter said.

The right of way was purchased by the Amtrak in the 1970s.

Today, train passenger traveling between New York and Boston still travel over Hell Gate.

Bob Singleton, executive director of the historical society, said the bridge is remarkable for the mastery of engineering that went into it at a time when computers were non-existent and slide-rulers were the builders best friend. Singleton compared the decades of work that went into the Second Avenue Subway to Hell Gate, which was built in only a few short years entirely with private capital funds from the railroad companies.

Hell Gate was the work of chief engineer Gustav Lindenthal, who also contributed to the construction to the Hudson River Bridge, among others, around New York City and was widely recognized for his mastery at bridge building.

According to Singleton, Lindenthal was not a civil engineer by formal training. He came from what is now the Czech Republic and his first job was as a bricklayer.

He revolutionized bridge building, Singleton said. And even more significantly than that perhaps is the fact that he trained the next generation of American bridge builders. Othmar Ammann, who was the gentleman who built the Throgs Neck Bridge, the GW Bridge These guys are getting bridge commissions through the mid-20th century. So not only was this the Hell Gate Bridge being built, it was also a school for American bridge building.

Dave Frieder has climbed every bridge in the city. Growing up in Flushing, he became entranced with the Flushing Bridge, which was replaced by the Van Wyck overpass.

When I was a kid on Northern Boulevard, I remember seeing this bridge go up and thinking, Wow, that is so cool! Then it came down and all the cars would be going over the closed bridge. That as a kid fascinated me, Frieder said.

Frieder climbed Hell Gate in the early 90s, and spoke of not only the fact that the bridge rises to a much higher than expected height, but the construction is extremely robust. Rivet heads on the George Washington Bridge are only about an inch, he said, but Hell Gates rivets are double the size.

The high carbon Pittsburgh steel the bridge is made out of will last forever, he claimed.

Today, the bridge takes the weight of about 40 Amtrak trains per day while only operating at four-fifths of its full capacity, according to Singleton.

With five tracks and proven strength to carry as many trains at once, the bridge now only operates four tracks at any one time.

Lindenthal had hoped his bridge would be modified to accommodate automobile, light-rail and pedestrians. The towers had passageways built in exactly for this purpose.

But the railroad was not interested in anything but its trains traveling across it, and so Singleton said Hell Gate has never reached its full potential.
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By Bill Parry

Eight men were arrested on the corner of 80th Street and Roosevelt Avenue in Jackson Heights last Friday night, caught in an NYPD prostitution sting operation, according to police. The men offered money in exchange for sex to an undercover officer, police said.

The men, who ranged in age from 22 to 44 years old, offered between $30 and $500 for various sex acts. Four of the men arrested, Guy Bandenay, 44, Alvaro Sanchez, 39, Carlos Quituizaca, 28, and Cruz Mora, 25, were charged with patronizing a prostitute in the third degree, according to the Queens District Attorney office. The other four individuals pleaded guilty to a violation.

State Sen. Jose Peralta (D-East Elmhurst) has complained to law enforcement officials and the Queens District Attorneys Office about the location for years. Last November, Peralta joined state Sen. Michael Gianaris (D-Astoria) and Assemblyman Michael DenDekker (D-East Elmhurst) in calling for an 11-member Roosevelt Avenue Commission, that would bring together community boards, the NYPD, the FDNY and various city agencies to help clean up the business corridor from 48th Street to 114th Street.

Unfortunately, this vibrant avenue has become the New Times Square, and as there was a political will to clean up Times Square, it is my hope that there is political will to clean up Roosevelt Avenue, Peralta said. This is one of the most culturally diverse thoroughfares in New York City, and as one of the gems of Queens, we should make sure New Yorkers and visitors are able to enjoy it without persistent crime. I want to thank the Police and the Queens District Attorneys office for the operation that led to the eight arrests.
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Kourtney Webb

Small-town living doesnt come to mind when people think of New York City. But for 375 years, the residents of Maspeth, have been a world away from the big city and would like to keep it that way.

Kenneth Rudzewick, president and CEO of Maspeth Federal Savings Bank, said the town is a tight-knight community and that Maspeth residents are proud of where they come from.

Like most Americans, we in Maspeth are resilient and proud of our heritage, he said. Here in Maspeth we survive. We remain strong and we love this town.

During the upcoming months, the town will host events dedicated to its founding.

The first event kicked off with a cake-cutting ceremony Tuesday at Maspeth Federal Savings, where elected officials, community leaders and residents gathered to celebrate Maspeths birthday. The bank was more than an appropriate setting for the festivities, considering, the family-owned-bank has been servicing the community for over 70 years.

Christina Wilkinson, president of Newton Historical Society, said Maspeth is a place for community and continues to thrive because of the undying loyalty its people have to the town.

The community is very supportive of its family-owned businesses, Wilkinson said. Children learn a trade from their parents and want to continue to serve the community they grew up in. You have that more so here than in any other neighborhoods. Maspeth Federal Savings is great to non-profits and lends a generous hand to the people here. Its great to know that such a large entity would remember its people and want to hold a celebration for the town. Maspeth was founded by English settlers under a Dutch grant in 1642, making Maspeth the first English settlement in Queens. Maspeth is named for the Mespat Indians, who originally settled near what is now Mount Zion Cemetery, that lies on the outer boundary of the neighborhood.

The small-town feel is not lost on this neighborhood. Old houses, only occasionally interrupted by newer two-family homes, line the towns blocks. Most of the families that live there can trace their lineage back at least four generations or more. The 2.5-square-mile area is not at risk of losing its charm any time soon. The town is devoid of direct access to Manhattan, as there are no New York City subway stations and no express bus stops in Maspeth.

Robert Holden, president of the Juniper Park Civic Association, said he is proud of the town he calls home. He grew up in a house on 74th Street, across the street from the house his mother was born in, and later purchased a house around the corner from his childhood home.

Maspeth is a place you dont want to leave, said Holden. I was born in Maspeth, my mother was born in Maspeth, my grandfather had a farm in Maspeth, so my ties here are long and deeply rooted. I grew up with my uncle and aunts all around me. They told me stories about the town when cows were around and was all farms. My grandfather lamented over the fact they started to build up the community and that the town was no longer going to be farmland. But its great that we can still celebrate milestones in Maspeth.

Maspeth is not only home to multigenerational families, but families coming from all over the world looking for a new start. The town, which is made up of 32,960 people, according to city data, continues to take in large numbers of immigrants. Polish, German and Irish families are prominent immigrant populations in the area.

Eileen Reilly, executive director of Maspeth Town Hall Community Center, said neighbors want to make newcomers feel welcome.

We embrace immigrants from every country, Reilly said. District 24 has the largest population of immigrant children in the city. We want to extend the feeling of support, a sense of community and that small-town love to all who live in the area.

The anniversary celebrations will continue throughout the year with various events. A Polish music festival will be held April 9 at the Knockdown Center. On June 9 Maspeth Federal ill host a concert at its main branch in the parking lot.
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By Gina Martinez

The owners of Spa Castle, who were indicted on tax fraud charges, made sizable donations to Queens Democrats over the years, according to government campaign filings.

State Sen. Tony Avella (D-Bayside) responded to a New York Post report that Spa Castle owners gave thousands in donations to multiple Queens politicians. The senator has been vocal for years about shutting the controversial spa down after multiple health violations and incidents at the College Point site. Avella contended the reason the spa was able to remain open was because of the donations to area politicians, who he said put money before their constituents.

After years of expressing my concerns about Spa Castle, I was not surprised to find out that the owners were being indicted for tax fraud, he said. What was a surprise, however, was that the staggering amount of critical health violations, deplorable work conditions for employees, or a man dying in one of their hot tubs was not enough to shut this place down. Thanks to this Post article, now I understand why they havent been shut down. Its a disgrace that campaign contributions matter more than constituent complaints these days.

The New York Post reported the Chon family gave up to $206,400 in donations to borough Democrats, including U.S. Rep. Joe Crowley (D- Flushing), U.S. Rep. Grace Meng (D-Flushing), and Borough President Melinda Katz.

According to campaign filings, Steve Chon made campaign donations to Queens Democrats going back to 2010.

Avella said he has had serious concerns about the spa since his first visit as a councilman in 2008 when he noticed that fire exits were mislabeled, blocked with stored equipment, and in one case, padlocked.

Avella has called on the city Board of Standards and Appeals to revoke the spas variance for years. In 2014 the spa was temporarily shut down after a man was found dead in a hot tub.

Most recently police were searching for a woman who ran over an employee with her car after leaving without paying for services in early March, police have still not found the suspect.

They seem to constantly flout the law, he said. With the fact that the media has discovered numerous health violations and safety violations, this is the last straw that has broken the camels back.

The spas owners were indicted March 22 for their alleged theft or failure to remit over $1.5 million in sales and other taxes owed by Spa Castle, state Attorney General Eric Schneiderman said.

According to the charges, 57-year-old Steve Chon; his brothers Daniel Chon, 54, Victor Chon, 50; and his daughter, 29-year-old Stephanie Chon, failed to report millions of dollars in revenue collected by the spa from 2010 to 2013. The fraud left New York state short of $621,000 in sales taxes, $207,000 in withholding taxes, $610,000 in corporate taxes and $131,000 in Metropolitan Transportation Authority Surcharge taxes, Schneiderman said.
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By Gina Martinez

U.S. Rep. Grace Meng (D-Flushing) held a round-table discussion last Friday to discuss the negative effect President Donald Trumps proposed budget cuts would have on Queens. Meng hosted a wide array of non-profit organizations that stand to lose funding under Trumps budget plan that was announced March 16.

According to participants in the round table at Mengs offices, housing, education, FEMA and the arts stand to lose millions.

Meng said the budget that vows to put Americans first actually puts them last.

The plan guts critical funding from virtually all federal agencies, she said, and eliminates many important federal programs  cuts that stand to impact Queens. I will do everything in my power to combat these devastating cuts.

Shelby Chestnut, director of community organizing and public advocacy at the Anti-Violence Project, works citywide with LGBT survivors who experience domestic violence and hate crime violence.

People are terrified and people are in real need of services at the moment, Chestnut said. Many domestic violence services are set to lose millions of dollars and lose the ability to serve some of the most vulnerable populations, many of whom are in Queens. Domestic violence survivors oftentimes dont report domestic violence.

Chestnut said because Queens has such a large immigration population, people often do not call the police out of fear of deportation.

Its vital we have these services in place to ensure people are safe in their communities. We fear well see an increase in violence.

David Strauss, deputy director of the Queens Museum, said the museum stands to lose $400,000 a year in funding and grants. Strauss said community-based programs like virtual museum tours for seniors and art therapy programs for children with special needs would be cut.

These funds allow us to put on art exhibitions that help all New Yorkers understand their world in a different light, Strauss said. Also from an economic standpoint, it translates to lost jobs. Ive heard the president say Put America back to work again. Well, these are people that are going to get laid off in addition to the direct services that are going to be canceled.

Jo-Ann Yoo, executive director of the Asian American Federation, said that Trumps proposed budget cuts would translate into significant losses in funding for Asian-serving social service agencies, which rely on federal funding to provide critical resources for low-income Asian immigrants.

These cuts will mean that social services for Asian New Yorkers, which are already drastically underfunded, will become scarcer, putting that much more strain on our member agencies to try to meet the needs of all the clients who walk through their doors. Yoo said.
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By Patrick Donachie

A couple attempting to enter John F. Kennedy International Airport last weekend were arrested for trying to smuggle heroin through customs hidden in a whiskey gift box, according to representatives for the U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

The arrest occurred Sunday, when Andres Uribe Rebolledo and Yuly Valencia Sanchez, both from Colombia, arrived at JFK Airport on a flight from Punta Cana, Dominican Republic. Going through Customs, CBP officials examined luggage from the two, including a Marshall brand speaker and one Glenmorangie brand whiskey gift box. According to the CBP, the gift box felt unusually heavy.

Upon being escorted to a private room, CBP officers searched the speaker and gift box in greater detail and found a tan substance, which tested positive for heroin, the agency said. In all, officials said they found about nine pounds of heroin that the CBP estimated had a street value of more than $250,000.

The two arrested individuals are facing narcotics smuggling charges and are being prosecuted by the Special Narcotics Prosecutors Office for New York City, according to the CBP.
According to the Police, the area around the Chenani-Nashri Tunnel and Battal in Udhampur has been sealed and special protection group has taken over both the venues.

By Ashwini Kumar: Ahead of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to inaugurate Asia's longest tunnel that will cut short the distance between Jammu and Srinagar, a multi-tier security set up has been set in place.

High alert has been sounded along the international border and the line of control toprevent any infiltration.

According to the Police, the area around the Chenani-Nashri Tunnel and Battal in Udhampur has been sealed and special protection group has taken over both the venues. Prime Minister is also scheduled to address a public rally in Udhampur on April 2. Director General of Police (DGP) SP Vaid organised a meeting with the senior officers from J&K Police, paramilitary forces, intelligence and civil administration to ensure round the clock patrolling. Traffic plan for the day was also discussed keeping in mind the common people.

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"Intelligence grid has also been activated to gather the information about the activities of inimical elements and the inputs are discussed with other sister agencies," he said

Vaid instructed security agencies that intelligence inputs should be shared and discussed among agencies and all preventive measures be taken collectively to foil designs of anti-national elements.

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Beaver County identifies mail-in voters with undated ballots

Anyone on the list should visit the Beaver County elections office by 8 p.m. Tuesday to make the necessary corrections.
Ahmedabad, Mar 31 (PTI) Former state minister Maya Kodnani has moved the Special SIT court for summoning BJP chief Amit Shah and 13 others to prove her alibi in the Naroda Gam massacre case, involving killings of 11 people.

Sentenced to 28 years in jail in another Gujarat riot case of Naroda Patiya massacre but presently out on bail, Kodnani has urged the court to call Shah and others as her defense witnesses to prove that she was not present at the scene of the crime involving Naroda Gam massacre on February 28, 2002.

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The plea was made on Thursday to Special SIT Judge P B Desai.

As Kodnanis counsel sought time till Monday to submit the reasons to justify the relevance of the plea at this stage of trial, Judge Desai slated Monday for further hearing to decide if the plea can be admitted.

Through her application, Kodnani, a gynaecologist, urged the court to issue summons to Shah to prove that she met him in state assembly in Gandhinagar and then at Sola Civil hospital here, where bodies of Godhra train massacre were being brought on February 28, 2002.

She also claimed in her plea that she had then gone to her nursing home and then to the main civil hospital in Asarwa area of the city.

To prove her claim, she also sought summoning of 13 other persons, including former BJP MLA Amrish Patel, erstwhile Civil Hospital Superintendent, Dr Anil Chaddha and various staffers of her hospital besides a person whose child, she claimed, was born in her hospital that day.

Naroda Gam massacre is one of the nine major riots cases investigated by the Special Investigation Team. Eleven persons of the minority community were killed in Naroda Gam in 2002 riots during a bandh call given to protest the Godhra train burning incident.

A total of 82 persons are facing trial in the case. The Supreme Court had in September last year given the special court six months to conclude the trial.

Kodnani has been sentenced to 28 years in jail in another riot case of Naroda Patiya, in which 97 people, mostly of the minority community, were killed by a crowd.

Kodnani was a State Minister for Women and Child Development in erstwhile Chief Minister Narendra Modis government. PTI PJT PD RMT RAX

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Schenectady

Fatima Esat no longer takes as many of the long, relaxing walks that she enjoys.

"I don't do it very often these days out of fear," said the Woodlawn resident, a Muslim woman who wears a hijab.

These days, she said she feels more stress going out to places like the supermarket for fear of getting funny looks. She is anxious about what she sees as an increase in hate crimes.

Esat is among a small group of people, some of whom have attended recent City Council meetings, trying to convince city leaders to declare Schenectady a sanctuary city. Such communities try to shield undocumented immigrants from deportation.

The council seems unlikely to take up the matter.

Council President Leesa Perazzo said she favors discussing the issue, unlike four of her seven colleagues.

Perazzo could use her powers as council president to get the matter on the legislative agenda but she said the effort makes little sense if it has no support.

"To me, it's not about simply naming Schenectady a sanctuary city, there are a whole bunch of things and different options we could talk about," Perazzo said. "To me, it's about recognizing that our citizens are concerned for our immigrant population here in the city and what can we do to make them feel safe, feel welcome, and just as much a part of the city as any other resident."

She pledged to continue to "encourage the conversation" among her peers and is working with community groups.

Councilman Vince Riggi said he is open to talking about sanctuary cities but has a "hard time supporting anything that's prefaced with 'illegal'"  in this case, "illegal immigrants."

"Nobody has ever complained to me about this before," Riggi said. He has heard complaints ranging from potholes to snow plowing to sidewalks. No one, he said, has mentioned police harassing immigrants.

Councilwoman Marion Porterfield said she supports talking about the issue.

Council members John Mootoveren, Karen Zalewski-Wildzunas did not return calls seeking comment.

Mayor Gary McCarthy said "sanctuary cities solve nothing." What is needed, he said, is comprehensive immigration reform through legislation like the measure he has been advocating through his involvement with the U.S. Conference of Mayors.

Albany and Bethlehem have declared themselves sanctuary communities.

U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions has threatened to pull funding from sanctuary cities for broadly violating federal law and attempting to shield illegal immigrants from arrest or deportation.

"The idea of sanctuary cities is that they draw a hard line that city resources do not go toward federal enforcement," said Joseph Paparone with the Labor-Religion Coalition of New York.

Jamaica Miles, an activist who lives in Schenectady, said she and other city residents want to ensure city police are not cooperating with federal agencies to arrest or detain immigrants. She said they want the city to disavow President Donald Trump's comments equating immigrants, refugees and Muslims to terrorists.

Miles said the group is circulating petitions in houses of worships to build support and working with the Clergy Against Hate and an immigrant advocacy group.

"The strategy is to continue to educate the community at large, grow our base of supporters, and ensure those marginalized groups who are already living in fear are able recognize there are people who are speaking out on their behalf but also welcoming them to a safe place," Miles said.

Esat, who is from Zimbabwe in Africa, has lived in Schenectady for 10 years.

"We are definitely under attack and feel like we're under siege," she said. "Whether or not they feel it or not is not the point, they should take the time to listen to us and hear our stories."
(State Police)

OPPENHEIM -- A Syracuse man was charged with four felonies after troopers found 100 individual packages of heroin inside his rental car Tuesday evening, State Police said Friday.

Troopers pulled Shyheim J. Judge ,23, over at 9 p.m. on State Highway 29 after the man failed to dim his high beam headlights as he drove past the troop car, State Police said.
Albany

A Rochester-area man who called a veterans help line last summer and said he would "kill everybody" at Stratton VA Medical Center in Albany pleaded guilty Friday to threatening a mass shooting.

Robert J. Seifert, 58, of Canandaigua, who made the threats three days after a mass shooter killed 49 people and wounded 53 others at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Fla., admitted to a charge of making an interstate threat to injure another.

Seifert had been headed to trial Tuesday before U.S. District Court Judge Mae D'Agostino charged on that crime and two counts of threatening to assault and kill a U.S. official.

Seifert, who has been in custody since July 14, is expected to receive time served and three years' post-release supervision when D'Agostino sentences him July 28.

On June 15, Seifert called a Veterans Crisis Line operator in Portland, Ore., and detailed his plans for carnage, according to a pre-trial brief filed by Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Barnett.

"I got an Uzi and I wanna kill everybody at the Albany VA. And I'm not playing games with you," Seifert told the operator.

"Watch what happens when I get to the Albany VA with my Uzi and I start shooting people up."

"OK," the operator replied. "Well, you're going to go to the Albany VA with your Uzi? Do you have an Uzi?"

"Know who the (expletive) this is?" Seifert answered. "My name is Robert Seifert. And I'm ..."

"Sorry. Your name is Robert?" the operator asked.

"And I'm going to (expletive) kill everybody there. Bye," Seifert said.

"Robert?" the operator asked.

Seifert did not reply.

Moments later, Seifert called the Stratton VA, spoke to a nurse and warned: "I am trying to get to the VA hospital before I blow," adding, "If I blow before I get there, I am coming in shooting."

The nurse transferred Seifert to a VA police officer whom Seifert threatened to kill. Seifert told the officer "he was coming to the Albany VA and would shoot and kill many people, and that he would make bigger headlines on CNN than the shooting that had just happened," which the officer recognized as a reference to the Orlando shooting.

Seifert's threat led the hospital to lockdown mode. Hospital police set up a perimeter around the hospital and restricted movement in and around the facility at all entrances. Authorities remained in a heightened state of alert until Seifert was found later that day in a park in Amsterdam, court papers said. Police took Seifert for evaluation at St. Mary's Hospital in the city, where he told State Police he had made the threats to Stratton. Seifert said it was a cry for help, that he was drunk at the time and said he threatened the hospital because he did not believe it was helping him.

In September 2015, Seifert made similar threats to a VA Hospital in Canandaigua, was arrested and served nine months in jail for aggravated harassment.

A year later, after his arrest for threatening the Albany VA hospital, Seifert wrote a letter to U.S. Magistrate Judge Daniel Stewart apologizing for his threats. He wrote he was heavily drunk when he went to St. Mary's.

"I do not under any circumstances mean anything that I allegedly said," Seifert wrote the judge last September. "I am a confused one but not a bad one by (any) means."
Saratoga Springs

After premiering last summer in Los Angeles at the LA Film Festival, "Denial" heads back to where it was edited  Saratoga Springs  for a screening at 7 p.m. Saturday at Bow Tie Cinemas, 19 Railroad Place.

For 18 months, city native Derek Hallquist and his team edited the documentary in the Arcade Building at 376 Broadway. Another Capital Region native, Aaron G. Woolf, served as lead producer.

After its premiere, "Denial" began a national festival tour that will culminate this summer with a PBS broadcast. The film is the product of Hallquist's 15-year-long commitment to filming his father, gathering more than 400 hours of footage.

The 92-minute documentary follows the story of David Hallquist, CEO of a Vermont electric utility, seen through the lens of his filmmaker son.

As a self-described "closet environmentalist," David Hallquist dedicated himself to addressing the way electricity use in America contributed to climate change, but his mission was muddied by the utility's charge to provide affordable and reliable service to customers. He implemented one of the country's first smart grids, and took heat from people on both sides of the issue.

As David Hallquist struggled to build a transparent company, he realized he was lacking transparency in his personal life and revealed to his son a lifelong secret. David Hallquist  who presented himself as a chainsaw-wielding, hardhat-wearing CEO in a male-dominated industry  identified as woman named Christine.

Following the screening, there will be a Q&A with the filmmakers and Christine Hallquist. Tickets are $10.

For information, go to http://www.denialdocumentary.com/screenings.
Washington

A pair of White House officials helped provide Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, with the intelligence reports that showed that President Donald Trump and his associates were incidentally swept up in foreign surveillance by American spy agencies.

The revelation on Thursday that White House officials disclosed the reports, which Nunes then discussed with Trump, is likely to fuel criticism that the intelligence chairman has been too eager to do the bidding of the Trump administration while his committee is supposed to be conducting an independent investigation of Russia's meddling in the presidential election.

It is the latest twist of a bizarre Washington drama that began after dark on March 21, when Nunes got a call from a person he has described only as a source. The call came as he was riding across town in an Uber car, and he quickly diverted to the White House. The next day, Nunes gave a hastily arranged news conference before running off to brief Trump on what he had learned the night before from  as it turns out  White House officials.

The chain of events  and who helped provide the intelligence to Nunes  was detailed to The New York Times by four U.S. officials.

Since disclosing the existence of the intelligence reports, Nunes has refused to identify his sources, saying he needed to protect them so others would feel safe coming to the committee with sensitive information. In his public comments, he has described his sources as whistleblowers trying to expose wrongdoing at great risk to themselves.

That does not appear to be the case. Several current U.S. officials identified the White House officials as Ezra Cohen-Watnick, the senior director for intelligence at the National Security Council, and Michael Ellis, a lawyer who works on national security issues at the White House Counsel's Office and was previously counsel to Nunes' committee. Though neither has been accused of breaking any laws, they do appear to have sought to use intelligence to advance the political goals of the Trump administration.

Sean Spicer, the White House spokesman, refused to confirm or deny at his daily briefing that Ellis and Cohen-Watnick were Nunes' sources. The administration's concern was the substance of the intelligence reports, not how they ended up in Nunes' hands, Spicer said.

The "obsession with who talked to whom, and when, is not the answer," Spicer said. "It should be the substance."

Jack Langer, a spokesman for Nunes, said in a statement, "As he's stated many times, Chairman Nunes will not confirm or deny speculation about his source's identity, and he will not respond to speculation from anonymous sources."

Cohen-Watnick, 30, is a former Defense Intelligence Agency official who served on the Trump transition team and was originally brought to the White House by Michael T. Flynn, the former national security adviser. He was nearly pushed out of his job this month by Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster, who replaced Flynn as national security adviser, but survived after the intervention of Jared Kushner, the president's son-in-law, and Stephen K. Bannon, Trump's chief strategist.

The officials who detailed the newly disclosed White House role said that this month, shortly after Trump claimed on Twitter that he was wiretapped during the campaign on the orders of President Barack Obama, Cohen-Watnick began reviewing highly classified reports detailing the intercepted communications of foreign officials.

There were conflicting accounts of what prompted Cohen-Watnick to dig into the intelligence. One official with direct knowledge of the events said Cohen-Watnick began combing through intelligence reports this month in an effort to find evidence that would justify Trump's Twitter posts about wiretapping.

Flynn seeks immunity

Former national security adviser Mike Flynn has told investigators that he's willing to be interviewed as part of inquiries into alleged contacts between the Trump administration and the Russian government in return for immunity from prosecution.

A congressional official confirmed on condition of anonymity that Flynn made the offer. The Wall Street Journal reported that Flynn made the offer to the FBI and two congressional committees.

"Gen. Flynn certainly has a story to tell, and he very much wants to tell it, should the circumstances permit," Robert Kelner, a lawyer for Flynn, said in statement late Thursday. "We will not comment right now on the details of discussions between counsel for Gen. Flynn and the House and Senate intelligence committees, other than to confirm that those discussions have taken place."

Bloomberg News contributed to this story.
The attack comes two weeks before Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to Odisha.

By Manogya Loiwal : At least 20 Naxals attacked the Daisallu railway station in Odisha's Rayagada district post midnight.

No casualties were reported in the attack, though railway services were disrupted with four trains being detained at various locations around the attack site.

The ultras pulled out station master S K Parida and triggered an explosion in the station premises. Parida and a porter Gobind Hikaka were also detained by them for a brief period, Chief Public Relations Officer of East Coast Railway (ECoR), J P Mishra was reported by news agency PTI as saying.

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The attackers snatched the walkie-talkie of the station master, and forced staff of a goods train standing outside the station to shut down the engine, Mishra added.

The Naxals also put up posters urging people to protest when Prime Minister Narendra Modi visits the state on April 15-16 for the Bharatiya Janata Party's national convention.

The posters feature red text that reads, "We Protest against the visit of Prime Minister Narednra Modi to Odisha in the coming month. He is a rioter, broker and we protest Narendra Modi's Odisha tour, we Protest BJP national convention in Odisha."

Director General of Police K B Singh said combing operation has been launched in the area by CRPF and Special Operation Group (SOG) personnel after the incident.

Railway officials said that movement of goods trains with restricted speed had resumed after security clearance, while steps are being taken for resumption of express and passenger trains soon.

(With inputs from PTI)

ALSO READ | Aiming to expand its base in Odisha, BJP to hold national executive meet in Bhubaneswar on April 15,16

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The Sole Patrol, a group of eight Titusville High School students and three chaperones, returned home Thursday from their service trip to Ecuador. The students described it as a humbling experience.
[March 30, 2017] Accenture Becomes Founding Sponsor of Vector Institute for Artificial Intelligence in Toronto

Institute Supported by Canadian, Ontario governments, Industry, and University of Toronto

TORONTO, March 30, 2017 /CNW/ - Accenture (NYSE: ACN) announced it is a founding sponsor of the new Vector Institute for artificial intelligence (AI) in Canada. The relationship is based on a shared mission to identify new business models for artificial intelligence and to position Canada as a global leader in the digital era. The goal of the new Vector Institute  a non-profit enterprise funded by industry and the federal and Ontario governments  is to help build and maintain Canada's position at the scientific forefront of the global shift to artificial intelligence (AI). Together with industry and educational organizations including the University of Toronto, the Vector Institute will promote and nurture Canadian talent and research excellence in deep learning and machine learning, and actively seek ways to enable and sustain AI-based economic growth in Canada. The Vector Institute launch was ledby Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne, federal Minister of Finance, Bill Morneau, Ed Clark, Chair of the Vector Institute, and Chief Scientific Advisor Geoffrey Hinton. An Accenture demonstration showcased the latest in AI technology, featuring the IPsoft Amelia AI platform and virtual assistant, as well as a DAQRI Smart Helmet and Microsoft HoloLens.



"We are excited to work with the Vector Institute on this unprecedented collaboration in Canada, to explore how business, government, academia and innovators can continue to master AI  which increasingly is becoming the predominant way to create new business, economic and social value," said Bill Morris, senior managing director and Canada president of Accenture. "Accenture is focused on helping our Canadian corporate and government clients better understand how to apply AI to help reinvent business models, unlock the trapped value of data, and improve the way we live and work as a society." Nicola Morini, global managing director of artificial intelligence at Accenture, said, "Accenture believes that businesses require strong partnerships across industry, governments, centers for higher learning, and research and development organizations, to take advantage of a new era in which artificial intelligence will open up new sources of valuable growth. The Vector Institute in Toronto is well-positioned to be a leader in AI and our new relationship reflects Accenture's commitment to help our clients transform their businesses and improve the outcomes they achieve."

About Accenture

Accenture is a leading global professional services company, providing a broad range of services and solutions in strategy, consulting, digital, technology and operations. Combining unmatched experience and specialized skills across more than 40 industries and all business functions  underpinned by the world's largest delivery network  Accenture works at the intersection of business and technology to help clients improve their performance and create sustainable value for their stakeholders. With approximately 401,000 people serving clients in more than 120 countries, Accenture plans to hire 1,300 people in Canada this fiscal year. Accenture drives innovation to improve the way the world works and lives. Visit us at www.accenture.com SOURCE Accenture

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[March 30, 2017] Penta Security Systems Partners with ACE Pacific Group to Deliver WAPPLES to APAC Region

SEOUL, South Korea, March 31, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Penta Security Systems, a leader in web, IoT, and data security solutions and services in the Asia-Pacific region, has announced a partnership with Singapore-based security solution/service provider, ACE Pacific Group. Marking 20 years of IT expertise in the field of web security this year, Penta Security has steadily continued its expansion into Southeast Asia, solidifying and growing its foothold in the web and data security industry with WAPPLES, its leading security product which already enjoys market dominance. While a Web Application Firewall (WAF) is the single most preventive security solution in the IT industry, traditional appliances create another problem of generating high false positives due to the fact that detection engines use pattern-matching and depend on signature updates. Recognizing the need for a logical analysis engine, Penta Security developed WAPPLES to be powered by superior detection technology. Seeking to deliver a powerful security solution to the APAC region and capture a share of the rapidly growing WAF market, ACE Pacific Group sought out a partnership with Penta Security Systems for its award-winning WAF, WAPPLES. Recognized as the top WAF in APAC based on market share, WAPPLES boasts a logic-analysis based detection engine that does not require signature updates and offers an intuitive GUI management console. Because WAPPLES has proven capable of detecting web attacks with higher accuracy and precision than similar WAF services, Penta Security has attracted immense interest in the Southeast Asian region and has acquired new distributors like ACE Pacific Group. Penta Security seeks to mantain its strong presence in the APAC region through this mutually beneficial partnership.



Ivan Lo, Regional Sales Director of ACE Pacific Group said, "Strategically, this revolutionary partnership is a perfect fit to help us in delivering a robust WAF product to the Asia-Pacific region - an essential addition and complement to any suite of IT-security products and solutions. We are ecstatic about this partnership with Penta Security and how WAPPLES can significantly position ACE Pacific Group as a leading distributor in the region." Penta Security Systems' Chief Strategy Officer Duk Soo Kim remarked, "Frost & Sullivan selected Penta Security as 2016's Asian Cyber Security Vendor of the Year and has recognized Penta's increasing presence in the APAC market. Along with ACE Pacific Group's established influence in Singapore and across the Southeast Asian region, enterprises, governments and NGOs in the region are starting to see the need to ramp up their cybersecurity deployments, and through this cooperative partnership, we're confident that we will drive steady growth in the adoption of our superior WAF technology across more industries."

About Penta Security Penta Security Systems Inc. is a leader in web, IoT, and data security solutions and services. With 20 years of IT security expertise in powering secured connections, Penta Security is the top cyber security vendor in Asia, as recognized by Frost & Sullivan, and APAC market share leader in the WAF industry. Driving innovations across encryption, authentication, and signature-free firewall detection technology, Penta Security's whole-system approach to security enables resilience in an era of hyper web integration and connectivity. For more information on Penta Security, please visit www.pentasecurity.com. For partnership inquiries, please email [email protected]. About ACE Pacific Group ACE Pacific Group offers value-added services in IT-security such as Strategic & Security Consultancy, Technical Support and Training Programs for clients, ranging from government bodies, to financial and manufacturing firms included in the Fortune 500. ACE Pacific Group has successfully extended operations overseas to Indonesia, Taiwan, Thailand and Hong Kong and is determined to continue building upon its foothold in the region together with channel partners. For more information on ACE Pacific Group, please visit www.ace-pac.com. For inquiries, email [email protected]. Media Contact: Karen Cruz

Office: (+82) 2-2125-6735

Cell: (+82) 10-6864-3061

Email: [email protected]

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[March 30, 2017] US Stock Guru Jim Rogers to Invest in Tiger Brokers

BEIJING, March 31, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Leading international securities company Tiger Brokers announced that Jim Rogers, the world-renowned investment expert, has signed agreements to become one of the firm's investors. The investment marks the first attempt of the Wall Street billionaire to ever invest in a Chinese technology startup. "What Tiger has been doing, which is use technology to trade around the world, reserve a bright future," said Rogers. He is bullish on the growth momentum of China's fintech industry, claiming that the internet-driven transformation across the financial sector will bring benefits to the ever-growing Chinese investors who are demand to optimize thir asset allocation. "Everybody will be able to trade in everywhere and Tiger appears in the right place, at the right time," Rogers added.



Wu Tianhua, founder and CEO of Tiger Brokers said: "Tiger Trade is a fintech product designed by the company as a one-stop stock trading platform for global Chinese-speaking investors to conveniently access to cross-border investment portfolio." According to Wu, in addition to access to US stocks, Hong Kong stocks, and China A-shares, the platform, which is available to logon through smartphones or PCs, supports transactions involving securities margin trading in addition to 13,000 US stocks, share options and ETF products. According to the company, more than $100 million in transactions were booked through Tiger Trade in the first month following the initial launch of the platform in 2015.

In addition to the explosive growth in the number of subscribers, the monthly dollar value of transactions handled through Tiger Trade jumped 22 times by the end of last year, topping $2.2 billion a month. As a leading online securities broker serving Chinese communities worldwide, Tiger Brokers has been proving its strength in the global investment market. Its initial major shareholders include Xiaomi Technology and China Growth Capital.

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[March 30, 2017] Wilson Legal Solutions Announces Webinar on Improving Firm Performance with Wilson Ideate Software

NEWTOWN SQUARE, Pa., March 30, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Today's business environment is more challenging and competitive than ever. Law firms need to analyze their business through multiple lenses and at varying levels of detail. A webinar being hosted by Wilson Legal Solutions, a leading provider of consulting services and analytics software for law firms and professional services organizations, will demonstrate how firms can achieve these capabilities with Wilson Ideate software. The webinar, Improving Law Firm Performance with Wilson Ideate Software, will take place Wednesday, April 12, 2017, at 2 pm ET. During the webinar, Bo Yancey, director of business of law services for Wilson Legal Solutions, will demonstrate how Wilson Ideate software enables: Enhanced profitability analysis through more flexible expense allocation and easy-to-use templates

Simplified reporting using familiar drag and drop functionality

Improved flexibility of visualizations that enables non-technical users to create and manipulate charts, graphics, and dashboards

Easier configuration of key metrics using an ever-growing library of ready-to-deploy metrics To learn more ad register for this complimentary webinar, please visit www.wilsonlegalsol.com/events/ideate-webinar.



About Bo Yancey Bo Yancey directs Wilson Legal Solutions business of law services team. He is responsible for the successful end-user deployment of business intelligence with a focus on configuration and assessment of solutions to evaluate client profitability, partner compensation, and department and practice group analysis.

Previously, Yancey worked with LexisNexis and Redwood Analytics as director of professional services, director of business of law services, and a senior consultant. In those roles, he led a team that provided implementation services, custom services, training, and strategic consulting to over 160 law firms in the US, UK, and Australia. He holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in business administration from the University of Virginia and an MBA from the College of William & Mary. About Wilson Legal Solutions Wilson Legal Solutions is a leading global provider of consulting services and analytics software that enables law firms and professional services organizations to improve business performance. The company supports firms throughout the lifecycle of practice management software. It is a Certified 3E Services partner with Thomson Reuters Elite and is certified to provide services for all Intapp products. Its advisory services feature globally recognized business of law consultants who enable strategic, data-driven decisions. The company's Wilson Ideate software makes it easier to access, analyze, and share the data that drives profitability and performance. To learn more please visit www.wilsonlegalsol.com. To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/wilson-legal-solutions-announces-webinar-on-improving-firm-performance-with-wilson-ideate-software-300432360.html SOURCE Wilson Legal Solutions

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From Sajjad Hussain

Islamabad, Mar 31 (PTI) Pakistan today said it will boycott an international meeting of parliamentarians scheduled in Dhaka from tomorrow, alleging a "malicious propaganda" by Bangladesh against it.

A 10-member delegation led by National Assembly Speaker Ayaz Sadiz was due to participate in the 136th Inter- Parliamentary Union (IPU) Assembly in Dhaka from tomorrow.

But the government decided to boycott the meeting because of the "continued malicious and uncalled for propaganda and unfriendly attitude of the Bangladesh government against the people and the state of Pakistan."

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The IPU is the focal point for world-wide parliamentary dialogue and works for peace and co-operation among peoples and for the firm establishment of representative democracy.

Sadiq in a statement said the National Assembly members have noted with disappointment the actions and "negative public statements" coming out of Bangladesh despite Pakistans "restraint and overtures" to the country.

"I have, therefore, decided not to travel to Bangladesh as a visit at this point will not serve the purpose," he was quoted as saying by The Express Tribune.

The boycott of the IPU in Dhaka is another sign of strain in Pakistan-Bangladesh ties. Pakistan has previously commented on the sentencing and hanging of Jamaat-e-Islami leaders for warcrimes committed during the 1971 Liberation War.

Bangladesh has said Pakistans reactions to the judicial verdicts were tantamount to meddling in its internal affairs and also said Islamabad was yet to apologise for atrocities committed by its army.

However, Speaker Sadiq said the parliament had sincerely laboured to harness good ties with Bangaldesh. "It was in this spirit that Pakistans parliamentary delegation had unanimously voted in favour of the speaker of Bangladesh Sharmeen Chaudhary for the post of the Chairperson of the Executive Committee of Commonwealth Parliamentary Association in Cameroon in 2014."

Chaudhary had won the election with a narrow margin of 82 votes in favour and 78 against.

Sadiq cited another instance when Pakistan voted a Bangladeshi candidate to become the president of the IPU in 2014. "However, it is noted with much regret that the friendly gestures were never reciprocated in the same coin," he said.

Bangladesh, too, has boycotted all international parliamentary meets organised by Pakistan in the past two years, including the SAARC Young Parliamentarians Conference in August 2016, the International Women Parliamentarians Conference 2017 and the Asian Parliamentary Assembly in 2017. PTI SH ABH AKJ ABH

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[March 30, 2017] ACC and LONGI Solar Team Up to Build High Efficiency Distributed Solar

BEIJING, March 31, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Asia Clean Capital ("ACC") today announced a cooperation agreement with LONGI LERRI Solar Technology Co., Ltd ("LONGI Solar"), a fully-owned subsidiary of LONGI Green Energy Technology Co., Ltd., to co-develop an identified solar pipeline of 300 megawatts in Mainland China. Mr. Thomas Lapham, CEO of ACC and Mr. Wenxue Li, President of LONGI Solar attended the signing ceremony at LERRI's exhibition hall during Solar Power Expo 2017. Under the terms of the Agreement ACC will provide construction and financing for the solar systems and LONGI Solar will provide technical support, equipment supply, and other services for associated rooftops.



ACC and LONGI Solar have initiated the cooperation on a series of solar projects invested by ACC, including a 14MW WISCO rooftop solar station in Wuhan, in which LONGI Solar provides mono-crystalline solar modules and ACC invests in, constructs, and owns the project. The project is the largest rooftop monocrystalline silicon soar PV project in Central China. According to Thomas Lapham, CEO of ACC, "LONGI Solar is the world's largest manufacturer of mono-crystalline cells and solar modules. Working with LONGI Solar we can build the industry's highest quality facilities and provide the most efficient energy services to our energy partners nationwide."

About Asia Clean Capital Asia Clean Capital Ltd. ("ACC") is a leading clean energy solutions developer that serves large multinational and domestic firms throughout China. Focused on rooftop solar projects, ACC invests 100 percent of the project costs and provides the design, engineering, equipment, government approvals, installation, and long-term maintenance of solar systems. All electricity produced is then provided to clients at agreed rates lower than when purchased from the local power grid. Typical project sites are large production facilities with electric demand of between one to twenty megawatts. The company has offices in Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin, and Hong Kong. Media & Investor Contact:

+86 10 5869 1319

[email protected] Photo - http://photos.prnasia.com/prnh/20170330/0861703168

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[March 31, 2017] PurpleYo Launches 'ClamHub', a One-of-a-kind Proprietary Software for Real Estate

BANGALORE, March 31, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- PurpleYo, the largest commercial real estate marketplace has announced this week, the launch of a one-of-a-kind, custom-built for every market, proprietary Customer Relationship Management (CRM) technology called, 'ClamHub'. (Photo: http://mma.prnewswire.com/media/484873/ClamHub_Dashboard_PurpleYo_Image.jpg )

(Logo: http://mma.prnewswire.com/media/484874/PurpleYo_Logo.jpg )

ClamHub has been specially designed for real estate agents, brokers, landlords and developers. It is unique in its functionality, improves performance and offers even greater ease of use. With noteworthy features, ClamHub has been designed to provide end-to-end solutions with the features to create and manage properties; manage clients and client accounts; manage leads and lead lifecycle; manage customer communication with built-in digital marketing and analytics. ClamHub uses PurpleYo's proprietary ranking and indexin algorithms to rank leads for prioritizing deals and closure rates which increases the success rate with more precision.



ClamHub was first launched in India in the month of March 2017 followed by its launch in the Middle East, Singapore and Hong Kong. While there are numerous CRM systems available in the market, yet there isn't one specifically designed for real estate. In such a large and fast-paced industry, responding to an increasingly well-informed consumer base and bearing in mind the aspect of globalisation, PurpleYo's ClamHub is a progressive system. ClamHub is focused on increasing efficiency by helping commercial and residential developers to track employee performance and manage their inventory. About PurpleYo:

PurpleYo has revolutionised the Indian commercial real estate industry by introducing high tech analytics based software that is integrated to simplify complex business and findings with smart solutions and user-friendly interface.

PurpleYo is a leading technology company and the largest commercial real estate marketplace that provides a broad range of software technologies, software-as-a-services, CRM and digital services across the commercial real estate industry. It caters to the wide spectrum of real estate marketplace.

With over 640 million square feet listed, under the PurpleYo umbrella there are over 17,000 corporates and occupiers and still growing exponentially every hour. In addition, more than 30,000 agents and CRE executives use PurpleYo.com to find commercial spaces and the experience is enhanced because of PurpleYo's carefully built-in analytics. PurpleYo.com has made its presence in 18 cities across India and is planning to spread its wings in the Middle East and other Asian markets in 2017. For more information, visit: https://www.purpleyo.com/clamhub

Media Contact:

Anamika Gupta

Director

PurpleYo Technologies Pvt Ltd

[email protected]

+91-9901211511



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[March 31, 2017] Valuebound, a Leading Drupal Development Services Company Based in India, is Sponsoring and Presenting at the Mumbai DrupalCamp 2017

BANGALORE, March 31, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Valuebound, a company that specializes in Drupal development services, is proud to announce sponsorship and participation in the Mumbai DrupalCamp 2017. Two of their Sr. Drupal Architects, Rakesh James and Manoj Kumar would be presenting sessions on 'How to start Contributions', 'PHPUnit for Drupal', 'Drupal8 Migration' and 'Creating Drupal 8 Modules using the Drupal Console'. Valuebound helps media and publishing enterprises in their digital transformation journey with proven expertise in Drupal content management framework. (Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20160811/397428 )

Drupal is an Open Source Content Management System (CMS) and Framework (CMF) used by global enterprises, media and publishing houses, government, higher education institutions and more to build highly scalable and secure web applications. Backed by one of the world's strongest community of open source developers and enthusiasts, Drupal is supported and contributed to by a wide range of organizations and individuals. Drupal is a CMS that focuses on delivering the best of digital experiences and content to the right audience at the right time. It innovates soe of the leading organizations like NBC universal, Tesla and the US government to power web applications for content creators, marketers and admins for easy workflow management, commercial experience and seamless digital experience across all channels. The Drupal community also organizes DrupalCamps and events globally throughout the year to open up opportunities for Drupal users to network and build the community for continuous development of individuals and platform in turn.



When asked about participating and presenting at DrupalCamp Mumbai, Rakesh James said, "While Drupal is an excellent solution for developing platform enabled web, the CMS certainly has limitations. By configuring Drupal sites properly and developing custom modules, we can dramatically open up possibilities of what we can build using Drupal. Our sessions would be focused on how to help Drupal developers to become a part of the community, helping in starting contributions, how to use PHPUnit for Drupal as well as how can they migrate to new Drupal 8 and even creating Drupal 8 modules using Drupal Console. Rakesh's co-presenter, Manoj Kumar added, "I'm thrilled to be speaking at 'The Mumbai DrupalCamp', this is a great opportunity to connect with the community and reveal to the developers that it is a great way to help themselves and their clients. Contributing to Drupal is fundamental to the transformation and innovation of an organization and individual today and into the future, as the Internet gains traction as the primary source of information." Valuebound has consistently been one of the top Drupal contributors in the world and in India, building responsive and intuitive design with inputs in workflow management and insights for content management.

About Valuebound Valuebound, based out of West New York, NJ, with a development center in Bangalore, India, specializes in providing Drupal consulting, development and support for media, publishing and high-tech companies. Since early 2016, Valuebound has been consistently ranked in the top Drupal service providers in the world in India at Drupal.org marketplace. Website: http://valuebound.com

Media Contact:

Puja Kumari

Valuebound

[email protected]

+91-8088048711





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[March 31, 2017] MaxxSouth Broadband Contributes $565,000 to Mississippi State University Libraries

STARKVILLE, Miss., March 31, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- MaxxSouth Broadband increased its support to Mississippi State University (MSU) by committing an additional $565,000 in monetary contributions to the school's library Digital Media Center and Rare Books Collection. Earlier this month, MaxxSouth made its first payment of $440,000 towards the library's Digital Media Center fund. As a show of appreciation for the recent donation agreement, the Mitchell Memorial Library will name the center the MaxxSouth Broadband Digital Media Center. "It is an honor to have MaxxSouth's name on MSU's new Digital Media Center," said Peter Kahelin, president and CEO of MaxxSouth. "We are always thrilled to help promote and expand interactive academia in our communities; the donation will benefit not only current, but future MSU students and generations to come." The Digital Media Center will be triple the size of the previous one. The center will be filled with new and enhanced features. "These enhancements will provide additional services that will improve the teaching, learning and research opportunities for our students and faculty," said Stephen Cunetto, associate dean of University Libraries at MSU. "These services can and will be used by most disciplines and will become the place for creating, teaching and learning the latest digital tools and technologies. Students will be able to record apresentation or interview in our easy-to-use One Button Studio or do prototyping with the 3D printers in our new makerspace."



In addition to the contributions made toward the newly named Digital Media Center, the company joined with John Robinson Block, vice chairman of Block Communications, Inc., parent company to MaxxSouth, to donate $125,000 to the MaxxSouth Broadband and John Robinson Block Special Collections Excellence Fund at the MSU Library. Their combined efforts make this fund possible. The funds will be used to acquire, maintain, display and make available the rare books and manuscripts in the special collections department in the MSU library.

"MSU is an incredible university providing great resources for the students in our community," said Kahelin. "We are proud to contribute in any way towards the education of these bright young minds." MaxxSouth is a longtime supporter and contributor to MSU and MSU Libraries. In 2016, it entered into a support agreement with the libraries valued at $750,000, in addition to an earlier donation of a rare and valuable Mississippi law books collection. The company will be recognized at the Dean W. Colvard Founders level within the Legacy of Leadership program, which is the major giving society for MSU. The Colvard Founders recognizes lifetime donors who donate $1,000,000 to $4,999,999 in support of the university. About MaxxSouth Broadband:

MaxxSouth Broadband's service area for video, high-speed Internet and digital phone stretches more than 200 miles and includes 20 counties and 61 communities in northern Mississippi and Alabama. The company currently has approximately 85,000 subscribers for broadband services and passes 110,000 homes. Operating as a subsidiary of the reputable and diversified media holding company Block Communications Inc., MaxxSouth Broadband continues to expand and enhance its state-of-the-art broadband network in the communities it serves. For more information, visit www.MaxxSouth.com. Media Contact:

Chelsea Oldroyd

[email protected]

435-216-9418 To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/maxxsouth-broadband-contributes-565000-to-mississippi-state-university-libraries-300432211.html SOURCE MaxxSouth Broadband

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[March 31, 2017] Daqo New Energy Filed Its 2016 Annual Report on Form 20-F

CHONGQING, China, March 31, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Daqo New Energy Corp. (NYSE: DQ) ("Daqo New Energy" or the "Company"), a leading manufacturer of high-purity polysilicon for the global solar PV industry, today announced the filing of its annual report on Form 20-F for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2016, which contains the Company's audited consolidated financial statements, with the Securities and Exchange Commission (the "SEC"). The annual report on Form 20-F can be accessed and downloaded from the SEC's website at www.sec.gov or through the investor relations section of the Company's website at http://daqo.gotoip1.com. Holders of the Company's securities may request a hard copy of the Company's annual report free of charge by contacting the Company by mail at:







Daqo New Energy Corp. Investor Relations Unit C, 29F, Huadu Building, No.838 Zhangyang Road Pudong District, Shanghai, China, 200122

About Daqo New Energy Corp. Founded in 2008, Daqo New Energy Corp. (NYSE: DQ) is a leading manufacturer of high-purity polysilicon for the global solar PV industry. As one of the world's lowest cost producers of high-purity polysilicon and solar wafers, the Company primarily sells its products to solar cell and solar module manufacturers. The Company has built a manufacturing facility that is technically advanced and highly efficient with a nameplate capacity of 18,000 metric tons in Xinjiang, China. The Company also operates a solar wafer manufacturing facility in Chongqing, China. For further information, please contact: Daqo New Energy Corp.

Investor Relations

Phone: +86-187-1658-5553

Email: [email protected]

To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/daqo-new-energy-filed-its-2016-annual-report-on-form-20-f-300432561.html SOURCE Daqo New Energy Corp.

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[March 31, 2017] Ford Releases 2016 Annual Report, 2017 Proxy Statement; Announces Virtual Annual Meeting Details

Ford Motor Company (News - Alert) (NYSE:F) today released its 2016 annual report, which details the progress Ford made last year in its continued expansion to be an auto and mobility company. For full-year 2016, Ford had a solid $4.6 billion in net income and a total company adjusted pre-tax profit of $10.4 billion, the second best in company history. The company also rewarded shareholders by distributing $3.5 billion, including the first supplemental dividend of $1 billion. Globally, Ford launched 11 new vehicles in 2016, including the all-new Ford F-Series Super Duty, the new Ford Escape and the flagship Lincoln Continental. "Our solid performance in 2016 underscores the substantial progress we are making in expanding our business to be an auto and a mobility company," said Mark Fields, Ford president and chief executive officer. "This year, we're focused on building on our strengths, transforming underperforming parts of our business and investing in the emerging opportunities that will provide even more profitable growth in the future." The full report can be found in pdf format at www.shareholder.ford.com, and an expanded web version of the report can be found at www.annualreport.ford.com. Ford also announced today the company would be conducting its annual meeting at 8:30 a.m. EDT, Thursday, May 11. The meeting is being conducted virtually this year for the first time, following a growing trend of top companies moving to virtual meetings. Shareholders will be able to listen, vote and submit questions from their homes or any remote location with internet connectivity. "We take very seriously the trust that our shareholders place in our leadership team," said Bill Ford, Ford executive chairman. "The annual meeting is an important opportunity for us to hear directly from our shareholders, and the virtual nature of this year's meeting will enable us to increase shareholder accessibility, while iproving efficiency and reducing costs."



Broadridge Financial Solutions, the financial services technology firm that will help facilitate the meeting, has been working with companies to conduct virtual annual meetings since 2009. In 2016, Broadridge helped more than 180 companies conduct virtual annual meetings, up from 28 in 2010.

Shareholders can submit questions in two ways this year: They can do so either up to three days prior to the meeting, or during the meeting. Questions pertinent to meeting matters that cannot be answered during the meeting due to time constraints will be answered and posted online, and on Ford's shareholder website at www.shareholder.ford.com. On the day of the meeting, shareholders can participate online by logging in at www.virtualshareholdermeeting.com/FORD. Full details and instructions also can be found on Ford's shareholder website and on page 83 of the 2017 proxy statement, which is being published today. The statement contains details of four company and two shareholder proposals, as well as compensation for this year's named executive officers. Ford offers registered shareholders the opportunity to reduce their environmental impact with the option of receiving proxy materials electronically by registering online with www.eTree.com/Ford. For each registered shareholder who signs up for electronic delivery of proxy materials, a tree will be planted on that person's behalf. During 2016, more than 1,000 trees were planted as a result of Ford shareholders enrolling in the electronic delivery program. Since inception of the option, more than 6,252 trees have been planted. Ford's annual report, proxy statement and details of the 2017 annual meeting of shareholders are available at www.shareholder.ford.com. About Ford Motor Company Ford Motor Company is a global automotive and mobility company based in Dearborn, Michigan. With about 201,000 employees and 62 plants worldwide, the company's core business includes designing, manufacturing, marketing and servicing a full line of Ford cars, trucks and SUVs, as well as Lincoln luxury vehicles. To expand its business model, Ford is aggressively pursuing emerging opportunities with investments in electrification, autonomy and mobility. Ford provides financial services through Ford Motor Credit Company. For more information regarding Ford and its products and services, please visit www.corporate.ford.com. For news releases, related materials and high-resolution photos and video, visit www.media.ford.com. View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170331005419/en/

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[March 31, 2017] Ameren launches initiative to spark energy innovation and attract job-creating tech startups to St. Louis

ST. LOUIS, March 31, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Ameren Corporation (NYSE: AEE) announced today the launch of Ameren Accelerator, an innovative public-private partnership with the University of Missouri System, UMSL Accelerate and Capital Innovators, that will assess, mentor and invest in energy technology startup companies. The unique partnership, one of the first of its kind in the United States, is also the St. Louis region's first to focus on energy technologies. Leveraging the expertise of all of the partners, the goals of this program are to better position Ameren to meet its customers' future energy needs and expectations, create new jobs through these start-up companies and provide university students opportunities to be more engaged in the energy business. Five to seven startup companies are expected to be chosen, and each will receive $100,000 in seed capital to participate in the Ameren Accelerator program, which will be located in Cortex, St. Louis' innovation and technology district. Warner Baxter, chairman, president and CEO of Ameren Corporation, said the program is a key component of Ameren's focus on innovative technologies to make the energy grid smarter, more reliable, resilient, and secure while also transforming how customers manage and use energy to power their lives in the future. "As new energy technologies rapidly advance, it is critical that we take bold steps today to better position Ameren to meet our customers' future energy needs and expectations," Baxter said. "This forward-thinking initiative is expected to draw innovators, entrepreneurs and business startups from around the world to St. Louis and to provide us with important insights and technologies to deliver long-term value to our customers and the communities we serve. At the same time, this initiative will enhance St. Louis' already robust innovation and entrepreneurship community, attract top-level talent, educate university students and create jobs. This is a tremendous opportunity for the St. Louis region." As part of the program, the selected startup companies will each receive intensive mentoring, technical assistance, facilities and networking connections from the Ameren Accelerator partners. "The Ameren Accelerator will be a transformative public-private partnership to create new technologies and workforce training for the future," said Dr. Mun Choi, University of Missouri System president. "Collaborating with innovative partners such as Ameren and Capital Innovators will enable the faculty, students and staff of the University of Missouri System to directly contribute to econoic development in the state. I am proud that UMSL spearheaded this project because these activities are strongly aligned with our mission as a top public research university."



Beginning today through May 12, applications will be accepted from interested entrepreneurs and energy technology companies. Information and requirements may be found at amerenaccelerator.com. In July, the selected startup companies will receive seed funding and hands-on support throughout the 12-week program. Senior-level executives from a variety of companies will provide mentorship. Subject matter experts in the areas of energy, sales, marketing, pricing, technical development, operations, talent development and finance will also provide guidance. Based out of the [email protected] Building in Cortex, participants will be able to network with like-minded individuals focused on innovative thinking and collaboration. CIC is one of the most cutting-edge high-tech facilities in the country and a prime destination for business creativity.

At the conclusion of the program, participants will be invited to showcase their efforts to both the mentoring teams and potential third-party investors during Accelerator Demo Day this October. Ameren may select the most promising projects for ongoing mentoring and engagement beyond the Accelerator program. "The Ameren Accelerator is our first corporate initiative through UMSL Accelerate  which is designed to foster entrepreneurism and innovation in and outside the classroom," said Dr. Tom George, chancellor of the University of MissouriSt. Louis. "We look forward to tapping into our strong contingent of faculty, student and alumni connections to make this program a success for all involved." "Capital Innovators is excited to lead the movement through this partnership for the next level of accelerator programs to focus on the world's most pressing issues, such as energy," said Judy Sindecuse, CEO of Capital Innovators. "We look forward to engaging a new group of fresh thinkers on a variety of energy-related challenges and cultivate necessary innovations that can provide extreme value to the energy sector." "We are excited about the prospects of this unique public-private partnership," Baxter said. "Ameren Accelerator is one way we are demonstrating our vision of 'Leading the Way to a Secure Energy Future' and our mission 'To Power the Quality of Life.'" To apply or to learn more about Ameren Accelerator, visit amerenaccelerator.com. About Ameren Corporation

St. Louis-based Ameren Corporation powers the quality of life for 2.4 million electric customers and more than 900,000 natural gas customers in a 64,000-square-mile area through its Ameren Missouri and Ameren Illinois rate-regulated utility subsidiaries. Ameren Illinois provides electric distribution and transmission service, as well as natural gas distribution service, while Ameren Missouri provides vertically integrated electric service, with generating capacity of over 10,200 megawatts, and natural gas distribution service. Ameren Transmission Company of Illinois develops regional electric transmission projects. Follow the company on Twitter @AmerenCorp. For more information, visit Ameren.com. About the University of Missouri System

The University of Missouri System is the State of Missouri's largest public university, with four campuses serving more than 76,000 students, a health care system, an extension program, and more than 500,000 alumni worldwide. The UM System was created in 1963 when the University of Missouri (founded in 1839 in Columbia) and the Missouri School of Mines (now the Missouri University of Science and Technology, founded in 1870 in Rolla), were combined with the formerly private University of Kansas City (now University of MissouriKansas City, founded in 1933), and a newly created campus in suburban St. Louis (University of MissouriSt. Louis). About the University of Missouri-St. Louis and UMSL Accelerate

The University of MissouriSt. Louis is the largest public research university in eastern Missouri with the greatest concentration of alumni in the region. Their UMSL Accelerate initiative fosters entrepreneurism and innovative thinking in and outside the classroom and helps bring concepts from mind to market. For more information, visit http://umsl.edu/accelerate/. About Capital Innovators

Capital Innovators is an innovation engine that creates practical solutions across industries that can shape the future of organizations. Capital Innovators provides innovation consulting, entrepreneurial-based programs, acts as a liaison between Corporations, Universities and Startups and investment into attractive early-stage businesses. Capital Innovators has in-depth knowledge into the most cutting-edge solutions through the Accelerator division of its business, which has been ranked as a Top 10 Accelerator in the country for three years in a row and has invested in and guided 70 companies to date. Capital Innovators model is simple and effective: Innovation, Iteration, and Implementation. To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/ameren-launches-initiative-to-spark-energy-innovation-and-attract-job-creating-tech-startups-to-st-louis-300432595.html SOURCE Ameren Corporation

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[March 31, 2017] HAVEN Grant Helps Army National Guard Vet

Retired Sergeant Joe Braswell, now 53, wasn't a young recruit in 2003 when servicemen and women were getting called to fight in the Iraq War. In fact, he had already put more than 20 years into his military service by then and was thinking about retirement. This Smart News Release features multimedia. View the full release here: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170331005689/en/ Retired Army National Guard Sergeant Joe Braswell received a $7,500 HAVEN grant from FHLB Dallas and Southern Bancorp to assist with home repairs. (Photo: Business Wire) But then he started worrying about the many young service members who were headed to Iraq. Mr. Braswell was activated in March 2003 with the Arkansas Army National Guard 39th Infantry and was deployed a year later from Fort Hood, Texas, to Baghdad where he served as a cook and a truck driver transporting military supplies. He and his team cooked for as many as 600 service members at a time before he returned home in 2005. "I was like a daddy to many of those young guys," Mr. Braswell said. "I wanted to make sure they were well fed." Several years later, in 2009, Mr. Braswell received a 100 percent disability rating on lung damage caused by exposure to burn pits in Iraq and a 60 percent disability rating on his heart due to previous damage that occurred during active duty training - something that he didn't know about during his Iraq tour. To top things off, he suffered from a persistent MRSA infection that began in Iraq and required two years of antibiotic treatment after his return to the states. Once back in the U.S., Mr. Braswell worked several years for Georgia Pacific but his health began to fail and he eventually was no longer able to work. His wife, Janet, 48, retired from her job at a bank about three years ago to become his full-time caretaker. The couple had begun to build a larger bathroom several years ago off the master bedroom but they were unable to complete the work because of Mr. Braswell's deteriorating physical condition. He now has oxyge available to him at all times, although he doesn't always require it.



A $7,500 Housing Assistance for Veterans (HAVEN) grant provided by the Federal Home Loan Bank of Dallas (FHLB Dallas) and Southern Bancorp provided the funding to finish the work. Bill Wright (News - Alert), West Region CEO of Southern Bancorp, said upon learning Mr. Braswell's story, he knew he had to help him.

"Providing assistance to veterans is of great importance to Southern Bancorp," said Mr. Wright. "We recognize the deep debt owed them by all Americans for their service and sacrifice. Our commitment to creating economic opportunity extends to all those willing to work for it." The project involved taking space from a walk-in closet to expand a bathroom to include a large, roll-in shower that includes a bench and grab bars. The shower allows for a wheelchair should Mr. Braswell need one in the future. Other renovations included modifications to make the bathroom handicapped-accessible. HAVEN is a unique grant program offered by FHLB Dallas through its member institutions, such as Southern Bancorp, that reaches out to veterans and active-duty service members who have been disabled in the line of duty since September 11, 2001. It provides grants up to $7,500 to support necessary home modifications. To qualify, veterans must also meet income eligibility requirements. Mr. Braswell gets dizzy and short of breath easily so the shower seating and grab bars have provided a level of independence he hasn't enjoyed for many years, he said. "It's been a real blessing and a burden that has been lifted." Mrs. Braswell said renovations would have continued to languish without the grant. "I don't know how long it would have taken to fix the bathroom if it weren't for the grant," she said. "We are so thankful for the help from Southern Bancorp and FHLB Dallas as our only income is my husband's disability pay." Greg Hettrick, FHLB Dallas first vice president and director of Community Investment, said HAVEN is an example of how FHLB Dallas and its members, such as Southern Bancorp, partner together to provide local communities with services often not available at nonmember banks. "We are honored to help someone who gave nearly 30 years in service to his country, and we appreciate Southern Bancorp's commitment to the HAVEN program," said Mr. Hettrick. This year, FHLB Dallas has made available through members a new $75,000 allocation to the program. The program launched in 2011 with $250,000 set aside for the program. About Southern Bancorp Southern Bancorp, Inc., a bank holding company; Southern Bancorp Community Partners, a tax exempt lending and development organization; and Southern Bancorp Bank, one of America's largest rural development banks were founded in 1986 by then Governor Bill Clinton, Wal-Mart Chair Rob Walton, the Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation and others who were concerned about the economic decline of rural Arkansas. All three are U.S. Treasury certified Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFIs) collectively known as "Southern." With $1.2 billion in assets, 80,000 customers at its 44 locations in Arkansas and Mississippi. On the web at banksouthern.com & southernpartners.org. About the Federal Home Loan Bank of Dallas The Federal Home Loan Bank of Dallas is one of 11 district banks in the FHLBank System created by Congress in 1932. FHLB Dallas, with total assets of $54.2 billion as of December 31, 2016, is a member-owned cooperative that supports housing and community investment by providing competitively priced loans and other credit products to approximately 850 members and associated institutions in Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, New Mexico and Texas. For more information, visit fhlb.com. View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170331005689/en/

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[March 31, 2017] STEM Activation Program Expands to Prepare Girls Across Silicon Slopes for Future Tech Careers

SANDY, Utah, March 31, 2017 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The Women Tech Council today launched the first expansion event of their SheTech program to provide access to hands-on tech experiences and mentoring with industry experts to high school girls across the state and in rural areas to engage and inspire them to pursue science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) fields. The SheTech expansion was launched in partnership the Governor's Office of Economic Development (GOED) and the Department of Workforce Services through a grant from Talent Ready Utah. By inspiring and engaging girls across the state and especially in rural areas to pursue STEM, SheTech helps accomplish the state's goal of creating the skilled workforce needed to continue Utah's strong economic growth, especially in Silicon Slopes. "Because women are a critical part of the technology economy, we want girls in all regions to realize the opportunities that STEM education and careers provide them," said Cydni Tetro, president of the Women Tech Council. "By expanding this program and ensuring that all girls in Utah have access to industry and mentoring regardless of where they live, we are helping to develop our economy and ensure the state's success." Friday's expansion event, called SheTech Explorer Day, was done in partnership with Weber State University. More than 400 high school girls from Box Elder to Rich to North Salt Lake participated to earn industry certifications, problem solve with mentors from more than 30 companies and explore STEM careers through activities like robotics, aerospace dynamics, 3D printing and virtual reality. Through these tech experiences, opportunities to problem solve and present, and one-on-one mentoring with professionals from companies including Pluralsight, Wadman Engineering, Dealertrack, Rocky Mountain Power and MarketStar, students gained skils, confidence and inspiration to pursue STEM courses and careers.



Additional future events will continue to expand the programs reach, especially in rural areas. Research from previous events shows 93 percent of participating high school girls are interested in pursuing STEM careers after taking part in SheTech Explorer Day. "The SheTech expansion will greatly benefit students in rural Utah," said Val Hale, executive director of GOED. "The Talent Ready Utah partnership will allow us to train and inspire students by connecting them to high-demand, high-paying jobs. We are committed to extending Utah's economic success beyond the Wasatch Front."

Beyond Explorer Day, SheTech provides participating high school girls continual engagement with STEM industry by helping them gain internships, learn about college scholarships and find courses that match their interests in their school and district. This continual integration takes SheTech beyond traditional programs that teach students skills by giving girls ongoing resources, support and mentoring to continue their path into STEM and succeed. "As a university committed to ensuring students are ready for the work force, we recognize the value of bringing industry and education together to create a stronger impact for students," said Dana Dellinger, Director of the Center for Technology Outreach at Weber State University. "With SheTech, we have the ability to help provide access to training and skills to hundreds of girls to help them pursue STEM degrees and successfully launch into the work place." Another SheTech Explorer Day will be held May 8 at Southern Utah University to broaden access of the program into additional rural communities. Additional events will also be held at sites in Colorado and Idaho in the coming months. By the end of the year, the SheTech program will have reached and impacted more than 10,000 high school girls to pursue STEM careers. Students, parents or schools interested in getting involved with SheTech or participating in other Explorer Days should visit www.shetechexplorer.com. Media contact:

Abby Shaha

801-809-0313

[email protected] About Women Tech Council

The Women Tech Council (WTC) is a national organization focused on the economic impact of women in driving high growth for Utah's technology sector through developing programs that propel the economic pipeline from K-12 to the C-suite. WTC offers mentoring, visibility, opportunities and networking to more than 10,000 women and men working in technology to create business environments focused on high performance, not diversity, where men and women can succeed. This propels individual careers and Utah's talent pipeline by ensuring a strong, diverse, and entrepreneurial technology workforce. For more information on Women Tech Council, visit www.womentechcouncil.org. To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/stem-activation-program-expands-to-prepare-girls-across-silicon-slopes-for-future-tech-careers-300432812.html SOURCE Women Tech Council

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Election day information: voting times, polling centers and races

Residents will have their final chance to cast votes in local races on Nov. 8, including seats on both the NLCS and MCS boards and Sheriff.
Rajnath Singh today accused Pakistan of using the social media platform to incite youths in Kashmir to storm encounter sites to help holed-up militants, after some members in Lok Sabha raised the issue of death of three civilians in Budgam in firing by security forces.

By Press Trust of India: Home Minister Rajnath Singh today accused Pakistan of using the social media platform to incite youths in Kashmir to storm encounter sites to help holed-up militants, after some members in Lok Sabha raised the issue of death of three civilians in Budgam in firing by security forces.

Responding to Saugata Roy (TMC) expressing concern saying the situation in the Kashmir Valley was very grave and seeking his intervention, Singh said the security forces were dealing with terrorism in a way they should and they will surely be successful.

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He said the strife-torn region had seen a "new trend" of late in which youths from nearby villages gather at the sites of encounter between security forces and terrorists and pelt stones to help the militants holed-up there to flee.

"I will appeal to youths not to be misled by Pakistan. Some social media applications like Whatsapp and Facebook are used to gather youths at places of encounters. These groups are based in Pakistan. "Security forces are dealing with terrorists exactly the way they should and will continue to do so.

I want to say that we will definitely be successful," he said. Pakistan-sponsored terrorists are trying to destabilise not only Kashmir but entire India, Singh said. K C Venugopal (Congress) also raised the issue of deaths of civilians.

Roy noted that he was a member of the all party delegation which had visited Kashmir earlier and the situation there had again become very grave.

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2019 elections will be fought on mobile, says Prime Minister Narendra Modi

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"The government of India should respect the ownership rights of the government of Pakistan in this regard," Pakistan said after a BJP MLA in Maharashtra demanded that the iconic building be demolished.

By India Today Web Desk: A few days after a Bharatiya Janata Party MLA demanded that Mumbai's iconic Jinnah House be demolished, Islamabad has hit back, saying Delhi should hand over the iconic building to Pakistan, The Express Tribune reported.

According to the newspaper, the Pakistani Foreign Office spokesperson Nafees Zakria reacted to the demand by saying, "The Jinnah House in Mumbai was the residence with ownership of the father of the nation, Quaid-i-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah."

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"The government of India should respect the ownership rights of the government of Pakistan in this regard. We also expect that the Indian government will fulfil its obligation of protecting that property and its upkeep," he is reported to have added.

Zakria went on to assert that the property belongs to Pakistan and should be handed back to Pakistan. "On various occasions, the Indian government has promised to hand over the property to the government of Pakistan but have not fulfilled their commitment as yet," The Tribune quoted him saying.

'VESTIGE OF PARTITION'

On March 25, BJP MLA Mangal Prabhat Lodha, while speaking the Maharashtra Assembly, called for demolishing the Mumbai building . "The Jinnah residence in south Mumbai was the place from where the conspiracy of partition was hatched," Lodha said during a discussion on the demands of the Public Works Department.

Lodha claimed that since Parliament has passed the Enemy Property Bill, the property is now owned by the Indian government and the PWD should not spend "lakhs of rupees" for its upkeep and maintenance.

"The structure should be demolished and a cultural centre highlighting Maharashtra's culture and pride should be built. The cultural centre should also exhibit the glorious history of India," Lodha went on to say.

ALSO READ | Tipu Sultan's 200 years old armoury being shifted to make way for Bengaluru-Mysuru Express Line

ALSO READ | Bengaluru demolition drive: Martyr Niranjan's house to come under the bulldozer

WATCH | BJP MLA demands demolition of Jinnah House in South Mumbai

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The blast took place in Parachinar, which borders Afghanistan

By India Today Web Desk: A bomb blast rocked the city of Parachinar in Pakistan, killing at least 11 people and injuring scores more.

An emergency has been declared in all area hospitals after the explosion, which seem to target the northwestern Pakistsani city.

The city, located around 250 kilometers from Peshwar, falls in the Kurram Valley in the erstwhile North West Frontier Province area and borders Afghanistan.

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The blast took place as people started gathering for Friday mosque near the entrance of a Shia mosque in central bazaar.

According to Al Jazeera, Kurram has seen a rising number of attacks in recent years and the Pakistan army has made it the target of several anti-insurgent operations.

Sajid Hussain, a local politician, confirmed said the death toll from the explosion had reached 11, with 60 wounded.

"The attack took place in a busy area and a women's mosque appears to be the target," news wire Reuters quoted him as saying.

Hussain added that gunfire was heard in the lead up to the explosion and that the women's mosque seemed to be the target.

Authorities said a military rescue helicopter had been sent to the scene to help evacuate the injured.

Mumtaz Hussain, a doctor at the Agency Headquarters Hospital in the region, said five bodies, including a woman and two children, and more than three dozen wounded, had been brought to the hospital and an appeal for blood donors had been made.

The attack comes a month after over 80 people were killed and scores injured in suicide bomb attack at the Lal Shahbaz Qalandar Sufi shrine in Sehwan, Sindh. The Islamic State claimed responsibility for that attack.

(With inputs from agencies)

ALSO WATCH | Pakistan talks tough, but is it enough to convince India?

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HoloLens was announced one year ago today, and Microsoft celebrated the occasion by trumpeting the mixed reality headset's progress so far.

March has actually been quite busy on the MR front. Microsoft rebranded Windows Holographic to Windows Mixed Reality to better reflect its hopes for XR on Windows; expanded the HoloLens Agency Readiness Partner Program to offer "extensive, hands-on training" to six more European companies; and has now wrapped up the year with a blog post and video summarizing much of what's been happening in the world of HoloLens.

Microsoft highlighted these tidbits in its blog post:

Over 150 exclusive mixed reality apps are now available in the Windows Store.HoloLens is available in Australia, Canada, Ireland, Japan, France, Germany, New Zealand, United Kingdom, and the United States and we will begin to ship in China before summer.We have expanded the promise of mixed reality by making it attainable for everyone. Windows Mixed Reality, the HoloLens software platform, is built into Windows 10, opening an ecosystem of hardware and software that will revolutionize how we interact with people, places and things.

Many other things have been going on with HoloLens. Developers have started to experiment with game concepts that take advantage of the MR headset, Microsoft created a jerry-rigged Spectator View to help businesses show off MR's potential, and a company called Stryker has signed on to use HoloLens to design better operating rooms. One dev even built an experimental experience that combined HoloLens with the HTC Vive.

We also learned more about the HoloLens' internals and how its Holographic Processing Unit works. To say that we're waiting to learn more about the MR headset would be an understatement. Alas, Microsoft said in its blog post that we aren't going to slake our thirst for knowledge until the Build 2017 (opens in new tab) conference, which runs May 10-12 at the Washington State Convention Center in Seattle. Here's hoping that post-birthday bash is illuminating.
The former face of Oculus hasnt been seen or heard from in an official capacity since September 2016, and he wont be making any more appearances on behalf of Oculus in the future: Palmer Luckey is leaving Oculus, effective March 31.

If it werent for Luckey, the VR industry might not exist as it does. We certainly wouldnt have the Oculus Rift, and the Samsung Gear VR probably wouldnt have happened if Oculus werent around to stir up buzz around VR and help bring VR technology to the mobile market. And if Oculus didnt exist, Valve may have waited a lot longer before attempting to bring its VR tech to market. Indeed, anyone who enjoys virtual reality has a lot to thank Mr. Luckey for. But he will no longer be part of the future of the company he founded just a few years ago, and therefore he wont have anything to do with the next stage of Oculus VR.

There was a time when you couldnt read an article or watch a video talking about virtual reality without someone mentioning the inventor of the Rift. Every time Oculus had an announcement, you could bet that Luckey would make an appearance on stage. And, for a long time leading up to the release of the Rift hardware, you could count on Luckey to chime in on the /r/Oculus Reddit community with answers to questions from eager fans. After the Rift's launch, the founder stopped interacting on Reddit, but the lights didn't truly goout on his public communication until September 2016.

On September 23, 2016, The Daily Beast published a story that outed Palmer Luckey as a financial backer and potential founder of Nimble America, a pro-Donald Trump organization that paid for anti-Hillary Clinton advertisements. Luckey denied being a founding member of Nimble America, but he admitted to giving money to the organization in a statement that he posted on Facebook that evening:

I am deeply sorry that my actions are negatively impacting the perception of Oculus and its partners.The recent news stories about me do not accurately represent my views.Heres more background: I contributed $10,000 to Nimble America because I thought the organization had fresh ideas on how to communicate with young voters through the use of several billboards. I am a libertarian who has publicly supported Ron Paul and Gary Johnson in the past, and I plan on voting for Gary in this election as well.I am committed to the principles of fair play and equal treatment. I did not write the "NimbleRichMan" posts, nor did I delete the account. Reports that I am a founder or employee of Nimble America are false. I dont have any plans to donate beyond what I have already given to Nimble America.Still, my actions were my own and do not represent Oculus. Im sorry for the impact my actions are having on the community.Palmer Freeman Luckey

That was the last time we heard from Luckey. Though he remained an employee of Facebook and part of Oculus, Luckeys role within the company was never clear after the scandal, and he hasn't posted on social media since that day. He was also absent from the Oculus Connect 3 industry event, which took place weeks later. And he was nowhere to be found at the Oculus booth at GDC 2017.

As recently as December, Facebook and Oculus said that Luckey would remain a part of Oculus, but things may have changed after the bombshell judgment against Oculus, former Oculus CEO Brendan Iribe, and Luckey himself. The lawsuit left Oculus on the hook for $350 million, Iribe for $100 million, and Luckey for $50 million.

We dont know the details behind Luckeys departure. Oculus had this to say about Luckey's departure:

Palmer will be dearly missed. Palmer's legacy extends far beyond Oculus. His inventive spirit helped kickstart the modern VR revolution and build an industry. We're thankful for everything he did for Oculus and VR, and we wish him all the best.

Oculus representatives couldnt comment further on the situation, but its hard to imagine that Luckey would walk away of his own accord.
Fresh from selling out his headline shows in Germany and Amsterdam  following his support slot on the European Tour with Lisa Mitchell  Dean Lewis is back with a radio-ready jam.

An intersection between Coldplay and Ed Sheeran, new single Need You Now follows the release of debut singles Waves, which has clocked up over 840K views on YouTube.

The two tracks feature on the Sydney artists upcoming EP, set for release in April.
Geelong five-piece rockers MDRN LOVE have just released their blistering debut single Bring Me Down, the first taste from their EP, due very soon.

The band take influence from a long lineage of Aussie acts such as INXS, Powderfinger, and Matt Corby, and if this first blast is anything to judge by, MDRN LOVE will be joining them in the patheon of Aussie rock before too long.

Check out the single below, and if you like what you hear, catch them on tour. Dates below the clip.

Tour Dates

8TH APRIL  THE COURTHOUSE  GEELONG

19TH APRIL  THE WORKERS CLUB  FITZROY

22ND APRIL  THE BARWON CLUB  GEELONG

5TH MAY  THE LOFT  WARRNAMBOOL

9TH MAY  UMSU  MELBOURNE

20 MAY  THE TORQUAY HOTEL  TORQUAY

7TH JUNE  THE VILLAGE GREEN HOTEL  MULGRAVE
KANSAS CITY, Mo. - The four men charged in connection with the robbery and Independence officer shooting appeared in court on Friday. Ronar Santiago-Torres, 27, Joseph E. Wyatt, 28, James McChan, 56, and Donald Nussbaum, 51, are facing charges. Santiago-Torres and Wyatt are each charged with assault on a law enforcement officer, first-degree robbery, armed criminal action, first-degree burglary and kidnapping.
Kansas City Play Explores Millennial Revolution, And Building A Better Block The push for safe spaces and trigger warnings is leading many educators to more carefully curate their syllabi. The issue inspired creativity in a Kansas City playwright and the two local actors performing in his new project. Then, we discuss a fresh activist approach to better urban planning.

Enthusiastic coverage extols the virtues of the Kansas City creative class which is often a talking point of old school lawyers looking to capitalize on compliant 20-somethings in order to earn tax breaks and subsidies. Checkit:
Kansas City Lesson In Persistence

Academie Lafayette One Step Closer To Opening High School In Midtown Academie Lafayette, a French immersion charter school, has reached an agreement to buy the former Derrick Thomas Academy in midtown. "If everything goes as we hope, this building will be the third campus in the Academie Lafayette network," Head of School Elimane Mbengue says.

Today's Urban Core Runaround

High-speed pursuit of U-Haul truck ends in east Kansas City Speeds estimated at more than 100 mph during chase

Nobody Hurt In Golden Ghetto Blaze

No one injured in school bus fire in Leawood LEAWOOD, Kan. - A school bus caught fire in Leawood, Kansas Friday afternoon. Leawood police said two students and a driver were on an Overland Trail Middle School bus at 131st Street and High Drive when smoke started pouring out of a vent on the bus.

Show-Me Wage Fight Push Back

Republicans may make concessions on minimum wage bill that would affect St. Louis A bill intended to quash St. Louis' minimum wage increase looked to be on the fast track this session, but is now on hold in the Missouri Senate as Republicans mull an overture to Democrats to avoid a filibuster.

Kansas City Bridge Battle Coming Soon

KC planners determined to get new Buck O'Neil Bridge, avoid two-year closure Kansas City likely needs millions in yet-unidentified federal dollars to fuel a grand plan for the former Broadway Bridge and North Loop, but top city staff assured City Council members they are working with the Missouri congressional delegation to get it.

Critical Police Info Update

Independence officer shooting comes as MO Gov. pushes for Blue Alert System Independence police officer Thomas Wagstaff was shot while responding to a burglary call on Wednesday. At last check, he remains in critical condition. The tragic shooting comes at the same time as Missouri Governor Eric Greitens is pushing for a Blue Alert System in the state.

Pitch Serves Up Supper Club Promo

Michael and Christina Corvino put everything (and nearly everyone) they know into their new Corvino Supper Club and Tasting Room Photo by Zach Bauman A few weeks ahead of the opening of Corvino Supper Club and Tasting Room, the most eagerly awaited new restaurant to open in Kansas City in 2017, chef Michael Corvino jokes that it all could have been very different.

Instagram hottieinspires us toand burn through the afternoon Kansas City news cycle with the very best links for the consideration of our blog community. Take a look:And this is thefor right now . . .
Police in Kansas City, Kansas are investigating a homicide after a shooting incident Thursday evening. Police said a man was shot near 22nd and Glendale at 6:01 p.m. Thursday. That man died as a result of his injuries. Investigators are on scene. This story is developing. Refresh this page for updates.
TKC TOLD YOU SO!!! ONCE AGAIN PREZ TRUMP PROVES KANSAS CITY DEAD TREE MEDIA WRONG AND SEEMINGLY AND POLITELY DECLINES THE INVITATION TO THE MOSTLY POINTLESS WWI CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION!!!

President Trump has his hands full in the nation's capitol fighting Democratic Party opposition and, just as we predicted, aas well.And so . . .Any student of history realizes thatand represents an old world view and the tragic mistaken belief regarding a war to end all wars wherein so many young men died for nothing.Meanwhile, Kansas City has never been very welcoming to the Prez so we can understand his trepidation to return despite the hopes of the newspaper and one of may Kansas City "attractions" that consistently loses money . . .You decide . . .
From Shirish B Pradhan

Kathmandu, Mar 31 (PTI) A book, giving pictorial depiction of the powerful earthquakes that struck Nepal in 2015 and killed nearly 9,000 people, was launched here today.

The book titled The Gorkha Earthquake-2015 has been dedicated to the deceased and survivors of the earthquake.

The book includes the geology of Nepal, its seismicity, scientific background of the Gorkha Earthquake, damage and loss including the assistance of the government, security agencies and international organisations.

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The authors of the book -- Assistant Professor Deepak Chaulagain and photo journalist Laxmi Prasad Ngakhusi -- have decided to donate the fund collected from the book for the education of the quake surviving children.

"Documentation of the infrastructures plays a significant part in the reconstruction process. To rebuild the structure depicting the same culture and tradition, there has to be the documentation of those buildings and monuments," said Govinda Raj Pokharel, CEO at National Reconstruction Authority during the launch of the book.

"We need social and economic reconstruction as well. The physical reconstruction remains incomplete without economic assurance," Pokharel said.

Nearly 9,000 people were killed and 500,000 houses were demolished during the twin earthquakes of 2015. PTI SBP UZM

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"Going after Muslims was a hallmark of his campaign. He made a promise to his most ardent supporters to deliver a bit of human flesh. He will do everything in his power  including abusing the Constitution  to please them."

It has been awhile since we've heard from the token Latina at the fading daily newspaper, today's screed not only echos Democratic National Committee talking points but also reminds readers that very little has changed in the editorial slant of this Kansas City dead tree media institution.Checkit:Money line . . .You decide . . .
McCaskill Opens Probe Into Opioid Drugmakers, But Omits Top Company From Home State - InsideSources Photo Credit: U.S. Sen. Claire McCaskill's website U.S. Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., opened an investigation Tuesday into the role drug companies may have played in the nation's opioid epidemic. She requested internal documents from five leading drugmakers on how they market opioid painkillers and if they knew anything about the dangers of the drugs.

Special thanks to our blog community for a couple of links reminding us that mainstream media oftento cover the behind the scenes embarrassment of local politicos. Here's more insight into a political stunt that backfired:
Kansas City Downtown Hotel Pix

Hotel Phillips Kansas City Reveals Photos of $20M Restoration Kansas City, Mo.-The iconic Hotel Phillips Kansas City, now a part of the Curio Collection by Hilton owned by Arbor Lodging Partners and managed by NVN Hotels, officially reopened its doors to visitors and residents after undergoing a $20 million renovation. The 20-story hotel features 216 guest rooms and suites that combine modern-day comfort and amenities with 1930's style.

Cowtown Cultural Moment

Meet The Woman Who Makes Tchaikovsky Danceable For The Kansas City Ballet Peter I. Tchaikovsky wrote three classic ballets, but until now, the Kansas City Ballet has only performed two of them: Swan Lake and The Nutcracker. Besides completing its repertoire of Tchaikovsky ballets, the company's premiere of The Sleeping Beauty is a case study in how setting a ballet to the great composer's music requires changing it.

Allegation: El Diablo In Meth Town

Ex-girlfriend calls one suspect charged in Independence robbery, officer shooting 'the devil' KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- "He's an evil character, like he's the devil. Horrible father and a bad influence and he's just someone you don't want to be around, " Ashley Bergen said as she describes her former boyfriend, Joseph Wyatt.

Independence, MO In Prayer

Neighbors hold prayer service for Independence officer INDEPENDENCE, Mo. - As Officer Thomas Wagstaff continued to fight for his life at Centerpoint Medical Center on Thursday, neighbors gathered for a prayer service to hope for his recovery. The service was held at New Hope Baptist Church, where organizers decorated much of the grounds with blue ribbons in support of Wagstaff and the Independence Police Department.

The Weekend According To McTavish

7 Old Things To Do In Kansas City This Weekend You're not getting older, you're getting ... older. Sorry, that's the best I can do. But wait! Maybe there's a way this weekend to alleviate the inevitable. Maybe by participating in events that are inherently dynamic - despite the advanced age of their inspirations, practitioners or subject matters - you can somehow fend off the falling pages of the calendar.

just might be the world's greatest Brit Instagram model of the moment and right now she inspires this quick morning look at all of the important links. Take a peek:And this is thefor right now . . .
"Independence police officer Thomas Wagstaff, who was shot in the head during a robbery Wednesday, may have been hit accidently by another police officer. Jackson County Prosecutor Jean Peters Baker lays blame for Wednesdays shooting squarely on the men charged with the robbery."

Credit to commenters and the "Crazy Clown" for myth busting this story long before any other media outlet . . .Confirmation . . .Highlight:Developing . . .
Congratulations to Joel (JRinGeorgia) of Georgia (surprise), our newest Reviewer of the Month!

Joel is a backpacker, father, and market researcher. Some of his outdoor gear Joel has reviewed includes his Wild Ideas Bearikade Weekender bear canister and Dutchware Folding Sit Pad. A member since 2013, Joel also was one of our Top 25 Reviewers of 2016.

Members like Joel are essential to the Trailspace community. In thanks for his contributions, he wins a 10 Essentials prize pack worth more than $350.

Joel, and every 2017 Reviewer of the Month, will receive examples of each of the 10 Essentials of outdoor gear, thanks to Adventure Medical Kits, Arc'teryx, Brunton, Good To-Go, Mountaineers Books, Potable Aqua, Sawyer, SOL, The TentLab, UCO, and Victorinox.

Check out the 2017 prizes below or see "Essential Gear for our 2017 Reviewers of the Month."

Meet JRinGeorgia



Please introduce yourself.

My name is Joel. On the site I go by JR because those are my initials and a nickname that stuck from back when Who shot JR? was the catchphrase sweeping the country (many of you reading are probably too young to know what Im talking about). I live in the Atlanta area, where I was born and raised. But even though Im a Southerner by any definition, I dont have a Southern accent.

I'm a single dad of a 16-year-old girl. I work in the marketing research industry, so I conduct surveys and focus groups for a variety of different business clients.

Any favorite stories?

Ive been to Yosemite for the past five summers (and plan to again) and have met up with some hardcore Yosemite backpackersthese folks spend 100-plus nights a year in the park. And they know every nook and cranny, every secret camping spot, every cross-country route, etc.

In July 2014 one of these guys took me up on the domes of Mount Starr King. Amazing experience, but also happened to be a day that a big storm blew through. The day started off nice and sunny, but by late morning we could see threatening dark clouds racing up from the south. We were still above 8,000 feet, and even though we had expansive views and could see the storm coming for miles, it was on us before we could descendsheets of rain, hail, and most fun of all was lots of lightning cracking all around us. Just dangerously close.

We were up high above treeline and completely exposed on bare granite. We had a long way to go to get into forest cover, and I was pretty concerned. We tried to find the right speed of descentas fast as possible to get to cover from the lightning, but not so quickly that we would slip on the steep wet granite. As we got lower we crashed through a few hundred yards of head-high manzanita that was covering a maze of felled trees (blow-down), which shredded my lower legs (I did not want to take time to stop to zip on my convertible pant legs).

Eventually we made it into the forest and began hiking straight up a creek, except it wasnt a creek it was the trail streaming full of runoff. A granite dome near us was streaming with dozens of spontaneous waterfalls.

Describe your happiest moment outdoors (or proudest or hardest).

How about hardestAugust 2015 I was solo doing a loop on the Appalachian Trail around the Standing Indian area in North Carolina when I had a kidney stone attack, though at the time I didnt know what was happening.

The loop was about 25 miles for a quick one-nighter. I did 15 miles the first day, camped at a gap with no one else around; everything was fine. Next morning I had a pain in my gut that I had been experiencing on and off for a few weeks before, but I never thought it was anything wrong, perhaps some indigestion. I had 10 miles to do that day and wanted to get back to the car around lunchtime.

The pain got worse as I climbed Standing Indian Mountain, but I figured I would be fine as the rest of the hike was all downhill. But the pain kept getting worse and I became very nauseous, so I couldnt drink water.

The area I was hiking in is almost like a rain forest, a large drainage bowl with multiple creeks and dense foliage, and it had rained the night before, so the whole area was saturated with moisture, and even before noon the temperature was in the 90s. Steam was visibly rising from the forest floor and was trapped by the foliage, so it was like hiking in a hot, humid sauna.

I was sweating profusely but soon was unable to sweat more as my skin was coated in a thick glaze that wouldnt evaporate away, sealing off my pores. Soheavy sweating, high heat, not drinking waterI became dehydrated, which only made the pain in my gut and nausea worse. I began vomiting, even though my stomach was empty, over and over again. The pain in my gut became debilitating, spreading throughout my torso. I became weak, my limbs felt like limp spaghetti.

I desperately wanted to sit down and rest, but something in the back of my mind told me I needed to keep going, needed to get back to other people because if I sat down I might not be able to get back up again.

Finally I made it back to Standing Indian Campground and collapsed, unconscious. Some people in the campground called an ambulance, and I began feeling better shortly after they gave me an IV. The EKG they performed showed my heart working perfectly. I ended up in the emergency room, where a CAT scan showed a large kidney stone about a half-inch by half-inch. Over the next several weeks I had the procedure (twice) to blast it, and now its gone and Im as good as new.

Whats your most essential piece of outdoor gear? Why?

Hmm, I dont think there is any such thing as most essential. If its essential then its essential, period. And most of my gear fits into that category. But overall I see each piece of gear in my kit as either essential or in a category I think of as luxury/comfort/convenience. And there definitely is some overlap.

For example a sleeping pad is essential, but having an inflatable rather than CCF is for comfort. What Ive tried to do with my kit is eliminate everything that isnt essential and that I dont specifically justify to myself as a luxury/comfort/convenience.

Whats your favorite piece of outdoor gear? Why?

Right now its my Swing Trek LiteFlex umbrella (review hopefully coming soon). Many people scoff at the idea of a backpacking umbrellaI used to be one of thembut it really is an amazingly versatile piece of gear that provides many benefits. The three main ones are that it is a sunshade, rain gear, and shelter supplement.

Most of the time the umbrella is a sunshade. I sweat the most from my head, and any hat, no matter how light and ventilated, makes my head very hot. With the umbrella I am covered without needing to wear a hat, allowing breezes to pass over my scalp, keeping me much cooler and more comfortable. It provides much more shade than any hat could, covering my face, ears, back of my neck, etc. And Ive rigged it to strap to my packs shoulder straps so Im in the shade hands-free as I hike.

When it rains the umbrella is much better than a rain jacket and hood. It keeps my head dry and for the most part also protects my upper body. I dont get rain in my face, keeping my eyeglasses clean and dry. I can easily pull out and use my camera under the umbrella canopy. And I dont get that clammy moisture build-up from my own sweat that happens when wearing a waterproof layer. I rarely need more than a windshirt in the rain underneath the umbrella.

The umbrella also can be a shelter supplement, protecting the opening of my shelter in a storm, providing a small, temporary shelter for a nap, and even can serve as a windbreak for cooking. I keep finding uses for it!

Got any good, bad, funny, or epic gear stories?

Not really good, bad, funny or epic, more just a gripe or wishful thinking. Even after paring my gear down in almost every category, Im still carrying a lot in the electronics category1.75-pound mobile phone, dedicated camera, PLB or InReach (depending on trip), battery recharger, and cables.

Its pared down to as little as possible to still give me the functionality I want/need, but still its a lot. Ive cut back on weight in other categories to allow me the luxury of carrying all these items. Still, I dream of a single device that can be my mobile phone, backcountry emergency satellite communicator, and an excellent camera, that has extended battery life for well under a pound.

Whats in your backpack right now?

Like a lot of ultralighters, my pack is a quirky combination of some pretty expensive high-end gear from brand names and cottage shops along with a liberal mixture of cheap or free repurposed and DIY gear. For a summer weekender my base weight is right at eight pounds. But that includes a very comfortable sleep system with an air mattress and large pillow; if I dont get a goods night sleep then I wont enjoy or perform well on the trail.

My kit includes a Zpacks Arc Blast pack, EnLIGHTened Equipment 30F quilt, Therm-a-Rest NeoAir XLite air pad, HikeBikeDale Monkey Pillow Case, Six Moon Designs Gatewood Cape for shelter and rain gear if needed, 1443R Tyvek groundsheet, Sea to Summit bug net, Patagonia Houdini windshirt, Trail Designs Keg-F cook kit (water boil only), Deuce of Spades trowel, Sawyer Mini water filter, and either an ACR ResQlink or DeLorme InReach for SOS and backcountry communications.

Wide Photo Captions:

Domes of Mount Starr King from Joel's campsite in Yosemite in 2014.

Joel hiking up Middle Dome in Yosemite in 2014.

Joel hiking in Yosemite in 2015.

The steep hike up Mount Starr King.

Essential Gear for 2017 Reviewers of the Month

To thank them for their essential contributions, we're giving Joel and every 2017 Reviewer of the Month the following prize pack, thanks to these generous brands. Worth more than $350, it's filled with examples of what to carry into the backcountry. For more on the 10 Essential prizes read "Essential Gear for our 2017 Reviewers of the Month."



A quick note: Yes, it's March and we're only naming our first 2017 Reviewer of the Month now, but there will still be 12 honorees, so stay tuned!
Capoeira is a Brazilian martial art that was created during the time of African slavery in Brazil as a means for the locals to defend themselves from the colonists who exported almost 40 percent of the slaves to the new world. The slaves disguised the combat form through the art of dance.

Meanwhile, in this generation, capoeira is significantly popular among people that it was highly used in the film or gaming industry such as Tekken or Mortal Kombat: Rebirth. Anyone can learn capoeira and here's why you should do too.

It's Brazilian culture at its finest. UNESCO called capoeira as an "intangible cultural heritage" in 2014 as it is quite deeply rooted in its history during the 16th century. Other than that, you get to learn about Brazilian language or its people and how they revolve their time in developing the martial arts as their pride form of dancing and acrobatics.

It improves health fitness. Do you want to slim down and remove toxins out from your body? Capoeira is a complete workout that can seriously burn 300 to 500 calories in an hour of practice. And unlike most exercise sets, this martial art requires improvisation that will challenge your body to move and stretch those muscles.

It develops your body coordination. Here's what you'll be improving: strength, cardio, stamina, and flexibility. Capoeira hits your arms, legs, glutes and core as you perform a series of kicks, headstands, planks and other acrobatic poses. And since you'll be moving in a swift, rapid manner, undoubtedly you'll be developing your speed skills as well.

Appreciation towards its music. Capoeira music has a recognizable Brazilian beat made with strings, drums, or simple clappings. It differs highly on the pace of the performer whether they want it to be slow or fast. Music with lyrics has Capoeiristas sing different subjects about life like love, life or history. If you practice capoeira, you'll get to immerse yourself in their music and develop a particular appreciation and love for it.

It's fun. Simple. People of all ages can practice capoeira. According to Glam Asia, "you will often see players relaxed, smiling and having fun during a roda - and you will also feel their energy is contagious!" What do you think? That explanation enough will get you to do capoeira now!

See Now: The U.S. had the highest number of Most Wanted properties, dominating the Hotels.com Loved By Guests Awards 2018
Two mythological characters dominate Britain's legends - one being the witty and daring Sherlock Holmes, and the other is King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. Their stories span battles across Britain and the United Kingdom, with Glastonbury being famous as King Arthur's final resting place. But the legendary king had frequented these locations mostly for serious purposes.

Castle Dore in Cornwall is a quick drive to the United Kingdom district. But instead of a castle, one can only see a plaque that most historians believe to be the accurate location of King Mark. The castle is said to be the place where a love triangle was triggered by a wrongful consumption of a love potion in fictional accounts. Historians believe the castle to be around since the fourth and first century.

After Cornwall, Arthurians could head to Dozmary Pool in the same district. The body of water is not appropriate for swimming or water activities due to the drenched marshes and algae habitat surrounding it. It was here the "Lady of the Lake" lived according to Urban Ghosts. It is the same location where King Arthur asked Sir Bedivere to return the legendary sword of Excalibur upon his death.

According to Lonely Planet, it was possible that King Arthur held court in South Wales' Caerleon, specifically in the Roman Amphitheater, which accurately resembles descriptions of the famous Round Table where the loyal knights of Arthur met with him. It is strongly believed that the kingdom of Camelot is in Southern Wales.

In England's northeast lay Alnwick Castle which is famously featured in "Harry Potter's" series of movies as Hogwarts. Alnwick Castle was possibly once the Castle of Lancelot according to accounts by Thomas Malory who wrote in the 15th-century. Lancelot was Arthur's best knight and the biggest traitor to his King having stolen the heart of Arthur's love, Guinevere.

Perhaps the biggest proof that King Arthur indeed walked on the unspeaking lands of Britain is the Winchester Great Hall in Hampshire, which features the huge Winchester Round Table. It is believed to have been made from the 13th century. King Henry VIII had the Great Hall restored, allowing the hall to remain intact until today.

See Now: The U.S. had the highest number of Most Wanted properties, dominating the Hotels.com Loved By Guests Awards 2018
By Press Trust of India: made by deadline

New Delhi, Mar 31 (PTI) The CBDT today said a black money declarant under the PMGKY scheme will be allowed to file declaration under the stipulated Form 1 by April 10, if tax and penalty is paid by the deadline that ends today.

"Representations have been received from various stakeholders regarding difficulties in uploading of declaration in Form No 1 under the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Yojna (PMGKY) scheme.

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"Instances have been communicated wherein despite making payment of tax, surcharge, penalty and deposit under the scheme, challan identification number or the deposit reference number with respect to the payment of tax, surcharge, penalty and deposit under the scheme has not been provided by the banks," the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) said in a notification issued today.

The CBDT is the policy-making body of the Income Tax department.

It added, hence, the assessees are unable to upload or submit Form No 1 by the deadline that ends today.

"Considering the rush in banks during last days of financial year, which also happens to be the last date (March 31, 2017) of filing declaration under the scheme, CBDT has decided that if an assessee has made payment of tax, surcharge, penalty and deposit under the scheme, in the banks by the closing hours of March 31, 2017, he shall be allowed to file declaration in Form No 1 under the scheme by April 10, 2017," it said.

The Form 1 is the authentic declaration format that has to be submitted by the black money holder to the designated tax department authority via a hard copy or the online medium.

Following, this the taxman will issue a Form 2 or certificate stating that his or her declaration has been accepted and is valid under the PMGKY.

The CBDT had yesterday issued orders that all designated offices of the Income Tax department which can accept declarations under the black money window of PMGKY will remain open till the midnight of March 31.

A person or entity who opts for PMGKY will have to pay 49.9 per cent tax on the undisclosed income, whereas a person who does not opt for the scheme but offers his black income in his Income Tax Returns will face a tax and penalty rate of 77.25 per cent.

The one who does not offer his stash funds under the scheme but is caught with undisclosed income in scrutiny assessment will face 83.25 per cent tax rate.

For those who do not declare their stash under the PMGKY and are raided will face 107.25 per cent tax and penalty, if they surrender thier undisclosed income during the action.

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Those who do not surrender such hidden income even during searches will stand to face the highest level of penalty and tax at 137.25 per cent.

The Centre had come out with the PMGKY scheme after its decision to demonetise the two high value currency notes of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 last year.

A quarter of the total sum will also have to be parked in a non?interest bearing deposit for four years under the said scheme.

The scheme had commenced on December 17 last year.PTI NES DV

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Scientists may have discovered the world's biggest dinosaur footprint measuring about 5 feet 9 inches in length in the Dampier Peninsula, known as "Australia's Jurassic Park." The footmarks belonged to a long-necked herbivore classified as a sauropod.

Steve Salisbury, the lead author of the study and a professor at the University of Queensland, told CNN News, "The giant footprints are no doubt spectacular. There's nothing that comes close (to this length)." However, the footprint was just one of 21 newly discovered track types and stones that date back to 140 million years ago.

Salisbury said there were 150 tracks in the Waldamany region assigned to the four main groups of dinosaurs. He said in a press statement that there were five different types of predatory dinosaur tracks, six types of tracks from long-necked herbivorous sauropods, four types of tracks from two-legged herbivorous ornithopods, and six types of tracks from armored dinosaurs.

It was confirmed that stegosaurus once roamed in Australia as well. Salisbury pointed out that most fossil pieces can be located in the eastern part of the country, especially in Broome, which are over 90 million years older. Salisbury called Australia's Jurassic Park as a "spectacular wilderness setting."

Over the course of five years, he and his team actually discovered more than thousands of dinosaur footprints around Walmadany. Travel and Leisure reported that the peninsula is so diverse in its collection of tracks that it is considered as the "Cretaceous equivalent of the Serengeti."

Sauropods are known for their long necks, tails and small heads. Their genra include the famous Brachiosaurus, Diplodocus, Apatosaurus and Brontosaurus. They are mostly widespread during the late Triassic Period up to the Late Jurassic until they were replaced by the titanosaurs. According to various reports, it's quite hard to find sauropod fossil let alone their proof of existence.

See Now: The U.S. had the highest number of Most Wanted properties, dominating the Hotels.com Loved By Guests Awards 2018
Because of the heightened risks of terrorism in Egypt, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) have advised against travel to some parts of the country. But despite the travel warnings, there are still several tour bookings from The UK and Israel.

According to the travel warning, "The Foreign and Commonwealth Office advise against all travel to the Governorate of South Sinai, with the exception of the area within the Sharm el Sheikh perimeter barrier, which includes the airport and the areas of Sharm el Maya, Hadaba, Naama Bay, Sharks Bay and Nabq; however, we advise against all but essential travel by air to or from Sharm el Sheikh; the area west of the Nile Valley and Nile Delta regions, excluding the coastal areas between the Nile Delta and Marsa Matruh." The Governate of North Sinai is also prone to increased criminal activities.

ISIS, one of the most notorious terrorist groups in the world, is likely to stage an attack in Egypt. And according to a report in The Independent, an ISIS insurgency in Sinai caused ten deaths among the members of the Egyptian security forces in roadside bombings.

The Red Sea resorts are popular for British and Israeli tourists. Destinations such as Hurghada, Luxor, and Sharm el Sheikh are most commonly populated. But because of the increased travel warnings, citizens are not advised to travel to these areas in the near future.

According to Express.Co, These resorts, such as Sharm el Sheikh, are not included in the travel warning by FCO, but officials still want to be on the safe side. British tourists are not advised to travel by air to Sharm el Sheikh, after the deadly incident in 2015 where a Russian chartered flight from the area to St. Petersburg crashed with the use of an explosive device.

Tour operators from the UK are still allowing tour bookings to Sharm el Sheikh, but they promised that they will offer refunds if the travel warnings still won't improve in the coming months. Aside from Israel and the UK, the Australian government is also up in arms against travel to these areas.

See Now: The U.S. had the highest number of Most Wanted properties, dominating the Hotels.com Loved By Guests Awards 2018
Guwahati, Mar 31 (PTI) President Pranab Mukherjee has arrived here to inaugurate the five-day Namami Brahmaputra festival which is being attended also by Bhutan President Tsering Tobgay.

The festival, tagged as Indias largest river festival to pay obesiance to Brahmaputra, has been organised across 21 districts of the state and will showcase trade, tourism and cultural possibilities of along Brahmaputra river.

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Prime Minister Narendra Modi today conveyed his wishes for the festival in a series of tweets.

?It is a matter of great pride that the Namami Brahmaputra festival is being launched by the Assam Government. Best wishes for the festival," the prime minister tweeted.

Brahmaputra river is the lifeline of Assam and the Northeast and is the source of livelihood for people in the region, he said.

Rivers occupy a central role in India?s history and culture.

"Let us keep working together to ensure clean rivers for India?s growth," he added.

The PMO released six photographs of Brahmaputra river which Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal shared.

Internationally acclaimed actress Priyanka Chopra, who is the brand ambassador of Assam Tourism, tweeted congratulating Chief Minister Sonowal.

Congratulating Sonowal and the entire team for organisisng the festival together, she said "I wish that it?s a roaring success."

Nobel Laureate and Tibetan spiritual leader Dalai Lama, yoga guru Baba Ramdev, Union Ministers Nitin Gadkari and Mahesh Sharma along with tourists from across the globe were expected to attend the meeting. PTI DG KK PS

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One of Old Fisherman's Wharf's venerable institutions, Randy's Fishing Trips & Whale Watching, has been purchased and divided into two new outfits, Discovery Whale Watch and J & M Sport Fishing.



(TRAVPR.COM) USA - March 31st, 2017 - Monterey, CA, March 30, 2017  One of Old Fisherman's Wharf's venerable institutions, Randy's Fishing Trips & Whale Watching, has been purchased and divided into two new outfits, Discovery Whale Watch and J & M Sport Fishing.

The two companies, one focusing on whale watching, the other on sport fishing, will officially open on April 1, with a public ribbon-cutting ceremony set for May 9th at 5:00 p.m..



Randy's Fishing Trips & Whale Watching, which has been operating on the wharf since 1949 and since 1981 by Peter Bruno, was one of Monterey Bay's top whale watching and sport fishing outfits, with two boats operating, the 61-foot Chubasco and the 53-foot Sur Randy our primary boat.



Discovery Whale Watch offers daily 3-4-hour whale watch trips narrated by a marine biologist/naturalist as well as ash scattering trips, private charters and other outings. Their mission statement is: We strive to provide our passengers with an inspiring, educational experience on Monterey Bay.



Trips are weather permitting and travel to different locations within the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary to view whales and dolphins and other wildlife throughout the year.



J & M Sport Fishing specializes in sport fishing trips for a variety of species, including salmon (in season), rock cod, ling cod, Dungeness crab, sand dabs, squid, mackerel, halibut and albacore.



The new owners of the two outfits are John Mayer and Mathew Arcoleo. They are currently updating the Chubasco to make it more comfortable and accommodating as a whale-watching vessel and making Sur Randy a fishing-only boat. They plan on adding a third boat to the fleet, which should be ready in time for the April opening.



About John Mayer

John Mayer was practically destined to become an owner of Randy's Fishing Trips & Whale Watching.



At age 14 he got his first job washing boats at Randy's Fishing. Within a couple of weeks he became a deckhand and by the time he was 18, he had logged enough hours on the ocean to apply for a captain's license. And he got it.



He continued to crew on Randy's boats as well as fill in as skipper when needed. He spent almost a dozen years working at the Fisherman's Wharf institution.



In his late-20s, John decided to join Monterey Bay Whale Watch, where he ended up spending seven years and logged 3,000 trips out into the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary.



I adapted quite well, he says of the transition from mostly fishing trips to whale watching. Whale watching was just as interesting to me, if not more. What really gets me going is I really like to try and figure out what's going on in the ocean. All the little things out there and how it all fits together.



Born in Santa Cruz, but raised in Pacific Grove, John, now 36, has always had a deep and abiding interest in the ocean. So being a partner in both a fishing and whale-watching enterprise is a dream come true.



It's something I've been dreaming about since I was a deckhand with Randy's Fishing, he says. I've always admired and respected the people doing this. But this is an expensive business to get into and I said I would only do it if the right person came along. And in Mathew, I couldn't ask for a better partner.



John actually met Mathew through Mathew's daughter, who was an intern with Monterey Bay Whale Watch. When Mathew came to Monterey with his daughter, the two men got to talking and found out they had similar visions.



The result was Discovery Whale Watching and J&M Sport Fishing (J&M taken from their first names, of course), in which they are 50/50 partners.



We want to educate people and provide a great experience for them, he says. We want to tell the story about the ocean, its animals and its environment. And we're putting together an all-star cast to do that.



About Mathew Arcoleo

Mathew Arcoleo has spent almost 30 years in the high-tech industry in the Bay Area, but his roots are in Monterey and especially on Fisherman's Wharf. You could say it's in his blood.



Mathew's great-grandfather was the first person to start a sport fishing enterprise on Fisherman's Wharf and his grandfather and father both owned Frank's Fishing Trips on the Wharf.



Not only that, young Mathew was affectionally known as a wharf rat, hanging out in his dad's shop and working as a deckhand on his boats as a teen-ager before he left for college.



Born and raised in Monterey, Mathew attended Monterey schools as well as Monterey Peninsula College before he left to attend San Jose State, where he got a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering. He also got his MBA at Santa Clara University and was well on his way to a thriving career in the semi-conductor industry.



But he also knew that he would be drawn back to Monterey some day.



It's something I'd always thought I'd do one day, he says about his return to Monterey and a business partnership on the Wharf with John Mayer, a fellow "wharf rat. I always thought of Monterey as my home. I even have a boat that I take out fishing or whale watching with my daughter, sons and friends.



And to solidify the Monterey connections even more, John Mayer was captaining the boat for Monterey Bay Whale Watching when Mathew scattered his dad's ashes at sea; one of the principals of MBWW, Richard Ternullo was a cousin of his; and his daughter, Brooke, worked as a summer intern on one of MBWW's boats, which also happened to be captained by John Mayer.



It was on one of these excursions that Mathew and John started talking about their own venture on the Wharf.



With Randy's for sale, Mathew and John thought it was their chance to fulfill that shared vision, but only if they could do it the right way, and that was with two separate outfits and another boat added to the fleet.



We believe in having two companies, each one focusing on its core, says Mathew, who currently lives in Campbell, California. He has a wife, Carrie, an elementary school teacher, daughter and two sons. Mathew hopes to return to Monterey one day. Discovery Whale Watching is for whale watching. The boats used will be clean and set up for that. J&M Sport Fishing is all about fishing.



Discovery Whale Watch

J & M Sport Fishing

66 Fisherman's Wharf

Monterey, CA, 93940

(800) 251-7440

(831) 372-7440

info@discoverywhalewatch.com

www.discoverywhalewatch.com

www.jmsportfishing.com

Contact:

Marci Bracco Cain

Chatterbox PR

Salinas, CA 93901

(831) 747-7455

http://www.jmsportfishing.com

###
The five-day Namami Brahmaputra festival will include cultural programmes, traditional shows and film shows among other events. Dalai Lama is expected to visit the river festival.

Namami Brahmaputra festival beginning March 31 will be celebrated across 21 districts of Assam. (Picture for representation; Reuters photo)

By India Today Web Desk: President Pranab Mukherjee will today inaugurate Namami Brahmaputra, India's largest river festival. The festival will be celebrated in 21 districts of Assam and the festival will be kicked off on the banks of the river.

Brahmaputra is considered to be the country's only male river and the five-day festival will include cultural programmes, traditional sports, Brahmaputra Aarti, exhibition, film shows, seminars and competitions

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The inaugural ceremony will be attended by Bhutan Prime Minister Tshering Tobgay, Assam Governor Banwarilal Purohit and Arunachal Pradesh Governor PB Acharya and chief ministers of several states will also attend the inaugural ceremony.

Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama will also attend the festival, as will several union ministers. Guwahati, which is situated on the south bank of Brahmaputra, has been given a facelift for the festival with big banners and hoardings coming up across the city.

The festival is expected to be a boon for Assam's tourism industry. Security has been beefed up in and around Guwahati ahead of the visit of the President and Dalai Lama.

(With inputs from PTI)

ALSO READ | Assam sets the stage for its first Brahmaputra-themed, mega cultural festival

ALSO READ | India backs Dalai Lama visit to Arunachal, downplays China's objections

--- ENDS ---
Kannada film Pushpaka Vimana will not be exhibited or distributed as per an order by the Bombay High Court because the film appears to be a copy of the Korean film Miracle in Cell No. 7.

A still from Pushpaka Vimana (L), a poster of Miracle in Cell No. 7 (R)

A Kannada drama film which shares its title with the 1987 Kamal Hassan-starrer Pushpaka Vimana has run into trouble.

The Bombay High Court has passed an order which observes that prima facie, the movie "appears to be a copy of the Korean movie Miracle in Cell No. 7."

The court issued an order restraining further exhibition and distribution of the new Kannada film, Pushpaka Vimana in any manner or in any medium including cinema theatres, television and CDs/DVDs.

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The order restrains the filmmakers from awarding any satellite or telecast rights of the film for its exhibition. The court further directed the defendants to disclose to the court the earnings from the film and all contracts with artists involved with the movie.

Kross Pictures which is a television production company based in South Korea has alleged that the movie's storyline is a copy of the Korean movie Miracle In Cell No. 7, the rights to which are owned by Kross Pictures India.

The Korean movie was first released on 23rd January 2013, first in Korean and then on YouTube in English in 2014. Kross Pictures had moved the Bombay High Court claiming copyright infringement against the producers of Pushpaka Vimana.

Interestingly, the complainant Kross Pictures in their arguments had indicated at least 15 instances where the producer of Pushpaka Vimana AR Vikhyat publicly admitted that he had 'adapted' the screenplay of the Korean film for his movie.

ALSO READ: Director Shankar clarifies the number of roles and looks Akshay and Rajini are donning in 2.0

ALSO READ: Baahubali yielded zero profits for the producers despite earning Rs 600 crore?

WATCH: Baahubali 2's song Saahore is out

--- ENDS ---
Sandeep Rana

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, March 30

A parent was acquitted by a local court in a case of alleged negligent driving resulting in injury to a student after the court found that the parent and the management of Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalaya School, Sector 25, did not have good relations and the complainant in the case stated that the school pressured him.

Vinod Indora, a resident of Sector 49, who had submitted several complaints against the school, some of these to the HRD Ministry and the Prime Minister, had told the court that he was framed by the school in the accident case and the child in question got injured after falling.

Judicial Magistrate (First Class) Gurkiran Singh noted in the order that complainant Ranjit Verma, a student of Class XII, did not support the case of the prosecution. He said no such incident took place and he fell near the car.

...He stated that he was pressured by the school authorities to depose against the accused. He has clarified that he did not receive any injury. Following his testimony, it is clear that the accused and the school management did not have good relations, said the Judge.

Vinod Indora was booked under Sections 279 (rash driving or riding on a public way) and 337 (causing hurt by an act endangering the life or personal safety of others) of the IPC on October 11, 2015.

Complainant Ranjit had stated that he was waiting for his parents outside the school gate when an Alto car came and tried to hit his teacher, Madhu Singh. He called out to his teacher to get aside. The car driver did not stop the vehicle and instead hit him on the left foot.

Parents had moved panel against school

Parents, including the accused in the case, had submitted a complaint to the Chandigarh Commission for Protection of Child Rights (CCPCR) alleging that the school was making its students clean toilets, bathrooms and classrooms, apparently in the name of the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan.

Sons result today

The accuseds child appeared for the Class VIII exams and the result will be announced on Friday. Earlier, the child was reportedly asked not to come to the school by the authorities stating that there was a threat to his life.
Sanjay Kapoor

WITH its details still shrouded in secrecy, the Indian and Bangladesh governments are negotiating a defence agreement that could be signed during Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's three-day visit to the country. This is her first official visit to India in seven years.

Maintaining secrecy about the defence agreement also stems from the ambivalence plus misgivings that many mandarins in Bangladesh have towards such a compact with India. Expectedly, a somnolent Bangladesh National Party (BNP) has stirred to life as soon reports began trickling that Hasina could sign a defence agreement with India. BNP leaders claim that Bangladesh would lose its sovereignty once such an agreement is signed. They want her to extract a deal on the intractable issue of sharing of Teesta river water before embarking on other issues. Some of the think tanks aligned to the BNP are actively disseminating this perspective that Bangladesh's best interests are served by remaining non-aligned and not to be perceived as India's junior partner.

A section within the Bangladesh army, it is learnt, feels that it would lose out on all the gains that would accrue by playing India against China. India is worried, not just by contrived ambivalence, but also by the strategic independence that Bangladesh is trying to exercise by responding warmly to Chinese overtures. To allay the fears of Bangladesh military leadership, the Chief of Army Staff, General Bipin Rawat, in the first visit abroad after his appointment, flew into Dhaka to engage with his counterpart and others in the defence establishment. Indian officials involved in these consultations are keeping their fingers crossed about the passage of the defence agreement. An adviser to Sheikh Hasina, H.T. Imam, an old faithful of late Sheikh Mujibur Rehman and a votary of closer ties with India, Imam, shared his views about the proposed agreement with a group of Indian journalists visiting Bangladesh. He said that the agreement would be more in the nature of a cooperation, but would differ from what India signed with the erstwhile Soviet Union. He said, Cooperation would mean, naturally, against external aggression, and within the country, if there are threats to the security of India or Bangladesh, naturally we will cooperate with each other. He explained that a serious terror attack could be one such situation. Imam held Pakistan and its Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) responsible for much of problems his country faced. He stressed that Sheikh Hasinas government had fulfilled most of her commitments to India.

To strengthen Hasina's hand, the Indian government is expected to announce the third credit line of $5 billion. This amount seems to be a pittance in comparison to what Chinese President Xi Jin Ping promised  $24 billion  during his visit to Dhaka last year. It would be useful for Bangladesh because Indian credit lines are announced without identifying a project, whereas the Chinese money comes in after the project is zeroed down. Bangladeshi officials have displayed scepticism about their ability to absorb the Chinese grant of $24 billion. The truth is that in Dhaka, the Chinese influence is no longer confined to the menus of its restaurants.

The biggest test of Hasinas visit would be whether she manages to get the Indian government to sign the Teesta river water-sharing agreement. In 2011, when the then Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh travelled to Dhaka to sign many agreements, including Teesta and one that involved swapping territories, West Bengal Chief Minister, Mamata Banerjee decided to play truant. She could be brought around to endorse the Land-Border Agreement during Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to Dhaka, but the Teesta issue remains at a standstill. Though foreign policy is a preserve of the Centre, there are aspects of the river-water agreement that have to be implemented by West Bengal's irrigation department. Mamata claims that an unfair water agreement will hurt the people of the state. Hasina knows Mamata's political compulsions, but wants New Delhi to find a way out from this quagmire. Recently, Mamata claimed on a television channel that the Teesta deal will be signed in May this year when Modi visits Dhaka. No one was willing to lend credibility to her assertion. She further alleged that she was not kept in the loop about these negotiations  a fact firmly denied by the Indian MEA spokesman, Gopal Bagley, who said that Mamata had been informed about it as part of "cooperative federalism".

No one in Dhaka or in Delhi expects the Teesta agreement to be signed. Perhaps there is merit in keeping the agreement on hold as it would end up serving as a paradigm to sort out water-sharing issues with 52 other rivers that cross Bangladesh and originate from India. The Indian government, therefore, is working hard to show that its relationship with Bangladesh is not confined to fixing water issues and fighting terror. It has put together some 30 agreements that will hopefully be signed in Delhi. These include agreements that were conceived during the botched-up 2011 Dhaka trip of Manmohan Singh. In Dhaka's official circles, Singh's visit and the work that went into putting together the draft agreements are serving as a benchmark for the forthcoming visit.

The writer, the Editor of Hardnews, was in Dhaka recently
S Nihal Singh

BEYOND the ritual calls for Opposition unity in a political environment in which the BJP is in the process of replacing the Congress as the hegemon comes a voice from the Janata Dal (U) seeking the leadership role for Bihars CM, Mr Nitish Kumar. Thus far Opposition parties have been seeking a way out of the predicament they find themselves in.

In the confusion that reigns in Opposition ranks, a few political points are clear. By its choice of Yogi Adityanath as UPs CM, the BJP has tied its mast to the Hindutva flag, irrespective of the unease it causes the large Muslim minority. The BJPs sweep of Uttar Pradesh was mainly on the basis of Hindu votes. The dilemma for the Opposition in the 2019 election is that it cannot run on an anti-Hindu platform even as its constituents seek the votes of Muslims and other minorities.

To an extent, despite Ms Mayawatis dismal showing and the BJPs success in dividing the Dalit vote, she can play a crucial role in the general election if she can get her flock together. Judging by the manner in which the new UP rulers are treating meat shops, largely owned by Muslims, the Hindu rashtra has already arrived for many. A BJP legislator suggests that he would break the bones of anyone being unkind to the cow and the mood in the BJP camp is of jubilation, of having won a famous victory. If Prime Minister Narendra Modi became a party to stirring communal passions in his UP campaign, where do the political parties go?

The Constitution of India with its pitch for secularism will not be amended in a hurry. It will be subverted in stages, with chants of Bharat Mata ki jai as a given and Hindu imagery more and more in the foreground. A Meerut mayor insisted board members sing Vande Mataram before being admitted, despite the Supreme Courts ruling. Yogi Adityanath had had the official CMs bungalow in Lucknow purified by Hindu priests from his hometown before he could move into it. Superstition about dates and numbers will reign supreme for our new rulers.

Whether Mr Nitish Kumar will fill the bill of Opposition leader remains to be seen. He has undoubtedly lost some of his appeal because of the compromises he has had to make to lead a coalition with an assertive Mr Lalu Prasad. But politics is a murky game and compromises are par for course.

Among Opposition parties, the ruling AIADMK is undergoing succession problems in Tamil Nadu following the death of Jayalalithaa. Ms Mamata Banerjee in West Bengal is a determined leader but lacks national appeal. She is already in the sight of the RSS, the BJPs mentor, for allegedly encouraging jihadis. In Mr Naveen Patnaiks Odisha, the BJP has already made forays in local elections alerting the ruling state leadership to take steps to guard its flank. For medical and personal reasons, the Congress leadership was absent after the Assembly elections.

Alert as ever, BJP president Amit Shah is already revving up his workers for a string of local elections in Delhi, which was swept by the AAP in the last Assembly elections. The CM, Mr Arvind Kejriwal, has had his wings clipped in Punjab where he thought he would win, but he has what Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi lacks, an ability to punch back when he is hit. Most recently, he was hit by a defamation case which did not go his way. The Left parties are largely living in their world.

The Opposition, together with the rest of the country, has had to adjust its sights to a new political environment in which Mr Modi is prospering in the face of a confused Congress and shell-shocked other Opposition parties. The Prime Minister might have diminished his office by becoming a street fighter in campaigning in the Assembly elections but for him his goals were important. They were to take charge of the countrys most populous state, the traditional heartland of national politics and increase the BJP's strength in the Rajya Sabha where it does not command a majority. In short, ends justify means. The insults he has handed out to Opposition leaders will not be forgotten by them in a hurry. He is a Prime Minister who wants to be in the fray, rather than above it.

Against this backdrop, two questions arise. How will Mr Modi reconcile his mission of creating a Hindu India full of myths in the garb of history by rewriting it with his penchant for technology? Second, how will this Indias image spread in the world to the amazement and derision of many?

Mr Modi and his companions have been so absorbed in creating the India of their dreams that they have given little thought to the larger picture. RSS ideologues argue at length about the virtues of Indian wisdom and the wonderful discoveries of our ancients, with planes flying, head transplants routine and plastic surgery common, that when they talk about decontaminating the Indian mind of colonial ideas, they make one laugh were it not for the seriousness of their propagation of absurdities.

As it is, Indian universities are being constrained and instead of encouraging the free flow of ideas, RSS myths are being encouraged. If freedom of universities is being hobbled, the standard of education will inevitably fall. What is worse, it is meant to encourage a narrow form of nationalism far removed from the Independence movement of the Congress and its rule for much of Independent India's existence.

Can the Opposition parties scramble to form a meaningful alliance after they solve the leadership problem? The traditional answer is to look at the winning combination in the last Bihar Assembly elections. But the stakes are much higher this time. The aim must be to deny Mr Modi the hegemony he seeks. The answer is to make a binding combination on the basis of a common minimum programme. Can the Opposition work the miracle?
Houston, March 31

Two prominent Indian-American doctors here facing deportation as their travel documents had expired have been given a rare last minute-reprieve by the US administration that granted them a 90-day extension on humanitarian grounds.

Dr Pankaj Satija and his wife Dr Monika Ummat, both neurologists, have been working legally in the US for 15 years. They have a seven-year-old son and a four-year-old daughter.

(Follow The Tribune on Facebook; and Twitter @thetribunechd)

The problem started when they visited India to see Pankajs sick father in October last year. On their return they were stopped at the Bush International airport by Customs and Border Protection officials because their travel documents had expired, the Houston Chronicle reported.

The Customs and Border Protection officials stamped their travel document saying it would expire in June this year, when in fact the US Citizenship and Immigration Services noted that their document actually expired in June 2016.

Upon returning to the US about a week later, a Customs and Border Protection official at the airport noted the discrepancy. The officials, however, allowed them to enter temporarily to correct the error.

On Wednesday, Pankaj and his wife were abruptly told by immigration officials that they had 24 hours to leave the US.

They were told that under a new policy, they could no longer extend their temporary permission to stay while they waited for permanent authorisation, local media reported.

However, as they were about to board a plane for India on Thursday, they were granted a 90-day extension on humanitarian grounds.

The couple had called on their legislators and had taken the media along with their attorneys to plead their case.

They reported, as ordered, to customs officials at Bush Intercontinental Airport, where they were told the agency had suddenly reversed course.

Somebody at a higher level has made that decision, they were told by an agent. I understand that you are physicians and a lot of lives are at stake.

The agency offered the couple three months of humanitarian parole, a rare measure allowing immigrants, who are otherwise not permitted to enter the US, the opportunity to do so due to a compelling emergency to sort out their paperwork.

It was an unusual act of grace from an administration that has so far seemed intent on removing as many immigrants as it can, making few exceptions, even for those, like the Satijas, with good reasons to stay, the Houston Chronicle said in its report. PTI
Washington, March 31

A Sikh doctor in the US has received death threats from an anonymous caller in Indiana, amid a series of hate crime incidents in which Indian-Americans have been targeted.

Amandeep Singh, a general internist at Monroe Hospital in Indiana, recently received the death threat through a text message on his mobile by the unknown individual who claimed to have murdered the numbers previous owner, community leaders said.

The subject then indicated that Singh was next, Indianapolis-based Sikhs Political Action Committee (SPAC) said in a statement.

(Follow The Tribune on Facebook; and Twitter @thetribunechd)

Bloomington Police found that the phones owner was alive and that the number had been hacked by a third party.

Singh said the local police was currently treating the incident as a racially motivated hoax.

Singh has been living and working in the US since 2003 after graduating from a medical school in India. He moved to Indiana three years ago to pursue an administrative position at Monroe Hospital.

This is one of several similar threats against Sikhs in Indiana in the last week, including one incident which involved a handgun, PAC chairman Gurinder Singh Khalsa claimed.

Intimidation and violence against the Sikh community has been on the uptick since September 11 across the country. We love this country. Thats why were here, said Gurinder.

He said they had also received reports from a number of Sikh business owners of vandalism and intimidation.

The committee is currently working with Indiana Attorney General Curtis Hill to address widespread harassment and violence against Sikhs in Indiana.

American society has no place for this type of violence, Khalsa added.

There have been a series of hate crime incidents against Indian-Americans. Weeks ago, Indian engineer Srinivas Kuchibhotla was killed when a US Navy veteran opened fire at him and his friend before yelling get out of my country in Kansas.

Earlier this month, a 39-year-old Sikh man was shot in his driveway in Washington state. The gunman had reportedly told the man to go back to your own country before pulling the trigger. PTI
Vishal Joshi

Tribune News Service

Kurukshetra, March 31

The Union Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) has cleared a canal water supply project to feed the ancient Saraswati tirtha in Pehowa subdivision of the district.

According to the clearance memo issued on Thursday, the state government has to pay a compensation fee of Rs 3.5 crore to the MoEF.

It took the project four years to get the mandatory MoEF clearance as the proposed water supply channel is to cross through protected forest area in the region.

Saraswati tirtha is a major pilgrimage site where people perform pind daan in the memory of departed souls and other rituals. A large number of Sikhs from Haryana and the Malwa belt of Punjab also visit the place to take dip in the holy tank on various religious occasions.

Owning to insufficient water supply, the tank stinks due to offerings made during rituals. Filth around the channel is a cause of concern for the residents and visitors alike.

Sources in the Irrigation Department said nearly 80 per cent work of laying the supply line had been completed. The work on the 3-km stretch in the forest area was pending.

The previous Bhupinder Singh Hooda-led Congress government had initiated the project in 2013 to ensure maintenance of the site. The project had the estimated cost of Rs 8.5 crore, which has now escalated to Rs 12 crore due to the compensation fee.

Deputy Commissioner Sumedha Kataria said after paying the required money, the project area would be assessed for axing trees and subsequent afforestation.

Rajesh Chopra, Executive Engineer, Irrigation Department, said the Narwana branch of Bhakra canal would ensure water supply to the tirtha. At present, the site is fed by a minor canal from which water was supplied only for a week in a month.

The MoEF clearance will allow us to provide water supply as and when needed directly from the canal. It will also ensure cleaning of the water channel and the main tank at the pilgrimage site, said Chopra.
Nigeria's foreign ministry has called in India's top diplomat to demand arrests of people who have been attacking African students in the suburbs of Delhi.

In this June 8, 2016 file photo, photo an African man exits a house in one of the few neighborhoods that rents to people of African origin in New Delhi (Pic: AP)

By AP: Nigeria's foreign ministry has called in India's top diplomat to protest attacks on African students and demand arrests and prosecutions of perpetrators, Nigeria's official news agency said Thursday.

Mobs have repeatedly attacked Africans in a New Delhi suburb in recent days after rumors that Nigerians had kidnapped a local boy who then died. Police initially arrested five Nigerian men but quickly released them for lack of evidence.

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Thousands of Africans are staying away from classes fearing more attacks, the Association of African Students in India said.

India's High Commissioner Nagabushana Reddy told Nigerian foreign ministry officials that five people have been arrested and police are searching for two more suspects, the News Agency of Nigeria reported.

The agency quoted permanent secretary Olushola Enikanolaiye as saying similar attacks have occurred against Nigerians in the past and that Nigeria wants "diligent prosecution" to act as a deterrent.

India's high commissioner did not respond to a request for comment.

Nine Nigerians were attacked, including five wounded and two hospitalized with undisclosed injuries, Nigeria's presidential assistant on foreign affairs, Abike Dabiri-Erewa, said Wednesday.

"Students around the country are standing in solidarity by staying away from classes and not going out at all because tensions are high and we fear we could be attacked somewhere else," said Ezeugo Nnamdi Lawrence, coordinator of the Association of African Students in India.

Indians routinely perceive Africans as either prostitutes or drug dealers, making rampant racism a daily battle for the thousands of Africans who study and work there.

The African students' association said it had no idea how many Africans study in India but that 7,000 follow its Facebook page. It posted a police phone number for students to call when they need to go out for an emergency.

Samuel T. Jack, president of the students' association, said they were speaking to the police commissioner and their embassies to help reduce tensions.

While Nigerian and Indian officials said the situation had calmed Thursday, Jack said: "We have instructed (students) to remain at home, pending security being provided, because the community is still aggressive and attacking Africans."

Similar demands were made last year after a Congolese student was fatally attacked in a dispute over hiring an auto-rickshaw in New Delhi. Three men were arrested and face murder charges, but India's legal system moves so slowly it could be years before a trial decides their fate.

Also Read

African students to raise Greater Noida attack on global forum, threaten cutting off business ties with India

India refuses to categorise attacks on Africans as racial

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Attacks on Africans: Five arrested in Noida

--- ENDS ---
Parveen Arora

Tribune News Service

Karnal, March 31

Referring to the principle of fingerprints as an aid to investigation, Justice Surya Kant of the Punjab and Haryana High Court said, Fingerprint is an unquestionable and popular science and accepted without any doubt. Experts should join hands to remove any hurdle in the path of this science.

Justice Kant was chairing the valedictory function of a two-day conference of directors of fingerprints bureaus at the Haryana Police Academy, Madhuban, today. The event was jointly organised by the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) and the Haryana Police.

The HC Judge said, This science is must to check various crimes, including cross-border violence, white collar crime, fraud etc. Technology should be updated and experts have to be ahead of technologically sound criminals, he said, adding that fingerprints science had come a long way to reach where it was today.

Claiming fingerprint a science of the police and for the police, Director General of Police (DGP) KP Singh said fingerprints help the police in nabbing culprits. Appreciating the efforts of the Haryana Fingerprints Bureau, he said, It has no pendency so far.

Focusing on Aadhaar data, the DGP said it would help the police, the judiciary and identification of dead bodies.

NCRB Director Ish Kumar highlighted the roadmap of the bureau and said, Aadhaar data is required for tracing first-time offenders.

Yesterday, DG Prisons Yashpal Singal, who inaugurated the conference, had advocated linking of Aadhaar and State Crime Records Bureau (SCRB) with jails to check the history of criminals.

ADGP KK Mishra, who is Director, SCRB, Madhuban, said fingerprints were big scientific evidence and played a vital role in arresting criminals.

Representatives of 23 states and UTs, senior police officers and research scholars took part in the conference.
Sunit Dhawan

Tribune News Service

Rohtak, March 31

An NGO has duped thousands of local residents, especially villagers, of lakhs of rupees in the name of Union Governments flagship programme Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao.

The matter was taken up for consideration at the monthly meeting of the District Task Force (DTF) held under the chairmanship of the Additional Deputy Commissioner here today.

On the recommendation of a five-member committee constituted to inquire into the matter, the DTF decided to hand over the matter to the police for a thorough investigation.

As per the report of the inquiry committee, the NGO  Yuva Rozgar Samiti  has been collecting Rs 100 from each resident/family in the name of registration charges for a scheme named Sanjog, which is stated to be launched.

However, as per the committee report, no such scheme is being run by the government and the NGO has been duping people in the name of the Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao programme.

Sources said the NGO had recruited a number of youths to reach out to residents and collect registration fee from them.

These youths told the residents that they would have to pay only Rs 100 for registration and they would get household articles worth Rs 51,000 when their daughter attains the age of 18.

Many residents paid Rs 100 to get themselves registered for the scheme. However, as per the inquiry committee, the format of the scheme had not been prepared by the NGO, nor had the provision of funds been ascertained.

The inquiry committee also found many other lapses in the functioning of the NGO. For instance, the office of the organisation was not being run from the address given at the time of registration.

Moreover, the organisation does not have a bank account and there is no record of the money collected from the residents.

The ledgers and audit reports submitted by the organisation do not match, which indicates major irregularities in its functioning.

District Programme Officer (Women and Child Development) Monika Khanna has appealed to the residents not to fall prey to collection campaigns run by such organisations in the name of government schemes.
Tribune News Service

Shimla, March 31

The Budget session of the Vidhan Sabha ended abruptly today amidst strong protest by the Opposition BJP, who termed the government move an attack on the dignity of the House and rights of the legislators.

It was after the completion of the business for the day that Parliamentary Affairs Minister Mukesh Agnihotri moved a resolution that the House be adjourned sine die as there was hardly any business left and many holidays during the next week. Even before Agnihtori could complete, the entire Opposition was on its feet protesting the move.

Ravinder Singh Ravi, BJP MLA, pointed out that the session had been notified till April 7 and since notices had been given by MLAs for discussing important issues, a wrong precedent was being laid. The private member day is listed for the next week and many important issues concerning the public are to be discussed, so the session must carry on till April 7, he demanded.

Ravi even went to the extent of stating that is the ruling party impressing on curtailment of the Budget session to avoid embarrassment and discussion on the cases faced by the Chief Minister in light of todays Delhi High Court judgment against Virbhadra.

As there were heated exchanges between the Treasury benches and Opposition members, Speaker BBL Butail said the decision to run or end the House was with the House. No court decision can affect this decision. No court order is binding on us, he said. He added that there had been an instance in the past when the Assembly session was curtailed.

Even as Suresh Bhardwaj stood up and pointed out that the House had to be run as per the Constitution and democratic norms, the Speaker put the resolution to voice voting. Even as the BJP legislators resorted to sloganeering of democracy being murdered, the resolution was passed.

The entire process was completed in such haste that the Opposition members continued raising slogans even as Vande Matram was being played to mark the conclusion of the Assembly session. In fact, Virbhadra who was leaving the House after the Speaker adjourned it returned to his seat for the national song.

The Budget session of the Assembly began on March 1 and had to continue till April 7, with a total of 21 sittings. The Budget was presented in the House on March 10 and four more sittings of the Assembly were due till April 7. With April 4, Tuesday, being a holiday, the sitting on April 3 had been put off. As such till today only 17 sittings of the Assembly were held in the current Budget session, the last of the Congress regime in this term.

Shimla MP speaks for farmers in Lok Sabha

New Delhi: BJP MP from Shimla Virender Kashyap on Friday drew governments attention to the anxiety of farmers who were being asked to vacate the land around the cantonment boards allotted to them more than five decade ago. Raising the issue in Lok Sabha during the Zero Hour, Kashyap said farmers were being asked by the Defence authorities to vacate the land near all four cantonment boards in Shimla, especially Dagsai. They have developed the land and constructed residential abodes. He inquired the government policy into the matter. In response, Minister of State for Defence Subash Ram Rao Bhamre said the agriculture land lease cases were pending in court. TNS
Tribune News Service

Shimla, March 31

Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh today said the cases registered against him were a case of political vendetta and being a decision of the single Bench, he would file an appeal before a double Bench of the Delhi High Court.

The fact that a single case filed against me is being probed by every government agency, including the CBI, Enforcement Directorate and the Income Tax, clearly shows that the cases are politically motivate, he remarked when asked about the dismissal of his petition in the disproportionate assets case by the Delhi High Court today.

He said the decision was along anticipated lines and he had the right to move before the double Bench. What is most unfortunate is the fact that Kangaroo courts have been set up to probe my cases and despite there being two benches of the Income Tax tribunal at Chandigarh, judges were specially brought in from Delhi, only to deal with my cases, he said.

The CM said it was clear that he was being politically hounded. Neither I am a millionaire nor the amount involved is huge. It is a single case involving barely three to four crores and I have cooperated fully and not missed even a single hearing, still so many agencies of the Centre are probing it simultaneously, he said.

When asked if todays decision in his case would damage the Congress poll prospects in the Bhoranj Assembly bypoll, he said rather he would get more sympathy by the fact that he was being victimised. The Assembly elections will be held on due time in Himachal and the amount I know the people of the state, the Congress will return to power with a thumping majority, he said.

He also denied the Opposition allegations that the Assembly session had been curtailed in view of the court order. Since there is hardly any business and there are so many holidays next week, we decided to cut short the session by a mere three days, he defended the move of his government.

CM should resign on moral grounds: BJP

Hamirpur: Randheer Sharma, spokesman of the state BJP, said here on Friday that as the Delhi High Court had rejected the petition of CM Virbhadra Singh against the proceedings of the CBI, he should resign on moral grounds. Addressing a press conference here today, he said the CBI had also submitted a chargesheet to the Delhi HC against the CM. He said the order passed by the HP HC that prevented the CBI from taking action and arresting the CM would be quashed and empower the CBI to arrest him. The spokesman said the dismissal of the petition of the CM and his wife had proved that the case was not politically motivated. OC

Virbhadra must resign: Satti

Shimla: State BJP president Satpal Singh Satti on Friday said following the dismissal of CMs plea for quashing of an FIR against him by the Delhi High Court, Virbhadra Singh had no moral right to continue in office. In a statement issued here today, Satti said the court decision had vindicated the stand of the BJP which had from time to time been raised corruption charges faced by Virbhadra. Virbhadra should not just resign immediately but must apologise to the people of the state for misleading them by maintaining a clean image, he said. He said the BJP would make corruption its main poll plank not just in the Bhoranj bypoll but also in the Assembly poll due later this year. TNS
Kuldeep Chauhan

Tribune News Service

Shimla, March 31

The Shimla Municipal Corporation (SMC) today submitted its Rs 2,906-crore Shimla smart city proposal to the Ministry of Urban Development (MoUD). Shimla will compete with 49 other cities to get the smart city tag under the Smart Cities Mission.

Prashant Sirkeck, SMC Joint Commissioner-cum-Shimla Smart Cities Mission head, submitted the proposal in Delhi today.

The first 22 cities will get the smart tag and a Rs 500-crore grant from the MoUD.

The SMC has proposed to construct a smart public bus transport system, widen roads and start a parking project worth Rs 1,250 crore. Residents will be encouraged to use public transport instead of private vehicles, said Pankaj Rai, Municipal Commissioner.

The SMC has proposed to run a mini-toy train from Sanjauli to The Ridge to improve mobility and solve traffic congestion on the Cart Road. A tunnel has been proposed between the HPTDC-run Lift and Lakkar Bazaar. As a third major priority, the SMC has proposed a redevelopment plan worth Rs 1,272 crore for the shanties of Krishanagar, Lower Bazaar, Ganj and Ram Bazaar by rebuilding the houses.

The SMC has proposed 24x7 quality water supply to residents. Besides, the entire city will have sewerage connectivity, said Rai.

The crisscrossing jungle of overhead electricity and cable wires and the exposed water pipeline would be retrofitted in the underground ducts. For retrofitting and improvement of roads and parking infrastructure, AMRUT and Swach Bharat mission funds would be spent, said Rai.

The SMC engaged 1.2 lakh citizens and 18 lakh people indirectly on the social media before it finalised the proposal. We involved ward sabhas under all 25 councillors in all 25 municipal wards to prepare the proposal, said Sanjay Chauhan, Mayor.

With peoples support, we struggled for almost two years, moved the High Court, fought the state urban development ministry and finally submitted the proposal today, said Chauhan. We have proposed a citizen-centric smart city proposal and hope Shimla gets the smart city tag, he added.

Rai said Rs 500 crore would come from the MoUD, while Rs 500 crore would be pooled in jointly by the state government and the SMC if Shimla won the race, said Rai.
Srinagar, March 31

A Hizbul Mujahideen commander was arrested in Srinagar today, police sources said.

The A-plus-plus category militant has been identified as Amir Nabi Wagey, a resident of Bijbehara in Anantnag. He was arrested in Srinagar after a tip-off.

He is the district commander of the Hizb and his arrest is a major success, police sources said.

Wagey was active in Anantnag district for the past three years. However, no senior police officer confirmed his arrest.  TNS
New Delhi, March 31

Militancy and protests by locals at encounter sites in Jammu and Kashmir came up for intense discussions at a high-level meeting chaired by Home Minister Rajnath Singh and attended by Defence and Finance Minister Arun Jaitley besides others.

During the hour-long meeting, top intelligence brass gave presentation on the prevailing situation in the state, which has seen spurt in militancy-related incidents in the past, and how to deal with it, official sources said.

Protests by locals at encounter sites, radicalisation of youths are other key issues which were deliberated at the meeting, also attended by National Security Adviser Ajit Doval, Union Home Secretary Rajiv Mehrishi.

The meeting took stock of Pakistans attempt of using social media to incite youths in Kashmir Valley to storm encounter sites to help holed-up militants.

Director General of Jammu and Kashmir Police S P Vaid yesterday had said youths who storm the encounter sites in the Valley to hurl stones at security personnel are committing suicide.

Last month, Army Chief General Bipin Rawat had said that local Kashmiri people creating hurdles by throwing stones at the security personnel during anti-terror operations will be dealt as anti-nationals and will face harsh actions.

The Rs 80,000-crore package for Jammu and Kashmir announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in November 2015 also came up for discussion and the two ministers expressed satisfaction over the progress of work in this regard.

So far Rs 17,000 crore has been released to the state government by the Centre as the first instalment of the package.  PTI
Ravi S Singh

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, March 31

Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh today told the Lok Sabha that Pakistan and its agents were behind the infiltration from across the border and were trying to destabilise the country.

Their inimical design of destabilisation was not confined to Jammu and Kashmir, he said, adding that they wanted to destabilise the entire country.

Responding to the issue of stone-throwing by youths on the security forces during their encounters with terrorists, Rajnath told the House: We will succeed. The matter was raised by Saugata Roy of the Trinamool Congress during zero hour.

The Home Minister said Pakistan and its stooges in Kashmir were misguiding villagers and youths. The latter were exhorted through social media platforms to confront the security forces. The platforms are operated and masterminded by a group in Pakistan.

They have to be responded to by our jawans, and they are doing it. Our security forces are responding the way they are expected to, Rajnath added. He also urged the youths not to be misguided by Pakistan.
Jammu, March 31

A soldier was killed on Friday in a mysterious incident of firing on the Line of Control (LoC) in Jammu and Kashmir's Poonch district.

Police sources said Sepoy Kulwant Singh was found dead with a bullet wound in Balakot sector in the morning.

"It is not known whether the soldier's death was a suicide or due to firing from across the LoC," an official said.

The LoC divides Jammu and Kashmir between India and Pakistan.  IANS
Rahul Gandhi accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of neglecting the farmers. The farmers belonging to Cauvery belt are protesting at Jantar Mantar since March 21 demanding a relief package of Rs 40,000 crore.

By India Today Web Desk: Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi today met Tamil Nadu farmers protesting at Delhi's Jantar Mantar for over two weeks. Rahul sat with the protesting farmers hearing their grievances.

Talking to reporters, Rahul Gandhi accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of neglecting the farmers of the country while helping the rich.

"The PM has given debt relief to richest people in the country, why not for the people who have built this country - the farmers," he said in an apparent reference to former Kingfisher Airlines Vijay Mallya, who is in London since March 2, 2016, and owes 17-bank consortium over Rs 6,000 crore.

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"Inki awaaz na Hindustan ki sarkar aur na hi PM ko sunayi deti hai. PM ki zimedaari hai ki inki baat sunein. (Neither the government nor PM Modi listens to them (Tamil Nadu farmers). It is the PM's responsibility to listen to their problems and resolve them," Rahul added.

KANIMOZHI MEETS PROTESTING FARMERS

Earlier, DMK MP Kanimozhi also met the protesting Tamil Nadu farmers. She said per party had raised issue about farmers' flight in Parliament on several occasions but the government has refused to respond so far.

The farmers belonging to Cauvery belt are protesting in Delhi demanding a drought relief package of Rs 40,000 crore from the Centre, farm loan waiver and setting up of Cauvery Management Board.

The drought-hit farmers have been protesting in the national capital since March 21 with human skulls which they claim are of farmers who committed suicide.

ALSO READ:

Jallikattu 2.0: Students agitate in Tamil Nadu in solidarity with farmers' Jantar Mantar skull protest

Tamil Nadu farmers and Bharatiya Kisan Manch raise united demands for farmers at Jantar Mantar

--- ENDS ---
Chennai, March 31

Superstar Rajinikanth on Friday dubbed as rumours reports suggesting that he would replace Bollywood actor Shah Rukh Khan as Malacca's ambassador.

(Follow The Tribune on Facebook; and Twitter @thetribunechd)

I was shooting a movie in Malaysia sometime ago. I could not meet him then, so I met him now. Malaysia extended extremely good cooperation. It happened that he is here in Chennai. He accepted my invitation. He saw the Kabali' clips also for 15-20 minutes. He liked it. He offered me to do more pictures in Malaysia. It was a goodwill meet, he told the media after meeting Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Rajak here.

Earlier in 2016, Rajinikanth was in Malaysia for the shoot of his gangster flick Kabali'.

Ever since his announcement to visit Sri Lanka was made, Rajinikanth's name has been constantly hitting the headlines.

The actor was upset with a few political leaders in Tamil Nadu for opposing his decision to visit Sri Lanka and cancelled his plans. ANI
Sarbjit Dhaliwal

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, March 31

Reluctant to leave it to officialdom, Punjab Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh has begun putting in place a mechanism, to be christened Guardians of Governance (GoG), to oversee the implementation of government schemes and to gather feedback on the working of officials to ensure they did not indulge in corrupt practices. The Congress, in its poll manifesto, had promised to fight corruption.

(Follow The Tribune on Facebook; and Twitter @thetribunechd)

For the purpose, the Amarinder Singh government intends to recruit and train ex-servicemen at the village and block level. Lt Gen TS Shergill (retd), Adviser to the CM, today held a meeting to prepare a blueprint for GoG appointments.

It is not yet clear if the ex-servicemen recruited for the purpose would be given an honorarium or a fixed salary. Punjab has more than 12,000 villages. The number of ex-servicemen stands at two lakh.

Sources said the ex-servicemen would be trained in information technology and a special portal created for them to upload information. Action would be taken on the report filed by them within a stipulated period.

Besides overseeing implementation of schemes, they would report on delivery of services such as healthcare, education, drinking water and power.
Beijing, March 31

For the second time in a month, China on Friday warned India of serious damage to bilateral ties if it allowed the Dalai Lama to visit Arunachal Pradesh as Beijing asked New Delhi to honour its political pledges on the Tibet issue.

We are seriously concerned about the news. On the eastern section of the China-India border, Chinas position is clear and consistent, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang told media here on Friday, responding to a question on the Dalai Lamas upcoming visit to Arunachal Pradesh.

China claims Arunachal Pradesh as part of south Tibet.

The Dalai clique has long been engaging in separatist activities with inglorious record. India should be very clear with the true nature of the Dalai clique, Lu said.

But despite this India still invited the Dalai Lama to visit the region. This will have serious damage on bilateral relations, Lu said.

The Dalai Lama will visit Arunachal Pradesh from April 4 to 13.

This is the second time this month that Chinese Foreign Ministry has aired its objections to the Dalai Lamas visit to Arunachal Pradesh.

China is gravely concerned over information that India has granted permission to the Dalai to visit Arunachal Pradesh, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said on March 3.

China has protested to India last year also when New Delhi cleared his visit to Arunachal Pradesh.

Such visits will have deep damage on China-India relations. We have asked India to stick to its political pledges and not to hurt China-India relations. It will come down to India to make a choice, he said.

China firmly opposes the Dalai Lama carrying out any activities in the relevant region and we have expressed our concerns to the Indian side. We urge India to stick to its political statements, respect the consensus and avoid doing anything that might further complicate the matter, he said.

He said India should not provide any platform for the Dalai clique and only that way China-India relation can move forward in a sound and steady way.

China and India are two major developing countries and we are close neighbours. It is very important for the two peoples to maintain sound and steady China-India relations. But such relationship has to be built on certain foundation, he said.

Last year, China also protested against the visit of then American Ambassador to India Richard Verma to the area.

The India-China border dispute covers the 3,488 km long Line of Actual Control (LAC).

While China claims Arunachal Pradesh as Southern Tibet, India asserts that the dispute covered Aksai Chin area which was occupied by China during the 1962 war. PTI
Guwahati, March 31

President Pranab Mukherjee on Friday said Indias traditions never allowed the practice of intolerance as unity in diversity with mutual coexistence and understanding is the strength of the country.

Speaking at the inaugural ceremony of the Namami Brahmaputra festival here, Mukherjee said he does not agree when people label Indians as intolerant.

There are 200 languages spoken in India across its length and breath. All major seven religions are practised in India. Nowhere in the world is found so much ethnic diversity, he said, adding despite this, India is one nation having one Constitution, living under one flag, one system maintaining regional identity.

We are one nation. This mutual co-existence, mutual understanding is our strength. Managing this diversity is our greatest strength. If it is said Indians are argumentative, I will agree. But if it is said Indians are intolerant, I refuse to agree. Intolerance has never been allowed, he said.

Mukherjee said Assam, which is an emerging economic hub of India, is perfectly positioned to become the corridor of the country to the ASEAN nations as the Act East policy takes forefront.

He said India would soon celebrate 25 years of its link with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).

The President said South East Asia is an important destination for Indias investment and trade.

Stating that Assam has immense development potential, Mukherjee added that inland water transport system in the National Waterways can change its economic scenario.

The development of this national waterway can give Assam access to international ports like Chittagong in Bangladesh.

This will give Assam an exposure to international trade and commerce. With the Act East Policy taking forefront, Assam is perfectly positioned to become the corridor of the country to the ASEAN nations, he said.

Mukherjee hailed Assams richness in natural resources and its hardworking people to underline that all it needed was strong drive, right policies and effective implementation.

We have to join hands to make the dream of Bharat Ratna Gopinath Bordoloifirst Chief Minister of Assam becoming a front runner in the field of socio-economic progressa reality, he said.

The President said Assam has overcome a prolonged spell of insurgency and the central government is supportive in rebuilding the state.  PTI
New Delhi, March 31

Judicial work across the country was crippled on Friday following a nationwide strike by advocates in protest against a proposed Bill that prohibits them from holding agitations and makes them liable to pay monetary compensation if they go on strike.

The strike call was given by the Bar Council of India (BCI), the apex body of advocates, which has termed the Advocates (Amendment) Bill, 2017, draconian and one which will completely destroy the independence and autonomy of the Indian Bar.

The strike was successful across the country. It was observed in all the high courts, district courts and lower courts. Lakhs of advocates in the entire country have voiced their protests against this draconian bill which if passed will completely rob the Bars independence, BCI Chairman Manan Kumar Mishra told IANS here.

According to Mishra, there are around 14 lakh advocates across the country.

In the national capital, lawyers at the high court and all six district courtsPatiala House, Tis Hazari, Rohini, Karkardooma, Saket and Dwarka - observed the strike. Lawyers from the Supreme Court did not participate but extended their support.

None of the lawyers appeared before the court as we have decided to abstain from work. The strike is successful, said New Delhi Bar Association President Santosh Mishra.

Judicial work was also affected across Punjab, Haryana and Chandigarh with the courts adjourning hearing of cases due to the strike.

The situation was similar in West Bengal with the State Bar Council claiming the strike to be successful.

Around 60,000 advocates across Bengal abstained from judicial work in response to the strike, Bar Council of West Bengal Vice Chairman Prasun Kumar Datta told IANS.

In Maharashtra and Goa, the majority of the nearly 1.5 lakh advocates abstained from work.

Activist lawyer Ashish Mehta in Mumbai said that all the bar associations in Maharashtra have passed resolutions supporting the BCIs strike call, but more than 30 per cent of the advocates were present in different courts.

The Mumbai High Court on Thursday had urged lawyers to be responsible in the interest of the litigants.

Kerala High Court advocate A. Jayasankar said the strike was total in the state, but added it was his personal opinion that it was needless and unwarranted.

My personal opinion is that the lawyers should never resort to a strike and it should happen only if the situation is really grave and serious. I dont think the reasons for going on a strike today is anything serious, said Jayasankar.

Judicial work was also affected in Uttar Pradesh with lawyers abstaining from work across district courts as well as at the Allahabad High Court.

The strike call was given following the Law Commissions latest report in which it has recommended sweeping changes in the Advocates Act including prohibiting lawyers from going on strikes and making them liable for monetary compensation for misconduct or going on a strike.

Advocates conduct in courts, behaviour with litigants and their unprofessional conduct, including the act of going on frequent strikes as a measure of protest for irrelevant issues, has reached terrifying proportions, it said in the report submitted to the government on March 23.

With reasons ranging from bomb blast in Pakistan to a kavi sammelan (poets conference), the panel has said that it could not find any convincing reasons for the advocates resorting to strikes or abstaining from work.

Providing a wide definition of misconduct by advocates, the Law Commission has also proposed imposing a fine extending up to Rs 3 lakh or a compensation to a maximum of Rs 5 lakh payable to the person aggrieved by the misconduct of an advocate.

The BCI has also opposed the definition of misconduct, saying it has been defined in a provocative way, making it risky and difficult for advocates to accept the brief of any client.  IANS
Ravi S Singh

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, March 31

Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh on Friday said Pakistan-sponsored terrorists are targeting destabilisation of entire India.

Responding to a query during Zero Hour in the Lok Sabha, Singh said Pakistan-propelled terrorists had not confined the locus of their nefarious designs only to Jammu and Kashmir.

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I inform the House that they are being given a befitting response by our security forces and the Army, he said, adding, We will succeed.

Singh was responding to a specific query by TMCs Saugata Roy with regard to the recent stone-pelting incidents in Kashmir in which three civilians and security personnel had died.

Singh said the new trend in terrorist activities started in Jammu and Kashmir. Security personnel are made to confront stone-pelting crowds of youth in villages, he added.

The youths are exhorted by social media platforms, operated and masterminded by a group in Pakistan, to reach places to confront security forces, he said.

He said villagers and youths were misled by forces operating from across the border. He appealed to the youth not to be misled.

Those operating and masterminding operations against India had to be dealt with firmly and our security forces would deal with them, he said.
New Delhi, March 31

The limited period window for exchange of junked Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes by Indians who were abroad ended today with many failing to do so because of limited counters and lack of procedural awareness.

However, an additional time period of three months is available to non-resident Indians (NRIs) with a rider of exchange of Rs 25,000 per individual. The exchange window for NRIs will close on June 30. Long serpentine queues were seen outside five RBI offices in Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata, Chennai and Nagpur  the designated offices.

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Minister of State for Finance Arjun Ram Meghwal informed the Rajya Sabha that ineligible persons were responsible for long queues.

While there was no limit for exchange of notes for residents who were abroad during the demonetisation period, there was a cap for NRIs.

NRIs coming to India are required to come through the Red Channel disclosing to the Customs authorities at the airport the amount of defunct notes and secure a certificate to be tendered at the RBI at the time of exchange.  PTI
Satya Prakash

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, March 31

Faced with a contempt charge, controversial Calcutta High Court judge CS Karnan on Friday dared the Supreme Court to send him to jail after it refused to restore his judicial and administrative work.

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My lord, impose punishment on me... send me to jail. I will not appear on the next date, Justice Karnan told a seven-judge Constitution Bench headed by Chief Justice of India JS Khehar after it refused to restore his judicial and administrative work withdrawn last month in view of the contempt proceedings.

Unless you restore my work, I will not be normal, Justice Karnan said, questioning the top courts decision to impose what he termed as punishment without hearing him out.

I am also holding a constitutional post. My dignity has been hurt and work has been taken away without hearing me, Justice Karnan  who earned the dubious distinction of being the first sitting judge of a high court to appear as a contemnor before the top courttold the Bench.

At one stage, the CJI asked Justice Karnan if he was mentally fit to understand the gravity of the contempt proceedings.

However, when Justice Karnan said his mental balance had been lost, the CJI said: If you feel you are not mentally fit to answer the queries of court, you give us a medical certificate.

The Bench finally gave him four weeks to firm up his response and file an affidavit as he gave confusing and conflicting answers to the questions posed by the Bench.

It asked him to be personally present on May 1, the next date of hearing. It advised him to engage a lawyer, saying if he wished, he could hire a lawyer to represent him.

After the hearing, Justice Karnan told reporters he would order the Supreme Court Registrar not to allocate any work to the seven judges, including CJI Khehar, as they were in contempt of his order.

Justice Karnan, who had earlier demanded Rs 14 crore as compensation from the seven judges on the bench for disturbing his mind and normal life, entered the court almost five minutes before the proceedings began at 10.30 am and sat in the front row.

As the CJI asked him if he wanted to say something, he repeated the allegations levelled in his complaints to the Prime Minister and other constitutional authorities.

At the same time, he said he wanted to apologise because of his respect for the institution.

But what you are saying is contrary to what you have written to us. In your letter, you have tendered an unconditional apology, the CJI told Justice Karnan asking him to clarify his position.

Attorney-General Mukul Rohatgi said the judge had repeated the allegations and his apology too wasnt unconditional and hence couldnt be accepted.

In a first, the Supreme Court had on March 10 issued a bailable warrant against Justice Karnan after he failed to appear before it for the second time to answer a contempt notice.

It had ordered West Bengal Director-General of Police to execute the warrant to secure the presence of Justice Karnan before the top court on March 31. He has been ordered to furnish a personal bail bond of Rs 10,000.

On behalf of the West Bengal DGP, senior advocate Rakesh Dwivedi told the Bench that the warrant had been served and the contemnor judge was before the court. He also informed the court as to how initially Justice Karnan had passed an order setting aside the Supreme Court warrant.

The contempt proceedings have been initiated against Justice Karnan for writing letters to various authorities, including the Prime Minister, accusing several judges of corruption.

After the top courts order, Justice Karnan had described the bailable warrant against him as unconstitutional. Talking to the media in Kolkata, Justice Karnan had said: I am being targeted as I am a Dalit. This is a caste issue. The order has been deliberately issued against me. This is an attempt to ruin my life. The warrant is unconstitutional.

In an unprecedented order, the Supreme Court had on February 8 issued contempt notice to Justice Karnan and ordered him to forthwith refrain from discharging any judicial or administrative functions and return all files. It had asked him to appear before it on February 13.

As he failed to appear, the top court gave him 25 days to respond to the contempt notice and asked him to appear on March 10 but he didnt show up. Then the court had issued the bailable warrant against him for March 31.

He also informed the court that he had vacated the official accommodation in Chennai and handed over the keys to Registrar (Administration) on Thursday.
Satya Prakash

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, March 31

The Supreme Court on Friday partially modified its order banning liquor vendors in the vicinity of 500 metres on national and state highways but refused to give any relief to hotels and restaurants.

A Bench of Chief Justice of India JS Khehar Justice DY Chandrachud and Justice LN Rao sought to emphasise that the object of the order was to prevent drunken driving which claimed thousands of lives.

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In municipal areas having less than 20,000 population situated on highways, the distance of 500 metres has been reduced to 220 metres.

The Bench said its December 15, 2016, order banning liquor vends within 500 metres of highways shall remain operative for areas other than those specified in Fridays clarification order.

However, it exempted Meghalaya and Sikkim from the purview of the December 15, 2016, order in view of their peculiar geographical conditions.

But it declined a similar relief to Himachal Pradesh, saying the direction to reduce the distance from 500 metres to 220 metres on highways would be sufficient to cover the states demand.

It also extended the deadline to move liquor shops for those licencees whose licences were renewed before December 15 last year, from April 1 to September 30, or the date of expiry of their licences  whichever was earlier.

Around a dozen states, including Punjab, Haryana and Himachal Pradesh, and federation of hotel and restaurants associations had sought modification in the order on various grounds.

During the hearing, most of the parties had requested the court to defer the implementation of its order that is to come into force from April 1.

The states had submitted that the order was hitting their excise revenue.

The Bench had on Thursday sought to emphasise that the ban was imposed in the interest of the public health; accordingly; liquor shops situated within 500 meters were ordered to be removed from either side of national and state highways.

Asking state government to shift liquor vends was not impinging on the excise policy of different states as it was only a matter of distance of the outlets from the highways, the Bench had said.

Even the excise policy envisaged that liquor shops could be located at a certain distance from the highways, it had said.

As Attorney-General Mukul Rohatgi and several senior lawyers had contended that the order was hurting the revenue of states, Justice Chandrachud  who authored the December 15 judgment  said: We have not tested the excise policy. You have no freedom to drink and drive on the national highway.

The apex court, in its December 15, 2016, judgment, had ordered a ban on all liquor shops along national as well as state highways across the country and made it clear that licences of the existing shops would not be renewed after March 31, 2017. It had also directed that all signage indicating the presence of liquor vends would be prohibited along national and state highways.
Karachi, March 31

Two Indians have reportedly been arrested for living illegally in Karachi, during the 6th population and housing census in Pakistan.

The Express Tribune quoted Sindh Census Commissioner Abdul Aleem Memon as saying that the two Indians had no legal documents and had been handed over to law-enforcement agencies.

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The Pakistan Government is conducting the sixth housing and population census in the country after a hiatus of 19 years.

Pakistan last conducted a census in 1998 and recorded a national population of approximately 180 million at that time. ANI
Superstar Rajinikanth took a selfie with Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak at his residence in Chennai.

By India Today Web Desk: Superstar Rajinikanth is the only Indian actor, who enjoys a substantial amount of fan following in Malaysia. Earlier, rumours were rife that the Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak, who's on a two-day trip to Chennai, was likely to meet Rajinikanth at his residence.

Putting all the speculations to rest, Thalaivar himself confirmed the news and also took a selfie with the PM, which is treading on the internet.

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Speaking at a media interaction today, Rajinikanth said, "I was there in Malaysia for two months, shooting for Kabali. I couldn't meet him (Najib Razak) during my visit as he was busy. Now that he's in Chennai, I called up him and he graciously accepted my offer. He also saw few clippings of Kabali."

Rajinikanth took to Twitter to share the picture with Najib Razak.

I am extremely happy to have met an excellent, friendly and warm person today ... The Honourable Prime Minister of Malaysia @NajibRazak ji pic.twitter.com/5Ui4oQaS6c- Rajinikanth (@superstarrajini) March 31, 2017

While reports suggested that Rajinikanth will replace the Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan as the brand ambassador of Malaysia Tourism, Thalaivar quashed all the rumours.

Rajinikanth said, "I was not offered to become brand ambassador for Malaysia. These are all rumours."

Meanwhile, Rajinikanth, who's been in the spotlight over the last few days, is wrapping up the shoot of his much-anticipated sci-fi thriller 2.0.

Made on a lavish budget of Rs 400 crore, the film starring Akshay Kumar, Amy Jackson, Sudhanshu Pandey and Adil Hussain will hit the screens on Diwali this year.

ALSO READ: Rajinikanth to replace SRK as brand ambassador of Malaysia Tourism?

SEE PIC: Shruti snapped with daddy dearest Kamal Haasan in London

ALSO READ: Jr NTR's Janatha Garage, Rakshit Shetty's Krik Party sweep IIFA Utsavam 2017

ALSO WATCH: Watch: Rajinikanth cancels Sri Lanka visit after protests from Tamil groups

--- ENDS ---
New Delhi: External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj on Friday said the two Indians abducted in South Sudan, Midhun Ganesh and Edward Ambrose, had been released. Swaraj expressed her appreciation at the efforts of the Indian Ambassador in South Sudan, Srikumar Menon, in securing the duos release. "I am happy to inform about the release of Midhun and Edward They have reached the Indian Embassy in Khartoum," she tweeted. Both had been kidnapped separately from their workplace earlier this month. They both worked for DAR Petroleum in the oil-rich Upper Nile state. TNS
Lucknow, March 31

The Uttar Pradesh Police was on Friday directed by the state government to ensure its anti-Romeo squads do not resort to blackening of the face or murga position type punishments in the name of protecting women.

The move by the government comes amid outrage over the way the squads have punished loitering men on the streets and a day after the Allahabad High Court directed it to ensure that guidelines were followed by the police teams and action taken as per the law.

There should be no shaving of heads, blackening of faces or murga pose (a stress position used as a corporal punishment where sit-ups are done holding the ears), said a senior official while listing out the dos and donts.

The fresh guidelines were issued after the intervention of Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath amid reports of alleged harassment by anti-Romeo squads.

The special squads of the UP Police were formed after the BJP government assumed office this month, fulfilling one of the pre-poll promises of the party.

The Allahabad High Courts Lucknow Bench of Justices Amreshwar Pratap Sahi and Sanjay Harkauli had given its order on a PIL that alleged that police were not following the guidelines during the drive, aimed at checking eve teasing, and it was harassing couples.

The chief minister has also directed administrative and police officials in districts to regularly review the steps being taken for women security and inform senior officials on a regular basis, the official said.  PTI
Simran Sodhi

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, March 30

Canada values diversity and to that effect a Canadian company has joined hands with an Indian company to produce a tablet that will help people learn to read and write Punjabi and Gurmukhi, said Bardish Chagger in an interview with The Tribune on Friday.

Chagger is one of the four Sikhs in the Canadian Cabinet and holds the portfolio of Minister of Small Business and Tourism. She is also the first woman in Canadian history to have been appointed the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons.

No small achievement for a woman who even today refers to her as a Punjabi child. My dads from Ludhiana and my moms from Phillaur. I am a Punjabi child, so the first language I learnt to speak in Canada was Punjabi, she said. To prove the point she makes her next point in perfect Punjabi. My chachajis son got married in Amritsar, so I got to attend the wedding. I also went to the Golden Temple, she said.

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Canada is also launching its third direct flight from Mumbai to Toronto from July 1. Canada already has two direct flights, Vancouver to Delhi and Toronto to Delhi, all operated by Air Canada.

Chagger makes no bones of the fact that the strength of Canada lies in its diversity. When people are Canadians, we want them to be close to their food, culture. I am really proud of my Indian roots, she said.

She also points out that what the Punjabis have brought to Canada is their ability to engage with the community, to make it their own, so whether its by doing volunteer work, seva or by joining the political process, donating or running for office. She points out that the Punjabi ability to do so has been a huge influence. She says this foundation has been laid for generations.

We build and shape the community we live in and want others to live in, Chagger says.

The minister refuses to be critical of the change in the immigration policies of the United States and instead says, The US is our cousins to the South. They are our family and with a family you will always find ways to work. And that is part of my Indian roots that we will always find a way to work together.
Mohit Khanna

Tribune News Service

Ludhiana, March 31

There was high drama at SD Kamla Lohtia College here on Friday after 40 students were forcibly taken out of their respective classrooms and not allowed to take the examination being conducted by the college.

The college authorities have taken the action after the students failed to submit their pending fees.
Ruchika M Khanna

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, March 31

Liquor contractor Jasdeep Kaur Chadha alias Deepa Chadha, who branched out on her own after the shootout in which her husband Hardeep Singh Chadha and brother-in-law, liquor baron Ponty Chadha, were killed in 2012, has managed to bag contracts for operating almost all liquor licensing units in Jalandhar, Nawanshahr, Hoshiarpur and Kapurthala. She has also managed to get a foothold in many districts of Malwa.

The owner of Adie Broswon group has made her presence felt in the high-stakes, politically important liquor business in the state, at a time when the politician-operated liquor lobby is trying hard to arm-twist the Congress government to tweak the excise policy to serve their interests. Deepa is the daughter of former Delhi Sikh Gurdwara Management Committee president Harwinder Singh Sarna. Sarna and his brother Paramjit Singh Sarna have close ties with CM Capt Amarinder Singh.

Sources say that she had been eyeing the business ever since she took control of the Adie Broswon group after her husbands death. Adie Browson has an annual turnover of Rs 600 crore which has a 6,500 tonne capacity sugar factory, a 6-million-case brewery (Indias total beer capacity is 270 million cases) and a distillery.

She supplies beer to SABMiller and has launched her own brand - Rockberg. With the entire politician liquor contractor lobby unwilling to participate in the auction of vends that began last week she has made a grand entry in the trade.

Her brother-in-law, Raju Chadha, who had a major stake in the liquor business till last year has not participated in the auction so far.

The liquor business per se in the state is witnessing its worst ever phase. Only 70 per cent of the 5,900 vends that the government proposed to allot for 2017-18 have been allotted while the liquor contractors have not participated in the allotment of vends in Ludhiana, Patiala, Barnala, Sangrur, Moga and Bathinda and only few vends have been allotted in Faridkot.

Excise officials said although another chance will be given for the allotment of vends, it is possible that instead of allotting vends in groups they might be allotted collectively.

Since Ludhiana generates the maximum business, Rs 700 crore per annum) the collective tender for all vends in the urban area of Ludhiana could be done soon. The only danger in doing so is that it could lead to monopolisation.

Distress sale at Dodas liquor outlets

Abohar: Liquor baron and SAD ex-halqa incharge Shiv Lal Doda, who controlled the liquor empire in Fazilka district for around 15 years, did not participate in the liquor vend auction for 2017-18. Since Jaideep Singh Mann of Fazilka will take over the business from Saturday, distress sale of liquor was noticed at most shops licensed to the Doda family and other stakeholders on the last day of the financial year on Friday. OC

No show at vend auction in Muktsar

Muktsar: The auction of liquor vends in Muktsar district was postponed on Friday as the only applicant for a particular group did not turn up. HPS Ghotra, observer appointed for the auction of liquor vends, said, The auction has been postponed after Bhupinder Kumar, who was the lone applicant for Bariwala group, failed to turn up. His application fee of Rs 75,000 has been forfeited. Asked whether the existing vends will remain open even after the end of this financial year, he said, The decision will be taken by department officials concerned after consulting their higher-ups. tns

In Moga, too, excise officials wait in vain

Moga: No one turned up to obtain licence at the draw of lots for 272 liquor vends of Moga district for 2017-2018, on Friday. Joginder Kumar, Assistant Excise and Taxation Commissioner (AETC), said he along with other officials of the department waited for contractors throughout the day, but in vain. The government had reduced the total number of liquor vends from 293 to 272 for the next fiscal. Most of the liquor vends situated on the highways will be closed from April 1 as per the order of the apex court. tns

Poor response in Fatehgarh Sahib

Fatehgarh Sahib: The Excise and Taxation Department postponed the auction of liquor vends for the second time on Friday due to poor response from contractors in the district. As a result, all liquor vends selling Indian Made Foreign Liquor (IMFL) as well as country-made liquor will remain closed till further notice. Sources in the Excise and Taxation Department said the authorities had now decided to approach the higher authorities in Chandigarh with a proposal to invite tenders for allotting the liquor vends. TNS
Simran Sodhi

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, March 31

Canada values diversity and to that effect a Canadian company has joined hands with an Indian firm to produce a tablet that will help people learn to read and write Punjabi and Gurmukhi, Canadian Minister Bardish Chagger has said.

Chagger is one of the four Sikhs in the Canadian Cabinet and the Minister of Small Business and Tourism. She is also the first woman in the history of Canada to have been appointed the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons.

No small achievement for a woman who even today refers to herself as a Punjabi child. My father was from Ludhiana and mother from Phillaur. I am a Punjabi child so the first language I learnt to speak in Canada was Punjabi, she said. To prove the point, she makes her next point in perfect Punjabi. My chachajis son got married in Amritsar and so I got to attend the wedding. I also went to the Golden Temple, she said while talking to The Tribune on Wednesday.

Canada is also launching its third direct flight from India  Mumbai to Toronto  from July 1. At present, Air Canada operates two flights Vancouver to Delhi and Toronto to Delhi.

What the Punjabis have brought to Canada is their ability to engage with the community and to make it their own. So whether its by doing volunteer work, seva or by joining the political process, donating or running for office, the Punjabi ability to do so has been a huge influence, Chagger said.

The minister refused to be critical of the change in the immigration policies of the US and instead said, The US is our cousins to the South. They are our family and with a family, you will always find ways to work. And that is part of my Indian roots that we will always find a way to work together.
Jotirmay Thapliyal

Tribune News Service

Dehradun, March 31

When academics are already becoming an ignored part in institutions of higher learning, the recent diktat of the state BJP government to ensure compulsory daily hosting of the national flag in all state universities has come as a botheration for the student community and academicians, who are taking it as a display of forcible patriotism.

Barely a week after getting his portfolio, Uttarkhands Higher Education Minister and a former RSS functionary Dr Dhan Singh Rawat convened a meeting of senior higher education officials in the state issuing them a directive for compulsorily regular hosting of the national flag in all state universities. For this, a 100-foot pole has to be installed on the campus of the universities.

Talking to The Tribune, the Higher Education Minister said students should have a sense of patriotism towards their national flag and the country. With this aim, all 21 universities have been directed to make necessary arrangements to host the Tricolor within two months, he said.

In the next phase, we will take up the colleges where a similar step will be taken, he added. He said universities were already welcoming the move.

But Ministers clamour of patriotism has little takers. A former professor of History at Kumaon University, Dr Shekhar Pathak, said rather than taking to forcible patriotism, the government should have focused on the the shortcomings of the universities. Colleges and universities lack necessary infrastructure and were under staff, he added. He said quality education should be on priority of the minister.

Students Federation of Indias Uttarakhand Secretary Devendra Rawat said it was just showcasing of patriotism and nothing else. Patriotism cannot be defined by just hosting of the national flag. It should be within an individual. How can one be patriotic if his or her patriotism is just limited to hosting of the national flag and the BJP need to answer this? he said.

Interestingly, Uttarakhand higher education ministers directive comes a year after the Union Human Resource Department Ministry similarly ordered for daily hosting of the national flag in Central universities across the country.
Peshawar, March 31

The Pakistani Taliban on Friday targeted a Shiite imambargah with a powerful car bomb, killing at least 24 people and injuring nearly 100 others at a crowded market in northwest Pakistans restive tribal region bordering Afghanistan.

The blast struck the womens entrance of the imambargah in the remote Parachinar in Kurram Agency, sending the large number of people gathered for Friday prayers near the market into a frenzied run for safety.

The blast  the latest in a series of attacks targeting the minority Shias in the Sunni-majority Pakistan  was so powerful that it completely shattered the car in which the bomb was planted and damaged several vehicles parked nearby.

The site was littered with mangled vehicle parts and blood-stained clothes, TV footages showed.

An eyewitness told The Express Tribune that security personnel at the Imambargah were busy checking devotees at the central Imambargahs entrance for women, when an unidentified person parked the car close to the building, and it then exploded.

Security forces have cordoned off the site and emergency services were assisting local authorities. The administration has declared an emergency at all hospitals in the area.

Authorities said the death toll has now been revised to 24 and a majority of the nearly 100 injured were stated to be critical.

And 27 of the critically wounded had to be airlifted to hospitals in Khyber Pakhtunkhwas provincial capital Peshawar.

An army medical helicopter has been sent to Parachinar to evacuate the injured, said a statement from the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) statement.

Hours after the blast, Jamaat-ul-Ahrar, a breakaway faction of the Pakistani Taliban, claimed responsibility for the attack in the tribal region, which was once a stronghold of the group and has witnessed several sectarian attacks in the past.

Pakistans Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has condemned the attack and reiterated his governments resolve to eliminate the menace of terrorism from the country at all costs.

It is our responsibility to continue the war against terrorists, he said. The network of terrorists has already been broken and it is our national duty to continue this war until the complete annihilation of the scourge of terrorism from our soil.

Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan has ordered authorities to investigate the attack.

Pakistan, a country of nearly 200 million, has lately been rattled by a number of deadly terrorist and sectarian attacks.

Last month, more than 125 people were killed and another 300 injured in a series of suicide attacks across the country, including the one in Lahore and another on the popular Lal Shahbaz Qalandar shrine in Sindh.

Pakistani security forces retaliated with a crackdown, killing dozens of terrorists and destroying militant hideouts along the border with Afghanistan.

Pakistan army has launched operation Radd-ul-Fasaad (elimination of discord) to defeat terrorists and consolidate the gains of its counter-terrorism operations across the country. PTI
Peshawar, March 31

The Pakistani Taliban today targeted a Shiite imambargah with a powerful car bomb, killing at least 24 people and injuring nearly 100 others at a crowded market in northwest Pakistan's restive tribal region bordering Afghanistan.

The blast struck the women's entrance of the imambargah in the remote Parachinar in Kurram Agency, sending the large number of people gathered for Friday prayers near the market into a frenzied run for safety.

The blast, the latest in a series of attacks targeting the minority Shias in the Sunni-majority Pakistan, was so powerful that it completely shattered the car in which the bomb was planted and damaged several vehicles parked nearby. The site was littered with mangled vehicle parts and blood-stained clothes, TV footages showed.

An eyewitness told The Express Tribune that security personnel at the Imambargah were busy checking devotees at the central Imambargah's entrance for women, when an unidentified person parked the car close to the building, and it then exploded.

Security forces have cordoned off the site and emergency services were assisting local authorities. The administration has declared an emergency at all hospitals in the area. Author ties said the death toll has now been revised to 24 and a majority of the nearly 100 injured were stated to be critical.

Hours after the blast, Jamaat-ul-Ahrar, a breakaway faction of the Pakistani Taliban, claimed responsibility for the attack in the tribal region, which was once a stronghold of the group and has witnessed several sectarian attacks in the past.

Pakistan's Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has condemned the attack and reiterated his government's resolve to eliminate the menace of terrorism from the country "at all costs".  PTI

Controversial military courts revived
Ranveer Singh loves being experimental with fashion, and carrying a man-bag can be checked off his list.

By Shivani Chhabra: Joey from F.R.I.E.N.D.S wasn't the only one who liked the idea of carrying a man-bag. Ranveer Singh has apparently joined the list.

Ranveer has become a synonym for extraordinary clothing, thanks to his unorthodox attires. His white spacesuit-like-outift at Shahid Kapoor's birthday bash got everyone talking, and we knew there was more to look forward to.

Photo : Yogen Shah

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What he sported yesterday is proof that Ranveer doesn't believe in complying to the general social standard of clothing, like the idea that hand bags are for women.

Also Read : Ranveer Singh's latest avatar will make you miss Game of Thrones a little less

Spotted in all black at the Shankar Mahadevan studio yesterday, Ranveer was seen posing with something identical to a radio. A closer look, and we realised that it was a bag.

He looked comfortable in a pair of running shoes and black joggers, and the bag was only making sure that he had his essentials along--even men have essentials to carry, guys.

Photo: Yogen Shah Photo: Yogen Shah

Classic bearded Ranveer Singh with a sun hat on, and a white structured radio bag is just what the world needs to learn to be a little more exploratory.

Ranveer was nonchalantly posing with his man-bag, holding it like a radio next to his ear--and we swear this is the level of composure and confidence we need in our lives.

And Joey, we're sorry for judging you.

--- ENDS ---
New York, March 30

US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley has claimed her mother, who had studied to be a lawyer in India, was not allowed to sit on the Bench as a judge because she was a woman.

I am a big fan of women. I think theres nothing they cant do. And I think any democracy that has allowed themselves to really lift up women has benefited from it, Haley said when asked about the role of women following her speech to the Council on Foreign Relations here yesterday.

She went on to briefly narrate the story of her mothers life in India where she was among the first female judges, but was not allowed to sit on the Bench as she was a woman.

And so I think, this is near and dear to my heart because my mother  you know, when you didnt have a lot of education in India, my mother actually was able to go to law school. And she was actually put up to be one of the first female judges in India, but because of the situation with women, she wasnt allowed to sit on the Bench. But how amazing for her to watch her daughter become Governor of South Carolina and US ambassador to the United Nations, Haley said.

Haley was born Nimrata Randhawa to Ajit Singh Randhawa and Raj Kaur Randhawa, who had emigrated from India to Canada and then to the US in the 1960s.

Justice Anna Chandy was the first female judge in India and also the first woman in India to become a high court judge. She was appointed as a munsif in Travancore in 1937. Underscoring that legal immigration is the fabric of America, Haley said she is the proud daughter of Indian immigrants and stressed that people should not be banned from countries due to their religion.

We will never close our doors in the US but what we did do is take a pause and say how are we going to keep our people safe, she said, adding that she hopes the vetting process gets better and the administration moves forward with it.  PTI
General Santos (Philippines), March 31

Adrift and alone in the Pacific Ocean, Rolando Omongos prayed to live long enough to bring home news of the death of his uncle, whose corpse he had cast off at sea.

The 21-year-old Filipino fisherman was stranded in January after a storm separated him and his uncle from their main fishing vessel, leaving the pair on a tiny boat without fuel, food or fishing tools.

His prayer was answered whenhaving survived for 58-days by eating moss and drinking rainwater, but too weak to standhe managed to hail a passing ship by waving his ragged shirt.

Still in shock and tearful, his hands blistered by the sun, Omongos told reporters of his ordeal after returning to Manila yesterday.

Omongos said he lived off the tiny plants that grew on the boat and rainwater he collected using plastic containers. He lost 40 kilogrammes in weight.

When Omongos uncle died he tied the body to the boat for a week, but had to loosen it into the sea when it began to decompose.

I just thought, Lord, I leave my uncle to you. I have to live and come home to give our family the news about what happened to him.

Omongos said at one point he thought he might suffer the same fate but did not lose hope of being rescued, finding strength thinking of his grandfather, a fisherman who had toiled hard for the family all his life.

Every time my body suffered from the heat, I would dip into the sea and then surface again. I would dip ten times a day to keep cool, he recounted.

Omongos stayed on the lookout for passing ships, trying to get their attention from his tiny boat.

I prayed that they would have mercy and come toward me.

When one finally did, he said he had barely any strength left.

I was too weak to stand up and they had to carry me, he said.

I was so happy when I was rescued because God heard what I prayed for every day and every night. I cried but no tears came.

After his rescue by a Japanese ship, he was dropped off on the Papua New Guinea island of New Britainover 3,200 kilometres from the Philippine port of General Santos where he and his uncle had originally set out.

Rolando, who left school young, said he might return to his studies but that after his recent experience one thing was for sure: he was not going back on a boat. I just want to rest for a few months, he said.  AFP
Washington, March 31

President Donald Trump has said that the next weeks high-profile summit with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping will be a very difficult one as the US could no longer afford massive trade deficits and job losses.

Given that the United States has a massive trade deficit with China, American companies must be prepared to look at other alternatives, Trump tweeted.

(Follow The Tribune on Facebook; and Twitter @thetribunechd)

Trump is scheduled to meet Xi at his Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida on April 6 and 7.

This would be the first summit meeting between the two leaders.

The meeting next week with China will be a very difficult one in that we can no longer have massive trade deficits and job losses, Trump said.

Earlier, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer told reporters that Trump looked forward to meeting President Xi and exchanging views on each others respective priorities and to chart a way forward for bilateral ties.

They will discuss the issues of mutual concern, including North Korea, trade, and regional security, he said.

Noting that Trump had spoken to Xi over the phone a few times, Spicer said this was an opportunity for the President to develop a relationship in person with his Chinese counterpart.

But we have big problems, and--I mean, everything from the South China Sea, to trade, to North Korea. There are big issues of national and economic security that need to get addressed, and I think theres going to be a lot on the table when it comes to that over the two days that they will talk, Spicer said in response to a question.

There were a lot of big things that the US needed to accomplish with China, and it would work on them, he said.

China-US trade in goods amounted to USD 519.6 billion in 2016. China has a large share in the bilateral trade with its exports to the US amounting to over USD 400 billion.

The meeting will follow a recent trip to China by US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.

Ahead of the summit with Trump, Xi will visit Finland and hold talks with his counterpart Sauli Niinisto. PTI
Johannesburg, March 30

Jacob Zuma is considering offering to step down next year, at least 12 months before his term as South African president ends, under a deal with opponents in his ruling party that would see Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan leave office now, two senior party sources said.

Zuma is due to be replaced as leader of the African National Congress (ANC) at a party conference in December after serving his allocated two terms, but was expected to remain the countrys President until elections in 2019. Zumas spokesman did not respond to several calls for comment.

The offer appears intended as a way out of an impasse over the countrys leadership within the divided ANC, but may not be enough to satisfy opponents of Zuma, who want the President out early anyway and urgently want Gordhan to stay.

There is precedent for an ANC leader to leave the presidency early. Thabo Mbeki was removed by the ANC as South African president in 2008 after his time as party leader ended at the close of the previous year.

A split in the ANC deepened this week after Zuma ordered Gordhan to return from an investor roadshow in Britain, raising expectations of a cabinet reshuffle that markets fear will include Gordhans removal. Gordhan is viewed favourably by investors and the rand fell sharply when he was ordered home.

Zumas opponents have become increasingly vocal, and agreeing to stand aside early could help prevent a permanent split in the former liberation movement of Nelson Mandela, which last year suffered its worst result in local elections since it swept to power with the end of apartheid in 1994.

Some senior members of the ANC are pushing for Zumas departure now, applying pressure on him to find a compromise. He must just go. We dont need his offers. He must just go before destroying our country, one senior ANC member, who had not heard of Zuma discussing stepping down, told Reuters.

Zuma has the authority to hire and fire ministers such as Gordhan, but if senior party figures openly criticise him or resign it would weaken his position in the party.

Gordhans removal is a key requirement in negotiations for Zumas faction. They also want to choose Zumas successor at the national conference in December, the sources say.  Reuters

Divided African National Congress
From Shirish B Pradhan

Kathmandu, Mar 31 (PTI) Indian Army chief Gen Bipin Rawats visit to Nepal has helped in deepening and expanding the existing cordial ties between the armies of the two countries, the Nepalese Army said today.

Gen Rawat today wrapped up his four-day visit to Nepal. Duing his visit, he was conferred the title of honorary general of the Nepalese Army by President Bidya Devi Bhandari.

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Gen Rawat was presented with a sword, insignia and a certificate of conferment order by the President during the function.

"There has been decades old tradition of honoring the army chiefs of Nepal and India by each other with the title of Army General keeping with the traditional friendly ties between the two armies," according to a statement issued by Nepal Army headquarters.

The visit paid by the Indian Army chief to Nepal helped in deepening and expanding the existing cordial relations between the two armies, the statement said.

Gen Rawat met Prachanda and expressed happiness over the ongoing collaboration between Nepal Army and Indian Army.

He handed over seven horses to Nepal Army.

Gen Rawat was invited by Nepal army chief Gen Rajendra Chhetri. PTI SBP UZM AKJ UZM

--- ENDS ---
From Shirish B Pradhan

Kathmandu, Mar 31 (PTI) The newly-appointed Secretary General of SAARC Amjad Hussain B Sial today called on Nepal army chief and discussed bilateral ties and matters relating to mutual interests.

Sial held a meeting with the Chief of Army Staff Gen Rajendra Chhetri of Nepal at the Nepal Army Headquarters.

Sial, a Pakistani diplomat, took charge as the Secretary- General of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) on March 1.

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During the meeting, Sial and Gen Chhetri discussed bilateral ties and matters relating to mutual interests.

SAARC is the South Asias intergovernmental organisation whose member states include Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal, the Maldives, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.

Sial called on Chhetri days after Indian army chief Gen Bipin Rawat met his Nepali counterpart. PTI SBP UZM AKJ UZM

--- ENDS ---
Plans for a $60 million renovation and repurposing of the former Dollar Thrifty Plaza were announced Thursday by officials with the Anne and Henry Zarrow Foundation and area nonprofit agencies.

Dubbed the Legacy Plaza, the property will house five nonprofits and 170 affordable housing units.

Legacy Plaza is the result of opportunity meeting strategy, said Bill Major, executive director of the foundation.

The Anne and Henry Zarrow Foundation purchased the property, located in the 5100 block of 31st Street, in December 2015 and is investing $20 million into the project.

Another $40 million is coming from additional donors and outside financing.

The name alludes to the legacy of the Zarrow family and the lives impacted by its continued philanthropy, Major said.

Legacy Plaza speaks to more than one legacy; (it speaks) to hundreds of intertwined lives improved by collaboration and opportunity, he said.

The east tower will house four of the nonprofits, and the west tower will be turned into 120 affordable housing units.

A new building housing 50 senior apartments operated by Vintage Housing will be constructed on the site.

The Mental Health Association Oklahoma will relocate its headquarters to three floors of the east tower, allowing it to centralize its organization to one location. It is currently located at 1870 S. Boulder Ave.

CAP Tulsa will move its headquarters to four floors of the east tower. The agency is currently located at 4606 S. Garnett Road.

LIFE Senior Services will relocate its headquarters to one floor of the tower, allowing it to increase programming space at its current location at 5950 E. 31st St.

The Oklahoma Center for Nonprofits will occupy part of the second floor. The agency will offer training and space for smaller nonprofits to operate in a shared services model.

The rest of the second floor will include commons areas for collaborations between all five nonprofits.

The Assistance League of Tulsa, a nonprofit that provides school uniforms and other supplies to area students and runs a thrift shop to help fund its endeavor, will occupy the three-story Reservation Center building.

Moving into the new building will double its current space and allow it to serve more than 60,000 students each year.

The majority of the project is expected to be completed by 2020.

When Hertz Global Holdings acquired Dollar Thrifty in 2012 and moved its headquarters to Florida, there was concern about the future of the property.

We deeply mourned and were saddened by the loss of Dollar Thrifty headquarters, said Mike Neal, president and CEO of the Tulsa Regional Chamber. I could not imagine two years ago that wed be standing here with fully developed plans to make use of this complex.  We had pretty much come to the conclusion that this property would go vacant for years.

Projections from the chamber have the plaza project directly and indirectly adding 201 jobs and $16 million to the local economy in 2018 and more than 300 jobs and nearly $25 million in 2019.

It is estimated the plaza will add about $3.4 million annually to the local economy once the project is complete.
Thiruvananthapuram, Mar 31 (PTI) A top executive and eight employees of a private Malayalam TV channel were today booked in connection with the airing of alleged sleaze talk involving a Kerala Minister, who quit over the issue, police said.

The FIR has been registered against nine persons, including Mangalam channels CEO and Managing DirectorR Ajit Kumar, on a complaint by the youth wing of Nationalist Congress Party for airing "obscene conversation", they said.

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Making its debut, the channel had on March 26 aired the audio clip of the purported talk of Transport Minister A K Saseendran, NCP representative in the LDF cabinet, with a woman, following which he had resigned the same day.

In a twist to the episode, the channel had yesterday tendered an apology for airing the contents and admitted that it was a "sting operation" involving one of their women journalists and not a housewife, as it had claimed earlier.

In the complaint, the Nationalist Youth Congress (NYC) has accused the channel of having misused electronic media and airing "obscene conversation".

Police said the FIR had been registered under sections of IT Act and Indian Penal Code.

NYC also filed a complaint before the Indian Broadcasting Foundation (IBF) against Mangalam channel, alleging it had violated rules under the Cable Television Networks (Regulation) Act and had no right to function.

NYC state unit president Mujeeb Rahuman stated that the content of the conversation the channel had aired was "inappropriate" to viewers, including children.

"The contents of the said conversation were obscene and vulgar and the channel aired it after completely knowing the said fact," the complaint said.

Mangalam had violated the programme code and "does not qualify to continue as channel", it contended.

The state government had yesterday ordered a probe by a special investigation team into the alleged sleaze talk incident.

It had earlier announced a judicial inquiry by a former district judge.

Saseendran had said his resignation should not be seen as an acceptance of guilt and it was to uphold "political morality". PTI JRK UD VS KIS

--- ENDS ---
Nine has breached the Commercial TV Industry Code of Practice after broadcasting gambling ads during a kids movie on 9GO!

The Australian and Communications Media Authority found six commercials for CrownBet were shown between 7.30 pm and 8.30 pm during The Spiderwick Chronicles last September.

Starting at 6.31 pm, the film was classified PG. But the code states that gambling ads must not be broadcast during any program broadcast between 5.00 am and 8.30 pm that is principally directed to children.

The restriction on gambling adverting was expanded in the 2015 code to address community concern about childrens exposure to betting and gambling advertising, said acting ACMA Chairman, Richard Bean.

In this case, the commercials encouraged viewers to use an online betting platform to stake money on the outcome of the 2016 AFL Grand Final and the player who would score the first goal in that match. Since the code came into effect in December 2015, these types of commercials cannot be broadcast in programs principally directed to children, regardless of their classification.

The breach comes at a time when networks and government are under pressure to reduce or ban gambling ads during Live sport, amid concerns too many children are being exposed to them.

Nine indicated it has taken steps to minimise the likelihood of a repeat offence.

ACMA said as this was the first investigation it has undertaken under a new clause of the Code, it felt the matter had been sufficiently addressed.

Updated: A Nine Spokesperson said: It is disappointing to be breached as we believe we interpreted the code appropriately. Todays finding has provided clarity to ensure we protect our partners brands when placing their advertisements. We have now refined our placement protocols to reflect the decision.
Prestigious French TV event Series Mania will stage its first-ever festival outside of Europe in Melbourne in July.

The free 4 day festival, to be held at the Australian Centre for the Moving Image, will feature World Premiere screenings and Q&A events with stars, writers, producers & directors.

Series Mania showcases Dramas and Comedies hand-picked from around the world. Its 8th festival in Paris in April has 16 series in competition from over 300 submissions, including Seven Types of Ambiguity. International talent attending include Damon Lindelof, Julianna Margulies, Jimmy McGovern, Justin Theroux and Adam Price.

At its heart Series Mania brings together members of the public and industry professionals to view and discuss TV art. Last year more than 40,000 people attended in Paris, 60% of whom were public.

It opens their eyes to shows they dont know, or would like to discover, curator Francois-Pier Pelinard-Lambert told TV Tonight.

You can binge on traditional shows such as HBO but you can also be interested in a show from Italy, Ukraine or Korea.

Approximately 70% of the shows we are screening during the festival are later available one way or another in Europe, whether on a platform, DVD (or more). So we try to open their eyes.

While it has staged screenings in Montreal and plans other events in Odessa, Buenos Aires and Tel Aviv, the Melbourne event is the first stand-alone festival outside Europe and will include the Jury Prize and Audience Award.

Programme titles are yet to be announced.

Im trying to have some World Premieres for Melbourne and bring the best of Series Mania, and we have a competition (element), which The Kettering Incident won last year, he said.

It will open with an Australian premiere. There are some programmes still in production that could be ready ahead of their release. So we are working out with producers and TV channels which programme could launch the festival.

In programming French events, Lambert has always taken an interest in Australian drama and comedy, which has in turn generated wider interest and sales.

Most of the biggest names in talent, production or channels have been to Paris for the presentations of their series: ABC, Foxtel, Imogen Banks, Todd Abbott, Tony Ayres, the Cleverman team and Kettering Incident, he said. They started to spread the word.

A lot of people discovered Australian drama when they came to Series Mania and the way they responded said to the channels and buyers that there was a lot of interest. When The Slap, The Code or Miss Fisher were first shown in Paris they had not been bought in France yet. But they became a big success.

So what is it about Australian drama that appeals to foreign audiences?

They mix the best of English and American television but they do it their own way, Lambert explained. The thing that is very interesting is the more local a show is, the better it works. Underbelly was very successful in France, but when the rights were available for remake they couldnt manage to do it. At the core its Melbourne. Its the way the city is working and the way people are living.

East West 101 is a very Australian show with the 2 guys working in the police who are heavily influenced by their background, which is heavily influenced by Australian culture.

10 or 20 years ago when you had an interest in another culture you went to an arthouse film.

But the window to other cultures now is linked to television series.

ACMI CEO and Director Katrina Sedgwick said today: We are experiencing a golden age of television around the world right now, as this medium rapidly expands into new platforms. Were delighted to partner with Film Victoria to bring Series Mania to Melbourne. Our audiences will preview some of the best series coming to our screens in the year to come  and discover stunning international TV that we might not ever see otherwise.

Film Victoria CEO Jenni Tosi said: Victoria is the home of fantastic Australian drama so bringing the best of Series Mania 2017 to Melbourne is a real coup. Film Victoria and ACMI are natural partners for this event, and we know Melbourne audiences and filmmakers will relish the opportunity to view and discuss the best of TV drama from around the world.

Series Mania Melbourne will take place from 20 to 24 July at the Australian Centre for the Moving Image.

The full program and tickets will be available Monday 3 July 2017 at acmi.net.au/seriesmania

Entry is free but audiences are encouraged to book early to avoid disappointment.
This weekend Sunday Night meets three boys with Tourettes Syndrome, including The Voice runner-up Adam Ladell.

The Three Amigos

Vocal outbursts, uncontrollable swearing, twitching, head shaking, involuntary and repetitive movements and sounds, even momentary paralysis. This is all part of a normal day for young Aussies Adam, James and Cameron. They call themselves The Three Amigos. Best mates living with the bizarre, misunderstood and frustrating neurological disorder, Tourettes. Their constant tics and uncontrollable outbursts made their lives hell. They would dread catching public transport, going to school, visiting a cafe, shopping centre or cinema. That is, until they met each other. Sunday Nights Rahni Sadler will introduce Australia to the most inspiring mates, breaking down barriers and helping others to face the world they feared.

Arnies Back, baby

He was the ultimate muscleman  with charisma to match. Arnold Schwarzenegger inspired a generation of body builders before he conquered Hollywood. Now hes got a whole new legion of followers  women who have discovered the joys of pumping iron. And theres none more dedicated than mother-of-four, Sophie Guidolin. As Denham Hitchcock reports, Sophie never dreamed that one day shed be out there, on centre stage, strutting her stuff alongside the tanned, taut and terrific.

Murdered in Plain Sight

Two beautiful women, the worlds deadliest poison and a paranoid dictator. Its a chilling story of espionage and intrigue. The killing of North Korean leader Kim Jong Uns half-brother Kim Jong Nam is almost out of the pages of a gripping spy novel. Murder doesnt get more brazen than this. An assassination carried out by two young women inside a major international airport, using a weapon of mass destruction. Sunday Nights Steve Pennells reports on the very bizarre and very public assassination and speaks to those on the inside.

Sunday at 8.30pm on Seven.
Another true crime story, on 60 Minutes, campaigns against the release of the killer of Bondi schoolgirl Samantha Knight.

Samantha Knight  Never Forgotten

If she was still alive, Samantha Knight would have turned 40 a few days ago. Instead she will always be remembered as the bright and beautiful nine-year-old girl from Bondi who one day in August 1986 simply vanished. Her disappearance led to one of the largest police investigations and searches in New South Wales history but her body has still not been found. In 2001, the notorious paedophile Michael Guider was charged with Samanthas murder, and six months later pleaded guilty to manslaughter, claiming he hadnt meant to kill the little girl. Guider showed no remorse over the crime, but plenty of callousness  he said he simply couldnt remember what he did with her body. Michael Guider is now 66 years old and, having spent the last 21 years in prison, convicted of more than 75 sexual offences against more than a dozen children, is about to become eligible for parole. In a 60 Minutes exclusive, Ross Coulthart tracks down the key witness in the investigation: the man Guider confessed his crimes to. As well, and for the first time, another of Guiders child victims speaks publicly about how he destroyed her life. Coultharts interviews provide a chilling insight into the mind of an evil paedophile, and powerful testimony to keep Michael Guider locked up.

Reporter: Ross Coulthart

Producer: Garry McNab

Waist Not, Want Not

Being beautiful can be very bad for your health, according to the 24-year-old French model Victoire Macon Dauxerre. Actually, she is now an ex-model. Her fashion faux pas was to write a bestselling book exposing the ugly secrets of her profession, and explaining how the demands of being a model very nearly killed her. Victoire tells Tara Brown about the inhumane treatment of young girls in a cutthroat business where careers are made or broken on the whim of agents, photographers and clothing designers. But when Tara asks one fashion industry icon for a response to Victoires claims, she ends up receiving a thin-skinned temper tantrum.

Reporter: Tara Brown

Producers: Stefanie Sgroi, Eliza Berkery

Broken Justice

Beth Staveley was a 68-year-old grandmother living happily on the Gold Coast with her partner of 20 years, Dennis Wakefield. But one day in June 2014, as she slept in her bed, Wakefield attacked and killed her. For police it seemed to be a tragic but straightforward domestic violence incident and Wakefield was charged with murder. However the case didnt proceed to trial in the normal criminal system. Instead the matter was dealt with in a 30-minute hearing in Queenslands little-known Mental Health Court. Dennis Wakefield, who had never been diagnosed with a mental illness, went from being a killer to a patient. Now, just three years on from the killing, Ross Coulthart discovers that Wakefield is back out in the community, living in an aged care facility. Alarmingly, neither the management of the home nor any of its other residents had a clue there was a killer living among them, until contacted by 60 Minutes. Coultharts investigation raises serious questions about Queenslands judicial and health systems, as he attempts to find out why the wellbeing of a violent killer has seemingly overtaken consideration for the safety of the rest of the community.

Reporter: Ross Coulthart

Producer: Laura Sparkes

8:10pm Sunday on Nine.
Later this month Aussie chef John Torode embarks on his latest food adventure in John Torodes Korean Food Tour, a 10-part cookery series on Lifestyle FOOD.

Tapping in to the growing popularity of Korean food, John Torodes Korean Food Tour follows the UK based MasterChef judge as he jets off on one of his culinary travels to tackle a whole new territory and range of dishes.

Throughout the series John works his way through some of the nations top 100 dishes and then creates his own version of a Korean classic with a modern twist.

For the uninitiated, South Korea is a beautiful assault on the senses and one that John relishes in the series. From Buddhist temples to the extraordinary craze for Mokbang (celebrities filming and broadcasting themselves eating), theres a huge amount to see, do and eat.

Immersing himself in both traditional and modern Korea, John travels around South Korea, going into peoples homes and kitchens, enjoying the wealth and high tech splendour of Seoul to the tiny rural outposts deep in the mountains and the beach resort of Busan in the South.

From traditional Tofu makers, to the extraordinary quantities of Kimchi made every autumn for Korean store cupboards, to the Korean version of glamping with delicious barbecue food, as well as the Buddhist monkswho make barugongyang for their guests, the series is a gastronomic feast, not just for John but for viewers as well.

John Torode is a hugely popular and influential figure on the UK culinary circuit, best known as the straight-talking co-host and judge of twelve seasons of BBC1s MasterChef, Celebrity MasterChef and Junior MasterChef. Australian by birth, John is credited as one of the main players in introducing Australasian food to the UK in the mid-1990s.

John is also well known to Australian audiences, with John Torode Australia and John Torodes Malaysian Adventure having previously aired on Lifestyle FOOD.

Wednesday, April 26 at 8.30pm on Lifestyle FOOD.
Comedian Cal Wilson (Whose Line is it Anyway? Australia) will host this years Australian Directors Guild Awards in May.

The awards take place in Melbourne on Friday 5 May again at the Sofitel Melbourne on Collins

Nominees in the 15 Award categories will be announced next week, with judging by panels of industry peers.
The Prime Minister has asked the BJP MPs to be active on social media and highlight their personal initiatives and the government's policies for the constituency, using the medium.

By Brijesh Pandey, Anindya Banerjee: Prime Minister Narendra Modi has already sounded the poll bugle for 2019. On Friday he met the BJP MPs from the states of Jharkhand, Odisha, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Telangana, at his residence for 'breakfast pe charcha', in which he discussed the poll strategy for the 2019 general elections.

Interestingly, most of these states do not have the BJP government at their helm, making the meeting even more significant given the fact that BJP is eyeing big in these states for the 2019 elections.

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Mobile-Friendly Government

According to the sources, the message from PM Modi at today's meeting was pretty loud and clear.

"Use mobile technology as that's the medium the youth of this country use," the PM said.

Sources in the PMO has told India Today that the PM has asked the MPs, present at the meeting, to be active on social media and highlight their personal initiatives and the government's policies for the constituency, using the medium. They have added that the PM said that elections in 2019 will be fought through mobile.

Agenda Of The Meetings

In all these meetings, Modi reiterates one message that the MPs are to highlight Modi government's pro-poor and pro-backward communities policies. The intention is to reinforce the BJP government's 'get rid of the suit boot ki sarkar' slogan and project the government as downtrodden before next general election.

The government is all the more confident after the schemes like 'Ujwala Yojna' paying political dividend in the state of Uttar Pradesh. Now, the BJP top rank is hoping to replicate this success in the general elections as well, owing to which in today's meeting, the MPs were asked to find out women-beneficiaries of Ujwala Yojna and congregate them so they can share their personal experiences.

Earlier BJP MPs from other states like Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh and Chattisgarh met the prime minister over breakfast. After which a statement attributing to PM Modi was released, which read, "BJP members should study facts and understand the Opposition's lies. They should take this to the people. They should inform the masses that the Central government is working for the poor" .

As told by the sources, the PM believes that there's a lot of misinformation spread by the opposition regarding Goods and Services Tax (GST), that may hurt BJP politically in the next general election and the MPs should clear the air and explain the benefits of the bill in their respective constituencies.

ALSO READ| After UP election, BJP prepares a fresh Dalit-oriented strategy eyeing 2019 polls

ALSO READ| Modi favourite for 2019 Lok Sabha elections: US experts

--- ENDS ---

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A Victorian coroner has criticised Nine News journalist for having a series of phone conversations with a gunman while police were trying to negotiate with him.

Nine News Melbourne chief of staff Kate McGrath spoke to convicted rapist Antonio Tony Loguancio while he was barricaded in a Glenroy bungalow in March 2013. McGrath spoke with him a number of times, including in one call lasting 54 minutes.

Coroner Audrey Jamieson found McGraths communication with Loguancio, which he initiated, had been inappropriate and disruptive to the police operation, but cleared her of contributing to his death.

It ultimately amounted to an opportunistic exploitation of a significant police incident, executed by Ms McGrath without any consideration for the fact that she may be compromising police endeavours to have Tony surrender himself, Coroner Audrey Jamieson said.

Ms. McGraths contact with Tony  was conducted to the exclusion of negotiators and limited their already precarious ability to engage and negotiate with Tony.

McGrath had earlier told the inquest she had contacted police after her initial conversation with Loguancio to seek advice on what to tell him.

Loguancio, 40, fatally shot himself after the 43-hour siege.

Judge Jamieson recommended the Australian Press Council set stricter standards around journalists interfering with police operations.

A Nine spokesperson said, The Nine Network accepts the findings of the Coroner.

We take our responsibilities as a broadcaster very seriously and would never seek to disrupt a police investigation.

We immediately notified and sought guidance from police. We maintain that our staff acted in a responsible manner at all times and are pleased that the Coroner found that the actions of our staff were in no way a causative factor in the outcome.

Lifeline: 131114

beyondblue.org.au

Source: ABC
EXCLUSIVE: David Koch has been detained by US Immigration officials in Honolulu, over a possible error with his passport.

The Sunrise host arrived last night, Australian time, with Sam Armytage and producer Michael Pell at Honolulu International Airport ahead of filming in Waikiki on Monday. Sunrise has been feverishly promising a Mystery Tour next week, with broadcast sites across the US, voted by viewers.

But after touching down in Hawaii late last night Koch was escorted by Customs and Border Protection officers to a holding room for questioning. The issue is understood to centre around a passport expiration date of less than six months, and unless resolved could jeopardise his appearance on the Mystery Tour broadcasts.

Koch is believed to have thought his validity for the one week stay was sufficient, with producers pleading his case and stressing the publicity the show could offer in terms of tourism.

But sources said officials were following President Trumps hardline border policy and were disinterested in the shows plans to showcase American cities telling Koch, This isnt Oprah.

Last night lawyers for Seven were scrambling calls to Foreign Minister Julie Bishop and the US Embassy to try to free Koch in time for the broadcast, 9:30am Sunday US time. Sevens top brass, already in damage control over several legal cases on home turf, were privately hoping the drama did not turn into our 60 Minutes.

Contingency plans are being put into place. Larry Emdur is en route as we speak, a source said. Thankfully he wasnt invited to Peter Stefanovic & Sylvia Jeffreys wedding and jumped on a plane.

Calls to influential Sunrise pals Justin Bieber, Katy Perry and Sia went unanswered, although Lynne McGranger offered to help.

Meanwhile Sam Armytage has taken to wearing a hessian sack and chaining herself to Nelson Aspen, in sympathy for her colleague.

Free Kochie now or I will be forced to reprise my Sex and the City sketch! she demanded.

The Cash Cow declined to comment.

Update 11:55am: Yep, April Fools. Thanks for playing along once again, everybody!

Photo: Roberto Parlavecchio.
| By Alex Likowski

The reality of life in the operating room is about to look more like virtual reality, as leaders in clinical medicine at the University of Maryland, Baltimore (UMB) and colleagues with expertise in computing and imaging at the University of Maryland, College Park (UMCP) work together on lifesaving technologies. Several examples of virtual reality and augmented reality applications were demonstrated on March 27 to a small gathering at the Newseum in Washington, D.C.

Sarah Murthi, MD, associate professor at the University of Maryland School of Medicine (UMSOM) and trauma surgeon at the R Adams Cowley Shock Trauma Center, let visitors see for themselves how an ultrasound examination looks with the addition of augmented reality. With the help of volunteer patient Eric Lee, a research programmer at the UM Institute for Advanced Computer Studies (UMIACS) in College Park, Murthi demonstrated visualization headgear. Using the headgear, doctors can keep their eyes on the patient while seeing images of the ultrasound  and potentially much more information added to their view. (Photo gallery)

Sarah Murthi, MD explains the augmented reality technology used to perform an ultrasound scan on volunteer "patient" Eric Lee.

Ultimately, you can imagine the whole medical staff wearing these masks. And then whoever wants to can see the imaging. Right now the entire room is trying to look at this one display, but if we could all actually see the images then we could do whatever else we need to do while were looking at it, Murthi said. Keeping all of the critical information about a patient in plain view might also help avoid problems doctors currently encounter, such as missing changes in vital signs while focusing on an ultrasound scan. The other real thing that happens is that youll be all caught up in the imaging and meanwhile the patients blood pressure drops and they become unstable, she said.

Next to Murthi, colleague Caron Hong, MD, associate professor at UMSOM and a critical care anesthesiologist at Shock Trauma, helped visitors use virtual reality goggles to place an endotracheal tube through the mouth of a medical mannequin and into its airway. Intubation is a common procedure, used when a patient needs assistance breathing, that requires considerable practice to master. Its like driving a car with a trailer backing up, complained Newseum President and CEO Jeffery Herbst as he gave the procedure a try.

Both doctors also stressed the great educational value of virtual and augmented reality. Once this virtual world is created and it can rebroadcast in real time, a thousand people could watch at the same time and learn whatever lesson they needed to learn, said Murthi.

Following the demonstrations, Murthi and collaboration partner Amitabh Varshney, PhD, professor of computer science, director, Augmentarium, and vice president for research at UMCP, joined colleagues from other universities to share accomplishments and ideas. Varshney explained that he and Murthi are working on several projects together. One of them is looking at re-creating the controlled chaos of the Shock Trauma Center by using immersive camera arrays, he said. By recording exactly what happens in Shock Trauma it would allow residents and interns to place themselves in the shoes of a surgeon and see what they are looking at and what decisions they are making as they are performing these surgeries.

Murthi added that a combination of virtual and augmented reality may one day support the care of battlefield patients. First responders on the ground might use augmented reality to see important data and imaging while treating and transporting patients. At the same time, advanced medial staff at a remote location could use virtual reality to see what first responders are seeing and provide valuable insight and information to first responders.

Other medical uses for virtual reality around the country were discussed, including the use of three-dimensional mapping to plan and practice brain surgery, developing clinically guided scenarios for soldiers experiencing Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, and reducing the experience of pain during burn treatments by engaging patients in interactive virtual reality games.

Our focus has been to look for technologies that we could have in hospitals soon, in the next year or so since a lot of this equipment already exists, said Murthi. The question is how can we use it and develop it so we can already start saving lives.

About the Augmentarium

Much of the work of Varshney and his UMIACS colleagues takes place at UMCPs Augmentarium, a research and teaching facility used to conceptualize, design, and build immersive, interactive technologies. Initial funding for the Augmentarium came from the National Science Foundation. Funding for current projects underway is from the University of Maryland Strategic Partnership: MPowering the State.

About The University of Maryland Strategic Partnership: MPowering the State

The University of Maryland Strategic Partnership: MPowering the State is a collaboration between the state of Marylands two most powerful public research institutions: the University of Maryland, Baltimore (UMB) and the University of Maryland, College Park (UMCP). It leverages the sizable strengths and complementary missions of both institutions to advance interdisciplinary research, create opportunities for students, and solve important problems for the people of Maryland and the nation. Working together, UMB and UMCP achieve innovation and impact through collaboration.

The University of Maryland Strategic Partnership Act of 2016 strengthened and formalized the structured relationship between UMB and UMCP, which began in 2012. The law deepens the alliance and energizes UMB and UMCP to pursue even greater transformative change and impact, far surpassing what each institution could do independent of each other.
Former South Korean President Park Geun-hye was arrested today, and an election to find her successor will be conducted in May.

By AP: South Korea's disgraced former President Park Geun-hye was arrested and jailed Friday over high-profile corruption allegations that already ended her tumultuous four-year rule and prompted an election to find her successor.

A convoy of vehicles, including a black sedan carrying Park, entered a detention facility near Seoul after the Seoul Central District Court granted prosecutors' request to arrest her.

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Many Park supporters waved national flags and shouted "president" as Park's car entered the facility.

Prosecutors can detain her for up to 20 days before formally charging her, meaning she will likely be in jail while her case is heard. A district court normally issues a ruling within six months of an indictment.

HUMILIATING FALL

The Seoul court's decision is yet another humiliating fall for Park, South Korea's first female president who was elected in 2012 amid overwhelming support from conservatives, who recall her dictator father as a hero who lifted the country from poverty in the 1960-70s despite a record of severe human rights abuses.

Prosecutors accuse Park of colluding with a confidante to extort big businesses, take a bribe from one of the companies and commit other wrongdoing. The allegations led millions of South Koreans to protest in the streets every weekend for months before lawmakers impeached her in December and the Constitutional Court ruled in March to formally remove her from office.

It made Park the country's first democratically elected leader to be forced from office since democracy came here in the late 1980s. South Korea will hold an election in May to choose Park's successor. Opinion surveys say liberal opposition leader Moon Jae-in, who lost the 2012 election to Park, is the favorite.

Prosecutors can charge Park without arresting her. But they said they wanted to arrest her because the allegations against her are "grave" and because other suspects involved the scandal, including her confidante Choi Soon-sil and Samsung heir Lee Jae-yong, have already been arrested.

The Seoul court said it decided to approve Park's arrest because it believes key allegations against her were confirmed and there were worries that she may try to destroy evidence.

Park's conservative party described her arrest as "pitiful," while the liberal politician favored in polls to succeed her said the country took a step toward restoring "justice and common sense."

SOUTH KOREA SHOULD 'TURN THE PAGE ON PAINFUL HISTORY,' SAYS RIVAL

The camp of Moon Jae-in, who lost the 2012 presidential race to Park, said in a statement that the nation should now "turn the page on painful history" and focus on creating a fair and clean country.

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A day earlier, Park was questioned at a court hearing for nearly nine hours. As she left for the hearing, hundreds of her supporters, many of them elderly citizens, gathered at her private Seoul home. They wept, chanted slogans and tried to block Park's car before being pushed back by police.

In the coming weeks, prosecutors are expected to formally charge Park with extortion, bribery and abuse of power. Her bribery conviction alone is punishable by the minimum 10 years in prison and the maximum life imprisonment in South Korea.

Prosecutors believe Park conspired with Choi and a top presidential adviser to bully 16 business groups, including Samsung, to donate 77.4 billion won ($69 million) for the launch of two nonprofits that Choi controlled. Company executives said they felt forced to donate in fear of retaliatory measures including state tax investigations.

Park and Choi are accused of separately receiving a bribe from Samsung and colluding with top officials to blacklist artists critical of Park's policies to deny them state financial assistance programs, according to prosecutors. Park also is alleged to have passed on state secrets to Choi via a presidential aide.

Park and Choi deny most of the allegations. Park has said she only let Choi edit some of her presidential speeches and got her help on "public relations" issues. Choi made similar statements.

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40-YEAR FRIENDSHIP

The women, both in their 60s, have been friends for 40 years. Park once described Choi as someone who helped her when she had "difficulties," an apparent reference to her parents' assassinations in the 1970s.

Park's father, Chung-hee, was gunned down by his own intelligence chief in 1979, five years after his wife was killed in an assassination attempt that targeted him. Park Geun-hye served as first lady after her mother's death.

After her father's killing, Park Geun-hye left the presidential Blue House and secluded herself from the public eye before she entered politics in the late 1990s - when public nostalgia for her father emerged after the country's economy was hit hard by the Asian financial crisis.

She had since become an icon of South Korean conservatives, earning the nickname "Queen of Elections" for her ability to led her conservative party to win tight elections.

Park now becomes South Korea's third head of state to be jailed after leaving office.

Former presidents Chun Doo-hwan and Roh Tae-woo, both previously army generals, received a life sentence and a 17-year prison term, respectively, in 1996 on charges including treason and bribery. They were released in December 1997 on a special presidential amnesty.

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Chun and Roh staged a 1979 coup that put Chun in power more than eight years after Park Chung-hee's death. Roh was elected president in 1987 after Chun's government caved to massive pro-democracy protests and accepted direct, free elections.

In 2009, prosecutors questioned former liberal President Roh Moo-hyun over corruption allegations, but they later closed the investigation after Roh leaped to his death.

ALSO READ | South Korea's President Park Geun-hye impeached in parliamentary vote

ALSO READ | South Korea's former President Park Geun-hye arrested; election to appoint successor in May

ALSO WATCH | North Korea conducts fifth nuclear test, causes seismic tremors

--- ENDS ---
Jim Estill may have helped to resettle 58 refugee families in the Canadian city of Guelph, but he insists he has not done anything remarkable. Instead, the entrepreneur defers praise to the people he works with. I am just really good at shaking hands," he says, smiling.

A life-long entrepreneur and now CEO of an appliance company, Estill decided around 18 months ago to sponsor Syrian refugees fleeing their war-ravaged homeland. After doing the rough math, he estimated he could help bring more than 200 Syrians to Guelph.

It was no mean feat, coming in at a cost of Canadian $1.5 million. But he says the cascading events surrounding the war, coupled with a fear that he was not doing enough to help during a humanitarian crisis, prompted him to act.

I do it because I believe in doing the right thing," he says. And this is the right thing to do. You cant stand by and do nothing.

"I do it because I believe in doing the right thing  You cant stand by and do nothing."

As Estill began to put his resettlement plans into practice, the local Islamic centre quickly became a close ally. Despite a busy schedule of caring for three children at home, Sara Sayyed was one of the volunteers who lent a hand. Her deft organizational skills soon led Estill to make her the director of directors for the fledgling volunteer group. Before long, she was managing 800 volunteers. Its definitely a full time job, she says.

Meet the Canadian businessmen who sponsored over 200 Syrian refugees

Together, Estill and Sayyed realized that many refugees who arrive in Canada, after years of yearning for work and a steady income, need to learn English before venturing into the workforce.

For many, its a difficult choice, says Sayyed. English class or getting a job. We asked ourselves  how can we do both?

The pair decided to see what would happen if the entrepreneurial itch was scratched. The result was a homegrown programme called Ease Into Canada  a way for refugees to earn a steady paycheck at Estills warehouse and learn on-the-job English.

Estill trained the new arrivals, trying to place them as close to their field as possible, all with the added benefit of immersion in a language-rich environment. Most worked on the warehouse floor assembling packaging, but others found work in accounting or IT systems.

You're not trying to create dependency, says Estill. You're trying to work people to independence. Independence is being able to pay your own way. Paying your own rent, buying your own groceries  that is success.

The refugees gingerly navigated the noises and language of the warehouse floor, learning to be careful of forklifts and how to use the machinery.

Jim Estill has sponsored more than 200 Syrian refugees.  UNHCR/Annie Sakkab

Jim Estill speaks with employees at the company warehouse.  UNHCR/Annie Sakkab

Syrian workers box up products at the Danby Appliances warehouse.  UNHCR/Annie Sakkab

Donations from the local community quickly overwhelmed volunteers helping to resettle Syrian refugees in Guelph.  UNHCR/Annie Sakkab

Muhammed Sayyed, president of the Muslim Society of Guelph, walks through the warehouse space used by volunteers helping to resettle Syrian refugees.  UNHCR/Annie Sakkab

I promised myself and my family, we are going do everything we can here and maybe somebody will help us, says Ahmad of his first days in Guelph. Soon, he had a full-time job. When I started working, everyone knew me  I wasn't a stranger. They knew my name. And right away, we are like brothers here. We work and we laugh together.

Part of the success of the programme is location. For those fleeing the chaos of war, Guelph is a haven  a quiet city, often ranked as one of the best places in Canada to live. It has low crime rates, a mild climate and, most importantly, one of the lowest unemployment rates in the country. Companies are hungry for new talent and the refugees fill an economic gap. Estill was able to utilize his business contacts, striking deals with other companies to take Syrian workers  for every translator provided, local companies would hire four employees.

As the Syrians arrived, the community rallied and local storage space soon overflowed with donations. We got so much stuff donated to the mosque that it soon became a fire hazard, says Sayyed. Bags and bags just showed up."

Our community has drawn together because of this The churches, the mosque, the synagogue and the Sikh temple  every group has helped.

Faith was no barrier. Our community has drawn together because of this, says Estil. I went to the churches, the mosque, the synagogue and the Sikh temple  every group has helped.

Even after resettling 48 of the planned 58 families, donations continue. Volunteers navigate floor-to-ceiling stacks of mattresses, chairs, kitchenware and clothing. Brand new winter boots sit unworn in boxes. But Estill continues to eschew the spotlight, only agreeing to interviews with major networks in the hope that others might help out.

Firas al Mohammed, one of Guelph's recent arrivals, will never forget Estill's life-changing help.

He picked me up from the unknown," he says. "He led me to a clear future and stable life.
Burundian refugees queue in Nyarugusu camp in Tanzania to receive their LPG cylinder rations.  UNHCR/Mariam Khokhar

NYARUGUSU, Tanzania - Juliet wakes up at the crack of dawn and busies herself preparing breakfast for her children. Things are a little different this morning; there are no crackling sounds of burning firewood or endless puffs of choking smoke. For the first time in her life, Juliet is using a brand new Liquified Petroleum Gas (LPG) cylinder to cook.

I am very thankful that now my family and I can cook without worrying about collecting firewood, she says. Juliet is a Burundian refugee living in Nyarugusu camp in Tanzania with her nine children. She is one of 15,000 refugees who have received LPG cylinders through an initiative by UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, that aims to curb environmental degradation in the camp. The project which started in December 2016, targets over 3,000 refugee families from Burundi and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

For decades, refugees living in the Kigoma region where the camp is located have been using firewood as their main source of energy, particularly for cooking. This has had a negative impact on the environment due to high rates of deforestation.

I am very thankful that now my family and I can cook without worrying about collecting firewood.

Juliet, just like other women in the camp, has had to rely heavily on firewood to cook. This has made her adjustment to life in the camp difficult, as is the case with most refugees. Her journey to safety has been long, repeated and scarring. My family first fled from Burundi in 1972 to escape the war, she says. She had to flee severally, following a series of conflicts between 1996 to 2015. Life is difficult. We, refugees, have to live a very challenging life.

Juliet cooks lunch for her family using the LPG cylinder provided by UNHCR  UNHCR/Agnes Mwangoka

However, this new initiative has given Juliet some much needed relief. She and her daughter no longer have to walk far to fetch firewood. Sometimes we were chased away by farm owners, sometimes even arrested, says her daughter, Maria who now has more time to help with the household chores.

The LPG project is not just providing refugees with alternative sources of fuel; it is a way of ensuring their protection. Women and children would previously travel at least 10 kilometres to collect firewood. This exposed them to increased protection risks, particularly Sexual and Gender Based Violence (SGBV).

Chansa Kapaya, the UNHCR Representative in Tanzania explains that firewood collection and cooking is the responsibility of women and girls in most refugee camps globally. Having little access to clean and sustainable solutions, they spend hours each day gathering firewood and are most affected by the negative consequences of firewood collection and health hazards of open fire cooking, she further explains.

Having little access to clean and sustainable solutions, they spend hours each day gathering firewood.

The project has greatly lessened the need for women and children to expose themselves to such risks while reducing the rate of environmental degradation.

Like Juliet, most of the refugee families are using the LPG gas stoves for the first time. I have received a gas stove to cook. I had never used a gas stove before, she says. But thanks to trainings organized by UNHCR and partner agencies, she is happy that she can now cook a lot faster. She has more time to take care of other household chores. The stove does not have the usual choking smoke as compared to cooking with firewood. This has resulted in a cleaner and healthier home for me and my children.

UNHCR conducted a review of the projects impact in February 2017; early indications show that families are pleased with using the cylinders and that most large-sized families of seven are able to use the six kilograms cylinder for two weeks. Additionally, since the project started, there has been a 70 per cent drop in the number of families collecting firewood - a significant reduction in the overall amount of firewood being collected. More interestingly, the number of children under 17 who used to collect firewood for their families has dropped from 21 percent to three per cent.

I hope UNHCR can distribute the gas cylinder to every family so that all our children can have a better life in the camp.

An LPG set is comprised of one full LPG cylinder, a burner and ignitor. However, at approximately 34 US dollars per set and nine US dollars per refill, more funding is needed to keep up with the growing demand to support all refugees across the three camps.

LPG use for refugees is one of the few ways we are moving towards meeting the objective of universal energy access, UNHCRs Kapaya says. She stresses the need for more funding to enhance the projects impact. Now, more than ever, support from our partners and donors is vital to ensure that we meet this objective as well as enhance efforts to mitigate against protection risks associated with firewood collection such as SGBV.

Juliet echoes these sentiments. I hope UNHCR can distribute the gas cylinder to every family so that all our children can have a better life in the camp, she says, pointing to her cooking set proudly.

*Refugee's name changed for protection reasons.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres visits a children's project at UNHCR's Hasansham U3 camp in northern Iraq.  Laila Ali/UNICEF

HASANSHAM CAMP, Iraq  United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres today called on the international community to do more to help the suffering people of Mosul, hundreds of thousands of whom have been uprooted from their homes in the ongoing battle to for control of Iraqs second city.

These people have suffered enormously and they go on suffering. We need more solidarity from the international community, Guterres said during a short visit to the Hasansham U3 camp in northern Iraq, which shelters more than 9,000 people forced to flee their homes in Mosul.

There is a huge effort by the regional government [of Kurdistan], a huge effort by the NGOs, a huge effort by UN agencies but we dont have the resources that are necessary to support these people, he added.

Guterres, who served for a decade as UN High Commissioner for Refugees from 2005 to 2015, arrived in Iraq as record numbers have been driven from their homes by the conflict in Mosul.

These people have suffered enormously and they go on suffering. We need more solidarity from the international community.

More than 350,000 people have been displaced from the city and its surrounding areas since military operations began on October 17, of whom 76,000 have since returned. Of those currently displaced from Mosul, almost three quarters  just over 286,000  were displaced from west Mosul since operations to retake the western part of the city started on February 19.

At a moment when deep solidarity with Iraq is needed from the international community, Guterres said UN operations in the country are just 8 per cent funded. That shows how limited our resources are compared to the tragedy these people are facing, he said.

Intensified fighting in the western part of Mosul and extreme food shortages have resulted in a surge of families leaving the city, many with just the clothes on their backs.

In response to the unfolding displacement crisis, UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, is speeding up construction of several new camps and expanding other sites in anticipation of another mass influx of as many as a quarter of a million people in the coming weeks.

One new camp will open this weekend, at Hammam al-Alil 2, to help ease overcrowding at an existing government-built camp. The site is also the main transit and screening centre for families who have fled west Mosul. The camp will initially house 10,000 people, with capacity to expand to shelter 30,000. Another camp, Hasansham U2, will open in mid April, to house 9,000 people.

Concluding his visit, Guterres stressed that solidarity with both those liberating Mosul and suffering civilians was needed, together with cooperation in order to guarantee protection of those civilians and, at the same time, solidarity with the victims and creating the conditions for reconciliation.

Everything requires a much larger commitment from the international community and that commitment is not just being generous. No, it is in the enlightened self-interest of everybody because the terrorist threats we see in Mosul are the same as the terrorist threat we see everywhere in the world.
Calling it an "incredible milestone in the history of space", SpaceX founder Elon Musk on Thursday successfully launched its first recycled rocket.

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket blasts off from Kennedy Space Center in Titusville, Fla., Thursday, March 30, 2017. SpaceX launched its first recycled rocket Thursday

By AP: SpaceX successfully launched its first recycled rocket Thursday, the biggest leap yet in its bid to drive down costs and speed up flights.

The Falcon 9 blasted off from Florida's Kennedy Space Center, hoisting a broadcasting satellite into the clear early evening sky on the historic rocket reflight.

It was the first time SpaceX founder Elon Musk tried to fly a booster that soared before on an orbital mission. Musk called it an "incredible milestone in the history of space" after the booster landed on the bull's-eye of the ocean platform following liftoff, just off the east Florida coast.

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Musk added: "This is going to be a huge revolution in spaceflight."

THE LANDING

This particular first stage landed on an ocean platform almost exactly a year ago after a space station launch for NASA. SpaceX refurbished and tested the 15-foot booster, still sporting its nine original engines.

It nailed another vertical landing at sea Thursday once it was finished boosting the satellite for the SES company of Luxembourg. SpaceX employees jammed outside Mission Control at the company's Southern California headquarters, cheering loudly every step of the way - and again when the satellite reached its proper orbit.

Longtime customer SES got a discount for agreeing to use a salvaged rocket, but wouldn't say how much. It's not just about the savings, said chief technology officer Martin Halliwell.

Halliwell called it "a big step for everybody - something that's never, ever been done before."

SpaceX granted SES insight into the entire process of getting the booster ready to fly again, Halliwell said, providing confidence everything would go well. SES, in fact, is considering more launches later this year on reused Falcon boosters.

Boosters - the most expensive part of the rocket, according to Musk - typically are discarded following liftoff, sinking into the Atlantic. SpaceX began flying back the Falcon's first-stage, kerosene-fueled boosters in 2015; it's since landed eight boosters, three at Cape Canaveral and five on ocean platforms - actually, six times at sea counting Thursday's redo.

The company is working on a plan to recycle even more Falcon parts, like the satellite enclosure. For now, the second stage used to get the satellite into the proper, high orbit is abandoned.

Blue Origin, an aerospace company started by another tech billionaire, Jeff Bezos, already has reflown a rocket. One of his New Shepard rockets, in fact, has soared five times from Texas. These flights, however, were suborbital.

NASA also has shared the quest for rocket reusability. During the space shuttle program, the twin booster rockets dropped away two minutes into flight and parachuted into the Atlantic for recovery. The booster segments were mixed and matched for each flight.

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As for this SpaceX reused booster, Halliwell said engineers went through it with a fine-toothed comb. SES has a long history with SpaceX. A SES satellite was on board for SpaceX's first commercial launch in 2013.

SpaceX - which aims to launch up to six reused boosters this year - is familiar with uncharted territory.

Besides becoming the first commercial cargo hauler to the International Space Station, SpaceX is building a capsule to launch NASA astronauts as soon as next year. It's also working to fly two paying customers to the moon next year, and is developing the Red Dragon, a robotic spacecraft intended to launch to Mars in 2020 and land. Musk's ultimate goal is to establish a human settlement on Mars.

Key to all of this, according to Musk, is the rapid, repeating turnaround of rockets - and employees. SpaceX posted a help wanted ad on its webcast following the launch.

ALSO READ | SpaceX returns to space for first time after explosion

ALSO WATCH | SpaceX's attempt to land a rocket on floating platform fails

--- ENDS ---
The top court declined to restore Justice Karnan's administrative and judicial work and give him four weeks to respond to its contempt notice.

By India Today Web Desk: The Supreme Court today declined to restore administrative and judicial work to Calcutta High Court Judge CS Karnan, against whom the top court issued a bailable warrant in a contempt case earlier this month.

A seven-judge-bench led by Chief Justice of India (CJI) Jagdish Singh Khehar gave him four weeks to respond to its contempt notice.

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After his requests to have his work restored weren't accepted, Karnan said he wouldn't appear before the bench next time, and that he could be imprisoned.

Justice Karnan is accused of writing disparaging letters to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad, and the Supreme Court Registrar about sitting and retired judges of the Supreme and High Courts. In some cases, he even levelled allegations of corruption and caste discrimination. He had also stayed the top court collegium's decision transferring him from the Madras High Court to the Calcutta High Court.

'WE WILL GIVE YOU THE TIME'

At the start of today's hearing, CJI Khehar asked Karnan if he wanted to reiterate the allegations he had made against 20 judges, or think about it or offer an unconditional apology.

"We are asking you again and again. Do you say that you stand by whatever you have written or want to think about it, we will give you the time," the bench told Karnan as he appeared before the court, after non-bailable warrants were issued against him in the last hearing.

As the court asked Karnan to respond in the four weeks time, he said that his judicial and administrative work should be restored, and that only then he would be in a position to respond to the contempt notice.

As the bench refused to accede to his plea for the restoration, Karnan said the court could record his statement that he would not appear for the next hearing, and that he could be punished right away and sent to jail.

When Karnan said he wasn't in a state of mind to respond to the contempt notice, the bench said: "If you feel that you are not in a mental state to respond, you give a medical certificate."

At one point during the hearing, when the bench observed that Karnan wasn't clear and wasnot able to comprehend what he was doing, Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi said that there was no question of non-comprehension.

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Rohatgi said: "I don't think this is a case of un-intention. It is a case of re-affirmation (of the allegations). You go on naming the judges, asking for inquiry. He is damning the judges. Has damned the judiciary."

(With inputs from IANS)

ALSO READ | Supreme Court issues bailable warrant against Calcutta HC judge CS Karnan for contempt

ALSO READ | Why Jethmalani told Justice Karnan I am convinced you have lost your mind

WATCH | Supreme Court questions mental state of Justice Karnan

--- ENDS ---
Reports have pointed at another PS4 console release this year. The alleged PS4 Pro Slim is said to be much thinner than the Pro. Is that it?

Sony is gearing up for a big PS VR, PS4 and games exhibition at E3 in June but a new rumor suggests that the event may not all be about showcasing the virtual reality experience on PlayStation consoles. It is reported that a PS4 Pro Slim is on the way, according to PlayStation Lifestyle, and it will be getting a thinner design to replace what's already thin.

A slimmer console, however, doesn't mean a much better one. To recall your memory, PS4 and PS4 Slim don't have many differences. In fact, a thinner case could mean that there's a catch. For instance, the PS4 Slim lacks of optical audio port, Digital Trends reported.

Another minor change on PS4 Slim is the redesigned DualShock controller while having the same 8 GB GDDR5 RAM but the hard drive in PS4 Slim indeed receives a gain, up to 1 TB.

If the PS4 Pro Slim comes to fruition, it is expected to have its outward appearance revamped. A new look, however, should be supported by better hardware setup under the hood. A Dolby Atmos experience could give the PS4 Pro Slim a boost in the audio but this is merely a wishlist at this moment.

Slimming down the chassis could also mean a few sacrifices must be made albeit at this point, there is no detail on what could be added or replaced.

Sony should introduce more functions on the PS4 Pro Slim if the company wants to attract more potential consumers. Ultra HD Blu Ray is also expected as the current 4 Pro doesn't support. Microsoft Xbox One S is already ahead of the PS4 Pro in this matter.

Sony will be joining the other major brands in the gaming industry at E3 2017.
Steve Jobs liver is a highlighting pen with the problem of organ allocation even until now. He was one of the world's best geniuses who had a liver transplant. He was a billionaire then and even he had a problem getting an organ donor.

Steve jobs had a liver transplant back in 2009 in Memphis, Tennessee, which is millions of miles away from where he resides in California, ARS Technica reported. It was an odd choice given the fact that he could develop complications due to the long travel, but it's the choice he had to make and it was the fastest way to save his life. Fast forward to today, Steve Jobs liver transplant continues to highlight the big problem in organ transplant in the US.

It's a fact that organ needs outnumber organ supplies. It's what mathematicians and developers are trying to solve with algorithms that aim to make organ allocation fair for all patients. But it's a problem surrounded by ethical issues and ongoing heated debates.

Heart and lungs transplants have to be proceeded quickly. That means whenever a supply turns up, it will immediately be allocated to patients who are nearby. If there's no recipient, the radius will be extended farther.

Kidneys and livers have longer time frame which means anyone from within the 58 donors' hospitals is a viable recipient. A donated organ's quality will be assessed and evaluated thoroughly and an algorithm will find a match for the organ. The sickest patient from the transplant list will be given priority and the algorithm will confirm if the organ will arrive to the patient within the time frame.

A framework called Final Rule lays out the guidelines regarding organ allocation. One of the guidelines is where the patient lives shouldn't have an effect in the likelihood of receiving an organ. But Steve Jobs case tells otherwise.

There's a geographic disparity regarding organ allocation because there are areas that are rich in donors, but lack recipients, while there are high recipients but low in donors. The supply and demand's drastic differences have major implication on the life of a patient.

Recipients who have been predetermined by their scores if they die within the next 90 days if the organ is not transplanted have varied mortality rate. For example, if their scores are higher than others, meaning they will most likely die if they don't get an organ ASAP, will have 85 percent to live if they live in an area near where the donors' organs are. The patient with the same score will have 15 percent to live if he or she lives far away from the donor.

As a result, only the rich and the powerful can have access in organs available in far off places, while those who do not get disenfranchised by the system.
Most, if not all, students view college as a ticket to much better and bigger opportunities. However, the rising cost of tuition fees as well as student loan rates have made a lot of students rather pessimistic about the future. On the other hand, Europe is presenting a tempting offer of a free tuition fee which are luring many students from the United States to relocate.

Europe is becoming the top destination of students, not for vacation but for the reality of going to college. That's because a lot of universities in Europe are offering very low or free tuition. A lot of European universities are offering programs that are below $2,500 a year compared to the universities in the United States which are around $9,000 to $30,000 a year.

According to a report on CNN Money, there are at least 44 schools in Europe that allow students to earn a bachelor's degree free of charge. All public universities in Iceland, Finland, Germany, and Norway are, in fact, free of charge.

For example, one American student who attends the University of Deggendorf in Germany said that she only pays $50 for administrative fee every semester. As for her board and lodging, she said that she gets to spend $420 a month for insurance and rent.

Students who are already studying in Europe advise fellow students who are planning to study there that although the tuition fee is free, they should be ready to make adjustments because the learning style is different.

In Germany, for example, students usually spend a grueling 10 hours of study every day. That means you have no time to look for a side job. Another student who goes to Tallinn University of Technology in Estonia said that a lot of professors there do not give or recommend text books because they believe that a lot of materials can already be accessed online.
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) is the highest academic honor someone could get, but it does not come easy. An intriguing study conducted by a team of Belgian researchers reveal that PhD students are more likely to develop mental disorders than other educated groups. The fact is that half of the people enrolled in this program have high chances of literally losing their minds due to so much pressure.

From chronic anxiety to clinical depression, PhD students experience all sorts of mental stress. One in two students undergoes psychological distress while one in three is in danger of developing a psychiatric disorder. The research project was led by Ghent University.

The team noted that the most significant signs of mental health issues include unhappiness and depression. Moreover, sleeping problems and failure to enjoy day-to-day activities were also recorded. Per Life Science, the researchers said that the common triggering factors were work and family conflicts. Their academic obligations often interfere with their duties to their supervisors and friends.

For the record, PhD enrollees have 2.4 times higher psychiatric disorder chances than undergraduate students. While the research was focused on one country only, it is imminent that the results are reflected elsewhere. A total of 3,659 researchers took part in the test.

In the book entitled "A Survival Kit for Doctoral Students and Their Supervisors", experts claim that student and professor views commonly clash with each other. Unfortunately, the student's mental state is more likely to be damaged. For the record, there are several things that can affect one's state of mind in a negative way.

ZME Science listed some of these factors like job control, the leadership style of their bosses, and career dreams outside the academe. Apparently, a lot of doctoral students leave the school because they would rather pursue their corporate goals. Notably, others bail out because they fear that all of their hardships in publishing their final paper will later be ignored or would be deemed insignificant.
By India Today Web Desk: Post his break-up with long-term girlfriend Ankita Lokhande, Sushant Singh Rajput was rumoured to be dating his Raabta co-star Kriti Sanon. Even as they went blue in the face denying the news, their late night rendezvous and foreign getaways suggested otherwise. Recently, reports suggested that the two had called it quits due to Kriti's clinginess coupled with Sushant's mood swings.

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But if SpotboyE is to be believed, their late night meetings continue. The report says that Sushant recently paid a hush-hush visit to Kriti's home in Versova, while she too has been spotted leaving his home in Carter Road, Bandra.

Sushant and Kriti's rumoured relationship has been a hot topic for a while now. The couple brought in the New Year together in London with their friends. In fact, it was even rumoured that Kriti's growing proximity to Sushant was what led to the rift between Ankita and him. However, in a recent interview, Kriti said that she was single, although she would not mind being in a relationship with someone from the industry.

ALSO READ: Sushant Singh Rajput and Kriti Sanon have hush-hush New Year in London

ALSO WATCH: Sushant Singh Rajput felt cheated at engineering college because there were no girls

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External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj helped a woman living away from her husband, assured help to get her a visa to New Zealand and proved why she should be called Sushma 'super' Swaraj.

By India Today Web Desk: If there is something worse than being away from your family is being away from your family when they need you the most. External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj knows this.

Jyoti R Pande, who hails from Jaipur, had been seeking the minister's help since February 22 by tweeting to her but couldn't get Sushma Swaraj's attention. But when Pande asked, tagging Sushma Swaraj in a tweet, if she should commit suicide to get her attention, she got a reply from Sushma Swaraj.

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Pande was denied New Zealand visa three times and wanted to go to the country and live with her husband. Pande was living away from her husband for the past one year and after her father-in-law's demise, she decided to seek help from External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj through Twitter.

Also read: Bring Insiya back: Dutch mother seeks Sushma Swaraj's help after Indian kidnapped her daughter

She pleaded to her for over a month in the hope of getting help. It was then a distressed Jyoti tweeted a suicidal message to Swaraj.

@SushmaSwaraj Please help me for my visaMere ko suicide krna parega kya.apni baat aap taak paguchane ko- Jyoti S Pande (@jyotiranapande) March 30, 2017

Possibly tagged on Twitter by thousands of people on a daily basis, Sushma Swaraj, could have missed noticing Pande's tweets. But when she did, Swaraj took the matter in her hands and connected Pande to her office.

Sushma Swaraj requested her not to take a step as drastic as suicide and assured Pande that she will be reunited with her husband soon.

Also read: Sushma Swaraj helps another Indian in distress, reunites hospitalised Indian NYU student with parents

Here's what Sushma Swaraj told Jyoti Pande:

Aap suicide mat kijiye. Apni baat batayiye. https://t.co/Co81DSMRJU- Sushma Swaraj (@SushmaSwaraj) March 30, 2017

Sushma Swaraj also gave an appointment to Jyoti for a one-on-one meeting to solve her case.

Also read: All you need to know about the Mental Healthcare Bill passed in Parliament

Also watch: Two Indians abducted in South Sudan released, tweets Sushma Swara

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Popular UW Program Saturday U Returns to Rock Springs April 22

Diverse topics focusing on the history of the states coal industry, attempts to repeal the Affordable Care Act and the four major beginnings of human history will be discussed by three University of Wyoming professors during UWs popular Saturday University program Saturday, April 22, in Rock Springs.

The half day of college classes and discussion at Western Wyoming Community College (WWCC) begins with coffee and pastries at 8:30 a.m., followed by welcoming remarks at 8:50 a.m. The guest lectures begin at 9 a.m. The program is free and open to the public.

Participants may attend one, two or all three lectures. A free lunch and question-and-answer session will follow the program at 12:30 p.m.

In its ninth year, Saturday U is a collaborative program that connects popular UW and Wyoming community college professors with lifelong learners. Offered seven times a year -- twice each in Jackson, Gillette and Sheridan, and once in Rock Springs -- Saturday U is sponsored by the university, the UW Foundation and Wyoming Humanities Council, and is presented locally by WWCC, the Humanities Council and UW.

Listed below are program topic descriptions and professors lecturing:

-- 9-10 a.m., When Coal Died in Wyoming: A History of Energy, Phil Roberts, UW Department of History.

Since 2015, the decline of coal seems to be without precedent, but it has happened twice before -- both times due to technological change, Roberts says.

In the 1920s, the huge growth in oil and natural gas production practically eliminated coal as a heating fuel throughout Wyoming. Many mines remained open only due to mechanization, although miners numbers diminished steadily. The mines got by through supplying coal for Wyomings railroad locomotives.

In the 1950s, even this market dried up when diesel fuel began to power trains throughout Wyoming, Roberts says. Coal towns dwindled and disappeared, as did the need for locomotive repair facilities in towns such as Cheyenne and Laramie.

Roberts will review the impact of coals decline on Wyoming towns in the past, looking to them for lessons today.

-- 10:15-11:15 a.m., Repeal and Replace: A Delicate Game of Jenga, Mary Burman, Fay W. Whitney School of Nursing dean and UW professor.

A key component of the national Republican platform during the election was the immediate repeal of Obamacare. Now that Republicans control Washington, D.C., however, health care change is proceeding slowly.

What makes the repeal and replacement of the Affordable Care Act so difficult? Burman asks.

She will provide a primer on health care reform and explain the interdependent components of health care coverage. Burman also will identify how different parts of the countrys health care system depend on one another, like Jenga pieces, discussing which ones can and cannot be removed without bringing down the entire structure.

-- 11:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m., The Fifth Beginning: What Six Million Years of Human History Can Tell us about the Future, Robert Kelly, UW Department of Anthropology professor.

Kellys lecture discusses the four major beginnings of human history -- the origins of technology, culture, agriculture and the state. He presents evidence that humanity is entering a fifth beginning, one that can be expected to mark dramatic changes in world economy, war, culture and governance.

For more information, visit the Saturday U website at www.uwyo.edu/saturdayu/.
UW President to Visit Thermopolis April 11

UW President Laurie Nichols

University of Wyoming President Laurie Nichols will meet with local residents Tuesday, April 11, from 7:15-9 a.m. at the Hot Springs County Museum and Cultural Center, located at 700 Broadway St. in Thermopolis.

The reception takes place in the centers meeting room, located on the second floor. Complimentary coffee, juice and donuts will be available. The UW Alumni Association invites all UW alumni and friends to the reception. No RSVPs are needed to attend the free public event.

During her first year in office, Nichols has traveled around the state to meet with citizens, community college and public school leaders, legislators, alumni, media and others.

I am enjoying getting around the state to meet with people and hear their thoughts and expectations for Wyomings university, says Nichols, who began her duties as UWs 26th president last May. This is a crucial time for the state and UW, and input from the public is important to make sure the university fulfills its land-grant mission of education, research and service to the entire state.

Nichols came to UW from South Dakota State University, where she served as provost and executive vice president from 2009 to 2016. Before that, she was dean of the SDSU College of Education and Human Sciences from 1994 to 2008. She began her career in higher education as a member of the faculty of the University of Idaho from 1988 to 1994.

Nichols was born and raised in South Dakota. A first-generation college graduate, she received a bachelors degree in education from South Dakota State in 1978. She then earned a masters degree in vocational and adult education from Colorado State University in 1984 and a Ph.D. in family and consumer sciences education from Ohio State University in 1988.

For more information about the Thermopolis event, call the UW Alumni Association at (307) 766-4166.
UW Releases Strategic Plan Draft, Plans Meetings

A draft strategic plan for the University of Wyoming calls for advancements in academic quality, enrollment, statewide engagement, diversity and economic development over the next five years.

Specifically, the draft plan aims to increase student recruitment, retention and graduation; degree programs offered online and at UWs regional centers; collaborations with community colleges and K-12 schools; research funding; startup companies; and private contributions to the university, among other measures.

The draft plan was crafted by UWs 24-member Strategic Planning Leadership Council, following an extensive series of public meetings around Wyoming and on campus. The document may be viewed online at www.uwyo.edu/acadaffairs/_files/docs/stratplan_2017-2022_draft.pdf, and the council is accepting public comment on the presidents strategic planning feedback page through April 27.

Additionally, town-hall meetings to present the draft and accept comments are scheduled:

-- Thursday, April 6, from 3:30-5 p.m. in Room 133 of the Classroom Building. The session may be viewed via the WyoCast system at https://wyocast.uwyo.edu/WyoCast/Play/0a27ba48270a4828b14b5d9c8300d3001d.

-- Monday, April 10, from 1:30-3 p.m. in Room 138 of the Berry Biodiversity Conservation Center. The WyoCast link for this session is https://wyocast.uwyo.edu/WyoCast/Play/4c9dd69688684bf7a2979d4e55404f4d1d.

-- Friday, April 14, from 3-4:30 p.m. in Room 133 of the Classroom Building. The WyoCast link for this session is https://wyocast.uwyo.edu/WyoCast/Play/0239f5c56f904809be861822e5a4c6271d.

-- Tuesday, April 25, from 2:30-3:30 p.m. in Strausner Hall at Casper College. A video link for this session may be announced later.

UW Provost Kate Miller, who chairs the Strategic Planning Leadership Council, says the group welcomes input from all of UWs constituents.

This draft is still rough in some respects, but it represents the councils best efforts to set a course by which the university fulfills its flagship and land-grant mission through the free and open pursuit of knowledge in engagement with Wyoming and the world, Miller says. Our vision is to bring Wyoming and Western intelligence, energy, grit and innovation to the economic, social and environmental challenges of today, and to create a thriving, equitable and sustainable world for tomorrow.

The broad goals and objectives of the draft plan are to:

-- Foster and reward excellence in teaching, scholarship, innovation and creative endeavor to enhance an intellectual community renowned for its regional, national and global relevance and impact.

-- Inspire students to pursue a productive, engaged and fulfilling life, and prepare them to succeed in a sustainable global economy.

-- In collaboration with constituents and partners, improve and enhance the health and well-being of communities and environments.

-- Assure the long-term strength and stability of the university through a focus on infrastructure, human capital and new revenue sources.

Each goal and objective includes a set of measurable performance indicators.

Following revisions that may result from public and campus input, the plan will be presented for consideration by UWs Faculty Senate, Staff Senate and the Associated Students of UW. It then will go to the UW Board of Trustees for final consideration and approval.

Following Board of Trustees approval, the plan will be implemented at the start of the 2017-18 fiscal year, with college and unit plans finalized in fall 2017.

A website, www.uwyo.edu/president/strategic-plans/, has been established to inform the campus community and the public throughout the strategic planning process.
By Press Trust of India: Mumbai, Mar 31 (PTI) The Lokmanya Tilak Swarajya Bhoomi Trust today demanded that the Jinnah House in Malabar Hill be handed over to it for creating a mural depicting the legacy of Tilak.

In a statement issued here today, founder president of the trust, Prakash Silam said it had written to the Public Works Department on January 29, 2016 that the Jinnah House premises be handed over to it.

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Jinnah House was the residence of Pakistans founder Mohammad Ali Jinnah in Malabar Hill of south Mumbai.

Recently, BJP MLA Mangal Prabhat Lodha had demanded that the Jinnah House be pulled down and a cultural centre be constructed in its place.

Criticising the BJP MLA, Silam said the iconic Jinnah House is now an heritage structure and that pulling it down will not erase the "bitter history".

"Barrister Jinnah upon learning of the sad demise of Lokmanya Tilak rushed to Mumbai from Pune to pay his last respects to the leader," he stated.

He added that late Muhammad Ali Jinnah had great respect for Lokmanya Tilak.

He further stated that two years ago the trust had written to the state government that they wanted to have a mural depicting the history of ties between Lokmanya Tilak, Jinnah and Mahatma Gandhi at the bungalow.

Silam accused Lodha of deliberately trying to create obstacles in the process of having a mural at the Jinnah House.

He said that the trust had expected that Lodha being the local MLA would help them in their efforts.

Silam said that people will not tolerate any attempts by the government to take any decision favouring its party MLA.

Pakistan had yesterday expressed concern over the safety of Jinnah House and said India should show respect towards it, after BJP MLA Mangal Prabhat Lodha last week demanded that the building be demolished and a cultural centre built in its place. PTI MM RMT DIP

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Around 80 farmers have come all the way from Tamil Nadu to agitate on the streets of capital to draw central government's attention.

By Parbina Purkayastha: Farmers of Tamil Nadu continue skull protest in their unique way of demonstration demanding waiver of farmer loans. From skulls, rats, dead snakes, meditation to black clothes the protestors have gone the extra mile to draw Centre's attention.

Around 80 farmers have come all the way from Tamil Nadu to agitate on the streets of capital to draw central government's attention.

Skull protest:

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The protesting farmers have said that the skulls represent the farmers who committed suicide in Tamil Nadu. They said that the farmers gave their lives as they were unable to cope with drought and surmounting loans.

A protestors wearing a string of skulls.

Ropes around the neck:

Farmers said that the ropes symbolised suicide. They said that if their plight is neglected then suicide will be their last resort to escape loans.

Ropes used for agitation.

Rats in the mouth:

Rats which is believed to be poisonous and cheapest form of meat showcases that the government's ignorance have left them with no food, hence they are compelled to survive with rats as their food.

Live rats being used by protestors.

Dead snakes in the mouth:

As they enter the 16th day of their protest in Jantar Mantar they choose dead snakes to convince Prime Minister to break his silence on the plight of Tamil Nadu farmers. They kept dead snakes in their mouth to show that the snake meat which is not edible is their last option to fulfil their necessity.

Protestors with snake meat. Protestors with snake meat.

Meditation and prayers:

The farmers said that they were unable to convince Prime Minister Narendra Modi and it was the time to resort to prayers and meditation to seek the attention of the PM. Young farmers who are chanting Lord Shiva's name said that only God can help them now and only god can convince PM Modi.

Black cloth in their mouth:

To counter the apathy of the government, farmers have tied black cloth to their mouth in protest. "We will not move from here until Prime Minsiter Modi gives us an assurance that he will write off farmer's loans," said Ayyakannu, President of Famers and Water Link Association.

Protestors with pots

'Every day at evening 8 pm, we decide the prop for the next day' said a volunteer.

WATCH | Tamil Nadu farmers continue skull protest at Jantar Mantar

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As Tamil Nadu farmers' skull protest at Jantar Mantar in New Delhi enters 11th day, here's all you need to know about this uncanny agitation.

While the north India shivers during the month of December, Tamil Nadu rejoices the last month of the year. Tamil Nadu farmers depend on winter monsoon for their livelihood and prosperity.

But their samba (winter crop) failed before they could be sowed.

As it turned out that by the first week of January, more than one-third of the paddy fields were reported to have gone unsowed. And, now some farmers have travelled from Cauvery region of Tamil Nadu to New Delhi and holding protest at Jantar Mantar.

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They are seen agitating with human skulls symbolising the dreaded fate that they stare at if Centre does not provide them help.

The farmers are demanding a drought relief package of Rs 40,000 crore to Tamil Nadu.

WORST MONSOON IN 140 YEARS

October-December period brings northeast monsoon to Tamil Nadu. December is the rainiest month for the state. The NE monsoon goes unnoticed as the rest of India depends on dominant southwest monsoon.

But the last year northeast monsoon had the worst spell in the last 140 years. Against the average of 438.2 mm rain, the October-December season recorded a mere 168.4 mm rain.

Even cyclone Vardah did not help much despite bringing heavy rain for five days in Tamil Nadu besides causing huge loss.

The average shortfall of rain was 62 per cent but it was more than 80 per cent in several agricultural pockets. The previous worst was recorded in 1876 when October-December period received only 163.5 cm rain.

The Tamil Nadu government officially declared a drought in the state on January 10 this year. But by then more than 140 farmers had reportedly ended their lives since October. A NHRC report sent to Tamil Nadu government on January 5 mentioned about 106 farmers committing suicide in one month.

CAUVERY POLITICS

Tamil Nadu had already been facing water scarcity before the winter monsoon recorded its worst since 1876. The Tamil Nadu farmers had lost their kuruwai (summer crop) to the Cauvery dispute with Karnataka.

Karnataka had refused to share water with Tamil Nadu as per Cauvery award of 2007. Karnataka said it was in no position to share water as it faced acute drinking water problem.

According Central Water Commission report of January first week, all the five south Indian states recorded acute water shortage in their reservoirs. Tamil Nadu was the worst affected.

On January 5 - when winter monsoon had failed miserably - Tamil Nadu recorded a water shortage of 82 per cent in its reservoirs. It was the highest water deficit in India.

The Supreme Court tried to call truce between the warring states directing Karnataka to release 2,000 cusecs of water to Tamil Nadu till further orders. But, the farmers complained that there was not enough water for irrigation. The apex court will begin the final hearing in the matter on July 11 this year.

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Earlier this month, Karnataka again told Tamil Nadu that it would not be releasing 2,000 cusecs water saying the reservoirs in the state had less than 20 per cent water and it faced a deficit of 2-3 TMC of drinking water.

DEMONETISATION MADE IT WORSE

While water sharing dispute with Karnataka and a failed northeast monsoon deprived the Tamil Nadu farmers of water, demonetisation rendered them seedless fully or partially.

The farmers have been dependent on the local money lenders for seasonal seed and fertiliser loans for ages. But, demonetisation sent those moneylenders into tizzy. The old currency became invalid.

Most of the farmers did not have enough money to buy seeds from big stalls. The government outlets needed cash - old or new - which farmers could not manage as their source dried out. Banks were not in a position to cater to the needs of small farmers. They had turned into the centres of money-exchange.

Finding no way out in their own way out and after waiting for almost three months, some of the Tamil Nadu farmers headed to New Delhi with hope that the Modi government will provide them some relief. They began their protest on March 14 at Jantar Mantar.

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A week later, Centre approved a Rs 2014 crore relief package for Tamil Nadu, which had demanded a package of Rs 39,565 crore.

Watch the video: Tamil Nadu farmers continue skull protest at Jantar Mantar

Also read: Rahul Gandhi meets skull protesters at Jantar Mantar, says PM Modi doesn't have time for farmers

Also read: Tamil Nadu farmers soldier on with skull protest in Delhi's heat even as government turns deaf ear

Also read: EPS concerned about RK Nagar by-polls, not farmers' cause: DMK leader MK Stalin

Also read: Delhi: MDMK general secretary Vaiko spends a day protesting with Tamil Nadu farmers at Jantar Mantar

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Common basil is grown in Tra Que village in Hoi An city. The herb can be used as material for essential oil and cosmetic products.-VNS Photo Cong Thanh

The province said the plant, which covers on 2,500sq.m, with a total investment of VND90 billion (nearly US$4 million), will be the largest essential oil manufacture plant in Viet Nam, after the ones built in Ha Giang, Nghe An, Vinh Phuc and Yen Bai provinces in the north.

Project director La Ngoc Anh said the plant will start production in the third quarter this year, with a capacity of 1 million units of essential oils for cosmetics from local herbs each year.

According to the projects investor, the Viet Nam Natural Cosmetics Company, the company exports 15,000 litres of essential oil from local herbs each year to Asian and European markets.

As scheduled, the plant will use various herbs such as basil, mint, coriander Chinese parsley, citronella and other cosmetic herbs from Tra Que village for essential oil production. The plant will also produce shampoo, shower cream, skin cream, soap and perfumes with natural aromas.

Tra Que village, with area of 18ha, was allocated for organic vegetable farming under a brand name recognised by the Intellectual Property Rights Office of Viet Nam in 2009.

Nguyen Van Dung, Chairman of Hoi An City Peoples Committee, said natural oil production will develop the Tra Que brand, making it a favourite destination for safe farm products.

He said the village can be part of a value chain that extends from farming to oil production.
Accordingly, Bazhou Sanqiang Metal Products will be taxed 26.36 per cent, BX Steel POSCO Cold Rolled Sheet 38.34 per cent, Bengang Steel Plates 27.36 per cent, Tianjin Haigang Steel Coil 26.32 per cent, Hebei Iron & Steel Co Ltd, Tangshan Branch 38.34 per cent, Wuhan Iron and Steel 33.49 per cent. Chinese Yeih Phui Technomaterial was axed at the lowest rate of 3.17 per cent.

South Korean POSCO will be charged 7.02 per cent anti-dumping tax while other South Korean exporters will be taxed 19 per cent.

The decision takes effect after 15 days after the signing and will be in place for five years.

It follows a December 2015 appeal by four local steelmakers asking the Government for measures to prevent coated steel sheets shipped from mainland China and South Korea from being sold at cheap prices.

The ministry issued a decision on March 3, 2016 on initiating an investigation of the claims by domestic steelmakers and on September 1, the ministry issued temporary anti-dumping duties on the products.

Nguyen Van Sua, vice chairman of the Viet Nam Steel Association (VSA), said imported steel from South Korea accounted for a small portion of 4.57 per cent during the investigation period in comparison with other imported products, including coated steel for high-end markets of automobiles and electronics. In addition, the price of coated steel imported from South Korea was US$85 per tonne higher than that of locally produced steel in Viet Nam.

Steel exports show optimism

Viet Nams import-export report issued for the first time by the Ministry of Industry and Trade in the capital city on Wednesday predicts a positive outlook for steel exports as Chinas steel exports are expected to decline due to surging demand at home.

However, it also notes that the industry faces fierce competition from cheap imported steel, and anti-dumping duties imposed by many countries including the US, Canada, Turkey, Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia.

Since 2007, Viet Nams steel exports have faced 29 lawsuits, 18 of them for anti-dumping duties.

But despite the lawsuits, in 2016, the countrys steel exports rose 36 per cent from the previous year to 3.48 million tonnes worth $2.03 billion. Prices reached $580 per tonne, a 12 per cent year-on-year decrease.

In recent years, Viet Nams steel has been mostly exported to ASEAN markets due to high demand. However, exports to ASEAN have dropped due to trade defence measures by importing countries.

Last year, steel exports to the region reached only 1.81 million tonnes, 7.3 per cent and 18 per cent less in terms of quantity and value from the previous year.

On the other hand, exports surged to certain countries reaching $568.5 million (up 328 per cent) to the US, $121.4 million to South Korea (up 147.7 per cent), $33.3 million to Taiwan (up 270 per cent) and $37.5 million to Pakistan (up 221.5 per cent).
European Council President Donald Tusk revealed his plans for Brexit talks in draft guidelines which call for a "phased approach". (Photo: AFP/Aurore Belot)

EU president Donald Tusk's draft guidelines say the other 27 countries are ready for a transitional deal after Britain's exit in March 2019, but that such an arrangement would have to be under EU rules.

British Prime Minister Theresa May had in her letter triggering the two-year exit process on Wednesday called for talks on the divorce and a future deal to run in parallel as soon as negotiations start.

The EU has proclaimed its unity on Brexit, even as it reels from Britain's intention to become the first member state to leave in the bloc's 60-year history.

Tusk's strategy will now be sent out to the leaders of the 27 remaining EU countries ahead of a special summit on Apr 29 when they will agree on them so that talks can start in May.

Germany and France had already set out a united and uncompromising stance against May's demands.

Tusk's guidelines say that the EU called for a "phased approach" that prioritises an orderly withdrawal that reduces the disruption caused by Britain's departure in March 2019.

"The European Council will monitor progress closely and determine when sufficient progress has been achieved to allow negotiations to proceed to the next phase" on a future relationship," the draft guidelines say.

The EU said that no trade deal can be agreed on before Brexit takes effect.

But it is also open to a transitional arrangement after Brexit as a "bridge" to a future deal some years down the line, but said that it would have to be under EU rules. It said it is making preparations in case talks break down.

EU PROCLAIMS UNITY

Tusk was due to give a press conference in Malta with Maltese Prime Minister Joseph Muscat, whose country holds the EU's rotating presidency, to discuss the strategy.

The EU's chief negotiator, France's Michel Barnier, is expected to get the green light to start talks with Britain on May 22, an EU official said.

May formally notified the EU of Britain's intention to leave in a letter to Tusk on Monday that diplomats described as surprisingly conciliatory in tone for the most part.

But May's warning in the letter that failure to clinch a deal on trade would affect Britain's cooperation on terrorism and security still rankled with many.

"It's not a threat," Brexit minister David Davis told BBC radio after warnings from Brussels against using security as a bargaining chip in the talks.

The EU insists it is unified ahead of the negotiations.

"Brexit is not the end of everything, but we must make it a beginning of something that will be new, stronger and better," European Commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker said in Malta Thursday.

French President Francois Hollande followed German Chancellor Angela Merkel in snubbing May's proposed structure for the negotiations, saying the exit agreement should come first.

The fate of three million EU citizens living in Britain and one million British people within the bloc's nations is at the top of leaders' agenda.

Also looming large is the so-called "exit bill" which Britain will have to pay, estimated to be as much as 60 billion (US$64 billion, 52 billion), and the border between Northern Ireland and Ireland.

SHORT NEGOTIATIONS

EU leaders hope to resolve those issues by the end of the year before moving on to the future relationship and a possible transition.

But that leaves only 10 months before October 2018 when Barnier says the talks must wrap up to give time for the European Parliament and member states to approve what the negotiators come up with.

In the first signs of a business fallout since May's Brexit notification, the prestigious Lloyd's of London insurance market said it would open a new Brussels subsidiary to ensure smooth operations in the EU.

Britain has meanwhile started laying plans for the daunting task of bringing thousands of items of EU regulation into British law on the day that Britain leaves the EU.

But May is struggling to bring unity in the wake of the divisive Brexit referendum last June that saw 52 per cent vote in favour of leaving the EU and 48 per cent against.

As well as fears for the Northern Irish peace process from a return of a hard border, the referendum result has also led to a renewed campaign for independence in pro-EU Scotland.
President Tran ai Quang meets Emmanuel Hoog, chairman and chief executive of the Agence France-Presse (AFP). - VNA/VNS Photo Nhan Sang

The State leader hailed AFPs media tradition and stature as one of the three largest press agencies in the world, saying that AFP was the first and only foreign outlet based in Viet Nam since 1950.

He expressed appreciation for AFPs widespread and comprehensive coverage of Viet Nam through traditional and novel news platforms over nearly 70 years.

The Vietnamese media landscape is changing significantly with the emergence of new platforms, such as digital, internet and electronic news, he said, adding that more than half the Vietnamese population use the web.

Speaking highly of effective co-operation between AFP and domestic press agencies, such as the Vietnam News Agency and Vietnam Television, Quang noted that there remain many co-operation opportunities for AFP in Viet Nam.

The host took the occasion to ask the French news agency to continue providing the world with objective coverage of Viet Nam as well as the growing Viet Nam-France ties in diverse areas.

The development of the Viet Nam-France strategic partnership is always one of the priorities in Viet Nams external policy of openness and integration into the world, he said.

Hoog, for his part, underscored the importance of AFPs permanent presence in Viet Nam. He said AFP has made a strong commitment to Viet Nam regarding professional co-operation and is modernising ways of communications.

According to him, seven Vietnamese television channels have contracted with AFP to use its television footage, and the growing demand for television news in Viet Nam has strengthened AFPs belief in venturing onto such a path.
Common synthetic drugs are methamphetamine, ecstasy, ketamine, amphetamine, cannabinoid--all of which offer varying mental states of heightened sensations. Unlike traditional drugs, users tend to develop easily-recognised symptoms such as physical and mental malfunction and exhaustion.

Synthetic drug users do not depend on the drugs like traditional ones. They can take synthetic drugs once every week or every month without having addictions. Many young people think synthetic drugs are not addictive so they are easily lured to use them many times, a representative of the drug crime investigation sub-department under Ha Noi Police Department told the Tien Phong (Vanguard) newspaper.

Hidden harm

The representative said that Vietnamese drug workers began to learn manufacturing techniques in 2010-2011 in the Czech Republic. They then brought their methods home and sold products to local users at cheap prices to earn profits.

Home-made synthetic drugs began to be discovered, including the case of 36-year-old Hoang Tuan Linh, a pharmacy Master in France. Police seized 24,000ml of liquid to make drugs. Linh confessed that while in France he found that methamphetamine there is clean and does not contain high level of chemicals. He then researched how to make it, with an aim to show his ability. Upon returning to Viet Nam, he made the drugs at an undisclosed location.

In the first three months of this year, up to 5,775 instances of drug trafficking cases were discovered nationwide. Police confiscated 148kg of heroin, 216kg and 101,810 tablets of synthetic drugs and 13kg of marijuana.

An experienced drug police officer in Ha Noi told the Tien Phong newspaper that majority of youth are not fully aware of drug substances and their effects.

Many young people use ecstasy and weed to express themselves. Other youths are excited by the promise of a quick high with no risk of addiction, so they think synthetic drugs are not harmful. Then, they form habits, he said.

An officer of drug criminal investigative police department in Ha Noi said that synthetic drugs have strong effects on users nerve system and brain, resulting in memory malfunction and slow reaction as well as mental disorders.

There currently are no treatment therapies for synthetic drug users, he said.

The police officer said that education for adolescents on drugs and their effects should be delivered to equip kids with the skills to protect themselves. It should be taught as a subject at school, he added.

Health effects

Doctor Tran Thi Hong Thu, head of Clinical Department of Mental Health at Mai Huong Hospital, said that using synthetic drugs once or many times might have immediate or long-term effects. In many cases, users develop mental disorders after stopping taking drugs for several months or years.

To help drug addicts recover, rehabilitation therapies might include bio-chemistry therapy, psychological therapy, group therapy, family therapy, she said.
A corner of Hyundai Thanh Cong in northern Ninh Binh Province. The factory will be equipped with advanced technology to ensure all vehicles are of the same quality and follow the Hyundai Motor Groups standards. - Photo xedoisong.com

The expansion was under an agreement inked by representatives of the two sides in Ha Noi on Thursday.

Huyndai Thanh Cong, a subsidiary of Thanh Cong Group, has assembled and distributed different types of Hyundai passenger cars for eight years. In the last two years, the companys passenger cars occupied 18 per cent of the Vietnamese market share. It also won the Distributor of the Year awards from the Hyundai Motor Group in 2014 and 2015.

The move is part of the Hyundai Motor Groups strategy of expanding production globally. ASEAN is seen as an important market with high potential as head towards 2018 when the import tax of complete built up units within ASEAN bloc becomes zero per cent, under the ASEAN Free Trade Agreement.

In the first phase, the joint venture will continue operating the current Hyundai Thanh Cong in the northern province of Ninh Binh with the capacity of 40,000 passenger cars per year and begin investing in expanding and upgrading the factory.

The factory will be equipped with advanced technology, with almost all production steps using automatic and semi-automatic robots, ensuring all vehicles are of the same quality and follow the Hyundai Motor Groups standards.

With this expansion project, the number of Hyundai vehicles assembled in Viet Nam, including Hyundai SantaFe and Hyundai Elantra, is expected to increase from the current 20 per cent to 70-80 per cent this year and to 90 per cent in 2018.

Addressing the signing ceremony, Le Ngoc Duc, general director of Hyundai Thanh Cong, said to reach 40 per cent of localisation rate in Viet Nam, the company would co-operate with many domestic and foreign businesses, especially those from South Korea.

In the future, the factory will not only meet the domestic markets demand, but also export products to ASEAN countries, said Duc.

Vice Chairman of Hyundai Motor Byung Kwon Rhim said the firm would supply the newest and best quality products to satisfy Vietnamese customers.
File photo of US President Donald Trump. (Photo: NICHOLAS KAMM / AFP)

The Justice Department's filing means the case will land back at the US 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, which upheld a halt of Trump's first travel ban before the US president revised it.

The appeal comes a day after US District Judge Derrick Watson in Hawaii dealt another blow to the White House, issuing a longer-lasting suspension of the president's travel restrictions by changing it from a temporary restraining order into a preliminary injunction.

Such an injunction generally has no set expiration date, said Hawaii state Attorney General Doug Chin, meaning Trump will be barred from enforcing the ban while it is contested in court.

Trump's revised travel ban aims to close US borders to nationals of Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen for 90 days, and all refugees for at least 120 days.

The original executive order included Iraq but that country was removed in the rewrite.

The Trump administration's wide-ranging initial travel restrictions imposed on January 27 were slapped down by federal courts, after sparking international protests and chaos at US airports.

The president's revised ban signed on March 6 had a reduced scope, exempting permanent US residents and valid visa holders - an effort by the administration to help it pass legal muster.

Both of the bans have been criticized as amounting to a ban on entry of Muslims into the US.

The president has said his proposed travel ban is needed to preserve US national security and keep out terrorists intent on doing harm to Americans.
The benchmark index inched up 0.2 per cent to close at 724.91 points. It gained 0.5 per cent on Thursday.

More than 109 million shares were traded on the major bourse, worth VND1.9 trillion (US$83.53 million).

Steel stocks such as Hoa Phat Group (HPG), Hoa Sen Group (HSG) and Nam Kim Steel (NKG) lifted the southern bourse thanks to information related to anti-dumping taxation on steel imports.

The new anti-dumping tax was imposed by the Ministry of Industry and Trade on Thursday on imported steel products from China and South Korea.

HPG ended up 1.5 per cent on Friday morning, HSG increased by 0.5 per cent and NKG rose 2.9 per cent.

However, shares on the southern bourse narrowed their gains at the end of the morning session as other sectors performed below expectation.

Banks and financial companies fell as investors sought profits after the recent good run. Energy stocks were mixed, with PetroVietnam Drilling and Well Services (PVD) and PetroVietnam Mud Drilling Corp (PVC) in negative territory following the decline of global crude prices.

On the Ha Noi Stock Exchange, the HNX Index fell 0.3 per cent to end at 90.87 points. The northern market index gained 0.5 per cent on Thursday.

Nearly 23.5 million shares were exchanged on Ha Nois market, worth VND286.68 billion.
Representatives of Deloitte, Dezan Shira & Associates, UOB, VSIP, the Nghe An Peoples Committee, and Nguyen Son Ha, trade counsellor of the Vietnam Trade Office in Malaysia at the panel discussion

The workshop in Thailand, entitled Vietnam: Integration, Opportunities, Growth, attracted more than 120 participants. Sembcorp and Bangkok Bank were VSIPs co-organisers.

Trung Thanh Cong, deputy chief of Office of the Nghe An Peoples Committee, elaborating on local authorities strong commitment to business partners and investors

In his opening remark, Nguyen Tat Thanh, Vietnamese Ambassador to Thailand, emphasised the positive trade and investment relations between the two countries since Vietnam has become a full member of the ASEAN in 1995. Special mention was made of the two countries upgrading their relationship to a strategic partnership in 2013.

As reported by the Nation, so far there has been 2,000 Thai enterprises who registered with the Thai Embassy in Vietnam. Many small and medium-sized Thai enterprises are developing their activities in Vietnam to capitalise on its potential.

Nguyen Tat Thanh, Vietnamese Ambassador to Thailand (middle) and representatives of SCG Packaging (VSIP customer), Tilleke & Gibbins Corporate and Commercial Group, Bangkok Bank, and VSIP

The other workshop was held at Hilton Kuala Lumpur on March 22, with more than 70 participants. Deloitte, Dezan Shira & Associates, and United Overseas Bank were the co-organisers, and they also came as speakers at the workshop. Key elements of Vietnams attractiveness for foreign investors were covered, together with the latest legal framework and favourable incentives.

The seminar in Kuala Lumpur was highlighted with the participation of representatives from the Nghe An Peoples Committee. The provinces strong commitment has ensured business partners and investors about the most favourable and comprehensive investment environment in the province as well as in Central Vietnam.

At both events, VSIPs projects in Central Vietnam, including VSIP Nghe An and VSIP Quang Ngai, were introduced to investors as good choices for their future business. More workshops are expected to be planned and organised in overseas countries in the second quarter of this year.
If reports are anything to go by, superstar Rajinikanth will replace Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan as the brand ambassador of Malaysia Tourism.

By India Today Web Desk: Probably, superstar Rajinikanth is the only Indian actor, who enjoys a substantial amount of fan following in Malaysia. Over the years, he has established a strong market in Malaysia and his films have largely pandered to the Malaysian audience.

Interestingly, reports are doing the rounds that Thalaivar is likely to replace Shah Rukh Khan as the brand ambassador of Malaysia Tourism. According to reports, the Minister of Tourism and Culture of Malaysia, Datuk Seri Mohamed Nazri Abdul Aziz, wanted Rajini to replace SRK, who has been endorsing since 2008.

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Addressing the media regarding the same, Rajinikanth said, " was not offered to become brand ambassador for Malaysia. These are all rumours."

Rumours are also rife that the Malaysian prime minister Najib Razak, who is visiting Chennai on a two-day trip, is likely to meet Rajinikanth.

It is worth mentioning that Rajinikanth's gangster drama Kabali dealt with the oppression of Malaysian Tamils, which was also released in Malaysia to unanimous positive response from fans. Despite opening to mixed reviews from critics and fans, Kabali became one of the highest grossing Indian films last year.

Meanwhile, Rajinikanth, who's been making news over the last few days, is wrapping up the shoot of his much-anticipated sci-fi thriller 2.0.

Made on a lavish budget of Rs 400 crore, the film starring Akshay Kumar, Amy Jackson, Sudhanshu Pandey and Adil Hussain will hit the screens on Diwali this year.

SEE PIC: Kamal Haasan's selfie with Shruti is a hit on the internet

ALSO READ: Telugu star Nani and wife Anjana welcome baby boy on Ugadi

ALSO READ: 1 month to Baahubali 2: A look at SS Rajamouli's journey so far

ALSO WATCH: Watch: Rajinikanth cancels Sri Lanka visit after protests from Tamil groups

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The government should increase the annual budget of communes by $100,000 to increase the quality of life for ordinary Cambodians, an analyst has told VOA Khmer.

Ok Serei Sopheak, a governance specialist, told the Hello VOA radio program that he hoped incoming commune chiefs would take the issue seriously after local elections are held in June.

Communes are currently allocated between $30,000 and $50,000 annually, totaling roughly 2.8 percent of the national budget, which Sopheak said made it difficult for local governments to implement changes.

I think that after this election if the budget increases to about 5 percent, which is almost $100,000, it will serve the public better, he said.

The budget for commune development will yield positive results that will clearly affect peoples lives.

The ruling Cambodian Peoples Party has pledged to make modest increases to commune budgets, while the opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party has said it wants to drastically increase their budgets, to half a million dollars, about 20 percent of the national budget.

Serei Sopheak, however, said the CNRPs pledge was irresponsible and would likely not be possible.

Twelve political parties are set to contest the 1,646 communes in the June 4 election, with most campaigning on a local security platform amid concerns over apparently rising violent crime.

Despite the current policy of village-commune safety, people are still concerned, day and night, Serei Sopheak said. Therefore, I think that it requires extra efforts from the authorities to ensure that people are safe and well-protected.

Even though the government has the authority to make any policy decision, if the people object, they will surely relent. Any government in the democratic world cannot last long if the people are not satisfied.
The Interior Ministry has warned the opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party that it could face legal action over the appointment of a new leader in early March.

Kem Sokha, the former CNRP deputy president, was appointed to the presidency at an extraordinary party congress on March 2 following the resignation of Sam Rainsy.

Rainsy had resigned in anticipation of the passage of amendments to the law governing political parties that could have seen the CNRP dissolved if he stayed in the position due to his criminal record in Cambodia.

The government now says it could use the political parties law against the CNRP, which it says violated its own rules in appointing Sokha.

Bun Hun, deputy secretary of state at the Interior Ministry, told reporters on Thursday that the CNRPs rules state, that as there is less than 18 months remaining in the current government mandate, a new leader should not have been appointed officially, but rather an acting president should have assumed Rainsys duties.

Under the amended political parties law, this minor technical infraction could lead to further legal action.

We will consider the next legal actions after we have told the CNRP. So we will check to what extent the political parties law allows us [to pursue legal action], Hun said.

Eng Chhay Eang, one of three CNRP deputy presidents who were elected at the same time as Sokha, said that party would do what it could to comply with the amended law. Even though we did not support the law, we did not take part in adopting it, but when its in effect, we must obey the law, he said.

The law is above the party rules, so the party will do everything possible to comply with the law.
In the wake of sliding poll numbers and a failure to repeal and replace President Barack Obama's signature health care law, some analysts are suggesting it might be time for President Donald Trump to consider hitting the political reset button.

Trump's public approval rating hit a new low this week, just 10 weeks into his young presidency. The Gallup Poll pegged Trump's approval rating at only 35 percent, a low point for a president this early in his term. Trump is trying to bounce back after the failed health care effort and may set his sights on tax reform and infrastructure spending as he seeks to deliver on last year's campaign promises.

When in need of a boost, Trump likes to return to his campaign roots and stoke up his supporters about his agenda, as he did at a recent rally in Louisville, Kentucky.

These entrenched interests will do anything they can to keep the broken system in place. But they will fail, and we will win because we are fighting on the side of our great American heritage, Trump said to cheers from those gathered.

Looking to rebound

Trump is looking to rebound after his failed effort to repeal and replace Obamacare, which fell apart because of Republican divisions. And though it is still early in his term, some analysts suggest it might be time for a policy and strategy reset.

He has suffered a significant setback, said political scholar Bill Galston with the Brookings Institution in Washington. This ought to be an opportunity for reflection and perhaps reorientation of his presidency, certainly a change of strategy and tactics, if not of basic direction.

The health care failure prompted all kinds of advice from critics, supporters and even former rivals like former presidential contender and former Florida governor Jeb Bush. Bush told a Miami TV station it might be time for the president to back off his Twitter habit.

He should stop saying things that are not true that are distractions from the task at hand, he said. Bush also said Trump has not made the transition from wanting to become president to actually being president. He has not shifted to being president in the way that people are used to, and I think that is the problem.

The health care defeat has emboldened opposition Democrats, including the woman Trump defeated in last November's election, Hillary Clinton.

And when this disastrous bill failed, it was a victory for all Americans, Clinton told a conference in San Francisco this week.

Republican divisions remain

The effort to undo Obamacare also has laid bare sharp divisions among Republicans that could bedevil Trump in the future, particularly if he moves on to tax reform, infrastructure spending and cutting the budget. Trump tweeted Thursday that The Freedom Caucus will hurt the entire Republican agenda if they don't get on the team, & fast. We must fight them, & Dems, in 2018!

The health care episode demonstrated the limits of Trump's ability to win over conservative members of his own party, according to Republican strategist John Feehery.

"I think he has to understand the power that he has, but also the power that he does not have. I mean, he is not dictator, he is not king," he said. "When he says jump, congressional leaders are not going to say, How high? They are going to say, Why?'"

House Speaker Paul Ryan insists Republicans will make another effort on repealing and replacing Obamacare at some point.

Obamacare is a collapsing law. Obamacare is doing too much damage to families. And so we are going to get this right, he said.

Some have suggested Trump might turn to Democrats for help if he can't win over House conservatives. But Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer did not seem keen on that possibility this week.

He'll have trouble constantly unless he moves to the middle. We are waiting for him to do it, Schumer said.

Overcoming early stumbles

There is plenty of history to show that presidents can overcome early political stumbles to become effective later on. Franklin Roosevelt, John Kennedy, Ronald Reagan and Barack Obama all had their share of setbacks and defeats before achieving legislative success. And now the spotlight is on Trump to see if and when he can turn things around.

The question is not whether newly-inaugurated presidents are fully equipped for the job, because most of them are not. The question is whether they can learn from their early mistakes and change course, said Galston.

Part of the problem so far, according to Galston and others, is that Trump continues to primarily cater to his political base. That may be why Trump's approval numbers are stuck at about 40 percent, which even some Republicans believe represents the rough percentage of his core supporters.

Trump may be forced at some point to reach out more to Democrats if House members of the conservative Freedom Caucus remain reluctant to get behind Trump on some of his initiatives. The problem with turning to the Democrats, however, is that many of their constituents remain angry about Trump's election, and they are demanding that Democrats in the House and Senate oppose the president at every turn.

As University of Virginia expert Larry Sabato wrote in his political newsletter Thursday, If history is any guide, Democrats will believe they have zero incentive to deal with Trump on much of anything, particularly as they look ahead already to the 2018 congressional midterm elections.

Trump's challenges in dealing with his own Republican Party and with opposition Democrats come at a time when the president is attempting to follow in the footsteps of his predecessors, many of whom found it a challenge to make the transition from presidential candidate to commander-in-chief.
Chinas near completion of artificial islets and combat aircraft facilities in the Spratly Islands will give it extra power to make other countries keep out of the widely disputed South China Sea or get Chinese permission to use it, analysts say.

Beijing is about to finish naval, air, radar and other facilities on the big three islets in the seas Spratly archipelago, according to the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative, a project of the Washington-based policy research organization Center for Strategic and International Studies.

The American think tank initiatives monitoring over the past two years shows a near completion of major construction of military and dual-use infrastructure on Subi, Mischief and Fiery Cross reefs held by China in the Spratlys, according to its website, which adds Beijing can now deploy combat aircraft and mobile missile launchers to the Spratly Islands anytime.

Around-the-clock presence in area

Those installations will give China around-the-clock presence for establishing administration over its claims to the 3.5 million-square-kilometer sea, initiative director Gregory Poling said.

China claims more than 90 percent of the resource-rich sea that extends from Taiwan southwest to Singapore. The Chinese claim overlaps tracts that Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam also call their own.

If youre a Southeast Asian fisherman or coast guard vessel or an oil and gas exploration vessel, you dont operate unless the Chinese let you operate, because they now are watching everything you do, and as soon as they send planes out there theyll be able to intervene anywhere, anytime, Poling said.

Fishing boats from other countries eventually must register with the Chinese to use the disputed sea, said Alex Chiang, an international relations professor at National Chengchi University in Taipei. Vessels now trawl freely in 370-kilometer exclusive economic zones extending from their home countries coastlines.

I think (China) will draw the line where those fishing boats can operate and they will require those fishing boats to get permission from China first in order to operate in the area, so that means all other countries have to observe Chinese domestic law, Chiang said.

Chinas enforcement ability may be tested when the country implements a fishing moratorium from May through August, Poling said. The moratorium would let stocks regenerate in the northern half of the sea.

Officials in Beijing are talking one on one with the Southeast Asian maritime claimants to offer them trade and investment benefits from Chinas $11 trillion economy, some believe in exchange for letting China do what it wants at sea.

Those talks picked up after July when a world arbitration court ruled at the request of the Philippines against the legal basis for Chinas maritime claim. China cites historic usage records to back its claim and has rejected the court ruling.

Vietnam lacks confidence in US

In Vietnam, officials are starting to deal with Chinas consolidation of maritime power for lack of confidence in U.S. support, said Oscar Mussons, senior associate with the Dezan Shira & Associates business consultancy in Ho Chi Minh City.

U.S. President Donald Trump has not made it clear whether he will back the Southeast Asian countries over China, analysts in the region believe.

At some point Vietnam felt strong and said well, we have the United States backing us, so its going to be fine, but nobody knows whats going on with the United States, Mussons said.

Vietnamese officials are keeping quiet and talking to Beijing about economic cooperation as China develops the sea, he said, but citizens are protesting passively by avoiding made-in-China products.

They dont really say we need to fight them back, he said. But of course theyve always seen China as a threat, and I think thats the way its going to be for a while now if things dont change.

Claimant countries prize the tropical sea for fisheries and undersea reserves of oil and gas. Also, more than half the worlds marine shipping traffic uses the waterway. Like China, Taiwan claims nearly the whole sea. Other governments operate in zones near their coastlines, and all the claimants control tiny land forms in the Spratly chain.

Since 2010 China has quickly expanded into the sea, landfilling more than 12 square kilometers to make reefs ready for construction of facilities.

Chinas three air bases in the Spratlys and another on Woody Island in the Paracel Island archipelago, which is contested by Vietnam, will allow Chinese military aircraft to operate over nearly the entire South China Sea, the initiative says.

The government in Beijing will know what other countries are doing via advanced surveillance and early-warning radar facilities at Fiery Cross, Subi and Cuarteron Reefs in the Spratly chain, as well as Woody Island, the initiatives website adds.
Officials in Pakistan say a powerful bomb Friday ripped through a busy market in a northwestern tribal town on the Afghan border, killing at least 22 people and wounding more than 50 others.



Witnesses and local politicians say the blast in Parachinar, the administrative center of the semi-autonomous Kurram tribal district, occurred near an entrance to a Shiite mosque dedicated for female worshipers.

It is not clear if the car bomb was set off by remote control, or a suicide bomber carried out the attack.

Jamaatul Ahrar, a militant group fighting along side the anti-state Pakistani Taliban, claimed responsibility for the deadly bombing. The group has taken credit for most of militant attacks across the country this year in which scores of people have died.





Death toll could rise

Many people have been seriously wounded and residents fear the death toll will rise.

Military helicopters have been sent to the remote tribal area for speedy evacuation of victims, said an army statement.

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif condemned the attack and reiterated Pakistans unflinching resolve to eliminate terrorism from the country.



''The network of terrorists has already been broken and it is our national duty to continue this war until the complete annihilation of the scourge of terrorism from our soil, an official statement quoted Sharif as saying.

U.S. ambassador to Pakistan David Hale also denounced the bombing. The United States will continue to work in partnership with Pakistan to dismantle and destroy terrorist networks, Hale vowed.

Deadly January attack

A suicide blast in Parachinar in January killed at least 23 people and wounded more than 50 others.

Kurram is one of Pakistans seven federally administered tribal districts, mostly lining the porous border with Afghanistan.

The tribal belt is traditionally notorious for harboring militants engaged in violent attacks in both countries.







Notorious tribal districts

One of the tribal districts  North Waziristan  was until recently condemned by American military commanders as the epicenter of international terrorism.

The region has for years served as a training ground for Taliban and militants linked to the Haqqani network waging insurgency in Afghanistan.

Pakistani authorities, however, say recent sustained counterterrorism military operations have secured most of the border region.

Islamabad alleges that militants linked to the anti-state Pakistani Taliban have fled and taken shelter in Afghan border areas and are plotting attacks in the country from there.

Pakistan has lately stepped up efforts to strengthen security along the nearly 2,600-kilometer largely porous Afghan border, including building a fence in areas vulnerable to militant infiltration.



Fridays bombing happened on a day when President Mamnoon Hussain signed a bill into law reinstating controversial military courts in the country for two years, after a lapse of two months.





A wave of suicide bombings last month killed scores of Pakistanis and prompted the government earlier this week to move the parliament to approve revival of the courts.

Officials insist the courts are required to speedily try and punish suspects in terrorism-related cases to deter militancy in Pakistan. The special tribunals were first introduced for two years in January 2015.

Human rights groups have opposed the military courts from the outset and condemned their reinstatement, saying they fail to provide transparent justice and violate the suspects legal rights, unlike civilian courts.
The leader of Bosnias Muslim community this week vowed to continue fighting radicalization via education and sustained pressure on extremist offshoots within the small Balkan nation.

After a recent meeting with White House and State Department officials, Grand Mufti Husein Kavazovic told VOA in an exclusive interview that he felt reassured that the new administration supports Bosnian unity and sovereignty, and the Balkan nations efforts against radicalization abroad.

Last week Secretary of State Rex Tillerson hosted 68 foreign ministers and other leaders from around the world to discuss a global coalition strategy to defeat Islamic State militants. Bosnias foreign minister also attended the meeting.

We try to show the right path to our Muslims wherever we can, constantly pointing out dangers of extremism of any kind, and how un-Islamic it is, Kazazovic told VOA. We also organize gatherings and conferences for our students, with students from Catholic and orthodox schools and universities in Bosnia. And we preach in our mosques what Bosnia has been forever: different cultures and faiths in one place, which makes it very fortunate and rich.

Radicalization in 1990s

In Bosnia, where Muslims represent the largest faith community, militant Islam was nearly nonexistent until the 1990s Balkans wars, when radicalized Arab Muslim mercenaries intervened to help battle Serb forces. Some foreign extremists who stayed in Bosnia embraced a radical brand of Islam that Kavazovic has adamantly opposed.

Kavazovic has warned Bosnians against succumbing to fanatical rhetoric aimed at recruiting fighters into Syria and Iraq. In 2015, one of his own imams was repeatedly, violently attacked by extremists for refusing to use Bosnias Muslim pulpit as a platform for espousing a radical agenda.

According to intelligence agencies, more than 200 radicalized Bosnians have traveled to Syria and Iraq since 2012, where they fought with jihadist groups, including Islamic State. Bosnian Security Minister Dragan Mektic told VOA in December that about a third of them have been killed. More than 40 fighters returned to Bosnia, where they were all investigated and processed. Bosnia introduced a law two years ago that imposes strong sanctions against those who fight abroad or recruit others to do so.

In 2016, Bosnias Ministry of Security found that munitions from Bosnia were used in the January 2015 attack on the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, and that some Yugoslav-made weapons were used in the November 13 Paris attacks that same year.

Extremists marginalized

Asked about so-called para-mosques, new places of worship in Bosnia formed by followers of the radical Wahhabi version of Islam, Kavazovic said his organization is continuing efforts to marginalize the groups.

We wanted to send clear message, he said of a recent move to exclude them from Bosnias official Muslim community.

The Islamic community cannot have members who are tightly closed, not transparent, [and] who do not respond to the community, so we do not know what they preach [or] what their goal is, he said. Of course, human rights and rights to worship must be respected, but we must know if there is a violent side to their preaching, or something that will damage society. Eventually, some of these groups came back to the community, and those who did not, about 20 of them, are monitored by the authorities.

Kavazovics meetings with U.S. officials were arranged by the Bosnian Embassy in Washington.

In St. Louis, which is home to the largest Bosnian diaspora in the United States, imams recently hosted an open house dubbed Make America Whole Again, in which Republicans and supporters of President Donald Trump were invited to visit a new mosque and learn more about Islamic culture, but few attended.

This report was produced in collaboration with VOAs Bosnian Service.
Rain-fed wildflowers have been sprouting from Californias desert sands after lying dormant for years  producing a spectacular display that has drawn record crowds and traffic jams to tiny towns like Borrego Springs.



An estimated 150,000 people in the past month have converged on this town of about 3,500, roughly 85 miles (135 kilometers) northeast of San Diego, for the so-called super bloom.



Wildflowers are springing up in different landscapes across the state and the western United States thanks to a wet winter. In the Antelope Valley, an arid plateau northeast of Los Angeles, blazing orange poppies are lighting up the ground.

What is a super bloom?



But a super bloom is a term for when a mass amount of desert plants bloom at one time. In California, that happens about once in a decade in a given area. It has been occurring less frequently with the drought. Last year, the right amount of rainfall and warm temperatures produced carpets of flowers in Death Valley.



So far this year, the natural show has been concentrated in the 640,000-acre (1,000-square-mile) Anza Borrego State Park that abuts Borrego Springs.



It is expected to roll along through May, with different species blooming at different elevations and in different areas of the park. Anza Borrego is Californias largest state park with hundreds of species of plants, including desert lilies, blazing stars and the flaming tall, spiny Ocotillo.





'Flowergeddon'

Deputies were brought in to handle the traffic jams as Borrego Springs saw its population triple in a single day.



On one particularly packed weekend in mid-March, motorists were stuck in traffic for five hours, restaurants ran out of food, and some visitors relieved themselves in the fields. Officials have since set up an army of Port-A-Pottys, and eateries have stocked up. The craze has been dubbed Flowergeddon.



Locals call those who view the tiny wildflowers from their cars flower peepers. Thousands of others have left their vehicles to traipse across the desert and analyze the array of delicate yellow, orange, purple and magenta blooms up close in the park. Many carting cameras have taken care to step around the plants.



Tour groups from as far as Japan and Hong Kong have flown in to catch the display before it fades away with the rising temperatures.

Rare sightings tracked



Wildflower enthusiasts worldwide track the blooms online and arrive for rare sightings like this years Bigelows Monkey flower, some of which have grown to 8 inches (203 millimeters) in height. The National Park Service has even pitched in with a 24-hour wildflower hotline to find the best spots at the state park.



Weve seen everything from people in normal hiking attire to people in designer flip-flops to women in sundresses and strappy heels hike out there to get their picture. When I saw that, I thought, Oh no. Please dont go out there with those shoes on, laughed Linda Haddock, head of the Borrego Springs Chamber of Commerce.



On a recent day, a young woman sat among knee-high desert sunflowers and shot selfies against the backdrop of yellow blooms that looked almost neon in contrast to the brown landscape. A mother jumped in the air as her daughter snapped her photo among yellow brittlebushes.

Blooms draw insects, birds

The blooms are attracting hungry sphinx moth caterpillars that munch through acres. The caterpillars in turn are attracting droves of Swainson hawks on their annual 6,000-mile (9,656-kilometer) migration from Argentina.



Its an amazing burst in the cycle of life in the desert that has come because of a freakish event like a super bloom, Haddock said. Its exciting. This is going to be so huge for our economy.



Desert super blooms always draw crowds, but lifetime residents said theyve never seen the natural wonder attract tens of thousands like this time. The park is about a two-hour drive from San Diego and three hours from Los Angeles.

A lot of rain, a lot of blooms



This years display has been especially stunning, experts say. The region received 6 inches (165 millimeters) of rain from December to February, followed by almost two weeks of 90-degree temperatures, setting the conditions for the super bloom. Five years of drought made the seeds ready to pop.



Humans also helped. Park staff, volunteers and female prisoners have been removing the Saharan Mustard plant, an invasive species believed brought to California in the 1920s with another plant, the date palm. Saharan Mustard stole the thunder of another super bloom six years ago, said Jim Dice, research manager at the Anza-Borrego Desert Research Center.



It completely took over the usual wildflower fields and starved out the wildflowers so what we had were giant fields of ugly mustard plant, Dice said. That galvanized the community, which depends on tourism largely brought in during the good wildflower years.



Lia Wathen, a 35-year-old investigator in San Diego, took a Monday off from work so she wouldnt miss the desert flowers.



Any single color that you can think of, youre going to find it right here, said Wathen, walking with her Maltese dogs, Romeo and Roxy, before stopping to examine a magenta bloom on a spikey Cholla cactus.



Sandra Reel and her husband drove hundreds of miles out of their way when they heard about the super bloom.



It is absolutely phenomenal to see this many blooming desert plants all at the same time, she said. I think its probably a once-in-a-lifetime thing.
From Lalit K Jha

Washington, Mar 31 (PTI) In a departure from the previous Obama administration, the Trump White House today said it will raise human rights issues with countries concerned privately as its "the most effective way" to deal with the matters.

"Human rights are always an issue of concern to the United States and theyre first and foremost in our discussions," a senior White House official said.

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"Our approach is to handle these types of sensitive issues in a private, more discrete way. We believe its the most effective way to advance those issues to a favourable outcome," the official said.

The official was responding to a question if human rights would be an issue that could be raised during the visit of the leaders from Egypt and Jordan next week.

The answer from the administration official was general in nature reflecting the policy of the Trump administration.

But this was a departure from the administration of Barack Obama which had on several occasions made human rights the most potent vehicle of Americas public diplomacy and at times even publicly mentioned a country to name and shame it.

Under the Obama administration, the US had often expressed concern over rights violations in China. Obama and his two Secretaries of States ? Hillary Clinton and John Kerry ? included this in their public remarks every time they met a Chinese leader.

The remarks from the White House come ahead of the first meeting between US President Donald Trump and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping in Florida next week.

Under Obama administration India was also targeted on rights situation. Obama had mentioned the issue when he made his second visit to India in January 2015 as the chief guest at the Republic Day Parade that year. PTI LKJ ABH

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Hundreds of ships are switching off their tracking devices and taking unexplained routes, raising concern the trafficking of arms, migrants and drugs is going undetected.

Ninety percent of the worlds trade is carried by sea. Every vessel has an identification number administered by the United Nations International Maritime Organization or IMO. But crews are able to change the digital identity of their ship, making it possible to conceal previous journeys.

The Israeli firm Windward has developed software to track the changes. Its CEO, Ami Daniel, showed VOA several examples of suspicious shipping activity, including one vessel that changed its entire identity in the middle of a voyage from a Chinese port to North Korea.

Its intentionally changing all of identification numbers. Also its name, and its size, and its flag and its owner. Everything thats recognizable in its digital footprint. This is obviously someone who is trying to circumvent sanctions [on North Korea], says Daniel.

Transfers at sea



In a joint investigation with the Times of London newspaper, Windward showed that in January and February more than 1,000 cargo transfers took place at sea. Security experts fear traffickers are transporting drugs, weapons, and even people.

Suspicious activity can be highlighted by comparing a vessels journey with all its previous voyages. In mid-January a Cyprus-flagged ship designed to carry fish deviated from its usual route between West Africa and northern Europe to visit Ukraine, deactivating its tracking system on several occasions.

Its leaving Ukraine, transiting all through the Bosphorus Straits into Europe, then drifting off Malta, explains Daniel, as the Windward system plots the route of the reefer [refrigerated] vessel on the screen. On the way it turns off transmission a few times ... then it comes into this place east of Gibraltar. This area is known for ship-to-ship transfers and smuggling, because of the proximity to North Africa.

Under global regulations all vessels must report their last port of call when arriving in a new port.

But as you can understand, when it does ship-to-ship transfers here, it doesnt actually call into any port, right, because its the middle of the ocean. So its finding a way to bypass what it already has to report to the authorities, Daniel said.

Finally the vessel sails to a remote Scottish island called Islay, but again it anchors around 400 meters off a tiny deserted bay. The specific purpose of this voyage hasnt yet been identified.

Lack of political will



Daniel shows another example of a vessel leaving the Libyan port of Tobruk before drifting just off the Greek island of Crete, raising suspicions that it is involved in people smuggling.

But he says using information like this to investigate suspicious shipping activities requires political will as well as technological advances.

Regulation, coordination, legislation. And then proof in the court of law. And not all of this necessarily exists. The high seas, which means 200 nautical miles onwards by definition, are not regulated right now. The U.N. is still working on it.

Meanwhile the scale of smuggling around the United States coastline was underlined this month, as the Coast Guard intercepted 660 kilos of cocaine off the coast of Florida, with a street value of an estimated $420 million.




China is preparing to shut down ivory factories Friday. It is the first phase of the governments plan to end all domestic ivory trade this year. Kenyan conservation group Save the Elephants says that commitment has already had some impact.

Save the Elephants says the wholesale price of ivory in China dropped up to 60 percent in the last three years. The Nairobi-based conservation group says in 2014 a tusk sold wholesale for $2,100 per kilogram. In February of this year, an ivory tusk was sold at $700 per kilogram.

Save the Elephants researcher Esmond Martin did the study, which was released Wednesday in Nairobi.

The government of China announced in December last year, 2016, it was going to close down the ivory factories, the legal ones and illegal shops, Martin said. So what we found was many of the shops are now, are diversifying, getting out of ivory, moving into other materials.

Ivory sellers clearing stocks

He says raw ivory sellers have been racing against time and offering lower prices to sell off their remaining stocks.

Ivory seals, jewelry and trinkets are popular in China. According to the global monitoring system known as the Elephants Trade Information System (ETIS), China is by far the largest importer and consumer of ivory in the world.

But the founder of Save the Elephants, Iain Douglas-Hamilton, says public education campaigns in China are starting to bear fruit.

If you go back beyond that five years ago, 10 years ago, people in China were unaware that if they bought ivory, it would cause the killing of the elephants, Douglas-Hamilton said. And its been a lot of campaigning with Chinese celebrities, in which the Save the Elephants have taken part, to change that mindset.

Elephants killed by thousands

Tens of thousands of elephants have been killed in recent years for their tusks. The recent Great Elephant Census showed a 30 percent decline in African savanna elephants between 2007 and 2014.

Chinas decision to ban domestic ivory trade by the end of 2017 was hailed by conservationists. Whether the new policy will help reduce poaching remains to be seen. Martin says China must also crack down on illegal trade.

There are over a million Chinese living in Africa, and they are buying a lot of ivory retail from big markets in Luanda, in Lagos, in Cairo, and in Khartoum and other places, Martin said. And 90 percent of the buyers are sending it back to China, and they are also buying ivory which is much cheaper from their neighboring countries such a Vietnam, Laos and Burma.

Last year, Save the Elephants released a report that Chinese ivory buyers are purchasing the product in Vietnam. The group noted in the last decade, the number of ivory items for sale in Vietnam had increased by more than six times.
Deadly cholera is spreading through drought-ravaged Somalia as clean water sources dry up, a top aid official said, deepening a humanitarian crisis in a country that is on the verge of famine.

The Horn of Africa nation has recorded more than 18,000 cases of cholera so far this year, up from around 15,000 in all of 2016 and 5,000 in a normal year, Johan Heffinck, the Somalia head of EU Humanitarian Aid, said in an email on Thursday.

The current strain of the disease is unusually deadly, killing around 1 in 45 patients.

Somalia is suffering from a severe drought that means more than half of its 12 million citizens are expected to need aid by July. Families have been forced to drink slimy, infected water after the rains failed and wells and rivers dried up.

"We are very close to famine," Heffinck said.

The Security Information Network (FSIN), which is co-sponsored by the United Nations food agency, said in a report on Friday Somalia was one of four African countries at high risk of famine.

Somalia's rainy season normally runs from March to May, but there has been no rain this month.

The drought has hit particularly hard in the breakaway northern region of Somaliland, where the rains began to fail in 2015, killing off animals that nomadic families rely on to survive.



'This is the last bottle'

Listless, skinny children last week lay in crowded wards in the main hospital in the regional capital Hargeisa.

Three-year-old Nimaan Hassid had diarrhea for 20 days before his mother brought him to hospital. He weighs only 6.5 kilograms, less than half the normal weight for his age.

Doctors say he is suffering from severe malnutrition but his grandmother, 60-year-old Fadumo Hussein, told Reuters the family has no money for food or clean water.

"We don't have mineral water to give to the sick child. This is the last bottle," she said, carefully pouring it into a feeding tube inserted through his nose.

In the malnutrition ward in the general hospital of Somaliland's second city Burao, Doctor Hamud Ahmed said children were also being hit hard by diseases like tuberculosis, meningitis and measles.

Children's admissions reached almost 60 in March, up fourfold from October.

"This is due to the drought," Ahmed said. "When families lose all their livestock and children do not get milk, this is the famine that causes the children to suffer."

If the rains fail, the country could tip into famine.

Somalia's last famine, in 2011, killed more than 260,000 people. Heffinck said aid agencies were working overtime to try to prevent a similar disaster, trucking in clean water and stepping up the distribution of food and cash.

"The big difference this time is that we have started the preparation and scaling up of the relief operations earlier," he said.
Islamic State group and al-Qaida-linked militants are quickly moving to drum up outrage over a spike in civilian casualties said to have been caused by U.S. airstrikes in Iraq and Syria, posting photos online of a destroyed medical center and homes reduced to rubble. "This is how Trump liberates Mosul, by killing its inhabitants," the caption reads.

During two years of fighting to push back IS, the U.S.-led coalition has faced little backlash over casualties, in part because civilian deaths have been seen as relatively low and there have been few cases of single strikes killing large numbers of people. In Iraq, even though sensitivities run deep over past American abuses of civilians, the country's prime minister and many Iraqis support the U.S. role in fighting the militants.

But anger over lives lost is becoming a significant issue as Iraqi troops backed by U.S. special forces and coalition airstrikes wade into more densely populated districts of Iraq's second-largest city, Mosul, and U.S.-backed Syrian fighters battle closer to the IS stronghold of Raqqa, Syria. That has the potential to undercut victories against the militants and stoke resentments that play into their hands.

At least 300 civilians have been killed in the offensive against IS in the western half of Mosul since mid-February, according to the U.N. human rights office, including 140 killed in a single March 17 airstrike on a building. Dozens more were said to have been killed in another strike last weekend, according to Amnesty International, and by similar airstrikes in Syria in the past month.

Sharply higher toll

In Syria, as fighting around Raqqa intensified, civilian fatalities from coalition airstrikes rose to 198 in March  including 32 children and 31 women  compared with 56 in February, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which documents Syria's war. Over the course of the air campaign, from September 2014 through February, an average of 30 civilians were killed a month, according to the observatory.

The U.S. military is investigating what role the U.S. played in the March 17 airstrike in Mosul, and American and Iraqi officials have said militants may have deliberately gathered civilians there and planted explosives in the building. The blast left an entire residential block flattened.

Among those who lost loved ones, resentment appears to be building toward the U.S.-led coalition and the ground forces it supports.

"How could they have used this much artillery on civilian locations?" asked Bashar Abdullah, a resident of the neighborhood known as New Mosul, who lost more than a dozen family members in the March 17 attack. "Iraqi and American forces both assured us that it will be an easy battle. That's why people didn't leave their houses. They felt safe."

U.S. officials have said they are investigating other claims of casualties in Syria and Iraq.

IS fighters have overtly used civilians as human shields, including firing from homes where people are sheltering or forcing people to move alongside them as they withdraw. The group has imposed a reign of terror across territories it holds in Syria and Iraq, taking women as sex slaves, decapitating or shooting suspected opponents and destroying archaeological sites. Mass graves are unearthed nearly every day in former IS territory.

Now, the group is using the civilian deaths purportedly caused by U.S.-led airstrikes in its propaganda machine.

Today's 'Mongols'

Photos recently posted on militant websites showed the destruction at the Mosul Medical College with a caption describing the Americans as the "Mongols of the modern era" who kill and destroy under the pretext of liberation. A series of pictures showing destroyed homes carried the comment: "This is how Trump liberates Mosul, by killing its inhabitants under the rubble of houses bombed by American warplanes to claim victory. Who would dare say this is a war crime?"

In Syria, IS and other extremist factions have pushed the line that the U.S. and Russia, which is backing President Bashar al-Assad's regime, are equal in their disregard for civilian lives.

U.S. "crimes are clear evidence of the 'murderous friendship' that America claims to have with the Syrian people, along with its claimed concern for their future and interests," said the Levant Liberation Committee, an al-Qaida-led insurgent alliance.

Some Syrian opposition factions allied with the U.S. have also criticized the strikes, describing them as potential war crimes.

An analysis by the Soufan Group consultancy warned that rumors and accusations of coalition atrocities "will certainly help shape popular opinion once Mosul and Raqqa are retaken, thus serving a purpose for the next phase of the Islamic State's existence."

Criticism has also come from Russian officials, whose military has been accused of killing civilians on a large scale in its air campaign in Syria, particularly during the offensive that recaptured eastern Aleppo from rebels late last year.

"I'm greatly surprised with such action of the U.S. military, which has all the necessary equipment and yet were unable to figure out for several hours that they weren't striking the designated targets," Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said, speaking at the U.N. Security Council about the March 17 strike.

Coalition won't 'back down'

Joseph Scrocca, a spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition, acknowledged the spike in civilian casualty reports could change the way the coalition is conducting the war. He said it was a "very valid" concern that loss of life and destruction could play into the hands of IS or cause some coalition members to waver.

"But the coalition is not going to back down when [the fight] gets hard or there's a lot of pressure," he said. "That's what ISIS wants."

In Syria, the deadliest recent strike occurred this month in a rebel-held area in the north. Opposition activists said a mosque was hit during evening prayers, killing about 40 people, mostly civilians, and wounding dozens of others. The U.S. said it struck an al-Qaida gathering across the street from the mosque, killing dozens of militants, adding they found no basis for reports that civilians were killed.

In Mosul, the scale of destruction wrought by increased artillery and airstrikes is immense in some areas.

Abdullah, the resident of New Mosul, buried 13 members of his family in a single day.

Standing in a field now being used as a graveyard, he said: "This was not a liberation. It was destruction."
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Friday funding cuts to foreign aid programs implemented by President Donald Trump will be disastrous for women around the world.

Trump has revived by presidential memorandum (an executive action) the so-called "Mexico City" policy, which bans U.S. foreign aid from being granted to organizations that provide abortions or information about terminating a pregnancy.

Clinton, who since her stunning and unexpected loss to Trump last November has been largely silent, described the president's move as "a blow to women and children and a grave mistake for our country."

"We have to ask," she said during remarks at the Georgetown University Institute for Women, Peace and Security, host of this year's Hillary Rodham Clinton Awards, "Will we be left behind or will we lead the way?" The awards honor women who are working to bring peace around the globe.

White House spokesman Sean Spicer defended Trump's decision  one that illustrates his stance as a "pro-life president."

"The reinstatement of this policy is not just something that echoes that value, but respects taxpayer funding as well," Spicer said.

Award honorees

This year's awards were given to several women who played a role in bringing about a peace deal between the Colombian government and the country's largest rebel group, known as the FARC. The two sides signed a peace deal last year to end the conflict, which lasted for decades and led to the deaths of more than 220,000 people and forced millions of others from their homes.

The honorees included Elena Ambrosi and Maria Paulina Riveros, key members of the Colombian government's negotiating team, Jineth Bedoya, a journalist who was raped and tortured at the hands of paramilitary forces, and Colombia's former Vice-President Humberto De la Calle.

Clinton said when women are included in peace negotiations, coalitions are more likely to be brought together and the deals that emerge are less likely to fail.

"Women are not only victims of war ... but must be seen as makers of change," she said. "Global progress depends on the progress of women."

Women's rights

She said advancing the rights of women is the "great unfinished business of the 21st century," and the work done by the institute at Georgetown is "even more critical" today than any time in the past.

"This is strategic and necessary for matters of peace, prosperity and security. It's not a partisan issue, it's a human issue," she said.

WATCH: Clinton on women's role in society



Prior to Friday's event, Clinton had spent most of her time post-election close to her home in the relatively secluded Chappaqua, New York, north of New York City.

During a speech in Scranton, Pennsylvania, earlier this month Clinton said she is "ready to come out of the woods and to help shine a light on what is already happening around kitchen tables."

Clinton is scheduled to publish a new book of personal essays later this year that are inspired by quotations she's been drawn to over the years. The book will tell stories from Clinton's life and use the quotes to reflect on her experiences, including the 2016 presidential campaign.

In May, she will deliver the commencement address at her alma mater, Wellesley College in Massachusetts.
The U.S. Army is considering trucking hazardous wastewater from a chemical weapons destruction plant in Colorado to another state because the plant isn't yet fully operational.

Incinerators in Texas and Arkansas are under consideration to destroy up to 250,000 gallons (946,000 liters) of wastewater from the Pueblo Chemical Depot, but officials couldn't immediately provide the exact locations Thursday.

The southern Colorado plant is dismantling and neutralizing shells containing mustard agent but can't yet process the wastewater and is running out of storage space, officials said.

The waste is primarily saltwater but could irritate human skin because it contains a caustic chemical used to neutralize the mustard. Officials said the wastewater contains no mustard agent.

The highly automated, $4.5 billion plant is destroying about 780,000 shells filled with 2,500 tons (2.3 million kilograms) of mustard agent under an international treaty. It's the largest remaining stockpile of chemical weapons in the U.S.

Mustard agent can maim or kill by blistering skin, scarring eyes and inflaming airways.

Under most conditions, it's a thick liquid, not a gas as commonly believed. It is colorless and almost odorless but got its name because impurities made early versions smell like mustard.

The Pueblo plant began work last year and has destroyed more than 19,600 shells and 112 tons (102,000 kilograms) of mustard, depot spokesman Tom Schultz said.

But a leak delayed the start of one of the last steps in the process  removing salts and other chemicals from the water and converting them to a solid that can be taken to a hazard waste dump. The water would then be re-used in the plant.

The leak has been repaired but officials don't know whether that part of the plant will be ready before they run out of storage space, so they're making plans to ship some wastewater elsewhere if necessary.

No decision has been made, Schultz said, and the plant still needs to get approval from state health officials in Colorado to ship the wastewater by truck.

"The projections don't favor us," he said. "It appears that we may, I want to stress we may, have to ship up to [250,000 gallons or 946,000 liters] off-site."

The plant has three storage tanks that can hold a total of 855,000 gallons (3.2 million liters). As of Thursday, the tanks held about 700,000 gallons (2.6 million liters), said Sandra Romero, a spokeswoman for Bechtel Corp., the lead contractor in the partnership that built and operates the facility.

Managers don't want to stop operating the plant because they would still have $850,000 a day in labor costs whether they are running or not, Schultz said. They also worry that workers' skills would deteriorate without regular use.

"Their skills can get rusty," Schultz said. "We can't afford that to happen. Safety is far too important for us to risk having the workforce, having their skills degrade."

The Army stores an additional 523 tons (474,000 kilograms) of mustard and deadly nerve agents at Blue Grass Army Depot in Kentucky. A plant to destroy those weapons is expected to begin work in 2020.
2 Reuters photojournalist Marco Bello runs as Venezuelan National Guard soldiers chase him during a protest outside the Supreme Court in Caracas. Security forces violently repressed small protests that broke out in the city after the government-stacked Supreme Court gutted congress of its last vestiges of power, drawing widespread condemnation from foreign governments.
While the Trump administration explores options to curb North Korea's nuclear development, efforts are under way in Congress to push for additional sanctions against the regime.

The move comes amid growing speculation that the isolated state may soon conduct another nuclear test. South Korea believes North Korea is ready to carry out a nuclear test anytime leader Kim Jong Un decides to do so. Recent commercial satellite imagery showed an increased level of activity at the North's Punggye-ri nuclear test site, according to the U.S. monitoring website 38 North.

Ed Royce, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, called on the Trump administration to take additional steps to deny the North the hard currency that enables the country to advance its missile and nuclear programs.

"We are indicating to the administration that they already have important tools at their disposal," the Republican lawmaker from California told VOA on Thursday, when asked what the Trump administration should do to counter the nuclear threat.

Targeting front companies

Royce introduced new legislation to tighten existing sanctions on Pyongyang. The legislation passed by the House panel Wednesday targets front companies and enablers that fund the Kim regime's nuclear program and human rights abuses. It also requires the Trump administration to determine whether North Korea is a state sponsor of terrorism.

The call for the North to be relisted as a state sponsor of terrorism has gained renewed attention after the assassination of Kim Jong Nam, the estranged half-brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. The lawmaker said the measure would "vastly expand the administration's authority to use sanctions to address this emerging North Korean threat."

Royce stressed the need for increased sanctions on the North, saying the communist state is using "sophisticated tactics" to evade sanctions.

"Sanctions enforcement from other nations remains insufficient," he added, citing a recent United Nations report.

Broken pledge?

The French news agency AFP reported the value of China's coal imports from North Korea surged nearly 40 percent in February despite Beijing's earlier pledge to ban such imports as part of the implementation of the latest U.N. sanctions. It is unclear if the purchases had been made before the suspension came into force or Beijing backed away from its previous pledge. In a report on the implementation of the sanctions, China said the imports were suspended from Feb. 19, 2017, to Dec. 31, 2017.

Recently, the Trump administration vowed that its North Korea policy will differ from its predecessor's.

"The policy of strategic patience has ended," U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson told reporters in South Korea this month. "We are exploring a new range of diplomatic, security and economic measures."
European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker has criticized those, including U.S. President Donald Trump, who praise Britain's secession from the European Union (EU), and champion similar movements in other member nations. Leaders of the European People's Party met on Malta Thursday, a day after Britain triggered Article 50 of the Lisbon treaty, officially starting the process known as Brexit. Zlatica Hoke has more.
The European Union softened its public stance on Britains exit from the bloc Friday, with Council President Donald Tusk signaling some flexibility on allowing talks on a new relationship before the divorce proceedings are complete.



Draft guidelines obtained by the Associated Press say that the EU and Britain must first settle the disentanglement of Britain from the bloc but added that an overall understanding on the framework for the future relationship could be identified during the second phase of the negotiations under Article 50.



The guidelines also say it is a priority to settle questions about British and other European citizens living in each others countries, and call for flexible and imaginative solutions for the issue of the U.K.s land border with Ireland.

Talks will be difficult

EU leaders warned after a meeting Friday that the two years of talks triggered this week to negotiate Britains exit will be difficult, but insisted they dont want all-out economic or diplomatic conflict. Tusk is presenting the EUs draft negotiating guidelines to leaders of the remaining 27 member states Friday.



Tusk said the EU will not punish Britain in the talks, saying that Brexit itself is punitive enough. The head of the rotating EU presidency, Maltese Prime Minister Joseph Muscat, insisted the negotiations will not be a war.



Tusk said there would not be parallel discussions about Britains exit and its future relationship with the EU, but said that the negotiations could move onto a second phase if there is sufficient progress in the exit talks.



He didnt define what kind of progress that would have to be, but said that the 27 remaining EU members would have to agree before moving on.

Threat ruled out



Tusk ruled out the suggestion that there was an inherent threat in British Prime Minister Theresa Mays departure letter Wednesday, which some felt hinted that Britain was threatening to end security cooperation with continental Europe unless it gets a good Brexit deal.



British Foreign Minister Boris Johnson also insisted Friday that Britains commitment to European defense and security is unconditional and not some bargaining chip in any negotiations over Brexit.



Johnson, speaking in Brussels upon arrival for a NATO meeting, said he has had good feedback from partners since Wednesdays British formal announcement of its departure from the EU, despite worries on both sides of the Channel about Brexit.
Qatar Airways is providing free laptops to their passengers after Trump's America issued the Electronics Ban which restricts passengers from using laptops on flights to the US.

President Donald Trump's order to restrict people from seven Muslim-majority countries from entering the United States sparked outrage. Soon came an Electronics Ban, and more outrage.

The White House ordered a ban on nine airlines from eight Muslim nations, from carrying most electronic devices on flights to the US.

Electronics like laptops, cameras and tablets must be put in checked baggage. However, phones and medical equipment are excluded.

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Egypt, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Kuwait, Qatar, Morocco and the United Arab Emirates will be affected by the ban.

In response to the US ban on electronic devices inside passenger cabins of planes from the Middle East, Qatar Airways announced a new service which will offer its fliers free laptop for the duration of their flight to the United States.

"Qatar Airways has announced a unique solution to the recently imposed Electronics Ban by offering passengers a laptop loan service that takes their award-winning five-star reputation to new heights," Ruptly quoted Qatar airways.

It's 'Business As Usual' on all United States flights with our complimentary Laptop Loan Service https://t.co/uYMWPHnltg #ElectronicsBan pic.twitter.com/kB31u1opuw- Qatar Airways (@qatarairways) March 30, 2017

The Doha-based airline decided to purchase laptops that will be "available for loan" on all of their US flights. The complementary laptops will be offered to business class passengers traveling on all US-bound flights from next week.

There is also a provision to put your work on a USB drive before leaving the flight. The hardware will be handed out after the passengers reach the aircraft and will then be collected from passengers on arrival.

And if Qatar is not your option, then how about a typewriter?

The future of air travel to the UK/US #electronicsban pic.twitter.com/zzjyNE3FKU- Haisam Haidar (@HaisamHaidar) March 21, 2017

FYI || Royal troll: Middle Eastern airline Royal Jordanian pokes fun at laptop ban ||

FYI || 'Donald the Bin': Trash can that looks like Trump ||

Also Watch: Donald Trump's bid to do away with Obamacare fails

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For the last five years, Michael J. Sharp lived in one of the most dangerous countries in Africa, trying to broker peace between armed groups.

"He was following his passion and mission to make peace in the world  a very broken and violent world," his father, John Sharp, told VOA in an interview late Thursday.

That mission ended when Sharp, Swedish colleague Zahida Catalan and their interpreter, Betu Tshintela, were killed after being abducted in Kasai Central province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo earlier this month. Their bodies were found March 28 in a shallow grave next to the Moyo River.

The fate of a Congolese driver, Isaac Kabuayi, and two motorcycle drivers who were also kidnapped remains unknown.

Sharp, also known as MJ, and Catalan were working as experts for the United Nations, investigating funding and weapons sources for militia groups in the DRC. Their goal was to determine whether U.N. Security Council sanctions against the groups are effective, and if they stop militias and members of the Congolese military from running illegal mines for profit.

Now, John Sharp said, "We are waiting for the Congolese government to give their permission to ship the body back to the U.S." Michael Sharp's body was found intact; Catalan's was decapitated.

The father believes his son's work to promote lasting stability in the troubled province should continue. "Let's let Zahida's and MJ's work continue in other hands. There's much more work to be done. Peace has not yet been negotiated," he said.

Passionate pacifist

A devout member of the Mennonite church  a branch of Christianity that emphasizes pacifism  Michael Sharp first went to the DRC as a volunteer with the Mennonite Central Committee, doing humanitarian work.

He spoke Spanish, German and French, and was learning Swahili. "He developed his passion for peacebuilding and peacemaking in a violent world from his family, his theology, his church because Mennonites have a theology of peacebuilding and nonviolence and he seemed to take that on," his father said.

Sharp collaborated with the Congolese Protestant Council of Churches, which was working to persuade rebel fighters to abandon violence and give up arms. His efforts were bearing fruit, with about 1,600 fighters in January 2015 laying down arms.

His father said Michael Sharp was willing to expose himself to risks in order to understand the causes of conflict, and he strived to build relationships with those involved.

"He was most passionate about something he initiated, I believe, and that is working to build relationships with militia group leaders, so he would travel unarmed through the forest and sit down and talk with them," his father said.

Sharp also earned the admiration of prominent DRC expert Jason Stearns, director of the Congo Research Group and senior fellow at New York University.

The DRC is home to dozens of small militia and rebel groups who hide out in its jungles and make a living mining the country's abundant natural resources, including copper, gold and diamonds.

One of the most prominent is the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), led by Rwandan Hutus fighting against what they say is a Tutsi influence in the region.

In a blog post this week, Stearns said the FDLR is "one of the most brutal and reclusive armed groups in the region." However, that didn't deter Sharp from entering into their territory unarmed, learning about their families, listening to their pleas and "trying to gain their trust and to project empathy. Not an easy feat for a committed pacifist," Stearns wrote.

Stearns said he has always been skeptical of foreigners coming in the country, but Sharp showed him that it is possible to do genuine work on behalf of the Congolese people.

"I am always wary of researchers and activists who come to the Congo for adventure and self-legitimation rather than out of solidarity with the local population," he wrote. "But Michael was no such thing  he was self-effacing, devoted, and empathetic."

Last mission

Sharp and his colleagues went to Kasai Central in early March to investigate widespread human rights abuses near the remote village of Bunkonde, south of the provincial capital, Kananga. Violence driven by political and tribal rivalries has killed hundreds in the province since last August, and several mass graves have been found.

The U.N. team disappeared March 12. The next day, the DRC government said that Sharp and Catalan had "fallen into the hands of unidentified negative forces."

Quickly, the U.N. mission in Congo, MONUSCO, began a search-and-rescue effort that ended Wednesday with the discovery of the bodies.

The eastern DRC has been plagued with violence since the mid-1990s, with millions killed and more than 2 million displaced in what is sometimes called Africa's World War. Much of the country remains beyond the reach of the central government and is controlled by militia groups.

Sharp's father wants to see Congo's perpetual conflict brought to an end, and thinks the loss of his son could trigger more attention to the cause of the conflict.

He urged the U.N. not to give up on its mission, and said more experts are needed to monitor sanctions and bring justice to the area.

"As my son said, nothing is acceptable until there is true peace and complete peace," John Sharp said. "Congolese people deserve peace, they deserve to live in harmony with their neighbors and we should make all efforts possible to make that happen and to stop believing in the myth of redemptive violence."
A big challenge facing Hong Kongs newly elected chief executive, Carrie Lam, is a controversial $11 billion high-speed rail line and station that links the port city with China.

Critics have called the project a political time bomb and warned of the fiscal challenges the project could bring.

Whats more, Beijing plans to install Chinese police at the station, which has some worried that it could be the first test of how Lam will strike a balance between the interests of Beijing and Hong Kongs citizens.

Watch: China High-Speed Rail Could be New Hong Kong Leader's First Big Test

The Lam way?

Days after being voted into her new job, Lam paid courtesy calls to Beijings liaison office and the Peoples Liberation Army garrison in Hong Kong and announced that Beijings representative branches would let her run things her way.

But her words may be put to the test right after she takes office July 1, when her administration gears up to finalize details of the new express rail, which is scheduled to begin operation in the third quarter of next year.

A promotional video from Hong Kongs MTR Corp. has presented a sleek modern picture of the express rail and what the West Kowloon Terminus will look like when the 26-kilometer-long section in Hong Kong is finished.

State-of-the-art bullet trains traveling through underwater tunnels at a maximum speed of 200 kilometers per hour will transport an estimated 3 million passengers between Hong Kong and Guangzhou each month.

The trips travel time will be cut by half to less than an hour.

And from Guangzhou, the rail line will connect with Chinas 16,000-kilometer-long express rail network, the largest in the world, to arrive at major Chinese cities within hours.

Further integration

For Beijing, the project highlights its vision to make travel to China more efficient and to enhance social, economic and cultural integration with the port city.

But for some Hong Kong residents, the project is a nightmare.

[There] will be more Chinese people to come to Hong Kong more easily, and we dont like that, Carol Chow, a Hong Kong housewife and mother told VOA.

Chow said she and many others are also worried about the impact the project could have on the citys pricey real estate and goods.

And pervasive Chinese influence in the city has further jeopardized the Hong Kong citizens way of life, she added.

Simmering anti-China resentment

Resentment against visitors from China has been simmering for years in Hong Kong, and with the project boosting the number who are likely to come here, it could fuel tensions further.

In 2015, for example, ahead of the Chinese New Year holiday, hundreds Hong Kong residents flooded the citys shopping districts to protest what was perceived as the advantage taken by mainland visitors of the citys lower priced staple goods.

The demonstrators taunted Chinese shoppers with the derogatory Cantonese slur wong chung, or locusts, which turned into the citys most combative protests since the Occupy movement in 2014.

The protesters said they were angry that Chinese shoppers had clogged the citys transit system and emptied stores of basic necessities like powdered baby formula.

Local officials, nevertheless, have never tried to slow the territorys further integration with the mainland.

Hong Kong has reportedly agreed to let China deploy police inside the terminus, a decision that is raising questions about whose laws will be enforced and whether there will be a violation of the one country, two systems model, under which Hong Kong is supposed to maintain its legal autonomy.

Some younger residents see this project as another effort for China to exert control over the port city, disguised as a business-friendly infrastructure project.

As time goes by, if China continues to set up more of these freedom-controlling policies, I think that is getting more and more unacceptable, a 16-year-old college student, surnamed Lee, told VOA.

Integrated checkpoint

Discussions about checkpoint arrangements at the station were held recently between Hong Kong and Chinese authorities, but no details have been released.

Observers say local authorities are holding off over concerns of a public backlash.

Expressing opposition to such an integrated checkpoint, Albert Lai, policy convener of The Professional Commons, argued that having mainland police on the Hong Kong soil could jeopardize Hong Kong citizens civic rights. He said the city has witnessed the apparent abduction of booksellers and a Chinese businessman.

Political debts

He also doubts Lam will be able to say no to Beijing, which supported her election.

She has to repay debts, the political debts, to cater [to] the vested interests and to cater [to] Beijings demands. So, its very hard to see that she can have the political clout to stand for the interests of Hong Kong people even if she wants to do so, Lai told VOA.

The citys business community has largely welcomed the railway project. For them, speedy customs clearance is more important than the controversial integrated checkpoint.


Boris Kiknadze, chief executive of Pawwwn, took a deep breath as he looked out to the crowd of Silicon Valley venture capitalists and began his pitch.

With just 10 minutes to speak, Kiknadze rapidly described his business idea  Pawwwn, an online payment and management system to make transactions easier for pawnshop owners and their customers. The pain point for pawn shops is payment. Pawwwn takes away that pain, he said.

For months, Kiknadze and his co-founder had developed Pawwwn in his home country of Georgia before getting on a plane for San Francisco. Since the firm launched in March, Kiknadze has had 20 customers trying out the service.

But with 1,400 pawnshops in Georgia and 12,000 more in the U.S., Kiknadze saw a big opportunity. And to achieve that, he needs cash  $1 million, which he said he would use to launch Pawwwn in the U.S.

Competing for investors

Kiknadze is part of Startup Georgia, a project administered by Georgia's Innovation and Technology Agency, that connects U.S. experts and investors with startups in Georgia.

More than 250 entrepreneurs tried out in Georgia to qualify for a week of training in Tbilisi, the nation's capital. Among those 50 who participated in the training, 20 were selected for seed funding and three months of additional training with a Silicon Valley expert with weekly videoconferencing meetings.

Of those, eight were chosen to travel to the U.S. for a boot camp and to pitch to investors directly.

Georgia, a country of fewer than 4 million people, is looking to the success of small countries, such as Estonia and Israel, to pitch itself as a burgeoning tech hub, said Mark Iwanowski, founder and president of Global Visions-Silicon Valley, which provided the U.S. support for the program.

For U.S. investors, typically reluctant to invest beyond U.S. tech hubs, there is an opportunity to get more value in overseas companies, where labor costs are lower, he said. To attract these investors, foreign companies need to incorporate in the U.S. and set up a team here.

Over the past week in Silicon Valley, the Georgian entrepreneurs received one-on-one mentorship training as they refined their pitches. They heard from lawyers on protecting intellectual property and listened to venture capitalists talk about how to approach investors.

If a venture capitalist says they love it, it kind of doesn't mean anything, said Steve Goldberg, operating partner at Venrock, a venture firm. My advice is to have people on the team who understand venture-speak.

Understand what the investor is looking for, said Ron Weissman of Band of Angels, Silicon Valley's oldest seed fund. He suggested approaching investors seeking a conversation  Im not here to raise money. I'm here to get a sense of what it would take to interest you.

Tech's next 'unicorn'?

That is the kind of approach honed by Vamekh Kherkheulidze, founder and medical adviser to ORsim, a Georgian operating room virtual reality simulator.

By slipping on a virtual reality headset and a special glove that gives all the sensations of holding instruments and operating on a person, medical students can better learn how to become surgeons, Kherkheulidze said. And that's important, because there's a shortage of surgeons both in the U.S. and worldwide.

From potential investors, ORsim is looking for supporters, he said. We promote new ways of education and we want investors who understand that.

Still, his ambition is big. "We want to expand and expand fast," Kherkheulidze said. Already, ORsim, with $35,000 in pre-seed funding from Startup Georgia, has an appendectomy simulator.

Our hope is to be a unicorn, Kherkheulidze said, referring to the term used to describe startups worth more than $1 billion in valuation. But in addition to greatly improving surgical training worldwide, he sees his company as a way to help his home country.

If we are worth $1 billion, you can increase the economy. What was Skype's influence in Estonia? he said, referring to the Estonian internet communication service bought by Microsoft for more than $8 billion.

After the pitches, the entrepreneurs mingled with investors. No one got investment on the spot, but most are hopeful and are following up with meetings next week.
Israel's planned new major settlement is stirring emotions both among Israelis and Palestinians.

Palestinians are furious after Israel announced that it will build the first new Jewish settlement in the West Bank in 20 years. Palestinian officials say the settlements are illegal under international law and such construction is another nail in the coffin of the peace process.

Ayman Abu Ahmad, a Palestinian from East Jerusalem, says it is clear that Israel does not want peace.



The peace they want is to take everything, to take the land, take control of the borders, and the situation is very bad," he said.



The announcement of the new settlement came two months after the Israeli army dismantled another Jewish community in the West Bank under orders from Israels Supreme Court. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he is fulfilling a promise to the more than 300 evacuated settlers that he would build them a new community.

U.S. President Donald Trump's administration had appealed to Israel to curb settlement activity, saying it harms efforts to revive peace talks with the Palestinians that collapsed three years ago. Nevertheless, the plans for a new settlement brought muted reaction from the White House.

That is in sharp contrast to the previous administration of Barack Obama, who bitterly opposed settlement expansion.

Former Israeli diplomat Zalmon Shoval believes there is a quiet understanding between Israel and the Trump administration for limited construction in the settlements.

From the reactions in Washington you can see  not that they are enthusiastic about it necessarily  but that they take this in their stride, understanding that Netanyahu had a political commitment which he had to honor," Shoval said.

As a result, Jewish settlers and their supporters in the right-wing Israeli government are declaring victory, saying it is a historic day for Zionism and the state of Israel.
Israel's security cabinet on Thursday approved the building of the first new settlement in the occupied West Bank in two decades, even as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu negotiates with Washington on a possible curb on settlement activity.

The unanimous vote in favor of construction of the new settlement in an area called Emek Shilo came after Netanyahu earlier told reporters: I made a promise that we would establish a new settlement ... We will keep it today.

The result of the vote was announced in a government statement.

PLO condemns vote

Palestinian officials swiftly condemned the move.

Today's announcement once again proves that Israel is more committed to appeasing its illegal settler population than to abiding by the requirements for stability and a just peace, said Hanan Ashrawi, an executive committee member of the Palestine Liberation Organization.

There was no immediate reaction from U.S. President Donald Trump's administration, which is in discussions with Israel on limiting the construction of settlements on land Palestinians seek for a state.

Such settlements, in territory that Israel captured in the 1967 Middle East war, are deemed illegal by most of the world.

Israel cites biblical, historical and political links to the land, as well as security interests, to defend its actions.

Prime minister keeps his word

Netanyahu first promised the new settlement at Emek Shilo in February, shortly before dozens of Israeli families were evicted from another West Bank settlement called Amona. Their houses were razed after Israel's Supreme Court said they were built illegally on privately owned Palestinian land.

Establishing a new settlement may be a way for Netanyahu to appease far-right members of his coalition government who are likely to object to any concessions to U.S. demands for restraints on building.

Israeli political sources, however, said the new construction would actually take place within the boundaries of an existing settlement. The new community would then be declared its own settlement, a nuance that might be enough to stave off possible U.S. opposition to the move.

Trump, who had been widely seen in Israel as sympathetic towards settlements, appeared to surprise Netanyahu during a White House visit last month when he urged him to hold back on settlements for a little bit.

The two then agreed that their aides would try to work out a compromise on how much Israel can build and where.

President's envoy pushes peace talks

Trump's Middle East envoy, Jason Greenblatt, this week wrapped up a second trip to the region aimed at reviving Middle East peace talks that collapsed in 2014.

A new settlement would be the first built in the West Bank since 1999. About 400,000 Israeli settlers live in the West Bank which is also home to 2.8 million Palestinians. Another 200,000 Israelis live in East Jerusalem.

Palestinians want the West Bank and East Jerusalem for their own state, along with the Gaza Strip.
American Michael Sharp told his mother two years ago he was committed to helping the Congolese people in his role as a U.N. investigator and was "not afraid to die," she recalled Thursday after he was murdered this week along with a colleague in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

"He said the hardest thing for him was to think about pain he would cause his family," Michele Miller Sharp said in a telephone interview from her home in Kansas. "I told him we all supported him and we would handle any pain and he should continue his work."

Sharp's mother learned of his death on her birthday. United Nations peacekeepers in Congo this week discovered his body and that of Zaida Catalan, a Swedish national, who had been missing in an area engulfed in violence.

Sharp, 34, was in a group of experts monitoring sanctions imposed on Congo by the U.N. Security Council when he and others were kidnapped this month in Kasai Central province.

Despite the risks, Sharp's parents, who live outside Wichita, "were fully supportive of him because he was passionate. This was his calling," said his father, John E. Sharp, 65.

"We were not about to step in the way of that, in spite of our fears," he added. "Although we hoped and prayed something like this would never happen, we knew it was a possibility."

Passion, respect

Michael Sharp was raised in Indiana and learned from his Mennonite Christian faith the core values of peace building and nonviolence, his 62-year-old mother said. After studying history in college, Michael headed to Germany, where he volunteered and then earned a master's degree in international conflict resolution.

Sharp resided in Albuquerque, New Mexico, when he was on breaks from his work. In Congo, he worked three years building relationships with militia leaders, convincing them to lay down their weapons and release the children they had dragooned into being soldiers.

"That was his passion, to work at helping this war-torn country," said his mother. "He cared deeply about the Congolese people."

Michael joined the U.N. in 2015 as a militia group expert, presenting information to the Security Council and making recommendations on sanctions, his parents said.

Colleagues told his parents that Congolese militia leaders respected their son, who would travel for miles, unarmed, to meet them under a banana tree and just listen to them.

Michael would no doubt be amazed at the fuss about him as he was very unassuming and humble, his father said. While he understood the risks involved, he worried more about the effect his death might have on his family.

"About two years ago, he sat down beside me and said, 'Mom you know I don't have death wish in the work I do, but I want you to know I'm not afraid to die either.'" his mother said. She said the family supported him.

"From a toddler on up, every day was lived to the fullest," she added.

U.N. leaders react

Meanwhile, his parents and two sisters wait for the return of Michael's body to the United States, where U.S. officials will perform an autopsy. His parents said U.N. officials have been in constant communication with them.

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Tuesday said the world body would "do everything possible to ensure that justice is done." U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley called the death senseless.

"Michael was working on the front lines of what we try to do at the United Nations every day: find problems and fix them," she said in a statement. "He selflessly put himself in harm's way to try to make a difference in the lives of the Congolese people."

Congo's Kasai Central region is the center of the Kamuina Nsapu insurgency that has now spread to five provinces in the loosely governed Central African country.

The parents said they hope the U.N. doesn't abandon its work in Congo due to their son's death. "We would not want this tragedy to be compounded by withdrawal from that region," the father, John, said. "We also want the U.S. to continue its funding to the U.N."
Zambia is attempting to convert the nation to energy-saving light emitting diode (LED) lightbulbs to help plug crippling power shortages that have hit mining and agriculture and imposed daily rationing on parts of the country.

If all homes and industries switch to the longer-lasting bulbs, the country could save up to 200 megawatts of electricity annually  about 30 percent of its power deficit  according to the state-owned Zambia Electricity Supply Corporation (ZESCO).

The company is planning to distribute 5 million free LED bulbs by June in exchange for conventional ones, at a cost of $20 million. The aim is to replace every incandescent bulb in the country.

"With such initiative, we are going to save a lot of energy. Just imagine moving from 40 watts energy consumption for an ordinary bulb to ... only 5 watts for LEDs," Thomas Sinkamba, manager of the LEDs rollout at ZESCO, told Reuters.

So far, 3 million of the low-energy bulbs have been bought for $5 million, ZESCO senior manager Bessie Banda said.

The government in January banned the manufacture, sale and import of energy-hungry incandescent lightbulbs and several other inefficient devices.

It has also lifted import taxes on LED bulbs, solar panels and other energy-saving equipment, while imposing taxes on inefficient electrical devices.

Rozaia Mapika, a 53-year old a meat seller living in Lusaka, who received six LED bulbs free in December under the government scheme, said the new lightbulbs have cut her monthly electricity bill.

"We used to spend 300 Zambian kwacha [$30] monthly on electricity [for] household use," said Mapika, who uses electricity for cooking, heating and lighting.

"Now, we are not exceeding more than 240 ZMW [$25] per month," she told Reuters.

Some people, however, are concerned about the safe disposal of long-lasting LED bulbs and their impact on people's health.

"[LED lightbulbs] contain mercury, which is highly toxic even in small doses," said Robert Chimambo a board member for the Zambia Climate Change Network.

The LED bulbs are more expensive to buy than conventional bulbs, costing $5 compared to $1.50. But they last six times longer, promoters said.

Providing the bulbs free of charge is key to driving the switchover in a country where about 65 percent of the population live on less than $1.90 a day.

Powering a nation

The country's electricity demand in the last five years has risen to 1,800 megawatts, up from 1,600 megawatts, as more areas have been electrified, putting increased pressure on the national electricity grid, according ZESCO.

The rising demand, coupled with two years of drought that lowered water levels in the country's hydroelectric dams, have led to the country's power shortages.

Electricity from the national grid has been rationed for up to six hours a day in parts of the country as a way to cushion the shortfall.

"Increased economic activities and [not enough] rainfall have severely impacted the power deficit," Sinkamba said.

Insufficient investment in electricity generation has also worsened the country's power deficits, the ministry of finance said in November.

The demand for power is likely to grow, as the government attempts to roll out electricity supplies to more people.

More than two-thirds of Zambia's 15.5 million people have no access to any power, according to USAID, the U.S. government's aid agency, which is working with Zambia to help improve its power supplies.

Justine Mukosa, a manager at the government's Rural Electrification Authority, said that as demand for power increases nationally, other energy sources will be needed to reduce pressure on the national grid.

"We need to intensify other energy sources like solar mini-grid, wind energy and others," Mukosa said.
Leaders of Turkey's largest pro-Kurdish political party said they began a hunger strike Friday to protest prison conditions, joining other inmates who have been refusing to take solid food for up to 40 days.

Selahattin Demirtas, co-chair of the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP), and his deputy, Abdullah Zeydan, have been jailed since November in the northwestern province of Edirne after refusing to testify in a probe linked to terrorist propaganda. HDP members make up the third-largest bloc in Turkey's parliament.

Also jailed are HDP co-leader Figen Yuksekdag and 10 other lawmakers from the party  all accused of ties to Kurdish militants. The HDP has denied any links to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).

HDP strongly opposes constitutional changes that will go before Turkish voters in a national referendum in mid-April.

Separately, Democratic Regions Party (DBP) co-chair Sebahat Tuncel, who is being held in Silivri Prison, said she and other detainees would join the hunger strike on Saturday.

HDP officials contend that up to 5,471 party officials have been detained since the July 2016 coup attempt in Turkey, while DBP said 3,457 of its members have been held in pretrial detention since 2015.

Demirtas and the HDP have accused the government of using the state of emergency that was imposed after the failed coup as a means of suppressing dissent.
The main rebel group in South Sudan is threatening to disrupt oil production in the country, a day after it released three foreign oil workers it kidnapped earlier in the month.

An official of the Sudan People's Liberation Movement in Opposition (SPLM IO) said the government is using oil revenue to purchase weapons and kill civilians.

People in South Sudan are not receiving their money (from oil revenue). This money is going to their pocket (of government officials) and for buying arms for killing our people. If we have chance to stop the oil production, we will do it, said Dak Duop Bichok, the head of the SPLM IO's committee for energy and mining

Oil workers released

Duop confirmed the rebel group has released three foreign oil workers it abducted in the Adar fields of oil-rich Upper Nile State earlier in March.

VOA's South Sudan In Focus obtained a letter dated March 28 ordering the release of two Indians, Muthu Vijaya Boopathy and Ayaz Hussein Jamali, who work with a Chinese-led consortium, and Ambrose Edward, a Pakistani employed by a South Sudanese company.

Duop said the three were released after officials from their countries spoke with rebel leader Riek Machar. He said the freed oil workers were flown to Khartoum via Addis Ababa on Thursday and taken to their countries' embassies in Khartoum.

Ransom demand denied

South Sudan's Information Minister Michael Makuei said early this month the government received reports that rebel forces were demanding a $1 million ransom for the oil workers. He said South Sudan's Transitional Government of National Unity does not deal with what he called terrorists.

Duop denied his group demanded ransom for the oil engineers. We didn't demand anything, we released them without any deal, he told VOA's South Sudan in Focus.

Duop said the SPLM IO is not a terrorist group, but fights for the rights of South Sudanese.

Repeated warnings

At the same time, he said the SPLM IO has given repeated warnings to national and international oil companies to abandon the oil fields.

You please, evacuate the place. The government is producing oil, and is getting money and is buying (arms), he said.

South Sudan's Minister for Petroleum, Ezekiel Lol Gatkuoth said early this month that his government has learned a lesson and will increase measures to protect oil workers in the area.
Two Democrats facing tough re-elections in GOP states said Thursday they will vote for President Donald Trumps Supreme Court nominee, even as the Senate Democratic leader strongly warned Republicans against changing Senate rules to confirm Judge Neil Gorsuch.



Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York had tough words for his Republican counterpart, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, in an interview with The Associated Press.



Hes bound and determined to change the rules and trample on Senate tradition in order to get a conservative justice approved, Schumer said of McConnell. Let the public judge whether that is a good thing.





Schumer spoke shortly after Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota became the first Democrats to announce their support for Gorsuch, a Denver-based appellate judge. They join all 52 Senate Republicans, who argue Gorsuch is impeccably qualified to join the high court and accuse Democrats, and Schumer in particular, of playing politics by opposing him.

The Senate confirmation vote is expected late next week. Unless 60 senators support Gorsuch, which would require six more Democrats to join Heitkamp and Manchin, Republicans would have to unilaterally change Senate rules to allow Gorsuch to be confirmed with a simple majority vote in the 100-member Senate.



That scenario is looking increasingly inevitable, even though it is known on Capitol Hill as the nuclear option because it would amount to a dramatic departure from Senate norms of bipartisanship and collegiality. Although McConnell has yet to formally announce plans to take the step, Republican senators fully expect it and are prepared if regretful.



Schumer conducted back-to-back interviews with several major news outlets Thursday to argue that it will be the fault of Republicans, not Democrats, if the rules change happens.



Senate Republicans are acting like if Gorsuch doesnt get 60 votes they have no choice but to change the rules, Schumer said. That is bunk. He claimed that Trump should produce a more mainstream nominee, instead.



As for Manchin and Heitkamp, Schumer said: Ive made my arguments to every member, including them, and each member is going to make his or her own decision.

In all, 34 Democrats and counting have said they will oppose Gorsuch.
(Eds: Updating with fresh inputs)

From Lalit K Jha

Washington, Mar 31 (PTI) President Donald Trump today predicted that his first summit with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping next week would be a "very difficult" one as the US can no longer afford job losses and massive trade deficits with the Communist trading giant.

Given that the United States has a massive trade deficit with China, American companies must be prepared to look at other alternatives, Trump tweeted ahead of his meeting with Xi at his Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida on April 6 and 7.

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This would be the first meeting between the two leaders in what many argue is the most important bilateral relationship in the world.

"The meeting next week with China will be a very difficult one in that we can no longer have massive trade deficits and job losses," Trump said.

Earlier, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer told reporters that Trump looks forward to meeting President Xi and exchanging views on each others respective priorities and to chart a way forward for bilateral ties.

"They will discuss the issues of mutual concern, including North Korea, trade, and regional security," he said.

Trump has said in recent weeks that North Korea is one of the biggest security challenges he faces as president and has called on China to rein in Pyongyang, which US officials believe is preparing for another nuclear test.

Territorial disputes in the South China Sea and Chinas continued building of man-made islands are also likely to be raised.

Noting that Trump has spoken to Xi, also General Secretary of the ruling Communist Party of China, over the phone a few times, Spicer said this was an opportunity for the President to develop a relationship in person with his Chinese counterpart.

"But we have big problems, and -- I mean, everything from the South China Sea, to trade, to North Korea. There are big issues of national and economic security that need to get addressed, and I think theres going to be a lot on the table when it comes to that over the two days that they will talk," Spicer said in response to a question.

There are a lot of big things that the US needs to accomplish with China, and it will work on them, he said.

In Beijing, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang underlined the need to see the big picture while fostering mutual interests in trade relations.

"The market dictates that interests between our two countries are structured so that you will always have me and I will always have you," he told a regular briefing.

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"Both sides should work together to make the cake of mutual interest bigger and not simply seek fairer distribution," he said.

China-US trade in goods amounted to USD 519.6 billion in 2016. China has a large share in the bilateral trade with its exports to the US amounting to over USD 400 billion.

Despite Trumps fiery attacks on the campaign trail -- accusing China of "raping" the US economy and stealing millions of American jobs, among other things -- his administration has taken a relatively hands-off approach in dealing with Beijing so far, CNN commented.

Trump has not followed through on campaign promises to label China a "currency manipulator" on day one of his presidency or to impose steep tariffs on all Chinese imports.

He also endorsed the "One China" policy on Taiwan, which has governed the fragile relations between the US, China and Taiwan for decades, after questioning its legitimacy shortly after his election. PTI LKJ ASK AKJ AKJ

--- ENDS ---
Russian submarines have increased combat patrols to the level last seen during the Cold War, the navy chief said Friday.



Adm. Vladimir Korolyov said that Russian submarine crews spent more than 3,000 days on patrol last year, matching the Soviet-era operational tempo.



It's an excellent level, he said in remarks carried by state RIA Novosti news agency.



The Russian military had fallen on hard times after the 1991 Soviet collapse when it was forced to scrap many relatively new ships and keep most others at harbor for lack of funds. The military has revived its strength thanks to a sweeping arms modernization program amid tensions with the West over Ukraine.



Korolyov spoke after attending the launch of a new Yasen-class nuclear-powered attack submarine called the Kazan. He hailed the new ship as the most modern in the world, emphasizing its low noise level making it hard to track it.



It represents the cutting edge of nuclear submarine design, Korolyov said in televised remarks.



The navy plans to commission seven Yasen-class submarines that are armed with torpedoes and long-range Kalibr cruise missiles, which for the first time have been tested in combat during the Russian campaign in Syria.
Russian prosecutors moved Friday to block calls on social networks for more street protests in Moscow and other Russian cities following a wave of rallies that have cast a new challenge to the Kremlin.

Tens of thousands of demonstrators turned out in Moscow and other cities Sunday to rally against official corruption in the largest outpouring of discontent in years.

The Prosecutor General's office confirmed Friday it has requested the state communications watchdog to block pages on social networks calling for more protests this Sunday in Moscow and elsewhere in Russia.

Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who organized Sunday's unsanctioned protest, is serving a 15-day sentence on charges of resisting police. More than 1,000 protesters have been arrested in Moscow, and many have been sentenced to brief jail terms and fines.

The U.S. and the EU have criticized the crackdown and urged Russia to release all detainees, but President Vladimir Putin has rejected the criticism as meddling in Russia's internal affairs.

Without naming Navalny, Putin, who faces re-election in March 2018, has denounced those protest organizers who try to use anti-corruption slogans in "narrow selfish political goals."

Navalny has declared his intention to run for president and vowed to appeal a conviction that bars him from the race, which he denounced as politically driven.

Faced with a tough challenge, the Kremlin is mulling a response.

Putin on Thursday vowed to fight corruption, but also warned that the government wouldn't allow any breach of law. He drew parallels with the Arab Spring uprisings in Africa and the Middle East and protests in Ukraine that toppled a Russia-friendly president in 2014.

"Everybody should act in political processes within the framework of the law. All those who go outside this law should bear punishment in accordance with Russian legislation," Putin said.

The protests have shaken Russia's sleepy political scene and reinvigorated the opposition after years of relentless official crackdown, showing public readiness to brave draconian laws which make repeated participation in unsanctioned protests punishable with prison terms and hefty fines.

In contrast with the past, when opposition demonstrations were mostly limited to Moscow and St. Petersburg, Sunday's rallies engulfed dozens of provincial cities and towns. In another new phenomenon, the rallies also saw large attendance by school and university students.

Putin's spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, dodged a question about Putin's reaction to a statement from prominent film director Alexander Sokurov, who urged the Kremlin to listen to the protesters' demands and refrain from using force to avoid "political catastrophes."

"They were grabbing teenage students by their legs and carrying them away in a very brutal, violent way," Sokurov said Tuesday while receiving a movie award. "The government makes a grave mistake when it treats students like that. You shouldn't start a civil war with schoolchildren and university students, you should listen to them!"

Peskov, speaking Friday in a conference call with reporters, said only that Putin is ready to listen to arguments by Sokurov and other cultural figures, but doesn't always agree with their views.
As he tries to line up enough votes to block President Donald Trump's Supreme Court nominee, the Senate Democratic leader is strongly warning Republicans against changing Senate rules to confirm Judge Neil Gorsuch.



Minority Leader Chuck Schumer lost two in his caucus Thursday when Democratic Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota said they would vote for the Colorado jurist. But Schumer still appears to be on track to amass enough Democratic votes to block the nomination, which could prompt Republicans to change Senate rules so that Gorsuch could be confirmed.



Schumer, of New York, had tough words for his Republican counterpart, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, in an interview with The Associated Press.



He's bound and determined to change the rules and trample on Senate tradition to get a conservative nominee approved, Schumer said of McConnell. Let the public judge whether that is a good thing.



Manchin and Heitkamp join all 52 Senate Republicans, who argue the Denver-based federal appeals court judge is impeccably qualified to succeed the late Justice Antonin Scalia on the high court. Republicans accuse Democrats, and Schumer in particular, of playing politics by opposing Gorsuch.



The Senate confirmation vote is expected late next week. Unless 60 senators support Gorsuch - which would require six more Democrats to join Heitkamp and Manchin - Republicans would have to unilaterally change Senate rules to allow Gorsuch to be confirmed with a simple majority vote in the 100-member Senate.



Nuclear option

That scenario is looking increasingly inevitable, even though it is known on Capitol Hill as the nuclear option because it would amount to a dramatic departure from Senate norms of bipartisanship and collegiality. Although McConnell has yet to formally announce plans to take the step, Republican senators fully expect it and are prepared, even if regretful.



Schumer conducted back-to-back interviews with several major news outlets Thursday to argue that it will be the fault of Republicans, not Democrats, if the rules change happens.





Senate Republicans are acting like if Gorsuch doesn't get 60 votes they have no choice but to change the rules, Schumer said. That is bunk. He claimed that Trump should produce a more mainstream nominee instead.



As for Manchin and Heitkamp, Schumer said: I've made my arguments to every member including them and each member is going to make his or her own decision.



In his statement, Manchin said: I hold no illusions that I will agree with every decision Judge Gorsuch may issue in the future, but I have not found any reasons why this jurist should not be a Supreme Court Justice.



Heitkamp said she expects Gorsuch to follow through on his promise of an independent judiciary that acts as a proper check and balance on the other two branches of government.



In all, 35 Democrats have said so far that they definitely will oppose Gorsuch.



Connecticut Sen. Richard Blumenthal announced his opposition Friday, saying he believes Gorsuch would not be an independent voice from Trump.

Dilemma for some Democrats

Missouri Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill, who says she is torn over how to vote, highlighted the dilemma for Democratic senators running next year in states that Trump won in last November's presidential election.



Should they vote for Gorsuch and anger their liberal base? Or vote to block Gorsuch and prompt Republicans to permanently change Senate rules to eliminate the filibuster?



It is obviously a really difficult situation, McCaskill told reporters.



McCaskill's comments came after The Kansas City Star released audio of her talking to donors over the weekend. In the recording, which the Missouri Republican Party gave to the newspaper, McCaskill says the decision is difficult because if the filibuster is eliminated, Trump could nominate another justice without having to compromise with Democrats, and all of a sudden, the things I fought for with scars on my back to show for it in this state are in jeopardy.



If confirmed, Gorsuch would replace Scalia, who died in February 2016. But if one of the more liberal justices dies or retires, Trump's next pick could fundamentally alter the balance of the court. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is 84 and fellow liberal Justice Stephen Breyer is 78. Justice Anthony Kennedy, the pivotal vote closest to the court's center, is 80.



Changing Senate rules would not be unprecedented. In 2013, Democrats were in the majority under the leadership of Sen. Harry Reid of Nevada and upset about the blockage of President Barack Obama's nominees to a powerful appellate court. The Democrats pushed through a rules change lowering the vote threshold on all nominees except for the Supreme Court from 60 to a simple majority.



Schumer conceded Thursday that We made one mistake, we shouldn't have changed the rules for lower court judges ... but we never did it for Supreme Court. This is a much bigger mistake on their behalf.

And he defended Democratic plans to filibuster Gorsuch, even though that step has very rarely been used against Supreme Court nominees. Schumer pointed to the treatment last year of Merrick Garland, Obama's Supreme Court nominee, who never got a hearing as McConnell led a Republican blockade.



Judge Garland didn't even get the opportunity to be filibustered, so let's not say this is unprecedented, Schumer said.
Some 6.7 million voters in Serbia are poised to cast ballots Sunday in what could be one of the most irregular presidential elections in the central Balkan nation's history.

Viewed by many as a test of Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic's popularity, the election will see the former firebrand ultranationalist-turned-EU supporter face off against 10 candidates representing a range of parties that make up the nation's fragmented opposition.

However, only three or four of these 10 candidates can expect to win 10 percent or more of the votes, according to current polls. Vucic's support hovers around 50 percent, and if he can win more than half the vote Sunday, he would avoid a runoff election next month, in which the opposition could coalesce behind a single candidate.

His critics warn that Vucic is looking to replicate the kind of autocracy seen in Russia under Vladimir Putin, who has already endorsed the incumbent. Vucic's challengers have accused him of mudslinging, controlling the media and intimidating voters ahead of the election.

Vucic, a former information minister and hard-line propagandist under President Slobodan Milosevic, rejects those accusations. On Thursday, his ruling Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) purchased the front pages on almost every daily newspaper to advertise the candidate's red-and-blue AV logo-emblazoned poster.

While many Belgrade pundits seem to agree that a Vucic triumph Sunday is almost a foregone conclusion  political columnists differ only on the percentage points by which he'll exceed the 50 percent threshold required for victory  many voters continue to question campaign-trail events that indicate a heavily rigged election.

"I think that these are the most irregular elections when it comes to election campaign," said Cvijetin Milivojevic, a media analyst with Agency Pragma, a Belgrade public relations and communications group. "We shall see what will be the situation regarding vote counting."

Rasa Nedeljkov of the Center for Transparency, Research and Accountability (CRTA) in Belgrade, says only six observers of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) will be on hand to monitor Sunday's vote.

The entire campaign season, he said, has unfolded against a backdrop of unbridled corruption, voter intimidation, bribery and mudslinging.

"I can assure you that when there is no control, when there is no awareness that the prosecutor's office would react to corruption ... when voters experience threats and influence from their superiors to vote for a certain candidate, pressuring them to go out on political gatherings  when I know that no one would control me or arrest me for that  then [as a candidate] I would do anything," he told VOA's Serbian service.

"The situation tells us that conditions for having democratic elections are down to minimum," he added. "If there is no systemic control, then we can assume that different participants will try to do different things that will compromise the quality of the election process."

Worse than Milosevic era?

This campaign is likely to be remembered for an unequal media representation of the presidential candidates. According to one Belgrade media watchdog NGO, Vucic garnered 56 percent of televised coverage by the formerly state-run RTS, Serbia's only public radio and television broadcaster. The 10 other challenger candidates split the remaining 44 percent of broadcast coverage.

In the cases of commercial media, percentages weighed overwhelmingly in Vucic's favor.

"Overall, we have five opposition candidates that were disqualified on all grounds. Sadly, the vast majority of Serbian voters believe in what they see on RTS or Pink television," said Milivojevic, referring to an international Balkans tabloid media conglomerate that is owned by a Serbian tycoon who is publicly supportive of and personally close to Vucic.

"According to the program on those television stations, opposition candidates are not qualified to be mentioned at all or even be presented as serious opponents," Milivojevic said. "That sort of disqualification was not seen even during Milosevic's era, or not in that measure."

Nedeljkov told VOA that Serbia's Regulatory Authority of Electronic Media (REM) recently announced it would not monitor television broadcasts during the campaign.

Serbia's Anti-Corruption Agency, he added, has announced that it will not fully monitor Sunday's vote.

"The only hope for these misfortunate opposition candidates is the distant chance of having the second round, because they are not aiming to win," Nedeljkov said. "I think of those true opposition candidates, and if there would be a second round, that they will be the ones to enter it. It is deranged situation, really, because opposition candidates are competing among themselves to win the second round, if we'll have one."

Vucic received a head start from his powerful Serbian Progressive Party, as well as its coalition allies.

No other candidate enjoys such strong support from the leading Serbian parties, and some of the candidates don't even have a political party behind them.

Serbia has been an independent republic since 2006, following the breakup of Yugoslavia. Serbia became a candidate to join the European Union in 2012 and has been negotiating its accession to the bloc since 2014.
A U.S. government monitoring agency says that its review of the conditions and status of USAID-funded schools in northern Afghanistan has detected "extreme discrepancies between reported and observed students and teachers."



The review by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) focused on the relatively peaceful and prosperous Balkh province. The agency released its findings on Friday.



"On average, officials reported an enrollment of 2,461 students at each of the 26 schools that SIGAR inspected in Balkh province," it said. "However, an average of only 734, or 30 percent, of students enrolled were observed at the time of inspection."



SIGAR is tasked to review billions of U.S. taxpayer dollars that are being spent or allocated to help rebuild the war-shattered country. It said USAID has disbursed about $868 million for education programs in Afghanistan as of September 2016.



The agency observed that fewer than 20 percent of students reportedly enrolled at eight schools, and fewer than 10 percent of students enrolled at five schools.





It said that inspectors did not observe any of the 963 students who reportedly enrolled at one school in Kishidih district.



"At a school in Khulm district, 30 of 460 enrolled students were reported absent during our site visit. At the time of our visit, there were only 10 students on school grounds," according to the SIGAR report.



The report added that on average, school staff reported that 77 teachers were assigned to each school.



"Our site visits found an average of 25 teachers on school grounds, or approximately 35 percent of the number of teachers reportedly assigned to a school," SIGAR noted.



The agency observed that less than half of the schools had reliable electricity, and 10 facilities lacked access to clean water.
Reaction in South Korea to the arrest of impeached President Park Geun-hye has been relatively restrained as the nation focuses on the upcoming presidential election.

The countrys first democratically elected president to be ousted from office was sent to jail early Friday morning after a South Korean court approved a prosecutors arrest warrant on charges of bribery, extortion and abuse of power.

The criminal charges against Park are linked to the political scandal that forced her from office, allegedly colluding with her long time friend Choi Soon-sil to extort Korean conglomerates to donate more than $69 million to two dubious foundations.

For months, Parks impeachment drama sharply divided the South Korean public with her opponents holding massive rallies to demand her impeachment or resignation, and with supporters staging demonstrations to try to keep her in office. Two Park supporters where killed in clashes with police outside the court on the day her impeachment ruling was announced.

Conservative regret

But in Seoul Friday there were no opposition rallies celebrating Parks arrest and no angry groups of Park supporters demanding her release.

A pro-Park rally is expected to be held this weekend, but the ex-presidents political party, the Liberty Korea Party, seems to want to distance itself from the scandal and its disgraced former leader.

Jeong Joon-gil, the spokesman for the Liberty Korea Party, released a short statement calling Parks arrest regrettable and saying, We hope such a painful history of arrest of a former president will not repeat itself in South Korea.

An early presidential election has been scheduled for May 9.

Mood against conservatives

In the wake of the impeachment, the public mood has seemingly turned against conservatives, with many blaming Parks hard-line polices for increasing tensions with North Korea over its weapons program and with China, which is angry about South Koreas decision to host a U.S. anti-missile system.

The Liberty Korea Party has been struggling to find a strong candidate for president. The leading contender of the conservative camp is South Gyeongsang Province Governor Hong Joon-pyo, but his approval rating is 4 percent in a recent Gallup opinion poll.

The conservative Bareun Party that broke away from the Liberty Korea Party released a statement saying it respects the courts decision but questioned whether Parks arrest was necessary in terms of healing national divisions caused by the scandal.

The Bareun candidate for president, Yoo Seung Min, is registering at 2 percent approval in the Gallup poll.

Liberal victory

The liberal Democratic Party of Korea, which hailed Parks impeachment as a triumph of democracy, called her arrest a victory for the rule of law.

Considering the fairness of law and principles (entailed,) the arrest of former President Park is an obvious conclusion, said Park Kyung-mi, the spokesperson for the Democratic Party of Korea.

Democratic Party candidate Moon Jae-in is the leading contender for president with a Gallup poll approval rating of 31 percent.

Ahn Cheol-soo, the leading candidate for the more centrist Peoples Party, who is second in the Gallup poll at 19 percent, said in a statement that Parks arrest, is of her own making because she repeatedly gave false explanations without expressing apologies or regrets.

Prison time

While Park has maintained her innocence, she had refused to publicly address the specific allegations against her. After remaining silent during the impeachment process, Park recently agreed to cooperate with the criminal investigation and was interrogated by prosecutors for 14 hours.

Park can be held in prison for up to 20 days while being investigated, at which time she must be formally charged or released. Although Parks defense team argues she posed no risk of fleeing the country, the Seoul Central District Court judge overseeing the case ordered her arrest seemingly out of concern that she might destroy evidence.

Park could face more than 10 years in jail if convicted of receiving bribes from bosses of big conglomerates, including Samsung Group chief Jay Y. Lee, in return for favors. Lee, who denies charges that he provided bribes in return for favors for Samsung, and Choi are both in detention and on trial separately.

Lees trial, for which so far only preliminary hearings have been held, will begin April 7 when he is expected to appear, court records showed.

Park may be given a bigger cell than other inmates in a Seoul detention facility, but she would be subject to the same rules on everything from meals to room inspections, former prosecution and correctional officials have said.

Youmi Kim contributed to this report.
The battle to oust Syrian President Bashar al-Assad appears to be over  at least as far as the Trump administration is concerned.

The U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, said Thursday that Washingtons priority is no longer to sit and focus on getting Assad out.

Haleys remarks drew the ire of American lawmakers who have argued for a more robust U.S. effort to topple Assad. Republican Senator John McCain warned the Trump administration against making a "Faustian bargain" (a deal with the devil) with the Syrian governments ally Russia.

Republican Senator Lindsey Graham warned that taking the focus off Assad would be the biggest mistake since President [Barack] Obama failed to act after drawing a red line against Assad's use of chemical weapons."

WATCH: Spicer says future of Assad up to Syrians

Later Friday, White House spokesman Sean Spicer said that the United States must accept the political reality that the future of Assad is up to the Syrian people.

"With respect to Assad, there is a political reality that we have to accept in terms of where we are right now," he said. Spicer added that the Untied States lost "a lot of opportunity" during the last administration to change the situation with Assad. He did not elaborate.

Spicer would not comment on whether Assad should step down, saying it is a decision for the Syrian people alone. He said the foremost priority for the United States in Syria right now is the defeat of Islamic State militants.

Some Middle East analysts say similar comments by U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson this week in Ankara also signal regime change is off the table. These analysts argue the recent remarks merely reflect the reality on the ground  that Assad's survival after a brutal six-year-long conflict appears assured.

Expected move

Many analysts had been expecting President Donald Trump's administration to inch closer to a much more explicit shift in U.S. policy in Syria  one exclusively focused on the war against the Islamic State. Some analysts say the administration has little alternative now. They trace the policy reversal to the Obama administration, which in its last months also was signaling an acceptance of Assad staying in power, if only in the short-term during a political transition.

In a roundtable discussion this week on the future of the conflict on Syria, analyst Sam Heller of The Century Foundation, a U.S. policy research institute, argued that not much is left of the revolutionary opposition.

When we say that the Assad regime has won the war, we mean its achieved a strategic victory in Syrias central civil conflict: the war between, in approximate terms, the regime and its mixed revolutionary-Islamist opposition in western Syria, he said.

According to Heller, much of the main armed opposition to Assad has been neutralized and diverted away from the insurgency against the government by regional powers who are using rebel militias for their own security projects in war-torn Syria. That includes the Turks, who have carved out a sweep of territory in northern Syria to keep Islamic State militants away from its border and block Syrian Kurds from uniting Kurdish-majority cantons.

The U.S. has persuaded other Arab Sunni and Turkmen militias to throw in their lot with the Kurdish Peoples Protection Units, or YPG, and to focus on battling the Islamic State. The U.S. is generally working with splinter groups or rejects from the main anti-Assad rebel force, the Free Syrian Army (FSA).

Rebel militias not participating in the Turkish intervention or who are not aligned with the fight against the Islamic State have seen foreign backers cut their arms supplies.

Heller says the future for FSA militias is bleak.

The choice they now seem to face is between being reincorporated into the extant Syrian state [Assads state], serving in a Turkish or Jordanian cross-border protectorate, or indefinite exile. Or they can die with the jihadists, which is also an option. They can and will continue to fight, but theyll likely be doing so alone, against insurmountable odds, and at a terrible cost to their civilian families and communities.

Tahrir al-Sham group takes lead

Most recent breakout assaults by rebel militias have been led by a former al-Qaida affiliate. It has joined with other Islamist rebel militias in a group called Tahrir al-Sham, and last week assaulted the Syrian town of Hama, managing to advance to within 10 kilometers of its center. Other insurgents also recently launched an offensive on government-held areas in the Damascus suburb of Jobar.

But theres little prospect the Hama and Jobar offensives can be translated into major threats to the government, which was bolstered when Russia's military intervened to back Assad more than a year ago. In December, the government, backed by Iranian and Shi'ite militias, recaptured the rebel redoubt in the eastern half of Aleppo.

Since December, Syrian government forces and foreign fighters have been pressing their military edge, slowly winning back rebel-held areas near the Syrian capital and squeezing Tahrir al-Sham and other Islamist militias in the northern Syrian province of Idlib, to the west of Aleppo.

Several military observers from European governments told VOA in recent weeks that they see no way that opposition forces can threaten Assads hold over the main western and coastal cities of Syria.

They do expect fighting to continue, though, led by Tahrir al-Sham.

Aron Lund, an analyst with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a research institute in Washington, agrees with those assessments. At The Century Foundations roundtable, he predicted: There will be fighting for a long time and Syria may remain a failed state in many respects, and, of course, some unscripted event could still turn all assumptions upside down. But as things stand, Assad is definitely over some sort of threshold.

Lund says Western and Arab governments that had sought regime change in Syria have now mostly accepted that their side has no path to victory.

"They are coming to terms with the fact that Assad is staying, while deciding to what extent they want to play spoilers. Theyre not willing to say it publicly, but its happening, Lund said.
During World War II, the Warsaw Zoo in Polands capital became a hideout for Jews escaping Nazi persecution. Niki Caros film, The Zookeepers Wife, chronicles this true story, highlighting the courage and compassion of Jan and Antonina Zabinski, a couple who risked their lives and the life of their son to protect those in danger.

The film opens with Antonina Zabinski, an empathetic animal lover, making her morning rounds in the zoo to check on the animals. Dark clouds of war are gathering over Poland.

Watch: 'The Zookeeper's Wife' a Tale of Heroism During the Holocaust

The idyllic life of the zookeepers ends abruptly with a Nazi air raid over Warsaw, which hits the zoo and kills the majority of its animals. Filmmaker Niki Caro delivers a powerful scene of helpless caged animals dismembered and killed by the bombing. This heart-breaking waste of life is a forewarning of the Nazi attacks on human life.

Nazis invade

The Nazis invaded Poland September 1, 1939, and immediately started rounding up Jewish inhabitants in Warsaw, placing them in a ghetto to be starved, harassed, and exposed to the elements.

The film, script written by Angela Workman, is based on Diane Ackermans novel by the same title. The novel, a more detailed account of the zookeepers struggle was a challenge to condense to a two-hour film, Workman said.

She says the film was a labor of love by a team of women.

Kim Zubek, our lead producer, was a person who carried this on her shoulders for years to get this made, Workman said. She worked really hard. I was involved with it for eight or nine years. Niki has been involved with it for years. Jessica (Chastain) stuck around when we didnt know whether wed be able to get it made. Weve had some really fierce women working on this. Im very proud of that.

The largely female cast reflects the feminine point of view, said novelist Ackerman, who made Antonina Zabinski her central character.

She endangered her own life, the life of her child, but she felt it was the right thing to do. Ackerman said. Her husband was heroic in more traditional ways. He was head of an underground cell. She risked her life every single day, but she didnt hold a gun and shoot at anybody. Her form of heroism was compassionate heroism. Its something that I think people do every single day on our war-torn planet, but we dont hear about it.

Filmmaker Niki Caro echoes Ackermans viewpoint.

Femininity has often been equated with weakness, she said. But a character like Antonina shows us that you can be both very soft and very strong.

Manipulating Nazis to save Jews

The story pivots on Nazi official Lutz Heck, whos eyeing the remaining rare zoo animals and Antonina.

Guided by greed and lust, Heck, played by Daniel Bruhl, offers assistance to Antonina by offering to take the remaining animals to Germany for safekeeping. And Heck is an historic figure.

He was Hitlers chief zoologist, Workman said. His family, I think, still breeds Heck cattle, and everything we see in the movie about him is true. He has feelings for Antonina; he would walk in whenever he wanted (in the zoo.) He controlled them. He had very strong animal instincts, and I think that he was a predator in a way.

Though fearful, Antonina manipulated Hecks feelings to convince him to let her and her husband keep the zoo open. Under Hecks nose, Antonina and her husband smuggled about 300 Jews out of the Warsaw ghetto using the vaults of the zoo as a way station for the refugees throughout the war.

Jessica Chastain interprets Antonina and the gift she had in being able to communicate with all living creatures.

Actually, we tried to showcase that in our film, Chastain said, and the idea what it means to possess another living thing. What does it mean to be in a cage?

At a red carpet event at the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, Workman said that though her script is based on Ackermans novel, it was also informed by her own family history.

I am so emotional to be in this museum because I spent an enormous amount of time here when I was writing. I feel like my familys faces are on the walls of this museum. Its such an honor to be here.

Message for today

Chastain said the film sends a message about todays refugee crisis.

I was shocked to learn that Anne Franks family was denied a visa to the United States twice, she said. Antonina was a refugee. She was born and raised in Russia, and she found her safe place in Warsaw and then from there she created a sanctuary for others. I hope that people will see the film and be inspired by her compassion and kindness, and will do what they can to help others.
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson's visit to Turkey and his meeting with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was a chance for the U.S. to boost ties with a key partner in the fight against the Islamic State terrorist group. It also requires careful diplomacy as Erdogan faces growing criticism from other NATO partners for his moves to consolidate power. VOA Europe Correspondent Luis Ramirez reports.
U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, meeting with his NATO allies' counterparts, said Friday in Brussels that they must increase their countries' defense budgets.



The top U.S. diplomat told the foreign ministers the alliance must have "all of the resources, financial and otherwise, that are necessary for NATO to fulfill its mission" in places like Iraq and Syria.



Tillerson also addressed Russian aggression in Ukraine with remarks that were tougher than those previously made by the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump, which has stressed better relations with Russia.



"We want to have a discussion around NATO's posture in Europe, most particularly in eastern Europe in response to Russia's aggression in Ukraine and elsewhere," Tillerson told reporters.



In London Friday, U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, meeting with his British counterpart, also expressed concern about Russia. Mattis told reporters at a news conference Russia has been interacting with Taliban fighters in Afghanistan.



"We have seen Russian activity vis-a-vis the Taliban," Mattis said.



Mattis also expressed concern about "reckless" actions involving North Korea's nuclear weapons and missile programs, as he quickly pivoted to North Korea in response to a reporter's question about Iran.



"In the larger scheme of things," Mattis said North Korea is the more urgent threat.



"This is a threat of both rhetoric and growing capability," Mattis said. He added that North Korea's reported preparation of a nuclear test has "got to be stopped."



In addition to NATO resources, Secretary of State Tillerson said his most urgent matters were NATO's fight against terrorism and the alliance's posture in Europe, "most particularly Eastern Europe in response to Russia's aggression in Ukraine and elsewhere."

Ankara talks



Tillerson's visit to Brussels comes one day after meeting with top Turkish officials in Ankara.



Tillerson hailed Turkey as a trusted ally after meeting with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and other leaders Thursday.



He also underlined the importance of Turkey in the battle against Islamic State.



But the two NATO allies remain at loggerheads over Washington's support for the Syrian Kurdish group the PYD and its militia, the YPG, in fighting Islamic State militants. Ankara accuses the PYD of being a terrorist organization affiliated with the PKK, which is fighting the Turkish State.



In a joint news conference, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu stressed Turkey's opposition to support of the PYD, but did not directly criticize the Trump administration.



Tillerson acknowledged no breakthrough on the dispute, saying more discussions are needed. "We are exploring a number of options and alternatives," he said while reiterating Washington's support of Ankara in fighting the PKK.



With Washington stepping up its military support of the YPG before the operation to liberate Raqqa, the self-declared capital of Islamic State, Ankara increasingly appears resigned to the fact that its call for its military forces to replace the Syrian Kurdish groups has been rejected.

But a presidential source ruled out any retaliatory measures against the United States, stressing Turkey did not want the issue to undermine future cooperation.
Woman who filed an FIR against Arunabh Kumar stated in her complaint that he touched her inappropriately and passed lewd comments.

India Today has accessed details of the FIR filed by a female filmmaker against Arunabh Kumar at MIDC police station. The woman filed the FIR on March 28.

Arunabh has been booked under Sections 354 (assault or criminal force to woman with intent to outrage her modesty), 354 (A) (punishment for sexual harassment) and 509 (word, gesture or act intended to insult the modesty of a woman) of the Indian Penal Code.

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According to documents accessed by India Today, the woman said that she is an independent filmmaker by profession.

The incident took place on May 27, 2016 sometime between 11.25 am and 4 pm. She said that on the day of the incident she was shooting with Arunabh at his office in Patani Business Centre, MIDC in Andheri West.

The woman told the police that Arunabh said that she looked hot and that her tattoo was sexy. She said that Arunabh used words - 'you look so hot' and ' your tattoo is so sexy'.

The complainant said that Arunabh did not stop his advances, and that he later touched her inappropriately. The complainant said that it happened thrice. "I was shocked by the behavior of Arunabh," read her statement.

As of now the cops are on lookout for Arunabh, who has gone incommunicado. On Thursday late evening yet another FIR was filed against Arunabh at Versova police station.

"The incident in both the FIRs took place almost a year ago. Now we are preparing a proper case against him and are collecting evidence. The case should stand in the court," a senior Mumbai Police officer told India Today.

Sources in Mumbai Police also said that few more similar FIRs may be filed against Arunabh in the coming days. Arunabh is currently preparing legal grounds to fight against the FIR filed on him.

Also read:

Another FIR against TVF CEO Arunabh Kumar: All that happened since the explosive blog post

Twinkle Khanna slams TVF's Arunabh Kumar: Calling her sexy is OK in bedroom, not boardroom

Woman accuses TVF CEO Arunabh Kumar of molestation, other women back the claim; start-up rubbishes allegations

WATCH THE VIDEO

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The Trump administration is appealing the stay placed on President Donald Trump's executive order banning entry to people from six majority-Muslim countries and halting refugee admissions.



A U.S. federal judge extended a suspension of the travel order Wednesday, placing a preliminary injunction against Trump's order at the request of the state of Hawaii. U.S. District Judge Derrick Watson had temporarily prohibited the government from enforcing the order in a March 15 decision.



Both orders apply nationwide.

Watson wrote that the circumstances that led to his initial decision have not changed, including Hawaii's argument that remarks by Trump and his associates have singled out Muslims.

The judge said the state has sufficiently established a likelihood it would succeed in challenging the ban on the grounds it violates a constitutional clause that requires government actions to have a primarily secular purpose.



The government appeal was filed in the ninth circuit court of appeals Thursday. The ninth circuit has already played a role in the travel ban saga, upholding a temporary stay placed on the earlier executive order limiting travel signed by the president.





Muslim ban to extreme vetting



Trump's campaign for president once included a call to ban all Muslims from entering the United States, a policy that was later changed to advocating "extreme vetting" for people from countries with a link to terrorism.



The Trump administration has insisted the current executive order is not a Muslim ban, and the president has argued it is necessary to protect national security. It includes barring the issuance of new visas to people from Iran, Syria, Libya, Yemen, Somalia and Sudan for 90 days, and suspending the refugee program for 120 days. During those periods, reviews of vetting procedures and how to strengthen the screenings are supposed to take place.



Watson said the government has argued the courts should ignore the context surrounding the order. "The court will not crawl into a corner, pull the shutters closed, and pretend it has not seen what it has," he wrote.



The government argued that any injunction should apply only to the visa ban and not affect suspending refugee admissions, but the judge said "it makes little sense to do so."



President vows to fight back



Trump has vowed to continue fighting legal challenges to his order, taking them up to the Supreme Court if necessary.



Hawaii's Department of the Attorney General expressed confidence that higher courts will continue to side with its position. "We believe the court's well-reasoned decision will be affirmed," it said on Twitter.



The travel ban is also being challenged in a federal case originating from the state of Maryland. That case is only limited to the suspension of visas to the six countries, and a District Court judge issued a similar prohibition against the government enforcing it.



But the Justice Department has appealed that decision to the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which has scheduled arguments for May 8.



A group of attorneys general from 12 states have filed briefs with the 4th Circuit in support of Trump's executive order, arguing it does not amount to a Muslim ban. The states include Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Kansas, Louisiana, Montana, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas and West Virginia.
President Donald Trump is facing new questions about political interference in the investigations into Russian election meddling following reports that White House officials secretly funneled material to the chairman of the House intelligence committee.

Trying to fend off the growing criticism, Trump's top lawyer invited lawmakers from both parties to view classified information at the White House. Thursday's invitation came as The New York Times reported that two White House officials - including an aide whose job was recently saved by President Donald Trump - secretly helped House intelligence committee chairman Rep. Devin Nunes examine intelligence information there last week.



Nunes is leading one of three investigations into Russia's attempt to influence the campaign and Trump associates' possible involvement. The Senate intelligence committee, which has thus far taken a strikingly more measured and bipartisan approach to its own Russia probe, tried to keep its distance from the White House and asked that the documents uncovered by Trump aides be given to lawmakers via the appropriate agencies.



The cloud of investigation has hung over Trump's White House since the day he took office. On Thursday, an attorney for Michael Flynn, Trump's ex-national security adviser, said Flynn is in discussions with the congressional committees about speaking to them in exchange for immunity. The talks are preliminary, and no official offers have been made.



"General Flynn certainly has a story to tell, and he very much wants to tell it, should the circumstances permit,'' Flynn's attorney, Robert Kelner, said in a statement.



Other Trump associates have volunteered to speak with investigators, but have not publicly raised the issue of immunity.

Flynn, a member of the Trump campaign and transition, was fired as national security adviser after it was publicly disclosed that he misled the vice president about a conversation he had with the Russian ambassador to the U.S. Flynn's ties to Russia have been scrutinized by the FBI and are under investigation by the House and Senate intelligence panels.



The House committee's work has been deeply, and perhaps irreparably, undermined by Nunes' apparent coordination with the White House. He told reporters last week that he had seen troubling information about the improper distribution of Trump associates' intercepted communications, and he briefed the president on the material, all before informing Rep. Adam Schiff, the committee's top Democrat.



Speaking on Capitol Hill Thursday, Schiff said he was "more than willing'' to accept the White House offer to view new information. But he raised concerns that Trump officials may have used Nunes to "launder information to our committee to avoid the true source.''



"The White House has a lot of questions to answer,'' he declared.



Instead, the White House continued to sidestep queries about its role in showing Nunes classified information that appears to have included transcripts of foreign officials discussing Trump's transition to the presidency, according to current and former U.S. officials. Intelligence agencies routinely monitor the communications of foreign officials living in the U.S., though the identities of Americans swept up in that collection is supposed to be protected.

In Washington early last week, White House officials privately encouraged reporters to look into whether information about Trump associates had been improperly revealed in the intelligence gathering process. Days later, Nunes announced that he had evidence, via an unnamed source, showing that Trump and his aides' communications had been collected through legal means but then "widely disseminated'' throughout government agencies. He said the collections were not related to the Russia investigation.



Trump spokesman Sean Spicer said Thursday the material the White House wants the House and Senate intelligence leaders to view was discovered by the National Security Council through the course of regular business. He would not say whether it was the same material Nunes had already seen.



A congressional aide said Schiff did not receive the White House letter until after Spicer announced it from the White House briefing room.



Spicer had previously dismissed the notion that the White House had fed information to Nunes, saying the idea that the congressman would come and brief Trump on material the president's team already had "doesn't pass the smell test.'' The White House quickly embraced Nunes' revelations, saying they vindicated Trump's explosive and unverified claim that President Barack Obama wiretapped his New York skyscraper.



Nunes has said the information he received did not support that allegation, which has also been disputed by Obama and top intelligence officials.



The Times reported that Ezra Cohen-Watnick, the senior director for intelligence at the White House National Security Council, and Michael Ellis, a White House lawyer who previously worked on the House intelligence committee, played roles in helping Nunes view the materials.



Cohen-Watnick is among about a dozen White House officials who would have access to the types of classified information Nunes says he viewed, according to current and former U.S. officials. He's become a controversial figure in intelligence circles, but Trump decided to keep him on over the objections of the CIA and National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster, according to the officials. They spoke only on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment publicly by name.



Cohen-Watnick and Nunes both served on the Trump transition team.



Stephen Slick, a former CIA and NSC official, said it would be "highly unusual and likely unprecedented'' for a member of Congress to travel to the White House to view intelligence reports "without prior authorization.''



Nunes has repeatedly sidestepped questions about who provided him the intelligence reports, though he pointedly has not denied that his sources were in the White House. House Speaker Paul Ryan, in an interview with "CBS This Morning'' that aired Thursday, said Nunes told him a "whistleblower-type person'' provided the information.



A spokesman for Ryan later said the speaker was not aware of Nunes' source and continues to have "full confidence'' in the congressman's ability to run the Russia investigation.


In Washington, the Pentagon announced Thursday that President Donald Trump has given it more authority to launch airstrikes in Somalia to attack al-Shabab.



The Pentagon said Trump approved a request for additional precision airstrikes in Somalia to help African Union and Somali ground troops increase pressure on al-Shabab and to deny the terrorists safe havens from which to attack U.S. citizens or interests in the region.

General Thomas Waldhauser, head of the U.S. Africa Command, had said earlier that it would be "helpful" for American forces to have more flexibility and timeliness when deciding whether to launch an attack.

The Somali government has so far declined to comment on the U.S. announcement.

Laetitia Bader, a Human Rights Watch researcher for Somalia, urged caution in identifying targets for strikes, in light of the ongoing drought.



This is going to be particularly key at a time where we know that there is massive displacement of civilians right now. We are talking about thousands of individuals on the move trying to get access to urban areas in order to find international humanitarian assistance, said Bader.

Analysts also express concern that local rivalries in Somalia can muddy intelligence.



In September of last year, officials in the Mudug region said a U.S. airstrike aimed at al-Shabab instead targeted a militia allied with the Somali government. The local administration accused authorities in the semi-autonomous Puntland region of providing false intelligence that led the deaths of their fighters.



Al-Shabab has kept up a steady string of suicide attacks and bombings in Somalia, despite the fact that Somali and African Union troops have recaptured much of the groups former territory.



Abdullahi Halakhe, a Horn of Africa security analyst, said al-Shababs reduced state may present a challenge for future airstrikes, in particular when it comes to preventing civilian casualties.



"They are not anywhere near where they were in the middle of this decade. They have lost some of their top leadership to the American drones, AMISOM on the land and from the sea. They have really turned themselves into a guerilla outfit that that lives within the people."

Somalia's new president has made security a top priority, pledging to build up the national army in the hope that it can take charge when the African Union mission comes to an end, possibly some time next year.
U.S. President Donald Trump is poised to sign legislation overturning privacy protections for Internet users, a move supporters say will level the playing field for providers but critics argue will hurt consumers.

The bill eliminates Obama-era regulations that required Internet service providers, or ISPs, to get permission before collecting or selling sensitive user data, such as Internet browsing history.

Supporters say the bill will create a more even field for ISPs, which are regulated by the Federal Communications Commission. Other Internet companies, such as Facebook and Google, are managed by the Federal Trade Commission, which places fewer restrictions on how they can collect and sell user data.

Having two privacy cops on the beat will create confusion within the Internet ecosystem and will end up harming consumers, said Rep. Marsha Blackburn, a Republican from Tennessee, on Tuesday.

Democrats, groups object

Supporters also argue that the reaction has been overblown, noting that the Obama-era FCC rules, which had been approved in December, hadn't even been put in place yet.

The bill passed Congress this week with the overwhelming support of Republicans. White House officials have previously said Trump will sign the legislation, despite objections from Democrats and privacy advocate groups.

This legislation will seriously undermine the privacy protections of the overwhelming majority of Americans who believe that their private information should be just that  private  and not for sale without their knowledge, a group of 46 Democratic lawmakers said this week in a letter urging Trump to veto the bill.

Tom Wheeler, the former head of the FCC, wrote an opinion piece for The New York Times calling the repeal a dream for cable and telephone companies, which want to capitalize on the value of such personal information.

U.S. Internet companies have long profited from U.S. privacy regulations, which are generally considered weaker than those in parts of the developed world, such as the European Union.

Big companies make big money from data

Companies such as Apple, Microsoft, Facebook and Amazon profit heavily from the mining of consumer data, says Evan Swarztrauber with the Internet privacy advocacy group TechFreedom.

It's at least arguable that the U.S. has more successful tech firms than the EU because the U.S. has a more relaxed privacy framework, which allows for more innovation and experimentation, he says.

But profit should not be the only consideration, according to critics, such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a digital rights group.

Should President Donald Trump sign S.J. Res. 34 into law, big Internet providers will be given new powers to harvest your personal information in extraordinarily creepy ways, Ernesto Falcon, a legislative counsel at EFF, said in an online post.

Bill has limited international impact

Falcon slammed lawmakers who have decided to give our personal information to an already highly profitable cable and telephone industry so that they can increase their profits with our data.

The bill itself has limited international impact. Falcon says the bigger concern for global web users is state-sponsored surveillance, such as that conducted by the NSA.

No real amount of commercial deregulation or regulation would offset the loss of privacy rights that state-sponsored surveillance violates in terms of international issues, he told VOA.
President Donald Trump fueled the growing controversy surrounding Russia's alleged involvement in November's presidential election with attacks on NBC News and the network's political director, Chuck Todd.

In two Saturday morning tweets, Trump mocked Todd's appearance, criticized the network for not providing more coverage of unproven assertions that President Barack Obama wiretapped his campaign, and called on NBC to stop covering Russia's interference in the election.



The White House, meanwhile, sent mixed messages Friday about former national security adviser Michael Flynn's conditional offer to cooperate with congressional investigators looking into contacts between President Donald Trump's campaign advisers and Russia.

White House spokesman Sean Spicer told reporters at his daily media briefing he was "not going to give Mike Flynn or anybody legal advice from the podium" about whether he should testify before congressional committees if granted immunity from prosecution.

Spicer's remark was in contrast to a tweet earlier in the day from Trump that agreed Flynn should seek immunity for testifying in what he likened to politically motivated harassment campaigns.



Asked whether the White House was concerned Flynn had information that could be damaging to the Trump administration, Spicer tersely responded, "Nope."

News accounts circulated Thursday that Flynn was in talks with the House and Senate intelligence committees to try to get a promise of immunity, but that no one had agreed to his terms.

"General Flynn certainly has a story to tell, and he very much wants to tell it, should the circumstances permit,'' Flynn's attorney, Robert Kelner, said in a statement issued later Thursday.

Kelner added, "No reasonable person ... would submit to questioning in such a highly politicized, witch-hunt environment without assurances against unfair prosecution."

'Grave and momentous step'

The highest-ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, Adam Schiff, issued a statement Friday describing Flynn's request for immunity as "a grave and momentous step" for a former senior administration official.

Schiff added it would be premature to grant Flynn's request. "There is still much work and many more witnesses and documents to obtain before any immunity request from any witness can be considered," he said.

Before granting immunity to Flynn, Schiff said, the committee would first need "a detailed proffer of any intended testimony."

Flynn, a retired lieutenant general, was forced to resign as one of Trump's closest advisers after it was revealed that he had misled Vice President Mike Pence about his communications with Russia's ambassador to the U.S., Sergey Kislyak.

The congressional committees are looking into whether any associates of Trump may have coordinated with agents of the Russian government seeking to meddle in last year's presidential election.

Disinformation campaign

Experts told the Senate Intelligence Committee on Thursday that Russia had pulled off an unprecedented and wildly successful campaign to influence America's political conversation during the election campaign.

"Russia hopes to win the second Cold War through the force of politics, as opposed to the politics of force," said cybersecurity expert Clinton Watts of the Foreign Policy Research Institute, a global policy research group in Philadelphia. Watts detailed Russia's use of cyberattacks and an elaborate disinformation campaign to confuse U.S. voters and pit Americans against each other.

The testimony confirmed what lawmakers of both parties have been saying for months. "Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered a deliberate campaign carefully constructed to undermine our election," said the committee's top Democrat, Senator Mark Warner of Virginia.

Ahead of the open hearing, Putin blasted accusations of Russian electoral meddling as "provocations and lies." Asked on a television program whether Moscow had tried to influence the outcome of the U.S. presidential election, Putin said, "Read my lips: No."

Witnesses before the Intelligence Committee described voluminous and incontrovertible evidence to the contrary.

"We've got 10 years of observation here," said Kevin Mandia, chief executive officer of the U.S.-based cybersecurity firm FireEye. "It absolutely stretches credulity to think they [Russian actors] were not involved."

Republican Senator Marco Rubio of Florida shared an experience from his unsuccessful presidential bid last year.

"Former members of my presidential campaign team who had access to the internal information of my presidential campaign were targeted by the IP addresses with an unknown location within Russia. [The] effort was unsuccessful," Rubio said.

'Exceptional' efforts

"The [Russian] activities in the United States ... do seem to be exceptional," said Georgetown University security and intelligence expert Roy Godson, adding that cyber and disinformation campaigns allow Russian hackers to "hit above their weight" on the world stage.

Watts said Russia was aided last year by U.S. media outlets' extensive reports about material hacked by Russia that appeared on outlets like WikiLeaks, as well as occasions when the Trump campaign parroted disinformation that Moscow had disseminated about his opponent, Democrat Hillary Clinton. He added that Russia could one day turn its informational firepower against Trump.

Russia's action "is solely based on what they want to achieve ... whatever the Russian foreign policy objectives are," Watts said. "They will turn on President Trump, as well. They win because they play both sides."

'Following the money'

The hearing was the first of many the committee expects to hold in coming months  some open to the public, but many behind closed doors. Chairman Richard Burr, a North Carolina Republican, repeatedly has pledged an impartial and exhaustive search for the truth, and he has implored fellow committee members to refrain from partisan jabs.

"If we politicize this process, our efforts will likely fail," Burr said.

Warner echoed the call, saying the goal of the investigation was not to relitigate last year's election, but rather to hold Russia accountable.

But as one Democrat argued, if the committee is determined to bring to light any ties Trump's inner circle may have to Russia, the president himself must release his tax returns.

"They key to a successful investigation is following the money," said Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon. "Information about Donald Trump's finances may lead to Russia."

Trump has adamantly denied any links to Russia during or after the campaign, questioned U.S. intelligence about Russian meddling, and accused media outlets of mounting a smear campaign against him. Even so, the White House acknowledged the need for investigations to proceed.
President Donald Trump says he is working to help U.S. companies and consumers with new executive orders on trade issues. Friday, he is ordering U.S. officials to study the causes of trade deficits, and step up enforcement of penalties imposed for unfair trade practices.

During the campaign, Trump criticized China's trade policies and the way Washington makes trade deals.



The United States buys over $500 billion more from the rest of the world than it sells to customers overseas. More than half of this trade deficit is with China. Trump's trade orders come about a week before a visit by China's leader Xi Jinping where trade issues are expected to be an important part of the agenda.

The U.S. Commerce Department and the Trade Representative are supposed to report their findings on the causes of trade defects to the president in three months. The country-by-country study of the causes of trade deficits could be the basis of trade actions in the future.

Administration officials say some trade deficits happen because other nations create products that can't be made or made as well in the United States. In other cases, unfair practices are to blame.

Watch: Trump Turns Up Heat on International Trade





Washington says the trade deficit with China was $347 billion last year, with both imports and exports down a bit from prior years. U.S. officials have long accused Chinese companies of stealing trade secrets, counterfeiting movies, and subsidizing certain producers that allow them to sell products at unfairly low prices. Unfairly selling products below the real cost of production to drive competitors out of business is called dumping.



One of Trump's executive orders puts more pressure on the collection of the financial penalties for dumping designed to abate China's unfair price advantage and protect U.S. companies.
Venezuela's chief prosecutor broke with the government on Friday and rebuked a Supreme Court decision stripping Congress of its last vestiges of power, showing a crack in the unity of the embattled socialist government of President Nicolas Maduro as it came under a torrent of international condemnation over what many decried as a major step toward dictatorship.



In a shocking pronouncement, long-time government loyalist Luisa Ortega Diaz said it was her "unavoidable historical duty'' as the nation's top judicial authority to denounce what she called a "rupture'' of the constitutional order.



"We call for reflection, so that the democratic path can be retaken,'' she said to the loud applause of aides gathered around her.



The statement gave a major boost to the opposition, some of whom spent the day sparring with riot police and gearing up for what they hope will be nationwide protests Saturday.



The Supreme Court ruled late Wednesday that as long as lawmakers remained in contempt of court rulings that nullified all legislation passed by the chamber, the high court can assume the constitutionally assigned powers of the National Assembly, which has been controlled by the opposition for nearly a year and a half.



The United States and governments across Latin America condemned the power grab, which the head of the Organization of American States likened to a "self-inflicted coup'' by the leftist Maduro. The United Nations' top human rights official also expressed "grave concern'' and called on the high court to reverse its decision.



Opposition leaders, long-marginalized during the past 17 years of socialist rule, called on other public officials to follow Ortega Diaz's example. They also urged the military, the traditional arbiter of political disputes in Venezuela, to break its silence and defend the constitution drafted by late President Hugo Chavez to which it swore allegiance.



"You have a new opportunity to show the country and international community if you are with the dictatorship or want your children and grandchildren to grow and live in a country where there's democracy and liberty,'' said David Smolansky, a Caracas area mayor.





Amid so much intrigue, the normally ever-present Maduro was conspicuously silent and by late Friday had not commented on the ruling, nor had leaders of his ruling United Socialist Party of Venezuela. His foreign minister was forced to abruptly cancel a meeting with diplomats in the capital to explain the ruling after Colombia, Chile and Peru withdrew their ambassadors. The Mercosur trade bloc, which suspended Venezuela in December, called an emergency meeting Saturday in Argentina to discuss the crisis.



"This clearly destroys the most important pillar of any democracy, which is popular representation,'' said Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos, who in the past has been reluctant to criticize Maduro, fearing a backlash against the millions of Colombians who live in Venezuela and in recent months have been flocking home in the face of the worsening economic crisis.



A day after the Trump administration strongly criticized the Supreme Court's move and called on Maduro to free political prisoners, the State Department pointed to the OAS as the best place to address concerns about Venezuela.



OAS Secretary General Luis Almagro called an emergency meeting to discuss the crisis after two previous sessions this week ended with 20 governments led by the U.S. and Mexico voicing deep concern but no concrete actions to hold Maduro accountable.





"This is a decisive hour for the region,'' said opposition leader Henrique Capriles, who met Friday with Almagro in Washington. We'll find out "who is with the people and democracy and who is with corruption and dictatorship.''



In Caracas, national guardsmen in riot gear fired buckshot and swung batons at a group of students who gathered outside the Supreme Court. Several protesters were arrested and some journalists had their cameras seized. One journalist, from Colombia's Caracol Radio, was surrounded by a dozen military members who swung her around by her arms and legs, and appeared to hit and drag her.





Despite the sporadic flare-ups Friday it wasn't clear if critics of the government were in the mood for another street fight after past attempts fizzled or ended in bloodshed with little to show. Weeks of unrest in 2014 left more than 40 dead and dozens arrested, while a mass protest last September was followed a few days later by authorities cancelling a recall petition campaign seeking to force Maduro from office before his term ends in 2019.

In Photos:





What could be different this time is that Venezuela's economy is on its knees. Regional governments, as well as the Trump administration, seem far more engaged in seeking a solution to the political and increasingly humanitarian crisis that threatens to spill beyond the country's borders.



National Assembly President Julio Borges said Friday that while on previous occasions lawmakers in Venezuela have "tired their fingers'' making phone calls to raise international awareness of what was occurring in Venezuela, the last two days have been the "complete opposite.''



The world's leaders have been calling "not to ask what is happening, but to express solidarity,'' he said.



The Supreme Court's ruling and another earlier this week limiting lawmakers' immunity from prosecution capped a feud that began when the opposition won control of the legislature by a landslide in December 2015 and then mounted a campaign to force Maduro from office.



The leftist leader, who has seen his approval ratings plunge amid widespread food shortages and triple-digit inflation, responded by relying on the Supreme Court to unseat several opposition lawmakers and then issue an order nullifying all legislation passed by the National Assembly.



The government argues that the ruling was not seeking to supplant Congress but rather to guarantee the rule of law as long as legislators remain obstructionist by refusing to sign off on a budget and key economic decisions like a plan by Venezuela's state-run oil company to form joint ventures with private companies, including Russia's Rosneft.



"It's untrue that a coup has taken place in Venezuela,'' the government said in a statement Thursday. "On the contrary, the institutions have taken corrective legal action to stop the distractive, coup-like actions of an opposition that has declared itself openly in contempt of the decisions made by the republic's top court.''



Luis Vicente Leon, a Caracas-based pollster, said that while the ruling completely "pulverizes the separation of powers,'' Venezuela had long ago stopped operating like a normal democracy with a clear rule of law and independent institutions. He predicted the government would harden its position in the face of growing economic woes and international pressure, further dashing hopes for dialogue and an electoral solution.



"It's perfectly predictable that the government is going to keep radicalizing,'' he said.
President Donald Trump will host Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sissi and Jordan's King Abdullah II separately in the first week of April.

Trump reached out to al-Sissi just days after his January 20 inauguration, calling his counterpart to discuss how the two countries would work together to fight terrorism.

The White House has said the conversation was productive and a testament to the positive relations between the two countries.

"We hope next week's visit continues this positive momentum," a senior White House official said.

The White House has acknowledged Egypt's human rights abuses, but said Friday that they intend to "handle these sensitive types of issues in a private, discreet way."

Also Friday, the White House announced a meeting between Trump and King Abdullah next week.

"The president is pleased to welcome King Abdullah on April 5," the official said. "Jordan is a key partner for the U.S. in the region."

The White House confirmed that the U.S. would continue military and economic support to both countries, particularly in their efforts to fight terrorism in the region.

"We are going to maintain a strong and sufficient level of support to Egypt and Jordan," the official said.

There has been strong bipartisan U.S. support and financial backing for Egypt's authoritarian military rulers. The government has helped fight Islamists and helped preserve the regional status quo relating to Israel.
Members of Congress looking into Russian interference in last year's presidential election have been invited to the White House to examine relevant secret documents.

Lawmakers confirmed such a letter was received by the Senate and House intelligence committees Thursday, a move that White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer defended as "doing the responsible thing." The documents to be reviewed apparently were the basis for controversial comments by Congressman Devin Nunes that were seen by some as bolstering President Donald Trump's charge that his campaign team was "wiretapped" last year on the orders of former President Barack Obama.

Even as he announced the offer to bring relevant lawmakers to the White House to review secret information, Spicer deflected reporters' questions Thursday about Nunes' unusual visit to the White House grounds more than a week ago to see the intelligence reports.

Spicer answered "no" when asked whether he knew who invited Nunes to the White House complex on March 21, and he steered clear of confirming or denying details of a news report that named two officials who allegedly gave Nunes intelligence information.

The New York Times posted a story online just prior to Spicer's briefing Thursday naming two White House officials who it said helped provide Nunes with highly classified intelligence reports indicating that Trump and his associates were swept up in surveillance of foreign officials by U.S. spy agencies.

Process vs. substance

The press secretary has repeatedly criticized White House correspondents for focusing their questions on process  essentially, who told what to whom  rather than substance, the details of the information that Nunes received.

"Process here is the whole story," Ken Gude, an analyst who specializes in national security issues, told VOA. "The White House basically used Nunes here, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, to filter, to 'launder' some of the information."

Gude, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, said it appeared that White House officials fed information to Nunes to give Trump "some cover." The president had been widely criticized following his allegation on March 4 that Obama ordered electronic surveillance against Trump's campaign team  an assertion that has been repeatedly denied by senior U.S. intelligence and law enforcement officials.

The Times said the two officials who provided Nunes with highly classified intelligence reports were former Defense Intelligence Agency official Ezra Cohen-Watnick, now the senior director for intelligence at the National Security Council, and Michael Ellis, a former House Intelligence Committee staffer who now works on national security issues at the White House counsel's office.

Spicer declined to discuss the Times report, saying, "I'm not going to get into further details on this."

WATCH: Spicer Stresses Substance Over Process

Russian meddling

A government investigation of Russian meddling during the U.S. presidential campaign last year has stayed in the headlines for weeks, particularly since Trump tweeted his belief that his headquarters in New York City had been "wiretapped." U.S. intelligence officials have said there were no surveillance orders from Obama aimed at Trump, and that no such order could come from the president, under domestic intelligence-gathering procedures in place for years.

Nunes, a former adviser to Trump's presidential transition team, subsequently said that he did not believe Trump Tower had been bugged, but that the campaign team's communications could have been caught up in a wider investigation that inadvertently targeted the transition office.

On March 22, a day after his mysterious nighttime visit to the White House grounds  a large area that incorporates the adjacent Executive Office Building, which is the headquarters of the National Security Council  Nunes told reporters he had been shown intelligence indicating communications involving Trump and/or his associates had been captured in a legal "but inappropriate" manner.

Nunes has been mum on who at the White House showed him the materials.

His behavior has been strongly criticized by Democrats, and the party's ranking member on the House Intelligence Committee, Adam Schiff, has called on Nunes to step down from his chairman's post.

"Why all the cloak and dagger stuff? That's something we need to get to the bottom of," Schiff told reporters Thursday.

Schiff added that while the matter of incidental collection is important, "This issue is not going to distract us from doing our Russia investigation, and Democrats on the committee are committed 'to get the bottom of just what the Russians did.'"

Gude, the senior fellow for national security at the Center for American Progress, said White House officials "have not been dealing with this in a forthright and honest manner."

"They keep not telling the truth about what is going on in this," Gude told VOA, "and it certainly appears as if there's an effort to obstruct these investigations."
In Zimbabwe, a tractor loaded with tobacco arrives at an auction floor in Harare driven by farmers from Hurungwe area, about 300 kilometers north of the capital. One of them is Felix Tarutsvira.

"I prefer [to sell] tobacco because when we compare prices, maize [corn] prices are lower than tobacco's," Tarutsvira said. "So as farmers want money quickly, they tend to grow tobacco."

But maize remains the country's staple crop and, in an effort to recover from drought-induced food shortages, the government is encouraging farmers to grow more of it.

One strategy has been pegging the buying price of maize at $390 per ton, among the highest prices in the world. But the government rarely pays farmers in a timely manner, said Paul Zacharia, executive director of the Zimbabwe Farmers Union.

"By default many, many farmers would be producing maize," he said. "But if ... tobacco gives you three-four times over what maize is giving you, go for that which gives you money. Out of the proceeds of that high-value crop you buy grain, feed your family."

Zacharia points out Zimbabwe could use the profit from tobacco crops to import maize that is more affordable.

"Even as a nation, we could put high-value crops in our fields, make the money that you require, import the grain. It [is] much, much cheaper than the current $390 that we buy it locally," he said.

However, that approach can leave the country vulnerable in times of crisis.

The El-Nino-induced drought in 2015 and 2016 left Zimbabwe with serious food shortages. The government could not afford to import grain on short notice and ended up relying on aid agencies. An estimated four million Zimbabweans currently rely on food handouts from international organizations until this year's harvest starts in April, according to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization.

Ahead of the 2016-2017 planting season, the government launched the "Targeted Command Agriculture" policy. The goal is ensuring food self-sufficiency. The government gave participating farmers maize seeds and supplies.

In return, the farmers will give the government five tons of maize per hectare at harvest time. The farmers keep the rest of the yield for themselves.

So far, the rains have been good this year, and Zimbabwe's minister of agriculture, Joseph Made, said that, thanks to the initiative, the country is on track to harvest enough maize for local consumption  as much as two million tons.

Bishow Parajuli, the U.N. resident coordinator in Zimbabwe, says recovery is under way.

"[In] Zimbabwe, we were facing lots of challenges when the drought came in," said Parajuli. "But the proactiveness of the government and the strong partnership we did have addressed all issues of famine and hunger. Of course, there is food insecurity, malnutrition issues, and that is what we are working on at the moment."

Next month, the Zimbabwe Agricultural Society will gather to figure out other incentives for farmers to plant maize crops in the hopes of easing the country's perennial food shortages.
By Press Trust of India: Lucknow, Mar 31 (PTI) Acting on the Allahabad High Courts order asking anti-Romeo squads to follow guidelines, the Uttar Pradesh government today directed the police to ensure that no inhumane measure was adopted in the name of ensuring security to women.

There should be no shaving of heads, blackening of faces or "murga pose" (sit-ups while holding ears), a senior official said here.

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The guidelines have been issued after the intervention of Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath amidst reports of harassment by anti-Romeo squads.

These special squads of UP Police were formed after the Yogi Aditynath government assumed office this month, fulfilling one of the poll promises of the BJP.

The Allahabad High Court had yesterday directed the Uttar Pradesh government to ensure that guidelines were followed by anti-Romeo squads and action was taken as per the law.

The courts Lucknow bench of justices Amreshwar Pratap Sahi and Sanjay Harkauli had given the order on a PIL that alleged that police were not following the guidelines during the drive, aimed at checking eveteasing, and was harassing couples.

The chief minister has also directed administrative and police officials in districts to regularly review the steps being taken for women security and inform senior officials on a regular basis, the official said.

Stressing that his government was firm on upholding the security and dignity of women, he said a state-wide drive has been launched to free public places of anti-social elements and check incidents of eve-teasing, indecent behaviour and passing of lewd comments at women and girls.

The UP Home department has issued fresh directives to identify those involved in misconduct at schools, colleges, bus stations, railway stations, malls and markets.

The government is also firm on checking unnecessary harassment of girls and boys merely in the name of curbing eve-teasing in public places like coffee shops, markets and parks.

The government has also made it clear that vigilantism of any sort in this regard will not be tolerated. (MORE) PTI SAB SMI GVS

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Harrison Ford in Blade Runner 2049. Photo: Alcon Entertainment

The big studios held court during the Vegas fest CinemaCon this week, giving updates on their summer and awards season sure-things. In between talking up seeming slam dunks (Dunkirk, Blade Runner 2049) and talking around the premium-VOD-rental debate, there were smaller updates from other anticipated titles. Here are the highlights from the conventions news cycle  basically, we kept up with millions of CinemaCon Tweets so you didnt have to.

Blade Runner 2049

Prepare to start going steady with the edge of your seats, Ryan Gosling joked during the presentation for the Blade Runner sequel Blade Runner 2049. Sony shared another preview from the Denis Villeneuvedirected movie that teased the return of Harrison Fords Rick Deckard and the introduction of Goslings character Officer K. According to Variety, CinemaCon attendees got a glimpse of Jared Leto lovingly caress[ing] a naked android.



Dunkirk

The buzz around Christopher Nolans World War II epic Dunkirk has cooled since fans learned it would arrive with a PG-13 rating. But Nolans CinemaCon presentation drummed up support around the movie, and also made for an awkward moment. After a Warner Bros. executive talked up their pending premium-VOD negotiations, the director declined to join in on the praise. The only platform Im interested in talking about is theatrical exhibition, he said.

Spider-Man: Homecoming

A new trailer showing more of the forthcoming Spider-Man installment came out during CinemaCon. We also got a better look at how the new movie will handle the Vulture (Michael Keaton), which includes having his business interests undermined by Tony Stark.

Untitled Paul Thomas Anderson Film

We have a lot of ideas about this upcoming collaboration between PTA and Daniel Day-Lewis. While most of the plot is still under wraps  Vulture made a pretty good educated guess last summer  Focus Features did announce that the movie will get an Oscar-qualifying Christmas Day release.

Downsizing

Matt Damon shrinks down to a much more manageable size in Downsizing, Alexander Paynes new comedy. Damon and Kristen Wiig play a couple who come up with a bizarre money-saving plot: shrinking to a miniature size through surgery. Paramount played the first ten minutes of the movie, which co-stars Christoph Waltz; Variety called it funny.



Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle

The biggest shocker about the upcoming Kevin Hart-Jack Black-The Rock Jumanji movie is that wont feature the board game that kicked off the action in the book and the first movie. Instead, Jumanji will be a video game in this update. Kids these days!



Annihilation

A few minutes of Annihilation, the new feature from Ex-Machina director Alex Garland screened. According to THR, the clip sees Natalie Portman notice a change in her husband Oscar Isaac after he returns from a year-long mission. Theres a region in the United States undergoing some kind of plague, and shes determined to figure out how this malady has affected her husband. The answer is probably not great.



Darkest Hour

Gary Oldmans turn as Winston Churchill is getting early awards-season buzz, and hes already getting his red-carpet talking points ready: According to Deadline, Oldman told the crowd he spent over 200 hours in the makeup chair to transform into the former British prime minister in this story of the first weeks of his term.

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales

The fifth movie in the Pirates series might actually return to some of its Curse of the Black Pearl glory. The movie screened in full two months ahead of its release, and early reviews of the installment seemed satisfied. Slashfilm called it a pleasant surprise.


Beyonce. Photo: Larry Busacca/Getty Images for NARAS

Man, if this works out, we certainly wont need to worry about dubbing. Jon Favreau is heading up Disneys live-action (ahem, CGI) remake of The Lion King, and, according to Variety, he has his sights set sky-high for the part of Nala. The outlet reports that Favreau is after Beyonce to voice the lioness queen-to-be, which should be something of a stretch, given that Beyonce has been enthroned for years. Variety notes that Beyonce has not yet made a decision on the part, but says Disney is willing to be as accommodating as possible to make the vocal role happen. Were she to feel the love at some point in the near future, shed join Donald Glover as Simba and James Earl Jones as Mufasa.
The following movies are showing at first-run theaters Regal Jewel 16 (RJ16), Starplex Galaxy 16 (SG16) and the Waco Hippodrome (WH). Letter grades for movies are from advance reviews; an NR means a movie was not reviewed.

New in theaters

B THE BOSS BABY Credible sibling relationship/rivalry between a seven-year-old (Miles Bakshi) and a management baby (Alec Baldwin) sent from heaven proves the key in this family animation. Rated PG. Mild rude humor. 1 hour, 37 minutes. RJ16.

C GHOST IN THE SHELL Visually dazzling, yet somewhat dull live-action adaptation of the classic 1995 Japanese anime feature about a cyborg haunted by fragments of its human memory. Rated PG-13. Suggestive content, some disturbing images, intense sequences of sci-fi violence. 1 hour, 42 minutes. SG16, RJ16.

Also showing

B BEAUTY AND THE BEAST Rich visuals and capable acting highlight an expanded, live-action version of the classic 1991 Disney animated feature. Rated PG. Frightening images, some action violence. 2 hours, 9 minutes. RJ16, SG16, WH.

C THE BELKO EXPERIMENT Violent, but limited horror film about occupants of a sealed Colombian office building forced into a deadly fight to survive. Rated R. Profanity and sexual references, some drug use, strong bloody violence. 1 hour, 28 minutes. SG16.

D CHIPS Leering, sexist reimaging of 1970s television series about two California motorcycle cops that plays like a bad frat boys comedy. Rated R. Frequent profanity, crude sexual content, graphic nudity, drug use, some violence. 1 hour, 41 minutes. SG16, RJ16.

B GET OUT Jordan Peele (Key and Peele) shifts from comedy to horror with telling effect with a young black man finding something sinister in a weekend visit to his white girlfriends family. Rated R. Profanity including sexual references, bloody images, violence. 1 hour, 43 minutes. RJ16, SG16.

C+ KONG: SKULL ISLAND New King Kong installment moves action to 1973 with the Vietnam War as backdrop, but tone flips between serious and silly, with movies true purpose a fresh line of monster movies. Rated PG-13. Brief strong profanity, intense sequences of action violence. 1 hour, 58 minutes. SG16, RJ16.

A THE LEGO BATMAN MOVIE Gleefully witty and delicious sequel to The Lego Movie that assembles considerable fun from superhero satire., action and affection for its characters  and audience. Rated PG. Rude humor, some action. 1 hour, 45 minutes. SG16.

C LIFE Astronauts to Mars bring back mutating lethal lifeform in Alien-like story thats more tense than terrifying. Rated R. Profanity, some sexuality, nudity. 1 hour, 43 minutes. RJ16, SG16.

B LOGAN Violent, darker and complex chapter of the X-Man Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) saga has him protecting a child pursued for her special powers. Rated R. Frequent profanity, brief nudity, strong brutal violence. 2 hours, 21 minutes. RJ16, SG16.

C- POWER RANGERS Uneven film adaptation of the cheesy Japanese action series starring superpowered teens loses steam when it cant decide whether to go serious or campy and tries both. Rated PG-13. Profanity, some crude humor, sci-fi violence and action. 2 hours, 4 minutes. SG16, RJ16, WH.

C- THE SHACK Adaptation of William Paul Youngs best-selling novel about a grieving man healed through a metaphorical encounter with the Christian Trinity stumbles on a thin main character and glib answers to hard questions. Rated PG-13. Thematic material, some violence. 2 hours, 12 minutes. SG16, RJ16.

Special screenings

NORTH BY NORTHWEST Classic 1959 Alfred Hitchcock thriller about an ad exec mistaken for a Soviet spy. 2 and 7 p.m. Sunday and Wednesday. RJ16.

THE CASE FOR CHRIST Journalist Lee Strobel, now a Houston Baptist University professor, tells of how his investigation of Christianity turned him to personal belief. 7 p.m. Thursday. RJ16.
From Sajjad Hussain

Islamabad, Mar 31 (PTI) The US today made a fresh delivery of Cessna aircraft to Pakistans army to enhance its counter-terrorism capabilities and air mobility.

"The Office of Defence Representative Pakistan made another delivery of Cessna aircraft to the Pakistan Army," the US embassy in Pakistan said.

It was not known precisely how many aircraft were delivered.

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The embassy, however, said that since November 2016, the Pakistan Army had received six Cessna planes, two Cessna 208 Caravans and four Cessna 206H aircraft.

"These aircraft will assist the Pakistan Army with their air mobility capability by enhancing the Armys ability to conduct medical evacuations, as well as provide limited troop and equipment transport," it said.

American security assistance continues to build the counter-terrorism capabilities of Pakistans security forces, the embassy statement said.

"The United States and Pakistan are stronger when we work together to combat terrorism," it said.

Cessna Aircraft company is an American general aviation aircraft manufacturing corporation. PTI SH MRJ AKJ CPS

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A Mart Independent School District alumnus presented a $4 million donation Thursday for a new high school.

The gift from Mart native James Lee Davis, 90, was a monumental moment, Interim Superintendent Len Williams said.

Needless to say, this donors generosity is going to carry us a long way to helping all of our children for many, many years to come, Williams said. Well build new classrooms, elementary, middle school wing, high school. Were going to hit all of it. Our donor is very interested in math and science so well make sure the academic wings of it are in place.

The main high school building was built in 1929 and retrofitted in 1980, said Williams, who is also the city of Marts mayor.

Needless to say, its very much outdated, he said. As beloved as it is, and I taught in it for nine years myself, it has served its purpose. Its time to upgrade.

Davis daughters, Sandy Davis Maddox and Lori Davis Winter, presented the check to the school board.

This is a very special thing for him, Maddox said. It was going to be hard for him to stay and not be a little emotional about it because its that big of a deal to him. He keeps calling me and saying, Are you going to say this? Are you going to say that? 

Maddox said her father has told her the city and school district were important influences in his life.

He truly means that, where sometimes we just say those kinds of things, she said.

For teachers

Maddox said her father has been considering the gift for a long time. The family researched the school district and the districts future before finalizing the decision, she said. The gift is first and foremost for the teachers, she said.

He once said that he was 18 or 19 years old, and I dont know whether this was true or not, before he ever went more than 20 miles outside Mart, Texas, she said.

Maddox said her father hopes this gift will help foster a love of learning in the community and provide classrooms of the future.

Because of the field where my dad is, in oil and gas and engineering, he would really, really, really like to see more students who will choose math and science and the kinds of new diplomas and plans we have because these are areas of shortage in the United States, she said.

The family still wants the new campus to be called Mart High School, but they are requesting a small dedication to Davis, Maddox said.

A packed room of educators, former students and community members attended Thursdays meeting.

Usually when you have this many people at a school board meeting its not a good thing, School Board President Frank Pete Rowe said, receiving laughs from the crowd.

Rowe said the gift will enable the district to build what the children need to be competitive with everyone else.

This is an awesome moment. This is an unprecedented moment in the history of this community, he said. Were indebted to you.

Over the years, the districts enrollment has fluctuated. When the numbers dip, so does state money for operations and maintenance, Williams said. The district now has 10 buildings and 527 students, and its tax base remains small, he said.

Four million will take us a long, long way in building a new facility and upgrading just about everything we have, Williams said.
A 43-year-old Spokane, Washington, man who has trafficked a 20-year-old woman across four states was arrested Thursday morning in an undercover McLennan County Sheriffs Office online sting that ended at a downtown Waco hotel, Sheriff Parnell McNamara said.

James Donaldson, 43, was arrested with his wife, Leah Stevens-King, 42, after Donaldson made an online arrangement with an undercover officer at Courtyard Marriott Waco. McNamara said Donaldson and his wife came to the hotel with the 20-year-old woman to meet with a man for sex.

The Tribune-Herald does not release the names of human-trafficking victims.

He has trafficked this woman across Washington, Oregon, Utah and all across Texas, McNamara said. He has already been charged with promotion of prostitution in Washington, so now we added another serious felony to his charges.

Donaldson and his wife dropped the woman off at the front of the hotel and parked near the back of the hotel to wait, McNamara said. The woman went inside and met McLennan County Sheriffs Office Detective Joseph Scaramucci, who detained her with help from other officers.

The male  was non-compliant, McNamara said. They also had a very vicious pit bull in the car that was trying to jump up through the window to attack our officers.

McNamara said officers called for additional help, and Donaldsons aggressive demeanor and the dog made the situation more dangerous. The arrest was made at gunpoint, he said.

In the couples vehicle, officers found an undisclosed amount of marijuana and $6,600 in cash, McNamara said.

Donaldson was arrested on a first-degree felony charge of continuous human trafficking. He remained in McLennan County Jail with bond listed at $100,000.

Stevens-King and the 20-year-old woman were each arrested on Class B misdemeanor possession of marijuana charges outside the hotel. McNamara said investigators do not believe Stevens-King had any direct involvement with the prostitution arrangement, but the investigation remains ongoing.

Bond for Stevens-King was not immediately available Thursday evening.
Mildred Teer

June 16, 1926 - March 28, 2017

Mildred McAfee Teer, formerly of Waco, Texas, passed away peacefully, at the age of 90, in Conroe, Texas, after a long bout with Alzheimer's. Services are planned for 10:30 a.m., Saturday April 1, at Wilkirson Hatch Bailey Funeral Home in Waco. Interment will be at Waco Memorial Park immediately following the service.

Mildred was born in Belton, Texas, to A.J. McFarland and wife, Addie Lou Boyd, the second of five children. They moved to Waco when she was 12 years old and remained there, graduating from high school. She worked various jobs while in school and after graduation. She married Gerald L. McAfee, Jr., in 1944, after he returned from his tour of duty in the Army during WWII. He continued to serve until his discharge in 1945. Together they had four children and raised their family in Waco. Gerald passed away in 1989. She worked most of their years together and built a career as a full charge bookkeeper, while managing a home and four children.

In 1991 Mildred married J.L. Scott and moved to Temple, Texas, his hometown. They had a wonderful time traveling the US in his travel trailer for weeks at a time. She was widowed again when Mr. Scott passed away in 2000. She moved back to Waco to be near family and spent time volunteering at her church. In 2005 she married Clifford Teer and had a great time traveling and cruising the world with him. He passed away in 2015.She moved to Conroe to be near her daughter, when she needed to be in Memory Care.

Mildred was preceded in death by her parents; her daughter, Carol McAfee Ellis; her brothers, Alvin McFarland, Herman McFarland, and Joe McFarland; her sister, Murt McFarland Scrivner; and son-in-law, Joseph Morrow, Jr.

She is survived by son, Robert McAfee; and daughters, Gerry McAfee Morrow, and Donna McAfee Van Wyk and husband, David Van Wyk, Sr.; six grandchildren; eight great-grandchildren, one great-great-grandchild; and numerous nieces and nephews.

The family requests that, in lieu of flowers, memorials in honor of Mildred be made to First United Methodist Church of Waco or the Alzheimer's Association.

The family invites you to leave a message or memory on our "Tribute Wall" at www.WHBfamily.com.
By Press Trust of India: New Delhi, Mar 30 (PTI) Metals and mining conglomerate Vedanta Ltd today announced the appointment of K Venkataramanan as an independent non-executive director with effect from April 1.

The companys board has also considered and approved re-appointment of Thomas Albanese, Whole-Time Director and CEO, till August 31, 2017 subject to approval of shareholders in the next general meeting.

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"The board of directors in their meeting on March 30, 2017 approved the appointment of K Venkataramanan as an Independent non-executive director with effect from April 1, 2017," Vedanta Ltd said in a statement.

Venkataramanan was CEO & Managing Director of Larsen & Toubro Ltd from April, 2012 and had also served on the L&T Board from May, 1999 until his retirement in September, 2015," the statement said.

"I am delighted to welcome KV to our Board. His unparalleled strength and global experience in our sector will support our delivery of the next phase of growth at Vedanta, and I look forward to his significant contributions to the board," companys Chairman Navin Agarwal said.

"I am excited to be joining the Board of Vedanta Ltd, a company which has excelled in the Indian natural resources sector. It will be my endeavour to effectively participate in Vedantas journey of achieving excellence in the sector," Venkataramanan said.

Venkataramanan, in his four decades of experience at L&T, has spearheaded the companys foray in the world of E&C, strengthened every aspect of EPC value chain and transformed L&T to one of the respected names in the global EPC fraternity.

His induction will help broaden the diversity of the Vedanta board, and add considerable expertise particularly in the areas of hydrocarbons and large scale project management.

Vedanta Ltd is a diversified natural resources company, whose business primarily involves producing oil & gas, zinc-lead-silver, copper, iron ore, aluminium and commercial power. The company has a presence across India, South Africa, Namibia, Australia and Ireland.

The board has approved appointment of "K Venkataramanan as an Additional Director and Non-Executive Independent Director (Additional Director) on the Board of the Company for a period of 3 years w.e.f. April 1, 2017 to hold office till the ensuing Annual General Meeting of the company," it said.

The board also approved resignation of Anuradha Dutt, Non-Executive Independent Director from the Board of the Company w.e.f. March 31, 2017 due to other commitments. PTI SID BAL

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Two grave allegations loom before our nation and, sadly, Congress has increasingly shown itself not up to the task of investigating and getting at the truth behind either charge with any semblance of integrity or political courage.

Were not as concerned as some that Russians sought to influence the 2016 U.S. presidential election. The United States has sought to do the very same in other countries. However, no American who takes allegiance to his country seriously can ignore allegations that the Trump campaign conspired with Russian officials to undermine his presidential opponent through a steady, orchestrated leak of stolen materials  or that then-President Barack Obama abused his power by ordering the wiretapping of the Trump circle.

If the former allegation is true, then impeachment should be pursued to cast Trump out of the White House. If the latter allegation is true, felony charges should be pursued against Obama and his cronies. Let neither party, Republican or Democrat, sidetrack American justice if truth exists to either charge. To fail if solid evidence arises one way or the other is to set an awful precedent for excusing such behavior in the future. From there, one can easily see the destruction of our country  and primarily from within.

Sadly, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes, a California Republican, has so thoroughly soiled his own committees standing as an oversight body as to render it irrelevant. Nunes now acknowledges that in recent days he in effect engaged in D.C. skullduggery (including switching cars to cover his trail) to help the Trump White House bolster its claim that the Trump circle was at least under inadvertent or incidental surveillance.

Interestingly, this revelation only raises more concerns. If Trumps inner circle was indeed revealed communicating with dubious characters who were under intelligence surveillance, who are these dubious characters and why was Trump or his designates engaged with them?

Now we find that the House Intelligence Committee  again under Nunes orders  has canceled a hearing that would have pressed former acting attorney general Sally Yates about her knowledge concerning former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn and his discussions with Russians about scuttling sanctions . Meanwhile, the FBI continues its investigation into possible collusion between Trump officials and the Russians.

With House Speaker Paul Ryan now sullying his own flagging reputation by condoning Nunes misbehavior, only two possibilities remain to get to the bottom of these charges. The Senate Intelligence Committee thus far has maintained its credibility in pursuing testimony, with Republican Chairman Richard Burr and ranking Democratic member Mark Warner demonstrating bipartisan demeanor in their close work together. However, it appears more and more likely an independent commission or select committee is the only viable course forward, given partisanship on both sides of the aisle and no one looking after the welfare and security of our nation. If Obama and Trump are innocent, they must be cleared. If they are guilty, they must face the unforgiving consequences of our laws  and the scorn of our nation.
GREENWOOD  Its beginning to look like another busy summer for Todd Baker and company.

In addition to the usual flow of customers that pours into Bakers Candies throughout the year, the Greenwood business recently learned it received a spot on this years Nebraska Tourism Commission Nebraska Passport program.

This is the candy shop was last listed in 2015.

We were the number one destination in Nebraska for 2015, so theyve asked us back, Baker said. Its great to be a part of it again.

Baker estimated the Passport program brought in about 3,000 more customers than normal in 2015. He said the shop usually prints 100,000 receipts in an average year.

Numbers like that indicate that its more than locals stopping by for a treat.

It definitely works in our favor that Greenwood falls in the Lincoln-Omaha corridor, Baker said. Its not just local Greenwooders.

Bakers is on the Passports Uniquely Nebraska portion of destinations, meaning that theres nowhere quite like it outside of the state.

Bakers Candies was identified as being one of the hallmark destinations that makes up what they consider to be uniquely Nebraska, Baker said. We take a lot of pride in being a unique Nebraska location.

The tourism commission is excited to offer the program once again, according to a recent press release.

Were excited to continue this program for an eighth year, said Nebraska Tourism Executive Director John Ricks. The Passport inspires Nebraskans and tourists to travel the state collecting stamps to earn prizes, while also supporting small businesses, attractions and hidden gems. Every year since its inception the program has gained popularity. In 2016, more than 87,000 total stamps were collected and we expect 2017s participation to be even better.

The 2017 Passport will again feature 80 attractions on 10 themed tours with one tour honoring the states sesquicentennial. Travelers will have from May 1 through September 30 to visit the attractions and get their stamps.

The 2017 Passport program is focused on giving travelers truly memorable experiences, said Passport Program Coordinator Erin Wirth The 80 Passport stops offer a mix of thrilling, relaxing and unique adventures. Passport travelers will create lifelong memories while they have fun exploring Nebraska. From discovering Nebraskas hidden gems to celebrating Nebraskas 150th birthday, the 2017 Passport showcases what makes Nebraska special.

Baker said hes a fan of the Passport idea.

Its a great thing for families, he said. We hear lots of really cool stories. It turns into kind of a living history tour of the state of Nebraska. It definitely fosters an increase in Nebraska pride for anybody that participates.

Passports will be available at participating stops starting May 1 or can be pre-ordered at http://nebraskapassport.com/requestyourpassport/, the press release stated. You can also download the Nebraska Passport App for their smartphone and get stamped digitally, supplementing the physical Passport booklet for convenience.

The app will be updated with the 2017 information on May 1.

Baker said that many people enjoy swinging by the store whenever they feel like going out for a drive on a nice day.

When people want to get out of the city, we are on a very short list of destinations, he said.

The key to Bakers success likes in the product, Baker said. No gimmicks are needed.

We offer free samples to anybody whos on the Passport tour, realizing well get some first-time visitors, he said. Were confident that creates a sale. Free samples are our marketing tool. Well never trick anyone into buying our Meltaways.

Baker and all of the employees are the location are honored to be considered the states chocolate maker of choice.

Nebraskas a funny state, he said. There are certain things that we adopt as our own in this state, and we really feel very fortunate to be Nebraskas chocolate. Its a unique privilege to represent candy in Nebraska.
Last week, Russia saw massive anti-corruption protests, which were termed illegal by the Vladimir Putin dispensation.

Russian President Vladimir Putin slammed the West's criticism of Russia's handling of the recent protests (Reuters photo)

By Reuters: President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday that Western criticism of how Russia had handled anti-government protesters at the weekend was a politically-motivated attempt to interfere in his country's domestic affairs.

Speaking at an Arctic forum in northern Russia, Putin, who is expected to seek a fourth presidential term next year, also said his political opponents were trying to channel public discontent about corruption for their own "mercenary" needs.

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"We know well that this tool was used at the start of the so-called Arab Spring, what this led to, and what bloodshed happened in the region," Putin said, in his first comments on the weekend street protests.

Thousands of people took part in anti-corruption rallies across Russia on Sunday and dozens of them were arrested or fined.

The United States and the European Union called on the Russian authorities to free detainees.

Putin condemned their calls on Thursday.

"Such appeals to Russia are purely political aimed at applying pressure on the country's domestic political life," he said.

"Everybody should abide by the law and everyone who breaks the law should be punished in accordance with Russian legislation."

The authorities refused to grant protesters formal permission to hold their rallies in most cities meaning that the demonstrations were, in their eyes, illegal.

Opposition activists disagreed however and cited the Russian constitution which they said gives people the right to gather peacefully without the authorities' approval.

ALSO READ | Mass dissent: Here's why Russia is witnessing series of anti-government protests

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Food delivery companies like Deliveroo and Foodora face a legal challenge from cycle couriers over whether they should be classified as independent contractors. Credit:Jason South The minimum hourly rate of pay for casual bicycle couriers is $23.45 per hour with penalty rates paid on Saturdays, Sundays and public holidays  but only for employees. Mr Williams and Ms Millward did not receive sick pay, holidays, superannuation or penalty rates. Alison Millward said her her parents gave her insurance for Christmas because they were worried about her work as a food delivery worker. Credit:Josh Robenstone Some equipment was provided but they were expected to provide their own bicycle, helmet and maintenance, mobile phone and data and pay a "deposit" for the uniform.

"I was fired with an automated text message," Ms Millward said. "It just said I wasn't doing enough shifts." 'A pretty dangerous job' Mr Victory said he was investigating whether the companies have broken labour laws relating to relating to sham contracting, and underpayment of wages and superannuation. "They also have questions about who is liable and whether they are covered by insurance if they are involved in an accident while they are working," he said. Ms Millward said being a bicycle delivery rider was a "pretty dangerous job".

"My parents gave me insurance for Christmas because they were worried about me," she said. "They got me an ambulance membership." Ms Millward's brother is a soldier yet she said: "My mum would say she was more worried about me being out on the streets than about him over in Iraq." A UK company, Deliveroo is estimated to be worth more than $1 billion. A Deliveroo spokeswoman said in a statement that safety was a "top priority" for Deliveroo. "All our riders go through a rigorous induction process and safety and riding test before they are able to make deliveries for Deliveroo," she said.

"And they are covered by workers' compensation and are required to have their own public liability insurance, or opt into a policy that the company has been able to source for them at a competitive rate." Rival company Foodora also considers its food delivery couriers as independent contractors. "Foodora is confident about its business policies and procedures with regards to the contracted riders/drivers," a spokeswoman said. "It is lawful and riders/drivers are treated in a good way." Innovative or 'old-fashioned exploitation'? Tony Sheldon, the national secretary of the Transport Workers Union, said paying food delivery workers "per task" eroded labour rights such as minimum pay, maternity leave and the right to challenge unfair employers practices.

"The nature of 'casual contractors' in the 'gig economy' is aimed at driving down conditions which workers have won over many centuries," he said. "Its proponents like to say it is innovative and disruptive when in fact it amounts to old-fashioned exploitation." Maria Nawaz, a solicitor with the University of NSW's Kingsford Legal Centre, said the work arrangements had all the signs of a sham contract. "Deliveroo and Foodora require riders to wear their uniforms, workers can't bargain with companies nor with customers over rates of pay per delivery," she said. "Most workers don't have existing businesses but are told to get ABNs in order to perform the work, and they don't provide skilled labour." Ms Nawaz said the companies appeared to be exploiting uncertainty in the law. "We are concerned such arrangements target vulnerable workers who are open to exploitation, such as international students, young workers and migrants, who are often unaware of their rights," she said.

Mr Williams said he trained alongside backpackers and international students, some of whom did not appear to speak English. "There were people who I don't believe could have read road signs, let alone be familiar with Australian road rules," he said. Last October, a British court rejected Uber's claim that its drivers were self-employed and thus decided they were entitled to a minimum wage, holiday and sick pay. Associate Professor Angela Knox, from the University of Sydney Business School, said she expected the decision would be followed in Australia. "These companies want all of the power and control that goes with being an employer but they want to avoid the responsibilities and the risks," she said. "You cannot have it both ways and the law enshrines that."
Cancer Council ads appeared on the Breitbart News Network website due to programmatic advertising. The site has since been added to a blacklist. Thus theoretically, Google has a way of contacting the people that governments want to avoid funding. Google terminates the account of anyone it suspects is a foreign terrorist organisation, as long as someone has alerted them to it. So are terrorists making a lot of money from YouTube? A spokesman for the Australian Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre [AUSTRAC] said "terrorists and terrorist organisations raise funds from a variety of legitimate and/or illegitimate sources of income. This may include online advertising." "The Attorney-General's Department and law enforcement agencies also work with industry to limit access to and disrupt violent extremist propaganda online," he added.

Simon Norton of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute is an expert on terrorism financing. His recently published paper on disrupting extremist financing notes terrorist use social media to reach out to potential funders, or to create fake charities to solicit donations. "We saw no evidence of revenue generation through click-bait and on line for terrorism financing," he told Fairfax Media. However, he added that terrorist attacks have evolved in recent years to be smaller, "lone wolf" style operations, which are usually cheaper. But even if violent extremists are not using click revenues to scrape together funding for their next bomb attack, ideological extremists are doing quite well out of it. And this is where advertisers have to carefully decide what ideas they will and won't support. Some YouTubers like Millennial Woes  a Scotland-based video blogger who posts bigoted monologues  claim to be able to make a living from their posts, according to one expert on far right groups.

And in Australia groups like the far-right United Patriots Front use social media to reach out to supporters. "Blair Cottrell and the United Patriots Front use Facebook as their main platform, not YouTube. And while they have a real large audience and some of their Facebook videos reach millions, these are not monetised by them but rather by Facebook," another expert said.



The UPF has tried to use crowd funding to raise money, but these are usually shut down by appeals to the platform for breaches of terms of service, he added.



The problem with programmatic advertising is advertisers get no say on where their ads appear, unless the site is flagged or manually added to a blacklist. In November 2016 a Twitter account called Sleeping Giants was set up to alert American advertisers they might be funding far-right groups. "We are trying to stop racist websites by stopping their ad dollars. Many companies don't even know it's happening. It's time to tell them," Sleeping Giants stated. Lately they have been targeting Breitbart News Network, a US far-right news website responsible for publishing stories such as that former US President Barack Obama wiretapped Trump Tower.

When Fairfax Media visited Breitbart.com the first ad that came up was for Australia's Cancer Council "Cancer Council weren't aware that our ads were appearing on this website and have since taken steps to exclude this specific domain," a spokeswoman said after being alerted by Fairfax Media. "Our ads won't appear on it going forward and we will continue to restrict placements on extreme content." She added the Cancer Council uses programmatic advertising that "allows us to target our ads to general audiences that we hope will find them of interest, rather than placing them directly on specific websites". "In this case, the advertisement appeared because either the visitor fell into one of a wide range of target segments, or has previously visited the Cancer Council website. We did not select to advertise on the website directly," she added.
Washington: Hillary Clinton stepped back into the spotlight this week after laying relatively low since losing the US presidential election, and she had some advice for Donald Trump: Tear up the White House budget plan.

Clinton was at the Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace and Security on Friday to bestow an award named in her honour to Colombian leaders who helped bring an end to war in that country and elevate the role of women in the peace process.

She spoke of the progress the world has made in advancing women's rights since she spoke forcefully on the issue two decades ago when the UN gathered world leaders to address it in Beijing. But she warned that progress is threatened by Trump.

"We are seeing signals of a shift that should alarm us all," Clinton said. "This administration's proposed cuts to international health, development and diplomacy would be a blow to women and children and a grave mistake for our country."
"They are typically aged between 28 and 40. They are in mid-tier and larger firms. They feel they are crunching numbers [and] they can't support their clients properly. They are bound by old technology and the old 'this is how we do things'. Really what they want to do is take a new approach and develop long lasting relationships with businesses."

The age of accountants going out on their own has dropped. Credit:Belinda Pratten

"We call them the angry, young accountants," Macolino says.

This disenchantment is fuelling the rapid growth of Macolino's technology start-up Accodex which provides a platform for technology enabled freelance accountants.

Michael Macolino, co-founder of Accodex, speaking at the Salesforce World Tour in Sydney. Credit:Andrew Hobbs

Speaking to MySmallBusiness at the Salesforce World Tour in Sydney last week, Macolino describes Accodex as "for accountants leaving the confines of traditional practice and going out on their own".

The platform integrates with accounting platform Xero and aims to provide accountants with the other tools necessary for running a business.

Based in Adelaide, Accodex turns over $3 million a year with 20 "partner" accountants but has ambitious plans to grow to 1000 partners over the next 10 years.
Seoul: South Korea's recently impeached president, Park Geun-hye, was arrested on Friday, becoming the first leader since the nation's transition to democracy to be sent to jail.

Park's dramatic downfall capped months of turmoil and intrigue, as huge crowds took to the streets to protest a sprawling corruption scandal that shook the interlocking worlds of government and business - including the leadership of Samsung, the nation's largest conglomerate.

Ousted South Korean president Park Geun-hye arrives at the Seoul Central District Court for a hearing on a request for her arrest. Credit:AP

A judge at the Seoul Central District Court issued the warrant early Friday morning, warning that if Park were not taken into custody quickly she might "destroy evidence". The charges against her include bribery, extortion and abuse of power.

In December, the National Assembly voted overwhelmingly to impeach Park, and she was formally removed from office on March 10.
In the upcoming Netflix release War Machine, Brad Pitt is playing real-life retired US Army general Stanley A McChrystal who is credited for killing the Al-Qaeda chief Abu Musab al-Zarqaqi in 2006.

By India Today Web Desk: Seems like Brad Pitt can never get tired of playing American soldiers. He became Lt. Aldo Raine in Quentin Tarantino's 2009 classic Inglourious Basterds, then Wardaddy in the 2014 film Fury, then he fought Nazis in Cast Away director Robert Zemeckis's Allied...

And now, once again, he is playing an American soldier. In the upcoming Netflix release, War Machine, Brad Pitt is playing real-life retired US Army general Stanley A McChrystal who is credited for killing Abu Musab al-Zarqaqi, who was the leader of Al-Qaeda between 2004 and 2006.

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However, McChrystal was known for speaking out loud his beliefs regardless of how controversial they would sound. When his unflattering comments about then-US Vice President Joe Biden and other administration officers came into light thanks to an article in Rolling Stone magazine, he resigned from his post as commander in Afghanistan.

Over a three-decade long career, Brad Pitt has perfected the art of playing macho, gruff and slightly eccentric characters. In films like Kalifornia, Seven, 12 Monkeys, Fight Club, Snatch, Troy and Killing Them Softly, he plays the crazy, authoritarian characters or a variation of the same to a T.

By the looks of the recently release War Machine trailer, it seems like Brad Pitt is going back to familiar territory. It's a war film, he is playing a commander and his character appears to be pretty oddball...in a nice way.

Directed by Animal Kingdom director David Michod, War Machine is scheduled to release worldwide on Netflix on May 26 this year.

Watch the War Machine trailer here:

WATCH IT trailer: Pennywise, the killer clown returns to prey on children

ALSO READ: Vulture's entrance to Tony Stark, 5 jaw-dropping moments from the Spider-Man Homecoming trailer

WATCH: Hugh Jackman on SRK playing Wolverine, acting in Logan and Virat Kohli

--- ENDS ---
Taipei: US Senator John McCain has sparked a war of words with North Korea after describing its dictator Kim Jong-un as a "crazy fat kid" in a TV interview.

McCain's assessment of Kim, 33, came just a few months after China blocked internet searches on the taboo subject "Kim Fatty the Third", something not well received in Pyongyang.

Kim Jong-un and John McCain. Credit:AP

The Korean Central News Agency, widely viewed as the mouthpiece of the reclusive regime, denounced the remarks as "a grave provocation" that were a "little short of a declaration of war", US news website The Daily Caller reported.

McCain told MSNBC's Greta van Susteren in an interview on March 22 that the "crazy fat kid that's running North Korea" is far worse than some of history's worst dictators.
The body of the girl was found hanging from a room of an abandoned building, adjacent to a local club-- Netaji Club.

A nine-year-old girl was murdered after being raped for three consecutive days in a village in Ratua in Malda district.

The body of the girl was found hanging from a room of an abandoned building, adjacent to a local club-- Netaji Club.

The girl was found missing since Tuesday, but she could not be traced. Today, stench of decomposition drew the attention of the locals to the abandoned building, close to the club. The club was registered with the government.

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The club was locked and no one could be found, but the locals broke through to find stains of blood. The stink led to the building, where the body of the girl was found hanging, her clothes stripped, cakes of blood stains on the staircase.

According to a family member, the girl was locked up in the club room and gang-raped because witnesses said the club members assembled at night for drinking binges. The girl's grandfather has alleged that club members were behind the tragedy since they went missing for the last few days and no one saw the club being opened.

However, the police has nabbed some of them and is interrogating them.

The state Women Commission chairperson Sunanda Mukherjee has sought immediate cancellation of the registration of the club and strong punishment against the culprits.

The police has refused to attach any political colour to the club members.

Also read:Bengal shamed: 22-year-old commits suicide after rape; assault attempt on 8-year-old

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From 12 to 16 March 2017, the capacity building coordinators of the Customs of the Middle East and North Africa region (MENA) held their second annual meeting in Doha, Qatar. This meeting jointly organized by the WCO and Qatar Customs was attended by 8 Customs administrations from the region. The meeting benefited from the financial support of the General Authority of Customs of Qatar.

The meeting allowed monitoring the capacity building progress and customs reform at national and regional level. It also helped initiate a discussion on the role of regional structures, discuss the annual process of identifying assistance needs and develop the regional capacity building cooperation.

The meeting was also designed as an awareness-raising workshop aiming at familiarizing and updating the representatives of the MENA Region Members with the WCO Customs modernization concepts, tools and instruments.

Capacity building coordinators of Member States who participated in the second regional meeting committed to play a crucial role as a two-way communication and information channel to support the WCO in meeting better the Capacity Building needs of the region.
The WCO Harmonized System Committee (HSC) held its 59th Session from 15 to 24 March 2017 at WCO Headquarters in Brussels. More than 118 participants representing 69 Contracting Parties to the HS Convention, one WCO Member administration and four international organizations attended.

During this session, it was announced that the number of Contracting Parties to the HS Convention had risen to 156 following the accession of Burundi (in January 2017) and Palestine (in March 2017).

The HSC took some 22 classification decisions related to products covered by the HS Nomenclature as a whole.

Productive discussions were held on how to classify products newly released on to the world market, in areas such as cutting-edge technology (for example 3D printers), the textile industry (for example laminated fabrics and articles made thereof) or the tobacco industry, with a useful exchange on how a new tobacco product should be classified.

The Committee adopted 33 sets of amendments to the Explanatory Notes and approved 20 new Classification Opinions. It revised four other existing Opinions, and deleted one Opinion in the light of the 2017 version of the HS.

As part of the work to prepare the HS 2022 (seventh edition), eight amendments to the Nomenclature were adopted and some decisions on the classification of goods were submitted to the HS Review Sub-Committee for consideration of possible amendments to the Nomenclature to facilitate the classification of various products, such as laminated knitted or crocheted gloves.

The Committee also looked at re-opening the examination into the possible amendment to Article 8 of the HS Convention with a view to speeding up the decision-making process for the HS Committee by limiting the number of reservations in respect of its decisions.

This meeting provided delegates with an opportunity to present a status report and an account of their countries progress on implementing the HS 2017. As of 1 January 2017, more than 82 Contracting Parties had implemented the HS 2017, as required by the Council Recommendation and the HS Convention, and a number of delegates described how far their countries had progressed and when they expected to implement the HS 2017.

Lastly, the Committee looked at the position of Contracting Parties with respect to application of the new Recommendation, adopted by the WCO Council in July 2016, on the insertion in national statistical nomenclatures of subheadings to facilitate the monitoring of the international movement of goods required for the production and use of Improvised Explosive Devices (IED).
As part of the overseas training of the Public Policy Executive Programme of the National Academy of Customs, Excise and Narcotics (NACEN), groups of probationers from the Indian Revenue Service visited WCO Headquarters in Brussels, Belgium, on four occasions during February and March 2017.

The delegations were welcomed, by the WCO Secretary General Kunio Mikuriya and other senior WCO officials, explaining, in their opening addresses, some of the main challenges faced by Customs in the current international trade environment, and how the WCO supports its Members.

During the meeting held on 16 February 2017, the Ambassador of India to Belgium, Luxembourg and the EU, H.E. Mr. Manjeev Singh Puri, exchanged views with the group on the role India is playing in international trade including in relation to the EU, and what the career of Indian Customs senior officials means in this context.

These meetings provided the probationers with relevant information on WCOs Membership, structure, and activities, specifically in the fields of enforcement/compliance and facilitation, tariff and trade affairs, and capacity building.

The WCOs approach in countering illegal trade was discussed, with a specific focus on WCO programmes, instruments and tools available to its Members. Expertise was also shared on the tools developed to facilitate legitimate trade, more specifically the Revised Kyoto Convention, which is the blueprint for a modern Customs administration, and the SAFE Framework of Standards, which supports the security of the entire trade supply chain.

The WCO also presented its Revenue Package, along with the latest insights on Origin, HS and Valuation in relation to the work achieved by their respective Committees and to the WCO strategic goals.

Finally, the way the WCO and its regional structures work together to support capacity building delivery in the various WCO regions was detailed, notably in the Asia/Pacific region, and how WCO Members could benefit from these activities.
At the invitation of Tunisian Customs, the WCO conducted a national workshop to discuss the Development of a Pre-arrival Processing System and the Implications of E-Commerce on Customs in Tunis, Tunisia from 20 to 24 March 2017. 25 middle-ranking officials from various divisions such as risk management, procedures, inspection, and IT participated in the workshop.

The first topic on the Development of a Pre-arrival Processing System was covered during the first two days where, based on the current national situation, the WCO presented detailed information on the need and benefits of pre-arrival processing together with a step by step implementation approach. Relevant provisions of various instruments and tools such as the Revised Kyoto Convention (RKC), the SAFE Framework of Standards, the Guidelines concerning Integrated Supply Chain Management, Application of Information and Communication Technology, the RKC ICT Guidelines, and the WTO Agreement on Trade Facilitation (TFA) along with successful case studies were explained to participants.

Discussions also enabled the participants to develop a draft action plan along with a set of recommendations and identify possible ways forward in making necessary amendment/adjustments in their national legislation/regulations with a view to potentially carry out a pilot in the near future.

During the last 3 days of the workshop, both WCO experts and participants discussed the Implications of E-Commerce on Customs. The discussion highlighted the significance of growing cross-border e-commerce and the need for Customs administrations to adequately prepare to address issues stemming therefrom.

WCO experts provided detailed information and explanations on international and developments, including opportunities and challenges in the area of cross-border e-commerce related to facilitation and control, and presented related WCO tools and instruments, case studies and the ongoing work of the WCO Working Group on E-Commerce. The Workshop reflected on several current and emerging challenges emanating from e-commerce and explored potential solutions.

The workshop also enabled the participants in developing a set of recommendations as potential way forward, which inter alia included adoption of a risk-based approach based on advance electronic data (including from Post); developing IT and data analytics capabilities, enhanced coordination with partner government agencies and active engagement with other stakeholders involved in the e-commerce supply chain to explore opportunities for the exchange of data.

During the closing ceremony, Mr Adel Ben Hassen, the Director General of Tunisian Customs highlighted the need for Tunisian Customs to adequately prepare to address issues stemming from the growing cross-border e-commerce. In the same vein, he noted the importance of the implementation of a pre arrival processing system and how Tunisian Customs is currently implementing WCO instruments and tools to achieve trade facilitation agenda.
Educating for a Better Future Holocaust Commemoration at WSU

March 31, 2017

OGDEN, Utah  Weber State Universitys 2017 Holocaust Commemoration, Educating for a Better Future, will feature presentations about the Syrian conflict and other recent conflicts that have disrupted lives around the world, as well as a screening of the documentary film The Uncondemned.

This years Holocaust Remembrance theme focuses on educating for a better future, said Adrienne Andrews, WSUs Chief Diversity officer. As the Holocaust was a defining point in world history, its lessons have much to teach about the dangers of extremism and the prevention of genocides today. For these reasons, we not only remember the Holocaust, as it occurred historically, but we also look at the crimes against humanity today.

Middle East editor for Newsweek magazine Janine DiGiovanni will discuss the question she is posing to the world, The Syrian Conflict: Genocide? DiGiovanni travels often to Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt and Syria. She works to help Syrian refugees find a political voice. Her presentation is scheduled for April 4 at 10:30 a.m. in the Shepherd Union Wildcat Theater.

Amos Guiora, professor of law at the S.J. Quinney College of Law, will present on his book The Crime of Complicity: The Bystander in the Holocaust April 5 at 6 p.m. in the Hurst Center Dumke Legacy Hall. Guiora has been involved with negotiating the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and has testified before the U.S. and international governments. He served in the Israel Defense Forces and held various command positions including legal advisor to the Gaza Strip.

Consolee Nishimwe, a Rwandan genocide survivor and author, will speak on Modern Genocides. Nishimwe lost her father, three younger brothers and other relatives in the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi population. Her book, Tested to the Limit: A Genocide Survivors Story of Pain, Resilience, and Hope, is an account of her survival as a Tutsi youth. She will speak on April 6 at 1:30 p.m. in the Shepherd Union Wildcat Theater. She will also participate in a question and answer session following a 6 p.m. screening in the Wildcat Theater of The Uncondemned. The documentary depicts the story of a group of young international lawyers and activists who fought to make rape a crime of war.

For more information about the Holocaust Commemoration, visit weber.edu/DiversityOffice/HolocaustRemembrance.html.

Visit weber.edu/wsutoday for more news about Weber State University.
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By West Kentucky Star Staff

Mar. 31, 2017 | PADUCAH, KY

By West Kentucky Star Staff Mar. 31, 2017 | 11:22 AM | PADUCAH, KY

Long-time local television newsman Tom Butler has died at the age of 79.



The news was confirmed to West Kentucky Star by a local person privy to that information after Butler was mentioned in numerous social media posts.



Butler attended high school and college in Jackson, Tennessee, where he graduated from Union University in 1961.



He worked at WPSD-TV for 37 years as a news anchor and eventually as vice president of the news department. He retired at the end of 1997.



Most recently, Butler served as chairman of the board of trustees at Mid-Continent University, which closed in 2014. He suffered a spinal cord injury two years ago in a fall on icy pavement, and a stroke a few days later. Social media posts indicate he had complications this week from a surgery.



Earlier this week, the University of Kentuckys School of Journalism and Media and the UK School of Journalism Alumni Association announced that Butler would be inducted into their Kentucky Journalism Hall of Fame.



He is survived by his wife, Janice and his children.



Funeral services will be held at 1 pm on Tuesday, April 4 at Heartland Worship Center in Paducah. Friends may visit from 4 - 8 pm on Monday, and from 10 am until noon on Tuesday at Heartland. Lindsey Funeral Home of Paducah is in charge of the arrangements.
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By West Kentucky Star Staff Mar. 31, 2017 | 04:59 AM | HENDERSON, KY

The Kentucky Public Service Commission has approved a proposal to build test solar power arrays at McCracken County High School and six other sites in western Kentucky.On Thursday, Big Rivers Electric Corporation received permission to explore the development of the facilities, which also include plans for sites at Livingston County Middle School in Burna and Mike Miller Park in Draffenville. All three locations are in the service area of Jackson Purchase Energy.The seven facilities across western Kentucky would be located at schools, parks, or other public locations where they will be readily visible to the public. Big Rivers developed the plans in response to customers who requested that the company develop solar power programs.The future arrays would be used to educate the public about solar energy, but could also be a test to see how well solar power can be integrated into the utility's grid.The proposed McCracken, Marshall and Livingston arrays would each produce ten kilowatts of electricity. Other locations would range up to 30kw output.The other four facilities would be located at Kenergy Corporation offices in Henderson and Owensboro, and at Meade RECC offices in Brandenburg and Hardinsburg. Big Rivers supplies electricity to all three of the electric cooperatives involved.The total cost of all arrays is estimated at five hundred thousand dollars. Big Rivers said it will pay for the facilities, but hopes to recoup $125,000 of the cost through a grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture's "Rural Energy for America" program. Big Rivers said that if it did not receive the grant, it would re-evaluate whether to go ahead with the project.The annual operating cost of the solar arrays was estimated to be not more than four thousand dollars. Each of the member cooperatives would be billed for the power produced by the arrays, and may then provide the electricity to its retail customers.The order issued Thursday by the PSC found that building and operating the facilities would have no adverse impact on the operations or financial condition of Big Rivers.

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By Richard Nelson, Commonwealth Policy Center Mar. 30, 2017 | 12:54 PM | CADIZ, KY





Have you ever had two conflicting feelings happen at the same time? Ever felt both happy and sad? Or angry yet compassionate? If so, you've experienced something that amounts to a ten-dollar word psychologists call cognitive dissonance. Such confusion filled my being the other day while attending a Georgetown City Council meeting where the public weighed in on the proposed sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI) nondiscrimination ordinance.I heard crushing stories of gays being bullied in the workplace, attacked because of their sexual orientation and denied housing. I take those testimonies at face value and won't argue with their veracity. Undisputedly, the pathos was real from the 25 that testified in favor of the proposal that would elevate sexual orientation and gender identity to a civil right on par with race, ethnicity, religion and genderall currently protected by federal law.I also heard concerns about the potential for an ordinance to be used to undermine religious freedom, especially for business owners whose religious convictions would prohibit them from providing a good or service for an event they don't agree with. Local pastor Rick Hardison agreed that there might be some difficulty for someone in the LGBT community to find a baker or graphic designer to accommodate their wedding. But he asked, "Which is worse? For one in the LGBT community to face difficulty finding goods or service or for the person who faces losing their home?"It's not theoretical. We're all aware of the high profile cases of bakers and florists who've declined to provide their services to gay weddings. SOGI nondiscrimination ordinances have been used to crush mom and pop bakers Aaron and Melissa Klein with six-figure fines and put grandmother Barronelle Stutzman before her state Supreme Court for operating her business according to her religious tenets. These cases were brought to the attention of the city council, but not everyone was willing to listen.After three hours of public comments on this single issue, Mayor Prather called for a five minute recess. I found myself in the hallway talking to a friend when a woman interjected herself in my conversation and verbally accosted me. She told me a sad story about her nephew who ended up committing suicide and accused me of contributing to it. As blindsided as I was, I felt sorry for her anguish. On the other hand, I was angry to be accused by a person whom I never met for contributing to a tragedy I could not have been responsible for. For what? Simply having a view different than hers? Cognitive dissonance.A law enforcement officer and mayor had to step in and move her away. I didn't have a chance to thank them but am appreciative that they interceded. I had three hours to process what happened that evening and my backside was grateful to be sitting since I was standing for two and a half hours of the meeting. Where does one begin to unpack such an emotion-laden meeting peppered with assumptions, stereotypes and conjecture? How am I supposed to have unfettered compassion for someone who verbally assaults me and unfairly blames me for causing their pain?Regarding the unpleasant berating by the woman, my preference would have been to have a conversation with her. I'd like to have heard her story and the story of her loved one. I'd have liked to get to know her. I'm sure that if she got to know me, she'd soon realize that I meant nobody any harm. We just happen to disagree on an issue. Is there room for dialogue anymore?What has been lost in this messy and highly controversial issue is that disagreement shouldn't amount to demonization. And too many people on both sides of the debate were demonized. It was very sad really. It's going to take me more time to process but I'm glad I have the space and freedom to do so, at least for now.
* PermaKat Eleonora Rosati received the 2022 Adepi Award

* PermaKat Eleonora Rosati listed as one of the World Intellectual Property Review's "Influential Women in IP" of 2020.

* PermaKat Eleonora Rosati listed as one of the Managing Intellectual Property magazine's "Fifty Most Influential People" of 2018.

* IPKat founder and Blogmeister Emeritus Jeremy Phillips listed as one of the Managing Intellectual Property magazine's "Fifty Most Influential People" of 2005, 2011, 2013, and 2014.

* Recommended by the European Patent Office as reading material for candidates for the European Qualifying Examinations, 2013.

* Listed as "Top Legal Blog" in The Times Online, March 2011.

2010 ABA Journal 100. * One of the only two non-US blogs listed in the Blawg100.

* Court Reporter Top Copyright Blog award winner, November 2010.

* Number 1 in the 2010 Top Copyright Blog list compiled by the Copyright Litigation Blog, July 2010.

* Selected by the United States Library of Congress for inclusion in its historic collections of Internet materials related to Legal Blawgs as of 2010.

* Top Patent Blog poll 2009: 3rd out of 50 in the "Favourite Patent Blog" poll and 2nd out of 50 in the "Most-read" poll.

Blog of the Year, 20 August 2008. * ComputerWeekly IT Law and Governance, 20 August 2008.
Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 30/03/2017 (2048 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Robb Paterson may be the most genial, funny guy in a Winnipeg theatre community that happens to be filled with genial, funny people.

But in the past couple of decades, all that charisma tended to be expended backstage, mostly in Patersons capacity as the associate artistic director of the Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre, a gig he held for 12 years before he retired in March of last year. That job entailed several mainstage directing assignments, including White Christmas, A Christmas Story and My Fair Lady.

The upside of Patersons backstage leave-taking, evidently, is that well start to see a lot more of him onstage. He already played some multiple supporting roles in the Royal MTC production of The Curious Case on the Dog in the Night-Time last year. Now he is playing a leading character, and a romantic lead at that, in the Prairie Theatre Exchange comedy The Birds and the Bees by Canadian playwright Mark Crawford.

Paterson plays Earl, a farmer with a prickly past when it comes to his neighbour Gail (Mariam Bernstein) since their spouses ran off together 20 years earlier. The relationship gets more interesting when Earl proposes a no-strings-attached sexual relationship in a plot turn that sounds like Wingfield Meets Tinder.

LEIF NORMAN PHOTO We'll get to see a lot more of Robb Patterson onstage.

Im enjoying it immensely, Paterson says during a rehearsal break. Its scary, of course, a little bit nerve-racking, not having done it for a while.

The Montreal-born Paterson has more reason than most for a case of nerves. In 2002, he suffered a near-deadly bout with bacterial meningitis that left him in a coma.

He recovered and was back onstage in 2003, performing in the Royal MTC production of Richard III opposite William Hurt, when he suffered a lapse that left him hesitant to ever take the stage again.

I dried onstage, he says. I was paying Lord Stanley and I had about a 15-line soliloquy and in the middle of it, I just didnt know where I was and didnt know who I was.

It felt like a year that no words were coming out of my mouth, but finally it kicked in, he says. That experience was difficult for me.

Everyone dries occasionally, but Im sure it was related to my brain injury. So I got scared, he says. I was terrified of acting.

At a crucial time, he did get some sage advice from actor friend Mairi Babb. She said, Youre scared? No shit, who isnt?

I was lucky enough to get all this directing work, and I crept back onto the stage a bit, he says.

The role of Earl feels like someone Paterson knows, he says. I went to school in southern Ontario, and I know a lot of people in the farming communities down there and in the Eastern Townships of Quebec where my mom and dad live.

Theyre straight shooters in many ways and so I relate to that and I love those people, he says. Ive always admired people who shoot from the hip and are very honest in their opinions and thats this guy, definitely.

In December of this year, Paterson is going to take on what will likely be an even more demanding role: that of Scrooge in the Royal MTC holiday production of A Christmas Carol adapted by Bruce McManus.

Paterson says hes excited about the opportunity.

I wouldnt be anywhere else because I rediscovered the joy of sharing a dressing room, sharing a green room with a company and sharing a stage with people and telling stories, he says.

LEIF NORMAN PHOTO Robb Paterson, alongside Mariam Bernstein, star in PTE's The Birds and the Bees.

randall.king@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @FreepKing

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Your contribution of $10, $25 or more will allow the Free Press to deepen our reporting on theatre, dance, music and galleries while also ensuring the broadest possible audience can access our arts journalism. BECOME AN ARTS JOURNALISM SUPPORTER Click here to learn more about the project.

LEIF NORMAN PHOTO Paula Potosky and Tristan Carlucci in The Birds and the Bees.
Heres what you need to know about Irans President and the presidential elections.

The Role of the President

In Iran, the President is the second-highest ranking official after the Supreme Leader, who has the final say in all major state affairs. The Presidents powers are limited by the clerics in the countrys power structure and by the authority of the Supreme Leader. It is the Supreme Leadernot the elected Presidentwho controls Irans armed forces and makes decisions on security, defence, and key foreign-policy issues.

The President has some say in the level of media freedom and political openness. However, he can be overruled by the clerical establishment via the Judiciary or the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC).

Presidents serve four-year terms and cannot serve more than two consecutive terms.

Vetting of Candidates

Candidates are vetted by the Election Monitoring Committee of the Guardian Council and it is they who select the handful of candidates who may run for office. In the election of 2013, 680 people applied and the Committee quickly narrowed it down to just eight candidates.

There are general requirements for candidacy which include: being a citizen of Iranian origin; over 18 years of age; a Muslim; qualified to be a care-taker of the Republic; and a possessor of both management abilities and a record of religious and political affiliation to the Republic.

All candidates in the regime are required by law to exhibit heart-felt and practical allegiance to absolute clerical rule as a prerequisite for their candidacy. That allegiance is determined by the Guardian Council whose six clerics are installed by the Supreme Leader while the remaining six jurists are appointed by the Head of the Judiciary who is selected by the Supreme Leader.

According to Scott Lucas, an Iran specialist at Britains Birmingham University, the Guardians Councils decisions are based more on political loyalties than the credentials of the candidates.

This effectively prevents opposition forces or anyone with fundamentally different political views from taking part in the political process. Lack of inclusiveness in elections is one of the factors that is casting a shadow on Irans human rights record.

As Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, the President-elect of the National Council of Resistance of Iran says, Democratic elections, where people are afforded a real choice to pick their leaders, are non-existent in todays Iran; the genuine opposition has no political voice. What currently exists is a constricted power struggle through sham elections whose outcome is shaped not by popular vote but by the regimes internal balance of power.

Registration and Campaigning

The election period is short in Iranjust 20 days. The election is scheduled for May 19 and candidates can only register between April 10 and 14. The final list of candidates is published ten days later on April 24. Campaigning begins on April 27 and runs until two days before the election on May 19. Results are announced the next day, and the inauguration takes place on August 1.

In 2009, widespread protests erupted after it became evident that the ruling elite had rigged the presidential elections in its favor. Security forces brutally cracked down on protesters. Since then, the establishment has taken a number of steps to ensure that the election does not serve as a catalyst to popular protest. Security measures have been tightened, and the media, both foreign and domestic, even more suppressed, with journalists imprisoned.

The Ballot

In Iran, there is no voter registration or roll. Iranians can vote anywhere as long as they present their national identification book, or Shenasnameh, which is stamped at the polling station.

Once the polling stations are closed, the counting process begins. Neither the general public nor any civil society organisation is permitted to monitor the count. This makes it very difficult to audit election results and ensure the integrity of the vote.

The Iranian President is determined through an absolute majority. In other words, the person with 50%+1 of the votes is the winner. However, in cases where there is no absolute majority, the law calls for a runoff election between the top two. The runoff election is mandated to take place within one week of the first round of elections.

Once a winner is determined, the Guardian Council approves the election process and the Supreme Leader signs off on the Letter of Presidency. The new President takes the oath of office before the Iranian Majles (Parliament).
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This article was published 31/03/2017 (2047 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Happy Land Print Shop's posters poke gentle fun at the stereotypes around different Winnipeg neighbourhoods. (Ruth Bonneville / Winnipeg Free Press)

Somewhere in China, factory workers are scratching their heads, wondering why theyre turning out fashion pins that resemble perogies, garbage mitts and wedding-social liquor tickets.

That is, if they have the faintest clue what a wedding social is, exactly.

Kristin McPherson with her dog Clementine. (Ruth Bonneville / Winnipeg Free Press)

The rep (in China) I deal with had no idea what a Caesar is, thats for sure, says Kristin McPherson, the brains behind Happyland Print Shop, a clever-as-a-fox company that crafts Winnipeg-centric prints, patches, totes and pins, including one of the latter depicting everybodys favourite Clamato-based cocktail.

When we were talking about a recent order, she kept referring to my Caesar pins as juice pins.

In 2012, McPherson was in a wedding party for a friend of hers who hails from Charleswood. When her girlfriends social rolled around, each of the bridesmaids was responsible for donating a prize for the silent auction. For her contribution, McPherson, a graphic designer by trade, decided to create something that paid tribute, in a humorous manner, to her pals neck of the woods.

I grew up in St. Andrews, but I was very familiar with Charleswood because I have an aunt who lives there, and we used to visit her quite often when we were growing up, says McPherson, who studied design at Red River College.

"St. James... sounds like planes." (Ruth Bonneville / Winnipeg Free Press)

When I was a kid, driving all the way (to Charleswood) from our place always seemed like this big adventure. So I thought Id create some travel-like posters that depicted Charleswood as this exotic, foreign destination.

When all was said and done and drawn, McPherson had come up with a series of silk-screened placards, including one (Welcome to beautiful Charleswood, land of a thousand urban ditches) that poked fun at one of that burbs chief characteristics, and another (Discover wonderful Charleswood, keep driving, youre almost here) that satirized its proximity, or lack thereof, to the rest of Winnipeg.

The posters were a huge hit the night of the social, McPherson says; so much so friends and family members immediately persuaded her to make prints of her work, and sell them online to other Charleswoodites, er, Charleswoodians, er, Charleswooders. (McPhersons pins are the only items she crafts that are manufactured overseas; everything else is produced Winnipeg, she says.)

When I first started, I offered free, citywide delivery, says McPherson, who named her Etsy store Happy Land Print Shop, after Happyland Park, a fabled, 13-hectare amusement park that was situated south of Portage Avenue, in what is now Wolseley, from 1906 to 1922.

I dont do that anymore, for obvious reasons, but the good thing that came out of it was it gave me the chance to meet so many great people who were interested in my stuff, and who encouraged me to turn my attention to other neighbourhoods.

Happy Land's pins feature social drink tickets, perogies, garbage mitts and other local treasures. (Ruth Bonneville / Winniepg Free Press)

McPherson, who lives in Norwood, doesnt skewer her adopted hometown in the same manner as, say, Wild Planet, an Osborne Village pop-culture shop that once spawned international headlines for lines of T-shirts that read Winnipeg  Murder Capital of Canada and I survived Killer-peg.

Designer Kristin McPherson's tote bags feature cheeky sayings and iconic local images. (Ruth Bonneville / Winnipeg Free Press)

For example, because she has always been fascinated by the North Ends array of independent butcher shops, bakeries and hardware stores, instead of dwelling on the negatives associated with that end of town, she incorporated images such as a ring of kubassa, a loaf of marble rye and a hammer and nails and into a poster bearing the phrase People Before Profit  a saying that used to be painted on the roof of an autobody shop at the foot of the Slaw Rebchuk Bridge.

This isnt about taking shots, McPherson says, showing off her Welcome to majestic Transcona poster, which  surprise, surprise  features a flock of pink flamingos.

Winnipeggers already deal with so much, between the weather and the mosquitoes. So no, Im not trying to create any negative feelings with my art; I try to keep everything pretty positive.

McPherson, a full-time communications manager at FortWhyte Alive in her real life, expanded her line from just posters about a year ago.

As if on cue, an elderly gentleman seated at a nearby table in a St. Marys Road coffee shop approaches McPherson, to ask about the cloth tote bag shes holding up for a scribe to get a better look at.

Why does your bag say cheap like borscht? Is it for Ukrainian people like me? the fellow asks.

(Ruth Bonneville / Winnipeg Free Press)

McPherson laughs before explaining shes part-Ukrainian, too, but no, the totes, which, at $15 each, are cheap like borscht themselves, are suitable for any nationality.

(McPhersons Ukrainian roots shine through again on her fashion pins shaped like pairs of mens tighty-whities.The word gotch is based on a Ukrainian word (gatky). If you go to different parts of the country, youll hear them referred to as gitch or gonch but its all the same thing, she says.)

McPherson is asked all the time to create something for this or that neighbourhood next. While she keeps a pen and paper nearby whenever shes out and about  were guessing her line Sunny St. James, sounds like planes came to her when she was stuck in traffic on Ness Avenue one afternoon, listening to airliner after airliner pass overhead  some parts of the city are more easily lampooned than others, shes discovered.

Certain areas are obvious, she says, mentioning Wolseley, with its residents fondness for granola bars and Birkenstocks, as her next likely target. But newer neighbourhoods such as Waverley West and Sage Creek are very cookie-cutter, and dont have the same personality as the citys more mature areas.

"Inspired by weird Winnipeg" (Ruth Bonneville / Winnipeg Free Press)

And although McPherson, who has shipped orders as far as Australia, doesnt ordinarily ask out-of-town buyers why theyre interested in a particular design, many shoppers volunteer that information, sending messages to her along the lines of, Im just a small-town Winnipeg girl who misses her hometown.

McPherson will be selling her wares from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on April 22 at the Luckygirl Pop Up Shop, 300 Ross Ave. Shell also take part in Third + Birds annual spring market, which is scheduled for May 5 and 6 in the basement of the downtown Hudsons Bay store.

I just started doing pop-up markets last year, she says, mentioning her goods are also on sale year-round at The Forks Trading Market.

When I started, I figured this would just be a fun thing I could do on the side. But to be able to bring so much of own humour and personality into my designs, and to have people showing off these tiny pieces of art with pride it really has been life-changing.

david.sanderson@freepress.mb.ca
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Everyone from the manager of a local craft brewery to spokesmen for the provinces manufacturing and trucking industries are expecting good things to come from the new free trade agreement between Canadas provinces and territories.

The marketplace in a freer environment will really help every citizen in terms of lower costs (for goods and services), said Ron Koslowsky, vice-president of the Manitoba Division of the Canadian Manufacturers and Exporters (CME).

That is fundamentally what the argument is for freer trade.

Mike Deal / Winnipeg Free Press fILES Ron Hambley, president of the Winnipeg Construction Association, said the CFTA won't mean big changes for local construction, because they're already allowed to bid on government projects in other parts of the country.

Our province is a province of traders and our nation is a nation of traders and a lot of that trade is facilitated over the highways by the trucking industry, added Manitoba Trucking Association executive director Terry Shaw. So whatever can be done to make our travels more efficient is good for us.

Orest Horechko, general manager of Fort Garry Breweries Company, said the craft brewer only exports its products to Saskatchewan and Alberta at the moment. However, it would love to be selling its products across the country and hopefully the new Canada Free Trade Agreement will enable that to happen.

And if we can sell more beer, we can employ more people, he said.

In Thursdays Free Press, Manitoba Premier Brian Pallister described the new Canada Free Trade Agreement (CFTA) as a positive, positive piece of news for our country. He said a formal signing ceremony is expected to take place in days.

The premier noted one of the benefits of the new deal is it will allow for greater movement of workers between provinces. Thats music to the ears of Mike Raftis, Vice President, Sales and Marketing for Bothwell Cheese. Raftis said Bothwell often has difficulty finding enough skilled cheesemakers.

But some other provinces have much a much bigger cheese-manufacturing sector, he added, so if CFTA makes it easier for some of those workers to move to Manitoba that could be great for this provinces industry.

I see that (the freer movement of workers) as the real benefit that comes out of this for us, he said, noting the company already sells its products across the country.

John McCallum, an economist with the University of Manitobas Asper School of Business, said Manitoba is an economically diversified province with a lot of services and a disproportionate amount of manufacturing.

Provinces favour, at times, local producers and service providers, he noted.

So yes, for a small province thats structured like us, every incremental step that opens bidding (on contracts) and the flow of goods and services and people between the provinces is good for us.

Winnipeg Construction Association president Ron Hambley said local construction wont see a big change because theyre already allowed to bid on government projects in other parts of the country and construction trade workers are already allowed to move pretty freely between provinces.

So on the construction procurement side, I think the biggest change has already happened. This new trade agreement might tweak that a little bit, but we dont see a huge change, he said.

Pallister cited engineers and architects as examples of the kinds of skilled workers that should benefit from the new deal because provincial and territorial governments will not longer be allowed to use technical regulations to create unnecessary obstacles to trade.

A spokesperson for Engineers Geoscientists Manitoba could not be reached for comment and the executive director of the Manitoba Association of Architects said association officials hadnt yet seen the details of the new agreement.

However, anything the premier and province can do to improve the movement and availability of architectural services, across Canada, is a great thing for this profession, Judy Pestrak, executive director of the architects association, said.

Pallister noted 52 per cent of the goods and services Manitoba exported in 2015  $18.8 billion worth  went to other provinces. That also represents nearly 30 per cent of the provinces gross domestic product (GDP), he said. He said government licensing and qualification procedures also will have to be transparent and impartial and the new agreement, which will create a level playing field for companies across the country.

There will also be a quicker and more transparent dispute-resolution mechanism for businesses that believe theyve been treated unfairly.

Fines are also being upped for non-compliance.

 with files by Larry Kusch

murray.mcneill@freepress.mb.ca
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A long-rumoured rival group of northern Manitoba communities keen to take a run at acquiring the Hudson Bay Railway and Port of Churchill from Omnitrax Canada has finally made its presence known publicly.

Unlike the consortium that Omnitrax is currently talking to, this new group, called One North, appears to have broad representation from both municipalities and First Nations of northern Manitoba all along the rail line as well as the Kivaliq region of Nunavut.

In fact, membership in the Missinippi Rail Consortium, with whom Omnitrax has a memorandum of understanding to negotiate the sale of its assets, may now by down to just one community  the Mathias Colomb Cree Nation.

MARTIN CASH / WINNIPEG FREEP RESS Mike Spence (from left), mayor of Churchill; Christian Sinclair, chief of Opaskwayak First Nation; and Betsy Kennedy, chief of War Lake First Nation, on launch of northern coalition called One North that wants to acquire Omnitrax Canada northern Manitoba assets.

Christian Sinclair, chief of Opaskwayak Cree Nation, one of the key organizers of One North, said, This is an unprecedented coalition of communities  indigenous and non-indigenous. There is a historical significance here. Never in the history of northern Manitoba have all these communities come together like this in a shared vision.

Twenty communities are signed on to support One North, including the City of Thompson, The Pas and all the First Nation communities along the rail line including War Lake, Fox Lake and York Factory.

Many communities, if not all of them, have rescinded year-old letters of support to Mathias Colomb First Nation Chief Arlen Dumas for his effort thats now called Missinippi Rail Consortium. They are now signatories to the One North coalition.

Betsy Kennedy, the chief of War Lake First Nation, about 1,000 kilometres north of Winnipeg, is one of them.

We have never been able to hear any of the details of those efforts, she said of the Dumas-led initiative.

The group has come together because Omnitrax Canada made known its interest last year to sell its assets. Its efforts are focused on acquiring those assets but its broader goal is to shape the future economic development of the north.

Mike Spence, mayor of Churchill, has co-led the work with Sinclair.

He said, We have a real issue here. We need to rectify it. We are putting together a model that will sustain these communities for a long, long time.

In December 2015, Omnitrax Canada president Merv Tweed announced the company wanted to sell its Manitoba assets and said at the time he hoped to have a deal in place before the end of 2015.

In January 2016, Dumas and Omnitrax said they were in talks which, to date, have never seemed to progress beyond the conceptual stage.

In late July, just prior to the start of the short shipping season into Churchill, most of the port staff was laid off and the 2016 shipping season was cancelled. The Port of Churchill is the only deep sea port in the Canadian Arctic.

Since then, both Dumas and Omnitrax officials have said only that talks are proceeding well and that a deal was imminent. Omnitrax officials were unavailable for comment on Thursday. Dumas claimed not to know of One Norths interests and when told who they were said, Well, ask them to give me a call if they want to buy the assets and the interest off us.

Even if it is true that One North is more representative of northern interests, it currently has no real standing in the process. Joe Barnsley, a lawyer with Pitblado who is working with One North, said efforts to meet with Omnitrax and Dumas representatives have been denied.

Sinclair said they continue to try to get an audience with Omnitrax. In the meantime, they have assembled a team with some technical expertise including Marv Tiller, the original CEO of the North West Company who has had a long career assisting First Nations in successful economic development projects, and Paul Power, an international railway specialist who was a founding director of the Keewatin Railway Company, a First Nation-owned line that runs from Sherritt Junction to Lynn Lake.

Power said, We think Omnitrax does not want to talk to us because they want to get a management contract from the buyer, Missinippi Rail Consortium, so they can make $10 to $15 million advising and managing and have someone else take on the risk as well as cash out on all the government money that has been sunk into the line.

One North has received modest funding from the new $4.6-million Churchill and Region Economic Development Fund, established by the federal government in September, but it has been largely self-funded to date. Sinclair said it is applying for additional money from that fund to allow it to see if there is a business model before it actually produces a full-fledged business plan.

The group has met with Natural Resources Minister Jim Carr and the Manitoba caucus in Ottawa as well as Cliff Cullen, Manitobas minister of growth, enterprise and trade.

They intend to continue to develop their business case and lobby for support from government.

But Spence made it clear that One North has no intention of depending on government handouts to survive.

That model does not work any more, he said.

The federal government is fully aware of where we want to go, Spence said. They have indicated to us that they like the model, they like where we are going. It plays into what the government wants to do to develop a new strategic plan.

martin.cash@freepress.mb.ca
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An Eritrean man accused of killing his wife months after the couple settled in Winnipeg had become jealous and quick to anger, the victims brother testified Thursday at the second-degree murder trial of Teklu Mebrahtu.

Mebrahtu is on trial in the death of his wife, 34-year-old Alche Kidane, who was found dead in the couples home in January 2012. The criminal case has stretched on for more than five years largely because questions have been raised about the accuseds mental health.

Mebrahtu told police and 911 dispatchers he killed his wife, but his defence lawyers are arguing he didnt have the criminal intent necessary to be convicted of murder because of a mental disorder. Theyre expected to ask for a not-criminally-responsible designation.

John Woods / Winnipeg Free Press files Alche Fsehaye Kidane is removed from her home after police received a 911 call from her husband in which he confessed to killing her.

Degol Abay sponsored his sister and her husband to come to Winnipeg, but he said he hadnt met Mebrahtu at that point and wasnt sure he was coming until he picked up the couple at the airport.

They were married in Sudan and arrived in Canada in August 2011, moving into Abays bachelor apartment.

A couple of months went by, Abay said, and he noticed Mebrahtu would become jealous and angry when he talked to his sister. Abay moved out of the apartment, but his sister continued to tell him about her husbands concerning behaviour. She told him Mebrahtu was not happy to give her money, that he got upset at least once when she wanted to go out without him, and that he had slapped her.

Another time, Abay said, she told him Mebrahtu had picked up a knife. He had been complaining about people following him, Abay said.

I wanted to take him to the police many times, but the neighbours put me in the wrong position; they discouraged me, Abay testified Thursday in the Tigrinya language, with the aid of a translator. I used to fear that he would cause some accident, he said.

He said the couples neighbours were aware Mebrahtu was disturbing Kidane and her brother, but Abay said they told him he was better off taking Mebrahtu to a hospital rather than calling police. Abay did take him to see a doctor in hopes hed be referred to a psychologist. The trial is expected to hear from medical professionals today.

Abay said he believed his sister loved Mebrahtu and wouldnt try to hurt him.

Its because she loved him that she married him and brought him here, he said.

A former friend of Mebrahtus testified earlier this week that he believed his wife was trying to poision him or that she was conspiring with other people he believed were following him.

Supplied Alche Kidane was 34 when she was slain in January 2012. She was originally from Eritrea.

The trial heard Abay and his sister had enlisted help from an English-speaking neighbour to call 911 and report Mebrahtus behaviour. The neighbour phoned 911 in the early afternoon on Dec. 15, 2011.

Officers werent dispatched to the couples Assiniboine Avenue apartment until around 10:30 a.m. the next day. By the time they arrived just before 11 a.m., the neighbour who had offered to translate for them wasnt home. Neither was Mebrahtu.

Police spoke with a woman they believed was Kidane, but she didnt speak English and there was nothing that stood out as a cause for concern at that time, one of the responding officers, Const. Dawn McCaskill, testified Thursday.

Police were able to ascertain only that the woman was from Eritrea, so they went back to their cruiser and tried to connect with a translator. When they returned to the apartment later, McCaskill testified, no one answered the door.

katie.may@freepress.mb.ca

twitter: @thatkatiemay
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When an artist and a doctor from two war-torn countries team up, some creative healing can happen.

This winter, professional artist Nadim Ado arrived in Canada as a refugee with his wife and two kids. He spoke no English, knew no Winnipeggers and struggled with the freezing weather and sadness over whats happened to the Syrian people.

When his neighbourhood settlement worker met him, he knew just what to do. The Arabic-speaking employee at the Elmwood Community Resource Centre assigned to Ado and his family wasnt just an interpreter helping them find their way.

RUTH BONNEVILLE / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Artist Nadim Ados piece, made for International Womens Day. The portrait on the bottom right represents his mother.

Auday Ab Redah is an art lover and, before coming to Canada as a refugee, was a family doctor in Baghdad. The former physician saw Ados symptoms, made a diagnosis and prescribed the cure. Ab Redah rounded up some art supplies and found a space at the Watt Street centre where Ado could paint and try to revive his career.

You were angry, Ab Redah told Ado in Arabic before giving the English translation. I wanted you to find a place to start to paint.

The result? Art that expresses the Syrian refugee experience in a language that anyone who can see can understand.

A painting the size of a shuffleboard table hanging near the centre foyer says it all: a mass of bloody footprints through a field of mud between tire tracks.

The big, brooding canvas was inspired by the Syrian refugees slogging through an unwelcoming Macedonia late last winter.

My painting reflects the sadness of whats happening there, Ado said.

Next, Ado, an ethnic Yazidi, turned to the horror faced by Syrias Yazidis who are targeted for genocide by the Islamic State, which has enslaved Yazidi women and girls. The expressionist paintings show the faces of Yazidi girls and women hes known  including his mom  and are bright and hopeful.

The environment has an effect on what youre painting, Ado said. During his first cold, dark Winnipeg winter, painting had an effect on his environment. It helped me.

Ab Redah said doctors and artists have something in common: When youre anxious, they can help you. Treating patients who are suffering is a kind of art, said Ab Redah, who has no plans pursue his medical credentials in Canada. The settlement worker says he is content with his job and, on his own time, helping Ado revive his artistic career.

Ado and his wife  a business school graduate and their two kids, ages 12 and nine  left their comfortable life in a Damascus suburb in 2012. After the Arab Spring started we thought, at the beginning, that it was a revolution. Then it turned into a civil war. The ethnic Yazidi hustled his family out of Syria and into Iraq.

I thought in three months, everything will be good and well return home. We left everything  the furniture  in place.

Five years later, theyre rebuilding their lives in a strange, cold place on another continent.

RUTH BONNEVILLE / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Syrian refugee and artist Nadim Ado. The Elmwood Community Resource Centre has helped Ado through the struggles and pain of leaving his country and resettling in Winnipeg.

Ado is waiting to enrol in English as an additional language classes. His wife is already well on her way, arriving in Canada with more than a basic grasp of English and plans to continue her education.

Their children are both in school  a daughter whos a budding artist and a son who was at the top of his class at an Arabic school and anxious to master English and be No. 1 again.

The thing thats very important for me is my kids are safe here, Ado said, as he tries to regain a foothold in the art world and be able to support his family.

In Syria, photography was his medium of choice but he also made films and paintings that sold in galleries and to some prominent Middle Eastern buyers like the wife of former Iraqi president Jalal Talabani, Hero Ibrahim Ahmed.

Now in Winnipeg, Ado is seeking an outlet for some big ideas. One is a gathering of Syrian refugees, each choosing a colour and adding their footprints to a 15-metre-long canvas painting, then documenting it on film.

In the future, these people will share this and they can watch what they did. With no connections, funds or English language skills, Ado knows its a long shot. He hopes someone in Winnipegs art community might help him realize his dreams.

I dont know how to find my way.

carol.sanders@freepress.mb.ca
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The lone Manitoban in the federal cabinet takes issue with Premier Brian Pallisters assertion that Ottawa is equivocating about locating a $60-million aerospace and automobile research hub in Winnipeg.

Its a go, Natural Resources Minister Jim Carr said Friday, referring to a project known as a factory of the future.

Prime Minister (Justin Trudeau) has repeated the assurances that (Innovation, Science and Economic Development) Minister (Navdeep) Bains gave to Manitobans only a few weeks ago that were committed to the Factory of the Future. Its an excellent project for Canada and for Manitoba, Carr said.

WAYNE GLOWACKI / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Jim Carr, Manitobas only federal cabinet minister, says the Factory of the Future is a go.

Pallister has said he will not negotiate a health funding deal with Ottawa until the feds put in writing that the research hub project is going ahead in Winnipeg as promised.

Manitoba is the last province not to sign on to the federal-provincial health funding arrangement.

Pallister has accused Ottawa during the health accord negotiations of linking support for the research hub to getting the province to end its holdout.

He said he wont resume negotiations with the feds until the threat is off the table.

The premier maintained that stance even after Trudeau expressed support for the project in Winnipeg on Wednesday.

Trudeau said Ottawa is very favourably inclined to the project and working hard to make sure that it happens.

While many were reassured by the prime ministers words, Pallister heard equivocation.

He noted the research hub is a multi-faceted project not tied to one particular city.

But Carr said hes been assured the research hub is still on for Winnipeg.

I have spoken to Minister Bains, and I feel confident in saying that its a commitment from the Government of Canada, and its not equivocal, he said.

larry.kusch@freepress.mb.ca
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The number of hospital abortions in Manitoba dropped 10 per cent from 2011 to 2015, data released Thursday by the Canadian Institute for Health Information show.

Manitoba recorded 2,476 hospital abortions in 2011 compared with 2,228 in 2015, the most recent year for which data are available.

Its a decline the head of the Winnipeg Regional Health Authoritys department of obstetrics, gynecology and reproductive sciences believes is a result of more doctors providing intrauterine contraceptive devices (IUCDs) at the time of an abortion.

PHIL HOSSACK / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Mifegymiso, a pill that terminates pregnancies, recently arrived in Winnipeg.

But the program providing the Health Sciences Centres Womens Hospital with hundreds of free IUCDs has been discontinued and Dr. Margaret Morris is concerned about what that means for women who cant afford them.

Were going to need support to continue that practice to keep those reductions in the abortion rate, said Morris, one of only two physicians currently trained to prescribe and administer the drug at HSC.

The Womens Hospital has been receiving about 100 of the devices annually since 2011 from the Ryan Program, a San Francisco-based reproductive health initiative focused on family planning. The hospital received the IUCDs in conjunction with training on their proper insertion.

Once we are out of our current supply, we will not be able to provide free IUCDs for patients who are not on social assistance but cannot afford to meet their Pharmacare deductible, Morris said. IUCDs are one of the most effective contraceptives available, but can cost several hundred dollars, depending on the brand.

Agnita Pal, manager of clinical administrative databases operations with the Canadian Institute for Health Information, said she couldnt say whether contraceptive insertion at the time of an abortion played a role in the drop in the number of hospital abortions.

While the number of hospital abortions is down across the province, Pal said the number of abortions reported by clinics has seen no significant change between 2011 and 2015. There were 114 fewer abortions performed in clinics in 2015 compared with 2014, when 1,531 clinic abortions took place.

Overall, the number of abortions reported in Manitoba dropped six per cent from 2011 to 2015. The CIHI report did not say how many non-hospital clinics provide abortions.

The numbers dont include medical abortions performed in doctors offices  the kind made possible by Mifegymiso, a shipment of which recently arrived in Winnipeg. Similarly, clinics and doctors arent under the same legal obligations as hospitals to report their activities, meaning the figures for clinic abortions are not necessarily exact.

Mifegymiso is a pack of six pills, two mifepristone tablets to be taken under doctor supervision and four misoprostol tablets to be taken at home the next day. The mifepristone terminates the pregnancy, while the misoprostol will initiate the process of the uterus emptying the products of conception. Patients then have to return to the hospital within a week or so to confirm the pregnancy has ended. In five per cent of cases, women who take Mifegymiso do require surgical follow up.

This year, CIHI was able to use physician billing information provided by the Ontario government to more accurately track abortions in clinics and doctors offices. A spokesman for the Manitoba government said it has also begun passing the billing information along to CIHI, raising the likelihood next years figures will give the province a more accurate depiction of how many women are choosing to abort pregnancies.

The end of the IUCD program was not a government cut, as the Ryan Program was providing IUCDs and training but not being funded by the province.

jane.gerster@freepress.mb.ca
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The number of Winnipeg homes threatened by the rising Red River was cut in half Friday after the province activated the floodway.

Just 25 or fewer homes require sandbag dikes in anticipation of the rivers crest over the weekend, down from the previously estimated 50, said Chris Carroll, the citys manager of wastewater services. That means the city wont need to prepare as many sandbags.

Were continuing to work very closely with properties that may require sandbags on an ongoing basis, Carroll told media at the East Yard complex, where city employees were working extended shifts to produce sandbags.

WAYNE GLOWACKI / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Roger Lemoine in the control centre at the Red River Floodway control structure south of the city. The gates were raised Friday.

Sand moving up a conveyer belt was dumped into a funnel, which dispersed it through a dozen or so tubes almost resembling tentacles. Workers then tied off individual bags to be transported for distribution.

Although there is a reduced need for sandbags, public works department spokesman Ken Allen said the work continues in order to build up a new reserve. Weve used our stockpile, he said, so part of our sandbag production effort right now is to replenish the stockpile so that we have them in case theres any change this year or if we need them for next year.

Sixty people at a time have been operating the machine since Thursday, producing 15,000 sandbags per 10-hour shift, Allen said.

Neither Caroll nor Allen would disclose which streets or even which neighbourhoods the bags are being delivered to this weekend, citing privacy reasons that they refused to elaborate on.

The properties that were working with at this time are generally in the southern end of the city, Caroll said. Theyre areas that fairly regularly have to undertake some sort of flood protection.

RUTH BONNEVILLE / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS A family member of a homeowner on Cloutier Drive in St. Norbert is shocked when he takes a look at how high the water has risen in his parents backyard Thursday afternoon. The City of Winnipeg dropped off 1200 sandbags onto their property with another 1200 on roadside.

The city has been in touch with most, if not all, of the residents affected, he said, but the actual number that will require sandbag dikes is dependent on what the water levels get to.

Caroll said the city has taken into account light rain in the forecast and said the situation could change.

Being a river city, this is something thats not unusual for us to deal with in the springtime, Allen said. Were in a much better position in 2017 than we were 20 years ago.

jane.gerster@freepress.mb.ca
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This article was published 31/03/2017 (2047 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A longtime Winnipeg lawyer has lost his battle against mandatory professional development after the nations highest court shot down his appeal.

Sidney Green, a lawyer who had practised law in Manitoba for 62 years, took his fight to the Supreme Court after the Law Society of Manitoba suspended him from practising law because he refused to complete professional development requirements.

The Supreme Court dismissed his appeal Thursday after five out of seven judges decided the law societys rules are reasonable and should be followed. In a decision written by Supreme Court Justice Richard Wagner, the majority of the judges agreed the law society had the authority to issue professional development suspensions for those who didnt complete it.

JOE BRYKSA / FREE PRESS FILES Sid Green

Wagner wrote a suspension is a reasonable and effective way to ensure consistency of legal service across the province and to guarantee that even lawyers who are not interested in meeting the educational standards will comply.

The legal battle began after the law society made professional development mandatory in 2012, requiring lawyers to complete and report 12 hours of continuing education each year. It amounted to one hour per month and could include online classes, as well as workshops and presentations offered by the Law Society.

Green didnt report any professional development hours in 2012 or 2013. More than a year later, the law society advised him he would be suspended within 60 days if he didnt meet the professional development requirements, and that there was a possibility of the 60-day timeline being extended if he needed more time.

Green challenged the law societys authority to make professional development mandatory and to suspend lawyers who didnt complete it.

The Manitoba Court of Appeal dismissed his case and he took it to Ottawa.

Now, the 87-year-old said he will retire rather than be forced to attend professional development programs he said are of no value to him.

He said he believes the Supreme Courts ruling will only expand bureaucracy within the law society and other regulatory agencies.

I am being retired, Green told the Free Press Thursday.

He said he voluntarily participated in professional development for many years, but he questioned the law societys legal authority to make it mandatory.

I dont think the law society is an educational institution. I dont believe they have the competence to do so and I object to being required to attend a program which is of no value to me, he said, saying hes heard from other lawyers who agree with him but only comply with the rules for fear of being suspended  something he said is not the most beneficial atmosphere for learning. Just as you can lead a horse to water and cant make him drink, you can force a lawyer to lectures but you cant make him think, he said.

Two dissenting Supreme Court justices agreed with Green and argued the automatic suspensions werent fair.

Where an automatic suspension is imposed for the least serious disciplinary breach possible  failing to attend 12 hours of classes  the Law Society is in breach of its duty to protect the public from the needless erosion of trust in the professionalism of lawyers, wrote Supreme Court Justice Rosalie Abella.

Kris Dangerfield, CEO of the Law Society of Manitoba, said the ruling confirms the broad-ranging authority of the law society, which is responsible for regulating the legal profession in the province. The court decision means the regulator will keep enforcing its professional development rules with a potential punishment of an administrative suspension for those who dont follow them. Professional development courses arent limited to those offered by the law society, Dangerfield said.

She said the law society consulted with lawyers before imposing the 2012 rule and didnt receive any significant pushback from lawyers other than Green.

The Supreme Courts decision is important because it reinforces the law societys authority to uphold the public interest by making sure lawyers are competent, Dangerfield said.

The law is not static. Legislation is amended, the common law evolves, practice tactics change and so its very important that lawyers continue to keep abreast of developments in the law to ensure they remain competent.

Green, who was called to the bar in 1955, is a former NDP cabinet minister who served in Ed Schreyers government and ran unsuccessfully for the provincial NDP leadership twice. He quit the NDP in 1979 and became the leader of the Progressive Party, which he led until it was dissolved in 1995.

katie.may@freepress.mb.ca Twitter: @thatkatiemay
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Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 31/03/2017 (2047 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

An American hunter has been ordered to pay a $10,000 fine for illegally shooting a grizzly bear in northern Manitoba nearly two years ago.

On Wednesday, Carl Brown Jr. of South Carolina was found guilty of killing an animal that is protected under The Endangered Species and Ecosystems Act.

DNA testing was used to confirm the fact that the bear was a grizzly.

WINNIPEG FREE PRESS FILES

Although grizzly bear sightings are rare in Manitoba, there have been an increasing number reported in recent years. They are mainly found in British Columbia, Alberta, Yukon, Northwest Territories and Nunavut.

The province did not release where the bear was shot.

Manitoba conservation officers, acting on a tip, investigated a claim that a visiting, licensed hunter had illegally killed a grizzly bear while hunting in the North in June 2015.

Brown is also required to pay $2,000 in court costs.
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This article was published 31/03/2017 (2047 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The threat of Red River flooding in Winnipeg this spring may be over as early as next week, says the provinces former flood forecaster.

(The crest) will be pretty quick this year. By early next week, it will be on the downside, said Alf Warkentin, who helped to steer Manitobans through numerous difficult springs, including the 1997 Flood of the Century.

The river is expected to crest in the city Saturday or Sunday, and remain at a high level for a short time, owing to the provinces decision to open the floodway Friday, he said.

WAYNE GLOWACKI / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Roger Lemoine in the control centre at the Red River Floodway control structure south of the city, the gates are scheduled to be raised Friday.

The situation is unusual for the river, which normally doesnt crest until middle- to late-April, Warkentin said. The high crests of major flood years tend to occur towards the end of April or early May, he said. Early crests are usually lower.

The early, lower crest is in stark contrast to some of the dire warnings issued by the province a month ago, when there were predictions of major flooding capable of closing Highway 75. That led to concerns about the well-being of asylum-seekers crossing the border by foot into Emerson.

The predicted peak flow of up to 100,000 cubic feet per second there will probably be more like 40,000 to 45,000 cfs, Warkentin said.

The Red has not crested yet at Emerson. The river is cresting in Winnipeg earlier this year because of runoff within Manitoba. The north-flowing river should peak at Emerson in the middle of next week and send a second, lower crest towards Winnipeg, he said.

However the province hasnt gone as far as announcing the threat is over. It warned Friday that additional precipitation or a change in ice conditions could necessitate further flood-mitigation measures.

There could also be localized flooding in many areas from smaller rivers and creeks, as occurred Friday, when waters from the Pembina River forced the closure of the border crossing between Gretna and Neche, N.D.

Ralph Groening, reeve for the RM of Morris, was pleased to hear about Warkentins outlook, and said his word is still trusted in rural Manitoba.

I was actually thinking of giving him a call. I have in past years, he said. Warkentin retired in 2010 after 40 years of flood forecasting but continues to work as a consultant on water issues.

The provinces initial flood warnings were based on saturated soils from heavy rains last fall, and two large snowstorms in December. But while there was a lot of snow here, there was far less south of Grand Forks, an area that was already snow-free two weeks ago, Warkentin said. There was also below-average precipitation across the Red River Valley from January to March.

What caused the sudden peak in river flow for Winnipeg this weekend is the release of water from ditches and other tributaries as a result of mild temperatures this week. A significant amount of that water flowed into ditches during a warm spell in January and then froze.

Not as much water appears to be coming from the west on the Assiniboine River either, Warkentin said.

There still could be some ice jamming between Portage la Prairie and Headingley. People should expect some banks to overflow, and some flooding in valleys on the Assiniboine and Souris rivers, he said. Theyll have more like average spring flows to a little bit above average, he said.

Most farmers wont be overly upset by a bit of flooding. Weve never lost a crop in April yet, he said.

A major snowfall or rainstorm could change things and create a second crest, he said. A 10- to 15-millimetre rain would be inconsequential, but 25 mm could cause problems, he said.

But the later it occurs after this weekends crest, the less likely it is to create serious problems.

Predicted river levels in Winnipeg this weekend could range from 5.7 metres (18.6 feet) to 6.3 metres (20.8 feet) at James Avenue.

bill.redekop@freepress.mb.ca
Opinion

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This article was published 31/03/2017 (2047 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

I belong to a Winnipeg community that has welcomed three families from Syria in recent years. The deal is that we provide each family $10,000, a furnished apartment for one year and a circle of support. The results have been wonderful. The families are delighted to get a fresh start and their enthusiasm for Winnipeg is contagious. They work quickly to improve their English and land jobs. Some have become self-reliant before the end of one year and returned the unused portion of their $10,000 so we can help others.

Our groups support for these newcomers is not unusual. Even before asylum seekers crossing fields at Emerson made headlines, generations of Manitobans have helped immigrants settle and contribute to our provinces fascinating multicultural tapestry.

Thats why its dismaying to hear Conservative leadership candidates suggest outlandish measures to address the flow of migrants crossing into Canada.

JOHN WOODS / THE CANADIAN PRESS FILES migrants from Somalia are arrested and detained by RCMP after crossing into Canada illegally from the United States by walking down a train track into the town of Emerson in February.

Kevin OLeary said hed use the Constitutions notwithstanding clause to prevent people from using a loophole in Canadas border agreement with the U.S. to sneak across the border and claim refugee status. Its clear he doesnt understand what the notwithstanding clause is about. He also said the government could pass a law making it clear that anyone crossing into Canada illegally from the U.S. would be ineligible to make a refugee claim.

Maxime Bernier says hed consider deploying the military to the border. Were using the Canadian Forces when we have natural disasters in this country, Bernier said. Lets use them on a temporary basis in places where these people are crossing the border.

Its obvious Bernier doesnt understand Manitoba. In these parts, we dont think welcoming people in dire need is a natural disaster worth calling in the military.

Twenty years ago next month, Manitoba declared a state of emergency because of flooding in the Red River Valley. That qualified as a natural disaster. We remain grateful for the help of the military, particularly those who rolled up their sleeves and lugged sandbags.

But many of the current asylum seekers are fleeing military oppression and would be terrified to see the Manitoba border patrolled by armed soldiers.

Soldiers would be welcome to help, but only if they disarm and perhaps volunteer in Winnipeg shelters that greet asylum seekers with hot meals, warm beds and fresh clothing.

This is not to say the route of desperation followed by the asylum seekers at Emerson should continue unchecked. Among other problems, the instant attention given to these asylum seekers by Canadian officials is unfair to potential refugee claimants who spend years waiting in a bureaucratic queue to arrive with papers intact.

Looking for possible solutions that dont involve soldiers with guns patrolling Manitobas border, how about strengthening visa offices in the U.S. so migrants can have their refugee status confirmed and not need to risk their safety by crossing at night though fields and bush?

The asylum seekers going to dangerous lengths to get to Manitoba are, by their nature, enterprising and courageous self-starters. We like that type of person here.

Manitoba knows how to welcome newcomers, even those who arrive by unorthodox routes. Volunteers help at Welcome Place. People donate clothing and furniture. Schools add resources to let the children catch up. Churches form support groups and raise money and, of course, the wonderful church ladies make quilts and casseroles. Employers give the new faces a chance, and are usually happy to find employees grateful for the opportunity to work hard.

Thats the Manitoba way. We dont need armed soldiers. This is not an emergency, its an opportunity.

Carl DeGurse is an assignment editor at the Winnipeg Free Press.

carl.degurse@freepress.mb.ca
Opinion

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This article was published 31/03/2017 (2047 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Sen. Lynn Beyak caused a furor when she dared question the fairness of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) report. There were calls for her resignation, and harsh language was used to describe her and her comments. I had a similar experience when I wrote similarly in the Free Press (Still looking for truth, Feb. 9, 2016).

Lets look first at what Beyak said:

She said the good done by residential schools should be recognized. This is difficult for people to listen to, because it is a fact many aboriginal people had their lives virtually ruined by their experiences at residential school. And yet, it must be remembered many others did not, and received education that would otherwise have been denied to them. In fact, most of the aboriginal leaders of the past few generations were residential school graduates. This does not excuse the bad things that went on in the schools, or the shockingly stupid idea of trying to erase the childrens aboriginal culture.

GOVERNMENT OF CANADA Senator Lynn Beyak

And it must be said that residential schools of some kind had to be built. Simply, aboriginal children on reserves were not receiving meaningful education in those early years. Building schools on isolated reserves was not a realistic possibility and all reserves were isolated until modern vehicles and highway construction made them more accessible.

It should also be remembered Canada was not the wealthy country it is today. School budgets were tiny and this remained the case well into the 20th century. My parents were teachers then, and I remember my mother telling me that as late as 1940 the yearly budget for her one-room school was $100, and her salary was $40 per month.

It was the progressives of the time who advocated for the construction of the schools and progressive aboriginal leaders were among them. It was not the bigots who wanted the schools built. The bigots didnt care.

If history could be rewritten, the schools would respect aboriginal culture, teach aboriginal languages as well as English and French, and treat the children properly. We cant rewrite history, but it does not do justice to the memories of the people who established and ran the schools to paint them all as evil racists and perverts.

Beyak also says the TRC report is not a balanced report. She was thoroughly scolded for having the temerity to say that. This newspaper said she was ill-informed and that her remarks revealed a deep lack of understanding. There were calls for her resignation and comparisons to Holocaust deniers and Nazi sympathizers.

But Beyak is correct. The TRC report is a political document that is not balanced.

Here are a few examples:

1. Perhaps the figure trumpeted most loudly by TRC spokespeople in countless media interviews was that 6,000 children died while attending residential schools. But little attempt was made to put this figure in context. First, this is the number of children who died from 1800 to 1972, which means that an average of less than 40 died each year. Importantly, it was seldom mentioned that most of these children died from disease. Tuberculosis alone was a major killer, and the settlement of aboriginal people on reserves in poor, crowded and unsanitary homes accelerated the deaths exponentially. On some reserves, one in four  even one in two  children died.

2. The other figure the TRC report uses without a proper explanation is 150,000, the total number of children who attended the schools from 1800 to 1972. These children were drawn from the status Indian, non-status Indian, Metis and Inuit populations. The total number of people in those groups who lived during the years 1800 to 1972 is in the millions. Yet, the average Canadian could be forgiven for wrongly believing that most aboriginal children attended the schools.

3. How many of that small percentage who attended the schools were abused? Beyak says the great majority of the people who taught at the schools were decent people. She was vilified for making this statement. But is there anyone who seriously suggests that any but a fraction of the teachers were pedophiles? Surely, the vast majority of the teachers were decent people who do not deserve to be lumped in with the bad ones.

The history of residential schools is now being taught in our schools. It is our obligation to ensure children are learning history, not propaganda.

There is not sufficient space here to detail all the defects of the TRC report. I will end with this:

There is not one mention in this massive report about the real villain here: the Indian Act and its corrupt and enervating reserve system. That apartheid system is the main reason why aboriginal children were  and still are  so far behind. Instead, the report advocates the continuation of the status quo, only with even more billions to be spent to ensure that the reserve system will continue forever. It is a political document.

I dont know Beyak, but if a person in this country can receive the treatment she did for asking questions and raising valid concerns, then we are in real trouble. An issue as important as this must be open to discussion  whether in the pages of a newspaper, among citizens in the community, or on the floor of the Senate.

Brian Giesbrecht was a Manitoba provincial court judge from 1976 until 2007. He is now retired.
Opinion

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This article was published 31/03/2017 (2047 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

OTTAWA  Phoenix Sinclair should be preparing to celebrate her 17th birthday next month.

But the girl, whose horrific death at the hands of her mother and stepfather launched the widest investigation of Manitobas child-welfare system in history, never saw her sixth birthday.

She has been dead for more than twice as many years as she lived.

THE CANADIAN PRESS FILES Phoenix Sinclair was five years old when she was killed by her mother and stepfther in 2005.

The child welfare system that was charged with protecting her failed her in every way.

Twelve years after she died, the problems that contributed to the failures in her case  high caseloads, too many workers without proper training, lack of services available to help families, soaring numbers of kids in care, substance abuse, family violence, poverty  still exist.

This week, the Free Press wrote a story about an internal investigation done by the Manitoba childrens advocate, looking at the child-welfare services in the Island Lake region after 14 children who had been in care died in a five-year time span. The advocate was livid the Free Press was given a copy of the report, which was supposed to be confidential.

Indeed, the report laid bare details about the 14 children and their families that were incredibly intimate, details the Free Press chose not to publish because they were not relevant to the issue.

What is relevant is that time and again, these children were failed by a system whose only reason for being is to protect them and help their families care for them.

In many cases, the parallels to what happened to Phoenix were startling.

Families were supposed to be monitored but never were. In one case, the only time a social worker visited a family, who had come to the attention of CFS because of the parents drinking, nobody answered the door. The worker could hear kids inside but didnt pursue it and two months later the file was closed without a single thing being done.

Its easy to cast blame on the workers. But even if workers had all the training they needed and all the time they needed to monitor their caseloads as closely as needed, it wouldnt solve the problem.

Substance abuse, domestic violence and poverty were the main reasons these families came to the attention of the system in the first place, yet the Band-Aids we keep putting on child welfare do nothing to go after the reasons we need the system in the first place.

Substance-abuse programs arent available on most reserves, forcing people to sit on waiting lists and then fly to Winnipeg for treatment. Numerous social workers say this just doesnt work. There are no shelters for abuse victims and no programs to help kids deal with trauma from family violence.

The only programs that showed any success were those that included cultural teachings and delivered a sense of pride in community and culture. The report pointed to the Community Holistic Circle Healing program in Hollow Water First Nation, which has had tremendously positive effects on that community.

The program, which is rooted in indigenous cultural teachings, used community intervention teams, healing circles and programs for both abusers and victims. It first addressed the high rates of substance abuse and then moved to deal with physical and sexual violence.

Abuse rates are down. Alcoholism among adults is almost non-existent. Youth drug abuse is being targeted now. High school enrolment is up, graduation rates are improving and families are so solid other first nations are now sending their kids to Hollow Water for foster care.

In the Island Lake area, an annual six-day gathering for suicide survivors and families of people who have died by suicide has helped reduce suicide rates in the four communities by 58 per cent.

But funding for these traditional healing programs is limited, while funding to spend $20,000 per person flying someone to Winnipeg for treatments that have low success rates continues.

The answers to the crisis in the child-welfare system are not easy. It is unlikely the case loads will ever really drop, or that social workers will ever really be able to help the families the way they have been trained to do, until we address the underlying reasons behind families struggles in the first place.

In the meantime, kids and families will continue to wait for help that never comes.

Mia Rabson is the Winnipeg Free Press parliamentary bureau chief.

mia.rabson@freepress.mb.ca Twitter: @mrabson
Greg Doeden joined the Moorhead Fire Department in 1983 because he wanted to help people. Thirty-four years later, hes still working  day and night  to keep the city safe. Across the state, firefighters like Greg demonstrate heroism every day. They endure physically and mentally grueling conditions. They have to be able to lift 175 pounds while wearing a full suit of protective gear. They climb ladders and break through doors, windows, and walls all while peoples lives literally depend on them.

But were learning in tragic ways that running into a burning building may not be the most dangerous part of the job.

Eight years ago, Greg was diagnosed with colon cancer. Hes a fighter, and his cancer is in remission. But this is a battle that has become all too familiar to firefighters.

Nationally, cancer is the leading cause of firefighter line-of-duty deaths in the U.S. The International Association of Fire Fighters estimates roughly 60 percent of career firefighters will die this way. And according to the Centers for Disease Control, firefighters are two to three times more likely to be diagnosed with cancer than the general public.

Were seeing the numbers born out in Minnesota, too. In Albert Lea, three of the departments 16 full-time firefighters developed cancer within just one year.

The risks for firefighters have evolved because the nature of fires theyre fighting has changed.

Instead of homes made with wood, glass, and metal, buildings are now loaded with electronic devices like laptops and TVs. And commonplace items like your kids dolls or action figures, saran wrap, and flame retardants turn into a toxic cocktail when ignited.

Exposure to the fumes, toxins and carcinogens that todays firefighters regularly confront would have been difficult to imagine years ago.

And after a fires been put out, black soot and chemicals can stick to firefighters and their gear, heightening risk and prolonging exposure to harmful toxins.

The figures and stories highlight the risks our firefighters face. But the studies are independent and varied. We dont know the true scope of the problem because we dont effectively record cancer diagnoses among firefighters.

Thats why I introduced legislation with a bipartisan group of senators to establish a national cancer registry that would track the relationship between firefighters exposure to fumes and toxins and cancer. Our bill would mark an important step forward in helping protect firefighters health. The data collected would improve our understanding of the environmental risks our firefighters face and better inform prevention techniques. Well also take steps to make sure the registrys being used properly by requiring administrators to regularly consult with public health experts and firefighters. And in addition to career firefighters, well make sure volunteer firefighters are participating. Thats especially important in Minnesota where the vast majority  18,000 of 20,000  firefighters are volunteers.

Finally, we need to make sure fire departments have the right equipment to keep their teams safe. High-tech machines called extractors help do just that, efficiently removing the harmful particulate that can cling to their equipment after they return from a scene. Extractors are critically important to minimizing risk for firefighters and their families, but far too few departments have this technology. A recently-released investigative report found that 26 percent of Minnesota departments do not have an extractor. Thats just not right  which is why Ill push for funding to help more Minnesota departments purchase extractors for their fire stations.

In taking their oath, firefighters accept an immense responsibility  to put service before self. No matter the hour or risk, firefighters answer the call to keep us safe. The very least we can do is pass commonsense legislation to protect their health.
MAYVILLE  Mayville Police Chief Christopher MacNeill may have altered police records, according to a letter Mayor Rob Boelk sent Feb. 9 when MacNeill was put on paid administrative leave.

Mayville City Council met in closed session for 30 minutes Thursday night and, in an unanimous vote, accepted MacNeills resignation effective March 31.

The police department will continue to be headed by Capt. Ryan Vossekuil who has been in charge since MacNeills absence, Feb. 9. Boelk said the Mayville Police and Fire Commission will begin looking at candidates for chief.

Boelk said that the city is still in discussions with MacNeills attorney. He didnt comment on the terms of the resignation.

After a closed session March 6, the council authorized Mayor Rob Boelk to file a formal complaint with the Mayville Police and Fire Commission against MacNeill and to request the attorney generals office to bring a charge of misconduct in office against MacNeill. Misconduct in public office is a Class I felony.

As of Thursday, the Wisconsin Attorney Generals Office had not filed any charges.

An initial investigation of MacNeill was conducted by the Watertown Police Department. The results of that investigation have not been made public.

Dodge County District Attorney Kurt Klomberg said that as soon as he became aware of the direction of the investigation, he asked the attorney generals office to handle the matter. Such investigations are typically handled by the Division of Criminal Investigation.

MacNeill has been on leave since Feb. 9 after city officials learned of allegations against him on Feb. 6. MacNeill has served as Mayvilles police chief since 2011. He has worked in the department since 2000.
Come one, come all, to donate a dress to the ball.

Beaver Dam High School will be honoring the memory of Emily Lyons again this year with Emilys Closet.

Emilys Closet is a fundraiser that provides gently used formal dresses for girls to wear for prom at an affordable price. It is named for Lyons who died at age 19 March 1, 2015, following a snowmobile accident in Vilas County.

Beaver Dam High School senior Arianna Weinberger is organizing the clothing drive with the help of teacher Heather Holt. They are collecting dresses next week from 3 to 4 p.m. at the entrance of Beaver Dam High School, 500 Gould St.

We are doing pretty well but still looking for short and long dresses, Weinberger said.

Weinbergers family was friends with Lyons family and Weinberger has many wonderful memories of a kind, caring woman. It also seemed to be a fitting tribute since Lyons was a homecoming queen at BDHS and graduated in 2014.

Funds raised from the sale of the dresses will be contributed to the Emily C. Lyons Memorial  a $2,000 scholarship offered in Lyons memory. The scholarship is awarded to an outstanding senior who plans to pursue a career in the sciences at a four-year university.

Beaver Dam High Schools prom is April 22. Weinberger has contacted 13 other high schools to advertise the event.

The first Emilys Closet was held last year with more than 200 dresses collected. Weinberger said some of the dresses were given to Green Valley for its prom.

The dresses will go on sale April 7 to 9 at the school. Hours have not been set yet, but anyone with questions may contact Weinberger at 920-763-4878.

The cost of the dresses will range from $10 to $40 each.
Barbara Bakers passion for promoting Juneau County was awarded recently when she was nominated for a prestigious honor from the state department of tourism.

Baker was nominated by Gov. Scott Walker and Secretary of Tourism Stephanie Klett for the Legacy Award, given to individuals who have shown significant contributions to state tourism. Based on criteria for the award, a nominee should have 25 years or more of distinguished service to the tourism industry and fifteen years or more of which has been in Wisconsin.

A Necedah native, Baker has devoted much of her life to Juneau County. Since the early 1990s, Baker has served as president of the Castle Rock Petenwell Lakes Association/Juneau County Visitors Bureau. Baker was one of 13 statewide nominees and was invited to the Governors Conference on Tourism March 20. Gary Knowles of Knowles Communications received the award.

I received a letter from the governor in February informing me that I had been nominated, Baker said. That was very nice.

Baker joins Jan Reynolds as the second Legacy Award nominee from the county tourism association in the past decade.

Baker became involved with the local tourism industry after buying a resort along Castle Rock Lake. She joined the county tourism bureau and was elected president by its board of directors. The role is a volunteer position and Baker estimates she spends around 30 hours a week working for the lakes association and the tourism bureau.

There really isnt a lot of people who want to put in that amount of time and financial commitment to an organization that has so much outreach, Baker said. Its a lot of time and work.

In 1998, Baker began publishing the Juneau County Visitors Guide, which included area maps, information pieces, business information and advertising, and articles on annual events and local history. The guide also featured information on Adams County, along with Castle Rock and Petenwell lakes. In recent years, the guide has been published by the Star-Times.

Sometimes we hear comments that all we do is make maps, but we do a lot more than just make maps, Baker said. After we started our visitors guide, several other bureaus and chambers started including maps in their visitors guides and I worked with Trempealeau County to start their guide.

The lakes association and visitors bureau began almost 70 years ago to promote the areas recreational opportunities. Baker said the founders had a vision to develop the area around the two large lakes and stuck with it decades ago.

When these visionaries seen that they thought This is going to be something that is going to grow this area, bring people here and create an economic impact, Baker said. Like anything, it doesnt happen overnight, but they saw that vision long ago. Im very proud to have worked with some of those original founders. There are so many people who have worked together in the marketing and promotion of our area.

Through the years, Baker said the organization has focused on working together to advance the countys tourism industry. She said members are often workaholics who place their personal lives aside for the organization. Members often attend state tourism conferences and utilize department of tourism training to benefit the organization.

In the past couple decades the organization has received several recognition honors from the state. Other highlights include hosting Japanese delegates and traveling to eastern China to promote the area. The organization has also been a leader in local tourism, promoting the county on public radio and television programs.

I just think thats really important, Baker said. We really work on promoting across the Midwest, especially Illinois. Its often said Wisconsin is Illinois playground.

As she looks toward the future, Baker has no plans of scaling back her work in promoting county tourism. For Baker, the future of the area looks bright.

When youre passionate about something, it really doesnt feel like work, Baker said. Thats the beauty of finding something youre passionate about.
Children and community members came together for a special donation at New Lisbon High School on March 30.

New Lisbon Elementary hosted its annual hair cutting donation to raise money and awareness for Juneau County Relay for Life. The Relay for Life event generates funds for the American Cancer Society which helps fund cancer research.

At the event on March 30, students at the elementary school presented a check of $600.18 to the countys Relay for Life organization. The money was raised through donations in the annual penny war to benefit cancer research.

Overall, 21 participants donated hair and four others provided pre-donations. Local hairstylists Angie Thompson from A Cut Above and Jessica Hendrickson from Hair by Jessica clipped away as students and adults were cheered on by a large crowd of young students.

New Lisbon teacher Tia Svardahl hosted the event and thanked everyone for their locks of hair to support the cause. One donor contributed 14 inches of her hair.

This was the 16th straight year New Lisbon Schools have hosted the cancer benefit. Fifteen girls across all three New Lisbon schools donated hair.

Jax and Larson praised New Lisbon Schools dedicated commitment to Relay for Life.

Changes to Relay for Life

This years annual cancer fundraiser will be held Friday, July 14 with a few key changes from previous years.

Due to the reconstruction of the track and field at Mauston High School, Larson said the relay and luminaria ceremony has been moved to Necedah High School. Times have also been changed, as the event has been reduced to one day instead of two. In past years, the relay started in the late afternoon on a Friday and would continue through the night until Saturday morning.

This year were going to start at 4 p.m. and wrap it up at midnight, Larson said. We want to try that out this year and see how that works.
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Vietnam Veterans Day was Wednesday. On Tuesday, President Trump signed The Vietnam War Veterans Recognition Act.

President Trump even sent a tweet about it. This is one of the few tweets that was not mentioned by the media. I did not see mention of it on any TV network news story. ABC, CBS, NBC, and CNN did not cover this story. Associated Press did not release one story. Fox News had a written story. I did not see a written story of Vietnam Veterans Day in any newspaper in Wisconsin.

This is an insult to over 9 million men and women who served during Vietnam. Almost 3 million served in Vietnam itself.

The way I feel today is even though a presidential recognition was declared, Vietnam veterans are still a forgotten group. Let us never forget the over 58,000 who lost their lives, almost 100,000 disabled, and the close to 2,000 who are still missing in action; two-thirds volunteered, the rest drafted. Ten percent of our generation.

VFW Post 1707 will hold a Salute to Vietnam Veterans from noon to 3 p.m. Saturday at 215 W Collins St., Portage. Veterans, family, friends and visitors are welcome.

Dennis M. Bennett, Vietnam veteran, Endeavor
Dr. Wayne Christianson has been practicing chiropractic for 30 years. Formerly the Christianson Back and Neck Center, his newest venture is Key to Life Chiropractic in Prairie du Sac.

I grew up interested in the health field, Christian said. But he didn't get into chiropractics until later. He did a variety of jobs including roofing and hanging drywall.

His first exposure to chiropractic care was when he got into a car accident at about age 25. A chiropractor helped me when no one else could, Christianson said. About five years later, he was laid off and decided to return to school to become a chiropractor.

He graduated in 1986 from the Palmer College of Chiropractic in Davenport, Iowa, and quickly built up his practice.

Back then I was the new kid on town; I was the third chiropractor in the area, he said. I had 60-70 patients by the end of my first year.

A lot has changed in the three decades Christianson has practiced. When he first started, chiropractors didn't need a bachelor of science degree, and the program took six years to complete, compared with eight now.

At the time he started, chiropractic care was not covered by health insurance. That changed soon after he began practicing, and Christianson realized about two-thirds of his time was spent satisfying insurance companies.

It was incredibly stressful, he said. So I decided if I was going to keep practicing I had to get rid of the stress.

Thirty years ago he charged $18 for an adjustment. Now at Key to Life he charges $20 and doesnt deal with insurance companies.

I just want to help as many people as I can so I dropped it to my rock bottom price, Christianson said. I thought $20 sounded fair. And so far it has been very well received.

Declining to work with insurance companies has allowed him to set his own rates. He offers a deal in which a child can receive a free adjustment if their parent or guardian pays for an adjustment.

Its a way of being able to give back a little, Christianson said. I love what I do; taking care of patients.

Sauk Prairie Chamber of Commerce tourism promotions director Macall Tourdot said Christianson's lengthy run is a testament to the community's business climate.

We are so fortunate to have successful and flourishing businesses in our area, like Key to Life Chiropractic, Tourdot. I believe it speaks to the relationships and sense of community we have here in the Sauk Prairie area when businesses are able to thrive for 30 plus years.
A life servicing many generations

An honorary doctorate for seasoned activist and lecturer, Professor Eddie Webster, who pioneered the study of labour in South Africa.

Wits University has awarded Professor Webster an Honorary Doctorate in Literature for his scholarly contributions, commitment and advancement of democracy through labour activism and nurturing several generations of leading labour sociologists.

Webster accepted the honour on 30 March at a graduation ceremony of the Faculty of Humanities, where he delivered the keynote address.

His talk, titled At the chalk face: three generations of Wits students reflected on critical moments in the country through the generations that he has taught.

The 1976 generation, the 1994 generation and the 2009 to the 2015/2016 Fees Must Fall generation have all imparted valuable lessons to him, said Webster who has taught at Wits for 40 years and built an illustrious career.

Focusing on the current generation, Webster said: At times it may seem that a generation has emerged that has disowned the past. But generational rebellion is an enduring feature of all societies; indeed it is the dynamic through which societies renew themselves and move forward.

Webster called on the graduating class of 2017 to make real the call that has echoed through the decades from the times of Robert Sobukwe to decolonise institutions of higher learning.

This does not mean that we drop Shakespeare from our curriculum, he said.

Speaking directly to the graduands Webster said: Your mission is to become the authors of the books the next generation of students read, the articles they cite, and the theories that shape their thinking.

Institutions of higher learning in turn have a role to play by building trust and mutual respect between the generations.

We need to make our classrooms places where our students are not only the consumers of knowledge. Teaching is an interactive process. While the teacher educates the student, the student educates the teacher too. Speech by Professor Eddie Webster

About Prof. Edward (Eddie) Webster

Webster is currently Professor Emeritus in the Society, Work and Development Institute (SWOP) at Wits which he founded over 30 years ago. He is recognised locally and internationally for his significant contribution to scholarship, especially in the field of Industrial Sociology.

He was born in March 1942 and educated Selbourne College. He holds a BA Honours and a University Education Diploma from Rhodes University, a Masters in Politics, Philosophy and Economics from Oxford University, England, a BPhil from York University, England, and PhD from Wits University.

He joined Wits in 1976 and was active in efforts to transform the University. He led the writing of the historic research report by Wits academics in 1986 titled Perspectives of Wits, which was aimed at changing the University from a bastion of white privilege to a more open and inclusive institution that would produce a new generation of black sociologists committed to serving society. He served as senate representative on the University Council for eight years and contributed to the resolution of many highly contentious issues and debates.

As Head of Department of Sociology at Wits he focused on transformation of the curriculum and staff development (particularly of young, African scholars). Webster transformed it into the leading department of sociology in Africa. He introduced a masters by course work and an honours programme in Industrial Sociology, which has produced many of the key industrial relations scholars and activists in South Africa. Professor Webster founded, and was Director of SWOP for 24 years.

Professor Webster was rated in 2004 as the top sociologist in South Africa by the National Research Foundation (NRF) for his scholarly work. He is the author of seven books and 108 academic articles, as well as numerous research reports. His book with Rob Lambert and Andries Bezuidenhout, Grounding globalization: Labor in the age of insecurity was awarded the prestigious American Sociological Association award for the best scholarly monograph published on labour in 2008.
South Africans can make this a great country

The responsibility to make South Africa a great country lies with its people, not the politicians says business tycoon and philanthropist Patrice Motsepe.

"The future of this country, in as much as the politicians have a profound impact on society, the future is in our hands.

"We have the capacity to make this the very best country in the world, Motsepe said.

Motsepe was delivering his acceptance speech after Wits University this afternoon conferred on him an Honorary Doctorate in Commerce for his achievements in business and contributions to society.

"South Africa has had serious challenges in the last few years but South Africans always overcome these hurdles. We should never give up hope," Motsepe said.

He went on to urge the graduates to remember their social responsibility.

All of us must focus on the poor, the marginalised and the unemployed because all our futures are inextricably intertwined with the future of the poor, the marginalised and the unemployed.

Since 2014, the Motsepe Foundation has donated over R18 million to assist Wits students from poor background. Approximately 100 Wits students are beneficiaries of the fund this year. This generosity also extends to other universities across South Africa.

A Wits alumnus (LLB, 1988), Motsepe is an entrepreneur who through judicious business acumen has created enterprises that positively impact countless South Africans.

In 1994, he established Future Mining, a contract mining company that cleaned gold dust from inside mine shafts. In 1997, Motsepe, Nicky Oppenheimer and Mark Shuttleworth formed Green and Partners, a venture capital firm through which Motsepe established African Rainbow Minerals. At this time Black Economic Empowerment and entrepreneurism emerged in the new South Africa.

He pioneered a system where miners remuneration combined wages with a profit-sharing bonus. He subsequently acquired several low-yield mine shafts and turned each into profitable enterprises. Since then he has not only built a remarkable business empire drawing many business accolades, but has also generously contributed to the lives of the poor, youth and communities.

Since 2014, the Motsepe Foundation has donated over R18 million to assist students from poor backgrounds at the University of the Witwatersrand. Approximately 100 Wits students are beneficiaries of the fund this year. This generosity also extends to other universities across South Africa.

Across the border, the Foundation donated $1 million to the Ebola Fund in the Republic of Guinea to aid efforts to curb the deadly Ebola virus that affected a number of West African countries including Liberia and Sierra Leone.

His philanthropy has made a difference in the lives of a diversity of local communities and makes a contribution to changing lives. As a leading business person he has created wealth not only for himself which he shares with communities in South Africa and Africa, reads the citation presented before he was capped by Wits Chancellor, Justice Dikgang Moseneke.

Motsepe represents some of the best achievers that post-apartheid South Africa has produced in the business and economic spheres of human endeavour. His success and the respect he commands in South Africa and globally is testimony to the innovation, creativity and the ability needed to transcend the limitations of what could be debilitating business and economic environments in Africa.

Thanking the University, Motsepe said he was humbled by the honour adding that there are many deserving recipients worthy of the recognition bestowed upon him by the University.
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[March 30, 2017] LF Events Announces Keynote Speakers for LinuxCon + ContainerCon + CloudOpen China 2017, Including Linux Creator Linus Torvalds

SAN FRANCISCO, March 30, 2017 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- LF Events, LLC today announced the initial lineup of keynote speakers for LinuxCon + ContainerCon + CloudOpen China (LC3), taking place June 19-20 in Beijing. Three conferences in one, LC3 is a technical conference for developers, operations experts (architects, sysadmins, DevOps), business, compliance and legal leadership and other professionals to come together in an informal setting to learn from open source experts, have fascinating discussions, collaborate with peers, and gain a competitive advantage with innovative open solutions. LinuxCon, ContainerCon and CloudOpen have taken place in North America, Europe and Japan in previous years, but this is the first time these premier open source conferences will come to China. LC3 also represents the first time Linus Torvalds, creator of Linux, will speak in China. Confirmed keynote speakers at LC3 include: Jonathan Bryce , Executive Director, OpenStack Foundation

, Executive Director, OpenStack Foundation Sanqi Li, CTO of Product & Solutions, Huawei

David Oppenheimer , Technical Lead for Kubernetes, Google

, Technical Lead for Kubernetes, Google Samuel Shen , Chairman, Microsoft Asia-Pacific Technology Company Ltd.

, Chairman, Microsoft Asia-Pacific Technology Company Ltd. Hong Tang , Chief Architect, Alibaba Cloud

, Chief Architect, Xiongyan Tang, Chief Technologist, China Unicom Network Technology Research Institute

Linus Torvalds, Creator of Linux & Git

Dirk-Peter van Leeuwen , SVP & GM APAC, Red Hat

, SVP & GM APAC, Red Hat Dave Ward , ?CTO of Engineering and Chief Architect, Cisco Systems

, ?CTO of Engineering and Chief Architect, Cisco Systems Ying Xiong , Chief Architect of Cloud Platform, Huawei

, Chief Architect of Cloud Platform, Huawei Jim Zemlin , Executive Director, The Linux Foundation

, Executive Director, The Linux Foundation Madam Yang Zhiqiang , Deputy General Manager, China Mobile Research Institute

, Deputy General Manager, China Mobile Research Institute Lightning talks from a variety of speakers



Registration for LC3 is discounted to US$160 or RMB1105 through April 27. Applications for diversity and needs-based scholarships are also being accepted.

Members of the media who would like to reserve a complimentary press pass to LC3 should contact [email protected]. LC3 is made possible by Strategic Sponsor Huawei, Diamond Sponsors Alibaba Cloud and Intel and Silver Sponsor VMware. About LF Events, LLC

LF Events, LLC is a US limited liability corporation producing events for open source technologies and open source projects around the world. The events we produce bring together developers and other key technologists, executives and operators working in open source technology for the purpose of education and networking. Learn more at www.lfeventsllc.com. LC3, LinuxCon, ContainerCon and CloudOpen are trademarks of and used with permission from The Linux Foundation. Please visit The Linux Foundation's trademark website for more information: https://www.linuxfoundation.org/trademark-usage. Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds. Media Contact:

Dan Brown

LF Events, LLC

415-420-7880

[email protected] To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/lf-events-announces-keynote-speakers-for-linuxcon--containercon--cloudopen-china-2017-including-linux-creator-linus-torvalds-300431517.html SOURCE LF Events

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William & Mary physicist investigates advanced materials at DARPA

Advanced materials research Ale Lukaszew is putting together a program to investigate the promise of topological materials that could increase the storage capacity of hard drives or other magnetic storage. Photo courtesy of DARPA Photo - of - Hide Caption

Physicist Rosa Alejandra Ale Lukaszew is serving a two-year term with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the Defense Departments premier technology development agency, but she is maintaining close ties with William & Mary.

I still meet with my students every so often and I joke with them, she said. I tell them that I could tell you what Im doing but then Id have to kill you.

Shes kidding; the vast majority of work DARPA does is unclassified. But Lukaszew cant speak in too much detail about her work at the Arlington headquarters of DARPA as she is still in the early stages of developing her research portfolio, which will undergo stringent internal review to ensure that it does not aim simply to make incremental technological advances but has the potential to give rise to entirely new capabilities and strategic options relevant to national security.

In Williamsburg, Lukaszew is the Distinguished Virginia Microelectronics Consortium (VMEC) Professor of Physics, with an office and lab in Small Hall. Since January, she has been a program manager in the Defense Sciences Office at the Arlington headquarters of DARPA.

Lukaszew is laying a framework for a potential DARPA program that addresses new approaches to topological materials, particularly those that would lead to improved data-storage uses. Modern computer hardware design has pushed the limits of Moores Law, the observation that predicts a regular halving of semiconductor media for computing.

If you want to increase the storage density in hard drives or any kind of magnetic storage, you cant go that much smaller because youre facing what we call the superparamagnetic limit, which is that the pieces of information are so small that theyre not stable, she explained.

Her DARPA position allows her to seek input from throughout the spectrum of U.S. researchers  private labs as well as those at universities and government facilities  to enlist collaborators in the effort to push materials limits for storage-class memory. Lukaszew is particularly interested in recent literature describing the potential of spin skyrmions, which she said have advanced topological properties that could incorporate more densely packed data without sacrificing stability while keeping power consumption very low.

That brings an interesting new venue for a complete new generation of memory devices and applications, she said.

Lukaszew is also interested in pursuing investigation of the properties of two-dimensional quasiparticles known as anyons, which hold promise in the development of quantum computing.

Amid all the new opportunities, Lukaszew says she is happy that Arlington is close enough to maintain ties with her graduate students at William & Mary and hasnt missed a dissertation defense yet.




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[March 31, 2017] Acronis World Backup Day Survey Exposes Serious Gap Between Security Risks and User Preparedness

BOSTON, March 31, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Ransomware has emerged as the most serious malware threat of the 21st century, with criminals projected to extort $5B from their victims in 2017. With the help of a hard-drive-encrypting virus, cyber criminals force users to choose between paying an online ransom and losing their files forever. The rapid growth of this form of high-tech larceny has led many business and users to leverage cloud-based storage and backup services in an effort to foil ransomware attacks. Acronis, a global leader in hybrid cloud data protection and storage, recently completed a consumer backup survey in the U.S., U.K., Australia, Germany, France and Japan. The results were revealing, beginning with the finding that most users are completely unaware of the threat posed by ransomware attacks, much less how to prepare for them. "This survey exposed a serious disparity between the value assigned to respondent data and what is actually being done to protect that data," said John Zanni, CMO of Acronis. This is true for both the consumer market and for businesses. "Backup still remains the most effective vaccine against data loss. Creating a backup before disaster strikes is much more efficient and cost effective than looking for a cure when your data is lost. Affordable backup software is readily available, so there is no excuse for losing your data or exposing it to cyber criminals and ransomware attacks." General survey findings: Over 34 percent of respondents said that they, or their family members, have experienced data loss.

Over 26 percent of respondents acknowledged they don't perform any type of data backup.

Those who perform regular backups said that security, ease of use and storage capacity are the most important features in a backup solution. Ransomware awareness findings: Over 62 percent of respondents said they have never heard of ransomware.

While more than 67 percent placed great importance on their personal information, documents, pictures, videos and music, only 5.8 percent realized that it can cost more than $500 to recover their data after a ransomware attack. Ransomware criminals extorted over $1 billion from victims in 2016 alon, according to the FBI, and while public cases involving hospitals and government agencies receive prime coverage, attacks on home computers go underreported.



"Security threats are certainly coming after consumers, not just enterprises," commented Eric O'Neill, former FBI counter-terrorism and counterintelligence operative, in a recent interview with Acronis. "We tend to think of it as a problem for business or government. The fact of the matter is that most of the malware is affecting grandparents, parents and anyone with an email account and a computer." Other survey findings:

51.8 percent of households have more than 4 devices.

26.6 percent see security as the most important backup feature.

A significant portion of respondents, 10.5 percent, place considerable value on Facebook data. There are four easy steps to protect data: Always have a backup of your important data. Choose backup software with local storage, cloud storage and active protection against ransomware.

Keep your operating system and software up to date. It will block cyber criminals from entering your system through any known security holes.

Be mindful of suspicious email, links, and attachments. The most effective infiltration method used by ransomware criminals is getting users to open infected email attachments and to click on links to malicious websites.

Install an antivirus software on your computer and enable automatic signature updates. If you are on a PC, make sure your Windows Defender is enabled and is up to date. Special offer from Acronis Malware attacks and defenses against them are continually evolving. Once the use of backups was proven to be a reliable defense against ransomware, malware gangs began developing ransomware variants that find and attack backup files, too. To answer this new threat, Acronis enhanced its backup solutions with innovative new anti-ransomware technology. Introduced in January 2017, Acronis Active Protection actively defends both user files and their backups by identifying and blocking ransomware attacks in real-time. Take advantage of our World Backup Day special offer on Acronis True Image and start protecting your data today! Resources for more information: About World Backup Day: http://www.acronis.com/en-us/worldbackupday/

Acronis World Backup Day Survey: http://www.acronis.com/en-us/blog/posts/acronis-world-backup-day-survey-results

What is Ransomware? http://www.acronis.com/en-us/blog/posts/what-ransomware

Acronis True Image 2017 New Generation: http://www.acronis.com/en-us/personal/computer-backup/ About Acronis

Acronis sets the standard for hybrid cloud data protection through its backup, storage, disaster recovery and secure file sync and share solutions. Powered by the Acronis AnyData Engine and set apart by its image technology, Acronis delivers easy, complete and affordable data protection of all files, applications and operating systems across any environmentvirtual, physical, cloud, and mobile. Founded in 2003, Acronis protects the data of more than 5 million consumers and 500,000 businesses in 145+ countries. With more than 100 patents, Acronis products have been named best product of the year and cover a range of features, including migration, cloning and replication. Today, Acronis solutions are available worldwide through a global network of service providers, distributors and cloud resellers. To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/acronis-world-backup-day-survey-exposes-serious-gap-between-security-risks-and-user-preparedness-300432588.html SOURCE Acronis

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Brandon Rodriguez, a sales associate at the Woonsocket Radio Shack on Diamond Hill Road, speaks with a customer at the store on Wednesday. Radio Shack will be going out of business by the end of May.
Study outlines current and future role for Koeberg

31 March 2017

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South Africa's only nuclear power station has an important role to play in the country's economy now and in the future, a study by KPMG has found. Through investments and operations, economic activity supported or stimulated by Eskom's Koeberg plant is currently worth an estimated ZAR53.3 billion ($3.9 billion).

Koeberg (Image: Eskom)

The report, Economic impact assessment of Koeberg nuclear power station, was prepared for Eskom by KPMG Services (Pty) Ltd. Its authors measured the broader economic impact of Koeberg's investment spending and operations expenditure in the Western Cape region and the rest of South Africa. Using the so-called SAM methodology, they estimated how the plant's activities in one or more parts of the economy could affect other sectors, and looked at the distribution of industry investment and operational impact in the economy. This enabled the study to highlight the economic linkages within the economy and to show the direct, indirect and induced effects of a given expenditure.

The researchers used data from a variety of sources including capital investment values and generation capacity, operational expenditure and income, average electricity prices, national accounts, income and expenditure surveys, labour force surveys, and GDP statistical releases. The data was then analysed to yield information on Koeberg's contribution to economic growth, including direct, indirect and induced contributions to the economy; its contributions to public finances through tax revenue; its contribution to employment creation, through direct employment at the plant and indirect employment through the plant's suppliers; and the impact of the plant's investment and operations on alleviating poverty.

The study estimated Koeberg's current combined impact, through investment and operations, to be ZAR53.3 billion over the period 2012-13 to 2015-16 - ZAR30.2 billion in Western Cape and ZAR23.1 billion in the rest of South Africa. In that period, the plant sustained, on average, 1786 direct jobs and created nearly 35,000 indirect and induced jobs per year, earning a total estimated revenue of ZAR 16.4 billion for the government.

Investigation into official



Eskom's board yesterday announced it will undertake a "forensic and legal investigation" following the publication of allegations against its interim group chief executive, Matshela Koko. Legal firm Cliffe Dekker Hofmeyr will carry out the investigation, in respect of allegations concerning a potential conflict of interest relating to Koko's stepdaughter's shareholding in South Africa-based multinational engineering and project management consultancy and technical service provider Impulse International. South African Minister of Public Enterprises Lynne Brown, who is Eskom's shareholder representative, said yesterday that the investigation must be completed within 30 days.

In the longer term, every ZAR1 of new capital investment in the plant would potentially add ZAR1.20 to the South African economy and 36 cents to the national government revenue. Each ZAR1 million invested would imply four jobs - three in the Western Cape and one in the rest of South Africa. With 14% of the household income thus generated in the Western Cape and 17% of that generated in the rest of South Africa flowing to low-income households, this would also potentially contribute to poverty alleviation.

Through day-to-day operations, every ZAR1 spent on operational cost would potentially add ZAR1.47 to the South African economy and 45 cents to national government revenue, with four jobs for every ZAR1 million spent on operational costs. An estimated 12% of household income generated in the Western Cape, and 15% of the income generated in the rest of the country, would flow to low-income households.

Lullu Krugel, KPMG director and economist and the report's lead author, said the methodology used to conduct the review was based on internationally accepted standards using detailed information supplied by Eskom as well as official statistics. "Electricity is a key input for the majority products and processes in our economy, making Koeberg a direct contributor to economic growth, both in the Western Cape and South Africa," she said.

With a total capacity of 1860 MWe Koeberg's two pressurised water reactors can supply the equivalent of about 5.6% of South Africa's national energy needs, and currently about half of the energy demand of the Western Cape. South Africa's Integrated Resource Plan calls for the construction of 9600 MWe of new nuclear capacity - supplying 23% of the country's electricity - with the first reactor to come online by 2023. Eskom has been designated by the South African government to procure that new capacity.

"While we understand the significance of Koeberg within Eskom in terms of the generation of electricity, we needed a substantiated independent view on the added benefit of Koeberg's investment spending and daily operations," Eskom's interim group chief executive, Matshela Koko, said yesterday. "We therefore briefed KPMG to conduct a study on the impact of Africa's only nuclear power station on the socio-economic status of the province and South Africa."

South African Minister for Public Enterprises Lynne Brown said it was important to understand the impact of power stations on the economy and society. "They generate jobs, and they generate work for the construction industry, for maintenance teams, and for the producers or a multitude of goods and services. They stimulate - and sometimes carry almost single-handedly - entire local economies and communities," she said.

Researched and written

by World Nuclear News

Related topics
[March 31, 2017] New IBM X-Force Study Finds Leading Financial Malware Spread Globally in 2016

CAMBRIDGE, Mass., March 31, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- IBM (NYSE: IBM) Security today announced new research from IBM X-Force, revealing that cybercriminals scaled their most successful financial malware tools globally in 2016. The leading malware tool Zeus and its variants Neverquest and Gozi, kept their global rankings as the top three malware from the previous year, as cybercriminals retooled them to operate in new countries and regions. The report, "The Shifting Panorama of Global Financial Cybercrime," leverages data from the nearly 300 million protected endpoints across the globe monitored by IBM Trusteer and IBM X-Force. The report reveals top financial malware in countries including: The United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Japan, New Zealand, Australia, Brazil, Germany, Asia, and the United Arab Emirates. IBM X-Force found that cybercriminals expanded their reach into new regions by establishing networks and partnerships with local crime factions. These new relationships gave them access to new target email lists, an understanding of local banking credential requirements, and regional money laundering operations. For example, the cybercriminals operating TrickBot, which emerged in August 2016, launched the malware during a testing and development period to turned it into a banking Trojan and worked out the bugs before its actual deployment in the U.K. and other English-speaking countries. It then promptly moved to Germany.



"The level of cooperation between organized crime rings marks a significant shift in strategy," said Limor Kessem, Executive Security Advisor, IBM Security. "While the sharing of tools and services was common in forums on the dark web, this deeper collaboration outside that environment demonstrates that to scale globally, deeper cooperation between criminals is required." Financial-focused cybercrime proved to be worth the investment of resources for cybercriminals in 2016. According to the recent 2017 IBM X-Force Threat Intelligence Index, IBM X-Force revealed that the Financial Services industry experienced a resurgence with cybercriminals as it became the most targeted industry by cyberattacks in 2016 after dropping to third in 2015. Interestingly, while Financial Services was targeted the most by cyber-attacks last year, data from the X-Force report shows it was only third in compromised records.

Geographic Trends and Malware Crosses Borders

While the U.S. and the U.K. were the most targeted with financial malware attacks in 2016, some new markets began to emerge as targets of cybercriminals. For example, Japan which historically remained isolated from cybercrime due to a lack of local tools and its complex language, saw new malware families target the country. The leading financial malware targeting Japan included Gozi, URLZone, and Shifu, which are operated by well-known Eastern European cybercrime gangs. Their presence in the region marked an evolution of the fraud infrastructure in Japan. Brazil also saw itself in the sights of cybercriminals globally in 2016 as the country hosted the 2016 Summer Olympics. Notably, the Zeus Trojan was not often seen in Brazil until 2016 due to a lack of local technical skills required to operate the advanced botnet operation needed to deploy the malware. Zeus's code was the basis of three commercial malware iterations, Zeus Panda, FlokiBot, and Zeus Sphinx, which were adapted to target Brazilian banks and payment platforms. To learn more about the financial malware landscape and its global evolution in 2016, download the IBM X-Force report "The Shifting Panorama of Global Financial Cybercrime" at http://ibm.co/2oiWi5N. 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. Contact: Kelly Kane

IBM Security, External Relations

413-297-2668

[email protected] To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/new-ibm-x-force-study-finds-leading-financial-malware-spread-globally-in-2016-300432649.html SOURCE IBM

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Local Police Trial New Approach To Tackling Substance Misuse  Everyone In A Room Including Users

This article is old - Published: Friday, Mar 31st, 2017

Yesterday morning a young local lad walked out of Trinity Church asking What did I do? It was just a chat and my name on a piece of paper?! the reply was That is all we needed.

Amid further headlines over visible substance misuse in Wrexham town centre, representatives from various agencies attended Trinity Church at 8am yesterday to try a new approach to the issue.

The effort was organised in reaction to what is more formally called a visible vulnerable cohort, often found in crisis  those affected by substance misuse that are on occasion seen in and around the town centre. Locally and regionally various nicknames are used for the group, with the symptoms showing being attributed to synthetic cannabinoids such as Black Mamba.

Black Mamba, Spice, K2 and others are in their pure form liquid chemical concoctions, then often sprayed on organic material which gives it the look of more traditional cannabis. The effects are well documented locally and nationally, with the spray production method meaning some batches can have a strength several times greater than an expected dose.

Locally we are told the synthetic cannabinoids batches have varied in strength, and are also being cut with different drugs.

The vague nature of the drugs is not just limited to the strengths, it is often unknown exactly what chemicals are in it, and therefore the effects on a person can vary greatly. One account from a Manchester drugs worker last year states: Spice has been a big thing among heroin users in Manchester. They are using it to help them cut down on heroin, it works for them because it knocks their head off, bit like a detox, but then some have ended up getting a spice habit.

Because some were using heroin as an anti-psychotic, it means spice has been really bad for their mental health, ended up in psychiatric units and then back onto heroin.

Then you have what are called the spiceheads here, these are younger people who are homeless, come out of care, I call them the Lost Boys, from unstable family backgrounds who drifted into spice addiction because it was so cheap.

We are told currently in Wrexham 3-4 will buy you a hit, or a sachet, of an apparent synthetic cannabinoid  a significantly more accessible price point than other drugs. With the low price points higher tolerances are built relatively quickly, which can in turn escalate problems.

Although there are low end user prices the market is a valuable one, with the New York Times at the tail end of last year explaining how a kilo of core synthetic cannabinoid is purchasable for around 1500-3000, resulting in a 400,000 profit due to the milligrams used per dose.

The common outcome for a user of synthetic cannabinoids is mechanical movements with trance style groans and moans, a sight that has become well documented on social media via videos and pictures.

There has been documented threats made to some who have tried to help, however we are told those under the influence are often not able to control themselves, have incoherent thought processes, nor even remember any contact during that time afterwards. Highs are often short lived, and can include cravings to re-hit.

We arrived at Trinity Church near to the bus station (used as a neutral venue) just before 8am, with various representatives from North Wales Police, partner agencies including Wrexham Council, health and third sector providers.

Wrexham.com was the only media present, although the headlines and terminology used in local and national coverage was a talking point during the morning, particularly in terms the inaccuracy and dehumanising the problems. It was also pointed out that such coverage could have a wider reputational impact for the town itself.

The primary aim of the event was to attempt to gently force those in need of support to come into the church and interact with support workers with data collection (although it was strongly pointed out it was not an intelligence gathering exercise) and make referrals where possible, with a secondary more straightforward policing operation of enforcement taking place.

The open door group in the church was very much a grass roots style effort, with it being noted that: Service users are part of the solution. Unless you have been there, or been involved, it is impossible to know what the problems are. Policy decisions are made in nice air conditioned offices, people talk and decide, get in their nice cars, go home have some food, watch some TV then go to bed. These guys do not.

(Trinity Church in the 8am drizzle)

Two rows of tables were set up, with rice crispy bars and a few questionnaires on hand. Support workers from various agencies were scattered about; an executive director from Wrexham Council also popped in to observe for a while, with other council officers in attendance for the duration of the event.

The fluid plan for the day was described as suck it and see, to effectively get as many people who may need support to engage with the processes in place. The desired outcome was defined as capturing information as to who is engaging, who is not, and why they are not. The simple questionnaire asked about a persons needs, and what they feel they need help with.

In a quick briefing the attendees were told that some will want to engage, some will not, some will forget, we want to force them very kindly to engage.

Word had apparently got out that a crackdown was about to take place so there was some concern that there would be no one to engage with, but within an hour eight people had entered into the process, perhaps unwittingly, seeing it more as a chance for a cuppa and a chat.

Police did point out that if anyone was already under the influence a decision to enforce, or triage a person would take place. On the former people would be taken to custody, and on release part of their conditions would involve being signposted to Trinity Church.

Six people were arrested over the course of the day for drug induced antics in the town centre with five charged to court, although none connected to the event itself.

The people coming through the doors were like you  young, old, male and female. As one person observed, if someone in nice shoes, smart jeans and a shirt is passed out on the floor in the early hours it is often laughed off as a good night  but those who are visibly less clean, and are in the town centre during office hours in a similar state are treated differently by society.

The recent Psychoactive Substances Act made the previously known legal highs illegal, with new legislation introduced to target the production and supply of such substances. It attempted to close a loophole on previous law which saw a drug get outlawed, but then a tweak to the chemical formula would then make it legal.

Wrexham has seen some local versions of different legislation enacted, with a Public Space Protection Order (PSPO) covering the town centre prohibiting people loitering in a state of intoxication or through drug induced activity. The PSPO also includes banning inhaling, injecting, smoking or otherwise using any intoxicating substances. Enforcement of the PSPO was highlighted by local MP Ian Lucas a few months ago, with comparisons on numbers of fines and tickets issued by police and the council.

Inside and outside Trinity Church the view appeared to be that the PSPO can be a useful tool in some circumstances, however arresting and prosecuting some users of synthetic cannabinoids was essentially pointless.

Drug tests on 3-4 bag samples to definitively identify a substance costs around 120. The legal time and effort place in preparing for a hearing, let alone time at the already hard pressed Magistrates Courts all to issue a comparatively low fine (as it is non custodial) to an individual who is unlikely to have the ability to pay, did not appear to be a sensible solution.

There is a possibility several months later that someone could be jailed for unpaid fines, but usually that is when the amount due hit the thousands, and results in a few days or weeks in custody.

We were repeatedly told that legislation cannot keep up with the tweaks in cannabinoids and that the issue needs to be treated as the epidemic it is at a Welsh Government and Westminster level. The issue was described as large as the initial spikes in heroin and ecstasy in the 1980s, and co-ordinated responses and funding are required.

Where and what those responses should be still appears to be unknown at every level, with it made clear several times that traditional drug prevention and support tactics simply are not fit for the new synthetic cannabinoid problem.

Mental health treatment was referenced many times by those attending, with some trapped in a vicious circle where they could not access mental health support services due to their drug use, however they were using drugs for mental health reasons. Similar situations were recalled where drugs prevented access to some homeless services, but it was felt access would lower the use of drugs.

On a local level there was some acknowledgement that finger pointing had been taking place, and our own observation that if a stakeholder was not in a meeting we had sat in they would be the ones likely to take the blame was not challenged. It was clear that a parallel goal of the day was to get the various agencies in a room as well, as it was explained it is very hard for someone to say no if they are looking you in the eye.

The organisation of the day was led locally by North Wales Police, perhaps in response to criticism over the policing of the problem, or as an indication of the frustration of unsustainable allocation of their resources on dealing with the results of the substance abuse with no solutions in sight.

The learning and data collection from the exercise is hoped to be useful in a practical sense, but also to help shape higher level decision making. It was pointed out that those interacting on a day to day basis with service users have the appetite to fix the problems but often funding or direction from above does not always enable that.

(Trinity Church a day later with brighter skies overhead)

Thirty five people engaged with the process on the day, with more people through the door who are hoped will engage next time.

Sgt Victor Powell told us how he was pleased with the wealth of information gained by all taking part, and that service users were offered information on what they hope their end goals would be.

In terms of service providers and various stakeholders it appears the event was equally positive, It was a really successful day in opening doors between partners themselves, and it opened doors between service users and service providers.

We did enquire why such an approach had not been taken earlier, Sgt Powell told us: On the surface it is a traditional problem, so traditional policing methods have been applied. There is a lack of understanding nationally and varying degrees of understanding at a local level over New Psychoactive Substances. Organisations involved have to recognise we have to adopt a new approach to what is a relatively new phenomenon.

It is expect a similar day will be held in four to six weeks time, and could become an ongoing part in dealing with both the causes and effects of the synthetic drugs locally. Sadly in a message that is likely applicable across the UK, it was said We are not fixing it today or in six weeks.
RSPCA Cymru Dealt With 440+ Complaints of Animal Cruelty & Neglect in Wrexham Last Year

This article is old - Published: Friday, Mar 31st, 2017

More than 440 complaints of animal cruelty were investigated in the Wrexham area last year.

The charity investigated 445 complaints of abuse and neglect in the county last year, an increase from the 395 reports in 2015.

The figures, which were released this week by RSPCA Cymru show that during 2016 a total of 10,540 complaints of cruelty were investigated in Wales  equating to almost 29 every single day.

Throughout 2016 a total of 120 convictions were secured in magistrates courts  compared to 89 in 2015, and 116 in 2014.

This included the conviction of a Wrexham man who was handed a 24 week prison sentence and was disqualified from keeping dogs for 10 years after plying a Staffordshire bull terrier with cocaine, and brutally cutting the dogs ears off.

Complaints investigated by the charity can have a number of outcomes, including prosecution and also welfare advice. Other scenarios may include those no evidence to take further action or after further investigation there was no cause for concern.

RSPCA Cymru is now calling on the public to support the introduction of an Offender Register for those who have been convicted of animal abuse and disqualified from keeping them, to act as a further deterrent to many of the horrendous acts committed across Wales.

The charity is also supporting tougher sentences for acts of severe animal cruelty.

Martyn Hubbard, RSPCA Cymru Superintendent, said: Each and every year, I am left deeply saddened and appalled at the level of animal abuse, neglect and cruelty we witness all across Wales.

Once again, 2016 highlighted the huge importance of the frontline work of RSPCA, with a series of very diverse convictions secured in court, concerning a catalogue of cruelty. It was a busy year in terms of necessary prosecutions activity  with more convictions secured than in the previous two calendar years.

This doesnt suggest more cruelty is necessarily taking place  but that people in Wales are potentially more likely to report it, and tools like social media becoming more adept in bringing incidences to light. Clearly, however, big challenges remain in protecting the nations animals.

In Wales, the introduction of an Offender Register is an idea which attracts a strong level of public support  with an incredible 88% backing the proposal.

This follows calls from the charity to increase the maximum sentence available in England and Wales for animal abuse  at present, six months in prison. In Northern Ireland, the maximum sentence is ten times higher  standing at five years.

It is hoped a register of offenders will help deter cruelty offences, and better protect animals from falling victim to an individual who has already been disqualified from keeping them. Since 2013 in Wales, the RSPCA has prosecuted 11 individuals for breaching their disqualification from owning and keeping animals under Section 34 of the Animal Welfare Act 2006.

RSPCA Cymrus Assistant Director of External Relations Claire Lawson added: The Animal Welfare Act has now been in force in Wales for ten years  and remains the single most important tool at our disposal to protect the nations animals. Animals are now better protected in Wales than ever before  but more still needs to be done to ensure a framework is in place offering them better protection.

During 2016, we again saw a number of animal abusers hit with disqualification orders from owning animals in the future  but its so hard for rehoming centres, pet shops and others to stop people breaching these bans.

Almost nine in ten people in Wales support the introduction of an Offender Register, which would be a critical step forward in keeping animals safe and helping us to tackle some of the horrendous cruelty witnessed by the RSPCA once again in 2016.
Vehicle Set Alight in Erddig

This article is old - Published: Friday, Mar 31st, 2017

North Wales Fire and Rescue Service were this morning called to a vehicle fire in the Erddig area.

One crew from Wrexham was called to the blaze, which involved a Vauxhall Corsa, on Erddig Road at 1:10am this morning.

A spokesperson for North Wales Fire and Rescue Service confirmed the cause of the blaze was deliberate ignition.

Hearing of a car arson on Erddig Road early hours of this morning! Will update once we know more @wrexham @NWPControlroom @NorthWalesFire  Alex Martin Jones (@erddignews) March 31, 2017

Anyone with any information on the incident is advised to contact North Wales Police on 101 quoting crime reference number V044571.
Over the past days, Australian workers, students and young people have voiced their support for the campaign launched by the International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI) in defence of the framed-up Maruti Suzuki car workers in Haryana, India.

Many have expressed hostility to the sentencing last month of 13 of the workers to life imprisonment, and of 18 others to prison terms of between three and five years. The prosecution, which was based on bogus evidence, was in response to a series of struggles waged by the Maruti Suzuki workers including strikes, factory occupations and protests in 201112, against the dire conditions they faced.

Many of those who spoke with Socialist Equality Party campaigners signed the ICFIs online petition demanding the immediate release of the victimised workers and the repudiation of the fraudulent charges against them.

Carol, a retired child-care worker from Newcastle, a working-class regional centre in New South Wales, said that the frame-up was disgusting. She added: It is against the entire international standards for human rights. Workers dont have anything these days. Its scary, and something is really going to happen because workers are sick and tired of the way things are going. Maybe even a revolution. Somethings got to give.

Carol pointed to the international offensive of the corporate elite, and the mounting social crisis afflicting workers in every country. Its not just in India, its here as well, she said.

Houses are so ridiculously expensive that young people cant afford to live anywhere. Ive got nine grandkids. None of them have a future. My son and his girlfriend recently bought a unit, but they arent even happy about it, they are just always struggling. The capitalist system has nothing to offer us, workers need an organisation, she added.

Carol, whose husband worked on the wharves, noted the complicity of the unions in the destruction of jobs and working conditions in the aftermath of the 1998 Patrick Stevedores dispute. My husband marched in every protest through to the Patrick wharfs dispute, she said.

It just got to the point where he couldnt do it anymore. He said it broke him. He looks at all the young wharfies and they have lost everything. The amount of people getting killed, nobody cares when a worker got killed at the Barangaroo construction site last month. Its happening at building sites across the country and its not front page news when workers are killed. The unions and the Labor Party havent done a thing for workers.

David, who is completing a PhD in physics, commented on the complicity of the pro-company union in the attacks on the Maruti Suzuki workers. Its clear these guys were not properly defended, he said. The union should have stood up and defended them. Obviously some sort of corruption is going on. They are being paid off by the company.

Im not surprised Suzuki set up a company in India and is taking advantage of the poor employment laws. The way the company has acted is ruthless. Its like they have no concern for their employees at all, their only concern is to make money.

The workers should know there is support for them in Australia. They have been screwed by their company and by the government. I think Indian workers should oppose this attack on the workers. I wouldnt want to see other people go through the same thing for standing up for their rights.

Leonie, a western Sydney hospital worker, said, What is happening to the Maruti Suzuki workers affects every worker. It starts off in one area and it gradually works its way around.

Indian workers get a pittance in pay and now because they didnt agree with the company they are threatened with a death sentence and then put in prison for life on trumped-up charges. Its outrageous. She noted that a reason why the company wanted to get rid of them was because they set up an independent union. The company is afraid it will attract other workers.

Leonie pointed to the global operations of the major corporations: The government should look at these big companies as theyre a law unto themselves. The government needs to step in to take care of the workers. They arent, probably because of payback. Big companies have a habit of buying their way in.

Commenting on her own working conditions, Leonie said, I work in a hospital and am very underpaid for the work we have to do. They dont hire more people because it costs money.

Maaz, a 23-year-old student and part-time worker originally from Pakistan, said, Its not fair what is happening to these workers. We need some sort of international action against this. If everyone joins together and raises their voice, it could change things.

Asked about working conditions in South Asia, Maaz said, People dont get rewarded for the amount of effort they put it. Pay is never equal to the amount of time or work they carry out. People are always being forced to work harder just to make enough money to meet their basic needs. Labour is very cheap. I have seen child labour, forced labour and unjust labour.

Ive heard of similar cases in Pakistan. The power company there sacked experienced staff because their pay rates were higher and the company didnt want to pay them more money. So they brought in new guys and paid them less money. It wasnt fair. Political parties everywhere are pro-business. None of them does anything for ordinary people, they all have ulterior motives.

Jenny, a Chinese-born orthoptist in Sydney, said: I think it is very unfair. Those people are from the working class. They cant speak for themselves. There is no evidence to show they were responsible for the situation. The government supports the company to make sure investors stay there. I think they need the people from all over the world to stand up for them and speak for them

This is a product of globalisation, Jenny said. If anything happens to workers in any corner of the world we can look out for them. It is not just this country and next time the other country. It is kind of like we need one big international union. 

We need to support all different levels of workers, as it could happen to workers in any industry. For instance, there is a lot of depression among nurses and doctors in public hospitals here. I used to work there but not anymore.

Vincent, a commerce student at a university in Sydney, commented: The companies just want to get more profit for themselves. They dont care that they are destroying people.

Im Chinese and so I know about how a lot of companies or factories that just pay really low salaries for the workers. They just care about the profits they can earn. They dont care about the others, the workers. We need to do something to change these things.
LILLYVILLE -- The March Prayer Vigil for Life was held at Sacred Heart Parish.

The 6:30 p.m. mass was celebrated by the Rev. Robert Spriggs, assisted by altar servers Alaina and Malea Helmink. Lector was Ann Will; Deb Holkenbrink served as eucharistic minister; and music was provided by organist Pat Will.

Prior to mass, Judy Repking led the praying of the Most Holy Rosary for an end to abortion.

At the business meeting, the Effingham K of C events were discussed: March 25 was the Mr. and Mrs. Jack Koester Memorial March for Life; and the Adult Easter Egg Hunt at 8 p.m. On April 7 the K of Cs are hosting a fish fry. Money raised will go to their Pro-Life Fund.

March 29 and April 5 are designated as Life Advocacy Days in Springfield. Everyone is encouraged to call or visit their elected state officials on important pro-life legislation being proposed in Illinois.

Letters were sent to House Majority and Minority Leaders asking them to not bring HB 40 to the House floor for a final vote.

It was reported that Washington D.C. has become the sixth jurisdiction in the US to legalize assisted suicide. It joins California, Colorado, Oregon, Vermont and Washington state in offering medical aid in dying for terminally ill people. This is an issue they are monitoring closely and educating themselves on ways to protect rights and dignity during the final stage of life.

There will be a Protest Planned Parenthood Rally at the state Capitol on April 29. Speakers will include Tim Moore, president of the Springfield Right to Life, and others to be announced. Brian Lange, host of LIVE TRUTH Radio, will be emcee for the rally. Anyone interested in attending should contact Judy at 217-690-7285 for carpool information.
The European Union (EU) and representatives of the continents major powers reacted with undisguised hostility to Prime Minister Theresa Mays triggering the Article 50 process for the UK to exit the EU.

The most significant expression of tensions came from German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who responded--within hours of Brexit being triggered--by rejecting one of the main demands outlined by May in her Article 50 letter to European Council head, Donald Tusk.

Mays six-page letter stated that the Conservative government believed it was necessary to agree the terms of our future partnership alongside those of our withdrawal from the European Union.

Merkel is considered one of the more conciliatory voices regarding Brexit among Europes ruling elite, given Germanys shared desire for austerity and free market liberalism from which both major imperialist powers have long benefited. But shared support for economic liberalism was trumped by the need to maintain a united front of the EU powers to prevent Brexit being a source of political contagion spurring on nationalist sentiment across the continent. Merkel warned, The negotiations [on the UKs EU exit] must first clarify how we will disentangle our interlinked relationship. We must deal with many rights and obligations that have been linked to membership. Only then, later, can we talk about our future relationship.

Outgoing French President Francois Hollande issued a statement in agreement with Merkel. His office said, The President indicated that the talks must at first be about the terms of withdrawal, dealing especially with citizens rights and obligations resulting from the commitments made by the United Kingdom.

Speaking later Hollande said his assessment was that a final deal would be economically painful for Britain.

The Thursday editions of several newspapers, which supported Britain remaining in the EU, summed up the crisis enveloping Britains ruling circles. Philip Stephens of the Financial Times, in a piece titled, Brussels takes back control of Brexit: All the power lies with Europe and Britain holds no cards in the coming negotiations, wrote:

Until this week Brexit was about Britain. Now it is about Europe. A conversation largely focused on what sort of deal Britain would pitch for on its departure has become one about what the EU27 are willing to offer. To borrow a phrase [from the referendum campaign of the leave the EU wing], Brussels has taken back control.

Stephens added, Those in Theresa Mays government who have blithely imagined they can have the best of all worlds face a cold shower of reality.

Outlining Britains negotiating stance, Mays letter warned that Europes security would be jeopardised if a trade deal favourable to the UK was not agreed. She wrote, Europes security is more fragile today than at any time since the end of the Cold War. Weakening our cooperation for the prosperity and protection of our citizens would be a costly mistake.

The word security was referred to in the six-page letter no less than 12 times. The implied threat was that the UK would withdraw its substantial security and intelligence assets, as May followed the playbook written by US President Donald Trump, who has threatened to withdraw support for NATO if the EU powers did not increase their military spending.

The Brexit-supporting Sun celebrated Mays stance, with the headline, PMs Brexit threat to EU: Your money or your lives. Its editorial stated, [T]he Prime Minister would be crazy not to use our peerless anti-terror security services as a bargaining chip.

This hostile opening gambit was made under conditions in which the US-led NATO continues to encircle Russia with heavy UK involvement, threatening war with another nuclear power.

The European Parliaments Brexit chief, Guy Verhofstadt, was asked if Mays letter constituted blackmail. He replied, I think the security of our citizens is far too important to start a trade-off of one and the other.

On Thursday, he told Sky News that he opposed the threat in Mays letter, adding, You cannot use, or abuse, I should say, the security of citizens to have then a good deal on something else.

May and the Brexit faction of the ruling elite trumpeted last years referendum vote to leave as the springboard for the UK to get out of Europe and into the world. A newly liberated global Britain would be free to sign unlimited trade deals with countries and trading blocs internationally.

Verhofstadt was blunt in warning that the EU would prevent this while the scheduled two years of EU/UK talks were in progress. We make very clear that we will never accept that behind our back the UK is starting trade negotiations with other countries before the withdrawal. The same goes for all member states of the EU who could be tempted to negotiate separate agreements with the UK, he warned.

Not a single placatory statement on Brexit has been made by any senior EU figure. On every issue, the EU is taking the hardest line possible. The EU insists that no talks over trade will even be broached until the rights of EU citizens living in Britain and those of British citizens living in EU countries have been resolved. Verhofstadt also aligned himself with the Irish nationalist parties Sinn Fein, Fianna Fail and Fine Gael, insisting, We will never accept a hard border again between Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic [which remains an EU member].

On Wednesday evening, European Parliament President Antonio Tajani told BBCs Newsnight that nothing would be discussed in the EU/UK negotiations before the issue of how much the UK must pay in a divorce settlement was agreed. Figures of anything up to 60 billion have been estimated as a payment for the UKs share of EU liabilities, minus the UKs share of EU assets. Tanjani said he did not know how much the bill would be, but I think billions and billions of euros.

On the BBCs Today radio programme, Manfred Weber, the chair of the largest grouping in the European Parliament--the right-wing European Peoples Party--referred to the UK as a non-European power to be treated in a hostile manner. I have not the Russians interests in mind. I have not the Americans interests in mind. I have only these in mind who elected me. He added, I can give you a clear example for this--I dont care anymore about the City of Londons interests. I will care about the interests of Amsterdam, Dublin and Frankfurt and Paris. That is what I have to do. These negotiations will be very tough.

On the day Mays letter was delivered to Tusk, the EU competition commission blocked a long-planned 21 billion merger of the London Stock exchange with the Deutsche Borse. EU competition regulator Margrethe Vestager declared that the deal would create a de facto monopoly in fixed income instruments.

On April 5, the European Parliament--which has veto powers over any final Brexit deal--is expected to vote in favour of a resolution stating that a trade deal with the UK cannot be finalised until after its withdrawal from the EU. The resolution stipulates that a three-year time limit is applied as a transitional period to reach an agreement following Britains expected withdrawal in 2019.
Caterpillar workers in the United States are the latest to bear the brunt of a corrupt and rotten sellout organized by the United Auto Workers (UAW). Earlier this week, the UAW pushed through a new six-year labor agreement that will escalate the destruction of jobs, increase health care costs and extend a freeze in real wages for senior workers to a decade and a half.

The UAW pursued a now well-worn strategy to impose managements dictates against a resistant workforce. First it defied a 93 percent strike vote and kept workers on the job two weeks before announcing a deal. Then it held a vote before workers could study the contract. After workers protested, it released bogus highlights that concealed the content of the deal, echoed managements lies that declining sales made any real improvement in wages unaffordable, and used a threat to close the Aurora plant and cut jobs to browbeat workers.

Despite this, workers were in no mood to accept more concessions from a company that had made record profits in the years following the last contract in 2011, which eliminated defined benefit pensions. While the company was demanding more sacrifice from workers, it was rewarding its top investors and executives, stashing away billions in an offshore account and giving its former CEO Doug Oberhelman a golden parachute worth at least $31 million.

Many workers went to the ratification meetings on March 26 determined to defeat the sellout and came away confident that they had done so. Then, in an unprecedented and still unexplained action, the UAW executives delayed the release of the results after initially saying they would be made public hours after voting concluded.

After nearly a full day, the UAW issued a perfunctory press release, declaring UAW members at Caterpillar voted on Sunday, March 26th, to ratify their tentative Central Agreement. The statement did not include a breakdown of the vote by numbers or percentages.

Workers reacted with anger and suspicion. UAW Local 974 in Peoria, Illinois, the largest local with more than half of the total number of eligible votes, acknowledged that workers voted down the deal by a 55-45 percent margin. In Decatur, Illinois workers denounced claims by local officials that the deal had passed by a 60-40 margin.

There is no way the contract passed in Decatur, a CAT worker told the WSWS Autoworker Newsletter. I thought the delay was because the contract was overturned at all the plants. My main concern now is how to get a recount.

I suspect the Local 974 margin was significantly against the contract, and the International wont stand for such intransigence, a veteran worker in Peoria told the WSWS. I also expect the other locals votes were, at best, close to defeat if not actually defeated and the results falsified, which might explain the unions unwillingness to share those tallies

What is so striking is just how brazen the UAW functionaries are in their manipulation and outright fraud. As the saying goes, desperate times require desperate measures. The longstanding effort of the UAW to force through pro-company contracts is facing growing opposition as workers, who have nothing left to lose, attempt to fight back.

In September 2015, 40,000 Fiat Chrysler workers defeated a UAW-backed agreement by a 2-to-1 margin, rejecting a national auto contract for the first time in 30 years. After confronting this angry insurrection, the UAW evidently concluded that, by hook or by crook, it would not allow something similar to happen again.

Later in the same round of contract negotiations in 2015, the UAW averted an imminent defeat of its contract with Ford when it miraculously discovered just enough votes at the very last localat the Rouge complex in suburban Detroitto declare that the contract had passed nationally by 51 to 49 percent.

A challenge to the vote by a skilled trades worker at the Dearborn Truck Assembly Plant uncovered damning evidence of vote rigging, including fraudulent photocopying of unnumbered ballots. His repeated demands for an investigation and revote were stonewalled by the UAW, which cynically claimed that overturning the fraudulent vote would violate the democratic rights of the members!

Similar charges of fraud were made by John Deere workers in October 2015 after the UAW claimed the contract at that company had passed even though workers at the two major factories in Iowawith well over a third of the eligible votersdefeated the deal by a two-to-one margin. Once again, the UAW rejected demands for a recount.

Such behavior is characteristic not of a workers organization, but an assemblage of company agents. The UAW is not a union in any meaningful sense of the term. It is a tool of the corporate bosses who rely on and pay the UAW executives well to impose their dictates on the working class. If workers are too stubborn to vote the right way, then it is left up to the UAW to find some way to say that they did.

To fight back, workers need organizations that represent their interests. The UAW does not unite workers, it divides them. It does not fight for higher wages and benefits, but works to impose lower wages and cuts to health care and pensions. It does not organize opposition; it organizes defeats. Like the entire AFL-CIO and Change to Win apparatus, the UAW is a corporatist syndicate and cheap labor contractor.

To defend their interests, workers must build new, fighting organizations, democratically controlled by the workers themselves.

Rank-and-file committees should be elected in every factory. These committees should bar UAW officials from their meetings and social media pages so they can have a free discussion without the interference of company agents and spies.

Rank-and-file factory committees will create the basis for a genuine unification of workers. They will establish lines of communication across all industries and workplaces to bring together all workers, black, white and immigrant, in the United States and internationally, in a common struggle to assert our social rights against the insatiable appetites of the super-rich.

The formation of rank-and-file committees is a necessary foundation for a fight back. Such a struggle, however, will immediately raise broader political issues. The actions of the UAW itself are rooted in its defense of the capitalist system, an economic system based on the exploitation of the working class to deliver profits to the corporate and financial elite.

For decades, the unions have worked to subordinate workers to the capitalist system through their political alliance with the Democratic Party. Since the election of the Republican Trump, the unionswith the UAW at their headhave joined the billionaire presidents crusade to Make America Great Again by slashing corporate taxes and regulations, destroying public education, health care and Social Security, and squeezing even more profit out of the hides of workers.

At the same time, Trump and the unions want to dupe workers into believing that Mexico and China are responsible for unemployment and poverty so that they can drag workers behind a trade war and even bloodier shooting wars. Workers must reject these lies. As the shutdown of Caterpillars plant in Belgium and the frame-up and persecution of the Maruti Suzuki autoworkers in India demonstrates, the global corporations and their political hirelings in every country are waging a class war against workers.

The development of a counteroffensive will thrust workers in a direct conflict with all the political institutions controlled by the capitalist exploiters, from the courts and police to the politicians of both big-business parties, Democratic and Republican.

Open class struggle is already reemerging, in the United States and around the world. To carry out this struggle, workers need independent organizations. To lead this struggle, they need a political party. This party is the Socialist Equality Party.

The SEP calls on workers at Caterpillar, at John Deere, at the Big Three auto companies and beyond to contact us for assistance in the development of rank-and-file committees and to build a mass political movement for socialism, for workers power and the reorganization of economic life to meet human needs, not private profit.
In what the media is hailing as a victory for Flint residents, a federal judge approved a settlement Tuesday in which the state of Michigan will pay $87 million for replacing service lines in the city over the next three years. An additional $10 million is to be held in reserve for unexpected costs.

The lawsuit that led to the settlement was brought against the State of Michigan by several groups, including Concerned Pastors for Social Action, Natural Resources Defense Council, American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan and Flint resident Melissa Mays, who heads the local activist group Water You Fighting For.

US District Judge David Lawson, who presided over the settlement, gave the following characterization. In my view the settlement agreement is fair, adequate, reasonable and consistent with the public interest and it furthers the objectives of the safe water drinking act [sic]. The federal Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) establishes the standards for public drinking water supplies throughout the US. Lawson made a point of praising Michigan Governor Rick Snyderwho is responsible for the disaster in Flintsaying that without his cooperation the settlement would not have been possible.

The $87 million mandated by the settlement will be added to the $100 million recently appropriated by the federal government to fix the pipes, an amount far below the actual amount needed, according to many estimates. The wording in the settlement outlines a program of replacing 18,000 lead service lines in the city by the end of 20206,000 each year.

At the same time, an exit strategy is provided for Michigan aid to Flint. After September 1, all nine water and filter distribution centers will be closed after beginning a phase out starting in May. The door-to-door distribution of bottled water, a demand raised in the original lawsuit, was ruled out. A call-in service for residents to get delivery of water within 24 hours can be ended by the end of June, if pending results of lead-in-water testing being conducted by the Environmental Protection Agency come in below the action level of 15 parts per billion.

Next month will mark three years since Flints longtime safe water source, the Detroit water system, was switched to the Flint River, without proper treatment. It took 18 months before Flint residentswith the aid of water and health expertswere able to expose the lies of state functionaries and force the state to switch back to Detroit water. In the meantime, the corrosive Flint River water leached lead from the citys antiquated water infrastructure, poisoning Flint residents. Even after switching back to the original Lake Huron-treated water source supplied by Detroit, the water is not only not safe to drink, but residents lives continue to be disrupted.

Basic activities such as cooking, personal hygiene and cleaning are onerous without safe water. In addition, home values have plummeted as a result of the water crisis, making it hard for residents to relocate or even refinance their homes. Adding insult to injury, the city of Flint has resumed water shutoffs, after the state declared it would no longer subsidize residents water bills.

The replacement of lead and galvanized service lines has become an urgent necessity, since the corrosive water has destroyed the protective layer inside lead pipes, causing high levels of lead in the water due to leaching. Galvanized iron pipes must also be replaced because of the lead buildup in their inner walls.

In March of last year Mayor Karen Weaver initiated a service line replacement program to much fanfare, called Fast Start. Since then, only a woefully small number of 800 service lines have been replaced.

While the news media is reporting the settlement in the most glowing of terms, citing many who declare it to be a victory for Flint, a large number of residents view it as too little too late.

The announcement of this settlement comes shortly after the city of Flint announced the resumption of water shutoffs in order to compel residents to pay their water billscalculated at the highest rates in the countryfor water that is unsafe to drink. Only weeks ago it was revealed that state of Michigan authorities who are responsible for the disaster in Flintwould no longer subsidize residents water bills, meaning that residents are now responsible for the full amount.

The following are some of the comments Flint residents made on a Facebook page in response to the settlement.

Linda Turner: Its going to take 3 years and the south end wont see any replacement until the third year in all probability. That means that we are going to have to buy bottle water for 3 years AND pay for the poison that they call water.

Deborah Beck: Burns I will never drink the water again. Been lied to too many times.

Gladyes Williamson: LOL! Water line replacement what a joke! If it doesn't include ALL service lines and pipes then we get a system that is still broken for the majority!!!without disaster status they'll wait for us to be forced out, land bank will take owner ship of the walked away homes and the County will proceed to create the master plan!! And it dont include most of the Flint population!

James Milton: The PODs [water distribution points] could close as early as May or June. Forcing people to buy water, water filters and cartridges out of pocket.

We have yet to see someone go to prison for this disaster.

Kitty Bucher: What are the elderly, disabled and homebound people supposed to do? This is outrageous!

Barbra Caldwell: This is soooo horrible. what about the ones that are not able to go anywhere? Why is there not public outcry to this injustice everywhere?

Meanwhile, the city of Flint says it is sending 31 more residential customers shutoff notices. If they dont pay on their water bills, they will lose service as early as April 10.
Anyone seeking clarification about the reactionary program behind the so-called election campaign of Social Democratic Party chancellor candidate Martin Schulz and a possible red-red-green (SPD-Left Party-Green Party) federal government in Germany should read Sigmar Gabriel's contribution on the 60th anniversary of the Treaty of Rome in the Rheinische Post.

Under the title Fighting for a Stronger Europe, the Social Democratic foreign minister and former SPD chief pleads for the rearmament of the continent both at home and abroad, for a strengthening of Fortress Europe and a continuation of austerity policies.

In the area of foreign and security policy, it is time to say goodbye to the idea that we are not responsible for our own security in Europe. The sentence is correct: Europe finally has to grow up, Gabriel writes. The partnership with the US and NATO are cornerstones of the transatlantic community, he says, but the European Union must be able to cope with crises and conflicts in its own neighbourhood. The first steps have been taken, others have to follow.

Gabriel is well aware that a more independent and aggressive European military policy under German leadership also requires the internal militarization of the continent. Europe needs to improve its internal security, he says. In order to justify the setting up of a pan-European police force he cynically raises the alleged struggle against terrorism: Here, we can and must be better, through better cooperation and more exchange. The people of Europe should not be afraid. Whether it is in Brussels, Paris, Berlin or elsewherefreedom and security go hand in hand.

The fact that Gabriels priority has nothing really to do with freedom or security is underlined by his plea for an expansion of Fortress Europe. He seeks a protection of Europes external borders, which really lives up to the name. Within Europe, borders have lost much of their importance, and that is a great achievement. But strong external borders are also a great achievement. The foreign minister then made clear against whom the strong borders are directed: We see, in the midst of the crises in our neighbourhood and the refugee flows, how important an effective protection of our borders is.

Gabriel would be a poor Social Democrat if he did not combine the brutal repulsion of desperate people fleeing war zones in the Middle East and North Africa and the death by drowning of thousands in the Mediterranean, with vicious attacks on the European working class. All EU members must be prepared to undertake the necessary reforms to maintain their competitiveness, he wrote.

Gabriel justified his call for European unity as follows: In this crisis-stricken world, where so many certainties have been lost, European states can only successfully defend their interests and values when they speak with one voice. No country in Europe, even Germany, can do it alone. Together we are so much stronger than the sum of our individual states. To this end we need to close ranks.

To put it in a nutshell: only when Germany holds the continent together as hegemon and taskmaster (Herfried Munkler) can it play a role in world politics.

Gabriel is thereby pursuing Germanys traditional world-power strategy, which had already been adopted in the Foreign Ministry under his predecessor Frank-Walter Steinmeier (SPD). Germanys imperial empire (Kaiserreich) and the Third Reich had also tried to unite Europe under German hegemony in order to further its geopolitical interests.

At the start of the First World War, Walter Rathenau, the head of the German office for war supplies, had declared: The ultimate leadership of Europe is indispensable because an emerging central power like Germany will always suffer from the jealousy of its neighbours to the extent they lack the strength to incorporate these neighbours organicallyIt is the German task to manage and strengthen the old European body.

And Nazi Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop wrote in the guidelines for a Europe Committee established in April 1943: It is already clear today that the future of Europe can only survive based on the full implementation of the pre-eminence of the Great German Reich. The safeguarding of this pre-eminence must, therefore, be seen as the core of the future re-organization.

Shortly afterwards Joseph Goebbels stated in his diary: It must remain the goal of our struggle to create a united Europe. But Europe can only undergo clear organization under the Germans. There is practically no other leadership.

In order to once again bring the continent under German domination, the ruling class is preparing to sweep aside all of the democratic limitations it was forced to accept after two lost world wars, albeit through clenched teeth. According to a report by the Rheinische Post, Gabriel pleaded at a defence policy conference of the SPD parliamentary group for a weakening of parliaments constitutional right to decide on the Bundeswehrs foreign operations. For example, the EUs participation in military deployment should not be made dependent on the Bundestag because it may be just before an election. This is an issue that will challenge the politics of our country, the foreign minister added.

A document from the German Society for Foreign Affairs (DGAP), notably titled Europewhere are your Legions? calls for a Europe Division of 20,000 soldiers set up by Germany, as the starting point for a European army controlled from Berlin. After all, in the sphere of defence the main thing is the actual available military capabilities. Mere words about strength and responsibility impress neither Moscow nor Washington.
A new study by the Wisconsin HOPE Lab has revealed that about half of community college students in the United States, which make up 46 percent college students in the country, do not have consistent housing and that 13 percent are homeless. In absolute terms, this means at least one million people trying to receive postsecondary education do not have a roof over their heads.

These results confirm and expand upon previous studies that have looked at college student homelessness, including earlier work by the HOPE Lab and studies done by the College and University Food Bank Alliance.

This estimate is an order of magnitude higher than the official homeless statistic of the US, which is 0.5 percent of the population, and more than twice the rate of youth aged 10-19 which face homelessness at least once during a year, which is just under five percent. It is also more than 29 times the official student homelessness rate recorded by the Federal Application for Student Aid (FAFSA), which is the only federal body that collects data on homeless students.

In order to clarify the disparity between the official statistics and the HOPE Lab survey, the World Socialist Web Site spoke to the Wisconsin HOPE Lab founder, Sara Goldrick-Rab. She noted that The FAFSA is notorious for undercounting homeless students. First, students have to fill out the FAFSA, which many do not. Furthermore, since a homeless student counts as being financially independent, and thus is eligible for more money, FAFSA requires that they fill out a large amount of paperwork, essentially to prove that they are homeless. Since we just asked the students themselves, we captured a much better picture of the problem.

Even our results, however, are undercounting the problem. Since its a voluntary survey, we are going to miss some people. We also do not count things like couch surfing as being homeless because thats often considered something which college students just do. As a result, we include that in our housing insecurity statistics, which includes about half of all community college students.

The latest HOPE Lab survey is the most widespread study of homelessness amongst college students and, according to the research done by the authors, is likely the only study that looks specifically at the plight of community college students.

One of the few comparable studies was done by the California State University (CSU) system, which included more students but only looked at California schools and achieved its estimates based on interviews with CSU staff, faculty and administrators rather than asking the students directly.

In contrast, the Wisconsin HOPE Lab sent a survey to more than 750,000 students across the country with a monetary incentive to garner participation. The final survey response was 33,934 students, making it the largest national study which focuses on food and housing insecurity among college students to date. While the nature of the study does not immediately lend itself to broad generalizations, the agreement between this study and all other studies looking at hunger and homelessness on US campuses suggests that the data collected do represent trends throughout all 50 states.

One thread which supports this hypothesis is that housing insecurity, which includes the inability to regularly pay utilities or rent or the need to move frequently as well as those without a permanent place to live, is not a problem isolated to urban or high-poverty community colleges but a largely uniform problem across the areas studied. Rural and urban community college students are equally likely to be housing insecure, but homelessness is actually higher for those students living in cities (15 percent) than those living in suburbs (14 percent), rural areas (11 percent) and small towns (9 percent).

Moreover, the data collected show that housing insecurity is unrelated to things like eligibility for Pell Grants or immigration status.

Of students ineligible for Pell Grants, 12 percent were homeless, compared to 16 percent for those who did receive a Pell Grant. The difference in homeless rates between US citizens and permanent residents was less than one percent. And while students who are African American or Hispanic both were overrepresented among homeless undergraduates in the study, the largest single racial category among homeless community college students in the study is non-Hispanic white.

Even the cost of attendance, which includes tuition as well as food, room and board, books, supplies and transportation, does not greatly affect the rates of housing insecurity. The community colleges studied with the lowest cost of attendance ($11,934 per year) had a housing insecurity rate of 50 percent while the most expensive colleges ($26,563 per year) had a housing insecurity rate of 46 percent.

The one factor that the study did find that impacts the homelessness rate is whether or not a given student was a former foster youth. Almost 30 percent of community college students among this demographic who were surveyed are homeless.

Similar to the previous studies, which looked primarily at the levels of hunger amongst college students, the current research shows that working or receiving financial aid does not alleviate the stress of finding adequate housing.

More than 40 percent of homeless students have a job, and more than half of those work between 20 and 40 hours per week. One-third of homeless students are receiving student loans. And, in another indicator of the financial distress among these students, one-sixth of homeless students are getting through college through credit card loans.

There is also little federal assistance for homeless students. To quote the report, among students experiencing housing insecurity or even homelessness, less than 13 percent received any form of assistance with housing costs, and only about six percent got assistance with utilities. Even though 28 percent of students in this study have children, and of those 63 percent were food insecure and almost 13 percent were homeless, barely five percent received any child care assistance. Instead, the most common forms of support these students received were tax refunds (likely from the Earned Income Tax Credit) and Medicaid or public health insurance (e.g., via the Affordable Care Act).
Four candidates have now entered the race to succeed Thomas Mulcair as leader of Canadas New Democratic Party (NDP).

The party top brass, aided and abetted by the pseudo-left, are desperately trying to generate some excitement in the race, which will be decided in the fall, with claims that the NDP is turning left and back to its social-democratic roots.

The reality is none of the declared or potential leadership candidates has any intention of repudiating the NDPs decades-long support for capitalist austerity and imperialist war.

The candidates are Peter Julian, the former leader of the NDPs parliamentary caucus,

Member of Parliament (MP) Nikki Ashton, who mounted an unsuccessful leadership bid in 2012, and fellow MPs Charlie Angus and Guy Caron.

The leadership contest was made necessary because last years party convention, to the dismay of the party establishment and most of the trade union bureaucracy, voted to oust Mulcair in a leadership review. A key factor in the vote was rancor among NDP staffers, MPs and ex-MPs at their dashed career prospects after Mulcair led the NDP to a crushing defeat in the October 2015 federal election. Four years after the NDP, under the late Jack Layton, had formed the Official Opposition for the first time ever, it was reduced to a distant third place, winning less than 20 percent of the vote.

All four challengers to succeed Mulcair are determined to bury any substantive discussion of the NDPs 2015 debacle, including their own roles in supporting the NDPs lurch still further right. In so far as mention of it cannot be entirely avoided, they intend to place all blame on Mulcair and a handful of his aides.

When the 2015 election campaign began, the NDP was leading in the polls. To reassure big business that the NDP was ready to assume the reins of power, Mulcair, with the full support of the NDP caucus and the trade unions, responded by mounting a Conservative-lite campaign in which the NDP pledged to balance the budget, eschew any tax increases for even the wealthiest Canadians, increase military spending, and provide responsible public administration.

The NDP campaign was so right wing that the big-business Liberals, who when they last held office had imposed the biggest social spending cuts in Canadian history and led Canada into a series of US-led wars, were able to posture as the only progressive alternative to the Conservatives.

At the first NDP debate, held in Ottawa on March 12, the candidates studiously avoided any mention of Mulcair whatsoever, while cynically claiming to be left. Ashton took the lead in this. Touting her role in helping get out the vote for Bernie Sanders in the Democratic primaries, she blustered about building a movement for social and environmental change and urged the NDP to show it is proud to be a left-wing party. Directly referencing Sanderss rhetoric, which he used to boost illusions in the Democratic Party before throwing his support behind Hillary Clinton, the preferred candidate of Wall Street, Ashton defined herself as a democratic socialist.

While politely avoiding reference to Mulcair, all four candidates have worked to play up their relations with his predecessor, Layton, who died only months after the 2011 federal election.

The attempt to portray Layton as a left-wing figure and imply that the party shifted away from this under Mulcair is a fraudone that speaks volumes about the candidates left pretensions.

The leader of the federal NDP from 2003 till his death, Layton accelerated the NDPs shift to the right, pressing ahead with shredding the remnants of the partys traditional reformist program. On becoming leader, Layton successfully pressed for the NDP to drop its rhetorical opposition to NATO and supported Canada taking a leading role in the US-led neo-colonial Afghan war. Later, he would press for the purging of any reference to socialism from the party constitution. It was Layton who recruited Mulcair, a former Quebec Liberal government minister, as an NDP candidate and promoted him into the party leadership.

In 2008, Layton oversaw coalition negotiations with the Liberals, reaching an agreement that committed a Liberal-NDP government to imposing C$50 billion in additional corporate tax cuts, waging war in Afghanistan through 2011 and making fiscal responsibility a key priority. What prevented this big business coalition from coming to power was the overwhelming opposition of the ruling elite. It preferred, at that time, to rely on Harpers Conservatives and fully backed his use of the unelected Governor-General to shut down parliament so as to prevent his governments defeat.

To date, the leadership candidates have avoided comment on foreign policy issues. But the partys explicitly pro-war position was summed up by Mulcair, who, responding to the recent Liberal budget, which postponed some spending on military equipment due to problems with the procurement process, remarked, Canadians have every right to be concerned about that, because we are in desperate need of new ships for our Navy, were in desperate need of new fighter aircraft for our Air Force, and theres no way that with the type of budget weve seen here that theyre going to be getting them.

That this militarist appeal has met with no opposition from within the party comes as no surprise. Beginning with its endorsement of the NATO air war against Yugoslavia in 1999, the NDP has backed every Canadian military adventure abroad, including the Afghan war, the brutal air war in Libya in 2011 that led to the deaths of tens of thousands, and Canadas leading role in NATOs provocative military build-up against Russia. The NDP formally opposes the current Canadian Armed Forces deployment to Iraq. But it supports Canada being part of the US war coalition in Iraq and Syria and Canada arming and assisting local proxy forces.

A key role in covering up the NDPs right-wing record falls to various pseudo-left groups, which speak on behalf of privileged sections of the middle class. Fightback and Socialist Action have predictably come forward to claim that Mulcairs departure opens up the possibility of reviving the NDP and transforming it into an instrument for opposing austerity, and even fighting for socialism.

Fightback, the Canadian section of the misnamed International Marxist Tendency, has already emerged as an enthusiastic supporter of Ashton, declaring her to be standing out on the left. Only they recommend that she adopt more of Sanderss phony socialist rhetoric, so as to better corral workers and youth behind the big-business NDP.

Meanwhile, Barry Weisleder, who doubles as the head of Socialist Action and the NDPs Socialist Caucus, is helping spearhead a public campaign to persuade former Ontario Federation of Labour President Sid Ryan to throw his hat into the ring. Weisleder and Socialist Action are promoting Ryana lifelong union bureaucrat who in 2014 spearheaded the Ontario unions campaign to return to power a provincial Liberal government that had slashed social spending, broken strikes, and imposed wage-cutting contracts by government-decreeas a socialist.

Whatever their tactical differences, Fightback and Socialist Action are determined to uphold the political authority of the pro-capitalist unions and the NDP, organizations that for decades have systematically suppressed the class struggle, connived in the destruction of public services and worker rights, and provided a humanitarian guise to Canadian imperialisms ever-more bellicose foreign policy.
Two months into the administration of Donald Trump, the US military is involved in a relentless military escalation from the Baltic Sea in Eastern Europe to Central Asia, the Middle East and the Horn of Africa. The war on terror launched by the Bush administration more than fifteen years ago, having already turned much of the region into a slaughterhouse, is taking an even deadlier turn.

In extraordinary testimony to a US Congressional panel, the top military commander of US forces in the Middle East and Central Asia essentially laid out a proposal for the buildup to war against Iran, even as the Pentagon is steadily escalating a murderous bombing campaign that has killed hundreds if not thousands of civilians in Iraq and Syria.

Gen. Joseph Votel, the chief of the US Central Command, told the House Armed Services Committee Wednesday that Iran poses the greatest long-term threat to security in this part of the world and demanded that Washington act to disrupt [Iran] through military means or other means. He added, We need to look at opportunities where we can expose and hold them accountable for the things that they are doing, while calling into question the 2015 nuclear agreement signed by Iran, the US and the other major powers.

Votel went on to present the case for an expanded US military intervention in Yemen, declaring that there are vital US interests at stake in this, the most impoverished Arab country, where Saudi Arabia and its allies have waged a near-genocidal war against the population using American weapons along with indispensable US intelligence and logistical support. The remark came as the Pentagon is preparing to back an offensive by the Emirati military aimed at capturing a Red Sea port that constitutes Yemens last link between the outside world and its starving population.

Finally, Votel told the US congressman that the Pentagon is preparing to substantially increase the number of US troops in Afghanistanthe US commander there has suggested that as many as 5,000 more soldiers be sent into the more than 15-year-old war.

In the same breath, Votel asserted that it is fair to assume that Russia is providing some sort of support to [the Taliban], in terms of weapons or other things that may be there. That no one has presented any evidence to validate such an assumption did nothing to mask the significance of the US commanders remarks. The US intervention in Afghanistan is part of a military strategy aimed at confronting Washingtons key rivals for regional and global hegemony: Russia, China and Iran.

Votels testimony came just a day after the chief of the US European Command, Gen. Curtis Scaparrotti, told the same Congressional panel that he wants another full US armored divisionas many as 20,000 US troops equipped with Abrams main battle tanks, infantry combat vehicles as well as missile systems and Apache and Black Hawk helicopterspermanently deployed on Russias western borders. In addition, he called for an increased presence of US warships near the countrys shoresIt would be wonderful to have a carrier support group with amphibious forcesas well as the provision of lethal weapons to the right-wing nationalist regime in Ukraine.

Denouncing Russia for its aggression and malign activities, he described Moscow as a very lethal, tough enemy. Never mind that the $54 billion increase that President Donald Trump has proposed for the Pentagon budget is the equivalent of 80 percent of Russias military spending.

A week earlier, the head of the US Africa Command, Gen. Thomas Waldhauser, called for the Trump administration to lift the controls restricting US military operations in Somalia to pave the way for a full-scale American intervention in that impoverished African nation. The AP reported yesterday that the Trump administration has granted this request.

Functioning as 21st century proconsuls, these US regional commanders are increasingly dictating the key elements of US foreign policy. This is not an innovation introduced under the Trump administration, but rather has built up steadily over the course of a quarter century of unending US wars under both Democratic and Republican administrations alike.

Nonetheless, there are increasing indications that the Trump White House, which has installed an active-duty Army general as its national security advisor and two recently retired Marine generals as secretaries of defense and homeland security, has given a free rein to the military in conducting lethal operations abroad.

This has found its starkest expression in the murderous offensive being conducted by the Pentagon in Syria and Iraq, with US bombs reducing entire residential neighborhoods in Mosul, Iraqs second-largest city, to rubble, and killing innocent civilians in attacks on mosques and schools in Syria.

Allowing new rules of engagement that make mass civilian casualties inevitable, Washington is unceremoniously dispensing with whatever human rights window dressing was attached to the US interventions under the Obama administration, even as it pursued the same essential policy.

As much was acknowledged by a former senior Pentagon official under Obama, Andrew Exum, who commented recently, Potentially, by giving field commanders more leeway to exploit opportunities on the battlefield, the Trump administration can execute the Obama administrations strategy more efficiently.

While cynically lamenting the tragedy of this efficient slaughter of civilians in Mosul, US commanders have made it clear that new and even worse atrocities are still to come. As we move into the urban environment, it is going to become more and more difficult to apply extraordinarily high standards for things we are doing, although we will try, Votel told the House Armed Services Committee Wednesday.

Earlier, the chief of US operations in Iraq and Syria, Gen. Stephen Townsend, described the Mosul operation as the most significant urban combat to take place since World War II, characterizing it as tough and brutal.

The bulk of the brutality is now coming from the more than 500 bombs that US warplanes have dropped on the city every single week this month.

Urban combat, it should be noted, has been a key focus of US military planners in recent years. Quoting remarks by Gen. Mark Milley, the US Armys chief of staff, at a Future of War conference held last week, Military.com reported, If war is about politics, it is going to be fought where people live, and it will be fought, in my opinion, in urban areas, Milley said. That has huge implications for the United States Army.

The terrorized population of Mosulincluding an estimated 600,000 childrenis being used as guinea pigs by the US military in preparing its forces for such operations, which it sees as inevitable given the vast social polarization created by the profit system. Such future urban battles, it is well aware, will be waged not only in war-torn countries in Africa and the Middle East, but in Americas own cities.

What is most extraordinary is the absence of any organized opposition to the military bloodbath that is being systematically implemented, and that contains within it the seeds of world war. Within the political establishment, the parade of generals testifying before Congress meets nothing but fawning praise from Democrats and Republicans alike. The organizations that orbit the Democratic Party, and once professed opposition to war, remain silent or, more often, do what they can to provide the humanitarian or left justifications for imperialist slaughter.

In the final analysis, the immense power and influence of the US military and its senior commanders notwithstanding, the drive to world war is rooted not in the unleashing of the generals by Trump, but in the crisis of global capitalism and the irresolvable contradiction between world economy and the division of the globe into rival nation-states that is driving every capitalist power to rearmament and militarism, with Washington leading the pack.
At the instigation of the administration of Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, steps have been taken this month to intensify the so-called war on drugs which is being used to prepare police state measures against the working class.

The lower Congressional house has now restored the death penalty for drug-related crimes. The military formally joined Dutertes anti-drug war. The police have re-started their operations against drugs. And Duterte, after visiting the military junta in Thailand, has once again publicly threatened to impose martial law on the pretext of eliminating drugs.

Early this month, the Lower House approved House Bill No. 4727, re-imposing the penalty of Reclusion Perpetua and the death penalty for drug-related crimes. Reclusion Perpetua, a far more stringent version of life imprisonment, fixes the minimum sentence at 30 years without parole and includes a life-long ban on holding political office. The bill has now gone to the Senate where political allies of Duterte are also in majority.

Underscoring the disarray of the political party of former President Benigno Aquino III, half of the Liberal party congressmen voted for the bill. Party leaders had previously made strenuous public avowals to vote against the death penalty.

The Maoist Makabayan bloc voted against the bill. In a statement to the Sun Star Daily, Makabayan bloc member, Carlos Isagani Zarate said, The Makabayan bloc is vehemently against the measure even with its supposedly watered down version, as the death penalty bill is deliberately anti-poor. He added that this will be no different from the current spate of extra-judicial killings wherein 99 percent of the victims were poor.

Zarates opposition is entirely hypocritical. Four Makabayan members hold key positions in Dutertes cabinet and bear political responsibility for his policies, including the brutal anti-drug war.

Initially bill covered 21 crimes, including plunder of public funds, bribery and murder, but the lower house whittled the list down to just drug-related crimes, for which the maximum penalty is death and the minimum penalty is Reclusion Perpetua.

Other draconian legislative measures are also being prepared. Next in the agenda is the expansion of Dutertes war on crime to include children as young as nine years of age.

Backed by the Speaker of the House, Pantaleon Alvarez, a bill to lower the minimum age of criminal responsibility to nine years is now under deliberation. The bill declares as state policy, that the Filipino youth shall be taught to accept responsibility for their words and deeds as early as possible, and not to unduly pamper them with impunity from criminal responsibility upon reaching the age of nine years.

Also this month, the Philippine National Police has re-launched its campaign against drugs. This time, Police Chief Ronald dela Rosa claimed, we will make sure that this will become less bloody if not bloodless campaign.

Within 24 hours, the police announced eight crime suspects have been killed in separate gun battles and another 21 have been arrested in the province of Bulacan, just north of Manila. Within a week, the police reported an additional nine crime suspects had been killed and 446 arrested nationwide.

The official numbers are now 60 killed from police operations, over 4,000 alleged drug suspects arrested, over 23,000 drug users surrendering to the police and more than 205,000 houses visited by police in the house-to-house campaign of intimidation.

The previous campaign from July 2016 to January 2017 resulted in over 2,500 drug suspects killed in police operations with a 97-percent kill rate, that, according to the Reuters news agency, was the strongest proof yet that the police were summarily shooting drug suspects.

The police also went to over 6,800,000 houses threatening and bullying residents, resulting in more than 1,175,000 million declaring themselves either drug addicts or drug suspects or both.

Another 4,525 were killed and attributed to death squads which, according to Amnesty International, have closed links to, and paid off by, the police.

The police campaign was brought to a halt following the exposure of police involvement in the kidnapping for extortion and murder of South Korean businessman Jee Ick Joo in December 2016. The ensuing public controversy forced Duterte to pull the police off his war on drugs and to make a show of cleaning up the force. Some 40 percent were accused of corruption and a score of officers were sent off to war-ridden posts in the southern Philippines.

While the police no longer reports the number of alleged drug suspects killed by death squads, the summary or extrajudicial killings continue albeit at a slower rate of about five per day, down from 30 murders a day.

Duterte has also moved to militarize and centralize the war on drugs. He has formed the Inter-Agency Committee on Anti-Illegal Drugs composed representatives from 21 government entities, including the defense department, the armed forces, the national police, agriculture department, and even the education department.

Significantly, the social welfare department headed by the Maoist Judy Taguiwalo has also been included in the committee, underscoring the political complicity of the Maoists in Dutertes war on drugs.

Nominally headed by the civilian Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA), the military has assigned a 500-man task force to provide the muscle to the committees operations.

The real purpose of the war on drugs is to establish a vast police-state apparatus that will be used to suppress social opposition from workers and the poor. It is no accident that the vast majority of the victims of the war on drugs come from the poorest layers of society.

Social tensions are already erupting. In the same week that the police re-launched their war on drugs, hundreds of urban poor took over 5,000 units of unoccupied government housing at five sites in the province of Bulacan, near Manila.

More have followed suit. As of March 17, an estimated 15,000 homeless have reported to have occupied a total 8,500 units of empty government housing despite Duterte accusing them of anarchy and warning of brutal eviction.

Duterte is openly preparing for dictatorship. In 25 speeches and interviews since August 2016, he has either threatened to impose martial law or insisted he already had the power to impose draconian measures anyway. The president has repeatedly outlined how he could end the limits to martial law set by the 1987 constitution.

In March 24, speaking to the Federation of Filipino-Chinese Chambers of Commerce of the advantages of martial law, Duterte chillingly stated: There is no more court. I do not have to go to the court to apply for a search warrant. I do not have to go the courts to secure a warrant of arrest. Martial law, just like [the dictator] Mr. Marcos, he used the aso (Arrest, Search, Seizure Order). Its a cruel process and it is taken care of by the military.

These preparations for dictatorial rule are being advanced as opposition grows to the brutal methods of the anti-drug war. Opinion surveys, while reported by the media as revealing strong support for Duterte himself, nevertheless indicate deep hostility to his police state measures and the danger of dictatorship.

A Social Weather Station survey conducted in December, revealed that an overwhelming 80 percent of the population feared that they or a loved one would be killed as part of Duterte's war on drugs. Some 94 percent wanted illegal drug trade suspects be arrested and kept alive. Over 60 percent declared that extrajudicial killing was not a solution but a serious problem of the current administration.

Even more revealing, another survey, conducted by Pulse Asia in January 2017, showed that 74 percent of the public disagreed with imposing martial law for any reason. Significantly, among the working class and the poor, it found that opposition to martial law skyrocketed from 12 percent in September 2016 to 76 percent in December 2016.

The ruling elites are acutely aware, that amid the growing danger of US imperialist war against China and Russia and the deepening crisis of the global capitalism, a social explosion of the working class and poor, internationally and in the Philippines, will sooner rather than later occur and are preparing accordingly.
The Geneseo chapter of the International Youth and Students for Social Equality, the youth group of the Socialist Equality Party, held a protest on the campus of the State University of New York College at Geneseo (SUNY Geneseo), in which about 70 students participated.

SUNY Geneseo, a small public college south of Rochester, New York, was the site of a spontaneous protest after last weeks arrest of an extended family of eight people, five of whom are US citizen children. Two of the family members were processed by immigration officials and may face deportation, which would tear the family apart, and another was already in the immigration system. (The World Socialist Web Site has extensively covered this outrage, including in a photo essay.)

Despite being organized on such a short noticeless than a week after the arrest of the familythere was a significant response from students, as well as some professors and other area residents. Several IYSSE members spoke during the protest, which also included a portion where students could speak against the anti-immigrant measures.

Josh, an IYSSE member, told the assembled crowd: Immigrants have been among the first targets of the Trump administration. They are our friends, our family, our co-workers, our classmates. But Trump, the conman, says that theyre criminals.

He continued: Who are the real criminals? A family escaping Guatemala, where the US backed a genocidal junta? Or the Border Patrol officers who tear apart families? Who are the real criminals? Workers trying to make ends meet in a new country? Or the US government, which killed over 500 civilians in an airstrike in Mosul last week?

Who are the real criminals? People falsely accused of stealing jobs? Or the Congress that just voted to steal from you your Internet privacy? Who are the real criminals? People dislocated by gang violence? Or a government that has deported almost 3 million people since 2008?

We say the real criminals are not those who work on farms in Livingston County, but are in the White House and the Pentagon!

Josh then led the crowd in chanting, An injury to one is an injury to all, which has long been a slogan of the workers movement.

Eric London, who writes for the WSWS on immigration issues, told the crowd: When a peasant from El Salvador or Guatemala, whose parents may have been killed by right-wing militia, death squads, dictators backed by the CIA and the US government, comes here, theyre thrown in jail, separated from their children and then, if theyre lucky enough to get out of immigration court, they live in poverty in America working every day just so that they can send their children to school. That is life under capitalism.

After an interruption by applause, he continued, In the US...20 percent of married couples include at least one person who is an immigrant. In Europe, the figures are similar. Humanity is breaking down, through the process of its organic social development, the national boundaries that stand in the way of our developmentas a human race.

What purpose do these borders serve? Think about it. The Democratic and Republican parties always tell us that its for national security that we have to monitor immigrants. Its always national security. Whenever the rich want to do something bad, they call it national security. You ever notice that? Does anybody think that these two Guatemalan mothers and their childrenincluding a three-month-old baby, who is just as much of an American citizen as those of us here who are American citizensdoes anybody think they are a national security threat? Does anybody here think that family is a threat to the national security of the United States?

To both questions, those in attendance responded with loud shouts of No!

London cited the demands of the IYSSE and SEP to dismantle ICE and the CIA and nationalize the banks, to further applause from the crowd.

After the protest, London addressed a meeting on the history behind the Trump administrations attacks on immigrants, which are an escalation of anti-democratic measures by previous administrations, particularly Obamas, as well as the political strategy necessary to fight back and defend immigrants rights.

Billy, a SUNY Geneseo student who attended the protest, told the WSWS, I think its important to defend immigrant rights because the circumstances of your birth shouldnt determine the circumstances of the rest of your life.

Bree, another student who attended the protest and meeting, told the WSWS afterward why she thought it was important to defend immigrant rights: I believe it is important to stand up in opposition against social injustice. If we dont act, then we are taking the side of the oppressor. It is up to each of us, no matter what point of life we are in, to provide a voice to the voiceless.

She continued, The meeting that followed the demonstration emphasized Marxian principles of the corruptness of capitalism. By accepting a system that allows a small number of individuals to possess a vast amount of wealth while others are forced to live an impoverished life, we are allowing the decay of our society.

She concluded, I believe the time is now to collectively fight against the system in order to promote an egalitarian society.
The Australian government is threatening to cut as many as 30,000 asylum seekers, currently living in the country on insecure bridging visas, off their limited work and welfare rights unless they complete a 60-page complex legal application for a new visa within 60 days.

This could the first step toward mass deportations. The Liberal-National Coalitions decision to send out fast track assessment letters to the refugees marks a further escalation of the violation of the basic democratic and legal rights of asylum seekers by one government after another.

As a result of the anti-refugee measures of the previous Labor government, some 24,000 asylum seekers who reached Australia by boat between August 2012 and January 2014 have been living ever since on temporary bridging visas, with no right to family reunion.

They are part of what the federal governments para-military Border Force agency this month referred to as a legacy of 30,000 IMAs [illegal maritime arrivals] whose claims for protection had not been progressed. This reference to illegal flies in the face of the 1951 Refugee Convention, which enshrines the right to flee persecution, and not be punished or discriminated against for doing so.

Under legislation introduced by the current government in late 2014, some of these refugees can apply for two types of short-term visas: Temporary Protection Visas (TPVs) or Safe Haven Enterprise Visas (SHEV). However, as one of the restrictive conditions on these visas, they have been forced to wait for government invitations to even apply for them.

Now, many have been issued letters by the Department of Immigration and Border Protection, given them 60 days, or in succeeding letters 30 or 14 days, to complete application forms that require detailed answers to over 100 questions, including specifying each address they lived at in the past 30 years.

If asylum seekers do not complete their applications in time they could be cut off their bridging visas, making them liable to indefinite detention or removal back to their countries of origin to face possible mistreatment, torture or death.

The Fast Track Assessment program was established by the 2014 legislation, which also expanded ministerial powers and stripped asylum seekers of the right to challenge visa refusals via tribunal hearings. Instead, appeals are conducted on the papers by an Immigration Assessment Authority (IAA) panel, without the applicants having the right to produce new evidence or appear in person.

Since the IAA commenced operation, the asylum application success rate has dropped from 90 percent to 70 percent. The 2014 legislation effectively cut all funding to the Immigration Advice and Application Scheme, a legal service for asylum seekers. This forced many refugees, who struggle to read and write in English, to rely on non-government legal services, often staffed by volunteers, which have long waiting lists.

Kon Karapanagiotidis, CEO of the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre, which has 1,150 people on its waiting list, told the Huffington Post that the government was trying to create such terror and panic in people that they lodge without legal assistance to make it easier to reject and remove people.

The visas for which asylum seekers can apply also violate basic right and international refugee law. They deny permanent protection from persecution, instead leaving refugees in legal limbo.

TPVs must be reviewed every three years, so that refugees are in constant fear of deportation and find it difficult to secure work and accommodation. Many are living in dire conditions, relying on charities, welfare payments set at 89 percent of poverty line unemployment benefits, and minuscule rental assistance payments.

TPV holders are legally barred from ever applying for any kind of permanent visa to live in Australia. Also, they cannot bring families to Australia, or leave the country without permission. The only purpose of these restrictions is to coerce them into leaving Australia.

SHEVs are even more oppressive. They were conceived as a means of turning asylum seekers into cheap labour, forced to seek work in rural or regional areas without any guarantee of minimum wage or conditions. If refugees work or study in designated zones in regional Australia for three and a half years without seeking welfare support, they will be eligible to apply for other visas, including permanent ones, where they satisfy the relevant criteria. That is, they must have nominated skills, employer-sponsorship or close family ties.

The plight of the 30,000 legacy refugees is the direct responsibility of the previous Labor government, which was kept in office by the Greens from 2010 to 2013, as well as of the current Coalition government.

These asylum seekers were the last to land in Australia before the Labor government reopened the refugee prison camps on Nauru and Manus Island, Papua New Guinea in 2012, and declared that all future arrivals would be sent there. In July 2013, the Labor government then shut the border permanently, saying no refugees who arrived by boat would ever to be permitted to settle in Australia.

The levels of stress on asylum seekers forced to live on bridging visas, constantly watched and hounded by immigration officials, have driven a number to suicide, including a 21-year-old Rohingya man who had fled Burma as an unaccompanied teenager and set himself on fire on the floor of a bank in Melbourne.

The Turnbull Coalition government is now preparing to take that inhumane policy to its ultimate conclusion of removing tens of thousands of refugees from the country. Like the governments in the US, across Europe and around the world, Australia is victimising some of the worlds most desperate and vulnerable people often driven to seek asylum as a result of criminal US-led interventions and wars.
MATTOON -- The Mobile Vet Center is scheduled to make a stop on Friday in Coles County.

Mobile Vet Center staff will discuss U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs services and benefits, including those offered by the center, from 9:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. Friday at Mattoon VFW Post 4325, 1220 S. 19th St.

The center's staff consists of outreach specialists and readjustment counselors. Most of them are veterans. They are trained and certified to assist veterans, family members and the general public on a first-come, first-served basis on a range of veteran issues to make appropriate referrals and to provide counseling services on post-war readjustment.

Mobile Vet Center staff members will speak with veterans from all eras. They encourage all veterans to come learn more about the VA programs, benefits and support that they may be eligible for, and what the Mobile Vet Center can offer.

The Vet Center's mission is to welcome home war veterans with honor by providing quality readjustment counseling in a caring manner. Vet Center staff members understand and appreciate veterans' war experiences, while assisting them and their family toward a successful post-war adjustment in or near their community.

Vet Centers provide individual, family, and group counseling services for combat related readjustment, as well as military sexual trauma. Vet Centers also provide bereavement counseling services to surviving parents, spouses, children, and siblings of service members.

Vet Centers respect the privacy of all clients, and they hold information in the strictest confidence. No information will be communicated to any person or agency without written consent except in necessary circumstances to avert a crisis.

Operation Iraqi Freedom Marine Corps Veteran John Mizer, a licensed social worker is the outreach specialist for the Mobile Vet Center and will be on hand to discuss services and benefits with veterans, family, and community members. He can be reached at 217-306-8108 or at john.mizer@va.gov.
The first public hearing of the Senate Intelligence Committee on alleged Russian interference in the 2016 US elections was a calculated exercise in warmongering propaganda, in which Democrats and Republicans joined forces to demonize Russian President Vladimir Putin and depict Russia as a global threat to US interests.

In a significant shift from the campaign waged over the past several months, through leaks from US intelligence agencies depicting the Democratic Party and the Hillary Clinton campaign as the main target of Russian activities, the Senate hearing heard claims that Russian cyber-operations had targeted Republicans and Democrats alike.

These purportedly included the presidential and US Senate campaigns of Marco Rubio, as well as House Speaker Paul Ryan, allegedly targeted by a Russian disinformation campaign last week, in the wake of his failure to win passage of legislation repealing Obamacare.

While no evidence was presented of the supposed attacks on Rubio and Ryanjust as no evidence has been provided that Russian operatives hacked the Clinton campaignthe effect of these charges was to present the issue of Russian cyberattacks as a threat to both parties that required a bipartisan response by the US government and its military and intelligence agencies.

We are all targets of a sophisticated and capable adversary and we must engage in a whole-of-government approach to combat Russian active measures. That was the message delivered by Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr, a North Carolina Republican, as the hearing opened. He added that efforts by Russia to discredit the United States and weaken the West are not new, as he introduced a panel of experts who claimed that the Putin regime was merely continuing the methods of the Soviet-era KGB.

The committees vice chairman, Democrat Mark Warner of Virginia, a multimillionaire telecom CEO before entering politics, claimed that Russian President Vladimir Putin was responsible for a deluge of disinformation in a broader attempt to undermine Americas strength and leadership throughout the world.

Warner emphasized that Republicans as well as Democrats were the victims of Russian-sponsored hacking and fake news, making a bipartisan response necessary. I want to make clear, at least for me: This is not about whether you have a D or an R next to your name, he said. It is not about relitigating last falls election. It is about clearly understanding and responding to this very real threat.

Senator Rubiowho participated in the hearing as a member of the Intelligence Committeeclaimed that his election campaign aides were targeted by hacking attacks from unknown IP addresses within Russia, both last summer, when he was running for reelection as a senator, and as recently as Wednesday, the day before the hearing.

The attack against Paul Ryan was revealedwithout any supporting evidenceby Clint Watts, a former FBI agent and now a cyber expert at the Foreign Policy Research Institute Program on National Security. Watts claimed that a Russian-sponsored social media campaign had been launched against Ryan hoping to foment further unrest amongst US democratic institutions.

Watts told reporters outside the hearing that other Republican presidential candidates had been targeted by Russian active measures to sow disinformation, and that gray outlets continued issuing tweets directed at President Trump at high volumes when they know he is online, pushing conspiracy theories, hoping he will retweet them.

Another witness, retired General Keith Alexander, former director of the National Security Agency, said the Trump administration needed to pressure Russia to back off on cyberattacks. The US government should let Russia know what things they cant do and why they cannot do those, and he urged the committee to adopt a bipartisan approach for the good of the nation.

The Senate hearing marked a distinct shift in the focus of the Russian hacking story as it has been developed over the past six months and used to fight out foreign policy differences in Washington.

Not only did the witnesses declare that Russia had attacked Republican and Democrats alike, but they conflated the circulation of unfavorable news stories (whether true or false), the spreading of rumors on social media, and outright hacking to obtain private documents, branding all of these illegitimate and even criminal. The logical conclusion would be to restrict all political commentary during a US election campaign to what is approved by the two officially sanctioned capitalist parties.

The anti-democratic implications of this line of argument were brought out in an extraordinary exchange between Rubio and the former FBI agent Watts. Rubio declared that the Putin regime was engaging in a blitzkrieg ... of informational warfare aimed at fomenting social divisions within the United States. Watts replied that there were many instances of fake news intended to steer Americans unwittingly in many different directions that can cause all sorts of danger and even violence in certain cases.

After the hearing, Rubio expanded on the theme, telling reporters that Russian operatives use things like Ferguson, like Occupy Wall Street, legitimate movements in America ... but then they try amplify on that and exacerbate it in the hopes of then being able to report back to the world and their own people that Americas a disaster. Its not new, but they now have the Internet and technology that they can use to rapidly spread exaggerated news and sometimes false news in a way that furthers their aims.

Such comments point to the real danger that any upsurge of social struggles in the United States, any challenge by the working class to the policies of Wall Street and American imperialism, will be branded the work of Russian agents.

The Senate hearing was almost overshadowed in media coverage of Thursdays events by the House side of the investigation, focused on the backlash against the secret briefing given by House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes to President Trump last week.

The New York Times reported on its web site Thursday afternoon that two White House officials had supplied Nunes information about US intelligence agencies monitoring the communications between Trump transition officials and foreign governments. Nunes then made a surreptitious visit to the White House to brief Trump on material supplied by Trumps own aides.

The Times named the two officials as Ezra Cohen-Watnick, the senior director for intelligence at the National Security Council, and Michael Ellis, a lawyer in the White House Counsels Office with the title assistant to the president, who formerly worked on the staff of the House Intelligence Committee, giving him a direct connection to Nunes.

Within minutes of the appearance of this story, the White House sent a letter to top Republican and top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee and the Senate Intelligence Committee, inviting them to view materials relating to the incidental collection of Trump transition team communicationspresumably similar to the material that was shown to Nunes alone last week.

Nunes has indicated that the interception of communications between Trump transition officials and foreign governments was due to the monitoring of foreign government officials, not the monitoring of Trump aides. Thus it would not vindicate Trumps claim, tweeted on March 4, that President Obama had ordered the wiretapping of Trump Tower during the election campaign. However, Trump claimed that Nuness revelation did amount to a partial vindication.

Whether the US government bugged Trump Tower is a secondary question, and given the size of the US intelligence apparatus, and the myriad techniques for surveillance, a question for which a definitive answer is hardly possible.

What is clear is that the entire campaign around supposed Russian hacking during the 2016 election has been mounted for the purpose of shifting the foreign policy of the Trump administration and compelling the White House to continue the campaign of confronting Russia in the Middle East, Ukraine and the Baltic states, embarked on by the Obama administration and backed by the military-intelligence apparatus.
The verdict of the Cologne regional court that Humboldt University professor Jorg Baberowski can be described by the Bremen University Student Union (Asta) as a right-wing extremist has triggered hysterical reactions from his defenders. The conservative Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ) published a long article on Monday aimed at defaming and silencing his critics with shameless lies and gross slanders.

The FAZ claims that the Sozialistische Gleichheitspartei (Socialist Equality Party, SGP) and its youth organization, the International Youth and Students for Social Equality (IYSSE), carried out a character assassination of a popular professor. The author, Heike Schmoll, indulges in crude conspiracy theories and tall tales about supposed American financiers who are inciting students at Humboldt University against Baberowski.

The fact that one of the largest bourgeois newspapers in Germany operates with lies that are so absurd and fabricated shows how concerned the ruling elites are about the growing opposition to their war policy. Therefore, Schmoll complains about the effective Trotskyist group that is fighting against the transformation of universities into ideological centres of militarism and which, with seven percent of the vote, received more support in the Humboldt University student parliament elections than the Association of Christian Democratic Students, the Greens and the Left Party.

The IYSSE has been able to extend its influence because it advances a socialist perspective against the growing threat of war. In January, the IYSSE stood a slate of candidates for the Student Parliament to build a movement against militarism and war, social inequality and the rise of the right. We want to prevent Humboldt University again being transformed into a centre for right-wing and militarist ideologies as during the First and Second World War, it said in its election manifesto.

With Trumps election, a representative of the extreme right has come to power in the US, and its policies will inevitably lead to war. The German elites are exploiting Trumps election victory as an excuse to promote their plans for a more independent foreign and military policy. What is planned, is a doubling of the military budget, more missions abroad and recruiting thousands of new soldiers, the IYSSE has noted.

With her gutter journalism, Schmoll is trying to defame this criticism of the governments war policy by recasting it as character assassination. In fact, the IYSSE campaign was never about a personal vendetta against individual professors at Humboldt University, but a fight against the return of German militarism.

In the ideological preparation for new wars and the transformation of the university, professors such as Baberowski and political scientist Herfried Munkler play an important role. This is what the IYSSE has shown in detail in leaflets, at public events and in the book Scholarship or War Propaganda? Munkler insists that Germany should become a hegemon and the disciplinarian of Europe in order to play a role in world politics. He favours the expansion of military interventions and the procurement of combat drones.

Baberowski goes even further. He has repeatedly argued for a harsh crackdown on terrorists. Indifference is just another word for cowardice, he wrote in the Basler Zeitung. Those who understand no other language than violence, should also get to feel it. At the beginning of 2016, he said in the politics magazine Cicero, Terror can only be met with violent means. The terrorists must themselves be made to feel terror.

Baberowski combines canvassing for war with foul nationalism and xenophobia. The integration of several million people into Germany disturbed our traditional continuity, which provides social stability and consistency, he said in September 2015 in the FAZ . His latest column in the Basler Zeitung, which glorified the nation state and its borders, was hailed immediately by Bjorn Hocke, who stands on the far-right of the Alternative for Germany (AfD).

Munkler and Baberowski are conscious that the return of militarism and nationalism in Germany will be met with overwhelming opposition, given the experiences of history. That is why they want to rewrite history to whitewash the crimes of German imperialism. In 2014, in the Suddeutsche Zeitung, Munkler had already declared, It is difficult to conduct a responsible policy in Europe if you have the idea: We have been to blame for everything. With regard to 1914, that is a legend.

Baberowski has taken on the task of relativizing the crimes of the Nazis. In February 2014, he defended the Nazi apologist Ernst Nolte in Der Spiegel, stating, Nolte was done an injustice, historically speaking, he was right. As proof of this statement, he said: Hitler was no psychopath, and he wasnt vicious. He didnt want people to talk about the extermination of the Jews at his table. He also likened shootings in Russia in 1918 with the Holocaust by saying, Basically it was the same thing: industrial homicide.

These apologias for the Nazis run like a thread through Baberowskis work. In 2009, he wrote that the differences between Stalinism and Nazism had predominated when you tell their pre-war history. And from a moral perspective, this comparison does not fall in favour of the Bolsheviks. Baberowski continually presents the violence of the Wehrmacht (Hitlers Army) against the civilian population on the Eastern Front as a result of the war conducted by the Red Army.

It is these monstrous historical lies that Schmoll so vehemently defends in the FAZ . She accuses the IYSSE of presuming to decide on historical truth. As if it were an open question that the Nazis planned the war of destruction! And as if it were a matter of debate whether Hitler was a cruel mass murderer!

With her incessant talk of censorship and the prevention of an exchange of views by the IYSSE, Schmoll wants nothing more than to suppress criticism of these right-wing positions. Anyone who criticizes the call for war and militarism is practicing censorship, in her view. Those who do not want to accept nationalism and xenophobia are seeking to prevent an exchange of opinions, according to this right-wing theologian. In fact, it is not a matter of defending freedom of expression, but rather of the freedom of the ruling elites from any criticism.

In the 1980s, the FAZ had already provided Ernst Nolte with a platform, and thus triggered the Historikerstreit (historians dispute). Now it is seeking to rehabilitate his reactionary theses and make extreme right-wing and militarist positions acceptable. It is in the FAZ that Baberowski agitates against refugees and Munkler calls for combat drones. The paper is protecting them both against student criticism.

The reason is that the FAZ shares the views of the professors and is one of the driving forces of German militarism. Even the announcement of a massive increase in military spending does not go far enough for the newspaper.

Last November, FAZ co-publisher Berthold Kohler called for Germany to acquire nuclear weapons. On November 28, in response to Trumps election, he called for higher spending on defence, the revival of conscription, drawing red linesand for German brains, utterly unthinkable, the question of ones own nuclear deterrent capability.

Such bellicose and reckless comments can be found almost daily in the FAZ , and they are now the official programme of the German government. While Chancellor Angela Merkel (Christian Democratic Union) calls for a doubling of the military budget, Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel (Social Democratic Party) demands the internal and external military capacity of the EU be stepped up. The deep crisis of capitalism is bringing back the ghosts of the past everywhere.

The level of lies and dishonesty in Schmolls commentary reveals how intense the social contradictions have become. While the ruling elites are determined to revive German militarism, workers and young people reject this madness. The ruling class has no other way of enforcing its policy than through lies and violence.

The inflammatory article in the FAZ must therefore be taken as a warning. The ruling class is willing to enforce its agenda against the population using any and all means. For their part, workers must prepare for this confrontation by building the SGP as the German section of the International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI).

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Jorg Baberowski: A right-wing extremist professor

[29 March 2017]
There are significant historical and social questions raised by the campaign to censor and even suppress Open Casket, artist Dana Schutzs painting of murdered black youth Emmett Till.

The article by New York Times art critic Roberta Smith, Should Art That Infuriates Be Removed? (March 27, 2017), is illustrative of the manner in which the American media evades or conceals most of those questions.

The 14-year-old Till was murdered by racists in Mississippi in 1955, and his mother insisted on an open casket at his funeral, so that the world could see what savagery had been committed against him. Tills killers were acquitted by an all-white jury, although there was little or no question about their guilt.

The inclusion of Schutzs painting, inspired by a photograph of the mutilated Till in his casket, in the current 2017 Whitney Biennial (at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City), provoked protests. Various African American artists complained that Schutz, who is white, was illegitimately exploiting black suffering and death for her own profit or advancement. An open letter from video artist Hannah Black demanded not only that the painting be removed from the Biennial, but that it be destroyed and not entered into any market or museum. An online petition making that reprehensible demand, and signed by two dozen or more black artists, has apparently been taken down.

The American media establishment clearly senses that in the case of the Schutz painting, the identity politics zealots may have overstepped the bounds. As far as sections of the ruling elite are concerned, the insistence that white artists have no right to represent black experience, and that a work daring to do so ought to be physically destroyedwith its echoes of fascist book- and painting-burning in the 1930sdangerously exposes the right-wing character of these forces and may diminish their political and ideological usefulness.

The New York Times and its veteran art critic intervened to perform a type of intellectual damage control. The heart of Smiths article lies in her effort to simultaneously register disapproval of the most strident arguments of Hannah Black and company while affirming and reinforcing the basic tenets of identity politics and racialized thinking generally.

Smith begins her comment with this observation: We all encounter art we dont like, that upsets and infuriates us. This doesnt deserve to be exhibited, our brains yell; it should not be allowed to exist. Still, does such aversion mean that an artwork must be removed from viewor, worse, destroyed? After explaining the details of the Whitney controversy, she continues: The artist, Ms. Schutz, is white, and her use of the images has struck many in the art world as an inappropriate appropriation that, they argue, should be removed.

Smiths approach is defensive and equivocal: who is being infuriated by the painting and is their sentiment in any way warranted? To identify the aversion toward Schutzs work as legitimate is already to accept a retrograde, racialized framework. The painter is not appropriating images that belong to someone else, but responding as an artist and a human being to an atrocity committed against another human being.

Blacks open letter asserted that it is not acceptable for a white person to transmute Black suffering into profit and fun. Of course, fun was simply added out of malice, but the use of the word profit was not accidental (although Schutz has made it clear the painting is not for sale), nor is Blacks later reference to the issues in the Whitney case as involving a high-stakes conversation. In effect, the open letter signatories and their allies are insisting that they be granted the ethnic franchise or monopoly on such imagery, with all the money and prestige that might entail.

Smith carries on in her March 27 article: The discussion was upsetting, bracing, ultimately beneficial. Is the censorship, much less the destruction of art, abhorrent? Yes. Should people offended or outraged by an artwork or an exhibition mount protests? Absolutely. And might a museum have the foresight to frame a possibly controversial work of art through labels or programming? Yes, that, too.

The idea of destroying art is abhorrent, according to Smith, but those who proposed it had every right to be offended or outraged. But there is a necessary connection between the reactionary character of the outrage and the sinister appeal for the work to be destroyed. No one with a serious concern for either the elementary right of freedom of artistic expression or historical truth would advance such a demand. The Nazi-like proposal arises inexorably from the exclusivist, right-wing program of ethnic communalism and chauvinism. This is one of the central issuesthe profoundly anti-democratic character of affluent middle class identity politicsthat Smith wishes, above all, to avoid.

(The Bolsheviks, after the 1917 revolution, proposed to retain statues and other monuments devoted to the tsarist regime, a regime responsible for mass misery and death, that were of historic or artistic valueand those that had no such value, they put in storage.)

The Times has spearheaded the broad campaign by the US media and important sections of the political establishment to frame every important feature of social life in terms of race or gender. At a time when a handful of corporate billionaires have a stranglehold on American society, and every section of the working class is suffering, the Timess editors would have us believe that the only burning questions are those related to personal identity. The newspapers culture pages have contributed mightily to this effort.

In 2014, for example, Smith gave her critical blessing to Emma Sulkowiczs Mattress Performance (Carry That Weight), the Columbia students self-promoting protest against an alleged rape. The male student involved was cleared of all charges, despite the anti-democratic character of the Office of Gender-Based and Sexual Misconduct proceedings at Columbia, where the mere preponderance of evidence standard holds sway.

Smith, in her review, In a Mattress, a Lever for Art and Political Protest (September 21, 2014), argued that Sulkowiczs Carry That Weightduring which the student carried a 50-pound mattress wherever she wentwas a succinct and powerful performance piece that is her senior art thesis as well as her protest against sexual assault on campus.

The Times critic accepted virtually without question Sulkowiczs version of events, writing that Carry That Weight might be called an artwork of last resort. It is the culmination of two years of pain, humiliation, frustration and righteous anger that began in 2012, and It is so simple: A woman with a mattress, refusing to keep her violation private, carrying with her a stark reminder of where it took place.

Smith and the Times have absolutely no credibility on these issues. They form a heavily invested party.

Christopher Benson, co-author with Tills mother, Mamie Till-Mobley, of Death of Innocence: The Story of the Hate Crime That Changed America (2003), offered a more humane and democratic approach March 28 in an op-ed column (The Image of Emmett Till) in the Times.

Benson writes: The death of Emmett Till was more than an isolated act of race hatred by white terrorists. It was enforcement of a social hierarchy in which place, privilege and power are maintained through intimidation, threat and violence.

For Emmetts mother, what happened to her son was not just an African-American story, it was also an American story, mapping a national journey to fulfilling the promise of freedom, justice and equality for all.

He further notes, She welcomed the megaphone effect of a wider audience reached by multiple storytellers, irrespective of race, before raising questions about the dangers that exist in the framing and representation of black people by others who lack the cultural connection.

The other critical question that Roberta Smith chooses to ignore is the reactionary pedigree of national and racial particularism.

She cites a few examples of what she refers to as ethnic crossovers. The Times s art critic points to the series of paintings by Ben Shahn, a white Jewish artist, devoted to the persecution of immigrants Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti in Massachusetts during the 1920s. She further notes that it was a white Jewish schoolteacher and songwriter, Abel Meeropol, who wrote the wrenchingly beautiful Strange Fruit, an anti-lynching ballad made famous by Billie Holiday.

In the interest of being even-handed, Smith then refers to the presumably legitimate hostility with which a number of black writers greeted white novelist William Styrons The Confessions of Nat Turner after its publication in 1967.

But this all begs the question. Even to suggest that such work as Shahns, Meeropols or Styrons is a crossover, i.e., an oddity, is an insult to the artists and to their art. They likely would not have thought of the matter in those terms. The significant artist, as much as he or she is shaped by particular conditions, must have the principle of universality in his or her blood.

The claim that there are insurmountable differences between nationalities and ethnicities, as we have noted, has been the program of reaction since the time of the Enlightenment and the French Revolution. Historian Jacques Godechot, for example, explains that for the Anglo-Irishman Edmund Burke, a ferocious enemy of the 1789 revolution, There is a British people, a French people, a German people, who are fundamentally different from each other, and each of them evolves according to its own law. Another arch-reactionary opponent of the French Revolution, Joseph de Maistre, the man who once charmingly argued that Humanity only survives through the hangman and religion, commented that he had seen Frenchmen, Italians, Russians, and so on  but I must say, as for man, I have never come across him anywhere. In more recent times, notorious Nazi jurist Carl Schmitt put it simply, Whoever says humanity lies.

A considerable section of what passes for the intelligentsia in America today is so saturated with backward and foul racialism or gender obsession, takes this identity outlook so much for granted, that the desire of artists, past or present, to treat life honestly and with compassion appears surprising and exceptional.
Late Wednesday night, the Venezuelan Supreme Court issued a ruling stripping the countrys legislative branch of its lawmaking powers, ostensibly over the opposition-controlled National Assemblys insistence on installing three legislators whose election was overturned over alleged voting irregularities.

The international corporate media has called the move a coup detat, claiming that the government of Nicolas Maduro has established a dictatorship. In a leading editorial posted online yesterday, Spains El Pais said the decision is extremely serious, without parallel since Venezuelas institutional crisis began and marks a step toward the establishment of dictatorships akin to the US-backed juntas that plagued South and Central America in the 1970s and 1980s. The US State Department issued a strong public condemnation of the courts decision.

There is nothing progressive in Maduros maneuver, aimed at shoring up institutional support for a government that is deeply unpopular among the Venezuelan working class.

Despite its pretensions of promoting Bolivarian socialism, Maduro heads a capitalist state whose nationalist program has produced a social crisis leading to the impoverishment of the vast majority of the Venezuelan working class. Under Chavez and Maduro, the government brutally repressed social opposition in the working class, which has thus far taken the form of food riots and isolated strikes.

But the primary danger to the Venezuelan working class comes from those very forces denouncing the move as a coup. Beneath the surface of the intensifying crisis, US imperialism is gathering the forces of the extreme right in an attempt to open up the country to unfettered exploitation by the American oil companies.

The Venezuelan opposition, a right-wing mix of opportunist plotters and CIA assets, has responded to the maneuver by threatening military dictatorship. Proving their democratic pretenses to be a fraud, the president of the National Assembly, Julio Borges, told El Nacional, We have to call on the National Armed Forces, they cannot remain silent, they cannot remain silent in the face of the violation of the Constitution.

Another opposition lawmaker told the New York Times, The people chose us through a popular vote. But the popular vote did not stop the opposition from attempting to orchestrate a coup against the democratically elected Chavez government in 2002, leading to the deaths of dozens of demonstrators.

In recent weeks, the US has heightened pressure on Venezuela in an indication that the Trump administration is seeking to force Maduros hand and provoke a crisis that brings about the fall of the government.

Speaking in advance of an extraordinary session of the Organization of American States (OAS) on Tuesday, Senator Marco Rubio said the government would suspend aid to Haiti, El Salvador, and the Dominican Republic unless the countries voted to suspend Venezuela from the OAS.

The Democratic Party-aligned press has led the way in calling for a more aggressive stance toward Venezuela.

As if anticipating heightened tensions, a New York Times editorial on March 29 said Venezuela must implement macroeconomic reforms aimed at opening up the country to Wall Streets exploitation. These proposals could become harder to reject if a large international coalition presents them to the Venezuelan people as assistance that should not be interpreted as an affront to their countrys sovereignty.

On March 19, the Washington Post published an editorial titled, Trump has an opportunity to correct Obamas mistake on Venezuela, which argued that Obamas strategy of mediation with the Venezuelan government was a feckless failure and that collective action is imperative to restore Venezuelan society. The Post editorial encouraged the Trump administration to take a harder line against the Maduro government.

In February, the Trump administration launched a new round of sanctions against Venezuelan Vice President Tareck El Aissami, accusing him of drug trafficking and money laundering. Michael Fitzpatrick, deputy assistant secretary of state for the Western Hemisphere, said: We need to act with urgency and clarity of purpose for indeed, as the saying goes, the whole world is watching, [The sanctions are] important for the OAS, which is fulfilling its responsibility to safeguard democracy.

The move followed a letter signed by a bipartisan group of 34 US senators and congresspersons addressed to Trump, which read: We urge you to exercise [your] authorities and send a strong signal to the Maduro regime and other bad actors in the region that human rights abusers will be held accountable for the misery and suffering it has needlessly brought to the people of Venezuela.

When it comes to inflicting misery and suffering on the people of Latin America, nobody comes close to the United States government. Over the course of the 20th century, the United States has invaded the region dozens of times, overseen many coups, supported military dictators and right-wing death squads. Millions of Latin American workers and peasants have been killed to secure the profits of American corporations.

One US corporation, ExxonMobil, has a particular interest in Venezuela. The increased pressure is undoubtedly related to the fact that Trumps Secretary of State Rex Tillerson was ExxonMobils CEO.

In January, the nonprofit publication the Conversation wrote an article titled Rex Tillersons long, troubled history in Venezuela.

The article notes that ExxonMobil and its predecessor Standard Oil have been exploiting Venezuelas oil since 1921. Access was cut from 1976 until the 1990s and again in 2007 due to government nationalization efforts. In 2007, ExxonMobil refused the governments offer to pay fair value for the companys assets in the country.

The corporation has provocatively begun drilling for oil off the coast of Guyana in territory claimed by Venezuela for over a century. An ExxonMobil subsidiary recently signed a $200 million, 10-year contract to further develop its extraction methods in the region. The corporation has long set its sights on regaining unrestricted access to the countrys oil.

The intensified imperialist pressure against Venezuela marks a continuation and an escalation of the policies of the Obama administration, which included sanctions and heavy diplomatic and economic pressure. However the crisis plays out in the coming days, it remains within the realm of possibility that the corporate CEOs and military generals who conduct the day-to-day operation of government may eschew soft power diplomacy and opt for military invasion.
Europe

Strike of Irish bus workers continues

The 2,600 staff working for the Irish state owned bus company Bus Eireann, walked out on strike on March 24 over plans by the company to cut back on pay, conditions, and impose the closure of some routes and job losses. Bus Eireann says the measures are necessary to stem greater losses. Five unions are involved in the dispute including Unite, which has 100 craft employees in the company. All services run by the company have been affected, except its school bus service. School bus service staff may join the dispute in the near future.

The two main unions are the Services Industrial Professional and Technical Union (SIPTU) and the National Bus and Railworkers Union. The bus workers fear the attack on jobs and conditions is a prelude to privatization. NBRU general secretary Dermot OLeary says some staff could lose up to 10,000 a year because of the planned cuts.

Bus Eireann is part of the state-owned CIE transport group, which also includes the rail company Iarnrod Eireann and the Dublin Bus Company. Currently these two arms are not part of the dispute but SIPTU announced on Monday that it plans to ballot its members in the two companies to take sympathy action in support of the Bus Eireann employees. Many Bus Eireann facilities are shared with Iarnrod.

Walkout by Bulgarian retail staff

Last week retail staff working for the Bulgarian supermarket chain Piccadilly held a spontaneous walkout over unpaid wages. They are owed several months back pay. They blockaded the Piccadilly headquarters in Sofia demanding their outstanding wages.

Berlin airport staff strike ended by union

On Tuesday, the Verdi union signed a three-year deal to end the dispute by ground staff at the Berlin airports. The 2,000 ground support staff had taken three days strike action earlier in March to win a 1 an hour pay increase. The action had led to the disruption of around 2,000 flights.

Under the deal, the airport workers will get a 14 percent raise over three years paid in four stages. The deal, which has to be voted on by airport workers, falls short of their demands.

Walkout by German Amazon staff

Last week more than 900 staff working for Amazon, members of the Verdi union, at its German warehouse in Rheinberg, held a one-day strike. It was part of the four-year-long fight by Amazon staff to be covered by terms and conditions relating to retail workers rather that at present as logistics workers.

German logistics staff are paid at a lower rate and have worse terms and conditions compared to retail staff.

Greek power workers prepare to fight privatization

Greek powers employees working for the Public Power Corporation (PPC) are due to meet at the end of this week to discuss plans including strikes to oppose the privatization of PPCmeasures imposed by the Syriza-led government, which is carrying out demands from international creditors.

Under the measures, 40 percent of PPCs hydroelectric and lignite plants will be opened up to investors. The meetings will be coordinated by the PPC union umbrella organisation GENOP.

Protest by Hungarian power staff

Hungarian electricity power workers represented by the MVM union are set to hold a demonstration outside the Ministry of National Development offices in Budapest today. They have also threatened to hold strikes to push their demand for a 30 percent pay increase. The government pay offer falls far short of their demand.

Maltese broadcasting head resigns following workers protests

The chair of the Maltese Broadcasting Authority (BA), Tanya Borg Cardona, resigned this week. Her resignation follows strikes and protests by the members of the UHM union at BA who had called for her to go because of her bullying style of management.

Romanian rail staff strike

Rail workers in Romania walked out on strike on March 22 to push their demand for a 25 percent pay rise. The strike led to 150 trains being cancelled while other services experienced delays of up to six hours.

Russian truck drivers protest

On Tuesday, truck drivers in Russia held protests, including parking on main city highways to vent their anger at government plans to impose new taxes on heavy vehicles. The cities affected included Moscow, St Petersburg and Yekaterinburg.

Organizers say they expect at least 10,000 truckers to eventually take part in the strike.

Slovak car workers end strike

Unions representing car workers employed by Kia Motors at Teplicka and Vahom in northern Slovakia signed an agreement on Tuesday ending a weeklong strike. Under the agreement, workers will receive a wage increase and bonuses for night shift.

Production line staff had been seeking a 10 percent rise. They will instead get a seven percent increase, while administrative staff who had been seeking a seven percent pay rise will instead get a 3.5 percent rise.

UK nuclear submarine staff conduct strike

Civilian staff working at the UK nuclear submarine facilities on the Clyde in Scotland held a one-day strike last Friday with a further series of strikes to come. They are members of the Unite union and are employed by Babcock Marine engineering.

They perform duties associated with the maintenance of the nuclear fleet such as cleaning, radiation monitoring and logistics at the nuclear plant. They accuse the company of not following agreed procedures and bypassing union reps.

UK civil servants in payday protests

UK civil servants, members of the Public and Commercial Services union are holding national events today to protest against the imposed one percent pay rise, which together with national insurance contributions and pension changes has led to cuts in real take-home pay. The events include petitions and lunchtime meetings.

UK crane drivers reject derisory pay offer

UK construction crane drivers have unanimously rejected a derisory three percent pay rise. The 50 crane drivers work for the HTC Wolffkran Company, the UKs largest crane operator. The crane drivers belong to the Unite union.

The offer was made in spite of 4.3 million profit made by the company last year. Unite will now organize a consultative ballot to determine whether the crane drivers would be prepared to take industrial action for an increased pay offer.

Middle East

Algerian trade unionists arrested

Nine union executives of the gas and electricity workers union SNATEGS were arrested on March 21 as they were preparing to attend a rally in the northern city of Tizi Ouzou. In spite of the arrests, the rally and protest by the workers went ahead. They were demanding wage increases and for the harassment of their union by state forces to stop.

Israeli insurance staff end strike

After holding a 24-hour strike on Sunday staff at Clal Insurance Enterprises Holdings Ltd have returned to work. The strike ended following an agreement between the workers committee and Clal management. An agreement was reached over a pay increase for staff and that talks will continue to reach a new comprehensive collective agreement.

Jobs protest by chemical workers

On Tuesday, hundreds of Haifa Chemical company workers demonstrated in Tel Aviv against plans by the company to decommission a damaged storage facility used to store imported ammonia.

The ammonia is used to produce nitrate fertiliser. The workers fear the closure of the ammonia plant will lead to job losses. The company is lobbying the Israeli parliament for an alternative source of ammonia until a new storage facility can be built.

Africa

Struggles continue in South Africa

A number of significant struggles by workers in South Africa are continuing, including an unauthorized strike by gold miners in Gauteng province while the government has responded to a dispute by social workers with threats to bring in the National Defence Force.

South African miners strike against victimisation

Mineworkers at Harmony Golds Kusasalethu site, Carlton, Gauteng province South Africa are out on what has been declared an illegal strike. Strikers are taking action to protest the suspension of the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union branch leadership held responsible for a previous sit-in last January.

According to reports, the suspended union leaders were responsible for a go-slow at the mine last week, resulting in no staff turning up for Fridays day shift.

A two-day mine occupation in January by 1,700 miners, (Kusasalethu mine employs 4,500) was in response to increased work rates.

Productivity increases were imposed on the miners to recover as much gold as possible before a five-year deadline for closure takes place.

Harmony Gold said new disciplinary action may be imposed in response to this latest action.

South African Social Services in dispute

The dispute by social workers, belonging to the National Education and Health Workers Union, in the South African Gauteng Province is now in its third week.

The provincial government is considering bringing in the South African National Defence Force to look after vulnerable beneficiaries.

The strikers are being held responsible for the death of a six-month-old child being transported from the Walter Sisulu Child and Youth Care Centre to a staffed facility.

The strikers are being cast as violent and uncaring hooligans by some press reports although their demands are outstanding from a 2015 agreement.

The union is demanding a review of entry levels for social service professionals and occupations, a total overhaul of the Occupation Specific Dispensation and introduction of a rural allowance.

They also want provision of the equipment to carry out their work, the permanent employment of casual social workers along with an improvement in the conditions of service for all employees in the department of social development, and the implementation of the 2015 Social Work resolutions, with the protection of the professional council for Social Service Professionals.

South African state insurance workers strike

Workers at the South African state insurer, the Road Accident Fund (RAF), are continuing their one-week strike for better wages. The National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (NUMSA) says negotiations through arbitration have broken down and the union will intensify the strike. They threaten to completely shut down the bankrupt state insurers operations.

The fund is in debt to the tune of R8.2 billion (US$663million) and has not paid out on accidents for several months.

One of NUMSAs claims, raised at mediation and arbitration, was the refusal of RAF to work through the companys and unions bargaining council as has been customary.

The union claims the arbitration process was a means by which RAF appeared to be negotiating while having no commitment to an agreement.

Health workers walk out in South Africa over unpaid bonuses

The Confederation of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) has called strikes at hospitals and medical centres in Limpopo province. It has been called to demand the payment of performance bonuses and other long outstanding claims.

After securing a court interdict barring COSATU members from picketing health premises the provincial Health Secretary said he was now seeking a the court injunction to declare the strike illegal. The department of health is also implementing a no-work no-pay policy.

Nigeria

Nigerias Arik airlines workers strike

Nigerias Arik Air Limited airline unions went on strike on March 23 to demand the new operator obey existing agreements and allow staff to join a union of their choice, without coercion.

The new operator, Asset Management Corporation of Nigeria, (AMCON) has taken over the running of the airline, with government support. The previous Arik directors who were sacked have accused AMCON of operating the business outside NCAA regulations.

Although the National Union of Air Transport Employees, (NUATE) brought the airline to a halt, the strike was suspended when the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority and the Department of State stepped in.

Other unions had come in behind NUATE, such as Air Transport Services Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (ATSSSAN) and National Association of Aircraft Pilots and Engineers (NAAPE). The dispute remains suspended.

The airline is the largest operator within Nigeria and went into bankruptcy under a mountain of debt, which included many months of workers wages and unpaid remittances.

Nigerian medical staff threaten action over non-implementation of agreements

Medical staff at Nigerias Delta State University teaching hospital issued a strike notice for April 1. It was prompted by the dismissal of the chief accountant and the director of administration and the refusal of the hospital board to put into practice a white paper report.

The Delta state government white paper, in part, states that the Medical and Health Service Union of Nigeria executive is the only body with which the hospital board can negotiate.

The union claims the report has been in the hands of the hospital directorate for over a year without it being acted upon.
TOLEDO -- A referendum on establishing a Cumberland County sales tax to fund school facility improvements is on the ballot for Tuesday's election.

The proposal asks Cumberland County voters to decide whether a 1 percent sales tax should be enacted countywide for the sole purpose of school facility repairs and improvements. The tax would yield revenue for the Cumberland and Neoga school districts, plus other districts with students living in this county.

Referendum supporter Michelle Vaughan Peters of Greenup said the sales tax revenue would help offset the Cumberland district losing a total of $1.8 million in recent years due to the state's cuts to public school funding.

"Our (Cumberland) school district has been very conservative and fiscally responsible for years," said referendum supporter Bob Scott. However, he said the district has needed to deplete its emergency reserve fund to stay "in the black" due to the state funding cuts.

Consequently, Peters said, the Cumberland district does not have funding available to make needed facility repairs and improvements. She said the district could issue bonds to fund these projects, but it would need to significantly increase local property taxes to pay off these bonds.

The sales tax is a better option for funding facility projects because much of the revenue will be generated by consumers from outside of the county, Peters said. For example, she said the new Love's Travel Stop in Greenup is drawing a lot of truck drivers and other motorists from out of town.

Scott said Cumberland County residents pay to support schools elsewhere whenever they spend money in Coles County or any of the 46 other Illinois counties that have countywide school facility sales taxes in place. He said Cumberland County should use this funding option for its own schools.

Revenue from the tax will be divided among the school districts based on the number of students they have residing in Cumberland County. Referendum supporters estimate that the sales tax will generate $265 a year per student, which would yield $265,000 annually for the Cumberland district.

If the referendum is approved, a tax of 1 cent would be placed on each dollar spent. As examples, this would result in a 7-cent tax on $7 of fast food and a 50-cent tax on $50 of gasoline.

Items that would be exempt from this sales tax include farm inputs such as seed, feed, fertilizer, and equipment purchases; pharmaceuticals; groceries; and vehicles.

Scott said he understands why some people are inclined to vote "no" whenever they hear the word "tax." Scott said he, too, is not a fan of raising taxes, but he believes that the proposed sales tax is a way to help local schools while holding the line on local property tax rates.

Peters said Cumberland's priorities for the sales tax revenue include removing asbestos from grade school floor tiles and other areas of its facilities. She said the cost of the asbestos removal has been estimated at $300,000, adding that this figure does not include repairs necessitated by this project.

Other Cumberland priorities include meeting a state mandate for having wheelchair-accessible restrooms, renovating classrooms and the high school gym, and repairing masonry. Scott said the stones above the front entryway have shifted and are being held in place with ties and straps.

"They have been operating with Band-Aids for as long as they can," Peters said.

Flyers drafted by referendum supporters show that the Neoga district could use the sales tax revenue for various facility needs, including roof and wall repairs. Photos show a joint separating between the shop roof and the south gym of the school, and storm water damage in the south hall's ceiling.

State law prohibits revenue from the school facility sales tax being used for salaries, operating costs, and other non-facility expenses. Scott said Cumberland could eventually use the revenue to help pay off a bond issue for parking lot improvements, but has prioritized repairing its facilities first.

Scott said he welcomes those who want more information about the referendum to contact him at 217-232-3161.
TALLAHASSEE, FL (WTXL) -- Another year and another chance to give back to Florida State University during their annual Great Give donation event. What started as a day to give back online, is now in it's sixth year and spans 36 hours. Last year's campaign raised over $200,000 in donations, all going to a number of causes.

Of course we've all heard that money makes the world go around, but in the case of universities, and scholarships, those words are all too true. Luckily for FSU, they have The Great Give.

"There are funds for studying abroad," says Robyn Bertram, the Donor Engagement Officer for FSU. "Most of them go straight to students, scholarship support, campus sustainability, so making the campus a greener community."

This year, a new cause has joined The Great Give, the Challenger Learning Center, an outreach facility of FAMU-FSU College of Engineering.

"To achieve our goals of outreach and K-12 education and STEM learning, we offer free and low-cost programming, says Christina Amrhein, the Marketing and Communications Director at the Challenger Learning Center.

This center helps stimulate children in the STEM fields. That's science, technology, engineering, and math. One way they do that is by hosting field trips within their Space Flight Simulation Room. These students are able to see what it's like to be an astronaut for a day, which really gets them excited about things they learn in the classroom.

"STEM isn't for everyone," says Amrhein. "Not everyone likes it, but when they are here, they are engaged. They're learning. They're excited. They want to do the math problems. They are just so engaged and so excited to learn, excited to leave and excited to head to the classroom and learn a little more about what what skills do I need to learn to do this as a career in the future."

The Challenger Learning Center hopes to raise $10,000 dollars during The Great Give.

The online donation site will close at 9 pm on Friday March 31, 2017.

To give back to FSU, visit: greatgive.fsu.edu

For a full list of organizations, causes, and projects supported by The Great Give, visit: spark.fsu.edu/Projects/AllAcademic

To donate directly to Challenger Learning Center during this donation event, visit: spark.fsu.edu/challenger
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WTXL) - Dozens of new emails are surfacing from the investigation into Tallahassee Mayor and gubernatorial candidate Andrew Gillum's misuse of his city issued email for political gain.

The release of these emails has created some tension between the Republican and Democratic parties of Leon County, because of the use of taxpayer money.

WTXL obtained more than 46 emails, including one that showed a fundraising email for the Florida Democratic Party featuring Senator Bill Nelson, former Florida Democratic Party Chairman Allison Tant and Andrew Gillum.

In a previous interview with WTXL, Gillum said that he's reimbursed the city, for a total of just under $5,000.

Responding to the emails, Leon County Republican Party Chairman Evan Power says there's still more action to be done.

"The Mayor's breach of the public's trust has reached a point that is beyond repair. I once again ask the mayor to take responsibility for his actions and step aside and allow new leadership to bring honesty, transparency, and accountability back to Tallahassee's City Hall."

Leon County Democratic Chairman Andy Janecek is responding saying, "Republicans continue to do and say anything to distract from the disastrous failures of the Trump presidency. The city has been reimbursed and it's time for Evan Power to get a new hobby. Professional trolling won't help put anyone back to work or make sure every Floridian has access to healthcare".

Meanwhile, the Leon County Sheriff's Office continues their investigation into whether or not there was criminal activity involved.
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WTXL) - Godby High School students got some hands-on learning this morning, thanks to Tallahassee Community College.

The event exposes students to activities based in science, technology, engineering, and math or STEM.

Today, the teens got to operate robots and look at the mechanics that goes into creating them.

And those gearing up college were able to take part in financial aid and advising sessions to get ready for that next step.

Last year more than 70 Godby High graduates chose to attend TCC.
MOULTRIE, Ga. (WTXL) - Court documents have confirmed that they will seek the death penalty in the case against Jeffrey Peacock.

He's accused of killing his five friends and burning down their house to cover up the crime.

The district attorney says the case does meet the requirements for a death penalty case under Georgia code.

Thursday, the judge presiding over the case, wrote a letter explaining the high costs of pursuing the death penalty.

He anticipates it impacting 2018, 2019, and possibly 2020 budgets.
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Hello, Richard Gere . You recently visited Hebron, guided by Breaking the Silence activists. They likely told you what they tell many other diplomats, journalists, parliament members and occasional guests, about Israels crimes, about the poor Hebron residents, and more. Your only response was that its exactly what the Old South was in America. Blacks knew where they could go It was well understood. You didnt cross over if you didnt want to get your head beat in, or you get lynched.

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Let me tell you that I am not a supporter of the Jewish settlement in Hebron, or of the settlement enterprise in general. Far from it. I am in favor of a decent solution which will give the Palestinians welfare, prosperity, sovereignty and independence. If only they wanted that too. if only they would fight for themselves, rather than against Israels existence. But in order to contribute something to a reconciliation between Israel and the Palestinians, there are a few facts you should know.

Gere in Israel. Has it occurred to you to say something to the Palestinians about their incitement? About the racism? The anti-Semitism? The rejectionism? (Photo: Eli Mandelbaum)

Hebron is the Jews holiest and most important city after Jerusalem. Jews lived there even after the Arab occupation in the seventh century. They held the status of inferior citizens, the dhimmis, as was customary under the Muslim rule. In the 16th century, Jews were already banned entry to the Cave of the Patriarchs. There were riots against Jews in 1517 and 1834. There was no occupation, no Zionism and no Israel then. The major pogrom took place in 1929. Fifty-nine Jews were murdered by a rampaging Muslim mob, while a few Muslims, Righteous Among the Nations, hid Jews. Following the pogrom, the Jews were forced to leave and the Muslims took over the Jewish neighborhood and the Jews homes.

Several years after the Six-Day War, the Jewish settlement was resumed in the area where the Jewish neighborhood had been located. There was a profound dispute over the issue in the Israeli society, a dispute which has not ceased for a moment. As part of the Oslo Accord, the Wye River Memorandum was signed in 1998 between then-Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and then-Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat. The Palestinians received full and exclusive responsibility for 80 percent of Hebron (H1), while the Jews got 20 percent (H2). In practice, the Jews are not allowed into H1 and into most of areas of H2 where Palestinians live.

In addition, there is one street in H2, al-Shuhada, which connects two Jewish neighborhoods and has received international publicity due to entry restrictions on Palestinians who do not live on the street. There is no absolutely need to justify every Israeli activity in that area, but one must be familiar with the wide and real picture: Jewsand only Jewsare barred from 97 percent of Hebron, in all of H1 and in most of H2. The restrictions on the Palestinians apply primarily to one street, which is visited by tens or hundreds of people a week, so that the apartheid manipulation can be sold to them.

Allow me to assume that the Breaking the Silence activist didnt tell you that Palestinians are in no danger of getting lynched. A Jew who accidentally enters Palestinian territory, on the other hand, will get lynched. And they didnt tell you that security measures are being taken because most Palestinians in Hebron support Hamas, a jihadist and anti-Semitic organization which supports the annihilation of Jews. And they didnt tell you that the city of Hebron is active and full of life regardless of the tiny part, only 3%, in which Jews live. And they didnt tell you that there was no robbery of Palestinian property, and that the settlers hold only a small part of the Jewish property which was robbed from Jews in 1929.

We should argue about the logic of a Jewish settlement in the heart of an Arab population. I am against it. And as part of an overall agreement, there will be a need to forgive the past, like after population changes in Europe. But that doesnt exempt us from knowing the facts.

Hebron is only part of the story. The Palestinians have an autonomy, an elected parliament, a government, a president and even diplomatic representatives around the world. The Israeli control continues because the Palestinians themselves have repeatedly rejected any serious proposal for an agreement. In early 2001, they rejected former US president Bill Clintons proposal for a state on 100 percent of the Gaza Strip and on 96 percent of the West Bank, including a division of Jerusalem. In 2008, they rejected a similar proposal from former prime minister Ehud Olmert. They again turned down a proposal from former US secretary of state John Kerry and president Barack Obama in March 2014.

I can assume that you didnt hear any of this from the Breaking the Silence people. They arent showing you the real picture, neither the historical one nor the current one. They arent telling you about terror. They arent telling you about the Palestinian rejection of every agreement. They are allowed to sell you lies, half-truths and distortions, and they are allowed to act freely, even in Hebron, because Israel is a democracy. They are not bad people. They act out of goodwill. But they are blind. And most importantly, they are wrong and are misleading.

What exactly should Israel do? Evacuate the area without an agreement, so that what happened in the Gaza Strip will happen in Hebron and in the entire West Bank as well? The immediate and certain meaning is the establishment of an Islamic entity or a branch of ISIS, which will cause more terror and more suffering and more distress and more destruction, mainly to the Palestinians themselves. Thats what happened in the Gaza Strip. Its happening in Libya, in Nigeria, in Sinai in Egypt, in Syria, in Iraq, in Afghanistan. Its happening in every place controlled by radical Islam.

That doesnt mean that the current situation should continue. That doesnt justify the continuation of the settlement enterprise. That doesnt mean that a small part of Hebrons residents suffer unnecessarily sometimes. But its not apartheid. And what you saw in Hebron is nothing more than a display as part of the anti-Israel propaganda, which is not bringing peace any closer and which is not advancing human rights, but is only helping perpetuate the conflict.

Human rights are an important issue. The Palestinians deserve welfare, self-government and prosperity. The problem is that their leadership doesnt want a state alongside Israel, but rather instead of Israel. The problem is that their leadership prefers unstoppable incitement over education to reconciliation, mutual recognition and a compromise. Has it occurred to you to say something to them about their incitement? About the racism? About the anti-Semitism? About the rejectionism? Are they exempt from criticism?

Your activity and other peoples activity for human rights is important. But before taking a stand, you should know the facts. Because the things you said help neither to promote peace nor the Palestinians. All they do is perpetuate the lies and the rejectionism. So the next time you take a stand, please study the material first. Only then, Mr. Gere, will you be able to offer advice.

(Translated and edited by Sandy Livak-Furmanski)
Heres a sample of the minor items in Mondays papers this week: The communal administration in Jerusalems Har Homa neighborhood decided to split this years Memorial Day ceremony. So as not to hurt the feelings of the neighborhoods religious public, no songs will be included in the first part of the ceremony. At the end of this part, the audience will be separated in two different sections. In the secular section, women will be allowed to sing; in the Chardal (National Haredi) section, rabbis from the right gender will discuss Divrei Torahtopics related to a section of the Torah.

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What will they discuss? Oh, that takes us to the second minor item, the apology of the Chardal knight, the head of the Eli pre-army academy, Rabbi Yigal Levinstein.

When Rabbi Levinstein is given a microphone, these are the Divrei Torah that come out of his mouth: Our women are holy and modest Does that mean a woman cant work? She can work in whatever she wants. But whats the mission?

The Talmud says: Building the next generation. Its their responsibility. Our holy women are the only ones who knows how to do it. What will she be, a company commander? Its a question of insanity, it belongs in a madhouse Our girls have been driven crazy, they are being drafted into the army. They go in Jewishthey are not Jewish at the end, not genetically: Their entire value system will be disrupted, priorities, home-career We must not accept this.

The rabbi urged recruits to marry a hot woman, hot in terms of her religiousness, at an early age. Of courses shes hot, because shes a woman, he clarified. She did not serve in Caracal (a mixed-gender combat battalion)otherwise, how would she be hot?

Rabbi Yigal Levinstein. Ruled that a womans job was to have children and raise them at home, and that a woman who didnt do that wasnt Jewish

Rabbi Levinsteins comments (Are you a woman? The Talmud sends you to give birth and raise your children at home. Did you serve in Caracal? You are neither hot nor Jewish; a Jewish woman knows that she belongs at home) drew criticism from different directions.

Several days ago, the rabbi announced that he was fine with the content of his remarks and only disagreed with their style. In other words, suddenly, God knows how, the style hit him and distorted the beautiful content of his words (secular women are not Jewish, women should have children and stop nagging).

Now, the rabbi is pulling out the second weapon at the disposal of Torah sages who have been caught red-handed. My comments, he declared, were taken out of context.

What was the context? The context was that the rabbi ruled that a womans job was to have children and raise them (at home), for a purely spiritual purpose, and that a woman who didnt do that was not Jewish. What people understood from his remarks unfortunately, was that a womans job was to have children and raise them (at home), for a purely spiritual purpose, and that a woman who didnt do that was not Jewish.

The rabbi also felt uncomfortable with the use of a thermic term to describe girls. When he said that women serving in Caracal were not hot, his holiness did not mean that they were passionless. The honorable rabbi knows nothing about such passions. What he meant was that there is no religious devotion in them, and for that reason they allegedly come out of the army non-Jewish.

I must say that the thermic statement was pretty clear from his comments (hot in terms of their religiousness), but that among the righteous community, any talk about women in the context of passion is faulty and anyone who distance himself from it should be praised.

But pay attention to the refined term allegedly before the statement that women who are not hot (religious or secular) are not Jewish. It turns out that they are allegedly not Jewish. What does that mean? The rabbis God knows.

Where's Smurfette? Oh, she hurts men's feelings

And heres the third minor item: The Mirka'im-Hutzot Zahav billboard company removed the image of Smurfette from posters promoting the film Smurf: The Lost Village in the central ultra-Orthodox city of Bnei Brak, so as not to offend residents.

Women, it turns out again, are a very big problem. Their actual existence in the public domain (in other words, outside the home in which they must give birth and raise children) is offensive. They hurt the delicate feelings of men, even when they are animated and painted in blue and lack any sexual characteristics, and all the more so when they walk on the street, flesh and blood. If they start singing, many feelings will immediately be hurtthey will be so hurt, that men will have to be kept away from them completely. If they dare choose a profession, their body temperature will immediately drop and they will no longer be able to fulfill their national religious duty. Allegedly, of course. Allegedly.

(Translated and edited by Sandy Livak-Furmanski)
An oak tree in Poland that played a vital role saving Jewish lives during the Holocaust was recently chosen as the winner of the 2017 European Tree of the Year award.

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The European Tree of the Year contest, now in its seventh year, was established to highlight the significance of old trees and their natural and cultural heritage. Rather than emphasizing the trees beauty, age or size, the contest focuses on the trees story and its connection to people.

This tree saved two lives, said Jakub Pawlowski of the Ulma Family Museum in Markowa.

The oak tree (Photo: Rafal Godek/treeoftheyear.org)

Polands Oak Jozef helped shelter a Jewish family according to Pawlowski. During the Holocaust, two Jewish brothers who apparently escaped from the Frysztak ghetto or a forced labor camp were shown the hollow of the oak tree.

The hideout was shown to the brothers by Rozalia Proszak, said Pawlowski. The hollow in which they hid was huge. People say it had two levels. The lower was used as a hideout and the upper was used as a lookout. Both brothers survived the occupation but their fate after the war is unknown.

Located in the Polish village of Wisniowa, in the southeastern part of Poland, Oak Jozef is often captured by photographers and painters. In the 1930s, the image of the tree was even printed on the Polish 100 zloty bill.

The name of the tree, Jozef, was given by the inhabitants of Wisniowa, after a well-known Polish artist, Jozef Mehoffer, who had painted the oak tree in the 1930s.

The story of this tree, while very interesting and unusual, is a reason for Poland to be proud; the story of Poles helping Jews, commented Pawlowski.

The 2017 European Tree of the Year Award Ceremony, which was organized by the Environmental Partnership Association, the European Landowners Organization and TetraPak, was held on March 21 at the European Parliament in Brussels with 200 attendees.

Robert Godek, Head of the Strzyzow District Council in Poland, shared his appreciation of the award at the ceremony. A warm thank you to all the people of Wisniowa and all the European supporters for believing in Oak Jozefs candidacy: we will celebrate this honor back home as it deserves, said Godek, who received a unique wooden trophy that passes from winner to winner each year.

More than 125,000 people from all over Europe voted in the competition. Oak Jozef won 17,597 votes, followed by the Welsh Brimmon Oak in the UK with 16,203 votes and the Czech Lime Tree in Lipka with 14,813 votes.
After announcing Thursday that a new West Bank settlement will be built for the evacuated residents of Amona, in addition to approving 2,000 of new settlement housing units, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu unveiled the Israeli government's understandings with US President Donald Trump on curtailing its settlement expansion. The new settlement will be the first to be built within 20 years.

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In a statement issued Friday, Netanyahu stated that "out of consideration to President Donald Trump's position, Israel will take necessary steps to minimize the expansion of developed area beyond the footprint of existing settlements in Judea and Samaria and exhibit considerable restriction, to allow the progression of the peace process. Israel will build within the existing developed area, as much as possible."

Netanyahu (L) and Trump during their White House meeting last month (Photo: Reuters)

The statement added that "In areas where this is not possible, Israel will build along the existing development line. In areas where neither of these possibilities are feasible, due to legal, security, topographical or additional concerns, Israel will allow building in proximity as close as possible to the existing development line."

Furthermore, it was stated that Israel will not allow the erection of any unapproved settlements. Netanyahu has reportedly updated the Security Cabinet of the new, abovementioned policy.

In addition, Netanyahu updated the Security cabinet that 2,000 housing units out of the 5,700 units, whose building the government had announced two months ago, have been approved for living.

The Amona Headquarters responded positively to the announcement of the new settlement. "The memory of the settlement of Amona will remain in our hearts forever. We love you oh homeland, and so we swear on this day to return to the land of Amona. Either we will or our sons after usyou don't leave a homeland. Ever since Amona was destroyed we have only asked for one thingthe pioneering Zionist mission of founding a new settlement in the Land of Israel, for us and all the people of Israel."

They added that "instead of the flower that was trampled we will plant one hundred flowers. Instead of the tree that was cut down we will plant one hundred trees. Instead of the life that was taken we will create a new life. A life of children's laughter and the talk of the elderly. A life of Torah and culture, friendly parties and good deeds. A life of giving and prosperity and bloom. A full Israeli life of a people building its land."

The White House pointedly avoided any specific condemnation of the announcement, although it said that further settlement activity "does not help advance peace" and that it expects Israel to show restraint moving forward. Still, the relatively tepid response was a far cry from the automatic condemnations voiced by the Obama's administration in reaction to Israeli settlement announcements. The White House statement even went so far as to "welcome" what appears to be a limited Israeli commitment to take Trump's concerns about settlements into "consideration," without any guarantees to avoid similar announcements.

In December, weeks before Trump was inaugurated, President Barack Obama allowed the UN Security Council to pass a resolution that declared all settlements in both areas to be illegal. Trump condemned the decision at the time.

On the campaign trail, Trump indicated he would be far more sympathetic to settlements than Obama and the international community, which consider Israeli construction on occupied land to be illegal. His platform made no mention of an independent Palestinian state, and his inner circle includes strong supporters of the settlement movement.

But since taking office, Trump has appeared to change his position, telling an Israeli newspaper last month that settlements "may not be helpful" and telling Netanyahu at the White House that he would like to see some restraint. Since then, Israel and the US have been in talks over what kind of construction the White House would tolerate.

A White House official sought to play down Thursday's Israeli announcement, saying Netanyahu made his promise to the Amona settlers before Trump laid out his vision. But the official, who agreed to discuss the matter on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly about it, signaled that the White House would take a tougher line down the road.

"As the administration has made clear: While the existence of settlements is not in itself an impediment to peace, further unrestrained settlement activity does not help advance peace," the official said. "The Israeli government has made clear that going forward, its intent is to adopt a policy regarding settlement activity that takes the president's concerns into consideration. The United States welcomes this."

White House envoy Jason Greenblatt has already made two visits to the region, including attending an Arab summit in Jordan this week. In hopes of renewing peace talks for the first time since 2014, the official said the White House will continue to work with all sides "to create a climate that is conducive to peace."

"We hope that the parties will take reasonable actions moving forward that create a climate that is conducive to peace," he said.

Over 600,000 Israelis now live in settlements in the West Bank and east Jerusalem. But Israel has not built a full-fledged new settlement since the 1990s. Instead, construction during that period has expanded existing settlements or taken place in unauthorized outposts like Amona. The Israeli government has recently passed legislation aimed at legalizing dozens of those outposts.

Palestinian official Hanan Ashrawi condemned the new settlement approval and called for international intervention.

"Today's announcement once again proves that Israel is more committed to appeasing its illegal settler population than to abiding by the requirements for stability and a just peace," she said. "It is time that all members of the international community serve the cause of peace and justice and bring Israel to cease and desist its unlawful settlement activities and illegal unilateralism once and for all."

(Translated and edited by Gahl Becker)
US District Judge Gonzalo Curiel is once again reflecting on his second-oldest case  a nearly seven-year-old lawsuit alleging that Donald Trump defrauded students of the now-defunct Trump University before he was president.

The filings fill millions of pages. There were 65 depositions, including three of Trump.

After praising a proposed $25 million settlement for giving an "extraordinary amount" of money back to former customers, Curiel stopped short Thursday of approving the agreement, which would effectively end the president's legal exposure from the venture that dogged the Republican businessman throughout his campaign.

Curiel said at the end of an hour-long hearing that he would rule at a later time on final approval to settle two class-action lawsuits before him and a civil lawsuit by New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman.

The only holdup appeared to be a Florida woman's claim that she should be allowed to opt out of the settlement and sue the president on her own -- a move that would likely scuttle the entire agreement.

Attorneys for former customers said that their clients would get at least 90 percent of their money back under the deal, based on the roughly 3,730 claims submitted. The attorneys waived their fees and Schneiderman agreed to forego $1.6 million of his $4 million portion of the settlement, raising individual payments.
A few participants in the Haredi protests against women's enlistment and their integration into IDF combat units that took place over the last few weeks have turned out to be IDF soldiers currently studying in paramilitary yeshivas.

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Behind the campaign stand several Haredi nationalist organizations that banded together under the name "Brothers in Arms." In their propaganda material they wrote, among other things, that "against all reasonable explanation, and while ignoring research and the opinions of experts, IDF is making changes that harm the female soldiers that serve in it, its operational capabilities and national security. It's illogical, immoral and inhumane."

Haredi protestor: 'saving the IDF' (Photo: Ofra Pasder)

"I'm a Yeshiva student, and I returned to the Yeshiva from the army to study," one of the activists in the campaign told Yedioth Ahronoth news. "It is important to us to set out and spread our message about the integrated service. It's something that critically harms the service in the army."

The IDF Spokesperson's Unit responded that the aforementioned activism is forbidden to soldiers. They have stated that "saying 'save the IDF' as they do is similar to expressions used by extremists in the Haredi society, who challenge the enlistment and state laws. IDF treats this with severity and denounces any insubordination of any kind.

"Expressions that call for segregation in the army and hurt people's dignity are to be objected and condemned. Taking part in acts such as these is forbidden to IDF soldiers and the subject will be investigated and severely treated."

(Translated & edited by Lior Mor)
The Russian navy says its submarines have increased combat patrols to the level last seen during the Cold War.

The navy chief, Adm. Vladimir Korolyov, said Friday in remarks carried by state RIA Novosti news agency that Russian submarine crews spent more than 3,000 days on patrol last year, matching the Soviet-era operational tempo. Korolyov spoke after attending the launch of a new Yasen-class nuclear-powered attack submarine called the Kazan.
"Renewing relations with Nicaragua may be a breakthrough in the relations with all four Latin American countries that severed diplomatic ties with Israel, including Cuba, Venezuela and Bolivia," explained Deputy Director General of the Foreign Ministry's Division for Central and South America Modi Efraim, following the Nicaraguan government's announcement Thursday night confirming Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's initial allusion to the move on Tuesday. Nicaragua, in addition to Cuba, Venezuela and Bolivia had all ended their ties with Israel following the Marmara flotilla incident, in which several Turkish national protestors were killed in a confrontation with IDF forces.

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"Ideologically speaking, there is no doubt that having the Sandinista government (the Nicaraguan Sandinista National Liberation Front party, led by Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortegaed) and a member of the ALBA Alliance (an agreement between countries in Latin America and the Caribbeaned) renewing relations with Israel will have some effect," said Efraim. He added that "I hope in the not so distant future, we will renew relations with the other countries, as well."

L to R: Nicaragua's ruling couple, Vice President Rosario Murillo and her husband, President Daniel Ortega (Photo: AP)

Israel and Nicaragua put out a joint statement around 1:00 Israeli time. The statement paused on the various forms of cooperation between both countries, including in areas of agriculture, health and education. It continued to say that they are looking forward to reinstating ties between each other with the aim of working to mutual benefit both peoples and as a step toward world peace.

The announcement was preceded by a year of clandestine meetings between representatives of both countries' governments. Two weeks prior, it was Efraim who visited the Nicaraguan capital of Managua, as he met with Nicaraguan Foreign Minister Denis Moncada.

Nicaragua is ruled by two main decision makers: President Ortega and his wife, Rosario Murillo, who in addition to her role as first lady is the country's vice president and lead government spokesperson. After reportedly gaining the super power couple's favor, Israel was able to facilitate the current reconciliation.

Apparently, things are indeed becoming more caliente between the two countries. Recently, Nicaragua removed its objection to having Israel join SICA (the Central American Integration System) as an observer. After initially blocking Israel's request two years earlier, Nicaragua announced it supports Israel's inclusion, marking a change in it policy.

L to R: Deputy Director General of the Foreign Ministry's Division for Central and South America Modi Efraim with Nicaragua's Foreign Minister Denis Moncada

The Foreign Ministry is hoping that renewing ties with Nicaragua will open the door to rekindling relations with other Latin American cultures, namely Cuba, Venezuela and Bolivia, all of whom severed ties with Israel following the Marmara incident.

Speaking at an official memorial ceremony for deceased former heads of Israeli government and state on Jerusalem, Netanyahu said that Today, we are blessed with excellent relations with more than 160 countries. That number is growing. Next week, another country will announce the establishment of relations with the State of Israel.

Nicaragua suspended diplomatic ties with Israel in 2010 in protest of the Israeli raid on the Mavi Marmara, a Turkish ship that was attempting to break the naval blockade on the Gaza Strip. In the incident, nine persons were killed.

Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortegas decision to sever ties was announced by his wife and government communications chief, Rosario Murillo, who is now the countrys vice president. Murillo announced then that her government underscored the illegal nature of the attack on a humanitarian mission in clear violation of international and humanitarian law.

(Translated and edited by Gahl Becker)
The FBI released Friday morning a previously unseen batch of archival photos showing the devastation at the Pentagon following the September 11 terror attacks.

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The FBI uploaded 27 photos to its website's "FBI Records: The Vault" section of the horrific aftermath at the facility, located in Arlington County, Virginia.

Moments after the Pentagon was hit on 9/11

X

Photo: EPA

Photo: EPA

Photo: EPA

The photos show fragments of the American Airlines aircraft, the gaping hole in the building left by the plane, as well as the Pentagon's scorched interior and exterior. Other photos show first responders battling the blaze and surveying the damage.





Photo: EPA

Photo: EPA

Photo: EPA

On the morning of September 11, 2001, al-Qaeda terrorists crashed American Airlines flight 77which had departed Dulles International Airport for Los Angeles, carrying 59 passengersinto the Pentagon at 9:37am.

Photo: EPA

189 people died at the Pentagon, including 125 who worked at the building, which serves as the headquarters of the Department of Defense.

Photo: EPA

The plane hit an area of the building that was under renovation and relatively empty. It is widely agreed that the death toll would have been significantly higher had the plane hit a different area of the building.

Photo: EPA

Photo: EPA

The four attacks that day claimed the lives of 2996 people in New York, Arlington, and Pennsylvania.
Israel's Counter-Terrorism Bureau has issued an urgent travel warning to Israelis travelling in the Sinai several days ago, following reports of ISIS's intention to take control of the peninsula.

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ISIS's branch in the Sinai Peninsula is comprised of the local Bedouin tribes and Salafi jihadists. The Salafi part of the extension has grown rapidly within the last year compared to their Bedouin counterparts, and the shift made a noticeable difference in goals.

X

The current reality is that the group is now considering itself as more jihadist, and so changed course accordingly and is now planning to either take over or establish a caliphate in Sinai, setting out of their comfort zone at the north-east part of the peninsula.

ISIS militants in Sinai (File)

Israeli tourists in Sinai (Photo: Sharon Gabai)

These activities have already spread to the central part of the peninsula, proving that ISIS can continue to extend their reach southward.

ISIS militants checking cars in Sinai (File photo)

Another aspect of the change is manifested as the group's new head of the Sinai extension, Abu Hajar al-Shamian extremely religious non-Bedouin radical.

In addition to that, Salafi radicals are now trickling from Gaza, mainly because they feel that the Hamas is not radical enough. It is reported that dozens of them already made their way to ISIS's branch in the peninsula, bringing with them experience they accumulated in the strip.

Tourist area: Israelis in huts in Sinai (Photo: Yael Ponizovsky-Bergelson)

As of right now, ISIS's forces in the Sinai area are estimated at about 700 combatants. On the Egyptian side, things are looking rough. In 2016 about 700 soldiers in the Egyptian security forces stationed in Sinai were killed by ISIS attacks, most often by road-side explosive charges.

However, this was not free of reprisal. A change can be seen recently in the Egyptian behavior, with more activities to stop smuggling from Gaza, aimed at damaging ISIS's supply lines.

(Photo: Yael Ponizovsky-Bergelson)

But this did not put an end to the terrorist group's activities, and it appears that Egypt has yet to fully develop their counter-terrorism capabilities.

And so, ISIS's branch in Sinai still considers the Egyptian regime as their main enemy, but there is no doubt that Israel has climbed the ranks and become a much larger target for the group.

ISIS militants in Sinai (File)

The joining of Salafi combatants from Gaza, instilled with the hate of Israel, is one of the reasons for that, but another reason is the growing feeling within the extension, which is shown in the publication, the belief that Israel is aiding Egypt in the fight against them.

For now, Israelis would be well-advised to heed the Counter-Terrorism Bureau and stay away from the peninsula, at least until the ISIS threat there subsides.

(Translated & edited by Lior Mor)
United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres is disappointed and alarmed by Israels decision to build a new settlement in the West Bank, his spokesman said on Friday.

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Israels Security Cabinet on Thursday approved the building of the first new settlement in the disputed territory in two decades , even as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu negotiates with Washington on a possible curb of settlement activity. The announced settlement is to be for the evacuees of Amona , an outpost illegally built on privately-owned Palestinian land.

Secretary General Guterres

The secretary general has consistently stressed that there is no Plan B for Israelis and Palestinians to live together in peace and security, UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said in a statement.

He condemns all unilateral actions that, like the present one, threaten peace and undermine the two-state solution, he said.

The White House appeared more accommodating to Israel's plans for the new settlement, intended for some 40 families evicted from Amona, a West Bank outpost razed in February because it was built on private Palestinian land.

A White House official noted Netanyahu had made a commitment to the Amona settlers before Trump and the Israeli leader had agreed to work on limiting settlement activity.

Trump, who had been widely seen in Israel as sympathetic towards settlements, appeared to surprise Netanyahu during a White House visit last month, when he urged him to "hold back on settlements for a little bit."

The two then agreed that their aides would try to work out a compromise on how much Israel can build and where.

"The Israeli government has made clear that Israel's intent is to adopt a policy regarding settlement activity that takes President Trump's concerns into consideration," a written statement from the official said.

Following Thursday's announcement, Israeli officials said Netanyahu's security cabinet decided out of respect for Trump's peace efforts to limit construction in settlements to existing, built-up areas and not to expand construction beyond present boundaries.

The decision did not appear to be coordinated with Washington.

U.S. and Israeli officials completed a round of talks on the settlements last week without agreement, saying the discussions were ongoing, and the two sides have yet to announce any final understanding on the issue.

Sweden's UN Ambassador Olof Skoog, a member of the Security Council, said on Friday that the 15-member Security Council should respond to the latest announcement by Israel on settlements.

"The urgency of the situation and the deterioration on the ground might call for some sort of Security Council action, although we know that finding unity on this is not easy," he told reporters.

The UN Security Council adopted a resolution in December that demanded a halt to settlement building after the United States, Israels ally, abstained from the vote. Then President-elect Donald Trump and Israel had urged Washington to wield its veto.

Israel for decades has pursued a policy of constructing Jewish settlements on territory captured by Israel in the 1967 Six-Day War. Most countries view Israeli settlement activity as illegal and an obstacle to peace, though Israel disagrees.
The White House on Friday cautioned Israel on large-scale settlement building, refraining from criticism of a major project just approved but warning further expansion could block peace efforts, and the EU and UK outright condemned the move.

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"While the existence of settlements is not in itself an impediment to peace, further unrestrained settlement activity does not help advance peace," a White House official said.

Netanyahu and Trump in the Oval Office last month (Photo: Reuters)

The Israeli Security Cabinet gave unanimous backing late Thursday to the first officially sanctioned new settlement in the West Bank in more than 20 years.

The White House official said that settlement, a new home for the former residents of the illegal outpost of Amona , was in the pipeline during Barack Obama's administration, and refrained from criticizing the decision.

"We would note that the Israeli prime minister made a commitment to the Amona settlers prior to President Trump laying out his expectations, and has consistently indicated that he intended to move forward with this plan," the official said.

"Going forward the Israeli government has made clear that Israel's intent is to adopt a policy regarding settlement activity that takes President Trump's concerns into consideration."

Boris Johnson and Benjamin Netanyahu meet in London (Photo: Kobi Gideon/GPO)

British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson released a statement that reads, "The UK strongly condemns the Israeli governments decision to found a new settlement deep in the West Bank; the first such government decision for over 25 years. I am also disappointed that Israel plans to expropriate additional West Bank territory as state land, and press forward with plans for almost 2,000 housing units in spite of significant international concern.

"These announcements are contrary to international law and seriously undermine the prospects of two states for two peoples. As a strong friend of Israel, and one prepared to stand up for Israel when it faces bias and unreasonable criticism, I urge Israel not to take steps such as these, which move us away from our shared goal of peace and security and make it harder to achieve a different relationship between Israel and the Arab world."

Federica Mogherini meets with Benjamin Netanyahu (Photo: Haim Zach/GPO)

Federica Mogherini, the EU's foreign relations chief, was also severe in her own statement, writing that Israel's moves "all threaten to further undermine prospects for a viable two-state solution, which remains the only realistic way to fulfill the aspirations of both sides and achieve just and lasting peace on the basis of a negotiated agreement between both parties.

"The European Union reiterates that all settlements in the occupied Palestinian territory, including East Jerusalem, are illegal under international law, constitute an obstacle to peace and threaten to make a two-state solution impossible. The European Union calls on Israel to end all settlement activity and to dismantle the outposts erected since March 2001 in line with prior obligations.
BERLIN  A 1913 painting by Expressionist Ernst Ludwig Kirchner that was seized by the Nazis as "degenerate art" will remain in a Ludwigshafen museum after the German government and others paid 1.2 million to the heir of the painting's original owner.

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"The Judgment of Paris," which shows three nude women and a clothed man posing in Kirchner's studio, was looted from Jewish art collector Hans Hess during the Nazi era, but has been on display at the Wilhelm-Hack Museum in Ludwigshafen since 1979.

Hess's heir agreed to allow the painting to stay on display at the museum after various donors, including the German federal and state governments and the Ernst von Siemens Foundation, raised money to compensate her, the German government said on Friday.

Kirchner's Judgment of Paris

The agreement was made in accordance with the so-called Washington Declaration of 1998 that covers restitution of art confiscated by the Nazis before and during World War Two.

Culture state secretary Monika Gruetters described the purchase as "a great example of a public museum living up to its responsibilities for dealing with Nazi looted art."

Gruetters said the agreement was made possible by the generosity of the heir of the painting's original owner, and the extraordinary help of public and private donors.

The painting's title refers to the Greek myth about a contest between the three most beautiful goddesses of OlympusAphrodite, Hera and Athenavying for the prize of a golden apple addressed "To the Fairest."

Decades after World War Two, German museums continue to address claims by those who had artwork stolen by the Nazi regime, although some museums are now facing lawsuits because they refused to surrender paintings.
WASHINGTON  President Donald Trump will seek to rebuild the US relationship with Egypt at a Monday meeting with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi focused on security issues and military aid, a senior White House official said on Friday.

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He wants to use President Sisis visit to reboot the bilateral relationship and build on the strong connection the two presidents established when they first met in New York last September, the official told reporters.

Egypt has long been one of Washingtons closest allies in the Middle East, receiving $1.3 billion in US military aid each year.

But the bilateral relationship was strained when former president Barack Obama criticized Sisi for cracking down on the Muslim Brotherhood, Egypts oldest Islamist group.

Al-Sisi and Trump (Photos: AFP & EPA)

Obama temporarily halted aid to the country after then-general al-Sisi in mid-2013 overthrew President Mohamed Mursi after mass protests against his rule. Mursi, a Muslim Brotherhood member, had been elected the previous year.

The Trump administration intends to address human rights concerns in a different fashion, the White House official said.

Our approach is to handle these types of sensitive issues in a private, more discreet way. We believe its the most effective way to advance those issues to a favorable outcome, he said.

Trumps relationship with al-Sisi got off to a good start before the US presidential election during a September meeting in New York, when Trump was the Republican candidate, the White House said.

Trump supports al-Sisis approach to counterterrorism, which includes both military and political efforts, his efforts to reform Egypts economyand Sisis calls for reform and moderation of Islamic discourse, the official said.

Asked whether the White House would declare the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist group, the official said Trump was interested in hearing al-Sisis views during the meeting.

We, along with a number of countries, have some concerns about various activities that the Muslim Brotherhood has conducted in the region, the official said.

Al-Sisis visit comes as the Trump administration has proposed massive cuts to US foreign aid, the details of which are still to be determined.

The White House anticipates aid to Egypt will continue but provided no details on Friday.

Were in the budget process right now and those discussions are ongoing as to how it will be broken out, the official told reporters.
The star of the American television series Greys Anatomy, Ellen Pompeo, intends to celebrate a Seder on Passover next week, even though she herself is Catholic.

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Pompeo, who plays Dr. Meredith Gray, told Yedioth Ahronoth that she celebrates Jewish holidays with her husband, Chris Ivery, who was born to a Jewish mother.

Ellen Pompeo and her husband Chris Ivery (Photo: Colson Griffith)

My husband didnt grow up in a religious family, and I didnt either, but we celebrate Hanukkah and Passover, and I would very much like to celebrate Shabbat evenings too, she said, adding, I know a few words in Hebrew like ma nishtana halaila haze, reciting part of the Passover seder.

The actress, who met her husband at a supermarket, explained that it was important for her three children to recognize their Jewish roots: I define myself more as a spiritual person than a religious one, but I want my children to learn and know the Jewish holidays that are so beautiful. She has not yet visited Israel, but its definitely in the works.

My husband has a Jewish friend who always travels to Israel, and hes invited us to go with him more than once, so I hope he will visit us there as a family. I heard that its a very beautiful country, and its history is fascinating, she said.

(Translated and edited by J. Herzog)
In preparation for the Passover holiday, the Bnei Akiva branch in Beer-Sheba demonstrated a creative way to connect the parents of the Ethiopian immigrants and the children who were already born in Israel: a unique Haggadah in Hebrew and Amharic.

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I understood that the children dont really know the story of their parents immigration to Israel and are less interested in their heritage, said Tal-Tiferet Sarid, 20, the head instructor at the branch. The moment the children absorb the story and go with it, it will reach the entire Jewish people.

Over the past few days, the students were divided into groups, and each group met with the father or mother of one of them and heard the story of their immigration to Israel. Some of the parents found it difficult to take part and tell about their difficult experiences, but those who chose to share welcomed the initiative.

Kassa Aharon-Mahari, 49, who immigrated with her husband Ilan in Operation Moses in 1984, said, My grandfather used to tell us about the Holy Land. He would say that a day would come, and we would go up to Israel. They should be proud of their roots and traditions, and thats why I think its a beautiful project. 

I was moved by the fact that other children hear the story of my mother in great detail and that they know the heritage of my family, said Shai, 15, Aharon-Maharis son. All of us children have to listen to our parents stories and understand what theyve been through.

Bnei Akiva welcomed the initiative. We believe that a strong connection between the generations is a significant thing in shaping the personality of young people, said the movements secretary Yair Shahal. Only a people connected to its history can look forward.

(Translated and edited by J. Herzog)
IDF soldiers fired at a Palestinian suspected of throwing stones at a road between the village of Ni'lin and the Hasmonean settlement, near Ramallah.

The Palestinian was moderately wounded and taken by the troops to receive medical treatment in a hospital.
Reserve defenders deploy to Dominican Republic

Five U.S. Air Force Reserve defenders are heading to the Dominican Republic, in support of a Operation New Horizons, a 12th Air Force (Air Forces Southern) humanitarian mission to build churches and schools.



Their role as part of a 13-person team there is to provide security so that the humanitarian efforts are seamless.



It may sound like a resort vacation, but we will be hours away from resorts, living in host nation barracks, sleeping on the floor, and eating MREs, said Staff Sgt. Joshua Castorela, 720th Security Forces Squadron fire team leader. Itll be like a long camping trip.



All five of the 720th SFS members volunteered and were chosen based on their Spanish-speaking abilities. They are all also stepping away from their normal, full-time careers elsewhere to deploy  an additional sacrifice Reserve Airmen regularly make to serve their country.



Im excited to experience another culture, said Castorela, a Tucson Police Department patrol officer whose family is all from Mexico. They are excited for him to become more fluent in their familys native tongue as well.



Weve taken a lot of cultural awareness training in preparation for this deployment, which has been really helpful, he said. Although computer-based, the training helps prepare Americans for the intricacies of host nation cultures so that Airmen dont accidentally offend the native people.



Another Mexican-American deploying from here is Staff Sgt. Jose Flores, a 720th SFS fire team member who said this is definitely no typical Air Force deployment.



I work with a lot of Army and Marine Corps veterans, who tease me a lot [about being in the Air Force], said Flores, who works in the Boeing Global Security Operations Center doing dispatch and alarms in Mesa, Ariz. When I told them what our living conditions would be there, they said, Oh, so like, a real deployment!



Flores spent eight years in the active-duty Air Force before transitioning to the Reserve, but he was guarding nuclear weapons and therefore not deployable. This Reserve deployment will be his first, and he is leaving his wife behind and taking time of school and a pay cut to go; but, for him its all worth it.



I never dreamed of going anywhere like this before, said Flores, who looks forward to being in a predominantly Catholic country and said the only things he is wary of are the wildlife and vegetation, which can be dangerous. Itll be a big change, but I can finally do the kind of security forces work I have always wanted to do.



The 720th SFS is a geographically-separated unit of the 920th Rescue Wing at Patrick Air Force Base, Fla., attached to the 943rd Rescue Group. Read more about the Air Force Reserve Commands premier combat search and rescue wing at http://www.920rqw.afrc.af.mil




This has been a long time in the making, but in our continuing pursuit to bring only the best of firearms, 2nd Amendment and defence related news to our readers, we are very excited to announce the next step in our evolution as a company.

As of 2020, Minuteman Review is now the proud owner and operator of Your Defence News, a website with a long history of breaking huge news stories and investigative journalism.

We hope you are equally as excited as us.

This means that now the teams of Minuteman can combine with the firepower of Your Defence News to stay at the absolute forefront for our readers.

Keep an eye. Big things are coming soon. We couldn't be more excited.

In the meanwhile, here are some of our most popular posts and categories to keep you busy.

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Everyone manifests grief differently, and for several characters in Sophocles play Electra, grief is inextricably linked to a desire for revenge.

For an all-too-brief 75 minutes Thursday evening, the captivated audience at Nebraska Wesleyan Universitys Miller Theatre hung on every word uttered by the passionate young actors as they displayed their full range of grief-stricken emotions.

As the few surviving members of the cursed House of Atreus continue to live in the shadow of murders, the one emotion thats absent is forgiveness.

After Queen Clytemnestras (Celine Myer) husband, King Agamemnon (James Booker III) sacrifices their young daughter, Iphigenia, to appease the angry goddess Artemis, Clytemnestra and her lover Aegisthus stab Agamemnon in the bathtub, leaving his near-lifeless body to be found by Electra, another of their young daughters.

Years later, haunted by nightmares, Clytemnestra is calm and mostly rational, feeling her late husbands brutal crime against their daughter justified Clytemnestra's own murderous actions.

Those beliefs are not shared by the brilliantly portrayed Electra (Alyssa Harold), eyes shining with madness and lips graced with inappropriate smiles, to the unease of her mother and youngest sister Chrysothemis (Betsy Wendorff). Electra sees Clytemnestras actions as unjustifiable and plots to avenge her fathers death.

Sweet, nervous Chrysothemis is the sole character who harbors no desire for revenge and would like to simply leave the cursed house behind and get on with her life.

Throughout the play, the brooding, angry spectre of Agamemnon haunts the stage, floating through scenes and uttering his childrens names.

Spirited from the house by a family friend on the night of his fathers murder, the only son of Agamemnon returns to fulfill Electras murderous fantasies, which he, Orestes (Alex Wolfe) wholeheartedly shares.

The bloody, prolonged death of their mother elicits a range of emotions from the three surviving children, none of which appears to be satisfaction.
Stiri pe aceeasi tema

- The National Press Club of the BTA Bulgarian News Agency was officially opened on Friday in Bucharest. Fii la curent cu cele mai noi stiri. Urmareste stiripesurse.ro pe Facebook stiripesurse.ro  Help your friends know more about Romania! Share this article on Facebook

- The citizens of the European Union "must constantly participate in the democratic process" and we must "cherish democracy", because "it is not for granted" and it is subject to "great challenges at the moment", declared on Friday, in Bucharest, in an interview for AGERPRES, the Vice-President of

- Tickets for the Depeche Mode concert at the National Arena in Bucharest can be purchased, starting Friday, from the bilete.emagic.ro, as well as from the iaBilet.ro networks and Entertix.ro, the organizers announce, told Agerpres. Fii la curent cu cele mai noi stiri. Urmareste stiripesurse.ro

- A new edition of Asia Fest will take place, from Friday to Sunday, in the National Park in Bucharest, and the organizers have prepared shows, films, workshops and exhibitions, a press release from the organizers, sent to AGERPRES reads. Fii la curent cu cele mai noi stiri. Urmareste

- The Italian Sara Errani defeated Rebeka Masarova (Spain, 199 WTA) in three sets on Friday, 6-3 1-6 6-4, and qualified for the semifinals of the Tiriac Foundation Trophy (WTA 125) USD 115,000 tournament, hosted by the National Tennis Center in Bucharest. Fii la curent cu cele mai noi stiri.

- The SoNoRo Festival, which starts on Friday, offers the public in Bucharest and Cluj-Napoca, until October 2, exceptional meetings with great musicians of the moment, including violinist Alexander Sitkovetsky, violist Razvan Popovici, cellist Justus Grimm, pianist Diana Ketler and clarinetist Matt

- An online Book of Condolence is open at www.royal.uk for people who want to pay tribute to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, the British Embassy in Bucharest reports on Friday. Fii la curent cu cele mai noi stiri. Urmareste stiripesurse.ro

- A third aircraft will depart on Friday from Romania to France, carrying the rest of the firefighters dispatched on a mission to assist the French authorities in their fight against wildfires; a military C-17 Globemaster III belonging to the Strategic Airlift Capability stationed in Papa - Hungary,
CFR Cluj  Lazio Roma, in Conference League

CFR Cluj o va intalni pe Lazio Roma in barajul pentru optimile de finala ale Conference League la fotbal. Potrivit tragerii la sorti efectuate luni la sediul UEFA, partida din mansa I va avea loc la 16 februarie la Roma, iar meciul retur este programat peste o saptamana, la Cluj. Lazio Roma vine din Europa [citeste mai departe]
New Delhi: Following the Supreme Court ruling that banned the sale and registration of BS-III models vehicles from April 1, two-wheeler majors Hero MotoCorp and Honda Motorcycle and Scooter India are offering discounts of up to Rs 12,500.

Both the companies said the offer will be valid till stocks last or up to March 31.

With 6.71 lakh two-wheelers affected out of the total of over 8 lakh BS-III vehicles impacted by the ban, dealers said the immediate effort is to sell as many units as possible before the deadline by offering "unheard of discounts" in the industry.

Market leader Hero MotoCorp is offering discounts of up to Rs 12,500 on its BS-III two-wheelers.

According to dealers, the company is offering rebate of Rs 12,500 on its scooters, Rs 7,500 on premium bikes and Rs 5,000 on entry level mass market motorcycles.

On the other hand, the number two player Honda Motorcycle and Scooter India (HMSI) is offering a straight discount of Rs 10,000 on its BS-III scooters and motorcycles.

When asked about what actions were dealers taking following the apex court verdict, he said: "Our energy is focused on selling as much stock as possible before the deadline. Our people are calling up potential customers informing them about the offers."

He said the dealership community was hoping for some relief from the court in the form of more time to sell their stocks but with that not happening, the focus has shifted to liquidating the stocks.

Afterwards, it will have to be discussed with the manufacturers what to do with the unsold inventories, if at all any are left, he added.

Observing that health of the people is "far, far more important" than the commercial interests of the manufacturers, the apex court observed yesterday that automobile firms have declined to take "sufficient pro-active steps" despite being fully aware that they would be required to manufacture only BS-IV compliant vehicles from April 1, 2017.
For a superstar who gallantly steps back to let the female hero of this gripping-from-the-word- go thriller, take centre stage, it is rather unchivalrous of Akshay Kumar to be billed in the end-titles before the awesome Tapsee Pannu.

She rules the bustling intrigue-filled universe of this film.

After Pink, Tapsee is again in startling form as Shabana Khan, an ordinary girl with extraordinary resilience who, when pushed into a corner, hits back. Hits back really hard.

The thing about Tapsee is, she is never caught acting. I could only see this steel-willed imperturbable spunky girl onscreen. Shabana is seen to live in a crowded Muslim locality of Delhi, shot by cameraman Sudhir Palsane with rigorous authenticity. As Shabana strides across the screen with a confidence that comes from a place opposite to emotional/economic security, we sometimes catch passersby staring at her. This could be gawkers looking at Tapsee. Or Shabana's neighbours watching her in admiration.

Naam Shabana takes the risk of exposing itself to crowds. A lot of the gripping narrative unfolds on crowded streets. Nair cuts the scenes in motions of anguished urgency where we at once sense the protagonist's need to avenge the wrongs done to her in the past and in the immediate here-and-now.

Naam Shabana constantly runs on two levels. The backstory to the espionage drama is bolstered by the heroine's constant wrestle with her conscience. Shabana wants to let us into her feelings. But the minute we accept her invitation, she clams up. Tapsee plays this introvert with a compelling combination of reticence and transparency.

It is a remarkable performance but then this is a remarkable film. The two halves of the narrative are almost like two different films, both equally irresistible. But constructed under differing circumstances. The first half is devoted to building a relationship for the loner heroine with a boy(Taher Mithaiwala) who won't take no for an answer, and then dismantling her hope for love. The second-half constructs a brisk bracing spy thriller with Malayalam star Prithvi Raj pitching in a gritty menacing turn as a nasty international villain. It is here that the action explodes on the screen with optimum impact.

It all comes together in ways that are both unexpected and satisfying with Manoj Bajpayee playing the mouthpiece of a faceless governmental organization that recruits spunky fearless youngsters to fight battles that cannot be fought legally. I wish the scenes featuring Manoj and Tapsee were fleshed out with more fury and less sardonicism.

In what could possibly be the most revealing dialogue on the Islamic identity in times of terrorism, Manoj's character explains to Shabana Khan how her Muslim identity can be helpful in infiltrating restricted areas of counter-constitutional activity.

The scenes are cleverly written and Akshay Kumar's extended cameo is a sure-shot crowd-pleaser. The film also has some savagely funny moments. At one point when that very fine actor Zakir Hussain is spying on a bikini-clad woman while holding back his urge to pee, he exclaims his organ has grown "confused".

Providentially Naam Shabana, for all its intricate twists and turns, remains almost entirely bereft of any confusion. It is a lucid and tightly-wound piece of cinema with a central performance that is pitch -perfect and freed of gimmicky shots at militant feminism. I wish director Nair who reveals such an explosive flair for fusing personal and political statements would have avoided the club songs that come on at points where we can almost hear the makers telling one another, 'Yahan pe thoda relief daal do'.

But there is no need. Naam Shabana is a film of rude awakening, reminding us how much maturity in vision treatment execution and the performances, a film can achieve provided it stops looking for reasons to make audiences happy. Watching this film is a joy, although nothing really happy happens to Shabana. We are just happy that she can fight her own battles even when the odds are stacked sky-high against her.

By Subhash K Jha
New Delhi: Salman Khan and Katrina Kaif look gorgeous together on-screen and their fans love to watch them. That's precisely the reason why their upcoming film 'Tiger Zinda Hai' lists in the much-awaited films this year. And now there's more good news in store for Salman-Kat fans!

According to Mid-Day.com, the amazing looking actors might join forces one more time after 'Tiger Zinda Hai'. Yes! The report states that Salman's brother-in-law Atul Agnihotri's production will kick off in mid-2017 and yet-to-be-titled venture might bring in these two together on-screen.

If this stands true then we might actually see Salman and Katrina sharing the screen space together one more time after 'Tiger Zinda Hai'. The duo is working on Ali Abbas Zafar's directorial which brings them back on the reel together after a hiatus of five long years. They last starred in a movie together in 2012 'Ek The Tiger', helmed by Kabir Khan.

However, no official announcement has been made regarding this project as yet.

Are you excited?
New Delhi: Five associate banks, including SBBJ will merge with parent State Bank of India from April 1.

On February 16, the Cabinet gave its final approval to merger of SBI and its five associates - State Bank of Bikaner & Jaipur, State Bank of Mysore, State Bank of Travancore, State Bank of Patiala and State Bank of Hyderabad.

Post-merger, the combined entity will have 23,899 branches and employee strength of 2,71,765.

On the balance sheet size, she said that as of December, consolidated deposits were a little over Rs 2,604,473 crore (Rs 26.04 trillion) and advances stood at Rs 18,76,727 crore (Rs 18.76 trillion). The consolidated balancesheet stood at Rs 32,18,498 crore (Rs 32.18 trillion).

The merger was announced last May and the central board of the bank approved the proposal in August along with the share swap ratio.

With PTI Inputs
New Dehli: India`s reaction to an Amazon.com website selling doormats resembling the country`s flag involved an unprecedented public and private offensive against the US company by Prime Minister Narendra Modi`s government, a document shows.

Foreign minister Sushma Swaraj publicly threatened in January to rescind visas of Amazon employees if the doormats were not removed from its Canadian website.

But a document seen by Reuters shows the government went even further in private, asking its U.S. and Canadian embassies to raise the matter "strongly" with Amazon`s senior leadership.

India also escalated the matter to Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos and prompted a global audit by the company to "ensure that such products are not listed on any of its other" websites around the world, according to the document.

Amazon, which removed the products within 24 hours and apologised to the government, declined to comment.

Much is at stake for Amazon in India, where it plans to invest more than $5 billion as it takes on home-grown Flipkart and Snapdeal for a bigger share of the internet services market in the world`s fastest growing major economy.

Amazon has now made Indian laws that govern the use of the national flag and other emblems "an integral part of the global compliance process," the document said, outlining the steps Amazon and India have taken since the incident.

India`s reaction underscores the risks governments run by nationalist leaders are posing for businesses around the world. U.S. President Donald Trump, for example, has also taken an aggressive stance on Twitter against individual companies.

Last year, Modi presented a global leadership award to Bezos at a US-India Business Council summit in Washington.

Amazon told the government that it had strengthened its in-house compliance units that monitor products sold by third-party vendors on its websites, the document said.

"Amazon India has conveyed that it is fully committed to respecting Indian laws and customs," the document said.
New Delhi: The Aam Aadmi Party on Friday claimed the three-member panel, which recommended recovery of Rs 97 crore from the Delhi government for spending on advertisements, does not have any mandate for the same.

Delhi Deputy Chief Minister and senior party leader Manish Sisodia, who also holds portfolio of Information and Publicity, said the AAP government was being "selectively targeted" when no questions are being raised on ads issued by other state governments.

Sisodia added that the AAP government did not splurge money, but tried to communicate the "good work" done by it to the people.

He also appeared defiant and said the AAP government would "continue to engage with people" through ads despite the recovery suit.

Earlier this week, Lt Governor Anil Baijal had directed that Rs 97 crore be recovered from AAP that was allegedly "splurged" by the city government on advertisements in violation of the Supreme Court guidelines, following the recommendations of the Centre-appointed three-member panel.

The three-member committee comprised adman Piyush Pandey, journalist Rajat Sharma and former Chief Election Commissioner B B Tandon.

"The Supreme Court guidelines did not give any such power to the committee to order recovery of ad spending of any government.

"The court had also ordered that the committee should comprise of people with impeachable neutrality and impartiality. However, two members of the committee have close links with the BJP," Sisodia told a press conference here.

Without naming former Chief Minister Sheila Dixit, Sisodia said even she held a business summit in London.

"Other state governments also organise events in five star hotels outside their states," Sisodia said.

He remained non-committal on how the party would respond to the recovery notice.

"We will inform you about (our) legal course," he said.

Hitting out at the BJP without naming the party, Sisodia said, the recovery notice was being issued after the AAP announced to abolish residential house tax if it came to power in the MCD.
New Delhi: Gearing up for the upcoming Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) Elections, the Delhi Bharatiya Janata Party will on Friday launch its door-to-door campaign named 'Ghar Ghar Dastak'.

The MCD elections will take place on April 23.

On Thursday, the Parliamentary units of BJP met to take stock of the preparations for the poll campaign.

BJP national vice president Vinay Sahastrabuddhe and party's Delhi chief Manoj Tiwari attended such a meeting held at Bhajanpura in latter's north east constituency.

"In this elections, the party workers at booth levels will not only work for the victory of the BJP but also help people of Delhi who were misguided in 2015," Sahstrabuddhe said without naming the Aam Admi Party that came to power in Delhi routing both BJP and Congress.

The booth level workers will contact each household in their area paying special attention to unauthorised colonies and slums, Tiwari said.

(With PTI inputs)
Senators made quick work Friday on first-round approval of an apparently controversial bill that would allow ex-felons to vote immediately upon completion of their sentence or probation.

While senators may have discussed the bill at length in private, the public debate that took place on the floor of the Legislature, where Nebraskans can watch lawmakers talk extensively about controversial topics, took only minutes.

Omaha Sen. Justin Wayne opened debate on his bill (LB75). One opponent, Sen. John Murante of Gretna, spoke. Wayne spoke once more, and the vote was taken.

Twenty-eight senators voted in favor. Eight voted against it, and 10 were present but not voting.

Other than Murante's question on whether the bill violated the Nebraska Constitution, no other opponent or supporter spoke up.

Wayne explained the silence of senators, saying they have been talking about getting away from filibustering everything.

"There are some things that you filibuster, typically around fundamental rights on which we disagree on a significant level," he said.

There's other things, he said, that should be just a straight up-and-down vote.

Wayne, a freshman senator, said he did a lot of work on the bill before it came up on the agenda.

There will be more questions now that the vote has been taken, he said. Senators probably will be getting phone calls on the issue.

The only question is the constitutional one, he said. Murante pointed out the constitution gives the Nebraska Board of Pardons the power to restore civil rights, including the right to vote. But no one has challenged the current law that allows felons to vote after a two-year waiting period.

Murante said he's concerned not only about the question of the bill's constitutionality, and who has the authority to restore civil rights, but also that certain felonies, such as fraud and in particular voter fraud, would make the restoration of those rights not in the state's best interest.

"It is putting fire near gasoline and, to me, it is bad public policy," Murante said.

Wayne said the disenfranchisement of citizens for two years after they have served their time is unnecessary, unjust, and counterproductive to rehabilitation and the need to reduce recidivism.

"The fact of the matter is, this disenfranchisement law is at best profoundly outdated," he said. "At worst, this is a law that still discriminates against minorities in a disproportionate way, but I think more importantly has its roots deeply, deeply rooted, in racism ... ."

The bill only concerns voting, he said. It does not deal with jury service, the ability to run for office or possess a weapon.

"It's time for us to move out of somewhat the Dark Ages of when this was actually done, and when a person has paid their debts to society, and all their fines and issues have been dealt with, they should be involved with the democratic process," he said.
New Delhi: A clandestine group, which is operating directly under Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, has come under the radar of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) for dubious financial transactions.

The Vigilance Department of the Delhi government has given shocking details of the functioning of the 'Feedback Unit' to the CBI.

The Feedback Unit was allotted a secret service fund of Rs 1 crore, but it spent only Rs 50,000 on a sting operation.

Fifty thousand rupees were spent to trap a bribery complaint in a school named Kalka Public School, Alaknanda, documents accessed by DNA reveal.

The amount was given to Kailash Chand, Upper Division Clerk in the Anti-Corruption Branch (ACB).

However, the Vigilance Department was left completely baffled when it came to know that there was no person named Kailash Chand in the ACB.

The daily quoted sources as saying that retired officers of Intelligence Bureau, Research and Analysis Wing, Income-Tax Department and other investigating agencies comprised the Feedback Unit.

The officials were not only given high-end vehicles but also unaccounted money to carry out their clandestine activities.

A car, two SUVs and three bikes were provided to the unit, along with supporting staff of four data entry operators hired through the Intelligent Communication Systems India Limited by the Delhi government, the Vigilance Department letter to the CBI read.

The Feedback Unit staff were paid the remuneration on the basis of attendance.

Notably, the staff have recorded 100 percent attendance and Rs 40,82,982 has been disbursed since February 2016 by way of various expenses.

However, the Vigilance Department, under which the Unit was formed, is neither aware of the staff nor what work they did.

Since inception, no report or outcome of the work done by the unit has come to the knowledge of the Directorate of Vigilance. Clearly, the functioning of the unit has been secretive to the department, the document said.

In the letter, the Vigilance Department letter told the CBI: In the Budget for the financial year 2016-2017, Rs 1 crore was kept for secret service expenditure. It was proposed by Deputy Director (Feedback) to provide Rs 20 lakh as a secret fund to the unit during the current financial year. From the budget, Rs 10 lakh was released in two tranches for Rs 5,00,000 each. Out of the Rs 10 lakh, Rs 5.5 lakh has been reportedly spent on espionage work. The last expenditure from the fund was an amount of Rs 50,000, which has been stated to be given to Kailash Chand. The details of utilisation of Rs 5.5 lakh from the secret service expenditure are not available, except to the extent of Rs 50,000 as mentioned above.

The documents added that although the unit was under the Vigilance Secretary but it is functioning under the direct control of the Chief Minister's Office.

The CBI had in January registered a preliminary enquiry to look into the setting up of a special unit under Directorate of Vigilance by the Delhi government without necessary approvals from the Lt Governor.

The sources had said that about 20 people were allegedly employed in the division for which the Delhi Cabinet had cleared the decision in September last year without consulting the office of LG.

The CBI had later raided the Vigilance Department office at Delhi Secretariat.

The unit was allegedly created to "gather relevant information and actionable feedback" about officials and departments under the Delhi government.

It was also tasked to do trap cases to catch bureaucrats taking bribe red handed.
New Delhi: Starting April 1, several rules will change from Railways, to SBI to vehicles norms  newer rules will be implemented which can impact your life.

Let's know how these new rules will impact you



Railway Vikalp scheme

From April 1, waitlisted passengers can avail the opportunity of travelling in premier trains like Rajdhani or Shatabdi even if they have booked tickets in other mail or express trains for the same destination.

As of now, the scheme will be available in online bookings and later extended to counters.

Under this scheme, waitlisted passengers can get confirmed berths in the next alternate train if they opt for it while booking their tickets. There would be no extra charges or any refund provided for the difference of fares.

'Vikalp' envisages to utilise vacant berths in premier trains, including Rajdhani, Shatabdi, Duronto, and special service such as Humsafar and Suvidha trains in all major routes across the country with no extra cost to passengers.

Any waitlisted passenger who has booked ticket online earlier can avail the new scheme now by opting for alternate trains through the IRCTC ticketing site.

As per the scheme, passengers opting for 'Vikalp' scheme while booking tickets will get SMS alert on his/her mobile phone about confirmed accommodation in the next train running on the route.

The name of the passenger, who has been provided berth in the alternative train will not figure in the waitlisted charts of the original train. A separate list of passengers transferred in alternative train will be provided along with the confirmed charts.

SBI ATM transaction and Minimum balance

SBI has decided to levy penalty on non-maintenance of minimum balance, which the bank plans to hike manifold from April 1.

However, the government has asked SBI to reconsider its decision to levy penalty on non-maintenance of minimum balance.

The country's largest lender has announced imposing penalty ranging from Rs 20-100 on non-maintenance of Minimum Average Balance (MAB) in savings bank accounts from April 1. The penalty is as high as Rs 500 in case of current accounts.

The penalty for breach of MAB is being reintroduced after a gap of five years.

SBI has also imposed restrictions on withdrawals of cash from its branches as well as ATMs. These will attract charges after certain specified limits.

Some private banks, like HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank and Axis Bank, have started charging a minimum amount of Rs 150 per transaction for cash deposits and withdrawals beyond four free transactions in a month.

New Emmission Norm

The automobile industry is fully geared up to commence production of vehicles compliant with BS-IV emission norms from April 1 across the country.

Implementation of BS-IV norms pan-India had been delayed due to non-availability of BS-IV fuel across the country, forcing some categories of four-wheeled vehicles to remain at the BS-III stage till April 1 2017.

The Indian auto industry will also be the first in the world to leapfrog from BS-IV to BS-VI emission norms by 2020.

Cash transactions limit

Government has decided cap cash transactions at Rs 2 lakh instead of Rs 3 lakh as provided in the Budget. The Cash transactions limit will come to effect from April 1.

A penalty of equal amount would be levied in case of violation of the provision.

The measure  an extension of the central governments November 8 decision to invalidate old notes of Rs 500 and Rs 1000  is part of the central governments proposed ban on cash transactions of over Rs 3 lakh that was mooted in Budget 2017-18 to stop future generations of unaccounted money from flowing into the financial system.
Washington: The glaciers and ice caps that dot the edges of the Greenland coast are not likely to recover from the melting they are experiencing now, and some of it will be permanently lost by 2100, a study has found.

Researchers found that melting on the island passed a tipping point 20 years ago. The smallest glaciers and ice caps on the coast are no longer able to regrow lost ice.

The new study suggests that the melting of Greenland's coastal ice will raise global sea level by about 1.5 inches by 2100.

The findings reveal why the parts of Greenland ice are melting so quickly - the deep snow layer that normally captures coastal meltwater was filled to capacity in 1997.

That layer of snow and meltwater has since frozen solid, so that all new meltwater flows over it and out to sea.

It is bad news, but not immediate cause for panic, said Ohio State University glaciologist Ian Howat.

The findings apply to the comparatively small amount of ice along the coast only, he explained - not the Greenland Ice Sheet, which is the second largest ice cache in the world.

"These peripheral glaciers and ice caps can be thought of as colonies of ice that are in rapid decline, many of which will likely disappear in the near future," said Howat, associate professor at Ohio State.

Were all of Greenland's coastal ice to melt away at once, global sea level would rise a few inches. For comparison, were the whole Greenland Ice Sheet to melt away at once, global sea level would rise 24 feet.

The problem lies between fresh surface snow and the ice, in a layer of older snow called the firn. Normally, meltwater drains through gaps in the firn down to the ice surface, where the bottom layer re-freezes.

When the firn around Greenland's edges became fully saturated 20 years ago, it froze through from bottom to top.

Since then, there have not been any gaps to capture meltwater, and the ice has not been able to grow.

At the time, researchers could not have known, because they lacked three things: a high-resolution topographic model of the glaciers, a detailed map of glacier boundaries, and a high resolution numerical model of drainage processes.

Howat provided the first two with his Greenland Ice Mapping Project Digital Elevation Model, which offers 30-metre resolution over the entire Greenland surface.

Then his colleagues were able to use that data to boost the resolution of their numerical model and get a better idea of where and how the ice caps and glaciers were losing mass.

They found that, for the last 20 years, mass loss has been exactly equal to the amount of meltwater runoff lost to sea. Simulations showed that a frozen firn was the most likely cause.

The Greenland Ice Sheet is subject to the same danger, Howat said, but to a much lesser degree than the isolated bits of ice on its edges.

The real value of the study is that provides "more evidence of rapid change and how it happens," he added.
New Delhi: Goa Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar on Friday thanked Congress leader Digvijaya Singh for failing to cobble together a majority in the state despite the party winning the largest number of Assembly seats.



Parrikar came to the Rajya Sabha during the Zero Hour and thanked the chairman, Deputy Chairman, and other members.



"I express my thanks to the Chairman, Deputy Chairman and members of this house for their support during my tenure as Raksha Mantri (Defence Minister), and invite them to Goa whenever they want to come," Parrikar said.



"My special thanks to honourable member Digvijaya Singh, who happened to be in Goa but did nothing so that I could form the government," he said.



Digvijaya Singh has given notice for a substantive motion to discuss in the house the conduct of Goa Governor Mridula Sinha, which is now pending for two weeks.



Outside the house, Parrikar said there was no question of immorality in the way the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) formed the government in Goa with the help of smaller parties and Independents.



"Other parties supported us as they didn`t trust the Congress...It`s a coalition government and there is no question of morality of immorality in it," Parrikar said.



The Congress won 17 seats in the February 4 state Assembly Elections and emerged as the single largest party, while the BJP won only 13 seats.



The BJP, however, managed to form a coalition government with support from Independent legislators and regional parties.



Parrikar ruled out the possibility of coalition partners switching loyalties.



"Not as long as I am there," he said.



Asked why he gave special thanks to Digvijaya Singh, Parrikar replied: "I thanked him for his incompetence."
New Delhi: The Delhi High Court on Friday dismissed Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh and his wife's plea seeking quashing of the disproportionate assets case filed against them by the CBI.

Justice Vipin Sanghi also vacated the Himachal Pradesh High Court's interim order of October 1, 2015 restraining the CBI from arresting, interrogating or filing a charge sheet in the case without the court's permission.

"The writ petition is dismissed. Stay is vacated," the court said.

Singh has sought directions from the court to quash the FIR registered against him and his wife under Sections 13(2) and 13(1)(e) of the Prevention of Corruption Act and Section 109 of IPC by the CBI on September 23, 2015 here and urged the court to summon records of the preliminary inquiry and the FIR.

Virbhadra and his wife Pratibha Singh have claimed in their plea that there was no order, direction or judgment by any court that had authorised the CBI to inquire, investigate or register regular cases and exercise jurisdiction in the territory of Himachal Pradesh.

The chief minister has contended in his plea that the raids on his private residence and other premises were conducted with "malafide intentions and political vendetta" by the central investigating agency.

He has alleged that CBI had overstepped its jurisdiction in filing the case as the cause of action did not arise in the territory of Delhi.

Singh has also claimed that the permission of the state government and Home Department were not taken before raiding the residence of a sitting chief minister.

The CBI had contended that the allegations against Singh in the case are "very serious" as a huge amount of money was involved and the state government has shown "over anxiety" in protecting him.

The agency had said it had jurisdiction to register and investigate the case in Delhi as the disproportionate assets were allegedly acquired by the Congress leader from the income generated here when he was a Union minister during UPA regime.

Singh had on October 1, 2015, got an interim order from the Himachal Pradesh High Court restraining the CBI from arresting, interrogating or filing a charge sheet in the case without the court's permission.

The matter was transferred by the Supreme Court to the Delhi High Court, which on April 6, 2016, had asked CBI not to arrest Singh and had directed him to join the probe.

On November 5 last year, the apex court had transferred Singh's plea from Himachal Pradesh HC to Delhi HC, saying it was not expressing any opinion on the merits of the case, but "simply" transferring the petition "in interest of justice and to save the institution (judiciary) from any embarrassment".
New Delhi: A JD(U) member in Rajya Sabha today asked the government to appointment a "regular" Defence Minister, while expressing concern over some recent incidents of fire in ordnance factories.

Raising the issue during the Zero Hour, Harivansh said the NDA government had come to power raising issues relating to defence and it should pay serious attention to defence matters.

However, "the country has not been provided with a regular Defence Minister," he said.

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has been given additional charge of the Defence Ministry after Manohar Parikkar resigned to become Chief Minister of Goa. Earlier too, Jaitley had held additional charge of the Defence Ministry.

Harivansh said there have been over 15 incidents of fire in the last 20 years in ordnance factories, including two in the recent past.

He said there was a "serious incident" at the Ordnance Factory in Jabalpur where a team had to be sent from Delhi to quell the fire.

A major tragedy was averted as the fire had broken out close to a building which had about 12,500 bombs, he said.

Harivansh referred to another blaze in Maharashtra earlier and asked why such incidents were happening.
Hyderabad: A local court has sentenced a man to life imprisonment for raping a three-month-old baby in November 2015.

LB Nagar Metropolitan Sessions Judge Sunita Kunchala on Wednesday convicted the 50-year-old accused, Padi Krishna, an electrician by profession, for kidnapping and raping the baby.

The court awarded life imprisonment and imposed a fine of Rs 2,000 on him for the rape. It also sentenced him to seven years jail for kidnapping the baby. Both the sentences will run concurrently.

A complaint had been lodged on November 22, 2015, with Hayathnagar police stating that the baby girl (complainant's niece) had disappeared from the house on the night of November 20, Inspector J Narender Goud said in a release.

The complainant, who searched for the baby along with other family members, found his niece in the hands of the accused near their house the next day. When they questioned him, Krishna could not give a proper answer.

The complainant took the baby from him and found that she had suffered injuries. She was then taken to a hospital, where the doctors declared that the child had been sexually abused, police said.

Based on the complaint, a case was registered and Krishna was subsequently arrested, they said.
Mumbai: 'Ethical' hacker Manish Bhangale, who had accused former Maharashtra minister Eknath Khadse of receiving calls from Dawood Ibrahim's Karachi residence, was arrested on Friday for allegedly creating a fake phone bill in this connection.

Bhangale had created the fake mobile bill on a computer to show call records between Khadse and Dawood's residence in Pakistan, an official said.

"We arrested Bhangale today and he will be produced in court in some time," Sanjay Saxena, Joint Commissioner of Police (Crime) told PTI.

"Bhangale was arrested for allegedly making fake documents in connection with Khadse's alleged link with Dawood Ibrahim. He allegedly created the fake mobile bill on a computer to show call records between Khadse and Dawood's Karachi residence," he said.

An offence was registered against Bhangale under IPC sections 468 (forgery for purpose of cheating), 471 (using as genuine a forged document or electronic record) read with 66 D of the Information Technology Act, the official said.

Khadse, who held several key portfolios in the state Cabinet, had resigned in June 2016 after facing a string of allegations including irregularities in a land deal.
Ranchi: Jharkhand Chief Minister Raghubar Das is doing all he can to win the Littipara Assembly by-election to deal a blow to the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM).



And the JMM is desperate to retain the seat, until now known as its stronghold.



The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Chief Minister has been camping in the constituency since Wednesday and is likely to return to Ranchi on Saturday.



The election assumes significance as it is taking place after the Jharkhand government amended the Chotanagpur Tenancy Act and the Santhal Pargana Tenancy Act.



After the amendments, the agricultural land can be used for non-farming purposes too and land in the area can be acquired for development work.



The entire opposition and even the BJP ally, the All Jharkhand Students Union (AJSU), have opposed the amendments.



Till Friday, Raghubar Das had addressed 12 rallies in the constituency. More than half a dozen ministers are also campaigning.



The election is due on April 9 and the result will be declared two days later.



Prime Minister Narendra Modi will lay the foundation stone of a bridge over the Ganga river in Sahebganj district, which falls in Santhal Pargana.



The JMM has alleged that Modi`s programme has been deliberately scheduled to influence the voters.



"Modi will distribute free mobile phones and announce new projects. We have written to the Election Commission," said JMM General Secretary Supriyo Bhattacharya.



Ironically, the Chief Minister has been quoting JMM chief Shibu Soren, popularly known as Guruji, to seek votes.



"I have fulfilled the dream of Guruji by amending the money lending law. Hemant Soren, his son, did not end money lending when he was the Chief Minister.



"The JMM has held the seat for the last 40 years but did nothing for the welfare of the people."



Hemant Soren has, in turn, accused the Chief Minister of trying to copy his Uttar Pradesh counterpart Yogi Adityanath.



"And Raghubar is using Shibu Soren`s name to get mileage."



The BJP has fielded Hemlal Murmu, who was one of the top leaders of the JMM till 2014.



Political experts say the Chief Minister is trying to snatch the JMM seat to send a message that his move to amend the land acts has been accepted by the tribal people.



The JMM has fielded senior party leader Simon Marandi. The seat fell vacant in January after JMM legislator Anil Murmu died.
New Delhi: The presence of Goa Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar in the Rajya Sabha today evoked sharp reactions from Congress members who raised slogans against him and even trooped into Well of House in protest.

Parrikar, who was sworn in as the Goa chief minister earlier this month, walked in during the Zero Hour when Congress member Rajni Patil was about to ask a question.

Immediately, several members including Digvijay Singh, Congress general secretary incharge of Goa, and B K Hariprasad, were up on their feet shouting slogans. In response, some BJP members too stood up and shouted slogans.

Congress has accused the BJP of using unfair means to attain a majority in Goa. The BJP has rejected the charges saying the Congress did not have the numbers and was only creating hype.

As the shouting continued, Deputy Chairman P J Kurien stood up to bring order in the House. "Please give some respect to the Hon'ble lady member," he said as he asked Patil to raise the issue she had wanted to. Patil expressed concern about the use of persticides and chemical fertilisers.

After that, Parrikar stood up for a moment but instantly several Congress members were back to sloganeering.

Several party leaders inlcuding Rajeev Gowda, Hussain Dalwai as well as Patil, reached the Well of the House raising slogans against the former Defence Minister.

Union Minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi took a dig, sarcastically saying that Parrikar had expressed a "special thanks" to Digvijay Singh. Several BJP members thumped the tables to express support for Parrikar.
Coming Monday

Final reading is scheduled on a bill (LB46) that would allow for the design of "Choose Life" license plates to reflect support for the protection of Nebraska's children. If the bill passes, the Department of Motor Vehicles would make applications available beginning Jan. 1.
New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi will on Friday meet the Members of Parliament of all the non-BJP ruling states over breakfast.

The meeting will take place at the Prime Ministers official residence at 7, Lok Kalyan Marg in New Delhi.

Bharatiya Janata Party president Amit Shah will also be present during the PM's meeting with MPS from Odisha, Karnataka, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, and Tamil Nadu.

The focus of this meeting will be Karnataka as it is going to polls next year, said Times Now.

Notably, the Prime Minister met MPs from Maharastra and Gujarat in the last few days.

Ahead of Assembly Elections in Gujarat this year, the PM told MPs during the meeting to work overtime as public servants to fulfil people's expectations.

Besides MPs from Gujarat, parliamentarians from Goa, Rajasthan, Daman & Diu and Andaman & Nicobar islands were also present in the informal meeting with Modi over breakfast at his residence.

On Thursday, Modi held a breakfast meeting with party MPs from Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, and Chhattisgarh  his fourth such interaction with parliamentarians from different states  where he reportedly directed the parliamentarians to start ground work for the 2019 Lok Sabha polls as well as Maharashtra Legislative Assembly Election.
New Delhi: A busy yet highly industrious weekend awaits Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who has a smorgasbord of activities on his plate ranging from infrastructure, justice and diplomacy to spirituality and technology.

On April 1, Prime Minister Modi will be hosting his visiting Malaysian counterpart Najib Razak for bilateral talks at Delhi`s Hyderabad House.

The very next day he will dedicate to the nation, India`s longest road tunnel, the strategically crucial Chenani-Nashri Tunnel, which will significantly improve connectivity between Jammu and Srinagar.

After a visit to the state-of-the-art tunnel, he will also address a public meeting at Udhampur, sources state.

Later in the day, Prime Minister Modi will be at Allahabad to attend the closing celebrations of the 150th anniversary of the Allahabad High Court.

This weekend comes in the midst of the Chaitra Navratra - a nine-day period of fasting and spiritual importance for the Prime Minister.

Despite rigorous fasting and hectic schedule, Prime Minister Modi will take time out to address some of India`s sharpest young "tech" brains, who are taking part in the final round of the Smart India Hackathon that will take place over two days from 8 a.m. Saturday until Sunday 8 p.m.

It will focus on social issues and problems identified by 29 Ministries and Departments of the Union Government. About 10,000 participants have qualified for the final round.

Prime Minister Modi will address the participants at 10 p.m. on Saturday. The address, expected to last for about 45 minutes, will be followed by an interaction with the participants across multiple locations.

The hackathon is scheduled for a 36-hour period from 8 a.m. Saturday to 8 p.m. Sunday. As 10,000 youth put their brains together to find innovative solutions to problems in the same 36-hour period, Prime Minister Modi will be focusing on a diverse range of topics from diplomacy to infrastructure, justice, technology and spirituality.
New Delhi: In an another incident of hate crime, an Indian national has reportedly been beaten in Poland's Poznan city on Friday.

External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj has sought a report from the Indian ambassador after she was approached by a netizen who informed her about a news item in Polish media regarding the death of an Indian student after being severely beaten up.

"There was an incident of beating. Fortunately, he has survived. We are inquiring into all aspects of the incident," she tweeted.

Bisaria had earlier tweeted, "Prelim enquiry suggests student attacked in Poznan tram on Wed. Thank God, he survived. Getting details."

However, at the moment it is unclear what led to the altercation between the two sides.

This development comes nearly a month after an Indian engineer Srinivas Kuchibhotla was shot dead in a racially motivated incident in US Kansas City.

Earlier in the day, two Indian nationals who had been abducted earlier in March by South Sudan rebels were released after the Indian government intervened in the matter.

More details on the incident is awaited.
Chennai: The Election Commission on Friday said prompt action would be taken against political parties or candidates who try to influence voters for the April 12 R K Nagar Assembly bypoll by offering cash or gifts.

Deputy Election Commissioner Umesh Sinha, who is here to review steps taken for smooth conduct of the poll, said they have received complaints that cash or gifts are being given to induce voters.

Informing that the Election Commission has set a 24 hour time limit for redressal of such complaints, he said, "All grievances will be addressed promptly."

"The Election Commission is of the view that we should stop any inducement activity by any political party or by any candidate," Sinha said and sought the support of all "stakeholders" on this issue.

Asserting that the electorate play the most important role, he said, "They have to understand the importance of voting without being influenced."

Sinha said officials from Income Tax department, Enforcement Department and surveillance teams will monitor vital junctions like airports, railway stations and bus stands to check if large amounts of money are being transferred.

"We are also taking the Commercial Tax department on board to check distribution of liquor in large quantities. We also warned traders not to indulge in such activities. All liquor shops will be closely monitored," he said.

Sinha said the EC-nominated observers are closely monitoring activities of political parties and candidates in the R K Nagar Assembly bypoll.

The poll panel has nominated senior IAS officers and enforcement teams to supervise the situation especially at evenings and nights.

Sufficient Central Police forces would be deployed at all polling stations to ensure that no one can influence or intimidate anybody, he said, adding there would be static surveillance teams and cameras have been installed at vital areas in the constituency.

Sinha said to ensure transparency, there would be full web casting at polling stations, Sinha said.

"Tamil Nadu has a very good tradition of not having any violence during elections," he said, adding EC officials will undertake door to door campaign in areas identified as sensitive to build confidence among the electorate there.

Strict action would be taken against those who threaten any voter, Sinha said.

Commenting on the large number of candidates in the fray, he said the EC would keep an eye on "dummy candidates" and if they are found campaigning for some other candidate or party, strict action will be taken against them.

A total of 62 candidates are in the fray in the bypoll which was necessitated following the demise of former Chief Minister and AIADMK supremo J Jayalalithaa in December last year.
New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Friday asked Calcutta High Court Justice CS Karnan, who has levelled allegations of corruption and caste discrimination against senior judges of the Madras High Court and the apex court, to file his reply within four weeks. Justice Karnan, who today appeared before the apex court after a bailable warrant was issued against him, asked the top court to restore his judicial and administrative work before responding to the contempt notice.

"Please permit me to perform my judicial and administrative work," Justice Karnan told an apex court bench headed by Chief Justice of India Jagdish Singh Khehar.

However, the apex court bench refused to pay heed to his plea and said, "If you remain apologetic then the matter would be different."

Justice Karnan in his reply told the court that his statement should be recorded so that he does not have to appear during the next hearing.After conclusion of the hearing, Justice Karnan told the media that he would pass on order against the seven judges of the bench to restrain their administrative power.

"I ordered the registrar general of the Supreme Court that he deduct 50, 000 every month from the salary of these seven judges of the bench who defied to pay me the compensation of Rs. 14 crore which I have demanded through a letter dated 15/03/2017 for defamation," he said.

He alleged that these seven judges of the Supreme Court were operating on malafide intentions."The attitude and the behavior was against Indian norms and construction. This sort of behavior will not only be known to Indians but the international community," he said.

Earlier this month, the Supreme Court had issued a bailable warrant against Justice Karnan to secure his presence in the court on March 31.This is for the first time in the history of Indian judiciary that a sitting High Court Judge is personally appearing before the apex court and defending himself in a case.
New Delhi: The Supreme Court will on Friday pronounce its order on a batch of petitions - both by some states and private parties - seeking modification of its order banning liquor vendors along national and state highways.

On Thursday, a bench of Chief Justice Jagdish Singh Khehar, Justice DY Chandrachud and Justice L Nageswara Rao reserved its order.

The bench yesterday said that in the "interest of the public health" the liquor shops were ordered to be removed to a distance of 500 meters from either side of the highways.

The bench added that asking the state government to shift the liquor shops was not impinging on the excise policy of different states as it was only a matter of distance of the outlets from the highways.

Even the excise policy says that liquor shops can be located only at a certain distance from the highways, it said.

The bench told the senior lawyers appearing for some states: "Those states which were seriously affected by the order, they should have come here."

"We have not tested the excise policy. You have no freedom to drink and drive on the national highway," said Justice Chandrachud, who authored the December 15 judgment.

As Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi named some small towns saying that the restriction of 500 meters would cross them and contended that because of the ban "the budget of every state has gone for a six", the bench said: "You are not telling us which town will go."

He further said, "Some exception can be granted to the states to relax the condition, especially as far as the state highways are concerned, by reducing the limit say to 100 metres."

To this, the bench asked the attorney general to address it on the issue if he thinks the verdict is not justified as the parties have done nothing since December 15, 2016.

"You cannot come at the last moment and say that relax the conditions. Where were you after December 15," it said.

The court said this as Rohatgi and several other senior lawyers including KK Venugopal, CA Sundaram, Kapil Sibal, Rajeev Dhavan, Raju Ramachandran and others told the court that its December 15 ban was hurting the state exchequer and the order was unconstitutional.

"It is unconstitutional. In one stroke all the excise laws within the country were whipped out," Dhavan told the bench and asked on what basis the court had given the order.

Urging the court to have a relook at its order banning liquor outlets on the highways, Venugopal said the percentage of accidents due to drunk driving was the lowest.

He said that while drunk driving was being hammered, nothing was being done to deal with accidents on account of speeding or overloading of trucks.

Giving a suggestion, Venugopal said that those liquor shops which are outside the 100 meter from the edges of the highways but within 500 meters should be allowed to continue.

However, a lawyer opposing the relaxation of 500 ban order referred to several advisories issued by the Centre since 2004 asking for curbs on the liquor shops along the highway.

He said it took 13 years for the ban to come and pointed out that India had the highest rate of accidents of drunk driving.

Besides some liquor vendors' associations, states like Kerala, Punjab, and Telangana had approached the apex court seeking modification of the judgement.

The apex court had ordered a ban on all liquor shops along the national as well as the state highways across the country and had made it clear that licences of existing shops will not be renewed after March 31 next year.

The verdict had come on a PIL alleging that nearly 1.42 lakh people died per year in road mishaps and that the drunken driving is a major contributor.

It had also directed that all signages indicating the presence of liquor vends will be prohibited along national and state highways.

(With Agency inputs)
New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Friday reduced from 500 to 220 metres the distance of liquor vends from highways in areas with a population of up to 20,000.

The December 15 order banning liquor ends up to 500 metres from national, state highways stands, the SC said.

The distance relaxation also extended to hill states of Sikkim, Meghalaya and Himachal Pradesh, the SC bench comprising of CJI JS Khehar and Justices DY Chandrachud and LN Rao said.

People who got licence for liquor vends prior to the Dec 15, 2016 verdict can operate till September 30, 2017. Others will have to shut down from tomorrow, the SC order said.

The apex court's verdict comes on a batch of petitions - both by some states and private parties - seeking modification of its order banning liquor vendors along national and state highways.

Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi had contended that the December 15, 2016 judgement needed rectification as the "budget of the states will go for a six".

"Errors that may have crept in may be looked at. The error that has crept in is that what is good for national highways is good for state highways, he said.

"All of India cannot be compared. Some towns in totality are situated along the state highways and if you say that liquor vends cannot be allowed in the vicinity of 500 meters then where will they go," he told the bench.

Also Read: SC ruling on liquor shops along highway: Pune liquor outlets, bars likely to be exempted from closure

As Rohatgi named some small towns saying that the restriction of 500 meters would cross them and contended that because of the ban "the budget of every state has gone for a six", the bench said: "You are not telling us which town will go."

Also Read: Highway liquor ban: Karnataka liquor vendors get temporary relief

The court said this as Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi and several other senior lawyers including KK Venugopal, CA Sundram, Kapil Sibal, Rajeev Dhavan, Raju Ramachandran and others told the court that its December 15 ban was hurting the state exchequer and the order was unconstitutional.
Washington: An influential group of nine Democratic Senators has urged President Donald Trump to not let a Canadian company use foreign made steel, in particular from India and Italy, in the trans-national multibillion controversial Keystone oil pipeline.

"Your memorandum explicitly covers new and expanded pipeline projects so we were confused and disappointed to learn that the Keystone XL pipeline would not be required to use 100 per cent American-made steel," the nine Democratic Senators wrote in their joint letter to Trump, a copy of which was released to the press yesterday.

"Further, we are deeply concerned that by allowing this Canadian firm to use foreign steel from countries like India and Italy, which have a history of dumping steel products in the US market at unfair, illegal prices, you are establishing a precedent that will have the effect of costing US jobs and undermining the spirit of your Presidential Memorandum," the Senators wrote.

Led by Senators Chris Van Hollen and Tammy Duckworth the Democratic lawmakers urged Trump to protect American jobs by ensuring all new pipelines ? if approved ? are constructed and maintained with American made products and equipment.

Other signatories to the letter are Cory A. Booker, Thomas R. Carper, Al Franken, Christopher S. Murphy, Debbie Stabenow, Joe Donnelly Claire McCaskill, Robert Menendez, and Gary C. Peters.

"As champions of expanding Buy American requirements to make sure taxpayer-supported projects contract with American companies to the greatest extent possible, we were initially encouraged by this memorandum," they said.

"We were disappointed, however, when we learned that your administration would exempt the Keystone XL pipeline project from this Buy American policy," the letter added.

On January 24, Trump issued a Presidential Memorandum to the Secretary of Commerce directing the Secretary to "develop a plan under which all new pipelines, as well as retrofitted, repaired, or expanded pipelines, inside the borders of the US, including portions of pipelines, use materials and equipment produced in the US, to the maximum extent possible and to the extent permitted by law."

However, Trump has exempted Keystone pipeline from this.

"We request that you reconsider your decision to allow a foreign company to use foreign steel in the Keystone XL pipeline and urge you to secure a firm commitment to source 100 per cent American-made steel for this project," the Senators wrote.

"Doing so would be a strong statement of support for American manufacturers and the hard working women and men who fuel our national economy," they said.

The USD 8 billion pipeline that TransCanada wants to build would carry crude oil from Canada through Montana, South Dakota and Nebraska, where it would connect with an existing Keystone pipeline network that would take the oil to Texas Gulf Coast refineries.

Several environmental groups filed lawsuits against the Trump administration yesterday to challenge its decision to approve construction of controversial Keystone pipeline.

The environmental groups contend in their lawsuit filed in Montana that the 2014 report on the project's impact "downplays or ignores other significant environmental impacts of Keystone XL, including harms to land, air, water, and wildlife."

Former president Barack Obama, rejected the pipeline, saying it would lead to an increase in greenhouse gas emissions and do nothing to reduce fuel prices for US motorists.

The pipeline that was first proposed in 2008 has drawn strong opposition from environmental groups and some landowners who worry about potential contamination of ground and surface water.
M. Marie Fischer was born in Northport on January 21, 1928. She passed away on March 30, 2017, surrounded by her husband and children. Marie spent her childhood in the rural Gresham area, attended Cortland High School, graduated Scribner High School and attended Doane College. Later she moved to Chicago where she lived and worked at Chicago Commons Settlement House. While there she earned a bachelor's degree from George Williams College in social work.

Before moving to Lincoln in 1958 she lived in Oklahoma City where she was president of the League of Women Voters. While her children were small she taught piano at home and received a master's degree in Political Science from the University of Nebraska  Lincoln.

Upon graduation she worked as a planner and then director of the Division of Community Affairs in the Department of Economic Development. She joined the faculty at UNL in 1978 where she became a professor in the Department of Community and Regional Planning and continued graduate studies in Adult and Continuing Education. Upon retiring from UNL she served as a trainer for The Grantsmanship Center.

Throughout her career and in retirement she enjoyed volunteer work especially in civic, human service and church-related groups. She was national president of the Community Development Society; board member of the Lower Platte South Natural Resources District; member of the Board of Zoning Appeals; vice chair, Region II Crime Commission; board member, Fresh Start Home and a volunteer in many other community groups.

She is survived by her husband, Loyd K. Fischer, her daughter Ann and her husband Steve Davis of Nevada City, California; son-in-law Decio Hopffer, of Tucson, Arizona; son Charles and his wife Susan, of Kansas City, Missouri; daughter Catherine Brass, of Seward; son Jim Arnot and Bonnie Martinez, of Seattle, Washington; sister and brother-in-law, Lillian and Richard Dudley of Crete; sister-in-law, Jo Albrecht, of Crete; ten grandchildren; and many nieces, nephews and cousins.

Preceded in death by parents, the Rev. Louis M. Albrecht and Minnie J. Albrecht; brothers David and Louis; and daughter, Elizabeth Arnot-Hopffer.

A celebration of life will be held at 10 a.m. on Monday, April 3, in the main lounge at Eastmont, 6315 "O" Street. Memorials in honor of Marie should be sent to the Fresh Start Home in Lincoln, or the David F. Albrecht scholarship fund, Doane University.
Srinagar: Clashes erupted in parts of the Kashmir Valley after the congregational Friday prayers as protesters assembled outside mosques shouting pro-Islamic and "freedom" slogans.



Soon after the Friday prayers ended in Jammu and Kashmir`s Sopore, Tral and Bijbehara towns, slogan-shouting protesters assembled outside the local mosques.



Four protesting youth and a security man were injured in Sopore, but police here said no serious injury to anyone has so far been reported from anywhere in the Valley.



In Maisuma area of Srinagar, some protesting youths forced closure of markets before they were chased away by the security forces.



Separatists had called for protests after the Friday prayers against killings of three civilian in clashes with the security forces in Budgam district o n Tuesday.



Authorities had made heavy deployments of security forces in sensitive areas of the Valley although no curfew was imposed anywhere.



Senior separatist leaders including Syed Ali Geelani and Mirwaiz Umer Farooq were placed under house arrest here while Muhammad Yasin Malik has been lodged in Srinagar central jail after he was remanded to police custody by the Principal District and Sessions Judge on Wednesday.
Mumbai: The Maharashtra government would lose about Rs 11,000 crore in revenue when the Supreme Court's high liquor ban comes into force on April 1.

The apex court on Friday upheld the ban on sale of liquor within 500 meters of state and national highways in view of road accidents due to drunken driving.

The order means that the licenses of liquor outlets which fall in the red zone will not be renewed after March 31.

According to the state excise department's figures, the state has a total of 15,699 licenses which are functional in the 500 meter distance from state and national highways.

This covers 61.53% of the 25,513 retail liquor vending licenses in Maharashtra, which will now have to be shut down or transferred elsewhere.

The total number of licenses which operate in the 500 meter area around national highways is 4,969 (19.47% of the total) and the figure for state highways is 10,730 (42%). This includes establishments like country liquor and IMFL retail vends, permit rooms, club licenses and beer shoppees.

These licenses will not be renewed from the 2017-18 financial year.

The state government has said it will implement the court's order and shut down liquor shops that fall in the red zone.

"Maximum number of deaths due to road accidents were due to drunken driving.

The SC verdict effectively means that 12,967 liquor shops in the state that fall within the 500 meter radius will have to shut down after March 31, 2017," PTI quoted state finance minister Sudhir Mungantiwar as saying.

Asked about the contention of the liquor lobby about revenue loss, Mungantiwar said, "anyway they are not in the business of selling holy water."

The minister also said that the Maharashtra government was prepared to incur the loss in its revenue and will implement the order of the apex court.

(With PTI inputs)
Pune: Liquor shops and bars located along a majority of highways in Pune are likely to be exempted from closure after Supreme Court's latest ruling on 'highway liquor ban'.

"Times of India' quoted an excise department officials saying that the municipal corporations have taken over the management of a majority of highways in Pune, and so the Supreme Court ban on sale of alcohol along national and state highways may not apply to such stretches.

As per officials, most of these stretches  including the Pune-Ahmednagar highway (a major hub of permit rooms, lounges and bars)  have been denotified over the years, and may therefore not even fall under the ambit of the Supreme Court ban.

However, it remains unclear that these stretches are being managed by the Pune Municipal Corporation or the PWD.

Ganesh Shetty, president, Pune Restaurants and Hoteliers Association (PRAHA), said, "PWD had told the excise department that almost 90% of the so-called highways in Pune city are not maintained by them, which is as good as these stretches being denotified."

However, sources in the Pune District Wine Merchants' Association said that liquor shops outside the city will be adversely affected by to the Supreme Court ruling.

"Close to 90% of the liquor shops outside Pune city may have to shut shop," a source said.

Pune has issued over 2,398 alcohol licences with most of the shops lining the national and state highways.

According to excise department officials, there are 264 wine shops in Pune district, 1,454 permit room bars, 583 beer shops and 297 country liquor shops. More than 80 per cent of these shops are located in the vicinity of highways that pass through the district.
New Delhi: A Special Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) court on Friday adjourned the hearing in the Sheena Bora murder case till April 21.

Earlier on Thursday, the CBI court deferred the trial after defense protested over the non-appearance of approver and first witness Shyamvar Rai, who was Indrani Mukerjea`s former driver.In January, the special court had charged Indrani, her husband Peter Mukerjea and her ex-husband Sanjeev Khanna with murder and criminal conspiracy in connection with this case.

The murder, which took place on April 24, 2012, came to light in 2015 with the arrest of Rai, who later turned approver for the CBI.

Indrani, Khanna and Rai have been accused of strangling 24-year-old Sheena - Indrani`s daughter from a previous relationship-on April 24, 2012. Her burnt body was dumped in a bag in the forests in Raigad district near Mumbai.The trio was arrested in August 2015, while Peter was arrested later in November 19 that year.
Las Vegas: There was speculation that Zac Efron's well-toned body in the trailer of forthcoming film Baywatch is fake, but Indian actress and his co-star Priyanka Chopra has vouched for how real it is.

The actress added that she initially had her doubts, but was shocked to know the abs were real.

"I didn't think it was real initially. (I thought) there's gotta be some air brushing or paint brushing or whatever people... I can vouch for them. I have seen them for real. They are real and I was shocked," Priyanka said.

The Quantico star, who will be making her Hollywood debut with "Baywatch" this year, talked about Efron's physique in an interview with E! News when she became a part of ongoing CinemaCon here. The video is doing the rounds on social media platforms.

She was joined by her co-stars Dwayne Johnson, Efron, Alexandra Daddario, Kelly Rohrbach and Jon Bass.

When asked by the interviewer whether Efron is human to have such a perfect body, she said: "Human beings have them."

"He is forever training. I watched him and I ate. I was always eating whenever Zac was training. I don't know why I always got hungry seeing him work so hard," Priyanka added.

Baywatch has been adapted from the 1990s' popular TV series of the same name and is slated to hit the screens in May. Priyanka will be seen in a negative role.
Mumbai: Actor Anupam Kher, whose latest Bollywood release "Naam Shabana" features a woman as the protagonist, says he has always considered women superior to men.

"I always feel that women are superior to men. Anybody who can give birth to life has to be superior," Anupam said here on Thursday.

"My mother is a great lady and there are strong women in the society. It is important in each country, including India, to give equal opportunities to women. It should be a very natural process and we should not work hard, very hard for it. Being a known face, it is very important for me to talk about such issues," he said.

Anupam spoke on the sidelines of a special screening of "Poorna" -- another movie highlighting the grit and determination of a girl.

Rahul Bose directed "Poorna" is a biopic on the life of Poorna Malavath, a young tribal girl from Telangana who became the youngest girl in history to climb the Mount Everest.

Praising Rahul for making such a film, Anupam said: "Rahul is a socially aware person. He is always associated with a film which presents some important causes and issues. He is also associated with numerous causes. Every film is about storytelling and how engaging you could make it.

"I am happy for him that his film is creating buzz among the people."
New Delhi: The queues at the designated RBI offices seem to be spilling over as the deadline for exchange of invalid notes by residents who were abroad during the cash ban window draws to a close on Friday.

The anxiety is palpable as people are leaving nothing to chance and lining up at the RBI office in the national capital from the night itself so that they get to deposit the currency next day.

People queue outside Reserve Bank of India in Kolkata, West Bengal as deadline for exchange of demonetised notes ends today. pic.twitter.com/neQcFDkwHj  ANI (@ANI_news) March 31, 2017

The Reserve Bank has allowed Indian citizens who were abroad during November-December 2016 to exchange the scrapped notes up to March 31 and NRIs up to June 30. This facility is available at RBI offices in Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata, Chennai and Nagpur only.

For some reasons or the other, there are several people who have not been able to deposit or exchange the junked notes or have discovered them after the end of the demonetisation period on December 30, who are now making a last-ditch effort.

On March 28, in a written reply to the Rajya Sabha, Minister of State for Finance Arjun Ram Meghwal had said ineligible persons queuing up at the Reserve Bank were responsible for longer queues.

People queue outside Bhopal Reserve Bank of India office as deadline for exchange of demonetised notes ends today. pic.twitter.com/aLuEDw6CRB  ANI (@ANI_news) March 31, 2017

The minister said the RBI has posted detailed instructions on its website clearly showing the eligibility parameters and other necessary documents required to be tendered for exchange of old notes.

After scrapping the old Rs 500 and 1,000 notes on November 8, the government had permitted people to deposit the same in banks up to December 30, 2016.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi in his address to the nation on November 8 had said, "There may be some who for some reason, are not able to deposit their old Rs 500 or Rs 1,000 rupee notes by December 30, 2016. They can go to specified offices of the Reserve Bank of India up to March 31, 2017 and deposit the notes after submitting a declaration form."
New Delhi: Retirement fund body EPFO has extended the deadline for submitting Aaddhar by its about 50 lakh pensioners as well as around 4 crore subscribers till Friday to help them get their benefits of social security schemes.

The last date for submitting digital life certificate for pensioners was also extended to March 31.

Earlier in January, Employees' Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) had decided to extend the date of submission through Jeevan Pramaan Patra programme to February 28. This was done to make the job easy for pensioners.

An official said the deadline has been further extended till March 31, 2017, to allow pensioners to submit their life certificates electronically and link their accounts with their Aadhaar numbers.

In November last year, EPFO had decided to shift the last date to January 15, 2017, to provide relief to pensioners, hit hard by demonetisation. Another extension came in January this year as Aadhaar is needed for submission of digital life certificates.

EPFO has already made it mandatory for pensioners as well as subscribers to submit Aaddhar for availing of benefits of the Employees' Pension Scheme.

It has done away with the system of accepting life certificate manually through banks. The pensioners are required to provide life certificates digitally either through their mobile phones or at common service centres or at bank branches providing such facility.

EPFO has already joined the vast network of over 2 lakh common services centres (CSC) of the IT department to widen its reach. The CSC network is one of the largest government approved online service delivery channels in the world.

As per practice, EPFO pensioners are required to submit their life certificates by November. In case, the pensioners do not submit so, their pension is stopped.

EPFO has been accepting life certificates through Jeevan Pramaan software application through mobile phones. Besides, the pensioners are using the services of over 2 lakh CSCs across the country.

The retirement body three social security schemes - Employees' Provident Fund 1952, Employees' Pension Scheme 1995 and Employees' Deposit Linked Insurance Scheme 1976 - to provide provident fund, pension and group term insurance to its over four crore subscribers.

With PTI Inputs
New Delhi: Several important rules and regulations will change or take effect from Saturday, as April 1 marks the start of the financial year 2017-18. The rules range from regulations on personal income tax to sale and registration of non-BS IV vehicles.

Here we are listing some of the key changes in rules that will be effective from the new financial year 2017-18.

Income Tax rules

Personal income tax: Personal income tax for people with income in the slab of 2.5 lakh to 5 lakh to be reduced to 5 percent instead of 10 percent. This will reduce their tax liability to half while all other tax payers above this slab will also be benefited in terms of lesser tax of Rs 12,500 per individual.

Surcharge of 10 percent to be levied on individuals with income between Rs 50 lakhs to Rs 1 crore.

Retail investors: The Finance Minister has proposed to phase out tax benefits under Rajiv Gandhi Equity Savings Scheme (RGESS), which was introduced with much fanfare by the previous UPA regime.

Under the scheme, deduction for three consecutive assessment years is allowed up to Rs 25,000 to a resident individual for investment made in listed equity shares or listed units of an equity oriented fund subject to fulfillment of certain conditions.

Affordable housing: Holding period to be reduced for computation of long term capital gain from three years to two years

Cash transaction limit: Cash transaction of above Rs 2 lakh not to be permitted.

ITR filing: The government has notified a simpler, one-page form for filing income tax returns while making it mandatory to quote Aadhaar number and disclose bank deposits of more than Rs 2 lakh post demonetisation.

The Income Tax Return Form-1 (Sahaj) will replace the 7-page form, removing a plethora of columns on deductions from income claimed.

Railway Vikalp scheme

From April 1, waitlisted passengers can avail the opportunity of travelling in premier trains like Rajdhani or Shatabdi even if they have booked tickets in other mail or express trains for the same destination.

As per the scheme, passengers opting for 'Vikalp' scheme while booking tickets will get SMS alert on his/her mobile phone about confirmed accommodation in the next train running on the route.

Charges for non maintenance of minimum balance in savings bank account

SBI has decided to levy penalty on non-maintenance of minimum balance, which the bank plans to hike manifold from April 1. However, the government has asked SBI to reconsider its decision to levy penalty on non-maintenance of minimum balance.

The country's largest lender has announced imposing penalty ranging from Rs 20-100 on non-maintenance of Minimum Average Balance (MAB) in savings bank accounts. The penalty is as high as Rs 500 in case of current accounts. The penalty for breach of MAB is being reintroduced after a gap of five years.

SBI has also imposed restrictions on withdrawals of cash from its branches as well as ATMs. These will attract charges after certain specified limits.

Some private banks, like HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank and Axis Bank, have started charging a minimum amount of Rs 150 per transaction for cash deposits and withdrawals beyond four free transactions in a month.

Ban on sale and registration of non-BS IV vehicles

The automobile industry is fully geared up to commence production of vehicles compliant with BS-IV emission norms from April 1 across the country.

Implementation of BS-IV norms pan-India had been delayed due to non-availability of BS-IV fuel across the country, forcing some categories of four-wheeled vehicles to remain at the BS-III stage till April 1 2017.

The Indian auto industry will also be the first in the world to leapfrog from BS-IV to BS-VI emission norms by 2020.

Car, motorcycle and health insurance to cost more

Car, motorcycle and health insurance will cost more from April 1 with regulator Irdai giving go-ahead to insurers for revision in commission for agents. The change in premium after modification will be limited to +/- 5 percent of the existing rates.

No stamping, tagging of hand baggage at 7 major airports

Stamping and tagging of the hand baggage of fliers at seven major airports, including Delhi and Mumbai, will be done away with from April 1.

The other airports which will see the new system of baggage security coming in include the ones in Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Cochin and Ahmedabad. However, this would not be applicable to the passengers flying out of the country.

Delhi Metro smart cards to be non-refundable

The Delhi Metro's smart cards will be non-refundable from April 1. The smart cards sold after April 1 and the cards already in circulation will become non-refundable.

The DMRC added that Delhi Metro commuters will get back only the security deposit, after relevant deductions, if they return the smart cards after April 1.
Jaipur: The principal of a private school was thrashed and his face blackened by family members of a teacher, whom he allegedly molested in Rajasthan's Ajmer district.

The incident took place in Kishangarh area. The principal allegedly asked the teacher to accompany him to Jaipur to buy furniture for the school. She agreed and they left for Jaipur on Wednesday in the principal's car, SHO Madanganj police station Jogendra Singh said.

The teacher alleged that the principal molested her in the car en route to Jaipur.

Yesterday, the teacher along with her family members and representatives of social organisations reached the school to protest against the incident.

They allegedly caught hold of the principal, blackened his face and beat him up, Singh said.

The principal and the family members of the teacher have filed complaints based on which FIRs have been registered by police.
For the second year in a row, northeast Nebraskas Thurston County ranks the least healthy in the state, while its neighbor, Cedar County, retains the crown of healthiest.

It doesnt come as a surprise, said Julie Rother, director of the Northeast Nebraska Public Health Department, which encompasses both counties.

We have historically in our health district had some of the leading counties in the health ranking and some of the counties at the end of the rankings.

The eighth annual County Health Rankings report by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation in Princeton, New Jersey, and the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute was released Wednesday.

It placed Thurston County 78th of the 78 Nebraska counties examined for length and quality of life.

The study looks at the majority of counties in the nation, ranking them based on the ages people die and health factors such as smoking, obesity, sexually transmitted infections, teen births, uninsured rates, air pollution, high school graduation rates, child poverty and preventable hospital stays.

Only 78 of Nebraskas 93 counties were ranked because some had populations too small to provide reliable numbers for the study.

Rother said there are many complicated social, economic and fiscal factors that lead to counties being so close geographically yet so distant in terms of health and quality of life.

Largely rural, Thurston County is one of the poorest counties in the state, has one of the highest teen pregnancy rates, and 52 percent of its residents are Native American.

We do know there are social disparities of health," Rother said. "Health is not all about access to health care. There are a lot of other factors that play into how healthy people are and a lot of those can be addressed by public health programs and policies that address some of these social disparities. Its challenging to do that when your funding is limited.

Where you live influences how well and how long you live, the rankings show. Many factors beyond medical care affect health, the study said, including housing, education, jobs and access to healthy foods.

Nebraskas healthiest counties following Cedar County are Pierce, Washington, Polk and Valley. The five counties in the poorest health, starting with least healthy, are Thurston, Scotts Bluff, Kimball, Box Butte and Keith.

According to the report, the least healthiest counties have more smokers, more teen births and more alcohol-related car crash deaths.

Lancaster County ranked 17th in the study and Douglas County came in 55th.

Its an improvement for Lancaster County, which last year ranked 21st.

Judy Halstead, director of the Lincoln-Lancaster County Health Department, said Lancaster County ranks lower in areas such as mental health and HIV diagnosis because people move to Lincoln for services.

We rank higher in those health areas where people need the services. You will see this matches in the clinical care category, where we rank third, because of all of the providers and services available in Lancaster County, Halstead said.

In short, people with the needs gravitate to the services available in Lincoln that are not available in other counties.

She credited Lancaster Countys improvement in the rankings with a focus on increasing the communitys physical activity and great health providers who treat people.

Halstead advocated a three-pronged approach to continuing to improve Lancaster Countys health  improved mental-health and substance-abuse services, promotion of physical activity for people of all ages and income levels, and health screenings for early detection of diseases and access to treatment.

This year the study looked closely at national death trends in people younger than 75. Nationally, the report shows, drug overdoses were the leading cause of death among people ages 25 to 44. The leading causes of death for those ages 15 to 24 were listed as homicide, suicide and motor vehicle crashes.

In Nebraska from 1997 to 2014, 24 counties saw improvements in death rates of people under 75, five saw worsening rates and the rest saw no change.

Young adults who are not in school or working represent untapped potential in our communities and our nation that we cant afford to waste, said Julie Willems Van Dijk, director of the County Health Rankings & Roadmaps.

Communities addressing issues such as poverty, unemployment, and education can make a difference creating opportunities for all youth and young adults. The County Health Rankings are an important springboard for conversations on how to do just that.
Chennai: Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak met superstar Rajinikanth at his residence here on Friday.

"Just had a very warm and friendly meeting with Rajinikanth, the Tamil superstar, at his home," Razak tweeted on Friday.

He also shared a photo that features him along with the 66-year-old actor.

Razak is in the city to receive an honorary doctorate from Thanjavur University.

As part of his two-day visit, Razak is believed to have met Governor C. Vidyasagar Rao and Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Edappadi Palaniswami.

According to sources close to Rajinikanth, he met Razak over breakfast at his residence.

Razak became a fan of Rajinikanth during the latter's long stay in Malacca, Malaysia for the shoot of the 2016 film Kabali.

"When we were shooting for 'Kabali' in Malaysia, we were touched by the support Malaysian government extended to us. Due to our busy shooting schedule, I couldn't meet and thank him (Razak) in Malaysia.

"When I learnt he was coming to Chennai, I invited him home. He accepted my invitation and came home. He even saw some portion of 'Kabali'," Rajinikanth told reporters here.

Asked if the rumour that he was going to replace actor Shah Rukh Khan as the brand ambassador of Malaysian tourism was true, Rajinikanth trashed such reports.
New Delhi: Microsoft has announced that the next major update to Windows 10 -- the Windows 10 Creators Update -- will begin rolling out to the 400 million monthly active devices worldwide on April 11.

The company will also launch Surface Book and Surface Studio devices in new markets soon.

Surface Book and Surface Studio are available for pre-order in new markets, including Britain, Austria, China, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Japan, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and Switzerland. The devices will be available for purchase on April 20.

The easiest and most effective way to get the Creators Update is through the Windows Insider programme.

The new capabilities coming with the Windows 10 Creators Update include faster Microsoft Edge browser, additional security and privacy protections, simpler game broadcasting with Beam, and 3D designing for everyone.

In Microsoft Edge, the Creators Update will deliver better tab management features designed specifically to address the chaos and clutter of the web and the fear of losing tabs.

With these tab management features, a user can also preview visual thumbnails of all opened tabs at a glance, and set a group of tabs aside in an instant to get a fresh start, removing all distractions and providing a clean browser feel.

The company has said that Microsoft Edge is safer and more secure than ever, providing protection from phishing and malicious software.

The Creators Update will bring more extensions to Microsoft Edge such as Ebates, Intel TrueKey, Read & Write, Ghostery, and RoboForm among others. Microsoft Edge is the only browser with Cortana built-in.

Now users can play Netflix movies and content in 4K Ultra HD resolution. Microsoft Edge is the only browser making this possible.

With Windows Ink in the Creators Update, users will now be able to do things like draw or write on your photos and videos with a variety of pens, create 3D objects from scratch on Paint 3D, and write or draw directly on a Microsoft Edge webpage.

Using your digital pen, you can also markup digital documents on Microsoft Word just like you do with a paper and a pen.

The company also provided more power to Cortana making it easier for the users to complete their day-to-day task easily.

Microsoft also upped the security and privacy in the new update that let a user choose the experience with Windows.

In the Creators Update, Microsoft added Beam broadcasting technology making it easier for users to broadcast gameplay on Windows 10 and Xbox One. With Game Bar, a gamer can take screenshots and record gaming moments.

Game Mode is another new Windows 10 feature arriving with the Creators Update that optimises Windows 10 PC to provide a better, more consistent gaming experience.

With 3D in Windows 10, a user can experience and create amazing things in a new dimension using an ecosystem of 3D apps built into your Windows 10 device.

The new Paint 3D app makes it easy to create or modify 3D objects. Easily change colour and texture, or turn 2D images into 3D objects. Then share on Remix3D or print in 3D.

Microsoft also added improvements across a suite of built-in apps for music, maps and photos that work across Xbox and HoloLens.
New Delhi: Indian television industry's one of the most unfortunate and talked about incidents in the current times happens to be the ugly spat between comedians Kapil Sharma and Sunil Grover, leaving their fans saddened and shocked at the same time. While several theories are doing the rounds regarding their future endeavours, there is a strong buzz that Sunil is still thinking about the show but is not likely to return.

According to Mumbai Mirror.com, Sunil and Kapil were recently shooting in the same vicinity in Mumbai but did not meet. Quoting a source close to Sunil, the report states that the class actor has been telling friends about how he misses 'The Kapil Sharma Show' but can't go back after facing such humiliation from the host of the show.

For the uninitiated, a brawl allegedly took place between Sunil and Kapil when the latter hurled abuses at him in a drunk state onboard Melbourne-Delhi bound flight. Reportedly, Sunil tried to calm Kapil down by asking him not to yell too much but in return got a heavy dose from the 'Kis Kisko Pyaar Karoon' actor.

After which Kapil took to Facebook and posted a long post clarifying his side of the story. However, Sunil too tweeted a long heartfelt post asking him 'to not act as God', after which Kapil apologised on Twitter.

Meanwhile, Raju Srivastava has confirmed being a part of 'The Kapil Sharma Show'.
Muzaffarnagar: In a shocking incident, around 70 girl students of a residential school at Muzaffarnagar in Uttar Pradesh were stripped naked by a warden to check for menstrual blood.

The incident took place on Sunday when there were no other teachers in the Kasturba Gandhi Girls Residential School.

The students said that the female warden ordered them to assemble and ordered to strip. She allegedly threatened them with a beating if they disobeyed. The horrific incident has triggered protests by the girls families.

According to a girl student, some blood stains were found in a bathroom. The warden then ordered girls to remove their clothes. It was very humiliating for all of us. We want action against her, said one of the students.

The warden has been suspended.

She, however, denied the incident. Nothing of the sort happened. Some blood was found on the floor and wall of the bathroom. I wanted to check if everything was all right with the girls. Such young girls are sometimes unable to express... I just asked them if anything was wrong, she said.

I am strict when it comes to studies. That is why the girls dont like me. They are being provoked by other staff members who want me to leave, she was quoted as saying by CNN-News18.

The Uttar Pradesh government has ordered a probe into the shocking incident.

Uttar Pradesh's Power Minister Shrikant Sharma today condemned the shameful incident and said a probe by the concerned authorities has been initiated.

"We were informed through the media; the concerned officers have been given instruction to carry out the investigation," Sharma told news agency ANI.
New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Friday refused to give early hearing to the Ram Temple-Babri Masjid case after litigants objected to BJP Rajya Sabha MP Dr Subramanian Swamy's role in the case.

As the matter came up before the apex court, it said, ''We didn't know that you (Dr Swamy) are a party to case".

The apex court also asked Subramanian Swamy to explain what is his locus standi in the case? We don't have time to hear you now, the top court said.

The firebrand BJP leader, who had filed the petition, had pleaded before the top court to hear the case on a day-to-day basis and pass an order favouring immediate construction of Ram temple in Ayodhya.

The apex court had earlier described Ram temple as a ''sensitive and sentimental'' issue and called for an amicable settlement of the dispute by all concerned parties.

On March 21, the apex court had suggested an out-of-court settlement in the highly vexed case.

The top court had set March 31 as the deadline for all the parties involved to present their stance on the issue.

While most of the parties, including VHP, RSS, BJP, have welcomed the court's suggestion, the Babri Masjid Action Committee (BMAC) had rejected the idea, saying time for amicable settlement of the issue is long over.

AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi had also favoured daily hearing in Supreme Court over the Ayodhya temple dispute and said the case is about who has the title of the disputed land.

Owaisi also said he was waiting to see if "conspiracy charges" would be held against senior BJP leaders in the matter.

Asked if the issue can be resolved through out-of-court settlement, dialogue and mediation, he sought to reaffirm the position of the All India Muslim Personal Law Board.

The Board, a party to the appeal in Supreme Court, had in their working committee taken a decision that there would be no more talks as earlier six attempts were not successful, and want the Court to hear the matter on a day-to-day basis.

The Allahabad High Court had ruled in 2010 that the disputed Ayodhya land be divided equally into three parts among Hindus and Muslims.

Meanwhile, the son of one of the main litigants in the Ram Temple-Babri Masjid land dispute has written to the Supreme Court raising objections to Swamy seeking urgent hearing in the case without informing all the parties concerned.

Mohammad Hashim Ansari's son has written to the Secretary General of the apex court that time and again the Rajya Sabha MP mentioned the matter before the Chief Justice of India without even informing the Advocate On Record including the lawyer who has been appearing for his father.

Ansari, one of the oldest litigant in the Ayodhya dispute, died in July last year at the age of 95. He was first to file the suit in the court of civil judge of Faizabad on the matter.
Muzaffarnagar: The Government of Uttar Pradesh has ordered a probe into the shocking incident of around 70 girls of the Kasturba School Hostel in Muzaffarnagar being stripped by the warden "to check for menstrual blood".

Uttar Pradesh's Power Minister Shrikant Sharma on Friday condemned the shameful incident and said a probe by the concerned authorities has been initiated."We were informed through the media; the concerned officers have been given instruction to carry out the investigation," Sharma told ANI.

One girl student said the warden ordered girls to remove their clothes after discovering blood stains in the bathroom."It was very humiliating for all of us. We want action against her," the girl said.The warden of the hostel has been suspended.
Lucknow: In yet another significant step, Uttar Pradesh government led by Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath on Tuesday banned strike by employees in universities and colleges.

The Adityanath government banned any strike by employees in state universities and colleges till June 30 under the stringent Essential Services Maintenance Act (ESMA).

The period has been chosen keeping in mind the busy academic calendar as a number examinations are scheduled in these three months.
Dehradun: The Uttarakhand Government on Friday imposed a ban on the sale of liquor in Uttarkashi, Chamoli and Rudraprayag districts.

The state government issued an order directing that sale of liquor be banned from April 1 due to the upcoming Char Dham Yatra.

The Nainital High Court had in September last year passed an order in this regard banning the "possession, distribution, collection, sale, purchase or consumption of liquor, including beer."

Besides liquor, the High Court also ordered to prohibit tobacco within five kilometers around Gurudwara Nanakmatta, Gurudwara Rita Sahib and Gurudwara Hemkund Sahib.
A 26-year-old Malcolm woman was sentenced to six years in prison Friday for abusing a 5-year-old girl so badly she suffered a brain bleed.

Cassondra Karst asked Lancaster County District Judge Susan Strong to give her probation so she could better herself "before I even think about ever having my kids back."

Todd Molvar of the public defender's office said probation would help Karst grow, and she has already taken steps while in jail to get her GED.

Molvar said his client would not be a threat to her children, who are in foster care, because she would be supervised during visits.

But Strong denied her request, saying probation would depreciate the seriousness of her crime.

Karst called 911 on June 16 to report the girl fell down the stairs and was unconscious but breathing, the Lancaster County Sheriff's Office said.

When deputies arrived they found the 5-year-old on the kitchen floor on the opposite side of the home from the stairs, court documents said.

Hospital staff later told deputies the girl had bruises in different stages of healing all over her body, and a CT scan discovered a brain bleed, according to court documents.

A doctor at Children's Hospital in Omaha said the girl's head injury could have been fatal and was caused by blunt-force trauma or being shaken, court documents said.

Department of Health and Human Services officials took the girl into emergency custody after she was released from the hospital.

In October, Karst and her fiance, Bruce Sampson, were arrested on suspicion of intentional child abuse resulting in injury.

Investigators found text conversations between them referring to child abuse, court documents said.

Karst, in one exchange, told Sampson the girl was upsetting her too much. "I can't handle it," her message reportedly said.

In his reply, court documents say, Sampson told her to smack the girl harder, and Karst said, "I've tried I can't I'm too upset I'm shaking."

Karst pleaded no contest to reduced child-abuse charges, and Strong sentenced her to the maximum of three years on both counts.

After her release, she must serve 18 months post-release supervision.

The case against Sampson is pending.
New Delhi: Two Indian petroleum engineers who were abducted in South Sudan have been released, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj said today.

"I am happy to inform about the release of two Indian nationals Midhun and Edward who were abducted in South Sudan. They have reached the Indian embassy in Khartoum.

"I appreciate the efforts of Indian Ambassador in South Sudan Srikumar Menon for the release of Indian nationals," she said in a series of tweets.

Indians Midhun Ganesh and Edward Ambrose along with a Pakistani, Ayaz Hussein Jamali, were abducted by rebels from near their workplaces earlier this month in oil-rich Upper Nile state. Jamali has also been reportedly released.

"Following requests from Indian and Pakistani governments, the Sudanese and Ethiopian governments coordinated together to secure the release of the three oil workers," Sudan's National Intelligence and Security Service said in a statement.

However, it did not specify when the hostages were released.
Brussels: Belgium has opened an investigation into the suspected involvement of Belgian fighter planes in air strikes in west Mosul that killed dozens of civilians, prosecutors said on Friday.

Iraqi authorities believe more than 130 civilians were killed in strikes over several days in Mosul`s al-Jadida area, and attention has focused on one allegedly particularly deadly strike on March 17.

"We have opened a preliminary investigation to establish... whether all procedures were observed during two incidents," prosecutors` spokesman Eric Van Der Sypt told AFP.

"If rules of engagement were properly observed... it is possible that no crime was committed," Van Der Sypt said.

Belgian MP Wouter De Vriendt told Flemish broadcaster VRT the case involved strikes carried out by Belgian F16 fighter jets on March 17.

The coalition had previously said it carried out a strike on March 17 in an area of west Mosul in which civilian casualties were reported, and that it had opened an investigation.

Belgium takes part in the US-led coalition against the Islamic State group, which has conducted tens of thousands of air strikes against the jihadists in Iraq and Syria.

The coalition insists that IS has targeted civilians and used them as human shields, while acknowledging that strikes by anti-IS forces have also left civilians dead.

The United States carries out most Iraq air operations, but Australia, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Jordan, the Netherlands and Britain also carry out missions.

General Stephen Townsend, the senior US commander in Iraq, said this week that a coalition strike in the northern city earlier this month "probably" killed dozens of civilians.

US investigators are also looking at the apparent bombing of a school in Mansura near Raqa, Syria on March 21, and a building next to a mosque on March 16 in Al-Jineh, in Aleppo province.
Peshawar: At least 22 people were killed and 50 others injured today in a suicide blast outside a Shiite imambargah at a busy market in Pakistan's restive northwest tribal region.

The bomber driving a car blew himself up near the main gate of the imambargah in the central bazar of Parachinar, Kurram Agency.

At least 22 people were killed and 50 others wounded in the blast, Dawn News reported, citing hospital sources. Women and a child were among the dead.

The condition of the majority of those injured was stated to be critical. Scores of vehicles were also damaged in the blast.

No one has claimed responsibility for the bombing.

Security forces cordoned off the area while emergency services were dispatched to the site.

The administration has declared an emergency at all hospitals in the area.

An Army medical evacuation helicopter has also been flown to Parachinar for evacuation of the injured, an Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) statement said.

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif expressed grief over the blast and condemned the attack. "It is our responsibility to continue the war against terrorists," he said.

Sharif reiterated his government's resolve to eliminate the menace of terrorism from the country at all costs.

"The network of terrorists has already been broken and it is our national duty to continue this war until the complete annihilation of the scourge of terrorism from our soil," he said.

The Prime Minister directed the relevant authorities to extend all possible assistance to the local administration.

Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar ordered an inquiry into the blast.
Washington: President Donald Trump today predicted that his first summit with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping next week would be a "very difficult" one as the US can no longer afford job losses and massive trade deficits with the Communist trading giant.

Given that the United States has a massive trade deficit with China, American companies must be prepared to look at other alternatives, Trump tweeted ahead of his meeting with Xi at his Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida on April 6 and 7.

This would be the first meeting between the two leaders in what many argue is the most important bilateral relationship in the world.

"The meeting next week with China will be a very difficult one in that we can no longer have massive trade deficits and job losses," Trump said.

Earlier, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer told reporters that Trump looks forward to meeting President Xi and exchanging views on each other's respective priorities and to chart a way forward for bilateral ties.

"They will discuss the issues of mutual concern, including North Korea, trade, and regional security," he said.

Trump has said in recent weeks that North Korea is one of the biggest security challenges he faces as president and has called on China to rein in Pyongyang, which US officials believe is preparing for another nuclear test.

Territorial disputes in the South China Sea and China's continued building of man-made islands are also likely to be raised.

Noting that Trump has spoken to Xi, also General Secretary of the ruling Communist Party of China, over the phone a few times, Spicer said this was an opportunity for the President to develop a relationship in person with his Chinese counterpart.

"But we have big problems, and -- I mean, everything from the South China Sea, to trade, to North Korea. There are big issues of national and economic security that need to get addressed, and I think there's going to be a lot on the table when it comes to that over the two days that they will talk," Spicer said in response to a question.

There are a lot of big things that the US needs to accomplish with China, and it will work on them, he said.

In Beijing, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang underlined the need to see the big picture while fostering mutual interests in trade relations.

"The market dictates that interests between our two countries are structured so that you will always have me and I will always have you," he told a regular briefing.

"Both sides should work together to make the cake of mutual interest bigger and not simply seek fairer distribution," he said.

China-US trade in goods amounted to USD 519.6 billion in 2016. China has a large share in the bilateral trade with its exports to the US amounting to over USD 400 billion.

Despite Trump's fiery attacks on the campaign trail -- accusing China of "raping" the US economy and stealing millions of American jobs, among other things -- his administration has taken a relatively hands-off approach in dealing with Beijing so far, CNN commented.

Trump has not followed through on campaign promises to label China a "currency manipulator" on day one of his presidency or to impose steep tariffs on all Chinese imports.

He also endorsed the "One China" policy on Taiwan, which has governed the fragile relations between the US, China and Taiwan for decades, after questioning its legitimacy shortly after his election.
Quito: Ecuador votes Sunday in a presidential runoff that will decide whether it follows Latin America's recent shift to the right, and could seal the fate of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.

The South American oil producer is turning the page on a decade under leftist economist Rafael Correa, a president who presided over an economic boom that has recently gone bust.

The runoff pits the socialist president's designated heir, Lenin Moreno, against conservative ex-banker Guillermo Lasso.

Lasso finished second in the first-round vote last month, with 28 percent to Moreno's 39 percent. But polls give him a slight edge heading into the runoff, with between 52.1 percent and 57.6 percent of the vote.

Running as the candidate of change, Lasso is vowing to overturn Correa's legacy.

That includes threatening to revoke the political asylum Ecuador has granted its most famous guest, Assange, who has been holed up at the country's London embassy since 2012.

Correa, an outspoken critic of the United States, let Assange stay at the embassy to avoid arrest and extradition to Sweden over a rape allegation.

The 45-year-old Australian, who denies the accusation, says he fears Sweden would send him to the United States to face trial for leaking hundreds of thousands of secret US military and diplomatic documents in 2010.

His case has returned to the spotlight since WikiLeaks was accused of meddling in the US election last year by releasing a damaging trove of hacked emails from presidential candidate Hillary Clinton`s campaign and her Democratic party.

The race is also a barometer of the political climate in Latin America, where more than a decade of leftist dominance has been waning.

Argentina, Brazil and Peru have all shifted to the right in recent months, as the region has sunk into recession and leftist leaders have been tarnished by a string of corruption scandals.

Boosted by high prices for its oil exports, Ecuador registered solid economic growth of 4.4 percent per year on average during the first eight years of Correa's presidency, before tipping into recession in mid-2015.

Correa won loyal fans among the poor with generous social benefits that helped reduce the poverty rate from 36.7 percent to 23.3 percent in this country of 16 million people.

But he has also faced accusations of corruption and squandering the windfall of the oil boom.

Political analyst Napoleon Saltos of the Central University of Ecuador said the election would be played out between "the vote against the government and the fear among certain parts of the population that they will lose what they gained over the past 10 years."

Lasso, 61, appears to have gained the edge by uniting the opposition vote behind his promises to end tax-and-spend policies and create a million jobs.

But with the race too close to call, Moreno, 64, has sought to co-opt the buzzword of "change" for himself.

"We're heading for a change, yes, but a positive change, not a negative change, a change toward the past," he told AFP Wednesday
Brussels: European Council President Donald Tusk on Friday set out the fundamental guidelines for the two-year Brexit negotiations.



Tusk received the UK`s formal request to leave the European Union (EU) on Wednesday in the form of a six-page letter signed by British Prime Minister Theresa May, Efe news reported.



Tusk said: "Our duty is to minimise uncertainty and disruption caused by the UK`s decision to withdraw from the EU."



"The UK is now on the other side of the negotiating table."



Going into the two-year negotiation period triggered by Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty (official process to leave the EU), the EU would think of the people first, Tusk said.



The residential rights of EU citizens living in the UK would be one of the main focuses.



EU companies in the UK would need to be safeguarded against losing the protection of the 27-member bloc`s law and regulation.



He said the EU would honour all its commitments, and stressed that the UK would have to as well.



Talks would be difficult, complex and, at times, confrontational, but the EU would not take a punitive approach in the negotiations, Tusk said.



"Brexit in itself was punitive enough," he added.


Queensland: Tens of thousands of people have been evacuated from towns in two Australian states as authorities warned Friday there could be deaths from severe flooding caused by a powerful tropical cyclone.

Category four Cyclone Debbie hit northeastern Australia on Tuesday between Bowen and Airlie Beach in Queensland state, ripping up trees, washing boats onto land and causing widespread damage.

Debbie was downgraded to a tropical low as it tracked southeast, but continued to pack damaging gusts and dump huge amounts of rain all the way down the eastern coast to New South Wales state, south of Queensland, and Sydney.

Lismore near the NSW coast was hard hit, with the State Emergency Service (SES) warning of three-metre (9.8-feet) high flood levels in the town.

"As we start to go out and try to find people that made... calls overnight, there could be some very distressing news," SES acting Deputy Commissioner Mark Morrow told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

"There could be people overnight that perished in that flood, we don`t know at this stage."

Other towns subject to evacuation orders include Tweed Heads, Kingscliff and Murwillumbah.

Farmer Peter Hannigan, whose property is just north of Lismore, said the deluge was the worst he had ever seen in more than 50 years in the area.

"I think a lot of people are going to have a lot of significant damage on the farms," he told the ABC.

"It is the worst I have ever seen I have to admit."

Further north in Queensland, the popular tourist city of Gold Coast and other nearby regions were also inundated by water. Upper Springbrook in the Gold Coast hinterland recorded 789mm of water during Thursday, the Bureau of Meteorology said.



The weather bureau's regional director Bruce Gunn said across southeast Queensland where the Gold Coast is located, there had been widespread rain of between 100-300mm falls over the last two days.

"In terms of what happened in the last 24 or 48 hours, we have seen some pretty big rainfall totals," he told Brisbane`s Courier Mail.

"There is still that strong risk around the Gold Coast."

Focus has turned to the restoration of essential services such as water and electricity in the areas hit by Debbie, including Bowen, Mackay and the Whitsundays where some 50,000 people were still without power, officials said.

The military has mobilised 1,300 soldiers to help assess the full extent of damage and aid the clean-up, with helicopters and planes deploying to restore infrastructure and supply emergency food, water and fuel.

Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said some 2,000 properties had been assessed, with about 270 severely damaged.

"The army is doing everything it can to get water into those parts of North Queensland that I mentioned -- Airlie, Proserpine, Bowen and the Whitsunday islands," she told reporters.



"We also have structural engineers that are on the ground at the moment."
Shanghai: France's consulate in Shanghai said on Friday that a French national was "violently" assaulted in the city with a knife this week and urged the French community in China to be vigilant.

The Consulate General of France in Shanghai said in a statement on its website that the victim was attacked on Wednesday by a man who fled after a Chinese colleague intervened. The attacker was later arrested by the Chinese police, it said.

"The French embassy and consulate-generals are in constant contact with the Chinese authorities to remind that the security of French nationals in China is a priority," it said.

Attacks on foreigners in China are rare but the incident comes after a Chinese man was shot dead by police this week at his Paris home, triggering rioting in the French capital by members of the Chinese community and a sharp reaction from Beijing.

It was not clear whether the two incidents are related.
Washington: A Sikh doctor in the US has received death threats from an anonymous caller in Indiana, amid a series of hate crime incidents in which Indian- Americans have been targeted.

Amandeep Singh, a general internist at Monroe Hospital in Indiana, recently received the death threat through a text message on his mobile by the unknown individual who claimed to have murdered the number's previous owner, community leaders said.

"The subject then indicated that Singh was next," Indianapolis-based Sikhs Political Action Committee (SPAC) said in a statement.

Bloomington Police found that the phone's owner was alive and that the number had been hacked by a third party.

Singh said the local police was currently treating the incident as a racially motivated hoax.

Singh has been living and working in the US since 2003 after graduating from a medical school in India. He moved to Indiana three years ago to pursue an administrative position at Monroe Hospital.

"This is one of several similar threats against Sikhs in Indiana in the last week including one incident which involved a handgun," PAC chairman Gurinder Singh Khalsa claimed.

"Intimidation and violence against the Sikh community has been on the uptick since September 11 across the country. We love this country.That's why we're here," said Gurinder.

He said that they have also received reports from a number of Sikh business owners of vandalism and intimidation.

The committee is currently working with Indiana Attorney General Curtis Hill to address widespread harassment and violence against Sikhs in Indiana.

"American society has no place for this type of violence," Khalsa added.

There have been a series of hate crime incidents against Indian-Americans. Weeks ago, Indian engineer Srinivas Kuchibhotla was killed when a US Navy veteran opened fire at him and his friend before yelling "get out of my country" in Kansas.

Earlier this month, a 39-year-old Sikh man was shot in his driveway in Washington state. The gunman had reportedly told the man to "go back to your own country" before pulling the trigger.
Beirut: The Islamic State group has claimed responsibility for mid-March bomb attacks on a courthouse and restaurant in Syria's capital Damascus that killed 32 people and were denounced by rebel groups.

The March 15 attacks were a rare assault in the heart of the Syrian capital, which remains under government control and has been insulated from much of the worst of the war's violence.

The latest issue of IS's Al-Nabaa magazine, issued late yesterday, cited a security source saying a first suicide bomber entered one of the city's courthouses and opened fire before detonating a suicide bomb belt.

The magazine said the second attacker blew himself up in a restaurant, according to the magazine, which is distributed via social media sites.

At least 32 people were killed in the attack at the courthouse, with 100 wounded, and another 25 people were hurt in the restaurant blast, police said at the time.

Syria's powerful rebel group Ahrar al-Sham issued a rare statement condemning "in the strongest terms" what it described as "criminal terrorist blasts".

And even former Al-Qaeda affiliate Fateh al-Sham Front distanced itself from the attacks.

More than 320,000 people have been killed since Syria's war began in March 2011 with anti-government protests.
Lincoln police have agreed to a three-year contract that provides at least a 3 percent salary increase in each year for the almost 300 employees represented by its union.

The contract, which must still be approved by the Lincoln City Council, provides for 3 percent raises in the current fiscal year, a 3.25 percent increase next year and a 3 percent increase in the third year.

It increases longevity pay and shift differential pay and increases tuition reimbursement for employees working on college degrees at accredited colleges and universities.

The new contract also changes the amount the city pays for health insurance premiums, reducing the citys share for single plans to 92 percent, but increasing the citys share for family coverage to 83 percent.

The wage increases will cost the city around $201,600 annually.

The city has still not reached agreement for the current fiscal year with three of the six city unions, including firefighters, PAGE (Public Association of Government Employees), and the union representing upper management.

A public hearing on the police union contract is scheduled for Monday's City Council meeting, which begins at 3 p.m.
Beirut: The Islamic State group has claimed responsibility for mid-March bomb attacks on a courthouse and restaurant in Syria`s capital Damascus that killed 32 people and were denounced by rebel groups.

The March 15 attacks were a rare assault in the heart of the Syrian capital, which remains under government control and has been insulated from much of the worst of the war`s violence.

The latest issue of IS`s Al-Nabaa magazine, issued late Thursday, cited a security source saying a first suicide bomber entered one of the city`s courthouses and opened fire before detonating a suicide bomb belt.

The magazine said the second attacker blew himself up in a restaurant, according to the magazine, which is distributed via social media sites.

At least 32 people were killed in the attack at the courthouse, with 100 wounded, and another 25 people were hurt in the restaurant blast, police said at the time.

Syria`s powerful rebel group Ahrar al-Sham issued a rare statement condemning "in the strongest terms" what it described as "criminal terrorist blasts".

And even former Al-Qaeda affiliate Fateh al-Sham Front distanced itself from the attacks.

More than 320,000 people have been killed since Syria`s war began in March 2011 with anti-government protests.
Kuala Lumpur: Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak said he will not sever ties with North Korea, state news agency Bernama reported on Friday, after a diplomatic row between the two countries ended this week.

Kim Jong Nam, the half-brother of the North`s leader Kim Jong Un, was murdered at Kuala Lumpur`s airport on Feb. 13 in a bizarre assassination using toxic nerve agent, sparking a row between the two countries that had friendly relations before.

Three North Koreans wanted for questioning over the murder left Malaysia on Friday along with the body of Kim Jong Nam after Malaysia agreed a swap deal that saw nine Malaysians allowed to return home from Pyongyang.
Seoul: Ousted South Korean leader Park Geun-hye was behind bars in the Seoul Detention Centre on Friday after her arrest, on charges including bribery, in a corruption scandal that has brought low some of the country`s business and political elite.

In a dramatic fall from power, Park, 65, became South Korea`s first democratically elected leader to be thrown out of office. She is accused of colluding with a friend, Choi Soon-sil, to pressure big businesses to contribute funds to foundations that backed her policy initiatives.

She and Choi, who is already in custody and on trial, deny any wrongdoing.

In the early hours of Friday, the Seoul Central District Court approved prosecutors` request for an arrest warrant for Park after she gave about eight hours of testimony.

Park and her lawyers had argued that she should not be arrested because she did not pose a flight risk and would not try to tamper with evidence. But the court disagreed, and said she might try to manipulate evidence.

Just before dawn, Park was driven to prison just outside Seoul in a black sedan, ashen-faced and flanked by two female officers in the back seat, her hair down apparently having removed the hairpins that held her hair in its usual classic chignon style.

Prosecutors now have 20 days to build their case while Park remains in detention.

Park`s removal from office capped months of paralysis and turmoil over the corruption scandal that also landed the head of the Samsung Group, South Korea`s largest "chaebol", or family-run conglomerate, in detention and on trial.

The political upheaval comes at a time of rising tensions with North Korea over its weapons programme and with China, which is angry over South Korea`s decision to host a U.S. anti-missile defence system.

Park`s impeachment on March 10, which upheld a parliamentary vote in December, effectively left a political vacuum with only an interim president in place before a snap May 9 election.

Liberal opposition politician Moon Jae-in is leading in opinion polls and is expected to win that election.

"The arrest of the former president Park amounts to upholding the people`s stern order to build a country where justice and common sense stand firm," Moon`s spokesman, Park Kwang-on, said in a statement.

"It is the first step to rebuilding a collapsed Republic of Korea," Park Kwang-on said, using South Korea`s official name.

Prosecutors said on Monday Park was accused of soliciting companies for money and infringing upon the freedom of corporate management in her position as president.

She could face more than 10 years in jail if convicted of receiving bribes from chaebol bosses, including Samsung Group chief Jay Y. Lee, in return for favours.

Lee, who denies charges that he provided bribes in return for favours for Samsung, is in detention in the same facility as Park and on trial separately.

After several preliminary hearings, Lee`s trial will begin on April 7.
Rome: More than five million people have fled Syria`s civil war to neighbouring countries, according to data from the UN refugee agency UNHCR and the government of Turkey.



A total of 5,018,168 people have taken refuge in Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq and Egypt, the Turkish daily Hurriyet quoted the report as saying.



The victory by the Syrian government and its Russian allies against rebels in the northern city of Aleppo in December has accelerated the exodus, according to the data.



Millions more people have fled to other parts of Syria, including tens of thousands in March, mainly women and children trying to escape a rebel offensive northwest of the city of Hama.



Syrians have also fled to Europe in large numbers, making 884,461 asylum claims between April 2011 and October 2016. Almost two-thirds of the claims were in Germany or Sweden, the data showed.



"We still have a long road to travel in expanding resettlement and the number and range of complementary pathways available for refugees," UNHCR chief Filippo Grandi said on Thursday.



UNHCR estimates that almost 1.2 million refugees will need resettlement in 2017, 40 percent of whom are Syrians.


Islamabad: For the first time, a high-level Russian military delegation has visited Pakistan's restive tribal region along the Afghan border to get first-hand information of the situation in the former strongholds of the militants.

The delegation yesterday visited Miranshah in North Waziristan Agency, and Wana in South Waziristan Agency, the army said.

"The delegation of the Russian army, the first ever to visit the conflict-stricken areas, was led by Deputy Chief of General Staff Col General Israkov Sergi Yuryevich," it said.

The military delegation's visit came amid growing ties between Pakistan and Russia after decades of mistrust and animosity during the Cold War.

In September, Russia held its first-ever military exercises with Pakistan and has also started selling weapons to Islamabad.

Commander Peshawar Corps Lt Gen Nazir Ahmed Butt accompanied the delegation which was briefed about Pakistan Army's efforts to clear FATA from terrorists, it said.

"The delegation acknowledged and appreciated Pakistan Army's achievements in the fight against terrorism and efforts to bring stability in the region," the army said.

It said the delegation was also briefed about the Pakistan-Afghanistan border management and socio-economic development projects in the area for enduring stability
Beirut: The Russian-backed Syrian army has recaptured 16 villages lost to insurgents last week near the city of Hama, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported on Friday.

Syrian government forces have been counter-attacking in the area that is of critical importance to President Bashar al-Assad. The rebel assault has been spearheaded by Tahrir al-Sham, an alliance of jihadist groups including al Qaeda`s former affiliate in the Syrian war, the Nusra Front.

Free Syrian Army rebel groups are also taking part.
Kashgar/Hotan: Three times a day, alarms ring out through the streets of China's ancient Silk Road city of Kashgar, and shopkeepers rush out of their stores swinging government-issued wooden clubs.

In mandatory anti-terror drills conducted under police supervision and witnessed by Reuters on a recent visit, they fight off imaginary knife-wielding assailants. Armoured paramilitary and police vehicles circle with sirens blaring.

China says it faces a serious threat from Islamist extremists in this far Western Xinjiang region. Beijing accuses separatists among the Muslim Uighur ethnic minority there of stirring up tensions with the ethnic Han Chinese majority and plotting attacks elsewhere in China.

A historic trading post, Kashgar is also central to China's One Belt, One Road (OBOR) Initiative, President Xi Jinping's signature foreign and economic policy involving massive infrastructure spending linking China to Asia, the Middle East and beyond.

China's worst fears are that a large-scale attack would blight this year`s diplomatic setpiece, an OBOR summit attended by world leaders planned for Beijing in May.

State media say the drills, and other measures such as a network of thousands of new street-corner police posts, are aimed making everyone feel safer.

But many residents say the drills are just part of an oppressive security operation that has been ramped up in Kashgar and other cities in Xinjiang`s Uighur heartland in recent months.

As well as taking part in drills, shopkeepers must, at their own expense, install password-activated security doors, "panic buttons" and cameras that film not just the street outside but also inside their stores, sending a direct video feed to police.

For Uighurs like the owner of an online multimedia company facing one of Kashgar's main streets it is not about security, but mass surveillance.

"We have no privacy," said the business owner who, like almost everyone Reuters spoke to in Kashgar, did not want to give his name. "They want to see what you`re up to."

A Chinese security source, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Reuters the new security measures in Xinjiang were not politically motivated, but based on fresh developments and intelligence. He declined to elaborate.

The Xinjiang government and the State Council Information Office, which doubles as the Communist Party spokesman's office, did not respond to requests for comment.

China routinely denies pursuing repressive policies in Xinjiang, and points to the vast sums it spends on economic development in the resource-rich region. Xinjiang`s gross domestic product last year rose 7.6 per cent, above the national average.
The public is invited to an open house Thursday for two separate improvement projects: one on 27th Street from Holdrege Street to Fletcher Avenue and the other on Superior Street from 27th Street to Cornhusker Highway.

The meeting is from 5:30-7 p.m. at the Salvation Army Community Center, 2625 Potter St. No formal presentation is planned.

Those attending will be able to discuss the construction schedule and project phasing with representatives from TCW Construction, Olsson Associates and the city. A Vietnamese translator will be available at the meeting.

Work on both projects is scheduled to begin April 17 and be completed by mid-November. The project includes repairing or replacing deteriorated concrete panels and curbs, sealing joints and cracks and replacing asphalt areas with concrete.

The work on Superior and 27th streets will be completed under lane closures, with a minimum of one lane of traffic open in each direction. Turn lanes may be temporarily closed throughout the project. Access will be maintained to businesses but may be limited at times.

More information: lincoln.ne.gov (keyword: superior or keyword: 27th) or by contacting one of these Engineering Services staff members:

* Erin Sokolik, Superior Street project, 402-416-9460, esokolik@lincoln.ne.gov

* Zach Becker, 27th Street project, 402-613-3763, zbecker@lincoln.ne.gov.
Islamabad: The US on Friday made a fresh delivery of Cessna aircraft to Pakistan's army to enhance its counter-terrorism capabilities and air mobility.

"The Office of Defence Representative Pakistan made another delivery of Cessna aircraft to the Pakistan Army," the US embassy in Pakistan said.

It was not known precisely how many aircraft were delivered.

The embassy, however, said that since November 2016, the Pakistan Army had received six Cessna planes, two Cessna 208 Caravans and four Cessna 206H aircraft.

"These aircraft will assist the Pakistan Army with their air mobility capability by enhancing the Army's ability to conduct medical evacuations, as well as provide limited troop and equipment transport," it said.

American security assistance continues to build the counter-terrorism capabilities of Pakistan's security forces, the embassy statement said.

"The United States and Pakistan are stronger when we work together to combat terrorism," it said.

Cessna Aircraft company is an American general aviation aircraft manufacturing corporation.
Washignton: The White House said on Friday that the United States must accept the political reality that the future of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is up to the Syrian people and the U.S. focus in the region must be on defeating Islamic State militants.

"With respect to Assad, there is a political reality that we have to accept in terms of where we are right now. We lost a lot of opportunity the last administration with respect to Assad," White House spokesman Sean Spicer told a news briefing.

"We need to focus on now defeating ISIS," he said, using an acronym for the group. "The United States has profound priorities in Syria and Iraq and we`ve made it clear that counterterrorism, particularly the defeat of ISIS, is foremost among those priorities."
YEREVAN, MARCH 31, ARMENPRESS. The violation discovery and administrative proceedings departments investigation unit of the State Revenue Committee revealed that several businesses who are engaged in imports from EEU countries have been taking advantage of the import process liberalization and presented false data in attempted tax evasion, the State Revenue Committee (SRC) told ARMENPRESS.

Head of the department Samvel Sinanyan says some business operators even try to attempt tax evasion through various methods.

They make the imports through various companies which have been opened under the names of their friends, or they create companies under the names of financially unsecure people who dont have anything to do with them, so that in the future the individual is unable to pay the taxes. However such cases are being discovered and the people who are actually in charge of the companies are being held accountable for.

The violation discovery and administrative proceedings department, jointly with other SRC departments, has discovered several similar cases, when business operators avoided VAT tax obligations by hiding the circulation.

Havitsa LLC, an importer of eggs, grain and poultry from EEU countries, namely from Russia, attempted to evade VAT taxes of 28 million 104 thousand drams by presenting false calculation-reports data. Later it was revealed that the businessman in charge of the company has registered other companies as well. Teghakan LLC also attempted tax evasion of 16 million 592 thousand drams in a similar way.

Andre Renter LLC has been charged with an additional budget payment of more than 73 million obligations.

Criminal cases have been initiated in the department on various cases of tax evasion, and have been sent to the investigation department for joint probe.
YEREVAN, MARCH 31, ARMENPRESS. President of the Republic of Artsakh Bako Sahakyan signed an executive order on March 31 regarding the organization of the constitutional reforms process, the Presidents Office told ARMENPRESS.

According to the order, a constitutional reforms coordinating council has been formed under the Presidents Office, the individual members of the council have been confirmed, the operating procedures of the council and the list of laws which are subject to adoption or change under the constitution.

Marat Musayelyan, chief of staff of the Presidents Office, has been appointed as Chairman of the council.
YEREVAN, MARCH 31, ARMENPRESS. Consultation was held in Armenias Government led by Prime Minister Karen Karapetyan during which Deloitte & Touche company representatives presented the results of analysis over implementation of reforms in Armenias IT industry, press service of the Government told Armenpress.

The analysis was carried out over the sectors existing trends and features of Armenian market. Based on that, concrete proposals were made aimed at further developing the IT sector, training highly-qualified specialists, organizing respective study process, expanding the activity of IT companies in Armenia, promoting investment programs, eliminating the barriers.

PM Karapetyan tasked the heads of respective agencies to discuss in-detail the proposals, steps and submit a conclusion.
YEREVAN, MARCH 31, ARMENPRESS. To highlight the role women can and should play in the development of Armenias rural regions, U.S. Ambassador to Armenia Richard Mills, Jr. traveled to Gegharkunik on March 30 and met with female farmers, civic activists and civil society leaders  all beneficiaries and partners of USAID development efforts, the Embassy told Armenpress.

USAID promotes rural entrepreneurship in Armenia through several projects that recognize the potential of female entrepreneurs in boosting rural economies. In Hairavank, Ambassador Mills met with female farmers who benefit from the communitys Farm Veterinary Service Center, established in 2015 through USAIDs Development of Private Extension Services System project. The Center serves about 2,000 farmers from 10 nearby communities, promoting advanced agribusiness techniques and providing a range of services and supplies, such as animal disease prevention and treatment, and links to financial resources and the supply market. During the meeting, participants discussed the challenges and achievements of female farmers engaged in livestock and chicken breeding, as well as the production of meat, wheat, milk, eggs, and cheese.

In Gavar, Ambassador Mills visited the Geghareg NGO for a discussion with female activists in the community. Geghareg is a local partner of USAIDs Civic Engagement in Local Governance (CELoG) project, which supports the efforts of local civil society organizations to involve citizens in local governance issues and the ongoing territorial and administrative reform. As part of the CELoG project, Geghareg works in four surrounding communities to increase civic activism and improve the dialogue between local governments and their constituents.

In Gavar, Ambassador Mills also met with Peace Corps volunteers, who shared their experiences in Armenia and discussed local projects implemented under the USAID Small Project Assistance program, which allows Peace Corps volunteers to partner with Armenian communities to implement small development projects such as language courses, potable water and health care projects, and agriculture and small business development.

During a visit to the Martuni Womens Community Council NGO (MWCC), Ambassador Mills met with USAID beneficiaries and discussed the role of women in civic activism and social entrepreneurship. The NGO is one of USAIDs local partners for the Civil Society Organization Development program, which helps build the organizational skills of Armenian NGOs. The MWCC is home to the Martuni Infotun (information house), one of the eight regional multimedia hubs established by USAID to boost media literacy and the use of new media tools to engage citizens in community issues.

The Ambassador also toured the Ighdz (dream) social enterprise in Martuni, established in 2014 through USAIDs Livelihood Improvement through Fostered Employment for People with Disabilities project. The company employs 10 people with disabilities and is specialized producing household goods, garments, and uniforms for schools, medical clinics, and private companies.

Ambassador Mills emphasized the vital role womens leadership and economic empowerment play in Armenias development. I have met so many amazing Armenian women today  from farmers to civic activists and leaders. Each time I meet with groups of Armenian women entrepreneurs and community leaders I am impressed by their hard work, their ingenuity, and their accomplishments in the face of significant obstacles. Armenias women are one of the most important resources the country has. I am proud of the many ways the United States has helped to support these women as they work to make Armenias future brighter for all its citizens, he said.
YEREVAN, MARCH 31, ARMENPRESS. OSCE Chairperson-in-Office, Austrias Foreign Minister Sebastian Kurz on March 31 joined the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs call for the sides to renew engagement in the political settlement process as expressed in their statement on 29 March, the OSCE Office told Armenpress.

The fighting and the violence we witnessed one year ago  the worst in the past two decades  caused destruction, suffering and human losses. It was a vivid reminder of how quickly the machinery of war can undermine efforts for peace. On this occasion, we call on all sides to refrain from any actions that jeopardize the ceasefire. All sides must live up to their commitment to strictly observe their international humanitarian obligations  war crimes can never be justified, Kurz said.

Recalling the outbreak of violence in April 2016 along the Line of Contact, he underlined his hope for fresh impetus in the negotiations: Clashes and serious violations of the ceasefire on the Line of Contact, resulting in casualties, were of particular concern to us throughout the past year. It is now high time for a focus on pragmatic and practical steps for confidence-building as well as a resumption of substantive negotiations, he said.

In this context, Kurz voiced his regret at the further loss of lives since the tragic events in April 2016 and expressed his condolences to the affected families. The aftershock of the fighting one year ago has made it more difficult for Armenians and Azerbaijanis to believe in peace, but as I have stated on numerous occasions, there is no military solution to the Nagorno Karabakh conflict. We should plan for peace now, and not allow war to return with all of its terrible consequences, Kurz added.

Kurz also commended the work of Ambassador Andrzej Kasprzyk and his team, illustrated by the active facilitation of a humanitarian operation by the International Committee of the Red Cross in February 2017 to retrieve the remains of the deceased servicemen.

The OSCE Chairmanship stands ready to contribute to the efforts of the sides to further advance and implement the agreements reached during the summits in Vienna and St. Petersburg in 2016, Kurz concluded.
YEREVAN, MARCH 31, ARMENPRESS. Armenias President Serzh Sargsyan held a meeting with Ignacio Sanchez Amor, head of the OSCE short-term observation mission, and the delegation members led by him who arrived in Armenia to carry out observation mission during the parliamentary election on April 2, press service of the Presidents Office told Armenpress.

President Sargsyan highly appreciated the role of OSCE observation missions in Armenias electoral process, the continuous improvement and development of electoral system, as well as the assistance provided to Armenia over the past 25 years.

Serzh Sargsyan emphasized with satisfaction that the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly and OSCE/ODIHR are presented with a joint strong team for the upcoming election which is led by experienced political figure Mr. Ignacio Sanchez Amor.

Highlighting that the upcoming parliamentary election is very important in terms of implementing Armenias effective governance vision, the President said the countrys leadership attaches importance to raising and strengthening voters trust towards the electoral process from this perspective. For that purpose, a number of provisions were adopted defining control mechanisms for legality of electoral process in the New Electoral Code. The President said such large-scale works enable to state that all preconditions exist, such as political will, legislative regulations, technical opportunities to properly hold the election in Armenia, and the leadership will do everything possible to make this a reality.

Serzh Sargsyan said it is strictly important that all observation missions must show a balanced, impartial approach and must make their assessments based on their own observations and reliable information. He added that Armenias leadership expressed readiness to assist all observation missions to carry out their work both on the election day and after that.

In his turn Ignacio Sanchez Amor assured that there will not be any specialized deviation in their work, and the OSCE/ODIHR will continue conducting its mission with the same high professional quality.

He expressed satisfaction that Armenias Government engaged over 30.000 local NGOs in the election observation process which include also numerous foreign citizens.

Ignacio Sanchez Amor also welcomed the ongoing reforms in Armenia.




YEREVAN, MARCH 31, ARMENPRESS. The Tufenkchi Group factory will be opened in Yerevan on April 1, which will produce high quality pharmaceuticals.

Minister of economic development & investments Suren Karayan and healthcare minister Levon Altunyan are expected to attend the opening ceremony.

Tufenkchi Group will produce high quality pharmaceuticals, including painkillers, hypertension drugs, nutritional supplements, vitamins, anti-diabetic drugs etc.

More than 1,5 million USD have already been invested for this purpose.

The factory plans to produce 350-400 thousand USD worth production during 2017, create 20-25 jobs, and in the future enhance production, creating additional 50-60 jobs. The company plans to export its products to Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Algiers, Yemen and other countries.
YEREVAN, MARCH 31, ARMENPRESS. Foreign Minister of Armenia Edward Nalbandian held a meeting with members of the European Parliament on March 31 who arrived in Armenia to take part in the observation mission during Armenias parliamentary election on April 2, press service of the MFA told Armenpress.

During the meeting the sides exchanged views on the preparation works of the upcoming election. In this context FM Nalbandian said after the constitutional reforms agreement was reached on making changes in the Electoral Code with the participation of parliamentary factions, as well as civil society representatives aimed at more strengthening the public trust towards the electoral process. The Minister added that Armenias Government continues doing everything to hold the election in accordance with international standards.

Issues related to strengthening Armenia-EU ties, cooperation at parliamentary format were discussed at the meeting.

Both sides expressed satisfaction over the completion of talks on Armenia-EU Comprehensive and Enhanced Partnership Agreement.

At the request of guests, the Minister presented Armenias approaches on a number of regional and international issues.

Edward Nalbandian informed the MEPs about the joint efforts of Armenia and the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairing countries aimed at moving forward the peaceful settlement of the Nagorno Karabakh conflict.
Soon, the 38,000 motorists who drive Lincolns Big X every day will know Staff Sgt. Patrick Hamburgers name.

But at a ceremony Friday to rename the bridge in his honor, those who knew him best talked about who he was.

He was a playful, joke-playing kid, remembered his ninth-grade industrial arts teacher, Charmain Satree. He loved life and what it had to offer.

He was cocky and confident, said his boss, Mike Watson. I was impressed with his enthusiasm, and the way he always called me sir.

And he was a bridge-builder in his own right, said his friend and fellow soldier, Josh Ommert.

Our unit was brought closer because of Pat. He raised the standards in our unit and he brought everybody together.

Then Ommert looked around the crowded auditorium at the Nebraska Army National Guard Armory, near the base of the bridge. He saw the hundreds of people  the mayor and the lieutenant governor, officers and enlisted men, Patriot Guard members and Gold Star families and members of the American Legion and VFW, his friends fiancee and daughters.

This is way too serious for Pat, he said. He never wanted it to get too serious. Thats the last thing hed want. If it got too serious, hed make a joke.

But then he said this about his friend: He would not have traded places with anyone that day in Afghanistan. He would have not wanted anyone else to get hurt.

Hamburger was killed Aug. 6, 2011, in Afghanistan when his Chinook helicopter was shot down. The National Guard flight engineer was 30.

His family, led by his brother, Chris, had been trying to get a bridge named in his honor since 2012, with help from Bridges For The Fallen. The volunteer group has helped 466 Gold Star families get bridges dedicated across the country, and is working with 1,300 more.

Rob Mador started the group in Massachusetts after his friend was killed in Afghanistan.

It can be a struggle to convince governments to make the change, he said. The Hamburger family had some trouble getting traction.

But I can be pretty convincing, Mador said after the ceremony. They did the right thing.

Lincolns renamed bridge is his groups first in Nebraska, he said.

So this paves the way for a lot of other healing as well. These bridges are really nothing more than mechanisms for healing.

Mayor Chris Beutler called the bridge renaming a small action that he hopes carries a larger meaning.

As we travel the bridge over the course of our lives, let us be reminded of the service and sacrifice of a brave soldier. Let us too be mindful of all veterans who have served their country.

And thats what the family wanted, said Hamburgers father, Doug Hamburger. It requested the bridge be named the Staff Sergeant Patrick Hamburger Veterans Memorial Bridge, so it will honor all veterans.

For a Gold Star mother or Gold Star dad, the worst thing they can ever think will happen is people will forget their child, he said. Thanks to the naming of this bridge today, Pats going to be remembered forever.

He urged those in the audience to think of his son when they cross the bridge. He urged them to think of others, too.

Please take a moment and say Patricks name, and we would like you to think of a veteran whos important to you, someone that you know, and say their name as well.
YEREVAN, MARCH 31, ARMENPRESS. Not in all cases the state bodies implement the provisions set by the Law on Freedom of information, Liana Doydoyan  Chairwoman of the Freedom of Information Center, told a press conference in Armenpress.

The Center conducted a monitoring over information provision, observing official websites of 37 bodies.

The monitoring results are negative, we see that in some cases the minimum requirements set under the law are often not being implemented. For instance, it is defined that the website must have a section of frequently asked questions. In case of receiving the same question more than 5 times the state bodies must publish its answer in that section. The monitoring results show that not only the frequently asked questions have not been updated, but also there is no update on information about budget performance, Liana Doydoyan said.

The monitoring results also reveal that the picture in websites of governorates is positive. Liana Doydoyan said the websites of governorates have been created on one platform, currently active information is being published.

The situation of websites of Ministries is quite complex. Each one works in its form, in many cases citizens face confusion. For instance, if they want statistical data, they dont know which section to enter, statistics or reporting section, or another one, she said.

She stated that the contact information of a person who is responsible for providing information must be published in official websites. The observations of the Freedom of Information Center reveal that in most of the websites the abovementioned persons contact information are not published.
YEREVAN, MARCH 31, ARMENPRESS. Famous Diaspora-Armenians, who arrived in Armenia to observe the parliamentary election on April 2, call on the citizens to definitely take part in the election and stand up for their votes, reports Armenpress.

During a press conference on March 31, famous American-Armenian rock musician, soloist of System of a Down group Serj Tankian said it is a great honor for him to be in Armenia and take part in the election through implementation of observation mission.

Our goal is first of all to encourage the Armenian people to go to vote. In my opinion, not taking part in the election is not a right option. I believe that people are the force and people are the owner of this. Whomever you vote in favor of, we will be with you until the end. Participate in the election, give your vote to the party, the alliance, the ideas of which are familiar to you, Tankian said.

Serj Tankian added that by observing the election in Armenia they do not have any interests to do so, they are nonpartisan and impartial. For us the will of Armenian people is important, for us it is important that people go and express their will on that day, he said.

Canadian-Armenian actress Arsinee Khanjian urged the Armenian citizens to understand that their vote can be a vote for change. Dont think that your vote is meaningless. Definitely think that your vote has a meaning. It is very important so that everyone understands that his/her participation in the election is very important, she said.

Arsinee Khanjian denied the reports that they support a concrete political force. She assured that no one can prove that they support any party or work with any political force. She also urged the reporters not to believe in such rumors and spend time on them since they will not be able to find proofs on something which doesnt exist.
YEREVAN, MARCH 31, ARMENPRESS. Armenias Ambassador to Belarus Oleg Yesayan on March 31 presented the copy of his credentials to First Deputy Foreign Minister of Belarus Andrei Yeudachenka, press service of the Armenian MFA told Armenpress.

At the meeting the sides discussed a wide range of issues related to the mutual relations of two states in political, trade-economic and other spheres. In this context, they discussed the prospects on expanding the trade turnover volumes between Armenia and Belarus.

Both sides attached importance to the cooperation within the frames of international organizations.
YEREVAN, MARCH 31, ARMENPRESS. Contractual soldier of the Defense Army of Artsakh Gor Hovhannisyan, 1993, receives a fatal injury on March 31 at 14:45 as a result of ceasefire violation by Azerbaijan in the eastern direction of contact line.

Armenpress was infoirmed from the press service of the Defense Ministry of Artsakh that investigation is underway to uncover the details of the incident.

The Defense Ministry of Artsakh Republic shares the grief of the loss and extends condolences to the family members, relatives and co-servicemen of the killed soldier.
YEREVAN, MARCH 31, ARMENPRESS. Armenian exports in January-February, 2017 amounted to 273 million and 696.5 thousand USD. Armenpress reports, citing the data released by the National Statistical Service of Armenia, this number amounted to 227 million and 976.7 thousand USD in the same period of 2016. The increase is 20.1%.

Imports to Armenia in January-February, 2017 increased by 23.5% amounting to 487 million and 292.5 USD, while in the same period of 2016 imports amounted to 394 million and 582.7 thousand USD.

Trade turnover in the first two months of 2017 amounted to 760 million and 989.1 million USD, rising by 22.2% against the same period of the previous year. In January-February of 2016 trade turnover amounted to 622 million and 559.4 thousand USD.
The Balkans' main food producer Agrokor has two main creditors: Russia's state-run Sberbank, whose headquarters is seen in Moscow in 2012, and VTB bank

Agrokor, the Balkans' main food producer and retailer faced with crushing debt, on Friday reached a deal with creditors to help stabilise the troubled company.

The crisis within Agrokor, which employs around 60,000 people, two-thirds of them in Croatia, has dominated that country's political agenda for the past few weeks.

Agrokor's representatives and a board of creditors have agreed "in principle the key elements of a standstill agreement" that freezes its repayment of debts to banks, the Croatia office of Austria's Erste Bank said in a statement.

The board also included Agrokor's main creditors -- Russia's state-run Sberbank and VTB bank -- and Croatia branches of Austria's Raiffesenbank as well as Privredna Banka Zagreb and Zagrebacka banka owned by Italy's Intesa Sanpolo and UniCredit, respectively .

"The standstill agreement should ease Agrokor's efforts to solve liquidity issues, secure continuity of its business, protect the concern's value and lay the basis for (its) sustainable restructuring," the statement said.

During the restructuring process top management positions will be filled with independent experts to make it "transparent and sustainable," it said.

The deal, to be signed later on Friday, also foresees the position of a "chief restructuring officer."

The announcement came just hours after Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic presented a bill aimed at protecting Croatia?s economy from the impact of large companies' financial problems.

The bill, to be discussed by the parliament Wednesday, relates to troubled companies employing more than 5,000 people and with at least one billion euros debt.

Agrokor's owner is Croatian businessman Ivica Todoric and his fate within the company remains unknown.

The company has annual revenue of some 50 billion kunas (6.7 billion euros, $7.2 billion), the equivalent of over 15 percent of the country's gross domestic product (GDP).

According to figures released in September its debt amounted to some six billion euros.

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Earlier this year international rating agencies lowered Agrokor's credit rating citing its high indebtedness and rising refinancing risks.

A big part of its debt matures in 2018.

Analysts said Agrokor's financial problems could be solved by restructuring, changes in ownership or the sale of some of the 61 companies it owns.
Credit Suisse simply said its offices had been 'visited' by authorities, but reports say it's the main target of a sweeping tax evasion probe

Authorities in Europe and Australia announced a sweeping tax evasion probe Friday reportedly targeting Credit Suisse clients and senior employees, as investigators detailed arrests and the seizure of artworks and gold.

There was no definitive confirmation that Credit Suisse was the main target of the fraud investigations, run by at least four European countries and Canberra and apparently involving hundreds of suspects.

The Swiss financial giant simply confirmed that its offices in London, Paris and Amsterdam had been visited by local authorities on Thursday "concerning client tax matters".

"We are cooperating with the authorities", Switzerland's number-two bank said in a statement.

Dutch prosecutors said dozens of people who allegedly concealed millions of euros were being probed for tax fraud and money laundering and that records were seized on Thursday from "a Swiss bank" which they did not name.

Similar operations were carried out in Britain, France, Germany and Australia, all focused on clients who "deposited their money in the same Swiss bank", according to a statement from the National Prosecutor's Office for Serious Fraud, Environmental Crime and Asset Confiscation (FIOD).

Two people accused of not declaring their savings have been arrested and two other suspects were interrogated, the FIOD said.

"Properties, and jewellery, an expensive car, expensive paintings and a gold bar", were seized from houses in The Hague and three other areas, the Dutch statement added.

- 'Senior employees' targeted -

Britain's Revenue and Customs office said that it on Thursday along with international partners had launched a criminal probe into tax evasion and money laundering "by a global financial institution".

"The first phase of the investigation, which will see further, targeted, activity over the coming weeks, is focused on senior employees from within the institution, along with a number of its customers," the statement from London said.

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It also made no mention of Credit Suisse, but said the investigation should serve as a stark reminder to institutions that aim to help clients evade tax.

Would-be tax cheats "need to wake up to reality and accept that attempting to hide wealth overseas, or within institutions, doesn't work."

French prosecutors confirmed that they too had opened a tax fraud investigation into undeclared Swiss bank accounts.

The financial fraud office said it had identified several thousands of accounts in Switzerland that were allegedly used to hide money.

This amounted to suspected "aggravated dissimulation of tax fraud", it said, with no reference to Credit Suisse.

- 346 people implicated -

In Australia, revenue and financial services minister Kelly O'Dwyer said investigators there had identified more than 346 people "with links to Swiss banking relationship managers" who allegedly promoted tax evasion.

Australian investigators plan to "move quickly" against those who schemed to hide wealth, she said, noting however that some of those in the firing line will likely be exonerated.

The launch of a coordinated, international probe targeting an iconic Swiss bank came as a surprise to Bern, Switzerland's ATS news agency reported.

The Swiss attorney general's office was not aware of the operations and demanded a written explanation from Dutch officials in particular over the lack of cooperation, according to ATS.

Credit Suisse has previously been in the crosshairs of tax officials.

US regulators fined the bank $2.6 billion (2.4 billion euros) in 2014 for helping Americans evade taxes.

"Credit Suisse continues to follow a strategy of full client tax compliance," the bank said Friday.

The coordinated probe comes as Credit Suisse rolls out its new Automatic Exchange of Information programme designed to share taxpayer information with relevant global authorities as part of a wider Swiss crackdown on money laundering and secretive banking.

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US President Donald Trump is set to order staff to pinpoint countries and goods responsible for America's nearly $50 billion trade deficit

President Donald Trump will on Friday launch an investigation to root out unfair trade practices around the world, threatening to target countries that contribute to America's substantial trade deficit.

In a symbolic move, Trump will sign an executive order tasking staff to pinpoint countries and goods responsible for America's nearly $50 billion a month trade deficit.

Much of that deficit data is already publicly available and well known, but Trump's initiative doubles down on his tough trade rhetoric and is being taken as a protectionist warning shot across the world.

Top administration officials described the order as a step toward converting "America first" campaign promises into action.

Throughout his presidential campaign, Trump vowed to put America's trading relationship with the world on a more advantageous basis.

Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said the order would result in analysts going "country by country, and product by product," reporting back to Trump within 90 days.

They will look, he said, for evidence of "cheating," inappropriate behavior, trade deals that have not lived up to their promise, lax enforcement, currency misalignment and troublesome World Trade Organization constraints.

"It will form the basis for decision making by the administration," he said.

The order comes a week before Trump meets Chinese President Xi Jinping and is likely to be seen as a warning shot across Beijing's bow.

"Needless to say the number one source of the deficit is China," Ross said, before listing more than a dozen other "countries that will potentially be involved."

The others were: Canada, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, South Korea, Switzerland, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam.

However, Ross said the presence of a deficit does not necessarily mean that retaliatory or remedial action would be taken.

"It's a little bit hard to say that someone is an evildoer if they are providing a product we can't," he said.

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"In some cases, it will simply be that they are better at making the product or can do it far cheaper than we can.

"This is not meant to say that everybody on this little list is an evildoer."

- Trade reset -

In a second executive order to be signed Friday, Trump will order the government to better recover trade duties on products that are subsidized by foreign governments or dumped on the US market.

The proposals being considered by US customs officials could impose more substantial bonding requirements at the border or examine products' risk more stringently.

Listing various problem areas, Navarro said: "This is a big deal. It's steel, chemicals, agricultural products, machinery -- it's the whole gambit."

Head of the World Trade Organization Roberto Azevedo said there was a need for clarity on US trade policy, to see how public declarations translate into policy.

"It is difficult to predict and speculate about what US trade policy will be. It's a very important country, one which the whole world has its eyes on."

In a sign of brewing unease, Germany on Friday protested over planned US punitive anti-dumping duties on steel plate products from companies in that country and half a dozen others.

German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel charged the step breached global trade rules and unfairly disadvantaged suppliers in Germany, as well as in Austria, Belgium, France, Italy, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan.

Italy also voiced alarm, amid fears that products like Vespa scooters could be hit by punitive duties.

"Trump declares war on the Vespa" said a headline in national daily Il Messaggero, reflecting the tone of most of the media coverage on an issue that dominated front pages and topped news bulletins.

The European products are vulnerable to potential measures because of a transatlantic dispute over Europe's ban on beef produced with the aid of hormones that pre-dates Trump coming to power.

Along with mopeds, the symbolic Italian products that could have punitive duties slapped on them reportedly include tomatoes, salami and Parma ham, and San Pellegrino mineral water, now owned by Switzerland's Nestle.

Navarro insisted the new measures would fall within rules at the World Trade Organization, where some might see the United States erecting a technical barrier to trade.

"There is no issue here," he said. "We've been collecting these duties -- we just haven't been doing it very well. The WTO is silent on the issue of incompetence."
US President Donald Trump is set to order staff to pinpoint countries and goods responsible for America's nearly $50 billion trade deficit

President Donald Trump on Friday vowed to root out unfair trade practices around the world and target countries that contribute to America's substantial trade deficit.

"From now on those who break the rules will face the consequences, and there will be very severe consequences," Trump said announcing two executive orders in the Oval Office.

The first, largely symbolic order, tasked officials to pinpoint "cheaters" -- either countries or firms -- who are responsible for America's nearly $50 billion a month trade deficit.

Much of that deficit data is already publicly available and well known, but Trump's initiative doubles down on his tough trade rhetoric and is being seen as a protectionist warning shot a week before the US leader meets Chinese President Xi Jinping.

Throughout his presidential campaign, Trump vowed to put America's trading relationship with the world on a more advantageous basis and put "America first."

"Thousands of factories have been stolen from our country, but these voiceless Americans now have a voice in the White House," Trump said.

"The well-being of America and the American worker is my North Star," he said, adding that without the issue of trade he may not be president today.

Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said the order would result in analysts going "country by country, and product by product," reporting back to Trump within 90 days.

Officials will look for evidence of "cheating," inappropriate behavior, trade deals that have not lived up to their promise, lax enforcement, currency misalignment and troublesome World Trade Organization constraints.

"Needless to say the number one source of the deficit is China," Ross said, before listing more than a dozen other "countries that will potentially be involved."

The others were: Canada, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, South Korea, Switzerland, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam.

However, Ross said the presence of a deficit does not necessarily mean that retaliatory or remedial action would be taken.

Story continues

"It's a little bit hard to say that someone is an evildoer if they are providing a product we can't," he said.

- Trade reset -

In a second executive order Trump asked the government to better recover trade duties on products that are subsidized by foreign governments or dumped on the US market.

The order, Trump said, would "ensure that we fully collect all duties imposed on important importers that cheat. They are cheaters."

The proposals being considered by US customs officials could impose more substantial bonding requirements at the border or examine products' risk more stringently.

Listing various problem areas, Trump advisor Peter Navarro said: "This is a big deal. It's steel, chemicals, agricultural products, machinery -- it's the whole gambit."

WTO head Roberto Azevedo said there was a need for clarity on US trade policy, to see how public declarations translate into policy.

"It is difficult to predict and speculate about what US trade policy will be. It's a very important country, one which the whole world has its eyes on."

In a sign of brewing unease, Germany on Friday protested over planned US punitive anti-dumping duties on steel plate products from companies in that country and half a dozen others.

German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel charged the step breached global trade rules and unfairly disadvantaged suppliers in Germany, as well as in Austria, Belgium, France, Italy, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan.

Italy also voiced alarm, amid fears that products like Vespa scooters could be hit by punitive duties.

"Trump declares war on the Vespa" said a headline in national daily Il Messaggero, reflecting the tone of most of the media coverage on an issue that dominated front pages and topped news bulletins.

Navarro insisted the new measures would fall within rules at the World Trade Organization, where some might see the United States erecting a technical barrier to trade.

"There is no issue here," he said. "We've been collecting these duties -- we just haven't been doing it very well. The WTO is silent on the issue of incompetence."

The US Chamber of Commerce gave the orders a qualified welcome.

"The Chamber supports strong enforcement of trade rules and agreements, as long as such enforcement is based on facts and the proper interpretation of those facts and not politics," said CEO Thomas Donohue.
Janeth Rubio has becomes an instant online star due to the massive amount of media attention her recent cemetery sex tape has attracted from Spanish news channels. In fact, the event made news all the way "across the Pond" in the UK's tabloid The Sun, with the headline, "LAID TO BREAST: Porn stars spark outrage by filming a hardcore sex flick in a cemetery and even romping on someones grave."

"The scene sparked outrage after it emerged it had been filmed in a graveyard," Sun reporter Danny Collins wrote. "In a caption alongside the images she wrote: 'Where do you think I filmed?' But the lewd scene was met with outrage in Mexico when astonished internet users realised it had been filmed in a graveyard in the city of Guadalajara."

The filming raised quite a stir on some social networks. Local media became alerted to the story and immediately started a witch-huntnot their first oneaimed at inflating their page views by scolding a sweet girl who did not break any laws or cause anyone harm. According to Yahoo, "Enrique Alfaro, mayor of Guadalajara, said that the Directorate of Cemeteries did not give permission for that recording to be made" but without any trial or due process, the avant-garde Mexican actress was stripped of her ability to earn a living online with her own website.

But when Rubio's existing website was unable to handle the load of too many viewers trying to access it, she found a new, more secure home with ModelCentro, the award winning platform that already powers thousands of performer paysites. The ModelCentro staff was able to help her get her domain live in under an hour with a large amount of new content that is already attracting a massive audience.

This was a big challenge, and Im really proud of the way our entire team responded, said Stan DAman of ModelCentro.com. As long as the content is legal and compliant with visa regulations we are here to help any model who is being unfairly censored by an ISP, biller, hosting company or anyone else for that matter. ModelCentro is all about providing performers with the freedom to be who they are and express themselves in any way that they and their fans enjoy. Its not about what we want, or what someone else wants its always about what the models and their fans want.

For ModelCentro the test was really about executing everything as efficiently as possible, said Andrea Fioriniello of ModelCentro. What offline people dont understand is that a massive spike in traffic like this one needs to be monetized immediately, and for a model like Janeth Rubio, every second counts. A loss of even a few minutes can mean millions of unhappy fans, thousands of lost transactions and a huge financial ditch in her earnings. Anyone who has ever launched a site knows that building something as nice as JanethRubio.com in under an hour is quite an accomplishment. The fact that our team got it done after-hours on a moments notice and with smiles all around really makes me excited to come to work every day.

It will be interesting to see how the rest of the Rubio story unfolds in the coming weeks, but perhaps the even bigger thing for people to notice is who is on the models side when things become difficult, and who is ready to step up to help save her revenue stream the way she wants it done without hesitation.

If you are a performer, can you really afford to be working with stiffs who wont have your back in the heat of the moment? asked Stan. Check out www.ModelCentro.com... Whether you want a brand new site, or a migration of your existing site from another platform we just proved once and for all it can be done 100% in less than one hour and we know how to get your site traffic out of the Internet graveyard.

For more information, click here.
LOS ANGELESWhat started out as a silly idea for Lena Nersesian turned into overnight fame and now being recognized on Melrose Avenue comes with the territory.

It definitely happens a lot more, says Nersesian, the 25-year-old YouTube personality who went viral in January after promising to do a sex tape with her boyfriend if they both reached one million subscribers. People want to take pictures. Theyre mostly friendly and really curious.

The curvaceous native of Glendale, Calif., better known as Lena the Plug, made the pledge in a 2-minute, 16-second YouTube video titled $EXTAPE AT 1 MILL on January 17th. That video at press time had more than 8.9 million views, while Nersasian this week surpassed 757,000 YouTube subscribers. Her boyfriend Adam22s channel, No Jumper, now has more than 518,000. Shes on pace to reach the one-million mark well before the end of the year and intends to follow through if they both hit the milestone.

Yeah, Im still planning to do it, Lena tells AVN. The only thing not being talked about as much is my boyfriend also has to reach a million subscribers. Hes at half a million subscribers. A lot of people seem to have missed that.

Adam22, who hosts the No Jumper podcast, also runs the popular BMX website TheComeUp.com as well as owns a BMX clothing line and retail store called On Some Shit.

Lena enjoyed some notoriety before the $EXTAPE video. The Armenian beauty already had been charging for access to her premium Snapchat account, where she posts plenty of naughty footage, through the website LenasPlugs.com.

I have nudes on the internet, people have seen things. Its not like Ive been shy about it, Lena says.

It was just like a funny idea that really went crazy. Not to say we wouldnt take it seriously. We would actually do it. I just didnt know it was going to blow up like that.

In the first week after she posted the $EXTAPE tape video she reeled in more than 60,000 new subscribers, according to the New York Post, one of several national media outlets that noted the YouTube phenom. But she credits the notorious WorldStarHipHop site with launching her into the internet stratosphere.

WorldStar was what really set it off, Lena says. They were the big media source that got everyone else writing about it.

Her popularity spiraled from there as tens of thousands subscribed to her channel in hopes of soon seeing Lena go hardcore.

It was a really, really strange feeling, especially because I already have a scandalous line of work where I sell my private Snapchat, which is like some version of a cam girl. For me its not this big deal to make this tape, which is why we said we would do it, Lena continues.



All these people in 25 different countries are writing from this perspective of me being desperate and how insane I am. Its hard for me because Ive always been very well-liked and here is this mass of peoplenine million-plus people have seen the video and 95 to 98 percent of them are really hating on me. Ive always been a friendly person that people have liked. I guess Im realizing the world is not as open and progressive as I thought.

As word about Lena the Plug got around, the offers to do porn started rolling inincluding one from PornHub.

They were one of the first people to reach out. We just didnt continue the conversation, Lena reveals. I still have no interest. With what I do vs. adult acting What I do is so much easier. Financially, its not tempting at all. It doesnt even come close to the amount of money I make.

When and if Lena and Adam22 create their sex tape she says they will host it themselves and it would be free of charge.

A 2013 graduate of UC Santa Cruz with a degree in Psychology, Lena says she was going to attend grad school at USC but un-enrolled because it was too expensive and she just wasnt inspired by it.

Meanwhile she had tons of jobs after college. She taught kids with special needs, did babysitting and drove for Lyft and Uber. Then she went to work for a social media tech startup called Arsenic.

We all kind of wore multiple hats, she says. I was reaching out to other influencers on social media and putting them on Arsenic. I had a big social media platform by the time I left there.

With an already popular public Snapchat where she was posting sexy snaps, she recalls that many of her followers would ask her if she had a private account.



Basically the opportunity financially became something that was hard to ignore, Lena says. I really just wanted freedom with my time. I was tired of killing myself for almost no pay. I really like living a free, comfortable life where I dont have to work for anyone else.

Now she makes a good living just off her private Snapchat and YouTube channel.

This for me is a fun project and a strong source of income and it's giving extra meaning to my life because I dont really gain any sort of meaning from the private Snapchats, says Lena, who picked up her catchy nickname while at Arsenic. The vlogging is a day in the life of what Im doing that day. I wake up and start filming. Sometimes its not consistent. I still dont necessarily think its good content, but a lot of people tweet at me that we enjoyed watching, so Im trying to be more consistent. Its something you have to be in the mood for, because youre on.

Lena started the channel on Dec. 2, 2016, setting the tone with an introductory video in which shes wearing only a low-cut top and white panties; she even turns around to give viewers a rear-view tease. The clip has 1.4 million views.

The plan was to make me a channel a month prior to that, Lena says. Adam my boyfriend is a YouTuber. He said you have a great personality, you already have a following, lets make you a channel. Theres only so much you can do on Instagram. I dont really feel like Im that much of a model-type, but Ive managed to attract people. We thought I had a personality that could do well on YouTube.



Lenas fifth YouTube video on Dec. 21 featured a Q&A with her friend, Karlee Grey, a 2016 AVN Awards nominee for Best New Starlet.

Karlee and I have been friends for a while and I like to feature different people on my channel. We had been friends prior to this, prior to me having a private Snapchat, Lena says.

Now Lena says shed like to make better content, drawing inspiration from many of her female fans.

Its really the female commenters making me want to upload a video every day even if it only gets 10,000 views, she says. Because they see someone in me they can kind of look up to, that they could be more like, and Im trying to do that for that reason.

Her sudden notoriety came as a shock to many, including her family.

Theyre upset with me, Lena admits. Theyre shocked and surprised. Its not like they were introduced to my internet life before this. They really had no clue.  I just went from zero to 100.
HORSHAM, Pa.The Bodywand, from Xgen Products, earned two nominations for the 2017 Adultex Awards.

The entire Bodywand line is nominated for Best Product Range, and the newly-released Wandplus Rabbit is nominated for Best New Product.

We are honored to receive these nominations, said Andy Green, president of Xgen Products. We take great pride in the Bodywand brand, and it is gratifying to say the least to be recognized for the Xgen teams hard work.

Adultex 2017, Australias annual adult B2B trade exhibition, will be held at Royal Pines Resort on the Gold Coast in Queensland from April 26-28.

The Wandplus Rabbit, one of the newest additions to the Bodywand line, combines the power of the original plug-in massager with the added pleasure of a rabbit. Made of hygienic silicone, the Wandplus Rabbit has eight vibration modes, an extra long 10 foot cord, an ergonomic control dial, and is also available with U.K., EU and AUS plugs.

Green added, Bodywand has also started rolling out a very generous tester display and signage kit. Retailers will definitely want to take advantage.

For more, visit XgenB2B.com, call (877) 450-9436, or email [email protected]
What would a hunter be ready to do for a trophy? At least, kill. What would a photographer be ready to do to capture hunters and the animals they killed in the place where this little victory of a man over nature happened? It took Pierre Abensur 7 years to take 56 photographs for his project called Subjective Trophies in 8 countries: France, Switzerland, Mali, Burkina Faso, Mongolia, Argentina, Finland, and Namibia. With his team and the equipment he went up the mountains and deep into the woods  on boats, pick-ups, jeeps, and helicopters.

Pierre was born in a small village in the South of the French Alps. Many of his childhood friends still live there. Hunting is their hobby. One time, when he came to visit, Pierre asked them to show the taxidermied animals that they kept in their homes: They appeared like strange totems to me, the photographer says. The destructive act of killing was followed by the temptation to give life again. A post-mortem homage that revealed a strong evidence of paradoxical love.

He says that the attitude people have towards hunting and trophies does not fit into the direct opposition of man and his prey. Perhaps hunting was not simply a unilateral act but some kind of unconscious agreement between a predator and his prey, united in a natural cycle of perpetuation, he says. And the trophy was the sign of that mutual recognition. His work is the attempt to study this relationship, to understand its nature.
Romain Mader first came to Ukraine in 2009 with friends: We wanted to travel in one of the Eastern European countries. We chose randomly to go to Ukraine. At the time, Romain got interested in Soviet architecture and took pictures of it in Donetsk and Sevastopol. We didnt know so much about the country, we had the same stereotypes as most people in Western Europe. We thought people drank vodka, so we always bought a bottle of vodka to drink on the train, but we never had the chance to open it, because we didnt meet people who were interested in that.

Romain was not only wrong about the universal love for alcohol among Ukrainians. There is a stereotype in Switzerland that all Ukrainians are always tough and dont smile, the author of the project says. It was totally different from what I expected  everybody constantly tried to help us, and we even got invited to a wedding in Donetsk. I like Ukraine, there are many reasons to love it.

Later, Romain came back to Ukraine to shoot a new project, Ekaterina, a fictional story of a sex tourist who came to Ukraine in search of easy women. Romain played the main character in the story that was entirely made up by him. Ukraine in the project is a phantasmagoric country, populated only by tall blondes by the name of Ekaterina, who are dreaming of marrying a foreigner. The story has a happy ending: Romain finds his Ekaterina, takes her to Switzerland, and marries her at the foot of the Matterhorn.
A new Transparency International report ranks the world's most superheated urban property markets to find the most corrupt and finds that Australia is a playground for offshore criminals looking to launder their money, because "real estate agents are not subject to the provisions of the Anti-Money Laundering and CounterTerrorism Financing Act 2006," thus, "70 per cent of Chinese buyers pay in cash and they represent the largest proportion of foreign purchases in the country."



Australia, like many developed nations, is gripped by urban housing crises created by the need to exfiltrate criminal proceeds from autocratic regimes; often this money is taken in with the tacit approval of the state, but any funds left within the nation's borders is liable to seizure at the whim of some local tyrant, so smart crooks get their money out as soon as they can.





Normally, property is highly illiquid, making it a less-than-ideal way to store your ill-gotten booty: no one wants to wait for months of listings, showings, and escrow to convert their safe-deposit box in the sky to cash when the shit hits the fan. But the incredible competition among money-laundering millionaires has created such titanic bubbles in their favored cities that homes can be converted to cash in days (it helps that they're not really being used as homes, being left largely empty in cities where normal working people are struggling to put roofs over their heads).

Don't get smug if you're not Australian!

Canadians! "Canada's legal framework has severe deficiencies

under four of the 10 identified areas. In the other six,

there are either significant loopholes that increase risks

of money laundering through the real estate sector or

severe problems in implementation and enforcement of

the law."

Britons! "Transparency International UK found the London

property market highly vulnerable to corrupt wealth.

Analysis of open source material found that individuals

or companies representing a high money laundering

risk own over 4.2 billion worth of property in London.7

The UK government has committed to introducing

greater transparency on the purchase of properties by

foreign companies and will introduce a public register of

beneficial ownership for foreign companies with property

or wishing to buy property in the UK. Legislation is

anticipated in 2018."

Americans! "Within this framework, cash purchases in the US pose

particular risks. A 2015 report by the US National

Association of Realtors found that 59 per cent of

purchases by international clients are made in cash.

In New York, 62 per cent of purchases made by

international clients costing more than US$2million are

made in cash."



In Australia, the AML/CTF Act does not require due diligence or the

identification of beneficial owners of customers in real estate closings. In Canada, the law and guidelines do not require non-financial professionals

involved in real estate closings to identify beneficial owners when conducting

due diligence on customers. Transparency International Canada's analysis of

land title records found that nearly a half of the 100 most valuable residential

properties in Greater Vancouver are held through structures that hide their

beneficial owners. Nearly one-third of the properties are owned through shell

companies, while at least 11 per cent have a nominee listed on title.40 In the UK, real estate agents and other professionals involved in real estate

closings are required to identify the beneficial owner of customers as part of

their due diligence process. The failure to identify a beneficial owner should,

according to the law, impede the transaction and be reason to submit a

suspicious transaction report (STR),41 if there is also suspicion of money

laundering. As described above, this requirement does not apply to real

estate agents when dealing with the purchaser. In the US, real estate agents, lawyers and accountants involved in real estate

closings are not required to identify the beneficial owner of customers. Since

March 2016, title insurance companies are required to identify the beneficial

owner in real estate transactions that are made in cash and are above a

certain threshold in some places in the US (see box). This requirement only

applies to transactions when the purchaser is a legal person and buys the

property with title insurance. Other professionals involved in the transaction,

such as real estate agents, accountants and lawyers are still neither obliged

to identify the beneficial ownership of customers nor to conduct any other

due diligence.

DOORS WIDE OPEN: CORRUPTION AND REAL ESTATE IN FOUR KEY MARKETS

[Transparency International]

Report: Australia world's worst money laundering property market

[Leith van Onselen/Macro Business] [works intermittently, see below for cache]

Report: Australia world's worst money laundering property market

[Leith van Onselen/Macro Business] [Google cache/text-only view]
Heres a look at some of the stocks the Yahoo Finance team will be watching for you today.

BlackBerry (BBRY) shares got a nice pop in early trading. The Canadian tech company reported adjusted earnings that topped analysts estimates due to a big drop in operating expenses. However, revenue came in slightly shy of expectations, falling 36% from a year ago as the company continues to grow its software business.

A departure at Facebook (FB): Palmer Luckey, the co-founder of Oculus, is leaving the company, nearly three years after he sold the VR company to Facebook for $2 billion. Luckeys departure comes amid a series of controversies, including funding of a pro-Trump troll group called Nimble America.

Agricultural company FMC (FMC) is flirting with a three-year high. The company is swapping assets with DuPont (DD). FMC agreed to buy part of DuPonts crop protection business, while DuPont will buy FMCs health and nutrition unit. The deal will help DuPont get regulatory clearance of its merger with Dow Chemical (DOW).

Diageo (DEO) is also on investors watch list after Goldman Sachs cut the stock to sell from neutral. The firm expects the company to see headwinds amid a slowdown in the US spirits market and pricing pressures.

Apple (AAPL) is grabbing headlines overseas. The US tech giant scored a victory in Australia. The countrys regulator reportedly barred banks from introducing their own mobile payment services on Apple devices that would rival Apple Wallet.
By Matt Scuffham

TORONTO (Reuters) - The Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, one of the world's biggest investors, is concerned about the rise of protectionist trade policies, its chief executive told business leaders in Toronto on Friday.

The CPPIB, which manages Canada's national pension fund and invests on behalf of 20 million Canadians, has become one of the world's biggest global infrastructure and real estate investors as it seeks to diversify from public equity and fixed income markets.

Chief Executive Mark Machin told the Toronto Region Board of Trade that the pension fund had benefited from globalization and would suffer from policies that make international trade more difficult.

"We worry about it," Machin said. "Our investment strategy benefits from open markets. Open markets for investment, open markets for trade, open markets for people and impediments to that are not helpful."

U.S. President Donald Trump is planning to reform a trading agreement between the United States, Mexico and Canada while Britain has voted to leave the European Union and candidates with sceptial views of free trade are running in elections in France and Germany in 2017.

"You can understand some of the concerns that have led to these policies. Not everybody has been a beneficiary of globalization," said Machin. "Ultimately I hope that pragmatism will reign in the end and we won't see too profound an impact, whether it's in Europe or North America, of these policies."

At the end of 2016, CPPIB had only 13 percent of its assets of over C$300 billion ($226 billion) invested in Canada.

About 44 percent of the investments were in the United States, with about 19 percent in Europe, around 19 percent in the Asia-Pacifc, and about 5 percent in South America and other regions.

Although CPPIB has grown to be one of the world's biggest infrastructure investors with assets worth C$27.6 billion, it has a relatively modest stake in infrastructure projects in its own country.

Story continues

Machin said he hoped plans by Canada's Liberal government to set up an infrastructure bank to facilitate private financing for projects could lead to opportunities to invest in more large-scale projects in Canada.

"We're hoping that the initiatives the federal government is taking will lead to a better flow of sizeable opportunities," he said. "We focus on markets where there's a consistent flow of projects that are investable by institutional money. Canada's not had too many of those."

(Reporting by Matt Scuffham; Editing by Richard Chang)
During his confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Judge Neil Gorsuch summarized what his judicial oath means to him: A judge is there to make sure that every person, poor or rich, mighty or meek, gets equal protection of the law.

Equality before the law is our state motto. It represents the commitment Nebraskans made 150 years ago, when we entered the union. That principle remains strong today. It should be a cornerstone of judicial philosophy for any nominee to our nations highest court. And how fitting it is that the words Equal Justice under Law are engraved on the front of the Supreme Court.

Days after President Trump nominated Judge Gorsuch to fill the late Justice Scalias seat on the Supreme Court, I shared the qualities I wanted to see in a justice: strong commitment to the rule of law, first-rate credentials and a solid judicial record. The Senate is expected to vote on his nomination next week. The time has come to determine whether Judge Gorsuch meets those criteria.

I believe he does.

A justice should be a follower of the Constitution, not a trailblazer or advocate. Judge Gorsuch understands this idea. He takes it seriously. In his confirmation hearing, he emphasized the importance of judicial precedent and a fair approach to the law. As he said, I try to take the facts and the precedent before me very seriously. I come here with no agenda but one . . . to be as good and faithful a judge as I know how to be.

In a private meeting in my office, Gorsuch promised to follow the law, wherever it may lead.

The separation of powers set forth in the Constitution is the bedrock of our democracy. Congress writes the laws, the president executes the laws and the judiciary branch upholds the laws. A justice needs to understand his pivotal, although limited, role in our republic. During days of testimony at his confirmation hearing, he repeatedly made it clear that while legislators answer to the people, a judge answers only to the law.

In addition to his profound respect for our democracy, Gorsuch has an extraordinary resume and a brilliant mind. For 10 years, he has served on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit. The Senate confirmed him to this position by unanimous consent in 2006. No roll call vote was needed because all 100 members, even then-Democratic Sens. Barack Obama and Joe Biden, supported the nomination.

To date, Judge Gorsuch has decided 2,700 cases. Ninety-seven percent of the decisions in these cases were unanimous. This record tell us something important: he is well within the mainstream. Its why hes gained the respect of prominent attorneys on the right and left. Jane Nitze, an Obama administration attorney, showered Gorsuch with high praise: He is extraordinarily fair-minded. He will approach each case the same, regardless of the issue or the parties before him.

To understand a judges record, we must review his or her decisions on individual cases. In a case involving a new federal agency rule that would have applied retroactively, Gorsuch ruled in favor of curbing agency authority. He asserted that the Constitution permits federal agencies to implement the laws, but not create them. I was also struck by Judge Gorsuchs rulings in two particular religious liberty cases. Each involved prisoners who had been denied access to religious accommodations. In both cases, Gorsuch ruled to protect the individuals right to religious exercise.

These decisions preserved the principles on which our nation was founded: religious tolerance and freedom. As Judge Gorsuch noted, the law doesnt just apply to protect popular religious beliefs: it does perhaps its most important work in protecting unpopular religious beliefs, vindicating this nations long-held aspiration to serve as a refuge of religious tolerance.

Judge Gorsuch is dedicated to applying the law neutrally, equally and fairly to all people.

I look forward to voting in support of his nomination to serve as our next Supreme Court justice. I urge my Senate colleagues to do the same.
Bombardier_train 16-9

Since reaching a high of $2.75 per share, Bombardier, Inc. (TSX:BBD.B) has dropped by nearly 25%. Investors now have to consider if this is an appropriate price to start acquiring shares. And, if it is a good price, is the company worth consideration?

For context, Bombardier used to be an amazing investment. Its rail division was second to none, and it was Canada?s crown jewel of manufacturing companies. Unfortunately, the CSeries project ran into multi-year delays and was more than $2 billion over budget, putting the company in seriously dire straits.

But this was Bombardier?s first attempt at making a larger class of aircraft. It believed, due to the aircraft design, that customers would buy the plane because it was efficient. In sales material, Bombardier wrote, ?the result is two aircraft [CS100 and CS300] that deliver a 15% cash operating cost advantage and a 20% fuel burn advantage.? For airlines that want to boost margins, using the CSeries makes sense.

And airlines are realizing this.

Delta Air Lines Inc. ordered 75 CSeries planes, realizing that it could knock out regional airlines in the United States by offering a ?widebody feel on a narrowbody,? as the CEO of Delta said. Bombardier sold these planes to Delta for US$5.6 billion, so it?s unlikely that there is much profit for Bombardier in the planes, but it was an emotional win.

Air Canada supported its fellow Canadian company and finalized a firm order for 45 CS300 with the option to buy an additional 30. While the price hasn?t been disclosed, it?s likely that this was also a deal of show rather than true profit.

And finally, Swiss International Air Lines, Bombardier?s launch partner, announced that it was upgrading from the CS100 to the CS300.

So, Bombardier received a lot of exciting news, but there remain uncertainties about the company. Primarily, its rail division is following in the plane division?s footsteps by being late with orders.

Bombardier has a $770 million contract with Metrolinx for a variety of projects; the biggest is the Eglinton Crosstown line that will open in 2021. It needed a test vehicle back in 2014, but Bombardier couldn?t deliver, and only now is the test vehicle ready. Metrolinx is looking for new vendors because the test vehicle doesn?t function correctly.

Story continues

Another major problem for Bombardier is with the city of Toronto, which chose Bombardier to replace the city?s streetcars. All told, it was supposed to deliver 200 streetcars by 2019 with the first 100 by this month. At the end of 2016, it had delivered 30. Bombardier expects to deliver another 40 by the end of 2017. This has forced Toronto to use its older cars, which has cost the city more money.

Bombardier is an exciting company that is looking to make itself great with the CSeries. Unfortunately, it is sitting on contracts in the rail division that it risks losing because it can?t deliver on time. Management needs to get these projects moving or the company will experience even more pain. I remain on the side when it comes to Bombardier.

Canada's answer to Amazon.com

You've probably never even heard of this up-and-coming e-commerce powerhouse headquartered in Eastern Ontario...

But, despite coming public just last year, it's already helping the likes of Budweiser... Tesla... Subway... and Red Bull move $9.9 BILLION (and counting) worth of goods online each year.

And now it's caught the eye of the legendary investor who got behind Amazon.com in 1997 -- just before it shot up over 23,000% and made investors like you and me rich beyond their wildest dreams.

Click here to discover why this investor says it's time to buy.

More reading

Fool contributor Jacob Donnelly has no position in any stocks mentioned.

Canada's answer to Amazon.com

You've probably never even heard of this up-and-coming e-commerce powerhouse headquartered in Eastern Ontario...

But, despite coming public just last year, it's already helping the likes of Budweiser... Tesla... Subway... and Red Bull move $9.9 BILLION (and counting) worth of goods online each year.

And now it's caught the eye of the legendary investor who got behind Amazon.com in 1997 -- just before it shot up over 23,000% and made investors like you and me rich beyond their wildest dreams.

Click here to discover why this investor says it's time to buy.

Fool contributor Jacob Donnelly has no position in any stocks mentioned.
Photo: Plantlady223. Licence: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Young_cannabis_plant_in_the_vegetative_stage_01.jpg

Millions of North American investors have become transfixed by the marijuana industry.

It?s easy to see why. The medical marijuana industry seems to only be in its infancy. Great progress has been made using the drug to treat everything from chronic pain to seizures. Now that it has gained more acceptance, money is pouring into the sector. That cash will fund research which will likely lead to bigger breakthroughs.

But the medical marijuana market pales in comparison to the recreational pot market. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has pledged to make marijuana legal with reports that legislation to do so will be tabled in April. If the reports are accurate, Canadians will be able to enjoy fully legal weed on July 1, 2018.

One estimate pegs the size of Canada?s marijuana market to be in excess of $22 billion once we include medical marijuana, the recreational market, and an influx of marijuana tourists, which would mostly come from the United States.

While the potential market is huge, there?s just one problem. All of Canada?s marijuana stocks are so expensive that no valuation-based investor will touch them.

The problem with pot stocks

Canopy Growth Corp. (TSX:WEED) is Canada?s largest marijuana stock. It has a market cap of $1.7 billion.

In 2016, the company did just $12.7 million of revenue and lost $3.5 million after taxes. Analysts predict the red ink will continue in 2017 and 2018.

In what world is a stock that generates $12.7 million in revenue worth $1.7 billion? Shares trade at 132 times sales. Not earnings. Sales. This makes zero sense to investors who insist on paying a reasonable price for their investments. Canopy (and its peers, which trade at similarly excessive valuations) are the epitome of speculative stocks. These are hardly investments.

The marijuana sector reminds me of the tech sector in 1999. It was obvious back then tech was going to change our lives, just like we all know legal marijuana will be big. That still didn?t make the average tech stock a good long-term hold. I?m worried the same thing will happen with pot stocks. After all, history has a way of repeating itself.

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The smart way to play the trend

Fortunately, there are ways investors can have their cake and eat it too. All we need to do is identify industries that will get a nice bump from legal pot.

My favourite idea is to look at Canada?s industrial REITs. These companies own warehouses that are rented to small manufacturers, retailers, or shippers. It?s obvious that marijuana companies will start snatching up that space.

It just doesn?t make sense for a marijuana grower to start acquiring real estate. They can keep their capital outlay to a minimum by just renting space. In addition, they?re going to want space that?s close to highways, yet isn?t out of the way for employees or other potential visitors. Industrial REITs have plenty of that kind of real estate.

In fact, one of Canada?s top industrial REIT CEOs has already publicly pointed out such an opportunity. Pure Industrial Real Estate Trust (TSX:AAR.UN) CEO Kevan Gorrie recently identified two major growth areas: e-commerce and marijuana.

The company currently owns 21 million square feet worth of industrial space in Canada with long-term plans to up that to 40 million square feet and add an additional 15 million square feet in the United States. Legal pot will likely be a big part of that growth plan.

Pure shares currently trade at a very reasonable valuation, too. The company earned $0.40 per share in funds from operations in 2016, putting shares at just 15 times the REIT?s equivalent of earnings. Compare that to Canopy.

Oh, and shares also pay a succulent distribution. The current yield is 5.1%.

The bottom line

Many investors won?t be interested in a company like Pure because it doesn?t have the potential to truly make them rich. This is the wrong way of thinking.

In fact, Pure is much more likely to make someone rich than a high-flying marijuana stock that?s trading at a huge valuation. As the tortoise taught us, it?s slow and steady that wins the race.

Canada's answer to Amazon.com

You've probably never even heard of this up-and-coming e-commerce powerhouse headquartered in Eastern Ontario...

But, despite coming public just last year, it's already helping the likes of Budweiser... Tesla... Subway... and Red Bull move $9.9 BILLION (and counting) worth of goods online each year.

And now it's caught the eye of the legendary investor who got behind Amazon.com in 1997 -- just before it shot up over 23,000% and made investors like you and me rich beyond their wildest dreams.

Click here to discover why this investor says it's time to buy.

More reading

Fool contributor Nelson Smith has no position in any stocks mentioned.

Canada's answer to Amazon.com

You've probably never even heard of this up-and-coming e-commerce powerhouse headquartered in Eastern Ontario...

But, despite coming public just last year, it's already helping the likes of Budweiser... Tesla... Subway... and Red Bull move $9.9 BILLION (and counting) worth of goods online each year.

And now it's caught the eye of the legendary investor who got behind Amazon.com in 1997 -- just before it shot up over 23,000% and made investors like you and me rich beyond their wildest dreams.

Click here to discover why this investor says it's time to buy.

Fool contributor Nelson Smith has no position in any stocks mentioned.
By Joseph Sipalan KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) - Malaysian authorities returned the body of the estranged half-brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un on Thursday, in a deal that secured the release of nine Malaysian citizens held in Pyongyang after a drawn out diplomatic spat. U.S. and South Korean intelligence sources say North Korea masterminded the deadly attack on Kim Jong Nam last month using VX nerve agent, a chemical so toxic that it is on a U.N. list of weapons of mass destruction. The attack outraged Malaysia and sparked a diplomatic row with the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), as North Korea is officially known, resulting in travel bans on both sides and a collapse in their long-standing friendly ties. The nine Malaysians who were barred from leaving North Korea arrived at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport early on Friday, where they were received by the foreign minister and large group of media who had waited overnight. "We won't deny that when the DPRK government imposed the travel ban which prevented (us) from leaving, we were very concerned especially since we had committed no wrong," said Mohd Nor Azrin Md Zain, a counselor at the Malaysian embassy in the North Korean capital. "During that time we were not particularly harassed by DPRK authorities. We were given the assurance that life could go on as normal," he added. The Malaysians left Pyongyang on a Bombardier Global 6000 business jet operated by the Royal Malaysian Air Force. Earlier, sources told Reuters authorities were preparing to transport Kim's body on Malaysia Airlines flight MH360 to Beijing, en route to Pyongyang. "Following the completion of the autopsy on the deceased and receipt of a letter from his family requesting the remains be returned to North Korea, the coroner has approved the release of the body," Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak said in a statement. Najib is currently on an official visit in India but officials said he was directly involved in the negotiations. Najib's statement did not mention Kim by name. Pyongyang has maintained that the body was that of Kim Chol as stated in his passport, and not Kim Jong Nam. Kim was assassinated at Kuala Lumpur airport on Feb 13. The swap agreement brings to an end nearly seven weeks of diplomatic standoff between the formerly friendly countries. North Korea had been demanding the handover of Kims body and that three remaining suspects inside its embassy be returned to Pyongyang in exchange for an end to the travel ban on Malaysians, diplomatic sources have said. Local media reports said at least two of those suspects, including a North Korean embassy official, had left Malaysia. North Korean officials were seen leaving the airport in Beijing on Friday morning, but Reuters could not verify if the officials were among them. Kim Jong Nam, the eldest son of the late North Korean leader Kim Jong Il, had spoken out publicly against his family's dynastic control of the isolated, nuclear-armed nation. The young, unpredictable Kim Jong Un had issued a "standing order" for his elder half-brother's assassination, and there was a failed attempt in 2012, according to some South Korean lawmakers. RELATIONS REAFFIRMED Malaysian police say Kim was killed by two women who smeared the super toxic nerve agent VX on his face. An Indonesian woman and a Vietnamese woman have been charged. North Korea reacted angrily when the Malaysian authorities identified North Korean suspects and sought to question others including a diplomat at their embassy in Kuala Lumpur. Malaysia expelled North Korea's ambassador for being "diplomatically rude", although Najib later said that ties with Pyongyang would not be severed, in a bid to calm relations. A statement by the North Korean government released simultaneously said both countries managed to "resolve issues arising from the death of a DPRK national" in Malaysia at a meeting in Kuala Lumpur. "The importance of bilateral relations was reaffirmed. In this connection, both countries agreed to positively discuss the re-introduction of the visa-free system and work toward bringing the relations to a higher level," read the statement from North Korea. Najib said on Thursday that North Koreans will now be allowed to leave Malaysia. (Additional reporting by James Pearson, Rozanna Latiff and Liz Lee; Writing by Praveen Menon; Editing by Nick Macfie, Hugh Lawson and Lincoln Feast)
Yahoo Finance is tracking Blackberry, Credit Suisse, Boeing and Starbucks in intraday trading on Friday.

Blackberry (BBRY)  Shares of Blackberry are soaring after the companys fiscal fourth-quarter results topped Wall Street expectations and announced that it expects to be profitable and generate positive free cash flow for the full year. Blackberry posted adjusted earnings per share of 4 cents on revenue of $286 million. John Chen, Executive Chairman and CEO of BlackBerry touted the companys growth, saying, In the quarter, we continued to grow our mix of software and services revenue across the company. In turn, this allowed us to expand our operating margin and report positive free cash flow. In addition, our balance sheet continues to strengthen and benefit from reduced capital requirements with our focus on software and licensing.

Credit Suisse (CS)  Shares of the Swiss bank are under pressure as the company finds itself in the middle of a tax evasion and money laundering investigation which spans five countries: Britain, the Netherlands, Germany, Australia and France. Credit Suisse confirmed that its offices in London, Paris and Amsterdam were visited by local authorities. In a statement released on Friday, Credit Suisse said that it continues to follow a strategy of full client tax compliance.

Starbucks (SBUX)  The company is testing out a way to cut down wait time and eliminate long lines at its cafes. Starbucks announced that it is opening its first mobile order-only store in its headquarter building in Seattle. Customers will only be able to place their order and pay via the coffee giants smartphone app.

Boeing (BA)  The company successfully tested its newest and largest Dreamliner, the 787-10, Friday morning. The 787-10 has 330 passenger seats and is expected to be available for use in 2018.

For more on Fridays big stock movers, check out the Final Round, live at 4 p.m. EDT, right here on Yahoo Finance.
oil sands 16_9

In a long-expected move, President Trump recently embarked on his planned regulatory rollback that?s aimed at freeing the mining and energy industries from what some pundits claim are onerous obligations.

This includes what can only be considered a declaration of war by Trump on climate change; a host of Obama-era policy tools aimed at reducing energy consumption and eliminating carbon emissions. This essentially amounts to an open repudiation of climate change and the global push to minimize carbon emissions. While it may not yet be a significant blow to preventing climate change, it could very well benefit Canada?s oil sands industry.

Now what?

Canada?s oil sands have been under considerable pressure for some time because of the impact of the extraction and conversion of bitumen into crude on the environment. Up until the oil crash, the industry was the fastest-growing emitter of greenhouse gases, and it?s the largest greenhouse gas emitter in Canada.

In fact, it has been estimated that every barrel of crude produced from the oil sands generates 20% more greenhouse gas emissions than conventional oil production.

It is for these reasons that the Alberta provincial government introduced a policy aimed at reducing greenhouse emissions from the oil sands industry through a legislated emission limit and carbon pricing. This has increased the cost of production for oil sands companies, fanned fears of up to $250 billion of lost production in the coming decade, and increased the likelihood of the oil sands becoming stranded assets.

Even before this legislation appeared, prominent investors, including Jeremy Grantham, were claiming that the oil sands will become stranded assets.

Essentially, this means that the cost of producing oil from bitumen will exceed the commercial and economic benefits, making the oil sands a nonviable source of crude. The likelihood of this occurring grew significantly when the Paris Agreement on climate change, which aims to reduce global temperature increases to less than two degrees Celsius, came into force.

Story continues

The agreement has already been recognized by many within the industry, including Canada?s largest oil producer Suncor Energy Inc. (TSX:SU)(NYSE:SU), which has developed a plan to leave its least economic oil reserves untapped. Suncor will focus on its most economic projects, which should lead to higher margins and a better return on capital.

Nevertheless, Trump?s latest actions have reignited the debate over Canada?s environmental legislation and the impact it is having on the oil sands, one of the world?s largest energy resources. They also point to the industry receiving a far warmer reception south of the border. This is evidenced by Trump?s approval of TransCanada Corporation?s (TSX:TRP)(NYSE:TRP) Keystone XL pipeline, which was blocked by the Obama Administration.

These events are of considerable significance for Canada?s energy patch because almost three-quarters of all crude produced is exported to the U.S. If the U.S. economy expands at the rate expected, because of Trump?s planned fiscal stimulus and regulatory rollback, then demand for petroleum and related products in the U.S. can only grow rapidly.

So what?

This would certainly be boon for pipeline companies such as TransCanada and Enbridge Inc. (TSX:ENB)(NYSE:ENB), which form a vital link between the energy patch and its largest export market. Since the approval of the Keystone XL pipeline, TransCanada?s outlook has improved significantly and, on completion, its earnings should receive a healthy lift.

Trump?s recent policies will certainly aid Canada?s energy patch in what has been a difficult operating environment since the collapse of oil prices over two years ago.

First Brexit... then Trump... Now, it's time for Pro...

To help investors like you navigate this historically uncertain -- yet high-flying -- market and prepare for an inevitable downturn, we're re-opening our Motley Fool Pro Canada service to a select few new members for a short time.

To discover how Pro Canada could help you to increase your upside potential... reduce your downside risk... and earn paycheque-like income in the process, simply click here -- before the small number of spots we have left are all gone!

More reading

Fool contributor Matt Smith has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool owns shares of Enbridge. Enbridge is a recommendation of Stock Advisor Canada.



First Brexit... then Trump... Now, it's time for Pro...

To help investors like you navigate this historically uncertain -- yet high-flying -- market and prepare for an inevitable downturn, we're re-opening our Motley Fool Pro Canada service to a select few new members for a short time.

To discover how Pro Canada could help you to increase your upside potential... reduce your downside risk... and earn paycheque-like income in the process, simply click here -- before the small number of spots we have left are all gone!

Fool contributor Matt Smith has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool owns shares of Enbridge. Enbridge is a recommendation of Stock Advisor Canada.


FILE PHOTO - Victor Li, elder son of tycoon Li Ka-shing, reacts during a news conference to announce Hutchison Whampoa Ltd's interim results in Hong Kong August 2, 2012. REUTERS/Tyrone Siu/File Photo

By John Tilak

TORONTO (Reuters) - Victor Li, co-chairman of Husky Energy Inc (Toronto:HSE.TO - News) and son of one of Asia's richest men, has agreed to acquire Reliance Home Comfort, a Canadian provider of heating and cooling systems, from U.S. investment firm Alinda Capital Partners for C$2.8 billion ($2.10 billion), Reliance said on Friday.

Li's acquisition comes through his CKP Canada vehicle, a unit of Hong Kong property developer Cheung Kong Property Holdings Ltd (HKSE:1113.HK - News). Li is the heir to Hong Kong billionaire and property tycoon Li Ka-shing.

Barclays (LSE:BARC.L - News) was exclusive adviser to Li. Alinda's advisers were Goldman Sachs (NYSE:GS - News) and Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (Toronto:CM.TO - News). Torys provided Alinda with legal advice.

Reliance provides heating, cooling and water services to both consumers and businesses. By renting water heaters and other equipment, Reliance Comfort has a recurring revenue stream that gives it the qualities of an infrastructure play.

Several U.S. private equity firms also looked at the asset, according to people familiar with the situation, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the discussions were private.

Reliance has expanded in recent years. It acquired National Energy Corp, a provider of water heater and HVAC home services, for C$505 million from Just Energy Group Inc (Toronto:JE.TO - News) in 2014.

Along with its own SmartAir line, Reliance offers furnaces and air conditioners from United Technologies Corp's (NYSE:UTX - News) Carrier, as well as the Goodman and Amana brands.

Other players in the space include Canadian publicly listed companies Enercare Inc (Toronto:ECI.TO - News) and Just Energy.

Alinda is one the largest U.S. managers of pension funds for infrastructure investments. It has about $10 billion of assets under management. It has invested across the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom and Germany, according to its website.

Story continues

Alinda's current investments include London's Heathrow Airport and Polish broadcast infrastructure firm Emitel.

($1 = 1.3334 Canadian dollars)

(Editing by Matthew Lewis)
Trump has a working lunch with billionaire and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, to his left. Ross along with National Trade Council director Peter Navarro have pressed for firmer trade policies. Source: AP

President Donald Trump took a hard anti-Nafta line during his campaign, calling it a disaster, a catastrophe, and the worst trade deal. However, a recent draft of proposed changes to the North American Free Trade Agreement obtained by Yahoo Finance suggests that Trumps stance has moderated, and that he would like much of the trade agreement between Mexico, Canada, and the US to remain in place.

As first reported by the Wall Street Journal, the draft proposal keeps some of the controversial parts of Nafta, like measures that allow for arbitration instead of local courts. While the Journal refers to the changes as softening, the CBC in Canada noted that the changes are more than the minor tweaks discussed during the last visit by Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

An America First presence in the administrations current thinking manifests in myriad ways. The draft discusses seeking a safeguard mechanism to allow a temporary revocation of tariff preferences, if increased imports from Nafta countries are a substantial cause of serious injury or threat of serious injury to the domestic industry. The draft also seeks to allow for the US to vigorously enforce and promote its trade remedy laws, and includes language that seems to call for the refund of value-added taxes for products destined for the US.

Though the draft is one of renegotiation and contains advocates for safeguard mechanisms and trade remedy laws that could certainly be aggressive, its devoid of typical Trump rhetoric of even discussing leaving the Nafta agreement, directly referencing big border tariffs, or railing against Mexico taking advantage.

Its important to remember this is a draft of just Nafta proposals, which deals solely with North America. On Friday, Trump reminded the world of this fact by signing executive orders to examine the causes of US trade deficits around the worldwhy more value is imported than exported from a country.

Story continues

Fridays executive orders also pave the way for tighter trade enforcement when a country tries to drive down its prices and hurt American companies ability to compete. Trump is taking steps to boost US manufacturing, but it may not add many jobs as high domestic manufacturing output does not equate to high employment in that sector.

With this Nafta draft, a theme emerges that runs along the oft-repeated lines of whether to take Trumps aggressive tweets and rhetoric at face value. When it comes to executive action, which doesnt require much in the way of negotiation, the president has shown a bite comparable to his bark. But for things that involve negotiations and Congress, he has softened considerably.

For example, the American Health Care Act, fathered by Speaker Paul Ryan and strongly supported by Trump, was far less aggressive than a scorched-earth Obamacare repeal he campaigned on. The plan offered subsidies, but its CBO score showed it would have left 24 million uninsured  and erased any feeling of softening. Similarly, while a border wall may be built, it will be funded by taxpayers.

For the markets, these softenings, hard as they may be, can be read as a subtle indication of how the future may play out when it comes to making deals with Congress on big things like tax reform and infrastructure, as well as smaller things like prescription drug pricing negotiations.

Related:







Ethan Wolff-Mann is a writer at Yahoo Finance focusing on consumer issues, tech, and personal finance. Follow him on Twitter @ewolffmann. Got a tip? Send it to tips@yahoo-inc.com.

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A lawyer for Whiteclay's embattled beer stores accused Gov. Pete Ricketts and Attorney General Doug Peterson on Friday of mounting a politically motivated attack on his clients.

"There's no question the governor is pushing this, and the attorney general has to contort the statutes to do it how they're doing it," Scottsbluff attorney Andrew Snyder told reporters Friday.

His comment came as the four stores prepare for a hearing next week before the Nebraska Liquor Control Commission on whether they should be allowed to remain open.

Snyder has asked a Lincoln judge to cancel the hearing and order automatic renewal of the stores' liquor licenses, arguing the state followed an illegal procedure when it required them to reapply for the licenses last year.

Lancaster County District Judge Robert Otte said he'd consider the request after hearing arguments Friday from Snyder and attorneys representing both the state and a group of Sheridan County residents who are protesting renewal of the licenses.

Otte took no immediate action after the discussion.

Ryan Post, a lawyer with the Attorney General's Office, dismissed the beer stores' move as an "end-run" attempt to avoid Thursday's Liquor Commission hearing at the Capitol.

The commission ordered the beer stores to reapply for their licenses in November, citing concerns about law enforcement in Whiteclay, an unincorporated village in northwest Nebraska.

Whiteclay has a dozen permanent residents, but its four liquor stores sell millions of cans of beer each year, much of it to residents of the nearby Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota, where alcohol is banned. The village itself is a hub for vagrants and violence, and critics say Whiteclay beer sales contribute to a host of problems on the reservation, including rampant fetal alcohol syndrome.

Next week's hearing was scheduled after 13 residents from the surrounding county formally protested the beer stores' applications for renewal.

Canceling the Thursday hearing now would silence those who protested, argued attorney David Domina of Omaha, who represents five of the Sheridan County residents.

The beer stores' licenses are set to expire at the end of April. If the Liquor Commission doesn't renew them, that could force the stores to close and effectively end alcohol sales in Whiteclay.
By Axel Bugge LISBON (Reuters) - While the European left is largely struggling where it holds power, Portugal's government alliance stands out as a remarkable exception; it is raising wages and gaining popularity and yet delivering the lowest budget deficit in living memory. The unlikely alliance of center-left Socialists and two far-left parties has overcome deep scepticism since it was formed in 2015, achieving stability and maintaining economic recovery at a time of political uncertainty across Europe. Even President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, a conservative, acknowledges its running of a country that left an international bailout program only in 2014. "I have been surprised," he said in February. "Frankly, I didn't think it would be as resilient as it has shown itself to be in the past year." The government is a minority Socialist administration rather than a coalition, with the party filling all ministerial posts. However, it relies on support from the Communists and Left Bloc for its parliamentary majority, breaking a taboo that had kept the far left out of power since the 1974 return of democracy. Portuguese are warming to the government as it unwinds some austerity polices imposed under the bailout, although this comes at the cost of heavy cuts to longer-term public works spending. Prime Minister Antonio Costa has acknowledged the balancing act. "Budgets can't be managed with miracles, they are managed with rigor, hard work and careful management," he said. Voters' trust in the alliance has more than doubled - albeit from a low level - and the Socialists, who were in power when Portugal had to seek the 2011 bailout, are benefiting most. Polls put support for Costa's Socialists at 42 percent, up 10 points from their share of the vote in the 2015 election and close to a level that would give them a majority in parliament were the country to vote again. Most European governments of the left can only dream of such ratings. In France, polls have put the candidate of the ruling Socialists, Benoit Hamon, in fifth place for the first round of presidential elections in May with support around 10 percent. In Italy, Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni's party is around five points adrift of the anti-establishment 5-Star movement, while Greece's ruling Syriza party lags conservatives by twice that. Portugal's experience may be of interest in Germany, where the Social Democrats are exploring options for a coalition after elections in September. Along with the Greens, they have sounded out the leftist Linke party, shunned so far at a national level due to its origins in the defunct East German communist party. THE CONTRAPTION Today, some Portuguese fondly refer to the alliance as 'geringonca', or 'the contraption'. But in 2015 the far-left's inclusion raised fears on financial markets that fiscal policy would go off the rails, reversing tough reforms and budget cuts during the 2011-2014 bailout by the European Union and IMF. To win support from the Communists and Left Bloc, Costa agreed to increase workers' pay in western Europe's poorest country. Last year, the government already raised the minimum monthly wage to 530 euros ($570) from 505 euros a year earlier. It will continue rising till it reaches 600 euros in 2019, the last year of the government's current term. State sector salaries and pensions are also being increased in stages, while the alliance is slowing a privatization drive pursued by the previous center-right government. Despite this generosity, the alliance succeeded in lowering the deficit. It fell last year to 2.1 percent of gross domestic product - lower even than a target agreed with Brussels - from 4.4 percent in 2015. The National Statistics Institute forecasts it will drop again to 1.6 percent this year. The European Commission has expressed optimism that Portugal can soon exit an EU excessive deficit procedure imposed after it breached the bloc's budget rules. Three years of economic growth have boosted revenue. While the rate remains modest - the Bank of Portugal forecasts it will reach 1.8 percent this year, thanks to rising investment and exports - it compares with a four percent contraction in 2012. Unemployment has also dropped from a peak of 17.5 percent in 2013 to 10.5 percent in the last quarter of 2016, while a crackdown on tax evasion has likewise increased state income. Nevertheless, the popular public pay increases have not been funded entirely by higher revenue, with the budget savings also demanding spending cuts. Much of the burden has fallen where voters may not notice the effect immediately: public investment. The government slashed this by 16.5 percent last year, to just 1.8 percent of GDP, the lowest proportion since 1960. AECOPS, the main construction industry association, warns against the danger of false savings. "Through drastic cuts in public investment to reduce the deficit, the government has contributed decisively to the degradation to construction activity and prevented the recovery of the sector," AECOPS chief Ricardo Pedrosa Gomes told Reuters. Economists have also expressed concern about any further cuts to state spending on the likes of hospitals and schools. In Greece - which unlike Portugal is still in a bailout program after seven years - the IMF has warned that decaying infrastructure is hampering growth while basic public services such as transport and health care are being compromised. Costa has promised to raise public works spending this year by 20 percent. "It's necessary to invest more, but with prudence in order not to upset the balance of our public accounts," he said in a recent speech. TENDING TO TRUST Portugal has another problem, a debt burden that at 130 percent of GDP is proportionately the third biggest in Europe after Greece and Italy. The EU is pressing for this to be cut. Still, voters are willing to credit the alliance. In the EU's latest Eurobarometer survey, the number of Portuguese who "tend to trust" their government jumped to 39 percent in late 2016 from just 15 percent at the time of the 2015 election. Support for the Communists and Left Bloc has slipped since the election when they won 8.25 and 10.2 percent respectively. But the Socialists are now just about the most popular mainstream center-left party in western Europe. Their gains have come at the expense of the center-right Social Democrats who ruled from 2011 to 2015 and emerged the biggest party in the last elections, only to be outflanked by the alliance. Centrist voters - who doubted in 2015 the alliance could tame the excessive spending that many blame for Portugal's debt crisis - appear to be regaining confidence in the Socialists. All broad policy elements, including budgets and the pace of social policies like raising the minimum wage, were agreed by the alliance before the election. Costa's job in achieving internal harmony may also have been made by easier by the fact that the far left is represented by two parties competing for votes. "The Socialists prefer to negotiate with both of them, in other words creating a dynamic of rivalry between the two smaller parties that helps to moderate them," said political analyst Marina Costa Lobo. Likewise, the lack of a formal coalition also helps by allowing all three parties to maintain their own identities. That means the Left Bloc and Communists can continue to push for a renegotiation of Portugal's debts, even though this is not included in the agreement with the Socialists, thereby posing no threat to the government's efforts to control the budget. There are risks, not least if the euro zone debt crisis were to reignite, but it's a case of so far, so good. "In principle, the longer this continues, especially for the electorate on the left, showing positive results in economic terms, the better," said political analyst Antonio Costa Pinto. (editing by David Stamp)
By Michelle Nichols NEW YORK (Reuters) - The United States' diplomatic policy on Syria for now is no longer focused on making the war-torn country's president, Bashar al-Assad, leave power, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations said on Thursday, in a departure from the Obama administration's initial and public stance on Assad's fate. The view of the Trump administration is also at odds with European powers, who insist Assad must step down. The shift drew a strong rebuke from at least two Republican senators. "You pick and choose your battles and when we're looking at this, it's about changing up priorities and our priority is no longer to sit there and focus on getting Assad out," U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley told a small group of reporters. "Do we think he's a hindrance? Yes. Are we going to sit there and focus on getting him out? No," she said. "What we are going to focus on is putting the pressure in there so that we can start to make a change in Syria." In Ankara on Thursday, U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said Assad's longer-term status "will be decided by the Syrian people." The Obama administration, in its later years, was focused on reaching a deal with Russia that would eventually see Assad go, though it also shifted its focus to the fight against Islamic State militants, who captured swathes of territory in Iraq and Syria in 2014. As presidential nominee, Donald Trump said defeating Islamic State was a higher priority than persuading Assad to step down. "We can't necessarily focus on Assad the way that the previous administration did," said Haley, a former governor of South Carolina. "Our priority is to really look at how do we get things done, who do we need to work with to really make a difference for the people in Syria." On Wednesday, Haley accused Russia, Iran and the "Assad regime" of committing war crimes. She has also said the United States supports the U.N.-led Syria peace talks, that Syria could no longer be a "safe haven for terrorists" and that it was important "we get Iran and their proxies out." A senior Trump administration official told Reuters that Haley's remarks reflected "a measure of just realism, accepting the facts on the ground. ... Assad is never going to have sufficient force to reassert control over the whole country. ... Our focus is on defeating ISIS and al Qaeda and preventing Syria from being used as a terrorist safe haven. But Republican Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham, in separate, strongly worded statements, denounced the shift in the U.S. stance. McCain, who chairs the Senate Armed Services Committee, said Tillerson's statement "overlooks the tragic reality that the Syrian people cannot decide the fate of Assad or the future of their country when they are being slaughtered" by Assad's military, Russia's air force and Iranian-backed militias. "I hope President Trump will make clear that America will not follow this self-destructive and self-defeating path," McCain said, adding that U.S. allies could fear a bargain with Assad and Russia "sealed with an empty promise of counterterrorism cooperation." Graham, who like McCain is a foreign policy hawk and a member of the Armed Services Committee, said it would be a "grave mistake" to drop the removal of Assad as an objective, and would be crushing news to the Syrian opposition and U.S. allies in the region. In addition, leaving Assad in power is "a great reward for Russia and Iran," Graham said. CONTRADICTORY MESSAGES Syrian opposition member Farah al-Attasi said the State Department and the White House were sending contradictory messages on Syria and should start leading and not focus exclusively on fighting Islamic State. Britain and France reinforced their stance on Assad earlier on Thursday. French U.N. Ambassador Francois Delattre told reporters: "Assad is not and cannot be the future of his country." Robert Ford, who resigned in 2014 as U.S. ambassador to Syria over policy disagreements, said the U.S. government's policy since late 2014 had been to focus more specifically on the fight against Islamic State as well as al Qaeda, "even if it never acknowledged that its focus on Syria had shifted." "Ambassador Haley's remarks just confirm that the Trump administration is following the same path," said Ford, who is now a fellow at the Middle East Institute and senior fellow at Yale. Since the uprising that led to the six-year-long civil war in Syria, the Obama administration had insisted Assad must go. But in mid-2014 as Washington increased support to moderate rebels to fight Assad's regime, U.S. officials privately conceded Assad was not going anywhere soon and admitted the difficulty in removing him. By September 2015, then-Secretary of State Kerry said Assad had to go but the timing of his departure should be decided through negotiation. (Additional reporting by Lesley Wroughton in Ankara, Tom Miles in Geneva and Steve Holland in Washington; Writing by Yara Bayoumy; Editing by Leslie Adler and James Dalgleish)
By Michelle Nichols NEW YORK (Reuters) - The United States' diplomatic policy on Syria for now is no longer focused on making the war-torn country's president, Bashar al-Assad, leave power, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations said on Thursday, in a departure from the Obama administration's initial and public stance on Assad's fate. The view of the Trump administration is also at odds with European powers, who insist Assad must step down. "You pick and choose your battles and when we're looking at this, it's about changing up priorities and our priority is no longer to sit there and focus on getting Assad out," U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley told a small group of reporters. "Do we think he's a hindrance? Yes. Are we going to sit there and focus on getting him out? No," she said. "What we are going to focus on is putting the pressure in there so that we can start to make a change in Syria." The Obama administration, in its later years, was focused on reaching a deal with Russia that would eventually see Assad go though it also shifted its focus to the fight against Islamic State militants, who captures swathes of territory in Iraq and Syria in 2014. As presidential nominee, Donald Trump said defeating Islamic State was a higher priority than persuading Assad to step down. "We can't necessarily focus on Assad the way that the previous administration did," said Haley, a former governor of South Carolina. "Our priority is to really look at how do we get things done, who do we need to work with to really make a difference for the people in Syria." On Wednesday, Haley accused Russia, Iran and the "Assad regime" of committing war crimes. She has also said that the United States supports the U.N.-led Syria peace talks, that Syria could no longer be a "safe haven for terrorists" and that it was important "we get Iran and their proxies out". A senior Trump administration official told Reuters Haley's remarks reflected "a measure of just realism, accepting the facts on the ground. ... Assad is never going to have sufficient force to reassert control over the whole country ... Our focus is on defeating ISIS and al Qaeda and preventing Syria from being used as a terrorist safe haven. CONTRADICTORY MESSAGES Syrian opposition member Farah al-Attasi said the State Department and the White House were sending contradictory messages on Syria and should start leading and not focus exclusively on fighting Islamic State. U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, speaking in Ankara on Thursday, said Assad's longer-term status "will be decided by the Syrian people." Britain and France reinforced their stance on Assad earlier on Thursday. French U.N. Ambassador Francois Delattre told reporters: "Assad is not and cannot be the future of his country." Robert Ford, who resigned in 2014 as U.S. ambassador to Syria over policy disagreements, said the U.S. government's policy since late 2014 had been to focus more specifically on the fight against Islamic State as well al Qaeda, "even if it never acknowledged that its focus on Syria had shifted". "Ambassador Haley's remarks just confirm that the Trump administration is following the same path," said Ford, a fellow at the Middle East Institute and senior fellow at Yale. Since the uprising that led to the six-year-long civil war in Syria, the Obama administration insisted that Assad must go. But in mid-2014 as Washington increased support to moderate rebels to fight Assad's regime, U.S. officials privately conceded Assad wasn't going anywhere soon and admitted the difficulty in removing him. By September 2015, Kerry said Assad had to go but the timing of his departure should be decided through negotiation. (Additional reporting by Lesley Wroughton in Ankara, Tom Miles in Geneva and Steve Holland in Washington; Writing by Yara Bayoumy; Editing by Leslie Adler and James Dalgleish)
Broadband

Letter From Higher Ed and Library Groups Supports Net Neutrality

Various higher education and library organizations representing thousands of colleges, universities nationwide Thursday sent a letter to Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai, Commissioner Mignon Clyburn and Michael OReily, urging them to uphold the FCCs 2015 Open Internet Order. The groups believe that the strong net neutrality protections set by the order are essential to protecting freedom of speech, educational achievement and economic growth, according to the letter.

Net neutrality means that a broadband internet provider should enable access to all content and applications, and not block, slow or otherwise unfairly discriminate against any websites or online services. Since Pai was appointed as FCC chair, consumer advocates have been worried that the open internet will be dismantled. Pai has indicated that the FCC will roll back the Open Internet Order.

The groups (listed below) argue that internet access service providers (ISPs) have financial incentives to interfere with the openness of the internet in ways that could be harmful to the internet and content and services provided by libraries and educational institutions, the letter explained. For example, ISPs could sell faster or prioritized transmission to certain entities, also known as paid prioritization. In this example, public entities like colleges and universities that cannot afford to pay extra fees for prioritized access could be pushed to the slow lane on the internet.

The letter calls upon the FCC to:

Ban blocking, degradation and paid prioritization;

Ensure that the same rules apply to fixed and mobile broadband providers;

Promote greater transparency of broadband services; and

Prevent providers from treating similar customers in significantly different ways.

Organizations endorsing these principles include:




















Military and intelligence history mostly dealing with World War II.
THURSDAY, March 30, 2017 (HealthDay News) -- People with the liver infection hepatitis may be at heightened risk of developing Parkinson's disease, a large new study suggests.

The study, published online March 29 in Neurology, is the second in the past year to link hepatitis to Parkinson's.

Specifically, the new study found that people who'd been infected with hepatitis B or C were 51 percent to 76 percent more likely to develop Parkinson's, compared to people who'd never had hepatitis.

The researchers don't know why the connection exists. And the study cannot prove a cause-and-effect link.

But the association between Parkinson's disease and hepatitis appears to be "strong," according to Dr. Michael Okun, national medical director of the Parkinson's Foundation.

Last year, a study in Taiwan found that people with hepatitis C faced an increased risk of Parkinson's. Now the new findings, based on millions of British adults, implicate hepatitis B as well.

"It's a remarkable finding," said Okun, who wasn't involved in the research. "There's a strong association between hepatitis and Parkinson's, and the association is with hepatitis B, too -- which would make it an even bigger problem."

Hepatitis B and C are viral infections of the liver. In the United States, hepatitis B is most often spread through sex, while hepatitis C is usually transmitted by sharing injection-drug needles, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Both infections -- hepatitis C, in particular -- can become chronic. The CDC estimates that up to 2.2 million Americans have chronic hepatitis B, and up to 4 million have chronic hepatitis C.

Parkinson's disease, meanwhile, is a movement disorder that causes tremors, stiff limbs, and balance and coordination problems. There is no cure, and the symptoms gradually worsen over time.

The root cause of Parkinson's is unclear, but as the disease progresses, the brain loses cells that produce dopamine -- a chemical that helps regulate movement.

What does that have to do with hepatitis?

It's not clear. But, Okun pointed out, liver cirrhosis -- a serious scarring of the liver -- is known to sometimes cause movement problems similar to Parkinson's.

Beyond that, he said, some researchers suspect that the Parkinson's process may start not in the brain, but in the "gut."

People who are eventually diagnosed with Parkinson's commonly have constipation and digestive problems years before their movement symptoms. And recent animal research has hinted that the gut "microbiome" -- the trillions of bacteria that dwell in the digestive system -- may be involved in setting the stage for Parkinson's.

But, Okun stressed, it's far from clear how all of that research might square with the hepatitis/Parkinson's link.

Dr. Julia Pakpoor, the lead researcher on the new study, said there are many unknowns.

The hepatitis virus, itself, may not be the culprit at all, said Pakpoor, of the University of Oxford, in the United Kingdom.

It's possible, she said, that people with hepatitis tend to have other risk factors for Parkinson's -- though it's not clear what those might be.

Another question is whether some hepatitis drugs somehow contribute to Parkinson's. The Taiwan study raises doubts about that, though, because few people with hepatitis C had received drug treatment, Pakpoor's team noted.

The new findings are based on hospital records from over 70,000 adults in the United Kingdom with hepatitis B or C who were admitted between 1999 and 2011. These records were compared with records from over 6 million people with no hepatitis diagnosis.

Overall, 44 people with hepatitis B were eventually diagnosed with Parkinson's; but based on the population as a whole, only 25 cases would be expected. Similarly, 73 people with hepatitis C developed Parkinson's, versus an expected 48 cases.

Both Pakpoor and Okun said more studies, in different populations, are needed to confirm the hepatitis/Parkinson's connection.

If the link is confirmed, then researchers need to figure out the "why."

Obviously, most people with hepatitis don't develop Parkinson's. So, Okun wondered, is it possible that hepatitis contributes to Parkinson's only in people with certain gene variants that raise the risk of the movement disorder?

He also pointed to another big question -- would treating hepatitis early make a difference in Parkinson's risk?

"We don't know. Right now, there's no evidence that if you're treated quickly, you won't get Parkinson's," Okun said.

For now, Okun suggested that people with a history of hepatitis B or C be aware of the link. And if they do develop tremors or other movement problems, he said, they should not "brush it off."

"Get a referral to a neurologist for an evaluation," Okun advised.

More information

The Parkinson's Foundation has more on the potential causes of Parkinson's.
EMERSON -- Residents of Emerson expressed shock Thursday as details emerged about a grisly murder of a man known and liked by many in the smal
FRIDAY, March 31, 2017 (HealthDay News) -- More worrisome news for people who toss and turn all night: Insomnia appears to be linked to a heightened risk for heart attack or stroke, a research review from China suggests.

"We found that difficulty initiating sleep, difficulty maintaining sleep, or non-restorative sleep were associated with 27 percent, 11 percent, and 18 percent higher risks of cardiovascular and stroke events, respectively," said study co-author Qiao He.

The reasons why aren't fully understood, said He, a graduate student at China Medical University in Shenyang.

However, the study doesn't establish a cause-and-effect relationship.

Sleep specialists say millions of Americans get too little sleep. "In modern society, more and more people complain of insomnia," He said.

Evidence of insomnia's harmful effects on overall health has accumulated in recent years.

"Previous studies have shown that insomnia may change metabolism and endocrine function, increase [nervous system] activation, raise blood pressure," He said. It also can spark a rise in levels of certain inflammation-related proteins. All of these are risk factors for heart disease and stroke, she explained.

For this report, the investigators looked at 15 studies that enlisted nearly 161,000 participants in all. The studies variously explored potential links between insomnia and a range of heart disease concerns, including heart attack, stroke and heart failure.

The association between insomnia and heart attack and stroke risk might even be slightly stronger among women. But that finding did not reach "statistical significance," He's team said in a news release from the European Society of Cardiology.

"However, we do know that women are more prone to insomnia because of differences in genetics, sex hormones, stress, and reaction to stress," said He. "It may therefore be prudent to pay more attention to women's sleep health."

She added that "health education is needed to increase public awareness of insomnia symptoms and the potential risks, so that people with sleep problems are encouraged to seek help."

The findings were published in the March 31 issue of the European Journal of Preventive Cardiology.

More information

There's more on the link between sleep and heart disease at the National Sleep Foundation.
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New York, March 31, 2017 Istanbuls 25th Court for Serious Crimes ordered the release pending trial of at least 19 journalists jailed in the aftermath of the July 2016 failed coup attempt in Turkey, but the decision was reversed after an appeal by the chief prosecutor, and none of the journalists were freed, according to news reports. The news website P24 reported on Twitter that the prosecutor filed new charges against some of the journalists, while others were kept in custody due to a decision by another court.

We call on Turkish authorities to release all journalists imprisoned for their work and to drop all charges against them, CPJ Europe and Central Asia Program Coordinator Nina Ognianova said. The unprecedented crackdown on the press has deprived Turkish citizens of independent coverage on subjects of vital public interest and has contributed to the rapid decline of democratic governance in the country.

Among the 19 journalists initially ordered released but not freed was Abdullah Klc, a former journalist with the newspaper Meydan, whose case is highlighted by CPJs #FreeThePress campaign this month.

Separately, a court in the Mediterranean city of Antalya ordered another six journalists who had also been detained following the failed coup released today, according to media reports, and Istanbuls 24th Court for Serious Crimes acquitted veteran journalist Hasan Cemal of terrorism charges, his employer reported. At the time of CPJs most recent annual prison census, Turkey held at least 81 journalists in retaliation for their work, more than any other country at any time since CPJ started keeping records in 1992.

EDITORS NOTE: The headline of this statement has been corrected and the first and third paragraphs have been updated to reflect that the journalists in Istanbul were not released.
Imtiaz Shams (right) has set about combatting the intimidating atmosphere

for nonbelieving Muslims on campuses by holding several Faith to

Faithless meetings in universities around the UK.

The penalty sharia law stipulates for apostasy is capital punishment.





Sulaiman Vali is a softly spoken 33-year-old software engineer. A natural introvert not drawn to controversy or given to making bold statements, hes the kind of person who is happiest in the background. He lives alone in a modest house on a quiet street in a small town in East Northamptonshire. He doesnt want to be any more specific than that about the location. If someone found out where I lived, he explains, they could burn my house down.





Why should such an understated figure, someone who describes himself as a nobody, speak as if hes in a witness protection programme? The answer is that six years ago he decided to declare that he no longer accepted the fundamental tenets of Islam . He stopped being a believing Muslim and became instead an apostate. It sounds quaintly anachronistic, but its not a term to be lightly adopted.





Last week the hacking to death in Bangladesh of the blogger Ananta Bijoy Das was a brutal reminder of the risks atheists face in some Muslim-majority countries. And in an era in which British Islamic extremists travel thousands of miles to kill those they deem unbelievers, an apostates concern for his or her security at home is perhaps understandable.





Oh yeah, Im scared, agrees Nasreen (not her real name) a feisty 29-year-old asset manager from east London who has been a semi-closeted apostate for nine years. Im not so worried about the loonies because its almost normal now to get threats. What worries me is that they go back to my parents and damage them, because thats not unheard of.





The danger is confirmed by Imtiaz Shams, an energetic 26-year-old who runs a group called Faith to Faithless , which aims to help Muslim nonbelievers speak out about their difficult situations. Shams has a visible presence on YouTube and has organised several events at universities. I am at physical risk because I do videos, says Shams. I dont like putting myself in the firing line, but I had to because no one else is willing to do it.





As real as the potential for violence might be, its not what keeps many doubting British Muslims from leaving their religion. As Simon Cottee, author of a new book The Apostates: When Muslims Leave Islam, says: In the western context, the biggest risk ex-Muslims face is not the baying mob, but the loneliness and isolation of ostracism from loved ones. It is stigma and rejection that causes so many ex-Muslims to conceal their apostasy.





Like the gay liberation movement of a previous generation, Muslim apostates have to fight for the right to be recognised while knowing that recognition brings shame, rejection, intimidation and, very often, family expulsion.





Vali comes from a strictly religious Indian-heritage family. He was born in Kenya and moved with his parents and six siblings to England when he was 14. As outsiders, his family stayed close  I always knew if I wanted anything theyd be there for me, he says.





His father is an imam who follows the puritanical Deobandi scholastic tradition of Islam that has influence over a third of Britains mosques. All through his teenage years, when adolescents typically rebel, and even at university, Vali dutifully followed his fathers faith. Occasionally some of what he calls the more barbaric punishments found in sharia law troubled him, but he put his discomfort to one side. I would just think, if God wants it, fine.





It was when he left his home in Leicester to work in Cambridge that he first encountered an intellectual challenge to his worldview. He found himself working alongside non-Muslims and atheists, and inevitably questions of faith arose. Initially he began researching criticism of Islam online and in the books of people such as Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens as a means of defending his faith. But in the process the suspicion took root that his opponents had the stronger arguments.





Nevertheless, he kept his reservations to himself when he returned to live in Leicester, where an arranged marriage awaited him. She was very religious from a religious family, he says, still pained by the memory. But he couldnt go through with it. I wasnt going to lie and carry on with a marriage knowing that I didnt believe in God.





His decision went down very badly. His family would have forgiven him, though, as long as he remained a Muslim. Thats all they really asked. And it was the one thing he couldnt do. He was perfectly happy to be a cultural Muslim, take part in celebrations and observe traditions, but he couldnt pretend a faith he didnt possess.





This idea of belief, he says, shaking his head. You cant make yourself believe what you dont believe.





So he confessed his atheism to his horrified family. One of his brothers reminded him that the penalty sharia law stipulates for apostasy is capital punishment.





I dont think he would have any qualms about me being killed, says Vali, although he emphasises that he doesnt believe anyone from his family would seek to do him physical harm or encourage others to do so. Instead he was ousted from the family. He was disowned.





There has been a great deal of public debate in recent years about what drives young Muslims towards radicalisation. Its an urgent subject of study in various disciplines of academia, has spawned a library of books, and is the focus of well-funded government programmes.





What is much less known about, and far less discussed, is the plight of young Muslims going in the opposite direction  those who not only turn away from radicalisation but from Islam itself.





Although it is fraught with human drama  existential crisis, philosophical doubt, family rupture, violent threats, communal expulsion, depression, and all manner of other problems  the apostates journey elicits remarkably little media interest or civic concern. According to Cottee, there is not a single sociological study on the issue of apostasy from Islam.





No one knows what numbers are involved, few understand the psychological difficulties individuals confront, or the social pressures they are compelled to resist. As with many other areas of communal discourse, insiders are reluctant to talk about it, and outsiders are either too incurious or sensitive to ask.





In this sense the struggle of ex-Muslims is markedly different from that of early gay rights campaigners. Where gays and lesbians could draw support from other progressive movements, ex-Muslims are further marginalised by what Cottee calls the contested status of Islam in western societies.

Imtiaz Shams has set about combatting the intimidating atmosphere for nonbelieving Muslims on campuses by holding several Faith to Faithless meetings in universities around the country. The idea is to enable ex-Muslims to speak about their experiences publicly. The events, which can be seen on YouTube , have been tense as Islamists have staged protests, but they feature heart-rending tales of familial rejection and suicidal thoughts that have at least stimulated debate.

Shams comes from a Bangladeshi background but grew up in Saudi Arabia. He says that in many ways he found the ex-pat compound in which he and his family lived in Saudi Arabia more progressive than Britain. It was when my mother came here that she got really radicalised.

He believes Muslims face an identity crisis.

We dont know who we are. Theres a feeling of insecurity as a brown person, often for good reason. I went to school in a really white school. My nickname was Terrorist. The kids didnt know better. I grew up in that narrative. I was very religious. I believed there was a caliphate and we should fight for that. I had a strong sense of justice. One of the things that people do not understand about radicals is that theyre often guided by a sense of justice.

He lost faith because his sense of justice could not be reconciled with the manner in which he was taught to believe other religions were bad.

At 20, I actually thought I was the only Muslim atheist in the world. You just dont know about it. I didnt know you could leave. Theres not a concept of it. Its hard to explain. Its like knowing the world is round but you cant see it.

Fully aware of the mental stress so many dissenting Muslims suffer, he has been working to get appropriate therapy for those going through the emotional dislocation of leaving Islam.

 | Report an error, an omission, a typo; suggest a story or a new angle to an existing story; submit a piece, a comment; recommend a resource; contact the webmaster, contact us: deathpenaltynews@gmail.com



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Source: The Guardian, Andrew Anthony, May 2015
This article originally appeared on USA Today.

President Trump has requested $25.6 billion for the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development, or $312 per American family  a 28% reduction from 2017.

The Global Climate Change Initiative and the Green Climate Fund are on the chopping block, with cuts suggested for the United Nations, development organizations and educational exchange programs. The president would shift foreign military assistance grants to loans and end overlapping peacekeeping programs.

These cuts are, if anything, too small. President Obamas last budget spends 110 pages describing State Department expenditures without a cost-benefit analysis. We are left to guess about the benefit of these vast sums.

Many of these programs could be privately funded. We do not need State Department educational exchange programs when foreign students are well-represented on college campuses and many Americans study abroad. Many World Bank projects could be funded by large commercial banks that did not exist when the World Bank was founded in 1944. Even with reductions in funding, the USA would remain the top World Bank donor.

American families should not be paying more than $3 billion for migration and refugee assistance programs to fund refugees overseas. One recipient, the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, has a dubious track record. In addition, the State Department pays more than $500 million for refugees in the United States. Neither should Americans contribute $1.3 billion to international organizations, many of whose members vote against U.S. interests.

State Department cuts risk lives: Our view

The Foreign Service Retirement and Disability Fund was allocated $221 million. If these pensions cannot be merged with Civil Service pensions, the fund should be self-sustaining.

The State Department has a poor track record. Examples of failure include the Iran deal, Syria, Chinas military bases in the South China Sea and U.S. backing of anti-Israel policies. American families could be making better use of the funds.

Diana Furchtgott-Roth is a senior fellow and director of Economics21 at the Manhattan Institute. Follow her on Twitter here.

Interested in real economic insights? Want to stay ahead of the competition? Each weekday morning, E21 delivers a short email that includes E21 exclusive commentaries and the latest market news and updates from Washington. Sign up for the E21 Morning Ebrief.
Oslo, March 31, 2017: Scatec Solar ASA ('SSO') calls for the annual general meeting of SSO to be held at Hyres Hus, Stortingsgata 20, 0161 Oslo, Norway on 24 April 2017 at 10:00 (CET).

The board has inter alia proposed that the general meeting resolves a dividend of NOK 0.71 per share. Pursuant to the board's proposal, the dividend shall accrue to the Company's shareholders as they appear in the Company's shareholder register in the VPS on 26 April 2017, being the Company's shareholders at the date of the general meeting based on regular T+2 settlement. The Company's shares will trade on Oslo Stock Exchange exclusive the right to receive dividend as from 25 April 2017. The dividend is expected to be paid on or about 15 June 2017. Furthermore, the board has proposed that the general meeting renews the board authorizations to increase the Company's share capital with up to 10% of the current share capital.

The notice convening the general meeting, including the agenda and the board's proposals to the matters to be dealt with, is enclosed with this notification and will be sent to all shareholders with known addresses.

Relevant documents referred to in the notice are made available on www.scatecsolar.com/Investor

For further information, please contact:

- Mr. Raymond Carlsen, CEO, tel: +47 454 11 280,

E-mail: raymond.carlsen@scatecsolar.com

- Mr. Mikkel Trud, CFO, tel: +47 976 99 144,

E-mail: mikkel.torud@scatecsolar.com



About Scatec Solar

Scatec Solar is an integrated independent solar power producer, delivering affordable, rapidly deployable and sustainable source of clean energy worldwide. A long term player, Scatec Solar develops, builds, owns, operates and maintains solar power plants, and already has an installation track record of close to 600 MW. Currently, the company is producing electricity from 322 MW of solar power plants in the Czech Republic, South Africa, Rwanda, Honduras and Jordan. With an established global presence, the company is growing briskly with a project backlog and pipeline of more than 1.8 GW under development in the Americas, Africa, Asia and the Middle East. Scatec Solar is headquartered in Oslo, Norway.



For more information on Scatec Solar, please visit our home page www.scatecsolar.com

This information is subject to the disclosure requirements pursuant to section 5-12 of the Norwegian Securities Trading Act.
English Finnish



St1 NORDIC OY, COMPANY RELEASE, 31 MARCH 2017 AT 10.00AM EET

St1 NORDIC OY, FINANCIAL STATEMENTS RELEASE 2016

Consolidated key figures

2016 2015 Net sales, MEUR 4,390.4 3,602.4 Operating profit/loss, MEUR 150.5 86.7 Operating profit as % of net sales 3.4 2.4 Result for the financial period, MEUR 112.7 72.4 Return on equity, % 30.9 28.0 Equity ratio 31.3 26.7







The net sales of St1 Nordic group in 2016 were EUR 4,390.4 million, up by EUR 788.0 million (22%) on the previous year. The increase in net sales was mainly due to the consolidation of the new Norwegian subsidiary, St1 Norge AS, acquired in October 2015, into the group's figures for the whole of 2016. Net sales are currently very evenly distributed between the three geographic markets of St1 Nordic - 30% of revenues were generated in Finland, 35% in Sweden and 35% in Norway.







Operating profit increased to EUR 150.5 million from EUR 86.7 million in the preceding year. Development was steady both in service station operations and direct sales. Profit after tax amounted to EUR 112.7 million (compared to a profit of EUR 72.4 million for the preceding year).







Consolidated equity increased to EUR 408.8 million. During 2016, the company redeemed EUR 16.0 million worth of its own B shares. The EUR 56 million issue of B shares was implemented in 2015 and directed at the current owners of St1 Nordic, with a view to reinforcing the equity structure of the group for the Norwegian transaction.







Cash flow from operations was EUR 153.3 million, part of which covered the repayment of the loan taken out for the Norwegian acquisition. In 2016, St1 Nordic Oy launched a commercial paper programme in order to optimise group funding together with revolving credit facility. At the turn of the year, there was a total of EUR 50 million worth of commercial papers.







On account of a competition authority ruling, St1 Nordic will divest its chain of 39 automated St1 filling stations, St1 Norge Automat AS, in Norway. A share transaction to this effect was signed in January 2016, but the deal is still awaiting the competition authority's approval.

Kim Wiio, CEO of St1 Nordic Oy:



St1 has continued to strengthen its position as a Nordic energy company. The cornerstone of the company's operations comprises nationwide fuel distribution networks in Finland, Sweden and Norway. Our Direct Sales unit continued to develop its operations both in the private and corporate customer segments. Our Renewable Energy unit was restructured and expanded to Nordic level. St1 succeeded in its goal for 2016 of increasing its profits, thanks to its new operations in Norway. We are currently focusing on stabilising the group's profit-making ability at this level.

Construction work on the 10-million-litre Cellunolix plant in Kajaani, which St1 Biofuels Oy delivers to North European Bio Tech Oy (NEB), progressed to the start-up phase at the end of 2016. The first plant to manufacture advanced ethanol from sawdust will reach full production speed during 2017. When it has been established that the plant built for NEB is profitable and successful in technological terms, the plant concept can be scaled up to industrial production level. Letters of intent have been signed for the construction of such, 50-million-litre Cellunolix plant in Pietarsaari, Finland, and Honefoss, Norway. Kajaani is also a potential site for expansion.

In Otaniemi, Espoo, the project for another pilot plant, owned by St1 Deep Heat Oy and intended for geothermal heat production, advanced to the drilling of the 7-kilometre-deep holes required. The project aims to find technologically and economically feasible solutions for all of the work stages involved. Drilling has currently been interrupted for the period required to develop drill technology and drilling work is expected to resume in the autumn. A letter of intent has been signed for the construction of a similar plant for Turku Energia, but the final construction decision will not be taken until after completion of the pilot project in Espoo.

The EUR 650 million investment programme of the associated wind power company, Tuuliwatti Oy, will be completed in the summer of 2017, bringing Tuuliwatti's production capacity to 1.4 TWh. This equates to the annual electricity consumption of around 650,000 apartments. We are also seeking wind power investments in the other Nordic countries.

During the current period of upheaval in the energy markets, St1 continues to pursue its vision of developing renewable domestic fuels and energy sources to replace imported fossil fuels.

Audited financial information:



Consolidated income statement: 1 January 2016 - 31 December 2016, 1 January 2015 - 31 December 2015

Consolidated balance sheet: 31 December 2016, 31 December 2015

Consolidated cash flow statement:1 January 2016 - 31 December 2016, 1 January 2015 - 31 December 2015

St1 Nordic Oy will publish its annual report on 21 April 2017 and its first-half interim report on 31 August 2017. St1 Group Oy will also publish its annual report on 21 April 2017.



For further information, please contact:

Kati Yla-Autio, CFO +358 10 557 5263

Kim Wiio, CEO +358 10 557 11

St1 is a Nordic energy group whose vision is to be the leading producer and seller of CO2-aware energy. The company researches and develops economically viable, environmentally sustainable energy solutions. St1 consists of two sister groups: St1 Nordic focuses on fuels marketing activities in Finland, Sweden and Norway and on renewable energy solutions such as waste-based advanced ethanol fuels and industrial wind power. Company has 1400 St1 and Shell branded retail stations in Finland, Sweden and Norway. The sister group St1 Group focuses on oil refining. Headquartered in Helsinki, the company employs currently more than 700 people in Finland, Sweden and Norway. www.st1.eu

Attachments:

http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/521711d3-c9a7-4e04-b8e9-3f44144a37f5
jerrygmat wrote:

Hi guys,



I have searched the threads within Gmatclub and would love to hear your opinions specific to my situation.



I'm and international applicant and I've been accepted to both schools (Ross and Anderson $), and now I have to decide where I want to go to. My Post-MBA goal is to get into MBB, and frankly that's one of the major motivators to getting an MBA, another possible post-MBA career could be in Tech. I am a bit torn between these two schools since each has its pros and cons. I have an average GPA and a 720 Gmat.



Ross:

- Slightly better brand name vs. Anderson within the whole US

- More well-known as a consulting school

- Solid placement stats in MBB per career reports

- More dedicated campus recruiters (?) (Based on the firms' websites there seem to be more recruiters assigned to Ross than to Anderson)



Anderson:

- Great Location and weather

- Strong brand name in California

- MBB does recruit on campus, however fewer placement numbers than Ross

- Stronger brand name in Asia (?)



For this decision I'm going to take money out of the factor, and Post-MBA I am indifferent as to which part of the US I head to, although I am also open to going back to Asia.



From a career standpoint, I've spoken to a few alumnus and students in both schools and each has their strong arguments. Ross has solid placements figures (The Class of 2015 has 45 students going into MBB), UCLA meanwhile doesn't disclose the figures but it's probably around 20. Some say that this is largely due to more Ross grads aspiring to get into MBBs and fewer Anderson grads applying to the same positions - hence lower placement figures at Anderson. I've also heard that in UCLA you have to be one of the very best within the class (high GPA/GMAT etc) to even land an interview at an MBB since positions are so scarce. By the same token, the many students at Ross wanting to get into MBB also makes the MBB recruiting scene at Ross very competitive.



Which school do you think would give me the highest chance to achieve my goal?



Thanks for your time!



J

Hi Buddy,I applied to both schools hence my answer is based on my personal research.In Ross you do have a slightly better shot at MBB. But Hey, none of these schools are primary target schools for MBBs to be honest. Hence, I would talk to more students and alum and see how good Ross is for tech. (not as good as UCLA in my opinion). Don't ignore your back-up career choice.Ross gives you a descent shot at MBB but not that great a shot at tech.UCLA gives you an almost equal shot at MBB but a much better shot at tech.UCLA also has a better name in Asia, for sure. (I stay in Singapore and when I tell people about these schools, I can see that most recognize UCLA but not many recognize Ross)UCLA also has lesser tuition fee, is giving you a scholarship on top of it, has much better weather and LA will in general give you a much better exposure.If I were you, I would have chosen UCLA (again, based on what I know of these 2 schools)Curios: did you try negotiating with Ross or even with UCLA for more $$$?
Tue, 11/8 (10:30am ET): Recession Looming, Applications Down! Is It the Best Time to Get an MBA?
A 15-year-old Denver man sought in connection to the stabbing death of an Ogallala man turned himself in to Colorado authorities Thursday afternoon, according to the Nebraska State Patrol.

Amedeus L. Leroux will be charged with the second-degree murder of 25-year-old John Fratis. The State Patrol originally said he was charged with first-degree murder.

Keith County Attorney Randy Fair said Fratis was stabbed to death Tuesday morning. An arrest affidavit said Fratis died after a fight with another man.

State Patrol investigators described Leroux as a "person of high interest" after he was seen in surveillance images at an Ogallala convenience store at 8:22 a.m. Tuesday, shortly after Fratis' body was found in his home.

After leaving the convenience store, Leroux was dropped off in southwest Nebraska or northeast Colorado by someone driving a Chevy Suburban that investigators located before Leroux turned himself in.

The Keith County Attorney's office has begun the extradition process to return Leroux to Nebraska.

Nebraska State Patrol Lt. Tim Arnold said in a news release that tips from the public "helped greatly in this investigation."

Fratis' two roommates have been arrested on suspicion of aiding and abetting murder.

An investigator said Raylynn E. Garcia, 28, and Larry J. Derrera, 32, lied or withheld information, hindering the death investigation.

Garcia was being held Thursday in the Keith County jail without bail; Derrera was in the Lincoln County jail.
News_release

Corneal diseases are among the most common causes of visual impairment and blindness, with Fuchs endothelial corneal dystrophy (FECD), a gradual swelling and clouding of the cornea, being the most common reason for eventual corneal transplants.

Writing in the March 30 online issue of Nature Communications, researchers at University of California San Diego School of Medicine, with colleagues at Case Western University, Duke University, the National Institutes of Health and elsewhere, have identified three novel genomic loci  distinct stretches of genetic material on chromosomes  linked to FECD, which often clusters in families and is roughly 39 percent heritable.

Previously, there was one known FECD locus. Weve expanded that number to four, said the studys first author Natalie A. Afshari, MD, professor of ophthalmology, Stuart Brown MD Chair in Ophthalmology in Memory of Donald Shiley and chief of cornea and refractive surgery at Shiley Eye Institute at UC San Diego Health. These findings provide a deeper understanding of the pathology of FECD, which in turn will help us develop better therapies for treating or preventing this disabling disease.

FECD affects the innermost layer of cells in the cornea (the transparent front cover of the eye), called the endothelium. The endothelium is responsible for maintaining the proper amount of fluid in the cornea, keeping it clear. FECD is a progressive disorder in which the endothelium slowly degrades, with lost clarity, pain and severely impaired vision. It affects 4 percent of the U.S. population above age 40 and worsens with age. Women are two to four times more affected than men. While there is symptomatic treatment in early stages, surgery  often a corneal transplant  is the only remedy after significant vision loss occurs.

The research team conducted a genome-wide association study, an analytical approach in which scientists look for genetic variants in individuals associated with a particular disease. This study involved 1,404 patients with FECD and 2,564 controls of European ancestry.

The results confirmed the known role of the TCF4 gene, but also revealed associations with three other loci: KANK4, LAMC1 and LINC009970/ATPB1. Researchers also found some genomic markers that were more associated by gender, with LAMC1 increasing FECD risk in women while TCF4 increased risk in men.

While more work must be done to precisely elucidate what these proteins do, said Afshari, the results suggest they have essential roles in sustaining and maintaining the health of the corneal endothelium. This knowledge improves our understanding of the genetic risk factors for FECD and gives us new therapeutic targets.

Co-authors include: senior author Sudha K. Iyengar, Robert P. Igo, Nathan J. Morris, V. Lakshmi Pulagam, Barbara J. Truitt and Jonathan H. Lass, Case Western Reserve University; Dwight Stambolian, University of Pennsylvania; Shiwani Sharma, Richard Mills Abraham Kuot, Sonja Klebe and Jamie E. Craig, Flinders University, Australia; Steven Dunn, Michigan Cornea Consultants; John F. Stamler and John H. Fingert, University of Iowa; Jacqueline Rimmler, Xuejin Qin, Mollie A. Minear, Elmer Balajonda, Simon G. Gregory, Gordon K. Klintworth and Yi-Ju Li, Duke University Medical Center; Christopher R. Croasdale, Davis Duer Dean Clinic, Madison, WI; Kathryn P. Burdon, Flinders University and University of Tasmania; S. Amer Riazuddin and John D. Gottsch, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine; Jiagang Zhao, UC San Diego; George O. Rosenwasser, Central Pennsylvania Eye Institute; Keith H. Baratz and Sanjay V. Patel, Mayo Clinic; V. Vinod Mootha, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center; Joan E. Bailey-Wilson, NIH; Marianne O. Price and Francis W. Price, Price Vision Group; and Anthony Aldave, UCLA.

Funding for this research came, in part, from National Eye Institute (R01 EY023196, R01 EY016482, R01 EY016514, R01 EY016835, R21 EY015145, P30 EY11373), Research to Prevent Blindness, the Beulah and Florence Usher Endowment, NHMRC, Ophthalmic Research Institute of Australia, Flinders Medical Centre Foundation, the Ohio Lions Eye Research Foundation and the National Human Genome Research Institute.
SIGVARIS Opens Georgia Facility

Compression makers new Peachtree City location will house administrative, manufacturing and warehouse functions.

Left to Right: Andreas Schonenberger, CEO of SIGVARIS Group; Stefan Ganzoni, owner and member of the SIGVARIS Board of Directors; Christian Ganzoni, owner and member of the SIGVARIS Board of Directors; and Scot Dube, president and CEO for SIGVARIS North America, collectively cut the ribbon on the compression companys expanded headquarters in Peachtree City, Ga.

Compression garment maker SIGVARIS cut the ribbon on an expanded North American headquarters located in Peachtree City, Ga.

SIGVARIS employees, members of the companys founding family, and local city officials attended a March 29 ceremony that officially re-opened the renewed facility, which adds 40,000 square feet of office, manufacturing and warehouse space to the companys North American operations.

The expansion will create more than 70 new jobs over the next 10 years, according to the company, which added that it has already hired 18 new employees.

We are proud to support the local community with both new jobs and products that are made locally that help promote health and wellness, said SIGVARIS North America President and CEO Scot Dube.

SIGVARIS partnered with Peachtree City-based design-build firm Tiernan & Patrylo Inc. to complete the expansion and renovation project. SIGVARIS has been part of the Peachtree City community since 1997.

SIGVARIS celebrated the grand opening of its new manufacturing facility in Holland, Mich. this week, as well.
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MOUNT PLEASANT  A Potbelly Sandwich Shop and office building that will be home to Johnson Insurance will both be coming to the former Golden Keys Restaurant site on Highway 20.

The redevelopment at 5930 Washington Ave., in the heart of Mount Pleasants commercial corridor, is the work of the Olesens, owners of O&H Danish Bakery. The site is adjacent to O&Hs flagship store and baking center at 5910 Washington Ave.

Racine County Economic Development Corp., the village and the Olesens of O&H  incorporated as Pale Properties LLC  made the Johnson Insurance announcement at a joint Mount Pleasant Village Board and Community Development Authority meeting Thursday. Both entities unanimously approved a development agreement for an office building to house that local company.

The agreement includes an estimated $87,500 in financial assistance in the form of a 50 percent property tax rebate over 10 years for the office building. That project is valued in total at $3.9 million.

There is no financial incentive for the retail building, an approximately $1 million project.

The Olesen family bought the vacant, 2-acre Golden Keys property in late 2015 for $1.5 million. At the time O&H owner Eric Olesen said the only plans were to remove the blighted building so the site could be redeveloped.

Olesens son and company Vice President Peter Olesen said the original 2-acre site was split in half, north and south. The first phase, on the southern parcel, they plan to build a 4,900-square-foot, two-unit retail building facing Washington Avenue. Potbelly is their first tenant and will take about half of that building, leaving one more available space of about 2,500 square feet, he said.

According to the Potbelly Sandwich Shop website, the name comes from the potbelly stove as a symbol of a gathering place. Each of the companys more than 400 restaurants incorporates that symbol into its decor with an antique potbelly stove.

Potbelly serves fresh, toasted sandwiches; salads; soups; cookies and desserts; and shakes and smoothies. According to the company website, the nearest Potbelly shops are in Pleasant Prairie and Milwaukee.

Olesen said construction on the retail building, by Absolute Construction, should start in April. That would be followed by the build-out by Potbelly starting in September and an opening by the end of this year.

New plans emerge

Initially, Peter Olesen said, the family had planned to use the northern land parcel, a year or two after the first building was constructed, to build a one-story, multitenant building of about 7,000 square feet.

But then Johnson Insurance, a division of Johnson Financial Group, expressed interest in having a larger office building there, he said. We only had enough space to go up.

The new office will replace Johnson Insurances current location, located farther west, at 13303 Washington Ave., which was originally built as an auto dealership. The company is expected to take 10,500 square feet, or 75 percent, of the 14,000-square-foot office building. The offices will be occupied by about 50 Johnson Insurance employees.

We are excited to continue our partnership with the Olesen family alongside our friends in the Village of Mount Pleasant, stated Karla Krehbiel, regional president at JFG. Pale Properties allows us to manage our growing insurance business, while providing a more modern and accessible office space to our associates and clients.

The rest of the office building, all first-floor space, will be available for other users. Construction should start this summer and be completed by about spring 2018.

When we purchased the blighted and vacant Golden Keys Restaurant property, our goal was to develop a safe and lively site, incorporating it as part of our O&H Danish Bakery campus, to provide additional opportunities for our community to visit and shop, Olesen stated. The addition of the office building is in line with our vision for the site and will be a great complement to the retail building.
SOMERS  David Holmes changed my future in one semester.

The gift he gave me was artistic freedom. I am no longer bound by a set of preconceived lines that define what art is or should be. He taught me that it is perfectly OK to blur those lines.

David went out of his way to inspire his students to appreciate the natural world, not take themselves too seriously and, above all, to make art. I have been teaching art for 17 years now and I still find myself targeting David V. Holmes-ness into my classroom.

These are just a few lines from 16 different, artist-written tributes to the late David Holmes, longtime professor of art at the University of Wisconsin-Parkside who died in 2014 at age 69. They are featured, alongside a work of art by each artist, in an exhibition titled A Professors Legacy: Students of David V. Holmes, currently on display in the universitys Mathis Gallery.

The show  which runs through April 19 and includes work in a wide range of media and styles  reflects the far-reaching impact that Holmes had on his students during his 30-plus years at UW-Parkside, 900 Wood Road, Somers, according to Amanda Brown, university gallery director and curator. An opening reception is scheduled for 2 to 4 p.m. Saturday, April 1, in the gallery in the universitys Rita Tallent Picken Regional Center for Arts and Humanities.

Lasting influence

It is interesting to see how these artists, who were all impacted by one person, are all working in very different styles, Brown said. It is my understanding that David encouraged each artist to develop their own aesthetic and style, she said. And you see that, repeatedly, in this exhibition.

While Holmes influence on participating artists can be more easily seen in some works of art than in others, the marks he left on all of them is obvious in their written statements. Students from throughout his career  some still living in this area and others now based in Los Angeles, Chicago and Northern Wisconsin  express their appreciation for how Holmes not only inspired and encouraged them, but also challenged and pushed them to achieve. They mention Holmesian quotes, which stick with them years later and, in some cases, they tell how his classes altered career paths and lives.

Glen Larson  a student of Holmes in the late 1970s who later worked with him as a university staff member  said that he was also a professor who was always willing to learn and continually refresh himself.

Now an assistant curator of galleries at UW-Parkside, Larson remembers how Holmes would allow extra time after an exam to go back over each question and discuss the answers with his students, while the subject was still fresh in their minds.

Sometimes students would disagree with his answers and David would listen to what they had to say, Larson said. He cared a great deal about his students and he wanted to make sure they understood what he was saying.

Scholarship established

Holmes influence can also be seen in the stellar craftsmanship of all of the works shown, said Larson, whose own piece is a mixed-media, steampunk version of an iMac computer, embellished with brass and copper titled Professor Macrae N. Tushinghams ISD (Information Storage Device), c. 1897.

No matter what technique or media they were using, Holmes encouraged students to use it to the best of their ability, Larson said. Hed say things like, If you are going to use a pencil, make sure you have full control of that pencil. 

In addition to Larson, artists whose work is featured in the exhibit include: Trenton Baylor, Susan Boehm, Lisa Bigalke, Lisa Dukowitz, Samira Gdisis, William Grieder, Erin Hammond, Amy Misurelli Sorenson, Kristina Niemi Johnson, Michael Nitsch, Judy Sebranek, Alex Tompsett, Linda Wawiorka, Kelly Witte, and Connie Wolfe.

Visitors will also find one of Holmes pieces on display  a large, mixed-media work titled The Thespian Mechanical Theatrical Muse, commissioned by former UW-Parkside theater arts professor Dean Yohnk.

Many of the artists featured plan to attend Saturdays opening reception, Brown said. At 3 p.m., a few of them will speak during a brief presentation that will announce the establishment of an endowed scholarship in David Holmes name. Lesley Walker, dean of the College of Arts and Humanities at UW-Parkside, will also speak at the presentation.

For regular gallery hours and other information, go to www.uwp.edu/engage/artgalleries.cfm.
On 3-5 October 2017 Kyiv is going to host the Space and Future Forum to network international experts and youth, many of whom will also participate at the first CosmoHack in the world. Joinfo provides media coverage of the Forum, and some of its topics were already discussed ...
Micrograph showing prostatic acinar adenocarcinoma (the most common form of prostate cancer) Credit: Wikipedia

The new Stockholm3 test, which improves prostate cancer diagnosis, gets assistance from EIT Health for a faster introduction in Europe. In a first step the test will be clinically validated in Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium. The Stockholm3 test was developed by researchers at Karolinska Institutet.

EIT Health, supported by the EU body European Innovation and Technology (EIT), will provide financing for clinical validation of the Stockholm3 test in Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium. This will be carried out together with Friedrich-Alexander-Universitat, Erasmus Universitair, Academisch Ziekenhuis Groningen, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven and Universiteit Gent. The British prostate cancer foundation has previously announced that it will financially support the evaluation of the test in the British health care system.

The Stockholm3 test is a blood test that finds 20 per cent more aggressive prostate cancer while at the same time reducing the number of unnecessary biopsies by 50 per cent, compared to current clinical practice. It has been available to the Swedish healthcare since December 2016.

The Stockholm3 test combines five protein markers, over 100 genetic markers, clinical data and a decision algorithm to detect the risk of aggressive prostate cancer. The test is based on research conducted at Karolinska Institutet. It has been tried on men 50-70 years in a clinical study which included almost 60,000 participants. The results have been published in numerous scientific journals, including The Lancet Oncology, Nature Reviews Clinical Oncology and European Urology Focus.
(HealthDay)People who seem to have a deep tan year-roundwhether from the sun or indoor tanningmay be "addicted" to tanning. And new research suggests there's also a link between such tanning and other addictions.

"People who were tanning-dependent were six times as likely to have a history of alcohol dependence, and were almost three times as likely to have seasonal affective disorder (SAD)," said study leader Brenda Cartmel. She is a senior research scientist at the Yale University School of Public Health.

SAD is a type of depression related to the shorter, darker days of winter.

Cartmel said previous smaller studies have also suggested these associations.

Cartmel's team surveyed nearly 500 people who had previously sunbathed or used an indoor tanning bed. All of the participants had also been part of a study on early onset skin cancer among those under age 40 in Connecticut.

Just about one-quarter of the group surveyed were categorized as tanning-dependent based on their answers to two questionnaires.

Cartmel pointed out that, unlike alcohol dependence, tanning dependence isn't an official psychiatric diagnosis.

People were classified as tanning-dependent if they answered "yes" to five or more questions out of 13 on the two different questionnaires. The survey included questions such as: Do you feel guilty about tanning? Are you annoyed when people say you tan too much? Do you feel guilty about continuing to tan despite knowing that tanning can increase the risk of skin cancer?

Other questions evaluated SAD, depression, nicotine dependence, alcohol dependence and exercise "addiction."

Those addicted to tanning were mostly women. Being female was linked to a nearly seven times higher risk of tanning-dependency, the study found.

Tanning-dependency was also tied to a higher risk of SAD or alcohol dependence, as well as exercise addiction.

However, the study only found an association between tanning dependency and the other behaviors; it did not prove cause and effect.

Cartmel cited other research that said exposure to ultraviolet light triggers production of endorphins, a "feel good" hormone.

"The reward of endorphins might play a role," she suggested.

Dr. Bryon Adinoff, a professor of psychiatry at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, has studied brain changes associated with tanning.

"We have found that UV light activates areas of the brain and chemicals in the brain that are known to be involved in other rewards and other addictions," he said.

Those with tanning dependence and other addictions may have an environmental or genetic predisposition to those behaviors. This study adds new information about the crossover between tanning and other addictions, said Adinoff, who was not involved with the new research.

The pull of tanning seems quite strong for some. Past research has found that even those who survive the deadly skin cancer melanoma often continue to tan.

Cartmel and Adinoff both said they don't know of any treatment to reduce tanning dependence.

The study was published online recently in the Journal of the European Academy of Dermatology and Venereology.

More information: Brenda Cartmel, Ph.D., senior research scientist, Yale School of Public Health, New Haven, Conn.; Bryon Adinoff, M.D., professor of psychiatry, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, and director of mental health research, Dallas VA Medical Center; Feb. 21, 2017, Journal of the European Academy of Dermatology and Venereology, online Brenda Cartmel, Ph.D., senior research scientist, Yale School of Public Health, New Haven, Conn.; Bryon Adinoff, M.D., professor of psychiatry, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, and director of mental health research, Dallas VA Medical Center; Feb. 21, 2017,, online To learn more about tanning addiction, visit the Skin Cancer Foundation.

Copyright  2017 HealthDay. All rights reserved.
Pseudomonas bacteria. Credit: Janice Haney Carr

A study, published in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, describes a new treatment pathway for antibiotic resistant bacteria and infectious diseases with benefits for patients and health care providers.

Researchers from the University of Birmingham and Newcastle University found that the unusual approach of removing antibodies from the blood stream reduced the effects of chronic infections, the requirement for days spent in hospital and the use of antibiotics.

In this study, the team identified two patients with bronchiectasis who suffered with chronic Pseudomonas aeruginosa infections that were resistant to many antibiotics; a 64-year-old male, diagnosed with bronchiectasis aged fifteen, and a 69-year-old female who had bronchiectasis from childhood.

Bronchiectasis is a disease that leads to permanent enlargement of the airways in the lung and affects over 300,000 patients in the UK. Symptoms are debilitating for patients, and typically include a chronic cough, shortness of breath, coughing up blood, and chest pain. Bronchiectasis often affects patients beyond the age at which lung transplantation is possible.

Chronic Pseudomonas aeruginosa lung infections commonly occur in patients suffering from bronchiectasis. Pseudomonas aeruginosa is a common bacterium that can cause disease and is known as a multidrug resistant pathogen, recognised for its advanced antibiotic resistance mechanisms and association with serious illnesses.

The patients volunteered to be part of an explorative treatment that built on previous findings from the research group in 2014.

Professor Ian Henderson, Director of the Institute of Microbiology and Infection at the University of Birmingham, explained:

"These patients had an excess of a particular antibody in the bloodstream. In contrast to the protective effect normally associated with antibody, in these patients the antibody stopped the immune system killing the Pseudomonas aeruginosa bacterium and this worsened the patients' lung disease. Perhaps counter-intuitively, we decided to remove this antibody from the bloodstream and the outcomes were wholly positive."

Dr Tony De Soyza, Bronchiectasis service lead, Newcastle Upon Tyne Hospitals Trust and Senior Lecturer at Newcastle University, explained:

"We needed a brand new way of tackling this problem. Working with kidney and immunology experts, we used a process known as plasmapheresis that is somewhat like kidney dialysis. The plasmapheresis involved the removal, treatment, and return of blood plasma from circulation, and was done 5 times in a week in order to remove antibody from the patients. We then replaced antibodies with those from blood donations. This treatment restored the ability for the patients' blood to kill their infecting Pseudomonas."

Both patients reported a rapid improvement in health and wellbeing, greater independence and improved mobility compared to any point in the previous two years.

Professor Henderson added: "This shows that we can improve patient wellbeing significantly, by reducing the need for treatment and the numbers of days spent in hospital, which will also help to reduce the reliance on antibiotics. The next step is to do longer term studies to investigate whether an earlier intervention, with slightly less aggressive therapies, could help prevent disease progression in patients."

This is the first description of antibody-dependent enhancement of bacterial disease. It may be widely applicable to other bacterial infections and offers hope for the treatment of some antibiotic resistant infections.
Credit: Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers

A new study examined 42 combinations of promoters and enhancers for human factor VIII (hFVIII) gene expression to identify the optimal adeno-associated virus (AAV)-based gene therapy delivery vector constructs to take forward into development. Evaluation of the different combinations in mice that lack factor VIII demonstrated the significant and differing effects the vector components had on liver-specific expression of the hFVIII transgene, as reported in Human Gene Therapy.

James M. Wilson, MD, PhD, Director of the Gene Therapy Program, Department of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania (Philadelphia, PA) and Editor, Human Gene Therapy Clinical Development, and coauthors from the University of Pennsylvania Department of Medicine and School of Nursing, and Dimension Therapeutics (Cambridge, MA), developed and compared the different AAV vectors to overcome the challenge of delivering the relatively large hFVIII gene and to achieve therapeutic levels of factor VIII gene expression.

In the article entitled "Characterization of AAV-Mediated Human Factor VIII Gene Therapy in Hemophilia A Mice," the researchers also compared the levels of antibody generated against the various AAV transgene delivery vectors.

"Dr. Wilson's group and their colleagues at Dimension Therapeutics continue to improve the design of AAV vectors designed to treat the more common form of hemophilia, hemophilia A," says Editor-in-Chief Terence R. Flotte, MD, Celia and Isaac Haidak Professor of Medical Education and Dean, Provost, and Executive Deputy Chancellor, University of Massachusetts Medical School, Worcester, MA. "These design improvements are crucial as the practical application of gene therapy for hemophilia progresses."

More information: Jenny A. Greig et al, Characterization of Adeno-Associated Viral Vector-Mediated Human Factor VIII Gene Therapy in Hemophilia A Mice, Human Gene Therapy (2017). Journal information: Human Gene Therapy Jenny A. Greig et al, Characterization of Adeno-Associated Viral Vector-Mediated Human Factor VIII Gene Therapy in Hemophilia A Mice,(2017). DOI: 10.1089/hum.2016.128
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MOUNT PLEASANT  A homeowners association has filed a lawsuit over a controversial senior living facility planned along Highway KR.

The Campbell Woods Homeowners Association contends the Mount Pleasant Village Board violated spot zoning laws and did not follow proper procedures when it approved the project earlier this year, according to a complaint filed March 24 in Racine County Circuit Court.

Trustees in January approved rezoning about 20 acres to allow for the construction of a three-story, 170-unit building along Highway KR east of Highway 31.

The project drew overwhelming opposition from neighbors, who said it would disrupt a wooded area and substantially change what they were told they were getting  a single-family residential area  when they moved there.

But developer Joe Campbell said the market is more favorable to senior housing, and supporters of the project argued Campbell has certain rights to develop the property as he sees fit.

Spot zoning?

The homeowners association argues in the lawsuit the rezoning is not in the public interest and is solely for the benefit of the owner; is not consistent with long-range planning for the area surrounding the parcel; and that Mount Pleasant didnt consider other viable uses for the land or residents expectations that single-family homes would be developed there.

Jim Germain, the homeowners association president, said the boundaries of the rezoning area were deliberately drawn to be more than 100 feet away from any neighboring property  nullifying a petition that would have required a supermajority of Village Board members to approve it.

One of the attorneys the group spoke with said it was a textbook case of spot zoning, Germain said.

Spot zoning is when a zoning ordinance allows for uses significantly different than those in the surrounding area to favor the owner of a piece of property, according to the Wisconsin League of Municipalities.

Spot zoning is not always illegal, but rezoning should be consistent with long-range planning and based upon considerations which affect the whole community, the organization says on its website. Therefore, spot zoning should only be indulged in where it is in the public interest and not solely for the benefit of the property owner requesting the rezoning.

Christopher Geary, an attorney for the village, told the board on the night the project was approved he did not believe the plan constituted spot zoning, adding courts have generally deferred to local governing bodies.

Assuming the board acts in the best interest of the public health, safety, welfare, based on the information that youre presented, whatever decision the board makes with respect to this application ought to be upheld if its challenged, Geary said Jan. 23.

Courts give a great deal of deference to local zoning decisions, because they recognize its an inherently local process.

The Village of Mount Pleasant and Senior Campus at Campbell Woods LLC are named in the suit. Interim Village Administrator Tim Zarzecki said he hadnt seen the lawsuit and referred questions to Geary, who declined comment Thursday. Campbell could not be reached for comment.

Sit-down sought

Germain also argues the plan should have gone back to the village Plan Commission  which recommended the board deny rezoning  to review conditions attached to the property.

The board voted 4-3 against doing so, along the same lines as the rezoning approval. Village President Jerry Garski and Trustees Ken Otwaska, Gary Feest and Jon Hansen supported the development and Trustees Dave DeGroot, John Hewitt and Sonny Havn opposed it.

Construction on the project is scheduled to start later this year, officials said in January. Plans call for a $40 million high-end senior living campus on about 20 acres, with 80 independent living units, 54 assisted-living units and 36 units devoted to memory care. It would have other amenities such as shuttle service, a hair salon and fitness center.

Were quite confident that we can stop the current project, Germain said. What were hoping for, what weve asked for since September, is to sit down with Joe Campbell and work out an acceptable project (for) both sides.
A recent investigation by MyBroadband and ISACA member Abu-Huraira Oman Abdalla revealed that a Full HD 32-inch Telefunken TV sold at Game stores only featured an HD Ready panel.

Shortly after the article was published, Games parent company Massmart stepped in.

The result is that we have determined that the supplier incorrectly labelled the product as Full HD, when in fact it should have been labelled HD Ready, said Massmart.

It is challenging to determine where the blame for this debacle lies, and who is behind the false Full HD claims.

When MyBroadband asked Telefunken for comment, it referred questions to its licensee and distribution partner in South Africa, Nu-World.

Game also appeared to have initially taken the lead from Nu-World regarding the Full HD claims.

MyBroadband spoke to several of South Africas major retailers about the false Full HD issue  as detailed below.

Takealot  We rely on our supplier to provide us with correct specifications

Takealot said it relies on its supplier to provide it with correct, clear, and accurate technical specifications for each item.

In the case of HD TVs, we include the details of such panels according to the manufacturers specification, said Takealot.

If we believe the provided information to be incorrect in any way, we will always update our product description.

Hirschs  We follow our supplier guideline

Hirschs CEO Allan Hirsch told MyBroadband that the company normally follows its supplier guideline.

If our supplier tells us it is a Full HD panel, we need to accept it. Unfortunately, we do not have any way of testing it, he said.

Hirsch said they do not believe in misleading the public or the team in their organisation.

If we were given the information that it is HD Ready and we choose to advertise it as Full HD, then we are at fault.

Makro  It is unacceptable for anyone to misguide a customer

Makro said it is unacceptable for anyone to misguide a customer with incorrect information about a product.

We list products with a multitude of documents, from ICASA, NRCS, the actual test report on the product (that NRCS and ICASA uses to certify the device) and a factory QMS certificate, said Makro.

This gives us the detail on what the product should be, however, the vendor then has to ship that product with that spec to us.

If this does not happen, it will not know about the issue until it is picked up, said Makro.

When we advertise FHD or HD Ready on a TV, the expectation we then have of our vendor is that the product is exactly what they have portrayed it as.

Loot  We would never knowingly falsely promote a TV as FHD

Loot CEO Gary Hadfield told MyBroadband they will never knowingly promote a TV as FHD if the panel is not 1,920 x 1,080.

As we dont unseal units prior to shipping, we are reliant on our suppliers providing us with accurate specifications for the TVs, said Hadfield.

Although Loot has not listed the Telefunken TV which was falsely promoted as Full HD, the company has removed all 32-inch and smaller Telefunken and JVC FHD TVs from its store front.

This is until the supplier can give it confirmation that the TVs specifications match what is advertised on the box.

Massmart (includes Game)  Some TVs have been incorrectly labelled as Full HD

Massmart told MyBroadband it has investigated the issue of false Full HD claims and found that certain TVs have been incorrectly labelled as Full HD.

We have therefore quarantined the product and have instructed the supplier to alert affected Game customers and to initiate a product recall, said Massmart.

HiFi Corp  No comment

HiFi Corp was contacted for comment early in the week, but the company did not respond to questions.
The Western Cape High Court has ruled that it is an infringement to ban the use of dagga by adults in private homes.

According to a report by News24, the ruling allows for the possession, cultivation, and use of dagga at home for private use.

It has also ruled that Parliament must change sections of the Drug Trafficking Act, as well as the Medicines Control Act, stated at the report.

This must be done within 24 months.

The ruling comes after Dagga Party leader Jeremy Acton and Rastafarian Garreth Prince applied to the court to decriminalise marijuana.

They submitted that the laws prohibiting dagga use are unfair, discriminatory, outdated, and applied disproportionately to black users, stated the report.
MFA: Armenia, Azerbaijan FMs agree to expedite their negotiations

President: UAE is a responsible energy supplier as long as the world needs oil and gas

EU has serious concerns about US inflation reduction act

Head of IMF: The global surge in consumer prices may be close to the high point

Germany wants EU to resume trade talks with US as soon as possible

Pashinyan's closed meeting with MPs of ruling Civil Contract faction is over

Hungary will not support EU efforts to help Ukraine with joint funds

Greece to soon ban sale of spyware

U.S. military delegation arrives in Turkey

German industry calls for postponement of global minimum corporate tax

Podolyak: Ukraine has never refused to negotiate

Elon Musk calls on 'independent-minded' voters to vote for Republicans

Bezos Earth Fund pledges $1 billion by 2030 to protect carbon stocks and biodiversity

7 people killed in collision between truck and passenger bus in Turkey

Nikol Pashinyan holds closed meeting with members of ruling party faction

Qatar's foreign minister calls criticism of West 'arrogant' and 'racist'

Algeria officially applies to join BRICS group

Delegations headed by Armenian and Azerbaijani FMs meet in Washington

French Finance Minister calls on EU to oppose U.S.

Armenian President: Aliyev's statements about intentional destruction of mosques have nothing to do with reality

German MFA reports constructive talks in EU on new sanctions against Iran

Kazakhstani President Tokayev instructs to increase oil supplies bypassing Russia

President of Artsakh holds expanded working meeting

Armenian Ministry of Education, Science, Culture and Sports to receive more than 250 billion drams in 2023

Borrell says EU is dependent on supplies from China

Armenia official: Peace treaty implies restoration of sovereign territory

Guterres thinks mankind is heading for climate hell

Dollar, euro gain value in Armenia

General: Iran riots were US plan to derail nuclear deal

Minister: 'Lydian Armenia' may start exploitation of gold mine on Mountain Amulsar

Armenia political scientist: Balance is formed in region thanks to Iran

Minister: 70 schools will be repaired or newly built in Armenia in 2023

UAE lifts most COVID-19 restrictions for tourists

Political scientist: There is no Armenian-American agenda

President of Finland says country has no plans to host nuclear weapons

Russian Ambassador to Armenia: We are not used to making PR and playing games

Flight restrictions extended to 11 airports in Russia

Kopirkin: Spiritual core will help Armenia, Russia overcome difficulties, challenges

Armenia ranks among top 5 CIS countries for winter tourism

Envoy: Russian president awarded Armenian philologist with medal

Iranian intelligence arrests 26 terrorists: an Azerbaijani citizen among them

Russian Defense Ministry confirms: Azerbaijan fired at Khramort village in Artsakh

Number of oil and gas drilling rigs is up in US

Economy minister: Azerbaijan aggression prevented increase of Armenia wheat sowing areas

Gegharkunik governor: There are observers who recorded that Azerbaijan carried out aggression against Armenia

The National Interest: Iran turns attention to the Caucasus

Tokayev: Kazakhstan is ready to use other measures, besides diplomacy, for its defense

Economy minister: Primary agricultural products ensure 11%-13% of Armenia GDP

FAO: World grain prices rise in October

Kremlin urges Yerevan and Baku to refrain from destabilization

Governor of Armenias Tavush on possible handover of enclaves to Azerbaijan: Not being discussed now

Governor of Armenias Vayots Dzor: We have pastures that are monitored by Azerbaijan

WSJ: Sullivan is in contact with Ushakov and Patrushev on Ukraine

Vayots Dzor governor: Azerbaijan military that infiltrated Armenia can be seen with naked eye from Jermuk city

Armenia President: Military clashes, hostilities have direct impact on soil, air pollution

IRGC seizes over 1,500 weapons in Iran riots

Minister: $879 million worth of agricultural products exported from Armenia

Japan to exterminate 150 thousand chickens because of bird flu outbreak

Armenia informational online platform for promoting highly qualified specialists engagement is launched

South Korea's president apologizes for crush in downtown Seoul

Documento: Greek PM Mitsotakis used intelligence services to spy on dozens of people

Close to $98M to be allocated from Armenia state budget for agricultural projects in 2023

Man who set self on fire near Armenia government mansion is in severe condition

Anti-Iranian action to take place in Baku

UN promises to lift restrictions on Russian grain exports in near future

Fighter jet crashes in Saudi Arabia

About $770M to be assigned to Armenia territorial administration, infrastructure ministry next year

Armenia parliament vice-speaker: There is very important note in Sochi statement

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Armenia President to attend climate change convention in Egypt

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Iranian Armenian MP: Iran-Armenia trade is expected to reach $1B

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Minister: Britain's government faces tough decisions

Pashinyan: Teachers in Armenia must get 800,000, 1,000,000 and 1,200,000 drams wages

Boris Johnson from fighting for Conservative Party leader over fears of losing income

Greece slams Turkish authorities' temporary ban on Greek official's entry

Scientifically proven: EU is inscrutable

OPEC: To avoid unrestrained volatility we need to invest in oil

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Turkmenistan becomes regional energy center

Kishida pledges to strengthen Japan's naval and military capabilities

Germany and eight other EU member states plan to expand sanctions against Iran

Iranian Parliament Speaker's visit to Azerbaijan postponed

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IRGC neutralizes terrorist group in southwestern Iran

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The settlement of Nagorno-Karabakh conflict is among the foreign policy priorities of Russia, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told APA news agency of Azerbaijan.

It [i.e. Russia] is not indifferent to what is happening in the neighboring region, noted Lavrov. We are interested in the restoration of peace and tranquility there, opening of the borders, return of the refugees and resumption of trade and economic ties. That is why the Nagorno-Karabakh [conflict] settlement is among our unconditional foreign policy priorities.

I cannot agree that no steps were taken to settle the conflict. The Karabakh issue is constantly at the center of attention of international mediators that are regularly making joint and individual efforts aimed at solving this problem.

As for Russia, for example, at the initiative of President Vladimir Putin, a tripartite summit dedicated to the issue was held last year in St. Petersburg. The Nagorno-Karabakh [conflict] settlement invariably takes an important place in the meetings of Putin with the Azerbaijani and Armenian leaders. In particular, this issue was discussed during [Armenian President] Serzh Sargsyans visit to Moscow on March 15. Moreover, substantive discussions were held with Armenian Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandian in February and with Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov in early March.

It should be taken into account that the issue of Karabakh [conflict] settlement is a very delicate subject, and therefore the details of the talks are confidential. At the same time, I can say that many aspects have already been agreed upon. There are some issues, the most complicated ones, left. No consensus has been achieved yet. Nevertheless, the work is underway.
OSCE Chairperson-in-Office, Austrias Foreign Minister Sebastian Kurz, today joined the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs call for the sides to renew engagement in the political settlement process as expressed in their statement on 29 March.

The fighting and the violence we witnessed one year ago  the worst in the past two decades  caused destruction, suffering and human losses. It was a vivid reminder of how quickly the machinery of war can undermine efforts for peace. On this occasion, we call on all sides to refrain from any actions that jeopardize the ceasefire. All sides must live up to their commitment to strictly observe their international humanitarian obligations  war crimes can never be justified, said Kurz.

Recalling the outbreak of violence in April 2016 along the Line of Contact, he underlined his hope for fresh impetus in the negotiations: Clashes and serious violations of the ceasefire on the Line of Contact, resulting in casualties, were of particular concern to us throughout the past year. It is now high time for a focus on pragmatic and practical steps for confidence-building as well as a resumption of substantive negotiations, emphasized Kurz.

In this context, Kurz voiced his regret at the further loss of lives since the tragic events in April 2016 and expressed his condolences to the affected families. The aftershock of the fighting one year ago has made it more difficult for Armenians and Azerbaijanis to believe in peace, but as I have stated on numerous occasions, there is no military solution to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. We should plan for peace now, and not allow war to return with all of its terrible consequences, Kurz added.

Kurz also commended the work of Ambassador Andrzej Kasprzyk and his team, illustrated by the active facilitation of a humanitarian operation by the International Committee of the Red Cross in February 2017 to retrieve the remains of the deceased servicemen.

The OSCE Chairmanship stands ready to contribute to the efforts of the sides to further advance and implement the agreements reached during the summits in Vienna and St. Petersburg in 2016, concluded Kurz.
YEREVAN.  To highlight the role women can and should play in the development of Armenias rural regions, U.S. Ambassador to Armenia Richard Mills on Thursday traveled to Gegharkunik Province and met with female farmers, civic activists and civil society leaders  all beneficiaries and partners of USAID development efforts U.S. Embassy in Yerevan, the capital city of Armenia, informed Armenian News-NEWS.am.

USAID promotes rural entrepreneurship in Armenia through several projects that recognize the potential of female entrepreneurs in boosting rural economies. In Hairavank, Ambassador Mills met with female farmers who benefit from the communitys Farm Veterinary Service Center, established in 2015 through USAIDs Development of Private Extension Services System project. The Center serves about 2,000 farmers from 10 nearby communities, promoting advanced agribusiness techniques and providing a range of services and supplies, such as animal disease prevention and treatment, and links to financial resources and the supply market. During the meeting, participants discussed the challenges and achievements of female farmers engaged in livestock and chicken breeding, as well as the production of meat, wheat, milk, eggs, and cheese.

In Gavar town, Ambassador Mills visited the Geghareg NGO for a discussion with female activists in the community. Geghareg is a local partner of USAIDs Civic Engagement in Local Governance (CELoG) project, which supports the efforts of local civil society organizations to involve citizens in local governance issues and the ongoing territorial and administrative reform. As part of the CELoG project, Geghareg works in four surrounding communities to increase civic activism and improve the dialogue between local governments and their constituents.

In Gavar, Ambassador Mills also met with Peace Corps volunteers, who shared their experiences in Armenia and discussed local projects implemented under the USAID Small Project Assistance program, which allows Peace Corps volunteers to partner with Armenian communities to implement small development projects such as language courses, potable water and health care projects, and agriculture and small business development.

During a visit to the Martuni Womens Community Council NGO (MWCC), Ambassador Mills met with USAID beneficiaries and discussed the role of women in civic activism and social entrepreneurship. The NGO is one of USAIDs local partners for the Civil Society Organization Development program, which helps build the organizational skills of Armenian NGOs. The MWCC is home to the Martuni Infotun (information house), one of the eight regional multimedia hubs established by USAID to boost media literacy and the use of new media tools to engage citizens in community issues.

The Ambassador also toured the Ighdz (dream) social enterprise in Martuni, established in 2014 through USAIDs Livelihood Improvement through Fostered Employment for People with Disabilities project. The company employs 10 people with disabilities and is specialized producing household goods, garments, and uniforms for schools, medical clinics, and private companies.

Ambassador Mills emphasized the vital role womens leadership and economic empowerment play in Armenias development: I have met so many amazing Armenian women today  from farmers to civic activists and leaders. Each time I meet with groups of Armenian women entrepreneurs and community leaders I am impressed by their hard work, their ingenuity, and their accomplishments in the face of significant obstacles. Armenias women are one of the most important resources the country has. I am proud of the many ways the United States has helped to support these women as they work to make Armenias future brighter for all its citizens.
RACINE  While its not totally clear whether TIRBA, LLCs plan for 3710 Douglas Ave. could be considered a group home, it was definitely clear Wednesday night that members of Racines Plan Commission didnt support it.

For the second consecutive meeting, property owner Ron Scasny and Tom Engels, the director of business development for Madison-based treatment group Tellurian, appeared in front of the Plan Commission to detail their plans for a part-apartment building, part-outpatient mental health facility.

Like the first meeting, community input was overwhelmingly negative and this time it led to the commissions recommendation for denial.

This time around, 7th District Alderman Ray DeHahn came forward with even stronger opposition than before, including a petition with signatures from 100-plus neighbors on it. DeHahn chiefly represented his constituents Mark and Jo Malucky, the managers of nearby Douglas Terrace Apartments, 3706 Douglas Ave., who were strongly against the plan.

They feel that if this is approved, theyll have a tough time renting, and itll cost them $7,000 a month, DeHahn said.

DeHahn said he also had concerns about the safety of the neighborhood were the facility to be approved.

Scasny and Engels maintained the importance of a facility like the one they proposed. They even presented a letter of support from NAMI Racine County, the local mental health alliance.

This is something that I would say Wisconsin needs and needs a lot more of, Scasny said.

However, even though they held meetings with city staff prior to Wednesday to make their plan more amenable to the Plan Commission, there still seemed to be some holes in Scasny and Engels preparation. This was especially apparent in regard to the groups safety and security plan for the facility.

We do have a safety plan in place, Engels said. We did not bring it with us ... It came up just yesterday with stuff we added to the agenda. We will implement a safety and security plan.

Ultimately, it wasnt enough to sway the commissioners in their favor. Commissioner Mario Martinez was particularly opposed to the plan and made the motion recommending its denial, which passed unanimously.

I guess its bad timing right now, Martinez said. I understand you have all of this security, but I dont think theres a way to say its 100 percent foolproof in terms of security.

The City Council will take one more look at the proposal on April 5.
YEREVAN.  Armenia is not a victim for a long time now, and will not be. We are not going to wait the Gods judgement, President Serzh Sargsyan, chairman of the Republican Party of Armenia, said at the event concluding the pre-election campaign of RPA.

The full speech is as follows:

Compatriots,

Yesterday we buried Artak Rafaelian  he was a soldier of the Defense Army and he was twenty years old. The treacherous shot of the enemy found him at his post where he was guarding his share of the Fatherland border.

Yesterday the soul of the Armenian soldier, our son, who fell fulfilling his mission, joined the eternity. Yesterday again all those who understand were crying out silently: the war is not over, the damned killing machine has not stopped yet, and we still have many things to do. Yes, we have many things to do. We have to bring to its ultimate end what we have started.

Armenia is not a victim for a long time now, and will not be. We are not going to wait the Gods judgement. Those who dont understand it will be punished by the hand of the Armenia warriors on the battlefield, just like before. On this, we stand united.

The sea of our unity has forever embraced the pain and pride of Artak Rafayelian and other boys and they will nourish our and next generations soul and mind, spirit and unity, pain and pride. Our souls and our hearts, our pain and our pride from now on will be their home, by the power of Almighty God.

We all have to avenge. We will avenge for our fallen lions by creating a better state, more advanced, better protected, more prosperous. Civilized nations do not avenge with arms. They use arms for smart defense; they avenge by becoming stronger and better. This is the only path leading to victory.

Dear Compatriots,

On April 2, we will pay tribute and pray at the graves of our sons who fell one year ago while throwing back the large-scale Azeri offensive. On April 2, we, as citizens of the Republic of Armenia, will also go to the electoral precincts to decide on the development path our country will take for the next five years. This coincidence is as much accidental as it is not. Each of us will choose a ballot, and it is critically important that while making that choice we understand that the ballot is also a key, a key to new weaponry and new military equipment, new defense structures and efficient troop deployment plans, a key to enforcing peace and consistent amplification of the security of the soldiers on the border.

To choose a ballot means to choose who and how is going to solve our number one issue  the Nagorno Karabakh problem. Who are the people, who will through peaceful negotiations achieve the goal making the ultimate status of Nagorno Karabakh to be decided by the people of Artsakh. This standpoint will not change, ever. Who are the people who will be able to steadfastly support all efforts of the Co-Chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group aimed at the fair resolution through the peace negotiations. And finally, when choosing a ballot, it is necessary to certainly vote for living well but staying mindful that living well implies first of all the right to be protected, the right to live, otherwise it would be senseless to speak of living well vision if there is no idea how to defend the right of life, how to hold back the hand which is ready to crash that right.

Dear Compatriots,

Based on the nature of this event, I was supposed to urge you at this moment to vote for the Republican Party of Armenia. However, I will not. I will say choose whomever you want but remember that living well is possible only through a lasting and diligent work. I will say choose whomever you want but remember the mothers who have sent their sons to the Army, and whose each heartbeat is counting the seconds of their sons safe duty. Remember the kids who each morning put their school bags on their backs and rush to the school targeted by the snipers of the enemy. They trust in the combat readiness of the troops at the border. Remember our victorious generals and officers who buried with their own hands their brothers and friends who fell in the Artsakh Liberation War, their cold and tearless gazes whose hardened hearts are warmed up with the new martial achievements of the soldiers under their command.

Remember these images and vote on April 2 for whomever you want.

Thank you.
STEPANAKERT. -- The house of the Khalapyan family is on the edge of Karabakhs Talish village. No houses are seen further, only hills. This became one of the reasons of the bloody drama which took place here a year ago.

A dead of night on April 2, 2016, the Azerbaijani divisions began a large-scale aggression, and some criminals reached the ouskirts of Talish village. Three elderly people who were unable to leave the village on time, fell victims of criminals.

Even in a year, Khalapyan's younger generation is afraid of entering the abandoned house.

There is a white sofa in front of the house on the street that was shelled by the Azerbaijani side. The old people most likley were having rest during summer evenings here.

Several steps are leading to the house. A small entrance hall leads to a living room where elderly Valera and Razmela Khalapyan, as well as 92-year-old Marusya Khalapyan were shot down. The barbarians cut off their ears after killing them. A year ago the scary photos of the room with pink walls, bodies of the killed elderly people, blood on a white door were spread by the media. The house is empty. The only remained furniture in the room is a sofa where Marusya Khalapyan was killed, two armchairs and a wooden footstool.

Valera Khalapyan was sitting in one of the armchairs when criminals rushed into the room. The body of the killed Razmela was found near the door.

When shelling of the village started, Gagik Khalapyan, the son of the killed Valera and Razmela, took six children and his wife to a safe place. There was not enough place in the car.

Valera and Razmela could not leave the house without car because of elderly Marusya. When he came back to take away his parents and the grandmother, Gagik Khalapyan heard Azerbaijani language near the village and decided to go to the village administration, to warn about Azerbaijanis in the village. He could not return home later, and Azerbaijani criminals did their dirty deed.

Photo by Arsen Sargsyan/NEWS.am
YEREVAN.  Members of Justice in Armenia initiative representing the Armenian Diaspora do not support any of the parties participating in the forthcoming elections in Armenia. The goal of the Justice in Armenia initiative is to contribute to the establishment of democracy in the country, System of a Down frontman Serj Tankian told reporters in Yerevan (PHOTOS).

Tankian said it is very important that people understand that they do not have a dog in this fight, that is, they have no personal interest in the results of the elections.

Many people argue because of the views they adhere to. And we do not care what views certain people have, the most important thing is the will and desire of the Armenian people, Tankian said.

To illustrate his attitude to this issue, Tankian sang a slightly modified verse from the song of Butthole Surfers band:

I do not give a f *** about the FBI,

I do not give a f *** about the CIA,

I do not give a f *** about the KGB,

I do not give a f *** about the FSB.

We are not professional monitors, we are artists. Our job is to inspire you to go to the polls and vote. Injustice today is everywhere, even in the United States. How did Trump become president? Hillary Clinton received 3 million votes more than Trump, but Trump became president. But this does not mean that you should not vote, Tankian said. I do not believe in violence. We have the right to be dissidents. We have the power, we have votes, but lets not stop.

A number of artists from the Diaspora, including Serj Tankian, director Atom Egoyan and actress Arsinee Khanjian arrived in Armenia to carry out an observation mission during the parliamentary elections as part of the Justice in Armenia initiative.

This initiative, as noted by SerjTankian, belongs to a group of artists who were worried about what happens in Armenia especially after Sasna Tsrer and the tension in the country, after many years of injustice.

We wanted to take part, to make our small contribution and help introduce justice in Armenia. This is only a small contribution from the Diaspora. Thanks to all the volunteers who will observe the elections in Armenia, we will support you, he added.
YEREVAN. - The statement made by Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev on Friday violates all the international norms, which at the same time proves that the Azerbaijani society is under stress.

Head of the parliamentary faction of the Republican Party of Armenia (RPA), Vahram Baghdasaryan, told the aforementioned to Armenian News  NEWS.am, referring to Aliyevs statement on that the Karabakh issue is the internal matter of Azerbaijan, and that the events, which taking place in Nagorno-Karabakh and all the occupied lands are also their internal matter.

The international community is very well aware that the OSCE Minsk Group is authorized to deal with the Karabakh issue, as well as conduct monitoring on the line of contact beyween the Karabakh and Azerbaijani armed forces. By his statement Aliyev ignored the activity of the OSCE Minsk Group, thereby once again proving that it is exactly the Azerbaijani side, who is the aggressor, Baghdasaryan said.

In Baghdasaryans words, the international community and the OSCE Minsk Group will give a relevant assessment to Aliyevs statements.  Baku wont go far with such conduct, since the settlement of the Karabakh issue has long become the matter of international community.

Referring to Aliyevs statement that the forces which approach the situation from a more pragmatic standpoint (the statement of former Armenian president Levon Ter-Petrosyan), openly state that if the relations with Azerbaijan are not normalized, Armenia will have no future, Baghdasaryan said that Levon Ter-Petrosyans opinion is not that of the Armenian community, but his personal one.

We have repeatedly stated that it is needless to speak about any other issues but the self-determination of Nagorno-Karabakh. Aliyevs statements prove that it is exactly the Azerbaijani society which is under stress, since they know the stance of Armenia and Armenian society on the Karabakh issue.
RACINE  Rep. Luis Gutierrez, D-Chicago, is scheduled to participate in a town hall meeting with other Wisconsin elected officials titled "Where's Paul Ryan?"

The event will take place on Saturday from 3-5 p.m. at the Dr. John Bryant Community Center, 601 21st St., and is sponsored by Voces de la Frontera, National Day Laborer Organizing Network and the Fair Immigration Reform Movement.

The purpose is to have a discussion on immigration and the groups' goal is to urge House Speaker Paul Ryan, to "block (President Donald) Trump's war and deportation budget and instead fund health care, good jobs and public education."

State Rep. Cory Mason and State Sen. Robert Wirch are also scheduled to be present at the event.
The problem of homelessness in Wisconsin is an issue that often follows the saying, Out of sight, out of mind. Though we can all recognize the people standing on corners or sleeping on benches, there are many unseen people living out of their cars, moving from motel to motel or consistently on the verge of eviction. These hidden homeless are hard to recognize and quantify, making funding for preventing and ending homelessness equally difficult.

In 2015, Wisconsin had 27,532 clients who received services and shelter from agencies that enter into the Homeless Management Information System (HMIS). Wisconsins homeless population has seen a slight decline over the last few years, with total homeless numbers going down by 6.1 percent since 2015. This reduction is largely due to an increased advocacy for homelessness resources and funding. With homelessness presenting an ever-growing need for aid, and ultimately, rehabilitation, preparing legislation that serves the most vulnerable of constituents is a top concern.

I understand the importance of putting forth pointed measures to end homelessness in Wisconsin. Wisconsin funded homelessness services and shelter for more than 27,000 people in 2015. As a conservative, I recognize that these funds could be better utilized to bring people facing homelessness a permanent solution  a stable job and steady income.

In 2016, we saw that almost half of people experiencing homelessness were part of a family with children, while 1,133 veterans were exposed to homelessness. I know that most people experiencing homelessness are motivated to find a solution that works. Giving Wisconsinites the tools needed to move them towards independence is crucial.

In the 2017-18 legislative session, we in the Assembly have clear steps that can begin to take on the issue of homelessness head-on. Exploring the possibilities of no-cost legislation in tandem with measured government spending, we can move the state forward in achieving a goal of every person in Wisconsin having a place to call home.

Solutions to end homelessness come in many different packages. There is no one-size-fits-all answer to individual circumstances. An attention to job creation and retention will be a big contributor to providing people with the tools needed to be housed and successful, while a focus on administrative policies and funding will help define sustainable solutions for the state and the homeless population. It is clear that a coordinated approach among local units of government, the state and federal programs, coupled with a healthy private sector partnership, will produce the best results.
This training will unlock career opportunities in the retail organisations of the Volkswagen Group. Porsche intentionally designs the training to cover topics far wider than those required in-house, in order to give the trainees as many opportunities as possible. This project is being organised in association with the Don Bosco Salesian Institute Youth Projects (SIYP) in Cape Town and the local Porsche importer, LSM Distributors (Pty.) Ltd.

Eight women and 16 men will participate in the first year of training. Porsche has equipped SIYP with two seminar rooms and a training workshop which includes cars for the trainees to work on. The training content has been designed by brands After Sales experts, who are responsible for the project. They are also tasked with training the trainers of the newly established Porsche Training and Recruitment Center South Africa, under the umbrella of the worldwide After Sales qualification initiative PAVE (Porsche After Sales Vocational Education). The aim of this initiative is not only to find young talent for the VW retail organisations but also to raise the image and attractiveness of working as a service mechatronic in the long term. Due the increasing significance of digitalisation, electrification and connectivity in automotive manufacturing, the importance of After Sales services are growing. With this project, Porsche proactively supports the adaptation of the education system for a future-oriented business.

Speaking at the official opening ceremony, Michael Drolshagen, After Sales Manager at Porsche AG, said: When I look into the eager faces of our first trainees it's a further confirmation that we and our partners are doing the right thing: Creating opportunities. Opportunities for young adults to enhance their skills and position themselves permanently on the job market, and opportunities to develop a professional reputation and use this reputation to strengthen their position in society.

Uwe Huck: Education is something that concerns us all

Uwe Huck, Chair of the Porsche Group Works Council, is one of the project's initiators. According to him: Education is something that concerns us all and must not be a privilege. Nobody is too stupid to get an education, but you have to put in the hard work. We have to take on those who  for whatever reason  appear to stand no chance. They do: It is our task to unlock the potential hidden inside every person, regardless of ethnic origin, religion or the colour of their skin. Porsche has always fostered a social corporate culture and it is important and part of our duty to lead by example and show the way rather than to turn a blind eye.

With The Salesian Institute Youth Projects Porsche has an experienced partner at his side. Creating new opportunities, opening their minds and hearts, this is what the Salesians have done for our young people in Cape Town since 1910. At the Salesian Institute Youth Projects we want our youth to believe in themselves and help them achieve their fullest potential. We actively seek partners who share our common goals and values. We are delighted that Porsche has partnered with the Salesian Youth Projects to create opportunities for those who are deserving of this chance. Its the start of an exciting new partnership between SIYP and Porsche as the two worlds come together for make a difference in our world. We look forward to working together and we are delighted for the students embarking on this new chapter in their lives says Lynn Steven, Chairperson SIYP.

From its fourth year, the training programme is planned to fund itself, whilst at the same time the sole responsibility for the training will be transferred to SIYP. Porsche and the VW Group brands will continue to supervise the project and will be responsible for enhancing the curriculum as well as employing the graduates.

Galerie /
ASSE Touts Successful Nigeria Safety Summit

The summit was held March 21-25 and included sessions from ASSE President Tom Cecich

The ASSE has announced its 2017 Nigeria Safety Summit was a success, citing the commitment of members to advance occupational safety and health in the countries in which they live and work.

The summit, which was held March 21-25, brought together hundreds of OSH professionals from Africa, the Middle East, the United States and other countries to discuss and learn about industry trends and best practices.

ASSE President Tom Cecich also led a session.

I was impressed with the knowledge and professional insight of our Nigerian chapter members, said Cecich. While I was there to impart some of my expertise, I also learned a number of things from that enthusiastic group.

Presenters also included U.S. Consul General John Bray and representatives from Shell, ExxonMobil, Chevron Nigeria Limited, Addax Petroleum, Nigerian Local Content, Federal Road Safety Corps, Brickwall Group Management, CLMI, BCSP, the Institute of Safety Professionals of Nigeria, and the Nigerian Society of Engineers.




Northeast Waters Still Cold, Coast Guard Warns

Recreational boating deaths involving paddlecraft more than doubled in Northeast waters during 2016, according to the U.S. Coast Guard.

Waters in the northeastern region of the United States are still cold this time of year, the U.S. Coast Guard notes in an article by Petty Officer 3rd Class Andrew Barresi about a recent rescue of a kayak who was suffering severe hypothermia. Recreational boating deaths involving paddlecraft more than doubled in Northeast waters during 2016, according to his article, which explains that Northeast waters "remain cold well into spring. It is tempting to shake off winter by hitting the water on the first warm days of the new season, but the reality is that the water temperature hasn't caught up to the air temperature, and this equates to an often-overlooked danger."

The rescue involved a man whose kayak had capsized. Someone on shore called 911, and both a 47-foot USCG Motor Lifeboat and a New Hampshire Marine Patrol boat responded.

It was a close call for the kayaker.

"Whether you're surfing, kayaking, or paddle boarding, you want to have some kind of protective clothing on, whether it's a wetsuit or dry suit," said Coast Guard Petty Officer 3rd Class Perry Derrenbacher, a crewmember at Station Portsmouth Harbor who participated in the rescue. "As soon as you hit the water, all the blood is going to rush from your extremities to your core, and you'll lose your ability to swim."
Ten Ways to Reduce Noise Exposure for Your Workers

Hazardous noise levels in the workplace are a serious issue, and, if not protected against, could lead to stress, lower productivity, and, most importantly, health problems in those affected.

There are, however, a range of measures that can be taken to reduce the effects of loud machinery and processes. From machinery additions to employee procedures, we'll discuss here the important aspects of noise reduction and ways to make your workplace safer and more comfortable.

There are main categories of measures that can be taken, such as those related to engineering (such as installing absorptive silencers) and administrative controls (such as your employee policy). There are 10 specific steps to address that span these categories.

1. Hearing Protection for Employees

This is perhaps the most obvious option for many employers. Ear protection can be very effective and, for workers operating in places where noise exceeds 85 dB, this is often necessary. There are different kinds of protection available, including ear plugs, over-the-ear plugs (which sit on the ear and are kept in place with a connected piece of plastic or wire), and ear muffs. The effectiveness of a given type of hearing protector can be measured as a Noise Reduction Rating (NRR) score.

Aside from this, there is also a choice to be made between passive and active sound-blocking mechanisms (where active noise reduction involves masking hazardous sounds with a different soundparticularly useful to protect against low-frequency droning noise like that of an airfield).

2. Positioning of Noise Sources and Workplace Layout

A straightforward solution that may be an option for your company is rearranging your setup so noisy machines are further away from where employees are normally located. This can be deceptively easy because many plants, for example, can allow enough space to move some workstations to quieter areas.

When this step is implemented, along with enclosing loud machines (mentioned below), the effects can be particularly effective, as the noise source is removed from the worker by both a barrier and by distance.

3. Building Design

The use of sound insulation in the walls and ceilings can make a large contribution to how sound travels through the building. Advances in these materials are enabling impressive new functionalitythere is even a trend toward environmentally friendly bio-based materials for this purpose. But if you choose standard or new materials, insulating walls and floors can go a long way toward compartmentalizing any noise sources in your building.

4. Staffing Practices

Another common-sense approach is to simply reduce the amount of time workers spend in contact with the sound source. This can easily be achieved by rotating workers in and out of contact with the noisewhich is particularly effective as it gives the workers' hearing a break from the source of loudness. Noise damage to hearing is cumulative, so it will build up over time, regardless of breaks given. So another solution is to have as few staff members as possible on duty when loud noises are present in the workplace.

Scheduling some very loud processes for when there are fewer workers on duty is another option.

5. Enclosing Machines or Other Sources of Noise

One of the most effective ways to reduce noise is by installing a barrier or enclosure between a loud machine and where workers are situated. This can be achieved easily especially in plants that allow sufficient space between machines and in operating setups that do not require workers to constantly attend to the machine.

6. Keeping Machinery Up to Date

It goes without saying that wear and tear on machinery will result in greater noise leakage over time. Consider the sound quality benefits of newer machines and the potential cost savings in productivity and claims, and incorporate this calculation when carrying out cost-benefit analyses for a decision on upgrading your equipment.

7. Installing Sound Insulating Equipment on Machinery and Fixtures

Silencers are a useful method, in this regard, reducing the low-frequency sounds generated by airflow in machines and ventilation. Other measures, such as replacing rivets with welds, also reduce noise significantly.

There are two broad categoriesabsorptive and engine exhaust silencerswhich differ in their applications and benefits.

8. Buying Machinery Based on Noise Scoring

Of course, it's best to address noise levels before they become an issue. Inquire with the manufacturer about noise levels when procuring equipment, and you could save yourself a lot of money and hassle down the line.

"Buy quiet" is a government initiative to encourage businesses to purchase equipment with lower noise levels. Organizations such as NASA have implemented "buy quiet" safety roadmaps.

9. Monitoring Your Employees' Well-Being

This is less of a prevention measure as it is a remedy. Providing for a hearing check before and during your employees' time with your company can help identify any loss of hearing before it escalates too far. While you may make every effort to protect your employees, it is always best to take a proactive approach, given the fact that every person's hearing reacts differently to sound hazards.

10. Other Outside-the-Box Measures

You should provide training for your workers on the ways to prevent hearing damage. In the end, each staff member is the best person to monitor and judge their levels of noise exposure. Other employers have found great benefit in providing completely noise-free spaces on site where workers can reduce stress.

Final Thoughts

The challenge of reducing workplace noise levels is clear. Research has shown that for every 1,000 noise-exposed workers, 2.53 healthy years are lost annually in the United States alone. Mining is the industry with the most hearing loss, but manufacturing is a close second. That doesn't mean that employers in other industries are in the clear, though, because even in office spaces, noise levels can exceed that which would allow staff to work in a focused and stress-free manner.

When deciding on your noise reduction strategy, make sure that it incorporates the perspective of administration (people), facilities (buildings), and machinery and equipment. Even simple steps can reduce the levels of noise in your workplace, but in most cases some extra measures will be needed, such as purchasing of special equipment to ensure safety.

Bear in mind that the administrative aspect cannot be ignoredboth in terms of prevention and dealing with any ill effects of noise. In the interest of your workers, you should have the plans in place to monitor and act in the event of hearing damage. If the right steps are taken, you can ensure your workplace is a safe place for all.

David Holland, vice president at Mahans Thermal Products (Covington, Ga., http://mahans.com/), has a degree in mechanical engineering that has helped him acquire an extensive background in general contracting and mechanical contracting. He also has extensive experience in the design and construction of mechanical systems and controls. He enjoys helping consulting customers and really getting to know them and their needs so he can help serve them better. He is factory certified as an authorized service provider for Alfa Laval, including designing, repairing, and re-rating plate and frame Heat Exchangers.
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Residents in the area of a factory that washes large containers used to transport chemicals expressed concern about the effect the mishandling and mixing of chemicals in these barrels has had on their neighborhood, and may have in the future.

Mid-America Steel Drum Co., a local company that refurbishes plastic containers and 55-gallon steel drums, was implicated in a Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel investigation published in mid-February that alleges hazardous chemicals were improperly handled and disposed of at three Milwaukee-area facilities, including one at 2300 W. Cornell St.

"If its in the water, in the soil, in the air, we need to know about [that]," said Elois Scott, 59, who has lived less than a half mile from the plant for more than 20 years. "When they said misuse of chemicals that scared the daylights out of me."

The comments came at a recent information session held by Wisconsin State Sen. Lena Taylor and Rep. David Bowen at Jerusalem Missionary Baptist Church, 2505 W. Cornell St. About 35 people attended the event, including staff of other state and local elected officials.

Mid-America is owned by Greif, Inc., a U.S. company with similar plants in Indiana, Arkansas, Tennessee, Canada and Europe.

Brenda Giles, 53, has lived in the area for 22 years. Giles, who worked for three years in a factory where she was exposed to nitrogen vapor, has sarcoidosis, a lung disease she said can be caused, or exacerbated, by pollution or other particles. Giles said she worries about the possible effects hazardous chemicals have had on air and water quality, and the health implications for her adult children, her grandchildren  who grew up in her house and still live in the neighborhood  and her great granddaughter, who will be 2 in August.

"When it comes to my children, my health, my great granddaughter and grandkids, thats a big issue," she said.

But Giles added, "Its the whole community that Im concerned about, not just me."

According to the Journal-Sentinels investigation, chemicals left in the drums that arrived at the Cornell Street facility were regularly mixed into a "toxic soup." At times chemicals were washed down floor drains and, on at least one occasion, workers evacuated the factory for about a half hour after "a horrible smelling orange cloud" filled the plant, the result of chemicals being mixed. The report was based on hours of recordings and accounts of former Mid-America employees.

In 1984, a 23-year-old Milwaukee man died after a drum exploded in his face. The Journal Sentinel reported that little was done to improve conditions in the factories.

Will Kramer, a former safety consultant who made the recordings and attended the meeting, said there was no burning of chemicals at the Cornell Street plant, but that there have been chemical reactions that caused "billowing" smoke to blow into the neighborhood. Unfortunately, he said, theres no way to know what the risk is to residents, if any.

"If they were following the law with all this, you would know every ounce, you know, what chemicals had been there, how it was handled  all that stuff," Kramer said. "What theyve done, by avoiding those regulations, is that theres no way  for any of you or any of us to find out what that stuff was or how bad, or how not bad, it was."

Michael Mannan, a code enforcement supervisor with the citys Department of Neighborhood Services (DNS), said his team has inspected the Cornell Street facility for building and fire code violations every year since the company obtained an occupancy permit in 2004  and two additional times since the report was published in February. They look for exhaust, discharges, and safe storage and maintenance practices; the facility has never been cited by the city, Mannan said.

According to records from the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (DNR), which is investigating the allegations, the Cornell Street facility was the subject of a 1993 case in which it was required to clean up hazardous discharge. However, the facility has never notified the DNR of "hazardous waste activity" and therefore is not regulated for it.

A number of different agencies are responsible for regulating companies such as Mid-America, including the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration, Wisconsin Department of Transportation, Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District and the City of Milwaukee.

"Youve got lots of regulators; youve got lots of points of where failures are occurring," said Mannan. "There are a whole list of processes here that ought to be regulated  and thats whats falling through the cracks."

He said DNS has never conducted an unannounced inspection of the Cornell Street location.

"If youre announcing it, theyre going to hide whatever they [dont want you to see], because they know youre coming," said Crystal Trigg, 53, another longtime area resident. "I guarantee if they start doing unexpected visits, theyre going to find some stuff out."

Ruby Snowden, 74, who has lived near 24th and Ruby streets  not far from Lloyd Barbee Montessori School  since 1977 said residents should have been notified when the company moved in. She noted that the area between Teutonia and Green Bay avenues is "congested" with factories.

"You know, its benign neglect. Its about the haves and have-nots," Snowden said.

Snowden also acknowledged that not enough residents are engaged or informed.

Taylor encouraged residents to engage with their elected officials, and said there should be better regulatory frameworks. However, she noted that federal funding for the EPA is on the chopping block. She and Bowen said they are determined to get to the bottom of the allegations, and would follow up with residents in a few months.

Kramer added, "You need public pressure."
Phuket, 31 March 2017  La Grittas Italian Chef Patrizia presents her special menu of April 2017 by providing five different dishes of Gnocchi, which is very popular in Italy and originates from Lazio region. Guests will experience the wonderful taste of potatoes mashed with different kinds of vegetables and blended with a variety sauces.

All the dishes have a colourful presentation consisting of:

Gnocchi al Gorgonzola, priced at 450 THB++

Spinach gnocchi with creamy gorgonzola sauce.

Gnocchi alle Spuntature di Maiale, priced at 480 THB++

Potato gnocchi with pork ribs, sausage and tomato sauce.

Historically, this dish is very popular in Rome and available only on Thursday as part of the culture.

Gnocchi di Zucca, priced at 650 THB++

Pumpkin gnocchi with porcini mushrooms, Hokkaido scallops and tiger prawn.

Potato Gnocchi alla Crema di Tartufo, priced at 620 THB++

Potato gnocchi with truffle cream and parmesan cheese.

Gnocchi ai Frutti di Mare, priced at 550 THB++

Beetroot gnocchi with clams, mussels and prawns.

All prices are subject to a 10% service charge and 7% VAT. Terms and conditions apply.

For more information and reservations, please contact +66 (0) 7634 0112, email lagritta@amari.com,

or visit www.lagritta.com and https://www.facebook.com/LaGrittaPhuket

Address: Amari Phuket, 2 Muen-ngern Road, Patong Beach, Kathu, Phuket 83150, Thailand
The island of Sardinia is remarkable for the fact that an exceptionally high proportion of the population is seemingly descended from people who have occupied it since the Neolithic and Bronze Age, between 8,000 and 2,000 years ago. For centuries after that, they had little interaction with mainland Europe.

Now, University of Huddersfield researcher Dr Maria Pala has taken part in a project that has helped to unlock the genetic secrets of her Mediterranean homeland. One of the findings is that some modern Sardinians could have evolved from people who colonised the island at an even earlier period, the Mesolithic.

Dr Pala - whose first degree was from the University of Sassari in her native Sardinia  is a Senior Lecturer at the University of Huddersfield and a member of its Archaeogenetics Research Group. The group is led by Professor Martin Richards and includes Dr Francesca Gandini as Research Fellow. They are all co-authors of a new article, titled Mitogenome Diversity in Sardinians: A Genetic Window onto an Island's Past, appearing in the journal Molecular Biology and Evolution.

It states that modern Sardinians are a "unique reservoir of distinct genetic signatures" and it describes how the research team, based at a number of UK, European and American universities and institutes, analysed 3,491 DNA samples from the present day population and compared them with 21 ancient samples taken from skeletal remains found in rock-cut tombs spanning from the Neolithic period to the Final Bronze Age.

Dr Pala explained that this new study focused on the mitochondrial genome  the maternal line from mothers to daughters  because it provided an unbroken line of descent, much less complex than the whole genome.

It emerged that 78.4 per cent of the modern mitogenomes actually cluster into "Sardinian-specific haplogroups".

"That percentage is extremely high," said Dr Pala. "If you look at Europeans as a whole, you cannot essentially distinguish an English person from an Italian or a French, because Europeans have mixed together for a long time."

Sardinia has always been an island, but it is believed that there was a time when a lower sea level meant it retained links with the continent, and through these links the first inhabitants reached the island from continental Europe. Then the sea level rose but, despite this, connections with the continent remained active through the Neolithic and Bronze Age, possibly fuelled by the abundance of natural resources such as obsidian and metals present in the island.

Then, whether suddenly or gradually, these connections were severed or became sporadic so that for thousands of years Sardinians were isolated, developing their own language, culture, society and sense of identity.

To this day, Sardinians speak their own tongue and they remain genetically distinctive, as the new article co-authored by Dr Pala demonstrates.

It concludes that:

Contemporary Sardinians harbour a unique genetic heritage as a result of

their distinct history and relative isolation from the demographic upheavals of continental

Europe. Whilst the major signal appears to be the legacy of the first farmers on the island,

our results hint at the possibility that the situation might have been much more complex,

both for Sardinia but also, by implication, for Europe as a whole. It now seems plausible

that human mobility, inter-communication and gene flow around the Mediterranean from

Late Glacial times onwards may well have left signatures that survive to this day.

More information: Anna Olivieri et al. Mitogenome Diversity in Sardinians: A Genetic Window onto an Island's past, Molecular Biology and Evolution (2017). DOI: 10.1093/molbev/msx082 Journal information: Molecular Biology and Evolution
A ring-tailed possum. Credit: Andrew Mercer CC BY-SA 4.0

Changes in the distribution of land, marine and freshwater species as a result of climate change are affecting human wellbeing around the world, posing new health risks, economics threats and conflicts over resources.

The study, by an international team led by Associate Professor Gretta Pecl of the University of Tasmania, and including UNSW marine ecologist Dr Adriana Verges, is published today in the journal Science.

In response to climate change, land-based species are moving towards the poles by 17 kilometres per decade, and marine species by 72 kilometres per decade, on average. Some terrestrial creatures, such as ring-tailed possums in Queensland, are also shifting up mountain slopes to escape warming lowlands, while some fish species are being driven deeper as the ocean warms.

"Human survival depends on other life on earth, so the redistribution of the planet's living organisms is a substantial challenge for people worldwide," says Associate Professor Pecl.

"Our global study demonstrates how these changes are affecting ecosystems and human health and culture in the process. While some species favour a warmer climate and are becoming more abundant, many others that humans exploit or interact with face depletion or extinction," she says.

Rabbitfish in a feeding frenzy eating kelp. Credit: Adriana Verges

Unlike the many species on the move, people are relatively immobile, largely restricted in where they can live by territorial borders, the researchers point out.

Dr Verges' research in the Mediterranean Sea and along the eastern coast of Australia, shows how climate change is altering the distribution of tropical fish.

"The migration of tropical fish as a result of ocean warming poses a serious threat to the temperate areas they invade, because they can overgraze kelp forests and seagrass meadows," she says.

"Increases in the number of plant-eating tropical fish can profoundly alter ecosystems and lead to barren reefs, affecting biodiversity including other fish, abalone and lobsters, with significant economic and management impacts."

A coffee plant. Credit: James Gagen CC BY-SA 2.0

These shifts in the range of species need to be taken into account in the formulation of conservation goals, policies and management actions at local to international levels, the researchers conclude.

"While traditional conservation aims to conserve and retain historical conditions, new management approaches will need to acknowledge the inevitability of species moving beyond their traditional ranges and novel ecosystems emerging," they write.

"Consideration of the effects of biodiversity redistribution is critical, yet lacking in most mitigation and adaptation strategies, including the United Nation's Sustainable Development Goals."

The study highlights changes including:

Resources: fish, forests, and crops are at risk as their environments change, with the principal coffee growing regions expected to shift, and valuable timber species such as Norway spruce in Europe making way for less valuable warm climate species such as Mediterranean oak forest vegetation;

Industries: tourism and recreational fishing are jeopardised as corals die, jellyfish infest waters used for recreation, and urchins destroy fish habitats in kelp forests;

Conflict: tensions are emerging as species move between economic zones, as with the "mackerel wars" between Iceland and countries competing for mackerel quotas, or due to disputes over competing land uses;

Health: threats such as malaria are becoming more prevalent as rising temperatures allow the poleward spread of mosquitos into regions where people have not had prior exposure;

Indigenous culture: changes in distribution of fish and reindeer are impacting food security and traditional knowledge systems of Arctic peoples.

A sea urchin (Centrostephanus rodgersii). Credit: Peter Southwood CC BY-SA 3.0

In Australia, there was been a shift to higher ground by 13 bird and four ringtail possum species as a result of climate warming in the wet tropics. A southward shift by the sea urchin Centrostephanus rodgersii into Tasmania due to warming waters has led to overgrazing of kelp forests, affecting the regional lobster and abalone fisheries.

Australia has also already witnessed the extinction of the first mammal due to climate change, with the disappearance of the Bramble Cay melomys, also known as the mosaic-tailed rat, in the Torres Strait.

The study of climate-driven changes in species distributions is a relatively new field of science. The inaugural major international Species on the Move conference was held in Hobart in February 2016, with a follow-up conference likely to be held in 2019.

More information: Gretta T. Pecl et al. Biodiversity redistribution under climate change: Impacts on ecosystems and human well-being, Science (2017). DOI: 10.1126/science.aai9214 Journal information: Science

Provided by University of New South Wales
Questions about the relationships between University of Wisconsin System institutions and dozens of private foundations could loom over a proposed increase in state funding for UW, Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald said Thursday.

System President Ray Cross sought to reassure lawmakers in appearances around the Capitol that the behavior of two former UW-Oshkosh administrators accused of illegally transferring millions of dollars to support a foundations development projects was isolated.

Cross took that message to the Legislatures audit committee, which ordered an investigation into the relationships between UW campuses and foundations, and later to the Joint Finance Committee, as the System had its turn before the powerful body on the fourth and final day of state agency budget hearings.

Fitzgeralds comments hint, however, that UWs budget outlook, which started rosy when Gov. Scott Walker proposed over $100 million in new funding for the System, might not stay that way.

If the UW System does not make an affirmative and aggressive attempt to clarify the interaction between the foundations and public institutions and UW campuses, I just think its going to be in the back of members minds when you get to the UWs portion of the budget and they start talking about how much revenue is going to be in this budget for the System, Fitzgerald told reporters Thursday. Its a dark cloud thats out there that I know is going to be on members minds when you ask them to support different aspects of the budget when it comes to the UW.

Asked about the possibility the Oshkosh controversy could influence lawmakers support for new UW funding, Cross said, We hope that they will understand that this was an anomaly.

Were doing everything we can to properly deal with it, and to do it in a transparent, open fashion, Cross said.

New reporting requirements

System officials have sued the former chancellor and vice chancellor for administration at UW-Oshkosh, saying they illegally transferred $11.3 million from the university to the UW- Oshkosh Foundation, improperly guaranteed foundation loans and concealed transactions in records.

Cross and Regent Michael Grebe told members of the Joint Legislative Audit Committee that System officials took action to investigate the transactions at UW-Oshkosh once they discovered them.

UW officials support the audit that was ordered Thursday, Cross said, and the private foundations will cooperate with the investigation. The System has launched its own review of financial transactions between universities and foundations over the last seven years, he said, and has not found other examples of improper transactions.

We have no reason to believe that similar transactions have taken place on any other campus, Grebe said. The bad acts of one should in no way be seen as an indictment of any other chancellor.

Cross touted a new System requirement that foundations that take in more than $500,000 per year file annual financial reports to spot potential misconduct more quickly.

Should that happen, we would catch it much quicker, Cross told the Joint Finance Committee.

Unclear how many agree with Fitzgerald

Fitzgerald, R-Juneau, declined to say what aspects of Walkers proposed funding increase for the UW System might be affected by the controversy, but said, Its something that needs a lot of attention between now and the end of the budget.

Walkers budget proposal includes $35 million to pay for a 5 percent tuition cut for UWs in-state undergraduate students, $42.5 million in new funding tied to how campuses rank in a series of performance metrics and $50 million that was lapsed from the Systems funding in the 2015-17 budget.

Its not clear how many other lawmakers share Fitzgeralds concern about the foundations, or how they will affect votes on UW funding.

Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester, said he hasnt seen evidence the scandal extends beyond UW-Oshkosh and wouldnt necessarily tie it into budget discussions.

Cross did not face hostile questioning during Thursdays committee meetings; only one member of the Joint Finance Committee, Rep. Mark Born, R-Beaver Dam, brought up the transactions at UW-Oshkosh.

Questions about fees, internships

Lawmakers spent more of their time at Thursdays budget hearing discussing other pieces of Walkers proposal.

Cross has described the budget as the best UW has seen in more than a decade, though he has called for changes to give System officials more funding for building maintenance and authority over some construction projects.

Sen. Lena Taylor, D-Milwaukee, said a budget provision that would let students opt out of paying for certain fees could threaten funding for campus bus lines, potentially increasing costs for students who rely on public transportation. That proposal could also reduce support for student government and other organizations Taylor said provide a valuable service to students.

It really gives you an opportunity to learn budgeting, really run organizations and do so much, Taylor said of student government.

Walker has said the proposal will help control the cost of college and give students more choice in deciding what campus organizations to support.

Others took issue with a requirement in Walkers budget that students hold an internship or have other work experience with a Wisconsin business before they can graduate.

Our students are stretched in so many different ways, and I have a concern about making it a requirement, said Sen. Leah Vukmir, R-Brookfield.

Cross noted the Systems budget request sought funding to help more students get internships with Wisconsin companies, but said Walkers proposal went a little further than I would have gone by making them mandatory.
Representation of the temperatures on the surface of the Atlantic Ocean near the north-american coast. In blue, the colder bodies of water where biological activity is more important. In yellow, warmer bodies of water where biological activity is weaker. Along the PlanetSolar itinerary, the colored dots represent the concentration of organic aerosols, from blue (light concentration) to red (strong concentration). Credit: UNIGE

Aerosols are collections of fine particles, either biological or of other types, suspended in a gaseous medium. They play a major role in cloud formation and therefore have a strong impact on climate models. They are, however, extremely hard to study due to the small size and immense variety of their constituent particles. But researchers from the University of Geneva (UNIGE), Switzerland, members of the PlanetSolar Deepwater expedition, have now linked the composition of marine biological aerosolsand therefore their influence on the climateto the composition of bodies of water within the Atlantic Ocean, thereby paving the way to an indirect study of these aerosols through water analysis. This study, which has been published in Scientific Reports, will contribute to making climate models more accurate.

Over the oceans, some aerosols contain organic or biological ingredients (bacteria, degradation products of microscopic algae) which come from sea spray, others are transported in the air (mineral dust, smoke). They serve as seeds for forming clouds and also reflect light. Their role is extremely important for modelling clouds, and therefore for the climate in general. But due to the small size of the particles and their large quantity, it's difficult to accurately study them. So researchers at the University of Geneva (UNIGE) asked themselves if it were possible to characterize biological aerosols through the composition of the water where they originate.

"To answer this question, we needed two tools," explains Jerome Kasparian, professor in the Department of Applied Physics at the UNIGE Science Faculty. "The first is a detector of fluorescence which we designed, called Biobox, and which enables us to analyse aerosol particles one by one. The spectrum gives us information on their composition and distinguishes the organic particles, which are fluorescent, from the other particles. Then we needed PlanetSolar." Indeed, this research could only be undertaken over a long time period without any disturbances of water and air. Only PlanetSolar, a solar boat, remains at sea for three months and produces no emissions, making the study possible.

During the expedition, scientists carried out analysis of the salinity, temperature, dissolved oxygen and the microalgae contained in the various bodies of water in the Atlantic, and then compared this data with that obtained by the Biobox. "And we found that they matched!" exclaims Jerome Kasparian. The physicists discovered that biological aerosols are related to the temperature and salinity of the sea. According to previous criteria, water creates large bodies that don't inter-mix, which allows them to be differentiated. Thus, when the characteristics of a water mass were favourable for reproduction of microalgae, researchers noticed that after a certain amount of time, the aerosols detected above this same water mass contained more biological particles. The biological fraction of aerosols is therefore linked to the history of biological activity of bodies of water close to the surface. "Provided that this is also valid in oceans and seas other than the Atlantic, our research location, our results would allow us to estimate biological aerosols by directly studying the bodies of water, which would simplify aerosol characterization and make climate models more accurate," adds Kasparian. Difficult to study directly, aerosols are now being studied via the sea, which, unlike aerosols, can easily be analysed by satellites.
Found only on the island of Mauritius in the Indian Ocean, the Mauritius Fruit Bat is threatened with extinction because of habitat loss, hunting and now government culls over conflicts with fruit-farmers. Credit: Jaques de Speville

Three decades after being recognized as a group in need of conservation efforts, large fruit-eating bats still face an increasingly uncertain future on tropical islands as populations dwindle and threats close in, according to a Texas Tech University faculty member's new Perspectives article in Science magazine.

Through the article, "Can we protect island flying foxes?" Tigga Kingston, an associate professor in the Department of Biological Sciences, and her co-authors  Christian E. Vincenot from Kyoto University and F. B. Vincent Florens from University of Mauritius  hope to promote conservation action and research on the bats to halt further declines.

"Island flying foxes were recognized as a group of conservation concern more than 30 years ago when intense hunting and commercial trading of species on Pacific islands precipitated the extinction of at least one species, the endemic Guam flying fox, and led to dramatic declines in others," Kingston said. "Thirty years later, flying fox populations on islands are still declining because of hunting and habitat loss, and new issues, notably conflict between bats and fruit growers over crops, have arisen."

According to the article, this conflict has led the government of one island nation, Mauritius, to implement mass killings of one species, Pteropus niger. The government's figures suggest at least 45 percent of the overall population was eliminated during the events. Kingston and her co-authors note that losses likely top 50 percent due to illegal killings and incidental mortality of bat pups.

The Mauritius Fruit Bat flying free -- despite international protest, the government of Mauritius reported culling over 40,000 individuals in just two years. Credit: Jaques de Speville Like all island flying foxes, the Mauritius Fruit Bat plays a key role in island ecosystems as a pollinator and seed disperser. Credit: Jaques de Speville

The article resulted from a symposium on the conservation of island vertebrates during the Second International Conference of Island Evolution, Ecology and Conservation in 2016. Kingston, Vincenot and Florens all presented about flying foxes and decided the time was right for an update on the animals' situation.

"I had hoped that 30 years on, the conservation status of flying foxes on islands would have improved," Kingston said. "That's not the case.

"Conservation on islands is especially challenging  island populations are inherently small, often endemic to the island or of limited distribution, and threats such as loss of native habitats and introduction of non-native species commonly interact to place immense pressure on remnant populations," she explained. "Within this context, however, island flying foxes are particularly vulnerable because they are simultaneously subject to so many interacting threats and reproduce very slowly. So populations are very slow to recover from losses, increasing extinction risk."

The Mauritius Fruit Bat flying free -- despite international protest, the government of Mauritius reported culling over 40,000 individuals in just two years. Credit: Jaques de Speville

Of the 65 species of flying foxes, 53 species are restricted to paleotropical islands and archipelagos in the Pacific and Indian oceans. Nearly half of all flying fox species, 31, are threatened with extinction, and 28 of them are island species.

"On top of all this, bats often have a bit of public relations problem, feared or associated with negative myths, or just considered a nuisance, and the importance of the critical ecosystem services they provide to island communities is rarely known," Kingston said. "Island flying foxes play keystone roles as seed dispersers and pollinators of both native and economically important plants, and on many islands they are the only effective disperser or pollinator left. The rest, like the dodo on Mauritius, are already lost to extinction. The key point is that declines and losses of flying foxes are not just a tragedy in their own right, but will have profound consequences for island ecosystems in the coming decades."

More information: Christian E. Vincenot et al. Can we protect island flying foxes?, Science (2017). DOI: 10.1126/science.aam7582 Journal information: Science
The Bundeswehr's new Cyber and Information Space (CIR) Command, based in the former West German capital of Bonn, will start off with 260 IT specialists but grow to 13,500 military and civilian personnel by July

Germany's armed forces Saturday launch a cyber command, with a status equal to that of the army, navy and air force, meant to shield its IT and weapons systems from attack.

Military planners fear that wars of the future will start with cyber attacks against critical infrastructure and networks, extensive online espionage and sabotage.

The Bundeswehr's new Cyber and Information Space (CIR) Command, based in the former West German capital of Bonn, will start off with 260 IT specialists but grow to 13,500 military and civilian personnel by July.

With the new digital force, Germany is taking a leading role among NATO allies, its new commander, Lieutenant General Ludwig Leinhos, told news weekly Focus.

Leinhos said the main tasks would be to operate and protect the military's own IT infrastructure and computer-assisted weapons systems, as well as surveillance of online threats.

He said the centre would also develop and war-game offensive capabilities because "in order to be able to defend yourself, you have to know the options for attack".

However, any full-scale cyber attacks abroad would have to be approved by the German parliament, just like any other military mission.

The security of national and government IT systems, meanwhile, remains the responsibility of the interior ministry which oversees the domestic security agency that handles counterespionage.

The German government has been sensitised to cyber security since the parliament was attacked last year, with security sources suspecting Russian hackers behind the attack.

Defence Minister Ursula von der Leyen had announced the creation of the cyber command two years ago to protect the military from increasing numbers of online attacks.

The defence ministry said that in this year's first nine weeks alone, the IT systems of the Bundeswehr had been targeted more than 280,000 times.

Leinhos said that "we are in a constant race between the development of attack options and defensive capabilities".

 2017 AFP
Credit: University of Melbourne

The news that a man was swallowed whole by a snake on an Indonesian island leaves more than an uncomfortable lump in the throat. Images that can't be unseen  including a six-minute video of the snake being sliced open to unveil a fully-clothed, very dead human in its stomach  fuel the horror movie hysteria.

Dr Sasha Herbert, who runs the exotic pet unit at the University of Melbourne's U-Vet Werribee, sees beyond the macabre in the demise of a 25-year-old Sulawesi palm oil plantation worker. While snakes eating humans is rare, Dr Herbert says it's also merely an extreme example of nature at work.

"It's awful for that person and the people around him. But it's equally awful for the antelope to be eaten by the lion. Our world is a food chain. This isn't anything special or unusual for an animal to do, it was just taking an opportunity."

Setting aside the grisly YouTube footage, there's fascination aplenty in the science of this tragedy. In short the why, and particularly the how. Dr Herbert, who worked in zoos for a decade including six years in Singapore, notes that the continuing creep of humans into the habitat of wild animals is an open invitation for such encounters.

"There're fewer and fewer of these poor animals because we have encroached further and further into their habitat. Anywhere that you have a predator that's big enough, you have the potential for humans to be their prey."

Reticulated pythons are the worlds longest snakes and one of the heaviest. This specimen in captivity is eating a chicken. Credit: Wikipedia

In this case we're talking an eight-metre long reticulated python that could weigh well in excess of 100 kilograms, depending on its fat storage (which in pythons can be very large).

Dr Herbert says they are "ambush predators  not hunters"; they lie in wait for their meal, and in South East Asia dine on anything from rodents to deer and myriad mammals in between. In general they feast at ground level, being too heavy to reach into trees.

While the victim had a back wound that could have been caused by a bite, Dr Herbert wonders if some separate misfortune may have befallen him before the python came across what it would have seen as "a large, tasty morsel that will do me for quite a while". Pythons can strike defensively  to lacerate and frighten danger away  or with a grab-and-hold when they intend to eat whatever they strike. They are non-venomous, yet contrary to the two-fanged caricature they have many teeth  two rows at the top and one and the bottom.

Then comes the fatal squeeze.

"They strike their prey to grab hold of it, then very quickly wrap loops around the body to hold onto that prey," Dr Herbert says. "They're holding on and slowly with each breath they hold tighter and tighter, so its asphyxiation that kills the prey." A fit, strong person might be able to fight it off, but not if the python's first strike was effective enough to establish an unbreakable hold.

Reticulated pythons are sometimes found on the outskirts of Bangkok, and often require two people to carry them. Credit: Wikipedia

Reticulated pythons are one of few snakes that grow big enough to be able to swallow a human. Once they've constricted their prey, their incredible jaw  which in a quirk of evolution features bones that are found in our inner ear  comes into play.

"Their jaw can open wider and doesn't have the same hinge that we have, which allows them to eat something as big as their skin can stretch," Dr Herbert says. Muscle power forces it down, aided by a journey through the esophagus, stomach and intestine that's literally more straightforward than ours. They always swallow their catch head-first, which offers greater lubrication and less friction than the alternative.

While they can go six months and even a year without food, Dr Herbert points to studies showing that a malnourished python's intestine becomes so cell-deprived as to be almost translucent, like cling film. Even a feast comes with risk. An unclothed mammal the size of a human would take a month to digest and sustain the snake for up to a year, but an inability to break down the victim's attire would most likely have eventually killed the python even if the villagers hadn't.

Dr Herbert recalls doing a necropsy on a python whose owner had fed his pet a defrosted rat placed on a remnant of an old t-shirt, only for the snake to wolf down the lot. "The python suffered from an obstruction, just the same as a Labrador does when it eats your socks. The fabric can't be digested, doesn't pass through, causes ulceration and infection. That may have been the outcome for this python. It may not have been a good end."

As it surely wasn't for the Indonesian villager. In happier news, Dr Herbert says that while Australia boasts many species of python (the largest being the carpet python of the Morelia genus), none of them grow big enough to eat a human. As for the schlock horror notion that giant snakes could get a taste for humans, that's simply ridiculous. In captivity pythons might learn to like only the rats they are fed, but in the wild they take what they can get.

"There's always myths and magic flying around. People are not easy prey, and they're mostly too big for even the biggest pythons. They're usually not slowed down or quiet enough to be easily grabbed. It's nonsense to say pythons could develop a taste for humans. It's just that they happen to be big enough to try if the opportunity arises."
Researcher Dr Ceiridwen Edwards. Credit: University of Huddersfield

Researchers at the University of Huddersfield have visited Rethymnon in Crete, to collect samples from the late Bronze Age Necropolis of Armenoi, one of the world's finest archaeological sites. DNA analysis of the ancient skeletal remains could provide fresh insights into the origins of European civilisation.

Dr Ceiridwen Edwards and PhD student George Foody were permitted to take bone samples and teeth from over 110 of the more than 600 skeletons discovered in the Necropolis, a rock-hewn burial site from the Late Minoan period dating to more than 4,000 years ago. During their two-week visit, the Huddersfield researchers  part of a team that included colleagues from Oxford University and the Hellenic Archaeological Research Foundation  also took DNA swabs from more than 100 contemporary Cretans. They sought people whose grandmothers were from Crete in order to analyse links to the Minoan period.

When the ancient DNA samples are compared with those of modern Cretans, there is the potential to find solutions to many issues surrounding the ancient migration of people and culture to an island where the Bronze Age Minoans and their successors the Mycenaeans laid foundations for later European civilisation and culture.

"The Minoans are one of Europe's earliest civilisations and research will affect the interpretation of a number of fields  archaeological, historical and social," said George Foody.

For example, fresh light could be thrown on the migration of the Mycenaeans to Crete, and on the origins of the early script known as Linear B. Also, the DNA analysis might establish family relationships between the occupants of the tombs, and it might be possible to establish the presence of a high status dynasty.

"We are trying to establish family relationships within the necropolis itself, as well as see how the site compares to other Minoan sites, and compare it to sites in mainland Greece," added Mr Foody.

His PhD supervisor, Dr Edwards, is Senior Research Fellow in Archaeogenetics at the University of Huddersfield, which is home to the University's Archaeogenetics Research Group. It has fully-equipped modern and ancient DNA lab facilities and studies the geographic distribution of human genetic variation, aiming to address questions from archaeology, anthropology and history.

The Research Group is the recipient of a 1 million award by the Leverhulme Trust, under its Doctoral Scholarships scheme, which will train 15 new evolutionary geneticists. George Foody, from Cork in Ireland, is one of the second cohort of doctoral trainees, and his visit to Crete was part-funded by the Leverhulme Award. His PhD thesis will focus on the results of this research.

While the Huddersfield duo and their colleagues were in Crete, there was considerable local media interest, including TV coverage.

During her research career, Dr Edwards has studied DNA of archaeological samples from many species, including giant Irish deer, domestic horse, wild boar, domestic pig, brown bear, and red deer, dating from 1,000 to 40,000 years ago. Her speciality has been the study of aurochs, the ancestors of domestic cattle, as well as ancient cattle breeds.
This soap film contained within a metal rod has junctions where multiple soap films meet each other. In 2014, Prof. Jenny Harrison of UC Berkley extended the solution to the Plateau problem to account for more complicated soap film shapes such as this one. Credit: Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology

Often used for children's fun, soap bubbles are delicate, light-reflecting films that typically last just a few seconds before bursting. But beyond their value to entertain, soap bubbles are physical examples of the rich mathematical problem of minimal surfaces; they assume the shape of the least surface area possible, containing a given volume. Researchers at the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University (OIST) have recently worked out the solution to a mathematical problemknown as the Kirchhoff-Plateau problemthat is simply illustrated by soap films that span flexible loops.

"Our solution of the KirchhoffPlateau problem brings beautiful mathematical results close to what happens in the physical world," says Dr. Giulio Giusteri, coauthor of the paper which was recently published in the Journal of Nonlinear Science. Dr. Giusteri worked with Professor Eliot Fried, who heads OIST's Mathematical Soft Matter Unit, and Dr. Luca Lussardi from the Universita Cattolica del Sacro Cuore in Italy.

The question answered by the team is a variant of the "Plateau problem", a centuries-old mathematical problem, named after 19th century Belgian physicist, Joseph Plateau. Plateau hypothesized that when you dip a rigid wire frame into a soap solution, the surface of the soap film formed on the frame represents a minimum mathematically possible area, no matter the shape of the frame.

The first satisfactory solution for the Plateau problem was provided in the 20th century, by American mathematician Jesse Douglas, for which he was awarded the Fields Medal in 1936. More recently, in 2014, Professor Jenny Harrison from UC Berkeley extended Douglas's work, providing a proof valid under general hypotheses encompassing, for example, situations in which junctions are present where multiple soap films meet each other.

Soap films contained within a flexible loop exert a force on the loop, causing it to change shape. For instance, the same loop can form a star shape or a swan shape depending on the surface tension of the soap film. Credit: Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology

In contrast to the Plateau problem in which a soap film spans a fixed frame, the Kirchhoff-Plateau problem concerns the equilibrium shapes of soap films that span flexible loops, made, for instance, of fishing line, that can be described using Kirchhoff's theory of rodsa model that provides a powerful approach for studying the statics and dynamics of thin elastic rods. The complication is that a flexible loop can change shape in response to the force exerted by the soap film. As such, a solution to the problem requires determining not only the shape of the soap film but also the shape of the bounding loop. In contrast, the shape of the boundary in the original Plateau problem is known because it is made of rigid wire that remains fixed against the relatively weak forces of the soap film.

An additional complication associated with the Kirchhoff-Plateau problem is that unlike the original Plateau problem in which the boundary is assumed to be one-dimensional, a Kirchhoff rod is a three-dimensional object. Although filaments like fishing line are thin, they are orders of magnitude thicker than a soap film in equilibrium, meaning that the area of the soap film can change depending on the point at which the film contacts the loop.

The researchers successfully translated all these physical effects into mathematical terms. As Prof. Fried explains: "No matter how strong the competition is between surface tension of the soap film and the elastic response of the loop, the system is always able to adjust to achieve a configuration of least energy."

The solution to the Kirchhoff-Plateau problem not only contributes to the understanding of energy minimizing mathematical shapes, but can also be applied to biological systems. For instance, it could help us understand how the shape of a protein determines how it interacts with and binds to a surface.

The team is now working on computer simulations that, based on this mathematical model, can predict the behavior of physical systems.

More information: Giulio G. Giusteri et al. Solution of the KirchhoffPlateau Problem, Journal of Nonlinear Science (2017). DOI: 10.1007/s00332-017-9359-4
How well can speech be understood and can that be predicted? The researchers tested their algorithm with 849 participants. Credit: RUB, Schirdewahn

Prof Dr Dorothea Kolossa and Mahdie Karbasi from the research group Cognitive Signal Processing at Ruhr-Universitat Bochum (RUB) have developed a method for predicting speech intelligibility in noisy surroundings. The results of their experiments are more precise than those gained through the standard methods applied hitherto. They might thus facilitate the development process of hearing aids. The research was carried out in the course of the EU-funded project "Improved Communication through Applied Hearing Research", or "I can hear" for short.

Specific algorithms in hearing aids filter out background noises to ensure that wearers are able to understand speech in every situation  regardless if they are in a packed restaurant or near a busy road. The challenge for the researchers is to maintain high speech transmission quality while filtering out background noises. Before an optimised hearing aid model is released to the market, new algorithms are subject to time-consuming tests.

Researchers and industrial developers run hearing tests with human participants to analyse to what extent the respective new algorithms will ensure speech intelligibility. If they were able to assess speech intelligibility reliably in an automated process, they could cut down on time-consuming test practices.

New algorithm developed

To date, the standard approaches for predicting speech intelligibility have included the so-called STOI method (short time objective speech intelligibility measure) and other reference-based methods. These methods require a clear original signal, i.e. an audio track that's been recorded without any background noises. Based on the differences between original and filtered sound, the value of speech intelligibility is estimated. Kolossa and Karbasi have found a way to predict intelligibility without needing a clear reference signal, which is still more precise than the STOI method. Consequently, Kolossa and Karbasi's findings might help reduce test processes in the product development phase of hearing aids.

The RUB researchers have tested their method with 849 individuals with normal hearing. To this end, the participants were asked to assess audio files via an online platform. With the aid of their algorithm, Kolossa and Karbasi estimated which percentage of a sentence from the respective file would be understood by the participants. Subsequently, they compared their predicted value with the test results.

Research outlook

In the next step, Kolossa and Karbasi intend to run the same tests with hearing-impaired participants. They are working on algorithms that can assess and optimise speech intelligibility in accordance with the individual perception threshold or type of hearing impairment. In the best case scenario, the study will thus provide methods for engineering an intelligent hearing aid. Such hearing aids could automatically recognise the wearer's current surroundings and situation. If he or she steps from a quiet street into a restaurant, the hearing aid would register an increase in background noises. Accordingly, it would filter out the ambient noises  if possible without impairing the quality of the speech signal.

About the project

The main objective of the project "Improved Communication through Applied Hearing Research" was to optimise hearing aids and cochlear implants to ensure that they fulfil their function for their wearer even in very noisy surroundings. RUB researchers worked in an international team together with researchers from the UK, Switzerland, Denmark, and Belgium. Prof Dr Rainer Martin from the RUB Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Information Technology headed the EU-funded project. Industrial partners were hearing aid manufacturer Sivantos and cochlear implant company Cochlear. "I can hear" ended in December 2016.
Members of the Massey University Leptospirosis Research Group (left) Neville Haack, Dr Jackie Benschop, Dr Julie Collins-Emerson and Professor Cord Heuer. Credit: Massey University

Massey University researchers have found that a strain of leptospirosis may be more frequent in New Zealand dairy herds than first thought, posing public health concerns for farmers, veterinarians and dairy workers.

The study was the first to explore the effect of long-term vaccination in a nationally representative sample. Two hundred dairy herds randomly selected from throughout New Zealand and 20 milking cattle were sampled [blood and urine] from each herd between December 2015 and March 2016.

The findings indicated that 97.6 per cent of dairy cows in 73.5 per cent of the herds did not shed Leptospira. However, 2.4 per cent of vaccinated cows were shedding from 26.5 per cent of herds. This shedding was predominately associated with a positive blood test to a strain (serovar Tarassovi), which has previously been rare and is therefore not currently controlled by vaccines.

Director of the EpiCentre Professor Cord Heuer says that until new vaccines become available, people in rural occupations need to be aware and take protective measures against leptospirosis.

"We can now be confident that vaccination is effective in dairy herds, but the Tarassovi strain needs our immediate attention. 2.4 per cent of over five million cows across the country is 120,000 cows  people working with dairy herds are exposed everyday  a vet doing 120 pregnancy tests, a farmhand milking twice a day, even people's families are at risk of exposure. The fact that the new strain is associated with most of the cases of shedding is evidence that the vaccine works for exposure to the predominant strains Hardjobovis, Pomona and Copenhageni.

"Therefore, vaccination programmes need to continue to protect herds, vets and dairy workers from the vicious disease, which means regular programmes with calves receiving first shots at three to six months with booster shots throughout their lives to ensure the best protection," says Professor Heuer.

Dr Julie Collins-Emerson, molecular biologist and leptospirologist, adds "We can't say it enough  the emergence of new strains doesn't mean you should abandon your vaccination programmes against the regular strains as they are still just as dangerous as once they were. Our results reinforce the importance of a multi-faceted approach to this complex disease - controlling rodents and wildlife, good personal hygiene and awareness of risks both on and off the farm."

The list of recommendations is available here.

Dean of Veterinary Sciences Associate Professor Jenny Weston advises, "Farmers must ensure that all cattle on the farm are vaccinated and the vaccine is administered at the right time(s) of year in conjunction with veterinary advice. Other risk management approaches such as rodent control and effluent management need to be included given the risk from other strains of the bacteria, which aren't in the current vaccines. The development of new vaccines is not going to be quick or easy."

"We are using the results of this study to update best practice guidelines for farmers, veterinarians and industry stakeholders in order to reduce infection in animals and people working on farms and in the dairy industry. They come with a list of recommendations for humans coming into contact with herds."

The 'Leptospirosis Dairy Study 2016' from Massey's Farmer Leptospirosis Action Group Dairy (FLAG-Dairy) the first to explore the effect of long-term vaccination in a nationally representative sample of herds by looking at vaccine use and efficacy. It includes representatives from Massey University, the New Zealand Veterinary Association, Rural Women New Zealand and DairyNZ. The group made the study results available to participating farmers, vets, and stakeholders of industries, government and the public.

Funding has been provided by the Sustainable Farming Fund of the Ministry for Primary Industries, AgMardt, and industry and stakeholder groups.

The study was prompted by a small pilot study by Professor Peter Wilson of Massey in 2010-11 that found three per cent of cows properly vaccinated against the disease were shedding [releasing the bacteria via urine]. These results were not representative of the entire New Zealand dairy population - prompting a more in-depth study into the effectiveness of vaccination on farms.

The FLAG-Dairy team at Massey University is represented by chair of the group, Professor Heuer and PhD candidate Yuni Yupiana, who coordinated the collection and testing. The work was done in conjunction with 92 vets from around the country who collected blood and urine samples from stock  in order to be collated at Massey University.

Professor Heuer says the results would not have been possible without many people. "Thank you to the many farmers, veterinarians, veterinary technicians and clinic staff who have assisted us with this."
Giant panda. Credit: Yange Yong

It's an established fact that compatibility is important to humans when picking a matebut conservationists have discovered that Homo sapiens aren't the only species where well-matched personalities may make or break a relationship. According to a study published in Biological Conservation, an international peer-reviewed journal in the discipline of conservation biology, personality traits may play a large part in the mating behaviors of the giant pandaand breeding successes or failures may depend on whether a bear's disposition is complementary to that of its prospective mate. As part of the study, San Diego Zoo Global biologists used various assessments to test their theory, dividing the pandas into several personality categories based on their exploratory ability, aggressiveness, excitability, fearfulness and general activity. Then they tested how the differences in each of these traits influenced the willingness of the bears to mate with one another, and whether such parings produced offspring.

So far, their findings have indicated some personality traits are more effective together than otherseither enhancing chances for reproduction or diminishing them. For example, the data shows that excitable males that paired with less-excitable females fared better reproductively. Also, males that were more aggressive than their female partners, when paired, were more likely to mate and produce cubs than more-aggressive females paired with less-aggressive males.The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) last year reclassified the giant panda as

Vulnerableindicating in their report that current conservation efforts are working; however, they acknowledged that panda breeding still remains a problem. Currently, scientists count nearly 2,000 giant pandas living in their native habitatsand the majority of them are adults. While breeding and reintroduction programs are becoming more effective by providing more pandas to bolster the wild populations, conservationists believe that learning more about the importance of personality combinations in breeding success could ultimately help boost the number of pandas even furthernot only in accredited zoos, but also in their habitats in China.

San Diego Zoo Global's role in panda conservation began decades ago, when the San Diego Zoo first introduced two giant pandason loan from Chinato the American public. The Zoo's historic giant panda breeding program began after female panda Bai Yun (pronounced By Yoon) arrived in 1996. She was the first panda to successfully give birth to surviving cubs in the United Statesand since then, she has helped researchers and keepers learn more about panda behavior, pregnancy, birth and maternal care.
Climate scientists need to follow the lead of "sentinels" like Albert Einstein and Sherwood Rowland, says Professor Noami Oreskes. Credit: Silvia Mazzocchin

The facts, unfortunately, don't speak for themselves.

That's why scientists have to speak out, according to Naomi Oreskes, a Harvard history of science professor who has taken a close look at the causes and effects of climate change denial.

Oreskes, co-author, with Erik Conway, of the 2010 book "Merchants of Doubt," said that many climate scientists today are loath to speak out on the issue, instead saying that their role ends with gathering and presenting the facts. They worry that being viewed as an advocate or activist will damage scientific credibility.

In a talk Wednesday at the Science Center, Oreskes offered historical examples, from Albert Einstein's advocacy for nuclear arms control to Sherwood Rowland's clamoring for action to stop the ozone hole, of scientists who called attention to a threat poorly understood by the public without sacrificing their scientific integrity.

Climate science, Oreskes said, needs more knowledgeable people explaining potential effects, so that citizens better understand that it's a crisis affecting them and their communities, not just distant glaciers and polar bears. Despite having given hundreds of talks on the issue, Oreskes is not confident that enough people understand just how serious uncontrolled climate change would be.

There are times, Oreskes said, that a scientist must serve as a "sentinel"someone who knows about a threat before the public and policymakers, and acts to alert society to that danger. In recent history there have been many examples, she pointed out, ranging from ozone and nuclear weapons to secondhand smoke and acid rain.

In the case of nuclear weapons, despite broad appreciation that nuclear bombs were hugely destructive, most of the worldeven President Harry Truman, who said the U.S. would win any nuclear arms racedidn't understand that the scale of destruction potentially threatened the planet, she noted.

Similarly, in the 1970s, when Rowland realized that chlorofluorocarbons used in spray cans and refrigeration were harming the ozone that protected the planet from cancer-causing radiation, he spoke out and worked toward a ban, enacted in an international treaty, the Montreal Protocol of 1987.

"They were acting as sentinels, calling attention to issues not yet publicly recognized," Oreskes said.

Setting limits around expertise is important, Oreskes said. In climate, she said, that means explaining the science behind the issue, talking about the potential impacts, and noting the need for action. She warned against stepping beyond expertise to a field where one has little experiencefor an atmospheric scientist, for example, to push a carbon tax over emissions trading as a way to curb CO2 emissions, a choice better left to policy experts.

In her talk, sponsored by the Physics Department and hosted by Professor Melissa Franklin, Oreskes noted where the history of climate study offers examples of scientists serving as sentinels, including Roger Revelle, who wrote a 1965 report calling attention to carbon dioxide emissions' potential to cause a greenhouse effect that would warm the planet. The report, Oreskes said, was well-received by government officials at the time and proved prescient, predicting that if nothing was done, atmospheric carbon dioxide could rise 25 percent by 2000, a level at which climate effects would be visible.

Part of the reason facts can't be left to speak for themselves, Oreskes said, is that facts have enemies. There have been repeated backlashes when scientific insights demand government action, and those backlashes often include attempts to discredit the facts, she said.

Drawing on "Merchants of Doubt," Oreskes made a case for the limits of fact-based arguments in the face of climate change denial.

Denial, she said, isn't about science but about individualism, skepticism of government power, the self-interest of those in affected industries, and conceptions of freedom. For those moved by those concerns, climate change is just the latest in a series of scientific problems leading to greater government intrusion. Disputing climate facts has roots in fear, Oreskes saidnot of climate, but of higher taxes, bigger government, and lost freedoms.

That's why fighting on the facts is not enough, she said. Deploying a value-based argumentsuch as the values of fairness, of responsibility, of protecting healthis crucial.

"Lots of people are willing to speak against the facts," she said. "Someone has to speak for the facts. That someone is us."
Protests that bring many people to the streets who agree among themselves and have a single message are most likely to influence elected officials, suggests a new study.

"We found that features of a protest can alter the calculations of politicians and how they view an issue," said Ruud Wouters, an assistant professor of political communication and journalism at the University of Amsterdam and the lead author of the study. "More specifically, the number of participants and unity are the characteristics of a protest that have the greatest ability to change politicians' opinions."

The study, titled, "Demonstrating Power: How Protest Persuades Political Representatives," appears in the April issue of the American Sociological Review. Relying on data from 269 elected officials in Belgium, Wouters and his co-author Stefaan Walgrave, a professor of political science and head of Media, Movements, and Politics at the University of Antwerp, asked the politicians a series of questions to gage their attitudes on asylum for refugees. They then showed each elected official fictional television news reports about a demonstration on Belgium's asylum policy for refugees. In the clips, the demonstrators criticized Belgium's asylum procedure, demanding a quicker, more humane, and less arbitrary process for granting asylum. The politicians viewed the clips in the spring of 2015, well before the dramatic increase in Syrian refugees requesting asylum in Europe,

In total, the researchers constructed 32 clips, each containing a unique combination of the protest features. Clips were grouped in sets of two, with each official viewing clips that were complete opposites. The features the researchers manipulated included the demonstrators' worthiness (whether or not the protest was peaceful), unity (whether or not the protestors agreed among themselves and had a single message), numerical strength (whether or not the crowd was large), and commitment (whether or not further protests were scheduled). After each clip, the politicians were questioned about their opinion regarding the salience of the protest issue, their position on the protest issue, and the actions they intended to undertake regarding the protest issue. The researchers controlled for the officials' preexisting beliefs on asylum and for the order in which they viewed the clips.

"We found that the number of protestors and unity affected politicians' salience, position, and intended actions," Wouters said. "Worthiness and commitment induced effects on position and salience, respectively."

Interestingly, the study showed that worthiness, unity, numerical strength, and commitment similarly influenced elected officials from the left and the right of the political spectrum, as well as those who held pro-asylum stances and those who did not.

"Because political survival through public support in elections is the main motive of representatives, it makes sense for them to let their own opinion be affected by their perception of what the public, or a relevant segment of the public, wants," Wouters said. "But, politicians do not turn like the wind. We find that elected officials' predispositions are much more important in their opinion formation than any features of a protest."

While the study focused on the impact of protests on politicians in Belgium, Wouters said that protestors in the United States may be able to draw lessons from the research.

"I think the immediacy and massiveness of recent U.S. protests, such as the women's march in Washington, DC, impressed many observers," he said. "The question is how long lived will they be. Are they just outbursts, or will they be something more persistent? This plays into the commitment of the protestors. Will the attention span of the protestors be long enough to continue? And, in relation to unity, what will be the main message? Will it occur under an anti-Trump banner? Or, will it be more dispersed, less coherent, with many different claims?"

Wouters noted that if the U.S. protests become violent, they are less likely to have the desired effect on elected officials. "Our study suggests that violence will further polarize the situation and burn bridges," he said. "The anti-Trump protests should feed dissent in the Republican party. If the anti-Trump protestors misbehave, it becomes difficult for potential supporters, especially within the Republican party, to back them up and criticize Trump and his policies."

Whether in Belgium, the United States, or elsewhere around the world, Wouters believes the study is important "because it deals with the essence of what democracies should be about: responsiveness of representatives to signals of public opinion."
In the 1980s, scientists discovered that a proton's three valance quarks (red, green, blue) account for only a fraction of the proton's overall spin. More recent measurements have revealed that gluons (yellow corkscrews) contribute as much as or possibly more than the quarks. Credit: Brookhaven National Laboratory

Calculating a proton's spin used to be an easy college assignment. In fact, Carl Gagliardi remembers answering that question when he was a physics graduate student in the 1970s. But the real answer turned out not to be simple at all. Even Gagliardi's "right" response was disproven by experiments a few years later that turned the field upside-down.

Protons are one of the three particles that make up atoms, the building blocks of the universe. A proton's spin is one of its most basic properties. Because protons are in part made up of quarks, scientists presumed the proton spins were just the sum of the quark spins.

But studies in the 1980s showed that reality is far more complex. Since then, Gagliardi and other researchers have used the unique DOE Office of Science User Facilities at Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility (Jefferson Lab) and Brookhaven National Laboratory to explore this fundamental phenomenon.

Investigating a Force of Nature

Protons always have "spin." The direction and strength of a proton's spin determines its magnetic and electrical properties. Changes to the proton's spin also alter its structure.

"By understanding how [a proton's components] play off of each other to produce spin, we can learn about how Mother Nature builds a proton," said Gagliardi, now a researcher at the Cyclotron Institute at Texas A&M. He collaborates on work at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC), a DOE Office of Science User Facility at Brookhaven National Laboratory on Long Island, New York.

Having a better grasp of protons' spin and structure could lead to unexpected benefits. Just as James Clerk Maxwell's discoveries about electromagnetism in the 1860s set the foundation for today's electronics, some scientists think understanding proton spin could lead to similar advances.

"[Maxwell's equations] were mankind's mastery over a fundamental force of nature, electromagnetism," said John Lajoie, an Iowa State researcher who works on RHIC. "What we are trying to do is gain a fundamental understanding of the force that binds the quarks to the proton."

Unexpected Findings

"Studying spin in physics has led to a lot of surprises," said Elke-Caroline Aschenauer, who leads Brookhaven's research group focused on proton spin. But nature hasn't given up its secrets easily.

Researchers first thought that each proton consisted entirely of only three quarks, which together determined the spin. Quarks are elementary particles that scientists have not been able to break down into smaller parts.

But the closer they looked, the more complex the picture got. The initial experiment at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) suggested quark spins contributed almost nothing to the proton spin. Since then, more precise experiments have raised the quark spin contribution to 25 to 30 percent. That leaves a good deal unaccounted for.

Rather than being disappointed, many physicists were thrilled.

"I live for being wrong," said Lajoie. "That's where we learn."

Banging Particles Together

To investigate protons and other subatomic particles, scientists use accelerators to collide them at velocities near the speed of light.

"Particle physicists have not really evolved much further than the days of the cavemen in terms of banging two rocks together," joked Lajoie.

(left) The Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider at Brookhaven National Laboratory. (right) The Continuous Electron Beam Accelerator Facility at Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Laboratory. Photo courtesy of Jefferson Laboratory. Credit: Brookhaven National Laboratory

The accelerators at Brookhaven and Jefferson Labs have the unique ability to polarize streams of particles. This means that they coordinate the particles' spins so that they are aligned in the same direction.

At the Continuous Electron Beam Accelerator Facility (CEBAF), a DOE Office of Science User Facility at Jefferson Lab in Newport News, Virginia, the machine shoots a polarized beam of electrons into a stationary target. The target is also polarized. Colliding the beam of electrons with the protons or neutrons in the target gives scientists particularly good insight into quarks' contributions to spin. When the beam strikes the target, particles scatter off at different angles. An electron spectrometer then identifies what types and how many particles resulted from the experiment.

RHIC at Brookhaven sends two beams of protons through a four-mile-long tunnel. When they collide, the particles tear each other apart and regroup immediately. They strike two house-sized detectors that collect data on their direction, momentum, and energy.

"It's just an amazing accomplishment of humankind," said Ernst Sichtermann, a researcher at DOE's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and deputy spokesperson for one of RHIC's experiments.

As the only facility that can polarize and collide protons, RHIC is useful for understanding gluons' contribution. Gluons are the particles that hold quarks together to form protons and neutrons.

Comparing and contrasting results is an essential part of proton spin research. Both laboratories conduct experiments that examine what happens when you collide particles that are spinning in the same direction versus those spinning in opposite directions. To determine how a specific particle, such as a gluon or quark, contributes to spin, researchers compare the number and type of particles that result from different configurations of the beams and target.

One of the main challenges is collecting and analyzing the incredible amount of data. Much of the work focuses on collecting the correct data and minimizing errors or biases.

"That is where one becomes a real physicist," said Gagliardi. "Ninety-five percent of the scientific analysis time is devoted to identifying, quantifying and limiting those biases."

Understanding the Contributions

Using these tools, physicists realized that the proton's structure isn't simple at all. It's an ocean of shifting quarks and gluons. In addition, gluons rapidly split into short-lived pairs of quarks and anti-quarks (known as sea quarks). Anti-quarks have similar characteristic to quarks, except the opposite charge.

A number of experiments have examined possible sources of spin.

One experiment at RHIC found that the spins of anti-quarks often aren't aligned in the same direction. As a result, it's unlikely they contribute much to the proton's spin.

Another study tackled the role of gluons. In 2014, scientists found experimental data that demonstrated gluons contribute significantly to proton spin. In fact, they contribute about 20 to 30 percent of it.

A follow-on experiment focused on "wimpy" gluons with low momentum. Previous studies had underestimated the contribution of these gluons. But collisions at much higher energies found that while single "wimpy" gluons contribute almost nothing, the sheer number of them results in quite a bit of influence.

There's one major source that researchers haven't yet explored: orbital angular momentum. Orbital angular momentum comes from the movement of the quarks and gluons relative to each other. While theorists have developed simulations that model this contribution, scientists haven't had the equipment to test them.

That will change with the opening of a major upgrade to CEBAF. Doubling the accelerator's energy and providing better resolution will allow scientists to study orbital angular momentum. The lab staff members expect to have the upgraded accelerator fully running in the next year.

"There's no other beam like it elsewhere in the world," said Robert McKeown, Jefferson Lab's deputy director of research.
UK scientists protest against proposed cuts in 2010. Credit: Shane/Flickr, CC BY-SA

It's not an easy time for scientists to talk to the wider public. The US president, Donald Trump, has called global warming "bullshit" and a "Chinese hoax". In the UK, leave campaigner and MP Michael Gove famously declared that people "have had enough of experts". But now UK MPs have published a report arguing that there should greater backing for public dialogue and engagement with science.

The new report, published by the UK House of Commons Science and Technology Committee, follows a 12-month inquiry into science communication. It argues that scientists need support to be more prominent as communicators, more strategic in how they develop relationships with the media and need to engage more with the general public to ensure that science benefits everyone.

Perhaps the most important obstacle to this is time. Most scientists  especially those working in universities  are not given time for science communication. So work like this is often seen as voluntary or added value. Without proper recognition, there will never be a serious, strategic science communication.

Scientists have a wide range of opportunities to engage with the public and communicate their knowledge. For instance, there is a worldwide network of "cafes scientifique", which take researchers into cafes, pubs and other unusual spaces to talk about their research. This is often the best way to engage with the public, because it happens in a place where they are comfortable. And even if a presentation doesn't in itself go far enough to convince people that science is worthwhile, the message might get across better over a drink after the talk.

The report also highlights the need for the government to be more visibly involved with science communication. Part of this involves providing more funding for science communication  but the report also argues that public engagement needs an overhaul, with less talking at the public and more public involvement. It says good practice includes initiatives such as using "citizen juries" in science governance, in which members of the public are invited to help policymakers reach decisions. This is a great idea. If the public felt more engaged in science and developed a proper understanding of how it operates, the chances are their trust in expertise and evidence would naturally increase.

Changing media landscape

The report also has a lot of recommendations for science journalists, who obviously have an important role and a great responsibility in driving what the wider public thinks about science.

Of course, journalism has suffered significant cuts in recent years  including science journalism. The number of science journalists has been steadily declining and the content is increasingly based on press releases.

The report cites evidence showing that only 28% of people believe that science journalists check the "reliability of research findings before they write about them". It also notes that reporters typically cover new scientific findings rather than the general methods and principles of science. This represents a problem to the MPs who compiled the report who believe that an understanding of methods is crucial in order for journalists to make sound judgements about the credibility of findings. In response to the inquiry, the BBC's science editor said the organisation had run courses for reporters on this area.

Perhaps more worrying is the tendency of many journalists to strive for "balance"  presenting each opinion alongside the opposing view  at any cost. This is well-meaning but can be dangerous  leading, as it can, to scientific expertise being treated as a political opinion. In science there are many conclusions that the vast majority of scientists agree on  and these are grounded in strong scientific evidence. So giving voice to a maverick scientist may give the false impression that there is divided opinion on a topic. This has happened several times in the past, such as with the MMR vaccine and climate change.

The report argues that the media needs a more sophisticated way of ensuring that experts quoted in articles about science really are experts. I'd agree. In a world where trust in expertise has been lost, it is crucial that we get across the message that science is more than just another opinion.

The backdrop to the MPs' inquiry was a 2014 government report suggesting that a loss of trust in the media has diminished the credibility of science journalism. But three years later, it is short sighted to focus on inadequacies within traditional media. Of bigger concern is how content within social media platforms masquerades as journalism, or how social media's aggregation of journalism content makes it more difficult to distinguish truth from falsehood.

It is also crucial that politicians are mindful of the consequences for science of dismissing journalism as "fake news", which is luckily still unusual. There may be a need for politicians to undertake training in understanding the scientific method to help them distinguish fact from fiction.

Scientists and the public need the media more than ever to help navigate this increasingly complex information ecosystem  but this also means more effectively protecting the press as its ad revenue shifts over to social media platforms, causing even greater limitations in their capacity to deliver the kind of science journalism we desperately need.

It is fitting then, that on April 22, scientists around the world want everyone  not just scientists  to march for science, because everyone benefits from science and from scientists speaking their mind. As the world embraces a more dynamic practice of "citizen journalism", scientists must be a part of this and be adequately prepared to get involved with public debate about their work, without fear of reprisals.

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.
Six melt ponds in Young Sound in North-Eastern Greenland were selected: two natural and four artificial basins. Phosphorous and nitrogen (nutrients, which are also known from common garden fertilizer) were added in various combinations to four ponds, while two served as control ponds. For a period of up to 13 days Heidi Louise Srensen measured many different parameters in the melt water, including the content of Chlorophyll a: a pigment that enables algae to absorb energy from light. The chlorophyll content of the phosphorus- and nitrogen-enriched ponds was 2 to 10 times higher than in the control ponds and testifies to an increased content of algae.

When spring arrives in the Arctic, both snow and sea ice melt, forming melt ponds on the surface of the sea ice. Every year, as global warming increases, there are more and larger melt ponds.

Melt ponds provide more light and heat for the ice and the underlying water, but now it turns out that they may also have a more direct and potentially important influence on life in the Arctic waters.

Mats of algae and bacteria can evolve in the melt ponds, which can provide food for marine creatures. This is the conclusion of researchers in the periodical, Polar Biology.

Own little ecosystems

"The melt ponds can form their own little ecosystem. When all the sea ice melts during the summer, algae and other organisms from melt ponds are released into the surrounding seawater. Some of this food is immediately ingested by creatures living high up in the water column. Other food sinks to the bottom and gets eaten by seabed dwellers," explains Heidi Louise Srensen, who is the principal author of the scientific article, continuing:

"Given that larger and larger areas of melt ponds are being formed in the Arctic, we can expect the release of more and more food for creatures in the polar sea."

Heidi Louise Srensen studied the phenomenon in a number of melt ponds in North-Eastern Greenland as part of her PhD thesis at University of Southern Denmark (SDU). Bo Thamdrup and Ronnie Glud of SDU, and Erik Jeppesen and Sren Rysgaard of Aarhus University also contributed to the work.

Food for seals and sea cucumbers

In the upper part of the water column it is mainly krill and copepods that benefit from the nutrient-rich algae and bacteria from melt ponds. These creatures are eaten by various larger animals, ranging from amphipods to fish, seals and whales. Deeper down, it is seabed dwellers such as sea cucumbers and brittle stars that benefit from the algae that sink down.

For some time now, researchers have been aware that simple biological organisms can evolve in melt ponds  they may even support very diverse communities. But so far it has been unclear why sometimes there are many organisms in the ponds, and on other occasions virtually none.

According to the new study, 'nutrients' is the keyword. When nutrients such as phosphorus and nitrogen find their way into a melt pond, entire communities of algae and micro-organisms can flourish.

From the Siberian tundra

Nutrients can find their way into a melt pond in a variety of ways, For example, they can be washed in with waves of sea water; they can be transported by dust storms from the mainland (for example, from the Siberian tundra); or they can be washed with earth from the coast out on the ice, when it rains.

Finally, migratory birds or other larger animals resting on the ice can leave behind sources of nutrient.

"Climate change is accompanies by more storms and more precipitation, and we must expect that more nutrients will be released from the surroundings into the melt ponds. These conditions, plus the fact that the distribution of areas of melt ponds is increasing, can contribute to increased productivity in plant and animal life in the Arctic seas," says Professor Ronnie N. Glud of the Department of Biology at SDU.

Warmer and more windy

There are further factors that may potentially contribute to increased productivity in the Arctic seas:

When the sea ice disappears, light can penetrate down into the water.

When the sea ice disappears, wind and storms can stir the water up, bringing nutrients up to the surface from deep water. When it gets warmer on the mainland, this creates more melt water, which can flow out into the sea, carrying nutrients in its wake.

More information: Heidi Louise Srensen et al. Nutrient availability limits biological production in Arctic sea ice melt ponds, Polar Biology (2017). DOI: 10.1007/s00300-017-2082-7
A steel panel with the new anti-corrosion treatment, after being exposed to hundreds of hours of salt spray, and showing virtually no signs of corrosion Credit: Swansea University

Two steel research projects led by Swansea Universitya better way to tackle corrosion, and more efficient use of furnacesare on a list of only eleven awards, across all subjects and the whole UK, bestowed last night (30 March) by the Royal Society, one of the world's most prestigious scientific organisations.

The awards are to help turn research into real products; as the Royal Society puts it, "from labs to riches". The idea is to help researchers develop a proven novel concept or prototype into products that are almost ready for the market.

Swansea University joins Cambridge, Imperial College London and Warwick University as a recipient of two awards. However, Swansea University was the only institution to receive awards for its work on steel.

The awards underline Swansea's status as the home of innovation for the UK steel industry. The City Deal for Swansea Bay, recently announced on the Swansea University campus by Prime Minister Theresa May, includes funding for a UK steel science centre.

Swansea's winning projects in the Royal Society Awards are:

A smarter, safer way to beat corrosion: Corrosion inhibitors are commonly used in construction, aircraft and cars. However the inhibitor used most widelyhexavalent chromateis to be banned from 2019 due to environmental and health concerns. The Swansea team discovered a material and manufacturing process for a smart release coating which has lower environmental impact and outperforms hexavalent chromate in laboratory tests. It lasts 12 times as long in delaying corrosion and makes testing 20 times as fast.

Award: 30,000: Professor Geraint Williams, Dr Patrick Dodds, College of Engineering Making furnaces more efficient with new stirring techniques: researchers reviewed the stirring method used for liquid steel at the Port Talbot site. Argon gas is blown into the 300 tonne steel melt using metal elements called tuyeres. By analysing these after they were removed from service, and laser scanning the steelmaking vessel, the team identified points of weakness. They devised a new design, now patented by the University, which is set to improve efficiency and product quality. Laser scans of the steelmaking vessel acquired during production identified a weak link near the bottom blowing elements. Remedying this will improve efficiency and quality. Credit: Dr Cameron Pleydell-Pearce, Mr Szymon Kubal, Swansea University

Award: 50,000: Dr Cameron Pleydell-Pearce, Mr Szymon Kubal, College of Engineering, with Dr Albert Wraith (Newcastle University)

The entries were co-ordinated by Dr Adrian Walters of the College of Engineering.

The awards are the latest accolades for Swansea's steel researchers. From greener buildings that generate their own energy, to lighter steel for a new generation of cars, they are using steel to develop tomorrow's technologies. Situated in the heartland of British steel, only a few miles from the Port Talbot plant, Swansea University's record of innovation is built on strong links with the industry.

Swansea University Vice Chancellor Professor Richard B Davies said:

"To win two Royal Society awards for our steel research is a magnificent achievement. It is further proof that Swansea is the natural home for innovation in the UK steel industry.

Innovation is the bedrock of the 21st century steel industry. Ever since Swansea University was founded to meet the needs of the metal industry, it has been at the forefront of innovation. That remains the case today, as these awards illustrate.

We have a wealth of expertise and talent, and a rich network of partnerships with the industry. All this is being mobilised to help the UK become a world leader in steel."

Dr Hermann Hauser KBE FREng FRS, science entrepreneur and co-chair of the Royal Society's Science, Industry and Translation Committee, said,

Swansea University Bay Campus Engineering Quarter, with Port Talbot steelworks across the Bay - international experience shows that having manufacturing and research facilities close to each other is essential for a successful steel industry Credit: Swansea University

"These awards support some of the very best, innovative researchers in UK universities to increase their chances of entrepreneurial success. The process of translating research from academia into commercially viable products can be challenging and we are proud to help bridge the journey for researchers."

Describing the follow-up to the work on steel stirring, Dr Cameron Pleydell-Pearce of Swansea University said:

"We have now devised a new product which is expected to make a significant improvement to steelmaking efficiency and product quality. The potential market for this product alone is in excess of 12M Pa, though it is anticipated that this technology could be rolled out to a wider range of potential high temperature stirring applications."

Describing the work on corrosion, Professor Geraint Williams, team leader and corrosion expert at Swansea University, said:

"This is a significant breakthrough, showing a smarter and safer way of reducing corrosion. The new product is environmentally sound, economical and outperforms the market leader in laboratory tests. It illustrates that Swansea, with its close links between research and industry, remains at the heart of innovation in steel"

Dr Patrick Dodds of Tata Steel and the College of Engineering at Swansea University, added:

"The system has been shown to prevent the onset of corrosion for over 24 hours compared to less than 2 hours for the current market leader. We have also been able to demonstrate that the rate of corrosion can be slowed down significantly once it has started. This is by far the best result seen in 15 years of research on this topic."
While many studies are focused on the detrimental effects of high energy UV sunlight, it is also an important source of energy that can drive the formation of biomolecules relevant to life. Credit: NASA

High energy, ultraviolet radiation from the Sun is a known to hazard to life, yet the energy provided by our star has played an important role as the essential driver of life on Earth.

Before life began, radiation from the Sun was the primary source of energy on our planet, just as it is today. In this oxygen-poor, prebiotic world, solar energy may have provided the jolt to transform simple organic molecules into more complex ones, which were used as the building blocks of biology and life.

A new paper by two University of Colorado at Boulder authors considers how this might have happened through a review of existing literature on the topic.

"We're looking at examples in the literature and from our own lab where sunlight has been used to build complex molecules from simple, prebiotically-available starting materials," said lead author Rebecca Rapf, a doctoral candidate in physical chemistry.

The paper, "Sunlight as an energetic driver in the synthesis of molecules necessary for life," co-authored by her advisor, Veronica Vaida, recently appeared in the journal Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics. Rapf's work is supported by a NASA Earth and Space Science Fellowship as well as funds from NASA's Habitable Worlds Program.

Sunlight is the largest energy source on both the modern and early Earth, fueling most of todays life and likely aiding in the development of larger, more complex molecules necessary for primitive life. Pictured is the Earth as seen from the International Space Station. Credit: NASA

The lack of oxygen in the early atmosphere means that more high-energy ultraviolet radiation from the Sun would have reached the surface of the prebiotic Earth than today, where it is filtered by ozone. Even though this component of sunlight can be destructive to certain biomolecules, the energy provided could still be useful to early life chemistry, Rapf said. "Even if you destroy a molecule, it is broken into smaller, very reactive chunks that readily undergo additional reactions, recombining to form larger high-energy molecules."

In particular, the researchers were intrigued by a group of oxygen-laden acids called oxoacids. An example is pyruvic acid, which is at the center of key metabolic pathways in life today. When dissolved in water and illuminated with ultraviolet light, pyruvic acid is known to react to make larger molecules, with higher yields under the oxygen-limited conditions that would be found on the early Earth.

Pyruvic acid is only one of a class of molecules that react in the same way to form these larger species. Another molecule in this class, 2-oxooctanoic acid, is particularly interesting because it is an example of a simple lipid. 2-oxooctanoic acid was likely "prebiotically relevant," Rapf added, meaning it could be useful to the chemistry that eventually led to life.

In an earlier study on 2-oxooctanoic acid, Rapf and Vaida found that exposing it to light forms a more complex molecule, dihexyltartaric acid. This is noteworthy because the new molecule has two alkyl chains, meaning it more closely resembles the lipids that are in modern cells, which also have two tails. This light-driven process, discovered in the Vaida lab, is one of only a few ways to make double-tailed lipids from simple, single-tailed molecules under prebiotic conditions.

"We're using sunlight as a way of building bigger molecules, but in order to be useful to the development of biology any molecules you build have to be stable enough to exist in the environment," added Rapf.

In the case of 2-oxooctanoic acid, the product, dihexyltartaric acid, does not absorb the same UV light and therefore, is protected from undergoing further photochemistry (chemical reactions as a result of sunlight). These double-tailed lipids also spontaneously assemble into membrane-enclosed compartments, resembling simple protocells that are necessary to the evolution of life. The researchers are hunting for other molecules that could be activated by starlight and generate biologically-relevant compounds in a broader astrobiological context.

This story is republished courtesy of NASA's Astrobiology Magazine. Explore the Earth and beyond at www.astrobio.net .
TexNet plans to install at least 22 new permanent and an additional 36 portable stations evenly spaced across Texas. Credit: Bureau of Economic Geology

Almost a decade ago, the ground around the densely populated Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex started shaking. As the frequency and intensity of earthquakes increased in a region poorly prepared for the seismic activity, the risk became a priority for the state.

"We've always had natural earthquake activity in Texas throughout its history. But as earthquakes started to happen more to our good neighbor to the north in Oklahoma, Texas had some more of its own. Irving, Texas. Azle, Texas. Venus, Texas. All in the greater Dallas-Fort Worth area, which got people's attention," says Scott W. Tinker, director at the Bureau of Economic Geology in the Jackson School of Geosciences at The University of Texas at Austin.

Residents, politicians and oil-gas industry leaders reached out to the Bureau of Economic Geology.

The bureau is the oldest and second largest research unit at the university, made up of more than 250 scientists, engineers and economists. The organization also functions as the State Geological Survey of Texasa broker of information among industry, academia and government agencies.

"Between 1980 and about 2010 there were one to two earthquakes per year in the entire state. Between 2010 and 2015 that rate of seismicity changed to up to 15 small earthquakes per year," says Peter Hennings, a veteran of the petroleum industry and now a co-principal investigator at the Center for Integrated Seismicity Research (CISR), an earthquake research center managed by the bureau.

The number of earthquakes continues to rise, with 28 earthquakes recorded in Texas in 2016.

"Everybody wants to know what is going on. What has changed? And what can be done about it?" says Hennings.

Credit: University of Texas at Austin

In June 2015, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and the 84th Legislature authorized $4.47 million for TexNet.

"TexNet is an array of seismometers across Texas that helps us better locate and identify earthquakes, but also measure the levels of ground shaking from these events," says Ellen Rathje, who is also a co-principal investigator at CISR and a professor of civil engineering at UT Austin's Cockrell School of Engineering.

TexNet plans to install at least 22 new permanent stations evenly spaced across Texas. These earthquake monitors are called "TexNet's seismic backbone," and an additional 36 portable stations will be placed in areas of recent earthquake activity.

As of March 2017, the TexNet team is a little more than half way through their goal. They have installed 14 permanent stations and 18 portable stations, collecting live seismic activity across the state, with 11 of those portable stations in the Dallas-Fort Worth area.

Each of these sensors streams data in real time back to the Bureau of Economic Geology. The data give the researchers the ability to understand when and where the seismicity is occurring. "This research is developing fundamental understanding of the processes that cause earthquakes and how they impact people, their infrastructure and their businesses," says Rathje.

A big part of the TexNet project is partnering with landowners across the state.

"We have some seismic equipment that sits at the front of the property," says David Andrews, a landowner Azle, 16 miles northwest of Fort Worth. "There are a lot of questions that people have at the moment with no way of answering. It's easy to just say it's the fracking and it's the injecting, but this is without any real proof."

Larry Walden (right), a county commissioner in Parker County, west of Fort Worth works with the TexNet team to install a seismic monitor in his county. "This has been a big issue for us. The state is big. The ranches are big," said Alexandros Savvaidis, TexNet project manager. "What is important from our side is that we work proactively in the state in order to provide the necessary information to protect the public and the industrial infrastructure." Credit: University of Texas at Austin

Oil and gas have been important parts of Texas history for over a century, and connections have been proposed between earthquakes and drilling since the 1920s. But, says Tinker, "Just because we're doing something here and an earthquake happens nearby at the same time doesn't mean that caused that necessarily; but it could have. If human activity is causing the earthquakes, we need to figure out how to stop that."

Alexandros Savvaidis, who is TexNet project manager, has made a career of operating similar seismic systems in Greece and other parts of Europe. Planning the best locations for the monitors has been challenging, given Texas' size.

"This has been a big issue for us. The state is big. The ranches are big," he said. "What is important from our side is that we work proactively in the state in order to provide the necessary information to protect the public and the industrial infrastructure." Working closely with the communities has been key, and he's confident the work will pay off soon.

"We were contacted by The University of Texas, and they requested that we help them find a location for the monitor," said Larry Walden, a county commissioner in Parker County, west of Fort Worth. He was happy to help. "What we continued to hear from the citizens was: Who's doing something about it? Those people were concerned because they thought that the next one was going to be a big one."

"We have to make sure that we have a good understanding of the risk of earthquakes and provide that to the public," says Savvaidis. "Texas will be prepared in case of an earthquake event."

TexNet hopes to serve as an example on the state, national and international levels for other communities facing these problems.

"This is tough science. It takes smart people from multiple disciplines working together to do this," says Tinker. "We are working with our colleagues at Southern Methodist University, who have been studying seismicity for many decades now, and at Texas A&M. So, it's an integrated approach to answer this question. The state, universities, industry and landowners are all working together to address the science of this issue, and this is exactly how it will get solved."
Structure of the interface of PEX14 and PEX5 (back) including the structure of the inhibitor (front). Credit: Dr. Grzegorz Popowicz, Helmholtz Zentrum Munchen

A newly developed small molecule selectively kills the pathogen causing sleeping sickness and Chagas disease. Scientists from the Helmholtz Zentrum Munchen, along with colleagues from the Technical University of Munich and the Ruhr University Bochum, report these findings in Science. The trick: The researchers could first determine the parasite's Achilles heel by using modern structural biology techniques and then develop an inhibitor with a perfect fit.

Trypanosomes get their name from the Greek trypano- (borer) and soma (body). The protozoan parasites are responsible for various diseases, particularly in Latin America and Africa. The best known example is probably sleeping sickness, which is caused by trypanosomes and transmitted by tsetse flies. In the end stage, patients suffer from uncontrollable sleep, which gave the sickness its name.

"Until now, there have been only a few medications against trypanosomes. These drugs have many undesirable side effects, and first cases of resistance are already spreading," explains Prof. Dr. Michael Sattler, Director of the Institute of Structural Biology at the Helmholtz Zentrum Munchen and Professor of Biomolecular NMR Spectroscopy at the Technical University of Munich. Together with Dr. Grzegorz Popowicz (also Helmholtz Zentrum Munchen) and the group headed by Prof. Dr. Ralf Erdmann at Ruhr University Bochum, the research team sought new possibilities to deactivate the pathogen. "We primarily concentrated on the so-called PEX proteins, which have been under debate as potential targets for pharmacological interference for some time," says Sattler.

PEX proteins are the key

The PEX proteins play a crucial role in the function of the so-called glycosomes. These are small cell organelles that are important to maintain the parasite's sugar metabolism. "The idea was to prevent the interaction between two essential proteins, PEX14 and PEX5, and consequently to disrupt the trypanosome metabolism so effectively that the parasites cannot survive," explains Grzegorz Popowicz. At the Bavarian NMR Center, a joint research infrastructure of the Helmholtz Zentrum and TU Munchen, the researchers therefore first used nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) to investigate the structure of the two target proteins.

In the next step, the teams from Munich and Bochum used the thus determined spatial structure to optimize a substance that specifically binds to PEX14, thereby preventing the interaction with PEX5, which eventually kills the parasite. Grzegorz Popowicz describes it as, "We more or less first measured the lock and then developed the right key for it."

Possibly also relevant for other parasites

In the future, the researchers want to further advance these molecules using medicinal chemistry so that they can be tested in clinical studies and, eventually may be approved as drugs. They are also examining the extent to which the approach is suitable to kill other single-cell parasites that may depend on similar proteins. "One possibility would be to target the Leishmania parasite," explains Popowicz. Future research in this direction will follow.

More information: M. Dawidowski et al. Inhibitors of PEX14 disrupt protein import into glycosomes and killparasites, Science (2017). DOI: 10.1126/science.aal1807 Journal information: Science
Agriculture has long been blamed for the ammonia that contributes to urban smog, but new research shows that the ammonia in hazy pollution like this in Beijing more typically comes from auto tailpipes rather than farm fields. Credit: Kang Sun, Princeton University

Agriculture has long been blamed for smog-causing ammonia in the atmosphere, but vehicle tailpipes actually are a more important source of ammonia's contribution to the haze that hovers over big cities, according to new research by a team including Princeton engineers.

"Ammonia doesn't have to come all the way from the Midwest to Philadelphia or New York," said Mark Zondlo, an associate professor of civil and environmental engineering at Princeton University. "Much of it is being generated here."

About 80 percent of airborne ammonia comes from farming practices such as fertilization, so it seems a likely suspect for the ammonia in haze particles to come from plumes of large farms in the Midwest and then get transported to the East Coast. But, in a paper published in the journal Environmental Science and Technology, Zondlo's research team found that ammonia emissions from cities are much larger than recognized, occur at the very times when unhealthy particulate matter is at its worst, and when agricultural emissions are at daily or seasonal lows.

"It's actually coming from the vehicles" in the cities themselves, said Zondlo, who is also an associate director of external partnerships at Princeton's Andlinger Center for Energy and the Environment.

The researchers noted that vehicle emissions of ammonia were co-emitted with nitrogen oxides. These chemicals combine to form ammonium nitrate, which can be seen from the brown color in urban haze. Further, ammonia emissions from vehicles are especially important during cold weather (e.g. during winter or the morning rush hour) when agricultural emissions are at their lowest and when haze pollution is at its worst.

Daven Henze, an associate professor at University of Colorado and researcher with NASA's Health and Air Quality Applied Sciences Team, said the findings were an important step to better understanding air pollution over cities. With other vehicle emissionsmainly nitrogen and sulfur compoundsin such close proximity to the ammonia, the conditions are ripe for the production of fine particulate matter.

"It's really useful to have his [Zondlo's] work making headway on clarifying the magnitude of the source," Henze said.

To conduct his research, Zondlo and his team outfitted vehicles with sophisticated sensors to detect ammonia levels and focused on six citiesPhiladelphia, Denver and Houston in the United States, and Beijing, Shijiazhuang and Baoding in China. By measuring ammonia levels during various times of the day at different points of entry into the cities, the team was able to paint a picture of a "breathing" city, where levels of pollutants rise and fall, depending on traffic and conditions.

The research was aided by the use of open-path quantum cascade laser ammonia sensors developed by Zondlo's group within Princeton's Center for Mid-Infrared Technologies for Health and the Environment (MIRTHE). The laser-based sensors were smaller, easier to work with and more accurate than previously used sensors, Zondlo said. They also allowed for more efficient mobile testing.

Previously, vehicles had to be specially outfitted for data gathering. Holes were often drilled into the bodies of the vehicles to attach sensors. Banks of equipment were needed in the vehicle as well. Because the new sensors are relatively small, they can be mounted onto a luggage rack on top of the vehicle and then plugged into a laptop. This is the basis for their Princeton Atmospheric Chemistry Experiment mobile laboratory, a conventional SUV equipped with chemical and meteorological sensors.

"Because the sensors are low power (about the same as a light bulb) and compact, we can readily deploy them on any vehicle by only adding a ski rack," Zondlo said. "Existing mobile laboratories require custom vehicles with supplementary generators and significant sampling modifications. Our sensors can be placed in checked luggage and mounted in a few hours at a field site."

That convenience led to almost immediate discovery as the data was gathered.

"You can really see the plumes coming out from the vehicles in real time," said Da Pan, a team member and fourth-year doctoral student at Princeton. "So basically you can tell if the car in front of you was in a bad operating condition. You can really see the plumes coming out from it."

Besides Zondlo and Pan, authors of the paper, which was published Nov. 29, 2016, included Denise Mauzerall, a professor of civil and environmental engineering and public and international affairs at the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton; Kang Sun, Lei Tao, David Miller and Levi Golston of Princeton; Robert Griffin, H.W. Wallace and Yu Jun Leong of Rice University; M. Melissa Yang of NASA Langley Research Center; Yan Zhang of Nanjing P&Y Environmental Technology Co.; and Tong Zhu of Peking University.

Support for the project was provided in part by Council for International Teaching and Research at Princeton University with funds from the Fung Global Forum, National Geographic Air and Water Conservation Fund, the National Science Foundation, NASA and the Houston Endowment.

Pan said the research opens up two avenues for further study: How the proximity of ammonia and nitrogen and sulfur compounds in emissions affects fine particulate matter production, and how the data eventually could influence vehicle emissions regulations. Zondlo is also investigating how satellite observations of ammonia can help understand these emissions as part of the NASA Health and Air Quality Applied Sciences Team.

The efforts made to reduce nitrogen and sulfur emissions have been a big "success story," Zondlo said. Further progress in controlling particulate matter by these two species will only be incremental in the developed world.

"We've pulled these levers as much as we can," Zondlo said. "But there's one big lever that we haven't touched at all and that's been ammonia. And if we're really serious about attacking fine particulate matter and improving air quality, we need to start understanding and eventually limiting these ammonia emissions."
Flourish will cover the opportunities and challenges of gift card, promotional value, point-based programs and point of sale systems;with special emphasis on fraud and loss prevention.

(PRWeb March 31, 2017)

Omaha, NE (PRWEB) March 31, 2017

Flourish: The Growth of Branded Currency Conference is slated to bring retail payment technology experts from around the world to Omaha, April 10-12, 2017. Over 40 National merchants and their representatives, 50+ payment technology service providers and numerous fintech and media organizations will be will be in attendance. Tickets are still available for the conference taking place at The DoubleTree Hotel in downtown Omaha, Nebraska at http://www.flourishomaha.com.

The conference will feature content targeted at the branded currency industry, which includes: gift card, promotional value, point-based programs, point of sale systems, loss prevention, fraud, and those who utilize these tools and programs. If you are a small merchant or one of the biggest players in retail, this conference is for you. We are going to tackle the issues all merchants deal with: chargebacks, accepting new forms of tender, and understanding how to use forms of payment, like gift card and points, as marketing tools, says show producer Holly Glowaty.

Flourish will kick-off with a Women in Payments reception on April 10th at 5pm. The reception is open to the public with purchase of a $17 ticket. Food, drinks and live music from Natalie Thomas are all included. Over 50 women have registered for the reception, and show producers only expect that to grow.

Conference content begins at 9:00am on Tuesday, April 11th with keynote Kate Vitasek: International authority on transformation and innovation through highly collaborative and strategic partnerships. We are excited to start the conference off with a speaker who can really set the tone for the next 2 days. This industry requires great partnerships to create real innovation, says Kristen Thiry, producer of Flourish. After the keynote, 2 full days of panel discussions, exhibits and one-on-one meetings begin. We designed this show with 2 goals in mind. First, that all the content be useful and actionable. Second, that we create an environment where people can have productive meetings. We encourage anyone interested in attending to check out our agenda at flourishomaha.com and see all the exciting topics that will be covered.

Read the full story at http://www.prweb.com/releases/2017/04/prweb14201656.htm
Globalegrow Collaborates with Global Logistics Partners to Improve Warehousing

SHENZHEN, China, March 30, 2017 /PRNewswire/  Chinese cross-border e-commerce group Globalegrow has announced strategic alliances with US and European warehousing providers to fulfill complex and time-constrained logistics needs. The alliance is expected to increase localized warehousing efficiency by 20 percent this year.

Centralized and localized warehousing is essential to meet Globalegrows long-term goal to provide flexible delivery service. Shipping to more than 200 countries, Globalegrow holds an inventory of more than 2.5 million items in various categories like clothing, consumer electronics, toys and more. To enhance the efficiency of its global logistics system, Globalegrow collaborates with the third-party logistics providers located in the United States, United Kingdom, Spain, Germany, France, Italy, Czech Republic, Poland, Australiaand Japan to fulfill local storage needs. With these new deals, the companys total storage area is expected to reach more than 1.6 million square feet.
PURCHASE, N.Y.  March 30, 2017  Mastercard today announced that Erika Brown Lee joined the company this month as senior vice president and assistant general counsel for privacy and data protection. Brown Lee will report to JoAnn Stonier, the companys chief information governance and privacy officer.

She will lead the team that provides advice for and ensures compliance with privacy and data protection laws across the companys products and services. Brown Lee will also work closely with information governance and cybersecurity teams to develop policies and manage regulatory interactions.

Brown Lee joins Mastercard after more than three years at the United States Department of Justice (DOJ), where she was the chief privacy and civil liberties officer, serving as a principal advisor to the Attorney General and other senior leaders. In this role, she oversaw compliance for the departments programs and initiatives, while also co-chairing the management team responsible for responding to potential data breaches and cyber incidents.

Erika brings a unique perspective and experience in managing privacy programs across the government, regulatory, and private sectors, said Tim Murphy, general counsel and chief franchise officer for Mastercard. We look forward to her contributions in balancing the need for continued innovation with protecting the privacy and security of our customers data.

Brown Lee joined DOJ after several years in private practice at Norton Rose Fulbright, where she managed data breach analysis and notification procedures and advised clients on state, federal and international data requirements. Earlier in her career, Brown Lee served at the Federal Trade Commission, including in the Division of Privacy & Identity Protection.

Brown Lee holds a Master of Laws from the London School of Economics and Political Science, a Doctor of Jurisprudence from the University of Miami School of Law, and a Bachelor of Science from Boston College. She is a credentialed Certified Information Privacy Professional (CIPP) for both Europe and the United States.

About Mastercard

Mastercard (NYSE: MA), www.mastercard.com, is a technology company in the global payments industry. We operate the worlds fastest payments processing network, connecting consumers, financial institutions, merchants, governments and businesses in more than 210 countries and territories. Mastercard products and solutions make everyday commerce activities  such as shopping, traveling, running a business and managing finances  easier, more secure and more efficient for everyone. Follow us on Twitter @MastercardNews, join the discussion on the Beyond the Transaction Blog and subscribe for the latest news on the Engagement Bureau.



Other Point of Sale blogs of interest:
House of Reps Leader Doguwa speaks on defecting from APC ahead of 2023

Alhassan Ado Doguwa, Majority Leader of House of Representatives, says he remains in the All Progressives Congress (APC) and has no reason to leave the party.
A literacy program developed in Cuba is quietly spreading adult education in more than 30 countries.

This week, it was reported that the programknown as Yo, si puedo or Yes, I canis being used by Brazils Landless Rural Workers Movement to educate 7,000 adults in the state of Maranhao. It has been used to educate Aboriginal communities in remote rural areas and has perhaps been most successful in Venezuela, where it was adopted in 2003. Just two years later, UNESCO declared the country illiteracy free.

The program was developed and promoted by the Latin American and Caribbean Pedagogical Institute of Cuba, which now says over 10 million people from Venezuela to Nigeria have now learned to read and write through the program. Yo, si puedo aims to provide free education to adults who did not have the opportunity to attend school as children.

In 2006, the institute was awarded the UNESCO King Sejong Literacy Prize for its work in advancing individual and social potential through innovative teaching methods globally. The program is uniquely effective because it uses pre-recorded video lessons, adapted for each country, that are delivered by a local facilitator.

In an assessment of the program in Uruguay, where it was introduced in 2007 with funding from the government, UNESCO found that 81.4% of the 5,000 people who participated between 2007 and 2010 were no longer considered illiterate. This figure rose to 95% when people with learning difficulties were excluded from the results.

The teaching materials were adapted to be relevant to Uruguayans and used local musicians to provide a background score to the televised lessons. The 65 videos, intended to be used in classes over four months, featured a class of Uruguayan students with social characteristics mirroring those of the target groups of learners.

Story continues

Outside of basic literacy, the program also covered subjects such as health and hygiene, caring for the elderly, and conserving nature. Classes of 20 students met four times a week for 90 minutes at a time. The students watched the video lesson and then worked their way through an exercise book with the help of a local teacher. Because of the success that the program saw in the country, it was implemented in several prisons, a psychiatric hospital, and in the armed forces.

The programs country of origin, Cuba, boasts a 99.8% literacy rate and spends 12% of its GDP on education, second only to Lesotho. The adult literacy program that Cuba is exporting today finds its roots in Cubas 1961 National Literacy Campaign, which saw hundreds of thousands of Cubans learning to read and write in the early years of the revolution.

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Singaporean budget carrier Scoot made contact with an Emirates aircraft during early hours Thursday at Changi Airport, Singapore.

Both Changi Airport and Scoot confirmed that an on-ground accident happened between Emirates EK405, which was bound for Dubai, and Scoot TZ188, which was departing for Tianjin.

The left wing of Scoot flight TZ188 "came into contact with an Emirates aircraftwhile TZ188 was taxiing before take-off," a Scoot representative told CNBC.

A Changi Airport spokesperson told CNBC that there were no injuries and passengers aboard the Emirates plane were re-booked on other flights scheduled to depart later on Thursday.

The accident occurred at about 1:40 am HK/SIN, and the Scoot flight was rescheduled to depart to Tianjin several hours later on a replacement aircraft. All 303 passengers and crew members on board the Scoot aircraft were safe, the Scoot representative said.

Scoot is owned by flag carrier Singapore Airlines and launched its first flights in 2012.

"The Emirates Flight EK405 from Singapore to Dubai on 30 March was slightly damaged during pushback. Engineering inspections determined that some repairs will be required," an Emirates spokesperson told CNBC. Pushback is when an external vehicle moves an aircraft backward away from an airport gate.

Singapore's airport has held the title of the world's best airport since 2009, according to research firm SkyTrax's World Airport Survey. The evaluation was based on several benchmarks from transfers to departures to shopping options.

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CapitaLand is planning to expand its presence in Vietnam, including investing in a potential Raffles City in Ho Chi Minh City. CapitaLand president and group CEO Lim Ming Yan reaffirmed the groups interest in further investments, particularly in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, during his meetings with Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc and Planning and Investment Minister Nguyen Chi Dung.

The company says it already has $2.1 billion worth of gross assets under management in the country, including 22 serviced residences, nine residential developments and a prime commercial property. CapitaLand has been operating in Vietnam since 1994. Vietnam is the groups third-largest market in Southeast Asia after Singapore and Malaysia.

Related Articles From TheEdgeProperty.com.sg
AFP News

The UN's COP27 climate summit kicked off Sunday in Egypt with warnings against backsliding on efforts to cut emissions and calls for rich nations to compensate poor countries after a year of extreme weather disasters. Just in the past few months, climate-induced catastrophes have killed thousands, displaced millions and cost billions in damages across the world. Massive floods devastated swaths of Pakistan and Nigeria, droughts worsened in Africa and the western United States, cyclones whipped the Caribbean, and unprecedented heatwaves seared three continents. The conference in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh comes in a fraught year marked by Russia's war on Ukraine, an energy crunch, soaring inflation and the lingering effects from the Covid pandemic. But Simon Stiell, the UN's climate change executive secretary, said he would not be a "custodian of backsliding" on the goal of slashing greenhouse emissions 45 percent by 2030 to cap global warming at 1.5 degrees Celsius above late-19th-century levels. "We will be holding people to account, be they presidents, prime ministers, CEOs," Stiell said as the 13-day summit opened. "The heart of implementation is everybody everywhere in the world every single day doing everything they possibly can to address the climate crisis," he said. Current trends would see carbon pollution increase 10 percent by the end of the decade and Earth's surface heat up 2.8C, according to findings unveiled last week. Promises made under the 2015 Paris Agreement would, if kept, only shave off a few tenths of a degree. "Whilst I do understand that leaders around the world have faced competing priorities this year, we must be clear: as challenging as our current moment is, inaction is myopic and can only defer climate catastrophe," said Alok Sharma, British president of the previous COP26 as he handed over the chairmanship to Egypt. "How many more wake-up calls does the world -- and world leaders -- actually need?", he said. In a dire warning, the UN's World Meteorological Organization said the past eight years are on track to be the eight warmest on record, with an acceleration in sea level rise, glacier melt and heatwaves. "As COP27 gets underway, our planet is sending a distress signal," UN chief Antonio Guterres said in a statement. - 'Loss and damage' - The COP27 summit will focus like never before on money -- a major sticking point that has soured relations between countries that got rich burning fossil fuels and the poorer ones suffering from the worst consequences of climate change. The United States and the European Union -- fearful of creating an open-ended reparations framework -- have dragged their feet and challenged the need for a separate funding stream. Delegates agreed on Sunday to put the "loss and damage" issue on the COP27 agenda, a first step toward what are sure to be fraught discussions. Inclusion of the agenda item "reflects a sense of solidarity and empathy for the suffering of the victims of climate induced disasters," said COP27 president Sameh Shoukry of Egypt. "We all owe a debt of gratitude to activists and civil society organisations who have persistently demanded the space to discuss funding for loss and damage," he said to applause. Shoukry also noted that rich nations have not fulfilled a separate pledge to deliver $100 billion per year to help developing countries green their economies and build resilience against future climate change. He also lamented that most climate financing is based on loans. "We do not have the luxury to continue this way. We have to change our approaches to this existential threat," he said, calling for solutions that "prove we are serious about not leaving anyone behind". - US-China tensions - After the first day of talks, more than 120 world leaders will join the summit on Monday and Tuesday. The most conspicuous no-show will be China's Xi Jinping, whose leadership was renewed last month at a Communist Party Congress. US President Joe Biden has said he will come, but only after legislative elections on Tuesday that could see either or both houses of Congress fall into the hands of Republicans hostile to international action on climate change. Cooperation between the United States and China -- the world's two largest economies and carbon polluters -- has been crucial to rare breakthroughs in the nearly 30-year saga of UN climate talks, including the 2015 Paris Agreement. But Sino-US relations have sunk to a 40-year low after a visit to Taiwan by House leader Nancy Pelosi and a US ban on the sale of high-level chip technology to China, leaving the outcome of COP27 in doubt. A meeting between Xi and Biden at the G20 summit in Bali days before the UN climate meeting ends, if it happens, could be decisive. One bright spot at COP27 will be the arrival of Brazilian president-elect Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, whose campaign vowed to protect the Amazon and reverse the extractive policies of outgoing President Jair Bolsonaro. bur-lth/fz
Lebanon's prime minister warned Friday that his country has reached "breaking point" by hosting more than one million Syrian refugees and urged investment from the international community. Saad Hariri's comments came as the United Nations refugee agency UNHCR said more than six million Syrians have fled their country since its devastating war broke out in 2011. Of those, Lebanon is hosting more than a million Syrians, roughly a quarter of its current population of four million. "This issue has reached a breaking point for us in Lebanon.. We want the international community to hear us and understand that Lebanon is facing a crisis," Hariri told foreign media in Beirut. He was speaking ahead of an international conference on the post-conflict future of Syria that the European Union and United Nations are to host in Brussels on April 5. The prime minister said he would appeal at the conference for international investment to improve infrastructure, including schools, roads, the environment and security in Lebanon. He would propose the international community "commits... 10,000 to 12,000 (US) dollars per refugee (in Lebanon) over five to seven years". Hariri told reporters he also fears that the refugee crisis could implode on the social level because of "huge tensions" between Lebanese and Syrians in most host communities. "I fear civil unrest," he said. The influx of Syrian refugees in Lebanon has stretched the country's economic resources, the billionaire premier said. In the education system, classrooms were overcrowded with the number of students more than doubling in six years to accommodate Syrian pupils. Unlike Palestinian refugees who live in camps managed by the United Nations, Syrian refugees in Lebanon live in informal camps. "Some say we should have refugee camps in Lebanon, I say Lebanon has become a big refugee camp," Hariri said. Lebanon, whose infrastructure was devastated during a 15-year war that ended in 1990, is struggling with endemic corruption and a public debt that represents 140 percent of its GDP.
AFP News

The UN's COP27 climate summit kicked off Sunday in Egypt with warnings against backsliding on efforts to cut emissions and calls for rich nations to compensate poor countries after a year of extreme weather disasters. An alarming UN report said the past eight years are on track to be the eight warmest on record, with an acceleration in sea level rise, glacier melt, heatwaves and other climate indicators. "As COP27 gets underway, our planet is sending a distress signal," UN chief Antonio Guterres said in a statement, calling the report a "chronicle of climate chaos". Just in the past few months, floods devastated Pakistan and Nigeria, droughts worsened in Africa and the United States, cyclones whipped the Caribbean, and unprecedented heatwaves seared three continents. The conference in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh also comes against the backdrop of Russia's war on Ukraine, an energy crunch, soaring inflation and the lingering effects from the Covid-19 pandemic. But Simon Stiell, the UN's climate change executive secretary, said he would not be a "custodian of backsliding" on the goal of slashing greenhouse emissions 45 percent by 2030 to cap global warming at 1.5 degrees Celsius above late 19th-century levels. "We will be holding people to account, be they presidents, prime ministers, CEOs," Stiell said as the 13-day summit opened. "The heart of implementation is everybody everywhere in the world every single day doing everything they possibly can to address the climate crisis," he said, noting that only 29 of 194 nations have presented improved plans as called for at COP26 in Glasgow last year. Current trends would see carbon pollution increase 10 percent by the end of the decade and the Earth's surface heat up 2.8C, according to findings unveiled last week. Promises made under the 2015 Paris Agreement would, if kept, only shave off a few tenths of a degree. Britain's Alok Sharma, who handed the COP presidency to Egypt, said that while world leaders have faced "competing priorities" this year, "inaction is myopic and can only defer climate catastrophe." "How many more wake-up calls does the world -- and world leaders -- actually need?" he said. - 'Loss and damage' - The COP27 summit will focus like never before on money -- a major sticking point that has soured relations between countries that got rich burning fossil fuels and the poorer ones suffering from the worst consequences of climate change. The United States and the European Union -- fearful of creating an open-ended reparations framework -- have dragged their feet and challenged the need for a separate funding stream. After two days of intense pre-summit negotiations, delegates agreed on Sunday to put the "loss and damage" issue on the COP27 agenda, a first step towards what are sure to be difficult discussions. Stiell said inclusion of loss and damage on the agenda after three decades of debate on the issue showed progress. "The fact that it is there as a substantive agenda item I believe bodes well," he told reporters. COP27 president Sameh Shoukry of Egypt said it would be unproductive to speculate on what outcome the negotiations will lead to, "but certainly everybody is hopeful." "Anything that we do effectively has to be on the basis of our common efforts and that we leave no one behind," he said. Shoukry also noted that rich nations have not fulfilled a separate pledge to deliver $100 billion per year to help developing countries green their economies and build resilience against future climate change. He lamented that most climate financing is based on loans. "We do not have the luxury to continue this way. We have to change our approaches to this existential threat," he said. - US-China tensions - After the first day of talks, some 110 world leaders will join the summit on Monday and Tuesday. The most conspicuous no-show will be China's Xi Jinping, whose leadership was renewed last month at a Communist Party Congress. US President Joe Biden has said he will come, but only after legislative elections on Tuesday that could see either or both houses of Congress fall into the hands of Republicans hostile to international action on climate change. Cooperation between the United States and China -- the world's two largest economies and carbon polluters -- has been crucial to rare breakthroughs in the nearly 30-year saga of UN climate talks, including the 2015 Paris Agreement. But Sino-US relations have sunk to a 40-year low after a visit to Taiwan by House leader Nancy Pelosi and a US ban on the sale of high-level chip technology to China, leaving the outcome of COP27 in doubt. A meeting between Xi and Biden at the G20 summit in Bali days before the UN climate meeting ends, if it happens, could be decisive. One bright spot at COP27 will be the arrival of Brazilian president-elect Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, whose campaign vowed to protect the Amazon and reverse the extractive policies of outgoing President Jair Bolsonaro. bur-lth/mh/lg
Former presidential candidate Tan Cheng Bock at a press conference on 31 March 2017. (Photo: Amritpal Khaira/Yahoo Singapore)

Former Singapore presidential candidate Tan Cheng Bock has questioned the changes to the Elected Presidency, saying that this years Presidential Election should be an open one.

The Attorney-Generals Chambers (AGC) or the government has to explain how it counted the terms of the presidents who had exercised elected powers, the 76-year-old former Ayer Rajah MP on Friday (31 March) said at a press conference.

The AGC should have counted the five most recent presidential terms produced by open elections. This starts with President Ong Teng Cheong, Tan said.

If need be, the government can refer AGCs opinion to the court for an independent judicial verification, he added.

If the government double checks the AGCs advice with the court, then Parliament and the people of Singapore can be satisfied beyond doubt that the constitutional changes they are making stand on strong legal foundation.

But if the government simply accepts AGCs advice, without explaining why they accepted the accuracy of the opinion, I am concerned our elected presidency will always be tainted with the suspicion that the reserved elections of 2017 was introduced to prevent my candidacy.

Last November, Tan pledged to remain involved in public life despite being disqualified from the 2017 Presidential Election. Earlier that month, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong told Parliament that the next Presidential Election will be reserved for Malay candidates. The next day, the House passed a Bill to amend the Constitution to enshrine the move.

The move came following a review of the Elected Presidency by the Constitutional Commission, which proposed a series of changes to the institution.

The government had received advice from the AGC on how to apply the hiatus-triggered mechanism for reserved elections.

Under this mechanism, the presidential election should be reserved for candidates from a racial group if it is not represented for five terms, or 30 years, to ensure minority representation from time to time.

Story continues

The AGC had advised that Wee Kim Wee was the first president to exercise the powers of an elected president. Wee was appointed president in 1985, and during his second term, the Constitution was amended in 1991 to allow for direct presidential elections.

Last month, Minister in the Prime Ministers Office Chan Chun Sing told Parliament that the election will be held in September.

Tan, who lost the 2011 Presidential Election by just 7,382 votes to Tony Tan, declared his intention to run for office again in March last year. He told Yahoo Singapore in an interview in June that he aimed to be a unifying figure for the country.

At the conference, Tan said he hopes to continue serving the people of Singapore, outlining his extensive experience in many fields.

I will bring with me, all my experiences, my political experiences, my diplomatic experiences, and my experiences on the ground. Ive been in every field. Town councils, CDCs. In fact, Im so familiar with Singapore, the workings of Singapore, that Im prepared to assume that role to look after your reserves, to make sure that the appointments of people in the government are in the right order.

That will require people with independence, people with integrity, transparency, and that is what I bring with me, if I ever go into the presidency. If I cant, I suppose, well there are other ways for me to contribute to this country.

WATCH a portion of Tan Cheng Bocks press conference:


Scientists understood the climate 150 years ago better than the EPA head today

Posted on 31 March 2017 by John Abraham

The current head of the US Environmental Protection Agency Scott Pruitt does not believe or understand long-known principles of climate science and basic physics. Recently he claimed on CNBC that carbon dioxide is not a primary contributor to global warming:

I think that measuring with precision human activity on the climate is something very challenging to do, and theres tremendous disagreement about the degree of impact. So, no, I would not agree thats a primary contributor to the global warming that we see. But we dont know that yet. We need to continue the debate and continue the review and the analysis.

There are two undeniable ironies in this statement. First, taken at face value it would suggest that we actually need to do more analysis  but the current administration is proposing draconian cuts in our climate science research budget. They are doing just the opposite of what he recommends.

The second irony is that scientists have known about the importance of carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas for well over 100 years. There is no debate among any reputable scientists that carbon dioxide is the most important human emitted greenhouse gas. Furthermore, humans have increased the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere by 43%. These are facts.

So, I wanted to revisit some of the first studies on carbon dioxide and its effect on the climate to put into perspective how backwards Pruitt is. One of the first works, and certainly a seminal study was completed in 1827 by Jean Baptiste Fourier. An excellent summary of the contributions of his work is provided here.

While Fourier produced multiple publications, my favorite is the one from 1827. From his work, scientists were able to describe how heat entered and left a planets system. He described heat loss by infrared radiation from the Earth and other planets. He correctly concluded that energy transferred within the Earth was negligible compared to that transferred by radiation. He also recognized the important nature of the atmosphere  that it is transparent to visible light but not to infrared light. This is why the greenhouse analogy to our atmosphere is so apt. Shockingly, Fourier knew more about climate change than does the current head of the EPA.

So what was happening in the world back then? Well, both Beethoven and William Blake died that year. The first African American newspaper was published. The Russian-Persian war was ongoing. The Stockton and Darlington railway had just opened in England. Life expectancy in the UK was approximately 40 years, and less than that elsewhere in the world. I would have shown a photograph of what the world was like in 1827, but photography had not yet been invented.

Another major discovery occurred in the 1860s by researcher John Tyndall. He studied various gases and their ability to absorb radiant heat. Among the gases he studied were oxygen and nitrogen which he found were virtually transparent to radiant heat. On the other hand, he found that some gases like water vapor and carbon dioxide can absorb heat, even though they are present in small amounts.

The genius of Tyndall was his measurement device. He used a galvanometer with a tube that he could fill with various gases. He couldnt use glass to make the walls because glass is a radiant heat absorber. In fact, his original paper was filled with a detailed description of his experiment and the issues he had to address to ensure quality results. But, in the end he was able to quantify the importance of trace gases on the energy absorptivity of our atmosphere. A nice review of his work is available here. Shockingly, Tyndall knew more about climate change than does the current head of the EPA.

What was the world like when Tyndall did his work? Well, America was at war  with itself  in the most deadly US war to date (the US Civil War). Russian serfs were freed by Tsar Alexander II. Oil refining had begun and soon whale oil would be replaced. Telegraph lines connected the East and West coasts of the USA. Victor Hugo published Les Miserables. A terrible Indian/settler conflict brewed in my home state of Minnesota. The Emancipation Proclamation became law, and the Gatling gun was invented.

1861 photograph of a log kitchen. Photograph: National Archives and Records Administration

The final stop on our way-back trip brings us to 1896 and Swedish researcher Svante Arrhenius. He became the first person (that I know of) to make predictions about how much the Earth temperature would change as we add carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. The title of his work, On the Influence of Carbonic Acid in the Air upon the Temperature of the Ground says it all.

Using measurements of the energy incoming from the moon, Arrhenius showed that changes to trace gases in the atmosphere can dramatically affect the temperature of the planet. He also discussed how gases are able to absorb specific wavelengths of light. Using experimental data from other preceding studies, he predicted global temperatures would rise approximately 56C in response to a doubling of atmospheric carbon dioxide.

Arrhenius also noted that humans were increasing the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. One significant part of his work is that he was able to make predictions without the use of high-power supercomputers. In fact, there are many ways to make climate predictions  using techniques like those from the 1800s, using the history of temperature changes of the Earth to predict the future, using computer climate models, and others. It is a fallacy to say that our current predictions rely totally upon computer models. Of course, during his age, the rate of increase of carbon dioxide was very very slow. Shockingly, Arrhenius knew more about climate change than does the current head of the EPA.

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If you havent taken adequate steps to protect your business from burglary or theft, now is the right time to rethink your strategy. According to new data by Chicago-based insurance agency Insureon, 8.8 percent of small businesses suffered a burglary of theft in 2016.

The survey further reveals a business owner might have to pay approximately $8,000 out of pocket for a burglary or theft incident. Thats a significant price to pay for any small business.

Businesses Reluctant to File for Insurance Claims

Other than burglary or theft, many small businesses also experienced client complaints or contract disputes (22.2 percent) and employee injury (10.6 percent), all incidents potentially resulting in costs that might have been covered by insurance.

Its worth noting that 35.2 percent of businesses were hit by an incident that insurance might have covered. Surprisingly however, many small business owners like Dylan Gallagher, owner of tour company Orange Sky Adventures, arent filing claims.

We had our van broken into by a robber the other day and I had two choices: pay the $300 bill myself or go through my insurance company, says Gallagher. I chose to pay the bill myself to avoid bureaucracy. Besides, Id rather keep my insurance premiums low and just get on with business.

Tip to Prevent Thefts

For businesses, it pays to boost security to prevent thefts or burglaries. Luckily, there are several budget-friendly options to choose from.

Take the dropcam for example. Considered one of the easiest entry-level solutions, dropcams are do-it-yourself devices that address small business needs.

Another tip is to train employees to keep an eye on customers.

For the study, Insureon surveyed 1,002 small business owners online.
Employers most frequently fill the more qualified and top positions with people from countries that perform better economically than Slovakia, while less qualified employees come from countries with lower GDP.

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More information about the Slovak labour market Please see our Career & Employment Guide. This years edition was published also thanks to support from the general partner of the guide, the executive search firm - Amrop.

The number of foreigners working in Slovakia in recent years has been increasing according to official statistics of the Central Office of Labour, Social Affairs and Family. In December 2015, 25,537 foreigners were working in Slovakia. Exactly one year later, that figure was 35,090.

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The reality in human resources is that the number of vacancies is higher than the number of suitable candidates. The sources of applicants are limited in several sectors, like automotive or gastronomy. If we generalise boldly, employers most frequently fill the more qualified and top positions with people from countries that perform better economically than Slovakia, while less qualified employees come from countries with lower GDP.

International companies use internal expats for expert jobs or for various projects. In Slovakia, we are used to the fact that expats commonly serve in high managerial positions or in positions that are crucial for the company. This is also the simplest way to win over proven international experts, as the employee knows the corporate culture, working methods and environment.

Within international projects, I have already worked in Denmark, Germany; and currently, I am in Slovakia, says Anders, who works for an international facility company. However, the company has secured conditions for me  it covers all the costs for me and my family, arranges the administrative side and solves all my needs.

Anders considers this above-standard care a necessity. If the employer failed to offer him the possibility to take his family along, he would probably not even consider coming to Slovakia.

Slovakia is beautiful, and the people are really very friendly, he said. But I miss the internationality here. I could not even open a personal account without knowing the local language.

What he misses most are language skills at offices, but also in medical facilities. His employer secured a Slovak language teacher for him.

The rotation of internal expats is simpler for the company. The costs of these employees are in many cases higher, but the process of employing a foreigner is typically easier.

Companies with bilingual internal communication do not hesitate to involve foreign employees. It is this international environment that makes such employers so attractive for foreigners.

After arriving to Slovakia, Jacob planned to continue his employment in an international network of hotels.

I worked hard to become the head of reception in Scotland, he said. After arriving to Slovakia, the same hotel network offered me a job in the laundry, as I did not speak Slovak. They did not even seek other possibilities; they closed the door on me.

It took him almost three months to find a job in Slovakia, in a shared service centre.

For me as a foreigner, this was the only chance to get employed in an interesting job position without the knowledge of Slovak, he says. The professional approach of the HR department helped me a lot. They offered me several positions and, most of all, they gave me the chance to decide.

He appreciates the individual approach and willingness to seek solutions: they advised him what documents are necessary, and to what office to take them.

The HR departments knowledge of legislative procedures and administration is undoubtedly a key factor. According to Emiliano from Brazil, a foreigner has only minimum awareness of what they need to secure, and a helping hand at offices is rather an exception than a rule.

The HR department is the source of trustworthy information for a foreign employee. But if competencies are absent here  the knowledge of ones duties stemming from the employment of foreigners, and especially from third countries it can have serious consequences: from losing the trust of the employee in the employer, to a withdrawal of working permission.

Production companies are in sharp contrast. The requirements for employees are almost exclusively directed towards production staff, and there is no sense in denying that there is a relatively high rate of fluctuation. In the case of a bigger volume of orders, it is almost a superhuman achievement to cover the requirements with employees from Slovakia; and many employers are open to the possibility of hiring foreigners. When acquiring them, specialised agencies or recruitment centres in the target country are often used - those that are familiar with the labour markets and play a key role in communication.

In Romania, we had an interview where the job was presented to us. After our arrival to Slovakia, we learned the wage conditions were suddenly lower.

This is part of the experience of Liliana and Sorino from Romania who work here as production operators.

Nobody in the company spoke Romanian, they did not have sufficient accommodation for us, and we got contracts only after three days, they say. Ultimately, everything ended well, but the beginnings were  to put it mildly  very chaotic.

Paulina Martanovicova is division director at HRQ SK
The recently deceased David Rockefeller dominated the realm of hoaxes over the past week.

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The death of the 101-year-old American financier David Rockefeller has turned into a welcome opportunity for conspiracy theorists. In their eyes, the Rockefeller clan, together with the Rothschilds and the freemasons, represent one of the pillars of the global conspiracy that is about to fall apart.

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For decades the Rockefellers have belonged to the top of the American society, not only thanks to their immense wealth but also thanks to links to politics, diplomacy, and secret services.

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Read also: The Sme daily starts a hunt for hoaxes Read more

The history of the family really comprises frauds, cooperation with totalitarian regimes, and little help to US politicians.

But conspiracy websites have paid their tribute to the deceased man also by presenting some really absurd legends.

Zika patent

Spreading the Zika virus is subject to several conspiracy theories. Like in the case of HIV and Ebola, they want to find the culprit who can be blamed for everything.

The conspiracy magazine Zem a Vek and the website Narodne Noviny wrote that the Rockefeller Foundation owns the patent for the Zika virus. Other sources say the Rothschilds are behind the virus.

It is a hoax that can also easily be found outside conspiracy websites. The available sources are clear that there is no patent for the Zika virus. A virus is not an invention, even though it is possible to patent genetically modified organisms.

Connecting Zika and the Rockefellers is probably based on the fact that the American nonprofit organisation American Type Culture Collection (ATCC) that stores and categorises samples of microorganisms, has the Zika virus in its catalogue. The virus was entered in its database by the Jordi Casals-Ariet, a virologist who worked for the lab of the Rockefeller Foundation.

In the world of science, ATCC is a useful organisation because it gives biologists the opportunity to obtain samples of various microorganisms.

Private sponsorship of scientific research does not qualify as global conspiracy either.

Conspiracy media are also not in agreement on why the Rockefellers would spread Zika in the world. The Huffington Post also noted that if they were after global killing, they are not be doing a very good job of it.

Childrens blood and the Pizzagate

Czech conspiracy website Aeronet went even further and wrote that David Rockefeller had been prolonging his own life with transfusions of childrens blood. They referred to the perhaps most bizzare hoax that appeared during the presidential campaign in the US, the Pizzagate affair.

The affair started after American conspiracy websites linked the leaked e-mails of John Podesta, head of Hillary Clintons campaign, which also mentioned pizza and other foods, with an invented story about Clintons staff being part of a paedophile network.

High-ranking politicians allegedly used to go to a Washington-based pizzeria Comet Ping-Pong, with alleged secret rooms in the basement.

The conspirators wrote in different contexts about satanist rituals and paedophilia, for example they regarded the cheese pizza to be a code for child pornography, given their identical initials.

Obviously, in the world of conspiracy media it is impossible to fathom that politicians would really talk about food in their e-mails.

Bombing

Rockefellers death also brought back to life some smaller hoaxes. Zem a Vek conspiracy magazine, for instance, wrote that the German concern IG Farben was not bombed during World War II by the allies on purpose, because among its shareholders was the Standard Oil company from the portfolio of the Rockefellers.

It is easy-to-check nonsense. The Allies did bomb the facilities of IG Farben because they belonged to the strategic companies of the Third Reich. In addition, Standard Oil was not a shareholder of IG Farben, only entered in an illegal cartel with it.

To conclude, here is a claim from the Aeronet website: If the owner of the FED bank died half a century ago, it would have shaken the markets. After the arrival of Donald Trump as president, the stockmarkets did not even notice the death of the big globalist.

The problem is that the American central bank, the FED, has no owner. It is a state institution. Donald Trumps presidency did not change anything about it. Its head is still Janet Yellen who was nominated by Barack Obama in 2014.

Alleged picture of Rockefellers widow

A young woman with a wide smile under a mourning black veil. The Facebook status from a profile with a Russian-sounding name Viktor Bernovskij, she is the widow of the recently deceased David Rockefeller.

Among the more than 450 people who shared the picture is also Slovak diabetologist Andrej Janco who often spreads fake news on his profile.

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This is an exemplary hoax aiming to support the image of the arrogant American rich who smile even after their closest ones have died. But it is easy to check. The picture makes no sense logically and factually. Rockefeller died at the age of 101 and it is unlikely that he would have such a young wife. His wide was Margaret McGrath who died in 1996.

The picture is also suspicious at first sight because the woman in black is surrounded by men in classic suits, not black. A scene from the funeral would look differently.

It takes about one minute to run the picture through Google Images. It depicts Natalie Portman and it was taken during the shooting of the movie Jackie, where the actress plays Jacqueline Kennedy.
By Ludwig Burger and Patricia Weiss BAD VILBEL, Germany (Reuters) - The head of Stada , the German drugmaker at the centre of a takeover battle, confirmed his car had been bugged last year but reassured investors that the company had not suffered as a result. "I have no reason to assume that any confidential business information went into the wrong hands," Chief Executive Matthias Wiedenfels told a news conference on Wednesday after the group announced annual financial results. The disclosure comes at a sensitive time as Stada is the subject of a 4.7 billion euro ($5.1 billion) takeover fight between two rival private equity consortia. It was not clear who was responsible for the bugging and no suggestion that it was connected to the takeover battle. Germany's Manager Magazin reported last week that Wiedenfels found a listening device in his car and that he was also anonymously sent photographs taken of him in confidential business situations and outside of the office. The chief executive said the issue occurred last summer and had been put to rest as far as he was concerned. He would not say whether police of state prosecutors had been informed at the time. Wiedenfels replaced long-serving Stada boss Hartmut Retzlaff last June after Retzlaff stepped down on health grounds. BIDDING PROCESS The takeover battle for Stada pits a combination of Advent and Permira against Bain and Cinven. Both have made takeover offers at 58 euros per share, valuing the company at 4.7 billion euros including debt, according to people familiar with the matter. Stada last week asked the competing suitors to improve their offers but Wiedenfels said the process remained on track. "The bidding process that we have initiated is intact in every respect," Wiedenfels told reporters at the group's Bad Vilbel headquarters close to Frankfurt. When asked about rumours that non-executive Chairman Carl Ferdinand Oetker had proposed a takeover price of 70 euros per share to the bidders, Wiedenfels said he had not heard Oetker voice such a price. "Neither the supervisory board nor the management board have come forward with a price target," the chief executive said. Stada shares traded 0.5 percent lower at 56.84 euros on Wednesday afternoon. ($1 = 0.9270 euros) (Editing by Victoria Bryan and Keith Weir)
Staying British? Gibraltar (Rex)

Spain is to be given an effective veto over the future of Gibraltar as part of the Brexit plans.

The idea has prompted anger among some British critics.

Under draft guidelines drawn up by EU leaders, it states that the Brexit deal will not apply to Gibraltar, without an agreement between the Kingdom of Spain and the UK, reports the Telegraph.

British officials argue that it should not be included in any joint agreement between the UK and the 27 other EU nations, as it is a bilateral issue between Madrid and London.

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The vice-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Gibraltar, Andrew Rosindell, said the joint agreement was an attempt to bully Britain.

British people must and will stand together, we cannot be bullied by Spain, any agreement must apply equally to the whole British family and that includes Gibraltar, he said.

There can be no compromise on this.

Draft draft negotiating guidelines for withdrawal talks state that no agreement between the EU and the United Kingdom may apply to the territory of Gibraltar without the agreement between the Kingdom of Spain and the United Kingdom.

The territory has been under British control since 1713 (Rex)

The issue taps into a long-held fear in the British territory, which has warned it will not be used as a bargaining chip in any Brexit deal.

Last year, Spains acting foreign minister Jose Manuel Garcia-Margallo said he hoped the Spanish flag on the Rock was closer to reality following the vote to leave the EU.

Although staunchly British, Gibraltar, which has been a British territory since 1713, voted overwhelmingly to stay with Brussels last year.

Of its 30,000 residents , 97% voted to remain in the EU.
VIENNA/BERLIN (Reuters) - Austria said on Friday it would file a legal challenge against plans by Germany to introduce a road toll for foreign-registered cars using German highways. Cross-border traffic between the two countries is common and a frequently used route connecting the city of Salzburg to the west of Austria passes through a part of Germany. "We are taking legal action in Luxembourg," Austrian Transport Minister Joerg Leichtfried told reporters, apparently referring to the seat of the European Court of Justice, the European Union's top court. "Italians have to pay, the French have to pay, Austrians have to pay -- only Germans don't. I believe that is discriminatory and against European law." Leichtfried's comments came hours after the toll plan, which the European Commission approved in January after adjustments were made, cleared Germany's upper house of parliament. Austria's legal action, though not fundamentally affecting its ties with Germany, marks an ugly episode at a time when the EU is trying to project unity as it gears up for negotiations with Britain over its departure from the bloc. The toll will cost vehicles up to 130 euros ($139) a year, which German drivers will be able to recover through tax deductions. It will take effect as soon as President Frank-Walter Steinmeier signs it into law, likely in coming days. However, it is expected to take around two years to build the payment infrastructure for the tolls to come into use. (Reporting by Kirsti Knolle and Francois Murphy in Vienna, and Michelle Martin and Paul Carrel in Berlin; Editing by Vin Shahrestani and John Stonestreet)
A general view of the market in central Quetta, Pakistan September 20, 2016. REUTERS/Naseer Ahmed

If you were traveling via motorway from Islamabad to Lahore during November or December 2016, you might have felt like your head was in the clouds. Thats thanks to the smog that engulfed large parts of Pakistans Punjab and Sindh provinces in that period.

This was clearly "not a natural phenomenon," as the Pakistani newspaper Dawn recently noted. Beyond causing acute ailments such as asthma, lung tissue damage, bronchial infections and heart problems, the smog also resulted in dozens of fatal road accidents due to poor visibility.

Qamar-uz-Zaman Chaudhry, former director general of Pakistans meteorological office and now an international climate change specialist at the Asian Development Bank, attributed the smog primarily to toxic car emissions and atmospheric pollutants coming from coal-based industries in neighboring Indian Punjab.

Imagine, then, what will happen to the environment when Pakistan begins mining billions of tonnes of coal, in part due to its plan to open at least five new coal power plants by 2018 under a new agreement with China.

Smog would spread across cities and rural areas, including in the Thar region, which spreads across Pakistan and parts of India. The poor indigenous people there might have to be relocated to other areas thanks to planned coal projects, losing their livelihoods, lands and villages to new mines.

A global challenge for climate change

Burning coal is not just a matter of local social and environmental concern. It is clear today that the coal that powered the developed worlds industrial revolution has also triggered global climate changes.

According to Greenpeace International, coal is the single greatest threat to our climate. Emissions from burning coal fuel global warming, and coal mining is also a source of climate-warming methane gas.

Pakistan is responsible for a mere 0.43% of global greenhouse gas emissions, but it is among the worlds ten most vulnerable countries to climate change. Domestic climate change experts see the issue as a bigger threat than terrorism.

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The country is grappling with many issues, including receding glaciers, floods, heatwaves, droughts, shifting weather patterns and declining ground water levels  and the list goes on.

Agriculture, which comprises 21% of Pakistans GDP, 60% of exports and employs 45% of the national labor force, is particularly vulnerable to climate change.

China Pollution

REUTERS/Stringer

China reduces coal investments at home but not abroad

In the landmark December 2015 Paris Agreement, 195 countries agreed to curtail climate change by keeping global warming to "well below 2C and  pursu[ing] efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels".

All told, 141 countries (including Pakistan and China), jointly responsible for over 82% of global greenhouse gas emissions, have ratified the agreement.

China  worlds second biggest economy and largest coal consumer, which also has the worlds highest coal-fired power plant capacity  is considered a crucial player in the success of the Paris Agreement.

Domestically, China has realised that its over-dependence on coal causes severe air pollution and other environmental impacts. The most recent data shows reductions in coal use for the third year in a row.

Yet China also invested US$25 billion in coal projects worldwide between 2007 and 2015, according to a recent report by the Natural Resources Defense Council. The report criticizes China and other G20 countries for such investments, which are in conflict with their climate commitments under the Paris Agreement.

It shows how some of the worlds leading polluters have, on one hand, pledged to control climate-changing carbon emissions within their borders, and, on the other, continued to finance fossil fuel projects elsewhere.

Thats precisely what happened with Pakistan. After most international financial institutions turned away from coal, China established itself as Pakistans partner in developing the new coal power plants.

Under the 2015 China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) initiative, the Chinese government and banks have planned to finance companies to invest US$27.6 billion in energy and infrastructure projects in Pakistan over the next six years, of which Pakistan is contributing US$18.1 billion. According to Pakistans Ministry of Planning, Development and Reform, coal-fired plants with a combined capacity of 7,560 mW will be established as CPEC-energy priority projects.

In the guise of bringing energy, this investment will harm the air, water, public health and environment of Pakistan. The costs and lifespans of such coal projects can stretch over decades, trapping developing nations in a system of carbon-intensive energy use.

Rapid utilization of coal  the "dirty" energy-generation option  has given many Chinese cities, including Shanghai and Beijing, the worlds worst air quality.

Pakistans proposed Port Qasim Power Project, a 1320-mW coal plant in Sindh province, will be located near Karachi, a metropolis of 25 million. This could cause disastrous damage to air quality and environment.

clean energy solar

Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images

Potential for clean energy

No country can be expected to compromise on development, and development requires energy. But, as the cases of Jordan, Peru and Mexico demonstrate, it doesnt require dirty energy. Instead of using coal, Pakistan could drive development with renewables, in particular solar energy.

Much of Pakistans territory is arid or semi-arid, an ideal setting for harnessing solar energy with more than the necessary number of sunny days per year.

In addition to providing clean energy, solar solutions can produce energy in the same places it is consumed, making it useful in remote areas that may lack transmission infrastructure.

Recent research suggests that the deployment and maintenance of renewable energy projects are also likely to create better quality jobs than coal.

The costs of renewables are declining rapidly worldwide. Solar and wind now cost the same or less than new fossil fuel in more than 30 developing and developed countries.

Indias energy minister noted last year that solar tariffs had become cheaper than coal-based electricity, and India is pushing ahead with its renewables plan.

China, too, has realised the economic potential of leading in renewable sources. By the end of 2016, its solar energy capacity hit 7,742 mW, double that of 2015, and this year it claimed the title of worlds biggest solar power producer.

The investment bank Lazard reckons that, given proper infrastructures, prices will continue to decline in the near future.

Yet under the CPEC, there is only one sizeable solar project in Pakistan, the Quaid-e-Azam Solar Park project, with a relatively skimpy total capacity of 1,000 mW.

So why is China, a leader in renewable energy technologies, investing in coal-based projects abroad? It may be a way to provide overseas business opportunities for Chinese coal-plant equipment manufacturers, engineering and construction companies as a recent Bloomberg article pointed out.

Pakistans domestic interests are otherwise. Instead of seeking foreign investment to fulfill its energy needs with fossil fuels, it can ride the renewables wave, developing its workforce and technical and institutional capacity to harness solar energy. Climate conditions suggest the country could produce enough power to both cover domestic needs and to export, along with associated equipment and technology.

What Pakistan needs now are forward-looking policies to foster renewable development, innovative business models, and strong leadership in obtaining financial and technical partnerships, both local and international. The World Banks new solar maps of Pakistan can support these clean-energy efforts. Transparency in costs and production also need to be ensured.

One thing is certain: winning the future will not be done with technologies of the past.

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Brexit Secretary David Davis (PA Images)

David Davis has confirmed ministers will have the power able to get rid of ghastly EU laws after Brexit.

Publishing details of proposed legislation that will transfer the whole of EU law on to the UK statute book as Britain leaves the European Union, the Brexit Secretary said the Great Repeal Bill would provide clarity and certainty for businesses and citizens.

MORE: What is the Great Repeal Bill?

MORE: EU laws will still affect British court decisions after Brexit

In a move designed to quell concern over the use of so-called Henry VIII powers to pass up to 1,000 pieces of secondary legislation without close parliamentary scrutiny, Mr Davis said any powers created in this way would be time limited and Parliament will need to be satisfied that the procedures are appropriate.

He also admitted that EU laws will still affect British court decisions after Brexit.

Mr Davis told MPs: We have been clear that we want a smooth and orderly exit, and the Great Repeal Bill is integral to that approach.

It will provide clarity and certainty for businesses, workers and consumers across the United Kingdom on the day we leave the EU.

It will mean that as we exit the EU and seek a new deep and special partnership with the European Union, we will be doing so from the position where we have the same standards and rules.

But it will also ensure that we deliver on our promise to end the supremacy of EU law in the UK as we exit.

Responding to a question from Tory MP Christopher Chope as to whether the Bill would allow the Government to abolish all these ghastly EU laws and directives, Mr Davis confirmed that they could.

UK lawmaker Christopher Chope thanks #Brexit Secretary David Davis, describes EU legislation as ghastly pic.twitter.com/7ZLlbokAuP  Reuters Live (@ReutersLive) March 30, 2017

The exchange feeds into wider concerns that the Tory Government will try to dilute protections for workers in particular.

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It comes after Mr Davis was forced to defend the Prime Minister against accusations that her Article 50 letter threatened to end Britains security co-operation with the EU.

Theresa May is under fire after linking a new trade deal with the European Union to continued security co-operation after Brexit.

In her letter to European Council president Donald Tusk triggering Article 50, the Prime Minister warned failure to reach a comprehensive settlement would lead to a weakening of co-operation in the fight against crime and terrorism.

Downing Street insisted Mrs Mays comments were not intended as a threat to EU negotiators, saying it was a simple fact the existing arrangements would lapse if Britain left the EU without a deal.

Theresa May signs the letter that officially triggered Article 50. (Christopher Furlong  WPA Pool/Getty Images)

But opposition MPs accused her of jeopardising public safety by attempting to use security co-operation as a bargaining chip in the forthcoming negotiations.

In her letter to Mr Tusk, Mrs May warned: Europes security is more fragile today than at any time since the end of the Cold War.

Weakening our co-operation for the prosperity and protection of our citizens would be a costly mistake.

Asked if he thought Mrs May was engaged in blackmail, the European Parliaments co-ordinator for Brexit Guy Verhofstadt said: I try to be a gentleman, so towards a lady I dont even use or think about the word blackmail.

The Prime Ministers official spokesman insisted Mrs Mays comments were not intended as a threat.

Its a simple fact that if we leave the EU without a deal then the arrangements which we have as part of our EU membership will lapse, the spokesman said.

Nato co-operation and intelligence-sharing arrangements, which are normally conducted on a country-by-country basis, would not be affected, he added.
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP)  Lawyers in a U.S. lawsuit against the former mayor of a remote Haitian town called Friday for a full investigation into the death of a plaintiff in the case and sought government protection for his relatives and the family of two other complainants.

Nicole Phillips, a human rights attorney in Haiti, described the sudden death of 56-year-old Nissage Martyr as "suspicious" and called for an autopsy to determine the cause. He died after collapsing while watching a soccer game with at least 60 other people in Les Irois on the tip of Haiti's southern peninsula a day after the U.S. lawsuit was filed against ex-Mayor Jean Morose Viliena.

Les Irois is the isolated town where Viliena is accused of leading an armed group in attacks on his critics and political opponents while in office from 2006 to 2010.

The Center for Justice & Accountability, a San Francisco-based human rights group, alleges that Viliena and his men killed the brother of a man who accused him of misconduct, attempted to kill Martyr and another man during a raid on a community radio station, and burned down 36 homes targeting members of an opposing political faction.

Martyr lost one of his legs to amputation after the attack.

Viliena is now a resident of Malden, Massachusetts, and lost a certificate as a school bus driver after the federal lawsuit against him was filed last week.

Thursday calls to his Massachusetts home went unanswered. Viliena told The Boston Globe newspaper in recent days that he was in the process of finding legal representation and would not discuss any allegations against him until he had a lawyer.

Phillips said that Martyr, who had received death threats in the past, could have been the target of a poisoning or some other type of foul play. He showed no symptoms of illness before his March 24 death in Les Irois.

"We think that the timing makes this very suspicious," she said.

Scott Gilmore, an attorney with the Center for Justice & Accountability, demanded an autopsy and called on "all authorities to assist in uncovering the facts."

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Thursday calls to spokesmen with the Haitian National Police and the ministry of justice went unanswered.

The Center for Justice & Accountability said Martyr and two other men turned to U.S. courts because Viliena was not held accountable in Haiti. They are suing under the Torture Victim Protection Act of 1991, a U.S. law that allows foreign victims of human rights abuses to file lawsuits in the U.S. against foreign officials who commit torture or killings.

In 2015, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights called for Haiti to investigate the allegations of human rights abuses in Les Irois and protect accusers and their relatives.

But Phillips said she and other human rights lawyers were not aware of any effort taken by Haitian administrations to comply.

___

David McFadden in Haiti: www.twitter.com/dmcfadd
The battle to fully recapture Mosul from the Islamic State (IS) is in its final stages  and it is rapidly intensifying.

On March 17, 200 civilians were killed in airstrikes on western Mosul mounted by the US and the Operation Inherent Resolve coalition. Lt Gen. Stephen Townsend, commander of Operation Inherent Resolve, suggested that the US might be directly responsible for the deaths: because we struck in that area, I think theres a fair chance that we did it.

This is the latest in a series of incidents involving collateral damage. Townsend suggested that the fighting in Iraqs second city is probably the toughest and most brutal close-quarters combat that I have experienced in my 35 years of service.

The battle for Mosul has put thousands of civilians in the crossfire. The people of Mosul have endured hell under IS rule, some now being used them as human shields in a clear breach of international law. As one told the BBC:

People who didnt support Daesh [IS], or pay allegiance to them, or who carried a mobile phone, were hanged all day at traffic lights then killed and burned. They hanged them also on bridges for a month or two until you could see their bones.

Now the battle has moved into Mosuls Old City and the area around the Grand Mosque of al-Nuri, and IS is being forced back street by street. But the fighting in these densely populated areas is ferocious, and few of its residents are able to leave. This all only increases the pressure on Iraq and its allies to liberate the city The way the IS threat is ultimately defused will have serious implications for both Iraq and the Middle East at large.

When it comes, the liberation of Mosul will be met with great acclaim  but only then will the most difficult challenges begin. As Iraq has learned before, winning the war is the easy part  winning the peace is far harder.

Falling apart

Recent history has divided Iraq along sectarian lines that long predate IS. After the Arab uprisings of 2011, relationships between regimes and societies across the Middle East and North Africa became increasingly fractious. All over the region, the structures that kept governance in place began to fall apart  and, in a number of cases, sovereign states themselves began to fragment. Ideas of authority and citizenship, both vitally important to keeping divided societies together, suddenly came into question.

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The violence that flares up along Iraqs divisions often descends into a back-and-forth of reciprocal brutality  take the 2014 Speicher massacre, where 1,700 army cadets were killed by IS close to Tikrit.

When the cadets bodies were found in 2015, the Iraqi state executed 36 men convicted of the massacre. And now, the Popular Mobilisation Forces who have entered Mosul are extracting their own violent vengeance. In many parts of the country, revenge attacks on those who are believed to have been complicit in IS rule in Mosul are commonplace, while those whose family members were involved with the group are increasingly marginalised.

The government in Baghdad will want to ensure that the spaces left over from IS governance are filled. But IS gained a great deal of popular support as a consequence of this sectarian violence  and the perception that nobody has been speaking for the countrys Sunnis, much less protecting them. Baghdad must ensure that policies are driven by a desire to improve Iraq, not to privilege one group over another.

After all, the main responsibility of any state is to protect its citizens  but after years spent struggling to keep a lid on things, the Iraqi state seems almost at a loss.

On the line

Western Mosul may be close to liberation, but conditions in parts of Iraq are deteriorating  and the collateral damage is abhorrent. Millions of people in Iraq have been displaced, along with many more made refugees by the war in Syria. As an Amnesty report documents, many have fled with little more than the clothes on their backs, setting off at night to avoid detection and walking for hours along treacherous paths.

Even when IS is defeated in Mosul  which it will be  it wont be finished. Instead, it will change its tactics into more of an insurgency-style operation, much as it did after the fall of Fallujah. The gaps that IS currently fills will suddenly be opened up and a plethora of different actors will compete to fill them. Kurdish groups are already thriving  the Kirkuk provincial government has voted to fly the Kurdish flag on all government building in the province, much to the chagrin of the Baghdad government.

Iraqis are all too aware that violence begets violence and marginalisation begets marginalisation. This is why its so critically important that the forces arrayed get Mosul right. As Stephen Royle and I have written, to stop extremist groups from taking hold again Iraqs civilian and military leaders need to create stable, equitable conditions that foster pluralism and inclusivity. At stake is nothing less than the future of Iraq itself.

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

The Conversation

Simon Mabon does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond the academic appointment above.
U.S. Defense Secretary James Mattis and Britain's Defence Secretary Michael Fallon pose for a handshake in front of a ceremonial guard of the Household Cavalry Mounted Regiment, as Mattis arrives for their meeting at the Ministry of Defence in London, March 31, 2017. REUTERS/Matt Dunham/Pool

Thomson Reuters

LONDON (Reuters) - The United States is concerned about Russia's presence in Afghanistan and its interactions with Taliban fighters, U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said on Friday.

"We have seen Russian activity vis-a-vis the Taliban," Mattis said during a news conference in London.

"I'm not going to say at this point if that has manifested into weapons and that sort of thing, but certainly what they're up to there in light of their other activities gives us concern."

Mattis added that he had not yet decided whether to recommend an increase in U.S. troop numbers in Afghanistan.

In late 2015, Russia said it would consider Afghan requests for arms supply "reasonably and carefully" and that such supplies were first the responsibilities of the US and NATO.

This month, US Gen. Curtis Scaparroti, head of European Command, said that Moscow had increasing influence with the Taliban and may even been supplying the group, which has been gaining ground in southern Afghanistan.

afghanistan Russia

Wikimedia Commons/RIA

The Soviet Union fought a draining war in Afghanistan for most of the 1980s.

More recently, Russia, along with Pakistan and China, have warned that there is a growing ISIS presence in war-torn Afghanistan, where US and NATO forces have been deployed for 16 years.

Chinese soldiers are also reportedly in the country, conducting drills with Afghan forces.

US Central Command chief Gen. Joseph Votel said in March that the war against the Taliban in Afghanistan had sunk into a "stalemate."

(Reporting by Kylie MacLellan and Phil Stewart; writing by William James, editing by David Milliken)

NOW WATCH: Pakistan's Anti-Narcotics Force burns up 57 tons of drugs and alcohol worth over $152 million

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Pamela Anderson previously denied that she is dating WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange but shes set tongues wagging again after writing yet another blog post about the whistleblower in which she describes exactly what she loves about him.

Hmmm.

(AP Photo)

The former Baywatch star, 49, has visited the activist at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London on multiple occasions and feels a genuine closeness to Julian, who has been holed up in the embassy for five years after claiming diplomatic asylum in 2012.

Pammy  who recently denounced porn and insisted it is for losers  said last month she was flattered that people thought they were an item and explained how they met, writing: I met Julian through Vivienne Westwood. We mixed up our dates  I ended up at the embassy on the wrong day but was able to meet with Julian privately.

Since then I feel a genuine closeness to Julian. I have had more stimulating conversation with this man than all my ex-husbands and lovers combined. Our intentions were not to become romantic, but to join forces. The rumours are flattering. I think I might have what it takes to be an effective First Lady. If I had to choose a World Leader to stand beside and support whole heartedly it would be Julian Assange.

Pammy (Photo: Getty Images)

However, the blonde beauty has now admitted she loves many aspects of Julian.

Is she vying for a date and hes not taking the bait?

The star addressed Julians native country, Sweden, in her blog post titled My Julian on Thursday and begged them not to give him up.

She penned: My relationship with Julian  its no secret. He is one of my favourite people and he might be the most famous, most politicised refugee of our time.

Baywatch (Photo: ddp)

Julian is trying to free the world by educating it. It is a romantic struggle. I love him for this.

Julian is afraid of being extradited to the US as part of an investigation into Wikileaks and is also wanted for questioning in Sweden over sexual assault allegations, which he denies.

Follow us on Twitter and Instagram for all of the latest celebrity gossip.
Imagine travelling back in time 30-odd years, to a point where people didnt spend the whole day staring at their phones and swiping at Facebook.

But you dont actually need a time machine to get there: a small American town has no smartphones (in fact, no mobiles at all), no Wi-Fi, and no radio, Voice of America revealed in a video feature this week.

Green Bank has a population of 143, and is known as the Quietest Town in America  and its residents enjoy the enforced lack of technology, describing the town as an oasis.

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MORE: British schoolboys caught stealing items from Auschwitz fined 400

The reason for the radio silence is the nearby Robert C Byrd Green Bank telescope  a 485-foot sensitive radio instrument which listens for distant signals.

The telescope can pick up signals as faint as about a billionth of a billionth of a millionth of a watt, experts say.

Local store owner Sherry, Weve never really had it. We do it the old-fashioned way.

Phones attached to wall jacks are the only way to call someone in Green Banks  and local officials track down any rogue devices which are transmitting radio waves.
Tim Showalter has never been to New Mexico, yet the fascination with the Land of Enchantment has only grown.

My grandpa was born in Las Vegas (N.M.), he says in a recent phone interview. He was a rider on the Pony Express. Ive always wanted to learn more about him and his life.

Showalter may get a chance to head up north to see where his grandfather was born.

He will perform a show at Meow Wolf in Santa Fe under the moniker Strand of Oaks.

Over the course of eight years, he has released five full-length albums and toured around the country. Born in Indiana, he now is based in Philadelphia.

I hope I have some extra time, he says. This will be the closest that Ive been to the area in a long time. We will see how it turns out.

Showalter is touring in support of the album Hard Love.

In writing this album, he was inspired by his father.

My dad called me one day, and hes in his 60s now, he says. He told me that I needed to find something that brings me joy in life. This is why I began to paint. I had finished the album a while ago, and painting became something that I turned to.

Another influence on the album came from his brother, Jon, who had suffered massive cardiac failure.

He was 27 years old at the time.  It happened out of nowhere. I flew out (to Indiana) and stayed in the hospital for almost two weeks, he says. They said he had a 10 percent chance of surviving and they had to induce a coma to prevent brain damage. Sometimes he would start to wake up and look me in the eyes. It was the worst thing that ever happened to me. But he got better. Thats all that matters.

Showalter wanted to create an album that is reflective of his life, from the sex and drugs to offering an equally sincere perspective on the responsibilities, complications and traumas that punctuated his life and forced an evolution.

Some records are built like monuments, set in stone, he says. I want this record to be burned in effigy; I want it to be burned in celebration of the limited time we have on this Earth.

Strand of Oaks

With Heather McEntire

WHEN: 8 p.m. Saturday, April 1

WHERE: Meow Wolf, 1352 Rufina Circle, Santa Fe

HOW MUCH: $13 advance, $16 at the door at meowwolf.com
With President Donald Trumps major legislative items stuck in Congress  or on the drawing board  the conversation has turned to whether he can win over moderate Democrats.

In the unusually friendly description of White House press secretary Sean Spicer, hes looking for members on both sides of the aisle who want to be constructive to achieve the goal of a patient-centered health-care system.

Can he do this? The short answer is no. The longer answer has to do with the way Republicans are using Senate rules to get their agenda through, which has thrown the Senate  where moderate Democrats actually matter  into a sort of legislative phantom zone.

Basically, there are two methods for getting bills through the Congress and to the presidents desk. The first, usually shorthanded as regular order, is to move bills through committees, pass them through both houses of Congress, and eventually get them past the Senates 60-vote filibuster threshold for legislation.

The second is to use one of the very few methods by which measures can be slipped through the Senate with just 51 votes. The big one is the reconciliation process; another, the one used for almost every bill passed in 2017, is the review process, by which Congress can strike down executive regulations created after May 2016.

To get most of their work done, Republicans need to win 216 votes in the House (below the usual 218, because of retirements) and 60 votes in the Senate. That means winning over eight Democrats. Superficially, that might seem doable  as Republican strategists never tire of pointing out, and Democrats grit their teeth when talking about, 10 Democrats up for reelection in 2018 come from states won by Trump.

But that factoid has a way of obscuring political reality. Five Senate Democrats come from states that Trump won by landslides in 2016, and some, like Sen. Heidi Heitkamp, D-N.D., have said for months that they can work with the president. The other five come from states that Barack Obama won twice: Florida, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

To block any bill, Democrats need to hold only 41 members of their 48-seat caucus. Theoretically, every major Trump bill can win the votes of the most vulnerable Democrats, but fail when it loses the votes of Sens. Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., Robert Casey Jr., D-Pa., and Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis., whose states gave Trump razor-thin plurality victories and who need to excite liberal voters to win in midterms that usually have lower turnout. And when it comes to health care, all five of the narrow Trump state Democrats have already signed a letter opposing any Republican bills so long as repeal is on the table. And neither Senate nor House Republicans think they can pass a bill in the House with Democratic votes.

Thats left Republicans doing what they always intended if a Republican won the presidency  using the Congressional Review Act to unwind regulations from the final months of the Obama administration. Doing so has allowed them to put up some actual wins for the energy industry, telecoms and perhaps antiabortion groups.

Of course, resolutions that need just 51 votes need not win any Democrats at all. They even allow Democrats some free votes to differentiate themselves from the rest of their party; think of the resolution that struck down the stream rule, which was favored by mining companies and attracted the support of Heitkamp and Sen. Joe Manchin III, D-W.Va.

The result of all this is a paradox: Republicans can move more quickly on hard-right priorities than they can on policies with broader appeal. And thats having an effect on the rest of their agenda. In interviews this week, House and Senate Democrats often responded to questions about whether they could work with Trump by citing CRAs and executive orders that hed pushed across his desk at the speed of light.

You could imagine a hypothetical president  say, a former Democrat who wrote a book about the art of dealmaking  who found a way around this. He could, using the threat to work around Democrats, bring them on board for some big-ticket legislation. But this president does not exist.

Sign up for the Todays WorldView Newsletter The Washington Post.
LAS CRUCES, N.M.  An Ohio man accused in the 2016 slaying of a police officer in New Mexico has rejected a plea agreement, clearing the way for a trial later this year.

Jesse Denver Hanes appeared Wednesday in federal court in Las Cruces. He told the judge he couldnt plead guilty to something he didnt do.

The Las Cruces Sun-News reports (http://bit.ly/2omg2FS) that the proposed agreement called for Hanes to plead guilty to 14 charges in pending cases out of New Mexico and Ohio.

The victims  Hatch Police Officer Jose Chavez and Theodore Timmons of Ross County, Ohio  were shot and killed just weeks apart last summer.

Had Hanes accepted the offer, prosecutors say he would have been spared a possible death sentence in Ohio. New Mexico does not have the death penalty.

___

Information from: Las Cruces Sun-News, http://www.lcsun-news.com
LAS VEGAS  The Latest about high winds in Las Vegas and nearby desert areas (all times local):

7:15 p.m.

Tens of thousands of people remain without power in Las Vegas where winds in excess of 70 mph (112.65 kph) have overturned semi-trailer trucks, toppled trees and sent power lines down onto cars near the Strip.

No serious injuries have been reported but widespread power outages and downed traffic lights are snarling traffic in and around Las Vegas. Officials at NV Energy said crews were working Thursday night to restore power to an estimated 42,000 customers.

The high winds snapped a series of telephone poles a few blocks east of the Strip where power lines fell on several cars.

The National Weather Service recorded winds gusting to 82 mph (131.96 kph) at the Red Rock Conservation Area west of Las Vegas, 71 mph (114.26 kph) at North Las Vegas Airport and 60 mph (96.56 kph) at McCarran International Airport, where numerous flights have been delayed.

6:55 p.m.

Tens of thousands of people remain without power in Las Vegas where winds in excess of 70 mph (112.65 kph) have overturned semi-trailer trucks, toppled trees and sent power lines down onto cars near the Strip.

No serious injuries have been reported but widespread power outages and downed traffic lights are snarling traffic in and around Las Vegas. Officials at NV Energy said crews were working Thursday night to restore power to an estimated 42,000 customers.

The high winds snapped a series of telephone poles a few blocks east of the Strip where power lines fell on several cars.

The National Weather Service recorded winds gusting to 82 (131.96 kph) mph at the Red Rock Conservation Area west of Las Vegas, 71 (114.26 kph) mph at North Las Vegas Airport and 60 (96.56 kph) mph at McCarran International Airport, where numerous flights have been delayed.

4:45 p.m.

High winds are being blamed for multiple power outages affecting more than 40,000 NV Energy customers in a wide area around Las Vegas.

Some scattered outages also were reported across northern Nevada.

Television news images showed a row of power poles damaged on a road just east of the Las Vegas Strip.

But NV Energy spokeswoman Jennifer Schuricht (shur-IKT) says the tourist corridor isnt among the areas severely affected.

She says one part of North Las Vegas has 7,000 customers without service.

Schuricht says crews are working to restore electricity as quickly and safely as possible, and people should stay away from downed power lines.

____

3:55 p.m.

Authorities are advising motorists to stay off highways in the Las Vegas area due to poor visibility and high winds in southern Nevada, Californias San Bernardino County and northwest Arizona.

The Nevada Highway Patrol says two tractor-trailer rollover crashes were reported about 3 p.m. due to the wind, including one blocking Interstate 15 near the St. Rose Parkway overpass just south of Las Vegas and one on the overpass itself.

Trooper Jason Buratczuk (bur-AH-chek) says both trucks were traveling empty, and neither driver was reported to be seriously hurt.

He says another big rig rollover was reported on U.S. 95 in the Nye County community of Pahrump.

Buratczuk says visibility is poor and loose debris, temporary signs and traffic control barrels are blowing across traffic lanes on freeways throughout the Las Vegas area.

The National Weather Service has issued an emergency alert warning of damaging winds and blowing dust until about 7 p.m.

____

3 p.m.

High winds and poor visibility due to blown dust are causing flight delays at McCarran International Airport in Las Vegas.

Airport spokeswoman Christine Crews said Thursday the Federal Aviation Administration ordered a hold about 1 p.m. on departures of commercial flights from other airports to Las Vegas.

The hold was lifted less than an hour later, but the FAA reports that some arriving flights are delayed more than 90 minutes and some departing flights are delayed up to 30 minutes.

Records show that American Airlines flight 2470 from Chicago and AeroMexico flight 484 from Juarez, Mexico, were diverted briefly to Los Angeles International Airport.

The National Weather Service says winds are blowing at more than 30 mph with gusts to 48 mph.

It says gusts could top 60 mph during the afternoon.

Crews says airport delays are expected through the evening and into Friday.

She says passengers should check with their airlines for flight updates and alerts.

____

10 a.m.

Authorities have issued warnings and advisories about high winds in Las Vegas and nearby desert areas.

The National Weather Service says strong winds of 35 mph with gusts up to 60 mph are expected Thursday afternoon, with gusty conditions continuing through Friday, especially in northwest Las Vegas.

Officials predict dangerous travel conditions with strong crosswinds and blowing dust in desert areas in southern Nevada, Californias San Bernardino County, and northwest Arizona.

They say winds could damage trees, roofs and unsecured structures.

The Clark County Department of Air Quality in Las Vegas issued a dust advisory through Friday morning.

It says construction sites should limit blowing dust, and sensitive people including children with asthma or bronchitis, the elderly, and people with lung or heart disease may want to stay indoors.
SANTA FE  Gov. Susana Martinez vetoed legislation Thursday that would have required state agencies to develop anti-racism policies for hiring decisions and create a system to track their progress.

She also rejected four other bills  each of which passed the Legislature with broad bipartisan support  and signed three more.

But the anti-racism proposal, Senate Bill 269, was the most controversial of the group. It passed the House and Senate largely along party lines, with Democrats in favor and Republicans opposed.

Its two main sponsors were Sen. Linda Lopez and Rep. Javier Martinez, both Albuquerque Democrats.

The bill called for state agencies and groups receiving state funding to develop policies to decrease institutional racism, which is defined as programs, policies and practices that intentionally or unintentionally place certain racial and ethnic groups at a disadvantage in relation to other groups.

State agencies, in particular, would have been required to carry out a statewide evaluation of race and gender gaps in hiring, promotion and pay. They would also have been required to come up with a plan to address any discrepancies, provide anti-racism training to employees and report back to the Legislature each year.

The state Personnel Office told legislators it would be difficult to implement the proposal. The states hiring software doesnt require applicants to disclose their race, the office said, and the law already prohibits discrimination.

Martinez, the only Hispanic woman serving as governor in the country, said in her veto message that she wasnt convinced the proposal would do any good.

I have always fought to ensure that all New Mexicans  regardless of their gender, race or religion  be treated with the utmost dignity and respect, she said.

Javier Martinez called the governors veto misguided in a message on Twitter. He added that he was still proud that were first in the nation to pass this type of legislation at the state level.

The other four vetoed bills focused on clarifying which agencies can participate in a state-run investment pool, behavioral health services for nonviolent offenders, requiring the posting of water rights notices online and a change to the definition of film sets eligible for tax credits.

The bills she signed Thursday involve horse racing, water system financing and bench warrants.

In all, lawmakers approved 277 bills during the session. Martinez has signed 27 bills, allowed two more to become law without her signature and vetoed 21 bills.
Please help Meals on Wheels!

THESE DAYS, news of the furor over the presidents budget blueprint is all over the print and broadcast media  especially regarding cuts in services to seniors and disabled persons. As board vice president for Meals on Wheels of Albuquerque, I can report that our staff, 400 volunteers, and over 500 clients to whom we deliver nutritious meals are very concerned over impacts that may be coming their way. Many are very concerned that they may lose the food services that Meals on Wheels provides, leading to a range of problems, from hunger, malnutrition and monetary impact to having to purchase food from other sources.

In the Albuquerque area, we are fortunate that Meals on Wheels does not receive funds from government sources, including the federal government. We provide a unique and beneficial selection of eight medically tailored meals to our clients. We are the only organization that provides such meals. Our clients will not see a near-term loss of services from Meals on Wheels. However, in that some other nonprofit organizations in our area do use federal funding, there will likely be more competition for funds from grants, individual donors, endowments and other private sources of funding. Eventually, Meals on Wheels could run short of funds. We currently have about 100 individuals on our wait list for our LIFE (Low Income Food and Enrichment) program. We are constantly fundraising to enable us to extend our LIFE food services while reducing the number of folks on our LIFE wait list.

The cost for a full year of home-delivered meals is $1,690 per client. Please note that this is well under the cost of a single day in a typical local hospital. Meals on Wheels has been serving the Albuquerque metro area for over 40 years. It is unusual for federal budget decisions to impact our activities. However, we are in unusual times. We are actively communicating with our clients through written material included with the daily food deliveries, as well as verbal information via our volunteers making deliveries. We are also increasing our private fundraising activities to hopefully compensate for any shortfalls in our operating budget.

Meals on Wheels will appreciate donations from any private source; please help! Our website is: www.mow-nm.org.

PAUL A. MISKIMIN,

Meals on Wheels of Albuquerque volunteer driver, vice president board of directors

Administration shows cruelty

AFTER HEARING (White House Budget Chief) Mick Mulvaney say that there is no demonstrable evidence that children do better in school when they are not hungry, I propose that he skip all his meals after he has eaten his government-funded lunch and then go up in front of the press or a congressional committee on the following Monday morning and see how demonstrably well he performs. Granted, he will do better as his body and brain are (more) fully developed  than a first-graders, but I think we need to see the evidence. The evidence that I do see is that Mulvaney has a fully developed heart, and it is stone.

As a resident of one of the poorest counties, Torrance, in one of the poorest states, I am looking for someone to please tell me how a budget that eliminates food for the elderly and for children is not cruel and unusual punishment. I did not vote for the man who now occupies the White House and I want him tried in criminal court for these crimes against humanity.

JAN ESHLEMAN

Mountainair

Bataan March significant in NM

MY WIFE AND I just returned from the White Sands Missile Range near Las Cruces where the huge Memorial Bataan Death March took place on March 19. Our son, Maj. Todd Kontny, New Mexico Army National Guard, has marched the 26.2 miles for the 13th straight year. This year, there were 7,200 entrees, and one cannot explain the energy, patriotism and beauty that exists at 6 a.m. just as the sun rises over the vast flat range, with the Organ Mountains in the background.

There were six survivors present of the original horrible march in April of 1942. The opening ceremony honored these men and all those who did not survive. The names of those who have died the past 12 months were read. The Philippines government was represented and its national anthem was sung before our anthem. Many countries and numerous states participate, many with young men and women from various military-related organizations. The Germans from Holloman AFB were well represented. The temperature reached a high of 89 degrees, which made the march much more difficult. This is a significant event for New Mexico.

ROD KONTNY, Col USAF (ret.)

Albuquerque

Electoral College should go

I AM prompted to respond to Sen. William Sharers, R-Farmington, defense of the Electoral College from his article in the Journals March 19 edition.

Sen. Sharer feels that a presidential election would be determined by voters in larger cities across the country in the absence of the Electoral College. If thats the case, would that not be the will of the people?

Suppose, in New Mexico, there are two political parties, the Pinks and the Yellows. Suppose the Yellows are concentrated in the three larger cities, Santa Fe, Albuquerque and Las Cruces. Suppose the Pinks are all concentrated elsewhere, including Senator Sharers Farmington.

If the Yellow candidate for governor wins simply because there are more Yellow voters in the three cities than Pink voters in the rest of the state, should not the Yellow candidate take office? The larger cities in the state would determine the outcome.

In my opinion, the same should apply to the country as a whole. Our Founding Fathers put in the Electoral College because, at that time, more than two centuries ago, it was most likely necessary. Today, we have accurate electronic technology that could give us a winner in little time. Suppose no one gets 50 percent. Why not a run-off between the top two, like many other democracies?

There is absolutely no reason that a presidential winner must be determined on the night of the election.

If you stop and think about it, the Electoral College is really nothing more than a form of legal gerrymandering.

The will of the people has not been followed twice now in the past 16 years. The Electoral College is obsolete; lets discard it. Yes, it will require a Constitutional change, but for the sake of the electorate as a whole, lets do it!

ROBERT B. ENGSTROM

Albuquerque

Journal truly not liberal media

IF I just moved here and picked up your newspaper, I might think this state was a place like Wyoming. Every single day, the Journal bends over backward to showcase the opinions of right-wing columnists Cal Thomas, Charles Krauthammer, Jonah Goldberg, et al., as well as the right-wing cartoons by Ramirez, McCoy and McKee, not to mention your own editorials. Well, its your paper and you can publish what you want.

But what I find astonishing are the letters from people like Clyde J. Aragon (March 10), who complained bitterly about how Conservatives dont get a say in Journal and about the frustration that Republicans and conservatives have in trying to get a letter to the editor published. What?

Right-wingers raving about the libs appear nearly every day in your letters. How about Paul W. Morrison on March 20, who said, incredibly, It is no secret that the progressives want to, and are succeeding in, destroying our Constitution and the rule of law. What? Who invents these people? They must think everyone except themselves is a doctrinaire communist.

Heres a glimpse of reality: Hillary Clinton won New Mexico and its five electoral votes, as did Obama, twice, Bill Clinton, twice, and even Al Gore. Both of our U.S. senators are Democrats, as are two out of three congressional representatives. And the Democrats control both chambers of the state Legislature.

Its obvious to me that the Journal gives more than generous representation to the political right, day after day, year after year. The people who denounce you for being the liberal media truly have no grasp of reality.

ROBERT BORDEN

Jemez Springs
The fence or wall around your yard can be a clear signal to others that they are not allowed on your property, a distinction clarified by a misdemeanor criminal trespassing case from Portales decided by the state Supreme Court on Thursday.

In 2001, two young men were walking along a Portales street about 3:30 a.m. when a police officer yelled at them that he wanted to talk. They ran, jumping over a 3-foot wall and into the backyard of a home on a street corner. One of the young men jumped a taller chain-link fence into a neighbors yard, and Trevor Merhege attempted to follow.

But his shoelaces got caught and he was arrested for resisting arrest.

That charge morphed into a conviction for the misdemeanor charge of criminal trespassing, which Merhege, with a public defender, successfully appealed.

In New Mexico, criminal trespassing is knowingly entering or remaining upon the unposted lands of another knowing that such consent to enter or remain is denied or withdrawn by the owner or occupant thereof.

The state Court of Appeals in 2014 said that by that law, a property owner must post no trespassing signs at all vehicle entrance ways on the property to properly communicate to the public who is allowed on the property.

But the corner house that night wasnt posted with no trespassing signs. The owner also testified that he didnt know the young men and had not given them permission to be on his property.

So, the judges on the Court of Appeals panel reversed Merheges conviction, agreeing that without the postings, Merhege could not have known that he was not allowed on the property.

That ruling has now been overturned, and Merheges trespassing violation is reinstated.

The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that the 3-foot wall Merhege jumped over should have alerted him that he was not allowed on the property.

The wall surrounding the propertys front yard, the purpose of his entry, and the time of his entry provided sufficient circumstantial evidence for the jury to find that Merhege knew that he did not have consent to enter the property, Justice Edward Chavez wrote in the unanimous opinion.

Citing an Idaho case, the justices agreed that furtive intrusion late at night or in the predawn hours is not conduct that is expected from ordinary visitors. Indeed, if observed by a resident of the premises, it could be a cause for great alarm.
Santa Fe Public Schools leaders on Thursday challenged state Public Education Department Secretary Hanna Skanderas allegations about misuse of public funds for political activity when the school district staged a Roundhouse rally earlier this month, and they fired back that the PED was essentially being hypocritical because it routinely engages in the same activities.

At a special meeting of the Santa Fe school board Thursday, the board unanimously approved a public statement supporting Superintendent Veronica Garcia, who closed schools early on March 16 so students and school personnel could attend the rally calling for more funding for public schools.

The board also OKd a six-page letter written by the school districts attorney responding to Skanderas letter announcing an investigation into the districts role in the rally. The letter also includes a public records request seeking more information about the PEDs allegations.

Such civic engagement not only demonstrates strong educational leadership, but also is required of superintendents by state regulations authored by the New Mexico Public Education Department, says the statement from the board. Dr. Garcia works every day to fulfill our mission as a school district: to ensure that every student graduates prepared to be a productive citizen of our local and global community.

It goes on to say that public school funding is not a partisan issue and that the rally was an opportunity for people to express their views all without illegal or improper use of public funds.

The districts letter describes instances in which Skandera and her boss, Gov. Susana Martinez, have used public schools, during school days, to make announcements about the state budget or educational plans. Skandera attended a rally at the Roundhouse this year supporting charter schools, the SFPS letter notes.

Last week, Skandera sent a letter of concern to Superintendent Garcia regarding the Save Our Schools rally at the Roundhouse two weeks ago.

Garcia took the unusual step of calling for an early release of students that day to allow teachers, staff, students and their parents to attend the rally. The school district said it was a bipartisan event with the purpose to draw attention to the dire financial crisis of public education in New Mexico and encourage compromise between branches of government. The rally, attended by more than 1,000 people, took place two days before the end of the 2017 legislative session and prior to legislative approval of a final budget.

The $6.1 billion budget sent to Martinez includes a $13 million increase in spending for public schools, but also relies on a $350 million tax package to support it. The governor has promised to veto any budget that includes a tax increase and is expected to call the Legislature back for a special session to rework the budget.

Skandera wrote in her letter to Garcia that PED had received complaints and concerns from people in the community about the school districts use of taxpayer dollars. She asked Garcia to respond to accusations that employees were paid to participate in activities unrelated to their contracts; use of the district website, email lists and communication devices to organize the rally; use of school buses to transport people to and from the rally; and supplying students with templates for writing letters to lawmakers.

I am concerned that this effort on your part to influence the Legislature and Governor amounts to political activity, which is prohibited under New Mexico statutes and further violated provisions regarding the use of government resources for political and nongovernmental activities, Skandera wrote. She added that the state Attorney Generals Office and state Auditor also had been notified.

In the Santa Fe schools response letter signed by attorney Tony Ortiz, several of the allegations against the school district are addressed, though it asks for documentation of any complaints PED received so that it can respond to them directly. Since those documents should be readily available, the letter says, the district is asking they be produced within three days.

The Journal made a similar request to PED for documentation of the complaints on Monday under the state Inspection of Public Records Act.

Asked to respond to the school boards statement and letter, Skandera said Thursday: We received letters and calls of concerns from parents regarding the half day (school closure). We will carefully consider Superintendent Garcias letter as we continue our investigation. Its imperative that taxpayer dollars are used appropriately  in the case of our schools, to help our kids learn and succeed.

Governors in-school events

PED did not reply when invited to respond directly to SFPSs argument that Skandera and the governor have held multiple press events at schools in Santa Fe and elsewhere. Examples include the governors announcing a 10 percent pay hike for new teachers at Sweeney Elementary School in 2013, Martinezs announcing her 2014-15 budget plan at Acequia Madre Elementary, and Skanderas participation in the Roundhouse rally this year supporting charter schools as educational options.

These are examples of NMPED using school time, students and personnel for lobbying purposes. It is the quintessential example of Do as I say, not as I do,  Ortiz wrote.

The letter is not Garcias formal response to Skanderas March 23 letter, in which she asked Garcia to investigate specific allegations and respond within 30 days. But the letter does address some of those allegations.

The letter says that the rally was not partisan, and that encouraging students and families to participate in the civic process fits squarely within the Districts educational mission.

It says PED incorrectly assumes public funds were used improperly. By working through the lunch hour, the SFPS letter says, staff did work a full contract day, attendance at the rally by school personnel was optional, transportation that was provided using SFPS buses was paid for by private funds, and use of the districts website, email lists and robo-calls were reasonable tools to alert families of the change in schedule and educational purposes of this action.
SANTA FE  A former communications director for Gov. Susana Martinez said Thursday that 2013 was a busy year for the administration, and thats why he couldnt respond to as many press inquiries as he wanted to.

Enrique Knell, Martinezs spokesman from late 2012 until mid-2015, testified in District Court in the trial over a lawsuit the Santa Fe Reporter brought against the governor in September 2013. The suit alleges that Martinezs office failed to respond to public records requests in a timely manner or the weeklys routine requests for comment, although the administrations representatives spoke with other media outlets about the same subjects.

The newspaper claims the governors staff stopped communicating with its reporters for about a six-month period after it ran its Year in Closed Government issue in December 2012 that was critical of the Martinez administration. The Reporter says she retaliated against the paper.

Knell said Thursday that 2013 was busy because of a 60-day legislative session and a devastating fire season and subsequent flooding in parts of the state. The Silver and Tres Lagunas Fires, which occurred that summer, created the need to respond to more media requests and to generally communicate about the fires on the governors behalf, he said.

Those issues, coupled with personal family business he was dealing with, took up a lot of his time, Knell said.

With infinite resources we would love to respond to every media question, but we dont have that luxury, he said.

Knell was asked about a statement he provided to several newspapers and TV stations in 2013 about the lawsuit where he called the Reporter a left-wing weekly tabloid and said the lawsuit was baseless. Knell testified that he made the comments because the lawsuit came out of left field and that he still believes the suit is baseless.

The bench trial in front of Judge Sarah Singleton is expected to wrap up today.
Copyright  2017 Albuquerque Journal

WASHINGTON  Former U.S. Rep. Heather Wilson pledged to modernize the Air Force and boost its manpower during a mostly amicable Senate confirmation hearing Thursday to consider her nomination to lead the military service branch.

If confirmed, Wilson, a Republican who represented New Mexico in the House of Representatives from 1998 to 2009, would become the second consecutive woman to be named Air Force secretary.

During her testimony Wilson signaled support for Lockheed Martins F-35 Joint Strike fighter plane, the most expensive  and one of the most controversial  weapons contracts in military history. She told the Senate Armed Services Committee that older F-15, F-16 and F-18 fighter jets cant be retrofitted with the same stealth capabilities as the F-35.

The Air Force Academy graduate also fielded questions about her own contract issues stemming from a consulting deal she signed with Sandia National Laboratories after leaving Congress in 2009. Sen. Jack Reed, the committees ranking Democrat, also asked Wilson about her role in a scandal involving U.S. attorneys during the administration of former President George W. Bush.

While in the House, Wilson served on the Armed Forces and Intelligence committees. She lost a bid for the U.S. Senate to Democrat Martin Heinrich in the 2012 general election.

Wilson, 56, is president of the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology in Rapid City, a position she has held since 2013.

She told the committee she didnt expect to return to Washington but agreed to do so when President Donald Trump asked her to lead the Air Force.

I have been called back to service in a role I did not seek and did not expect, Wilson said. If confirmed, I will do my best to be worthy of those who serve.

Throughout Thursdays two-hour hearing, Wilson displayed the wonkishness she became known for during the decade she spent representing the Albuquerque-based 1st Congressional District in Congress. The former congresswoman bantered with senators about technical weapons systems, noted that military competition in space is heating up and vowed to remedy what she said is a shortage of 900 Air Force fighter pilots.

We sometimes take for granted American dominance in air and space, Wilson said. We have a mismatch between our strategic objective and the military means we have available to confront threats.

To that end, Wilson also urged Congress to repeal caps on military spending enacted as part of a 2011 federal budget deal. The law, called sequestration, limits the amount that Congress can spend on defense and on nondefense discretionary programs through 2021.

I think it needs to repealed, Wilson said. It is it hurting the Air Force and our ability to defend ourselves.

When Heinrich questioned his former New Mexico political rival on Thursday, he prefaced his inquiry by telling Wilson, You certainly have impressive qualifications for this post.

He then asked Wilson about her plans to boost Air Force staffing levels and how she would determine priorities for growing and retaining pilot forces. He noted that Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico is primed to take on more responsibilities.

We wont put any thumbs on the scale, and well make those straightforward, direct decisions in the best interest of the country, Wilson said.

Wilson also told Heinrich she strongly supports moving directed energy and laser systems, some of which are being developed at Kirtland Air Force Base in Albuquerque, into fighter jets. The Pentagon has announced plans to do so by 2020.

In a March 22 letter to the Office of Government and Ethics, Wilson agreed that if she is confirmed to lead the Air Force she will resign from the boards of Peabody Energy and Raven Industries and divest herself of stock in 16 companies that do business with the Department of Defense. Some of those companies, including Raytheon and Honeywell, which won a contract late last year to manage Sandia National Laboratories, are among the Air Forces largest contractors.

Wilson declined to comment Wednesday when asked by the Journal about the role New Mexicos three Air Force bases  Holloman, Canon and Kirtland  could play under her leadership of the service branch.

Wilson did not face particularly fierce questioning from her former congressional colleagues, who included Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain, R-Ariz., Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and Sen. Jack Reed of Rhode Island, the top Democrat on the Armed Services Committee. But they also didnt let her completely off the hook.

Reed and Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., each quizzed Wilson on the Sandia contract, noting that she filed sparse invoices for the work.

This is a profoundly important issue for defense procurement, Blumenthal said, holding up a copy of one of her Sandia invoices. Shouldnt we expect more from contractors than this nearly blank invoice? There is no way of knowing from this invoice what you did.

Wilson said at the time that no one questioned her invoices at Sandia labs.

I did the work, they were happy with the work, I complied with the contract, and I will expect anyone who contracts with the Air Force to comply with that contract as well, Wilson said.

A 2013 Department of Energy inspector generals report alleged that Sandia, then run by defense giant Lockheed Martin, had inappropriately paid Wilson about $226,000 in consulting fees beginning in January 2009, to lobby for Sandia to take on new assignments for the federal government. Sandia and Wilson have said no prohibited lobbying occurred.

However, Sandia reimbursed the government more than $226,000 for fees paid to the consulting company run by Wilson, who was not mentioned in the settlement agreement between the Justice Department and Sandia Corp.

Wilson also advised Lockheed Martin to try to convince the government that the Sandia labs management contract should not be put out to bid. The contract was eventually put to bid, with Honeywell snagging the multibillion-dollar management agreement from Lockheed Martin late last year.

McCain, a fierce fiscal watchdog who bemoaned bloated military spending generally during Wilsons hearing Thursday, asked if she would want to put Air Force contracts out to bid if confirmed.

Yes, when its in the best interest of the government, Wilson said.

Reed asked Wilson about a call she made in 2007 to David Iglesias, who was then New Mexicos U.S. attorney. The call became a major part of a Bush administration scandal in which the executive branch was accused of trying to use federal prosecutors to go after political enemies.

Wilson said she called Iglesias to ask him about public corruption in New Mexico and has long denied trying to exert political pressure on the prosecutor. Wilson declined repeatedly Thursday to say who alerted her to the alleged malfeasance she asked Iglesias about.

I didnt betray them then, and Im not going to betray them now, Wilson said.

I find it deeply disturbing, Reed replied before ending his questioning.
Copyright  2017 Albuquerque Journal

SANTA FE  Top New Mexico state budget officials insist the states latest revenue crunch  a budgetary high-wire act to get through the final three months of the current fiscal year  is not a manufactured crisis.

While some Democratic lawmakers have expressed skepticism about the talk of state employee furloughs and government closures, the top budget official in Gov. Susana Martinezs administration says she tried to get legislators to funnel more money into state reserves during this years 60-day legislative session, even after a $190 million solvency package was signed into law in January.

I know people think were crying wolf, but were not, Finance and Administration Secretary Duffy Rodriguez said in a recent interview. Im not sitting here making political decisions.

The Department of Finance and Administration, the states central budget office, has directed state agencies to determine which job positions are vital for public safety so it can decide which employees might be subject to unpaid furlough days.

Although a furlough schedule has not been completed and furloughs could still be avoided depending on the outcome of an expected legislative special session, Martinez administration officials are preparing to order at least five unpaid furlough days between now and June 30, which would save an estimated $8 million.

Such a move could mean temporary closures of state parks, museums and Motor Vehicle Division field offices around the state.

New Mexico has used unpaid furloughs before as a cost-saving maneuver.

Most recently, then-Gov. Bill Richardson ordered five unpaid furlough days for 17,000 state workers in 2009 and 2010. Those furloughs affected about 80 percent of the states workforce, as exemptions were granted to corrections officers in state-run prisons, State Police patrollers and dispatchers, health care providers and security staff in juvenile rehabilitation centers.

At least some state labor union leaders say they understand the seriousness of the states budget situation but express concern about what employee furloughs would mean for already short-staffed state agencies.

It looks like there really is a cash-flow problem, said Dan Secrist, executive vice president of the local Communications Workers of America union. But theres no way that furloughing is a win for anybody.

The solvency package signed into law in January, the second revision to this years budget, plugged a projected deficit for the fiscal year that ends June 30 and left the state with about $120 million in reserves, or less than 2 percent of spending.

But state economists say revenues could come in $100 million higher or lower than projected  and thats barring any unforeseen actions by the federal government. If revenues end up coming in on the low end, there would be little cushion to cover the costs.

Thats because state reserves were already largely depleted to cover a revenue shortfall in last years budget, in which the state essentially overspent revenue levels by roughly $600 million.

In addition, a $6.1 billion budget bill for the coming fiscal year, which starts July 1  approved by lawmakers and sitting on the governors desk  includes about $43 million in supplemental, or immediate, funding, which could lower the states cash reserves even more.

However, lawmakers point out that the two-term Republican governor used her line-item veto authority to reject $26 million in proposed cuts and reductions from the January solvency package, reducing the total amount of savings.

In spite of (the governors vetoes), I still think were all right for this year, Senate Finance Committee Chairman John Arthur Smith, D-Deming, said Thursday.

He said more short-term money could be generated by selling bonds under the control of state Treasurer Tim Eichenbergs office, and he suggested the Martinez administrations desire to bolster state reserve levels could be driven partly by the governors plan to veto $350 million in tax and fee increases approved by the Legislature.

The tax measures, included in a separate bill, are aimed at raising enough revenue to keep state government operations running without additional budget cuts.

It tells me theyre a little bit apprehensive about vetoing everything in the revenue package. Smith told the Journal .

The governor has said she will veto any tax increases approved by the Legislature, though she has indicated she would consider overhauling the states tax code or closing loopholes.

Although the date of an expected special session is still not known, Martinez has vowed to call lawmakers back to Santa Fe soon. The governor has until April 7 to act on the budget and tax bills, along with most other measures approved by the Legislature during this years session.
DENVER  A man who set his ex-girlfriends suburban Denver home on fire as 14 people slept inside has been sentenced to 14 years in prison.

The Denver Post reports (https://goo.gl/RMTf6X ) 28-year-old Christopher Magana was convicted in February of 18 counts of arson and was sentenced Wednesday.

Prosecutors say he lit the fire at the womans Lakewood home April 12 after she broke up with him. Firefighters and police called to the scene found the home and two cars engulfed in flames.

The residents of the duplex escaped unharmed just before the fire spread, and Magana was arrested later that day.

Nine of the people inside the home were children.

___

Information from: The Denver Post, http://www.denverpost.com
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo.  Prosecutors in Colorado say three officers were justified when they shot and killed a murder suspect who was on the run.

The Colorado Springs Gazette reports (https://goo.gl/K2zbjI ) 40-year-old Demetrius Moore was being sought for the death of his ex-wife, 42-year-old Alicia Christmas-Moore, when he fired at officers through the windshield of the stolen car he was in Oct. 23.

Two El Paso County sheriffs deputies and a Colorado Springs police officer returned fire, hitting Moore multiple times.

A search of the vehicle turned up a .45-caliber handgun that was later linked to the death of Christmas-Moore. Witnesses told investigators Moore had said multiple times that he wanted to get into a shootout with police.

Moores younger brother was arrested on suspicion of being an accessory to first-degree murder.

___

Information from: The Gazette, http://www.gazette.com
The U.S. air war over western Mosul has come under more scrutiny after an American airstrike on March 17 appears to have killed potentially more than 100 civilians.

The Iraqi citys labyrinth of tight city streets, multistory buildings and large population of residents illustrate the complexities of dropping bombs in densely populated neighborhoods. In the first week of March, the airstrike monitoring group Airwars.org estimated that roughly 75 people were killed by U.S.-led airstrikes. American generals have warned that as fighting continues into the densest areas of the city, even more civilians will die.

The U.S. military has expansive protocols on how to use air power in support of ground forces. Yet for airstrikes in cities, or what the Pentagon calls urban terrain, the guidelines are even more rigorous, and  strangely enough  informed by a notorious Russian military campaign in the 1990s that led to the death of roughly 30,000 civilians.

Russias 1994 war in Chechnya was one of the first times a modern military force fought insurgents in a large city. A 2009 military document used to teach U.S. troops how to call in close air support emphasizes that the Russian experience in Grozny provides a key historical example for understanding air operations in an urban terrain.

The urban area provided the Chechens protections from fires, resources, interior lines, and covered and concealed positions and movement. Given such advantages offered by the environment, smaller or less sophisticated military forces have similarly chosen to fight in urban areas, the document says. However, the Russians learned many things to counter these actions with close air support.

The documents outline key lessons from the Russians focused on better communication between ground forces and aircraft.

The Russian air forces initial foray into Grozny was on par with some of its earlier bombing campaigns in World War II. According to a report in Vestnik, a journal of Russian and Asian studies, only 2.3 percent of Russian airstrikes in the first Chechen war used some sort of guided munitions. Currently, roughly 20 percent of the strikes carried out by Russian aircraft in Syria have used guided weapons, while the U.S. military uses them exclusively.

Aside from relying on dumb bombs, Russian aircraft over Chechnya had poor communication with the troops on the ground. To counter this, Russian forces pushed closer to the fighting troops who were trained in calling in airstrikes from the ground  personnel known as forward air controllers.

The U.S. military has routinely kept its forward air controllers at the front lines in past wars. Initially in the fight for Mosul, the reliance on Iraqi forces and desire to keep American troops out of harms way forced the Pentagon to rely more on drones and aerial surveillance to call in strikes. But in recent months, U.S. commanders have pushed their troops forward to make strikes more responsive to Iraqi requests.

We have had to return to what is our actual U.S. military war fighting doctrine for offensive operations, said the commander of U.S. forces in Iraq and Syria, Lt. Gen. Stephen Townsend, on Tuesday.

Townsend described the fighting as some of the worst street-to-street combat since World War II.

Much like the Chechen rebels did in Grozny, Islamic State fighters have turned Mosul into a fortress, digging tunnels between buildings and using the tight streets as ambush points for advancing forces. From the ground, Iraqi troops are looking through the equivalent of a soda straw, while from jets circling above, everything can look the same. The disparity in perspective can make the identification of targets extremely difficult and has ultimately put a large amount of responsibility on drones  with their ability to stay in the air longer  to identify places to strike.

A 1997 article written for the U.S. Air Forces professional journal noted that one of the takeaways from the 1994-1995 battle of Grozny was the need for more unmanned assets over the battlefield. At the time, Russians sparingly used reconnaissance drones, namely the Russian Shmel-1, to help coordinate helicopter strikes.

More than 20 years later, the fight for Mosul is awash in surveillance aircraft. After the March 17 strike that reportedly killed more than a 100 civilians, a Pentagon spokesman said the military was reviewing roughly 700 feeds of video to understand what happened.

The journal article also lists a number of key lessons from Grozny that are oddly prescient for the current fight in Mosul. Some points are listed below.

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FORT COLLINS, Colo.  Authorities have apprehended a man suspected of shooting and wounding a taxi driver while fleeing police in northern Colorado.

Police tell the Coloradoan (http://noconow.co/2ojeiR8) that 38-year-old Adam Keith Fulford was taken into custody Friday morning in Loveland after a high-speed chase involving a carjacked vehicle.

They say Fulford, of Loveland, initially fled Larimer County Sheriffs Office deputies who were trying to arrest him about 6:50 p.m. Thursday on outstanding warrants.

Police say they followed a taxi seen leaving the area and saw the driver exit while it was moving. They say the male taxi driver had been shot once in a limb and was taken to a hospital with nonlife-threatening injuries.

Deputies stopped the taxi with spike strips, but Fulford fled on foot near Horsetooth Reservoir west of Fort Collins.

___

Information from: Fort Collins Coloradoan, http://www.coloradoan.com
Fewer than a hundred days into the Trump administration, there are two, actually three, competing narratives about how the government is being run. The first narrative is the Trump administrations claim that things are running so, so smoothly. A brief glance at the poll numbers suggests that not many people are buying this, so we can discard it quickly.

The second narrative, made by the Wall Street Journals editorial board among many others, is that Americas system of checks and balances turns out to be working pretty well. President Donald Trumps more egregious moves have been checked by federal courts and even by the court of public opinion at times. A historically unpopular and costly health-care bill did not pass the House. Irresponsible foreign policy statements made by the president during the transition have been walked back. Efforts by the Trump White House to deny or scuttle investigations into foreign meddling into the election have resulted in congressional investigations, pushback by the intelligence community and recusals by Trump appointees. The administration managed to pick a Supreme Court nominee who is not a laughingstock.

Theres a lot to this argument. But Id like to proffer just a sampling of the news stories that have broken in the past 24 hours to suggest a third and more troubling narrative: The president and his acolytes are beclowning the American state.

Think Im exaggerating? Consider the following:

1) Mike Flynn Offers to Testify in Exchange for Immunity, by Shane Harris, Carol Lee, and Julian Barnes, Wall Street Journal:

Mike Flynn, President Donald Trumps former national security adviser, has told the Federal Bureau of Investigation and congressional officials investigating the Trump campaigns potential ties to Russia that he is willing to be interviewed in exchange for a grant of immunity from prosecution, according to officials with knowledge of the matter.

Lets just stop to appreciate the fact that stories like these normally appear in Year Seven of an administration, not Day 70.

The granting of immunity does not automatically mean the person has committed a felony. But as a former high-ranking national security official once put it, When you are given immunity, that means you probably committed a crime. That official was Michael Flynn in the fall of 2016.

2) White House shuffles West Wing staff after health bill collapse, by Shane Goldmacher, Matthew Nussbaum, Tara Palmeri, and Alex Isenstadt, Politico:

Less than a week after suffering a stinging defeat on health care legislation, President Donald Trump shook up his West Wing staff on Thursday, dispatching one of his top aides to shore up an outside political group that the White House believes failed to support Trumps agenda at a critical juncture.

Its worth noting that, less than a hundred days into the Trump administration, the White House has sent its first national security adviser packing, a few lower-level NSC staffers have been forced out, a key communications official, and now Packer  who is leaving to shore up a listing outside political group.

So whos left to mind the store? Im glad you asked 

3) Omarosa Manigault is in Trumps White House because of her loyalty. But what is she doing there? by Vanessa Williams, The Washington Post:

If her devotion explains how Manigault wound up in Trumps White House as the highest-ranking African American in the West Wing, it is far less easy to explain exactly what shes doing there. Some African American political insiders already have concluded that she is ineffective, and she is routinely derided on social media as simply providing cover for a president deeply unpopular with African Americans. Some black Republicans were particularly critical of the Trump administrations handling of the HBCU initiative, which included a White House meeting with the school officials that some viewed as little more than a photo op for the president . . .

Armstrong Williams, another longtime Republican strategist and close adviser to [Ben] Carson, said Manigaults influence goes beyond the so-called black agenda. He said Manigault has input on press secretary Sean Spicers daily briefings and that she carries a lot of weight with candidates seeking ambassadorships.

Just so Im clear on this: aspiring ambassadors need to develop good ties with Omarosa Manigault?

As Trumps coterie of White House advisers has shrunk, others will be shouldering more responsibilities. Which leads us to 

4) White House Sends Jared Kushner To Meet With Top Senators On Improving The Criminal Justice System, by Emma Loop, BuzzFeed:

Jared Kushner, son-in-law and senior adviser to President Donald Trump, has been dispatched by the White House to discuss criminal justice reform issues with key senators, BuzzFeed News has learned. Kushner met with Sens. Chuck Grassley and Dick Durbin on Capitol Hill Thursday.

Again, lets just stop for a second and consider the fact that the person described by himself as first among equals in the White House has been given the lead on U.S. relations with Canada, Mexico, China and the Middle East, has also been asked to run a White House Office of American Innovation, and will now also apparently be running point on improving the criminal justice system. This is a person whose prior background suggests no particular competence in any of these areas of government. His only qualification for White House service appears to be that he married well.

You would think that the foreign policy issues could be better handled by the secretary of state. You would think that, but 

5) Secretary of State Rex Tillerson spends his first weeks isolated from an anxious bureaucracy, by Anne Gearan and Carol Morello, The Washington Post.

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson takes a private elevator to his palatial office on the seventh floor of the State Department building, where sightings of him are rare on the floors below.

On many days, he blocks out several hours on his schedule as reading time, when he is cloistered in his office poring over the memos he prefers ahead of in-person meetings.

Most of his interactions are with an insular circle of political aides who are new to the State Department. Many career diplomats say they still have not met him, and some have been instructed not to speak to him directly  or even make eye contact.

On his first three foreign trips, Tillerson skipped visits with State Department employees and their families, embassy stops that were standard morale-boosters under other secretaries of state.

Nothing to see here, just someone whose primary job in government is to talk to other people being averse to . . . talking to other people. Which is, to be fair, consistent with everything we have learned about Tillerson to date.

Whats breathtaking about this list is that I havent even gotten to the White House officials leaking information to Rep. Devin Nunes, D-California, or Nunes lying about his sources to reporters or the presidentsmoronic tweets.

And, to repeat myself, all of this has happened in the last day. All new administrations make mistakes and have staff who dont work out. The pace of errors in this administration, however, is unprecedented.

No wonder Michael Gersons assessment of this administrations performance in The Post is a pretty bad combination: empty, easily distracted, vindictive, shallow, impatient, incompetent and morally small. This is not the profile of a governing party. No wonder Peggy Noonan concluded in the Wall Street Journal:

Looking at the administration 70 days in, things do not, in these areas, look promising. Theres too much gravitational pull to the presidents accumulated mistakes.

His stupid tweets have now resulted in the Russia probe. [ital] That [ital] will help opioid addicts in Ohio. This Thursday he may have launched a Republican civil war: The Freedom Caucus had better get on the team, & fast. We must fight them, & the Dems, in 2018! [ital] That [ital] will help promote harmony. His staff has failed to absorb the obvious fact that Mr. Trump was so outsized, colorful, and freakish a character that their primary job, and an easy one it was, was to be the opposite  sober, low-key, reassuring. Instead they seemed to compete with him for outlandishness 

Crisis reveals the character, the essential nature of a White House. Seventy days in, that is my worry.

The American system of government has checked Trumps worst impulses. He has so many bad instincts, however, that not all of them will get checked. The burn rate of his staff is extraordinarily high, and there is no evidence that his remaining acolytes really know how to govern. We are 70 days into an administration that has nearly 1,400 more days in office. Think of the screw-ups that await us.

Last month Trumps chief political strategist, Stephen K. Bannon, told CPAC that he was engaged in a daily fight for the deconstruction of the administrative state. He might very well succeed in that fight  not through cunning, but through epic levels of incompetence.

 Drezner is a professor of international politics at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University and a regular contributor to PostEverything.

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On April 22, dozens of letters protesting President Donald Trump written by women around the country will arrive at the White House in a giant envelope (of sorts) in the shape of a vagina, courtesy of female-oriented platform Mogul. The campaign, called #ReadMyLips, is a reference not to George H.W. Bushs fateful 1988 campaign promise not to raise taxes, but to female anatomy. And so the anti-Trump vagina protest motif has moved from the abstract and craft-centric (that is, the pussy hat) to the branded and literal.

Vaginally oriented resistance wasnt born in response to Trumpism. Eve Enslers play The Vagina Monologues, as much a remonstration against womens oppression as an ode to the pudenda, first appeared in 1996. The current, ubiquitous incarnation is a reference to Trumps notorious 2005 Grab them by the pussy remark, the recording of which made waves during (but evidently didnt decide) the 2016 presidential campaign. But it also evokes the accusation, made against women who supported Hillary Clinton, that they were voting with their vaginas. All of that vagina talk was demeaning and insulting, and thus a prime target for a reclamation campaign. Clearly The Vagina was posing some sort of threat, so what could be more delightful than rubbing The Vagina in oppressors faces? (Metaphorically, of course.)

The vagina protest also offers an opportunity for large-scale solidarity, at a time when feminism appeared in need of unity. Had Clinton lost because of an insufficiently intersectional approach  that is, because of a focus on middle-class white women? Or was her mistake failing to win over, well, middle-class white women? What if both were true? A New York Times headline on Dec. 30 that read, Feminism Lost. Now What? seemed to sum up the state of the womens movement writ large.

If women couldnt agree on a moderate Democrat to become the nations first female president, what was left? Well, there were vaginas. The visual provided by that sea of Womens March pink pussy hats served as a cathartically necessary moment of solidarity, a pause in the ongoing contentious debates over where, precisely, the feminist movements boundaries should be drawn.

But that a gesture of solidarity was necessary to unite a fractured movement doesnt mean its the appropriate way forward. The obvious problem with vagina-motif protest is that it leaves out some women  namely, trans women. Not all women have vaginas, and not all vagina-havers identify as women. A rhetorical strategy whose goal is universality that winds up excluding some of the most marginalized women falls short.

And an anatomical focus also erases womens experiences. Women are a caste within society, not the owners of a particular body part. The vast majority of women do indeed have vaginas, but arent preoccupied by that fact day to day. Vagina possession doesnt explain why Mary voices an idea in a meeting but the boss listens only when Jim repeats it. When Kate does the dishes again, it isnt because Bobs genitalia prevented him from loading the dishwasher. Yes, reproduction and child-care-related issues, not to mention sexual assault and domestic abuse, disproportionately affect women, and often involve womens genitals. But even the womens issues with some relationship to female anatomy arent really about vaginas.

Subversive though it can be, vagina protest reinforces the very phenomenon its meant to mock. The claim that women voting for Clinton were voting with their vaginas was off-putting because it implied that preferring a female candidate wasnt a political choice, but rather an irrational animalistic imperative. Sending the president protest letters housed in a vagina-shaped envelope doesnt change the terms of the debate. The medium overpowers the message.

And the message  that women are humans  is important. Concrete changes are needed at the policy level to help women fully realize their rights, but perhaps more immediately we need changes at the level of public opinion. We need (and we need general societal support for) paid parental leave, a higher minimum wage, single-payer health care, and a whole slew of structural changes that would disproportionately benefit women. A society that doesnt laugh off sexual harassment, let alone assault, would also be fantastic, if more challenging to legislate.

These goals, however, are remote and dont exhaust the vision of feminism. Theres also a legitimate visceral need to speak out, as women, about the situation of women as a caste  which is, I think, what vagina protest is gesturing at, but which could be accomplished more effectively.

One approach far more effective than I would have imagined: A recent Twitter thread on the phenomenon of mansplaining, in which men explain womens areas of expertise to them. The thread began with a tweet by journalist Tracy Clayton, asking, women, whats the most infuriating thing youve had mansplained to you?

The expression mansplaining had long struck me as clever but a bit limited. It assumes a woman whos an expert in a cool field. A woman who can  as in Rebecca Solnits famous essay, Men Explain Things To Me  counter (or have a friend remind) that she wrote the book some dude is telling her about: a feminism for the confident and professionally accomplished.

But the thread Claytons tweet launched was anything but a narrow focus on the (real, but finite) plight of elite professional women. It includes anecdotes about women (and others who dont identify as men) having everything from obscure academic subjects to the use of a water bottle, from consent to bike-related things mansplained to them. The thread got at the complex mix of social interactions, workplace dynamics and biology that can enter into life as women experience it, in a way that was refreshingly inclusive and frank.

Perhaps the universal womens experience, inasmuch as one exists, involves facing the presumption  all too often internalized  of incompetence. All I know is, I happened upon the mansplaining thread at one of those moments when Id had one of those interactions that left me feeling like a woman whose ideas would never be good enough for male gatekeepers. The thread had me cheering, while the 3-D vagina, alas, left me cold.

 Phoebe Maltz Bovy is the author of The Perils of Privilege.'

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BRUSSELS  Secretary of State Rex Tillerson ratcheted up pressure on NATO allies Friday to increase their defense spending, despite pushback from Germanys top diplomat over President Donald Trumps determination to make members of the Western military alliance boost their military budgets.

Addressing a meeting of NATOs 28 foreign ministers, Tillerson said he wanted alliance leaders to agree at a May summit to come up with concrete plans by the end of the year to meet budget guidelines. Fridays conference  hastily moved up after Tillerson initially announced he would skip it so he could attend meetings between Trump and Chinas leader next week  was held amid concerns about the U.S. commitment to NATO following Trumps calls to increase spending.

As President Trump has made clear, it is no longer sustainable for the U.S. to maintain a disproportionate share of NATOs defense expenditures, Tillerson told the foreign ministers. Allies must increase defense spending.

The effort has met with resistance from German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel, who said the push from Washington was unrealistic and based on a mistaken interpretation of the spending targets, which are not binding. Germany is NATOs largest economy after the United States, but it lags far behind in its defense spending. Twisting Berlins arm to increase its military expenditures is key to Trumps effort to shift more of the burden for Europes defense to Washingtons NATO partners.

More money doesnt mean more security, said Gabriel, who is a member of Germanys center-left Social Democratic Party and has long been skeptical of defense spending increases. He said that meeting NATO spending guidelines would require Germany to pour an additional $37 billion a year into its defense budget, which he said was totally unrealistic. NATO leaders have pledged to increase annual defense outlays to 2 percent of their gross domestic products by 2024, but those shares are targets rather than requirements.

After Trump met with German Chancellor Angela Merkel in mid-March, he wrote on Twitter that Germany owes vast sums of money to NATO & the United States must be paid more for the powerful, and very expensive, defense it provides to Germany!

That approach misstated the way NATO works, since allies contribute military capabilities rather than actual money to the alliance.

Tillersons trip built on an ongoing pattern from the Trump administration: The president says something at odds with U.S. policy or existing commitments, then leaves it to subordinates to reassure allies. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and Vice President Mike Pence engaged in the same exercise during February trips to Europe.

At the NATO summit May 25, Trump will sit down with a wide array of allied leaders for the first time. Allies will see whether his personal message is consistent with the basic bargains worked out by U.S. officials ahead of time, or whether he will make different, tougher demands as leaders hammer out their positions.

The inconsistencies are not confined to the United States: Merkel and her center-right Christian Democratic Union allies, who rule in a coalition with Gabriels center-left party, have been more willing than Gabriel to entertain Trumps requests.Defense increases are broadly unpopular in Germany ahead of September elections, and some of Gabriels aggressive push was for domestic electoral consumption. But he rejected out of hand Tillersons proposal that nations create spending plans with specific, year-by-year targets, setting up a potential showdown at the summit.

We need many different tools to stabilize our neighborhood, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said after the meeting, countering the German position that development aid should also be counted toward security spending. Its not either development or security, its development and security.

NATO diplomats said the closed-door meetings with Tillerson were cordial. But some quietly criticized him for spending less than five hours on the ground in Brussels and returning to Washington before the conference concluded. Previous secretaries of state have often held news conferences at the end of such conclaves; Tillerson took no questions in Brussels.

Many diplomats counted it as a victory to have persuaded Tillerson to come in the first place. The gathering was initially scheduled for next week, overlapping with Chinese President Xi Jinpings visit to Florida to meet Trump. Tillerson planned to skip the NATO event, meaning that he would have met with Chinese and Russian leaders before he met with his alliance counterparts.

Going to Moscow before seeing members of the alliance did not go down well, a senior NATO diplomat said ahead of the meeting, speaking on condition of anonymity to talk frankly about allied perceptions of the Trump administration.

NATO allies have been concerned about Trumps approach to Russia, one that prioritizes cooperation with the Kremlin to defeat the Islamic State.

But Tillerson took a hard line against Russia during the meeting, saying that the United States would maintain its refusal to recognize Moscows 2014 annexation of Ukraines Crimean Peninsula and would keep deploying troops to Eastern Europe as a deterrent.

NATO is fundamental to countering both nonviolent, but at times violent, Russian agitation and Russian aggression, Tillerson told his fellow foreign ministers.

The message was reassuring to NATO nations that border Russia, which have felt especially vulnerable since tensions increased in 2014.

Those were things that my part of the world was very happy to hear, said Latvian Foreign Minister Edgars Rinkevics, who also met with Tillerson in Washington earlier this week alongside his counterparts from the other Baltic nations of Lithuania and Estonia.

Tillerson repeated U.S. desires for NATO to do more to fight terrorism, but he offered no concrete requests and said the Trump administration was still working on specific roles in which NATO could contribute. Although NATO has increased training for Iraqi troops and offered its AWACS surveillance planes to help efforts to defeat the Islamic State, many alliance nations remain skeptical about how well NATOs structures are suited for counterterrorism.

Skeptical diplomats say the intelligence agencies and police forces of individual NATO nations are better-adapted to fighting domestic terrorism threats. Direct intervention on the ground in Syria and Iraq may be most effective if countries offer their militaries on an individual basis rather than in a joint effort through NATO structures, they say.

The NATO meeting came after a one-day trip to Ankara, where Tillerson met with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his top deputies in a bid to build ties despite tensions over clashing approaches to fighting the Islamic State in Syria. It was Tillersons second trip to Europe since he hopped to the State Department from his previous position as chief executive of ExxonMobil.

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RICHMOND, Va.  Eric Wilson feels he always needs an alibi. He rarely leaves his wifes side when not at work. He talks on the phone whenever hes in his car to leave a record of his location.

One of four former sailors known as the Norfolk Four, Wilson was pardoned last week by Virginias governor for a rape he says he was bullied into admitting to 20 years ago. Cleared at last, he hopes the healing can begin.

But there are some things hell never get over, he says.

If he just could have proven he wasnt in that Norfolk, Virginia, apartment in July 1997, he may not have falsely confessed to raping 18-year-old Michelle Moore-Bosko. If he could have remembered where he really was that day, he wouldnt have spent 7  years in prison and more than a decade as a registered sex offender for something Gov. Terry McAuliffe declared he didnt do, Wilson says.

If I had had some kind of hard proof that proved I wasnt there, this never wouldve happened, Wilson, now 40, told The Associated Press as he drove from work to the home he shares with his wife and two children near San Antonio, Texas.

Pardons for the Norfolk Four closed a lengthy case that gained national attention after their innocence claims were backed by dozens of former FBI agents, ex-prosecutors and crime novelist John Grisham. The author once said he wanted to write a screenplay about the case.

Moore-Boskos husband found her stabbed and strangled body in their apartment in July 1997 after returning from a week at sea.

Danial Williams, who lived in the same building, was quickly identified as a suspect because a neighbor told police he had a crush on the victim. Williams admitted to her rape and murder  the first of a series of confessions that the men, then-sailors at the Naval base in Norfolk, say were forced by police.

DNA evidence matched only one person: Omar Ballard, the fifth man convicted in the case. Ballard, who pleaded guilty in 2000, acknowledged he was solely responsible and is serving a life sentence.

Williams, Joseph Dick and Derek Tice got courts to throw out their rape and murder convictions before McAuliffe formally declared them innocent this month. But Wilson, convicted of rape, had failed to persuade judges to do the same because of a technicality: Hed already completed his sentence.

So while out of prison since 2005, he hasnt been free.

As a registered sex offender, hes been limited from traveling and told to not even bother trying to adopt his stepson, he said. It took an attorney and $10,000 to convince a board to grant him an electricians license, he said. Hes been blocked from working on certain properties, such as schools, and barred from city parks.

His son was run out of his Cub Scout troop because other parents didnt want Wilson around, he said.

People have been very ugly, said his wife, Misty Wilson.

Moore-Boskos family remain convinced the men are guilty. Her parents, John and Carol Moore, said in a statement that its hard to believe  after attending the trials and hearing the confessions  the four are innocent.

We still believe that all of these men were involved in the murder of our daughter despite the ridiculous decision of the governor to grant them pardon, the Moores said.

Wilson says he still has nightmares about the interrogation resulting in his false confession.

Hauled into a police station nearly a year after the slaying, he was asked where he was that day but couldnt remember.

He recalls a detective shoving him into a corner and showing him a photo of Moore-Boskos bloody body. By the end, he began to question whether he was innocent, he said.

The other men have said they cracked after they were threatened with the death penalty and repeatedly called liars. The confessions conflicted with one another. Ballards account was the only one containing information matching the crime scene.

The detective who questioned them, Robert Glenn Ford, was convicted in 2011 of extortion and lying to the FBI in unrelated cases. Hes serving 12  years in prison for taking thousands of dollars from drug dealers to get them favorable treatment at sentencing.

Wilson said hes been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder and feels anxious in crowds, always looking over his shoulder.

I dont really go anywhere. I dont talk to people, Wilson said.

Steve Northup, Wilsons attorney, said they plan to seek compensation for what he endured. Once his name is removed from the sex offender registry, Wilson said, he plans to adopt his stepson, get a passport, and maybe take his wife on a proper honeymoon.

Im just grateful that Virginia has finally admitting theyre wrong, he said. Now, the healing can begin for all of us.

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Associated Press researcher Jennifer Farrar contributed to this story from New York.

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Follow Alanna Durkin Richer at http://twitter.com/aedurkinricher. Read more of her work at http://bigstory.ap.org/journalist/alanna-durkin-richer .
Microsoft YouthSpark awarded a $300,000 grant to New Mexicos Cultivating Coders program to help finance a summer boot camp for high school students in Albuquerque.

Cultivating Coders, which offers intensive eight-week training workshops for aspiring web and software developers, is launching a series of summer programs this year for youths around the state to teach them coding skills they can share with their peers in new after-school coding clubs, said founder and president Charles Ashley III.

Microsoft YouthSpark is a global initiative launched three years ago to help more young people learn computer science. YouthSpark managers focus on extending technology and computer skills to underserved communities, a goal Cultivating Coders shares as part of its guiding principles.

The Albuquerque-based company, which began in December 2015, offers mobile boot camps to reach people in rural places and targeted urban areas.

Were still a young company, but our goals align with Microsoft, Ashley said.

YouthSpark grants help close the computer skills gap for underserved youth, said Celeste Alleyne, Microsofts U.S. Citizenship and Public Affairs director.

Microsoft is proud to support the nonprofit Cultivating Coders mobile coding boot camp and students who will gain increased access to computer science education tools, training and resources, Alleyne said in a statement.

The grant will help fund scholarships for the upcoming Albuquerque boot camp, which starts June 12. It will seat 21 students, ages 13 to 18, from the Native American Community Academy, Atrisco Heritage Academy and El Camino Real Academy in the South Valley. It will also pay for software, computer-related tools and operations, Ashley said.

Cultivating Coders will hold more summer camps this year for students in Shiprock and Espanola, and its first out-of-state program in Clarksdale, Miss. It will also help boot camp graduates form after-school clubs when the new school year begins.

One such club for Navajo students in Shiprock, where Cultivating Coders piloted its summer boot camp program last year, now has more than 60 participants, Ashley said.
SAN DIEGO  A judge on Friday approved an agreement for President Donald Trump to pay $25 million to settle lawsuits over his now-defunct Trump University, ending nearly seven years of legal battles with customers who claimed they were misled by failed promises to teach success in real estate.

U.S. District Judge Gonzalo Curiel said the agreement represents an extraordinary amount of money for customers to recover. Plaintiff attorneys say about 3,730 people will get at least 90 percent of their money back.

The ruling settles two class-action lawsuits and a civil lawsuit by New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman that had dogged the Republican businessman throughout the presidential campaign.

Trump fueled the controversy by repeatedly assailing Curiel, insinuating that the Indiana-born judges Mexican heritage exposed a bias.

Trump had vowed never to settle. But he said after the election that he didnt have time for a trial, even though he believed he would have prevailed.

The White House referred requests for comment to the Trump Organization, which didnt immediately respond. Under terms of the settlement, Trump admits no wrongdoing.

Attorneys for the former customers say the money will allow people to retire debt-free and overcome other financial obstacles. The attorneys waived their fees, raising individual payments.

Over the past seven years, our goal has always has been to help these everyday Americans move forward with their lives, attorney Amber Eck said.

The Democratic New York attorney general said the ruling will provide relief  and hopefully much-needed closure  to the victims of Donald Trumps fraudulent university.

Trump Universitys victims waited years for compensation, while President Trump refused to settle and fought us every step of the way  until his stunning reversal last fall, said Schneiderman, who is contributing $1.6 million of his $4 million portion of the settlement to former customers.

The lawsuits alleged that Trump University gave nationwide seminars that were like infomercials, constantly pressuring people to spend more and, in the end, failing to deliver. Political rivals used Trumps depositions and extensive documents filed in the lawsuits to portray him as dishonest and deceitful.

Curiel, in a 31-page decision accompanying his order, said exceptionally high payouts and objections from only two of an estimated 7,000 eligible former customers weighed in favor of his approval.

The judge strongly rejected a request by a Florida woman who argued that she should have been given more opportunity to opt out of the settlement. If he had agreed, the prospect of more litigation would have likely derailed the deal.

Curiel agreed with attorneys for Trump and those suing him that customers were properly warned that the deadline to opt out was in November 2015. He said Sherri Simpson, who paid $35,000 in 2010 for Trump Universitys Gold Elite mentorship program and later appeared in anti-Trump campaign ads, missed her chance.

During an hour-long hearing Thursday, Simpsons attorney, Gary Friedman, argued that language in the 2015 notice implied that customers would be given another opportunity to opt out and sue Trump on their own.

Customers were provided, in no uncertain terms, notice of the right to opt out, and of the binding consequences of electing not to opt out, Curiel wrote. It clearly appraised Class Members that if they wished to bring a separate lawsuit against Defendants, they had to elect to opt out immediately.

Curiel also denied an objection from another customer, Harold Doe, who sought more money.

Clearing those final hurdles brought closure to the trio of lawsuits, the first of which was filed in April 2010.

When attorneys reached a deal shortly after Trumps election, Curiel said he hoped it would be part of a healing process that this country very sorely needs. A month later, he granted it preliminary approval.

The agreement came 10 days before a trial was set to begin in San Diego, sparing Trump what would have been a major distraction during his transition to the White House.
PORTLAND, Maine  The Maine Beer Box, a shipping container with more than 50 taps built into its side, has been loaded on a freighter and is headed to Iceland as part of a goodwill initiative.

The Portland Press Herald reports (http://bit.ly/2oioEjC ) the beer box is the centerpiece of a multi-year effort between the Maine Brewers Guild and Eimskip, an Icelandic shipping company, to expose Maine beer to new markets.

In turn, beers brewed in Iceland and beyond will be brought back to the U.S. state.

Sean Sullivan, the guilds executive director, says Iceland isnt the target market for Maine brewers, but the beer boxs maiden voyage is a test to prove if the project can work elsewhere.

U.S. breweries shipped 446,000 barrels of beer overseas in 2015, a 16 percent increase from 2014.

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Information from: Portland Press Herald, http://www.pressherald.com
WASHINGTON  The Trump administration issued sanctions Friday against a North Korean business and 11 North Korean nationals who it said were tied to Pyongyangs nuclear weapons program and the financial networks that support it.

The sanctions, brought by the Treasury Departments Office of Foreign Assets Control, prohibit U.S. companies from dealing with the entities and also freezes any assets the entities have that are held by a U.S. bank.

President Donald Trump has said the United States should strike a tougher posture with North Korea, following years of failed efforts by the U.S. government to get Pyongyang to abandon its nuclear program.

Todays sanctions are aimed at disrupting the networks and methods that the Government of North Korea employs to fund its unlawful nuclear, ballistic missile, and proliferation programs, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said in a statement Friday.

As North Korea continues testing nuclear weapons, U.S. officials believe the isolated, totalitarian nation is working to develop technology that would allow it to put a nuclear weapon on a long-range missile that could reach the United States. New commercial satellite images show that North Korea could be preparing for another nuclear weapons test at an underground site.

North Korea is already heavily sanctioned by the U.S. government, and its unclear how the new sanctions would prompt Pyongyang to change its behavior. Trump has said that neighboring China must do more to deter North Korea. That issue will likely come up when Trump meets with Chinese President Xi Jinping next week.

Treasury said in a statement that the new sanctions will be imposed against North Korea-based Paeksol Trading Corp., which the U.S. government accuses of exporting iron ore to China to benefit the North Korean government. Treasury also said that Paeksol could have ties to the North Korean military.

Of the 11 individuals who were also sanctioned, Treasury said they were working as agents of North Korea in Russia, China, Vietnam and Cuba.

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WASHINGTON  Former national security adviser Michael Flynn wants immunity before he testifies to Congress, but the type of deal hes seeking is rarely granted  in large part because of the Iran-contra scandal of the 1980s.

Flynns lawyer, Robert Kelner, has reached out to the Senate Intelligence Committee in the hopes of getting a wide-ranging grant of immunity in exchange for his clients testimony to lawmakers, but an official familiar with the discussion says the idea of immunity is off the table, particularly given the early stage of the congressional investigations involving Flynn.

Two congressional committees and the FBI are probing whether any associates of President Donald Trump coordinated with agents of Russia as that country meddled in the U.S. presidential election last year. Flynn is a major figure in that investigation, because his conversations with the Russian ambassador to the United States ultimately led to his ouster from the White House.

General Flynn certainly has a story to tell, and he very much wants to tell it, should the circumstances permit, Kelner said Thursday. The overture is notable in part because during the presidential campaign, Flynn said that people who are given immunity probably committed a crime.

On Friday morning, the president tweeted: Mike Flynn should ask for immunity in that this is a witch hunt (excuse for big election loss), by media & Dems, of historic proportion!

White House press secretary Sean Spicer said the president was not trying to suggest to the Justice Department or the investigating committees that Flynn should receive immunity, but rather that Flynn and others should talk to Congress, with legal precautions.

Weve actually encouraged people to go talk to the House and Senate intelligence committees and the appropriate investigators so that they can continue to get to the bottom of this, Spicer said.

But procedural rules and political realities will make it difficult for Flynn to get immunity. Democrats, in particular, sounded wary of giving Flynn a pass for any potential crimes.

Adam Schiff of California, the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, on Friday called it a grave and momentous step for a former national security adviser to the president of the United States to ask for immunity from prosecution.

Schiff said there will be discussions between the committees and the Justice Department about Flynns offer, but cautioned there was still much work and many more witnesses and documents to obtain before any immunity request from any witness can be considered.

Congress has the authority to grant a limited type of immunity, called derivative use immunity, through which a witness can be compelled to testify, on the condition that their statements to Congress will not be used by prosecutors to gather evidence for a future criminal prosecution.

Lawyer William Taylor said grants of congressional immunity are rare, and there are rules and regulations about consulting with the attorney general before you give somebody immunity. But if theres a prosecution or a grand jury looking into this, obviously Mr. Flynn would be happy to be immunized by anybody.

Grants of such immunity must also involve discussions with senior Justice Department officials, but even that type of limited immunity is problematic, in large part because of the case of Oliver North.

North, a central figure in the 1980s Iran-contra affair, was granted limited immunity to testify to Congress at length about his role in the covert arms-for-hostages deal with Iran that the Reagan administration had sought. The hearings in 1987 were watched by millions of Americans.

North was later prosecuted and convicted of crimes for ordering the destruction of documents and obstructing a congressional inquiry, but an appeals court threw out the conviction. The court found that while prosecutors were careful not to use his testimony to gather evidence, witnesses in the criminal case had seen or heard about his testimony, and that exposure tainted the conviction.

Since the North case, prosecutors generally regard it as difficult, if not impossible, to prosecute someone who has been granted limited congressional immunity.

The North case was a warning that if somebody gets immunity from Congress, youre going to have a heck of a time persuading a court you can prosecute them, Taylor said.

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Another potential Democratic swing vote announced Friday that she will vote against Judge Neil Gorsuch, President Trumps nominee for the U.S. Supreme Court.

Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., admitted it was a really difficult decision for me but that she will vote against Gorsuch when his nomination comes up for a vote in the Senate next week  and will support a Democratic filibuster of him.

In an explanation posted on the essay site Medium, McCaskill acknowledged that she and 10 other Democrats have been facing intense political pressure to back Trumps choice for the high court.

While I have come to the conclusion that I cant support Neil Gorsuch for the Supreme Court  and will vote no on the procedural vote and his confirmation  I remain very worried about our polarized politics and what the future will bring, since Im certain we will have a Senate rule change that will usher in more extreme judges in the future, McCaskill wrote.

McCaskill, like other Democrats, said she is against Gorsuch because of his past rulings on the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals against a truck driver in an employment case; his refusal during his confirmation hearing to answer specific questions about Supreme Court precedent or potential future issues; and because, in McCaskills words, Gorsuch believes that corporations have the same rights as people.

Only two Democrats  Heidi Heitkamp, N.D., and Joe Manchin III, W. Va.,  have said they plan to vote for Gorsuch. They and a handful of others are the subject of a $10 million television ad campaign backing Gorsuch and trying to pressure Democrats to support him. The Judicial Crisis Network, spending the bulk of the money, on Friday said it is spending $1 million in Montana and three other states: The group hopes to win over Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont.

Tester, McCaskill, Manchin, Heitkamp and Sen. Joe Donnelly, D-Ind., are the most imperiled Democrats in next years elections, each representing states that Trump won handily.

On Friday, Sens. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., and Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, also announced theyre opposed to Gorsuch, meaning that at least 35 Democrats will vote against him and back a filibuster. Forty-one senators would be needed to sustain the filibuster and force Republicans to either withdraw Gorsuch or use their majority powers to change Senate procedure and allow him and future Supreme Court nominees to be confirmed by a simple majority vote.

Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y., said in an interview with The Washington Post on Thursday that Republicans are facing an uphill slog in finding the support needed to confirm Gorsuch.

But Republicans have vowed that Gorsuch will be confirmed no matter what  signaling that they will change Senate procedure, if needed.

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PHOENIX  The Latest on pretrial rulings in former Sheriff Joe Arpaios criminal contempt-of-court case (all times local):

2:24 p.m.

A judge in former Sheriff Joe Arpaios criminal contempt-of-court case has rejected a bid by one of his lawyers for a 60-day postponement of the lawmans April 25 trial.

Attorney Mark Goldman sought a delay because he has another trial a week earlier and his sons bar mitzvah is scheduled for April 29.

U.S. District Judge Susan Bolton says Goldman knew when he joined the case in mid-March that the trial was weeks away.

Arpaio has other lawyers defending him.

Hes charged with contempt for ignoring a court order to stop his immigration patrols.

He pleaded not guilty to the charge.

Bolton is considering another postponement request by Goldman, who says hes unable to analyze the cases large volume of documents and videos in time for April 25.

11:42 a.m.

Prosecutors in former Sheriff Joe Arpaios criminal contempt-of-court case are opposing requests to prohibit the testimony of an attorney who once represented him in a racial profiling case.

They urged a judge Thursday to reject arguments by Arpaio and lawyer Tim Casey that Caseys testimony is protected by attorney-client privilege.

Arpaio and Casey want to prevent Casey from testifying at the lawmans April 25 trial on a criminal contempt charge.

Arpaio faces the charge for defying a court order in the profiling case requiring him to stop his immigration patrols.

He acknowledged prolonging his patrols, but insists his disobedience wasnt intentional.

Casey defended Arpaio in the case for nearly six years before bowing out in November 2014.

Casey was forced to testify at an earlier contempt hearing for Arpaio.
PHOENIX  The former mayor of Superior has pleaded guilty to one count of attempted theft.

The Arizona Attorney Generals Office announced Friday that Jayme Valenzuela is scheduled to be sentenced May 3 and faces up to three years of probation under terms of his plea agreement.

Valenzuela was indicted by a state grand jury last July.

The Superior Town Council hired an auditor who determined Valenzuela used the towns debit card on eight separate occasions to obtain more than $2,300 in cash between August 2013 and December 2014.

Two of the withdrawals were at an Arizona casino and the other six withdrawals occurred at various bank machines in Maricopa and Pinal counties.

Valenzuela repaid the funds after the audit, but he was ousted from office in a recall election last August.
KANSAS CITY, Kan.  The father of a Kansas boy whose body was consumed by pigs after he was killed in 2015 pleaded guilty Friday.

Michael A. Jones, 46, of Kansas City, Kan., pleaded guilty in Wyandotte County District Court to one count of first-degree murder in the death of 7-year-old Adrian Jones.

The boys remains were found in November 2015 on property rented by Jones and his wife.

Judy Conway, Adrians maternal grandmother, said Friday she had prepared herself for next months trial. She was scheduled to testify and was hoping to find out more about her grandsons last days and the abuse he went through.

Yet, Conway said, she felt relieved to hear about the guilty plea.

It makes me pretty happy, Conway told The Kansas City Star on Friday afternoon. Im relieved that he (Jones) and Heather (Jones) will hopefully be behind bars for the rest of their life. It wont bring Adrian back, of course, but it makes me feel really good that neither one can hurt another child again.

Jones wife and the boys stepmother, 31-year-old Heather Jones, previously pleaded guilty to first-degree murder and child abuse. She was sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole for 25 years for the murder conviction. She received an additional sentence of five years and eight months in prison for the child abuse.

Sentencing for Michael Jones is scheduled for May 3. He also faces a life sentence with no chance of parole for 25 years.

When the charges were filed, former Wyandotte County District Attorney Jerry Gorman said it was one the worst cases seen by Kansas City police detectives.

A spokesman said Friday that current District Attorney Mark Dupree was unavailable for comment.

According to court documents, Adrian died sometime in September or October 2015, but his death was not reported to authorities.

On the day before Thanksgiving 2015, Kansas City police were called to the familys home on a domestic disturbance.

Michael Jones was arrested and later charged with aggravated battery and aggravated assault in connection with that disturbance.

Police were investigating that case when they learned that Adrian had not been seen for several months and may have been killed.

They obtained a search warrant and on Thanksgiving Day, investigators found human remains in a barn.

The remains were later identified as Adrians after DNA testing.

Heather and Michael Jones were charged in December 2015 with first-degree murder and child abuse.

At the sentencing for Heather Jones last November, she tearfully told a judge that she was deeply sorry.

The veteran prosecutor who handled the case said it was the most heinous case she had handled in her 27-year career.

Sheryl Lidtke, who is no longer with the district attorneys office, said Adrian had been physically and emotionally abused, confined and essentially starved to death.

He was horribly abused, neglected and ultimately killed, Lidtke said at Heather Jones sentencing. Im sure his suffering was unbearable.



2017 The Kansas City Star (Kansas City, Mo.)

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Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Homeland Security Secretary John F. Kelly fired back at Californias chief justice for criticizing the use of courthouses to arrest undocumented immigrants, writing in a letter released Friday that the practice was only necessary because the state was so uncooperative on immigration enforcement matters.

Responding to a missive from California Chief Justice Tani G. Cantil-Sakauye, Sessions and Kelly wrote that the characterization of Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers stalking undocumented immigrants at courthouses was particularly troubling, and that officers were within their rights to arrest undocumented immigrants in public places.

They blamed state and local officials for enacting statutes and ordinances designed to specifically prohibit or hinder ICE from enforcing immigration law and denying requests by ICE officers and agents to enter prisons and jails to make arrests. Such policies, they wrote, made it necessary for officers to arrest undocumented immigrants at courthouses.

We would encourage you to express your concerns to the Governor of California and local officials who have enacted policies that occasionally necessitate ICE officers and agents to make arrests at courthouses and other public places, the two men wrote.

Responding to their letter, Cantil-Sakauye said in a statement she appreciated the reply but making arrests at courthouses, in my view, undermines public safety because victims and witnesses will fear coming to courthouses to help enforce the law.

I am disappointed that despite local and state public safety issues at stake, courthouses are not on ICEs sensitive areas list that includes schools, churches, and hospitals, she said.

The back-and-forth marks an escalation in the burgeoning battle between federal and some state governments over immigration enforcement matters, with both sides staking out aggressive postures.

Earlier this week, Sessions threatened to strip Justice Department funding from what are known as sanctuary city jurisdictions that dont comply with a particular federal law about sharing information with Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The city of Seattle sued over the matter, arguing that President Donald Trumps executive order on the topic was unclear.

State attorneys general in Hawaii and Washington, meanwhile, have played a key role in the court battle to block President Trumps executive orders banning immigration and other travel to citizens of particular Muslim-majority countries.

Cecillia Wang, director of the ACLUs Immigrants Rights Project, said the Justice and Homeland Security departments seemed to be doubling down on their confrontational attitude toward the states, which she said was particularly concerning given that theyre speaking to the chief justice of a state Supreme Court whos expressed a serious and legitimate concern.

Cantil-Sakauye wrote to Sessions and Kelly earlier this month that she was deeply concerned about reports that immigration agents appear to be stalking undocumented immigrants in our courthouses to make arrests. Such incidents have occurred in California, Oregon and Texas, among other places.

Advocates saw the case in Texas as particularly egregious because the woman detained had gone to court to file a protective order against an alleged abuser, though she herself reportedly had a criminal record and had been previously deported. Cantil-Sakauye pointed to victims and witnesses in particular in her letter. A spokesman for the California judicial council said she was concerned not just that those people might be arrested but that any immigration enforcement in courthouses would deter legitimate use of the court system.

Our courts are the main point of contact for millions of the most vulnerable Californians in times of anxiety, stress, and crises in their lives, Cantil-Sakauye wrote. Crime victims, victims of sexual abuse and domestic violence, witnesses to crimes who are aiding law enforcement, limited-English speakers, unrepresented litigants, and children and families all come to our courts seeking justice and due process of law.

ICE enforcement policy prohibits initiating removal proceedings against people known to be the immediate victim or witness to a crime unless there are special circumstances or aggravating factors.

Gillian Christensen, a Homeland Security spokeswoman, said the agency has for years  predating the Trump administration  arrested undocumented immigrants at courthouses, though they have focused on those convicted of crimes. The arrests have increased recently, Christensen said, as jurisdictions have refused to honor ICE detainer requests.

Another reason, Sessions and Kelly wrote, is safety: People at courthouses are generally screened for weapons, so arresting them there is preferable to approaching them on the street or at their homes.

Cantil-Sakauye wrote that she was concerned about the impact on public trust and confidence in our state court system if the public feels that our state institutions are being used to facilitate other goals and objectives, no matter how expedient they may be.

Wang, of the ACLU, said while ICE might have in previous administration made arrests in courthouses, President Trump had explicitly given agents wider latitude with his January executive order to use aggressive tactics and target even non-criminals.

Whats new is that, as a matter of official policy coming from President Trump and Secretary Kelly, individual agents have been given free rein to make arrests as they see fit, and that I think has caused a pattern of abusive arrest tactics, Wang said.

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In the current Indian scenario, the combined effect of demonetization, crackdown on un-taxed incomes, and a series of Bills passed by the government to make real estate more regulated, the consumer is anxiously holding their breath for real estate prices to fall in urban India. Its made the real estate market sluggish, with people delaying buying decisions to avoid the risk of losing money, in case prices fell.

Rohan Builders of Pune, were among the first real estate companies in India to introduce a Price Protection Policy back in 2008. The policy ensures that if the market price of the property bought falls, Rohan refunds the difference to the consumer. They have re-introduced this policy, in the wake of current market conditions.

While this policy is immensely relevant in the current market, it normally gets buried in the fine print of the legal documents and is left to the sales personnel to explain (or ignore).

To put spotlight on Price-Protection, LinTeractive recently unveiled a digitally-led initiative, Price-Protected Sabziwala (vegetable vendor). At this shop, you get price-protection on vegetables, even on small fluctuations in the market.

The campaign kicked-off with a series of prank videos set in Pune called Aaj Ka Bhav (the rates today) by the popular comedy group STFU18. In the Series, vegetable vendors in and around Pune were asked if they would return money to consumers if vegetable prices fell. OOH and social media are being deployed to communicate Rohans price protection policy.

To push the idea further, an online vegetable store, #PriceProtectedSabziwala (www.priceprotectedsabziwala.in) has been launched, where people can buy vegetables with a price protection guarantee. Physical vegetable stores on the same lines have been setup in retail malls of Pune. The buyers of veggies from these stores are notified via SMS, every time prices fall and they can claim a refund of the difference online. The website goes on to introduce Rohans Price Protection Policy invite buyer interest.

A stock exchange-like price ticker for the vegetable market has been created as a mobile utility.

Abhishek Bhatewara, Director Sales, Rohan Builders said: In the current state of the real estate market in India, the home buyer is anxious that house prices may fall, delaying their buying for a later date. At Rohan Builders, we understand the buyers hesitation in committing their hard-earned savings to buy a house right now. LinTeractive has come up with a very simple and effective way to make people relate to this policy  an everyday fluctuation we all live with  the prices of sabzi. Were trying to trigger in the minds of the consumer that, buying a home with Rohan is something they should consider without fear as their investment is protected from any downturn in the market.

Within three days of going live, the campaign has generated enormous buzz in Pune. It has reach has crossed 3.5 Million (all organic) and its garnering attention from local media. In fact, RED FM RJs even visited the vegetable vendors and talked about them at length in weekend programming.

Vikas Mehta, Group CMO & President  Marketing Services, MullenLowe Lintas Group said: To put spotlight in a blind spot (price protection by a real estate company in this case) is always an interesting marketing challenge. These are hard times for the real estate business and I commend Rohan for thinking digital-first. Sumanta and the team at LinTeractive have done a great job of executing the idea seamlessly in an omni-channel manner. To see measurable impact on the clients business in such a short period since the campaign went live with an improved CPL, is truly heart-warming.

Over a hundred potential customers have already come forward with interest in buying properties from Rohan Developers. More leads continue to pour-in as the campaign progresses.

Sumanta Ganguly  Executive Vice President, LinTeractive said: Inherent to our approach has always been the effective understanding of consumer journeys to use the effective touchpoints to enable specific action. The omni-channel campaign has been created using touch-points including physical and digital experiences (on ground, web and mobile), conversations on social media, video content and OOH. In #PriceProtectedSabziwala while awareness was driven through outdoor and radio, use of videos to bring to life the fluctuating prices in vegetable markets helped the idea gain traction and SMS with money back demonstrated Rohans brand promise.
The Indian Association of Palliative Care (IAPC), today, launched a new public awareness campaign on palliative or end of life care, that will help Indians #LaughAtDeath.

In India, death is a taboo topic, with people uncomfortable discussing it. Leaving Terminally ill patients and their families confused, lonely and often depressed. Palliative or end-or-life care focuses on making Terminally ill patients comfortable during their last days. It includes counseling for the patient and their family members, which helps them accept death, make the most of their last days and actually enjoy them.

In a society where death isnt spoken about, the #LaughAtDeath campaign features terminally ill patients that performed a stand-up comedy show for their families and doctors, thus demonstrating that palliative care helps patients get comfortable with death. Even joke about it. These patients were selected from hundreds of terminally ill patients that IAPC members support daily, and trained by Indias best stand-up comedians  Kunal Kamra, Kashyap, Vinay Sharma, Punit Pania, Shriram R and Anand Reghu.

The campaign has broken on Twitter through the first ever comedy show on Twitter and will be amplified on social and digital media through a partnership with The Logical Indian, a platform that leads news and issues that often miss the limelight in the traditional Indian media. Radio Mirchi is also joining hands to bring the #LaughAtDeath campaign to radio. The campaign is supported by the website  www.endoflifecareindia.com  and its social media platforms (Facebook:https://www.facebook.com/EndOfLifeCareIndia/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/EndOfLifeCareIN YouTube: http://bit.ly/2n9aUmB ), which are equipped to counsel patients and connect them to palliative care centers across India.

The campaign was taken live today morning and is already trending at #1 on Twitter all-India, generating some personal and heartfelt comments.

Amit Akali, Chief Creative Officer of Medulla, the healthcare-specialist advertising agency that developed the campaign, said, This was the most difficult (almost impossible) project of our lives. Made easy and possible by the patients, eager to share their stories and make the most of their last days. They moved us with their courage and floored us with their live performances, some of them taking a stage for the first time in 85 years! They opened their lives to the stand-up comics and rehearsed hard for days.

Mihir Chitre, Creative Group Head, was just happy to work with the patients, The most rewarding part of this campaign has been interacting with the terminally ill patients. I think theyve changed the way I look at life.

Praful Akali, the Founder & MD on Medulla, added, This is not just a campaign but an ongoing project and platform for terminally ill patients to share their stories and spread awareness on Palliative care. Love it because it brings alive the power of palliative care in a real way. It is about the strongest demo campaign youll ever see.

Dr. Mary Ann Muckaden, President of IAPC, concluded, We are looking forward to increase access to palliative care in India with Medulla  right now only 3% of cancer patients get even simple pain relief. Hopefully, this campaign will change that. A big thank you to the patients for sharing their stories, the comedians who trained them, Film-maker Rahul Sengupta for capturing their performances, the venue and media partners who supported us in creating awareness.
The OnePlus 3 and OnePlus 3T are hugely popular smartphones for a number of reasons. Although, one of their most popular features has to be Dash Charge. This is a fast charging solution designed by OnePlus which offers OnePlus 3 and 3T device owners a huge boost to their battery, in a very short amount of time. Now, OnePlus has announced that they are building on the success and underlying technology of Dash Charge to improve not only your smartphones battery life, but also your life.

Meet Dash Energy! This is a brand new drink from OnePlus which will look to revitalize your life just like Dash Charge does with your smartphone. The tagline for Dash Energy is a days power in half an hour and that seems to be an adequate description, as Dash Energy is designed to ensure that you can limit your amount of daily sleep to only thirty minutes. In short, with Dash Energy, thirty minutes sleep will be enough to get you through the day. Guaranteed!

To promote the launch of Dash Energy, OnePlus has announced that they will be setting up street-level locations on April 1 and distributing free samples of Dash Energy to the public. For those based in the UK, head down to Bishops Square, Spitalfields, London, E1 6EW, between 12pm and 4pm (local) to collect a free sample  while supplies last. Those based in India on the other hand, will want to head over to the OnePlus Experience Store in Bangalore anytime after 11am (local). For those in Europe, while OnePlus has not announced any specific locations, the company has confirmed that they will be running a contest for a chance to win a free four-pack of Dash Energy. In addition, and while Dash Energy is designed with your well-being in mind, OnePlus has decided to couple the launch of Dash Energy with a sale on one of their Dash Charge bundles. So from today, and through until April 4, you can save 15-percent on a Dash Charge bundle which consists of a Dash Power Adapter and a Dash Type-C Cable. Those interested can find out more about Dash Energy, the EU contest, Dash Charge, or the Dash Charge sale, by heading through the links below.
Samsung just released a new video commercial for its new Gear S3 Frontier smartwatch, which guest stars popular survival expert, Bear Grylls. The British explorer, who is probably one of the most recognizable faces of outdoor adventure, is showing off his ultimate self-rescue skills in Samsungs latest ad. On TV, Grylls shows us how to survive in the wild without the help of technology, but this time around the adventurer has taken the sporty Gear S3 Frontier smartwatch for a spin, as he attempts to make his way through a gloomy forest.

In the short clip, Grylls showcases the wearables rugged build, barometer, IP68 certification for water and dust resistance, altimeter, S Health and weather apps, while also trying to escape the rain and build himself a fire to keep warm. Eventually, he manages to reach the peak and enjoy the beautiful view. All with the help of Samsungs new intelligent timepiece. For those who enjoy watching Grylls characteristic squirming routines  the adventurer eats a fresh larva he just pulled out of a three truck.

The Gear S3 Frontier features a circular 1.3-inch always-on Super AMOLED display with 360 x 360 resolution and Gorilla Glass SR+ for protection. Introduced with the Gear S2, the rotating bezel that allows users to reject calls and perform other functions with a simple twist of the bezel, is also present on the Gear S3 Frontier. Under the hood of the smartwatch, theres a 1 GHz dual-core processor which works hand-in-hand with 4GB of internal storage and 768 MB of RAM. The wearable is powered by a 380 mAh which according to Samsung should last up to 4 days of moderate use  another good reason to take the smartwatch along with you on your next hiking trip. It is also worth noting that Samsungs current smartwatches dont run Android Wear, but Tizen OS out of the box. The Gear S3 Frontier boasts a sportier, more rugged look, compared to the Gear S3 Classic which is more suited to complete a business attire and users can also easily customize the Gear S3 Frontier (as well as the Gear S3 Classic), as the straps on the watches can be replaced with any 22mm watch bands.
The Galaxy S8 model equipped with the Samsung-made Exynos 8895 system-on-chip (SoC) outscored the one fueled by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 chipset on AnTuTu, according to a set of recently surfaced images depicting benchmark scores of both handsets. The model fueled by Qualcomms latest flagship SoC scored 162,101 points on AnTuTu, while the one powered by Samsungs chip earned 174,155 points from the same benchmark, even surpassing the iPhone 7 Plus and seemingly overshadowing the Snapdragon 835-powered model. The model featuring Qualcomms chip came close but was ultimately unable to surpass the OnePlus 3T, the results have shown. Refer to the gallery below to see AnTuTu scores of both smartphones and other reference models.

The Galaxy S8 and the Galaxy S8 Plus powered by the Snapdragon 835 were primarily made for the United States where Samsung usually decides against launching devices with its Exynos SoCs due to the fact that its cheaper to release smartphones with Qualcomm-made hardware. The San Diego-based semiconductor manufacturer holds a number of CDMA patents which are a strong reason for phone makers to use its chips in the U.S. instead of releasing modified versions of devices compatible with CDMA and paying heavy licensing fees. On a related note, Qualcomm has recently been having issues with a number of antitrust watchdogs around the world due to its alleged anti-competitive practices. Earlier this month, the Taiwanese Fair Trade Commission (FTC) even accused the U.S. tech giant of preventing Samsung from selling its chips to third-party phone makers.

Regarding benchmark scores, the ones outlined above are mostly in line with last years comparison of the Galaxy S7 lineup powered by the Snapdragon 830 and the one fueled by the Exynos 8890. Back then, the Exynos-equipped devices also outscored the ones featuring Qualcomms chip in all benchmarks. With that said, both the Snapdragon 835 and the Exynos 8895 were manufactured using the 10nm process and should be extremely similar in everyday use in terms of battery life and performance. More details regarding minor differences between the models and their scores in popular benchmarks should follow soon seeing how the Galaxy S8 and the Galaxy S8 Plus are launching worldwide on April 21.
The Huawei P10 is now available through Vodafone in the UK, in case youre interested in getting one. As many of you know, the Huawei P10 is one of Huaweis flagship smartphones that the company announced during the Mobile World Congress (MWC) this year, its essentially a smaller variant of the Huawei P10 Plus. That being said, those of you who are interested in getting the Huawei P10 from Vodafone UK, can now do so through the companys website (source link down below), or you can simply visit one of Vodafones stores in the UK.

This UK-based carrier has prepared several tariffs that you can take advantage of when purchasing this phone, and you can opt to sign a 12-month or a 24-month contract with the carrier. The company wanted to emphasize their Data Extravaganza deal for the phone, you can get the Huawei P10 by paying 42 per month with a 10 upfront cost, and youll get unlimited texts, unlimited minutes and 24GB of UK data for the price of 6GB. Now, on top of all that, youll also get 2GB of inclusive roaming data. If you prefer some other deal, there are tons of them listed on the companys official website which you can access through the source link down below. That being said, the Huawei P10 is made out of metal, and is currently Huaweis most powerful smartphone out there, next to the Huawei P10 Plus, of course.

The Huawei P10 is a rather compact smartphone, as it comes with a 5.1-inch fullHD (1920 x 1080) display. The phone packs in 4GB of RAM and 32GB / 64GB of expandable internal storage, though do keep in mind that Vodafone is selling only the 64GB model the device, and you can choose between black and white color variants. This smartphone is fueled by Huaweis very own Kirin 960 64-bit octa-core processor, and a 3,200mAh non-removable battery is also included here. The phone comes with a dual camera setup on the back, youll find 20-megapixel and 12-megapixel shooter back there, and an 8-megapixel front-facing camera is also a part of the Huawei P10 package. This smartphone ships with Android 7.0 Nougat out of the box, and on top of it, youll get Huaweis Emotion UI (EMUI) 5.1 skin. If youd like to know more about the Huawei P10, feel free to check out our full review of this smartphone.
Verizon is one of the biggest wireless carriers in the United States and has never been shy about throwing money around, but a huge number of acquisitions and a large media spending bill havent been quite enough to bring their struggling Go90 video service into the spotlight, as some insiders tell it. Sources say that the whole thing started with near-unbridled optimism. Some were a bit doubtful that Verizon could successfully make the jump to a hip, digital-first media company, but once the money was on the table and the service was beginning to be built, competition for control over Go90s future was fierce. Brian Angiolet, a longstanding figure in the company, wound up at the helm when the smoke cleared.

It didnt take long after the service launched for everyone to be able to tell that things were not going as planned. In fact, the state of Go90 was pretty far off from success, and it didnt take an insider, or even a genius, to see it. What was a bit less clear, however, was where the missteps were. With the dust largely settled and the struggling service seemingly languishing in a sort of living stasis, many within the company agree that the biggest problem was a lack of direction. Go90 drew heavily from AOLs media selection for content, and the likes of Netflix and YouTube for inspiration; the target was clearly millennials, but what of other customers, and did Verizon really know millennials well enough to appeal to them? The answer thus far has been a resounding no. Verizon splashed out bigtime on Go90; they hired tons of staff, including teams of contractors to manually tag thousands of videos, and they spared no expense is bringing tons of premium content to the service. None of it seemed to do much good.

A majority of the original staff from the OnCue product that Verizon bought and spun into Go90 are gone now, replaced by internet video bigwigs and demographic analysts who hold the promise of helping Verizon hit the bullseye. Marketing efforts, better tagging and sorting of content, more premium content, and technical improvements to the app are all apparently on the horizon for Go90, but this will, internally, be the apps third go around. The sheer complexity of this sink or swim moment for Go90 is not helped by the fact that competing carriers are offering consumers some seriously compelling reasons to contemplate their complacency with Verizons services. Things dont look great for Go90, but there is also every chance that it will come around.
Bose, via their eBay store-front, is currently selling their popular SoundLink On-Ear Bluetooth headphones at a discount. You can pick them up for $169, which is $80 off of their regular price of $249. These are brand new, not used or refurbished, which makes them a great deal. Especially since Bose doesnt typically discount their products often or at all.

These SoundLink On-Ear Bluetooth Headphones are only available in the white color. These are Bluetooth headphones, so that does indeed mean that there is a battery inside, which Bose rates as lasting around 15 hours. Thats pretty good, as far as Bluetooth headphones go. Additionally, you can get a full charge on these headphones in about 90 minutes. There are controls on the side of the headphones, so you can change the song, the volume and even answer the phone if needed. Bose sells the SoundLink headphones with a matching carrying case, which is a good way to protect your smartphone while you are traveling. As youd expect from Bose, these headphones do offer great sound quality, and there is a built-in EQ so you can adjust the sound to your liking.

You can pick up these headphones from eBay using the link below. They ship from Bose headquarters, which is in Framingham, Massachusetts, and the shipping is also free, which is a nice perk to have as well.
A new Motorola smartphone bearing model number XT1723 has been cleared by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), paving the way for its possible release in the U.S. at some stage going forward. While Lenovo is yet to say anything about this upcoming device, reports in the online tech media suggest that this may very well be the fourth-generation Moto E handset from the American brand now owned by Chinese tech giant Lenovo. If that is indeed the case, it will be an entry-level smartphone that will replace the Moto E3 (XT1706), which was launched last year along with the Moto E3 Power. The FCC Listing, as expected, doesnt give away a whole lot about the hardware specs of the upcoming smartphone, but it does reveal that the device will ship with just 16GB of built-in storage, but carry a rather large 4,000mAh battery.

Lenovos Moto E devices are positioned at the entry-level, with prices typically starting at just over $100, making them fairly affordable in most regions around the world. The line was introduced back in 2014 as a cheaper alternative to the best-selling Moto G, which was already priced at a fairly modest level for the hardware on offer. Since then, the company has launched a couple more Moto E handsets in the subsequent years, with the Moto E3 and Moto E3 Power being the companys latest entry-level offerings that were launched late last year. While we havent seen a lot of leaks about the fourth-generation Moto E handset, it probably wont be long before new info starts poring in, now that Lenovo seems to be prepping its launch in the coming months.

This year has already seen the launch of multiple Motorola handsets, including the Moto G5 and Moto G5 Plus, both of which were released earlier this months in many regions around the world. Their predecessors  the Moto G4 and Moto G4 Plus  reportedly did brisk business in many emerging markets, so Lenovo would probably be hopeful that its latest mid-rangers will be able to keep up the momentum going forward. The company also apparently has at least a couple more devices in the pipeline, including the XT1750 & XT1754, both of which reportedly received their Wi-Fi certifications just last week. Some sections of the media apparently believe that the two devices will hit the market as Moto X 2017 or Moto C / Moto C Plus, although, theres no official word from Lenovo on this matter.
Earlier today T-Mobile shocked both the mobile and fashion worlds by announcing the launch of its T-Mobile ONEsie. In an unprecedented move, T-Mobile has looked to become the Un-Fashionable retailer and shake up the fashion industry, much like it has done as the Un-Carrier in the wireless industry, by bringing together the tech found in the latter to a garment suited more towards the former.

Unlike most onesies you can find on the market, the T-Mobile ONEsie is more than just a fashion statement as it looks to unite ONEself with ONEs smartphone and their T-Mobile ONE plan. As the ONEsie is a full-body fitness tracker which can monitor a number or ONEs vitals, including sleeping, waking, breathing, movement, body position, and more. In addition, and for those who often encounter a less than stellar mobile signal, the ONEsie also has the ability to deliver an improved signal for ONEself and those nearby. Adding to its wealth of features, the ONEsie also comes equipped with its own charging solution. As a result, a wearer can simply keep their smartphone in the ONEsie pocket and the natural body heat generated will charge both the ONEsie and the phone. While completing the feature spec list is a specially designed HoodiePhones hood which allows the wearer to listen to their music. So far, the Un-Fashionable attire has been met with rave reviews from industry analysts. According To Fashion-Forward Designer, Edna Mobile, the T-Mobile ONEsie is gigabyte meets Gucci. Its virtual meets Versace. Further adding, that it fogs my glasses!

According to T-Mobile, the ONEsie is available in four different styles, including the standard ONEsie featuring all the features listed above. The additional three styles consist of a specially-designed Sport edition, a Comfort option for the home, and a safe for work option which adopts more of an office look. The T-Mobile ONEsie is available now and from as low as $40. Which actually makes it cheaper than most T-Mobile data plans. You can find out more about the T-Mobile ONEsie including the painstaking design process by checking out T-Mobiles latest promotional and behind the scenes videos below. This really is a revolutionary move by T-Mobile and the only thing we are not so sure about is the color  magenta.
Verizon is reportedly looking to launch an online TV service similar to Sling TV, PlayStation Vue and DIRECTV NOW. According to a few sources of both Reuters and Bloomberg, the telecom giant has already signed licensing deals with a few channels for their upcoming service. Its unclear what those channels are, or when Verizon is planning to launch this service. But itll likely be later this year. Verizon is looking to offer a package with dozens of channels for those cord-cutters out there. This is a space that is already getting to be pretty competitive, and packed of other competitors, including Comcast who is looking to join this year.

Verizon has had their Go90 service available for quite some time now, but it will differ from this TV service that they are putting together. Where this service would offer live TV, Go90 is still offering original content (more or less). Its unclear whether they would both be separate or morph into one service. Currently, Go90 is free and ad supported, but that likely wont work for a TV service, seeing as channels are wanting higher licensing fees, and the ads are delivered by the channels and not Verizon itself.

This move is part of a shift that we are beginning to see with content and wireless carriers as of late. Carriers know that video is where everything is right now, and they want to own the video. Which is why AT&T bought and then launched DIRECTV NOW, and why Verizon is looking to offer up their own service. With many people looking to cut the cord, there is a pretty large audience out there for this service, but no service has been able to completely replace cable TV just yet. While some excel in some areas, others are missing out on specific channels, on-demand content or even just reliability (an issue that DIRECTV NOW had when it launched, and still has, in some respects). But with more competition in the space, this should get better and be a lot more competitive  even driving down prices, which would also be good. Seeing as these online TV services are still priced about the same as cable TV.
Asian Mountain Bike race from April 6

The second edition of Asian Enduro Series Mountain Bike Race is to be held in Nagarkot, Bhaktapur from April 6-9.
BRB issues 48-hr ultimatum to PM, demands participation in local polls

Leading a 62-party delegation, former prime minister Baburam Bhattarai on Thursday served a two-day ultimatum to Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal, demanding an amendment to the Local Level Election Act.
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One of these unveilings is planned in the Jeep stand, which will feature a Hellcat-powered SUV The model is a production car that will be called " Grand Cherokee Trackhawk. " The news comes straight from Mike Manley, the boss of the Jeep brand within Fiat Chrysler Automobiles.We already know that the performance model will have a 6.2-liter supercharged V8 engine under its hood. The unit is borrowed from the Dodge models referred to as Hellcats, and it delivers 707for them. Since thisalready had a Trailhawk for off-roading, the destination of the Trackhawk is evident.Currently, the most powerful product in the Grand Cherokee lineup offers 475 HP, and some believe it is more than enough for this segment. Fortunately, others do not agree, and the world will have a 707 HP SUV available on sale.The quickest and most powerful Grand Cherokee ever offered on the market is set to fight with the likes of BMWs X5 M, Porsches Cayenne Turbo S, Audis SQ7, and Mercedes-s GLE 63 S.In other words, the segment of performance SUVs will become even more crowded, and customers across the world will have another potential buy on the table.It will be tricky to say no to a car that delivers 707 HP, especially if you can afford it and it satisfies your needs. This product will push European brands to match it with something close in performance and horsepower, and their customers will be the ones who will benefit the most.As Autoblog points out, Jeeps boss also announced that the Wranglers replacement would be launched by the end of this year.The confirmation means that the off-roading legend is following its schedule, and that fans of the brand should expect to see it in the next few months. We believe that the Los Angeles Auto Show might be the venue selected to showcase it, but that is just a possibility at this point.
The most recent example of this was delivered over in Houston, Texas, where a Lamborghini Huracan packing around 2,500 ponies managed to set a new record for the TX2K rolling nationals. To be more precise, the uber-boosted Lambo hit 217 MPH in a rolling quarter-mile sprint.The twin-turbo gym visit of the Italian exotic was handled by Underground Racing, with the Huracan wearing the UR4 nickname (check out the small decal on the car).The said specialist is one of the most active players on the twin-turbo market. In fact, the company was involved in a war with Heffner Performance last year. The series of 1,320 feet sprints involves standing starts and led to numbers that can easily make one's jaw drop.Returning to the rolling adventures portrayed in the piece of footage at the bottom of the page, the Underground X twin-turbo kit, which is the company's most extreme piece of hardware, was present on two other machines aside from the Huracan.We're talking about a first-generation Audi R8 , as well as about a Lamborghini Gallardo . Despite the generation gap between the two V10 bulls, the aftermarket scene sees both platforms delivering similar results these days and it's always great to see a wide variety in the realm of drag racing.Head over to the "play" button below to see the 2,000+ hp monsters duking it out - the clip brings us multiple angles, include one that delivers an in-car view, so you'll get a complete take on the speeding hostilities.
Gary Robbins is the trucker who was caught in a convenience store parking lot in Massachusetts after one of the business employees noticed strange behavior and called the police.Before calling law enforcement, the unnamed employee saw the guy running around the parking lot and behaving erratically.Police officers who arrived on the scene noticed that the man had locked himself out of the truck, luckily for everyones sake, and he had even placed his credit cards into the fuel tank.From there, Gary Robbins was seen attempting to climb the vehicle through the space between the cab and trailer, instead of the doors.Deerfield Police officers learned that Robbins drove from Washington state, near Seattle , where he picked up raspberry roots to deliver in Massachusetts. He had finished the delivery after the 3,000-mile trip (4,828 km), which was not interrupted by any rest of any kind.It was discovered that the driver was showing signs of drug use, and he endangered himself and the other road users from start to finish. It is illegal for truck drivers to drive for extended periods without resting, and many states oblige transport companies to use special devices to prevent drivers from continuing a trip without resting.Officers were surprised, but not shocked, to learn that the driver had a farther destination on the East Coast. Mr. Robbins admitted to using drugs, but refused to go to the hospital. He was taken after law enforcement members struggled to control him.Gary Robbins license was revoked, the truck he was driving was impounded in spite of not being owned by him, and he has a court date set, Recorder reports. The DUI offender is facing a multitude of charges for his reckless actions.Adam Sokoloski, the arresting officer, thanked the employees of the Circle K complex for their attention and for deciding to call the police for help.
There hasn't been a major updated to the way a vehicle horn works in years. What used to be a way to communicate danger is almost always used to express frustration with other drivers or even attraction towards members of the fairer gender.Honda's system takes things a step further, allowing you more ways to communicate using the horn. The downside is that we're going to have to learn another language, the language of beeps.Vehicle-to-vehicle communication is key to a future of autonomy and efficiency. But what you feel is just as important as where you're going, right? That's why the all-new 2018 Odyssey minivan is going to pioneer the field of driver-to-driver communication via honking."Horns have been around for over a century, but little has been done to make these sound-making devices a personal expression of the driver's emotions like we're doing with the all-new Honda Odyssey," said Alice Alerto, the Honda engineer in charge of horn development. "We have exhaustively researched and tested these new Honda Horn Emojis to offer the industry's most advanced in-vehicle technology in the minivan segment."All the emojis are easy to figure out. Honda says that to make the most expressive sounds possible, it utilized data compiled by social scientists and audiologists. You get stuff like the Rush Hour Traffic emoji, which helps share the pain of being stuck in traffic with other drivers. There's also a way to say hello the neighbor.Why is there a picture of a dog? Excellent question. The Honda Dog Emoji is mute to humans, but it warns canines of approaching vehicles. It might even work for somebody with a seeing eye dog.Honda Horn Emojis were developed by Honda Dream Labs, the same people behind the HondaVac , the world's first in-car vacuum. Check it out in the video below.
General Electric is going all in on futuristic manufacturing, having ditched businesses like finance and network television to focus on building stuff like jet engines and gas turbines. Here's what CEO Jeff Immelt thinks about automation and the future of work:

He thinks fears of robot-driven joblessness are overblown , even as he invests billions in automation: "This notion of the war of the robots happening in the short term, that's more of a Silicon Valley vision than the real world."

, even as he invests billions in automation: "This notion of the war of the robots happening in the short term, that's more of a Silicon Valley vision than the real world." Robots are making Americans richer: Businesses can only pay workers more if they become more productive, and automation allows humans to focus on more valuable tasks.

Businesses can only pay workers more if they become more productive, and automation allows humans to focus on more valuable tasks. It's not just technology, but politics that drive automation: "The question of the last election was, 'how do you create $25 per hour jobs?" Immelt argues. In a global economy, jobs that don't require trained workers to leverage the power of computers and automation simply won't pay that well.

"The question of the last election was, 'how do you create $25 per hour jobs?" Immelt argues. In a global economy, jobs that don't require trained workers to leverage the power of computers and automation simply won't pay that well. All business will be in the education business: Immelt says that GE and firms like it must do more to train workers to rise above tasks that robots can do, "not because we're bleeding hearts, but because we're good at it."




First up, Joe Biden is thinking about dropping tariffs against China. But theres a spy in prison this morning that helps us understand why he shouldnt. Ill explain.





Your second brief, If youre looking for a good paying job, you might consider being a CEO for a health insurance company. One executive made $142M dollars last year. Let's talk about that.





And as always, Im keeping an eye out for developing stories. Put this one on your radar. Mexican cartels are grooming American kids online and paying them cash to traffic illegals or run drugs across the border. Ill share details.





If you enjoyed this episode of the President's Daily Brief, remember to subscribe and listen daily at podfollow.com/pdb.

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Climate cocktail

Could China be thinking of dovetailing OBOR with the UNs SDGs in Nepal?
Exploring resilience

Women are more vulnerable to climate change because of their dependence on climate sensitive sectors
The Carter Center is one of eight semi-finalists in the MacArthur Foundation competition for a $100 million grant to fund a single proposal that promises real and measurable progress in solving a critical problem of our time. The Carter Center proposes to eliminate river blindness disease from Nigeria, Africas most populous nation and the one most endemic for this debilitating disease.

River blindness causes devastating socioeconomic repercussions in Africa, resulting in food insecurity, lack of education for children who must care for blinded parents, intergenerational poverty, and social stigma.

The Problem

River blindness threatens approximately 120 million people worldwide. Caused by a worm parasite that spreads via the bite of black flies, the disease is most endemic in Nigeria. With its dense and growing population, roughly 50 million people in 40,000 communities in Nigeria are infected with or at risk of the disease.

The Solution

The Carter Center will eliminate transmission of river blindness disease in Nigeria, creating a model for the rest of Africa and the world.

In partnership with the Ministry of Health and local NGOs, the Center will work through community-directed distribution systems to administer the drug ivermectin (Mectizan, donated by Merck & Co.) once or twice per year. This medicine is proven to stop transmission of the condition.

The program will train community-level volunteers in the appropriate dosing and administration of the drug and to provide health education to families and neighbors, creating a sustainable, rudimentary healthcare infrastructure in remote communities.

Similar Carter Center projects have eliminated river blindness from four countries in the Americas and from parts of Uganda and Sudan. This project will bring these best practices to scale across Nigeria, demonstrating that eliminating river blindness is possible in even the largest and most challenging environments.
WestRock Company, together with its subsidiaries, provides fiber-based paper and packaging solutions in North America, South America, Europe, Asia, and Australia. It operates through two segments, Corrugated Packaging and Consumer Packaging. The Corrugated Packaging segment produces containerboards, corrugated sheets, corrugated packaging, and preprinted linerboards to consumer and industrial products manufacturers, and corrugated box manufacturers. It also provides structural and graphic design, engineering services and custom, and proprietary and standard automated packaging machines, as well as turn-key installation, automation, line integration, and packaging solutions; distributes corrugated packaging materials and other specialty packaging products, including stretch films, void fills, carton sealing tapes, and other specialty tapes; operates recycling facilities that collect, sort, grade, and bale recovered paper; and provides lithographic laminated packaging products, as well as contract packing services. The Consumer Packaging segment manufactures and sells folding cartons that are used to package food, paper, beverages, dairy products, tobacco, confectionery, health and beauty, other household consumer, and commercial and industrial products; and express mail packages for the overnight courier industry. It also offers inserts and labels, as well as rigid packaging and other printed packaging products, such as transaction cards, brochures, product literature, marketing materials, and grower tags and plant stakes for the horticultural market; and secondary packages and paperboard packaging for over-the-counter and prescription drugs. In addition, this segment manufactures and sells solid fiber and corrugated partitions, and die-cut paperboard components principally to glass container manufacturers and the automotive industry, as well as producers of beer, food, wine, spirits, cosmetics, and pharmaceuticals. WestRock Company is based in Atlanta, Georgia.
The following companies are subsidiares of Sysco: 2234829 Alberta ULC, 2234842 Alberta ULC, A. M. Briggs Inc., A.M. Briggs, Almacen Fiscal Frionet Caldera S.A., Almacen Fiscal Frionet Limon S.A., Appert's Foodservice, Arnotts (Fruit) Limited, Asian Foods, Bahamas Food Holdings Limited, Bahamas Food Services Limited, Brake Bros, Brake Bros Foodservice Ireland Limited, Brake Bros. Foodservice Limited, Brake Bros. Holding I Limited, Brake Bros. Ltd., Brakes Foodservice NI Limited, Buchy Food Service, Buckhead Beef Co., Buckhead Meat & Seafood of Houston Inc., Buckhead Meat Company, Buckhead Meat Midwest Inc., Buckhead Meat of Dallas Inc., Buckhead Meat of Denver Inc., Buckhead Meat of San Antonio LP, Buzztable Inc., CAKE Corporation, Central Seafood Co., Christys Wine & Spirits Limited, Clafra Aktiebolag, Colorado Boxed Beef Co - Specialty meat-cutting division, Corporacion Frionet Sociedad Anonima, Crossgar Foodservice, Crossgar Foodservice Limited, Crown I Enterprises Inc., Cucina Acquisitions (UK) Limited, Cucina Finance (UK) Limited, Cucina French Holdings Limited, Cucina Fresh Finance Limited, Cucina Fresh Investments Limited, Cucina Lux Investments Limited, Curleys Quality Foods Limited (Third Party), Davigel Belgilux S.A., Davigel Espana S.A., Desert Meats & Provisions, Distagro, Doerle Food Service, Doughtie's Foods Inc., Dust Bowl City LLC, Eko Fagel Fisk o mittemellan AB, Enclave Insurance Company, Enclave Parkway Association Inc., Enclave Properties LLC, European Imports, European Imports Inc., Figg Inc., Freedman Meats, Freedman Meats Inc., Freedman-KB Inc., Fresh Direct (UK) Limited, Fresh Direct Group Limited, Fresh Direct Limited, Fresh Holdings Limited, FreshPoint, FreshPoint Arizona Inc., FreshPoint Atlanta Inc., FreshPoint California Inc., FreshPoint Central California Inc., FreshPoint Central Florida Inc., FreshPoint Connecticut LLC, FreshPoint Dallas Inc., FreshPoint Denver Inc., FreshPoint Hawaii LLC, FreshPoint Inc., FreshPoint Las Vegas Inc., FreshPoint North Carolina Inc., FreshPoint North Florida Inc., FreshPoint Oklahoma City LLC, FreshPoint Pompano Real Estate LLC, FreshPoint Puerto Rico LLC, FreshPoint San Francisco Inc., FreshPoint South Florida Inc., FreshPoint South Texas Inc., FreshPoint Southern California Inc., FreshPoint Tomato LLC, FreshPoint Vancouver Ltd., Freshfayre Limited, Fruktservice i Helsingborg AB, GHS Classic Drinks Limited, Gilchrist & Soames Inc., Gilchrist & Soames UK Limited, Guest Packaging LLC, Guest Supply, Guest Supply Asia Limited, Guest Supply Singapore Pte. Ltd., International Food Group, Isakssons Frukt & Gront AB, J & M Wholesale Meats, J. Kings Food Service Professionals, J. Kings Food Service Professionals Inc., Kent Frozen Foods, Les Ateliers Du Gout, Liquid Assets Limited, M&J Seafood Holdings Limited, M&J Seafood Limited, Manchester Mills LLC, Mayca Autoservicio S.A., Mayca Distribuidores S.A., Menigo Foodservice AB, Mitshim Etatu Supply LP, Newport Meat Company, Newport Meat Northern California Inc., Newport Meat Pacific Northwest Inc., Newport Meat Southern California Inc., Newport Meat of Nevada Inc., North Star Holding Corporation, North Star Seafood, North Star Seafood Acquisition Corporation, North Star Seafood LLC, PFS de Mexico S.A. de C.V., Palisades Ranch Inc., Pallas Foods, Pallas Foods Farm Fresh Unlimited Company, Pallas Foods Unlimited Company, Pauleys Produce Limited, Promotora del Servicios S.A. de C.V., Restaurangakdemien AB, Restaurant of Tomorrow Inc., Rohan Viandes Elaboration SAS, SMS Bermuda Holdings, SMS GPC International Limited, SMS GPC International Resources Limited, SMS Global Holdings S.a.r.l., SMS International Resources Ireland Unlimited Company, SMS Lux Holdings LLC, SOTF LLC, SYY Netherlands C.V., SYY Panama S. de R.L., Serca Foodservice, Servicestyckarna I Johannes AB, Servicios Ameriserve S.A. de C.V., Shenzhen Guest Supply Trading Co. Limited, Societe Civile Immobiliere (SCI) Bianchi Montegut, Societe Civile Immobiliere (SCI) De Boiseau, Societe Civile Immobiliere (SCI) De Garcelles, Societe Civile Immobiliere (SCI) J.D. Lanjouan, Societe Civile Immobiliere (SCI) Le Dauphin, Specialty Meat Holdings LLC, Stockflag Limited, Stockholms Fiskauktion AB, Supplies on the Fly, Sysco Albany LLC, Sysco Asian Foods Inc., Sysco Atlanta LLC, Sysco Autoservicio S.A., Sysco Baltimore LLC, Sysco Baraboo LLC, Sysco Bermuda Partners L.P., Sysco Boston LLC, Sysco Canada Holdings S.a.r.l., Sysco Canada Inc., Sysco Central Alabama LLC, Sysco Central California Inc., Sysco Central Florida Inc., Sysco Central Illinois Inc., Sysco Central Pennsylvania LLC, Sysco Charlotte LLC, Sysco Chicago Inc., Sysco Cincinnati LLC, Sysco Cleveland Inc., Sysco Columbia LLC, Sysco Connecticut LLC, Sysco Corporation, Sysco Corporation Director's Deferred Compensation Plan Trust, Sysco Corporation Employee's 401(k) Plan Trust, Sysco Corporation Executive Deferred Compensation Plan Trust, Sysco Corporation Good Government Committee Inc., Sysco Corporation Retirement Trust, Sysco Corporation Supplemental Executive Retirement Trust, Sysco Corporation Supplemental Unemployment Benefits Plan Trust, Sysco Detroit LLC, Sysco Disaster Relief Foundation Inc., Sysco EI VI S. s.r.l., Sysco EU II S.a.r.l., Sysco EU III S.a.r.l., Sysco EU IV Capital Unlimited Company, Sysco EU IV S. s.r.l.., Sysco EU V S. s.r.l., Sysco Eastern Maryland LLC, Sysco Eastern Wisconsin LLC, Sysco Foundation Inc., Sysco France Holding SAS, Sysco France SAS, Sysco George Town II LLC, Sysco George Town Limited S. s.r.l.., Sysco Global Finance LLC, Sysco Global Finance LLP, Sysco Global Holdings B.V., Sysco Global Resources LLC, Sysco Global Services LLC, Sysco Grand Cayman Company, Sysco Grand Cayman II Company, Sysco Grand Cayman III Company, Sysco Grand Rapids LLC, Sysco Guernsey Limited, Sysco Guest Supply Canada Inc., Sysco Guest Supply Europe Goods Wholesalers LLC, Sysco Guest Supply Europe Limited, Sysco Guest Supply LLC, Sysco Gulf Coast LLC, Sysco Hampton Roads Inc., Sysco Hawaii Inc., Sysco Holdings II LLC, Sysco Holdings LLC, Sysco Indianapolis LLC, Sysco International Food Group Inc., Sysco International Inc., Sysco Iowa Inc., Sysco Jackson LLC, Sysco Jacksonville Inc., Sysco Kansas City Inc., Sysco Knoxville LLC, Sysco Labs Europe Limited, Sysco Labs Pvt. Ltd., Sysco Leasing LLC, Sysco Lincoln Inc., Sysco Lincoln Transportation Company Inc., Sysco Long Island LLC, Sysco Los Angeles Inc., Sysco Louisville Inc., Sysco Memphis LLC, Sysco Merchandising and Supply Chain Services Canada Inc., Sysco Merchandising and Supply Chain Services Inc., Sysco Metro New York LLC, Sysco Minnesota Inc., Sysco Montana Inc., Sysco Nashville LLC, Sysco Netherlands Partners LLC, Sysco North Central Florida Inc., Sysco North Dakota Inc., Sysco Northern New England Inc., Sysco Philadelphia LLC, Sysco Pittsburgh LLC, Sysco Portland Inc., Sysco Raleigh LLC, Sysco Resources Services LLC, Sysco Riverside Inc., Sysco Sacramento Inc., Sysco San Diego Inc., Sysco San Francisco Inc., Sysco Seattle Inc., Sysco South Florida Inc., Sysco Southeast Florida LLC, Sysco Spain Holdings SLU, Sysco Spokane Inc., Sysco St. Louis LLC, Sysco Syracuse LLC, Sysco Technologies Cayman Ltd., Sysco Technologies LLC, Sysco UK Holdings Limited, Sysco UK Limited, Sysco UK Partners LLP, Sysco USA I Inc., Sysco USA II LLC, Sysco USA III LLC, Sysco Ventura Inc., Sysco Ventures Inc., Sysco Virginia LLC, Sysco West Coast Florida Inc., Sysco Western Minnesota Inc., The SYGMA Network Inc., Upsys, Victua SAS, Walker Foods Inc., Waugh Foods, and Wild Harvest Limited.

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Gas stations sealed for giving short measure

A government market monitoring team has shut down two gasoline stations in Thimi, Bhaktapur for cheating customers by giving them short measure.
Amal Clooney: ISIS murders, gang rapes and sex slavery must not go unpunished

ISIS crimes must be documented and evidence collected to allow for prosecutions, human rights lawyer Amal Clooney has said.

The high-profile barrister called for international courts to act and punish the perpetrators in Iraq and Syria, according to the Guardian.

But in order for this to happen ISIS' massacres, murders, mass rapes, and child enslavement must be recorded as evidence, she said, joining UK foreign secretary Boris Johnson and other international figures who have made similar calls.

Clooney is working with Iraq's beleaguered Yazidi community who, along with Christians, have been targeted by ISIS fighters in what many call a genocide.

Girls as young as eight are sold at slave markets with many gang raped, she told a conference on Iraq and Syria. But the militants are leaving behind a 'bureaucracy of evil' with vital paperwork that could serve as evidence in upcoming trials, she said.

'All of this evidence is going to be lost if it's not collected soon,' Clooney warned. 'Mass graves are being contaminated as relatives dig for remains of their loved ones. Documents are not being gathered. Witnesses are being dispersed around the world. They are increasingly reluctant to speak about these cases.'

Although 'the UK government has been taking the lead', Clooney said little progress has been made towards collating evidence.

'I believe that the crimes committed by Isis in Iraq are some of the worst of our generation,' Clooney said. 'Medieval types of violence were being committed in which there were slave markets. This is a test not just for the Iraqi government, but for the United Nations and international law.'

In order for the International Criminal Court (ICC) to investigate a case, a resolution authorising it must first be passed by the United Nations Security Council.

But despite repeated calls for the UK to table a resolution as one of the Council's five permanent members, officials have refused insisting Russia, another permanent member, would veto an investigation into war crimes in Syria.
Christian Nurse Sues For Unfair Dismissal After Talking About Jesus At Work

A Christian nurse is suing for unfair dismissal after she was sacked by a hospital trust for offering to pray with patients before operations.

Patients complained about Sarah Kuteh, who has 15 years of nursing experience, to the Dartford and Gravesham NHS Trust.

She was dismissed for breaching guidelines about discussing religion at work.

In a video about her case posted on the Facebook page of Christian Concern, she asks: "How could telling anyone about Jesus Christ really be harmful to any patient?"

Kuteh was responsible for pre-operation assessments of patients, which required them to fill in a form that included a question about their religion.

She said: "I discuss my religion with the patient and how I have found Jesus Christ and how much peace I have  especially when patients come to me feeling really, really devastated sometimes.

"I reassure them on the basis of the joy and peace I have found in the Lord."

After previous complaints from patients about inappropriate conversations about religion, she was warned about her behaviour. "The next day I got a letter and it stated I could have discussions with the patient or if the patient asks for it," she says, adding: "I'd always ask the patient if they were comfortable  and most of them were."

Kuteh was suspended in June and sacked in August following an investigation that heard a patient had complained she had given her a Bible she did not want and said she would pray for her. Another said she thought Kuteh was "preaching" at her.

A spokesman for Dartford and Gravesham NHS Trust said in a statement: "We have a duty to our patients to ensure that when they are at their most vulnerable, they are not exposed to the unsolicited beliefs and/or views of others, religious or otherwise.

"Following several complaints from patients and a warning which did not result in any change in behaviour, we feel we have acted appropriately in the management of this case."

The Prime Minister, Teresa May, said recently that Christians should feel free to speak about their faith at work.
Christian Worship Dropped From London State Schools In 'Ground Breaking' Decision

Compulsory Christian assemblies may soon be dropped from UK state schools and replaced with 'multi-faith' worship after a local council has become the first to make the move.

Brent Council in London made the 'ground breaking' decision to free its state schools from having to provide Christian worship in its assemblies, the Daily Mail reports.

Currently British state schools, funded by the government, are legally obligated to provide daily Christian worship of some kind. This normally takes the form of congregational singing in assemblies, though studies have shown that many schools ignore the rule.

In the new move, Brent Council's Standing Advisory Council for Religious Education (SACRE) will now support multi-faith assemblies, which will include those of any faith and none. The council have today received an award from the Accord Coalition, which lobbies for religious education and inclusivity in schools.

Rabbi Dr Jonathan Romain MBE, who chairs the award's judging panel, said to the Daily Mirror: 'The current worship laws are unpopular and prevent schools from providing an inspiring programme of assemblies that are truly inclusive of all staff and children.

'Society may be Christian-based but is multi-faith with many also of no belief-system, and so uniform worship should no longer be compulsory for our educational system.

'Brent Council's ground breaking approach rescues an opportunity for pupils to communally explore and forge shared values, in a way that is workable and respectful.'

Romain added: 'We hope all other local authorities will take inspiration from Brent Council's approach, which we highly commend.'

Chief executive of Christian Concern Andrea Williams said the decision was 'a shame'.

The move follows years of ongoing conversation about the role of Christian worship and influence in British state schools, particularly as the prevalence of Christian faith declines among British families.

In 2015 former education secretary Charles Clarke called for the rule on Christian assemblies to be revoked. The Bishop of Oxford John Pritchard said in 2014 that the compulsory collective worship belonged in the 1940s, and suggested instead times of general 'spiritual reflection'.

The Rev Nigel Genders, Church of England chief education officer, said: 'It has long been a legal requirement for schools to provide a daily act of collective worship.

'But schools tell us that, quite apart from any legal obligation, daily collective worship has proved a powerful tool in bringing pupils together, giving them a rare opportunity to pause and reflect in the midst of a busy day.

'The policy in Brent, which is not new, is not the formal removal of that requirement, as has been claimed  far from it.

'It is already open to schools to apply for a determination to lift the requirement that collective worship be "wholly or mainly of a broadly Christian character".

'In this case the council simply encourages schools to do that, to ensure that collective worship reflects children's different backgrounds.

'Efforts to encourage schools to take collective worship seriously and make it meaningful to pupils are welcome.

'Indeed, even without applying for a determination, the law already allows schools wide scope for different acts of worship.

'Around one million children in England  a quarter of primary pupils and one in 16 secondary students  attend Church of England schools where worship is and will remain Christian.'
How The Fight For Religious Liberty Is Harming Christian Witness

Barronelle Stuzman, the Washington Florist convicted under anti-discrimination legislation after refusing to provide flowers for a gay wedding, has lost her appeal against conviction. The Alliance Defending Freedom, which backed her, is seeking to raise $24 million to take her case to the Supreme Court.

As things are, she will lose. But President Trump has signalled, in a leaked draft document, that there's change on the way. He wants to give sweeping exemptions to anti-discrimination laws to people of faith on conscience grounds. If he gets his way  and it's a big if  people like Barronelle will be able to serve whomever they please.

For US conservatives, this is a big deal. They see what they regard as godless and immoral lifestyles privileged above their own normal, decent standards. They don't see why the government should tell them what to do. They are completely unmoved by appeals to the 'rights' of LGBT people  what about theirs? And they are entirely unconvinced by the argument that sexuality should be a protected characteristic, like race. They're just not the same.

Stutzman is a long way from being the only US religious freedom cause. Christian bakers and hoteliers have also fallen foul of the law, as they have in the UK: hoteliers Peter and Hazelmary Bull lost a long-running discrimination case brought when they refused to allow a gay couple to share a bedroom. For US conservatives like Russell Moore, Stutzman is 'the target of a government that wants to steamroll her constitutional rights'. For UK conservatives like Mike Judge, whose Christian Institute backed the Bulls, 'the elite institutions are saturated with a liberal mindset which cares little about religious freedom'.

And the trouble is, the way the debate is framed has become so antagonistic that litigation has come to seem like the only way forward. Christians play the world's game, and that means that even if they win, they lose.

In Stutzman's case, if she wins  or if Trump does bring in his religious liberty executive order  it gives the wider world even more permission to paint Christians as 'those people who hate gays'  though Stutzman clearly doesn't, any more than the owners of Ashers Baking Company do in the UK. Equality and anti-discrimination legislation was brought in to protect people who really had suffered discrimination against those who had traditionally inflicted it, and want, in many cases, to continue doing so. Resisting it aligns Christians with the wrong side and talk about our 'rights' is entirely beside the point.

Does that mean religious liberty can just be set aside? Absolutely not: it's of fundamental importance. But no liberty is absolute. Christian freedom will sometimes clash with another freedom, and it's a puzzling argument, to say the least, that says Christians should always win. There has to be give and take. Compromise is not a dirty word; compromise is about respecting the rights of other people and acknowledging their humanity.

Here's what I think is wrong about the way these debates play out at the moment.

I think laws forbidding discrimination are, in principle, correct. I don't believe you should be able to refuse to serve someone just because they're gay and you're not  or vice versa. And I really do know and understand what that means for people who believe that their sincere, deep and perhaps costly views about sexuality mean that they can't comply. I can see what it means for the bed and breakfast owner who feels profoundly that hosting a gay couple would mean conniving at sin. I think they're wrong  I think that someone's personal moral decisions are virtually irrelevant beside the huge question of whether they know Christ as their saviour  but I understand.

But I also see what it means for a gay couple who are turned away at the door. I can imagine the hurt, the perceived insult and the anger.

I do worry about a moral uniformity being imposed on us which leaves less and less space for dissenters. But I'm not happy, either, with the image of the Christian as the person who is always saying 'No', resisting change to the last ditch, convinced that he or she is the world's victim.

I'm sorry about Barronelle Stutzman, just as I was sorry about the Bulls and about Ashers. But there's a third way, that I don't think enough conservative Christians are exploring. What happens if Christians resolve not to play the world's game at all? What happens if we don't stand on our rights and if we don't feel that we have to adjudicate other people's moral decisions? What happens if, instead of trying as hard as we can to win our case, we try as hard as we can to show grace?

So imagine this: instead of standing up for their rights, going to court and providing the media with great stories about discrimination against Christians  or Christians discriminating against other people  Christians who believe that homosexual relations are profoundly wrong decide to do something completely different.

They realise that their disapproval probably isn't going to make anyone agree with them. It won't make anyone act any differently. All they'll know is that Christians are people who reject them. So these conservative Christians decide that they'll bake that cake or offer that hotel room or officiate at that wedding, and do it gladly  and leave the outcome to God.

I suspect this will be a minority response. There are powerful advocacy groups whose identity  and income  derive from fighting just these sorts of cases. But I'd like more Christians to pause before becoming outraged about how their rights are being infringed. It would, I think, be more Jesus-like.

Mark Woods is the author of Does the Bible really say that? Challenging our assumptions in the light of Scripture (Lion, 8.99). Follow him on Twitter: @RevMarkWoods
Jailed Christian pastor in China is 'rapidly deteriorating'

A jailed Christian pastor in China is in worsening health and campaigners say his 'critical' condition is being made worse by neglect.

Pastor Yang Hua of the Living Stone house church in Guiyang is reportedly 'on the verge of paralysis' while being held at Nanming District Detention Centre, according to China Change.

Its report says his legs were becoming ulcerated and inflamed, and he was unable to sleep at night. A physician on duty reportedly treated his condition as a minor skin infection, and administered painkillers.

Yang described his pain as 'truly unbearable'. On the night of March 22 he 'rang the alarm to report to the cadres on duty. Officer Luo, on watch that night, was furious at being disturbed and screamed some truly awful obscenities at me. No one else in the cell was able to sleep, so in the end the physician on duty gave me two painkillers. I haven't been able to walk or go to the toilet by myself during this period.'

Yang was then diagnosed with a form of allergic vasculitis, an inflammation of the blood vessels, and told that if no treatment could be found one outcome might be amputation above the knee.

'He recommended high doses of penicillin for a fortnight,' Yang said. 'The detention centre clinic, however, does not have penicillin.' Yang said he was taken to a hospital and examined but no diagnosis was given, he was simply told that the cost of treatment could be very high.

His condition has only worsened since then, according to Yang's lawyers. They say his situation is urgent and he needs a hospital and appropriate treatment as soon as possible. Otherwise, they say, Yang's captors will be responsible for exacerbating his condition. Yang's wife said doctors described his situation 'severe illness', that could develop into 'septicaemia, haemorrhaging of the digestive tract, kidney damage, and more'.

Pastor Yang Hua, 41 was arrested on December 9, 2015, and tried on December 26, 2016 on charges of 'deliberately divulging state secrets'. He was sentenced to 2.5 years in jail in January this year. At the same time of his arrest, his urban house church, Living Stone, was banned.

The church grew rapidly from 2008 but has been under constant surveillance and faced consistent opposition. In July 2015 its accountant and chairman of the Board of Deacons, Zhang Xiuhong, was arrested. She was charged with 'illegal business operations' and sentenced to five years imprisonment in February 2017.
Jailed Pakistani Christians offered freedom if they convert to Islam

Christians in Pakistan who are on trial for murder have been told by a prosecutor they could be acquitted if they renounce their faith and convert to Islam.

The public prosecutor told the minority group he could 'guarantee their acquittal' if they recanted their Christian faith and converted, according the Pakistani newspaper The Express Tribune, The Times of India reported.

Forty-two Christians in Lahore, the capital of Punjab, have been accused of murder, charged with lynching two men believed to be connected with the March 2015 suicide bombing attacks on two churches in Youhanabad, Lahore, that killed at least 17 and injured more than 80.

Two Muslim men were lynched by a mob, beaten to death and burned, during protests by Christians following the Lahore bombings. Further protests resulted in the deaths of 25 people and the arrest of around 150 protesters.

Joseph Franci, a human rights activist advocating for the accused, said the offer was made by deputy district public prosecutor Syed Anees Shah. Franci said: 'He asks them if they embrace Islam, he can guarantee them their acquittal in this case.'

The Christians were reportedly left speechless by the offer, while one said he would be sooner be hanged than convert.

Naseeb Anjum Advocate, also supporting some of the accused, said that the Shah's offer was a form of 'blackmailing' that brought a 'bad name to the state'.

When Shah was approached about the alleged offer he made, he denied it at first. When he was told his bargain had been recorded on video, he admitted that he may have 'offered them a choice'.

At least 95 per cent of the Pakistani population is Muslim and Islam is enshrined in the constitution as the state religion. The Christian minority number about 2.5 million, 1.6 per cent of Pakistan's population.

Wilson Chowdhry, Chairman of the British Pakistani Christian Association, said: 'Here is evidence that the judiciary in Pakistan is not independent and free from bias.

'The fact that Christian men could be spared a death penalty by simply renouncing their Christian faith and accepting Islam is a clear indication that either extremists have infiltrated the Justice system of Pakistan, or that the nation is full of zealots that will stop at nothing to convert "kaffir" [infidels].'

He added: 'This whole fiasco has only served to heighten my concerns for Christians and other minorities in Pakistan, who are clearly in the middle of a cultural genocide, which inexorably will lead to more pain and anguish.'

The US Commission for International Religious Freedom last year said the country's controversial blasphemy laws 'intrinsically violate international standards of freedom of religion of belief' and accused the Pakistani government of failing to provide adequate protections for faiths other than Islam.
Leading American evangelicals ask: 'How should the Church respond to Trump?'

Leading writers and thinkers of American evangelicalism will discuss how to respond to the Trump presidency in the next convention of the Evangelical Press Association (EPA) in April.

The panel titled 'The Trump Administration: How Should the Church Respond?' will take place on April 11, during the EPA's annual convention running from April 9-11 in Lombard, Illinois.

'While many Christians supported the candidacy of Donald Trump for President, many did not,' said EPA Executive Director Lamar Keener.

'However, what matters now, regardless of one's position or party, is to determine the most effective and productive way for Evangelicals to move forward.'

The panel will be moderated by Christianity Today editor Mark Galli, and will feature panellists Katelyn Beaty, Christianity Today's editor at large; Daniel Darling, vice president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty commission; and Julie Roys, the host of the Moody Radio Network talk show 'Up for Debate'.

The popular evangelical speaker Ed Stetzer will speak in a talk titled: 'Trends in Evangelicalism, Politics, and Culture: Navigating the New Landscape.' The convention's opening speaker will be Charlie Dates, senior pastor of Chicago's Progressive Baptist Church.

Steve Green, the president of Hobby Lobby Stores, will also make an address. Hobby Lobby was caught in controversy in 2014 when it challenged a requirement that family-owned for-profit corporations fund insurance coverage for contraception, in the Supreme Court case Burwell v. Hobby Lobby. The Supreme Court ruled in favour of Hobby Lobby.

The EPA convention draws Christian media editorial staff and creative design professionals from across North America.
Mike Pence won't meet with women alone. Here's why he's wrong

There are some elements of evangelical culture that I explain to my friends and see their faces light up. I think of the woman at my church who lends me her car whenever I need it. 'Why does she do it?' asked another friend. He was struggling to get his head round the default generosity of a fellow-Christian.

There are, though, other times when having to explain something from the evangelical subculture is a tough gig. This week we had one of those situations as Vice-President Mike Pence revealed that he refuses to be alone with women who aren't his wife.

This rule  called the Billy Graham Rule, after the legendary evangelist  is widespread among pastors and other Christian figures. It means that across America  and the UK, and elsewhere  there are men who will simply reject any meeting with a woman  even in a public place  that isn't chaperoned.

Try explaining that one to a non-Christian friend.

Laura Turner, one of the best interpreters of evangelical culture to the secular world, has had a good try in the Washington Post. She says: 'The impulse that led to the Billy Graham Rule... is a good and honorable one... But good intentions do not always produce helpful consequences. In this case, the Billy Graham Rule risks reducing women to sexual temptations, objects, things to be avoided.'

This is indisputably true. The advantages of being beyond reproach come at a cost. The way that women are portrayed by this rule is both a small part of and a reinforcement of the sexism which persists in the evangelical Church.

On that basis alone, we should reject the blanket imposition of the Billy Graham Rule. But there is another reason, too. The idea that I should rule out half of the population to be able to have a private conversation with is, frankly, absurd.

There are some topics which can't be covered in groups. There are certain subjects that only close friends and confidants can hear about. And there are a number of areas that we may want to reveal to a pastor or priest.

This isn't merely a theoretical objection, it is rooted in real life experience. Many friends of mine have benefitted hugely from having close contact with someone not of the same sex.

This is certainly true in my own life. Some of my best friends are women and I hope that will always be the case. Women who are friends who have enriched my life in ways that I can barely begin to list. I have been able to rely on them in tough times and share joy with them in their own lives. Why would I deprive both them and myself of that privilege?

Friendship is one thing, but there are a number of other ways in which one-on-one meetings with women have been helpful to me. I have been in churches where women have been part of the pastoral team and have been incredibly supportive. My GP is a woman and though I rarely have to visit her I always feel very comfortable with her. She also happens to be a Christian and I feel a sense of trust that is vital with a doctor. The fact that she is female barely crosses my mind before I enter her office and close the door  I know she's a good doctor and that's what matters.

The Billy Graham rule credits both men and woman with too little maturity, too little respect for each other and too little basic common sense. It may be helpful for certain individuals for a time in their lives but in general, I can't see how restricting access to the wisdom, friendship and professional excellence of half the population is a good idea.

As usual, Jesus should be our model. His radical inclusion and elevation of women was astonishing in his cultural context and he didn't care at all about the backlash that was created. If it's good enough for him, it should be good enough for us. Women aren't just equal. In many, many ways, the women I'm privileged to know are better that me at a plethora of things and there's no way I'm going to deprive myself of their wisdom, insight and friendship.

Follow Andy Walton on Twitter @waltonandy
Sacked Christian nurse 'imposed religious belief' on patients, tribunal told

A Christian nurse fired for gross misconduct after patients complained she talked more about God than about their operations is appealing against her dismissal.

Sarah Kuteh lost her job at Darent Valley Hospital in Dartford, Kent, after eight 'extremely vulnerable' patients facing surgery submitted complaints against her behaviour.

The nurse told one cancer patient facing surgery he had a better chance of survival if he prayed to God.

But the mother-of-three said she her dismissal and referral to the Nursing and Midwifery Council for disqualification proceedings after several months' suspension and referred last August after 15 years as a nurse was 'a hugely disproportionate punishment'.

She said: 'I would... reassure them, based on the joy and peace that I really have found in Jesus.'

She described her experience as 'embarrassing and very painful' as she was escorted out of the hospital with her possessions.

'All I had done was to nurse and care for patients. How could it ever be harmful to tell someone about Jesus?'

Backed by the Christian Legal Centre, her lawyer told the tribunal she had just been acting out of compassion.

Pavel Stroilov said: 'A nurse without compassion would be unworthy of the name. On top of performing her immediate duties, a good nurse would try and find kind words to say to her patient.'

But the chair of the hospital trust's appeal hearing, Victoria Leivers-Carruth, said Kuteh was dismissed because she used one-on-one time with patients to 'impose her religious belief'.

She said: 'We did not believe that Mrs Kuteh was being disciplined because she was a Christian.

'It was apparent to us that Mrs Kuteh was disciplined because she had engaged in conversations about religion that were unwanted by patients and contrary to her line manager's instructions.'

Sarah Collins, general manager for medicine at Darent Valley Hospital, said despite repeated warnings she had 'persisted with questioning patients on religious grounds'.

Kuteh's 'spirituality blurred the professional boundary' between her and patients, she said.

'Following reasonable management requests formed a pivotal aspect of Mrs Kuteh's contract of employment with the Trust,' she added.

Tribunal judge Martin Kurrein reserved judgment.
Swiss evangelical groups lose government backing, vow to continue work

Some evangelical groups in Switzerland are unhappy after a number of Christian youth organisations were left without support by the government.

Ten groups were recently told they would no longer receive state funding. Now a decision has been made to deprive them of government quality labels for youth work.

That decision has prompted dismay from the Swiss Evangelical Alliance as well as a wider group, with a petition against the decision being signed by over 11,000 people in a few days.

Evangelical Focus reports that the financial support was pulled three years ago because 'The Court said these organisations were only focused on mission, whereas all other activities (singing, sport, outdoor-programmes) were only a means to the missionary end.'

Switzerland was one of the centres of the Protestant Reformation and the majority of the Swiss population identifies as either Swiss Reformed or Roman Catholic. Self-identified evangelicals are a small group, though, with only one to two per cent of the Swiss population of eight and a half million.

Andi Bachmann-Roth, a spokesperson for the Swiss Evangelical Alliance, said: 'We hope this decision is not the last word. But the Christian youth work would not collapse after the exclusion. As a reaction, I think the financial support from the churches would be even stronger. One of the reactions is to stand together stronger, which is an effect that is very important right now.'
Disaster preparedness: Govt gives a leg up to Valleys health facilities

The Ministry of Health has begun strengthening its health facilities to function effectively during any disasters, including earthquakes.
Voters blame everybody but Trump for Obamacare repeal failure

The day after the flaming out of US President Donald Trump's first major legislative initiative, his supporters across America were lashing out  at conservatives, at Democrats, at leaders of his Republican Party in Congress.

Only Trump himself was spared their wrath.

Many voters who elected him appeared largely willing to give him a pass on the collapse of his campaign promise to overhaul the US healthcare system, stressing his short time in office.

'Being a businessman, he'll not take "no" for an answer,' said Tony Nappi, a 71-year-old from Trinity, Florida, one of the many disappointed Republicans on his weekend softball team. 'He'll get the job done.'

Support for Trump appeared unflagging, from the playing fields of a Republican stronghold in central Florida to the small town diners of North Carolina, the suburbs of Arkansas and the streets of workingclass Staten Island in New York City.

Rebellion among members of his own party sealed the failure of Trump's effort to repeal and replace the 2010 Affordable Care Act  known as Obamacare  the signature domestic policy achievement of Democratic former President Barack Obama.

Despite casting himself on the campaign trail as 'the best dealmaker there is', Trump could not save the healthcare bill yanked by Republican leaders in the House of Representatives on Friday in an embarrassing turn of events for them and Trump. Objections among Republican moderates and the party's most conservative lawmakers left leaders short of the votes needed for passage, with Democrats unified in opposition.

'He can't wave a magic wand,' said Ramona Bourdo, 70, a retired nurse, eating breakfast at a McDonald's in suburban Little Rock, Arkansas. 'I've not lost confidence in him.'

Still, the barista at the Grind Cafe in Morganton, North Carolina, who cannot afford his own insurance and remains on his parents' plan, felt Trump shared responsibility in the debacle.

'I think it's partially his fault,' said Joel Martin, a 21yearold Republican and Trump supporter. 'I don't think he has enough personal knowledge to do what he needs to do to get a healthcare bill through Congress.'

His hometown, population 17,000, sits within the heavily rural congressional district of Representative Mark Meadows, a North Carolina Republican whose opposition as the head of the conservative House Freedom Caucus helped sink the bill.

Sharing in the frustration of loyal Republicans was 82-year-old Jeanette Madison, a registered independent in the New York City borough of Staten Island, who voted for Trump.

'I blame the Democrats and Republicans in Congress,' she said as she walked her dog down a city street.

In Florida's Pasco County, where Trump's stronger-than-expected showing helped to seal his victory in the largest US battleground state, some fans seized on the silver lining.

Neighbours Patti Niehaus, a Democrat, and Margie Hahne, a Republican, agreed that Trump may have needed last week's crash course in governing, having never before held elected office.

'You can't just go and tell people what to do like he's used to doing,' said Hahne, 74. 'Trump's got to learn a lot.'

Bridging Tampa's booming suburbs and still rural parts of central Florida, Pasco County lies in a politically decisive swing region of the state along the Interstate 4 highway corridor linking Tampa and Orlando.

Trump won 58.4 per cent of the vote in the mostly white, working- and middle-class county, surpassing the past two Republican presidential candidates by tens of thousands of votes.

His pledge to end Obamacare helped to sway Kelle DeGroat, a 37yearold nurse, a Republican who is open to other parties.

'I thought there was a good plan the way he talked,' said DeGroat, still confident in Trump's ability to make reform happen. 'I was shocked that it didn't pass.'

Other Republicans applauded their leaders for returning to the drawing board, with polls showing the derailed healthcare plan to be unpopular following predictions that it would jeopardise or increase the cost of insurance for millions.

Lisa Collins, a 53yearold teacher with two adult children benefiting from Obamacare, for the first time started calling the region's elected representatives to voice her opposition.

'This is a success that the party listened,' said Collins, a Republican who did not support Trump. 'To me, that's amazing. They represented the average normal guy, the small guy.'
Leading national charities have urged the government to reform the apprenticeship levy so that funds raised from voluntary organisations are spent within the sector.

In March 2016, former skills minister Nick Boles told Charity Finance Group (CFG) that employers, including charities, would be able to transfer their levy funds to other employers.

While the CFG said this was not a perfect solution, it would allow charities to transfer unspent funds within the sector.

But yesterday, the government published guidance confirming it will be limiting the amount that employers can transfer via the levy, due to be introduced next month, to 10 per cent.

From April 2018, we plan to allow levy-paying employers to transfer funds to another employer or apprenticeship training agency through the apprenticeship service, it says.

You will initially be able to transfer up to 10 per cent of the annual value of funds entering your apprenticeship service account.

It adds that more information about how transferring funds between organisations will work in practice will be published in the autumn.

In response, CFG and 23 voluntary organisations including Marie Curie, British Heart Foundation and National Trust, wrote to education secretary Justine Greening renewing a call for this limit to be increased to 100 per cent for charities.

Caron Bradshaw, CFG chief executive, said: Charities want to ensure that they are supporting their employees to develop, and with Brexit on the horizon it is more important than ever that they are able to increase skills in their workforce. However, as it currently stands, the apprenticeship levy will prohibit charities from doing this.

We now are less than a month away before the levy is introduced and it is vital that the government acts now and reforms the levy before it is too late.

To not do so will risk undermining our sectors ability to support the people and communities that rely on charities, at a time when they are being asked to do more.

See in Charity Finance

Public support

Polling of more than 2,000 British adults in February, commissioned by CFG and carried out by ComRes, found just 14 per cent of respondents believe charities should pay the apprenticeship levy at all compared to 58 per cent who believe private companies should be subject to the levy, and 44 per cent who believe public sector organisations should pay.

Some 46 per cent of respondents said that unused apprenticeship levy funds from charities should not be transferred out of the sector.

The apprenticeship levy forces employers with a payroll of more than 3m to pay 0.3 per cent of their total wage bill to the government.

In turn, the government provides 15,000 to the employer to offset the cost of implementing the scheme. The difference in the amount that is paid out by the charity and received from the government will be put into an account for employers to put towards apprenticeship schemes.
The National Council for Palliative Care is merging into Hospice UK, the two umbrella bodies have today announced.

The trustees of both charities made the decision on Wednesday, and announced today that they would be working towards a merger. The process of due diligence and formal merger agreement is expected to take around three months.

A spokesman for Hospice UK said that, if the merger is agreed, the new organisation will be called Hospice UK. He added that the Dying Matters Campaign will continue, but that all other decisions on branding will be confirmed in due course.

The boards have agreed that Tracey Bleakley, Hospice UKs chief executive, will become the acting chief executive of NCPC from 31 May during the interim period before a merger is agreed.

Hospice UK also announced that Claire Henry MBE, current chief executive of NCPC, will be joining the Hospice UK team as director of improvement and transformation in June this year.

The spokesman said that the Hospice UK board will continue as it is now, with two thirds of trustees elected by its members. He added that as part of the process of exploring a merger, Hospice UK will look at "how to make the most of the skills and expertise that NCPC brings".

Hospice UK, the umbrella body for hospices in the UK, had an income last year of 5.5m. NCPC, the umbrella body for all those involved in palliative, end of life and hospice care in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, had an income last year of 1.7m.

Lord Howard of Lymphe, chair of Hospice UK, said: By collaborating directly with NCPC we can pool resources, share knowledge and expand our reach  and ultimately improve outcomes for the beneficiaries of end of life care. Given our shared goals and history of working together, this is a natural progression for our organisations. I am very excited about this new chapter and the opportunities it will open up for everyone involved in hospice and palliative care.

See also

Baroness Finlay of Llandaff, chair of NCPC, said: Im delighted that our organisations are joining forces to further strengthen the voice for excellent palliative and end of life care for all. NCPC has, in its 25 years, done so much to broaden and develop end of life care and palliative care has become mainstream across health and social care - which was always our aim. By coming together, we will continue to provide a clear vision and an even stronger voice for end of life care everywhere, because the most important person in end of life care is the person with the life limiting condition and their family.

The two organisations have been working more closely together for the last few years on various campaigns and joint projects.

In December 2015 NCPC announced that its leaser was coming to an end, and that the charity would be staying in the King's Cross area in Central London by moving into Hospice House, where it will rent its own office space from Hospice UK.
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Movement Mortgage Read Reviews Share your experience with this company Nationwide direct mortgage lender with loan officers in over 775 locations. Online application with quick turnaround. Options available for low-income borrowers. Rate lock up to 90 days on most mortgages.

Navy Federal Credit Union Mortgage Read Reviews Share your experience with this company Offers conventional and VA loans to members. Membership limited to people with military experience or those close to them (or existing members). Provides home equity loans and HELOCs. No PMI. Rate-lock program.

Pulte Mortgage Read Reviews Share your experience with this company Specializes in new construction loans. Offers a full range of home purchase loans, including conventional (fixed- and adjustable-rate), jumbo, FHA and VA. More than 200 loan options. Online loan application and dashboard.

Umpqua Bank Read Reviews Share your experience with this company Offers home purchase and refinance loans, including conventional, jumbo, FHA, VA and USDA options. Construction loans, renovation loans, home equity lines of credit (HELOCs) and special loan programs also available.

Unison Read Reviews Share your experience with this company Home co-investment company. Alternative to line of credit or home equity loan, with no monthly payments or interest. Settle when you sell or after 30 years. Get up to $500,000. Available in 28 states and Washington, D.C.

CMG Financial Read Reviews Share your experience with this company Direct lender operating in all 50 states and D.C. Originates purchase and refinance mortgage products. Provides conventional, FHA, VA and USDA loans. Use app to calculate payments, upload docs and message loan officers.

Flagstar Bank Mortgages Read Reviews Share your experience with this company Offers home purchase and refinance loans, including conventional, jumbo, FHA, VA and USDA. Home equity loans and home equity line of credit (HELOC) available. Online application and upload portal.

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Tomo Read Reviews Share your experience with this company Mortgage lender with a digital homebuying platform. Available in seven states. Offers 15- and 30-year fixed-rate mortgages. Matches rates and doesnt charge origination fees. Doesnt refinance existing mortgages.

Academy Mortgage Corp. Share your experience with this company Refinancing and purchase loans. Conventional and government-backed loans, including FHA, VA and USDA. Fixed-rate and adjustable-rate and 15-, 20- and 30-year loans available. Jumbo loans. Reverse mortgages. In-house underwriting.

Ally Bank Mortgages Share your experience with this company Offers conventional mortgages and jumbo loans at competitive rates. First-time homebuyer assistance program. Online application. Preapproval available in as little as three minutes.

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Home Point Financial Share your experience with this company Offers FHA, VA and USDA loans and conventional mortgages. Fixed-rate and adjustable-rate purchase loans. Options for refinancing. Flexible qualifying criteria. Low down payment program. Licensed in all 50 states.

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Paul Gauguin Cruises has debuted its new 2018 Voyages brochure featuring Tahiti, French Polynesia, and South Pacific itineraries.

The brochure presents sailings by The Gauguin, which the company says "offers an elegant yet casual ambiance, luxurious accommodations, gourmet dining, trademark Polynesian hospitality, and extraordinary all-inclusive value.

In 2018, Paul Gauguin Cruises will be the first cruise line to visit the port city of Vairao in Tahiti Iti, which is the smaller of two landmasses that comprise the island of Tahiti. Tahiti Iti is scheduled on 7-night Society Islands & Tahiti Iti voyages and a special sailing of the 10-night Society Islands & Tuamotus itinerary.

The Gauguin will also be showcasing its usual popular itineraries in 2018: the 7-night Tahiti & the Society Islands, 10-night Society Islands & Tuamotus, 11-night Cook Islands & Society Islands, and 14-night Marquesas, Tuamotus & Society Islands.
Govt plans streamlined access to social benefits

The government is set to distribute social security allowance to around 2.3 million beneficiaries directly through municipalities and village councils from the next fiscal year.
Prithvi Man Shrestha is a political reporter for The Kathmandu Post, covering the governance-related issues including corruption and irregularities in the government machinery. Before joining The Kathmandu Post in 2009, he worked at nepalnews.com and Rising Nepal primarily covering the issues of political and economic affairs for three years.
Himalaya Airlines gets third A320

Privately-owned Nepali carrier Himalaya Airlines on Friday added a new Airbus A320, a short-to-medium range aircraft, to its fleet.
WASHINGTON, DC, March 29, 2017 -- Protests that bring many people to the streets who agree among themselves and have a single message are most likely to influence elected officials, suggests a new study.

"We found that features of a protest can alter the calculations of politicians and how they view an issue," said Ruud Wouters, an assistant professor of political communication and journalism at the University of Amsterdam and the lead author of the study. "More specifically, the number of participants and unity are the characteristics of a protest that have the greatest ability to change politicians' opinions."

The study, titled, "Demonstrating Power: How Protest Persuades Political Representatives," appears in the April issue of the American Sociological Review. Relying on data from 269 elected officials in Belgium, Wouters and his co-author Stefaan Walgrave, a professor of political science and head of Media, Movements, and Politics at the University of Antwerp, asked the politicians a series of questions to gage their attitudes on asylum for refugees. They then showed each elected official fictional television news reports about a demonstration on Belgium's asylum policy for refugees. In the clips, the demonstrators criticized Belgium's asylum procedure, demanding a quicker, more humane, and less arbitrary process for granting asylum. The politicians viewed the clips in the spring of 2015, well before the dramatic increase in Syrian refugees requesting asylum in Europe,

In total, the researchers constructed 32 clips, each containing a unique combination of the protest features. Clips were grouped in sets of two, with each official viewing clips that were complete opposites. The features the researchers manipulated included the demonstrators' worthiness (whether or not the protest was peaceful), unity (whether or not the protestors agreed among themselves and had a single message), numerical strength (whether or not the crowd was large), and commitment (whether or not further protests were scheduled). After each clip, the politicians were questioned about their opinion regarding the salience of the protest issue, their position on the protest issue, and the actions they intended to undertake regarding the protest issue. The researchers controlled for the officials' preexisting beliefs on asylum and for the order in which they viewed the clips.

"We found that the number of protestors and unity affected politicians' salience, position, and intended actions," Wouters said. "Worthiness and commitment induced effects on position and salience, respectively."

Interestingly, the study showed that worthiness, unity, numerical strength, and commitment similarly influenced elected officials from the left and the right of the political spectrum, as well as those who held pro-asylum stances and those who did not.

"Because political survival through public support in elections is the main motive of representatives, it makes sense for them to let their own opinion be affected by their perception of what the public, or a relevant segment of the public, wants," Wouters said. "But, politicians do not turn like the wind. We find that elected officials' predispositions are much more important in their opinion formation than any features of a protest."

While the study focused on the impact of protests on politicians in Belgium, Wouters said that protestors in the United States may be able to draw lessons from the research.

"I think the immediacy and massiveness of recent U.S. protests, such as the women's march in Washington, DC, impressed many observers," he said. "The question is how long lived will they be. Are they just outbursts, or will they be something more persistent? This plays into the commitment of the protestors. Will the attention span of the protestors be long enough to continue? And, in relation to unity, what will be the main message? Will it occur under an anti-Trump banner? Or, will it be more dispersed, less coherent, with many different claims?"

Wouters noted that if the U.S. protests become violent, they are less likely to have the desired effect on elected officials. "Our study suggests that violence will further polarize the situation and burn bridges," he said. "The anti-Trump protests should feed dissent in the Republican party. If the anti-Trump protestors misbehave, it becomes difficult for potential supporters, especially within the Republican party, to back them up and criticize Trump and his policies."

Whether in Belgium, the United States, or elsewhere around the world, Wouters believes the study is important "because it deals with the essence of what democracies should be about: responsiveness of representatives to signals of public opinion."

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About the American Sociological Association and the American Sociological Review The American Sociological Association, founded in 1905, is a non-profit membership association dedicated to serving sociologists in their work, advancing sociology as a science and profession, and promoting the contributions to and use of sociology by society. The American Sociological Review is the ASA's flagship journal.

The research article described above is available by request for members of the media. For a copy of the full study, contact Johanna Olexy, Communications Associate, at (202) 247-9873 or pubinfo@asanet.org.
PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] -- The healthy development of an embryo created through in vitro fertilization (IVF) depends on whether most, if not all, of the cells have the proper number of chromosomes. With pre-implantation genetic screening (PGS) technology, doctors can, in principle, spot-check chromosome count before choosing which embryo to implant in the mother. In a new article, however, scholars at Brown University and the University of Washington report that PGS has serious limitations that can only be overcome with more human embryo research, even as they acknowledge the controversy surrounding that research.

What doctors and hopeful parents want to see in PGS is 46 chromosomes -- two pairs of 23 -- a normal state of affairs called "euploidy." An abnormal number, or "aneuploidy," could signal a fatal flaw in early development. In 2013 in the United States, more than 15 percent of IVF pregnancies ended in miscarriage, often because of aneuploidy, wrote Dr. Eli Adashi, professor of medical science and former dean of medicine and biological sciences at Brown, and Rajiv McCoy, a genome sciences postdoctoral fellow at Washington. The miscarriage rate rises quickly with maternal age, as does the rate of aneuploidy.

Hoping to prevent a bitter loss, a growing percentage of infertility patients using IVF have turned to PGS. But as Adashi and McCoy wrote in the journal EMBO Reports, PGS has yielded mixed results. Sometimes it has predicted the doom of embryos that became healthy children, and in the small studies conducted so far, there has been mixed evidence that its use leads to a greater likelihood of a successful pregnancy.

"The impact of PGS on the outcome of assisted reproduction remains uncertain," they wrote.

Tricky biology and ideology

The problem with PGS, Adashi and McCoy wrote, stems from how little doctors and scientists really know about early embryo development, which is a complex process. There are two main sources of aneuploidy -- the original cell division that creates an egg cell, called meiosis, and the division of cells in the growing embryo, called mitosis. The first cause, because it occurs in one of the two sex cells that form an embryo, is especially serious and is known to increase with maternal age. Errors in mitosis will affect some but rarely all the cells in an embryo.

In most applications of PGS, doctors sample genetic material from several cells on the outer edge of a five-day old embryo, called a blastocyst. If that yields evidence of aneuploidy, the test usually still can't discern whether it's meiotic, in which case all cells could be affected, or mitotic, in which only a few might be (creating a "mosaic" of ploidy).

Among the many things doctors don't know is what ploidy status they would find if they could safely look elsewhere in the embryo, including its inner cells. Finally, they don't understand yet why some mosaic embryos will succeed and others will not.

"Such insights may improve the diagnosis and selection of healthy embryos through PGS and hopefully will lead to the development of new technologies," Adashi and McCoy wrote.

But human embryo research remains controversial in many places around the world, including the U.S., they acknowledge. Public funding, and sometimes the research itself, is often prohibited.

They conclude with a call to accelerate research.

"This state of affairs hampers the acquisition of new insights into the intricate process of early human development," they wrote. "More importantly, translational breakthroughs intent on improving infertility care are being delayed. Patients afflicted with infertility deserve better."

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Colleen T. Labelle, MSN, RN-BC, CARN, director of Boston Medical Center's Office-Based Addiction Treatment (OBAT) program, has been awarded the 2017 Advocate State Award for Excellence by the American Association of Nurse Practitioners (AANP) -- a prestigious honor and one of only two awards given to nurse practitioners (NP) by AANP in Massachusetts. LaBelle will be honored at a ceremony and reception held during the AANP 2017 National Conference in June.

The State Award for Nurse Practitioner Excellence, founded in 1991, recognizes a nurse practitioner in a state who demonstrates excellence in practice. In 1993, the State Award for Nurse Practitioner Advocate was added to recognize the efforts of individuals who have made a significant contribution toward increasing awareness and recognition of nurse practitioners.

LaBelle had a decade of experience working as a nurse manager for HIV/AIDS patients before she led the development of the "Massachusetts Model," which provides substance use disorder treatment in a patient's primary care setting under the management of a nurse. Established in 2003 at BMC in collaboration with the Massachusetts Department of Public Health, the sustainable nurse care manager model has been replicated in primary care practices across the state and country.

Early on in her career, LaBelle saw that many of her patients were struggling with addiction, but so many did not have access to treatment. Since then, she has been a champion of expanding access to substance use disorder treatment by overseeing the education of providers and implementation of programs at community health centers across Massachusetts, sitting on the Commonwealth of Massachusetts' State Board of Nursing, and advocating for increased access to services for patients with opioid addiction.

While LaBelle is not a NP, she's specialized in nursing leadership and has been an advocate for nurse care managers to gain prescriptive rights in a primary care setting to treat patients with substance use disorders. Her advocacy on the state and federal level helped pass a bill under the CARA Act, the first major federal addiction legislation in 40 years that was signed under President Obama in 2016. LaBelle has helped decrease the stigma around addiction by bringing treatment to patients where they normally access medical care. She has also published several studies showing the effectiveness of the Massachusetts Model in treating addiction and expanding access to care, and in 2015, LaBelle was named to Governor Charlie Baker's 18-member opioid addiction task force.

"I am honored to be a recipient of this award and that substance use disorders have come to the forefront of today's public health crises," said LaBelle. "Nurses are in a unique position to help treat these patients, and expanding access to NP to prescribe buprenorphine is critical in the midst of the opioid epidemic. I am hopeful that engaging NPs to care for these patients will expand access to treatment, decrease the overdose rates and improve outcomes for our patients."

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CLEMSON, South Carolina -- Clemson University scientists Alex Feltus and Melissa Smith have received a $2.95 million collaborative award from the National Science Foundation to develop cyberinfrastructure aimed at providing researchers around the nation and world with a more fluid and flexible system of analyzing large-scale data.

Biologists, hydrologists, computer engineers and computer scientists will join forces with Feltus and Smith to design a system called Scientific Data Analysis at Scale (SciDAS). Their goal is to help current researchers and future innovators discover data, move it smoothly across advanced networks and improve flexibility and accessibility to national and global resources.

Feltus is the principle investigator of the three-year project. Smith is a co-principal investigator, along with Claris Castillo and Ray Idaszak of Renaissance Computing Institute (RENCI) at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill; and Stephen Ficklin of Washington State University in Pullman.

"A key aspect of the SciDAS team is that we'll be processing scientific data at the same time that we're gluing together all the parts needed for a national cyberinfrastructure ecosystem," said Feltus, associate professor of genetics and biochemistry in Clemson University's College of Science. "We're trying to avoid the problem of 'if you build it they will come' and instead enlist the input of a variety of scientists to join us on the ground floor and help us build it. Thus, our software will be refined by using real data by real users with real habits."

Scientific discovery has become increasingly dependent on terascale (one trillion floating point operations per second) and even petascale (one quadrillion per second) data processing that only the world's fastest supercomputers can process. Fortunately, years of significant and strategic support from public and private sectors have created a distributed computational ecosystem to help meet these extraordinary demands. Available resources include high-speed networks like Internet2, open source scientific software packages, supercomputers in national labs, campus supercomputers, commercial cloud providers and deep data repositories like the National Center for Biotechnology Information. The Internet2 cyberteam will be assisting the research team in optimizing end-to-end data transfer rates.

"Many fields are awash with huge datasets. This is certainly true of biology and hydrology, but it also includes researchers who are studying satellite imagery, remote sensors and education analytics, to name a few," Feltus said. "Today's scientists are now required to understand both the underlying science and the cyberinfrastructure ecosystem to design and execute mind-bogglingly complex computations. SciDAS will combine new software with existing software to construct a system that will be efficient, practical and user-friendly."

SciDAS will enable a broad range of scientists to not only get information faster, but also to use much larger datasets and tease out information that they might not even know exists.

"The need for large data computing brings new challenges for scientists to be able to use complex systems efficiently and effectively," said Smith, associate professor in the Holcombe Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering in Clemson's College of Engineering, Computing and Applied Sciences.

"My specialty is in computing architectures, application optimization and machine learning. Using these tools and techniques, we're going to be building an infrastructure that is easier for data scientists to manage. We have a good body of software and data repositories already in place that have been individually tried and tested. We're going to bring these components together and make their use seamless for the scientist across existing cyberinfrastructure and also cyberinfrastructure that will be available in the future."

On a technical level, SciDAS will combine access to multiple national cyberinfrastructure resources, including NSF Clouds, the Open Science Grid, the Extreme Science and Engineering Discovery Environment, petascale supercomputers such as COMET, and a variety of nationwide university resources such as Clemson's Palmetto Cluster. The distributed and scalable nature of both the data-sharing and the computer infrastructure will be exploited to boost the performance of workflows and scientific productivity.

"Given the huge problems and opportunities at play in the 21st century, we intend to speed up the discovery process and complex end-to-end data analysis process through a tight coupling of science and cyberinfrastructure experts," Feltus said. "This is not about making one-size-fits-all software. Rather, we'll be binding together the national cyberinfrastructure ecosystem to focus real data of interest to practicing scientists."

RENCI will lead the effort to integrate existing cyber tools and technologies into the new SciDAS infrastructure that will be designed to support all aspects of distributed, data-driven research. Development of the SciDAS framework will involve integrating a number of NSF-funded cyberinfrastructure systems into one package.

"We will build on successful cyberinfrastructure projects developed here at RENCI, most of them with funding from the National Science Foundation," said Castillo, a senior computational and networked systems researcher at RENCI. "Through NSF support, RENCI has developed a number of tools and environments that make science more productive. SciDAS will integrate those tools and work environments into a unified cyberinfrastructure tailored to support science applications at scale. It is a win for scientists and a way to extend the value of our funded projects."

Ficklin, a computational biologist with the department of horticulture at Washington State University, will demonstrate the effectiveness of SciDAS by building gene co-expression networks for plants, animals, insects and people as a use-case for systems biology.

This data-intensive project, which maps the interactions of tens of thousands of genes in organisms, could help farmers breed new crops using traditional methods or aid scientists in finding new genes that influence plant and animal health.

"In the end, we will create the most complete repository of gene co-expression networks that exists anywhere," Ficklin said. "Improving our cyberinfrastructure helps make our country more competitive in research. It keeps us in the forefront of data science."

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RENCI communications director Karen Green and Washington State communications coordinator Seth Truscott contributed to this article.

Internet2

Internet2 is a nonprofit, member-driven advanced technology community founded by the nation's leading higher education institutions in 1996. Internet2 serves more than 94,000 community anchor institutions, 317 U.S. universities, 70 government agencies, 43 regional and state education networks, more than 900 InCommon participants, 78 leading corporations working with our community, and 61 national research and education network partners that represent more than 100 countries. Internet2 offices are located in Ann Arbor, Michigan; Denver; Emeryville, California; Washington, D.C.; and West Hartford, Connecticut. For more information, visit http://www.internet2.edu or follow @Internet2 on Twitter.

This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 1659300. Any opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of NSF. The exact amount of the grant is $2,952,217.
Despite international efforts to address food insecurity, around 108 million people in the world were severely food insecure in 2016, a dramatic increase compared with 80 million in 2015, according to a new global report on food crises released in Brussels on 31 March 2017.

The report, whose compilation required integrating several measurement methodologies, represents a new and politically innovative collaboration between the European Union and United States Agency for International Development (USAID), regional food security institutions together with UN agencies including the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the World Food Programme (WPF) and Unicef. The European Commission's Joint Research Centre (JRC) - developed methodologies for analysing the global situation in the food crisis hot spot areas contributed to the report.

The dramatic increase reflects the trouble people have in producing and accessing food due to conflict, record-high food prices in local markets and extreme weather conditions such drought and erratic rainfall caused by El Nino.

Civil conflict is the driving factor in nine of the 10 worst humanitarian crises, underscoring the strong linkage between peace and food security, says the Global Report on Food Crises 2017 report,

By joining forces to deliver neutral analytical insights drawn from multiple institutions, the report - to be issued annually -- enables better-informed planning decisions to respond to food crises in a more timely, global and coordinated way.

Around 8.8 billion are devoted by the EU to food, nutrition security and agriculture for the period 2014-2020, with 525 million to address food crisis. For humanitarian food and nutrition assistance in particular, the European Commission's annual average budget in the last 5 years was around EUR 540 million, with a peak in 2016, with over EUR 620 million for this sector.

"Political initiatives to tackle global food crises must be based on trusted, independent and sound science in order to be effective and supported by all stakeholders. I am very pleased that the European Commission's science and knowledge service, the Joint Research Centre (JRC), provided a solid scientific foundation to this report using its excellence in analytical methodologies and modelling" commented Tibor Navracsics, Commissioner for Education, Culture, Youth and Sport, responsible for the Joint Research Centre.

"This report highlights the critical need for prompt and targeted action to effectively respond to the food crises and to address their root causes. The EU has taken leadership in this response. In 2016, we allocated 550 million already, followed by another 165 million that we have just mobilized to assist the people affected by famine and drought in the Horn of Africa" said Neven Mimica, Commissioner for International Cooperation and Development.

"The report is the outcome of a joint effort and a concrete follow-up to the commitments the EU made at the World Humanitarian Summit in Istanbul, which identified the urgent need for transparent, independent but consensus-based analysis of crises. I hope this document will be a strong tool for the whole international community to improve the coordination of our responses to crises" added Christos Stylianides, Commissioner for Humanitarian Aid and Crisis Management.

Most critical situations are worsening

This year, the demand for humanitarian and assistance aimed at building resilience will further escalate as four countries are at risk of famine: South Sudan, Somalia, Yemen and northeast Nigeria. Other countries that require massive levels of humanitarian assistance because of widespread food insecurity are Iraq, Syria (including refugees in neighbouring countries) Malawi and |Zimbabwe. In the absence of immediate and substantive action, the food security situation in these countries will continue to worsen in coming months, according to the new report.

"The cost in human and resource terms only increases if we let situations deteriorate," said Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) Director-General Jose Graziano da Silva. "We can prevent people dying from famine but if we do not scale up our efforts to save, protect and invest in rural livelihoods, tens of millions will remain severely food insecure."

"The numbers tell a deeply worrying story with more than 100 million people severely food-insecure, a level of suffering which is driven by conflict and climate change. Hunger exacerbates crisis, creating ever greater instability and insecurity. What is a food security challenge today becomes tomorrow's security challenge," said Ertharin Cousin, Executive Director of the World Food Programme (WPF). "It is a race against time - the world must act now to save the lives and livelihoods of the millions at the brink of starvation."

The 108 million people reported to be facing severe food insecurity in 2016 represent those suffering from higher-than-usual acute malnutrition and a broad lack of minimally adequate food even with external assistance. This includes households that can cope with their minimum food needs only by depleting seeds, livestock and agricultural assets needed to produce food in the future. Without robust and sustained action, people struggling with severe food insecurity risk slipping into an even worse situation and eventual starvation.

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Read the new report: Global Report on Food Crises 2017 https://ec.europa.eu/europeaid/global-report-food-crises-2017_en
Hyundai takes wraps off Grand i10 hatchback

Laxmi InterContinental, the authorized distributor of Hyundai automobiles in Nepal, launched the 2017 edition of the popular compact hatchback Grand i10 in the domestic market on Thursday.
The climate of the Earth follows a complex interplay of cause-and-effect chains. A change in precipitation at one location may be caused by changes on the other side of the planet. A better understanding of these "teleconnections" -- the linkages between remote places -- may help to better understand local impacts of future climate change. A look into the climate of the past helps to investigate the teleconnections.

An international team of Japanese, British, Australian, and German scientists, with the participation of the GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences, now investigated Japanese lake sediments to decipher the interplay between local climate changes on the northern hemisphere about 12.000 years ago. Their results, now published as Nature Scientific Report, show that a regional warming in Europe caused a cooling and an increase in snowfall in East Asia.

The Younger Dryas was a cold period of about one thousand and two hundred years at the end of the last glacial phase, and occurred about 12,800 to 11,600 years ago. While the world had already turned towards a warmer climate, there was an abrupt backlash to a much colder conditions. The average global temperature fell by three to four degrees within only a few decades.

Why? This is still unclear. The team around the former GFZ PhD student of the GFZ section Climate Dynamics and Landscape Evolution, Gordon Schlolaut (now Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology), investigated sediments from Lake Suigetsu in Japan, to reconstruct East Asian climate change during the Younger Dryas. The scientists were able to show that the cold period was divided into two different phases showingopposing climate trends than in Europe which the scientists explain by teleconnections.

Achim Brauer, Head of the GFZ section Climate Dynamics and Landscape Evolution and Director of the Department Geoarchives says: "Little by little we come to understand the interplay between regional climate changes at the end of the last glacial phase. This brings us closer to our ultimate aim of anticipating regional impacts of future globalclimate change".

During the first half of the cold period until about 12,200 years ago, Europe's climate was cold and dry, while the second half was more warm and humid. The scientists assume that this warming was related to changes in atmospheric pressure that pushed cold polar air masses and with them the westerlies that are determinant for the European climate further north, which before, during the glacial phase, reached down to Southern Europe. Thereby, more moisture was transported towards Europe.

A bi-partition of the Younger Dryas climate is also seen in East Asia, but in a reverse succession. Here, the first half is comparatively warmer, while the second half's climate is cold, with heavier snowfall.

This climate seesaw is caused by teleconnections, the scientists assume: More humid air masses in Europe mean that some moisture is transported even further eastwards, causing heavy snowfall in central Asia. A thick snow cover formed and caused a cooling of the air masses over East Asia. This had an effect on the Asian monsoon, with a stronger winter monsoon and a slightly weaker summer monsoon resulting in winters with heavier snowfall drier summers.

The algae of the investigated lake, and the spores and pollen from plants that were surrounding the lake, that were deposited throughout the centuries of the cold period, as well as changes in the chemical composition of the sediments, provide the scientists with important information on regional changes in temperature and rainfall. Since the sediments were deposited seasonally, they can be compared with sediments of European lakes at annual time resolution.

Furthermore, Greenland ice cores and marine sediments from the North Atlantic provide information on large-scale temperature changes of the northern hemisphere. Like parts of a puzzle, these different regional archives provide an overall picture of the climatic changes during that time and show how regional climate changes were influencing each other.

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Original study: Schlolaut, G., Brauer, A., Nakagawa, T., Lamb, H.F., Tyler, J.J., Staff, R.A., Marshall, M.H., Bronk Ramsey, C., Bryant, C.L., Tarasov, P.E., 2017. Evidence for a bi-partition of the Younger Dryas Stadial in East Asia associated with inversed climate characteristics compared to Europe. Nature Scientific Reports, 7:44983. DOI: 10.1038/srep44983
For the first time, scientists from the Faculty of Biology of the Lomonosov Moscow State University in collaboration with their colleagues from Austria and the USA have built up detailed maps of three-dimensional genome organization in individual cells and studied the characteristics of three-dimensional organization of maternal and paternal genomes in mouse zygotes. The obtained results have been published in the Nature journal.

The international research team including the biologists from the Lomonosov Moscow State University, have proved an earlier proposed model, arguing that chromatin fibril packaging could significantly vary in individual cells. Achievement of these results became possible due to the development of a new experimental approach for studying the three-dimensional genome organization in nuclei of individual cells.

DNA molecules in the cell nuclei are packed into special structures, chromosomes, which could be understood as complex but not randomly tangled tangles of genomic DNA associated with proteins and RNA. The biologists have developed a new technique, allowed to study how this DNA-protein complex called chromatin is packed a nucleus of a living cell. This technique is an advanced version of the classical approach for studies of three-dimensional genome organization, called Hi-C (high-throughput chromosome conformation capture).

Sergey Ulianov, a member of the research team, explained: "Let's take three arbitrary DNA fragments: A, B, C. The first two, being neighbors, are located one by one in the genome, and the third one - let's say - is located over a distance of several million base pairs from the previous two. However, a chromosome could be packed in such a way that fragment C will be close in space to A or B. We can identify this fact (not for these three arbitrary DNA fragments but simultaneously for the whole genome) and use this information for building up maps of three-dimensional chromatin organization in a living cell. This is how the Hi-C method works."

The standard Hi-C method requires several hundreds of thousands and even millions of cells in order to performone experiment. However, the new technique allows researches to work with single cell and to drawits individual map of three-dimensional chromosome organization. The main novelty of this technique is the selection of single nuclei at the final stage of the Hi-C experiment with subsequent whole-genome amplification. This process provides a possibility to get dozens of thousands of DNA copies from a single nucleus by using a special enzyme.

Sergey Ulianov says: "This is the key stepin our experiment. Whole-genome amplification makes possible direct operations with genomes of individual cells. We can sequence them and perform any other manipulations, including studies of the three-dimensional chromatin organization in a single cell. So-called single-cell technologies, namely studies of single cells and manipulations with them, now belong to a rapidly developing fieldof molecular biology."

This new method allowed scientists to study separately maternal and paternal nuclei from mouse zygotes and examine how the three-dimensional organization of maternal genome differs from the same one of paternal genome.

Ilya Flyamer, the first author of the article, comments: "We conducted the analysis of three-dimensional genome organization in mouse zygotes. It turned out that both maternal and paternal nuclei co-existing in one cell, in a zygote, considerably differed in the way of the genome packaging. In the paternal pronucleus, formed from a sperm nucleus, active parts of the genome are separated in space from inactive ones. Surprisingly, we don`t see that in the maternal pronucleus. So, the maternal pronucleus is the first mammalian nuclei type where active and repressed chromatin compartments are not spatially segregated from each other."

Thus, the new method allows one to study the earliest stages of embryogenesis - right after fertilization.

Ilya Flyamer adds: "Zygote is a totipotent cell, which gives rise to any type of cells in an organism. That's why the obtained results could probably help to understand the nature of totipotency and provide an opportunity to approach a more complete reprogramming of somatic cells, than it's possible by creation of induced pluripotent stem cells."

Three-dimensional chromatin organization is an important regulatory instrument, used by a cell to control gene expression. There are more and more reports in scientific literature that disclose a connection between the abnormal DNA packaging in the cell nucleus and development of various human diseases, including some cancers. In the future, the single-cell Hi-C technology will allow scientists to study certain subpopulations of tumor cells, including rare ones. Moreover, it will probably move us closer to understanding mechanisms of malignant tumors emergence.

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The project has been done in cooperation with the Institute of Gene Biology of the Russian Academy of Sciences and colleagues from Austria and the USA.
Vaccinations have begun in a multi-site Phase 2/2b clinical trial testing an experimental DNA vaccine designed to protect against disease caused by Zika infection. The vaccine was developed by government scientists at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). NIAID is leading the trial, which aims to enroll at least 2,490 healthy participants in areas of confirmed or potential active mosquito-transmitted Zika infection, including the continental United States and Puerto Rico, Brazil, Peru, Costa Rica, Panama and Mexico. The two-part trial, called VRC 705, further evaluates the vaccine's safety and ability to stimulate an immune response in participants, and assesses the optimal dose for administration. It also will attempt to determine if the vaccine can effectively prevent disease caused by Zika infection.

Most people with Zika infection have either no or only mild symptoms, such as fever, rash, joint pain and conjunctivitis (red eyes). However, when Zika infection occurs during pregnancy, the pregnant woman can pass the virus to her fetus, which can result in a range of fetal defects known collectively as congenital Zika syndrome. Currently there is no licensed vaccine to prevent disease caused by Zika infection, which is mainly transmitted via the bite of infected Aedes aegypti mosquitoes but also can be transmitted sexually.

"We are pleased to have advanced rapidly one of NIAID's experimental Zika vaccines into this next stage of testing in volunteers. We expect this study will yield valuable insight into the vaccine's safety and ability to prevent disease caused by Zika infection," said NIAID Director Anthony S. Fauci, M.D. "A safe and effective Zika vaccine is urgently needed to prevent the often-devastating birth defects that can result from Zika virus infection during pregnancy. Evidence also is accumulating that Zika can cause a variety of health problems in adults as well. This trial marks a significant milestone in our efforts to develop countermeasures for a pandemic in progress."

Scientists at NIAID's Vaccine Research Center (VRC) developed the NIAID Zika virus investigational DNA vaccine. It entered early-stage human testing in 2016 following extensive testing in animal models. Initial findings indicate the vaccine is safe and able to induce a neutralizing antibody response against Zika virus. The Phase 2/2b trial aims to gain more safety and immune response data and determine if this immune response protects against disease caused by natural Zika infection.

The Zika vaccine platform is based on a strategy VRC scientists used previously to develop a West Nile virus vaccine candidate. The Zika vaccine candidate being tested in this study contains a small circular piece of DNA called a plasmid into which scientists have inserted genes that encode two proteins found on the surface of the Zika virus. Once injected into muscle, the encoded proteins assemble into particles that mimic Zika virus and trigger the body's immune system to respond. The vaccine does not contain infectious material, so it cannot cause Zika infection.

The trial is being led by protocol co-chairs Julie E. Ledgerwood, D.O., chief of VRC's Clinical Trials Program, and Grace L. Chen, M.D., deputy chief of the same program.

The trial consists of two studies: part A and part B. Part A will build on ongoing Phase 1 trials to further evaluate the vaccine's safety and ability to stimulate an immune response, specifically in populations where Zika could be endemic. It will also help determine the optimal dose and injection sites for administration. Part A will enroll 90 healthy men and non-pregnant women ages 18-35 years at three sites in Houston, Miami and San Juan, Puerto Rico. All participants will receive the investigational vaccine intramuscularly at three separate clinic visits each four weeks apart. Participants will be randomly assigned to receive either a standard dose or a high dose of the investigational vaccine at all three visits, and will be followed for about 32 weeks total.

Part B of the trial will enroll at least 2,400 healthy men and non-pregnant women ages 15-35 years. This part of the trial aims to determine if the vaccine can effectively protect against Zika-related disease when someone is naturally exposed to the virus. Sites will include the three locations from part A (Houston, Miami and San Juan) as well as two additional sites in San Juan, two sites in Costa Rica, and one site each in Peru, Brazil, Panama and Mexico. Additional sites might be added in the future. Participants will be randomly assigned to receive either the investigational vaccine or a placebo at three separate clinic visits each four weeks apart. The trial is double-blind, meaning neither the study investigators nor the participants will know who receives the investigational vaccine.

Part B participants will be followed for nearly two years, during which time they will undergo assessments for adverse events and symptoms of Zika infection. Trial participants in both parts will be counseled on how to protect against Zika infection. Investigators will compare the rates of confirmed cases of Zika in the placebo group and the vaccinated group to determine if the investigational vaccine protects against disease caused by Zika infection.

Each site will have a principal investigator responsible for ensuring daily review of safety data as they become available. A protocol safety review team that includes the protocol chairs and other medical officers at NIAID will review safety data reports weekly. The NIAID Intramural Data and Safety Monitoring Board will also review cumulative study data at least twice per year. The study is currently expected to be completed by 2019.

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For more information about the trial, visit Questions and Answers: VRC 705: Phase 2/2b Trial Testing the NIAID Zika Virus Investigational DNA Vaccine.

NIAID conducts and supports research--at NIH, throughout the United States, and worldwide--to study the causes of infectious and immune-mediated diseases, and to develop better means of preventing, diagnosing and treating these illnesses. News releases, fact sheets and other NIAID-related materials are available on the NIAID website.

About the National Institutes of Health (NIH): NIH, the nation's medical research agency, includes 27 Institutes and Centers and is a component of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. NIH is the primary federal agency conducting and supporting basic, clinical, and translational medical research, and is investigating the causes, treatments, and cures for both common and rare diseases. For more information about NIH and its programs, visit http://www.nih.gov.
Future advances in healthcare will be aided by a new 10 million facility - the National Institute for Health Research Innovation Observatory.

Based at Newcastle University and funded by the National Institute for Health Research, the unique facility will shape the future of health advances to provide better and more efficient healthcare for patients and the wider public.

The NIHR Innovation Observatory which launches today, will apply state-of-the-art data analytics to explore trends in health innovation across drugs, medical technologies, diagnostic tools and healthcare services.

It will offer academia and industry unique insights to identify areas to develop that can provide better healthcare and allow an opportunity for new innovations to be used in practice more rapidly.

The Director of NIHR Innovation Observatory, Professor Michael Trenell said: "There is a pressing need to provide better and more efficient care, today more than ever before.

"In order to do this, we need to accelerate access to new medicines, devices, diagnostics, and services for the benefit of patients."

Thanks to major stakeholders such as the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE), NHS England, healthcare providers, research funders and industrial partners, findings from NIHR Innovation Observatory will drive commissioning, policy, and strategy for research nationally and internationally.

Professor Trenell added: "The NIHR Innovation Observatory will apply Big Data analytics tools, from text mining, machine learning and cognitive analytics to reveal global trends - and global needs - in health innovation."

Job creation

The 10 million centre will be based on Science Central, Newcastle, and create 30 jobs -spanning information specialists, evidence synthesis experts, leaders in text mining tools and software programmers.

Dr Hakim Yadi OBE, Chief Executive of the Northern Health Science Alliance said: "The North of England has some of the most advanced practitioners in health data, and its application in patient care, in the world.

"The NIHR Innovation Observatory will further highlight its excellence in this area and cement Newcastle's reputation in the field. Importantly it will ultimately mean that patients get the right care and faster leading to a healthier population across the UK and beyond."

The NIHR Innovation Observatory is hosted by the National Innovation Centre for Ageing, National Institute for Smart Data Innovation, and Newcastle Academic Health Partners - a collaboration involving Newcastle University, Newcastle Upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and Northumberland, Tyne and Wear NHS Foundation Trust.

Science Central, a partnership between Newcastle University, Newcastle City Council and L&G Capital, is a 350m urban regeneration project, the largest of its kind in the UK and a test bed for innovation and sustainability. The site will also house the University's 60m Urban Sciences Building, the 40m National Innovation Centre for Ageing, the 30m National Innovation Centre for Data and the 20m National Centre for Energy Systems Integration.

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Notes:

Newcastle Academic Health Partners is a collaboration involving Newcastle Upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, Northumberland, Tyne and Wear NHS Foundation Trust and Newcastle University. This partnership harnesses world-class expertise to ensure patients benefit sooner from new treatments, diagnostics and prevention strategies.

The National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) is funded by the Department of Health to improve the health and wealth of the nation through research. The NIHR is the research arm of the NHS. Since its establishment in April 2006, the NIHR has transformed research in the NHS. It has increased the volume of applied health research for the benefit of patients and the public, driven faster translation of basic science discoveries into tangible benefits for patients and the economy, and developed and supported the people who conduct and contribute to applied health research. The NIHR plays a key role in the Government's strategy for economic growth, attracting investment by the life-sciences industries through its world-class infrastructure for health research. Together, the NIHR people, programmes, centres of excellence and systems represent the most integrated health research system in the world. For further information, visit the NIHR website (http://www.nihr.ac.uk).

The Northern Health Science Alliance is leading the next industrial revolution in health science. Uniting eight cities and 15 million patients for health and wealth benefit.
In the last decade hundreds of new psychoactive substances (NPS) have emerged in the drug market, taking advantage of the delay occurring between their introduction into the market and their legal ban. According to the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) NPS describes a recently emerged drug that may pose a public health threat. The DEA issues a quarterly Emerging Threat Report, which catalogues the newest identified NPS.

NPS tend to mimic the psychotropic effects of traditional drugs of abuse, but their acute and chronic toxicity, and side-effects are largely unknown. While seizure data from the DEA is often used to indicate what new drugs are being sold in the US, there is a lack of research examining and confirming who has been using such drugs.

Joseph J. Palamar, PhD, MPH, a New York University researcher, has been researching incidental and intentional use of NPS by young adults. His current line of inquiry has focused on survey methods, qualitative interviews, and hair sampling to ascertain frequency and type of NPS use by nightclub-goers -- a demographic which traditionally has a relaxed view towards recreational drug experimentation and use.

NPS are common adulterants in drugs such as ecstasy (MDMA), which has seen an increase in popularity since it became marketed as "Molly". Ironically, "Molly" connotes a product that is pure MDMA. In a related study, Palamar and his team found that four out of ten nightclub/festival attendees who used ecstasy or "Molly" tested positive for "bath salts" despite reporting no use.

In their current study, "Hair Testing for Drugs of Abuse and New Psychoactive Substances in a High-Risk Population," Dr. Alberto Salomone, an affiliated researcher at the Centro Regionale Antidoping e di Tossicologia "A. Bertinaria", Orbassano, Turin, Italy and Dr. Palamar, affiliated with NYU's Center for Drug Use and HIV Research (CDUHR), collected hair samples from 80 young adults outside of New York City nightclubs and dance festivals, from July through September of 2015. Hair samples from high-risk nightclub and dance music attendees were tested for 82 drugs and metabolites (including NPS) using ultra-high performance liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry.

"Hair analysis represents a reliable and well-established means of clinical and forensic investigations to evaluate drug exposure, said Dr. Salomone. "Hair is the most helpful specimen when either long-time retrospective information on drug consumption is of interest." "Most NPS can no longer be detected in urine, blood, or saliva within hours or days after consumption, but hair is particularly beneficial because many drugs can be detected months after use."

Of the eighty samples, twenty-six tested positive for at least one NPS--the most common being a "bath salt" (synthetic cathinone) called butylone (present in twenty-five samples). The "bath salts" methylone and even alpha-PVP (a.k.a.: "Flakka") were also detected. The researchers find the presence of Flakka alarming as this drug has been associated with many episodes of erratic behavior and even death in Florida. Other new drugs detected included new stimulants called 4-FA and 5/6-APB.

"We found that many people in the nightclub and festival scene have been using new drugs and our previous research has found that many of these people have been using unknowingly," said Dr. Palamar, also an assistant professor of Population Health at NYU Langone Medical Center (NYULMC).

Hair analysis proved a powerful tool to Drs. Salomone and Palamar and their team, allowing them to gain objective biological drug-prevalence information, free from possible biases of unintentional or unknown intake and untruthful reporting of use.

"Such testing can be used actively or retrospectively to validate survey responses and inform research on consumption patterns," notes Dr. Palamar.

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The full results of the present study can be found in the Journal of Analytical Toxicology. Research reported in this publication was supported by the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health under Award Number K01DA038800 (PI: Palamar). The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health.

Researcher Affiliations: Alberto Salomone1*, Joseph J. Palamar2,3, Enrico Gerace1, Daniele Di Corcia1 and Marco Vincenti1,4 Centro Regionale Antidoping e di Tossicologia "A. Bertinaria", Orbassano, Turin, Italy New York University Langone Medical Center, Department of Population Health, Center for Drug Use and HIV Research, New York University College of Nursing New York, NY, USA Dipartimento di Chimica, Universita di Torino, Turin, Italy

Acknowledgements: The sample collection in New York was funded by the Center for Drug Use and HIV Research (CDUHR -- P30 DA011041). J. Palamar is funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) (NIDA K01DA-038800).

About CDUHR

The mission of the Center for Drug Use and HIV Research (CDUHR) is to end the HIV and HCV epidemics in drug using populations and their communities by conducting transdisciplinary research and disseminating its findings to inform programmatic, policy, and grass roots initiatives at the local, state, national and global levels. CDUHR is a Core Center of Excellence funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (Grant #P30 DA011041). It is the first center for the socio-behavioral study of substance use and HIV in the United States and is located at the New York University College of Nursing. For more information, visit http://www.cduhr.org.

About NYU Langone Medical Center

NYU Langone Medical Center, a world-class, patient-centered, integrated academic medical center, is one of the nation's premier centers for excellence in clinical care, biomedical research, and medical education. Located in the heart of Manhattan, NYU Langone is composed of four hospitals--Tisch Hospital, its flagship acute care facility; Rusk Rehabilitation; the Hospital for Joint Diseases, the Medical Center's dedicated inpatient orthopaedic hospital; and Hassenfeld Children's Hospital, a comprehensive pediatric hospital supporting a full array of children's health services across the Medical Center--plus the NYU School of Medicine, which since 1841 has trained thousands of physicians and scientists who have helped to shape the course of medical history. The Medical Center's tri-fold mission to serve, teach, and discover is achieved 365 days a year through the seamless integration of a culture devoted to excellence in patient care, education, and research. For more information, go to http://www.NYULMC.org,

About the NYU Rory Meyers College of Nursing

NYU Rory Meyers College of Nursing is a global leader in nursing education, research, and practice. It offers a Bachelor of Science with a major in Nursing, a Master of Science and Post-Master's Certificate Programs, a Doctor of Nursing Practice degree and a Doctor of Philosophy in nursing research and theory development.
On April 19, Peter the Great Saint-Petersburg Polytechnic University (SPbPU), one of the leading technical universities in Russia will open the Information Center in Madrid, Spain.

The major aim of the University's Information Center is to boost cooperation between SPbPU and scientific and educational institutions of Spain entailing academic exchange of students and teaching staff, as well as joint participation in scientific and technical projects. On April 19 at 9:30 delegation members of SPbPU will have a meeting with the Director of the Universities of the Government of the Madrid Autonomous Region (Direccion General de Universidades e Investigacion) Jose Manuel Torralba Castello dedicated to the Information Center opening and collaboration opportunities.

In the framework of the Information Center opening, from April 19 to 21, the 'SPbPU Days in Spain' will be held at the Polytechnic University of Madrid (Universidad Politecnica de Madrid, UPM). Scientists and professors of both universities will discuss the most promising areas for scientific cooperation in the field of nanotechnology and telecommunications, computer science, civil engineering and construction.

On April 19, at 16:00, the rectors of SPbPU and UPM will sign a new cooperation agreement indicating intentions of both parties to participate in the student exchange program ERASMUS + (application has already been submitted to the EU), to exchange professors, contribute to Master's programs and Summer schools. An exhibition of Peter the Great Saint-Petersburg Polytechnic University's student art-works will also be opened on April 19 at 16:50 within the frameworks of the 'SPbPU Days in Spain'.

The Information Center of Peter the Great Saint-Petersburg Polytechnic University will be operating on the basis of the Spanish public foundation "Alexander Pushkin" (Fundacion Alexander Pushkin), which has been contributing to the development of friendly and cooperative relations between Russia and Spain for more than 25 years. There anyone can get information about educational programs of SPbPU, its achievements in scientific areas, enrollment for courses and for Summer school modules. It is also expected that the Information Center will become a meeting venue for Russian and Spanish specialists interested in joint participation in scientific, technical and industrial projects. The opening ceremony will be held on April 19 at 18:00 at the Spanish public foundation "Alexander Pushkin", and will be followed by welcome reception at the Royal Academy of Engineering of Spain (April 19 at 19:30) where a number of agreements on cooperation with Spanish universities will be signed.

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The Labour Party's support in London has declined by nine points in a year, according to polling commissioned by the Mile End Institute, Queen Mary University of London (QMUL).

The poll, carried out by YouGov between 24 and 28 March, finds Labour at 37 per cent, just three points ahead of the Conservatives. A year ago the gap between the two parties was 16 points. Labour is now seven percentage points below its share in the 2015 general election.

Support for the Liberal Democrats has doubled since the last London poll in April 2016, and stands at 14 per cent.

The Conservatives have gained four points in London, at 34 per cent. Support for Ukip has fallen to nine per cent, from 13 per cent last year.

Most Londoners are happy with the performance of Mayor of London Sadiq Kahn, 58 per cent think he is doing a good job and he has a net favourability rating of +35. This is higher than the last time YouGov asked in July when it was +30.

The poll shows that Khan has broad cross-party appeal. He has support from the majority of Labour voters, and he also attracts support from a majority of Lib Dems. Even among Conservatives more think he is doing well than think he is doing badly.

Philip Cowley, Professor of Politics at QMUL and Director of the Mile End Institute, said: "When people are asked why they approve of Khan, the responses rarely include specific policies. Supportive responses instead focus on his lack of any errors to date, the fact that he isn't Boris, the belief that it is too early to tell - along with a broader sense that he is saying and at least trying to do the right things for Londoners. Overall, Londoners like him."

Asked about the Prime Minister Theresa May, 46 per cent said she's doing well and she has a net favourability rating of +9.

Fewer than one in five voters think Jeremy Corbyn is doing a good job as leader of the Labour Party and 62 per cent think he's doing badly. Among people who voted Labour in 2015 one in four think he's doing a good job, while 60 per cent think he's doing badly.

Mr Corbyn has a net negative score among every political or demographic group in the capital, including age, gender, social class, remainer/leaver, inner/outer London, and party support. This includes those who voted Labour in 2015, among whom he has a rating of -35.

Former London Mayor Boris Johnson, scored -14 when Londoners are asked to rate him as a Foreign Secretary.

The findings are the first instalment in Polling London, a new research project from QMUL. The project is led by Professor Philip Cowley, Director of QMUL's Mile End Institute.

Fieldwork

All figures, unless otherwise stated, are from YouGov Plc. Total sample size was 1,042 adults. Fieldwork was undertaken between 24 and 28 March 2017. The survey was carried out online. The figures have been weighted and are representative of all London adults (aged 18+). YouGov is a member of the British Polling Council and abide by their rules.

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Full data file: http://www.qmul.ac.uk/media/downloads/194062.pdf
The Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM) is pleased to announce the 2017 Class of SIAM Fellows. These distinguished members were nominated for their exemplary research as well as outstanding service to the community. Through their contributions, SIAM Fellows help to advance the fields of applied mathematics and computational science. These individuals will be recognized for their achievements during the SIAM Annual Meeting, happening July 10-14, 2017 in Pittsburgh, PA.

SIAM congratulates these 28 esteemed members of the community, listed below in alphabetical order:

Zhaojun Bai, University of California, Davis

Peter Benner, Max Planck Institute for Dynamics of Complex Technical Systems

Angelika Bunse-Gerstner, Universitat Bremen

Emmanuel Candes, Stanford University

Rama Cont, Imperial College London

Ricardo Cortez, Tulane University

Lieven De Lathauwer, KU Leuven

Bart De Moor, KU Leuven

Andreas Griewank, Yachay Tech University, School of Mathematical Sciences and Information Technology

Helge Holden, Norwegian University of Science and Technology

Panayotis Kevrekidis, University of Massachusetts, Amherst

Vipin Kumar, University of Minnesota

Karl Kunisch, Karl Franzens Universitat Graz

Monique Laurent, Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica

Mark A. Lewis, University of Alberta

Lois Curfman McInnes, Argonne National Laboratory

Igor Mezi?, University of California, Santa Barbara

Michael Kwok-Po Ng, Hong Kong Baptist University

James Renegar, Cornell University

Andrew J. Sommese, University of Notre Dame

Joel H. Spencer, Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences, New York University

Gabor Stepan, Budapest University of Technology and Economics

Daniel B. Szyld, Temple University J

ean E. Taylor, Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences, New York University and Professor Emerita at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey

Marc Teboulle, Tel Aviv University

J. Andre Weideman, Stellenbosch University

Carol S. Woodward, Lawrence Livermore National Lab

Kevin Zumbrun, Indiana University

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Read further details about individual Fellows' accomplishments and citations: https://sinews.siam.org/Details-Page/siam-announces-class-of-2017-fellows

Learn more about the SIAM Fellows Program: http://www.siam.org/prizes/fellows/index.php

About SIAM

The Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM), headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, is an international society of more than 14,000 individual, academic and corporate members from 85 countries. SIAM helps build cooperation between mathematics and the worlds of science and technology to solve real-world problems through publications, conferences, and communities like chapters, sections and activity groups. Learn more at siam.org.
Aerosols are collections of fine particles, either biological or of other types, in suspension in a gaseous medium. They play a major role in cloud formation and therefore have a strong impact on climate models. They are however extremely hard to study due to the small size and immense variety of their constituent particles. But researchers from the University of Geneva (UNIGE), Switzerland, members of the PlanetSolar Deepwater expedition, have now succeeded in linking the composition of marine biological aerosols -- and therefore their influence on the climate -- to that of bodies of water under them within the Atlantic Ocean, thereby paving the way to an indirect study of these aerosols through water analysis. This study, which has been published in Scientific Reports, will contribute to making climate models more accurate.

Aerosols are fine particles in suspension in the air. Over the oceans, some contain organic or biological ingredients (bacteria, degradation products of microscopic algae) which come from sea spray, others are transported in the air (mineral dust, smoke). They serve as seeds for forming clouds and also reflect light. Their role is extremely important for modelling clouds, and therefore for the climate in general. But due to the small size of the particles and their large quantity, it's difficult to accurately study them. So researchers at the University of Geneva (UNIGE) asked themselves if it would be possible to characterize biological aerosols through the composition of the water whence they come.

"To answer this question, we needed two tools," explains Jerome Kasparian, Professor in the Department of Applied Physics at the UNIGE Science Faculty. "The first is a detector of fluorescence which we designed, called Biobox, and which enables us to analyse aerosol particles one by one. The spectrum gives us information on their composition and distinguishes the organic particles, which are fluorescent, from the other particles. Then we needed PlanetSolar." Indeed this research could only be undertaken over a long time period of time without any disturbances of water and air. Only PlanetSolar, a solar boat that navigated remains at sea for three months and produces no emissions, could make it possible.

During the expedition, scientists carried out analysis of the salinity, temperature, dissolved oxygen and the microalgae contained in the various bodies of water in the Atlantic, and then compared this data with that obtained by the Biobox. "And we found that they matched!" exclaims Jerome Kasparian. The physicists discovered that biological aerosols are related to the temperature and salinity of the sea. According to previous criteria, water creates large bodies that don't inter-mix, which allows them to be differentiated. Thus, when the characteristics of a water mass were favourable for reproduction of microalgae, researchers noticed that after a certain amount of time, the aerosols detected above this same water mass contained more biological particles. The biological fraction of aerosols is therefore linked to the history of biological activity of bodies of water close to the surface. "Provided that this is also valid in oceans and seas other than the Atlantic, our research location, our results would allow us to estimate biological aerosols by directly studying the bodies of water, which would simplify aerosol caracterization and make climate models more accurate," adds Kasparian. Difficult to study directly, aerosols are now being studied via the sea, which, unlike aerosols, can easily be analysed by satellites.

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Corneal diseases are among the most common causes of visual impairment and blindness, with Fuchs endothelial corneal dystrophy (FECD), a gradual swelling and clouding of the cornea, being the most common reason for eventual corneal transplants.

Writing in the March 30 online issue of Nature Communications, researchers at University of California San Diego School of Medicine, with colleagues at Case Western University, Duke University, the National Institutes of Health and elsewhere, have identified three novel genomic loci -- distinct stretches of genetic material on chromosomes -- linked to FECD, which often clusters in families and is roughly 39 percent heritable.

"Previously, there was one known FECD locus. We've expanded that number to four," said the study's first author Natalie A. Afshari, MD, professor of ophthalmology, Stuart Brown MD Chair in Ophthalmology in Memory of Donald Shiley and chief of cornea and refractive surgery at Shiley Eye Institute at UC San Diego Health. "These findings provide a deeper understanding of the pathology of FECD, which in turn will help us develop better therapies for treating or preventing this disabling disease."

FECD affects the innermost layer of cells in the cornea (the transparent front cover of the eye), called the endothelium. The endothelium is responsible for maintaining the proper amount of fluid in the cornea, keeping it clear. FECD is a progressive disorder in which the endothelium slowly degrades, with lost clarity, pain and severely impaired vision. It affects 4 percent of the U.S. population above age 40 and worsens with age. Women are two to four times more affected than men. While there is symptomatic treatment in early stages, surgery -- often a corneal transplant -- is the only remedy after significant vision loss occurs.

The research team conducted a genome-wide association study, an analytical approach in which scientists look for genetic variants in individuals associated with a particular disease. This study involved 1,404 patients with FECD and 2,564 controls of European ancestry.

The results confirmed the known role of the TCF4 gene, but also revealed associations with three other loci: KANK4, LAMC1 and LINC009970/ATPB1. Researchers also found some genomic markers that were more associated by gender, with LAMC1 increasing FECD risk in women while TCF4 increased risk in men.

"While more work must be done to precisely elucidate what these proteins do," said Afshari, "the results suggest they have essential roles in sustaining and maintaining the health of the corneal endothelium. This knowledge improves our understanding of the genetic risk factors for FECD and gives us new therapeutic targets."

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Co-authors include: senior author Sudha K. Iyengar, Robert P. Igo, Nathan J. Morris, V. Lakshmi Pulagam, Barbara J. Truitt and Jonathan H. Lass, Case Western Reserve University; Dwight Stambolian, University of Pennsylvania; Shiwani Sharma, Richard Mills Abraham Kuot, Sonja Klebe and Jamie E. Craig, Flinders University, Australia; Steven Dunn, Michigan Cornea Consultants; John F. Stamler and John H. Fingert, University of Iowa; Jacqueline Rimmler, Xuejin Qin, Mollie A. Minear, Elmer Balajonda, Simon G. Gregory, Gordon K. Klintworth and Yi-Ju Li, Duke University Medical Center; Christopher R. Croasdale, Davis Duer Dean Clinic, Madison, WI; Kathryn P. Burdon, Flinders University and University of Tasmania; S. Amer Riazuddin and John D. Gottsch, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine; Jiagang Zhao, UC San Diego; George O. Rosenwasser, Central Pennsylvania Eye Institute; Keith H. Baratz and Sanjay V. Patel, Mayo Clinic; V. Vinod Mootha, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center; Joan E. Bailey-Wilson, NIH; Marianne O. Price and Francis W. Price, Price Vision Group; and Anthony Aldave, UCLA.
Indian forest guards apprehend four Nepalis

A team of Indian forest guards has taken four Nepali nationals under control near from the no-man's land along the Nepal-India border in Bardiya.
MIAMI (March 31, 2017) -- The University of Miami Miller School of Medicine will soon begin one of the nation's first full-scale Zika vaccine clinical trials testing the National Institutes of Health's (NIH) experimental DNA-based vaccine. As Miami-Dade County has been ground zero for the Zika virus outbreak in the U.S., testing the vaccine in an endemic region is critical to help determine the vaccine's safety, effective dosage and whether it can effectively prevent disease caused by Zika infection.

The Miami arm of the NIH study will be led by Margaret Fischl, M.D., a renowned UM infectious disease physician and scientist with the University of Miami Health System and Miller School.

"The vaccine is really important in Miami because we saw the nation's first cases of locally-acquired Zika, which needed a more immediate response," said Fischl, a professor of medicine, Director of the HIV/AIDS Clinical Research Unit, and co-director of the Miami Center for AIDS Research, who was also instrumental in testing the first influenza vaccine. "A Zika vaccine was an important effort to respond to the Zika outbreak."

Researchers will initially recruit individuals from Miami-Dade County, who will be given the vaccine in varying dosages to test safety. The second part of the study, called part B, aims to determine if the vaccine can effectively prevent disease caused by Zika infection. Part B will enroll residents who have not had Zika infection previously from the "Zika zone" neighborhoods where local transmission of Zika occurred. Half of the participants in part B will receive the vaccine and half will receive a placebo. Neither the study investigators nor the participants will know who receives the investigational vaccine.

UM is one of three sites in part A and one of 11 sites in part B. The other part A sites are located in Houston and Puerto Rico. The other sites in part B are located in Houston, Puerto Rico, Costa Rica, Peru, Brazil, Panama and Mexico.

Part A will enroll 90 healthy men and non-pregnant women ages 18-35 years, and part B will enroll 2,400 men and non-pregnant women ages 15-35 years. The vaccine was developed by government scientists at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the NIH. NIAID is leading the trial.

Most people with Zika infection have either no or only mild symptoms, such as fever, rash, joint pain, and conjunctivitis (red eyes). However, when Zika infection occurs during pregnancy, the pregnant woman can pass the virus to her fetus, which can result in a range of fetal defects known collectively as congenital Zika syndrome. Currently there is no licensed vaccine to prevent disease caused by Zika infection, which is mainly transmitted via the bite of infected Aedes aegypti mosquitoes but also can be transmitted sexually.

Scientists at NIAID's Vaccine Research Center (VRC) developed the NIAID Zika virus investigational DNA vaccine. It entered early-stage human testing in 2016 following extensive testing in animal models. Initial findings indicate the vaccine is safe and able to induce a neutralizing antibody response against Zika virus. The Phase 2/2b trial aims to gain more safety and immune response data and determine if this immune response protects against disease caused by natural Zika infection.

The Zika vaccine platform is based on a strategy VRC scientists used previously to develop a West Nile virus vaccine candidate. The Zika vaccine candidate contains a single circular strand of DNA called a plasmid into which is inserted genes that encode two proteins found on the surface of the Zika virus. Once injected into muscle, the proteins assemble into particles that mimic Zika virus and trigger the body's immune system to respond. The vaccine does not contain infectious material, so it cannot cause Zika infection.

The trial is being led by protocol co-chairs Julie E. Ledgerwood, D.O., chief of VRC's Clinical Trials Program, and Grace L. Chen, M.D., deputy chief of the same program.

Part B participants will be followed for nearly two years, during which time they will undergo assessments for adverse events and symptoms of Zika infection. Trial participants in both parts will be counseled on how to protect against Zika infection. Investigators will compare the rates of confirmed cases of Zika in the placebo group and the vaccinated group to determine if the investigational vaccine protects against disease caused by Zika infection.

Each site will have a principal investigator responsible for ensuring daily review of safety data as they become available. A protocol safety review team that includes the protocol chairs and other medical officers at NIAID will review safety data reports weekly. The NIAID Intramural Data and Safety Monitoring Board will also review cumulative study data at least twice per year. The study is currently expected to be completed by 2019.

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For more information about the trial, visit ClinicalTrials.gov.

NIAID conducts and supports research--at NIH, throughout the United States, and worldwide--to study the causes of infectious and immune-mediated diseases, and to develop better means of preventing, diagnosing and treating these illnesses. News releases, fact sheets and other NIAID-related materials are available on the NIAID website.

About the National Institutes of Health (NIH): NIH, the nation's medical research agency, includes 27 Institutes and Centers and is a component of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. NIH is the primary federal agency conducting and supporting basic, clinical, and translational medical research, and is investigating the causes, treatments, and cures for both common and rare diseases. For more information about NIH and its programs, visit http://www.nih.gov.
New Zealanders -- whether liberal or conservative -- show both increased anger and reduced warmth towards Muslims if they are more avid news consumers, a new scientific study has found.

The study, which appears in the leading international science journal PLOS ONE, is based on responses from 16,584 New Zealanders from the New Zealand Attitudes and Values Study (NZAVS), a 20-year longitudinal study led by co-author Professor Chris G. Sibley of the University of Auckland, who leads the project he created in 2009.

Researchers have long suspected that the news media fuels Islamophobia, but these ideas had never been tested on a nation-wide scale.

"People tend to interpret the news in ways that fit with their pre-existing biases, seeking affirmation of their beliefs while discounting conflicting information," says University of Otago lecturer Dr John Shaver, the article's lead author. "New Zealand is a good test for speculation about media-induced Muslim prejudice because of its overall highly tolerant people. If anything, tolerant Kiwis might tend to reject intolerant stereotypes, reducing the effect of the media."

"However we find that the association of prejudice towards Muslims with more media exposure holds across the political spectrum, and is specific to Muslims," says Dr Shaver. "This indicates that it is widespread representations of Muslims in the news that is contributing to lower Muslim acceptance, rather than any partisan media bias. The media, regardless of politics, tend to publish violent stories because violence sells."

Professor Joseph Bulbulia of Victoria University of Wellington, also a co-author, notes, "Sadly, there may be real-world consequences for Muslims in this country, people who encounter prejudice across their daily routines, at the workplace, and in their children's schools." Despite the study's bleak message the authors remain optimistic: "Though un-making prejudice is difficult, we hope these results challenge the media to present fairer representations of Muslims."

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The researchers who conducted the study were Dr Shaver of Otago's Religion programme, University of Auckland's Professor Sibley and Danny Osborne, and Professor Bulbulia, whose Royal Society of New Zealand Marsden grant supported this research.
The work could bolster the wireless revolution underway with efficiencies several orders of magnitude

Researchers from the ARC Centre for Ultrahigh bandwidth Devices for Optical Systems (CUDOS) in the University of Sydney's Australian Institute for Nanoscale Science and Technology have made a breakthrough achieving radio frequency signal control at sub-nanosecond time scales on a chip-scale optical device.

Radio frequency (RF) is a particular range of electromagnetic wave frequencies, widely used for communications and radar signals. The work should impact the current wireless revolution.

The breakthrough was detailed today in the high-impact journal Optica.

CUDOS and School of Physics PhD candidate at the University of Sydney, lead author Yang Liu, said the new research that could unlock the bandwidth bottleneck faced by wireless networks worldwide was undertaken at the headquarters of the Australian Institute for Nanoscale Science and Technology (AINST), the $150m Sydney Nanoscience Hub.

"Nowadays, there are 10 billion mobile devices connected to the wireless network (reported by Cisco last year) and all require bandwidth and capacity," Mr Liu said.

"By creating very fast tunable delay lines on chip, one eventually can provide broader bandwidth instantaneously to more users.

"The ability of rapidly controlling RF signal is a crucial performance for applications in both our daily life and defence.

"For example, to reduce power consumption and maximize reception range for future mobile communications, RF signals need to achieve directional and fast distributions to different cellular users from information centres, instead of spreading signal energy in all directions."

The lack of the high tuning speed in current RF technique in modern communications and defence, has motivated the development of solutions on a compact optical platform.

These optical counterparts had been typically limited in performance by a low tuning speed on the order of milliseconds (1/1000 of a second) offered by on-chip heaters, with side effects of fabrication complexity and power consumption.

"To circumvent these problems, we developed a simple technique based on optical control with response time faster than one nanosecond: a billionth of a second -- this is a million times faster than thermal heating," said Mr Liu.

CUDOS Director and co-author Professor Benjamin Eggleton, who also heads the Nanoscale Photonics Circuits AINST flagship, said the technology would not only be important for building more efficient radars to detect enemy attacks but would also make significant improvements for everyone.

"Such a system will be crucial not only to safeguard our defence capabilities, it will also help foster the so-called wireless revolution -- where more and more devices are connected to the wireless network," Professor Eggleton said.

"This includes the internet of things, fifth generation (5G) communications, and smart home and smart cities.

"Silicon photonics, the technology that underpins this advance, is progressing very quickly, finding applications in datacentres right now.

"We expect the applications of this work will happen within a decade in order to provide a solution to the wireless bandwdith problem.

"We are currently working on the more advanced silicon devices that are highly integrated and can be used in small mobile devices," Professor Eggleton said.

By optically varying the control signal at gigahertz speeds, the time delay of the RF signal can be amplified and switched at the same speed.

Mr Liu and fellow researchers Dr Amol Choudhary, Dr David Marpaung and Professor Eggleton achieved this on an integrated photonic chip, paving the way towards ultrafast and reconfigurable on-chip RF systems with unmatched advantages in compactness, low power consumption, low fabrication complexity, flexibility and compatibility with existing RF functionalities.

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The research builds on research supported by the Australian Research Council through CUDOS, a Centre of Excellence headquartered at the University of Sydney.

Find out more at http://www.sydney.edu.au/nano
DALLAS  March 30, 2017  Five simple medical tests together provide a broader and more accurate assessment of heart-disease risk than currently used methods, cardiologists at UT Southwestern Medical Center found.

Combined, results from the five tests  an EKG, a limited CT scan, and three blood tests  better predict who will develop heart disease compared with standard strategies that focus on blood pressure, cholesterol, diabetes, and smoking history, researchers reported.

This set of tests is really powerful in identifying unexpected risk among individuals with few traditional risk factors. These are people who would not be aware that they are at risk for heart disease and might not be targeted for preventive therapies, said Dr. James de Lemos, Professor of Internal Medicine.

The five tests, and the information they provide:

A 12-lead EKG provides information about hypertrophy, or thickening of the heart muscle.

A coronary calcium scan, a low-radiation imaging test, identifies calcified plaque buildup in the arteries of the heart.

A blood test for C-reactive protein indicates inflammation.

A blood test for the hormone NT-proBNP indicates stress on the heart.

A blood test for high-sensitivity troponin T indicates damage to heart muscle. Troponin testing is regularly used by hospitals to diagnose heart attacks, but high-sensitivity troponin fine-tunes that measure, pointing to small amounts of damage that can be detected in individuals without any symptoms or warning signs.

Four of the five tests are currently readily available and the fifth  high-sensitivity troponin T  will be available soon.

Researchers used data from two large population studies, including the Dallas Heart Study, that each followed a large group of healthy individuals for more than a decade. Their study, which appears in the journal Circulation, was partly funded by NASA to develop strategies for predicting heart disease in astronauts.

The new study focused on a broader spectrum of cardiovascular disease events rather than only those related to cholesterol plaque buildup, as traditional risk assessment does.

A major focus of this study is to expand the scope of risk prediction beyond just heart attack and stroke. We believe that people are interested in the whole portfolio of heart problems that can develop including heart failure and atrial fibrillation, said Dr. Amit Khera, Professor of Internal Medicine and Director of UT Southwesterns Preventive Cardiology Program.

5 tests to better predict heart disease risk:

A 12-lead EKG provides information about hypertrophy, or thickening of the heart muscle.

A coronary calcium scan, a low-radiation imaging test, identifies calcified plaque buildup in the arteries of the heart.

A blood test for C-reactive protein indicates inflammation.

A blood test for the hormone NT-proBNP indicates stress on the heart.

A blood test for high-sensitivity troponin T indicates damage to heart muscle.

The set of five tests not only expanded risk prediction to include the likelihood of heart failure and atrial fibrillation, but also proved to be a better predictor of heart attack and stroke than currently recommended approaches. Heart failure is a chronic condition in which the heart progressively weakens and atrial fibrillation is a heart rhythm problem. Both conditions have been increasing as the population ages.

There has been a real need to bring modern science to the problem of heart disease risk prediction, which has relied on traditional risk factors for decades said Dr. de Lemos, who holds the Sweetheart Ball?Kern Wildenthal, M.D., Ph.D. Distinguished Chair in Cardiology. We wanted to determine whether advances in imaging and blood-based biomarkers could help us to better identify who was at risk for heart disease.

The added value of the test panel results from the careful selection of tests that were complementary but not redundant, Dr. Khera said.

These five tests have all stood on their own already. And they each tell us something different about potential heart problems  theyre additive. As a result, we are getting a good look at global cardiovascular disease risk, said Dr. Khera, who holds the Dallas Heart Ball Chair in Hypertension and Heart Disease.

The tests were combined in a simple scoring system with one point for each abnormal result. Compared with those with no abnormal tests, those with five abnormal results had more than a 20-fold increased risk of developing heart complications over the next 10 years.

The study was funded in part by a research grant from the National Space Biomedical Research Institute, a NASA-related consortium studying the health effects of long-term space flight.

NASA is considering long-term missions, for example to Mars. Astronauts are highly trained people and theres a heightened investment in long-term missions. If someone has a cardiovascular event, that would be catastrophic, said Dr. Khera.

And whats useful for predicting astronauts heart health is useful for the public.

Were interested in taking the principles used by NASA and applying them to healthy people. An individual who is interested in obtaining a lot of information about his heart risk over the next 10 to 20 years can get a lot of useful information from these five tests, Dr. de Lemos said.

Both researchers emphasized, however, that these tests arent for everyone and should only be done in collaboration with a physician with expertise in heart disease prevention, to help interpret the results.

Researchers used data from the Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis (MESA), which included a population of 6,621 individuals, and the Dallas Heart Study, which included 2,202 individuals. Both studies include large numbers of minorities and women among their participants, and both studies involve individuals who were healthy at the onset of the study.

The landmark Dallas Heart Study, a multiethnic, population-based study begun in 2000, has led to more than 200 published scientific studies, and most notably identified a mutation in a gene called PCSK9 that resulted in extremely low levels of cholesterol. The Dallas Heart Study was established with funding provided by the Donald W. Reynolds Foundation.

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Support for the study included the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences of the National Institutes of Health, and Roche Diagnostics.

Other UT Southwestern researchers who participated in the study are Colby Ayers, Faculty Associate; Dr. Benjamin Levine, Professor of Internal Medicine and Director of the Institute for Exercise and Environmental Medicine, jointly run by UT Southwestern and Texas Health Resources; Dr. Jarett Berry, Associate Professor of Internal Medicine and of Clinical Sciences; Dr. Darren McGuire, Professor of Internal Medicine; and Dr. Mark Drazner, Professor of Internal Medicine.

Dr. Levine holds the Distinguished Professorship in Exercise Sciences; Dr. Berry is a Dedman Family Scholar in Clinical Care; Dr. McGuire holds the Dallas Heart Ball Chair for Research on Heart Disease in Women; and Dr. Drazner holds the James M. Wooten Chair in Cardiology.

About UT Southwestern Medical Center

UT Southwestern, one of the premier academic medical centers in the nation, integrates pioneering biomedical research with exceptional clinical care and education. The institutions faculty includes many distinguished members, including six who have been awarded Nobel Prizes since 1985. The faculty of almost 2,800 is responsible for groundbreaking medical advances and is committed to translating science-driven research quickly to new clinical treatments. UT Southwestern physicians provide medical care in about 80 specialties to more than 100,000 hospitalized patients and oversee approximately 2.2 million outpatient visits a year.

This news release is available on our website at http://www.utsouthwestern.edu/news.

To automatically receive news releases from UT Southwestern via email, subscribe at http://www.utsouthwestern.edu/receivenews.
It's an established fact that compatibility is important to humans when picking a mate--but conservationists have discovered that Homo sapiens aren't the only species where well-matched personalities may make or break a relationship. According to a study published in Biological Conservation, an international peer-reviewed journal in the discipline of conservation biology, personality traits may play a large part in the mating behaviors of the giant panda--and breeding successes or failures may depend on whether a bear's disposition is complementary to that of its prospective mate. As part of the study, San Diego Zoo Global biologists used various assessments to test their theory, dividing the pandas into several personality categories based on their exploratory ability, aggressiveness, excitability, fearfulness and general activity. Then they tested how the differences in each of these traits influenced the willingness of the bears to mate with one another, and whether such parings produced offspring.

So far, their findings have indicated some personality traits are more effective together than others--either enhancing chances for reproduction or diminishing them. For example, the data shows that excitable males that paired with less-excitable females fared better reproductively. Also, males that were more aggressive than their female partners, when paired, were more likely to mate and produce cubs than more-aggressive females paired with less-aggressive males. The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) last year reclassified the giant panda as

Vulnerable--indicating in their report that current conservation efforts are working; however, they acknowledged that panda breeding still remains a problem. Currently, scientists count nearly 2,000 giant pandas living in their native habitats--and the majority of them are adults. While breeding and reintroduction programs are becoming more effective by providing more pandas to bolster the wild populations, conservationists believe that learning more about the importance of personality combinations in breeding success could ultimately help boost the number of pandas even further--not only in accredited zoos, but also in their habitats in China.

San Diego Zoo Global's role in panda conservation began decades ago, when the San Diego Zoo first introduced two giant pandas--on loan from China--to the American public. The Zoo's historic giant panda breeding program began after female panda Bai Yun (pronounced By Yoon) arrived in 1996. She was the first panda to successfully give birth to surviving cubs in the United States--and since then, she has helped researchers and keepers learn more about panda behavior, pregnancy, birth and maternal care.

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The San Diego Zoo's giant pandas are on a research loan from the People's Republic of China. As part of this long-term program, the Zoo, in conjunction with Chinese panda experts, continues to work on science-based panda conservation programs. The Zoo also collaborates with the Chinese Academy of Sciences in studies of behavior, ecology, genetics and conservation of wild pandas.

Find out more and learn how to become a Hero for Wildlife at the San Diego Zoo Global Wildlife Conservancy website: endextinction.org.

Bringing species back from the brink of extinction is the goal of San Diego Zoo Global. As a leader in conservation, the work of San Diego Zoo Global includes on-site wildlife conservation efforts (representing both plants and animals) at the San Diego Zoo, San Diego Zoo Safari Park, and Institute for Conservation Research, as well as international field programs on six continents. The work of these entities is inspiring children through the San Diego Zoo Kids network, reaching out through the internet and in children's hospitals nationwide. The work of San Diego Zoo Global is made possible by the San Diego Zoo Global Wildlife Conservancy and is supported in part by the Foundation of San Diego Zoo Global.
From: Jeff Hurt -- Velvet Chainsaw -- Midcourse Corrections For Immediate Release: Dateline: Cleveland , OH Friday, March 31, 2017



Over the past decade, there have been significant upgrades and newcomers in the event technology space. These solutions claim to increase revenue, streamline processes, drive attendance, improve the attendee experience, provide data/insight and/or deliver ROI. There are several hundred event technology providers competing to win your business.

When you consider varying pricing structures, functionality, and built-for-purpose options, choosing the best solutions is no easy task. Hows an organizer able to cut through the clutter and make sound choices that deliver results?

Before you take a look under the hood or consider test driving a core technology that youre going to make part of your event and business processes, consider these ten criteria for vetting:

1. Sustainability of the Company Most primary software solutions (registration, expo management, content management, speaker management) will deliver the greatest ROI when you are able to use them for three or more years. Event organizers incur lots of hidden switching costs in implementation, training and integration when jumping from solution to solution. Look for years in business, a strong customer list, number of employees, annual revenue, how theyre funded and the longevity of the leadership team for indicators of stability. A revenue/employee ratio in excess of $100K is normally a healthy metric. Consider visiting their office to get a feel for their company culture.

2. Not Their First Rodeo It would be a CLM (Career Limiting Move) to pick a partner that goes out of business or has a major outage before your big event. Be cautious with start-up companies that are learning from you. Make sure they have a proven track record of providing like solutions to those with similar needs. Ask for examples, testimonials and case studies. Its never a good idea to be on the bleeding edge with any technology. Exceptions to this might include existing trusted technologies that add new features, modules or integration partners.

3. Fits with Minimal Alterations If the majority of your requirements need to be met through customization vs. configuration, expect a lengthy and costly implementation. Ask for an admin demo to understand how configurable a software system is.

4. Plays Well in the Sandbox Make sure you have a good understanding of data import/export capability as well as examples of successful web services integration with other solutions. Passing data between systems, enabling single sign-on and maximizing the value of your data are no longer nice additions, theyre must-haves. Ask if theyve developed any APIs (

5. Plan for Continuous Improvement Technology is evolving at a rapid rate. Your vendors technology needs to evolve at the same pace. Make sure their solutions are scalable and that a product road map is in place. Look for companies that are pushing out improvements, modules or new features several times a year. When utilizing a cloud-based solution, the vendor should regularly apply patches to keep the system updated.

6. Customer Support User support and project management are huge differentiators between an average and a superior provider. What kind of training, customer support or project management do they include? Research their service models and ensure they will provide live support when you need it. Ask if they have user group meetings where customers share best practices. Do they have a blog, online group, case studies or newsletters that keep existing customers informed and up to date?

7. Stays True to Their Core A number of tech start-ups build their revenue model around selling sponsorships, ads or upgrades to your exhibitors. Were not crazy about that model. Most show organizers prefer that their communications and consultative selling be done by their team. Exhibitors or sponsors get turned off by multiple asks for your show. You want a tech company that focuses on improving their product and gives you the tools to be successful.

8. Safe and Secure Security should be at the top of your requirements list. Vendors should take extreme precautions to keep your exhibitor, attendee and financial data secure. Small or medium-sized vendors may not be able to afford the significant ongoing costs to provide the security you need. Ask where the technology is hosted, what their up-time is and what kind of disaster recovery plan they have. If you are conducting commerce via their solution, ask for proof of their level

9. Anal about Analytics Any solution worth their salt will provide you great stats on pacing, usage and will have a plan for adoption. Do they provide a real-time dashboard that gives you a snapshot on how things are progressing vs. previous years? Do you have the information needed to help aid decision-making and midcourse corrections?

10. Anywhere  Any Device Most event technologies are considered a SaaS (Software as a Service) platform utilizing cloud-based technology. The biggest advantage of using a SaaS solution is that it can be accessed from any part of the world at any time. These products should also be mobile enabled allowing the same admin functionality from a tablet or smart phone as they do from a PC. Can you go to an exhibitors booth and confirm their selection for next year in real-time from a tablet?

What are some of the other criteria you like use to vet core event technologies? What are your best sources for identifying solutions to consider?

Over the past decade, there have been significant upgrades and newcomers in the event technology space. These solutions claim to increase revenue, streamline processes, drive attendance, improve the attendee experience, provide data/insight and/or deliver ROI. There are several hundred event technology providers competing to win your business.When you consider varying pricing structures, functionality, and built-for-purpose options, choosing the best solutions is no easy task. Hows an organizer able to cut through the clutter and make sound choices that deliver results?Before you take a look under the hood or consider test driving a core technology that youre going to make part of your event and business processes, consider these ten criteria for vetting:Most primary software solutions (registration, expo management, content management, speaker management) will deliver the greatest ROI when you are able to use them for three or more years. Event organizers incur lots of hidden switching costs in implementation, training and integration when jumping from solution to solution. Look for years in business, a strong customer list, number of employees, annual revenue, how theyre funded and the longevity of the leadership team for indicators of stability. A revenue/employee ratio in excess of $100K is normally a healthy metric. Consider visiting their office to get a feel for their company culture.It would be a CLM (Career Limiting Move) to pick a partner that goes out of business or has a major outage before your big event. Be cautious with start-up companies that are learning from you. Make sure they have a proven track record of providing like solutions to those with similar needs. Ask for examples, testimonials and case studies. Its never a good idea to be on the bleeding edge with any technology. Exceptions to this might include existing trusted technologies that add new features, modules or integration partners.If the majority of your requirements need to be met through customization vs. configuration, expect a lengthy and costly implementation. Ask for an admin demo to understand how configurable a software system is.Make sure you have a good understanding of data import/export capability as well as examples of successful web services integration with other solutions. Passing data between systems, enabling single sign-on and maximizing the value of your data are no longer nice additions, theyre must-haves. Ask if theyve developed any APIs ( Application Programming Interface ). Many of these core technologies have other event products integrated into their platform, which adds considerable value for your organizations technology stack.Technology is evolving at a rapid rate. Your vendors technology needs to evolve at the same pace. Make sure their solutions are scalable and that a product road map is in place. Look for companies that are pushing out improvements, modules or new features several times a year. When utilizing a cloud-based solution, the vendor should regularly apply patches to keep the system updated.User support and project management are huge differentiators between an average and a superior provider. What kind of training, customer support or project management do they include? Research their service models and ensure they will provide live support when you need it. Ask if they have user group meetings where customers share best practices. Do they have a blog, online group, case studies or newsletters that keep existing customers informed and up to date?A number of tech start-ups build their revenue model around selling sponsorships, ads or upgrades to your exhibitors. Were not crazy about that model. Most show organizers prefer that their communications and consultative selling be done by their team. Exhibitors or sponsors get turned off by multiple asks for your show. You want a tech company that focuses on improving their product and gives you the tools to be successful.Security should be at the top of your requirements list. Vendors should take extreme precautions to keep your exhibitor, attendee and financial data secure. Small or medium-sized vendors may not be able to afford the significant ongoing costs to provide the security you need. Ask where the technology is hosted, what their up-time is and what kind of disaster recovery plan they have. If you are conducting commerce via their solution, ask for proof of their level PCI Compliance . No compliance, no deal.Any solution worth their salt will provide you great stats on pacing, usage and will have a plan for adoption. Do they provide a real-time dashboard that gives you a snapshot on how things are progressing vs. previous years? Do you have the information needed to help aid decision-making and midcourse corrections?Most event technologies are considered a SaaS (Software as a Service) platform utilizing cloud-based technology. The biggest advantage of using a SaaS solution is that it can be accessed from any part of the world at any time. These products should also be mobile enabled allowing the same admin functionality from a tablet or smart phone as they do from a PC. Can you go to an exhibitors booth and confirm their selection for next year in real-time from a tablet?

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Northern Ireland (NI), in conjunction with the Water Catchment Partnership, is embarking on a trial to reduce pesticide use later this year.

It is in response to high levels of farm chemicals in certain water catchments, which is increasing the cost of water treatment.

This pilot scheme, to begin between May and September 2017 and 2018, is aimed at land managers tackling rush weeds in the catchment area of Seagahan Reservoir near Markethill.

The project, which is completely free of charge, will have a Farm Liaison Officer working with farmers and land managers to manage the weed wiping and promote better advice on handling, applying and disposing of grassland sprays, guidance on mechanical control of rushes and improving land condition to addressing the underlying causes of infestations.

'High levels of grassland pesticides'

Roy Taylor, Catchment Manager at NI Water, explained the project: At present, extra treatment is required at Seagahan Water Treatment Works as a result of the water quality in the Seagahan Dam. Monitoring of water in the dam has shown high levels of grassland pesticides such as MCPA, which could be from agricultural activity.

Final drinking water is always at a high standard and meets all the required water quality standards, but there is a major increase in cost for the extra treatment required to deal with these chemicals.

This innovative pilot scheme, the first of its kind in Northern Ireland, will provide an alternative way of tackling rush weeds without using harmful pesticides. The method we will use is weed-wiping to kill the rushes.

Full support

Ulster Farmers' Union Deputy President Ivor Ferguson said that the union 'fully supports' NI Water on the initiative.

Mr Ferguson said: The UFU would encourage local farmers to show their support by signing up to the project and avail of this free weed wiping service. It is hoped that the success of this initiative will continue to build on the successful work of NI Water and the Water Catchment Partnership to date and that farmers can continue to adopt best practice protocols when it comes to weed control.

The scheme will operate in the Seagahan catchment area in Co Armagh. Only fields within this area are eligible for the free weed-wiping service. The closing date for applications is 30 April 2017.
Since 2010, Coeur Mining (CDE 1.50%) has made some major changes to its business. In fact, if you have been invested in this silver and gold miner since prior to that year, you simply don't own the same company you bought anymore. This is a good thing, though, because the big changes to Coeur's profile and outlook have proven to be smart moves. Here are three facts investors need to know about where the company was, and where it is now.

1. Not so silver

If you go to Coeur's corporate home page, it bills itself as the largest U.S. based primary silver producer. That may be true, but it obscures one important change that's taken place at Coeur since 2010.

Back at the turn of the decade silver made up about 70% of Coeur's revenues. The remaining 30% or so came from gold. Coeur was, at its core, a silver miner. Not so today. As of 2016, gold was responsible for 63% of revenues. Silver only accounted for 37%.

One reason for this shift is that silver production has been falling while gold production has been heading higher, with asset sales and acquisitions playing a big role in the transition. That said, Coeur expects silver production to ramp up again in 2017 as its expansion at the Palmarejo mine bears fruit. However, the important takeaway here is that Coeur's portfolio is far more balanced today than it was just a few years ago.

2. It relies on the U.S. in a bigger way

Another key change that's taken place was its shift toward mines in more stable political regions. Back in 2010, Mexico and Bolivia accounted for nearly 75% of Coeur's revenues. Today, those two countries make up just 35% of revenues. The United States, meanwhile, was just 15% of revenues in 2010. Today, it accounts for 64%. That shifts the greater share of Coeur's production into one of the most economically and politically stable countries in the world.

Gold and silver are fungible commodities, so in some ways, it doesn't matter where a miner gets them, so long as everything is working smoothly. However, when geopolitical risks rear their ugly head, location starts to matter in a big way to precious metals producers. For example, Bolivia started changing mining rules in 2014 following the concept that Bolivia's mineral wealth basically belongs to the state, with tensions mounting since. A boiling point was reached in 2016 when a government mining official was reportedly kidnapped, tortured, and murdered by angry miners. That's a big step beyond a work stoppage... Shifting toward the United States reduces the risk that Coeur gets caught up in events like this.

3. More important mines

The final big change that's taken place is really huge. In 2010, nearly three-quarters of Coeur's revenues were derived from just two mines. If anything had gone wrong at Palmarejo (45% of revenues) or San Bartolome (28%), Coeur would have been in big trouble. . But mine concentration isn't an issue anymore.

Today, the company has five major mines, and no single mine represents more than 22% of revenues. In fact, four of the five mines it owns provide roughly 20% of revenues each, with the remaining mine (San Bartolome in Bolivia) picking up the slack. If something were to disrupt production at a single mine, Coeur would feel it, but it wouldn't be a devastating blow.

More diversification, less risk

The really big surprise in this trio of facts is how much Coeur has changed its portfolio in a very short period of time. It has diversified its metal exposure, strengthened its regional positioning, and expanded its lineup of mines. All three changes make Coeur a much less risky investment option for those seeking a gold and silver company for their portfolios.
India's Gujarat state approves life term for killing cows

The western Indian state of Gujarat has passed a law making the slaughter of cows punishable with life imprisonment.
Local polls bring job opportunity for many

Local level elections slated for May 14 have brought a sense of enthusiasm among people, as elected representatives at the local units are expected to fill the democratic deficit on the ground, spurring development works.
Cuba is a great travel destination with overflowing opportunities for growth. Photographers find the place serene for their work. According to Warren, a photographer who once visited Cuba, the place is more visually dynamic than anywhere he had ever gone. The place has amazing cultural vibrancy with a creative young generation according to Maryoga. Chad Olin, a graduate from Harvard school of business confesses that most things ignored by American youths are pronounced in Cuba. The real life experience with the things around you in absence of social media is the magic behind the place.

Agreement Impact

The agreement between US and Cuba that began in December 2014 resulted in an increase in travel costs by 100% to 400%. The price increase was mainly due to increase in American travelers to Cuba, the forbidden island. However, for the summer, spring and the year 2017, things have been different. For the first time in a long time, Cuban government hoteliers and agencies decreased their travel prices. According to Tom popper, the president of US to Cuba travel, it is the first time in three years that the travel prices have come down. According to Hopper, airfare prediction app, travel prices were projected to drop from $717 to $364.

Cheap Fares

This means travelling to Cuba is cheaper than it has ever been before. Booking your trip to Havana is definitely the best move especially with the political conditions in the U.S. The release of Obamas agreement with Cuba in 2014 increased travelling demand and hence an increase in fares. The direct flights from U.S. provided by bigwig airlines made it easy for American travelers to understand the logistics. It merged factors of the agreement, 12 travel categories, and commercial flights that permitted popularity and price increase in 2016.



Travel Bookings

Despite the decrease in prices, Americans may not see their savings since most legal travel must be booked via third party operators. The third party operators take advantage of the price drops to make huge profits. Popper says that a person can save approximately $250 on a summer or spring trip. He also believes that cost decrease does not guarantee lower prices in 2017 and 2018 winter season. He therefore, encourages travelers to book their flights now in order to take advantage of the lower prices. In fact, they should book winter trips now however far they may be. Basically, this is the best time to travel. Additionally, Cuba is the safest travel destination that is currently easy to get to. There are eight tours to the Island provided by Insight Cuba in which each of them cost approximately 20% lower than the normal rates.

Direct Flights

Mayorga and Warren are among the beneficiaries of the lowered travel prices. They exploited this great opportunity by having direct flights from Charlotte to Havana. They paid almost half the price they could have used on the charter flights. Their flight was among the first commercial flights to Havana. The lower travel cost led to dramatic increase in travels to Havana from America.

Business Opportunity

This traveler increase created job opportunities for the people living in Havana. Some of the citizens like Torres decided to buy a cab to start a taxi business. This is the most appropriate business considering the increasing number of visitors who require transport. Torres had moved to Florida but decided to return to Havana where a business opportunity had presented itself. Therefore, the lowered travel cost was not only an advantage to the American travelers, but also the Cuba Citizens.

Most hotels in Cuba are fully packed. Getting a vacant room is like finding water in a desert. For this reason, the hotel prices are rapidly increasing due to the high demand. Hotel prices rose from $44 to $300 a night which is an extremely huge margin. The Cuban government is strongly investing in building more hotels. The place is a great tourist attraction. It almost feels like a tourist trap. Interacting with locals is the real Cuban experience. Olin started a business that deals with getting the tourists out of the beaten path.



Major Changes

The Obamas administration resolution to allow direct flights to Havana influenced a lot of changes. The US embassy was opened in Havana and direct mail services were restored. This decision to lower the travel prices and direct flight brought significant changes to both Cuba and the U.S. However, the travel prices to this destination are still relatively higher compared to travel prices to other Caribbean destinations.

See More  5 Stylish Ways To Pack Your Suitcase Efficiently & Perfectly

Conclusion

Obamas visit to Cuba in 2014 brought about great changes in travels to Cuba. He initiated the direct flights to Cuba from the US. This led to increase in the number of travelers going to this Caribbean destination. This led to increase in flight prices which eventually decreased in the fall of 2017. Cuba grew in terms of business due to the great opportunity for tourist inflow to the state. More hotels were built, taxi business and tourism sector flourished. Despite the decrease in Airfare prices, American travelers paid a lot more for hotel accommodation. Generally, price changes affected both Americans and Cubans.

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Haiti - Health : $40 million for maternal and child care





Canada and the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) have just signed an important agreement for Haiti, the Essential Health Care for Mothers and Children (SESAME) project.



Thisnew partnership between aims to reduce the number of maternal and infant deaths addressing reproductive needs of women as well as health care priorities of newborns and infants in Haiti.



The SESAME project aims to improve the health, the lives and rights of women and children in Haiti and to advance the unfinished agenda on womens health from a development perspective. Its strategy is to provide greater access to quality sexual and reproductive health services for women, and postnatal care for mothers and their children in the context of extreme poverty. It is also an essential contribution to strengthening the organization of health services at both the national and regional level.



The SESAME (Essential care for Mothers and Children) project, will support 45 referral hospitals, 10 at the departmental level and 35 community hospitals in all departments in the countryThe core interventions will provide increase the number of women who give birth in a health institution with quality health care and without financial barriers.



"The project will improve the well-being of Haitian women and children through an innovative approach that strengthens core health services functions, with renewed efforts to implement solutions and stay resilient after recent downturns in Haiti," added Dr. Codina, representative of PAHO/WHO in Haiti.



Key components of the project include : establishing performance based contracting ; developing a strengthening plans for each hospital; trainingto improve personnel competencies of on sexual and reproductive health and child health. Furthermore, improving hospital management and improve information system to have quality health data.



The CA $39.8 million project will be executed by PAHO/WHO in collaboration with Global Affairs Canada over the course of four years.



HL/ HaitiLibre






















Haiti - Politics : MHAVE Promises to the Diaspora





Tuesday, Stephanie Auguste, the new Minister of Haitians Living Abroad (MHAVE) declared during the installation of the new Director General of MHAVE, Yolette Mengual "[...] MHAVE intends to engage in a new dynamic of concrete and convincing results that will enhance the value of the work carried out in this Ministry.



Today, the existence of a strong Haitian community living abroad raises many challenges that challenge the consciousness of our expatriate brothers and sisters as well as that of the rulers. These challenges can be summarized on the one hand by the various expectations, concerns, problems and hopes of these citizens and, on the other hand, the significant actions that the public authorities could undertake in order to encourage their application in the country's development process.



For that, we have no time to lose. We must act quickly and well !



[...] as of this week, we are making preparations for the celebration of the National Diaspora Day. We intend to make this activity a major event that will send a clear signal to our sisters and brothers in the Diaspora. From now, this Ministry will work to realize concrete actions that will promote their integration in the social, political and economic life of the country.



[...] your arrival in this administration is timely because we will need all your dedication and all your dynamism to carry out the various objectives set by the government in favor of the diaspora. The guidelines for MHAVE actions included in Prime Minister Lafontant's policy statement and in line with the vision of His Excellency the President of the Republic, Mr Jovenel Moise, will remain our compass to guide all future interventions of this Ministry.



[...] the presence of two women at the head of this Ministry is a powerful symbol of our contribution to the reconstruction of this country. So, through our work and our commitment, let us honor the Haitian women by acting so that this symbolism translates into results and efficiency for a better Haiti [...]"



For her speech, Yolette Mengual declared "[...] I also thank the Minister, who today believes that I am the right person to serve as a technical arm in the implementation of this major project of society. In the Prime Minister 's general policy statement to both houses, which reflects, of course, President Jovenel Moise' s plan for society, the first chapter focused on foreign policy and Haitians living abroad.



Indeed, in our work we must do everything in our power to reach out to our compatriots so that they can feel the desire to legitimately integrate the political and economic life of the country.



[...] I will endeavor to implement the President's philosophy 'Continue, Create and Innovate'. Continue the good deeds of the past administration; Create new strategies and make the necessary corrections with a view to the welfare of the population living in the country and that of our compatriots who have chosen to live outside the country.



[...] We are all aware of the situation of those in Brazil, Chile, the Dominican Republic, the United States, Europe and various other territories around the world. We have a lot to do and we have to get to work right away [...]"



SL/ HaitiLibre


















BRCC administrators endorse training center

Blue Ridge Community College officials say the proposed law enforcement training center would benefit the college curriculum that trains police officers.

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Like many community colleges, BRCC offers Basic Law Enforcement Training, a 744-hour program of 36 required courses dictated by state law. BLET includes classroom work, physical training and firearms qualification. The program, which currently has 19 students, could expand with the use of more space and firing range lanes at the proposed training center.Like agencies across Western North Carolina, BRCC has struggled to find available shooting ranges where its students can practice and qualify to be a police officer or sheriffs deputy.In 2007, the General Assembly allocated $1.9 million for an outdoor shooting range at the Western North Carolina Justice Academy in Edneyville. When neighborhood opposition killed that proposal, the Legislature directed the academy to build an indoor range, which was scaled back to 12 50-yard lanes.At that point our training needs were being met, BRCC President Molly Parkhill said in an interview. But cities and agencies  including Lake Lure and Brevard  have been shutting down outdoor ranges. That has increased the demand at the Justice Academy, which could not schedule BRCC students on its shooting range this spring.Our closest one right now is Rutherford, Parkhill said. Its not that the Justice Academy is not being accommodating. They are being accommodating. Its just that so many law enforcement agencies are facing the same problem in terms of accessibility and scheduling, and I know thats the sheriffs concern as well. He does not have access to meet his training needs for his large staff.BRCCs law enforcement program also offers continuing education for police officers and deputies. State law requires all sworn officers to qualify every year on all weapons they carry and to complete combat course training.We are not doing in-service training because we dont have the facility anymore, Parkhill said. To be able to do basic law enforcement training we have to have a firing range. The sheriff is looking at his training needs, were looking at our training needs and how were going to be able to prepare the work force in law enforcement.BRCC has had a less than ideal approach to physical training, too, said Parkhill and Sherry Phillips, director of law enforcement training at BRCC.BRCC had allocated $700,000 for a metal building that would be used for the Police Officers Physical Abilities Test, or POPAT.That was our biggest pressing need, Parkhill said. After BRCCs Board of Trustees identified physical training space as a priority, Parkhill and County Manager Steve Wyatt began meeting on how the college and the county could create a facility that would meet both our needs, she said. We diverted our $700,000, which was bond money, toward our advanced manufacturing and automotive systems technology program, which is growing fast.Because it holds POPAT training outdoors, BRCC is handicapped by bad weather and high heat index numbers, which means calling off class. Using it outside on asphalt is ruining a $1,000 drag dummy, Phillips said.Because we will have the POPAT course indoors with showers and locker rooms well be able to conduct PT (physical training) in the mornings as opposed to after class. Thats how were currently doing that, she said. The state criminal justice standards states that a student must shower before going into class if PT is in the morning. Our PT instructor has been wanting to do that because its more conducive for physical exercise before class than it is after. Also, with the use of the POPAT we can use that same area for our subject control techniques. Currently, BRCC has had to schedule that training at the Justice Academys gym. The new facility would be a huge benefit for subject control and arrest training, known as SCAT.The Board of Trustees endorsed the law enforcement training center design in January. The college is getting calls about the training center and questions about why it would allow a shooting range next to the new Innovative High School. Parkhill said college officials have looked into the noise issue.Based on the research that has been provided to us, youre not going to be able to hear anything, she said.
Ask Matt ... about stink bugs

Stink bug. [NCSU photo]

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Q. Why do I see so many stink bugs at my house?

For the record, your insect is called the Brown Marmorated Stink Bug. Just in case you hear it at a cocktail party, the word marmorated means marbled or veined. Anyway, these little critters have been a nuisance since they found their way across the Pacific 20 years ago and made a home in Pennsylvania. Now theyre in 41 states and the numbers have been increasing every year. Why? They have no natural predators largely because they can release a foul odor.

Steve Pettis of the N.C. Cooperative Extension Service says that stink bugs show up in early spring and they seek warm places, thus finding their way into our homes. What to do? Catch them and set them free, says Pettis. If they keep getting in, you probably have a crack somewhere.

The proliferation of the stink bug is unwelcomed news for our fruit growers. Researchers at NCSUs research facility in Mills River are beginning to see damage to our apples crop beginning in late summer. According to Pettis, the insect stabs the fruit with its sharp mouth parts. This creates large dead spots on the apple which ruins the fruit. Both federal (USDA) and State (NCSU) scientists are working hard on the problem trying to design a program to stop the infestation.

Q. Why do trucks salt our roads when there is no chance of freezing and almost no chance of precipitation?

Roger Ayers, NCDOT maintenance engineer, explained DOTs two scenarios in their road salting policy  before a snow and after a snow. In the event of a pending snow or ice event, DOT alerts their private contractor who has five trucks that service a three-county area. Each truck has a spray bar affixed to a tank filled with a brine solution. Trucks are filled at DOTs Mountain Road maintenance yard. The brine mix is 11.5% salt and can be applied to roads 48 hours in advance. DOTs contractors did apply brine before the Jan. 28-29 snowfall and the northern part of Henderson County did in fact get snow.

After a snowfall, DOT uses its own trucks to spread rock salt on the highways. First priority is the interstate highway, then the primary roads, followed by subdivision roads on the state road system and lastly unpaved roads. Highway maintenance crews sometimes apply a mix of salt and sand if needed on steep roads to provide added traction. The mix also works best for black ice.

Salt lowers the freezing temperature of water. Its a relatively cheap commodity but it is corrosive. AAA recommends that you wash your car, the undercarriage, suspension, brakes and all after a snowstorm.

Send questions to askmattm@gmail.com.
New Delhi : While the larger Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court is due to adjudicate upon the legal aspects of triple talaq and polygamy, a large number of Muslim women have raised their voice against what they call cruel Islamic traditions in order to end their suffering.

Now, Nida Khan  a woman from Bareilly  has written to Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath urging him to abolish the Islamic practice to dissolve the marriage.

Khan, a victim of triple talaq, has taken to the social media appealing Yogi Adityanath for the abolition of what she calls anti-women Islamic tradition.

Earlier, raising her voice against triple talaq, a pregnant woman Shagufta Shah had written a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi urging him to abolish the evil Islamic tradition at the earliest.

Shah decided to write to the Prime Minister about her ordeal after she was disowned by her husband when she refused to abort her third child.

In her letter, Shah spoke eloquently about the pain she was subjected to when she became pregnant for the third time and how her husband Shamshad Sayeed wanted her to terminate the pregnancy, fearing that the third born may also be a girl.

She has also sent a copy of the letter to the UP CM.

The apex court today referred various petitions against triple talaq to the larger Constitution Bench, which will start hearing from May 11.

Meanwhile, the All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB) has opposed the PILs filed against the controversial triple talaq in the apex court, stating that petition against the Muslim Law Board is not maintainable.

The Muslim body has claimed that any order against triple talaq would be an infringement on their right to follow and profess any religion.

Many Muslim-majority counties such as Pakistan and Indonesia have removed this practise, but India, with worlds third-largest Muslim population continues to allow it.

Source : Zee News
Cow slaughter is now a non-bailable offence and punishable with life imprisonment in Gujarat, after the state Assembly today amended the Gujarat Animal Preservation Act of 1954 to make laws even more stringent. The Act was last amended in 2011.

As well, people found to be in possession of beef will be slapped with a fine that can range from Rs 1 lakh to Rs 5 lakh, and imprisoned for seven to 10 years. And that, too, is a non-bailable offence.

Until now, the maximum jail term for possession was seven years, and the minimum term was three years. The penalty was Rs 50,000.

Earlier this month, Gujarat Chief Minister Vijay Rupani hinted that his government was thinking about introducing a Bill with stringent provisions to save cows.

This amendment comes at a time when Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Aditynath has ordered a crackdown on illegal slaughterhouses in his state, just days into his tenure.

Source : India Today
Malaysians held in North Korea return home

Nine Malaysians who were detained in North Korea have arrived home, after the two countries apparently struck a deal to end a diplomatic row.
Changing laws could result in increased reporting complexity Employers are all too familiar with the complexity of managing one set of federal healthcare compliance and reporting requirements. Now, imagine the burden of trying to follow, track, comply, and potentially administer a different set of requirements in every state where your business operates. With new powers granted to states and proposed changes to the Affordable Care Act (ACA), thats what the future may look like. Future changes to the ACA will most certainly impact both employers and employees. Employers may welcome the regulatory relief of a repeal. However, todays one set of federally-based regulations might give way to a combination of national and state-based regulations that could increase the administrative complexity of compliance exponentially. If major changes to the law are made, businesses that operate across state lines should be prepared for a wave of complicated state laws. Momentum is Gaining for State-based Regulations Many states are beginning to take ownership of healthcare into their own hands, looking at their role in supporting the health of their citizens in different ways. Already, 31 states have expanded Medicaid under the ACA, and, 16 have built their own state-based exchange marketplaces. Beginning January 1, 2017, Section 1332 of the ACA gives states a new way to take control of their healthcare challe...
South Bend, Indiana  Stump Printing Co., Inc., also known as Shindigz, of South Whitley, Indiana filed a patent lawsuit in the Northern District of Indiana seeking declaratory judgment of noninfringement.

Defendant in the litigation is Electronic Communication Technologies, LLC (ECT) of Boynton Beach, Florida, which claims to be the owner by assignment of U.S. Patent Nos. 9,373,261; 7,876,239 and 7,319,414. These patents were issued by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

In February 2017, ECT sent a letter to Shindigz claiming that Shindigzs order confirmation and shipping confirmation systems infringe claims of the ECT Patents. The letter demanded that Shindigz pay a fee of $30,000 to license the use of those systems.

In response, Indiana patent lawyers for plaintiff filed this lawsuit asking the court to find the ECT patents ineligible for patenting, not infringed, and invalid. The complaint accuses ECT of being a patent troll, stating that the company makes a practice of calibrating the amount of [its] settlement demands to be lower than the perceived cost of litigation, to try to ensure that practicing entities settle rather than pursue challenges to the eligibility of validity of the patents through dispositive motions or trial. The complaint also asserts that ECT and predecessor in interest Eclipse IP have filed approximately 250 patent lawsuits since 2011.

The lawsuit seeks injunctive relief, costs and attorneys fees as well as two counts of declaratory judgment:

Count I: Declaratory Judgment of Noninfringement

Count II: Declaratory Judgment of Invalidity

The case has not yet been assigned, but is filed under Case No. 1:17-cv-00128 in the Northern District.

Complaint
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After a prolonged period of speculation and debate that followed the UK vote on June 23 last year, Article 50 was finally formally invoked this week, and so begins the torturous process of the UK leaving the EU club.

On April 29 the European Council will meet to formally decide on the reaction and negotiation stance of the remaining EU-27 countries.

It will not be easy to agree this stance because every country will have its own specific national interests to protect and inevitably there will be some calling for as hard an approach as possible to the UK, while others will want to make it as easy as possible for the UK in recognition of the strong trading relationship between the EU and the UK.

At an EU level, the politics of the process could turn out to be incredibly difficult, while in the UK, prime minister Theresa May will be challenged to placate the pro-Brexit eurosceptic wing of her party on the one hand and the pro-EU people on the other hand. It will not be easy, as the issue has proved to be dangerously divisive.

Despite the clarification this week, none of the uncertainty surrounding the whole process has been removed. Article 50 has never been invoked before and so we have no idea as to how it will work. Will it be shrouded in secrecy or will we be getting daily updates on how the negotiation process is going?

These are just some of the questions that remain to be answered, but there are many more.

The problem with all of this uncertainty and speculation is it could make sterling a very volatile currency for a while at least, and this will bring with it more than the usual level of headache for Irish businesses that trade with the UK, of which there are thousands.

The Article 50 process is basically a task that will seek to agree the terms of separation. Presumably, thousands of laws and trade relationships will have to be amended, and agreement will have to be reached on how much the UK will have to pay the EU.

A settlement of 60bn has been suggested from the EU side, but such a sum would be totally unacceptable to the UK. It is clear it will be a very complex, fractious and uncertain process and nobody can predict with certainty how it will evolve or how it will end.

The optimal outcome would be a smooth process that would placate the UK and, thereby, set the scene for a decent trade deal once the UK has formally exited the system in two years.

For Ireland, the potential challenges are obviously immense. We clearly have a special relationship with the UK from a political, economic and cultural perspective. Some 800 years of history cannot be eroded overnight, nor should it be. I have always been sceptical about the willingness of the EU to treat Ireland as a special case and do us special deals, but the Good Friday agreement is very definitely Irelands ace card.

There is a strong realisation in Brussels of just how important that process has been in delivering peace and prosperity on the island of Ireland, and one assumes that the EU would not want to undermine that. This should be the central plank of Irelands approach to the EU meeting on April 29.

The next month will be incredibly important from an Irish perspective. We need to lay all of our cards on the table and firmly declare everything we want.

The IFA has been doing this very forcibly and hopefully successfully in recent months. All Irish stakeholders need to do likewise. At the end of the process it is probable that compromises will be necessary on both sides of the negotiations, so for Ireland it is really important we come in with all guns blazing to ensure if we are forced to concede on certain issues, we are doing so from the highest vantage point possible. Ireland has never known life in the EU without the UK, so whatever the outcome, all is about to change and a terrible beauty is about to be born.
Lifestyle Living the High Life: Rangoons Best Rooftop Bars

Yangon Yangon atop Sakura Tower / Naing Lin Soe / The Irrawaddy

RANGOON  The best way to soak up Rangoons colonial architecture, leafy parks, waterways, and spangly pagodas is to rise above the citys crowded streets and enjoy a bite to eat or a cool drink in the fresh air of a rooftop bar or restaurant. Burmas commercial hub is amassing quite an arsenal of rooftop venues with a number of swanky options having opened in the last year or so. Always on the lookout for the latest developments in the city, The Irrawaddy brings you a handpicked guide to eating and drinking al fresco and at altitude.

Atlas Bar

Atlas opened late last year so is a relative newcomer to Rangoons rooftop bar scene, though the owners have wasted no time in making it one of the citys go-to place for sundowners. Twelve-stories up on an unassuming street in Sanchaung Township, the bar has 360-degree views of the city. Looking West, the sun sets over the Yangon River while to the East, the Shwedagon Pagoda emerges from the foliage of its surrounding parks.

The bar regularly hosts jazz nights, DJ sets, and outdoor cinema evenings, adding to the chilled-out holiday vibe. The seating is arranged in large couches with tables in the middle making it more suited to large groups than a couple hoping for a cheeky romantic tipple.

The drinks menu is posh with a whole page of champagnesincluding a 2004 vintage Dom Perignon for a whopping 500,000 kyats. More realistically priced are the cocktails, which hover around the 5,000 kyats mark and include some local takes on the classics. A concise menu includes a selection of flammkuchena sort of German sour-dough pizza.

84 Pan Hlaing Street, Sanchaung Township

Sapphire Lounge at Alfa Hotel

Atop the Alfa Hotel, Sapphire Lounge is an old favorite of the Rangoon bar scene and wins the prize for location. Its a short stroll from the citys hot spots including Bogyoke Market and Shwedagon Pagoda. Nestled among the buzzing restaurant quarter of Yawmingyi, its the perfect option for a pre- or post- dinner drink.

The space itself is fairly basic with metal chairs and tables and a makeshift-looking bar. Its lack of swank (and loud music) make for a laidback venue for casual sundowners with a group of friends. The staff are super friendly and the seats around the edge are perfect for taking in the view north toward the Shwedagon Pagoda.

The bars signature cocktails were a little sweet for The Irrawaddys taste so you might be better sticking with draft beerperfect to wash down the barbecue skewers on offer from the restaurant below.

41 Nawaday Street, Yawmingyi Quater, Dagon Township

Penthouse

Rangoons expat hipster enclave of Sanchaung is home to Penthouse, an upscale rooftop bar situated eight floors above the corner of Peoples Park. Penthouse boasts funky design, attentive staff, an extensive menu, and regular visits from international DJs. It is a strong contender for the award of swankiest rooftop in the city.

Half of the rooftop itself is inside, providing a welcome refuge from Rangoons famous rain/heat. Outside, youll have to choose your seat wisely as only a handful offer that coveted Shwedagon Pagoda view. Though the heavy beat of house music has permeated all seats in the establishment each time The Irrawaddy has visited.

The menu is in the upper echelons of Rangoon dining, with prices to match. Theres lobster, oyster, and tenderloin steak to be washed down with wines from all corners of the globe and perfectly mixed classic cocktails.

Parkside One Building, 271-273 Bagaya Road, Sanchaung Township

Yangon Yangon

Yangon Yangon is this reporters top pick for rooftop drinking in the city. Perched atop Sakura Towerthe closest thing downtown Rangoon has to a skyscraperthe bar offers 360-degree views of the city.

To the south, Rangoons fantastic old colonial buildings are laid out, including the Secretariat, the High Court, and the Port Authority. Beyond is the leafy and rural Dala on the other side of the Yangon River. In the far distance, it may just be possible to see the river meet the Andaman Sea. To the north is the sparkling Shwedagon Pagoda.

There are downsides, however. The cocktails are not fantastic and the music can be too loud. The bars popularity makes it a good idea to book a table if you want a prime seat on the weekend. Theres a cover charge of 5,000 kyats but you get a free drink.

Sakura Tower, 339 Bogyoke Rd, Kyauktada Township

Vista Bar

Vista Bar on Shwegondaing is one of the closest rooftop bars to the Shwedagon Pagoda. Open until 1 am, it is the perfect place for a late night-tipple with the Shwedagon in all its floodlit glory. The tables are quite close together meaning the atmosphere could be described as buzzing and frenetic or overcrowded and noisy, depending on the punters mood. Choose your seat wisely as some views are more Shwegondaing than Shwedagon. The food menu is uninspiring so its best to stick with the drinks and shisha.

168 Shwegondaing Road West, Bahan Township

Esperado

Another old favorite, Esperado Hotels rooftop bar gives a leafy view over Kandawgyi Lake and the fantastically bling Karaweik Palace Restaurant. The bar stools on the balconys edge are ideal for a Shwedagon sundowner.

Unfortunately, its also the perfect place to take in the crawling traffic and rampant construction around the lake. The buffet dinner is not worth getting excited over, neither is the coffee.

23 Kan Yeik Thar Road, Mingalar Taung Nyunt Township

Cocoon Bar

Cocoon may be Rangoons first, and accidental, speakeasy. The neon sign above will guide you, but the entrance is easy to missan unmarked door on the side of the building. Upstairs, the cafe and bar is casual and understated, perhaps bordering on scruffy. Theres a decent selection of reasonably-priced cocktails and the food will fill you up. The outside seats have a great view of East toward the Shwedagon Pagoda but are limited, so call ahead to reserve a table or turn up early.

9/F, 22-24 Shinsawpu Road and Baho Road, Kyimyindaing Township
Misuse of ambulance rampant in Banke

Service-seekers and stakeholders in Banke district have expressed their concern over the widespread misuse of the ambulances operated by various social organisations.
Burma By-Elections Fail to Drum Up Public Enthusiasm

Daw Aung San Suu Kyi on the campaign trail in Kawhmu Township before the 2015 election. / The Irrawaddy

KAWHMU, Rangoon Division  One day before nationwide by-elections, Kawhmu Township stands in stark contrast to the area in the days just before the 2015 general election.

State Counselor and de-facto leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi contested the 2015 election representing Kawhmu Township. People across Burma were eager to vote in what was believed to be the first free and fair election in the country in decades. But people have shown little interest in the April 1 by-elections.

As Daw Aung San Suu Kyis National League for Democracy (NLD) achieved a landslide victory in 2015 and won the majority of seats in both national and regional parliamentsexcept in the Arakan and Shan State parliamentsthe winning of 19 seats in the by-election will have no impact on the NLD-dominated national legislature.

Left vacant by Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, Kawhmu Township is among the seats up for grabs in the Lower House. The constituency fields the largest number of candidates, with nine people contesting the by-election there.

The NLD, Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP), Myanmar Farmers Development Party (Myanmar), Phalon-Sawaw Democratic Party, Democratic Party, Myanmar National Congress, National Development Party, and two independent candidates will contest in Kawhmu.

Dozens of locals interviewed by The Irrawaddy expressed little interest in the by-election, and many did not know who was running. They said since the result would have no impact on the Union government, they were not concerned.

If Im free that day, Ill go and cast a vote. But if I am not, I wont, said Mann Aung Aung, a villager from Wa Thinkha village in Kawhmu Township.

The USDP has fielded U Kyaw Zin Hein, the same candidate who lost to Daw Aung San Suu Kyi in the 2015 general election.

More than 70,000 people voted in the 2015 election in the region, and U Kyaw Zin Hein received some 10,000 votes or 21.5 percent of the ballot.

U Kyaw Swe Win, the NLD candidate, is a private teacher with a political background. His father won the Lower House seat for Kawhmu Township in the 1990 elections, the results of which the military regime refused to accept.

There are more than 90,000 eligible voters in Kawhmu Township.

Daw Thandar Aye, an NLD lawmaker in the Rangoon divisional parliament who campaigned during the by-election, believes the NLD will repeat its victory.

Though we conducted fewer campaigns now [than in 2015], public support is encouraging. Well win, she told The Irrawaddy.

The USDP is also campaigning in Kawhmu Township, and USDP chairman U Than Htay has appeared at least twice to campaign for his party.

However, other party candidates have done little to rally public support, and it is unlikely that an outside party will win.

In the 2012 by-election, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi won more than 85 percent of the votes, and in 2015, she won 76.7 percent.

Translated from Burmese by Thet Ko Ko.
Burma Despite State Counselors Announcement, UNFC Members Undecided on NCA Signing

Members of the UNFCs DPN meet Daw Aung San Suu Kyi in Naypyidaw on March 1. / Myanmar State Counsellor / Facebook

CHIANG MAI, Thailand  Members of the ethnic armed alliance the United Nationalities Federal Council (UNFC) said they have not yet confirmed that five of their seven groups will sign the nationwide ceasefire agreement (NCA) with the government, despite the State Counselor announcing it on state-run television on Thursday evening.

Nai Hong Sar, the vice chairman of New Mon State Party (NMSP) said, we are surprised to hear that news, as we have not officially decided upon it yet.

I wonder if there has been any misinformation relayed to Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, he told The Irrawaddy on Friday.

The government should have consulted with us first, said Tar Aik Nyunt, secretary of the Wa National Organization (WNO). He said that the UNFC members would have a meeting next week in which they would decide whether to sign the NCA.

The five UNFC members which Daw Aung San Suu Kyi said had agreed to sign the NCA are the NMSP, Karenni National Progressive Party, Arakan National Council, Lahu Democratic Union and the WNO. Not listed as potential signatories were two militarily strong UNFC membersthe Kachin Independence Organization and the Shan State Progress Party/Shan State Army-North.

The UNFC has been negotiating with the government on a nine-point proposal. They have said if the government agrees to comply with their terms, they will sign the NCA.

During their Delegation for Political Negotiation (DPN) meeting with the governments peace negotiator in early March, the nine-point proposal was agreed in principle, but with slight changes in wording.

NMSP said they no longer hold on to the policy of all inclusivity, which was held primarily to pave the way to bring in the three active armed groups in the countrys northeastthe Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army, Taang National Liberation Army and the Arakan Armyto the peace table.

Nai Hong Sar said these three groups have backed an announcement made in connection with the United Wa State Armys ethnic summit in Panghsang in February stating that they want a new ceasefire pact to replace the NCA.

Nai Win Hla, the central committee member of the NMSP, told The Irrawaddy that they, the executive members, aim to sign the NCA, but first need the go-ahead from the NMSPs central committee.

We all now have agreed in principle to signing, but we will ask for approval at our central committee members meeting in late April, he said.

Nai Wing Hla said that the NMSPs policy has always been to work together with other bilateral ceasefire groups for political dialogue, since their own group had a bilateral ceasefire with the government in early 2012. But in order to show solidarity, they had decided to stand in line with the UNFCs position.

We followed the all-inclusive policy of the alliance, but now we have dismissed it, he added.

At the time of publication, The Irrawaddy was not able to reach the KNPP for comment on a potential NCA signing yet, nor other DPN representatives or government spokesperson U Zaw Htay.

Irrawaddy reporter Hintharnee contributed to this report.
Burma Examination of Murder Charges Begins in U Ko Ni Assassination Trial

Gunman Kyi Lin at Rangoons Northern District Court on Friday. / Myo Min Soe / The Irrawaddy

RANGOON  Rangoons Northern District Court began an examination of the murder charges in the assassination of prominent lawyer U Ko Ni as the suspects made their third appearance at the court on Friday.

Shooter Kyi Lin and three alleged co-perpetratorsAung Win Zaw, Aung Win Khaing and Zeya Phyoare being charged under Article 302 of the Penal Code for homicide. According to the lawyers who are handling the case, there are about 80 witnesses who will testify for the murder.

The head of Mingalardon Township police station Moe Naing submitted the case. He was examined by defense attorneys U Aung Khaing, who represented Aung Win Zaw, and U Kyaw Kyaw Htike, who represented Kyi Lin.

U Ko Ni, legal adviser to Burmas ruling party the National League for Democracy, was shot by Kyi Lin outside Rangoon International Airport on the afternoon of Jan. 29. The polices claim that Aung Win Zaw was with the gunman at the airport terminal, said the defense attorney, will only be legitimatized when the airports CCTV control room presents CCTV footage to the court.

The gunman also fatally shot an airport taxi driver, U Nay Win, while attempting to flee the scene. Kyi Lin was immediately apprehended at the crime scene.

Authorities have so far named five suspects; gunman Kyi Lin, alleged co-perpetrators Aung Win Zaw, Aung Win Khaing and Zeya Phyo, and Aung Win Tun, who is accused of harboring a criminal. Four of the suspects are currently detained; however, Aung Win Khaing, a former lieutenant colonel in the Burma Army, remains at large.

Lawyer U Nay La, who represents U Ko Nis family, told The Irrawaddy on Friday that the trial is in its initial stages.

When CCTV footage is presented in court as evidence, everything will be clarified, he said.

Some questions from Kyi Lins defense lawyer U Kyaw Kyaw Htike to the police official were concerned with alleged co-perpetrator Aung Win Zaw and unrelated to his client, said U Nay La.

The next court hearing is scheduled for April 7.

Zeya Phyo, a former military intelligence officer, is also charged under Article 67 of the Telecommunications Law for the possession of restricted telecommunications equipment and Article 468 of the Penal Code for the forgery of national identity cards.

Two of the suspects; gunman Kyi Lin and alleged co-conspirator Aung Win Zaw, are being charged under Article 19(d) and (f) of the countrys 1878 Arms Act for illegal arms possession and transportation, in addition to the homicide charge.

The trial opened last week with the illegal arms possession and transportation charges against Kyi Lin and Aung Win Zaw, in which defense attorney U Aung Khaing examined the Mingalardon Township police official Mya Tun Kyaw who submitted the case for these charges.

U Aung Khaing told The Irrawaddy after the court hearing last week that there was no police report showing that the guns and bullets seized from the shooter Kyi Lin were associated with his client Aung Win Zaw.

Without such a police statement, Aung Win Zaw could not be indicted on charges of illegal arms possession or transportation, according to his attorney.
Burma Protestors Step Up Opposition to Mon State Bridge Name

Mon locals stage a protest against the naming of Gen Aung San Bridge. / Hintharnee / The Irrawaddy

MOULMEIN, Mon State  Protestors said they would step up opposition in Mon State against the naming of a bridge across the Salween River as Gen Aung San Bridge.

U Min Min Nwe, a member of the committee that will lobby the government to change the name to Salween Bridge (Chaungzon), said the committee would attempt to hold talks with the president and the state counselor through the ethnic affairs ministry.

Earlier this month, the Lower House approved the proposal of National League for Democracy (NLD) Paung Township lawmaker Mi Kon Chan to name the bridge linking Mon States capital Moulmein and Chaungzon Township after independence hero Gen. Aung San, despite local objections. The decision triggered a demonstration of some 20,000 Mon locals who protested the name on March 12.

Weve adopted a three point plan. First, we will ask Upper House lawmakers to propose that their chamber review the Lower House decision. Second, we will consult with legal experts regarding ethnic groups losing their rights and we will file a complaint to the Myanmar National Human Rights Commission. Third, we will approach the ethnic affairs minister to meet with the president and state counselor, Ko Min Min Nwe explained.

He added that the committee devised its plans at a meeting on Wednesday based on public and media responses and well as feedback from members of Parliament.

Nai Win Hla, the person in charge of New Mon State Party (NMSP) internal affairs, told The Irrawaddy that the ethnic party agreed with Mon locals.

There is no reason [the government] cant build national reconciliation if it is willing. It needs to restore ethnic identity. Only then will there be trust among ethnic groups to build a federal Union, which all aspire to, he said.

Construction of the bridge began in Feb. 2015 and was scheduled for completion in March 2017.

According to unconfirmed sources, the bridge was slated for official inauguration on April 9 in Daw Aung San Suu Kyis presence.

The NLD, Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP), National Unity Party, Mon National Party and All Mon Region Democracy Party will contest the Chaungzon Township by-election on April 1 for a seat in the Lower House.
Burma Public Consultation Explores Potential for Future Political Party

Prominent activists from the 88 Generation Peace and Open Society and political experts participate in a panel discussion at UMFCCI on Thursday. / Myo Min Soe / The Irrawaddy

RANGOON  In a two-day public consultation with stakeholders, four veteran activists from the 88 Generation Peace and Open Society discussed power politics and the potential for changed civil-military relations under the leadership of a new political party.

Prominent activists, U Ko Ko Kyi, U Min Zeyar, U Mya Aye and Ko Thet Tun led the conference at the Union of Myanmar Federation of Chambers of Commerce and Industry from Thursday to Friday. About 500 participants from across Burma and dozens of political analysts, environmental experts, aid agency representatives, rights advocates and exiled political activists joined the forum.

The stakeholders frankly debated a new approach to civil-military relations, as well as sustainable economic policies, a federal Union, party principles and structures, democracy and human rights, social and environmental justice and gender equality, among other topics.

A political expert, Dr. Yan Myo Thein, a panelist on the issue of political organizational structure, remarked that the public consultation forum signifies a positive step in developing Burmas political culture.

Political parties in Burma are often formed from the top down, said Dr. Yan Myo Thein, who pointed out that even the ruling National League for Democracy (NLD) was not exempt from this trend.

I am confident that the formation of a new political party and nomination of its leader would meet democratic norms, he said.

In early March, the 88 Generation Peace and Open Society told reporters that they aimed to form a new political party in 2018, and contest in the 2020 elections.

Dr. Yan Myo Thein pointed out during the discussion that although Burma has 92 political parties, only 23 of them have seats in Parliament, including 19 ethnic parties which have minimal representation; additionally, many parties only appeared in the election campaign period.

Political leaders in Burma are only showing their emphasis on paper, not on the ground, he added.

Leading 88 Generation activist U Min Zeyar said, Give us duties and let us take responsibility.

U Ko Ko Kyi said that they presently could not reveal more information about a potentially new party, as they are only in the initial stages of inviting interested persons in an implementation committee, and will later hold several debates on policy, party structure, and even a name.

Hot topics in the discussion included the amendment of the 2008 Constitution, the role of army in Burmese politics, and decades of unresolved armed conflict.

Arakan National Party Lower House lawmaker U Oo Hla Saw, who acted as a panelist in the discussion, agreed that the army must withdraw from the political field. However, he said that since the NLD took office one year ago, there has been a lack of transparency regarding whether the government, President, or State Counselor had negotiated with the army chief regarding a retreat from the Parliament. He pointed to a military offensive carried out against the Kachin Independence Army during the 21st Century Panglong peace conference as an example of this disconnect between the government and armed forces.

Was this offensive acted just under the orders of the army? Or does the government know about it at all? Why didnt the government prevent it? U Oo Hla Saw said.

Political analyst U Min Zin suggested that a new political party draft a national security policy in order to promote a stronger civil-military relationship in Burma, decreasing the role of the military in power politics and promoting human security.

Initially, he explained, the party should establish an informal meeting with army leaders, and make clear how the army could be upgraded under a civilian government. As Burmese politics lacks sufficient political institutions, U Min Zin explained, personal relations would be crucial in moving forward toward the introduction of a more formal mechanism linking civil and military leaders.

Our democratic transition will not succeed if we fail to set up a civil-military relationship, he said.
Burma Three Women in Maungdaw Allege Rape by Burma Army Soldiers

Soldiers on patrol this week in the Maungdaw area. / Htet Naing Zaw / The Irrawaddy

MAUNGDAW TOWNSHIP, Arakan State  Three Rohingya Muslim women in the village of Kya Kaung Taung in Arakan States Maungdaw Township told journalists on Thursday that they were raped by Burma Army soldiers during security operations in northern Arakan State in January.

Escorted by local officials, two of the three women later filed cases at Nga Khu Ya village police station on the same day.

There are now 18 cases of alleged rape and murder by security forces in Maungdaw under investigation by authorities, police Brig-Gen Thura San Lwin of Maungdaw Border Guard Police Force said on Friday morning.

A total of 18 local and international journalists visited Maungdaw this week on a three-day trip organized by the Ministry of Information (MOI).

When the media group visited Kya Kaung Taung village, two sisters aged 16 and 20 informed the visitors that they had been raped by Burma Army soldiers two months ago.

They beat, tortured, and raped us, 16-year-old Fatma told The Irrawaddy and other media outlets through an interpreter.

The two women said there were no men in their village on the day in question and that they, along with a 30-year-old woman named Ujala, were taken by four or five soldiers to a vacant house and raped. They received medical treatment at a local clinic after, they said.

Moria, the 20-year-old sister, said soldiers raped her despite the fact that she was pregnant.

They released us after they were satisfied, said Fatma.

Ujala also later told reporters that she had been raped.

The women said they were initially too afraid to report the cases to police.

MOI official U Ye Naing initiated the case in a phone call to Maungdaw District administrator U Ye Htut.

U Ye Htut said that although the women were reluctant to make a complaint, the alleged incidents needed to be investigated.

Border guard police then brought the victims and the village administrator to Nga Khu Ya police station and helped them file the complaint, U Ye Naing told The Irrawaddy later on Thursday evening.

We will punish the rapists in line with the law if [the victims] allegations are true. But they have to take responsibility for their claims, U Ye Htut told the media.

The number of actual cases of abuse is likely to be much higher than the figure of 18 quoted by Brig-Gen Thura San Lwin, however, according to indications in other reports.

A UN flash report last month based on testimonies from refugees from northern Arakan State in Bangladesh described massive and systematic rape and sexual violence in the area.
Burma UN Forum Highlights Persisting Gaps in Gender Equality in Asia

Womens Week Opening Forum was held in Naypyidaw on March 6, 2017. State Counselor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi attended the forum and held business talks with nine women enterpreneurs. Business leaders, NGO and INGO representatives and government officials participated in group discussions and signed pledges committing to gender equality. / Naing Lin Soe / The Irrawaddy

RANGOON  A United Nations forum highlighted a significant gender gap in the Asia-Pacific, calling on governments to prioritize gender equality in implementing sustainable development goals in the region.

A high-level panel comprised of government representatives, gender experts and civil society actors from across the region was held on Thursday during the Asia-Pacific Forum on Sustainable Development 2017 (APFSD 2017) in Bangkok.

APFSD 2017 was held by the UNs Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) from March 29 to 31 2017.

UN Under-Secretary General and Executive Secretary of ESCAP Dr. Shamshad Akhtar said in her opening remarks that despite progress made in the region toward gender equality and womens empowerment, challenges remain.

In a press release, she pointed out that the pay gap between men and women in the region as a whole had reached an astounding 20 percent. Women continue to be paid less and are more likely to find themselves in vulnerable employment circumstances with low wages, no formal contracts or protection of labor rights and with minimal social protection, Dr. Akhtar added.

Professor Maithree Wickramasinghe, founding director of the Centre for Gender Studies at the University of Kelaniya in Sri Lanka, said that without prioritizing and addressing the root causes of such inequalitywhich range from oppressive sociocultural norms and practices to legal and policy-based discrimination, to the burden of unpaid work responsibilitiesit would not be possible to make a dent in resolving them, let alone fulfill the Sustainable Development Goals.

May Sabe Phyu, director of Burmas Gender Equality Network (GEN), a network of more than 100 civil society organizations, told The Irrawaddy that the most significant gender gap in the country is regarding womens inclusion in decision-making and leadership roles, which she described as quite low when compared with other Asean countries.

She added she believes only with more womens participation at the decision-making level in the country will job opportunities, access to health, education, business, and protective laws for women, be ensured.

May Sabe Phyu added that government discussions on gender equality in sustainable development have only just recently started in Burma.

We need policies, practical action plans, and proposed budget for that, she said.
Commentary Wanted: Reform that Benefits Karen Citizens

Refugees from Burma cross the Thai border to Mae Sot on November 9, 2010, after Karen troops seized government buildings in clashes with the Burma Army in the border town of Myawaddy. About 12,000 people to fled into Thailand at that time, Thai officials said. / Chaiwat Subprasom / Reuters

Burmas longest running ethnic armed organization, the Karen National Union (KNU), began its struggle with a clear political purpose. It was starting a revolution, and under revolutionary circumstances, all members were required to serve for free, and even sacrifice their lives if called upon.

More than six decades later, the KNUs revolution is no longer looking so black and white.

The KNU today is of course not an official government, but it has many of the characteristics of one, with an army (which is believed to receive the lions share of its budget), and activeif relatively ill-fundeddepartments for health, education, the economy, forestry and others.

To fund itself, the KNU collects taxes from civilians and traders in the territory under its control, with the income contributing the most to its finances.

Since its beginnings in the 1940s, the KNU has retained a definite legitimacyone whose exact extent is hard to quantifyamong some, or even many, in the Karen community.

Throughout, it has also suffered successive losses, if never outright defeat, over many generations at the hands of the Burma Army.

The losses over long years of countless battlesof people, financial resources and territoryhave been many.

Karen leaders have sacrificed their time and family life. Leaders of the armed wing, the Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA), have lived in conditions of poverty and danger to devote their lives to the cause of Karen freedom.

The toll of all the conflicts on the affected communities has been incalculable.

It is also true that the KNU leadership enjoyed a strong relationship with the Thai authorities throughout the era of its charismatic, late chief Gen Bo Mya.

Liberties afforded to the KNUs top brass even spread to people with KNU-approved travel documents, who were allowed to visit some towns inside Thailand.

Now some KNU leaders and their families are based in northern Thailands Mae Hong Son and Chiang Mai provinces, and in border towns such as Mae Sot, in Tak Province.

Some own land, houses, luxury cars, and businesses, wealth that at times allegedly overshadows the possessions of their Thai neighbors. Others own assets through proxies, it is widely rumored. The children of some families are educated in Thai universities and abroad, and there are opportunities for some to gain permanent residency in Thailand.

It has been alleged, though not proven, that some leaders connected with foreign donors have been able to buy land and property with money earned through manipulating differences in currency exchange rates. Concerns have been expressed that cash donations from the Karen diaspora have been misused.

It needs to be said that it seems likely that the relative wealth of some Karen leaders does not compare with the kind of enormous, ill-gotten riches amassed by many other leaders and players in Burmas long-running wars.

But in Karen terms, the gap that has arisen between the personal situations of the leaders and that of their followers is significant and has given rise to considerable resentment, and to the raising of questions on the matter.

Before the KNU suffered one of its biggest defeatsthe fall of its former base in Manerplaw in 1995 at the hands of the breakaway faction then called the Democratic Karen Buddhist Armythe KNUs main revenue came from logging and tax on cross-border trade.

After the disastrous split, the splinter group took over much of the income-stream of these sources, as well as new streams of income from illicit drug sales, and began trading in goods from Thailand such as cars.

Other breakaway groups that arose amid Karen disunity, such as the KNU/KNLA Peace Council and the Karen Border Guard Force also became involved in business ventures.

After the KNU signed a bilateral ceasefire in 2012, it increased its business interests. These now include transportation and tourismthe KNU is behind the Moe Ko San Tour and Travel Company Ltd in Myawaddy town, and is said to have involvements in gold and tin mining. It reportedly owns a casino in Myawaddy town.

It held a signing ceremony in December last year for an MoU (Memorandum of Understanding) with the Sun and Rainbow Company Ltd which is involved in real estate and development projects, and Power China International Group in Dawei, Tenasserim Division.

Critics within the KNU have targeted the organizations handling of its budget, saying the process is muddled and there is a lack of transparency in how funds are distributed. Corruption, bribery, and misuse of finances have been alleged.

There have been complaints from soldiers that they are sometimes not paid, being told instead that since they are part of a revolutionary organization they should contribute their services for free, for the sake of the cause.

A high-ranking KNU official who asked for anonymity said, If I was chairman of the KNU, I would declare a new policy that seized all properties in Thailand belonging to KNU leaders and their families. Or, I would demand they share half of the profit they make from their businesses.

Meanwhile, the main improvements under the current leadership for civilians in conflict-torn Karen areas have been more freedom of movement and better communications over the last few years, according to sources on the ground.

These signs of progress are not nothing for people who have spent generations suffering in conflict zones. But they cant be said to amount to a huge gain in the quality of life of ordinary Karen yet, either.

Such small improvements arguably pale in comparison to the benefits that some of the organizations leaders and officials have accumulated in Burma and Thailand. The gap suggests that there is a need for major reform which works for everybody in the KNUs territories. That sort of reform should be on the agenda during the organizations on-going congress.
Guest Column Digging Into the By-Elections Data

All Mon Regions Democracy Partys by-election campaign on March 28 in Chaungzon Township. / Hintharnee / The Irrawaddy

As the first national polls following 2015s historic election approaches, there seems to be very little buzz about the whole affair. In contrast to the days leading up to the National League for Democracys (NLD) landslide win two years ago, or even 2012s by-elections that brought the first batch of NLD parliament members into office, there is a noticeable lack of enthusiasm for the upcoming polls on April 1.

Nineteen seats are up for grabs in this years by-elections. Three seats are available in the Upper House, nine in the Lower House, and seven at the state and regional level. The interactive map below uses data made available by the Union Election Commission and the Asia Foundations Mae Pay Soh project in order to explore details about the candidates who are contesting for each seat.

As the by-elections mark Burmas fourth election in the span of a decade, the data that has been released about the candidates, parties and the results of each of those elections offer quite a significant amount of material to ponder. Sifting through information about the thousands of candidates and results for hundreds of districts could yield a plethora of insights, and the analysis offered in this piece merely scratches the surface.

Firstly, noteworthy is the perceived lack of interest and enthusiasm this time around, in comparison to previous years. It is, however, important to acknowledge what proportion of the population is directly affected by this years by-elections in comparison to those in 2012.

Tallying up the seats, this years 19 seats is less than half of the 48 that were contested five years ago. Add to that the fact that some seats this year are in remote parts of Shan State, where elections were cancelled in 2015 due to security risks. Therefore, the number of people affected by the elections this year is only about a quarter of those directly impacted by the last by-election. Around 11.4 million people lived in the districts where the elections were held in 2012, whereas only 2.6 million people live in this years districts.

What can be expected in terms of possible results, looking back at how the candidates for various parties performed in these districts in 2015?

The NLD won the lions share of 11 of the seats being contested this year, but there was a noticeable trend in the margins with which they won.

The two charts below show the districts in which the NLD won more than 50 percent of the votes versus those in which they won less than 50 percent. Apart from Yawnghwe (Nyaungshwe) in Shan State, all of the other seats where the NLD swept the polls were in the Bamar majority heartland. In the Arakan, Chin, Shan, Karenni and Mon districts, even if they won, it was with much narrower margins. It is therefore likely that it will be in the ethnic states that they will face the staunchest competition this time around as well.

Gender parity remains distant when it comes to election candidates in Burma, but there seems to be a slight improvement this year when compared to 2015.

Overall, 18 percent of this years candidates are women, compared to 13 percent in 2012. In terms of individual parties, men outnumber women in all of them except for the Shan Nationalities Democratic Party, which is fielding five women and two men. Of the competing parties, the worst in this regard is the Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP), which has assembled a line-up that is exclusively male.

Religious diversity seems to have taken a very slight hit, with all the candidates this year being only Buddhist or Christian, whereas in 2015, around two percent of candidates professed other religions besides these two. Among this minority, there were 27 Muslim candidatesthe rest identified as animists or atheists.

Perhaps somewhat surprisingly, it turns out that the USDP candidates have a more diverse ethnic representation than the NLD does in this years by-elections, with their candidates roughly equally divided between Bamar, Shan and candidates of other ethnicity. Since almost half of the seats this time around are in Shan Statenine out of 19it seems reasonable that Shan candidates be well represented.

The majority of candidates in previous elections, as well as this one, tend to be 50 years or older, but the current crop of candidates are slightly younger on average than those in 2015, as the two charts below point out.

The most populous age bracket in 2015 was that of 60-65 year olds, whereas this time around it is the 50-55 bracket that boasts the most candidates. The youngest candidate is 28-year-old Nang Nway Nway from the Shan Nationalities Democratic Party contesting for the Kesi-1 (Kyethi) seat in the Shan State parliament; the oldest is the NLDs U Kyaw Khin, who is almost 78 years old, and is contesting for the Shan State parliament seat in Mong Hsu-1 (Mongshu).

I work as an advocate for open data and transparency, and being able to dig into these datasets that have been publicly released, and to communicate my findings to the public has been a dream come true. I would love to see even more data being released and more people analyzing and discussing the information.

But while the numbers can definitely tell interesting stories, they can never provide the complete picture. I found that out personally in 2015, after very enthusiastically voting for the first time in my life.

A few weeks after casting my ballot in Hlaing Tharyar Township for the NLDs Dr. Than Myintcurrently serving in the cabinet as Minister of Commercenews surfaced that his PhD was from an unaccredited defunct institution called Pacific Western University. While a dataset in a spreadsheet can point one in the right direction of greater transparency, it still remains just the first step in a more comprehensive process. Nevertheless, it is one that I hope more people will take.
Guest Column Mon States Bridgegate: Ethnic Politics or Realpolitik?

An NLD rally in Mon State. / Min Kaung Khant

The eruption of public fury after the naming of the new bridge in Mon State after Aung San Suu Kyis father, independence leader Bogyoke Aung San, was recently highlighted in Tea Circle. Matt Walton argued that Bridgegate was yet another example of the governments failure to incorporate and understand ethnic grievances in Myanmar. While in many similar situations this argument may hold true, in this particular case, I offer an alternate appraisal of events that focuses on competing political factions.

Local media reported in February that after receiving complaints of conflicts of interest against Mon State Chief Minister Min Min Oo, an NLD (National League for Democracy) investigation committee was formed, and completed their report in January 2017. On 12 February, the Mon State government decided not to name the bridge after Aung San. Yet, the Union government funded the bridge construction and could easily override the State governments decision, as, according to the 2008 Constitution, Union law supersedes state and region laws.

The opening ceremony of the bridge was slated for February13, Aung Sans birthday, and was canceled due to protest. Shortly thereafter, on February 17, Min Min Oo issued a statement of resignation on his Facebook page. Yet, according to local Mon State media, Mon State Chief Minister Min Min Oo reportedly resigned over the proposal to name the bridge after independence leader Bogyoke Aung San. Since his resignation, Min Min Oo has been publicly vocal with his support for Mon nationalists in their protests against naming the bridge after Aung San. Does it make sense that a Minister would resign over a bridge name if there were not other issues at stake?

The NLD won in Mon State in 2015, as it did in many states, at the expense of ethnic parties. But by-elections are coming up, and there are two major Mon parties that will contest the elections. The longstanding and highly popular MNP (Mon National Party), led by Union Ethnic Affairs Minister Nai Thet Lwin, is strapped for funds to compete against larger parties like the USDP (Union Solidarity and Development Party) and NLD. As Nai Thet Lwin, MNPs founder and vice chairman and his daughter, Mi Kon Chan (Lower House MP, Paung) have joined the NLD government, the MNP has become more intertwined with the NLD. Into this vacuum, enters the All Regional Mon Region Democracy Party, with significant (albeit implicit) support from the USDP.

As Matt Walton addressed in his post on the echoes of Burmanization in the conflict over the bridge, many ethnic minority communities see the NLD as the party of Burmans. Walton argues that the NLD is continuing in spirit the past Burmanisation process described by so many ethnic activists and scholars, while the small USDP contingent in Parliament was joined by the military bloc (!) in opposing it. The support of non-Burmans within the NLD for the naming of the bridge in Mon State leads us to the assimilation aspect of Waltons Burmanisation thesis. Is toeing the party line in the NLD, perhaps to the detriment of ethnic issues, the price for participation in government?

Mi Kon Chan, the Mon State MP (Paung) who proposed naming the bridge after Aung San in the Lower House, would likely disagree. When she spoke for the proposal on the Lower House Floor, she said: [Aung Sans] name belongs to the whole nation, but doesnt represent any individual ethnic groupWe need to differentiate between national leaders and ethnic leaders. Mi Kon Chans father, Ethnic Affairs Minister Nai Thet Lwin would likely also disagree, albeit for different reasons, as he disagrees with his own daughter. Nai Thet Lwins Mon National Party sent a letter of objection to the bridge name to the Chief Minister in February. He then publicly criticized both his daughter, for proposing the bridge name, and the NLD, for using parliament to solve the dispute over the naming of the bridge.

However, while our eyes are on Burmanisation and Bridgegate, the eyes of party activists and MPs are on the 2017 by-elections. The bridge links Mawlaymyine and Chaungzon townships, divided by the Salween (Thanlwin) river. Chaungzon township is one of the nine vacant Pyitthu Hluttaw constituencies currently being contested in the by-election set for 1 April.

Dr. Aung Naing Oo, Deputy Speaker of the Mon State Hluttaw representing Chaungzon-1, holds the AMRDPs (All Mon Region Democracy Party) sole seat in the state legislature. The AMRDP lost 9 seats in the Union parliament in 2015 when the NLD came to power (the AMRDP contested the 2010 elections while the NLD and MNP boycotted) and several in the regional hluttaw. Dr. Aung Naing Oo has reportedly been a key figure in the demonstrations against the naming of the bridge. Hyping the bridge controversy is a sure way to get voters to have negative associations with the NLD and positive associations with Mon nationalism, the USDP, and thus, the All Mon Region Democracy Party when they go to the ballot box this weekend.

Does the fact that by-elections are quickly approaching absolve the NLD government of using the Union parliament to supersede the state government and name a bridge in Mon state after Bogyoke Aung San? No, not really. But it does explain in part, the mass protests, the organization of the anti-Aung San Bridge contingent, and why this particular bridge has become such a highly visible political issue.

The key issue here is federalism. Should the Union government be able to make decisions that cannot be challenged by state governments? According to the 2008 Constitution, the answer is yes, but the protests are surprisingly free from calls for Constitutional reformwhich is the underlying legal issue behind Bridgegate. Instead, a familiar call to a very two-dimensional idea of ethnic rights (language, clothing, culture, names) has been mobilizedblocking both the Constitutional matter at the heart of this issue, and the NLDs chances at the ballot box this weekend.

Elizabeth Rhoads is a PhD candidate in Law at Kings College London working on urban property law in Yangon.

This article originally appeared in Tea Circle, a forum hosted at Oxford University for emerging research and perspectives on Burma/Myanmar.
People are enthusiastic to cast ballots: Deuba

Nepali Congress President Sher Bahadur Deuba has remarked that the local level elections will be held on time as the people are highly enthusiastic to cast their votes and elect their representatives.
Student Research, Creative Works to be Showcased at Conference

Biology major Lesly Ingram '17 presents her research at the 2016 conference.

March 16, 2017

BLOOMINGTON, Ill. The annual John Wesley Powell Student Research Conference, which recognizes the research projects and creative endeavors of Illinois Wesleyan University students, will be held April 8 from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.

The luncheon keynote speaker will be Susan Stryker, associate professor of gender and womens studies at the University of Arizona. Her historical scholarship, social change activism, media-making, and theoretical insights have helped shape the field of transgender and queer studies for more than 25 years. Strykers address at Illinois Wesleyan is entitled What Transpires Now: Transgender History and the Future We Need.

Styker won an Emmy Award for her documentary film Screaming Queens: The Riot at Comptons Cafeteria, and regularly consults on media projects on transgender topics. She is also the author of three award-nominated books and numerous journal articles. Stryker earned her Ph.D. in U.S. history at the University of California-Berkeley.

Susan Stryker

The luncheon for all conference participants, parents and advisors begins at 12 noon in the Young Main Lounge, and will also feature performances by music composition students.

Established as an annual event in 1990, the conference provides an opportunity for students who are pursuing individual research projects to present those projects in a public forum. Its named for explorer and geologist John Wesley Powell, who joined IWUs faculty in 1865. In 1867 he took IWU students to Colorados mountains on a field expedition, believed to be among the expeditions of its kind in the history of American higher education. Presentations at IWUs conference will be held in CNS and State Farm Hall through the day on April 8.

The research conference also includes Senior Art Show and Critiques from 3 to 4 p.m. in the Merwin and Wakeley Galleries of the Ames School of Art building. Senior art students who have participated in the senior critique program will talk about their work.

By Reilly Kasprak 17
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By Clement Therme | (The Conversation) |  

Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Iranian counterpart, Hassan Rouhani, will meet for the eighth time in four years from March 27 to 29. According to the Tehran Times, both sides are preparing more than ten documents for signing on various economic and political issues.

The meeting, set in Moscow, highlights the debate surrounding the real nature of post-Cold War relations between Moscow and Tehran.

According to Western  particularly neoconservative  strategists, there is a way to stop Russian-Iranian military cooperation in Syria. Along with the Israeli right wing, they believe that while Iran and Russia form a united front against overthrowing Bashar al-Assad, they do not see eye to eye on a diplomatic solution to end Syrias civil war.

For its part, Iran favours an alliance with the Lebanese Hezbollah and Shia militias largely made up of Pakistani, Afghan and Iraqi fighters. These non-government military groups fought on the ground to recapture Aleppo, a city emblematic of the revolt against the Syrian government.

In November 2016, military groups allied with Iran and the Syrian governments suffered between ten and 15 fatal casualties every day, according to personal interviews I conducted with French military officials at that time.

Russia, on the other hand, is keen to preserve Syrian state institutions and does not support the Shiite religious proselytism of some of these military groups, such as the Hezbollah and Shia militias.

Russia wants to remain a major player in Syria

But does that spell the end of the Russian-Iranian post-Cold War understanding? Several factors tend to suggest otherwise.

According to Middle East experts I met in Moscow last February, Russia has no interest in being a junior partner to the US in the war against Islamic State. And its keen to maintain a partnership with Tehran in which it appears as the dominant power.

Since the Soviet-Afghan War of the 1980s, Tehran and Moscow have a shared distrust of Western powers and their possible links with rebel Sunni Islamist groups.

And Russia is sceptical of a Trump administration that is already proving unpredictable. The consequence is likely to be a continuation of the Russian diplomatic strategy of entente with all countries in the region  Iran, Israel, and the Gulfs oil-rich kingdoms.

Russia will no doubt continue to leverage its relationship with Iran in its dealings with Washington to obtain concessions, such as the easing of economic sanctions targeting Moscow since the annexation of Crimea.

To be able to do so, it must reinforce and develop its cooperation with Iran, both in the region (fighting against terrorism) and in crucial strategic areas, such as civil nuclear activities. Russia is currently helping Iran build two new reactors for the Bushehr nuclear power plant on the Iranian gulf coast. And it has provided its S-300 anti-aircraft system to the country.

Faced with a Trump administration that appears anxious to drive a wedge between its Iranian and Russian rivals, Russia is more likely to take up the position of mediator it held during tensions between Iran and the West during George W. Bushs presidency (2000-2008).

Russia had then opposed both American threats to use force against Tehran in order to solve the nuclear question and Washingtons policy of unilateral sanctions against Iran. What has changed since Russia decided on military intervention in the Syrian civil war in 2015, is a bilateral effort between Russia and Iran to fight terrorism  Sunni jihadist groups, especially those Tehran labels takfiri (those who excommunicate other Muslims).

A new Middle East driven by Russia?

Above and beyond a circumstantial deepening of ties arising from the emergence of a new Middle East, Russian military presence in Syria has led these two countries into a new military alliance against Sunni jihadists. But the Russian military intervention in Syria also represents a challenge to Iranian military doctrine on regional security.

Since Irans 1979 Islamic revolution, which created a government centred around a religious power, Tehran has insisted on the need for Western Asian countries (the Iranian name for the Middle East) to reject all military interference from powers outside the region.

Iranian diplomats often make a distinction between so-called independent states, such as Iran, Russia and China, and those subservient to the United States, such as the oil-rich kingdoms of the Persian Gulf. Russian military intervention in Syria then constitutes a challenge to Iran, which opposes the international system dominated by major powers.

When Russia revealed in August 2016 that its armed forces had used the Noje airbase, just outside Hamadan in Iran, it provoked a controversy in the Islamic Republic as the countrys constitution prohibits the establishment of military bases on Iranian soil by foreign powers.

The chairman of the Iranian parliament, Ali Larijani, specified that the Russian air force only used the base temporarily, in order to bomb terrorists in Syria.

Despite the inherent limits of an asymmetrical partnership between a world power and a regional one, the Iranian political elite must be given their due for transforming the old Russian enemy into a partner, a feat which the Iranian communists from the Tudeh party failed to achieve in the time between the end of the second world war and their exit from the Iranian political stage in 1983.

Translated from the French by Alice Heathwood for Fast for Word.

Clement Therme, Research fellow, Ecole des Hautes Etudes en sciences sociales (EHESS)

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.



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Euronews: Russia and Iran agree to reduce their oil output
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By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) |  

Former National Security Adviser to president Trump, Lt. Gen. (ret.) Michael Flynn, has allegedly offered to testify before the House Intelligence Committee on Russias role in the US election, on condition that he is granted immunity from prosecution.

This development could be important, because Flynn was called by Russian analyst Vladimir Frolov, known for pro-Moscow journalism, one of primary channels of communication with the Trump team for the Russian government.

Frolovs assertion was given some weight by the reactions in Moscow to Flynns firing in mid-February, according to the Moscow Times:

Konstantin Kosachev, the head of the foreign affairs committee in the upper house of the Russian parliament, wrote that Russophobia had permeated the White House. Duma deputy Alexei Pushkov tweeted that it was not Flynn who was targeted but relations with Russia.

That such high level Russian government officials complained so bitterly about the loss of their asset, Flynn, is more than suspicious. Pushkov seems to have thought that US-Russian relations depended on Flynn being on the NSC.

Flynn had visited Moscow in 2015 and was seated with Vladimir Putin at a gala in celebration of the founding in 2000 of Russia Today, the Russian government-owned cable news channel. Flynn was allegedly paid tens of thousands of dollars for this appearance. Since he is a retired general, he should not have taken money from a foreign government and/or should have reported it, since officers can always be called back up.

Then there are allegations that Flynn began meeting with Russian ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak. After the Trump victory, which many believe was orchestrated by Russian cyber-cons, Flynn was in regular contact with Kislyak. He called him 5 times on Christmas Day. In a later telephone conversation, Flynn is alleged to have reassured Kislyak that new Obama sanctions would be reversed by the Trump administration.

The Moscow Times writes:

Russian analyst Dmitry Suslov says Flynns five phone conversations with the ambassador on the day of sanctions were nothing out of the ordinary. It was necessary for him to guarantee a smooth transition and devise a foreign policy for the administration, says Suslov.

Soon after Flynns resignation, on Feb. 20, Tatyana Stanovaya, director of the Analysis Department at the Center for Political Technologies, wrote at Politcom.ru, according to BBC Monitoring,  Michael Flynns resignation has come as a great disappointment to Russia, since his name was linked to some degree to hopes of a future warming of relations and a review of the sanctions regime.

On Feb. 23, Viktor Olevich wrote in Izvestia, according to BBC Monitoring, that Trump letting Flynn go was a sign of weakness. He added that Flynn believed that the US could not simultaneously confront China, Iran and other threats and also handle Russia. Olevich wrote,

In terms of Americas national interests Flynn was an advocate of detente in relations with Moscow . . . He saw opportunities for fruitful cooperation with Russia in the fight against Islamist terrorist groupings in the Middle East. At the same time, the retired general pursued the goal of driving a wedge between Moscow and Tehran, of detaching Russia from its strategic partners and allies.

So Flynn is alleged by this Russian pundit to have sought, by his contacts with Russia, to detach Moscow from Tehran and to free the US to concentrate on China.



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CBS Evening News:  Flynn offers to be interviewed provided he is shielded from unfair prosecution
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By IPS World Desk | (Inter Press Service) |  

Food security and nutrition levels in the Near East and North Africa have sharply deteriorated over the last five years, undermining the steady improvement achieved before 2010 when the prevalence of undernourishment, stunting, anaemia and poverty were decreasing, a new UN report warns.



According to the FAO Regional Overview of Food Insecurity in the Near East and North Africa, issued on March 27, the deterioration is largely driven by the spreading and intensity of conflicts and protracted crises.

The assessment made by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) using the Food Insecurity Experience Scale (FIES) shows that the prevalence of severe food insecurity in the adult population of the Near East and North Africa was close to 9.5 per cent in 2014-2015, representing approximately 30 million people.

The region is facing unprecedented challenges to its food security due to multiple risks arising from conflicts, water scarcity and climate change, said Abdessalam Ould Ahmed, FAO Assistant Director-General and Regional Representative for the Near East and North Africa.

War and conflicts are the worst enemies of food security,  Graziano da Silva

Countries of the region need to implement long-term and comprehensive sustainable water management to achieve the Sustainable Development Goal of ending hunger by 2030, he added. A peaceful and stable environment is an absolute pre-condition for farmers to respond to the challenges of water scarcity and climate change.

Wars, Conflicts, Worst Enemies of Food Security

Jose Graziano da Silva, FAO director general, said in a recent visit to Lebanon, We are reminded once again that war and conflicts are the worst enemies of food security.

Our own reports and other have described, sometimes in rather horrible detail, the unrelenting process through which the conflicts in the region are destroying peoples lives and livelihoods, disrupting agriculture production, increasing food prices, stoking fears and insecurity and triggering large-scale displacement of people and alarming flows of refugees.

Lebanon, a small country that has itself suffered the misfortunes of war and internal conflict, has courageously and generously hosted more than 1.5 million Syrian refugees, da Silva added.

To put that in perspective, thats the third of the countrys population, the proportional equivalent of the European Union taking in more than 170 million people The unprecedented influx of refugees has put extraordinary pressure on Lebanons economic and social infrastructure, its food security and its social cohesion.

According to FAO, the Syria crisis in particular has deepened during the period 2015-2016, leaving more than half of the population in need of food assistance and 4.8 million refugees, mostly in neighbouring countries. The numbers of food insecure and the internally displaced are also rising in Iraq and Yemen.

The Water Factor

Beyond conflicts and crises, the report argues that water scarcity and climate change are the most fundamental challenges to ending hunger, achieving food security, improving nutrition and promoting sustainable agriculture by 2030.

Water scarcity is the binding factor to agricultural production in the Near East and North Africa region and the driver of the regions dependency on food imports.

Building on the evidence accumulated in the framework of FAOs Regional Water Scarcity Initiative in the Near East and North Africa, the report shows that climate change is expected to affect food security in terms of availability, access, stability and utilisation. Most of the impacts of climate change will affect water availability.

The FAO Regional Overview underlines the urgency to develop and implement strategies for sustainable management of water resources and to adapt to the impact of climate change on water resources and agriculture.

It documents several positive experiences in sustainable management of water resources and climate change adaptation in the region and highlights the importance of accelerating investments aimed at improving water efficiency and water productivity as well as the need for a shift in cropping patterns towards less water-consuming crops.

The report explores other major options for the adaptation to climate change impacts on water and agriculture, including the need for designing and implementing social protection measures for building resilience of farmers to extreme events, cutting food losses and improving trade policies.

The report stresses the importance of building a strong evidence base for assessing the impact of climate change on food security and for the formulation of sound and flexible water adaptation measures and agricultural policies.

It calls for strengthened regional collaboration to face the massive challenge of water scarcity and climate change, building on the strong political will expressed by the leaders of the region and building on the positive experiences in many countries.

Ould Ahmed noted that, sustainable agriculture and water management should include strategies and policies to improve irrigation efficiency, establish sustainable ground water management, promote incentives for farmers to shift to crops with higher economic returns per drop, cut food losses and waste, and enhance resilience of vulnerable population and farmers to climate-induced shocks.

Achieving food security is still at hand, provided we take concerted efforts and make the right moves now.

Licensed from Inter Press Service



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VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA--(Marketwired - March 31, 2017) - Advantage Lithium Corp. (the "Company" or "Advantage Lithium") (TSX VENTURE:AAL)(OTCQX:AVLIF) is pleased to announce that it has agreed to assign its option over the 1,471 hectare Stella Marys Project, located in the Salinas Grandes Salar in Salta province, Argentina (the "MSR Option"), to LSC Lithium Corporation ("LSC") (TSX VENTURE:LSC). Advantage currently holds the MSR Option pursuant to an agreement with Minera Santa Rita SRL ("MSR") dated October 27, 2016 (the "MSR Option Agreement").

David Sidoo, President and CEO of Advantage Lithium, commented, "Stella Marys is a prospective project in a strategic location. This transaction allows us to monetize this asset, including a 0.5% royalty across the entire play pf 79,031 hectares, as LSC develops this considerable land package. The timing of the transaction is particularly beneficial as we prepare, with our partner, Orocobre, for an aggressive drill program at our advanced Cauchari project."

TERMS OF THE SALE OF STELLA MARYS PROJECT

LSC will acquire the MSR Option by:

making aggregate cash payments of approximately $740,000 to Advantage in reimbursement of option payments and related expenses previously paid by Advantage pursuant to the MSR Option Agreement; issuing 128,260 LSC common shares to Advantage as reimbursement for the 300,000 Advantage shares issued by Advantage to MSR.

LSC will thereafter have the right to acquire the Stella Marys Project pursuant to the exercise of the MSR Option prior to September 21, 2017 by:

making a cash payment of $650,000 to MSR; issuing to Advantage a number of LSC common shares (calculated on the basis of the proportionate closing prices of the LSC common shares and Advantage common shares on the trading day preceding the date of closing of the MSR Option exercise), as reimbursement for the issuance by Advantage of the 900,000 Advantage common shares to MSR in connection with the exercise of the MSR Option; and entering into a royalty agreement with Advantage with respect to a 2% royalty on the brine concentrate produced from the Stella Marys Project that will be granted by LSC to Advantage, calculated using the same methodology as used for the Salinas Grandes Royalty.

Advantage will receive a 0.5% royalty on the brine concentrate produced from Salinas Grandes Tenements, calculated using the same methodology applied by Orocobre and its affiliates for the calculation of the royalties paid by Orocobre or its affiliates to the provincial government of Jujuy for Orocobre's last two fiscal years (the "Salinas Grandes Royalty") regardless of any retroactive or future changes to such methodology made after December 31, 2016.

In the event the Company issues further shares then LSC will issue to AAL an equivalent number of LSC shares.

In addition, Advantage has agreed to: (a) a 10 year exclusion area covering the 10 km area from the external perimeter of any of the Salinas Grandes Tenements, and (b) a 10 year non-interference zone respecting all properties held by LSC located south of Rio Las Barros.

Closing of Transaction

The closings of the transactions with Orocobre and LSC Lithium Corporation are subject to satisfaction of various conditions precedent, which are typical of transactions of this nature, as well as the simultaneous closing of each transaction. These closings are scheduled for completion on or about April 30, 2017.

About Advantage Lithium Corp.

Advantage Lithium Corp. is a resource company specializing in the strategic acquisition, exploration and development of lithium properties and is headquartered in Vancouver, British Columbia. The common shares of the company are listed on the TSX Venture Exchange (TSX VENTURE:AAL), and the company is also traded on the OTCQX Best Market in the U.S. (OTCQX:AVLIF). The company has acquired a 100% interest in five projects in Argentina and up to a 75% interest in a sixth, called Cauchari. Cauchari is host to a near-surface estimated inferred resource of 230 million cubic metres of brine at 380 mg/l Lithium that equates to 470,000 tonnes of lithium carbonate (LCE), and a large exploration target of 5.6mt to 0.25mt of LCE and 19mt to 0.9 of KCL. Cauchari is located just 20 km south Orocobre's flagship Olaroz Lithium Facility. The Company is also earning an interest from Nevada Sunrise Gold Corp., in a portfolio of five lithium brine projects in the Clayton and Lida Valley regions of Nevada, USA, including 70% in Clayton NE. In addition, the Company's Stella Marys transaction with LSC Lithium Corporation (LSC) allows the Company to monetize this asset including a 0.5% royalty across the entire play of the 79,031 hectare LSC land package located in the Salinas Grandes Salar, in Salta province, Argentina.
MONTREAL, QUEBEC--(Marketwired - March 31, 2017) - Oceanic Iron Ore Corp. (TSX VENTURE:FEO) ("Oceanic", or the "Company") is pleased to announce receipt of an Engineering Procurement and Construction proposal "EPC Proposal" originating from Power Construction Corporation of China's subsidiary company Power China Huadong Engineering Company. ("Power China"). Preparation of the EPC Proposal has been supported by SNC-Lavalin Inc.

Su Qian, Business Development Manager, Power China Americas indicated: "We are pleased to submit our proposal to Oceanic in respect of further development of the Hopes Advance project. The effort which has been supported in cooperation by SNC-Lavalin Inc. provides a vivid example of the potential for company to company and nation to nation bilateral cooperation envisioned by President Xi and Prime Minister Trudeau during the G20 summit that was held in Hangzhou during the fall of 2016. Power China remains committed to further development of Oceanic's Hopes Advance project."

The EPC Proposal's scope of work, construction methodology, and the proposed capital costs, are not materially different from the conclusions derived in the Company's previously announced pre-feasibility study. They however remain subject to further review, refinement, and optimization, as well as negotiation in respect of a future EPC contract. The EPC proposal recommends advancing the project to a Front End Engineering Design ("FEED") stage where additional detail can be undertaken and applied in support of the future requirements for project financing.

Alan Gorman, President CEO added: "Oceanic has been impressed with the technical depth of Power China applied to the preparation of its proposal, and the cooperative support provided by SNC-Lavalin Inc., which has validated the conclusions derived in the Company's pre-feasibility study and are appreciative of the preliminary discussions that have been ongoing in respect of future off-take and financing. We have growing confidence that the relationship that has been developing with Power China is one that has the potential to crystallize shareholder value as it expands further with additional development within a market context that has seen a significant improvement in the benchmark pricing for iron ore over the course of the past year."

During the latter half of March as the integration of the Power China and SNC-Lavalin work was completed, Power China and Oceanic have continued discussions commenced in January with additional major Chinese banking institutions, in order to introduce the Hopes Advance project to these organizations with a forward looking view aimed at project financing arrangements. Power China and the Company will undertake a cooperative effort to secure funding for the FEED stage, among the next steps required to develop the Hopes Advance project further as the project's profile continues to be brought into focus with potential investors, off takers, and financing institutions.

With the recent decision of the Canadian government to participate in the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank ("AIIB"), Power China has proposed the Hopes Advance project for consideration at the scheduled One Belt One Road summit occurring this May in Beijing PRC.

About Power China:

The Power Construction Corporation of China was founded in September 2011. It provides a comprehensive and full-range of services from planning, investigation, designing, consulting, civil works construction to M&E installation and manufacturing services in the fields of hydropower, thermal power, new energy and infrastructure. Its business also extends into real estate, investment, finance, and O&M services.

The vision of Power China is to become a top global enterprise in renewable energy and the development of hydropower resources, a key player in the infrastructure sector, and a driving force in China's power and water conservancy industries, as well as an important participant in real estate development and operations.

Power China boasts world-leading EPC services in the development of hydropower, water works, thermal power, new energy, and transmission and distribution projects, in addition to the achievements in the fields of infrastructure, equipment manufacturing, real estate and investment.

Power China has world-class construction capacity, including the annual capacity of 300 million m3 of earth and rock cutting, 30 million m3 of concrete placement, 15,000 MW of installation of turbine-generator units, 1-million-ton of metal fabrication works, 5-million m3 of foundation grouting as well as 540,000 m3 of construction of impervious walls.

Power China possesses state-of-the-art technology in dam engineering and construction, installation of turbine-generator units, foundation design, investigation and construction of extra-large underground caverns, investigation, engineering and treatment of high earth/rock slopes, dredging and hydraulic fill works, construction of runways in airports, design and construction of thermal and hydropower plants, design and installation of power grids, and related equipment and hydraulic machinery.

Power China also has first-class capacity of scientific and technological innovation in hydropower, thermal power, and power transmission and transformation.

By the end of 2015, Power China had total assets of USD 77.1 billion and 200,000 employees. The annual revenue in 2015 was USD 43.6 billion. By the end of 2015, Power China performed 1,863 overseas projects in 116 countries in the fields of engineering construction, design consultation and equipment manufacturing. Power China ranked 253rd in the Fortune 500 in 2015.

OCEANIC IRON ORE CORP. (www.oceanicironore.com)
VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA--(Marketwired - March 29, 2017) - North American Nickel Inc. (TSX VENTURE:NAN) (OTCBB:WSCRF) (CUSIP: 65704T 108) (the "Company") is pleased to announce that it has been granted a watershed prospecting licence for the assessment and development of potential hydropower resources on its 100%-owned Maniitsoq nickel sulphide project in southwest Greenland. The Company intends to assess the watershed as a potential source of power for its Manitsoq project consistent with the emphasis by the Greenland Government on securing environmentally friendly energy sources for any industrial development, including mining.

The watershed of interest overlaps with the eastern flank of the Maniitsoq project area and is characterized by several sites with potential for hydropower development (Figure 1). The Company is currently reviewing the capacity of Greenlandic and other corporations to assist with the watershed prospecting activities planned to begin in June of 2017.

The licence was awarded by the Ministry of Industry, Labour, Trade and Energy of the Greenland Government, is renewable for a further three years and can be upgraded to an exploitation licence.

North American Nickel is engaged in the continued exploration for economic nickel sulphide deposits at its Maniitsoq project in southwestern Greenland.

About the Company

The Company is a mineral exploration company with 100% owned properties in Maniitsoq, Greenland and Sudbury, Ontario.

The Maniitsoq property in Greenland is a Camp scale project comprising 2,985 square kilometres covering numerous high-grade nickel-copper sulphide occurrences associated with norite and other mafic-ultramafic intrusions of the Greenland Norite Belt (GNB). The belt is greater than 75 kilometres long and situated along, and near, the southwest coast of Greenland accessible from the existing Seqi deep water port (see the Company's news release dated January 19, 2015) with an all year round shipping season and abundant hydro-electric potential.

The Company's Post Creek/Halcyon property in Sudbury is strategically located adjacent to the past producing Podolsky copper-nickel-platinum group metal deposit of KGHM International Ltd. The property lies along an interpreted extension of the Whistle Offset embayment structure. Such geological structures host major Ni-Cu-PGM deposits and producing mines within the Sudbury Camp.
LONDON, ENGLAND--(Marketwired - March 31, 2017) - Condor Gold (AIM:CNR) ('Condor', 'Condor Gold' or 'the Company') is pleased to announce that, following a Placing which raised 5.242 million (See RNS dated 20th February 2017), work is now underway on a 10,000 m drilling programme for 2017 at the La India Project, Nicaragua (the "La India Project"). This will have dual objectives, being (i) resource expansion- to increase the existing mineral resource (18 Mt at 4.0 g/t Au for 2.31 Moz gold) over the La India Project, and (ii) scout drilling, which hopes to identify new resources hosted in additional veins sets on the 313 km2 Project and demonstrate a major Gold District.

Resource Expansion

In accordance with the first objective, Condor has completed approximately 360 m of a 2,000 m drilling programme, which has commenced on the Mestiza Vein Set ('Mestiza'). This will test a historic Soviet mineral resource. If successful, it is expected that further drilling of about 4,000 m would be needed to convert the majority of the Soviet mineral resource to a NI 43-101-compliant Inferred Mineral Resource. This is significant for four reasons:

Soviet-backed drilling in 1991 estimated a Soviet-style mineral resource of 2,392 kt at 10.2 g/t gold for 785,694 oz gold at Mestiza (Table 2). Condor has used the Soviet data, and subsequent drilling undertaken by Canadian companies, to plan a drill programme to convert the Soviet resource to Western standards. Mestiza already hosts a NI 43-101-compliant mineral resource of 1,490 kt at 7.47 g/t for 333,000 oz gold (Table 1). However, this is excluded from the current Pre-Feasibility Study and Preliminary Economic Assessments at La India Project. There is a high possibility of bringing additional high grade gold from Mestiza into a future mine plan, feeding a centralised processing plant. The current 2,000 m drill programme is relatively shallow, with 18 drill holes mostly less than 100 m. Furthermore, the existing resource is open along strike in both directions and at depth. The shallow nature of the resource suggests it could be added early on to the mine plan, enhancing the production profile and economics of the Project.

Table 1 Mestiza Vein Set NI 43-101 Mineral Resource Estimate

SRK NI-43-101 resource estimate (30-09-2014) Vein Category Tons (kt) Grade (g/t) Au (oz) Espinito Inferred 200 7.7 50,000 Buenos Aires Jicaro Inferred 210 8.0 53,000 Tatiana Inferred 1,080 6.6 230,000 TOTAL 1,490 7.5 333,000

Table 2 Mestiza Vein Set Soviet GKZ Mineral Resource Estimate (including the above NI-43- 101 resources)

Soviet GKZ mineral resource estimate (1991) Vein Category Tons (kt) Grade (g/t) Au (oz) Espinito C1,C2,P1 353 9.8 112,013 San Pablo P1 39 12.2 15,338 Buenos Aires Jicaro C2, P1 317 16.8 171,489 Tatiana C2, P1, P2 1,682 9.0 486,855 TOTAL 2,392 10.2 785,694

Note: The numbers in Table 1, Table 2 and Figure 1 have been rounded where appropriate.

Scout Drilling

In line with the second objective, and as announced on 27 January 2017, as part of a 4,000 m scout drilling campaign, drilling at the Cacao Prospect has been completed. A total of 720 m of drilling demonstrated a significant dilational vein, below near surface phreatic breccia and sinter. Drill intercepts included 7.85 m at 3.75 g/t, and 7.85 m at 2.95 g/t gold. There is the prospect of a much larger gold resource and future drilling is planned.

Furthermore, Condor has completed 6 drill holes, for a total of 945 m, on the Andrea Vein. This is an entirely grassroots discovery, with generally low grades at surface and scattered high grade grab samples (in excess of 30 g/t gold). The principal vein, and veins which split from it, have a strike length of at least 2.2 km. It forms a zone of anomalous soil and rock geochemistry (the 'Andrea Corridor', see RNS dated 29th January 2017) with a much greater strike length. The drill program, with a man-portable rig because of poor access roads, tested for potential La India-style mineralization (an epithermal vein with a boiling zone and high gold grade).

The 6 relatively shallow holes on the Andrea Vein encountered abundant zeolite veinlets, minerals typical of the upper parts of epithermal systems (above the boiling zone) . The northern holes hit barren quartz/carbonate veins, but the deepest, and southernmost, hole encountered significant gold mineralization, with 5.1 m @ 1.9 g/t gold. This began at 186 m depth. Drilling at Andrea was suspended because of the lack of water required for drilling. Future drilling is planned to follow up on these encouraging results and will probably recommence in the wet season, expected to be in 6 months' time. It will target the southern portion and be deeper.

The drill rig also completed 429 m drilling at Real De la Cruz and 664 m drilling at Tatescame. Drill results from Real de la Cruz demonstrated poor continuity of the high-grade veins, though it may still have bulk mineable potential. The drilling at Tatescame gave poor results and it has been downgraded. It effectively demonstrated that the known vein, with grades up to at least 10 g/t gold, terminates towards the West.

Several new scout drilling targets have been identified and are being ranked in order of priority. The market will be updated as these are drilled.

For further information please visit www.condorgold.com.

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About Condor Gold plc:

Condor Gold plc was admitted to AIM on 31st May 2006. The Company is a gold exploration and development company with a focus on Central America.

Condor completed a Pre-Feasibility Study (PFS) and two Preliminary Economic Assessments (PEA) on La India Project in Nicaragua in December 2014. The PFS details an open pit gold mineral reserve of 6.9 Mt at 3.0 g/t gold for 675,000 oz gold producing 80,000 oz gold p.a. for 7 years. The PEA for the open pit only scenario details 100,000 oz gold production p.a. for 8 years whereas the PEA for a combination of open pit and underground details 140,000 oz gold production p.a. for 8 years. La India Project contains a total attributable mineral resource of 18.08 Mt at 4.0 g/t for 2.31 M oz gold and 2.68 M oz silver at 6.2 g/t to the CIM Code.

In El Salvador, Condor has an attributable 1,004,000 oz gold equivalent at 2.6 g/t JORC compliant resource. The resource calculations are compiled by independent geologists SRK Consulting (UK) Limited for Nicaragua and Ravensgate and Geosure for El Salvador.
Migrant women walk in Namhae, South Gyeongsang Province, as they prepare for the Lunar New Year holiday. / Korea Times file



By Eom Da-sol

Migrant women in Korea who suffer from domestic violence prefer to call a consultation center rather than the police, according to Gyeongnam Provincial Police Agency (GPPA) Thursday.

Last year, the South Gyeongsang Province branch of 1366 Center  the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family women's emergency hotline center  received 870 calls from migrant women reporting domestic violence.

But the police agency received only 135 calls.

The number of migrant women who called the hotline center about violence has nearly doubled year-on-year from 557.

"Domestic violence is not easy for the female victims to report to police because of the women's status in the nation," the GPPA's Chae Kyung-duk told the Gyeongnam Province Daily.

The migrant women find it difficult to call police because of language difficulties, lack of information, or a change of visa status in the case of divorce.

GPPA has made domestic violence in multicultural households a top priority this year.

The police agency Thursday held a policy gathering at the GPPA office in Changwon, South Gyeongsang Province, to discuss policies to prevent domestic violence in multicultural households.

"Migrant women are very vulnerable in their households," GPPA chief officer Park Jin-woo said during the gathering.

"This problem cannot be solved by the police agency alone, but with the cooperation of the society."
Republic Monument to be ready in 2 months

The much-talked about Republic Monument, being built on the eastern side of Narayanhiti Palace in the Capital, will be completed by the end of this May.
Ruling parties, Madhesi Morcha holding meeting at Baluwatar

Leaders of ruling Nepali Congress (NC) and CPN (Maoist Centre) and agitating Samyukta Loktantrik Madhesi Morcha (SLMM) are holding a meeting at Baluwatar to discuss contemporary political issues on Friday.
By Jordan Sigmon

Since the turn of the century, winners of the Florida Derby (GI) have gone on to win six Triple Crown races  five Kentucky Derby winners and a Belmont Winner. It has also served as an important stallion-making race, producing the likes of Empire Maker, Harlans Holiday, Scat Daddy and Quality Road.

On a Derby Trail muddied with injuries, antics, and disappointments, Peacock Racing Stables LLCs Gunnevera has been the face of consistency this year. As talented Gunnevera was (more)

For complete Kentucky Derby Future Book odds, go to:
The expected timing of the rebound varied from country to country, however, and was largely tied to the possibility of stronger prices for long steel products.

For now, demand for Turkish and Taiwanese rebar has been reported to be weak. Indian long steel producers were said to be enjoying better buying, even though local rebar prices have recently started to stagnate.

Turkey deep-sea imports

Metal Bulletins Turkish import scrap price indices for deep-sea HMS 1&2 (80:20) material gained a total of about $8 per tonne over the past week, as sources said that the rebound was probably just starting.

This followed a fall of $41 per tonne that had taken place over the period since March 9.

However, some local mills sources expressed pessimism.

Actually, there is no reason for the rise in the scrap prices  the rebar market in Turkey is really bad, and I am not optimistic, a source on the producers side said earlier this week.

Steel prices will need time to adjust to the higher scrap [costs], a trader said.

A rise of $5-15 per tonne in domestic offers for Turkish rebar was heard on Thursday.

However, Metal Bulletins price assessments for Turkish export rebar and wire rod, published on the same day, moved down by $10-30 per tonne week-on-week, with market participants citing sluggish demand [LINK].

There was just one deal understood to be concluded this week in the Turkish import deep-sea scrap market.

A US supplier was heard to have sold a cargo to an Izmir steel mill, comprising 20,000 tonnes of HMS 1&2 (80:20) at $270 per tonne cfr and 20,000 tonnes of shredded scrap at $275 per tonne cfr.

We are hearing that suppliers are not in hurry to offer and prices for USA-origin HMS 1&2 (80:20) have already reached $280 per tonne cfr, a trader said.

Metal Bulletins daily index for Northern Europe-origin scrap finished the week at $261.66 per tonne cfr Turkey.

The daily index for USA-origin HMS 1&2 (80:20) closed at $269.80 per tonne cfr on Friday.

Turkey short-sea imports

Prices in the Turkish A3-grade scrap short-sea import market have remained largely stable over the past week.

Russia was heard offering its A3 scrap at $270 per tonne cfr Turkey, stable week-on-week.

To reach breakeven, many Rostov-based A3 sellers are offering $270 per tonne cfr, a trader explained.

The workable price was assessed at $257-260 per tonne cfr, up from $250 per tonne cfr last week.

A steel mill in the Marmara region was heard to have booked an undisclosed quantity of Romania-origin A3 scrap at $252 per tonne cfr Turkey.

That was down from the offer for similar material from the same source location, heard at $265 per tonne cfr last week.

Taiwan imports

Import prices for containerised HMS-grade ferrous scrap in Taiwan have plunged over the past week, leaving market participants wondering whether they have bottomed out.

Metal Bulletins assessment of import prices for USA-origin HMS 1&2 (80:20) was $255-258 per tonne cfr Taiwan on Friday March 31, down by $13-17 per tonne from $268-275 per tonne cfr in the preceding week.

Scrap cargoes from the West Coast of the USA were sold at prices as low as $255 per tonne cfr in Taiwan over the past week, even though most offers were hovering around $260 per tonne cfr and higher, buyer and trading sources told Metal Bulletin.

At least one deal was heard concluded at just below $260 per tonne cfr earlier in the week, before some suppliers started to accept $255 per tonne cfr, one market participant said.

Meanwhile, a major electric arc furnace mill has been out of the import market for the whole week, as its executives were evaluating whether its stockpiles matched orders for rebar and other long steel products.

It has been very hard to sell finished steel products, a source at the mill said on Friday.

Another buyer source confirmed that local rebar sales in Taiwan had been weak. He was expecting prices for US cargoes of HMS 1&2 (80:20) to fall to $250 per tonne cfr soon.

Not everyone shared this view, however.

I think the market just hit the bottom and [will] rebound to $260 [per tonne cfr], a trader said.

Two other traders also expected prices to stabilise, since there was growing resistance from US suppliers to continued reductions of their selling prices.

Scrap purchasing activity is expected to be low next week, as Taiwan will break for public holidays on Monday and Tuesday.

India imports

Metal Bulletins index for shredded scrap imported into India closed at $299.94 per tonne cfr Nhava Sheva on Friday, up by $2.10 per tonne from $302.04 per tonne cfr one week ago.

Scrap prices have fallen but container lines have their increased freight [rates], one trader explained.

One deal for 3,000 tonnes of UK-origin shredded material was heard at $305 per tonne cfr Nhava Sheva, while US material was heard sold at $290-305 per tonne cfr.

Offers for material from the UK, USA and Europe were heard in the range of $290-300 per tonne cfr Nhava Sheva.

Market sources were optimistic that higher prices for Indian imported scrap would be heard soon. This was due to good finished steel prices and demand, a scrap seller said.

Steel mills are making money  conversion from scrap to steel has high [margins], the source said.

[The period from] February to April is always strong for India; May and June will be the testing point, he added.

Juan Weik in Singapore and Lee Allen in London contributed to this report.
Were excited to announce that metalbulletin.com is now part of fastmarkets.com.

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Williams-Sonoma, Inc. operates as an omni-channel specialty retailer of various products for home. It offers cooking, dining, and entertaining products, such as cookware, tools, electrics, cutlery, tabletop and bar, outdoor, furniture, and a library of cookbooks under the Williams Sonoma Home brand, as well as home furnishings and decorative accessories under the Williams Sonoma lifestyle brand; and furniture, bedding, lighting, rugs, table essentials, and decorative accessories under the Pottery Barn brand. The company also provides home decor products under the West Elm brand; kids accessories under the Pottery Barn Kids brand; and an organic bedding to multi-purpose furniture under the Pottery Barn Teen brand. In addition, it offers made-to-order lighting, hardware, furniture, and home decors inspired by history under the Rejuvenation brand; and women's and men's accessories, travel, entertaining and bar, home decor, and seasonal items under the Mark and Graham brand, as well as operates a 3-D imaging and augmented reality platform for the home furnishings and decor industry. The company markets its products through e-commerce websites, direct-mail catalogs, and retail stores. It operates 544 stores comprising 502 stores in 41states, Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico; 20 stores in Canada; 19 stores in Australia; 3 stores in the United Kingdom; and 139 franchised stores, as well as e-commerce websites in various countries in the Middle East, the Philippines, Mexico, South Korea, and India. Williams-Sonoma, Inc. was founded in 1956 and is headquartered in San Francisco, California.
SSB obstructs fencing on Nepali territory

The Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB), the Indian border security force, has objected to the fencing activities carried out in some 80 meters north on the Nepal side of the Nepal-India border from Rajapur based the border pillar number 86 and 87.
The organisers of the Tourism Booster project have paid a courtesy call on the Minister of Tourism, Arts and Culture, Catherine Abelema Afeku to formally brief her on the event which takes place from April 23 to April 29.

The Tourism Booster seminars are a three-city programme for tourism managers, owners of hospitality facilities and players in the tourism industry.

Addressing the meeting, the minister commended the organisers and assured them of the ministrys support.

She advised the organisers to ensure that the conference is affordable so that it will be of benefit to tourism operators in the country who require such programmes to develop their businesses.

Nana Seiwaa Osbourne, the Managing Director of Nasoa Services assured the Minister of her teams determination to make the event a practical one to benefit all participants.

Bice Osei Kuffour (Obour), a director of Nasoa Services said the company hopes to make the Tourism Booster an annual event to provide tailor made programmes for the Tourism sector.

Present at the meeting were members of the Nasoa Services team, Nana Yaa Sarpong and Ahuma Bosco Ocansey.

Tourism Booster is organized by Nasoa Services, a tourism and event management company, and will take place in Kumasi on April 24, Cape Coast on April 26 and in Ada on April 28.

The seminar will feature speaker specialists from the United States of America who will take the participants through what it takes to develop their tourism brand and monetise the brand.

The theme for the programme is Enhancing the Capacity of Operators in the Hostpitality Industry in Ghana for Increaserd Tourism Inflows and it is being organized in collaboration with the Ministry of Tourism, Arts and Culture, Ghana Tourism Federation, the Ghana Tourism Authority with support from the Public Affairs Department of the United States of America.

Story by Ghana | Myjoyonline.com
31.03.2017 LISTEN

Lil Fred is back after the release of his own cover for 'Runtown' Smash hit single Mad Over You which he calls "African Woman" Lil Fred is out with his first official single for the year.

And he calls this one "Shey You Know" Produce by Prolific. Download enjoy and share.

DOWNLOAD AUDIO

DOWNLOAD LINK

https://my.notjustok.com/track/download/id/200143


The leaders of the Film Producers Association of Ghana (FiPAG) on Wednesday paid a courtesy call on the newly-appointed Police Commander for the Ashanti Region, DCOP Ken Yeboah.

The visit was to congratulate DCOP Yeboah on his appointment and to introduce activities of the film makers to him.

The police is there to maintain peace for all of us, so as a group of people who do business mostly in the Ashanti Region, it makes sense that we build a good relationship with the police so we all cooperate to work together. The commander was very good in understanding us and we would certainly have a great time working with him in the Ashanti Region, he is a good man, Eugene 'Wofa U' Morrat, Assistant Secretary of FiPAG, told NEWS-ONE.

He added, We spoke about the challenges of piracy where we would need some police assistance and also how to bring out movies that would help boost the image of the police, fight crime, make people more security conscious and basically films that would educate society for the right reasons.

The FiPAG team comprised of its president, Augustine 'Idikoko' Abbey, the vice president, Daniel Kwadwo, and the PRO, Nana Yaa Serwaa.
Tonight, Adom TV will be presented with Ghana's most premiered television network award at this year's edition of Brand Excellence Awards to be held at the Christ the King Hall in Accra.

Adom TV which offers a variety of programmes, live event coverage, series, documentaries and other hope-filled content is being honoured for its immense contributions to the development of the creative arts industry in Ghana.

This event which is in its seventh edition is being organised to honour businesses that are making everything possible to improve the value of their brands. It is expected to attract a number of personalities, as well as organisations.

In an interview, Abena Yiadom, Channel Manager of Adom TV, disclosed that Adom TV was chosen for the award because the station has, over the years, carved a niche for itself as one of the country's television stations that provides its viewers with unique blend of good educative and entertaining programmes.

I'm incredibly proud of my television channel and the work we've done over the past years. It is an honour to be recognised for the good work done, she told BEATWAVES.

According to her, Adom TV which was established to promote culture, tradition and everything entertaining has all the varieties on its network to satisfy its viewers.

She disclosed that Adom TV has won a number of awards, including the Most Influential Media Outfit at the Africa Day Business Forum held at the plush Grand Elysee Hamburg Hotel in Hamburg in 2016.
31.03.2017 LISTEN

The former Commissioner of the Commission for Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ), Justice Emile Short, is quoted by some media outlets as saying that the appointment of a Special Prosecutor should not be left to the discretion of the President, noting that it must be subjected to a consultative process before his/her appointment.

That person should not be appointed by the President, because it will not give the appearance of independence if that person is appointed by the President. I think that what can be done is to have a committee that composes of representatives from certain recognisable professional institutions, like the Bar Association, Christian Council, Trades Union Congress, etc., the distinguished human rights advocate was quoted as saying.

The former Ashanti Regional Coordinator of the defunct Alliance For Change (AFC), Nana Nanabanyin Ninsin-lmbeah II, has, however, queried Emile Short's prescription, wondering if the present appointee by the President to the position as Special Prosecutor falls short of Short's prescription and why. If he doesn't fall short, then why this prescription after H.E. Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has appointed Lawyer Akoto Ampaw to the position, he asked.

Free speech is part and parcel of democratic tenets, Nanabanyin Ninsin-lmbeah is, therefore, entitled to his opinion on the proposal made by Mr Emile Short. The Chronicle is, however, unhappy with his attempt to create the impression that the former CHRAJ boss had come out with the suggestion because of the appointment of Mr. Akoto Ampaw as the Special Prosecutor.

To us, at The Chronicle, Mr Emile Short made important proposal that must dispassionately be debated, instead of limiting it to the personality who has supposedly been appointed to the position. It is undeniable fact that the 1992 Constitution has given unfettered powers to the president of the day to make all appointments. This, in our opinion, is not the best practice we should follow, but because the constitution was drafted in a military era, all these provisions were smuggled into it.

The Chronicle does not understand why, for instance, the president should be allowed to appoint the Chief Justice and the Chairman or Chairperson of the Electoral Commission (EC). The CJ presides over the judiciary which is supposed to keep the government in check. The EC boss, on his/her part organises polls for the election of the President and his vice.

With the current arrangement, the presumption is that the president of the day would appoint a CJ that would favour him or her, when cases involving the government are sent to the courts. In the case of the EC, one can also extrapolate that the president of the day would appoint someone who would favour him during elections.

The best way to avoid this controversy is to take the president's hands off these appointments to ensure complete neutrality. The Judicial Council, which is a powerful body represented by independent minded professionals, can, for instance, be given the powers to appoint the CJ. The head of the EC can also be appointed by civil society groups such as the Institute of Economic Affairs, Institute of Democratic Governance, Centre for Democratic Development (CDD), and a host of others that have no affiliation with the government of the day.

Clearly, if these appointments are made by the bodies we have suggested, the issue of bias would be relegated to the background. This is the angle we believe Mr Emile Short is coming from. Mr Akoto Ampaw is an accomplished lawyer whose credentials cannot be disputed by any fair-minded person, but the issue here is about the mode of appointment to the position and not his personality. The New Patriotic Party (NPP) itself promised to appoint an independent prosecutor, because of the perception that the Attorney General is a member of the executive and cannot, therefore, be seen to be prosecuting his or her own people at the law courts.

What will, therefore, be the difference, if the president, after identifying the loopholes, goes ahead to appoint the independent prosecutor? It is based on this that we are supporting the call made by Mr. Emile Short for Ghanaians to dispassionately debate the issue and come out with a solution that would address the concern.

Where possible, another constitutional amendment process should be initiated to amend the Constitution, and give the power to appoint the CJ and the EC boss to the independent bodies we have proposed. The current issue about the appointment of the Special Prosecutor (SP) could also be factored into the equation.

The SP could be appointed now by the president, but if the amendment of the Constitution, as we have suggested, is carried through, the new body that would be mandated to do so can then come in to make the appointment.
31.03.2017 LISTEN

The Minister for Business Development, Ibrahim Mohammed Awal says the ministry will be incorpo rating Melcom, Ghana's most survived biggest shop outlet module to support businesses in the country.

He explained that the Melcom module is an envious business plan that if the nation adopts will support expansion of businesses across the country to create direct jobs to employ our teeming unemployed youth.

Mr. Awal, during an interaction with management of Melcom Tuesday, March 28, 2017, at the ministry said government is in anticipation to address challenges of businesses, because its sees the private sector as a companion.

The minister added that the government in recent tax cuts in the 2017 budget was to provide relief for businesses overburdened by taxes, adding that was why we have shifted our emphasis from taxes to production.

He said the government was placing more emphasizes on the private sector, as the Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) constitute 92 per cent of businesses in the country.

Mr. Awal's invitation to Melcom's management was also to dialogue with the shopping outlet that has 36 shopping centres and workforce of over 2,000 -to identify some problems that stifle the progress of their business.

Remeal Sadwani, Joint Manger, Melcom Group of Companies complained bitterly about difficulties involved in acquiring business permit, land encroachment and registering of land title in the country.

Godwin Avenorbgo, the Melcom Group Communications Director added that businesses cannot grow if there are no lands for development of infrastructure to take place and people constantly encroach on the little land that had been secured by the company.

The Minister gave them an assurance that by the end of the year land acquisition and registration, and business permit and registration would be synchronized to clear all the bottlenecks that hamper enterprises.

He promised government's willingness to assist Melcom to expand to additional forty districts in the country.

Also, he used the opportunity to announce the ministry's plan to hunt for talents at the various universities and higher institutions of learning, to develop their entrepreneur skills to enable them establish their own businesses.

By Bernice Bessey
31.03.2017 LISTEN

Following reports of the havoc caused by activities of illegal miners also known as 'galamsey' pressure Group, OccupyGhana, has joined the fight against illegal mining in a bid to ensure that the menace is curbed.

The pressure group has thus declared the month of April as #RedApril to create awareness about the galamsey menace and to also empower Ghanaians to speak out against galamsey.

OccupyGhana in a statement said it deployed a team to ascertain the extent of the effects of galamsey, adding that the team's findings portrayed a dire picture which if unchecked, could destroy the country's future.

In October 2016, OccupyGhana sent a team to the Tarkwa area to study and report on Galamsey activities. The OG Team's report paints a dire picture of the dangerous mix of a vibrant 'Galamsey Economy' that exists unrestrained and unchecked and in blatant disregard of the law, a huge industry organised through collusive effort between chiefs, other influential people in society such as politicians, law enforcement officers, farmers and the unemployed (now financed and equipped by Chinese operators and their Ghanaian front-men or competitors), the ruthless excavation of riverbeds and farms in the search for gold, the ruin of large rivers and streams, lakes and other water bodies (possibly permanently), the creation of gaping holes and concealed residue of mining activity left behind as death-traps, chemical residue that poison the earth and water, and the severe health challenges caused by Galamsey to its actors and others. Ghana is thus, not only being cursed with a future of thirst but also, exposure to cancerous diseases caused by the consumption of food grown on toxic land, the statement added.

According to OccupyGhana, Ghana is currently sitting on a time-bomb that is waiting to explode  the desertification, deforestation and degradation of our land, erosion, pollution of rivers and other water bodies, and poor waste management. This cannot be allowed to continue for even a day more.

Currently, some water treatment plants have been shut down over activities of illegal miners, which have rendered water bodies from which the plants harvest water for processing useless.

Watchers of the sector have lamented that if such activities are not stopped, Ghana may soon be importing water from neighboring countries.

The galamsey menace has also led to the destruction of many farmlands, which serve as livelihood for a number of families.

The Minister of Lands and Natural Resources, Peter Amewu has subsequently given illegal miners within the country a three week ultimatum to halt their activities.

OccupyGhana in its statement said it will soon present its findings to the appropriate authorities for redress.

Below is the full statement from OccupyGhana:

OCCUPYGHANA DECLARES #REDAPRIL IN THE FIGHT AGAINST GALAMSEY

OccupyGhana has studied the Galamsey phenomenon from all possible angles (social, economic, medical, legal etc.), and has concluded that there is and can be no conceivable justification for illegal mining to persist in Ghana. OccupyGhana therefore calls on the Government to take immediate steps to,

(i) stop, prevent and then regulate all currently unlicensed and unregulated mining,

(ii) explore the provision of gainful, alternative employment to persons engaged in Galamsey,

(iii) support mass education on the Galamsey menace, particularly through local civil society, and

(iv) be mindful of the potential national security threat that Galamsey poses.

In October 2016, OccupyGhana sent a team to the Tarkwa area to study and report on Galamsey activities. The OG Team's report paints a dire picture of the dangerous mix of a vibrant 'Galamsey Economy' that exists unrestrained and unchecked and in blatant disregard of the law, a huge industry organised through collusive effort between chiefs, other influential people in society such as politicians, law enforcement officers, farmers and the unemployed (now financed and equipped by Chinese operators and their Ghanaian front-men or competitors), the ruthless excavation of riverbeds and farms in the search for gold, the ruin of large rivers and streams, lakes and other water bodies (possibly permanently), the creation of gaping holes and concealed residue of mining activity left behind as death-traps, chemical residue that poison the earth and water, and the severe health challenges caused by Galamsey to its actors and others. Ghana is thus, not only being cursed with a future of thirst but also, exposure to cancerous diseases caused by the consumption of food grown on toxic land.

Before our very eyes, we are seeing a time-bomb that is waiting to explode  the desertification, deforestation and degradation of our land, erosion, pollution of rivers and other water bodies, and poor waste management. This cannot be allowed to continue for even a day more.

As we conclude our Report for submission to the relevant authorities, we hereby declare the entire month of April as #RedApril. We encourage all well-meaning and concerned Ghanaians, throughout the month, to create awareness and speak out against Galamsey. Let us then observe each Friday in April as a #RedFriday and wear some red apparel to reflect the sorry, new colour of our hitherto pristine water bodies, caused by Galamsey and as an optical and visual reminder to the Government that our eyes are red in our demand for immediate steps to reverse this trend.

#RedApril

#RedFriday

#StopGalamsey

#GalawayGalamsey



By: Godwin A. Allotey/citifmonline.com/Ghana

Follow @AlloteyGodwin
UML is the only patriotic party: UML Chair Oli

The main opposition party CPN-UML Chairman KP Sharma has Oli claimed that his party is the only party to think about the welfare of nation.
The Member of Parliament for Ningo Prampram says the Minority will fight ensure every MP is accorded the deserved rights and privileges. The Minority, he said, will not be cowed by anyone.

Speaking after a scuffle ensued in Parliament Thursday after the release of the Joe Ghartey report on a bribery allegation by Bawku Central MP, Mahama Ayariga, he claimed the Majority members accosted some Minority MPs after sitting was adjourned.

Mr Ayariga was found guilty of contempt of Parliament by the Joe Ghartey Committee.

Joe Ghartey, Chair of the committee constituted to investigate the allegations stated on the floor of Parliament that Ayariga failed to adduce any evidence to substantiate his allegations against members of the Appointments Committee of Parliament.

He said everything Ayariga said was nothing more than rumours, adding a "multiplicity of rumours does not constitute a fact."

The Joe Ghartey committee was constituted after the allegations by the Bawku Central MP Mahama Ayariga that the Chairman of the Appointment Committee Joe Osei Owusu had given GH3,000 each to minority members of the committee through the Minority Chief Whip, Mohammed Muntaka Mubarak, to approve the Energy Minister-designate at the time.

Ayariga had told an Accra-based radio Station that the money was given to the Minority Chief Whip Muntaka Mubarak for onward distribution to the members of the Minority.

A committee was set up to investigate the matter. The five-member committee chaired by Joe Ghartey has other members including Ben Abdallah Banda Offinso South MP, Ama Pomaa Boateng, Juaben MP, Benson Tongo Baba Talensi MP, and Magnus Kofi Amoatey, Yilo Krobo MP.

Joe Ghartey said the most crucial element in any allegations is evidence but there was none in Ayariga's testimony even though there has been a forest of rumours on the matter.

He said no amount of rumours can turn an issue into a fact and chided Mahama Ayariga for proceeding to the press to comment on rumours.

The Committee, he reiterated found Ayariga guilty of contempt of Parliament and read possible sanctions which may include an impeachment from Parliament.

He, however, said the committee's recommendation was that Mr. Ayariga renders an unqualified apology to Parliament.

The Speaker of Parliament Prof Mike Ocquaye, therefore, asked the member to apologise but Mahama Ayariga had concerns.

He said under the Standing Orders of Parliament based on which the Joe Ghartey Committee was formed, he did not think that the committee had the powers to make findings of contempt against him.

"Mr Speaker if you say I should apologise, I apologise," he said heatedly.

The Ningo MP said after the report was presented, they expected that the Speaker of parliament to call the subject of the report to make his comment adding although Mr Ayariga had his hands up, he did not catch the eye of the Speaker.

"Subsequent to that he was given the opportunity to rise and make his point where he drew the Speaker's attention to order 191 of our Standing Order," he said

Order 191 of the Standing Orders of Parliament gives the House the power to appoint a special or ad-hoc committee to investigate any matter of public importance.

He said this does not clothe the Joe Ghartey Committee with the powers to make a finding of contempt which is the preserve of the Privileges Committee.

"To pass judgement of contempt against Ayariga is a lame conclusion to arrive at and he has raised that question whether the Committee has the powers to under order 191."

Sam George believes that is a matter that the Speaker of Parliament has to consider adding "secondly he also raised the issue with the burden of proof, the Committee used the criminal standard. However, in the conduct of their investigation, they did not engage or use the criminal standard."

Sam George said the mixture of two systems shows that the Bawku MP has a legitimate point.

"Members of the other side passed very unnecessary comments and made very unparliamentary comments. Indeed, Minister for Education insulted Alhassan Suhuyini and it raised tensions in the House.

According to him, after the Speaker left the House, the members of the Majority rose and came over to the Minority side and started accosting them.

He believes some Majority members see themselves as more important than others even though all MPs represent their constituents in the House.

Watch the video below:



Story by Ghana | Myjoyonline.com
Washington (AFP) - President Donald Trump has boosted the US military's authority to step up air strikes in the fight against Islamist insurgents in Somalia, the Defense Department said.

According to a Pentagon official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, the new leeway accorded to the military will mean they no longer will have to justify a decision to launch air strikes, potentially leading to more aggressive bombardments.

The expanded powers also will give greater autonomy in decision-making on air strikes to the head of US forces in Africa, General Thomas Waldhauser.

"The president has approved a Department of Defense proposal to provide additional precision fires in support" of the African Union Mission in Somalia and Somali security forces operations," said Navy Captain Jeff Davis, a Pentagon spokesman, in a statement.

The forces are fighting to defeat Al-Shabaab militants, a jihadist group linked to Al-Qaeda that was forced out of the capital in 2011 by African Union troops but still controls parts of the country.

"The additional support provided by this authority will help deny Al-Shabaab safe havens from which it could attack US citizens or US interests in the region," Davis said.

The decision is in line with the Republican Trump administration's policy to expand the authority of the military, particularly in authorizing more aggressive air strikes in certain countries.

The military had accused the previous Democratic administration of president Barack Obama of micromanaging combat operations.

Obama notably kept tight control over armed drone strikes, which his successor is pursuing in Somalia and Yemen.
The information Minister Hon. Mustapha Hamid has justified the need for the Akufo-Addo Government to revive the Information Ministry.

President John Dramani Mahama scrapped the Ministry of Information and returned its functions under the Ministry of Communications, as it was prior to the year 2001.

All agencies under the former Ministry of Information & Media Relations were operating under the Ministry of Communications.

However, some Ghanaians and Civil Society organizations have raised concerns as to how the Communication Ministrys functions will be different from that of the Information Ministry.

In an interview with Top 103.1 FMs Morning Show , Ghana Te Sen Mr. Mustapha Abdul Hamid told the hostess Nana Yaa Boamponsem Ameyaw that My ministry is to inform the general public on the projects and policies of the Government and the communication Ministry has a duty to ensure that there is good communication system in the country, like good network system, he explained.

He said the ministry and the Information Services Department (ISD) are vital for the dissemination of information to all Ghanaians especially those at the grassroots to enable them take active part in the governance of the country.

He added that the argument that the information ministry and the Communication Ministry have conflicting roles is unacceptable.  Even the role of the Director of Communications at the Presidency does not conflict with mine,he rather reports to me he said.

Ghanaians deserve to know the truth about for instance, how their taxes and other natural resources are being used and the efforts being made to enhance their lives.

They need to be able to make assessments and inputs as far as governance of the country is concerned.
Hon Kennedy Agyapong Member of Parliament for Assin Central is a legislator who has won the heart of many Ghanaians for being forthright on many issues confronting Ghana especially regarding corruption. He has taken it upon himself to investigate government financial transactions especially on contracts and procurements generally. He has in his possession many documents that to him contain many flaw in government businesses.

You need to tune in to radio and television stations to hear him out. He claims that the brother of former president, Ibrahim mahama could be found wanting when properly investigated. There is a well-known feud between the two, with the Assin Central MP often accusing Ibrahim of benefiting from fraudulent deals from the National Democratic Congress (NDC) government because his brother was at the helm of affairs.

Ibrahim who rarely speaks to the media has on many occasions denied Ken's allegations and even warned him to stop dragging his name through the mud.

But in his latest attack, the NPP MP is quite confident that the 'corrupt' Ibrahim cannot escape jail under President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo's tenure and has even betted his life on it.

According to him, some documents in his possession were clearly pointing to a jail time for former President Mahama's brother.

I will take in poison and kill myself if Ibrahim Mahama is not jailed, he should watch and hear me well, I will take in poison and die if Ibrahim is not jailed, he said on Adom TVs Badwam on Thursday.

Much as I do not wish to challenge the claims of Hon Kennedy and may stand on his way, if he wishes to push for action on what he feels Ibrahim might have done wrong, I wish to advise him to take it easy. The legal processes might take some time to catch up with those he feels have fallen foul of the law. While he waits for action to be taken by government on what he considers wrongs done by some people, he must not carry through with his threat to kill himself. As a legislator I know who is religious, Hon Kennedy must consider the admonishing given by our prophets Jesus, Mohammed and our reverend fathers and Imams to be patient and look up to God for direction.

Hon Agyapong must note that too many people who are in the queue to end up their lives are looking up to persons like him to stay alive and manage their frustrations. If he kills himself for being frustrated, what does he think would happen to his wife and children, his large establishments including Kencity that houses Oman FM and Net 2 Television.

I am a Muslim but I know Ken has many admirers across religious, political and traditional divide. Every one of us wants to see him alive. For that matter he can pursue his dream but we expect him to take it easy for we want him alive for as long as he is permitted by God to live

EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

eanfoworld for sustainable development

[email protected]/[email protected]

0244370345/0208844792/0274853710
Daasebre Prof. (Emeritus) Emmanuel Oti Boateng, a former Ghana Government Statistician and a member of the United Nations Statistical Commission (UNSC), the highest decision making body for international statistics has donated 10 copies of a booklet published by the UNSC in honour of its past chairs of the Commission to President Nana Akufo Addo and some members of his government.

The booklet is in appreciation of the work done by the 32 (chairs of the UNSC) Chief Statisticians from all over the world in the 70 years history of the UNSC, particularly for pursuing the advancement of official statistics, promoting the development of statistical information as an essential instrument for development and as a contribution to public policy and private action.

Making the donation through Ghanas Permanent Representative to the UN, Ambassador Martha Pobee, at the Mission in New York today (March 29, 2017), Daasebre Oti Boateng, the first African to chair the UNSC, which also sets statistical standards, develops concepts and methods and their implementation said he felt obliged to donate the books to the Ghana government.

Daasebre Oti Boateng, who is also the Paramount Chief of New Juaben Traditional area and currently attending the 84thsession of the International Civil Service Commission (ICSC) at the UN headquarters (New York) observed that although the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the universal call to action to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure that all people enjoy peace and prosperity. are well crafted in terms of the 17 goals and 169 targets, it was rather weak in its implementation plan.

For the strategies to be effected theres the need for the communities to be involved in the implementation, because they are the first line and legitimate owners affected by poverty , he explained.

Daasebre Oti Boateng, who was decorated with an insignia of the ICSC, also stated that effective women empowerment is essential for sustainable development.

This was after he had presented a copy of the book to Ambassador Pobee and commended her for being the first woman to be appointed as the PR of Ghana to the UN.

He stressed the need to get more women in leadership positions, emphasizing that the time has come, and the moment is now for both genders to work as equal partners in sustainable development in a stable and just society.

Daasebre Oti Boateng was re-elected to serve on the ICSC at the Fifth Committees formal meeting in New York on November 7, 2014. He was the chair of the UNSC in 1987 and has been a member of the ICSC since 2003.

The Statistical Commission oversees the work of the UNSC and is a Functional Commission of the UN Economic and Social Council.
We are not prophets, but we do foresee the danger ahead of NDC in 2020 elections, should former President Mahama return to contest as the flagbearer of the opposition NDC party.

The mint to harshness, insults, backbiting, arrogance, and excess of corruption led NDC into opposition, but it appears a few of the NDC folks who are calling for the comeback of Mahama have not done any assessment on the massive defeat that engulfed the party in 2016 elections. It started as a joke, but now a seeming *sobersided* issue in the NDC.

Prior to 2016 elections, we were told many stories depicting the unity so called in the NDC, even as we all knew that some party "Gurus" were even against NDC, most especially the flagbearer at the time in the person of H.E John Dramani Mahama. Former President JJ Rawlings described NDC under the auspices of John Mahama as the most *CORRUPTIBLE* administration ever in the history of Ghanaian politics.

It was in his era as the Vice President of the republic of Ghana that a commission of inquiry was set to investigate him on a presidential jet scandal. He then became the president of the republic of Ghana after the sudden demise of Prof. Mills, and the corruption at it's youngest stage graduated from undergrad level to a PhD level. At that juncture, everyone in the NDC had the sole right as enshrined in the NDC constitution to steal from the public purse. Woyome was made the captain of the thievery brigadiers, whereas Mrs. Dzifa Attivor and friends quickly followed the suit with a whooping amount of *Ghc 3.6 million* on 116 buses.

Yes, Woyome and his cronies smartly formed a serious cartel and created, looted, and shared a whooping amount of *Ghc 51.2 million* from our coffers, and NDC under the supervision of H.E. John Mahama never saw anything wrong with it. GYEEDA officials from nowhere also duped the state, Ameri deal, Sada, Suba cum Brazil 2014 scandals all happened under the auspices of H.E. John Mahama. In view of the above, Ghanaians PUNISHED NDC under Mahama over the abovementioned scandals and some unmentioned ones that really transpired under his watch.

Today, some equally corrupt and those with narcissistic thoughts in the NDC are calling on his return to contest in the 2020 elections, whereas those political deep thinkers in the NDC have stated in unequivocal terms that the return of Mahama in 2020 elections would be a disaster because he has NO positive track records to please the people of Ghana to vote for NDC in 2020.

Well, we have done our background checks, and we can equally state emphatically and categorically that its either NDC will get less than 30% or go on relegation after 2020 elections if Mahama is made the flag bearer. Those who may doubt our checks here can consult Former President Rawlings and Wife Nana Konadu Agyemang Rawlings for further charities.

Thank you

By Boamah Frimpong Kingsley

Asante Akim North
The Writer

31.03.2017 LISTEN

Perceptions that renewable power is expensive are at best outdated, and at worst a dangerous fallacy (IRENA, 2014).

Energy and the environment has become a day to day issue in Ghana and going green has become the main stream. I must say congratulations to Hon. Agyarko initiative to solarize all government properties. Ghana hasn't missed the boat at all when it comes to the development of renewable energy technology. The sole panacea to our power debacle has always been with us, which is sustainable energy (solar).

Hon. Agyarkos idea is a great way to address all government building energy usage, the demand response and building greenhouse gas emissions. Buildings account for 17% of greenhouse gas emissions. This idea will palliate the government building footprint, increase awareness and acceptance of renewable energy as well as provide economic benefit. 1000 photovoltaic (PV) solar panels will generate 250kW and that will be good enough to power 50 government buildings (average size). Also, effort must be put in place to solarize all street light and that will save Ghana tremendous amount of money.

This move is another milestone to challenge all cooperations operating in Ghana to incorporate sustainable energy (solar) in their Cooperate Social Responsibility (CSR). This will go a long way to reduce strain on the national grid, generate enough power to the grid and help reduce load shedding in the long term. Sustainable energy as mentioned shouldn't be the mindset of the do-gooder but must involve all. Whether your organization is a climate change skeptic or environmental adamant, the term sustainable energy should be included in your business agenda, specifically here in Ghana.

Ghana must swiftly shift energy generation away from dirty fossil fuel to a cleaner source of energy like solar if it's to prevent increase in temperature. Why does this transition matter? Ghana as of now generates most of its energy from fossil fuel or dirty diesel which catalysis climate change. The resultant effect of that will cause massive flooding in our cities and destruction of properties. Ghanas society currently is a carbon structure that relies heavily on oil. If oil reaches its tipping point, it will lead to the collapse of Ghana.

The time is now for Ghana to transition soon in order to decarbonize its foot print. As stated in the budget 3% will be allocated to renewable energy. Hopefully that 3% wont be long on carrots but short on effective stick. Above all, Ghana can do better than it is doing now in terms of renewable energy generation.

By Nana Adjei BA, BES, Ept, MES, Dip.

About the author

A passionate environmentalist with experience in energy planning software, RetScreen International Expert. Currently developing a Business Plus Model that will be delivered to the Ministry of Energy to aid the energy crisis. It is his phantasmagoria to see Ghana go 100% renewable energy. Solar is doable, the time is right so is the price. It is for the hoi polloi.
31.03.2017 LISTEN

General comments

The Fair-Trade Oil Share Ghana (FTOS-GH) PSA Campaign hereby announces that a copy of the supposed new E&P Bill 2016 has reached its hands. This is our initial reaction.

We have examined and compared all the relevant clauses from clauses 1-37 and 85-89 of the E&P Bill 2016 with that of E&P Bill 2014 from clauses 1-37 and 83-87 and found no changes in them. These clauses will form the heart and core of the Petroleum Exploration and Production Law, because they will determine the conduct and operations of the petroleum activities and how total revenue would be shared amongst the parties, the focus of our campaign.

The Bill is essentially in all respect the Royalty Tax System subtly clothed in some features and provisions of PSA principles to conform and fall in line with the exploitative agreements so far entered into referred to as the  Ghana Hybrid System,  a system informed, progressive and forward looking leaders would not adopt to regulate oil and gas discoveries in this 21st Century.

It is an attempt to give retrospective legal backing to these bad agreements and contracts so far signed by both the NPP and NDC regimes.

It is also to enable the foreign oil companies take advantage of the incentives that go with adoption of PSA, such as waiver of import and export duties and other taxes which have to be paid under full Royalty Tax System. This is another way of swindling Ghana and we are amazed that some Ghanaians are willing accomplices to this swindle. We are aware of the flow of money from the oil lobby to officialdom and civil society groups but even though in millions of dollars and pounds, we considered such flows too meagre to warrant the selling of the mass of Ghanaians down the river to foreign oil interests.

The implication of passing this Bill into law will mean taking away all the sole rights and controls granted the national oil company, GNPC, under PNDC Laws 64 and 84, thus placing ownership and control of the oil and gas resources of Ghana into private hands, contrary to Article 257, section 6 of the Constitution of the Republic of Ghana.

The passage of the Bill into law would be in contravention of the following:

a. UN Resolution on Permanent Sovereignty Over National Resources, GAR 1803 of 1962 reprinted in GAR 3171 of 1963 and the Charter of Economic Rights and Duties of State GAR 3181 of 1974. Ghana surprisingly is a signatory to all these UN conventions and Resolutions. Ghanaians would eventually lose ownership rights and permanent sovereignty over their Oil and Gas riches to foreigners if the Bill is passed into law.

GNPC would have to compete with the foreign oil companies for oil blocks declared open by the Minister of Petroleum if it has resources to do so; otherwise the Minister would have to exercise his discretion to allocate a block to it.

Specific Comments

Clauses 3-4

These clauses are awkward, because oil and gas resources being strategic national assets management and control are vested in the National Oil companies of host companies. The National Oil companies of Malaysia, Angola, Trinidad and Tobago, Norway, Nigeria, Indonesia and others manage and control their oil resources. Is Ghana inventing a new wheel by vesting management and control in the State?

Clauses 5

No progressive country in the 21st Century in the developing world is conducting petroleum activities under license, thereby transferring ownership of the petroleum resources to foreigners. The petroleum resources are being treated the same way gold and other minerals have been handled over the last century with only the crumbs falling down to us.

Clause 10 Sub. 14 (a)

Placing a cap to limit what is ours 100% under the constitution is suicidal. This clause contravenes the UN Resolution on Permanent sovereignty over natural resources.

Clause 10 Sub 14 (b) (i) (ii)

The financial obligations that these sub-clauses would place on Ghana are so huge that the burden on the limited resources available to meet our infrastructural deficits cannot be under- estimated if we have to adopt this hybrid system. Due to limited resources available to the State, the State cannot take up large shares in the projects which will result into loss of huge oil revenues to the foreign oil companies. Ghana under the Jubilee Agreement would have to pay the lead operator Tullow over US$2 Billion for participating in the project within the next 10 years. PETRONAS, the Malaysian Oil Company in 1974 shied away from this system and chose PSA.

Clause 20

This clause waters down clause 13 of PNDC law 84 and is contrary to current International practice which allows review in Petroleum Agreements mandatory every five or seven years. The wording of the clause does not make review mandatory.

Clauses 85-89

The fiscal provisions in essence are skewed towards collection of taxes which in practice are difficult to collect from multinationals. The foreign oil companies earned US$13.329 Billion gross revenue in five years of operations at the Jubilee Fields which should attract US$3.553 billion in taxes but ended up paying under US$500 million for both taxes and surface rentals , whereas  Profit Oil  alone could earn Ghana US$7.662 billion under PSA . They did not pay any tax over the last 2 years they claimed they were making losses.

What Ghanaians do not know is from Day one when the Jubilee partners entered the Jubilee Fields to the last day in 30 years when the field is supposed to be exhausted, under US$10 billion will be spent on the entire project. But, a net gross of US$12.868 billion was earned after paying corporate taxes and surface rentals in five years.

The only element of PSA in the fiscal provisions is clause 88 which deals with Bonus payments. The type of Bonus is not clearly defined.

Conclusion

First and foremost the Bill seeks to chip the wings of GNPC, taking away all the sole rights and controls granted it under PNDC Laws 64 and 84, thereby reducing its status to an independent commercial operator.

Secondly, transferring the ownership and control of Ghanas oil and Gas riches to private individuals in the name of attracting investments into the sector, contrary to current global standard and practice, is simply an act of national betrayal.

The reason for withdrawing the E&P 2014 Bill due to global developments as claimed by the Minister of Petroleum and replacing it with E&P Bill 2016 Bill is but a ruse and porous one at that. The reason is tactical and to throw dust into the eyes of Ghanaians by drawing their minds away from the 2014 Bill which has been the focus of our campaign, thus deflating our efforts. The claim by the Minister of Petroleum that the E&P Bill 2016 is more robust and protects the interest of Ghana is completely false and a public deceit. There is no material difference between the 2014 and 2016. To put it plainly without mincing words, the E&P Bill 2016 is pure trash made by novices who are just mere accomplices of foreign interests and deserves to be thrown away.

The passage of the Bill into law would be hugely inimical to the interest of the present as well as the future generation, except for the few vested interests who are already reaping handsomely beyond their wildest dreams as appendages and hirelings of the FOCs. The extent of influence buying which oil lobby money has already gone to compromise and corrupted the Ghanaian officialdom, the media and civil society groups is simply stupendous.
We members of concerned galamseyers and small scale miners of Wassa Amenfi are aware of the growing negativity against galamsey by the media in Ghana. This probably has been engendered by land degradation and water pollution issues related to galamsey. As a result, there is mounting pressure on authorities to ban galamsey.

Yes, galamsey and small scale mining have brought many environmental and social issues, but we the galamseyers and small scale miners of Wassa Amenfi believe that a ban is not the way forward! Recognition, regularization and re-formalization are the best ways.

Galamsey and small-scale mining occurs in about 45 countries on the continent of Africa, providing direct employment to more than 9 million people and supporting over 54 million dependents. It is a significant source of cobalt used in the production of lithium ion batteries to power cell phones, laptop computers and electric vehicles. Galamsey and Small scale mining in Congo, Ghana and Sierra Leone, for example, are a major source of diamond.

In Ghana, galamsey and small-scale mining provides livelihoods to over 3 million people and accounts for more than 30% of total gold produced in the country. Additionally, galamsey and small-scale mining has been the only source of diamond in Ghana since 2008.

Prior to election 2016, almost all political parties had clear cut views in their manifestos to regularise galamsey and small scale mining.

For example, Page 27 of the ruling NPP manifesto states:

"NPP will reconstruct the Small Scale Mining Industry so that its activities can take place within GUIDELINES set up under the appropriate Regulations.

This will enable small scale miners to work and earn their living in a regulated, secure and lawful environment."

This is our source of absolute hope in the NPP Government not the public outcry of banning galamsey.

We are very resolute that the government of the day will put all measures in place to regularise our activities and further commit ourselves to upholding and defending any rules and regulations to this course.

There was a home grown policy in Amenfi East by the previous government, which empowered taskforce from the assembly to ensure that all lands are reclaimed after mining. This until the change of government helped regularized our activities. We believe this was a very good step and had positive effects on our activities and the environment.

Those calling for a ban as the way forward are missing the point. Banning galamsey will NEVER be successful because galamsey is too big an industry to ban.

Banning galamsey will only create the impression that we have achieved something but in actual fact, we would have just scrapped the surface and created more mess taking into consideration the political and socioeconomic effects after the ban.

We have no shear of gilt that a ban is not something to advocate if you really understand the issues but lasting solutions which can be achieved through sustainable interventions.

We are of the view that government needs to understand the issues first, reflect and hold broader consultations of which our doors are widely opened and to enable government propose the way forward.

We are of the view that regularised and sustainable galamsey and small-scale mining can significantly minimize poverty in the country and be a drive to a remarkable socioeconomic developments and that is a sure way to mitigate the social and environmental issues and improve the sector to derive maximum benefits.

A ban will be a suicidal move for Ghana!

God bless our homeland Ghana!

Emmanuel Kwaku Fosu- Convenor -0501261230

William Affum- member

0208947121

Collins Aidoo- Member

0202866867
31.03.2017 LISTEN

Accra March 30, GNA - A worker at the Marwarko restaurant has said that Jihad Chaaban, a Supervisor, involved in the assault case dipped Ms Evelyn Boakye the alleged victim's face into a blender containing ginger, garlic, onion and pepper.

Ms Susan Yayera Dovlo, an employee of the restaurant, however denied that the blended ingredients splashed into the face of Miss Boakye.

Giving her evidence in chief before the Abeka District Court, she also denied that the blender Chaaban was holding fell to the ground.

Led in evidence by Chief Inspector H.A Hanson, she said on February 26, this year she went to work at about 2:30 pm and one of her seniors informed her that they don't have enough pepper so she should go and blend some.

According to her she was told to blend more because customers at the restaurant were many.

Ms Dovlo said she called Ms Boakye to assist her to blend the ingredients and she obliged.

According to her Ms Boakye suggested that she (Ms Dovlo) should chop the ingredients so that she (Ms Boakye) could blend them.

'I chopped the onions and blended the ingredients. We managed to blend the first one and in our bid to blend the second one, the blender halted. We put the blender on and it began making noise so we put it off,'' witness said.

Ms Dovlo told the court that when the blender went off, Chaaban entered and shouted 'Shara Matta, what are you doing. Shara Matta the court was told meant prostitute in Lebanese language.

According to her Chaaban took off the blender from its motor and poured the ' unblended'' out leaving some blended quantity in the blender.

The witness said Chaaban held the head of the victim and dipped her face into the blender.

Ms Dovlo said the victim went into the restaurant dressing room but she did not see when the victim left the Restaurant.

Answering questions under cross-examination, the witness admitted that she did not hear Chaaban yell at the victim that she wanted to destroy the blender.

Meanwhile, the victim has ended her testimony.

Prosecution has also informed the court that most of their witnesses in the matter have been transferred and it was going to be difficult to get them in court.

According to prosecution the witnesses were therefore reporting to work from other branches of the Restaurant. He however assured the court he would produce them to the court.

This was after the court had asked him to whether or not he wanted the witnesses to be summoned before it.

The court advised the Prosecution to produce their witnesses. Chaaban aged 26, was charged with offensive conduct by calling the victim a prostitute, intentionally and unlawfully causing harm and assault.

Chaaban has pleaded not guilty to the charges.

He was on February 28, this year, alleged to have assaulted the victim Evelyn Boakye for fidgeting with a blender and working slowly.

Chaaban, a brother -in-law of the owner of Marwako Restaurant at the Abelemkpe branch allegedly grabbed the neck of the victim angrily and dipped her face into a blended pepper which poured on the table.

Hearing continues on April 3 before the court presided over by Ms Victoria Ghansah

GNA
US Kabul embassy fires staff over drugs

Six people working at the US embassy in the Afghan capital, Kabul, have been fired for using or possessing illegal drugs, officials say.
By Bertha Badu-Agyei, GNA

Bunso (E/R), March 30, GNA - Dr Frank Amoah, the Director of the Cocoa Research Institute of Ghana (CRIG), has said Cocobod is poised to attain the one-million metric tonne of cocoa production.

He said 70 years was enough for cocoa production to hit its maximum target of the one-million metric tonnes and urged all hands especially staff of the Cocobod to scale their efforts to ensure that the target was achieved.

Dr Amoah, who was addressing the closing ceremony of the annual delegate's conference of the Cocobod Senior Staff Association (COSSA) at Bunso, said there were many leakages in the cocoa industry this must be dealt with.

He said the senior staff members had a critical role to play in supporting management to enhance the image of Cocobod in terms of reaching the one-million metric ton production and expressed the hope that the resolution of the delegate's conference would lead to the expected result.

The three-day conference was on the theme: 'Repositioning Cocobod to improve productivity-role of the senior staff' and it was attended by delegates from all the units and subsidiaries of Cocobod including CRIG and the Cocoa College.

Mr Atta Boakye, the National chairman of COSSA, said the delegates had resolved to re-align the objectives of the association with the corporate objective to foster effective partnership with management.

He said one of the core objectives was to introduce high-tech cocoa products to farmers as well as promote operational policies to increase local consumption of cocoa products.

This, he said, was in line with the overall agenda of reaching the one-million metric tonne of cocoa and appealed to management to review the conditions of some of the allowances.

Mr Boakye said COSSA is calling for fuel allowances to be converted into fuel coupons and an increment in the car maintenance allowances.

GNA
31.03.2017 LISTEN

By Hafsa Obeng, GNA

Accra, March 30, GNA - Two Nigerians, Ify Mba, and Ammanda Eze Chioma, both unemployed on Thursday appeared before an Accra Circuit Court for allegedly trafficking six ladies from Nigeria to Ghana for soliciting.

The two pleaded not guilty to the charge and were both granted bail in the sum of GH70,000.00 with three sureties each, one of which is to be justified by the court presided over by Mrs Abena Oppong Adjin-Doku.

Prosecuting Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP) Agnes Boafo told the court that the complainants are police officers at Baatsonaa District Police Command, while the victims were Nigerian nationals brought to Ghana by the accused persons.

She said the accused persons, together with another, now at large, are Nigerian nationals who came to Ghana and are lodging at Kormens Hotel, Baatsonaa.

On March 24, at about 1900 hours, the police had information that a group of Nigerian girls were spotted being escorted by some women into a hotel within Baatsonaa for solicitation.

The prosecution said based on intelligence, the police embarked on an operation and arrested the accused persons, and also six other young ladies ages between 21 and 26.

ASP Boafo told the court that the ladies immediately informed the police that they were brought from Nigeria by the accused persons on transit to Germany and Dubai to be employed as house helps, however they were forced by the accused persons to go into soliciting upon their arrival in the country.

She said the police discovered that four of the victims were brought on March 14, and locked up in a hotel room and made to swear an oath to go into solicitation in night clubs in Baatsonaa to pay 555,000 Naira equivalents to $2,000 dollars to the accused persons.

She said two other victims were brought into the country on March 23, and made to go through the same ritual.

The victim's complained that they were not given food and water when some of them refused to cooperate to go into the solicitation business.

The prosecution told the court that in their caution statements, the two accused persons denied the offence.

GNA
Natural resources are seen as a very precious commodity that hardly depletes. The almost infinite nature of these resources is deemed to make countries that are blessed with them very productive with a very stable economy.

This phenomenon or concept has over the years only proved to be a concept. There seem to be a different story when it comes to addressing this delicate issue of how useful and beneficial these natural resources could actually be to a countrys economy as a whole. Most developing countries have these natural resources that could potentially make them better off but why has is always been a debate whether these natural resources actually hold the value they are given.

I will use my country Ghana to elaborate on this delicate issue. Ghana is situated in the West of Africa and is endowed with vast natural and mineral resources. Some of these are gold, timber, oil, cocoa, etc.

Gold has always had value but it has become an international commodity that is sought for both home and abroad, so much that people would rather invest in gold than bonds and stocks. Ghana is ranked among the first 10 countries in the world alongside countries like China and South Africa when it comes to gold production. One would think that with this level of recognition and production, the country would be better off. We however notice that this does not comparatively reflect on the impact it is deemed to have on the countrys economy.

This brings me to the question of whether the gold we have been blessed with is a curse gift-wrapped; a blessing or curse.

Ghanas gold market seems to be soaring and the government is doing everything possible in the desire to work our way to the top on the international market. With gold being on high demand, everyone is working tirelessly to capitalise on this opportunity so much that we have forgotten who suffers the most and bears the consequences of the cost of the beauty of gold. We have focused only on the bigger picture which seems so beautiful and blinding that we forget the people and factors that have to be sacrificed.

We can argue that all this gold hype is only on the international front and possibly the less percentage elite in the country. The importance and benefits of gold does not even reflect on the economy or its standard of living. A little research and survey I conducted shows that the average Ghanaian though may know the value of gold could possibly never have seen one.

The regions and towns where gold is mined in Ghana would be assumed to be a high sector for business and employment. It is sad to say that it is rather the opposite. A few companies have the licence and rights to operate such gold mines. The business in boom in this sector is illegal mining traditionally called galamsey. It is usually operated on a small scale with the miners (including children) not having the licence, right equipment and not using the right processes to mine for gold. The country has had a few setbacks due to these illegal activities to the extent of losing many lives in some mining communities.

One may ask why the government has not done much to eliminate such illegal activities considering its dire effects on the community, lives, environment and the economy as a whole. The few procedures put in place by the government always fail to stop such activities. Could this be because of a system of bribery and corruption in the country where people feel high and mighty and could possibly get away with doing almost anything? Or could it be because the government is actually benefitting greatly from these illegal mining that they would rather face the consequences it brings?

Maybe, the gold our precious country has been blessed with is only a curse gift-wrapped. We need to be worried about what is really happening on the inside of the blessing and not just be fascinated with the beautiful wrapping it is presented in. I believe with the right channelling of resources and support, creating appropriate jobs in this high demand sector, subsidising and providing as necessary, this could actually work out to be a win-win situation for all interested parties, both domestically and internationally. Profits will be made, we will keep making the international impact, unemployment rate will reduce, standard of living will be improved and families will be able to enjoy better lives especially in the gold mining towns such as Obuasi. Working children in this sector could have their childhood back and get an education to develop themselves to become more useful to the country in the near future.

Indeed, not all that glitters is gold. I believe there is more to this saying than meets the eye. Let us stand up as a nation and put our nation on the map in a right and better way.

God bless our homeland Ghana.

God bless Africa.

The writer, Samuel Asante Gyamerah is a Pan Africanist, Financial Mathematician and researcher.

He can be contacted at [email protected]
For those of us who have worked and associated with Hon. Joe Osei Owusu, the Member of Parliament for Bekwai Constituency who doubles as the 1st Deputy Speaker of Parliament, and Chairman of the Appointments Committee, the bribery allegation levelled against him by his colleague MP, Hon. Mahama Ayariga of was a non-starter.

As a former Assembly Member, Constituency Chairman, CEO of Driver and Licensing Authority, an Independent MP (2009-2013), NPP MP for Bekwai Constituency from 2013 till date, and a very respected legal luminary, Hon. Joe Wise has established himself as one of the best MPs in Ghana.

The people of Bekwai have so much confidence in the man due to a number of developmental projects he has brought to the Municipality, his demeanour, respect for people as well as his interest in alleviating poverty among the constituents. In education, health and job creation, Joe's record of achievement is second to none. No wonder, some are of the view that, Hon. Joe Wise is a potential president of the Republic of Ghana.

It is probably due to Joe's emerging fame and popularity across the political divide that Mahama Ayariga cannot contain; hence, his decision to throw mud at this innocent man without thinking about the consequences.

But, as the late Bob Marley said; "Who Jah bless, no one curse". We, the people of Bekwai believe in you, Joe; we assure you of our unflinching support today and the years ahead. Your integrity is still intact and therefore, you should not let the issue affect you psychologically and emotionally. Be consoled by this quotation in the Holy Bible - Isaiah 57:17; "No weapon forged against you shall prevail, and you will refute every tongue that accuses you. This is the heritage of the servants of the LORD, and this is their vindication from me".

May Allah give you the strength and wisdom to continue to serve your constituents to the best of your ability.

We are proud of you, Hon. Joe Wise!

Katakyie Kwame Opoku Agyemang

Asante Bekwai - Asakyiri

(0202471070)
The Architects Registration Council (ARC) of Ghana has warned all building design technicians, technologists and draughtsmen operating in the country to acquire licenses in order to operate effectively.

The Registrar of the ARC, Stella N.D. Arthiabah, said that by September 2017, it shall be an offence to practice without license in the country.

We are calling on all building design technicians, technologists and draughtsmen without licenses to contact the ARC Office in Accra for registration guidelines.

Mrs. Arthiabah made the call at an introductory workshop in Ho, the Volta Regional capital, to register and categorize building design technicians, technologists & draughtsmen in the country as part of plans to license them.

The workshop was organized by the National Board of Control for Building Design Technicians & Draughtsmen under the auspices of the Architects Registration Council (ARC) and the Ministry of Works and Housing (MWH).

The workshop formed part of a road show being organized to sensitize the building design technicians on the ongoing exercise to register and categorize them.

The first one was held in Accra and later in Cape Coast. The team is expected to visit Kumasi, Sunyani and Tamale as well.

Lead facilitator of the workshop was Arc. Robert Fraikue, Principal Assist. Registrar of ARC, who took participants through requirements and the process for registration, categorization of members based on educational background and experience.

Mrs. Arthiabah noted that building technicians play a significant role in the development of every nation, adding that a single error on their part could create serious problems that may be difficult to correct.

She said the National Board of Control for Building Design Technicians & Draughtsmen was formed in response to calls by key industry players and the general public, such as the Association of Building Technicians (ABT) and the Ghana Institute of Architects (GIA) to enhance professionalism in the building and construction industry.

With the help of the Ministry of Works and Housing, the Board has been set up with the aim of ensuring professionalism in the delivery of technical services within the built environment professions, and creation of a safe and sustainable built environment for all, she said.

BY Melvin Tarlue
Edward Kojo Antwi

31.03.2017 LISTEN

Edward Kojo Antwi, a 26-year-old manager of a sachet water producing company (name withheld), has been arrested by the Madina Police for robbery.

The suspect was arrested when he and another accomplice identified only as Eric, aka Abodam, attacked and robbed a family at Madina Estate in Accra.

Eric was shot by the police during an exchange of fire with the police, but he escaped with the wound and later died while receiving treatment at Tarkwa in the Western Region.

The vehicle which was used by the suspects in committing the act  Isuzu Tropper with registration number GR 8237-A  belonging to Kojo Antwi, was later retrieved by the police at the scene.

Briefing the media, the Madina Divisional Crime Officer, Superintendent Joseph Opong, said on March 28 at about 3:00am, the complainant and his wife (name withheld) were asleep when the suspects, armed with pistols and wearing masks, broke into their room.

The robbers pointed the pistol at the victims and ordered them to lead them to where they have kept the money they brought home the previous day.

The victims then told them there was no money in the house and so the robber got infuriated and dragged them from the bed unto the floor, where they tied their hands behind them.

They then robbed the victims of their mobile phones, necklaces, their wedding rings and laptops.

The couple's daughter who was sleeping in the next room saw the robbers attacking her parents and called the police for assistance.

A police patrol team was immediately dispatched to the scene and the robbers upon seeing the police opened fire at them.

The police returned fire at them, injuring Eric in the process.

He ran back to the room and tried to escape through the first floor window.

The suspect succeeded in escaping, but Kojo Antwi was arrested in the process.

Eric with the wounds travelled to Tarkwa to seek medical treatment from his sister, but he died the next day.

The suspect is still in custody and will be sent to court for prosecution.



By Linda Tenyah-Ayettey




Any first year Senior High School economics student knows the 'Factors of Production', and the most important of these factors of production is Land. Economists define land as 'all the productive resources given by nature and existing in their natural and raw state'. Land, according to economists, includes not only the forests, farmlands, fields and plains but also wind, sunshine, rivers, waterfalls, mineral wealth beneath or on the surface of the land. Economists say that land 'which is a gift of nature, is limited in quantity'. It is the recognition of the limited nature of land, in this case, land in its outright definition, that civilized societies have managed their lands in a manner that the generations unborn will still have something to live on. Sustainable development.

Sadly, many of us in the third world, who ironically, are increasing our population are those who mismanage the gift of nature which has a fixed location and a limited size. As we reproduce without limit, the limited land becomes overcrowded and cannot serve our daily needs. The survival instincts in us goad us to exploit anything and everything on earth to make a living. It is this selfishness in man that has necessitated states to live together according to stated rules and regulations for their collective good. And if the rules and regulations put down by society to regulate individual and group conduct are not enforced, then that society is just procuring its death on installment basis.

This is where Ghana, our beloved country is today. But at long last, we have all come to accept, too late though, that we have not managed our lands well enough particularly the type of gold mining being done in this country which has posed a serious danger to our future and those of generations unborn. This column has spearheaded a crusade against the unbridled, unregulated and open-ended exploitation of the resources of this country as if there is no tomorrow. But as usual, shortsighted that we are, we closed our eyes and minds to these destructive activities of both locals and foreigners. The only time the nation woke up to talk about the criminal activities of our compatriots and foreigners alike is when the perpetrators of these criminal activities had driven themselves to death as in being covered by self-induced landslides. Sad as such deaths are, they could have been avoided if the state had prevented the causes of them in the first instance.

Ghana is not the only country on earth which has been endowed with such massive natural resources, but Ghana may be the only country on earth whose citizens, for want of better expression, are so dumb that we are jolted into action after the event. We do nothing to prevent an action by individuals or group of individuals irrespective of its long term negative outcomes on the nation until we have all been entangled by the negative effects of those actions.

Timber used to be the third export commodity and foreign exchange earner for this country. The 1970s saw the establishment of hundreds of Timber Firms across the country, there were a lot of job opportunities for the youth, the educated, the technically trained and the uneducated and the unskilled had jobs in this sector. The financial contributions of this sector to the nation's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) were always mentioned in the nation's budget. As a people, we were just comfortable with job opportunities which gave the political leaders sound sleep and added to our finances such that we ignored the danger of deforestation and the dangers that it poses for the future of this country.

The policy of re-planting each timber felled was ignored, forgetting that it takes no less than 50 years for some specific timber species to develop to maturity. Today, the timber is gone, the jobs are not there any longer, the funds have ceased to contribute to our GDP, in its wake, is environmental degraded nation. We saw it coming, we closed our minds and eyes, relished in the immediate benefits until we became engulfed by the doom of our actions and inactions.

Then we turned our attention to the gold. On a grand scale, we moved away from deep shaft mining which was reasonably environmentally friendly, did not have serious negative impact on agriculture, the environment generally and protected our water bodies. The nation allowed surface mining which gave room for the destruction of the surface of the earth irrespective of the economic activities being undertaken on the land. Cocoa farms, oil palm farms, and food crops were all destroyed with official blessings so gold can be extracted. Laws were passed to even offer tax holdings to companies who come to exploit gold by destroying other economic activities on the land, provided some small compensations could be paid to the previous operators of whatever economic activities on those lands.

People were either relocated or resettled with monetary compensations, but lost their livelihoods on the land their ancestors occupied generations before them. And before long, the people whose traditional livelihoods had been curtailed by the multinational companies decided to engage in the very activities that took them away from their lands as well. Once again, we sat down unconcerned; politicians were blackmailed by these wrong doers for fear of losing electoral votes. No political party, was very critical about the open and broad daylight destruction of farm lands, rivers and streams.

Some decent Chiefs complained, some public officers whose jobs were hindered by these criminals and their foreign accomplices also complained, but politicians who have the power to enforce the laws looked the other way. In fact, some of them were either actively involved, financed the operators or indirect beneficiaries of what has now become an albatross hanging on our necks.

What is happening to this country is a siege on the sovereignty, security and safety of this nation. Destruction of rivers and agriculture lands in peace time is worse than an invasion of this country by foreign forces. I am not sure that this country cannot deploy its armed forces to fight any invasion to protect our nation. In war situations, local accomplices of the enemies are dealt with as enemies. If we indeed are serious to deal with this epidemic afflicting this nation, I do not see why we cannot deal with it decisively.

For a start, all Small Scale mining operations in this country should cease immediately. A Task Force made up of officials from EPA, Minerals Commission, Ministries of Agriculture and Water Resources, Security Agencies be put in place to meet all holders of licenses to operate Small Scale Mining, the extent of damage done to land and how they will reclaim the lands as per the law. The Minerals Commission should suspend the issuance of Mining Licenses for the next five years minimum, to ensure that those operators have reclaimed lands that have been destroyed.

A Task Force made up of security agencies under the name 'SEARCH AND DESTROY' should be set up in all the regions of the country to search for 'Galamsey' operators and deal with them ruthlessly. It should not matter who are involved, Chiefs, Ghanaians, Chinese, Indians, Politicians, Pastors or security operatives themselves. I do not believe that if external forces invade this country, we will classify them according to their social standing before we deal with them.

Ghana our beloved country is under siege from within; our future is being destroyed in broad daylight. We see them, we are not happy, we murmur and moan, we whine and pine and yet as a nation, we seem spineless in dealing with it because a few people want to live like Kings and it does not matter if the majority of us have to die. No nation does this to its citizens. We have a responsibility to properly manage the resources bequeathed to us by our forefathers for the sake of the living today and those yet to be born.

There is no substitute for water, unless we import it. Is that where we want to get to? We must be serious as a nation. I am very angry with our stupidity. Three tots for me, Daavi.

[email protected]
When party activists take the law into their hands and especially destroy state properties in the name of venting their anger, they present a bad image of themselves and the political groupings they claim to represent.

No party worth its salt would condone acts of unruliness regardless of the circumstances. Some parties might have earned such unenviable attributes for themselves. When the ruling party activists make regrettable headlines of impunity, we tend to fear a possible infection of the body politics by the unwanted contagion.

The recent acts of impunity said to have been perpetrated by party activists in Kumasi demand a permanent solution to the wrong impression which people have about their parties in power.

The reason it is dangerous to start acts of hooliganism by political parties is that it sets a bad precedence which others try out when their groupings come to power, since after all, the blueprint exists for replication.

President Nana Akufo-Addo is that person who would never interrupt with due process of the legal system in the country. He spoke against these negative tendencies when they reared their heads during the previous order and should not be seen under any circumstances to be giving the nod to the crudeness in politics.

We think that some Ghanaians in both the leading political parties in the country do not understand what governance and the rule of law are all about. Otherwise they would not be descending into the gutters and conducting themselves so badly that they become indisputable media negative subjects.

We are pleased that some suspects in the mayhem have been identified and arrested who have showed remorse for their crazy conduct anyway.

It is important that the leaderships of the main political parties engage with their supporters and especially teach them about the ethics which should guide their conduct, above all, about the supremacy of the rule of law without which we are but creatures in the animal kingdom.

Our request might sound like a tall order against the backdrop of politicians encouraging such unruliness in the past. Be it as it may, there must be a start to every good action.

We do not concur with those who claim the previous ruling party tactics should be allowed to play as revenge. There could not have been a nonsensical suggestion.

We must record growth as the years elapse in terms of how we manage the arduous task of governance by allowing the law to work without undue interference from those at the helm.

We must congratulate President Nana Akufo-Addo for so far exhibiting that rare quality in the political leadership in the country of non-interference in matters of the rule of law. There have been several instances of the Presidency directing the discontinuation of cases because suspects in these belong to the ruling party.

We must change the way we do things in the country so we can register different results. Not doing this would distance us away from progress. The situation where police officers rate some cases as political and therefore turn away from them should be a thing of the past.

Those who breach the law must be made to face the law courts for due process to take place. The our party is in power and so we can do as we please is a mark of political backwardness which is not what President Nana Akufo-Addo stands for.
President Akufo-Addo has appointed Dr Ernest Kwamina Yedu Addison as the new Governor of Bank of Ghana, subject to the consultation with the Council of State, a statement from the Presidency last night said.

This was after the Governor of the Bank of Ghana (BoG), Dr Abdul Nashiru Issahaku, has resigned from his post three years to the end of his tenure.

Dr Addison, former Head of Research at BoG, now works as Head of Research at the African Development Bank (AfDB).

Dr Issahaku announced his resignation on Wednesday on personal reasons.

The outgoing governor also explained that the decision to step down was the outcome of an agreement reached with the current government earlier this month.

He might be paid off since he could not execute his contract.

The outgoing governor was appointed on April 4, 2016 by former President John Mahama following the voluntary resignation of Dr. Henry Kofi Wampah.

The governor is said to have informed some critical international institutions that the Central Bank works with, like the IMF, of his decision to step down.

Dr Issahaku would later this week formally engage staff of the Central Bank about his resignation.

He was said to have recently approved 30 percent pay rise across board in one of the biggest pay rise for staff of the bank.

Dr Issahaku was the Second Deputy Governor before his elevation by ex-President John Mahama, his personal friend.

The outgoing governor, a card-bearing member of the NDC, contested in the party's parliamentary elections in Tamale.

Some critics called for his resignation due to his links with the NDC.

Minister of Policy and Evaluation, Dr Anthony Akoto Osei, held that Dr Issahaku should voluntarily step down.

Dr. Akoto Osei explained that the governor's decision to resign could be largely attributed to the difference in political ideologies between him and the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP).

According to him, Dr. Issahaku's open support for the past NDC government could have influenced his decision to resign.

I'm not surprised and I am sure he has thought through itwhen you are a Governor and you have once identified openly with a particular party in terms of being a candidate, it is difficult to convince others that you can work along with a new government with a different ideology so I'm sure he must have thought through it and he decided that was best, Dr. Akoto Osei told Citi FM.
Further cross-examination of Evelyn Boakye, the lady accusing Jihad Chaaban, the Abelemkpe Marwako branch manager, of dipping her face in blended pepper resumed yesterday with a fresh session of accusations.

This time around, Augustine Asafo Adjei, lawyer for Jihad, insists the victim had reported the case just to take money from the accused.

In the view of the lawyer, Evelyn was advised by somebody to report the matter in his words to make good money when the case escalates.

Denials

But answering the question at the Abeka District Court in Accra yesterday, Evelyn who looked rather relaxed as compared to earlier court dates flatly denied the assertions of the lawyer.

She told the court presided over by Ms Victoria Ghansah that the claims of Augustine were false.

Evelyn also denied the assertion that she was lying to the court in respect of her answers to the questions of the lawyer.

Augustine sought further to punch holes in the evidence of the complainant, wondering if on the day of the incident the accused referred to the blender as the blender or his blender.

The trial magistrate, however, ruled that the question was irrelevant because it will not change anything.

The lawyer of the accused denied that his client reportedly used the word 'sharramunta', meaning a 'prostitute', for Evelyn.

Second Witness

Meanwhile, the prosecution, led by Chief Inspector Armah Hanson, has presented its second witness in the trial.

Susan Yayira Dovlo, also an employee of the eatery, corroborated the story of Evelyn.

Speaking Twi, she said she requested that the complainant comes to help her blend fresh pepper for the full chicken department of the restaurant.

Identifying Jihad as her supervisor, Susan narrated the series of events leading to the accused dipping the face of Evelyn into the blended pepper in the blender.

She said the noise of the blender during the blending of the second batch of the ingredients drove Jihad to the kitchen.

Sitting continues on April 3.

Chagres

Jihad, 26, is reported to have dipped the head of Evelyn into blended pepper on February 26, 2017.

According to the prosecution, the accused offensively conducted himself when he angrily called the complainant a 'prostitute'.

Jihad is facing an additional charge of intentionally and unlawfully causing harm to Evelyn.

At the last court date, the defence lawyers had expressed doubt over the actual substance.

In the view of Augustine, the substance for which the accused had been dragged before court is a sauce and not raw pepper.

He said a mixture of garlic, pepper, onions, ginger and tomatoes cannot be described as pepper.

Jihad, a Lebanese supervisor at Marwako Restaurant, was put before the court for allegedly manhandling a female waitress of the restaurant.

The accused who has pleaded not guilty to the charges is a brotherin-law of the owner of Marwako Restaurant at the Abelemkpe branch.
Wild tuskers destroy four houses

A herd of wild elephants vandalised four houses located at the Lahan Municipality  15 of Siraha.
THE BRONG Ahafo regional office of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) has refuted allegations of going round party circles announcing presidential ambitions of the former first lady, Lordina Mahama.

At a press conference yesterday, the regional chairman of the party, Opoku Otuahene said the picture of the former first lady beside her husband John Dramani Mahama on billboards during the 2016 campaign did not mean she was nursing a presidential ambition.

Mr. Otuahene explained that the picture was only to show appreciation to her for the good works she did for the people of the Brong Ahafo Region where she hails from.

He said those particular billboards were sponsored by some party lovers in the region and that was why they were erected only in the Brong Ahafo Region and not nationwide.

The regional chairman stressed that the Akufo Addo-led government's persistent attack and vilification of the former Cocobod CEO, Stephen Opuni is an orchestration to tarnish his hard won reputation because the NPP know what the beleaguered Cocobod CEO can do to restore power to the NDC in 2020.

He disclosed that Dr. Opuni was very instrumental in the NDC's return to power in 2008 so he cautioned NDC members not to join the NPP in the attack.

According to him, Dr. Opuni nearly lost his job as a medical doctor at the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital because he campaigned for the NDC to recapture power.

Mr. Otuahene also alleged that Ghanaians are living in fear and panic due to the activities of the NPP vigilante groups; Delta Force and the Invisible Forces.

He said the attack on the Ashanti Regional Security Coordinator by members of the Delta Force last week showed that Ghanaians are not safe because they don't know what will happen to them in their homes and work places, saying the government is desperate to destroy the NDC.

He asked President Akufo-Addo to hold the country together as was bequeathed to him by former presidents and not to divide it by those forces which are not recognized by the constitution.

FROM Daniel y Dayee, Sunyani

[email protected]


Ever since this bribery allegation in the appointment committee came out, I have been avoiding any temptation of commenting on the issue not because I do not have an opinion but because of the trivialities brought into the whole saga by some political sycophants, probably for cheap political scores. Many people including some members of the majority described Hon Ayariga's allegations as lies even before the committee was set up to investigate the issues.

One thing that is very obvious is that Parliament cannot indulge in a crime, then investigate itself and accept the allegations. That is naturally expectant. Following the matters ensuing the work of the committee and how long it has delayed, one could logically predict the outcome which of course, I'm vindicated.

I am of the view that it sounds ridiculous to have not involved an independent investigation. Well, that is Parliament and they would use their own standing orders to protect their own integrity. That is why I will not be wrong to say that the committee was working to protect the integrity of the house and not to do due diligence to the issue. The committee in presenting its report stated it without ambiguity. The chairman, Joe Ghartey said, putting evidence of the committee before the public is a threat to the integrity of Parliament. Like seriously? Contrary to the report of the committee, I see signs of truth in the allegations.

Let Ghanaians be reminded that this is not the first time Parliament has been accused of bribery and corruption. Some where 2013, the former NPP Member of Parliament, Hon P C Appiah Ofori accused members of Parliament of taking a bribe to a tune of $5000 each in order to push through the sale of Ghana Telecom to Vodafone. Call it " the Vodafone deal saga". Be apprised with the publication below

https://www.newsghana.com.gh/ghanaian-mps-took-5000-bribe-p-c-appiah-ofori/amp/

What did we get from that allegation? It was swept under the carpet because it is Parliament. Is the national house of Parliament beyond reproach? Hmm.... There is certainly no equality in our rule of law but only posterity shall judge us.

Again, in march 2014, one of the most prolific, respectable MP who happens to be the oldest in Parliament Hon. Alban Bagbin, also made serious allegations that corruption exist in the house. As a person who has served the house for decades and who is known for his unrepentant objectivity in public discourse, one does not need a litmus paper test to ascertain the veracity of his claims. Let me take you through the memory lane with this article

https://www.google.com.gh/amp/www.graphic.com.gh/news/politics/mps-take-bribes-bagbin-confirms-in-koforidua.amp.html

Some members of Parliament refuted the claims and rubbished it. It ended there because it is Parliament. Indeed, the general public feels threatened to chastise the house in the name of contempt of Parliament.

In all these instances, nobody cares to dig out the truth. My question is who is protecting the public purse? I have observed that anytime there is an issue which has to do with the general good of members of Parliament, I hear almost one voice among them but same cannot be said on very pertinent national issues, without showing partisan patriotism.

The bribery allegations made by Hon Ayariga is not an issue that is alien in the house, I have cited the instances so why should the report of the committee be surprising to somebody who has been following politics for more than a decade? I cannot trust the findings of the committee. In any case, it is not stated anywhere in the report that Ayariga lied. All I could read was no evidence. Really!!

I am not a lawyer and I'm not closer to becoming one but which evidence are they talking about? Physical, oral or circumstantial evidence? For me, the issue has been covered by a political blanket just to prevent any embarrassment and pubic opprobrium on the house. That is absolutely pathetic. The integrity of the house is not important than that of the country. Ironically, the house is not unaware that the nation loses millions of cedis annually through corruption but when any cases of such is reported, they sing the evidence song. Very very pathetic.

I hold this strong conviction that many a citizen can make judgement on the work of the committee. We are not politically powerful but we own our conscience. Ayariga must not be bastardized for that bold decision: he should be eulogized. As for the mandate of the committee to recommend those sanctions including citing contempt of Parliament, I leave that to the legal luminaries though in my ordinary perspective, the whole process of the so called fact finding is legally pathetic.

The issue does not call for any political side taking. Those who are celebrating over the exoneration of the house should think again. The convoluted nature of bribery and the lazy methodology we as a people always seek to adopt to minimize it are incongruous and inconsequential. The " evidence debate" is what is rather escalating this cancerous epidemic. We have forgotten that rumors and perceptions are fundamental benchmarks of measuring bribery and corruption globally. So why are we allowing the "evidence debate" to cover people? We cannot take relativity out of the " evidence debate". Yes we must know that.

Whether a lie or the truth, God remain our judge.

Denis Andaban.

[email protected]

Source: denisanbanblog.blogspot.com
The Tamale Metropolitan Chief Executive intends to embark on a massive decongestion exercise within the Central Business District of Tamale in order to bring about discipline, sanity and reduce filth.

The assembly has indicated that there is the need to reposition Tamale to create a congenial atmosphere that will boost investor confidence in the metropolis.

The chiefs, stakeholders and the assembly have resolved, as a matter of urgency, to take necessary steps to instill discipline within the principal streets of Tamale by ensuring that the various public infrastructure outlays within the metropolis are used only for the purposes they were provided.

A grace period from now till 15th May, 2017 has been given before the exercise will be undertaken.

The Public Relations Officer of the Tamale Metro, Issah Salifu Musah told DAILY GUIDE that the exercise will remove all vendors and hawkers on the streets around and behind the area of the central market.

Areas like Fosmuel Shopping Center, Quality First, Modern City Shop, Somo Vision and Access Bank will be affected.

According to him, the assembly will also target roads and parking lots within the Metropolis and the Aboabo market area as well.

Strategy

The assembly is doing this in collaboration with the Chiefs, Imams, political parties, youth groups and leadership of the Traders Association within the various markets.

Short term Measure

Satellite markets at Kukuo and Kakpagyili will be reorganized for the traders while the Tamale Jubilee Park will be used for Saturday and Sunday markets. Parking spaces will also be available for a fee.

Long term measure

Long distance vehicles will be relocated to the Datoyili Bus Terminal from the Central Bus Terminal and taxis will move to the Central Bus Terminal.

Pix saved as Decongestion in 2017

FROM Eric Kombat, Tamale




Executives of MTN Ghana, led by Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Ebenezer Twum Asante, recently paid a courtesy call on Vice President Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia at the Flagstaff House.

The visit forms part of MTN's engagement strategy to share with stakeholders the company's business performance, contributions to national development, challenges and prospects for the future.

Mr. Asante and Dr. Bawumia discussed the potential of Mobile Money and its numerous benefits.

Mr. Asante enumerated ways in which government and citizens could benefit from the service, stating that Mobile Money could be used to process payments for many government services, including the payment of vehicle inspection fees, passports and others.

He explained that during the period in which government used MTN Mobile Money for LEAP payments, transparency was enhanced and leakage minimized.

He stated that mainstreaming Mobile Money in government initiatives could minimize corruption.

Touching on network improvements, the CEO of MTN took the opportunity to brief the Vice President on expansion projects being undertaken by MTN to expand and optimize the network and improve experience for subscribers in Ghana.

The Vice President said government recognizes the benefits of electronic money services and gave the assurance that government would ensure Ghanaians experienced the transformational benefits of technology.

He stated that the Mobile Money space is a major area where we can see a lot of value. It is very clear that the telcos have figured this out.

He commended MTN Ghana for offering beneficial products and services to Ghanaians.
Mike Nyinaku, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of The BEIGE Group (TBG), a financial services provider, has called on entrepreneurs to take advantage of opportunities in this year's budget.

Mr. Nyinaku expressed confidence that the 2017 financial plan can help businesses to thrive.

The CEO, who founded The BEIGE Group, one of the leading financial institutions in the country in 2008, said the 2017 budget would motivate entrepreneurs.

According to him, 2017 would be a foundation building year towards the long-term growth and development of the country, adding, This is a crazy but ambitious way to go as a country. The Entrepreneur Man of the year for 2016 hinted that there is opportunity for everyone in the budget.

There is also the need to continuously explore ways of expanding the economy to propel more Ghanaian businesses to become global champions, as well as help lift the majority of the population above poverty.

Touching on the success story of The BEIGE Group, which has subsidiaries in banking, pensions, insurance and investment, Mr Nyinaku said his outfit has been able to adapt and customise international credit delivery approaches to suit the unique circumstances of Ghana's formal and informal sectors.

He expressed the willingness of BEIGE to partner other stakeholders on any potential partnership that would inure to the benefit of the economy.

Dubbed 'Sowing the seeds for growth and jobs,' the 2017 Budget, which was delivered earlier this month, among others, seeks to abolish the 1 percent Special Import Levy, 17.5 percent VAT/NHIL on financial services and 17.5 percent VAT/NHIL on selected imported medicines that are not produced locally.

Other initiatives, which are expected to boost entrepreneurship, include 'One Village One Dam' policy targeting small to medium-scale irrigation schemes to be identified and rehabilitated, while the One District One Factory initiative would also be implemented to ensure an even spatial spread of industries.

Mr. Nyinaku advised Ghanaians to rise up to the occasion by creating enduring ideas that can become business giants in the near future.

TBG's evolution, when completed, will see every BEIGE office become a one-stop shop for banking, pensions, insurance and investment products and solutions.
Government is planning to establish what it terms Fiscal Stability and Financial Stability Council to enhance macro stability to strengthen the recently passed Public Financial Management Act.

Vice President Dr Mahamudu Bawumia, who made the disclosure yesterday, said in this next quarter, we are going to be sending certain amendments for the Public Financial Management Act to increase transparency to fiscal management as well as accountability.

He disclosed this during an interaction with German businesses under the theme: 'Deepening economic ties between Ghana and the international community.'

We think that the current law is a bit deficient in these two aspects, he said.

We want to enhance it in bringing elements of fiscal responsibility law.

Reasons

The Fiscal Council, he explained, is going to be like the Monetary Policy Committee for the Central Bank; we need an institution for the Ministry of Finance that monitors fiscal developments of the Ministry, state-owned enterprises and so on.

When we put this together, we will have a lot more transparency of what is actually happening, so that you don't get surprises down the road.

Touching on the Financial Stability Council, the Vice President, who happens to be a former Deputy Governor of the Bank of Ghana (BoG), said it would be the institution that would deal with the overall financial stability in the country.

For him, this would enable government to have a focused approach to transparency and accountability in the country.

I think that it will bring a lot of discipline and macro-economic stability, he noted.

Dr Bawumia said government intends to enhance transparency in the area of procurement since a lot of corruption has to do with procurement, about 99 percent is usually in the procurement area.

The Public Procurement Authority is also going to make sure, starting in June, that every procurement is also going to be uniquely on their system; so if you are bidding for a contract, you should be able to go to their system, the procurement for that particular contract should be there for you to click and know what stage of that process it is in.

On his part, the German Ambassador to Ghana, Christoph Retzlaff, disclosed what his country wants to achieve with its G-20 initiative.

As a new government of Ghana that is putting private business and private investment at the centre of their activities, what we want to achieve with our G-20 initiative is we want to bring more private business and more investment to Ghana to create jobs and to build infrastructure, he said.

In line with this, the German Chancellor, Angela Merkel is expected to hold a conference in June, this year with selected African heads of states, business leaders in the G-20 countries and NGOs to conclude and sign compacts.

By Charles Takyi-Boadu, Presidential Correspondent
Government has expressed its commitment to the implementation of Ghana's Beneficial Ownership Disclosure (BOD) project to help save the country from the scourge of widespread corruption and money-laundering.

At a stakeholders' workshop yesterday in Accra to establish a framework on the implementation of BOD in the Amended Companies Act, Ken Ofori-Atta, Minister of Finance, in a speech read on his behalf, emphasized that our government is committed to transparency and accountability both within government and in the private sector. We are committed not just to tackling corruption, but preventing revenue leakage at all levels.

The Minister stated that there was a lot more work to be done in order to ensure that the model developed for Ghana's beneficial ownership regime meets the objectives of stakeholders.

He said though some level of progress had been made in Ghana compared to other countries, it seemed the rate at which the process was moving was slower than expected, hence the need for all to help quicken the implementation process.

Last year, Parliament passed three important pieces of legislation  the Companies Act (as amended) (Act 919), which makes some of the necessary provisions for beneficial ownership disclosure; the Minerals Development Fund Act (Act 920) and the Public Financial Management Act (Act 921) with the aim of strengthening transparency and accountability.

There are a host of issues to consider, including compatibility with the current companies register, as well as with the global data register, a regime for ensuring data security and privacy, all towards making sure that the architecture of the register is fit for purpose.

Emmanuel Kuyole, Africa Deputy Director, Natural Resource Governance Institute (NGRI), in a presentation on the'Analysis of the Company Amendment Act  Gap Analysis,' said oil and gas companies that bid, operate, invest and trade in extractives projects in their countries must publish names of their real owners.

This, he mentioned, should include the identity of the owner i.e. their name, nationality and country of residence.

Companies are also encouraged to publish further details such as the date of birth, national identity number, residential address, etc.

According to Transparency International, global money laundering is now worth $2 trillion annually and half of this amount is coming from developing countries such as Ghana, who need these monies to undertake social investments into their health services, education systems or to build and maintain the roads and infrastructure needed to alleviate poverty.

According to the World Economic Forum and World Bank, about $1.25 trillion is paid in bribes annually, and 5 percent of global annual GDP (about $2.5 trillion) is lost through corruption.

Oxfam also indicated that poor countries lose up to $170 billion yearly to tax evasion.

They concluded that a fraction of this amount could fund health services that could save the lives of 150 million children.

By Samuel Boadi

[email protected]


Tamale, GHANAThe United States Agency for International Development (USAID), through the U.S. governments Feed the Future Initiative, and the National Seed Trade Association of Ghana (NASTAG), held the seventh annual Pre-season Planning and Networking Forum on March 30 in Ghanas Northern Region.

The event brought together 800 government officials, farmers, agribusinesses, processors, agro-input dealers, seed companies, and producers from across the country to build partnerships, establish market linkages, share lessons learned and coordinate planning for the upcoming planting season.

The objective of the event is to create a platform for the agriculture sector to build more competitive businesses and enhance agricultural productivity in northern Ghana. In attendance were Northern Regional Minister Salifu Saeed and USAID/Ghana Deputy Mission Director Steven E. Hendrix.

At the event, Honorable Saeed and Mr. Hendrix handed over 22 seed vans (motorized vehicles) to selected seed producers and agro-input dealers. These vans will assist them in reaching the most remote farming communities in Northern Ghana, to mitigate challenges these communities face accessing high-yielding seeds. Additionally, the event featured panel discussions and an exhibition of irrigation technology, farm and processing equipment, and improved seed varieties. Topics discussed included ways to increase access to finance for agribusinesses, the availability of high yielding seeds, and current investments made in northern Ghana.

Todays pre-season event is an important forum for catalyzing agriculture-led economic growth. It has linked hundreds of Ghanaian agribusinesses to local and international markets and fostered partnerships between farmers and agribusinesses, said Mr. Hendrix.

Through Feed the Future, the U.S. governments global hunger and food security initiative, USAID works with the Ghana Government and development partners to improve the competitiveness of the maize, rice and soybean value chains. Ghana is one of Feed the Futures priority countries. In Ghana, Feed the Future works to increase agricultural competitiveness, with a focus on the three northern regions, by introducing farmers to new technologies and techniques that boost productivity, strengthening agricultural research, linking farmers and agribusinesses to markets, and stimulating private sector investment.
Jennifer Nyarko

31.03.2017 LISTEN

Medical Director of the Accra Psychiatric Hospital, Dr Pinaman Apau, has indicated that almost all suicide cases recorded in the country can be linked to some form of mental disorder.

Dr Apau said most people who die from suicide suffer a mental disorder, principally severe depression, adding that the risk of suicide is increased to about 15 fold in mental disorders.

It will interest you to know that 9,523 cases of mood disorders were recorded in 2016 at the Accra Psychiatric Hospital alone. Not to mention the figures of the other psychiatric hospitals, community mental health units, the general hospitals and those who do not report to any of the facilities, she said.

In recent past, the country was rocked with series of suicide cases, including two university girls.

It started with a female student of the University of Science and Technology (KNUST) in Kumasi, Adwoa Agyarkwa Anyimadu-Antwi, who reportedly committed suicide by hanging in her hostel without leaving any reason for the dastardly act.

It was followed by another female student, Jennifer Nyarko, a 24-year old student of Agriculture and Consumer Science of the University of Ghana, who allegedly committed the act at the Akuafo Hall Annex A.

Neglect of Psychiatric Hospitals

The medical director, therefore, raised concern over the stigma and lack of attention given to psychiatric hospitals in the county.

She said the facility, built in 1904, has not seen any major renovations and therefore continues to grapple with financial, material and other resource allocations that are needed for its smooth operation.

Our neglect of mental health and mental health issues makes it difficult for us to get data on mental health including suicide. This same neglect has also led to inadequate mental health personnel, lack of funding and non-passage of the legislative instrument to back the mental health act 846 which has passed in 2012, she added.

Dr Apau, thus, called for a concerted effort in improving the quality and access to mental healthcare delivery in the country, and the Accra Psychiatric Hospital for that matter.

And it is in this light that the hospital has since last year been appealing for funds to help with projects that would generate some revenue for the facility to take care of some of our challenges, she added.

Goodwill Ambassador

In a bid to raise funds for major projects for the hospital, it has outdoored a goodwill ambassador, Kafui Dey, to support the project.

Our task is huge and our challenges are enormous but with personalities like our ambassador, who in a few minutes will be unveiled to the entire world, we believe the state of Accra Psychiatric Hospital and for that matter mental health in the country would see a facelift with the support of all, especially you the media, she said.

Mr Dey, a broadcast journalist with over 20 years' experience, accepting the position, pledged to work to bring in organsations and individuals who would support the health facility.

The hospital on Friday, May 5, 2017 at the Police Social and Fitness Centre behind the police headquarters will be hosting a fundraising dinner, where the goodwill ambassador is expected to raise GH500,000.

The amount will be used in refurbishing and purchasing of laboratory equipment such as haemootology analyzer, biochemistry analyzer, drug analyzer and electro-convulsive therapy machine, which are of essence in the treatment of mood disorders.

By Jamila Akweley Okertchiri
Two health facilities in the Manhyia North Constituency in Kumasi, the Ashanti Regional capital, received one ambulance each and drugs on Tuesday to improve healthcare delivery to patients.

The Member of Parliament (MP) for the area, Collins Owusu Amankwah, donated the drugs and the ambulances to offer immediate medical relief to patients, including accident victims within the vicinity.

The beneficiaries were the Moshie Zongo Community Health Centre and the Buokrom Health Centre, all in the constituency.

They are expected to refer critically ill patients and accident victims as quickly as possible to the Manhyia Government Hospital or the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital, the MP observed.

According to him, the donation is to help save lives that can otherwise be lost as a result of delay in conveying such patients and accident victims to health facilities to receive prompt medical attention.

Hon Owusu Amankwah called on the beneficiaries to put the ambulances into good use and for the benefit of the constituents who sponsored him to parliament.

The Kumasi Metro District of Health, Dr Alberta Nyarko-Britwum, who spoke on behalf of the beneficial health centres, expressed joy for the ambulances, describing the donation as a timely intervention package.

The health director said the ambulances had come to give relief to people, especially women in labour, who visit the two health centres.

According to Dr Nyarko-Britwum, ambulances are vital to the healthcare system in the constituency, intimating that government alone cannot shoulder the responsibilities of ensuring proper healthcare delivery.

The constant neglect of medical needs at the local communities in the country, the director pointed out, had had dire consequences on the people and medical care.

She lauded the efforts of the MP, particularly those geared toward health, and appealed to him to continuously assist the health facilities in the constituency.

From Ernest Kofi Adu, Kumasi


The women's council of the Apostles Revelation Society (ARS) has presented items worth GH4,500 to the Accra Psychiatric Hospital in support of the daily operations of the health facility.

The items presented include gallons of detergents, cooking oil, bags of rice, maize, beans gari, clothing, fruits, diapers and tissue papers.

The coordinator of the group and assembly woman for Kutunse Electoral Area in the Ga West Municipal Assembly, Selina Avevor, said the group decided to help the activities of the hospital as a demonstration of their teachings.

The facility was in the news last year for lack of supplies, so even though the issue had died out we want to support to bring some happiness on the faces of the inmates, she said.

Madam Avevor said the group celebrated its women's anniversary last year July, where they planned on donating to the hospital.

She called on other organisations to support the health facility to enable it to operate to its full capacity.

Madam Beatrice Nyarko, Deputy Director of Nursing Services at the Accra Psychiatric Hospital, who received the items on behalf of the hospital's management and patients, expressed her heartfelt gratitude to the ARS women's council for their donation.

She said the donation was very significant because if you heard about us last year, we almost went home because of things like this so we are very grateful and we pray that God will repay you bountifully.

By Jamila Akweley Okertchiri




The Leadership of the Upper East Youth Wing of the New Patriotic Party(NPP) has commended the President, Nana Akufo-Addo for appointing some persons from the region to serve in his government.

In their view, the gesture is a big motivation for many people in the region, especially the youth, who are aspiring to occupy leadership positions in politics in the near future.

A statement read at a press conference in Bolgatanga by the deputy regional youth organizer of the NPP, Samuel Atiru Amangdedam said the Upper East Region has duly been served and hoped the privileged appointees will work hard to direct government and investors attention to the region to facilitate speedy development and job creation.

Appointees from the Upper East Region include, Member of Parliament for Navrongo Central, Hon. Joseph Kofi Adda, as Minister for Sanitation and Water Resources, Member of Parliament for Tempane, Hon. Joseph Dindiok Kpemka, as Deputy Attorney General and Mustapha Hamid, as Information Minister. Others are Fatimah Abubakar, Deputy Communication Director at the Presidency and Bashiru Ibrahim, National Deputy Director in charge of Operations at the National Youth Employment Authority.

Touching on the appointment of Bashiru Ibrahim to the National Office of the National Youth Employment Authority, Samuel Atiru, said he is hardworking and knows the problems of the youth and how to handle them.

According to him, Mr. Bashiru, while in office as the Upper East Regional Youth Organizer mobilized the youth to accept the NPPs message and got them to support Nana Addos bid to become the President of Ghana, and he is very hopeful that he will do same to get the youth of the country to support the ideas of the President and the need to work hard to attain success.

The NPP Youth promised to work hard to support the vision of the President for their communities and also their personal development.

From: Ebo Bruce-Quansah
Otukonor

31.03.2017 LISTEN

Deputy Director of Research for the opposition National Democratic Congress, Peter Boamah Otukonor has expressed his readiness to lend a helping hand to Member of Parliament (MP) for Assin Central, Kennedy Agyapong in his suicide mission.

The controversial Member of Parliament (MP) on Thursday, March 30 said on Adom TV he is prepared to poison himself if the brother of former President John Mahama is not jailed.

According to Kennedy Agyapong, he would take in a poisonous substance if Ibrahim Mahama manages to escape jail sentence under the Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addos presidency.

I will take in poison and kill myself if Ibrahim Mahama is not jailed, he should watch and hear me well, I will take in poison and die if Ibrahim is not jailed. Kennedy Agyapong said on Thursday.

But speaking on Abusua Nkomo hosted by Kwame Adinkra on Friday morning, Peter Boamah Otukonor admonished Kennedy Agyapong not to hesitate in calling him for assistance to help him end his life since I would gladly welcome any call for me to buy any substance that can easily trigger his death.

He reckons Ibrahim Mahama has done nothing wrong to warrant any jail term amid baseless calls from him to be sentenced in prison.

Im ready and more than ready to help Kennedy Agyapong end his life, Otukonor stressed.

He added If he Kennedy Agyapong doesnt know where he can buy those substance which would enable him end his life I know where to buy them and will even assist him get some once he sends to me.
The Chief Executive Officer of Prime Hedge Investments Limited, Richard Appiah, has been sentenced to 20 years imprisonment by a Financial and Economic division of the High Court, for defrauding 154 persons and companies under the pretext of investing their monies for them.

Appiah is said to have collected over GHc 5 million and other amounts in foreign currencies from his clients to invest for a period of six months to one year, with the promise of 4 to 10 percent interest on the monies deposited.

In the judgment delivered today [Friday], Justice Efia Serwaa Asare Botwe said the prosecution proved beyond every reasonable doubt that the accused, who pleaded not guilty, perpetuated the act.

According to the prosecution, led by Winifred Sarpong, during the trial, the accused, whose company was located at Sakumono in Accra, had no licence to operate banking business.

He is alleged to have collected monies as deposits and paid interest between four to 10 per cent in six to 12 months.

The prosecution further added that, Appiah paid interest promptly when he commenced business, and as such won the confidence of his clients.

However, a client who deposited his GH 16,000 cedis with the institution could not be paid his principal and interest, and therefore lodged a complaint with the Police which led to the arrest of Appiah.

Following his arrest, 154 people also lodged complaints claiming that he had collected monies between GHc 1,000 and GHc 250,000 from individuals and companies, but failed to refund their monies.

Several Ghanaians have fallen victim to such scams with the most criticized one being the DKM Microfinance scandal.



By: Fred Djabanor/citifmonline.com/Ghana
Kinshasa (AFP) - Beheadings, mass graves, kidnapped foreigners, child soldiers: a tribal insurrection in the Democratic Republic of Congo's Kasai region has killed hundreds of people and risks further destabilising the fragile central government.

Congolese officials face growing international pressure to curb the violence, while the UN Security Council prepares to vote Friday to cut down its peacekeeping mission in the vast central African country.

Here is what we know about the uprising:

What sparked the rebellion?

Fighting in the central region of Kasai erupted in August 2016 when DR Congo forces killed tribal chief Jean Pierre Mpandi, also known as Kamwina Nsapu, who had rebelled against the government of President Joseph Kabila.

Mpandi was designated to succeed his uncle as head of the Bajila Kasanja clan of the Lulua tribe in 2011 after his return from exile following a conviction in a diamond trafficking case.

The chieftain, whose tribal name refers to a poisonous black ant, had practised as a doctor after claiming he studied in China and India even though he never finished secondary school.

Tensions flared after officials considered to be close to Kinshasa were appointed to powerful posts at the expense of tribal chiefs, angering the local community.

Resentment of Kabila's administration runs deep in the region, which had overwhelmingly supported opposition leader Etienne Tshisekedi in the 2011 presidential election.

Before he was killed, Mpandi had called on his militia to fight anyone representing the government, posting an audio appeal online for the "liberation of Congo".

By January, Kasai-Central provincial governor Alex Kande said Mpandi's movement had "morphed in total anarchy into a deadly guerrilla force".

The violence has spilled over into neighbouring provinces, leaving at least 400 people dead.

The region is rich in diamonds but the industry has collapsed and much of the population lives without basic needs like water and electricity.

Kabila has drawn criticism for being slow to enact power-sharing measures with opposition leaders, part of a deal that allows him to stay in power until elections at the end of 2017, a year after the end of his mandate.

Who are the militias?

Mpandi's fighters include men, women and even children from remote areas of Kasai, home to the country's third and fourth largest cities.

Initiation rites include jumping through flames after drinking a locally-produced alcohol believed to have powers to make people invincible.

Armed with rudimentary weapons such as slingshots, machetes, sticks, arrows, brooms and voodoo charms, according to UN sources, the fighters wear red bandanas on their heads or arms.

Hundreds of people have been killed in violence in the Kasai region of the Democratic Republic of Congo since August last year

Their tactics include burning government property, torturing and beheading police or intelligence agents, government sources say.

The bodies of two UN researchers were found this week after being kidnapped in Kasai, drawing further attention to the region's violence.

What is the international community doing?

The UN, EU and African Union on Tuesday expressed "grave concern" about the violence while also urging government forces to "exercise restraint in the efforts to restore order in the Kasai".

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has asked the Security Council to boost its forces in DR Congo, the UN's largest and costliest peacekeeping mission which is known as MONUSCO.

But the council is expected to vote Friday to reduce its presence there and the US, which wants to scale back on UN spending, has called for a review of the mission.

The force's authorised strength of over 19,800 will be cut by 3,600, according to US ambassador Nikki Haley, although 3,100 of these places are already unfilled.

In February, MONUSCO accused the Kamwina Nsapu militia of "atrocities... including the recruiting and use of child soldiers," while also condemning the response of DR Congo forces for "a disproportionate use of force".

On Monday, the government claimed militiamen killed 39 policemen last week in an ambush but provided no evidence, saying the corpses had been buried in a mass grave by Nsapu followers.
Former CHRAJ boss, Justice Emile Francis Short, says the report of the Joe Ghartey Committee instituted to investigate a bribery claim against some MPs has not fully resolved all the issues.

He said there are some unresolved issues despite a contempt finding made against Bawku Central Member of Parliament (MP), Mahama Ayariga who made the allegation.

The University of London-trained lawyer questioned why the Committee delved into issues that were not part of its terms of reference.

Related Article: Boakye Agyarko, Osei Owusu, Muntaka cleared of bribery

The issue of contempt was not before the Committee it wasnt one of the terms of reference, he said on Joy FMs Midday News Friday.

There was chaos in Ghanas Parliament after a Committee empowered to investigate a bribery claim against some MPs on the Appointments Committee read its recommendations.

Related Article: Bribery allegations: Ayariga in contempt of Parliament

The Joe Ghartey Committee told MPs Thursday it found no evidence to support Mr Ayarigas claim that GHC3,000 was handed to some minority MPs.

The Committee is at a lossthere is no evidence that money was given to the MPs, Mr Ghartey who chaired the Committee said.

Chairman of Parliament's bribery investigative committee, Joe Ghartey

He also said there was no evidence that Energy Minister, Boakye Agyarko offered any money to bribe legislators.

Related Article: We will step in if Parliament fails to investigate Ayariga bribery claim - CHRAJ

There is no evidence that this committee can rely on that First Deputy Speaker Joe Osei Owusu gave money to Minority Chief Whip, Mohammed Muntaka, Mr Ghartey added.

The Committees finding dismisses Mr Ayarigas repeated claim that he was offered GHC3,000 by Mr Muntaka and he returned same after he was told the money came from Mr Boakye.

He peddled this allegation on several media platforms triggering public outcry over the activities of MPs.

Bawku Central MP, Mahama Ayariga

The Committee said after a critical evaluation of Mr Ayarigas claim, it established he gave credence to rumour that circulated in the media.

We find it unfortunate as he failed to ascertain the veracity of the rumour, Mr Ghartey said.

The Committee went ahead to find Mr Ayariga guilty of contempt as spelt out in Article 112 of the 1992 Constitution as well as Order eight of Parliaments Standing Orders because of his failure to prove the allegation.

It recommended Parliament to reprimand the MP and demand an apology for the deadly injury he has caused the image of the House.

First Deputy Speaker of Parliament, Joe Osei Owusu cleared of bribery

The Bawku Central MP has been dissatisfied with the work done by the Committee.

In his reaction on the floor of Parliament, he said the Committee was mandated to establish facts and not to outline sanctions.

Mr Ayarigas position has been supported by Mr Short who said the Joe Ghartey Committee acted beyond its remit.

He said the Committee should have focused on its terms of reference which did not include a recommendation of sanctions.

He also said the failure of the Committee to allow Mr Ayariga to cross-examine the witnesses blights its work.

Story by Ghana | Myjoyonline.com | Austin Brako-Powers | [email protected]
The Police have arrested three Chinese illegal miners at Denkyira, a village near Nkawkaw in the Eastern Region.

Three Ghanaian accomplices were also arrested in a swoop last night by a Police task-force.

The operation, led by the New Juaben Municipal Police Commander, Superintendent Richardson Kumekor, retrieved four excavators, two pump action guns, over sixty cartridges and three pumping machines from the galamsey site.

Speaking to Citi News, the Eastern Regional Police Public Relations Officer, said the suspects will soon be arraigned for flouting the countrys mining laws.

It was an operation carried out by the Regional Rapid deployment force led by Superintendent Mr. Richardson Kumekor, the Municipal Police Commander and operation as I indicated was done around the Denkyira area around Nkawkaw. We have arrested six suspects. There are some expatriates, ostensibly Chinese nationals who were also arrested. We hope to arraign them for engaging in illegal mining contrary to the mining laws and possessing fire arms.

Last week, five Chinese and five Ghanaian illegal miners were arrested in the Western Region for mining on River Ankobrah, and are currently facing trial.

They appeared before court, but were remanded to reappear on April 10 , 2017.

Amewu begs China to stop Chinese 'galamsey' operators

Ghana has practically been begging China to help in the fight against Chinese nationals who are contributing to the destruction of its environment through illegal mining, popularly known as galamsey.

The Minister of Lands and Natural Resources, John Peter Amewu, today [Monday], held an emergency meeting with the Chinese Ambassador to Ghana, and the Mayor of China's Guangxi Zhuang Province, to discuss how they could collectively deal with the role of Chinese nationals in the illegal mining menace in Ghana.



By: Felicia Osei/citifmonline.com/Ghana
31.03.2017 LISTEN

By Albert Futukpor,

Salaga (N/R), March 31, GNA - Over 3,600 out-of-school children, who live in 32 communities where schools do not exist in the East Gonja District, have gained access to education following their enrolment into the Christmas Calendar Wing Schools Project (CCP).

Wing Schools are lower primary schools of kindergarten to primary three - opened in communities where schools do not exist - where children enrol in school at the right age of four, and upon completing primary three, they transit to primary four in a full-fledged public primary school.

Oxfam IBIS, a non-governmental organisation, implemented the CCP in the East Gonja District from 2013 to March, 2017, with support from the Christmas Calendar fund, a DANIDA grant, to reduce the numbers of out-of-school children in the District.

Mr Tijani Ahmed Hamza, Oxfam IBIS Country Director, who spoke during the closing of the CCP at Salaga, said out of the 20 wing schools established under the CCP, 16 were in various stages of being integrated into the public school system.

Mr Hamza said an assessment of the numeracy and literacy skills of the 3,642 beneficiary children revealed proficiency levels of 69.4 per cent in literacy and 59 per cent in numeracy as against public schools, which had a proficiency of 24.3 per cent in literacy and 27.3 per cent in numeracy.

He appealed to Ghana Education Service to absorb the 60 teachers (41 of whom have completed the Untrained Teachers' Diploma in Basic Education) that served under the CCP onto the government's pay roll to ensure the sustainability of the wing schools and schooling for the over 3,600 beneficiary children.

Alhaji Issah Abass, Head of the Inspectorate Unit of the Northern Regional Directorate of Education, who represented the Regional Director of Education, expressed government's appreciation to development partners for their roles to improve access to education in the Region.

Mr Abu Baba, East Gonja District Director of Education, assured that the District Education Directorate would give priority attention to wing school teachers when there was an opportunity to recruit teachers at the district.

Ms Hilda Kada, one of the wing school teachers, who spoke on behalf of her colleagues, appealed to government to absorb them into the Ghana Education Service as teachers to continue teaching the children. GNA
The Hague (AFP) - International Criminal Court chief prosecutor Fatou Bensouda warned Friday against spiralling violence in the volatile Democratic Republic of Congo, saying her office was "carefully monitoring" the situation.

"I am deeply concerned by the numerous reports over the past several months of serious acts of violence in the DRC, particularly in the Kasai province," Bensouda said in a statement issued in The Hague.

The remote central province of Kasai has been plagued by violence since mid-August, when government forces killed Kamwina Nsapu, a tribal chief and militia leader who had rebelled against President Joseph Kabila's central government.

"I shall not hesitate to take action if acts constituting crimes within the jurisdiction of the court are committed and to take all necessary measures to prosecute those responsible," she said.

The violence has spilled over from Kasai to the neighbouring provinces of Kasai-Oriental and Lomami, leaving at least 400 people dead.

The bodies of two foreign UN contractors, American Michael Sharp and Swedish national Zaida Catalan, who were kidnapped in the region earlier this month, were discovered this week. One of the bodies was decapitated.

Four Congolese nationals who were accompanying them are still missing. Diplomats at the UN told AFP that the murdered pair had been investigating reports of mass graves.

Last week, 39 police were killed in an ambush by rebels in Kasai.

Bensouda's warning came just hours before the UN Security Council was to vote to cut by 3,600 the 20,000 troops in its peacekeeping mission in country.

Bensouda called on all parties to "refrain from recurring to criminal violence" while calling on the Congolese government to bring the perpetrators to justice in the volatile central African country.

Congolese troops photographed while fighting rebels in the country's east

The ICC, set up in 2002 to probe and prosecute the world's worst crimes, has been investigating war crimes and crimes against humanity in the DRC since June 2004.

These investigations have led to the ICC's first two convictions.

Warlord Thomas Lubanga was sentenced to 14 years for using children in his rebel army, while Germain Katanga was handed a 12-year sentence for an ethnic attack in 2003 on a village in the war-torn northeast Ituri province.

A third trial, that of Bosco Ntaganda, is still ongoing.

Ntaganda has denied 18 charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity. But prosecutors say he played a central role in the Ituri conflict which rights groups believe has left some 60,000 dead since 1999.
For much of history many people have regarded mangroves as wastelands, but the scale of human impact on mangroves has increased dramatically in recent years. Mangroves have been overexploited or converted to various other forms of land use, including agriculture, aquaculture, salt ponds, terrestrial forestry, urban and industrial development and for the construction of roads and embankments.

Mangrove, a tree, shrub, palm or ground fern, generally exceeding one half metre in height, normally grows above mean sea level in the intertidal zone of marine coastal environments and estuarine margins, but predominantly along the coastline of Ghana tend to be associated with coastal lagoons and estuaries. The distribution is sparse and mangrove populations have also been degraded through over-cutting and conversion of mangrove areas to salt pans.

Even though mangroves play a central role in transferring organic matter and energy from the land to marine ecosystems, researchers say many countries in Africa, Latin America, and Asia are now estimated to have lost at least 50% of their original mangrove area.

Mangroves have been widely assumed to provide nursery habitat functions for juvenile fishes and decapods to support local fisheries. The importance of mangroves as nurseries has been one of the reasons advanced to support the conservation and management of mangroves and to stem their rapid loss. Mangrove habitats along the Ghana coast also tend to host a wide variety of fauna species such as oysters, gastropods, crabs, invertebrates, birds and fish. They also play an important role as nursery areas for many species of fish and crustaceans.

Mangrove forests are extremely productive ecosystems that provide numerous good and services both to the marine environment and people. Mangrove forests are home to a large variety of fish, crab, shrimp, and mollusk species. These fisheries form an essential source of food for thousands of coastal communities around the world. The dense root systems of mangrove forests trap sediments flowing down rivers and off the land. This helps stabilizes the coastline and prevents erosion from waves and storms. In areas where mangroves have been cleared, coastal damage from hurricanes and typhoons is much more severe.

In Ghana, efforts to restore mangrove have mainly focused on restoration activities of degraded areas, and mangrove sensitisation in communities to halt the exploitation. However, such efforts have been rendered ineffective because communities return to their old ways over time of exploitation once the activities come to a close. Therefore a more sustainable effort is required, and one that could help in the effort is use of local governance system in localities.

"People have proposed restoration activities, we have had NGOs going into mangrove areas and planting and trying to restore degraded and lost areas. In addition, education in terms of conservation sensitisation and awareness creation has also gone on. Almost all the tools have been employed when it comes to mangrove issues.

"Most mangrove communities have had one way or the other an engagement that has to do with conservation. They have had engagements that has to do with sustainable use, engagement that had to do with some form of restoration activities. I have seen areas where restoration have been very successful but you go there many years after, degradation has set in and most of the progress made is lost," says Dr Winston A. Asante, a Lecturer at the Faculty of Renewable Natural Resources, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology.

"It is a typical governance issue. If communities beyond education can be made to understand that their ecosystem are intricate and linked to their own livelihoods and their existence then efforts should be made to explore opportunities to use the community structures to protect some of these protected areas," Dr Asante notes, who is part of the first team to study carbon stock in mangrove areas in Ghana.

Some of these have been tested in areas such as Ada in the Greater Accra region with the Wildlife Division of the Forestry Commission and communities are working very well, he mentions.

"So you have a situation where communities come together and then join forces with government institutions where the institutions use their legal backing to support the community ownership to place a memorandum of understanding that describes how a particular mangrove vegetation has to be used. This ensures that even if you restore there is a form of understanding and then byelaw that seeks to enforce some of these understandings.

"For me that has been the major progress I have seen in researching into mangroves, it is not a question of going there to restore, to conduct education, it is a question of understanding the governance arrangement, in terms who holds decision power when it comes to mangrove use and exploitation and how that be joined with government support for of these areas to manage mangrove sustainably," Dr Asante emphasises.

It is highly impossible to inform communities not to make use of mangroves, but they need that backing to do that in a sustainable manner to achieve dual benefits, where ecosystem services supports livelihood and livelihood activities are not detrimental to ecosystem services.

"For instance, if you go to the Keta area that is a huge mangrove landscape ...you see people planting mangroves themselves and cultivating it, waiting for it to grow and cutting it to sell. Because they are under individual ownership and people take active control over it, nobody goes there to cut aside the owner," he states.

But in other areas, mostly part of the western region, due to community ownership and family ownership, open access and exploitation of mangrove is high, he said.

"So the combined efforts can be upscaled and those are the findings I have had during governance engagements in those communities-in areas where we had government institutions combining with communities through memorandum of understanding to establish byelaws governing how mangroves have to be used, managed and exploited, have led to good mangrove cover," Dr Asante emphasises.

The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) says local governance for the vast majority of men and women, in any country regardless of its political situation, remains the most accessible level of engagement with public authority and state institutions. It is the mechanism and channel closest to the people for accessing basic services and opportunities to improve their lives, for participation in public processes where decisions affecting their lives are made, and for exercising their rights and obligations.

The UNDP believes that effective local governance is key to development that is inclusive and sustainable, at the local level as well as the national. It is essential in improving the quality of life of the people both at the urban and rural settings, reducing inequality in all its forms across the society, and enhancing relations between people and public institutions.

He explains that the combined and balanced approach of coexistence between humans and ecosystem services are the pathways that have to be explored, adding, "Else you can do all the education, restoration but still roll back to the degraded state, because people need to be guided," Dr Asante points out.

There should be governance arrangement for those efforts, he recommends.

"Beyond that restoration efforts or conservation education, there is the need to explore some governance arrangements for these mangrove areas, and if you are able to succeed in doing that, then you would have put in place a good system. And then enforcement is critical because if you don't enforce the rules or hold them to their own byelaws, then your rules don't bite, and it is as good as not having them in place," Dr Asante stresses.

In this modern time bottom up approach to natural resources management is the way to go, says Mr Andy Agyekum, Wildlife Division Site Manager at the Forestry Commission in Winneba.

Laws made at the national level and passed on to people at the local level to adhere to is not working, Mr Agyekum, also a prosecutor for the Forestry Commission explains.

"We try to enforce the law as much as we can but then also you realise that illegal activities is on the increase and that is because those national laws are losing their grip.

"But if you look at our traditional system, how it was even without regular monitoring or enforcement people still obeyed it. It is because in our traditional setting, the traditional authority which is the chiefs are very much respected so if we are able to delegate some power back to the chiefs to allow them to make their byelaws or regulations, people will respect it. If we allow the chief to be able to institute their own structures that will punish people who destroy natural resources including mangroves that would be useful," he indicates.

There are many cases where people were arrested and handed them over to the chief to punish to show respect to the chief and gain support, he mentions.

"Due to that most of the chiefs in Winneba threw their weight behind us even we arrest their own community members. It is time we manage the natural resources hand in hand with the traditional authorities," Mr Agyekum said.

Mangroves and serving immediate needs of people

"What makes it easy for that to happen from what I have seen is basically because people own these mangroves and the immediate needs that the mangroves can satisfy overrides any other services that the mangroves gives.

"Even in communities where there have been conservation efforts and interventions, together with varied levels of education, and how it has translated to the extent of protection, you still see people going in to exploit them," Dr Winston Asante states.

"As for how it impacts, it is obvious in terms of emissions of carbon dioxide and fisheries-the moment you impact on mangroves, then these are benefits you essentially lose and it has been the case for greater Accra, central regions and then for most parts of the Eastern and Volta regions," he notes.

Whereas there is a legislative regulatory framework for territorial forests-where some have been carved out as forest reserves to safeguard protection, and likewise sites-which are recognised as protected wetland of international importance under the International Convention on Wetlands, referred to as Ramsar sites also enjoying same, mangroves do not have sort of protection in Ghana.

"I have seen areas in the Nzema in the western region, where people came in for huge charcoal burning business, it took efforts from NGOs to engage the communities to stop those processes. But if these communities know the benefits and understand the linkages and it is able to override whatever livelihood limitations they have, then you can achieve something out of it," Dr Asante says.

Mr Agyekum says even though a lot of importance are generated from mangroves resources, it has been depleted over the years by communities living close to the resources.

A research conducted in 2014 by the Forestry Commission and University of Ghana through support from SNV Ghana to map out all the mangrove areas in Ghana revalued that over harvesting was the major cause of destruction along the coast of Ghana. The work done, which Mr Andy Agyekum was part of covered Ghana's border with Togo to New Town in the Western region. The researchers studied issues and options surrounding mangrove vegetation in the country.

In Winneba, that is the main cause of mangrove destruction, he states.

"There is a belief in the community that fishes smoked with mangroves taste better and because of that, fish smoked with mangroves sell higher than those that are smoked with ordinary wood at market centres in the community," Mr Agyekum notes.

"The other cause of destruction is the pollution from open defecation, dumping of refuse directly into water bodies thereby making it extremely unclean and unhealthy for mangroves.

"We also have the issue of conversion of mangroves for other land use practices like farming, salt production and few cases where mangroves have been burnt from bush fire accidentally," he adds.

Mr Richard Adupong, Monitoring & Evaluation and Communications Specialist at USAID-funded and US Forest Service-managed Coastal Sustainable Landscapes Project (CSLP) says the mangroves ecosystem in the country are under serious threat due to the conversion of this resource to other land uses such as industrial, agricultural and residential purposes.

"Cutting for fuel and for charcoal production is also a growing practice among resource users in communities fringing mangrove ecosystems.

"Generally, the more urbanized or populous a place is, the higher the rate of destruction of mangroves. No comprehensive inventory of mangrove forests exists in Ghana due to lack of resources, it can be said that the rate of destruction could range between 40% and 60%," Mr Adupong notes.

Visit to Winneba

A salt producing company cleared mangroves to make way for a dam construction to aid in producing salt. Surprisingly, the company did not even engage in mangrove restoration except that only few ruminants of mangroves remain along the edges of the dam. This company is making huge sums of profits from the salts whereas the environment which belongs to all toils. It would take strong leadership both at the local and national levels to ensure such a company engages in restoration activities in the area it operates.

Research on Mangrove Species

The species of mangrove found along the Ghana coast are the red mangroves, Rhizophora racemosa, Rhizophora mangle and Rhizophora harrisonii, the white mangroves Avicennia germinans and Laguncularia racemose.

In the whole of Ghana there are three mangrove species even though past research has documented five species, Mr Agyekum mentions.

"What we have realised from our research in 2014 is that we have only three species that are represented in Ghana on the coast and that is to be expected because when resources are depleted, whether it is fauna or flora, one of the indicators is that the specie number goes down and the population also goes down," he states.

The mangrove species in Winneba are the red and white.

"There is another specie that some people have reported as mangroves and the past research also reported the same specie as mangroves, but we are calling them mangroves associate, and they are the Conocarpus erectus. They look very much like mangroves and they are able to thrive in the environment where mangroves are found but we need DNA analysis to be able to tell whether it is really mangrove."

Benefits of mangroves

Winneba, being a coastal community where fishing is a major economic activity, mangroves ideally serve a crucial role in increasing fish stock.

"The environment around the mangrove areas has calm water because the root system reduces the energy that the waves are coming with from the sea.

"As a result, it is able to help fish to spawn there, particularly fishes that are not able to spawn in the sea due to the tidal wave. The fingerlings feed there, swim about and then when are matured, they swim through the estuary and the back into the ocean. The roots of the mangrove system are inter connected to provide refuge for other species from predators," Mr Agyekum indicates.

The mangroves provide food for species of animals that stay within, he adds.

Mr Agyekum explains that whenever the leaves of the mangroves fall, the crabs eat them and as it passes through their digestive system it comes out as defecation and also adds nutrients to the soil and the mangroves pick up the nutrients.

"In the era of climate change, mangroves have been found to be able to sequester a lot atmospheric carbon dioxide. Research shows it can sequester ten times what the natural forest can sequester, so it helps in mitigating climate change at the local, national and international levels," Mr Agyekum adds.

In Winneba, members of the various communities are allowed to harvest the dry branches of mangroves, however, some go to the extent to harvest live mangroves, even though it is discouraged by the Forestry Commission Wildlife Division. The community members say the mangrove is strong and able to withstand sea breeze which causes metal rusting.

Mr Adupong also says mangroves are very important because they sequester about five times more carbon per unit area than any other forest ecosystem, including tropical rainforest. "Thus, the role they play in mitigating the effects of climate change-the wetland ecosystem of which they are part has the ability to mitigate the effects of climate five times more than terrestrial forest eco-system," he adds.

Initiatives to promote sustainable mangroves

The Coastal Sustainable Landscapes Project (CSLP) is a USAID-funded and US Forest Service-managed intervention being implemented in the six coastal districts of Ghanas Western Region. The project, originally planned for October 2013 to September 2016, was extended to September 2019, through Feed the Future funding, based on its substantial achievements.

The project, being implemented in collaboration with Government of Ghana institutions, particularly the Forestry Commission and Ministry of Food and Agriculture, aims at contributing to moving Ghana into a low greenhouse gas emissions, high carbon sequestration development pathway in the land use sector. It is embedded within a broader, multi-partner food security, biodiversity conservation, climate change mitigation, and environmental governance effort within the coastal forest landscapes along the western coast of Ghana.

The project has established three mangrove nursery sites and currently raising over 10,000 high quality seedlings of mangrove and acacia to be tendered and replanted at degraded sites identified during the mapping and ground trothing process. Last year, more than 10,000 mangrove seedlings were raised and successfully planted in the communities, according to Mr Adupong.

A total of 2000 red mangrove propagules have already been replanted at degraded sites around the Anyanzili community, Mr Adupong mentions.

Stakeholders in the area, mostly community members and resource users in the project area have become more aware of the need to protect mangroves and other wetland resources, Mr Adupong emphasises.

"The rate of destruction has reduced significantly due to project intervention. In some communities the size of the mangrove forest is increasing and this is good for REDD+ implementation in Ghana. The district assemblies have seen the need to have sub-committees that champion the sustainable management of mangroves and traditional authorities are playing their roles effectively. As a result of CSLPs efforts, the assemblies have incorporated issues of mangroves and wetlands in their Medium Term Development Plans (MTDPs)," he said.

The Forestry Commission through the Wildlife Division works closely with stakeholders including NGOs, other government institutions, district assemblies, traditional authority and local community to safeguard natural resources.

"We have established site management committees and resource protection volunteer groups which we gave trained to help protect the resources by way of patrols and law enforcement. This is because staffing is a challenge with the Forestry Commission and because of that we need the community support," says Mr Agyekum of the Forestry Commission.

The commission also supports communities with livelihood ventures to prevent communities from further destruction of mangroves.

"It is very difficult to get them to stop, so we try to take that hands that would have destroyed the resource and put that to good use in other areas," Mr Agyekum stresses.

"We have also formed wildlife clubs in schools. Most of the information we get to go into the community to carry out any arrest have come from the school children who inform us about people cutting mangroves," he said.

Solutions to mangrove restoration

For any restoration to be successful, there is the need to include local communities, Mr Agyekum states.

"If you come in strong, plant and then leave, at the end of the day they are staying with resource and can easily destroy it. But if you let them understand why we need to restore that mangrove forest, then they will appreciate it better.

"Most often than we have always started with education, and then gone on to find local champions who lead the cause. Sometimes it is very useful if the information is coming to them from one of their own, for better understanding than coming from someone coming from outside their community," he notes.

There is the need to also do monitoring after restoration, and also throw in a bit of enforcement, he indicates.

"People will always do the things you tell them not to do. Once there is the need to survive and market for a commodity, people will always dare to do the wrong thing, so we need enforcement to be put in there to serve as deterrent for others," Mr Agyekum adds.

According to Mr Adupong of the USAID coastal landscape project, there should be intensified sensitization and education on the importance of mangroves to the resource users and the need to sustainably utilize this resource.

Credit: Under the aegis of the CSE Media Fellowships Programme
Inesfly Africa has committed to painting ten Community-based Health Planning Services Compounds in ten districts in the Greater Accra Region.

This was announced at a durbar with the Ghana Health Service at Apenkwa in the Greater Accra Region.

The move is part of the companys corporate social responsibility project in 2017 and a commitment to improve the quality of health services in health facilities in the country.

A survey conducted by Inesfly Africa revealed that the country's CHPS compounds were not only in deplorable state, they were also engulfed by insect-pests.

The irony was that the Compounds which should have been safe havens for the sick rather became a point for vector transmitted diseases.

The plan by Inesfly Africa is in tandem with the objectives of the Ghana Health Service, whose durbar was under the theme: Health Improvement Through Insect and Vector Control.

The theme also reflected the growing need for health institutions to adopt a holistic approach in their quest to offer true health services to the people.

Speaking on the theme, the CEO of Inesfly Africa Limited, Michael Sjodin, reiterated the need to control insects and vectors, especially in the country's health facilities.

Inesfly Africa Limited, as an entity is committed to ensuring that we all have pest-free lives," he said.

He called for increased partnership between stakeholders in order deal with the enormity of the task ahead

"In our own little way, were setting the pace by treating ten Community-based Health Planning Services (CHPS) compounds in deprived communities in ten districts of the Greater Accra region. We hope this move will draw the attention of all involved to fight collectively against insect-pests, he remarked.

The Greater Accra Regional Director of Health, Dr. Linda Van Otoo, commended Inesfly Africa for the generous initiative, noting that it was a timely intervention.

We as health personnel need to ensure that our clients are safe and do not risk picking one infection in the quest to treat another, she said.

Health operators at the CHPS compounds expressed their gratitude and excitement at the initiative by Inesfly Africa.

Some of the ten CHPS Compounds to benefit from this initiative include Adedetsekope in Ada East, Madavunu in Ada West, Anyaa in Ga Central, Otsrikomfo in Ga West. The others are Asuom Osofo Lamptey in Ga South, Appolonia in Kpone Katamanso, Nyigbenya in Ningo Prampram, Natrigu in Shai and Apenkwa in the Accra Metro.

Story by Ghana|Myjoyonline.com
New York (AFP) - The United Nations Security Council voted unanimously Friday to renew the mandate of the peacekeeping force in the Democratic Republic of Congo, but cut its numbers.

Members of the council paid tribute to two kidnapped UN researchers whose bodies were found this week, and voted to approve the MONUSCO mission for another year.

The resolution reduces the authorized size of the military component of the mission from 19,815 to 16,215 troops, but the force is already under-strength and in practice fewer than 500 will come home.

The United States, which will assume the presidency of the Security Council in April, has called for a deep review of the strategy behind all the United Nations' peacekeeping missions.

And Washington, which currently funds more than 28 percent of the peacekeeping budget, is seeking to cut costs and improve the efficiency of the missions.

In the Democratic Republic of Congo, UN members are pressing President Joseph Kabila's government to honor a power-sharing deal with the opposition ahead of elections later this year.
Speaker of Parliament, Professor Mike Aaron Ocquaye, says he is committed to bringing finality to the bribery allegation made by Bawku Central MP, Mahama Ayariga against some legislators.

He told Members of Parliament Friday ruling on the special committee findings and matters arising will be delivered in due course.

Ghanaians continue to debate the content of the report of the Joe Ghartey Committee set up to investigate a bribery claim leveled by Mr Ayariga.

The Joe Ghartey Committee told MPs Thursday it found no evidence to support Mr Ayarigas claim that GHC3,000 was handed to some minority MPs on the Appointment Committee to approve the then Energy Minister nominee Boakye Agyarko.

The Committee is at a lossthere is no evidence that money was given to the MPs, Mr Ghartey who chaired the Committee said.

He also said there was no evidence that Energy Minister, Boakye Agyarko offered any money to bribe legislators.

Related Article: We will step in if Parliament fails to investigate Ayariga bribery claim - CHRAJ

There is no evidence that this committee can rely on that First Deputy Speaker Joe Osei Owusu gave money to Minority Chief Whip, Mohammed Muntaka, Mr Ghartey added.

The Committees finding dismisses Mr Ayarigas repeated claim that he was offered GHC3,000 by Mr Muntaka and he returned same after he was told the money came from Mr Boakye Agyarko.

Chairman of Parliament's bribery investigative committee, Joe Ghartey

He peddled this allegation on several media platforms triggering public outcry over the activities of MPs.

The Committee said after a critical evaluation of Mr Ayarigas claim, it established he gave credence to rumour that circulated in the media.

We find it unfortunate as he failed to ascertain the veracity of the rumour, Mr Ghartey said.

By failing to prove the allegations, the Committee went ahead to find Mr Ayariga guilty of contempt as spelt out in Article 112 of the 1992 Constitution as well as Order eight of Parliaments Standing Orders.

Bawku Central MP, Mahama Ayariga

It recommended Parliament to reprimand the MP and demand an apology for the deadly injury he has caused the image of the House.

Minutes after the delivery of the report, Parliament was thrown into confusion with Tamale North MP Alhassan Suhuyini challenging other MPs over the Committee's report.

The Bawku Central MP has been dissatisfied with the work done by the Committee.

In his reaction on the floor of Parliament, he said the Committee was mandated to establish facts and not to find him guilty and outline sanctions.

Although some people have registered their dissatisfaction with the Committee's work, the Speaker said he will end the matter by delivering his verdict.

Prof Ocquaye said he will do that in due course without specifying exactly which day the verdict will be given.

Story by Ghana | Myjoyonline.com
The police officer who was cited in the bizarre case of cocaine exhibit in police custody turning into baking soda has been acquitted.

The Human Rights Division of the High Court has ordered the Ghana Police Service to reinstate DSP Gifty Mawuenyega Tehoda.

She is also to receive her full salary for the entire duration of the five years that the case travelled as well as damages of GHS 23,000.

Justice Gifty Adjei Addo, who presided over the case, held that both the detention and dismissal of Mr Tehoda from the police service were wrongful.

In her Friday, March 31, 2017 judgment, the judge said the Bureau of National Investigation which picked up the police officer in 2012 and detained her over the case acted unlawfully.

The then Deputy Commander in charge of the Commercial Crimes Unit of the Police Service was interdicted in September 2011 following the arrest of one Nana Ama Martins who was accused of possessing parcels of substances suspected to be cocaine.

The parcels of suspected cocaine somehow metamorphosed into baking soda under mysterious circumstances in court.

Gifty Tehoda was linked to the disappearance of the cocaine and was arrested, interdicted and dismissed shortly after.

In the ensuing court case to establish the extent of her involvement in the cocaine-turned-baking-soda scandal, she was acquitted and discharged unconditionally by the Circuit Court in 2012.

Three years after her acquittal the police service failed to reinstate her into the service.

She consequently proceeded to the High Court (Human Rights Division) accusing the Service of wrongful dismissal and praying the court to order the service to reinstate her.

Her lawyers also demanding compensation for what they described as "unlawful detention and for withholding her promotion."

Mrs Tehoda once told Joy News, "Everybody got to know it was a conspiracy [against me]," but did not name who she suspected were behind the setup.

"I am innocent. I have not done anything," she pleaded, adding, "I am waiting for the day of declaration."

That day of declaration came on Friday, March 31, 2017 with some damages and an order for her reinstatement and handsome salary.

Story by Ghana | Myjoyonline.com
The Minister of Education, Matthew Opoku Prempeh, has denied sparking the confusion that broke out in Parliament on Thursday evening, after the Joe Ghartey committee presented its report on the bribery allegations.

The Member of Parliament for the Ningo Prampram Constituency, Sam George, said Mr. Opoku Prempeh called the Tamale North MP, Alhassan Suhuyini a fool escalating tensions into a near-brawl.

This was after the Joe Ghartey committee found the Bawku Central MP, Mahama Ayariga guilty of contempt of Parliament, and recommended that he apologizes to the House.

Mr. Ayariga did apologise, but reluctantly , to the displeasure of some members of the Majority who felt the Bawku Central MP disrespected the House.

Sam George

According to Sam George's account, Napo had called him [Alhassan Suyuhini] a fool. During the proceedings he called him 'kwasia' and that is what triggered the whole thing. And this is not the first time Napo was calling somebody a fool. Four weeks ago, he called me a fool on the Floor of the House simply because I'd asked the Speaker to ask him if he was wearing a school uniform or was properly attired to Parliament.

But Dr. Opoku Prempeh, also the MP for Manhyia South, denied insulting Alhassan Suhuyini in a statement he released on Friday.

I absolutely and unequivocally deny that I used that word on Hon. Suhuyini during the proceedings in the House or at any other time in Parliament yesterday. It must be noted that during yesterday's proceedings, only four members of Parliament spoke, the statement asserted.

According to him, the only persons who spoke were the Majority and Minority Leaders, Alban Bagbin and Mahama Ayariga.

Others would have heard insult

Dr. Opoku Prempeh also noted that whilst the Hansard relating to yesterday's proceedings is not yet available, the proceeding were televised live. Clearly, I would have been heard by the viewers uttering those words if indeed Hon. Sam George heard them, as he sits on the other side of the House.

No doubt the Speaker too would have heard and certainly would have swiftly ordered that I withdraw the word. No such thing occurred, as viewers of yesterday's proceedings would note, he argued.



By: Delali Adogla-Bessa/citifmonline.com/Ghana
The daughter of Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II, Princess Anne, will pay a visit to Ghana today [Friday] March 31, 2017, as part of a two- day visit to West Africa.

A statement from British High Commission in Ghana said the visit which is Princess Royal's third to Ghana, will celebrate the unique friendship between the UK and Ghana, as it commemorates its 60th Anniversary of independence.

The statement added that it will also reinforce the strength and depth of our bilateral relations. Ghana is marking its 60th Anniversary with themes of reflection, celebration, challenge and togetherness. Its partnership with the UK embodies just that  built on deep social and cultural ties and a shared future.

The Princess Royal is expected to meet a number of dignatiries including the Asantehene, Otumfuo Nana Osei Tutu II at the Royal Palace in Kumasi and former President Kufuor.

The Princess Royal will also undertake a wide-ranging programme that builds on her previous visits in 1998 and 2011, which according to the statement focuses on empowering women who act as role models for others, exploring the importance of support for girls, female education and entrepreneurs in delivering Ghana's future.

She will also meet with a number of UK volunteers including the alumni of UK sponsored scholarship programmes, Chevening, Commonwealth and the Queens Young Leaders

The Princess Royal visit follows similar ones paid by former British Prime Minister, Tony Blair and Britain's Foreign Secretary, Boris Johnson.



By: Marian Ansah/citifmonline.com/Ghana
Paris (AFP) - South Africa's ruling African National Congress (ANC), now struggling with internal conflicts, started out as an elite black group.

The liberation movement took power in 1994, four years after the lifting of a four-decade ban linked to its fight against the white minority rule of apartheid.

Early days

- 1912: On January 8, influential blacks found the South African Native National Congress (SANNC), two years after Britain and the descendants of Dutch settlers form the Union of South Africa in which only the rights of whites are protected.

In 1923, the SANNC changes its name to the African National Congress (ANC) but remains fairly inactive.

Oliver Tambo, Nelson Mandela and Walter Sisulu start the ANC Youth League (ANCYL) in 1943. Mandela later writes they felt the old leadership was "a tired, unmilitant, privileged African elite more concerned with protecting their own rights than those of the masses."

Apartheid

Supporters of South Africa's African National Congress (ANC) gather in Johannesburg to protest the apartheid regime of racial segregation on August 12, 1952

In 1948, the National Party wins elections and introduces apartheid. The ANCYL advocates strikes, boycotts and civil disobedience.

The ANC organises its first large "Defiance Campaign" in 1952, and tens of thousands of blacks break curfews, burn internal passports, and enter whites-only areas, risking jail.

Outlawed

On March 21, 1960, police kill 69 people during the Sharpeville Massacre. The ANC and an offshoot are banned amid a state of emergency.

The ANC goes underground in 1961 and abandons non-violent protest. Mandela starts the military wing Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK) and launches attacks.

In 1962-63, Mandela, Sisulu and other ANC leaders are arrested and sentenced to life imprisonment.

The movement continues the struggle in exile from London, Dar es Salaam and Lusaka and allies itself with the Soviet bloc.

Secret talks

In the late 1980s, officials declare states of emergency to curb violent riots in black townships, but the government also begins secret talks with the ANC.

In 1990, new South African president FW de Klerk legalises the ANC and other groups. He also frees political prisoners, including Mandela, who becomes the ANC president the next year.

Negotiations for the transition to democracy start and parliament scraps the remaining apartheid laws.

Multi-racial elections

On April 27, 1994, the ANC wins 62.6 percent of the vote in the first multi-racial elections. Mandela becomes South Africa's first black president.

Thabo Mbeki succeeds Mandela as president in 1999 but his two terms are tarnished by allegations of abuse of power and denialist policies over AIDS.

Mbeki is recalled by the ANC in September 2008 before the end of his second term.

Jacob Zuma, cleared of previous corruption and rape charges, becomes president in 2009 after the ANC wins 65.9 percent of the vote in the fourth general elections since the demise of apartheid.

Fall from grace

The ANC suffers a setback during municipal elections in 2014, taking less than 54 percent of the vote and losing an absolute majority in five of the six biggest metropolitan areas.

Zuma is dogged by corruption scandals and says in January 2017 that a woman should take over as head of the ANC. That is implicit backing for his ex-wife, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma.

On March 31, Zuma sacks finance minister Pravin Gordhan in a cabinet purge and stirs animosity among senior ANC leaders.
Education Minister Mathew Opoku Prempeh has denied claims being made by Ningo Prampram Member of Parliament that he called an another member a fool.

He has described the allegations as scurrilous and unfounded" by a colleague Member of Parliament.

Sam George had said a brawl that occurred in Parliament on Thursday was triggered by the unsavoury language Dr Opoku Prempeh used on his colleague MP for Tamale South, Alhassan Suhuyini.

Sam George

However, in a statement copied to Myjoyonline.com, Dr Prempeh said First I absolutely and unequivocally deny that I used that word on Hon Suhuyini during the proceedings or at any other time in Parliament yesterday.

It must be noted that during yesterday's proceedings, only four Members of Parliament spoke. They are the Majority and Minority Leaders, Hon. Alban Bagbin and Hon. Ayariga, the statement added.

Dr Opoku Prempeh also indicated that if indeed he had made those comments, it would have been heard by the Speaker and would have been ordered to withdraw the comments.

He added that I expect Hon. Sam George to do the honourable thing by swiftly apologizing for his unfounded allegation.

Below is a copy of the statement

PRESS RELEASE: INSULT ALLEGATIONS BY HON. SAM GEORGE

My attention has been drawn to a news item on citifmonline.com, dated Friday 31' March 2017. The headline reads 'Napo triggered anger in Parliament, called Suyuhuni a fool- Sam George.

In the said news item, which was in relation to proceedings in the House yesterday Thursday 30" March 2017. the Member of Parliament for Ningo Prampram, Hon Sam George is quoted to have said that ...Napo |as I am known by many) had called him [Alhassan Suyuhuni] a fool. During the proceedings he called him 'kwasia' and that is what triggered the whole thing...four weeks ago he called me a fool on the floor of the House simply because I had asked the Speaker to ask him if he v/as wearing a school uniform or was properly attired to Parliament."

First I absolutely and unequivocally deny that I used that word on Hon Suhuyini during the proceedings or at any other time in Parliament yesterday. It must be noted that during yesterday's proceedings, only four Members of Parliament spoke. They are the Majority and Minority Leaders, Hon. Alban Bagbin and Hon. Ayarigah. In any event, whilst the Hansard (a verbatim record of proceedings) relating to yesterday's proceedings is not yet available, the proceedings were televised live. Clearly I would have been heard by viewers uttering those words if indeed Hon. Sam George heard them, as he sits on the other side of the House. No doubt the Speaker too would have heard and certainly would have swiftly ordered that I withdraw the word. No such thing occurred, as viewers of yesterday's proceedings would note.

In respect of the claims relating to four weeks ago. per Hon. Sam George, it is clear he was referring to the proceedings of Friday 10th March 2017, when the issue of my attire came up. As would be noted from the records of that day's proceedings, at no point did I refer to him in the manner he alleges.

I take grave exception to the scurrilous and unfounded allegations by my colleague Member of Parliament. The people of Ghana have reposed utmost confidence in us by electing us to represent them in the House. It is therefore important that at all times we conduct ourselves with decorum to preserve the integrity of the House and to justify that confidence.

I expect Hon. Sam George to do the honourable thing by swiftly apologizing for his unfounded allegation.

Story by Ghana | Myjoyonline.com | NSA
31.03.2017 LISTEN

By Ken Sackey, GNA

Accra, March 31, GNA - President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, in the bid to maintain constant interaction with Ghanaians would be spending the weekend in the Ashanti Region.

The move, which the President intends to institutionalise would see him spend a weekend in a region every single month of his tenure in office in order to acquaint himself with issues confronting a particular region.

He would also leverage on the programme to interact with citizens to seek first-hand views and concerns and gather ideas to enhance the governance of the country.

The tour of the Ashanti Region will kick-start the first in the series of the monthly regional visits. The President is expected to be in Kumasi at the close of Friday, March 31, 2017 and would be engaged in various activities over the next two days.

He would return to Accra on Sunday, April, April 2, 2017.

Whilst in the region, President Akufo-Addo would pay a courtesy call on the Ashantihene Osei Tutu II hold talks with leaders of transport unions to find ways to address issues of the sector and discuss the recent concessions made by government in the Asempa Budget to ease transport cost in the country.

The President would also visit the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital, and apprise himself with the problems of the health institution, and what government could do to salvage particularly, the abandoned maternity block, to reduce infant mortality in the region.

He would also call visit the Kumasi Central Market to interact with traders and customers.

President Akufo-Addo would as part of the tour, hold an encounter with the media in the region attend church services at the Saint Cyprian Anglican Church and the Bantama Methodist Church.

He would also meet the Muslim community at the Central Mosque in Kumasi.

The President would then conclude the tour by addressing a rally organised by the Ashanti Regional branch of the New Patriotic Party on Sunday afternoon after which he would leave for Accra. GNA
By Lydia Asamoah, GNA

Accra, March 31, GNA - The Public Services Workers Union (PSWU) of Trade Union Congress (TUC) has declared series of industrial actions to demand an immediate reversal of the unfair summary dismissal of 32 staff of TV3 Network Limited.

At the monthly PSWU Accra Branch meeting held on Thursday, Mr Richard Amparbeng, General Secretary of PSWU described the dismissal of the staff as a clear case of oppression and unfair treatment.

The staff were dismissed in February by Management of the company for engaging in a series of action which the management described as a 'breach of the ethics and legal requirements' regarding the employer-employee relationship.

A statement signed by the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Tv3, Mr Jimi Matthews, last month explained that the affected staff, who were from various departments, including editorial, marketing and library 'attempted to embark on industrial action' without following the provisions of the Labour Act.'

It said the staff took part in a series of action spanning about a week 'without serving notices of their intentions to management and without providing management with the opportunity to engage with aggrieved personnel.

'The actions include, but was not limited to, writing inflammatory statements on the corridor walls and passage threatening dire action, hoisting of a red flag on the transmission mast inside the premises and subsequently wearing red attire and armbands signifying support for the intended disruption of work process', the statement said.

However, the PSWU, which dedicated its April Branch meeting on the issues of its TV3 Union members, said the action taken by Management of the Television Station was not fair and must be rescinded.

Mr Amperbeng said the Management had also failed to address the concerns of the Union in good faith, and therefore, the Union had no option, given the issues and lives at stake, than to exercise its rights to embark on series of industrial actions.

He explained that on Tuesday, April 4, members of the PSWU would hold a picketing around the premises of TV3 Company and if that does not yield any results, there would be an order of wearing red bands by all members of the Union starting April 11.

He said if by April 24 there was still no proper response from the Management of the Station, PWSU would declare a solidarity strike by all Divisions of the Union nationwide.

'If that also fails, then the proper battle will begin', Mr Amperbeng noted.

Meanwhile, Mr Amperbeng has assured that PSWU would discuss ways of providing financial assistance to the affected staff until their issue was resolved to alleviate their suffering.

GNA
Accra, March 30, GNA - Stakeholders in sanitation in the Greater Accra Metropolis have called for the urgent need to develop alternate faecal sludge and waste water management approaches to address the sanitation problem.

The call was made at a stakeholders' workshop in Accra to formulate a policy on faecal sludge management to improve upon the national sewerage coverage which is as low as 4.5 per cent.

The workshop was organised by the Sanitation Directorate of the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development in partnership with the Centre for Science and Environment, New Delhi, India.

Participants at the World Bank funded workshop included policy makers, government and non-governmental stakeholders in sanitation.

Faecal sludge management (FSM) is a system that safely collects, transports, and treats faecal sludge (also called septage) from pit latrines, septic tanks or other onsite sanitation facilities to be used for irrigation or soil amendment in agriculture, biogas, biodiesel, and electricity.

Madam Bertha Darteh, the Capacity Building Co-ordinator of the Greater Accra Metropolitan Area - Sanitation and Water Project (GAMA-SWP), told the Ghana News Agency that FSM was particularly important in quite densely populated areas where much of the population was not connected to sewerage,

She said in many developing countries, however, this service was often not provided at all or not done properly, leading to, among others, surface and groundwater pollution and spreading of pathogens into the environment with its adverse health impacts.

She said the workshop sought to ensure promulgation of national legislation and model bye-laws to strengthen environmental sanitation management, monitoring and evaluation in the metropolis to ensure balance based development.

Dr Mahreen Matto, the Programme Manager of the Centre for Science and Environment, India, led the participants to share their experiences on the impact of poor sanitation on public health and the environment.

Giving examples of best practices from Asia and some African countries, she said despite the fact that sanitation needs were met through onsite technologies for a vast number of people in urban areas, there was no management system in place.

She said it was critical that the management of faecal sludge be addressed as it continued to play an essential role in the management of global sanitation.

Mr Ato Fanyin-Martin, a facilitator and lecturer at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, took the participants through waste to energy production as well as additional resource recovery outputs.

GNA
31.03.2017 LISTEN

By Robert Anane/Elizabeth Fosu, GNA

Accra, March 31, GNA - Mr Wisdom A Togobo, Director, Renewables and Alternative Energy, Ministry of Energy, says with China's support, energy supply could be immensely improved and increased all over the country.

'One key aim of government is to use energy to transform the economy as was done in China,' he said.

Mr Togobo said this at a day's conference on the China-Ghana South-South Co-operation on Renewable Energy Technology Transfer project in Accra on Friday.

He said it was no longer feasible for Ghana to rely only on hydro-electric power, adding that there were a number of minor power generation points all over the country, which could be utilised towards the attainment of socio-economic stability through energy efficiency.

Mr Togobo, said there were places that could not be linked with the national hydro-electric power generation grid, by virtue of their location.

He said for such communities, other means of electricity generation such as solar lanterns and standalone systems would be used for electricity power generation.

Mr Togobo said the good thing about the project was that China was not only sending in technology on other sources of electricity power generation to Ghana.

'We are also learning from them, the knowledge and how to develop from our own resources, these power generation means,' he said.

Mr Togobo observed, that the project fell directly in line with government's development agenda.

'The government would assist the project in any form it could, when needed.'

Mr Eric Antwi-Agyei, Project Co-ordinator, said through collaborative efforts between China and Ghana, the project had developed a comprehensive catalogue of Renewable Energy Technologies in China.

This catalogue, he said, was intended for private sector players in the renewable energy industry, requiring equipment and spares from reputable sources to develop their project.

The catalogue seeks to address challenges faced by project developers and importers who had difficulty in establishing business contacts with manufacturers of quality products.

The China-Ghana South-South Co-operation on Renewable Energy Technology Transfer Project, a four-year initiative lasting from 2014 to 2018, was established to facilitate exchange of expertise and technology transfer between China and Ghana.

It forms part of the Denmark Government's commitment to enable coherent cooperation between China and countries in Africa, with particular emphasis on the promotion of the UN's Sustainable Energy for All initiative.

The conference was attended by representatives from the Chinese Embassy, Energy Commission, UN, Danish Embassy, Private Enterprises Foundation, UNDP, and the Ministry of Energy and the Ministry of finance.

GNA
By Prosper K. Kuorsoh, GNA

Wa, March 31, GNA - Nurses at the Upper West Regional Hospital in Wa have for the past two days refused to take fresh admissions following the shortage of some consumables.

When Ghana News Agency (GNA) visited the hospital at about 1100 hours, the Out Patient Department (OPD) and the medical laboratory were virtually empty contrary to the usual daily long queues.

Some of the nurses who spoke to the GNA on condition of anonymity disclosed that consumables such as bandage, liquid soap, savlon lotion, guardian soap, disposable blocks, parazon, washing powder, vim, disposable syringes, plaster, mutilated spirit, and face mask were in short supply at the Hospital.

They therefore complained that the situation exposed them and the patients to the risk of infections if they continue to work without this logistics.

'Even when patients come and you ask them to go to a pharmacy and buy such simple things, they turn to think that we are exploiting them,' they said.

The nurses are therefore giving the hospital authorities 72 hours to make such consumables available before they can accept any fresh admissions.

Dr Winfred Ofosu, the Acting Regional Director of Health Services when contacted after a crunch meeting with the nurses at the Hospital said it was true that the medical facility was in short supply of some consumables.

He said management had however put in place measures to ensure sustainable supply of consumables at the hospital.

Dr Ofosu however attributed the situation to the indebtedness of the National Health Insurance Scheme to the facility, but hinted that management would continue to prioritise cash revenues to ensure that they remedied the situation.

He gave the assurance that by next Monday the remaining consumables would be supplied to ensure full operations. GNA
31.03.2017 LISTEN

By Prosper K. Kuorsoh, GNA

Wa, March 31, GNA - People of the Upper West Region at a breakfast emotional meeting in Wa bid farewell to the newly appointed Chief Executive Officer CEO) of the Community Water and Sanitation Agency (CWSA), Mr Worlanyo Kwadjo Siabi.

Until his appointment to the top position, Mr Siabi was the Regional Director of CWSA since 2009, and under his leadership the Agency increased water services to more than 80 per cent of the rural population.

This feat was achieved through his effective leadership role in the Implementation of programmes such as the Sustainable Rural Water and Sanitation Project, UNICEF Assisted Water and Sanitation Hygiene (WASH) programmes, WASH in Disaster Prone Communities, Conrad Hilton Foundation programmes and Water Aid interventions among others.

The breakfast meeting was attended by Heads of Department, Agencies and institutions, civil society and non-governmental organisations, religious leaders, former District Chief Executives, leaders of small town water systems and the media.

Mr Sulemana Alhassan, Regional Minister said though he did not work with the outgoing Regional Director, judging from the high level of good will expressed by all, he was convinced that he indeed played his role exceptionally well.

Outlining some of the outgoing Regional CWSA Director's achievements, Mr Emmanuel Ato Quansah, an official of CWSA said he worked to increase water coverage from 65 per cent to 78 per cent, added an additional of 1000 boreholes and increased small town pipe systems from eight to 27 systems.

Mr Quansah said about 300 school latrines were constructed under the outgoing Regional Director's rein while hand washing with soap was improved in 600 communities/schools through tippy taps as well as improved stakeholder engagement.

Mr Siabi promised to assist the Region to fight open defecation, which was currently 72 per cent.

GNA
State Controller Betty Yee View Photos

Sacramento, CA  The states chief fiscal officer is calling for a major reform of the public agency charged with tax administration and fee collection.

Today State Controller Betty T. Yee announced her intentions after yesterday receiving the California Department of Finance (DOF) evaluation of the State Board of Equalization (BOE). Yee serves as an ex-officio member of BOE and before being elected to State Controller she served on the board for a decade.

In order to rebuild taxpayer trust, meaningful reform is essential. I urge the Legislature and the Governor to strip the board members of all statutory functions and permanently move these duties and assigned staff to a separate new department under the Governor, Yee states.

She is recommending that the BOE should be relieved of their tax administration, audit, and compliance functions in order to focus on their appellate duties.

This change would address the prevalent misuse of resources and better serve taxpayers, Yee says. Back in November 2015, her BOE review pointed out a misallocation of $47.8 million in sales tax revenue as well as accounting and administrative control deficiencies she termed as widespread.

Among the Controllers current criticisms are that BOE has not fully implemented her recommended reforms from that review; additionally, the latest DOF evaluation states concerns over the staffs ability to carry out the mission of the BOE.

Some of the findings Yee points to, quoting from the DOF report summary are that board member practices have intervened in administrative activities and created inconsistencies in operations, breakdowns in centralized processes, and in certain instances result in activities contrary to state law and budgetary and legislative directives.

Established in 1879 by a state constitutional amendment to ensure uniformity of property tax assessments throughout the state, today the BOE collects the retail sales and use tax, property taxes, and special taxes, along with handling tax case appeals.
Sonora Regional Medical Center View Photos

Sonora, CA  A local medical center says it is acutely aware  and is trying to address  the distress frustrated residents face not being able to easily get in to see a doctor.

Sonora Regional Medical Center (SRMC) officials say the root cause is because the center  like many other health care organizations  is keenly feeling the impacts of a nationwide physicians shortage.

According to SRMC spokesperson Lindsay Brewer, the wait many new patients face to access a primary care doctor is dependent on having providers to open practices. We have very limited physicians/providers who are accepting patients at this time and so the wait varies case by case, she states.

Recent Relief Measures

Among SRMCs moves towards providing a modicum of relief was hiring San Andreas physician Dr. Dean Kelaita, who recently closed his San Andreas office and is now working at the SRMC Angels Camp clinic. Although Brewer admits his practice is already nearly full, SRMC officials are hoping that the move will free up a few new patient slots.

Also hired this past month, although on a temporary Locum Tenens basis was Dr. Steve Tortorice, a family physician from the Sacramento area. Additionally Nurse Practitioner Lisa Andrews, who recently moved to Sonora from North Carolina, is seeing new patients as a primary caregiver at at SRMCs Cedarwood Internal Medicine clinic.

Once new patients are referred to see specialists, the wait times to get in vary greatly. Currently it might take three months  a year if scheduling an annual exam  for a gynecologist visit, Brewer says. Facing similar three-month backlogs are gastrointestinal (GI) specialists. According to Brewer, waits for surgical, ortho and vascular-related appointments with specialists are currently running one to two weeks; it is also two weeks to see a cardiologist; three weeks for an obstetrician; four weeks to see a vascular specialist.

Dealing With A Serious Shortfall

SRMC officials share that a study by the Association of American Medical Colleges, released this month, predicts a U.S. shortfall of physicians somewhere between 40,800 and 104,900, due to factors such as population growth, an increase in the number of aging Americans and the retirement of practicing doctors.

As Kathrina McRee, SRMC director of physician recruitment and community relations puts it, Fortunately, we have a lot to offer potential candidates  a wonderful community, state-of-the-art medical facilities and highly qualified and experienced staff. Unfortunately the number of qualified physicians we are able to find and the competition we face from all of the other communities across the country pose considerable challenges for us.

In addition to meeting California licensing requirements, Adventist Health, which is SRMCs parent company, requires physician candidates to be board-eligible or certified. Too, candidates applying to permanently work here must want to live in a rural area and show a desire to stay long term.

Other Remedies In The Works

Onboard since January, an additional full-time physician recruiter is currently focusing on the recruitment of primary care doctors. Among the centers other efforts are developing a team-based approach to care; leveraging skills of advanced practice providers; also improving the use of technology such as telemedicine. In addition to these strategies being deployed nationally, SRMC officials note efforts across the country to train more new doctors by increasing the number of medical residency positions.

Although local figures on increasing average wait times to schedule a new patient appointment were not readily available on Friday, Merritt Hawkins, a national physician search firm, just released a broad study. Among its somber findings, in 15 of the nations largest cities the wait time has risen by almost a third over the past three years. The companys president, Mark Smith says the current wait times are the longest recorded since Merritt Hawkins began conducting the survey.

These days, Smith notes that finding a physician who can see a patient on the same day or even within three weeks can be a challenge  even in large urban areas where there is a relatively more robust supply of doctors. Speaking to what regions like the Mother Lode are facing he states the obvious: The challenge becomes even more difficult in smaller communities that have fewer physicians per population.
Travelling all around Africa in search of really spectacular places, there is a point to pay attention to parks, especially national parks in Nigeria. Parks in Nigeria have always been one of the favorite destinations while selecting the route for a journey. Nigeria can boost its 8 national parks. Parks in Nigeria can provide you with a variety of picturesque landscapes, breathtaking flora and fauna, a great number of cultural or historical monuments and, of course, natural wonders.

Wild nature of Kamuku national park

It is worth beginning with Kamuku national park. It is located in Birnin Gwari, Kaduna State, almost in the center of the country. The total land area is 1121 sqkm. This savanna national park is mainly covered with woodland vegetation.

Kamuku national park has lots of low mountain ranges. What will probably attract you most of all are Kamuku elephants. You will be given the chance to admire elephants' lifestyle in their natural habitat at the closest possible distance. Apart from elephants, here you have a unique chance to watch almost 20 species of other animals, including warthogs, various antelopes and primates, buffalo, anubis baboon, tantalus monkey, lion, leopard, hippopotamus, kob and warthog. Speaking about birds, you will be able to see more than 180 species of various birds.

READ ALSO: We are sorry, cattle breeders apologize for Benue killings by herdsmen

Main sights of Kanuku national park:

Dogon Ruwa Waterfall

You will find this fall in the northern part of the national park. It has two sources of water taking - Birnin Gwari and Gugama stream. Its a kind of a venue for perfect fishing, canoeing, camping and just relaxing. It is extremely beautiful at the time of dry season.

Mailawa Dam

This object serves as the main source of water for animals living in the park, it is the main attraction of the park as it is located in the centre of Kamuka park. It is an ideal place for animal observation.

Parks museum

Here you will be able to see lots of exhibits  parts of animals bodies, for instance, legs, horns, heads, skin etc.

Kada Motel

This is a place where you will be able to stop for relaxation. Its a perfect accommodation for tourists.

READ ALSO: National parks in Nigeria

This wonderful park must be visited at your earlier convenience without any hesitations. If your friends stll did not hear about this wonderful place, it is high time to share this information with them.

Source: Legit.ng
Are you in search of the cheapest private university in Nigeria? If it is so, this article is written exactly for you. Read on!

Even if you have lack of money, ignorance isn't the way out. Education is very important not only for your self-satisfaction and self-respect, but also for finding well-paid job that will bring you pleasure and money.

What are the terms of studying in private university in Nigeria?

A great number of people choose for their studies private universities because the admission is much easier if to compare with state or federal universities.

Nigeria private universities can welcome you if your score received during Unified Tertiary Matriculation Exam is below minimum. If you want to enter some state or federal university, the needed minimum number of scores shouldn't be below 200.

IMPORTANT! Bear in mind that not all Nigeria most cheap private universities can function on a legal basis under the confirmation of Nigerian Universities Commission.

READ ALSO: Nigerian universities with the most beautiful structures

According to africademia.com website, here is

The list of the cheapest private universities in Nigeria that were approved by NUC:

Oduduwa University, Ile-Ife, price - N164,000;

It consists mainly of three colleges, such as: College of Management and Social Sciences, College of Natural and Applied Sciences, College of Environmental Design and Management, College of Engineering and Technology.

Obong University, Obong Ntak, price - N170,000;

Such university is affiliated to Churches of Christ. Speaking about its sponsor, it is Rivergate Church of Christ in Madison, Tennessee.

Rhema University, Aba, price  N313,000;

If you live in Abia state, you need to bear in mind that there are very few private universities in the state, and this one is among them. Its benefit among others private universities of the state is that it has National Universities Commission license.

Babcock University, Remo, price - N340,000;

It is a Christian university which is affiliated to Seventh-day Adventist Church. University motto is Knowledge, Truth, Service. The location is between Ibadan and Lagos.

Adeleke University, Ede, price - N350,000;

Do you know who has established this university?  Davidos father. Suppose that after you heard this information you wont skip this university.

Covenant University, Ota, price - N432,000;

Such a university, like Babcock University, is a Christian one and is affiliated to Living Faith Church Worldwide. Webometrics representatives claim it to be among the best higher educational establishments in the whole Nigeria. It is not surprising as its staff amounts to 1000 employees and 15.000 students.

Crawford University, Igbesa, price - N450,000;

Crawford University building

Bear in mind that it is governed by Apostolic Faith Mission.

Joseph Ayo Babalola University, Ikeji-Arakeji, price - N500,000;

It was created by Christ Apostolic Church. There over 4000 students in this university. Bear in mind that studying there you must follow strict dress code.

Lead City University, Ibadan, price - N570,000.

Its motto is  Knowledge for self-reliance.

Lead City University

Pay attention that these are prices for one course of studies on the cheapest faculties. However, if you have good scores at the exam, you may try to enter federal university. The prices will be much cheaper. Don't even doubt!

This is true due to the fact that Nigeria government is very generous in terms of subsidies for learning of really talented students.

Cheapest private university in Nigeria

Other important information is that having entered this university you won't be able to join NYSC. It is very important as it is not possible to work in some governmental organization without NYSC participation.

So, the list above will enable you to make a choice depending on your money assets available.

READ ALSO: 200 level student of Lead City University sentenced to death by hanging for stabbing another student (photo)

Source: Legit.ng
What is TwinKAS? Is it another scheme that consumes Nigeria? This project is new for Nigerians, but with the rise of Ponzi Schemes, like MMM Nigeria and NNN Nigeria, people have become suspicious about new "financial empowerment services."

How does TwinKAS work?

How does TwinKAS work and what you should know about it? Find the answers here!

About TwinKAS?

TwinKAS is a system of peer to peer payment. It works in the form of donations from one member to another. According to the information on the TwinKAS website, the platform was created for helping people. It's created to assist people in receiving and giving donations to each other. It's totally free, and you can have multiple accounts on the platform. There is no central bank account for receiving and giving donations, and it looks suspicious as many Ponzi schemes use this tactic to fraud people.

How does TwinKAS work?

TwinKAS account  how does it work?

When you register in TwinKAS, you will have to choose one of the four packages. These packages are Ultimate, Premium, Professional, and Veteran.

The veteran is a newly presented feature of TwinKAS. With your Veteran package, you have to pay 100 000 Naira to get 200 percent payback. The system will automatically connect you with two other members to pay 100 000 each.

The ultimate package provides you one of the biggest bonuses. When you choose the Ultimate package  you will have to pay 50 000 Naira and expect 200 percent back. Therefore, you will be connected with two other people, who would pay you back 50 000 Naira each.

The premium package requires you to pay 20 000 Naira to get 40 000. The system provides you people to payback within 21 days.

The professional package obligates you to pay 10 000 Naira to get back 20 000 Naira in 21 days. The system will automatically give two people to pay back your 200 percent.

Classic package requires you to pay only 5 000 and get your money back with 200 percent profit. It`s the lowest pay package where you can only get 10 000 Naira within 21 days.

How does TwinKAS work?

Before you create your TwinKAS account, make sure you will be able to make your payment in 24 hours. Otherwise, you will be kicked out of the system without possibility to register your TwinKAS account again.

To register the account, you should follow next link: TwinKAS Account. You will open the registration form in a new window. After that, you will select the level to start by and sign up at the level you have chosen.

After that, you will see a new page needed to be filled with your details. When the details are filled, you can proceed and click to Create Account.

You need to select a package if you want to see people paying you. Just scroll down the TwinKAS dashboard and select Join a package now. After that, you can see who will pay to you.

How does TwinKAS work?

How TwinKAS work?

When you join to TwinKAS, you have to pay the of 5 000 Naira, 10 000 Naira, 20 000 Naira, 50 000 Naira or 100 000 Naira to your fellow member assigned by the system. When the member gets you money, the system will assign two other people with TwinKAS accounts to you. They will pay you to double for what you have invested. For example, if you have paid 5 000 Naira you receive 10 000 Naira, if you have paid 100 000 Naira, then you get 200 000 Naira. The system will assign referral to pay back. After you have received money from two people below you, the system will kick you off and allow more registrations.

READ ALSO: How to delete MMM global account?

You should know that you can expect the return on investments within 21 days. You can also use referral links to make more money. You can take 5% of donated money with the help of your referral link.

Let's sum up

You can donate through various platforms, which includes donations of 5 000, 10 000, 20 000, 50 000 and 100 000 Naira.

You sign up to the system with no difficulties.

You donate to an individual account and not to a bank.

You should activate your registration code and donate money within 24 hours, or you will be kicked out of the system.

Do not expect a refund of payment.

You can expect communication only between donator and receiver only!

You will be rewarded with 200 percent profit for your generosity.

All Disagreements and disputes between members of the community will be handled by the system administrator.

You can expect to have 5 percent from every donation made thanks to your referral link.

How does TwinKAS work?

Is TwinKAS still paying?

TwinKAS is one of the new platforms for today and it has not broken yet. The members of the community provide information that TwinKAS is still paying to its members. Therefore, you can expect the return of your donations within 21 days.

Is TwinKAS a legitimate business?

Business always includes providing some products and services for money. Any business is based on a business plan which includes many possibilities. The only plan that TwinKAS can provide you is that you pay one sum of money and doubles it within 21 days. Nevertheless, the only source of money is people below you. The system works until two people pay money to enrich one with double profit. This illusion will end as soon as the amount of donations from new people will not be enough to pay old members. Unfortunately, this is the end of any Ponzi Scheme.

READ ALSO: Twinkas.com: Another Ponzi scheme in Nigeria to replace MMM?

Source: Legit.ng
In 2015, the president appointed the new Minister of Education in Nigeria to watch the development of the sector of education in the country.

Minister of state for education in Nigeria

President Buhari appointed Mallam Adamu Adamu as the Minster of Education and professor of Anthony Anwuka as Minister of State for Education.

Mallam Adamu who was born in Bauchi state has graduated Ahmadu Bello University (ABU), Zaria, where he studied accounting. He is also the famous writer and the public analyst.

Mallam Adamu was regularly mentioned as the public commentator with excellent style and intelligence. People often praised the fact that he is fearless, educated, and rather courageous to express his opinion and opinions of other people not only in local scale but also at the international level.

READ ALSO: Nigerian Ministers List 2017

He was the personal assistant of Solomon Lar who was the first National chairman of the People's Democratic Party (PDP) and the former governor of Plateau state on the Nigerian People's Party (NPP) platform during the Nigerian Second republic.

Many years he was a follower of the president Buhari and, therefore, many people believe that it has influenced the choice of the president when he appointed Adamu to this position.

He was one of the attendants of General Buhari to Bauchi State during elections of 2007 to support Isa Yuguda as governor's candidate of ANPP at that time.

He also was the minister of education in 2016 and still holds this position today.

Conclusion

Today Mallam Adamu Adamu is the minister with one of the longest services in Nigeria. We don't know his term for certain, but he will be on post a half a year at least.

READ ALSO: This Is One Thing Next Nigerian Education Minister Must Do

Source: Legit.ng
When the news broke that Kemi Olunloyo was in a Port Harcourt prison, many were skeptical, largely because of her penchant for controversy. However with photos of her emerging in prison uniform, many have taken notice of her plight.

Legit.ng made a quick round-up of the facts we know so far about Kemi Olunloyo's imprisonment:

1. Arrest

On March 14, 2017, Legit.ng reported that Kemi Omololu-Olunloyo was arrested by men of the Nigeria Police Force over a controversial statement she made earlier in March about ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo.

2. Port Harcourt prison

Over 48 hours later on March 16, 2017, it was revealed that she was being held in a Port Harcourt prison on the order of the Inspector General of Police over her story of actress Iyabo Ojo and Pastor David Ibiyeomie in adultery mess.

3. Her message

On her Instagram page, the following message was posted two weeks ago, March 16, 2017, likely by someone managing her social media:

READ ALSO: Pastor Adeboye is an attention seeker - Kemi Olunloyo

4. Bail hearing

The last message from her was posted about one week ago, March 20, 2017, speaking about her bail hearing, below is the message from her Instagram:

5. Photos emerge

Finally, on Thursday, March 30, 2017, photos of her in prison uniform emerged. She appeared in green prison uniform and in handcuffs alongside Samuel Walson, a Port Harcout based publisher.

Below are the photos:

The sight of Kemi Olunloyo in prison uniform has sparked outrage across Nigeria

She was handcuffed to popular Port Harcourt publisher, Samuel Walson as she was taken to court for a bail hearing

READ ALSO: Ohakim is a certified moron - Kemi Olunloyo

6. Granted bail

Chief Magistrate, Alatuwo Elkanah Fubara, in his ruling granted the two accused bail in the sum of two hundred thousand naira with credible sureties who reside in Port Harcourt. The hearing was then adjourned to May 4.

Meanwhile, Legit.ng recently made a video about Nigeria and the state of things in the nation, watch the video below:

Source: Legit.ng
The very wealthy people who constantly try to give back to the world deserve a lot of gratitude and recognition for their efforts to make the world a better place.

The Tony Elumelu Entrepreneurship programme has been a source of capital for young Nigerian entrepreneurs

Richtopia recently compiled what they called: a list from top philanthropists and social-entrepreneurs, a list of influential people at effectively having soft-power and being pro-active, particularly at being socially concerned.

There is only one Nigerian on this 200-strong list and he is none other than Tony Elumelu. Coming in at number 185 on the list, his work has been recognized.

Tony Elumelu is the founder of the Tony Elumelu Foundation (TEF), which has over the years become the patron of thousands of entrepreneurs across the continent though the foundations TEF Entrepreneurship Programme.

Through TEP, Elumelu has assisted in securing over 3000 startups by providing seed capital of $10,000 each as well as mentoring to 1,000 young African entrepreneurs annually since 2015.

An economist, investor, and philanthropist, Elumelu chairs privately held investment firm Heirs Holdings, pan african bank, United Bank for Africa and Nigerias largest quoted conglomerate, Transcorp.

READ ALSO: The richest musician in Nigeria

His investments across Africa, span from the oil and gas, financial services to hospitality and power sectors. His investments are informed by his philosophy of Africapitalism: the belief that the private sector can lead Africas economic renaissance and that investment should create both economic prosperity and social wealth.

Among his numerous roles, he serves as co-chair of the Aspen Institute Strategy Group on Global Food Security, sits on the global advisory board of the Washington DC-based think tank, the Wilson Center, and is a member of the Global Advisory Council of the Harvard Kennedy Schools Center for Public Leadership. He is also a member of the World Economic Forum Community of Chairmen.

Below are the first 20 people on the list:

1. Warren Buffett

2. George Soros

3. Elon Musk

4. Bill Gates

5. J.K. Rowling

6. Richard Branson

7. Mike Bloomberg

8. Oprah Winfrey

9. Tim Cook

10. Barack Obama

11. Bill Clinton

12. Melinda Gates

READ ALSO: Elumelu reveals why Nigerias power sector will soon collapse

13. Jimmy Wales

14. Michelle Obama

15. Narendra Modi

16. Hillary Clinton

17. Mark Zuckerberg

18. Steve Wozniak

19. Earvin Magic Johnson

20. Leonardo DiCaprio

See full list here.

Meanwhile, Fortune released its annual list of Worlds 50 greatest leaders and award winning Nigerian author, Chimamanda Adichie made it to the list.

About Chimamanda who is 42 on the list, the magazine wrote: "The prize-winning Nigerian writer has won admirers with her prose and a pair of viral TED Talks (one of which was famously sampled by Beyonce).

"But Adichie has been most powerful in challenging her audiences to think differently and more expansively about Africa, identity, race, and gender.

"Many in the English-speaking world have embraced the invitation, and she has emerged as a feminist iconshe tells girls to get over being likedand a fearless political and cultural critic."

Also, members of the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) are making Nigeria proud. Watch a video on them produced by Legit.ng:

Source: Legit.ng
Days after the certificate saga of Dino Melayo, the senator representing Kogi West at the National Assembly, a senator from Delta state has become a subject of massive probe by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) over fraudulent acts.

The senator was accused of not executing N4 billion contracts by the government of Delta state

Senator Peter Nwaoboshi of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and his brother, Augustine Nwaoboshi, were accused of not executing N4 billion contracts by the government of Delta state.

The Nation reports that the lawmaker operates 20 accounts in six banks with different signatories.

Legit.ng also learnt that the senator allegedly bought a 12-storey building in Apapa, Lagos, belonging to the Delta state government for N805 million using a company as a front.

READ ALSO: FG appoints Tony Okpanachi as development bank MD

It was also reported that the Code of Conduct Bureau (CCB) record indicated that the senator did not declare all the companies and bank accounts he has despite being operational prior to the time he made the declaration.

Legit.ng also learnt that the senators investigation followed a petition from Delta state.

Delta state was said to have alleged that the senators firm which was awarded a N1,580,000,000 contract by the Direct Labour Agency to supply construction equipment did not fulfill its obligations by following specification but instead supplied used equipment, contrary to the Bill of Quantity which specified new ones.

The Nation also reported that the Senators firm was alleged to have secured over N2 billion contracts from nine local government areas in Delta worth over N2billion without necessary registration.

After securing a N474,936,000 contract from the Waste Management Board to supply bulldozers, payloaders and tipper lorries, the senators firm was discovered by the EFCC to have delivered used items contrary to the contract specifications.

A source with the EFCC said: We have traced five companies to the senator. We were able to detect that in the course of contract execution, his company imported and supplied used equipment, contrary to the specifications in the bill of quantity.

READ ALSO: Senate welcomes Buhari's peace move with 'open arms'

Our team has discovered that the senators personal and companies bank accounts were linked to a bank verification number (BVN) which has more than 20 accounts domiciled in six banks.

But his relative is the sole signatory to the accounts.

They also located one foreign account identified with the senator in HSBC Bank in Marbile Arch London, United Kingdom.

Responding to a question, the EFCC source added: So far, the senator has questions to respond to bordering on false asset declaration, official corruption, procurement fraud, tax avoidance, false information, impersonation and embezzlement of public funds.

We are almost concluding the investigation of the senator. We will soon invite him for interview.

Meanwhile, in the video below, Legit.ng asks Nigerians if they regretted voting for President Buahari. Their responses will surprise you.

Source: Legit.ng
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The special assistant to Ekiti state governor on media and communications Lere Olayinka has said he feels like giving the All Progressives Congress spokesperson Bolaji Abdullahi a slap.

Abdullahi had in statement had blamed the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) for the challenges faced by Nigerians.

Olayinka on Friday, March 31, lamenting a remark made by Abdullahi said he is afraid that an end has come for democracy in Nigeria.

READ ALSO: Senator allegedly operates 20 accounts in six banks with different signatories

Abdullahi had in statement had blamed the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) for the challenges faced by Nigerians.

He said said: "We have not forgotten the wasted 16 years you spent in government."

But in a Facebook post, Olayinka said: "Who foisted these inbeciles on us? Abdulai was a stooge of Saraki for 14 yrs. He was a minister in PDP government.

READ ALSO: IPOB reacts to further detention of Kemi Olunloyo IPOB reacts to further detention of Kemi Olunloyo

"Now he opens his mouth 'gbaga' like danfo door to say this. I am afraid with people like this, democracy is set to take a leave in Nigeria," Olayinka said.

He further tweeted the narrative of most of the politicians who left PDP for APC has changed.

READ ALSO: More than 250 groups call for Sarakis immediate removal

Olayinka also accused the APC spokesperson of being a stooge for the Senate President Bukola Saraki.

See his tweets below:

Watch Legit.ng video of Nigerians lamenting APC administration:

Source: Legit.ng
Editors note: Senator Dino Melaye was cleared by the Senate after weeks over being involved in a scandal concerning his academic qualification.

In this opinion by Azu Ishiekwene, he points out that the Melaye case is an eye-opener there is a lot of problem with the Nigerian system as Ahmadu Bello University has a lot to deal with.

We are in trouble

Were in trouble, but thats not the worst part. The real tragedy is that we dont know that we dont know.

It took one week and a Senate summons for the Vice Chancellor of Ahmadu Bello University (ABU), Professor Ibrahim Garba, to say that Senator Dino Melaye graduated from ABU.

READ ALSO: United Kingdom deports 23 Nigerians for various offences

And even then, his testimony left more questions than answers. In response to repeated press enquiries, ABU had promised to take a public position on Wednesday. But for reasons that can only damage the schools reputation, it made a U-turn, saying it would not make any comment until invited to do so by the Senate Ethics Committee.

When SaharaReporters sent the same enquiry to Harvard University and the London School of Economics, some clerks at the registry responded without dragging any vice chancellor into the matter.

Opinion: The story of Dino of ABU by Azu Ishiekwene

But see the mess we have here  a vice chancellor having sleepless nights over the results of a student who claimed to have graduated less than two decades ago. The lack of transparency in ABUs handling of the matter creates the impression that the school has something to hide.

The vice chancellor chose the easy way out, as I suspect a number of vice chancellors in the country today would do. The records in ABU and elsewhere are in such an appalling state that even if this certificate saga involved a 2016 graduate, ABU might still not be able to say for sure if the graduate was genuine or fake.

Until schools and other public institutions begin to take recordkeeping seriously, this sort of nonsense will continue.

If Professor Garba chose to err on the side of caution  either to fend off any further scrutiny from the press or to avoid any legal battle with Melayes army of lawyers  he can be sure that his nightmare is not over yet. Since the matter is in court, he will, at some stage, mount the witness box to explain exactly which Melayes result he testified about in the Senate.

And he can be sure that on that day, Aje kun iya (Melayes latest theme song) will not playing in the background.

Dino Melaye in academic gown

Melayes convocation gown is not big enough to conceal the lingering doubts about his certificate. If he lied about Harvard and LSE, its difficult to believe him about any of his academic qualifications. Ive heard people say, Come on, whats the big deal about a higher degree; he doesnt need it to be eligible as senator.

That is correct. But if he lied about what he didnt need, why should we trust him on the important matters?

The Senate of controversy

Its interesting that while the Senate Ethics Committee decided to summon the ABU vice chancellor to testify on Melayes degree, the committee took his word about his O/Level result as holy grail. PUNCH had reported that he had only three credits and was therefore ineligible for a university admission in the first place.

Melaye denied the PUNCH report and instead, tendered a result showing five credit passes and one A as his result. It would be interesting to hear what WAEC has to say.

Thats not all. Questions have also been raised about Melayes Masters degree program. ABU could be the only university in the world where a candidate can secure admission to a Masters degree program with a Third Class, without first obtaining a post-graduate degree. Its improbable in a number of day schools.

And to compound Melayes complicated certificate story, his name was neither in the ABU Year Book nor on the schools alumni roll.

Yet, as Melaye acquires more degrees, which from his performance this week in the Senate must now include a degree in Theatre Arts possibly from the same ABU, well have to take the vice chancellors word for it, at least for now.

We are in trouble and Melayes certificate saga is just a symptom. I dont know of any other place where a lawmaker facing a charge of certificate forgery will celebrate his discharge with a video mocking his foes and then stage a dramatic entrance into the lawmaking chamber with an academic gown.

No one called him to order. Yet, this was the same chamber that threatened to issue a warrant of arrest against the Comptroller General of Customs, Hameed Ali, for failing to appear in his uniform.

READ ALSO: Senator allegedly operates 20 accounts in six banks with different signatories

When Itse Sagay said lawmakers were childish and irresponsible, this was precisely the sort of shenanigans he had in mind. And he certainly wont be the first to say so, even if saying so drives the lawmakers mad.

I dont know of any other place where lawmakers will insist on the execution of Ibrahim Magu who for over one year  and without a letter of appointment  has worked flat out to fight corruption, insisting that they will not do their constitutional duties until they receive his head on a platter.

Sure, the executive has not been sterling, with its own share of Melayes creating the image of a hostage government. But is that what Nigerians deserve  a contest of incompetents who are largely members of the same party?

Were in trouble. Its not a time for celebratory videos. Its a time to think, to roll up our sleeves and dig ourselves out this hole. Someone from Kogi West should please let the Melaye Band know that theres nothing funny about our present dilemma. Nothing.

The views and opinions expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of Legit.ng

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Source: Legit.ng
- The defence headquarters confirms that Boko Haram leader, Abubakar Shekau, is still alive contrary to earlier claim that he was killed sometimes late last year

- The defence spokesperson, Major General John Enenche, says due to the fictitious nature of the real identity of Shekau, the armed forces has not been able to capture the leader of Boko Haram sect

- Enenche states that the military has been able to decimate and degrade the Boko Haram terrorists from their activity to splinter acts of terrorism within Borno state

The defence headquarters has confirmed that Boko Haram leader, Abubakar Shekau is alive.

The Nigerian Military has said it is in desperate search of Boko Haram leader, Abubakar Shekau, to bring the terrorist leader to justice for his activities which have led to loss of many lives and property mostly in the north east part of the country.

READ ALSO: Police apprehend Tinubu, Saraki impersonators

The defence headquarters stated this through its new director of information, Major General John Enenche, at a media forum, in Abuja, on Thursday, March 30, Vanguard reports.

General John Enenche confirmed that Abubakar Shekau was still alive, contrary to earlier claim that he was killed sometimes late last year.

Enenche, speaking on the comment credited by the minister of defence, Col Dan-Ali that the military was yet to apprehend Shekau, said due to the fictitious nature of the real identity of Shekau, the Armed Forces has not been able to capture the leader of Boko Haram sects.

He said: But we are aware, and have come to know that the real Shekau is yet to be apprehended. If you remember, when Osama bin Ladin was killed, they went further to do a DNA test.

It is because there so many faces of Shekau, that brought the mix up, but the real Shekau is yet to be caught, and we will get him.

The defence spokesperson said the military has been able to decimate and degrade the Boko Haram terrorists from their activity to splinter acts of terrorism within Borno state.

READ ALSO: REVEALED! How Goodluck Jonathan 'ruined' Nigeria - Reno Omokri

He said: Currently, clearance operation is on going jointly by the force to eliminate both active and passive acts of terrorism in the North East.

It is worthy of note that some countries such as Britain, USA and France among others provided one form of assistance to the military in our effort so far in the North East.

It is worthy of note that some countries such as Britain, USA and France among others provided one form of assistance to the military in our effort so far in the North East."

He expressed the hopes that the collaboration would continue to ensure that the terrorism is eliminated from Nigeria and equally degraded globally.

Meanwhile, Legit.ng reports Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo on Thursday March 30, said corruption directly fueled the activities of the Boko Haram sect in the North Eastern part of the country.

Punch reports that Osinbajo said this in his remarks at the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Developments Anti-Corruption and Integrity Forum holding in Paris.

Legit.ng gathered that in a copy of the speech made available by the Presidency, the Vice-President said it was no longer in doubt that corruption and illicit financial flows constitute gravest challenge to development.

He said corruption fueled terrorist insurgency in the North East, therefore leading to serious humanitarian disaster.

Below are families of detained suspects in DSS custody speaking to Legit.ng

Source: Legit.ng
The Kaduna state governor Nasir el-Rufai has vowed to continue writing memos to President Muhammadu Buhari whenever the need arises

El-Rufai said it is an obligation for him to give the Nigerian leader an honest advice in the interest of the nation

- He also said he will never stop giving President Buhari an honest advise whenever the need to do so arises

The governor also said he would not want to speculate on who could have leaked his memo to the president to the media

The Kaduna state governor Nasir el-Rufai has vowed to continue writing memos to President Muhammadu Buhari whenever the need arises.

El-Rufai said it is an obligation for him to give the Nigerian leader an honest advice in the interest of the nation.

The governor in an interview with Daily Trust said: "I will never stop giving our leader an honest advice in the interest of his success and the country."

"Anything I see something wrong I will do a memo to him, and if they leak it after seven months, it is alright. I will not relent," el-Rufai said.

READ ALSO: BREAKING: Buhari takes crucial decision, assigns portfolios to 4 new ambassadors (check the list)

In the past week, the media was agog over a leaked memo from the governor to President Buhari.

El-Rufai in his memo told the president that Nigerians were not happy with the administration of the All Progressives Congress (APC) led by President Buhari.

He also said that the president has surrounded himself with bunch of "clueless" and inexperienced people like the chief of staff to the president Abba Kyari and the secretary to the government of the federation Babachir Lawal.

Although, the leaked memo caused a rouse in the polity, the Kaduna state governor denied having a hand in leaking the 30-page memo to the press.

He said: "As I said, I have written several memos to the president. This is the first one that has leaked. I can state categorically that I did not leak it. If I did I would say so."

"I wrote the memo, its my own, I could make it public if I chose to, but I did not. It was a private communication and I cant understand the motives of those that leaked it. I dont know who leaked it. But who knows? In these days of Wikileaks, even if it is in your computer it can be hacked and taken out," el-Rufai added.

The governor also said he would not want to speculate on who could have leaked his memo to the president to the media.

READ ALSO: Army in desperate search of real Abubakar Shekau

He however, added that he saw a situation raving the country and felt it was necessary for the president to be advised by someone from the lower cadre.

"I have always felt that my duty to him as my political leader is to pick up what he doesnt hear, because as a lower level person, I get to hear more about what is going on. And if I see things going wrong, I have a duty to go to him and say, This is what Ive heard, the facts I have established and my advice on the way forward." the governor said.

On the need for his memo, el-Rufai said he wrote President Buhari because he felt like some things were not going on as planned.

The governor noted that the present administration was drifting from the letters of the APC's manifesto in the 2015 elections campaign.

"I wrote this memo because I felt very strongly at that time that many things were not working as planned. I was part of the All Progressives Congress (APC) Strategic Planning Committee.

"I am one of the authors of the APC manifesto; I was part of the 34 people that signed the Independent National Electoral Committee (INEC) document to register the party.

"So I consider the APC one of my children. I know the dreams we had and the very high expectations our people had in Buharis government. And I am close enough to the president to know what he is committed to in terms of social justice and progress. I see that people that have been trusted to drive this agenda are not doing it," el-Rufai said.

READ ALSO: Nigerian Army dismisses soldier for allegedly killing lover over phone call

While stating that his memo was never written in bad faith, el-Rufai added that there are evidence that his memo is already yielding fruits as some issues mentioned in it are already being tackled by the president.

"One of the issues that concerned me in September when I wrote the memo is the slow pace of budget implementation, seeming lack of coordination between monetary and fiscal policies and the absence of a comprehensive economic programme.

"A few things we could have done to solve our exchange rate problem to boost our foreign reserve are all in the memo.

Since then, the federal government has done the five-year economic recovery and growth plan, which is one of the things I recommended. People need to see the plan for getting out of recession so that if they have to make sacrifices, at least they should know why they are making it. That has been done.

The governor also said that since his memo was done to the president, the budget implementation has been significantly improved.

READ ALSO: See how president was shamed after falling on a live show (Video)

He said: "The minister of state for petroleum has gone to India and is talking to China about oil to raise billions of dollars to boost our reserves. So, some of the economic issues have already been implemented."

Many of the political issues I identified and recommended to the president are being implemented too, but the president said, Lets wait until after the Edo and Ondo elections. Lets focus on winning these elections.

"You have seen the improvement in the exchange rate, youve seen the support the federal government has given states to clear arrears and reflate the economy. All these are things that we discussed and I put in the memo. Those that want to give the memo a colouration are not looking at the message but the messenger. But it is alright, I am used to that," el-Rufai said.

You can watch this Legit.ng video of Nigerian lamenting the administration of the APC below:

Source: Legit.ng
- A young Hausa-Fulani poet and historian, Abdulbaqi Jari has called for the division of Nigeria

- He accused Igbos and Yorubas of embarrassing Nigeria

- He said unless there is division, the current political arrangement in the country could not work

A young Hausa-Fulani poet and historian, Abdulbaqi Jari has called for the division of Nigeria to avert lingering crisis among the major ethnic tribes in the country.

Abdulbaqi Jari

Legit.ng gathered that Abdulbaqi Jari in his tweets accused Yoruba and Igbo of causing embarrassment to entire citizens of the country.

READ ALSO: Like Ndume, see how Saraki's father reacted when he was suspended by Senate in 80s

He said the attacks in South Africa and India because of Igbos have caused Nigeria more harm than good, adding that Nigeria could not work in the current arrangement where, according to him, governors, ministers and other government officials are villians.

But his tweets have, however, generated reactions from Nigerians who described his comments as unfortunate and tribalistic.

READ ALSO: Exposed! Buharis ministerial nominee already an ambassador designate

READ ALSO: OPINION: The enemy within and the cold-blooded threat from Arewa (part 2) by Fani-Kayode

Another tweeter user, Sewanu said neither Igbos nor Yorubas are the problem of the country, adding that the Hausas could not pretend to holier than thou

Source: Legit.ng
Abdulmumini Jibrin, a member of the Nigerian House of Representatives has called on President Muhammadu Buhari to resign on health ground.

Mr. Jibrin, a member of the ruling All Progressives Congress, said the presidents ill health has affected governance in the country badly

Mr. Jibrin, a member of the ruling All Progressives Congress asked the president to resign from office on health grounds.

He said the presidents ill health has affected governance in the country badly.

PMB should opt for or encourage to accept a negotiated exit. The country can not afford a sort of part time president at this time, Mr. Jibrin tweeted Friday evening.

READ ALSO: Buhari approves deployment of 4 ambassadors, assigns portfolios

The president I see on camera needs full home care not office, moderately quiet life, enough rest and quality time with his family.

Life and health belongs to God but the more I see pictures of Mr President, the more Iam convinced he needs to go and rest. He needs it!

Legit.ng recalls that Mr. Jibrin is currently on suspension after accusing the speaker, Yakubu Dogara, his former ally, of budget fraud.

READ ALSO: United Kingdom deports 23 Nigerians for various offences

Mr. Jibrin, who posted 30 tweets Friday evening, started by saying PMB, TIME TO LET GO: So many issues are left unattended even small issues that a presidential cough can deal with are left hanging.

Below are some of his tweets asking for the president to resign.

Meanwhile, in the video below, Legit.ng asks Nigerians if they regretted voting for President Buhari. Their responses will surprise you.

Source: Legit.ng
Vanguard is reporting that just few days after the violent clashes broke out between Hausa and Yoruba communities in Ile-Ife, fresh communal clash has broken out in Osun state.

According to the report, the clash broke out on Friday, March 31 in Ife North Local Government Area of Osun.

BREAKING: Fresh violence erupts in Ile-Ife, 10 injured

No fewer than ten people were injured in the fresh violence.

READ ALSO: Resign now, Nigerian lawmaker tells Buhari

Legit.ng gathered the fresh clash was between the people of Ipetumodu and Asipa in Ife north area of the state.

According to an eyewitness account, the clash started on Wednesday evening shortly after an alleged misunderstanding that broke out after an inter house sports football competition in the Community High School Ipetumodu, not far away from Asipa.

Youths from both communities were allegedly involved in the fight. Some unidentified youths were said to have taken advantage of the face off between the students and set ablaze the popular Akinola Market in Asipa a development that escalated the crisis between the two communities.

Gun shots were reportedly fired into the air to heighten tension in the area and no fewer than ten persons sustained injuries.

Policemen arrived later to maintain law and order.

READ ALSO: This is a zero government: Asari Dokubo appraises Buhari, warns Osinbajo

According to one of the traditional chiefs who spoke on condition of anonymity, Asipa community was to blame. He alleged that the other community turned a mere school riot to community clash to burn the market.

He also alleged that this was not the first time that such attack would be carried out against his people.

However, a leader of Asipa community, Julius Ogerinde denied the allegation saying that they were aggrieved because of the government white paper on the disputed land which favoured the other community.

They only used the avenue of the Inter house Sport competition to perpetrate their grievances and three of our people were shot," he said.

READ ALSO: President Buhari approves executive management of some government agencies

When contacted, the police spokesperson, Mrs. Folashade Odoro confirmed the clash, saying policemen had been drafted to the area to maintain law and order and normalcy has since returned to the area.

However, the Osun state government has denied reports that there was a fresh crisis in Ile-Ife. Speaking to newsmen in Osogbo, Mr Tope Adejumo, the special adviser on security to Governor Rauf Aregbesola, stated that some young people in the Asipa and Ipetumodu area engaged each other in a free fall over some boundary dispute.

He noted that it was not an inter-ethnic clash and neither was it a crisis.

Recall that many lives and millions of property destroyed in the last clash in Ile-Ife.

The Nigeria Police Force recently said it arrested 21 suspects over the March 8 killings and destruction of property in Ile-Ife, Osun State.

Force Spokesman, Jimoh Moshood, Chief Superintendent of Police, made the disclosure in Abuja when he presented the suspects before newsmen.

Source: Legit.ng
Politically, the United States is in a time of uncertainty with agency leadership positions being filled, budgets being adjusted and enforcement questions rising. However, the organic industry should see this as a time of opportunity, according to Bob Anderson, senior trade advisor, Organic Trade Association (OTA), and principal, Sustainable Strategies LLC. Anderson gave his insights on the organic industry, which spans 50 years, at the education session The Political Outlook for Organic at Natural Products Expo West in March 2017.

In this episode, Anderson and Sandy Almendarez, editor in chief, INSIDER, discuss:

Andersons opportunity within chaos theory, and how the organic industry can embrace uncertainty.

How the organic industry can talk to the Donald Trump Administration so the government understands its value.

The O-Factor study, which showed areas with organic farms and processing facilities have increased household incomes and decreased poverty rates (Agricultural and Resource Economics Review, 45(3), 485-521. DOI:10.1017/age.2016.5).

Update: Since the recording of this podcast, Sonny Perdues nomination for Agriculture Secretary was approved by the Senate Agriculture Committee. His nomination now heads to full Senate for a final confirmation vote.
A new crop of electronic financial tools is trying to help Americans save.

The fledgling apps are appealing to consumers like Brittney Gould, a 28-year-old retirement plan consultant in Rockville, Md. Ms. Gould dutifully maximizes automatic paycheck deductions to fund her own workplace 401(k) account. But for shorter-term savings, she uses the mobile app Qapital that lets users set multiple savings goals and have cash transferred into savings, based on rules the user sets.

Users can, for instance, tell the app to save $5 every time they buy a latte.

Ms. Gould likes being able to customize her account. When she peeks at her iPhone to see how much she has accumulated for pet expenses, she sees a photo of her dog. Its more motivating, and meaningful, she said. Since she began using the app last June, she has saved about $5,000.

Qapital, along with apps like Digit, Dyme, Acorns and many others, strive to use mobile technology to make saving easy and automatic. Aiming mainly at a young clientele, the new tools offer an updated take on traditional, somewhat stodgy savings advice  start small, contribute regularly and take satisfaction as your balance grows  in an effort to make saving fun.

Americans are generally lackluster savers. Forty-one percent of households lack liquid savings to cover an unexpected $2,000 expense, according to research from the Pew Charitable Trusts, which also found that a lack of saving is a top financial worry, even among families with higher incomes.
Bill Cosby may have been working for laughs when he told Larry King in 1991 the old story of boys dropping a purported aphrodisiac they called Spanish fly into a girls drink. The girl would drink it and, Mr. Cosby said, Hello America!

But on Thursday, prosecutors were deadly serious when they asked a judge to introduce the television interview as evidence in Mr. Cosbys upcoming trial on charges he drugged and sexually assaulted a Temple University staff member, Andrea Constand, in his home outside Philadelphia in 2004.

Prosecutors are also seeking to introduce a chapter of a book Mr. Cosby wrote from that same year in which he told a childhood story about he and some other boys sprinkling Spanish fly on cookies to give to girls.

The Montgomery County district attorney, Kevin R. Steele, described the interview and chapter in court papers as powerful and damaging admissions, that buttress the assertion that Mr. Cosby was comfortable using drugs to overcome women. In a deposition from a 2005 civil case that has already been admitted as evidence in the trial, Mr. Cosby acknowledged obtaining quaaludes as part of his efforts to have sex with women.
American War is one of several new dystopian novels that seem to channel the countrys current anxieties, with cataclysmic story lines about global warming, economic inequality, political polarization and the end of democracy. If theres a thematic thread connecting this crop of doomsday books, it could be crudely summarized as, Things may seem bad, but they might become much, much worse.

In Lidia Yuknavitchs novel The Book of Joan, the planet in 2049 has been destroyed by war and climate change, and the wealthy have retreated skyward to a ramshackle suborbital complex controlled by a celebrity-billionaire-turned-dictator who continues to suck resources from Earth. I built a world that is only a small distance from our present tense, Ms. Yuknavitch said in an email. One in which our current aims have simply played out to their logical conclusions: endless war, environmental degradation, the exploitation of Earth as a resource, the brutal stratification of humanity.

Similar catastrophic events propel Zachary Masons Void Star, a mind-bending novel in which rising seas have rendered large swaths of the planet uninhabitable, and impoverished masses huddle in favelas in San Francisco and Los Angeles, while the rich have private armies and armored self-driving cars and undergo life-extending medical treatments. Mr. Mason, a computer scientist who specializes in artificial intelligence, envisioned a world where the boundaries between machines and people have grown increasingly porous, and a powerful, godlike A.I. hacks into peoples minds.

The future is even bleaker in Michael Tolkins NK3, which takes place in Los Angeles, after a weaponized microbe developed by North Korean scientists has swept the globe, destroying peoples memories and identities. The writer Chris Kraus called the novel brilliant and barely speculative and labeled it the first book of the Trump era.

(For readers longing for a sliver of utopia, slightly less alarming visions of the future can be found in Kim Stanley Robinsons New York 2140, in which the city is partly submerged by rising oceans but remains vibrant; and Cory Doctorows darkly funny Walkaway, a forthcoming novel about an idealistic mans search for purpose in a country that has been leveled by extreme weather, economic disparity and the collapse of civil society.)
Strong clean energy and climate policies, like the Clean Power Plan, can make renewable energy supplies more robust and address the serious threat of climate change, they said.

That action also spurred Mr. Immelt to write a blog post to G.E.s 300,000 employees in which he criticized the rollback.

We believe climate change is real and the science is well accepted, said the post, first reported by Politico. This is just the beginning of what will be a long process of a repeal, he said, but no matter how it unfolds, it doesnt change what G.E. believes.

Jennifer Friedman, a General Electric spokeswoman, declined to say whether Mr. Immelt intended to relay his thoughts to Mr. Trump personally. Many other companies also declined to commit their executives to intervening with the president on climate-related policies.

But Ms. Friedman emphasized that Mr. Immelt was outspoken, and she cited G.E.s focus on clean energy, including Current, a subsidiary that focuses on products and services in energy efficiency, renewable generation and energy storage to large customers.

Hes pretty out there and clear, she said. Thats his position in every conversation he has.

A PepsiCo spokesman, Jay Cooney, said the company believes that combating climate change is critical to the future of our company, customers, consumers and our world. Kevin Gardner of Walmart, said its environmental commitments were embedded in our business.

Thomas Hushen, spokesman for Campbell Soup, said the company supported continued U.S. participation in the Paris agreement and the continuation of low-carbon policies and investment in a low-carbon economy. Campbells chief executive, Denise Morrison, participates in Mr. Trumps advisory council because we believe it is important to have a voice on matters that will affect our industry, our company and our employees. Mr. Hushen said.
The Senate is expected to soon take up a separate House resolution rolling back that state rule.

The consequences of the Senates votes could be significant. The Labor Department rules were designed to give around 13 million people in the five states access to retirement accounts, out of 55 million nationwide who lack employer-sanctioned retirement programs. Among those affected most by the measure passed on Thursday will be small business owners and employees who have blanched at the cost of conventional 401(k) plans or pensions.

In a joint statement, Mayor Bill de Blasio of New York, the City Council president, the citys public advocate and a council member said that they were deeply disappointed that Congress has voted to overturn the Department of Labor rule providing a safe harbor for us to create retirement savings plans for private sector employees.

This vote does little more than block them  the majority of whom are women and people of color  from securing their futures, the statement said.

Thursdays vote was only the latest regulation that Republicans have rolled back this year using the 1996 Congressional Review Act, which had hardly been used in the two decades before Mr. Trumps inauguration. Seven rollbacks have been signed into law by President Trump, with several others awaiting his signature.

But in this case, Republicans were replacing local regulatory authority with federal control  taking up a cause of investment banks that fear competition from state and local governments. The Obama Labor Departments rule actually gave states more autonomy in reaching contracts with private-sector financial managers to handle the savings accounts. State governments could be administrative conduits, keeping records while passing on funding to private consultants, who would manage the money in place of state treasurers.
More than 550,000 people have signed up for a federal program that promises to repay their remaining student loans after they work 10 years in a public service job.

But now, some of those workers are left to wonder if the government will hold up its end of the bargain  or leave them stuck with thousands of dollars in debt that they thought would be eliminated.

In a legal filing submitted last week, the Education Department suggested that borrowers could not rely on the programs administrator to say accurately whether they qualify for debt forgiveness. The thousands of approval letters that have been sent by the administrator, FedLoan Servicing, are not binding and can be rescinded at any time, the agency said.

The filing adds to questions and concerns about the program just as the first potential beneficiaries reach the end of their 10-year commitment  and the clocks start ticking on the remainder of their debts.
DETROIT  Volkswagen took another step Thursday to move past its emissions-cheating scandal by agreeing to pay $157 million to 10 states to settle environmental lawsuits.

The agreement is the latest move by the German automaker to resolve the legal fallout of its decade-long scheme to cheat on diesel emissions tests in the United States and elsewhere.

Volkswagen has already agreed to pay more than $20 billion in federal criminal and civil penalties and other legal settlements. Those include settlements in lawsuits brought by consumers related to its sale of about 600,000 cars equipped with devices that illegally circumvented emissions rules.

In addition, the company pleaded guilty in January to three felony charges brought by the Justice Department, including conspiracy to commit wire fraud and to violate the Clean Air Act.
Staffers had worked for four nights straight, Mr. Morelle noted.

Several Democratic Assembly members suggested that issues surrounding education aid and additional charter school support continued to dog the talks, as did a plan to raise the age of criminal responsibility; New York is currently one of only two states, along with North Carolina, to regard 16- and 17-year-olds as adults.

Senator Patrick Gallivan, a Buffalo-area Republican and chairman of the Crime Victims, Crime and Corrections Committee, described the contours of a proposal that would effectively divert such teenage defendants facing charges on nonviolent felonies into a new and separate court system, to be known as youth court. It would be staffed by specially trained judges and have access to a raft of social services.

Misdemeanors would start and end in family court, according to Mr. Gallivan, and 16- and 17-year-olds would be housed separately from adult defendants. After 30 days, those nonviolent cases in youth court would automatically be assigned to family court unless a district attorney argued extraordinary circumstances in the crime.

The idea, he said, would be to differentiate the violent ones that we should be afraid of and very concerned about from those defendants who were merely young and stupid. Crimes such as murder and rape would stay in the youth court  technically part of the criminal system  in all cases, Mr. Gallivan said.

But there still seemed to be concern among members of the Assembly about the types of offenses that would be considered violent, such as burglary, and the fear that prosecutors would have too leeway to keep cases in criminal court.
The couple doing the shopping were investigators from the Department of Environmental Conservation, who suspected  correctly  that Landmark was actually selling elephant ivory under the guise of mammoth.

Outside of Asia, New York City has been one of the leading markets in the world for ivory, although by that day in the spring of 2015, the sale of ivory had been banned under a state law that took effect the year before. (Antique musical instruments containing a small quantity of ivory can still be sold.)

Ivory comes from the elephant tusk, an incisor tooth that can grow to more than 10 feet. The quickest way to get it is to kill the elephant, hack the tusk from its head and put the ivory into the hands of middlemen who deliver it as a raw material for carvers. Thus, the largest land creatures on earth, which are thought by some to mourn the deaths of other elephants, were being killed by the tens of thousands every year for whatever human vanities could be satisfied by trinkets and baubles. All that remained of a 13,000-pound mammal would be a few delicate ounces of ivory, displayed under glass in the windows of Midtown Manhattan.

The purpose of the ban was to take the economic incentives out of the frenzy of slaughter that has driven African elephants toward extinction.

The law gave dealers two years to sell their mammoth ivory. Some conservationists believed that satiating the markets appetite for ivory with extinct creatures would protect living ones.
A rival Democratic campaign filed a formal complaint Thursday to New Jerseys Election Law Enforcement Commission, alleging campaign finance violations against Philip D. Murphy, the highest-polling Democrat for governor.

At the heart of the complaint, filed by the campaign of Jim Johnson, is an argument that Mr. Murphys two organizations, New Start New Jersey and New Way New Jersey, were nonprofits in name only. Instead, the complaint says, they essentially act as a political campaign without the scrutiny and regulations that come with being a candidate and the freedom to accept and spend money without disclosure.

For me, this was a very clear indication that whats been undertaken by the Murphy campaign is precisely the sort of the-rules-dont-apply-to-us behavior that this state needs to change, Mr. Johnson, a former deputy under secretary of the Treasury, said in a call with reporters on Thursday.

The Murphy campaign rejected the complaint, saying it would seek to have it dismissed.

There is absolutely no merit to his complaint but there is lots of merit to the notion that he is wasting taxpayers money in forcing ELEC to look into allegations that he, as an attorney, knows dont pass the laugh test, said Julie Roginsky, a senior adviser to the Murphy campaign.
The Pentagon insists that there has been no major change in its rules for airstrikes against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, and that a surge in civilian casualties is a result of increased military operations in western Mosul, said to be the most intense urban combat since World War II.

Nevertheless, the disturbing number of casualties raises concerns that President Trumps approach to counterterrorism puts too many civilians at risk and ultimately leads more people to side with the terrorists.

Western Mosul, where Iraqi ground forces backed by American advisers and American airstrikes are trying to defeat about 2,000 ISIS fighters, is a warren of homes and narrow streets. Military commanders have acknowledged that scores of civilians were killed by an American airstrike there on March 17, although they noted that militants might have packed the basement of the destroyed building with explosives. It may be the largest loss of civilian life since the anti-ISIS campaign began in 2014.

This month, more than 60 other people were killed in a strike on a mosque complex in Aleppo, Syria, where local residents said a religious gathering had been taking place, but American military officials said Al Qaeda was their target. The military has also been accused of killing about 30 Syrians in an airstrike on a school near Raqqa; officials say that early indications show it hit Islamic State fighters.
Donald Harvey, a health care worker called the Angel of Death by the news media after he killed dozens of hospital patients under his care in the 1970s and 80s, died on Thursday after he was attacked in his prison cell in Ohio. He was 64.

Lt. Robert G. Sellers, a spokesman for the Ohio State Highway Patrol, who confirmed the death, said Mr. Harvey had been assaulted at the Toledo Correctional Institution on Tuesday afternoon by another inmate. He said an investigation was continuing.

Mr. Harvey, among the most prolific mass murderers in United States history, confessed to killing 37 people, mostly hospital patients, over two decades in Ohio and Kentucky.

The ghoulishness of his killings  which he described as an act of benevolence and mercy that he provided to the sick and old people  drew international attention. He was serving consecutive life sentences at his death.
WASHINGTON  Senior House Republicans said Thursday that they expected the federal government to continue paying billions of dollars in subsidies to health insurance companies to keep low-income people covered under the Affordable Care Act for the rest of this year  and perhaps for 2018 as well.

The decision would be a curious twist for Republicans who have spent seven years battling President Barack Obamas health law only to fail last week to repeal it. The Republican-led House won a lawsuit accusing the Obama administration of unconstitutionally paying the insurance-company subsidies, since no law formally provided the money.

Although that decision is on appeal, President Trump could accept the ruling and stop the subsidy payments, which reduce deductibles and co-payments for seven million low-income people. If the payments stopped, insurers  deprived of billions of dollars  would flee the marketplaces, they say. The implosion that Mr. Trump has repeatedly predicted could be hastened.

But senior Republicans appear unwilling to force that outcome.

While the lawsuit is being litigated, then the administration funds these benefits, the House speaker, Paul D. Ryan, said Thursday. Thats how theyve been doing it, and I dont see any change in that.
But Mr. Rubio immediately sought to play down his remarks, cautioning his colleagues during the hearing not to become too focused on hacking, one aspect of a much broader campaign.

Weve focused on the trees and have lost sight of the forest, Mr. Rubio said.

Other Republicans on the panel expressed some skepticism over the pervasiveness of Russian interference in the campaign. Senator Roy Blunt of Missouri asked whether the experts who had been brought in to testify had seen any evidence of direct Russian interference in county election systems, something he said should never be allowed to happen. No, they said.

Senator John Cornyn of Texas, the Senates No. 2 Republican, cast doubt on the conclusion of intelligence agencies that Russians had acted specifically to aid Mr. Trump in the election. Do you have any reason to believe that Putin knew more than the pundits and pollsters did here in America about the outcome of the election before it occurred? Mr. Cornyn asked, referring to the Russian president, Vladimir V. Putin.

No, came the reply.

I didnt think so, Mr. Cornyn said.

In one remarkable exchange, Senator James Lankford, Republican of Oklahoma, asked why Mr. Putin had chosen this election to meddle in.

Clint Watts, a former F.B.I. agent who is now a senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute, said that while Russia had sought to interfere in elections around the world, its efforts in last years American election were especially potent because Mr. Trumps campaign had parroted the same lines used in Russian propaganda. Mr. Trump cited a fake news article in at least one stump speech, Mr. Watts said, adding that his claims of a rigged election were in line with claims made by the Russian state news media.
WASHINGTON  Michael T. Flynn, the former national security adviser, has offered to be interviewed by House and Senate investigators who are examining the Trump campaigns ties to Russia in exchange for immunity from prosecution, according to his lawyer and a congressional official.

But the congressional official said investigators were unwilling to broker a deal with Mr. Flynn  who resigned last month for misleading White House officials about his contacts with Russias ambassador to the United States  until they are further along in their inquiries and they better understand what information Mr. Flynn might offer as part of a deal.

In a statement on Thursday evening, Mr. Flynns lawyer confirmed discussions with the House and Senate intelligence committees about possible testimony by his client. The lawyer, Robert Kelner, did not provide specifics about the terms under which Mr. Flynn would testify, but said that no reasonable person, who has the benefit of advice from counsel, would submit to questioning in such a highly politicized, witch-hunt environment without assurances against unfair prosecution.

General Flynn certainly has a story to tell, and he very much wants to tell it, should circumstances permit, the statement said.
Yet with Judge Gorsuchs nomination expected to clear a committee vote and proceed to the Senate floor next week, other Democrats remain confident that he will not earn the support necessary to break a filibuster. This would require at least eight Democratic senators to join the Republicans 52-seat majority.

Its an uphill struggle for them to get 60, Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the Democratic leader, said of Republicans in an interview on Thursday at his office in the Capitol.

Mr. Schumer accused Senate Republicans of trying to play brinkmanship by hinting strongly that they will seat Judge Gorsuch one way or another, even if it requires a change in longstanding rules to allow him to be elevated on a simple majority vote.

Mr. Schumer was notably unsparing in his criticism of the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky, who last year refused to consider President Barack Obamas nominee, Judge Merrick B. Garland, during a presidential election year.

Hes very willing to act to the detriment of the Senate to fulfill his own political goals, Mr. Schumer said of his counterpart.
JOHANNESBURG  The two rival factions inside South Africas governing African National Congress attacked each other publicly on Friday after President Jacob Zuma abruptly fired a well-respected finance minister who was considered a bulwark against government corruption.

Mr. Zuma, who has been embroiled in a series of scandals since taking office in 2009, dismissed the finance minister, Pravin Gordhan, as part of a late-night cabinet shuffle in which 10 of 35 ministers were fired.

The deputy president, Cyril Ramaphosa, called the decision unacceptable. Another senior figure, Gwede Mantashe, the A.N.C. secretary general, said the cabinet shuffle was not done with the partys approval. Ministers have been moved, and the majority of them were good performing ministers, Mr. Mantashe said.

Jackson Mthembu, a senior A.N.C. lawmaker, said Mr. Gordhans only crime was incorruptibility.

Its unprecedented to have senior A.N.C. members come out with dissenting views in public like this, said William Gumede, a political scientist at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg and executive chairman of the Democracy Works Foundation, a good-government group.
CONCEICAO DO CAPIM, Brazil  Eduardo Cunha, the conservative Brazilian political leader who led the push in 2016 to oust Dilma Rousseff, Brazils former president, was sentenced on Thursday to more than 15 years in prison.

A federal judge in Brazil found him guilty of corruption, money laundering and illegally sending money abroad, all in connection with a sprawling graft investigation involving the state-run oil company Petrobras.

In handing down one of stiffest penalties meted out to a top political figure in Brazil in recent years, the judge said Mr. Cunha violated his enormous responsibilities as a lawmaker.

There can be no more serious offense than the betrayal for personal gain of a parliamentary mandate and the sacred trust of the people, said the judge, Sergio Moro, a leading figure in the investigation who has become something of a hero to graft-weary Brazilians.
After watching back-to-back programs by the Joffrey Ballet, I have many questions, but first things first: Why would a company that relocated to Chicago from New York in 1995 because of financial difficulties open its first New York season in more than 20 years with a subpar version of Romeo & Juliet?

The muddled ballet, choreographed by Krzysztof Pastor, opened at the David H. Koch Theater on Wednesday, presented by the Joyce Theater Foundation; it comes to dancing life through the lens of 20th-century Italian politics. On Thursday, a mixed bill, featuring works by Yuri Possokhov, Myles Thatcher and Christopher Wheeldon  an all-too typical array of male ballet choreographers  didnt wash away the sense that this is a company in need of an identity.

The Joffrey, formed in 1956 by Robert Joffrey and Gerald Arpino, is now under the artistic direction of Ashley Wheater. In its heyday, it held an important place in dance, as a crucial repository for historical works by choreographers like Leonide Massine and Vaslav Nijinsky.
Welcome to Best of Late Night, a rundown that lets you sleep  and lets us get paid to watch comedy. What do you think of it? What else are you interested in? Let us know: thearts@nytimes.com.

Dirt Twerking?

Politico reports that the Department of Energys Office of International Climate and Clean Energy has barred employees from using the term climate change in memos. On Thursday, the Late Late Show host James Corden took it as an opportunity to coin some rosier terms for natural disasters:

Instead of climate change, you have to say endless summer. Instead of tornado, were going to call it fun-time twisty wind. Earthquakes will now be referred to as dirt twerking.

The Art of the Squeal
Did the film cause you to reflect on existence and life after death?

I want to leave viewers with their own conclusions. But I think a lot of us are saddled with a feeling that I refer to as Anywhere but here. If I was only in that other city, Id be happier. If I only had that other job, Id be happier. What if you can just push the reset button and start fresh? I think the reality is, you can never escape yourself.

Youve made serious films and silly ones. Which are the truer expressions of yourself?

Yes, from The Muppets to End of the Tour, thats about as different as you can get. [laughs] When I was doing Forgetting Sarah Marshall, which was about a devastating breakup and trying to learn to stand on your own two feet, thats what I was thinking about at 24 years old. At 34, I was thinking about the themes we explored in End of the Tour. The common thread of all of them is its exposing some facet of yourself. In Forgetting Sarah Marshall, literally.

Are the cast members from How I Met Your Mother still a part of your life?

We all text each other on our birthdays and things like that. We were on that show for nine years. We watched each other get married and have kids and go through health scares and all the things that happen over a decade. I realized at one point, this is the longest Ive known any group of people besides my family. Theres something that lasts forever about that.

Of all the things youve done, does it ever seem strangest that you were on a network sitcom for nine seasons?

My only experience prior to How I Met Your Mother was critically acclaimed failures. [laughs]

Youre also an author of the young adult book series Nightmares! and Otherworld. Where do you find the time?
THE NOVEL OF THE CENTURY

The Extraordinary Adventure of Les Miserables

By David Bellos

307 pp. Farrar, Straus & Giroux. $27.

A good book could be written about the bastardization of great novels, and Victor Hugos Les Miserables would make a fine Exhibit A. Rarely has any work of literature received such a pummeling at the hands of a succession of publishers, translators, filmmakers and musical impresarios, as David Bellos demonstrates in The Novel of the Century, his intriguing new history of Hugos 1,500-page masterpiece.

Les Miserables was published in France in 1862. An English-language version appeared in New York that same year, thanks to a justly hailed translation that the American Egyptologist Charles Wilbour completed in only six months. But right away there were signs the novel would take on a life of its own: A pirated version of Wilbours translation was soon released in Richmond, Va., where the Unions copyright laws did not apply. All of Hugos references to the evils of slavery were struck out. (The absence of a few antislavery paragraphs will hardly be complained of by Southern readers, the preface proposed.) Hugos doctored novel went on to become such an emphatic hit in the South that the downbeaten soldiers of Robert E. Lee took to calling themselves Lees miserables.

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There was distortion of another sort in the first British translation, by Sir Charles Lascelles Wraxall, also published in 1862. According to Bellos, Wraxall, a historian who fancied himself an expert on Waterloo, did not hesitate to alter the meaning of Hugos novel whenever he disagreed with passages pertaining to Napoleon Bonapartes downfall.
Sprinkled throughout are some pretty fantastic love affairs and plenty of gossip. Dressed in a suede miniskirt, the teenage Buck shamelessly flirts with Tom Wolfe, on assignment for an article that would become The Life and Hard Times of a Teenage London Society Girl. After dropping out of Sarah Lawrence, Buck returns to Europe, where shes eventually hired by Womens Wear Daily, first as its correspondent in London and then in Rome. She escapes an abusive boyfriend and falls hopelessly in love with Donald Sutherland, who is filming Bernardo Bertoluccis 1900 in Emilia-Romagna. He uses the name Attila for the messages he leaves and sends dozens of violets. Dont write about me, Sutherland asks after learning she keeps a diary. Ill never, she replies. When the affair ends, Buck is taken in by Anjelica Huston, a childhood friend, at the house Huston shares with Jack Nicholson in Los Angeles. For a birthday present, Huston presents her with a crystal ball, and when Nicholson explains, Its to see what youre going to do next, Buck realizes that Id overstayed my welcome. A brief marriage to the writer John Heilpern ends with an affair with the governor of California, Jerry Brown. You really think people only do things to become famous? he asks. Isnt that why you became governor? she counters.

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Newhouses offer to run Paris Vogue comes across as a difficult one for Buck to accept. Shes at the height of her career as a magazine journalist, writing profiles for Vanity Fair and serving as American Vogues film critic. Shes a writer, not an editor. But her parents are elderly and short of funds, so she suits up (in Jean Muir, a British fashion designer Buck describes as making priestly tunics) to face off with the French staff. Shes treated as a Yankee interloper: On her first day, her office is missing a chair, and no one can be bothered to help her find one. Eventually, though, trust is earned and Paris becomes another playground. She takes Toni Morrison shoe shopping; she rides bikes at Versailles with Charlotte Rampling.

Buck is most charming when shes revealing her fumbles  the kind all editors in chief must make and never discuss, except at dinner parties. Like her first issue of Paris Vogue, which is dedicated to the Frenchwoman or, as the cover reads, La Femme Francaise. Years later, an art director reveals that it was a dog whistle for the National Front. It was as bad as if youd put the words National Pride on the cover, he says, laughing. There are also slights hurled at former colleagues. The photographer Mario Testino endlessly declared, I am Vogue, but try as I might, I couldnt understand what the particular magic of his bright pictures might be. The editor Carine Roitfelds style relied, as far as I could see, on little more than straight hair, tight skirts, bare legs and high heels, but her influence on fashion was decisive.

Bucks decisions come across as impulsive, as if the life she leads were not the sum total of her decisions but something beyond her control. Her instincts are often rewarded, and her circle of famous friends can feel, at times, limitless. But she doesnt come across as an entirely reliable narrator. This is forgivable when describing the superficial world of fashion, which relies on a little embellishment here and there, but its more difficult when considering her profile of Asma al-Assad for American Vogue.

Published in March 2011, the magazines Power Issue, A Rose in the Desert offers a charming portrait of the wife of the Syrian president: Asma al-Assad is glamorous, young and very chic  the freshest and most magnetic of first ladies. Buck tries to explain how she ended up praising the Assads: My old friend Christian Louboutin had bought himself a small palace in Aleppo and knew the Assads. For dictators, they really care about their people, he told me. The line was flip; but Id called a shoe designer, not a State Department official. Within the limits of the glossy view of life, it was a good enough endorsement. But, as readers were quick to point out, Assads husband was using violence to resist mounting protests against his government, violence that would later descend into civil war. The article caused an uproar and was quietly removed from the Vogue website. Its not difficult to believe that the magazines editors would make Buck a scapegoat (she was given no further assignments, and her contract wasnt renewed), but her defense seems flimsy. She may have been set up to look like an apologist for a tyrant, but she doesnt appear to have done her homework either.
SEX AND THE CONSTITUTION

Sex, Religion, and Law From Americas Origins to the Twenty-First Century

By Geoffrey R. Stone

Illustrated. 668 pp. Liveright Publishing. $35.

Everybody knows that the easiest way to boost the sales of a book is to put a particular familiar word in its title. That word, of course, is Constitution. Geoffrey R. Stone is a professor and former dean at the University of Chicago, and his title is a bit of a tease. There is virtually nothing about the Constitution in this book until Page 263, and even then, it is only to say, Dont get too excited yet. Until the 1950s, Stone reports, the Supreme Court had little to say about the possible relevance of the Constitution to laws dealing with such issues as obscenity, contraception, abortion and homosexuality. Stone concedes, though he might not regard it as a concession, that the general assumption was that government could legitimately  and constitutionally  forbid behavior that the majority deemed immoral.

If Sex and the Constitution succeeds, future efforts by Stone and his publisher will no doubt include Sex and Magna Carta, Sex and the Declaration of Independence and Sex and the Instructions That Came With Your New Dishwasher. Stone tells the story fairly straight, but its clear that he regards history as moving in a generally progressive direction  in favor of more tolerance  and that he thinks thats a good thing.

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Actually, there isnt much about sex in Sex and the Constitution, either, until well into the book, let alone sex and the Constitution together. The first half is a mad dash through history, starting with the Greeks and ending with Senator Joseph McCarthy, the Stonewall uprising and Anita Bryant. This history proceeds in a seesaw manner, with periods of prudery in reaction to periods of license followed by more prudery, followed by license. But since Stone has made it clear that he thinks the general direction life has taken is toward more freedom, he generally approves of the way things have gone.
Set during six months in 1940, the story unfolds mostly in letters and journal entries from nearly a dozen vantage points. Four dominate: Mrs. Margaret Tilling, a middle-aged widow about to send her only child off to the front; Edwina Paltry, a midwife of suspect ethical standards; and to-the-manor-born sisters, Kitty Winthrop, 13, and minxlike Venetia, 18, whose brother has just been killed in a submarine explosion. Dry your eyes: He was a disgusting bully, Kitty writes in her diary.

This death sets in play a baby-swapping plot hatched by the Brigadier, Kitty and Venetias mustache-twiddling father, who needs a male heir. Its all quite diverting, even if Ryan sometimes seems more interested in describing her characters clothing than their inner lives (skirt-swishing Venetia is a veritable Carmen Miranda). As for the war itself, its mostly a narrative convenience, a way to get rid of supporting characters were merely fond of, including one whose demise, while sad, neatly solves a dilemma. World War II is a way to tame a shrew and a bully and to pair off adorable couples of multiple generations. The fact that the fighting is still going strong at the books end confirms that this isnt a story about war in any real sense, but rather a novel set in a time of war. To a tune called pleasing.

MY LAST LAMENT

By James William Brown

341 pp. Berkley, $26.

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An American scholar travels to a Greek village to interview a woman named Aliki, its last professional lamenter, a composer of poems for the dead. Due to her reticence and some technical difficulties, the visit is a failure, so the American leaves behind a tape recorder, hoping Aliki will record herself when shes in the right frame of mind. The elderly Luddite does a lot of precious fumbling (Now let me see, how do I turn this thing on?) before delivering a very personal lament, one big enough to fill six cassettes  less poem than novel.

At 14, Aliki saw her father executed by the occupying Nazis and was rendered mute. Another act of violence brings back her voice; in a sense, shes shocked into her professional calling. When the Nazis clear out, she and two other children, a Jewish teenager named Stelios, who had been hiding in her village, and an orphaned 11-year-old boy, Takis, set off on an odyssey around Greece, looking for everything from food to a more viable future.

Brown struggles to make his characters entirely plausible, sporadically resorting to jarringly modern language. It was only after the Germans came, Aliki says, sounding as if shes chit-chatting after yoga class, that the  I dont know what  the glow just went out of everything. And yet theres a lot to hold ones attention: The Greek setting is far less traveled ground in the English-language World War II novel, and Browns pacing is strong and engaging, at least at the outset.

The children become street performers of folkloric shadow puppetry, eventually traveling to Crete looking for paying audiences. This is when Brown loses narrative control, bogging down in an account of their journeys through the violent times that followed the war. Theres a love story, but what stays with you at the end of this ambitious but unruly narrative is Takis, Alikis orphan companion. Brown veers between making him the creepy child right out of a horror movie and the touchingly misunderstood victim of mental illness or post-traumatic stress. There are good larger points to be made here  about assigning blame in wartime and what it means to soldier on under deeper burdens than immediate circumstances, however awful. But, like Aliki with the cassette recorder, Brown fumbles when he sets his hand to them.
 Michael Flynn seeks immunity to testify on Russia.

Mr. Flynn, the former national security adviser, said he was willing to be interviewed as part of a congressional examination of the Trump campaigns ties to Russia in exchange for immunity from prosecution, his lawyer said.

But investigators are unwilling to broker a deal until they are further along in their inquiry, an official said.

In a post on Twitter today, Mr. Trump called the investigation a witch hunt.

 E.U. tells Britain: First we divorce, then we talk.

Britain must agree to pay its bills and to protect millions of Europeans living in the country before reaching a new trading relationship with the European Union, the president of the European Council said today.
Its remarkable really, said Jonathan Beckett, the chief executive of Burgess, a yacht brokerage and advisory firm. Anyone can go to a website, type in a name and find an owners yacht. Its a little scary.

For the news media, wealth voyeurs and many of the rich themselves, the ability to track jets and yachts provides welcome transparency and safety benefits. But for the rich who look to their yachts and jets as cocoons of privacy, the mass of digital eyes following them represents an unwelcome intrusion and even a security threat.

When owners step on their yacht, they want to feel totally safe, Mr. Beckett said. A lot of the wealthy prefer to stay under the radar.

For the most part, yacht- and plane-spotters are more like bird-watchers  hobbyists on the lookout for rare or unusual species in unlikely locales. They loiter on marine docks, boat channels and airport access roads in hopes of spotting and photographing a yacht like Larry Ellisons 288-foot Musashi or a jet like Paul Allens $70 million custom Gulfstream G650.

Apparently there are a lot of people with nothing to do but hang out at airports and take pictures of planes and their tail numbers, said Jay Duckson, a private-jet broker and adviser with Central Business Jets.

Yet the growing availability of location data has added a new level of detail to the hobby. Yachts and planes are both required by safety regulations to emit frequent location data. Increasingly, that data is aggregated by websites that let their users freely search for a particular plane or yacht by its name or registration number. The sites also upload up-to-the-minute photos of the vessels or planes that are sent in by amateurs. A quick search on Google can provide the name of a billionaires yacht or pictures of a plane.

Most yachts have transponders onboard that send out Automatic Identification System data, which gives the local authorities and other boats their location and navigation headings. Sites like VesselFinder.com and MarineTraffic.com ingest the data and let users type in a yachts name and see its most recent coordinates. For a fee, the sites will also send a history of a yachts movements going back years. Other sites like SuperYachtFan.com let photographers send in updated photos and owner names for certain yachts.
It is too soon to tell how many companies will do so in 2017; companies typically advise shareholders about their meetings only when they file their proxy statements. But early indications suggest further growth this year. At least half a dozen large companies have said they will join the ranks of those offering virtual-only meetings in 2017. They include Ford Motor, Alaska Air, Duke Energy, ConocoPhillips and the GEO Group, a private prison operator.

Scott M. Stringer, comptroller of New York City and overseer of city pension funds with $170 billion in assets, hopes to stop this trend. His office recently began communicating with companies that held online-only meetings last year and whose shares the pension funds own. If they continue down this path, he said, the comptrollers office will recommend the pensions vote against the election of all directors sitting on corporate governance committees at the companies.

Duke Energy is one company that has heard about the new policy. On March 24, Mr. Stringers office wrote to Duke criticizing the companys plan to have an online-only shareholder meeting on May 4. A number of shareholder proposals opposed by management are scheduled to come up at the meeting, and some investors are concerned they will get short shrift. One proposal calls on Duke to issue a report on the public health risk associated with its coal use, and another asks it to assess the impact on its portfolio of limiting the global increase in temperature to 2 degrees Celsius, a goal agreed to in the 2015 Paris accord.

I asked Catherine Butler, a Duke Energy spokeswoman, why the company had switched to a virtual-only meeting. She said Duke was doing so in part because other companies were. The major reason: We have a worldwide shareholder base, and we want to make sure the majority of shareholders have the ability to participate, she said. The companys response to Mr. Stringers office made the same case.

Of course, a hybrid meeting would also allow Dukes shareholders around the globe to participate. But never mind that.

Its one of the great markers of American enterprise  whether you own one share or one million, you can speak at a companys annual meeting, Mr. Stringer said in a statement. Except now, in this interconnected world, companies are using technological tools to whittle away at investors rights and hide from accountability. If boards shirk this responsibility, share owners should join us in holding them accountable.

Mr. Stringer is not alone in his dislike for virtual-only meetings. The Council of Institutional Investors, a nonprofit group of corporate, public and union employee benefit funds and endowments, has urged companies using virtual meetings to do so only as a supplement to in-person gatherings.
After 27 years, the crayon color dandelion is taking a retirement, making way for an upstart in the blue family, officials with the crayon company Crayola said on Friday.

This was not the first time the company has retired colors.

In 1990, eight shades  maize, lemon yellow, blue gray, raw umber, green blue, orange red, orange yellow and violet blue  were retired and eight new ones, including the yellow hue known as dandelion, were introduced. In 2003, four other colors were taken out and four new ones introduced.

Crayola this week counted down the days leading up to its formal announcement of dandelions retirement on Friday and posted teases on social media that sounded more like a promotion about the pending demise of a soap opera character: One will say goodbye!
The legal fight between Uber and Google keeps getting more interesting.

Anthony Levandowski, the head of Ubers self-driving unit who is accused of stealing technology from his former employer Google, is citing his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination, according to his lawyers.

Why? Because there is potential for criminal action in the case, according to court transcripts.

As such, he has chosen not to turn over documents that may pertain to the case.

Ubers lawyers say they have made clear to Mr. Levandowski that he needs to release any relevant papers as part of the discovery process.

We obviously have a conflict, said Arturo Gonzalez, a lawyer for the ride-hailing company.

The development raises questions about Mr. Levandowskis future at Uber: When Ubers lawyer said that the company could not force Mr. Levandowski to testify, the judge said Uber had the right to order him to cooperate or be fired.
LONDON  The Bank of Portugal, that nations central bank, said on Friday that it would sell a controlling stake in a bank salvaged from the collapse of one of the countrys largest private lenders, to Lone Star Funds, an American private equity firm.

The sale of the salvaged entity, Novo Banco, came two-and-a-half years after the country was forced to rescue of Banco Espirito Santo in a state-led bailout of 4.9 billion euros, or $5.3 billion at current exchange rates.

As part of the rescue in August 2014, Banco Espirito Santo was broken up and its healthy assets were transferred to a new entity, Novo Banco.

Under its agreement with the Bank of Portugal, Lone Star would inject a total of 1 billion ($1.1 billion) into the bank, in exchange for a 75 percent stake, the Bank of Portugal said in a news release. The remaining 25 percent would be held by Portugals bank resolution fund.
And for good reason. During the financial crisis, as most people will remember, the government all but insisted that the healthiest banks gobble up the failing banks. Thats why JPMorgan Chase bought both Bear Stearns and Washington Mutual. And why Bank of America bought Merrill Lynch. And why Wells Fargo bought Wachovia. And more or less why Barclays bought the pieces of Lehman Brothers that it wanted out of bankruptcy.

In other words, an industry already on a path toward being an oligopoly became even more concentrated, and powerful, as a result of the Federal Reserves insistence on these deals. And then the Fed shut off the spigot.

Will the Trump administration turn it on again? And if it does, will any of the big Wall Street banks take the opportunity to get even bigger?

Its an interesting question. Here are a few views.

The first thing to note is that, aside from Goldman Sachs, doing mergers and acquisitions is in the DNA of nearly every Wall Street firm. JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Citigroup and Wells Fargo were created through one merger after another over many decades. Even Morgan Stanley, which was spun out of the old J. P. Morgan & Company as a result of the Glass-Steagall Act (which required banks to choose between investment banking and commercial banking before it was repealed in 1999), has gobbled up its share of other firms, including Dean Witter Discover and the brokerage Smith Barney. In other words, Wall Street loves doing deals with other Wall Street firms and big banks.

The problem is that many of the mergers between banks in similar lines of business dont work out particularly well. There were countless problems with the mergers between Chase Manhattan Bank and J. P. Morgan, Citibank and Salomon Brothers and JPMorgan Chase and Bear Stearns, and with Credit Suisses acquisition of Donaldson, Lufkin and Jenrette, to name but a few. The issues usually revolve around turf battles over clients and leadership positions. When people start leaving as a result, the rationale for the deals begins to fall apart (unless the idea was to take out a competitor).
States in the United States will need to bolster their credibility with the European Union.

With deregulation in the air in Washington, the insurers American International Group and Prudential Financial could lose their designations as systemically important financial institutions, or SIFIs, along with MetLife. That would end Federal Reserve monitoring and throw oversight back on individual states. But the three companies are also global SIFIs in the eyes of regulators in the European Union and elsewhere. From their perspective, state watchdogs might not cut it.

President Trumps administration is reviewing the role of the Financial Stability Oversight Council. The group, made up of all the federal financial regulators, has the power to designate nonbank firms as systemically important, putting them under extra Fed supervision. A.I.G. and Prudential fall into that category, while MetLife has been successful so far in its legal fight against that too big to fail designation. One possible outcome of the review of the Financial Stability Oversight Council is the removal of the designation for all the insurers.

Yet A.I.G., Prudential and MetLife are still considered systemically important, alongside huge insurers from other countries, by the global Financial Stability Board.

The European Union has recognized the Fed as a credible supervisor for the American insurers that are designated by the Financial Stability Board. If the designation by the Financial Stability Oversight Council is removed, however, the European Unions counterparts would be states like New York and New Jersey.
Retreating and trying another pathway doesnt mean defeat. It just means youre not going to succeed in that lane right now. So maybe you go back to that lane when you have more education or more experience or more leverage and you try again.

Tell me more about benevolent friction.

In a start-up, you dont know what tomorrow will bring, so you have to be constantly learning and be adaptive with your colleagues. You might think you have a role to play, but you have to listen and be responsive to your colleagues in order for the team to really win.

In the beginning, some people didnt like it when I used that phrase because they felt that friction is a negative thing, and they didnt want to have any friction with their colleagues.

I would explain that if you dont have pressure on the carbon, you never get to the diamond. You can still be very respectful, and assume everybody has a spark, but we have to subject our ideas to the toughest scrutiny because our work is important.

Other leadership lessons for you?

Early in my career, as a woman of color in financial services, the expectations for excellence were either really high  so its hard to live up to them  or really low, with people assuming I was here because of affirmative action. Its not like youre just you.

So you have to work really hard to demonstrate to people that you have intellectual capabilities and that youre a valued addition to the team. You have a spark. If youre given the mask of being extraordinary, then you spend a lot of time trying to convince people that even when someone manifests as extraordinary, they have foibles like everybody else. Theres pressure with that.

So you try to create your own mask, but its still a mask and its still limiting. Ultimately, you have to define success for yourself.
WASHINGTON  By the time April D. Ryan left the White House briefing room on Tuesday, she was already making headlines: on live television, President Trumps press secretary, Sean M. Spicer, had cut off her questions to chastise her for what he deemed an inappropriate shake of her head.

In Ms. Ryans basement office in the West Wing, the phone started to ring. Her fans, it seemed, were having none of it.

I was appalled at the way Sean Spicer was treating you with such disrespect, said a pained-sounding woman named Pam, who said she had listened to Ms. Ryan, the White House correspondent for American Urban Radio Networks, for years.

I have people come at me in all sorts of ways, Ms. Ryan told Pam, nodding. I thank you so much.

Hanging up, Ms. Ryan, whose workspace is about the size of a telephone booth, checked her Twitter account. After Mr. Spicers harangue, she had tweeted a single word  Lawd!!!!  which was rapidly going viral. (By weeks end, it would be retweeted more than 6,000 times.) Somebody had replied with a video of Melissa McCarthy imitating Mr. Spicer on Saturday Night Live by shoving a lectern at a reporter.
SHANGHAI  President Trump appeared to follow through on Friday on his promises to get tough on trade with China, less than a week before he is to meet with President Xi Jinping of China.

In two executive orders, Mr. Trump called for tighter enforcement of tariffs imposed in anti-dumping and anti-subsidy trade cases, as well as a comprehensive review of the United States trade deficits  measures that reflect Americas economic tensions with China. A pair of earlier presidential Twitter posts played to the tough talk: Mr. Trump said next weeks meeting with China will be a very difficult one, given the massive trade deficits and job losses.

But beneath the surface, the moves betrayed a trade policy in disarray, with the administration troubled by staffing deficiencies and a lack of consensus over strategic direction. With more talk than action, the orders so far seem more like a delaying tactic that gives administration officials the time to come up with a unified trade policy, which has eluded them so far.

The delays in instituting an overall trade policy, particularly the 90 days for reviewing trade deficits, could also have geopolitical advantages. By putting off decisions on economic policy, Mr. Trump gets an opportunity to focus next week with Mr. Xi on North Korea. American officials are increasingly concerned that North Korea may already have mounted a nuclear weapon on an intercontinental ballistic missile that can reach the United States or will very soon be able to do so.
Mexico is the leading supplier, ahead of Ireland, Germany and China. And few places illustrate this changing landscape, or help explain the complexity of the industry, as well as Tijuana, 20 miles south of San Diego.

The city houses the highest concentration of Mexicos medical device firms, 70 percent of which are American-owned, according to the local development group. Companies including Medtronic, CareFusion, DJO Global and Hill-Rom-Welch Allyn  some that have their headquarters just up the road in San Diego  have invested heavily in Tijuana, constructing long, low-slung factories tucked into the hilly terrain. Giant banners hanging from manufacturing plants plead for workers to join them.

The high-tech operations emerged after Nafta helped transform Mexican border factories, known as maquiladoras, into industrial powerhouses. Now, instead of being garment sweatshops, many maquiladoras in Tijuana employ a new generation of Mexican engineers and skilled technicians to make orthopedic devices, surgical equipment and catheters.

The factories have helped remake the citys reputation from a ribald party town to a locus of sophisticated industrial manufacturing. Roadside shanties made of corrugated metal and plastic abut new apartment complexes painted fuchsia and lime green; late-model S.U.V.s bounce along potholed roads. Workers pass through imposing security gates to begin shifts operating advanced machinery or delicately sewing pig tissue onto stents for heart valves, and trucks zip in a steady line across the border in preclearance, fast-track lanes into California.

But the possibility of new protectionist trade policies is already looming over this buzz of activity. The question for many of the people here is whether it will upend the economic incentives that led American companies to invest in the city in the first place.

Mr. Trump has argued that a border tax is needed to keep well-paying jobs in the United States and dissuade companies from relying on Mexican workers who earn a small fraction of American wages. Technicians at medical device factories in Tijuana earn about $14 an hour, compared with about $25 an hour for technicians at factories in the United States.

Critics of Mexicos maquiladoras system contend that wages are kept unfairly low and that workers have been kept from organizing. For companies, though, the savings are clear  as much as 45 percent for labor-intensive products  and have helped fuel the wave of development here.
Or maybe youre looking for a project to make with children on Saturday morning, with grandchildren, with that nice person youre meeting at the bar for drinks tonight who just might stay the night and if youre lucky youd like to stick around in the morning? Its good to plan ahead. Make doughnuts midmorning and revel in the happiness that they can deliver. (Who does that? Why, youll be a regular Homer Price!)

Itll take you through lunch, anyway. And then you have the Harrison stew for dinner, to eat with David Taniss rice and peas. (I swap in pigeon peas or butter beans in place of his peas.) Beer is the usual accompaniment, but, in Harrisons honor, you might try it with a bottle of Bandol and a couple American Spirits after the meal.

Sunday, take a run at some migas with tortillas and beans. Or you could make a quiche with goat cheese and herbs.

No? Invite company over and serve them country captain just as if you had a big house off the battery in Charleston, S.C., and stories to tell. Or fire up the grill to make Roy Chois carne asada, which is as Los Angeles a recipe as you are likely to find, especially accompanied by his gochujang-accented pico de gallo.
The New York Times did not have to wait long for its first juicy Supreme Court fight.

In 1858, seven years after the newspaper was founded, President James Buchanan delivered a prime candidate for senatorial skewering: Nathan Clifford of Maine  known for pro-slavery views, if he was known for anything  to serve as an associate justice under Roger Brooke Taney, the chief justice of Dred Scott infamy.

Clifford was narrowly confirmed by the Senate, 26 to 23. He served until 1881, by which time he was described in The Times as a helpless lunatic.
Despite squalls, I had watched Chinas news media climate steadily improve since I first arrived there in 1980. I expected, and ultimately still expect, that trajectory to continue. Besides, The New York Timess main website hadnt had a problem in China since that meeting with President Jiang in 2001. Thats how I responded to worries from senior management that the China project might founder amid stiff political headwinds. None of us foresaw the authoritarian retrenchment that has since been enacted by the new president, Xi Jinping.

Phil and I set off on a mad dash that January, renting office space and hiring editors and translators and a tech team that would build the site to carry New York Times content to the Chinese world. It was fun and exciting. On June 28, 2012, we huddled around a computer as our tech team turned the site on.

The response from readers was heartening. Traffic soared, and fans on Sina weibo, the dominant social media platform of the day, grew even faster. But within hours we faced a harbinger of things to come: Suddenly the weibo account was blocked and soon it disappeared.

Things took a turn for the worse four months later when David Barboza published his Pulitzer Prize-winning piece on the family finances of Chinas outgoing premier, Wen Jiabao. The article, which came just ahead of the Communist Party Congress, infuriated the incoming administration as much as the outgoing one. Access to both the Chinese-language and main English-language New York Times sites was immediately blocked in China.

We embarked on a yearlong lobbying effort, hoping to get the block overturned. We met repeatedly with the State Council information office and the Foreign Ministry; we worked with the head of Xinhua news agency (a ministerial-level position) and the head of Peoples Daily (another ministerial-level position); we spoke with Rupert Murdochs former government relations director, who has family ties to the Central Propaganda Department; we even tried back-channel negotiations with a series of intermediaries who claimed influence with people around President Xi. Of course, we tried at every opportunity to meet with President Xi himself, hoping for a repeat of the success with President Jiang.

The effort wasnt without raised voices. At one point a young Foreign Ministry official sat forward in agitation and shouted to me, I love my Party! Nor was it without sarcasm. A State Council elder with bottle black hair asked if I was due a bonus if the sites were unblocked (I was not). And there were many corny conversations filled with metaphors about bridges.

None of it worked  and, as months turned to years, my initial, guarded optimism that we were witnessing a cautious new administrations short-term consolidation of power gave way to resignation that we had been an early victim of a larger policy of information control that extended well beyond Chinas borders.
For some perspective, I checked in with Ann Shoket, a former editor in chief of Seventeen whose recent book, The Big Life, is both for and about young women starting careers today. (Full disclosure: Ms. Shoket and I were colleagues long ago at The American Lawyer.)

Your underlying instinct to keep a certain distance from your annoying officemate certainly makes sense. Yes, 100 percent you have to avoid the dark clouds in the office, Ms. Shoket says. You dont want to be seen by either managers or colleagues as in league with the office gossip or resident complainer. And as this column has noted, you dont need to like all your colleagues to coexist with them.

But, Ms. Shoket confirms, zoning out with headphones may be a shortsighted solution. It could send a leave me alone message not just to your officemate, but to everyone  bosses included. So consider a couple of alternative strategies. Respond to unwelcome chitchat gambits with a little bit of redirection, as she puts it. Maybe say, That reminds me of this deadline I have Friday, and Id love your input, or some such.

If that sounds hard, Ms. Shokets broader advice may help: Pay attention to how other colleagues, particularly those you admire, deal with this person. I learned so much just by watching women I admire and respect handle a meeting, or deliver bad news, or deliver great news, Ms. Shoket says. Find the people you want to model your behavior after. That process should also help you figure out how to fit in, and learn what Ms. Shoket calls the secret handshakes in any given office.

As for bringing all this up with the boss: Theres a fine line between needing to be heard and coming across as a complainer yourself, and this doesnt sound serious enough to force an escalation. But if you can frame the matter in terms of distractions that have an effect on your actual performance, Ms. Shoket says, it may be worth doing so in, say, a formal review situation. Or put a more positive spin on the situation by expressing interest in working more directly with some other colleague, or on some other project, that youre really excited about.
3. What political fight is taking place in France, and what are the viewpoints of the two sides?

4. In the wake of Britains vote to leave the European Union, two large nations will now have greater leverage because they will be negotiating with individual capitals rather than with a tightly unified European bloc, which was a geopolitical powerhouse. Which two nations are they? Give details on how one of those nations may use its increased power.

5. Some people see the British exit as a political precursor to more nations leaving the European Union. What other nations have proved this to be false, at least so far, and how?

6. While European voters seem to be tentatively endorsing unity, Britain is confronting widening divisions within its own country. What are these divisions? Explain.

What Do You Think?

Will Brexit be a success, as Mrs. May hopes it will? Why or why not?

Would you be in favor of more European countries leaving the European Union? Explain your position.
Bernie Sanders was the only Democrat I considered capable of handily beating every Republican from the campaigns plenary phase all the way until he conceded to Hillary Clinton. Clinton was never destined to prevail, but Sanders was. Thus, the election problem is how to chose the right candidate. Thats how the White House will be regained.

As to politics between now and then, the Democratic platform is the choice of the majority, or at least a viable plurality, and the party should play to that strength. The Republicans cannot say as much. So the strategy for Democratic participation in legislation until 2020 should be to say no, not as a matter of course  not as a function of obstructionism and partisanship  but because specific things that the Republicans want to do are inimical to the well being of a majority of the American people. Let the Republicans flounder around with health care. And if they pass a bill, and Trump signs it, let them live with it in 2018 and then in 2020. In the interim, put a bill on the floor of the House or the Senate that will save Obamacare. Compose a bill that inserts the public option into the Affordable Care Act and let the Republicans kill it. It wont take long for a vast majority of Americans to realize that if the Republicans had just been willing to provide the modicum of support that was required, Obamacare  with the public option  was always the best solution our politics will allow. Michael Wolf, South Windsor, Conn.
They came from Westchester, Brooklyn, Long Island and the Bronx  actors young and old, seasoned and fresh out of the gate, summoned by casting agents for a rather curious gig: To stand around Astor Place in Manhattan early Thursday with mirrored cubes over their heads.

There were 20 mirrorheads in all, and they were being filmed for a short piece for the Tribeca Film Festival, which begins April 19. Festival organizers had adopted seeing yourself in others as a theme this year, as a partial curative to the nations bilious state of affairs, and their ad agency came up with the idea of conveying this theme of empathy via reflective blockheads, with the end product to run before screenings and online.

Staged scenes were planned for later in the shoot  portraits of a mirrorhead doorman, a mirrorhead homeless man, a mirrorhead Muslim walking alongside a Hasidic Jew. But Thursdays plan was to set the mirrorheads loose and see how random onlookers reacted.

With the exception of a few people who had to be fitted in advance, none of the actors knew about the cube plan when they gathered at 6 a.m. in the East Village in the biting morning cold. All they knew was that theyd been hired as extras, to be paid in the very low three figures.
Ms. Pfoser Darby has a long history of incendiary remarks, but her bike comments have ignited a local media firestorm and helped inflame an already contentious plan to create the bike lanes as part of a safety redesign of a dangerous stretch of street near Flushing Meadows-Corona Park.

In her decades of public service, Ms. Pfoser Darby, 82, has seen this pocket of Queens change from a largely white enclave to a neighborhood with a mostly foreign-born population of Hispanics and Asians  and where by 2015, the white population had dwindled to less than 7 percent.

In some places, perhaps, Ms. Pfoser Darbys insensitive comments would go unchallenged, or even endorsed. But in Queens, one of the most diverse counties in the United States, her views, especially on undocumented immigrants  her preferred term is illegals  have earned her a reputation that lies somewhere between outright racism and a territorial aloofness reminiscent of Archie Bunker, the aging bigot of Queens, in the sitcom All in the Family.

At a time of growing concern over intolerance and as American neighborhoods become more diverse, Ms. Pfoser Darbys story might serve as a lens into the fraught dynamics at play as immigrants change the complexion of many parts of the country.

Her remarks about undocumented immigrants and bike lanes have elicited calls for her removal from the board. Among other things, Ms. Pfoser Darby has said that once President Trump deports the undocumented immigrants from Corona, there will be no need for bike lanes.
BENCH TIME HN: One of my favorite things to do on Sunday afternoons is sit in front of the Brooklyn Library and man-watch. I like to look at the hot dads. And you also see all these cute little families going by with strollers. We dont get enough quality bench time in this city. TC: Thats true. The front of the library is a good place to stop and figure out what bar to go to later, too.

CAT DADDIES TC: We might end up at one of my favorite cat daddy bars in Brooklyn. A cat daddy is an older gentleman who is overdressed, usually in suits or in linen outfits or with a sweatshirt tucked into some jeans. He likes to go out and pester young women. A classic cat daddy pickup line is, How are you? and you say, Im fine, and they say, Well, I can see that youre fine, but how are you? They dont self-identify as cat daddies, but they know who they are. HN: Usually these places are pretty dive-y, theres no specialty cocktails or anything, so Ill probably have a whiskey-ginger. And Tracy will have a bourbon.

SUBWAY SIGNOFF TC: Heben is usually sick of me by the end of the day. Shes done. Ill get on the Q train and go home. HN: And Ill get on the 4 train. But Im never sick of Tracy.
The report says the new jails would vary in size, based on the expected population in each borough, and would be built as close as possible to courthouses. There would be 5,500 beds across all five borough jails under the commissions plan, with the largest one in Manhattan and the smallest on Staten Island.

Mr. de Blasio, at the news conference, denied knowledge of the recommendations of the commission, which was made up of criminal justice and prison reform advocates as well as real estate and business leaders.

According to two people with knowledge of the discussions, the mayor was briefed on the report during a Thursday evening meeting with Mr. Lippman, the former chief judge of the states highest court, and Ms. Mark-Viverito, and had balked at its specifics, most notably the suggestion that jails would be placed in each borough, a proposition that was not politically viable for the mayor, according to one of the people.

Mr. Lippman and Ms. Mark-Viverito were to discuss the commission report on Sunday at John Jay College of Criminal Justice. Mr. Lippman did not attend Fridays news conference.

Mr. de Blasio had said last year that closing the citys complex on Rikers Island was a noble idea, but he refused to publicly back it because it could cost billions of dollars, take years, and would ignore more immediate needs on the island.

But the citys continued low crime numbers led him, more recently, to believe the jail complex could be closed.
They are closing because consumers are demanding energy from sources that dont poison their air and water, and because energy companies are providing cleaner and cheaper alternatives. When two coal plant closings were announced last week, in southern Ohio, the company explained that they were no longer economically viable. Thats increasingly true for the whole industry.

A week before President Trump signed the executive order to begin rolling back the Clean Power Plan, Moodys Investor Service released a report concluding that wind power could displace up to two-thirds of coal-fired power production in 15 Midwestern states. The reason? The average cost of wind power has dropped to $20 per megawatt, compared with the more than $30 cost per megawatt for electricity from many coal plants in the region. Why would consumers pay more for a power source that may kill them?

In 2010, airborne coal pollution was killing 13,000 Americans a year, according to the Clean Air Task Force, a nonprofit environmental group. Today, that number is about 7,500. When politicians talk about the war on coal, they never mention the lives being saved.

There is virtually nothing the Trump administration can do to stop advanced technology and consumer preferences from driving down coals market share still further. (A decade ago, coal was the source of half of American electricity production; today its down to one-third.) In fact, even if the Clean Power Plan disappears entirely, we would still be in a position to meet our Paris commitment, which is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 26 percent below 2005 levels by 2025.

Consider the data. When we made the commitment in Paris, we were already about a third of the way there, thanks mostly to the closing of so many coal plants. The Sierra Clubs Beyond Coal campaign, which works to replace coal with cleaner forms of energy (and which my foundation supports), projects that more plant closings will get us to nearly two-thirds of our goal.
West Virginia went overwhelmingly for Donald Trump in November  in fact, he beat Hillary Clinton by almost a three-to-one majority. And it may seem obvious why: The state is the heart of coal country, and Mr. Trump promised to bring coal jobs back by eliminating Obama-era environmental regulations. So at first glance the 2016 election looks like a political realignment reflecting differences in regional interests.

But that simple story breaks down when you look at the realities of the situation  and not just because environmentalism is a minor factor in coals decline. For coal country isnt really coal country anymore, and hasnt been for a long time.

Why does an industry that is no longer a major employer even in West Virginia retain such a hold on the regions imagination, and lead its residents to vote overwhelmingly against their own interests?

Coal powered the Industrial Revolution, and once upon a time it did indeed employ a lot of people. But the number of miners began a steep decline after World War II, and especially after 1980, even though coal production continued to rise. This was mainly because modern extraction techniques  like blowing the tops off mountains  require far less labor than old-fashioned pick-and-shovel mining. The decline accelerated about a decade ago as the rise of fracking led to competition from cheap natural gas.
The few adults in his circle, already weary of putting out fires caused by foolishness, may be able to temper excesses here and there, but the president sets the course. Time to start thinking about what a post-American Europe and a post-American Asia will look like. One certainty: They will be less stable. Another: Russia and China will assert broader, more exclusive spheres of influence.

Trump sees moral equivalency between the United States and a Russian regime that murders dissenting politicians in broad daylight, brutalizes its opponents, hacks into the American election, and traffics in the whopping lie. He is so beholden to, or seduced by, Vladimir Putins Russia that he will not murmur criticism. Enough said. This is a moral abdication of such proportions that Americas alliances are left without ideological foundation. They must then wither.

At night in the ghostly White House, when Ivanka and Jared have gone home, and Trumps consiglieri have retired to their Russian salads, the gold-robed president  crazed as Lear on the cliffs fantastically dressed with wildflowers  wanders from room to room staring at TV screens, cursing in frustration when he cannot find the remote, hurling abuse at the enemies of the people who fail to genuflect daily before his genius, adjusting his hair, making random calls to aides to ensure they have scheduled his next play dates with truckers and coal miners.

It might almost be funny. Almost. But the day will come when the Dow plunges and what the former British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan is said to have feared most in politics  events, dear boy, events  occurs, perhaps in ghastly terrorist form, and an incoherent administration will be confronted by its first crisis. All that can be said for now is that, in such a moment, illiberalism and xenophobia in the hands of a would-be autocrat will make for a dangerous brew.

Already, in countless small ways, America is narrowing in ways that hurt it. Foreign applications to U.S. colleges have dropped. USA Today reports that an inhospitable political climate could punch an $18 billion hole in U.S. tourism by international visitors over the next two years.

A German associate professor of history at Indiana University who has been in the country a couple of years on an H-1B work visa told me the other day how alarmed her 10-year-old son had become because one of the three Muslim children in his class had talked about the possibility of having to leave. Her normally easygoing son had become anxious. Would his family be next? When the class was given an assignment to complete a sentence beginning Keep calm he wrote, Keep calm and dont kill Donald Trump.

A Foreigners Unwelcome sign now hangs over Trumps United States. It causes fears even in children. It will not boost American jobs; on the contrary.

A parrot flew in my window and said, America First! America First! Its views were exclusively its own, of course. Still, the parrot was so agitated I decided to report the owner.
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A gaffe in politics, Michael Kinsley famously said, happens when someone inadvertently tells the truth. And Ted Yoho, a Republican congressman from northern Florida, made a doozy of a gaffe on MSNBC yesterday.

Yoho was trying to defend Devin Nunes  the head of the House Intelligence Committee who has shown no interest in investigating President Trumps Russia ties  when he said the following: You gotta keep in mind who he works for. He works for the president. He answers to the president.
Perhaps Im joining the finger-pointing here by blaming the caucus. But Im fed up. Americans need to understand what happened.

Earlier in the week, I was summoned to the White House to share my concerns about the health care legislation and to meet with Mr. Trump and Vice President Mike Pence. In this meeting, I found the president willing to listen to the concerns of House members. He made every effort to see what, if anything, could be done to resolve differences. I witnessed a vice president who deeply understood the dynamics of this Congress and the traps that existed there. You give a concession in one area, and you may lose supporters in another, which certainly became the case. The sausage-making process of legislating is often ridiculed, but it is far preferable to a system where one man dictates his will.

This is why the legislation collapsed: In exchange for their votes on the replacement plan, the members of the Freedom Caucus wanted reductions in essential health benefits. President Trump agreed in good faith. Some more-moderate Republican members struggled to accept these changes. Yet even knowing that some yes votes had turned to no, the conference went to bed on Thursday thinking that we would vote the next day. To our dismay (but not to my surprise), the concessions were not enough to get the Freedom Caucus on board, as usual.

For two days camera crews crammed the hallway near my office outside the Freedom Caucuss meeting room as reporters tried to determine whether the members were on board. They were not, and they had new demands to share with the news media. Those demands included rescinding Title 1 regulations, which include protections for people with pre-existing conditions and allow young adults to stay on their parents health plans until the age of 26. The president, and many of us, had promised to protect these two key provisions.

The Freedom Caucus fully understood that its last-minute demands would doom the bill. The vote was going to fail.
To the Editor:

Re Embracing Refugees, Then Letting Go (Refugees Welcome series, front page, March 26):

Its with a sense of shame that I read about Canadians sponsoring Syrian refugees. The United States is richer and has a far larger population, to say nothing of the fact that its Middle East adventures helped destabilize the region.

I would volunteer in an instant to help resettle a Syrian family, as many of my friends would. But given the political environment, we will never get the chance, and Syrian families, as well as refugees from other countries, will continue to languish in makeshift camps without work or hope.

I can only hope that someday Americans will get over their fear of the foreign and stop electing leaders who exploit that fear.

JENNY SKOBLE

HALF MOON BAY, CALIF.

To the Editor:

Re Missing in Action on Immigration (editorial, March 9):

Imprisoning mothers and children is cruel, expensive, ineffective and in violation of the law. Homeland Security Secretary John Kellys effort to disguise the well-understood harm to children who are separated from their mothers as an act of compassion, believing that it will deter mothers fleeing violence from continuing to seek protection for their children in the United States, is misinformed.
BROWNSVILLE, TEX.  The news here on the border with Mexico travels fast.

Most of it is, in fact, fake news  conjecture and unverifiable gossip exchanged over el Feisbuk, which is what people here in the Rio Grande Valley call the social network. Instead of snapshots and emojis, it now disseminates warnings. People are frightened, and frightened people repeat things that frighten them more:

Stay at home tomorrow. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is conducting raids in the kitchens.

Dont send your kids to school on Wednesday. The border patrol is looking for kids with no papers.

Dont drive down 802 on Fridays anymore.

Theres a checkpoint at the grocery store. They arrested 100 people last night at 10.

Who knows? Some of it might be true.
In the weeks after Donald J. Trump won the election, a schism threatened to break my group of friends in two. Not a political argument brought about by the president-elect, or a philosophical fight over the future of the country, but a question of which app we should be using to chat: GroupMe or Signal?

On the one hand, GroupMe, a popular group-messaging app, had cartoons we could add to our conversations, and wed been using it for years. On the other, Signal offered secure, encrypted communication, and we were facing the first term of a president who has said Edward J. Snowden should be executed, demanded a boycott of Apple when the company refused to crack the iPhone of the San Bernardino, Calif., gunman for the F.B.I., and openly admired the power of the hackers who leaked emails from the Democratic National Committee. Sure, we were mostly plotting bars to meet at, not targets for terrorist attacks. But given the incoming administrations professed attitude, a little extra security couldnt hurt. Then again: GroupMes cartoons were really fun.

We werent the only people asking ourselves this kind of question. In the months since the hacking of the Democrats and Mr. Trumps election, information security has become a concern to a much larger group of people than the professionals, activists, journalists and paranoiacs youd expect. (Even stalwart Trump supporters on Reddit and in the comments on Breitbart are expressing apprehension about a congressional vote on Tuesday that rolled back Obama-era privacy regulations governing the collection of user data by internet service providers.) Nowhere is this more clear than in consumer apps and services for secure communications.

Though its still not challenging Facebook Messenger atop the most-downloaded rankings, Signal, an open-source secure-messaging service produced by Open Whisper Systems, had a 400 percent increase in downloads in the days after the election, an incredible spike for an app developed by a small team funded by grants and donations. Millions of people used Signal before the election, Moxie Marlinspike, the founder of Open Whisper, told me recently, but there has never before been a single event that resulted in such a dramatic and sustained day-over-day increase in new Signal users.
To the Editor:

A March 25 Arts pages article discussed the survival of the arts in Hays, Kan., despite minimal government support. Although the article presented many necessary sacrifices to sustain arts groups without this support, the article and the online headline implied that the arts can thrive without Washington. We challenge this assumption. The arts can and will persevere, but cannot thrive without federal support.

From 2014 through 2016, more than $3.3 million of federal funding enriched Kansas communities through grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Institute of Museum and Library Services, according to the American Alliance of Museums. These agencies account for about 0.01315 percent of the federal budget.

This small percentage of tax dollars ensures access to meaningful cultural experiences close to home. The Kansas Humanities Council, primarily funded through the N.E.H., supported more than 700 events in 126 Kansas communities last year. These programs are the lifeblood of many small and rural groups.

Public funding for the arts is ultimately about strengthening partnerships to support creative endeavors for all citizens, in every state across this country.
Almost nine months passed between that day in June when the British stunned the world by voting to quit the European Union and this Wednesday, when Prime Minister Theresa May delivered the letter formally starting the two-year disengagement  more like disentanglement  process.

Much has been said in these intervening months about the potential consequences of Brexit for Britain, Europe and the world, warning that the process will be hugely complex, impossible to complete in two years, painful for both sides, fraught with risk and riddled with a frightening array of unknowns.

The European Union is no simple economic union, from which an exit means changing some trading rules. Since the Treaty of Rome was signed 60 years ago establishing the European Economic Community  the union marked the anniversary four days before Mrs. May dispatched her letter  the European project has been an experiment in shared values, sovereignty, standards and laws among nations with differing histories, styles and languages.

While much attention has been focused on the potential damage to the British economy, especially if the talks collapse  and most projections are bleak  that is hardly the only consequence. The Scottish Parliament voted this week to have another go at breaking with Britain, and Britains ties to Ireland are being re-examined. The fate of thousands of British citizens working in the union and of the blocs citizens working in Britain is in question.
The heart of the Antiquities Act of 1906 is a mere two sentences. But a good argument can be made that this brief law  which authorizes the president to protect objects of historic or scientific interest on federal lands as national monuments  has done more than any other to shape our nations conservation legacy.

The act has been used more than 150 times, by nearly every president, Republican and Democrat, from Theodore Roosevelt on, to protect hundreds of millions of acres for the inspiration and enjoyment of present and future generations. Five of the nations 10 most-visited national parks  Grand Canyon, Zion, Olympic, Teton and Acadia, each attracting millions of people a year  were first protected by presidents using the Antiquities Act.

Even so, this law is under attack. The 2016 Republican Party platform called for amending it to give Congress and states the right to block the president from declaring national monuments. By thwarting the presidents ability to take quick action to protect wild and historic places from threats, this proposal would effectively repeal the act.

Now critics, including Representative Rob Bishop, a Republican from Utah and chairman of the House Committee on Natural Resources, are ramping up a campaign to strip away the presidents authority under the Antiquities Act to designate monuments. Mr. Bishop complains that it allows the federal government to invade and seize lands. But thats not true. The act authorizes the president to protect only lands already owned or controlled by the government of the United States, not state or private land.
This time, the stakes are too high to wait. Immunity should be granted as soon as Congress and prosecutors are persuaded that Mr. Flynn has information that will lead to a criminal case against one or more people at least as important to the alleged wrongdoing as Mr. Flynn may be. The overriding objective must be learning who if anyone in the United States collaborated with the Russians as well as who knew about it, what they knew and when they knew it.

This case is different from ordinary criminal investigations. Finding the truth is even more important than punishing the guilty, because it is critical to our national security and the future of our democracy.

It is also vitally important that decisions about whether to grant Mr. Flynn immunity, and all other decisions about the Trump-Russia investigation, be made only by people who are completely independent of anyone who could possibly be a subject or target of that investigation. This includes President Trump, who made Mr. Flynn his top national security adviser and, during the presidential campaign, openly encouraged the Russians to spy on his opponent and to reveal what they found.

Thank goodness Mr. Flynns campaign colleague, Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who also had contacts with the Russians that he was not truthful about, has recused himself from the investigations. President Trumps appointees in the White House and in the Department of Justice should do the same. President Trumps tweet on Friday morning only emphasizes the point. All of this is yet one more reason to do what we and many others have long urged, which is to appoint an independent special counsel to take over the executive branchs investigation.

Congress  particularly the House of Representatives  has also compromised its independence by treating the Trump-Russia investigation as a partisan issue. The chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Devin Nunes, has turned it into a farce by running over to the White House to give and receive information in the dark of night, and even to possibly publicly divulge classified information. He must also recuse himself for purposes of the immunity grant and the investigation as a whole.
The differences begin with Israel proper, as defined by the borders after the 1948 and 1967 wars, where Arabs are 21 percent of the population.

Here, Arabs certainly suffer discrimination. Most Arabs are exempted from military service, thus losing veteran benefits; but Druze Arabs are conscripted like Jews, and Bedouin can volunteer. Arab towns are not easily allowed to expand, but growing populations need housing, so people build illegally  and then the government demolishes their homes. And there is racism, too  whether it is Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu making a nakedly anti-Arab appeal on Election Day in 2015 when urging his Jewish supporters to vote or rabbis calling on Jews not to rent or sell real estate to Arabs.

Unlike nonwhite South Africans under apartheid, however, Israeli Arabs have the vote and enjoy full citizen rights. The Supreme Court has an Arab judge, the head of surgery in a leading hospital is Arab, and Arabs head university departments. In hospitals and clinics, Jewish and Arab doctors and nurses, secular and religious, work together, giving care equally to Jewish and Arab patients  unthinkable under apartheid. Even the current right-wing government has pledged billions of dollars to upgrade Arab living conditions and education (though it has yet to deliver much).

As for the West Bank and East Jerusalem, which Israel captured from Jordan in 1967, this is an occupation. The army essentially controls about 2.7 million Palestinians, whether in the 60 percent of the West Bank under direct Israeli control or in the other parts nominally under the Palestinian Authority.

The Oslo accords in 1993 between Israel and Palestinians were supposed to bring about peace and a Palestinian state in the West Bank, but both sides fouled up. Palestinians stepped up terrorist attacks, helping to drive many Israeli Jews to the right. In the absence of a peace agreement, Israel continued to build settlements: Some 600,000 Jews now live in the West Bank and in East Jerusalem.

No question, Israel lays itself open to attack for its actions in the West Bank. Its misdeeds and the undermining of the two-state solution through settlement-building provide abundant ammunition for critics. What the B.D.S. movement calls the apartheid wall  in fact, mainly a wire fence, except in populated areas  was erected between Israel and the West Bank for security reasons, primarily to keep out would-be suicide bombers. Regrettably, as it was constructed, the wall also became a means of enclosing and grabbing additional West Bank Palestinian land. That was ugly and grasping, but it has nothing to do with apartheid-style racial segregation.
Background reading:

 The story by Mr. Rosenberg, Maggie Haberman and Adam Goldman about the revelation that White House officials helped give Mr. Nunes intelligence reports.

 Ms. Barrys story showing the way that technology interrupts culture.

Tune in, and tell us what you think. Email us at thedaily@nytimes.com. Tweet me at @mikiebarb. And if that isnt enough, we can even text.

How do I listen?

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Mr. Borth, joining the interview via FaceTime on Ms. Averys phone, offered that while living apart is not ideal, it shouldnt be for too much longer; he plans to live in New York full time with Ms. Avery as soon as his time with the tour is over.

Having this apartment has made touring that much more difficult, he admitted.

The pair moved into the alcove studio in February, along with Ms. Averys Havanese poodle mix, Bella, paying $2,830 a month. Previously, Ms. Avery had been subletting in the South Bronx, mulling what to do after opting not to renew the lease on her Upper West Side one-bedroom on the ground floor. The place on the Upper West Side, while serviceable, was dark and strangely laid out, and lacked counter space  there were no counters in the kitchen  a major drawback given that cooking is one of her preferred pastimes.

With the sublease coming to an end, she and Mr. Borth decided it was time to move in together. Mr. Borth had most of his things in a storage locker, living in temporary accommodations wherever the tour stopped.

Agreeing on a neighborhood was no problem. Mr. Borth had rented in Hells Kitchen before joining the Phantom tour, and Ms. Avery had dreamed of living there since moving to New York in 2013. In fact, she had looked at an apartment in Gotham West, the building on 11th Avenue where they now have a two-year lease, when she first relocated from Los Angeles, but prices were too high on just her salary.
Forty-nine Chambers Street, designed by the architect Raymond F. Almirall, is steeped in history. With the urging of John Hughes, the citys first archbishop, the bank was created in 1850 by the Irish Emigrant Society, a group that helped newly arrived immigrants from the Emerald Isle. Any savings deposited at the bank could be remitted to family back home.

As the number of Irish immigrants ballooned, so did bank deposits. By 1857, it was the citys seventh largest savings bank and provided Archbishop Hughes a loan so he could buy the lots on Fifth Avenue where St. Patricks Cathedral now stands, according to the book International Directory of Company Histories, Vol. 59.

The 17-story structure was the citys first H-shaped skyscraper, allowing sunlight to penetrate deeper into the building. Although electric wiring was available, natural sunlight was the main source of light until the introduction of fluorescent light bulbs in the 1940s, according to Carol Willis, founder and curator of the Skyscraper Museum.

If the developer wanted a valuable price per square footage, you needed light to be able to reach the inner spaces, she said.
The exhibition, titled Margiela: The Hermes Years, highlights the 12 consecutive fashion seasons Margiela designed for the house between 1997 and 2003, but the clothes on display (118 individual pieces) span the entirety of the designers career, from 1988 to 2008. Margielas largely predigital tenure at Hermes is much mythologized, but perhaps only half-remembered. The pieces he designed are decidedly quiet  unadorned cashmere tunics, long silk dresses, suits in fine wool, gloves in kidskin  and theyre contrasted against pieces from Margielas own label. Overall, the latter appear more extreme and theatrical: There is a dress made from three wedding gowns, a slip constructed from hundreds of Crackerjack-style novelty rings and a wig sewn from remnants of vintage fur coats. But these two seemingly opposing views of contemporary fashion are grouped around explorations of similar concepts, such as layers, knitwear, retro  to invite comparisons between both bodies of work. And its easy, in that context, to connect the dots between, say, Margielas sweater patchworked from a bunch of secondhand socks, and the seamless cashmere number he created for Hermes, inspired by the lining of a glove. Both take an accessory out of its original context, and rework it into a full garment, albeit to very different effect.

Image Images of designs from Margielas fall/winter 2003 collection for Hermes, left, and fall/winter 1999, right. Credit... Left: Dominique Issermann. Right: Joanna Van Mulder.

Margiela  the man, not the house  turns 60 this year. He was directly involved in this exhibition and its accompanying catalog, including the styling of the mannequins and the curation of particular pieces. He was the person who initially approached Pierre-Alexis Dumas regarding Hermess involvement. His input shows: Like Margielas best designs, the curation of the show has a sly cleverness, and an arresting ability to invite unforeseen connections. Its evident, too, that theres a sense of humor. At one point while putting together the show, a top from Margielas spring/summer 1990 collection could not be located. It was made from a plastic bag from the French grocery chain Franprix. Margiela asked Debo to go to the local supermarket in Antwerp and procure a plastic bag so that he could make a replacement. (The original piece was, in the end, located in the archives of his fashion house, which is now owned by Renzo Rossos OTB group and helmed by John Galliano.)

Margiela did not attend the press preview, so it wasnt possible to ask him his intentions in staging the exhibition. (Another show, which highlights the designers work at his own label, will be presented in Paris next year.) But perhaps his focus was in exploring the value and preservation of his legacy and ideology  asserting what he stood for as a designer, and laying a blueprint for future generations. Thats the stuff, after all, that can lead a fashion house to treat a plastic bag with the reverence of a preciously beaded evening gown. Its also, potentially, about ownership of that legacy: The exhibition, filled with lushly dressed mannequins, makes Margielas influence on modern designers abundantly clear. A strapless jumpsuit from his fall 2001 Hermes collection could have borne the label of Phoebe Philos Celine; and if you swapped the MoMus mannequins oversize Margiela trench coats (spring/summer 2000) for those by Vetements, youd barely notice the difference (although Margielas are sashed with a pair of pantyhose).

The house of Margiela has become known for a perceived rebellious stance  like that pantyhose belt. Martins work, especially for Maison Martin Margiela, was often described as antifashion, Debo says. I think it was never antifashion. It was an alternative, it was punk but without the negativity of punk. I think if today you want to work on an alternative, you easily end up with Martin. You almost cant escape him. Certainly, it doesnt seem like fashion can.
A slew of technology regulations were enacted under President Barack Obama, including online privacy protections and the classification of broadband as a utility-like service.

Under President Trump, the rollback of those regulations is gaining momentum.

This week, Congress completed its overturning of rules that would have made it more difficult for broadband providers to collect data on peoples browsing habits and software use. And on Thursday, Sean Spicer, the White House spokesman, made it clear that another shoe might soon drop. Mr. Spicer took aim at net neutrality rules that are designed to ensure equal access to content on the internet, writes Steve Lohr, a technology reporter for The New York Times.

Mr. Spicer, in a briefing from the White House, mentioned the net neutrality rules affecting telecommunication and cable internet services and noted the Obama administration had reclassified them as common carriers, which are subject to anti-blocking and anti-discrimination rules. He said President Trump had pledged to reverse this overreach.
Parts of the country are in jeopardy of not having an insurer offering Obamacare plans next year.

Many counties already have just one insurer offering health plans in the Obamacare marketplaces, and some of those solo insurers are showing signs that they are eyeing the exits.

Humana announced this year that theyd be leaving the markets altogether next year. That means there are parts of Tennessee that will have no insurance options unless another insurer decides to enter.

And Anthem, which operates in 14 states, is getting nervous, an industry analyst told Bloomberg News this week. Its departure would be a much bigger problem. According to an analysis of government data by Katherine Hempstead at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Anthem is currently the only insurance carrier in nearly 300 counties, serving about a quarter of a million people.

As you can see on our map of those counties, an Anthem departure could leave coverage gaps in substantial parts of Georgia, Missouri, Kentucky, Ohio and Colorado, as well as smaller holes in other states. In places where no insurance company offers plans, there will be no way for Obamacare customers to use subsidies to buy health plans.
Q: Is tech still the locomotive of growth for the Bay Area?

A: The tech sector has slowed way down. For most of the time since 2010 weve seen tech growing faster than the rest of the Bay Area economy. Thats beginning to reverse. Construction is still growing fantastically at 7 percent. Financial services are growing at 3 percent and education at 4 percent.

Q: What are the weakest spots in tech?

A: Venture capital has peaked and has been going down steadily since 2015. A lot of the employment in our tech sector is in companies that are not profitable. If they cant secure new venture funding, some of them run out of cash. If we see a real downturn in the tech sector we could be in a situation where the U.S. economy is doing better than San Franciscos.

Q: What about housing?

A: What Im hearing from people in the housing market is that the upper end, the luxury stuff, is really taking longer to sell. The lower end is still healthy. In terms of rents, we hit a peak a year ago and we are around 5 percent down from there.

Q: No one would call San Francisco affordable just yet.

A: Average rents were $4,400 and are now around $4,200. Our housing prices are still far and away higher than any big city in the country.
Carl E. Clark, who was recognized more than six decades after World War II with a medal for bravery that he had been denied because he was black, died on March 16 in Menlo Park, Calif. He was 100.

His death was confirmed by his daughter, Karen Clark Collins.

Mr. Clark was serving as a steward first class aboard the U.S.S. Aaron Ward, a destroyer, when Japanese kamikazes attacked it near Okinawa in May 1945.

They would guide those planes directly into the ships, Mr. Clark said of the planes, which he described as flying bombs, in a 2011 interview with The Associated Press.
Imagine finding more than $700,000 under your couch cushions. That, essentially, is what happened to a man in South Carolina who received a phone call from the state treasurer, Curtis Loftis, informing him that he was entitled to more than $763,000 in unclaimed cash.

This money had belonged to the mans father, who died more than 15 years ago. The man, who chose to remain anonymous, initially thought the caller was trying to engage him in a scam, Mr. Loftis said.

Im so happy that we are able to return the money to the rightful heir, he said in a statement.

Follow this thread: The mans mother remarried after his father died. Because of confusion about the sons surname, the money was never sent to him. Instead, it sat around in a lawyers office, before eventually being sent to Mr. Loftiss office, which then set out to track down the recipient.

No one on the planet believes that they have money waiting for them, Mr. Loftis said in an interview in which he recounted the steps he took to track the man down.
The structure of the economy, of family and of work is very, very different, Dr. Campt said.

She said young women today were entering an economy with fewer work opportunities and much more debt. It is also an era in which feminist activism and education happen in both the physical world and the virtual one, often through blogs and social media.

One thing that surprised Dr. Crossley about the college women she studied was their wholehearted embrace of feminism. They spoke about how feminism permeated their worldview and their interactions and the relationships they had in their everyday lives, she said.

We spoke to female undergraduates at colleges around the country to find out what issues they were most concerned about and what feminism meant to them. Their comments have been edited and condensed.

Morgan Brownlee, 22, graduated from San Diego State University in December

Sociology major and French minor

The biggest issue for me as a woman on campus is safety and acceptance. When I walk in a room, I do a quick scan to see if there are any other women there. And if there are men, I look at how many are white, and their ages. It gives me a sense of the openness of the room.

I worry about equality of pay, and its something that when I hear my dad talk about, as a black man, I think, Hell still probably make more than I ever will, because not only am I a woman, but Im black.
The arrest of the Jewish American-Israeli teen who made hundreds of bomb threats against Jewish institutions across the United States sheds light on a paradox. Evelyn Gordon argues that by tying these threats to an anti-Trump narrative, American Jewish leaders and some in the media created a hysteria that only spurred on the young man in Israel and a copycat here in America. According to Ms. Gordon, Jewish leaders undermined their credibility by concluding, without evidence, that these threats were related to President Trumps election.

[Note: Commentary allows you to read one article if you are not a subscriber.] Read more 

_____

 Rich Lowry in Politico:

[...] his most die-hard populist supporters will eventually be able to say that Trumpism, like socialism, hasnt failed, its just never been tried.

Rich Lowry, editor of National Review and supporter of President Trump, begins his column with this warning: Trumpism is in crisis. He goes on to point out missed legislative opportunities in the early days of the administration, and explains how no one in Washington  including the president  has quite figured out how to put populism into practice. Read more 

_____

 Mark Pulliam in City Journal:

[...] the country is not called the United States of Municipalities.

What happens to a reliably red state whose cities are increasingly becoming blue enclaves? One might look to Texas to find out. The Lone Star States enviable prosperity and sound limited-government philosophy are threatened by growing liberal cities, whose progressive elected officials and a higher education establishment are at odds with the rest of the states rural and conservative populace. Read more 

_____

 Colin Dueck in Claremont Review:

Now we have a situation whereby some intellectuals still believe they, not the great majority of conservative voters, define conservatism. As a class, the intellectuals have failed to listen.
Second, Ms. Farkas did not say Mr. Obama spied on Mr. Trump, but instead expressed concern that intelligence on Russia would be buried or sources would be compromised under the new administration.

According to Mr. Spicer, this is what Ms. Farkas said, although the part in bold seems to be Mr. Spicers own addition:

I was urging my former colleagues, frankly speaking, the people on the Hill. I was telling people on the Hill, Get as much information as you can. Get as much intelligence as you can. I had a fear that they were essentially watching the Trump staff and he was worried about the Trump administration.

Here is what Ms. Farkas actually said:

I was urging my former colleagues, and, frankly speaking, the people on the Hill  it was more, actually, aimed at telling the Hill people: Get as much information as you can, get as much intelligence as you can, before President Obama leaves the administration, because I had a fear that somehow that information would disappear with the senior people that left. So it would be hidden away in the bureaucracy.

She went on to say: That the Trump folks, if they found out how we knew what we knew about their, the staff, the Trump staffs dealing with Russians, that they would try to compromise those sources and methods, meaning we would no longer have access to that intelligence. So I became very worried, because not enough was coming out into the open, and I knew that there was more.
TheGatewayPundit.com, a right-wing site, called it a notorious interview and said it proved Obama administration officials had disseminated intel gathered on the Trump team. Reince Priebus, the White House chief of staff, said on the Hugh Hewitt radio show that Ms. Farkas had made just an incredible statement. Breitbart News reported on Mr. Priebuss comments.

The comments by Ms. Farkas, Mr. Spicer said, were evidence that Mr. Trump or his associates were surveilled, had their information unmasked, made it available, was politically spread. He said that such stories were proof that Obama administration officials had misused, mishandled and potentially did some very, very bad things with classified information.

In fact, the reports do not back up the allegations that Mr. Trump or any officials in his campaign were ever under surveillance. In the March 2 interview on MSNBCs Morning Joe program, Ms. Farkas said she had expressed concern to her former colleagues about the need to secure intelligence related to the Russian hacking of the American election.

Ms. Farkas was commenting on a New York Times article a day earlier that documented how in the days before Mr. Trumps inauguration, Obama administration officials had sought to ensure the preservation of those documents in order to leave a clear trail for government investigators after Mr. Trump took office.

In a statement she gave to The American Spectator, a conservative publication, Ms. Farkas said the furor over her remarks was a wild misinterpretation of comments I made on the air in March. She added, I was out of government, I didnt have any classified information, or any knowledge of tapping or leaking or the N.Y.T. article before it came out.

White House officials also confronted on Friday the disclosure that Mr. Flynn, who resigned in February over his contacts with Russian officials, has offered to testify before the two congressional committees investigating the Trump campaigns ties to Russia about those contacts in exchange for immunity from prosecution.

Mr. Trump said on Twitter on Friday morning that he agreed with Mr. Flynns proposal.

Mike Flynn should ask for immunity in that this is a witch hunt (excuse for big election loss), by media & Dems, of historic proportion! Mr. Trump wrote.
WASHINGTON  There was no filibuster for Clarence Thomas, whose Supreme Court confirmation hearings provoked a national uproar over sex, race and the behavior of powerful men.

Antonin Scalia, for a generation the courts irrepressible conservative id, earned 98 votes in the Senate. Ruth Bader Ginsburg, now the patron saint of liberal jurisprudence, got 96.

But with the Senate careering toward a chamber-rattling showdown over President Trumps nominee, Judge Neil M. Gorsuch, the bodys long history of relative collaboration on Supreme Court matters has come to this: Next week, the last bastion of comity is expected to fall over a plainly qualified, mild-mannered nominee who had no major stumbles in his hearings.

And each partys justification can often be summarized with a schoolyard classic: They started it.

I worry for the institution, said Senator Susan Collins, Republican of Maine, who broke with her colleagues last year in calling for a hearing and a vote on Judge Merrick B. Garland, President Barack Obamas own plainly qualified, mild-mannered nominee. I think, at the risk of alienating everyone I have to work with here, that theres real shortsightedness on both parts.
As a guide, experts look to Texas. In 2011, the state Legislature slashed its two-year budget for family planning to $38 million from $111 million in an effort to defund Planned Parenthood. After those cuts, one quarter of all Texas family planning clinics closed, according to a study by the Population Research Center at the University of Texas.

With more than 650 health centers around the country  in every state except North Dakota  Planned Parenthood sees about 2.5 million patients a year, roughly 1.6 million of them through Medicaid, according to Dr. Raegan McDonald-Mosley, its chief medical officer. Screening for sexually transmitted infections is the No. 1 reason patients visit, and birth control is also high on the list.

While the Obamacare repeal bill is off the table, for now, the fight over Planned Parenthood is not over. It could come up again next month; Republicans may try to attach the defunding provision to a bill financing government operations for the rest of the year. Or, Ms. Dannenfelser and other anti-abortion movement leaders say their Republican allies on Capitol Hill could tack it on to another measure, possibly a tax reform bill, this the spring.

The anti-abortion movement has set its sights on Planned Parenthood for years  at least since 2007, when Mr. Pence, then an Indiana congressman, introduced the first measure to defund the organization. (We are truly fellow travelers, Ms. Dannenfelser said of the vice president.) His bill went nowhere, but the idea quickly gained traction inside the anti-abortion movement, said Kristan Hawkins, president of Students for Life, which organizes abortion opponents on college campuses.

In 2012, Ms. Hawkins said, her group commissioned Kellyanne Conway, the pollster who is now a senior adviser to Mr. Trump, to research abortion opponents attitudes toward Planned Parenthood. We had all these people who said they were pro-life, who didnt know what Planned Parenthood was, and didnt know they committed abortions, she said.

Ms. Hawkins set out to change that, and by 2013, her group was touring college campuses, carrying pink banners and 888 pink crosses to represent the number of abortions performed each day by Planned Parenthood. (The number is derived from Planned Parenthoods annual report; its clinics performed just under 324,000 abortions last year; abortions account for just 3 percent of the medical services the group provides.)

Then, in 2015, undercover anti-abortion activists released a series of graphic videos purportedly showing Planned Parenthood officials discussing the sale of fetal body parts  a move that spurred the Republican leadership in the Senate to push a defunding measure. (Last week, California prosecutors charged two of the undercover activists with 15 felonies, saying that they had invaded the privacy of medical providers while misrepresenting themselves as they sought to buy fetal tissue from Planned Parenthood.)
Last week, we were treated to a news photo that will live in infamy: two dozen white male Republican congressmen (and zero women) around a White House conference table talking about dumping maternity and newborn care as part of their replacement for the Obama health care law.

It instantly went viral: A rare look inside the GOPs womens health caucus, tweeted Senator Patty Murray, Democrat of Washington State.

Seven days later, the infamy was compounded when Vice President Mike Pence broke a 50-50 tie in the Senate that would allow states to defund Planned Parenthood.

Since the heyday of the womens movement of the 1960s and 70s, American women have assumed they were on a rocket to a future of assured gender equality. But even as individual women continued to break records and barriers in recent years, the engine began to stall.
LOS ANGELES  Top law enforcement officials from the Trump administration chastised Californias chief judge this week, saying that it was troubling that she described federal immigration agents as stalking local courthouses in order to arrest undocumented immigrants.

The response suggested there would be no quick end to the feud between California and federal officials over how immigration laws are enforced and arrests are made.

Two weeks ago, Tani Cantil-Sakauye, the chief justice of California, wrote a letter to Jeff Sessions, the attorney general, and John F. Kelly, the secretary of Homeland Security, after several judges and lawyers in California and elsewhere began complaining about seeing ICE agents in and around courthouses.

Ms. Cantil-Sakauye, a Republican, wrote that she worried that the practice would erode the publics trust of the court system and stop crime victims from seeking justice.
Heritage Foundation analysts have advocated mission-by-mission scrutiny of peacekeeping operations, and argue that the United States should pay no more than 25 percent of the total budget  down from what is currently a little over 28 percent. Both items have become part of the ambassadors agenda.

Image Steven Groves, Ms. Haleys chief of staff, has described himself as a champion of American sovereignty and has written forcefully against international agreements. Credit... The Heritage Foundation

Ms. Haley said this week that she wants to do a thorough review of the United Nations 16 peacekeeping operations to determine where we need to augment, where we need to restructure, and where we need to cut back.

She also said she would seek to cap United States funding at 25 percent. Morgan Vina, another Heritage alumnus and a Senate Committee on Foreign Relations aide, is involved in the review of peacekeeping missions.

The first test for Ms. Haleys diplomatic muscles came this week with a review by the Security Council of the largest peacekeeping mission, in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The United States wanted far larger reductions in the number of boots on the ground. It settled for far fewer. The new mandate for the mission, adopted Friday after intense negotiations, ordered a modest cut of about 500 from the 16,700 peacekeepers there now.

American officials were quick to point out that they pushed for improvements to the mission, but fell short of a major strategic overhaul. The peacekeepers central tasks will now be to guard against political violence in the run up to elections that are yet to be scheduled, and to protect civilians in areas where armed groups operate. United Nations officials will have to regularly brief the Council on whether troops are living up to their mandate, and they will have to submit plans for an eventual drawdown.

Other peacekeeping missions will come up for review soon. Whether Ms. Haley can yield value for taxpayer money, or fundamental reform, as she has promised, remains to be seen.
IQUITOS, Peru  The Venezuelan government asked the Supreme Court early Saturday to revisit its decision to seize power from the national legislature, as criticism mounted that the country was tilting toward dictatorship.

The request was issued after President Nicolas Maduro met with top security advisers, and his office said it had been made to maintain constitutional stability.

Earlier, Attorney General Luisa Ortega said that Wednesdays Supreme Court ruling  transferring all of the National Assemblys powers to the court, which is loyal to the president  marked a rupture in the constitutional order.

We were able to achieve a social contract, she said at a news conference. We all participated in this Constitution.
Given that six diplomats from the gulf nation were killed, some officials in the U.A.E. and in Afghanistan initially suspected Iran, which has long been seen as an adversary of Arab nations and is believed to have growing ties with the Taliban.

Adding to the mystery was the fact that the provinces powerful police chief, an ally of the American military named Gen. Abdul Raziq, walked out of the room just minutes before the explosion. He said he left for evening prayers; Afghan officials say he was bored and went out for a cigarette. Many wondered whether his departure was a lucky coincidence or something more sinister.

General Raziqs men are in charge of at least three belts of security around the governors house. They are known to be so cautious that they have poked metal rods into the fruit heading to the former governors table, which makes the security lapse in January all the more remarkable.

Other observers point to the souring of Dr. Azizis long friendship with General Raziq since he took charge of the province two years ago, vowing to transform Kandahars political landscape, and its patronage system, over which General Raziq had long had a monopoly.

The investigation shows that the Quetta Shura, the Talibans leadership council operating out of Pakistan, planned the attack, according to two senior Afghan officials and a third person with knowledge of the findings, who declined to speak on the record. Central to its execution was the governors cook, a sleeper who had provided information to the Taliban in return for money for more than a decade, according to the officials. The attack was in the works for several months, and the target was Kandahars civilian and military leadership.

One crucial finding of the investigation, carried out with Emirati and American help, was that the operatives on the ground knew that Arab guests were in the room, and they communicated that fact back to Quetta on at least two occasions.
NEW DELHI  The Indian state of Gujarat is tightening the punishment for the slaughter of cows, considered sacred in Hinduism, to a maximum sentence of life imprisonment.

The move on Friday came after a government crackdown on the largely Muslim-run buffalo slaughterhouses in the state of Uttar Pradesh and after Prime Minister Narendra Modis Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, or B.J.P., won the states elections in a landslide. That victory led to the appointment of the hard-line Hindu cleric Yogi Adityanath as chief minister of Uttar Pradesh.

It is legal to slaughter buffalo cows after they no longer produce milk, but Hindu activists in Uttar Pradesh said the industry masked the illicit slaughter of cows.

The slaughter of cows has long been illegal under an existing law in Gujarat, where Mr. Modi was chief minister until 2014. The stricter law raises the maximum punishment from seven years in prison.
India may be reinterpreting its nuclear weapons doctrine, circumstantial evidence suggests, with potentially significant ramifications for the already tenuous nuclear balance in South Asia.

New assessments suggest that India is considering allowing for pre-emptive nuclear strikes against Pakistans arsenal in the event of a war. This would not formally change Indias nuclear doctrine, which bars it from launching a first strike, but would loosen its interpretation to deem pre-emptive strikes as defensive.

It would also change Indias likely targets, in the event of a war, to make a nuclear exchange more winnable and, therefore, more thinkable.

Analysts assessments, based on recent statements by senior Indian officials, are necessarily speculative. States with nuclear weapons often leave ambiguity in their doctrines to prevent adversaries from exploiting gaps in their proscriptions and to preserve flexibility. But signs of a strategic adjustment in India are mounting.
On a recent afternoon near the site of the Myitsone Dam, there was no sign of Chinese workers or dam-building equipment. From the bank of the Irrawaddy, the only movement visible near the unfinished dam site was a slender fishing skiff that drifted lazily on the current.

Residents of Aung Myin Tha, a nearby village where about 300 families were resettled, said it had some advantages, like the 16-bed hospital and roads built by the dam developer. But most families now have less farmland and diminished access to the Irrawaddy and traditional hunting grounds, and opposition to the dam remains strong.

If the Lady lets it happen, Kachin people will protest, said one villager, Daw Ja Khawn, using the popular moniker for Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi. Well get the whole country behind us, which will be easy because the whole country is already against it.

Dozens of families have taken matters into their own hands, moving back to their old villages, even though electricity was cut off there.

I built my house to challenge the Chinese, said one, Daw Lu Ra, who was eating a freshly caught fish by candlelight at a restaurant overlooking the headwaters. Even if they told me to move again, I wouldnt.
SEOUL, South Korea  As president of South Korea, Park Geun-hye never appeared in public until stylists had arranged her hair in the trademark updo of her mother, a popular first lady who was killed by an assassin in 1974.

On Friday, Ms. Park was required to remove the hairpins she uses to maintain that style before entering the jail where she now resides. Inmates at the Seoul Detention Center cannot have metal hairpins, because they could use them to hurt themselves, officials said.

When she wakes up in the morning and realizes that she cant do her hair anymore, she will be faced with the stark new reality, Lee Yong-ju, a former prosecutor who is now an opposition lawmaker, said in a radio interview on Thursday.

Ms. Park, who was jailed before dawn Friday on charges stemming from the corruption scandal that ended her presidency three weeks ago, now lives alone in a cell, eating $1.30 meals, washing her own tray and sleeping on a foldable mattress on the floor. It is a stark comedown for someone who spent more years living at the Blue House, South Koreas sprawling presidential palace, than anyone else  first as daughter of the long-ruling dictator Park Chung-hee, and later for four years as president herself.
Negotiations The Trump administration has unveiled its wish list for talks on revising the North American Free Trade Agreement. While its proposals are well short of ending the agreement, the administration is seeking measures that will trouble Canada. President Trump wants to eliminate a process that Canada has used in the past to deal with a perpetual dispute over softwood lumber. And the American administration would like to be able to arbitrarily slap tariffs on Canadian exports it believes are harming American companies. Its not ripping up Nafta, but there are a bunch of sticks of dynamite contained in those pages, said Mark Warner, a Canadian-American trade lawyer based in Toronto.

Read: After Calling Nafta Worst Trade Deal, Trump Appears to Soften Stance

Streaming The arrival of a new month means that Watching, the Timess guide to movies and television, has produced another list of recommended shows coming to Netflix Canada in April.



At the top is Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie. My wife and I were fans of the TV series and its champagne- and vodka-soaked characters including Eddy (Jennifer Saunders) and Patsy (Joanna Lumley). So were looking forward to the film version. Heres some of Watchings take on it: It barely qualifies as a movie  the plot involves Kate Moss (as herself) falling into the Thames  but Eddy and Patsys blinkered response to modern trends is funny in any era.

One note: Some Canadian readers of Canada Today have written in to say that they have been unable to find some programs on Watchings Netflix Canada list. The problem is that Netflix sometimes changes its schedule without notice.

Read: The Best Movies and TV Shows New to Netflix Canada in April

Big Money Back in 2007, the Royal Canadian Mint made a 100 kilogram gold coin, about the weight of a refrigerator, with a face value of 1 million Canadian dollars, as a publicity stunt. It then managed to sell five copies. This week some thieves managed to spirit one of those copies out of a museum in Berlin. The Mint told me its still prepared to make as many as four more copies of the Big Maple Leaf. If youre interested, youll first need to negotiate a nonrefundable deposit and be willing to wait at least a month. The price is also something youll have to work out with the mint, but the gold alone will cost you more than $4.5 million. And because the coin is refined to an exceptionally high level of purity, making one also consumes more than 100 kilos of bullion, adding to the bill.


What is so shocking for all of us, Ms. Schwarzer said of Mr. Trumps election, is that such an old-school sexist makes it to the top, and that so many women voted for him. That is backlash, that is reactionary.

In her vehement view, both he and Mr. Erdogan  a lifelong proponent of Gods state  can be compared to the Nazis. And she is adamant that it is so fatal that in our democracies we have failed to recognize Islamism as the fascism of the 21st century.

Ms. Schwarzer first experienced what she sees as Islamic extremism in 1979, when she reported on the Iranian revolution. More recently, she and her small staff have chronicled the fateful New Years Eve in Cologne in 2015, when hundreds of women reported being assaulted or robbed by crowds of men, many of them apparently from North Africa.

The episode called into question the wisdom of Chancellor Angela Merkel in allowing hundreds of thousands of refugees and migrants, many of them Muslim, into Germany in the months before. Investigations have highlighted police incompetence as one cause of the chaos. Almost no one has been convicted in the assaults or the disorder, much to Ms. Schwarzers chagrin.

Passion and the feminist cause seem to have come naturally to Ms. Schwarzer, who was born in December 1942 in the Ruhr industrial town of Wuppertal. She was raised by youthful maternal grandparents after her mother gave birth at age 22 and then largely vanished from her life.

Most unusually for those times, Ms. Schwarzers grandmother, Margarete Schwarzer, known as Grete, who was 46 when Alice was born, had a point of view and was unafraid to say so.

She was very anti-Nazi, Ms. Schwarzer said. Which isolated anyone in the Nazi time. And not just then. You must know that also after 1945 it was not fashionable to be anti-Nazi and that  as my grandmother could attest  the Nazis all still sat at their posts, in City Hall, everywhere.
BRUSSELS  Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson joined on Friday a growing list of Trump administration officials to visit the hub of North Atlantic solidarity and scold the United States European allies, saying they do not spend enough on their collective defense.

Allies must increase defense spending to meet their commitments, Mr. Tillerson said, again and again, in a speech to NATO foreign ministers in Brussels.

Like Vice President Mike Pence and Defense Secretary Jim Mattis before him, Mr. Tillerson insisted that all 28 members of the alliance spend at least 2 percent of their gross domestic product on their military, a level only a handful of members meet.

Along with the familiar rebukes, Mr. Tillerson also sought to reassure Europe that the United States  despite comments from President Trump referring to NATO as obsolete  remains committed to an alliance that has kept the peace on most of the Continent for nearly 70 years.
Just before dusk, I arrived at a village on the outskirts of Sirnak. The mayor here was recently arrested and replaced by a state trustee, one of more than 80 elected Kurds who have recently been replaced by government edict.

Unlike in Sirnak or Cizre, tanks did not fire on the village last year, or destroy its houses. As a result, it became a shelter for some of the estimated 500,000 people displaced by last years fighting. After sunset, and amid a power failure, I met with one family.

The father, a 53-year-old janitor, said they were from Sirnak. When the rebellion began in late 2015, he, his wife and their eight children fled to a different city. But their new landlord later needed their apartment for his own displaced family, so they moved to this village. Fearing that both the security forces and Kurdish militants might harass them if the family were identified, they asked me not to use their names.

For months they lived in a shed, sleeping next to chickens and cows, before a neighbor found them a cleaner place to stay. In the meantime, their home in Sirnak was destroyed, along with much of the city center.

As we spoke, the power came back on, allowing their youngest daughter to do her homework. This room is for everything, her mother said. Studying, sleeping, eating.
In laying out the European Unions terms for the exit negotiations  which still must be approved by leaders of the 27 remaining nations  Mr. Tusk essentially presented the blocs response to Mrs. Mays opening move. Mr. Tusk said the 27 leaders would determine when there had been sufficient progress to start discussing Britains future trade arrangements.

The terms, nonetheless, represent an early setback for Britain. The draft guidelines outline a phased approach that the European Union will require Britain to follow before talks about any deal on access to the European single market of more than 500 million consumers.

The terms also signaled how Britain was losing control over developments in Europe by giving Spain an effective veto over whether any deal applied to Gibraltar, the rocky outcrop that has long been the subject of an acrimonious sovereignty dispute between London and Madrid. Spain had pressed to insert language on Gibraltar into the guidelines and succeeded because Britain did not have a say in the drafting, European Union officials said.

Market access is a British priority that took on added urgency this week, as Mrs. Mays formal notification on Wednesday started a two-year clock to reach an agreement. That time constraint limits British leverage in the negotiations because it would face a welter of tariffs and customs barriers if a deal is not struck during that period.

The guidelines will come into effect if national leaders approve them at a summit meeting on April 29. Michel Barnier, a former foreign minister of France, is then expected to take over day-to-day negotiations with the government in London.
Taken together, the moves reinforce the message that Mr. Trump plans to make security cooperation the cornerstone of his approach to the region, without human rights becoming an obstacle, unlike President George W. Bush, who also emphasized the development of democracy, or Mr. Obama, who pressed autocratic states to ease repression.

A blank check from President Trump on human rights concerns in Egypt isnt surprising but it does mean Congress will have to step in and continue using its authorities to limit U.S. support given how serious the scale of repression and abuse is under President Sisi, said Sarah Margon, the Washington director of Human Rights Watch.

Tom Malinowski, an assistant secretary of state in charge of human rights issues under Mr. Obama, said American aid to Egypt had never translated into the expected support for American policy. Weve given Egypt $70 billion over the years, and last I checked there are no Egyptian F-16s helping us fight ISIS over Raqqa or Mosul, he said. All we get from the Egyptians is political repression that radicalizes its youth and gives terrorist groups new life.

Five senators announced that they would introduce a resolution urging Egypt to ease its suppression of dissent. Senator Marco Rubio, Republican of Florida, urged Mr. Trump to press for the release of political prisoners in Egypt, including jailed Americans, and encourage Egypt to allow greater space for civil society and freedom of expression for all.

As an army general, Mr. Sisi helped lead the overthrow of President Mohamed Morsis democratically elected government and then won the presidency himself in an election tainted by the wide-scale arrest of opposition figures. Since taking power, Mr. Sisi has targeted Mr. Morsis Muslim Brotherhood and others who oppose his government.
That was despite the fact that on Friday the administration was preparing for separate visits by President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi of Egypt and King Abdullah II of Jordan to the White House next week  both leaders of countries often affected by tensions between Palestinians and Israelis.

While Mr. Sisi has not yet made Israeli policy toward the Palestinians a major concern, King Abdullah faces a more delicate domestic situation where assertive Israeli actions often generate protests. Worried about a public backlash, King Abdullah raced to Washington shortly after Mr. Trump took office to buttonhole the new president at a prayer breakfast and implore him not to move the American Embassy to Jerusalem, as he had promised on the campaign trail. Mr. Trump has obliged and delayed any embassy move while he reconsiders the matter.

Since then, Jerusalem and Washington have negotiated to try to reach an understanding on slowing or curbing settlement construction.

During the Obama administration, Israels settlement activity was the source of constant friction. Secretary of State John Kerry harshly rebuked Israel in December while vigorously defending a United States decision to abstain from a United Nations vote condemning Israel on the settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

But Israels latest policy announcement was likely to have been coordinated with the White House. Since the February meeting with Mr. Netanyahu, American and Israeli officials have been working to reach a more formal understanding on slowing or curbing settlement construction. And there appears to be some understanding that Mr. Netanyahu would be allowed to fulfill his earlier promise to compensate 40 families evicted from the illegal hilltop outpost of Amona by building them a new community.

Mr. Netanyahu has been walking a fine line between the new Trump administration, with which he wants to remain on good terms, and the right wing of his governing coalition, which has been pressuring him to increase construction and, in particular, to reject any freeze on building in certain areas.

The right-wing ministers were silent on Friday. The Yesha Council, the umbrella body representing the roughly 400,000 Jewish settlers in the West Bank, expressed cautious optimism but, reflecting the ambiguity of the new policy, said it would be monitoring the Israeli government closely to see if new building plans came to fruition.
BEIRUT, Lebanon  Two men who have reported extensively on jihadists and their activities have sued President Trump and members of his administration based on their belief that the government has put them on a kill list meant for terrorists, according to court documents.

Although they have worked in war zones and had contact with many members of Al Qaeda and other extremist groups, the men, Bilal Abdul Kareem and Ahmad Muaffaq Zaidan, deny that they are members of militant organizations.

In their federal lawsuit, filed on Thursday in Washington, they provide little evidence that they are on the United States kill list, which is classified, and current and former American counterterrorism officials expressed skepticism that their activities would get them marked for death by a program meant to eliminate terrorists actively plotting violence against America.

Mr. Abdul Kareem, a former standup comedian who grew up in Mount Vernon, N.Y., has been reporting from rebel-held areas in northern Syria, where he has filmed uncritical interviews with Qaeda members.
He never lost touch with the simplest joys of the moment  tasting his food, connecting with the people he loved, and recognizing the common humanity in everyone, Mr. Growald wrote. I am grateful to him for all of his living lessons.

But the flip side of being grateful  or, really, being expected to be grateful  could be the feeling of being burdened.

Family members are not required to participate in philanthropy in rigid ways, however. You can rotate onto the board or you can skip a rotation if youre getting married or having a baby, Mr. Quattrone said. You can get on a committee. You can represent the fund at another organizations event. Theres a broad range of participation.

The family bonded through traveling. Mr. Rockefellers oldest son, David Rockefeller Jr., said that on trips to France his father would talk about the importance of preserving cultural icons like Versailles, which the family helped to restore.

And in the Tetons in Wyoming, We were riding on horseback and he told the story of his father, my grandfather, buying up the land and helping to create Grand Teton National Park, David Rockefeller Jr. said. We learned by example.

David Rockefeller Jr. has, in turn, done the same with his children. My two daughters, who have traveled with me a lot, have taken in some of my interests, particularly in the environment when weve been on sailing expeditions, he said in an interview. My passion for protecting the environment has gotten through to them.


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Part I

Lee Atwater and Protegee Karl Rove - inseparable teacher and student, both well known for race baiting, blackmail, illegal White House communications and their generalized sociopathic approach toward politics. Rove was involved in the purposeful destruction of more than 5 million illegal emails transmitted between himself and the White House in defiance of a U.S. Justice Department order to produce them. Later, he ducked a Congressional Committee subpoena to appear regarding the framing of innocent political foes by blackmailing the committee chairman's wife. The failure to prosecute Rove and George W. Bush for the destruction of millions of illegal emails was almost certainly the basis for FBI Director Comey's carefully worded statement that he did not believe that any prosecutor would go after Hillary for destroying a relatively few hundred emails.

It was during the 2000 South Carolina Republican presidential primaries that Rove showed his true colors, using his beloved mentor, Atwater's slimiest techniques. Under the auspices of his boss, "W," he arranged for his henchman to infiltrate McCain's rallies shouting racial epithets and accusing McCain of being a "N---er lover," of sleeping with "N---er prostitutes," and of fathering a "N---er baby." All of Rove's and Bush inspired rhetoric was based on McCain's adoption of a beautiful baby from Mother Teresa's orphanage in Bangladesh.

Later, in 2006, Rove, with the help of his partner, William Canary, Canary's wife, Alabama federal prosecutor and designated legal lady of the night, "his girl," Leura Canary, in a bogus case brought before disgraced wife beater and chairmen of Siegelman's gubernatorial opponent's campaign, Judge Fuller, managed to frame Democratic ex Governor Don Siegelman for Honest Service Statute violation, bribery, and other bogus charges. Never mind that previous bogus charges brought by another member of William Canary's legal brothel, Alice Martin, had been laughed out of court by legitimate Federal District Court Judge U.W. Clemon who called it "the most unfounded criminal case which I presided in my entire judicial career."

Ken Blackwell- ex Ohio Secretary of State and Ohio Republican Party Chairman was found to have used his own company's doctored voting machines in the "Middle Man" scheme to divert results to intermediate servers, falsifying actual Ohio vote counts in the 2004 presidential election. Along with Karl Rove and Republican National Committee intelligence technology expert Michael Connell, he was under investigation for the manipulation of the election. The investigation was eventually abandoned with Connell's convenient "accidental" airplane crash in 2010. Blackwell, like Rove, skated on both counts, the fixed election and the possible murder of Connell, with the suppression of the airplane crash investigation. The crash site was examined in the dark of night and the investigation terminated, apparently, before daylight. Connell's blackberry was found "missing" from the bag in which his wife claimed that he always kept it. She also claimed that her husband kept all of his important information in the device.

Leading up to the crash, Connell had received death threats from unknown sources. He had also received threats of lesser "blackmail" type from Karl Rove, threats to his family, which were reported and apparently ignored by Michael Mukasey, Bush's attorney general. The entire case was apparently swept under the rug by our next reptilian.

Eric Holder - Mr. Holder, sometimes referred to as "Uncle Tom Holder," is probably as enigmatic a subject for Democrats as Karl Rove is for Republicans, but for different reasons. In Rove's case, he continues to participate in blatant criminal activities and through "friends in high places" and blackmail has consistently escaped prosecution. Holder has apparently escaped by playing both sides of the fence. All through the Clinton administration Holder had been accepting a 2 million dollar a year salary from a Republican law firm, in fact the same firm that ended up defending President Bush in the 2000 presidential election recount, a clear conflict of interest which could potentially have cost him some 16 million dollars in returned salary.

What made the situation even slimier, however, was the fact that Florida Governor Jeb Bush and Election Supervisor Katherine Harris had committed a Rovian crime by arbitrarily transferring the names of some 10,000 innocent, mostly black voters onto the roll of felons in order to deliberately rob them of the right to vote. In the meantime, U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno had to resign due to illness with Assistant Attorney General Eric Holder replacing her. Holder, afraid that he would forfeit 16 million dollars in salary, conveniently neglected to pursue any case against fellow reptilians Bush and Harris, even though he served for months into the Bush presidency. Later, Holder tried to divert attention from the issue by stressing the need to let ex-felons vote.

Indeed, it's been said that Holder never seemed to prosecute anyone who was guilty or defend anybody that was innocent. His most famous private case was that of defending a major drug company that had been producing extra Oxycodone that was sold on the black market. Meanwhile, bragging that they were going after physicians, under his supervision as Assistant Attorney General, his henchmen framed multiple physicians for Medicare fraud, while giving laboratories special treatment in trade for false testimony. As Attorney General, his minions defended the framing of innocent defendants by police and prosecutors, even for murder, as well as going out of their way to justify many of Karl Roves bogus political prosecutions.

Scott Pruitt - This serpentine creature, recently appointed to head the deconstruction of the EPA as well as the environment itself, lacks the intellectual capacity of a Karl Rove or an Eric Holder.

Owned body and soul by the oil and gas as well as the banking industry, his actions have always been crude, obvious and not too bright. After California Republicans had proposed a really stupid voting initiative inadvertently conceding that Gays had the right to marry but that voters could deprive them of that right, the Supreme Court ruled that Gay marriage was now officially legal. Despite the obvious ruling, Oklahoma Attorney General Pruitt authorized the same initiative for voters in his state. After the same decision by the Court, to verify his incompetence, he authorized a wasted "one man, one woman" marriage bill. When that failed, he even considered a bill abolishing all marriage!

Pruitt, too intellectually deprived to write his own letters, had energy companies write letters for him, sending the letters to government agencies on his office stationery. Most observers believe that Pruitt is a freak of nature, passing the Bar Exam and becoming an attorney without knowing how to read and write! In fact, this may be the reason that Pruitt didn't know that China and India had signed the Paris Climate Agreement or that the agreement could save potentially trillions of dollars world wide. Obviously, someone on his staff forgot to read the message to him. Also, he remains confused on the effects of excess carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and its detrimental effects on climate change and therefore must be in constant contact with oil companies whom he depends on to explain scientific "facts" to him while he is sleeping.

Paul Manafort - This creature, along with partners Roger Stone and Lee Atwater has been a lobbyist for many of the worst international dictators, from Eastern Europe to Africa. He and his associates have represented Russian and Ukrainian oligarchs as well as developing propaganda programs designed to endear foreign dictatorships to the U.S. government. For a five month period, Manafort was chairman of the Trump Campaign, but resigned as soon as the news media began to report his sordid relationship with international criminals.

Roger Stone - Stone, who professes to have repented from his "evil" past, none the less, may have been the inadvertent source of an FBI investigation into the Trump campaign's possible involvement with the Russian government. In what he claimed was a "two martini tweet," he bragged that he had been in touch with Mr. Assange and Wikileaks. He has since denied the veracity of the tweet.

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From Other Words

Trump is using sympathetic out-of-work miners as a cover for what is really just a handout to dirty industry.

When Barack Obama announced the Clean Power Plan, Scientific American used his own words to criticize it for not going far enough.

"There is such a thing as being too late when it comes to climate change," Obama said. "The science tells us we have to do more."

Scientific American analyzed the Clean Power Plan and agreed, concluding that Obama's plan didn't go far enough, and would fail to prevent catastrophic climate change.

Now, Trump is dismantling even that. Obama's insufficient effort to address climate change is gone with a stroke of Trump's pen.

The plan was to go into effect in 2022, reducing pollution in three ways. First, by improving the efficiency of coal-fired power plants. Second, by swapping coal for cleaner natural gas. And third, by replacing fossil fuel energy with clean, renewable energy sources like solar and wind.

Trump claims the plan puts coal miners out of work. But it hadn't even been implemented yet. In reality, cheap natural gas and the use of machines instead of people to mine coal are responsible for putting far more miners out of work.

In other words, Trump is using sympathetic out-of-work miners as a cover for what is really just a handout to dirty industry.

Meanwhile, Trump is cutting job training programs for coal country. Given that, it's hard to believe he cares at all about jobs for coal miners.

And, with a surge in cases of fatal black lung disease among miners in Appalachia, anyone who truly cared about miners would preserve the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare), which helps coal miners get black lung benefits.

In short, Trump's killing of the Clean Power Plan is a handout to dirty industry with no regard for the well-being of coal miners. And it's putting us even further behind in our efforts to leave the next generation a habitable planet.

A better leader would find a way to promote clean forms of energy while simultaneously creating good jobs for Americans. Of course, that's exactly what Obama's one-time "green jobs" czar Van Jones called for, and the Republicans hated him.

But the fact of the matter is that climate-smart policies create jobs. They create jobs retrofitting buildings, manufacturing solar panels and wind turbines, innovating to create more efficient batteries, and discovering the best way to upgrade our power grid.

It seems that, if we installed a wind turbine near the White House, Trump could single-handedly provide the nation with clean energy from all of the bluster coming out of his mouth.

In the meantime, catastrophic climate change is as much of a crisis as ever, and the clock is ticking.
Hawaii Federal Judge Derrick Watson extended his order blocking President Trump's travel ban to six Muslim majority countries Wednesday, as the state's attorney general denounced the executive order as a "Muslim ban".

Hawaii's attorney general Douglas Chin told the judge the controversial measure issued by President Trump on January 27 and then revised on March 6 was like a "neon sign flashing 'Muslim ban, Muslim ban'" that the government had not turned off.

Chin has said the travel ban discriminated against Muslims and had a negative effect on Hawaii's tourist-dependent economy. Hawaii argued the temporary block enacted two weeks ago needed to be extended until the state's lawsuit is resolved and to ensure the rights of Muslims across the U.S. are upheld after the "repeated stops and starts of the last two months".

The revised travel ban issued by the Trump administration on March 6 placed a 90-day ban on individuals arriving from Iran, Syria, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen. The earlier version of the executive order was blocked by U.S. District Judge James Robart in Seattle.

The joint plaintiff in the Hawaii lawsuit against the Muslim Ban 2.0 is Ismail Elshikh, a senior imam in Hawaii who argued the travel ban would stop his Syrian mother-in-law from visiting the United States.

"The Court will not crawl into a corner, pull the shutters closed, and pretend it has not seen what it has," Watson wrote in his judgment.

Trump has said the orders were necessary to protect Americans from terrorism and campaigned on a pledge to institute "extreme vetting" of foreigners seeking to enter the country.

"We do not fault President Trump for being politically incorrect. We fault him for being constitutionally incorrect," Hawaii Attorney General Doug Chin was quoted as saying in his opening arguments to the court Wednesday.

Civil advocacy groups welcome

The human rights group Amnesty International Wednesday night characterized it as another defeat for the controversial presidential order.

"The courts have once again clearly rejected the Muslim ban. Like the previous travel ban, the new order is indefensibly discriminatory," Margaret Huang, executive director of Amnesty International USA, said in a statement.

Rather than make people safer, the order has caused thousands of people to live in fear and uncertainty, she said adding:

"President Trump must abandon this failed agenda and immediately revoke the ban."

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the nation's largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, Thursday welcomed a ruling by a federal judge in Hawaii extending a temporary block on President Trump's "Muslim Ban 2.0" executive order.

"We welcome Judge Watson's decision and look forward to the ultimate defeat of this unconstitutional and un-American order in higher courts," said CAIR National Litigation Director Lena Masri.

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One of the bizarre consequences of the Congressional investigation into the connections between the Trump presidential campaign and Russia is the media attention given to a banal Republican congressman, Devin Nunes. As the chair of the House of Representatives Intelligence Committee, Nunes has singlehandedly blocked the House investigation into the Trump-Russia affair. He's doing this because of political ambition.

43-year-old Nunes grew up on a dairy farm in Tulare, California, and earned a Master's degree in Agriculture. In 2001, Nunes entered politics when President Bush appointed him California State Director for the USDA's Rural Development section. In 2003, Nunes became Congressman for what is now California Congressional District 22, which includes Tulare. By 2010, Nunes was recognized as a rising Republican star; Time Magazine named him one of their "40 civic leaders under 40," characterizing Nunes as an ambitious "farm boy." Nunes admitted, "I like Agriculture," adding that if left politics, "I would be making wine and cheese." (Nunes' family owns a huge Tulare farm and Nunes lives nearby.)

Given his rural background, it's remarkable how quickly Devin Nunes has risen up the Republican food chain. Many attribute this to his book, "Restoring the Republic," published in 2010 by WND Books. In the 165 page polemic, Nunes staked out a far-right perspective, notably on environmental policy, describing Environmental lobbyists as "followers of neo-Marxist, socialist, Maoist or Communist ideals" and characterizing global-warming claims as "hysteria" spread by a "Doomsday cult."

In 2010, when Republicans regained control of the House of Representatives, Nunes became a member of the prestigious House Committees on Intelligence and Ways and Means. In January of 2015, Speaker of the House Paul Ryan asked Nunes to become chair of the Intelligence Committee. (Nunes and Ryan are close friends.)

Many attribute Nunes rapid ascent to his connection to Joseph Farah, founder of the right-wing website WND (World Net Daily). The Southern Poverty Law Center characterized WND as "devoted to manipulative fear-mongering and outright fabrications designed to further the paranoid, gay-hating, conspiratorial and apocalyptic visions of Farah and his hand-picked contributors from the fringes of the far-right and fundamentalist worlds." WND was a primary promoter of the "birther" cause: "Concerns whether President Obama is a 'natural-born' U.S. citizen, originally stirred up by WND columnist Jerome Corsi.... [who] was also the architect of the 'Swift boating' of John Kerry during the 2004 presidential campaign." (The WND bookstore features titles such as, "Stop the Islamization of America.")

Before the Republican convention, Nunes became an "informal" Trump adviser on national-security issues. After the presidential election, Nunes became a member of the Trump transition executive committee, where he worked closely with NSA-designee Michael Flynn. (Recently, The Washington Post quoted Nunes recalling that during the transition he was fielding calls from foreign leaders and ambassadors who were trying to reach Flynn.)

In May of 2016, Donald Trump held a fundraiser in Fresno, next to Nunes' congressional district; in August Trump appeared at another fundraiser in Tulare, Nunes' home town, and raised $1.3 million. At the Fresno event, Trump claimed, "There is no [California] drought," continuing, "We're going to solve your water problem... It is so ridiculous where they're taking the water and shoving it out to sea to save a certain kind of three-inch fish." Trump's comments were verbatim quotes from Nunes. In fact, Trump seems to be echoing Nunes' thoughts on environmental policy, in general.

Since the presidential election, Nunes has been an important member of Trump's team. On February 13, 2017, Congressman Nunes defended Trump's National Security Adviser Mike Flynn: "It just seems like there's a lot of nothing there... There is no question that Flynn has been a change agent " which is why I believe Trump likes him." A few hours later, Flynn resigned. Nunes responded by calling another press conference to promise that he would lead an investigation into had who leaked Flynn's phone calls with the Russian Ambassador.

There are three reasons why Nunes defends Trump:

1. It's what he was trained to do: Like his friend Paul Ryan, Devin Nunes has spend his adult life in politics. Instead of working in the family farming business, with his brothers Gerald and Anthony Junior, Devin became a professional Republican. Early on, Nunes was groomed by Joseph Farah and other right-wing zealots.

2. He followed the money: Nunes has been an unusually effective Republican fundraiser. Open Secrets reports that in 2015-16, Nunes raised $2.4M and spent only $1.3M; at the end of 2016, his campaign committee had $3,177,900 on hand. (Nunes' fundraiser for Trump raised $1.3 million from 250 farmers.)

As a member of the House of Representatives, Devin Nunes makes $174,000 per year. Nunes' tax returns have not been made public but he claims to have a net worth of $51,000 including a $50,000 share in a winery and an undisclosed amount at WND books. (Nunes did not declare his Tulare residence or his interest in the family farming business.)

3. He wants to run for Senate in 2018. In California, it's an open secret that Devin Nunes plans to run for Dianne Feinstein's Senate seat in the midterm election.

Improbably, Devin Nunes, a small-town farm boy has become a national political player. But in doing so, he has tied his career to that of Donald Trump. Therefore, whatever scandal hits Trump will certainly impact Nunes. Like most Congressional Republicans, Nunes doesn't care about what's in the national interest, he's only interested in furthering his career.
From Consortium News

On March 19, Israeli tax officials arrested Omar Barghouti, a prominent Palestinian human rights defender and co-founder of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement. Omar and his wife Safa, an Israeli citizen, were detained for 16 hours and have been subjected to daily interrogation sessions.

Barghouti's arrest is indirect evidence of the growing strength of the BDS movement, a worldwide non-violent challenge to Israel's illegal occupation of Palestinian lands, a protest campaign that the Israeli government has identified as an existential threat to Israel.

Israel is particularly sensitive in light of the new United Nations report concluding that it has established an "apartheid regime" and recommending that national governments support BDS activities to challenge Israel's illegal system of oppression of the Palestinians. The report was co-authored by Richard Falk, an international law expert and former U.N. Special Rapporteur on human rights in the occupied Palestinian territories.

In his address to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) earlier this week, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stated, "We will defend ourselves against slander and boycotts."

Barghouti wrote in the New York Times, "Having lost many battles for hearts and minds at the grass-roots level, Israel has adopted since 2014 a new strategy to criminalize support for BDS from the top" in order to "shield Israel from accountability."

Last year, the Israeli Ministry of Strategic Affairs established a "tarnishing unit" to tarnish the reputation of BDS human rights defenders and networks.

According to the Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions National Committee, the "inflammatory fabrications" against Omar Barghouti constitute the "latest chapter of repression and intimidation" against him. For years, various arms of the far-right Israeli government have subjected Barghouti to intense threats, intimidation and repression.

The investigation of Barghouti is part of Israel's "systematic efforts to criminalize the BDS movement, intimidate activists and stop free speech," the Committee said.

"After failing to intimidate them through the threat of revoking Omar's permanent residence in Israel, and after the effective travel ban imposed on him proved futile in stopping his human rights work," the Committee stated, "the Israeli government has resorted to fabricating a case related to Omar's alleged income outside of Israel to tarnish his image and intimidate him."

Travel Ban

The latest travel ban against Barghouti, imposed in connection with the investigation, coincidentally comes shortly before he is scheduled to travel to the United States to accept the Gandhi Peace Award, along with Ralph Nader, at Yale University.

In addition to the travel ban on Barghouti, top Israeli officials have threatened BDS activists in general and Barghouti in particular. At a "Stop the Boycott" conference in Jerusalem last year, Israeli public security and strategic affairs minister Gilad Erdan warned that BDS activists "will know they will pay a price for it."

During the same conference, Yisrael Katz, Israel's intelligence minister, called for attacks on BDS leaders. Katz utilized the same Hebrew word the military uses for "targeted civil elimination," or civil assassination. Aryeh Deri, Israel's interior minister, told attendees at the conference that he might revoke Barghouti's residency permit.

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Senate expert #1 used to build websites. No Creds in Intel

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The Vault 7 expose' by WikiLeaks neglected to mention the most important part of the disclosure. Sure, the CIA has all these tools available. Yes, they are used on the public. The important part is; it's not the CIA that's using them. That's the part that needs to frighten you.

The CIA, by the definition of its mission, cannot use the tools in Vault 7, and definitely not on Americans. All the tools are unclassified, open-source, and can be used by anyone. It makes them not exactly usable for secret agent work. That's what makes it impossible for them to use Vault 7 tools directly. Because of the possible exposure for the agency, use of the tools was farmed out.

Instead, they are there for subcontractors to use. Are you worried about your TV watching you? Has your car developed the habit of starting itself in the morning?

If these tools were solely in the hands of a US agency, you would be much safer. The agencies have limits on what they can do and agencies have oversight providing protections.

Instead, intelligence and counterterrorism tools are in the hands of people that make most of their money pushing political agendas forward. And there is no oversight for what they are doing with the tools.

In March 2015 , I started writing about private NSA guns for hire. These hired guns work in the revolving door between government Intel and counterterrorism and private intel and counterterrorism. What it showed was the same people that worked for US agencies and trained them were using the same tools and methods on Americans that they used for terrorist hunting. And they brag about it in social media.

The same people that take counterterrorism measures against Al Qaeda, are free to use those tools on you. According to CNN, Aaron Weisburd models his methods on the no-holds-barred Al Qaeda model.

From CBS News -"sources close to U.S. intelligence as saying that "hackers knocked out Al Qaeda's online means of communication, thus preventing them from posting anything to commemorate 911 anniversary." The paper also said Western intelligence suspects two hackers were responsible: Aaron Weisburd from Internet Haganah and Rusty Shackleford from the web group My Pet Jawa."

According to Sputnik News "As much as 80 percent of the US National Security Agency's (NSA) budget is privatized, demonstrating the merger between Washington and corporate organizations, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange said Tuesday."

This means that up to 80% of that budget is going to people in the private sector that are also working on other agendas, including their own. That's why we see more headlines like "NSA staff used spy tools on spouses, exlovers:watchdog." or "The Crazy Emails That Took Down NSA Spook John Schindler." Both articles show contractors use Vault 7 tools for their own domestic spying or revenge.

In May 2015, the Nation published an article that is a must read to grasp how dangerous this has become. I've written intensively on how these tools are used to create news and policy from a ground and company level for NGO's and lobbyists. This article ratchets it up by looking at the policy makers and former agency heads that go into the private Intel and policy crafting business for hire.

According to The Nation "These are the people--often referred to as "intelligence professionals"--who do the actual analytical and targeting work of the NSA and other agencies in America's secret government. Over the last 15 years, thousands of former high-ranking intelligence officials and operatives have left their government posts and taken up senior positions at military contractors, consultancies, law firms, and private-equity firms. In their new jobs, they replicate what they did in government--often for the same agencies they left. But this time, their mission is strictly for-profit."

What does this have to do with overhauling the ODNI and 17 Intel agencies? Everything. From oversight to policy, the level of non-partisan professionalism needed to conduct unbiased intelligence work is no longer there. The Vault 7 leak could well be an inside attempt to address these issues.

"In the intelligence community in the United States, there are certain disgruntled individuals [concerned] about the way operations are being run, and it's obvious that material has come out that was felt by some of these individuals needed to be discussed," Kampmark explained."

The ODNI and its agencies descent into shambles have been three presidencies in the making. Why a shambles? When intelligence is based on political agendas, rumor, or speculation instead of facts, it's in trouble. All of it was done in the name of getting faster intelligence and making actionable Intel available to members of Congress that had no business getting involved with classified, need to know basis intelligence.

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"What we have here is a failure to communicate."

(Cool Hand Luke)



Several years ago a Russian friend invited me to lunch at an elegant restaurant a couple of blocks from the White House. My friend pointed to a brass plaque on the wall of our booth. The plaque indicated that at this very location on October 26, 1962, ABC news reporter John Scali met with Alexander Fomin, the KGB station chief in Washington. Fomin told Scali that the Russians were open to a diplomatic solution to the Cuban missile crisis. Fomin asked Scali to deliver this message to Scali's contacts in the State Department, which he did.



Thus began the negotiations that brought the United States and the Soviet Union back from the brink of nuclear war. The deal? The Soviet Union agreed to remove the missiles from Cuba, in exchange for the American pledge never to invade Cuba and eventually to remove missiles from Turkey.



Suppose the conditions of today were in place in October 1962. Might not Scali have said to Fomin, "I can't do that. What you're asking would be a violation of the Logan act." If Scali had so replied, then we might not be here today discussing this event of 55 years ago.







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Our press seems to be in a feeding frenzy regarding contacts that President Trump's supporters had with Russian Ambassador Sergei Kislyak and with other Russian diplomats. The assumption seems to be that there was something sinister about these contacts, just because they were with Russian diplomats. As one who spent a 35-year diplomatic career working to open up the Soviet Union and to make communication between our diplomats and ordinary citizens a normal practice, I find the attitude of much of our political establishment and of some of our once respected media outlets quite incomprehensible. What in the world is wrong with consulting a foreign embassy about ways to improve relations? Anyone who aspires to advise an American president should do just that. . .



In fact, I would say that any person who presumes to advise an incoming president on vital policy issues needs to understand the approach of the country in question and therefore is remiss if he or she does not consult with the embassy in question. . . I have been taught that in a democracy with the rule of law, the accused are entitled to a presumption of innocence until convicted. But we have leaks that imply that any conversation with a Russian embassy official is suspect. That is the attitude of a police state. /

He is correct, of course. So why the brouhaha over these "nefarious" "Russian contacts"?



My best guess is that (a) the media loves a good, ongoing "spy story" -- great for profits, and (b) the Democrats have adopted a demonization of Vladimir Putin and Russia as a convenient crow-bar with which to pummel Donald Trump and perchance pry him from his office. Damage to Trump is their main objective. A resumption of the Cold War and the risk of nuclear war is "collateral damage." The attack mob includes such otherwise admirable individuals as Michael Moore, Paul Krugman, Keith Olberman, John Oliver and Bill Maher.




From Robert Reich Blog



From flickr.com: Trump a dangerous mind

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Two White House officials helped get Devin Nunes, the Republican chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, classified reports showing that Trump and his associates were incidentally swept up in foreign surveillance by American intelligence agencies, according to the New York Times.

One of them, Ezra Cohen-Watnick, is the senior director for intelligence at the National Security Council, and was formerly a Defense Intelligence Agency official who had been brought to the White House by Michael T. Flynn. The other, Michael Ellis, is a lawyer who works on national security issues at the White House Counsel's Office, and formerly worked on the staff of the House Intelligence Committee.

Why would these White House officials have supplied Nunes with classified information? What's really going on here?

To answer these questions you need to understand Trump's strategy for dealing with the one issue that could deal a lethal blow to his presidency -- the possibility that he or his aides colluded with Russian agents to win the election. Trump and his assistant, Steve Bannon, intend to wrap it in a thick partisan fog of diversion and obfuscation.

Remember, America's intelligence agencies have concluded that Russian agents interfered in the 2016 presidential election to benefit Trump. According to the ranking member of the Senate intelligence committee, such interference affected the outcome of the election.

It's the most serious and most direct attack on American democracy by a foreign power in history. If any of Trump's campaign advisers were involved, they would be guilty of treason. If Trump knew about it and did nothing, he would also have committed an impeachable offense.

Circumstantial evidence of Trump's advisors' collusion with Russian operatives has been building for months, including admissions by two of them -- Michael Flynn and Jeff Sessions -- that they lied when they said they hadn't been in contact with Russian officials during the campaign.

The FBI is actively investigating additional contacts, FBI Director James Comey told the House Intelligence Committee.

Trump's original strategy dealing with the growing threat to his administration was to berate the press for "fake news," condemn the intelligence agencies for unauthorized leaks, and hint darkly at plots against him.

Then on March 4, Trump tried a new tack. He alleged that Barack Obama wiretapped him in the Trump Tower during the campaign.

The claim had nothing whatever to do with the FBI investigation, but Trump is enough of a con artist to know it would divert attention. He could further confuse the issue by calling for an investigation by Congress's intelligence committees of whether Obama abused his executive power -- the same committees that were about to hold hearings about the FBI's investigation of possible collusion between Trump's aides and Russian operatives.

The media played right into Trump's ruse. Headline stories shifted from possible collusion between Trump aides and Russia to Trump's allegation against Obama, accompanied by stories about Trump's lack of evidence for his claim, Comey's request that the Justice Department publicly deny it, and White House surrogates' attempts to find sources for it.

So by the time the House Intelligence Committee held its hearing on March 20, the questions at issue already had become a vague mixture of Russian interference in the election, possible Trump adviser communications, intelligence leaks, and possible abuse of power by Obama.

Which is where Devin Nunes came in. Soon after the hearing, Nunes visited the White House to look at classified material suggesting that Trump's aides' conversations might have been "incidentally" collected during US surveillance of foreign nationals who were being lawfully monitored (presumably in connection with the FBI investigation of Russian interference in the election).

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The USS Trump, following the course taken by HMS Titanic many years ago, ran into unexpected danger just as it was getting underway on its maiden voyage.

It's passengers, i.e., staunch Trump supporters, signed up for this voyage because they were extremely impressed by the many great things that were being said about this new, revolutionary ship and Capt. Trump, certainly the best, most respected and admired member of his profession;

After following this course for a relatively short period of time, Capt. Trump and his crew received numerous warnings by other ships in the area that the USS Trump was headed for a field of dangerous political icebergs and should change course immediately; but Trump totally ignored them and, in fact, gave the order to increase the speed of the ship.

This analogy illustrates how Trump's policies and actions are, thus far, not at all in line with what he promised his followers he would do. Based on recent polls of Americans indications are that many of those who saw him as someone who had the drive and capability to bring real change to Washington politics and provide the leadership needed to solve this nation's many problems, now see that they were lied to and deliberately misled.

Hillary Clinton was totally wrong in, collectively, labeling Trump supporters, as deplorable. Some of them most certainly fit that description but I'd say, from personal interactions with many of them on an almost daily basis, that the majority of them are sincere, concerned Americans who, in their state of anger and frustration, were desperate for new, enlightened leadership and fell for Trump's smoke and mirrors strategy.

Let's review some of the policies and actions that Trump has taken in a short period of time that show why it is that I say that he lied and misled millions of those supporters in the presidential campaign when he indicated that he would act as president in a positive and constructive manner.

Trump wasted no time in initiating travel bans involving nations with large Muslim populations, questioning the competence and motivations of judges who dared to rule against his directives and conclude that the bans were unconstitutional.

He made the terrible blunder of angering millions of Americans when he led the efforts to repeal Obamacare which completely failed. He is, and it's hard to believe he would actually do such a thing, initiating the process of pulling America out of the Paris Climate Agreement.

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Wall Street Journal

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LAST WEEK, WE published documents that definitively debunked and disproved a claim that numerous media outlets had circulated and affirmed for years: that Edward Snowden lied about where he was during his first 11 days in Hong Kong. Contrary to the fable these outlets dispensed to their readers -- that Snowden did not check in to the Mira Hotel on May 21 as he claimed but only did so on June 1, 11 days later -- these new documents, obtained from the Mira, prove that Snowden arrived there exactly when he always said, rendering their published stories factually false. Many of these stories had even claimed that anonymous U.S. investigators were unable to find hotel or credit card records for Snowden during these 11 days -- exactly the records we just published.

The same day our story was published, the New York Times reporter Charlie Savage -- who had previously spent weeks documenting that this claim about Snowden never had any journalistic basis to begin with -- confirmed the authenticity of the new documents. As Savage wrote: "The documents show [Snowden] stayed in both the Icon and then, starting on May 21st, the Mira, under his own name, using his own credit cards. So there is no mystery gap, and the credit card records obviously were readily available to American investigators all along."

The concocted discrepancy was significant because these media outlets -- and many commentators citing their false story -- used it to strongly suggest that Snowden, during these "Missing 11 Days," was doing something nefarious: such as meeting his Russian or Chinese handlers. Numerous outlets uncritically aired this false claim, including the Wall Street Journal, Yahoo News, Business Insider, Slate, Interpreter Magazine, and Folha de S.Paulo (Brazil's largest newspaper).

A WSJ op-ed writer, Edward Jay Epstein, released a book in February featuring this fraud as a linchpin in his innuendo that Snowden was a Russian spy, which he then aired on a Lawfare podcast with Benjamin Wittes. This fable was also adopted by several former intelligence community employees now embedded in the pundit class -- such as former CIA and NSA chief Michael Hayden and NSA employee John Schindler -- as well as cable personalities such as MSNBC's Joy Ann Reid. Both Yahoo News and Slate used this falsehood as part of their accusation that Oliver Stone's film about Snowden was misleading.

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From Wallwritings

Nikki Haley, the new U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, (above) was greeted as a rock star at this year's AIPAC Washington Conference.

The former governor of South Carolina wowed the crowd of 19,000, in an on-stage interview in which she bragged that she blocked the appointment of former Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad to a high UN position, solely because he is a Palestinian.

She followed up by bragging that she had persuaded the UN secretary general to withdraw a report which described Israeli policies as apartheid.

The longest and loudest AIPAC crowd roar came when she "brought the house down" by proclaiming "the days of Israel-bashing at the United Nations are over."

She declared her intention to end Israel-bashing by metaphorically combining her footwear with her display of strength: "I wear heels. It's not for a fashion statement. It's because if I see something wrong, we're going to kick them every single time...Anyone that says you can't get anything done at the U.N., they need to know there's a new sheriff in town."

Ha'aretz reported: "Haley embraced the fierce Republican hostility towards the United Nations and [she] is wielding defense of Israel as the sword with which she will slay the organization."

Speaking in her southern folksy style, Haley, unwittingly perhaps, exposed an attitude which carries more than just a whiff of condescending racism toward Palestinians.

"So when they decided to try and put a Palestinian in one of the highest positions that had ever been given at the U.N., we said no and we had him booted out. That doesn't mean he wasn't a nice man. That doesn't mean he wasn't good to America. What it means is, until the Palestinian Authority comes to the table, until the U.N. responds the way they're supposed to, there are no freebees for the Palestinian Authority anymore."

Haley, the daughter of immigrant parents from India, grew up in South Carolina. Was there no inner voice from her childhood to tell her just how racist she sounded when she said, until the Palestinians come to the table and do what we tell them to do, there will be "no more freebees" anymore?

My childhood was in Georgia, next door to Haley's South Carolina. Racist culture remains deeply embedded in both Georgia and South Carolina. In a society which has a history of racism, one way to exercise racial superiority is to demean and dismiss anyone who proposes the end of racist structures.

Haley's second racially-rancid comment came when she dismissed the "ridiculous" Falk Report, as she incorrectly dubs it, by demeaning one of its co-authors, Princeton Professor Richard A. Falk.

"So then they tested us again. And a ridiculous report, the Falk Report, came out. I don't know who the guy is or what he's about, but he's got serious problems. Goes and compares Israel to an apartheid state. So the first thing we do is we call the secretary general and say, this is absolutely ridiculous. You have to pull it. The secretary general immediately pulled the report. And then the director has now resigned."

"They," from Haley's perspective, are against us. They "test us" with reports that are "ridiculous." This is classic colonial racist thinking where "they and us" live in two different realms.

Haley dismisses the "guy" who was behind the apartheid study as someone who has "serious problems." She has been at her UN post long enough to learn that Richard A. Falk is not just some guy who engages in "Israel-bashing."

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In a new low point in Bonn-Istanbul relations, Turkey has linked Michelle Muntefering, a German lawmaker for the Social Democratic Party (SPD), with the supporters of self-exiled Turkish cleric Gehullah Gulen accused of master-minding the abortive coup against President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in July 2016.

Muntefering was reportedly told by the Federal Criminal Police Office that her name appeared on a list of alleged Gulen supporters handed to German authorities by Turkey's National Intelligence Organization (MIT), according to the German news agency DPA.

The SPD caucus leader, Thomas Oppermann, said it was "absolutely unacceptable" that Muntefering was a potential spying target and called on German Chancellor Angela Merkel to issue a strong response.

"Erdogan is going way beyond what we could ever accept," Oppermann said. "He does not appear to have any interest in a partnership with Germany anymore."

The German-Turkey rift deepened in early March when Turkish foreign minister, Mevlut Cavusoglu, was barred from landing in the Netherlands to attend a rally of Turkish immigrants. About 400,000 people with ties to Turkey live in the Netherlands.

German Chanc Merkel pledged her "full support and solidarity" to the Dutch, saying the Nazi gibes were "completely unacceptable".

President Erdogan responded angrily. "Shame on you!" he exclaimed during an interview with A Haber television. He renewed accusations that Germany supported "terrorists" battling Turkey and that it backed the "no" campaign in the Turkish referendum, arguing that Berlin did not want to see a strong Turkey.

"Some of the European Union countries - let's not put all of them in the same sack - unfortunately cannot stomach Turkey's rise," he said. "Sadly, Germany tops the list. Germany supports terror in a cruel way."He advised Turks living in Europe not to vote for parties that he described as "enemies of Turkey."

In Germany, there are 1.5 million people with Turkish citizenship. Martin Schaefer, spokesman for the Foreign Ministry, has said that the German government had approved voting by the estimated 1.4 million Turks living in Germany who are eligible to cast ballots in the April 16 referendum on introducing presidential form of goverment.

The Turkish government recently accused Germany of hypocrisy after it allowed tens of thousands of Turkish Kurds to hold a protest in the German city of Frankfurt against President Erdogan.

Around 30,000 Kurds demonstrated in Frankfurt on March 18 against Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan and an April referendum that would give him sweeping new powers.

Protesters chanted "Erdogan terrorist" and "freedom for Ocalan", referring to Abdullah Ocalan, the jailed leader of the militant Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), with many waving flags featuring Ocalan's face.

As the EU-Turkey rift widens, President Erdogan has taunted "Christian Europe" while campaigning in Sakarya, condemning the European Court of Justice's ruling that allows companies to ban staff wearing "visible religious symbols" such as head scarves. "Where is the liberty of religion?" he demanded. "They have commenced a struggle between the cross and crescent " I am saying this clearly: Europe is heading towards the days just before the second world war."

The Turkish President also mocked Mark Rutte, the Dutch prime minister who won recently general election, seeing off a challenge from the far-right Islamophobe, Geert Wilders. "Oh Rutte! You may have been first in the elections, but you have lost a friend like Turkey," Erdogan said. "Give it up. You have lost."

At the same time Turkish foreign minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said Europe was entering an era of religious warfare. "Now the election is over in the Netherlands " when you look at the many parties you see there is no difference between the social democrats and fascist [Geert] Wilders. All have the same mentality " Where are you taking Europe? You have begun to collapse, Europe " Holy wars will soon begin in Europe," he said.

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UPDATE: 04.02.17: April the Giraffe's followers can now sign up for text alerts on her progress.

UPDATE 04.01.17: From April the Giraffe's Facebook page: "Keepers and Vet have been on site - report is that April continues to be out of normal behavior and show signs of contractions. We are not announcing active labor at this time - as we will wait until there is NO QUESTION - to ensure our followers know to hunker down and wait!"

Last night they posted, "It looks like we will have an April Fools baby! Who could have ever predicted this, unfolding as it has. The perfect ending. April - waited for April!"

Live stream video with live commenting added is here.

Giraffes do not show signs of labor because in the wild, this would make them vulnerable. Sometimes the first obvious visual signs are the breaking of the water or even a set of front hooves emerging from the birth canal. However, April's veterinarian report which was also posted last night, follows:

"Here are the signs that I'm happy to be seeing: significant changes to her "back end" including vulvar swelling, laxity and a thick, gooey discharge. Mammary development including milk let-down and some occasional dripping. Her behavior has changed drastically from yesterday to today. She is less engaging, hesitant to eat her feed (and treats) and unresponsive to a lot of various stimuli. You will also see her do a few things including standing and staring off into space as well as stretching her neck and back legs. If you watch carefully you will see her abdominal wall tense up during those episodes. You'll also see a lot more squinting and just odd behavior. Also important to note is the amount and size of her fecal output. Everything she is doing is surely pointing to her going into labor soon. - Not much has changed from the morning but I suspect she will go quickly."









April and Oliver, giraffes at Animal Adventure Park

(Image by Animal Adventure Park) Details DMCA



No foolin.'

April is a 15-year-old pregnant giraffe at Animal Adventure Park in Harpursville, NY. She's been an internet sensation since OpEdNews posted the first article in February when birth seemed immanent and a live cam went up. The live feed has had 15 million views on YouTube with over 100,000 viewers at times.

The park notes, "Many of our animal ambassadors are from rescue situations & surrenders! Ask our staff, we would love to share their story with you!"

As giraffe gestation is 15 months, and since the exact time of fertilization may not be known, it's hard to pinpoint a delivery date. As March moved along, it began to appear that April could be waiting to calve til, well, April.

On Friday morning, March 31, her keepers noted:

The staff have been onsite with April all morning, Dr Tim was called and onsite within minutes. All observations, behavior, and predictions suggest a calf today, tonight - we would be shocked to get through the weekend without our newest addition.

At birth, the calf emerges front feet first, then its head is born, and it drops about six feet to the ground, which serves the purposes of severing the umbilical cord and encouraging the newborn to breathe. The calf will typically begin to stand and walk within minutes of being born, and may be running by the end of the day!

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

From Down With Tyranny



Global average temperature during the Holocene. Blue curve: Global temperature reconstruction from proxy data of Marcott et al, Science 2013. Recent instrumental measurements shown in red. The instrument reading (red line) is four years out of date.

(Image by Graph: Klaus Bitterman.) Details DMCA



Bottom line first -- We now have one more source saying that global warming is well above +1 degreesC and headed higher at unanticipated rates. Key quote: We're in "truly uncharted territory." To jump to that news, click here.

Not long ago in these pages I took a look at the actual state of global warming as compared to "pre-Industrial global temperature" -- the average global temperature prior to the warming caused by the Industrial Revolution -- and discovered that the global warming "headline number" was too low, a fact that's causing a dangerous complacency. The Industrial Revolution and the Watt Steam Engine Some context: The Industrial Revolution can be said to have started with the invention of the steam engine, though obviously many other inventions, like the cotton gin, played a big part. The reason for choosing the steam engine, though, should be obvious -- its ability to convert carbon emissions into work with much greater efficiency and on a much larger scale than ever before.

Though there were previous versions of a steam engine, some going back a great many years, the one designed by James Watt in 1781 is considered critical:

In 1781 James Watt patented a steam engine that produced continuous rotary motion. Watt's ten-horsepower engines enabled a wide range of manufacturing machinery to be powered. The engines could be sited anywhere that water and coal or wood fuel could be obtained. By 1883, engines that could provide 10,000 hp had become feasible. The stationary steam engine was a key component of the Industrial Revolution, allowing factories to locate where water power was unavailable. The atmospheric engines of Newcomen and Watt were large compared to the amount of power they produced, but high-pressure steam engines were light enough to be applied to vehicles such as traction engines and the railway locomotives.

Pre-Industrial Global Temperature and Pre-Industrial Atmospheric CO2

So the question becomes, not what was the global average temperature in 1900 or the mean of the years 1850-1900, as is usually done, with an implied base year of 1875 -- but what was it in, say, 1800, or perhaps, in the mean of the years 1750-1850? In my piece, I argued, along with Michael Mann and others, that the baseline for "pre-Industrial global temperature" was set too high.

That actually matters. Put simply, when people read about global warming, they often see headlines that state "global warming is now +0.6 degreesC above the 1950-1980 mean," or "+0.9 degreesC above 'pre-Industrial temperatures" -- statements that lend a kind of comfort to the conversation and strip the problem of its urgency. After all, if the U.N. would like to keep warming to less than +2 degreesC above pre-Industrial temperatures, warming numbers like +0.9 degreesC imply we have a way to go. Even the aspirational warming goal of not more than +1.5 degreesC imply quite a bit of headroom.

My earlier piece argued that the mark "pre-Industrial baseline temperature" was set far too high. (That piece is here: "Global Warming Has Reached Nearly +1.5 degreesC Already.") Briefly, my layman's logic put the actual current global warming at about +1.4 degreesC, and Dr. Mann, using similar but not identical logic, put it at a little more than a tenth of a degree lower. Mann (my bolded emphasis):

"It has been widely reported that 2015 will be the first year where temperatures climbed to 1C above the pre-industrial. That might make it seem like we've got quite a ways to go until we breach the 2C limit. But the claim is wrong. We exceeded 1C warming more than a decade ago. The problem is that here, and elsewhere, an inappropriate baseline has been invoked for defining the 'pre-industrial.' The warming was measured relative to the average over the latter half of the 19th century (1850-1900). In other words, the base year implicitly used to define 'pre-industrial' conditions is 1875, the mid-point of that interval. Yet the industrial revolution and the rise in atmospheric CO2 concentrations associated with it, began more than a century earlier. ...



"[U]sing the more appropriate 1750-1850 pre-industrial baseline, we see that the Northern Hemisphere average temperature (gray squiggly curve [in Figure 3 at the link]) has already warmed nearly 1.2C. Temperatures have exceeded 1C above pre-industrial levels for most of the past decade."

By either measure, though, Dr. Mann's or mine, global warming has blown well past the +1 degreesC mark, never to return below it without heroic, and hopefully, panic-driven efforts (because at this point, it will take panic to drive a real solution). Frankly, I think we'll blow past the +1.5 degreesC warming mark in just a few years, and I suspect Dr. Mann -- and quite a few other scientists, if you asked them privately -- would agree. That could be "game over," since with +1.5 degreesC warming present on the ground, +2 degreesC or more would certainly be "in the pipeline," with all the social and political chaos it would bring.

As for global pre-Industrial CO2, the answer is more straightforward and agreed upon. Pre-Industrial atmospheric CO2 is widely considered to have been 280 ppm (parts per million by volume), at the low end of the stable Holocene era range.





Pre-Industrial CO2 is the broad flat blue line above at roughly 280 ppm that starts around 10,000 years B.P. (before the present era) and doesn't begin to rise appreciably until about the year 1800, at which point it shoots up

(Image by Skeptical Science) Details DMCA



We've now reached nearly 410 ppm at this year's monthly peak (up-to-date, interactive NOAA chart here). Not good.

"Truly Uncharted Territory"

From Sabrina Shankman at Inside Climate News, we find this confirmation via a new study (my emphasis):

"State of the Warming Climate in 2016: 'Truly Uncharted Territory'



"World Meteorological Organization reveals extent of global warming's impacts last year, including epic Arctic melting, drought and extreme weather



"The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) released its annual State of Global Climate report on Tuesday, noting a year of broken records and extreme weather events -- climate change trends that are continuing into 2017.



"'This report confirms that the year 2016 was the warmest on record -- a remarkable 1.1 degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial period,' said WMO Secretary-General Petteri Taalas. That temperature rise marks a 0.06 degrees Celsius increase over the record set in 2015. The Paris climate agreement commits the world's nations to holding the atmospheric temperature increase to below 2 degrees Celsius, to try to stave off potentially catastrophic global warming.



"Average atmospheric carbon dioxide levels hit a record high, at 400 parts per million, and projections for 2017 are even higher. The U.K. Met office recently forecast that this year's monthly CO2 level at Mauna Loa could reach nearly 410 parts per million in May, and the 2017 average could be 2-3 parts per million higher than last year.



"'The influence of human activities on the climate system has become more and more evident,' wrote Taalas in the report's foreword. 'This influence is increasingly being demonstrated by attribution studies for some of the most critical weather and climate extremes, in particular extremes related to heat.'"

But the news is worse than they say. If you click through to the study itself (pdf here), look at Figure 1 (global temperature), and count from the early low (roughly the year 1860) to the present high, the difference is clearly more than 1.3 degreesC, or where Dr. Mann (and yours truly) place it. In other words, they have not adjusted their definition of "pre-Industrial" temperature. Making that adjustment, their measured data confirms our own.

As I said in the first piece I linked to above (here), "The Paris climate agreement had hoped to hold global warming to no more than +1.5 degreesC above the pre-Industrial temperature. This is not going to happen. We're almost at that point now, and we'll breach that goal in just a few years." Global warming of +1.5 degreesC is dead ahead.

Your next bottom line is my oft-repeated one -- it's going to take a revolution or a national panic to get us out of this mess. Or both. An odd set of things to hope for, but the alternative is very much worse.
On January 20, 2017, after losing the popular vote by nearly three million ballots, Donald Trump took office and instantly set records for having the lowest approval rating of any new President. There was no honeymoon; the man was instantly reviled by a majority of citizens and political commentators. Even Fox News, a news organization dedicated to the objectives of the Republican party, took issue with some of Trumps statements. In short, for months now, it has been incredibly easy to find critics of President Trump calling for his defeat.

Despite this diverse and plentiful enmity against our sitting Republican President, a curious trend has emerged among self-proclaimed liberal Democrats: they are championing the criticisms of Trumps conservative critics. All over social media, mainstream Democrats who had supported Hillary Clintons candidacy have been sharing anti-Trump pieces by conservatives and seemingly rallying behind any Trump critic despite that critics political history and agenda. And they should stop. This practice serves only to the legitimize the Right, helping them further peddle their influence in a post-Trump America.

To many, it seemed not to matter that Newsweeks Kurt Eichenwald was a supporter of both Ronald Reagan and George Bush, because he was the great Democratic hope running a string of anti-Trump articles. But despite Kurts truly impressive ability to be the only human on the planet who could make neo-conservative Tucker Carlson seem rational and even likeable in a debate, he is the least insane pick of the new Democratic heroes.

Millions of Democrats also seemed to forget Megyn Kelly spent years as the face of Fox News, selling Roger Ailes agenda to discredit the Democrats at every turn. Nor did it matter that in a moment of jaw-dropping racism and/or cultural insensitivity, she once needed to explain to black children everywhere that the fictional character of Santa Claus was white. When Kelly took issue with Donald Trumps overwhelming sexisman issue that directly affected her as opposed to, yknow, caring at all about people of colorshe received a stream of praise from liberals. How much praise? So much, that soon you will be able to tune in for her show on MSNBC. Just like that, Kelly went from attending Fox News barbecues with the likes of Bill OReilly and Neil Cavuto to sitting side by side with Rachel Maddow, and all she had to do was be disgusted by a man a majority of the country seems to find disgusting.

Without question, however, the most baffling candidate of newfound Democrat support is senior editor of The Atlantic, David Frum. Recently, my social media timelines have been besieged by Democratic friends sharing this lifelong neo-conservatives critiques of Donald Trump. Frum has voted for every Republican President who has ever run, supported the impeachment of Bill Clinton, and drafted George W. Bushs axis of evil speech that helped lead America into an immoral war in Iraq, causing the needless loss of thousands of lives. Yet none of that is relevant to those who keep sharing his articles and tweets because, apparently, Mr. Frum wants to warn us that Trump is on his way to creating an autocracy. Sure, you can get that opinion from the overwhelming majority of people in America, but for some reason Democrats want you to hear it from a speechwriter to a man they used to call the worst President in United States history.

Whats the problem with that? these Democrats say. I might not agree with him/her on everything, but a good point is a good point! The main problem is that what these people deem as a good point are those points with which they already agree. They assert it is fine to divorce a statement from the credibility or integrity of its speaker, essentially stating: I can tell a liar is telling the truth when I agree with something he or she says. Yet, these same people are incredulous that so many Trump voters did just that. Think of how many Trump supporters said, Well, I may not like everything about Trump, but hes right when he says our economys suffering, our foreign policy is flawed, or our healthcare system is failing. How can such liberals praising conservative rhetoric be annoyed at voters who disregarded the monster of a man that Trump clearly is just because he echoed those voters own beliefs?

But there is a far deeper problem than hypocrisy. With each retweet, each Facebook share, each Medium think piece praising the anti-Trump assertions of conservatives, the Right becomes increasingly legitimized. Once we hold up someone like David Frum as a man of good ideason topics we already have opinions onit becomes increasingly easy to accept his point of view on topics where our opinions are less-informed and more malleable.

With people like Frum given constant representation in our Democratic marketplace of ideas why would we be so quick to reject their opinions on more nuanced issues like fracking, regime change, or the virtues of a single payer health care system? Is it really so difficult to believe Democrats could be conditioned to accept those things they once found unacceptable? How many Democrats who were so rightfully angered by the due process abuses of Bushs PATRIOT Act were completely unaware of the more constitutionally egregious provisions of sections 1021 and 1022 of Obamas NDAA? How many people who insisted that Gitmo be closed seemed too willing to back-burner that issue during Obamas Presidency? How many outraged by Bushs foreign policy became resigned to the last eight years of constant war? For thirty years, mainstream Democrats have been ready to hold the center or step right. How else could there already be 7,000 garbage articles written about the glory of George W. Busha man who loved thwarting the Pro-Choice movement almost as much as he loved misleading a country into warjust because he can paint portraits worthy of a talented junior high school student?

In a world where basically five guys already own the whole of major news media, is the best path of Democratic resistance really finding conservatives to champion our fight against Trump? It sets such conservatives up as the reasonable alternative to our woefully inept President, which of course, is precisely why such commenters are peddling their influence in the first place. Not to join the growing resistance of the left, but to position their objectives and candidates as the worthy leaders of tomorrow.

Gladstone is the author of the Internet Apocalypse Trilogy of novels on Thomas Dunne Books. He has written for publications including Cracked, Slate, and Thrillist.
Mike Hall with his mother, Pat, at Greenwich Royal Observatory after winning the 2012 World Cycle Race. Lizzie Edmonds photo/Guardian

A post by thereported that one of the world's toughest and well loved ultra-endurance athletes died on the scene after being struck by a vehicle during the inaugural Indian Pacific Wheel Race, a self-supported, 3300-mile coast to coast endurance event. Hall, who was in second place at the time, had warned fellow competitors to be wary of high speed close encounters with motorists on the highway near Canberra where, ironically, the 35-year-old ultra-endurance legend lost his life.All parties involved are cooperating with authorities, and race organizers cancelled the event only hours before it was set to finish at the Opera House in Sydney. This coming Sunday, Sydney will host a tribute ride to Hall, who won the World Cycle Race in 2012. To say Hall was well loved by friends and competitors would be an understatement. Thereports:
Loic Bruni

Height  6'1" / 185cm

Weight  81kg / 176lbs

Riding Style (according to Miranda)  Dynamic on the bike









 Frame Size  Long

 Tire choice/size  Specialized Hillbilly 2.5 front and rear, uncut

 Tire pressures  Front 24psi / Rear 29psi



Suspension

 Travel  Front 200mm / Rear 200mm

 Pressures/Spring  Still working on it

 Damper settings  Still working on it

 Rear Link  More progressive option



Cockpit

 Bar height  5mm spacer under stem / 20mm rise bars

 Roll  Neutral

 Bar width  780mm

 Stem length  50mm



Finn Iles

Height  5'10" / 179cm

Weight  76kg / 165lbs

Riding Style (according to Miranda)  "Fast af". Weird head tilt in corners and pretty low stance on the bike. (Finn  Bobblehead, solid, stable upper body)





 Frame Size  Long

 Tire choice/size  Specialized Hillbilly 2.5 front and rear, uncut

 Tire pressures  Front 24psi / Rear 28psi



Suspension

 Travel  Front 200mm / Rear 200mm

 Pressures  Still working on it

 Damper settings  Still working on it

 Rear Link  More progressive version



Cockpit

 Bar height  6mm spacer beneath stem, 20mm rise bars

 Roll  Rolled a tiny bit back

 Bar width  780mm

 Stem length  45mm


PR-Inside.com: 2017-03-31 10:02:01

The consultancy was recognized as a Leading Offering for Early Adopters Pursuing Digital Transformation

BearingPoint named on the Constellation ShortListTM for Smart Services Digital Monetization Platforms by R Ray Wang

Constellation Research

Global Press Contacts:

Aubrey Coggins

Constellation Research

Email: Press@Constellationr.com

or

Courtney Sato

Constellation Research

Email: Press@ConstellationR.com

or

BearingPoint

Press contact

Alexander Bock

Manager Communications

Tel.: +49 89 540338029

Email: alexander.bock@bearingpoint.com

BearingPoint today announced it was named to the Constellation ShortList for Smart Services Digital Monetization Platforms. With 52 percent of the Fortune 500 turning over since 2000, success requires a rethink regarding the core mission and business model of an organization. The companies included on the Constellation ShortList provide the key functionality and requirements for early adopters pursuing digital transformation initiatives.

In the current environment, many enterprises struggle to grow. A select few, however, achieve extraordinary growth. They do this by leveraging a platform as the business model of choice for the digital economy, used by the worlds five most valued companies, 16 of the top 32 global brands and 75 percent of fast-growing Unicorns. BearingPoint calls this model Digital Ecosystem Management (DEM) and helps its clients adopt and adapt DEM strategies and technologies to their business to create a new way to grow.

BearingPoint combines consulting with its portfolio of award winning Infonova software. Infonova uniquely provides a platform overlay to abstract clients legacy IT landscape and to allow a fully automated, self-serve, and frictionless operating model to secure ultra-low transaction costs. Infonova delivers end-to-end digital sales, fulfilment, and monetization. With its multi-tenancy, white labelling, partnering and orchestration as a platform it can be opened-up to a vibrant partner ecosystem to create a market place for co-innovation in new Smart Services and to generate network effect. Finally, Infonova facilitates a more agile digital execution model using lean start-up principles.

We are delighted to be on the Constellation ShortList. Our clients experience significant growth as a result of BearingPoints DEM solutions, powered by Infonova. DEM is a unique offering for the digital economy helping companies grow revenue whilst unlocking tremendous efficiency to increase profits as well, comments Angus Ward, Partner at BearingPoint.

Form must follow function in digital transformation. Once you craft the right digital business models, youll need the right digital technologies for success, said R Ray Wang, chairman and founder at Constellation Research. As organizations implement digital programs to disrupt an industry, employment of the right tools will determine whether or not the program is successful; each Constellation ShortList guides companies to the right technologies for their transformation initiatives.

Constellation advises early adopters using disruptive technologies to achieve business model transformation. Products and services named to the Constellation ShortList meet the threshold criteria for this category as determined by Constellation Research through client inquiries, partner conversations, customer references, vendor selection projects, market share, and internal research.

For more information, please visit https://www.bearingpoint.com/en/our-expertise/inno

Disclaimer

Constellation Research does not endorse any solution or service named in its research.

About Constellation Research

Constellation Research is an award-winning, Silicon Valley-based strategic advisory and futurist research firm. Constellations analysts serve as innovation advisors for leaders and Global 2000 organizations navigating the challenges of business-model disruption and transformation. Unlike legacy analyst firms, Constellation works closely with solution providers, partners, and its Constellation Executive Network of innovative buy-side leaders, C-suite executives and board of directors to lead the way in disrupting technology and research coverage areas. The goal  deliver to clients what they need to achieve valuable business results.

For more information about Constellation Research, visit www.ConstellationR.com

About BearingPoint

BearingPoint is an independent management and technology consultancy with European roots and a global reach. The company operates in three units: Consulting, Solutions and Ventures. Consulting covers the advisory business; Solutions provides the tools for successful digital transformation, regulatory technology and advanced analytics; Ventures drives the financing and development of start-ups. BearingPoints clients include many of the worlds leading companies and organizations. The firm has a global consulting network with more than 10,000 people and supports clients in over 75 countries, engaging with them to achieve measurable and sustainable success.

For more information, please visit:

Homepage: www.bearingpoint.com

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View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/201703310050

@BearingPoint named on the @constellationr ShortListTM for Smart Services Digital Monetization Platforms
PR-Inside.com: 2017-03-31 09:20:06

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The mining industry is expected to witness growth with a single digit CAGR over the next six years on account of the further expanding demand for metal and mineral commodities. Latin America accounted for about 8% of the global mining equipment demand in 2013 and its contribution towards global mining equipment sales was registered at 15% for the same year. The region serves as the prime destination for mining exploration and investment at a global level.The key reason which has accelerated the growth of the Latin American mining equipment market is the enhanced demand for the consumption of natural resources. Presently, the region produces about 45% of the global copper, 21% of the global zinc, 50% of the global silver and 26% of the global molybdenumproduction. In addition, foreign investment, especially from China, US, Canada and Australia, plays a significant role in the growth of the Latin American mining equipment market. Further, other operations such as the Panama Stock Operation (PSO), CSR activities, and introduction of next generation mining equipment such as Autonomous Haulage System (AHS) also serve as driving factors for the growth of the mining equipment market in Latin America. Among these, CSR activities primarily focus on rehabilitation and support programmes, promotion of healthy lifestyle and awareness programmes for the adoption of green technology. However, in the past few years, the mining industry and hence the mining equipment industry has been facing an economic crisis on account of the requirement for budget allocation in the maintenance of the mining industry and equipment, etc. Illegal mining operations at some locations and the risk associated with the mining industry serve as further constraints for the Latin American mining equipment industry.Surging demand and abundant availability of natural resources(including the worlds top three metal and mineral reserves of copper, zinc and silver rapid technological advancement, modernization of mining plants, stable legislations with a motivating legal environment, and the efficient budget allocation with aftermarket revenue generation will serve as opportunities for the development of the Latin America mining equipment market.Request Report Sample@ http://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/sample/rep-la-68 Market segmentation of Latin American mining equipment can be done on the basis of equipment, application and countries. On the basis of equipment, the Latin American mining equipment market includes mineral processing equipment, surface mining equipment, underground mining equipment, mining drills and breakers, crushing and screening equipment, etc. On the basis of applications, the Latin American mining equipment market segmentation includes metal ore mining, coal mining and mineral mining. Chile, being the largest producer of copper, serves as a lucrative market for copper-based mining equipment. Colombia is an active exporter,and is the first Latin American coal-producing country alongwith the production of metals such as gold, silver and platinum and hence is the opportunistic market for the associated mining equipment market. On the basis of countries, the Latin American mining equipment market includes Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, Chile, Panama, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Paraguay, Uruguay, Bolivia and Venezuela. Chile is known for the adoption and introduction of advanced technologies such as autonomous haulage system. Peru is the reserve of key minerals and has been witnessing a surging demand for copper and hence the expansion of the associated mining equipment market. Brazil has an integrated approach for the production and sale of mining equipment. Panama has an active stock operation (PSO) for the support of the mining industry. In line with the positive future of the Latin American mining equipment industry, Peru and Chile are expected to receive double digit foreign investment in $ Bn in the next six years.Request For TOC@ http://www.futuremarketinsights.com/toc/rep-la-68 Some of the prominent players of the global mining equipment market include Sandvik AB, Hitachi Construction Machinery, Komatsu Limited, Atlas Copco Ab Joy Global Inc. Breaker Technology, Astec Industries, Bucyrus International, Caterpillar Incorporated, China Coal Energy Company Limited, Tecpalsa, Tecmap, Tiesa and Igaretta. Among these, Komatsu Limited in the whole of Latin America, Tecpalsa in Colombia, Tecmap and Tiesa in Panama and Igaretta in Argentina are active players in the Latin American mining equipment market.
PR-Inside.com: 2017-03-31 11:11:01

Repsol Farms in to Energeans Ioannina and Aitoloakarnania Blocks, Western Greece

Energean Oil & Gas

Sotiris Chiotakis

schiotakis@energean.com

+30 69 3266 3877

or

Instinctif Partners

David Simonson / George Yeomans

+44 (0)20 7457 2020

Energean Oil & Gas (Energean or the Company) is pleased to announce that it has agreed to farm out a 60% interest in its Ioannina and Aitoloakarnania blocks, onshore Western Greece, to Repsol. Repsol will also become the Operator for both blocks.

The agreement is subject to the approval of the Greek Government and the signing of the Aitoloakarnania License Agreement between Energean and the Greek Government.

Repsol plans to acquire a 2D seismic survey over the Ioannina block in 2017/2018, and to conduct an FTG and a 2D seismic survey over the Aitoloakarnania block in 2018/2019.

The Ioannina and Aitoloakarnania blocks, covering a total of 8,547 km2, are priority exploration targets for Energean and strategically important for the Greek oil & gas sector. The blocks are located onshore Western Greece and are part of the Hellinide fold belt, which hosts the prolific Ionian Basin and Apulian platform and are on trend with recent large discoveries made in Albania. In total over 10 billion barrels of oil and 30 TCF of gas have been discovered throughout this region primarily in Albania, Italy and Croatia.

Mathios Rigas, Chairman and CEO of Energean Group, commented: We are delighted that Repsol has agreed to farm into Energeans Ioannina and Aitoloakarnania blocks, which represents a significant step forward for the development of the Greek oil and gas sector. Repsols expertise and Energeans knowledge of the areas geology will undoubtedly drive forward the possibility of making new discoveries in Western Greece, and developing this region as a significant new oil and gas province.

Energean has championed and developed Greece's oil and gas sector by producing from the Prinos oil field, through the implementation of low cost investment programmes and using its own infrastructure. The Company has a track record of achieving value accretive deals and teaming up with high quality international partners that operate in the sector. Through the development of the recently acquired Karish and Tanin natural gas fields, offshore Israel, together with highly prospective exploration projects in Western Greece and Montenegro, Energean is moving towards the fulfilment of its vision to become a leading independent E&P company in the Eastern Mediterranean.

ENDS

Notes to Editors

About Energean Oil & Gas

Energean is a leading independent E&P company focused on the Eastern Mediterranean region where it holds eight E&P licenses, encompassing Greece, the Adriatic, offshore Israel and onshore North Africa.

It is the only oil and gas producer in Greece with a 35-year track record of operating offshore and onshore assets in environmentally sensitive areas and employs more than 480 oil and gas professionals.

Energean has reserves of 40 million barrels (2P) in the Prinos Licence, offshore North Eastern Greece, as well as 2.4 Tcf of natural gas (2C) at the Karish and Tanin fields, offshore Israel.

The Company has planned to submit to the Israeli Government an FDP for the Karish and Tanin fields by mid-2017, aiming to use an FPSO and produce gas in 2020.

The Company is pursuing an ongoing investment and development programme to increase production from the Prinos and North Prinos Oil Fields and develop the Epsilon Oil Field. The Company has secured a 25-year exploitation license for the West Katakolo offshore block in Western Greece with first oil expected in 2019/20, which will represent the first production of oil or gas in the west of country.

The Company also has significant exploration potential in the licenses held in Western Greece, Montenegro and Egypt, which provide the basis for future organic growth.

www.energean.com

About Repsol

Repsol is one of the worlds leading publicly traded oil and gas companies. The Company operates in the areas with the most energy potential around the world, and has one of the most efficient refining systems in Europe.

Repsol is present in over 40 countries employing over 24,000 people. The Company has business activity across the entire value chain, including hydrocarbon exploration and production, refining, transport, chemicals, service stations and the development of new energy solutions.

The Company produces approximately 700,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day and its excellent refining assets can process 998,000 barrels of crude oil per day. Repsol also distributes and sells fuels and lubricants through its more than 4,700 service stations. The majority are in Spain, where the company is a market leader.

One of the key focus areas for the Company is technological development, where Repsol has several cutting-edge projects that have made it a leader in energy innovation.

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/201703310052
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FSCwire / Press ReleaseThe following press release was disseminated by FSCwire for Zimtu Capital Corp.--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---Vancouver, British Columbia (FSCWire) - Zimtu Capital Corp. (TSX Venture:ZC). has issued a press release with the following headline:Zimtu Capital Corp. Announces Transaction with Castle Silver Resources Inc.To view this press release on the FSCwire website, please either click on the link below, or copy and paste the link into your browser:If you would prefer, you can also view this press release as a PDF file, please either click on the link below, or copy and paste the link into your browser:For more information on Zimtu Capital Corp., or to see additional press releases issued by this company, please either click on the link below, or copy and paste the link into your browser: http://www.fscwire.com/public-company/Zimtu Capital Corp.Source: Zimtu Capital Corp. (TSX Venture: ZC, FWB: ZCT1, WKN: A0RDR9, ISIN: CA9895892052)Date: March 31, 2017Time: 3:05 AM EDT--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---The story mentioned above was issued on behalf of Zimtu Capital Corp. and disseminated through FSCwire.About FSCwireFSCwire (a division of Filing Services Canada Inc.), is a global newswire dissemination, SEDAR, SEDI, and EDGAR / XBRL service provider.FSCwire is a full service global newswire dissemination company and is fully approved by all exchanges in Canada and the U.S. Press releases can be distributed for all sizes of public, private or not for profit companies and any other organization requiring news distribution. In addition to individual companies; public relations, communications and investor relations firms trust FSCwire to distribute press releases for their respective clients.In addition to newswire dissemination FSCwire also offers EDGAR, XBRL, SEDAR, SEDI, and additional services for publicly traded companies. For more information, please go to our website: http://www.fscwire.com Maximum News Dissemination by FSCwire. http://www.fscwire.com Copyright 2017 - FSCwire (a division of Filing Services Canada Inc.)
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.




Local Daughters of the American Revolution chapters host special event to honor veterans

By: Estero Island Chapter, NSDAR

Vietnam Veteran Ron Price and DAR members

Contact

Christina Prendiville

***@mehtacommunications.com Christina Prendiville

End

-- Estero Island Chapter, National Society Daughters of the American Revolution (NSDAR), honored more than 75 local Vietnam Veterans at a Vietnam Veterans Day ceremony at the Fort Myers Regional Library in recognition of the nation's 50Vietnam War Commemoration program on March 29. Lawrence Kearny Chapter, NSDAR, and Caloosahatchee Chapter, NSDAR, co-hosted the event.Veterans attended along with their friends and families as they were recognized one by one with a presentation of certificates of appreciation and 50Vietnam War Commemoration lapel pins. The Vietnam Veterans of America Firebase #594 presented the colors and a POW/MIA Missing Man Ceremony was held.Veterans and active duty from all wars were recognized. Four women Vietnam veterans participated in the event.Commissioner Frank Mann read a proclamation on behalf of the Lee County Board of Commissioners and Alexis Mansolo read remarks on behalf of Sen. Lizbeth Benaquisto. Other local dignitaries in attendance were Fort Myers Mayor Randall Henderson; Commissioner Cecil Pendergrass;Commissioner Brian Hamman; Lt. Angelo Vaughn, Lee County Sheriff's Office; Tami Holliday, representing U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson; and Leilani Gonzalez, representing Rep. Ray Rodrigues. Other guests at the ceremony were Tom Doerr, News Director for WINK-TV, and Kim Gaide, BSM, Military Support Coordinator of Lee Health.Connie Lizak, newly elected NSDAR State Registrar and Estero Island Chapter Honorary Regent, offered this to the veterans, "This may be 50 years overdue for some of you, but we say 'thank you' to you and your families for your service."Mission BBQ, which generously supports veterans and military, provided food for the ceremony, as did Annie's Restaurant of Cape Coral and members of the Lawrence Kearny and Caloosahatchee NSDAR chapters.Throughout the month, Estero Island Chapter, Caloosahatchee, and Lawrence Kearney chapters of NSDAR co-hosted a 50Vietnam War Commemoration Display at the library.The 50Vietnam War Commemoration activities are being held in tandem with the national organization based in Washington, DC, and DAR chapters across the country to recognize the sacrifices of Vietnam War veterans and their families. This is part of a national effort to recognize the men and women who returned home after the war 50 years ago and are now being honored for their contribution to our nation's history.For more information contact Carolee Dunivan at (708) 890-7280 or visit http://www.eidar.org/ Estero Island Chapter, National Society Daughters of the American Revolution (NSDAR), is a local chapter of the national organization. The growing membership is involved in many projects, including an ongoing literacy project, support for active duty troops, a veterans recognition program, high school JROTC awards, academic scholarships, support of two DAR schools for girls, knit caps for hospitalized infants and lap blankets for wheelchair bound veterans, donations to county library of genealogy resources, and placement of wreaths/flags on veterans graves. Founded over 125 years ago, National Society Daughters of the American Revolution is a non-profit, non-political women's service organization with over 175,000 members worldwide with a proven descent from a man or woman who aided the cause of liberty for what would become the United States of America. NSDAR's mission is historic preservation, education, patriotism, and honoring our service men and women. The organization's motto is: God, home, and country.
Christopher McGarey, CCIM, CPM and team recognized as top team in country for fourth consecutive year.

By: Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Nevada Properties

Chris McGarey of BHHS Nevada Properties

Media Contact

Sarah Thornton Public Relations

Sarah Thornton

sarah@sarahthorntonpr.com

702-239-0785 Sarah Thornton Public RelationsSarah Thornton702-239-0785

End

-- The McGarey Group, a commercial real estate division of Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Nevada Properties, was recognized as the top-producing team throughout Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices for 2016. This is the fourth consecutive year the team has ranked #1 in the nation and the eighth year in a row that it has been one of top five ranked commercial teams in the country.Led by Christopher McGarey, CCIM, CPM, The McGarey Group manages more than 500 single family homes, townhouses and high-rise investment properties. In addition, they manage and lease over 2.1 million square feet of commercial real estate space comprised of 42 separate projects."This team did more business in Southern Nevada than larger teams in both New York and Florida," said Mark Stark, CEO of Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Nevada Properties. "Chris has been developing his stellar reputation in commercial real estate for more than 20 years and his volume of clients says quite a bit about his management capabilities."McGarey first joined Stark's company in 1994 to start a new property management division. He managed the division until 2003, when he started his own independent firm. McGarey rejoined the company in 2009 and has been its top-ranked commercial real estate team every year since then."We manage properties from the investor's point of view," said McGarey. "Our number one goal is to preserve and enhance the value of our clients' real estate holdings. Paying attention to the details is critical for success in property management, and is an area in which we excel. We are proud to have the distinction as the top commercial real estate team throughout Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices' global organization."For more information on The McGarey Group/Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Nevada Properties, visit www.mcgareypartners.com or call Chris directly at 702-267-6991 ( tel:(702)%20267- 6991 ).Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Nevada Properties is a part of Americana Holdings, which also includes Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Arizona Properties and Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices California Properties. The firms are leaders in their respective markets with 25 offices and 2,200 agents, comprising the largest independently owned Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices franchise in the world. Combined, the companies sold $3.7 billion in real estate in 2016.In 2016, Fortune named Berkshire Hathaway the fourth most admired brand in the world. In 2014, Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices was named "Real Estate Agency Brand of the Year" by consumers in the 26th annual Harris Poll EquiTrend study of the largest real estate networks. Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices has 54,000 agents in 1,600 offices around the world. For more information, visit www.bhhsnv.com or call 702-796-7777 (tel:(702)%20796-7777).
Contact

Indian Institute of Finance

***@iif.edu Indian Institute of Finance

End

--addressing a seminar on "Socio-Economic Development in Finland post EU and the Euro" at Indian Institute of Finance, Delhi NCR todayHe also highlighted the major indicators of the world economy and economic status of Eurozone, India, China, Russia and USA. The seminar was chaired by Professor (Dr.) Manju Agarwal, Professor of Economics at IIF. Dr. Suderlund has held various senior level positions in Government of Finland including Senior Adivisor to Prime Minister of Finland & Finnish NCM Precidency and Deputy Chief of Mission-Minister Counselor, Embassy of Finland in India, INDIA (2001-04) and various other countries.According to Dr. Soderlund the socio-cultural environment of Finland is quite high, income inequality is low, and the economy of the country is weak in terms of GDP and unemployment, export performance has fallen due to neighbor Russia. He is of the opinion, that boosting employment is essential, manufacturing needs to be revived and competitiveness should be restored in Finland.Speaking on European Union, Dr. Soderlund highlighted the importance of Euro Zone for supply of funds around the world. The contribution of Euro Zone in global GNP is 17%. He also stressed the Brexit and Euro countries. However, he is of the opinion that there is a need to minimize existing wide differences due to globalization, individual economies and moral value.Dr. Caj L. Soderlund has been Senior Advisor (Retd), Minister of Nordic Affairs, Helsinki, FINLAND (2004 - 2009); Senior Advisor, Finnish NCM Precidency, Helsinki, FINLAND (2007); Deputy Chief of Mission-Minister Counselor, Embassy of Finland in India, INDIA (2001-04); Senior Advisor, Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA), Helsinki, FINLAND (1997-2001); Deputy Chief of Mission, Secretariat for Nordic Cooperation, MFA, FINLAND (1995-99); Chief of Diplomatic Mission, Embassy of Finland in UAE, Abu Dhabi, UAE (19993-95) ; (Covering also Kuwait, Bahrain and Qatar); Deputy Chief of Mission (DCM), Embassy of Finland in Spain, Madrid, INDIA (1990-93); National Chairman, EFTA & EEA-WG, Helsinki/Brussels (1999-2001) ; MFA Posting in Lima, Peru (covering the whole Andean Group of Countries); Italy (Rome), Caracas (covering Costa Rica, Nicaragua and Panama), Israel (Tel Aviv + SU/RUS-affairs);Dr. Soderlund in an interview to IIF News and Broadcasting at https://youtu.be/ g_lJus6oWBE after his Eminent Lecture Series Seminar at IIF Greater Noida on "Socio-Economic Development in Finland post EU and the EURO" on March 27th, 2017 from 2-4 pm.
For years Leillah Sekalala struggled to find a consistently good salon for her Afro hair and would often find that her social circle had the same problem.

End

-- In 2012, in a bid to solve this problem, Leillah launched the NoScrunchie website to give black and mixed raced women access to good quality salon information across London, The UK and internationally. No woman should come out of an Afro Hair Salon with a scrunchie in their hair or anything to hide the style. What women really want is to go to a salon and have a great experience without having to hide their style with a scrunchie. The site features salons who cater for all types of afro hair: relaxed, natural, weaves and wigs.Born in Uganda, Leillah moved to the UK in 2014 and is a fully qualified accountant working with SMEs in London and has a passion for seeing business grow, particularly in the African Caribbean Community. "My motivation is to provide credibility to the afro hair businesses, both salons and hair extensions retailers. Credibility will lead to more clients, and that will mean that our small businesses will thrive and potentially become SMEs" Leillah Sekalala.Leillah created NoScunchie to distrupt the digital space, giving African Caribbean hair salons a platform to not only list their services but to receive honest, unbiased reviews of real client experiences. This gives the salon the opportunity to improve their service and it enhances their credibility as trustworthy brands. Customers are given a chance to find out about local salons from the comfort of their homes so that they know what to expect from the service and the hairstyle when they visit list the salon.NoScrunchie has also launched a Hair Extensions review section on the site which is the first of its kind in the UK and possibly the world. With so many entrepreneurs launching hair extension brands it can be difficult for consumers to know who to trust. With the No Scrunchie Hair Extension review portal consumers can compare and contrast before investing in hair extensions and have access to brands from across the world.NoScrunchie is available everywhere and anywhere, and is set to become the "TripAdvisor"of Afro Hair! Customers can use the site to review a salon or hair extensions retailer in any part of the world.
By: USOH

End

-- Embassy of India is launching eight-week long yoga courses for beginners and intermediate learners in Cairo from April two.To be conducted at Maulana Azad Centre for Indian Culture (MACIC) of the Cultural Wing of the Embassy of India-Cairo in Zamalek area of Cairo, these classes will not convene on Indian holidays. Opened in 1992, MACIC popularizes Indian culture. Its past events included Kathakali dances in last August.Yoga is reportedly becoming popular in Egypt and reports suggest that there are about 40 yoga studios/schools/facilities in Cairo area; with names like Shanti Yoga, Mudra Yoga, Ashtanga Yoga, YogaKhana, etc.; and Yoga Vidya in Giza area.Welcoming the reported interest in yoga in Egypt, Hindu statesman Rajan Zed, in a statement in Nevada today, urged other neighboring countries also to explore the multi-beneficial yoga.Yoga, referred as "a living fossil", was a mental and physical discipline, for everybody to share and benefit from, whose traces went back to around 2,000 BCE to Indus Valley civilization, Zed, who is President of Universal Society of Hinduism, noted.Rajan Zed further said that yoga, although introduced and nourished by Hinduism, was a world heritage and liberation powerhouse to be utilized by all. According to Patanjali who codified it in, yoga was a methodical effort to attain perfection, through the control of the different elements of human nature, physical and psychical.According to US National Institutes of Health, yoga may help one to feel more relaxed, be more flexible, improve posture, breathe deeply, and get rid of stress. According to "2016 Yoga in America Study", about 37 million Americans (which included many celebrities)now practice yoga; and yoga is strongly correlated with having a positive self image. Yoga was the repository of something basic in the human soul and psyche, Zed added.Currently Embassy of India is presenting till April 27 a "Festival of India in Egypt" with the title "India by the Nile 2017" in Cairo, Giza, Alexandria, Port Said and Ismailia; which includes tales of Hindu gods-goddesses-demons through dance, a session including "spiritual discipline of Yoga", Sufi music, Bollywood Dance Workshop, Kuchipudi and Kathak dances, etc. "The programme is rich and eclectic with a wide canvas spanningempowerment of women", an announcement says. Sanjay Bhattacharyya is Ambassador of India to Egypt.
Contact

America Green Solar

***@americagreensolar.com America Green Solar

End

-- America Green Solar, the fastest growing solar company in the nation, will be opening up a new market in Arizona, providing the residents of Arizona, as well as Missouri and Washington with solar energy. With advanced technology and leading resources, America Green Solar serves as an innovative company in helping Americans go green and save green.Next Friday, April 7th America Green Solar will be launching with an established direct sales company in Phoenix, AZ, to further its mission in painting America green. AGS' new partnership currently specializes in handling the direct sales and marketing for Fortune 500 companies, and is excited to contribute to America Green's clean energy movement.Moreover, this partnership will create more jobs within the solar industry. As solar-related jobs increased by 25% in 2016, America Green will continue to provide jobs across the United States.As an effort to operate in all 50 states, America Green Solar is always searching to connect with partners that share the same enthusiasm for solar and have a similar passion for our Planet.Join AGS in making America green again.
Savills has appointed Pablo Merino as director of its capital markets team in Barcelona. He has more than 16 years of experience in the real estate sector, having formerly worked as country head for Silverton in Spain, and prior to this he was a director of asset management at Banco

[]
According to Savills, the booming tech sector in Paris is fuelling demand for office space, notably in the ninth arrondissement, where it accounted for 21% of the total take-up last year. The real estate advisor has reported that workspace take-up by the tech sector in Paris and the Western Crescent last

[]
YIT has sold a housing project in Bratislava to YCE Housing I fund. The project is the second phase of YITs biggest area project in Bratislava called Nuppu and it is located in Ruzinov district within walking distance from the citys business district and just 10 minutes from the city

[]
Since the Brexit vote last June Gibraltar has performed remarkably well given the uncertainty. Indeed it looks as though some people now see Gibraltar as something of a safe haven with investors, executives and high net worth individuals apparently relocating to the country. Many believe that this trend is gaining traction because of the relatively small size of the country and its ability to move fairly quickly and adapt to challenging situations.

However, while Gibraltar property prices have surprised many in the way they have performed since last June there may well be trouble ahead.

Spain blackmails UK over Gibraltar

The UK government did not see this one coming! Spain has been backed by the European Union suggesting that a Brexit deal could not be forced upon Gibraltar without the agreement of Spain. In effect Spain is trying to place the sovereignty of Gibraltar on the dealing table as the UK looks at a single market trade agreement with the European Union. This is an issue which has been ongoing for many years now with Gibraltar experiencing illegal border blockades by Spanish authorities  with the European Union often turning a blind eye.

The UK government has been extremely quick and direct with its response, the sovereignty of Gibraltar is not up for discussion and will not be a part of Brexit negotiations. Gibraltar will, like the rest of the UK, exit the European Union once a deal has been agreed.

Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland

There are similar problems emerging in Ireland with growing calls for the reunification of the country and a political situation which is, putting it politely, a mess. So far this has not really impacted Northern Ireland property prices but there is no doubt that the UK government is coming under intense pressure. There is talk of reverting back to home rule after the recent Irish elections where no party was able to gain a majority. This would be a last-ditch move by the UK government but one which is a real possibility.

Quite how this would impact Northern Ireland property prices in the short, medium and longer term remains to be seen but the UK government is coming under pressure from all angles.

Is this the end of the Union?

The UK property market has performed admirably for many years now with London seen as one of the prime property markets around the world. There is pressure from the SNP for an independent Scotland, Spain wants to use Gibraltar as a bargaining chip in Brexit talks and the Republic of Ireland is pushing strongly for reunification. The UK government will be stretched to the limit over the next two years as Brexit talks continue but so far no ground has been given. Indeed Theresa May has already said that a bad trade deal for the UK would be worse than no deal and she would rather walk away and revert back to WTO terms.

It would be wrong to suggest this is the end of the UK Union but it would also be wrong to suggest it is not coming under pressure from all sides. The UK government will need to be incredibly nimble to avoid a potential breakup of the Union and the impact this would have on UK property markets.

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An initiative launched in the Bosnian capital on March 30 by hundreds of notables and NGOs marks a major effort to bolster the consensus that Croats, Serbs, Bosniaks, and Montenegrins all speak the same language.

It might seem uncontroversial to assert that these neighboring peoples, who until just decades ago shared a country, speak their own standard versions of the same polycentric language.

But word of the so-called Declaration on Common Language -- dubbed by some the Sarajevo Declaration and allying hundreds of personalities and experts from across the Balkans -- has been met with howls of official outrage across the region. Opponents see the initiative as reviving the ghost of the former Yugoslavia -- one of whose official languages was Serbo-Croatian, which is now variously designated as Bosnian, Croatian, Montenegrin, or Serbian. The declaration is therefore regarded by nationalist elites in Croatia, Serbia, Bosnia, and Montenegro as a threat.

Since the dismantling of Yugoslavia through proclamations of independence and successive wars between 1991 and 1999, the politics of identity has taken center stage in each of these countries. Contrasts are emphasized as symbols of statehood -- and language, above all, is put forward as evidence of distinction.

Croatian 'Newspeak'

Croatia led the way in the early 1990s with the creation of "newspeak" in the best Orwellian tradition, eliminating words that were seen as being of Serbian, or generally foreign, origin and inventing new, irreproachably Croatian ones. Bosnia-Herzegovina increased the number of Turkish words in its vocabulary, while Montenegro even introduced a new letter of the alphabet.

Years of political pressure over the "purity" of language in all these countries provoked a reaction in the form of meetings that led to the Sarajevo Declaration. Those gatherings brought together writers, linguists, actors, directors, and artists from the region together to discuss the relationships between nationalism and language.

The result is the Sarajevo Declaration, which arguably just states the obvious -- that the people in these four countries (Bosnia, Croatia, Serbia, and Montenegro) understand each other; that they can communicate without interpreters. The signatories did not promote a "Serbo-Croatian" language, which is generally associated with the former Yugoslavia, as they are comfortable with different versions of the same language having different names: Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian, Montenegrin. But that simple statement about a shared language is seen by others as a form of heresy -- or treason.

'Producing Future Enemies'

One of the authors of the Sarajevo Declaration, Serbian writer Vladimir Arsenijevic, says the goal of the initiative is to neutralize the damage done by nationalist identity politics in the region.

"It is most visible within the Bosnian education system, where we have two schools under one roof [children of different ethnic groups learning 'different' languages, and a different version of history]. The two-school system is a project designed to produce future enemies," Arsenijevic says.

Miro Lompar, professor of Serb literature at the University of Belgrade, is among the opponents of the initiative. He has expressed concern that the declaration's real goal is to make Serbs in Bosnia and Montenegro less aware of belonging to a Serb nation. Lompar told the Russian state news agency Sputnik in Belgrade ahead of the text's publication:

They would like to insist on a common language, but the motive is to distance ethnic Serbs living in Bosnia and Montenegro from the natural right to claim that they speak the Serbian language. In my opinion, this quasi-Yugoslav initiative is yet another attempt to de-nationalize Serbs in Bosnia and Montenegro, and at the same time to undermine the already incoherent and weak language policy being implemented by Serbia itself.

Sputnik's headline above the Lompar interview was even more dramatic, claiming: Balkan Esperanto [Is Set] To Extinguish The Serbian Language.

A 'Wolf Howl' Of Nationalists

Asked about the declaration a day before it was made public, Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic responded with questions about the need for such an initiative: "How could I support that [declaration]? Who in Croatia can support it?"

Plenkovic added: "The Croatian language is defined in our constitution. Croatian is one of the official languages of the EU. That's the only thing that matters to me. There is no need to waste words on sundry informal initiatives."

A former Croatian culture minister and an informal leader of that country's far-right, Zlatko Hasanbegovic, used stronger language to denounce the Sarajevo Declaration as "a wolf howl of Yugoslav nationalists for their lost country."

But a supporter of the initiative, Croatian journalist Ante Tomic, asked rhetorically in his regular column in Jutarnji List whether "we are so stupid that we cannot memorize more than one word for a certain thing." Tomic added that through a language policy based on "pure Croatian," the state is not only controlling its subjects but also creating confusion and stoking animosity against ethnic Serbs.

"I signed [the Sarajevo Declaration] because it is a measure of reconciliation and it recognizes and includes everyone. It affirms differences, and allows for the fact that one thing can be called by many names, and that we all speak the same language, which is variously named Croatian, Serbian, Bosnian, or Montenegrin," Tomic said.

The Sarajevo Declaration claims to be nothing more than a strong statement against language being used in any project of segregation -- like that of Bosnian schools -- and against political manipulation based on the restricted use of language.

The Declaration on Common Language will officially go online on April 1, after which the organizers are encouraging supporters to add their signatures to the list.

The views expressed in this blog post do not necessarily reflect the views of RFE/RL.


NATO foreign ministers are meeting in Brussels on March 31 for talks expected to focus on defense spending and the fight against terrorism.

Speaking ahead of the meeting, Stoltenberg said the NATO ministers would discuss "fair burden sharing to keep the transatlantic bond strong" and "stepping up NATO efforts to project stability and fight terrorism."

Meeting with NATO foreign ministers for the first time, U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said NATO members must ensure that the alliance has "all of the resources, financial, and otherwise, that are necessary for NATO to fulfill its mission."

"We want to discuss how we can build on NATO's already important involvement in the fight to defeat [Islamic State] and other counterterrorism actions that NATO can provide," he also told reporters.

Tillerson initially planned to skip the NATO meeting, citing various commitments including a trip to Russia, forcing the allies to reschedule the event.

The gathering is preparation for a May 25 NATO summit, which President Donald Trump has said he will attend.

Since his election campaign, the U.S. president has pushed to the country's allies to increase their defense spending to help ease the burden on Washington.

Trump's criticism of NATO -- calling it "obsolete" at one point -- and his long-stated desires to have closer relations to Russia have concerned many NATO allies.

Stoltenberg dismissed concerns that Trump is not as committed as his predecessors to the Western military alliance and described ties between European members and the United States as "rock solid."

Ukraine Conflict

Some leaders are also concerned about Trump's commitment to end Russian interference in Ukraine.

Tillerson said he would raise the matter of "NATO's posture in Europe, most particularly in eastern Europe in response to Russia's aggression in Ukraine and elsewhere."

A senior State Department official said Tillerson would discuss ways of getting Russia to comply with the Minsk agreement, which set out steps to end the war between Kyiv and the separatists and restore Ukraine's control over its border with Russia.

Stoltenberg said the alliance has "a united position on Russia: strong defense and deterrence combined with dialogue."

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin is to join his NATO counterparts in the afternoon for a session of the Russia-NATO Council, which Stoltenberg described as "a strong sign of our continued commitment" to the country.

Western nations have imposed sanctions against Moscow for its illegal annexation of Ukraine's Crimea region and for Russia's support of separatist fighters in eastern Ukraine.

After a session of the Russia-NATO Council on March 30, Stoltenberg told journalists that the two sides "continue to have clear disagreement" on the crisis in Ukraine.

He said the alliance urged Moscow to use its influence with militants in eastern Ukraine to compel them to meet their obligations under the so-called Minsk process.

He added that NATO was firm in its support for Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity.

"The allies do not and will not recognize Russia's illegal annexation of [the Ukrainian region of] Crimea," Stoltenberg said.

Russia's ambassador to NATO, Aleksandr Grushko, in turn criticized NATO for "continuing to provide political and practical support to Kyiv," a policy that he said is "at odds with genuine interests of conflict settlement."

With reporting by AP, AFP and The Los Angeles Times
Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has ordered the military to implement a cease-fire and weapons pullback in the conflict region in eastern Ukraine beginning on April 1.

Poroshenko made the announcement on March 30 in Malta, where he was meeting with European Commission head Jean-Claude Juncker.

Poroshenko said that he is "not very optimistic" that the Russia-supported rebels controlling parts of two eastern Ukrainian regions will abide by the agreement, which was reached in Minsk on March 29.

According to the Russian state news agency TASS, a spokesman for the militants in Luhansk said on March 30 that his forces are "always ready to ensure the cease-fire."

During a meeting of the Russia-NATO Council in Brussels, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg pressed Russia to compel the militants to implement the cease-fire and withdraw their heavy weaponry.

He also asked Moscow to ensure that international observers from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe have complete access to the conflict area.

Based on reporting by dpa, Reuters, and TASS
Kosovar Prime Minister Albin Kurti says he is in constant contact with international security authorities to ensure stability in Kosovo as more ethnic Serb police officers in the north of country resigned.



Kurti said on November 6 after a rally by ethnic Serbs in the streets of North Mitrovica that the security situation in Kosovo was threatened by various criminalized individuals and groups, but said that during his time in office, we have made great progress in the fight against crime and corruption."



He added that the rule of law goes hand in hand with peace and security and cannot be threatened, adding that authorities do not distinguish criminals on the basis of ethnicity, but only on the basis of their criminal acts."



When asked about the decision on November 5 by the Serbian List party to leave Kosovo's institutions, Kurti repeated his call that Kosovo Serbs refrain from doing so.



"I once again I invite all Serb citizens of our country to not abandon institutions, not to resign, not to leave their jobs, because there would be less service for the people," he said.



Kurti has blamed Belgrade for seeking to destabilize Kosovo by supporting the ethnic Serbs in their boycott of state institutions.

EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said in a statement on November 5 that the withdrawal of Kosovo Serbs from the country's institutions "is not a solution to the current disputes" and it has the potential to further escalate tensions.



A statement from the U.S. Embassy in Kosovo released to RFE/RL's Balkan Service late on November 6 said the United States agreed with the European Union that the recent developments around relations between Kosovo and Serbia "are of great concern and put important progress achieved in the EU-facilitated Dialogue at risk."



"The Kosovan Serbs' withdrawal from Kosovan institutions is not a solution to the current disputes and has the potential to further escalate the tensions on the ground," the statement added. "All involved must take steps to reduce tensions and ensure peace and stability on the ground."



The Serb officers who resigned on November 6 submitted written resignations to the police station in North Mitrovica. One of the policemen told RFE/RL that the officers only submitted their resignations in writing but had not yet turned in their uniforms and weapons. However, he said this will follow in the coming days.



Numerous media outlets reported that the police officers took off their uniforms as part of the wider Serb movement to withdraw from institutions in Kosovo touched off by a move to implement a mandate on the conversion of vehicle license plates.



A statement from the Kosovar police force said it was aware that Serb police officers had abandoned their posts and that some have handed over police equipment.



The rally by ethnic Serbs in North Mitrovica on November 6 came a day after Serbs there said they would quit their posts in state institutions to protest against the use of license plates issued by Pristina.

Following a meeting of Serb political representatives in the north of Kosovo on November 5, the minister of communities and returns, Goran Rakic, said he was resigning from his post in the Pristina government.



He told reporters that fellow representatives of the Serb minority in the north had also quit their jobs in municipal administrations, the courts, police, and the parliament and government in Pristina.



Rakic said they would not consider returning unless Pristina abolishes the order for them to switch their old car license plates, which date to the 1990s when Kosovo was a part of Serbia, to Kosovo state plates.



Addressing the rally on November 6, Rakic accused Kosovo government authorities of not respecting international law and agreements negotiated in Brussels.



Rakic has called on the protesters "not to fall for provocations and to continue the fight with peaceful and democratic means."



The license-plate measure took effect on November 1, and Kosovo authorities said enforcement would be gradual.

The U.S. Embassy statement reiterated Washington's position that the Kosovar authorities should extend the process of converting vehicle license plates and suspend any punitive actions until the license plates issue can be resolved through dialogue.

Many ethnic Serbs in Kosovo refuse to recognize the countrys independence from Serbia, which it declared in 2008.



The European Union has told Kosovo and Serbia that they must normalize ties if they want to advance toward membership in the 27-nation bloc.

With reporting by dpa, AP, and AFP
DR Customs V15 Cafe Racer looks radically different from a stock Bajaj V15 commuter motorcycle

Bajaj Auto launched its V15 commuter motorcycle in India back in 2016 before giving it an update by 2018 end. Ex-showroom prices started at around Rs 67,000. However, owing to poor sales, it had to be temporarily discontinued later in 2019. Bajaj operates in multiple countries across the world including Peru, which got its first Bajaj dealership in November 2014.

It is a known fact that Bajaj products have got an overwhelming fan following in India. This seems to be true for foreign markets as well. To exemplify, here is a Bajaj V15 that has been modified into a cafe racer by Peru-based DR Custom. It comes with a long list of modifications and DR Custom has another example dubbed as N51 Bajaj V15 Cafe Racer. Either customisation is different from each other by a slight margin.

One must appreciate DR Customs expertise in creating a completely different product from an unassuming donor motorcycle. It follows a neo-retro design philosophy with backings of chrome, silver and gloss black. Except for its power plant, no other major component remains in stock format. Instead of V badges on either side, DR Custom opted for a VIKRANT lettering in a classy font.

DR Custom has employed stainless steel clubman handlebars (complete with bar-end mirrors), above which a twin-pod analogue instrument console rests. Braking and de-clutching duties are done by CNC 7/8 aluminium levers. A full-LED headlamp with integrated turn signals alongside, other minimal lighting systems, carries forward its neo-retro theme. Twin stainless-steel exhausts (with custom resonators) and other CNC aluminium components contribute a lot to overall aesthetics. To finish off, DR Custom has added a custom single-seat configuration, towards the end of which hangs a tail-tidy registration plate.

Interestingly, DR Custom has left its wheels untouched albeit shod with bigger tyres: 120/90 R18 (F) and 140/90 R16 (R). As mention before, there are no changes to its engine department. An output of 12.8bhp and 13Nm is generated from a 149.5cc air-cooled single-cylinder motor that is coupled to a 5-speed transmission. A lesser Bajaj V12 version was initially available in India and certain other markets. It had a 124cc air-cooled engine, good for 10.5bhp and 10.9Nm.

DR Custom had listed its cafe racer mod for sale a long time ago on Facebook. By now, it would have most likely reached a new owner. It was advertised for an asking price of 6,500 PEN (Peruvian Nuevo Sol) which roughly converts to Rs 1.41 lakh or the price of a new Bajaj NS200 (on-road).
Before we start, wed like to make one thing very clear. AHO has nothing to do with BS4.

Bharat Stage is an emission norm which is a regulation in India for automobile manufacturers. AHO is a passive safety norm which is not a regulation, but an implementation norm.

In other words, vehicles sold in India are required to be tuned or regulated within the limits prescribed in BS4, while AHO is a feature that is required to be implemented in the vehicles. Both of them were enforced last year (2016) for brand new models. From tomorrow (April 1, 2017) all existing models of vehicles must have satisfied both the norms. BS4 and AHO are simultaneous implementations, they are not codependent.

Let us elaborate on AHO first.

AHO, known as DRL, was introduced as a norm in Europe several years ago because many European countries have low visibility effected by the climate. The regions are cloudy most of the time, and rain and snow make things even worse for pedestrians and passersby. This caused numerous accidents on road.

As a solution, some automakers voluntarily wired the low beam of headlamp to the ignition, so that the low beam is ON whenever the engine is running. Then, the European Union mandated that DRL (Daytime Running Light) be installed on all vehicles, and set standards/regulations with regard to the intensity and spread of the light, for various types of automobiles.

The case was similar in the UK, Russia, Canada and the USA, but there were several disputes pertaining to the minimum and maximum light intensity of the DRLs, the added cost to the vehicle, and ironically, the potential safety hazards by the use of DRL. In Australia DRLs are allowed but not mandated.

All this started in the 1970s!

Close to 40 years later, DRLs were introduced in Indian vehicles as a fancy feature. After more than a decade then, the government decided to implement the AHO with some regulations.

AHO does not literally mean Always ON Headlamp. This is just an easy way out the local manufacturers are taking. DRLs can very well be AHO, provided they are tweaked to perform within the limits set for AHO.

Some of the new vehicles launched in 2016 have LED DRLs that are tuned to perform as AHO, instead of having the low beam ON all the time. But many new vehicles, and the ones that are to be introduced next month, have always ON low beam which is not a great news.

Advantages of Low-Beam AHO

Works out to be an inexpensive workaround for the manufacturers. The price of the vehicles remain almost the same.

Downsides of Low-Beam AHO:

1  Power consumption within the vehicle becomes higher. This gives a comparatively higher load to the magneto/alternator, which is transferred to the crankshaft. Consequentially there will be a drop in mileage in the vehicles with this type of AHO, by as much as 1 kmpl. This is in case of halogen bulb for low beam. After a year or two, when every vehicle (especially two-wheeler) on road has around 1 kmpl drop due to wear & tear, the collective consequence of burning more fuel could really high.

2  In India the duration of vehicle idling is significant due to excessive traffic. If the reflector dome within the headlamp is not redesigned, the prolonged high heat from the bulb will cause the reflector to fade and deteriorate much earlier, especially during vehicle idle condition. This consequence will be more negligible when LED DRL is tuned to be AHO.

3  AHO would be more useful on highways than in city. In cities with dense traffic, AHO seems less needed.

4  If the vehicle doesnt have the throw/angle of low-beam adjusted properly, it will cause irritation to the pedestrians and on-coming drivers. This has the potential to cause accidents. In case of an LED DRL, such an incident is less likely to happen.

5  There is another potential disaster that could be accelerated by AHO in India  Global Warming. After a year or two, when most of the vehicles in the city would have the halogen lamps always lit, think of the collective heat that will be emitted. At a traffic signal, where heat radiation is already felt high, those hundreds of vehicles would contribute to much higher heat because of always ON halogen lamp. This will accelerate the rise in temperature of the region.

6  In European countries, as said before, DRL was implemented as the weather is foggy most of the time. India is a very diverse country. Foggy roads are witnessed mostly in North India and rarely in South India. This is why Solar Farms are setup mostly in the central and southern part of the country, given the closer vicinity to the equator and brighter days. So, AHO will have good purpose in the North, but not at all in the South.

7  When the battery of the vehicle is down, or when the fuel is very low, the user may not be able to crank the vehicle as many times as he would be able to in a vehicle that doesnt have Always ON Headlamp with halogen bulb. For instance, if you could crank the engine 10 times before, with AHO, you would be able to crank the engine only 7-8 times now. This is just a vague example.

Dear readers, please let us know what you think about these points, in the comments section below. We are not debating the implementation of AHO, we are just suggesting that the LED DRLs be turned into AHO rather than having the low beam ON all the time. What do you think?
Unlike most animals, sea lampreys, an invasive, parasitic species of fish damaging the Great Lakes, could become male or female depending on how quickly they grow, according to a U.S. Geological Survey study.

Scientists with the USGS and Michigan State University, funded by the Great Lakes Fishery Commission, found that slower sea lamprey growth rates during the larval phase of development may increase the odds of sea lampreys becoming male. During the study, environments lacking plentiful food were male-skewed, with 78 percent of sea lampreys becoming male after three years, whereas environments more conducive to growth produced only 56 percent males.

This discovery could be a critical step in developing advanced technologies to control sea lamprey.

"Remarkably, we didn't set out to study sex determination in sea lampreys -- we were planning to study environmental effects on growth rates only," said Nick Johnson, a USGS scientist and the lead author of the study. "We were startled when we discovered that these data may also reveal how sex is determined because mechanisms of sex determination in lamprey are considered a holy grail for researchers."

Sea lampreys are imperiled in Europe and the Pacific Northwest, where they are native, but are invasive and destructive in the North American Great Lakes. With their blood-sucking capability and gaping round mouths, sea lampreys feed on the blood and fluids of native fish, causing population declines in commercially and recreationally important species that are essential to the Great Lakes' multi-billion dollar per year fishery.

Between 2005 and 2007, the scientists tagged and released sea lamprey larvae into unproductive lakes and productive streams. These environments included tributaries of Lakes Huron and Michigan and areas of those lakes near stream mouths. The researchers then recaptured the tagged fish as adults during their spawning migrations.

The sex ratios in productive and unproductive environments were initially similar but quickly diverged, with unproductive lakes becoming increasingly male-dominated. Once the larvae changed into their parasitic adult stage, their sex did not shift, and their survival rates generally did not differ between productive versus unproductive environments.

"The results of this study could be a critical step toward developing advanced technologies to control sea lampreys in the Great Lakes, which have caused unparalleled damage to fisheries," said David Ullrich, chair of the GLFC. "Although sea lamprey populations have been reduced by 90 percent, innovation will be key to maintaining strong control into the future. The results of this study could open paths forward to novel technologies that can disrupt or modify gender in sea lampreys, providing the commission with other means to control this noxious predator."

Some sea lamprey populations have skewed sex ratios, but the reasons why have remained a biological mystery for decades. The new study, with its unanticipated sex determination findings, begins to answer a scientific question that has previously eluded researchers.
Human beings are familiar with the idea of extreme events. Meteorologists keep us up to date on hurricanes, floods and high temperatures. Economists watch the stock market for signs of crashes or rallies. We spend a lot of time trying to better predict these events, yet are often surprised when they occur.

But, says a new study in the journal Limnology & Oceanography Letters, when it comes to biology's extremes, it's not enough to just expect the unexpected. We need to be ready for the unprecedented as well.

More than three decades of data on the physical, chemical and biological variables in 11 Midwestern lakes show that while lake temperatures and nutrient concentrations rise within relatively expected ranges, biological organisms achieve high population extremes. The findings challenge preconceptions about what a "normal" distribution of averages and extremes looks like.

"There hasn't been much attention given to extreme fluctuations in biological time series," says lead author of the paper, Ryan Batt, who conducted the study as a graduate student at the UW-Madison's Center for Limnology. "We tend to think of these things that cause a huge distress on human populations, like natural disasters or financial collapses. I wanted to know how biology stacked up, but I didn't expect it to be so extreme."

Batt, now a post-doctoral researcher at Rutgers University, took advantage of decades of data collected by the National Science Foundation's Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) site in Wisconsin. Since 1981, the North Temperate Lakes LTER project has routinely measured everything from water temperature to nutrient concentrations and fish populations in 11 Wisconsin lakes. That added up to data on 595 different variables over 30 years, Batt says.

The data shows that populations of the plants, fish and plankton living in the study lakes rise to such extremes that in other kinds of datasets, the numbers would seem like outliers. For instance, consider human height.

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"If you saw someone walking around that was 14 feet tall, that would be insane," says Batt. "Even a single foot in height makes a huge difference in terms of being an outlier for what we would consider 'normal.'"

However, in the dataset, such extremes were more frequent than researchers expected.

"My intuition was that biology would have fewer extremes," says Steve Carpenter, director of the UW-Madison Center for Limnology and a co-author of the study. "But there were new records being set all the time."

Anglers on Madison, Wisconsin's Lake Mendota, part of LTER, may have experienced these extremes first-hand. In the 30 years that researchers have recorded fish populations, an average catch rate for the popular and tasty panfish, bluegill, was about five fish per hour of fishing. But, in 1983 and again in 2004, that catch rate was over 30 per hour.

Nearby Lake Monona shows similar potential for extremes. From 1995 to the early 2000s, bluegill populations fluctuated between about 200,000 and 300,000 fish. Then, in 2002, that number spiked to a new extreme of 500,000, nearly doubling the previous high mark. Only three years after that, it topped out at about 800,000 fish.

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Batt chose to focus on "booms not busts" because it was more interesting and a bit counterintuitive. "We always look at biology as having to deal with extreme events in the environment, like there was a heat wave and a bunch of fish died or there was a cold snap and a bunch of fish died," he says. "We tend to always think of the environment as having extremes that are lethal. What I wanted to know is, what is possible beyond what I can imagine?"

To say the answer surprised the researchers may be putting it too mildly.

Seeing such extremes in the lakes' physical and chemical data requires waiting a long time and gathering volumes of data before new records are set, and those records weren't typically very shocking. With the biological data, Carpenter says researchers didn't have to wait very long, and what they did observe made them think: "'Wow, that's more yellow perch than we ever saw before.' By a lot," he adds.

In the report, the authors propose one mechanism that may be driving this phenomenon. Perhaps, they suggest, organisms are primed to take advantage of good conditions, amplifying things like optimal temperatures or an increase in available nutrients. Years with less extreme bumps in environmental conditions may correspond with unprecedented booms in fish or algae populations, though the researchers have yet to test this.

If so, says Carpenter, it suggests that ecologists should think more about the ecological causes of extremes while resource managers should "expect extremes in biology maybe more than our intuition would lead us to think."

In fact, as human activity impacts all sorts of environmental variables, from climate change, to habitat loss, to nutrient pollution, we should prepare for high variability in what those changes mean for the plants and animals that call those ecosystems home, the researchers say. However, with the kind of variability the study uncovered, Carpenter says, it gets difficult to decide what "normal" population levels and limits might be.

"We need to be prepared to see new records," says Carpenter.
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The UN peacekeeper force in Congo facing reductions because the United States is the largest single contributor to UN peacekeeping operations and is planning on cutting those contributions. Currently the Americans provide 28.57 percent of the UNs $7.87 billion peacekeeping budget. The UN fiscal year ends on June 30th so if the U.S. does cut contributions the peacekeeper commanders in Congo will have to take action by the end of the year. The U.S. also provides logistics and communications support, much of it by the U.S. military. China is the second biggest budget contributor, at 10.29% with Japan third at 9.68 percent. Neither of these two show any interest in making up for any American cuts. The UN peacekeeper effort costs about $1.3 billion a year and consists of 22,400 personnel (16,893 soldiers, 1,100 are police and the rest are civilians. The Congo peacekeepers are already short fifteen percent of the soldiers the UN authorized but a lot of that is because not enough nations are willing to provide peacekeepers. The U.S. wants a review of the entire UN peacekeeping budget, to include Congo. Meanwhile UN leaders have asked members to provide 320 additional police to to support presidential elections and efforts to hold an honest vote and prevent Congo from reverting to a dictatorship.. The U.S. wants the current Congo peacekeeper strength 11 percent although not the police strength. In mid-March France said it opposed cuts in peacekeeping troops, citing inability and elections later in the year. France, however, would accept a troop ceiling of 17,000 (which basically reflects current on the ground strength). France has asked the UN to do a study to determine the minimum number of peacekeepers Congo requires. The U.S. also wants to cap its peacekeeping contribution at 25 percent of the UN peacekeeping budget. That might be possible. The UN is winding down its peacekeeping missions in Haiti and the Ivory Coast. The operation is Liberia will also conclude. Negotiations between the U.S. and the UN over personnel authorizations and budgets are on-going. (Austin Bay)

March 27, 2017: Moise Katumbi, a member of the Congolese political opposition, is also a businessman and currently in exile because of government threats against him. He recently accused the government of inflating the additional costs of carrying out the presidential election. Katumbi thinks Congo will need an additional $800 million to conduct presidential elections in 2017, not the $1.8 billion the government claims is required. Katumbi fled the country in May 2016 after incumbent president Kabila accused him of hiring mercenaries. Katumbi was later sentenced to three years in prison (in absentia) on another charge. Katumbi said Kabilas $1.8 billion cost is definitely inflated and repeated accusations that Kabila is looting Congo. Katumbi intends to return to Congo despite the threat of imprisonment.

March 25, 2017: In the southwest (Kasai-Central province) it has been confirmed that during February a local Kamuina Nsapu tribal militia ambushed and beheaded 42 police officers outside the city of Kananga. Soldiers then engaged the Kamuina Nsapu militia in a series of firefights. The tribal violence down there is due to the national government trying to intervene in the decision about who would be the next chief of the Kamuina Nsapu. Since 2016 there have been several clashes between security forces and Kamuina Nsapu members. The worst incident was in August 2016 when troops the man the tribe wanted as the next chief but that the government considered as being too friendly with Congolese political opposition groups. Meanwhile, the government announced that it believes a missing UN investigation team (last seen in Kasai-Central on March 12) is still alive but being held by unidentified negative forces.

March 24, 2017: The U.S. military announced that it will soon end its operation to arrest the notorious Ugandan rebel commander of the Lords Resistance Army, Joseph Kony. Ugandas decision to end its militarys participation in the operation greatly influenced the American decision. An estimated 200 LRA fighters remain in the field. Kony continues to evade capture. The operation, which began in 2011, cost somewhere between $600 million and $800 million.

The International Criminal Court (ICC) has ordered convicted Congolese militia leader, Germain Katanga, to pay reparations to victims of his atrocities. Katanga is serving a 12 years sentence for aiding and abetting war crimes. Katanga will pay a total of $3.7 million to the families of victims he massacred in 2003 in north-eastern Congo.

March 22, 2017: UN Investigators have now found 10 mass graves in Kasai-Central province.

March 21, 2017: The UN called on the Congo president and opposition groups to both demonstrate their commitment to uphold the December 3, 2016 agreement (the December Accord). The UN is helping register Congolese voters and so far 19 million voters have been registered (enrolled is the term the UN uses).

March 20, 2017: In Burundi the body of a murdered police colonel was discovered in the capital. Over 1,000 people have been killed in violent incidents since April 2015 when president Nkurunziza announced he would seek a third term despite the fact that the constitution only allowed two terms. Nkurunziza changed the constitution and won the next election. The country, however, continues to experience political violence. In late February 2017, Nkurunziza announced he might change the constitution again so he could seek a fourth term. On March 9 the UN said Nkurunzizas February announcement had intensified Burundis internal crisis. As a result, Nkurunzizas government risked international isolation.

March 19, 2017: Security forces in Republic of Congo (Brazzaville) have killed at least 15 Ninja militiamen in the Pool region. This area was the center of the 1990s Ninja rebellions. Apparently the military attacked a base used by militiamen loyal to Frederic Bintsamou (aka Pastor Ntumi). He has been accused of launching raids on the capital back in April 2016.

March 18, 2017: In Congo the government arrested seven soldiers on charges of committing war crimes in Kasai-Central province. Authorities believe some of the more senior soldiers were in charge troops who massacred 13 civilians and made a video of their massacre. The victims included men, women and children. In the video a couple of the victims were shown carrying sling shots. No other weapons were visible and apparently all the victims were unarmed.

March 17, 2017: Catholic Church sources in Congo reported another series of attacks on church facilities. Churches have been vandalized and a convent and a seminary were attacked and plundered.

March 16, 2017: The Ugandan government admitted that its security forces killed at least 100 people in November 2016 when they assaulted a tribal leaders palace compound in the town of Kasese. The government contended the security forces fought with a separatist militia. The government had previously said only 62 people were killed in the incident but other estimates went as high as 155 people. After the attack the government arrested the tribal leader of the Bakonzo.

March 15, 2017: Two foreign (American and Swedish) UN officials and four Congolese citizens have disappeared in Congos Kasai-Central province, apparently kidnapped. The UN officials were investigating human rights violations in the area. The human rights violations may involve the Congolese Army. A government spokesman said that the group had acted recklessly by traveling in a dangerous area and not informing the government.

Responding to reports that gunmen had killed two people in Rwanda then fled to Burundi, the Burundian government said that it does not allow criminals to use Burundi as a sanctuary. Burundi, however, did not offer to help Rwanda investigate the incident. Earlier in the month Burundi had accused Rwandan soldiers of shooting at Burundian fishermen on Lake Cyohoha and kidnapping (arresting) four Burundian citizens.

March 13, 2017: In western Rwanda gunmen attacked a two-man civilian defense force patrol killing one and wounding the other. A civilian bystander was also killed. The gunmen then fled across the border into Burundi. The attackers have not been identified. Initial reports said that only two gunmen were involved. Later reports said there may have been from five to eight gunmen. The civilian patrol was an Irondo, a security patrol conducted by local personnel. The Rwandan Army (Rwandan Defense Force) sanctions these patrols.

March 9, 2017: Opposition political leaders in Congo are acknowledging that the death of Etienne Tshisekedi in early February is proving to be a huge setback to their attempts to form a coalition to stop Joseph Kabila. It was generally agreed that Tshisekedi was the oppositions unifying figure. Without him the opposition could split apart.

March 6, 2017: In Congo police arrested Ne Muanda Nsemi, the leader of the Bundu Dia Mayala (BDM) movement. He is also a member of Congos parliament and was arrested in Kinshasa. The government calls the BDM a separatist Christian cult. In February six BDM supporters were killed in confrontations with security forces. The government reported police killed two more BDK members in a confrontation on March 3. The BDM was formerly called the Bundu dia Kongo (BDK). The movement seeks the independence of the Bas-Congo region (western Congo) from the rest of the DRC. Its adherents have to renounce western and eastern religions. It also wants to revive the pre-colonial Kongo Kingdom.

March 5, 2017: In Congo supporters of president Kabila are once again claiming that Congo cannot afford to pay for a national election. The political opposition says that is just another excuse to renege on the December 31 agreement (the December Accord).

March 4, 2017: In Congo kidnappers are demanding $1 million in ransom for five workers who were abducted on March 1 from a mining operation in eastern Congo (South Kivu province). Three of the abducted are Congolese, one is Tanzanian, one is French. The gold mine is owned by the Banro Mining Corporation, a Canadian company. In 2016 a local rebel militia attacked a Banro vehicle convoy and hijacked several trucks. The militia also demanded ransom for the truck drivers, who were Kenyan and Tanzanian. That militia is on the suspect list. The militia was formed in 2011 and claimed to be a self- defense militia defending against attacks by the FDLR Hutu rebels. However, authorities believe the militia is led by several officers who deserted the Congolese Army.
It could be said the relationship between Zespri and international fruit and vegetable company The Greenery is trucking along well  really well in fact, thanks to a rather large gift.

The Netherlands-based company The Greenery has presented Zespri with a truck brightly signwritten in Zespri graphics, which will deliver Zespri kiwifruit throughout Europe from June.

The gift was made during the Zespri Momentum Conference in March by The Greenery CEO Steven Martina, who presented Zespri CEO Lain Jager with a model truck, an exact replica of the real one.

In 2013 The Greenery was in turmoil and it is times like this that you find out who your real partners are. We received great support from Zespri, its board and its European team  and our board, co-operative members and team at The Greenery are grateful for that.

We want to give you this gift  unfortunately the real thing would not fit in the plane, Steven said as he presented Lain with the model.

Lain, who had no idea the gift was coming, thanked Steven and The Greenery. Zespri has partnered with The Greenery for a long time.

Everyone in the fruit industry experiences upsides and downsides when business situations get tough and this is when you do find out who your friends are. We are proud to work with The Greenery.

The Greenery is an international fruit and vegetable company based in the Netherlands, working with more than 500 growers and supplying and distributing to supermarkets, wholesales, caterers and the processing industry.

In 2013 its turnover fell from EUR $1.4 billion to EUR $1.3 billion and its operating loss was EUR $21 million for the year ended December 31, 2013. The company underwent restructuring and has returned to an operating profit.
Ron the kitten was rescued from a feral cat colony in Colorado when he was just 3 months old. He was rescued along with his three siblings, Harry, Hermione and Luna. When he first arrived at the Northfield Veterinary Hospital, he was so scared that he refused to come out of hiding - but it wasn't long before he became the hospital therapy cat. Once Ron warmed up to his new temporary home, he started showing a huge interest in getting to know all of the other animals who came through the hospital. He wasn't scared anymore, and it was as if he wanted to show all the other cats and dogs that they didn't have to be scared, either.

"He would approach any other dog and cat without fear, and would try to climb into their cages or join them up on the table if they were getting vaccines," Shelly Sandel, veterinarian and co-owner of Northfield Veterinary Hospital, told The Dodo.

Dodo Shows Foster Diaries This Pregnant Pittie Foster Story Is The Happiest Thing Ever

Ron acted like he was an employee at the vet hospital, making his rounds to say hello to all the patients ...

... and the staff too, of course.

Besides greeting and getting to know all of the animals, Ron also started keeping them company while they were having procedures done, snuggling up to them so that they would know they weren't alone. "He started to cuddle up to any pet who was under anesthesia for dental work (not sterile procedures) and provide them with body heat," Sandel said. "He would even groom them while they were asleep, seemingly trying to provide them with comfort."

The staff at the hospital were so smitten with Ron and his adorable antics that they started posting about him on their Facebook page - and before long, people started requesting his "services" for their pets who were scheduled to come into the hospital.

Ron seemed to have a strong sense for when an animal really needed his comfort, even when the staff couldn't sense it themselves. "We once had a very aggressive kitty come into our hospital and the owner warned us that it would be almost impossible to examine him due to his temperament," Sandel said. "We usually had Ron locked up around aggressive kitties, but he escaped from his hold and ran up to this very frightened kitty and they became friends - touching each other and grooming each other. And the 'aggressive' kitty was fine after that and let us examine him."

Ron was quite the little miracle worker, and the staff and patients alike absolutely adored having him around. But after about three and a half months, it was finally time for Ron to head off to live with his forever family, who, as it turned out, needed his comfort just as much as the patients at the hospital did. "He lives with a family who has a young child and an older dog, and needless to say, they all love Ron," Sandel said. "The older dog is usually a bit cranky around other animals, and even she will cuddle with Ron."
Relationship status: its complicated.

Amidst the dating rumours, actress Pamela Anderson has declared her love for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, but she remains vague. My relationship with Julian  its no secret, he is one of my favourite people, she wrote on Thursday in a post titled Skavlan, Sweden.

The 49-year-old Baywatch star said she was introduced to Assange, 45, through British fashion designer Vivienne Westwood, calling it a match made in heaven, and hell, depending on the vantage point.

Im also not shocked that this may be interpreted, and reduced to just a sexual relationship,  she continued. That is the easiest perception. And appeals to the tabloids.

Rumours between the two first sparked back in February when the Canadian-born actress made several trips to the Ecuadorian embassy in London, where Assange  who faces an investigation for lesser degree rape back in Sweden and possible espionage charges in the United States  was granted political asylum. She had been spotted bringing him lunch back in October.

He is one of my favourite people. Mr Assange and I, have become very dear friends over time. That's all I'm really comfortable saying . . . of course this is not an ideal situation.

Anderson goes on to express her concerns for Assange, calling him the most famous, most politicized refugee of our time, and a man whos trying to free the world by educating it.

Julian is a human being who is extremely empathetic and cares deeply about the world . . . he is the strongest person I know  but living as he is, is very unhealthy, demeaning and inhumane, she wrote.

In the long post  whose title might be a reference to a Scandinavian talk show  Anderson also says that the U.S. Democratic Party lost last years elections because it abandoned the people and presented itself as superior and that not going with Bernie Sander's (sic) caused them to lose.

She ends the ode to Sweden with a quote from Assange, There is no peace without truth, No war without lies.

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EDMONTONThe daughter of one of two men stabbed to death in a grocery warehouse confronted her fathers killer Friday before he was sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole for 25 years.

Patricia Harris made a point of staring directly at Jayme Pasieka as she shared her rage and sadness in an Edmonton courtroom.

I cannot understand why your murdered my father, she said in a loud and confident voice as she read her victim impact statement.

Why did you have to stab him so many times? He was in so much pain. He was already bleeding out so much after eight, nine, 10 stab wounds from your Grim Reaper blades.

Pasieka, who has schizophrenia, attacked and killed Fitzroy Harris, 50, and Thierno Bah, 41, at a Loblaw grocery warehouse where they all worked on Feb. 28, 2014. Four others were badly injured.

Read more:

Man accused in stabbings bought knives at West Edmonton Mall, documents say

Two people stabbed to death, four others injured in Edmonton warehouse

A jury earlier this month found him guilty of first-degree murder, attempted murder and aggravated assault.

Before the sentence was handed down, court heard from some of the victims relatives.

Harris was asked to edit her statement before she gave it. Outside court, she said she removed parts in which she compared Pasieka to Satan.

Kiara Harris, 9, said her grandfather was a nice man who didnt deserve to die.

Ever since my papa died there has always been an empty spot in me, she said in her hand-printed statement read in court.

Djenaba Haidara, the wife of Bah, said their four children pine for the love of their father. One son has been so despondent, he attempted suicide.

My son wants to die. He wants to be with his father, she said in statement read out in French.

Prosecutor Kim Goddard said the Crown did not ask that Pasiekas parole eligibility be doubled to 50 years because of legal rulings that have found sentences must take into account the effects of mental illness.

Pasieka, 33, stared into space during the hearing and showed no emotion when the sentence was handed down.

Goddard said Pasieka will probably spend the rest of his life in custody.

For principles of fundamental justice, you just shouldnt sentence a mentally ill accused to the same level of responsibility as someone who is not, she said.

Much of the case focused on whether Pasieka was capable of planning the attack and intended to kill his co-workers.

Pasieka testified in his own defence that he had given up on life, was hearing voices and hoped that if he stabbed people he would get the help he needed.

A forensic psychiatrist testified that Pasieka would have understood that inflicting severe injury on someone would have led to death. The psychiatrist also said Pasieka was capable of making choices.

Justice Donna Shelley of Court of Queens Bench said she will recommend that Pasieka serve his sentence at the federal psychiatric facility in Saskatoon.

She expressed her condolences to the families for the tremendous amount of pain and anxiety they have suffered.

The effects are profound and ongoing, she said. I hope people will seek help.

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OTTAWAWell, forget it. Might as well embrace the storm-battering, coral-bleaching, ice cap-obliterating apocalypse, right? Now that Donald Trump has pulled the United States out of the climate change fight.

Thats been the subtext to some of the reaction in the Canadian capital this week, after the U.S. president signed an order Tuesday to revitalize his nations coal industry by dismantling his predecessors Clean Power Plan. Trump is also hacking away U.S. federal methane regulations, while slashing funds for the countrys environmental agency and approving the Keystone XL oilsands pipeline.

In other words, hes acting like a businessman president who famously tweeted that global warming is a Chinese hoax.

The questions on this side of the border have been: Does this represent a dagger in the hearts of all climate-change fighters, and if so, where does that leave Canada? If the U.S., our top trading partner and economic collaborator, is no longer taking climate change seriously, should Canada stay the course on the Trudeau governments ongoing push to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to 30 per cent below what they were in 2005, by 2030?

For Kenneth Green, director of the natural resources studies centre at the Fraser Institute, the answer is no. Plunging ahead with plans to slap a price on carbon across the country, regulate methane emissions and invest in green tech and tax credits would hurt Canadas competitive position in the global marketplace, Green said. More regulation and more tax, means less economic activity, he argued.

I believe we have to synchronize with the United States, Green said. It would be kind of crazy-blind for politicians to say, We dont care what the United States is doing  full speed ahead.

That seems to be the Liberal governments reaction thus far. The prime minister said this week that Canadas climate policies will come out of Ottawa, not Washington. Catherine McKenna, the environment minister, went metaphorical on CTV News, telling the broadcaster that you cant stop a train. The message being, Trump can sign all the executive orders he wants, but the world will keep chugging towards a greener, lower-emitting future.

Merran Smith couldnt agree more. Shes the executive director of Clean Energy Canada in Vancouver, which released a report this week on the momentum of the more-than-$300 billion global clean energy industry. The cost of wind and solar energy is dropping  prices are down 70 and 60 per cent respectively in the past six years, she said  and the industry is creating jobs, she said. Even Donald Trump is not going to be able to kill clean energy.

Former U.S. vice-president Joe Biden said much the same on a visit to Ottawa last November. Whatever uncertainties exist around the near-term policy choices of the next president, I am absolutely confident the United States will continue making progress in its path to a low-carbon future, Biden said.

As Catherine Abreu, executive director of Climate Action Network Canada, pointed out, even if Trump scales back the American policies on the federal level, many states continue to implement more robust regulations to cut emissions. California, for instance, just approved new measures to cut methane and other pollutants known to warm the atmosphere. Canada has pledged to follow suit with its own methane-reduction plan later this year.

And if climate is lower on the list of priorities in Trumps White House, it appears to be a growing concern for China, the worlds biggest emitter of greenhouse gases. The country with a smogged-over capital city has been building its solar energy capacity at record breaking levels over the past two years, according to the Clean Energy report. China plans to pump $480 billion into its renewable energy sector over the next five years, the report notes.

Year over year, China is beating emissions projections and using less and less coal, Abreu said.

Alden Meyer, director of strategy for the Union of Concerned Scientists in the American capital, said China could in fact step into a vacuum on global climate leadership that was occupied by the Obama administration, primarily with the push to enact the Paris Agreement to reduce emissions.

No one expects this (Trump) administration to provide any kind of diplomatic leadership on this issue, he said.

Regardless, for Green from the Fraser Institute, its still a question whether its wise for Canada to reduce emissions and transition to a greener economy if it risks continued growth. Hed rather see the country invest in ways to deal with the consequences of climate change than try to stop it. Responsible for less than 2 per cent of global emissions, theres not much Canada can do anyway, he said.

Dale Marshall, national program manager with Environmental Defence, scoffed at the argument. He said the 2-per-cent stat clouds the fact that Canada is consistently placed in the Top 10 of the worlds largest emitters. Not only that, but the country also has one of the highest per-capita levels of GHG emissions in the world, he said.

This is a global issue, and we need to be standing together in solidarity to tackle it, Marshall said.

It that sense, as the U.S. pulls back, Canada can stand as a leader in the push to cut emissions, he added.

Abreu agreed, saying that the concept of moral leadership on climate change is more than whimsical. Canada can actually set a global example for how a federated state tackles the issue, setting policies at various levels toward a common goal. The country can also show how a place with an economy based largely on resource extraction can transition to a green economy, she said.

She told a story about how she was at a climate conference in Morocco when Trump won the U.S. election. It was pretty profound to be with 14,000 climate activists in that moment, she said. I felt my colleagues turning and asking, Can we count on Canada? In that scene, Canada matters.

With that in mind, Marshall said the impact of Trumps climate change directives remains to be seen  both for that country and this one.

This means as little or as much as the Canadian government wants it to mean, he said, adding that it could be a moment of hope in the push to drop emissions.

I honestly think this is one of those things that could galvanize the world to act even more ambitiously.

In other words, despair not  at least not yet.

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Update - April 12, 2019: The accused was found not guilty on one count of sexual assault and one count of sexual assault was dismissed.

A former York University employee has been arrested after three women were assaulted at the school in March, Toronto police say.

The alleged sexual assaults occurred in the York Lanes and Vari Hall areas of the school near Keele St. and Steeles Ave. W. beginning on March 3, police said.

A woman was approached at the school library by a man who tried to start to start a conversation. When the woman attempted to walk away, he sexually assaulted her, police said. She was able to flee shortly after.

On March 17, police said the man sexually assaulted an 18-year-old woman twice in the same day at York Lanes.

A week later, a 20-year-old woman was sexually assaulted after being approached by a man while she was walking to Vari Hall. He later fled the scene.

Keith Johnathan Jarrett, 27, of Toronto, has been charged with four counts of sexual assault.

He is a former student at the university, as well as an ex-employee, police said.

Jarrett ran for the Green Party in Humber River-Black Creek in the 2015 federal election.

He is not currently a member of the Green Party of Canada, party spokesperson Dan Palmer told the Star.

The party takes the issue of sexual assault very seriously. Our vetting process stipulates that no one with a criminal past is eligible for candidacy.

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A high-profile breakup involving a McCain Foods heiress and the former head of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra cant wait for her to complete her new album and book, a judge has ruled.

Ontario Justice Carolyn Horkins wrote in her March 22 decision that Eleanor McCain has done very little to move her application ahead since March 2016, when she filed an application for an annulment from estranged husband Jeff Melanson, former president of the TSO.

McCain has pursued a vindictive, time-consuming and costly approach to her application, Horkins wrote.

McCains lawyer Donald Jack told the Star that his client has filed an appeal of the order. We do not accept that assertion, Jack said. With the greatest of respect to Justice Horkins, we say that her decision was wrong.

Last month, Horkins ordered that a settlement conference take place by late June of this year. But McCain said she wouldnt be able to meet that deadline because she wasnt available until September as she is busy working on a project that celebrates Canadas 150th anniversary.

The project, True North: The Canadian Songbook, for which McCain is the executive producer, is scheduled for release May 17, culminating in an album, book and documentary film.

Between now and July 1, Ms. McCain is extremely busy with concerts, meetings, rehearsals in order to meet the deadline and complete the project, McCains lawyer stated in a letter in February.

McCain also stated shes been receiving treatment for chronic fatigue syndrome since September 2016. A letter she provided from her doctor stated that due to her ongoing project and litigation, she should avoid the stress of dealing with both of these matters simultaneously.

Noting this was the first time McCain had brought up her medical situation, Horkins wrote that if she needs to reduce her stress and is unable to balance both her project and the annulment case, then it is time for her to prioritize the application that she commenced.

The judge disagreed with McCains lawyer, who argued the situation was not time sensitive, because Melanson is unemployed. He left his job as head of the TSO last year, just 18 months into his five-year mandate amidst allegations of impropriety from his estranged wife.

(Melanson) has every reason to be concerned with the future cost of this litigation, Horkins wrote in a February order for McCain to pay $125,000 for his interim costs.

He has had to borrow money from friends and family, use his line of credit and sell his condominium to access the net value. He is unemployed and cannot find a new job. (McCain) does not deny that she has embarked on a vindictive path . . . and she will stop at nothing to ruin (Melanson) professionally and financially.

Melanson is seeking a $5-million payment from McCain as outlined in their pre-nuptial agreement.

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In the wake of a Brampton single mothers constitutional challenge of Ontarios child support law, the NDP has introduced a private members bill to fix the problem.

Currently, parents of adult children with disabilities are only able to obtain child support orders if they had been married (or if their children are enrolled in post-secondary education,) said London-West MPP Peggy Sattler, the NDPs critic for womens issues.

This bill allows all parents to apply for support, regardless of marital status and addresses the current discrimination against unmarried parents in the current Family Law Act, she told the legislature Wednesday.

Under the federal Divorce Act, adult children with disabilities are eligible for child support, while Ontarios law, which governs parents who have never been married, is silent on the matter, Sattler noted.

Her amendment would bring Ontarios legislation in line with the federal law by giving unmarried parents the right to apply for support for their adult child if he or she has an illness, disability or other issue that makes them unable to support themselves.

Brampton single mother Robyn Coatess claim that the Family Law Act discriminates against her 22-year-old developmentally disabled son was heard by Ontario Court Justice William Sullivan March 24. He has reserved judgment.

Although Sullivans ruling will be precedent-setting, it will apply only to the Coates case and cannot compel the province to change the law.

I think it is fantastic that (Sattler) is bringing this forward and I just hope Justice Sullivans decision supports what she presented on Wednesday, Coates said.

Two London-area parents have launched similar Charter challenges that have not yet made it to court and it was the plight of those constituents that prompted Sattler to act, the MPP said.

This is a widespread issue that will affect hundreds and hundreds of parents across the province, Sattler said in an interview.

Ontario and Alberta are the only provinces that continue to exclude adult disabled children of unmarried parents in their child support laws, she said.

The legislature  and not the courts  is the proper forum to address the issue, Sattler added, echoing concerns raised in the Coates case.

The government has indicated they were watching (Coatess) Charter case unfold, Sattler said. I have now given them an easy way to address this issue right now and make this fix.

A spokeswoman for Attorney General Yasir Naqvi said the ministry is actively consulting with family lawyers and disability advocates on reforms to Ontarios family laws, including the area of financial supports.

We look forward to reviewing and debating MPP Sattlers bill, said Clare Graham.

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At least three people now have measles in the city of Toronto, and one of them is at an elementary school.

A person at Huron Street Junior Public School, located in the Annex neighbourhood, was diagnosed with measles, although it is not known if it is a student.

Parents at the school were notified of the exposure, said Lenore Bromley, spokesperson for Toronto Public Health in a media release. Vaccine clinics are being held there.

Ages of the three people in Toronto who have contracted the measles were not given for reasons of privacy, said Dr. Michael Finkelstein, associate medical officer of health.

One of the three cases originated in another country while the other two people affected live outside the GTA.

Because measles has been eliminated from Canada, most measles is imported, Finkelstein said.

Most cases detected here are from people traveling to other places where measles is much more common, he added.

Measles is a highly contagious disease that spreads easily. Most vulnerable are those who are have not had the two doses of a measles vaccine (MMR or MMRV), or have not had measles in the past. Infants under one year of age, pregnant women and people with weakened immune systems can get very ill with measles, Bromley said.

Measles can cause death, although this is very uncommon, Finkelstein said.

Symptoms start out as a sore throat, cough, runny nose and conjunctivitis, symptoms of which are red, watery eyes sensitive to light. This is followed with a high fever, and the classic rash, which starts in the head and works its way down the body.

But measles can cause complications, Finkelstein said.

These can include more serious health effects, such as ear infections and pneumonia. In very rare cases (less than one in 1,000), measles can cause a swelling of the brain known as encephalitis, which can cause brain damage.

Anyone experiencing any of these symptoms should contact their healthcare provider as soon as possible and not attend work or school.

While the risk of acquiring measles is low, people should check immunization records to make sure that all family members are up to date with the measles vaccination, and to make sure immunizations are up to date for people who plan to travel.

Toronto has a population that travels a lot, so measles is a lot more common here than in a place such as Halifax, which saw three cases of measles earlier this year after having had none for nine years.

While 2016 saw no cases of measles in Toronto, 2015 saw 10 cases that were clustered around the start of the year around February and March, Finfelstein said.

According to Bromley, people may have been exposed to measles in a number of settings in Toronto during the period of Mar. 19 to 30, including:

Mar. 19: Emirates Airline flight EK517, which departed Delhi, India at 4:12 p.m. and arrived in Dubai, United Arab Emirates at 6:13 p.m.

Mar. 20: Emirates Airline flight EK241, which departed Dubai, United Arab Emirates at 9:55 a.m. and arrived in Toronto at 4:04 p.m.

Mar. 21: Caledonian Bar, 865 College St.

Mar. 22:

 WestJet flight WS450, which departed Abbottsford, B.C. at 5:49 a.m. and arrived in Calgary at 7:50 a.m.

 WestJet flight WS610, which departed Calgary at 10:15 a.m. and arrived in Ottawa at 3:47 p.m.

 WestJet flight WS369, which departed Ottawa at 4:40 p.m. and arrived in Toronto at 5:42 p.m.

Mar. 23:

WestJet flight WS590, which departed Toronto at 4:27 p.m. and arrived in Montreal at 5:41 p.m.

Mar. 24:

 WestJet flight WS581, which departed Montreal at 7:55 a.m. and arrived in Toronto at 9:13 a.m.

 WestJet flight WS2668, which departed Toronto at 10:16 a.m. and arrived in Turks and Caicos Islands at 1:56 p.m.

 WestJet flight WS2669, which departed Turks and Caicos Islands at 2:59 p.m. and arrived in Toronto at 7:15 p.m.

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Being busy is not an excuse for indecision, even if you are in charge of the countrys national security.

Thats the message in a ruling from Federal Court Chief Justice Paul S. Crampton to Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale, whose office has taken an unreasonable amount of time to decide if the government should let Iranian refugee Morteza Momenzadeh Tameh become a permanent resident.

Ministers of the Crown are typically very busy people. But they are not so busy that they can take as many years as they see fit to respond to requests made . . . by persons seeking determinations that are important to them, wrote Crampton in a March decision regarding Tamehs request.

At some point, they will have an obligation to provide a response.

According to the court, Tameh arrived Canada in 1993 as a refugee and was granted asylum the next year. He immediately applied to become a permanent resident.

However, in 2001, he was found by Canada Border Services Agency to be inadmissible due to his past involvement in Mujahedin-e-Kalq (MEK), a group that until 2012 was named on Canadas list of terrorist organizations. The MEK opposes the Iranian regime in alliance with Iraq and the Palestine Liberation Organization.

The border agency officer who decided Tameh was inadmissible also recommended, however, that ministerial relief be granted to him, which would allow him to become a permanent resident despite the inadmissibility order. The public safety minister at the time, Stockwell Day, rejected the idea in 2007. Following a successful appeal by Tameh, the Federal Court sent the case back for redetermination.

After almost a quarter of century since his arrival in Canada, Tameh is still waiting for permanent status in Canada and was so frustrated that he asked the Federal Court to compel the public safety ministers office to render a decision on his request.

The minister takes the position that, because of his many duties and responsibilities, he should not be subject to any timeline whatsoever in rendering his determinations in respect of such requests, wrote Crampton. I disagree.

Tamehs evidence, uncontested by the federal government, claimed his activities with the MEK only included distributing flyers, writing political graffiti on walls, making financial donations, hiding people who were escaping from the Iranian authorities and participating in demonstrations. He claimed he was caught, imprisoned and harassed by Tehran before coming to Canada.

The government argued that the ministerial relief process was complex and included research and data collection, preparing a draft recommendation for the minister, disclosing it to the applicant, reviewing the applicants response, reassessing and revising the recommendation, and further reviews by the management before it goes in front of the minister.

Government counsel said the minister had a broad range of responsibilities critical to Canadas national security and should be left with the flexibility to prioritize his job.

I am sympathetic, to a point, with the ministers submissions. However, they do not, individually or collectively, justify his position that he must have a complete carte blanche regarding the time available to him to make decisions, Crampton wrote.

There comes a time when the delay associated with responding to a request for a decision under that provision may well reach the point that it will be appropriate to require the minister to make a decision within a particular period of time.

The government was ordered to cover Tamehs $4,000 legal costs and must render a decision on his request between six and eight and a half months from now, depending if amendments to submissions by the parties are warranted.

Shane Molyneaux, Tamehs lawyer, said his client was unavailable to the media but was happy with the court order, which will have some precedential value to other individuals caught in similar circumstances. He just wants to move on with his life, said Molyneaux.

A spokesperson for Goodale said the government is reviewing the court decision, adding that the department has introduced new regulations to improve the application process for ministerial relief in the recent Canada Gazette.

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Despite a skyrocketing number of asylum claims, Ontario faces a 37 per cent funding reduction from Ottawa this year for legal services for refugee claimants.

In its 2017 budget announced last week, the federal government said it would provide $62.9 million over five years  or $12.6 million annually until 2022  for provincial legal aid services across the country to assist with asylum claims, with the budget falling back to $11.5 million a year thereafter.

Legal Aid Ontario, which threatened to reduce services for refugee clients last year amid a budget crisis, received $13.7 million from Ottawa in 2016, but will see its share in 2017 reduced to $8.6 million, said Toronto lawyer Raoul Boulakia, who sits on Legal Aid Ontarios refugee law advisory committee.

Ensuring adequate funding for legal aid is a shared provincial and federal responsibility. The governments of Canada and Ontario should not allow legal aid funding to fall short of what is really needed, said Boulakia.

The funding required to ensure legal aid services is a tiny fraction of any governments budget, but the impact on the people who need these services is enormous.

Over the last few years, Ontario received $7 million a year from Ottawa to cover refugee legal aid services  accounting for one-third of the provinces spending on refugee legal services.

Last year, the feds injected $6.7 million emergency funding to the system to deal with the exponential growth of claims in the province, said Boulakia. That was bare minimum given the number of claimants, he said.

The number of people seeking asylum in Canada has been rising rapidly, to 23,895 last year from 10,370 in 2013. In January and February alone, 5,520 refugees sought asylum in Canada, with many coming through land border via the United States.

Claimants who fall beneath legal aids income cut-off ($12,863 for a single person) are eligible to have limited legal services covered by the government. The majority of refugees, new to country and without immediate employment, qualify.

The Liberal government also did not heed the plea from the Immigration and Refugee Board to increase its tight budget to deal with its existing backlog and anticipated surge in claims in 2017. The board currently has at least 20,000 claims in the backlog awaiting a decision.

Board Chair Mario Dion declined a request for an interview but tweeted after budget day, Disappointed to have to operate with inadequate resources but we are working on an action plan to do our best nevertheless.

Refugee claimants stuck in the backlog are worried about longer wait times and access to legal representation.

The Canadian government is aware of the situation. It is so disappointing it has chosen not to do anything about it, said Njomo Franklin Chamda, 47, who fled to Toronto five years ago from political persecution in Cameroon. He has yet to be scheduled an asylum hearing.

I have been separated from my wife and two daughters. My life has been in limbo all this time. I am just so depressed.

Immigration Minister Ahmed Hussen did not respond to the Stars request for comment on the 2017 budget for the refugee board and legal aid services.

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JERUSALEMIsraeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Thursday that he would approve the establishment of a new settlement in the West Bank for the first time in more than two decades, despite a request from U.S. President Donald Trump last month to hold off on settlement activity.

It was not immediately clear whether Netanyahu had received a green light from the White House for Thursdays announcement. Trumps public request to hold off on settlements came during a meeting between the two leaders at the White House last month, after a series of moves by the Israeli leader to approve thousands of new housing units in the occupied West Bank.

The United States has long considered the settlements an obstacle to peace, and the Palestinians and much of the world consider them a violation of international law.

Read more:

Israeli forces begin evacuating 9 settler homes in West Bank

Trump says he can live with a one-state solution to Mideast peace, upending U.S. policy

Palestinian official calls explosive new Israeli settlement law last nail in coffin

But it was not immediately clear whether the establishment of the new settlement was meant to be a provocative move to scuttle any prospect of a revival of peace talks. Netanyahu said he was following through on a pledge he made a few weeks ago to 40 settler families who were evacuated from the illegal hilltop outpost of Amona. That outpost was removed by court order because it was built on privately owned Palestinian land.

I promised at the outset that we would build a new community, Netanyahu told reporters. I believe that I first gave that promise back in December, and we will uphold it today. In a few hours you will know all the details.

Some Israeli analysts have speculated that the move could be a one-off gesture meant to appease advocates for settlements before Netanyahu acquiesces to the Trump administrations call for restraint as part of its push to revive long-stalled peace talks. In Israel, Netanyahus recent flurry of settlement announcements has widely been seen as catering to the right wing of his governing coalition.

For years, Israel refrained from establishing new settlements, under pressure from previous U.S. administrations and in deference to peace efforts with the Palestinians. But it has continued to expand existing ones.

In addition, Israel recently passed contentious legislation paving the way for the retroactive legalization of settlement outposts that were built without government authorization on private Palestinian land. The law is intended to prevent future evacuations like that of Amona.

Israel and the White House have been negotiating for weeks to try to reach an understanding on slowing or curbing settlement construction in the West Bank  so far, by all accounts, without conclusion.

Netanyahu has described as inaccurate recent reports in the Israeli media about a formula that would confine activity to settlement blocks that Israel intends to keep under any territorial agreement with the Palestinians, possibly in return for land swaps.

I would like to make it clear that there is much in these reports that is not true, Netanyahu said in remarks before his Cabinet meeting this week. I will not go into details. Our talks with the White House are continuing; I hope they will conclude quickly.

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WASHINGTONFormer national security adviser Michael Flynn is in discussions with the House and Senate intelligence committees on receiving immunity from unfair prosecution in exchange for agreeing to be questioned as part of ongoing probes into possible contacts between Donald Trumps presidential campaign and Russia, his attorney said Thursday.

General Flynn certainly has a story to tell, and he very much wants to tell it, should the circumstances permit, said Flynns attorney, Robert Kelner.

Kelner said no reasonable person with legal counsel would answer questions without assurances that he would not be prosecuted, given calls from some members of Congress that the former lieutenant general should face criminal charges.

Flynns ties to Russia have been scrutinized by the FBI and are under investigation by the House and Senate intelligence committees. Both committees are looking into Russias meddling in the 2016 presidential election and any ties between Trump associates and the Kremlin.

Since July, the FBI has been conducting a counter-intelligence investigation into Russias interference in the election and possible co-ordination with Trump associates.

Read more: Trump tweets support for immunity for ex-adviser Flynn in Russia investigation

Kelner released a statement after the Wall Street Journal first reported Flynns negotiations with the committee included discussions of immunity. The lawyer described the talks as ongoing and said he would not comment on the details.

A congressional aide confirmed that discussions with the Senate intelligence committee involved immunity. The aide spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations.

House intelligence committee spokesperson Jack Langer said Flynn has not offered to testify to the committee in exchange for immunity.

Four other Trump associates have come forward in recent weeks, saying they would talk to the committees. As of Wednesday, the Senate intelligence committee had asked to interview 20 people as part of the probe.

In his statement, Kelner said the political climate in which Flynn is facing claims of treason and vicious innuendo is factoring into his negotiations with the committees.

No reasonable person, who has the benefit of advice from counsel, would submit to questioning in such a highly politicized, witch hunt environment without assurances against unfair prosecution, Kelner said.

Flynn was fired from his job as President Donald Trumps first national security adviser after it was disclosed that he misled the vice-president about a conversation he had with the Russian ambassador to the U.S. during the transition.

In the weeks after he resigned, Flynn and his business registered with the Justice Department as foreign agents for $530,000 worth of lobbying work that could have benefited the Turkish government.

The lobbying occurred while Flynn was a top Trump campaign adviser. The Turkish businessman who hired Flynn, Ekim Alptekin, has told The Associated Press that Flynns firm registered under pressure from the Justice Department.

Read more:

Flynn discussed removing Turkish cleric from U.S., subverting government: former CIA chief

Trump security adviser Michael Flynn quits over Russia contact

Despite denials, Flynn discussed sanctions with Russian ambassador: Officials

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CAPE CANAVERAL, FLA.SpaceX successfully launched and then retrieved its first recycled rocket Thursday, a historic feat and the biggest leap yet in its bid to drive down costs and speed up flights.

It was the first time SpaceX founder Elon Musk tried to fly a booster that soared before on an orbital mission. He was at a loss for words after the Falcon 9 core landed on the bulls-eye of the ocean platform following liftoff with a broadcasting satellite, achieving what some had once told him was impossible.

This is a huge day. My minds blown, frankly, Musk said. He called it an incredible milestone in the history of space and predicted, this is going to be a huge revolution in spaceflight.

Musk foresees dozens if not hundreds of repeat flights for a booster and rocket turnarounds of as little as 24 hours, perhaps by next year. Land, refuel and then back up again, with everything leading to one day putting humanity out there among the stars.

This particular first stage landed on an ocean platform almost exactly a year ago after a space station launch for NASA. SpaceX refurbished and tested the 15-foot booster, still sporting its nine original engines. It nailed another vertical landing at sea Thursday once it was finished boosting the satellite for the SES company of Luxembourg. SpaceX employees jammed outside Mission Control at the Hawthorne, Calif., company headquarters cheered loudly every step of the way  and again when the satellite reached its proper orbit.

Longtime customer SES got a discount for agreeing to use a salvaged rocket, but wouldnt say how much. Its not just about the savings, said chief technology officer Martin Halliwell. He called it a big step for everybody  something thats never, ever been done before.

Absolutely astounding, Halliwell said after his companys satellite reached the proper orbit. Just opened the door into a whole new era of spaceflight.

SpaceX granted SES insight into the entire process of getting the booster ready to fly again, Halliwell said, providing confidence everything would go well. SES, in fact, is considering more launches later this year on reused Falcon boosters. At a news conference, Musk personally thanked Halliwell for having faith in SpaceX.

Youve got to get away from the idea that its secondhand, Halliwell told reporters. Flight proven, Musk quickly added, his preferred term.

Boosters  the most expensive part of the rocket, according to Musk  typically are discarded following liftoff, sinking into the Atlantic. SpaceX began flying back the Falcons first-stage, kerosene-fueled boosters in 2015; its since landed eight boosters, three at Cape Canaveral and five on ocean platforms  actually, six times at sea counting Thursdays redo.

On Thursday, the company even managed to recover the Falcons $6 million satellite enclosure, which used thrusters and parachutes to drop into the Atlantic. Until Thursday, trying to retrieve the second stage used to get the satellite into the proper, high orbit seemed like a Hail Mary pass, Musk said. But no more.

Musk said this day was 15 years in coming and that, all told, the reusability effort has cost the company at least $1 billion, which will take time to recoup. He brought all five of his young sons to the launch  and the news conference that followed  wanting them to be witness to history-in-the-making. It was fitting, he noted, that the rocket took off from NASAs Launch Complex 39A at Kennedy Space Center, the starting point for the Apollo moon shots decades ago.

Blue Origin, an aerospace company started by another tech billionaire, Jeff Bezos, already has reflown a rocket. One of his New Shepard rockets, in fact, has soared five times from Texas. These flights, however, were suborbital; in other words, nothing went into orbit.

NASA also has shared the quest for rocket reusability. During the space shuttle program, the twin booster rockets dropped away two minutes into flight and parachuted into the Atlantic for recovery. The booster segments were mixed and matched for each flight.

As for this SpaceX reused booster, Halliwell said engineers went through it with a fine-toothed comb following its liftoff in April 2016. SES had special access; the satellite provider, after all, has a long history with SpaceX. A SES spacecraft was on board for SpaceXs first commercial satellite launch in 2013.

Halliwell wasnt so sure, though, about the cleaning job. Its a bit sooty, he said with a smile.

Future refights wont need as much work, Musk conceded,

Given its historic mission, the booster will not fly again, Musk said, but rather remain at Cape Canaveral for viewing.

SpaceX  which aims to launch up to six reused boosters this year, two of them with the yet-to-fly, super-sized Falcon Heavy in late summer  is familiar with uncharted territory.

Besides becoming the first commercial cargo hauler to the International Space Station, SpaceX is building a capsule to launch NASA astronauts as soon as next year. Its also working to fly two paying customers to the moon next year, and is developing the Red Dragon, a robotic spacecraft intended to launch to Mars in 2020 and land. Musks ultimate goal is to establish a human settlement on Mars.

Key to all of this, according to Musk, is the rapid, repeating turnaround of rockets  and employees. SpaceX posted a help wanted ad on its webcast following the launch.

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Theres flying while Muslim. Flying while looking Muslim. Flying in leggings. Flying while 13 and forgetting to pull your laptop out.

But did you know about flying with a panty liner?

Evelyn Harris, a 65-year-old retiree who lives in Crofton, Md., was flying to San Diego earlier this year when she went through an experience that a court might consider a sexual assault.

She passed through the airport scanner at Baltimore Washington International Airport one day in January, but was then pulled aside for a pat-down that was just one step removed from being a Pap smear.

I started to ask if I had done something wrong or if this was random, but before I could get a second word out, the TSA agent yelled at me, Harris told me. She grabbed my throat hard, causing me to choke and cough. She yelled at me for coughing. She then put her hands inside my bra and panties and groped my private parts with the front, not the back, of her gloved hand. Afterwards, I worried that I may have been infected if she had groped someone else without changing gloves. Her attitude was so threatening and hostile, that I was afraid to look at her face and name plate.

Nothing like this had ever happened to her before. The rest of her trip, she had totally normal security experiences. When she flew two weeks later, again, no problem.

But the invasive and humiliating search shed endured bothered her. So she filed a complaint a few weeks after the incident.

The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) investigator who called her back told her they save videos of screenings, but only for 30 days. At that point, it was too late. The search had been erased.

Anyway, the pat-down was legit, the investigator said. Intimate apparel has been a source of concern ever since Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab tried to bring down a plane on Christmas Day in 2009 by detonating a bomb hidden in his underwear.

The investigator told Harris, she said, that his own wife carried a panty liner with her and put it on after security, as this is something that could trigger a search.

Indeed, turns out any feminine hygiene product could be grounds for a search, according to the TSA.

The Advanced Imaging Technology scanner at the checkpoint helps TSA identify concealed metallic and non-metallic items between the skin and clothing using millimetre wave technology, TSA spokesperson Lisa Farbstein said. So if an individual were to try to conceal something in the area of the groin, the machine would detect it. It is not out of the question that the machine could detect something placed inside an individuals underwear.

There you have it, sisters. Our Stayfrees will not live up to their names.

The awful abuse of airline passengers reached new lows this week, as a video went viral showing a 13-year-old boy being patted down by a Texas TSA agent with the intensity and precision that my dog reserves for a burger wrapper.

TSA officials stood by the agent, who conducted the search because the kid set off an alarm with his laptop.

Half of America gasped at the video. The other half cheered the TSA: Thank you for keeping us safe!

Heres my question: At what point are we sacrificing our freedoms by giving into our fears? I bet Harris and every woman who has been similarly searched  and there are many, my mom showed up at the airport rattled and in tears after an invasive search a while back  have the same answer.

Earlier this month, I wrote about a retired police chief, Hassan Aden, who was detained at New Yorks John F. Kennedy International Airport for 90 minutes because of one thing  fear of his name. Nothing else, not even his decades in law enforcement in North Carolina and Virginia, mattered.

Christine T. Trankiem encountered the same suspicions and the same discrimination this month. Shes the classic American success story, daughter of immigrants who is now a trauma surgeon in the nations capital. She was flying home from Copenhagen when a customs agent stopped her at Dulles International Airport outside Washington.

Where are you from? he asked.

D.C., she said.

I meant what kind of name is that?

Vietnamese, answered the woman born in Pennsylvania.

And she was immediately pulled aside to a separate room for an intense search.

In there, I found at least two dozen travellers; all but two had varying shades of brown and yellow skin, she told me.

Never in my life did I ever think that as an American citizen I would be subject to this kind of racial profiling and scrutiny, Trankiem said. It makes me fearful of the climate of our country and where we are headed.

Its not too late to turn back, America.

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PARISAngry French winemakers have staged a protest against Spanish wine lining French supermarket shelves that they say is losing them business.

Xavier Fabre of the Gard region winegrowers union said Friday that around 100 protesters removed and destroyed boxes of Spanish wine Thursday on display in local supermarkets.

Local winegrowers say the Spanish wine is labelled with French names and images like baguettes to mislead consumers into believing they are buying French wine, which is more expensive.

Only on the back or in small print, Fabre says, does the label mention its foreign origin.

Fabre said the union wants the labels to be clearer, and complained that such Spanish box wine sales are hurting sales of box wines from Languedoc-Roussillon and Gard that have gone down 25 per cent since 2015.

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BOSTONAnti-transgender activists are being met with protests as they drive through cities in the northeastern United States in a big, orange bus emblazoned with the words boys are boys and girls are girls.

The Free Speech Bus parked in front of the Massachusetts State House in Boston on Thursday morning, drawing more than two dozen protesters holding signs and chanting, among other things, No hate. No fear. Trans people are welcome here.

Democratic Mayor Marty Walsh, surrounded by dozens of supporters, raised a flag recognizing the transgender community after the bus briefly stopped in front of City Hall.

Gregory Mertz, U.S. director of CitizenGO, the Madrid, Spain-based group thats behind the bus tours, said organizers are pushing back against laws and policies accommodating transgender people.

Theres an agenda and movement thats saying its OK for a boy to be a girl and that you can use whichever restroom you want, he said. We think thats very harmful.

The buss message is simply stating the biological reality that humans are binary, sexually complementary creatures, said Joseph Grabowski, a spokesman for the National Organization for Marriage who was among a handful of supporters riding on the bus.

Leon Weiler, of Cambridge, Mass., holds a flag while standing with other protesters in support of transgender rights beside the "Free Speech Bus," painted with the words "boys are boys" and "girls are girls," in Cambridge.





The full text splashed across the buss exterior reads: Its Biology: Boys are boys and always will be. Girls are girls and always will be. You cant change sex. Respect for all.

Protesters said the message is overly simplistic.

It assumes that our identities are the sum of whats between our legs, said Michelle Tat, a transgender woman from Boston helping lead the chants with a bright pink megaphone. Id argue that its more about our lived experiences and our genders. Biology gives us what we are born with, but it doesnt make us who we are.

The bus message may appear benign, but it only serves to fuel rising hatred and violence toward the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community, said Mason Dunn, executive director of the Massachusetts Transgender Political Coalition, which helped co-ordinate Thursdays protests.

Words, in this setting, are violence, he said. Were concerned about the health and wellness of our community.

Read more: An entirely confusing story from Donald Trump on gay rights

Grabowski said there was nothing inherently violent about the buss message.

People have the right to live their lives the way they want, he said. But they dont have the right to impose their values and beliefs on others, which is unfortunately what a lot of sexual orientation and gender identity non-discrimination laws do.

The bus also stopped by Harvard University in nearby Cambridge on Thursday. Its slated to head south in the coming days, making stops in New Haven, Connecticut, Philadelphia and Baltimore before arriving in Washington, D.C., on April 3.

The campaign was launched in Spain earlier this month with a more direct message that, in Spanish, reads: Boys have penises, girls have vulvas. Do not be fooled. If you are born a man, you are a man. If you are a woman, you will continue to be one.

Read more: LGBT community worried about the future of hate crime prosecutions in U.S.

That campaign was in response to pro-transgender posters in Spain that depicted four naked children  including a boy with female genitalia and a girl with a male sex organ  holding hands. Underneath the image was a phrase in Spanish that read: There are girls with penises and boys with vaginas. Its that simple.

The U.S. tour initially launched in New York City last week, but the bus was taken out of commission after it was vandalized outside the United Nations building.

Bus organizers say they wont be holding press conferences, rallies or confronting counter protesters as they stop in front of government buildings and colleges, largely because of that New York incident.

Were calling for a healthier conversation. Let people be respected and heard, Grabowski said. A lot of people are afraid to speak out. We want them to be able to stand up and know that weve got their backs.

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BRUSSELSThe European Union on Friday raised the possibility of starting general talks on Britains future relationship with the bloc as early as the fall if decisive progress is made on key parts of the divorce proceedings  a move that grants some of the British prime ministers wishes.

Draft guidelines obtained by The Associated Press say the EU and Britain must first settle the disentanglement of Britain from the bloc. But once there is a tentative consensus between the two sides on major topics  the treatment of citizens in each others nations, billions in budget commitments, legal clarity for companies working in Britain and a solution for Irelands border with the United Kingdom  the EU says it would be willing to look ahead.

Once and only once we have achieved sufficient progress on the withdrawal, can we discuss the framework for our future relationship, EU Council President Donald Tusk said in Valletta, Malta.

He added probably in the autumn, at least I hope so.

Read more: Brexit is officially on. Here are 4 things that need to happen before the divorce is final

British Prime Minister Theresa May had been seeking parallel talks on the EU divorce and the future but those apparently will not happen for the foreseeable future. Still, Tusks timetable and the EU draft showed that the EU was willing to compromise.

It will take a summit of the 27 leaders, however, to signal that that moment has come to look toward the future. In Germany, government spokesman Steffen Seibert said we will hopefully come to this second step soon.

EU leaders have warned that the two years of talks triggered this week to negotiate Britains exit will be difficult  but insisted they dont want an all-out economic or diplomatic conflict. The 27 EU leaders are set to agree on common guidelines on April 29, exactly one month after May triggered the Brexit process.

The challenges prior to moving onto the next step of talks are sizable, however. Some 3.3 million EU citizens now live in Britain and about 1 million Briton live in the rest of the EU. Since the issue of foreigners taking jobs from British workers fuelled the Brexit referendum, a solution pleasing both Brussels and London will not be easy.

Read more: Britain files for divorce from the European Union after 44 years

In addition, the outstanding bill for London to pay in previously agreed EU costs and commitments has been estimated at up to 60 billion euros ($64 billion). Populist voices in Britain have urged the Conservative government not to pay a penny.

And when it comes to the U.K.s land border in Ireland, which is key to the Northern Ireland peace process, Tusks draft guideline says that flexible and imaginative solutions will be required.

Further complicating things in the full withdrawal negotiations will be Gibraltar, the British overseas territory on the Mediterranean that Spain has wanted back since it ceded it more than three centuries ago. The outpost at the southern point of the Iberian Peninsula has a population of 32,000 and about 96 per cent of its residents voted to remain in the EU last year.

The EU draft says the future of Gibraltar will be set in talks between Spain and the U.K., giving Spain a very strong negotiating position.

After the United Kingdom leaves the Union, no agreement between the EU and the United Kingdom may apply to the territory of Gibraltar without the agreement between the Kingdom of Spain and the United Kingdom, the draft says.

This is an important point in the future negotiations of the United Kingdoms exit from the EU, said Spanish minister Inigo Mendez de Vigo.

Tusk said the EU will not punish Britain in the negotiations, saying that Brexit itself is punitive enough. The head of the rotating EU presidency, Maltese Prime Minister Joseph Muscat, insisted the negotiations will not be a war.

Tusk also ruled out the suggestion that there was an inherent threat in Mays departure letter Wednesday, which some felt hinted that Britain would end its security co-operation with continental Europe unless it gets a good Brexit deal.

I know Theresa May well enough and I know her approach to this issue. This is why I rule out this kind of interpretation ... that security co-operation is used as a bargaining chip. It must be a misunderstanding, Tusk said.

British Foreign Minister Boris Johnson also insisted Friday that Britains commitment to European defence and security is unconditional and not some bargaining chip in any negotiations over Brexit.

Johnson, speaking in Brussels upon arriving for a NATO meeting, said he has had good feedback from EU partners since Britain formally announced Wednesday that it would be leaving the EU, despite worries on both sides of the Channel about Brexit.

We really are moving forward now. Theres a lot of good will, willingness to achieve what the prime minister has said she wants to achieve, he said.

The British government triggered the two-year EU exit process Wednesday with Mays letter to the EU and began outlining how it intends to convert thousands of EU rules into British laws in a Great Repeal Bill.

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FLINT, MICH.A day off in Flint. William Miller got his hair cut and his van fixed up. Then he needed something to drink, so he did what people here do, still, three years into this fiasco.

He drove to the parking lot beside the boarded-up bowling alley that says ESTAURANT on the side. He stopped at the four stop signs. He gave his address and his order to a woman holding a clipboard and wearing a fluorescent yellow vest.

Twelve! LaKrisha Shumon shouted ahead, and Miller, a 49-year-old surgical assistant who also owns a medical transport business, crept forward so that the men in vests could load the van with 12 free cases of Walmarts Great Value Purified Drinking Water.

He comes every week. His anger has not subsided.

Its disgusting, Miller, a trim man with a goatee and a grey college sweatshirt, said in an interview out his car window. I should not have to do this. Im a middle-class person. This is not the way life is supposed to be in this country. Its morally reprehensible.

He could, in theory, just turn on his tap. Eight months after Republican Gov. Rick Snyder belatedly acknowledged a problem with Flints water, Snyder officials told residents in June that their water was safe to drink with a filter.

Not happening.

These same state departments also told Flint residents their water was fine when it was actually poison. Their trust in government is gone now, maybe forever.

And while lead levels have fallen below the federal danger threshold, residents know now that no amount of lead is truly safe, they know the citys work on its pipes poses new contamination risks, and they say the water is still foul-smelling and still making them sick. So they show up at the Eastown Bowl and Flints eight other drive-thru distribution sites six days a week, forming water lines rarely seen outside the worlds poorest and most parched nations.

Some of them wont even do that. Occupational therapist Audrey Muhammad buys her own bottled water, and only in the suburbs. She is suspicious of anything run by the state and city authorities.

Its kind of like: Im going to stab you, but Im going to give you the surgery to repair the wound, said Muhammad, 51, a woman with a hijab and a broad smile, at a recent benefit concert. How can you trust that the person that stabs you is going to take care of the wound the proper way?

Twelve people in the Flint area died from a legionnaires disease outbreak after the city and state made the disastrous decision to use the Flint River as its water source. Thousands of Flint children were exposed to lead. The damage to them will reveal itself slowly, over decades, as the neurotoxin affects their health, behaviour and ability to learn and earn.

The network cameras have mostly gone now, off to cover faster-moving disasters. But even the short-term crisis has not come close to passing.

A full year after the water became an international scandal, Flint is a city fearful, fatigued and furious: terrified of the unknowable harm to come, worn down by years of fighting, enraged by what they see as the continued failure of government to support them. A flurry of recent good-news announcements, of tens of millions of dollars in coming investment, have not changed the widespread perception that this poor, majority-black city has been abandoned again.

We wear the shirts that say Flint Lives Matter, but were like  they matter to us, but other than that, not at all, said Melissa Mays, 38, the citys most prominent citizen water activist. We are getting worse, were not getting better, and we literally scream this, but Trump trumps us in the media.

The pediatrician who exposed the spike in local childrens blood-lead levels is more optimistic. Mona Hanna-Attisha said so many awesome things are happening, pointing to government and philanthropic programs for the young. But she too said were still very much in this crisis.

People are angry and traumatized, and theres a lot more work to do, she said. The biggest part of this crisis is that trauma, that stress, that betrayal, that anxiety, that guilt. The mental health issue is the biggest one.

At the moment, Hanna-Attisha said, everybodys blaming everything on the water, from learning disabilities to early-onset dementia. In her clinic, she spends a significant chunk of time trying to assure parents that their children are not doomed, that homework and hugs can improve their trajectory.

Its like Im writing prescriptions for hope, she said.

The warning letters arrived in Flint mailboxes in early March. Their demand, of almost unfathomable audacity, is delivered in red capital letters, underlined for emphasis: pay for your poison or else.

Snyders government, which was largely responsible for the water disaster, announced in February that it would stop giving Flint residents subsidies for their water. Mayor Karen Weaver then decided to resume the practice of shutting off the water for people with unpaid bills.

Coercive water shut-offs are controversial in the U.S. under normal circumstances, castigated by the United Nations as a violation of human rights. In Flint, which charged people some of the highest water rates in the country for killer gunk, the threats have been greeted with a mix of astonishment and told-you-so resignation.

The people in Flint should not have to pay for water for at least a decade, Hanna-Attisha said.

Thousands of residents have been refusing to pay for a year or more. Some say they will continue the protest even though parents without running water are regularly investigated by child protection authorities.

Im not going to give them one penny, said Nakiya Wakes, 41, a stay-at-home-mom-turned-activist who owes $822.62. She had two miscarriages before the authorities warned pregnant women not to drink Flint water, and she believes the lead is also responsible for the worsening behaviour of her 8-year-old son, who has been suspended from school dozens of times.

Mays, a combative woman with a jagged sense of humour and little regard for social niceties, said she will try come up with an insane solution, like rigging up a cistern for an outdoor shower, rather than relent.

Everyone says, You guys just want something for free. No, we just dont want to pay to have ourselves killed, Mays, 38, said over her usual snack of coffee and pickles at a Flint bookstore-cafe. Im not going to pay a hit man to kill me.

Four days later, a judge approved a settlement in a lawsuit filed by Mays and several advocacy groups, including the American Civil Liberties Union. Snyders government agreed to spend $87 million to replace at least 18,000 of Flints lead and galvanized-steel water lines by 2020.

The activists hailed the agreement. But the need for a lawsuit to speed up the glacial process of fixing Flints deadly infrastructure has galled a city already steaming over what is widely seen as a lack of accountability for the calamity.

These days, the dissatisfaction is often expressed in Facebook rants and quiet conversations between friends. The length of the crisis has sapped public enthusiasm for street protests and pressure calls to legislators.

The longer that it goes on, the less people that are getting into it, said LuLu Brezzell, 27, a photographer. How would you feel if you were ignored for years and nothing has been done? How would you feel? A lot of people dont really have the will to keep fighting.

Last year, more charges have been filed by the Michigan attorney general investigating the lead-tainted crisis in Flint, Michigan, including charges against two former state-appointed emergency managers.

The state attorney general has laid charges against 13 people, including felony charges against two of the former Snyder-appointed emergency managers who presided over the fatal decision to switch from Lake Huron water to save money. Snyder himself, though, has not been charged  and he has spent more than $3.5 million of taxpayer money on criminal lawyers for himself.

Someone should be in jail at this point. Because the magnitude of this calamity and the coverup  no ones in jail. Thats atrocious. And everything that went on in the city, the governor knew about, Miller said, expressing a common though unproven sentiment. Mr. Governor: fess up.

Open mic night at Totem Books, the funky store where Mays is known as pickles and coffee lady. A young, multiracial crowd of about 45 gathered to listen to a white woman sing about Jesus, a black woman recite a poem about her sex life, a white man tell bad jokes. One of them was about outsiders asking ignorant questions about the water.

Its not that you want to try to get away with strangling somebody, the amateur comic said, its the frequency at which you think about it.

At the same time as the people of Flint decry the fading attention to their water problems, they lament that they are now known for little else. This is a vibrant community, they say, creative, resilient and unusually tight-knit, a post-industrial survivor primed for yet another comeback.

But the water still looms over everything, even the hip hangouts. And even the optimism about Flints future is tinged with concern. Of all the programs that have been launched in the past two years to help Flint  expanded access to preschool, Medicaid health coverage for young people, kids nutrition prescriptions for fresh fruits and vegetables  few are sure to be funded beyond the next few years.

This is not a two- to three-year recovery, said Hanna-Attisha. The commitments and the resources are not there for the long-term.

Much of the city already feels shortchanged.

Children under the age of 6, who are most susceptible to the impact of lead, have been the overwhelming focus of the aid programs. Adults, though, have suffered too. There has been little assistance for them other than the water subsidies.

Ronda Thornton stood outside her house last Saturday afternoon. Next door was the hooker house once occupied by a sex worker, now derelict. Beside that was a derelict food market. The sidewalk was cracked. The only sign of life was the traffic across the road, coming and going from one of Flints ubiquitous liquor stores.

Thornton, a chatty 51-year-old with a hard face betraying her rough life, fell seriously ill before she learned the water was unsafe, drinking more and more water to try to flush out whatever was wrong with her, dropping from 112 pounds to 88 pounds. Now she uses buckets to deal with the holes in the roof, and her food stamps, $77 a month, arent enough to keep her fed.

Im disabled, my husbands disabled, she said. We cant even get no help because we dont have kids in our home. Its like, what do they expect us to do, just drop dead?

The government did acknowledge her existence on March 2. She got a letter telling her to pay her overdue water bill of more than $240.

The health of our community, the city explained, is dependent on getting payments from our customers.

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JAKARTA, INDONESIAUndeterred by the arrest of hard-line protest leaders, thousands of Muslims marched in Indonesias capital on Friday, calling for the jailing of the citys minority Christian governor.

Following Friday prayers, the protesters marched from Istiqlal Mosque in central Jakarta to the nearby presidential palace, which was under heavy police guard.

Protests against Gov. Basuki Ahok Tjahaja Purnama have snowballed since September when he was accused of blaspheming the Quran and subsequently charged. His trial is still underway.

The turnout for Fridays protest was small compared with the hundreds of thousands who answered the call of hard-line Islamic groups to flood central Jakarta for demonstrations in November, December and February. Jakarta polices director of traffic Ermayudi Sumarsono estimated the crowd at 13,000 to 15,000. Police estimates are often conservative.

Earlier Friday, police said they had arrested Muhammad Al Khaththath, the leader of the Muslim Peoples Forum umbrella group, and several other activists for suspected treason.

We are not cowed by the arrest of our leaders, said a protester who identified himself as Wahyudi. Well keep fighting for the dignity of Islam. Theres no room for kafir to lead in this nation.

The blasphemy case, slurs against Ahoks Chinese ethnicity and the ease with which hard-liners attracted huge numbers of people to protest have undermined Indonesias reputation for practicing a moderate form of Islam and shaken the secular government as well as mainstream Muslim groups.

Blasphemy is a criminal offence in Indonesia, punishable by up to five years in prison.

Ahok will compete in a runoff election for governor next week against a former cabinet minister backed by conservative Muslim clerics.

He was popular with Jakartas middle class because of his drive to eliminate corruption and his efforts to make the overflowing polluted city more livable. But demolitions of some of the slum neighbourhoods that are home to millions and ill-considered outspokenness proved to be his Achilles heel.

Opponents seized their moment last year when a video surfaced of Ahok telling voters they were being deceived if they believed a specific verse in the Quran prohibited Muslims from electing a non-Muslim as leader.

Jakarta police spokesman Argo Yuwono said Al Khaththath and the other activists were arrested early Friday. Local media said one of those men was the deputy co-ordinator for Fridays protest.

It was the second round of arrests for suspected treason related to anti-Ahok protests. Police rounded up 10 people including high-profile citizens after a Dec. 2 protest turned violent, with dozens injured and one person killed by tear gas side-effects. They were all subsequently released.

Wiranto, the top security minister, met with representatives of the protesters and said he reiterated that the government wont interfere in Ahoks trial.

He defended the polices decision to arrest protest leaders.

Effendi Lubis, who travelled from Bogor in West Java for the demonstration, said Muslims would continue protesting until Ahok is in prison.

He said he was also protesting to defend our Islamic leaders who were arrested and treated unfairly.

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MANILAThe chief enforcer of Philippine President Rodrigo Dutertes war on drugs acknowledged the difficulty in halting a surge in methamphetamine imports from China despite a campaign that has claimed thousands of lives.

We do not guarantee that we will win this war, Philippine National Police chief Ronald dela Rosa said in an interview in his Manila office Thursday. Win or lose, at least we have done something to address the problem.

Duterte has faced strident criticism from the U.S., the United Nations and the European Union since being sworn in last June over his efforts to tackle drug addiction  a policy that has proved popular at home. The Philippine police say about 2,600 people have been killed in police operations against drug traffickers, while human-rights groups label some 4,700 other murders as extrajudicial killings.

Read More:

I might go down in history as the butcher: The making of Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte

Duterte isnt threatened by impeachment complaint alleging bribery, corruption

Philippine presidents fiercest drug-war critic faces arrest

In a speech Thursday, Duterte again rejected international criticism of the drug war, demanding the EU not impose your, whatever it is, your values and everything because we hate you for being a hypocrite.

Despite being a key source of drugs, China has used the issue to draw closer to Duterte and improve ties with the Philippines. Policy-makers in Beijing have supported the drugs war and offered to help, with antinarcotic co-operation among agreements reached during Dutertes trip to China last year.

Dela Rosa said on Thursday that police in the Philippines are co-ordinating with counterparts in China. Most of the five clandestine laboratories dismantled in Dutertes first six months in office involved Chinese citizens, he added.

Recent data provided by the Philippines Drug Enforcement Agency showed that the largest quantities of methamphetamine seized had been trafficked directly from China, according to Jeremy Douglas, regional representative of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. Methamphetamine imports into the Philippines rose to 2,495 kilograms in 2016, more than four times the amount in 2015, he said.

While better law enforcement had contributed to the rise seen in the data, other factors like treatment admissions, price, and purity trends related to methamphetamine indicated a growing demand for the drug in the Philippines, Douglas said.

As long as market demand is not addressed, increases in law enforcement activities at a street level alone wont be able to improve the situation, he said. We recommend addressing the market through treatment and prevention, and addressing organized crime targeting those that run the business.

Dela Rosa, 55, rose from the police ranks in Davao City, where Duterte served as mayor for more than two decades. He said the campaign targeted both street-level pushing as well as high-value targets like drug lords, drug traffickers, financers and protectors.

He rated the drug war a success on the basis that police so far had accounted for 1.3 million people involved in the drug trade across the country, around 70 per cent of 1.8 million target set by the Dangerous Drugs Board.

On the demand side, we can say we have a passing grade of 70 per cent, dela Rosa said. Another measure of success, he added, was that methamphetamine prices had almost quadrupled to as much as 4,000 pesos ($106) a gram.

Dela Rosa rejected claims by international groups such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty international that the drug war had resulted in thousands of extrajudicial killings.

I just want to set the record straight, dela Rosa said. The 7,000 extrajudicial killings being reported by some sectors is wrong. We dont want to propagandize, we dont want to deodorize ourselves, we just want to set the record straight so that the public will not be misled by this false reporting.

Human Rights Watch deputy Asia director Phelim Kine said in an email that thousands of victims never saw a lawyer or had a proper trial.

This is an evisceration of constitutional guarantees of due legal process that has inflicted profound harm on the judicial and social fabric of the Philippines, Kine said.

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MOSCOWRussian prosecutors moved Friday to block calls on social networks for more street protests in Moscow and other Russian cities following a wave of rallies that have cast a new challenge to the Kremlin.

Tens of thousands demonstrators turned out in Moscow and other cities on Sunday to rally against official corruption in the largest outpouring of discontent in years.

The Prosecutor Generals office confirmed Friday it has requested the state communications watchdog to block pages on social networks calling for more protests in Moscow and elsewhere in Russia coming Sunday.

Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who organized Sundays unsanctioned protest, is serving a 15-day sentence on charges of resisting police. More than 1,000 protesters have been arrested in Moscow, and many of them also have been sentenced to brief jail terms and fines.

Read more: Nationwide anti-corruption protests bring thousands into Russias streets

The U.S. and the EU have criticized the crackdown and urged Russia to release all detainees, but President Vladimir Putin has rejected the criticism as meddling in Russias internal affairs.

Without naming Navalny, Putin, who faces re-election in March 2018, has denounced those protest organizers who try to use anti-corruption slogans in narrow selfish political goals.

Navalny has declared his intention to run for president and vowed to appeal a conviction that bars him from the race, which he denounced as politically-driven.

Faced with a tough challenge, the Kremlin is mulling a response.

Putin on Thursday vowed to fight corruption, but also warned that the government wouldnt allow any breach of law. He drew parallels with the Arab Spring uprisings in Africa and the Middle East and protests in Ukraine that toppled a Russia-friendly president in 2014.

Everybody should act in political processes within the framework of the law. All those who go outside this law should bear punishment in accordance with Russian legislation, Putin said.

Read more: Official says trained Russian agent killed exiled Kremlin critic in Ukraine

The protests have shaken Russias sleepy political scene and reinvigorated the opposition after years of relentless official crackdown, showing public readiness to brave draconian laws which make repeated participation in unsanctioned protests punishable with prison terms and hefty fines.

In contrast with the past, when opposition demonstrations were mostly limited to Moscow and St. Petersburg, Sundays rallies engulfed dozens of provincial cities and towns. In another new phenomenon, the rallies also saw large attendance by school and university students.

Putins spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, dodged a question about Putins reaction to a statement from prominent film director Alexander Sokurov, who urged the Kremlin to listen to the protesters demands and refrain from using force to avoid political catastrophes.

They were grabbing teenage students by their legs and carrying them away in a very brutal, violent way, Sokurov said Tuesday while receiving a movie award. The government makes a grave mistake when it treats students like that. You shouldnt start a civil war with schoolchildren and university students, you should listen to them!

Peskov, speaking Friday in a conference call with reporters, said only that Putin is ready to listen to arguments by Sokurov and other cultural figures, but doesnt always agree with their views.

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NAIROBI, KENYASouth Sudanese government troops burned thousands of civilians homes late last year, monitors of the countrys troubled peace agreement said Friday, making some of the strongest allegations yet against security forces in the three-year civil war.

The new report says three villages in the southern Yei region visited by investigators had been abandoned and destroyed. A visit to Yei in November led the UN special adviser on genocide to warn that South Sudan could slip into genocide, while an Associated Press reporter found charred bodies there, some with hands bound.

In most cases the buildings were deliberately set on fire by government forces, the report says. At least 3,000 homes were burned in a single village.

Read more:

UN says world faces largest humanitarian crisis since 1945

In South Sudan, wheelchair basketball a welcome distraction from civil war

Government forces denied UN officials and investigators access to one Yei village, and government officials blamed rebels and wildfires for the destruction, the report says. Investigators found that unlikely.

Satellite data from Amnesty International shows about 2,000 structures were destroyed along a highway near Yei between late December and January. Separately, UN satellite images obtained by the AP show that a buildup of military installations near Yei began as early as September, and the destruction of homes started as early as October.

The once-peaceful Yei region became a target after clashes broke out in the capital, Juba, in July and reignited fighting across the country. A fragile peace deal reached in 2015 under international pressure quickly fell apart.

Hundreds of thousands of people have fled the region around Yei to neighbouring Uganda, which has warned it is reaching breaking point amid the worlds fastest-growing refugee crisis.

A separate report by the peace deal monitors says both government and rebel forces prey on civilians in the southern part of the country, but it says more evidence implicates government or allied fighters.

It is high time that President Salva Kiir and his commanders are held to account for these outrageous, well-documented and repeated breaches of international law, said Jonathan Pedneault, a researcher on South Sudan at Human Rights Watch.

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OTTAWAForeign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland is taking aim a core assumption of Donald Trumps upcoming review of American trading partners  she said Friday the U.S. has a trade surplus with Canada, not the other way around.

Freelands assessment comes as Trump prepares to hold his countrys major trading partners to account. The president wants to determine which countries are using abusive trade practices to run export surpluses  and Canada is among those to be examined.

Trump was to sign an executive order Friday demanding a study within 90 days of all the ways other countries allegedly pull fast ones on the United States through anti-competitive trade practices.

It will be a systematic examination of things like non-tariff barriers, lax legal enforcement, currency manipulation and other means that keep out American goods while other countries boost their own exports.

Read the latest news on U.S. President Donald Trump

There are about 16 countries on the list, which includes places with the biggest trade surpluses with the U.S. The biggest is no contest: China, with a $347-billion (U.S.) trade surplus with the U.S. last year. Thats followed by Japan, Germany and Mexico and a list of U.S. allies like France, Italy, India and Thailand.

Of all the countries, Canada is listed as having the smallest surplus. It was the last of the countries that Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross mentioned. U.S. government statistics show Canada even ran a trade deficit of $11.9 billion with the U.S. in goods and services in 2015, before running a surplus in 2016.

Freeland offered a different view.

Canada is the single largest client of the United States and when you look at our overall trading relationship, counting goods and services, the U.S. runs a slight trade surplus with Canada, said Freeland.

So I am really confident that the U.S. administration understands and will continue to understand that this is a relationship which is win-win and were going hard on both sides of the border to keep it that way.

Freeland said she welcomes Rosss attempt to create a fact-based foundation for U.S. trade policy and characterized the latest review as routine.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said hes also happy with the fact that the U.S. regularly assesses what its partners are doing and whats going on in the trade relationship.

Trudeau said his government will continue to impress on the Americans that the relationship means jobs in both countries.

The relationship between Canada and the United States is unlike the relationship between any two countries in the world, he said Friday.

Trudeau and his cabinet have mounted a full-court press on Washington to drive home that message and thats not about to stop now, as businesses and provincial and municipal governments continue their efforts in tandem with Ottawa, he said.

The goal of the Trump study is to quantify exactly how much of the U.S. global trade deficit is due to supposedly unfair practices, and seek remedies for the imbalance.

There has never been this kind of systematic analysis, Ross said at the White House. It will be very heavily based on an empirical framework.

Ross stressed that he isnt singling Canada out.

Ross acknowledged an obvious reason for that Canadian surplus: oil. American energy consumption patterns require it, and that results in millions of barrels a day in imports that cant easily be waved away by executive order.

Undoubtedly well conclude that with some of the countries no action should be taken, Ross said.

Read more:

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A lot of what Canadas deficit comes from is oil.

When oil prices rise, Canada habitually runs a trade surplus with the U.S; the opposite happened in 2015 when they dropped.

If Canadians want clues about what the study might find, they already exist.

The U.S. already publishes annual studies chronicling its trading partners alleged abuses. Ross, in fact, claimed Thursday that no country trades as freely as the U.S.  including some others that like to brag about how theyre supposedly free traders.

Its findings reinforce the need for the presidents America First trade agenda, White House spokesman Sean Spicer said Friday.

The latest U.S. report on trade barriers complains about Canadian dairy and poultry controls; limits on U.S. wine in grocery stores; aerospace support; telecommunications; the relatively minuscule $20 duty-free limit on goods purchased online; and limits on American companies ability to supply some services to some Crown corporations, singling out Hydro Quebec.

Oil and vehicles account for almost half of U.S. goods imports from Canada.

Softwood lumber represents a smaller share. But its a significant source of Canada-U.S. trade disputes, and could be the source of yet another one: Trump is signing a second executive order Friday and it involves toughening the system for collecting anti-dumping and countervailing duties in trade disputes.

The orders come as the U.S. prepares to open NAFTA negotiations later this year.

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1. Yes. Taxpayers are funding its operation; they should have a voice in the naming process.

2. Yes. The city should operate with a spirit of inclusivity. Residents will be responsive.

3. No. Public input can be problematic; rejection of suggestions can be divisive for residents.

4. No. Residents elect council members to make decisions on their behalf. No input is needed.

5. Unsure. Its hard to say whether public input would be more of a benefit or a hindrance.

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WASHINGTONU.S. President Donald Trump urged his former national security adviser to strike an immunity deal Friday, even as congressional investigators rebuffed Michael Flynns offer of co-operation in exchange for protection from prosecution.

Trump tweeted that Flynn, the adviser he fired in February, should ask for immunity because hes facing a witch hunt.

The president weighed in the day after Flynns attorney confirmed the immunity discussions with intelligence committees in both the Senate and House that are investigating Russias meddling in the 2016 presidential election.

Read the latest news on U.S. President Donald Trump

A congressional aide confirmed that preliminary discussions with the Senate intelligence committee involved immunity but that it was too early in the investigation to set terms. The aide was not authorized to discuss private conversations and spoke on condition of anonymity. The Justice Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

It was unclear from Trumps tweet whether he was advising the Justice Department or the congressional panels to give his former adviser immunity. The president is not supposed to direct ongoing investigations.

White House spokesman Sean Spicer said Trump just wants Flynn to testify, and there are no concerns that Flynn could implicate the president in any wrongdoing.

The top Democrat on the House intelligence committee, Rep. Adam Schiff of California, said committee leaders would be discussing the issue with their Senate counterparts and the Justice Department.

We should first acknowledge what a grave and momentous step it is for a former national security adviser to the president of the United States to ask for immunity from prosecution, Schiff said in a statement.

Read more:

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WASHINGTONFormer national security adviser Michael Flynn wants immunity before he testifies to Congress, but the type of deal hes seeking is rarely granted  in large part because of the Iran-Contra scandal of the 1980s.

Flynns lawyer, Robert Kelner, has reached out to the Senate Intelligence Committee in the hopes of getting a wide-ranging grant of immunity in exchange for his clients testimony to lawmakers, but an official familiar with the discussion says the idea of immunity is off the table, particularly given the early stage of the congressional investigations involving Flynn.

Two congressional committees and the FBI are probing whether any associates of U.S. President Donald Trump co-ordinated with agents of Russia as that country meddled in the U.S. presidential election last year. Flynn is a major figure in that investigation, because his conversations with the Russian ambassador to the United States ultimately led to his ouster from the White House.

Read the latest news on U.S. President Donald Trump

General Flynn certainly has a story to tell, and he very much wants to tell it, should the circumstances permit, Kelner said Thursday. The overture is notable in part because during the presidential campaign, Flynn said that people who are given immunity probably committed a crime.

On Friday morning, the president tweeted:

White House press secretary Sean Spicer said the president was not trying to suggest to the Justice Department or the investigating committees that Flynn should receive immunity, but rather that Flynn and others should talk to Congress, with legal precautions.

Weve actually encouraged people to go talk to the House and Senate intelligence committees and the appropriate investigators so that they can continue to get to the bottom of this, Spicer said.

But procedural rules and political realities will make it difficult for Flynn to get immunity. Democrats, in particular, sounded wary of giving Flynn a pass for any potential crimes.

Adam Schiff of California, the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, on Friday called it a grave and momentous step for a former national security adviser to the president of the United States to ask for immunity from prosecution.

Schiff said there will be discussions between the committees and the Justice Department about Flynns offer, but cautioned there was still much work and many more witnesses and documents to obtain before any immunity request from any witness can be considered.

Congress has the authority to grant a limited type of immunity, called derivative use immunity, through which a witness can be compelled to testify, on the condition that their statements to Congress will not be used by prosecutors to gather evidence for a future criminal prosecution.

Lawyer William Taylor said grants of congressional immunity are rare, and there are rules and regulations about consulting with the attorney general before you give somebody immunity. But if theres a prosecution or a grand jury looking into this, obviously Mr. Flynn would be happy to be immunized by anybody.

Grants of such immunity must also involve discussions with senior Justice Department officials, but even that type of limited immunity is problematic, in large part because of the case of Oliver North.

North, a central figure in the 1980s Iran-Contra affair, was granted limited immunity to testify to Congress at length about his role in the covert arms-for-hostages deal with Iran that the Reagan administration had sought. The hearings in 1987 were watched by millions of Americans.

North was later prosecuted and convicted of crimes for ordering the destruction of documents and obstructing a congressional inquiry, but an appeals court threw out the conviction. The court found that while prosecutors were careful not to use his testimony to gather evidence, witnesses in the criminal case had seen or heard about his testimony, and that exposure tainted the conviction.

Since the North case, prosecutors generally regard it as difficult, if not impossible, to prosecute someone who has been granted limited congressional immunity.

The North case was a warning that if somebody gets immunity from Congress, youre going to have a heck of a time persuading a court you can prosecute them, Taylor said.

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Last weekend thousands of brave Russians and Belarusians took to the streets of cities across their countries to demonstrate against crippling corruption and to demand freedom and democracy.

While violent mass arrests accompanied the peaceful protests, triggering global concern, they also sparked hope that change may be possible; hopes which were long thought to have been snuffed out by the assassination of charismatic Russian opposition leader Boris Nemtsov and the exile of his Belarusian counterpart, Andrei Sannikov.

On Saturday, in the Belarusian capital of Minsk, protestors risked crackdown by the Lukashenko regime as they called for an end to an extremely unpopular parasite tax imposed on unemployed Belarusians and for the countrys leader to step down.

Videos emerged on social media of Belarusian senior citizens being roughed up and detained while other protestors were viciously beaten. The regimes forces were seen storming the streets of Minsk  arresting activists and innocent bystanders without discrimination.

Teetering between Europe and Russia, the regime in Minsk controls the weak Belarusian economy, which relies heavily on Kremlin handouts in order to survive. Paralyzed by statism and rampant corruption, Belarusian living standards are among the lowest in Europe and served as the major trigger for Saturdays protests.

For the Kremlin, maintaining a strong pro-Russian government in Minsk is a priority due to Belarus proximity to the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad and its strategic buffer position between it and Europe.

As Vladimir Putin watched protests escalate in Belarus on Saturday, his regime was unlikely prepared for the scale of protests that would sweep across Russia the following day. Russians took to the streets Sunday after anti-corruption crusader, Alexey Navalny, published a report detailing the vast luxuries amassed by Russian Prime Minister Dimitry Medvedev, through alleged gross corruption.

Sundays demonstrations were among the largest that Russia has seen since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Rallies that were organized by activists, including opposition leader, Boris Nemtsov in 2012, were limited to Moscow and St. Petersburg. The latest actions were remarkable in that they took place in remote cities and regions that were earlier believed to be completely obedient to Putin.

In Russia, nearly all media is controlled by the regime. In a country where the Internet is rarely available outside major urban centres, messaging by pro-democracy activists is usually limited to large urban centres, like Moscow and St. Petersburg.

Some estimates place the overall number of participants at around 70,000, with marches taking place as far away from Moscow as Vladivostok in the far east and Murmansk in the far north. That Russians, young and old, took to the streets, for example, in the remote Dagesgtani city of Makhachkala is a significant achievement and speaks to the true depth of domestic dissatisfaction with the Putin regime.

One iconic photo, shared on social media, shows two children clinging to the top of a street lamp, avoiding arrest by a policeman in riot gear who looms menacingly in the foreground of the photo. Another photo shows a woman being dragged away by riot police, who had just had lunch with her children and sisters in a nearby McDonalds.

For activists seeking a silver lining, the size and breadth of these protests may indeed mark the beginning-of-the-end for the Putin regime.

In an attempt to explain away the participation of youth in the protests, Vladimir Putins chief propagandist, Dmitry Peskov told reporters that underage children were told they would be paid if they were detained. The Kremlin also refused to acquiesce to demands from the international community to release hundreds of protestors and bystanders who had been arrested, including opposition leader Alexey Navalny.

The same explanation will be fed to Canadian politicians and media from the Russian embassy in Ottawa, who should all question, with deep skepticism, any approaches from Embassy staff and other groups claiming to represent the Russian community in Canada.

Instead, the situation in Belarus and Russia should serve to further demonstrates the need for Canada to adopt Magnitsky legislation, which will help deter the abuse of rights in the future.

U.S. and European Magnitksy laws, which place visa bans and asset freezes on human rights abusers, likely helped prevent greater violence and abuse against protestors in Russia and Belarus. Canada will help protect global pro-democracy, anti-corruption and human activists by doing the same.

Marcus Kolga is a documentary filmmaker, digital strategist, human rights activist and the publisher of upnorth.eu. He is a senior fellow at the MacDonald-Laurier Foreign Policy Centre and is an expert on Russian and Central and Eastern European affairs.

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Exxon (XOM) isn't the most obvious of climate proponents, and the oil and gas giant's plea with the Trump administration to stick to an international deal on the matter raises the questions of why this and why now.

The Irving, Texas-based company sent a letter to the Trump administration urging it to remain in the Paris climate accord, an international agreement struck under the Obama administration in 2015 to curb global warming. Dated last week and made public Tuesday, the letter argues that the accord is an "effective framework for addressing the risks of climate change," pulling at the president's free-market heartstrings by calling the U.S.'s involvement in the deal necessary to "ensure a level playing field" and ensure that "global energy markets remain as free and competitive as possible."

The reason why Exxon, a company that hasn't exactly been a model citizen on climate change in the past, would care about the issue is likely a combination of business interests and PR.

"It's not surprising to see large corporations making the case for the United States to stay in Paris, because a lot of large companies were part of the leadership pushing to have Paris happen in the first place," said Ali Zaidi, senior adviser on energy at law firm Morrison & Foerster who served in the Obama administration on energy and environmental policy for eight years. "Part of that is driven by the recognition that there's a huge market opportunity that Paris creates for, frankly, traditional energy companies to deliver fossil energy in a cleaner and safer way but also for new energy, which many of these companies are starting to invest in."

Exxon has a complicated history on climate change.

Rex Tillerson, the firm's long-time CEO and now U.S. Secretary of State, went on record in 2009 supporting a carbon tax. But the company has become the subject of fierce scrutiny in recent years in the wake of revelations that it knew that humans were causing climate change as early as the 1970s and intentionally misled the public on global warning. The controversy, often accompanied online with the hashtag #ExxonKnew, has resulted in legal action.

Given its past, there is little doubt Exxon's letter is, at least in part, a public relations ploy to get it back in the good graces of the American public.

"This move by Exxon is more likely about public relations, rather than real action against climate change," said Alison Grass, senior researcher at Food and Water Watch.

"I think there is an element of PR in it, absolutely," said Pavel Molchanov, analyst at Raymond James. "For Exxon, this is kind of a risk-free opportunity."

It is also proxy season, and publicly-traded companies are increasingly coming under pressure from shareholders to act responsibly in terms of the environment. Exxon, whose annual meeting is scheduled for May 31, might appease some restive investors with its letter.

"Yes, you get brownie points for public relations purposes, especially since they've been criticized in the past on climate change," said CFRA Research analyst Stewart Glickman. But there are business drivers as well.

The Paris agreement provides a framework that makes long-term planning easier for all corporations, not just Exxon. Having some rules of the road helps companies avoid uncertainty.

Moreover, Exxon has invested heavily in liquefied natural gas (LNG), a fossil fuel that is cleaner than coal. For example, it has embarked on a joint venture in Papua New Guinea that produces approximately 7.9 million tons of LNG per year.

"If you have a climate change agreement and if you note that natural gas is generally cleaner-burning than coal, then any sort of secular shift away from coal and toward natural gas is a plus for demand for natural gas and thus maybe it helps boost prices down the road for natural gas," said Glickman. "This is self-interest on the natural gas side along with generic strategic planning needs along with public relations benefits."

Exxon representatives did not return request for comment on the matter.

The Future of the Paris Agreement

The Trump administration has sent mixed signals on its plan to address climate change and the Paris agreement, but the outlook isn't particularly good.

The publication of the Exxon letter came the same day that Trump signed a sweeping executive order seeking to roll back much of the Obama administration's efforts on climate change. The president has called climate change a "hoax" in the past.

After winning the election, Trump told the New York Times he has an "open mind" about the Paris accord. Tillerson at his Senate confirmation hearing said he believes the United States should stay in, emphasizing that it's important that the U.S. "maintain its seat at the table."

But skeptics of Trump's intentions on the accord note that it is not a legally-binding agreement. As a matter of international law, it requires countries report and monitor emissions, but if they don't meet the standards set out, there aren't any real consequences.

"The UN is not forcing anybody to cut carbon emissions by any particular amount. That would not be politically realistic," said Molchanov.

While Exxon's urging of the administration to stay in the Paris agreement is important, what is perhaps more important is it and companies like it working to ensure the U.S. keeps up its end of the bargain, emissions-wise.

"My hope is that we'll see corporations not only be leaders in pushing the U.S. to stay in Paris but also pushing for the sort of policies and innovation that's needed to meet U.S. targets," said Zaidi. "Keeping your seat at the table is not very useful if you've had your microphone turned off."
Shares of Freeport-McMoRan (FCX) finished Thursday in the green, closing higher by 4.64% to $13.31 on heavy trading volume following the end of a copper mine strike in South America.

The three week strike took place at Peru's largest copper mine, Freeport's Cerro Verde. Work will resume there on Friday following a vote that ended the strike, which cut the mine's output in half, Reuters reports.

The union accepted the company's offer to improve family health benefits and pay workers their share of the mine's profits earlier than usual.
Weakness in the mining and industrial sectors pulled European benchmarks lower after the opening bell Friday, the final day of what has been an otherwise solid quarter for the continent.

The mining-heavy FTSE 100 led the decline in Europe, dropping by 0.37% within the first half hour of trading, to be quoted at 7,342. The CAC 40 fell 0.30% to 5,075 in Paris and the DAX slipped 0.10% to 12,243 in Frankfurt.

Political maneuvering overnight in South Africa was weighing down the FTSE 100, as companies with significant exposure to the country fell. South Africa's President Jacob Zuma fired finance minister Pravin Gordhan and eight other ministers as part of a late-night cabinet reshuffle Thursday in a bid to oust his critics.

The steepest losses were seen in shares of Anglo-South African financial group Old Mutual (ODMTY) , which lost more than 6% in he first hour of trading.

Miners were also feeling the pain from trouble in South Africa. Glencore (GLNCF) , Antofagasta (ANFGY) , Fresnillo (FNLPF) and Rio Tinto (RIO) were all present among the top fallers on London's FTSE 100 index.

Drinks company Diageo (DEO) , which has a large exposure to the African country, fell almost 2%.

Concerns over a looming meeting between the President Donald Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jingping, a stronger dollar and mixed commodity prices were hitting markets on Friday morning.

President Trump warned over Twitter late Thursday that next week's meeting between him and China's president will be difficult, setting the two on course for a collision over the trade deficit, China's alleged currency manipulation and concerns over state support for certain industries.

"American companies must be prepared to look at other alternatives," he added.

The statement coincided with a further recovery of the U.S. dollar, with the greenback gaining against many of its major counterparts, pushing the US dollar index up to 100.51.

Early in the trading session the EU issued its guidelines for Brexit negotiations, insisting that the U.K. must first leave the EU before trade talks can begin and saying any transitional period will be limited.

In Frankfurt the mining, steel and industrial firm Thyssenkrupp (TYEKF) fell to the bottom of the DAX after posting a 0.76% loss in early trading, followed closely behind by Commerzbank (CRZBY) , which saw its shares slip by just more than 0.50%.

In Paris, oil and gas engineer, Technip (TKPPY) was the biggest faller on the CAC, with a loss of 0.97%.

Consumer goods firm Danone (DANOY) was also found swimming in red ink after it said it has received competition clearance from U.S. authorities to go ahead with its $10.4 billion acquisition of organic food producer WhiteWave (WWAV) .
Germany is urging European Union action against the U.S. in the World Trade Organization, after the U.S. Department of Commerce slapped import duties on steel plate from five EU countries, Japan, South Korea and Japan, and singled out individual European producers for tough penalty rates.

German foreign minister Sigmar Gabriel said the U.S. seemed prepared to give its own firms "unfair competitive advantage," but said this was against international trade law.

A spokesman for the European steel producers association Eurofer, said the U.S. move was deeply worrying and described it as "a deliberate intention to raise duties to prohibitive levels overnight."

The Japanese Topix Iron and Steel index dropped overnight, and was down 0.4% at 540.27 at 2 am EDT. Meanwhile Germany's Salzgitter, which has been hit with a 22.9% duty was off 0.77% at 33.76 at midday local time, while ThyssenKrupp (TKAMY) , which was not named as one of the offenders was off 0.37% at 22.82.

ArcelorMittal (MT) 's French subsidiary Industeel was singled out for the heaviest tax of all at 148.02%. ArcelorMittal's share however, which covers the whole group, was off 0.3% at 7.95.

The duties were announced on Thursday by Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross (pictured), who said that determinations of dumping had been made against producers of certain carbon and alloy steel cut-to-length plate.

The department's findings followed an investigation prompted by a petition from Nucor Corp. and U.S. subsidiaries of ArcelorMittal and SSAB, according to Reuters.

But the Eurofer spokesman said, "There is a deliberate intention to shut off their market from European imports."
Credit Suisse (CS) confirmed that it has is the subject of tax investigations in multiple countries, sending its shares down in Switzerland.

Shares were down 1.19% at midday in London, to change hands at Sfr14.91, biting into the 2.12% gains since the start of the year.

The Swiss bank on Friday said that tax investigations were launched in the U.K., France and the Netherlands. Credit Suisse said it was cooperating with authorities after its offices in London, Paris and Amsterdam were contacted by officials "concerning client tax matters."

The Netherland's office for financial crimes prosecution (FIOD) said the coordinated raids began on Thursday in the Netherlands, Britain, Germany, France and Australia after receiving a tip-off about 55,000 suspect accounts of a Swiss bank. It did not identify the bank.

The U.K.'s HM Revenue and Customs did not identify the bank either in a Friday statement, saying it had started a "phase one" investigation into a "global financial institution" focused on senior employees and a number of its customers.

"The international reach of this investigation sends a clear message that there is no hiding place for those seeking to evade tax," HMRC said.

Credit Suisse pleaded guilty to similar charges in 2014 in the U.S. It paid $2.6 billion for an "extensive and wide-ranging conspiracy" to help U.S. clients evade tax.

But the raids look set to clause an international incident with the Swiss attorney general's office saying it was "astonished at the way this operation has been organised with the deliberate exclusion of Switzerland. The normal customs and rules of international cooperation and legal assistance procedures have apparently not been observed. The federal public prosecutor expects a written explanation from the relevant leading Dutch authorities, and is considering further steps."
In London, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis expressed concern about what he called "reckless" actions by North Korea, alluding to its nuclear weapons and missile programs, the AP reports.

Mattis spoke at a news conference Friday with his British counterpart, Michael Fallon.

Mattis raised the North Korea issue in response to a reporter's question about Iran. Mattis suggested that North Korea is a more urgent problem, the AP said.
Poland is expected to sign a deal with Raytheon (RTN) worth $7.6 billion to buy eight of the tech company's Patriot defense missile systems by the end of the year, the country's defense minister Antoni Macierewicz said, according to Reuters.

Poland wants the deal as a key part of its plan to modernize its military by 2023.
Snap (SNAP) , Snap, Snap. It seems to be all anyone is talking about this year.

But despite the headlines (that have featured everything including Facebook's (FB) attempts to shutter the camera company and the cavalcade of buy ratings unleashed by its underwriters) Snap isn't the best-performing public offering so far this year and has actually had a rough go of it.

That title goes to Mulesoft (MULE) , the San Francisco enterprise software company that debuted on March 17. After popping about 40% higher than its initial offering price of $17, Mulesoft has held firm and closed Monday at $23.31, about 37% above its initial listing price.

Mulesoft makes money from subscribers to its application programming interface management and application integration software services. The company counts Coca Cola (KO) , McDonald's (MCD) , Spotify and Bank of America (BAC) as major clients but still mostly operates a money-losing business. In 2016 MuleSoft posted a $49.5 million loss on $187.7 million in revenue, compared with a $65.4 million loss on $110.3 million in revenue in 2015.

Founded in 2006, Mulesoft closed a major financing round of $128 million in May 2015. Led by Salesforce (CRM) Ventures, the funding round drew investors such as software company ServiceNow (NOW) , Cisco (CSCO) Investments, Adage Capital Management, Bay Partners, Brookside Capital, Hummer Winblad Venture Partners and Lightspeed Venture Partners. Lightspeed holds the largest stake at 17.1% and is also a major investor in Snap.

Mulesoft also has warned of a significant increase in operating expenses as it drums up sales and marketing efforts, continues to invest in research and development and expands its operations and infrastructure, both domestically and internationally. Besides that, there are significant legal, accounting and other expenses related to being a public company.

The enterprise software maker was last valued at $1.5 billion by venture capitalists in May 2015, when it raised $128 million in private investments. Mule raised about $221 million in its IPO.

Another notable IPO of the month was Canada Goose (GOOS) , whose shares rose 26% on their first day of trading. The York, Ontario, apparel maker has since come back down to earth. Shares of the company were down about 3.2% Friday to C$21.21 per share ($15.92). The company, backed by Bain Capital, still trades about 24.8% above the C$17 it priced at before its debut on March 16.

Analysts are flocking to Canada Goose with buy ratings and expectations that the luxury outerwear retailer will continue to fly high following its IPO last month.

Snap, Mulesoft and Canada Goose weren't the only successful IPOs of recent.

Information technology solutions provider Presidio (PSDO) , which debuted on March 10, is up about 10.6% since it began trading. Shares closed at $15.26 per share on Monday.

Presidio CEO Bob Cagnazzi discussed the company's plans for growth and how it's competing with Accenture (ACN) and Action Alerts PLUS holdingHewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) in an interview with TheStreet earlier this month.

Another tech company to perform well since its IPO is Irvine, Calif.-based Alteryx (AYX) , up about 11.6% since it debuted on March 24. Alteryx, a provider of self-service data analytics software, priced shares at $14 apiece but began trading at $17.25 per share. The shares closed at $16.65 on Monday about 19% over its debut.

The company had raised about $163 million in three financing rounds from investors such as Toba Capital, Sapphire Ventures, Insight Venture Partners, Thomson Reuters and Iconiq Capital.

Retailer J.Jill (JILL) also debuted in March and is up 8.5% since its debut on March 9. The company, backed by Arcapita and Golden Gate Capital, reportedly sought a buyer in 2014. Seems like the wait paid off.

Still, others weren't so fortunate in the month of March.

Propetro (PUMP) , for instance, is down about 7.9% since its debut. Shares of the Midland, Texas, fracking services provider fell about 1.5% Friday to $12.89 apiece. The Energy Capital Partners-backed company priced at $14 per share on March 17. ProPetro was founded in 2005 and booked $405 million in fiscal 2016 sales for the 12 months ended Sept. 30.

Up next are anticipated April filings from identity management software company Okta and digital location management company Yext, among others. And March 31 saw a quartet of companies -- data management platform provider Cloudera, low-cost carrier Frontier Airlines, e-commerce company Carvana and business-to-business trade show operator Emerald Expositions -- submit paperwork for IPOs.

On Monday Vine Resources has filed an S-1 with the SEC with a $500M place holder. Vine is first among a number of Haynesville-focused producers in east Texas who are suspected to be preparing IPOs.

On Tuesday Altice, the telecoms and cable holding company owned by billionaire Patrick Drahi that recently acquired Cablevision from James Dolan, also filed paper work for the IPO of its U.S. activities in New York.
Swiss bank Credit Suisse (CS) is being investigated again for tax evasion and money laundering, following a tip to Dutch prosecutors about tens of thousands of suspect accounts, Reuters reports. The tip triggered raids in five countries, which began on Thursday.

There have been two arrests so far.

Prosecutors said they are "investigating dozens of people who are suspected of tax fraud and money laundering," Reuters added. Suspects are said to have deposited money in a Swiss Bank without disclosing to the proper authorities.

Dutch and British authorities did not disclose the name of the "global financial institution" they are investigating, but Credit Suisse said authorities had visited its offices in Amsterdam, London, and Paris over tax matters, Reuters noted.
As a government official, you face intense pressures every single day. But we know from experience that you have an unwavering commitment to your mission: do the best possible job of serving your community.

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The North West Company Inc., through its subsidiaries, engages in the retail of food and everyday products and services to rural communities and urban neighborhood markets in northern Canada, rural Alaska, the South Pacific, and the Caribbean. The company's Canadian operations comprise 118 Northern stores, which offers food, financial services, and general merchandise; 5 NorthMart stores that provides fresh foods, apparel, and health products and services; 26 Quickstop convenience stores that provides ready-to-eat foods, and fuel and related services; 5 Giant Tiger junior discount stores, which offers family fashion, household products, and food; 2 Valu Lots discount center and direct-to-customer food distribution outlet; 1 solo market, a store in remote market; 3 Pharmacy and Convenience stores; and 1 North West Company motorsports dealership offering sales, service, parts and accessories for Ski-doo, Honda, Can-am and other premier brands. The Canadian operations also provides contract tele-pharmacist services to rural hospitals and health centers; water and air-based transportation services; and produce and fresh meats to independent grocery stores. Its international operations include 30 Alaska Commercial Company stores that provides food and general merchandise to remote and rural regions; 12 Cost-U-Less mid-size warehouse stores, which offers discount food and general merchandise; 4 Quickstop convenience stores; 9 Riteway food markets; and Pacific Alaska wholesale, a distributor to independent grocery stores, commercial accounts, and individual households in rural Alaska. The North West Company Inc. was founded in 1668 and is headquartered in Winnipeg, Canada.
Daimler AG, together its subsidiaries, develops and manufactures passenger cars, trucks, vans, and buses in Germany and internationally. It operates through Mercedes-Benz Cars & Vans, Daimler Trucks and Buses, and Daimler Mobility segments. The Mercedes-Benz Cars segment offers premium and luxury vehicles of the Mercedes-Benz brand, including the Mercedes-AMG, Mercedes-Maybach, and Mercedes-EQ brands; small cars under the smart brand name; and ecosystem of Mercedes-Benz under the Mercedes me brand, as well as vans and related services under the Mercedes-Benz and Freightliner brands. Daimler Trucks and Buses segment offers its trucks and special vehicles under the Mercedes-Benz, Freightliner, Western Star, FUSO, and BharatBenz brands; and buses under the Mercedes-Benz, Setra, Thomas Built Buses, and FU brands, as well as bus chassis. The Daimler Mobility segment provides financing and leasing packages for end-customers and dealers; and automotive insurance brokerage, banking, investment, and fleet management services under the Athlon brand. It also sells vehicle related spare parts and accessories. Daimler AG was founded in 1886 and is headquartered in Stuttgart, Germany
Brookdale Senior Living Inc. owns, manages, and operates senior living communities in the United States. It operates in three segments: Independent Living, Assisted Living and Memory Care, and Continuing Care Retirement Communities (CCRCs). The Independent Living segment owns or leases communities comprising independent and assisted living units in a single community that are primarily designed for middle to upper income seniors. The Assisted Living and Memory Care segment owns or leases communities consisting of freestanding multi-story communities and freestanding single-story communities, which offer housing and 24-hour assistance with activities of daily living for the Company's residents. This segment also operates memory care communities for residents with Alzheimer's and other dementias. The CCRCs segment owns or leases communities that provides various living arrangements, such as independent and assisted living, memory care, and skilled nursing; and services to accommodate various levels of physical ability and healthcare needs. It also manages communities on behalf of others. As of December 31, 2021, the company owned 347 communities, leased 299 communities, and managed 33 communities on behalf of others. Brookdale Senior Living Inc. was incorporated in 2005 and is headquartered in Brentwood, Tennessee.
The International Air Transport Association (IATA) announced new data showing that aviation and aviation-induced tourism support 1.1 million jobs and contribute $32.9 billion to Brazils GDP, an amount equivalent to 1.4% of the countrys GDP.

The International Air Transport Association (IATA) announced new data showing that aviation and aviation-induced tourism support 1.1 million jobs and contribute $32.9 billion to Brazils GDP, an amount equivalent to 1.4% of the countrys GDP.

These findings are among the highlights of The Importance of Air Transport in Brazil (pdf) study conducted by Oxford Economics on behalf of IATA.

We are proud of aviations positive contribution to Brazil and the wealth it generates for the country. Air transport facilitates exports, foreign direct investment and tourism. However, by adopting policies that ensure a more stable and competitive operating environment for the airlines, Brazil could reap much larger dividends from aviation, said Peter Cerda, IATAs Regional Vice President for the Americas, who is in Brazil for the release of the study.

Infrastructure, Ease of Travel and Cost Competitiveness Are Vital:

According to the study, Brazils Infrastructure Quality Score is 4 out of 7, a handicap for the efficient operation of the regions air industry and one that detracts from the passenger experience.

Entry visa requirements also weigh on Brazils ability to attract visitors, the countrys Visa Openness Score is just 2 out of 10.

Brazils unorthodox fuel policies that artificially increase industry operating costs by $560 million annually while restrictive rules covering baggage and airline tickets also weigh on the industrys cost competitiveness.

With aircraft taking off or landing some two million times a year in Brazil, the air transport industrys value speaks for itself. But removing the artificial barriers that are holding back the industry in Brazil is paramount. Air transport contributes 3% of GDP in Chile, 3% in Ecuador and 2.1% in Colombia; at just 1.4% of GDP in Brazil there is considerable room for improvement, said Cerda.

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 2022 Travel Industry Wire
Ukraines state-owned enterprises can independently produce components needed for the manufacturing of defense products.

Prime Minister of Ukraine Volodymyr Groysman stated this at a press briefing in Zhytomyr on March 30, an Ukrinform correspondent reported.

According to the prime minister, Government will increase financing of the state-owned enterprise Zhytomyr armored plant.

He also added that Ukraine is ready for the construction of new equipment, but technical modernization and implementation of new technical solutions are needed for this.

At present we are independent, in particular from the Russian Federation, what is very good. We can independently produce many components that are needed for the manufacturing of defense products," Groysman said.

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The economic blockade of Donbas has allowed the Russian Federation to appropriate the Ukrainian enterprises and trade their products in the markets of third countries.

Prime Minister of Ukraine Volodymyr Groysman said this during the meeting with representatives of the regional media, an Ukrinform correspondent reports.

"Russian stole our enterprises, having accused Ukraine. I do not care who they belonged to, because they were registered in Ukraine, paid taxes in Ukraine, their accounts were opened in the Ukrainian banks. The Russians got an opportunity to appropriate those enterprises and 100% of their products, such as metal and coal, and now sell these products on the markets of third countries," Groysman said.

The Ukrainian Prime Minister stressed that in such a way the Russian budget would receive billions, which would be further spent to support the Russian troops and militants in the temporarily uncontrolled areas of Donetsk and Luhansk regions in eastern Ukraine.

"That did not do good for Ukraine. We lost 1% of GDP," the Prime Minister added.

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Israel plans to import Ukrainian beef in the long-term, starting with 2,500 tons of products every month.

This was stated by Deputy Agrarian Policy and Food Minister of Ukraine on European Integration Olha Trofimtseva, the Ministrys press service reports.

"The export of Ukrainian beef will be in great demand from Israel. It is planned to supply at least 2,500 tons of beef every month, while Israeli companies are ready to help both with obtaining kosher certificates and addressing other veterinary issues," Olga Trofimtseva stressed.

In 2016, turnover of agricultural products between Israel and Ukraine amounted to $301.4 million, including $292.9 million in exports of Ukrainian products and $8.5 million in imports.

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The trilateral phone talks between President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko, Chancellor of Germany Angela Merkel and President of France Francois Hollande will be held next week to discuss the issues of Minsk peace process.

President Poroshenko stated this at a press conference in Malta, where he was on an official visit for the participation in the expanded EPP Summit, an Ukrinform correspondent reported.

We have conducted very thorough negotiations with the German Chancellor. We have agreed to hold telephone negotiations in trilateral format with participation of Chancellor Angela Merkel and President of France Francois Hollande next week regarding the intensification of process in the Minsk format, Petro Poroshenko informed.

The Ukrainian president also added that earlier, on his instructions, the Ukrainian delegation in Minsk during a meeting of the Trilateral Contact Group offered to declare ceasefire during Easter holidays.

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An agreement on cooperation between the defense ministries of Canada and Ukraine will be signed in the near future.

This was stated by National Defense Minister of Canada Harjit Sajjan, an Ukrinform correspondent reports.

"To move forward in the issue of the defense agreement, we and our colleagues just should determine the proper date," Sajjan said.

The National Defense Minister of Canada added that it had been planned to conclude that agreement during his trip to Ukraine last year. "During the last trip, the issue of this agreement was raised, and we could even move forward, but we had to wait until some issues on part of the Ukrainian government were solved. As of now, everything has already been settled," the Minister said.

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President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko says Ukraine will receive the international macro-financial assistance worth EUR 600 million from the European Union as soon as next week.

I have a great pleasure to inform that Ukraine will finally receive 600 million euros of macro-financial aid next week from the third to the seventh of April, he said during a conversation with journalists in Malta, where he was on an official visit for the participation in the expanded EPP Summit, an Ukrinform correspondent reported.

President Poroshenko noted that the next tranche of the international macro-financial assistance for Ukraine will promote stabilization of the state budget and replenishment of foreign exchange reserves.

Moreover, the IMF Board will have a meeting on Monday to make a decision regarding the allocation of tranche in the amount of 1 billion dollars, he added:

According to the president, this would significantly replenish the foreign exchange reserves of Ukraine and its budget stability.

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NATO still has "clear disagreements" with Russia over the crisis in Ukraine.

This was stated by NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg, Reuters reports.

"Allies and Russia continue to have clear disagreements on the crisis in and around Ukraine," Stoltenberg told a news conference.

According to him, the allies called on Russia to use its significant influence on the militants to meet their obligations in full.

In addition, NATO countries raised serious concerns about Russia's recognition of identity documents issued by the separatists, imposing the Russian currency and seizure of companies.

The NATO Secretary-General also noted that intense fighting continued to rage in eastern Ukraine despite a formal ceasefire.

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The attack on the Consulate General of Poland in Lutsk was a deliberate provocation to sow hatred between Warsaw and Kyiv, to isolate Ukraine and deprive it of international support.

Polands Minister of National Defense Antoni Macierewicz stated this on TV Trwam and Radio Mryja.

"Im a supporter of the widespread thesis that we are dealing with deliberate provocation. We must realize that this is an element of the series of events that concern not only Ukraine, the series of events intended to quarrel states and peoples, to sow hatred between Poland and Ukraine at any cost, to lead to a conflict, dispute, quarrel, chaos, said Macierewicz.

According to him, the country "which is waging a war against Ukraine and which wants to isolate Ukraine whatever it takes so that to make any support and assistance for Ukraine impossible is interested the most in such actions.

As Ukrinform reported, in the early hours on March 29, unknown people fired at the premises of the Consulate General of Poland in Lutsk. As a result of the attack, the roof of the building and a window were broken. Nobody was in the building at the moment of the attack.

Warsaw sent a note of protest to Kyiv.

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U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has stated he will hold talks with NATO allies regarding Russia's aggression in Ukraine.

He stated this before the start of the NATO foreign ministers meeting in Brussels, Radio Liberty reports.

Tillerson said he would raise the issue of "NATO's posture in Europe, most particularly in eastern Europe in response to Russia's aggression in Ukraine and elsewhere."

A senior State Department official said Tillerson would discuss ways of getting Russia to comply with the Minsk agreement, which set out steps to end the war between Kyiv and the separatists and restore Ukraine's control over its border with Russia.

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According to results of the poll, conducted on request of the Information Policy Ministry of Ukraine, 86% of Ukrainians would like Crimea to return to Ukraine.

This was announced by adviser to the Information Policy Minister of Ukraine, Yuliya Kazdobina at the presentation of the poll results at Ukrinform news agency.

"This research was carried out as part of the development of the strategy for the information reintegration of Crimea, the Information Policy Ministry is currently working on... In my opinion, we have quite optimistic results as 86% of Ukrainians said they would like Crimea to return to Ukraine," she said.

According to Kazdobina, 60% of respondents believe that the return of Crimea to Ukraine is possible. Another 25% of respondents are undecided about this or believe that the return is hardly possible, while 15% believe that the return of Crimea is absolutely impossible.

According to the poll results, 76% of Ukraine's population is convinced that Crimea should belong to Ukraine, 4% of respondents think it should belong to Russia and 12% of respondents believe that Crimea should be independent.

The poll was conducted by the InMind research company on request of the Information Policy Ministry of Ukraine in March. 1,000 adults were interviewed in 77 Ukrainian cities, towns and villages.

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Leaders from Central Europe said Tuesday they reject a European Union policy that calls for all member states to take in refugees, protesting suggestions that the level of their compliance could be linked to the availability of EU funds to them.

A meeting in Warsaw of the so-called Visegrad Group brought together Poland's Prime Minister Beata Szydlo and her counterparts from Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic. Their talks included the EU's migrant policies and its 2015 plan of sharing some 160,000 refugees among member states to ease the pressure on Greece and Italy.

The EU recently warned of financial consequences to those who do not comply.

Central European leaders said they reject the relocation plan and will not yield under the financial pressure, which they called an attempt at blackmail. Poland's government is citing security concerns among the reasons behind its refusal to take in people.

Szydlo said at a joint news conference that EU's migration policy should result from a true compromise among member states that would take into account especially sensitive issues.

"The Visegrad Group, including Poland, will never agree to blackmail and will never agree to conditions being dictated to them," Szydlo said.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban said his country was further sealing its borders and tightening regulations to block access to any more migrants, saying that serves the security of all of Europe.

The Visegrad Group aspires to have a greater role in EU policies while at the same time makes a point of criticizing the bloc's decisions.
Chile's president criticized isolationist foreign policies and protectionism in trade Thursday, saying during a state visit to Portugal that multilateralism is "crucial" to address global challenges.

Michelle Bachelet said during a news conference that "we must have coordinated and cooperative responses to make the voices of the many heard."

She said she hoped to bring about an increase in trade with Portugal through her two-day visit, which includes presiding at a bilateral trade conference Friday.

Bachelet arrived Thursday in Evora, about 150 kilometers (90 miles) east of the capital Lisbon, where she was to receive an honorary doctorate from the city's university.

Bachelet was met by Portuguese President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa and given full military honors in Evora's Giraldo square. The university said it was granting the award due to Bachelet's "exceptional" career as a doctor and her commitment to human rights and the well-being of the Chilean people.

Bachelet is scheduled to spend Friday in Lisbon, meeting with Prime Minister Antonio Costa and visiting Parliament.
Colombia's Congress backed the appointment of retired General Oscar Naranjo as vice president, replacing German Vargas Lleras who stood down to qualify for a run at the presidency next year.

President Juan Manuel Santos nominated the former national police chief and peace negotiator to focus on security in the Andean nation.

Naranjo was approved with a total of 168 votes in his favor in the lower house and Senate, while 21 lawmakers cast null or blank votes.

Santos, whose second four-year term ends next year and who is barred from running again, was defense minister when Naranjo, 60, took the post as police chief in 2007.

Naranjo was part of the government's negotiating team in Havana that worked for four years to clinch a peace agreement with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, rebels.

The accord reached late last year has ended the 52-year war, and guerrillas are currently living in demobilization camps, where they will hand in their weapons.

As police chief until 2012, Naranjo spearheaded a push against drug trafficking and organized crime.
A federal court sentenced Brazil's former speaker of the lower house, Eduardo Cunha, to more than 15 years in prison on Thursday for corruption, making him the highest-profile political conviction yet in the "Operation Car Wash" scandal.

The former politician's defense team said they would appeal the decision but Cunha will remain imprisoned pending appeal.

Cunha, who drove the successful impeachment of former President Dilma Rousseff, was forced from his position as speaker in July and arrested in October on accusations he received millions in bribes from the purchase of an oil field in Benin by state-run oil company Petrobras.

Over 200 people have been charged in the Operation Car Wash probe, a far-reaching investigation that centers on bribes and political kickbacks from contracts at Petrobras. The Supreme Court is likely to approve soon the investigation of dozens of sitting politicians.

In February 2015, Cunha, a member of President Michel Temer's Brazilian Democratic Movement Party (PMDB) that for a decade was the main member of left-leaning Workers Party (PT) governments, defied the wishes of his own coalition to run for and win the speakership of the lower house of Congress.

'Political persecution'

Just six months later, he officially broke with the PT government of Rousseff, saying that she was using the Petrobras investigation as a tool of political persecution against him.

As speaker, only Cunha could allow impeachment proceedings to begin against Rousseff, whom critics accused of breaking budgetary laws.

He did just that in December 2015, just hours after PT deputies cast deciding votes for him to face an investigation by the House's ethics committee for lying about bank accounts he and his wife held in Switzerland.

By May, Rousseff was impeached and Temer installed as successor. But Cunha could not shake free of corruption allegations that eventually led to his downfall.

Cunha faces another charge

Once he was kicked out of congress, Cunha lost the privilege given to sitting politicians that only the badly overburdened Supreme Court can try them.

His case was instead sent to crusading anti-corruption judge Sergio Moro, who has been the driving force behind Brazil's fight against graft. Moro has a reputation for plowing through cases efficiently, with over 98 percent of his convictions in Car Wash cases being upheld by higher courts.

Cunha faces another trial for allegedly receiving $5 million skimmed from Petrobras contracts for two drill ships in 2006 and 2007.
Hundreds of Iranian students already accepted into U.S. graduate programs may not be able to come next fall because of the uncertainty around President Donald Trump's proposed travel ban, potentially derailing research projects and leaving some science programs scrambling to find new students.

With admission season still in full swing, 25 of America's largest research universities have already sent more than 500 acceptance letters to students from the six affected countries, according to data provided by schools in response to Associated Press requests. The vast majority of those students are from Iran, where undergraduate programs are known for their strength in engineering and computer sciences.

The ban, which would suspend immigration from Iran, Sudan, Somalia, Libya, Syria and Yemen, has been blocked by federal judges. But if the court ruling is overturned or if Trump issues a new immigration ban, students would be locked out for next fall, legal experts say.

"For us to not have access to that talent pool is a major, major blow. It is unimaginable in schools of engineering across the country to lose that talent," said Kazem Kazerounian, dean of the School of Engineering at the University of Connecticut, which has accepted 15 Iranian students so far.

The new uncertainty has steered some students to other nations that compete with the U.S. for top students, including Canada, Australia and Japan, officials at some schools say.

Students from Iran have helped fill graduate programs at American colleges for years, especially in engineering schools. Out of 12,000 Iranian students who attended U.S. universities last year, 77 percent were graduate students and more than half studied engineering, according to data from the State Department and the Institute of International Education, a nonprofit in Washington.

At the University of Central Florida, a third of the 115 students who have been accepted to graduate programs in civil and electrical engineering for next fall are from Iran.

Iranian student Amir Soleimani, 26, has been accepted to two universities in the U.S., where he wants to pursue a doctorate in electrical engineering and continue his research on artificial intelligence. If he is kept out, he says, he'll likely have to begin his two years of mandatory service in Iran's military.

"My future is very dependent on this ban," said Soleimani, who lives in the city of Mashhad and has a master's in electrical engineering from the University of Tehran. "We have spent lots of our time and our energy to apply to top universities, and now that we have been admitted to these universities, it is very disastrous to see we may be banned."

Once implemented, the ban would last 90 days, but even afterward it would likely be too late for students to complete the months-long process to obtain visas.

Many U.S. universities rely on international students to work as research and teaching assistants, particularly in engineering. Americans who study engineering as undergraduates often opt for the job market instead of graduate school, experts say, leaving them to rely heavily on international students. Some schools also rely on tuition money from foreign students, who are typically charged full costs.

The University of Massachusetts at Amherst has offered acceptance to 42 Iranian students in graduate programs, and their absence would interfere with the progress of research, said John McCarthy, dean of the university's graduate school.

"It's not something where we can just suddenly go out in the street and grab somebody who's qualified to be a PhD student in electrical engineering," McCarthy said.

At the University of Central Florida, 30 percent of the students working at the school's Center for Research in Computer Vision are from Iran, and all of them play key roles in research, said Mubarak Shah, director of the center. Some, for example, are working on a $1.3 million project funded by a federal grant to develop computer technology that can quickly analyze thousands of hours of surveillance footage in an effort to help speed up criminal investigations.

"We are concerned that this may hurt us long-term in research," Shah said.

So far, Central Florida has offered admission to 87 graduate students from Iran for next fall. The university may be able to find replacements this year, but the quality of programs would likely suffer, said Dale Whittaker, the university's provost.

"These numbers are pretty high," he said. "I doubt that we would be able to fill 20 spots with high-quality students in one cohort."

Even if the White House does not restore the ban, many schools fear students overseas will think twice about coming to the U.S. At Ohio State University, total graduate applications from abroad are down 8 percent this year, including countries not affected by the ban. Numbers at Indiana University are down 11 percent.

"It's a big concern within the field, and not just at Indiana," said John Wilkerson, Indiana University's director of international affairs.

Indiana and some other universities have promised to refund application fees for students if they're banned, and some schools are offering to defer admission for a year. Many Iranian students have contacted the nonprofit American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee asking for advice, but for now, experts say, there's little to give.

"It's all up in limbo, even with the court orders," said Abed Ayoub, the group's legal and policy director. "If an opportunity does present itself in another country, they just may have to take that."
A suicide truck bomb has been detonated at a police checkpoint in the Iraqi capital, Baghdad, killing at least 15 people and wounding more than 45.

Police officials said the bomber detonated his explosives among vehicles waiting to be searched at the checkpoint Wednesday, setting some of them on fire.

No group has yet claimed responsibility for the attack, but Islamic State has carried out similar attacks as its territorial hold in Iraq weakens.

Iraqi forces are fighting the terrorist group in western Mosul, where about 2,000 IS fighters are launching fierce counterattacks.

The militants have lost territory captured in a 2014 offensive across northern and western Iraq, and have stepped up bomb attacks elsewhere.
Russia justified its 2014 annexation of Crimea, and ongoing support for rebels in east Ukraine, by claiming ethnic Russians there were threatened by nationalists and faced discrimination. But while Russian rhetoric, frequent military drills, and the legacy of Soviet aggression raise concerns, there is surprisingly little tension within the Baltics' Russian minority community. VOA's Daniel Schearf visited the Latvian capital, Riga, to find out more.
Mortar shells wounded at least seven people in and around the presidential compound Thursday in Mogadishu, Somalia, while the Cabinet was meeting inside.

At least three mortars struck a residential neighborhood near the palace.

A mortar shell hit near a house in Wardhigley district close to the presidential compound. We transported four injured civilians to the hospital, Mohamed Aden, an ambulance driver told VOA.

No Cabinet members were wounded as Prime Minister Hassan Ali Khaire was holding the new governments first meeting with ministers to talk about security and the drought.

No one has claimed the responsibility for the shelling, but Somali militant group al-Shabab often attacks government targets.

In Washington, the Pentagon announced Thursday that President Donald Trump has given it more authority to launch airstrikes against al-Shabab without having to justify its actions.

The U.S. is supporting Somali and African Union forces in their fight against the Islamic terrorists.

The additional support provided by this authority will help deny al-Shabab safe havens from which it could attack U.S. citizens or U.S. interests in the region, Pentagon spokesman Jeff Davis said Thursday.

The new Somali government is struggling to assert its authority as it deals with a devastating drought and terror from the militants.


A Pakistani-born doctor announced Wednesday that he was joining the 2018 race for lieutenant governor on a platform of saving Obamacare, providing free community college education and fighting what he termed "Donald Trump's hate."

"I am a proud Muslim and I love America," Dr. Asif Mahmood said at a news conference in front of the downtown federal building that houses a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement field office.

"President Trump continues to attack people like me: immigrants, people of color and Muslims," Mahmood said. "I say President Trump has it all wrong. It's time to get tough on hate. California must be the leader of the Trump resistance, and I will fight him every step of the way."

The pulmonologist said he came to the United States because he wanted his family to live in a place "that celebrates diversity and tolerance."

Born in a small, rural village, Mahmood moved to Kentucky in the 1990s to complete medical school. He came to Southern California in 2000 and lives near Los Angeles with his wife and three teenage children.

Must build coalition

As a first-time candidate, Mahmood's challenge is to build a statewide coalition, potentially anchored to civil rights. He starts as a virtual unknown, and Muslims make up a tiny percentage of people living in California.

To be competitive and grow beyond a niche candidacy, he must craft a message that resonates with the large, diverse pool of voters in a state that is home to 1 of every 8 Americans.

Lieutenant Governor Gavin Newsom, the incumbent, is barred by term limits from seeking a third term and is running for governor.

Mahmood, a Democrat, said he did not think his religion would be an obstacle in a state known for diversity.

Mahmood said his experience in running a medical practice and volunteering at free clinics that treat poor populations gave him the credentials to campaign for health care reform.

He supports protecting Obamacare and expanding Medicare to cover everyone.

Role in Senate

California's lieutenant governor post is largely ceremonial, but the lieutenant governor leads the state when the governor travels outside it and can break tie votes in the state Senate.

The lieutenant governor also has a seat on the board of regents of the 10-campus University of California. Mahmood said he would use it to influence higher education reform.

Mahmood said he wants to provide a free community college education and doesn't support fee hikes, such as the recent California State University tuition increase.

"I believe that education is the main asset that any nation can have, any society can have," he said.

State Senator Ed Hernandez, also a Democrat, is the only other declared candidate for lieutenant governor.
South Africans woke up Friday to learn that President Jacob Zuma had overhauled his Cabinet, firing, among others, a well-regarded finance minister who had been critical of him. The move prompted widespread outrage and renewed calls from the opposition for the increasingly unpopular president to resign.



Zuma says he reshuffled his Cabinet because he wants to bring in people who can bring energy, experience and expertise to the job.

His middle-of-the-night announcement sidelined a public works minister who started his career as an activist, a tourism minister with decades of political experience and a finance minister who has served in the position on two separate occasions.



All three former ministers had challenged the president directly in the last year, as Zuma sunk deeper in national opinion polls over a series of corruption scandals.



Zuma has been asked to resign by the opposition, by some high-ranking members of his own party and by a recently deceased anti-apartheid icon who was close friends with former president Nelson Mandela.



Zumas spokesman did not respond to multiple calls from VOA Friday for comment on the reshuffle. In separate statements, both the womens league and the youth league of the ruling African National Congress said they welcomed the reshuffle.

The ANC Youth League is excited, happy, overjoyed and jubilant at the announcement by President Jacob Zuma on the cabinet reshuffle, the league said. ...we have consistently said, and maintain, the belief that no one is above the ANC, and no one is irreplaceable. The constitution grants the president, and the president alone, the powers to appoint the Cabinet.





Move draws mixed reactions

Independent political analyst Ralph Mathekga says Zumas move is sure to strengthen his tenuous political position.



You could say that this is a master stroke from Jacob, from President Jacob Zuma, he told VOA. He has strengthened himself, he has actually sent a message, even to the branches of the ANC, that he is still firmly in charge and that they shouldnt listen to anyone else but they should look his direction for leadership.



But the opposition Democratic Alliance party says they will fight the move by bringing a no-confidence vote against Zuma in parliament.



Opposition party spokesman Mabine Seabe says the Cabinet changes dont serve South Africans, but only help Zuma.



The only qualification is that these are people who are beholden to the president and will do whatever he says, even if its not in the interest of the constitution of the people of South Africa, said Seabe, who told VOA he was jolted awake in the middle of the night by the news and had not slept. We are in a troubled space in the moment for as long as he sits in the Union Buildings and continues to administer South Africans affairs.

Previous no-confidence measures against Zuma have failed, due to the ANC's majority in parliament.

And so, activists like Mark Heywood of protest movement Save South Africa say they need to make their outrage heard by lawmakers. Heywood spoke to VOA as he headed to a march Friday in Pretoria, the capital, opposing the Cabinet changes.



It is not a Cabinet reshuffle, he said. It is a coup. That is the best term for it. The president has abused his legal powers to appoint to the Cabinet not people who are going to serve the interests of South Africa but people who are going to serve his interests to gain control over the finances, over the banks of this country.



The last time Zuma made a significant change to his Cabinet - in late 2015, when he suddenly and inexplicably fired another highly regarded finance minister and then went through two finance ministers in three days -- the South African currency took a hit.



On Friday morning, the rand went into freefall again, showing the most severe percentage drop since that 2015 reshuffle.
The White House has granted the U.S. military broader authority to carry out strikes in Somalia against al-Qaida-linked al-Shabab militants, the Pentagon said Thursday, the latest sign President Donald Trump is increasing U.S. military engagement in the region.

Last Friday, the head of U.S. forces in Africa said that greater ability to fight the militants would lead to more flexibility and quicker targeting.

Al-Shabab has been able to carry out deadly bombings despite losing most of its territory to African Union peacekeepers supporting the Somali government. The group's insurgency aims to drive out the peacekeepers, topple Somalia's Western-backed government and impose its strict version of Islam on the Horn of Africa state.

The United States has a small presence in Somalia and is allowed to carry out strikes in defense of partnered forces.

Two U.S. defense officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said parts of Somalia had been declared an "area of active hostilities" for at least 180 days by the White House on Wednesday night. The capital of Mogadishu was not included.

Denying safe havens

This broader authority would allow the United States to carry out offensive strikes against al-Shabab militants even if the militants were not attacking partnered forces, the officials said. They said rules to avoid civilian casualties would not be loosened.

In a statement, the Pentagon said Trump had approved a request for "additional precision fires in support of African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) and Somali security forces."

"The additional support provided by this authority will help deny al-Shabab safe havens from which it could attack U.S. citizens or U.S. interests in the region," Pentagon spokesman Captain Jeff Davis said in the statement.

The decision mirrors one the White House made in January when it declared parts of three provinces in Yemen an "area of active hostilities," allowing the military greater flexibility to target al-Qaida militants there.

In recent months, the United States has carried out more than 40 strikes against al-Qaida militants in Yemen, which lies just across the Gulf of Aden from Somalia.

As many as 12 civilians, some of them women and children, were killed along with a U.S. commando in a January raid in southern Yemen. The United States has said that raid gathered valuable intelligence.
U.S. Treasury authorities on Thursday sanctioned two prominent Southeast Asian leaders of Islamic State in charge of recruiting and laundering money from bases in Iraq and Syria.

Muhammad Bahrun Naim Anggih Tamtomo, an Indonesian national, and Muhammad Wanndy Bin Mohamed Jedi, originally from Malaysia, were added to the Specially Designated Global Terrorists list for providing financial and operational support for IS in both countries and funneling money through Southeast Asia to recruit people to IS battlefields.

Adding the pair to the terrorist list "sends a powerful signal to individuals that provide support to ISIS and demonstrates the U.S. government's resolve to combat terrorism and terrorism financing in the region," John E. Smith, director of the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control, said in a statement.

The two men were part of seven people put on the sanctions list, including Anjem Choudary, 50, a British Islamist preacher who was sentenced to prison last year for supporting IS.

The sanctions put forth by the assets control office and the State Department prohibit U.S. companies and Americans from doing business with the two men, blocks their assets in the United States and places them as high-profile targets for law enforcement worldwide.

Jakarta attack

Naim, 34, is suspected by authorities of being the mastermind of a 2016 attack in Jakarta that killed four civilians and injured 23. He is known for recruiting Asian Muslims and leading funding for IS operations in Southeast Asia.

Naim reportedly directed IS operations in Indonesia through the once-favored Telegram app in Raqqa, the group's de facto capital in Syria, Indonesian authorities said. He is one of Indonesia's most-wanted men, and authorities say he is a computer expert and skilled at bomb-making.

IS remains a threat to Indonesia, the world's largest Muslim country, authorities said. As many as 384 Indonesians have joined IS, according to Indonesia's counterterrorism agency. Most of those have traveled to Syria and Iraq.

According to media accounts, Naim was born in Central Java's Pekalongan city in 1983. He grew up in Solo, a city where radical groups have had a longtime presence, and graduated with a degree in computer technology in 2005.

Naim was arrested on suspicion of involvement in a terrorism network in November 2010, and he was convicted in June 2011 of illegal possession of ammunition. The court, however, found insufficient evidence to pursue the terror charges, Indonesian authorities said.

He fled the country in early 2015. Authorities tracked him to Syria, where they said he has continued strengthening his terrorist network in Indonesia.

"He [Naim] has a huge influence over his network," Wawan Purwanto, an intelligence analyst at Indonesia's anti-terror agency, told VOA last year. "He brings new inspiration to his followers through social media."

According to the BBC, Naim reportedly maintained a blog, portraying himself as a "freelance journalist." He has published posts on how to carry out terrorist attacks, make bombs and dodge surveillance.

Recruiter, attack director

The Malaysian Wanndy coordinates attacks for IS and recruits and facilitates travel of extremists to Syria to fight for IS, according to U.S. officials. He has directed multiple attacks and provided material support to IS, they said.

Wanndy claimed responsibility on behalf of IS for a June 2016 grenade attack on a nightclub in Malaysia in which eight people were wounded, the Treasury statement said.

"In early 2016, Wanndy recruited and facilitated the travel of three Malaysian [IS] supporters who were attempting to join the terrorist group in Syria, but were arrested in Malaysia following their deportation from Turkey," the statement said.
The Vietnamese blogger known as Me Nam, or Mother Mushroom, missed meeting Melania Trump when the first lady awarded the International Women of Courage Award to 13 women in Washington on Wednesday.

Social activist Nguyen Ngoc Nhu Quynh spent the day in a Khanh Hoa Province prison, where she has been held since she was detained on October 10 after posting about people dying in police custody.

Mother Mushroom, who started blogging under that name in 2006, is a founding member of the Vietnamese Bloggers Network. It is one of the few independent blogging groups in a nation where the ruling Communist Party tightly controls the media and writers.

She was charged under the Article 88 of the 1999 penal code for spreading propaganda against the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. The government has not set a trial date, and Mother Mushroom faces a maximum prison term of 12 years. The vaguely worded law has drawn international denunciation for the power it gives the government to suppress dissent.

The United States recognized Mother Mushroom for her bravery for raising civil society issues, inspiring peaceful change, calling for greater government transparency and access to fundamental human rights, and for being voice of freedom of expression, said Grace Choi, a spokeswoman for the State Departments East Asia-Pacific Office.

U.S. diplomats in Hanoi and Saigon posted news of Mother Mushrooms recognition to Facebook, attracting thousands of likes before the official ceremony.

Nguyen Ngoc Nhu Quynhs dedication to exposing corruption, raising awareness about environmental protection, and reporting on human rights violations in Vietnam is an inspiration for activists everywhere and has made her one of Vietnams best known online activists, said Choi, adding that since its inception in 2007, the award often has gone to women in prison for their activism.

'Timely' recognition

Foreign Ministry Spokesman Le Hai Binh said bestowing an award on someone being investigated for breaking Vietnam's law was "not suitable and beneficial to the development of the two countries' relationship."

Bui Thi Minh Hang, an activist in Saigon, told VOA that the recognition of Mother Mushroom is very timely because other bloggers, such as Tran Thi Thuy Nga, also are imprisoned. All the people who dare to stand up to fight, who dare to speak the truth in an evil regime like this, these are brave people."

Mother Mushrooms blogging led to many arrests, but her life changed in 2009 after the government detained her for writing about a bauxite mining project that counted a state-owned Chinese company among its investors. Although Chinese influence in Vietnams economy is a politically charged topic, she was released without being charged after a week.

After that landmark, Mother Mushrooms travel business and family life fell apart, according to her mother, Nguyen Thi Tuyet Lan, who, like her daughter, lives in Nha Trang. Since her daughters arrest, the bloggers 90-year-old grandmother has become fearful, and her children, nicknamed Mushroom and Bear, have changed.

Our lives are really difficult and threatened without Quynh, Nguyen told VOA on Wednesday.

I used to feel upset sometimes, because my family is under constant surveillance and harassment, Nguyen said. I told my daughter let it go but she said, 'I cannot live irresponsibly. I might die, but at least I can do something for others and do what I want to do."'

Ha Tinh spill

Among her recent campaigns, Mother Mushroom has blogged about the governments handling of a chemical spill at a Taiwanese-owned steel plant in the central Vietnam city of Ha Tinh. The spill that killed 80 tons of fish both embarrassed and worried the government. Images of piles of dead fish went viral worldwide, fishing communities lost income, and thousands of protesters demonstrated at the plant and in cities throughout Vietnam.

The April 2016 Ha Tinh fish kill is widely seen as having raised environmental awareness and activism among Vietnamese. The movement saw an early success when the Taiwanese-owned steel company accepted full responsibility for the fish kill and pledged to pay $500 million in damages for dumping toxic wastewater into the South China Sea.

Although the government is denouncing her and detaining her, deep inside, they know she is doing the right thing, said Nguyen. I am very proud of my daughter because she has overcome the common fear [of speaking up against the government]. She has overcome her fear to stand up and speak in the common voice.

This report originated with VOA's Vietnamese Service.
The Trump administration has submitted a vague set of guidelines to Congress for renegotiating the North American Free Agreement with Mexico and Canada, disappointing those who wanted a major overhaul of a decades-old trade deal that Trump described as a "disaster" during the presidential campaign.

In an eight-page draft letter to Congress, acting U.S. Trade Rep. Stephen Vaughn wrote that the administration intends to start talking with Mexico and Canada about making changes to the pact, which took effect in 1994. Trump and other critics blame the agreement for wiping out U.S. manufacturing jobs because it allowed companies to move factories to Mexico to take advantage of low-wage labor.

The letter spells out few details and sticks with broad principles. But it appears to keep much of the existing agreement in place, including private tribunals that allow companies to challenge national laws on the grounds that they inhibit trade  a provision that critics say allows companies to get around environmental and labor laws.

The draft also contains some provisions that were part of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a 12-country Asia-Pacific trade agreement negotiated by the Obama administration but rejected by Trump for possibly hurting U.S. workers.

"We've got a long ways to go," said Ohio Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown. "President Trump made big promises to working people in Ohio, and I'm ready to work with him to deliver on those promises or hold him accountable if he doesn't."

NAFTA critic Lori Wallach, director of the left-leaning Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch, called the letter "a punch in the face."

If it represents the president's plan for a revamped NAFTA, she said, "he will have broken his campaign promises to make NAFTA better for working Americans and have a deal that cannot get a majority in Congress."

But Gary Hufbauer, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, which advocates free trade, said the letter leaves open the possibility that the Trump administration can take a tougher position once talks with Canada and Mexico begin.

"The language is soft. It's very diplomatic," he said. "But it does have the potential of being an umbrella for very hard-hitting demands."

For instance, the letter said the president wants to revamp rules on government contracts to allow the U.S. government to insist that U.S. contractors do more to "buy American" while nudging the Mexican and Canadian governments to buy more U.S. products, too.

Texas Republican Rep. Will Hurd, whose district runs more than 800 miles along the border with Mexico, welcomed administration calls for NAFTA to be updated to reflect the rise of e-commerce in the years since the pact was negotiated. The U.S. will seek commitments from Mexico and Canada not to impose customs duties on digital products.

Criticizing NAFTA was a winner on the campaign trail. But many U.S. manufacturers have built complicated supply chains that cross NAFTA borders and worry that a rewrite of the deal will disrupt their operations. The letter states that a goal of new talks is to boost manufacturers' profits "within the trading bloc."

U.S. farmers also have enjoyed increased access to the Mexican market through NAFTA, a benefit an amended agreement would look to expand.

The vague draft may reflect a Trump administration still figuring out its trade priorities.

Outside of the president's own fiery rhetoric, congressional staffers have said it's unclear precisely which administration officials are setting the agenda on trade.

There is Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, a billionaire investor whom Trump has hailed as a "killer" negotiator.

But the president also created the National Trade Council led by the economist Peter Navarro, who has talked up border taxes in hopes of bringing factory jobs back into the United States.

And then there is Robert Lighthizer, the lawyer awaiting Senate confirmation as U.S. trade representative, the post officially responsible for leading talks about a new pact.

The White House declined to comment on the draft, which was obtained by The Associated Press and other media organizations, saying it would not verify the document's authenticity.

"That is not a statement of administration policy at this point," White House spokesman Sean Spicer said. "Our goal is to get Robert Lighthizer appointed as the next ambassador and U.S. trade representative."
SpaceX successfully launched and then retrieved its first recycled rocket Thursday, a historic feat and the biggest leap yet in its bid to drive down costs and speed up flights.

It was the first time SpaceX founder Elon Musk had tried to fly a booster that had soared before on an orbital mission. He was at a loss for words after the Falcon 9 core landed on the bulls-eye of the ocean platform following liftoff with a broadcasting satellite, achieving what some had once told him was impossible.

This is a huge day. My minds blown, frankly, Musk said.

Musk foresees dozens if not hundreds of repeat flights for a booster and rocket turnarounds of as little as 24 hours, perhaps by next year. Land, refuel and then back up again, with everything leading to one day putting humanity out there among the stars.

This particular first stage landed on an ocean platform almost exactly a year ago after a space station launch for NASA. SpaceX refurbished and tested the 15-foot booster, still sporting its nine original engines.It nailed another vertical landing at sea Thursday once it was finished boosting the satellite for the SES company of Luxembourg. SpaceX employees jammed outside Mission Control at the Hawthorne, Calif., company headquarters cheered loudly every step of the way  and again when the satellite reached its proper orbit.

Tthe Falcon 9 rocket launches from the Kennedy Space Center near Cape Canaveral, Fla. (Spacex/European Pressphoto Agency)

Longtime customer SES got a discount for agreeing to use a salvaged rocket, but wouldnt say how much. Its not just about the savings, said chief technology officer Martin Halliwell. He called it a big step for everybody  something thats never, ever been done before.

Absolutely astounding, Halliwell said after his companys satellite reached the proper orbit. Just opened the door into a whole new era of spaceflight.

SpaceX granted SES insight into the entire process of getting the booster ready to fly again, Halliwell said, providing confidence everything would go well. SES, in fact, is considering more launches later this year on reused Falcon boosters. At a news conference, Musk personally thanked Halliwell for having faith in SpaceX.

Youve got to get away from the idea that its secondhand, Halliwell told reporters. Flight proven, Musk quickly added, his preferred term.

Boosters  the most expensive part of the rocket, according to Musk  typically are discarded following liftoff, sinking into the Atlantic. SpaceX began flying back the Falcons first-stage, kerosene-fueled boosters in 2015; its since landed eight boosters, three at Cape Canaveral and five on ocean platforms  actually, six times at sea counting Thursdays redo.

On Thursday, the company even managed to recover the Falcons $6 million satellite enclosure, which used thrusters and parachutes to drop into the Atlantic. Until Thursday, trying to retrieve the second stage used to get the satellite into the proper, high orbit seemed like a Hail Mary pass, Musk said. But no more.

Musk said this day was 15 years in coming and that, all told, the reusability effort has cost the company at least $1 billion, which will take time to recoup. He brought all five of his young sons to the launch  and the news conference that followed  wanting them to be witness to history-in-the-making. It was fitting, he noted, that the rocket took off from NASAs Launch Complex 39A at Kennedy Space Center, the starting point for the Apollo moon shots decades ago.

Blue Origin, an aerospace company started by another tech billionaire, Jeff Bezos, already has reflown a rocket. One of his New Shepard rockets, in fact, has soared five times from Texas. These flights, however, were suborbital; in other words, nothing went into orbit.

NASA also has shared the quest for rocket reusability. During the space shuttle program, the twin booster rockets dropped away two minutes into flight and parachuted into the Atlantic for recovery. The booster segments were mixed and matched for each flight.

As for this SpaceX reused booster, Halliwell said engineers went through it with a fine-toothed comb following its liftoff in April 2016. SES had special access; the satellite provider, after all, has a long history with SpaceX. A SES spacecraft was on board for SpaceXs first commercial satellite launch in 2013.

Halliwell wasnt so sure, though, about the cleaning job. Its a bit sooty, he said with a smile.

Future refights wont need as much work, Musk conceded,

Given its historic mission, the booster will not fly again, Musk said, but rather remain at Cape Canaveral for viewing.

SpaceX  which aims to launch up to six reused boosters this year, two of them with the yet-to-fly, super-sized Falcon Heavy in late summer  is familiar with uncharted territory.

Besides becoming the first commercial cargo hauler to the International Space Station, SpaceX is building a capsule to launch NASA astronauts as soon as next year. Its also working to fly two paying customers to the moon next year, and is developing the Red Dragon, a robotic spacecraft intended to launch to Mars in 2020 and land. Musks ultimate goal is to establish a human settlement on Mars.

Key to all of this, according to Musk, is the rapid, repeating turnaround of rockets  and employees. SpaceX posted a help wanted ad on its webcast following the launch.
Florida State Attorney Aramis Ayala announced on March 16 that her office will no longer pursue the death penalty in any case brought before the 9th Judicial Circuit of Florida. (Joe Burbank/AP)

Florida State Attorney Aramis Ayala was elected last year on a vow to end tough-on-crime rhetoric and advance criminal justice reform. But just two months into her term, Ayala faces attempts to run her out of office after she refused to seek the death penalty for a man accused of killing a police officer.

Ayala, whose district in Central Florida includes Orange and Osceola counties, announced last month that she would not seek the death penalty in the seven capital murder cases being handled by her office, including the prosecution of 41-year-old Markeith Loyd, who is charged with killing his pregnant girlfriend and an Orlando police officer.

The decision was praised by advocates for criminal justice reform, but it outraged local law enforcement groups and state GOP lawmakers, underscoring the potential political ramifications facing a new crop of reform-minded prosecutors across the country.

Gov. Rick Scott removed Ayala from Loyds case, a decision upheld Tuesday by a Florida judge after Ayala fought it in court. Florida House Speaker Richard Corcoran has called on Scott to suspend the prosecutor, while the head of the state police union wants her removed from office altogether.

And in a budget proposal released last week, state lawmakers are seeking to slash more than $1.4 million and 21 positions from Ayalas office, a move that her spokeswoman, Eryka Washington, has decried as political posturing that would cripple its ability to prosecute cases.

Aramis Ayala announces that her office will no longer pursue the death penalty. (Joe Burbank/AP)

Ayala didnt take a position on the death penalty during her campaign, but after researching the issue, she said she concluded that officers are no safer in states where prosecutors pursue the death penalty. And the often-lengthy appeals process in such cases means vows to quickly dispense of lethal justice are a false promise to victims families, she said.

The death penalty doesnt improve public safety. It doesnt serve as a deterrent, Ayala said in an interview. I had to make that determination  am I going to give victims this false promise?

More than 100 prosecutors, judges and law professors defended Ayala  the states first elected black prosecutor  in an open letter that decried Scotts decision to remove her from Loyds case as an infringement on prosecutorial independence.

Not all of us agree with her decision. But we do agree that she has the authority and discretion to make it, the letter stated.

Ayala is among several prosecutors elected in recent years on the promise to usher in various changes to curb what they consider an over-incarceration crisis. Prosecutors in New York and Seattle have lessened the frequency with which they prosecute cases of marijuana possession, and in Houston, the prosecutor has begun a diversion program in which those caught with small amounts of marijuana are issued a citation and take an online course instead of being carted to jail. In Chicago, the local prosecutor has stopped treating shoplifting cases of less than $1,000 as felonies. And, as in Orlando, the local prosecutor in Denver has announced that she will not seek the death penalty while in office.

For the first time, we have a critical mass of local elected prosecutors who believe that we need to do things differently and who are looking for ways to change the culture and practices in their offices, said former federal prosecutor Miriam Aroni Krinsky, now executive director of the Fair and Just Prosecution, a criminal justice reform group. And thats going to mean making the tough calls in the tough cases.

But those tough calls come with political repercussions. In Orlando, Ayala immediately faced opposition not only from law enforcement groups, but also from her fellow Florida prosecutors, some of whom believe that refusing to seek death for the worst criminals could lead to an increase in attacks on officers. The powerful Florida Prosecuting Attorneys Association coordinated a rebuke of Ayala, signed by 19 of her 20 fellow states attorneys.

Markeith Loyd, charged with killing his pregnant ex-girlfriend and Orlando Police Sgt. Debra Clayton, attends court proceedings on Feb. 22 in Orlando. (Red Huber/AP)

The victims families of Florida deserve our dedication to implement all the laws of Florida, the prosecutors statement declared. That is why the people of Florida have elected us.

Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi decried Ayalas decision as a blatant neglect of duty. A county official was forced to resign after he wrote a Facebook post that seemed to call for Ayala to be lynched. Ayala should be tarred and feathered . . .  Stan McCullars, assistant finance director for the Seminole County clerk of court, wrote in a now-deleted post,  . . . if not hung from a tree.

Loyd had been dating Sade Dixon, 24, for about three months when, on Dec. 13, he allegedly shot and killed her and wounded one of her brothers outside the Dixon family home in Orlando. Dixon was two months pregnant with Loyds child.

A nearly month-long manhunt for Loyd ended when a woman recognized him shopping at a Walmart and alerted Sgt. Debra Clayton, a 17-year veteran of the Orlando police department, according to police records. Police say Loyd ran behind a pillar when he saw Clayton approaching him outside the store and fired three shots at her. Struck in the hip, Clayton fell as Loyd approached her, continuing to fire. After the fatal shot pierced Claytons neck, Loyd casually drove away, according to a police account of surveillance footage. He was found nine days later in an abandoned home.

Loyds arrest came amid a years-long debate over the legality of Floridas death penalty statute. The state, which has more than 400 people on death row, has not been able to execute anyone since January of last year, after the U.S. Supreme Court said that the states statute was too broad. A new statute was signed into law earlier this year.

While some victims families want prosecutors to seek death, others dread the years of court proceedings that such a case is guaranteed to bring.

You have to understand that we want closure, Stephanie Dixon, Sades mother, told reporters in a news conference in support of Ayala. And with closure doesnt mean to be dragged in and out of court with appeals and everything else.
The U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday threw out a ruling that upheld a New York law barring retailers from charging more to customers buying with credit cards, sending the case back to a lower court to decide on free-speech grounds, not as price regulation.

The merchants that challenged the law argued that it violated their free-speech rights under the U.S. Constitutions First Amendment, and the 8-0 ruling by the justices handed them at least a temporary victory. The justices returned the matter to the New York-based U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the 2nd District, which upheld the law in 2015 as legitimate price regulation.

The merchants attorney, Deepak Gupta, expressed confidence the law would eventually be struck down after the Supreme Courts action. Nine other states have similar laws.

Retailers are forced to pay fees to credit card companies every time a customer buys with a card. The New York law barred retailers from imposing a surcharge on customers who made purchases with a credit card. It also made it impossible for merchants to call fees paid to credit card companies a surcharge that is added to the price of a product.

The law did not stop retailers from offering a discount for cash purchases.

The case hinged on whether the justices saw the law as a speech restriction or a traditional form of price regulation not subject to a free-speech challenge.

In a ruling written by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., the court decided that the law is speech regulation. The businesses, Roberts said, want to make clear that they are not the bad guys responsible for the higher prices, but the law precludes them from doing so. The court did not decide whether the measure is lawful.

A spokeswoman for New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman said, We respect the courts decision and will continue to defend the statute on remand to the lower court.

Merchants contend laws like the one in New York infringe on their free-speech rights by dictating how they describe their pricing to customers.

Retailers have long complained about the cost of accepting credit cards including swipe fees, a percentage of the purchase price the merchants pay to networks such as MasterCard and Visa every time a credit card is used.

Five New York state merchants, including a Brooklyn ice cream parlor and a Manhattan martial arts studio, challenged the law, saying it keeps consumers in the dark by criminalizing truthful speech.

The lead plaintiff, Expressions Hair Design unisex salon in Vestal, N.Y., said in court papers that after it learned of the law it removed signage notifying customers of a card surcharge, but would like to put it back up.

The New York law subjected merchants to a potential one-year prison sentence and a $500 fine for imposing credit card surcharges.

In 2013, U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff sided with the merchants and blocked enforcement of the law. The appeals court then upheld the law in 2015.
Rear Adm. Brian L. Losey addresses the audience during the Naval Special Warfare Command change of command ceremony at Naval Base Coronado in Southern California. (Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Richard Miller/U.S. Navy)

In defiance of Congress, the Navy has granted a retroactive promotion, back pay and a bigger pension to an admiral whom lawmakers forced to retire last year after multiple investigations found he had retaliated against whistleblowers, records show.

Brian L. Losey, a former commander of the Navy SEALs, rose in rank to become a two-star rear admiral in January after the Navy conducted a secretive and unusually rapid review of his case during the final days of the Obama administration, according to documents obtained by The Washington Post under the Freedom of Information Act.

Loseys promotion came two months after he retired from the military under duress, the casualty of a clash between Navy leaders who wanted to reward the combat-hardened SEAL commander and a bipartisan group of senators who demanded his ouster after the investigations determined he had violated whistleblower-protection laws.

The dispute represented a rare public challenge by senior military leaders to congressional oversight of the armed forces, and left lingering resentments on both sides. Lawmakers thought they had prevailed by blocking Loseys promotion last year, but the newly obtained documents reveal the Navy had the last word.

The promotion capped a long-running controversy over Loseys record as a commander of the SEALs and other elite Special Operations forces during a highly decorated 33-year military career.

Rear Adm. Brian L. Losey, commander of Naval Special Warfare Command. (US Navy)

Three separate investigations by the Defense Departments inspector general found that Losey had wrongly fired, demoted or punished subordinates during a vengeful but fruitless hunt for an anonymous whistleblower under his command.

Losey denied wrongdoing. Navy leaders dismissed the findings after conducting their own review and decided in October 2015 to promote him anyway. But members of Congress objected strenuously when they learned about the case from a report in The Post, and pressured Navy Secretary Ray Mabus to block Loseys advancement.

Mabus resisted at first as many other admirals pushed him to stand behind Losey. After the Senate upped the ante by freezing the nomination of the Navys second-ranking civilian leader, the service announced in March 2016 that Mabus would reluctantly deny Loseys promotion, effectively ending his military career.

The documents obtained by The Post, however, show that Mabus later reopened the case. On Jan. 12, during his last week in office as an Obama political appointee, Mabus signed a memo boosting Loseys rank from a one-star to a two-star admiral.

Losey, 56, will stay retired, but the documents show that his promotion will benefit him financially for the rest of his life.

His higher rank entitles him to a bigger annual military pension. It will swell to about $142,000 this year, an increase of $16,700, according to Defense Department figures.

He will also receive a one-time check for about $70,000 in back pay because the Navy dated his promotion retroactively to the date when he first became eligible for a second star.

(United States Senate)

Mabus declined to comment. His decision to promote the admiral was based on a recommendation from the Board for Correction of Naval Records, a quasi-judicial panel that fields requests from veterans to review potential errors in their personnel files.

The board has the authority to fix mistakes or remove injustices from a veterans permanent military record, according to its mission statement.

Losey retired Nov. 1. Three weeks later, he submitted a petition to the board, arguing that he had been unfairly denied promotion because the inspector general and his critics in Congress were biased against him.

The damning assertions against my leadership are not supported by the facts, and these errors in fact contributed to an unjust outcome, he wrote.

The Board for Correction of Naval Records receives 12,000 applications annually and typically takes between 10 and 18 months to issue a final decision, according to Navy officials.

Loseys application was approved by the board and Mabus in seven weeks.

Experts in military law said they had never heard of a case being reviewed so quickly.

Im not passing any judgment on his promotion and whether he deserves it or not, but the process certainly does look suspicious, said Raymond J. Toney, a Utah attorney who specializes in such cases and who reviewed Loseys file at The Posts request. It suggests to me that the rear admiral has some friends who did not want to see him go down in flames at the end of his career.

Eugene R. Fidell, a lecturer on military justice at Yale Law School, said the speed in which Loseys appeal was heard made it appear that the outcome was predetermined. The circumstantial evidence suggests to me that this was wired, he said.

Navy officials denied that Losey was given special treatment.

In a statement, Capt. Amy Derrick, a Navy spokeswoman, said the Board for Correction of Naval Records provides a full and fair hearing on all requests that are complete and submitted in accordance with established procedures.

Thomas Oppel, who served as Mabuss chief of staff until both left office in January, said in an interview that any suggestion the Navy rushed the process during the waning days of the Obama administration was a whole lot of speculation without foundation.

This is a case that had been freshly investigated, and the facts were fairly well known, Oppel added.

Losey deferred questions about how his petition was handled to the Navy. I followed processes available to me, he wrote in a brief message to The Post. I do business by the book and have always aimed to be fair.

Members of Congress who had urged the Navy to hold Losey accountable for punishing whistleblowers said they were dismayed to learn about the admirals promotion.

Cases like these send the wrong message about whistleblower retaliation, Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa), chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said in an emailed statement. When accountability is lacking, retaliation continues. Good government suffers.

Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), who held up the confirmation of the Navys second-ranking civilian leader last year in a tactic to block Loseys rank advancement, said he was disappointed but not surprised.

The Navy leadership has long sought to sweep away the inspector generals findings and make excuses for one of its own, and Secretary Mabuss decision to grant Admiral Losey a backdoor promotion is yet another disappointing example, Wyden said.

A spokesman for the Senate Armed Services Committee said the panel was not informed of Loseys post-retirement request for promotion until after it was finalized. Other lawmakers said they were unaware of his new rank until they were told by The Post.

A prominent figure in the militarys secretive Special Operations forces, Losey served as the head of the Naval Special Warfare Command from 2013 to 2016. He formerly commanded SEAL Team Six, the clandestine unit known for hunting terrorist targets. He deployed to Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, Bosnia, Panama and other conflict zones.

The Navy first tried to promote Losey to become a two-star admiral in 2011. The Senate confirmed his nomination that year. But the move was put on hold when the Defense Departments inspector general began investigating Loseys actions while serving as commander of Special Operations forces in Africa.

Five of Loseys subordinates filed complaints that he had unfairly fired or punished them during a ham-handed hunt for a suspected whistleblower. After spending four years interviewing more than 100 witnesses and reviewing 300,000 papers of emails, the inspector general determined that Losey had violated whistleblower-protection laws in three of the cases.

The outcome marked a rare instance of a commander being found guilty of misconduct in a whistleblower case. The Defense Departments inspector general receives more than 1,000 whistleblower cases each year, but upholds only about three percent of them.

Losey asserted that he had acted within his rights as a commander and that he had merely held his staff accountable for mediocre work.

Despite the findings of the inspector general, the Board for Correction of Naval Records sided with Losey, concluding that there was insufficient evidence that Losey had violated whistleblower-protection laws.

Moreover, the board found that Mabus had never signed paperwork formally denying the admirals promotion before he retired.

In a unanimous vote on Jan. 11, the panel recommended that Mabus grant Loseys request for the higher rank and back pay, documents show.

Mabus signed a memo approving the decision the next day.
Dear Heloise: While traveling in another country, a pickpocket stole my wallet from my back pocket. I felt the man pull it out, and as I turned, he ran off into a crowd. I had to cancel all my credit cards and cut my vacation short. Here are some hints I wish I had known:

 Put a rubber band around your wallet, and carry it in the front pocket. The rubber band makes it harder to lift out.

 Carry money/travelers checks in a money clip and/or a rubber band in the other front pocket.

 Take only one or two internationally recognized credit cards.

 Never take or wear a valuable watch or jewelry on a vacation.

K.O. Smith in Chicago

K.O. Smith in Chicago: You cant be toooo safe when traveling, at home or away. Even if on vacation here, you dont need to carry seven or eight credit cards! Do watch your belongings, and dont set luggage down just to pick up a magazine.

Dear Heloise: When traveling through smaller towns, my husband and I will go to the citys Chamber of Commerce. We ask for phone books and other literature. When we get home, we store them for our next drive time trip. This way, we have a list of places to stay and some smaller, unusual places to visit when we are next in that area.

Gennie G., Santa Fe, N.M.

Dear Heloise: I am a makeup artist, and so many times we see women who have never been taught simple skin care hints. May I pass on the following?

 Never sleep in your makeup at night. Use a gentle soap and water, and get every bit of makeup off your face. If you wear waterproof mascara, use an eye makeup remover made for this.

 There are many kinds of moisturizers on the market today. Find one that works for your skin type and texture.

 Learn to use brushes and sponges to apply your makeup for a smoother finish, Wash your brushes and sponges when needed. It depends how much and how often you use them, but if you see oil or too much face powder, its time.

Ruby R. in Los Angeles

Ruby R. in Los Angeles: Thank you for passing on good hints, especially when someone pays a lot for makeup and makeup tools. I use baby shampoo (diluted about half and half with water) to clean face and eye shadow brushes. I pat dry with paper towels and lay flat to dry.

P.S. A hint I learned from a makeup artist in Los Angeles: When applying powder blush, shake the brush out a little, then gently brush, starting at the hairline and going down. You wont have apple cheeks.

Dear Heloise: When I travel, I put my shoes inside empty bread bags to keep my clothes clean. When I get home, I recycle the bags.

Chantel W., Petoskey, Mich.

Heloises column appears six days a week at washingtonpost.com/advice. Send a hint to Heloise , P.O. Box 795000, San Antonio, Tex. 78279-5000, or email it to Heloise@Heloise.com.
Sarah Matheson, 38, and Mike Mihalecz, 47, during their second-line parade to the Clarendon Ballroom in Arlington. It started out as something practical  a way to get to guests from the ceremony to our reception at the Clarendon Ballroom without stopping at the Irish bar in between, the groom told The Washington Post, but it quickly grew into an opportunity to celebrate something personal with our community. (Taylor and Ben Photography)

Sarah Mathesons motivation for dating was simple: She needed a plus-one. Specifically, to her younger brothers wedding five months out, in October 2011.

Sarah hoped that by securing a date, she could avoid a barrage of probing  albeit good-intentioned  questions from her family about her love life. I obviously wanted to be in a relationship, but because I never felt there was a timeline, I never fully applied myself to dating, she admits.

Her brothers nuptials were the push  and the deadline  she needed. I decided that, at the very least, I needed to bring a date, says Sarah, 38, a sustainability manager at the Indian conglomerate Tata Sons.

So, Sarah took to the Internet and created a profile on eHarmony, hoping to find a suitable match before the wedding. And unlike previous forays into cyberdating, she stuck with it and made it a daily habit.

Within weeks, Sarah, began chatting with Michael Mihalecz, a psychologist in Alexandria. After years of putting off dating for the pursuit of higher education (specifically, two masters degrees and a doctorate), Mike had registered with eHarmony with a similar determination.

The groom dips the bride during the couple's first dance to "Lucky" by Jason Mraz and Colbie Caillat . (Taylor and Ben Photography)

[She saw her first love on the 11 oclock news. Four months later, they were engaged. ]

His early dates, however, were disappointing. There was a series of first dates, says Mike, 47. It was an easy way to try people out. It was like a first audition: Okay, next! 

He and Sarah agreed to meet after a brief email exchange and a few short phone calls. But Mike canceled their plans twice: once to brew beer with a friend and another to visit family. Sarah, impressed by his first excuse, gave him a pass, but by the second, she was ready to call it quits.

But Mike persuaded her to give him another chance, and they met for drinks at Clydes in Chinatown in late May. Truthfully, though, Sarah had already dismissed him at that point.

As soon as Mike saw her, he realized how high the stakes were. I thought, Wow. I had better not mess this up. 

Sarah was pleasantly surprised, and cautiously optimistic, by their immediate connection. Drinks at the bar segued into hours of conversation, and they ended the evening at Poste (now Dirty Habit), where they shared a nightcap  and a first kiss  in the outdoor courtyard. It was nice, easy and natural, Sarah says.

Two weeks later, they shared an intimate date at PX, a speakeasy-inspired bar in Old Town Alexandria where once again they shared an easy chemistry. She liked the fact that, although Mikes day job was rigorous and scientific, he embraced his creative side and had an eclectic variety of hobbies, including smoking foods, felting and soap making.

he bride and groom cut their praline art deco wedding cake at their wedding reception at the Clarendon Ballroom in Arlington. (Taylor and Ben Photography)

He doesnt just learn something, he dives in and wants to fully understand the craft, she says. Once he sets his mind to something, hes all in.

From that point on, things progressed swiftly, and by date five, they were exclusive. By the time her brothers wedding rolled around that October, they were a full-fledged couple.

It was a huge sign for me that he could hang out with my family for an entire weekend, says Sarah.



In February 2012, they moved in together in an apartment in Alexandria. It proved an easy decision for both of them.

He makes me laugh every day, sometimes every hour, from the moment he wakes up, Sarah says.

Shes one of the nicest and most patient people I have ever met, Mike adds. Shes also extremely modest. . . . Her mom passed when she was young, and she had a huge role in raising her three brothers.

Over the next few years, Mike and Sarah continued to grow closer, traveling to India, Dubai and the Bahamas, among other places. Shes not only willing to follow me on crazy adventures; shes encouraging of them, Mike says.

Sarah also helps Mike stay grounded, organized and focused. I like accomplishing things at a very organized pace, while Mike adds a lot of flavor, depth and personality to them, she says. He makes everything fun, and I make sure everything gets done.

They purchased a townhouse in Alexandrias Del Ray neighborhood in 2014, and in fall 2015, Sarah began questioning Mike about whether, and when, a proposal might happen. As soon as Mike said, Im working on it, I dropped it, she says. He is very deliberate about what he does, and I knew there was something happening. I was willing to wait. (Turns out, Mike was saving up for a ring.)

[Are you getting married in the Washington region? Tell us why we should feature your nuptials here]

Ring finally in hand, they returned to the courtyard of their first date on April 2, 2016, and he proposed. I think I said yes before he even finished his speech, she says.

The couple exchanged vows Feb. 25 before about 120 guests at St. Charles Borromeo Catholic Church in Arlington. Months earlier, the couple had decided on a New Orleans-style second-line parade down Washington Boulevard after the ceremony.

It started out as something practical  a way to get to guests from the ceremony to our reception at the Clarendon Ballroom without stopping at the Irish bar in between, says Mike, but it quickly grew into an opportunity to celebrate something personal with our community.

But nature had other plans. Just as the couple proceeded down the aisle for the first time as husband and wife, it started to thunder. Determined to carry on with their plans, they persisted despite the bad weather.

It literally rained on our parade, Mike jokes.

Although they ended up wet, Mike and Sarahs spirits were left undampened as they danced, kissed and celebrated the fact that they had found a partner  and plus-one  for life.
(Victoria Walker/The Washington Post)

A pungent fog blankets Goda Yoga in Culver City. Its Friday night and the studio is packed, with overflow mats extending down the back hall to the bathroom.

Votive candles and sitar music set the mood. But this class offers a whiff  actually plenty  of something extra: the unmistakable scent of marijuana.

Participants vape, then stretch. Its yoga with deep breathing.

And, after several inhalations, a lot of coughing.

Co-instructor Emily Meyers asks the 20 participants: What are you most passionate about?

Staying in touch with nature and making out with my dog, is one reply.

Im not quite sure. Thats why I moved to California.

Uh, I forgot the question.

Such moments are common in Higher Self yoga, a monthly ganja yoga class that Goda owner Nathania Stambouli introduced in the fall: Were bringing together two great spiritual practices. Marijuana is a way of enhancing the experience.

Ah, yes, enhancing the experience. Of late, theres been a fair amount of yoga-enhancing going on. Its yoga with something extra on the side.

Would you like beer with your yoga? Theres a class for that.

Yoga in the buff? Manhattans Bold and Naked Yoga is precisely what it says it is.

For yogis who prefer to bundle in down, theres snowga  yoga with snowshoes.

Some classes eschew the calm and quiet many practitioners seek. Y7, with locations in New York and Los Angeles, bills itself as the original hip-hop yoga studio.

Wish to vocalize at multiple decibels above a soothing om? Theres yoga with karaoke and  YES! REALLY!  tantrum yoga, which encourages poses and primal screams.

Trampoline yoga also exists, which must make balancing in Tree pose a challenge.

And, because it had to happen, theres a yoga class with goats.

[The latest from Oregon: Yoga  with goats]

Yoga now welcomes a menagerie of critters, in fact: yoga with horses, yoga with dogs (doga  yoga lends itself to a sun salutation series of puns), yoga with bunnies, even yoga with cats, which seems like an exercise doomed to failure.



No Regrets Farm owner Lainey Morse offers yoga classes with goats in the calm outdoors of Oregon.

Already rife with rival and sometimes competing schools, the ancient practice has become a tabula rasa, open to endless permutations and personal spins. Its such a fixture in the popular culture that it has inevitably become ripe for parody, in fare such as Yoga Hosers, a Johnny Depp spoof in which a pair of teenage Californians use their yoga prowess to defeat villains.

So we have to ask: Has yoga jumped the shark? (Or goat?)

Depends on whom you ask.

Yoga has become the answer to everything, laments John Philp in his documentary, Yoga, Inc., which traces  and bemoans  yogas evolution from a spiritual practice to a global commercialized endeavor.

But Andrea R. Jain, associate professor of religious studies at Indiana University and the author of Selling Yoga: From Counterculture to Pop Culture, points out that although yoga dates back thousands of years, it has always been open to malleability.

The vast and unusual array of classes reflects a marketplace bursting with jewel-toned rubber mats. From 2012 to 2016, the number of Americans practicing yoga  three-fourths of them women  almost doubled to nearly 37 million, according to a major study, creating a $17 billion industry. The growth is partly attributable to the promotion of yoga and wellness and the pervasive practice of mindfulness.

[When mindful is a mayo, a diet, a mantra, does it actually mean anything?]

Or maybe its just that yogas super trendy.

It would seem a challenge to make yoga expensive. Its not exactly yachting. You dont need specific togs, shoes, nor even a mat. But it has come to be viewed as a privileged practice, done in $98 Lululemon pants in Bali or Tulum, some exotic beach retreat far, far from home.

Weve packaged yoga to make it look like its done only by young, thin white women, says Lori Hunter, a University of Colorado sociology professor who teaches a course titled Yoga, Culture & Society. If thats not you, you feel that space is not for you.

Enter the goats and bunnies, the tantrums and marijuana, brought in to make yoga appear fun, less exclusive and sanctimonious, and to attract different people.

Like men.

If adding cats and bunnies to yoga introduces more people to a positive physical and mental experience that leads them to pursue deeper study of yoga, then its all for the good, says Andrew Tanner, chief ambassador for the nonprofit Yoga Alliance, which represents 76,000 registered yoga teachers and 5,000 yoga schools.

The breakfast-cereal aisle of offerings, a little hip-hop with your plank pose, has not pleased everyone. In 2014, Indias Prime Minister Narendra Modi, a dedicated yogi, launched a campaign to reclaim yoga as Indian and to strengthen its moorings to Hinduism, and he even appointed a yoga minister.

[Indias new prime minister, Narendra Modi, aims to rebrand and promote yoga in India]

And that was before the yoga and goats business. So hows that working out?



Yoga has exploded in the United States, becoming a $17 billion industry with nearly 37 million practitioners  most of them women. (DANIEL LEAL-OLIVAS/AFP/Getty Images)

Unsurprisingly, Higher Self regularly attracts lots of male students, some taking yoga for the first time. Almost half of tonights class is male, which is also diverse in age and race.

Maybe theyve been toying with the idea of yoga in a safe space, Stambouli says of the male contingent. Socially, yogas a girl thing to do.



Or, she notes, Maybe theyre fans of marijuana. Maybe?

The 90-minute class incorporates meditation, deep breathing and gentle beginner poses, rather than an aerobic regimen of sun salutations. It is supremely mellow.

A good thing, because some poses are decidedly raggedy in their execution. Triangle poses melt into trapezoids. Bridge poses crumble.

One student becomes too baked to attempt anything more rigorous than Savasana, the aptly named corpse pose. For much of the class, he lies on the mat doing the most rigorous yoga he can muster, which is almost nothing at all.

Possibly, he is sleeping.

One man struggles to distinguish right limb from left and tumbles repeatedly from downward-facing dog.



Goda Yoga is a 15-year-old studio that Stambouli purchased last August. There are three other studios within a mile of her practice. Thats nothing compared to Santa Monica, where there must be 20 in one mile, she says. Its like Starbucks. Theres a yoga studio on every corner.

Goda had an older client base. Im trying to bring it up and distinguish it from other studios, says Stambouli, who quit a career in marketing to join what she calls the yoga industry.

In 2018, recreational marijuana will be legal in California, creating the nations largest market for its products.

And activities incorporating those products. The demand for yoga and weed is going to explode, Stambouli says. For the time being, she says, Were going to let the buzz build. She may add a second monthly class.

She may need to.

The man who kept plummeting downward doing downward-facing dog drifts out of a yoga class in a yoga studio, content and mellow, and asks, perfectly serious  well, in a stoned sort of way  Do you offer other yoga classes here?

Seems that herbal additive is having the desired effect.
Roland Carroll, left, a D.C. inspector, checks an apartment in Southeast Washington on March 21, 2017. Monique Scott, center, rents the apartment from Sanford Capital, which operates at least 18 apartment complexes, many in dilapidated condition, for low-income tenants in the city. Scott says there are many problems with her apartment, including mice, broken doors and water leaks. (Michael Robinson Chavez/The Washington Post)

District inspectors have found more than 1,000 housing-code violations that carry the threat of $539,500 in fines during a sweep of apartments managed by Sanford Capital, a company that has drawn scrutiny for poor housing conditions even as it receives millions in taxpayer subsidies.

Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) ordered the inspections after reports about the company in The Washington Post and Washington City Paper.

They will have a choice: Fix the violations, face nearly half a million dollars in fines or see us in court, Bowser said at her State of the District Address on Thursday.

The violations stem from recent inspections of 229 units across 15 complexes  just under 20 percent of Sanfords portfolio of approximately 1,200 rental units. The city has given Sanford one week to fix problems, instead of the standard 30 days, before it will issue fines.

City officials say Sanford is contesting all the violations in administrative court, which must be resolved before citations can be issued.

D.C. inspector Roland Carroll prepares to do a walk-through at an apartment complex in Southeast Washington on March 21, 2017. (Michael Robinson Chavez/The Washington Post)

Stephen Hessler, an attorney for Sanford, wrote in an email that his firm would defend our clients vigorously while maintaining professional and hopefully effective lines of communication and cooperation with DCRA and the Office of the Attorney General; while I am not able to comment on pending federal, administrative or civil litigation it is our, and our clients hope that we can resolve matters at hand.

The mayor ordered inspections of all Sanford properties, and inspectors ended up reviewing a sampling of units at all but three complexes.

Inspectors did not visit two properties that are the subject of city lawsuits and where Sanford has already agreed to a court-monitored abatement plan.

Meanwhile, D.C. Attorney General Karl Racine is ramping up pressure on Sanford concerning one of those lawsuits. On Friday, he filed motions in D.C. Superior Court asking that Sanford be held in contempt for failing to meet the requirements of the abatement plan covering Terrace Manor  including a provision that the landlord provide heat. Racine is asking the court to appoint a receiver to take over the property. He also wants to hold Aubrey Carter Nowell, Sanfords co-founder, and Todd Fulmer, head of the companys maintenance arm, personally liable for conditions at the complex.

Housing advocates and members of the D.C. Council who have been looking into the governments oversight of dilapidated properties say the aggressive scrutiny is overdue.

[Tax dollars keep flowing to landlord D.C. is suing over housing conditions]

Before the latest round of inspections, Sanford Capital had racked up nearly $150,000 in fines since its operations began a decade ago. The company continues to receive millions annually through housing vouchers for low-income and previously homeless families. Dozens of tenants interviewed by The Post said the company has been slow to respond to such problems as broken doors, rat infestations, malfunctioning heat in winter and sewage backing into their units.

But the city has not cut off public funding, nor has it prioritized Sanford properties for increased scrutiny.

Thats because housing inspectors with the Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs (DCRA) respond to complaints and select buildings randomly for pre-announced inspections, with the goal of examining every large complex every several years.

At the mayors direction, the city is developing an algorithm to target buildings with a history of violations  and other risk factors  for proactive inspections.

The recent focus on Sanford has meant that inspectors are diverted from other problems across the city. Bowsers proposed budget for the next fiscal year will include $300,000 to hire more inspectors.

If you are going to go fishing, go where the fish are, D.C. Council member Elissa Silverman (I-At Large) said at a recent oversight hearing for DCRA. Lets do strategic enforcement where we see there are problems.

D.C. Council Chairman Phil Mendelson (D), who criticized DCRA at the oversight hearing for not requesting additional inspectors, welcomed the administrations more-aggressive review of troubled buildings. Still, he said the city has been too slow to react.

Weve known of these problems for, gosh, Im going to say two years, and a lot of tenants have suffered, so I dont want to criticize the good, but it would be nice if this had happened sooner, he said.

On a recent day, during one of the unannounced visits by a city inspector to Sanfords Oak Hill apartments in Southeast Washington, a mouse darted past the inspectors feet in the lobby. Closet doors were off their hinges in several units, ceilings were stained and discolored from recent leaks, and rodent holes were visible along walls.

The heightened scrutiny from the city appears to have propelled Sanford to make some repairs, residents say.

Monique Scott, 49, ushered in the inspector who knocked on her door at Oak Hill. Just a few minutes prior, a maintenance man sent by Sanford had gotten to work fixing her refrigerator.

The inspector noted the problem with the closet door, holes behind the toilet and a shoddy repair of a sliding balcony door. He also ordered the maintenance man to drill into place a transition strip that had been jutting out between the kitchen and living room, posing a tripping hazard.

Scott, a mother of 13-year-old twins, said conditions were much worse earlier in the year, including four months when she was without a working stove and oven. She says she bought her children food from Popeyes for their birthday, instead of cooking them a meal, and baked their cake in a neighbors oven.

Scott moved into the apartment five years ago after meeting a Sanford representative at a District housing agency, where he offered to accept tenants with federal vouchers. And like other Sanford tenants who use vouchers, she said she has kept quiet about problems at her building because she worries that she will have no alternatives in a city where rents are skyrocketing.

If I try to go to another place, theyll say Im a complainer and they wont take me. My kids are too young to be going through shelters and homelessness because I cant be waiting for them to fix problems, said Scott. I tell them its called life.

In the apartment below Scotts unit, another tenant showed the inspector what she described as damage left by Sanfords maintenance men: a smoke detector dangling off its wires, a hole that shattered the center of her bathroom door and a missing window screen.

Ericka Jones says shes also dealt with leaks of raw sewage from her ceilings that prompted her to toss out her couch and her 2-year-old daughters clothes. The ceiling above her daughters closet was still yellow.

We couldnt have Christmas because it was flooded and went to my mother-in-laws, said Jones, who pays her rent with a city-issued voucher meant to keep families out of shelters. The last time a DCRA man was here, urine was coming out of the ceiling.

Violations are recorded using pen and paper, which must then be entered into the agencys computer. DCRA officials say they are upgrading to a digitized system this year.

An earlier version of this article incorrectly said the mayor had ordered inspections of all units in buildings owned by Sanford Capital. The mayor ordered inspections of all properties, not individual units. This story has been updated.

Shaun Courtney contributed to this report.
Correction: Earlier versions of this article misstated the number of crisis treatment centers that would be funded by the HOPE Act. The article has been corrected.

The Maryland House of Delegates on Friday gave preliminary approval to three bills aimed at combating an opioid addiction epidemic that has surged for six years.

The HOPE Act would establish at least one new crisis-treatment center in Maryland; increase reimbursement rates for substance-abuse clinics every year; allow individuals to administer an overdose-reversal drug without training; and request at least $2 million in the governors next budget to expand drug-court programs throughout the state.

A second measure would require public schools to keep overdose-reversal drugs on hand; authorize school nurses and other health personnel to administer the drugs and shield them from liability; mandate that colleges educate incoming students about substance abuse; and require that degrees for many health occupations include instruction about addiction treatment and safe pain management.

Both measures have been unanimously approved by the Senate.

A third bill seeks to prevent overprescribing of pain medications by requiring doctors to follow best practices for prescribing the drugs, such as standards from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It also allows the Maryland Board of Physicians to discipline doctors who do not follow the guidelines.

The states medical society, known as MedChi, resisted an original draft proposed by Gov. Larry Hogan (R) that would have barred doctors from prescribing more than a seven-day supply of an opioid, with exceptions for certain patients, such as those dealing with cancer or receiving hospice care. The group argued that the rule would leave physicians with almost no flexibility to do what they think is best for patients.

The state health department worked with MedChi to revise the legislation, which requires one more vote in the House before moving to the Senate.

The House also gave initial approval Friday to a Senate bill that says victims of sexual assault do not have to prove that they physically resisted in order for their assailant to be convicted of rape or attempted rape.

Delegates also took a preliminary vote in favor of allowing casinos to carry over losses on slots and table games to the next day for purposes of determining how much they owe to the state.

Legislative analysts estimated that the casino bill could reduce revenue for the states Education Trust Fund, which is funded by gambling money, by more than $1.8 million a year. Supporters argued that it would help encourage gambling establishments to offer more high-stakes games by reducing their potential losses, thereby attracting more big-money players and increasing revenue in the long run.

There is no basis for us to say that this is going to bring in millions of dollars, said Del. Ana Sol Gutierrez (D-Montgomery). Theres the potential that if theyre losing to these high rollers, we will have larger amounts of revenue losses.

Del. Frank S. Turner (D-Howard) countered that the house always wins eventually.

The House rejected an amendment that would have limited the carry-over policy to two years so the legislature could reconsider the measure after seeing its effects.

In the Senate, lawmakers passed a bill that would allow the state to provide grants to improve security at private schools and day-care centers that are at risk of hate crimes or attacks. The legislation, which now moves to the House, follows bomb threats at Jewish schools and community centers across the state and around the country.

Sen. Bryan W. Simonaire (R-Anne Arundel), the only lawmaker to vote against the measure, said he thought it was wrong to carve out a particular group. He said other facilities, including churches, restaurants and bars, have experienced threats or attacks in recent years but would not be eligible for funding under the bill.

Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller Jr. (D-Calvert) told his colleagues to expect a bill, or an amendment to an existing bill, that would require Internet safeguards in Maryland, a response to a recent decision by Congress to roll back Web-privacy protections imposed by the Obama administration. Lawmakers in Minnesota and Illinois have taken similar action.

Hogan, Miller and House Speaker Michael E. Busch (D-Anne Arundel) signed two bills Friday. One of the measures frees up $20 million to help school districts pay their share of teachers pension costs  part of a deal between the governor and legislative leaders to give an equal amount of money to Northrop Grumman, as an incentive for the defense contractor to remain in the state.

The other bill changes how the state projects revenue from capital gains by using a multiyear average.

The 90-day legislative session ends April 10.
Marijuana provided by the federal government to a team of researchers studying whether the drug should be used to treat veterans with PTSD. (Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies)

Eighteen months after joining a study on using marijuana to treat post-traumatic stress disorder, Johns Hopkins University has pulled out without enrolling any veterans, the latest setback for the long-awaited research.

The university said its goals were no longer aligned with those of the administrator of the study, the Santa Cruz, Calif.-based Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS). MAPS said the dispute was over federal drug policy and whether to openly challenge federal rules that say medical cannabis research must rely on marijuana grown by the federal National Institute on Drug Abuse.

One of the lead researchers from MAPS recently did just that, in a PBS report that said the government-grown marijuana provided for the study was of poor quality and contaminated with mold. Hopkins quit the study two days later.

Although MAPS will continue the research at a private lab in Arizona, the departure of the well-known university in Baltimore is a blow, analysts said, in part because the campus was considered a prime test site that could draw on Marylands large population of veterans.

The decision to withdraw coincides with uncertainty within the industry about whether President Trump will continue the Obama administrations support for institutions that conduct research using marijuana, as well as its hands-off approach to states that legalize pot for recreational or medical use.

Researchers handle marijuana provided by the federal government. They say was it contaminated with mold and had traces of lead. (Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies)

The future of scientific research under the Trump administration generally is quite shaky, said John Hudak, a governance-studies fellow at the Brookings Institution who tracks marijuana research.

The MAPS study is meant to capture the first clinical evidence of whether marijuana can effectively treat PTSD. Favorable findings would aid endeavors to add the condition to those that are authorized for treatment in state medical cannabis programs, as well as efforts to lift a prohibition on Department of Veterans Affairs doctors from recommending or even discussing the drug as a way to alleviate anxiety and other symptoms.

Were trying to study what cannabis does for veterans with treatment-resistant PTSD, said Sean Kiernan, president of the Weed for Warriors Project. These are vets who have not been helped by the traditional regimen and in many cases have been severely hurt.

MAPS Director Rick Doblin started planning the study in 2009 with co-administrator Suzanne Sisley, an Arizona psychiatrist and marijuana advocate. At the time, Sisley was a faculty member at the University of Arizona. In 2012, their research proposal was approved by that universitys scientific review board.

But in 2014, the university fired Sisley and said her position as a physician educator for medical marijuana would no longer be funded. She says she was ousted because of controversy surrounding her marijuana PTSD study, an accusation the university denies.

MAPS got funding from Colorado, winning a nearly $2.2 million research grant paid for with license fees from the states legalized-marijuana industry.

Hopkins joined the study that year. Its scientific review board cleared the project in September 2015, but it took until January of this year for Hopkins to determine that the marijuana provided by the federal government was safe enough to give to veterans. The university received its first delivery of cannabis Jan. 13.

Although Hopkins set up a phone line for veterans to register for clinical trials, it did not enroll anyone. Advocates say they first learned the school had withdrawn when veterans who called the phone number heard a recorded message saying the university was no longer participating.

This has been ongoing for years  roadblock after roadblock after roadblock, said Scott Murphy, co-founder and president of the Massachusetts-based Veterans for Safe Access and Compassionate Care.

Sisley, backed by others at MAPS, had been trying to persuade Hopkins to speak out about the mold issue as a way of questioning the government-provided marijuana and other federal requirements for marijuana research.

In March, she told PBS that the samples were moldy and had insufficient levels of THC, the active ingredient in cannabis. The next week, MAPS said some of the samples also tested positive for trace amounts of lead.

Its crucial that the public is aware that their taxpayer dollars are going to support a single government-enforced monopoly, the sole federally legal supply of cannabis for any and all cannabis controlled trials, Sisley said last week.

Before the televised report, those involved in the study agreed they could use the government-provided marijuana despite its deficiencies, after at least five rounds of testing determined that mold and lead levels were low enough for the product to be safely consumed.

Hopkins did not respond to questions about whether the PBS report affected its decision to withdraw. But MAPS spokesman Brad Burge said the adverse publicity was the direct cause of the universitys abrupt departure.

The publicity also prompted the Food and Drug Administration to contact MAPS requesting new information about the study and marijuana test results.

Advocates have pushed for years for the government to allow more providers to supply marijuana for medical research. The Obama administration took initial steps to allow private suppliers, but it did not complete the process. The Trump administration has not clarified its position.

The test center in Scottsdale, Ariz., where MAPS will continue with Sisley and other researchers, has close to a dozen veterans enrolled out of a planned 76, Burge said. Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Colorado who had been signed up to help with the study are continuing their participation.

Sisley said MAPS gave the University of Arizona and Hopkins every opportunity to partner with us on these studies, and neither were willing to embrace it.

Ultimately, I think we will prove that we can conduct this research efficiently by working through the private system, she said.

Fenit Nirappil contributed to this report.
Yvroseline Fergile was taken from outside her familys home in Carrefour, Haiti, and brutally beaten. She was held for a week with threats of assault, rape and death before escaping.

A day after Fergile escaped, Joseph and Ariante Marcelin were asleep at their home in the same city when they were awakened by men with guns. One man held a gun to Joseph Marcelins face while his wife was taken. She was rescued by Haitian authorities after four days.

On Friday, nearly five years later, the last of their three kidnappers was sentenced to 20 years in prison. Because the two women are American citizens who live primarily in the United States, the hostage-takers were prosecuted in Alexandria, Va., federal court.

The kidnappers were looking for Americans, according to court documents, in hopes of getting substantial ransoms.

Im so happy, said Ariante Marcelin, 77. If it wasnt for God and America, I would be dead.

Ulriste Tulin, 40, has maintained his innocence but asked the court for mercy. Monclaire Saint Louis, 29, has also been sentenced to 20 years in prison. Both will be removed from the United States upon release.

A third co-conspirator, Samson Jolibois, pleaded guilty to his role in the abductions and testified against the other two.
Two Somali women living in the United States who collected money for a terrorist group will go to prison for more than a decade.

Hinda Dhirane, 47, and Muna Jama, 40, were involved in an international online network of women that sent small amounts of money to the al-Qaeda affiliate al-Shabab in Somalia. Jama was sentenced Friday to 12 years in prison, Dhirane to 11.

Female supporters of terrorism are rare. According to George Washington Universitys Program on Extremism, 89 percent of Americans accused of ties to the Islamic State are men. But arrests of women are on the rise, according to a report from the school. Older defendants are also unusual in these cases: The average accused Islamic State supporter is 27.

They were and presumably continue to be ardent supporters of al-Shabab, Judge Anthony J. Trenga said Friday in federal court in Alexandria. They undermined our national security efforts in ways that go way beyond the amounts of money sent.

Those amounts were small. Altogether, only $4,750 went abroad. There was no evidence that Dhirane and Jama planned or supported any specific act of violence. But prosecutors argued that the pro-terrorism propaganda they helped disseminate online could encourage such violence and that the money they sent was valuable in funding safe houses and military operations.

What is glaringly absent is any expression of remorse, prosecutor James P. Gillis said in court Friday. These defendants knew exactly what the money was going to be used for.

The two women were convicted in a bench trial last year after arguing, unsuccessfully, that they sent money only for medical care in Somalia. A co-conspirator, Amina Esse, testified that they and others in an international Group of Fifteen spoke in code to avoid detection.

They also lied to some women, claiming that the money was being used to feed orphans or build schools. Jama threatened one woman who wanted to quit after learning that her money was going to al-Shabab. The two celebrated deadly terrorist attacks, prosecutors said, laughing about very heavy rain in Somalia.

Jama was the organizer of the private online Group of Fifteen chat room that included women from Somalia, Kenya, Egypt, the Netherlands, Sweden, Britain and Canada.

Defense attorneys argued that while the women may have engaged in violent talk, they were hardened by their youthful escape from civil war in Somalia and desperate for their homelands salvation.

Ms. Jama was 10 years old when the civil war broke out, defense attorney Whitney Minter said in court. She saw people who were murdered in front of her. She lived in daily fear of rape and murder. She watched women and children die in front of her from malnutrition and childbirth. 

In Mogadishu, the countrys capital, Dhirane hid under dead bodies to avoid bombardments, her lawyer said in court papers. Separated from her family, she fled to Ethiopia. In her refugee camp, Ethiopians beat the refugees and stole their rations.

Both women made it to the United States in the 1990s and eventually became citizens. Dhirane has six children in Kent, Wash.; Jama has seven and lives in Reston, Va.

They saw al-Shabab as a force against internal corruption and external Ethiopian attacks, the lawyers argued.

While people living in Somalia may have soured on al-Shabab as the groups violence and ambitions grew, they said, people in the diaspora could get a distorted view.

[Jama] is of a generation and a population that was primed to see al-Shabab as liberators of the Somali people, Minter wrote in a court filing. She learned of the horrors on the ground through the Somali social networks, which spread news primarily through oral and social means; the same horrors that she observed as a child while fleeing the civil war and while in refugee camps.

Gillis responded that it was insulting to other Somali refugees to suggest that the womens history and political culture led them to support a terrorist group.

Loyal, hardworking, decent Somalis are living in this country who suffered the same horrors . . . and came to love this country and become productive members of its society, he said.
Two people were arrested during protests outside the American Israel Public Affairs Committee conference in the District that left a Palestinian American man bloodied and injured.

D.C. police say the suspects and victim got into a verbal altercation and one man punched the victim, Kamal Nayfeh, in the face. A video recording of the incident shows Nayfeh, 55, falling to the ground as two men strike him in the eye with a wooden pole as he is kicked.

A police report of the Sunday afternoon incident at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center indicates the beating might have been motivated by the victims religion or ethnicity, although the suspects were not charged with hate crimes. Yosef Steynoitz, 32, was charged Sunday with felony assault and Rami Lubranicki, 59, was charged with assault with a deadly weapon, D.C. police said.

The AIPAC conference, which states its goal as strengthening and promoting Israel-American relations, draws protests each year. This year, IfNotNow, a left-leaning group of Jewish Americans who opposes Israeli policy in the West Bank and Gaza, marched with hundreds of people in downtown Washington to the convention center to protest the conference.

Yonah Lieberman, a founding member of IfNotNow, said when his group arrived it was greeted by members of the Jewish Defense League  a militant, far-right Jewish organization that states it will fight anti-Semitism by any means necessary and which the FBI has deemed a terrorist group. Members of other antiwar groups also were present as members of IfNotNow chained themselves to the two main entrances to the convention center.

Lieberman said one of the groups members also suffered a concussion during an altercation with JDL members.

Representatives of the JDL didnt respond to a request for comment. A lawyer for Steynoitz said he didnt have a comment on the case and a lawyer for Lubranicki did not respond to a request for comment on Friday.

Ben Doernberg, 28, traveled from Boston to attend the protests with IfNotNow. He said he witnessed JDL members burning a Koran and Palestinian flag, and hitting protesters in the head with wooden flagpoles.

He said a man wearing a vest that read Jewish Defense League approached him from behind and broke a wooden pole over his head.

The reason we went down there was to say the status quo in the Jewish establishment is not taking moral leadership, and I end up getting hurt because there are these far-right Jewish extremists there, and no one at the conference comes to protect us, Doernberg said. To me, this is an example of why we were there in the first place.

In the beating of Nayfeh, a video appears to show the suspects wearing shirts with the JDL logo. They are also carrying flags bearing the logo.

Nayfeh, a community college professor from North Carolina, was in the District with his wife to visit their daughter, a Georgetown University law student. He said they were dropping their daughter off at the protest and wanted to make sure she would be safe before leaving her there.

He said he approached a woman carrying an Israeli flag who was yelling that Palestine doesnt exist. According to Nayfeh, he calmly told her that he was from Palestine. From there, he said, a group affiliated with the JDL started pummeling him. He was taken to a hospital, where he said he received 18 stitches on his injured eye.

I thought we were in the U.S. This is not some third-world country where you get beat up at a protest, Nayfeh said. I thought we could go to a protest peacefully and say our message, but those people were there to commit violence.

Marshall Wittmann, a spokesman for AIPAC, didnt comment on the presence of the JDL, but he condemned the violence that occurred.

We deplore all violence and any violations of the law that occurred outside of the Convention Center, Wittmann wrote in an email.

Nayfeh is back home in Charlotte, still surprised that he was injured at a protest he didnt plan to attend. He said he doesnt want to identify the perpetrators as Jewish, noting that despite the assault, he gained friendships during his time in the nations capital.

I dont want to call these people Jewish or Israelis, they were just violent people, Nayfeh said. In D.C., during the protest, I gained a lot more Jewish friends after this. Many people were so nice, peaceful and helpful to me.
Child-care worker Debbie James-Dean, right, listens to her professor during a philosophy of religion class in the District on March 28. James-Dean is taking classes with other child-care workers through Central Texas Colleges D.C. satellite program. (Toni L. Sandys/The Washington Post)

Debbie James-Dean graduated from high school in 1979 and has spent much of her career working in child care. She was anxious when her director at Kids Are Us Learning Center in Southeast Washington told her she needed to go back to school.

I was afraid I couldnt do it, she said. And earning $12.75 an hour, she couldnt afford textbooks, let alone college tuition.

But she got a scholarship, and last summer she enrolled in her first college course: Educating the Young Child. Shes one of hundreds of child-care teachers in the District who must return to school under new licensing regulations that went into effect in December for child-care centers.

More than a decade after Washington, D.C., set out to create the most comprehensive public preschool system in the country, the city is directing its attention to overhauling the patchwork of programs that serve infants and toddlers.

The new regulations put the District at the forefront of a national effort to improve the quality of care and education for the youngest learners. City officials want to address an academic achievement gap between children from poor and middle-class families that research shows is already evident by the age of 18 months.

A central part of that mission is educating a workforce that historically has been paid and treated like babysitters. What the job demands is closer to the work of elementary school teachers, scientists say. This is a real opportunity to build the profession and set our young children on a positive trajectory for learning and development, said Elizabeth Groginsky, assistant superintendent of early learning in the District.

But for many child-care workers, often hired with little more than a high school diploma, returning to school is a difficult, expensive proposition with questionable reward.

Many already have more training than people in comparably paid jobs such as parking-lot attendants, hotel clerks and fast-food workers. And unlike in most professional fields, prospects are slim that a degree will bring a significantly higher income  a bachelor's degree in early-childhood education yields the lowest lifetime earnings of any major.

Center directors have few resources to tap if they want to reward their better-educated employees. Many parents in the District are maxed out, paying among the highest annual tuitions nationally, at $1,800 a month. And government subsidies that help fund care for children from lower-income families fall well below the market rate.

In the end, early-child-care teachers that go on to earn diplomas often leave their jobs to work in public schools, where they can earn substantially more.

[Half of U.S. child-care workers need food stamps, welfare or Medicaid]

Despite the challenges, early-education advocates across the country are hopeful that the District can set an example of how a workforce can be transformed. With the citys relatively small labor pool and a history of advocacy and generous funding for preschool, educators say, there may be enough political will and support to make it happen.

Valora Washington, chief executive at the Council for Professional Recognition, which oversees the Child Development Associate (CDA) program, an entry-level credential for child-care providers, said a similar education requirement would shut down the child-care system in many states.

D.C. is different. D.C. is ahead of the curve, she said. Its more possible here than it would be anywhere else.

Failing to keep pace

The new credential requirements in the District follow a 2015 report by the National Academies that says the child-care workforce has not kept pace with the science of child development and early learning.

From the first days of life, learning is complex and cumulative, the report says. Infants are capable of abstract thought, forming theories about what is happening in the physical world and whom to trust.

Scientists concluded that teachers need the skills and insight to offer the kinds of learning experiences that challenge them and make them feel safe. They need tools to diagnose and intervene when they see learning or emotional problems. And they need literacy skills to introduce young learners to an expansive vocabulary, exposure many children do not have at home and are not getting in day care.

[The word gap doesnt hurt only the young. It affects many educators, too.]

In sum, the report says, teachers of infants and toddlers require the same level of sophisticated knowledge and skills expected of elementary educators and they should likewise be expected to have bachelors degrees.

At the same time, the report urges policymakers to use caution when increasing minimum credentials, to avoid unintended consequences, including workforce shortages, reduced diversity in the profession and pressure on out-of-pocket costs for families.

The District set the minimum credential for lead teachers as an associate degree, rather than a bachelors, because of such challenges, Groginsky said. The deadline to earn the degree is December 2020. New regulations also call for child-care center directors to earn a bachelors degree and for home care providers and assistant teachers to earn a CDA.

Early-childhood advocates in the District are working with counterparts in Maryland and Virginia to research compensation trends and career pathways and develop policy recommendations that can boost the earning potential of child-care providers, Groginsky said.

There is precedent for increasing teacher qualifications. Nearly three-quarters of lead teachers in federally funded Head Start preschool programs have bachelors degrees, up from 44 percent in 2007. And by this December, all lead teachers in classrooms that participate in the Districts universal preschool program are required to have bachelors degrees. The requirement, set a decade ago, has been much easier to meet for charter or traditional public schools that pay competitive salaries. Independent centers have struggled to comply.

To help, the District funds scholarships for those pursuing CDAs or higher education.

The Teacher Education and Compensation Helps, or T.E.A.C.H., scholarship is funded mainly through local and federal funds but also requires the employee and child-care center to pay a small share.

It was started in North Carolina in 1990 after a workforce survey showed that less than 10 percent of child-care workers had any kind of college degree. Since then, the portion with degrees has increased to nearly 65 percent, thanks to the scholarships, and also because the state instituted a quality rating system that rewards centers based on the education levels of its staff members.

Nationally, the program has expanded to about two dozen states and the District and has awarded scholarships to 136,000 people.

The T.E.A.C.H. Early Childhood National Center estimates that participants earn on average 8 percent more each year they participate, as they receive bonuses or are promoted at work. And the scholarship reduces turnover, a serious challenge for the field. For every year that an employer supports an employees education, the employee must commit to another year of work.

In the long term, some go on to teach college courses, direct their own centers or work as consultants who provide technical assistance, said Sue Russell, executive director of the national center.

These are the same women who did not think they would ever go to college, she said.

Its like a battery charge

When James-Dean earned the scholarship, she enrolled at Central Texas College, which has a satellite campus in the District.

On school days, she wakes up at 4:15 a.m. to take the Metro from Rockville to her work, on the edge of the Districts Washington Highlands neighborhood, so she can use the computer to do homework before the children arrive.

She spends the next eight hours reading stories, changing diapers and playing chase and ring around the table we go with toddlers.

By 4 p.m., shes headed for the Metro again to a child-care center on the other side of the city, where classes go to 9:15 p.m.

She said at first she was dreading the long days. But now its just adrenaline, its like a battery charge, she said.

She is inspired by the other women she meets at school. Some of her classmates do not speak English or still have young children at home. They are getting through it, she said.

Her boss, Lynita Law-Reid, the director at Kids Are Us, said she knew the credential requirements were coming, so last year she created employee agreements and asked each employee to commit to progressing through a higher-education program. So far, just two of her 16 teachers have associate degrees.

Many of her employees are mothers, or single mothers, with little personal time and flexibility. One employee left her job because she could not commit to going back to school, Law-Reid said.

Most college campuses or classes are across town, and so many have chosen to pursue online programs and pay for them out of pocket, a route that makes Law-Reid nervous. One employee said she already owes back tuition and could not log on to her courses until she finished paying down her bill.

James-Dean said counseling and tutoring helped her get through two tough English classes, and she is bracing herself for the math classes she needs to take. This spring, she is taking another education course and a philosophy of religion class that sounds interesting.

She expects higher education will help her get a raise, but for her, going back to school is mostly about self-improvement, she said. Its like an appetite, like a hunger thats being fed, she said.

For most of her working life, she was raising children, helping to raise grandchildren and caring for older relatives. Ive been taking care of everybody but myself at work and at home, she said. Now I am doing this for me, and it feels really good.
A Richmond Circuit Court judge has ruled against a group that argued 11 of Virginias legislative districts are so sprawling that they do not meet the constitutional requirement for compactness.

The ruling is a setback for efforts to claim that Virginias legislative districts have been gerrymandered to favor Republicans and disenfranchise black voters, who tend to vote Democratic, but the matter is likely to be appealed to the state Supreme Court.

A separate federal case involving some of the same districts, plus others, is moving ahead after the U.S. Supreme Court sent the matter back to a lower court this year.

[Supreme Court says Virginia redistricting must be reexamined for racial bias]

Republican leaders, who control both houses of the General Assembly, said Fridays Circuit Court ruling vindicated the 2011 redistricting, which also was approved by many Democrats.

Virginia has a fair and open redistricting process that involves multiple hearings and extensive input from the public, House Speaker William J. Howell (R-Stafford) said in an email.

Democrats controlled the state Senate at the time of that redistricting but now are a 19-to-21 minority in that chamber. Republicans have built on their majority in the House of Delegates since the lines were redrawn, for a commanding 66-to-34 majority.

All 100 House seats are up for election this year, but experts doubt that they will be affected by the legal challenges.

Wyatt Durrette, an attorney for OneVirginia 2021, the advocacy group that brought the most recent suit, said an appeal of Circuit Judge W. Reilly Marchants ruling is likely. Durrette cited the judges favorable language about the method the group used to argue that the districts are not compact. In hearings in March, the group presented expert witness Michael McDonald, a political science professor from the University of Florida who had devised a new test for compactness. McDonald said the 11 challenged districts were at least 50 percent less compact than they should have been.

While that test is novel and untested in this context, the Court does find that Dr. McDonalds testimony and accompanying conclusions do merit serious consideration, Marchant wrote in his ruling.

But the judge ruled that raising questions was not enough to overturn the General Assemblys actions. The standard set by the state Supreme Court, he said, is that if the evidence offered by both sides of the case would lead reasonable and objective persons to reach different conclusions, then the legislative determination is fairly debatable and must be upheld.
The Governor's mansion, the nation's oldest continuously occupied governor's residence, is shown in Richmond, Va., Thursday, Nov. 12, 2015. (Steve Helber/AP)

A far-right Virginia gubernatorial candidate who rails against globalism has invested in mutual funds with a global reach. A Democrat running an anti-Trump campaign holds shares in a company that is interested inbuilding the presidents proposed Mexican border wall.

Those details were among the personal financial disclosures due Thursday from candidatesrunning for state and legislative offices in Virginia this election year.

The statements of economic interest include business interests, investments and real-estate holdings owned by the candidates or their immediate family. Unlike candidates for federal office, those running for state office in Virginia do not have to specify non-investment income or reveal clients.

These are some highlights from the state reports, which can be viewed in full online:

Democratic gubernatorial candidates

Lt. Gov. Ralph Northam and former Congressman Tom Perriello are locked in a tight-race for the Democratic nomination where theyre sparring over their fealty to progressive causes.

Perriello listed between $15,003 - $150,000 worth of equities in Starbucks, Gilead Sciences and FLUOR Corp., one of the largest construction companies in the world. Fluor is also among the more than 700 companies expressing interest in helping to design and build the border wall with Mexico, a signature Trump policy reviled by Democratic activists.

The company was among those listed in a recent article on the investment site The Street under the headline Here Are the Stocks that Stand to Benefit From Trumps Border Wall with Mexico.

[Hispanic contractors report death threats after offering to help build wall. ]

Ian Sams, a spokesman for Perriello, said he did not select his investment in Fluor and wasnt aware he held it until he filed his disclosure. Sams noted that Perriello is less wealthy than the other candidates in the race. Every other candidate looks like Mr. Burns by comparison, he said.

Northam and his immediate relatives hold more stock in major companies, with the largest holdings in Caterpillar and Kimberly Clark (with brands including Huggies, Kleenex and Kotex).

But also in his portfolio are energy companies reviled by some environmentalists, including Chevron and Dominion, the largest corporate donor to Virginia politics.

As a state official, Northam previously disclosed these investments and said in 2015 he wouldnt cast tie-breaking votes in the Senate on legislation affecting Dominion because of his financial stake in the company.

Dominion has turned into a dividing line in the primary. Perriello says he will not take campaign contributions from the utility and opposes two planned natural gas pipelines, including Dominions Atlantic Coast Pipeline project.

A spokesman for Northam says he plans to put his investments in a blind trust if elected governor.

Northam, a pediatric neurologist, is on leave from the medical practice he founded. Perriello left his post as a State Department envoy in Africa after Trumps election.

Republican gubernatorial candidates

Republican Ed Gillespie is far ahead of his two primary rivals in polling, despite their attempts to bash the longtime GOP strategist and former lobbyist as a Washington insider.

Gillespies financial disclosure shows he made between $200,000 to $1 million through his communications firm last year, while he was also preparing his gubernatorial campaign. A spokeswoman said Gillespie closed his firm at the end of last year and no longer has clients.

Although Gillespie is not required by state law to disclose past clients, his campaign voluntarily released that information.

According to spokeswoman Abbi Sigler, Gillespie advised AT&T and health insurance company Anthem on potential mergers. He also advised Microsoft and Bank of America on reputation management and communications strategy, she said.

During his unsuccessful campaign against U.S. Sen. Mark Warner (D) in 2014, Gillespie disclosed 18 clients that included the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Facebook and Walmart.

Gillespies disclosure also mentions business interests in two companies  Ashburn manufacturer PPI Ventures and trade data publisher World City Inc.  which his spokeswoman described as investments in businesses started by friends.

[Stewart misstates Gillespies positions on Confederate issues]

Prince William Board of County Supervisors Chairman Corey A. Stewart, another Republican gubernatorial candidate, has frequently criticized Gillespie for his corporate ties. Stewart, an international trade lawyer, also denounces globalism on social media in his appeal to far-right voters.

He reported more than $250,000 in gross income for his two-attorney law firm that works on regulatory matters relating to exports. And his investments in mutual funds include Invesco Global Real Estate and John Hancock U.S. Global Leaders Growth Fund, which includes companies with global reach.

Stewart says hes not opposed to international trade, but shipping jobs out of country.

The third GOP gubernatorial candidate, State Sen. Frank Wagner (Virginia Beach), a long-time state lawmaker, sold his ship repair businesses in 2015.

He and his wife still have rental property across the state and an extensive stock portfolio that includes more than $250,000 worth of shares in AMAG Pharmaceuticals and Dollar Tree.

Lieutenant governor

Disclosures for two of the Democratic candidates for lieutenant governor  attorney Justin Fairfax and consultant Susan Platt  offered limited details.

A spokeswoman for Fairfax said the filings reference to more than $250,000 in gross income for legal services for grocers reflected his salary at Venable LLP while representing two clients with business operations in Virginia. She declined to identify the clients.

Last year Platt made $120,000 lobbying for tobacco Giant Altria and $32,000 lobbying for the payroll company ADP, according to OpenSecrets.org. A spokesman says Platt also consulted for Basheer & Edgemoore, a women-owned luxury builder in Virginia.

The third candidate, Gene Rossi, retired last summer as a federal prosecutor in Alexandria, and listed that listed an investment in a potential Vermont ski resort.

On the Republican side, state Sen. Bryce E. Reeves (Spotsylvania) and Del. Glenn R. Davis Jr. (Virginia Beach) reported more than $250,000 in gross income for their insurance and telecommunications businesses, respectively.

Sen. Jill Holtzman Vogel (Fauquier), an attorney whose firm handles campaign finance matters, reported more than $250,000 in compensation for legal services, as well as an interest in a business that a spokesman described as a family partnership that owns gas stations. Her spokesman said she is unable to disclose clients beyond describing them as trade associations.

Tracy Jan contributed to this report.
In this 2011 photo, Jens Soering speaks during an interview at the Buckingham Correctional Center in Dillwyn, Va. (Steve Helber/AP)

Jens Soering, a convicted double murderer whose innocence claims have drawn support from German Chancellor Angela Merkel and a detective who investigated the case more than 30 years ago, has lost another round with the Virginia Parole Board.

The board rejected Soerings request for parole, the prisoner learned Friday. In addition to parole, Soering has been seeking a full pardon from Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D). The pardon request is still under consideration, said Brian Moran, McAuliffes secretary of public safety and homeland security.

His claim of innocence is still being processed and investigated by [the] parole board, Moran said by text message.

The board alone decides on requests for parole, but it makes recommendations to the governor on pardon petitions.

This was Soerings 12th go-round with the board but the first to follow two developments that he and supporters thought would boost his chances for release. One was a German documentary last year that raised new questions about his conviction. The other was a new analysis of evidence indicating that Soering was not the source of type-O blood found at the scene, as prosecutors had contended at his 1990 trial.

Obviously Im extremely disappointed and very surprised, Soering said in a telephone interview from Buckingham Correctional Center in central Virginia. Im not giving up the fight. Im innocent. The state has done me a great, great harm for 31 years, and todays decision is just another one in an enormously long line of horrible injustices.

[In 1985, a gruesome double murder rocked Virginia. Was the wrong man convicted?]

A German diplomats son, Soering is serving two life sentences for the 1985 slayings of a girlfriends parents in central Virginia. At the time of the murders, he and his girlfriend, Elizabeth Haysom, had been honors students at the University of Virginia.

Soering initially confessed to the crime but later said he was only trying to protect Haysom from Virginias electric chair under the mistaken belief that he had diplomatic immunity because of his fathers position. He was convicted in a sensational 1990 trial that drew international press and gavel-to-gavel coverage on local cable television.

Haysom pleaded guilty to being an accessory before the fact, contending that she helped plan the murders but did not physically take part. She is serving a 90-year sentence at Fluvanna Correctional Center for Women near Charlottesville.

[Jens Soering says new blood analysis proves his innocence in 31-year-old case]

Soering converted to Catholicism in prison and went on to write a string of books on religion, meditation, prison reform and his own criminal case. He has attracted a large and devoted group of supporters, who have pressed for his release for decades. They include actor Martin Sheen, who wrote the foreword to Soerings latest book, which was published in March by Lantern Books.

In 2010, the German Embassy and Richmonds Catholic bishop convinced then-Gov. Tim Kaine (D) to approve his transfer to a German prison, on the condition that he serve at least two years there. But Kaines action  which he later justified as a way to save the commonwealth incarceration costs  caused an uproar and was reversed by his Republican successor, Robert F. McDonnell.

In the years since, Merkel personally pressed for Soerings transfer during a visit with then-President Barack Obama.

A new blood analysis performed last summer, which indicates that a male other than Soering was the source of the type-O blood found at the home of Derek and Nancy Haysom, won Soering a notable convert: Chuck Reid, a former Bedford County sheriffs deputy who was originally assigned to the case. He began speaking out about his belief that Virginia had locked up the wrong man. But others remain convinced of Soerings guilt. Among them is Maj. Ricky Gardner, who was also on the case from the start. He did not immediately respond to a request for comment Friday. But he dismissed Reids misgivings in interviews last year.

In recent years, he said in an email last year, some people have based their feelings of Soerings innocents on what-ifs and vague hypothesis and not on the facts/evidence presented at his trial.
SOUTH CAROLINA

Roof to plead guilty in state murder case

Dylann Roof, the self-described white supremacist sentenced to death this year for the 2015 Charleston, S.C., church massacre, will plead guilty next month to murder charges in his state trial, attorneys said Friday.

The decision means that the Charleston community, including people who survived the church attack and relatives of those slain, will be spared a second death-penalty trial and poring again over the details of the killings.

Roof was charged in two cases stemming from the June 2015 attack at Emanuel AME Church, when nine black parishioners were gunned down during Bible study. He has already been convicted on federal hate-crime charges.

In a letter to families of the victims, Scarlett A. Wilson, the prosecutor overseeing Roofs case in state court, wrote that Roof, now 22, had agreed to plead guilty in exchange for a sentence of life in prison. Ashley Pennington, a defense attorney for Roof in the state case, confirmed that Wilsons letter was accurate.

 Mark Berman

THE DISTRICT

Duo convicted of bid to import tons of cocaine

Two Caribbean men were convicted by a federal jury in Washington on Friday of seeking to transport more than two tons of cocaine aboard a U.S.-registered aircraft, U.S. authorities announced.

Dwight Knowles, a Bahamian national also known as Arizona, and Oral George Thompson, a Jamaican national also known as Chad, face sentencing June 23 and June 21, respectively, after a 12-day trial before U.S. District Court Judge Amy Berman Jackson of the District.

A Drug Enforcement Administration investigation with the Colombian National Police found that the Colombia-based men tried in 2011 and 2012 to acquire a Beechcraft 1900 in the Bahamas and to move three loads of cocaine from Venezuela to Honduras, prosecutors with the Justice Departments narcotic and dangerous drug section said.

The plane was confiscated and its occupants arrested in May 2012 when it arrived in Haiti for refueling and to pick up a second pilot, authorities said.

 Spencer S. Hsu
AUSTRALIA

Cyclone Debbie leaves thousands stranded

Tens of thousands of Australians were stranded by floodwaters on Saturday after the remnants of a powerful cyclone swept along the countrys east coast, cutting roads, destroying bridges and killing two people.

The disaster zone from Cyclone Debbie stretched 600 miles from Queensland states tropical resort islands and Gold Coast tourist strip to the farmlands of New South Wales state, leaving more than 100,000 homes without power.

Six large rivers had hit major flood levels and were still rising in several areas, said the Bureau of Meteorology.

Flood sirens sounded in several towns, prompting stranded residents to climb onto roofs of flooded homes to await rescue, but fast-moving water and high winds hindered emergency crews from reaching several areas.

Police said they recovered the bodies of two women from floodwaters late Friday, the first reported deaths since the storm hit Tuesday. One was found on a swamped property, and the other was retrieved by police divers from a car that had been swept off a flooded bridge.

 Reuters

RUSSIA

Prosecutors try to curb calls for more protests

Russian prosecutors have moved to block calls on social networks for more street protests in Moscow and other Russian cities.

Tens of thousands of demonstrators turned out in Moscow and other cities on Sunday to rally against official corruption in the largest outpouring of discontent in years.

The prosecutor generals office confirmed Friday that it has requested the state communications watchdog to block pages on social networks calling for more protests in Moscow and elsewhere in Russia this weekend.

More than 1,000 protesters have been arrested in Moscow, and many of them have also been sentenced to brief jail terms and fines. Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who organized Sundays unsanctioned protest, is serving a 15-day sentence on charges of resisting police.

 Associated Press

Mexican court orders release of ailing drug lord: Ernesto Fonseca Carrillo, a Mexican drug lord convicted in the 1985 killing of U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agent Enrique Kiki Camarena, has been ordered freed by a court. Carrillo, 86, known as Don Neto, was transferred from prison to house arrest last year because of poor health and age. On Friday, the federal judiciary council released an appeals court ruling that would grant him a form of early release usually given to prisoners who have completed most of their sentences. He has nearly nine years remaining on his 40 years.

Taliban car bomb kills 24 in Pakistan: A powerful car bomb exploded near a Shiite mosque in the northwestern town of Parachinar, killing at least 24 people and wounding more than 100 others, officials said. Jamaat-ul-Ahrar, a breakaway faction of the Pakistani Taliban, asserted responsibility for the attack. Spokesman Asad Mansoor said in a statement that the attack targeted minority Shiites, considered heretics by the Sunni militants.

Prosecutor calls slaying of U.N. experts a war crime: The prosecutor of the International Criminal Court says the brutal killing of a U.N. expert team and other violence in Congo could be crimes under her courts jurisdiction. Fatou Bensouda issued a statement saying she is deeply concerned by the violence racking the Kasai province. The bodies of American Michael Sharp, Swedish national Zaida Catalan and local interpreter Betu Tshintela were found this week. They had been looking into alleged human rights violations by the Congolese army and local militia groups. Three other Congolese members of their team remain missing.

Japanese whale research fleet brings home 333 kills: Japans whaling fleet returned home after killing 333 whales in the Antarctic, achieving its goal for the second year under a revised research whaling program. Japan says the hunt was for ecological research, allowed as an exception to a 1986 international ban on commercial whaling. Program opponents say its a cover story because the whales are sold for food.

Germany, donors pay for painting looted by Nazis: A 1913 painting by Expressionist Ernst Ludwig Kirchner that was seized by the Nazis as degenerate art will remain in a German museum after the government and others paid 1.2 million euros to the heir of the paintings original owner. The Judgment of Paris, which shows three nude women and a clothed man posing in Kirchners studio, was looted from Jewish art collector Hans Hess during the Nazi era, but has been on display at the Wilhelm-Hack Museum in Ludwigshafen since 1979.

 From news services
John Klotsche is a partner and former chairman of the executive committee of the law firm Baker McKenzie. He was a senior adviser to the IRS Commissioner from 2003 to 2008.

French philosopher Blaise Pascals satirical line on verbosity, The letter I have written today is longer than usual because I lacked the time to make it shorter, is a timely reminder that the dreaded tax season is upon us. Millions of individuals and families are making their annual pilgrimage through Form 1040 and its 13 schedules, accompanied by the 106-page instruction booklet loaded with gobbledygook.

Meanwhile, House Republicans have laid down a marker for tax simplification, proposing to lower tax rates, increase the standard deduction and end a host of special-interest provisions. They estimate that these changes would reduce the share of taxpayers who itemize their deductions from about one-third under current law to 5 percent.

Their ultimate goal: The revised tax filings for most Americans will be simple enough to fit on a postcard.

Yet this falls one crucial step short of achieving the ultimate goal of tax simplification: shifting the burden of preparing returns from taxpayers to the government.

After all, the IRS has all the information it needs to do what many taxpayers toil over annually, except it can complete the task more efficiently and accurately. Employers and financial institutions feed variable inputs such as wages and salaries (the W-2) and interest and dividend income (the 1099) directly into the IRS database. The IRS uses this information to cross-check the accuracy of filed returns.

Why require taxpayers to spend time gathering documents and information and struggle to decode the forms and instructions? Why push 56 percent of taxpayers to pay professional preparers and 34 percent to purchase tax-preparation software?

The tax code contains 2.4 million words , plus 7.7 million in interpretative regulations. The Tax Foundation reports staggering tax compliance numbers: Individual taxpayers toil 2.6 billion hours each year gathering information and preparing the 1040 alone.

This idea for the tax agency to do the heavy-lifting computations is not new. California launched just such a program, ReadyReturn, in 2004 and recently took its best features and folded them into CalFile, the states easy-to-use service offering free e-filing. European countries, Scandinavian in particular, call it a tax agency reconciliation system. Most taxpayers in Denmark (87 percent) and Sweden (74 percent) participate. This is much more than a theoretical idea.

Congress even thought such a system meritorious when it mandated in 1998 that the Treasury Department develop procedures for the implementation of a return-free tax system for 2008 and beyond. The 2008 launch-year deadline has, of course, long come and gone.

How would it work? The IRS would determine eligibility for something that could be called EZReturn, based on a taxpayers prior return, and prepare a draft 1040. It would notify taxpayers of their eligibility and establish a secure online mechanism for reviewing drafts or mailing addresses for the returns to be sent. A given taxpayer would then review the return and (a) agree to the content and file it electronically or by mail, (b) make appropriate changes and file it, or (c) toss it in the trash and start from scratch. EZReturn would be entirely voluntary.

Whats the downside? The most obvious is Armageddon for the powerful tax-preparation industry, a $9 billion business employing 300,000 bean counters. Case in point: Intuit (maker of TurboTax) spent $3 million lobbying (unsuccessfully) to torpedo Californias ReadyReturn program.

And the industry maneuvered the Treasury Department into sidestepping its 1998 congressional mandate by allowing the IRS to contractually agree not to develop a return-free filing system. This came about in 2002 with the launch of the IRS Free File program for low-income participants, which an industry alliance agreed to fund and manage and for which it extracted the IRS non-competition agreement.

What has the industry delivered? For the most recent 2015 filing season, only 2.8 million taxpayers used the Free File program  a puny 2 percent of those eligible. A Treasury Department inspector general unabashedly stated as early as 2006 that the primary goal of the Free File Alliance was not to assist low-income taxpayers but to keep the Federal Government from entering the tax preparation business.

Drain the swamp is a popular mantra of the president and his surrogates, and here it seems appropriate that the interests of the tens of millions of taxpayers annually dragged into the 1040 swamp should trump those of the tax-preparation industry. EZReturn could also help drain another swamp: growing industry fraud and predatory practices aimed at lower-income households; tax refund fraud alone is estimated to hit $21 billion this year.

Albert Einstein famously said, The hardest thing in the world to understand is the income tax. Lets have Congress instruct (again) and fund the IRS to develop and implement a comprehensive program to assume the role of the nations tax-return preparer and make things as simple as possible for millions of taxpayers.
Dilon, a young male feral cat at the Humane Rescue Alliance and Medical Center in the District on March 22. (Astrid Riecken/ For The Washington Post)

A new program from the District of Columbias animal control services, the Humane Rescue Alliance, proposes to tackle the citys rat population by throwing cats at the problem. The Blue Collar Cats program plans to adopt cats out to businesses, apartments and homeowners and to allow these cats to wander freely to hunt.

Superficially, this strategy makes sense. Cats are instinctive predators, and many of us grew up watching cats chase rodents in cartoons. Its natural, right? Not quite.

Not only does this program violate D.C. code, it also fails to account for the fact that cats are ineffective rat controllers that cause plenty of damage in their own right.

According to D.C. code, no owner of an animal shall allow the animal to go at large. An owner is defined as anyone who purchases or keeps an animal in temporary or permanent custody. The Blue Collar Cats program encourages (even relies on) a violation of law. It also conflicts with many veterinarians advice that cats remain indoors for their own safety.

Even if it were legal, the program would be a bad idea. Contrary to popular opinion, cats do not effectively control urban rat populations. A 2009 study led by Johns Hopkins School of Public Health scientists evaluated cat-rat interactions in Baltimore. The researchers concluded that cat predation on rats was sporadic and had relatively little impact on size of the rat population. The study also found that when cats did chase rats, they largely ignored the frequently aggressive adult rats.

And even though cats kill rats, cats also kill beneficial native animals. Cats are opportunistic predators and kill a wide variety of native species, some of which may be threatened or endangered and all of which are already struggling to survive in a human-modified environment.

The costs to wildlife are enormous. Outdoor cats kill 1.3 billion to 4 billion birds and 6.3 billion to 22.3 billion mammals in the United States annually and have contributed to the extinction of 63 species worldwide.

Introducing cats as green rodent control undermines the work of conservation agencies fighting feverishly to protect ecosystems for current and future generations. For example, many of the District Department of Energy and the Environments species of greatest concern, such as the wood thrush and Eastern cottontail, are threatened by cats.

Free-roaming cats also increase rather than diminish public-health risks. Like rats, cats can carry and transmit a variety of parasites and diseases to humans and wildlife, including rabies, hookworms, cat-scratch disease, typhus and plague. One-off rabies immunization, a frequent hallmark of programs that intentionally release cats, is insufficient. The National Association of State Public Health Veterinarians has declared that a cat must be vaccinated initially, given a booster at one year and then given boosters at recommended intervals, usually one to three years, to be safely immunized. Anything less puts the cat and the public at risk.

And then there is toxoplasmosis, a disease caused by infection with the parasite Toxoplasma gondii, which requires felines to complete its life cycle. The parasites infectious eggs, called oocysts, are excreted via cat feces; a single cat can excrete hundreds of millions of oocysts, which remain infectious and persist in the environment long after the feces have disappeared. Accidental ingestion or inhalation of an oocyst causes infection, and a growing body of evidence consistently points to widespread environmental contamination with T. gondii from free-roaming cats.

T. gondii not only harms and kills wildlife, but it also is dangerous for people . Infections can cause miscarriage, blindness, memory loss, organ failure and death. Pregnant women and people with compromised immune systems are especially susceptible, which is why doctors advise against cleaning litter boxes when pregnant. In stark contrast to the Humane Rescue Alliances suggestion, flower beds and sandboxes, two locations where people frequently dig in the earth, are entirely inappropriate places for cat defecation.

Rat control is an important component of city life, but the Blue Collar Cat program relies on a flawed strategy that will do more harm than good. The program violates D.C. code, endangers wildlife and sacrifices public health. It is time to put this idea back on the shelf.

The writer is director of Invasive Species Programs of the American Bird Conservancy.
THEY SAY the Internet never forgets, and remembering is particularly profitable for broadband providers such as Comcast and Verizon: Collecting consumer information can allow Internet companies to tailor advertisements to individual customers. Out of concern for user privacy, the Federal Communications Commission promulgated rules last year restricting how companies could use that information. But Congress moved to repeal the rules this week. Now, if President Trump signs their bill, it will be on legislators to craft privacy protections that they find more reasonable.

In the Obama-era net neutrality overhaul, the Federal Trade Commission, which could have addressed privacy concerns, lost its jurisdiction over Internet service providers. The FCC, newly the only cop on the beat, moved to fill the gap with stringent regulations on when and how companies could collect user data. The FCCs rule applied only to broadband companies and not to platforms such as Google and Facebook, which mine similar data on a similar scale. Consumers, the thinking went, should have more of a choice about the kind of information their broadband providers can control and sell, because in the modern age they may not have much choice about whether to use the Internet or what company to buy access from. By contrast, it was suggested, they dont have to use Facebook if they dont like its privacy policies.

Critics nevertheless argued that the FCC had fashioned its rules all wrong. Not only had the FCC given Google and Facebook a free pass, but instead of mirroring the FTCs opt-out framework, which allows consumers to request that companies relinquish their data-collection rights, the FCC adopted an opt-in regime that required companies to obtain permission from consumers to collect data in the first place  placing an unnecessary burden on providers. The FCC also failed to distinguish between sensitive data, such as a users health history, and less sensitive data, such as what newspaper a user likes to read. These same critics, who included congressional Republicans, claimed the FCC passed its rules along partisan lines with no effort to secure buy-in from the other side of the aisle.

Some of the criticism was fair. But now those Republicans have axed the rules along partisan lines with no effort to replace them: The Congressional Review Act, which Congress used to strike down the regulations, is a blunt instrument that now bars the FCC from drafting any replacement order that would be substantially the same as the overturned rule. In other words, at the moment only Congress can make something happen.

So what next? Congress could pass provider oversight back to the FTC and give the commission authority to establish a more carefully crafted policy. Or legislators could draft their own rules. Internet commerce depends on companies abilities to draw in advertising dollars, and drawing in those dollars depends on access to user information. At the same time, users deserve a say in how their sensitive information is used. Congress will have to take this on, because right now arguably no one else can.
John Pomfret is author of a history of U.S.-China relations, The Beautiful Country and the Middle Kingdom, and editor at large at SupChina.

In the past 100 years, there have been three great generations of Chinese. The first were those who were born in the last years of the 19th century, went to the United States to study and returned to China to establish all of the modern Western disciplines from law to medicine to the sciences. The second embraced Marxism in the 1920s, founded the Chinese Communist Party and, profiting from Japans invasion of China, conquered China in 1949. Chinas third great generation emerged in the 1980s from the ashes of the Cultural Revolution and came of age in a country that had finally embraced market-oriented economic reforms. Steeled by years in Chinas poverty-stricken countryside where they had been banished by Chairman Mao Zedong, they returned to Chinas cities to drive the changes that have turned China into the worlds second largest economy.

The only thing great about Chinas millennial generation, born after the death of Chairman Mao in 1976, however, appears to be its size. There are 320 million Chinese between the ages of 16 and 30. Raised in a China far richer than that of their parents, with scant knowledge of the epochal events of Chinas recent history such as the famine of the Great Leap Forward, the Cultural Revolution or the 1989 crackdown on pro-democracy protests around Tiananmen Square, Chinas millennials are the cause of endless hand-wringing among their elders and even the Chinese Communist Party. Children of the one-child policy, they are said to exhibit symptoms of what the Chinese call the little emperor complex. As single children, they garnered excessive amounts of attention from their parents and grandparents, making for grown-ups with weak social skills, incapable of independent thought. Pampered by their relatives, Chinese young men, in particular, face what Tiantian Zheng, a professor of anthropology at State University of New York, has called a crisis of masculinity. Some party officials have even expressed the concern that Chinas effeminate generation threatens to return China to its colonial past when it was bullied by the West. Chinas ministry of education has even issued a handbook  called Little Men  to encourage Chinas boys to be, well, boys.

Against this angst-filled backdrop, Alec Ash has written one of the first books in English about Chinas millennials. Wish Lanterns: Young Lives in New China is an intimate portrait of six young Chinese  three women and three men  on a journey from high school into the workforce. We meet a rock-and-roll wannabe, a tattooed fashion stylist, an engineer, an addict of online gaming, a girl desperate to leave the confines of her one-rice-paddy town and a budding nationalist who calls herself Fred  after her muse, Frederic Chopin. About three-quarters of the way through, two of the main subjects meet and marry  but I wont spoil it. Lyrical, with its characters finely drawn, Ashs book paints a telling portrait of this most restless generation raised in a system that has provided them with unprecedented personal opportunities while denying them political ones.

Ash gets a lot about China very right. Several decades ago, Western writers were agog with the fact that the Chinese liked rock-and-roll and had sex. Ash takes these in stride. His subjects inhabit a globalized youth culture in a highly caffeinated country (yes, young Chinese drink more coffee than tea) where, as Ash writes, theres a generation gap every five years. Ashs most interesting character, Mia, grabbed one of her nicknames from the film Pulp Fiction. Another character, Lucifer, takes his inspiration from South Korean pop and Japanese porn. Ash parses the particulars of Chinas hookup culture and has written probably the best paragraph in the modern Western oeuvre describing how Chinese women approach dating, getting just right how they often feign helplessness to make their male friends feel strong. Ash is also attune to the yawning divide between country-bumpkin climbers and the urban cool.

"Wish Lanterns: Young Lives in New China," by Alec Ash (Arcade)

Reading the book, I had two questions: Are these really the men and women who are going to help make China into a world power? If so, China doesnt really seem like such a threat. Ash identifies the restless energy and furtive search of this Chinese generation. But he also has discovered that, as he writes, to get anything worth having in China . . . either you had to play dirty or bend to the system completely. All of his characters seem bereft of idealism or dreams bigger than themselves. He was thoroughly disabused of the belief that he could better his society, Ash writes of one man. Instead, he focused on improving himself.

This leads to my next question: What does Ash think about this generation that will have a key voice in Chinas future? At only one point in the book does he express an opinion about his subjects, noting that they were mollycoddled to comic extremes during infancy, then helped up after every fall, and wrapped in more layers of protection than a porcelain vase in transit. But thats it. Ash has said that he purposely avoided passing judgment on the generation because it would be unfair to generalize from such a small sample. But Id argue that especially because Ash is a fellow millennial and such a gifted observer, hes uniquely placed to draw conclusions about this group. The fate of a large portion of humanity turns on the answer. He should have given it a try.
Eric Liu is the author, most recently, of Youre More Powerful Than You Think: A Citizens Guide to Making Change Happen. He is founder of Citizen University and executive director of the Aspen Institute Citizen and American Identity Program.

In A Colony in a Nation, MSNBCs Chris Hayes examines how the American criminal justice system has been formed and deformed. The title of the book contains an argument: that within a nation of laws, Americans have created a virtual penal colony of mass incarceration  an archipelago of punishment that is meant to give everyone on the outside a sense of security but, paradoxically, serves only to heighten the countrys unappeasable collective anxiety.

Hayes takes his readers on a brisk tour of the debate about crime and punishment in the United States. He explores the controversial broken windows theory of policing  the idea that responding aggressively to small initial signs of disorder will prevent more serious crime  and describes how it led to the abuse of stop-and-frisk policies. He discusses the unchecked proliferation of firearms in every corner of the country and the militarization of police forces. He gives readers  especially the white people of his authorial we  a useful primer on the rise of the carceral state and its decimating impact on black and brown America. And although he illuminates a great deal in this short book, he frustrates as well  mainly because he shows that he is capable of more sustained illumination.

[What can America learn from systems of incarceration around the world?]

The books core concept comes from Richard Nixons 1968 speech at the Republican National Convention. Black Americans, Nixon said, did not want to be subjugated by the state like a colony in a nation. Yet, as Hayes notes, Nixon helped bring about that very thing as president by setting in motion the war on drugs. And Nixons focus on law and order  taken up without irony or apparent historical awareness by the current president  is front and center in the narrative Hayes constructs.

"A Colony in a Nation," by Chris Hayes (Norton)

Nixon built a political and policymaking strategy around reaction: to antiwar protests, to the Black Power movement, to urban riots and a rise in crime, to the seeming disintegration of traditional gender and racial roles, and to the entire prior social order. Pivotal to that strategy was the exploitation of white fear  indeed, the legitimation and even sanctification of white fear. This is not news to any student of the late 1960s and 1970s. Nor is it news to anyone awake today. Yet this is the most important notion Hayes touches on in his book: the relentless motor force of white fear.

American history, he writes, is the story of white fear, of the constant violent impulses it produces and the management and ordering of those impulses. White fear keeps the citizens of the Nation wary of the Colony, and fuels their desire to keep it separate.

He doesnt develop this notion systematically but that he names it at all, and so bluntly, is significant. Indeed, the long-term value of this book probably will lie less in Hayess survey of the new Jim Crow system that Michelle Alexander has described than in his nascent effort to confront and counteract the underlying force of white fear.

[Theres been a big decline in the black incarceration rate, and almost nobodys paying attention]

As a white man, Hayes suggests that fear is not just an aspect of white identity; it is the very reason for it  that whiteness in America was constructed and is still maintained, through power structures such as the criminal justice system, to dominate people defined as nonwhite and to control the resulting anxiety about the possibility of rebellion. Its a big argument (with big counterarguments), worthy of a bigger book.

Hayes has a sharp eye for the ways white Americans can spin self-justifying story lines of white innocence and nonwhite menace. The stories neednt be objectively true. They need only feel true to enough people. He recounts the seediness of New York City during his childhood and how, even if unconsciously, he associated that seediness with black crime. But stories also change. Which is why Hayes, a storyteller with a mass audience and a willingness to admit his own fear, is important now. He has the power to help Americans who call themselves white, in Ta-Nehisi Coates apt phrasing, to ask themselves why they do that and whether they should keep doing it.

At one point, Hayes mentions in passing the growing presence of white people in the Colony, a result of the epidemic of opioid use that is also driving down overall white life expectancy. Here was one opportunity to go deeper. As white social pathology increases, will coded narratives about race, class and crime become more complex? Would Hayes join with Kevin Williamson of the National Review, who has lambasted poor rural white people in terms that the right used to reserve for poor urban black people? Perhaps not. But we cant be sure because he doesnt say.

On the role of class in separating the Colony from the Nation, Hayes shares vignettes about his own unpunished drug use and the lawbreaking-without-consequence that mark elite colleges such as his alma mater, Brown. He describes being caught with marijuana in his bag as he entered the 2000 Republican National Convention  and being let go by the cop without even a warning. But here, too, there are more dots to connect between the personal and the political, and more to say about how he thinks individual and societal responsibility are colored and conflated.

A Colony in a Nation is filled with other intriguing moves. Hayes juxtaposes catalysts of the American Revolution such as the aggrieved Boston smuggler John Hancock with contemporary black men such as Eric Garner, both trying to make a living on the edges of the law and harassed (in Garners case to death) by agents of the state.

Is this provocative juxtaposition meant to suggest that black crime is often more legitimate than it seems? Or that black uprising would be? Or that social-justice progressives should join with limited-government libertarians who also want to unwind the prison-industrial complex? Such questions fill the margins.

Fortunately, with his broadcast platform and his manifest smarts, Hayes can make his book the start of a discussion, not the end of one. A Colony in a Nation reminds us that fear of the other, when weaponized and mechanized by the state, usually makes things worse. Thats a lesson Americans of every color would do well to remember.
Will anyone be left standing when the Republican circular firing squad runs out of ammunition? Or will everybody just reload and keep blasting away, leaving Democrats to clean up the bloody mess?

The political moment were living through is truly remarkable, but not in a good way. Republicans control the White House and both chambers of Congress, so were basically in their hands. But they have nothing approaching consensus on what they should be doing  and they have failed to show basic competence at doing much of anything.

This absurd situation was illustrated Thursday when House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.), appearing on CBS This Morning, tried to explain why he wants to lead yet another suicide charge up Health Care Hill.

Ryan said he worries that if Republicans dont repeal the Affordable Care Act and pass some sort of replacement, then President Trump will just go work with Democrats to try and change Obamacare and thats not, thats hardly a conservative thing. . . . If this Republican Congress allows the perfect to be the enemy of the good, I worry well push the president into working with Democrats. Hes been suggesting that as much.

Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), usually a man of measured words, responded with a barbed tweet: We have come a long way in our country when the speaker of one party urges a president NOT to work with the other party to solve a problem.

Trump went on Twitter as well, primarily to lash out at the House GOP conservatives who helped scuttle the slapdash American Health Care Act that Ryan tried  and disastrously failed  to ram through last week: The Freedom Caucus will hurt the entire Republican agenda if they dont get on the team, & fast. We must fight them, & Dems, in 2018!

But which Republican agenda? The House majority wants ideological purity of the kind found in Ayn Rand novels and the writings of obscure Austrian economists. The Senate majority favors traditional conservative policies and seeks self-preservation. Trump seeks adulation, a crown of laurels and the strewing of rose petals at his feet.

The House looks hopeless. Republicans hold 241 seats, a massive majority  yet could not come close to mustering the 216 needed last week to approve the ill-fated health-care bill. House Republicans passed about 60 measures to repeal all or part of Obamacare while Barack Obama was president  but now, with a Republican in the White House, they cant pass even one.

Ryan somehow acquired a reputation as a policy wonk but really is an ideologue, as shown by his comments Thursday. He worries less about whether policies work or not  whether, in this case, more people have health insurance  than whether policies fit his definition of conservative or not conservative. Also, he doesnt seem to be very good at counting votes, which is a clear requirement in the House speaker job description.

To be fair, he does have the problem of the Freedom Caucus  a group of 30 to 40 House Republicans who are far to Ryans right, which puts them beyond the outer fringe. If politics were the solar system, they would be the Oort Cloud, out there past Pluto. It is hard to imagine any health-care bill that is acceptable to both the Freedom Caucus and a majority of Americans.

The White House looks hopeless, too. Trumps inner circle is like the Court of the Borgias, full of intrigue and backstabbing. And there have been plenty of opportunities for rivals to wield their knives: Advisers Stephen K. Bannon and Stephen Miller, the economic nationalists, came under attack when Trumps first, amateurish attempt at a Muslim travel ban got blocked by the courts. Chief of Staff Reince Priebus  like Ryan, part of the Cheesehead Mafia from Wisconsin  bore much of the blame for the health-care debacle. Economic adviser Gary Cohn and his staff are derided by others in the administration as the Democrats. Jared Kushner is fortunate to have the Teflon coating that comes from being the bosss son-in-law.

That leaves just two viable centers of power  Senate Republicans under Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.), who is nothing if not wily; and House Democrats under Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (Calif.).

Its probably going to take Democratic votes to keep the government funded past April 28 and avoid a shutdown. Trumps only path forward on health care, a problem he now owns, may indeed be working with the Democrats. When I saw her at the Capitol this week, Pelosi was in a surprisingly good mood.

Read more from Eugene Robinsons archive, follow him on Twitter or subscribe to his updates on Facebook. You can also join him Tuesdays at 1 p.m. for a live Q&A.
In his March 28 op-ed, Will Israel win the West Bank but lose its soul?, Richard Cohen said that the British Labour Party is hostile toward Israel and that the Democratic Party in the United States is drifting that way. Mr. Cohen is dead-on about leftist parties in Britain and the rest of Europe being hostile toward Israel. But he is wrong about the Democratic Party in the United States.

In the summer of 2014, members of the U.S. House voted 395 to 8 and the Senate voted unanimously to support the Israeli Defense Forces in the Gaza War (Operation Protective Edge). In numerous votes concerning boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS), more than 90 percent of Democrats in Congress and various state legislatures have voted against BDS and to support Israel.

The party of John F. Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, Hubert Humphrey and Henry M. Scoop Jackson has never wavered in its support of Israel.

Lee Hurwitz, Rockville
The name of the game is gaming the name.

Politico this week reported on an innovative new policy from the Trump administration: An Energy Department official had directed staff not to use the phrases climate change, emissions reduction or Paris Agreement in written memos, briefings or other written communication.

A department spokeswoman denied that there had been a new directive, which, given the administrations record of truthfulness, is practically a confirmation. Politico reported that it may be less a matter of formal instructions than a general sense that its better to avoid certain hot-button terms in favor of words like jobs and infrastructure. 

Thus would the Department of Jobs and Infrastructure, formerly the Department of Energy, be forced to change the name of its Office of International Climate and Clean Energy to the Office of Hot-Button Terms. Or perhaps it should be the Office of Puppies and Lollipops, so that people would come to see global warming as a good thing.

The retiring of undesirable names is not limited to the Energy Department, as it turns out. The Kushner family, President Trumps in-laws, plan to change the name of their flagship development, 666 Fifth Ave. , to the less-Luciferian 660 Fifth Ave. Apparently its not good for business to have your property (in the news lately because of the Kushners attempted deal with Chinese investors) named with the Mark of the Beast.

Banning climate change could be the beginning of an elegant solution for this floundering young administration: If you cant eliminate a problem, eliminate any mention of the problem. And Trump has already amassed a substantial list of people and things he would undoubtedly like to make go away. He could decree no more mention of: Michael Flynn. Immunity deals. Obamacare. Chuck Schumer. The Freedom Caucus. Democrats. The Congressional Black Caucus. April Ryan. The failing New York Times. Mark Meadows. Jim Jordan. Raul Labrador. Jared Kushners testimony. Ivanka Trumps conflicts of interest. Conflicts of interest generally. The Club for Growth. Heritage Action. NBC. ABC. CNN. Paul Ryan. Preet Bharara. Snoop Dogg. The Russia probe. The FBI. The CIA. Russia. The Senate Intelligence Committee. Polls. The deficit. Judges. Arnold Schwarzenegger. Congress.

Banning unhelpful words and phrases could, if done on a large enough scale, be just the solution Trump needs to rescue his administration from historic levels of unpopularity. Trump has already shown that saying something makes it so for many of his followers; 74 percent of Republicans believe his offices were wiretapped during the campaign, a CBS News poll found, even though theres no evidence Trumps claim is true. Maybe Trump could also make these people disbelieve inconvenient truths by banning their utterance.

If he cant reform health care, he can ban the phrase health-care reform. Because he doesnt have a plan to end the opioid epidemic, he can end the use of the phrase. Same with the latest revelations that he wants only minor changes to NAFTA, doesnt have a secret, foolproof plan to defeat the Islamic State, and isnt erasing the budget deficit. He can instead purge all mentions of NAFTA, the Islamic State and the deficit.

The Politico article didnt say what is to be done with the phrases climate change, emissions and Paris agreement. Perhaps they could be reduced, reused and recycled by other parts of the government.

The immunity deal sought by former national security adviser Flynn, sufficiently upsetting to Trump that he tweeted Friday morning about it as part of a witch hunt, could be rebranded as the Paris agreement in hopes of rallying conservatives to oppose it. The administration could refer to the entire Russia probe as climate change and enlist more people to help him fight its pernicious effects on the planet. Trump, stymied by the courts in his attempt to ban travelers from several Muslim-majority countries, might make his ban less objectionable if he were to rename such travelers carbon emissions.

Once problematic phrases are excised, benign ones can take their place. Debt would become free Chinese money. The Constitution would become the Conversation to make it feel less restrictive, and the First Amendment, which Trump again this week threatened to revise, would become the First Asterisk. The phrase Medal of Honor would be inserted for all mentions of impeachment in federal documents, our Slavic partners would substitute for Russia, swimming lessons would take the place of waterboarding and references to Devin Nunes would be replaced by the phrase His Eminence.

Now that would be a real climate change.

Twitter: @Milbank

Read more from Dana Milbanks archive, follow him on Twitter or subscribe to his updates on Facebook.
Jagadish Kumar, photographed in Bangalore in 2013, works from India testing software systems in slot machines before they are installed in U.S. casinos while awaiting his H-1B visa interview to visit the United States for the first time. (Rama Lakshmi/The Washington Post)

Come Monday, the Trump administration may quietly revoke the ability of hundreds of thousands of immigrants  almost all women  from legally working in the United States, forcing them to choose between heading back to their kitchens or leaving the country altogether.

They are the spouses of workers here on high-skilled visas, and are typically high-skilled themselves. Many have launched businesses that created jobs for U.S. citizens, whose employment may in turn be at risk, too.

Take, for instance, 37-year-old entrepreneur Keerthi Ranjith, who lives in South Riding, Va.

Ranjith came to the United States in 2004 as the dependent spouse of her husband, a software engineer on an H-1B visa. Ranjith, a teacher, knew that one condition of leaving India was that she would, at least temporarily, have to give up her rewarding career; at the time, spouses of H-1B workers were prohibited from doing paid work.

Still, her husbands company promised to sponsor him for a green card, which meant that in a few years both of them would again be able to work. She could put her professional skills to use and bring in a second income for their growing family.

At least, thats what she thought. The couple hadnt counted on the interminable green-card backlog for Indian nationals.

Under current law, theres an annual per-country cap on green cards, and its the same number for every country regardless of population. That means people from tiny nations such as Lichtenstein can get green cards almost immediately after clearing the sponsorship and screening process, while those from countries such as India and China may wait decades.

Ranjith waited and waited. Restless at home but barred from getting a job, she volunteered at her childrens school and began dreaming about one day launching her own business: an after-school tutoring center. She had her Indian educational credentials transferred and obtained a Virginia teaching license. She researched books and curriculums and scoped out locations.

Years passed, and members of Congress several times tried and failed to fix the broken green-card system. (Then-Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) played a pivotal role in scuttling one effort.) Finally, the Obama administration offered a workaround: Starting in May 2015, the administration announced, spouses of skilled workers awaiting green card approval would be allowed to work.

And so, after 11 years more or less on the sidelines, Ranjith was granted authorization to get a job  or, in her case, to start a business.

She moved fast. Within a month, she opened the South Riding Learning Center. Today nearly 250 students are enrolled, and she employs more than 15 people.

All my employees, Ranjith is quick to note, are citizens, of course. They were all born here.

Now, under President Trump in the White House and Sessions at the Justice Department, Ranjith and her 15 American employees may all lose their jobs.

As a senator, in addition to opposing green-card reform, Sessions vehemently objected to the rule that allowed Ranjith to open her business. Now he has a quick and easy way to eliminate her work authorization: He could stop defending it in court.

A lawsuit challenging the rule was filed in 2015 and recently landed in federal appeals court. The Trump administration asked for a 60-day pause to allow incoming leadership personnel adequate time to consider the issues.

On Monday, those 60 days will be up.

The Justice Department, representing the Department of Homeland Security, hasnt tipped its hand, but Sessionss past statements bode ill for people such as Ranjith. A settlement with the plaintiffs would effectively allow Sessions to kill the rule without going through the long, arduous regulatory process normally required for repeal. (The advocacy group Immigration Voice asked to join the case on grounds that the government may not be adequately representing the interests of its members; the judge, perhaps waiting to see what the government will do, has not yet ruled on its request.)

Ranjith is not sure what shell do if her work authorization is revoked, which would mean she could no longer run the business she started  and sank her familys savings into. If she couldnt sell it, she might have to file for bankruptcy. The financial loss could be so crushing that her family  including her two U.S.-born children  could decide to leave.

I have waited patiently, I paid taxes, I volunteered, I waited for the rules to change, and I did everything correctly, she said. But maybe this means we need to start over.

So tell me: Just how would it make America great again to drive away hard-working job-creators like Keerthi Ranjith?
In the aftermath of the GOP health-care debacle came a revealing act of candor. House Speaker Paul D. Ryan admitted that his party, which controls the House, Senate and White House, is not yet a governing party because it could not get 216 people to agree with each other on how we do things.

Since the rise of the tea party, there have been perhaps 30 members of the House  the Freedom Caucus  who have been consistently unwilling to vote for center-right policy because their anti-government convictions are unappeasable. Incited and abetted by conservative media, they made then-Speaker John Boehners (R-Ohio) life a living hell, and have greeted Ryan (Wis.) with sharpened pitchforks.

So a party at the peak of its political fortunes is utterly paralyzed. A caucus in control of everything is itself uncontrollable.

Heading into last years election, Republicans knew that this problem  the tea party predicament, the Freedom Caucus conundrum, the Boehner bog  had to be dealt with. The GOP needed a large and capable leader who could either unite the whole party (at least temporarily) with a bold, conservative vision, or peel off some centrist Democratic support with innovative policy. They needed an above-average president.

What they got is unimaginably distant from any of these goals. They got a leader who is empty  devoid of even moderately detailed preferences and incapable of using policy details in the course of political persuasion.

[Republicans are so hopeless, Trump may have to work with Democrats]

Republicans got a leader who is impatient and easily distracted  by cable news on the Russian scandal or by Arnold Schwarzeneggers TV ratings. The content and consequences of his tweets are bad enough; worse is the disordered personality traits they reveal  vindictiveness, shallowness and lack of discipline. Trump spent a total of 18 days on his health-care bill before demanding a vote. And he made no speech to the nation to advance his ideas  as every other recent president would have done.

Republicans got an administration that is incompetent. The White House policy process has been erratic and disorganized. It has failed to provide expert analysis or assistance to Congress and did little to effectively advocate the presidents policy in ways that could have united the party.

Republicans got an administration that is morally small. Trumps proposed budget would require massive cuts in disease research, global development and agricultural programs  just as a famine gathers a hideous strength. The proposed budget practices random acts of gratuitous cruelty.

This is a pretty bad combination: empty, easily distracted, vindictive, shallow, impatient, incompetent and morally small. This is not the profile of a governing party.

It can hardly surprise us. The president had no governing experience. He has no detailed governing agenda. He trashed everyone who tried to govern in the past. And we somehow expect him to overcome the complex governing task presented by the Freedom Caucus?

His new strategy is to go on the attack: The Freedom Caucus will hurt the entire Republican agenda if they dont get on the team, & fast. We must fight them, & Dems, in 2018! By targeting individual congressmen, as Trump has now done, he runs the risk of looking pathetic if they remain unintimidated. And will he really carry this campaign beyond his Twitter feed? Have rallies in their districts? Criticize them on conservative talk radio? Raise money for their more moderate opponents? If he takes this route, then the GOP civil war will reach a new stage of bitterness, with legislative progress postponed until a core faction of the party is tweeted into submission or defeated.

1 of 83 Full Screen Autoplay Close Skip Ad  See what President Trump has been doing since taking office View Photos The beginning of his term has featured controversial executive orders and frequent conflicts with the media. Caption The beginning of the presidents term has featured controversial executive orders and frequent conflicts with the media. March 17, 2017 President Donald Trump, first lady Melania Trump and their son, Barron, walk to Marine One at the White House en route to Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Fla. Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post Wait 1 second to continue.

[The Trump administration has unforced errors and self-inflicted wounds galore]

Some Republicans choose to comfort themselves by repeating the mantra: Gorsuch, Gorsuch, Gorsuch. But that does nothing to change Trumps stunningly high disapproval ratings. Or the stunning rebuke by the FBI director concerning his claim of being wiretapped by President Barack Obama. Or the stunning rejection of his central campaign promise by elements of his own party. Or his stunning ignorance of the basics of policy and leadership.

And all this has come in the course of the presidents political honeymoon. What, for goodness sake, will the marriage be like?

It is now dawning on Republicans what they have done to themselves. They thought they could somehow get away with Trump. That he could be contained. That the adults could provide guidance. That the economy might come to the rescue. That the damage could be limited.

Instead, they are seeing a downward spiral of incompetence and public contempt  a collapse that is yet to reach a floor. A presidency is failing. A party unable to govern is becoming unfit to govern.

And what, in the short term, can be done about it? Nothing. Nothing at all.

Read more from Michael Gersons archive, follow him on Twitter or subscribe to his updates on Facebook .
FOUR HUNDRED THOUSAND more Virginians could get health-care coverage, quickly and at minimal cost to the state. All thats needed is for anti-Obamacare dead-enders in the General Assembly finally to put the well-being of their people over partisanship, as Republicans in a variety of deep-red states now are doing.

Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D), not for the first (or 10th, or 50th) time, is making the argument for this totally reasonable expansion of health-care coverage to people who desperately need it. Some analysts suggest he knows he still cant win in the legislature and is only teeing up the issue for the coming gubernatorial election. If so, that will be the fault of intransigent Richmond Republicans, whose position on the issue is now even less defensible than it used to be.

The Affordable Care Act extended the state-federal Medicaid program to cover a swath of low-income people, but the Supreme Court ruled that each state could decide whether to accept this expansion. Despite the fact that the federal government has offered to pay nearly the entire cost of covering newly eligible people, only 31 states and the District have taken the bargain. Because of GOP opposition in the General Assembly, Virginia has been one of the holdouts.

That, however, was before congressional Republicans failed to advance a repeal-and-replace bill. Were going to be living with Obamacare for the foreseeable future, House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) admitted last week, after pulling the bill from the floor .

The Medicaid expansion was only temporary, Republicans used to argue; Congress would repeal it or federal budget constraints would require rollback. So, the logic went, state leaders should not risk expanding Medicaid only to pull the rug out from under vulnerable people when congressional Republicans unraveled the program. This argument never made much sense: It is better to cover people for some time than none at all. With a swift repeal off the table, it is now thoroughly discredited. Indeed, more than ever, Medicaid looks like a sure bet. Protecting the program turned out to be a priority for moderate congressional Republicans in the House and Senate alike.

If the failure of the repeal-and-replace bill diminished Republicans policy case against expansion, it decimated their strategic rationale. Fighting Medicaid expansion across the country was a central part of the GOP plan to resist Obamacare, limiting the number of people who benefited from the law and therefore making it easier to tear up once Republicans took control of Washington. But the ACA proved too hard to eliminate anyway.

It is unsurprising that the week after the repeal-and-replace bill failed, the Kansas state legislature voted overwhelmingly to expand Medicaid in that ruby-red state. Kansas is unlikely to be the last place where GOP opposition softens as Republicans process the reality that Obamacare is the law of the land. The benefits are so clear, the costs to states are so low, the reasons to continue resisting are so insubstantial. It is time Richmond Republicans admitted as much.
Susan Okie, an assistant clinical professor of family medicine at Georgetown University School of Medicine, is a poet and a former medical reporter and science editor at The Washington Post.

Imagine watching your father slowly weaken, waste and die from a brain disease that no doctor has been able to diagnose, then learning that a similar illness also struck your grandfather and great-aunt. Imagine calling distant relatives and figuring out that, for generations, this mysterious plague has been killing members of your family, showing its first symptoms in midlife. Will you be next?

Thats the horrific question faced by three middle-aged brothers early in Mercies in Disguise, a moving, suspenseful page-turner thats likely to become a classic of medical storytelling. Unlike many books about scientific quests, in which authors use patients personal experiences like coats of bright paint, a thin veneer for luring readers to engage with the science, this wonderful book by New York Times science writer Gina Kolata keeps the compelling human story at center stage. Scientists and doctors are foils or supporting players in the tale of the Baxleys, a tragically afflicted South Carolina family whose suffering and courage are reminiscent of Job  or Cordelia.

[When we unlock the secrets of our genes, what do we do with that knowledge?]

Physicians consulted by the family have either shaken their heads in defeat or labeled the illness Alzheimers or Parkinsons disease, although it isnt typical of either. As Bill Baxley, a chemical engineer, loses his memory, mental sharpness and control of his muscles, his sons Tim and Buddy Baxley  both physicians and desperate for a diagnosis  perform a spinal tap on him and even cut off a tiny piece of skin for testing, only to learn later that the specimens have been lost or ruined by laboratories. But at Bills funeral in 1998, a chance comment by a guest reveals that Bills father had suffered similar symptoms: I remember his daddy walking through the plant. He had to hang onto the machines, recalls a co-worker who had known both men. A year later, Tim, Buddy and their brother Mike, a lawyer, are staring at the family tree theyve constructed, tracing the disease back through five generations. Seeing the grim pattern of deaths, Mike recalled later, was enough to tell us there is light, there is hope.

"Mercies in Disguise: A Story of Hope, a Family's Genetic Destiny, and the Science That Rescued Them," by Gina Kolata ( St. Martin's)

Meanwhile, for several decades, a few researchers had been focusing on rare diseases that cause progressive brain degeneration with symptoms like those seen in the Baxley family. In two early chapters interwoven with the beginning of the Baxleys saga, Kolata recounts the discovery of kuru, a fatal disease found only in the Fore, an isolated group of people in the mountains of eastern New Guinea. In the late 1950s, American scientist Daniel Carleton Gajdusek  grandiose, driven, a visionary trekked to remote villages to find and study kuru cases. The disease predominantly struck women and children, who customarily handled the brains and organs of dead kuru victims during Fore funerals. Gajdusek deduced that the disease was transmitted during these rituals  but how? The microscopic holes seen in the brains of kuru patients resembled those found in another rare disorder, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, and both illnesses began with trembling and loss of muscle control. He eventually proved that brain tissue from human victims of both diseases could transmit the disorders to chimpanzees, but the symptoms took years to appear. Lacking an infectious agent, Gajdusek proposed that each might be caused by a slow virus. In 1976, Gajdusek received the Nobel Prize for discovering a new family of human diseases.

Next, another scientist with an outsize ego, neurologist Stanley B. Prusiner, having found no evidence of viruses in the affected brains, suggested in 1982 that these bizarre ailments might instead be caused by an abnormally contorted brain protein molecule that behaved somewhat like a virus, gumming up the interior of cells by inducing similar contortions in healthy protein molecules it contacted. He dubbed these infectious proteins prions. Derided by many in the scientific community for believing that a protein could transmit a disease, Prusiner and a colleague, Karen Hsiao, eventually identified a mutation in the gene coding for the prion protein in the blood of a man with another of these brain disorders, known as GSS (short for Gerstmann-Straussler-Scheinker disease). Unlike kuru, GSS runs in families. In blood samples taken from members of one such family, a scientific colleague detected a mutated prion gene in every living member affected by the disease, while in those relatives who had escaped it, the mutation was absent. Prusiners once-outlandish theory had been proven true: A genetic mutation had been linked to an inherited brain disorder, caused by a defective protein.

[Book review: A Troublesome Inheritance: Genes, Race and Human History, by Nicholas Wade]

In 1997, after an FBI investigation, Gajdusek was convicted of and imprisoned for sexually abusing a minor reflecting a pattern of sexual activity with children that many suspected had begun years earlier, during his time in New Guinea. That same year, Prusiner won the Nobel Prize for identifying the causal mechanism of kuru and other so-called prion diseases, a discovery that would profoundly influence the Baxleys.

But the familys drama had yet to unfold. Certain that their still-unidentified family disorder was inheritable, the brothers waited in suspense as they approached the age at which certain relatives had fallen ill. One day, Tim, a neurologist, read an article about a case of GSS. The patients symptoms  abnormal gait, loss of balance, dementia  sounded like his fathers. Suspecting a prion disorder, Tim tracked down a neuropathologist and learned of a test to diagnose GSS from the brain of someone who had died. When his fathers sister, Faye, was hospitalized, he immediately recognized the symptoms: frozen facial expression, shaking, inability to walk. He persuaded her to agree to an autopsy upon her death. In 2002, post-mortem tests on her brain confirmed that the Baxley family disease was, indeed, GSS.

That news posed new, frightening dilemmas for the brothers generation and for their children. It meant the adult Baxleys didnt need to wait and wonder whether a tremble or a stumble was the first sign. A genetic test on a blood sample could disclose in advance which of them carried the mutated prion gene. Each member of this deeply religious, small-town Southern family now confronted the choice of whether to be tested  whether learning how one was to die would make life more precious or would be an unbearable burden. How the various members chose  and the consequences of their choices  is at the heart of Kolatas story. For the younger Baxleys who had not yet had children, the decision also carried a tempting but terrifying trade-off: In exchange for living with the certainty of future illness, a woman who carried the defective gene (or the wife of a man who had the mutation) could undergo in-vitro fertilization to create embryos that could be genetically tested before being implanted in the uterus, thus ensuring that GSS would not affect their offspring.

The Baxley brothers and their wives and children, particularly Buddys daughter, Amanda, the central character, are fully realized personalities. The reader shares their terror, denial and ambivalence, rooting for them as they grapple with the possibility of a fearsome death. Kolata describes their everyday interactions with one another, shadowed by the threat of illness. She writes in a straightforward, conversational style, seeming to know intimate details of conversations, even what was going through peoples minds. Her narrative is seamless and authoritative. The reader shares each twist and turn of the Baxleys fates, which I will not disclose. More than anything Ive read, this book conveys what its like to grapple with the possibility of inheriting a fatal disease, and the emotional turmoil of undergoing genetic testing.

As a medical reporter, the question that enthralled me while reading Mercies in Disguise was: How did Kolata get the story? Her book recalls two other classic tales of medical anthropology, Rebecca Skloots The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks and Anne Fadimans The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down, each written by authors who spent several years embedded with families to absorb their experiences of illness and their encounters with the medical system. Mercies in Disguise is described as a work of narrative nonfiction, presumably signaling that the author has taken some artistic license to reconstruct dramatic scenes in her characters lives where she probably wasnt present, such as the moment in a psychotherapists office when a young patient learns her genetic fate over the phone. I assume that to write this book, Kolata must have developed a relationship with the Baxleys that spanned years, gaining their trust and permission to allow her to probe intimate details of their illnesses, their marriages, their emotions. In the scientific chapters, which are vividly and efficiently written, Kolata carefully annotates her statements about the key scientists research, findings and claims. But the chapters about the Baxleys contain no such annotations. I assume she visited them and interviewed them repeatedly, perhaps recording hours of conversations, but the book touches on the relationship only in a brief paragraph in the acknowledgments section, where Kolata, in thanking the family, writes, When I began this book, the Baxleys were strangers to me, and I to them. But they opened their lives, patiently answering questions that forced them to relive some of the most painful experiences possible. They sent me photos and videos of doctor visits. They invited me into their homes.

The lack of a wider window into the writers own process, particularly the omission of details about how the Baxleys came to welcome Kolata into their lives, and how sharing their journey affected her own thinking about mortality and lifes meaning, is the one flaw I found in this remarkable work.
Russias interference in the presidential campaign began as a story of a hostile adversary attempting to tamper with an American election. It soon expanded into troubling questions about possible collusion between associates of President Trumps campaign and the Russians. Today it has moved directly into the White House.

That this has become, in addition to everything else, a White House story is due to a self-inflicted wound, created by President Trump with his tweets accusing then-President Barack Obama of (illegally) ordering a wiretap of Trump Tower. Attempts to prove that allegation, or at least muddy what has been repeatedly debunked, now have snared others and the questions today include what did White House officials do and why did they do it?

It is still too early draw conclusions about where all these threads will lead. Thats true about long-standing questions of possible collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russians  still not proven  as well as the new question about how and why White House officials used House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) to try to cast doubt on those who doubted Trumps tweets about Obama.

It is not too early, however, to know that the investigations are months and months away from completion. And what is now known has not only deeply compromised the House Intelligence Committees investigation into the Russia affair, but also raised questions that White House officials seem unable or unwilling to answer  but which investigators will eventually have to answer.

Added to all that is the statement from the attorney for former national security adviser Michael Flynn, saying that his client has a story to tell and is prepared to testify before investigative panels in exchange for immunity, even if investigators are not prepared to make such a deal. The president applauded Flynn in a Friday morning tweet and described the investigations as a witch hunt by Democrats and the media to obscure or diminish his victory in the election. That assertion is belied by the seriousness of the machinery that is moving forward at the FBI and on Capitol Hill.

(Sarah Parnass/The Washington Post)

The Russia issue will remain a cloud over the White House until those investigations are complete. White House press secretary Sean Spicer, who is in the unenviable position of having to publicly defend his bosss wildest statements, has said the White House is not consumed by these inquiries, but the president keeps undercutting that assertion with his tweets. The tweets about Obama damaged his credibility, and his aides have damaged their own in attempting to explain his accusations.

[White House officials tied to files shared with Rep. Nunes]

The Nunes episode illustrates the compounding nature of the problem. When Nunes rushed to the White House more than a week ago to brief the president on what he said was sensitive new information  not bearing on the Russia investigation  that showed that Trump officials had been caught up incidentally in surveillance and perhaps unmasked illegally, he set off a chain of events that continues to reverberate.

At the time, Spicer was asked whether anyone in the White House had been involved in supplying the intelligence information to Nunes. I dont know why he would come up to brief the president on something we gave him, Spicer said. He added, Im not aware of it, but it really doesnt pass the smell test.

Now it is the odor of apparent complicity that the White House is smelling. For days, no one at the White House would answer the easily answerable question of who had cleared Nunes into the White House compound to view sensitive intelligence information. Then on Thursday, shortly before Spicers briefing, the New York Times reported that two White House officials have been involved in helping to provide Nunes with the information. The Washington Post later named a third person who was involved in handling the material.

At his briefing, before taking any questions about the Timess revelations, Spicer announced that the White House had invited the chairs and ranking members of the House and Senate Intelligence committees to come to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. to look at some new information bearing on the question of whether information collected on U.S. individuals was mishandled and leaked that had been found in the ordinary course of business. He offered no answers about possible White House involvement with Nunes.

Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif.), the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee asked the obvious question in response to Thursdays revelations. If members of the National Security Council staff had unearthed material in the normal course of business bearing on the handling of intelligence material, why was it left to Nunes to brief the president? As Schiff put it, Why all the cloak-and-dagger stuff?

View Graphic Team Trumps ties to Russian interests

[Flynn offers testimony in exchange for immunity]

There are other curious aspects to the most recent revelations. Ezra Cohen is the National Security Council staff person who was involved in helping Nunes gain access to the intelligence information. Cohen was brought to the National Security staff by Flynn and named to the sensitive position of senior director for intelligence.

According to multiple reports, Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster, who replaced Flynn as national security adviser, sought to move Cohen out of his position. Cohen appealed to White House senior adviser Jared Kushner and chief strategist and senior counselor Stephen K. Bannon and remained in place. Keeping Cohen in his post would have been a favor to Cohen and thus also to Flynn.

Keeping Flynn happy could be important to Trump. The retired lieutenant general was forced to resign as national security adviser in February after misleading Vice President Pence about the nature of his conversations with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak during the transition. Initial reports about his departure said that Flynn had made the decision to step down voluntarily. The next day, the story changed: Trump had lost confidence in Flynn and asked for the resignation.

Flynn was unhappy with that characterization and made his feelings known to the White House, according to one knowledgeable official. A day later, the president offered kind words for Flynn in public, calling him a wonderful man who had been treated very, very unfairly by the media. Once again on Friday, the president came to Flynns defense as the investigation deepens.

Trumps original tweets accusing Obama of wiretapping seemed designed to create a diversion from the main investigation into what happened during the election, and they certainly have done that. But he unintentionally set the White House on a path that has led to this moment.

Confronted by flat-out denials from FBI Director James B. Comey and key congressional leaders that Obama had ordered wiretapping, White House officials first sought to redefine the words in the presidents tweets to suggest he only meant some kind of surveillance. Then Nunes entered the picture, acting as an ally of the president, to suggest something like that had taken place, though neither he nor anyone at the White House has described exactly what information he viewed.

Its important to remember that the questions about what White House officials did and why remain secondary to the larger issue of Russias interference and whether Trump associates were involved. Thats the principal focus of the FBI and the Senate Intelligence Committee, which is moving forward with its work despite all the controversy involving the House committee and the White House.

But the cascade of questions for the White House are important and legitimate. Having created this new front in the expanding controversy, the president and his aides will now be forced to endure continued and justifiable scrutiny over what they have done to add to the mystery.
Attorney General Jeff Sessions, seen here at the White House on Tuesday, wants the Justice Department to have a greater role in immigration enforcement. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)

The Justice Department is seeking to play a more muscular role in the Trump administrations immigration enforcement strategy, a move that is alarming immigrant rights advocates who fear Attorney General Jeff Sessionss hard-line ideology could give Justice too much clout in determining policy.

To highlight the departments expanding role, Sessions is considering making his first trip to the southern border in mid-April to Nogales, Ariz., a busy border crossing region that features a major patrol station and already has miles of fencing and walls designed to keep out illegal immigrants from Mexico. Aides emphasized that his itinerary is still being developed and the stop in Nogales  which would come as Sessions travels to a conference of state police officials from around the country 200 miles away in Litchfield Park  is still tentative.

If he follows through, the border visit would come at a time when President Trump is asking Congress for billions of dollars to begin construction on a longer and larger wall between the United States and Mexico, a central campaign promise.

In recent weeks, Sessions has taken steps to increase his departments focus on immigration.

He signed on to a letter released Friday with Homeland Security Secretary John F. Kelly backing the practice of arresting undocumented immigrants at courthouses, saying officials had to resort to such measures when states wouldnt cooperate on immigration enforcement.

President Donald Trump's White House Senior Adviser Stephen Miller worked for Attorney General Sessions on immigration reform when Sessions was in the Senate. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)

On Thursday, Sessions announced he is expanding a program to deport undocumented immigrants convicted of crimes after they serve their prison sentences, with the hope that the Justice Department can move more people straight from prison to their home countries rather than first moving them to immigrant detention facilities.

Justice said it would expand to 20 the number of prisons participating in the Institutional Hearing Program, which has immigration judges come directly to prisons or has the inmates participate in deportation hearings via video.

We owe it to the American people to ensure that illegal aliens who have been convicted of crimes and are serving time in our federal prisons are expeditiously removed from our country as the law requires, Sessions said in a statement.

Earlier this month, Sessions used the release of a Federal Justice Statistics report on arrests and prosecution to highlight cases involving immigration offenses and he also issued a statement in support of an Immigration and Customs Enforcement report that listed cities that fail to comply with enforcement orders.

Last week, Sessions appeared in the White House briefing room to issue a threat to those cities that his agency could withhold federal law enforcement grants if they do not start to cooperate.

Sessionss activism has alarmed immigrant rights advocates concerned the department will play too powerful a role in a policy area that is typically the responsibility of the Department of Homeland Security.

I think we want clarity over whos running immigration policy, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti said in an interview Thursday in Washington. Garcetti signed a directive two weeks ago prohibiting all city employees from using public resources to aide federal civil immigration actions.

DOJ can give some opinions, but its not primarily in their jurisdiction, Garcetti said. So I know Senator Sessions has been very engaged, interested and involved in this area, but is he empowered by this administration beyond his formal responsibilities?

Sessions, a former Republican senator from Alabama, was one of Congresss fiercest border hawks, and he helped scuttle former president Barack Obamas 2013 immigration reform effort on Capitol Hill that featured a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants. One of his former Senate staffers, Stephen Miller, is Trumps senior policy adviser.

Kelly, a former Marine general with little experience in immigration issues, has also signaled that he will pursue a tougher stance on enforcement at DHS. He issued a pair of memos in February aimed at implementing Trumps executive orders to broaden the pool of undocumented immigrants prioritized for removal and beef up other border security measures.

But legal experts said Sessions could significantly restructure the Justice Department by ramping up the number of immigration judges sent to the border to speed up hearings and by pursuing more criminal prosecutions against immigrants in the United States beyond those associated with drug cartels and human smugglers that past administrations have focused on.

The Sessions Justice Department also could move to strip some protections from undocumented immigrants, such as how much time they have to find a lawyer; more robustly defend DHS enforcement policies that are challenged in court; and use the Office of the Special Counsel to aggressively prevent employers from discriminating against American workers by hiring undocumented workers, said Leon Fresco, a former deputy assistant attorney general in the Obama administration.

I think they will be incredibly active, said Fresco, who helped draft the 2013 immigration bill while serving as an aide to Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.). The only thing that could slow Sessions, he added, was finding enough individuals with expertise and the willingness to speed these issues along.

If Sessions follows through, it would represent a sharp break from the policies of his predecessors in the Obama administration. In 2010, the Justice Department, then led by Eric H. Holder Jr., sued Arizona over a state law that granted broad immigration enforcement powers to local law enforcement agencies. The Supreme Court in 2012 upheld a lower courts ban on key provisions in the law.

In January, Holder was hired by the California Legislature to represent the state in potential legal fights with the Trump White House.

I believe there is nothing wrong, legally, morally or intellectually, with a lawful system of immigration that serves the national interest. Whats wrong with that? Sessions said in a speech to a conference of state attorneys general last month.

People who come here unlawfully, who commit crimes, are going to be out of here, he added, punching a finger in the air for emphasis. The law says that they have to be deported and were going to insist that that happens.

Trumps budget proposal outlines how Sessions could turn his rhetoric into action.

It calls for the Justice Department to hire 75 more immigration judge teams to speed removal proceedings, along with 60 more border enforcement prosecutors and 40 more deputy U.S. marshals to apprehend and transport those in the country illegally.

The budget also calls for an additional $171 million to buy short-term detention space, much of which will likely be used to house undocumented immigrants.

Immigration is one of their top priorities, permeating every part of their agenda, and every part of the federal government and agencies, Marielena Hincapie, executive director of the National Immigration Law Center, said of the Trump White House.

Sessions is very much aligned with their ideology, she said. He is very knowledgeable. Hes worked on these issues for decades now and has very strong opinions. Hes finally in a position of power to use the department toward his vision and use the attorney general role as a bully pulpit.

In Nogales, Sessions would tour a border region that was once viewed as the most porous section, leading authorities to build the border walls and fences. In 2013, a bipartisan group of senators, led by John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Schumer, visited the area during the immigration reform deliberations.

During the tour, McCain wrote on Twitter that they saw a woman scale the 18-foot bollard fence and drop down to the U.S. side of the border before she was apprehended by patrol agents. Some advocates suggested that the event was staged to support Republican calls for additional border security spending.

The Nogales barriers have had mixed results, officials said. Brandon Judd, president of the National Border Patrol Council, emphasized that any single-layered fencing is defeatable.

Overall, Judd said, we do not think a 2,000-mile wall, a great wall of the United States, is necessary. But we 100 percent support a wall in strategic locations that allow us to dictate the crossing points.
South African President Jacob Zuma faced heavy criticism after replacing his influential finance minister and nine other ministers Friday, a purge that many saw as an attempt by the beleaguered leader to consolidate his authority amid a wave of scandals and power struggles.

Zumas cabinet reshuffle underscores the growing fragility of the once-celebrated African National Congress (ANC), the party that Nelson Mandela led during the fight against apartheid. Since being elected in 2009, Zuma has presided over the unraveling of the party, which has performed poorly in municipal elections and been beset by internal divisions.

By dismissing Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan, a respected political veteran who was attempting to salvage investor confidence in the country, Zuma invited criticism from some of his closest allies. Even his deputy president, Cyril Ramaphosa, called the move totally, totally unacceptable. The South African rand promptly fell by more than 2 percent, bringing its decline over the past week  when signs of the coming upheaval became apparent  to 7 percent.

Zuma said the changes were meant to improve efficiency and effectiveness.

[Video: Brawl breaks out in South Africas Parliament]

Critics of Zuma say he has long wanted to replace Gordhan with someone who might be more pliant in heading the treasury and have voiced concern that the change might exacerbate corruption. Gordhan seemed to refer to such fears in his remarks after being fired.

We hope more and more South Africans will make it absolutely clear that our country is not for sale, he said.

Last year, South Africas top court ruled that Zuma had violated his oath of office by not repaying public funds used for upgrades at his private home.

In the past, even during times of controversy, the ANC has maintained a united front, giving many South Africans the impression that it was impervious to criticism. Now, fractures are clearly visible.

Gwede Mantashe, the partys secretary general, told Talk Radio 702 that the process leading to the cabinet reshuffle had made him jittery and uncomfortable.

Gordhan was replaced by Malusi Gigaba, the home affairs minister, who has limited financial experience.

This is an attack on the institution of the Treasury and as such will trigger multiple downgrades, Peter Attard Montalto, a research analyst at the investment firm Nomura, wrote in the Mail and Guardian.

Zumas term is due to end in 2019, but the partys unpopularity extends beyond his leadership. During municipal elections last year, the ANC lost some of its historic strongholds, including Nelson Mandela Bay.

Read more:

In South Africa, violence follows a surge in xenophobia

Death of two black farmers prompts a racial reckoning in South Africa

South Africas gold industry, like its economy, is crumbling

Todays coverage from Post correspondents around the world

Like Washington Post World on Facebook and stay updated on foreign news
President of the European Council Donald Tusk speaks in Malta. The European Union demanded that Britain make "sufficient progress" on its divorce before talks on a trade deal can start. (Matthew Mirabelli/AFP/Getty Images)

Two days after Britain filed its divorce papers, the European Union made clear Friday that it will be the one to set the pace and terms of talks on the British decision to leave the bloc.

In its first official response to Britains letter announcing its exit, the E.U.s draft guidelines for the coming negotiations show that it is willing to discuss a trade deal with Britain  but not until E.U. leaders feel that sufficient progress has been made in agreeing to the terms of separation.

British Prime Minister Theresa May  her eyes on the two-year countdown until the deadline for Britains ultimate exit  had called for divorce talks and negotiations on a new trade deal to proceed simultaneously.

Speaking at a Malta news conference, European Council President Donald Tusk said the Brexit process will be difficult, complex and sometimes even confrontational, adding, Theres no way around it.

He vowed that the E.U.s 27 jilted members will stick together in driving a tough bargain with Britain  one that will not allow it to claim a better deal than what it has today.

(The Washington Post)

The aim, Tusk said, will be to preserve the integrity of the union and to protect the interests of the 440 million E.U. citizens left behind when Britain departs. He stressed that the goal is not to punish Britain, but he implied that the country is sure to feel some pain.

Brexit is already punitive enough, he said.

Britain on Wednesday made official what its voters had decided in a referendum in June by triggering Article 50, the never-before-used mechanism for exiting the E.U.

May has said she wants a clean break with the union, one that leaves Britain outside the blocs single market and free to set its own rules in critical areas such as immigration. But she also has said she wants a free-trade deal with the E.U. that preserves Britains preferred status with its most significant economic partner.

There is little time to make that happen  trade deals can take five years or more to finalize  and May wants the talks to begin as quickly as possible.

But as its draft guidelines revealed Friday, the E.U. is claiming the prerogative to determine when the two sides can move on from talking about their split and start discussing what comes next.

Before the trade talks can get underway, the E.U. wants to resolve thorny issues around the separation, including the amount of money that Britain owes the bloc based on past commitments and the status of E.U. citizens now living in the United Kingdom.

Britain will have little choice but to follow Europes timeline. Article 50 was written to discourage members from bolting, and its terms are weighted heavily in favor of the countries that remain.

A Downing Street spokesman, speaking on the customary condition of anonymity, said the E.U.s stance shows that both sides wish to approach these talks constructively.

In his news conference, Tusk sought to defuse at least one issue that already has emerged as a possible source of contention.

May in her Wednesday letter appeared to link trade and security assistance, suggesting that without a comprehensive deal, our cooperation in the fight against crime and terrorism would be weakened.

But Tusk said that he knew May personally and that he refused to believe she would withhold security assistance in a bid to gain leverage in trade talks. The whole thing, he insisted, was a misunderstanding.

Especially after the terrorist attack in London, it must be clear that terrorism is our common problem, he said. That is why I rule out this kind of interpretation and speculation that security cooperation is used as a bargaining chip.

Read more:

Brexit and Britains delusions of empire

The next phase of Brexit is about to start. Here are 4 things to watch.

As Brexit begins, the British face a Europe with far more at stake

Todays coverage from Post correspondents around the world

Like Washington Post World on Facebook and stay updated on foreign news


Lucas Chapman, left, and Brace Belden, U.S. volunteers with the Peoples Protection Units, or YPG, pose for a portrait next to a homemade armored vehicle in a rear base near Tal Samin, Syria. (Alice Martins/For The Washington Post)

Late last year, two American Marxists traveled to northeastern Syria with the goal of experiencing firsthand the egalitarian utopia Syrias Kurds are seeking to build.

Instead, they found themselves fighting on the front lines of a war, against the Islamic State and alongside the agents of imperialism that their political convictions have taught them to despise.

For Brace Belden, 27, a florist from San Francisco, and Lucas Chapman, 21, an American University history graduate, a journey intended to deepen their understanding of how socialism works turned into much more of an adventure than they had anticipated. They fired guns, got shot at, and as they prepared to head home, have learned from news reports that a movie is going to be made based on a Rolling Stone article that described their experiences, starring Jake Gyllenhaal.

Belden and Chapman are among hundreds of Westerners who have made the journey to northeastern Syria over the past two years to volunteer with the Kurds, which is not illegal in the United States. Many of them are U.S. veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan who want to get into the fight.

Some, however, like Belden and Chapman, are idealists, intrigued by the new society the Syrian Kurds claim to be building. The two men say they had intended to immerse themselves in the community structures being established by the Peoples Democratic Union, the Marxist-inspired political party that controls northeastern Syria.

[Our journey to the front lines in the fight against the Islamic State]

After an arduous trek through the mountains to circumvent controls on the border between Syria and Iraq, they completed an obligatory, month-long training course in ideology, language and basic military skills.

Then they were given uniforms, assigned to the heavy weapons unit of the partys military wing  known as the YPG, or Peoples Protection Units  and dispatched to the front line outside Raqqa, the Islamic States self-proclaimed capital. There they became part of the ongoing, U.S.-backed offensive aimed at encircling the city that is expected soon to lead to a final assault on the Islamic States most symbolically important possession.

It wasnt always as exciting as it sounds. When we met them in late November at an abandoned farmhouse in a pinprick of a village north of Raqqa, they were sipping tea in the bright winter sun, smoking cigarettes and waiting for something to happen. A chicken slurped on the remnants of their previous round of tea, discarded on a tray nearby. A couple of mortars exploded, too far away to be of concern.

Its fairly boring, said Chapman, who had been living in Washington until he graduated from American last summer.

Its really boring, said Belden, who sold potted plants and flowers in San Francisco before deciding he wanted to witness the practice of his Marxist beliefs. Its true what they say about war  that its 10 percent action and 90 percent waiting for something to happen.



Lucas Chapman, a U.S. volunteer with the YPG, sits in a rear base near Tal Samin, Syria. (Alice Martins/For The Washington Post)

At least in the early stages of the Raqqa operation, now in its fifth month, the Islamic State put up little resistance, choosing instead to plant booby traps and fire mortars to slow the advance of their enemies, but avoiding direct confrontation.

As novices to war, both men seemed relieved that this was the case. Though they had not met before showing up together at the training course last October, they had since bonded over their shared lack of experience in all things military, and their befuddlement at finding themselves riding into battle equipped with weapons they barely knew how to use. Their unit possessed some truck-mounted guns known as Dushkas, a makeshift armored vehicle and some light artillery, which it wasnt their job to fire.

Anyone can learn it, if they want to. A life of floristry has definitely prepared me for this, Belden said, meaning the opposite.

They had, however, fired the AK-47 automatic weapons that were issued to them. If ISIS are being shot at by a weedy guy like me, they must be losing, said Belden, who doesnt think he killed anyone but cant be sure.

Chapman said he had nearly opened fire on an ISIS fighter, a man with a big beard who looked suspicious from a distance of about 800 yards, but his commander ordered him not to, so he didnt.

[U.S. military aid is fueling big ambitions for Syrias leftist Kurdish militia]

The growing U.S. military presence in northeastern Syria is one of the reasons Belden and Chapman have decided to head home soon, despite intentions expressed earlier this year to stay for the final Raqqa offensive. The YPG has forged a close military alliance with the United States, which has about 1,000 troops serving alongside Kurdish and Arab forces and is expected to send 1,000 more.

Though they rarely encountered the U.S. forces, the American presence was disconcerting for committed Marxists dedicated to the overthrow of the Western capitalist system.

As a Marxist, I have to get used to contradictions. Its more a case of two interests aligning temporarily, said Belden, who does not believe the alliance will last. But, he said, he wouldnt fight alongside U.S. ground troops. I do oppose all American presence in Syria. The U.S. Army and Marines represent something totally reprehensible to me.

Chapman fears the United States will eventually abandon the Kurds and their socialist experiment after using them to conquer Raqqa. Theyve betrayed the Kurds before, and I wouldnt be surprised if they do it again, he said. Theyre occupiers and imperialists.



Two members of the Womens Protection Units, or YPJ, stand in a house used as a rear base in Tawila, Syria, in November. (Alice Martins/For The Washington Post)

Other aspects of their experience jolted the assumptions they had come with. They were perturbed by the relish with which the YPG greeted the U.S. presidential election of Donald Trump, who is being hailed within the secularist group as an enemy of Muslims. Chapman is an observant Jew, and one of his hopes was to find a way to bridge the gulf between Muslims and Jews by demonstrating his solidarity with Islam. Instead, he found himself fighting alongside people who denounced Muslims.

Theres a lot about it thats not utopia, he said. Its disappointing when people say things like All Muslims must leave. 

After their spell on the front lines together, he and Belden parted ways. Chapman joined a medical unit, which he said he found more rewarding than fighting. Belden teamed up with a different militia, called the United Freedom Forces, or BOG, founded by Marxist Leninist Kurds from Turkey. With them, he said, he found some of the socialist kinship he had been seeking, as well as more action on the battlefield.

They have now reunited for the journey home. Chapman, who has learned to speak Kurdish, hopes to work with Kurdish organizations in the United States. Belden wants to marry his girlfriend and return to Syria with her  to join a Marxist-Leninist political organization, not to fight.

He also has another wish  to halt production of the planned movie, which is based on an article in Rolling Stone called The Anarchists vs. the Islamic State. The proposal for the film, to be directed by Daniel Espinosa and starring Gyllenhaal, was recently announced by the Hollywood Reporter. Belden, who says he is not an anarchist, was as surprised as all of his friends when he found out about it.

Ive got to stop this movie. Itll probably be exploitative and orientalist. It will taint everything I do, he said in a message as he prepared to leave Syria this week. Im a communist. I dont want fame.

Correction: An earlier version of this article said Lucas Chapman was a graduate of Georgetown University. He is a graduate of American University.



A rifle rests against a wall at a rear base used by fighters with the YPG and YPJ, near Tal Samin, Syria, in November. (Alice Martins/For The Washington Post)

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Panic spreads in Iraq, Syria as record numbers of civilians are reported killed in U.S. strikes

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Former national security adviser Michael Flynn has offered to cooperate with congressional investigators in exchange for immunity from prosecution, a suggestion that has been met with initial skepticism, according to people familiar with the matter.

General Flynn certainly has a story to tell, and he very much wants to tell it, should the circumstances permit, Flynns attorney, Robert Kelner, said in a statement Thursday evening. Out of respect for the committees, we will not comment right now on the details of discussions between counsel for General Flynn and the House and Senate intelligence committees, other than to confirm that those discussions have taken place. But it is important to acknowledge the circumstances in which those discussions are occurring.

The committees are both looking into whether any associates of Donald Trump may have coordinated with agents of the Russian government seeking to meddle in last years presidential election. The FBI is also investigating. The Trump administration has denied any such coordination.

[Flynns swift downfall: From a phone call to a forced resignation]

The offer by Flynns lawyer was first reported by the Wall Street Journal. Flynns overture seemed to have been aimed principally at the Senate committee, as Democrats on the House committee said they had not received word of an offer of testimony for immunity.

(Daron Taylor,Jhaan Elker/The Washington Post)

Officials said the idea of immunity for Flynn  who is considered a central figure in the probes because of his contacts with the Russian ambassador to the United States  was a non-starter, particularly at such an early stage of the investigations. A wide-ranging grant of immunity could protect Flynn from potential future charges from the Justice Department, but Congress has the power to grant only limited testimonial immunity, which means prosecutors cannot use witnesses testimony against them in any prosecution. Ultimately, it is Justices decision whether to grant immunity from prosecution for any underlying conduct that is discussed, or other matters that dont come up in testimony.

On Friday, a tweet by President Trump appeared to support Flynns offer, saying his former security adviser should ask for immunity.

It is not unheard of for potential congressional witnesses to seek immunity in exchange for testimony. During the Obama administration, former IRS official Lois Lerner sought immunity for her testimony to Congress, which was investigating how she and other officials scrutinized conservative groups. The FBI was also investigating the matter at the time. The committee declined to grant her immunity, and she was still called to testify at a hearing, in which she repeatedly invoked her Fifth Amendment right to protect herself against self-incrimination.

Flynns attorney said his client, a decorated former general, was now the subject of unfounded allegations, outrageous claims of treason, and vicious innuendo.

The lawyer added: No reasonable person, who has the benefit of advice from counsel, would submit to questioning in such a highly politicized, witch hunt environment without assurances against unfair prosecution.

Peter Zeidenberg, a former federal prosecutor and an assistant special counsel in the prosecution of I. Lewis Scooter Libby, said that the Senate committee apparently did not want to screw up a possible prosecution.

But, he added, there may be things more important than getting a prosecution of Flynn. Such as learning the extent of contacts between Trump associates and Russian officials. That is a compelling and urgent need. A prosecution of Flynn could take several years. I wouldnt want them to wait that long to find out what Flynn knows.

Read more:

Flynn discussed sanctions with Russian ambassador, despite denials, officials say

What will become of the National Security Council that Flynn was building?

Moscows man in Washington is at the center of the political moment
Former national security adviser Michael Flynn wants immunity before he testifies to Congress, but the type of deal hes seeking is rarely granted  in large part because of the Iran-contra scandal of the 1980s.

Flynns lawyer, Robert Kelner, has reached out to the Senate Intelligence Committee in the hopes of getting a wide-ranging grant of immunity in exchange for his clients testimony to lawmakers, but an official familiar with the discussion says the idea of immunity is off the table, particularly given the early stage of the congressional investigations involving Flynn.

Two congressional committees and the FBI are probing whether any associates of President Trump coordinated with agents of Russia as that country meddled in the U.S. presidential election last year. Flynn is a major figure in that investigation, because his conversations with the Russian ambassador to the United States ultimately led to his ouster from the White House.

General Flynn certainly has a story to tell, and he very much wants to tell it, should the circumstances permit, Kelner said Thursday. The overture is notable in part because during the presidential campaign, Flynn said that people who are given immunity probably committed a crime.

On Friday morning, the president tweeted: Mike Flynn should ask for immunity in that this is a witch hunt (excuse for big election loss), by media & Dems, of historic proportion!

View Graphic Team Trumps ties to Russian interests

White House press secretary Sean Spicer said the president was not trying to suggest to the Justice Department or the investigating committees that Flynn should receive immunity, but rather that Flynn and others should talk to Congress, with legal precautions.

Weve actually encouraged people to go talk to the House and Senate intelligence committees and the appropriate investigators so that they can continue to get to the bottom of this, Spicer said.

But procedural rules and political realities will make it difficult for Flynn to get immunity. Democrats, in particular, sounded wary of giving Flynn a pass for any potential crimes.

Adam B. Schiff (Calif.), the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, on Friday called it a grave and momentous step for a former national security adviser to the president of the United States to ask for immunity from prosecution.

Schiff said there will be discussions between the committees and the Justice Department about Flynns offer, but cautioned there was still much work and many more witnesses and documents to obtain before any immunity request from any witness can be considered.

Congress has the authority to grant a limited type of immunity, called derivative use immunity, through which a witness can be compelled to testify, on the condition that their statements to Congress will not be used by prosecutors to gather evidence for a future criminal prosecution.

Lawyer William W. Taylor said grants of congressional immunity are rare, and there are rules and regulations about consulting with the attorney general before you give somebody immunity. But if theres a prosecution or a grand jury looking into this, obviously Mr. Flynn would be happy to be immunized by anybody.

Grants of such immunity must also involve discussions with senior Justice Department officials, but even that type of limited immunity is problematic, in large part because of the case of Oliver North.

North, a central figure in the 1980s Iran-contra affair, was granted limited immunity to testify to Congress at length about his role in the covert arms-for-hostages deal with Iran that the Reagan administration had sought. The hearings in 1987 were watched by millions of Americans.

North was later prosecuted and convicted of crimes for ordering the destruction of documents and obstructing a congressional inquiry, but an appeals court threw out the conviction. The court found that while prosecutors were careful not to use his testimony to gather evidence, witnesses in the criminal case had seen or heard about his testimony, and that exposure tainted the conviction.

Since the North case, prosecutors generally regard it as difficult, if not impossible, to prosecute someone who has been granted limited congressional immunity.

The North case was a warning that if somebody gets immunity from Congress, youre going to have a heck of a time persuading a court you can prosecute them, Taylor said.
At least three senior White House officials, including the top lawyer for the National Security Council, were involved in the handling of intelligence files that were shared with the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee and showed that Trump campaign officials were swept up in U.S. surveillance of foreign nationals, according to U.S. officials.

The White House role in the matter contradicts assertions by the committees chairman, Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), and adds to mounting concerns that the Trump administration is collaborating with the leader of the House Intelligence Committees investigation of Russian meddling in the 2016 election.

Though White House officials have refused to answer questions about the documents shared with Nunes, the White House said in a letter to the House committee Thursday that it had discovered documents that might show whether information collection on U.S. persons was mishandled and was prepared to show them to lawmakers.

[Chairman and partisan: The dual roles of Devin Nunes]

One of those involved in procuring the documents cited by Nunes has close ties to former national security adviser Michael Flynn. The official, Ezra Cohen-Watnick, survived a recent attempt to oust him from his White House job by appealing to Trump advisers Jared Kushner and Stephen K. Bannon, the officials said.

The materials unearthed by Nunes have been used to defend President Trumps baseless claims on Twitter that he had been wiretapped at Trump Tower under a surveillance operation ordered by then-President Barack Obama. FBI Director James B. Comey and others have said that claim is false.

Nunes reviewed the material during a surreptitious visit to the White House grounds last week. He then returned the next day in a visit he said was arranged so that he could brief Trump on what Nunes depicted as potential abuses by U.S. spy agencies brought to his attention by an unnamed source.

Nunes and White House press secretary Sean Spicer have repeatedly refused to answer questions about the identities of those involved in unearthing the intelligence reports or arranging for Nunes to review them at the White House complex  although Nunes at one point said his source was not a member of the White House staff.

That assertion is under new scrutiny after U.S. officials confirmed that three senior officials at the National Security Council  considered part of the White House  played roles in the collection and handling of information shared with Nunes.

The officials said that the classified files were gathered by Cohen-Watnick, the senior director for intelligence at the National Security Council.

After assembling reports that showed that Trump campaign officials were mentioned or inadvertently monitored by U.S. spy agencies targeting foreign individuals, Cohen-Watnick took the matter to the top lawyer for the National Security Council, John Eisenberg.

The third White House official involved was identified as Michael Ellis, a lawyer who previously worked with Nunes on the House Intelligence Committee but joined the Trump administration as an attorney who reports to Eisenberg. Ellis and Eisenberg report to the White House counsel, Donald McGahn.

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) leaves the House floor on March 29. (Aaron P. Bernstein/Reuters)

The involvement of Ellis and Cohen-Watnick was first reported Thursday by the New York Times.

A spokesman for the NSC declined to comment. Jack Langer, a spokesman for Nunes, said the chairman will not confirm or deny speculation about his sources identity. Langer also said that Nunes will not respond to speculation from anonymous sources, despite Nuness insisting on the anonymity of his own source.

Nunes, who served as an adviser to the Trump transition team, said the files he reviewed had made him concerned that U.S. intelligence agencies had mishandled information on members of the Trump campaign, although Nunes acknowledged that he saw no evidence of illegality.

He appeared to be referring to cases of incidental collection on U.S. persons, which generally occur when foreign officials being monitored by U.S. spy agencies either mention an American or communicate with one. The identities of those Americans are supposed to be masked in any intelligence reports disseminated in the U.S. government.

Nunes said that most names were masked in the files he reviewed but that he could still identify Trump campaign officials from context.

Cohen-Watnick gathered the cases of incidental collection on Trump campaign operatives after arriving at the NSC. One official said Cohen-Watnick did so as part of research unrelated to Trumps wiretapping tweet. Instead, the official said, Cohen-Watnick was assembling materials out of concern that intelligence information on U.S. persons was being shared too widely and that unmasking rules were being abused.

The U.S. official said Cohen-Watnick was not involved in showing the material to Nunes, didnt clear Nunes onto the White House grounds, didnt review the material with Nunes and wasnt even aware that the material was going to be shared with the committee chairman.

Even so, White House officials appear to have recognized the value of Cohen-Watnicks material in defending Trump from criticism for his false accusation that he had been wiretapped by Obama.

U.S. officials declined to say who had contacted Nunes or arranged his White House visits, except to note that Cohen-Watnick had brought his findings to the attention of Eisenberg and that Ellis works for Eisenberg.

Cohen-Watnick was brought into the administration by Flynn, a former Defense Intelligence Agency director who was fired after it was exposed that he had misled Vice President Pence and others about his contacts with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak.

During a preliminary meeting this month to discuss the possibility of Flynn testifying before Congress, Flynns attorney said he wanted to explore the possibility of his client receiving full immunity in exchange for his participation.

Intelligence committee lawyers responded to the attorney by saying that immunity request, which was first reported by the Wall Street Journal, was premature. Thats not on the table, an official said. We arent entertaining immunity for anybody.

Flynn frequently battled with the CIA, which mounted a failed effort to have Cohen-Watnick removed from his job.

After Flynn was replaced by H.R. McMaster, some in the CIA made it known to him that the agency would prefer someone else in Cohen-Watnicks job. Early this month, McMaster interviewed the agencys suggested candidate, senior CIA analyst Linda Weissgold, and informed Cohen-Watnick that he was being moved to another position.

Cohen-Watnick consulted Kushner and Bannon, Trumps chief White House strategist. After Kushner and Bannon spoke with Trump over the March 11-12 weekend, Cohen-Watnick was back in place.

Within days, a CIA detailee to the NSC working under Cohen-Watnick was told without explanation to clear out his desk and return to the agency. The agent, a former and future covert operative whose name is being withheld by The Washington Post at the request of the CIA, was on a standard two-year rotation to the White House.

In its letter to the committee, the White House repeated calls for it to investigate leaks that have led to media reports about contacts by Trump associates with Russian operatives. In particular, it referred to a March 2 MSNBC interview with former Obama Defense Department official Evelyn Farkas, which has suddenly become a leading element in White House pushback against the Russia allegations and evidence of Trumps claim that the Obama administration has actively sought to undermine his presidency.

The interview took place after the New York Times reported that the Obama White House, fearing the new administration would sweep it under the rug, had spread information about Russian efforts to undermine the presidential election. Farkas said, I was urging my former colleagues and . . . the Hill people, get as much information as you can, get as much intelligence as you can, before President Obama leaves the administration.

Thats why there were so many leaks, said Farkas, now a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council.

While her comments were widely ignored when initially broadcast four weeks ago, the MSNBC clip suddenly appeared Tuesday on conservative websites and subsequently on Fox News and other television outlets. In a Hugh Hewitt radio interview Wednesday evening, White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus said that its relevance to surveillance of Trump transition team members is something that we need to figure out.

Spicer, referring to the Obama administration, said the Farkas comment constituted an admission on the record that this was their goal, to leak stuff.

Farkas, in an interview with The Post, said she didnt give anybody anything except advice, was not a source for any stories and had nothing to leak. Noting that she left government in October 2015, she said, I was just watching like anybody else, like a regular spectator as initial reports of Russia contacts began to surface after the election.

As a former staff member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, and a former Defense official involved with Russian affairs, she said she got worried that the Obama White House was not briefing Congress on what it knew. I know how the Russians operate, she said, and called former colleagues to make sure Congress was being informed.

Adam Entous, Abby Phillip, Jenna Johnson, Philip Rucker, Karoun Demirjian and Julie Tate contributed to this report.

This story has been updated.

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Attorney General Jeff Sessions, left, and Homeland Security Secretary John F. Kelly fired back at Californias chief justice for criticizing the use of courthouses to arrest undocumented immigrants. (Susan Walsh/AP)

Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Homeland Security Secretary John F. Kelly fired back at Californias chief justice for criticizing the use of courthouses to arrest undocumented immigrants, writing in a letter released Friday that the practice was only necessary because the state was so uncooperative on immigration enforcement matters.

Responding to a missive from California Chief Justice Tani G. Cantil-Sakauye, Sessions and Kelly wrote that the characterization of Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers stalking undocumented immigrants at courthouses was particularly troubling, and that officers were within their rights to arrest undocumented immigrants in public places.

They blamed state and local officials for enacting statutes and ordinances designed to specifically prohibit or hinder ICE from enforcing immigration law and denying requests by ICE officers and agents to enter prisons and jails to make arrests. Such policies, they wrote, made it necessary for officers to arrest undocumented immigrants at courthouses.

We would encourage you to express your concerns to the Governor of California and local officials who have enacted policies that occasionally necessitate ICE officers and agents to make arrests at courthouses and other public places, the two men wrote.

[The full letter from the U.S. attorney general and homeland security secretary to Californias chief justice]

(The California Channel)

Responding to their letter, Cantil-Sakauye said in a statement she appreciated the reply but making arrests at courthouses, in my view, undermines public safety because victims and witnesses will fear coming to courthouses to help enforce the law.

I am disappointed that despite local and state public safety issues at stake, courthouses are not on ICEs sensitive areas list that includes schools, churches, and hospitals, she said.

The back-and-forth marks an escalation in the burgeoning battle between federal and some state governments over immigration enforcement matters, with both sides staking out aggressive postures.

Earlier this week, Sessions threatened to strip Justice Department funding from what are known as sanctuary city jurisdictions that dont comply with a particular federal law about sharing information with Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The city of Seattle sued over the matter, arguing that President Trumps executive order on the topic was unclear.

State attorneys general in Hawaii and Washington, meanwhile, have played a key role in the court battle to block President Trumps executive orders banning immigration and other travel to citizens of particular Muslim-majority countries.

Cecillia Wang, deputy legal director at the ACLU, said the Justice and Homeland Security departments seemed to be doubling down on their confrontational attitude toward the states, which she said was particularly concerning given that theyre speaking to the chief justice of a state Supreme Court whos expressed a serious and legitimate concern.

Cantil-Sakauye wrote to Sessions and Kelly earlier this month that she was deeply concerned about reports that immigration agents appear to be stalking undocumented immigrants in our courthouses to make arrests. Such incidents have occurred in California, Oregon and Texas, among other places.

(Claritza Jimenez/The Washington Post)

Advocates saw the case in Texas as particularly egregious because the woman detained had gone to court to file a protective order against an alleged abuser, though she herself reportedly had a criminal record and had been previously deported. Cantil-Sakauye pointed to victims and witnesses in particular in her letter. A spokesman for the California judicial council said she was concerned not just that those people might be arrested but that any immigration enforcement in courthouses would deter legitimate use of the court system.

[California chief justice to ICE: Stop stalking immigrants at courthouses]

Our courts are the main point of contact for millions of the most vulnerable Californians in times of anxiety, stress, and crises in their lives, Cantil-Sakauye wrote. Crime victims, victims of sexual abuse and domestic violence, witnesses to crimes who are aiding law enforcement, limited-English speakers, unrepresented litigants, and children and families all come to our courts seeking justice and due process of law.

ICE enforcement policy prohibits initiating removal proceedings against people known to be the immediate victim or witness to a crime unless there are special circumstances or aggravating factors.

Gillian Christensen, a Homeland Security spokeswoman, said the agency has for years  predating the Trump administration  arrested undocumented immigrants at courthouses, though they have focused on those convicted of crimes. The arrests have increased recently, Christensen said, as jurisdictions have refused to honor ICE detainer requests.

Another reason, Sessions and Kelly wrote, is safety: People at courthouses are generally screened for weapons, so arresting them there is preferable to approaching them on the street or at their homes.

Cantil-Sakauye wrote that she was concerned about the impact on public trust and confidence in our state court system if the public feels that our state institutions are being used to facilitate other goals and objectives, no matter how expedient they may be.

Wang, of the ACLU, said while ICE might have in previous administration made arrests in courthouses, President Trump had explicitly given agents wider latitude with his January executive order to use aggressive tactics and target even non-criminals.

Whats new is that, as a matter of official policy coming from President Trump and Secretary Kelly, individual agents have been given free rein to make arrests as they see fit, and that I think has caused a pattern of abusive arrest tactics, Wang said.
A man helps direct the removal of a prefabricated home in the recently evicted illegal Israeli settler outpost of Amona, in the occupied West Bank on Feb. 6. (Baz Ratner/Reuters)

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sent mixed signals about his governments new policy on Jewish settlements built in the occupied West Bank even as he and President Trump attempt to reach an understanding on the issue.

In a statement released Thursday evening, Netanyahu said his government unanimously approved the construction of a new settlement, the first in two decades, to be built deep inside the West Bank. A few hours later, his ministers anonymously shared information with the Israeli media on his intention to slow settlement activity to appease Trump.

The new settlement, meant to serve as compensation for the community of Amona, which was demolished in February after a Supreme Court ruling that it was built on private Palestinian land, will be located among a cluster of hardcore ideological communities. They call the West Bank by its biblical name, Judea and Samaria, and believe it is land promised to them by God.

[Israeli police begin forced removal of Amona settlers in the West Bank]

Palestinians, left-wing human rights activists and several Western countries condemned the decision to build a new settlement in the area, saying it will consolidate an arc of illegal Israeli towns that will block the possible creation of any future contiguous Palestinian state.

According to the Israeli daily Haaretz, Netanyahu told the White House that he had no choice but to approve the new settlement, as well as build thousands more homes inside already existing settlements, because of the commitments he made before Trump took office.

We note that the Israeli Prime Minister made a commitment to the Amona settlers prior to President Trump laying out his expectations, the State Department said in a statement in response to Israels announcement. It said, however, that Israel had made clear its intention to take Trumps concerns into consideration moving forward.

When the two leaders met in February, Trump urged Netanyahu to hold back from more settlement construction. Since then, representatives of the two leaders have been meeting to reach an understanding, but no progress has been made.

In recent weeks, Trump has expressed interest in restarting the stalled peace process. Early in March, he sent Jason Greenblatt, his special representative for international negotiations, to the region, and he has hinted that the two-state solution  creating a nation state for the Palestinians alongside Israel  might be the preferred option.

Unlike the Obama administration, which often condemned Israeli settlement activity, Trump and his advisers have indicated that they do not view the settlements as the main impediment to peace.

About 400,000 Jewish settlers live in 125 settlements and 100 outposts in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, not including East Jerusalem, which is also considered occupied under international law.

Palestinians are vehemently opposed to the existence of Israeli settlements, seeing them as an expansion of Israel into territory they hope will one day be part of a Palestinian state. Much of the international community views Israeli settlements as illegal.

Its not just the land, said Frank Lowenstein, a former special envoy for Israeli-Palestinian negotiations. The real question is how many more settlers are going to be living there. How many more settlers will they have to figure out how to remove or compensate in the context of a peace deal? Creating a new settlement just makes the problem significantly worse.

Hanan Ashrawi, a member of the Palestine Liberation Organizations executive committee, said the decision was indicative of Israels aim to displace Palestine and replace it with Greater Israel. 

Israeli human rights organization Btselem, which monitors settlement activity, said in a statement that the West Bank is already fragmented by Israeli settlement expansion. The organization called Netanyahus new policy ambiguous, and that it essentially means the state will go on building as it pleases.

Oded Revivi, the chief foreign envoy for the Yesha Council, the umbrella body for Israeli settlements, said he welcomed the cabinets decision to support new projects in the West Bank.

However, he said: We will be monitoring the government very closely to see that these plans come to fruition, enabling a new era of building throughout our ancestral homeland.

Carol Morello in Washington contributed to this report.

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WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, seen at the Ecuadoran Embassy in London last year, is wanted for questioning over allegations of sexual assault in Sweden and has been granted asylum at the embassy since 2012. (Peter Nicholls/Reuters)

Julian Assange has defied the worlds most powerful government and intelligence agencies for years. Now his fate will be decided by humble banana workers and Quechua-speaking shopkeepers in the Andean highlands.

Ecuadoran voters will elect a new president Sunday, and one of the two candidates, the conservative former banker Guillermo Lasso, has pledged to evict the WikiLeaks founder from the countrys embassy in London within 30 days of taking office.

Lassos opponent, Lenin Moreno, says he will allow Assange to stay. Moreno served for years as deputy to leftist President Rafael Correa, who granted asylum to Assange in 2012 when the Australian super-hacker sought protection from an arrest warrant, saying he feared he would be extradited to the United States.

Assange hasnt left the embassy since, but Ecuadors high-maintenance, long-term guest has not been a campaign issue in the race. Voters here are far more concerned with the countrys tanking economy and the authoritarian tendencies and deep divisions created by Correas decade-long rule.

Moreno, 64, and Lasso, 61, are virtually tied in the polls.

Guillermo Lasso, greeting crowds in Guayaquil, Colombia, on March 30, has vowed to evict Assange if he wins Ecuadors presidential runoff vote Sunday. (Fernando Vergara/AP)

A Lasso victory Sunday would immediately place Assange in legal peril, given that British police could arrest him the moment he sets foot outside the embassy precinct. Assange is wanted for questioning over allegations of sexual assault in Sweden, although he has not been charged with a crime there or in the United States.

Lasso told the Miami Herald in a recent interview that he would work with other governments to house Assange at another embassy, and its possible another country could take him in. But it remains unclear how Assange could be safely transported through the streets of London, because diplomatic vehicles do not enjoy the same legal protections as embassies.

Political analysts in Ecuador say they do not doubt Lasso would follow through on his threat to remove Assange, because it would allow him to signal a clear break from the Correa government on an issue that is not of major concern to average Ecuadorans. But they say he would seek to avoid the spectacle of Assanges forcible removal or his arrest outside the embassy with television cameras rolling.

I think they would try to work out a solution through diplomatic channels, said Luis Verdesoto, an analyst in Quito.

If Moreno wins, he may also seek to negotiate an exit for Assange, Verdesoto said, because his indefinite residence at the embassy is not sustainable and WikiLeaks has increasingly become a liability for Ecuador.

Correa moved to protect Assange in 2012 because he viewed him as an anti-imperialist comrade, and the initiative burnished his profile among foreign leftist supporters.

Correa maintained his support even as the WikiLeaks chief clashed with Ecuadoran diplomatic staff who had to share the embassys relatively small space with their sometimes volatile houseguest.

But new strains emerged last year after WikiLeaks published hacked emails of Democratic Party staffers during the peak of the U.S. presidential campaign. Correa temporarily cut off Assanges Internet access in a bid to rein him in.

[Ecuador cuts off Internet access for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange]

Assange was politically useful for Correa, but he wouldnt be for Moreno, Verdesoto said, noting that the candidate has no interest in having an international profile and would be facing an economic crisis at home.

Moreno has also privately told diplomats he wants better relations with Washington.

Correa kicked out then-U.S. Ambassador Heather Hodges in 2011 after WikiLeaks published a cable alleging the Ecuadoran president was turning a blind eye to police corruption.

U.S. officials have maintained a disciplined silence about Assange, insisting that his legal troubles are a matter for British, Swedish and Ecuadoran authorities to sort out. Assange and his attorneys may also be looking for new signals from the Trump administration about how it views his case.

President Trump appeared to praise Assange after an interview he conducted with Fox News host Sean Hannity at the Ecuadoran Embassy in January, during which the WikiLeaks founder denied being a tool of the Russian government.

Julian Assange said a 14-year old could have hacked [Clinton adviser John] Podesta,  Trump wrote in a tweet. Why was DNC so careless? Also said Russians did not give him the info.

[How Julian Assange evolved from pariah to paragon]

Patrick Eddington, a former CIA agent who is now national security and civil liberties analyst at the Cato Institute in Washington, said he doesnt think either British or U.S. officials want a dramatic spectacle if Ecuador dislodges him, precipitating an arrest.

It would just reinforce the martyr image Assange tries to project, Eddington said.

The U.S. Department of Justice has refused to comment on allegations that it has readied a secret indictment of Assange that remains under seal. WikiLeaks said in January that if Obama granted clemency to former U.S. soldier Chelsea Manning, Assange would agree to U.S. extradition despite clear unconstitutionality of DoJ case.

But Assange appeared to backtrack on that proposal soon after Obama pardoned Manning, claiming the move was designed to put pressure on him.

Its unclear what the United States would potentially charge Assange with, Eddington said, given that the Espionage Act is not typically applied to foreign nationals and the WikiLeaks founder could make a strong case that his activities deserved journalistic protections.

Fear of WikiLeaks may also be a factor, Eddington added.

One other thing that may deter or at least give potential prosecutors pause is the virtual certainty that an indictment and extradition attempt would result in massive acts of online retaliation by WikiLeaks and its hacktivist supporters, he said.

Would the personal lives of the prosecutors, FBI agents, and others involved in any anti-Assange action be seen as fair game? Eddington said. Im betting the answer is yes.

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Outraged opponents of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro denounced him as a full-fledged dictator Thursday, after his allies on the supreme court stripped the countrys parliament of its power.

Maduro has essentially ruled Venezuela by decree since late 2015, when his unpopular government was trounced in parliamentary elections and his opponents took control of the National Assembly. Since then, they have been systematically blocked by Venezuelas supreme court, which Maduro has stacked with loyalists.

But after the court ruled late Wednesday that lawmakers were acting in contempt of its orders, the judges formally took away their powers, saying the court or another chosen body would assume responsibility for writing Venezuelas laws.

A group of opposition lawmakers scuffled with police outside the court Thursday, accusing Maduros government of carrying out a coup.

This is a dictatorship, and Venezuela needs the worlds help, said National Assembly leader Julio Borges, ripping up the judges order and calling it garbage from those who have kidnapped the constitution and the rights and freedoms of the Venezuelan people.

An opposition supporter holds a Venezuelan flag with a sign that reads No more dictatorship during a protest against Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro's government in Caracas, Venezuela, on Thursday. (Marco Bello/Reuters)

The Venezuelan governments latest step toward autocracy drew criticism and reproach from other Latin American nations, led by Peru, which recalled its ambassador in a show of protest. The U.S. State Department said it condemned the courts ruling.

This rupture of democratic and constitutional norms greatly damages Venezuelas democratic institutions and denies the Venezuelan people the right to shape their countrys future through their elected representatives, State Department spokesman Mark Toner said in a statement. We consider it a serious setback for democracy in Venezuela.

Maduro, 54, was handpicked as successor by President Hugo Chavez before his death from cancer in 2013. Maduro narrowly won election later that year, but the oil-dependent country has plunged deep into crisis since then, with alarming shortages of food and medicine.

Instead of moderating his hard-line views, Maduro and his ruling United Socialist Party have dug in and lashed out.

The courts ruling came a day after it stripped lawmakers of immunity from prosecution, a possible prelude to new arrests. Opposition leader Leopoldo Lopez has been held in harsh conditions at a military prison since leading anti-government street protests that erupted in violence in early 2014. He is serving a 14-year term.

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Secretary of State Rex Tillerson spent less than five hours on the ground in Brussels before returning to the United States. (Nicholas Kamm/AFP/Getty Images)

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson ratcheted up pressure on NATO allies Friday to increase their defense spending, despite pushback from Germanys top diplomat over President Trumps determination to make members of the Western military alliance boost their military budgets.

Addressing a meeting of NATOs 28 foreign ministers, Tillerson said he wanted alliance leaders to agree at a May summit to come up with concrete plans by the end of the year to meet budget guidelines. Fridays conference  hastily moved up after Tillerson initially announced he would skip it so he could attend meetings between Trump and Chinas leader next week  was held amid concerns about the U.S. commitment to NATO following Trumps calls to increase spending among other member nations.

As President Trump has made clear, it is no longer sustainable for the U.S. to maintain a disproportionate share of NATOs defense expenditures, Tillerson told the foreign ministers. Allies must increase defense spending.

The effort met with resistance from German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel, who said the push from Washington was unrealistic and based on a mistaken interpretation of the spending targets, which are not binding. Germany is NATOs largest economy after the United States, but it lags far behind in its defense spending. Twisting Berlins arm to increase its military expenditures is key to Trumps effort to shift more of the burden for Europes defense to Washingtons NATO partners.

More money doesnt mean more security, said Gabriel, who is a member of Germanys center-left Social Democratic Party and has long been skeptical of defense spending increases. He said that meeting NATO spending guidelines would require Germany to pour an additional $37 billion a year into its defense budget, which he said was totally unrealistic. NATO leaders have pledged to increase annual defense outlays to 2 percent of their gross domestic products by 2024, but those shares are targets rather than requirements.





After Trump met with German Chancellor Angela Merkel in mid-March, he wrote on Twitter that Germany owes vast sums of money to NATO & the United States must be paid more for the powerful, and very expensive, defense it provides to Germany!

That approach misstated the way NATO works, since allies contribute military capabilities rather than actual money to the alliance.

[Trump may really not know how NATO works]

Tillersons trip built on an ongoing pattern from the Trump administration: The president says something at odds with U.S. policy or existing commitments, then leaves it to subordinates to reassure allies. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and Vice President Pence engaged in the same exercise during February trips to Europe.

At the NATO summit on May 25, Trump will sit down with an array of allied leaders for the first time. Allies will see whether his personal message is consistent with the basic bargains worked out by U.S. officials ahead of time, or whether he will make different, tougher demands as leaders hammer out their positions.

[Pentagon leader assumes new role: Turning down the temperature on Trump]

The inconsistencies are not confined to the United States: Merkel and her center-right Christian Democratic Union allies, who rule in a coalition with Gabriels center-left party, have been more willing than Gabriel to entertain Trumps requests. Defense increases are broadly unpopular in Germany ahead of September elections, and some of Gabriels aggressive push was for domestic electoral consumption. But he rejected out of hand Tillersons proposal that nations create spending plans with specific, year-by-year targets, setting up a potential showdown at the summit.

We need many different tools to stabilize our neighborhood, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said after the meeting, countering the German position that development aid should also be counted toward security spending. Its not either development or security, its development and security.

NATO diplomats said the closed-door meetings with Tillerson were cordial. But some quietly criticized him for spending less than five hours on the ground in Brussels and returning to Washington before the conference concluded. Previous secretaries of state have often held news conferences at the end of such conclaves; Tillerson took no questions in Brussels.

Many diplomats counted it as a victory to have persuaded Tillerson to come in the first place. The gathering was initially scheduled for next week, overlapping with Chinese President Xi Jinpings visit to Florida to meet Trump. Tillerson planned to skip the NATO event, meaning that he would have met with Chinese and Russian leaders before he met with his alliance counterparts.

Going to Moscow before seeing members of the alliance did not go down well, a senior NATO diplomat said ahead of the meeting, speaking on condition of anonymity to talk frankly about allied perceptions of the Trump administration.

NATO allies have been concerned about Trumps approach to Russia, one that prioritizes cooperation with the Kremlin to defeat the Islamic State.

But Tillerson took a hard line against Russia during the meeting, saying that the United States would maintain its refusal to recognize Moscows 2014 annexation of Ukraines Crimean Peninsula and would keep deploying troops to Eastern Europe as a deterrent.

NATO is fundamental to countering both nonviolent, but at times violent, Russian agitation and Russian aggression, Tillerson told his fellow foreign ministers.

The message was reassuring to NATO nations that border Russia, which have felt especially vulnerable since tensions increased in 2014.

Those were things that my part of the world was very happy to hear, said Latvian Foreign Minister Edgars Rinkevics, who also met with Tillerson in Washington earlier this week alongside his counterparts from the other Baltic nations of Lithuania and Estonia.

Tillerson repeated U.S. desires for NATO to do more to fight terrorism, but he offered no concrete requests and said the Trump administration was still working on specific roles in which NATO could contribute. Although NATO has increased training for Iraqi troops and offered its AWACS surveillance planes to help efforts to defeat the Islamic State, many alliance nations remain skeptical about how well NATOs structures are suited for counterterrorism.

Skeptical diplomats say the intelligence agencies and police forces of individual NATO nations are better-adapted to fighting domestic terrorism threats. Direct intervention on the ground in Syria and Iraq may be most effective if countries offer their militaries on an individual basis rather than in a joint effort through NATO structures, they say.

The NATO meeting came after a one-day trip to Ankara, where Tillerson met with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his top deputies in a bid to build ties despite tensions over clashing approaches to fighting the Islamic State in Syria. It was Tillersons second trip to Europe since he hopped to the State Department from his previous position as chief executive of ExxonMobil.

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Defense Secretary Mattis issues new ultimatum to NATO allies on defense spending

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Hours after the official announcement that he will meet Chinese President Xi Jinping for the first time this week in Florida, President Trump took to Twitter to reassure supporters that he would stand up for their interests.

The meeting next week with China will be a very difficult one in that we can no longer have massive trade deficits and job losses, he tweeted Thursday evening. American companies must be prepared to look at other alternatives.

The U.S. leader also signed two executive actions Friday to launch reviews of U.S. trade policy that could serve as preludes to more stringent White House decisions on tariffs and trade agreements.

But in contrast to Trumps tough talk on trade, the tone at a Chinese Foreign Ministry news conference was conciliatory, playing down differences and talking up the chance to take the relationship to a new level in a new era.

Experts say the Chinese leader is likely to bring to the April 6-7 meeting at Trumps Mar-a-Lago resort a package of pledges designed to give the U.S. president some tweetable promises to present as victories.

(The Washington Post)

If we can think creatively and take active steps, there is indeed a lot we can do on economics and trade, Vice Foreign Minister Zheng Zeguang said. Such cooperation will deliver win-win outcomes for both sides.

So is Trump going to get what he wants from China? Will the first meeting between the unscripted, unpredictable U.S. president and the much more formal Chinese leader build on the cordial telephone conversation they apparently enjoyed in February and restore some stability to the U.S.-China relationship?

The short-term answer might be yes. But in the longer term: Perhaps not.

This meeting seeks to establish a personal connection, allow both to take the measure of the other, and allow each to put down important markers on priorities, said Evan Medeiros, who heads the Eurasia Groups coverage of the Asia-Pacific and was the National Security Councils Asia director in the Obama administration.

That said, no one should be under the illusion this will create a personal bond that overrides different worldviews and national interests. The Chinese like to say that relationships matter, but their interests always matter far more, he said.

The two countries have been here before: Xi came to the United States soon after taking office for what was billed as a shirt-sleeves summit with President Barack Obama at the Sunnylands estate in California in 2013.

But the spin about a uniquely informal atmosphere didnt quite match the reality, with conversations held through interpreters still mostly predictable and often stilted.

Then, Xi declined to stay at Sunnylands, choosing a nearby hotel instead for fear of being bugged. This time, Florida police say, he wont be staying at Mar-a-Lago, either, preferring the Eau Palm Beach Resort and Spa in Manalapan, according to the Palm Beach Post.

And it remains to be seen whether Trump and Xi will actually achieve a rapport.

Xi likes to share his views in long 15- to 20-minute chunks that are challenging even for the most patient leaders, Medeiros observed, noting the two mens distinct personalities.

Still, Shen Dingli, a Sino-U.S. relations expert at Shanghais Fudan University, is confident the meeting will go well. Xis trip to the United States is intended to give Trump a victory, he said.

What does Trump want? He wants two things  buy more American products and hire more American people, he said.

So if Japans Prime Minister Shinzo Abe reportedly pledged in February to invest $150 billion and create 700,000 American jobs, Xi can pledge $250 billion and 1.5 million jobs, he said.

Trumps goals are the most basic ones and the easiest to meet, he said. We can definitely let him have that victory.

Sun Zhe, an expert on U.S.-

China relations at Tsinghua University in Beijing, said the long trip shows Xis sincerity, adding that he expects Xi to bring a huge check to buy American agricultural products, as well as a promise to open the Chinese market further to U.S. companies.

Xi is also likely to try to convince Trump that the trade relationship between the two countries is not a zero-sum game  that both sides can win, and have won, from it.

China runs by far the largest trade surplus with the United States, $319 billion in 2016, nearly half of the global U.S. trade deficit. But its Foreign Ministry likes to cite an estimate from the U.S.-

China Business Council that bilateral trade and investment created 2.6 million American jobs in 2015 and saved every American family $850 a year.

Economic cooperation and trade has delivered visible and tangible benefits to the people of both countries, said Zheng, the vice foreign minister.

He said there was also room for cooperation in investment not just in infrastructure, but in other areas, while also predicting that China would be importing more from the United States as it shifts its economy from state-led investment toward consumption and services.

China will give greater emphasis to boosting domestic demand, and this will create conditions for an increase in imports of American goods and services, he said.

There may be some skepticism in the American business community, which has been complaining about rising Chinese protectionism. Meanwhile, one of Zhengs suggestions  that the United States lift restrictions on high-tech exports to China  is unlikely to fly in Washington, for reasons of national security.

In the longer term, disagreement over North Korea or Taiwan could introduce additional tensions to the relationship. Security issues in general could prove an even bigger stumbling block than trade.

The Trump administration is preparing a major arms deal with Taiwan that could include the sale of advanced rocket systems and anti-ship missiles to defend against China, U.S. officials told Reuters in March, a package that could end up significantly larger than one that was shelved at the end of the Obama administration.

The U.S. military will also continue operations in the South China Sea, including continued close-in surveillance on Chinas coast, said Walter Lohman, director of the Asian Studies Center at the Heritage Foundation.

The meeting will help stabilize things, but its important to manage Chinese expectations, he said. These are some of our core interests  Taiwan and freedom of the seas. They happen to be contrary to Chinas but they are not changing. Xi should hear that loud and clear.

North Korea is another major source of friction: Trump wants the Chinese to put far more pressure on Pyongyang to abandon its nuclear missile program. China wants everyone to get around the table and talk.

I think Trump is looking for real commitment and follow-through on North Korea, Lohman said.

Getting around the table to talk is not going to cut it, he added. We need results. If Trump can be tough with an ally like Angela Merkel, he can be tough with Xi Jinping. If he fails to take this issue on directly, hes open to the charge of treating our potential adversaries better than our friends.

Read more:

In China debut, Tillerson appears to hand Beijing a diplomatic victory

China to Trump: We dont want a trade war  but if there is one, youd lose

Todays coverage from Post correspondents around the world

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The state of Arkansas is pushing forward with plans to execute eight death row inmates over the course of eleven days, two executions at a time, between April 17 and 27.

Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson ordered the spree of executions on February 27 after learning that one of the drugs in the three-drug cocktail used in executions, midazolam, was set to expire at the end of April.

The scheduled executions of the death row inmates, four of whom are black and four white, will proceed with Don Davis and Bruce Ward on April 17, Ledelle Lee and Stacey Johnson on April 20, Marcell Williams and Jack Jones Junior on April 24, and Jason McGehee and Kenneth Williams on April 27.

No state has attempted to carry out so many executions in such a short period of time, Robert Dunham, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC), told KATV, an ABC affiliate in Little Rock. We are seeing a state create an artificially constricted execution schedule in order to carry out executions by a kill-by datethe date the drug expires.

On Monday, lawyers for the eight death row inmates filed federal motions in US District Court to block the executions so that the court can hear the merits of the case. If the federal court does not grant an expedited hearing before the first execution date, attorneys will ask the Supreme Court to authorize a hearing.

Among the filings is a request to block the execution of Bruce Ward, whose attorneys say he is schizophrenic and mentally incompetent. Since learning that Defendant Hutchinson had scheduled his execution for April 17, 2017, Mr. Ward has remained steadfast in his belief that he will walk out of prison, said the filing, according to ABC News.

Another inmate, Stacey Johnson, is asking the states highest court to block his execution so that evidence from his trial can be retested.

The rushed schedule appreciably increases the risk of harm to plaintiffs, falls far outside the bounds of modern penological practice, and disrespects the plaintiffs fundamental dignitydefects that all run against the Eighth Amendments protection, the attorneys for the inmates argued in their request for a preliminary injunction, according to the Associated Press.

The suit challenges the execution schedule, Federal Public Defender John Williams, who represents three of the inmates, told NBC News. Its an unprecedented act and we think the pace of the schedule puts our clients at unnecessary risk.

Governor Hutchinson announced the execution dates on February 27, giving defense attorneys less than two months to prepare.

It is impossible to represent those clients and do the kind of work that needs to be done at the end of the process, Dale Baich, an Arizona assistant federal defender, told NBC. We had a situation here in Arizona where we had two clients scheduled a week apart, and we had to have two separate teams working on those cases.

The Arkansas Parole Board recommended rejecting the clemency requests of the inmates on Monday, and rejected a third clemency request on Wednesday.

The executions, which have been on hold in Arkansas due to legal challenges and difficulties acquiring lethal injection drugs, will be the first in the state since the November 2005 execution of Eric Nance.

In a voice vote earlier this month, Arkansas lawmakers in the state legislatures House Judiciary Committee rejected bills prohibiting the execution of individuals with severe mental illnesses and limiting death penalty sentences to cases where there is no doubt of guilt.

States have found it increasingly difficult to access drugs used for lethal injections since the European Commission banned their sale for this purpose in 2011 and 2012. This was followed by a boycott among American pharmaceutical companies.

In response, states have attempted to illegally import the drugs from overseas, or have turned to other execution methods such as the gas chamber, electric chair or firing squad. In January, Arizonas Corrections Director Charles Ryan issued a new execution protocol that invited the lawyers of death row inmates to provide the drugs to be used to kill their clients.

One of the drugs that will be used to execute the Arkansas prisoners, midazolam, an unreliable sedative and anesthetic, has been responsible for a number of botched executions. In 2014, the use of midazolam in the executions of Dennis McGuire in Ohio, Clayton Lockett in Oklahoma and Joseph Wood in Arizona resulted in grisly and drawn-out executions, lasting between 25 minutes and nearly two hours, during which the inmates kicked and struggled, gasped for air, and writhed in pain.

Despite the gruesome results from the use of midazolam, states continue to employ it in lethal injection drug cocktails. The Supreme Court ruled in 2015 that the use of midazolam did not constitute cruel and unusual punishment.

The use of midazolam and the accelerated execution schedule for the eight Arkansas inmates, which will place even greater pressure on the staff responsible for carrying out the killings, guarantees further botched executions.

You are just asking for something to go wrongthey are putting their team in a really difficult spot, Jennifer Moreno, a staff attorney with the Berkeley Law Death Penalty Clinic, told the Guardian.

Not surprisingly, Arkansas is having difficulties finding enough volunteers to witness the executions. State law requires six to twelve respectable citizens, over the age of 21 with no felony criminal history and not related to the death row inmate or victim, to witness the execution and confirm compliance with state death penalty laws.

Seeking volunteers, the states Department of Corrections Director Wendy Kelley recently spoke to members of the Little Rock Rotary Club 99.

You seem to be a group that does not have felony backgrounds and are over 21, she told the members, according to the Arkansas Democrat Gazette. So if youre interested in serving in that area, in this serious role, just call my office.

According to the acting president of the Club, Bill Booker, members of the audience initially thought Kelley was joking. After a few uncomfortable laughs, it soon dawned on the audience that she was speaking seriously.

What I suspect is that some people might support the death penalty, but when it comes to witnessing something like that, its a different story, Booker told the Gazette. It may cause emotional trauma for quite a while. It would be one of the most significant things youll ever see in your life.

I cant imagine she will get a lot of volunteers, Rotarian Charlotte Gadberry told the Gazette. I dont think I could handle it. Im not real sure how I feel about the death penalty, but it seems like there should be a better way of treating our fellow man.

Executions take a heavy toll not only on witnesses, but the staff charged with carrying out the barbaric practice. Dr. Allen Ault, who gave the order for five executions in 1994 and 1995 as the commissioner of the department of corrections in Georgia, still has nightmares about the men he sent to death. He later discovered that members of his team also suffered psychological distress.

What I did was much more premeditated than any of the murders committed by those I executed, he told the Guardian in a story on the planned Arkansas executions . You are taking a totally defenseless person, planning, premeditating, even rehearsing, then killing himany sane person other than a psychopath would be dramatically affected by that.

In a letter sent to Governor Hutchinson on Wednesday, nearly two dozen officials raised concerns over the multiple execution schedule, including the effects on the execution staff. These concerns were dismissed by Hutchinson, who argued that the accelerated execution schedule would be more efficient and less stressful for the staff.

If the governor is so hot on this, Ault remarked to the Guardian, he ought to go down to the death chamber and do it himself. But he wont, they never do. Politicians are never in the room when it happens, they never have to suffer anything.

According to data from the DPIC, 1,148 people have been executed in the United States since 1976, when the Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty. There are currently 2,905 inmates on death row. Six inmates have been executed so far in 2017 and an additional 35 prisoners, including the eight death row inmates in Arkansas, are scheduled for execution this year.

While the number of executions in such a short period of time being planned by Arkansas is unprecedented, it is not a complete aberration. No state has carried out eight executions in one month since Texas did so twice in 1997.

Two or more executions on the same day has occurred only ten times in the past 40 years, four of which took place in Arkansas, according to the DPIC. No state has ever conducted more than one double execution in the same week, and a double execution has never been successfully completed using midazolam. When Oklahoma attempted a double execution on April 29, 2014 using midazolam, it had to block the second one after botching the execution of Clayton Lockett.
Matt Jordan has been ordered to keep his distance from Kenya Moore.

The Real Housewives of Atlanta star was granted a temporary protective order against her ex-boyfriend, Jordan, by a Fulton County, Georgia, judge on Thursday.

EXCLUSIVE: 'RHOA' Star Kenya Moore Reveals She's Definitely Trying for a Baby on 'Housewives Happy Hour'

According to documents obtained by ET, Jordan is ordered to stay 200 yards away from Moore, as well as stop harassing and intimidating the reality star and her immediate family.

In Moore's original petition, she accused Jordan of breaking doors and windows at her home, throwing her personal items and calling her "up to 30 times a day." She also claimed that Jordan told a friend that she was going to "get what she deserves" and that he was going to "get" her.

Moore also requested that Jordan receive appropriate psychiatric help and that she be awarded attorney fees, though the judge has yet to rule on those actions. The next hearing is set for April 14.

ET has reached out to Moore's rep for comment.

RELATED: Kenya Moore Threatens to Shoot Three Trespassers: 'We On Level Orange Up in This B*tch'

ET caught up with Moore in November, when she opened up about letting her relationship drama with Jordan play out for the cameras on the new season of The Real Housewives of Atlanta.

"We definitely go through a very turbulent time in our relationship," Moore, 46, revealed. "He's 16 years my junior, so it presents a whole set of problems that I've never encountered before."

"I think that what you'll see is me being in love," she continued, "and having a great man in my life, but the man is a 29-year-old who still has issues with expressing himself in a positive way, fighting fair when you do get into arguments, and just dealing with a woman who's so much more seasoned and experienced than you, and also successful."

See more in the video below.

Additional reporting by Brendon Geoffrion.

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Tad Cummins and Elizabeth Thomas, the 15-year-old Tennessee teen at the center of a multi-state AMBER Alert, were spotted in Oklahoma two days after they went missing, officials announced Friday.

Cummins, 50, and Thomas were captured on surveillance footage at a Oklahoma City Wal-Mart shopping for food on March 15, the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation announced. The pair - who are from Maury County, Tennessee- did not purchase anything else of significance.

In the newly released video and images, Thomas and Cummins appear to have dyed their hair. Thomas, who was originally described by officials as a blonde, has red hair while Cummins goatee beard and hair are darker.

MEDIA: Here39;s a quick video clip of Tad Cummins & Elizabeth Thomas entering the Walmart in Oklahoma City on 3/15.https://t.co/DROy0gqIMc - Josh DeVine (@TBIJoshDeVine) March 31, 2017

Want to keep up with the latest crime coverage? Click here to get breaking crime news, ongoing trial coverage and details of intriguing unsolved cases in the True Crime Newsletter.

Cummins' hair appears to have been died

Thomas was reported missing on March 13, after she asked a friend to drop her off at a local Shoneys. Investigators allege she was abducted by a teacher at her school, 50-year-old Tad Cummins. Thomas family has accused Cummins of grooming her.

The photos released Friday are the first photos of the pair since they were reported missing. It remains unclear whether Thomas went with Cummins willingly.

Elizabeth Thomas' hair appears to be dyed red

A warrant has been issued for Cummins arrest on charges of aggravated kidnapping and sexual contact with a minor.

He was fired from Culleoka Unit School after he was identified as the suspect in Thomas disappearance. Prior to that, he was suspended by the school after he allegedly was caught kissing Thomas on Jan. 23. Prosecutors also allege the pair traded romantic messages via his school email.

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Pick up PEOPLEs special edition True Crime Stories: Cases That Shocked America, on sale now, for the latest on Casey Anthony, JonBenet Ramsey and more.

The confirmed sighting comes less than a day after Collierville, Tennessee, officials told local media outlets the pair had been spotted driving a white van in Collierville. However, hours later, state officials announced the sighting was false.

This is not the first time officials have had to warn the public of erroneous reporting. Last week, the pair were rumored to be in Texas when Corpus Christi police said they responded to an alleged sighting. But a TBI spokesperson dismissed the reports, telling PEOPLE that the pair have been allegedly spotted in 49 states so far.

Authorities allege Cummins is likely keeping Thomas off the grid, and they urge the public to search their properties, local campgrounds, rural areas and parking garages.

Early on, we issued the picture on the left, from several days before the #TNAMBERAlert, Note the apparent change in Tad39;s appearance. pic.twitter.com/7tg7UdVaai - Josh DeVine (@TBIJoshDeVine) March 31, 2017

The TBI asks anyone who believes they spot Cummins or Thomas to not approach them and instead keep an eye on them while calling 911.

The teen was last seen wearing a flannel shirt and black leggings. She is 5 feet 5 inches tall and weighs 120 lbs., with and hazel eyes.

Cummins was seen driving a Silver Nissan Rogue with Tennessee license plate 976ZPT, according to the TBI. He is 6 feet tall and weighs 200 lbs., with brown hair and eyes.

Anyone with information on Cummins or Thomas should call the TBI at 1-800-TBI-FIND.

This article was originally published on PEOPLE.com
WASHINGTON (AP)  Two women who used an internet chat room to raise several thousand dollars for the Somali militant group al-Shabab have been sentenced to prison.

Muna Osman Jama, 36, of Reston, Virginia, and Hinda Osman Dhirane, 46, of Kent, Washington, had previously been convicted of providing support to a terrorist organization.

On Friday, Jama was sentenced to12 years and Dhirane to 11 years.

Prosecutors had said the women used the chat room to round up small contributions on behalf of al-Shabab. The women did not deny their sympathies for al-Shabab. But their defense lawyers argued that the money they raised went to people who were not clearly defined members of al-Shabab. The defense also raised First Amendment issues, saying their advocacy for al-Shabab should not be fodder for a criminal conviction.
It was 50 years ago this Friday, on Feb. 10, 1967, that the state of Nevada became the 38th to ratify the 25th Amendment, thereby officially answering a question that had plagued the United States ever since its founding. How could the country make sure that there would always be a capable person at the helm of the ship of state? If the President were killed, the answer was clear; if he were sick or injured, however, the Constitution was vague.

President Johnson, who had come to the White House under extraordinary circumstances following the assassination of John F. Kennedy in 1963, knew that the time had come for a solution to be put in place. In January of 1965, he had sent a message to Congress noting that it was largely luck alone that the U.S. could thank for thus far avoiding a catastrophic situation in which a President was incapacitated but not dead. Following a run of other officials who had suggested the same, he called for a Constitutional amendment that would address the matter.

On at least two occasions in our history, and perhaps others, American presidents-James Garfield and Woodrow Wilson-have for prolonged periods been rendered incapable of discharging their Presidential duties, he wrote. On sixteen occasions in our thirty-six Administrations, the Office of Vice President has been vacant-and over the two perilous decades since the end of the Second World War, that vital office has been vacant the equivalent of one year out of four. (He also noted that the Constitution did not provide for the possibility of subversion of the Electoral College as a possible problem with Presidential succession.)

Get your history fix in one place: sign up for the weekly TIME History newsletter

As TIME noted, the amendment came amidst a flurry of tweaks to the Constitution, during which residents of Washington, D.C., got the vote in Presidential elections and poll taxes were banned. The 25th Amendment as it eventually passed did not take on all of Johnsons suggestions, but it strove to address his top two concerns, as the magazine summed up the week of its ratification:

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Under the amendment, an incapacitated Chief Executive can himself declare in writing that he is unable to continue in office, and the Vice President can take over-at least temporarily. If an ailing President is unable or unwilling to step aside voluntarily, the Vice President and a majority of the Cabinet can send a written statement to Congress declaring that the President is incapable of holding office. If the President were to challenge such a resolution, Congress itself would vote on the question. The amendment also authorizes the President to appoint, and Congress to confirm, a new Vice President if a vacancy occurs in that office.

The four sections of the amendment deal with four possible situations in which the line of succession would need to be put into play. First, if the President dies or resigns, the VP takes over. Second, if there is no VP for one reason or another, the President nominates a new one, who has to be confirmed by Congress. Third, if the President declares that he cannot fulfill his duties for some period of time, the VP becomes Acting President. And finally, if it is decided (by the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide) that the President cannot do his job, the Vice President becomes Acting President until the President submits a written declaration that he can in fact do his job. If theres disagreement about whether or not thats the case, Congress gets to decide.

The amendment was soon put to the test.

An effort among some in Washington to push to have President Richard Nixon declared incapacitated prior to his resignation had not gone anywhere, but the scandals of the early 1970s did call for the use of the amendment as a means of replacing the Vice President. The resignation of embattled Vice President Spiro Agnew in late 1973 led Nixon to pick Gerald Ford to be his new Vice President, under the terms of the 25th-which was invoked once again only about a year later, when Nixons resignation put Ford in the White House, leaving the Vice Presidency open for Ford to name Nelson Rockefeller to the post.

Ronald Reagan would put the amendment to use as well, in 1985, when he declared that George H.W. Bush would be in charge while he was unconscious during a surgery. (George W. Bush did the same during his time in office.) And, to those worried about the consequences of Reagans place as the oldest President in U.S. history at the time of his election-a superlative he has since given up to Donald Trump-the Amendment offered a safety valve. One TIME columnist surmised in 1984 that, thanks to television, the world would instantly detect presidential infirmity in a way that would past ailing presidents managed to avoid.

The amendment has become newly newsworthy in recent weeks, as some opponents of President Trump, such as former George W. Bush speechwriter David Frum, have floated the idea that the Amendment could be used to declare that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office.

Twenty-Fifth Amendment to the Constitution. Article 4. Were all going to be talking a lot more about it in the months ahead. - David Frum (@davidfrum) November 16, 2016

Though it is very unlikely that such an event might take place-the process for declaring a President incapacitated against his will is purposefully difficult-those who fought for its creation a half-century ago might be glad to hear that the American people know that, if the President were incapacitated, the steps to take are clear.

By this thoughtful amendment, [the amendments advocates] have further perfected the oldest written constitution in the world, Johnson said upon its ratification. They have earned the lasting thanks of the American people, for whom it has so long secured the blessings of liberty.

This article was originally published on TIME.com
For more than five decades, Cuba was off-limits to many Americans due to tight travel restrictions. Now, the island nation located just over 200 miles from Miami, is quickly becoming a must-see among cruise passengers. In fact, three mainstream cruise lines now sail to Cuba from the United States: Royal Caribbean, Norwegian Cruise Line and Fathom, which is operated by Carnival Cruise Lines, and will offer sailings through June. These cruise lines offer a variety of Cuba-bound itineraries, with Royal Caribbean and Norwegian also offering overnight stays in Havana. If you're interested in cruising Cuba, U.S. News has rounded up your affordable vacation options for 2017.

[See: The 2017 Best Cruise Lines for the Money.]

If you've never sailed to Cuba before, keep in mind there are a few things that will increase the price of your cruise. First, all passengers are required to purchase a $75 travel visa in order to visit the country. This can be easily purchased through the cruise line, but isn't included in published fares. Second, trips to Cuba are legal for Americans only if they fall under one of 12 authorized categories for permitted travel. For most cruise passengers, this requirement is fulfilled with person-to-person exchanges. While you can arrange such exchanges yourself, they can easily be organized with an affiliated cruise line. Still, it's key to factor this extra cost into your vacation planning process.

With that in mind, here are four affordable Cuba cruise itineraries to book now.

A Royal Caribbean Cruise From Tampa, Florida

While there are plenty of cruises to Cuba, it's hard to rival Royal Caribbean's convenient and affordable four-night Cuba itinerary. The trip departs from Tampa aboard Royal Caribbean's Empress of the Seas, with a stop in Key West, Florida, before continuing to Havana. There are sailings offered every two weeks from late June through October, with the lowest rate for an interior room starting at $429.

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[See: 10 Underrated Cruise Destinations for 2017.]

A Norwegian Cruise Line Sailing From Miami (With an Overnight Stay in Havana)

If you're looking for a short cruise with plenty of time for leisurely exploration in Havana, consider booking a four-night trip aboard Norwegian Sky. The four-night itinerary includes an overnight stay in Havana, giving you more time to enjoy the city, experience memorable meals and take advantage of the area's famous nightlife scene. In addition, the trip includes a stop in Great Stirrup Cay in the Bahamas, before returning to Miami. Cruises depart every Monday from May through December. Interior cabin prices start at $529 per person.

A Royal Caribbean Cruise From Tampa

Most shorter sailings stop at only a couple of ports, but this five-night trip aboard Empress of the Seas packs three port days into a five-day trip. Stops include Key West, Cozumel and Havana before returning to Tampa. Interior rooms start at $449. But keep in mind, if you're looking to sail in the peak summer season, prices increase to $598 in July.

[See: The 5 Top Places to Cruise This Summer.]

A Royal Caribbean Cruise From Tampa (With an Overnight Stay in Havana)

If you're itching to visit Cuba, you'll likely want to carve out some time for exploring world-class art, lively streets and UNESCO World Heritage sites. Royal Caribbean has opened up overnight stays with this five-night voyage that includes only a single stop in Havana. That stay, however, lasts more than 30 hours, compared to just 10 hours or less for a typical port of call. Rates for the cruise, which departs on Sept. 18, start at $638 for an interior cabin.

Tanner Callais is a cruise expert and founder of Cruzely.com. His cruise advice has been featured across the web, including USA TODAY, CBS News, and the Houston Chronicle websites.
Teaching is often seen as a great field for career changers and other nontraditional students.

Some pursue teaching because they want to contribute to society in a meaningful way. Others may desire to share the knowledge and expertise they gained in another setting, or they may no longer want to compete in the corporate world.

Online education is an ideal way for future teachers to build the expertise they need while balancing school with work, family or other commitments. Here are five ways online graduate education programs offer value for future teachers.

1. Teachers become familiar with online tools. Today's educators often use various online and digital technology tools in K-12 classrooms. Online courses provide the opportunity to learn about how technology can advance learning in an educational setting.

Tools like VoiceThread can be used by graduate students and elementary or high schoolers alike to leave audio comments for their classmates on virtual discussions. They might both also use apps like Padlet to leave technological "sticky notes" for one another.

[Discover ways to ace online discussion board assignments in online courses.]

2. A good online course shows teachers how to guide student learning. Today, students preparing to become teachers must shift from a model of education that assumes they are experts who impart their knowledge, to one where they act as guides to the educational experience, and students are expected to take greater responsibility for their learning.

Rather than talking at them, teachers must facilitate learning and discovery on the part of students. Well-designed online courses model this structure of guided educational experiences, with students in charge of how they progress through the course.

3. Students become familiar with video technology. Many teacher licensing exams require students to provide videos of themselves teaching a model lesson. In online courses, professors provide short videos as part of both online class announcements and lectures, enabling future teachers to observe how to engage their students through technology.

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Students may also be asked to create short videos for class assignments, giving them further practice in using this teaching format, which is growing in popularity at all classroom levels.

4. Evidence-based writing is modeled in online courses. The Common Core state standards for grades K-12 have been adopted in 42 states and the District of Columbia. As part of this, students are expected to support their arguments in papers using evidence from text sources.

[Learn how to improve your writing for online classes.]

Online courses are often writing intensive and require evidence-based arguments. In online discussion boards, for example, students post comments on articles, videos and other course materials, providing support for their arguments and responding to posts of fellow students with additional evidence-based materials.

5. Online education requires that all students participate. Too often, it is the same students who repeatedly speak up in traditional classrooms. Research indicates that those who participate earn higher grades in their classes.

Online education generally requires that all student voices be "heard" through discussion boards, weekly assignments and other assessments. No student can "hide" in an online classroom, enabling future educators to perceive the value of getting everyone involved as a model of success in K-12 education.

The takeaway: Online education is a great fit for future teachers, providing the flexibility they need to pursue a degree. Perhaps more importantly, online graduate education programs are designed to reinforce and build the critical knowledge and skills they need for their careers as educators.

Marian Stoltz-Loike, vice president of online education at Touro College in New York and dean of the school's Lander College for Women/The Anna Ruth and Mark Hasten School, oversees the university's online courses. She upgraded the online undergraduate courses and the online programs in the Graduate School of Education and developed the online program strategy for the School of Health Sciences. Stoltz-Loike holds a bachelor's from Harvard University and a Ph.D. from New York University.
Milestone moments do not a year make. Often, its the smaller news stories that add up, gradually, to big history. With that in mind, in 2017 TIME History will revisit the entire year of 1967, week by week, as it was reported in the pages of TIME, to see how it all comes together. Catch up on last weeks installment here.

Week 10: March 10, 1967

When magazine magnate Henry Luce died at 68 on Feb. 28, 1967 - almost exactly 44 years after the date on the cover of the first issue of TIME - his final memo to the magazines editors was still in transit. Luce, who had founded TIME with his Yale classmate Briton Hadden in the years after World War I, had already begun to delegate his duties at the company. (In 1960, he ceded corporate control of Time Inc. and in 1964 he stepped down as Editor in Chief of TIME.) Nevertheless, he remained closely tied to the daily operations of the publications he had launched.

Such a set-up made sense, as TIME and its sister publications had borne Luces fingerprints since their founding. One place where that deep involvement could be seen, the magazines remembrance explained, was in the way his magazines reflected his sense of right and wrong - moral rectitude but also factual correctness.

And that was something worth noting:

When TIME was founded, the nations technology and communications had far outstripped its daily newspapers, which remained local, parochial and, for the most part, ineffably stodgy; the few magazines of comment were not widely circulated. I do not know any problem in journalism, Luce said later, which can be usefully isolated from the profoundest questions of mans fate. Yet, he allowed mischievously: I am all for titillating trivialities. I am all for the epic touch. I could almost say that everything in TIME should be either titillating or epic or starkly, supercurtly factual.

TIMEs blend of the epic and the titillating, its telling of news in terms of people, its belief that medicine, art, business, religion, education and many other aspects of everyday life that were largely ignored by the daily press were all newsworthy in themselves, made the magazine a success almost from the start. Most important of all was its founders guiding concept that the newspapermans sacrosanct objectivity was a myth. Asked once why TIME did not present two sides to a story, Luce replied: Are there not more likely to be three sides or 30 sides?

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Luces journalistic theory certainly appealed to readers. One telling anecdote from the 1967 remembrance recalls how the launch of LIFE in 1936 nearly killed Time Inc. - it was so successful that the company could barely afford the paper needed to print enough copies to satisfy demand. Luce would later reflect on the importance of that success: I have sometimes said to myself that the one thing I was determined to do was to make journalist a good word. And today it, is a good word.

Its also worth reading the full letter from the staff that appeared at the front of the issue, too, for personal recollections of what it was like to work with Luce.

Get your history fix in one place: sign up for the weekly TIME History newsletter

Vietnam update: After a brief period of optimism about the prospect of peace in Vietnam, the war had once again turned bleak. Though President Johnson wouldnt say that new moves constituted escalation of military involvement, TIME reported that he admitted that recent violence had been more far-reaching than had previously been the case, as many in Washington showed signs of losing faith that an end could be achieved via negotiation. But that belief was far from universal: Bobby Kennedy, then a Senator, spoke out with a major speech urging a halt to bombing.

Nazis found: A story in the world-news section related how Simon Wiesenthal, in pursuit of Nazi war criminals, had tracked down Franz Stangl, an infamous leader of the Treblinka concentration camp. After paying an informant, Wiesenthal was able to direct Brazilian police to Stangls home in Sao Paulo, where they took the Austrian fugitive - who was No. 4 on Wiesenthals list of most-wanted Nazis - into custody.

Window to the past: A new fad touted in the modern living section traced the 1920s origins of tinted car windows as purdah glass that allowed observant Muslim and Hindu women to travel in cars without violating their religious seclusion. By 1967, however, the technology was popular among celebrities in London - even though those who used it had discovered an inherent problem with it. It is so noticeable that the instantly curious flock around to try penetrating its secrets, TIME noted, let an ordinary clear-windowed car go by without a second glance.

Great vintage ad: This AT&T ad - about how wrong numbers are annoying - shows that everyone who tweets at his or her cable company is part of a long history of annoyance with service providers.

Coming up next week: The Redgraves

This article was originally published on TIME.com
GLEN BURNIE, Md. (AP)  Authorities in Maryland say six children and two adults were taken to a hospital with minor injuries after two cars hit a school bus.

The Capital reports (http://bit.ly/2mVJxBl ) that the crash happened in Glen Burnie on Friday morning.

Anne Arundel County fire department spokesman Capt. Russ Davies says the bus driver and five children on the bus were taken to a hospital with minor injuries. A driver and child in one of the cars also were taken to a hospital with minor injuries. The third driver declined treatment.

County public schools spokeswoman Maneka Monk says 20 students were on board the bus headed to Brooklyn Park Middle School when the crash occurred. She says the other 15 students were taken to school on a second bus.
A medical examiner has concluded the manner of death for the 7-month-old twin girls who were found unresponsive in their mother's Camden County apartment last week was "natural," ruling out the possibility of foul play.

The county prosecutor's office confirmed the medical examiner's findings on Friday, but did not offer further details.

At this time, my office will not be releasing the cause of death out of respect for the deceased, Prosecutor Mary E. Colalillo said in a statement.

The mother of Jessenia and Juliana Rodriguez-Garnett had called 911 distraught on March 22 and said her children had turned "purple."

"Oh my God, my babies," said Alexandria Garnett, who called from the Pines Apartments just off Bilper Avenue in Lindenwold. "My twins, theyre like purple. Theyre not breathing."

She told dispatchers she had attempted CPR before calling 911, and could be heard trying it again on each twin as the dispatcher gave her instructions, according to a recording of the call the prosecutor's office provided.

When an emergency responder arrived minutes later and asked when the twins had gone to bed, the mother replied, "Like 6:30. They both fell asleep."

Garnett has not returned requests for comment, but friends described her as "a wonderful mother" who was crestfallen over Jessenia and Juliana's deaths. The twins have four siblings, according to an obituary.

A viewing will be held Saturday from 11 a.m. to noon at Ora L. Wooster Funeral Home in Clementon, 51 Park Blvd. A funeral will follow. Both are expected to be open to the public.

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From Redbook

If you've only ever been on the receiving end of a marriage proposal, it's impossible to grasp just how much planning, sweat, fear, and excitement is involved in helping to create one of the most memorable days of life. When searching for women who boldly went where so many haven't and proposed to their partners instead of waiting for them to pop the question, one thing became obvious: In heterosexual relationships, at least, the onus is still largely on the man to decide when to propose, purchase, and give a ring, and make sure that day is special.

But times have changed. Celebrities like Kristen Bell have popped the question to their significant others. And some non-famous women are completely balking tradition by handling everything from the rings to asking for a parent's blessing to asking at a perfectly planned moment. Others are simply making it known to their partners (in no uncertain terms) that they are the lucky person they want to spend the rest of their lives with - and that they don't want to wait for "the rest of their lives" to begin.

These 7 badass women shared their stories of how they proposed marriage to their partners. Their anecdotes differ greatly, but the message is similar: Women, if you want something or someone, go on and get it.

1. "I knew I loved him and wanted to get on with it."

"We were dating for 3 years. I was ready. I knew I loved him and wanted to get on with it. I was so nervous when I asked his dad for permission. It was Thanksgiving and I wanted to ask Todd the next day so I had to do it and I made a deal with myself that I'd do it before Thanksgiving dinner. I told his parents, "So, I'm going to ask Todd to marry me." His dad said, "Hey, that's great!" His mom asked me, "You gotta ring?"

Proposing at Ridge Lytton Springs Vineyard was one of those stressful occasions where nothing went quite as I planned - right up until the point where it worked out perfectly! Our friends were with us and they were prepped for photos, the vineyard was open so you could walk around, we went to 'check out the grapes' and I walked us a little bit up this hill and then I went to kneel on one knee - and realized I was on the downhill slope. He's 6'4" so he was so far up there. I just said I wanted to spend the rest of my life with him, would he marry me - very simple and quick. He laughed and said "Of course." We hugged, we all laughed, took a bunch of pictures, and he kept looking at me and smiling the rest of the day." - Caryn G., Eugene, OR

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2. "We literally picked the SAME NIGHT to propose."

"I decided to propose to Matt after we'd been dating for about 7 years. We'd talked about getting married a lot, but it didn't seem like he was ever going to do it and I'm not exactly a patient person. I really didn't like the idea of him getting down on one knee and asking me to marry him because it felt too traditional and gendered and it really didn't reflect our relationship. It just felt dated to me - a marriage should be a decision between two people, not a question. I don't think there is any reason a man should have to be the one to ask a woman to marry him, but if that's what you want, great!

I bought a ring for him because I was scared if I didn't he might not take it seriously since it's so uncommon for women to propose to their partners. I bought him a silver ring that I figured he would replace when we got wedding rings, which he could pick out himself. He did end up replacing the engagement ring with a gold wedding ring that matches mine, but he still has the engagement ring.

I planned to propose by writing him a bunch of notes with puzzles he had to solve at the end (we're really into words games). I gave him the notes throughout a weekend vacation in Traverse City, Michigan. In the last note, I planned for him to rearrange words that would say "Will you marry me?" On our last night in TC we were camping and he asked if I wanted to picnic on the beach. I thought it would be perfect because I could give him the last note there and propose on the beach! Except he planned this picnic with wine and olives and cheese and then he pulled out a poster where we had put all of these photos of us and we had to write down our best memories together and then he proposed to me before I could give him the note.

It was very funny and weird that we literally picked the SAME NIGHT to propose, but it ended up being the perfect combination because we both got to propose and we both got to be proposed to. It made so much sense in our particular relationship." - Lucy H., Ann Arbor, MI

3. " It was sort of a joke."

"I saw him at a meeting about helping out at the then upcoming federal election, but we didn't meet. At the election, he came and introduced himself and then we were handing out election flyers at a polling place for the rest of the day. We went out to celebrate/commiserate since our candidate did not win his seat, and after speaking for a while I just thought that he was the perfect one for me. It was sort of a joke, but I got down on one knee on the main road and asked if he would marry me. He suggested we wait until we'd known each other a bit longer, like 12 hours or so. We went to a few bars, and when he went to the bathroom later in the night, I sent my friend a message that I thought he really was the one and that I had to marry him. Five and a half months later, he proposed to me after a romantic dinner overlooking the Sydney Harbour Bridge. He sprung the ring on me, I was bawling, and we got married a year later." - Micayla L., Salem, OR

4. "I kind of, sort of proposed to my husband as in, 'So, when are we going to make it official?'"

"We were dating for a few weeks. But we're orthodox Jews and in our community, you only date with an eye toward marriage. You either get engaged quickly or stop dating. Three weeks is actually a long time in that context. I kind of, sort of proposed to my husband as in, "So, when are we going to make it official?" because it was a forgone conclusion and I was getting antsy waiting for him to actually pop the question. He laughed and said, "A woman chases a man until he catches her." He proposed with a ring a week later, we got married four months later, and we've been together for 37 years and have 12 children." - Varda Meyers E., Efrat, Israel

5. "I think we both just knew it was right."

"I could tell he was thinking about asking me to marry him in the future. I'm six and a half years older than him and while we were driving one day to Pennsylvania and just hanging out talking I was like, 'I want to get married, so do you want to marry me?' He said 'yes' and I got him an engagement ring a few months later and eventually told him the style and cut of a ring I like. We've been married for 2 years." - Lauren Cunha K., Flemington, N.J.

6. "I proposed because it was time for us to move forward."

"Sre and I had been together for 3 years when I popped the question on Christmas morning. We were sitting in my childhood bedroom with my parents waiting for us to come to breakfast. I gave him a vintage Rolex watch because every time I asked him if he wanted to 'put a ring on it,' he responded with 'why don't you put a Rolex on it?' So I did, and Sre said yes! I know many people deep down believe that if a women has to propose it means that the man isn't committed, but that isn't our story.

We had a good life and a good partnership, but we both knew Sre's parents in India were going to be very upset about our marriage. I'm white and probably a good bit older than who they would have chosen for his arranged marriage. So our relationship plateaued because neither one of us was ready to take that leap and face the struggle.

I proposed because it was time for us to move forward, and Sre needed me to be strong. I grabbed his hand and told him that I couldn't see the rest of my life without him, no matter the consequences. It wasn't like the movies. You don't just profess your love and tell your unsupportive parents to go to hell. The coming year was an emotional roller coaster that impacted our lives in very dramatic ways. His parents grieved, and we went through that process with them. Our wedding day in 2016 made it all worth it. It was a joyous occasion with many of Sre's family in attendance. His parents were not able to come, but we will be going to India soon for a Hindu ceremony. Hopefully they will continue to heal and accept me, but I think it will always be a little difficult for them." - Lana S. Decatur, GA

7. "I said 'I'm getting married this September with or without you.'"

"We had just come out of a church meeting where a woman was talking about how she proposed to her husband and I was really fired up. It was this January. and I really wanted to get married this year. I was starting to feel like I wouldn't have enough time to plan my wedding if he didn't pop the question so I cornered him while we were on the highway and said, "I'm getting married this September with or without you. So are you in?"

We decided to get married then and there but didn't tell anyone outside of our family because he wanted to propose to me (he's a traditionalist). He then surprised me with a proposal in Disney World. Technically, we both proposed." - Sarah B., Salt Lake City, Utah

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Madrid (AFP) - Close to 80 years ago, Picasso painted Guernica in a Paris attic, a haunting work of art that has become a universal howl against the ravages of war, from 1937 Spain to 2017 Syria.

The canvas mixes stark images of agonising humans and animals to depict the horror of the bombing of the small Basque town of Guernica on April 26, 1937 during Spain's civil war.

Luis Ortiz Alfau, a 100-year-old Spaniard, was there that day "to pick up the dead and the injured," he told AFP.

"Around 4:00 pm, three planes started arriving every 15 minutes, they were German and Italian planes," said the former soldier on the Republican side.

"They dropped explosive bombs, then incendiary bombs, and the town started to burn."

- War in Syria -

To mark the 80th anniversary of one of the most famous paintings in the world, studied by generations of schoolchildren, Madrid's Reina Sofia Museum, where it now hangs, will hold a major exhibition from April 4.

"Guernica's importance in the collective unconscious is such that I define it as a spiritual work of art, with a constant vocation of promoting peace," Bernard Ruiz-Picasso, the Spanish artist's grandson, told AFP.

Rosario Peiro, head of collections at the museum, said Syrians had used images of the painting in their protests. They "were trying to say: 'enough with this war in Syria'."

At the United Nations last year, French Ambassador Francois Delattre compared the destruction in the Syrian city of Aleppo to Guernica.

"Aleppo is to Syria what Guernica was to the Spanish war, a human tragedy, a black hole destroying all we believe in," he said.

- 'Screaming out' -

The Spanish Civil War kicked off nine months before the attack on Guernica when army generals staged a coup against a fledgling left-wing republic.

Led by General Francisco Franco, the nationalist camp had the support of Nazi Germany and fascist Italy.

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The attack, which is estimated to have left 150 to 300 dead, was the Nazis' first attempt at terror bombing civilians -- a tactic they would go on to use in World War II.

Two days later, Pablo Picasso, who had lived in France since 1904, saw the first photo reports of the tragedy. On May 1, he started his own Guernica.

On a large canvas more than seven metres (23 feet) wide, he painted deformed figures of women and children writhing in a burning city.

A broken sword in hand, a dismembered fighter lies with wide open eyes, an impassive bull, a wounded dove and an agonising horse nearby.

"It seems the faces are screaming out," said Takahiro Yoshino, a 20-year-old Japanese tourist contemplating the painting for the first time in the Reina Sofia, which saw 3.6 million visitors last year.

Nearby, Sonia Seco Cacaso had taken her kindergarten class to see Guernica.

"When there is a problem, you have to resolve it and not through war," she told them.

- 'All we love will die' -

Black, white and grey, the oil painting was Picasso's response to a commission by Spain's embattled republic for the upcoming World Exhibition in Paris.

When it opened on May 25, 1937, Hitler's Germany and Stalin's Soviet Union competed with gigantic pavilions.

Inside Spain's more modest pavilion, Guernica loomed large and was greeted with mixed reviews.

In his memoirs, Jorge Semprun, a Spanish writer who later served as culture minister, remembered that British art critic Anthony Blunt disapproved.

"Picasso belongs to the past," he was quoted as having said.

French poet Michel Leiris, though, wrote that the painting was Picasso's "letter of mourning: all we love will die," just as World War II loomed, as did the defeat of the Republicans in Spain's civil war.

- Life of exile -

In 1939, Franco took power for a 36-year-long dictatorship. Years later, he maintained that "the poor marxists" set fire to Guernica.

The canvas itself started a "life of exile", said Peiro.

From 1937, it was exhibited in Europe and the US to raise money for Spanish refugees.

Then in 1939, Picasso entrusted his masterpiece to New York's Museum of Modern Art, where it stayed more than 40 years.

The painter gave the museum clear instructions -- the canvas belonged to the Spanish people and would only be given back "when they have recovered the freedoms that were taken away from them."

Finally in 1981, the painting arrived in Spain, which was transitioning to democracy after the death of Franco.

It was first put up for show in an annex of the Prado Museum, behind explosion- and bullet-proof glass to protect it from possible harm in a country still struggling to deal with its very recent, dark past, wrote Semprun.

Now at the Reina Sofia, it has become the star attraction.

For Jose Lebrero, the artistic director of the Picasso Museum in his native southern city of Malaga, "it's one of the last major historical paintings -- in the line of Courbet or Delacroix -- that allows us to remember a very difficult historical event."

It is a canvas that is particularly poignant "in the strange and worrying political situation we are going through," he added.
Zagreb (AFP) - Agrokor, the Balkans' main food producer and retailer faced with crushing debt, on Friday reached a deal with creditors to help stabilise the troubled company.

The crisis within Agrokor, which employs around 60,000 people, two-thirds of them in Croatia, has dominated that country's political agenda for the past few weeks.

Agrokor's representatives and a board of creditors have agreed "in principle the key elements of a standstill agreement" that freezes its repayment of debts to banks, the Croatia office of Austria's Erste Bank said in a statement.

The board also included Agrokor's main creditors -- Russia's state-run Sberbank and VTB bank -- and Croatia branches of Austria's Raiffesenbank as well as Privredna Banka Zagreb and Zagrebacka banka owned by Italy's Intesa Sanpolo and UniCredit, respectively .

"The standstill agreement should ease Agrokor's efforts to solve liquidity issues, secure continuity of its business, protect the concern's value and lay the basis for (its) sustainable restructuring," the statement said.

During the restructuring process top management positions will be filled with independent experts to make it "transparent and sustainable," it said.

The deal, to be signed later on Friday, also foresees the position of a "chief restructuring officer."

The announcement came just hours after Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic presented a bill aimed at protecting Croatias economy from the impact of large companies' financial problems.

The bill, to be discussed by the parliament Wednesday, relates to troubled companies employing more than 5,000 people and with at least one billion euros debt.

Agrokor's owner is Croatian businessman Ivica Todoric and his fate within the company remains unknown.

The company has annual revenue of some 50 billion kunas (6.7 billion euros, $7.2 billion), the equivalent of over 15 percent of the country's gross domestic product (GDP).

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According to figures released in September its debt amounted to some six billion euros.

Earlier this year international rating agencies lowered Agrokor's credit rating citing its high indebtedness and rising refinancing risks.

A big part of its debt matures in 2018.

Analysts said Agrokor's financial problems could be solved by restructuring, changes in ownership or the sale of some of the 61 companies it owns.
Frankfurt am Main (AFP) - Aerospace giant Airbus is planning a next-generation European fighter jet, the group's defence chief said Friday, hoping to profit from the Old Continent's renewed commitment to reach NATO defence spending targets.

"We are currently putting together pre-design studies to show what such an aircraft could look like," Airbus Defence and Space chief executive Dirk Hoke told German business daily Handelsblatt. "We're speaking very intensively with European governments."

Many EU nations are looking to boost defence spending, as pressure mounts from Donald Trump's White House for NATO allies to increase military budgets to the alliance's target of 2.0 percent of GDP.

A future Airbus fighter -- known as the "Next Generation Weapons System" (NGWS) -- would have "far-reaching new technical qualities," Hoke said.

It could "combine the best of both worlds" of manned and unmanned aircraft, with a human-piloted plane working "in combination with a swarm of drones," he went on. "The overwhelming opinion of the nations is that they should hang on to manned platforms."

"Such projects can no longer be financed by individual nations" in Europe, Hoke believes.

The armaments chief expects France and Germany to take the lead on the new fighter, but there are disagreements about when it should enter service -- in 2035, when Berlin's 85 Tornado fighter-bombers are set to be mothballed, or Paris' preferred option of between 2035 and 2040.

Germany is unlikely to commit to the project before parliamentary elections in September, with Airbus expecting "far-reaching studies to be authorised in the coming year.

"Then we would need a basic decision for the new platform in the next two to three years" to keep to a 2035 timetable, Hoke said.

Airbus has been dogged in recent years by troubles with another joint project, the A400M transport plane commissioned by seven countries -- Britain, France, Germany, Luxembourg, Spain, Belgium, and Turkey.

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Hoke faced a dressing-down from client nations on Thursday in Madrid.

A source told AFP the nations had refused Airbus' request that they hold off imposing the heavy penalties provided for in the A400M contract that have weighed on the company's profits.

"We will never sign contracts with conditions like that again," Hoke told Handelsblatt, blaming the problems on unrealistic requirements from the buyers and their insistence on using European-built engines.

In the closer future, Airbus expects "to add three to five percent to business in defence and space, even more in digital", as countries begin to ratchet up military budgets, Hoke said.

"The increase in military budgets has already begun, and there were already positive signs of that in our new orders last year."
Now is not a great time for warm feelings about Russia in Washington. After a campaign season full of intrigue, the fallout from questions of foreign involvement in the most recent presidential election continues to grow. And most recently, the revelation on Wednesday that Attorney General Jeff Sessions spoke with Russias ambassador to the United States twice during the 2016 campaign season, only to say during his confirmation hearings that he had not communicated with Russian officials, has spurred calls for Sessions to resign.

This wave of tension has sparked numerous comparisons to the Cold War period, which is unsurprising. Though the U.S. and the Soviet Union were allies in World War II and helped each other to victory, that cooperation was followed by decades during which the opposition between the two systems they represented dominated global politics.

But, though the Cold War may be the most obvious example of a time when American feelings about Russia or the Soviet Union were dominated by suspicion, experts say that hostility between the two dates back to long before that period.

The trope [of Western European suspicion of Russia] goes back a long ways, to the 1500s and 1600s, and became stronger after the Napoleonic Wars, when Britain and Russia were grappling, says Kees Boterbloem, an expert in Russian and European history at the University of South Florida. That image of Russia as an anti-world was already there. There are these old-fashioned myths about Russia being a different entity altogether from quote-unquote civilized humanity, and time and time again I get the facile impression that everybody goes back to that dichotomy whenever theres some kind of problem.

Those old ideas were brought to the United States in the nations earliest days, and were amplified in the centuries that followed. By the 19th century, as the U.S. became more firmly established as the home of liberal democracy and that system of government became closely linked with citizens ideas of the nation, those Americans who gave thought to Russia saw the region as in some ways their opposite.

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To boot, Imperial Russia refused to recognize the U.S. as a nation for decades after the Revolutionary War. Outraged by its extravagant ideas about Liberty and Equality, Catherine the Great steadfastly refused to receive a U. S. Minister, as TIME once put it. Her successors, Paul I and Alexander I, shared her attitude.

Russia was viewed as a last holdout of the worst kind of autocracy, says Nina Tumarkin, director of Russian Area Studies at Wellesley College, who served as an adviser to President Ronald Reagan on matters concerning the Soviet Union. Russia had a very reactionary monarch who was anti-revolutionary, so there was this view of Russia quashing democracy.

And, Tumarkin adds, as a tidal wave of Russian Jews began to emigrate to the U.S. to escape persecution in the late 1800s, their reports helped anti-Russia feeling grow. Some American evangelicals even saw Russia as a biblically foretold evil opponent to the Holy Land. (There were exceptions during the 19th century, says Igor Lukes, a professor of history and international relations at Boston University. President Lincoln was on very good terms with the Tsar of Russia, Lukes says. They mutually liked each other and each considered the other a great reformer; Abraham Lincoln gradually abolished slavery whereas Alexander II abolished serfdom in Russia.)

In the early 20th century, the distrust of Russia among some Americans continued.

The Russian Revolution in 1917 initially sparked hopes of the rise of a democratic Russia; as A. Scott Berg explains in his biography of Woodrow Wilson, the president saw the Tsars abdication that March as a sign that World War I - which the U.S. was about to join - could be a global war against autocracy. But, with the Bolsheviks coming to power and bowing out of the war, that hope was soon dashed. The U.S. government even refused to recognize the new Soviet government; Wilson was doubtful that the change would stick, and the ambassador to the U.S. who was appointed by Lenin was denied a visa.

And, though the Zimmermann telegram is often given credit as the tipping point for the U.S. entry into World War I in 1917, Jeffrey Burds, who teaches history at Northeastern University, says that Wilson was also motivated by being terrified of the possible results of the Tsars abdication and participated in an Allied attempt to surreptitiously steer the course of Russian politics by supporting anti-Bolshevik forces.

In other words, though the Cold War is famous as a time for espionage between the U.S. and USSR, suspicion began on both sides decades earlier - and was, in both directions, based on some degree of truth. Though the West denied that the intervention was a big deal, Burds says, declassification of documents in the post-1991 period has showed that in fact the Soviets were right and the U.S. really was interfering with their internal affairs. In the other direction, Burds says that American fear of things like possible dealing in industrial secrets by organizations like the Soviet trade group Amtorg in the 1930s was well-founded.

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But, when the U.S. and much of the rest of the world faced economic crisis in the 1930s, the Soviets - removed from the global economy - were insulated from that damage. Though many people there were already suffering greatly under the rule of Lenin and then Stalin, the worst was still hidden from audiences in the U.S. The American Communist Party grew, as the American media reported warmly on the doings of Uncle Joe Stalin. For example, in 1938, TIME reported that one influential member of the American Communist Party returned from a visit there to report that she had stayed in the nicest hotels, eaten well and seen real freedom in action, and had only come back to the U.S. became she wanted to use that example to make America better. Lukes says that some Americans who decided to move to the USSR to see the supposed paradise themselves ended up in the Gulag. This idealism wasnt just something for the working classes either, as many American intellectuals watched the goings-on with interest.

With the coming of World War II, both the U.S. and USSR took an anti-fascist position and played key roles in combating the spread of Nazi Germany. News reports showed FDR and Stalin smilingly conferring, and some Americans - including those who were giving serious thought to the USSR for the first time- embraced that rosy picture.

But the hope for a future of peaceful coexistence was crushed even while the alliance still held. What exactly tipped the scales is hard to say, but the tail end of the war provided plenty of opportunity for the U.S. to reconsider its opinion of the USSR, and vice-versa. All these transition moments are built into World War II, says Burds.

Around 1943, as the Allies began to think about how they would relate to one another in the post-war world, as Burds frames it, a group of Americans associated with Allen Dulles, who would later serve as Director of Central Intelligence, realized that the Soviet Union would emerge from the War as a major force and that the U.S. didnt really know enough about what was going on in the USSR to be able to deal with such a force intelligently. At universities - especially Columbia and Harvard - and within the government, the 1940s saw Americans begin to approach the USSR with a know-your-enemy thoroughness.

The death of Franklin Roosevelt in early 1945 brought Harry Truman to the presidency, and along with him a much more hard-line, as Tumarkin describes it, approach to the Soviet Union. Meanwhile, reports of the Red Armys brutality in the course of liberating Nazi territory, available even to non-specialists, led many in the American public and Congress to sour on Russia. For example, a TIME correspondent in Vienna sent back a report that he had heard from several sources that after Russian forces took the city they would approach an apartment house and, judging from its size, demand from the landlord that a certain number of women be delivered to them for their pleasure. Though he noted that he was unable to independently verify the report, he passed along to American readers that the fear inspired by the idea was undoubtedly real.

The Cold War chill sets in very quickly in 1945, even before the end of the war, Tumarkin says.

Look at the timing of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, she adds. At the Yalta Conference, Stalin had promised to enter the war against Japan within three months after victory over Germany in Europe. Victory in Europe day was celebrated on May 8, 1945. Three months later was August. The bomb was dropped on Hiroshima on Aug. 6, 1945, just days before the deadline. The Soviet Union did declare war on Japan precisely two days later, but Tumarkin argues that one big reason for the U.S. decision to drop the bomb at that moment in the war was that the world had seen what happened when the Soviets liberated nations in Eastern Europe - including the establishment of Soviet-style or Soviet-friendly regimes - and wanted to end the war quickly to prevent that from happening in Asia.

In short, even before the Cold War began, the U.S. and Russia were in opposition.

Boterbloem suggests that the difficulty of abandoning such a long-standing dichotomy, despite the fact that the geopolitical situation has changed many times over since then, may underlie tensions with Russia even to this day.

We dont really know too much about other countries so were inclined to stick with old ideas, he says. Its hard to say, Forget about what you learned, were looking at a different country here.

This article was originally published on TIME.com
SEOUL, South Korea (AP)  South Korea's embattled former President Park Geun-hye was jailed Friday in a scandal that has set off a political firestorm and led to the arrests and indictments of dozens of high-profile figures. More drama is expected in the scandal in the weeks and months ahead. Here's what is likely to happen.

___

PARK'S FATE

Park was sent to a detention facility near Seoul on Friday after the Seoul Central District Court accepted a request from prosecutors to arrest her. Prosecutors can now detain her for up to 20 days before formally indicting her. After indictment, Park is likely to remain in detention, probably for several months, during her trial.

Prosecutors could indict Park without arresting her, but said they needed to detain her because her alleged crimes are "grave" and she could try to destroy evidence. Prosecutors also said it was fair to arrest her since all other key suspects in the scandal have been arrested.

The scandal centers on allegations that Park conspired with a confidante to extort money from companies, take kickbacks from Samsung and engage in other wrongdoing. Prosecutors are expected to bring multiple charges including extortion, bribery and abuse of power.

Images of the former president attending court while handcuffed, bound and perhaps dressed in prison garb are certain to make more headlines. A district court normally issues a verdict within six months of an indictment.

___

HARSH PUNISHMENT?

The penalty for the bribery charge ranges from 10 years in prison to life imprisonment. But South Korea has a history of pardoning convicted former leaders, and some conservative politicians and media are urging that Park not be punished further, saying she has already lost the presidency, her reputation and many of her political allies. Others disagree, saying the law must be fair to everyone and that Park is at the heart of the scandal.

There are worries that some of Park's ultra-conservative supporters might stage violent rallies calling for her release. Three supporters died during clashes with police after the Constitutional Court ruled to uphold her impeachment earlier in March.

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Two former South Korean presidents, Chun Doo-hwan and Roh Tae-woo, were sentenced to life and 17 years in prison, respectively, in 1996, on charges including treason and bribery. But they were released in December 1997 in a special amnesty suggested by President-elect Kim Dae-jung, who pushed to promote national reconciliation to revive an economy battered by the Asian financial crisis.

___

OTHER KEY FIGURES ON TRIAL

Court rulings for others arrested in the scandal are expected in the coming months. They include Park confidante Choi Soon-sil, Samsung heir Lee Jae-yong and some top government officials.

Choi has been charged with bribery, extortion and abuse of power, and can be sentenced to up to life in prison if convicted of bribery. Samsung's Lee faces bribery, embezzlement and three other charges punishable by at least five years in prison.

Also on trial are a former presidential adviser allegedly involved with Park and Choi in the extortion of millions of dollars from companies, another adviser who allegedly passed state secrets to Choi at Park's request, and two former culture ministers and a former presidential chief-of-staff accused of conspiring with Park and Choi to blacklist artists critical of Park's policies to deny them state support.

___

NEW PRESIDENT

A new election is to be held May 9 to choose Park's successor. Opinion surveys show liberal Moon Jae-in, who lost the 2012 presidential election to Park, is a clear favorite to win.

Moon will likely receive his party's formal presidential nomination next week. There is talk of conservative and moderate parties fielding a unified candidate because that appears to be the only way to defeat Moon, but no serious attempt at such a political realignment has yet occurred.

The winner of the election will take office immediately, and analysts expect some policy confusion in the first several months as a result. Worse, possible protests by Park supporters could be a burden to the new president if they continue after the election.

Unlike Park, who took a tough approach toward North Korea, Moon has vowed to pursue improved ties with the North, a stance that might trigger discord with the U.S. and Japan.

Moon is also critical of decisions by Park to allow the installation of an advanced U.S. missile defense system in South Korea and resolve a decades-long impasse with Japan over Korean sex slaves used by its imperial army in World War II.
Sudden death is always shocking, and even more so when those who die are heroes who defied danger in the past. But on Jan. 27, 1967, when the U.S. lost its first three astronauts killed in the line of duty - Lieut. Colonel Virgil Gus Grissom, 40; Lieut. Colonel Edward White, 36; and Lieut. Commander Roger Chaffee, 31 - the worlds reaction contained an extra level of shock.

The reason why is suggested by the fact that, though the mission on which they were killed is now known as Apollo 1, that phrase never appears in TIMEs original 1967 cover story about the event. The men were not killed during a grand attempt to reach the moon, but rather during what was supposed to be a routine pre-flight test for what was then known as Apollo 204 or AS-2014, so called after the spacecraft in use.

As TIME presented the story, the nation and the world knew that the effort to put a man on the moon was a dangerous one. Every time a brave astronaut took another step forward - orbits or space walks, for example - a collective breath was held, with the awareness that it would be so easy for something to go wrong. Grissom and White themselves were already famous for their death-defying feats. But when Grissom, White and Chaffee died, they were motionless and earth-bound, reclining in the charred cockpit of a vehicle that was built to hit the moon 239,000 miles away, but never got closer than the tip of a Saturn rocket, 218 ft. above Launching Pad 34 at Cape Kennedy.

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Heres how TIME explained what happened that day:

At 1 p.m. on Friday last week, Grissom, White and Chaffee strolled casually into the gantry elevator on Pad 34, rose swiftly to a sterilized "white room," then ambled along the 20-ft. catwalk to the stainless-steel hull of the capsule, now secured to the Saturn rocket inside the launching complex. The craft was like an old friend, for they had spent hours in it during vacuum-chamber tests in the Houston Space Center, had run through identical launch-simulation procedures several times before.All spacecraft have their own personal quirks, and 204 had been balky from the start. As an Apollo engineer said: "The first article from the factory cannot come out without birth pains." The spacecraft gave repeated trouble. The nozzle of its big engine shattered during one test. The heat shield of the command module split wide open and the ship sank like a stone when it was dropped at high speed into a water tank. Certain kinds of fuel caused ruptures in attitude-control fuel tanks. The cooling system failed, causing a two-month delay for redesign. But all the bugs were eventually ironed out, as far as the experts knew, after arduous testing under every conceivable circumstance. Last week's test was billed as the ship's first full "plugs-out" operation-meaning that the craft was to rely solely on its own power system instead of using an exterior source. The trio climbed inside the ship, hooked up their silver suits to the environmental control system (which feeds oxygen to the suits and purifies the air in the cabin), snapped their faceplates shut and waited while the suits became pressurized. At 2:50 p.m., the airtight double hatch plates were sealed. And the familiar routine began, an infinitely detailed run-through that was scheduled to last slightly more than five hours.Things progressed smoothly enough; a few "glitches" (minor problems) stalled the operation. At countdown-minus-10-minutes, the procedure was stopped again because of static in the communications channels between the spacecraft and technicians at the operations center. It took 15 minutes to correct the problem, and the simulated count was ready to begin again. Then, at 6:31 p.m., a voice cried from inside the capsule: "Fire aboard the space-craft!"At the same instant, a couple of technicians standing on a level with the craft windows saw a blinding flash inside the ship. Heavy smoke began to seep from the capsule, filling the white room. A workman sprinted across the catwalk leading to the craft, tried desperately to loosen the hatch cover. He was driven back by the intense heat and smoke, but half a dozen other technicians, some wearing face masks and asbestos gloves, raced to help. One or two would try to wrench open the hatch, then fall back from the scorching heat while others struggled with it. Six minutes after the cry of alarm, the hatch sprang open. A blast of hot air shot out, followed by suffocating clouds of smoke.The rest was silence. The flames were apparently sucked into the astronauts' space suits, killing them as soon as they noticed the fire. The three charred bodies were left strapped to their couches for more than seven hours while anguished experts sought to piece together the reasons for the accident.

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By April, it had been determined that, though it was unlikely that technicians could ever figure out with 100% certainty what had happened, the fire was probably started by a conductor that malfunctioned and spurted its electrical current.

Although the routine nature of the test that killed those men could have potentially detracted from their sacrifice, it did just the opposite: they were all-too-human reminders of the danger of space, and of the level of technical ability required of all astronauts. And as such, though some feared that the accident would cause the U.S. to pull back on the effort to make it to the moon, NASA continued to move steadily ahead, confident in the knowledge that Grissom, White and Chaffee, professionals till the end, would have wanted it that way.

New as it is in the history of mankinds progress, the conquest of space symbolizes one of mans oldest, most basic drives: the hunger for knowledge, the lure of every new frontier, the challenge of the impossible, as TIME noted. And that is the legacy left behind by Virgil Grissom, Edward White and Roger Chaffee- just as it was by men like Marco Polo, Magellan, Charles A. Lindbergh and Explorer Robert Falcon Scott, whose Antarctic memorial bears an inscription from Tennysons Ulysses: To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

And NASA soon took another step forward, too: announcing that the mission for which the three men had been preparing would be known as Apollo 1.

See the full issue, here in the TIME Vault: To Strive, To Seek, To Find, And Not To Yield...

This article was originally published on TIME.com
Associated Press

Concerns over the Buffalo Bills troubling loss to the New York Jets were quickly overshadowed by even bigger worries regarding the status of Josh Allens throwing elbow on Monday. Suddenly, the entirety of the organization and its fanbase is holding its collective breath while awaiting the results of medical tests to determine the severity of Allens injury sustained in the final minutes of a 20-17 loss to the Jets  and what impact it will have on the second half of the season and the franchises Super Bowl aspirations. The reality, however, is bracing for the potential of having to turn over a very Allen-centric offense to journeyman backup Case Keenum to keep the AFC-leading Bills (6-2) afloat in the interim.
Vienna (AFP) - Austria recorded a sharp rise in attacks against migrant shelters last year, with 49 cases that mostly went unsolved compared to 25 in 2015, authorities said Friday.

The incidents, revealed in a response by the interior ministry to a parliamentary enquiry, ranged from racist graffiti to arson, stones being thrown through windows and gas pipes being slashed.

According to opposition lawmaker Albert Steinhauser who made the enquiry, 44 of the incidents that were clearly motivated by hatred.

Steinhauser told the Austria Press Agency (APA) that in 77 percent of the cases, police had not managed to track down the culprits.

"The most important thing is for the interior ministry to take these incidents serious and makes every necessary effort to investigate," he said.

He said that no one wanted a situation like in neighbouring Germany -- where the population is around 10 times larger -- which reported almost 900 such cases in 2016.

Austria, a nation of 8.7 million people, has received more than 130,000 asylum applications since 2015 following the onset of the European Union's biggest migration crisis since World War II.

The opposition far-right Freedom Party (FPOe) has stoked concerns about the influx to boost support, with its candidate Norbert Hofer coming close to being elected president last year.

The ruling centrist coalition has taken a harder line, announcing plans to beef up surveillance, ban full-face veils in public and oblige migrants to sign an "integration contract".

It has also stepped up deportations of migrants whose asylum claims are rejected, recently offering 1,000 euros ($1,069) to the first 1,000 people to volunteer for repatriation.

Chancellor Christian Kern also wrote to Brussels this week looking for Austria to be exempted from an EU scheme to take in migrants relocated from hotspots Italy and Greece.

Recent studies have also shown a sharp rise in online hate speech, directed predominantly at Muslims, and suggested that Austrians' attitudes toward immigration have hardened.

The interior ministry said there were also 49 incidents carried out by migrants themselves at the shelters including violence, death threats, stalking and vandalism. No comparison figures from prior years were released.

"We have to look closely at what the causes are. We strongly suspect that trauma, experiences of war and extreme violence play a role," Steinhauser said, calling for better psychiatric care.
SYDNEY (Reuters) - Australia has identified more than 340 individuals with links to Swiss banking relationship managers alleged to have actively promoted and facilitated tax evasion schemes, a federal minister said on Friday. Information gathered by authorities in a joint international investigation indicates that the Australians identified hold "unnamed numbered accounts with a Swiss bank," Minister for Revenue and Financial Services Kelly O'Dwyer, said. "The fact that these accounts are unnamed means that by their very nature they are likely to have been established to hide the identity of the owner," she said in a statement. "The message from these investigations makes it clear that governments worldwide are shining a light on offshore tax evasion, and it's only a matter of time before you're in the spotlight." In the coming week, Australia's Serious Financial Crime Task Force (SFCT) will interview bank employees, taxpayers and lawyers as part of its investigation into whether Australians identified in the data have failed to comply with their tax obligations or been involved in criminal activity, she added. This follows search warrants and arrests by authorities in the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Germany and France. Separately, Swiss bank Credit Suisse said on Friday its offices in London, Paris and Amsterdam were contacted by local authorities concerning client tax matters. (Reporting by Swati Pandey; Editing by Christian Schmollinger)
Many homebuyers are finding themselves in an unusual situation this spring: They have enough money and are preapproved for a mortgage, but can they actually secure a house?

The number of homes for sale in February fell for the 21st straight month compared with the previous year, with only a 3.8-month supply at the current sales pace, according to data from the National Association of Realtors. A six-month supply is considered a balanced market. The supply of homes for sale is even tighter at the lower price ranges.

That creates a major challenge for homebuyers, especially first-timers. If a prospective buyer isn't careful, he could end up jumping at anything just to get a house, only to realize later that he bought a home that's not right for his family.

"I feel that a lot of my purpose in the search process is making sure they don't buy the wrong house," says Dawn Rae, broker-owner of Florida Buyers' Advocate in St. Petersburg, Florida. "If you can't trust the person who is guiding you, you could buy the wrong house."

Rae, who is the president of the National Association of Exclusive Buyer Agents, says the advice of a good agent who represents your interests is especially important in today's tight housing market.

[See: The Best Places to Live in the U.S. in 2017.]

Her first recommendation for prospective buyers is to do significant research before they view homes. That includes deciding what features they want, what they can reasonably expect to get for their budget and what neighborhoods are acceptable.

"The more prepared you are, the more enjoyable it will be -- and you'll end up getting a home you'll enjoy," says Connie Durnal, a Redfin agent in Dallas.

She advises her clients to get as far along in the mortgage process as they can and write a draft cover letter to the seller so they can prepare a purchase offer quickly. With those issues out of the way, they can focus on choosing the right home.

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"By relieving all this pressure, they're not all wound up. They're not bounding all over the place," Durnal says. "It really lets them focus on the home."

Rather than worrying about the process, prepared buyers can concentrate on whether the house fits their needs: Is it the right neighborhood? Is it the right size? Does the layout work for their lifestyle? By honing in on these issues, buyers are less likely to make a mistake and more ready to move quickly when they find the right home.

"If they have studied the market ahead of time ... they will be more confident when they're there, and they do see something that matches their parameters," Rae says.

The market is moving quickly, which requires quick decisions from buyers and often submission of an offer as soon as they see a house they want. "The best houses are selling in three to five days, with multiple offers and even bidding wars," says Victor Quiroz, of Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices California Properties in Southern California. But that doesn't mean would-be buyers should settle.

[See: 8 Home-Selling Buzzwords That Annoy Consumers.]

"There's always more housing coming to market," Quiroz says. "Understand there will be more next week."

Here are eight ways to avoid buying the wrong house in a competitive market.

Work with a trusted agent. Using an agent can give buyers an edge because the agent has access to information from the multiple listing service that buyers won't find online. An agent can also help prospective buyers prepare their strongest offer. Line up your agent at the beginning of your search. If the agent doesn't want to help you discuss you options before you're ready to buy, find another agent.

Know what neighborhood you want. Explore and drill down into neighborhoods before you start seriously looking at houses. If schools are important, know the boundaries of the districts you want. Test the commute time from locations you're considering. Don't just research online, but also visit and talk to neighbors. Once you've chosen the neighborhood, you can narrow the search to the specific house.

Know the market. Know what types and sizes of homes are common in your preferred neighborhoods. This will help you know, when you see a listing or tour a home, whether you can expect a similar home that meets more of your needs to come along later. You also want to know how fast homes are selling, whether they are going for over asking price and what the sale price per square foot is, though your agent can help you with the numbers.

Know what home features are important. If you have a son and a daughter, settling for a two-bedroom house when you need three bedrooms probably doesn't make sense. Buyers never get everything on their wish list, but you need to know which features are essential for your happiness.

See as many houses as possible. Once you decide you're interested in buying a home, start going to open houses, even if you don't have an agent yet. Open houses are an easy way to see lots of homes and talk to agents about options without making a commitment.

Know your budget. No matter your housing budget, you always discover that the features you want cost a little more. Plus, you could encounter a situation where you have to offer above asking price. Set a maximum for what you're willing to spend and stick with it.

[See: Weird Home Features That May Confuse Homebuyers.]

Always get a professional home inspection. In most areas, you'll be asked to sign a contract to buy the house "as is" with the right to inspect. That means the seller is unlikely to make repairs, but you can withdraw from the deal if you don't like what the inspection reveals. Before buying a home, you want to know the condition of the roof, ceiling, plumbing, electrical system and heating and air conditioning system. Knowing about foundation problems, water damage or termites is also important. You can typically use the inspection contingency to withdraw from the contract even if you don't find major problems, giving you a few days to make sure you're happy with the home once you've signed the contract.

Understand you may lose a few. Most first-time home buyers aren't ready to move quickly the first time they see a home they like -- or maybe even the second time. Even if they make an offer, they may not get the home. "It's a learning process," Rae says. "They see the home. They feel like they can't move yet. It disappears." Losing out on a few homes also may help you know the right one when you see it.

Teresa Mears writes about personal finance, real estate and retirement for U.S. News and other publications. She was previously the real estate blogger for MSN Money and worked as the Home & Design editor for The Miami Herald. During her journalism career, she worked on coverage of immigration, religion, national and international news and local news, serving on the staffs of The Miami Herald, The Los Angeles Times and the St. Petersburg Times. She has also been a contributor for The New York Times and The Boston Globe, among other publications. She publishes Living on the Cheap and Miami on the Cheap. Follow her on Twitter @TeresaMears.
MINSK, Belarus (AP)  Police in authoritarian Belarus are searching the offices of a Polish satellite TV channel that has given extensive coverage to a recent wave of anti-government protests.

The Belsat channel, which is part of Polish public broadcaster TVP, is aimed at providing an alternative to Belarus' state-controlled television.

Belsat reported Friday that police were seizing equipment at two of its offices in Minsk, the capital.

Hundreds of people were arrested over the weekend in unsanctioned protests in Minsk. The protests followed sporadic demonstrations across the country over the past two months, an unusually persistent show of defiance in the former Soviet republic.

Belsat director Agnieszka Romaszewska told The Associated Press that the pretext for the raids was a copyright dispute over the Belsat logo.

But "I think it's kind of an 'award' for our good work during the March protests," she said. One cameraman was detained in the raids, she said.

Andrei Bastunets, head of the Belarusian Association of Journalists, said: "The attack on Belsat is only part of a new wave of repression against independent journalists."
BRUSSELS (AP)  Belgian authorities have detained four suspects following a brawl at a referendum voting booth at the Turkish embassy that has further exacerbated relations between the two nations. A fifth suspect could not yet be detained since he was hospitalized.

The Brussels prosecutor's office said that "several people" were beaten up and one elderly woman also landed up in hospital after the melee outside the embassy on Thursday.

Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel warned that the government will not tolerate violence as Turks living abroad vote on a referendum that would give Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan more power.

Turkish citizens in six European countries have until April 9 to vote in the referendum. The deadline in Turkey is a week later.
Though the awards-presentation mishap that capped Sunday nights Oscars broadcast may garner much of the attention when it comes to the Academys recognition of Moonlight as 2016s Best Picture, this film also deserves a second look from a historical perspective. After all, Best Supporting Actor Mahershala Ali wasnt the only supporting character needed to make the film work: Liberty City, one of Miamis black and impoverished neighborhoods, is another protagonist in the Moonlight story.

This treatment of Miami has been a long time coming. For decades, audiences have had a fairly myopic and often cartoonish view of life in the city, exemplified by crime-focused stories like 1983s Scarface, the television show Miami Vice, the Bad Boys film series and the video game series Grand Theft Auto (particularly Vice City). Other stories, such as TVs Nip/Tuck, highlighted the citys glitz and glamor (albeit, often the grittier side of this constructed fantasy world) to the detriment, if not entire erasure, of the multidimensional worlds of those living in the citys margins.

Moonlight, of course, deals with violence, drugs and poverty in Miami too, but centers the lives of those most directly and negatively entangled in these realities; they are not secondary and mythologized characters or villains, but real people with rich histories. And glimpses of Miamis rich black history are threaded in the collective experiences and memories of its characters.

Unlike many other major metropolitan areas in the United States, Miami is a relatively new city, incorporated as a distinct municipality in just 1896. From the very start, Miamis white urban planners designed the city in ways that not only kept blacks segregated from whites, but also allowed white investors to exploit and capitalize on black poverty, disenfranchisement and labor.

Miamis segregated black neighborhoods (including an area known as North Miami, and later, what was then known as Colored Town, or todays historic Overtown) also housed the areas thriving sexual underworld; spaces where the citys black, immigrant and white, working-class gender and sexual transgressives could make a living. White residents and tourists often went slumming there to voyeuristically see how the other half lived and, sometimes, expand the limits of their own sexual appetites; they often engaged in interracial and homosexual sex during their visits.

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As Moonlight highlights, Miamis black communities have historically been tethered to numerous migrations and ethnic experiences, particularly those in the Caribbean and Latin America. (Juan, played by Ali, reminds protagonist Chiron that a lot of black folks are Cuban.) In the first two decades of Miamis urban history, around the turn of the 20th century, migrants and immigrants from the Bahamas proved central to establishing a local agricultural economy and building the nascent citys infrastructure. Black Bahamian men, whose labor was particularly in high demand, often had little difficulty crossing borders. But once they entered Miami, they too lived in segregated neighborhoods - where they were often depicted as being in direct conflict with U.S.-born blacks and other immigrants, forces that helped justify their surveillance - and local law enforcement heavily policed them for numerous crimes, including vagrancy, fornication and sodomy. Black Bahamian women, especially those who were single or unaccompanied, often had even more difficulty: Mythologies of gender and race found Miamis immigration inspectors anxious that these women were sexually suspect, or prostitutes, and many were denied entry.

This historical pattern of segregating and further pushing black lives to city margins was repeated and amplified throughout Miamis history.

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Although Colored Town was a thriving center for black culture, sometimes referred to as the Harlem of the South, most residents lived in shacks and slums there. As the city grew, the land on which those shacks stood became more appealing for urban planners. New Deal housing programs in the 1930s provided them the opportunity to redistrict this prime location and push its black residents farther northwest. Shortly after the 1937 completion of a black public housing project called Liberty Square, the area that became known as Liberty City quickly grew. This process was sealed when the federal interstate program built I-95 right through the heart of Colored Town, displacing thousands of blacks who fled to Liberty City, particularly in the 1960s, which rapidly became another black ghetto.

This history of segregation is the background to Moonlights narrative, the story that explains the world in which the characters live, but it is the Liberty City of the 1980s that is most visible to the audience. The eras hallmarks were by no means unique to Miami - the drug wars, the spread of HIV/AIDS, the shrinking welfare state, heightened policing of people of color - but some circumstances in the Florida city were unique. The area was still recovering from the effects of the 1980 Mariel boatlift, in which roughly 125,000 Cubans entered the United States in a span of just a few months and resettled throughout the city. In addition to those who entered during the boatlift, new waves of Haitian, Nicaraguan and Colombian immigrants also competed for the already limited resources and jobs available to them. As Miamis Bahamians and U.S.-born blacks had found in the early 1900s, structural barriers created inter- and intra-ethnic and racial tensions in the city even as they were often exaggerated and fueled by the existing urban power. This bred divisions and ideas of difference among the citys new and surviving marginalized communities.

Misconceptions of sexuality added significantly to this prism of difference, a tension so palpable in Moonlight. Narratives of black homophobia persisted and often overshadowed the real lives of black and lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender communities. For example, weeks before the onset of the Mariel boatlift in 1980, a fundraising blitz supporting the reelection of President Jimmy Carter was staged in Liberty City. Three white gay activists showed up to protest the event, citing Carters lackluster position on lesbian and gay rights. One of them, a lesbian woman, held a large placard listing Carters ills, which someone tore in two. The local press reported angry blacks were responsible. In reality, however, the black audience largely stood in support of her and the other gay activists; someone connected to Carters reelection campaign had torn the poster. As before, narratives of difference and division, even those fabricated or overstated, helped stall new alliances and diminished the ability to further bridge the lives of those most vulnerable to violence and discrimination.

These and other pressures, including several cases of police brutality against black residents that went unpunished, led to what some called a race riot in Liberty City in May 1980.

The long history traced here, however, reveals Liberty City had long since been a powder keg for such a turmoil following nearly a century of urban violence, displacement and exploitation.

The two men behind Moonlight - filmmaker Barry Jenkins and playwright Tarell Alvin McCraney - both grew up in Liberty City and their rendering of this history is just as nuanced as the documents unearthed in city and county archives. But the importance of that fact doesnt stop on Oscars night. Their depiction of this world should also serve as a reminder that there exist thousands more stories like those so powerfully portrayed in Moonlight.

Historians explain how the past informs the present

Julio Capo, Jr. is assistant professor of history at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst and currently a visiting scholar at the United States Studies Centre at the University of Sydney. His book on Miamis queer past, Welcome to Fairyland, is forthcoming from the University of North Carolina Press.

This article was originally published on TIME.com
MOSUL, Iraq  When they heard that there would be airstrikes on their neighborhood in eastern Mosul, Waad Ahmad al-Tai and his family did exactly as they were told.

We followed the instructions of the government, which told us, Stay in your homes and avoid displacement, he said. We heard these instructions on the radio.  Also leaflets were dropped by planes. This is why we stayed in our homes.

Shortly afterward, the bombs came raining down. As the terrified al-Tai family huddled together, the house next door collapsed on them. Six people were killed there on the morning of Nov. 7, 2016, including Waads 3-year-old daughter and 9-year-old son.

As I traveled through eastern Mosul earlier this month, I heard versions of this story again and again from families who had lost relatives in airstrikes carried out by the U.S.-led coalition against the Islamic State. Filled with rage and grief, Mosul residents described how they were expressly told to stay in their homes and were then bombed inside them.

Amnesty International has repeatedly documented such incidents since the beginning of the military campaign last October. Now, Mosul has seemingly witnessed a surge in civilian deaths, with reports that airstrikes on March 17 killed more than 100 residents in the al-Jadidah neighborhood of western Mosul. Iraqi authorities initially said the civilian deaths resulted from an Islamic State attack, but U.S. military sources have since stated that the United States probably had a role and that they have opened an investigation.

Urban warfare is always fraught with dangers for the civilian population, and it would be naive to hope that the military operation to recapture Mosul from almost three years of brutal Islamic State rule could pass without civilian casualties. The question is whether all possible precautions have been taken to minimize harm to civilians. Instructions by the Iraqi authorities advising Mosul residents to remain in their homes, even if they were well intentioned, may have resulted in avoidable casualties.

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Before the military campaign it was extremely difficult for Mosul residents, estimated to number more than 1 million, to leave the city. Those caught trying to leave by the Islamic State risked brutal punishment or even death. Since the operation to retake the city began in October, nearly 300,000 Iraqis have been displaced from their homes.

Mosul is seen as the prize in the Iraqi battle against the Islamic State, but many residents told me they feel abandoned. Some Moslawis wondered aloud if these instructions were issued because the Iraqi government and the international community did not want the burden of looking after even more displaced people. This would be an unbelievably inhumane calculation  but walking around Mosul, its easy to see why people living there feel as if they are the last priority.

Life in Mosul is full of horrors. Many residents expressed acute despair at the Iraqi authorities and international communitys failure to provide support to recently recaptured areas, describing how they were left to dig through mountains of rubble with their bare hands looking for the bodies of their loved ones.

While surveying the site of an airstrike in Hay al-Dhubbat, a neighborhood in eastern Mosul, I came across a head in the rubble. Survivors and relatives at the scene said a green scarf identified it as that of a woman who was killed with her elderly parents in a coalition airstrike on Jan. 10. Elsewhere in the city, bodies of dead Islamic State fighters lay amid the rubble and on street corners, some partly eaten by stray dogs.

Mosuls residents also have to cope with the fact that much of the citys infrastructure  notably water and electricity networks  is in ruins. Women and children have resorted to hauling carts with water containers to distribution points, but even then residents have to use it sparingly. We get enough for drinking and cooking, but there is not much left for washing, one resident told me. More than two months after the area was recaptured, there is virtually no functioning medical facility in eastern Mosul. A few small clinics provide the most rudimentary primary care  hardly sufficient for a war zone.

Doctors and nurses there say they are working without salaries and with a severe shortage of drugs and equipment. At one clinic, staff showed me how two out of their three ambulances had broken down. People who have suffered horrible injuries are sometimes forced to go weeks or even months without proper care.

Not surprisingly, people are furious at so much destruction and question the timing and methods of the operation in Mosul.

The Dawaish [Islamic State militants] were everywhere, and there was absolutely nothing we could do about it, said Mohammed, a resident of the Hay al-Dhubbat district who lost several relatives in a coalition airstrike. If you challenged them, they would kill you. They ran this city for two and a half years, and they were rarely targeted during all that time.  Why now [are they] destroying our homes with our families inside, just to eliminate two or three Dawaish on the roof?

The killing of entire families in their homes casts serious doubt on the coalitions choice of targets and weapons. The Islamic States use of human shields is well-documented. Those carrying out strikes are aware of the risk to civilians and must take all feasible precautions to minimize harm. So why are Islamic State fighters who have forced their way onto rooftops or into courtyards of civilian areas being targeted with large bombs that flatten houses?

No wonder many people told me they feel as if they are paying for the crimes of the Islamic State. One man described the horrific moment his 5-year-old son was killed by shrapnel from a mortar fired, likely by Iraqi forces, into a densely populated civilian area: His head was almost completely severed.

Such tragic loss of life might not have been entirely preventable, but more could and should be done to reduce the risk as much as possible. The recent announcement of an investigation into the reported 150 civilian deaths by the U.S.-led coalition is welcome but long overdue. Its crucial that this be independent, and more transparent and effective than other recent U.S. military investigations into high civilian-casualty attacks have been.

After the U.S. bombing of an MSF hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan, which killed 42 and injured 43 in October 2015, an investigation was carried out as a result of intense international pressure but resulted in little more than a few administrative punishments. From the published findings, it is unclear why the attack was allowed to go ahead.

Disturbing questions continue to be raised about decisions made by Iraqi and coalition forces, and someone must answer them. If the futures of the people of Mosul, those who have suffered most under the Islamic States tyranny, are not taken into account, victory would ring hollow indeed.

Photo credit: BULENT KILIC/AFP/Getty Images
Four-star military general Daniel McMahon has been posted to Afghanistan and put in charge of US operations there -- a mission unlike any other he's been involved in. Based on a true story, "War Machine" is heading for a digital debut on May 26, 2017.

With nonfiction war account "The Operators" as its basis, and with some names changed, "War Machine" stars Brad Pitt as General McMahon, a highly respected army officer given the task of sorting out the US Army's predicament after eight years in Afghanistan.

But the rules of this conflict, and the conflicting aims of those involved, are not straightforward.

With Ben Kingsley ("Iron Man 3"), Tilda Swinton ("Doctor Strange"), John Magaro ("The Finest Hours"), Scoot McNairy ("Batman v Superman") and Topher Grace ("Spider-Man 3") among the supporting cast, Pitt plays McMahon, who replaces the central character from "The Operators," real-life general Stanley McChrystal, and Anthony Michael Hall plays Greg Pulver (in the book, General Mike Flynn).

Australian director David Michod of crime thriller "Animal Kingdom" steered the film.

War Machine official trailer: youtu.be/a9Jg20Ukf4E
Rio de Janeiro (AFP) - Only one in 10 Brazilians think President Michel Temer's government is doing a good job, according to a new poll Friday.

The Ibope poll commissioned by Brazil's National Confederation of Industry found just 31 percent consider Temer's government is doing an acceptable job, while 55 percent call the performance bad or terrible, and 10 percent said it was good or excellent.

The result maintained the downward slide of Temer's popularity. In December, the same polling organization found 13 percent considered he was doing a good job and in October it was 14 percent.

Temer took over last year after the impeachment of leftist president Dilma Rousseff, who was found guilty of illegal government accounting tricks.

He has promised to restore the economy to health after two years of recession, but his center-right government is no more popular than Rousseff's.

The new poll found that 38 percent of respondents think there is no difference in performance between the two governments, while 41 percent consider it's doing worse.

Despite government predictions of economic recovery within months, Brazil's jobless rate shot to 13.2 percent over the last quarter, the state statistics office said Friday.

The unemployment rate for December through February jumped from 12.6 percent in the previous quarter, which had been a third higher than the unemployment figures a year earlier.

This amounts to 13.5 million people out of work, the Brazilian Geography and Statistics Institute (IBGE) said. That's 1.4 million more than in the previous quarter and 3.4 million more than in the same period a year earlier.

Brazil's economy shrank 3.8 percent in 2015 and is expected to have contracted a further 3.5 percent in 2016, the most painful recession in a century.

However, the government and central bank forecast a modest return to growth in 2017. This will be boosted, Temer says, by far-reaching reforms intended to cut the deficit, reduce longterm spending and force fiscal responsibility.
By Anthony Boadle BRASILIA (Reuters) - The world's largest meatpacker, Brazil's JBS SA, has for years knowingly bought cattle that were raised on illegally deforested land, turning a blind eye to regulations meant to protect the Amazon rainforest, Brazil's environmental regulator has alleged. The accusation comes even as JBS and other meatpackers in Brazil, the top global exporter of beef, are reeling from a corruption scandal. Police allege bribery of health inspectors to overlook unsanitary conditions and forgo inspections. JBS has denied wrongdoing and sought to assure consumers that its products meet rigorous quality standards. Earlier this month, the environmental agency, IBAMA, ordered the suspension of two JBS meat packing plants and 13 others in southwest Para state for buying cattle raised on pastures cleared by slashing and burning the forest. It fined the company 24 million reais ($7.7 million). JBS denied purchasing livestock from ranchers on land blacklisted by IBAMA and won an injunction from a federal judge allowing its plants to continue buying cattle. The agency is appealing the ruling. Brazilian authorities have long said cattle ranching is responsible for more destruction of the Amazon than any other activity. The world's largest rainforest is considered one of the best natural defenses against global warming. JBS is the only major Brazilian meatpacker involved in both the inspection scandal and the rainforest protection probe. IBAMA said no other big meatpackers are targeted in its Amazon operation. IBAMA said JBS bought 49,438 illegal cattle between 2013 and 2016, half of those directly from embargoed pastures and the remainder by three-way "laundering" transactions to disguise the source. "They knew what they were doing," said Hindemberg Cruz, IBAMA's executive manager in Maraba, a badly deforested area of Para. "We confirmed this was happening in 2013 and it continues to happen in 2016." Cruz spoke to Reuters by phone from Maraba this week. In its latest operation, IBAMA said 84 percent of the animals detected as coming from deforested lands were bought by JBS. In an emailed statement, JBS said it had no way of knowing where cattle were raised when supplied by a legal rancher who may have bought the herd from an embargoed ranch. Emails exchanged in 2014 between deforestation researchers and a JBS executive, reviewed by Reuters, showed the company knew such cattle purchases were a problem for the industry despite a self-policing commitment JBS and other firms made in 2009. In the exchange with JBS director of sustainability Marcio Nappo, researcher Daniela Alarcon asked if the company was aware it was buying cattle raised on blacklisted land but later moved to clean pastures. The problem, Nappo replied, "is structural and goes beyond the ability of one single company to resolve." Mauricio Torres, an environmentalist who teaches at the Federal University of Western Para, said the emails showed JBS took advantage of the "laundering" of herds, which has become a common practice in the Amazon. JBS said in an email sent to Reuters this week that any supplier found not to comply with JBS's strict standards was blocked and became ineligible to sell livestock to the company. "JBS does not currently purchase and has not purchased any animals from the suppliers on the list of areas embargoed by IBAMA," it said. The company said it did not have access to the government's system for tracking animals, and called for more readily available information on blacklisted deforested areas. Cruz, however, said this information was easily accessible on the internet. Brazil adopted self-policing measures following a spike in deforestation, when Greenpeace threatened to name meatpackers who bought cattle grazing on razed rainforest. Publicly traded companies like JBS in 2009 began using the same satellite data the government utilizes to track rainforest clearings, which should allow them to see if a ranch shows signs of recent deforestation. The measure helped bring about a drastic decrease in beef originating from deforested land. However, Amazon deforestation is rebounding from a record low in 2012. IBAMA's Cruz said the onus should be on the meat companies to check their livestock sources properly with modern technology available today and crosscheck with satellite imagery publicly posted on the agency's website. "They should be asking more questions," Cruz said. (Additional reporting by Lunae Parracho in Santarem and Paulo Prada in Rio de Janeiro; Editing by Matthew Lewis)
On Wednesday, the British government began the formal process of exiting the European Union. In a speech to the House of Commons in London, Prime Minister Theresa May said that invoking Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty was a historic moment, from which there can be no turning back and a great turning point in our national story.

For once, May was right. Brexit does indeed mark a momentous point of no return for Britain. But the truth is that she cannot possibly deliver on her 12-point list of priorities for Brexit, which includes building a fairer society, spreading economic opportunity, and facilitating a smooth, orderly transition out of the EU. With fresh demands for a second independence referendum in Scotland and a fracturing peace process in Northern Ireland to contend with, its far more likely that Mays first order of business will be crisis control.

By triggering Brexit, Mays government has unleashed months of uncertainty on the British people, pursuing a course of action that will leave them less secure, less prosperous, and lead to more division between the pro- and anti-Brexit camps. These divisions are not between the north and south, city and country, but are within families. The ugly reality has begun to sink in: Nationalism is driving the country to a very hard Brexit that no one chose.

In the months ahead, many Brits who voted to leave the EU following a two-year divorce will not feel they have taken back their country. And regions that voted to leave, such as Wales, will be the hardest hit by Brexits economic impact. May has laid out a new industrial strategy to boost the British economy, but most businesses remain cautious about Brexits potential for improving their economic prospects. The failure to secure a trade deal between Britain and European nations before leaving the EU would be a disaster, they say. Britain, quite simply, has a numbers problem: It is one medium-sized country negotiating against 27 member states. The EU also has an ample supply of trade negotiators that will dwarf anything Britain can muster.

While Mays government rebuilds its trade relationships with Europe, it will simultaneously be dismantling its 44-year legal relationship with the EU. Thousands of EU laws on the books in Britain will have to be revoked, and the U.K. will have to replace existing EU laws with a so-called Great Repeal Bill, which also gives sweeping powers to ministers to tweak these laws. This process will grind down the British civil service. Certainly, it will be among the most significant challenges British officials have ever faced, and it is unclear if Mays government has the skills to pull it off.

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As Britain works to excise EU law from its constitution, those it is leaving behind seem disinclined to make life easy for May. Within hours of triggering Article 50, German Chancellor Angela Merkel rejected her chief demand to both agree on the terms of a divorce and hold a parallel negotiation of a future EU-U.K. relationship. Before the EU can discuss such a future, Merkel said, talks must first clarify how we will disentangle our interlinked relationship. May, in turn, warned EU leaders, saying that a failure to reach a deal with Britain would weaken cooperation on security and law enforcement. This veiled threat sparked a series of acrimonious reactions from EU officials, who said that May was, in effect, blackmailing them.

May certainly seems to believe she is operating from a position of strength, declaring in January she would rather do no deal on trade with the EU than a bad deal for Britain. But EU member states have little reason to give much ground to her demands, or to fear for the unions further dissolution. Since the Brexit referendum, anti-EU sentiment in France, Germany, and the Netherlands, has been largely contained, with the recent defeat of the Eurosceptic party of the pro-Brexit Geert Wilders suggesting that the eulogies for the union may have been premature. Moreover, in countries such Denmark, support for the EU has actually grown since June. In all likelihood, European nations will band together to force a bad deal on Britain in order to protect European unity and defend their core principles. Perhaps May got the message: In recent days she has backed off her threat to leave the EU without a deal, after the government realized this would wreak economic havoc.

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Mays behavior is emblematic of the hubris of the pro-Brexit camp, who, before the referendum last June sold the British public a falsehood about a more prosperous, fair, and global Britain outside the EU, empowered to determine its own destiny on its own terms. This is a pipe dream; the reality is that whatever deal Britain gets will be determined by the EU.

Today, President of the European Council Donald Tusk made clear the EUs draft negotiation position. Once, and only once we have achieved sufficient progress on the withdrawal, can we discuss the framework for our future relationship. Starting parallel talks will not happen, he said. This essentially rules out Mays key objective of negotiating a parallel trade deal as Britain settles the terms of its divorce from the EU. Tusk also made clear that the EUnot the U.K.would decide when sufficient progress had been made, a stance echoed by French President Francois Hollande. EU leaders may well feel that Britain needs to be punished to dissuade other EU member states from leaving, as recent reporting has suggested. But today, Tusk said the EU would not punish the U.K. because Brexit is punishment enough.

So far, May has shown contempt for younger Brits who wished to stay a part of the EU.

Despite evidence to the contrary, May, curiously, talks of Brexit as if it will bring Britain closer to the global community. She has called for a global Britain that will be a fairer society. I want us to be a secure, prosperous, tolerant countrya magnet for international talent and a home to the pioneers and innovators who will shape the world ahead, she said on Wednesday. But post-Brexit referendum, Britain has become less, not more, tolerant. Hate and religious crimes recorded by police in England and Wales rose 41 percent after Britain voted to quit the EU.

In Mays vision, leaving the EU  is this generations chance to shape a brighter future for our country, as she said in her speech on Wednesday. That generation, of course, largely rejected Brexit, with 75 percent of 18 to 24 year olds and 56 percent of 25 to 49 year olds voting to remain; the majority of the over-65s in Britain voted to leave.

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So far, May has shown contempt for younger Brits like me who wished to stay a part of the EU. At last years Conservative Party Conference, May dismissed those who still believe Britain has made a mistake in leaving the EU as just patronizing members of a liberal metropolitan elite. This is not case: 16 million, or 48 percent, of all Brits voted to remain in the EU. Now that the country is headed for a hard Brexit, theres no one to speak up for them, with the Labour Party falling apart and Britains liberal center in decline.

For me, a refugee who came to Britain as a child from Somalia escaping war and famine who has struggled to become British, the decision to leave the EU is a decision to reject a body of shared, European values. The Britain of multiculturalism, open to the world, is now in real danger, replaced by one keen to blame migrants, progressive politics, and diversity, for its ills. The country I wanted so much to belong to is a memory.

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This article was originally published on The Atlantic.
Ottawa (AFP) - Prime Minister Justin Trudeau promised Friday to explain to the Trump administration the importance of free trade between Canada and the United States, particularly for jobs.

US President Donald Trump is threatening to target countries, including Canada, that contribute to America's substantial trade deficit -- a move being taken as a protectionist warning shot.

The United States is Canada's biggest trading partner, with a trade surplus on merchandise alone last year of Can$32.5 billion (US$24.4 billion).

Trudeau said it was "extremely important" to work with the Trump administration on the issue, without dramatizing the US decision to target Canada along with more than a dozen other countries.

"The United States regularly assess their trade partners, there is nothing particularly new about this," Trudeau told a press conference.

"We know the conversations we will be having on how we can improve trade, freedom to send goods of services people across the border. It's good for both of our countries," he said.

"We emphasize with the Americans... that there are many jobs in Canada that create jobs in the United States and vice versa. We do better when we have open and robust relationships in international trade."

He said the neighboring countries had "a very positive working relationship" to ensure good jobs on both sides of the boder.

Canada is linked to the United States and Mexico through the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) which Trump wants to renegotiate.

The Canadian premier said the agreement "has been improved upon."

He said good jobs on both US and Canadian soil "rely on the smooth and efficient flow of goods and services and people" across the border, adding that "growth for the middle class" was a shared goal.

In addition to an ongoing conflict over US curbs on imports of Canadian timber, dairy products are also a source of discord between the two partners.

Trump is set to sign an executive order Friday requiring staff to pinpoint countries and goods responsible for America's nearly $50 billion a month trade deficit.
TORONTO (AP)  Canada will extend its current military contribution to the fight against the Islamic State group in Iraq until June 30.

Defense Minister Harjit S. Sajjan said Friday that the three-month extension will enable the government to assess the evolving nature of the fight and Canada's contributions as a coalition partner. Canada's mission was to wrap up at the end of March.

The minister says the Canadian military recently has been operating in eastern Mosul, providing advice and assistance to the Iraqi Security Forces. The nearly 200 members of the Canadian special forces in northern Iraq are helping the military there free the city's western half.

Canada previously had largely avoided Mosul, working instead with Kurdish forces to the north and east.

Weeks of bloody fighting have failed to dislodge IS.
By George Obulutsa BURAO, Somalia (Reuters) - Deadly cholera is spreading through drought-ravaged Somalia as clean water sources dry up, a top aid official said, deepening a humanitarian crisis in a country that is on the verge of famine. The Horn of Africa nation has recorded more than 18,000 cases of cholera so far this year, up from around 15,000 in all of 2016 and 5,000 in a normal year, Johan Heffinck, the Somalia head of EU Humanitarian Aid, said in an email on Thursday. The current strain of the disease is unusually deadly, killing around 1 in 45 patients. Somalia is suffering from a severe drought that means more than half of its 12 million citizens are expected to need aid by July. Families have been forced to drink slimy, infected water after the rains failed and wells and rivers dried up. "We are very close to famine," Heffinck said. The Security Information Network (FSIN), which is co-sponsored by the United Nations food agency, said in a report on Friday Somalia was one of four African countries at high risk of famine. Somalia's rainy season normally runs from March to May, but there has been no rain this month. The drought has hit particularly hard in the breakaway northern region of Somaliland, where the rains began to fail in 2015, killing off animals that nomadic families rely on to survive. 'THIS IS THE LAST BOTTLE' Listless, skinny children last week lay in crowded wards in the main hospital in the regional capital Hargeisa. Three-year-old Nimaan Hassid had diarrhea for 20 days before his mother brought him to hospital. He weighs only 6.5 kilograms, less than half the normal weight for his age. Doctors say he is suffering from severe malnutrition but his grandmother, 60-year-old Fadumo Hussein, told Reuters the family has no money for food or clean water. "We dont have mineral water to give to the sick child. This is the last bottle," she said, carefully pouring it into a feeding tube inserted through his nose. In the malnutrition ward in the general hospital of Somaliland's second city Burao, doctor Hamud Ahmed said children were also being hit hard by diseases like tuberculosis, meningitis and measles. Children's admissions reached almost 60 in March, up fourfold from October. "This is due to the drought," Ahmed said. "When families lose all their livestock and children do not get milk, this is the famine that causes the children to suffer." If the rains fail, the country could tip into famine. Somalia's last famine, in 2011, killed more than 260,000 people. Heffinck said aid agencies were working overtime to try to prevent a similar disaster, trucking in clean water and stepping up the distribution of food and cash. "The big difference this time is that we have started the preparation and scaling up of the relief operations earlier," he said. (Additional reporting by Abdirahman Hussein; editing by Katharine Houreld and John Stonestreet)
Commercial property owners could be in for some sticker shock when they receive the citys new property assessments in mid-April.

The taxable portion of the assessed value of Philadelphias 60,000 commercial, industrial, and hotel buildings, as well as other nonresidential properties, went up by 50 percent -- from $30.23 billion to $45.3 billion -- with the reassessments, an increase that will contribute to an expected $118 million in new tax revenue to be split between the city and School District.

The city has no plans to immediately spend its portion. Officials say the money will be reserved for use if funding cuts threatened by the Trump administration come to fruition.

This is the first full reassessment of commercial properties since the controversial Actual Value Initiative (AVI) in 2014, which uses market values as the assessment standard.

The goal was not only to ensure the assessed values more accurately reflect sales and market forces, but to also to reduce value inequities among comparable properties, Michael Piper, chief assessment officer, said.

The market value of all 580,000 city properties -- residential and commercial -- grew by $17 billion this year to $153 billion, with the biggest increases coming from hotel, apartment, and commercial buildings.

Of that total market value, $111.3 billion is taxable property, a 15 percent increase from last year, according to city estimates. The total property-tax revenue for the city is expected to be $653 million. Nearly $800 million will go to the School District.

The Chamber of Commerce for Greater Philadelphia, whose members are likely to be impacted by the city's reassessments, declined to comment.

The new assessments, which were finished last week, are not yet reflected in the citys five-year plan. City Finance Director Rob Dubow estimates that there will be a 20 percent decrease in the total taxable assessed value due to appeals. Dubow is also counting on a 93 percent collection rate. In all, the new assessments are expected to pump $54 million in new tax revenue into the citys coffers.

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Our recommendation is going to be, that money is reserved as a contingency against what may or may not happen with the federal budget, Dubow said.

Philadelphia has the advantage of being exempt from a state law that requires property reassessments to be revenue-neutral.

The School District is estimated to receive $65 million in new tax revenue. The additional revenue has the potential to close by one-third a projected $900 million budget deficit in the districts five-year plan, announced last week.

"It is good news for the schoolchildren of Philadelphia whenever we can identify new, recurring, and reliable revenues, Uri Monson, the districts chief financial officer, said in a statement.

The district learned of the additional revenue Thursday.

Monson said that once the district is fully briefed by the city, the districts five-year plan will be updated.

City Controller Alan Butkovitz said Friday that he had not yet been briefed on the new assessments and therefore declined to comment until he has the new data.

Similar to last years residential property reassessment, which increased values by $2.2 billion and pumped an extra $14 million into the citys general fund, commercial properties also saw an increase in the land portion of taxable assessments.

Piper, the chief assessment officer, said that as a category, hotels saw the highest increase in value, largely because of the increasing number of hotels going up in the city.

Individual data on the new property assessments were expected to go live on property.phila.gov late Friday. The city will mail notices on April 14 to property owners who had a change in assessment.

Anthony Campisi, spokesman for a coalition fighting the city's sweetened-beverage tax, said the city should fix the its property-tax system "before imposing regressive new taxes to take money out of the pockets of working families."

"The city could fund many of the mayors new initiatives, including expanded pre-K, with reliable revenue -- which will increase when the city reassesses residential properties," he said.

The city reassessed the land value of all residential properties last year and is planning annual reassessments of all 580,000 properties starting next year.

Councilman Allan Domb, a real estate mogul whose campaign platform included fixing the citys assessment system, said he knows some property owners will be pained by the increases. But he said many of those owners have for years received a tremendous advantage due to their properties being underassessed.

I know one example where someone five years ago paid $40 million to the city for a piece of land. And we had it assessed at $4.5 million, he said. I realize it may be sticker shock, but for five years we didn't get the right money.

Domb stressed that the new revenue should be placed in reserves, something he said he hopes will lead to the citys bond ratings being raised, ultimately lowering the citys cost of borrowing.

City Council and the mayor cant spend this money, he said.

Staff writer Anthony R. Wood contributed to this article.

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Hillary Clinton took aim on Friday at President Trumps proposed cuts to U.S. foreign aid and diplomacy.

Speaking at a Georgetown University awards ceremony for four women who facilitated the 2016 Colombian peace agreement, the former U.S. secretary of state declared, We are seeing signals of a shift that should alarm us all.

According to Reuters tabulation, Trumps proposed budget contains a 28 percent cut for U.S. diplomacy and foreign aid next year. The document is merely a blueprint, and Congress will ultimately set its own funding priorities. Clinton made her position clear.

This administrations proposed cuts to international health level and diplomacy would be a blow to women and children and a grave mistake for our country, she said.

Standing up for the rights and opportunities for women and girls must be a cornerstone of American global leadership, Trumps former Democratic rival argued.

She also pointed out that more than 120 retired U.S. generals and admirals recently signed a letter to Trump, urging him not to slash spending on diplomacy and foreign aid. These top U.S. military brass recognize that turning our back on diplomacy wont make our country safer. It will undermine our security and our standing in the world, she said.

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton speaks at Georgetown University on Friday. (Photo: Kevin Lamarque/Reuters)

Clintons remarks at Georgetown followed a speech before thousands of businesswomen in San Francisco earlier this week  one of her first since losing the election to Trump in November  and in both cases she alternated between throwing sharp critiques at the current administration and poking fun at herself.

Here I go again, talking about research, evidence, and facts, Clinton laughed, eliciting cheers and applause from the crowd as she cited studies on the influential role of women in peace negotiations.

Advancing the rights and full participation of women and girls, she continued, is not just a nice thing to do, but rather, strategic and necessary for matters of peace, prosperity and security.

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It is not a partisan issue, she insisted. Its a human issue.

In another possible jab at Trump, Clinton stated, If we are to build more just, free and peaceful countries and indeed a world, its not enough just to pay lip service to empowering women. Earlier this week, both the president and first lady Melania Trump spoke about womens empowerment at events marking the end of Womens History Month.

Clinton concluded, I am pleading that our government will continue its leadership role on behalf of peace in the world, because the world must continue this work with or without U.S. involvement.

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Washington (AFP) - Former secretary of state Hillary Clinton, slowly emerging from post-election seclusion, slammed President Donald Trump Friday for proposing budget cuts to US diplomacy and foreign aid, calling it a "grave mistake."

"We are seeing signals of a shift that truly alarms us all," the former Democratic presidential candidate told hundreds of students at Georgetown University in Washington.

"This administration's proposed cuts in international health, development and diplomacy would be a blow to women and children and a grave mistake for our country," said the Democrat, who ran the State Department from 2009 to 2013.

Trump wants to slash the US diplomatic budget by 28 percent, although Congress will have the final say.

Clinton also pointed to the rise in the number of global refugees, and warned it is "not just somebody else's problem."

"I am pleading that our government will continue its leadership role on behalf of peace in the world," she said, "because the world must continue this work with or without US involvement."

Clinton said today's "complex and interconnected world" requires continued American leadership on multiple fronts, not merely a focus on one or two priorities.

"Will we be left behind or will we continue to lead the way?" she asked.

Clinton was at Georgetown to present awards in her name to four Colombians who helped advance the role of women in peace and security.

The former candidate and first lady received a warm welcome from the students, who chanted "Hillary! Hillary!" as she took the stage.

The 69-year-old former candidate offered a few jabs about the extraordinary 2016 presidential race, drawing extended applause when she said, "Here I go again, talking about research, evidence and facts."

She also mocked the phrase of a Trump advisor when she said stereotypes about women "belongs to the alternative reality."

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After her bitter defeat last November, Clinton largely disappeared from public view. When she took a selfie with someone she bumped into while walking in the woods outside her Chappaqua, New York home, the photograph went viral.

In the months since, she has emerged to attend Broadway shows, where she has received ovations and adulation from supporters.

She has also begun delivering speeches, including an address Tuesday at a businesswomen's conference in San Francisco where she criticized the shortage of women in Trump's inner circle, and pledged to keep speaking out about issues that matter.

"I am thrilled to be out of the woods, in the company of so many inspiring women," she said. "And there's no place I'd rather be than here with you -- other than the White House."
Imagine a President who is convinced that the media, the Washington bureaucracy (led by the State and Defense Departments), and the Washington D.C. establishment are completely against him and must be treated as enemies.

When the New York Times or the Washington Post prints a story he does not like, he orders his entire staff to avoid all contacts with their reporters until further notice. He attempts to centralize all power in the White House, particularly with respect to foreign affairs and defense policy, and often keeps his Secretary of State in ignorance of what diplomacy he is conducting. The President also has strong feelings about certain ethnic groups, which he vents in telephone calls to his staff. He does not trust the FBI to carry out critical national security investigations. He also has strong feelings about criminals, and at one point announces, in the middle of a celebrated murder trial, that the accused is guilty. He bluntly attacks judicial decisions with which he disagrees. In the evening, after long days of work, the president often records his feelings, railing again and again at the rich and famous who have always had it in for him. He is obsessed with the adulation showered upon his predecessor, who in the opinion at least of some of his faithful supporters was never rightfully entitled to the White House at all. Late in his first successful campaign for President, this man engaged in secret negotiations with a foreign nation that helped torpedo a diplomatic initiative that might have caused him to lose the election.

Six weeks into the Presidency of Donald Trump, readers will not be able to make it through that paragraph without a certain sense of deja vu. For example, Trump routinely attacks key federal agencies, including the FBI and CIA, and rushed through his first Executive Order restricting immigration without consulting key bureaucracies. But it is not about him. The President in question came from Trumps parents generation, not his own. It was Richard Nixon.

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Comparisons between Nixon and Trump are already numerous, from commentators ranging from Carl Bernstein to Stephen Colbert. The Late Show has even joked that Trump receives social-media counseling from Nixons ghost. But Nixon came from a different time and governed a very different America. Therefore, until the Watergate scandal really became critical in early 1973, Nixons presidency went very differently from the way Donald Trumps has so far, reflecting key differences between that time and this one.

To begin with, despite the controversies over civil rights, urban riots, student revolts and the Vietnam War that dominated the late 1960s and early 70s, the nation was still ruled by a bipartisan political establishment that agreed on the essentials of domestic and foreign policy. Nixon bowed to the views of that establishment when he began de-escalating the Vietnam War about a year into his presidency, and he also went along with big domestic changes with which he personally disagreed, such as the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency. The Congress also blocked some of his moves, such as his two attempts to put conservative white southerners with dubious qualifications onto the Supreme Court.

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Nixon had some relatively extreme conservative views and prejudices, but he generally governed as a centrist because he really had no choice. And in foreign policy, at least as regards relations with the great Communist powers of the USSR and China, he stood slightly to the left of center, opening up relations with Beijing and reaching arms-control agreements with the USSR.

The nature of the times also led Nixon and his staff, critically, to keep his personal behavior under wraps. His staff obviously understood that they had to blow off many of his more extreme requests. For example, on one occasion documented in the HBO documentary Nixon in his Own Words, Nixon-using a religious slur in the process-demanded that an Immigration and Naturalization Service employee be removed from his job after the man announced a raid that had uncovered illegal immigrants in the employ of a Nixon campaign donor-but apparently nothing happened. Nixons orders to shut off major media outlets were often honored in the breach, as well. Even during Watergate, the staff-now reduced to a loyal remnant-refused his requests to leak damaging information about past administrations to the press. Although in secret, Nixons paranoia eventually led to the Watergate break-in and the cover-up that destroyed his presidency, in public, everyone understood that a President simply could not give vent to his deepest, bitterest thoughts. (Lyndon Johnson and his staff had known this too, and Johnsons earlier knee-jerk accusations that reporters who wrote damaging stories were Communists did not come to light for many years either.)

For several decades now, however, we have celebrated outrageous behavior, and now anyone from the President to the average citizen can broadcast his spontaneous thoughts and feelings to the entire world with a few keystrokes. It took years for the content of the Nixon tapes to become public but, thanks to Twitter, President Trumps ideas can be conveyed instantaneously. And those tweets, in addition to giving vent to the Presidents thoughts, can also distract the media from other problems in the administration in a way that Nixon might envy.

Trump has already expressed contempt for court decisions and raised questions about his conception of executive powers. If he does exceed his constitutional powers, alas, the chances of the other branches of government restraining or removing him, as they did with Nixon, are not as good. Trump, unlike Nixon, is dealing with friendly majorities in both houses of Congress. The Democrats in 1973-4 combined partisan feeling with civic virtue, and enough Republicans eventually joined with them to ensure Nixons removal from office. So far nearly all of todays Congressional Republicans have gone along with the Trump White Houses ideas and oppose broad inquiries into his campaigns possible wrongdoing. Meanwhile, Trumps unrestrained campaign rhetoric has continued apace now that hes in the White House, showing that the U.S. is in a perilous state. The abuse of free speech may be a right, but it is also a grave danger.

Historians explain how the past informs the present

David Kaiser, a historian, has taught at Harvard, Carnegie Mellon, Williams College, and the Naval War College. He is the author of seven books, including, most recently, No End Save Victory: How FDR Led the Nation into War. He lives in Watertown, Mass.

This article was originally published on TIME.com
This post is in partnership with History Today. The article below was originally published at History Today.

The concept of the fact first appears in Renaissance Latin, but the word only entered common usage in the 1660s. The Royal Society, founded in November 1660, was dedicated to experimental knowledge and declared that it would concern itself with facts not explanations. Facts became part of a modern vocabulary for discussing knowledge - also including theories, hypotheses, evidence and experiments - which emerged in the 17th century. All these words existed before, but with different meanings: experiment, for example, simply meant experience.

Alongside this new conception of facts, a philosophical discussion developed about what they actually were. David Hume (1711-76) was the first philosopher of the fact. Hume argued that facts belonged in a separate category from necessary truths. It is necessarily true, for example, that all the angles of a triangle add up to two right angles. Facts, on the contrary, are contingent rather than necessary: that is, they could be otherwise. My name is David. My parents could have called me John, so it is a fact that I am called David. That facts are true is their most peculiar feature. You can have alternative theories and hypotheses, but not alternative facts. Facts that are successfully disputed cease to be facts, while theories that are successfully disputed continue to be theories.

That true statements about the real world have always existed is beyond dispute. But the categories into which we place such statements have not always existed. People have always been concerned to get what we call the facts right. The astronomer Johannes Kepler (1571-1630), for example, went to great lengths to get precise measurements of the location of Mars in the sky so he could calculate its orbit not approximately but exactly. In order to explain this obsession he had to use a Greek phrase: he wanted to find out to hoti that which is.

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But if true and precise statements are not new, why does the word fact and its definition as something that is true matter? One reason is that before there were facts there were authorities. If an important Greek or Roman author said the Babylonians cooked eggs by whirling them round in slings; or garlic disempowers magnets; or diamonds cannot be crushed into powder; or boats float higher in the water when they are farther from land; or the nerves originate in the heart, then this was considered to be necessarily true. In the course of the 17th century claims like these were routinely dismissed. For example, Galileo said: we have eggs, slings and strong young men. If we cannot cook eggs by whirling them round in slings then we can be sure the Babylonians could not. The key point about facts is that they trump authority: President Trump saying that the crowd at as his inauguration was the largest ever, cannot make it true.

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Indeed, before the invention of the fact, what we would regard as entirely illegitimate arguments regarding contingent true statements were held to have some validity. Thus, under Roman law, rumor and fama might help to prove guilt: gossip, hearsay and reputation could be introduced in court and could determine the outcome. The value of your evidence depended on who you were as well as what you knew: the evidence of a man was preferred to that of a woman, of a gentleman to that of a laborer. In English law, the jury in the 17th century was still supposed to use its own local knowledge to decide the case.

Why did authorities decline and become replaced by facts? In the 17th century the nature of information changed: as information became more reliable, authority became less so. New rules were established as to how to judge whether information was accurate: eyewitnesses became crucial; experiments had to be repeated; reports had to be cited and compared. The impact of the printing press drove this new skepticism, with vast amounts of information available for the first time. Sources could be accurately cited and new, accurate information could displace old, inaccurate information. Facts developed with a conviction that knowledge could progress. When Galileo was a professor in the 17th century he was required to teach astronomy from a 13th-century textbook. Even at the end of the 17th century, professors in Oxford were supposed to teach natural philosophy from the texts of Aristotle. These antiquated authorities originated in a manuscript culture which was swept away by print.

We now live in a digital age, in which information becomes fluid and variable. All that was solid has melted into air. In the print world, getting your facts right was about competence and care; now what the facts are depends on what date you access a website, or which website you visit. The nature of information has changed irreversibly.

On Tuesday Feb.7, I listened to an appeal court hearing on President Trumps executive order banning travel to the U.S. by people from certain countries. One issue was whether the ban was intended to discriminate against Muslims. Opponents of the ban cited newspaper articles quoting Donald Trump (before he was elected), which they claimed proved the true racially charged motives underlying the order. Lawyers for the government said it was inappropriate to use newspaper articles to contest an executive order made by the president. The judges asked if the government intended to introduce evidence to show the newspaper articles were false. They did not. They wanted simply to brush them aside. They wanted the court to be confined to the text of the executive order and insisted it should not look beyond that text. They wanted an appeal to the facts to be trumped by an appeal to authority.

Why is this happening? Because, it seems, we no longer trust the facts. The president tells us we cannot trust the mainstream media, while that same media says his supporters peddle fake news. For the first time there are facts and (in Kellyanne Conways notorious phrase) alternative facts. As facts become fluid they become contestable; the truth becomes (once again) something you assert, not something you prove. It used to be a peculiar characteristic of totalitarian regimes that they made the facts fit their purposes; now it seems this can happen in a functioning democracy. As the court pointed out in its judgement on Feb. 9, the government had repeatedly asserted that national security was at stake and that this was why its order should not be stayed, though it had produced no evidence to support this assertion. The courts appear to be trying to preserve standards of reliability and evidence that are being undermined in the digital age. Will they succeed? Only time will tell.

David Woottons most recent book, The Invention of Science, is published by Allen Lane.

This article was originally published on TIME.com
UNITED NATIONS (AP)  The U.N. Security Council voted unanimously Friday to cut 500 troops from the U.N. peacekeeping mission in Congo and improve its operations to focus on protecting civilians and enabling presidential elections this year  key steps urged by the Trump administration.

The French-drafted resolution is the first adopted since the U.S. began a review of the 16 U.N. peacekeeping missions as part of its plan to cut foreign aid and reform U.N. operations.

Its support by all 15 council members, after difficult negotiations, reflects widespread backing for the U.S. goal of streamlining the U.N.'s far-flung operations that deploy over 107,000 troops and civilians at an annual cost of over $7.8 billion.

The Congo mission, known as MONUSCO, is the biggest and costliest with a budget of $1.2 billion and about 22,400 people, including nearly 17,000 soldiers and over 1,350 police. The resolution will cut the number of troops by 500 but won't affect the number of police.

U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley told the council she was "very proud" that all members had voted to cut the troop ceiling and make the mission stronger and more effective. The U.N. force is going "to make sure the elections are safe, to make sure that we're keeping people safe, and that we're actually looking at the political problems on the ground," she said.

Later, Haley issued a statement saying: "It's not every day that the United Nations saves millions of dollars and improves accountability, while at the same time doing its essential work of protecting civilians. With the support of the Security Council, we are changing lives and the culture of the U.N. for the better."

France's U.N. Ambassador Francois Delattre said the unanimous adoption sends a message to Congo of Security Council unity and support for "stability and democracy" in the country which faces "political and security challenges."

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The vast Central African nation has seen widespread anger and unrest over President Joseph Kabila's stay in power after his mandate ended in December. Kabila is barred from running under a Dec. 31 election agreement that calls for elections by the end of 2017, but his government has delayed voting, saying preparations are not complete.

Congo also faces clashes in its mineral-rich east where scores of armed groups vying for control of gold and other resources are blamed for killing hundreds of civilians since October 2014. And violence has spread to other regions including Kasai.

The resolution authorizes the replacement of some troops with better-trained specialized units and gives the force a green light to intervene anywhere in the country if needed and not just in the volatile east. It calls for a strategic review in September, a move Haley called "one of the best things" because it will enable the council to make sure its actions are working "and meeting the goals that we had."

She said the resolution will also measure what troops are accomplishing, "where the troop failures are ... and to hold those troops accountable to do the best job that they can do."

The resolution, which extends MONUSCO's mandate until March 31, 2018, also calls for a dialogue between the U.N. and the Congolese government on an "exit strategy. It stresses that MONUSCO's exit should be "phased and progressive" and tied to specific targets.

At the start of Friday's council meeting, members stood in silent tribute to two U.N. experts killed while investigating alleged human rights violations by the Congolese army and local militia groups  American Michael Sharp and Swedish national Zaida Catalan  and all other victims of violence in the country. The bodies of Sharp, Catalan and their interpreter, Betu Tshintela, were found earlier this week but three other Congolese members of their team remain missing.

Haley told the Council on Foreign Relations on Wednesday that the United Nations is partnering with a "corrupt" government in Congo "that is inflicting predatory behavior against its own people."

In an interview Thursday with four news agencies, Haley said the U.N. is "trying to get aid to the people on the ground and the government's not letting us."

"We can't work in spite of the government," Haley said. "We need to actually hold the government accountable, and whether that's us moving forward on an arms embargo, whether its sanctions, we've got to do something to let them know this is not OK."

Congo's U.N. ambassador, Ignace Gata Mavita, welcomed "with satisfaction" the new mandate and arrangements for improving MONUSCO's effectiveness. But he said the government "does feel certain fears" at the council's failure to include the disarmament of armed groups and reform of the security and justice sectors as "strategic priorities."

In Congo, there are mixed feelings about the mission's future.

Rebels and militias are still attacking Congolese communities, and some question the strength of the U.N. force. Others point to peacekeepers accused of sexual exploitation and other abuses within the areas where they are posted.

In the northeastern town of Beni, some 1,500 peacekeepers from Tanzania, Malawi and South Africa have been on the front line with the Congolese military in an attempt to protect civilians from brutal rebel groups. Some, though, accuse the U.N. forces to doing too little.

Solange Mastaki fled to Beni back in 2015 after his hometown of Eringeti was attacked by Ugandan rebels from the group known as ADF.

"I lost my younger sister in this attack on Eringeti," he recalled Friday. "We had seen the rebels around 3 p.m. and had informed MONUSCO but they didn't intervene. We want them to go back where they came from because they do nothing here."

Still, Romain Paluku says he doesn't believe the solution is to reduce the U.N. headcount.

"We're still waiting for more soldiers to come track down and neutralize these armed groups," he said.

___

Associated Press writer Al-hadji Kudra Maliro in Beni, Congo, contributed to this report.
Not a buffalo in sight as businessman Haji Shadab paced the silent abattoir, his meat shipments indefinitely on hold as India reels from a crisis threatening its reputation as the world's largest buffalo meat exporter.

A zealous campaign to protect cows -- considered sacred by Hindus -- by a new right-wing government in Uttar Pradesh state has sent Indias $4.8 billion buffalo meat industry into a tailspin as slaughterhouses have closed and exports stalled.

Hindu hardliners have long accused abattoirs -- largely run by Muslims -- of covering up the slaughter of cows and passing off the meat as buffalo, which are not revered as holy.

In Uttar Pradesh, those radical Hindus have a new hero: Yogi Adityanath, a firebrand priest who took office in March promising tougher penalties for cow slaughter and a crackdown on illegal slaugtherhouses.

Just days after he was sworn in, three Muslim-run butcher shops in Hathras were torched -- a bad omen for Indias largest meat-producing state, home to more than half its abattoirs.

Police then began shutting butcheries, some of which had been operating for decades, for alleged violations of local laws, grinding Uttar Pradeshs entire buffalo meat industry to a halt.

Outraged butchers launched a statewide strike Monday, while for exporters like Shadab -- who ships around 70 tonnes of buffalo meat a day to Asia and the Middle East -- his supply of livestock dried up.

"We are not taking fresh orders from clients while the situation here is unclear," Shadab told AFP at his Meerut slaughterhouse, which employed 1,500 staff before he sent them home until further notice.

"But in the long term, buyers will certainly move to other countries if we can't deliver.

- Crippling impact -

The crippling buffalo shortage is being felt economy-wide in Uttar Pradesh, a state of 200 million where more than one in 10 are directly involved in meat and related businesses like leatherwork and transportation, industry figures show.

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In Lucknow, restaurants which have been selling buffalo kebabs for more than a century have pulled the signature dish from the menu, unable to source the meat.

You can see for yourself what impact this is having. Weve hardly got any customers, Yahaya Rizwan told AFP at his deserted eatery Mubeens.

Even the city zoo has resorted to feeding lions and tigers white meat to counter the buffalo shortage, said zoo director Anupam Gupta.

Cow slaughter is illegal in Uttar Pradesh and many other states, with some enforcing life sentences.

But it is Hindu vigilantes, emboldened by the government clamp down, that have businesses most on edge.

Farmers, wary of "cow protection" squads forcefully inspecting trucks for signs of the holy animal, were unwilling to make their usual deliveries, business owners told AFP.

They are a little scared, said DB Sabharwall from the Indian meat association.

Rumours of cow slaughter can spark murderous reprisals in the religiously divided state, where nearly one in five is Muslim.

Authorities insist the shutdowns are motivated by regulation, not religion, claiming only businesses without licences will be targeted.

But in a butcher's alley in Meerut, dozens of Muslim meat vendors proudly displayed their trading permits outside their shuttered shops.

"Everything was fine before Yogi came to power," said butcher Riyaz Babu Qureshi.

"We've never faced this situation before. Its terrible."

- Climate of fear -

Prime Minister Narendra Modis ruling party appointed Adityanath after winning Uttar Pradesh in a landslide, handing the reins of Indias most important state to an ideologue known for his inflammatory rhetoric against Muslims.

Modi has sought to keep his partys Hindu nationalism at arms length since taking power in 2014, but the slaughterhouse crackdown has raised doubts about his proclaimed commitment to economic growth and job creation.

This is totally anti-business. It will dent India's image globally, Shadab said.

Meat businessman Shahid Akhlaq, who sent 3,000 workers home when three of his factories were shut, expressed dismay that a witch-hunt over cows was taking precedence over their livelihoods.

"The government claims 'together for all, development for all', but we don't see that happening on the ground," Akhlaq told AFP, quoting Modi's campaign slogan.

"When you target a particular community, it definitely creates fear."
Geneva (AFP) - Authorities in Europe and Australia announced a sweeping tax evasion probe Friday reportedly targeting Credit Suisse clients and senior employees, as investigators detailed arrests and the seizure of artworks and gold.

There was no definitive confirmation that Credit Suisse was the main target of the fraud investigations, run by at least four European countries and Canberra and apparently involving hundreds of suspects.

The Swiss financial giant simply confirmed that its offices in London, Paris and Amsterdam had been visited by local authorities on Thursday "concerning client tax matters".

"We are cooperating with the authorities", Switzerland's number-two bank said in a statement.

Dutch prosecutors said dozens of people who allegedly concealed millions of euros were being probed for tax fraud and money laundering and that records were seized on Thursday from "a Swiss bank" which they did not name.

Similar operations were carried out in Britain, France, Germany and Australia, all focused on clients who "deposited their money in the same Swiss bank", according to a statement from the National Prosecutor's Office for Serious Fraud, Environmental Crime and Asset Confiscation (FIOD).

Two people accused of not declaring their savings have been arrested and two other suspects were interrogated, the FIOD said.

"Properties, and jewellery, an expensive car, expensive paintings and a gold bar", were seized from houses in The Hague and three other areas, the Dutch statement added.

- 'Senior employees' targeted -

Britain's Revenue and Customs office said that it on Thursday along with international partners had launched a criminal probe into tax evasion and money laundering "by a global financial institution".

"The first phase of the investigation, which will see further, targeted, activity over the coming weeks, is focused on senior employees from within the institution, along with a number of its customers," the statement from London said.

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It also made no mention of Credit Suisse, but said the investigation should serve as a stark reminder to institutions that aim to help clients evade tax.

Would-be tax cheats "need to wake up to reality and accept that attempting to hide wealth overseas, or within institutions, doesn't work."

French prosecutors confirmed that they too had opened a tax fraud investigation into undeclared Swiss bank accounts.

The financial fraud office said it had identified several thousands of accounts in Switzerland that were allegedly used to hide money.

This amounted to suspected "aggravated dissimulation of tax fraud", it said, with no reference to Credit Suisse.

- 346 people implicated -

In Australia, revenue and financial services minister Kelly O'Dwyer said investigators there had identified more than 346 people "with links to Swiss banking relationship managers" who allegedly promoted tax evasion.

Australian investigators plan to "move quickly" against those who schemed to hide wealth, she said, noting however that some of those in the firing line will likely be exonerated.

The launch of a coordinated, international probe targeting an iconic Swiss bank came as a surprise to Bern, Switzerland's ATS news agency reported.

The Swiss attorney general's office was not aware of the operations and demanded a written explanation from Dutch officials in particular over the lack of cooperation, according to ATS.

Credit Suisse has previously been in the crosshairs of tax officials.

US regulators fined the bank $2.6 billion (2.4 billion euros) in 2014 for helping Americans evade taxes.

"Credit Suisse continues to follow a strategy of full client tax compliance," the bank said Friday.

The coordinated probe comes as Credit Suisse rolls out its new Automatic Exchange of Information programme designed to share taxpayer information with relevant global authorities as part of a wider Swiss crackdown on money laundering and secretive banking.

burs/bs/jh
ZURICH (Reuters) - Credit Suisse <CSGN.S> is conducting an internal investigation over whether staff breached compliance rules after three of its offices were searched in tax evasion probes, the head of its International Wealth Management division said on Friday.

"The investigation will be executed by compliance, it will not be executed by the business," Iqbal Khan, who is responsible for Credit Suisse's private banking operations outside Switzerland and Asia Pacific, said in a telephone interview with Reuters.

"If any individuals are implicated or have violated against these processes or procedures or policies that are in place then we will identify that very quickly."
COPENHAGEN (Reuters) - A Danish court on Friday stripped the citizenship of a 25-year former pizzeria owner who was convicted last year of fighting for Islamic State (IS) in Syria. The lawyer for the Danish-Turkish man -- who during his trial denied fighting for IS but admitted working as a baker for the group in Syria -- told broadcaster TV2 his client would appeal Friday's ruling. The court order comes at a time of growing concerns about increased radicalization among Muslims in Europe in the wake of attacks in countries such as France, Germany and Britain. Danish media identified the man Enes Ciftci, who was born and raised in Denmark. Ciftci was originally sentenced to seven years in prison for allowing himself to be recruited in 2013 by IS to commit attacks in Syria, but allowed to keep his passport. Prosecutors appealed that sentence, leading to Friday's hearing. Last year, Denmark's Supreme Court stripped a Danish-Moroccan bookseller of his citizenship after he was jailed for inciting terrorism. (Reporting by Stine Jacobsen and Julie Astrid Thomsen; editing by Richard Lough)
During our time in government, there were few issues on which it was easier to build a bipartisan consensus in Congress than the need to contend with the range of threats posed by Iran. Congress played a critical role in penalizing Iran for supporting terrorism, providing support to U.S. partners in the region threatened by Iran, and establishing the sanctions regime that, combined with tough diplomacy, led to a deal that prevents Iran from developing or acquiring nuclear weapons. Momentum is again building in Congress to impose additional sanctions on Iran, including with the introduction last week of the Irans Destabilizing Activities Act of 2017 by Sen. Bob Corker, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and Sen. Robert Menendez. The bill has already garnered more than two-dozen cosponsors. Unfortunately, as currently drafted, this bill would do more harm than good.

Thanks in large part to Congresss support  including some difficult votes  the United States and our partners were able to address the most immediate and consequential threat posed by Iran. Under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), Iran has dismantled much of its nuclear infrastructure: removing two-thirds of the centrifuges it had installed (well over 10,000 centrifuges), shipping out 98 percent of its stockpile of enriched uranium, decommissioning a reactor capable of producing plutonium for a bomb, and putting all of its nuclear facilities under strict international monitoring.

Iran has committed in writing that, pursuant to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, it will never seek a nuclear weapon and has put all key elements of its program under close surveillance. Most important of all: The deal is working.

By all accounts  including those of International Atomic Energy Agency, inspectors we have trained, and our own intelligence community  Iran is complying with its commitments. In other words, we were able to eliminate a potential threat to our allies and our nation without firing a shot  and the only price we paid was a relaxation of those international sanctions whose very purpose was to enable us to address the nuclear threat at the negotiating table. Non-nuclear sanctions, on matters like ballistic missiles, terrorism, and human rights violations, remain in place. And Iran essentially paid for the nuclear deal with its own money, which the international community had frozen in banks around the world, to increase pressure on Iranian leaders to make a deal. In short, President Donald Trump has inherited an Iran policy that leaves us significantly safer than when his predecessor took office.

This context is important in evaluating the potential upsides  and downsides  of new legislation to impose additional sanctions on Iran.

Many senators will be tempted to support the Corker-Menendez legislation, which at first glance seems to accomplish a rare feat in Washington these days: bringing together bipartisan support to address a known national-security threat. We share concerns about threats from Iran to the United States and our allies, including the challenges posed by Irans ballistic missile program and support for terrorism. But when it comes to an arrangement as complex as the JCPOA, the details matter, and this legislation, in its current form, includes several significant risks that could undermine the nuclear deal.

First, the bill adds new conditions that must be met before Washington can lift sanctions on certain Iranian parties in the future, including sanctions we are already committed to remove if Tehran continues to comply with the nuclear deal. According to the draft legislation, lifting sanctions on such Iranian entities would require a certification that they had not supported or facilitated ballistic missile or terrorist activity. This provision is unnecessary and could give Iran an excuse to undermine the deal. It is unnecessary because once nuclear-related sanctions are removed years from now, as required by the JCPOA, nothing in the deal prevents the administration in power from immediately using legal authorities already on the books to re-designate any individuals or entities that support terrorism or Irans ballistic missile program. And it is problematic because gratuitously adding new conditions could be read by Iran as unilaterally altering the terms of the deal, casting doubt on our future compliance. This could provide Iran a pretext to take reciprocal action  such as adding conditions to the performance of its own commitments. If our Chinese, European, or Russian negotiating partners agree that we are altering the deal, the international consensus necessary to keep pressure on Iran to abide by the deal could erode.

Second, the legislation would, most likely, lead the president to designate Irans Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) as a terrorist group. This is a step that the George W. Bush and Barack Obama administrations considered, but declined to take because of its limited benefits and significant downside risks. Given that existing non-nuclear U.S. sanctions on Iran remain in place, the IRGC and its leaders are already subject to U.S. sanctions. Adding a global terrorism designation would mostly be a symbolic gesture, with limited practical effect. However, doing so could have considerable political effect inside Iran and potentially elsewhere. In particular, it would ignore years of warnings by our own military that such a designation could strengthen Iranian voices that would like to reignite open hostilities against the United States, potentially increasing the risk to our troops in Iraq and elsewhere in the region  that at times operate in close proximity to IRGC-supported groups  and complicating the counter-Islamic State campaign. There may come a time when such a step is justified, but it should be taken only after carefully weighing costs and benefits  and with a clear policy objective in mind. Doing so through legislatively mandated sanctions with no obvious practical benefit would be an unwise move at this time.

Third, by mandating sanctions on any person or entity that poses a risk of materially contributing to Irans ballistic missile program, the bill introduces a standard that is overly broad and vague. Such a loose definition could potentially be used to impose sanctions in violation of the JCPOA  particularly when in the hands of an administration that is overtly hostile to the deal.

Defenders of the bill point to the fact that it grants the Trump administration waiver authority for these problematic provisions. Yet we believe it would be counterproductive for Congress to give bipartisan approval to new, unnecessary sanctions authorities that, if deployed, could result in clear violations of the nuclear deal, potentially hurt our shared commitment to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, and expose our troops to unnecessary danger. We continue to support continued designations, under existing authorities, of persons or entities who support terrorism or are involved in Irans ballistic missile program, without putting at risk an international deal that has removed the most significant threat we and our allies faced in the region. But Congress should not take any steps that our international partners might view as violating a deal that, so far, has fulfilled its goals. Rather than containing Iran, such steps would isolate the United States.

Finally, while we believe politics should play no role in critical national security decisions, members of Congress considering new Iran sanctions legislation should have open eyes regarding the Trump administrations attitude toward the nuclear deal and its overall approach toward Iran. Trump promised during his campaign that his number one priority is to dismantle the deal. On February 2, then-National Security Advisor Michael Flynn publicly, and vaguely, put Iran on notice, followed the next day by Trump declaring on Twitter that Iran was playing with fire. Trumps team has not since publicly outlined any overall approach to Iran policy, engaged openly with Iranian diplomats, or publicly committed to working with our closest allies in keeping the nuclear deal intact. In this uncertain environment, Congress should be a voice of caution and restraint. Any marginal benefit of this legislation is outweighed by the risk of giving an impulsive president license to take steps that could undermine a deal that is working, isolate the United States, and put U.S. troops at risk.

Photo credit: RICK WILKING/AFP/Getty Images
By Sharon Bernstein SACRAMENTO, Calif. (Reuters) - California's Sierra Nevada Mountains are buried in snow despite warm spring weather, scientists said on Thursday, a further sign that the state is emerging from years of drought and an indication that mandatory conservation rules may soon be eased. Three years after Democratic Governor Jerry Brown stood on a dry, brown mountainside and declared a drought emergency, state water scientists trekked to the same spot near Sacramento on Thursday to measure nearly four feet of snow - about twice as much as is normal for March and April at that location. "California enters the snowmelt season with a large snowpack that will result in high water in many rivers through the spring," State Climatologist Michael Anderson said in a statement. The snowpack is key to the complex system of streams, dams and reservoirs that the most populous U.S. state relies on for water in the dry spring and summer months. Slowly melting over the dry months from April to October, the snowpack provides a third of the state's water and is sometimes referred to as California's largest reservoir. During the height of the drought, there was no snow at all on many mountain peaks, and many reservoirs held only a fraction of the water they were designed to contain. Because there is little or no rain during the summer, California relies on irrigation for farming, and both agricultural areas as well as urban centers suffered during the drought. In January of 2014, Brown declared the drought to be an emergency. A year later, as dry conditions dragged on, he ordered the state's first mandatory conservation rules, which included a demand that urban communities reduce their water consumption by 25 percent. On Thursday, state water experts returned to a measuring station at Phillips, east of Sacramento near Lake Tahoe, where the snow was 46 inches high, about 183 percent of normal. Statewide, the snowpack was about 150 percent of normal for late March. Their findings are likely to be key to state decisions regarding possibly removing the emergency declaration and an easing of conservation rules, expected in coming weeks. However, environmental groups warned Thursday that climate change could still leave California with pervasive drought conditions, and urged continued conservation. "Until we learn to align water demands with the amount we can reliably supply, we will suffer through perpetual water shortages," Anna Wearn, a program assistant with the Natural Resources Defense Council, said on the organization's blog. (Reporting by Sharon Bernstein; Editing by Andrew Hay)
Della Crewe - Bikers You Should Know

In 1914, Della Crewe, 30, began the adventure of a lifetime with her dog  setting out from Waco, Texas, and to see the entire country. Six months later, she would reach New York City in the dead of winter and set off for a tour of the Caribbean islands, then Central America, all on a Harley-Davidson sidecar rig.

Della was not trying to become famous when she set out, but along the way her story "went viral," as we would say today, and was picked up by all sorts of news outlets.

The early days of the 20th century was a sexual revolution in its own way, with the industrial revolution allowing women to get jobs and the suffragettes fighting for the vote, and there are quite a few female bikers from that time to know by name. Augusta and Adeline Van Buren, society girls and relatives of the former president, rode coast to coast in 1916 trying to prove that women could be useful as messengers in the war. (Later, Augusta became a pilot and flew with Amelia Earhart.) Effie Hotchkiss, with her 52-year-old mother, Avis, went from New York to the San Francisco World's Fair in 1915, and back again, becoming the first women to go coast to coast on a motorcycle.

Della, however, stands out because she took to two wheels before those others and was the most prolific of them all, even though she never went coast to coast officially.

Just a Manicurist and Her Dog

Born in Racine, Wisconsin, Della was 29 years old and making her living in Waco as a manicurist when a young family member suggested she take up motorcycle riding as a way to see more of the local scenery she enjoyed so much. That fall, she had bought a new 1913 Harley-Davidson single-cylinder bike and took up riding around town. The next spring she traded it in for a twin, and had a sidecar bolted to it, in preparation for a months-long tour. Her friends in town presented her with a "Boston bull pup," which is what they called terriers back then, that she named "Trouble."

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Della and Trouble soon left Waco headed for the big motorcycle races at Dodge City, Kansas, which Google tells me is now 525 miles away  8.5-hour journey. But back then routes were not nearly so direct or well paved. It ended up being an eight-day journey for Della. She was greeted as a hero when she arrived, having fought her way there through muddy ruts and fields that claimed to be major roads. With that encouragement, she decided to press on.

Della's next stop was Milwaukee, where she visited Harley-Davidson headquarters and was treated to a picnic outing by the female employees. The roads between Kansas and Wisconsin were so bad at one point she had to detour through a farmer's field for several miles when she could not find a rideable road going the right direction. Along the way, she made it a point to stop and participate in any local fairs or parades she happened upon. She also wrote letters and took pictures, which were carried in a number of newspapers, as well as Motorcycle Illustrated Magazine and the Texaco Star Magazine, which Google has scanned and put online.

Della had family in Wisconsin, which she spent some time visiting, so it wasn't until autumn 1914 that she started across the northern states toward the East Coast. When she got to New York City it was 12 December and the temperature was -10F. In order to survive, she had to ride wearing every item of clothing she owned.

I know you are worried about the dog; Trouble had a specially made sweater to keep him warm, curled up on the floor of the sidecar. The local Harley-Davidson dealer, Texaco representatives, and newspaper reporters were all glad to see her make it to the city safely. You may notice what looks like a disc brake on the front wheel of her bike, but that's actually the drive for a Corbin speedometer/odometer. It had rolled over 5,400 miles by the time she hit the city.

Just Getting Started

Della Crewe wasn't done by a long shot, though, and this is where most accounts of her travels get hazy. But, roughly, as Della celebrated her achievement in New York, Europe was already engaged in World War I, which meant her plans to travel around the world no longer seemed possible. So, she booked passage to Florida instead. From Florida her next port of call was Havana, where she met with other local riders and toured all over the island. Then she hopped another boat and visited Panama and "America's master work," the recently opened Panama Canal.

Della next landed on the island of Jamaica, part of the British Empire at the time and still very much an unspoiled tropical paradise, where she motored to the top of the highest peak. Della's last stop on her Caribbean tour was an extended stay in Puerto Rico, or as she spelled it Porto Rico, where she again motored to all the big sites and the top of the tallest peaks.

For all of Della's travels outside of the country, she offered some of the greatest criticism for the state of the roads in Florida, upon landing at Tampa.

"Tampa: If you desire to test the quality and strength of your motor and gas and oil, to say nothing about human endurance, the western coast of Florida to the Georgia line will put all to the proof. Everywhere is an aspect of sterility heaps of sand populated with pines but scarcity of human habitations. President Miller of the Good Roads Association says Florida is going to have envied highways, but until then permit me to say let this wilderness alone."

She was happy to reach civilization again in Atlanta, and proceeded to visit the Carolinas, Washington, D.C., and Philadelphia before reaching New York City once again  racking up 10,778 miles.

According to the Texaco Star story, Della departed New York for Los Angeles in 1916, but history says Effie and Avis were the first women to make that trip, so, she missed setting a record by months. Della settled in Los Angeles afterward, and census records have her in Compton in 1926  working as a manicurist again, as well as a shop clerk. After 1926 she vanishes from the voter roles, so nobody really knows what became of her, but for those glorious few years in the teens she lived the adventure of a lifetime.

Photos courtesy the Harley-Davidson Archives, and Google's digitization of these 100+ year old periodicals

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When it comes to dinosaur sex, dont jump to conclusions. Thats the message of one paleontologist, who says there isnt enough evidence to tell between male and female dinos based on the shape of their bones alone, differences between the genders that are known as sexual dimorphism.

According to his analysis in the journal Paleobiology, many species of the extinct dinosaurs have been tied to sexual dimorphism but quantifiable data are often lacking.

Read: Thousands of Dinosaur Tracks Are Hiding Under this Ocean

The scientist, Jordan Mallon from the Canadian Museum of Nature, suggests that instead of using the sizes and shapes of bones from dinosaur fossils to determine sex, paleontologists should rely on more concrete evidence, like the presence of eggs in a specimen.

Im not saying that dinosaurs were not dimorphic, but I am saying that theres no existing fossil evidence to suggest that they were, Mallon said in a statement from the museum. The jury is still out.

dino-sex-mallon

Photo: Dan Smythe  Canadian Museum of Nature

Part of the issue is small sample sizes used to study the extinct creatures, but other data may have been interpreted incorrectly, he asserted. In the case of the horned Protoceratops andrewsi, the museum says, it has been believed that males could be distinguished from females by a broader frill and larger bump on the nose. But when Mallon took a closer look, he did not find enough evidence to separate the specimens into two distinct groups based on the shapes of their bones.

He did a similar analysis with several other dinosaur species, including the armored stegosaurs.

What we need to do is examine dinosaur specimens that we can positively identify as females, and if you can survey a large enough population of them, you can then say this is what we expect females to look like, Mallon said. One can then study the remainder of the population to compare which ones look like the females that we already know, and which ones dont. Those would be the males.

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This is not the only recent divergence in the paleontology community that contradicts what scientists thought they knew about dinosaurs. Another paper suggests that dinosaurs emerged in a completely different hemisphere from what is commonly believed, an idea which would significantly change the dinosaurs family tree.

See also:

These 2 Extinct Reptiles Are Actually the Same Damn Thing

Sea Otters Have Been Using Tools for Millions of Years

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SEOUL, South Korea (AP)  For a person whose life always seemed to revolve around South Korea's huge presidential palace, the next several months will be lived on a much smaller scale.

Park Geun-hye entered the Seoul Detention Center in a black sedan before dawn Friday after a court approved her arrest on corruption allegations.

The ousted president registered her name and ID number, went through a simple health checkup, and gave up her personal belongings, including hairpins that held up her signature bun. She then changed into light-green prison clothes and was locked in a solitary cell, according to a detention center official who didn't want to be named, citing office rules.

Park's cell has a television, a toilet, a sink, a table and a mattress. She will be asked to rise at 6 a.m. and go to sleep at 8 p.m. She will have to eat at her cell and also wash her own plate, the official said. A typical solitary cell at the detention center is 6.56 square meters (7.8 square yards).

"She will go through the same routines as other inmates," the detention center official said.

Park is expected to spend several months in the detention center while court proceedings are taking place.

She has lived in the presidential Blue House twice, first as the daughter of military strongman Park Chung-hee, who moved into the palace in 1963, two years after he staged a coup and took control of the country.

Park left the Blue House following the assassination of her father in 1979. But, following a meteoric political career, she returned after winning the presidency in December 2012, thanks to overwhelming support from older voters who remembered her father as a hero who rescued the nation from poverty, despite his brutal record of civilian oppression.

Park's term was to have ended in February 2018, but the Constitutional Court removed her from office on March 10 over the corruption scandal.

Occupying the slopes of a downtown Seoul mountain, the Blue House is large compound where hundreds of people work in several buildings, including a blue-roofed, 8,476-square meter (10,137 square yard) hall where the main presidential office is. When she used the office, Park needed to walk about 15 meters (16 yards) just to get to her desk from the door.

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She is the second former president to be held at the Seoul Detention Center, which keeps criminal suspects in custody before conviction. Roh Tae-woo, who was president from 1988 to 1993, was locked there after a 1995 arrest for bribery. He was convicted and sentenced to prison but was pardoned in 1997.

Its current detainees include other key figures in the corruption scandal that toppled Park, including her longtime friend, Choi Soon-sil, who is suspected of colluding with Park to extort money and favors from companies and secretly interfering with state affairs.

Billionaire Samsung heir Lee Jae-yong was detained there after being arrested for allegedly using tens of millions of dollars in corporate funds to bribe Park and Choi in exchange for business favors.

Park's former culture minister, Cho Yoonsun, and her ex-chief of staff, Kim Ki-choon, are also being held at the detention center following their arrests over suspicions that they blacklisted thousands of artists deemed as unfriendly to Park to deny them state support.

The current Seoul Detention Center opened in Euiwang city in 1987. It replaced a facility originally built as a prison in Seoul in 1908. During Japan's colonial rule over the Korean Peninsula, the prison was notorious as a torture center for Korean independence activists. After colonial rule ended at the close of World War II, South Korea used the facility as a prison and later as a detention center.
On March 29, 1961, the 23rd Amendment was ratified, granting the District of Columbia electors in the Electoral College. For the first time in the nations history, D.C. residents had some sort of representation in the federal government, even if only in presidential elections. In every contest since the ratification of the 23rd Amendment, D.C.s three electoral votes have gone to the Democratic candidatea statistic pertinent to the ongoing debate over potential statehood for the district.

In a 2016 referendum, 79 percent of D.C. voters supported a proposal that would split the district into a residential state and a small federal district for government buildings and monuments. This proposal now moves to Congress for consideration. Given the current political climate, success is an uphill battle.

While the general path to statehood is enumerated in the Constitution, the specific procedure and timeline has somewhat varied. Article IV, Section 3 gives Congress the power to admit new states but does not specify further. Typically, prospective states have petitioned Congress for an Enabling Act, which approves the drafting of a state constitution and an application for statehood. Upon completion, Congress considers whether or not to admit the new state. This process can take many years.

During the 2016 presidential election, both Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton came out in support of D.C. statehood. Support from the two leading Democratic candidates is not surprisingnor is opposition from the right. The late Senator Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts once described the argument against statehood as encompassed by the four toos: the population of D.C. is too urban, too black, too democratic and too liberal. While this statement is controversial, it may also contain a kernel of truth: for example, Republican presidential candidate and Ohio Governor John Kasich said that D.C. statehood is just more votes in the Democratic party.

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Yet the Republican approach is murkier than it first appears. As a whole, Republicans have been opposed to D.C. statehood, but there is not unanimity on the question. In an interview on NBCs Meet the Press during the 2016 presidential campaign, now-President Donald Trump said that he supports whatevers best for D.C. residents, including the possibility of statehood. Vice President Mike Pence has also shown support for D.C. statehood in the past: in 2007, he said that the lack of representation for D.C.s residents a historic wrong.

The top-line argument in support of D.C. statehood is clear: the residents of our nations capital pay federal taxes, yet have no representation in Congress besides a mostly non-voting member of the House of Representatives. Organizations and politicians fighting for statehood argue that this lack of representation means that D.C. residents are not full and equal citizens of the United States. This is made all the more striking by the fact that Washington has a larger population than both Wyoming and Vermont and could outnumber Alaska and North Dakota within a generation. In addition, residents pay more in federal taxes than residents of 22 states do. And after the 2016 referendum, it is as clear as ever that a vast majority of D.C. residents support statehood.

Arguments in opposition start with the text of the Constitution. The Framers explicitly dictated that the nations capital was not to be within a state or a state itself. Article I, Section 8 gives Congress the ability to create a federal district to be the seat of the Government of the United State; in 1790, Congress passed the Residence Act, establishing a capital city within a 10-mile square area between Maryland and Virginia along the Potomac River. Washington was founded as an independent city so that the federal government would not be beholden to any state government. This was especially important in the late 18th century, when the states retained enormous power and the debate over the role and scale of the federal government was extremely contentious.

Even if Congress were to approve D.C.s go-ahead referendum and the rest of the admission process were sound, D.C. statehood may violate the Constitution. This is why the authors of a 1993 report from the Heritage Foundation concluded that statehood requires a constitutional amendment. Without it, the whole effort might be challenged in court.

In 2016, D.C. sent a budget to Congress that, for the first time, does not request federal funding; instead, it utilizes local tax revenue, as the states do. In a statement regarding the proposal, Mayor Muriel Bowser confirmed her commitment to advancing efforts to promote the Districts autonomy, and, ultimately, statehood.

While it is unclear what the future holds for the D.C. statehood movement, there is close to a consensus among residence and leadership in the city. The political atmosphere in Washington remains contentious and a decision is unlikely in the near future. However, support for statehood within the capital is also unlikely to dissipate.

Maggie Baldridge is an intern at the National Constitution Center. She is also a recent graduate of Dickinson College.

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On International Womens Day this year, the organizers behind the Womens March on Washington are aiming for another national demonstration of solidarity - this time in the form of a day without a woman.

Organizers have called on women to take the day off from paid and unpaid work on March 8, avoid shopping and wear red to show support. Those who participate will follow the precedent set by generations of women who previously spent a day - or weeks - on strike for various causes.

Here are some of the issues that have previously led women in the U.S. to strike - and what they accomplished by doing so:

Uprising of the 20,000 in 1909



In what became known as the Uprising of the 20,000, New York City garment workers led a weeks-long strike beginning in November of 1909, calling for better working conditions and higher wages. The strike, led mostly by young women, came out of a meeting of workers from different garment companies. Male union leaders were hesitant because they did not believe that women could be trusted with a strike, as framed by the Harvard librarys special collection on women at work, but one young female union member, Clara Lemlich, stood up and demanded a strike among workers across the industry.

What followed was the largest strike by women to date in American history, according to the Jewish Womens Archive, which estimated that 70% of those striking were women. Some wealthy progressive women threw their support behind the strike, absorbing its concerns into the broader fight for suffrage and womens rights.

The strike - which demanded a 20% pay raise, a 52-hour workweek and overtime pay, according to the AFL-CIO - achieved some gains in the way of higher pay and shorter hours. But a devastating fire at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory in 1911 soon proved that more safety improvements were necessary.

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Women Strike for Peace in 1961



Concerned by the nuclear arms race of the Cold War, an estimated 50,000 women in cities across the country and around the world went on strike to protest nuclear testing on Nov. 1, 1961.

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Women walked out of their kitchens and off their jobs in a one-day womens strike for peace, wrote Amy Swerdlow, author of Women Strike for Peace: Traditional Motherhood and Radical Politics in the 1960s. Swerdlow, who was a founding member of Women Strike for Peace (WSP), said activists urged other women to suspend their regular routine of home, family, and job and march on government offices to demonstrate their concern.

The girls are only beginning to feel their power, WSP founder Dagmar Wilson said at the time, according to the New York Times.

Organizers of the strike received a letter of support from First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy, as well as the wife of Soviet Prime Minister Nikita Khrushchev. As mothers, we cannot help but be concerned about the health and welfare of our husbands and children, Kennedy wrote, according to the Times.

The march also earned the attention of President John F. Kennedy, who called the women extremely earnest. When he signed the nuclear test ban treaty in 1963, it was, in part, a credit to their protest.

Womens Strike for Equality in 1970



On Aug. 26, 1970, the Womens Strike for Equality brought an estimated 50,000 women onto New York Citys Fifth Avenue during rush hour.

Sponsored by the National Organization for Women and organized largely by Betty Friedan, the march put forth a feminist agenda that included access to free abortion, round-the-clock childcare centers and equal opportunities in work and education. Organized around the slogan, Dont iron while the strike is hot, the march was originally intended to result in a national work stoppage among women, as Friedan aimed to demonstrate the unequal burden of domestic labor.

No one knows how many shirts lay wrinkling in laundry baskets last week as thousands of women across the country turned out for the first big demonstration of the Womens Liberation movement, TIME wrote in its Sept. 7, 1970 issue. The strike, on the 50th anniversary of the proclamation of the womens suffrage amendment, drew small crowds by antiwar or civil rights standards, yet was easily the largest womens rights rally since the suffrage protests.

The strike - which took place at the end of the working day in an effort to boost participation - made the womens movement a household word, Ruth Rosen, author of The World Split Open: How the Modern Womens Movement Changed America, told the New York Times in 2006. As TIME noted in 1970, the march won new support and undoubtedly new awareness among both men and women of the case for female rights.

While the strikes symbolic impact was clear, the womens movement continued to push its agenda with varied results. The 1972 passage of Title IX and workplace policies banning sexual harassment were steps toward equal opportunities in work and education for women. Abortion rights advocates made strides when Roe v. Wade legalized abortion in 1973, but the issue is still hotly contested today. And affordable childcare remains a goal among womens rights activists.

But Friedan viewed the strike as a success. It exceeded my wildest dreams, she said at the time. Its now a political movement; the message is clear. The politicians are taking heed already.

This article was originally published on TIME.com
INDIANAPOLIS (AP)  Dozens of families remained at a lead-contaminated public housing complex in northwest Indiana, despite a Friday target date to move them out so the city can tear down the buildings.

More than 270 families have left East Chicago's West Calumet Housing Complex, and officials hope to have the remaining 50 or so families out next week. But the delay points up several problems with the evacuation effort such as limited rental options in the largely industrial area, landlords who won't accept government housing vouchers and some residents' resistance to being forced from the city.

Lifelong East Chicago resident Tara Adams said she has been seeking a new home for herself, her 19-year-old son and 11-year-old daughter since last summer and has had belongings packed up for months. The temporary housing she has been offered is about 25 miles away, in what she worries is a perilous neighborhood across the state line on Chicago's South Side.

"I for sure don't want to move my 19-year-old son into an area where there's a greater chance for him to get shot," Adams said. "I don't want to do that."

Officials last summer began clearing out the 45-year-old complex of three-story apartment buildings after detailed soil testing found some yards with lead levels more than 70 times the federal safety standard.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency soon warned parents to keep their children away from the dirt on the site occupied decades ago by a lead-products factory. Just to the south sat the sprawling U.S. Smelter and Lead Refinery, or USS Lead, which salvaged lead from old car batteries and scrap metal before it closed in 1985.

The complex was home to more than 1,000 people, including about 700 children. Tests by the Indiana Department of Health found high lead levels in blood samples of some children. Even at low levels, exposure can cause nervous system damage and lowered IQs, according to experts.

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The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development reached an agreement in November with advocates representing the residents that gave families a break on rent and until the end of March to find new homes.

Of those families remaining at the complex, homes in East Chicago have been lined up about 30 and fewer than 10 families face possible relocations to Chicago, according to HUD officials. Those unhappy with their relocation options have until Monday to file grievances with the local housing authority.

James Cunningham, HUD's deputy regional administrator in Chicago, said a limited number available rentals in East Chicago complicated efforts to find new homes nearby for all the West Calumet residents.

"The absorption, I think, has gone pretty well given the large number  we had to relocate 332 families," Cunningham said.

Final decisions on the relocations rest with city officials, who didn't talk with a couple dozen protesters at City Hall last week calling for an extension of the relocation deadline.

Mayor Anthony Copeland's office and city housing authority officials didn't return telephone messages this week seeking comment.

Copeland said in a statement last week to local news media he would never advocate moving residents involuntarily "unless we faced an issue of public safety" and that waiting wasn't an option because of the environmental hazards.

The plans to move some families across the state line into Illinois could cost people jobs and state Medicaid coverage and force children to change schools late in the school year, said Emily Coffey, an attorney for Chicago-based Sargent Shriver National Center on Poverty Law who's working with residents.

Coffey said the relocation agreement from November was meant to maximize the choice residents had in finding new homes and that local housing officials were making "panicked moves" after letting families live at the polluted complex for decades.

"If there are emergency relocations ... it's going to be pretty unlikely that those families are going to be able to move to healthy communities where they'll have access to good education, good health care and good jobs," she said.

Adams still has a sign from the EPA warning against playing in the dirt in the front yard what's been her family's home for nine years. She says it's "by the grace of God" that blood tests haven't found high lead levels among her three children or grandson.

But she's said she's been looking constantly for a new home in hopes of keeping her daughter in a school she likes and a community her family knows.

"What's very frustrating is people making it seem like we're not looking, or we're not searching, or we're just doing nothing," Adams said. "I've never wanted to be in this situation so since day one I've been trying to find somewhere to live."
Kinshasa (AFP) - Beheadings, mass graves, kidnapped foreigners, child soldiers: a tribal insurrection in the Democratic Republic of Congo's Kasai region has killed hundreds of people and risks further destabilising the fragile central government.

Congolese officials face growing international pressure to curb the violence, while the UN Security Council prepares to vote Friday to cut down its peacekeeping mission in the vast central African country.

Here is what we know about the uprising:

- What sparked the rebellion? -

Fighting in the central region of Kasai erupted in August 2016 when DR Congo forces killed tribal chief Jean Pierre Mpandi, also known as Kamwina Nsapu, who had rebelled against the government of President Joseph Kabila.

Mpandi was designated to succeed his uncle as head of the Bajila Kasanja clan of the Lulua tribe in 2011 after his return from exile following a conviction in a diamond trafficking case.

The chieftain, whose tribal name refers to a poisonous black ant, had practised as a doctor after claiming he studied in China and India even though he never finished secondary school.

Tensions flared after officials considered to be close to Kinshasa were appointed to powerful posts at the expense of tribal chiefs, angering the local community.

Resentment of Kabila's administration runs deep in the region, which had overwhelmingly supported opposition leader Etienne Tshisekedi in the 2011 presidential election.

Before he was killed, Mpandi had called on his militia to fight anyone representing the government, posting an audio appeal online for the "liberation of Congo".

By January, Kasai-Central provincial governor Alex Kande said Mpandi's movement had "morphed in total anarchy into a deadly guerrilla force".

The violence has spilled over into neighbouring provinces, leaving at least 400 people dead.

The region is rich in diamonds but the industry has collapsed and much of the population lives without basic needs like water and electricity.

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Kabila has drawn criticism for being slow to enact power-sharing measures with opposition leaders, part of a deal that allows him to stay in power until elections at the end of 2017, a year after the end of his mandate.

- Who are the militias? -

Mpandi's fighters include men, women and even children from remote areas of Kasai, home to the country's third and fourth largest cities.

Initiation rites include jumping through flames after drinking a locally-produced alcohol believed to have powers to make people invincible.

Armed with rudimentary weapons such as slingshots, machetes, sticks, arrows, brooms and voodoo charms, according to UN sources, the fighters wear red bandanas on their heads or arms.

Their tactics include burning government property, torturing and beheading police or intelligence agents, government sources say.

The bodies of two UN researchers were found this week after being kidnapped in Kasai, drawing further attention to the region's violence.

- What is the international community doing? -

The UN, EU and African Union on Tuesday expressed "grave concern" about the violence while also urging government forces to "exercise restraint in the efforts to restore order in the Kasai".

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has asked the Security Council to boost its forces in DR Congo, the UN's largest and costliest peacekeeping mission which is known as MONUSCO.

But the council is expected to vote Friday to reduce its presence there and the US, which wants to scale back on UN spending, has called for a review of the mission.

The force's authorised strength of over 19,800 will be cut by 3,600, according to US ambassador Nikki Haley, although 3,100 of these places are already unfilled.

In February, MONUSCO accused the Kamwina Nsapu militia of "atrocities... including the recruiting and use of child soldiers," while also condemning the response of DR Congo forces for "a disproportionate use of force".

On Monday, the government claimed militiamen killed 39 policemen last week in an ambush but provided no evidence, saying the corpses had been buried in a mass grave by Nsapu followers.
Washington (AFP) - US chemical giant DuPont said Friday it will sell some of its pesticide business to FMC to clear the regulatory hurdles to the merger with Dow Chemical.

However, the companies pushed back the closing date of their mega-merger.

DuPont will divest part of its crop protection business to FMC to comply with a ruling by the European Commission earlier this week clearing its $130 billion merger with Dow on the condition it unload "major parts" of its global pesticides business due to antitrust concerns.

In exchange, DuPont will receive the health and nutrition business from Philadelphia-based chemical company FMC along with $1.6 billion in cash and working capital.

"This agreement with FMC is a win-win. It is pro-competitive; it advances the regulatory approval process; and it maintains the strategic logic and value creation potential of our merger with Dow," said DuPont chief executive Edward Breen in a press release.

FMC said the assets included industry-leading insecticides which are expected to generate over $1 billion in 2017 revenue, as well as a pipeline of products now under development and a network of manufacturing plants.

The deal also will significantly boost the company's presence in Asia and Europe, catapulting FMC "into a tier-one ag technology company," said FMC chief executive Pierre Brondeau.

Dow and DuPont again amended their agreement to push back the closing date of the merger to August, rather than the first half of the year as initially planned.

"This revised agreement was necessary and a very positive outcome driven by the transaction with FMC, announced by DuPont today," Dow chief executive Andrew Liveris said in a joint-statement with DuPont.

"It is another significant milestone in our progress to complete this value-creating transaction."

The union of two of the oldest US companies, originally announced in December 2015, has been heavily scrutinized by antitrust regulators globally.

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The EU also required Dow to sell two plants in Spain and in the US, with German giant BASF widely seen as a potential buyer.

After the merger, Dow and DuPont intend to split up into three companies within 18 months. The first spin-off will be the Material Science Company.

Shares of FMC shot up 14.7 percent $70.49 in morning trading. DuPont fell 0.8 percent to $81.00, while Dow Chemical shed 0.4 percent to $63.96.
AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - Dutch authorities said on Friday they had left Swiss authorities out of a tax fraud investigation stemming from secret Swiss bank accounts because no Swiss citizens were suspects. Earlier, Swiss authorities protested angrily that they were not involved in the investigation into suspected tax evasion led by the Netherlands and including Britain, France, Germany and Australia, as well as Eurojust, the European Union's judicial coordination agency. The Netherland's office for financial crimes prosecution (FIOD) said that, although it had received information about 50,000 secret accounts at a Swiss bank, "we received no information about Swiss residents". "If the Swiss authorities wish to receive information on the investigation, we, the other countries involved and Eurojust, are always willing to discuss (that) with them," the FIOD said in a statement. (Reporting by Toby Sterling; Editing by Gareth Jones)
By Frank Jack Daniel and Mica Rosenberg

(Reuters) - Held without access to sunlight or his relatives, Mexican drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman is under more restrictive captivity than any other U.S. prisoner and it is difficult to mount a defense, his court-appointed lawyers said on Thursday.

Mexico extradited Guzman, who is the head of Sinaloa Cartel, to New York in January, a few hours before U.S. President Donald Trump took office. Guzman, who escaped from two Mexican prisons and was a key figure in a bloody drug war, is seen as a flight risk by the U.S. government.

Guzman is restricted to his New York City cell for 23 hours a day, with the lights on at all times. He has one hour of exercise in a small interior cage with no access to fresh air or sunlight, Amnesty International said in a letter to Assistant U.S. Attorney Andrea Goldbarg dated March 28.

Saying that Guzman's captivity appeared to be "unnecessarily harsh" and in contravention of minimum U.N. standards for the treatment of prisoners, the human rights group has requested access to his cell to verify the conditions.

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"We will continue to investigate cases of alleged improper treatment of prisoners, regardless of who the prisoner is or what they may have done," Amnesty International's Americas Director Erika Guevera-Rosas said in a statement.

Guzman, who sold oranges as a child before turning to the drug trade in the 1970s, has not been allowed to speak to his wife or other family members. The conditions of captivity exceed any other mainland U.S. prison, including the super-secure Colorado prison known as Supermax, public defense attorney Michelle Gelernt said.

"Mr. Guzman is being held under the worst, most restrictive conditions of any prisoner currently detained by the United States government," Gelernt said."Even convicted prisoners held in the notorious federal Supermax in Colorado are allowed to watch television in their cells, exercise outside where they can speak with other inmates, and speak with their families. Mr. Guzman enjoys none of these benefits."

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The U.S. confinement conditions, especially restrictions on communicating with family members, mean it is tough for Guzman to contact private lawyers because he is not able to speak to his family to arrange payment or discuss potential attorneys, Gelernt said.

"The need to continually seek relief from the draconian jail conditions will distract Mr. Guzman and his lawyers from defending against the charges," she said.

In a filing on Wednesday to U.S. District Judge Brian Cogan of the Eastern District of New York, Guzman's lawyers said the strict confinement puts Guzman at risk of psychological damage, and that he may already be "hearing non-existent sounds."

U.S. prosecutors have argued that such tough measures - called Special Administrative Measures - are needed to prevent Guzman from communicating with his cartel cohorts still running the multinational trafficking organization, and to prevent repeats of his two Mexican prison escapes.

In his most recent escape in 2015, Guzman walked out of prison through a mile-long highly engineered tunnel from his cell, a sign of the huge influence he was able to wield even from behind bars.

(Editing by Dan Grebler and Paul Tait)
Something was wrong with Elizabeth Thomas, but her big sister Sarah couldn't put her finger on it. When the 15-year-old high school freshman woke Sarah up on the morning of March 13, the usually wisecracking kid sister seemed oddly serious. "She said, 'I'm going to be gone,'" Sarah recalls. "She had a strange edge to her voice. She said, 'I'm going to get back at 6 tonight. If I'm not back by 6, call the police and come find me.'"

As of press time, no one has found her. Later that morning Thomas vanished with Tad Cummins, a health sciences teacher at Culleoka Unit School in Maury County, Tenn., and a 50-year-old married father and grandfather. Police and school officials say the two had an inappropriate relationship: Romantic e-mails between them have been confirmed by District Attorney General Brent Cooper, and Cummins was suspended from his teaching job after a Jan. 23 incident in which another student reported seeing the pair kissing. Though a nationwide Amber Alert was issued on March 14 for Thomas and Cummins-who police say could be armed and dangerous-and despite more than a thousand tips that have come in from 49 states, there have been no confirmed sightings of the pair. Cummins is charged with aggravated kidnapping and sexual misconduct with a minor. "We firmly believe that they are essentially off the grid and he has her out of public view," says Tennessee Bureau of Investigation spokesman Josh DeVine. "Every day that goes by we get more concerned for her well-being."

According to investigators, Cummins began targeting the "happy, outgoing" teen last August at the beginning of her freshman year. "His way of meeting her was to start rubbing on her back," recalls Sarah, 17. "She just looked at me and her eyes were like, 'This guy is scary. Get this guy off me.'" Before long, the family alleges, Cummins began plying the impressionable ninth grader, who dreamed of a career in the medical field, with fabricated tales of working as an FBI and CIA agent. "He used that interest of hers to gain control over her," says Sarah. "She idolized him."

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Over time, Cummins began "calling himself her best friend," says Thomas family attorney Jason Whatley. Cummins, he adds, exploited the fact that Thomas's mother, Kimberly, had been removed from the family home on charges of abuse and neglect in 2015. She has a court date pending and has denied the charges. (Thomas's father, Anthony, is raising Thomas and her nine siblings on his own.) Thomas began attending the same church as Cummins and could often be found hanging out in his classroom, quietly talking with him during her free periods. In January another student told school authorities Cummins had been seen kissing Thomas "on the lips," but Cummins-who later admitted to being "a father figure" and "close friend" to the girl-denied it, insisting he'd "never do anything to jeopardize his marriage."

Despite a warning to Cummins "not to interact" with Thomas, the two were soon spotted together again, and Cummins was suspended from teaching on Feb. 6. Elizabeth was "teased and bullied" over the incident, say family members, and later confided to her sister, "I can't take this. I have to get out of here." By then she'd already become entangled, later changing her Instagram status to "wife," while Cummins, investigators learned, had begun Googling topics like "teen marriage" and whether his Nissan Rogue could be tracked by law enforcement. On the morning of March 13, Thomas asked a friend to take her from her Columbia, Tenn., home and drop her off at a local Shoney's restaurant at 8 a.m. Cummins picked her up, and the two drove off together. The pair are believed to have traveled south to Decatur, Ala., 80 miles away, but their trail grows cold after that. "Do the right thing," implored Cummins's wife of 32 years, Jill, at a March 17 press conference. "Tad, this is not you. This is not who you are."

For Thomas's frantic family, the waiting has been anguish. "There are no words for this," says dad Anthony. "This just seems outside the realm of possibility." In a letter the family released March 23, they implored the public to share any information no matter how "insignificant" in hopes of finding Thomas. "Elizabeth must be found," the letter reads. "Time is of the essence."

This article was originally published on PEOPLE.com
The moonshot mindset embraces the idea that audacious goals are the best way to bring revolutionary changes to health. Over the past several decades, the term moonshot has been used broadly to describe an ambitious approach to tackling societys most intractable challenges, starting with the work that led to the first moon landing in 1969 and now encompassing research on the worlds biggest health issues, such as ending cancer, curing infectious disease, and extending healthy life.

Moonshot thinking has spawned powerful new initiatives in the past few years: from Calico, a Google moonshot company focused on extending life, to MD Anderson Cancer Centers Moon Shots program, the White Houses Precision Medicine Initiative, and Vice President Joe Bidens Cancer Moonshot. StartUp Health, where I serve as the chief medical officer, has a 25-year plan to build an army of digital health entrepreneurs and innovators that we call Health Transformers to achieve 10 of the worlds biggest health moonshots.

Although these massive and multifaceted efforts may have different names and goals, they operate under the shared ethos that the most effective way to bring real change to medicine is to move forward together, arm in arm, in giant leaps rather than incremental steps.

Its inevitable that audacious plans sometimes fall short of their stated missions or dont happen as fast as wed like. Ive been struck by the recent reports about Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiongs Cancer Breakthroughs 2020, not because of the specific criticisms of his business tactics but because of the short-term lens thats being used to judge a health transformers progress.

Read more: He vowed to cure cancer. But this billionaires moonshot is falling far short of the hype

While success is important, so is trying: Trying to make a difference. Trying to make a change. Trying to speed up the progress of what we know will eventually come but is taking too long. Trying to spare another family from the horrific conversation that theres nothing that can be done for their dying loved one.

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Disruption is always uncomfortable, and it doesnt happen overnight. But as a result of the bold visions of health transformers striving to do what many believe to be impossible, I believe we are on the cusp of a medical revolution akin to the discovery of antibiotics or mapping the genome. This quest will usher in treatments that havent yet been imagined. In order to achieve the next great leap, we need to dream big, keep innovation open and transparent, collaborate more, and embrace the moonshot mindset.

Over the past decade, the medical community has learned an enormous amount from the disruptive innovation approach of entrepreneurs, which often delivers game-changing new business models and solutions at a breakneck pace. Some ideas work, many dont. The only way to make breakthroughs is by working passionately and around-the-clock to turn far-fetched visions into reality. With so much uncertainty for the future of science funding, and a culture of skepticism at the highest levels of government today, we will all be better off if we support those already in mid-leap, no matter how long it takes.

One well-known disruptor, Mark Zuckerberg, wrote a poignant blog post last month that reminded me of a core mantra of disruptive innovation: We always overestimate what we can do in two years, and we underestimate what we can do in ten years.

Read more: Joe Biden urges SXSW crowd to put innovation to work to cure cancer

That mantra is especially fitting at a time when thousands of health entrepreneurs and doctorpreneurs are testing novel approaches to reinvent the future of medicine. Im personally agnostic as to who announces the next breakthrough, as I want them all to succeed. As Joe Biden said at the National Cancer Moonshot Summit last June, these moonshots are carrying the hopes and dreams of millions of people who want us to succeed, make a difference in their lives and their families. Not someday, but now.

Every day in my clinical practice with cancer patients, I witness the real power of undaunted, uncompromising hope. I firmly believe that a moonshot approach to medicine is what we need to push us into the next epoch of human health and longevity.

Howard Krein, MD, is the chief medical officer of StartUp Health, as well as a head and neck cancer surgeon at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital and the senior director of health policy and innovation at Jeffersons Sidney Kimmel Cancer Center.
By Emily Flitter NEW YORK (Reuters) - The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's scientific integrity watchdog is reviewing whether EPA chief Scott Pruitt violated the agency's policies when he said in a television interview he does not believe carbon dioxide is driving global climate change, according to an email seen by Reuters on Friday. Lawyers for environmental group the Sierra Club had asked the EPA's Office of Inspector General to check whether Pruitt violated policy when he told a CNBC interviewer on March 9, "I would not agree that it's a primary contributor to the global warming that we see." The EPA Inspector General's office responded to the Sierra Club on Thursday in an email, saying it had referred the matter to the EPA's Scientific Integrity Officer, Francesca Grifo, for review. "If after the SIO review, she concludes there is some aspect of the letter itself, or her findings or conclusions that she believes are appropriate for further consideration by the OIG, she will so notify the OIG," the email stated. A spokesman for the EPA did not immediately respond to a request for comment, and efforts to reach Grifo were not immediately successful. The EPA website says its scientific integrity policy requires EPA officials and staff to ensure the agency's work respects the findings of the broader scientific community. An overwhelming majority of scientists think that carbon dioxide emissions from the burning of fossil fuels are a major contributor to global climate change, triggering sea level rise, droughts and more frequent violent storms. The request by Sierra Club ramps up tension between the U.S. environmental movement and the administration of President Donald Trump, who has called global warming a hoax meant to weaken the U.S. economy and has packed his cabinet with people who question the science of climate change. Grifo is a biologist who was hired by former President Barack Obama's administration. Before she joined the EPA in late 2013, she oversaw scientific integrity at the Union of Concerned Scientists, a non-partisan group advocating stronger environmental protections. Pruitt, a former attorney general for Oklahoma, sued the EPA more than a dozen times over its regulations as top prosecutor for the oil and gas producing state. (Reporting By Emily Flitter; Editing by Richard Valdmanis and Steve Orlofsky)
MADRID (AP)  Espanyol scored two late goals to earn a 2-1 come-from-behind win over Real Betis in the Spanish league on Friday.

Ruben Castro gave the visitors the lead by converting a 78th-minute penalty kick, but Javi Fuego equalized in the 87th and Jose Antonio Reyes netted a 90th-minute winner with a superb shot into the upper corner.

"I hit that shot with my soul," Reyes said. "You have to hit it with your soul."

The result moved Espanyol to eighth place in the standings, in position to fight for a Europa League spot next season.

Betis stayed 13th, 10 above the relegation zone.

"It's bad luck," Betis captain Joaquin Sanchez Rodriguez said. "We deserved at least a point after the match that we played."

Real Madrid has a two-point lead over defending champion Barcelona. Madrid hosts Alaves on Sunday, while Barcelona plays at Granada the same day.
By Robin Emmott and Alastair Macdonald VALLETTA/BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The European Union offered Britain talks this year on a future free trade pact but made clear in negotiating guidelines issued on Friday that London must first agree to EU demands on the terms of Brexit. Those include paying tens of billions of euros and giving residence rights to some 3 million EU citizens in Britain, the proposed negotiating objectives distributed by EU summit chair Donald Tusk to Britain's 27 EU partners showed. The document, seen by Reuters, also sets tough conditions for any transition period, insisting Britain must accept many EU rules after any such partial withdrawal. It also spelled out EU resistance to Britain scrapping swathes of tax, environmental and labour laws if it wants to have an eventual free trade pact. The guidelines, which may be revised before the EU27 leaders endorse them at a summit on April 29, came two days after Prime Minister Theresa May triggered a two-year countdown to Britain's withdrawal in a letter to Tusk that included a request for a rapid start to negotiations on a post-Brexit free trade deal. "Once, and only once we have achieved sufficient progress on the withdrawal, can we discuss the framework for our future relationship," Tusk told reporters in Malta -- a compromise between EU hardliners who want no trade talks until the full Brexit deal is agreed and British calls for an immediate start. "Starting parallel talks on all issues at the same time, as suggested by some in the UK, will not happen," Tusk said, while adding that the EU could assess as early as this autumn that Britain had made "sufficient progress" on the exit terms in order to open the second phase of negotiations, on future trade. Brussels has estimated that Britain might owe it something of the order of 60 billion euros on departure, although it says the actual number cannot be calculated until it actually leaves. What it does want is to agree the methodology of how to work out the "Brexit bill", taking into account Britain's share of EU assets and liabilities. Britain disputes the figure but May said on Wednesday that London would meet its "obligations". Her spokesman responded to Tusk on Friday by saying: "It is clear both sides wish to approach these talks constructively, and as the prime minister said this week, wish to ensure a deep and special partnership between the UK and the European Union." The Union's opening gambit in what Tusk said would at times be a "confrontational" negotiation with May's government also rammed home Brussels' insistence that while it was open to letting Britain retain some rights in the EU during a transition after 2019, it would do so only on its own terms. Britain would have to go on accepting EU rules, such as free migration, pay budget contributions and submit to oversight by the European Court of Justice -- all things that drove last June's referendum vote to leave and elements which May would like to show she has delivered on before an election in 2020. Existing "regulatory, budgetary, supervisory and enforcement instruments and structures" would apply after Brexit, Tusk's draft guidelines stated in reference to a transition period that diplomats expect could last two to five years beyond 2019. "NO DUMPING" It also stressed that a future trade pact, allowing for not just low or zero tariffs on goods but also regulatory alignment to promote trade in services, should not allow Britain to pick and choose which economic sectors to open up. That would prevent London giving undue subsidies or slashing taxes or regulations -- "fiscal, social and environmental dumping", in EU parlance. The negotiations will be among the most complex diplomatic talks ever undertaken, and the EU guidelines are only an opening bid. EU officials believe they have the upper hand in view of Britain's dependence on exports to the continent, while British diplomats see possibilities to exploit EU states' differences. Tusk and Maltese Prime Minister Joseph Muscat, who holds the Union's rotating presidency, warned against such efforts and insisted the EU would negotiate "as one", through their chief negotiator, former French foreign minister Michel Barnier. He expects to start full negotiations in early June. In a move to avoid long-running disputes between Britain and Spain over Gibraltar holding up an orderly exit, Tusk proposed that Madrid should have a veto over the future application of any EU-U.K. treaty to the territory -- but only after Brexit. Tusk spelled out priorities for the withdrawal treaty, which Barnier hopes can be settled by November 2018, in time for parliamentary ratification by Brexit Day on March 29, 2019: - the EU wants "reciprocal" and legal "enforceable" guarantees for all EU citizens who find their rights to live in Britain affected after a cutoff on the date of withdrawal - businesses must not face a "legal vacuum" on Brexit - Britain should settle bills, including "contingent liabilities" to the EU - agreement on border arrangements, especially on the new EU-U.K. land border in Ireland, as well as those of British military bases on EU member Cyprus. (Writing by Alastair Macdonald; Editing by Catherine Evans)
By Alastair Macdonald BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The European Union is ready to talk to Britain on a future free trade deal before the two sides agree final terms on Brexit, draft EU negotiating guidelines issued on Friday show. As part of a "phased approach", Britain would just have to show "sufficient progress" on its divorce settlement in a first phase of negotiations and EU states could release a lock and agree to launch trade talks in a second phase. But that concession to Theresa May two days after she triggered a two-year countdown to withdrawal was accompanied by elements in the draft circulated by EU summit chair Donald Tusk that the British prime minister may find less palatable. They include an insistence that during a transition period likely to follow Britain's departure in 2019 and before a free trade pact can be finalised, the British must accept EU rules, including budget contributions and judicial oversight, that are some of the main reasons a majority voted for Brexit last June. If Britain remains a part of the EU single market for a time after Brexit, it would also have to respect all "four freedoms", which would mean accepting free immigration from the continent. The draft guidelines, seen by Reuters after European Council President Tusk distributed them to the 27 other governments in the bloc on Friday, may be somewhat revised over the next month before being endorsed by the 27 leaders at a summit on April 29. Among other elements in the eight-page document, which Tusk will outline at a news conference later on Friday, is a priority to settle legal uncertainty for EU expatriates living on either side of the new EU-U.K. frontier. It says rights acquired before a cutoff on the day Brexit takes effect should be retained. Responding to May's warning that she might prefer to walk away without a deal, the EU should be ready for such an outcome but will, the document says, work to ensure that does not happen as it would be in the interests of neither side. JUNE TALKS The guidelines will form the basis of a mandate for chief EU negotiator Michel Barnier. He expects to launch negotiations in early June, giving him about 16 months to conclude the basics of a withdrawal treaty that can then be ratified by lawmakers on both sides in time for Brexit on March 29, 2019. "In these negotiations the Union will act as one. It will be constructive throughout and will strive to find an agreement. This is in the best interest of both sides," the draft says. "The Union will work hard to achieve that outcome, but it will prepare itself to be able to handle the situation also if the negotiations were to fail." Over the past nine months, EU leaders and officials have resisted British calls for immediate negotiations on a deep and comprehensive free trade agreement to replace Britain's lost access to the EU single market by ensuring low or zero tariffs and harmonizing regulations to encourage trade in services. Many have insisted Britain must first make good on a divorce settlement that will include it settling outstanding financial commitments -- the EU has advanced a ballpark figure of 60 billion euros ($64 billion) -- agreeing new border arrangements and clarifying the rights of EU expatriates on either side of the new frontier. Legally, a trade deal cannot be signed until Britain has left and many on both sides believe that, going by typical times to negotiate such accords, it will take several years beyond 2019 before one is in place. In her trigger letter to Tusk, May called for trade talks to move ahead "alongside" the divorce. In his draft guidelines, Tusk proposed that if the 27 leaders saw "sufficient progress" towards a withdrawal treaty then negotiations on a future trading relationship could start. Some governments are firmer than others in refusing trade talks from the start, so the guidelines could change. And there could be difficulties for Britain later in securing the agreement of the 27 as a group that progress was sufficient. The guidelines put no timeframe on how long a transition between Brexit and a new relationship should last. Many EU officials believe it could be between two and five years. But during that time, when May hopes to win an election in 2020 where she will want to show she has delivered Brexit, the EU will insist Britain should remain subject to the EU's "regulatory, budgetary, supervisory and enforcement instruments and structures" -- effectively accepting existing EU rules and their enforcement by the European Court of Justice. (Reporting by Alastair Macdonald; @macdonaldrtr; editing by Philip Blenkinsop)
Valletta (AFP) - The European Union is set to reveal on Friday its negotiating plan for Brexit, two days after British Prime Minister Theresa May launched the two-year countdown to divorce.

EU president Donald Tusk will issue draft guidelines setting out the political priorities of the remaining 27 countries for what promise to be difficult talks to sever Britain from the European bloc.

Germany and France have already united against May's call to negotiate the exit and the new relationship at the same time, and Tusk's guidelines are expected to deliver the same tough message.

Tusk will give a press conference in Malta with Maltese Prime Minister Joseph Muscat, whose country holds the EU's rotating presidency, to discuss the strategy at 0745 GMT.

The guidelines are also expected to contain more details on a possible transitional period, between Brexit on March 29, 2019 and the start of a new trade deal some years later.

The EU 27 will adopt the guidelines at a special summit on April 29. The EU's French chief negotiator, Michel Barnier, is expected to get the green light to start talks with Britain weeks later.

May formally notified the EU of Britain's intention to leave in a letter to Tusk on Monday that diplomats described as surprisingly conciliatory in tone for the most part.

- 'Brexit not the end' -

But May's warning in the letter that failure to clinch a deal on trade would affect Britain's cooperation on terrorism and security still rankled with many.

"It's not a threat," Brexit minister David Davis told BBC radio after warnings from Brussels against using security as a bargaining chip in the talks.

The EU has proclaimed its unity on Brexit, even as it reels from one of its biggest members becoming the first to start withdrawal negotiations, in the bloc's 60th anniversary year.

"Brexit is not the end of everything, but we must make it a beginning of something that will be new, stronger and better," European Commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker said in Malta Thursday.

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French President Francois Hollande followed German Chancellor Angela Merkel in snubbing May's proposed structure for the negotiations, saying the exit agreement should come first.

The fate of three million EU citizens living in Britain and one million British people within the bloc's nations is at the top of leaders' agenda.

Also looming large is the so-called "exit bill" which Britain will have to pay, estimated to be as much as 60 billion euros ($64 billion, A52 billion), and the border between Northern Ireland and Ireland.

EU leaders hope to resolve those issues by the end of the year before moving on to the future relationship and a possible transition.

But that leaves only 10 months before October 2018 when Barnier says the talks must wrap up to give time for the European Parliament and member states to approve what the negotiators come up with.

- Business fallout -

In the first signs of a business fall-out since May's Brexit notification, the prestigious Lloyd's of London insurance market said it would open a new Brussels subsidiary to ensure smooth operations in the EU.

"We would no longer be able to provide insurance for our customers in the EU" without an office in the bloc, Lloyd's chief executive Inga Beale told AFP.

The scramble for spoils after Britain leaves the single market has also kicked off, with Luxembourg laying legal claim to host the London-based European Banking Authority, amid stiff competition from Frankfurt.

Britain has meanwhile started laying plans for the daunting task of bringing thousands of items of EU regulation into British law on the day that Britain leaves the EU.

But May is struggling to bring unity in the wake of the divisive Brexit referendum last June that saw 52 percent vote in favour of leaving the EU and 48 percent against.

As well as fears for the Northern Irish peace process from a return of a hard border, the referendum result has also led to a renewed campaign for independence in pro-EU Scotland.
By Robin Emmott ST JULIAN'S, Malta (Reuters) - The next steps in euro zone integration after Brexit could include greater investment in poorer members of the currency area, but only if they reduce the risky links between governments and banks, a top EU official said. Britain's pending departure from the European Union has reignited the debate on how to reinvigorate the bloc and make the euro zone stronger and more sustainable, despite different views held by France and Germany. European Commission Vice President Jyrki Katainen said his political family, the powerful European People's Party (EPP) that includes German Chancellor Angela Merkel, was ready to consider funding investment to weak members of the euro zone. That falls well short of long-held French demands, quashed by Germany, to coordinate economic policy across the euro zone and preside over fiscal transfers between its 19 members. But the center-right EPP, whose lawmakers hold the most seats in the European Parliament, is more open to what Katainen called an "investment capacity", potentially backing projects through the EU's new infrastructure investment fund via the European Investment Bank. "It's understandable that in economics there are cycles and in order to keep a currency union as stable as possible, there's a need to level the peaks and troughs," Katainen told Reuters an interview on Friday after an EPP congress in Malta. "If there are shocks in some members that are cyclical in nature, it makes sense to help," he said. Following the euro zone's near break-up during the 2010-2012 crisis, many economists argued the currency area could only survive as a proper monetary union like the United States. That would mean a new European economic governance, possibly with a euro finance minister who has the means to make fiscal transfers from richer to poorer euro zone states. The idea has been anathema to Germany's ruling class, with Merkel's government having rejected any form of permanent transfers to poorer countries, fearing Berlin would have to foot the bill and would lose control of reckless spenders. But Katainen, a former Finnish prime minister whose country was among those who allied with Germany on the issue during the crisis, said he sensed a change in northern politicians. "I see more willingness to consider what the ideal currency union would look like," said Katainen. "My own thinking has also changed. It doesn't cost anything to be open minded." While Britain is not a member of the euro zone, its decision to trigger exit proceedings from the EU on Wednesday has left officials looking for ways to keep European integration alive. "NO TRUST" The European Commission, the EU executive, is expected to come forward with a so-called reflection paper on deepening euro zone integration in May, although Katainen is not involved in that work. He said he spoke only for the EPP on the matter. "Because of Brexit, the sentiment of the remaining 27 countries on reforming the EU has strengthened, with a focus on EMU," Katainen said, referring to Economic and Monetary Union. The euro zone, the economic core of the 60-year-old European project, tightened fiscal rules and created its own rescue fund and a common supervisor for banks during the heat of the crisis but is still considered by many as incomplete. However, Katainen cautioned that the biggest obstacle was the lack of trust between members of the euro zone. "We don't trust each other as much as we should." One step proposed by the EPP is for the euro zone to establish limits on the amount of money governments can borrow from euro zone banks to avoid crises that would wipe out lenders if a country defaulted. Domestic debt in the euro zone averaged almost 120 percent of banks own funds at the end of 2013, according to the EPP. For banks, EU rules that consider sovereign debt as having a zero-risk weighting on balance sheets are a problem, Katainen said because bonds issued by euro zone governments are considered risk-free by their bankers. "This is a viscous circle that must be broken. We must be ready to defend countries but we must also address the root causes of any crisis," he said. (Reporting by Robin Emmott; Editing by Vin Shahrestani)
AUSTIN, Texas (AP)  Democratic Texas Rep. Beto O'Rourke kicked off his longshot bid to unseat Republican Sen. Ted Cruz on Friday, vowing an unscripted and unconventional campaign that could catch voters' imagination at a moment when Democrats are eager to go on offense against the Trump administration.

"We need to meet this fear, this anxiety, this paranoia that's coming out of the White House  that's gripping so much of this country  with a strength and a confidence that can only come from Texas," O'Rourke told enthusiastic supporters at a rooftop rally in his hometown of El Paso.

The 44-year-old third-term congressman took shots at Cruz, who finished second to Donald Trump in last year's Republican presidential primary, saying the state needs a "senator working full-time for Texas" rather than "serving his own interests" running for president and helping lead a government shutdown in 2013.

In response Cruz said: "I welcome him to the race, and will continue to work every day to earn and keep the trust of Texans across our great state."

But in a fundraising email to supporters, Cruz's campaign made clear the coming lines of attack, deriding O'Rourke as an "unabashed liberal" without "any record of achievement, and a progressive ideology out of touch with the majority of Texans."

Picking off Cruz would be a formidable challenge in Republican-friendly Texas, where no Democrat has won statewide since 1994, and O'Rourke will be the acknowledged underdog in the race. He pledged to campaign without pollsters, consultants or PAC money, and may have trouble getting much attention from a national party focused on defending 10 Senate Democrats who are up for re-election next year in states Trump won.

O'Rourke also may end up facing a primary challenge since fellow Rep. Joaquin Castro is also weighing a bid.

But O'Rourke said he was fine going forward without help from national Democrats, saying he would take his campaign straight to Texas voters. And with Republicans in control of the Senate 52-48, and scant pickup opportunities for Democrats, he argued that anyone interested in Democrats taking back the Senate majority should pay attention to his race.

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"Playing defense, while important, is not going to turn people on, it's not exciting, it's not going to capture anyone's imagination," O'Rourke said in an interview with The Associated Press shortly after his announcement. "What's exciting is taking back the Senate, and as far as I can tell the only way to do that is through Texas."

Such an approach could allow O'Rourke to tap into some of the grassroots energy and small-dollar donations that fueled Bernie Sanders' presidential campaign. He recently got attention for going on a 36-hour bipartisan road trip from Texas to Washington with GOP Rep Will Hurd when a snowstorm canceled their flights. They livestreamed much of the journey, causing an internet stir while enduring traffic jams, making fast-food runs and expressing mutual opposition to Trump's proposed border wall.

O'Rourke said the attention the road trip garnered was a sign of voters' hunger for a bipartisanship that's increasingly rare in Washington.

The congressman speaks fluent Spanish and switched between it and English in his kickoff speech, pledging support for "comprehensive immigration reform" and opposition to Trump's refugee travel ban. He talked about wooing both Democrats and Republicans in Texas, and his support for congressional term limits.

O'Rourke is the kind of rising political star Democrats hope can help begin turning red Texas blue, aided by a booming Hispanic population and state politics pushed even farther right by Trump and Cruz. He first made a name for himself playing guitar for Foss, an El Paso rock band that included drummer Cedric Bixler-Zavala, who went on to play for the Grammy Award-winning act The Mars Volta.

He has advocated for legalizing marijuana and wrote a book decrying the federal government's war on drugs. On Friday, he talked about the opioid addiction crisis sweeping much of the country, noted that many states have stopped filling prisons by "locking up marijuana convictions" and said, "We have an opportunity to end this failed war on drugs."

O'Rourke was elected to the El Paso City Council at age 32 but remained little-known until the 2012 Democratic primary, when he stunned eight-term Rep. Silvestre Reyes, a former House Intelligence chairman.

O'Rourke was arrested in 1995 for breaking and entering after jumping a fence at the University of Texas at El Paso during what he now says was a prank, but prosecutors declined the case. Three years later, O'Rourke was arrested for drunken driving and received deferred adjudication to avoid conviction, an incident he has called a mistake.

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Congressional Correspondent Erica Werner reported from Washington.
By Mark Hosenball WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump on Friday backed a decision by his former national security adviser to seek immunity in congressional investigations of possible ties between his election campaign and Russia, but there was no immediate sign a request would be granted. Retired General Michael Flynn, who resigned only 24 days after becoming national security adviser, wants protection against "unfair prosecution" if he testifies before the intelligence committees of the U.S. Senate and the House of Representatives, his lawyer, Robert Kelner, said on Thursday. Testimony from Flynn could help shed light on the conversations he had last year with Sergei Kislyak, Russian ambassador to the United States, while national security adviser for Trump's presidential campaign. U.S. Representative Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the House of Representatives intelligence committee, said it was too soon to consider immunity requests. "As with any investigation - and particularly one that grows in severity and magnitude by the day - there is still much work and many more witnesses and documents to obtain before any immunity request from any witness can be considered," he said in a statement. Schiff said the House intelligence panel would discuss any request with the Justice Department and the Senate Intelligence Committee, describing such a request "a grave and momentous step." Schiff on Friday was allowed to see documents at the White House that previously had been seen only by the Republican chairman of the intelligence committee. Trump, a Republican, said in a tweet that Democrats were instigating the congressional investigations because they were upset about his Nov. 8 victory over their party's candidate, Hillary Clinton. "Mike Flynn should ask for immunity in that this is a witch hunt (excuse for big election loss), by media & Dems, of historic proportion!" Trump said. Trump would not comment further when asked about Flynn during a White House meeting with U.S. manufacturers. White House spokesman Sean Spicer was asked at a news briefing if he was concerned that Flynn could provide information that could be harmful to the administration and replied, "Nope." He said Trump wanted Flynn to testify to "get this matter behind us" but declined to say specifically that he should be granted immunity. "The president is very clear that he wants Mike Flynn to go and be completely open and transparent with the committee, and whatever it takes to do that he is supportive of," Spicer said. DOCUMENT REVIEW Schiff and an aide went to the White House on Friday at the administration's invitation to review documents that it said support Trump's contention he and his team were subjected to surveillance by the Obama administration during the presidential campaign. The Republican chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Devin Nunes, has been criticized by his colleagues on the panel for his handling of the investigation of possible Russian connections, including going to the White House complex independently to review documents on the purported surveillance. "While I cannot discuss the content of the documents," Schiff said, "if the White House had any concern over these materials, they should have been shared with the full (House and Senate intelligence) committees in the first place as a part of our ordinary oversight responsibilities." He said the material should now be given to both congressional intelligence committees. FBI Director James Comey has said there is no evidence of wiretapping at Trump Tower in New York but that the agency is investigating whether the Trump campaign colluded with Russia. Senator Angus King, a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, also said it was too soon to discuss immunity. A government official with direct knowledge of the case told Reuters that lawyers for Flynn raised the immunity request roughly 10 days ago with representatives of the Senate panel. Officials told them the committee was not interested in any immunity discussions at that time. The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday that Flynn had also sought immunity from the Federal Bureau of Investigation in exchange for testimony. Flynn was forced to resign on Feb. 13 for failing to disclose talks with Kislyak about U.S. sanctions on Moscow and misleading Vice President Mike Pence about the conversations, which occurred before Trump took office. Congressional committees and the FBI are looking into allegations by U.S. intelligence agencies that Russia meddled in the 2016 U.S. election campaign. The Russian government has denied the allegations and denied that it hacked emails of Democratic groups and released information to tip the election toward Trump, who has called for better U.S. relations with Moscow. King, an independent who caucuses with the Democrats, defended the investigations in a CNN interview. "This is not a witch hunt," he said. "This is an effort to get to the truth of some very important questions. "There is no doubt whatsoever that the Russians were behind an effort to interfere in our elections," he said. "To continue to deny that - it just flies in the face of all of the reality." (Reporting by Susan Heavey, Doina Chiacu, Mark Hosenball, Steve Holland and Patricia Zengerle; Writing by Steve Holland and Bill Trott; Editing by Lisa Von Ahn and Grant McCool)
Photo credit: Getty

From Delish

If there's one thing the Fast And The Furious franchise is known for, it's borderline physics-defying driving stunts, punctuated by lines about family and references to drinking Coronas (so, okay, three things). As the series gears up for its eighth movie, The Fate Of The Furious, you have to wonder how they'll top the times they drove a Camaro onto a moving boat or skydived in muscle cars - and keep up with the nonstop action scenes the movies demand.

Tyrese Gibson's found a workaround, and it involves hitting up his local Starbucks (and no, we don't mean the one in his backyard). He's a fan of the secret menu, and he's come up with a drink that's unlike anything we've heard of before. He calls it Casper.

"It creates white lights of energy - you get very hyper," he said.

Photo credit: Universal Pictures/Giphy

He's not joking when he says you'll get so amped up you might think you're seeing the friendly ghost IRL. To make it, you have to ask the barista for a venti hot chocolate with three shots of espresso and four pumps of hazelnut syrup. No whipped cream, because the concoction's got enough sugar in it already.

"You have all of this espresso that just happens to be in hot chocolate," Gibson explained. "Espresso by itself tastes really horrible, to me."

The drink's like downing liquid Nutella, without realizing you're getting roughly 450 mg of caffeine in one sitting - about 50 mg more than the recommended daily allotment. That's one way to stay energized during long days on set, though his doctor may shudder at that news.

"It's just tastebuds over reality," he said, confessing his stomach often rules everything he orders, from his coffee breaks to his love of snow crab legs and Cheddar Bay Biscuits at Red Lobster.

Clearly, the actor goes full throttle in all areas of his life.

Follow Delish on Instagram.

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Funding for Donald Trumps Mexico border wall will be front and center in next months budget debate, but there could be a broader constitution barrier staying in the way of the projects long-term completion.

There has been more media and academic discussion in the past few weeks about the feasibility of the U.S. government acquiring the land needed to build a wall, of any size, that extends over 1,300 additional miles between the United States and Mexico, not including land that doesnt already have walls or natural barriers.

Overall, the Trump wall project would stretch about 2,000 miles, including existing fences and barrier built in past years. According to a GAO report from 2015, about one-third of that land belongs to the federal government and tribal authorities. The other two-thirds of that land, mostly in Texas, belongs to state and private owners.

The Fifth Amendments Takings Clause would allow the federal government to claim the land for public use, provided it pays a fair price for the land as just compensation. Few experts dispute the Trump administrations ability to buy the land. However, the eminent domain process can be a long, expensive process for even the smallest pieces of land.

The often-cited example in this case is the legal battle involving Eloisa Tamez. About eight years ago, the Bush administration started a program to build more than 600 miles of fencing on the California, New Mexico, Texas, and Arizona borders, and it wanted one acre of Tamezs land in Texas. She went to court and after seven years of litigation, Tamez received $56,000 for a quarter-acre of land along with a security code for the fence.

Randal John Meyer from the Cato Institute wrote about these potential issues back in 2016 when Trump became the apparent Republican nominee, riding a wave of publicity about the wall.

The Great Wall of Trump would mean hundreds, if not thousands, of Tamezes, Meyer said. Citing GAO records, Meyer said it took about a decade to settle all the eminent domain lawsuits involved in the Bush-era fence plan, with about 500 homeowners affected in the plan to put barriers on 700 miles of land - and the federal government owned much of the land used in that project.

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The Trump administration wall project is the opposite, Meyer said, since it involves at least 1,000 miles of land that will host a much-bigger wall, and most of that land, especially in Texas, isnt owned by the federal government.

A more recent article by University of Pittsburgh Law School law professor Gerald S. Dickinson gets into specifics about the current wall project. In trying to take land for the wall, the federal government would be held to time-consuming procedures that include consultation and negotiation with the affected parties  including private landowners, tribes, and state and local governments  before taking any action, Dickinson said.

And then theres the issue of taking property from Native American nations. The members of the Tohono Oodham Nation own 62 miles of border land in Texas, but they also have cultural roots in Mexico. The Supreme Court has ruled that the federal government must take tribal interests into account in these situations. Trump would need a bill from Congress to acquire the tribal lands, which are protected by treaties and other statutory equivalents, Dickinson said.

The end results could be a series of court fights that extend beyond the term of any Trump administration. Any federal eminent domain action on such a large scale against even a few landowners could trigger decades of court disputes before anything is built, Dickinson concluded.

President Trumps proposed budget includes expenses for 20 attorneys to litigate eminent domain problems related to the wall. The lawyers are needed to pursue federal efforts to obtain land and holdings necessary to secure the Southwest border.

Alan Ackerman, an eminent-domain lawyer in Michigan, told The Wall Street Journal that the Trump administration could use a legal tactic by filing large groups of cases. Federal judges have appointed commissioners to oversee disputes over land compensation for very large projects, Ackerman told the Journal.

Scott Bomboy is the editor in chief of the National Constitution Center.

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Gorsuch confirmation set for next Friday, filibuster drama likely

Podcast: The Gorsuch hearings and the future of the Constitution
Though President Donald Trump has named his nominee for the open seat on the Supreme Court - Neil Gorsuch, 10th circuit appellate court judge from Colorado - some Democrats are saying they plan to filibuster the nomination. This week, for example, Sen. Chuck Schumer (writing in Politico) and Sen. Bernie Sanders (speaking on CNN) both said that Gorsuch will have to muster 60 votes in order to be confirmed - in other words, that he will need to be filibuster-proof.

Whether as a type of payback for Republicans refusal to approve president Obamas pick, Merrick Garland, or because they have concerns regarding Gorsuchs ideological and legal background, if Senate Democrats follow through on that threat it would be, by some counts, only the second-ever SCOTUS nominee filibuster.

Thats not to say that nobody has ever come close. According to a report from the Congressional Research Service, cloture was attempted (basically, the supporters of the nomination tried to prove that they had enough votes that a filibuster wouldnt work) four times on Supreme Court nominations, from when the rules changed in 1949 until 2013. It happened against William H. Rehnquist twice (in 1971 and again in 1986) and against Samuel Alito - a move that was supported by then-senator Barack Obama - in 2006. Though the attempt at cloture was rejected in 1971, Rehnquist was confirmed anyway and lawmakers at the time denied a filibuster had happened; in the two other cases, cloture was successfully invoked and prevented a filibuster.

That means the Senate has only successfully filibustered a SCOTUS nominee once, when President Lyndon B. Johnson nominated Abe Fortas to be Chief Justice in 1968.

Surprisingly, Fortas holds this dubious distinction despite already sitting on the Supreme Court at the time the filibuster took place.

A Memphis native, Fortas became a professor at Yale Law School before climbing the ranks in Washington. He served on the Securities and Exchange Commission, then served under presidents Roosevelt and Truman, later taking up private practice in Washington, D.C.

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A longtime friend of President Johnsons, Fortas was appointed to sit on the Supreme Court as an Associate Justice in 1965 when Arthur Goldberg left his post to become a U.S. ambassador the U.N., at the presidents request. During his time on the Supreme Court leading up to his Chief Justice nomination, Fortas began creating a legacy based largely on supporting civil rights and expanding legal rights for youth. For example, Fortas wrote the majority decision on Kent v. United States in 1966, granting expanded legal rights to minors, and upheld the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

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However, Fortas next presidential promotion would not be so fortuitous for Fortas or Johnson.

When Chief Justice Earl Warren announced his retirement in 1968, Johnson quickly moved to put Fortas in the courts top spot. In fact, Johnson had persuaded Warren to leave the Court so that he would have the opportunity to put a new Chief Justice on the Court before Nixon took office. Though Fortas was already serving on the Supreme Court, the Constitution still requires Chief Justice nominees to be screened by the Senate Judiciary Committee.

A solidly liberal Justice with Washington experience and close ties to the White House, Fortas seemed like the natural appointment for Johnson to make. But the President and members of the Senate were not yet aware that Fortas had some ethical skeletons hiding in his closet.

During the confirmation process it came to light that money Fortas had received for teaching engagements at the Washington College of Law, a sum of $15,000, did not come from the school, but was instead funded by private corporations. Republicans were already less than enthusiastic about Fortas given his liberal tendencies regarding civil rights. They also took issue with his proximity to the President. All of this on top of the knowledge of potential conflicts of interest with private companies was all the Republicans, who were a minority in the senate, needed to resist Fortas by the most dramatic means available: filibuster.

For the first time ever, Senators blocked a SCOTUS appointment by filibuster. (Though there has been some debate over whether the rejection constituted a full filibuster, historians and contemporary observers generally agree that it was.) The vote to end the debate over his nomination did not end in Fortas favor, with only 45 voting yes, 14 votes short of the 59 that were needed. Johnsons plan had backfired terribly, and he was forced to withdraw Fortas nomination on October 2. The Republicans were victorious, which enabled Nixon to name conservative Warren Burger to the Court after taking office in 1969.

It should be noted that Burgers appointment wasnt a complete disaster for progressives - Burger voted in favor of abortion rights in Roe v. Wade in 1973, and in Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education in 1971 Burger voted with the rest of the Court to maintain that busing was an appropriate method for integrating schools.

As for Fortas, he remained an Associate Justice until he was forced to resign from the Court in 1969 with the threat of impeachment looming over him. After the Chief Justice nomination debacle, Financial disclosures revealed that Fortas had accepted $20,000 in fees from a foundation controlled by his former client, Louis Wolfson, who was under federal investigation at the time the payment was made. He became the first Justice to resign from the Court due to public outcry.

The financial scandals in which Fortas was involved largely overshadowed what the New York Times described as a long and brilliantly successful legal career in Fortas 1982 obituary. Indeed, Fortas career was irreparably marred in court of public opinion by two unfortunate firsts for the Supreme Court: first, the senate filibuster, and later, the circumstances of his resignation. And yet much of his legal legacy stand to this day - as, for now, does his status as the only Supreme Court nominee to be blocked by a filibuster.

This article was originally published on TIME.com
By Lawrence Hurley WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Senators Joe Manchin and Heidi Heitkamp on Thursday became the first Democrats to support the confirmation of President Donald Trump's Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch, giving Republicans two of eight Democratic votes needed to avoid a nasty fight on the U.S. Senate floor next week. Both West Virginia's Manchin and North Dakota's Heitkamp are up for re-election next year in states that voted for Trump in the 2016 presidential election. "I hold no illusions that I will agree with every decision Judge Gorsuch may issue in the future, but I have not found any reasons why this jurist should not be a Supreme Court justice," Manchin said in a statement. Manchin met with the nominee for a second time on Wednesday night. Heitkamp said that Gorsuch "has a record as a balanced, meticulous and well-respected jurist who understands the rule of law." If confirmed by the Senate to fill a vacancy created by the February 2016 death of conservative Justice Antonin Scalia, Gorsuch, 49, would restore the nine-seat high court's conservative majority. Senators Maria Cantwell of Washington state, Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada and Tammy Duckworth of Illinois said on Thursday they would vote against Gorsuch. Their announcements mean 35 of the 48 Democrats in the 100-seat Senate oppose Gorsuch, the Colorado-based federal appellate judge nominated by Trump in January for a lifetime post on the high court. Most Democrats have said they would back an effort to block a confirmation vote using a procedural hurdle called a filibuster that requires 60 votes to allow a confirmation vote. But there are some seeking to avoid such a move, including Chris Coons of Delaware. "Im open to anyone whos got a reasonable suggestion for how we might slow what seems to be an inexorable path towards changing the rules," Coons said on Thursday. The Senate Judiciary Committee is set to vote on sending the nomination to the Senate floor on April 3. Republican Senate leaders hope to confirm Gorsuch on April 7. Republicans control the Senate 52-48, meaning they need to win over eight Democrats to block a filibuster. The confirmation vote itself would require a simple majority. Eleven Democrats, including Coons, have yet to announce whether they would vote against Gorsuch or support a filibuster. Some Democrats have said Republicans "stole" a Supreme Court seat last year when the Senate refused to consider Democratic former President Barack Obama's nominee, Merrick Garland. (Reporting by Lawrence Hurley; Additional reporting by Susan Cornwell and Richard Cowan; Editing by Will Dunham and Lisa Shumaker)
A rare moment in U.S. legislative procedure occurred on Tuesday night, when Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell invoked Senate Rule XIX to prevent Sen. Elizabeth Warren from reading from a letter written by Coretta Scott King in 1986 about current Attorney General nominee Sen. Jeff Sessions.

The rule in question states that, No Senator in debate shall, directly or indirectly, by any form of words impute to another Senator or to other Senators any conduct or motive unworthy or unbecoming a Senator. It was adopted following an infamous fight on the Senate floor that took place in 1902.

But what exactly happened in 1902?

The details were described on Feb. 28 of that year by the Senate Committee on Privileges and Elections, which presented a full report on a personal encounter between Senators Pitchfork Ben Tillman-whom TIME later called one of the most unabashed racists in Southern history-and John McLaurin, both of South Carolina. The story, the committee declared, was not possible to sum up any better than had already been done by the official record on the proceedings of the previous week.

The exchange in question, as quoted in that report, begins after Tillman has said that a friend, whom he will not name, told him that Wisconsin Senator John Spooner had come by votes for a treaty in an unsavory way:

MR. TILLMAN: ...You know how you got [the votes].MR. SPOONER: How did we get them?MR. TILLMAN: I say you know how you got them.MR. SPOONER: I do not know how we got them. I do not know that any man voted for that treaty except in obedience to his convictions. Does the Senator know any different?MR. TILLMAN: I only know that in a court the Senator would convict on circumstantial evidence some men.MR. SPOONER: Does the Senator impeach any Senator? Let him name him. I do not impeach any Senator, nor do I know of any ground for impeaching any.MR. TILLMAN: I have reason to believe, from the circumstantial evidence and from things that have been told to me in confidence by men on the other side, that improper influences were used.MR. SPOONER. Name the man. That is due to the country, and due to the man whom you suspect and by innuendo charge...MR. TILLMAN: I can prove this: That the patronage of a State has been given to a Democrat who voted for the treaty.MR. SPOONER: What State?MR. TILLMAN: South Carolina.MR. SPOONER: Fight it out with your colleague.MR. TILLMAN: I am ready...At the conclusion of the Senator's remarks the junior Senator from South Carolina, being recognized by the Chair, addressing the Senate, said:MR. McLAURIN of South Carolina: Mr. President, I rise to a question of personal privilege. During my absence a few moments ago from the Senate Chamber, in attendance upon the Committee on Indian Affairs, the gentleman who has just taken his seat, the Senator who has just taken his seat, said that improper influences had been used in changing the vote of somebody on the treaty, and then went on later and said that it applied to the Senator from South Carolina, who had been given the patronage in that State. I think I get the sense of the controversy. I desire to state, Mr. President-I would not use as strong language as I intend to had I not, soon after the Senate met, replied to these insinuations and said that they were untrue-I now say that that statement is a willful, malicious, and deliberate lie...[At this point Mr. Tillman advanced to Mr. McLaurin, of South Carolina, and the two Senators met in a personal encounter, when they were separated by Mr. Layton, the acting assistant doorkeeper, assisted by several Senators sitting near.]

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Eventually, the Senator from South Carolina was called to order. Asked which one he meant, Teller responded as such: This one, and the other one, too, for that matter.

As to what had actually happened during the encounter, one contemporary report noted that Tillman literally climbed over another Senator to spring like a panther upon McLaurin. As they clashed, Tillman aimed a right-hand smash at his colleagues face, the report continued. Partially warding it off, McLaurin received the blow upon the forehead, just about the left eye, and promptly returned it, apparently striking Tillmans nose. And, in the course of breaking up the fight, the assistant sergeant-at-arms also received a punch in the face for his trouble.

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The two were declared in contempt of the Senate. That the conduct of the two Senators was an infringement of the privileges of the Senate, a violation of its rules, and derogatory to its high character, tending to bring the body itself into public contempt, cannot be questioned or denied, the Committee stated. Though it was found that Tillman and McLaurin were not equally guilty - in short, Tillman started it - both were formally censured.

Tillman survived the dishonor, was later re-elected to the Senate twice, and died in office. McLaurin served out his term, but did not seek reelection, TIME would later note. The bad blood between the two men was caused in part by McLaurins unfounded charge that Pitchfork Ben was an intellectual.'

Seizing the opportunity, Massachusetts Sen. George Hoar proposed the addition of what became Rule XIX(2) to the Senate rules.

On Wednesday, Warrens fellow Democrats spoke out to criticize the use of the rule to silence Warren-and they are not the first to take issue with its applications. As Neil MacNeil and Richard A. Baker note in their history of the Senate, the rule was intentionally vague, leaving the behavior in question up for interpretation, so that nearly anyone could be accused of breaking the rule and nearly anyone could avoid it, too.

While Rep. Horace Towner argued in Munseys Magazine in 1916 that the rules consequence was that it had made the Senate unfortunately boring and somnolent, that more pressing concern was voiced in 1951 by Sen. Herbert Lehman of New York, who raised the issue of the problem of Rule XIXs breadth-the same issue Warrens allies are attempting to raise today: that any member of the Senate can act as the independent judge of what is and what is not a reflection and imputation of conduct or motives unworthy or unbecoming a Senator.

This article was originally published on TIME.com
Washington (AFP) - President Donald Trump on Friday signed two executive orders directing his administration to get tough on countries he says are causing the $500 billion US trade deficit.

The figure can be deceiving because the US has a deficit of $750 billion for goods alone, but a surplus in services of $250 billion.

Here are five key issues that are the focus of the administration's "America First" trade policy:

- China -

The United States last year had a trade deficit with China of $310 billion including goods and services and Trump has threatened to impose import tariffs on the country. US officials say China unfairly uses subsidies, currency manipulation and other tactics to flood US markets with goods too cheap for American companies to compete with, including steel and aluminum.

Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross has vowed to toughen anti-dumping enforcement, including initiating cases from his office rather than waiting for companies to file a complaint, which has been the practice. He said there are 187 pending cases on steel alone, about half of which are against China.

"We are in a trade war. We have been for decades," Ross said.

Trump is due to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping at his Florida estate.

"The meeting next week with China will be a very difficult one," Trump tweeted, in apparent reference to the Mar-a-Lago meeting beginning next Thursday.

"We can no longer have massive trade deficits... and job losses. American companies must be prepared to look at other alternatives."

- NAFTA -

Trump calls the free trade agreement, established January 1, 1994, the worst ever entered into and has promised to renegotiate the terms or abandon the pact altogether. The White House has submitted a draft letter to Congress that will launch the renegotiation, which seem to show plans for less drastic changes than originally indicated.

The US trade deficit in goods and services last year with Mexico was $62 billion, but with Canada the US had a surplus of $8 billion.

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- Currency -

Administration officials accuse China of manipulating its currency to gain an unfair trade advantage, and also has accused Germany of exploiting a weak euro to boost its trade surplus. The US deficit in goods and services with Germany was $68 billion in 2016.

Peter Navarro, director of the White House National Trade Council, said the Trump administration will focus on tough actions aimed at "eliminating currency manipulation and other forms of trade cheating," which will create growth and jobs in the US economy.

However, China for many months has been intervening in currency markets to prop up the renminbi, contrary to the administration charges. The US Treasury's semi-annual report on currencies in October said Beijing only meets one of the three criteria to be declared a currency manipulator: having a large surplus with the United States.

If the Trump administration next month nevertheless declares that China is a currency manipulator, that would launch a multi-step process that could lead to imposition of trade sanctions.

In the October report, Germany met two of the criteria -- a large trade surplus and a current account surplus of more than three percent of GDP -- but was not manipulating its currency. Because Germany uses the euro, it cannot directly impact the exchange rate.

Even so, Navarro said there needs to be "candid discussions" with Germany to find a way to reduce the deficit.

- Asia -

Trump's first official move on trade after he took office in January was to pull out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreed by the Obama administration. Although the 12-nation pact faced stiff opposition in both parties, trade experts worry that, without a coherent strategy, withdrawing from the agreement cedes influence in the region to China.

China, which was not in the TPP, is leading talks with many of the would-be members for a competing regional trade agreement, which analysts fear will undercut US access to those markets.

- WTO -

As with NAFTA, Trump has been highly critical of the World Trade Organization and what he calls unfair treatment of the US, even though Washington has a very successful track record of winning complaints brought against other countries, especially China.

Trump has threatened import tariffs on China and Mexico, and has considered a "border adjustment tax" as a way to reduce the trade deficit. But such unilateral actions could violate WTO rules and are almost certain to open the US to legal challenges by other members.
By Minami Funakoshi TOKYO (Reuters) - Almost 40 percent of foreign residents who sought housing in Japan had applications turned down and almost a quarter were denied jobs in the past five years, a survey showed on Friday, highlighting discrimination in a largely homogeneous society. The findings from the Justice Ministry survey come as the number of foreign workers and residents in Japan hit record highs as the country prepares to host the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. However, immigration remains a touchy subject in a land where conservatives prize cultural homogeneity and foreigners make up less than two percent of the population. Language skills weren't the problem, the survey suggested, with about 95 percent of those who were denied jobs and more than 90 percent of those who were denied housing saying they spoke Japanese conversationally, professionally or fluently. "The landlord said I couldn't live in the flat because of my nationality," said a Korean respondent in her fifties quoted in the report. "I was born and raised in Japan and Japanese is the only language I know. There is still so much bias and discrimination in Japan," she said. The survey was conducted so that the Justice Ministry could better understand what discrimination and human rights issues foreigners in Japan face, and to find ways protect their rights. The first government survey of its kind, it was conducted by the Centre for Human Rights Education and Training in November and December last year. Of the 18,500 foreign residents contacted, 4,252 responded. More than half of them were Chinese and Korean, and more than 40 percent had lived in Japan for more than a decade. Nearly 20 percent of the 2,788 respondents who had looked for work in the past five years said they received lower pay than Japanese people for the same job, and more than 17 percent said they couldn't get promoted because they were foreign. About 13 percent said their working conditions were worse than those for Japanese co-workers, with longer hours and fewer days off. Separate Justice Ministry data this month showed that violations, including unpaid wages, among groups accepting foreign trainees in Japan had risen last year. Around 30 percent of respondents said they were insulted or discriminated against occasionally or frequently. "One time, when I tried to enter a small shop in Harajuku, the staff told me it's for Japanese only," said a Brazilian woman in her twenties. A Korean woman in her sixties said: "Japan is my home and I love Japan, but discrimination against foreigners is deeply rooted. I wish for a society that recognizes diversity." (Reporting by Minami Funakoshi; Editing by Paul Tait)
Even in the darkest times, there are heroes-though sometimes they may be the people we least expect.

Thats the message a global nonprofit group hopes to spread Friday on Holocaust Remembrance Day, when it displays a small exhibit in a New York synagogue highlighting the little-known stories of Muslims who risked their lives to rescue Jewish people from persecution during World War II. Though the two religious groups are often presented in opposition, this exhibit is a reminder that they have also shared an important history of cooperation and mutual assistance.

The tales include those of Khaled Abdul Wahab, who sheltered about two dozen Jews in Tunisia, and Abdol Hossein Sardari, an Iranian diplomat who is credited with helping thousands of Jews escape Nazi soldiers by issuing them passports.

The group also recognizes the Pilkus, a Muslim family in Albania who harbored young Johanna Neumann and her mother in their home during the German occupation and convinced others that the two were family members visiting from Germany. They put their lives on the line to save us, Neumann, now 86, told TIME on Friday. If it had come out that we were Jews, the whole family would have been killed.

What these people did, many European nations didnt do, she added. They all stuck together and were determined to save Jews.

The collection of 15 stories shows how people organically came to protect one another, even in extreme environments of war and conflict, organizers said. Those stories are very powerful together because they show a different side to humanity. It shows that we can have hope even at a time like the Holocaust, said Mehnaz Afridi, a Manhattan College professor who specializes in Islam and the Holocaust.

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Though the narratives are being exhibited on a day observed by remembering the past, they are also vital to remember in todays world, given the rise of hatred, said Dani Laurence Andrea Varadi, co-director of I Am Your Protector, the organization behind the exhibit.

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The New York City-based group encourages societies and people to stand up to injustices, and Varadi points as an example to the climate faced by many Muslims around the world and in the U.S. as an example of what can happen when a group of people are seen as a monolith rather than as individuals. Hate crimes against Muslims in the U.S. soared 67% in 2015 from 154 in 2014 to 257, the latest figures from the FBI show. During his campaign, President Donald Trump pledged to temporarily ban Muslims from entering the country. Just this week, Trumps administration announced new immigration plans, and the White House is expected to order that the U.S. temporarily stop issuing visas to people from several majority-Muslim countries.

It makes people think its legitimate to hate, Varadi said. It is natural and normal to be scared and to think that we have to resist or fight, but we can also have a mechanism where we can catch ourselves and say, OK, there are some people who might be problematic, and we can look at them one on one.

She added that the historic tales of courage show the impact that can be made when people protect targets of hate in climates of rising fear, suspicion and hatred. Varadi hoped the stories inspire others to follow suit.

We can speak up, stand up for the other when we witness something, raise our voices in a peaceful, nonviolent way, she said. Whenever people think, Theres nothing I can do. I cannot make a difference, this is the most dangerous thing to think because it is not true.

The exhibit debuted in the headquarters of United Nations in Geneva a few weeks ago. I Am Your Protector will revive the display for a one-day commemoration event Friday at New York Citys Temple Emanu-El. However, organizers hope the stories have a lasting effect.

I think history shows that people stand up for each other-and those were the ones who created change. And if theres enough people who do that, then the whole reality changes, Varadi said. When communities come together with that mindset, whether its small or big, it becomes a huge force that can basically change the course of history.

This article was originally published on TIME.com
Washington (AFP) - President Donald Trump on Friday blasted a probe into his team's ties to Russia as an opposition "witch hunt," defending his former top aide Michael Flynn's decision to ask for immunity in the case.

Trump's ex-national security advisor, whose links to Russia are one focus of the sprawling investigation, has sought protection in exchange for his testimony to the FBI and congressional committees.

Flynn's lawyer said in a statement Thursday that his client has "a story to tell, and he very much wants to tell it, should the circumstances permit."

But two key committees in the probe, the House and Senate Intelligence Committees, both suggested the immunity proposal was premature.

Trump nevertheless encouraged Flynn's move in a tweet that appeared to lay down a challenge.

"Mike Flynn should ask for immunity in that this is a witch hunt (excuse for big election loss), by media & Dems, of historic proportion!"

Flynn's offer to testify under protection from prosecution suggests he has more to reveal about the Russia affair.

He could be a key witness as the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Congress seek to determine whether Trump advisors colluded with Russia's interference in last year's presidential election.

But Adam Schiff, the senior Democrat on the House panel, said there was "still much work and many more witnesses and documents to obtain before any immunity request from any witness can be considered."

"We should first acknowledge what a grave and momentous step it is for a former national security advisor to the president of the United States to ask for immunity from prosecution," Schiff said.

NBC News also quoted unnamed officials as saying the issue was not on the table at the Senate committee "at the moment."

- Close Trump advisor -

A close advisor to Trump's 2016 campaign, Flynn was forced to step down from his White House job in February after misleading the vice president about conversations he had with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak after the election.

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He is also in focus over receiving $33,000 from Russian television RT to attend a 2015 gala in Moscow where he sat with Russian President Vladimir Putin, and $530,000 from Turkey for lobbying services.

But Flynn is not the only member of Trump's advisors to have had contacts with Russia during the campaign. Investigators want to know whether there was any collusion between them and Moscow's concerted effort last year to hurt Trump's Democratic election rival Hillary Clinton.

What Flynn could tell investigators is unknown. US prosecutors can offer a suspect immunity in exchange for information that can incriminate others in a case, particularly larger figures.

Asking for immunity, said criminal lawyer Mark Bennett on Twitter, is "a reasonable stance for someone to take even if she hasn't done anything wrong -- especially where... the grand jury's investigation appears to have political overtones."

- Tactical move? -

Alex Whiting, a Harvard Law School professor writing on the Just Security website, said Flynn's offer to testify in exchange for immunity was "not a serious offer," suggesting it was rather a tactical move.

A real offer to the FBI would never have gone public in this way, he noted, given that it would have to involve Flynn negotiating to provide very serious evidence against powerful figures, including possibly the president.

"The fact that Flynn and his lawyer have made his offer publicly suggests that he has nothing good to give the prosecutors."

Instead, he said, it was more likely an effort by Flynn to protect himself from Justice Department prosecution, by first obtaining immunity from one of the bodies in Congress probing the Russia affair.

Conceivably, one of the Republican-dominated committees could do that to protect Flynn.

Critics assailed the president over his tweet, noting that during last year's campaign, Trump said in a speech that "If you're not guilty of a crime, what do you need immunity for?"

Asked by journalists Friday if Trump though Flynn was guilty of something, White House spokesman Sean Spicer said the president just wants Flynn to testify.

"He thinks Mike Flynn should go testify and do what he has to do to get the story out," Spicer said.
PARIS  Earlier this month, I joined the estimated 130,000 Frenchmen who answered the call of Jean-Luc Melenchon, the very-far-left presidential candidate, to stage a March for the Sixth Republic from the Bastille to the Place de la Republique in Paris. Among other radical positions, Melenchon argues that the Fifth Republic, which was declared by Charles De Gaulle in 1958 and enshrined a monarchical presidency, has reached the end of its useful life and that its time for a new, more democratic, more egalitarian France. Melenchon is a left-wing populist who compares himself to Bernie Sanders. Like Sanders, Melenchon speaks to the widespread desire of voters on the left to rewrite the orthodox rules of politics. These voters are the other side  the side we have tended to overlook  of the polarization of politics across the West.

Melenchon, 65, spent his career as a Socialist Party backbencher until 2008, when he bolted to form his own Left Party. In 2012, he ran for president and captured a respectable 11 percent of the vote. In that election, the Socialist Francois Hollande defeated right-wing incumbent Nicolas Sarkozy. But Melenchon viewed Hollande as the Tweedledum to Sarkozys Tweedledee  an apostle of globalism, neoliberalism, and financial austerity, and a puppet of the Eurocrats who dream of locking the people in an open-air prison, as he recently put it in his very pungent (and long-winded) weekly blog post. In February 2016, long before any other candidate had declared him or herself, Melenchon announced that he would run once again, now as the standard-bearer of another self-created party, La France Insoumise (France Standing Tall, more or less).

Melenchon has no real chance of becoming president and is unlikely to finish higher than fourth in the first round of the upcoming presidential elections. He may well, however, come out ahead of Benoit Hamon, the Socialist candidate. That would constitute an immense moral victory for Melenchon and his votaries, and an absolute calamity for the Socialists, who, like traditional center-left parties all over Europe, suddenly find themselves in free fall. Earlier this week, Hamon implored Melenchon  and not for the first time  to withdraw his candidacy in order to create a united left front. Melenchon responded by telling a crowd of 5,000 supporters that It is to you that I bound myself. I will negotiate nothing with anyone.

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I asked everyone I met at the march what was wrong with Hamon, who, after all, represents the left wing of Frances institutional left party. The first person I asked, Daniel Monnet, who, as it turned out, was running for parliament on Melenchons list in the Haute-Marne district in the northeast, said that the problem wasnt Hamons program, but his party. The Socialist Party has betrayed us, he said, and betrayed working people. Despite all his promises, Hollande accomplished only one progressive thing during his tenure  marriage for all, or gay marriage.

Its absolutely true that Hollande has governed as a centrist, pleasing neither left nor right. He instituted budget cuts to reduce Frances deficit, offering little resistance to the German-led austerity caucus in the European Union. Worse still, if thats possible, he continued Sarkozys campaign to liberalize French labor rules, passing  in the face of mass protests  an employment law that allows individual companies to bypass such key rules as the 35-hour workweek. Melenchon, by contrast, has called for massive new government spending to stimulate the economy and a relocalization of production enabled by a new regime of protectionism. Hes vowed to renegotiate Frances relationship with the EU  or leave. He would establish workers committees at the heart of big companies with the power to veto the bosss decisions to close factories, lay off workers, or move capital abroad.

As a young man, Melenchon was a Trotskyist, but he joined the Socialists rather than enlist in a Communist Party that would become increasingly marginal after the 1970s. He rose through the ranks of the party in Essonne, a department southwest of Paris, ultimately serving as a junior minister under Socialist Prime Minister Lionel Jospin from 2000 to 2002. But having grown up in Morocco, attended a regional university, and worked as a teacher, Melenchon was never fully comfortable in the partys intensely elitist culture, any more than he was with its mainstream social democratic principles.

Melenchon now enjoys the support, albeit grudging, of the Communist Party, which views him as a reckless individualist rather than a disciplined cadre. The partys red flag waved all along the route of the march. People also carried signs that read (in French) Share the Wealth and Democracy in the Workplace, though also Death With Dignity and No More Stop and Frisk.

One of the compelling features of Melenchonism is that it fuses the most intensely nostalgic elements of the French left with the most avant-garde. For the young people in the crowd  and there were a great many  Melenchon was the ardent ecologist who would replace nuclear facilities with wind farms and solar batteries. For the oldsters, hes the sworn enemy of capitalists and the moneyed power. Melenchon also defends the rights of immigrants and refugees, a brave position given the profound anger at both that has driven French politics to the right. However, he has played to nativist sentiment by complaining that the posted workers sent to France from low-wage EU countries took the bread out of French workers mouths. No one I talked to at the march raised Melenchons defense of immigrants as a reason for supporting him. In his speech the candidate steered clear of this supremely neuralgic question.

For the French left, the backward look is far more enthralling than the forward gaze; the past is where hope lies. The speakers who appeared on the stage before Melenchon read a poem Victor Hugo had written to celebrate the doomed Paris Commune of 1871, two works of the Chilean poet Pablo Neruda, a passage from Albert Camus on the imperative to resist fascism, and a fragment of Jean-Paul Sartre: There is no human nature; man is what he does. Gerard Miller, a psychoanalyst who had made a documentary on Melenchon, urged the crowd not to fall into the trap of How much does it cost? Rather, at the outset you must demand what is desirable. The crowd roared, Resistance! Resistance!

And then Melenchon, a stocky man with a red tie  always red  showing through his rather chic open-necked black sweater, took the stage. Melenchon is, as the French say, a tribune  an orator who knows how to stir the masses. The melodramatic vocabulary of the Revolution, the Commune, and the anti-fascist struggle of the 20th century issues from him as fluently as Elizabethan English from a gifted Shakespearean actor. Listen to the sound that rises from our ranks, he cried to the great throng. This sound has no name, like the sound of the wind in the leaves, like that of the rain on the pavement. The sound has no name, but it is a sign  that of the people when it arises in its history. It might sound like malarkey to a nonbeliever; to this crowd it was nectar.

Melenchon raged against a presidential monarchy  the semi-regal, unaccountable French head of state  and its close collusion with the kingpins of finance who subjugate and dominate. He insisted that the Socialist Hollande, like his right-wing predecessor Sarkozy, had surrendered French sovereignty to a European Union where all power is given to a wholly independent central bank whose sole mission is the protection of rent  a term straight out of Das Kapital. Melenchon also said that workers must exercise greater control over the means of production. For all of Melenchons facility with social media and his conversion to the cause of environmentalism, he seemed to be summoning his followers to join him in a glorious crusade to the 19th century.

Photo credit: THOMAS COEX/AFP/Getty Images

Left behind

The center-left parties of Europe, which for decades dominated both its politics and political culture, have lost their way. In the Dutch elections last month, the Labour Party finished seventh, plummeting from 38 seats in Parliament to nine. The British Labour Party has been rendered almost nonfunctional by splits within its ranks provoked by hard-left party leader Jeremy Corbyn. Frances Socialist Party still enjoys a near-majority in the National Assembly and holds many of the countrys most important mayoralties, but Hollande has suffered from record unpopularity almost throughout his tenure. Hamon may win little more than 10 percent of French votes. (Social Democratic parties do, however, continue to enjoy support in Germany and elsewhere in northern Europe, though at a lower level than they had been accustomed to in recent years.)

European postwar center-left parties were built on a base of unionized workers who enjoyed rising incomes as well as growing benefits from the welfare state, but also appealed to urban professionals and intellectuals. That coalition began to delaminate as white-collar jobs eclipsed blue-collar ones; the process has accelerated since the economic crisis of 2008 put an end to rising incomes. Marc Lazar, a historian at Sciences Po in Paris, argues that it is far too early to count the Socialists out for good. Nevertheless, he observes, Europes center-left parties have been losing supporters in three directions. Successful professionals have been leaving for third-way parties like Emmanuel Macrons En Marche!, or the parties have repositioned themselves to the right, as is the case with Italys Democratic Party, the heir to older left-wing and social democratic groupings. The blue-collar base has defected to the far right, whether Frances National Front or the UK Independence Party. Still others, including teachers and other civil servants, have found their way to left-of-the-left groupings, like La France Insoumise. Many leaders of Frances Socialist Party have announced that they will support Macron rather than Hamon. The latest was Manuel Valls, prime minister for most of Francois Hollandes tenure. The Socialists seem to be crumbling away by the hour.

The Communist boilerplate that I heard at the march has deep and deeply romantic sources in France. Lazar is the author of Communism: The French Passion, and he reminded me that the Communists had been Frances leading party from the end of World War II to De Gaulles victory in 1958. The Communists were the party of both workers and intellectuals. Melenchon draws from a historical legacy and a sense of romance that has outlasted the party itself. As Lazar puts it, Anti-Americanism, anti-capitalism, anti-imperialism, the idea that there is just one way to change, and that is towards Communism  this culture remains part of the politics of France. The appeal of this noble atavism has only grown as the dynamic of globalization has increasingly compelled the parties of both the center-left and -right to bow before the laws of the marketplace  embracing fiscal austerity, free trade, the free movement of capital and labor. The dream of escape from these apparently iron laws is especially potent in France, where a poll recently found that only one of four respondents viewed free trade as an opportunity rather than a threat. In England, Brexit notwithstanding, the figure was twice as high.

The politics of nostalgia

The first of three presidential debates took place last Monday. Only the five leading candidates were invited  Marine Le Pen of the far-right National Front, Francois Fillon of the center-right Republicans, Emmanuel Macron of En Marche!, Benoit Hamon of the Socialists, and Jean-Luc Melenchon. The debate lasted a stupefying three hours. And it was three hours of policy. Incredibly, neither of the two moderators asked Fillon about the scandals that have engulfed his campaigns, a lengthy list that begins with apparently giving his wife and children no-show jobs in his legislative office and ends  for now  with an allegation that a Lebanese billionaire paid Fillon $50,000 to set up meetings for him with Russian President Vladimir Putin and the head of the French oil giant Total. Le Pen, who has been accused of billing the European Union for the salaries of party workers, emerged similarly unscathed. The rival candidates raised the alleged improprieties only by way of delicate allusion. All present seemed to regard fiscal crimes with the tact which the French famously bring to extramarital sex.

The debate featured some exceptionally clarifying moments, however, above all on the question of immigration and French identity, the obsession of the National Front. Le Pen claimed that every year France absorbs 200,000 legal immigrants (the net figure is about half) and probably as many illegal ones (the state reported around 50,000 illegal immigrants per year every year between 2013 and 2015), and that terrorists were exploiting the flow to gain a foothold in France. She called for limiting the annual figure to 10,000, and for waging a campaign against the pressure of these incessant claims in matters of food and clothing  i.e., efforts by Muslim immigrants to keep pork out of schools and grant women the right to wear the veil. Fillon, though more cautiously seeking the xenophobic vote, declared that French Muslims must act against the rise of integrisme  resistance to assimilation  and that France must tightly regulate the hiring of imams and the foreign funding of mosques.

Macron, who seemed largely intent on not offending either left or right, seized the moment by saying, The trap in which you are in the process of falling, Mademoiselle Le Pen, by your provocations, is to divide society, which is to make 4 million French Muslims enemies of the republic. Melenchon, who risks losing working-class voters by refusing, even sotto voce, to sympathize with their rising anger against newcomers, ridiculed Le Pens proposal for strict limits. But do you want to throw them in the sea? he said, and asked voters to sympathize with the desperation that brought refugees to Europe. If we were in their condition, we would also leave. Melenchon is often accused of being a populist, but a strong thread of moral universalism runs through all his views.

Nevertheless, in the course of the evening it became clear that in other respects Melenchon and Le Pen have much in common. Sounding very much like Le Pen, Melenchon said that France needed to turn the page from chemical agriculture agribusiness  to small-scale peasant agriculture. Sounding very much like Melenchon, Le Pen complained that ultra-liberalism and free trade had ruined French agriculture and industry. The state, she said, must openly favor French businesses and protect them from foreign competition. Both stoutly defended Frances sacrosanct 35-hour workweek; Melenchon has said he would like to go to 32.

Photo credit: ERIC FEFERBERG/AFP/Getty Images

Out of time

One way of looking at the debate, and at French politics today, is as a referendum on the conditions and prospects of the West. Macron, the English-speaking youthful ex-banker and Blairite liberal, wants France to embrace globalization and free markets, at least insofar as one can divine views that he prefers to keep blurry. Fillon is a cultural conservative who appeals to Frenchmen and women, especially Catholics, who fear the loss of a traditional order, but hes also a Thatcherite who champions deregulation. Hamon is a classic social democrat who repudiates austerity in favor of Keynesian investment, but does not fundamentally dispute the merits of the private market.

And that leaves Jean-Luc Melenchon and Marine Le Pen, the practitioners, respectively, of a politics of economic and cultural nostalgia. Both promise to lead their followers to green pastures purged of ugly toadstools, whether financiers or Moroccan immigrants. Both regard incrementalism, the steady shaping of the world as it is, as a trap set by the enemies of the people. Both regard the state as the sole bulwark against the impersonal forces that dominate the world. Its no surprise that large numbers of industrial workers in Frances northern Rust Belt, once the bulwark of the left, seem to be defecting to the National Front.

Nevertheless, there is a world of difference between the xenophobia and provincialism of the far right and the cosmopolitan and fraternal spirit of the Marxist left. Most people I spoke to at the march seemed angrier about the harm the EU had done to Greece than about the alleged damage to France. Because we live in an era in which cultural fears are even more potent than economic ones, Melenchon cannot compete with Le Pen for the votes of those who fear that French identity is under attack. It is almost a mathematical certainty that Le Pen will advance from the first round of voting to the second, and that Melenchon will not. Yet Melenchon was widely viewed as the shining light of the debate, witty and eloquent and fully at ease. Hamon, by contrast, was generally subdued, despite getting in a few good shots at Macron. Melenchon has said that this will be his last election. If so, he may close his career by out-polling the Socialist candidate. Given his oft-expressed contempt for the party, this would count as sweet vengeance.

Beyond this, it would be foolish to predict what French voters will do. Macron may come to appear callow next to the gravelly, bushy-browed Fillon, whose florid misdeeds may be forgiven. Or Macron could face Le Pen in the second round but lose, current polls notwithstanding, because too much of the moderate right embraces the far right and too much of the left stays home. (Virtually everyone at Melenchons march told me that they would refuse to vote, or submit a blank ballot, in a contest between Le Pen and Macron.) In the Dutch election earlier this month, the center held. In France, where the sound of the people rising is like the wind in the leaves, it may not.

Having witnessed Trump and Brexit, the French are knocking on wood and whistling past graveyards. So much is at stake in this election. For once, the French conviction that their nation stands at the very heart of world affairs is all too true.

Image credit: LOIC VENANCE/AFP/Getty Images
PARIS (AP)  French conservative presidential candidate Francois Fillon vowed Friday that his priority would be to fight Islamic extremism, which has prompted a state of emergency in France after a series of attacks.

Fillon, a major contender in France's two-round presidential election on April 23 and May 7, proposed to put in place a European defense alliance led by France and Germany.

"The Islamic totalitarian threat ... along with the weakening of (NATO) through President Trump's rhetoric and contradictory signals, are forcing us to overhaul our alliances and take a second look at the question of European defense, which was neglected for too long," he told a news conference.

Fillon said the urgent priority is to defeat the Islamic State group in Syria. He promised to increase the country's defense budget to 2 percent of gross domestic product by 2023, up from 1.78 percent now.

"For decades, we have lived with the illusion of perpetual peace, the irreversible nature of the European Union and the unconditional commitment of the U.S. toward the safety of Europe. These times are over," he stressed.

Fillon also took a harder stance on Russia, contrasting with earlier comments calling for warmer relations.

"Its political regime is not identical to the ones in our Western democracies. It is a dangerous country," he said. "When dealing with a dangerous country, you have to think of the strategy you want to put in place."

This strategy consists of "a serious and honest dialogue to bring about the conditions of Europe's safety" rather than to confront Russia, he said.

Fillon, once considered the presidential front-runner, has dropped in the polls following revelations he employed family members for years for parliamentary jobs they allegedly never performed. He is facing charges in the case. He denies any wrongdoing.

Far-right leader Marine Le Pen and independent centrist Emmanuel Macron are now considered the two top contenders in the presidential race. The two top vote-getters on April 23 compete in the presidential runoff on May 7.

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Far-left presidential candidate Jean-Luc Melenchon also detailed his defense strategy on Friday, saying he wants to completely leave the NATO alliance in order to avoid a confrontation with Russia.

"We cannot be member of NATO, because it's heading on a war path on the European continent," he told reporters on Friday.

Melenchon also opposes the idea of a European defense alliance proposed by competitors like Fillon and Macron "because European defense, as it is currently formulated, it's war... and to be more precise, it's war with the Russians. And this is absurd."
In the days since assuming the presidency, Donald Trump has worked quickly to transform his campaign promises on immigration into policy. So far, the most dramatic of these policy roll-outs has been Trumps recent ban on immigration from seven predominantly-Muslim countries. But, should he continue to make good on his election-season statements, another controversial policy may lie ahead: a long-promised crackdown on sanctuary cities.

What form this crackdown will ultimately assume remains to be seen, but he has already issued an Executive Order promising to withhold federal funds from municipalities that refuse to assist federal immigration law enforcement, and on Sunday he reiterated that threat in an interview with Fox News. During his presidential campaign, moreover, Trump often discussed plans to create a federal deportation force. And following his November election, Trump tapped Kris Kobach - author of Arizonas controversial Papers Please law - for his transition team. Meanwhile, a wide range of localities have signaled their support or disapproval of the idea: for example, Bozeman officials are considering becoming Montanas first sanctuary city, even as Ohio legislators consider banning sanctuary cities in their state.

Before moving forward, however, those who support policies that make it difficult for cities to protect undocumented immigrants might consider the fallout from the infamous Fugitive Slave Act.

Passed in September of 1850, the Fugitive Slave Act was part of a bundle of laws that legal historian Paul Finkelman calls the Appeasement of 1850, designed to placate southerners spooked by northern efforts to ban slavery in land that had been snatched from Mexico during the recent U.S.-Mexico War. The law achieved this goal by lending the full weight of the federal government to recapturing escaped slaves, even after the fugitives had made it to states where slavery was banned.

It did this in several ways. First, the law imposed fines and jailtime on individuals abetting fugitives flight. Second, it required local law enforcement officers (and even private citizens) to actively abet slaveholders efforts to recapture their so-called human property - despite legislation, known as Personal Liberty Laws, that in some states specifically absolved law enforcement of that obligation. And third, the law created a network of specially-appointed magistrates tasked with determining whether those targeted by the law were, in fact, fugitives from bondage. To ensure these courts produced the outcome slaveholders wanted, the Fugitive Slave Act banned African-Americans testimony in their own defense and created financial incentives for magistrates who found in slaveholders favor.

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In the three months after the Fugitive Slave Acts passage, some 3,000 escapees, living precarious lives as free people in the North, fled to Canada. Meanwhile, other African-Americans as well as their white abolitionist allies complained that the law practically begged unscrupulous characters to kidnap free people of color-the long-standing practice that, a decade earlier, had subjected Solomon Northup to his Twelve Years a Slave. And even moderate whites, ordinarily unconcerned with slavery and enslaved people, objected to the Fugitive Slave Act as an affront to due process, states rights and liberty of conscience.

The backlash against the law was powerful and immediate, and had little, if any precedent, in American history to date. Massive petitions arrived in Congress, angry missives inundated Senators and Representatives, outrage filled the columns of northern newspapers and protests packed the streets.

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This backlash, however, was not limited to the formal realm of protests and petition. In September of 1851, free and escaped African-Americans living in Christiana, Penn., opened fire on a federal posse, killing a Maryland slaveholder who had come north seeking a fugitive. Just under a month later, black and white abolitionists in Syracuse, N.Y., broke down the doors of a jail where accused fugitive William Henry was being held and spirited him to freedom. And by the end of that year, Harriet Beecher Stowe was captivating northern readers with a serialized novel that focused, in part, on a young woman and her child as they fled from merciless agents of the Fugitive Slave Act. That novel, of course, was Uncle Toms Cabin.

Perhaps the most dramatic backlash against the Fugitive Slave Act took place in 1854. In February of that year, a 19-year-old fugitive named Anthony Burns arrived in Boston after a harrowing, three-week sea journey from Richmond. Hiding in a space no larger than a coffin, Burns had nearly starved and frozen to death during his storm-tossed odyssey to the North.

Upon arriving, Burns worked hard to blend in among the citys free black community. But, by May, he was in the clutches of a slavecatcher hired by his owner. Bostons black and white radicals, however, refused to let Burns captor re-enslave him without a fight. Hoping to repeat the rescue of William Henry in Syracuse, Bay City abolitions advocated rescuing the fugitive by force. Taking to the streets, these abolitionists - including Emily Dickinsons confidante Thomas Wentworth Higginson - broke into the city jail but were repulsed by police before they could free Burns.

Over the following days, as a federal marshal was deciding Burns fate, federal troops - as well as local and state units mobilized under the 1850 legislation - transformed Boston into an occupied city. Outside the Boston courthouse, artillerymen mounted cannon and ran through the motions of firing on civilians. By the end of that month, the marshal had condemned Burns to bondage. But Bostonians continued to resist, protesting en masse as Burns was escorted to a ship headed for Virginia-bound back to the captivity from whence supporters would ultimately buy his freedom.

All told, the scene had marked the largest peacetime military deployment in American history to that date.

In important respects, however, these scenes - a ferocious backlash that has already been compared to the reaction to Trumps recent immigration order - merely hint at the long-term fallout of the Fugitive Slave Act. In the years following its passage, northerners learned crucial political lessons from the act, lessons that fueled their resistance to slaveholders power and led directly to the Civil War.

First, the Fugitive Slave Act disabused northerners of the notion that slavery was a distant institution. For years, northerners had deluded themselves into believing that they bore no direct responsibility for human bondage. The Fugitive Slave Act, by contrast, demonstrated that slaverys existence required complicity and cooperation from Americans everywhere.

The legislation also reminded white northerners that slavery ultimately rested on a foundation of violence. Many northerners, prior to the 1850s, were willing to believe that enslaved people were, as southern whites insisted, happy with their lot, and that slaveholders rarely required the lash, pistol or noose to maintain their authority. Here, too, the Fugitive Slave Act deprived white northerners of their illusions by confronting them with spectacles of violence in their own backyards.

Lastly, the Fugitive Slave Act showed white northerners that they could build a viable antislavery coalition on non-humanitarian grounds. Many antebellum white northerners were hostile to black liberty and dignity - unmoved by the travails of Eliza and Harry in Uncle Toms Cabin or by Anthony Burns brutal rendition in Boston - but even they could be affected by the notion that a powerful cabal of southern aristocrats had perverted due process, states rights and individual liberty. These racist opponents of the Fugitive Slave Act would never become committed abolitionists; but they would, by decades end, join a newly-created Republican Party committed to defeating the so-called Slave Power.

Trumps proposed sanctuary-city crackdown would, it appears, bear many similarities to the Fugitive Slave Act. Like the 1850 law, it would move a controversial area of the law - immigration regulations, and the often violent way in which they can be enforced - away from the abstract realm to the concrete reality of major American cities. It would also, like the 1850 law, create common ground between activists on the issue and those who are merely opponents of federal encroachment.

And so those who would support a sanctuary-city crackdown might recall the long-term consequences of the Fugitive Slave Act for its authors and supporters. After enjoying their brief moment of triumph, proslavery ideologues quickly found themselves confronted by increasingly radical and powerful opponents. Fifteen years later, the ashes of their erstwhile estates littered the southern soil. And the people they had fought to keep in chains bore arms against them - by the hundreds of thousands - in the greatest struggle in their nations history.

Historians explain how the past informs the present

Sean Trainor has a Ph.D. in History & Womens Studies from Penn State University. He teaches history and humanities at Santa Fe College and blogs at seantrainor.org.

This article was originally published on TIME.com
BERLIN (AP)  A German court has convicted a man of raping a 90-year-old woman and sentenced him to 5  years in prison.

The Duesseldorf state court convicted the 19-year-old defendant under juvenile law Friday of rape, robbery and bodily harm, news agency dpa reported. The victim was attacked in Duesseldorf on a Sunday in October just after she visited a church.

During the trial, the Moroccan-born man, identified only as Souhayl M. in line with German privacy rules, admitted to committing the attack and said he had been drinking and taking cocaine beforehand.

The defendant grew up in Spain, where he was convicted of narcotics and other offenses. He said he came to Germany in 2016 because he risked going to prison in Spain. Investigators used DNA to track him down.
Hasan Sham Camp (Irak) (AFP) - The children proudly wield donated plastic water bottles like freshly dug nuggets of treasure, smiling despite the fear and death and destruction they have faced in their ruined city.

With the impetuousness that only children can muster, they forget for a moment the hell they've endured in Mosul.

"We had a big house, but Daesh bombed and burned it," says 10-year-old Nora, her undersized frame draped in a hand-me-down dress with a black, Peter Pan collar.

"They destroyed us."

She is among thousands of children whose young lives have been torn apart by a vast military operation to recapture Iraq's second city of Mosul from the Islamic State group, known locally by the Arabic acronym "Daesh".

She sits in a tent with other displaced children at a refugee camp 30 kilometres (20 miles) east of Mosul, quietly scrawling a pencil drawing of a bright pink heart.

That's far enough to finally silence the constant thud of shelling and the crack of rifle fire that they've heard for weeks.

The facilities are fine but basic: a few linoleum tables, plastic chairs, crayons, pencils and paper. The tent exteriors are daubed with bright murals of fields of flowers, technicolour handprints and SpongeBob SquarePants.

A small astroturf volleyball court fades in the clear March sunshine.

- Invisible scars -

For Maulid Warfa, a local official with the United Nation's children's fund UNICEF, this "Child Friendly Space" has a crucial function.

"Here is where children feel like children again," she says.

Iraqi authorities say more than 200,000 people have fled west Mosul since an operation to oust IS from their former stronghold began last month after security forces had earlier captured eastern neighbourhoods.

The battle has taken a deadly toll on civilians, sparking calls for greater efforts to protect them.

When in the tent or in the play area, Nora and her friends could almost be mistaken for happy, carefree children anywhere.

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But those fleeing Mosul have their tells: fatigue darkening the eyes, sallow cheeks, shadows cast a little too thinly.

"It's because of Daesh that we are here," says nine-year-old Abdulrahman, sitting next to Nora at the black table strewn with crayon sketches.

"There," he says of Mosul, "there is fear."

He talks against a soundtrack of children laughing and singing as they chase each other through the area.

But each child here bears hidden scars.

- 'Burning inside' -

"When they were in Mosul, they went through very, very difficult experiences," says Warfa.

"They have seen things that they should not have, many of them have seen people that have been killed. They have seen dead bodies."

The Child Friendly Space, run in conjunction with French charity Terre des Hommes, can help the children express themselves creatively.

But despite the psychological "first aid" they receive when arriving at the camp, many display understandable signs of the trauma they've witnessed.

"Some are aggressive and they run away from adults. There are those who hit their friends, others who don't want to share anything," says one social worker, who declined to give his name.

Warfa adds: "Even though they look normal... they are burning inside."

Their drawings depict both innocence and pain. In among the cheery scenes of sunshine, homes and animals, some images speak of more harrowing recent experiences in Mosul.

One, starkly traced in black pencil, shows a terrified child, alone in a city consumed by flames.
Gibraltar (AFP) - Gibraltar's leader Fabian Picardo on Friday hit out at an EU proposal to give Spain a say in the future of the British overseas territory post-Brexit, branding it "unnecessary" and "discriminatory."

In guidelines unveiling the EU's position in upcoming negotiations for Britain to exit the bloc, a clause stipulates that Spain must have a say over whether any post-Brexit deal applies to the tiny rocky outcrop at the southern tip of the Iberian peninsula Madrid has long wanted back.

The clause is likely to face a fierce backlash from London, which has long been engaged in a sovereignty row with Spain over Gibraltar and has pledged to stand by its overseas territory known as the Rock. But it was welcome by Madrid.

"This is a disgraceful attempt by Spain to manipulate the European Council for its own, narrow, political interests," Picardo said in a statement.

"Brexit is already complicated enough without Spain trying to complicate it further," he added, branding the proposed singling out of Gibraltar "unnecessary, unjustified, unacceptable" and "discriminatory."

The draft proposal means that Madrid could potentially block Gibraltar's access to any trade deal Britain negotiates with the EU, opposition politicians in the Rock claim.

It also shows that the European Union is putting Spain -- its member state -- first.

A senior EU official said the issue of Gibraltar was included in the negotiating guidelines as it is one of a number that involve joint or contested jurisdiction, and that "the EU is naturally pursuing the interests of the remaining 27 member states."

Gibraltarians want to stay British, as demonstrated in 2002 when they rejected a referendum on shared sovereignty with Spain.

In last year's Brexit referendum, 96 percent voted against leaving the European Union, but they still appear set on remaining British after the vote.

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Still, sensing an opportunity after the outcome, Spain again proposed shared sovereignty, arguing it would allow Gibraltar -- whose economy largely depends on the EU single market -- to remain in the bloc.

Picardo has repeatedly rejected the proposal, and did so again on Friday.

"The whole world and the whole EU should know: this changes nothing in respect of our continued, exclusive British sovereignty," he said.


(Reuters) - Gilbert Baker, a San Francisco-based activist and artist best known for creating the rainbow flag representing gay rights, has died at the age of 65, his longtime friend announced on social media on Friday.

"My dearest friend in the world is gone. Clive Baker gave the world the rainbow flag, he gave me forty years of love and friendship," Cleve Jones said on Twitter.

No details were immediately available on the cause of Baker's death or where he died. According to the biography posted on his official website, he had been living in New York City.

Jones also tweeted a photo of Baker with former President Barack Obama, inviting mourners to meet him under a rainbow flag in the Castro district of San Francisco on Friday evening to remember his friend.

Baker, who was born in Kansas in 1951, was stationed in San Francisco in the early 1970s while serving in the U.S. Army, at the start of the gay rights movement.







According to the website biography Baker began making banners for gay rights and anti-war protests, often at the request of Harvey Milk, who would become the first openly gay man elected to public office in California when he won the 1977 race for a seat on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors.

Milk rode under the first rainbow flags made by Baker at the San Francisco Gay Freedom Day Parade in June 1978, just months before the politician was murdered by a former city supervisor, the biography says.

(Reporting by Dan Whitcomb; Editing by James Dalgleish)
Alphabet (ticker: GOOG, GOOGL) investors may not need to worry about the growing list of advertisers that are boycotting YouTube.

According to the latest Q1 internet advertising data from marketing company Merkle, Google and Facebook ( FB) are off to strong starts to the year. Advertising trends for Twitter ( TWTR) and Snap ( SNAP) are less clear.

For Google, search revenue in Q1 has been picking up YouTube's slack.

"The search strength should give comfort to investors concerned that the brand advertiser backlash at YouTube could lead to steep estimate reductions," Aegis Capital analyst Victor Anthony writes after hosting an investor call with Merkle.

[See: 10 Skills the Best Investors Have.]

Merkle reports that search-related ad spending for Google was up 21 percent year-over-year in Q1, a 2 percent increase compared to 19 percent growth in Q4 of 2016.

Google parent Alphabet's stock dropped more than 4 percent in just over a week earlier in March after a number of YouTube advertisers announced they were leaving the platform. The advertisers were concerned that Google's programmatic advertising system was displaying ads alongside YouTube content that is inappropriate or potentially harmful to advertiser brands.

In addition to Google's positive Q1 numbers, Anthony says Instagram remains Facebook's biggest advertising growth source. Aegis is anticipating more impressive advertising numbers from Facebook in Q1.

Merkle describes the ad spend for Twitter as "inconsistent," especially compared to Facebook's solid track record.

For the newest name in the space, Snap, a small number of advertisers are making big commitments to the platform to try to beat competitors to the punch. Anthony says advertisers are still testing the waters and trying to get a feel for the potential benefits of the platform.

In the meantime, Facebook will likely continue to turn up the heat on Snap.

"In the few short days since launch, we are starting to see FB users use Stories, and that could pose a problem for Snap much the same way Instagram did when its own version of Stories launched," Anthony says.

Story continues

[See: 7 Stocks That Soar in a Recession.]

Aegis maintains "buy" ratings on Alphabet and Facebook stock, a "hold" rating on Snap and a "sell" rating on Twitter.

Wayne Duggan is a freelance investment strategy reporter with a focus on energy and emerging market stocks. He has a degree in brain and cognitive sciences from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and specializes in the psychological challenges of investing. He is a senior financial market reporter for Benzinga and has contributed financial market analysis to Motley Fool, Seeking Alpha and InvestorPlace. He is also the author of the book "Beating Wall Street With Common Sense," which focuses on the practical strategies he has used to outperform the stock market. You can follow him on Twitter @DugganSense, check out his latest content at tradingcommonsense.com or email him at wpd@tradingcommonsense.com.
Johannesburg (AFP) - Pravin Gordhan, who was sacked late Thursday, is liked and admired by many ordinary South Africans -- an unusual achievement for any finance minister.

He held onto the purse strings for longer than many analysts expected after he was parachuted into the job in 2015 to calm markets when a little-known lawmaker lasted just four days in the post.

But Zuma's desire to appoint a loyalist to the treasury ultimately cost Gordhan his portfolio, which he had also held from 2009 to 2014.

Softly-spoken and measured in public, but tough behind the scenes, 67-year-old Gordhan earned an international reputation for fiscal prudence and for taking a firm stand against corruption.

Gordhan's name alone stabilised the markets which had been gripped by panic after Des Van Rooyen's surprise appointment in 2015.

The local rand currency gradually recovered as Gordhan stressed his intention to rein in spending, tackle graft and reduce the budget deficit.

But his sacking may now persuade investors and voters that South Africa is heading towards fiscal and political instability.

Over the last year-and-a-half, Gordhan fought a public tussle with President Jacob Zuma for control over the public coffers.

Gordhan last year faced fraud charges that were criticised as a move to oust him by Zuma's associates.

The charges were dropped at the last minute, exposing deep tensions in the ruling ANC party as several ministers came out in Gordhan's support.

- Struggle credentials -

Born in the port city of Durban in 1949, Gordhan's political life began as a pharmacy student at the University of Durban-Westville, an Indians-only institution established during white-minority rule.

There, he joined the anti-apartheid Natal Indian Congress, also becoming involved with the African National Congress (ANC) and the South African Communist Party.

Throughout the 1980s, Gordhan was repeatedly arrested for his political activities.

He then played a pivotal role in the talks that steered South Africa towards its first democratic elections in 1994, before becoming an ANC member of parliament.

Story continues

He was "probably the cleverest person in government", political journalist Stephen Grootes wrote in his book "SA Politics Unspun".

Gordhan was also widely praised for overhauling the tax system, tripling the country's tax haul from 185 billion rand in 1999 to 558 billion rand in 2009.

Ahead of the reshuffle, Zuma made a sudden move to recall Gordhan while the minister was drumming up investment on an official trip to Britain this week.

"Whatever has happened doesn't mean we won't be professional," Gordhan said in his farewell press event where many supporters gave him a standing ovation.

"We must emphasise, our souls are not for sale," he added in a pointed dig at the culture of political corruption he said is damaging the country.

"We hope more and more South Africans would make it clear that our country is not for sale."

burs-gw/bgs/ach
Johannesburg (AFP) - Pravin Gordhan, who was sacked late Thursday, was admired by many ordinary South Africans -- an unusual achievement for any finance minister.

He held onto the purse strings for longer than many analysts expected after he was parachuted into the job in 2015 to calm markets when a little-known lawmaker lasted just four days in the post.

But Zuma's desire to appoint a loyalist to the treasury ultimately cost Gordhan his portfolio, which he had also held from 2009 to 2014.

Softly-spoken and measured in public, but tough behind the scenes, 67-year-old Gordhan earned an international reputation for fiscal prudence and for taking a firm stand against corruption.

Gordhan's name alone stabilised the markets which had been gripped by panic after Des Van Rooyen's surprise appointment in 2015.

The local rand currency gradually recovered as Gordhan stressed his intention to rein in spending, tackle graft and reduce the budget deficit.

But his sacking may now persuade investors and voters that South Africa is heading toward fiscal and political instability.

Over the last year-and-a-half, Gordhan fought a public tussle with President Jacob Zuma for control over the public coffers.

Zuma made the unprecedented move to recall Gordhan while the minister was drumming up investment on an official trip to Britain this week.

- Struggle credentials -

Gordhan last year faced fraud charges that were criticised as a move to oust him by Zuma's associates.

The charges were dropped at the last minute, exposing deep tensions in the party as several ministers came out in Gordhan's support.

Born in the port city of Durban in 1949, Gordhan's political life began as a pharmacy student at the University of Durban-Westville, an Indians-only institution established during white-minority rule.

There, he joined the anti-apartheid Natal Indian Congress, also becoming involved with the African National Congress (ANC) and the South African Communist Party.

Story continues

Throughout the 1980s, Gordhan was repeatedly arrested for his political activities.

He then played a pivotal role in the talks that steered South Africa towards its first democratic elections in 1994, before becoming an ANC member of parliament.

He was "probably the cleverest person in government", political journalist Stephen Grootes wrote in his book "SA Politics Unspun".

Gordhan was also widely praised for overhauling the tax system, tripling the country's tax haul from 185 billion rand in 1999 to 558 billion rand in 2009.

"We will not tolerate corruption; we will act forcefully against wastage," he said in his first budget address.

In 2014, he was appointed as minister of traditional affairs -- and he appeared to be heading for a peaceful retirement.

But after Zuma's sacking of two finance ministers within a week in December 2015, Gordhan was back in action for another volatile term.

burs-gw/bgs/tm
Rome (AFP) - A giant frieze depicting the history of Rome on the walls lining the River Tiber has been damaged by graffiti writers, to the dismay of its creator, William Kentridge.

The South African artist said he was at a loss to understand why Rome authorities had not removed graffiti as soon it appeared along the bottom of the 550-metre (1,800-feet)-long mural he created out of the dirt caking an embankment of the famous river.

The work, an idiosyncratic take on the Eternal City's defining moments, was inaugurated in April 2016 and has proved a popular free attraction for visitors to the Italian capital.

But its visual impact has been compromised by the appearance of a steadily-growing amount of graffiti in the spaces between some of the images - most of them 'tags', the personalised signatures of the writer.

"Some graffiti artists do great work. I'm less interested in those who simply leave their initials on the wall," Kentridge told Italian daily La Repubblica.

"I know there are many people in Rome to whom this work is dear... out of respect for them, I hope the city authorities will clean up the graffiti," he said.

The message appeared to have been heard. Deputy mayor Luca Bergamo on Friday ordered a team from the city's refuse department to start erasing the graffiti, denouncing the authors of it as "stupid."

Entitled "Triumphs and Laments", Kentridge's 10-metre (33-feet) tall mural was created by washing the dirt off the wall around the images in a technique known as reverse stencilling.

The artist expects it to gradually disappear as pollution and weeds combine to return the cleaned bits of wall to their previous state, a process that he had envisaged taking four to five years.

The frieze provides a non-chronological depiction of Rome's history from pre-historic times up to the Dolce Vita era of the 1960s and the contemporary migrant crisis - which is referenced in a depiction of a Roman slave galley.

In an interview with AFP last year, Kentridge described it as a meditation on the flawed nature of memory with both heroic and shameful episodes from the city's history on show.

The mural is located on the right bank of the Tiber in the Trastevere district of Rome, close to St Peter's basilica and across the water from the historic centre of the Italian capital.
GUATEMALA CITY (AP)  Guatemala will hold a second trial for former dictator Efrain Rios Montt on charges of genocide and crimes against humanity.

This trial is about the killing of at least 200 people in a rural northern part of the country during its bloody civil war.

Rios Montt is also accused in a separate case over the killing by soldiers of nearly 2,000 indigenous Ixil Guatemalans during his 1982-83 regime.

Both are special trials to be held behind closed doors and cannot result in prison time due to his advanced age and delicate health. Instead, they seek to determine whether he is responsible.

Rios Montt's lawyers have argued his innocence and say he is not responsible for abuses committed by soldiers.

A judge ordered the new trial in a Friday ruling.
It sounds like a fun science project, but making "slime" at home can hurt kids.

Kathleen Quinn, an 11-year-old in Massachusetts, started to feel tingling and burning in her hands after she made "slime" from a mixture of glue, water and borax, CBS News reported March 27.

Kathleen told her parents that her hands hurt, and when her mother, Siobhan Quinn, looked, she saw that her daughter's hands were covered in blisters, according to CBS. The girl was taken to the emergency room, where doctors treated her for second- and third-degree chemical burns, CBS News reported. [9 Weird Ways Kids Can Get Hurt]

Homemade "slime" has been increasing in popularity. So how does the concoction burn the skin?

The culprit is borax, or sodium borate. Borax is a mineral and is sold as a cleaning product.

Kathleen Quinn shows the "slime" ingredients: glue, water and borax. CBS Philly

Borax is a mild irritant, so it usually doesn't cause such deep chemical burns, said Dr. Michael Cooper, director of the Regional Burn Center at Staten Island University Hospital in New York. Cooper was not involved in the girl's case.

However, there are three factors that determine the severity of a burn, Cooper told Live Science. These factors apply to both chemical burns and burns from heat, Cooper said.

First, there's the length of time that a person is in contact with the chemical or the source of heat, Cooper said. The longer the person is exposed to the chemical or heat, the more severe the burn will be, he said.

Second, there's the strength of the chemical or the heat, he said.

Finally, the thickness of the skin also plays a role, and children have thinner skin, Cooper said.

In this case, the girl had relatively thin skin, and she was playing with the slime for a long time; those factors likely played a role in the severity of her burns, he said. It's also possible that the borax in the "slime" was pretty concentrated, which would have made it stronger than it would have been if it had been diluted with more water, Cooper added.

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A chemical burn occurs when a chemical causes damage to the skin, Cooper said. Until the chemical is washed off, it will continue to cause damage, he said.

Second- and third-degree burns

If a burn damages only the top layer of the skin, called the epidermis, it's considered a first-degree burn, Cooper said. First-degree burns will turn red, but no blisters form, he said.

But Kathleen had second- and third-degree burns, which are more serious. Second-degree burns occur when the damage extends beneath the top layer of the skin, down into the layer called the dermis, Cooper said. In a second-degree burn, blisters form, he said. Blisters form because the top layer of skin becomes so damaged that it dies, and in turn, the body sends in fluid to lift the dead skin away from the healthy skin below, he said.

These burns can take several weeks to heal, Cooper said. During the healing process, people are recommended to gently wash the burn twice a day and cover it with an antibiotic ointment to fight infections, he said. The burn should also be protected with gauze, and sometimes, a person may have trouble moving his or her hand after recovering from a hand burn, Cooper added. The skin or muscle may be stiff from the healing process, and physical therapy may be needed, he said.

Third-degree burns occur when the damage from a burn reaches the tissues beneath both the epidermis and the dermis, Cooper said; these tissues include fat, muscle and tendon. Third-degree burns usually don't have blisters; rather, the skin has a white and leathery appearance, he said.

Third-degree burns can take several months to heal, and sometimes surgery is needed, Cooper said. During surgery, doctors perform a skin graft: they remove the damaged skin and tissue, and replace them with healthy skin and tissue from another part of the body, he said.

Originally published on Live Science.

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Photo credit: Courtesy of The Hershey Company

From Delish

Hershey's is creating what might be the mashups of our dreams this summer. They announced their "Flavors of America" line, a lineup with chocolate bars inspired by popular U.S. summertime destinations.

Photo credit: Courtesy of The Hershey Company

The flavor we're freaking out over the most? California Strawberry Kit Kats (WHAT?!). Inspired by the California Strawberry Festival, the bars are made of crispy wafers and strawberry creme. More flavors in the line include Georgia Honey Roasted Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, New York Cherry Cheesecake Hershey's Bar, Key Lime Pie and Orange Cream Pop Twizzlers, and Hawaii Coconut Almond Hershey's Kisses.

SPOTTED ON SHELVES: Hersheys Flavor of New York Cherry Cheesecake Bars https://t.co/DK7iIORzd7 pic.twitter.com/kfg9kU2LQj - The Impulsive Buy (@theimpulsivebuy) March 23, 2017

The most interesting flavor has to be the Flavor of Texas BBQ Payday Bar. The peanut caramel bar features the taste of Texas barbecue sauce and we're not quite sure how to feel about that. On one hand, why would someone ever think to create a BBQ candy bar? But on the other hand, wouldn't the sweetness of the caramel complement the tangy flavor of the BBQ sauce?

All these bars are now available at stores nationwide until supplies last.

Follow Delish on Instagram.

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For nearly a century, American presidents have been launched into their first terms in office-as Donald Trump was on Friday-with one particular question: What will be accomplished during the first 100 days?

The question is already in the air during the campaign season, and sure enough Trump has followed the format. During his nomination acceptance speech in July he said that he was going to ask every department head in government to provide a list of wasteful spending on projects that we can eliminate in my first 100 days, and he followed that up with a post-election announcement of first-100-days goals.

The tradition of looking to that period as a presidential milestone dates back to 1933, when Franklin Roosevelt focused on his first 100 days in office in order to underscore the urgency of his mission to turn the nation around during the Great Depression. As an idea, it was a big hit.

But, argues Margaret OMara, who teaches history at the University of Washington in Seattle, it didnt really make sense as a way to judge the new presidency back then-and it doesnt make sense now, either.

[The idea] lived up to Roosevelts promise to get a lot of new policy change. It didnt actually create jobs in those first 100 days. That took much longer. It took years and years, says OMara, who spoke on this topic earlier this month during a plenary session at the American Historical Associations annual meeting. It took a long time for Roosevelts agenda to see results. And really the thing that kicked the Great Depression to the side was ultimately mobilization for World War II.

Though Roosevelt was certainly busy during his first 100 days, anyone who had set out to judge his success at that point would have likely found his work lacking, as many of the programs he had championed hadnt actually affected the people yet. As OMara tells TIME, you just cant create jobs that quickly. And in fact, she points out, some of the more substantial work that Roosevelt did during his first 100 days in office was later undone by the Supreme Court.

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The 100 days matter because they kicked off this epic of presidential action in which Franklin Roosevelt set the tone for the Administration to follow, she says. Sometimes our focus on it obscures the fact that Roosevelt had a really tough time.

Get your history fix in one place: sign up for the weekly TIME History newsletter

Perhaps more importantly for the broader view of American political history, what FDR did manage to accomplish during that time he did in very unusual circumstances. The unprecedented national economic crisis left people more open to new political ideas, and willing to see really aggressive action on the part of a President that we havent really seen before or since. Expecting any other President to match FDRs right-out-of-the-gate business is unrealistic, OMara argues, given that no other President has encountered the world FDR did.

The dangerous thing is that this has become this talisman. You invoke the first 100 days, OMara says. And now nearly every subsequent president, you see the 100-day mark roll around and reporters write this whole raft of stories about how hes doing, and talk to voters who say they havent seen results. Its become solidified and politicians play into this, Trump included, by going out on the campaign trail and saying pretty bold things about what theyre going to do and how theyre going to do it fast.

In practice, however, history has shown that nearly every President has a tough time of it in the first 100 days, between working on his policy goals, getting his footing in a new job, dealing with an administration likewise composed of people new to their jobs, and facing the inevitable unexpected snags that cross the Presidents desk. And putting too much pressure on the 100 days can do political damage: one example OMara cites is the difficult President Bill Clinton had putting his promised healthcare plan together, such that nearly a year had passed since the election before it moved ahead, by which time it had already become something of a bete noire for the administration.

Better perhaps, as a new administration takes power, to look to the long term rather than focusing so closely on the first couple of months.

The first 100 days is a lovely political idea and its something people can get their heads around, OMara says, but nearly every President has had a hard time executing it.

This article was originally published on TIME.com
The Hague (AFP) - International Criminal Court chief prosecutor Fatou Bensouda warned Friday against spiralling violence in the volatile Democratic Republic of Congo, saying her office was "carefully monitoring" the situation.

"I am deeply concerned by the numerous reports over the past several months of serious acts of violence in the DRC, particularly in the Kasai province," Bensouda said in a statement issued in The Hague.

The remote central province of Kasai has been plagued by violence since mid-August, when government forces killed Kamwina Nsapu, a tribal chief and militia leader who had rebelled against President Joseph Kabila's central government.

"I shall not hesitate to take action if acts constituting crimes within the jurisdiction of the court are committed and to take all necessary measures to prosecute those responsible," she said.

The violence has spilled over from Kasai to the neighbouring provinces of Kasai-Oriental and Lomami, leaving at least 400 people dead.

The bodies of two foreign UN contractors, American Michael Sharp and Swedish national Zaida Catalan, who were kidnapped in the region earlier this month, were discovered this week. One of the bodies was decapitated.

Four Congolese nationals who were accompanying them are still missing. Diplomats at the UN told AFP that the murdered pair had been investigating reports of mass graves.

Last week, 39 police were killed in an ambush by rebels in Kasai.

Bensouda's warning came just hours before the UN Security Council was to vote to cut by 3,600 the 20,000 troops in its peacekeeping mission in country.

Bensouda called on all parties to "refrain from recurring to criminal violence" while calling on the Congolese government to bring the perpetrators to justice in the volatile central African country.

The ICC, set up in 2002 to probe and prosecute the world's worst crimes, has been investigating war crimes and crimes against humanity in the DRC since June 2004.

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These investigations have led to the ICC's first two convictions.

Warlord Thomas Lubanga was sentenced to 14 years for using children in his rebel army, while Germain Katanga was handed a 12-year sentence for an ethnic attack in 2003 on a village in the war-torn northeast Ituri province.

A third trial, that of Bosco Ntaganda, is still ongoing.

Ntaganda has denied 18 charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity. But prosecutors say he played a central role in the Ituri conflict which rights groups believe has left some 60,000 dead since 1999.
Hasan Sham Camp (Iraq) (AFP) - UN chief Antonio Guterres appealed on Friday for more aid for the people of Mosul, as he visited a camp for Iraqis displaced by the battle to retake the second city from jihadists.

Iraq is nearly six months into the operation to oust the Islamic State group from its most populous bastion -- a battle that has sparked major humanitarian concerns.

More than 200,000 civilians have fled IS-held west Mosul since last month, while the fighting has taken a devastating toll among the hundreds of thousands more still trapped in the battleground.

"We don't have the resources that are necessary to support these people and we don't have the international solidarity that is needed," Guterres told journalists during a visit to the Hasan Sham Camp.

"Unfortunately, our programme here is only funded at eight percent. That shows how limited our resources are," he said.

"These people have suffered enormously, and they go on suffering. We need more solidarity from the international community."

Guterres said there were not enough resources available to provide acceptable living conditions for the people of Mosul or for the reconciliation efforts that will need to follow when the city has been fully recaptured.

Whether or not real reconciliation occurs in Mosul and elsewhere will play a major role in determining whether Iraq moves towards stability or further violence.

Guterres is on the second day of a visit to Iraq, after meeting top officials, including Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, on Thursday.

As he began his visit in Baghdad, Guterres called for the protection of civilians to be the "absolute priority," after the battle for Mosul resulted in numerous civilian deaths and widespread privation.

- Deadly toll on civilians -

The UN said earlier this month that around 600,000 civilians were still in west Mosul, 400,000 of them trapped in siege-like conditions in the Old City.

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Remaining in the city has posed deadly danger to residents, with the UN human rights office saying more than 300 civilians were killed in west Mosul in little over a month.

Gunfire, shelling, bombs and air strikes have all taken their toll.

The Iraqi government has sought to blame the jihadists for the deaths.

Colonel Joe Scrocca, a spokesman for the US-led coalition against IS, has also accused the jihadists of trying to provoke strikes that would kill civilians in order "to take advantage of the public outcry and the terror."

Belgium, which is part of the coalition, has opened an investigation into the suspected involvement of its warplanes in strikes that killed civilians in Mosul.

"We have opened a preliminary investigation to establish... whether all procedures were observed during two incidents," prosecutors' spokesman Eric Van Der Sypt told AFP.

"If rules of engagement were properly observed... it is possible that no crime was committed," Van Der Sypt said.

Iraqi authorities say more than 200,000 civilians have fled the fighting since mid-February.

Camps have been set up around the city to provide shelter for the displaced, while others are staying with relatives, renting accommodation or residing in makeshift shelters or unfinished buildings.

IS overran large areas north and west of Baghdad in 2014, but Iraqi forces backed by US-led air strikes have since regained much of the territory they lost.

Iraqi forces launched the operation to retake Mosul in October, retaking its east side in January before setting their sights on the smaller but more densely populated west.

The fighting has inflicted heavy casualties on the Iraqi security forces, according to the head of US Central Command, General Joseph Votel.

Votel told a congressional committee that 490 Iraqi security personnel were killed and more than 3,000 wounded in the battle for east Mosul, while 284 have been killed and more than 1,600 wounded in fighting for the west.
ROME (Reuters) - The G7 group of rich nations committed on Friday to pursuing the creation of a U.N. peacekeeping force to protect world heritage sites from destruction in conflict and combating the trafficking of plundered treasures. Destroying antiquities at heritage sites like the ancient Syrian city of Palmyra and the shrines of Timbuktu in Mali has increasingly become a tactic of war for groups like Islamic State, both to feed propaganda and profit from smuggling, the United Nations says. The G7 nations -- Canada, France, Germany, Japan, Britain, the United States and Italy -- signed an accord in the Italian city of Florence, cradle of the Renaissance, to strengthen international collaboration to protect cultural heritage. Armed U.N. peacekeepers deployed in countries like Democratic Republic of Congo, South Sudan and Syria are commonly known as "Blue Helmets". Italy has put together a unit of Italian "blue helmets of culture" active in areas where the United Nations has humanitarian operations. The culture ministry said Friday's accord included a commitment to enable such restorers and art experts to join missions in conflict zones. Even so, it is not clear how exactly such an addition to a peacekeeping unit might operate. Last week, the U.N. Security Council adopted its first ever resolution focusing on cultural heritage, in which it called on states to step up the fight against the looting and trafficking of archaeological, religious and other cultural artifacts. Italy, which is hosting G7 meetings this year, set up a special police force in 1969 to track down stolen artifacts and artworks, which are often smuggled abroad. Since then, the force has recovered some 800,000 artifacts stolen in Italy, which has more UNESCO world heritage sites than any other country. Culture Minister Dario Franceschini said Italy wanted "to make culture an instrument of dialogue between nations." Asked ahead of the Florence meeting how others had reacted to his plan to introduce culture to the G7 agenda in light of U.S. President Donald Trump's desire to cut funding for the arts, Franceschini said Italy had met with "a lot of openness". (Reporting by Isla Binnie; editing by Richard Lough)
Diyarbakir (Turkey) (AFP) - A jailed co-leader of Turkey's main pro-Kurdish party on Friday called off his hunger strike, announced the previous day to protest the "inhumane" conditions he was being held under, after prison authorities agreed to talks.

Selahattin Demirtas's Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP), the second-largest opposition party in Turkey, is campaigning against the government's plan for constitutional changes that would bolster President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's powers.

Demirtas and the party's other leader, Figen Yuksekdag, have been imprisoned along with 11 other HDP lawmakers on accusations of links to Kurdish separatists who have waged an insurgency against the Turkish state since 1984.

In a message relayed by his party on Thursday, Demirtas had said he was going on hunger strike because officials at the prison, in the northwestern province of Edirne, had refused to discuss what he termed "unlawful practices".

Several Kurdish convicts jailed in Edirne, as well as in Izmir, Ankara and Van, have already started hunger strikes to protest prison conditions.

They too decided to end their action on Friday after the opening of a dialogue with the prison authorities and "promises" to improve the prisoners' conditions, according to a statement issued by the HDP on behalf of the "political prisoners".

Demirtas in a separate statement welcomed that the hunger strikes could be ended, thanks to "mutual undertakings and good intentions".

No details emerged from the start of the discussions.

The HDP is calling for a "no" vote in the April 16 referendum on approving constitutional changes that would create an executive presidency and abolish the post of prime minister.

The government says the changes would provide political stability by avoiding fragile coalition governments, but critics fear it will lead to one-man rule.

The arrests have added to European fears that Erdogan is seeking to silence opposition voices.
Though the Oscar-nominated documentary I Am Not Your Negro is a brand new movie, by filmmaker Raoul Peck, it is also a historical document: the narration, delivered in the film by Samuel L. Jackson, was written by James Baldwin, one of Americas foremost public intellectuals of the 20th century, who died in 1987. The main source material was a 30-page packet of letters obtained by Peck from Baldwins youngest sister, Gloria, that were notes for a book project called Remember This House, which Baldwin began to propose in the late 1970s but never got to write.

Remember This House was to be Baldwins magnum opus, a critique of American society from the viewpoint of the assassination of his friends Medgar Evers, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. As Peck aptly notes in the introduction to the films companion book, what these activists had in common had less to do with race and each mans approach to the Black Liberation Movement, but rather that all three were deemed dangerous and disposable.

So, though the film provides a provocative analysis of American race relations up to the present day, as a testament to Baldwins continued relevance, an understanding of the moment when Baldwin began the project can add another layer to the movies meaning.

Baldwins straight-no-chaser style of criticism, as captured in his essay collection The Fire Next Time, had made him a household name more than a decade earlier. As a 1963 TIME cover story about the author and activist noted, in the U.S. today there is not another writer - white or black - who expresses with such poignancy and abrasiveness the dark realities of the racial ferment in North and South.

At the heart of Baldwins argument was the question of who is responsible for the problem of racism, a point the film makes with Baldwins use of language. Never one to mince words, he wrote and spoke what Toni Morrison called in a 1987 remembrance of her friend the undecorated truth about the American illusion, which juxtaposed whiteness as American innocence with blackness as sullying American purity hence, the Negro Problem.

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Such an illusion was based on what Jabari Asim in his book The N Word dubbed one of Americas founding fictions, the invention of a specific term to define blacks as subhuman and to lend credence to notions of white supremacy. As Asim notes, From the outset, the British and their colonial counterparts relied on language to maximize the idea of difference between themselves and their African captives. Yet it was far more than just a word. Asim demonstrated how over the centuries the N word became the ideological justification that codified American society and its institutions.

One of the most striking moments in I Am Not Your Negro comes from a 1963 PBS interview between Baldwin and the esteemed psychologist Kenneth Clark, whose research - produced with his research partner and wife Mamie Phipps Clark - had influenced the Supreme Court decision in Brown v. The Board of Education. Baldwin, rejecting Americas founding fiction quipped, I am not a nigger, I am a man! He asserted that the future of the country depended on white peoples ability to ask themselves why it was necessary to have a nigger in the first place and why they would have invented that idea.

Despite his harsh criticism, Baldwin remained hopefully optimistic that American equality was achievable. The passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 had brought a renewed sense of hope.

But, though Baldwins message would essentially remain the same for the rest of his life, the world changed around him. The assassination of King in 1968 was the death knell of that periods Civil Rights Movement, and, in the decade that followed, the assassination did not spur any great movement among white Americans to reconsider. Instead, as Carol Anderson has demonstrated in her book White Rage, a political backlash against civil rights had ensued, and politicians like Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan would capitalize on opposition to civil rights victories in order to win elections. Meanwhile, Baldwin was being tracked by the FBI; as his FBI file, which spanned the years 1958-1974, attests, he was under continued surveillance.

The film captures Baldwins sentiments during this time with Jackson narrating, What can I do? Well Im tired.

When Baldwin began work on Remember This House, he had resolved, as he stated in a 1979 speech at Berkeley, to communicate that, despite the legislative achievements of the Civil Rights Movement, blacks remained ruled by slave codes and that his fallen companions were carrying out a modern day insurrection. In other words, though the three assassinated men at the center of I Am Not Your Negro had given their lives to their own visions of black liberation, the film comes not from a place of simple celebration of the legacy of Evers, X and King, but from a moment when Baldwin saw, as much as ever, the need to point out to white audiences that the work those men had done had not achieved its aim, and that it was their job - white Americans - to make things better.

As he once put it, You always told me It takes time. Its taken my fathers time, my mothers time, my uncles time, my brothers and my sisters time. How much time do you want for your progress?

Despite his disillusionment and his view that it was not the responsibility of blacks to fix things, Baldwin continued to use his writing and his voice throughout the 1970s and much of the 1980s as a vehicle for social change - though the world to which he spoke was a new one. On Dec. 10, 1986, almost a year before his death, Baldwin, during a Q&A session after a National Press Club lecture, insisted that the country institute a white history week; and Im not joking, focused on dispelling the illusions that kept the nation in a constant state of peril.

History is not the past, stated Baldwin, It is the present. We carry our history with us. We are our history.

Historians explain how the past informs the present

Arica L. Coleman is the author of That the Blood Stay Pure: African Americans, Native Americans and the Predicament of Race and Identity in Virginia and chair of the Committee on the Status of African American, Latino/a, Asian American, and Native American (ALANA) Historians and ALANA Histories at the Organization of American Historians.

This article was originally published on TIME.com
James OKeefe III, a conservative activist known for using false identities to produce undercover videos targeting liberals, says someone is fraudulently using his name to create a political action committee.

On Thursday, a person filed paperwork with the Federal Election Commission to create Project Veritas PAC.

The PAC name echoes that of OKeefes nonprofit organization: Project Veritas. The website and Mamaroneck, New York, mailing addresses listed in the Project Veritas PAC filing are those of OKeefes nonprofit Project Veritas. And the PAC treasurer listed on the FEC document is James OKeefe, who also purportedly signed it.

But OKeefe said in an interview with the Center for Public Integrity that the FEC filing is a fraud: He denied setting up the PAC and he wants to know who did. OKeefe said he first learned about the PAC filing when reporters contacted him to ask about it.

Someone was trying to create a PAC in my name, he said. We did not create it. It is fraudulent.

The email address listed on the form, purportedly for OKeefe, uses the domain Yandex, a service provider based in Moscow, Russia. OKeefe said the email address is not his, and the banking information included on the form is also unfamiliar.

Efforts to contact the creator of the PAC via the Yandex email address were unsuccessful.

OKeefes biography describes him as a journalist dedicated to investigating corruption, dishonesty, waste and fraud. Much of his work has been controversial. Project Veritas activists have used aliases and false identities in their stings. But some conservatives have hailed Project Veritas work as vital to holding liberals to account.

This story is part of Federal Politics. News about ethics, campaign finance, lobbying and influence in the federal government. Click here to read more stories in this series.

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OKeefe said Project Veritas lawyer, Benjamin Barr, is submitting complaints and requests for investigation to the Department of Justice, the U.S. Attorneys Office for the Southern District of New York and the FEC.

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OKeefe provided the Center for Public Integrity with copies of the letters from Barr to the Department of Justice and the Federal Election Commission. The letters state the creators of the PAC fraudulently misrepresented themselves to be James OKeefe and Project Veritas in an effort to damage their reputation and goodwill through such fabrication.

In 2010, OKeefe and three others allegedly pretended to be telephone workers in an unsuccessful effort to gain access to the New Orleans offices of Sen. Mary Landrieu, a Louisiana Democrat. OKeefe pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor criminal charge of entering a federal office under false pretenses in connection with the incident.

OKeefe first made national news in 2009 after he posed as a pimp and secretly recorded employees at liberal community service organization ACORN allegedly advising him on how to set up a prostitution ring. The video galvanized opposition to ACORN, and by 2010, the group had disbanded.

The FEC, meanwhile, has increasingly struggled to manage a flood of fake filings.

Last year, faced with increasing numbers of filings involving obviously fictitious figures, including Darth Vader, Katniss Everdeen and even God, the agency decided to act. It sent out stern letters asking filers to verify their information. For those that failed to do so, the agency said it would withdraw the filings.

Anyone filing false information could face FEC fines or even criminal penalties, although the government has traditionally been reluctant to put resources into such cases.

A nonprofit group such as Project Veritas, which is organized as a charity under section 501(c)(3) of federal tax code, is also prohibited by law from sponsoring a federal PAC.

Judith Ingram, a spokeswoman for the FEC, said the agency cant comment on any particular filing or committee due to the potential of enforcement matters to come before the Commission.

This story is part of Federal Politics. News about ethics, campaign finance, lobbying and influence in the federal government. Click here to read more stories in this series.

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Copyright 2017 The Center for Public Integrity. This story was published by The Center for Public Integrity, a nonprofit, nonpartisan investigative news organization in Washington, D.C.
By Dan Levine

(Reuters) - A U.S. judge on Friday approved a $25 million settlement to resolve a class action lawsuit that claimed fraud against President Donald Trump and his Trump University real estate seminars.

The ruling from U.S. District Judge Gonzalo Curiel in San Diego concluded a lengthy and contentious lawsuit that played a prominent role in the presidential campaign last year.

The Trump University students, who paid as much as $35,000 for the seminars, claimed they were lured by false promises that they would learn Trump's investing "secrets" from his "hand-picked" instructors.

One Trump University student objected to the deal, in particular a provision blocking students from opting out of it. She said in court papers she would like to seek full recovery from Trump, plus punitive damages and other relief.

An attorney for that student could not immediately be reached for comment.

During the campaign, Trump vowed to continue fighting the fraud claims but agreed to the settlement soon after he was elected. He has admitted he did not personally select the instructors, but his lawyers have described the claim as sales "puffery."

Last year, Trump accused Judge Curiel of bias based on the Indiana-born judge's Mexican ancestry.

In his ruling on Friday, Curiel called the $25 million settlement "extraordinary" in that it represented an estimated 80 percent recovery for the students.

"The amount offered in settlement provides significant and immediate recovery," Curiel wrote.

(Reporting by Dan Levine in San Francisco; Editing by Toni Reinhold)
New York (AFP) - A California judge on Friday approved a $25 million deal between US President Donald Trump and former students who accused his now-defunct Trump University of fraud.

The ruling from Judge Gonzalo Curiel, seen by AFP, ends three lawsuits relating to Trump University, affecting around 4,000 claimants.

Two class-action suits were launched in California in 2010 by former students who claimed they had been deceived by false marketing, and a suit was brought by New York state attorney general Eric Schneiderman in 2013.

Students paid as much as $35,000 to enroll at Trump University -- in operation from 2005 to 2011 -- wrongly believing they would make it big in real estate after being taught by the Manhattan property tycoon's hand-picked experts.

After months of insisting he was ready to go court to establish his innocence, Trump made an about-face after his November election and agreed to pay up to save him the embarrassment of further legal wrangling.

Schneiderman said in a statement that Friday's deal approval "will provide relief - and hopefully much-needed closure - to the victims of Donald Trump's fraudulent university."

Schneiderman said the victims "waited years for compensation, while President Trump refused to settle and fought us every step of the way -- until his stunning reversal last fall."

Of the settlement amount, $21 million will go to reimburse the plaintiffs in California and the remainder will go New York's attorney general to reimburse plaintiffs in that case.

Curiel was criticized during the presidential campaign by Trump, who accused the Indiana-born judge of being unable to be impartial because of his Mexican heritage -- comments that outraged many.
The body of the assassinated half-brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un arrived in Pyongyang Friday, apparently accompanied by three men initially named by Malaysian police as suspects in his murder.

Kim Jong-Nam was attacked with the lethal nerve agent VX on February 13 in Kuala Lumpur airport, in an audacious Cold War style operation that triggered a diplomatic row between Malaysia and North Korea.

Malaysian national police chief Khalid Abu Bakar said three North Koreans wanted for questioning had finally been interviewed and allowed to leave on the same plane carring Kim's body.

"We have obtained whatever we want from them... we are satisfied," Bakar said. The three had been holed up in the North Korean embassy in Kuala Lumpur for weeks.

China confirmed that the body had arrived in Pyongyang  after transiting through Beijing -- along with "relevant" North Korean nationals.

Both countries expelled each other's ambassadors and barred their citizens from leaving, in a bitter stand-off over the killing.

But late Thursday, Kuala Lumpur said it had agreed to send back the body to the North in exchange for nine of its citizens, who were returned to Malaysia early Friday.

Malaysia's police chief said the three North Koreans had been wanted for questioning because they were seen on CCTV near the airport attack.

"In the beginning we said we would like them to assist in the investigation and we have allowed them to go," Khalid told a news conference in Kuala Lumpur.

He said police still wanted to question four other suspects believed to be in North Korea.

Malaysia had been waiting for family to claim the body and Khalid hinted that the North's leader himself could have written the letter to claim the body.

"Legally, Kim Jong-Un is next of kin," he said.

China's foreign ministry spokesman Lu Kang told a regular press briefing that Beijing "offered necessary assistance to the transit of the body".

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- Embarrassment to Pyongyang -

The murder in Kuala Lumpur removed a potential claimant to the Kim throne -- he was late leader Kim Jong-Il's first-born -- who was an embarrassment to Pyongyang.

South Korea has blamed the North for the brazen killing, citing what they say was a standing order from Kim Jong-Un to murder his exiled and estranged half-brother.

But the North denies this and denounced Malaysia's investigation into the death as an attempt to smear the secretive regime.

It had insisted that the man, who it has not named, died of a heart attack.

Two women -- one Vietnamese and one Indonesian -- have been arrested and charged with the murder. Airport CCTV footage shows them approaching the 45-year-old victim and apparently smearing his face with a piece of cloth.

Malaysia's Prime Minister Najib Razak announced the body swap deal late Thursday, saying his government had "worked intensively behind the scenes" to reach an agreement.

He said the coroner approved release of Kim's body after completion of the autopsy and receipt of a letter from his family requesting the remains be returned to North Korea.

Malaysia however has officially confirmed his identity using DNA evidence.
Though many Australians will celebrate their national holiday on Thursday with fun events like barbecue and fireworks, the history behind the Jan. 26 festival is not entirely festive.

The most basic reason why the national holiday falls when it does, as explained by the National Australia Day Council, is that it marks the day in 1788 when the so-called Father of Australia, Captain Arthur Phillip, and his First Fleet of 11 ships arrived at Sydney Cove and raised the Union Jack. They thus staked out Britains claim to the eastern half of the continent that had been claimed by Captain James Cook about two decades earlier, and Phillip became the first governor of the New South Wales territory.

Those ships, however, were carrying convicts, who turned Australia into essentially the worlds largest prison. Experts say that, in some ways, thats Americas fault.

In the late 1700s, Britain was in the early stages of an industrial and agricultural revolution. As consumer culture grew, so did the wealth gap and the rate of property crime (e.g. theft). When British jails filled up, a handy solution was to send prisoners to the colonies in North America. Convicts were seen as a potential labor pool.

The government effectively passed control of convicts to contractors responsible for shipping them over to North America, and once the shipping companies took them to North America, they effectively sold them off to private employers, who could use them for the [duration of their] sentence-a kind of indentured labor, says Francis Bongiorno, a historian at Australian National University.

Then the American Revolution happened, and the old destination would no longer work. Looking for another place to house those convicts, they turned to Australia. That solution that would be used for many decades, until the last convicts transported went to Western Australia in 1867. Bongiorno says convicts, owned by the government, worked for the government in Australia building roads or were passed onto private employers who would manage their meals, housing and discipline. Many convicts ended up working on sheep farms.

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And, though states and territories began marking Australia Day in 1935, it wasnt until 1994 that Australians began to celebrate Australia Day consistently as a public holiday on Jan. 26. After all, not all Australians have been proud of the countrys past as a penal colony.

Until the 1970s Australians who had a convict ancestor kept quiet about it, says Douglas Craig, another historian at the Australian National University, who says that such family trees were said to bear the convict stain.





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And that period in history is controversial for another reason, too.

Phillip is generally seen to have taken a progressive stance toward relations with the aboriginal people-despite a famous incident during which he was stabbed during a dispute-during his four years as Governor, a time during which the colony was constantly running short of supplies. But the coming of large numbers of British convicts nevertheless heralded a long period of much suffering for the people they displaced. For example, the arrival of those convicts preceded a smallpox outbreak that experts say had a disastrous effect on the indigenous population.

Bongiorno says academic discussions about Australia Day are similar to those often held about Columbus Day in the U.S.: Its not a terribly important event in a way, and a double-edged kind of national day. Its something that people enjoy celebrating, its in the summer, the period before children go back to school. Yet its obviously commemorating an act of dispossession and British settlement, the taking of land, a history of tragedy. Australia sees itself as multicultural, but [the holiday] commemorates an old Australia.

Such tensions between British Australia and the more modern, multicultural Australian society persist around the holiday. For example, a billboard depicting two girls in hijabs waving the countrys flag on Australia Day 2016 at Docklands in Melbourne was taken down by a vandal. Australians launched a $200,000 crowd-funding campaign to raise money for a new one.

As for the nations history as a place for convicts, however, the modern Australia is showing signs of shedding its embarrassment, says Craig. Old ideas that an ancestors criminality could be inherited had faded away, while nationalism increased as Australians identities became less intertwined with that of the British Empire. In the last four or five decades, people have begun to realize that this particular slice of Australias past-the part commemorated by Australia Day-could be the basis for a powerful national myth.





A nation founded by criminals-literally the refuse of Britain-became one of richest and most law-abiding nations on Earth, he says. They should have been proud.

This article was originally published on TIME.com
LLAUSHE, Kosovo (AP)  The father of a Kosovo man arrested in Italy on suspicion of plotting to bomb a bridge in Venice says he is convinced that his son "has not planned or organized any terrorist attack."

Arjan Babaj is one of three Kosovars arrested Thursday in the case. One allegedly was caught on a phone intercept proposing a bomb attack on Venice's famed Rialto bridge. A minor was also detained.

The four suspects worked as waiters at tourist restaurants in Venice and frequented a Venice mosque. No explosives, weapons or bomb-making materials were found in the apartments searched but police say they did find videos of Islamic extremists demonstrating how to carry out knife attacks.

The suspects allegedly posted inflammatory Islamic State videos on Instagram and Facebook accounts using fake names, with recent posts exulting jihads as triumphant martyrs. The accounts had some 18,000 followers, Italian newspaper La Repubblica said.

Bedri Babaj told The Associated Press on Friday that he believes his son is innocent. He argued there are few practicing Muslims in Venice and that this may have aroused suspicions.

"I am fully convinced nothing is true," he said, speaking from his villa in Llaushe, 60 kilometers (37 miles) west of the capital, Pristina.

Babaj said his son had been intensively practicing Islam in the last four or five years, also persuading some friends to do the same.

In an interview Friday, Venice prosecutor Adelchi d'Ippolito said the suspects were getting into shape in a "meticulous, careful and rigorous way."

"They were very concerned about their bodies and working out to get into shape. They watched films of aggressive techniques, and using knives and how they can inflict wounds," he said.

A few hundred Kosovars are believed to have joined Islamic extremist groups in Syria and Iraq in recent years. Kosovo authorities say about 70 are still active with extremist groups there.

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Llazar Semini in Tirana, Albania and Nicole Winfield in Rome, Italy contributed.
From Redbook

How much I relate to Kristen Bell (particularly as a very short woman attached to a rather tall, funny man) is probably off-putting to those who aren't as familiar with (or enthusiastic about) the actress and mom of two. For one, I'm not an actress or a mom, so, at first glance, the differences might seem to outweigh the similarities. But when it comes to her outlook on love and marriage, Bell and I are kindred spirits - and her relationship with Dax Shepard is one that I would happily mimic.

Bell has been married to fellow actor Shepard since 2013, and their path to marriage was the first indication I had that the former Veronica Mars star and her husband are the celebrity couple I most identify with when it comes to my own relationship with my fiance. They began dating in 2007, became engaged in 2010, but put off marrying for several years. As a long-term engaged lady who has been in a relationship for over 7 years, engaged for nearly 5, and is in no rush to walk down the aisle, I admire the fact that Bell, like me, hasn't centered her life around a wedding.

"We've been very vocal about not wanting to be married in a state that doesn't allow that right to all of its citizens. We'll wait until California gets on the right side of history," Bell said in 2012, when asked about her wedding plans. Though Bell and Shepard's reasoning was political and ethical, mine has been more a matter of life getting in the way of the planning, paying for, and throwing of a wedding. But the point remains the same: The act of getting married isn't the most important aspect of my or Bell's relationship.

When the two did eventually tie the knot after the Defense of Marriage Act was overturned in June 2013, Bell "re-proposed" via Twitter and Shepard responded with an enthusiastic "fuck yes." It warmed my heart, and I'd be lying if I said it didn't remind me, at its core, of my own engagement story: "Hey, wanna get married?" my sweaty fiance said to sweaty me after we'd spent 12 hours moving across Brooklyn into a new apartment. "Fuck yes" (or the gist of it) was also my response. Perfectly casual, perfectly us.

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Bell and Shepard's $142 wedding in October of that same year (which Shepard once jokingly referred to as the "world's worst wedding") was a courthouse affair, without all the bells and whistles typically associated with Hollywood weddings. But that didn't stop Bell from getting teary-eyed, and who could blame her? She was marrying her best friend in a ceremony that was just about them and their love for one another. I've fielded plenty of opinions regarding my own wedding specifics since I got engaged nearly 5 years ago, and when I do eventually get married, my goal is to make it something that's more about us than something meant to satisfy other peoples' expectations - just like Bell did.

And Bell's emotional response to the casual ceremony didn't stop Shepard from making fun of her, because if one thing's certain, it's that these two know how to make one another laugh - yet another aspect of their silly partnership that I always want to keep in my own relationship.

They know how to have fun with one another, something that's also yet to change in my long-term relationship (and, ideally, never will). Just watch their rendition of Toto's "Africa" - filmed while they were, in fact, vacationing in Africa - and try not to smile as you feel the love and joy radiating off of these two. This goofiness, in my opinion, is the surest way to maintain the genuine love and best friendship that helps a marriage go the distance and avoid eventually feeling like a glorified roommate situation, once the so-called "honeymoon period" ends.

Silly videos and playful teasing aside, these two always remind you that the serious stuff matters, too - traditional vows include "for better or worse" for a reason, and being able to anticipate your partner's needs during disastrous, life-changing moments is key to a successful long-term relationship. For instance, in 2013, Bell told Redbook an emotional story about the time she surprised her then almost-husband by showing up, heavily pregnant, at his terminally ill father's bedside (a story that had previous been shared by Shepard via his blog):

"We finished shooting [House of Lies] a day early, and this feeling came over me that Dax needed me. So I got on a place, without telling him, and walked into the hospital room. And sure enough, it had been a bad day and Dax and his dad had gotten some rough news. Two days later, his dad passed away. I was meant to be there."

As a woman who suffers from anxiety, the list of times my fiance has been there for me, without my having to ask, is endless. He knows me as well as I know myself - and that deep sense of understanding and compassion is key to any lasting relationship.

But where Bell and Shepard differ from other, similarly loving and/or playful Hollywood couples (like "#couplegoals" personified Chrissy Teigen and John Legend) - and why I look up so much to them - is in their commitment to being open about the actual work their marriage takes. They're not interested in making it look easy, carefree, and effortless, which is why they strike me as one of the "realest" couples in Hollywood - especially given how honest they've been about how hard they fought to make their relationship work from day one.

Shepard has been forthright about the fact that he's a recovered former drug addict, something Bell wasn't aware of when they first met and fell in love. For his part, the former Parenthood actor has joked that, when he first met Bell, he was sure his future wife's chipper demeanor was suspect. "When I met her and her friends, I was suspicious of their unbridled happiness," Shepard revealed. "I thought, 'Something stinks here; they're in a cult.'" I can't say that my relationship with my fiance has gone through anything as dramatic and serious as drug addiction, but we've certainly had to come to terms with personality and background differences.

In a classic case of opposites attracting, Shepard recognized something in Bell that was missing in his own life - the concept of not being completed by another person, but of having your life be enhanced by their sheer presence in it. To me, there's nothing particularly exciting about having a life partner who's identical to you in every fundamental way - someone who is safe, comfortable, and easy, but who doesn't particularly challenge you to see outside of yourself in a new way. "There were hurdles, things she didn't trust about me, things I didn't trust about her. I just kept going back to, 'This person has the thing I want, and I have to figure out how we can exist peacefully,'" the CHiPs director/star has said.

For that reason, the two have been more than happy to talk about how they figured it all out in therapy, despite the fact that couples' therapy (particularly in Hollywood) has negative, divorce-indicative connotations. "You do better in the gym with a trainer; you don't figure out how to cook without reading a recipe. Therapy is not something to be embarrassed about," Bell has said when talking about their decision to proactively work on their relationship.

That's not to say they don't have disagreements - but for Bell and Shepard, arguing isn't a sign of an inherently flawed relationship. "The way Dax and I argue now - and we argue a lot; we disagree on almost everything! - is so healthy," the Frozen actress has said. My fiance and I are, like Shepard and Bell, undoubtedly an "opposites attract" situation - I'm a planner, prone to anxiety, and he's a far more laid-back, just-wing-it-and-hope-for-the-best kind of guy. We argue, as they do, about kinds of small things, things I've been scoffed at for by friends who say they're "not real problems." Bell's openness about "healthy arguing" is reassuring - happy couples often avoid discussing their arguments, which leads to the damaging misconception that only unhappy couples argue.

In the end, it's the choice to make things work, to be with a partner who challenges you, excites you, and always makes you laugh - rather than to fall back on staying with someone because they're safe, comfortable, and easy - that I most admire about Bell and Shepard's relationship.Because any successful long-term relationship is just that - a choice.

Bell has said it best: "There are days when I'm completely sick of him, and there are days when he is completely sick of me. But we've chosen to love one another and to be a team. We've learned how to communicate and argue in a really healthy, respectful way."

Ironically, this atypically-Hollywood candor about marriage (and about all other aspects of their personal lives) has allegedly resulted in many "Hollywood types" not being able to stand the couple, according to a recent Page Six story. Somehow, I'm sure that Bell and Shepard care about the fact that they've apparently inspired such hatred about as much as I care when people question why I've been engaged so long without getting married - which is to say, not at all.

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Kuwait City (AFP) - Kuwaiti police have detained a woman for filming her Ethiopian maid falling from the seventh floor in an apparent suicide attempt without trying to rescue her, media and a rights group said Friday.

The Kuwaiti woman filmed her maid land on a metal awning and survive, then posted the incident on social media, Al-Seyassah newspaper reported.

The 12-second video shows the maid hanging outside the building, with one hand tightly gripping the window frame, as she begs for help in an apparent last-minute change of mind.

The woman holding the camera is heard telling the hanging maid: "Oh crazy, come back."

The terrified maid is seen screaming "hold me, hold me", just before her hand slips and she falls down to hit the awning, which appears to soften the impact.

The employer made no reaction as she continued filming.

Later, paramedics rescued the maid and rushed her to hospital where she was found to have suffered nose and ear bleeding and a broken arm, the newspaper said.

The criminal investigation police referred the employer to the prosecution over failing to help the victim, the daily said.

The reasons for the maid's attempted suicide were not revealed.

The Kuwait Society for Human Rights on Friday called on the authorities to investigate the case and refer it to court.

The oil-rich Gulf state is home to more than 600,000 domestic helpers, a majority of them Asians, many of whom complain of abuse, mistreatment and non-payment of wages.

Hundreds of maids escape their employers every year over abuse, and the government has set up shelters for them. Some seek help from their embassies.
BRUSSELS (AP)  The Latest on Brexit (all times local):

4:50 p.m.

The European Union foreign policy chief says that EU defense and security missions won't be overly hampered by the withdrawal of Britain from the bloc.

Even though Britain is a major pillar for NATO with its nuclear power and the biggest European defense budget of the alliance, its impact on EU operations is different.

Federica Mogherini said at a meeting of NATO foreign ministers that "the U.K. contributes today only 3 percent of the civilian capabilities in our EU operations and missions and 5 percent to the military ones."

Mogherini says "it is a valued contribution, but, for sure, a contribution without which the European Union's defense and security work can continue perfectly well."

She said that "it is not a percentage that the other member states cannot fill in once they will be gone. So I wish we could and we will establish a good and solid security and defense cooperation also after Brexit."

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2:05 p.m.

The EU's roadmap on Brexit negotiations leaves the U.K. and Spain to discuss what agreements will apply to Gibraltar, a British overseas territory on the edge of Spain that Spain has wanted back since it ceded it more than three centuries ago.

This could force a dialogue on Gibraltar in which Madrid could have the upper hand. Still, the Spanish government has said it will ensure an open border for European workers that are key to both Gibraltar and the neighboring area in southern Spain.

Gibraltar has a population of 32,000 and about 96 percent of its residents voted to remain in the EU last year.

Spanish minister Inigo Mendez de Vigo says "this is an important point in the future negotiations of the United Kingdom's exit from the EU."

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1:05 p.m.

Germany says the question of Britain's commitments toward the European Union after it leaves the bloc needs to be resolved before talks about future relations with the U.K. can begin.

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Government spokesman Steffen Seibert told reporters in Berlin on Friday that the "the second step can hopefully happen soon" but appeared to dampen once again British hopes of parallel talks.

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12:05 p.m.

A top European Union official says Europe and Britain don't want to use each other's citizens as "hostages" in the Brexit talks, and also says there's no room for security issues to be used for "blackmail."

Resolving the status of British and other European citizens living in each other's countries will be an early priority. Frans Timmermans, the vice president of the European Commission, said in Madrid Friday: "These people shouldn't suffer because of Brexit." He added that "there is no one who wants to use citizens as hostages in this, no one. Not on the British side, not on the European side."

Some felt Britain's departure letter hinted that London was threatening to end security cooperation unless it gets a good Brexit deal.

But Timmermans said: "You can't blackmail someone with one of your own existential requirements ... there is no real possibility for blackmail there because security for the United Kingdom, even if they're not in the EU, will stay an essential requirement for themselves."

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11:40 a.m.

A senior EU official says it will take more than two years to hammer out all the details of Britain's departure from the European Union.

The official, speaking in Brussels on Friday, said EU leaders should adopt the final mandate to begin the negotiations shortly after May 22, after Britain formally triggered the process this week.

The official said that "even with the best of efforts, it will not be possible to negotiate all those details" in two years.

EU negotiators have said the transition may extend beyond the two-year timeframe outlined in the EU exit process because of the myriad details of trade and other aspects of the divorce.

The official also said that only a summit of all remaining 27 EU leaders can decide when there is enough progress on the withdrawal talks to start looking at a future relationship between Britain and the EU. The official was speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive diplomatic issues.

--By Raf Casert in Brussels

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10:45 a.m.

British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson says "there's lots of good will" among European Union partners since Britain triggered its divorce proceedings from the bloc.

Johnson, speaking in Brussels upon arrival for a NATO meeting Friday, said he has had good feedback from partners since Wednesday's British announcement, despite worries on both sides of the Channel about Brexit.

"We really are moving forward now. There's a lot of good will, willingness to achieve what the Prime Minister has said she wants to achieve," he said.

He also insisted that Britain's commitment to European defense and security is "unconditional" and "not some bargaining chip in any negotiations" over Brexit.

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10:15 a.m.

EU Council President Donald Tusk says there will be no parallel talks on Britain's exit and future relations with the European Union.

Tusk insisted Friday after a meeting in Malta that withdrawal from the bloc comes ahead of any new relationship with Britain. But he also said the EU will not punish the U.K. in the exit talks, and that the so-called Brexit is punitive enough.

Tusk put guidelines on Britain's exit to the remaining 27 EU members Friday.

The head of the rotating EU presidency, Joseph Muscat, said citizens in Britain and other EU nations should not be used a "bargaining chips."

Muscat said the Brexit negotiations will be tough but "it will not be a war."

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9 a.m.

The guidelines that European Union Council President Donald Tusk is putting to EU members make it clear that withdrawal from the bloc comes ahead of any new relationship with Britain even though the rough outlines such a relationship may partially overlap.

In the draft guidelines obtained by the Associated Press, it says that first the EU and Britain must "settle the disentanglement" of Britain from the EU but added that "an overall understanding on the framework for the future relationship could be identified during the second phase of the negotiations under Article 50."

The guidelines also say the issue of citizens living in each other's countries is a priority, and call for "flexible and imaginative solutions" for the issue of the U.K.'s land border with Ireland.
Panama City (AFP) - Panama has a new tourist attraction: the building hosting the offices of the Mossack Fonseca law firm at the heart of the Panama Papers scandal.

That is why, workers there say, the sign announcing the firm has been taken down from where it used to be outside the dark-tinted edifice in Panama City's modern banking district. Too many tourists were stopping to take selfies in front of it.

Despite the fallout and sudden notoriety from the Panama Papers revelations, and the detention of its two partners on money laundering charges linked to a vast Brazilian bribery case, Mossack Fonseca is continuing its four-decade-old business.

The firm's staff has been decimated, however. Before the scandal, the firm employed 600 people across the world. A year later, that has been cut by two-thirds.

These papers linked some of the world's most powerful leaders, including Russian President Vladimir Putin, former British prime minister David Cameron and others to unreported offshore companies.

Panamanian prosecutors are investigating the Panama Papers, although no one has been convicted yet.

"There was no money laundering. Only establishing companies within the limits of the law," the lawyer representing Mossack Fonseca, Marlene Guerra, told AFP.

"While we are talking about what happened, the rest of the companies in Panama and in the world are continuing as before. We consider this to be selective justice," she said.

- Clients flee -

According to Guerra, 70% percent of Mossack Fonseca's wealthy clients have left for the United States.

With the lucrative Panama Canal, Latin America's highest growth of over five percent in 2015, and a dollarized economy based on services that accounts for 83 percent of gross domestic product, the country is keen to minimize the reputational damage from Panama Papers.

"Panama Papers didn't tell us anything we didn't already know," the finance minister, Ricardo Zubieta, said recently.

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"Not a single dollar" invested in the offshore companies "are in Panama -- they are in banks in Britain, Miami, New York," he said.

Many in Panama are indignant that the scandal was branded with their country's name.

Some see a plot to damage the image of Panama for the benefit of US or European jurisdictions.

"We are seeing a new world order emerging, in which Panama remains conveniently overshadowed," said Francisco Bustamante, an economist who worked at the Inter-American Development Bank.

"Aside from whether there is an international plot or not, what is pertinent is how the country will tackle these scandals," he said.

- Tax haven blacklists -

After Panama Papers exploded on the scene, France was one of the first to react by putting Panama on its blacklist of tax havens. The European Union has now also provisionally designated the country for its own list and is gathering information about whether to make that definitive.

The Panamanian government has responded by trying to show its financial sector has become more transparent. Late last year it signed a commitment to uphold OECD standards on automatically sharing tax information from 2018.

"Panama is meeting the highest international standards in terms of fiscal transparency," Vice President Isabel de Saint Malo recently told AFP.

"We hope that that will be acknowledged by our partners and friendly countries."

Nevertheless, the revelations of a year ago continue to undermine Panama's reputation, as analysts such as noted by Carlos Guevara Mann of Florida State University.

"In the country they don't take themselves seriously on the international scene, especially the inability of its judicial bodies to properly investigate and judge these and other cases of similar gravity," Guevara Mann said.

For all that, in a restaurant near the now unadorned law firm, a waiter lamented the fall of Mossack Fonseca.

"They used to fill this place up. Now we're empty," he said, indicating the forlorn inside of the eatery.
WASHINGTON (AP)  Former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn is in discussions with the House and Senate intelligence committees on receiving immunity from "unfair prosecution" in exchange for agreeing to be questioned as part of ongoing probes into possible contacts between Donald Trump's presidential campaign and Russia, his attorney said Thursday.

"General Flynn certainly has a story to tell, and he very much wants to tell it, should the circumstances permit," said Flynn's attorney, Robert Kelner.

Kelner said no "reasonable person" with legal counsel would answer questions without assurances that he would not be prosecuted, given calls from some members of Congress that the retired lieutenant general should face criminal charges.

Flynn's ties to Russia have been scrutinized by the FBI and are under investigation by the House and Senate intelligence committees. Both committees are looking into Russia's meddling in the 2016 presidential election and any ties between Trump associates and the Kremlin.

Since July, the FBI has been conducting a counterintelligence investigation into Russia's interference in the election and possible coordination with Trump associates.

Kelner released a statement after The Wall Street Journal first reported that Flynn's negotiations with the committee included discussions of immunity. The lawyer described the talks as ongoing and said he would not comment on the details.

A congressional aide confirmed that discussions with the Senate intelligence committee involved immunity. The aide spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations.

House intelligence committee spokesman Jack Langer said Flynn has not offered to testify to the committee in exchange for immunity.

Four other Trump associates have come forward in recent weeks, saying they would talk to the committees. As of Wednesday, the Senate intelligence committee had asked to interview 20 people as part of the probe.

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In his statement, Kelner said the political climate in which Flynn is facing "claims of treason and vicious innuendo" is factoring into his negotiations with the committees.

"No reasonable person, who has the benefit of advice from counsel, would submit to questioning in such a highly politicized, witch hunt environment without assurances against unfair prosecution," Kelner said.

In September, Flynn weighed in on the implications of immunity on NBC's "Meet the Press," criticizing Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and her associates in the FBI's investigation into her use of a private email server.

"When you are given immunity, that means that you have probably committed a crime," Flynn said during the interview.

Flynn was fired from his job as Trump's first national security adviser after it was disclosed that he misled the vice president about a conversation he had with the Russian ambassador to the U.S. during the transition.

In the weeks after he resigned, Flynn and his business registered with the Justice Department as foreign agents for $530,000 worth of lobbying work that could have benefited the Turkish government.

The lobbying occurred while Flynn was a top Trump campaign adviser. The Turkish businessman who hired Flynn, Ekim Alptekin, has told the AP that Flynn's firm registered under pressure from the Justice Department.

___

Follow Chad Day on Twitter: https://twitter.com/ChadSDay
WINTER PARK, Fla. (AP)  The lawyer for a Florida university student who accused his Muslim professor of religious discrimination says his client has been reinstated to the school.

Attorney Kenneth Lewis said in a statement that 20-year-old Marshall Polston will return to Rollins College next week. The statement also calls for a "full inquiry" into the actions of Professor Areej Zufari.

The Winter Park school temporarily suspended Polston March 24, citing his treatment of the professor. School President Grant Cornwell declined comment on Polston's disciplinary hearing.

The Orlando Sentinel (http://bit.ly/2nH7KtI ) reports Zufari made a "protection against stalking" request in court over concerns about Polson. Injunction documents included an email in which Polson tells Zufari that she's trying to silence him after he disagreed with her teachings on Christianity in the Middle Eastern humanities class.
Peshawar (Pakistan) (AFP) - At least 22 people were killed and 57 wounded Friday when a car bomb tore through a market in a mainly Shiite area of Pakistan's tribal belt, officials said, in an attack claimed by the Taliban.

Survivors described hiding inside shops after hearing a "huge bang" -- then stumbling through dust-choked air filled with the sound of screams, tripping over bodies as they searched for the wounded in the busy market in Parachinar, capital of Kurram tribal district.

The attack comes after a wave of militant violence killed 130 people across Pakistan in February, unnerving citizens who had been emboldened by improving security and prompting a military crackdown.

"People were screaming for help... When I looked back everything was filled with dust," shopkeeper Sardar Hussain said.

He saw his father "drenched in blood and dust", he told AFP, while the two clients in their store were lying dead on the floor.

"We closed doors of the shop as we thought there might be a second blast, but we heard gunshots for a while and people were shouting, so we got out," Muhammad Ali, a resident at another shop, told AFP.

They emerged to a scene of desperation, Ali said, describing bystanders carrying the wounded to hospital in any vehicle they could find as security forces arrived.

"We have 22 dead bodies here at the hospital and 57 injured, including women and children," Moeen Begum, a surgeon at the local government-run hospital, told AFP.

Shahid Ali Khan, an administration official, confirmed the blast had been a car bomb.

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif condemned the attack, urging "complete annihilation" of terrorism in Pakistan.

But Shiite leaders and residents angered by the attack, the second major blast in Parachinar this year, quickly accused security forces of failure, with small spontaneous protests numbering dozens of people breaking out.

Ali and another eyewitness described seeing security forces fire on the protesters, injuring some.

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"Terrorists crossing dozens of checkposts and carrying out attacks puts a question mark over the progress of security institutions," Allama Raja Nasir Abbas, chief of a Shiite political organisation, told AFP in Islamabad.

- Criticisms and crackdowns -

Jamaat-ul-Ahrar (JuA), a faction of the umbrella Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, or Pakistani Taliban, swiftly claimed the attack in a message sent to AFP.

The group was also part of the wave of attacks which shook the country in February, claiming responsibility for a suicide bomb in Lahore which killed 14 people.

February's assaults also included a suicide blast at a Sufi shrine in Sindh province which killed 90 people and was claimed by Islamic State.

The wave of violence dented optimism after the country appeared to be making strong gains in its decade-and-a-half long war on militancy, with analysts speaking of a militant resurgence.

Pakistan's powerful army launched a crackdown and temporarily closed the border with Afghanistan, which it accused of harbouring the militants who had carried out the attacks.

Politicians also voted to extend legislation creating secret military courts to try civilians on terror charges. The law had expired in January, with the controversial tribunals having hanged 12 people and ordered the executions of 149 more.

Rights activists have slammed the move, calling it part of a "seriously flawed counter terrorism strategy".

Parachinar was the location of the first major militant attack in Pakistan in 2017, a bomb in a different market which killed 24 people in January and was also claimed by the Pakistani Taliban.

Kurram is one of Pakistan's seven semi-autonomous tribal districts which are governed according to local laws and customs.

The district is known for sectarian clashes between Sunnis and Shiites, who make up roughly 20 percent of Pakistan's population of 200 million.
BEIRUT (AP)  Lebanon will present a comprehensive plan to help alleviate the enormous burden of Syrian refugees at an upcoming Syria conference in Brussels, but needs urgent international support to avoid collapse, Lebanon's prime minister said Friday.

Speaking to a group of journalists ahead of the April 5 European conference in Brussels on supporting the future of Syria, Hariri warned that Lebanon faces serious security and economic issues and has reached breaking point.

"The international community has to understand that Lebanon cannot pay the price of the unresolved conflict in Syria," Hariri said.

Lebanon, which shares a large border with Syria, has taken in some 1.2 million Syrian refugees  the equivalent of one-fourth of its own population  who have been a burden on Lebanon's infrastructure. The tiny country beset with internal divisions now hosts the highest concentration of refugees and its people are often praised by world leaders for generously shouldering the burden of so many refugees.

The country has long refused setting up refugee camps like in Turkey or Jordan, fearing that would make the refugee presence more permanent. Consequently, unorganized makeshift settlements have sprouted across the country, putting a huge strain on local infrastructure and host communities whose populations have swelled to double or triple their size.

"Some people say we should have refugee camps in Lebanon. I say Lebanon has become a refugee camp," Hariri said.

He cited World Bank estimates that the Syria crisis has cost Lebanon US$18 billion in lost economic activity since 2011. He also said Lebanon's infrastructure was made to sustain four million people but the same infrastructure is now bearing 6 million people due to the presence of Syrian and Palestinian refugees.

"We have been pushing our capabilities to the extreme," he said.

Hariri said Lebanon has prepared a plan to improve the infrastructure and the public services in a way that equally benefits Lebanese citizens and displaced Syrians, as well as increase economic growth and create job opportunities.

If the international community commits $10,000 to $12,000 per refugee every year over a period of five to seven years, investing in infrastructure, schooling, security and other sectors, "I think that will make sure that Lebanon could stand on its own," Hariri said.

"For the longest time we've been extremely lucky, making sure that this crisis has not affected those host communities, but we have stretched our luck," he added.
LONDON (Reuters) - Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon wrote to Prime Minister Theresa May on Friday formally demanding that she allow a second referendum to be held on Scottish independence ahead of the United Kingdom's exit from the European Union. The results of the June Brexit referendum called the country's future into question because England and Wales voted to leave the EU but Scotland and Northern Ireland voted to stay. On Tuesday, Scotland's devolved parliament voted to hold a referendum on secession in 2018 or 2019, but the UK government in Westminster must give its approval before any such poll can he held. May has already said it is not the right time for another referendum, having only just formally begun the complex two-year divorce talks between the UK and its 27 EU partners. Scots rejected independence in a 2014 vote by 55 to 45 percent, but Sturgeon says the situation has changed because of Brexit. In her letter, Sturgeon said she wished May well in negotiations with the EU, but added it seemed inevitable the outcome would leave the UK outside the European single market "In these very changed circumstances, the people of Scotland must have the right to choose our own future - in short, to exercise our right of self determination," she wrote. "I am therefore writing to begin early discussions between our governments to agree an Order under section 30 of the Scotland Act 1998 that would enable a referendum to be legislated for by the Scottish Parliament." Sturgeon said she agreed with May that it would be wrong to hold a referendum immediately but that it should take place after the terms of Brexit were agreed and a future trade deal with the EU was struck, something May envisages before March 2019. "There appears to be no rational reason for you to stand in the way of the will of the Scottish Parliament and I hope you will not do so," Sturgeon said. A spokesman for May said the UK government would respond in due course but ruled out discussions on a second secession vote. "At this point, all our focus should be on our negotiations with the European Union, making sure we get the right deal for the whole of the UK," the spokesman said. (Reporting by Michael Holden and Kylie MacLellan; editing by Stephen Addison)
(Reuters) - Liverpool manager Juergen Klopp said captain Jordan Henderson's return from a foot injury has been put back for the foreseeable future and he would adopt a cautious approach with the midfielder to avoid aggravating the problem. Henderson, who had been expected to return to training this week, has not featured for Liverpool since early February. But the club have coped well in his absence as they are unbeaten in their last three games, rising to fourth in the Premier League. "Jordan suffered a little setback and he is not in team training until now," Klopp told reporters on Friday. "When we were here last time I said I hoped he could be in training this week. But we have to wait for this. "It's only a question of time, unfortunately. There's nothing we can do. But we have to be careful and not take a risk." Striker Daniel Sturridge will also miss Saturday's league clash against Merseyside rivals Everton with a hip injury while midfielder Philippe Coutinho and striker Roberto Firmino have returned from international duty with Brazil unscathed. Klopp expressed his frustration after Adam Lallana sustained a thigh injury while playing for England this month, but refused to fault manager Gareth Southgate for selecting the midfielder. "Obviously I was not happy (with the injury). Somebody says I was relaxed about it, I could not be less relaxed about this - but it is not about blaming Southgate...Sometimes things like this happen," the German managher added. Klopp admitted he has been impressed with seventh-placed Everton in recent weeks but was also confident his side will put up a fight against their bitter rivals. "They are close to where they want to be. We cannot ignore this. It is important - and not only because it's a derby. "They look really confident. But I cannot imagine one reason why we shouldn't be confident too...," he said. "(We will) be aggressive, but not too aggressive and fight for everything to try to make our supporters happy." (Reporting by Shravanth Vijayakumar in Bengaluru; editing by Mark Heinrich)
It's true. It's possible for investors to make a fortune on penny stocks.

But while it's possible, it's exceedingly rare, and though the allure of buying a stock at 11 cents and selling it for $20 may sound too tempting to pass up, the truth is straightforward: Stop looking for the best penny stocks to buy -- it's not worth your time.

Finding a penny stock worth buying truly is like finding a needle in a haystack.

[See: The 25 Best Blue-Chip Stocks to Buy for 2017.]

Follow the money. The fact that there is no legitimate penny stock index, for instance, is a nice way to visualize their lack of investment value. If they were actually good for investors, you'd be able to buy the Vanguard Pink Sheets Admiral Fund through your retirement account.

The point would-be penny stock speculators should understand is that, broadly speaking, penny stocks have a shoddy reputation due to their poor performance as an investment category.

This is not true of, say, the Standard & Poor's 500 index, and it implies that to make the risk worth it, you'll have to miraculously identify the extremely rare success story, time your buy and sell decisions correctly, and manage not to lose your profits in subsequent trades.

Unfortunately, that's not the the biggest problem with penny stocks.

Liquidity: penny stocks don't have it. Stocks less than $1 aren't known for their liquidity -- an investment's ability to be easily and quickly converted into cash.

For example, the OTCQX Composite index may be the closest thing to a legitimate penny stock index out there today. But aside from minimum liquidity requirements, the company running the index, OTC Markets, has "sole discretion" to choose which companies listed on its marketplace also appear in the index, defeating the point of an all-encompassing index.

The liquidity standards require stocks in the index to post "one trade at least every 10 trading days," a downright pitiful standard. Imagine you have to pull your money out of the market to pay a hospital bill or send your kid to school. "Could you just wait two weeks until we find a buyer? If we ever do?"

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There's another huge problem with illiquidity.

"Stocks on major stock exchanges are very liquid and have a very narrow bid-ask spread at any time. That is, the price a seller can realize is very close to the price a buyer has to pay," says Bob Johnson, president and CEO of the American College of Financial Services in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania.

"With penny stocks, however, the bid-ask spread can be substantial. This makes it very difficult for investors to realize a gain in penny stocks," Johnson says.

They're rife with fraud. Looking for the best penny stocks to buy is almost like trying to find the blackest swan in the pond.

It turns out a species of black swan actually does exist, but it took the Western world until nearly the 18th century to discover it (in Australia), and it would not have been wise of 17th century Europeans to bet that the next swan they saw would be black, even though it was technically possible.

Not only is the universe of penny stocks notoriously illiquid but it teems with fraudulent narratives and pump-and-dump schemes that enrich a few insiders at the hands of the masses.

"The bottom line is: 99 percent of penny stocks are manipulated by heavy insider trading. Most will eventually be delisted and you easily could lose your entire investment," says Ethan Parker, founder and CEO of Treble.

They're cheap for a reason. It's reductive but true: Penny stocks became cheap by either never having a great business to begin with or falling out of their customers' good graces.

[See: 7 Stocks That Could Save Your Portfolio.]

Quality companies just don't find their shares trading for less than a buck -- it almost never happens. If you look back at a chart of Microsoft Corp. (ticker: MSFT) and see that it was going for 10 cents a share back in 1986, it's actually deceiving. That's the split-adjusted price of MSFT stock back in those days -- in reality, its IPO price was $21 a share.

If you find yourself ready to buy a penny stock you've been sold on for one reason or another, first ask yourself what's wrong -- because there's always a problem.

In recent memory, shares of companies with household names like Radio Shack and Borders suffered long, secular declines into penny stock territory -- where stocks often go before they die (both did).

Opacity. Failed energy giant Enron famously had a "black box" from which it mysteriously generated enormous profits. In other words, investors had no idea exactly how a lot of its earnings came rolling in. That secretive accounting raised some suspicions that were later validated by its collapse.

Penny stocks don't have to provide much transparency to investors, and in fact companies that trade on the pink sheets have absolutely zero financial reporting obligations. You will not find the next Amazon.com ( AMZN) or Apple ( AAPL) living in the world of pink sheets.

Opportunity cost. The real point of outlining these general traits of penny stocks is not to indict every single one of them. It's true: if, in March 2009 at the bottom of the Great Recession, you'd been wise enough to buy Pier 1 Imports ( PIR) at its lows, you could've gotten in at 11 cents and ridden it to highs above $25/share roughly four years later.

But at the time, the economy was in tatters and everyone thought Pier 1 was on the verge of getting delisted. People win the lottery from time to time, but that doesn't make lotto tickets a good investment. It's not just money at stake, but the time you spend studying penny stocks that you could be spending on something else.

It's a far better plan to keep it simple by routinely investing in low-cost stock market indices over long periods of time, an investing strategy that has still earned investors about 10 percent annually over time. One of the most natural human instincts is greed, but it can often end up working against itself.

If you're dead set on beating the market, at least avoid handicapping yourself by limiting your search to penny stocks. You can easily find cheap stocks to buy for less than $10 without sacrificing liquidity, a track record, and financial transparency.

[See: 7 Best Tech Stocks to Buy for 2017.]

But if you're looking for the best penny stocks to buy? Sorry, they don't exist.

John Divine is an investing reporter for U.S. News & World Report, where he covers financial markets and the economy, with a focus on individual stock analysis. He has been an investor himself for over 10 years, and has been writing professionally about stocks and investing for the last five years. He previously wrote about the stock market for The Motley Fool and InvestorPlace, and his work has appeared on Yahoo! Finance, MSN Money, and AOL DailyFinance. He graduated from Appalachian State University in 2011 with a bachelor's degree in finance and banking. At Appalachian, he was a member of the Bowden Investment Group, a team of students that ran a real-money portfolio worth over $100,000. You can follow him on Twitter or give him the Tip of the Century at jdivine@usnews.com.
By Bryn Stole

MARKSVILLE, LA. (Reuters) - A Louisiana deputy marshal was sentenced on Friday to 40 years in prison for the 2015 killing of a 6-year-old boy who died in a volley of gunfire after the officer chased his father's car.

Derrick Stafford, 33, was convicted by a jury last week of manslaughter and attempted manslaughter in the death of Jeremy Mardis and wounding of his father, Chris Few.

The incident was a "senseless tragedy," Judge William Bennett said on Friday at the Avoyelles Parish Courthouse here. "The shooting simply should never have occurred."

The boy's grandmother, Cathy Mardis, told the court Jeremy "didn't just die. He died a brutal, miserable, lonely death filled with pain."

Prosecutors had charged Stafford with second-degree murder in the boy's death, but a jury by a 10-2 vote convicted him of the lesser charge.

Bennett also sentenced Stafford to 15 years in prison for wounding Few, but ordered those sentences to run concurrently.

At least four bullets ripped through Jeremy when Stafford and another officer, Norris Greenhouse Jr., opened fire on Few's car at the end of a chase through the small central Louisiana town of Marksville on Nov. 3, 2015.

Body camera footage of the shooting captured by a third officer shows Few, 26, raising his hands through the window as Stafford and Greenhouse opened fire.

Greenhouse was also charged with second-degree murder and attempted second-degree murder and is scheduled to go on trial in June.

(Reporting by Bryn Stole; Editing by Daniel Wallis and Richard Chang)
KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) - Malaysian police took statements from three North Koreans wanted for questioning in the murder of Kim Jong Nam before they were allowed to leave the country along with the body of the victim, police chief Khalid Abu Bakar told a news conference on Friday. Kim Jong Nam, the half brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, was murdered at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport on Feb. 13 by assassins using VX nerve agent, a chemical so lethal that it is on a U.N. list of weapons of mass destruction. The North Korean embassy in Kuala Lumpur initially said the victim was Kim Jong Nam, but identified him the next day as Kim Chol, the name given in the dead man's passport, the police chief said. Since then, North Korea has maintained that the dead man is not Kim Jong Nam. The three North Koreans and the remains of Kim Jong Nam returned to North Korea on Friday via Beijing in a swap deal that saw nine Malaysians allowed to return home from Pyongyang. (Reporting by Rozanna Latiff; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore)
Colombo (AFP) - Opposition parties in the Maldives accused the government Friday of waging a revenge campaign against their leaders after they narrowly failed to seize control of parliament.

Mohamed Nasheed, the leader of the main opposition party, was slapped with fresh terrorism charges this week just days after he remotely lead an effort to wrestle control of parliament.

The bid failed after President Abdulla Yameen ordered troops to remove the dissenting MPs from the floor of parliament, causing chaotic scenes.

Nasheed, the head of the Maldivian Democratic Party, was sentenced to 13 years prison in 2015 and has been living in self-imposed exile in London since last year.

"President (Abdulla) Yameen has instigated new charges of terrorism against Nasheed," the joint opposition statement said.

The charges stemmed from when Yameen was briefly detained in 2010 allegedly under orders from Nasheed, who was president at the time.

The opposition said several others who support Nasheed's bid to oust the speaker had been intimidated by police in the days since.

The Maldivian government warned the international community against being swayed by opposition forces.

"I urge the wider international community to clearly observe the intricacies of the laws of the Maldives before rushing to judgement," the government quoted fisheries minister Mohamed Shainee as saying.

The United States urged Male to "restore faith in democratic processes" after the unruly scenes of soldiers dragging away opposition MPs was circulating widely on social media.

Nasheed, who has pledged to return to the honeymoon islands to contest the 2018 election, said the incident exposed the government's shaky majority.

He became the Maldives' first democratically elected president in 2008, but was narrowly defeated by Yameen in a controversial 2013 election run-off.

Yameen has presided over a major crackdown on political dissent in the nation of 340,000 that has raised fears over its stability and dented its image as a tourism paradise.

Almost all key opposition leaders and several ruling party dissidents have either been jailed or fled into exile since he took office.
Bamako (AFP) - The state of emergency in force almost non-stop for 16 months in Mali was extended by 10 days from Friday, the government said.

The measure has been renewed several times since jihadists stormed the Radisson Blu hotel in Bamako in November 2015, killing 20 people in an attack claimed by Al-Qaeda's regional branch.

The fresh extension would allow the government to "further strengthen prevention and counter-terrorism measures, and increase the operational capabilities and processes of the armed forces and security," the statement released late Thursday said.

There remained "the threat of terrorism in Mali and in the region, as well as risks to people and goods," it added.

The new state of emergency will be extended again if such a measure is justified, the government said.

The decree hands extra powers to security forces and restricts public gatherings.

Mali's north fell under the control of jihadist groups linked to Al-Qaeda in 2012 who hijacked the rebel uprising, though the Islamists were largely ousted by a French-led military operation in January 2013.

But jihadists continue to roam the country's north and centre, mounting attacks on civilians and the army, as well as French and UN forces still stationed in the country.
NEW CASTLE, Del. (AP)  Authorities are identifying a man who died after shots were fired during encounters with police in Pennsylvania and in Delaware.

New Castle County police in Delaware identified the man in a statement Friday as 28-year-old Leroy Brown of Philadelphia.

Philadelphia police say an officer there shot Brown on Wednesday when he hit the officer with a car and fled. Later when county officers responding to a welfare check request approached Brown in a New Castle apartment complex parking lot, he got into a car and tried to flee. Police say an officer trying to arrest him fired shots as they struggled. It isn't known whether he was hit by the gunfire.

Brown was taken to a hospital, where he died. Police didn't release the races of Brown or the officers involved.
Speaking on Thursday at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference near Washington, D.C., Donald Trumps adviser Steve Bannon praised the Presidents ability to stir audiences with his speeches, saying of Trump that the President is probably the great public speaker in those large arenas since William Jennings Bryan.

This is not the first time the President has been compared to Bryan, one of the most notable figures of American politics in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Those comparisons, however, have run the gamut from extremely flattering to disparaging. That diversity of opinion is possible because Bryans career was acknowledged as strange even by his contemporaries.

Born in Illinois right after the end of the Civil War, Bryan became a lawyer in Nebraska before being elected to Congress twice, in 1890 and 1892, for two terms that comprised, as TIME noted when he died in 1925, the only four years during which he ever held elected office - despite the fact that those years came before the political career for which he was really known had even begun. His attempt to gain a Senate seat after his time in the House was dashed by the Republican state legislature of Nebraska (this was during the period before popular election of Senators), so he went into journalism instead.

Heres how the magazine described what happened next, in his obituary:

He became editor of The Omaha World-Herald (owned by Gilbert M. Hitchcock) and went from his editorial office as a delegate to the Democratic Convention in Chicago in 1896 - the beginning of his political ascendancy. He went to speak for the farmers of the West who believed their troubles were caused by a shortage of currency. He went to the Convention demanding the free and unlimited coinage of silver, crying: "You shall not press down upon the brow of labor this crown of thorns. You shall !not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold."T hose echoing words won him the next day the Democratic nomination for President. He began his 18,000-mile speaking tour against McKinley and he lost the election. Then came the Spanish War, and he served as Colonel in the Nebraska infantry, although he saw no field service. When 1900 rolled around he was back in the Presidential arena crying "no imperialism" because of the annexation of Hawaii, Porto Rico and the Philippines. Again he was nominated, again defeated by McKinley.He started his weekly The Commoner and quickly made a success of it. He took to lecturing and writing.When 1904 came the Democrats decided to try another candidate. They chose Alton B. Parker, who repudiated free silver. Mr. Bryan grumbled but stood aside and saw Parker go down to a bitter defeat before Roosevelt.In the interval before the next election, Mr. Bryan traveled around the world on a sort of international stumping tour. When he came back he launched out with a speech demanding public ownership of the railroads. Again he was a candidate, again defeated, this time by Taft. But he continued on his career, lecturing for woman suffrage, for prohibition.In the election of 1912 he won his first victory at the polls - and then he was not a candidate. Bitter, bitter had been the Democratic Convention when Bryan, bit in teeth, prevented the nomination of Champ Clark, secured the nomination for Woodrow Wilson.For that he was made Secretary of State and served over two years, resigning because he did not approve the President's increasing sternness with Germany following the sinking of the Lusitania. From then on his political career dwindled, although he spoke for Wilson in 1916, and was still enough of a factor in 1924 to make it seem worth while to nominate his brother for Vice President. But again the name of Bryan lost.

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His was a strange career: in politics a swift climax and a slow diminuendo; in religion a growing austerity; and a sudden termination, the magazine noted. His invalid wife sent his chauffeur to call him from his rest and found him resting forever, stricken in an afternoon nap by the bursting of a blood-vessel in his brain as he was preparing to launch on another crusade for Fundamentalism against Evolution, dead on the scene of his last combat, at Dayton, with his last great speech unmade.

That final speech had been originally intended to be delivered within the famous Scopes Monkey Trial, in which he argued as prosecutor that Tennessee teacher John Scopes had broken the law by telling his students about evolution. Though Scopes lost the case, it was Bryan whose fundamentalist views lost in the public eye - and whose personal reputation suffered, especially after one memorable episode in which Scopes attorney Clarence Darrow called the opposing counsel Mr. Bryan as a witness to prove that the Bible need not be taken literally, questioned him about Jonah and the whale, Joshua and the Sun, whence Mrs. Cain, the Deluge, the Tower of Babel, as TIME put it.

In the roughly a century that has passed since then, his legacy has remained complicated. Though his oratories have continued to be held up as paragons of the art, other aspects of his politics - not only his views on evolution but also some sinister aspects of the populist movement he represented, like conspiracy theories and anti-Semitism - have received greater scrutiny.

But that tension should perhaps be unsurprising, considering the wide range of opinions on Bryan that were held even during his own lifetime.

He may have been mistaken at times, as we all are, equivocated Charles Dawes, who was Vice President at the time of Bryans death, but he was trying always to do the right as he saw it.

This article was originally published on TIME.com
Almost every Chinese person with even a middle school education must, at some point, run into the famous statement about religion by Karl Marx: Religion is the opiate of the masses. It is enshrined in textbooks that introduce students to the philosophers materialistic interpretation of the world, which considers religion as a fantasy used by reactionary forces to disarm the revolutionary proletariat by promising salvation in the afterlife while preaching endurance in the current one.

Some will argue that there is a Leninist spin in such a presentation of Marxs view, and that his is a more nuanced one that recognizes, albeit grudgingly, the historically progressive role of religion. Still, Marxs view has become probably the only modern critique of religion that many ordinary Chinese are familiar with, besides Confuciuss largely agnostic approach to spirituality. It also forms the basis of the Communist Partys self-branding of a fundamentally atheist party.

That being said, the textbook does not dictate how millions of Chinese actually approach faith, nor does Marxist dogma completely defines how the Party handles religion in the Peoples Republic. Marxs harsh critique of religion does not stop a large number of Chinese from embracing the teaching of Buddha, the message of Jesus Christ, or the words of Mohammed. If anything, the value vacuum left by the retreat of a fanatic Maoist ideology since the death of Mao Zedong has increasingly been filled by religion, demonstrated by skyrocketing numbers of new converts.

At the same time, the officially atheist Communist Party has seen its position shift dramatically on this thorny issue over the decades. It has moved from courtship in the early years for the sake of building political alliance, to open hostility in the radically leftist years as a result of internal political struggles, to reconciliation in the early days of the Reform and Opening period, and finally to the cautious ambiguity that defines its approach today.

It is in this ambiguity that a revision proposed in mid-January to a low-level administrative regulation aiming at maintaining social order has stirred such controversy online. In the draft change, authorities added a clause that, by the Chinese standard of social control, may seem innocuous: Anyone who produces content in publications or online platforms that contain insults or prejudice against a religion or ethnicity may be subject to administrative detainment from 10 to 15 days. As China is a society dominated by a largely secular majority of Han Chinese, its setting up mechanisms to prevent the abuse of minority ethnic groups does not appear controversial. Measures designed to prevent hate-speech are also not unprecedented. The 2009 Measures for Ethnic Unity Education enacted in the western region of Xinjiang, where a great number of ethnic minorities, particularly the Uighurs, live, also contain a clause that forbids hate-inciting speech. However, this time the outcry was loud and clear, with one Weibo post asking people to oppose the measure collecting over 60,000 shares within a short period of time.

There are a few notable things about this wave of pushback against the regulation. First, the backlash primarily targets Islam and Muslims even though the proposed clause does not specify any religion or ethnicity for which it is designed. Second, online mobilization for the cause concentrates in pockets of the cyberspace that have a track record of anti-Islam activism; and rather than a concern with freedom of expression in general, it appears to be sparked by a very specific grievance that has been gradually festering on the Chinese Internet: a discontent with the perceived (unprincipled) accommodation of the spread of Islam by the Chinese state.

Like many online sentiments that accumulate over time, it is likely shaped by the recurrence of events that are perceived (and interpreted) as having a repeating theme. Researchers may point to the violent riots in Xinjiang in 2009 as the starting point of the narrative of the Chinese state being too accommodating to ethnic minorities, particularly Muslim Uighurs. And as this recent online mobilization will show, the narrative has evolved and gained momentum from a host of new sources.

Many events that are reinforcing that narrative today may seem trivial: airlines carry only halal-certified foods aboard domestic flights; police in Shanghai were hesitant to intervene when supposedly Muslim beef noodle shop owners tried to stop others from opening competing shops; CCTVs annual spring festival gala was accused of distorting a Chinese New Year tradition to avoid mentioning pork. Compared to violent ethnic conflicts, these are stories of minor friction often flow beneath the surface of sensational news headlines.

Popular Weibo posts opposing the proposed measure cite the secular joys of the Han Chinese life as worthy of protection, going all the way back to the times of the Monkey King when such classic literary works as the Journey to the West could make fun of the ridiculous aspects of religion. The proposed rule will destroy a core part of Chinese culture, asserts one post. Some of the commentators see a slippery slope in front of them: First you cant eat pork, then girls cant don short skirts then your kid cant go to school because enrollment favors kids from certain religions.

This highlights the intrinsic contradictions in the Chinese experience with Islam, and, by extension, issues of ethnicity. On the one hand, the impression outside China about the countys religious policies has been influenced by its heavy-handed social control in regions such as Xinjiang, especially after the riots in the late 2000s. On the other, domestic experience, particularly in Han-dominated central and coastal areas, often contains an element of hurt and frustration. This may seem ironic given the overall economic and cultural advantage that the majority group enjoys, many of which related to its access to opportunities and public resources that tend to concentrate in Chinas developed eastern provinces.

But on a micro, personal level, the experience is also very likely to be real. Chinas ethnic policy of today, wherein religion constitutes an organic part, features a series of preferential treatments for minorities, ranging from affirmative action in higher education to leniency in the criminal justice system, some more controversial than others. The so-called two restraint one leniency policy, issued by the Partys Central Committee in 1984, instructs law enforcement across the nation to practice restraint in arrest and execution and leniency in treatment when dealing with minority criminals. Even though the supposed intention of the original policy was to accommodate traditional customs in minority areas that could be criminalized under the sweeping campaign to crack down on crimes in the early 1980s, it nevertheless led to a lingering situation where, to quote one scholar, In legal and civil disputes, authorities throughout the nation tend to side with ethnic minorities for the sake of preserving ethnic unity, even to the dissatisfaction of the Han Chinese. Reports of police officers turning their eyes away from crimes involving ethnic minorities abound on the Chinese Internet.

Chinas different approaches to religion in and outside the Xinjiang (and Tibet) regions, where leniency is probably the last word used to describe ethnic/religious policy there, is worth keeping in mind here. For instance, in this recent controversy, many who oppose the draft cited situations in places outside of Xinjiang and Tibet, like Ningxia or Qinghai, where the issue of Islamic expansion seems particularly salient. People share pictures of grand, luxury Mosques being built in those remote, poverty-stricken areas in Western China with the blessing of local governments, and accounts of local children being organized to attend religious schools.

Many netizens feel uneasy about such developments. And this is where Marx clashes with Islam. One of the major concerns that emerges from this wave of criticism is the worry that Chinese societys unique equipment to keep religion at bay, its atheist socialist ideology, can be severely constrained with the introduction of the proposed measure.

Xi Wuyi, a scholar of Marxism at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and a leading voice denouncing the amendment, embodies this unique Chinese response to Islam. In her strongly worded commentary posted online, Xi asserts that to research religion and to critique theology is the classic academic paradigm of contemporary Chinese Marxist religion studies and questions if the new regulatory clause will undermine the scientific atheists efforts to curb the negative impacts of religion, a stated aim of the National Conference on Religion-related Work held by the Party in 2016. Her arguments were echoed by other influential personalities on Weibo, who have been more colorful when expressing their disapproval: Darwins Theory of Evolution, which topples biblical creationism, and The Internationale, which refutes the existence of gods, can all be taken as offensive to a certain religion. Should they be banned under the new rule?

An atheist conviction is not critics only weapon, especially when it comes to Islam. Broader concerns with womens rights and the religions perceived hostility toward non-believers are also major factors contributing to online acrimony. Again, they are reflected in the online activism of an opinion leader like Xi, who constantly interjects whenever she sees cases of Islamic intrusion into secular freedoms. Just as the petition to scrap the amendment was ongoing, Xi mobilized public support for an ethnic Hui girl whose father threatened to kill her for her dating a Han boyfriend. (A large portion of the Hui ethnicity are Muslims.) The father allegedly told the girl, Killing you would violate Han Chinese laws but I would be celebrated as a hero by my Muslim brothers. The mobilization to support the girl reinforced the sense of urgency felt by those dreading an Islamic encroachment into Chinese social values, further energizing the opposition to the proposed regulation.

For many commentators who piled on, the invocation of Marx can be a purely strategic choice: citing the Partys ideological idol in opposition to a governmental initiative seems politically acceptable as a kind reminder of its communist roots. It also speaks to an important aspect of this online revolt: the grievance is directed as much towards Islam the religion as it is to state favoritism and incompetence, hence the online criticism thats designed to alert the Party of deviating from its true color.

Such alerts can be at times very specific, tracing the proposal to powerful religious figures that are able to influence Party policy. The message is that those figures, mullahs who wear governmental hats, have swayed a Party which so far have resisted religious interference into its rule of the country. The curious Taoist support of the campaign, which won applause online, only adds to the perception that the clause was created solely to block criticism of Islam.

A few commentators have been careful to distinguish between religion and ethnicity, separating what they consider religious prejudice, which for them is a false concept, and ethnic prejudice, which is much less defensible. They maintain that every person, no matter of what ethnic lineage, has the freedom to believe or not believe in a religion. It is also in line with the kind of thinking long advanced by prominent scholars such as Ma Rong, who advocates the depoliticizing of ethnic group identities and the uphold of individual identities. He believes that group-based preferential policies are making ethnic identities more acutely felt, and should be replaced by individual-based welfare policies blind to a persons ethnicity.

Not everybody has patience for nuanced distinctions. The wave of opposition to the regulation has also brought to the foreground some of the more disturbing elements in Chinese online discussions about the Muslim community. Blanket derogatory terms such as cult and green cancer, a term that derives from the religions symbolic color, are tossed around casually in conversation, which triggers the exact kind of worry that is probably behind the draft measure. Demonizing Muslims will undermine ethnic unity in our country, one academic declared, accusing people like Xi Wuyi of exaggerating the threat of Islam.

Yet online sentiment cannot be easily tamped down by voices calling for more open dialogue, as developments overseas continue to feed into that narrative, with even the President of the United States signing off a Muslim travel ban. Violent events in countries like Sweden and France, which further fuels anti-Muslim rhetoric globally, were quick to find their way into Chinese cyberspace. The memory of the bloody end that met Charlie Hebdos editors, also an act against free expression, only intensifies that sense of threat. In this regard, Marxs other important teaching, the camaraderie among fellow proletariat brothers and sisters that transcends ethnicity and national borders, is less important to Chinese netizens eager to contain Islamic influence in the country. Their intense insecurity with Islam, energized by both a love for secular freedom and a frustration with state policy, will likely shape religious and ethnic relationships in China for years to come.

This article originally appeared on the blog Chublicopinion.com. It is republished here with minor edits and permission from the author.
Defense Secretary James Mattis, left, and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. (Photos: Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP, Wong Maye-E/AP)

WASHINGTON  Defense Secretary James Mattis, when he led the U.S. Central Command that oversees operations in the Middle East, repeatedly said that the three gravest threats to the United States were Iran, Iran, Iran.

But at a press conference in London on Friday, the retired Marine general suggested that North Korea, with its ballistic missile and nuclear programs, now holds the top spot.

Asked about his previous focus on Iran as the most serious threat, Mattis called Iran the primary state sponsor of terrorism but pivoted quickly to the secretive Stalinist regime in Pyongyang.

In the larger scheme of things, obviously, in a global situation thats dynamic, youve highlighted appropriately I think the North Korean threat, Mattis said (the reporter had not mentioned North Korea).

Mattis noted that the United States was working at the United Nations and with allies and partners including with those that we might be able to enlist in this effort to get North Korea under control  a clear reference to the countrys patron, China.

But right now, it [North Korea] appears to be going in a very reckless manner, Mattis said, and thats got to be stopped.

The issue is sure to be near the top of the agenda when President Trump hosts Chinese President Xi Jinping at his private Mar-a-Lago resort next week. Trump has sharply criticized China for not doing enough to curb North Koreas behavior.

U.S. Defense Secretary James Mattis, second from left, and Japans Minister of Foreign Affairs Fumio Kishida, right, at a February meeting in Tokyo. (Photo: David Mareuil/Pool/Reuters)

Mattis made Asia his first foreign trip since becoming defense secretary, bringing the administrations hard-line message on North Korea. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson traveled there recently as well, and delivered the same warnings. Vice President Mike Pence is due to head to the region soon.

North Korea is one of Trumps most difficult national security challenges. On Barack Obamas watch, Pyongyang made enough progress on nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles that, experts predict, it could strike the U.S. mainland, possibly even the East Coast, in two to three years.

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The Obama administration enlisted China and other world powers in two rounds of international sanctions, and left Trump options for further tightening the economic vise, according to administration and congressional sources. China is the key to North Korea policy because its the smaller countrys source of food and fuel.

Punitive economic measures havent deterred North Korea, which announced in January that it could launch an intercontinental ballistic missile at any time. The U.S. responded that it would shoot down any missile, but the back-and-forth highlighted how international diplomacy and economic sanctions have not worked to date, leaving Trump very few options for facing down an escalating threat.

North Koreas growing capability is one of the most significant challenges the next administration will face. There are no simple solutions, then-Vice President Joe Biden said in a January speech about nuclear policy. We must continue working closely with the international community  including China  to convince North Korea to reverse course.

After Pyongyangs January missile threat, Trump 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 wont happen!

Read more from Yahoo News:
Photo credit: McDonald's

From Delish

McDonald's is making a big change to one of the most famous items on its menu: the Quarter Pounder. The company announced Thursday that by the middle of 2018, those burgers would be made with fresh meat, not frozen, prepared right when you order it.

The company has already tested fresh-beef Quarter Pounders at 325 locations in the Dallas-Fort Worth area and also in Tulsa, OK; they said in a statement that the feedback was "overwhelmingly positive." But the The Washington Post notes that the decision might be too little, too late, since customers have been flocking to competitors like Wendy's and Five Guys that never used frozen meat. And that competition played out on social media Thursday.

McDonald's tweeted the news, noting that Quarter Pounders "at the majority of our restaurants" would have fresh beef:

Today we've announced that by mid-2018, all Quarter Pounder burgers at the majority of our restaurants will be cooked with fresh beef. pic.twitter.com/Bdf99ALlxw - McDonald's (@McDonalds) March 30, 2017

They got a sassy response back from Wendy's, which already uses fresh beef in its burgers. Apparently, it loves to start Twitter beef too:

.@McDonalds So youll still use frozen beef in MOST of your burgers in ALL of your restaurants? Asking for a friend. - Wendy's (@Wendys) March 30, 2017

McDonald's told USA Today that this is just the "first step" for the company, but wouldn't elaborate on when the chain would add fresh meat to its other products. But the "majority" line might have referred to locations in Alaska and Hawaii, since those states are too far away to get the meat shipped while it's still fresh.

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The concept of the medical mission as a currency for peace has always been an intellectual exercise for me. Very recently, I got to see it in action. My other passion, understanding the keys to physician well-being, was also on display during this experience, but in a different manner than expected.

So let me explain. Earlier this month, my boss took me overseas to the Middle East where one of our teams was on a cardiac surgical mission trip. Now I had heard the team's stories many times; I have even supported the mission from afar with morale and financial efforts. But I never knew the heart of the mission until I saw it up close and personal. I am not exactly a touchy-feely person, but this experience was enough to spear me right in my heart.

The first thing I will say, in a Dr. Seussian kind of way, is that parents are parents wherever they are, no matter how near, no matter how far. Regardless of language or dress or religious beliefs, those parents stand outside the operating room, waiting, pensive, hoping to their creator that their child will be OK. On this trip, as I walked down a hall with a doctor colleague of mine, a family was standing by, waiting and worrying. She went straight to them. When they saw her smile and give the thumbs-up sign, they immediately understood: Their child had made it. Without words, without many cultural commonalities, I could see their worry ebb and the love in their hearts pour out: the love for their child, the love for this team. It was a stark realization for me -- no matter how far apart we might be politically, at heart, we all love the same. All the families touched by the team were not only grateful but truly generous of heart to all of us.

[See: 10 Essential Items to Pack in Your Child's Hospital Bag.]

Secondly, my research has taught me that doctors will put up with a lot of administrative tasks if they can just focus on their passion 20 percent of the time. Now, that sounds easy -- I mean 20 percent isn't all that much, right? And while this team of six traveled halfway across the world to get the chance, they worked for their passion and it showed. Many of these people I have known for a long time. A few of them are truly near and dear to my heart. But there, in a place so far from their comfort zone, their passion came through. And it spread like a true halo effect. I, who contributed nothing to their work on this trip for certain, could feel the warmth spread through me, and I reveled in their joy and satisfaction.

So now, I'm left with many questions. Funny, but these questions seem like they are right out of centuries past because they sound eerily similar to the "What is the meaning of life?" conversation that scholars and the rest of us have been having forever. I mean what do we really know about the people from other lands? I am not referring to their gross national product or their natural resources or their culture. What is the music that comes from within them? I suspect it is likely the same playlist across all of humanity -- a love for their families, fear of the hurt their children may suffer and a need to connect to other humans in a meaningful way. Clearly, it does not have to be through words.

[See: 11 Simple, Proven Ways to Optimize Your Mental Health.]

Obviously the converse is also true. This team exposed themselves to something infinitely brave. They confronted their own vulnerability by leaving behind the emotional safety of their loved ones and headed out, using vacation time to find their passion. They knew it would be there, they had experienced it before, but it was not an easy trip to find total fulfillment; it meant wearing their hearts on their sleeves, which is understood in any language. The result? An obvious connection based on the purest of agendas -- human compassion for one another.

How do we look beyond the obvious? Sure, the politics are vastly different and the external threats are on clear display. That is as true in America these days as anywhere. But why does our sensibility have to stop there? Why can't we find a way to bridge those concerns? Is health care the road to understanding one another better? It might be, from what I witnessed abroad. It unites people in a time when they are truly scared. Sure, it costs the health care systems across the world, but what is the price tag for building peace anyway? What is the value of a team of doctors, nurses and perfusionists who again can connect with the reason they went into health care, down to their very toes?

[See: How Social Workers Help Your Health.]

We all want to talk about increasing engagement, but this team is living it. And they are not doing it alone, but with their international colleagues and the grateful families who will never forget the Americans who helped their child. It is clear in their posture, their smiles and the other signs of affection the families display, like giving hugs and sharing treats and food; it's evident in all the ways they show love and hospitality in that particular culture. And it isn't over in just one trip.

Not only has this particular team done 20 missions over 10 years, helping upwards of 200 patients, but the patients they have served come back to reconnect. This time, it was a refugee family who returned for a visit. When their son was very sick, they had carried him on foot from Syria to Jordan to find help. By chance, they ran into this team, which surgically repaired the boy's heart about six months ago. On this day, his dad returned to the hospital to show his son the team that saved his life. I don't know if the baby was impressed, but the team was blown away to see this now chunky, normal toddler who had been through so much more than his heart surgery. It was a real connection that will never be broken, made without any words.

Look, I know that life is complex, both on a global scale (think: politics) and individually (finding our passion in the daily grind). But after this trip, I am definitely taking pause and thinking about what my 20 percent might be to keep me passionate about my chosen profession.

I will encourage those around me to continue to seek their own answer to that question. After this trip, where I watched six people team up with their counterparts across the globe and touch the lives of 14 families, changing the world just a smidge, I can attest that the quest is certainly worth it. When peace comes knocking, no matter if we live most of our lives in a hospital or on Capitol Hill, we need to open the door -- open it wide and walk right out and grab that peace in our embrace. There will never be another currency as valuable.

Dr. Elaine Cox is the medical director of infection prevention at Riley Hospital for Children at Indiana University Health in Indianapolis. She is also the Riley clinical safety officer. Dr. Cox practices as a pediatric infectious disease specialist and also instructs students as a professor of clinical pediatrics at the Indiana University School of Medicine. The former director of the pediatric HIV and AIDS program, Ryan White Center for Pediatric Infectious Diseases at Riley, Dr. Cox helped lead the effort to change Indiana law to provide universal HIV testing for expectant mothers.
There's nothing like brotherly love, even if you're a rescue kitten.

Read: Veterinary Hospital's 'Nurse' Is a Rescued Kitten That Snuggles Up to Animals Under Anesthesia

Meet Mori and Louie, two cats who cant stop cuddling since they were rescued several years ago.

The pair can be seen on their Instagram page spending their days snuggling, giving kisses and following each other around the home.

Happy Sunday from these two! #cats #catsofinstagram #instacat #instagramcat #catstagram #catsofnewyork A post shared by Mori + Louie (@morihugslouie) on Feb 19, 2017 at 1:57pm PST

Mori takes care of Louie and grooms him all the time," their owner Jocelyn Tsaih of New York City told InsideEdition.com. They like to chase each other back and forth around our apartment and wrestle each other. It looks like theyre fighting, but theyre really just having fun."

So precious A post shared by Mori + Louie (@morihugslouie) on Feb 24, 2017 at 3:53pm PST

But it has not always been hugs and affection for the two rescued brothers.

Tsaih explained Mori was adopted from a Puerto Rico rescue as a kitten about three years ago, and had trouble adjusting to a new feline in the home when they adopted Louie in January.

Mori was used to being the only cat in the apartment by then, so we knew hed be territorial, Tsaih explained. As expected, Mori seemed threatened by Louie right away and would hiss and growl at him.

The pair was kept separate for several weeks, and Louie knew to keep his distance until he couldnt resist curling up next to Mori.

Read: Cat Stuck in Chimney is 'Feline' Good After A 'Purr-fect' Rescue By the Fire Department

"I think Louie initiated the cuddling because he loves the attention and loves being warm, Tsaih said. Mori is actually a very patient and accepting cat despite his anxious tendencies, and just went along with it.

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Before long, she said, the pair was inseparable.

Watch: Happy Day for 'World's Saddest Cat': Frowning Feline Finds a Home, Just Before He's Euthanized

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BERLIN (Reuters) - A transition period offered to Britain by the European Union in Brexit negotiating guidelines it issued on Friday is the only way to avoid the talks failing, an ally of German Chancellor Angela Merkel said. In the guidelines, the EU offered Britain talks this year on a future free trade pact but made clear that London must first agree to the bloc's demands on the terms of Brexit. The document, seen by Reuters, sets tough conditions for any transition period, insisting Britain must accept many EU rules after any such partial withdrawal. Detlef Seif, the deputy EU spokesman for Merkel's conservative parliamentary bloc, said there were effectively only 15 months for the negotiations and this was insufficient time to wrap up Britain's exit from the bloc. "Without transitional provisions, the negotiations would be doomed to failure from the start," Seif told Reuters. "The proposal provides the necessary room and flexibility to negotiate reasonably and to reach high-quality arrangements," he said of the guidelines, which may be revised before leaders of the remaining 27 EU states endorse them at an April 29 summit. "The more access to the internal market Britain wants, the greater the trade-off and so the more Britain must submit to EU law," said Seif, warning Britain not to try to divide the bloc by negotiating with individual member states. "Should this transpire, it would be the end of the EU's good behavior and willingness to compromise, which can clearly be seen in the draft guidelines," he added. Steffen Seibert, Merkel's spokesman, told reporters on Friday that negotiations about a future free trade deal between Britain and the EU could take place only after the contours of the Brexit divorce talks were clear. Bavarian premier Horst Seehofer said it was important to quickly establish new parameters for trade with Britain, his state's third biggest European trading partner. "We must establish a new basis for the relationship in the Brexit negotiations as quickly as possible, and do everything we can to avoid new trade barriers," he wrote in a commentary to be published next week in German magazine vbw-Unternehmermagazin. (Reporting by Paul Carrel; Editing by Andrew Roche)
MEXICO CITY  On the streets of Mexicos capital, there is visible resistance to U.S. President Donald Trump and his fiery rhetoric on trade, immigration, and border security. At the construction site of a new skyscraper next to the U.S. Embassy, a Mexican flag flies proudly hundreds of feet in the air. Anti-Trump graffiti on the citys rough outskirts takes an invariably humorous tone, portraying Mexicos supposed nemesis as halfway between clown and cartoon supervillain.

But the reality is that the overwhelming mood south of the border has been one of uncertainty rather than despair. Mexican citizens hear the ubiquitous warnings about the dire consequences of Trumps protectionism on the Mexican economy, for example, but given the sluggish growth and limited opportunity theyve faced for years, they see no reason to panic. Appeals by Mexican academics and NGOs to organize marches and boycotts against the United States have mostly crowded one another out. There is a growing sense that the threat from north of the border may have been exaggerated.

There was, to be sure, a palpable sense of fear in the immediate aftermath of Trumps victory, as the value of the countrys currency plummeted and its government floundered on how best to respond to his bullying approach. Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto, of the center-left Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI)  whose credibility at home had already been weakened by mediocre growth, rising crime, and a series of high-profile corruption and human rights scandals  appeared to lack a cohesive strategy on how to respond to Trumps Twitter diplomacy, eventually canceling an official visit to Washington after repeated jibes.

At the outset, there was a clear vacuum of leadership at the top of the administration, which in reality had been evident for some time, and the Mexican government looked weak and indecisive in the face of Trump, Alberto Fernandez, a Mexican political scientist at the New School in New York, told Foreign Policy.

Yet signs have emerged that Mexico will overcome the problems posed by Trump. Gung-ho claims by the U.S. president that Mexico would somehow pay for his much-touted border wall were always a pipe dream, and the White House now effectively admits as much. While Mexico will undoubtedly struggle to integrate hundreds of thousands of deportees as the United States cracks down on illegal immigration, Trumps policy is largely a continuation of the record mass removals under former President Barack Obama, and Mexico is moving to provide unprecedented assistance to returnees.

Most importantly for the Mexican economy, the Trump administration appears to be softening its stance on NAFTA, the landmark trilateral trade pact signed by Mexico, the United States, and Canada in 1992. Given that nearly 80 percent of Mexicos exports head to the United States, Trumps threats to radically reform the agreement or even withdraw America completely led analysts to fear the worst. Yet the sheer interdependence of the two economies meant Trumps logic was always dubious.

On March 15, Peter Navarro, head of the newly created White House National Trade Council, allayed fears that the United States would seek to radically alter or even withdraw from NAFTA, pointing to reform of the rule of origin dimension of the treaty  which stipulates the required number of locally produced inputs necessary for products to qualify for NAFTA benefits  as the key to satisfying both parties. We have a tremendous opportunity, with Mexico in particular, to use higher rules of origin to develop a mutually beneficial regional powerhouse where workers and manufacturers on both sides of the border will benefit enormously, Navarro told reporters. Its just as much in their interests as it is in [ours].

A draft proposal for revisions to NAFTA that the U.S. trade representatives office has been pitching to Congress seeks modest changes, not drastic ones, the Wall Street Journal reported Thursday.

I cant imagine any modification [to NAFTA] that would be harmful to Mexico, Macario Schettino, an economist at the Monterrey Institute of Technology in Mexico City, told FP. If they amplify the rules of origin, for example, Mexico will receive more investment.

In every chapter of the agreement in which were at a disadvantage  such as energy and telecommunications  Mexico has already pushed ahead with reforms, Schettino said. If the U.S. still insists on raising tariffs, Mexico would be better to abandon the agreement. However, I dont believe that is in the U.S. interest.

The Mexican peso has rebounded to its strongest position in months amid increasingly conciliatory rhetoric from Washington and the defeat of Trumps health care agenda, which has weakened him more generally. Yet it would be a mistake to ignore the contribution of Mexican Foreign Minister Luis Videgaray, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology-educated economist and former finance minister whom Trumps team reportedly respects greatly and whose emergency appointment in January coincided with a shift in tone by U.S. officials.

I think Videgaray has been smart and managed to steer the discussion away from the strident declarations of Trump, Fernandez said. Its very likely that this diplomacy is being supported directly or indirectly by interests that would be affected if the U.S. were to abruptly withdraw from NAFTA, such as agricultural producers and business leaders in the border region, many of whom are Republican constituents.

In many ways, the initial panic in Mexico said more about long-standing insecurities domestically than it did the whims of the U.S. president. The countrys economy, long tipped to finally achieve its potential, has continued to underachieve in recent years. Furthermore, the Trump effect has set the stage for what is sure to be a contentious 2018 presidential race, in which the center-right National Action Party and the left-leaning National Regeneration Movement will be the main challengers to Pena Nietos PRI (Pena Nieto himself is barred from running by term limits). National unity is likely to be a key theme in the race, as will the idea that Mexico needs to forge a new economic consensus, with less dependence on exports.

The concept of Mexicos moment, the point at which the second-largest economy in Latin America finally takes off, has become a cruel cliche over the past two decades. After transitioning from a largely state-driven economy to a market-led one in the 1980s and 1990s, Mexico became a poster child for globalization, signing trade agreements with nearly 50 partners. At the same time, a long-awaited political transition in which one-party hegemony gave way to a competitive multiparty democracy only increased the sense that Mexico was destined to enter the 2lst century with a bang. Yet the reality is that annual GDP growth has averaged just 0.6 percent since NAFTA was implemented in 1994, while 46.2 percent of the Mexican population continues to linger in poverty, despite the presence of a growing middle class.

The reasons for this are multiple, from low government tax revenues and a lack of investment in innovation to a highly dysfunctional education system and troublingly weak rule of law. Although his current unpopularity wouldnt suggest it, Pena Nieto, upon taking office in 2012, spearheaded a series of major reforms to public education, the energy sector, labor laws, and other key areas of the economy. His leadership in securing the Pact for Mexico, a cross-party alliance that produced the reforms, was widely praised internationally, yet thus far too few Mexicans have seen the benefits.

These reforms represent the real watershed for Mexico, not anything Trump is doing, Schettino said. They are already having a positive impact  but only in modern Mexico, which lies between the north of Mexico City and the [U.S.] border. In central Mexico, the mentality is very negative towards globalization. In the south, frankly, they live in another century.

The reality is that Mexico is perhaps even more politically and socially divided than the United States. According to Schettino, north of the border there is at least a fundamental commitment to the rule of law as the key to democratic governance. In Mexico, recent changes to the public education system in the countrys impoverished south have been virtually impossible to implement because of union protests; state governors continue to operate above the law; and certain regions of the country remain wracked by drug violence.

Mexico has many problems to address, but the most relevant of all is institutional: In Mexico, laws are not complied with, Schettino said. Its complicated because resolving the matter isnt simply a case of making a decision on the matter.

Photo credit: RONALDO SCHEMIDT/AFP/Getty Images
WASHINGTON (AP)  President Donald Trump urged his former national security adviser to strike an immunity deal Friday, even as congressional investigators rebuffed Michael Flynn's offer of cooperation in exchange for protection from prosecution.

Trump tweeted that Flynn, the adviser he fired in February, should ask for immunity because he's facing "a witch hunt."

The White House also tried to quell a firestorm over its role in helping a top Republican lawmaker see secret intelligence reports. Rep. Adam Schiff went to the White House to view materials that he said were "precisely the same" as what House intelligence committee chairman Devin Nunes viewed there last week.

"The White House has yet to explain why senior White House staff apparently shared these materials with but one member," said Schiff, who met with Trump for about 10 minutes while he was at the White House.

The congressional investigations into Russian election interference and the Trump campaign's possible Russian ties have become a near-daily distraction for a new administration struggling to find its footing. Trump has vigorously denied that his campaign coordinated with Russia during the election.

The president weighed in on Flynn the day after the ousted national security adviser's attorney confirmed the immunity discussions with intelligence committees in both the Senate and House that are investigating Russia's meddling in the 2016 presidential election.

A congressional aide confirmed that preliminary discussions with the Senate intelligence committee involved immunity but that it was too early in the investigation to set terms. The aide was not authorized to discuss private conversations and spoke on condition of anonymity. The Justice Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

It was unclear from Trump's tweet whether he was advising the Justice Department or the congressional panels to give his former adviser immunity. The president is not supposed to direct ongoing investigations.

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White House spokesman Sean Spicer said Trump just wants Flynn to testify, and there are no concerns that Flynn could implicate the president in any wrongdoing.

Schiff said committee leaders would be discussing the issue with their Senate counterparts and the Justice Department.

"We should first acknowledge what a grave and momentous step it is for a former national security adviser to the president of the United States to ask for immunity from prosecution," Schiff said in a statement.

Flynn's attorney, Robert Kelner, said no "reasonable person" who has a lawyer would answer questions without assurances that he would not be prosecuted, given calls from some members of Congress that the retired lieutenant general should face criminal charges.

Flynn seemed to have a different view last September when he weighed in on the implications of immunity on NBC's "Meet the Press," criticizing Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and her associates in the FBI's investigation into her use of a private email server.

"When you are given immunity, that means that you have probably committed a crime," Flynn said during the interview.

His own lawyer, Kelner, said Thursday, "General Flynn certainly has a story to tell, and he very much wants to tell it, should the circumstances permit."

Trump spokesman Spicer said the president "thinks he should go out and tell his story."

Flynn's ties to Russia have been scrutinized by the FBI and are under investigation by the congressional committees. Both panels are looking into Russia's meddling in the election and any ties between Trump associates and the Kremlin.

Since July, the FBI has been conducting a counterintelligence investigation into Russia's interference in the election and possible coordination with Trump associates.

In September, Flynn weighed in on the implications of immunity on NBC's "Meet the Press," criticizing Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and her associates in the FBI's investigation into her use of a private email server.

"When you are given immunity, that means that you have probably committed a crime," Flynn said during the interview.

A spokesman for Nunes, the Republican chairman of the House intelligence committee, said the panel has not offered an immunity deal to Flynn.

The committee "had a preliminary conversation with Michael Flynn's lawyer about arranging for Flynn to speak to the committee," spokesman Jack Langer said. "The discussions did not include immunity or other possible conditions for his appearance."

Schiff, who has called for Nunes' recusal from the investigation because of his close ties to the White House, said the committee is interested in Flynn's testimony but is also "mindful" of the Justice Department's interests.

Congress has the authority to grant someone immunity, but doing so could jeopardize federal prosecutors' ability to use that person's testimony as the basis for any criminal case.

"When the time comes to consider requests for immunity from any witness, we will of course require a detailed proffer of any intended testimony," Schiff said.

Kelner released a statement late Thursday after The Wall Street Journal first reported that Flynn's negotiations with Congress included discussions of immunity.

Four other Trump associates have come forward in recent weeks, saying they would talk to the committees. As of Wednesday, the Senate panel had asked to interview 20 people.

Flynn was fired from his job as Trump's first national security adviser after it was disclosed that he misled Vice President Mike Pence about a conversation he had with the Russian ambassador to the U.S. during the transition.

In the weeks after he resigned, Flynn and his business registered with the Justice Department as foreign agents for $530,000 worth of lobbying work that could have benefited the Turkish government.

The lobbying occurred while Flynn was a top Trump campaign adviser.

___

Follow Chad Day on Twitter: https://twitter.com/ChadSDay
As tensions between the U.S. and Iran increase, President Trump on Thursday went so far as to accuse former Secretary of State John Kerry of talking to Iranian officials behind his back. The President said at a press conference that he believes Kerry has violated the Logan Act  even though Kerrys spokesperson has said that the former diplomat hasnt talked to Iran officials at all since the U.S. pulled out of the Iran nuclear deal last year.

President Trump on Iran: "I'd like them to call me. You know, John Kerry speaks to them a lot. @JohnKerry tells them not to call. That's a violation of the Logan Act. And, frankly, he should be prosecuted on that." pic.twitter.com/Y145xDnb3g  CSPAN (@cspan) May 9, 2019

The Logan Act, once an obscure law, has been on the minds of Washington observers since Trumps former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn resigned on Feb. 13, 2017, after admitting to speaking with Russias ambassador to the U.S. about sanctions.

The law prohibits unauthorized U.S. citizens  which Flynn was at the time  from speaking to foreign governments about that countrys disputes or controversies with the United States. And the history behind the law sheds light on why it is against the law for individuals to try to influence foreign relations.

The story goes back to the late 18th century, when the French Revolution was in full swing. France and Britain were fighting, and the new nation of the United States was divided about its allegiances. France thought American ratification of Jays Treaty  an unpopular peace accord with Britain  violated the past treaties between France and the U.S. Within the American government, Democratic-Republicans like Thomas Jefferson tended to favor supporting France, which had supported the American Revolution. Meanwhile, Federalists like Alexander Hamilton and John Adams argued strongly against getting involved.

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After the diplomatic failure known as the XYZ Affair  a 1797 episode in which French treatment of U.S. envoys shocked the nation, nearly leading to war between the U.S. and France  George Logan, a Pennsylvania state legislator and farmer from a prominent Philadelphia family, decided to step in.

In 1947, after former Vice President Henry Wallaces gabbiness on a trip abroad raised eyebrows, TIME took a look back at what Logan did:

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In other words, even though his mission was relatively successful at achieving his own personal goals, his goals were not the same ones shared by the government  and, as an individual, even a powerful one who was friends with Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin, he couldnt have known what was going on behind the scenes. Logans intervention showed those in power in 1799 that they had to prevent citizens, no matter who, from taking foreign relations into their own hands.

He had a great friendship with Thomas Jefferson and shared a lot of his views, so when he sees efforts by Federalists fail through the XYZ Affair, he decides to try and solve this problem, to smooth things over, knowing he had connections in France, says Dennis S. Pickeral, Executive Director of Stenton, Logans historic Philadelphia home. He does diffuse a lot of the tension, but enrages Federalists, who push through that law.

Though some have argued that the Logan Act raises issues in the way it constrains citizens freedom of speech and right to travel, the concept behind it has stood the test of centuries.

The Logan Act wanted one President at a time, says Richard Painter, who was chief ethics lawyer for President George W. Bush and now teaches at the University of Minnesota Law School. There is one foreign policy conducted by the Secretary of State, whom the President picks and the U.S. Senate confirms.

There have been no prosecutions under the act since the second President John Adams signed it into law in 1799, according to a March 2015 Congressional Research Report.

But, says Robert Roberts, author of White House Ethics: The History of the Politics of Conflict of Interest Regulation, that doesnt mean the law is pointless. People who are questioned about their activities in ways that may or may not involve the Logan Act can end up in violation of the False Statements Act, for example.

In other words, it is highly unlikely anyone will be prosecuted for violations of the Logan Act, Roberts says. It is much more likely someone will be prosecuted for lying to the FBI.
Former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn (Photo: Carlos Barria/Reuters)

WASHINGTON  Michael Flynn Jr., the son of President Trumps former national security adviser, took to Twitter on Friday to dispute reports that his father is willing to testify before Congress in exchange for immunity.

Flynn Jr.s father, retired Gen. Michael Flynn, is at the center of the allegations surrounding Trumps ties to Russia. On Thursday evening, the Wall Street Journal reported the elder Flynn is willing to be interviewed by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and congressional officials investigating links between Trumps presidential campaign and the Russian government in exchange for a grant of immunity from prosecution. The Journal story cited officials with knowledge of the matter.

Flynns attorney, Robert Kelner, seemed to confirm the Journals reporting when he tweeted a statement on Thursday evening saying the former general certainly has a story to tell and very much wants to tell it, should the circumstances permit. Kelner confirmed that Flynns legal team is in communication with the House and Senate intelligence committees running the Russia probes, but the attorneys statement did not describe the nature of those talks beyond saying that Flynn wants assurances against unfair prosecution in a highly polarized, witch hunt environment. The statement from Flynns attorney did not specifically use the word immunity.

It isnt clear what Flynns potential legal jeopardy might be, if any. The intelligence community has said the Russian government interfered in last years election to help Trump win, but law enforcement has not alleged that the Trump campaign was complicit with these efforts.

In testimony before Congress earlier this month, FBI Director James Comey confirmed the bureau is investigating the possibility of collusion. Flynn and other Trump associates did have contact with Russian officials, including Ambassador Sergey Kislyak, during the campaign and presidential transition. Flynn was fired from his position as national security adviser in February after it was revealed that he misled Vice President Mike Pence about the nature of his conversations with Kislyak. There have been reports Flynn also made false statements to the FBI about his contacts with Kislyak and failed to properly register with the Justice Department as a lobbyist for the government of Turkey. Its not known if the FBI is still investigating those matters, or whether it would pursue charges, but if it did, it could complicate any efforts to secure immunity because Congress doesnt normally make immunity deals that could interfere with federal investigations.

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After the Journals report about the immunity deal was published, Flynn Jr. sent a series of tweets dismissing it. First, he retweeted Kelners statement and an earlier message from the attorney criticizing the Journal for including sensational claims about Flynn in a story published earlier this month. The disputed story, based on an account by former CIA Director James Woolsey, concerned a plot to transport a Turkish opposition figure from the U.S. to Turkey, which has sought his extradition. Flynn has denied any connection to the alleged plot. Flynn Jr. also linked to an article containing Kelners statement and highlighted a line where his fathers lawyer accused the media of being awash with unfounded allegations, outrageous claims of treason, and vicious innuendo about Flynn.

Flynn Jr. also shared a tweet from an anonymous account that cited his fathers military record, lauded the erstwhile general as a patriot, and encouraged others to retweet the message if they trust him more than anybody in the press. The younger Flynn also retweeted three tweets from people suggesting automated bots were spreading the Journal story in order to get it on Twitters trending list, which would put it in front of many of the sites users.

Notice how these Mike Flynn bots have ZERO to very few RTs. no one reads these Tweets, they are here to pump hashtags only pic.twitter.com/sRJXXRDtVC  MicroMagicJingle (@WDFx2EU95) March 31, 2017

Great work by @WDFx2EU95 exposing how Twitter is allowing paid bots to push the Mike Flynn story to top trend Comment, @Jack?  Jack Posobiec ???????? (@JackPosobiec) March 31, 2017

Flynn Jr. then posted a message suggesting a link between what he described as the Mike Flynn fake news and efforts by Obama associates to gather intelligence on the Trump teams ties to Russia during the transition. Finally, Flynn Jr. shared a tweet from a pro-Trump blogger who declared Flynn has not requested immunity, and one from Paul Joseph Watson, an editor with the conspiracy site InfoWars, that included Kelners statement and disputed the Journal report.

No mention of asking for immunity, Watson wrote of the statement. Wall Street Journal publishing fake news YET AGAIN.

Flynn Jr. has previously gotten into hot water for sharing conspiracy theories on Twitter. He was initially working with his father on Trumps transition team, but Flynn Jr. was fired in December after he sent a tweet touting the widely debunked pizzagate story about Democrats participating in a pedophilia ring at a Washington restaurant. The elder Flynn has also been criticized for using Twitter to share wild conspiracies about Democrats and Muslims.

Kelner and both Flynns have not responded to multiple requests for comment from Yahoo News about whether the former general is seeking an immunity deal.

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Read more from Yahoo News:
A Florida mom was arrested this week after her teen daughter was accused of distributing drug-laced candies at school.

Christine Arguelles, 33, was taken into custody after police and the principal of Lyons Creek Middle School in Coconut Creek arrived to her home and allegedly overheard her yelling at her daughter, You messed everything up! You thought you would make some money, and now look what happened!

Watch: Two Teens Arrested After Giving Classmates Gummy Worms Laced with Drugs: Cops

Two days earlier, Arguelles' 14-year-old daughter and the girl's 13-year-old friend allegedly brought marijuana-laced gummy candies to the school.

Her daughter was previously charged with possession with intent to sell. Her daughters 13-year-old classmate was also arrested and given the same charge.

According to police, her daughter took more than a dozen of the THC-laced gummies to school, where she and the friend allegedly sold them for $10 each.

In her mother's arrest report, cops say they found 86 packages of THC-laced gummies in the home's refrigerator.

Arguelles was charged with possession of THC with intent to sell, child neglect and contributing to the delinquency of a minor. Since she has another child, an 8-year-old, Arguelles was charged with two counts of child neglect, according to a police report obtained by WSVN.

At her court appearance, Arguelles pleaded with the judge to lower her $117,500 bond.

Read: Drug-Laced Gummy Worms Leave 5 High School Students Hospitalized

"I just recently moved. Ive been under a lot of stress, said Arguelles. I really would plead with you to really work on the bond so I can move from here and I can get things situated and I can hire my attorney and get all the funds together. Its going to be very difficult with such a high bond at the moment, and I plead with you and I would ask you."

The judge chose not to lower the bond and Arguelles remains held at the original bond amount.

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Watch: Teen, 19, High On Marijuana When She Nearly Hit Officer With Her Car: Cops

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ULAANBAATAR, Mongolia (AP)  Hundreds of Mongolians protested in the capital, Ulaanbaatar, on Friday over the alleged theft of government funds deposited in offshore accounts.

Opposition politicians and activists demanded the return of what some said is $17 billion in funds plundered by ruling party politicians and their influential friends.

They also called on the country's parliament to launch a special investigation of offshore accounts and pass a law prohibiting public officials, politicians and their family members from holding such accounts.

Uyanga Gantomor, chairwoman of a minor opposition party, said there was money sitting in offshore accounts that had been stolen from Mongolians.

"These thieves stole from schools, kindergartens and from your children and from the happiness of your families," she told the crowd in Ulaanbaatar's central square. "If they bring their stolen money back to Mongolia, then we can forgive them."

Former President Enkhbayar Nambar, who has served time in prison for corruption, addressed the crowd of about 1,500 to 2,000 people. "Not everyone is perfect; I went wrong once," he said. "For that, I have asked forgiveness. How about others ask for forgiveness also! Let's bring the money hidden in offshore accounts and distribute it to the people," he said to loud cheers.

Mongolia is in the midst of an economic crisis caused partly by a decline in prices for mineral exports.

More than 30 percent of the 3 million people in the landlocked country live in poverty, and many are angry over an austerity plan that has hit the poor hardest.

One of the protest organizers, Batchuluun San, head of the People's Emergency Council, a private group that focuses on graft, said the protest was in response to the "Panama Papers" scandal last year in which thousands of pages of documents related to offshore accounts were leaked, including accounts of members of the Mongolian political and business elite.

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"Today we have individuals in Mongolia who are richer than the state," said Batchuluun. "We want the government to investigate politicians with offshore accounts based on these documents."

Gansukh Khaltar, an independent economist, said Mongolia needs a law that regulates offshore accounts held by officials, but questioned the $17 billion figure used by protesters.

"How did several rich and influential people manage to steal $17 billion in the last 27 years as the protesters claim? Why would foreign mining companies give this huge amount of bribes to Mongolian politicians?" he said.
PARIS (AP)  Hemmed in and closely watched by police, hundreds of Muslims unrolled rugs and prayed outdoors Friday in the busy streets of a Paris suburb to protest the closure of their prayer hall.

The show of strength by throngs of worshippers in Clichy highlighted a long-standing issue for France's Muslim community, estimated at 5 million people: a shortage of mosques.

Such protests aren't without risk of a backlash, especially in the politically heated atmosphere of France's upcoming presidential election. Far-right presidential candidate Marine Le Pen has previously decried street prayers, part of her anti-immigrant, anti-Islam outlook.

Clichy Muslims had been using a prayer hall rented from City Hall. But the town's mayor now wants to turn that space into a multimedia library for the town's 60,000 residents.

City Hall refused to renew the three-year lease when it expired last June and, following a court battle, closed down the prayer hall last week with help from French police.

City Hall says Muslims can worship at a new Islamic cultural and prayer center, already used by hundreds of people, that the town inaugurated in May 2016.

However, the Muslim group that helped organize Friday's protest and which is calling for another demonstration Sunday says the new mosque is too small and remote.

The building is a disused former office block that City Hall "turned into a mosque by throwing down a few rugs," said Smail El-Baz, a spokesman for the group.

He warned that the closure of their prayer hall could drive worshippers underground and increase the risk of them becoming radicalized.

The group wants its prayer hall reopened until the end of Ramadan in July and space for the building of a new mosque.
(This March 30 story was corrected to note Prieto says Wisniewski, not Prieto, was acting for political reasons in paragraph 13) By Joseph Ax NEW YORK (Reuters) - A day after two former allies of New Jersey Governor Chris Christie were sentenced to prison in the "Bridgegate" scandal, a state lawmaker who helped uncover the scheme to cause massive traffic jams over a political slight wants to keep pushing for answers to the two biggest unanswered questions. What did the governor know about the lane closures at the George Washington Bridge, and when did he know it? To learn the truth, the legislature's Bridgegate probe should be resumed, with Christie subpoenaed and required to testify, said Democratic Assemblyman John Wisniewski, who co-chaired a special committee that unearthed the damning emails and texts revealing the plot. He also is campaigning to replace Christie as governor. But fellow Democratic leaders in the state legislature offered a lukewarm response, saying it was not clear what further investigation would accomplish. Bridget Kelly, Christie's former deputy chief of staff, was sentenced on Wednesday to 1-1/2 years in prison. Bill Baroni, former deputy executive director of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, got a prison sentence of two years. Along with David Wildstein, another former Port Authority executive who pleaded guilty, they are the only officials charged in connection with the shutdown of access lanes at the bridge in Fort Lee, New Jersey, in September 2013. The resulting traffic nightmare was intended to punish the town's Democratic mayor, Mark Sokolich, for declining to endorse Christie's re-election campaign. Christie has denied any involvement, but the fallout damaged his unsuccessful 2016 presidential campaign and saddled him with historically low approval ratings at home. A spokesman did not respond to a request for comment on Thursday. At trial, numerous witnesses, including close Christie advisers, testified that the governor and his inner circle were aware of the lane closures much earlier than they admitted publicly. Following her sentencing, Kelly said she refused to be a "scapegoat" and vowed to fight her conviction. The criminal case might never have existed had it not been for the legislative committee, which used its subpoena power to secure communications between Kelly, Baroni and Wildstein. Those documents included the now-infamous email from Kelly to Wildstein saying, "Time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee." "We need to follow the facts wherever they go," Wisniewski said in a phone interview. He noted that Christie previously invoked executive privilege to avoid turning over texts and emails in what he called a "Nixonian" move. But the assembly speaker, Democrat Vincent Prieto, said in a statement it was "unlikely after the federal trial that additional hearings or subpoenas will provide new information." Prieto, whose approval would be needed to set up a new committee, also criticized Wisniewski for sending out a campaign statement calling for a renewed investigation, saying Wisniewski was using the issue for political reasons. Christie cannot run for another term this year due to term limits. Wisniewski, however, said leaving the investigation half-finished would allow such abuses to occur again. State Sen. Loretta Weinberg, a longtime Christie foe who co-chaired the investigative committee, said she had "mixed feelings" about further action. "I'm not sure what our goal would be," Weinberg, a Democrat, said in a phone interview. She said it was not clear whether the legislature could force Christie to testify under oath or gain access to his communications. Christie's status as a lame-duck governor is another factor weighing against a renewed probe, as is the potential cost to taxpayers, Weinberg said. The target of the scheme, Sokolich, the Fort Lee mayor, said it was obvious the plot extended beyond the three charged defendants. "There were many others who were half a text or one email conversation away from getting indicted," he said, adding that Christie has already been found guilty in the court of public opinion. "I guess we'll never know for sure," Sokolich said. "Welcome to Jersey politics." (Reporting by Joseph Ax; Editing by David Gregorio and Leslie Adler)
By Lesley Wroughton and Robert-Jan Bartunek BRUSSELS (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson reassured his nervous European counterparts over Washington's commitment to NATO on Friday and pressed them again to spend more on defense, triggering a rebuke from Germany. Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel said it was neither "reachable nor desirable" for Germany to spend the agreed NATO target of two percent of member states' economic output on defense. NATO allies have until 2024 to do that. "Two percent would mean military expenses of some 70 billion euros. I don't know any German politician who would claim that is reachable nor desirable," Gabriel told the first meeting of NATO foreign ministers attended by Tillerson. "The United States will realize it is better to talk about better spending instead of more spending," he said, noting that humanitarian, development and economic aid to stabilize countries and regions should also count. Tillerson said allies will need to pay up or outline plans for meeting that target when NATO leaders meet on May 25 for the first top-level summit of the alliance to be attended by U.S. President Donald Trump. Trump has criticized NATO as "obsolete" and suggested Washington's security guarantees for European allies could be conditional on them spending more on their own defense. He has also said he wants NATO to do more to fight terrorism. "Our goal should be to agree at the May leaders meeting that by the end of the year all allies will have either met the pledge guidelines or will have developed plans that clearly articulate how...the pledge will be fulfilled," Tillerson said. "Allies must demonstrate by their actions that they share U.S. government's commitment." In Berlin, German government spokesman, Steffen Seibert, said the government was committed to increasing defense spending and would continue to do so "because we know it is necessary and makes sense to further strengthen our armed forces". U.S. defense expenditure makes up about 70 percent of the total NATO allies' defense spending. Only four European NATO members - Estonia, Greece, Poland and Britain - meet the two-percent target. NATO head Jens Stoltenberg rejected Gabriel's call to include non-military spending toward the goal, but said Germany was moving "in the right direction" with more military spending after years of cuts. He said NATO ministers on Friday discussed national plans for arriving at the target as they prepared for the May summit. In London, Britain's Defence Secretary Michael Fallon said that other European NATO allies must "raise their game, and those failing to meet the two-percent commitment... should at least agree to year-on-year real terms increases." QUESTIONS OVER U.S. COMMITMENT Tillerson did however offer assurances of Washington's commitment to NATO during his brief stop in Brussels, although U.S. officials said he did not have time for one-on-one meetings, which are customary during such gatherings. His initial decision to skip his first meeting with NATO foreign ministers had added to questions about the Trump administration's commitment. The meeting was later rescheduled and he attended on Friday. "The United States is committed to ensuring NATO has the capabilities to support our collective defense," Tillerson said. "We will uphold the agreements we have made to defend our allies." Tillerson said NATO was fundamental to countering Russian aggression in Ukraine. A meeting on Thursday between ambassadors from NATO and Russia called on Moscow to do more to rein in the Moscow-allied separatists battling Kiev's forces there. Stoltenberg said ties between European NATO members and the United States were "rock solid". He said "fair burden sharing to keep the trans-atlantic bond strong" and "stepping up NATO efforts to project stability and fight terrorism" were on the agenda on Friday as the bloc seeks to respond to the new, harsher tone from across the Atlantic. (Additional reporting by Tom Koerkemeier in Brussels, Andrea Shalal in Berlin and Kylie MacLellan in London; Writing by Gabriela Baczynska; Editing by Louise Ireland)
RICHMOND, Va. (AP)  Eric Wilson feels he always needs an alibi. He rarely leaves his wife's side when not at work. He talks on the phone whenever he's in his car to leave a record of his location.

One of four former sailors known as the "Norfolk Four," Wilson was pardoned last week by Virginia's governor for a rape he says he was bullied into admitting to 20 years ago. Cleared at last, he hopes the healing can begin.

But there are some things he'll never get over, he says.

If he just could have proven he wasn't in that Norfolk, Virginia, apartment in July 1997, he may not have falsely confessed to raping 18-year-old Michelle Moore-Bosko. If he could have remembered where he really was that day, he wouldn't have spent 7  years in prison and more than a decade as a registered sex offender for something Gov. Terry McAuliffe declared he didn't do, Wilson says.

"If I had had some kind of hard proof that proved I wasn't there, this never would've happened," Wilson, now 40, told The Associated Press as he drove from work to the home he shares with his wife and two children near San Antonio, Texas.

Pardons for the "Norfolk Four" closed a lengthy case that gained national attention after their innocence claims were backed by dozens of former FBI agents, ex-prosecutors and crime novelist John Grisham. The author once said he wanted to write a screenplay about the case.

Moore-Bosko's husband found her stabbed and strangled body in their apartment in July 1997 after returning from a week at sea.

Danial Williams, who lived in the same building, was quickly identified as a suspect because a neighbor told police he had a crush on the victim. Williams admitted to her rape and murder  the first of a series of confessions that the men, then-sailors at the Naval base in Norfolk, say were forced by police.

DNA evidence matched only one person: Omar Ballard, the fifth man convicted in the case. Ballard, who pleaded guilty in 2000, acknowledged he was solely responsible and is serving a life sentence.

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Williams, Joseph Dick and Derek Tice got courts to throw out their rape and murder convictions before McAuliffe formally declared them innocent this month. But Wilson, convicted of rape, had failed to persuade judges to do the same because of a technicality: He'd already completed his sentence.

So while out of prison since 2005, he hasn't been free.

As a registered sex offender, he's been limited from traveling and told to not even bother trying to adopt his stepson, he said. It took an attorney and $10,000 to convince a board to grant him an electrician's license, he said. He's been blocked from working on certain properties, such as schools, and barred from city parks.

His son was run out of his Cub Scout troop because other parents didn't want Wilson around, he said.

"People have been very ugly," said his wife, Misty Wilson.

Moore-Bosko's family remain convinced the men are guilty. Her parents, John and Carol Moore, said in a statement that it's hard to believe  after attending the trials and hearing the confessions  the four are innocent.

"We still believe that all of these men were involved in the murder of our daughter despite the ridiculous decision of the governor to grant them pardon," the Moores said.

Wilson says he still has nightmares about the interrogation resulting in his false confession.

Hauled into a police station nearly a year after the slaying, he was asked where he was that day but couldn't remember.

He recalls a detective shoving him into a corner and showing him a photo of Moore-Bosko's bloody body. By the end, he began to question whether he was innocent, he said.

The other men have said they cracked after they were threatened with the death penalty and repeatedly called liars. The confessions conflicted with one another. Ballard's account was the only one containing information matching the crime scene.

The detective who questioned them, Robert Glenn Ford, was convicted in 2011 of extortion and lying to the FBI in unrelated cases. He's serving 12  years in prison for taking thousands of dollars from drug dealers to get them favorable treatment at sentencing.

Wilson said he's been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder and feels anxious in crowds, always looking over his shoulder.

"I don't really go anywhere. I don't talk to people," Wilson said.

Steve Northup, Wilson's attorney, said they plan to seek compensation for what he endured. Once his name is removed from the sex offender registry, Wilson said, he plans to adopt his stepson, get a passport, and maybe take his wife on a proper honeymoon.

"I'm just grateful that Virginia has finally admitting they're wrong," he said. "Now, the healing can begin for all of us."

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Associated Press researcher Jennifer Farrar contributed to this story from New York.

____

Follow Alanna Durkin Richer at http://twitter.com/aedurkinricher. Read more of her work at http://bigstory.ap.org/journalist/alanna-durkin-richer .
By Rozanna Latiff and James Pearson

KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) - Three North Koreans wanted for questioning over the murder of the estranged half-brother of their country's leader returned home on Friday along with the body of victim Kim Jong Nam after Malaysia agreed to a swap deal with the reclusive state.

Malaysian police investigating what U.S. and South Korean officials say was an assassination carried out by North Korean agents took statements from the three before they were allowed to leave the country.

"We have obtained whatever we want from them...They have assisted us and they have been allowed to leave," police chief Khalid Abu Bakar told a news conference in the capital, Kuala Lumpur, saying there were no grounds to hold the men.

Kim Jong Nam, the elder half-brother of the North's young, unpredictable leader Kim Jong Un, was killed at Kuala Lumpur's airport on Feb. 13 in a bizarre assassination using VX nerve agent, a chemical so lethal the U.N. has listed it as a weapon of mass destruction.

China's Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang said the remains of a North Korean citizen killed in Malaysia were returned to the North via Beijing along with "relevant" North Korean citizens.

Malaysian authorities released Kim's body on Thursday in a deal that secured the release of nine Malaysian citizens held in Pyongyang after a drawn out diplomatic spat.

Malaysian police had named eight North Koreans they wanted to question in the case, including the three given safe passage to leave.

For more news videos visit Yahoo View, available now on iOS and Android.

Television footage obtained by Reuters from Japanese media showed Hyon Kwang Song, the second secretary at the North Korean embassy in Kuala Lumpur, and Kim Uk Il, a North Korean state airline employee on the flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.

The police chief confirmed they were accompanied by compatriot Ri Ji U, also known as James, who had been hiding with them at the North Korean embassy in Kuala Lumpur.

Story continues

Malaysian prosecutors have charged two women - an Indonesian and a Vietnamese - with killing Kim Jong Nam, but South Korean and U.S. officials had regarded them as pawns in an operation carried out by North Korean agents.

Kim Jong Nam, who had been living in exile in the Chinese territory of Macau for several years, survived an attempt on his life in 2012, according to South Korean lawmakers.

They say Kim Jong Un had issued a "standing order" for the assassination in order to consolidate his own power after the 2011 death of the father of both.

The other North Koreans named by Malaysian investigators are all back in North Korea.

Police believe four fled Malaysia on the same day as the murder and another was held for a week before being released due to insufficient evidence.

Angered by the probe, North Korea ordered a travel ban on Malaysians this month, trapping three diplomats and six family members - including four children - in Pyongyang.

Malaysia, which previously had friendly ties with the unpredictable nuclear-armed state, responded with a ban of its own, but was left with little option but to accede to the North's demands for the return of the body and safe passage for the three nationals hiding in the embassy.

"CLEAR WINNER"

Malaysia will not snap diplomatic ties with North Korea following the row, Prime Minister Najib Razak said during an official visit to India, state news agency Bernama reported.

"We hope they don't create a case like this again," Najib told reporters in the southern city of Chennai. "It will harm the relationship between the two countries."

On Thursday, Najib had announced the return of the body, but did not mention Kim by name.

"Following the completion of the autopsy on the deceased and receipt of a letter from his family requesting the remains be returned to North Korea, the coroner has approved the release of the body," Najib said, adding that the murder investigation would continue but the travel ban on North Koreans was lifted.

North Korea has maintained that the dead man is not Kim Jong Nam, saying instead the body is that of Kim Chol, the name on the victim's passport.

Malaysian police used a DNA sample to establish the victim was Kim Jong Nam. Police chief Khalid said the North Korean embassy had at first confirmed the identity, but changed its stance the next day.

The swap agreement brings to an end a diplomatic standoff that has lasted nearly seven weeks.

Both countries managed to "resolve issues arising from the death of a DPRK national," a North Korean statement said on Thursday, referring to the country by the abbreviation of its official name.

"It is a win (for North Korea), clearly," Andrei Lankov, North Korea expert at Seouls Kookmin University, said on the swap deal. "I presume the Malaysians decided not to get too involved in a remote country's palace intrigues, and wanted their hostages back."

SIMULTANEOUS TAKE-OFF

The nine Malaysians who had been trapped in Pyongyang arrived in Kuala Lumpur early on Friday on board a small Bombardier business jet operated by the Malaysian air force.

Pilot Hasrizan Kamis said the crew dressed in civilian clothes as a "precautionary step" for the mission.

The Plane Finder tracking website showed the Bombardier took off from Pyongyang at the same time the Malaysian Airlines flight MH360 left Kuala Lumpur for Beijing.

Mohd Nor Azrin Md Zain, one of the returning diplomats, said it had been an anxious period but they "were not particularly harassed" by the North Korean authorities.

The episode, however, is likely to have cost North Korea one of its few friends.

"I think this relationship is going to go into cold storage for a very long time," said former Malaysian diplomat Dennis Ignatius.

(Additional reporting by A. Ananthalakshmi, Joseph Sipalan, Emily Chow and Praveen Menon in KUALA LUMPUR and Christian Shepherd in BEIJING; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore)
By Rozanna Latiff and James Pearson KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) - Three North Koreans wanted for questioning over the murder of the estranged half-brother of their country's leader returned home on Friday along with the body of victim Kim Jong Nam after Malaysia agreed a swap deal with the reclusive state. Malaysian police investigating what U.S. and South Korean officials say was an assassination carried out by North Korean agents took statements from the three before they were allowed to leave the country. "We have obtained whatever we want from them...They have assisted us and they have been allowed to leave," police chief Khalid Abu Bakar told a news conference in the capital, Kuala Lumpur, saying there were no grounds to hold the men. Kim Jong Nam, the elder half-brother of the North's young, unpredictable leader Kim Jong Un, was killed at Kuala Lumpur's airport on Feb. 13 in a bizarre assassination using VX nerve agent, a chemical so lethal the U.N. has listed it as a weapon of mass destruction. China's Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang said the remains of a North Korean citizen killed in Malaysia were returned to the North via Beijing along with "relevant" North Korean citizens. Malaysian authorities released Kim's body on Thursday in a deal that secured the release of nine Malaysian citizens held in Pyongyang after a drawn out diplomatic spat. Malaysian police had named eight North Koreans they wanted to question in the case, including the three given safe passage to leave. Television footage obtained by Reuters from Japanese media showed Hyon Kwang Song, the second secretary at the North Korean embassy in Kuala Lumpur, and Kim Uk Il, a North Korean state airline employee on the flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. The police chief confirmed they were accompanied by compatriot Ri Ji U, also known as James, who had been hiding with them at the North Korean embassy in Kuala Lumpur. Malaysian prosecutors have charged two women - an Indonesian and a Vietnamese - with killing Kim Jong Nam, but South Korean and U.S. officials had regarded them as pawns in an operation carried out by North Korean agents. Kim Jong Nam, who had been living in exile in the Chinese territory of Macau for several years, survived an attempt on his life in 2012, according to South Korean lawmakers. They say Kim Jong Un had issued a "standing order" for the assassination in order to consolidate his own power after the 2011 death of the father of both. The other North Koreans named by Malaysian investigators are all back in North Korea. Police believe four fled Malaysia on the same day as the murder and another was held for a week before being released due to insufficient evidence. Angered by the probe, North Korea ordered a travel ban on Malaysians this month, trapping three diplomats and six family members - including four children - in Pyongyang. Malaysia, which previously had friendly ties with the unpredictable nuclear-armed state, responded with a ban of its own, but was left with little option but to accede to the North's demands for the return of the body and safe passage for the three nationals hiding in the embassy. "CLEAR WINNER" Malaysia will not snap diplomatic ties with North Korea following the row, Prime Minister Najib Razak said during an official visit to India, state news agency Bernama reported. "We hope they don't create a case like this again," Najib told reporters in the southern city of Chennai. "It will harm the relationship between the two countries." On Thursday, Najib had announced the return of the body, but did not mention Kim by name. "Following the completion of the autopsy on the deceased and receipt of a letter from his family requesting the remains be returned to North Korea, the coroner has approved the release of the body," Najib said, adding that the murder investigation would continue but the travel ban on North Koreans was lifted. North Korea has maintained that the dead man is not Kim Jong Nam, saying instead the body is that of Kim Chol, the name on the victim's passport. Malaysian police used a DNA sample to establish the victim was Kim Jong Nam. Police chief Khalid said the North Korean embassy had at first confirmed the identity, but changed its stance the next day. The swap agreement brings to an end a diplomatic standoff that has lasted nearly seven weeks. Both countries managed to "resolve issues arising from the death of a DPRK national," a North Korean statement said on Thursday, referring to the country by the abbreviation of its official name. "It is a win (for North Korea), clearly," Andrei Lankov, North Korea expert at Seouls Kookmin University, said on the swap deal. "I presume the Malaysians decided not to get too involved in a remote country's palace intrigues, and wanted their hostages back." SIMULTANEOUS TAKE-OFF The nine Malaysians who had been trapped in Pyongyang arrived in Kuala Lumpur early on Friday on board a small Bombardier business jet operated by the Malaysian air force. Pilot Hasrizan Kamis said the crew dressed in civilian clothes as a "precautionary step" for the mission. The Plane Finder tracking website showed the Bombardier took off from Pyongyang at the same time the Malaysian Airlines flight MH360 left Kuala Lumpur for Beijing. Mohd Nor Azrin Md Zain, one of the returning diplomats, said it had been an anxious period but they "were not particularly harassed" by the North Korean authorities. The episode, however, is likely to have cost North Korea one of its few friends. "I think this relationship is going to go into cold storage for a very long time," said former Malaysian diplomat Dennis Ignatius. (Additional reporting by A. Ananthalakshmi, Joseph Sipalan, Emily Chow and Praveen Menon in KUALA LUMPUR and Christian Shepherd in BEIJING; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore)
Global concern over North Korean nuclear capabilities has spiked again, as the nation appears to have fired four ballistic missiles that traveled about 1,000 km. (more than 600 miles) into waters near Tokyo on Monday morning, according to reports from the South Korean military and Japanese officials. The tests are merely the latest in a string of hair-raising launches, including a reportedly successful test in February of a new kind of nuclear-capable missile and actual nuclear tests in 2016.

But, though that concern is high recently, it is decades old.

The history of North Koreas nuclear program can be traced back to the Cold War, when the Korean War convinced leader Kim Il Sung - who ruled the nation from 1948 to 1994 - that the country needed to protect itself from the U.S., and the Soviet Union helped its fellow communist nation get the resources to do just that. (Are you short of arms? Stalin is said to have asked Kim when the conflict began in 1950. Well give them to you. You must strike the southerners in the teeth.)

In the 1950s, Kim Il Sung began working to amass an arsenal potent enough to deter a feared U.S. attack, even after a 1953 ceasefire ended the Korean War, according to TIMEs Jan. 13, 2003, cover story on North Korean nuclear ambitions. As that story explained, the end of the war followed implications from U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower, who took office in 1953, that nuclear weapons were on the table as a way to bring the conflict to an end. Even though the war did end that year, the idea that nuclear weapons might be necessary made its mark on North Korea. In the wake of the armistice, the Soviet Union helped North Korea begin the research that would be needed to eventually achieve nuclear capability.

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In 1963, TIME reported that North Korea was one of the only countries that had announced that they would not sign the nuclear test-ban treaty that was President John F. Kennedys attempt to get the genie back in the bottle and slow the global nuclear arms race by banning testing in the atmosphere, in space and underwater. In fact, North Korea continued on its path and got its first nuclear reactor - a small one designed for industrial research - two years later.

Story continues

As the conflict in Vietnam escalated, so did North Koreas aggression toward the U.S. And, as a 1969 TIME article explained, the nation and its leaders were not comfortable counting on Soviet or Chinese assistance:

In part, Kim's virulent animosity toward the U.S. can be traced back to the early days of the Korean War when North Korean troops, after scoring startling initial victories, were chased all the way north to the Chinese border by American and allied forces. The North Koreans were rescued only by the late-1950 infusion of hundreds of thousands of Chinese "volunteers." Now Kim sees the U.S. as the great obstacle to his hope of reunifying Korea on Communist terms. Beyond this, Kim seems to be a great congenital hater; the path to his present power is strewn with the bodies of once-trusting comrades...

Kim makes a fetish of self-reliance, and North Korea's relations with its two great Communist neighbors have been spotty at best. The Soviet Union liberated Kim's domain from the Japanese, yet North Korean textbooks barely mention the Russian role. In 1950, Chinese Communist troops rescued Kim's forces from probable extinction at the hands of the U.S., but a war museum in Pyongyang gives the briefest mention of Chinese assistance.

Between 1953 and 1960, Sino-North Korean relations were much warmer, and Peking extended an estimated $590 million in aid and grants to the war-ravaged country. In the early '60s, however, friendship turned to resentment, largely because of Chinese pressure on North Korea to side with Peking in the Sino-Soviet split. In 1965, Soviet Premier Aleksei Kosygin stopped off in Pyongyang on his way home from a visit to Hanoi. Apparently he struck a bargain with Kim II Sung, for Soviet aid increased sharply and Kim's policies began to lean away from Peking. In 1967, Soviet military aid to Kim's regime amounted to $75 million, and in the following year rose above that.

Over the half-century that followed, the subject of North Korean nuclear capabilities would go in and out of the headlines, but the story that began in the 1950s has not yet come to an end.

In fact, by the early 1990s - after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Americas victory in the first Gulf War and the death of Kim Il Sung in 1994 - experts say North Korea believed nuclear weapons would be the only way to one-up the U.S.

This article was originally published on TIME.com
Google just released its latest service to the world: a website that could help you get fit all while filling empty fitness studios around the world.

SEE ALSO: Now that SXSW is over, here was, for sure, my favorite part

Reserve with Google is a new feature that lets you see and book fitness classes in the U.S. It was previously only available in New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles.

The site pulls together Google Maps and Google Search and puts them into a new Reserve with Google website (on desktop and mobile).

Think Google Flights (google.com/flights) except this is for transforming your body rather than transporting it.

You can search for fitness studios based on location and style. Google will also recommend ones to you. Here's how it works on mobile:

1. Go to google.com/maps/reserve. Choose your date and location. You can also search for types of classes. Select a time for the class.





2. Fill in your information: name, email, phone number. Some of it will be preloaded if you're signed in on Google Chrome.





3. Read the terms and conditions :). Choose whether you're doing one class or want to buy a package and then press go to payment.





4. If you have a card preloaded on your Google Chrome, you can press one more button to pay.

It takes three taps to book a class (if you have your information preloaded).

"We make recommendations based on courses you've taken, and will be exploring more ways to bring timely and useful recommendations to fitness buffs," a Google spokesperson told Cosmopolitan.com . "For example, you will soon be able to get notifications of new classes that might be interesting to you."

Google doesn't work this magic alone. The tech giant partnered with top scheduling providers, including MINDBODY, MyTime, Genbook, Full Slate, Front Desk and Appointy, according to the release.

The whole thing sounds like ClassPass, right? Well, this time you're not left with an unsustainable business model, hiked up prices and mismanagement.

As someone who went from paying $99 for unlimited classes to $125 for 10 on ClassPass, I'm going to go figure out how to cancel.

WATCH: The darkest substance on Earth basically looks like a portal to another world
WASHINGTON (AP)  President Donald Trump's plan to kill Obamacare died last week. Or maybe it didn't.

The repeal effort seems to have assumed zombie status  somewhere between dead and alive.

This is never-say-die Washington, where big legislative proposals that are in the casket one day can show signs of a pulse and start climbing out the next.

It's a fairly common condition in the capital, where politicians who invest enormous political capital in a proposal are loath to let go.

"One of the keys to understanding Washington is to think a little bit like a coroner," says consultant Ari Fleischer, former press secretary to President George W. Bush. "You have to know when something's dead and when something's still kicking, and sometimes it's hard to tell the difference."

To say that Trump and Republican congressional leaders are sending mixed signals about the viability of the repeal effort is an understatement.

Last week, when it became clear that House Republicans didn't have enough votes to pass the health-care repeal bill, the White House said Trump had given it his all, left everything on the field, and was ready to move on.

Next up: taxes, the president said, without blinking.

His son Eric channeled Kenny Rogers' "The Gambler" in praising his father for knowing when to walk away.

"Guess what? We're moving on," the president's son told Fox News on Tuesday. "The best business people know ... when to hold their cards, know when to fold the cards."

That same night, though, the president told a bipartisan gathering of senators, "We're all going to make a deal on health care. That's such an easy one. So I have no doubt that that's going to happen very quickly."

For more news videos visit Yahoo View, available now on iOS and Android.

Trump spokesman Sean Spicer said Wednesday the president had just been engaging in light-hearted banter.

But it was no laughing matter to plenty of Republicans on Capitol Hill, where conservatives elected on a promise to scrap the law continue to insist that reports of the repeal effort's death are premature.

Story continues

"We don't quit," said freshman Rep. Brian Mast, a Florida Republican who lost both legs after being wounded in Afghanistan. "That's how we do things on the battlefield; that's how things should be done here."

On Thursday, House Speaker Paul Ryan added to the cacophony of conflicting statements when he told CBS that it's time for Plan B, where "we keep talking to each other and figure out how we get to 'yes.'"

For all of that, there is little evidence that leaders are working on a concrete plan to revive the repeal effort.

Why not admit that?

It could be the emotional attachment to a long-held goal. Or a matter of self-interest.

"These are creatures that need public recognition and public validation," says Stephen Wayne, a Georgetown University professor of government. "When they get behind something and it doesn't go anywhere, or they're embarrassed by it, it's a political failure. It's an ego failure."

Framing the situation more charitably, Fleischer offers this: "People in both parties generally have a lot of heartfelt investments in the policies they're pursuing. Particularly for core promises, the formality of declaring it dead is gut-wrenching, so you cling to hope and you don't declare it dead 'til you have no choice."

There are historical examples that demonstrate both the wisdom and folly of refusing to admit defeat.

President Ronald Reagan's push for a sweeping tax overhaul package was pronounced dead on Capitol Hill more than once before a bipartisan package won approval in 1986.

President Bill Clinton's push to revamp welfare was declared a failure repeatedly before it came together. His years-long effort to remake the health care system was declared a goner more than once  and really did die.

President Barack Obama's attempts to enact gun control measures after the 2012 shooting of schoolchildren in Newtown, Connecticut, ended with the president acknowledging in 2014 that until there was a fundamental shift in public opinion, "it will not change."

Between the clear victories and defeats lies a netherworld of legislative limbo.

Obama's push for big immigration changes stalled after the Senate in 2013 passed a bill with dim prospects of clearing the House, but the idea lived on in people's hopes and dreams. All the discussion of whether immigration reform was dead or alive was a pretty good indication that it was the former.

Obama never explicitly acknowledged the political reality that the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal was dead after Trump was elected. The White House just stopped actively lobbying Congress to pass it.

Obama's day-one vow to close the U.S. detention center at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba became increasingly less likely to succeed over his eight years in office. But he never admitted it was a promise unfulfilled until his last full day in office.

Robin Wagner-Pacifici, a sociology professor at the New School for Social Research, said there may be parallels to military surrenders, which fell into disuse in the latter part of the 20th century to be replaced by "conflict resolution or dispute resolution or accords of various kinds that had a much more fuzzy quality to them."

She said it may also be partly a matter of Trump's fragmented and sometimes contradictory ways of communication, in which "nothing is ever completely resolved or ended."

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AP Writer Erica Werner contributed to this report.

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Follow Nancy Benac on Twitter at: http://twitter.com/nbenac
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP)  A registered sex offender has been indicted on charges in the slaying and alleged rape of an Ohio State University student.

Twenty-nine-year-old Brian Golsby is charged in the death of 21-year-old Reagan Tokes, whose body was found outside a Grove City park in February.

Franklin County's prosecutor in Columbus said Friday he will seek the death penalty if Golsby is convicted of aggravated murder. The Columbus man also is charged with kidnapping and rape, among other counts.

The 18-count indictment also includes charges related to six armed robberies in Columbus prior to Tokes' slaying.

Messages seeking comment on Golsby's behalf were left for his attorneys.

Police say they matched Golsby's DNA evidence from Tokes' car.

He was previously imprisoned in an attempted rape and aggravated robbery and released in November.
Migrants packed on to a boat leaving Libya (Rex)

A leading diplomat has warned that one million migrants and refugees are in the pipeline ready to cross into Europe from Libya.

The huge number had congregated in Libya after fleeing conflict and poverty from several countries, said Joseph Walker-Cousins, former head of the British Embassy Office in Benghazi.

Mr Walker-Cousins, a senior fellow at the Institute for Statecraft think-tank, made his comments while giving evidence to a House of Lords committee.

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He said the collapse of a functioning government in Libya, which meant no border controls, meant many had fled to the north African country in a desperate bid for a new life in Europe.

Up to a million migrants if not more are in the pipeline, he told peers.

A young girl on board a rescue vessel earlier this year (Rex)

They will take a long time to work their way through that pipeline but it is well-established.

Walker-Cousins had harsh words for the European Union, saying Brussels had done too little, too late to help solve the problem on the number of refugees coming to Europe.

He said the EU should patrol the coastline of Libya rather than begin worrying about the issue only people reach European shores.

Many are taken to the EU by unscrupulous human trafficking gangs who charge large sums to smuggle thousands across the Mediterranean on perilous journeys, which has resulted in many deaths.
Gaza City (Palestinian Territories) (AFP) - A Palestinian prisoner freed after 17 years in an Israeli jail for a murder he was later acquitted of said he felt reborn Friday, after returning to his family in Gaza.

Hatem al-Maghari was arrested and convicted of murder after the brutal lynching of two Israeli soldiers in 2000, but was released this week after new evidence emerged, the Israeli army said.

He arrived in Gaza overnight, he said, and returned to his family in Rafah in the south of the Palestinian enclave.

"The feeling of freedom is indescribable," he told AFP by phone from his family home. "I didn't kill anyone."

"I am reborn, I felt major injustice and oppression in prison."

Maghari said he was working as a police officer in the Palestinian city of Ramallah in the occupied West Bank when two Israeli reservists drove into the city by mistake.

They were taken to a police station for their own safety but images filmed by an Italian television channel showed the crowd storming the station.

Later, the crowd was seen striking one of the soldiers who had apparently been beaten to death.

A photo of another man with bloody hands screaming with joy at the window after the deaths became an iconic image from the second Palestinian intifada, or uprising.

Maghari had always maintained he was not involved and the Israeli military court granted his request following "new elements that make it difficult to prove his effective participation in the killing of one of the soldiers," the army said in a statement Thursday.

He was still found guilty of aggression against a soldier and not preventing an offence and sentenced to 11 and a half years in prison, the army said, but with time already served was released immediately.

In 2012, Israel announced it had dismantled a network of the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas in the West Bank, including two men accused of killing the two soldiers.
Jerusalem (AFP) - The United States warned Friday that "unrestrained" building of settler homes could hinder peace, after Israel approved a new settlement in the occupied West Bank for the first time in a quarter century.

The Palestinians reacted angrily at what is widely seen as the most right-wing government in Israeli history presses ahead with settlement expansion in defiance of international concern.

US President Donald Trump's administration refrained from criticising the new settlement, which was approved by the Israeli security cabinet late Thursday, but warned that further expansion could undermine peace efforts.

"While the existence of settlements is not in itself an impediment to peace, further unrestrained settlement activity does not help advance peace," a White House official said.

"Going forward... the Israeli government has made clear that Israel's intent is to adopt a policy regarding settlement activity that takes President Trump's concerns into consideration."

A spokesman for UN chief Antonio Guterres expressed "disappointment and alarm" at the Israeli announcement.

EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini said the new settlement building threatens "to further undermine prospects for a viable two-state solution, which remains the only realistic way to fulfil the aspirations of both sides and achieve just and lasting peace."

- 'Destroying peace prospects' -

Senior Palestinian official Saeb Erekat said Israel "continues to destroy the prospects of peace."

He also criticised the United Nations, European Union and United States for not doing enough to punish Israel for continuing to expand settlements in the West Bank.

"Peace is not going to be achieved by tolerating such crimes," he said.

More than 400,000 Israelis live in existing settlements considered illegal under international law.

The new settlement will be constructed north of the former wildcat Jewish outpost known as Amona, which was razed in February in accordance with an Israeli High Court order.

Story continues

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had promised to build a new settlement for its residents after their eviction.

"I promised to create a new community and we are going to respect that commitment and create it today," he said ahead of Thursday's security cabinet meeting.

Oded Revivi, chief foreign envoy for the umbrella body representing settlers, welcomed the decision.

"We will be monitoring the government very closely to see that these plans come to fruition, enabling a new era of building," he said in a statement.

Agriculture minister Uri Ariel also welcomed the announcement, saying it would allow the "development of Judaea and Samaria," using a term right-wing Israelis apply to the West Bank.

It will be the first entirely new settlement that an Israeli government has approved since 1991, the anti-settlement NGO Peace Now said.

In recent years, construction had focused instead on expanding existing settlements.

- 'Held captive by settlers' -

Peace Now said the new settlement's location deep in the West Bank was "strategic for the fragmentation of the West Bank," which Palestinians see as the bulk of their future state.

"Netanyahu is held captive by the settlers, and chooses his political survival over the interest of the state of Israel," the NGO said, adding it was pushing Israelis and Palestinians closer to "apartheid."

The international community regards all Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories as illegal and a major obstacle to Middle East peace.

Israel draws a distinction between those it sanctions and those it does not -- so-called outposts.

The cabinet also invited tenders for nearly 2,000 new homes in existing settlements and discussed retroactively legalising three outposts, Peace Now said.

Ronen Bergman, senior correspondent for Israel's Yediot Aharonot newspaper, said Netanyahu, who has faced corruption allegations, has been dragged further right to keep his government together.

The far-right pro-settlement Jewish Home party, part of Netanyahu's coalition, is often dictating the government's agenda, he added.

"He has been shifted more and more to the right since being re-elected.

"(Netanyahu) is not calling the agenda, he is chasing the agenda," Bergman told AFP.

The former US administration of Barack Obama was deeply opposed to Israel's expansion of the settlements and in December withheld its veto from a UN Security Council resolution condemning the policy.

But since Trump took office in January, settler leaders have been emboldened by his far less critical stance and Israel has since announced more than 5,500 new homes in existing settlements.

Netanyahu has been in discussions with the Trump administration on how to move ahead with further construction.

Trump has pledged unstinting support for Israel but has also urged Netanyahu to "hold back on settlements for a little bit" while his administration looks for ways to restart Israeli-Palestinian talks.
SEOUL, South Korea (AP)  South Korean presidencies have a history of ending badly  the latest is that of Park Geun-hye, arrested Friday in a corruption case that could send her to prison. Nearly all the country's former presidents, or their family members and top aides, have become entangled in scandals near the end of their terms or after leaving office. Besides corruption, there have been coups, an assassination and a suicide:

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SYNGMAN RHEE (1948-1960)

The U.S.-educated Rhee, who fought for Korean liberation from Japanese colonial rule, became South Korea's founding president in 1948 with help from the United States. His government became increasingly authoritarian, especially after the 1950-53 Korean War, and critics accused him of resorting to corruption and nepotism to prolong his hold on power. He won his fourth presidential term in 1960 amid widespread suspicions of vote-rigging. Nationwide protests forced him to flee to Hawaii, where he died in 1965.

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PARK CHUNG-HEE (1961-1979)

A former lieutenant in the Japanese colonial army, Maj. Gen. Park took power in a coup in 1961, which ended a brief period of civilian rule after Rhee resigned. Park, the father of Park Geun-hye, was credited for successful industrial policies that drove a period of rapid economic growth. Others, though, remember him for arresting, torturing and executing dissidents. He was assassinated by his spy chief during a late-night drinking party in 1979.

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CHUN DOO-HWAN (1980-1988)

Maj. Gen. Chun and his military cronies rolled tanks and troops into Seoul to seize power in a coup in December 1979 that ended the interim government of acting President Choi Kyu-hah following Park's death. Months later, Chun arranged to have himself elected president in a gymnasium filled with a pro-government electorate. In 1987, massive pro-democracy demonstrations forced him to accept a constitutional revision for direct presidential elections. After his tenure ended, Chun spent two years in exile in a remote Buddhist temple as calls mounted to punish him for corruption and human rights abuses.

Story continues

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ROH TAE-WOO (1988-1993)

Roh, Chun's army buddy and hand-picked successor, won the 1987 election, thanks largely to divided votes among opposition candidates. Both Chun and Roh were arrested in late 1995 on charges of collecting hundreds of millions of dollars from businessmen while in office. They were also indicted on mutiny and treason charges stemming from Chun's coup and a bloody 1980 crackdown that killed hundreds of pro-democracy demonstrators in the city of Gwangju. A court in April 1996 confirmed a life sentence for Chun and a 17-year prison term for Roh. Both were released by a presidential pardon in 1997.

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KIM YOUNG-SAM (1993-1998)

Kim, whose election formally ended military rule, initially enjoyed strong public support for his ambitious anti-corruption drives and the arrests of Chun and Roh. However, his popularity nosedived as the late-1990s Asian financial crisis battered South Korea's economy, toppling some of the country's debt-ridden conglomerates and forcing the government to accept a $58 billion bailout from the International Monetary Fund. Critics said South Korea took a harder hit because Kim mishandled the economy. He left office amid a corruption scandal that saw his son arrested and jailed.

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KIM DAE-JUNG (1998-2003)

A longtime dissident who had been sentenced to death by a military tribunal under Chun, Kim rose to the presidency and held an unprecedented summit with then-North Korean leader Kim Jong Il in 2000. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize that year. He left office tainted by corruption scandals involving aides and all three of his sons and questionable cash remittances to North Korea shortly before the inter-Korean summit.

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ROH MOO-HYUN (2003-2008)

Roh leaped to his death in 2009, a year after leaving the presidential Blue House, amid allegations that his family members took $6 million in bribes from a businessman during his presidency. His older brother was sentenced in 2009 to two and a half years in prison for influence-peddling, although he was later pardoned. Earlier, lawmakers voted to impeach Roh in 2004 on allegations of incompetence and election law violations, but the Constitutional Court reinstated him two months later, saying the accusations were not serious enough to justify his unseating.

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LEE MYUNG-BAK (2008-2013)

The conservative Lee's victory, which ended a decade of liberal rule that sought rapprochement with North Korea, reflected voters' hopes that the former Hyundai CEO would revive a bad economy. His popularity declined over unmet economic promises, media policies that critics saw as attacks on freedom of speech, and a string of corruption scandals. Toward the end of his term, Lee watched his only son and an elder brother come under fire for alleged irregularities in funding Lee's private home. Another brother was arrested on separate allegations of taking bribes from bankers and served a 14-month prison term.

___

PARK GEUN-HYE (2013-2017)

Park's arrest came three weeks after the Constitutional Court stripped her of office over a corruption scandal, amid allegations that she colluded with a confidante to extort companies for money and favors, took bribes, and allowed the friend to manipulate state affairs from the shadows. Park has apologized for putting trust in her friend, Choi Soon-sil, but has denied any legal wrongdoing. She could be charged with a variety of crimes, including bribery, extortion, abuse of power and leaking state secrets. The bribery allegations alone are punishable by a prison term of more than 10 years and possibly even a life sentence.
On Jan. 20, 1942-75 years ago this Friday-top-ranking Nazi party, SS and government officials gathered in a tiny Berlin suburb to discuss the so-called Final Solution to the Jewish Problem in Germany and wider Europe. The Wannsee Conference was held at the guesthouse of the Security Police in the Villa Minoux. It lasted only an hour and yet, in the minds of the technocrats who attended this infamous meeting, decided the fate of over 11 million European Jews. As such, the Wannsee Conference is sometimes credited as the beginning of the planning and implementation of the Final Solution for genocide.

The coded language of the secret conference never explicitly mentioned the complete destruction of an entire people, but conversed about this policy in the language of bureaucracy. That decision, as was been pointed out by communications expert Marshall Rosenberg, served to create a situation in which committing genocide seemed like standard policy, rather than a choice made by any individual. But, while the surviving minutes of the meeting were heavily edited, they still hint at the destruction of the Jewish people on the European continent.

The conference did hold significant importance; it provided a centralized plan of action to rid the continent of its Jewish population and crystalized that plan in Nazi government policy. Several ideas were suggested beforehand mass deportations (including to the island of Madagascar), mass sterilization and other gruesome ideas. The Final Solution was to send Jewish people to ghettos and camps in Poland, and subsequently exterminate them. The Wannsee Conference served as an opportunity for the Nazi regime to coordinate that process across various departments and divisions, military or otherwise.

But, despite the fact that the Wannsee Conference cemented a bureaucratic policy of mass murder, it was by no means the beginning of Nazi Germanys genocidal campaign against Jewish people. The decision to exterminate the population had already been made months, perhaps even years, before the meeting. According to historians such as Christopher Browning, the process of arriving at the Final Solution, was slow and gradual, but genocide was always implied. Preparations were well under way, and killings already taking place. The Wannsee Conference merely served the function of consolidating and streamlining the entire process.

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Entire extermination camps were already under construction, including Belzec, one of the most infamous killing centers of the war. Even prior to the outbreak of war, a policy of persecution of Jews and other non-desirables existed in Nazi-controlled Germany. Many historians consider Kristallnacht (the Night of the Broken Glass, Nov. 9, 1938), to be the start of the Holocaust. However, even prior to this pogrom, state-sponsored racial and religious isolation sought to eliminate Jews from German society. The Nuremberg Laws were one of the most obvious examples of this state-sponsored racism. Introduced in 1935, these anti-Semitic policies forbade relationships between Jews and Germans, denied Jews the right to citizenship and established racial categories in order to disenfranchise Jews and deprive them of political and civic rights.

Extreme violence against and even the murder of Jews was becoming commonplace by the eve of the war. The situation escalated rapidly after the invasion of Poland by German forces in 1939. Ghettos were established in German-occupied Poland, with various groups of Jews from all occupied territory being sent to these locations. Einsatzgruppen (special task forces) along with other mobile killing squads, murdered civilians as part of the push eastwards. By the summer of 1941, mass killings were continuous and ongoing. For example, mobile gas vans, which killed people en masse with exhaust fumes, were already in use. Perhaps one of the most interesting aspects of the Einsatzgruppen is that they were often made up of ordinary men, who were either too old to serve as army regulars or could not for various other reasons. These men were not seasoned Nazi political hardliners, but blue-collar Germans, who engaged in murder because of psychological and social conditioning. As the Nazi war machine rolled eastwards, the infrastructure of death was already beginning to be constructed. Railroads leading infamous death camps such as Auschwitz were built, and ghettos prepared and populated.

With 1942 approaching, Hermann Goring, a top ranked Nazi official, who would later be the highest-ranked Nazi leader to be tried at Nuremberg, gave the orders to Reinhard Heydrich, the so-called main architect of the Holocaust: A plan was to be devised to account for the total solution of the Jewish question. That plan was crafted at Wannsee.

By this then, however, the meeting was nothing more than a technicality. The framework of genocide was already in place, and the conference served as a way to centralize the mechanism and ensure the smooth flow of deportations.

By the end of the war in 1945, an estimated six million Jews-and millions of other victims such as Romanis, Freemasons, physically disabled people, Slavs, communists, homosexuals and others-lay dead in the wake of the genocide. Though the Wannsee Conference was an important moment in that deadly process, it was not the beginning.

This article was originally published on TIME.com
By Ronnie Cohen (Reuters Health) - The drugstore chain Walgreens is taking a three-pronged approach to combat the public health crisis stemming from prescription opioids, according to a team of pharmacists and other clinicians from the company. In the Journal of the American Pharmacists Association, they report that Walgreens pharmacies have expanded access to naloxone, a drug that can block the effects of opioid painkillers such as hydrocodone and oxycodone and thereby prevent overdose deaths from respiratory failure. In addition, the chain installed medication-disposal kiosks in 500 of its 8,200 U.S. stores to make it easier for Americans to empty their medicine cabinets of unused pharmaceuticals that might otherwise fall into the hands of substance abusers. Walgreens also has employed pharmacists and students to educate and counsel patients and caregivers about opioid overdoses and naloxone. By August 2016, the chain had dispensed 10,478 naloxone prescriptions in 49 states, the pharmacists say. Phil Caruso, a Walgreens spokesman who was not among the authors of the report, said most health insurance plans cover the cost of naloxone - $18.99 in a syringe version and $39.99 for a nasal version. Emily Shafer, lead author of the report, compares naloxone to the emergency treatment for severe allergic reactions, EpiPen. Its important to have it on hand, like (you would have) an EpiPen if someone in your household has a peanut allergy, she said in a phone interview. Indeed, in 2014, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder urged federal law enforcement agencies to train first responders to treat overdose victims with naloxone. Addiction expert Dr. Alexander Walley likened naloxone in the home of an opioid user to a fire extinguisher. If you have a gas stove, youre expected to have a fire extinguisher, he said in a phone interview. If you have opioids, you should have naloxone. Naloxone is safe with no potential for abuse, Walley said. In fact, he added, Its the last thing somebody who is opioid tolerant wants because it takes away their high. But a mishmash of state laws governing dispensing of naloxone complicates the task of getting the drug to members of the community. As of early this year, the authors write, Walgreens offers naloxone without requiring a prescription in 40 states. But every state has a unique set of requirements. Consistent laws about naloxone dispensing across the U.S. would help, Shafer said. Other national pharmacy chains also have instituted programs to combat the opioid epidemic. Walgreens, however, is the only drugstore chain to install drug-disposal kiosks in some of its stores, Caruso said. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration and local law enforcement agencies host regular prescription drug take-back events for safe disposal of prescriptions drugs. The DEAs next National Take-Back Day will be on Saturday, April 29. Pharmacies bear some responsibility for the overprescribing of opioids, Walley said. For some time now, opioid overdose has been recognized as a public health crisis. We didnt get pharmacies involved soon enough, and were now playing catch-up, said Walley, a professor at Boston Medical Center. Pharmacies are the most widely available health outlets in our communities. The fact that they are explicitly developing a strategy to implement public health measures to prevent overdose is a step, he said. Walley was not involved in the new report, but as a volunteer, he has written standing orders that allow Walgreens pharmacists in Massachusetts to dispense naloxone to opioid users who might need it. U.S. pharmacists fill 650,000 opioid prescriptions every day, a significant portion . . . due to inappropriate prescribing, the authors write. Since 1999, the number of U.S. opioid overdose deaths quadrupled, along with sales of the painkillers, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Every day, more than 1,000 Americans are treated in emergency rooms for opioid misuse, and 91 die from opioid overdoses, according to the CDC. The CDC last year released guidelines urging primary-care physicians to dramatically curtail prescribing opioids for chronic pain. The guidelines recommend other, non-addictive medications, such as acetaminophen and ibuprofen, for chronic pain unless patients have cancer or are receiving palliative or end-of-life care. The guidelines further suggest that when doctors do prescribe opioid painkillers, they prescribe the lowest possible dose and also prescribe physical therapy, exercise and other non-drug approaches to pain control. SOURCE: http://bit.ly/2namXku Journal of the American Pharmacists Association, March-April 2017.
By Alastair Macdonald BRUSSELS (Reuters) - European Council President Donald Tusk sent draft Brexit negotiating guidelines to leaders of Britain's 27 EU partners on Friday, hoping to agree them on April 29 so that negotiations on British withdrawal can begin. These are key points of the 8-page draft, seen by Reuters: "PHASED APPROACH" If "sufficient progress" toward agreeing the terms of an "orderly withdrawal" on March 29, 2019, is made in a first phase of talks starting in early June, the EU27 could launch talks on how a long-term future free trade relationship could work, the draft says. That represents a compromise between the position of EU hardliners, who want no trade talks until the full Brexit deal is agreed, and British calls for an immediate start. Tusk told reporters the EU could assess as early as this autumn if progress was "sufficient". But it is unclear how it will arrive at that judgment. If leaders need unanimity, some could block trade talks. Eastern states with many expats in Britain may want more certainty on their rights, while western powers are more keen on talking about trade. "TRANSITIONAL ARRANGEMENTS" Britain could have a few years after March 2019 when it does not have to give up all benefits of membership, to ease the shift for people and businesses. But in that case it would have to accept EU rules, e.g. on free migration, and submit to supervision by the European Court of Justice and other EU authorities. "Any such transitional arrangements must be clearly defined, limited in time, and subject to effective enforcement mechanisms," the draft says. STICKING TOGETHER The EU 27 will stick together against British efforts to divide and conquer and is prepared to play hardball against Prime Minister Theresa May's threat to walk out without a deal. Brussels thinks Britain needs a deal more than the EU. "The Union will act as one. It will be constructive throughout and will strive to find an agreement. This is in the best interest of both sides. The Union will work hard to achieve that outcome, but it will prepare itself to be able to handle the situation also if the negotiations were to fail." "NO DUMPING" Free trade will be a good outcome but Britain should not expect to get that if it seeks competitive advantages for its companies by state subsidies or by tearing up EU environmental or labor standards or setting itself up as a tax haven. "Any free trade agreement should be balanced, ambitious and wide-ranging. It cannot, however, amount to participation in the Single Market or parts thereof, as this would undermine its integrity and proper functioning. It must ensure a level playing field in terms of competition and state aid, and must encompass safeguards against unfair competitive advantages through, inter alia, fiscal, social and environmental dumping." RIGHTS AND BENEFITS Britain cannot have a better deal outside than inside the EU -- that would be a slippery slope to others leaving the Union. Tusk welcomes May's acknowledgement she cannot "cherry pick" single market membership without accepting freedom of movement for EU workers but warns against her suggestion that Brussels open technical talks on trade in specific sectors. "Preserving the integrity of the Single Market excludes participation based on a sector-by-sector approach. A non-member of the Union, that does not live up to the same obligations as a member, cannot have the same rights and enjoy the same benefits as a member." "BREXIT BILL" Britain must pay up on its share of potential losses from guarantees given by the EU, among other things. Until it leaves, the actual bill probably can't be calculated with accuracy. The main thing for the EU is to agree a "methodology" this year. "A single financial settlement should ensure that the Union and the United Kingdom both respect the obligations undertaken before the date of withdrawal. The settlement should cover all legal and budgetary commitments as well as liabilities, including contingent liabilities." "BORDER TROUBLE" The EU doesn't want to disturb peace in Northern Ireland, where there will be a new EU land border. It is also paying attention to British military bases in Cyprus and is giving Spain a special say on the fate of the British territory of Gibraltar, which is not part of the UK but is in the EU. "In view of the unique circumstances on the island of Ireland, flexible and imaginative solutions will be required, including with the aim of avoiding a hard border, while respecting the integrity of the Union legal order." (Reporting by Alastair Macdonald; @macdonaldrtr; Editing by Mark Trevelyan)
WARSAW, Poland (AP)  Poland's frayed efforts to buy Patriot missiles from U.S. arms producer Raytheon, a deal valued at around $7.6 billion, could be concluded by the end of the year, the country's defense minister said Friday.

Antoni Macierewicz, said at a news conference in Warsaw that the government and the U.S. company "concluded a very important stage of our discussions on the acquisition of medium-range missile systems to ensure Poland's security."

Though conceding that the talks have been difficult and "not always in an atmosphere of understanding and full of friendship," Macierewicz said the deal could be signed around the end of the year if certain conditions are met.

For one, he said an earlier price tag by Raytheon of 50 billion zlotys ($12.7 billion) was "unacceptable" and that Poland has made it clear it will pay no more than 30 billion zlotys ($7.6 billion).

The plan to buy the Patriot missiles is part of a broader army modernization plan meant to improve Poland's security in light of Russia's resurgence.

Macierewicz also said talks must still be held on off-set deals. They include a demand that Polish industry take part in the production of Raytheon's low-cost interceptors, the SkyCeptor.

Deputy Defense Minister Bartosz Kownacki said the missile system would help protect against Russian missiles in Kaliningrad, a Russian region on Poland's northeastern border.

Both Raytheon and the U.S. Embassy in Warsaw expressed satisfaction that the deal is moving forward.

Raytheon said the air defense system has been used in combat by five nations and that since 2015 it has intercepted more than 100 tactical ballistic missiles during combat operations.
Johannesburg (AFP) - The backlash against South African President Jacob Zuma's shock reshuffle has intensified pressure on him to resign ahead of the 2019 general election.

Here are four of his possible successors:

- The negotiator -

Cyril Ramaphosa, a 64-year-old veteran with strong anti-apartheid struggle credentials, came strongly against the cabinet cull which he described as "totally unacceptable".

Ramaphosa, a former trade unionist turned business mogul, was said to be Nelson Mandela favourite as successor in 1999, but the party leadership preferred then-deputy president Thabo Mbeki.

Known as an astute negotiator, Ramaphosa was a senior member of the ANC delegation in the historic talks that led to the country's first democratic elections in 1994.

He was also involved in the drafting of the country's constitution in 1996.

Ramaphosa may lack Zuma's charisma but he appeals to the corporate world, who see him as a steady hand with a business background.

He is also relatively untainted by corruption scandals.

The Soweto-born leader left active politics in 1997 to form a business empire that turned him into a millionaire through deals under the country's black economic empowerment laws that require investors to partner with non-white shareholders.

Since his return to politics in 2007, he has steered clear of factions.

But he issued several public expressions of support for finance minister Pravin Gordhan, who was finally ousted on Thursday after months of pressure from Zuma.

Ramaphosa's candidacy has received the backing the trade union federation Cosatu, which has weakened in recent years but remains influential.

- The ex-wife -

Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, the country's first post-apartheid health minister under Nelson Mandela, is seen by many as a strong contender, although she is currently not a member of parliament.

The experienced technocrat, Dlamini-Zuma, 68, has been away from the local political scene since 2012, when she was elected chairwoman of the African Union Commission.

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Some critics believe that her lengthy absence might count against her in the race.

Prior to taking up the AU job, she was minister of home affairs and later foreign affairs.

A medical doctor by training, Dlamini-Zuma rose through the ANC student politics and was from the 1970s exiled in a number of countries including Swaziland.

But despite her sterling career in government and the ANC, Dlamini Zuma is not widely popular among ordinary South Africans.

She was married to Zuma for 16 years and they divorced in 1998, after having four children. Her association with the Zuma name could make or break her rise to the top.

Known for her stern personality, Dlamini Zuma hails from the same KwaZulu-Natal province as her ex-husband.

She left the AU post this year.

- The strategist -

ANC treasurer-general Zweli Mkhize is seen as a dark horse among possible successors.

He is a close Zuma ally and is described as a skillful behind-the-scenes strategic operator. The politician, who holds the purse strings of the party, is also from KwaZulu-Natal province.

A medical doctor by training, Mkhize, 61, boasts the proud anti-apartheid credentials often possessed by politicians of his era, and spent years in exile.

He has served in top regional structures of the ANC in KwaZulu-Natal, from being a regional minister of health from 1994-2004 to premier between 2009 and 2013.

As the person in charge of ANC funds, Mkhize was forced to explain the party's financial dealings through its 25 percent stake in Hitachi Power Africa.

Hitachi was in 2007 awarded a lucrative contract to provide state-owned power generator Eskom with boilers for the construction of two power station.

The ANC sold its stake in Hitachi Power Africa in 2014.

- The speaker -

Baleka Mbete, the 67-year-old speaker of parliament, rose to prominence in 2008, when she was appointed South Africa's deputy president after the sudden recall of President Thabo Mbeki.

Her interim appointment lasted seven months.

More recently, Mbete has presided over shambolic parliamentary sessions, struggling to maintain order among opposition benches during rowdy and occasionally violent debates.

Mbete is a senior member of the ANC Women's League and a former teacher from the Eastern Cape province

She was ANCWL secretary general from 1991-1993.

Opposition party Democratic Alliance has called for her resignation as speaker of parliament, accusing her of not being impartial.
Millions of internet viewers are tensely following the video feed featuring a pregnant giraffe named April. And more than one month after the animal's distended belly took the internet by storm, the baby giraffe that is so greatly anticipated has yet to emerge.

April appears unconcerned about still being pregnant. Though her belly hangs lower than ever and her baby's kicks are vigorous and visible, the mother giraffe appears none the worse for wear, placidly going about her daily routine under the camera's unblinking eye, in her pen at Animal Adventure Park (AAP) in Harpursville, New York.

In a Facebook update on the evening of March 26, April's keepers described "increased calf activity in comparison to this morning and last evening," and reported the giraffe's appetite as "strong." [Baby Watch! 'Giraffe Cam' Tracks Expectant Mother]

By the morning of March 27, April was "relaxed," and the animal frequently raised and lowered her tail, and experienced "significant mammary change," her caregivers posted on Facebook. But while the mammary change could suggest that her delivery time was approaching nearer, April's keepers did not report signs of active labor.

Giraffe mothers carry their young for about 15 months, and while April's caregivers observed breeding behavior between April and her mate, Oliver, in the middle of October 2015, it is hard to tell for sure if conception occurred, AAP owner Jordan Patch told Live Science in February.

If April didn't conceive then, she might have conceived during her next cycle, 17 days later, Patch explained.

One sign that birth may be imminent is that waxy plugs have appeared over April's teats, according to Patch. These work to keep the colostrum, the highly nutritious "first milk" secreted by mammary glands, from leaking out. AAP shared photos on March 27 on Facebook that showed the whitish plugs, which look "like dried toothpaste at the end of a tube," Patch added.

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Waxy plugs on the tips of April's teats hint that she may be close to delivering her calf. Copyright Animal Adventure Park

At the start of every day, April's keepers check on her and make a status report, which is relayed to the veterinarian by AAP officials, Patch told Live Science in an email. The keepers also provide April's morning meal, reloading the hay feeders and dishing up 4 to 6 quarts (3.8 to 5.7 liters) of a specialized dry food produced commercially for giraffes and other African grazers.

Pregnant April's portion is a special feed blend that has a higher calorie count and contains extra supplements for pregnant and lactating mothers, Patch added.

In the middle of the day, the giraffes are given enrichment puzzle feeders, which provide romaine lettuce and carrot treats as a reward for successful puzzle-solving. Another meal at the end of the day, during the keepers' evening check, provides the giraffes with additional servings of hay and feed, Patch said.

The veterinarian visits April every afternoon for a checkup and to monitor any changes in her condition.

"We look for swelling in the vulva, vaginal discharge, mammary development, wax-cap production and lactation, and general mood and behavior," Patch said in an email. Today (Mar. 27), April's back-end swelling had approximately doubled in size from the previous week.

Giraffes can give birth at any hour of the day or night, but April's most ardent watchers may want to set their alarm clocks for early morning hours, as "many facilities report predawn births," Patch told Live Science.

Original article on Live Science.

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President Donald Trump isnt hiding his displeasure with the House Freedom Caucus nearly a week after it helped to defeat his plan to repeal and replace Obamacare, but it remains to be seen whether his anger will be felt beyond Twitter.

As the schism in his party deepened over the failed effort to fulfill the central promise Republicans have made to their voters for the last seven years, Trump took to Twitter Thursday to call out the group of conservative lawmakers - and some of its more prominent members by name.

The Freedom Caucus will hurt the entire Republican agenda if they don39;t get on the team, & fast. We must fight them, & Dems, in 2018! - Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 30, 2017

White House officials spent two weeks courting their votes, including rewriting the bill just 24 hours before it was scheduled to be brought for a vote by eliminating essential health benefits requirements for insurance plans. But those inducements proved ineffective in winning over enough Freedom Caucus votes to pass the bill, leading Speaker of the House Paul Ryan to cancel the planned vote Friday afternoon.

And while the White House and Ryan have blamed the caucus for moving the goalposts in negotiations on the bill, there appears to be no clear strategy for combating the groups paralyzing influence on the GOP conference. Trump could seek out and support primary challengers to the freedom caucus members, or travel to their districts to rally their supporters. But there are limits to the pressure the GOP leaders can apply. Ryan needs the groups votes to maintain his speakership, and the members hail from deeply conservative districts where, by-and-large, they ran well ahead of Trump in November.

White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer declined to say what Trump would do to punish the lawmakers. Im going to let the tweet speak for itself, Spicer said. For those of you who think - or just for your understanding, it would be improper of me to discuss the election or defeat of any candidate from this podium.

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If @RepMarkMeadows, @Jim_Jordan and @Raul_Labrador would get on board we would have both great healthcare and massive tax cuts & reform. - Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 30, 2017

Trumps tweets came hours after Ryan warned in a CBS News interview that if conservative members didnt get on board with Trumps agenda that the president would consider cutting far more centrist deals with Democrats.

Spicer said the administration was still seeking the support of Freedom Caucus members even as Trump leveled criticism. I think that theres a few members of the Freedom Caucus, both prior to last Fridays vote and since then, who have expressed a willingness to want to work with him rather than necessarily as a bloc, Spicer said Thursday.

The White House detailed Deputy Chief of Staff Katie Walsh to a pro-Trump 501(c)4, America First Policies, Thursday, because it felt the president lacked air cover in the fight for healthcare. Under Walsh, the group is expected leverage Trumps grassroots supporters to help drive his policy agenda - which will include pressuring wavering Republicans to back the president.

This article was originally published on TIME.com
VILLANOVA, Pa. (AP)  Protesters at Villanova University have disrupted a lecture by a social scientist criticized as being racist.

Charles Murray delivered a lecture on "Trumpism" and liberty at the school in suburban Philadelphia on Thursday. Protesters gathered at the lecture hall, chanting "No Murray! No KKK! No fascist USA!"

University public safety officers removed at least three protesters.

Critics say Murray uses pseudoscience to link intelligence to race in the 1994 book "The Bell Curve" that he co-authored with Richard Herrnstein. They also question Murray's argument that men are better at abstract thinking than women.

Murray's visit to Villanova follows a lecture at Vermont's Middlebury College in March that turned violent after a group of protesters rocked a car.
A Holocaust survivor condemned Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) during a town hall Tuesday for reportedly waiting outside of courthouses and religious institutions nationwide to detain undocumented immigrants since President Donald Trump took office Jan. 20.

Mark Bernard, an immigrant who was held captive in Auschwitz and Dachau in Germany under the Nazi regime, reportedly told immigration officials, "dont forget  history is not on your side." His comments came before protests took over the Sacramento event in demonstration against the Trump administrations hardliner stance on immigrant detention and deportations.

Read: How Donald Trump May Be Creating Fake News About Immigrants Every Week

"When I was a little boy in Poland, for no other reason but for being Jewish, I was hauled off by the Nazis," Bernard said Tuesday. "And for no other reason I was picked up and separated from my family, who was exterminated in Auschwitz."

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Photo: Reuters

The statement came during a town hall featuring Scott Jones, Sacramento county sheriff, as well as Thomas Homan, acting director of ICE. Bernard spoke directly to the local sheriff, saying the official had an obligation to serve the people in his jurisdiction rather than complying with Trumps immigration agenda.

"I spent five and a half years in concentration camps, for one reason and one reason onlybecause we picked on people," Bernard said. "And you as the sheriff, who we elected as sheriff of this county  we did not elect you for sheriff of Washington, D.C. Its about time you side with the people here."

Tuesday's town hall followed California Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye's letter to immigration officials earlier this month requesting federal agents stop "stalking undocumented immigrants" outside of her states courthouses, writing: "I'm afraid that will be the end of justice, and communities will be less safe and victimization will continue."

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Bernard referred to Cantil-Sakauyes letter, saying ICE wasn't being forthcoming with the public by denying that agents had been detaining immigrants near courthouses since Trump became president. The exchange prompted audience members to begin chanting "Lies!" after Homan replied the agency "prioritize criminals" above other undocumented immigrants for deportation.

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Gotham Season 3 is all set to introduce a new villain, Ras al Ghul, who will be played by Game of Thrones alum Alexander Siddig after its winter break.

Ras al Ghul is the head of the League of Shadows, and he will be introduced when young Bruce Wayne (David Mazouz) tries to unravel the mysteries being kept hidden by the Court of Owls. But is he someone that Bruce can trust? Or will he have something sinister up his sleeves?

According to Siddig, those are the questions that he wants audiences to focus on. The actor told Digital Spy that he wanted fans to keep on guessing whether Ras al Ghul is to be trusted or not, so he made the role as ambiguous as possible.

READ: Did Jim Gordon break Jervis Tetch out of jail?

So I really tried to get him so ambiguous that he's almost liquid  that was the way I thought about it. You're really not sure if he's good or bad  no-one knows whether he's a demon or a saint, or a ghost, that's a line from the script, he said. I suspect that kind of liquidity can only be fascinating. It certainly fascinates me, and I know I'm going to have fun for as long as I end up playing this character.

Mazouz earlier told Comic Book Resources that the Court of Owls will get the spotlight in the last eight episodes, so more secrets will unfurl concerning the secret organization. He even teased that Bruce and his doppelganger will play right smack into the Court of Owls evil plans.

At the center of their plans is Bruce Wayne  Bruce and 514A are instrumental to that plan. Something huge will happen with Bruce and the Court of Owls that will change him forever and ultimately help transform him into the man we know he has to become, he said.

Gotham Season 3, episode 15, titled How the Riddler Got His Name, will return on April 24.

Alexander Siddig

Photo: Getty Images/Charley Gallay

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KEY BISCAYNE, Fla. (AP)  Roger Federer's season of resurgence took another thrilling turn Friday night when he won a three-tiebreaker semifinal against Nick Kyrgios at the Miami Open.

Federer failed to convert two match points in the second-set tiebreaker but finished off the flashy, unpredictable Kyrgios an hour later, 7-6 (9), 6-7 (9), 7-6 (5).

"It's great winning this way," Federer said. "It could have gone either way. It was a nail biter."

When Federer hit a service winner on the final point, Kyrgios angrily whacked his racket three times against the hard court. Federer patiently waited until the Aussie was done before triumphantly swatting a ball into the stands.

Kyrgios then gave his racket a fling as the crowd booed before sharing a warm, weary exchange with Federer at the net.

Federer saved two match points in his quarterfinal win over Tomas Berdych. Now he's in the final Sunday against Rafael Nadal, 13 years after their first career encounter, also at Key Biscayne.

"My biggest rival," Federer said. "It feels like old times."

Said Nadal: "I'm just excited to play against Roger always. He's a big challenge for me, and I think for everybody."

There will be a first-time Miami Open women's champion Saturday when Caroline Wozniacki plays Johanna Konta.

Federer won Key Biscayne in 2005 and 2006 and hasn't been to the final since. But the 18-time Grand Slam champion is on the rise again at age 35.

He's 18-1 this year, his best start since 2006, including titles at the Australian Open in January and at Indian Wells two weeks ago, and has won 10 matches in a row.

None was more harrowing than the latest victory.

A sellout crowd was firmly in Federer's corner, and the big-hitter Kyrgios played the role of unpopular spoiler brilliantly. He drew jeers every time he took his frustration out on his racket, received code violations for swearing and slow play, and complained about the fans when they shouted during a rally in the final tiebreaker.

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And then there was Kyrgios' high-wire game, including huge groundstrokes that forced his opponent to play some dazzling defense.

"I showed a lot of fight," said Kyrgios, who was seeded 12th and sought a berth in his first ATP Masters 1000 final. "Obviously I'm an emotional guy. I had some ups and downs, a bit of a roller coaster. Ultimately I thought I put in a good performance. I thought the crowd would have enjoyed it."

Federer had no complaint about Kyrgios' fiery behavior.

"Crowds jump on it pretty quickly, but it makes for a good atmosphere at the end of the day, so it's not all that bad," Federer said. "I think he's good for the game."

Federer rallied from a break down in the first set, and overcame two set points in the first tiebreaker. He didn't face a break point in the final two sets.

Kyrgios' final risky shot backfired  a 128-mph second serve sailed long for a double fault. That gave Federer his third match point  the last one he needed.

The victory was payback for Federer after Kyrgios overcame two match points to win their only other meeting, at Madrid in 2015. That match also was a three-setter with three tiebreakers.

"You don't often play three breakers in a match," Federer said. "It's nice to win those. Winning breakers is always such a thrill."

Nadal was so eager to reach the Key Biscayne final that he ran out of his shoe. Chasing a shot in the second set of his semifinal, Nadal lost his right sneaker  and the point. But he quickly regained his footing and beat unseeded Fabio Fognini 6-1, 7-5.

Nadal is 0-4 in finals at Key Biscayne, losing in 2005, 2008, 2011 and 2014. He's playing in the tournament for the 13th time, making it his longest title drought at any event.

"Winning here would be something great, and an important title I haven't won," Nadal said.

The crowd chanted Fognini's first name in an attempt to get the Italian going after a slow start, and flying footwear did the job. Fognini hit a drop shot to cause the sneaker malfunction, laughed at length while Nadal retied his shoe and played better after that.

Nadal said he also lost a shoe while practicing recently, the only other time he can remember it happening to him.

"Strange," he said. "Maybe I need to tie it stronger."
Stockholm (AFP) - Swedish and Norwegian newspapers on Friday said they would refrain from the tradition of publishing April Fools' Day jokes this year over fears that it might spread "fake news".

Magnus Karlsson, editor-in-chief at the daily Smalandsposten said on its website that he doesn't want the newspaper's brand "to be spread with a potentially viral and erroneous story".

"We work with real news. Even on April 1st," he said.

The "fake news" phenomenon broke out amid the 2016 US presidential election and grew even further when Donald Trump, during his first press conference on January 11 as then president-elect, shouted at a CNN reporter: "You are fake news!"

Sweden was a victim of "fake news" when Fox News in February interviewed a "security and defence expert" who turned out to have criminal convictions in the US and no connections to the Scandinavian nation's security services, Swedish daily Dagens Nyheter reported.

Now, several local daily Swedish newspapers including Dalarnas Tidningar, Hallpressen and Vasterbottens-Kuriren have refrained from publishing April Fools' Day jokes.

"Historically, we've had super successful April Fools jokes. But because of debates and discussions about the media's credibility being connected to fake news, we didn't want to do it this year," Ingvar Naslund, editor-in-chief at Vasterbottens-Kuriren told TT.

Erik Berger, editor-in-chief at the daily Jonkopings-Posten told AFP that his newspaper would "write in (Saturday's) edition" about why they won't publish such jokes.

In neighbouring Norway, the largest media organisations such as public broadcaster NRK, newspaper Aftenposten, VG and Dagbladet have also abandoned this old tradition.

NRK said local newspapers would follow suit.

Oyulf Hjertenes, editor at the local daily Bergens Tidende, told NRK that in a climate where "false news is spreading, it would be a mistake on our part" to publish jokes on April 1.

Kristin Monstad, publishing editor at Drammens Tidende, added: "What is written in Drammens Tidende must be true."
Geneva (AFP) - The UN on Friday said "incremental" progress was made during a fifth round of talks between Syria's warring parties, but warned the "real peace negotiations" had yet to begin.

Syrian government and opposition representatives had been "serious and engaged" during the latest nine days of talks in Geneva, UN mediator Staffan de Mistura told reporters.

He said all sides were "keen and ready to return to Geneva for a sixth round of talks," adding that he would announce the date after discussions next week with UN chief Antonio Guterres and the UN Security Council.

The two sides, who met with de Mistura separately, did finally delve into some substance, after spending four previous rounds squabbling over the agenda.

They began discussing four separate "baskets" of issues, on governance, drafting a new constitution, elections and combating terrorism in the war-ravaged country.

There was never much hope of a breakthrough, with the sides hopelessly deadlocked over the fate of President Bashar al-Assad and violence persisting in a six-year conflict that has already claimed more than 320,000 lives.

De Mistura previously warned not to expect "miracles" and on Friday hailed the fact that no one had walked out. He acknowledged though that the talks still remained in the preparation stage.

- No immediate peace deal -

"In every negotiation there are certain issues that need to be prepared... before the real, real peace negotiations start... and it is clear, we are not quite there," he said.

"I cannot deny that there are serious challenges, and I am not seeing immediately this developing into a peace agreement," he added.

He insisted that "we must maintain this incremental momentum on the political process, even if it is only incremental."

The negotiating sides hailed that negotiations on substance had finally begun, but appeared less optimistic than their mediator that progress was being made.

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Nasr al-Hariri, the chief negotiator for the opposition High Negotiations Committee (HNC), lamented to reporters that the opposition was dealing with "a side that does not want to reach a political solution."

The chief negotiator on the government side, Syria's ambassador to the UN Bashar al-Jaafari, was even more pessimistic.

"We were looking forward to achieving... at least some progress in this round, but this did not happen," he told reporters.

He maintained that his opponents "do not want a political solution, unless (it) is in accordance with their illusions... that we would hand over the keys to Syria to them."

The Syrian government appears to have little reason to make concessions.

The rebels increasingly find themselves on the back foot, both on the ground, where they have been haemorrhaging territory, and when it comes to international support.

The United States, long the opposition's most powerful backer, acknowledged Thursday that it is no longer focused on ousting Assad as it seeks a new strategy to end Syria's civil war.

Other opposition backers have been indicating the same, even as government supporters Russia and Iran wield increasing influence.

De Mistura on Friday meanwhile dismissed a barrage of rumours he was preparing to step down.

Only "if and when you will hear it directly either from the Secretary General or from myself, then you have to take it very seriously," he told reporters.
GENEVA (AP)  The head of the Red Cross and Red Crescent has renewed his appeal for Syria's warring sides to stop fighting, saying humanitarian benefits from funds raised at an upcoming aid conference will only go as far as peace and stability will allow.

Elhadj As Sy, secretary-general of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, spoke to The Associated Press after returning from a third trip to Syria, his first since last year.

A major conference in Brussels next week will aim to plan efforts to help the country rebuild once there is an end to the civil war, now in its seventh year.

The European Union, Germany, Kuwait, Norway, Qatar, the United Kingdom and the United Nations will lead the conference on Wednesday entitled "Supporting the future of Syria and the region" involving government officials from 70 delegations plus key donors, civil society, and humanitarian and development organizations.

"We would hope that this conference will send a signal to all parties involved to stop the conflict," Sy said. "Seven years in a war, it is too much for anybody  for any group of people.

"Unless, you know, we have peace and stability, we will not see the gains that we are trying to achieve with the humanitarian support that we are providing," he said.

Aid groups are expected to seek new commitments from donors following a conference in London last year aimed at helping Syrians.

IFRC said Friday that Sy visited Homs, which has recently returned under the control of President Bashar Assad's forces and their allies, and Damascus during the two-day visit. He met with Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Moallem in the capital.
Donald Trump has broken another political rule: The old saw that only devout candidates can attract religious voters no longer applies.

A new Pew Research Center poll finds he is widely seen as the least religious presidential candidate in the field, but that hasnt stopped more than half of white evangelical voters and more than half of Republican voters from believing that he would make a great or good president.

Only 5% of Republicans view Trump as very religious, the report finds, a sharp contrast to 47% for Ben Carson, 30% for Ted Cruz, and 20% for Marco Rubio. Yet Trump ties with Carson for the highest share of white evangelicals who say he would be a great or good leader in the White House. While 52% of white evangelicals say Carson and Trump would do a great or good job, only 49% say the same for Cruz and 34% say the same for Rubio.

Many Republicans think Trump would be a good president despite his perceived lack of religiousness, the report finds. The pattern is very different for the other leading GOP candidates; virtually all Republicans who think Cruz, Rubio and Carson would be successful presidents (and who express a view about their religiousness) also say they view those candidates as at least somewhat religious.

In all, six in ten American voters say they think Trump is not too religious, or not religious at all, compared to 43% who say the same about Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton and 35% who say the same about Bernie Sanders.

The new poll, Faith and the 2016 Campaign, comes less than a week before the Iowa Caucuses and a day after evangelical Liberty University president Jerry Falwell Jr. endorsed Trump, and shortly after Trump visited a Presbyterian church in Iowa where a pastor preached about welcoming immigrants. When asked what his faith meant to him before the service, Trump replied, A lot.

Read More: Why Trump is Winning Over Christian Conservatives

Voters also express considerably more wariness about Trump than about Carson or Cruz: three-in-ten evangelicals (29%) say Trump would be a poor or terrible president, which is roughly twice the share who say this about either Cruz or Carson, the report states.

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Read More: How Cruz Built His Christian Connection

Other top findings of the report include:

Hillary Clinton is seen as a significantly less religious person than when she ran for president in 2007-then, 24% of adults said she was not too religious, now its 43%.

Barack Obama is also seen as nearly four times less religious now than he was in 2007-then, just 9% of adults said he was not too religious, now its 35%.

Half of Americans think religious conservatives have too much control over the Republican Party, while 44% think non-religious liberals have too much control over the Democratic Party.

Americans are increasingly comfortable with a presidential candidate who is an atheist.

Pew surveyed 2,009 people by landline and cellphone to conduct the poll. The margin of error for the entire sample is 2.5%.

This article was originally published on TIME.com
By Susan Cornwell and Amanda Becker WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump lashed out on Thursday at Republican conservatives who helped torpedo healthcare legislation he backed, escalating a feud within his party that jeopardizes the new administration's legislative agenda. Trump threatened to try to defeat members of the Freedom Caucus - a bloc of conservative Republicans in the House of Representatives - in next year's congressional elections if they continued to defy him. "The Freedom Caucus will hurt the entire Republican agenda if they don't get on the team, & fast. We must fight them, & Dems, in 2018!" Trump wrote on Twitter on Thursday morning. He later singled out three Freedom Caucus members by name, U.S. Representatives Mark Meadows, Jim Jordan and Raul Labrador. "If @RepMarkMeadows, @Jim_Jordan and @Raul_Labrador would get on board we would have both great healthcare and massive tax cuts & reform," he said in one tweet. "Where are @RepMarkMeadows, @Jim_Jordan and @Raul_Labrador? #RepealANDReplace #Obamacare," he asked in another. House conservatives fought back. Labrador, one of the founders of the Freedom Caucus, urged Trump in a tweet to "Remember who your real friends are. We're trying to help you succeed." "Most people don't take well to being bullied," said Representative Justin Amash, who compared Trump's approach to what a child does when he wants to "get his way." Trump's deteriorating relationship with Republican House conservatives could make it harder for him to pass his legislative agenda, which includes rewriting the U.S. tax code, revisiting a healthcare overhaul and funding construction of a wall along the U.S.-Mexican border. Trump, a New York businessman who touted his skills as a dealmaker in his bid for the White House, has repeatedly criticized Freedom Caucus members, blaming them for the defeat of legislation to repeal and replace former President Barack Obama's signature healthcare law. Freedom Caucus members said the bill did not go far enough to dismantle the 2010 Affordable Care Act, popularly known as Obamacare. Asked during a briefing whether Trump's tweet about the Freedom Caucus was a "divide-and-conquer" strategy, White House spokesman Sean Spicer said: "No, it's a math strategy, which is to get to 216," the number of votes currently needed to pass House legislation. The discord following the healthcare debacle was not limited to tensions between Trump and the Freedom Caucus. In recent days, the president has been out of sync with the two highest ranking Republicans in Congress, House Speaker Paul Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. Trump and his aides have suggested reviving the push for a healthcare bill. While Ryan expressed openness to the idea, McConnell said he thought doing so would be futile. But Ryan publicly disagreed with Trump when the president offered to work with Democrats on new healthcare legislation. "I don't want that to happen," the speaker told CBS in an interview aired on Thursday. 'NOT AN IDEAL POSITION' More than healthcare legislation was at stake. Republican lawmakers still await key details on what Trump's priorities are in the monumental tax reform effort they want to launch. Passing a budget for next year could also prove challenging. Trump and the Freedom Caucus want to dramatically shrink domestic programs. Moderate Republicans are aghast at proposals to cut popular programs that fund environmental cleanup and meals for senior citizens. Most pressing is an April 28 deadline for approving new funding to keep the government running. "The GOP (Republican) House is riven by factions that are quite ideological. Trump is not," said University of Virginia political science professor Larry Sabato. "And let's throw in the fact that Trump is unpopular and weak and has no Democratic support in Congress. "Add all this up. Neither Trump nor congressional Republicans are in an ideal position to govern, and that's an understatement," Sabato said. There are about three dozen members of the House Freedom Caucus, comprising about 15 percent of the 237 House Republicans. But their clout is larger, as Trump and Ryan cannot afford to lose too many House Republicans if they want to try to pass bills, like the Obamacare repeal, that attract zero Democratic support. Dan Meyer, a legislative affairs chief to former Republican President George W. Bush, said that with the Freedom Caucus threatening Trump's agenda, the White House either had to find a way to work with the conservatives, or tack to the left. Some Republicans were so furious they were publicly saying things usually reserved for closed-door meetings. Representative Chris Collins, a Trump ally and part of the "Tuesday Group" of moderate Republicans, told reporters his group was so angry with the Freedom Caucus that it would "never" meet with it. He accused its members of trying to shift blame for the healthcare failure to moderates. SENATORS CRINGE Senate Republicans expressed alarm and urged efforts at consensus. Senator John McCain, who ran for president in 2008 and was defeated by Obama, said that if he were sitting in the White House, he would try to ease intraparty tensions rather than stoking them. "But that's the president," said McCain who sometimes is at odds with Trump. He added this advice to Trump: "Sit down with them and say this is an emergency situation." Senator Cory Gardner, a Republican who served in the House from 2011 to 2014, said his former colleagues needed to quit arguing and come to a consensus "sooner rather than later." A senior House Republican aide distanced Ryan from Trump's strategy of upbraiding conservatives. "Ryan ... is never going to intentionally alienate a large swath of his caucus," said the aide, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. Publicly, Ryan said he understood Trump's frustration. The speaker also said he was encouraging Republican lawmakers "to keep talking to one another." Republican Senator Bob Corker chided Ryan, however, for his views about courting Democrats on healthcare reform. "We have come a long way in our country when the speaker of one party urges a president NOT to work with the other party to solve a problem," Corker wrote on Twitter. (Additional reporting by Doina Chiacu, David Morgan, Roberta Rampton, Tim Ahmann, David Alexander and Steve Holland; Writing by Richard Cowan; Editing by Jonathan Oatis and Peter Cooney)
NEW YORK (AP)  With its message of unity and equality, Residente's first solo album post-Calle 13  and an accompanying documentary  seems fitting with the political climate in America. But the Puerto Rican rapper says his project started way before the era of President Donald Trump.

"I think that ... the topic now is even more relevant because of what is happening with Trump and not only Trump, because there's a lot of racism around the world," Residente, born Rene Perez, said in New York during a recent presentation of his new film, which is about him making his album while tracing his origins based on his DNA.

The album "Residente," out Friday, includes 13 songs that Perez wrote and recorded over two years traveling around some of his ancestors' countries of origin. He started in the Russian province of Siberia, and also visited China, The Caucasus and West Africa.

The self-titled documentary, directed by Residente, starts with his childhood in Puerto Rico, his struggles as a young student and his rise with his Grammy-winning band Calle 13. The film debuted last month at South by Southwest.

In it, he explains that he decided to leave Calle 13  the most decorated act in the history of the Latin Grammys  at the height of its career because he needed to do something new to get inspired. He decided to spend time with local artists  mostly amateur or unknown  many who live in great poverty or have been affected and torn by war. The film shows a series of moving encounters that translate to his music and incisive lyrics, highlighting the human condition and its diversity.

"This is not a world music album," Residente said. "I traveled the world, but I wanted to do something new."

In China he got to work with the Peking Opera, one of Beijing's finest monuments, where he challenged a group of performers to get out of their comfort zone and put melody to his lyrics.

"When I went to China, first of all, it was very difficult to communicate because they couldn't speak English and at that time my English sucked, and my translator, his English was OK, but he wasn't like (an) English professor," Residente said. "So it took us a while to get there and to translate first the lyrics ... from Spanish to English, and then from English to Chinese."

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"I wanted them to change it a little bit because I'm coming into their world," he said of the Peking Opera, "but I wanted them to also come into my world."

He said that when he started his journey, he did it thinking mainly about music, but that listening to the stories of the people he met made him think more about the topic of race.

"We all came from the same place," Residente said. "Even though we are different, we are equally different."

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Follow Sigal Ratner-Arias on Twitter at https://twitter.com/sigalratner

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Online: http://residente.com/en/
MOSCOW (AP)  Russian prosecutors moved Friday to block calls on social networks for more street protests in Moscow and other Russian cities following a wave of rallies that have cast a new challenge to the Kremlin.

Tens of thousands demonstrators turned out in Moscow and other cities on Sunday to rally against official corruption in the largest outpouring of discontent in years.

The Prosecutor General's office confirmed Friday it has requested the state communications watchdog to block pages on social networks calling for more protests in Moscow and elsewhere in Russia coming Sunday.

Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who organized Sunday's unsanctioned protest, is serving a 15-day sentence on charges of resisting police.

More than 1,000 protesters have been arrested in Moscow, and many of them also have been sentenced to brief jail terms and fines. A dozen people working for Navalny are among those serving jail time.

The U.S. and the EU have criticized the crackdown and urged Russia to release all detainees, but President Vladimir Putin has rejected the criticism as meddling in Russia's internal affairs.

Without naming Navalny, Putin, who faces re-election in March 2018, has denounced those protest organizers who try to use anti-corruption slogans in "narrow selfish political goals."

Navalny has declared his intention to run for president and vowed to appeal a conviction that bars him from the race, which he denounced as politically-driven.

Faced with a tough challenge, the Kremlin is mulling a response.

Putin on Thursday vowed to fight corruption, but also warned that the government wouldn't allow any breach of law. He drew parallels with the Arab Spring uprisings in Africa and the Middle East and protests in Ukraine that toppled a Russia-friendly president in 2014.

"Everybody should act in political processes within the framework of the law. All those who go outside this law should bear punishment in accordance with Russian legislation," Putin said.

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The protests have shaken Russia's sleepy political scene and reinvigorated the opposition after years of relentless official crackdown, showing public readiness to brave draconian laws which make repeated participation in unsanctioned protests punishable with prison terms and hefty fines.

In contrast with the past, when opposition demonstrations were mostly limited to Moscow and St. Petersburg, Sunday's rallies engulfed dozens of provincial cities and towns. In another new phenomenon, the rallies also saw large attendance by school and university students.

Putin's spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, dodged a question about Putin's reaction to a statement from prominent film director Alexander Sokurov, who urged the Kremlin to listen to the protesters' demands and refrain from using force to avoid "political catastrophes."

"They were grabbing teenage students by their legs and carrying them away in a very brutal, violent way," Sokurov said Tuesday while receiving a movie award. "The government makes a grave mistake when it treats students like that. You shouldn't start a civil war with schoolchildren and university students, you should listen to them!"

Peskov, speaking Friday in a conference call with reporters, said only that Putin is ready to listen to arguments by Sokurov and other cultural figures, but doesn't always agree with their views.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Senate's top Democrat is strongly warning Republicans against changing Senate rules to confirm President Donald Trump's Supreme Court nominee.

Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York is trying to line up enough votes to block Judge Neil Gorsuch. He lost two in his caucus Thursday when Democratic Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota said they would vote for him. But Schumer still appears to be on track to amass enough Democrats to block the nomination, which could prompt Republicans to invoke the rules change.

Schumer had tough words for his Republican counterpart, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, in an interview with The Associated Press, saying "the public will judge" whether changing the rule to ease Gorsuch in would be a good idea.
WASHINGTON (AP)  Senate Democratic opposition to President Donald Trump's Supreme Court nominee swelled Friday as Democrats neared the numbers needed for a filibuster, setting up a showdown with Republicans who have the votes to confirm Neil Gorsuch.

Sens. Claire McCaskill of Missouri, Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut and Brian Schatz of Hawaii became the latest Democratic senators to announce their opposition to Gorsuch, a 49-year-old federal appeals court judge in Denver whose conservative rulings make him an intellectual heir to the justice he would replace, the late Antonin Scalia.

McCaskill's decision came a day after she said she was torn over the decision. She said she's opposing the federal appeals court judge because his opinions favor corporations over workers and he's shown "a stunning lack of humanity" in some of those decisions.

She also criticized Trump in her statement announcing her opposition, saying "the president who promised working people he would lift them up has nominated a judge who can't even see them."

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York warned Republicans against changing Senate rules, which could prove momentous for the chamber and would allow all future Supreme Court nominees to get on the court regardless of opposition from the minority party. He says President Donald Trump should just pick a new nominee if Gorsuch is blocked.

Blumenthal, a Senate Judiciary Committee member who questioned Gorsuch on judicial independence and other topics in last week's hearings, complained that the judge didn't give straightforward responses.

"We must assume that Judge Gorsuch has passed the Trump litmus test  a pro-life, pro-gun, conservative judge," Blumenthal said in a statement.

There are now at least 36 Senate Democrats who oppose Gorsuch and have pledged to block him with a filibuster, just five shy of the number that would be required to mount a successful filibuster. All of the Senate's 52 Republicans are expected to support him. The vote is expected next week.

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Republicans are furious at the Democrats' plans, arguing that filibusters of Supreme Court justices have been exceedingly rare, and accusing Democrats of responding to political pressures from a liberal base that still hasn't accepted Trump's election win. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., is expected to respond to a Democratic filibuster by unilaterally changing Senate rules to lower the threshold for Supreme Court justices from 60 votes to a simple majority in the 100-member Senate.

Although such a change might seem procedural or obscure, it is known on Capitol Hill as the "nuclear option" because it would amount to a dramatic departure from Senate norms of bipartisanship and collegiality.

Changing Senate rules would not be unprecedented. In 2013, Democrats were in the majority and upset about appellate court nominees getting blocked. They pushed through a rules change lowering the vote threshold on all nominees except for the Supreme Court from 60 to a simple majority.

Schumer warned against the rules change in an interview with The Associated Press on Thursday, arguing that Republicans would be the ones to blame if it does occur.

"Senate Republicans are acting like if Gorsuch doesn't get 60 votes they have no choice but to change the rules," Schumer said. "That is bunk."

Schumer's comments came after Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota became the first two Democrats to announce their support for Gorsuch, and the only ones so far. Manchin said in a statement, "I hold no illusions that I will agree with every decision Judge Gorsuch may issue in the future, but I have not found any reasons why this jurist should not be a Supreme Court Justice."

Manchin and Heitkamp are both up for re-election next year in states that Trump won in the presidential election, as is McCaskill. In her statement, McCaskill said she wasn't comfortable with either decision.

"I remain very worried about our polarized politics and what the future will bring, since I'm certain we will have a Senate rule change that will usher in more extreme judges in the future," she said.

If confirmed, Gorsuch would replace Scalia, who died in February 2016. But if one of the more liberal justices dies or retires, Trump's next pick could fundamentally alter the balance of the court. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is 84 and fellow liberal Justice Stephen Breyer is 78. Justice Anthony Kennedy, the pivotal vote closest to the court's center, is 80.

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Associated Press writer Summer Ballentine in Jefferson City, Missouri, contributed to this report.
Scientists have begun a Phase 2 trial of a vaccine to protect against the Zika virus, the first time an experimental Zika vaccine has gone beyond initial safety testing.

The trial is testing a vaccine developed by scientists at the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases. If all goes well with the Phase 2 work, scientists may see clues by the end of this year as to whether the vaccine provides protection against Zika, NIAID Director Dr. Anthony Fauci said Friday.

The clinical trial involves a DNA-based vaccine, in which proteins from the Zika virus are placed into small pieces of DNA. Although there are several DNA vaccines licensed for agricultural use, there are currently no licensed DNA vaccines for use in humans.

The Phase 2 trial began Wednesday at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, one of 11 sites involved in the study. Most of the others are outside the continental US, in places where Zika is or has been transmitting. They include Puerto Rico, Mexico, Costa Rico, Brazil and Peru.

Fauci acknowledged public interest in Zika has waned. But he said it is critical to pursue the development of the vaccine. It is likely the Zika virus has become or will become entrenched in parts of the Americas, Fauci said, and thus will continue to pose a risk to pregnant women who may be exposed to it.

Infection during pregnancy  especially early in pregnancy  can lead to severe neurological birth defects.

Im totally intent on getting this vaccine to the point where it can be a usable vaccine, Fauci said during a teleconference for journalists, calling the development of a Zika vaccine a very high priority for the NIAID.

He said his institute  part of the National Institutes of Health, which was targeted for deep cuts in President Trumps recent budget proposal  has dedicated funding for the Phase 2 work. That will cost $100 million, he said.

If the vaccine is protective and a larger Phase 3 trial is needed, some of that cost would be borne by a commercial partner. To date NIAID has not lined up a large vaccine manufacturer to help develop and license the experimental vaccine, but Fauci said the institute is currently in negotiations with a couple of interested companies.

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The Phase 2 trial will be done in two segments. The one that began this week will involve 90 healthy volunteers  but no pregnant women all of whom will be immunized with the vaccine. The goal is to determine the optimal dose.

Read more: Why were there fewer microcephaly cases from Zika last year?

A second segment of the Phase 2 trial, which will start after the dose question has been answered, will involve 2,400 healthy volunteers. Half of them will receive the vaccine and half will get a placebo. Subjects will be monitored for nearly two years.

If Zika continues to circulate in the areas where the volunteers live, comparing infection rates between the vaccine and placebo groups should show if the vaccine is warding off infection. But its possible, Fauci acknowledged, that the trial might have to be expanded  to 5,000 people or more  to show effectiveness, if Zika transmission drops off.

Thats a possibility, Fauci admitted. Flaviviruses  the family to which Zika belongs  tend to cause disease in waves. Transmission can taper off for a period of time after a big outbreak, but would be expected to resume at some point down the road.

A DNA vaccine cannot cause Zika; it does not include live viruses. Several other types of Zika vaccines are also in development, including others at the NIAID.
For decades, science maintained an awkward relationship with women as research subjects. Basically, scientists ignored them for logistical and cultural reasons, hoping that studies involving men and male animals would apply to women as well.

Here's the not-so-surprising twist: That's actually not how biology works. Sex and gender matter a lot when you're testing a new drug, trying to identify a disease's risk factors or hunting for a cure. This gender blind spot has put women's health at a big disadvantage, but a study published this week in Nature Communications could dramatically change that.

SEE ALSO: Guys: Its now possible to test your sperm via smartphone

The study debuted a tool its inventors call Evatar (and yes, that's an intentional nod to the one and only Eve). The device is made up of plastic wells and containers that individually house a mouse ovary and human fallopian, uterine, cervical and liver tissue. It mimics the menstrual cycle through reproductive hormones produced by the ovary. While the miniature reproductive tract can't bleed, it can prompt the release of an egg from the ovary.

This little marvel of biology and engineering, known as a tissue chip, is no larger than a Kindle.

This 3D culture system is the first of its kind and it effectively gives researchers a tiny lab to test conditions like fertility, the effects of chemical exposure, and how well certain drugs work  and not just in specific experiments overseen by scientists. Instead, the hope is that Evatar will eventually become so common that patients can show up at a doctor's office and have their own cells cultured in the device to see how their body reacts to a chemotherapy drug for ovarian cancer, a different type of birth control, new treatment for a sexually transmitted disease, or something else entirely.

"This is absolutely a victory for women's health," says study co-author, Kelly E. McKinnon, a doctoral candidate at Northwestern University.

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As recently as a year ago, says McKinnon, basic research in drug development still predominantly relied on male mice subjects. Now that research incorporates postmenopausal women, which is an improvement yet still leaves many unanswered questions about how drugs affect women of childbearing age.

"We're really trying to address that gap and come up with a new system," says McKinnon.

The gap is an infamous one in medicine and science. Female sex hormones do present their own unique challenges in experiments because they regularly fluctuate, and that's partly why scientists defaulted to male human or animal study subjects. In the past, there were also ethical concerns about negatively affecting fertility for women of childbearing age, a worry that effectively excluded women from research while men continued to participate.

Even 30 years ago, researchers routinely conducted men-only studies. The groundbreaking research on taking aspirin to prevent a heart attack? That was done in the 1980s with 22,000 male participants. As retired Maryland Sen. Barbara Mikulski once recalled, researchers working on one aging study apparently didn't include women because there wasn't a ladies room available for female participants.

It wasn't until 1994, when Congress passed a law requiring the National Institutes of Health to include women in its clinical studies and analyze results by sex or gender, that things began to change.

Evatar, a collaborative project led by the Woodruff Lab at Northwestern University and funded partly by the NIH, is proof of how far we've come in just two decades. Dr. Les Reinlib, program director for the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, says the tool has the potential to help scientists understand the interaction between genes and environment as they never have before. For women's health, it could lead to important revelations about contraception, cancer, and fertility.

Each divided compartment within the cube contains a 3-D model of a different part of the reproductive tract.

Image: Northwestern Medicine

"This is a lot closer to the way people are," Reinlib says of Evatar's ability to model the female reproductive tract in three dimensions. "It provides cells the opportunity to respond the way they do in nature."

What it's not designed to do is become sentient or serve as an artificial womb for a test-tube baby. Evatar's ovaries and human tissues are not connected to each other as a reconstruction of a woman's reproductive organs. Instead they are linked via tiny channels that allow the hormones to flow throughout the system. Even though the team mimicked the hormonal response of pregnancy in its experiment, the egg was not transported from the fallopian tube to the uterine tissue. There also isn't a brain to signal the beginning of ovulation through the pituitary gland  just a researcher jumpstarting the system with doses of reproductive hormones.

The Woodruff lab is working toward using the tool for testing drug toxicity related to female reproductive organs. There also plans to create a male equivalent of Evatar called  wait for it  Adatar.

In the meantime, we get the thrill of waiting to see if Evatar indeed catapults women's reproductive health and medicine into the 21st century.

WATCH: This new at-home fertility test lets you zoom in on your sperm
(WASHINGTON) - Senate Democratic opposition to Donald Trumps Supreme Court nominee swelled Friday as Democrats neared the numbers needed to block Judge Neil Gorsuch with a filibuster.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York warned Republicans against changing Senate rules to confirm Gorsuch anyway - a rules change that could prove momentous for the Senate and would allow all future Supreme Court nominees to get on the court regardless of opposition from the minority party.

Sens. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut and Brian Schatz of Hawaii became the latest Democratic senators to announce their opposition to Gorsuch, a 49-year-old federal appeals court judge in Denver whose conservative rulings make him an intellectual heir to the justice he would replace, the late Antonin Scalia.

Blumenthal, a Senate Judiciary Committee member who questioned Gorsuch on judicial independence and other topics in last weeks hearings, complained that the judge didnt give straightforward responses.

We must assume that Judge Gorsuch has passed the Trump litmus test - a pro-life, pro-gun, conservative judge, Blumenthal said in a statement. In question after question, Judge Gorsuch had an opportunity to distance himself from right-wing groups. His refusal to answer only deepens the doubt that he is not a neutral follower of the law - an umpire who just calls balls and strikes - but instead an acolyte of hard-right special interests.

There are now at least 35 Senate Democrats who oppose Gorsuch and have pledged to block him with a filibuster, just six shy of the number that would be required to mount a successful filibuster. The vote is expected next week.

Republicans are furious at the Democrats plans, arguing that filibusters of Supreme Court justices have been exceedingly rare, and accusing Democrats of responding to political pressures from a liberal base that still hasnt accepted Trumps election win. They anticipate that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., would respond to a Democratic filibuster by unilaterally changing Senate rules to lower the threshold for Supreme Court justices from 60 votes to a simple majority in the 100-member Senate.

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Although such a change might seem procedural or obscure, it is known on Capitol Hill as the nuclear option because it would amount to a dramatic departure from Senate norms of bipartisanship and collegiality.

Schumer warned against the rules change in an interview with The Associated Press on Thursday, arguing that Republicans would be the ones to blame if it does occur.

Senate Republicans are acting like if Gorsuch doesnt get 60 votes they have no choice but to change the rules, Schumer said. That is bunk. He claimed that Trump should produce a more mainstream nominee instead.

Schumers comments came after Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota became the first two Democrats to announce their support for Gorsuch, and the only ones so far. Manchin said in a statement that I hold no illusions that I will agree with every decision Judge Gorsuch may issue in the future, but I have not found any reasons why this jurist should not be a Supreme Court Justice.

In another development, audio surfaced of Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., laying out the risks to Democrats in the Gorsuch vote as she spoke privately to donors. The audio was obtained by the Kansas City Star from Republicans. The senator is part of a group of 10 Democrats up for re-election next year in states Trump won, all weighing whether to vote for Gorsuch and risk angering their liberal base - Or oppose him, prompting Republicans to permanently change Senate rules to eliminate the filibuster.

With the filibuster gone, Trump could nominate another justice next time theres a vacancy without having to compromise with Democrats at all, and all of a sudden, the things I fought for with scars on my back to show for it in this state are in jeopardy, McCaskill is heard saying.

If confirmed, Gorsuch would replace Scalia, who died in February 2016. But if one of the more liberal justices dies or retires, Trumps next pick could fundamentally alter the balance of the court. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is 84 and fellow liberal Justice Stephen Breyer is 78. Justice Anthony Kennedy, the pivotal vote closest to the courts center, is 80.

Changing Senate rules would not be unprecedented. In 2013, Democrats were in the majority and upset about appellate court nominees getting blocked. They pushed through a rules change lowering the vote threshold on all nominees except for the Supreme Court from 60 to a simple majority.

Schumer conceded Thursday that We made one mistake, we shouldnt have changed the rules for lower court judges ... but we never did it for Supreme Court. This is a much bigger mistake on their behalf.

And he defended Democratic plans to filibuster Gorsuch partly by pointing to the treatment last year of Merrick Garland, President Barack Obamas Supreme Court nominee, who never got a hearing as McConnell led a Republican blockade.

Judge Garland didnt even get the opportunity to be filibustered, so lets not say this is unprecedented, Schumer said.

This article was originally published on TIME.com
Aleksandar Vucic, Serbias current prime minister and likely next president, just made a trip to Moscow, where he wrapped up a big arms purchase (the same week Montenegro got its foot in the door of NATO) and won the vocal support of President Vladimir Putin.

Since Vucic had previously won praise in the West for promoting closer ties between Serbia and the European Union, does that mean Russia is luring its old client state back East?

Not necessarily. More likely, Vucic is simply trying to appeal to every kind of voter ahead of Sundays ballot, so as to avoid a runoff in a very crowded field.

Hell almost certainly carry the day: the latest projections have Vucic winning over 50 percent of the vote, far more than any of the other 10 candidates. (And you cant say they arent bringing their best: polling in second place is Luka Maksimovica, aka Ljubisa Preletacevic Beli, a 25-year old communications student and a comedian who is campaigning in character, riding on a white horse surrounded by faux bodyguards. By acting as a caricature of a corrupt politician, hes managed to motivate previously apathetic voters, Dragana Peco, an journalist covering corruption in Belgrade, told Foreign Policy. But hes still well behind Vucic.)

If he wins, hell replace the unpopular President Tomislav Nikolic, also from the Serbian Progressive Party, who Vucic apparently convinced to drop out of a hopeless race. In Serbia, the prime minister holds the real power, not the president  but that doesnt mean Vucic will be surrendering much. Ivan Vejoda, director of the Europe Project at the Institute of Human Sciences in Vienna, imagines Vucic will serve as de facto prime minister.

Vucic isnt taking any chances to scrape up every vote he can  and that explains a lot of his recent antics, from the trip to Russia to grandstanding over Kosovo. His opponents claim hes running the dirtiest campaign since the days of Slobodan Milosevic, the Serbian strongman who waged bloody wars in what is now Bosnia-Herzegovina and Kosovo. Election watchdogs  and opposition candidates  have warned of possible ballot-stuffing at the polls on Sunday.

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Vucic has also worked assiduously to ensure friendly media coverage. A recent study found that hes received disproportionate  and overwhelmingly positive  treatment across five major Serbian TV stations. His party has hired armed guards to protect an oversize campaign poster in Novi Sad, Serbias second city, from vandals.

Hes also played to Serbian nationalist sentiment over Kosovo  whose independence Belgrade does not recognize. Vucic had planned on going to Kosovo this past Wednesday in order to garner support from Serbian voters there. (Belgrade allows Kosovos Serbs to participate in national elections.)

Kosovos government granted him three hours. Vucic, in response, cancelled his visit, saying he would not take orders from Pristina. But his mission had arguably already been accomplished: even the announcement of an intended visit could be seen by voters as a signal that Vucic was returning to his nationalist roots. Hed hinted at much of the same in January, when Serbian authorities sent a train from Belgrade to North Mitrovica, a town in northern Kosovo with a large ethnic-Serb population, emblazoned with the words Kosovo is Serbia.

Thats likely the best way to interpret Vucics trip to Moscow this week, too. There, he and Putin hammered out a deal to deliver Russian-made tanks and warplanes to Serbia. Thats the first Russian arms deal with Serbia since 2013  and it is surely entirely coincidental that it took place the very week that the U.S. Senate voted overwhelmingly to admit Montenegro, which gained independence from Serbia in 2006, to NATO.

Just hours after Putins spokesman affirmed the Kremlins intention not to interfere in the Serbian election, Putin lent Vucic a tacit endorsement. We wish the current government success, he said.

And on Wednesday, the general secretary of Putins United Russia party appeared at a rally in the central Serbian city of Kragujevac, where he announced that the Kremlin was on Vucics side.

That doesnt mean a president Vucic would abandon Brussels for Moscow. Vejoda notes that Vucic has also received the endorsement of German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Austrian Foreign Minister Sebastian Kurz. Serbia remains a candidate for EU membership, and in 2013 inked an association agreement with Brussels meant to gradually bring Serbian laws closer to European standards.

Whats not an issue in this election, Vejoda said, is Serbias European integration course. All are firmly on the pro-European course.

Why, then, go to Moscow? To make sure no voters are left uncourted, Vejoda suggests. Serbian affinity for Russia dates back centuries, fruit of a common Slavic and Orthodox heritage.

He is using it to muster up all the votes he can, just to make sure theres no second round, Vejoda said.

Update, March 31 2017, 1:31 pm ET: This post was updated to include comment from Dragana Peco.

Photo Credit: MAXIM SHIPENKOV/AFP/Getty Images
It's becoming all too easy for brands to use sexism as low-hanging fruit to go viral. Time after time, we rise to the bait, giving the brands exactly what they set out to achieve  internet fame.

In some ways, it's reassuring to see a brand getting dragged for sexism. The fact that people will readily call BS on companies objectifying women and reinforcing outdated gender stereotypes is a sign of hope and progress. For some brands, getting dragged for sexism is a dream-come-true; a chance to go viral; to be the name on everyone's lips, or tweets, even if it's for all the wrong reasons.

SEE ALSO: The tricky art of marketing women's empowerment in the era of Trump

On an almost daily basis, sexism in headlines, adverts and newspaper front pages is getting taken to task on Twitter. But, by tweeting about those brands and making them go viral, are we giving them exactly what they want?

No such thing as bad publicity

As Oscar Wilde said "the only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about". Brand managers are well aware of this," says Anthony Patterson, professor of marketing at Liverpool University. A "response  whether outrage or support  demonstrates that consumers are engaging with their brand."



Patterson says the willingness of brands to court controversy stems from their worry that their latest campaigns will go unnoticed and ignored by "an indifferent and disinterested consumer body". "Brands well know that courting controversy via the odd comment that could be interpreted as sexist is sure to garner a response from observers on social media," Patterson continues.



Take the Daily Mail, for example. On eve of Britain triggering Article 50 and officially entering Brexit negotiations, it was #LegsIt (not #Brexit) that topped the UK's Twitter trends. The newspaper's headline declaring "Forget about Brexit, who won Legs-it!" alongside a photograph of Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon and British Prime Minister Theresa May and a pain staking analysis of their legs, prompted the ire of thousands on social media.

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ARE YOU.



FUCKING.



KIDDING ME? pic.twitter.com/ieJ8mXjyAg  Dolly H Alderton (@dollyalderton) March 27, 2017

A statement from a Daily Mail spokesperson (which began with "for goodness sake, get a life") only added fuel to the fire. "Sarah Vine's piece, which was flagged as light-hearted, was a side-bar alongside a serious political story." The Daily Mail wasn't sorry. And, why would they be? We, by venting our outrage on Twitter at their "light-hearted" sexism, made #LegsIt the most talked-about story of the day. Was it all a trap?

The 'light-hearted' excuse just doesn't cut it

But, this isn't the first time the word "light-hearted" has been used by a brand accused of sexism. Increasingly, obscure and previously-unheard-of brands are using provocative and sexist advertising to ensure their brands get noticed. In 2016, a billboard advert for a gym in Derbyshire was accused of being "offensive and fat-shaming". When asked for a comment, Jan Spaticchia, chief executive of gym company Energie Group, said that by taking a "light-hearted approach" they felt they can "connect" with more people.



Recently, USPAAH, a relatively unknown mobile spa app was called out on Twitter for its sexist ad on the London Underground. "Out with the guys 'til 4am again?! Keep her sweet with a spa mani/pedi at home," it read. Rather than apologising, the brand responded to the criticism with a series of extremely sassy replies, further stoking the Twitter fire. "We were thinking that it's a lighthearted anecdote based on our experiences. That's all. But thanks for your feedback," read one of USPAAH's sassy tweets. When asked for comment, a spokesperson said they were ware that their "cheeky campaign" had "caused a bit of a stir on Twitter".

And, just this week, London estate agent Marsh & Parsons was dragged on Twitter and forced to remove an advert after it was accused of being "demeaning to women". The text of the advert appears to describe the pictured woman as a "modern extension" to her older partner, who's described as a "charming period property". The company's CEO, David Brown, said the ad was intended to be part of a series of "tongue-in-cheek" ads comparing people to property and reflecting "the range of people" and properties they work with. "We have always tried to get our message across with a gentle sense of humour and up until now, our work has been extremely well-received," said Brown. He said the campaign was intended to "prompt conversation".



"There is no need to advertise in a sexist manner and it is bad and indeed lazy advertising that does [use sexism]," says Professor Isabelle Szmigin at the University of Birmingham. She says the "tongue-in-cheek response" to criticism is "just too easy" for brands and positions people who complain as "supposedly without a sense of humour".

Szmigin adds that that "the key" for new brands is to get attention and "many brands go for the easy route". This is so true. It is all too easy to dismiss casual sexism as a bit of "light-hearted" fun after you've achieved viral fame for your brand. But, at what cost?

The thing is, "light-hearted" sexism is still sexism.

If a brand or media company knowingly uses sexism as a device to get attention, even if the employees behind the campaign don't subscribe to the message behind the ad, it still feeds into and fuels a persistent narrative of sexism and misogyny. These ads might seem harmless, but not everyone will know about the marketing strategy lurking behind them.



A spokesperson for the Advertising Standards Authority said that gender stereotyping in ads is a live issue that they've been investigating over the past year. "Ads should not contain anything that is likely to cause serious or widespread harm or offence, and particular care should be taken to avoid causing offence on the grounds of amongst other thingsgender and sexuality," the spokesperson said.



Women shouldn't be roadkill in a brand's race to get viral fame. Brands, it's time to get your act together and find another way to get internet fame.

WATCH: Across the globe, nasty women and men hit the streets one day after Trump's inauguration
An extremely shy 3-year-old boy was so smitten by a cop in uniform he summoned enough courage to walk up and throw his arms around the big mans neck.

And video of the heart-melting exchange shot by the boys mother is burning up social media.

Read: Cop Interrupts Real-Life Cat and Mouse Game, Caught on Daschcam Video

"He wants to give you a hug," the childs mother can be heard saying as the little boy looks up at Fort Worth Police Officer Anthony Colter, who was sitting in a restaurant by himself having a cup of coffee.

It meant the world, Colter told Fox & Friends about last weeks embrace.

Tyler Hubbard is seen burying his face in Colters neck as restaurant patrons issued a collective "aww."

"I was humbled and honored because we see a lot of bad stuff," Colter said. "But to see him so sincere, such a kind, thoughtful gesture  it made a wonderful day."

Jamie Hubbard sent the video of her son to the police department, and authorities posted it to Facebook. The footage has received more than 800,000 views.

The hug occurred in a McDonalds, where Jamie and her son were eating lunch. It was pouring outside, and Colter, a motorcycle cop, had come in to wait out the storm.

Read: Man Uses Fake Lights and Sirens to Pull Over Vehicle Driven by Real Sheriff's Deputy: Cops

Jamie told him the boy would like a ride on his chopper.

I dont think my boss would appreciate me taking you out," he told the child.

After a few minutes, Tyler decided he wanted give the police officer a little bit of love.

He tentatively approached Colters table, pushed himself up on his toes, and threw his arms around Colter.

It was sweet, his mother said. "It was so fast, but it was so big for him because he's a shy little kid."

Watch: Police Officer Among 4 Killed After Domestic Dispute Becomes Shooting Spree

Related Articles:
Is the Siberian permafrost exploding? Recent reports out of the Arctic Circle suggest that methane pockets are erupting and causing huge craters, but scientists aren't so sure that these features are necessarily the result of detonations  or that they are even new.

A Siberian Times article suggested that 7,000 underground gas bubbles are set to "explode" on the peninsulas of Yamal and Gydan as a result of melting permafrost. The article differentiates these small gas bubbles from enormous craters in the tundra landscape, but asserts that the huge craters are the result of subsurface methane gas exploding as global warming heats up Earth. That is far from certain, scientists told Live Science. In fact, the craters may be thousands of years old.

"These craters are recently discovered by scientists," said Katey Walter Anthony, a biogeochemist at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks, who studies methane release from permafrost. "It doesn't mean they are new." [See Photos of Siberia's Mysterious Craters]

Thawing Siberia

First, the facts: The permafrost of the Siberian tundra is definitely thawing. Permafrost is soil that stays frozen year-round; it locks up organic materials like dead plants (or the corpses of mammoths) and keeps them from rotting. When the permafrost thaws, all that organic material starts to decompose, like food left too long in a broken refrigerator. The decomposition releases carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide, all potent greenhouse gases. Climate scientists agree that the permafrost melt will amplify the effects of greenhouse gases released by human activities, which could worsen the amount of warming the planet experiences.

This methane from decomposition of ancient organic material shouldn't be confused with methane hydrates, which are ice lattices that have methane trapped inside. Melting methane hydrates are another concern for the climate because their thaw could also release more of that greenhouse gas into the atmosphere.

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The most pervasive route for permafrost thaw in Siberia is what's called active-layer deepening, said Ben Abbott, a postdoctoral researcher at Michigan State University. Every summer, the top layer of permafrost that thaws gets deeper and deeper.

"That's happening across the Arctic and boreal forests," Abbott told Live Science.

More dramatic are collapse features, known as thermokarsts. When frozen-solid soil melts, it can collapse in many ways, Walter Anthony told Live Science, creating landslides, lakes, pits, even underground tunnels. [Mysterious Giant Hole In Siberia Investigated By Scientists | Video]

Vasily Bogoyavlensky, a researcher at Moscow's Oil and Gas Research Institute, told the Siberian Times that giant craters observed in Siberia over the past few years could be thermokarsts created when decomposition gases, such as methane, put pressure on the overlying earth, causing dirt-covered ice hills called pingos to explode. But even if the craters are caused by melting permafrost, that mechanism of formation is just speculation, Abbott said.

"Nobody has seen one [form], so we don't know it if is an explosion or just a collapse," Abbott said.

Nor are the craters necessarily human-caused. After all, permafrost has been melting since the end of the last ice age more than 10,000 years ago.

"I am thinking that people need to be a little more careful about claiming that we have methane explosions," Walter Anthony said.

A changing tundra

Meanwhile, researchers with the Russian Academy of Sciences said they have found thousands of small underground gas pockets with high levels of methane and carbon dioxide dotting the landscape and are assessing these spots for stability, the Siberian Times reported. Another recent article claims that more than 200 Arctic lakes are "bubbling like Jacuzzis" with methane gas.

It's not time to panic, though. The aerial images used to find the bubbling lakes reveal little about what's actually bubbling up, Walter Anthony said: The seeps could be methane, or other gases, or just groundwater. Without fieldwork, she said, any attempt to identify the bubbles is just guesswork.

Of course, thousands of gas pockets in the tundra could be alarming, Abbott said, but given the size and inaccessibility of the Siberian Arctic, researchers have little knowledge of what a normal number of these features might be.

"I certainly don't want to give the impression that we should dismiss these features or not think they are potentially dangerous in terms of the climate system and in terms of local ecosystems, but I also don't think it's the beginning of the end," Abbott said.

Though permafrost melting could be a scary contributor to climate change, Abbott and his colleagues surveyed permafrost researchers last year for a paper published in the journal Environmental Research Letters; they found that most believed the tundra has not yet hit the "point of no return" at which runaway melt is inevitable.

Permafrost is sensitive to temperature, Abbott said, but it also has a huge amount of momentum: There are places where deep permafrost is actually getting colder because it is only now "feeling" the chill of the last ice age through the intervening layers of soil. If humans were to control greenhouse gas emissions so that they begin to decline by the middle of the century, most of the carbon in the permafrost will stay frozen.

"The key is really limiting human emissions as quickly as possible, because in 30 or 40 or 50 years from now, if we have gone past that point, there will be nothing we can do about it," Abbott said. "The flip side of a system with a lot of momentum is that once it starts moving, there is little you can do to slow it down."

Original article on Live Science.

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With Adam Rawnsley

Looking for a deal. Michael Flynn, President Donald Trumps former national security adviser, has offered to be interviewed by the FBI and House and Senate investigators examining the Trump campaigns potential ties to Russia, in exchange for immunity from prosecution, but has so far found no takers, according to the Wall Street Journal.

In a statement on Thursday evening, Flynns lawyer Robert Kelner, said his client was willing to speak, and General Flynn certainly has a story to tell, and he very much wants to tell it, should circumstances permit, the statement said.

White House connection. At least two White House employees helped provide Representative Devin Nunes of California, a Republican and the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, with the intelligence reports that showed that President Trump and his associates were incidentally swept up in foreign surveillance by American spy agencies, the New York Times reports.

The revelation on Thursday that White House officials disclosed the reports, which Mr. Nunes then discussed with Mr. Trump, is likely to fuel criticism that the intelligence chairman has been too eager to do the bidding of the Trump administration while his committee is supposed to be conducting an independent investigation of Russias meddling in the presidential election. The Washington Post names three White House officials who may have been involved, including one high-ranking National Security Council intelligence official who national security advisor Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster recently tried unsuccessfully to remove, after CIA officials complained about him.

Whats he got? Harvard law prof Alex Whiting write on Just Security writes that the fact that Flynn and his lawyer have made his offer publicly suggests that he has nothing good to give the prosecutors (either because he cannot incriminate others or is unwilling to do so). If he had something good, Flynn and his lawyer would approach the prosecutors quietly, go through the proffer process in confidence, and reach a deal.

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A new front. President Trump has signed off on a Pentagon proposal to allow the head of the U.S. Africa Command to launch an offensive campaign against the al-Shabab militant group in Somalia, U.S. officials said on Thursday, clearing the way for more airstrikes, and potentially a more active presence of U.S. Special Operations Forces on the ground.

It remains to be seen how active American forces will be in Somalia, where dozens of U.S. commandos already operate, FPs Paul McLeary reports. But the order gels with an increasingly forward-leaning posture in Yemen, where Trump also recently signed an order allowing for more U.S. military action. Last week, Africa Command head Gen. Thomas Waldhauser said that I think the combatant commanders, myself included, are more than capable of making judgments and determinations on some of these targets, he said. Giving his commanders the ability to launch offensive strikes would allow his to prosecute targets in a more rapid fashion.

Mosul. No one can say for certain how ISIS fighters have been killed in Mosul, but the spokesman for the U.S. military effort in Iraq and Syria, Col. Joseph Scrocca said there were about 2,000 fighters in western Mosul before the recent Iraqi offensive, and that the number has been reduced by at least half. He also said that the military is looking to release videos showing how ISIS uses human shields, packing civilians into buildings before luring the coalition to bomb them.

What was see now is not the use of civilians as human shieldsfor the first time we caught this on video yesterday as armed ISIS fighters forced civilians into a building, killing one who resisted and then used that building as a fighting position. The Washington Post also points out the ways in which the U.S. air campaign in Mosul has been influenced by the the Russian campaign in Chechnya in the 1990s that killed as many as 30,000 people.

Assad can do Assad. The U.S. ambassador to the United Nations on Thursday said Washington is no longer focused on ousting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, from power  something that the Obama administration considered essential to bring peace the Syria, even if it took no steps to make it happen.

You pick and choose your battles, Nikki Haley told reporters in New York. Our priority is no longer to sit and focus on getting Assad out. Haley spoke just after Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, traveling in Ankara, Turkey, said Assads long-term status will be decided by the Syrian people.

Not happy about all this. The remarks by Trump cabinet officials might mark a public break with the former administrations policy on Assad, but the Obama administration had mostly focused on fighting the Islamic State and al Qaeda in Syria, to the frustration of some lawmakers on Capitol Hill. Two of those Senators, John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) issued strongly worded statements in response to the remarks.

I hope President Trump will make clear that America will not follow this self-destructive and self-defeating path, McCain said, adding that he was wary of any possible deal between the Trump administration, Assad, and Moscow. Graham said it would be a grave mistake to drop the removal of Assad as an objective, and would be crushing news to the Syrian opposition and U.S. allies in the region.

A mouthful. At a press conference with Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu, Tillerson listened as the Turkish official ticked off conspiracy theories about U.S. law enforcement officials being pawns of anti-Turkish actors, and how some in the U.S. government supported the July 2016 coup attempt in Turkey. In return, Tillerson remained vague when discussing a major rift between the two nations: U.S. support for Kurds fighting ISIS in northern Syria, saying only that there were difficult choices that have to be made.

Ankara accuses the U.S. of arming the Kurds, and doesnt want Kurdish fighters to be involved in the push on the Islamic State stronghold of Raqqa. But U.S. officials say the Kurds are the most effective fighting force in the region, and insist that some Kurds will be part of the fight. Earlier this week, Turkish officials announced they had wrapped up their Euphrates Shield military operation in northern Syria, aimed at pushing both ISIS and the Kurds from their southern border.

Yemen. The Yemeni embassy in Washington has written to Senate staffers blasting a planned event on Capitol Hill featuring two Yemeni civil society activists, an unusual step betraying Sanaas acute sensitivity to criticism as it seeks more U.S. assistance for the Saudi-led military campaign in the country, writes FPs Dan De Luce. The extraordinary email to lawmakers offices, obtained by Foreign Policy, appeared aimed at discouraging congressional aides from attending the briefing at the Dirksen Senate office building on Thursday afternoon with two established local advocates. The note warned Senate aides that participants in the event had a political agenda tied to Iran-backed Houthi rebels battling the government of President Abdu Rabbu Mansour Hadi.

Welcome to SitRep. Send any tips, thoughts or national security events to paul.mcleary@foreignpolicy.com or via Twitter: @paulmcleary or @arawnsley.

Mar-a-Lago meetup. President Trump will meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping in early April for talks at Trumps private, for-profit Mar-a-Lago club in early April. Trump and Xi have never met and spoken only once by phone, but Trump has gone on something of a tirade against Xi and Beijing, making the meetup a hotly anticipated one. Trump has hammered China for allegedly exploiting global trade rules and its more lenient attitude towards North Korean provocations, but backed off from abandoning the longstanding U.S. One China policy in his phone call with Xi. Both trade and North Korea are expected to be high on the list of subjects discussed at Mar-a-Lago.

How soon is now? Vladimir Putin is notorious for keeping world leaders waiting but the Russian president is getting impatient that he hasnt had a meeting with President Trump yet. The Washington Post reports that Putin is annoyed that Trump has been barred from implementing his agenda by unspecified Washington denizens allegedly keen to scuttle a rapprochement between the U.S. and Russia. Putin told reporters that Moscow is ready for a meeting and a reset in relations but will likely have to wait until squabbles in American politics over Russia die down.

Confirmation. Senate Democrats tried to grill the Trump administrations nominee for Air Force Secretary on her past as a contractor but Heather Wilson, a former congresswoman from New Mexico, managed to evade answering directly during her hearing on Thursday. The Hill reports that Democrats on the Armed Services Committee pressed Wilson on her work for Sandia National Laboratories, which a Department of Energy Inspector Generals report concluded earned her $464,000 despite no evidence she carried out any work. Wilson didnt offer direct answers about why she was unable to prove she carried out the work. Despite the questions, Wilson appears set to glide through confirmation with bipartisan approval.

Pew pew pew. The Air Force and Marine Corps could one day strap lasers to the V-22 Osprey in order to give special operators more firepower so they could shoot their way out of a jam if need be. DOD Buzz was on hand as Boeings business development chief John Bones Parker told reporters that the services are pressing to add offensive weapons to the tiltrotor aircraft and are open to creative solutions. Boeing has already tested out arming the Osprey with rockets and missiles but says the services say theyd also be ok trying out non-lethal weapons like sound waves.

Response. The U.S. is convinced that Russia has violated the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty Experts with its deployment of a new nuclear-capable cruise missile. Whats less clear is what the U.S. should do about it. USNI News reports that a handful of experts testified that the U.S. has a number of ways to respond to the violation. Among the options discussed were building a new conventional air-launched cruise missile, exporting American cruise missiles to European allies, and deploying missiles and artillery to Eastern Europe.

Valor. The armed services have handed out a number of awards for valor to troops since 9/11, the narratives for which have been shrouded in secrecy. But on Thursday USA Today published a summary of documents handed over by the Army containing the classified details of a dozen Silver Stars awarded to special operations soldiers for actions in Iraq and Afghanistan. The narratives reveal stories of soldiers risking their lives to save comrades, braving gunfire from Afghan Taliban and Iraqi insurgents, fighting while injured, and refusing medical treatment until fellow soldiers were attended to.

Photo Credit: Saul Loeb  Pool/Getty Images
Budapest (AFP) - Hungary's combative Prime Minister Viktor Orban deepened his row with George Soros on Friday, saying a prestigious Budapest university founded by the US billionaire was cheating students by breaking rules.

Orban has long accused Hungarian-born Soros of meddling in central and eastern Europe and of seeking to undermine the continent by backing mass immigration.

"Cheating is cheating... It doesn't matter if you are a billionaire, you are not above the law," Orban said during an interview on public radio.

The Central European University (CEU), set up in 1991 after the end of communism and part-funded by Soros, said in a statement that it "utterly rejects" Orban's allegations.

"We have been lawful partners in Hungarian higher education for 25 years and any statement to the contrary is false," the university said.

Orban, 53, personally received a Soros grant in the 1980s to study abroad.

- US 'concern' -

The far-right premier has been a leading opponent in the EU of immigration, calling it a threat to Europe's Christian identity.

His anti-Soros quest intensified on Tuesday with the publication of proposed legislation that would tighten rules for foreign-based universities operating in Hungary.

The CEU believes it is the main target of Orban's plan -- something the government denies -- and has said that its existence is under threat.

Orban said Friday that the aim was to stop universities from countries outside of the European Union from being able to cheat students.

He said it followed checks on 28 foreign institutions that uncovered irregularities.

"Several foreign universities are breaking the rules, including the Soros university," he said.

Orban argues that the US-registered CEU enjoys an unfair advantage over local universities because it can award both a Hungarian diploma and an American one.

The proposed new rules would ban the awarding of Hungarian diplomas without an international agreement between national governments.

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Institutions must also have operations in their home country.

The future of the CEU, which does not have a US campus, now "depends on talks between the governments of Hungary and the United States," Orban said.

A statement from the US State Department Friday expressed "concern" about the legislation which reportedly could go before parliament early next week.

"We urge the government of Hungary to avoid taking any legislative action that would compromise CEU's operations or independence," it said.

Currently teaching 1,400 students from more than 100 countries, the English-language institution ranks among the top 50 universities in the world in political science and international studies.

In an interview with AFP on Thursday, the CEU's president and rector Michael Ignatieff called the proposed new rules "unacceptable, targeted at CEU, and an attack on academic freedom".

"We will be open for business and accept students and teach them next year, if I have to teach in a tent in a park in Budapest I will do so," said the former Canadian politician, insisting that the university "will not be bullied".
By Colleen Jenkins

(Reuters) - Dylann Roof, convicted and sentenced to death in federal court for the 2015 massacre at a historic black church in Charleston, South Carolina, will plead guilty to separate state murder charges, the prosecutor handling the case said on Friday.

Roof, a white supremacist, is charged with killing nine African-American parishioners on June 17, 2015, during a Bible study meeting at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church. The hate-fueled shooting of the churchgoers as they closed their eyes to pray stunned the country.

As part of a plea agreement, Roof will be sentenced to life in prison and forgo a state trial, Solicitor Scarlett Wilson said by phone. State prosecutors also had been pursuing the death penalty but that will be taken off the table.

He is due to enter his plea on April 10.

Roof, 22, was sentenced to death in January after a federal court trial that ended with jurors finding him guilty of 33 charges, including hate crimes resulting in death.

Wilson declined to discuss with Reuters why state prosecutors opted for the plea agreement. But she told the Post and Courier newspaper in Charleston that "the goal is to get him into federal custody so their sentence can be imposed."

The Reverend Anthony Thompson, whose wife Myra was slain by Roof, endured weeks of graphic crime scene evidence and wrenching testimony during the federal trial. He said on Friday he was grateful to be spared another.

"The federal trial was very satisfactory for me," Thompson said in a phone interview. "I'm not dealing with this anymore. I'm not concerned with Dylann Roof. I'm praying for him and that is it."

(Reporting by Colleen Jenkins; Additional reporting by Harriet McLeod; Editing by Lisa Von Ahn and Tom Brown)
By Cynthia Kim and Ju-min Park SEOUL (Reuters) - A South Korean court on Friday approved a warrant to arrest ousted president Park Geun-hye, the country's first democratically elected leader to be thrown out of office, on accusations of bribery and abuse of power. Park can be held in a cell for up to 20 days while she is investigated over allegations that she colluded with a friend, Choi Soon-sil, to pressure big businesses to contribute to now-defunct foundations set up to back her policy initiatives. A judge at the Seoul Central District Court said in a statement that "the cause and the need for the warrant are recognised as the main charges against her have been verified and as evidence could be destroyed." About two hours after the ruling, Park was driven to the Seoul Detention Centre located just outside of the city in a black sedan, with two female investigators escorting her, televised news showed. Her supporters shouted her name and waved South Korean flags as she arrived at the detention centre just before 5 a.m. local time, behind a cordon formed by the police to prevent the crowd from following her in and mixing with any Park opponents, who were also at the scene. Park gave about eight hours of testimony at the same court on Thursday and was held at the prosecutors' office next door while the judge studied the evidence and arguments to decide on whether to issue the arrest warrant. On Thursday, Park, 65, arrived expressionless at the court to plead her case that she should not be arrested or held while prosecutors investigate the scandal. Park argues that she does not pose a flight risk and will not try to tamper with evidence. She and Choi have both denied any wrongdoing. Park's removal from office capped months of paralysis and turmoil over the corruption scandal that also landed the head of the Samsung conglomerate in detention and on trial. Her impeachment this month has left a political vacuum, with only an interim president pending a May 9 election, at a time of rising tensions with North Korea over its weapons programme and with China, which is angry over South Korea's decision to host a U.S. anti-missile system. Prosecutors said on Monday that Park was accused of soliciting companies for money and infringing upon the freedom of corporate management by using her power as the president. Park was questioned for 14 hours by prosecutors last week. She could face more than 10 years in jail if convicted of receiving bribes from bosses of big conglomerates, including Samsung Group [SAGR.UL] chief Jay Y. Lee, in return for favours. Lee, who denies charges that he provided bribes in return for favours for Samsung, and Choi are both in detention and on trial separately. Lee's trial, for which so far only preliminary hearings have been held, will begin on April 7 when he is expected to appear, court records showed. Park may be given a bigger cell than other inmates in a Seoul detention facility, but she would be subject to the same rules on everything from meals to room inspections, former prosecution and correctional officials have said. She was removed from office when a constitutional court upheld her impeachment by parliament. The ruling sparked protests by hundreds of her supporters, two of whom were killed in clashes with police outside the court, and a festive rally by those who had demanded she be removed from office. (Additional reporting by Christine Kim; Editing by Jack Kim and Nick Macfie)
Madrid (AFP) - Spain must have a say over whether any post-Brexit deal applies to Gibraltar, the EU said Friday, angering the British overseas territory which fears that Madrid will seek sovereignty over the Rock.

The proposal is part of draft Brexit guidelines setting out the EU's position in upcoming negotiations with Britain over its exit from the bloc, and is likely to add fuel to an ongoing sovereignty row between London and Madrid over Gibraltar.

Gibraltar's leader Fabian Picardo hit out at the EU proposal, branding it "unnecessary" and "discriminatory."

The idea is also likely to face a fierce backlash from London, which has pledged to stand by the tiny rocky overseas territory on Spain's southern tip that was ceded to Britain in 1713.

- EU 'pursuing' Spain interests -

"After the United Kingdom leaves the union, no agreement between the EU and the United Kingdom may apply to the territory of Gibraltar without the agreement between the Kingdom of Spain and the United Kingdom," the EU's draft negotiating guidelines read.

This means that Madrid could potentially block Gibraltar's access to any trade deal Britain negotiates with the EU, opposition politicians in the Rock claim.

It also shows that the European Union is putting Spain -- its member state -- first.

A senior EU official said the issue of Gibraltar was included in the guidelines as it is one of a number that involve joint or contested jurisdictions, and that "the EU is naturally pursuing the interests of the remaining 27 member states."

Spain's conservative government, which has been particularly vocal about getting Gibraltar back, welcomed the latest development.

"EU recognition of the legal-political situation defended by Spain satisfies us entirely," government spokesman Inigo Mendez de Vigo told reporters.

But Picardo said it was "a disgraceful attempt by Spain to manipulate the European Council for its own, narrow, political interests."

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- Bad neighbourly relations -

Relations between Spain and Gibraltar have ebbed and flowed over the decades.

Tensions have heightened under Spain's conservative government, which apart from sovereignty claims also bristles at tobacco smuggling across the border and accuses Gibraltar of being a corporate tax haven.

In 2013, for instance, the EU was forced to step in and ease one particularly belligerent row over disputed waters that saw Spanish authorities up checks on their land border with Gibraltar, creating hours-long logjams.

Fearing that this type of disruption could happen again without EU protection, Gibraltarians voted by 96 percent to stay in the bloc in last year's referendum.

Sensing an opportunity after the outcome, Spain proposed shared sovereignty, arguing it would allow Gibraltar -- whose economy largely depends on the EU single market -- to remain in the bloc.

Having already rejected such a proposal in a 2002 referendum, Gibraltarians still appear set on remaining British after the vote, even if it means exiting the European Union.

"The whole world and the whole EU should know: this changes nothing in respect of our continued, exclusive British sovereignty," Picardo said Friday.

- 'So Spain want Gibraltar?' -

British Prime Minister Theresa May has pledged her support for Gibraltar.

"We have been firm in our commitment never to enter arrangements under which the people of Gibraltar would pass under the sovereignty of another state against their wishes, nor to enter into a process of sovereignty negotiations with which Gibraltar is not content," she told parliament Wednesday.

But British lawmakers and activists reacted with concern and defiance on Friday.

Liberal Democrat MP Tom Brake said the EU proposal "shows just how damaging the government's hard Brexit will be on this strategically-important British territory."

"Theresa May must urgently produce a plan that protects the citizens of Gibraltar, including their businesses and communities."

Meanwhile Brexit campaign group Leave.EU tweeted a picture of thousands of Spaniards marching in support of independence for the northeastern region of Catalonia, a sore issue for Madrid.

"So Spain wants Gibraltar?," it read. "Perhaps we should recognise Catalonia..."
Rome (AFP) - Record prices, conflicts and extreme weather combined to drive the number of people vulnerable to starvation up to 108 million last year, according to a UN and EU-backed report published Friday.

The global total of people deemed "severely food insecure" represents a 35 percent increase on the 80 million considered to be in that dangerously exposed position in 2015.

The term refers to people already suffering from acute malnutrition or lacking enough food to provide their basic energy requirements on a sustainable basis.

It can include households who can only survive by, for example, slaughtering their animals and thus depleting their future ability to produce food.

The report warns that the food insecurity crisis is set to worsen this year with four parts of the developing world, South Sudan, Somalia, Yemen and northeast Nigeria, at risk of famine.

The report was produced under the joint auspices of the European Union, UN agencies including the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and USAID/FEWSNET along with some regional food security institutions.

Extreme weather factors blamed for the deteriorating situation included drought and erratic rainfall caused by the El Nino phenomenon.

But civil conflict was the driving factor in nine of the 10 worst humanitarian crises, the 2017 Global Report on Food Crises says.

Other countries facing widespread food insecurity this year are Iraq, Syria (including refugees in neighbouring countries) Malawi and Zimbabwe.

"In the absence of immediate and substantive action not only to save people's lives, but also to pull them back from the brink of famine, the food security situation in these countries will continue to worsen in coming months," the report says.

FAO Director-General Jose Graziano da Silva said: "We can prevent people dying from famine but if we do not scale up our efforts to save, protect and invest in rural livelihoods, tens of millions will remain severely food insecure."

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Ertharin Cousin, Executive Director of the World Food Programme, said food insecurity was not just a humanitarian issue.

"Hunger exacerbates crisis, creating ever greater instability and insecurity," he said. "What is a food security challenge today becomes tomorrow's security challenge.

"It is a race against time -- the world must act now to save the lives and livelihoods of the millions at the brink of starvation."
WASHINGTON  Under heavy fire for dropping U.S. demands for Syrian President Bashar Assads ouster from power, the White House declared Friday that its time to face political reality in Syria.

With respect to Assad, there is a political reality we have to accept in terms of where we are right now, press secretary Sean Spicer told reporters at his daily briefing.

Spicers comments came as some top Republicans, including Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain, denounced a series of comments from senior Trump aides indicating that Assads removal is no longer a priority.

In a written statement, McCain said he was deeply disturbed by the new American message, calling it as devoid of strategy as President Obamas pronouncements that Assad must go. And, the Arizona lawmaker charged, U.S. policy in Syria is being presented piecemeal in press statements without any definition of success, let alone a realistic plan to achieve it.

To suggest that Assad is an acceptable leader for the Syrian people is to ignore the wholesale slaughter of the Syrian people by the Assad regime, Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham said in a statement. Leaving him in power is also a great reward for Russia and Iran.

The senators issued their criticism after Secretary of State Rex Tillerson told reporters during a Thursday press conference in Turkey: I think the status and the longer-term status of President Assad will be decided by the Syrian people. He had been asked whether the strongman, who is backed by Russia, should stay or go.

White House press secretary Sean Spicer (Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

And the United States ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, delivered a blunter message to reporters in New York, saying: Our priority is no longer to sit there and focus on getting Assad out.

The Trump administration cant necessarily focus on Assad the way that the previous administration did, Haley added. Instead, the priority will be the military campaign to destroy the so-called Islamic State.

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President Barack Obama first declared that Assad needed to go on Aug. 18, 2011.

For the sake of the Syrian people, he said in a statement, the time has come for President Assad to step aside.

That demand put Obama at odds with Russian President Vladimir Putin, who backed Assad. But while the Democrats administration called for Assad to be tried for war crimes and other atrocities, his aides privately acknowledged that there was little they could do to put muscle behind the words. And Obama backed off his infamous red line  declining to use force after Assad used chemical weapons on his own people.

Its not clear what steps the United States could take to push out Assad as long as Moscow supports him.

Read more from Yahoo News:
The idea had been brewing for a while, but it only took a few hours to turn it into a reality.

Thats how Russel Neiss, 33, explains the genesis of the Twitter account St. Louis Manifest, which on Friday tweeted the names of passengers on the St. Louis, a ship full of refugees from the Holocaust that was infamously turned away from the United States and Cuba in 1939.

As TIME reported back then, the liner bore 937 German-Jewish refugees who believed they would be able to disembark in Cuba and from there come to the United States; arriving in the waters off Florida, they found that almost all of the passengers would be barred from landing in Cuba, and that the nearby U.S. would not take them in either. The St. Louis returned to Europe, and eventually about a quarter of the passengers were killed during the Holocaust. Those 254 names are the ones being tweeted.

Theres a ritual around not only Holocaust remembrance, but other remembrances too, where one of the things you do is you read the names of the victims, Neiss explains to TIME. What does it look like to recreate this ritual for a digital age?

Though he had been thinking about that question for a while-Neiss builds apps and interactive technology for Jewish education-it had never felt appropriate. But, with the approach of International Holocaust Remembrance Day, which is being observed on Friday, he realized that it might look like this: a bot that, using data available from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, which had already done the extensive work of cataloging the identities of the people who were on the St. Louis, read the names of the victims.

At a rate of one every five minutes, the project will last for a total of about 21 hours.

My name is Joachim Hirsch. The US turned me away at the border in 1939. I was murdered in Auschwitz pic.twitter.com/pfvJtMpIps - St. Louis Manifest (@Stl_Manifest) January 27, 2017

Neiss says that, as someone who had two grandparents who were Holocaust survivors and refugees, he cant remember when he first heard about the St. Louis, but that its plight has always been a story that stuck with him.

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As an American, not just as a grandchild of refugees or a Jew, its one of those stories that kicks you in the shin, he says. You think we were the good guys, but here you have hundreds of people and we sent them back to perish.

Get your history fix in one place: sign up for the weekly TIME History newsletter

The project was launched with few expectations; Neiss knew there were other name-reading Twitter bots (like the Every Three Minutes account, which uses the fact that a person was sold in slavery every three minutes in the antebellum U.S.) but he wasnt sure whether thered be much reaction to it. Though Neiss told TIME he hadnt had much of a chance to sit down and look at the feedback so far-and a follower count in the 11,000 range as of 3 p.m. Eastern-he thinks that the current political climate and the conversation about refugees has perhaps made the resonance of the project clearer to some people. It is perhaps the same reason that another Twitter message related to the period went viral in late 2015.

He just hopes that those people react by expressing their feelings about the refugee issue in productive ways, for example by communicating those feelings to their elected representatives.

It makes you think. People say never again and people say remember, but what does that mean and do we really? he asks. Im hopeful that if this story speaks to people, that they actually act on it. That they dont just retweet.

This article was originally published on TIME.com
Khartoum (AFP) - Sudan on Friday rejected a new US travel advisory warning Americans against visiting the country, particularly three conflict zones, due to risks of "terrorism and violent crimes".

The latest advisory was issued by the State Department on Thursday and posted on the website of the American embassy in Khartoum. It replaces a previous travel warning issued in January 2016.

It said "terrorist groups are active in Sudan and have stated their intent to harm Westerners and Western interests through suicide operations, bombings, shootings and kidnappings".

"Violent crimes targeting Westerners, including kidnappings, armed robberies, home invasions, and carjacking occur everywhere in Sudan but are particularly prevalent in the Darfur region," it said.

US citizens should also "avoid all travel" to Blue Nile and Southern Kordofan states, two other hotspots in Sudan, it said.

Sudan's foreign ministry rejected the allegations.

"This travel warning contradicts the reality on the ground because US, British and other diplomats have visited Darfur, Blue Nile and Southern Kordofan and moved freely in these areas," a statement said.

"Allegations that there are terrorist groups in Sudan are contradictory to all the praise and appreciation offered by high ranking US officials for Khartoum's role in fighting terrorism and extremism in the region."

The ministry urged the State Department to review the measure, saying improved relations with Washington are necessary and help serve the common goal of fighting terrorism.

The US designated Sudan a state sponsor of terrorism in 1993 and Khartoum has been subject to a US trade embargo since 1997 over its alleged support for Islamist groups.

Before leaving office, president Barack Obama eased the sanctions, but kept Khartoum on the blacklist.

Earlier this month, the foreign ministry summoned the most senior diplomat at the US embassy to protest President Donald Trump's travel ban which bars citizens from six Muslim-majority countries, including Sudan, from entering the United States.

A US judge has halted Trump's travel ban.

Veteran Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir is wanted by the International Criminal Court on charges of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide related to the conflict in Darfur. He denies the charges.
As we ease on down that road toward spring, you might start dipping your toe back into outdoor living. It starts with two minutes of staring into the sunshine before you huddle back under the blanket, but before you know it, you'll be reading your newspaper al fresco with a cocktail in hand.

That moment requires planning, so it's time to talk spring cocktail. Sure, you could go generic with your old standby, but even small moments deserve to be celebrated with something a little extraordinary.

Let our Ginnie Meyer be your first taste of spring. The drink is a refreshing blend of gin, freshly squeezed Meyer lemon juice, and ginger beer. It's a slow wave goodbye to citrus season as the sun breaks through the clouds.

Meyer lemons are sweeter than everyday lemons, with a flavor that might remind you of a slightly tart orange. They are also usually a brighter, more vibrant shade of yellow that looks beautiful when sliced for garnish. You should be able to find them at most grocery stores during the winter and early spring, but you can substitute equal parts lemon and orange juice, if you can't.

Like all citrus, Meyer lemons can be squeezed at the peak of their season and their juice frozen for later. Portion 1/2 cup of juice into small zip-top bags to have enough for four cocktails, and sip all year long.

You may have noticed old favorites like the Dark & Stormy and Moscow Mule popping up on happy hour menus. Ginger beer, which is stronger in flavor than the familiar ginger ale, is having a moment right now. This recipe capitalizes on the availability of high-quality and, if you're lucky, local versions of this lightly carbonated, slightly spicy mixer.

Speaking of ginger, if you've never tried candied ginger, this is a good excuse to grab some at the store to use as a garnish. CIA beverage instructor John Fischer created this cocktail and says, "Candied ginger is so tasty and so much fun because of its heat. My friends and I always try to steal the garnish from each other's glasses."

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The candying process adds plenty of sweetness to offset the spicy qualities of this flavorful root. If you have leftover, chop it up and add to spice cookies or sprinkle on top of a baked pound cake.

The recipe calls for simple syrup, which is .simple. In a small saucepan, combine equal parts water and sugar, and bring to a boil until the sugar is fully dissolved. One cup of water and one cup of sugar is a convenient quantity to keep on hand. The syrup can be flavored by steeping ingredients like herbs and vanilla beans, or by blending with fresh fruit juice or puree (like raspberries)  because soon enough, you're going to need a summer cocktail.

GINNIE MEYER

Start to finish: 5 minutes

Servings: 1 serving

1 ounce freshly squeezed Meyer lemon juice

1/2 ounce simple syrup

2 ounces gin

2 to 4 ounces ginger beer

1 piece of candied ginger

1 mint sprig, for garnish (optional)

Pour the lemon juice, simple syrup, and gin into a cocktail shaker filled with ice. Shake the cocktail like you mean it and strain over fresh ice in a Collins (tall) glass. Top with the ginger beer and garnish with a piece of candied ginger stuck on a toothpick. Top with mint, if desired.

Chef's Note: If you don't have bar measuring tools, you can use a tablespoon measure  1 ounce is equal to 2 tablespoons.

___

Nutrition information per serving: 241 calories; 0 calories from fat; 0 g fat (0 g saturated; 0 g trans fats); 0 mg cholesterol; 11 mg sodium; 24 g carbohydrate; 0 g fiber; 20 g sugar; 0 g protein.

___

This article was provided to The Associated Press by The Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, New York.
Berlin (AFP) - Fed up with eurosceptics hogging the headlines and political debate, a growing number of Germans are going on the march to express their fervour for the European Union.

So-called Pulse of Europe rallies are taking place in many cities every Sunday in support of the European project, buffeted by Brexit and anti-EU parties in France, the Netherlands, Italy and Austria.

"Populism is rising strongly. These protests are a way to make a stand against that," said retiree Nicole Schacht. "I grew up with Europe and I believe in Europe."

On Sunday, 6,000 people gathered at Berlin's Gendarmenmarkt square at the statue of poet Friedrich Schiller, whose poem "Ode to Joy," set to music by Beethoven, is the EU's anthem.

Families with prams, young students and well-dressed retirees brandished the EU's blue flag with the ring of yellow stars and listened intently to speakers.

Those taking the microphone championed how the EU had changed their lives, from post-World War II reconciliation to the Erasmus university exchange programme.

"We've had the European treaties for 60 years, for 60 years we have been free. We have to defend that," cried one speaker, Daniel Winter, 39.

"We can't bring to power those blond-haired characters called Le Pen, Boris Johnson or Donald Trump who want to end all that."

- Not irreversible -

The idea of taking a stand in favour of Europe was born a day after Trump's election in the United States, when Frankfurt lawyer Daniel Roeder and his wife Sabine decided to organise a small rally.

With Germany heading for September elections when the anti-Islam and anti-euro populist party AfD could win seats for the first time, Roeder said he could not settle for "protesting only when it's too late".

That November Sunday in Frankfurt, they numbered just 200. The week after the group swelled to 500, then 2,000, then 5,000, and in Berlin, now 6,000.

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The number is small compared with far bigger rallies in German history.

But it is a remarkable increase for a movement that, just four months ago, began with a turnout of couple of hundred. Supporters say the rise points to a depth of feeling that may command political clout.

"These are people who grew up with European integration and have the fundamental conviction that the movement is irreversible. That conviction has been shaken," columnist Sandra Eckert wrote in the Frankfurter Allgemeine daily.

Smaller numbers are also congregating elsewhere in "Pulse of Europe" rallies, including Paris, Strasbourg, Lisbon and Toulouse.

In Britain, too, pro-EU feeling is strong among the 48 percent of the population who last June voted to stay in Europe.

Last Saturday, tens of thousands marched in London to mark the EU's 60th birthday, just four days before Prime Minister Theresa May formally launched the process to exit the bloc.

But pro-EU sentiment in Germany is especially strong, and this is no accident.

After Nazism left Germany ostracised by the rest of Europe, the European project allowed the country to rejoin the fold of civilised nations as an equal.

The European idea has thus earned the allegiance of a post-war generation of Germans.

- Election game-changer? -

Movement organisers say they are not linked to any party or lobby group and only seek "to keep the movement going from Sunday to Sunday".

But Eckert believes that if they keep up the momentum, "such movements have the potential to influence the elections by raising the visibility of the European question".

Whereas eurosceptics focus on loss of national sovereignty or the problems of the eurozone, pro-EU supporters in Germany dig deep into the European Union's record for keeping the peace.

There has been no war on the continent since the breakup of Yugoslavia in the 1990s, and conflict between France and Germany, which clashed three times in 70 years, is unthinkable.

At the Gendarmenmarkt rally, many eyes glistened as the crowd sang "Ode to Joy": "Your magic power re-unites, all that custom has divided, all men become brothers, under the sway of your gentle wings".

"The emotional part of our voice is very important," an organiser, Berlin lawyer Alexander Knigge, told AFP.

"Europe is a human construction. With these demonstrations we want to maintain a bond between people."
ZURICH (Reuters) - Switzerland's Office of the Attorney General (OAG) expressed frustration over the apparent decision by Dutch authorities not to inform it in advance about raids tied to suspected tax evasion, the OAG said on Friday.

"The Office of the Attorney General of Switzerland is disconcerted about the manner in which this has been organized with the conscious non-inclusion of Switzerland... The attorney general expects a written explanation from the relevant leading Dutch authorities and is examining further actions," the OAG said in an emailed statement.

Earlier, Dutch prosecutors said they had launched an international hunt for people seeking to hide assets and evade taxes after receiving a tip-off about undisclosed accounts at a Swiss bank.

Credit Suisse <CSGN.S> said separately that authorities looking into client tax matters had visited its offices in London, Paris and Amsterdam and it was cooperating with them.

(Reporting by Joshua Franklin, Editing by Michael Shields)
Medical research cant be done in the dark. But should taxpayers be covering the light bills at university labs across the country?

The Trump administrations answer is no. The president has proposed a massive $7 billion budget cut for the National Institutes of Health over the next 18 months. And Secretary of Health and Human Services Tom Price said this week that he may find those savings in the indirect expenses that NIH funds, which includes everything from buying lab equipment to paying the electric bills for thousands of academic research labs from Harvard to Ohio State to Stanford.

Such pronouncements are sending ripples of alarm through universities, which last year received $16.9 billion in federal funding for research  and another $6.4 billion to cover their overhead costs.

STAT talked to more than a dozen university administrators and researchers across the nation. Some said they could, perhaps, find common ground with Trump in his quest to cut regulations; less red tape for federally funded labs, they said, would mean lower costs  and smaller overhead bills.

But nearly all expressed alarm at the thought of losing taxpayer support for indirect costs that they consider vital to their biomedical research  costs like keeping freezers running and labs heated.

Unless youre studying butterflies, you cant conduct biomedical research in the middle of a field, said Dr. Pamela Davis, dean of Case Western Reserve School of Medicine.

Read more: Trump budget calls for slashing biomedical and science research funding

It would be absolutely devastating. In fact, it would close down some research institutions, said Dawn Bonnell, vice provost for research at University of Pennsylvania. Its just unthinkable to imagine how one would move forward.

MIT President L. Rafael Reif was alarmed enough to write all employees this week to warn of potential cuts to an arcane aspect of government funding that could have large budget implications for MIT. He pointed out that 66 percent of MITs total research dollars come from federal funding  and said if the presidents budget blueprint were enacted, the university would lose a vast bulk of that money.

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But critics suggest the universities could do without such lavish reimbursements. They point out that foundations and philanthropists dont pay nearly as much for overhead when they fund academic research. The Gates Foundation, for instance, caps its reimbursement for indirect costs at 10 percent. Yet researchers still apply for those grants.

Whats more, many universities have huge endowments; Harvards is valued at more than $35 billion. Given that wealth, critics say, it makes little sense for taxpayers to foot the bill for lab utilities.

I think, in a sense, universities make a profit off these indirect costs, and indeed, the research grants incentivize universities to increase their overhead costs and utilize bureaucracies, said Richard Vedder, director of the Center for College Affordability and Productivity at Ohio University. Its contributed to the administrative bloat on college campuses.

Or, as Price told members of a House committee this week: I was struck by one thing at NIH, and that is that about 30 percent of the grant money that goes out is used for indirect expenses  which, as you know, means that that money goes for something other than the research thats being done.

Funding rates spark controversy on campuses

Funding for overhead costs at labs has been a source of controversy  and, on some campuses, resentment  for years.

Since each university has unique costs  property values, for instance, vary by location and equipment needs depend on the type of research being conducted  each gets a different rate of reimbursement.

And these rates can vary substantially. A Nature investigation in 2014 found that universities negotiated reimbursement rates in the range of 20 percent of the total grant amount on the low end and and 85 percent on the high end. Most rates fell between 50 and 60 percent.

Those deals, however, arent set in stone: Nature found that while the average negotiated rate was worth 53 percent of each grant application, the average payout was just 34 percent. Thats because the NIH caps some grants and expenditures.

The top-earning school in fiscal 2013 was Johns Hopkins University, which negotiated a 62 percent reimbursement rate and brought in nearly $160 million in reimbursement for overhead. On the low end of the scale: Morehead State University in Kentucky, with a 24 percent reimbursement rate and less than $115,000 in indirect cost reimbursements.

Critics suggest that the system gives universities an incentive to bump up their overhead costs, since the reimbursement rates are negotiated based on their previous years spending. So if a school builds a fancy new lab one year, it can claim the need for a higher reimbursement rate the next.

Even so, administrators say the NIH funding never covers the full amount they spend on their research labs.

MIT loses money on every research grant we get, even with full overhead, said Maria Zuber, vice president of research at MIT.

A powerful lobby keeps the money flowing

Colleges fight ferociously to keep their NIH reimbursements. They make a powerful lobby: Because the grant money is distributed to campuses across the country, members of Congress from every state get an earful every time they even contemplate cuts.

Our faculty, including myself, have been going to Washington and meeting with members of Congress and the agencies for many years, said Dr. Landon King, executive vice dean of John Hopkins University School of Medicine. Theres been a longstanding, strong bipartisan support for biomedical science.

Read more: Five ways Trumps proposed budget could hurt  and help  biopharma

Already, several key Republicans on the Hill have said they wont accept the deep cuts Trump has laid out for NIH. Asked about Trumps proposed $1.2 billion cut for the second half of this fiscal year  which the president wants to follow up with another $5.8 billion cut next year  Representative Tom Cole was succinct: Not going to happen.

The Trump administration, of course, isnt the first to call indirect costs into question. Four years ago, the Obama administration floated legislation to try to standardized the rate of indirect costs. Lobbyists for major universities, like Harvard and MIT, shot that proposal down, the Boston Globe reported.

These rates also came under heavy scrutiny by Congress in the 1990s, after auditors learned that many universities seemed to have a very generous definition of overhead costs. Stanford, for its part, had used reimbursements from the NIH to buy decorations and help pay for a university yacht.

The NIH tightened its rules and such incidents are far less common today. Still, Columbia University was fined $10 million by the federal government last year for over-billing NIH for psychiatric and neurological research that was actually conducted off-site, largely in government-owned offices.

Despite the occasional scandal, universities argue that reimbursements are crucial to helping them pay for basic research  particularly as NIH funding has been flat for a decade.

People think these are bonus dollars or fees to universities, which they are not, said Marcia Smith, associate vice chancellor for research at University of California, Los Angeles.

The money also helps support medical research that wouldnt likely interest pharmaceutical companies  at least, not in the early going, said John Zurawski, an intellectual property lawyer with Newark-based firm McCarter & English.

If you dont have as much NIH money coming through the door, private companies will have to fill the coffers of the lab to get research done, Zurawski said. But theres a big bias in terms of what a company wants out of a researcher.

Or as Case Westerns Davis put it: Our pharma industry leaders of the world  where do you think they get their basic discovery? Let me give you a hint: Its not the tooth fairy.

Survival of the richest?

If substantial cuts to indirect funding do indeed come to pass, universities will have to scramble to find these dollars elsewhere.

They cant count on making up that money by drawing it from the hospitals often affiliated with medical schools: Many have been fractured by the ongoing mergers and acquisitions in the hospital industry, said Dr. Ross McKinney, chief scientific officer of the Association of American Medical Colleges.

Read more: Science march on Washington, billed as historic, plagued by organizational turmoil

Tuition is already sky-high, particularly for medical students  so universities are reluctant to charge more. State funding continues to decrease for public universities. And philanthropy and foundation support is erratic and often narrowly targeted at specific diseases.

The bottom line is, theres nowhere to make up the revenue, McKinney said. If [indirect costs are] significantly diminished, the only thing is to do less research.

It could become a survival of the richest: Schools with big endowments and rich alumni will likely find a way to carry on  but lesser-known institutions in more rural areas would feel the cuts keenly. All would have to find a way to make up the funding by taking from other areas in their budgets.

Its less funding thats available for things like subsidizing student tuition and financial aid, and health benefits for workers, said Maria Zuber, vice president of research at MIT. It would just limit our ability to do other things.

A common foe in regulation

For all their angst about the potential cuts, universities may well be able to find common ground with the Trump administration on a related issue: Cutting regulation.

Particularly after the Stanford scandal in the 1990s, regulatory requirements imposed on academicians have continually increased  while the reimbursement structure has stayed fairly static. Conflict of interest disclosures, in particular, are time-consuming.

I think theres a lot of needless paperwork  a lot of malarkey that has nothing to do with science  but that doesnt come from the university, said Dr. Frank Anania, a professor of digestive disease at Emory University. We dont make the law, we comply.

Read more: For scientists, research cuts proposed by Trump are alarming  and deeply personal

Chase Spurlock, an immunology researcher at Vanderbilt University and CEO of a molecular diagnostics startup, said he believes Trump does want to keep funding biomedical research and sees the proposals for drastic budget cuts as a sort of opening gambit  a preamble to a much larger discussion on how to distribute NIH funds most efficiently.

His company, Iquity, has received NIH grants that cap indirect costs at 40 percent  and his experience in the startup realm convinced him that academia, too, could operate more efficiently.

Given that weve seen the waxing and waning of NIH dollars over the past several years, its up to all of us to help control the costs, Spurlock said.

Vedder offers a similar proposal: Cap reimbursements for indirect costs at 25 or 30 percent of the grant amount, and offer that as a flat rate to all universities across the country. He also suggests that the NIH start evaluating research not only on its scientific merit, but also on its potential cost, and downgrade proposals that have high research overhead requests, he said.

I think the goal should be to put the money where its supposed to be: In funding new ideas, new approaches to medicine, Vedder said. And that means cut away the overhead, the administrative costs, things like that.

University administrators say theyre willing to listen. But theyre worried that nuance will be lost in the zeal to root out waste and slash budgets.

If there were a well thought-out and well-designed process for looking at ways to improve [indirect cost reimbursement], that would be welcome, said Smith of UCLA. But one worries that someone thinks they can fix it quickly. And its not a quick fix.
A South Carolina teacher determined to give a brand new bicycle to every single student at her school a bicycle was met with screams of excitement one morning when she finally reached her goal.

Read: Teacher Determined to Raise $65G to Buy Every Student at Her School a Bicycle by Christmas

"They were hugging each other, jumping up and down, screaming," first grade teacher Katie Blomquist told InsideEdition.com. "There were some fifth graders who had never even ridden a bike, let alone owned one."

Blomquist teaches at North Charlestons Pepperhill Elementary, categorized as a Title 1 School where many students come from a lower-income background.

On Thursday morning, all 650 students were gifted a brand new bicycle, the result of months of legwork, arranging deliveries, and raising funds through a successful GoFundMe campaign.

Along with their new bikes, the kids even received free helmets and locks as a part of the big reveal.

[The bikes] represent so much more, she explained. Its responsibility, its ownership over something of value, its transportation, its exercise, but at the end of the day, its that basic joy. I dont want any kid to grow up not having that memory.

From teaming up with local bike shop Affordabike, to rallying together volunteers to build the bicycles and deliver them to the school, Blomquist said she was particularly impressed with the community chipping in to make her generous dream come true. "People came together who dont know me, dont know our kids, dont know our school  and they came and helped assemble our bikes."

In total, she raised more than $80,000 over three months through a GoFundMe campaign to purchase 550 bikes at about $100 each. A hundred bikes were donated to her project free of charge.

The remaining money will go toward Blomquists new non-profit, Going Places, which she started while organizing the bikes. Through the charity, she plans to bring swimming lessons, camp experiences and Halloween costumes for other students in Title 1 schools.

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Read: College Student Surprises His Shuttle Bus Driver with $450 Birthday Present

She explained that the project began when a student asked her to buy a bike for his birthday. Blomquist said she often goes out of her way to spend her own money on her students for special occasions.

"He kept asking me for a bike, and I thought, 'Gosh, I can't afford that,'" Blomquist said in a previous interview with InsideEdition.com. "You assume every kid's grown up with a bike."

Watch: Second Grade Students Write Humorous Sympathy Notes to Teacher Whose Father Died

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ROCKVILLE, Md. (AP)  A preliminary hearing has been delayed for a 17-year-old charged with raping a fellow student in a Maryland high school bathroom.

Jose Montano and another student, 18-year-old Henry Sanchez, are charged with assaulting the 14-year-old girl at Rockville High School.

A hearing scheduled Friday in Montgomery County was delayed a week at prosecutors' request.

On Thursday, a judge rejected a defense request to release Montano on bail. His lawyers say the sex was consensual, and text messages show the girl agreed to sex.

The case received national attention after the White House called it an example of why President Donald Trump wants to crack down on illegal immigration. Montano's lawyers say he came from El Salvador to live with relatives who are U.S. citizens after his adoptive grandmother died.
Inclusion is the future  and this year's Doodle 4 Google winner knows it.

Sarah Harrison, a 15-year-old high school student from Connecticut, is the winner of the 2016-2017 Doodle 4 Google Contest. This year's competition, which launched in September 2016, tasked young artists in the U.S. with creating a doodle about what they see for the future.

SEE ALSO: A 10th grader drew this amazing Google Doodle celebrating black culture

Harrison's winning doodle, which was displayed on Google's homepage Friday, depicts children of various background embracing each other, all with wide smiles in the name of diversity. In the illustration, the children  who are of different races, genders and abilities  also wear identity-coded clothing displaying their non-visible identities, like religious beliefs and sexual orientation.

Titled "A Peaceful Future," the doodle earned Harrison a $30,000 college scholarship and a $50,000 technology award for her high school.

"My future is a world where we can all learn to love each other despite our religion, gender, race, ethnicity, or sexuality," Harrison told Google about her design. "I dream of a future where everyone is safe and accepted wherever they go, whoever they are."

Harrison isn't alone in her hopes for a more inclusive future. Social media users have been loving her message and artistic advocacy for inclusion.

Today's Google Doodle, by 15-year old Sarah Harrison, warmed every corner of my heart.  pic.twitter.com/sgXv73YHoO  Marie Lu (@Marie_Lu) March 31, 2017

GUYS TODAY'S GOOGLE DOODLE IS SO CUTE pic.twitter.com/5jYZabHMok  mabes the gay (@graydragon63) March 31, 2017

Best Google Doodle Ever pic.twitter.com/1mPhjLl1aZ  Kaija Leung (@SmplyKaija) March 31, 2017

The annual contest, which began nine years ago, allows students in grades K-12 to submit artwork to be featured on Google's homepage. The winner is chosen through public voting after submissions are narrowed down by a panel of noteworthy judges. This year's judges included Olympic gold medalist Simone Biles, musician Sia, late night host Jimmy Kimmel, and Pikachu (yes, really).

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Harrison and four national finalists also received a trip to Google's headquarters, a Chromebook, and an Android tablet for coming out on top in their respective age groups. The other finalists will also receive a $5,000 college scholarship.

Many of the finalists' doodles touched on themes of social change and impact, including sustainability, identity inclusion and endangered species protection. Some much needed hope for the future, from the future.

WATCH: What film stars really think about Hollywood's diversity issue
Cash rules everything around D.C.

That's hardly a new revelation, but it's worth revisiting after Congress recently voted (twice) to gut important data privacy regulations that would have forced your internet provider to at least ask your permission before tracking you across the internet and selling that information to the highest bidder.

SEE ALSO: The FCC is already declining to enforce net neutrality

Trump is expected to sign the bill into law soon, ensuring your data will no longer be yours and that internet service providers will be able to make a ton of money off it. Great news.

But how the hell did we get here? The easy answer: Money. Bags of it. The telecom industry has given huge amounts of cash to the politicians who voted to give them basically unlimited powers to track your internet usage and then sell that data to the highest bidders.

What the hell happened?

Well, the Trump administration hired an unabashedly pro-industry head of the government's primary regulator of internet providers. That person, Ajit Pai, put the rule protecting you against it in the guillotine right away. And the Republican congress was happy to fall in line.

The U.S. Senate vote that approved the repeal a week ago was strictly along party lines: 50 Republicans for (and 2 voting absent) with 48 Democrats against.

Tuesday's U.S. House vote was similarly party-oriented. The main difference was the defection of 15 Republicans who joined Democrats in voting "no" but that didn't matter as the bill still passed by a tally of 215 to 205 with 9 no votes (6 GOP, 3 Dems).

But, also: money. Lots of it. Given to congressmen.

It pays to play

Those 265 congressmen who voted to repeal have more cash in their pockets thanks to the telecom industry, as flagged by The Verge. Data collected by the National Institute on Money in State Politics showed how much each of those 265 legislators collected from telecom corporations or employees of those corporations in the recent election cycle.

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And, unsurprisingly, those with connections to important committees for the telecom industry tended to be among the biggest takers.

Image: bob al-greene/mashable

The biggest benefactor? Why, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, of course, who bagged over $250,000 for his most recent election from these donors. Eleven other senators hit six digits in donations, too, including John Thune of South Dakota, chairman of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, who came away with $215,000.

The donations for House members were considerably smaller but there were some who still raked in some healthy dough. Greg Walden (OR), who just so happens to be the chairman of the House Energy and Commerce committee, pulled in the most of any House member at $155,100.

It's all about that cold, hard cash

The Intercept's Glenn Greenwald, who knows a thing or two about online privacy, went in hard on what he calls "corporate-donor servitude" in a column following the vote, noting that the forces involved here didn't even try to dress the vote up as necessary for national security.

Damn straight.

Greenwald used quotes from Congresswoman Marsha Blackburn (TN) and Senator John Cornyn (TX) throwing out more random reasons for the repeal to prove his point. Blackburn said the original regulation was "big government overreach" and Cornyn said it would "stifle economic growth."

So let's bring it full circle: Blackburn, who followed Walden's footsteps as chairman of the House subcommittee on communications and technology, received $84,000, according to the data The Verge shared.

And Coryn, who chairs the Senate's Subcommittee on International Trade, Customs, and Global Competitiveness, received $148,000, which is certainly positive economic growth for Coryn.

Data & consequences

So, here we are. None of this is necessarily shocking but, as Greenwald notes. What is surprising is just how little effort was put in to making this seem like anything other than what it is: the opportunity for those telecom companies  who are stoked to offer you unlimited data!  to sell off your data to the highest bidder.What are the downsides? If you can think of it, it's probably there. The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) recently highlighted five really creepy things this could lead to, like injecting ads and tracking cookies or hijacking searches.But there are plenty of other risks your vulnerable to now.

Hackers stealing your data via a breach of a company that's already bought your data (because these breaches never happen, right?).

Sensitive data falling in to the wrong hands leading to blackmail or extortion, an extreme example but not outlandish. If you have Pornhub in your cache  which is completely fine and legal  but you wouldn't want your employer knowing, it's easy to see how a hacker could get that data and threaten you with it.

Insurance companies buying your data to see if you're lying about your health. Example: you told them you don't smoke or drink to lower your costs but you spend all your time searching for vape pens and craft beer.

Less important, though no less weird, it allows entities like Facebook to purchase your data and target you with really specific ads. I'm a fan of both the Chicago Cubs and jam band Phish, two seemingly disparate entities. But because Facebook has data showing them I'm a fan of both, they were able to target me with this incredibly specific ad.

Facebook's algorithm for ad targeting is frighteningly specific sometimes pic.twitter.com/2sCIjWNr3J  Marcus Gilmer (@marcusgilmer) March 5, 2017

So get ready for more of this. And for those companies to access all of your data whether you want them to or not. And the money those companies paid out to your elected representatives will, in the long run, likely pale in comparison they'll reap when they make money off your private data.

Something to keep in mind next time you enter the voting booth.

WATCH: The darkest substance on Earth basically looks like a portal to another world
BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The chairman of the 27 European Union leaders Donald Tusk on Friday presented a draft plan for negotiating Brexit, an unprecedented departure of a member from the bloc. Please see below the full text of the nine-page document, the so-called "guidelines" of the EU 27 for Brexit talks starting soon. On 29 March 2017, the European Council has received the notification by the United Kingdom of its intention to withdraw from the European Union and Euratom. This allows for the opening of negotiations as foreseen by the Treaty. European integration has brought peace and prosperity to Europe and allowed for an unprecedented level and scope of cooperation on matters of common interest in a rapidly changing world. Therefore, the Union's overall objective in these negotiations will be to preserve its interests, those of its Member States, its citizens and its businesses. The United Kingdom's decision to leave the Union creates significant uncertainties that have the potential to cause disruption, in particular in the UK but also in other Member States. Citizens who have built their lives on the basis of rights flowing from the British membership of the EU face the prospect of losing those rights. Businesses and other stakeholders will lose the predictability and certainty that come with EU law. With this in mind, we must proceed according to a phased approach giving priority to an orderly withdrawal. In these negotiations the Union will act as one. It will be constructive throughout and will strive to find an agreement. This is in the best interest of both sides. The Union will work hard to achieve that outcome, but it will prepare itself to be able to handle the situation also if the negotiations were to fail. These guidelines define the framework for negotiations under Article 50 TEU and set out the overall positions and principles that the Union will pursue throughout the negotiation. The European Council will remain permanently seized of the matter, and will update these guidelines in the course of the negotiations as necessary. * Core principles 1. The European Council will continue to base itself on theprinciples set out in the statement of Heads of State orGovernment and of the Presidents of the European Council and theEuropean Commission on 29 June 2016. It reiterates its wish tohave the United Kingdom as a close partner in the future. Itfurther reiterates that any agreement with the United Kingdomwill have to be based on a balance of rights and obligations,and ensure a level-playing field. Preserving the integrity ofthe Single Market excludes participation based on asector-by-sector approach. A non-member of the Union, that doesnot live up to the same obligations as a member, cannot have thesame rights and enjoy the same benefits as a member. In thiscontext, the European Council welcomes the recognition by theBritish Government that the four freedoms of the Single Marketare indivisible and that there can be no "cherry picking". 2. Negotiations under Article 50 TEU will be conducted as asingle package. In accordance with the principle that nothing isagreed until everything is agreed, individual items cannot besettled separately. The Union will approach the negotiationswith unified positions, and will engage with the United Kingdomexclusively through the channels set out in these guidelines andin the negotiating directives. So as not to undercut theposition of the Union, there will be no separate negotiationsbetween individual Member States and the United Kingdom onmatters pertaining to the withdrawal of the United Kingdom fromthe Union. * A phased approach to negotiations 1. On the date of withdrawal, the Treaties will cease toapply to the United Kingdom, to those of its overseas countriesand territories currently associated to the Union, and toterritories for whose external relations the United Kingdom isresponsible. The main purpose of the negotiations will be toensure the United Kingdom's orderly withdrawal so as to reduceuncertainty and, to the extent possible, minimise disruptioncaused by this abrupt change.To that effect, the first phase of negotiations will aim to: * settle the disentanglement of the United Kingdom from theUnion and from all the rights and obligations the United Kingdomderives from commitments undertaken as Member State; * provide as much clarity and legal certainty as possible tocitizens, businesses, stakeholders and international partners onthe immediate effects of the United Kingdom's withdrawal fromthe Union.The European Council will monitor progress closely and determine when sufficient progress has been achieved to allow negotiations to proceed to the next phase. 1. While an agreement on a future relationship between theUnion and the United Kingdom as such can only be concluded oncethe United Kingdom has become a third country, Article 50 TEUrequires to take account of the framework for its futurerelationship with the Union in the arrangements for withdrawal.To this end, an overall understanding on the framework for thefuture relationship could be identified during a second phase ofthe negotiations under Article 50. The Union and its MemberStates stand ready to engage in preliminary and preparatorydiscussions to this end in the context of negotiations underArticle 50 TEU, as soon as sufficient progress has been made inthe first phase towards reaching a satisfactory agreement on thearrangements for an orderly withdrawal. 2. To the extent necessary and legally possible, thenegotiations may also seek to determine transitionalarrangements which are in the interest of the Union and, asappropriate, to provide for bridges towards the foreseeableframework for the future relationship. Any such transitionalarrangements must be clearly defined, limited in time, andsubject to effective enforcement mechanisms. Should atime-limited prolongation of Union acquis be considered, thiswould require existing Union regulatory, budgetary, supervisoryand enforcement instruments and structures to apply. 3. The core principles set out above should apply equally tothe negotiations on an orderly withdrawal, to any preliminaryand preparatory discussions on the framework for a futurerelationship, and to any form of transitional arrangements. 4. The two year timeframe set out in Article 50 TEU ends on29 March 2019. * Agreement on arrangements for an orderly withdrawal 1. The right for every EU citizen, and of his or her familymembers, to live, to work or to study in any EU Member State isa fundamental aspect of the European Union. Along with otherrights provided under EU law, it has shaped the lives andchoices of millions of people. Agreeing reciprocal guarantees tosettle the status and situations at the date of withdrawal of EUand UK citizens, and their families, affected by the UnitedKingdom's withdrawal from the Union will be a matter of priorityfor the negotiations. Such guarantees must be enforceable andnon-discriminatory. 2. Also, the United Kingdom leaving the Union will impact EUbusinesses trading with and operating in the United Kingdom andUK businesses trading with and operating in the Union.Similarly, it may affect those who have entered into contractsand business arrangements or take part in EU-funded programmesbased on the assumption of continued British EU membership.Negotiations should seek to prevent a legal vacuum once theTreaties cease to apply to the United Kingdom and, to the extentpossible, address uncertainties. 3. A single financial settlement should ensure that theUnion and the United Kingdom both respect the obligationsundertaken before the date of withdrawal. The settlement shouldcover all legal and budgetary commitments as well asliabilities, including contingent liabilities. 4. The Union has consistently supported the goal of peaceand reconciliation enshrined in the Good Friday Agreement, andcontinuing to support and protect the achievements, benefits andcommitments of the Peace Process will remain of paramountimportance. In view of the unique circumstances on the island ofIreland, flexible and imaginative solutions will be required,including with the aim of avoiding a hard border, whilerespecting the integrity of the Union legal order. In thiscontext, the Union should also recognise existing bilateralagreements and arrangements between the United Kingdom andIreland which are compatible with EU law. 5. The Union should agree with the United Kingdom onarrangements as regards the Sovereign Base Areas of the UnitedKingdom in Cyprus and recognise in that respect bilateralagreements and arrangements between the Republic of Cyprus andthe United Kingdom which are compatible with EU law, inparticular as regards the situation of those EU citizensresident or working in the Sovereign Base Areas. 6. Following the withdrawal, the Union with 27 Member Stateswill continue to have the rights and obligations of the Unionwith 28 Member States in relation to international agreements.The United Kingdom will no longer be covered by agreementsconcluded by the Union or by Member States acting on its behalfor by both acting jointly. The European Council expects theUnited Kingdom to honour its share of international commitmentscontracted in the context of its EU membership. In suchinstances, a constructive dialogue with the United Kingdom on apossible common approach towards third country partners andinternational organisations concerned should be engaged. 7. While the future location of the seats of EU agencies andfacilities located in the United Kingdom is a matter for the 27Member States, arrangements should be found to facilitate theirtransfer. 8. Arrangements ensuring legal certainty and equal treatmentshould be found for all court procedures pending before theCourt of Justice of the European Union upon the date ofwithdrawal that involve the United Kingdom or natural or legalpersons in the United Kingdom. The Court of Justice of theEuropean Union should remain competent to adjudicate in theseprocedures. Similarly, arrangements should be found foradministrative procedures pending before the European Commissionand Union agencies upon the date of the withdrawal that involvethe United Kingdom or natural or legal persons in the UnitedKingdom. In addition, arrangements should be foreseen for thepossibility of administrative or court proceedings to beinitiated post-exit for facts that have occurred before thewithdrawal date. 9. The withdrawal agreement should include appropriatedispute settlement mechanisms regarding the application andinterpretation of the withdrawal agreement, as well as dulycircumscribed institutional arrangements allowing for theadoption of measures necessary to deal with situations notforeseen in the withdrawal agreement. This should be donebearing in mind the Union's interest to effectively protect itsautonomy and its legal order, including the role of the Court ofJustice of the European Union. * Preliminary and preparatory discussions on a framework forthe Union - United Kingdom future relationship 1. The European Council welcomes and shares the UnitedKingdom's desire to establish a close partnership between theUnion and the United Kingdom after its departure. While arelationship between the Union and a non Member State cannotoffer the same benefits as Union membership, strong andconstructive ties will remain in both sides' interest and shouldencompass more than just trade. 2. The British government has indicated that it will notseek to remain in the single market, but would like to pursue anambitious free trade agreement with the European Union. Based onthe Union's interests, the European Council stands ready toinitiate work towards such an agreement, to be finalised andconcluded once the United Kingdom is no longer a Member State. 3. Any free trade agreement should be balanced, ambitiousand wide-ranging. It cannot, however, amount to participation inthe Single Market or parts thereof, as this would undermine itsintegrity and proper functioning. It must ensure a level playingfield in terms of competition and state aid, and must encompasssafeguards against unfair competitive advantages through, interalia, fiscal, social and environmental dumping. 4. Beyond trade, the EU stands ready to considerestablishing a partnership in other areas, in particular thefight against terrorism and international crime as well assecurity and defence. 5. The future partnership must include appropriateenforcement and dispute settlement mechanisms that do not affectthe Union's autonomy, in particular its decision-makingprocedures. 6. After the United Kingdom leaves the Union, no agreementbetween the EU and the United Kingdom may apply to the territoryof Gibraltar without the agreement between the Kingdom of Spainand the United Kingdom. * Principle of sincere cooperation 1. Until it leaves the Union, the United Kingdom remains afull Member of the European Union, subject to all rights andobligations set out in the Treaties and under EU law, includingthe principle of sincere cooperation. 2. The European Council recognises the need, in theinternational context, to take into account the specificities ofthe United Kingdom as a withdrawing Member State, provided itremains loyal to the Union's interests while still a Member.Similarly the Union expects the United Kingdom to recognise theneed of the 27 Member States to meet and discuss matters relatedto the situation after the withdrawal of the United Kingdom. 3. While the United Kingdom is still a member, all ongoingEU business must continue to proceed as smoothly as possible at28. The European Council remains committed to drive forward withambition the priorities the Union has set itself. Negotiationswith the United Kingdom will be kept separate from ongoing Unionbusiness, and shall not interfere with its progress. * Procedural arrangements for negotiations under Article 50 1. The European Council endorses the arrangements set out inthe statement of 27 Heads of State or Government on 15 December2016. (Reporting by Gabriela Baczynska)
Chicago pediatrician Jihad Shoshara treats a 2-year-old Bedouin child for an upper respiratory infection in Maan, Jordan, in April 2016. (Photo: Courtesy of Jihad Shoshara)

The Syrian American Medical Society (SAMS) is planning a six-day mission for American doctors to care for refugees in camps and ghettos in Jordan.

Jihad Shoshara, a 47-year-old pediatrician who was born and raised in Chicago and studied at the University of Chicago, is organizing the mission, which will send medical personnel on April 8 to the area around Amman, the countrys capital and the most populous city.

SAMS is the major nongovernmental organization within the United States, helping to care for Syrian refugees through missions with volunteers from throughout the United States and other countries. There will be nearly 70 volunteers for this trip, including pediatricians, doctors of internal medicine, orthopedic and plastic surgeons, dentists and translators. It will be the second trip that Shoshara has led.

Basically, its meant to bring expertise to help care for the refugees, Shoshara told Yahoo News. They are refugees because they had no other options. And theyre not looking for anything beyond their own safety and trying to make themselves whole.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees has registered 650,000 official refugees from Syria living in Jordan. Thats roughly 10 percent of Jordans total population.

According to Amnesty International, 93 percent of Syrian refugees in Jordanian urban areas are living in poverty. More than 4.8 million of the refugees are concentrated in just five countries: Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq and Egypt.

Jihad Shoshara volunteers at the medical center of the Al-Zaatari camp for Syrian refugees in Jordan in March 2015. (Photo: Courtesy of Jihad Shoshara)

Refugees in most countries around Syria dont have access to regular support systems. They dont have access to health care or legal work, and their kids dont have access to the education system. So theyre really stuck, Shoshara continued. For most of the patients, the care that were going to be bringing will be the one to two times that theyll actually interact with a doctor.

Syria is the epicenter of the largest worldwide refugee crisis of our time. The European University Institute estimates that 11 million Syrians have fled their homes since the onset of the Syrian civil war in March 2011.

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Shoshara has seen the effect of the Syrian civil war on his own family. His mother was born and raised in the United States, but his father is originally from Damascus, the capital city in southwestern Syria. He had seven aunts and uncles living in Damascus before the war started. He has 45 first cousins on his fathers side alone. Shoshara also lived in Damascus briefly during college, and last traveled there in 2009 to visit his family.

When the war came, the family got shattered. It splintered. Everyone has 14 relatives who are now refugees in Europe, he said.

Just last year, Shoshara said, some of his relatives used boats to cross from Turkey to Greece and walked across Eastern Europe.

He became involved with the medical missions two years ago, when SAMS organized its first trip to Jordan. He was asked to help organize the mission the following year.

Shoshara was interested in correcting several misconceptions about the refugee crisis. He said that it is unfortunate the refugees plight has been politicized and that they are often only considered in the West in terms of national security. He said the refugees would love to return to Syria tomorrow if it were safe.

Jihad Shoshara examines a lesion on the back of a refugees head after cardiologist Ateka Gunja examined his heart, in Irbid, Jordan, in April 2016. (Photo: Courtesy of Jihad Shoshara)

Nobody wants to be a refugee. Nobody in Syria wanted to leave. It was their home country. Nobody wants to leave their home. All my relatives, they never wanted to leave. They left because they were worried they were going to be killed.

By November 2016, only 56 percent of the United Nations humanitarian appeal for Syrian refugees for the year was funded. Within Syria, 13.5 million people need assistance, 6.3 million are internally displaced and 4.9 million are surrounded and hard to reach, according to the humanitarian agency CARE.

Millions of Syrian children are growing up in squalor without proper nutrition and education. Shoshara said hes seen countless malnourished children who bear both physical and psychological scars. He characterized them as a lost generation and said that this could become a broader problem for the international community if they are simply cast aside and forgotten in refugee camps.

The volunteers will be based in a hotel and will pay their own way. Some doctors will enter crowded waiting rooms and see patient after patient, who have been prescreened to a certain degree, until the day is over. This could result in up to 80 visits per doctor a day in urban areas or 20 per doctor in remote areas. Either way, the doctors are preparing for six busy clinical days using basic medicine.

Shoshara said the doctors usually leave with a renewed appreciation for how fortunate they are to live in the United States, thinking about how they can best serve those less fortunate.

All these doctors have come to give their time. Everyone is going to go there and exhaust themselves, he said. You can take all the doctors in America, and were not going to solve the underlying problem thats causing the Syrian refugee crisis.

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On Friday, British Prime Minister Theresa May got wind of a pair of texts that will make her already fraught life a bit more difficult.

The European Council issued a draft of its guidelines for the divorce proceedings, after May officially kicked off Brexit on Wednesday. They are chilly.

The Unions overall objective in these negotiations will be to preserve its interests, those of its Member States, its citizens and its businesses, the text reads. It continues that, because Brexit creates uncertainty not only for Britons but also for all EU citizens, we must proceed according to a phased approach giving priority to an orderly withdrawal  that is, the terms of the divorce must be finalized before discussing future UK-EU relations. A new trade agreement, for example, cannot be negotiated until after the withdrawal.

Speaking to journalists in Malta, European Council President Donald Tusk underscored that the United Kingdom is now on the other side of the negotiating table. He pledged Once, and only once we have achieved sufficient progress on the withdrawal, can we discuss the framework for our future relationship. He added that he hopes to have this first phase concluded by the fall of 2017.

The draft text, set to be approved by the other 27 EU members in Brussels on Apr. 29, also says the Union will act as one in the negotiations.

A Union acting as one must have a wistful sound to May right now. On Friday, Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon wrote to May to ask for permission to hold a second referendum on Scottish independence. May has already said she would block this request until Brexit was finalized. Sturgeon, wants Scots to have a chance to hold the referendum before Brexit, so that they can possibly remain in the EU and not leave in a huff and then be forced to bang forlornly on the door and plead readmittance to a Union they never wanted to leave in the first place. Sturgeon, apparently missing the entire lesson of Brexit, said there is no rational reason for May to block the referendum.

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That both texts landed before May on the same day is likely little more than coincidence  as Dalibor Rohac of the American Enterprise Institute pointed out to Foreign Policy, both have been in the works for a while. But it doesnt make her life any easier.

The more likely it is for Brexit to have real economic consequences for the U.K., the stronger the case for Scottish independence is, he said, adding, Vice versa, the greater the support for independence, the weaker is the hand Theresa May is playing in Brussels.

That isnt to say Scotland would automatically be allowed into the EU if the referendum passed. Rohac said that many member states (Hola, Spain!) are wary of setting a dangerous precedent for their own secessionist movements. But Europe as a whole is also leery of the notion of an optional European Union where countries can opt out and rewrite the terms of membership at leisure.

And it isnt to say that a second independence referendum would necessarily pass. In 2014, just over half of Scots worried leaving the Union would lead to economic turmoil. The economic case for leaving the United Kingdom isnt much stronger now (especially after oil prices cratered, turning the North Sea into as much a liability as an asset.)

Arguably, the economic case not to leave the U.K. is greater now, as a U.K. out of the EU, and a Scotland inside the EU would be a major economic hurdle for millions of Scots, Joseph Dobbs of the European Leadership Network, told FP.

But, theres another huge difference, too, one that will haunt May both in Brussels and in dealings with Holyrood. Unlike the last time her colleagues called a referendum, Dobbs said, this time the Unionist case doesnt look clear either.

What May is learning is that it can be hard to save one Union while you are in talks to walk away from another.

Photo credit: CHRISTOPHER FURLONG/AFP/Getty Images
BEIRUT (Reuters) - More than 7,000 people have escaped Islamic State control in the Tabqa area west of the Syrian city of Raqqa since last week, U.S.-backed local forces fighting the jihadists said on Friday. The Syrian Democratic Forces, an alliance of Kurdish and Arab militia fighters, has been battling Islamic State around Tabqa, nearly 40 km (25 miles) west of Raqqa city. Last week, they captured the northern entrance to the Tabqa Dam, a major target in their military campaign to isolate and capture Islamic States biggest urban stronghold. With air strikes and special ground forces from the U.S.-led coalition, the SDF has been advancing on Raqqa city from the north, east and west. Thousands of families have arrived at SDF-held positions since last week after managing to flee Tabqa and nearby villages, the SDF said. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based organization that monitors the war, said clashes and air strikes had pushed nearly 3,000 people to escape those areas over the past week. The offensive to capture Raqqa will last a number of months, the operation's commander told Reuters earlier on Friday. (This version of the story corrects date in paragraph five) (Reporting by Ellen Francis; editing by Ralph Boulton)
On Friday, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson told NATO allies in Brussels that the United States is spending a disproportionate amount on defense compared to other NATO members. He also said that he expects NATO allies to either increase their defense spending or come up with plans to do so by May 25, when President Donald Trump will meet with other NATO member heads of government, according to the Associated Press.

Thats a continuation of Bush and Obama administration policy in many ways  Washington for years has urged NATO countries to spend 2 percent of GDP on defense, something that only four other countries do. But the Trump administration has turned up the volume. Trump himself on the campaign threatened to reduce U.S. support if NATO allies dont cough up more. And at a February meeting in Brussels, U.S. Secretary of Defense James Mattis said Washington will moderate its commitment if NATO allies do not begin paying more.

Many NATO member countries have acknowledged that they need to increase their defense spending. The tricky part is getting there. Germany, for example, is planning to hit the 2 percent target  not by May, but by 2024.

Seven countries, including Canada, would essentially have to double their defense spending to reach that target. Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland said that, aside from money, its also really important to look at capabilities and what countries are actually doing.

Tillersons comments may have been intended for his boss back home, who appears to believe that other countries not spending domestically on defense is the equivalent of owing a debt to the United States. Still, ultimatums dont always go down well at NATO  especially since the only time in its history the alliance has activated the mutual defense clause was after Trumps hometown came under attack in 2001.

Less controversially, Tillerson also said that the United States will keep sanctions on Russia until Moscow reverses the actions that led to sanctions being put on in the first place  that is, annexing Crimea and invading Ukraine.

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Passive investing has grown in popularity in recent years, as more investors pour money into index and exchange-traded funds. Globally, total assets under management reached the $6 trillion mark as of 2016. That's an increase of 230 percent since 2007, according to Morningstar.

A new report from Moody's Investors Services suggests that the uptick in passive investing is a trend that's likely to continue for the foreseeable future. According to the report, passive investments are expected to account for more than 50 percent of assets under management in the U.S. by 2024, outpacing their active counterparts.

Lower costs, streamlined tax efficiency and liquidity are among the primary factors driving the push towards these investments. Investors are also paying attention to the opportunity to earn strong returns with passive funds, says Nahum Daniels, a certified financial planner with Nahum Daniels in Stamford, Connecticut.

"Passive investing has actually delivered better returns over the last five to 10 years than most active managers have been able to achieve," Daniels says, an assertion that's borne out by data from Morningstar.

[See: 10 Long-Term Investing Strategies That Work.]

According to Morningstar's latest Active/Passive barometer, just 12 percent of active U.S. large-cap growth funds were able to outperform their passive peers over the last decade. That doesn't mean, however, that passive investments are appropriate for every investor. Before making a move into passive funds, there are several important considerations to bear in mind.

Look at the big picture. Ryan Nauman, vice president, product and market strategist at Informa Investment Solutions in South Lake Tahoe, California, says your investment goals and how you view the market can be an indicator of whether passive investing is the right approach to pursue.

"Investors looking to increase a portfolio's alpha are not prime candidates for passive investments," Nauman says. "By the same token, investors who might think a bear market or a correction lies ahead may look for active managers who have the flexibility in their mandates to take a defensive stance or increase their cash exposure to help soften the blow during turbulent times."

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In other words, if you're feeling cagey about where the market is headed, you may have more confidence in your portfolio's ability to ride out fluctuations when there's a dedicated fund manager behind the wheel steering investment decisions. At the other end of the spectrum, says Nauman, are a different subset of investors.

These are investors who believe the value added by active management doesn't offset the higher fees or that the performance of actively managed funds has more to do with luck than the skill of the individual fund manager. Todd Flynn, a certified financial planner and principal at Soundmark Wealth Management in Kirkland, Washington, says this group also features investors who are more comfortable making their own investment decisions.

"The passive strategy continues to grow in popularity, not only because of its inhererent low-cost advantage but because investors are educating themselves and beginning to embrace the essential components of building long-term wealth," Flynn says. "Passive investing is especially suited for investors who want to take charge of their financial destiny, and not turn it over to someone else who professes to be a stock picking or market timing guru."

Asking yourself which side of the line you fall on can go a long way toward helping you determine whether passive investments are the right move.

Be aware of the risks. Gene Neavin, senior investment analyst and portfolio manager of the Federated High Yield Trust and the Federated Equity Advantage Fund at Pittsburgh-based Federated Investors, says investors need to understand how a passive strategy fits in the context of different asset classes.

"Passive investing clearly works and serves a purpose in some asset classes, like equities," Neavin says. "However, in smaller, less efficient asset classes, like high-yield bonds, it doesn't work."

Nauman says the primary risks associated with passive investments are downside and volatility. He points to the credit crisis as an example, reminding investors that more than half of the major U.S. indexes underperformed their respective asset class peers during this period.

[See: 7 Ways to Tell if a Stock Is a Good Price.]

"Active investments have the ability to provide downside protection," Nauman says.

He says another risk lies in the expanding array of products being introduced into the passive management space. While new products mean more variety, it also creates more risk for investors who may not fully understand what they're investing in.

Daniels says investors should carefully consider where they're at in terms of their time horizon until retirement when assessing risk and how comfortable they are with the degree of volatility some passive investments may entail.

"The focus for retirement investors should be avoiding downside risk or losses," Daniels says. "Retirement investors cannot afford to lose money."

He cautions investors to remember that the market isn't static and that passive investments may react differently under one set of conditions versus another. "Passive investing is fine when the markets are rising; however, markets are cyclical. As good as passive investing can be when the markets are up, it's that bad when the markets fall," Daniels says.

When that happens, investors tend to panic and rush to sell off investments. That, says Daniels is a mistake, because it may make recovering from losses more difficult.

Do your research when mixing active and passive investments. If you're thinking of splitting your portfolio between passive and active investments, it's important to find the right balance between the two.

"I recommend indexing about 60 percent of your equity portfolio, concentrating mainly on large-cap stocks in the U.S., Europe, Canada and Japan," Sullivan says. "Actively managed funds can be appropriate for the remaining 40 percent, including emerging markets and some smaller company stocks in the U.S. and abroad."

Sullivan says that in efficient markets, you're better off using low-cost index funds. Large-cap markets in developed countries tend to be more efficient, based on the number of participants, how informed those participants are and the volume of trading. But, Sullivan cautions, you shouldn't blindly sell off actively managed funds and buy index funds.

"Even if index funds outperform active funds, it can make sense to continue to hold an underperforming active fund if selling would trigger a large tax bill," Sullivan says.

Flynn says when it comes to managing passive investments over the long term, investors need to keep their expectations and goals as the focal point. "When creating a portfolio that evolves from a well-constructed financial plan, most investors recognize and embrace asset classes beyond large cap stocks of the S&P 500 index, including international stocks and bonds," Flynn says.

This inevitably means, however, that in bull market cycles, a diversified portfolio may lag behind the S&P 500, which may be more significant in certain years than others.

[See: 9 Growth Funds That Will Turbocharge Your Portfolio.]

"The challenge," Flynn says,"is to establish a portfolio that makes sense, and then stay committed to it in all types of markets."

Rebecca Lake is a freelance Investing & Retirement reporter at U.S. News & World Report. She's been reporting on personal finance, investing and small business for nearly a decade and her work has been featured on The Huffington Post, Business Insider, CBS News and Investopedia. You can connect with her on LinkedIn and Twitter or email her at rlake0836@gmail.com.
SRINAGAR, India (AP)  The 11-year-old boy set out for a stroll with a friend in the main city of the disputed region of Kashmir. It was a sunny spring day, and quiet, during a general strike and after anti-India protests and clashes had subsided with no injuries reported. But Wednesday's walk quickly became traumatic, Mir Mehran recounted, as he and his friend were stopped by Indian paramilitary soldiers who mocked them and questioned why they were out walking and then punished the boys in the street. "They asked us to hold our earlobes and do situps for 10 times. As we were doing so, they laughed at us," Mehran told The Associated Press after photographs began circulating and sparked outrage among local Kashmiris.

SEOUL, South Korea (AP)  Thousands of supporters of arrested former President Park Geun-hye were expected to gather in South Korea's capital on Saturday to call for her release. Seoul police planned to deploy more than 10,000 officers to monitor the rally near City Hall amid concerns of clashes. Opponents and supporters of Park have divided the streets of Seoul in recent months with passionate rallies. Park was jailed Friday over allegations that she colluded with a confidante to extort money from businesses, take bribes and allow the friend to unlawfully interfere with state affairs. Dozens of her supporters rallied outside the detention center Friday, some of them crying and bowing toward the facility while vowing to "protect" her.

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP)  Malaysia's police chief said Friday that three North Koreans who had been hiding out in their country's embassy for weeks were allowed to fly home after investigators cleared them of wrongdoing in the death of Kim Jong Nam. Malaysia and North Korea struck a deal this week to end a diplomatic standoff over the Feb. 13 murder of Kim Jong Nam, the estranged half brother of North Korean ruler Kim Jong Un. Although details of what led to the agreement were not released, it gave North Korea custody of the body and allowed Malaysia to question the three men who were hiding in the embassy.

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PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AP)  A car bomb exploded Friday near a Shiite Muslim mosque in the town of Parachinar in northwestern Pakistan, killing at least 24 people and wounding over 100, officials said. The bomb was detonated near the mosque, which also is not far from the Noor Market, said Mushtaq Ghani, a spokesman for the provincial government. TV footage showed victims being taken away in ambulances and private cars. Jamaat-ul-Ahrar, a breakaway faction of Pakistani Taliban militants, claimed responsibility. Spokesman Asad Mansoor said in a statement that it was carried out by one of the group's members, Abul Durda, and targeted minority Shiites, considered heretics by the militants.

LONDON (AP)  North Korea must be stopped on its path toward being able to threaten the United States with nuclear attack, U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said Friday in a stark expression of America's top national security concern at the moment. He emphasized diplomatic means of changing Pyongyang's "reckless" agenda. On his first visit to Britain as Pentagon chief, Mattis also took rhetorical jabs at Russia and said America's priority in Syria is defeating the Islamic State group rather than bringing down President Bashar Assad. At a joint news conference with his British counterpart, Michael Fallon, Mattis was reminded by a reporter that as commander of U.S.

BOSTON (AP)  Hotels offer congee and other Chinese staples for room service. Casinos train staff members on Chinese etiquette. Restaurants, tourist sights and shopping malls translate signs, menus and information booklets into Chinese. The American hospitality industry is stepping up efforts to make Chinese visitors feel more welcome, since they are projected to soon surpass travelers from the United Kingdom and Japan as the single largest overseas demographic. And it's not just the typical tourist hubs of New York and Los Angeles, where such efforts have long been commonplace. Smaller cities like Boston, Las Vegas, Seattle and Washington, D.C., are increasingly getting into the act, industry officials say.

TOKYO (AP)  Japan's whaling fleet returned home Friday after killing 333 whales in the Antarctic, achieving its goal for the second year under a revised research whaling program. The Fisheries Agency said the five-ship fleet finished its four-month expedition without major interference from anti-whaling activists who have attempted to stop it in the past. Japan says the hunt was for ecological research. Research whaling is allowed as an exception to a 1986 international ban on commercial whaling. Opponents of the Japanese program say it's a cover for commercial whaling because the whales are sold for food. The International Court of Justice ruled in 2014 that Japan's Antarctic whaling program should stop because it wasn't scientific as Tokyo had claimed.

SEOUL, South Korea (AP)  South Korea's embattled former President Park Geun-hye was jailed Friday in a scandal that has set off a political firestorm and led to the arrests and indictments of dozens of high-profile figures. More drama is expected in the scandal in the weeks and months ahead. Here's what is likely to happen. ___ PARK'S FATE Park was sent to a detention facility near Seoul on Friday after the Seoul Central District Court accepted a request from prosecutors to arrest her. Prosecutors can now detain her for up to 20 days before formally indicting her. After indictment, Park is likely to remain in detention, probably for several months, during her trial.

SEOUL, South Korea (AP)  For a person whose life always seemed to revolve around South Korea's huge presidential palace, the next several months will be lived on a much smaller scale. Park Geun-hye entered the Seoul Detention Center in a black sedan before dawn Friday after a court approved her arrest on corruption allegations. The ousted president registered her name and ID number, went through a simple health checkup, and gave up her personal belongings, including hairpins that held up her signature bun. She then changed into light-green prison clothes and was locked in a solitary cell, according to a detention center official who didn't want to be named, citing office rules.

SEOUL, South Korea (AP)  South Korean presidencies have a history of ending badly  the latest is that of Park Geun-hye, arrested Friday in a corruption case that could send her to prison. Nearly all the country's former presidents, or their family members and top aides, have become entangled in scandals near the end of their terms or after leaving office. Besides corruption, there have been coups, an assassination and a suicide: ___ SYNGMAN RHEE (1948-1960) The U.S.-educated Rhee, who fought for Korean liberation from Japanese colonial rule, became South Korea's founding president in 1948 with help from the United States.
By Gabriela Baczynska

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The European Union's top diplomat said on Friday the effect of Brexit on the bloc's joint defense and security operations would be minimal, following a veiled threat from London that it could curb such ties with the alliance if divorce talks turn sour.

Britain, which formally launched the process of leaving the EU on Wednesday, wants simultaneous talks on Brexit and future ties with the EU's remaining 27 states, especially on trade.

EU states and authorities in Brussels are much cooler toward that idea, seeing a future trade deal with Britain as a strong bargaining chip.

Britain, a leading European military power, has suggested it could use its strong standing on military and defense in the same way - prompting warnings from EU officials.

Triggering the Brexit process, Prime Minister Theresa May said in a letter to the EU said "our cooperation in the fight against crime and terrorism would be weakened" if Britain left without a new deal on trade and other matters.

Federica Mogherini, arriving in Brussels for a meeting of NATO foreign ministers, said Britain was providing 3 percent of the EU's foreign civilian missions and 5 percent of the military ones.

"It's a valued contribution but for sure a contribution without which the European Union defense and security can continue perfectly well," she told journalists. "So the leverage in that respect would be really minimal on their side."

Cooperation would in any case continue, she said.

"I wish we could and we will establish a good and solid security and defense cooperation also after Brexit. For sure the European Union and Britain will continue to cooperate in this field, also through our cooperation with NATO."

Other than France, Britain is the only EU state that has the capacity to run large-scale foreign military operations on its own.

Britain's intelligence service is also powerful, not least through its "Five Eyes" pact with the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

On Friday, the EU of 27 proposed Britain would just have to show "sufficient progress" on its divorce settlement in a first phase of Brexit negotiations to have the bloc agree to open trade talks.

(Additional reporting by Hortense de Roffignac; editing by John Stonestreet)
ANKARA, Turkey (AP)  A U.S. official says Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has met the wife of an American pastor who has been jailed in Turkey over terror-related charges.

A State Department official said Friday that Tillerson met Norine Brunson in the Turkish capital of Ankara late Thursday, following his talks with Turkish leaders.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, the official says Tillerson wanted to meet Brunson to share the most recent information he had on Andrew Brunson's case.

The pastor, who denies any wrongdoing, has been in jail since October. He is accused of links to the movement led by U.S.-based Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen, whom Turkey says orchestrated a failed coup attempt in July.

Gulen denies involvement in the coup attempt.
Toshiba stocks surged on Friday as Japanese media said around 10 companies and funds, including Apple, are bidding for its memory chip business, a day after shareholders approved the spin-off plan.

The Tokyo-listed firm surged almost 10 percent before ending the day at 241.4 yen, up 5.78 percent.

Japan's top Nikkei business daily said the first round of bidding had been completed.

US private-equity firm Silver Lake Partners and American chipmaker Broadcom have apparently tendered bids of roughly 2 trillion yen ($17.9 billion), it said.

The mass circulation Yomiuri Shimbun, Japan's top-selling daily, said about 10 companies, including Apple, made bids for the chip business, citing unnamed sources familiar with the matter.

Toshiba will start negotiating with individual candidates next month, the Nikkei said.

It added that any foreign buyer would need to pass a Japanese government review, given concerns about security around systems already using Toshiba's memory chips.

A company spokesman declined comment.

The stories came a day after angry investors lambasted Toshiba executives at a shareholder meeting over its warning that annual losses could balloon to more than $9.0 billion.

The red ink is largely tied to huge cost overruns and construction delays at its US nuclear power unit Westinghouse Electric, which filed for bankruptcy protection this week.

Still, investors agreed to the sale of the memory chip business, the jewel in the Japanese giant's crown.

The sale is seen as key for the cash-strapped firm's turnaround, although there are questions about its future without the business.

Toshiba is the world's number two supplier of memory chips for smartphones and computers, behind South Korea's Samsung, and the business accounted for about a quarter of its 5.67 trillion yen in revenue last fiscal year.

"Short-term investors trying to take advantage of price volatility are looking at Toshiba," said Makoto Sengoku, market analyst at Tokai Tokyo Research Institute.

"The semiconductor business has been a driver of its earnings. Without that, can it really revive itself?"
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin at his confirmation hearing in January. (Photo: J. Scott Applewhite/AP)

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin attempted to get ahead of a potential Lego-related violation Friday with a letter to the Office for Government Ethics.

Last week during an interview with the website Axios, Mnuchin answered a question asking if he had any movie recommendations by urging people to see The Lego Batman Movie. The suggestion was potentially troublesome because he was an executive producer on the film, with his name one of the first to appear in the films closing credits. Any additional revenue made by the film due to his recommendation as a government official would also be a financial benefit to him personally.

In his Friday letter, Mnuchin said he shouldnt have recommended the movie.

As a final question, the interviewer asked me specifically if I had any movie recommendations, wrote Mnuchin. Although I included a disclaimer indicating that it was not my intention to promote any product, I ended my response to that light-hearted question with words that could reasonably have been interpreted to encourage the questioner to see a film in which I was associated. I should not have made that statement.

He continued: I want to assure you that I was aware of the rule against using public office to promote a particular product, as I specifically acknowledged in the interview, and in responding to the question posed by the interviewer, it was not my intention to make a product endorsement. When asked a similar question in a subsequent interview the next day, I refrained from providing a response and will act similarly in the future.

Mnuchin, a former Goldman Sachs executive, has been funding films since 2004 and has 38 producing credits via the Internet Movie Database, all from the last four years and including films such as Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, Suicide Squad, American Sniper and the original Lego Movie. He has one acting credit, a nonspeaking role in Warren Beattys Rules Dont Apply.

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The ethics flap echoes Kellyanne Conways urging of Americans to buy Ivanka Trumps clothing products on Fox News last month. OGE Director Walter M. Shaub Jr. urged the White House to discipline Conway, but the request was declined, with White House Deputy Counsel Stefan C. Passatino stating that Conways statement was made in a light, off-handed manner and press secretary Sean Spicer saying she was counseled after the incident.

The OGE doesnt have the power to investigate or subpoena, and can simply make recommendations to the White House and Congressional Ethics Committees. The office has had to attempt to deal with untangling the various business interests of the Trump administration. On Saturday, the president used his Twitter account to urge people to watch Jeanine Pirros Fox News program, an action White House chief of staff Reince Priebus defended after she used the show to torch House Speaker Paul Ryan. Priebus told Fox News that Trump sent the tweet because he loves Judge Jeanine and wants to do her a favor.

Mnuchin attempted to leave no doubt that he had learned his lesson about promoting his own cinematic work in the future.

I want to assure you that I will exercise greater caution to avoid any suggestion that I do not take those important rules seriously, he concluded in his letter. I will continue to work with the [Treasurys designated agency ethics official] and her team to support the ethics program and promote an ethical culture with in the Department of Treasury.

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By David Lawder, Steve Holland and David Morgan WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump has neither a clear White House tax plan nor adequate staff yet to see through a planned tax reform, according to interviews with people in the administration, in Congress and among U.S. tax experts. In an echo of its attempt to roll back Obamacare that ended in an embarrassing collapse in Congress, the Trump administration has vowed quick action on taxes. But it has yet to appoint people with the skills to evaluate complex tax laws, draft legislation and sell it to deeply divided lawmakers. Burned by last week's failed healthcare measure largely authored by House of Representatives Republicans, Trump is determined not to count on Congress so much this time for handling the details on taxes, his second major legislative initiative. But that only underscores his need for a strong White House tax team, which the administration still lacks. Many policy options are still being studied, from deficit-funded tax cuts to a European-style value-added tax. "They're still sorting out who's in charge, who's going to take the lead," said William Hoagland, a longtime Senate Republican aide who worked on the last successful comprehensive tax reform effort in 1986. "You need someone who has the ear and support of the president who can sell a tax plan, and you need the technical support for that person, said Hoagland, now senior vice president at the Bipartisan Policy Center, a think tank. Financial markets have been reassessing expectations of fast action on taxes that have helped fuel a Trump stocks rally. Members of Trump's tax team are known, but not their exact duties. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and National Economic Council Director Gary Cohn are senior team leaders. Others include White House advisers Steve Bannon, Jared Kushner, Chief of Staff Reince Priebus and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross. Trump huddled with Mnuchin on Thursday to discuss taxes. We are at the first stages of this process, beginning to engage with members of Congress, policy groups, business leaders, industry, constituents from around the country, and other stakeholders, White House spokesman Sean Spicer told reporters on Thursday, Trump's 69th day in office. When Trump was elected in November, Republican lawmakers enthusiastically joined his call to rewrite the tax code and dismantle Obamacare in the first 100 days of his presidency. In early February, Trump promised a "phenomenal" tax plan by early March that never appeared. Mnuchin spoke on Feb. 23 of enacting tax reform by August. Spicer acknowledged this week that the timetable could be slipping. Another senior White House official said the administration had assumed it would still be working on healthcare at this point, not tax reform yet. The official, not authorized to speak publicly, spoke to Reuters on condition of anonymity. So far, Trump's tax campaign is a far cry from President Ronald Reagan's 1986 effort, in which Don Regan, as Treasury secretary and then White House chief of staff, spent many months developing legislation that won bipartisan support in Congress. "The process under Reagan was much more developed, elaborate and long, and there was a strong bench of top-rate technicians putting things together," said Steven Rosenthal, senior fellow at the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center, a think tank. Under Trump, he said, "None of that is happening." 'A LOT SIMPLER' During the 2016 election campaign, Trump issued a tax plan that partly resembled one developed by House Speaker Paul Ryan, but Trump does not now appear wedded to either. It is a safe bet he will not lean heavily on the plan from Ryan, who drafted and championed the ill-fated plan to gut Obamacare. "Trump now desperately needs a policy victory ... I would expect the president to play a much more activist role, said Stephen Moore, a fellow at the Heritage Foundation, a think tank. Moore helped write the Trump campaign tax plan. Mnuchin last week talked about a middle-class tax cut. He also said tax reform in many ways would be "a lot simpler" than healthcare, dismaying tax experts who said that is not so. Comprehensive tax reform is so complex that it has defied Congresses and presidents since Reagan. Tax law is riddled with loopholes embedded in the economy and defended by beneficiaries. Some fundamental questions remain unanswered within the Trump team. For instance, it is unclear if Trump would support a plan that adds to the budget deficit. Past tax reform efforts have tried to be "revenue neutral." Trump also has sent mixed messages on Ryan's proposed "border adjustment tax" that would end the corporate deduction for import costs and make export income tax-free, aiming to boost exports and raise new tax revenues. The Trump team is heavy on Wall Street experience, but short on tax expertise. At Treasury, Mnuchin is the only Senate-confirmed political appointee in place. The job of Treasury assistant secretary for tax policy is unfilled. A person familiar with the hiring process for the job said: "Treasury needs more capable tax expertise ASAP, or the White House will yank total control for tax reform from the department for the rest of the year, maybe beyond." Mark Mazur, who held the Treasury tax job under former Democratic President Barack Obama, said Mnuchin has too much on his plate to concentrate fully on taxes. Mnuchin has praised Treasury's 100 tax policy career staff, but they can only offer options to Trump appointees, said Mazur, now director of the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center. "The political appointees are the ones who need to turn the crank on the sausage-making machine," Mazur said. (Additional reporting by Jennifer Ablan in New York; Editing by Kevin Drawbaugh and Alistair Bell)
Washington (AFP) - US President Donald Trump has predicted an upcoming meeting with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping would be "very difficult", staking out an adversarial position ahead of the high-profile first summit between the leaders.

Trump's comments Thursday appeared to herald a return to a tougher line from the president, who took a hawkish tone on the Asian giant in the weeks after his election before softening his rhetoric.

"The meeting next week with China will be a very difficult one," Trump tweeted, in apparent reference to a Xi visit planned for next week in Mar-a-Lago.

"We can no longer have massive trade deficits... and job losses. American companies must be prepared to look at other alternatives."

The summit at Trump's Florida residence will be the first face-to-face meeting between the heads of the world's two most powerful nations and leading economies.

It follows a rocky start to US-China relations under the billionaire politician, who has repeatedly blasted Beijing for its trade policies and reluctance to bring pressure on North Korea over its nuclear and missile programs.

But at a briefing in Beijing Friday, China's vice minister of foreign affairs Zheng Zeguang sidestepped questions about Trump's remarks, repeatedly emphasising that "both China and the US attach great importance to the upcoming presidential meeting."

Washington and Beijing "hope for a successful meeting so that a correct direction will be set for the growth of bilateral relations", he added.

The meeting, which is scheduled for April 6-7 and was confirmed by both countries Thursday, could be crucial in setting the tone of the relationship between the two powers in coming years.

In a statement Thursday, the White House said that the leaders will "discuss global, regional, and bilateral issues of mutual concern".

Just weeks ago the summit seemed a distant possibility after Trump infuriated Beijing with suggestions he might break from the US's long-standing One China Policy, which nominally acknowledges the Asian giant's claims over Taiwan without recognizing them.

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In a conciliatory phone call in mid-February, the US president walked back controversial comments on Taiwan, creating an opening for Washington and Beijing to discuss a meeting.

"The summit could well be a peaceful combination of a strategic kumbaya and economic gift giving, before storms erupt later over trade, regional hotspots, and human resources-issues," according to Douglas Paal, Asia Director at the Washington-based Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

- Tough tone -

But Trump's tough language on trade and increasing frustration about China's policies on North Korea might be a signal that he is already willing to throw sand in the gears.

Relations have been strained by China's fierce opposition to a US missile defense system being rolled out in South Korea to protect against attacks from the North.

The US ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley on Thursday said China can and must do more to force North Korea to halt its nuclear and missile programs.

And, amid reports that Pyongyang is preparing another banned nuclear test, she said Washington would not settle for holding another UN debate.

"I have no patience for it, and it is not helping anyone. And it's not about me. This administration has no patience for it," she said.

Trump's tweet and Haley's comments appeared to be orchestrated, coming just hours after both countries publicly announced Xi's visit, which had been in the pipeline for weeks.

The tough tone could be a negotiating gambit from a man who prides himself on mastering the "Art of the Deal."

But publicly, at least, China is not taking the bait. Asked about Trump's statements on trade deficits, vice foreign minister Zheng said that Chinese investment "has been growing rapidly over recent years.

"Chinese investment has created jobs for American communities and also helped ease the trade imbalance."

In January, the US ran a $31.4 billion deficit with China, after a $347 billion deficit in 2016, according to US census data.

Zheng said the US could help address the imbalance by relaxing regulations on high tech exports to China and further opening to Chinese investment.

Chinese companies went on a multi-billion-dollar shopping spree last year, snapping up US companies from insurance giant Genworth Financial to Hollywood studio Legendary.

But firms in the US and EU have complained of a lack of reciprocal access to Chinese industries, with many sectors off-limits or restricted to outside investment. Among them are telecommunications, media, energy, and legal and financial services.
(Reuters) - Highlights of the day for U.S. President Donald Trump's administration on Thursday: TRUMP VS. CONSERVATIVE REPUBLICANS Trump lashes out at Republican conservatives who helped torpedo healthcare legislation he backed, escalating a feud within his party that jeopardizes the new administration's legislative agenda. RUSSIA Trump's former national security adviser, Michael Flynn, has discussed with congressional committees giving testimony in their investigations of potential ties between the Trump campaign and Russia, his lawyer says. Russia mounted a campaign of "propaganda on steroids" seeking to influence the 2016 U.S. presidential election, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee says, listing several areas of concern about possible links to Republican Trump's campaign. The White House has invited the top Republican and Democratic members of the Senate and House of Representatives intelligence panels to review new material relevant to their investigation into Russia's alleged interference in the election, presidential spokesman Sean Spicer says. CHINA Trump sets the tone for a tense first meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping next week by tweeting that the United States could no longer tolerate massive trade deficits and job losses. SURVEILLANCE Two White House officials played a role in providing House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes with documents showing Trump and his associates were swept up in surveillance by U.S. intelligence agencies, The New York Times reports. SUPREME COURT Senators Joe Manchin and Heidi Heitkamp become the first Democrats to support the confirmation of Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch, giving Republicans two of eight Democratic votes needed to avoid a nasty fight on the U.S. Senate floor next week. IMMIGRATION The Justice Department will appeal a ruling from a Hawaii federal judge that granted an injunction blocking Trump's revised restrictions on travel from some Muslim-majority countries, it says in a court filing. NAFTA In revamping the North American Free Trade Agreement, the Trump administration will seek tax equality and the ability to reimpose tariffs if a flood of imports from Canada and Mexico causes "a threat of serious injury" to U.S. industry, a draft of negotiating objectives shows. SYRIA The United States' diplomatic policy on Syria for now is no longer focused on making the war-torn country's president, Bashar al-Assad, leave power, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations says, in a departure from the Obama administration's initial and public stance on Assad's fate. (Compiled by Jonathan Oatis; Editing by Leslie Adler and Peter Cooney)
((In March 30 item, corrects spelling of Kislyak in paragraph 3)) WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Donald Trump's former national security adviser, Michael Flynn, has offered to testify before congressional committees probing potential ties between the Trump campaign and Russia but wants protection against "unfair prosecution," his lawyer said on Thursday. "General Flynn certainly has a story to tell, and he very much wants to tell it, should the circumstances permit," said a statement from Flynn's lawyer, Robert Kelner. Testimony from Flynn could help shed light on the conversations he had with Russian Ambassador to the United States Sergei Kislyak last year when he was the national security adviser for Trump's presidential campaign. Kelner said discussions had taken place about Flynn's availability to testify with officials of the intelligence committees of both the U.S. Senate and the House of Representatives. Both committees are investigating allegations of Russian meddling in the U.S. election campaign last year as well as possible ties between the Trump campaign and Russians. Flynn was forced to resign as Trump's national security adviser in February for failing to disclose talks with the Russian ambassador before Trump took office about U.S. sanctions on Moscow and misleading Vice President Mike Pence about the conversations. Questions remain about the scope of the discussions and what other contacts took place between other Trump advisers with the Russians. Earlier this week, the White House disclosed that Trump's son-in-law and White House senior adviser, Jared Kushner, met executives of Russian state development bank Vnesheconombank, or VEB, in December. U.S. intelligence agencies have said Russia hacked emails of senior Democrats and orchestrated the release of embarrassing information in a bid to tip the presidential election in favor of Trump, whose views were seen as more in line with the Moscow's. Russia has denied the allegations. Trump has dismissed suggestions of links with Moscow as Democratic sour grapes for losing the election. 'WITCH HUNT ENVIRONMENT' The Wall Street Journal, citing officials with knowledge of the matter, reported on Thursday that Flynn had sought immunity from the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the House and Senate intelligence panels in exchange for his testimony. The newspaper said he had so far found no takers. The House denied the Journal report. "Michael Flynn has not offered to testify to HPSCI in exchange for immunity," committee spokesman Jack Langer said in a statement. The FBI declined to comment. The Senate committee did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Kelner's statement did not mention the FBI. He said Flynn "is now the target of unsubstantiated public demands by Members of Congress and other political critics that he be criminally investigated." Kelner said Flynn would not "submit to questioning in such a highly politicized, witch hunt environment without assurances against unfair prosecution."Independent Senator Angus King, a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, told CNN he could not confirm the Journal report, but "if that turns out to be the case, that's a significant development I believe because it indicates that he has something important to say. (Reporting by Eric Beech; Additional reporting by Mark Hosenball; Editing by Grant McCool and Peter Cooney)
WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Donald Trump talked tough on trade on the campaign trail, vowing to renegotiate a slew of major deals and to label China a currency manipulator on "Day One."

Now his administration appears to be taking a more cautious approach.

On Friday, the president will sign a pair of executive orders aimed at cracking down on trade abuses, according to top administration officials. The first calls for the completion of a large-scale report to identify "every form of trade abuse and every non-reciprocal practice that now contributes to the U.S. trade deficit," said Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross.

Officials will have 90 days to produce a country-by-country, product-by-product report that will serve as the basis of future decision-making by the administration on trade-related issues, Ross told reporters at a Thursday night briefing.

"It will demonstrate the administration's intention not to hip-shoot, not to do anything casual, not to do anything abruptly, but to take a very measured and analytical approach, both to analyzing the problem and therefore to developing the solutions for it," he said.

While Trump has long argued that trade deficits imperil U.S. workers, Ross cautioned that they aren't necessarily all bad. In some cases, for instance, the U.S. simply can't produce enough of a product to meet domestic demand. In others, foreign countries may make products substantially cheaper or better than in the U.S. They can also mean that foreign countries and entities are investing in U.S. assets.

Still, Ross argued, the U.S. has the lowest tariff rates of any developed country. The report, he said, will examine whether deficits are being driven by things like cheating, specific trade agreements, lax enforcement and World Trade Organization rules.

Ross said the report would not focus extensively on currency manipulation, which is under the purview of the U.S. Treasury Department, despite Trump's campaign rhetoric.

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The second order will focus on stepping up the collection of anti-dumping and countervailing duties, which are levied against foreign governments that subsidize products so they can be sold below cost.

Peter Navarro, the director of the White House National Trade Council, said the U.S. is leaving billions of dollars on the table as a result of lax enforcement. The order will establish more effective bonding requirements, among other measures.

The orders come a week before the president is scheduled to host Chinese President Xi Jinping at his Florida Mar-a-Lago estate.

Trump tweeted Thursday evening that his first meeting with the Chinese leader would "be a very difficult one in that we can no longer have massive trade deficits ... and job losses."

"American companies must be prepared to look at other alternatives," he wrote. The U.S. deficit with China was $347 billion last year.

But Navarro insisted the orders had nothing to do with the visit or sending a message to China.

"Nothing we're saying tonight is about China. Let's not make this a China story. This is a story about trade abuses, this is a story about an under-collection of duties," he said, later adding: "We're not here for tweets."

The U.S. trade deficit totaled $502.3 billion last year, a slight increase from 2015, according to the Commerce Department. The trade gap rose to its highest level since 2012 last year, though the imbalance remains below its 2006 high, shortly before the Great Recession struck.

Trump has portrayed trade deficits as strangling economic growth and devastating factory jobs. Research last year by academic economists, including David Autor of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, found that China's emergence hurt some communities and they have yet to fully recover.

But foreign trade has also helped reduce prices for clothing, cars and furniture, among other items. This has created savings for U.S. consumers.

While economists concede the benefits of trade can be uneven, they argue the job losses that Trump blames on trade pacts can largely be attributed to automation. A study released this week by the National Bureau of Economic Research estimates that robots account for up to 670,000 lost factory jobs between 1990 and 2007.

Both exports abroad and imports into the United States fell in 2016, but exports declined by a greater sum in part due to a stronger dollar making American-made goods and services more expensive overseas.





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By Kim Palmer

CLEVELAND (Reuters) - Ohio police have identified two suspects in a shooting at a Cincinnati night club over the weekend in which one person was killed and 16 injured, authorities said on Thursday.

One of the suspects, Cornell Beckley, 27, was arrested on Thursday and charged with murder, Cincinnati Police Chief Eliot Isaac said at a press conference.

A second suspect, 29-year-old Deondre Davis, who is in critical condition at University of Cincinnati Medical Center after being shot in the early Sunday incident, has also been charged with murder, said Isaac.

Isaac said he expects more arrests. Officials previously said a lack of security video footage at Cameo Nightlife, despite its history of violence, hampered the probe.

Officials have said a fight that spun out of control led to the shooting and that there was no evidence of a "terrorist attack" such as last year's Pulse nightclub massacre in Orlando, Florida, that killed 49 people in the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history.

Isaac said there could be a third shooter from the Ohio nightclub, citing a belief by police that three guns were brought into the nightclub. Investigators have found at least 16 shell casings at the scene, he added.

Cincinnati Mayor John Cranley called the incident the worst mass shooting in the citys history and hailed the arrests.

Four police officers were providing security in the clubs parking lot when the shots were fired.

Cameo Nightlife's Facebook page says it features "College Friday's" for students 18 and older and "Saturday's 21+ grown and sexy night."

Cincinnati City Manager Harry Black previously said the club had surrendered its liquor licence and would be closed until the investigation is complete. The club, a large single-story structure, is a 7-mile (11 km) drive from downtown Cincinnati.

(Reporting by Kim Palmer, Editing by Ben Klayman and Grant McCool)
By Mike Stone (Reuters) - President Donald Trump's Air Force secretary nominee, Heather Wilson, told U.S. senators on Thursday that other jets lacked the stealth capability of Lockheed Martin Corp's F-35 fighter jet, in remarks suggesting the Pentagon's most expensive weapons system would have an important advocate. Wilson, a former U.S. representative from New Mexico, would become the top civilian overseeing the Air Force if confirmed by the Senate. Her purview would include weapons acquisitions like the stealthy F-35 jet. Asked if she felt it would make sense to rely on a spruced-up version of the F-18, she said: "As a general matter, the real thing I don't think you can do with an F-18 or an F-15 or an F-16 is give it stealth capability retroactively." Her comments are significant because Trump has suggested buying more Boeing Co F/A-18s, which he called "comparable" to the F-35. This is despite the F-35's status as a stealth aircraft, meaning it is difficult for enemy radar to detect. The 1990s-vintage F/A-18 does not use stealth technology. The U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on Wilson's nomination touched on expanding the size of the Air Force, acquisitions of new space and cyber warfare capabilities as well as aircraft like the F-35. In January, U.S. Defense Secretary James Mattis ordered cost-cutting reviews of two major aircraft acquisition programs including the F-35. The ongoing review is examining how to cut costs and also determine whether Boeing's F/A-18E/F Super Hornet, with improvements, could be an effective, less expensive alternative to the F-35C variant. Wilson did not delve into new acquisition program specifics during the hearing but said "the Air Force is too small for what the nation expects of it." She is the first civilian head of a military branch to testify before the Senate this year. Nominees for the Army and Navy have removed their names from consideration. A graduate of the U.S. Air Force Academy, Wilson has been president of the South Dakota School of Mines & Technology since 2013 and said during her testimony that her nomination was "unexpected." The Senate must hold a vote to confirm Wilson as the secretary of the Air Force. (Reporting by Mike Stone in Arlington, Va.; Editing by Matthew Lewis)
By Andrew Chung

(Reuters) - A U.S. appeals court on Friday blocked the release of classified videos of a former Guantanamo Bay prisoner being force-fed while on a hunger strike, in a ruling that underscored the power of the presidency in national security matters.

A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in Washington unanimously overturned a lower court judge's order to make the videos public.

The case, which began during the presidency of Barack Obama, balanced freedom of the press against national security.

Noting that the 32 videos had been classified as secret, the court said in its ruling that the president had a "constitutional duty to prevent our government's secret information from seeing the light of day, in judicial proceedings or otherwise."

An attorney for several news organizations that had sought the videos' release, David Schulz, called the ruling "troubling" and said he was weighing further steps. The Department of Justice declined to comment.

The case began in 2005 when the former prisoner, Syrian national Abu Wa'el Dhiab, sought to challenge his detention at the prison on the U.S. naval base in Cuba.

Dhiab said the practice of being forcibly removed from his cell, restrained and force-fed through a nasal tube was illegal and abusive. He was released from Guantanamo in 2014 and transferred to Uruguay.

Authorities recorded Dhiab's force-feeding in order to train guards on how to handle such situations, court papers said.

During the litigation, Dhiab's lawyer obtained some of the videos and filed them with the court under seal.

In 2014, 16 news media organizations, including the Associated Press, The New York Times Co, and Reuters, a subsidiary of Thomson Reuters Corp, intervened in the case. They argued that, under the U.S. Constitution's First Amendment - which guarantees freedom of speech and the press - the public had a right to see the videos, now part of a court record.

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A federal district judge in Washington originally ordered the videos unsealed in 2014, with redactions to protect the identities of government personnel. The Obama administration appealed.

The government argued that disclosure could increase the risk of detainees and outside militants developing measures to counter guards' techniques. The material could also be used to incite violence against American troops and as propaganda to recruit militant fighters, the government said.

In its Friday decision, the appeals court ruled there were no First Amendment grounds for releasing the videos. "The government's interest in ensuring safe and secure military operations clearly overcomes any qualified First Amendment right of access," the court said.

The case is Dhiab v Trump, in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, 16-5011.

(Reporting by Andrew Chung; Editing by Jonathan Oatis)
By Crispian Balmer and Steve Scherer ROME (Reuters) - Italy's preparations for hosting this year's Group of Seven major powers meetings have been hampered by the slow transition at the U.S. State Department, which has created decision-making bottlenecks, European diplomatic sources said. The G7 draws together the United States, Japan, Germany, France, Britain, Italy and Canada, with countries taking it in turn to draw up agendas that they see as of pressing concern. Italy holds the 2017 presidency and its objectives laid out this week appeared to put Rome on a collision course with U.S. President Donald Trump by promoting highly sensitive topics such as climate change, free trade and immigration initiatives. The G7 foreign ministers meet in Tuscany on April 10-11, preparing for a leaders' summit in Sicily at the end of May. However, officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue, said efforts to reach an agreement on statements and strategy ahead of time - a normal part of pre-meeting G7 diplomacy - were going slowly. The immediate concerns lay with the State Department, where new Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has left vacant numerous positions seen as vital to drafting summit accords. "It's very difficult to talk to someone who can give a straight answer because the ones who are there are 'acting' head of something and they're not even very senior," said a senior Italian government official involved in G7 diplomacy. The White House has yet to nominate candidates for either of the two deputy secretary of state slots, beneath Tillerson. Further down the chain, all six of the department's regional bureaus are led by acting assistant secretaries of state, while Trump has yet to appoint ambassadors to Italy or the Vatican. "This has made it extremely difficult for us to prepare for the meeting," the government official added. A State Department official acknowledged that some positions had yet to be filled, but said that it was preparing for a "successful" series of G7 meetings. "We continue to have a deep bench of experienced and capable staff members serving in key positions and working closely with their G7 counterparts, including our Italian hosts," the official said. A diplomat in another European capital also involved in G7 preparations said the department heads beneath the secretary of state were vital for getting approval for agendas, scheduling and the often delicate wording of policy statements. "We no longer know who to talk to. It is slowing everything down," he said, adding that any ambitious projects would struggle to take off given the confusion. A senior diplomat in a third EU capital said: "Since President Trump took office, it has become very difficult to deal with the State Department on planning and we are still learning to work with that." NO FUNDING The senior Italian diplomat leading behind-the-scenes G7 discussions, Raffaele Trombetta, said this week that Africa would play a prominent role in Italy's summit agenda, with seven African leaders invited to join the talks in Sicily. However, in a sign that Rome was lowering expectations for this year's event, the Italian government was unlikely to launch any major funding initiative at a time when Trump is looking to slash back on U.S. foreign aid. "Usually the G7 sets aside money for a particular cause, but this time it doesn't look like there's the will to do it. It's not just the Americans. The Japanese don't want one either," said the Italian government source. Trombetta said "trust" was the presidency slogan - trust between governments and their citizens, and between countries. "There is also a need of renewed trust between the leaders who will be attending the summit," he said, noting that the prime ministers of Britain and Italy and the presidents of France and the United States would be attending their first G7. EU leaders worry Trump might undermine 70 years of strong trans-Atlantic ties and have been alarmed by his criticism of NATO, his support for trade protectionism, his rejection of climate change policies, and his anti-migrant rhetoric. Flying into these headwinds, Trombetta said Italy wanted the G7 to reaffirm the importance of the 2015 Paris agreement, which obliges nations to curb global warming and which senior White House advisers have called on Trump to renounce. Rome was also eager for a commitment "to fighting all forms of protectionism", said Trombetta. However, he acknowledged that this might be hard to achieve, with the United States this month already breaking with a tradition of endorsing open trade at a meeting of G20 finance ministers in Germany. "It is a highly political issue. I expect it will go up to the leaders. It will be dealt with by them at the Taormina summit ... It will be one of the main points of tension of our presidency," he said. Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni is flying to the United States next month, in part to seek an understanding with Trump on the G7 agenda ahead of the Sicily summit. But if Trump pushes back, he is unlikely to face strong resistance from Italy, which has made good relations with the United States the cornerstone of its foreign policy. "We can argue with France, Germany and Britain, but never with America," said another senior government official, who was not authorized to talk to the media. "We will do with Trump what we always do (with the Americans); find a way to get along with him." (Additional reporting by Arshad Mohammed and Yeganeh Torbati in Washington,; Robin Emmott in Brussels; editing by Giles Elgood)
By Jan Wolfe (Reuters) - A federal judge in Delaware on Friday struck down key patents held by Acorda Therapeutics Inc related to its multiple sclerosis drug Ampyra, causing the stock to tumble 24 percent before trading was halted. The ruling by U.S. District Judge Leonard Stark opens the door for generic versions of the drug by companies including Mylan Inc and Roxane Laboratories Inc. Those companies had sought approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to sell a generic version of Ampyra. Acorda responded by suing them, seeking a court declaration that its patents on the drugs were valid. Sales of Ampyra, which is used to improve walking in MS patients, accounted for almost 90 percent of Ardsley, New York-based Acorda's 2016 revenue of $519 million. Stark invalidated four Acorda patents on methods of delivering the drug which were not set to expire until between 2025 and 2027. In a minor victory for Acorda, the judge upheld one patent on the extended-release formulation of Ampyra, which is set to expire in 2018. Acorda Chief Executive Ron Cohen said in a statement the company is disappointed by the ruling and is preparing to appeal. The company said it has developed contingency plans to address its business goals in the event Ampyra becomes available as a low-cost generic drug and will update investors when it finalizes a timeline for implementing those plans. A total of ten drug companies have sought to sell generic versions of Ampyra. Acorda reached settlement agreements with seven of the generic companies, including Allergan plc and Par Pharmaceuticals. Mylan, Roxane Laboratories Inc and Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd did not settle and challenged the validity of Acordas patents in court. (Editing by Richard Chang and Bernadette Baum)
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is disappointed and alarmed by Israel's decision to build a new settlement on land the Palestinians seek for a state and has condemned the move, his spokesman said on Friday. Israel's security cabinet on Thursday approved the building of the first new settlement in the occupied West Bank in two decades, even as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu negotiates with Washington on a possible curb of settlement activity. "He condemns all unilateral actions that, like the present one, threaten peace and undermine the two-state solution," U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said in a statement. The White House appeared more accommodating to Israel's plans for the new settlement, intended for some 40 families evicted from Amona, a West Bank outpost razed in February because it was built on private Palestinian land. A White House official noted Netanyahu had made a commitment to the Amona settlers before U.S. President Donald Trump and the Israeli leader agreed to work on limiting settlement activity. Trump, who had been widely seen in Israel as sympathetic towards settlements, appeared to surprise Netanyahu during a White House visit last month, when he urged him to "hold back on settlements for a little bit." The two then agreed that their aides would try to work out a compromise on how much Israel can build and where. "The Israeli government has made clear that Israel's intent is to adopt a policy regarding settlement activity that takes President Trump's concerns into consideration," a written statement from the official said. Following Thursday's announcement, Israeli officials said Netanyahu's security cabinet decided out of respect for Trump's peace efforts to limit construction in settlements to existing, built-up areas and not to expand beyond present boundaries. The White House was informed in advance about the planned announcement of a new settlement as well as the Israeli policy shift and raised no objections, a person close to the matter said, signaling possible coordination between the two governments. U.S. and Israeli officials completed a round of talks on the settlements last week without agreement, saying the discussions were ongoing, and the two sides have yet to announce any final understanding on the issue. Trump's Middle East envoy, Jason Greenblatt, this week wrapped up a second trip to the region aimed at reviving peace talks that collapsed in 2014. Palestinians want the West Bank and East Jerusalem for their own state, along with the Gaza Strip. Most countries view Israeli settlement activity as illegal and an obstacle to peace. Israel disagrees, citing biblical and historical ties to the land it captured in the 1967 Middle East war, as well as security concerns. The U.N. Security Council adopted a resolution in December that demanded a halt to settlement building, after the Obama administration decided to abstain from the vote instead of vetoing the moving. Sweden's U.N. Ambassador Olof Skoog, a member of the Security Council, said on Friday that the 15-member Security Council should respond to the latest announcement by Israel on settlements. "The urgency of the situation and the deterioration on the ground might call for some sort of Security Council action, although we know that finding unity on this is not easy," he told reporters. (Reporting by Michelle Nichols; Maayan Lubell in Jerusalem and Matt Spetalnick in Washington; Editing by Bernadette Baum)
By Isabel Coles and Maher Chmaytelli HASSAN SHAM CAMP/MOSUL, Iraq (Reuters) - United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres on Friday called on world powers to increase aid to help people fleeing the Iraqi city of Mosul which government forces have been battling to retake from Islamic State. Iraqi forces have seized back most of the country's second-largest city from the Sunni hardline group in a massive six-month campaign. But at least 355,000 residents have fled fighting, according to the government, and some 400,000 civilians remain trapped inside the densely-populated Old City where street battles have raged for weeks. "We don't have the resources necessary to support these people," Guterres told reporters during a visit to the Hassan Sham Camp, one of several centers outside Mosul packed with civilians escaping the fighting. The U.N. and Iraqi authorities have been building more camps but struggle to accommodate new arrivals with two families sometimes having to share one tent. "Unfortunately our program is only 8 percent funded," he said, referring to a 2017 U.N. humanitarian response program without giving additional details. During his visit, which lasted about half an hour, residents complained to Guterres about the quality of drinking water and poor living conditions in tents frequented by mice and insects. "We want to go back to our villages. We are fed up," said Saqr Younis, who fled to Mosul when Islamic State arrived in his village in 2014. "If we had died by bombardment it would have been more merciful," said Saqr who has been in the camp for four months. Many of the displaced have returned to their homes in areas retaken from Islamic State but some, like Saqr, have not yet been allowed to return by the authorities. The Sunni group overran about a third of Iraq in 2014, benefiting from the Sunni-Shi'ite rift that weakened the army. Iraqi forces have won back control of most cities that fell to the group and the militants have been dislodged from nearly three quarters of Mosul but remain in control of its center. On Friday, Islamic State fired at least 18 rockets from western Mosul into the eastern part which Iraqi force have retaken, the city's police chief Brigadier General Wathiq al-Hamdani told Reuters. Machine gunfire and mortars could be heard in the area of the old city but like in previous days there was no new push by government forces. State television said the air force bombed an Islamic State position in Baaj, some 130 km west of Mosul near the Syrian border. Government positions have reached as close as 500 meters to the al-Nuri Mosque, from where Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi declared a caliphate spanning parts of Iraq and Syria in July 2014. Baghdadi and other IS leaders are believed to have left the city but U.S. officials estimate around 2,000 fighters remain inside the city, resisting with snipers hiding among the population, car bombs and suicide trucks targeting Iraqi positions. (additional reporting by Alaa Mohammed in Baghdad; Writing by Ulf Laessing; Editing by Julia Glover)
By Michelle Nichols UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The U.N. Security Council has agreed a compromise on a reduced troop cap of 16,215 for its peacekeeping mission in Democratic Republic of Congo, the United Nations' largest and most expensive, after the United States asked for it to be cut by a quarter, diplomats said on Thursday. The 15-member body is due to vote on Friday to renew the mandate for the $1.2 billion operation, known as MONUSCO, amid U.N. warnings that violence is spreading across the central African state ahead of planned elections before the end of 2017. "We have an agreement," French U.N. Ambassador Francois Delattre told reporters on Thursday. The United States had wanted the troop cap to be cut to 15,000, diplomats said. Despite a request by Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to add two extra police units - 320 officers - the council has agreed to a Washington demand to keep the current total of 1,050 officers, according to the draft resolution. Instead the draft text asks Guterres to "explore the possibility of inter-mission cooperation through appropriate transfers of troops and their assets from other United Nations missions to MONUSCO" if needed and subject to council approval. France leads Security Council action on Congo and had proposed a troop cap of 17,000, diplomats said. The mission currently has a cap of 19,815, though there are only 16,893 soldiers on the ground after the previous U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon made cuts in 2015 and 2016. It is the first peacekeeping mission to come up for renewal since U.S. President Donald Trump proposed that Washington - the largest U.N. contributor - cut funding. U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley is reviewing the 16 U.N. peacekeeping operations. Haley said on Wednesday that U.N. peacekeepers in the Democratic Republic of Congo are aiding a government that is "corrupt and preys on its citizens." Resource-rich Congo, which gained independence from colonial power Belgium in 1960, has never had a peaceful transition of power and President Joseph Kabila's refusal to stand down when his final term expired in December has raised fears the chronically unstable country could slide back into civil war. Opposition leaders signed a fragile deal with the ruling coalition and allies of Kabila on Dec. 31 that requires him to step down after elections that must happen by the end of 2017. This week villagers discovered the bodies of two U.N. investigators and their Congolese interpreter who went missing this month in Kasai Central province, an area engulfed in a violent uprising. (Reporting by Michelle Nichols; Editing by James Dalgleish)
By David Lawder WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Trump administration on Friday slammed China on a range of trade issues from its chronic industrial overcapacity to forced technology transfers and longstanding bans on U.S. beef and electronic payment services. The annual trade barriers list from the U.S. Trade Representative's (USTR) office sets up more areas of potential irritation for the first face-to-face meeting between President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping next week in Florida. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, asked about his expectations for the meeting, told Fox News on Friday: What I would hope will come out would be a commitment to starting to abide by the rules and a commitment to working collaboratively to help reduce our deficit. USTR, controlled by the White House, said that Chinese government industrial policies and financial support for industries such as steel and aluminum have resulted in overproduction and a flood of exports that have distorted global markets and undermined competitors. "While China has begun to take steps to address steel excess capacity, these steps have been inadequate to date and even fewer efforts have been taken by China in aluminum and other sectors," USTR said in the report. USTR released the list of trade irritants in 63 countries just after senior Trump trade officials announced an executive order to study the causes of U.S. trade deficits. The report said China also is using a series of cybersecurity restrictions as part of an apparent long-term goal to replace foreign information and communications technology products and services with locally produced versions. USTR also accused China of using a range of measures to engineer the transfer of foreign technology to Chinese firms. They include denying financial or regulatory approvals to companies using foreign-owned intellectual property (IP) or that do not conduct research or manufacture products in China. "China also reportedly conditions foreign investment approvals on technology transfer to Chinese entities, mandates adverse licensing terms on foreign IP licensors, uses anti-monopoly laws to extract technology on unreasonable terms and subsidizes acquisition of foreign high technology firms to bring technology to the Chinese parent companies." Gaps in IP rights enforcement have allowed the misappropriation of foreign IP and trade secrets, both within and outside of China. USTR's criticisms are consistent with increasingly vocal concerns raised by international business groups about what they see as a worsening business climate for foreign firms in China, as well as China's goal to boost domestic manufacturing content in 10 sectors from robotics to biopharmaceuticals. Earlier this month, the European Union Chamber of Commerce said the "Made in China 2025" plan amounts to a "large-scale import substitution plan aimed at nationalizing key industries" or "severely curtailing the position of foreign business." USTR also brought up longstanding complaints about online piracy of movies, books, music, video games and software in China as well as a ban on U.S. beef that has been in place since 2003. It said delays in China's approval process for agricultural products derived from biotechnology also worsened in 2016, hurting U.S. corn exports. Ross, the commerce secretary, also said Trump will sign two executive orders on Friday. The first calls for a 90-day study by the Commerce Department into the causes of U.S. trade deficits, the results of which would be used to formulate policy. A second order would solve a problem involving collection of anti-dumping duties, he said. Theres some $3 billion worth of duties that have never been collected because they set up straw-man importers that dont have any financial substance, so by the time the case ends, theres nobody there against whom you can assess the fine. So what these orders will do is require letters of credit or insurance company bonds or cash so there will be somebody against whom we can levy the fine, Ross said. (Additional reporting by Eric Walsh; Editing by Michael Perry and Jeffrey Benkoe)
On a rainy day last fall, longtime AIDS activist Olga Palamarchuk took me back to her new home in Odessa, Ukraine. To call it a home might be too generous; it was a chilly basement room in a halfway house for recovering drug users. But Olga and her teenaged daughter were happy to have a roof over their heads, two years after they fled Donetsk, a center of the war between Ukraine and Russian-backed separatists in the eastern part of the country. Olga is one of the estimated 1.7 million people displaced by the conflict. She participated in the massive demonstrations at Kievs central square, Maidan Nezalezhnosti, in 2013 and 2014, and in local pro-Maidan protests in Donetsk, where she was severely beaten by titushki, or paid thugs. Soon armed men  supporters of the Russian-leaning, anti-Maidan separatist movement  were shooting and beating whomever they pleased. I was able to laugh at the explosions, Olga told me, but when the fighting started on my own street, I knew I had to leave. Olga and her mother caught the next-to-last train out of Donetsk; Olgas daughter had already departed.

Olgas flight from Donetsk, where she had spent most of her life, was not the first dramatic rupture she had experienced. She learned that she was HIV-positive in 1997, when she was eight months pregnant. Not long after, she went into labor and called an ambulance; when she told the dispatcher about her HIV status, they refused to pick her up. She called again from a neighbors house, this time waiting to disclose her status until she was already inside the ambulance. In the maternity hospital, she was called a drug addict, though she didnt even smoke cigarettes, and a prostitute. She was told that no one would help her, that no one would touch her, though shed brought gloves and other protective items for the doctors to use. (It remains commonplace for patients to bring their own basic medical supplies with them to the hospital.) She gave birth with minimal medical assistance, after a failed attempt to escape to her mothers house. The doctors were taken aback when her newborn daughter was healthy; they seemed to have expected a monster. Still, they said, the baby was sure to die in three years at most. The staff broadcast her HIV status so that the whole hospital treated her like a pariah. Olgas daughter was HIV-negative, but only by good luck; Olga had not received medical treatment to prevent mother-to-child transmission of HIV.

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Olga Palamarchuk on her way to a shelter for war-displaced people in Odessa in 2016.

The two major instances of ostracism that have marked Olgas life  the discrimination she faced after her diagnosis and her wartime departure from her home  also define the boundaries of her countrys post-Soviet struggle. The cruelty she experienced in the hospital was typical for both Ukraine and Russia in the 1990s, a hangover from the Soviet period, when those suffering from stigmatized diseases or addiction were treated as social undesirables or criminals. Olgas trajectory in the years since her diagnosis, on the other hand, is a testament to Ukraines divergence from this Soviet-style approach, as it accepted Western aid and allowed the development of nongovernmental organizations that fought hard to protect the health and rights of their communities. Olga discovered a local organization, Club Svitanok, that united former drug users and HIV-positive people to provide health and social services to their community; before long, Olga was working there, too, her life profoundly changed.

But the war turned everything upside down. Driven from their homes, Olga and her colleagues at Svitanok, as well as other eastern Ukrainian HIV organizations, faced the possibility that all their hard work would be lost, that their communities would once again be stranded and highly vulnerable. In many ways, the separatists were fighting to make eastern Ukraine more like Russia. Meanwhile, the members of Svitanok were struggling for their dignity  and, in the most basic sense, for their lives.

Roza, left, an outreach worker with Club Svitanok, kneels in 2011 across from Katya, 37, who is HIV-positive and struggling with drug addiction, in a Donetsk hospital where she was being treated for pneumonia.

In the 1980s, as the HIV epidemic ravaged communities around the world, the Soviet Union remained in denial. Soviet leaders, with their abiding faith in the world-shaping power of propaganda, insisted that AIDS was a disease of decadent capitalists and third-world Africans; it couldnt happen in the USSR. Suppressing information about drug users and gays, officials convinced themselves, would prevent these groups from existing. Such tactics had the opposite effect, pushing vulnerable people into higher-risk activities while denying them access to health services or even basic information about HIV transmission.

Things were no better after the Soviet Union fell. The health system collapsed with it, and there were few resources available  and little political will  to start the HIV testing, prevention, and treatment programs that were expanding in the West. Only when significant numbers of pregnant women and conscripts began testing positive did it become clear that Ukraine and Russia, the two post-Soviet countries hardest hit, were in the midst of a fast-moving HIV epidemic, spread largely by syringes shared during injection drug use. Even then, both the Russian and the Ukrainian governments were slow to respond, clinging to Soviet ideas about socially unproductive drug users and re-education through punishment.

But over time, the two countries diverged significantly in their approach to HIV and drug use. As Russia moved from the chaos of the 1990s to the authoritarian hold of Vladimir Putin, it doubled down on a firmly anti-Western, Soviet-style approach to HIV. Russian drug users were put on police registries and denied HIV treatment, sometimes placed in the same psychiatric institutions that had once functioned as prisons for Soviet dissidents. Opioid substitution treatment with methadone and buprenorphine, an effective form of HIV prevention for people addicted to opiates as well as an effective addiction treatment, was deemed a Western plot against Russia and forbidden. Needle exchanges that had opened in the late 90s and early 2000s with the help of international aid organizations were threatened with legal action, their social workers branded foreign agents. Laws against propaganda for homosexuality made it dangerous to disseminate any kind of information about LGBT rights or health, and the government has tolerated, if not openly sanctioned, terrifying vigilante campaigns against the gay community, sex workers, and drug users.

A patient, pictured in 2016, displaced from rebel-controlled areas receives her daily dose of methadone as part of opioid replacement therapy. Her care is managed by Svitanok.

Post-Soviet Ukraine, which was more open to international aid and advice than Russia was, took a different approach. Needle exchanges, methadone and buprenorphine programs, and targeted HIV services opened across the country. In comparison with Russia, Ukraine offered a more welcoming environment for NGOs and political advocacy, and local groups sprang up to work on HIV issues. In 1999, HIV-positive activists founded the All-Ukrainian Network of People Living With HIV/AIDS to advocate for their own rights and access to care. Those affected by HIV and drug use are often their own fiercest advocates, and the network grew to become one of the chief implementers of international grants for AIDS-related services, contributing to major progress in Ukraines response to HIV.

Although Ukraines HIV epidemic continues to grow, those affected have access to prevention, treatment, and support. Ukraine has substantially increased state funding for HIV treatment, and in November 2016, it announced that in 2017 it will fully finance the countrys program of opioid substitution treatment, which for the past 12 years has been supported by the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. This puts Ukraine in even starker contrast with Russia, where doctors cannot even speak freely about substitution treatment.

Russia and Ukraine started in very similar situations, with crumbling, highly corrupt Soviet health systems, minimal knowledge about HIV prevention and treatment, and rampant HIV epidemics spread by injection drug use. Their contrasting responses to HIV are in many ways reflections of their differing understandings of their national identities and geopolitical positions. Longing to regain its superpower status, Russia under Putin has cultivated a sense of exceptionalism and an animosity toward the West. The Russian government rejects international aid, on the principle that such a great country doesnt need outside assistance, and it rejects Western experience and expertise, on the principle that the Russian way is always better. It fosters a sense of paranoia  methadone is a conspiracy to enslave Russians, international aid is only a cover for espionage  even as it refuses to take basic steps to protect the health of its people.

Ukraine, on the other hand, has never had any pretensions to being a superpower. In a weak economic position, sandwiched between Russia and the EU, Ukraine has walked a fine line, trying to maintain its independence while also acknowledging that it needs help. It has actively solicited international aid (and sometimes squandered it, given its extremely high levels of corruption), and it has accepted the help of international experts, though reforming the countrys health care system has been an uphill battle. Though the Ukrainian political system is profoundly dysfunctional, it has not seen the consolidation of authoritarianism in the way that Russias has. Though they face many challenges, organizations like the All-Ukrainian Network of People Living With HIV/AIDS are able to continue their work. From the perspective of people living with HIV and injection drug users, Ukraines weaker geopolitical status has been an advantage.

But geopolitical weakness also has costs. For the Russian government, Ukraines vulnerability has been an invitation to assert its military strength and cultural chauvinism. And since the start of the ongoing war, that has come at the expense of Ukrainians living with HIV.

Alla, with her son, after receiving groceries paid for by Svitanok in 2016. HIV-positive, she fled her home just outside of Donetsk amid fighting and is now living with her son in Kramatorsk.

In 2003, six years after receiving her HIV diagnosis, Olga finally visited the Donetsk AIDS Center. There, she met a social worker from the local self-help group Svitanok (dawn in Ukrainian), which was founded by HIV-positive activist Svetlana Moroz as a peer support group for drug users and people with HIV.

Moroz had started injecting drugs in 1995, as a teenager in Donetsk. She quit in 1998 with the help of a former drug user who had started a peer support organization in Kiev, and she soon decided to return to Donetsk and start a similar group of her own. Over time, Svitanok expanded to offer a wide range of public health and social services while also advocating for the needs of HIV-positive people and drug users. (Donetsk has one of the highest HIV rates in Ukraine and in Europe overall; it also has a serious problem with multidrug-resistant tuberculosis, which is much more prevalent among people with untreated HIV and among prisoners.) Olga was brought into the Svitanok fold, becoming a social worker. Her position wasnt just a job  it meant membership in a tight-knit group of friends dedicated to helping each other and those like them.

When the Maidan protests began in the winter of 2013-2014, most of Svitanoks staff members were strongly in favor. For AIDS activists, the choice between Russia and Europe was a straightforward one, the difference between living and dying. Svitanok staff therefore found themselves on the wrong side of the new border when separatists declared the Donetsk Peoples Republic in the spring of 2014. They were soon scattered across various Ukrainian cities, finding refuge where they could.

Sveta Moroz is reunited with her husband, Aleksei, in Kiev in 2014 after he spent months as a prisoner of war of a separatist group in eastern Ukraine. He hid his HIV status from his captors while Sveta managed to sneak his meds to him.

Tatiana, 33, with her three children in 2016. She contracted HIV from her husband, who was a drug user and died from AIDS in January 2016. After fleeing eastern Ukraine during heavy fighting, she now lives in Kramatorsk, supported solely by NGOs and church groups.

Natalia Bezelieva at an HIV conference in Odessa in 2016.

Svetlana Moroz spoke about the experience at an Odessa forum for HIV-positive women last September. Fair-haired and big-eyed, she radiated grief as she described the unfamiliar forms of trauma that Svitanoks staff had experienced: shelling, food shortages, martial law. (Her own husband had volunteered for a battalion at the beginning of the war and had spent months in separatist captivity.) Another trauma was the loss of the organization we worked so hard to build  separation from our beloved colleagues, Moroz said. But weve found a way to keep the organization going, to keep supporting each other even though were so far apart. They had already lost their homes and their old lives to the conflict; they werent willing to give up on the organization that theyd worked so hard to build or on the progress theyd worked so hard to achieve.

Most of Svitanoks clients remained in Donetsk, without the means necessary to leave in the long term. According to Natalia Bezelieva, Svitanoks director, clients have been beaten, locked in basements, or forced to work for the separatists, packing sandbags for barricades. Some have been forced to loot damaged or abandoned houses.

As far as HIV and drug policy is concerned, its like going back in time 10 years or more, Bezelieva told me. The Donetsk Peoples Republic modeled its HIV policy on Russias  which is to say, there was virtually no provision of medical support to those affected. Bezelieva told me a half-partisan harm reduction program is still operating in Donetsk, with workers paid secretly to distribute syringes and condoms. (There are a number of such programs in Donetsk and Luhansk.) The number of clients has increased dramatically; many are now homeless, without enough food or clothing. Families have been divided by the border, and there are higher rates of overdose from illegal drugs. Decreased access to medical treatment has coincided with an increase in the availability of opiates, according to Svitanok staff, with much larger quantities of illicit methadone slipping across the porous border with Russia (ironic given that medical methadone is illegal there) and easily available opium made from poppies grown in abandoned fields. In an atmosphere of arbitrary violence, deprivation, and uncertainty, opiates offer the afflicted relief, however self-destructive.

Prior to becoming an outreach worker with Svitanok, Roza, pictured here in 2011, was a sex worker battling drug addiction as well as HIV. Now she helps others from similar backgrounds.

Members of Svitanok turned their energies to resistance. By January 2016, they concluded that a covert system of medical shipments would be necessary for the Donetsk Peoples Republic. The territory was about to run out of antiretroviral drugs, risking a dangerous treatment interruption for HIV patients there, including children. Patients with tuberculosis  in many cases, difficult and deadly multidrug-resistant tuberculosis  faced the same problem. It was clear that international organizations like the Global Fund and UNICEF would not be able to arrange for an official shipment in time.

Svitanok decided they would need smugglers, all of whom would be women. It wasnt just that women have long been at the forefront of Ukrainian activism; they had certain advantages in this kind of clandestine work. Because they are so widely dismissed in Ukraine, women can get into places men often cant, can cajole border guards in a way that men cannot. (They are also more vulnerable. The conflict in Ukraine has resulted in a dramatic increase in gender-based violence, according to United Nations Population Fund, and the U.N. has reported acts of sexual violence committed with impunity by fighters on both sides.)

Among the first women to carry medicines across the border was a social worker named Irina (I have changed her name), traveling with two of her colleagues who had also remained in Donetsk. The three women drove back to Ukrainian-controlled territory and received a shipment of antiretrovirals from the All-Ukrainian Network of People Living With HIV/AIDS. A doctor had provided them with an official document saying that the medication in the car was for the personal use of the passengers; they knew theyd run into trouble if they stated honestly that they were bringing in medications for distribution.

Olga, an outreach worker with Svitanok, works with people fleeing rebel-controlled areas. Here, she is seen helping someone rent an apartment in Krasnoarmeisk in 2016.

When they had nearly reached the gray zone between Ukrainian-controlled territory and the Donetsk Peoples Republic, Irina approached the Ukrainian checkpoint on foot, showing the guards her official documents. Unfortunately, the helpful doctor had listed the real cost of the medicine, although Svitanok had received it for free. Seeing the relatively high price, the guards demanded a bribe. Irina was able to pay it, and she and her colleagues continued across the gray zone.

On the other side, the Donetsk Peoples Republic guards asked for an even larger bribe, one Irina couldnt afford. Told shed have to abandon her boxes of pills, she sat down and declared that she wouldnt move until she was allowed to cross. I have HIV, she said, and if you dont let me through with my medicine, Ill die. Finally, she was allowed to go to a nearby village on the border and call the local AIDS center, which helped negotiate her passage.

On her next trip over roads pocked and torn by shells, past bombed-out buildings, Irina made sure her documents didnt list the price of her contraband. The border guards gathered around her when she got out of her car and asked to speak to a person in charge; seeing a young woman, they assumed she was hoping to skip the line, perhaps with a bribe in hand.

They were bemused, though not particularly hostile, when she explained that she had HIV and tuberculosis. She made it through several checkpoints and multiple rounds of questioning, her face half-covered by a gauze mask. The border guards wore masks, too, for fear of contagion.

Plastic bottles full of used syringes and needles collected by outreach workers from drug users in 2011 in exchange for clean needles and wet wipes.

For all its deprivations, the Donetsk Peoples Republic is enlightened compared with the Luhansk Peoples Republic. Luhansks health policies are copied from Russias, and there is no evidence-based drug treatment or HIV prevention in the republic. The Luhansk Peoples Republic is even opposed to condom distribution, advocating an ultra-traditionalist ideal of femininity even as the areas economic devastation has made women more and more likely to have to trade sex for food. As in Donetsk, social workers who have remained in separatist-controlled Luhansk continue to provide underground health services, working even during shelling.

They also assist unlucky inmates stranded in prisons on separatist-controlled territory and the newly released who face an arduous journey to their homes on the Ukrainian side of the border. Its not uncommon for people just released from prison to feel theyve been transported into an unfamiliar future; Ukrainian prisoners released into the separatist republics find themselves in a kind of parody of the past. Rewind to the years before HIV-positive people were treated as patients, before drug users were considered to have a right to medical care. Rewind to Russia.

But the smuggling mission in Luhansk became significantly more arduous in the fall of 2014, when the government of the nascent Peoples Republic entirely forbade the shipment of medicines, groceries, or other goods into its territory. Valeria Rachinska, a former sociologist from the Luhansk region who now works at the All-Ukrainian Network of People Living With HIV/AIDS, told me that on a trip during this period, she and her colleagues were accused of being special agents, saboteurs. They were interrogated and searched for five hours, the border guards emptying every box and bag, leafing through every piece of paper, checking inside tubes of toothpaste.

We danced, we coaxed, we threatened, we cried, Rachinska said, but we made it across every time. We were willing to do anything necessary to make sure that there would be antiretroviral treatment available on both sides of the line of contact. On one occasion, they were told that they had only an hour to make it across the border before the shooting started again. After the single crossing point into Luhansk accessible to cars was bombed, at the end of 2014, Rachinska and her colleagues  again, almost all women  made the crossing by foot, carrying their precious cargo in suitcases, backpacks, or plastic bags, trudging alongside the many unhappy people who were making the long, dangerous trip to buy groceries or medicine or to collect their pensions on the Ukrainian side.

At one point, two of Rachinskas colleagues went to deliver antiretrovirals to a prison in Krasnyi Luch, in separatist-controlled territory, during active fighting, when there was the risk that they would be hit by a shell or that they would drive over a mine. They succeeded in preventing a treatment interruption for the prisoners. Two skinny girls, each weighing about 45 kilos, were able to do what a whole government couldnt, Rachinska said.

This illicit method was dangerous and allowed for only small shipments; even when supplemented by occasional interventions by NGOs like Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF), it clearly had to be replaced by a more formalized system. But Ukrainian AIDS activists and international aid agencies had great difficulty persuading authorities in Kiev and the separatist enclaves to agree on a plan. On the Ukrainian side, the government was doing its best to maintain a blockade, which it hoped would starve the separatists into submission. Hard-liners argued that anyone who stayed in the separatist-controlled areas was a traitor and didnt deserve any kind of help. (In fact, many had remained because they had little choice, being disabled, elderly, or poor, or caregivers for family members or friends who couldnt leave.) In the summer of 2015, the Security Service of Ukraine introduced a system of checkpoints to control access to the separatist-controlled areas, severely limiting legal opportunities to deliver medications. During this period, activists carrying medicine across the gray zone were risking double punishment. They continued to make the trip, nonetheless.

The Global Fund eventually provided an emergency grant of $3.6 million to UNICEF, which was able to negotiate medical shipments into the Donetsk Peoples Republic starting in August 2015. They succeeded in winning the cooperation of the Ukrainian government, which adopted a more humanitarian approach to the separatist-controlled zones, despite pressure from nationalists to renew the blockade. Irina, from Svitanok, told me that when she transported a shipment of medicines in September 2016, the Ukrainian border guards were honest and sympathetic. The last of five antiretroviral shipments was completed in November 2016, providing enough medication to last until mid-2017, when another shipment is planned. The Global Fund has approved a grant that will provide medicines through mid-2018. After that, the future is uncertain. Ukraines economy is in a perilous state, and in an era of growing austerity and isolationism in the United States and Europe, international aid is always at risk.

During an early morning rush hour in a Donetsk suburb in 2011, a commuter bus stops next to a tuberculosis clinic whose patients are mostly HIV-positive.

By the end of 2017, an estimated 12,500 patients in separatist-held Donetsk and Luhansk will be in need of HIV treatment. The current arrangement is only a short-term solution. According to Michel Kazatchkine, the U.N. secretary-generals special envoy on HIV/AIDS in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, given that the conflict is unlikely to be resolved in the near future, the most viable longer-term solution may be to include an arrangement for funding of HIV and drug-resistant tuberculosis treatment in the international negotiations that have arrived at two (largely unsuccessful) Minsk agreements for cease-fires and roadmaps for an end to the conflict. If no solution is found in the coming months, Kazatchkine wrote in a recent comment in The Lancet HIV, the region may again be at risk of treatment interruptions for HIV and drug-resistant tuberculosis that would lead to a regional public health crisis.

Unfortunately, the rapidly changing political situation in Ukraine, Europe, Russia, and the United States makes such agreements more tenuous than ever. (Cease-fire agreements have been routinely violated by both sides in the conflict.) The separatists are capricious and could withdraw their permissions to UNICEF at any time; they have expelled many of the humanitarian groups that have operated on their territory, including MSF. The UNICEF shipments do not provide tuberculosis medications or laboratory supplies; activists continue to transport these informally and to carry blood samples in refrigerated containers back to Ukrainian labs for diagnostic tests unavailable in separatist territory.

After a lull, such trips have again become more dangerous. A surge in fighting began in January; opinions differ as to whether this was Ukraines attempt to make inroads before newly elected U.S. President Donald Trump changed the political calculus, a Ukrainian bid for Western assistance, or a strategic move by a Russia emboldened by Trumps election. In late January, Ukrainian nationalists began an informal and illegal physical blockade of railway lines used to transport coal and other industrial goods between the separatist-controlled areas and the rest of Ukraine. In response, separatist leaders took control of Ukrainian-owned coal mines and steel mills on their territory, vowing to sell their products to Russia instead. Ukrainian authorities finally arrested some of the nationalist protesters in mid-March, but then Kiev officially stopped all cargo traffic with separatist-held areas, demanding that pro-Russian separatists return the Ukrainian businesses. All railway and road connections are to be cut until the separatists comply with Kievs demands. President Petro Poroshenko said only humanitarian cargo should be allowed to pass into separatist-held areas, but it remains to be seen how feasible this will be as relations between Kiev and the separatists become even more contentious.

The future of HIV and tuberculosis treatment in eastern Ukraine remains uncertain, but Ukraines AIDS activists are determined to do everything they can to save it. With their unwavering commitment to helping some of the most vulnerable people in society, even at great personal risk, these activists believe they are embodying the best of Western values. As the conflict wears on, one hopes the West will agree.

Reporting for this article was done with support from the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting.
Jerusalem (AFP) - A United Nations political agency suspended its missions to Gaza Friday after the Hamas authorities in the Palestinian enclave partly closed the key border crossing into Israel, a source said.

The UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East peace process (UNSCO) will not send staff to Gaza until further notice, the source close to the organisation told AFP on condition of anonymity, after Hamas imposed tough new restrictions following the assassination of one of its members.

The decision was made, the source added, as frustration grows at the negative impact of the restrictions for aid work and Gazan citizens.

UNSCO is the key UN agency working on the currently stagnant Palestinian-Israeli peace process, and the restrictions will apply to its head, UN envoy for the Middle East Nickolay Mladenov.

In previous conflicts between Hamas and Israel UNSCO helped to negotiate ceasefires, and Mladenov reports regularly to the UN Security Council.

Hamas, which runs the Gaza Strip, shut the Erez crossing into Israel on Sunday after blaming the Jewish state for assassinating senior military figure Mazen Faqha, 38, near his home last Friday.

Erez is the only crossing for people, although a separate route is available for goods.

On Monday, they reopened Erez for those entering Gaza, but men between 18 and 45 are still largely prevented from leaving the enclave of two million people.

Reports said Hamas was looking for the assassins, believing they are still in Gaza, but the knock-on effects have been significant.

Around half a dozen international aid workers have been prevented from leaving in recent days, a senior humanitarian source said.

So far, according to the World Health Organization, 79 Gazan patients have missed medical appointments in Israel because of the restrictions.

More than two thirds of Gazans are dependent on aid, according to the United Nations.

On Thursday, a coalition of more than 100 Palestinian NGOs and rights groups called on Hamas to reopen the crossing.

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"Security goals should not come at the expense of human rights," the Palestinian NGOs Network said in a statement.

Israel has maintained a blockade on Gaza for a decade, largely restricting residents from entering.

However, Israel grants hundreds of permits for medical, educational, business and other reasons per week.

Hamas has fought three wars with Israel since 2008.
New York (AFP) - The United Nations Security Council voted unanimously Friday to renew the mandate of the peacekeeping force in the Democratic Republic of Congo, but cut its numbers.

The council voted to approve the MONUSCO mission for another year and asked that a review of its strategy be completed by September.

And members warned President Joseph Kabila that his government must honor a power-sharing deal with the opposition and allow key elections to go ahead.

"We continue to see increasing tensions and insecurity, throughout the Democratic Republic of Congo," said Britain's Ambassador Matthew Rycroft, who chaired the council this month.

"And we continue to see a clear link between the escalation of local conflicts, and national politics," he told his colleagues after the vote.

- Strategy review -

The resolution reduces the authorized size of the military component of the mission to 16,215 troops from 19,815.

But officials stressed that the force is already below strength and in practice fewer than 500 will come home from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

The United States, which will assume the rotating presidency of the Security Council on Saturday, has called for a deep review of the strategy behind all the UN peacekeeping missions.

And Washington, which currently funds more than 28 percent of the peacekeeping budget, is seeking to cut costs and improve the efficiency of the missions.

The US mission to the United Nations, under Ambassador Nikki Haley, will lead the council in April.

And Haley has been clear that she will seek savings in the peacekeeping budget while launching a deep strategy review of every UN mission.

Some missions, such as those in Haiti, Liberia and Ivory Coast, are expected to be wound up and the biggest -- in the DRC -- is under scrutiny.

- Arms embargo? -

Haley said the attitude of Kabila's government, which she has branded "corrupt," made MONUSCO's job impossible and vowed to hold him to account.

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"We can't work in spite of the government. We need to hold the government accountable," she told reporters the day before the vote.

"And whether that's us moving forward with an arms embargo, whether its sanctions, we've got to do something to let them know that this is not OK."

On the last day of 2016, Kabila signed a deal to share power with the opposition as officials work to set up national elections later this year.

The agreement was never fully implemented -- despite international pressure -- and an opposition umbrella group has called for a general strike from Monday in protest.

Kabila first took power in 2001 to replace his assassinated father as war ravaged the country.

His unwillingness to step down at the end of his constitutional mandate last year led to protests in which at least 17 people were killed.

Under a deal brokered by the country's influential Roman Catholic bishops, Kabila was allowed to stay in office in tandem with a transitional body and a new premier.

But talks on implementing the accord appear to have broken down, and violence has flared.

Last week, 39 police were killed in an ambush by rebels in the remote central region of Kasai.

In a separate incident, two foreign UN experts, an American and a Swede, were killed in the same region.

Diplomats at the United Nations told AFP that the murdered pair had been investigating reports of mass graves.

On Tuesday, the UN, the European Union and the African Union called for an opposition figure to be named premier as had been agreed under the December 31 deal.
BEIRUT (AP)  Syria's Palestinian refugee population has fallen by one-fifth since the start of the Syrian conflict in 2011 and many of those who stay in Syria have been displaced, the U.N.'s Palestinian relief agency said Friday.

UNRWA Director Pierre Krahenbuhl said there are 440,000 refugees in Syria, compared to 560,000 in the country before the war.

Many of those still in Syria have been displaced by Syria's six-year civil war. For them, it is the second time they or their families have been forced out of their homes, after being displaced from Palestinian lands by Israeli forces last century.

"Displacement is a very difficult experience, to lose another home, to lose another place of residence," said Krahenbuhl, who was wrapping up a five day tour of UNRWA operations in Syria.

Several Palestinian camps in Damascus and Aleppo, Syria's largest city, have been destroyed during the conflict that has killed more than 400,000 people, displaced half the country's population and sent more than 5 million as refugees, mostly to neighboring countries.

Elsewhere in Syria, opposition activists reported clashes between government forces and insurgents groups in different regions including the central province of Hama, the northwestern province of Idlib and the suburbs of Damascus, according to opposition activists and state media. The activists reported airstrikes on rebel-held parts of Idlib and Hama.

Physicians for Human Rights reported Friday that at least two medical facilities in Hama have come under attack over the past week. It said the facilities, a hospital in the village of Latamneh and a medical point in Kafar Naboudeh, together serve tens of thousands of people in the province that witnessed intense violence over the past two weeks after insurgents launched a wide offensive against government-controlled villages.

The group said the attacks on the two medical facilities violate international law, in that they are either intentional attacks on medical facilities or indiscriminate attacks on civilian-populated areas.

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"Hospitals have become scenes of total devastation and destruction throughout this conflict," said PHR's lead Syria researcher Elise Baker. "What we're seeing in Hama governorate is an extension of a gruesome pattern of attacks against medical facilities and personnel across the country."

"As we've seen throughout the conflict, as fighting intensifies and the need for medical care grows, hospitals and other medical facilities come under increasing attack," she said.

On March 25, the Latamneh surgical hospital  a facility built into a cave to protect it from airstrikes  was hit by multiple barrel bombs, PHR said. While the attack only caused minor structural damage to the facility, multiple sources inside the hospital testified that at least one of the bombs, which landed inside the hospital, contained a chemical agent, it said.

The hospital's coordinator told PHR that the attack and chemical exposure led to the death of one of the hospital's doctors, Dr. Ahmed Darwish.

Doctors Without Borders, also known as MSF, said the hospital in Latamneh was supported by the group. It added that a bomb dropped by a helicopter hit the entrance of the building, adding that information collected by the hospital's medical staff suggests that chemical weapons were used.

It said patients and staff reported suffering severe respiratory symptoms and burning of mucous membranes immediately after the impact, symptoms consistent with a chemicals attack. It said that in addition to Dr. Darwish, another person was killed.

"The loss of Dr Darwish leaves just two orthopedic surgeons for a population of around 120,000," said Massimiliano Rebaudengo, MSF's head of mission in northern Syria.
Six employees of the US embassy in Kabul have been dismissed for using or possessing drugs, an official said, in an embarrassment to Washington which has splurged billions on Afghan counter-narcotics efforts.

The sacking followed an embassy investigation after staff noticed a person wandering around the premises "in a state of confusion and appearing to be intoxicated", the Wall Street Journal reported earlier this week.

"We can confirm that six individuals were involved and that all of them were contract employees," the US State Department told AFP late Thursday.

"No State Department employees were involved in the incident."

It was not immediately clear what kind of drugs the employees were using.

Over the last 15 years, the US government has spent billions of dollars on a war to eliminate drugs from Afghanistan, but the country still remains the world's top opium producer.

Opium production is a major source of income for the Taliban insurgents.

Last year, Afghanistan saw a 10 percent jump in opium cultivation compared to the previous year because of bumper harvests, collapsing eradication efforts and declining international aid to combat drugs, according to the United Nations.
Brussels (AFP) - US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson pressed NATO allies Friday to ramp up military spending and denounced Russia's "ongoing hostility and occupation" of Ukraine as the Trump administration toughened its tone toward Moscow.

Tillerson delivered the message as he met fellow NATO foreign ministers for the first time ahead of a May 25 summit to be attended by leaders of the 28-nation alliance, including President Donald Trump.

"As President Trump has made clear, it is no longer sustainable for the US to maintain a disproportionate share of NATO's defence expenditures," Tillerson said in Brussels.

He urged his fellow foreign ministers to agree at the May summit to produce plans by the end of the year to meet the spending pledge.

NATO countries originally agreed at a summit in Wales in 2014 to contribute the equivalent of two percent of their gross domestic product to defence.

Seeking to draw a line under the funding row, NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg said NATO members understood they had to boost spending not so much to please Washington but to counter new threats from both the east and the south.

"One option we are examining is national plans to deliver on the commitments we have made," Stoltenberg told a press conference ending five hours of talks.

The former Norwegian premier set the tone early when he dismissed anew fears that Trump was less committed to the transatlantic alliance than his predecessors, citing words of support and increased US troop deployments in eastern Europe.

"We see a strong US commitment to NATO," Stoltenberg said.

- 'Ongoing hostility' -

Tillerson's remarks, reinforced later by those from Defence Secretary Jim Mattis in London, were tougher on Russia than those previously made by Trump or his cabinet officials.

Trump had stressed the need to improve US relations with Moscow after they had sunk to a low under president Barack Obama over the crisis in Ukraine.

Tillerson told the alliance's forum with Ukraine co-chaired by Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin that "American and NATO support for Ukraine remains steadfast" in the wake of "Russia's aggression against Ukraine" three years ago when it annexed Crimea.

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"Today, Russias ongoing hostility and occupation is compromising our shared vision of a Europe that is whole, free, and at peace," Tillerson said.

He vowed that the US administraiton will keep sanctions in place until Russia reverses the actions that triggered them and oppose any further bid by Russia to redraw Ukraine's borders.

He also pressed Russia to fulfill its obligations under the Minsk agreements to end the war in eastern Ukraine, where he said "Russian-led separatist forces" are fighting Ukrainian government forces.

Klimkin, speaking to reporters afterward, accused Russia of "creeping annexation" in the Donbass region of Ukraine.

Allies have been alarmed at the prospect of Trump seeking to improve relations with Russia at the expense of support for the pro-Western government in Ukraine or NATO allies in former Soviet parts of eastern Europe.

Their concerns were reinforced when Tillerson initially planned to skip the NATO meeting scheduled for next week, citing various commitments including a trip to Russia.

However, they eased when he agreed to attend talks rescheduled for Friday.

- 'Totally unrealistic' -

Tillerson arrived in Brussels following a visit to Turkey, a NATO ally and key player in both Syria and Iraq where Washington wants to defeat the Islamic State jihadists.

In the last two years, IS has claimed or hailed a wave of deadly attacks in the United States and European cities, including Brussels.

Saying building "local capacity" is the best way to fight terrorism, Stoltenberg announced the alliance will increase aid to the Iraqi government by training medical personnel and staff who maintain armoured vehicles.

But the NATO funding row remains central.

NATO's 2016 annual report said only five countries met the two percent target -- the United States, Britain, Greece, Poland and Estonia -- while Washington still accounted for nearly 70 percent of combined alliance defence spending.

During a visit to NATO in February, Mattis voiced staunch support for NATO but warned that Washington could "moderate" its commitment if allies fail to pay up.

Trump said after a visit by German Chancellor Angela Merkel this month that Germany owes "vast sums of money" to NATO and the US.

But German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel told reporters it was "totally unrealistic" for his country to meet the two-percent of GDP target.

A NATO official later told reporters however that Tillerson's funding demands were "well received" by the ministers, who told him what they were doing to meet their pledges.

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WASHINGTON  Theyre calling it a revolution for truth.

Dozens of activists who reject the robust science supporting vaccinations held a march and rally Friday, capped off with a speech from Robert F. Kennedy Jr. A noted and vociferous vaccine skeptic, Kennedy accused the media, drug companies, and the government of a conspiracy to cover up supposed links between vaccines and autism  an allegation that has been thoroughly discredited.

The day of demonstrations followed an intense lobbying push on Thursday. Activists held 80 meetings on Capitol Hill, many of them with staffers for members of Congress, according to Irene Pi, an organizer from Arizona. Among their goals: Push President Trump to establish a vaccine safety committee led by Kennedy.

Were being heard, and were going to enact change, activist Jena Dalpez said.

A vast body of scientific research shows that vaccines do not cause autism and are essential in preventing the spread of potentially fatal infectious diseases. When too many parents fail to vaccinate their children, it can jeopardize entire communities  with people whose immune systems are compromised due to illness or chemotherapy most at risk.

Read more: Vaccine exemptions are on the rise in a number of US states

Advocates who reject that research have gained confidence in recent months, buoyed in part by the election of President Trump, who has a long history of raising unsubstantiated doubts about vaccine safety.

Casting doubt on the triumph of the polio vaccine

Still, their showing was modest: A morning rally in front of the White House drew a small crowd in the dozens  certainly not in the hundreds.

One advocate held a sign saying Polio was a false flag and Jonas Salk was NOT a hero, referencing to the virologist who developed the first safe and effective polio vaccine that experts consider to be one of historys greatest public health triumphs.

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Several others held signs saying No vaccine mandates. In fact, while states generally require children to be immunized before enrolling in school, there are no federal mandates, and no plans to impose them. All states let parents opt out of vaccinating their children for medical reasons, most allow exemptions for religious reasons, and 18 allow opt outs for philosophical reasons, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

Organizers had originally planned to spend the afternoon Friday rallying in front of the Capitol, but rain and the threat of thunderstorms prompted them to move to a downtown hotel. There, during a rally that lasted all afternoon, the delighted crowd cheered speakers who railed against vaccines. The tone was deeply emotional and paranoid  and the statements often inconsistent with facts.

You need to fire your doctors, fire your legislators! And stand up for your children! Dr. Paul Thomas, an advocate from Oregon, said to rapturous applause.

For his part, Kennedy railed against the expert doctors and scientists who make evidence-based recommendations about childhood vaccine schedules.

And he spoke in loaded terms about autism. He suggested autism is a symptom of media malpractice. He scoffed at scientists who say that a mild increase in autism rates is in large part due to increased awareness and expanded diagnostic criteria. Missing one of these children is like missing a train wreck, he said, questioning where all the adults with autism are.

The crowd loved it: At some points they cheered so loudly his words were drowned out.

After his remarks, Kennedy darted into an elevator, telling a filmmaker and a reporter that he had a flight to catch and no time for questions.

A lobbying push in shades of red, white, and blue

The protests drew activists from across the US, including Dalpez, who flew in from Washington state. She became involved in the cause after her two school-aged sons were diagnosed with autism. (Experts say parents often wrongly blame autism on vaccines, but theres no evidence of a link.) A lifelong liberal, Dalpez said she voted for Trump even though she disagrees with him on just about everything  except for his doubts about vaccine safety.

For their lobbying day on Thursday, the activists had agreed to wear shades of the American flag: Red if theyd had a loved one injured by vaccines, and white if they were there in solidarity. (They were supposed to wear blue if a loved one had died from a vaccine injury, but STAT didnt see anyone in the group wearing that color.)

Dressed in a red sweater and seated in a wheelchair, activist Marcella Piper-Terry teared up as she talked about her own chronic pain condition and her young adult daughters seizures and Aspergers syndrome. She believes those injuries stem from vaccines.

Then Piper-Terry was off to navigate the tunnels and long hallways of the office building, en route to her first congressional meeting of the day, in the office of a representative from Arizona.

Read more: For health community, an unexpected bright spot in Trump budget: vaccines

High on the lobbying agenda: Pushing members of Congress to encourage President Trump to establish a new vaccine safety commission. Back in January, Kennedy emerged from a meeting with Trump saying that such a commission would be established, and hed lead it. That announcement set off alarms among public health experts; Trumps team soon moved to quiet the frenzy by saying no decisions had been made.

Kennedy later said, however, that he was confident the vaccine safety commission would move forward.

He did not mention the commission or Trump during his speech on Friday.

The activists organizing the Revolution for Truth also want Congress to repeal a Reagan-era law that had the effect of moving lawsuits over vaccine injuries out of the civil courts by setting up a separate compensation system. People can get compensation through that system if theyre able to meet strict requirements in showing a vaccine did, in fact, cause their injury. Activists oppose the system in large part because autism is not on the list of recognized injuries that can sometimes stem from vaccines.

Other key goals: Getting Trump to take vaccine safety out of the purview of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. And nudging him to issue an executive order banning the government from purchasing vaccines that use the mercury-based preservative thimerosal. That preservative has never been in many key vaccines and was taken out of other childhood vaccines in 2001. Research shows it is not harmful in low doses.

This story has been updated to add comments from Kennedys speech.
On Valentines Day, the world celebrates love by being bombarded with red and pink hearts - heart-shaped candies, heart-shaped cards and more.

But why?

It didnt mean love before the 13th and 14th centuries, says Eric Jager, author of The Book of the Heart and medieval literature professor at UCLA. When the shape was drawn before that point, it was generally for decorative purposes, he says, citing the enamel at Frances Musee de Cluny (c. 1300) as one prominent example. As the idea of romantic love began to take shape during that medieval period, so did the symbolism.





[People at the time] thought of our hearts as books of memory, a place where Gods commands are written, and [believed] feelings for the beloved were somehow written on your heart, says Jager. There were stories imagining female saints whose hearts are said to be cut open after their death, and inside their hearts are inscriptions indicating their love for God or Jesus.





So it makes sense that the heart shape was linked to actual hearts. Carlos Machado, a cardiologist and medical illustrator, says that familiar shape does somewhat resemble the four chambers of the heart, if it is cut open, or the image of the heart that appears in echocardiograms. But the shape is even closer to the look of a bird or reptile heart - which makes sense, he says, given that the study of anatomy before the 14th century was based on the dissection of animals. It is thought that the Catholic Church objected to the dissection of the human body during the Middle Ages.

The Shape of the Heart by Pierre Vinken. Elsevier, 2000.Le Roman de la Poire (circa 1255), the first illustration of a heart in Europe not in an anatomical textbook

By the middle of the 14th century, virtually all representations of the heart show it being held by the tip, with the base pointing upwards, thus conforming to its actual position in the thoracic cavity, according to The Shape of the Heart, by the late Pierre Vinken, former co-chairman of the company that publishes the medical journal The Lancet. He identifies the first non-medical European illustration of a heart in a drawing that accompanied the medieval French love poem Le Roman De La Poire by Thibaut, written circa 1255. It is believed that the poem is the source of the idea that a person in love can give his or her heart to the beloved, the way the lover in the poem gives away a pear.

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Even then, the heart in question wasnt quite the shape thats recognizable today.

The Shape of the Heart by Pierre Vinken. Elsevier, 2000.Francesco Barberino's Documenti d'amore, circa 1320

In the Middle Ages, the pine-cone-shaped heart was represented with a rounded base, Vinken wrote in a 2001 article published in The Lancet. It was only during the early years of the 14th century that the scalloped shape of the St. Valentine heart, with a fold or dent in the base, made its appearance.

Get your history fix in one place: sign up for the weekly TIME History newsletter

The more familiar modern heart shape appears to have come on the scene from the Italian didactic poem Documenti damore by Francesco Barberino, a Florentine jurist, that went viral in the 14th-century. One of its illustrations - depicting a naked cupid standing on the back of a galloping horse throwing arrows and roses at bystanders - included hearts. Shortly after its publication, the scalloped heart began appearing in other works of visual art and in tapestries.

About 150 years later, in the early 15th century, the tapestry Le don du Coeur (The Gift of the Heart, now at the Louvre) depicted a man holding a small red heart. That image became one of the most popular representations of courtly love, rules about love that governed behavior at Europes aristocratic courts and was channeled into literature and poetry. (Vinken cites another example that can be seen at the Metropolitan Museum of Art: a small 14th-century oak coffer depicting Frau Minne, the German goddess of love, aiming an arrow at a young man.) In the Middle Ages, heart-shaped books were also popular, corresponding with the idea of the heart as a place of memory. (Heres an example at the Bibliotheque Nationale.)

So, by that point, the heart had taken its shape and had come to mean love - just in time for the organ to lose some of its symbolic importance in the human body, as the popular understanding of medicine evolved. The idea of the heart as the spot where feeling was literally recorded lost some of its power. The brain takes over, as Jager puts it.

Jager argues the fact that this image and metaphor has stuck around - an example of iconographic inertia, a term popularized by the essayist Nicholson Baker - shows that, at least when it comes to love, some things dont change so easily.

Were still, in a sense, he says, medieval creatures.

Correction: The original version of this article misstated the name of the museum that houses 14th-century enamel with heart shapes. It is Musee de Cluny, not Cluny Abbey.

This article was originally published on TIME.com
Rome (AFP) - Italy on Friday voiced alarm over Donald Trump's plans to target imports responsible for the US trade deficit, amid fears products like Vespa scooters could be hit by punitive duties.

"Trump declares war on the Vespa" said a headline in national daily Il Messaggero, reflecting the tone of most of the media coverage on an issue that dominated front pages and topped news bulletins.

The alarm followed reports that scooters and motorcycles feature on a 'blacklist' of 90 European products earmarked for the imposition of 100 percent duties as Trump prepares to launch an offensive against "trade cheats".

The US president was due Friday to issue two executive orders instructing staff to pinpoint goods and countries responsible for the near $50-billion deficit and to recommend action.

Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said officials would be looking for evidence of "cheating," inappropriate behaviour, trade deals that have not lived up to their promise, lax enforcement, currency misalignment and troublesome World Trade Organization (WTO) constraints.

The European products are vulnerable to potential measures because of a transatlantic dispute over Europe's ban on beef produced with the aid of hormones that pre-dates Trump coming to power.

Along with mopeds, the symbolic Italian products that could have punitive duties slapped on them reportedly include tomatoes in every form, salami and Parma ham, and San Pellegrino mineral water, now owned by Switzerland's Nestle.

Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni Friday voiced concern over the shift in US trade policy towards a more protectionist stance.

Gentiloni said a meeting of Group of Seven leaders in Sicily at the end of May had to "take a clear position on an issue about which there can be no ambiguity.

"We have to reiterate our confidence in the open economies and societies on which we have built decades of prosperity," he said.

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"We have to restate our backing for free markets and free trade, the most powerful engines of economic growth in history."

Italy's exports to the United States in 2016 were worth 37 billion euros, just over ten percent of the European Union (including Britain) total of 362 billion euros.

However, the products reportedly targeted only make up a small part of the total: for example, the mopeds and motorbikes potentially affected accounted for 182 million euros of exports in 2016, compared with four billion euros for cars.

Although reports of the blacklist hit shares in Vespa manufacturer Piaggio, the company stressed that US sales represented less than five percent of its total turnover, and that it could export from its factories in Vietnam if the duties are imposed.

That would, however, raise fears for jobs at the company's Italian production centres and any ban on food products could be very damaging to producers of upmarket niche products like San Daniele hams.
The man tipped to be the next President of France has few possessions in his office in Pariss 15th district: Under the bare walls, a handful of photos and mementos, and a watercolor sketch of his wife sit propped on a bookshelf, while other books lie stacked on the carpet. The modest suite, in a drab building in an unfashionable part of town, is temporary digs for Emmanuel Macron, the countrys former Economy Minister, who, at 39, has become a game-changing phenomenon in the countrys presidential race.

By May, Macrons office could be a lot more ornate: The upper floor of the sumptuous Elysee Palace, with its priceless chandeliers and tapestries. If so, the former Rothschild banker would be the most surprising French president in generations. He has never held elective office, and would be the youngest leader in modern French history. Yet polls show him neck-and-neck with far-right National Front leader Marine Le Pen in the first-round vote on April 23, far ahead of three other major candidates, and then trouncing her in the decisive round on May 7, as the country is expected to unite against Le Pen.

There are still deep questions over what a President Macron might be, not least how he will govern with no conventional political party to call his own. But in an interview with TIME on Wednesday, Macron insisted he was not simply there to shut out the National Front candidate. I want to win a positive vote, he says. His policies would bring back growth and jobs to France, he says, after years of stagnation in the worlds sixth-biggest economy. These include drastically loosening Frances rigid labor laws, and luring back hundreds of thousands of French expats, many of them well-off professionals, by scaling back special wealth taxes and encouraging entrepreneurship. My point is to convince the French people that a positive project and a progressive view is more adapted to our challenges, he said.

Macron is indeed far different from most French politicians; unlike President Francois Hollande, whose cabinet Macron quit last September, he speaks fluent English and is widely traveled. He also cuts a sharp contrast to the populist wave that has swept the continent-and the U.S. Far different to politicians like Le Pen, Macron wants a strong E.U. that imposes strict commitments on the 27 members left standing after Brexit. The E.U. is one of the most fraught issues in the election campaign. Le Pen has vowed to scrap the countrys use of the Euro if she is elected, and to hold a Brexit-style referendum to pull France out of the E.U.

By contrast, Macron believes Brexit is a grave mistake for the British and other Europeans. That strong pro-E.U. stance has made him a ready target for Le Pen, who has hailed Brexit as an act of freedom. She has depicted Macron as subsuming French needs to E.U. bureaucrats in Brussels. Macron spoke to TIME just as Theresa May triggered the process to begin Britains exit from the E.U., probably by 2019.

Europe is part of the solution for us, he says. If you look at the situation on climate, energy, industry, agriculture, immigration, terrorist attacks, we have a lot of challenges. But the best answer is at the European level, because you are much more credible, much stronger. He says that strength is essential also vis-a-vis the U.S. and China.

With Britain headed out of the E.U., and President Trump now in office, Macron, like many other European politicians, are reordering their alliances. The French elections has shattered the long-held establishment, in which Socialists have traded power regularly with conservatives.

Macron quit President Francois Hollandes Socialist cabinet last September to form his own political movement, called En Marche! (On the Move!), after months of trying to push economic reforms. He says he intends to make France more attractive and competitive, through reforms, by making France the pro-innovation, pro-researchers, pro-future, country.

Although French presidents have huge power to draft laws, some items will require Parliaments cooperation. So far, it is unclear which party will win French parliamentary elections in June. Much like Congress with Trumps agenda, lawmakers could choose to push Macrons agenda, or hamper it, should he become president.

Theres a growing sense the race is his to lose. Key figures from Hollandes inner circle, most recently his former Prime Minister Manuel Valls, have said they intend to vote for Macron, rather than for the candidate of their own Socialist Party. However Macron has warned people not to think of his victory as inevitable, fearing that many conservatives and Socialists might choose to stay home in the second-round election rather than vote for him. Battling complacency is one major task in the campaigns closing weeks. The dynamic is good, and it is continuing, he told reporters last weekend. But for me, nothing is over.

Nonetheless, hes already attempting to build alliances. Shortly before speaking to TIME, Macron met in his office with Londons Mayor Sadiq Khan-the only presidential candidate the mayor met with during his two-day visit to Paris - ostensibly to convey his condolences for those killed in last weeks terror attack outside Parliament.

But Macron also suggested, in remarks to a group of British journalists, that Europeans needed to band together on some issues against President Donald Trump, whose policies now appear at odds with the prevailing views on the continent. Noting Trumps decision to reverse the Obama administrations energy regulations, Macron told reporters that London and Paris would together mount a strong battle against pollution, especially in the context of what you saw yesterday: The American President, who decided rather to go backwards.

Trump on Tuesday signed an executive order allowing new coal-power plants in the U.S., and effectively cancelling U.S. commitments to global climate change efforts. President Obama made those commitments as part of the global climate negotiations in 2015-the signature accomplishment of Hollandes five-year rule, and now looking fragile with Trump in the White House.

Asked whether Europe and U.S. were increasingly diverging on key issues like immigration, terrorism, and the environment, Macron replied: I do hope this will not be the case. We need a Transatlantic relationship vis-a-vis terrorist attacks, climate change and all the global challenges, he says. But I do note that Mr. Trump has been taking a series of negative decisions.

Despite that, Macron says he believes the U.S. will remain in sync with Europe on policies like climate change. Im very optimistic for two reasons, he says. First is the U.S. system: checks and balances, which will force him to respect former commitments. We saw that on migration issues. The second point is that you will see the strength of the long-term, historical relationship [with France].

As President of France, he says, he would enshrine the U.S. in this common perspective. We have so many links and such a common history, that our destiny, in my view, is all together. First, however, he will need to fight his own campaign battle, and write the next chapter of French history.

This article was originally published on TIME.com
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The White House on Friday backed top aides' comments that the United States is not now focused on making Syrian President Bashar al-Assad leave power, saying the U.S. focus is on defeating Islamic State militants. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley on Thursday drew criticism for playing down a long-standing U.S. goal of persuading Assad to leave power to help end the six-year-long Syrian civil war. Tillerson said Assad's future is up to the Syrian people to decide, while Haley said "our priority is no longer to sit there and focus on getting Assad out." At his daily news briefing, White House spokesman Sean Spicer said that regarding Assad, "there is a political reality that we have to accept in terms of where we are right now." Spicer blamed the inability of Trump's predecessor, Democrat Barack Obama, to persuade Assad to step down. The Obama administration, in its later years, was focused on reaching a deal with Russia that would eventually see Assad go, though it also shifted its focus to the fight against Islamic State militants, who captured swathes of territory in Iraq and Syria in 2014. "We had an opportunity and we need to focus now on defeating ISIS," Spicer said. "The United States has profound priorities in Syria and Iraq and we've made it clear that counterterrorism, particularly the defeat of ISIS, is foremost among those priorities." (Reporting by Steve Holland; Editing by James Dalgleish)
Washington (AFP) - The White House on Friday cautioned Israel on large-scale settlement building, refraining from criticism of a major project just approved but warning further expansion could block peace efforts.

"While the existence of settlements is not in itself an impediment to peace, further unrestrained settlement activity does not help advance peace," a White House official said.

The Israeli cabinet gave unanimous backing late Thursday to the first officially sanctioned new settlement in the occupied West Bank in more than 20 years.

The White House official said that settlement, at Amona, was in the pipeline during Barack Obama's administration, and refrained from criticizing the decision.

"We would note that the Israeli prime minister made a commitment to the Amona settlers prior to President Trump laying out his expectations, and has consistently indicated that he intended to move forward with this plan," the official said.

"Going forward... the Israeli government has made clear that Israel's intent is to adopt a policy regarding settlement activity that takes President Trump's concerns into consideration."
Defending its plan to punish jurisdictions that shelter undocumented immigrants, the White House implied they dont deserve federal funding because they take crime too lightly, a stance not supported by statistics.

During Fridays briefing, press secretary Sean Spicer took a question from Derrick Blakley of CBS 2 Chicago via Skype. Blakley asked about President Trumps executive orders withholding grants from localities maintaining sanctuary status for undocumented immigrants.

Chicago receives about $12 million a year in law enforcement assistance from the federal government, said Blakley. Would President Trump cut off those funds due to Chicagos sanctuary city status even though it would greatly hamper Chicago police in their fight against street violence, something the president has repeatedly said troubles him deeply?

I think its interesting you talk about street violence and then we cut off the funding for sanctuary cities, replied Spicer. I think it would be interesting to want to send more money to a city that is allowing people to come into the country who are breaking the law, who are in many cases committing crimes, member of gangs. You cant be a sanctuary city and at the same time seem to pretend or express concern about law enforcement and ask for more money when probably a number of funds youre using in the first place are going to law enforcement to handle the situation that you created for yourself.

Does that mean the president is more concerned about deporting illegal immigrants than he is about putting shooters and killers in jail? Blakley persisted.

No, said Spicer, because if a shooter or killer is here illegally and is in this country, then I think, respectfully, that youre delinking the two issues. If you have people who are in this country illegally, who are part of the gang and are a threat to public safety or are committing a crime, then funding that activity and allowing that to fester is in itself a problem. So by not rooting that out in the first place is allowing the problem to continue and not exactly showing an attempt to solve it in the first place.

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There isnt much evidence to back up Spicers claim that sanctuary cities are more dangerous because they are only pretending to express concern about law enforcement, but theres plenty to refute him. Analysis of counties that have been designated with sanctuary status show lower crimes rates, including homicide rates. According to one study of the 2010 census, immigrants have a lower incarceration rate than native-born Americans. A 2013 study found that increased levels of immigration to neighborhoods generally lower the crime rates there.

[We do] not conduct immigration enforcement and this will not change, the Chicago Police Department said in a statement to Chicago magazine last week. CPD investigates crime, not immigration. CPD officers will never ask about the immigration or naturalization status of residents.

Spicers comments echo those of Trump recently.

Sanctuary cities, as you know, Im very much opposed to sanctuary cities, said Trump in a pre-Super Bowl interview with Bill OReilly. They breed crime. Theres a lot of problems.

You look at Chicago, and you look at other places, said Trump at a gathering of police chiefs and sheriffs. So many of the problems are caused by gang members, many of whom are not even legally in our country.

I dont know anyone in Chicago who believes that, Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle told CBS 2 Chicago in response to the presidents claim. Whether we are talking about African-American or Latino neighborhoods, we are not talking about illegal immigrants. We are talking about our native-born sons and daughters.

From CBS 2 Chicago:

Officials in Chicago havent linked the violence to an influx of illegal immigrants. Rather, they say, prison sentences for gun crimes are too lenient, allowing repeat offenders with gang ties out on the street to commit more violence.

The violence in Chicago was a recurring campaign pitch for Trump, who used the homicide rates there as one reason African-Americans should vote for him. However, as Yahoo News Holly Bailey reported last year, Trump the candidate mentioned the violence everywhere on the trail except Chicago and avoided the Southside neighborhoods with the highest rate of violent crime when visiting the city.

Many law enforcement agencies do not comply with detainee requests from the Immigration and Custom Enforcement Agency because some federal courts have ruled them to be illegal unless there is a separate court order.

Caitlin Dickson contributed to the reporting of this story.

Read more from Yahoo News:
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The White House said on Friday that the United States must accept the political reality that the future of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is up to the Syrian people and the U.S. focus in the region must be on defeating Islamic State militants. "With respect to Assad, there is a political reality that we have to accept in terms of where we are right now. We lost a lot of opportunity the last administration with respect to Assad," White House spokesman Sean Spicer told a news briefing. "We need to focus on now defeating ISIS," he said, using an acronym for the group. "The United States has profound priorities in Syria and Iraq and we've made it clear that counterterrorism, particularly the defeat of ISIS, is foremost among those priorities." (Reporting by Steve Holland; Writing by David Alexander; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)
Hollywood likes to tease us, most recently with the possibility of Beyonce voicing Nala in an upcoming live-action Lion King remake.

She's reportedly director Jon Favreau's top choice, but that doesn't mean we'll see this glorious dream come to fruition (no matter how much we tweet about it). Beyonce is my first choice to play at my birthday party  doesn't mean it's going to happen. Still, we couldn't help imagining this bright future and what it would mean to have the Queen be part of King.

SEE ALSO: Donald Glover will be the new Simba, but Mufasa will be a familiar face

1. An extra Beyonce album

She would obviously perform her own songs, and unlike with certain Beauty and the Beast cast members (looking at you, Emma Watson autotune), this would be the purest of blessings and basically a freebie album.

2. Simba would not be King

Casting Beyonce would make Nala the real lion King, because no one can outrank Beyonce in a monarchy or any other form of government.

3. The red carpet photos

Imagine Bey doing a press tour with all THREE of her children, based on the magnificent matching she and little Blue pulled off at the premiere of Beauty and the Beast. The internet wouldn't be able to handle it.

4. This ain't her first barbecue

Bey voiced Mother Nature in the 2013 movie Epic, alongside an impressive cast of actor. She also performed the O.G. "Rise Up" (sorry, Lin-Manuel Miranda!) for the soundtrack, so she's literally done this whole deal before.

5. Picture every Nala quote...as Beyonce

Nala is hardly one of the most quotable characters in Disney canon, but when you go over her lines, can't you just hear Beyonce saying things like, "I wonder if its brains are still in there?" (that's child Nala, but still). Nala is all about strength and encouragement...sound like anyone you know?

6. A formidable alliance

IMAGINE THE POSSIBILITIES

Image: Buchan/Variety/REX/Shutterstock

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Listen, I just did a proper Boolean Google search for "Donald Glover AND Beyonce" and there were zero pictures of them together. Let's kick this press tour off yesterday.

7. ...Times two

WHAT IF THEY REALLY JIVE AND COLLAB ON AN ORIGINAL SONG FOR THE SOUNDTRACK? HELP, I GOTTA GO.

WATCH: Grammy love affair between Adele and Beyonce had all of us reaching for the tissues
When President Trump addresses Congress on Tuesday, he may make use of some of the State of the Unions best-known tropes or name-drop his guests the way Presidents have done at decades worth of such speeches.

But heres your reminder that the speech hell give is not actually a State of the Union address - even though it could have been. The reason its not goes back to a tradition that was started by Ronald Reagan.

The origins of the Presidents regularly scheduled speech to Congress can be traced to the Constitution, which requires that the President shall from time to time give to the Congress information of the state of the union, and recommend to their consideration such measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient.

This rather vague construction has meant that Presidents have differed over the years on how they preferred to fulfill that duty (with a written message or in person, for example) and what such information would look like, but its generally been the case going back to George Washingtons time that the information on the state of the union is given by someone whos in a position to know what that state is. In other words, the people who give such speeches are usually people who have been President for a while.

At first, however, that was just a coincidence. The Presidential duty would generally be fulfilled shortly before the New Year, which meant that even a fresh office-holder would have been in charge for the good portion of a year. (A full list of such addresses and the dates on which they were given can be found at the American Presidency Project of the University of California, Santa Barbara.)

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As they did in so many areas, things changed under Franklin Roosevelt.

He was inaugurated in March of 1933, but he did not deliver a State of the Union that year. Instead, he did so in early 1934. In between, the 20th Amendment had gone into effect, changing when the new session of Congress would begin and moving inaugurations to January. FDR decided to address Congress in January, at the beginning of the term, rather than in December. That meant that if future presidents followed his lead, the State of the Union - which was still formally known as the Annual Message, though informal usage of the term State of the Union address had begun to spread - would run right up against Inauguration Day.

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This change didnt make a difference for another two decades or so - FDR kept getting reelected, and the transition to Harry Truman after FDRs death continued to mean that the person in office in any given January had been there for a while. It was during this period, in the 1940s, that the Annual Message became more officially known as the State of the Union, per the House of Representatives. (One reason the name change stuck, according to Senate historian Donald Ritchie, was Frank Capras 1948 film State of the Union, which TIME called mildly entertaining.)

In January of 1953, weeks before turning over power to Dwight D. Eisenhower, Truman delivered his final State of the Union. But then Eisenhower made an interesting decision. Rather than wait until the following January to meet his duty to recommend measures to Congress, he went before the Congress to make a speech in February, even though he had only been President for a few weeks.

Eisenhower wrote in his diary that he had misgivings about speaking so soon:

Today I give my first "state of the union" talk before a joint session of Congress. I feel it a mistake for a new administration to be talking so soon after inauguration; basic principles, expounded in an inaugural talk, are one thing, but to begin talking concretely about a great array of specific problems is quite another. Time for study, exploration, and analysis is necessary.

But, as NPR has noted, an incoming President who has something to say - for example, a statement about a party transition, which Eisenhower represented and which helped him decide to speak despite his worries - might have reason to want to speak about the State of the Union even a few weeks in. Following Eisenhower, that idea of delivering a State of the Union right after being inaugurated was followed by John F. Kennedy in 1961 but did not become a real tradition.

Then, when Ronald Reagan came to office in 1981, he took a slightly different tack: though he did deliver an address to the Joint Session of Congress in February of 1981, just after his Inauguration Address, he specifically did not call it a State of the Union. Jimmy Carter had delivered one right before leaving office, and Reagan instead called his speech an Address Before a Joint Session of the Congress on the Program for Economic Recovery. Though TIME noted that the speech was what amounts to a State of the Union address, it wasnt one. George H.W. Bush followed that pattern in 1989, Bill Clinton in 1993, George W. Bush in 2001 and Barack Obama with his 2009 speech. (Meanwhile, the tradition of an outgoing President delivering a last State of the Union prior to his departure has faded.)

Trumps this year is billed as following Reagans script rather than Eisenhowers: its an address to Congress, but not a State of the Union.

For all that history, however, the name of the speech may not matter all that much. As the Congressional Research Service points out in its analysis of the State of the Union, scholars consider these speeches to serve the same ceremonial, rhetorical, and political function as a typical State of the Union.

This article was originally published on TIME.com
BORREGO SPRINGS, Calif. (AP)  An explosion of wildflowers in California's desert sands is drawing record crowds to see the rare abundance of color called a "super bloom."

The natural wonder is thanks to a wet winter followed by warm temperatures in the Anza-Borrego State Park, northeast of San Diego. Wildflower seeds that have been dormant for years in the drought-plagued region have sprouted in mass, producing a spectacular display not seen in 20 years.

An estimated 150,000 people in the past month have converged on Borrego Springs, a town of about 3,500 that abuts the park.

Rain-fed wildflowers are springing up in different landscapes across the state and the western United States. In the Antelope Valley, an arid plateau northeast of Los Angeles, blazing orange poppies are lighting up the ground.

But the "super bloom"  mass amounts of desert plants blooming at once  has been concentrated in the 640,000-acre (1,000-square-mile) Anza-Borrego State Park.

In California, super blooms happen about once in a decade in a given area. They have been occurring less frequently with the drought. Last year, the right amount of rainfall and warm temperatures produced carpets of flowers in Death Valley.

The natural show at Anza-Borrego is expected to roll along through May, with different species blooming at different elevations and in different areas. The state park is California's largest, with hundreds of species of plants including desert lilies, blazing stars and the flaming tall, spiny Ocotillo.

Deputies were brought in to handle the traffic jams as Borrego Springs saw its population triple in a single day.

On one particularly packed weekend in mid-March, motorists were stuck in traffic for five hours, restaurants ran out of food, and some visitors relieved themselves in the fields. Officials have since set up an army of Port-A-Pottys, and eateries have stocked up. The craze has been dubbed "Flowergeddon."

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Tour groups from as far as Japan and Hong Kong have flown in to catch the display before it fades away with the rising temperatures.

Wildflower enthusiasts worldwide track the blooms online and arrive for rare sightings like this year's Bigelow's Monkey flower, some of which have grown to 8 inches (203 millimeters) in height. The National Park Service has even pitched in with a 24-hour wildflower hotline to find the best spots at the state park.

"We've seen everything from people in normal hiking attire to people in designer flip-flops to women in sundresses and strappy heels hike out there to get their picture. When I saw that, I thought, 'Oh no. Please don't go out there with those shoes on,'" laughed Linda Haddock, head of the Borrego Springs Chamber of Commerce.

On a recent day, a young woman sat among knee-high desert sunflowers and shot selfies against the backdrop of yellow blooms that looked almost neon in contrast to the brown landscape. A mother jumped in the air as her daughter snapped her photo among yellow brittlebushes.

The blooms are attracting hungry sphinx moth caterpillars that munch through acres. The caterpillars in turn are attracting droves of Swainson hawks on their annual 6,000-mile (9,656-kilometer) migration from Argentina.

"It's an amazing burst in the cycle of life in the desert that has come because of a freakish event like a super bloom," Haddock said. "It's exciting. This is going to be so huge for our economy."

This year's display has been especially stunning, experts say. The region received 6 inches (165 millimeters) of rain from December to February, followed by almost two weeks of 90-degree temperatures, setting the conditions for the super bloom. Five years of drought made the seeds ready to pop.

Humans also helped. Park staff, volunteers and female prisoners have been removing the Sahara Mustard plant, an invasive species believed brought to California in the 1920s with another plant, the date palm. Sahara Mustard had been covering popular wildflower areas, said Jim Dice, research manager at the Anza-Borrego Desert Research Center.

Sandra Reel and her husband drove hundreds of miles out of their way when they heard about this year's super bloom.

"It is absolutely phenomenal to see this many blooming desert plants all at the same time," she said. "I think it's probably a once-in-a-lifetime thing."
BORREGO SPRINGS, California (AP)  Rain-fed wildflowers have been sprouting from California's desert sands after lying dormant for years  producing a spectacular display unofficially called a "super bloom" that has drawn record crowds and traffic jams to tiny towns like Borrego Springs.

An estimated 150,000 people in the past month have converged on this town of about 3,500 in the desert about 85 miles (135 kilometers) northeast of San Diego.

Wildflowers are springing up across California thanks to a wet winter. But a "super bloom" is a term referring to a mass amount of desert plants blooming at one time. In California, that occurs maybe once in a decade in any given area.

The natural show in the desert outside Borrego Springs is expected to roll along through May, with different species blooming at different elevations and in different areas.
A new travel contest has been launched that will set the winner up with a lifetime's worth of holidays in the South of France as part of a major tourism promotional campaign to highlight the region.

Dubbed "French Merveilles," or French Wonders, the contest will award the winner one full week of vacation, every year for the rest of their life, in the Provence-Alpes-Cote d'Azur region, discovering area gems such as Grasse, the cradle of perfumery, or the wines of southern France.

Other packages include a ski holiday in Serre-Chevalier; a week tracing the footsteps of the French painter Paul Cezanne; and a week during the Grand Prix de Formule 1 in Castellet.

The winner is also entitled to bring a travel partner.

The contest is a partnership between TripAdvisor and the regional tourism office, and organizers are expected to go on a major promotional blitz this summer as part of a bigger strategy aimed at restoring interest in the area, nearly a year after the Bastille Day attacks in Nice.

It's the latest headline-grabbing travel contest to launch in recent weeks. Another competition by luxury short-term rental site Thirdhome required entrants to film a one-minute video on why they would be the best ambassador for their brand for the chance to win $10,000 and stays in luxury homes around the world.

The French Merveilles contest, which requires filling out an entry form at www.frenchmerveilles.com, closes August 31.

The campaign was developed in partnership with Publicis. Relaxnews is a member of the Publicis Group.
The 21-year-old getaway driver in the Oklahoma home invasion shooting that resulted in three deaths collapsed into tears as she spoke out about the break-in gone wrong.

Read: 911 Call Released in 'Make My Day' Home Invasion Killings

Elizabeth Rodriguez spoke to Inside Edition from an Oklahoma jail, where she admitted her role in the crime.

Rodriguez' boyfriend, Max Cook, and friends Jacob Redfern and Jake Woodruff were all killed when the homeowner's son, Zach Peters, opened fire with an assault rifle.

She recalled: "I heard the gunshots and I waited and I waited, waiting for them and then Jake came out. I seen him by the gate and he slid across my car. All I could hear him say was, 'I got hit.' He fell down in the driveway."

Rodriguez sped off but surrendered to police just hours later. She revealed that there was somebody else in the car with her who is believed to be a 15-year-old girl.

"I took her where I knew she could be safe," Rodriguez said.

She says she and the three teens committed several carjackings and home invasions together.

"I guess we kind of got used to not getting caught. We made bad choices," she said.

While Zach Peters has been praised by many for defending his home, Elizabeth Rodriguez has been charged with murdering the three teens and could face the death penalty.

Under Oklahoma law, if someone dies while a group commits a felony, all suspects can be charged with murder, even if they did not actually kill the person.

Read: Two Kids Shot Dead While Home Alone in Georgia 'Home Invasion'

I understand legally why they are charging me, but did I kill them? Did I murder them? No, I don't believe I did at all. I tried to help them," she said.

She also agrees that Peters had every right to use deadly force.

"I don't think that Zach Peters murdered them," she said. "Zach had every right to. I understanding of why he did what he did. He was protecting his home. That's his right. We all knew what could happen. We all knew the risk."

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Rodriguez has three children between the ages of seven months and two years, but won't confirm reports that she is pregnant. She says she's hoping the families of the dead teens will forgive her.

She said she has "a lot of regrets" for what she has done.

Under Oklahoma law if someone dies during the commission of a felony, all suspects can be charged with murder even if they did not actually kill someone.

Watch: 'Top Gun' Star Kelly McGillis on Edge After Terrifying Home Invasion: 'Help Me!'

Related Articles:
The woman who says she drove three teenagers to an Oklahoma home where they were fatally shot during a midday break-in told television reporters that she feels guilty, but not responsible for their deaths and that she has little compassion for the man who shot them.

Elizabeth Marie Rodriguez, 21, is jailed without bond on murder and burglary warrants in Wagoner County for the deaths of Maxwell Cook, Jacob Redfern and Jakob Woodruff at the home just outside the city limits of the Tulsa suburb of Broken Arrow. The Wagoner County sheriff's office says the three were between 15 and 19 years old.

Authorities have said the three were shot Monday by the homeowner's 23-year-old son, who has not been arrested, and that each was found masked, dressed in black and wearing gloves. A knife and brass knuckles were recovered at the scene.

"I understand he (the son) protected his home," Rodriguez told television station KOTV. "He had his rights."

But she said he could have shot the three in the legs. "He's at the bottom of my list to be compassionate for," she said.

Teary-eyed and often sniffling during the interviews, Rodriguez said she drove the teens to the home with the intent to burglarize it, while acknowledging the group had stolen items earlier the same day from a detached garage on the same property.

"I won't take responsibility for the murders, I won't. I feel guilty, but I don't feel responsible," Rodriguez said to ABC's "World News Tonight with David Muir."

Rodriguez also said another person was with her in the vehicle as she waited outside the home, but would not identify the person.

First Assistant District Attorney Jack Thorp told The Associated Press on Friday that he had not seen the interviews, but was aware of them.

"We will be scrutinizing her comments," Thorp said.

He said it was interesting that Rodriguez would mention that someone else was with her, but that his office was aware of that detail.

Wagoner County Deputy Nick Mahoney told the AP that investigators have found the person believed to have been with Rodriguez and are interviewing the individual, but have made no arrests.

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The sheriff's office sent a preliminary report to the prosecutor's office Friday, and a final investigative report is expected to reach prosecutors next week. Thorp said decisions about what, if any, charges Rodriguez will face and whether the homeowner's son will be charged could be made as early as Monday.

Rodriguez could be charged under a state law that allows for murder charges against a person who takes part in a crime in which another person is killed.

The homeowner's son could be cleared under the state's "Stand Your Ground" law, which allows citizens to shoot someone if they believe their safety is threatened. Oklahoma is among 24 states with such a provision, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

"I intend to review the entire report and apply it to the law" that allows people to protect themselves and their property, Thorp said.

"Folks have a right to feel safe and secure in their own house," he said.

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This piece is part of an ongoing series on the unsung women of history. Read more here.

In 1856, an attractive young widow presented herself at the offices of Allan Pinkerton. At the time, he was well on his way to fame as the founder of Americas first detective agency. Little did he realize that his visitor wasnt just another pretty face; she was Kate Warne and she was soon to become the worlds first woman P.I.

Though Pinkerton gushed about Warnes good looks and graceful vivacity, what really impressed him was her sense of purpose. She was looking for a job, she told him, and he should hire her. She could go and worm out secrets in many places which it was impossible for male detectives to gain access, Pinkerton wrote years later. She had evidently given the matter much study. Pinkerton agreed, and a legend was born.

Little is known of Warnes life before she became a private eye, only that she was about 23 when she came to Pinkertons office and that she had a knack for acting and undercover work. She soon proved her worth to Pinkerton, befriending the wife of a man who had stolen thousands of dollars from a railroad company and helping find the hidden cash. But her most famous case-helping evade an assassination conspiracy against Abraham Lincoln-was still ahead of her.

She was a brilliant conversationalist when so disposed, and could be quite vivacious, Pinkerton later wrote, adding with the eras characteristic misogyny that she also understood that rarer quality in womankind, the art of being silent. Whether talkative or quiet, Warnes tact and savvy served her well in 1861. Thats the year that Pinkerton discovered that President-elect Lincoln, who was on a whistle-stop tour from Springfield, Ill., to Washington, D.C. ahead of his inauguration, was the target of an assassination plot by a group of Southern conspirators who hated his abolitionism.

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Warne went undercover, heading to Baltimore under the guise of a Southern widow, and gained admission to the living rooms of the families of Southerners intent on killing the newly elected Abraham Lincoln-women who would naturally suspect a Northerner of bad intentions. The secession ribbon, or cockade, she wore with her clothing helped her further ingratiate herself among the Southern ladies. Warne passed the rumors and hints she learned in her conversations along to Pinkerton.

But her job was far from merely social. Details of the plot were now becoming clear. The assassination was supposed to take place during Lincolns scheduled stop in Baltimore, the only slaveholding city on his calendar. The President-elect would be especially vulnerable because of the publicity that went along with his celebratory journey. His only option would be to slip through Baltimore at night.

Thats where Warne came in. Pinkerton arranged a complex ruse that involved Lincoln traveling in the sleeper compartments of regular passenger trains to evade public notice. Warne was in charge of getting sleeper berths and keeping them free for the future president, then helping spirit him onto the train unnoticed.

Warne pretended she had a sick brother who needed complete peace and quiet on the train. She met a disguised Lincoln at the Philadelphia train station where he was waiting, greeted him as if he were her brother and accompanied him to the sleeper car. Together, they traveled the rest of the way to Washington, even enduring an hours-long delay when the sleeper car had to be transported via horse through Baltimore due to a noise ordinance.

Pinkerton and Warne worked together throughout the Civil War, posing as husband and wife and infiltrating various layers of Southern society. But though Warnes detective chops were legendary, she did not live long enough to have many more adventures as a private investigator.

In late 1867, she suddenly contracted pneumonia and she died on Jan. 28, 1868 with Pinkerton at her side. She was around 35 years of age. Warnes career may have been relatively short, but she still looms large as historys first female P.I.-a woman not afraid to go into places no man could ever infiltrate.

This article was originally published on TIME.com
Strange sores on a woman's swollen skin weren't caused by an insect bite, but by insects burrowing into her skin, according to a recent report of the woman's case.

When the 46-year-old woman went to the emergency room in the United Kingdom with painful marks on her arm, the doctors initially thought she had been bitten by an insect. She was given antibiotics and sent home.

But when the woman returned the next day because the pain in her arm was getting worse, the doctors realized they were dealing with no ordinary skin infection: In the ulcerations on her skin, something was wiggling, according to a recent report of the woman's case. [Here's a Giant List of the Strangest Medical Cases We've Covered]

The doctors found several fly larvae burrowed into her skin, according to the report, published today (March 29) in The New England Journal of Medicine.

The larvae were from the tumbu fly (Cordylobia anthropophaga), a species found in the tropics of Africa, according to the report. Indeed, the woman had recently returned from a trip to the Ivory Coast, a country in West Africa, the doctors wrote.

The tumbu fly is sometimes referred to as the putzi fly or the "skin maggot," according to the report. Other fly species are also known to burrow into people's skin, including the human bot fly (Dermatobia hominis) and the Old World screwworm (Chrysomya bezziana), according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Female tumbu flies can lay their eggs on damp clothing or in soil, and if these eggs come into contact with a person's skin, they can burrow in, according to the report. Typically, larvae are found burrowed into the skin on a persons back, buttocks or the back of the legs, the doctors said in the case report.

The doctors initially tried to squeeze the larvae out of the woman's arm, but ended up having to remove them surgically, said Dr. John Park, a medical resident who treated the woman while working in England in 2016, and is now a Kennedy scholar at the Harvard University T. H. Chan School of Public Health.

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The woman was given local anesthesia during the procedure, according to the report. In some cases, doctors will cover the sores with paraffin wax for the procedure, because this has been shown to help drive the larvae up to the surface of the skin, the report said.

Once the larvae were removed, the woman's pain disappeared, Park told Live Science. She was surprised to learn that the pain was caused by burrowing larvae, Park added.

The woman was given antibiotics, and returned for a checkup after a few days, Park said. When he last saw the patient, she was doing well, he said.

Park said that if the larvae were not removed, the woman's infection would've gotten worse. The larvae wouldn't have hatched out of her skin as full-grown flies, however. When the larvae have matured a bit, they work their way out of the skin, drop to the ground and continue to develop in the soil, according to the CDC. This typically occurs at night or early in the morning, so the larvae don't dry out in the sun, the CDC says.

Originally published on Live Science.

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SANAA, Yemen (AP)  Yemeni rebels have detained seven local employees of a humanitarian aid group and accused them of spying for foreign intelligence, security officials said Friday.

The rebels, known as Houthis, raided a hotel the humanitarian group was using in Ibb province, taking the employees to a prison in the capital, Sanaa.

International Medical Corps said five staff members and two drivers had been detained, and that they were working to secure their release so they could continue to aid a population suffering from war.

"Despite the ongoing conflict that has caused a steady deterioration of humanitarian conditions across the country since 2015, our relief efforts continue to provide a lifeline for families," in several Yemeni cities, said Rebecca Gustafson, a group spokeswoman.

The rebels, from a Shiite sect based in the north, stormed south into the capital in late 2014, leading the president to flee several months later. In March 2015, a Saudi-led coalition launched an air and ground campaign to overthrown the rebels, but it's been unable to advance much from a southern foothold.

The war has fallen into a stalemate, but fighting continues. The U.N. says some 50,000 civilians have been killed or wounded.

The officials spoke anonymously as they weren't authorized to brief journalists.
NEW YORK (AP)  A case unfolding in a lower Manhattan courtroom has caused political tremors in Honduras, seeming to confirm long-held suspicions that corruption at the highest levels of government helped turn the Central American country into a violent epicenter of the drug trade at the start of this decade.

Fabio Porfirio Lobo, the son of the Honduran president in 2010-2013, is preparing to go before a federal judge for sentencing after pleading guilty to his role in a drug-trafficking ring involving members of Honduras' national police. But it is the details of the conspiracy that emerged in testimony and newly released court documents which have captivated people back home by tying his father and a brother of the current president directly to traffickers.

Political and civil society groups have been demanding investigations into the allegations, especially against former President Porfirio "Pepe" Lobo Sosa, who remains a leader in the ruling National Party and is among the wealthiest people in the country, with extensive agricultural land holdings.

"This is something that everyone suspected," said Edmundo Orellana, a former attorney general of Honduras. "But what we didn't know was the extent of the involvement with the politicians. This has been a surprise."

Most of the new information has come from a surprising source: Devis Leonel Rivera Maradiaga, a once-feared leader of a Honduran trafficking organization known as Los Cachiros. He matter-of-factly admitted taking part in dozens of killings, including the country's former drug czar, as he testified in a largely empty courtroom against the ex-president's son over two days in March.

"I caused the death of 78 people," he said at one point. "Together with politicians and drug traffickers."

Rivera Maradiaga had a decade-long career as a trafficker based on the Atlantic coast. He described paying at least $500,000 in bribes directly to the elder Lobo, beginning when he was running for the presidency in 2009 following a coup that ousted the former president and threw Honduras into political chaos. Rivera Maradiaga was seeking protection for his business and against extradition to the U.S.

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Rivera Maradiaga sketched out what became a close working relationship with the younger Lobo during his father's term in office. It allowed him to ship huge quantities of cocaine to the U.S. in coordination with the cartel led by Mexican drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman. As U.S. authorities closed in on him, the leader of Los Cachiros surrendered to the Drug Enforcement Administration with his brother in 2013 and became a cooperating witness.

As part of their relationship, the president's son connected the head of Los Cachiros to corrupt politicians and police to bring in loads of cocaine from Colombia and Venezuela, according to U.S. prosecutors. They said the son helped the trafficker set up front companies, including a zoo north of the capital, and obtain government contracts that enabled him to launder enormous profits.

Rivera Maradiaga also testified that Antonio Hernandez, a brother of Honduras' current president, Juan Orlando Hernandez, asked him for a bribe in exchange for government contracts. The brother has denied that allegation.

"Without support from (the president's son) and Honduran officials, criminality of this magnitude could not have continued, largely unfettered, for as long as it did," prosecutors wrote in a pre-sentencing brief.

At the time, Honduras had deteriorated into violent upheaval. In 2011, the U.N. ranked it as the country with the world's highest homicide rate. The U.S. State Department described Honduras as the "primary transshipment point" for U.S.-bound cocaine and lamented that the country received a 2.4 out of 10 on Transparency International's Corruption Perceptions Index.

The situation has improved since Lobo left office. The State Department says in its most recent report that the volume of cocaine that passes through Honduras is down 40 percent since 2014, the homicide rate has dropped a third, and a new national police investigative division "replaced its historically inept and corrupt predecessor." In December 2014, with the new president in office, the country extradited the first Honduran citizen to the U.S. on a drug-trafficking charge, Carlos Lobo, who is not related to the former president. He was convicted and sentenced to 20 years in prison.

U.S. Vice President Mike Pence met with Honduras' president on March 23 and praised the country's progress fighting drugs and corruption.

As a result of the revelations of alleged corruption by Rivera Maradiaga, the Honduran government said it is conducting a wide-ranging investigation that includes at least four anti-corruption prosecution teams to look into allegedly fraudulent government contracts set up to help Los Cachiros launder money.

Manuel Retureta, a lawyer for Lobo, has declined to comment but said in a motion filed with the court late Thursday that Rivera Maradiaga has downplayed his role in killings and drug trafficking and his allegations against the former president are irrelevant and unproven. "Rivera Maradiaga's word alone is far from sufficient evidence and should be treated with great caution," he said.

The DEA and federal prosecutors have declined to discuss the case because it is ongoing. Lobo faces up to life in prison when he is sentenced later this year.

Rivera Maradiaga has pleaded guilty to charges that include drug trafficking and involvement in the slayings of the 78 people, including a woman killed in November 2013 in Quebec after fleeing the gang in her homeland. He also faces up to life in prison at a sentencing scheduled for April.

The former drug gang boss apparently did gain a concession. He said in court that U.S. authorities have allowed his parents and two siblings to come to the United States as he continues to provide assistance.

"I'm in prison," he said. "And ever since I signed my agreement with the government I have to tell the truth, testify whenever they ask me to, and not commit any more crimes."

___

Associated Press writer Claudia Torrens reported this story in New York and AP writer Ben Fox reported from Miami. AP writer Freddy Cuevas contributed in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, contributed to this report.
New York (AFP) - New York's mayor pledged Friday to shut down the notorious Rikers Island prison, the city's main jail complex, in a process that will take at least 10 years.

"We had to do a lot of work to figure out a path that actually could achieve this goal," said Mayor Bill de Blasio as he announced the commitment, which he was previously reluctant to make.

"For a long time I have said publicly it was a noble idea but I did not see how it was attainable under the conditions we were facing."

Many New York officials and legal experts for years have been calling for the closure of the huge site of the same name as the island in the East River where it is located, which sits between the city's boroughs of Queens and the Bronx.

They highlighted the jail's aging and poor conditions and almost daily incidents of violence against prisoners and guards.

They mayor said it became clear that "we that had to adjust the time line if we were going to be honest about it -- that a decade was the minimum in which it could be done. That was the breakthrough."

De Blasio said that the decreasing number of inmates in recent years, along with a reduction in crime, had helped to change his mind on the closure.

Detainee numbers on Rikers have effectively dropped by 18 percent since 2013, according to recent statistics, from a daily average of 11,696 prisoners to 9,756 in 2016, and 9,362 for the month of March.

The mayor acknowledged that the plan would nevertheless require commitment from his successors to build smaller prisons, closer to neighborhoods where New Yorkers live.

It remains to be seen whether such a long-term commitment will be able to withstand political changes in the coming years.

De Blasio is running for reelection as mayor in November and is well placed to secure a new four-year term.

Among the better-known detainees to spend time on the island was the former head of the International Monetary Fund, France's Dominique Strauss-Kahn.

He was briefly imprisoned there in May 2011 following his arrest in New York after he was accused of attempted rape by a hotel maid.
By Carolyn Crist (Reuters Health)  Diabetes can lead to blindness, but children and teens with diabetes may not receive recommended eye exams in the years following their diagnosis, a U.S. study suggests. Researchers found that just 65 percent of youth with type 1 diabetes and 42 percent of those with type 2 diabetes had vision-loss screening within six years of their diabetes diagnosis. More youth now than ever are being diagnosed with diabetes. By 2050, the prevalence with type 1 will triple and the prevalence with type 2 will quadruple, with the greatest increase in minority populations, said lead study author Dr. Sophia Wang of the University of Michigan Medical School in Ann Arbor. The American Academy of Ophthalmology recommends screening for diabetic retinopathy five years after an initial diabetes diagnosis for youth with type 1 diabetes while the American Diabetes Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics recommend screening within three to five years. For kids with type 2 diabetes, screening is recommended at diagnosis. Diabetic retinopathy is a complication of diabetes that may not have symptoms in early stages but can progress to vision loss. The damage to the retina of the eye results from damage to tiny blood vessels that affects other parts of the body as well. About half of people with retinopathy develop diabetic macular edema, a fluid build-up in the retina, or glaucoma. Diabetic retinopathy is the number one cause of vision loss in ages 20-74, so screening is an important component of diabetes care, Wang told Reuters Health by email. To see how many kids with diabetes are getting the recommended screening, Wang and colleagues analyzed data from a national managed care network, which included more than 5,400 youth under age 21 with type 1 diabetes and 7,200 with type 2 diabetes. Overall, researchers found that about 4,000 kids, or 31 percent, had an eye exam. Those with type 1 diabetes were more likely to have had an eye exam compared with those who had type 2 diabetes, the study team reports in JAMA Ophthalmology . White and Asian youth were more likely to have had exams than black and Latino youth. Those with a higher household net worth were also more likely to receive an eye exam compared with those in lower-income households. Despite the fact that all the youth in our study possessed health insurance, we found disparities by race and family affluence, suggesting that they may be particularly at risk, Wang said. In the study, 11 percent of black children and teens and 18 percent of Latino youth were less likely to undergo an eye exam compared to white kids. Younger patients were also less likely to receive an exam than older ones. We must educate adolescents and caregivers on the importance of screening to improve care coordination between different medical specialists such as pediatricians, endocrinologists, ophthalmologists and optometrists, said study author Dr. Joshua Stein of the University of Michigan Kellogg Eye Center in Ann Arbor. More research is needed on new technologies which might render ophthalmic screening more accessible, such as retinal photography performed in primary care physicians clinics, he told Reuters Health by email. Diabetic retinopathy is considered the most common microvascular complication of diabetes and is projected to grow at an alarming rate, said Dr. Seema Garg of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, who wrote a commentary accompanying the study. Visual impairment is detrimental to patients personal independence, economic productivity, employment and overall quality of life, she told Reuters Health by email. The opportunity costs of a lifetime of blindness are enormous. Socioeconomics, geographical barriers, delayed referrals from primary care doctors, language barriers and cultural barriers also play a part in the screening gap. Retina screening via telemedicine could help address the issue, especially for racial minorities and economically disadvantaged youth, Garg writes in the commentary. Telemedicine is an emerging strategy for improving screening with remote expert interpretation, she writes. Telemedicine is effective in reaching underserved populations in remote, rural or urban settings where patients may be at risk for more advanced disease. SOURCE: http://bit.ly/2nAJHv1 and http://bit.ly/2nQkjn2 JAMA Ophthalmology, online March 23, 2017.
Exactly a century ago this Friday, on the morning of Feb. 24, 1917, the office of U.S. Secretary of State Robert Lansing received a telegram of warning from the U.S. Ambassador to Britain. In roughly three hours, the ambassador wrote, he would send another telegram, meant for Lansing and President Woodrow Wilson.

It was going to be something important.

When the second telegram arrived, it bore news that would play a role in changing the course of the next 100 years: the ambassador was telling the U.S. that he had received from the British the decoded text of a message they had intercepted from the Foreign Minister of Germany, Arthur Zimmermann, to his countrys minister to Mexico.

At the time, the U.S. remained neutral as the Great War raged across Europe. Although many Americans saw it becoming inevitable that their nation would eventually join the fight, those who favored staying out of it could still make an argument that what was going on was none of Americas business. After all, an ocean separated the U.S. from the fighting and, though attacks by German submarines on ships making the Atlantic crossing had earlier galvanized those who favored war, German authorities had agreed in 1916 to limit attacks on non-military ships.

But the information in the telegram intercepted by the British told the President that the time had come.

Among the official cryptograms which have been intercepted and translated by governmental authorities other than those for whom they were intended, the most important of all time, either in war or peace, is undoubtedly the one deciphered by the British Naval Intelligence which is known to historians as the Zimmermann telegram, declared a 1938 War Department report, which has since been declassified.

The chilling text of the document, as transcribed in the National Archives, was as follows:

We intend to begin on the first of February unrestricted submarine warfare. We shall endeavor in spite of this to keep the United States of America neutral. In the event of this not succeeding, we make Mexico a proposal or alliance on the following basis: make war together, make peace together, generous financial support and an understanding on our part that Mexico is to reconquer the lost territory in Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona. The settlement in detail is left to you. You will inform the President of the above most secretly as soon as the outbreak of war with the United States of America is certain and add the suggestion that he should, on his own initiative, invite Japan to immediate adherence and at the same time mediate between Japan and ourselves. Please call the President's attention to the fact that the ruthless employment of our submarines now offers the prospect of compelling England in a few months to make peace. Signed, ZIMMERMANN.

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National Archives and Records Administration Zimmermann Telegram Decimal File, left, and decoded Zimmermann Telegram, 1917.

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Though the War Department report acknowledged - as is still the case - that experts may disagree over whether the telegram actually pushed the U.S. toward anything that wouldnt have happened for other reasons, this telegram is generally seen as a key step in the United States move toward deciding to join in on World War I.

After all, at the months end, the Associated Press alerted the nation to the fact of the telegram, explaining that President Wilson had already been in possession of the document as German officials protested that they wanted to maintain friendly relations between the two nations. After that, it would be hard to argue that the U.S. could maintain neutrality in the conflict that had already been tearing Europe apart for years.

The declaration of war would come in April.

This article was originally published on TIME.com
New Carls Jr. ads do away with the sexy campaign that began with Paris Hilton in 2005. (Photo: Getty Images)

Is the reign of the perpetually adolescent sex-obsessed male over? It is, in the eyes of Carls Jr. and Hardees. The company unveiled a new ad strategy this week that literally pushes that guy (i.e., Carl Jr.) out of the office and does away with all those hot girls eating burgers in their bikinis. The fast food chains shift is one of several rebranding efforts that challenge the notion that sex, and only sex, sells.

It was time to evolve, Jason Norcross, the executive creative director of ad agency 72andSunny, told AdWeek of the new campaign. Some of the product attributes got lost because people were too busy ogling girls.

For the past 15 years, Carls Jr. (Hardees on the East Coast), whose parent company is CKE Restaurants, has been famous for the incongruous commercials showing the likes of Paris Hilton, Kate Upton, and Kim Kardashian biting into giant burgers without worrying about getting grease on their designer outfits or bloating their multimillion-dollar abs.

You can guess where we went with this. The #Bacon3Way, with @emilysears, @genevievemorton and @officialelenabelle. A post shared by Carl's Jr. (@carlsjr) on Jul 26, 2016 at 4:38pm PDT

We believe in putting hot models in our commercials, because ugly ones dont sell burgers, CKE CEO Andrew Puzder said in a 2011 press release. We target hungry guys, and we get young kids that want to be young hungry guys.

Puzder, who was nominated to be Donald Trumps secretary of labor before he withdrew his name, will be replaced at CKE next month by a new CEO. Still, in an interview with USA Today, Puzder framed this new campaign as part of an effort to focus more directly and convincingly on the quality and taste of the restaurants food, not just a changing of the guard. This is, after all, the same week that McDonalds announced it will soon make all its burgers with fresh beef.

The new guard is embodied in the fictional character of Carl Hardee Sr., played in the ads by Nashvilles Charles Esten, styled to look like a folksier version of the Dos Equis Most Interesting Man in the World. As he takes over from his slacker millennial son (Drew Tarver), he talks up the brands pioneering history.

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This follows other companies pivoting away from their sexy images in an effort to attract broader, more sophisticated buyers. Playboy stopped running nude photos last year and placed greater emphasis on its articles. Abercrombie and Fitchs latest campaigns have been completely devoid of midriffs to embrace a more inclusive spirit. Neither one of those efforts has proven successful, however. Playboy announced in February that it was rescinding the no-nudes stance and put out a March/April issue with the headline Naked is normal. Abercrombies sales were already dropping, and this shift seems to have done nothing to help matters.

Will Carls Jr. and Hardees have better luck? Theres a risk in alienating their old base, because people interested in edgy commercials and edgy branding may not be interested in the new branding, Ernest Baskin, assistant professor of food marketing at St. Joseph University, told USA Today.

See for yourself if this makes you hungry for burger:

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By Jamie Freed SYDNEY (Reuters) - Apple Inc on Friday won a victory in its global fight to prevent banks from introducing their own mobile payment services on Apple devices, as an Australian regulator barred lenders from bargaining collectively for access. The decision by Australia's competition watchdog, the first of its kind, will stop the banks from introducing their own mobile applications on iPhones and Apple Watches that could be used for contactless payments instead of the Apple Wallet. The banks had hoped to circumvent transaction fees and get customers to engage more frequently with their own apps, potentially unlocking more of Australia's contactless payment market valued at an estimated $84 billion a year. "It will have global implications," Australian Competition and Consumer Commission Chairman (ACCC) Rod Sims told Reuters after the ruling came down. "If others need to think it through ... weve at least got something out there which they can kick off from." A win by four of the largest Australian banks involved in the case, which command two-thirds of the nation's credit card market, would have given them more negotiating power and could have sparked similar appeals to regulators for access to Apple's systems in other jurisdictions around the world. Apple does not allow any of its 3,500 bank partners in 15 global markets access to the near-field communication (NFC) technology behind its payment system. The Australian regulator was concerned that giving the banks bargaining power could reduce competition by forcing Apple to act more like Alphabet Inc, whose Google arm owns the more open Android operating system that allows contactless payments from individual apps. "(Apple and Android) are very different offerings and they have different implications for ease of use, security and customer experience," Sims said. "It is a tricky issue for a competition regulator to force one competitor to adopt a strategy of the other competitor." An Apple spokeswoman said it was a great decision for Australians who wanted the "easiest, most secure and private payment experience possible with Apple Pay". The banks involved - Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA), Westpac Banking Corp, National Australia Bank Ltd (NAB) and Bendigo & Adelaide Bank Ltd - have yet to allow use of their cards with Apple Pay, which was introduced to the country last year. Australia and New Zealand Banking Group Ltd began offering Apple Pay to customers last year after reaching a deal with the U.S. company, while Macquarie Group Ltd and ING Groep NV's ING Direct introduced Apple Pay in February. ONE AT A TIME Payments consultant MWE Consulting last year estimated the Australian "tap and go" market at A$110 billion ($84.32 billion) a year and growing, although to date more transactions are with contactless cards than mobile phones. Lance Blockley, a payments expert representing the four banks involved in the Australian ruling, said they would now review their strategies regarding Apple Pay individually. "I suspect Apple will want to talk about Apple Pay rather than NFC access," he said, referring to any future negotiations. A Westpac spokeswoman said the bank remained open to introducing Apple Pay, while CBA and NAB declined to comment and Bendigo and Adelaide Bank could not be reached immediately for comment. Steve Worthington, a business professor at Melbourne's Swinburne University of Technology, said the four banks that battled Apple might now pay a financial price for doing so in the form of higher fees for using Apple Pay. "If you were in Apples shoes what would you do?," he said. "Would you give them the same deal (as the early adopters) or would you punish them by trying to make it more favorable to Apple?" ($1 = 1.3084 Australian dollars) (Reporting by Jamie Freed, Editing by Stephen Coates)
By Foo Yun Chee LUXEMBOURG (Reuters) - German beauty products maker Coty rejected claims that its distribution policies imply a blanket ban on online sales, arguing that its main concern was to safeguard the cachet of its luxury brands such as Marc Jacobs, Calvin Klein and Chloe. The comments by the company, part of U.S. group Coty Inc, came in a landmark case which could determine whether luxury goods companies can stop retailers from selling their products via online marketplaces such as Amazon or eBay. Brand owners have for the past decade argued they should have the right to choose their distributors to protect their image and exclusivity. Online platforms say such curbs are anti-competitive and hurt small businesses. The issue is significant for Europe which accounts for 70 percent of global luxury sales. The company told Europe's top court that its dispute with German retailer Parfumerie Akzente, which sells Coty's goods on sites including Amazon against its wishes, was not about imposing a ban on such trade. The company's agreements preventing retailers from selling on third-party online platforms are aimed at preserving the image and quality of its products, its lawyer Andreas Lubberger told the Court of Justice of the European Union (ECJ). Coty brought the original case in a Frankfurt court which subsequently sought guidance from the ECJ. Parfumerie Akzente's lawyer Oliver Spieker questioned the validity of Coty's arguments. The company has 26 shops and owns the second biggest online site for perfumes and cosmetics in Germany. The German government, a proponent of online trade, said online platforms were key outlets for small- and medium-sized enterprises. "Restrictions must never be abused in order to close off new innovative formats of distribution," its lawyer Thomas Henze said. eBay said in a statement it was vital to remove restrictions that prevent small and medium-sized businesses from growing and succeeding. "Platform bans allow brands to keep prices artificially high and restrict consumer choice," the company said. Luxembourg sees a blanket ban as disproportionate and unjustified, its lawyer Philippe-Emmanuel Partsch said. Amazon's European headquarters is located there. France, home to luxury brands such as Louis Vuitton and Chanel, sprang to Coty's defense. Online curbs safeguard the prestige and image of such products, Julie Bousin, lawyer for the French government, said. Italy, Sweden, the Netherlands and Austria also intervened in the case. An ECJ court adviser will issue a non-binding opinion in coming months. Judges, who follow such recommendations in four out of five cases, will rule shortly after that. The case is C-230 Coty Germany. (Editing by Keith Weir/Alexander Smith and Andrew Hay)
Samsung expects its new Galaxy S8 smartphone to become its best-selling handset of all time. Combined lifetime sales of its next-generation Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8+ are expected to top last years Galaxy S7 and S7 edge, which currently combine to hold that title for Samsung. While the company hasnt shared any specific targets, rumors suggest Samsung is aiming to sell about 60 million units, which is certainly nothing to scoff at. In fact, thousands of people reading this post right now probably plan to buy a Galaxy S8 or Galaxy S8+ themselves. Most of those people are likely situated in the United States though, so theres something they should know: There are two different versions of Samsungs hot new flagship smartphones, and the ones you buy wont be as powerful as the versions available elsewhere.

Don't Miss: This is probably going to make Galaxy S8 owners furious

As Samsung has done in previous years with its flagship smartphones, the company uses two different processors depending on region. In the US, Qualcomms new 10nm Snapdragon 835 is running the show. Elsewhere, Samsungs 10nm Exynos 8895 SoC powers the S8 and S8+. The two chipsets are comparable, but not identical.

Samsung notes in its Galaxy S8 specs that the Snapdragon 835 consists of a 2.3GHz quad-core for heavy lifting that is coupled with a power-efficient 1.7GHz quad that powers typical tasks. Meanwhile, the Exynos 8895 in the global versions of the Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8+ features a 2.35GHz quad and a 1.9GHz quad. As a number of tests have shown, these two chipsets do not deliver the same performance when theyre pushed to their limits.

Using the popular AnTuTu benchmark test to measure performance, the Snapdragon 835-powered US version of the Galaxy S8 generally scores in the 162,000-165,000 range. For the Exynos 8895-powered global model, however, weve seen AnTuTu scores as high as a whopping 205,000 points. Thats plenty good enough to top the previous market leader, Apples iPhone 7 Plus, which tops out around 185,000.

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You read that correctly, and its really going to hurt Android fanboys in the US. The Galaxy S8 actually is powerful enough to crush the iPhone 7 Plus, at least, as measured by AnTuTu. But the version sold in the US will fall short of matching the iPhones impressive performance.

We spent some time with the new Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8+, and we shared our early impressions in a hands-on Galaxy S8 preview. To most people, benchmark scores are meaningless, and we can confirm that the US version of the Galaxy S8 felt lightning fast while we were testing it. This just means that hardcore Android fans who thought they were going to have bragging rights over Apple fans are in for a bit of disappointment.

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The repatriation of the group - who are suspected of defrauding Chinese nationals over the phone from Spain - is likely to heighten tensions between Beijing and Taipei (AFP Photo/Kirill KUDRYAVTSEV) (AFP/File)

Berlin (AFP) - Germany's armed forces Saturday launch a cyber command, with a status equal to that of the army, navy and air force, meant to shield its IT and weapons systems from attack.

Military planners fear that wars of the future will start with cyber attacks against critical infrastructure and networks, extensive online espionage and sabotage.

The Bundeswehr's new Cyber and Information Space (CIR) Command, based in the former West German capital of Bonn, will start off with 260 IT specialists but grow to 13,500 military and civilian personnel by July.

With the new digital force, Germany is taking a leading role among NATO allies, its new commander, Lieutenant General Ludwig Leinhos, told news weekly Focus.

Leinhos said the main tasks would be to operate and protect the military's own IT infrastructure and computer-assisted weapons systems, as well as surveillance of online threats.

He said the centre would also develop and war-game offensive capabilities because "in order to be able to defend yourself, you have to know the options for attack".

However, any full-scale cyber attacks abroad would have to be approved by the German parliament, just like any other military mission.

The security of national and government IT systems, meanwhile, remains the responsibility of the interior ministry which oversees the domestic security agency that handles counterespionage.

The German government has been sensitised to cyber security since the parliament was attacked last year, with security sources suspecting Russian hackers behind the attack.

Defence Minister Ursula von der Leyen had announced the creation of the cyber command two years ago to protect the military from increasing numbers of online attacks.

The defence ministry said that in this year's first nine weeks alone, the IT systems of the Bundeswehr had been targeted more than 280,000 times.

Leinhos said that "we are in a constant race between the development of attack options and defensive capabilities".
We have Google to thank for plenty of the innovative technology that we rely on today. But Google as a company is always pushing forward, testing the boundaries of what we can use technology to do next.

In that spirit, Google in the Netherlands has announced a new project called Google Wind where they can actually control the weather using Netherlands' ubiquitous windmills.

Cool, right? We thought so, especially for a company's April Fools' joke. We've already seen so many bad ones in the last few days that it's a true delight to see one that doesn't blow.
(Reuters) - McDonald's Corp's Canadian unit said on Friday personal information of about 95,000 restaurant job applicants was compromised in a cyber attack on its careers website. The information included names, addresses, email addresses, phone numbers and employment backgrounds of candidates who applied online for jobs at McDonald's Canada restaurants between March 2014 and March 2017. The careers website was shut down after McDonald's learned of the attack, and will remain closed until an ongoing investigation is complete, the unit said. The company said it currently had no evidence that the information taken had been misused. McDonald's Canada said its job application forms do not ask for sensitive personal information such as social insurance numbers, banking or health information. McDonald's said earlier this month its official Twitter handle was compromised after a tweet sent from the account slammed U.S. President Donald Trump. (Reporting by Vishaka George and Anya George Tharakan in Bengaluru; Editing by Sai Sachin Ravikumar)
Microsoft might not be getting anywhere at all in the smartphone business when it comes to hardware, but the companys software is all over Android and iOS. The company also has several patent licensing deals in place with Android vendors that have brought in a ton of cash over the years. With all that in mind, it shouldnt be too surprising to see a Microsoft-branded Galaxy S8 that just became available for preorder today, no matter how crazy it seems.

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It was one thing for Samsung to partner with Google a few years ago to sell a Google Edition version of the Galaxy S4. That was a sort of Nexus-like device sold directly by Google to Galaxy S fans who wanted a bloatware-free Android experience. Those days are long gone, unfortunately.

Now, Microsoft is taking preorders for the Galaxy S8 Microsoft Edition and the Galaxy S8+ Microsoft Edition.

Microsoft is putting even more software on these special versions of the Galaxy S8 and S8+ that will be sold directly in its retail stores across America. However, you cant preorder them online from Microsofts online store.

A Microsoft customization is applied to the Samsung Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8+ Microsoft Edition when the devices are unboxed and connected to Wi-Fi, a Microsoft spokesperson told The Verge. This customization ensures customers a best-in-class productivity experience with Microsoft applications such as Office, OneDrive, Cortana, Outlook and more.

It sounds like the special edition phones are regular devices that will get a Microsoft bloatware package when you first connect them to Wi-Fi. Considering that many people use and appreciate Microsofts productivity suite, thats totally fine. And you probably can uninstall any of the extra bloatware if you dont need it.

Whats interesting is that Office, OneDrive, and Skype all come preinstalled on the regular Galaxy S8 handsets, just like they did with the Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S6. Its likely a result of a deal between the two companies following a patent fight a few years ago. But the Microsoft Edition also includes Outlook and Cortana. And yes, that means youll have three virtual assistants on the phone: Samsungs Bixby, Googles Assistant, and Microsofts Cortana.

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Its unclear how much the special edition phone costs, and whether it will be available unlocked. However, youd probably have to be a hardcore Microsoft and Samsung fan to go for this Galaxy S8 option, especially if you have to pay full sticker price to get it.

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Trouble-tainted Oculus cofounder Palmer Luckey has left Facebook, not long after the social network was hit with a big tab in a lawsuit over Oculus Rift virtual reality technology (AFP Photo/Gabrielle Lurie)

San Francisco (AFP) - Facebook on Thursday confirmed that trouble-tainted Oculus cofounder Palmer Luckey has left the leading social network, which dived into virtual reality after buying the startup three years ago.

"Palmer will be dearly missed," Facebook said in an email reply to an AFP inquiry.

"His inventive spirit helped kickstart the modern VR revolution and build an industry. We're thankful for everything he did for Oculus and VR, and we wish him all the best."

Luckey's departure came not long after Facebook was hit with a big tab in a lawsuit over Oculus Rift virtual reality technology -- and after he was criticized for covertly helping an online "troll" group that promoted memes in favor of Donald Trump during the US election.

Open support for Trump in Silicon Valley was scarce during the election, and some developers vowed not to create software for Rift virtual reality gear because of Luckey's pro-Trump efforts.

Luckey was noticeably absent from the stage at a major Oculus developers conference late last year.

- Real world suit -

A US jury ordered in February that Facebook and creators of Oculus Rift pay $500 million to gaming software firm ZeniMax in a lawsuit that accused Luckey and his colleagues who developed Rift virtual reality gear of using source code illegally obtained from the gaming firm.

The jury dismissed the charge that Oculus stole or misappropriated trade secrets but did find Oculus liable for copyright infringement and other violations.

Luckey was ordered to pay $50 million of the award and another former Oculus executive, Brendan Iribe, $150 million.

ZeniMax had sought $4 billion in damages in the case, in which Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg testified to defend his company.

Oculus said it planned to appeal the verdict and was "undeterred" in its efforts to bring virtual reality technology to consumers.

"Our commitment to the long-term success of VR remains the same, and the entire team will continue the work they've done since day one -- developing VR technology that will transform the way people interact and communicate," the Oculus statement said.

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Facebook acquired Oculus in 2014 for more than $2 billion and last year began selling the Rift headsets as part of the social network's push into virtual reality.

Facebook announced in January that it had recruited Hugo Barra -- who recently quit a top position with Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi -- as its new head of virtual reality.

"Hugo shares my belief that virtual and augmented reality will be the next major computing platform," Zuckerberg announced on his personal Facebook page.

Barra caused a sensation in 2013 by leaving Google to become a vice president at Xiaomi.
What a week, Samsung fans. You finally got to kiss the persistent flow of leaks and rumors good-bye now that the Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8+ are official. Better yet, Samsungs new flagship phones actually managed to live up to the hype. In fact they didnt just live up to the hype, they somehow ended up being even more impressive than Android lovers were hoping.

There is no question whatsoever that the Galaxy S8 and S8+ are the two most stunning smartphones the world has ever seen. As we noting in our hands-on Galaxy S8 preview, Samsung finally managed to out-design Apple. These phones truly are masterpieces, and Samsung is expecting them to fly off store shelves when theyre released next month on April 21st. Were expecting them to fly off store shelves as well. But unfortunately, many of the more savvy users out there who plan to buy a Galaxy S8 are about to learn something they may find troubling, or even infuriating in some cases.

Don't Miss: A deeper dive into one of the Galaxy S8s most innovative new features

When it comes to specs, Samsungs work inside the Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8+ is almost impressive as the companys work on the phones new design. These will be the first widely available phones to feature new 10nm processors, either the Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 or the Samsung Exynos 8895, depending on region. The S8 and S8+ also pack the best displays the world has ever seen, the latest flash storage and RAM modules, and a number of nifty new features like DeX desktop mode support, an iris scanner and more.

But lets rewind a bit and focus on those flash storage and RAM modules.

With the Galaxy S8, Samsung has decided to move away from Apples iPhone strategy and offer just one storage option in each market. That means youll only have one price option, and itll ship with 64GB of onboard storage as well as 4GB of RAM. The Galaxy S8 and S8+ have microSD card slots, so you can always pop in a card up to 256GB in size if you want to add more storage. What you might not know, however, is that theres an even better version of the Galaxy S8 out there, but you cant have one.

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Rumors ahead of the Galaxy S8 unveiling suggested that China might get a better version of the phone than any other market, and it turns out that is indeed the case, as GizmoChina confirmed. While the rest of the world is stuck with 64GB handsets that pack 4GB of RAM, the Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8+ sold in China will include 128GB of storage and 6GB of RAM.

Expandable storage means people probably wont care very much about the China models having twice the storage as other models. But specs-hounds are going to be furious about the fact that they cant enjoy 50% more RAM in their Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8+.

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2016 is certainly a year Samsung would rather soon forget. Famously, the Korean-based tech giant was forced to discontinue and recall every single Galaxy Note 7 unit amid a growing number of reports involving Note 7 devices spontaneously catching fire and, in some instances, exploding as well.

The entire ordeal was nothing short of a PR and financial disaster, prompting Samsung to enact additional safety precautions and more rigorous battery testing for upcoming phone models. A

Don't Miss: Using my iPhone for the next six months is really, really going to suck

Earlier this week, Samsung introduced the Galaxy S8 and the S8 Plus, two stunning devices that have already garnered enthusiastic and favorable reviews from various tech outlets. Samsungs S8 models are certainly packed with a number of compelling features like an Infinity Display and an Iris scanner; and best of all, Samsung did everything in its power to ensure, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that the devices wont randomly explode in your hands or destroy your hotel room.

Suffice it to say, Samsungs new battery testing procedures should alleviate any lingering concerns you might have about picking up one of the companys new smartphones. According to a report from CNET, the Note 7 ordeal prompted Samsung to take on a more active and involved role in the battery testing process as opposed to relying upon the testing frameworks used by its battery suppliers

The company added a more stringent battery testing process, which it says exceeds industry standards, the report notes. It also lowered the capacity of the battery going into the Galaxy S8 and tweaked its chemistry so it lasts longer.

Whats particularly interesting is that development of the Galaxy S8 was ostensibly nearing completion back when the Note 7 fiasco was taking place. Naturally, Samsung went back to the drawing board and implemented a few design tweaks, including lowering the capacity of the batteries in the S8 and S8 Plus to 3,000 and 3,500 mAh, respectively. Indeed, a Samsung spokesperson even told Mashable that the true capacity is actually slightly less because of the battery redesign.

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Earlier today, Netflix rolled out a brand new trailer for its upcoming original movie War Machine. Starring Brad Pitt and Topher Grace, the film is an adaptation of the book The Operators: The Wild & Terrifying Inside Story of Americas War in Afghanistan and charts the rise and fall of a U.S. General involved in the United States military campaign in Afghanistan. The film is a dark comedy, which is to say it probably wont be very funny, a theory seemingly confirmed by the bizarre trailer below.

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The crazy thing is, Netflix paid a reported $60 million for the film back in 2015, easily making it Netflixs biggest investment in an original film at the time. Since then, Netflix reportedly paid $90 million for a Will Smith vehicle titled Bright.

Truth be told, Netflix hasnt had the best of luck with original movies so far so it will be interesting to see if Brad Pitt has the requisite star power to attract eyeballs outside of a traditional theater.

War Machine will hit Netflix on May 26 of this year and the films description reads:

In a film for our times, writer-director David Michod (Animal Kingdom) recreates a U.S. Generals roller-coaster rise and fall as part reality, part savage parody  raising the specter of just where the line between them lies today. His is an anti-establishment, pro-soldier exploration in the form of an absurdist war story of a born leaders ultra-confident march right into the dark heart of folly. At the storys core is Brad Pitts sly take on a successful, charismatic four-star general who leapt in like a rock star to command NATO forces in Afghanistan, only to be taken down by his own hubris and a journalists no-holds-barred expose. War Machine addresses the debt we owe to soldiers to question the purposes to which they are being directed.

The trailer, complete with Brad Pitt showing off a completely bizarre and unbelievable accent can be viewed below.

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All in all, we can expect even more original films from Netflix in the coming months. As we reported earlier this month, the streaming giant is devoting more and more resources towards bringing original film content to viewers. In 2017 alone, the company plans to release upwards of 30 feature-length original films across a multitude of genres. A few weeks ago, the streaming giant even signed a deal with Robert De Niro for a mob movie focusing on famed union leader Jimmy Hoffa.

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The Irish government has donated7.2 million Euros which is approximately 27.5 billion shillings to Uganda to promote quality education in the Karamoja Sub-region.

The five-year program will be implemented by the United Nations Childrens Fund and the ministry of Education.

The state minister for education, Rosemary Sseninde says, the seven districts in the Karamoja region will benefit from the grant which will focus on improving the learning environment for vulnerable children in the region.

The government estimates that 82% of all the 6 to 17 year old children in the region are living in poverty and this has deprived them from accessing education.

Sseninde says over 150,000 school going children in the region will benefit.

She however, adds that although government has constructed schools in the region only 30% of the children are accessing education while 70% have still failed to go to school.
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AYODHYA, India (TNS)  At an open-air workshop in this northern Indian town, craftsmen have painstakingly chiseled columns and beams out of giant slabs of stone, engraved each with a number and stacked them three stories high.

The stones are meant to form a temple to the Hindu god Ram at his mythological birthplace in Ayodhya  a site where extremists tore down a mosque in 1992, sparking riots between Hindus and Muslims that left more than 2,000 people dead.

The work is purely speculative, as ownership of the three-acre site picked for the temple has been the subject of a legal battle for decades. But there have been few more vocal champions of the controversial project than the Hindu monk Yogi Adityanath, a firebrand in saffron robes, who told a crowd last year, When nobody could stop us from demolishing (the mosque), who can stop us from building a temple?

The provocative words by the boyish-faced, buzz-cut wearing Adityanath will be tested now that he has been appointed to lead the state of Uttar Pradesh, which includes Ayodhya. The surprise move by Prime Minister Narendra Modi came after his partys sweeping victory in assembly elections this month.

The selection of the 44-year-old radical priest to lead the countrys most populous state is a symbol of the muscular Hindu nationalism taking hold in Modis India.

In the three years since Modi has led the majority-Hindu nation, Adityanath has cemented his place as one of its most reliable rabble-rousers  whether by comparing Muslim Bollywood star Shah Rukh Khan to a terrorist leader or by saying that those who dont practice yoga should leave the country.

In 2014, when Hindu leaders accused Muslims of carrying out a love jihad by marrying women to convert them to Islam, Adityanath called on Hindu men to convert Muslim women. After a Hindu mob in the state lynched a Muslim man wrongly suspected of possessing beef  which is banned because the cow is sacred to orthodox Hindus  Adityanath demanded the victims family be arrested for eating beef and the suspected killers let free.

His supporters in Uttar Pradesh believe he will realize their dream of a temple at Rams birthplace.

Modi-ji in Delhi and Yogi-ji in U.P., crowed Annubhai Sompura, who supervises the workshop run by the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, a radical Hindu group with links to Modis party, while using the honorific ji for each man. The Ram temple is now inevitable.

Adityanath is embraced by radical Hindus in Ayodhya, where history and mythology are often used interchangeably. Thousands of devotees throng the bustling narrow alleys or ride from temple to temple aboard aging bicycle rickshaws, pedaled by guides who recite the Hindu lore attached to every site.

The town of 55,000 people became the epicenter of one of the worst outbreaks of communal violence in the history of independent India in December 1992, when hundreds of Hindus razed the Babri Masjid, a mosque that experts said dated to the time of Mughal conquerors.

Hindu groups said the site was the birthplace of Ram, a Hindu warrior-king, and that only a temple to the deity could stand there.

Pedaling his rickshaw through streets lined with temples and sweet shops, guide Ranjit Jha told visitors with enthusiasm  though without evidence  that the Mughal emperor Babar had destroyed a Hindu temple that predated the Babri Masjid.

Dinesh Bhatt, a customer from Kerala state, listened intently.

Whether it is true or not, we should believe in it, Bhatt said. It is our culture and it explains our existence.

Hindu and Muslim groups both claim ownership of the site, and Indian courts have been unable to resolve the dispute. Last week, Indias Supreme Court called on the parties to seek an out-of-court settlement because the issue was sensitive, although Muslim groups have said an amicable settlement is impossible.

A hearing is scheduled for April on whether senior members of Modis Bharatiya Janata Party, or BJP, were complicit in the mosques destruction.

The party has used the temple as a rallying cry since the 1990s, galvanizing support among conservative Hindus as it became the countrys dominant political organization.

The overwhelming scale of its victory in Indias most politically important state  with more than 200 million people  emboldened Modi to select a hard-liner as its chief minister, experts said. Until now, the prime minister had sought to project the image of a pragmatic modernizer and avoided embracing the more aggressively sectarian elements of his party.

I think that this is Modi at the peak of his political power, said Prashant Jha, a journalist with the Hindustan Times.

The choice of Adityanath would deepen the psychological and political alienation of Muslims in Uttar Pradesh, Jha said.

Muslims make up slightly less than 20 percent of the states population  they constitute 14 percent of the countrys 1.25 billion people  but are vastly underrepresented in political positions.

Since taking office, Adityanath has not spoken publicly about the temple, focusing instead on closing unlicensed slaughterhouses and deploying anti-Romeo squads to curb sexual harassment. He is an unlikely law-and-order man, having once spent 15 days in jail for inciting riots.

With a court resolution on the disputed site unlikely, and national elections looming for Modi in 2019, some experts believe his party will attempt to shift focus from the temple.

Is it worth it for the BJP to push the cause of the temple at the cost of drawing Muslim pushback, instability and even violence? Jha said. I dont think so. There are other ways they can push their cultural agenda.  And Yogis mere presence is enough of a signal to the Hindu base.

Near the would-be temple site, supporters remain buoyant. Amid flags of saffron  a holy color in Hinduism  and religious songs blaring from speakers, worshipers line up for hours to glimpse a small idol of Ram under a tent, a placeholder for the hoped-for temple.

A short distance away, a model of the planned temple sits behind a metal barrier, watched over by a middle-aged man in a saffron scarf. The model and workshop are run by the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, which is financing its temple plans through private donations.

At the workshop a few hundred yards away, Hridayram Lohar, a bespectacled 60-year-old hammering away at a slab of stone, said he has been working on the project for a third of his life.

I will continue to work until my body permits, he said. It is my wish to see the day when the temple I have worked on for so long takes form.
In the age of fake news and alternative facts, it never has been easier to reject inconvenient truths.

These are high times for bamboozlers. Dont like truth? Cook up some alternative facts. Cant disprove media reports? Dismiss them as fake news.

Things have never been so dicey for those of us in the fact business. Nouveau-riche sources that make no claims of objectivity  Im looking at you, Breitbart News  are gaining currency. Meanwhile, standard-bearers such as the New York Times have been barred from a presidential press briefing, and President Donald Trump himself refers to any journalist who relies on anonymous sources as the enemy of the people.

Trump has condemned as fake news the reporting of CNN. But he encouraged his own staff to overstate attendance at his inauguration, leading his counselor Kellyanne Conway to infamously say Press Secretary Sean Spicer merely was providing alternative facts.

Clearly the president, as a balderdash artist of the first order, is an authority on alternative facts. The tweeter-in-chief has become a leading source of fake news. He steadfastly insists the Obama administration tapped his campaigns telephones, but has yet to provide supporting evidence. Trump also told us millions of people voted illegally for his opponent, Hillary Clinton, but hasnt backed up that claim. Among the sources less reliable than anonymous sources are nonexistent sources.

Trumps bent for embroidery should come as no surprise. Remember, this is the man who claimed Obama was born in Kenya, an allegation later proved false. Perhaps our new president would call it an alternative fact.

Now that hes in the White House, Trump and his team have become the worlds leading exporters of specious assertions. Conway scolded the media for ignoring the Bowling Green massacre, a terrorist attack that never occurred. Then she told us our microwaves might be watching us.

Fake news is hardly new: Saturday Night Live and The Onion perfected the art of fictitious satire decades ago, and inspired dozens of imitators. The proliferation of satiric news websites, coupled with Americas gullibility  hence the election of a rich guy who said hed look out for the poor, only to fill his Cabinet with rich guys  resulted in fibs being passed around as facts on social media.

With the existence of fake news and fibs-turned-facts generally accepted, Team Trump has taken one small step  and one giant leap of logic  in lumping CNN and the New York Times in with clickhole.com. All the better for swatting away unflattering portrayals as fake news, my dear.

What the Trump administration doesnt realize about the media is that facts are inconvenient for us, too. Our jobs would be easier if we could simply make things up. No phone calls, no background research, just fanciful fiction. Imagine the possibilities: CIA admits installing surveillance cameras in Americas microwaves.

But spinning yarns isnt our role. Were here to inform the public about whats happening in the world. We dont support the dissemination of fake news. Nor are we interested in alternative facts, unicorns or leprechauns.

Inconvenient though this may sometimes be, for us and our subjects, we must rely on actual facts. The job of the media is to hold up a mirror to society, and let the public evaluate what it sees. The Narcissus in the Oval Office doesnt like his reflection and would like us to believe the mirror is cracked.

But when Time magazines cover asks whether truth is dead, and the conservative Wall Street Journal chastises a Republican president for telling lies, its clear the public trust in the presidency  not the media mirror  is whats shattering.
Jessica Joyner spent her final moments on an apartment floor, her neighbor begging her to stay alive and her children walking through her blood.

Minutes earlier, she had escaped her apartment and the man who attacked her with a knife: her husband.

The fear Jessica must have felt is unimaginable, La Crosse County Assistant District Attorney Justine Suleski said. Its so clear Jessica wanted to live.

She died about an hour later, at 12:41 a.m. March 7, 2016.

La Crosse County Circuit Judge Scott Horne on Friday sentenced Haron Joyner, 36, to life imprisonment with release eligibility in 40 years for the murder carried out in front of five children.

On a daily basis, something reminds them of what happened a year ago, said the foster mother of two of the children.

Late March 6, Jessica used her cellphone to record a video of Joyner approaching her in the kitchen of the familys apartment at 1320 S. Fifth Ave. while five children younger than 12 looked on.

Ready? he asked. Ready?

Then f you, f you, f you, he said as he swung a folding knife into his wifes temple, arm and neck, the fatal wound that severed her jugular vein and carotid artery.

Jessica, 29, ran to the unit across the hall and collapsed in a pool of blood surrounded by the hysterical children.

Joyner walked calmly from the apartment as his wife was dying on the floor. He called 911 to turn himself in, and then changed his mind and stopped at the La Crosse Tribune, where he worked in the packaging department at the time. Police arrested him early the next morning when they found him inside a car parked in the 3600 block of South 29th Court.

During the trial, prosecutors argued he acted with the intent to kill, while his attorney said he acted recklessly and asked the jury to consider a lesser homicide charge.

This was a senseless, utterly avoidable, tragic act of violence. It was horrific, defense attorney Michael Covey said. He cant really explain why he did what he did. To this day, he cant wrap his head around his actions. All I can say is that it wasnt premeditated.

A jury found Joyner guilty of first-degree intentional homicide on Dec. 13 after just 25 minutes of deliberations.

Suleski asked the judge impose a life sentence without release eligibility. Joyner committed the murder after learning his wife planned to divorce him.

This had everything to do with Haron Joyner being unable to control his wife, Suleski said.

Joyner stole a mother and sister during a selfish act that orphaned her children, Jessicas sister wrote in a statement to the court.

Now she wont be there for when I go to prom or my wedding, one of her daughters wrote in a letter. I love you, Mom.

Covey asked the judge make Joyner eligible for release after 20 years, citing his minor criminal history, lack of premeditation and remorse.

Joyners family told the court that he moved to Wisconsin from New York to be with his wife and their blended family.

My son is a beautiful man, OK? said his mother, Linda Joyner-Rembert. He is not a monster. He just made a bad choice. Thats all.

Joyner in his statement to the court accepted responsibility for his conduct and asked for a second chance to help raise his two children.

My wife, she didnt deserve what I did to her, he said. Im truly sorry for what Ive done. I confess my sins.
The state Supreme Court on Friday affirmed a lower courts decision affirming the convictions of a Minnesota man serving consecutive life terms for the 2012 murders of a father and son at their downtown La Crosse camera store.

Jeffrey Lepsch, now 43, is not entitled to a new trial, the Supreme Court ruled in an opinion written by Justice Annette Ziegler.

Lepschs attorney likely will take the case to federal court.

It is not unusual that in a big criminal case the state courts will affirm the conviction only to have a federal court throw it out, attorney Steven Zaleski said. I anticipated that the claims of error would be more appropriately addressed in the federal court system, as the claims of error were largely based on federal case law. But for jurisdictional or procedural reasons, the case needed to be brought first in the state system.

Lepsch in June appealed the District 4 Court of Appeals decision to uphold the convictions for the killings of Paul Petras, 56, and his 19-year-old son, A.J., at the now-shuttered Mays Photo on Main Street.

A La Crosse County jury in 2013 convicted Lepsch of shooting Paul and A.J. Petras on Sept. 15 when they interfered with a robbery before he walked from the store with 27 pieces of camera equipment worth $17,000 to his minivan at Fourth and Main streets.

Police found A.J. Petras body near the stores safe and his fathers in the bathroom hours later when Sherri Petras went to check on her husband and son.

Surveillance video, cell phone and vehicle records led investigators to Lepsch, a broke, unemployed hobby photographer living in Dakota, Minn., at the time of the killings. Investigators traced every piece of equipment stolen from Mays to his home or sold online to support his family of five.

Lepsch argued on appeal that his trial attorneys failed him when they allowed nine biased jurors to help decide the case, a violated of his right to an impartial jury under the state and federal constitutions. The jurors, he argued, failed to meet the standard of impartiality because they believed he was guilty before they heard the case or found law enforcement more credible than other witnesses.

He also argued his constitutional rights were violated because he wasnt present when the clerk of court read an oath to the full panel of potential jurors.

Prosecutors contend Lepsch failed to prove jurors were biased, pointing out they said they would base their verdict on evidence presented at trial and the administration of the oath did not violate Lepschs rights because it is not part of jury selection under state statute.

Lepsch cant show that his trial attorneys failed him because he didnt prove that the jurors were biased, the Supreme Court found. Jurors told the court they could be impartial.

The circuit courts careful administration of jury selection and the verbal in person questioning that took place cured any possibility of the likelihood or the appearance of bias, at least as outlined in the arguments Lepsch has made, according to the court.

Lepsch didnt explain why administering an oath to potential jurors is part of the jury selection process any more than when prospective jurors complete questionnaires before trial, the court found. Even if he had a constitutional right to be present during the oath, according to the court, any error from his absence was harmless.
WASHINGTON  This, Mr. Speaker, is what you get for embracing Donald Trump.

When Paul Ryan, after a long Hamlet routine, decided to get behind Trump last year, he took a calculated risk that the erratic presidential candidate could become a vessel for the conservative policies the House speaker long aspired to implement. Instead, Ryan has become an enabler of Trumps chaotic and ethically challenged governance.

Trump gave Ryan little help in the House GOPs effort to replace Obamacare, and when that project collapsed last week in the biggest legislative failure in more than a decade, Trump included Ryan in those he blamed. Trump tweeted a plug for a Fox News show hours before the host made an on-air call for Ryan to resign.

Ryan, meanwhile, finds himself shielding Trump from an investigation into Trumps and his top advisers ties to Russia. Ryan stands by the House Intelligence Committee chairman, Devin Nunes, who canceled a public hearing that could have embarrassed Trump after the White House stated its objection; went on a secret trip to White House grounds to gather what he considered exculpatory material and then released it publicly while keeping fellow committee members in the dark; and quarreled with the FBI for investigating Trumps Russia ties.

Ryan now finds himself tethered to a president with a 36 percent approval rating, while the Houses legislative and investigative functions have collapsed. And Trump is talking about bypassing House conservatives and working with Democrats.

I have talked about the need to go from being an opposition party to being a proposition party and a governing party, Ryan told reporters after the House GOP caucuss health-bill postmortem Tuesday morning. Chuckling, he added: It may take a little bit more time.

Ryan approached the microphones with exaggerated good cheer, voicing a hearty Hey, guys! and attempting to josh with photographers about the days of Polaroid cameras. Ryan assured everybody the GOP meeting was very, very good, and his deputies dutifully echoed him.

Caucus Chairwoman Cathy McMorris Rodgers pronounced herself very optimistic, Majority Whip Steve Scalise found matters very encouraging, and Kevin McCarthy, the perpetually tongue-tied majority leader, declared: We had a very good conference, a conference that from a microcosm, people on all sides.

But this, er, microcosm of confidence could not withstand scrutiny.

NBCs Kasie Hunt asked if Nunes should recuse himself and whether Ryan knows the source Nunes met at the White House.

No, and no, Ryan replied, without elaborating.

PBS Lisa Desjardins asked when Ryan expected to return to health-care legislation.

Im not going to put a timeline on it, he answered.

And that was about all the exposure Ryans aides were willing for him to risk. Last question! one of them shouted from the back of the room.

You can see why Ryan would be inclined to go to ground. A self-styled policy wonk and anti-poverty conservative in the model of Jack Kemp, Ryan put his name behind a bill that would have denied 24 million people health insurance and given tax cuts to the rich.

GOP lawmakers emerging from the caucus meeting didnt quite share their leaders buoyancy. This was more of a listening session, shall we say, than a progress session, reported Greg Walden of Oregon, one of the authors of the failed bill.

Trent Franks of Arizona said the caucus faced a tremendous conundrum, stuck between what his colleagues want and what can get through the Senate.

And Floridas Brian Mast put things in perspective with a funereal reference: Another day over the dirt  thats how you do it.

Suddenly, there was a commotion in the Capitol basement. Here comes Nunes! And there he was: the Trump ally and member of Trumps transition leadership who is using his chairmanship of the intelligence panel, which had enjoyed a reputation for bipartisanship, to shield the president. He has even tried to justify Trumps groundless claim that President Barack Obama put a wiretap on Trump Tower.

Journalists pursued him through the Capitols bowels and then through the tunnel underneath Independence Avenue, pressing him on the canceled hearing and clandestine White House meeting. Nunes kept complaining:

You guys always interview me.

How many questions are you going to ask?

Theres like 20 questions every day.

Are you just going to keep asking the same question?

(Answer: Yes, until they get answers.)

And, while questions are being asked, heres one the speaker might pose to himself: If he knew back then what his embrace of Trump would get him  a legislative shipwreck, a caucus in disarray and congressional oversight reduced to farce  would he have made the same choice?
Gov. Scott Walker's spending plan for the 2017-19 biennium is the "best budget" the University of Wisconsin System has seen in 10 years, System President Ray Cross told lawmakers on Thursday.

"We are very pleased with what the governor has proposed," Cross told members of the Legislature's budget-writing committee. "It provides the first investment of new state dollars the UW System has received in more than a decade."

While UW officials may disagree with some aspects and approaches in the budget, "we don't differ with the overall goals and themes" proposed by Walker, Cross said.

Walker's $76.1 billion budget includes a $100 million increase for the UW System, $42.5 million of which would be tied to performance metrics based on affordability, workforce success of graduates, administrative efficiency, service and other criteria.

In-state undergraduate students see a tuition freeze in the first year of the budget, followed by a 5 percent tuition cut in the second year. The cut would be paid for with a $35 million bump in general purpose revenue.

Cross said he would rather see the money used to fund the cut directed to pay for need-based financial aid when asked by Rep. Katrina Shankland, D-Stevens Point, about his position on the proposal.

This budget follows a four-year tuition freeze along with a $250 million cut to the system's funding delivered in the governor's 2015-17 budget. Before the freeze, implemented in Walker's second budget, tuition had gone up 5.5 percent annually since the 2007-08 academic year.

Asked by Rep. Dale Kooyenga, R-Brookfield, how the state should set its tuition rates in the years to come, Cross said an important metric to consider is the percentage of median family household income. But the system has to look for ways to control costs at the same time, he said.

Sen. Leah Vukmir, R-Wauwatosa, questioned whether the state should provide a tuition reduction "on the back of taxpayers" or whether it should look for "ways to decrease the cost of higher education in general."

Under the governor's proposal, UW schools would be required to offer an option for students to earn a bachelor's degree in three years, and UW schools and the state's technical colleges would be required to have at least 60 transferable credits between the systems.

Cross said he opposes the proposal to increase credit transfers between the systems, arguing it would effectively make every technical college into a two-year UW school.

The governor's budget proposal would also allow students to opt out of paying allocable segregated fees that go toward campus activities and services offered by student government and campus leadership. Walker argues the proposal allows students "freedom to choose" where their money goes, but opponents say students already have input through their elected student government representatives.

Cross said he recognizes the desire to keep student fees in check but cautioned against dealing with the issue "too harshly." Sen. Lena Taylor, D-Milwaukee, said the organizations funded by those fees teach students how to lead and prepare them for success in life.

Shankland questioned whether the move could "erode" transportation services funded by allocable segregated fees. Cross said it's "fair to say" it could, but added universities may be able to adjust the way those services are funded.

Also under the plan, the UW Board of Regents would be required to set a policy for faculty and academic staff teaching workloads. Instructors would be required to report the number of hours they spend teaching to UW administrators, and would be rewarded for teaching more than the standard academic load. Those reports would be made public.

Cross questioned the usefulness of that proposal.

"My argument is  lets measure the outcomes and lets not dictate the inputs," he said.

Walker's budget would also write into statute a policy drawn heavily from existing system guidelines promoting free speech on campuses.

The proposal would require UW schools to "guarantee all members of the Systems community the broadest possible latitude to speak, write, listen, challenge and learn."

The budget measure would not require much in the way of changes, Cross said, adding that the UW System may need to adjust a current policy that says a speaker whose safety cannot be ensured may not speak.

Speakers should be allowed to be heard, and schools should find a way to control opposition to ensure a civil exchange of ideas, Cross said.
Original: "The Thing" (1951)

Smart Rating: 90.06

Starring: Margaret Sheridan, Kenneth Tobey, James Arness

In remote Antarctica, a group of American research scientists are disturbed at their base camp by a helicopter shooting at a sled dog. When they take in the dog, it brutally attacks both human beings and canines in the camp and they discover that the beast can assume the shape of its victims. A resourceful helicopter pilot (Kurt Russell) and the camp doctor (Richard Dysart) lead the camp crew in a desperate, gory battle against the vicious creature before it picks them all off, one by one.
Dear reader, we're asking for your help to keep local reporting available for all today during our fall fundraiser. Your financial support keeps stories like this one free to read, instead of hidden behind paywalls. We believe when reliable local reporting is widely available, the entire community benefits. Thank you for investing in your neighborhood.

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On Thursday morning, a first-of-its-kind street vending pilot program was launched at Metro's Westlake/MacArthur Park station. Metro partnered with city, county and neighborhood organizations to transform the station's plaza into a designated space where vendors can legally sell their goods. The street vending market is a one-year pilot program that could be replicated at other L.A. stations, if all goes well.

Despite its omnipresence, street vending has long been a contentious issue in L.A. Until very recently, Los Angeles was the only major American city to prohibit vending of every type on its 10,750 miles of sidewalks. Community groups had worked on legalization efforts for years, but they had consistently stalled out before coming to legislative fruition. It wasn't until this November, in the wake of President Trump's election victory, that council was finally spurred into action; many vendors are undocumented, and feared that misdemeanor street vending penalties could put them at further risk of deportation under a Trump administration. In late January, City Council voted to draft an ordinance decriminalizing street vending (the ordinance was unanimously approved the next month).

"Westlake/MacArthur park has become a haven for Latinos," County Supervisor Hilda Solis said on Thursday. "This is where the megalopolis is for Central Americans, and it's a thriving, working class, immigrant community. For many here, at the Westlake/MacArthur Park Metro station plaza, you can see street vending on the ground and entrepreneurialism at its best."

The concentration of vendors in the area makes for vibrant street life and opportunities for entrepreneurship, but it has also been associated with long-term concerns regarding blight and disorder at the station. The Westlake/MacArthur Park station is the most active and congested station for street vending in the entire Metro system, according to Metro CEO Phil Washington. The sidewalk can often be so crowded that it's difficult to pass through, hindering accessibility to the station and making it more difficult for commuters to make bus connections on the adjoining streets. The chaotic congestion can also create issues for emergency services and law enforcement trying to access the area.

According to Lieutenant Henry Saucedo of the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department, the marketplace will also hopefully provide vendors with a reprieve from gang intimidation. "The challenge here has been the criminal element, and I'm talking more specifically gang activity," Saucedo told LAist. "You have a particular gang here, and I'm not going to give them the credit of mentioning their gang name, but they control this particular area, and they try toand dointimidate the folks here. You have a lot of immigrants who are setting up shop, and they tax them. In order to do business here, they would tax them to ask for money for protection and in order to be able to work here. They control what was going on here."

"I've seen them out here, going up to these vendors and just taking some of their product away, shirts, anything. These are street thugs, and they'll take anything they can get," Saucedo said. "What we're hoping is that [the vendors] will feel protected, because they are. They'll have a line of communications to get us involved."

The pilot program creates a designated space for a total of 68 vendors to operate daily in the plaza. Tarps and canopies, along with tables for individuals to display their goods in a secure manner, were provided through county funding. In addition, Metro is helping to provide security and extra restroom facilities. Local nonprofit Central Cities Neighborhood Partners has been coordinating the logistics in conjunction with the Union de Vendedores Ambulantes, an organized group of street vendors. Starting in three weeks, there will also be a number of food vendors at the marketplace.

City and county officials have been working with Metro and the Union de Vendedores Ambulantes on the community marketplace for over two years. Central Cities Neighborhood Partners Executive Director Veronica McDonnell told LAist that a vendor active in the organizing effort came to her organization when they decided they wanted to try and start a community market. "We met with Councilmember Gil Cedillo and Supervisor Hilda Solis, and we pitched this idea," McDonnell said, describing how the different groups have worked together over the past two years to develop an agreement, get community input, and make sure that the effort will be successful and sustainable. The 68 spaces will be made available through a rotating lottery system.

Margarita Xochitecatl, a vendor who has sold jewelry and hand-knitted clothing in the area for the past several years, described the frustrating uncertainty of vending in MacArthur Park. "We were out in the streets and the police would always come after us taking away our stuff," she said. "But, the moment finally came where we got tired and started protesting and organizing marches. We were able to come to an agreement with Metro and the Sheriffs Department allowing us to have this space."

"I am very thankful that they gave me the opportunity to be here and to make a living because we are not criminals," Xochitecatl, who will now pay a $5 weekly fee for her space, told LAist.

With additional reporting by Yazmin Nunez
The deadline to sign up for this free community event that is open to all is Nov. 16.

Kennebunk Post

"We need to invest in our kids," said resident Brenda Robinson. "That's how we keep graffiti out of Waterhouse Center and mischief out of the downtown on Saturday night."


Beer is one of the worlds most popular drinks. Even some of the earliest humans brewed  or made - beer.

One of beers most important ingredients is water. Brewers say you need up to five liters of water to make one liter of beer.

If water becomes scarce, then, will people have to stop making beer?

Brewers have already thought of that possibility. So, in some cities, people are testing out beers made from collected and filtered rainwater.

They are also collecting rainwater and water from the beer-making process for use inside the brewery.

Sierra Nevada is a well-known brewery in California. It also has a new location in North Carolina. It uses rainwater for cleaning and flushing toilets.

Brewers understand the importance of saving water. If there is no water, there is no beer.

That is why Stone Brewing Company, near San Diego, California, worked with a local water treatment program to make beer.

The program is called Pure Water San Diego. It wants to provide one-third of the citys water by 2035.

Working with Pure Water, the brewery used purified water that came from wastewater. Wastewater is water that has already been used for showers, washing dishes or flushing toilets.

Stone is a large brewery. It has customers across the U.S. and Europe. Along with its original California location, Stone also has breweries in Richmond, Virginia, and Berlin, Germany. Some of their beers are among the best in the United States.

So it was a big deal when Stone released a special beer called Full Circle Pale Ale in March. Many websites and newspapers wrote about the beer. They reported that it was made from toilet water. Local television stations recorded peoples reactions as they tasted the beer.

The story went viral.

The mayor of San Diego took a sip, and said thatll work, thatll work.

Brewer Steve Gonzalez described the beer by saying it had caramel and tropical fruit flavors.

Stone Brewing later wrote a blog post saying it was not happy with all of the news coverage  especially reports that centered on the idea of toilet water. But it was happy that the experiment was a success.

The beer was only made for a special event. Stone Brewing is not permitted to sell it in stores or at the brewerys restaurant.

But other brewers around the country are taking notice.

Kevin Ryan created Service Brewing Company in the southeastern U.S. state of Georgia because he loved making beer for friends and family. They told him his beer was so good, he should go into the business. So he did.

Ryan knows how important water is to the beer business.

The southeast is always back-and-forth between drought and recovering from drought, Ryan said. As we can afford, we will try to be responsible consumers of that water. I think its great that somebody whos established can use their platform to do the testing and demonstrate that you can make great beer with reclaimed water.

Ben Cook started Hangar 24, a brewery in Redlands, California. One of Hangar 24s well-known beers is a wheat beer made with locally grown oranges. He was glad that Stone Brewings experiment got attention.

I have a biology background, Cook said. And water is water. It is H20, along with any minerals that are in it. I see no problem with it. But the public perception, because they dont know that its just as clean as tap water, appears to be still pretty bad.

Cook said if his customers better understood how clean reclaimed wastewater really is, he would have no problem brewing beer with that kind of water.

If theres something thats better for the environment that we can afford to do, we always opt in, Cook said.

Other American brewers have also experimented with reclaimed-water beer.

Researchers and brewers in the state of Arizona are working on a water-saving project. They received $250,000 to promote the use of reclaimed water. They are treating and using wastewater that will be used to make beer across the state this summer.

And last year, small brewers in Florida experimented with making beer from reclaimed water. They taste-tested their work at a large water-treatment conference.

Im Dan Friedell.

And I'm Jill Robbins.

Dan Friedell wrote this story for Learning English. Ashley Thompson was the editor.

Would you like to taste beer made from reclaimed water? We want to know. Write to us in the Comments Section or on our Facebook page.

______________________________________________________________

Words in This Story

scarce  adj. very small in amount or number : not plentiful

filter  v. to remove (something unwanted) by using a filter

sip  v. to drink (a liquid) slowly by taking only small amounts into your mouth

pale  adj. light in color

tropical  adj. of, relating to, occurring in, or used in the tropics

theme  n. a particular subject or issue that is discussed often or repeatedly

drought  n. a long period of time during which there is very little or no rain

platform  n. something that allows someone to tell a large number of people about an idea, product, etc.

food chain  n. a series of types of living things in which each one uses the next lower member of the series as a source of food  usually used with the (often used figuratively)

perception  n. the way you think about or understand someone or something  often + of

tap  n. a device for controlling the flow of a liquid or gas from a pipe or container

reclaim  v. to get (a usable material) from materials that have been used before

opt  phrasal verb - to choose to do or be involved in something
From VOA Learning English, this is Everyday Grammar.

Imagine you are taking a trip in a foreign country. You are driving a rental car that you got at the airport.

What could help you find your way in this strange land?

Signs, for one thing.

Think of punctuation as a series of signs. These signals clarify your writing. They show your reader what words are important, and what belongs together.

Punctuation marks, like traffic signs, show your reader what is coming: a full stop, a minor turn or a sudden change of direction, for example.

One of the most important  and most debated  punctuation marks is the comma.

Today on Everyday Grammar, we will report on common uses of the comma. We will also tell about the importance of commas in American law, and how they still influence the meaning of laws.

Do not fear: unlike driving on busy American roads, this report will be fun!

Common uses of commas

The comma has many uses. Teaching guides say there are lots of ways to use commas in writing. Luckily, we can find patterns among all of these stylistic rules.

The first, and perhaps most common, use of commas is to show a pause.

Pauses are important in creative writing, such as poetry, and in speechwriting. In these kinds of writing, the relationship between written and spoken language is very strong.

Historically, commas were used as a way to mark a short stoppage or break, instead of showing grammatical differences.

However, in many kinds of modern writing, the comma serves a different purpose: to show what is different and what belongs together.

Ann Longknife and K.D. Sullivan are writing experts. In their book, The Art of Styling Sentences, they note that commas generally serve two purposes: separating the main parts of a sentence and enclosing words and expressions.

Consider the words you heard earlier in this report:

"Today on Everyday Grammar, we will report on common uses of the comma. "

The comma appears after the word "Grammar." Why is that?

First, it shows the reader (in this case, Dr. Jill Robbins) that she needs to pause her voice. Second, the comma shows that what comes before it is serving a different grammatical purpose than what comes after it.

In the example you heard, the phrase "In today's Everyday Grammar" gives information about what comes after the comma: "we will report on common uses of the comma."

You could remove the words that come before the comma. So the independent clause, "we will explore common uses of the comma," could be its own sentence.

Stylistic considerations and editing

In The New York Times newspaper, Carmel McCoubrey writes that the difference between comma usage styles is not always clear. Even when operating under the same stylistic guide, McCoubrey writes, different people will want to put commas in different places. In other words, there is some level of personal choice when it comes to comma placement.

Comma placement is important - not just for writing papers and stories. Consider these two following examples:

Part of the dispute in a recent legal case was related to the meaning of an Oxford comma. An Oxford comma is a comma that is used before the conjunction in a series of nouns. In other words, the comma makes clear that the final term is different than the others on the list.

A second - and perhaps more famous - debate involves the second amendment to the United States Constitution. Both supporters and opponents of gun rights have argued about the meaning of the law. They have argued that the use of commas in the amendment changes the meaning.

"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."

Some writers, such as Adam Freedman, say the commas in the law are arbitrary, and that the sentence is best understood by taking the commas out. He points out that different versions of the law may have different numbers of commas. He adds that historically, punctuation was not used in the same way it is today.

These disputes center around one common idea: commas are supposed to make language clearer. However, the commas in the laws created misunderstanding.

To go back to our examples of traffic signs, it would be like reading a road sign pointing in two different directions. Both directions cannot be correct.

What can you do?

So, if comma usage can be difficult for native speakers, what hope do English learners have?

Luckily, there are two simple steps that can help you overcome problems with commas.

#1 Put yourself in the reader's position

The first is to put yourself in the reader's position.

Ask yourself if you are using commas that send clear signals to your reader. Are you always using commas in the same way?

If you were driving on a road, you would expect the same signs to be used in the same way over and over again. With that in mind, you should always try to use punctuation consistently so that you do not confuse your reader.

#2 Use short, declarative sentences

Another idea is this: write short sentences. In other words, limit the amount of information you include in each sentence. If your sentence has many pauses, then you are increasing the chances that you will confuse your reader.

The next time you are reading in English, look for the commas. When and why does the writer use a comma? Is there a stylistic or grammatical reason they use the comma? How does the comma separate the different sentence elements?

With time and effort you will learn how to use commas effectively.

We will leave you with a song about punctuation from the American musician and actor, LL Cool J:



A comma means you slow down,

Pause, take a breath,

When I want to go to Spain,

I hop onto my plane

Im Jill Robbins.

And I'm John Russell.

John Russell wrote this story for Learning English. George Grow was the editor.

We want to hear from you. Write to us in the Comments Section.

________________________________________________________________

Words in This Story

rental  adj. of or relating to paying money in return for being able to use something that belongs to someone else

enclose  v. to put something around (something)

clause  n. part of a sentence that has its own subject and verb

arbitrary  adj. not planned or chosen for a special reason

punctuation  n. the act of adding marks or signs to clarify the meaning of sentences

pause  n. a temporary break or stoppage

conjunction  n. words that join together other words or groups of words

overcome  v. to defeat; to reduce or overthrow

confuse  v. to make someone unable to understand something

consistently  adj. always acting in the same way
2 This handout photo from the Queensland Police Service shows a bull shark washed up on a road near the town of Ayr after a powerful cyclone wreaked havoc in northeast Australia.


South Koreans are thinking about electing the countrys next leader after the arrest of former President Park Geun-hye.

Park is the first democratically elected president of South Korea to be ousted from office. She was sent to jail early Friday. Her detention began after a court approved a warrant calling for her arrest. She is accused of bribery, extortion and abuse of power.

The charges against Park are linked to the series of events that forced her from office.

Government lawyers believe that Park and a longtime friend, Choi Soon-sil, pressured businesses to make donations to two organizations they controlled. They say South Korean companies gave over $69 million to the two groups.

South Koreans were divided for months as lawmakers considered the case against the president. Parks opponents held large protests calling for her ouster or resignation. Her supporters organized demonstrations to try to keep her in office.

South Korean conservatives express regret

But in Seoul on Friday, no one celebrated Parks arrest, and there were no angry groups of Park supporters demanding her release.

A pro-Park gathering is expected this weekend, but her party, the Liberty Korea Party, seems to want to distance itself from its former leader.

In a statement, the partys spokesman called Parks arrest regrettable. He said We hope such a painful history of arrest of a former president will not repeat itself in South Korea.

An election for a new president will take place on May 9th.

After Parks removal from office, many South Koreans have seemingly turned against conservative politicians. They blamed Parks policies for increasing tensions with China and with North Korea over its weapons program.

Chinese officials are angry about Parks decision to accept an American anti-missile system.

The Liberty Korea Party has been struggling to find a strong candidate for president. South Gyeongsang Province Governor Hong Joon-pyo is said to be a leading candidate. But his public approval rating in a recent Gallup Organization survey was just four percent.

The Bareun Party was once part of the Liberty Korea Party. In a statement, Bareun said it respects the Supreme Courts decision against Park. But the party questioned whether her arrest was necessary. It said the arrest harmed efforts to heal divisions within the country.

Yoo Seung Min -- the Bareun partys candidate for president -- has a two percent approval rating in the Gallup opinion poll.

Victory for South Koreas liberals

The liberal Democratic Party of Korea had called Parks removal from office a triumph of democracy. It also called her arrest a victory for the rule of law.

The partys spokesman said Considering the fairness of law and principles, the arrest of former President Park is an obvious conclusion.

Democratic Party candidate Moon Jae-in has a 31 percent approval rating in the latest poll. That is more than any candidate for president.

Ahn Cheol-soo  the leading candidate for the centrist Peoples Party -- has a 19 percent approval rating in the poll. In a statement, Ahn said Parks arrest, is of her own making because she repeatedly gave false explanations without expressing apologies or regrets.

Prison time

Park says she is innocent. She has yet to talk publicly about the charges. But after agreeing to cooperate with the government, she was questioned by investigators for 14 hours.

Park can be held in prison for up to 20 days while she is being investigated. During this time, she must be charged or released. Her lawyers say she will not leave the country. But the Seoul Central District Court judge in charge of the case ordered her arrest, possibly concerned that she might destroy evidence.

Park could be sent to prison for 10 years on charges of accepting bribes from heads of large South Korean companies in exchange for favors. The business chiefs include Samsung Group chief Jay Y. Lee. He denies charges that he provided bribes in exchange for special treatment.

Im John Russell.

And I'm Caty Weaver.

VOA Correspondent Brian Padden reported this story from Seoul. Youmi Kim contributed to the report. John Smith adapted the report for Learning English. George Grow was the editor.

We want to hear from you. Write to us in the Comments Section, or visit our Facebook page.

_______________________________________________________________

Words in This Story

bribe  v. to try to get someone to do something by giving or promising something valuable (such as money); to give or offer a bribe to (someone)

extort  v. to get (something, such as money) from a person by the use of force or threats

poll  n. an activity in which several or many people are asked a question or a series of questions in order to get information about what most people think about something

triumph  n. a great or important victory; a great success or achievement

favor  n. a kind or helpful act that you do for someone
The United States has told its diplomats overseas to identify groups whose members should be thoroughly investigated when they request a visa. The State Department sent a series of directives to U.S. embassies and diplomatic offices earlier this month.

The department told them to investigate the social media messages and activities of visa applicants. It said officials should be looking for people who are suspected of terrorist ties or of having been in areas controlled by the Islamic State group.

Another directive ordered embassies to set up security and intelligence working groups to establish guidance for population sets. It said these measures would identify which people require a detailed investigation before they are permitted in the United States.

Even if someone is qualified for a visa, they could still be barred from entering the country if they do not meet the rules set by the working groups.

The directives are the first evidence of a Trump administration plan for the extreme vetting of foreigners before they are given visas.

Before becoming president, Donald Trump promised such a plan to American voters during the 2016 election campaign.

The four documents sent between March 10 and March 17 do not tell which population sets are to be given additional examination.

But one document says investigators should ask visa applicants about where they worked, who they worked for and where they traveled over the past 15 years. The document also tells investigators to ask applicants for all email addresses and social media names used over the past five years.

The State Department said later it was withdrawing the questions until they are approved by another federal agency.

The Reuters news agency first reported on the series of directives last week.

Rights groups and others have criticized the directives and accused Trump of discriminating against Muslims. They note his recent executive order to block travelers from six countries: Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen.

A federal judge has suspended the governments enforcement of the ban.

The rights group Amnesty International wrote a letter to Secretary of State Rex Tillerson last week. It said the documents could provide license for discrimination based on national origin and religion. They could provide a pretext for barring individuals based on their nonviolent beliefs and expression. Social media checks, as well as demands for social media passwords at U.S. borders, have significant implications for privacy and freedom of expression.

Law professor Anil Kalhan leads the international human rights committee of the New York City Bar Association. He said the documents will needlessly worsen visa processing backlogs and may lead to applications for visas being wrongly denied.

Some refugee aid groups and even State Department workers have said the visa investigation process is already very strong.

Stephen Yale-Loehr is an immigration law professor at Cornell Universitys law school. Last month, he told CBS News we have a terrorist watch database. We have known immigration violators database. We have a criminal background check database that they have to go through. They dont just take the visa applicants word. They do go through all of these computer databases to verify for themselves that its appropriate to issue the visa to a particular individual.

Im Dorothy Gundy.

VOAs Victoria Macchi and Smita Nordwall reported this story from Washington. VOA State Department Correspondent Cindy Saine provided information for the report. John Smith adapted the report for Learning English. George Grow was the editor.

We want to hear from you. Write to us in the Comments Section, or visit our Facebook page.

______________________________________________________________

Words in This Story

applicant  n. someone who formally asks for something (such as a job or admission to a college); someone who applies for something

qualify  v. to have the right to do, have or be a part of something

vet  v. to investigate (someone) thoroughly to see if they should be approved or accepted for a job

license  n. freedom to act however you want to (usually followed by to + verb)

pretext  n. a reason that you give to hide your real reason for doing something

implication  n. a possible future effect or result (usually plural)

backlog  n. a large number of jobs that are waiting to be finished

database  n. a collection of pieces of information that is organized and used on a computer

verify  v. to prove, show, find out or state that (something) is true or correct

issue  v. to give (something) to someone in an official way
OGALLALA  A man wanted in connection with a Nebraska homicide is in custody.

The Nebraska State Patrol announced that Amedeus L. Leroux turned himself in to Colorado authorities in Denver this afternoon, Thursday, March 30, 2017.

Leroux, who was wanted on outstanding Nebraska and Colorado warrants, will be charged with second degree murder in the Tuesday, March 28, stabbing death of John Fratis, 25, of Ogallala.

The Keith County Attorneys Office is beginning the extradition process to have Leroux returned to Nebraska.

Lt. Tim Arnold of the Nebraska State Patrol expressed thanks to Nebraska and Colorado media and the public for their help. The media spreading the word, and tips from the public helped greatly in this investigation, he said.
OVERTON  Theres a burly, red-bearded man parked in one of the two-person booths at this central Nebraska hole in the wall.

He quietly orders a plate of chicken tikka korma, a Budweiser  and a pen, please, for the newspaper crossword puzzle folded on the petite table in front of him, its edge pressed against his plaid-covered barrel chest.

A few minutes later, his fork scrapes audibly across his plate.

All finished? Shelly Chaudhary asks.

I love authentic Indian food, he says. So thank you.

A few seconds later  and just 20 minutes or so after he first sat down  he pays Shellys husband, Harry, at the counter. Then hes off, back to his semi parked in the lot at the Overton exit, headed back on to Interstate 80.

So goes every day at the Jay Bros., a stop along the road east of Lexington where there are no houses. There is no Subway or Starbucks, and hardly any people.

There are only the Chaudharys and their most unlikely version of the American dream: a central Nebraska Punjabi-style Indian restaurant, Taste of India, inside a truck stop.

Its a combination that doesnt seem like it should work but somehow does. That starts with their menu, a long list that includes dishes you might know and a handful you might not.

The most popular dish at Taste of India is probably butter chicken, a mildly spiced curry dish, Harry said. Its a staple of their menu.

So are chicken tikka masala, goat and lamb curry and many vegetable dishes.

I was particularly excited to see a handful of dishes that Ive never seen at an Indian restaurant in Nebraska before: aloo tikki, a sweet-spicy potato cake scented with fresh herbs, cheese and a hint of spice; and shahi paneer, huge pieces of Indian cheese nestled in a creamy, nutty sauce.

The house specialty is chole bhature: a bowl of chana masala  a saucy chickpea dish with big hunks of fresh-chopped ginger  served with fried bread called bhatoora for scooping. The dish is one of the most well known of Punjabi cuisine.

Harry and Shelly decided to serve Punjabi-style food because its served the same way worldwide, and is similar to the food in northern India, specifically Gujarat, where the couple met and got married.

They moved to California in 2007. Harrys uncle bought a gas station in Paxton, Nebraska, and asked if he wanted to come and run it. So the Chaudharys came to Nebraska.

Harry did well at the gas station in Paxton, and soon he bought a hotel in Cozad and a dollar store in Kearney, both of which hes since sold.

As he drove back and forth between his businesses, he would notice a busted-up truck stop at the Overton exit, one that had been closed and abandoned for years.

He had an idea. He tracked down the owner and made a deal.

In 2012, Harry bought himself a truck stop. He sighs.

You want to see the pictures? he asks.

He comes back, a thick, beat-up laptop in hand, and rolls a few videos: Broken glass. Water-damaged ceilings. Piles and piles of trash. Weeds 3 feet tall. A trashed kitchen and bathroom stalls. And even a handful of black cows roaming the open pasture that abuts the gas station.

It took Harry and his two sons four months just to clean up the convenience store side of the shop. He opened in December 2012 with just himself and one other employee who worked a few hours in the morning.

He sat in the shop alone most of the time, through the new year and into 2013. He added diesel pumps to try to attract truck drivers off the Interstate to his small mom-and-pop shop.

But he knew he needed another thing to draw those truckers in: food. Hamburgers and french fries, he thought. Thats the ticket.

I tried it for three months, he said. It didnt work.

But Harry is a stubborn man. He placed an ad in a newspaper in California: cook wanted. And not just any cook. A cook to help him open a new Punjabi-style Indian restaurant inside a truck stop in the middle of nowhere.

You will not be surprised to learn that a lot of people doubted Harrys new plan.

There is no community around here, not even a small one, he said. Overton is 4 miles from here. Lexington is 11. Elm Creek is 9 or 10. Kearney is 25. Many local people thought it couldnt work.

Harry decided he didnt care. He and Shelly, both vegetarians, started the menu without meat. Once chef Suren arrived from California, he encouraged them to add meat to the menu.

Everyone likes beef, Harry says.

Now Taste of India also serves chicken, fish, goat and lamb (still no beef, though). Most ingredients come from markets in Lexington, and some come from Omaha and Lincoln. Harry orders spices in bulk from Chicago, and all the naan is baked in-house.

The kitchen keeps the meat separate from the vegetarian dishes, and Harry is staunchly anti-buffet. Who wants to eat food that sits all day? he asks.

Harry made all those changes, and a funny thing happened: Truckers stopped to eat. They told other truckers about it, and they stopped, too. Harry hired a second chef, this one from Chicago. On weekend nights he would peek out of the kitchen and see his impossible dream of a restaurant nearly full.

I saw lots of people from Kearney start coming in on Friday and Saturday nights, Harry said. And then from Holdredge. From Lexington and Cozad and McCook. From Ogallala. From North Platte!

He shakes his head.

First I was thinking, You are coming from North Platte? That is too far for food. But they literally just came here for food. Now, lots of people know.

After Suren left, Harry hired another chef, also from California, who will arrive this April. And his nephew, Roy, works many hours in the restaurant, as well as the rest of the business, now that things are so much busier.

Travelers from Omaha and Lincoln, Iowa and Minnesota, headed to Denver or other places make the pilgrimage to Taste of India.

Many of those people  and truckers, too  call ahead for their orders, so food will be ready when they arrive. Some eat there, some take it home. And for some diners, its their first taste of India.

As it was for a couple dining the same evening I did, who didnt realize what they were in for.

Do you like Indian food? Shelly asked them.

Ive never had it, the woman said, then almost immediately asked, Is it real spicy?

Shelly said it can be made medium or mild, and the woman ordered a chicken dish.

After Shelly walked away, the woman looked at her husband.

You sure as heck didnt say Indian food!

Newbies aside, the restaurant has attracted lots and lots of regulars.

Some are professors at the University of Nebraska at Kearney, where the couples sons  ages 21 and 26  both study, the younger as a computer science student and the older as part of a masters program. They lined their father up to cater events for international students, and many of those families are now regulars as well.

Harry and Shelly said theyve found a few fellow Indians in Cozad, where they live, but not many. A few others, from southern India, live in Kearney.

But I have good Indian customers driving trucks from California, New York and Chicago, Harry says, smiling. Some of the customers, even though they are from New York, they like this more than the New York restaurants.

As far as Harry and Shelly know, they might be running the only roadside Indian joint in the Midwest. Certainly they are the only one in Nebraska.

We have tried hard, Harry said, sitting in the dining room of his restaurant. And now, four years after he bought this place, its working.

Restaurants are a hard business, and to me, if you dont have the proper guidance then you should do something else other than food, he says. But this is one good adventure I have done in my life. I see that and I become proud of myself. I have done something good."
LEXINGTON The Heartland Museum of Military Vehicles has assembled a small display of World War I items since April 2017 marks the 100th anniversary of the United States entering the war.

Its the 100th anniversary and were a military museum. We felt like we should do something, said Gary Gifford, a volunteer worker at the museum, who is a Vietnam veteran.

Portable items were grouped together for display, including guns, a uniform, Calvary hat, McClellan Calvary Saddle, left canister carrier horse gas mask, mess kit, entrenching tool, books and magazine articles. Gifford said most of the WWI items were donated by local people.

He said the machine guns used on a plane during the war were designed with an interrupter, a timing mechanism so the gun would fire between moving propeller blades and not harm them.

Gifford said he is surprised by the weight of a rifle used in WWI considering how people were smaller sized in those days.

Outdoors are two WWI vehicles, a Liberty B and a Nash Quad.

The Heartland Museum of Military Vehicles also has a working WWI era Mack Truck displayed indoors from Northwestern Telephone Company. Gifford said Mack Truck earned the nickname Bulldog Mack during the war because its blunt nosed hood, coupled with incredible durability, reminded British soldiers of the tenacity of a bulldog, their countrys mascot. The company went on to adopt the bulldog as a trademark.

Nearby are pictures of a young Dwight Eisenhower when he was part of convoy that traveled through Nebraska in 1919, which included time in Dawson County between Aug. 1 and 5. It took them 10 days to go across Nebraska. They got stuck in the sand, said Gifford.

The convoy normally travelled 7.5 miles per hour, but they averaged less than 3 miles per hour between Lexington and Gothenburg. They encountered what they called quicksand between Gothenburg and North Platte as they averaged 3.5 miles per hour on that leg of the journey. Gifford said the experience led Eisenhower to later support a transcontinentental roadway.
It is often asserted that the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 proved that HWA was right and he really did see the future.

This of course is nonsense. Herbert W. Armstrong said that Christ would return within twenty years in his book Mystery of the Ages. (PCG has since deleted those words so someone in there knows HWA spoke nonsense.) How convenient for them to forget this.

Also Herbert W. Armstrong never said the Soviet Union would collapse. He thought it would survive intact until a few years after Christ's return. It shows how biased some many in the COGs are that they never seem to notice this. This inconvenient truth is just tossed into the memory hole.

It is true that HWA said that some Eastern European states would break away from Moscow's orbit and join the European Empire he said would arise at any moment. But he never talked of the Soviet Union collapsing. He did not teach that. Also he portrayed the rise of the European Empire to be far quicker then what has actually happened. In Mystery of the Ages Christ was supposed to return by 2005 at the most.

So assertions that the fall of the Berlin Wall somehow prove that HWA was right is just complete nonsense spread by people who, for whatever reason, are still in denial that HWA was a false prophet who merely talked out of his own "human reasoning".
Havana, Cuba  During a press conference held yesterday, President and Founder of SAHIC Arturo Garcia Rosa and Cuba Vice Minister of Tourism Luis Miguel Diaz Sanchez officially announced May 15-16, 2017 as the dates for the first SAHIC which will be held in Havana. This one-of-a-kind conference will bring nearly 150 senior hospitality and development executives from more than 25 countries in the Americas, Europe and Asia who are interested in conducting business in the island nation. Representatives from major international hotel chains, investors, developers, consultants, architects, designers and other members of the regional and international investment community are looking to Cuba as a region offering marked growth.

SAHIC Cuba will comprise two days of activities that focus on facilitating meetings between groups of investors, international hotel chains and all those who are eager to understand where the opportunities are in Cuba. CEO of the World Travel & Tourism Conference David Scowsill will be featured as the Conference's keynote speaker.

"SAHIC Cuba is of great interest to the international hotel and tourism industry and we have no doubt that it will be a great success," shares Garcia Rosa. "The country offers a range of opportunities; Cuba is an ideal location to develop tourism and is certain to be one of the main destinations in Latin America in the near future."

"SAHIC Cuba is an important venue for MINTUR (ministry of tourism)," explains Diaz Sanchez. "The conference is also scheduled to take place immediately after FITCuba (Cuba's international tourism fair) to be held this year in Holguin. Now that we have attended and participated in two consecutive years of SAHIC in Lima and Guayaquil, we are proud to host SAHIC Cuba's inaugural conference in Havana where Cuban entrepreneurs will have the opportunity to network with global hospitality industry executives."

For more information and to register for the conference, visit www.sahiccuba.com.

ABOUT SAHIC and SAHIC Cuba

SAHIC, the premier Latin America hotel and tourism investment conference organizer promotes business and related real-estate projects in the region. The inaugural SAHIC Cuba, which was held May 15-16, 2017 was the must-attend event, designed to promote the hotel, tourism and related real estate businesses in Cuba. The Conference was destined to be "the" place to meet and network with the leading industry players in the island nation: hotel chains and groups, investors, banks, mutual funds, developers, architects, and interior designers, regional government representatives and other decision makers of the industry. For more information, visit www.sahiccuba.com

Leora Lanz

LHL Communications

SAHIC - Latin American Hotel & Tourism Investment Conferences
Singapore  As part of its global growth strategy, Frasers Hospitality Group, a division of Frasers Centrepoint Limited, is expanding its global presence with eight new properties in the Middle East and Africa. The new properties will increase Frasers Hospitality Group's global footprint to more than 1,500 units across both regions.

The recent launch of Fraser Suites West Bay, Doha marks the first of eight properties to open, making it the group's second operating property in Qatar and the fifth in the Middle East. The group's operating properties in the region  Fraser Suites Diplomatic Area Bahrain, Fraser Suites Seef Bahrain, Fraser Suites Doha and Fraser Suites Dubai - all enjoy an average occupancy rate of over 75%.

Frasers Hospitality Group entered the Middle East when it opened Fraser Suites Seef, Bahrain in 2009. Since its entry into the region, the group has been named as Middle East's Leading Serviced Apartments Brand and Best Serviced Apartment Company in the Middle East. The properties have also been individually awarded as Leading Serviced Apartments within the region.

Tapping into the region's business and tourism growth, Frasers Hospitality Group will also enter the Saudi Arabian market for the first time with properties in Jeddah, Khobar and Riyadh. The government's plans to develop tourist attractions and improve visa issuance for visitors to Saudi Arabia is forecast to boost tourism. Inbound tourism is currently projected to grow 6.1% per annum by 2020. Visitors from the leisure and the business sectors to Jeddah are projected to increase with the expansion of Jeddah King Abdulaziz International Airport and the development of Jeddah Economic City.

The Middle East has emerged as a key business hub, attracting major events and investments such as the World Expo 2020 where 25 million visits are expected, boosting inbound tourism figures. The Meetings, Incentives, Conferencing, and Exhibitions (MICE) sector has been witnessing steady growth in recent years , opening opportunities for hospitality companies to cater to the rise in business travel.

Openings in Nigeria and the Republic of Congo will mark Frasers Hospitality Group's first entry into Africa. According to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Sub-Saharan Africa remains a region of immense economic potential. The World Bank has forecast economic growth in the region to rebound to 2.9 percent in 2017, and rise above 3.5 percent by 2018. Given its growth potential, the continent is a key focus of the group's global growth strategy.

"The Middle East and Africa are significant growth markets in our global expansion plans. As the regions continue to emerge as business hubs, our properties in key cities will be well positioned to cater to the needs of travelers. By 2026, international tourist arrivals are forecast to total more than 100 million in the Middle East and we are ready to meet the increased demand for Gold-Standard serviced residences. The recent opening of Fraser Suites West Bay, Doha is an example of our confidence in the region. Meanwhile, business spending in Africa is expected to grow from US$2.6 trillion in 2015 to US$3.5 trillion by 2025 , which is likely to see an increase in business travel to the region. We are targeting key business centres such as Nigeria's capital Abuja and Africa's largest city, and we look forward to expanding our footprint in the region in the coming years," commented Mr Choe Peng Sum, Chief Executive Officer of Frasers Hospitality Group.

Fraser Suites West Bay is nestled in the heart of Doha. The 396-unit property will attract both long- and short-term stay executives as well as families relocating to Doha. Fraser Suites West Bay, Doha offers fully furnished serviced apartments combined with state-of-the-art guest amenities coupled with Gold-Standard services. The property is well positioned to cater to travellers' needs as it offers a selection of studios, one, two and three bedroom residences. All apartments are designed by Italian interiors company, Molteni & C, and have separate living and dining areas, enhanced by modern and fully equipped kitchens.

Frasers Hospitality's global portfolio, including those in the pipeline, stands at 140 properties in more than 80 cities with 23,400 keys worldwide.

About Frasers Property Limited

Frasers Property Limited ("Frasers Property" and together with its subsidiaries, the "Frasers Property Group" or the "Group"), is a multi-national owner-operator-developer of real estate products and services across the property value chain. Listed on the Main Board of the Singapore Exchange Securities Trading Limited ("SGX-ST") and headquartered in Singapore, the Group has total assets of approximately S$38.7 billion as at 31 March 2020. Frasers Property's multi-national businesses operate across five asset classes, namely, residential, retail, commercial & business parks, industrial & logistics as well as hospitality. The Group has businesses in Southeast Asia, Australia, Europe and China, and its well-established hospitality business owns and/or operates serviced apartments and hotels in over 70 cities across Asia, Australia, Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Frasers Property is also the sponsor of two real estate investment trusts ("REITs") and one stapled trust listed on the SGX-ST. Frasers Centrepoint Trust and Frasers Logistics & Commercial Trust are focused on retail, and industrial & commercial properties respectively. Frasers Hospitality Trust (comprising Frasers Hospitality Real Estate Investment Trust and Frasers Hospitality Business Trust) is a stapled trust focused on hospitality properties. In addition, the Group has two REITs listed on the Stock Exchange of Thailand. Frasers Property (Thailand) Public Company Limited is the sponsor of Frasers Property Thailand Industrial Freehold & Leasehold REIT, which is focused on industrial & logistics properties in Thailand, and Golden Land Property Development Public Company Limited is the sponsor of Golden Ventures Leasehold Real Estate Investment Trust, which is focused on commercial properties. The Group is unified by its commitment to deliver enriching and memorable experiences to customers and stakeholders, leveraging its people, knowledge and capabilities from across markets to deliver value in its multiple asset classes For more information on Frasers Property, please visit frasersproperty.com.

About Frasers Hospitality

Frasers Hospitality, a member of Frasers Property Group, celebrates 22 years of offering memorable experiences to guests through its Gold-Standard serviced, hotel residences and boutique lifestyle hotels across Asia, Australia, Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Growing from two properties in Singapore to more than 140 properties in over 70 cities, Frasers Hospitality is now one of the world's largest and fastest-growing providers of serviced and hotel residences. Conceived with the lifestyle preferences of today's discerning business and leisure travellers in mind, the global hospitality operator has three Gold-Standard serviced residences offerings - Fraser Suites, Fraser Place and Fraser Residence, a modern and eco-lifestyle brand, Modena by Fraser, and a design-led hotel residence brand, Capri by Fraser. In addition, it operates two brands of upscale boutique lifestyle hotels in the key cities of UK, Malmaison and Hotel du Vin. With a remarkable list of accolades and awards as recognition of its success, Frasers Hospitality remains committed to anticipating the evolving needs of executive travelers and exceeding expectations with continuous innovation and intuitive service, creating a second home for guests where staff feel like family and residents feel like community. For more information on Frasers Hospitality, please visit frasershospitality.com.

Janice Loh

Consultant | Dunbar-Jones & Associates

(65) 6356 2830

Frasers
The Pearl Horizon case and the Land Law were the two centerpieces of yesterdays heated discussion in a quite uncommon plenary meeting of the Legislative Assembly (AL).

The meeting, initially called to hear lawmakers questions and government answers on 16 spoken enquiries, eventually become centered on the topic of the Land Law and, more specifically on the case of the Pearl Horizon buyers, some of them in attendance.

Uncommonly, nominated to reply to those questions was not the Secretary for Transport and Public Works, Raimundo do Rosario, but instead Secretary for Social Affairs and Culture Alexis Tam and Secretary for Administration and Justice Sonia Chan.

Lawmaker Mak Soi Kun was the first to address the issue. He said that problems regarding the Land Law had already alerted the government several times to the need to adopt measures to prevent social chaos.

In the lawmakers opinion, there are a series of tragedies occurring in society due to the lack of action from the government on the matter.

Mak urged the government to take immediate action to solve the case before something even more serious happens, he warned.

In reply, Secretary Tam noted that, while the government strictly follows the law, in order to promote changes in the Land Law it is necessary to gather a consensus in society, reaffirming that there isnt, for the time being, an intention to change it.

Tam noted that, due to the ongoing judicial process regarding the Pearl Horizon case, the government needs to wait for the result first in order to take any action.

However, Mak was not satisfied with the Secretarys reply. How can the government save the residents from the deep waters and the burning fire? he asked.

A representative of the Legal Affairs Bureau (DSAJ) was nominated to reply to the follow-up question.

DSAJ noted that the bureau has already followed-up with the Land, Public Works and Transport Bureau (DSSOPT) and that they are maintaining an open dialogue with the buyers association and also with the development promoter.

The representative reaffirmed once more the need to wait for a decision from the courts in order to have a concrete and clear solution for the case based on such an outcome.

In order to review the [Land] Law, we need a social consensus as well as the orientation and object of this review, he concluded.

Lawmaker Zheng Anting contributed to the discussion by stating that he had alerted the secretary back in December to the problems regarding the Pearl Horizon case and urged the government to consider how the matter could be solved.

Zheng disagrees with the idea that the government should wait for the outcome of the judicial process, and instead argues it should take action.

Au Kam San noted the impossibility of Tam to reply on matters that are not a responsibility of his secretariat, remarking that the only thing Tam can do is to try to put down the fire, but the fire is already burning high.

Au questioned how people who bought a residential unit according to the law could suddenly become unlawful. He then claimed that the governments promises to protect the interests of these buyers are just slogans.

Another of the unusual events at the AL plenary yesterday was the applause of the audience  composed of some Pearl Horizon apartment buyers and other parties with interest in the Land Law  during or right after the interventions of lawmakers.

Ella Lei, Ng Kuok Cheong, Si Ka Lon, Leonel Alves, Song Pek Kei, Pereira Coutinho, Kwan Tsui Hang, Fong Chi Keong, Ho Ion Sang and Cheung Lup Kwan were among the other lawmakers who expressed similar positions regarding the topic.

Specifically, Ng noted that: Even if the government wins in court, it should continue with the project and finish it by doing it on its own or giving it to another promoter. [] That is the only way to give the houses to the rightful owners.

Leonel Alves remarked on the supposed need of a consensus, claiming that apparently we do have a consensus.

I cant see any voice against this solution, said Alves. What are we waiting for? Are we waiting for people to throw themselves from buildings?

As for lawmaker Song Pek Kei, she noted that representatives from other Secretariats were siding with Tam at AL. Commenting on this, she said: I am happy to see several representatives from different department from the government here together. I hope this means that the government is acting together to solve this problem.

Meanwhile, Pereira Coutinho said he had already proposed some solutions to the government. The government can write the clauses to guarantee that the buyers are safeguarded, he said, noting that this would be a valid guarantee whatever the courts decide.

Cheung Lup Kwan, in a rare moment of addressing the plenary, acknowledged that it was a mistake to approve the changes to the Land Law. I believe that we made a mistake. I voted wrongly; I admit that like many others here, he said. We have to think how to solve this. We cant summarize this to a business between the promoter and the owners.

However, in his concluding statements, Tam said he was optimistic with a resolution on this case, adding that he suspects the buyers will have a solution soon and it can be disclosed to the public.

When Secretary Sonia Chan weighed in on the issue it was to note that an interdepartmental group has been working on the matter, not just for Pearl Horizon, but for the land problems in general.

Leonel Alves asked whether the secretary needed to hear the recording of previous discussions on the matter to recall lawmakers intentions in changing the Land Law.

The same lawmaker noted that in the Pearl Horizon case, the government issued a license for the construction and collected stamp duty on the properties and that is why the buyers were approved loans from the banks.

Our regime is sick! How can we fix this sickness? he said.

In her final reply to the comments of the lawmakers, Chan said: The idea of retrieving [the land] and holding a new tender has considered the idea of protecting the interests of the people [buyers]. We are working to protect their interests.

Chan reaffirmed that a solution for the case will be settled, but warned that there will not be a review of the Land Law revision, which the government has no intention of doing for the time being.
Britains chief negotiator in the countrys divorce from the European Union yesterday rejected suggestions the U.K. has threatened to end security cooperation unless it gets a good trade deal, as the U.K. announced plans for the huge task of replacing thousands of EU laws and regulations with domestic law.

Brexit Secretary David Davis said Prime Minister Theresa Mays letter triggering talks on Britains departure made clear Britain wants to continue to work with the EU on a range of issues, including security, for both sides.

We want a deal, and she was making the point that its bad for both of us if we dont have a deal, Davis told the BBC. Now that, I think, is a perfectly reasonable point to make and not in any sense a threat.

Mays six-page letter triggering two years of divorce negotiations makes 11 references to security, and said that without a good deal, our cooperation in the fight against crime and terrorism would be weakened.

The Sun tabloid was in no doubt about what May meant: Your money or your lives, was its front-page headline yesterday, along with the words PMs Brexit threat to EU.

Britain is a European security powerhouse  one of only two nuclear powers in the bloc and with some of the worlds most capable intelligence services.

May said Wednesday that Britain will probably have to leave EU police agency Europol after Brexit, but wants to maintain the degree of cooperation on these matters that we have currently.

Home Secretary Amber Rudd, whose responsibilities include intelligence and security, also denied there was a threat, but told Sky News: If we left Europol, then we would take our information  with us. The fact is, the European partners want to keep our information.

Senior European leaders responded positively to the warm overall tone of Mays letter  but they could not miss the steely undertone.

I find the letter of Mrs. May very constructive generally, but there is also one threat in it, said European Parliament Brexit coordinator Guy Verhoftstadt, saying May seemed to be demanding a good trade deal in exchange for continued security cooperation.

It doesnt work like that, he told Sky News. You cannot abuse the security of citizens to have then a good deal on something else.

A day after triggering its EU exit process, the British government began outlining yesterday how it intends to convert thousands of EU rules into British law when it leaves the bloc in 2019.

The government published plans for a Great Repeal Bill that will transform more than 12,000 EU laws in force in Britain into U.K. statute so that the same rules will apply after exit day as before. The bill is designed to prevent Britain plunging into a legislative black hole once it extricates itself from the EU.

It will also ensure we deliver on our promise to end the supremacy of European Union law in the UK as we exit, Davis said. Our laws will then be made in London, Edinburgh, Cardiff and Belfast  and interpreted not by judges in Luxembourg, but by judges across the United Kingdom.

To accomplish the transition, lawmakers will need to delegate authority to the government to change some laws by executive order, using so-called Henry VIII clauses.

While the government says it will only use such powers to clean up technical issues, opposition lawmakers are unhappy at plans to give government ministers power to change some laws without votes in Parliament.

They fear the Conservative government will use it as a chance to water down workers rights and environmental protections introduced in Britain during four decades of EU membership.

Labour Party Brexit spokesman Keir Starmer said the proposed bill gives sweeping powers to the executive and lacks rigorous safeguards on their abuse.

The government insists executive powers will be time-limited and will only be used to make mechanical changes so laws can be applied smoothly. It says it is trying to balance the need for scrutiny and the need for speed.

Simon James, a partner at the international law firm Clifford Chance, says the reality is that Parliament doesnt have the capacity to review all EU law and make necessary changes over the next two years and any attempt to do so would be doomed to failure.

The task involves more than the application of a blue pencil to minor elements of EU legislation in order to excise a few words here and there or to substitute U.K. institutions for EU ones, he wrote in a briefing paper. It will entail immediate policy choices as to what EU law should continue to apply in post-Brexit Britain and, if it should, how it needs to be changed in order to work effectively.

All of this means the government faces a unique challenge that is complicated by the scale and complexity of the task, as well the fact that some decisions will be dependent on the result of Britains negotiations with the EU, the House of Lords said in a report published earlier this month.

Even so, the Lords argued that Parliament should limit the scope of any delegated powers so that the government cant use the process to decide which laws it wants to keep and which ones it wants to discard.

There is a question of who is going to get the power, said Sunwinder Mann, a partner at the firm of Baker McKenzie. This moment is going to bring about the most fundamental constitutional change since the European Communities Act in 1972.  There is a lot of uncertainty to what this means. Danica Kirka & Jill Lawless, London, AP
Local firm CESL Asia is again participating in the MIECF, this time showcasing Spin.Works, a Portuguese technology company that applies proprietary space technology to unmanned craft equipment.

Explaining to the Times its collaboration with the Portuguese firm, who has come to the region for the first time, CESL Asias CEO and president Antonio Trindade stressed that there is a potential market for such innovations to be set up in Macau.

The president explained that the firm acquires a proposition of high use of technologies at a reasonable cost, adding that such innovations is what the firm is seeking for. Spin.Works fixed wing drone flies with several sensors such as infrared camera and visible white camera. It is capable of flying over areas of interest to capture images from above  which are then converted into a complete 3D map.

The results can be used to process information with various applications, such as calculating volume for mining purposes and estimating the amount of biomass for forest inventory.

Its infrared features could also enable it to assess the health conditions of trees and crops to detect early signs and predictors of diseases, such as lack of nutrients in soil and other geographical factors that inhibits plant growth.

The two kilogram drone uses intelligent technology that is similar to that of which is used to identify foreign objects in outer space.

Regarding how the product could be integrated in the region, Trindade indicated that CESL Asia is collaborating with the firm to create similar technology products.

Were not limiting ourselves to [producing only one] application. We can see a future to develop new applications continuously for new uses, with the same core application, said Trindade.

When asked about the role of business and innovation in contributing towards the creation of a more sustainable economy, the entrepreneur reiterated that innovation should also be recognized as creating new uses for existing technology by reducing the use of resources; adding that committed employees should also be prioritized.

Innovation is not only in creating new technology and new products. Its creating new usage, new ways of doing things, [] producing better value [but] reducing the use of resources and energy, he explained.

According to Trindade, Macau has potential to add more value to the technology industry, which would also lead to creating more opportunities for job seekers.

Meanwhile, regarding the role of public policy in promoting an eco-friendly economy and industry, Trindade expressed the view the region needs to acquire government leaders who have concrete plans for the territory in order to allocate its resources effectively.

Trindade recalled that the region already has a vision to execute pro-green initiatives, and that the region is currently working towards the continuous promotion of these efforts.

For instance, the promotion of human resources in Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) instead of going to big constructions, he clarified.

Its a shift away from the gaming industry but it also supports the industry. So theres a balance here that requires creativity and innovation, as well public policy.

According to the president, Macau is in need of a better public interest represented in the leadership of the green industrys development, adding that leaders in the industry should seek stronger commitment for the regions advancement.

The role of the government is to ensure that the infrastructure and capabilities are there to make sure that [the industry] can grow step-by-step in a proper, sustainable way, he concluded.

The chief executive officer of Spin.Works, Vasco Pimenta, is hopeful that local buyers would be interested to look at its technology and see its potential to further improve the quality of their products.

CESL Asia is currently in discussion with relevant authorities to invest in its third and fourth Concentration Photovoltaic Power Plants in Southern Portugal. LV
Bottled water is starting to seem more like soda, and sometimes taste like it, too.

As bottled water surges in popularity, Coke, Pepsi and other companies are using celebrity endorsements, stylish packaging and fancy filtration processes like reverse osmosis to sell people on expanding variations of what comes out of the tap. Theyre also adding flourishes like bubbles, flavors or sweeteners that can blur the lines between what is water and what is soda.

For this years Super Bowl, PepsiCo even ran an ad for its new Lifewtr, promoting the drink in a spotlight typically reserved for sodas. Also running their first Super Bowl ads were Fiji and Bai Brands, which sell enhanced waters made with fruit juice and stevia sweetener.

Michael Simon, Bais chief marketing officer, says its drinks give people that healthy profile theyre looking for, but now they no longer have to sacrifice on taste with the neutrality of water.

Bottled water has been gaining ground for years, and overtook soda as the No. 1 drink in the U.S. by sales volume last year, industry tracker Beverage Marketing Corp. said. Some of the fizzy, sweetened drinks are considered water by the companies or industry trackers in some cases, as the distinctions between them lose meaning. Companies arent as interested in the big, economy packs of plain bottled water that have been fueling the growth, says Ali Dibaj, a Bernstein analyst who covers the industry, since those are less profitable than sodas and are a horrible business to be in.

So Coke and Pepsi are focusing on pricier options that compete with brands like Evian and Perrier. And theyre introducing fizzy and fruity varieties to get a better foothold in increasingly crowded marketplace where options like LaCroix and others are gaining popularity. Showing just how blurry the lines are getting, PepsiCo launched a drink last week that it describes as sorta juice, sorta soda, sorta sparkling water. Such options can capture people looking to cut back on sodas or juices, and may get people who might buy lower-priced waters to upgrade.

You can get up the ladder in terms of water and get out of the categories that dont drive a lot of value, Coca-Colas incoming CEO James Quincey said in September.

Quincey cites Smartwater, which has enjoyed sales growth in North America, as a way for Coke to profitably expand its water business. The brand is billed as vapor distilled and features actress Jennifer Aniston in its ads.

He also said that in the crowded Chinese market, Coke is upgrading people to a water brand it markets as socially responsible with a different blend of minerals, which costs twice as much.

Exactly what makes water seem like its worth the extra money varies, but image is key.

PepsiCo had toyed with names like Qua and Om before settling on Lifewtr. The company points to the artwork featured on its bottles, and the reverse osmosis filtration the water undergoes, with electrolytes added for taste. This is where consumers are heading, said Todd Kaplan, vice president of marketing at PepsiCo, about lower-calorie drinks like Lifewtr.

Both Lifewtr and Smartwater, which account for a small portion of the overall packaged water market, are made with municipal water and were selling for USD2.79 for a 1-liter bottle at a 7-Eleven in New York City. The convenience store chains private label brand was selling for $1.50 for the same size bottle.

The challenge for Coke and Pepsi is people like Andrew Allen. The New York City resident said he is trying to drink more water, but isnt loyal to a particular brand and buys whatever he can get a deal on.

I just wanted to stop drinking soda  just give it up, Allen said.

Julie McKnight, who also lives in New York City, said the distinctions made by some bottled waters are not worth the extra price. It doesnt seem any different, she said. Mostly, McKnight said uses reusable bottles that she fills with filtered tap water.

To help address peoples concerns about the environment as well as paying for a variation of what they could get from the faucet, companies like Nestle have been light weighting the packaging to use less plastic and keep prices down.

In addition to the still, unflavored versions, Cokes Dasani and Pepsis Aquafina have been rolling out sparkling and flavored extensions. Such options are making it trickier to define drinks that may be fizzy and sweet, yet marketed as water. Beverage Digest, another industry tracker, counts flavored sparkling varieties in its water category, as well as Sparkling Ice, which is made with artificial sweeteners.

Someone could argue with a straight face that maybe those belong with [sodas], executive editor Duane Stanford noted. But, he said, people drink Sparkling Ice with the mindset that it is water. Candice Choi, AP Food Industry Writer

Cod fishing catches plummet in waters off New England

The cod isnt so sacred in New England anymore.

The fish-and-chips staple was once a critical piece of New Englands fishing industry, but catch is plummeting to all-time lows in the region. The decline of the fishery has made the U.S. reliant on foreign cod, and cod fish fillets and steaks purchased in American supermarkets and restaurants are now typically caught by Norway, Russia or Iceland in the north Atlantic.

In Maine, which is home to the countrys second-largest Atlantic cod fishery, the dwindling catch has many wondering if cod fishing is a thing of the past.

Its going to be more and more difficult for people to make this work, said Maggie Raymond, executive director of the Associated Fisheries of Maine.

State records say 2016 was historically bad for cod fishing in Maine. Fishermen brought less than 77,110 kilograms of the fish to land in the state last year.

The haul was below the previous record low of about 113,398 kilograms a year earlier. Maines record year for cod was 1991, when fishermen brought more than 9.5 million kilograms of the bottom dweller to the docks, according to records that date to 1950.

The Sacred Cod is the nickname of a wood carving of the fish that hangs in the Massachusetts State House. That state remains the center of the nations Atlantic cod fishery, but the business is in jeopardy there, too. Catch fell from nearly 45.3 million kilograms in 1980 to less than 1.36 million kilograms in 2015.

The catch of cod in Maine, and elsewhere in New England, has fallen in the face of increasingly meager quotas allowed by the federal government. The governments catch limit in the Gulf of Maine has fallen from more than 8.2 million kilograms in 2011 to about a 453,592 kilograms last year.

New Hampshire fishermen brought more than 90,718 kilograms of cod to land in 1997. That dropped to 20,276 kilograms in 2015. Rhode Islands total dropped from 215,414 kilograms to 138,891 63,000 kilograms from 1997 to 2015.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration released an assessment of the Gulf of Maine cod stock in 2014 that said the spawning population was at its lowest point in the history of the study of the fish. Scientists have cited years of overfishing and inhospitable environmental conditions as possible reasons for the decline.

A new assessment is taking place this year, said Jamie Cournane, groundfish plan coordinator for the New England Fishery Management Council, which regulates fisheries under NOAA.

Cod are considered groundfish, which are fish that live near the ocean bottom. Several types of groundfish, including haddock, sole and halibut, have high economic value. The low quotas for cod are problematic for New England fishermen because they must also stop fishing for other valuable species once they reach their cod limit.

U.S. fishermen primarily fish for cod in the Gulf of Maine and Georges Bank, which are major fishing areas off of New England. Georges Bank has also seen steep cod quota cuts in recent years.

We did not see any positive news for recruitment, which led to those reductions that industry is facing right now, Cournane said. AP
Japans ruling party urged the government yesterday to consider arming the country with more advanced and offensive military capabilities, such as striking enemy targets with cruise missiles, further loosening the self-defense-only posture Japan has maintained since the end of World War II.

The Liberal Democratic Partys council on defense policy urged the government to immediately start studying ways to bolster Japans capability to intercept missiles with a system such as the Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense, or THAAD, that the U.S. and Seoul have agreed to install in South Korea.

The panel cited a new level of threat from North Korea, which fired four missiles this month, three of them landing inside Japan-claimed exclusive economic waters.

North Koreas provocative acts have reached a level that Japan absolutely cannot overlook, the partys security panel said in the proposal given to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. We should not waste any time to strengthen our ballistic missile defense.

The panel noted that North Koreas recent missile launches have shown advancing technology, including the capability to launch from mobile facilities or submarines, the use of solid fuel, and high-altitude trajectories, which make them harder to trace and respond.

With higher levels of threat coming from North Korea, Japan should consider possessing our own capability of striking back at an enemy base, with cruise missiles for instance, to further improve deterrence and response as part of the Japan-U.S. alliance, the proposal said.

The panel said the government should consider introducing THAAD and a shore-based Aegis missile defense system, among other equipment, while pursuing upgrades to two existing missile defense systems  ship-to-air SM-3 interceptors and the ground-based PAC-3.

China, which was occupied by Japanese troops during World War II, quickly criticized the proposal. Beijing views any Japanese plan to boost its military capabilities with suspicion.

China is opposed to any actions by other countries to take the (North Korean) nuclear issue as an excuse to compromise the security of other countries, defense ministry spokesman Wu Qian told a monthly briefing yesterday.

Beijing has strongly protested the THAAD deployment in South Korea, saying its powerful radar would allow the U.S. to monitor flights and rockets deep inside northeastern China.

Japan has maintained that its right to strike a foreign base in case of an imminent attack is not banned under its pacifist constitution.

Former defense minister Itsunori Onodera, who headed the defense policy council, told Abe that Japan needs to be prepared for being targeted by multiple missiles.

Our proposal is about how we can fight back and stop the other party from firing a second missile, instead of making a pre-emptive strike, he said.

Abe said he takes the report seriously and will cooperate with the party to improve Japans ballistic missile response.

The proposal does not call for a first-strike capability. Japan since its World War II defeat has limited its military to self-defense, while relying on the U.S. nuclear umbrella and the 50,000 American troops stationed in Japan under a bilateral security alliance as deterrence.

Abe has stretched those restrictions by easing a self-imposed ban on weapon exports and reinterpreting the war-renouncing constitution to allow Japans military to defend allies under attack. Japan and the U.S. have also revised their defense guidelines, giving Japanese Self Defense Force a greater role.

Concerns in Japan about the level of U.S. commitment to the region under President Donald Trump have also prompted calls for Japan to take greater responsibility for its own security.

Critics say changing policies to allow Japan to fight back against a foreign base would only escalate tension and signal a weakening of the U.S. regional commitment, and that the consequences should be carefully studied.

Japans defense budget has steadily risen over the past five years under Abe, who ended a decade of defense budget cuts. The annual increase is currently just over 2 percent, and Abe says he is ignoring a customary cap of 1 percent of GDP. Mari Yamaguchi, Tokyo, AP
The body of Kim Jong Nam, the estranged half brother of North Koreas leader, was released to the North yesterday, more than a month after his murder at Kuala Lumpurs airport unleashed a erce diplomatic battle between the two countries. Following negotiations that he described as very sensitive, Prime Minister Najib Razak said Malaysia agreed to release the body in exchange for the return of nine Malaysians held in North Koreas capital. There were no details on what led to the breakthrough, but North Korea appeared to win some important concessions: custody of the body and the release of at least two suspects who had been holed up in its embassy in Kuala Lumpur. Oh Ei Sun, an adjunct senior fellow with Singapores Rajaratnam School of International Studies, said it was not a surprise that North Korea came out well in the negotiations. North Korea has been performing despicable deeds around the world such as kidnapping and assassinations throughout the decades with impunity, Oh said.

The public poisoning of Kim, which took place amid crowds of travelers in the budget terminal at Kuala Lumpurs airport on Feb. 13, has prompted speculation that North Korea dispatched a hit squad to assassinate its leaders estranged older brother. Although Kim was not an obvious political threat, he may have been seen as a potential rival in the countrys dynastic dictatorship. Malaysia has never directly accused North Korea of being behind the murder, but many say the weapon  VX nerve agent, a banned chemical weapon  suggests the North must have orchestrated it. Experts say the VX was almost certainly produced in a sophisticated state weapons laboratory, and North Korea is widely believed to possess large quantities of chemical weapons.

Malaysias investigation has enraged North Korea. It has denied any role in the killing and denounced the investigation as awed

and politically motivated. North Korea does not even acknowledge the victim is Kim Jong Nam, referring to him instead as Kim Chol, the name on the passport he was carrying when he died. But North Korea has always demanded custody of the body, arguing that the victim was a citizen. As tensions escalated in recent weeks, both countries withdrew their ambassadors and North Korea blocked nine Malaysians who were in the country at the time from leaving. Malaysia responded in kind, barring North Koreans from exiting its soil, including three North Korean suspects believed to be hiding in the North Korean Embassy. Yesterday, both sides appeared to emphasize that ties were on the mend. Both countries agreed to lift the travel ban imposed on citizens of the other country and guarantee their safety and security, said a statement from North Koreas oficial Korean Central News Agency. The two countries did not say whether that included the three suspects. However, Japanese media released a video reportedly showing two of the suspects  an embassy employee and a worker for the North Korean state airline, Air Koryo  on an airplane, and of cargo identified as Kims casket. Four other North Korean suspects left the country on the day Kim was killed.
Dozens of scholars in Australia, the U.S., Britain and Hong Kong are urging Beijing to let a Sydney-based academic return home, warning that continued barring of his departure is raising concerns about the risks of conducting research in China.

Organizers of an open letter to President Xi Jinping and Premier Li Keqiang say more than 80 scholars have signed it so far, and it will be sent next week after the number of signatories is expected to exceed 100.

It calls for authorities to allow Feng Chongyi, an associate professor at the University of Technology Sydney, to return to Australia after he was preventing from doing so last week on suspicion of endangering national security.

Feng is a Chinese citizen and permanent resident of Australia, according to his lawyer. His case was cited earlier this week by politicians in Australia whose opposition over human rights concerns prompted the government to abandon efforts to seek ratification of an extradition treaty with China.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang said yesterday that Chinese law enforcement authorities while performing duties of safeguarding national security prevented Feng going abroad.

Feng Chongyi, as a Chinese citizen, is obliged to cooperate with the relevant investigation by Chinese authorities, Lu told reporters.

Feng had been wrapping up a three-week trip researching human rights lawyers. Since July 2015, authorities have questioned or detained hundreds of activists and independent legal professionals as part of a crackdown on civil society under President Xi. Some of the lawyers have been labeled threats to national security.

Rights groups and Western governments, including the U.S., have urged China to release the activists and lawyers. Activists say the crackdown is aimed at silencing critics of the ruling Communist Party in violation of the Chinese Constitution.

The open letter to Chinas top two leaders states that the signatories are disturbed that a fellow researcher, who has dedicated himself to promote the understanding of and interest in China, has been prevented from returning to his home and workplace for no reason other than his conscientious work as a China Studies scholar.

Such actions make it difficult for the rest of us to be confident in the research environment in China today, and do not contribute positively to the continued construction of open and productive higher education collaboration between China and the rest of the world.

Organizers plan to deliver it to the Chinese Embassy in Canberra next week.

One of them, Kevin Carrico, said the academics were worried about the safety of Feng, who has been a kind, very welcoming member of the Australian academic community who organized talks and debates on issues in Chinese society and China-Australia relations.

Carrico, a lecturer in Chinese studies at Macquarie University in Sydney, said the scholars wanted to make a clear statement that this is a matter of real concern for anybody who does research in China, anybody who works in academic exchange with China.

This type of a development of course doesnt contribute positively to the goal of mutual exchange between China and the outside world, which I know Professor Feng is an advocate of and that we all advocate.

While detentions of overseas-based academics such as Feng are rare, scores of foreign scholars in the China field have been denied visas to conduct research within China, apparently due to political considerations.

Border officials at an airport in the southern city of Guangzhou refused to let Feng catch flights home on Friday and Saturday last week, as Premier Li was making an official visit to Australia.

Fengs lawyer said state security agents had interviewed his client on suspicion of endangering state security. He is free to move around, but cant leave China, Chen Jinxue said. He said Feng was staying in the Grand International Hotel in Guangzhou with his wife.

Calls to Fengs room via the hotel operator were not answered. Louise Watt, Beijing, AP
I was lost, looking for port wine caves dug into hills across the bridge from Porto. I trudged up a hill and rounded a blind corner, sidling against a stone wall to avoid tour buses flying toward me, when I stumbled on the highlight of my day: a nearly empty tasting room and private wine-cellar tour.

It was a reminder that in Portugals second city, everything cool seems to be right around the corner, or more likely, just up a hill.

Portos historic core is set upon two hills, with the rejuvenated downtown between them spilling down to the Douro River. A pedestrian promenade lined with medieval merchant houses and cafe tables runs underneath the two-level Luis I Bridge, which joins the upper and lower sections of Porto and the city of Gaia. On one side is the twin-domed Porto Cathedral, on the other is the circular Monastery of Serra do Pilar. When the sun sets, the colors of the white monuments, stone towers and terra cotta roofs blend together, and the entire city glows orange. Its one of the worlds most spectacular cityscapes.

Porto is small enough to walk past the highlights in half a day, but I spent nearly a week hoofing it around, taking in one stunning sunset after the next. Lookout points are labeled on tourist maps as miradouros. Each is unique, though none is a match for Praia da Luz, or beach of light. A historic trolley runs from the center to where the river flows into the ocean in the Foz do Douro neighborhood. A short walk north through a seaside park brings you the rocky beach, where I nursed a glass of vinho verde, Portugals light, dry white wine, on a plush lounge chair. The sun dipped into the Atlantic where medieval maps once depicted fire-breathing sea serpents.

Fortunately, theres more to Porto than postcard-worthy pictures, with more to come. The thwack of hammers echoing off the tiled facades on nearly every street heralds a tourist boom. Already, the downtown around Avenida dos Aliados, which was seedy as recently as five years ago, has new life.

Concept stores run by collectives of crafters have opened along Rua do Almada. Workshop Popup combines four stores into one for cork handbags, locally designed clothes and handmade souvenirs actually worth buying. It also offers private cooking lessons for a bargain at a show kitchen in the back. For nightlife, the string of bars and restaurants around Rua da Galeria de Paris has a range of choices, from sophisticated to rowdy. The bars get busy almost every night of the week but often not until 11 p.m. or later.

One of Portos best-known sites is Livraria Lello, a bookshop in a grand neo-Gothic 1906 building on Rua das Carmelitas that features a massive curved staircase, elaborate painted plaster ceiling and a stained-glass skylight bearing the Latin phrase Decos in Labore (dignity in work). Theres a fee to enter (tickets are 5.5 euros online), but the fee entitles you to a discount on purchases.

I waited until the end of my trip to dive into port wines, those supple, fortified dessert wines the city is known for. After dinner at a friends apartment, my hosts, an architect and an owner of a design studio, pulled out a white port made by Taylor thats typically served chilled as an aperitif. They recommended visiting Taylors tasting room, one of the biggest, and Croft, the oldest. They also urged me to stay away from the expensive, flashy options along the riverfront.

It was while searching for Croft the next day that I stumbled on Churchills, which isnt listed on most maps of the port circuit. Their wine was rich and full, and slightly less sweet than others. A guide led me through the cave, a warehouse dug into the granite hill with a steady temperature in the 60s F (15-21 C). Hundreds of oak barrels were stacked four high, aging port for up to 40 years. Turns out the British commercialized a product the Portuguese had been making for centuries, which explains the Anglophile names.

At Croft, founded in 1588, the charming tasting room with tables and stools made from wine barrels led into an impressive cellar with stone arches and casks the size of small houses. Taylor was the most commercial of the three, but the 10-euro entry fee includes a three-wine sample and self-guided audio tour, so its a good choice for a novice with time for only one stop.

Sufficiently buzzed, I asked a clerk to recommend somewhere for a quick bite before rushing off to the airport. The five-star Yeatman Hotel hit the mark with a cheese plate, a glass of dry Douro Valley red and an expansive patio overlooking the city. It was just around the corner, and just in time for sunset. Albert Stumm, AP, Porto

If you go

Porto, Portugal: Located three hours by train from Lisbon. Stay near the Clerigos Tower in the Vitoria neighborhood, the center of nightlife and only a 15-minute walk from the higher-priced tourist spots near the river. Also, try francesinha, a Porto specialty thats like a meatier croque monsieur. Cafe Santiago near the Coliseu music venue serves up a gut-buster drenched in a tangy beer sauce, and locals like the francesinha at Cufra on Avenida da Boavista. visitporto.travel
JAPANs ruling party urged the government yesterday to consider arming the country with more advanced and offensive military capabilities, such as striking enemy targets with cruise missiles, further loosening the self-defense-only posture Japan has maintained since the end of World War II.

PHILIPPINES President Rodrigo Duterte unleashed an expletive-laden tirade yesterday against the countrys leading newspaper and TV network and threatened to humiliate them and their owners, whom he accused of distorting news of his anti-drug crackdown.

CAMBODIA Hundreds of members of Cambodias opposition party held a ceremony yesterday marking the 20th anniversary of a grenade attack in the nations capital that killed 16 people.

SINGAPORE A teenage blogger from Singapore who was granted U.S. asylum remains detained in a Wisconsin facility with few clues of when hell be released. Attorney Sandra Grossman initially said Yee could be released Monday. Her office said Wednesday it appears Yee will stay detained while federal authorities consider appealing. Some immigration experts say thats unusual.

AUSTRALIA The Australian government said yesterday it had found no evidence that any of its donations to the Christian charity World Vision had been siphoned to Islamic militant group Hamas. But Australias Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade said its World Vision funding in Gaza would remain suspended while Israeli charges against the global aid agency remain unresolved.

RUSSIA-AFGHANISTAN As Americas 16-year war in Afghanistan drags on, Russia is resurrecting its own interest in the graveyard of empires. The jockeying includes engaging the Taliban and leading a new diplomatic effort to tackle Afghanistans future, all while Washington leaves the world guessing on its strategy for ending the conflict.

SYRIA The U.N. humanitarian chief says hundreds of thousands of Syrians trapped in besieged areas are facing severe and horrific threats and the last months have been some of the worst for civilians. Stephen OBrien told the Security Council yesterday: For Syria, that is saying something.

NIGERIA-INDIA Nigerias foreign ministry has called in Indias top diplomat to protest attacks on African students and demand arrests and prosecutions of perpetrators, Nigerias official news agency said yesterday.

BRITAINs ambassador to the U.N. says the United Kingdom may be leaving the European Union but it isnt leaving Europe and will remain a major player on the world stage including at the United Nations.

CHILEs president criticized isolationist foreign policies and protectionism in trade yesterday, saying during a state visit to Portugal that multilateralism is crucial to address global challenges.

VENEZUELAs Supreme Court seized the powers of the opposition-controlled congress, sparking allegations of a coup by lawmakers, who called on the international community for help. The Supreme Courts Constitutional Chamber declared the National Assembly was operating outside the rule of law after long standing claims that the legislature was in contempt of previous legal statements.
A Montana woman has been cited for animal cruelty for shooting and killing a 6-month-old husky that she apparently believed was a young wolf. An investigation began in September after the woman shared pictures of herself with the animal's head and hide on social media and bragged about killing a wolf. The husky was among a group of 18 dogs and puppies that had been abandoned on national forest land in northwestern Montana. The Flathead County Sheriff's Office says the investigation led to a misdemeanor citation and not a felony charge because they could prove negligence, but not intent. The citation gives the woman two weeks to appear in Justice Court.
John Nilsen to provide worship music

BUHL  The Buhl Methodist Church will have Sunday School at 10 a.m. with service at 11:30 a.m. at 908 Maple St. The Rev. Mike Holloman will lead prayer. Guest pianist John Nilsen will provide worship music.

'Obedience' is message of Sunday sermon

TWIN FALLS  Worship on the Fifth Sunday in Lent will be at 9:30 a.m. Sunday at the Twin Falls First United Methodist Church. The Rev. Elaine Steele will bring a message on "Obedience" and will preside over the Sacrament of Holy Communion. The bell choir will play "Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence" and the chancel choir will sing, "Is It I, Lord?" First Sunday food donations will be shared with Twin Falls schools food pantries.

John Nilsen, an award-winning pianist /guitarist from Oregon, will play at 2 p.m. at the church. Nilsen has performed in more than 1,000 United Methodist Churches and founded the Magic Wing recording label in 1987. The concert is free and open to the public. A free-will offering will be welcome.

The church is at 360 Shoshone St. E. and is handicapped accessible with an elevator on the Fourth Ave. N. entrance.

Volunteers sought for food bank

JEROME  The Rev. Elaine Steele will continue the Lenten series on the Gospel of John during worship at 11:30 a.m. This week's theme will be centered on The Vine and the Branches." Sarah Carroll of Boise will offer special music during the service. Steele will lead the study on the book of John at 10:30 a.m. every Thursday during Lent.

The Methodist Men's Breakfast is at 8 a.m. Sunday at the church at 211 S. Buchanan in Jerome. The United Methodist Women meet for dessert at 12:30 p.m. Thursday followed by the program of Prayer and Self-Denial. The Expresso Readers will meet at 10 a.m. on Tuesday at L. M. Coates' home. Mary and Martha Food bank is held every Wednesday from 4:30 to 7 p.m. Call 208-324-3202 to volunteer.

Potato bar and auction raises money for camp

TWIN FALLS  Our Savior Lutheran Church is holding its 30th annual Potato Bar and Auction Fundraiser at 5 p.m. Saturday at 464 Carriage Lane N. in Twin Falls. A live auction is at 6 p.m. and the public is invited to attend. The potato bar is $5 per person and $20 per family.

The live auction will feature the Rev. Steve Crittenten as auctioneer. Proceeds will support children attending camp at Luther Heights Bible Camp in the Stanley Basin. For more information, go to osltf.org or call 208-733-3774

Unitarians to discuss benefits of laughter

TWIN FALLS  The Rev. Greene will reflect on how important it is to laugh, share humor and have as merry a heart as possible. Laughter is not generally considered a religious subject, but Greene will illustrate how humor brings us to better places in our spiritual lives.

Services are at 10:30 a.m. Sunday at the Vendor Blender and Event Center, 588 Addison Ave. W. in Twin Falls.

Unitarian Universalism honors the differing paths we each travel. Our congregations are places where we celebrate, support, and challenge one another as we continue on our spiritual journeys.

Unitarian Universalists covenant to affirm and promote the inherent worth and dignity of every person; justice, equality and compassion in human relations; and acceptance of one another. Newcomers of all religious paths or none at all are always welcome. We are handicapped accessible. Please park in the rear of the building. Child care is available.

Donations sought for knitting group and Refugee Center

TWIN FALLS  April's in-gathering will be yarn for the Knit Us Together group and fabric and sewing tools for the College of Southern Idaho Refugee Center. Baskets will be set up in the gathering area for donations.

Holy Communion will be celebrated at 8 and 10 a.m. on Sunday with the Rev. Neal Collins presiding. Child care will begin at 9:30 a.m. A fellowship coffee hour will be held after the 10 a.m. service. Ascension Cafe, the adult discussion group, will meet from 9:10 to 10 a.m. Sunday with the Knitting Group explaining their various projects. On April 6, the final Thursday in Lent will include a simple Soup Supper at 6 p.m. followed by the Lenten study of the Psalms from 6:30 to 7:30 p.m.

Ascension Episcopal Church is handicapped accessible and is at 371 Eastland Dr. North, Twin Falls. For more information, go to episcopaltwinfalls.org or call 208-733-1248.

To submit information about church events and news. Contact Matt Gooch at mgooch@magicvalley.com. Deadline is 5 p.m. Wednesday for publication on the Saturday religion page. Please insert Church News in the email subject line.
GOODING  No charges have been filed in the cockfighting ring that was busted March 25 at a location north of Gooding.

Investigators detained 150 people, taking down their names and addresses, and seized 80 roosters that were euthanized the next day. But Gooding County Prosecutor Matt Pember and his staff still have to go through reports from the sheriffs office.

That process could take some time.

With all those people to interview, the sheriffs office was busy, Pember said Thursday.

The organizer of the cockfight is under investigation, and those who organized, promoted or advertised it could face felony charges, according to a state statute passed in 2012. Other participants could face misdemeanors.

Gooding County sheriffs deputies discovered the fight after a noise complaint was called in about 9:30 p.m., Sheriff Shawn Gough said in a statement. When deputies arrived, they found about 100 cars parked outside a shop at the residence and seized drugs, firearms and equipment used in cockfighting; all those in attendance were released after deputies recorded their contact information.
TWIN FALLS  A Twin Falls man undergoing treatment at a mental-health prison facility remains incompetent to have a preliminary hearing in the strangulation murder of a 20-year-old Twin Falls woman last summer.

Glenn Joseph Tures, 45, was scheduled for the preliminary hearing Friday in Twin Falls County Magistrate Court, but court documents filed Wednesday show he was ordered to remain in the Idaho Security Medical Program overseen by the Idaho Department of Correction.

The secure facility, at the Idaho Maximum Security Institution south of Boise, treats prisoners and those awaiting trial who are deemed by the courts to be dangerous and mentally ill. Tures was sent to the facility in December for 90 days of observation and treatment, and a renewed order to keep him there was signed Wednesday by Magistrate Judge Calvin Campbell.

Tures is accused of murdering Anessia Shaye Winterholer on Aug. 20. Winterholers body was found in the basement of a Twin Falls home Aug. 21, and Tures turned himself in and confessed to the killing three days later.

Many of the documents in Tures case are sealed to the public, including reports on his mental health. But during a hearing in December, Campbell said a forensic psychiatrist found that Tures is not competent, fit and able to assist counsel and understand proceedings.

The evaluation also concluded Tures was dangerous and mentally ill, which Idaho codes defines as someone in need of supervision, evaluation, treatment and care who presents a substantial risk of physical harm to other persons as manifested by evidence of homicidal or other violent behavior.

Finding Tures to be dangerous and mentally ill ensures that his treatment is conducted at a secure facility where treatment consists of whatever (the providers) think they need to do to restore mental competence, Twin Falls County Prosecutor Grant Loebs told the Times-News last year.

Tures has had a rocky time while in custody. On Sep. 5, he was severely beaten by two inmates at the Twin Falls County Jail after allegedly discussing Winterholers murder and telling other inmates he was God. The beating left him slumped in a cell and covered in blood with fractures in both cheek bones, the right eye socket, the nasal bone and his back.

Deputies learned the beating was the result of a hit placed on Tures because of his case. He was moved to the Jerome County Jail, where he wrote an unusual letter to Judge Campbell saying he was ready to accept whatever consequences that are ahead of me in life.

The letter revealed Tures disagreed with his attorney, Twin Falls County Chief Public Defender Marilyn Paul, who did not believe he was competent to proceed with the case.

She wants me to voluntarily medicate, Tures wrote. And to that I say no!

Tures, who is being held without bond on the first-degree murder charge, is now set for a preliminary hearing June 2.
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TWIN FALLS  A school bus driver was cited by Twin Falls police Friday for failing to yield at a stop sign, causing a crash.

The incident happened around 8 a.m. and parents of students were notified, Twin Falls School District spokeswoman Eva Craner said. There werent any serious injuries.

The school bus was traveling south on Grandview Drive and stopped at a stop sign at the intersection with South Park Avenue, Twin Falls Police Lt. John Wilson said.

The school bus failed to yield at the stop sign and pulled out in front of a Chevrolet SUV traveling east on South Park Avenue, Wilson said.

There were 25 students on the bus heading to Lincoln Elementary School. A few students complained of pain and were seen by paramedics who responded to the crash, but no-one was transported to the hospital.

A Mid-Columbia Bus Co. representative declined to comment.
TWIN FALLS  Two years ago, Judie House led 30 dairymen from Amsterdam on a tour of the Magic Valley. The tour ended with dinner at Elevation 486.

They loved the tour and they loved the Snake River Canyon, House said. But they really loved Elevations.

House always knows what to say. She meets and greets for a living.

But after nearly a quarter of a century representing the Twin Falls Area Chamber of Commerce, House is donning traveling shoes and plans some sightseeing of her own.

Its been an amazing career, she said. She will retire Friday.

House was a child in 1956 when attorney and then Twin Falls County Democratic Central Committee Chairman Tom Alworth  her father and mentor  ran for Idaho attorney general. Alworth passed along his people skills to House, who posted campaign fliers on every telephone pole between here and Sandpoint.

I got quite a tour of Idaho just doing that, she said.

After marrying, House lived in Flagstaff, Ariz., for 20 years before returning to the Magic Valley. She went to work for the chamber in 1993. Thats when she met her second mentor, chamber Director J. Kent Just. The two worked together until his retirement in 2004.

She received the chambers Extra Mile Award in 1999.

House is a delight to work with, said Twin Falls County Fair Manager John Pitz, co-chair of the Chamber Agriculture Committee.

She is our main worker bee, Pitz said. The ag committee rounds up some $12,000 every year in scholarship money to help Magic Valley agriculture students go to college.

House had a health scare a little more than year ago and needed triple-bypass surgery in January 2016.

God gave me another chance, she said. She went back to work in April.

It was good for me to be with people again.

But after losing Just, who died a few weeks ago of a sudden illness, House decided that life is too short, she said. I made the decision to retire the day after Kent passed.
July 15, 1929  March 25, 2017

GOODING  Myrl Lee Estep Mohwinkel, 87, of Gooding, Idaho joined her beloved husband in heaven on March 25, 2017.

Myrl was born July 15, 1929 in Wendell, Idaho, a twin daughter of Hattie Amelia King Estep and John Lindsey Estep. Her twin sister died at 3 days of age. Myrl attended schools in Wendell. She met the love of her life, Melvin Mohwinkel, on Easter Sunday 1946 and they were married December 1, 1946. Myrl and Melvin were married for over 65 years. They had two daughters, of whom they were very proud, and who they loved deeply.

While attending high school in Wendell, Myrl worked as a nurse aide at the Wendell Hospital. The Sisters there recognized her strong work ethic, her intelligence, her compassion, and her potential and encouraged her to become a nurse. Myrl became a Licensed Practical Nurse and worked at the Wendell Hospital, in the offices of Dr. F.E. Barrett, Dr. Bernard Bodmer, and Dr. Richard Short. Myrl then had an opportunity to become the Food and Household Supervisor at the Idaho State School for the Deaf and Blind and she worked there until the time of her retirement. She was recently asked, What was your passion in life? to which she replied, I was a nurse and I loved it!

Myrls passion and calling to care for others more than for herself, is exemplified by how she conducted her life. One situation that typifies her passion and caring occurred when she worked at the Wendell Hospital. A young mother and her infant son were admitted following a train-car accident in which the husband and father was killed. The mother was very critically injured but the infant was unharmed. Over the course of the many months of recovery for the mother, the Sisters realized that the infant needed human love and contact, which the mother was not well enough to provide. They also knew that Myrl did not have any children so they asked if she and her husband would periodically take the infant home overnight. Periodically, became very often and Myrl and her husband came to love the baby very much. Upon discharge of the mother, she and the baby took a train home to somewhere in the East. About a year later, Myrl received from the mother, a picture of the baby which Myrl kept her entire life.

There was also a time in Myrls life when she opened her home to an unwed mother who needed help. And over the years, she and Melvin opened their hearts and home to several young people who became a part of the family.

Myrl enjoyed being with her family, doing crafts, reading, and gambling occasionally. She especially enjoyed her grandchildren. She will be remembered for her strong personal character, her work ethic, her wit, the stability she brought to her home, the principles and values she passed on to others, her grace and gratitude, and her clean house.

Myrl is preceded in death by her husband, her parents, one brother, and four sisters. She is survived by her children, Linda (Terry) Mink of Mesquite, Nevada; Sandra (Bob) Negley of Salt Lake City, Utah; one sister, Helen Nielson of Scottsdale, Arizona; six grandchildren, Amelia (George) Brown; Sarah (William) Hymas; Rebecca (Matthew) Ritchie; Joseph (Samantha) Mink; Levi (Erica) Negley; and Joshua (Suzanne) Negley, eleven great grandchildren; several nieces and nephews; and many who love her.

A viewing will be held on Sunday, April 2, 2017 from 4:00 to 6:00 PM at Demaray Funeral Service  Gooding Chapel.

A funeral service will be held on Monday, April 3, 2017 at 11:00 am at Demaray Funeral Service  Gooding Chapel. Burial will follow at the Wendell Cemetery in Wendell.

Condolences, memories and photos may be shared with the family by visiting the obituary link at www.demarayfuneralservice.com.
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Bloomberg journalists were hosting a series of breakfasts with national political reporters at the Republican National Convention last July and wanted an influential guest for the opening morning. With Donald Trump unavailable, the next best choice was clear: his campaign chairman, Paul Manafort.

Manafort had taken over the campaign and was directing it at a critical time, when Trump wrapped up the nomination and headed off fights at the convention between various Republican factions.

He left the campaign in August amid controversy over his role as hired gun for a pro-Russian political party in Ukraine. This week, The Associated Press revealed that Manafort secretly worked for a Russian billionaire to advance the interests of Russian President Vladimir Putin a decade ago, and proposed an ambitious political strategy to undermine Putins opposition.

Now that the FBI has confirmed that it is investigating whether there was collusion between Trump operatives and Russian interference in the presidential election, Manafort has become almost a non-person in Trumpland.

White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer declared on Monday that Manafort had only a very limited role for a very limited time in the Trump campaign.

Like many other assertions that have been made from the White House since Trump was inaugurated on Jan. 20, that was false.

Manafort controlled hiring for the Trump campaign, along with its media campaign and budget.

At that July breakfast in Cleveland, it was clear that Manafort spoke for the candidate and knew his thinking. He had been in charge of all the strategy for the convention.

He explained that he had put Trump in touch with Mike Pence, then governor of Indiana and now vice president. I brought him in to meet Pence, Manafort said of Trump, adding that the contact led to the notion that the Indiana governor had value to Trump as a potential VP nominee.

The breakfast guest the next morning was the Republican Party chairman, Reince Priebus. Priebus told me then how important Manafort was to the campaign, what an improvement from former campaign manager Corey Lewandowski. Priebus is now White House chief of staff.
Gallup reports that President Donald Trump, already at a record low for a presidents first year, has hit a new low, 35 percent. As Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., likes to say, Trumps support is down to paid employees and blood relatives. Gallup includes this historical perspective:

One possibility for Trump, following [Bill] Clintons path, is that after bottoming out somewhere in the 30s early on, he learns from the school of hard knocks and improves his performance enough to rebuild public support. His challenge will be expanding beyond his 46% high point  if he does, he could be in a good position for re-election. The alternative is that he sinks into the 20s and follows the path worn by Carter and George H.W. Bush: straight to the first-term exit door.

Thats if he makes it to the end of the first term.

We should not expect that a 70-year-old billionaire who defied all the experts in winning the presidency will readily change his rhetoric, style and agenda. A man who never apologizes sees no reason to change.

But lets say, for sake of argument, that Trump accomplishes none of his top priorities (build the wall, tax reform, repeal and replace) and the Russia investigation hangs over him, threatening to implicate top campaign aides. Hes in the approval range where it is quite conceivable that the GOP loses the House, and thereby turns over the body responsible for impeachment (but not trial) to Democrats. What does he do?

First, he needs to professionalize the White House. Out go the incompetent ideologues (Stephen K. Bannon, Stephen Miller, Sebastian Gorka), those who are in over their heads (Reince Priebus, Sean Spicer and Don McGahn, who gave poor advice on Ivanka Trumps employment status and messed up the travel-ban executive order) and, yes, relatives. He cannot run this like a family business. Because thats all he knows how to do, hell need experienced White House aides who are allowed to set up a streamlined decision-making system.

Second, no more tweeting, no more outrageous assertions gleaned from nonsense he watches on Fox News, no more campaign-style rallies where he recites his latest conspiracy theories.

Third, get the Russia stuff behind him. Release tax returns and financial records. (If he cannot do that because he is deathly afraid of what his tax returns reveal, he in essence is deciding its more important to keep his financial secrets than hold on to the presidency.) Offer up the names of Russian investors, buyers and lenders. Repudiate anyone on his team who had improper dealings with foreign governments. If appropriate, make certain that prosecutions proceed based on facts uncovered during the investigation. And yes, acknowledge that President Barack Obama did not wiretap him.

Fourth, undo his pattern so far of running as a populist but governing like a pro-business right-wing radical  trying to roll back Medicaid, cut funding for worthwhile programs, hand out tax cuts to the rich and let big telecoms sell our personal data. The last item is a perfect example of letting free-market ideologues win out over policy that protects the little guy. (Outrage is growing at Republicans following a controversial vote Tuesday to repeal Internet privacy protections that were approved by the Federal Communications Commission in the final days of the Obama administration, CNN reports. Privacy advocates, consumer groups and the tech community are all attacking the decision. It was quickly panned by both the editorial board of The New York Times and by commenters on conservative media outlet Breitbart News.)

When he meets with former opioid addicts and their families promising more resources days after failure of a health-care plan that would have slashed such resources, he has reached a new level of incoherence. If Republicans remain under the thumb of the Freedom Caucus, he should strike deals with Democrats and moderate Republicans on infrastructure, child care and middle-class tax cuts.

Again, such an extreme makeover is unlikely. He has never operated outside the cocoon of family or practiced anything like the sort of transparency we have described. At some point, he will be faced with the prospect of failure and disgrace (maybe even removal from office) unless he dramatically changes his style and agenda. If he keeps going the way he has, he will face a political death by a thousand cuts  investigations, scandals, failed legislation and disastrous midterm elections. At that point, the presidency may become more trouble than it is worth.
Editors note: This editorial contains inaccurate information, and as a result we owe an apology to former Jerome County Prosecutor John Horgan. Horgan is no longer handling the case. He was replaced by prosecutor Mike Seib. We deeply regret the error and apologize to him and our readers for presenting inaccurate information.

Better to remain silent and be thought a fool, Abraham Lincoln famously said, than to speak out and remove all doubt.

Were not sure whether Jerome County Prosecutor John Horgan is taking the presidents advice or whether he simply doesnt understand the responsibilities of public servants.

Either way, Horgan isnt saying. In fact, he never says.

The prosecutor has a policy of not speaking with the media, which is in essence a policy against speaking to his voters, his bosses.

The most recent example is his decision to drop all charges against the main suspect in the White Pine Elementary case, where several schoolgirls accused a man of trying to kidnap them from the playground at the Burley school. Because of a conflict of interest with the Cassia County prosecutor, Horgans office took on the case.

The incident shocked the Magic Valley. Several schools stepped up security protocols in the fallout. Parents worried about the safety of their children. Were there, in fact, predators lurking around the school trying to snatch children?

The public is still no closer to the answer.

Horgans office dropped the remaining charges against 51-year-old Vadian Dougal on Wednesday, March 29, without any explanation.

Was there really no case to be had against Dougal? Where the witnesses lying when they said he grabbed them or tried to lure them away? Was there ever really a threat, or is there still one?

Who knows?

And thats the most troubling part of Horgans silence. Parents, teachers and the public at large are simply left to guess.

Weve been critical of Horgans silence in the past, for all the same reasons. When a 2-year-old boy was struck by a car and killed in a Jerome subdivision in 2014, Horgans office said nothing about its pursuit of justice, or lack thereof. Even though the driver turned himself in the next day, Horgans office eventually dismissed charges against him, leaving the boys family and others in the close-knit neighborhood of mostly Latino families wondering why. Some even accused Horgan of failing to pursue the case because of a prejudice against Hispanics.

We doubt thats why Horgan never prosecuted anyone in the boys death, but the accusation goes a long way toward proving our point. When Horgan doesnt explain his decisions, people are left to wonder.

And thats simply poor public service.
Israel's Security Cabinet on Thursday unanimously approved the construction of a new settlement in the West Bank, according to a message from the Prime Minister's office, marking the state's first new settlement in Palestinian territory in more than 20 years.

The new settlement, which will be constructed north of the Palestinian city of Ramallah, is intended for Israeli settlers evacuated from Amona, an outpost destroyed by Israeli authorities in February because it was not sanctioned.

The Security Cabinet on Thursday also advanced plans to construct 2,000 homes inside existing settlements. These homes are part of a plan approved two months ago to grow settlements by more than 5,500 homes. The plan was approved by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government shortly after US President Donald Trump took office.

PLO Executive Committee member Hanan Ashrawi immediately blasted the announcements.

"Israel's policies remain unchanged as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his extremist, racist coalition government continue to persist with their systematic policies of settler colonialism, apartheid and ethnic cleansing, showing a total and blatant disregard for Palestinian human rights, independence and dignity," Ashrawi said in a statement.

"Today's announcement once again proves that Israel is more committed to appeasing its illegal settler population than to abiding by the requirements for stability and a just peace," she added.

Ashrawi called on the international community to hold Israel responsible for the expansion of West Bank settlements.

The United Nations Security Council passed a resolution in December condemning Israeli settlements constructed in the West Bank and East Jerusalem as illegal. These territories, occupied by the Israeli military since 1967, are where Palestinians plan to create their future state.

UNSC Resolution 2334 passed after the US abstained from voting. Former President Barak Obama was a critic of the settlements, viewing them as an obstacle to reaching a viable peace agreement between Israelis and Palestinians.

Thursday's announcement comes despite no agreement between the Trump and Netanyahu governments on how to address settlements. The President requested in February that Israel "hold back" on settlement expansion.

A White House official on Thursday said Israel's decision to approve a new West Bank settlement did not amount to defiance of the President's request for a pause in settlement activity, rather it was "already in the queue."

The new settlement was already on track to be approved "before the President had a chance to lay out his expectations," said the official, who declined to be named due to the sensitive nature of peace talks.

The two sides have previously met in Washington and Jerusalem, as the Trump administration pushes forward with an Israeli-Palestinian peace plan.

"As we move into more detailed discussions regarding the possibilities for advancing Israeli-Palestinian peace, the Israeli government has made clear that Israel's intent is to adopt a policy regarding settlement activity that takes the President's concerns into consideration," the official said.

The official said the President's previous concerns about settlement activity being unhelpful to the peace process "remain the same."

There are 126 Israeli settlements in the West Bank (excluding East Jerusalem), according to the September 2016 report from the Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics.

CNN's Amir Tal and Jeremy Diamond contributed to this report.
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United States Ambassador to the UN, Nikki Haley, has revealed what seems to be White Houses revised policy and strategy in Syria. We cant necessarily focus on Assad the way the previous administration maybe did even though he is considered as a hindrance, she said.

The Obama administration had voiced strong support for the ousting of Assad and supported rebel groups fighting against Damascus. It also refused to collaborate with Pro-Assad forces in fighting the Islamic State group.

Haley explained that you pick and choose your battles and with regards to the Syrian war, its about changing up priorities and our priority is no longer to sit and focus on getting Assad out. She added that the shift in policy will require that the U.S. study how to get things done by determining who they need to work with to really make a difference for the people in Syria.

The Ambassadors remarks are not expected to be welcomed by some of the countries that are part of the U.S.-led coalition in Iraq and Syria. On Thursday, French Ambassador Francois Delattre said Assad is not and cannot be the future of his country.

Rebel groups received the news with dismay. Farah al-Atassi, a representative for the Syrian opposition called Haleys announcement unfortunate. He lamented that contradicting messages are coming from the Trump administration because others are clearly stating that Assad has no role in the transitional period.

Damascus has not issued any statement and some Arab States like Saudi Arabia have not commented on Haleys remarks either.

The more than six-year old war in Syria has forced more than 5 million people to flee as refugees while a higher number remains internally displaced.
A senior European Union (EU) diplomat has revealed, under the condition of anonymity, that it has received a formal request from Libya for logistical support in combatting illegal migration to Europe.

The request which is under consideration by the EU was described as a very long shopping list. It includes various sorts of vessels and radars and other equipment. In the days leading to the end of Colonel Muammar Gadhafis rule, Libya quickly turned into a major transit hub for illegal migration due to the political instability and lack of border security.

A source at the EU said the request would be reviewed to evaluate its link to the work we (EU) are doing on borders to ensure it is going to be used effectively while another source hinted that it definitely wont be able to give it all. Support to the UN-backed Government of National Accord (GNA) is going to be in accordance with the continental bodys aspirations in the war torn North African country.

Former British ambassador to Libya, Joseph Walker-Cousins, has urged the EU to brace itself for its lack of leadership after its member states helped to end Gadhafis regime. Up to a million migrants, if not more, are in the pipeline. They will take a long time to work their way through that pipeline but it is well-established, he warned. He opined that Europe waited till the migrants were at a stones throw from Europe to deal with the situation which has made its actions too little, too late.

Elsewhere, Russia has offered to help the GNA deal with the countrys political crisis but details of the proposal are yet to be made public. The offer was made by deputy foreign minister Mikhail Bogdanov, who is in charge of the Middle East and Africa issues.
U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson met in Ankara on Thursday several Turkish senior officials.

After a meeting with Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu, he told reporters they discussed options that are available regarding issues that are affecting their bilateral ties. Turkey and the U.S. have diverging policies regarding the war in Syria and are also at odds over the fate of Fethullah Gulen, after Ankara requested his extradition from his Pennsylvania home.

Turkey is not part of the U.S.-led airstrike campaign in Iraq and Syria against ISIS but Cavusoglu pointed out that they fight the group together. He however deplored that it is not correct to fight against one terrorist organization while co-operating with another. He was alluding to the Peoples Protection Units (YPG), a Kurdish armed group allied to the U.S. in fighting ISIS.

The position of the U.S. with regards to its ties with the YPG will continue to be challenging because of the difficult choices that have to be made, a frankly speaking Tillerson observed. He admitted that Turkey is a key partner in the fight against extremist groups.

Observers believe that Washingtons relations with the rebel group will continue because of its effectiveness on the ground, which has also helped to limit the presence of U.S. troops on the ground.

The Turkish Foreign Minister also stressed that Ankara wants to see concrete steps with regards to the evidence provided for Gulens extradition. U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions had pledged to evaluate the documents meticulously.

Both Tillerson and Cavusoglu are conscious of the significance of warmer ties between the two countries.

The US official highlighted that a number of options and alternatives for cooperation are being discussed, while Cavusoglu called for the need to take mutual steps to put relations with the United States back on track.
A total of 26,589 African migrants and refugees have reached Europe by sea during the first three months of 2017, with over 80 percent arriving in Italy and the rest in Spain and Greece, according to the International Organization for Migration.

During the same period, 649 migrants lost their lives against 566 deaths recorded during the first quarter of 2016, a year that witnessed the arrival of some 163,895 migrants in Europe.

IOM spokesman Flavio Di Giacomo said that 2,320 migrants were brought to land on March 23 and 24. The majority of those rescued included Nigerians, Gambians, Ivoirians, Ghanaians, Malians, Senegalese and Guineans (both from Guinea-Bissau and Guinea-Conakry).

He added that, on Saturday and Sunday (March 25 and 26), another 1,160 migrants had been rescued at sea and are being brought to land. One corpse was found on a dinghy, which was carrying 138 migrants.

According to the IOM spokesman, NGO Proactiva OpenArms retrieved last week the remains of five migrants from a capsized dinghy  plus a sixth victim which the NGO said has since been retrieved near the original site of the shipwreck.

These bodies were brought to Catania. IOM believes the dinghy found by OpenArms is the same one that was rescued by Libyan fishermen who saved 54 people on March 21.

According to the 54 survivors brought to Libya, approximately 120 migrants were onboard. Including the six known dead, IOM reports that 66 victims remain unaccounted for in that tragedy.

Worldwide, the IOM Missing Migrants Project reports that fatalities through March 27 number 1,149, with the Mediterranean region accounting for the largest proportion of deaths  over half of the global total.
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THE TRUE COST OF ALL THAT 'CHEAP' LABOR THAT DESTROYED AMERICA THE BIG SECRET DEMOCRATS DO NOT WANT YOU TO KNOW: Heather Mac Donald of the Manhattan Institute has testified before a Congressional committee that in 2004, 95% of all outstanding warrants for murder in Los Angeles were for illegal aliens; in 2000, 23% of all Los Angeles County jail inmates were illegal aliens and that in 1995, 60% of Los Angeless largest street gang, the 18th Street gang, were illegal aliens.


@PatriciaMazzei

Sen. Marco Rubio has kept mostly tight-lipped about what he's discussed with President Donald Trump on the occasions the two Republicans have met -- including over dinner with their wives at the White House.

But Rubio disclosed in a Spanish-language interview this week that he's used those conversations with Trump to bring up Cuba.

"I've spoken to the president of the United States personally on three occasions," Rubio told Mega TV host Oscar Haza after Haza asked about the future of U.S.-Cuba policy. "I think without a doubt there will be changes in U.S.-Cuba policy."

Rubio said he and his staff are dealing "very closely" with the White House on the issue, which he expects Trump to address "strategically."

"If the Cuban government is going to behave like a dictatorship, well, then we're going to deal with them like a dictatorship," Rubio said, without going into specifics. "We're not going to pretend it's changing. There haven't been any changes -- on the contrary, we've seen more repression."

The topic of Cuba came up last week during White House health care discussions with Miami Republican Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart.

Photo credit: Andrew Harrer, Bloomberg
Written by Jason Barone, CAS director of communications

Jack Matlock and John Beyrle, former U.S. ambassadors to the USSR and Russia in 1987-1991 and 2008-2012, respectively, speak at Miami University in a free public lecture at 5 p.m. Thursday, April 6, in Wilks Theater at Armstrong Student Center.

They will participate in Miami's Havighurst Center Lecture, in an armchair-style discussion titled "The Past, Present and Future of U.S./Russia Relations: A Conversation with Two Ambassadors."

"Ambassadors Matlock and Beyrle represent two different periods in our country's vastly complicated relationship with the former Soviet Union," said Stephen Norris, professor of history and interim director of the Havighurst Center for Russian and Post-Soviet Studies. "While Ambassador Matlock was on the front lines in the Reagan-Bush era during the Cold War and oversaw its closure, Ambassador Beyrle helped to implement policies to greatly expand U.S.-Russian relations, such as the New START nuclear arms reduction treaty. We're honored to have both men come together for this special event."

A career diplomat who has remained active since his 1991 retirement from 35 years in the Foreign Service, Matlock is focused on understanding how the Cold War ended and how the lessons from that experience might be applied to public policy today. He served as Ambassador to the Soviet Union from 1987 to 1991, Special Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs and Senior Director for European and Soviet Affairs on the National Security Council Staff from 1983 until 1986, and Ambassador to Czechoslovakia from 1981 to 1983.

Matlock has held academic posts at Columbia University, Princeton University, Hamilton College, Mt. Holyoke College, and the Institute for Advanced Study, where he was George F. Kennan Professor from 1996 to 2001.

Retiring in 2012, Beyrle has also served as an American diplomat for more than three decades, with foreign postings and domestic assignments focused on Central and Eastern Europe, the Soviet Union, and Russia. Under Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama, he was appointed ambassador both to Bulgaria (2005-08) and to Russia (2008-12). His Russian assignment was highlighted by the signing of the New START nuclear arms reduction treaty, Russia's accession to the World Trade Organization, and liberalized visa formalities.

Beyrle received both the Presidential Meritorious Service Award (under President George W. Bush) and the State Department's highest honor, the Presidential Distinguished Service Award (under President Barack Obama). He now serves on the board of directors of the U.S. Russia Foundation for Economic Advancement and the Rule of Law and provides consulting services to nonprofit and corporate clients.

"This event could not be more timely," stated Norris. "Anyone interested in gaining insight into the future of Russian-American relations should plan on attending, as it represents a rare opportunity to learn from two people who have played major roles in shaping our foreign policy."

The event format will consist of questions and answers from Norris to the two ambassadors, with time for questions from the audience. Twitter queries to @HavighurstCtr are also welcome.

The Havighurst Center, inaugurated in 2001, is an interdisciplinary institution with faculty associates in many departments throughout Miami, including history, political science, religion, and classics. It draws together these faculty associates based on their mutually held interests in exploring issues related to Russia and the post-Soviet region.

For more information about the Havighurst Center, contact Stephen Norris (norriss1@MiamiOH.edu).
Percussion experts of three stripes (Middle Eastern hand drums, the snare drum, and the full drum set) will share their skills on stage Friday for the spring concert by the University of Montana Percussion Ensemble and "Islanders" Steel Drum Band.

It's a diverse program, said director of percussion studies Robert LedBetter, covering the traditional snare drum where students first learn, through to world percussion and then the full ensemble.

The guests will be giving master classes and clinics for middle-school to professional-level musicians Friday during the "Day of Percussion," capped by the evening concert. (If you're interested in watching the clinics, they'll run from 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. in the Dennison Theater.)

Yousif Sheronick, a New York-based percussionist, will share his Middle Eastern hand-drumming techniques with a full 15-musician backing for "Concerto for World Percussion Ensemble."

John Wooton will be featured on four pieces, two of which will spotlight his virtuoso technique on snare drum: an original called "Olivia's Opus," written for his daughter, and Cuban Concerto for Rudimental Snare Drum. LedBetter said that piece will feature Wooton's mind-boggling skills on the marching snare drum with the support of percussion ensemble, just like you'd hear a violin soloist backed by an orchestra.

He'll also play two pieces with the UM steel band in the second half of the program.

Chris Wabich of Los Angeles, who plays drum-set and steel drums, visits UM every couple of years to tune the ensemble's steel drums. His eclectic resume includes gigs with Leonard Cohen, Sting and Ludacris, to name just a few.

"He'll be doing a clinic during the day and we'll feature him with a steel band portion of the concert," LedBetter said.

One of his originals on the program, "Tarzan and Jane," is a "tour de force," LedBetter said. It transitions through "fast, difficult music," varying from interlocking electronic-like patterns to traditional calypso, funk and Brazilian portions. LedBetter said it's been "an undertaking" to learn the piece, which consumes nine full pages of music.

All the percussion ensemble students are music majors, LedBetter said. Aside from the bassist and piano player, they'll be playing mallet instruments like xylophone and marimba, drum sets, various percussion instruments like timpani, and even wine glasses on Wabich's arrangement of "Musical Wine."
HELENA  A tax that would increase the price of a package of cigarettes by $1.50 got approval from the Senate on Tuesday.

The tax would to help pay for raises for direct health care workers who take care of the elderly and disabled in their homes. It would also for the first time charge a tax on e-cigarettes and vaping products.

Senate Bill 354 is carried by Sen. Mary Caferro, D-Helena. It passed the Senate on a 27-22 vote and now moves over to the House.

Lawmakers who supported the tax said it would reduce the amount of people who smoke and lower health care costs caused by tobacco-related diseases. Those who voted against it said would harm the poorest Montanans, who tend to smoke more than people who earn more.

The tax is estimated to bring in an additional $70 million a year over the current tax.

Increased wages for direct care workers will cost about $34 million a year and the hourly wage would increase by $5.60 for those working in nursing homes and $6.26 for those in other settings. Direct care wages start around $9 an hour. The rest of the cigarette tax revenues to smoking cessation and prevention efforts, as well as a Medicaid account, maintaining state-owned buildings and the state's general funds.

A pack of Marlboro Reds would jump from about $6.63 to $8.13 under the tax, which would go from $1.70 to $3.20. Montanans buy 43.4 million packs of cigarettes a year.

An ounce of snuff sells for about $3.20, and between the increased tax and expected price increases, that amount is projected to double if the bill goes into effect. About 12.3 million ounces of snuff are sold in the state each year.

Montana last raised its tobacco tax 12 years ago. The number of children who smoke has dropped by half since then.

Caferro said the money will go to people who "do the important work in our community taking care of our elderly and people who have disabilities" and that less people starting smoking in their youth would lower health care costs down the road.

The state spends $441 million a year to care for people who have tobacco-related diseases, Caferro said. That works out to $770 a household. An estimated 1,600 Montanans die each year from tobacco-related diseases.

This tax hits where it does the most good with kids and hopefully it brings down the cost of health care and saves money and saves lives. This saves money by preventing people from starting in the first place and also targets the money to give raises to direct care workers who do very important work."

Those who voted against the tax called it regressive and targeted at poor people.

"It is on other blue-collar people, on my people," said Sen. Eric Moore, R-Miles City. "You try running a baler for 16 hours and try to stay awake without snuff."

Senate Majority Leader Fred Thomas, of Stevensville, said the bill would take the cost of smoking for an individual from $1,233 to $1,781 a year. "Talk about regressive."

Senate President Scott Sales, R-Bozeman, offered strong opposition to the bill. He said people will find ways to buy cigarettes from other states and the revenue won't be enough to support the wage increases.

"You always get less of what you tax more. This isn't a panacea. This is bad tax policy and we're going to come to regret it on so many fronts."

Sales said if the Legislature really cared about health it should not raise taxes on snuff and smokeless tobacco, which he said is healthier than smoking cigarettes because it isn't nicotine that's bad, but the inhaling of smoke.

"It's much healthier, it really is. I'm not saying it is a healthy thing to chew, but compared to smoking it is much healthier. It's less harmful to you than smoking cigarettes."

Sales told the Senate that his son, who smokes, called him in a panic the day before the vote to say that the price of cigarettes will jump to $8-$9 a pack "The first thing out of my mouth was 'You need to quit smoking,'" Sales said, adding he has family who has died of lung cancer.

But he also said that smokers who die earlier can save the government money, not cost more.

"The dirty little secret is that if we were going to be honest smokers would probably save us money in the long run. The dirty little truth is smokers really have a reduced life expectancy. They die in their 60s and 70s. They don't end up in a Medicaid-funded old-folks home until they're 105 at taxpayers' expense."

Sales said he wasn't advocating smoking but called for an "honest discussion about the whole subject matter." He also said the extra money isn't needed because the recent revenue forecasts show the state can expect an extra $105 million coming in over what was expected at the start of the session.
A former Montana Supreme Court justice and a law professor at the University of Montana warn that President Donald Trumps nominee to the U.S. Supreme Court is likely to support so-called "dark money" in politics.

At the end of January, Trump nominated 10th Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Neil Gorsuch to the high court seat vacated by the February 2016 death of Justice Antonin Scalia.

During a media conference call Thursday, Adam Lioz, counsel and senior adviser of the progressive advocacy group Demos, said that group is concerned about how Gorsuch might vote if confirmed.

We are opposing confirmation of Judge Gorsuch specifically because of his record on money in politics, Lioz said.

James Nelson, a former Montana Supreme Court justice who is now on the board of the anti-Citizens United group Free Speech for People, said he sees Gorsuch as an Antonin Scalia wannabe who will support dark money in politics.

Judge Gorsuchs views are out of step with the vast majority of Americans, including President Trumps own supporters, who want less corrupting money in political campaigns," Nelson said, adding that if confirmed, Gorsuch would return Montana to the 1912-era bribery scandals which prompted our own adopting of our Corrupt Practices Act.

If Montana's U.S. senators Jon Tester or Steve Daines vote to confirm Gorsuch, Nelson said that will mean they are thumbing their noses at the voters who in 2012 approved I-166, which instructed Montanas members of Congress to support efforts to overturn the U.S. Supreme Courts 2010 Citizens United decision  which struck down federal restrictions on independent campaign expenditures  through a constitutional amendment.

Quite simply, Judge Gorsuch will be a champion for more dark money in politics and in judicial elections, he said.

A group called the Judicial Crisis Network has been buying ads in states like Montana to pressure senators like Tester into voting for Gorsuch.

Testers communications director Marnee Banks said Thursday the senator has not made a decision on which way he will vote on Gorsuch, and continues to gather feedback from Montanans.

Jon is deeply concerned about the flood of special interest money trying to influence this important post, she added.

***

Anthony Johnstone  professor at the University of Montanas law school previously served as state solicitor and during that time wrote an amicus brief in the Citizens United case on behalf of 26 states asking the high court to keep unlimited corporate contribution out of elections.

He said Gorsuch is a smart, articulate, interesting judge, but added that the 10th Circuit is notoriously strict about what states can do to regulate money in politics, and its safe to believe his position on the matter would be similar if he was confirmed.

I think there is one important area in which he may actually diverge from Justice Scalia in a way that is even more encouraging to those who wish to inject unlimited sums of money in politics and thats with respect to dark money, Johnstone said.

***

Senate Democrats, led by minority leader Chuck Schumer, have indicated their intent to filibuster Gorsuchs confirmation, which could be taken up as early as next week. While the final confirmation vote requires a simple majority, 60 votes are required to invoke cloture and end a filibuster, and Republicans currently control just 52 seats.

On Thursday, Democrat senators Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota posted on their Twitter accounts they would be voting to confirm Gorsuch. The pair are the first Democratic senators to publicly say they will vote in favor of Gorsuch.

The showdown over the threat of a filibuster includes the growing possibility Senate Republicans might employ what is colloquially called the nuclear option, and change the cloture rule.

That tactic was used in 2013 by the then Democratic-controlled Senate under Harry Reid to change the cloture requirement for cabinet confirmations and non-Supreme Court federal judges to a simple majority.

During the conference call, Lioz echoed a sentiment Schumer has used recently, saying that if Republicans cant secure the 60 votes necessary for cloture, they should  change the nominee, not the rules.

Johnstone said the concern over changes to the cloture rule require looking at the context of the situation, specifically Senate Republicans choosing not to even grant a hearing last year to Appeals Court Judge Merrick Garland, Barack Obamas nominee to the high court.

That is unprecedented, Johnstone said. After that I think, as they say in diplomacy, everything is on the table in the Senate. Unfortunately were seeing the greatest level of politicization in the confirmation process that weve seen in decades.
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Rob Quist, the Montana musician-turned-congressional hopeful, took a defiant tone Thursday during a health care town hall tour stop at the Union Club in Missoula.

Quist is the Democratic candidate to replace now-Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke as the states lone U.S. representative and is being challenged by Republican Greg Gianforte and Libertarian Mark Wicks in a special election. Ballots will be mailed April 28 and voting ends May 25.

All (Gianforte) is doing is hiding in his lair and kinda throwing these mudballs at me, Quist told the crowd. I challenge him and congressional leaders to come out into the light of day and listen to these health care stories that everyday Montanans are telling. I challenge them to do that.

While Quist has made a number of campaign appearances across the state since he was chosen as the Democratic nominee, Gianforte has kept a relatively low public profile, holding call-in "tele-town halls" after a failed gubernatorial bid last November.

Quist also took a shot at Sen. Steve Daines.

"Steve Daines talks about his town hall meetings but he's not in town and he's not in a hall," Quist said. "The former mayor of Great Falls introduced me the other night and said he'd rather have Rob Quist as a partner to Jon Tester than Greg Gianforte as a partner to Steve Daines."

For about an hour, Quist took questions and comments from the crowd on a variety of issues, from the high cost of pharmaceutical drugs to Republicans' failed attempt to repeal the Affordable Care Act of 2010. Quist said he supports the idea of a single-payer health care system, where the government would cover health care costs rather than people buying from private insurance companies.

He also said he supports access to birth control, preventive screenings and a womans right to choose, and opposes tax breaks for insurance executives, which he said was a part of the Republicans failed health care bill.

Quists personal health issues have been in the media spotlight lately. The Billings Gazette has quoted Quist attributing his 16-year debt trail to 20 years of sporadic illness due to a botched gallbladder surgery in 1996. The Gazette also reported this week that, according to court documents, Quist said he was too sick to work and make mortgage payments in 2011, even though he played 35 shows with the Mission Mountain Wood band that year.

Quist did not directly address the Gazette stories on Thursday and the campaign declined to comment when asked. He did talk about how he was nearly bankrupted by his own health care bills and those of his family. He also talked about the need to make health care more affordable for the average working family.

My health care issues have been splattered across the state, he said. This is something I have not hidden from. I kind of laid out all my issues in gory detail in my first speech at the Missoula Public Library.

Later, Quist said that his political opponents are using intimidation and humiliation as a form of bullying to get to him. He also said that the Gianforte campaign is using the media and social media to do that.

I challenge Gianforte and all their media mouthpieces to come listen to the stories today, he said. Greg Gianforte has $2.5 million in stock for some of these pharmaceutical companies that are charging such high prices. We need to reject Mr. Gianforte and the dinosaur he rode in on.

Quist was referring to the Glendive Dinosaur and Fossil Museum, which espouses the idea that the world is about 6,000 to 6,400 years old and is a six-day divine creation. That means, according to the museum, that dinosaurs and humans coexisted. There is even a depiction of a Native American person riding a dinosaur. One of the core foundations of the museum is that the Bible is an accurate, literal history of the world. The Gianforte Family Foundation donated a large Tyrannosaurus rex model and Acrocanthosaurus exhibit in the museums main hall. The foundation was set up by Gianforte.

Quist also railed against the disparity between the super-wealthy and middle-class and poor Americans, a disparity he said is only getting bigger because of Republican-instituted tax breaks for the rich.

A rancher told me that money is a lot like b.s., Quist said. If you pile it up it just starts to stink. But if you spread it around it just starts to grow everything. I told him I couldn't have put it any better.

Quist said Dwight D. Eisenhower taxed the super-rich by 90 percent.

That sounds high, but it was brilliant, Quist said, adding that Eisenhower believed that the rich would just hold on to their money if it wasnt taxed, but high tax rates would cause them to invest in businesses and infrastructure.

With all the tax cuts, its so low now that the rich are piling up their money, he said.

He also said that the United States needs to start rewarding the health care system for keeping people healthy and preventing conditions rather than for how many procedures like chemotherapy they can charge to patients.

Life under the big sky has to work for everyone or it doesnt work for anyone, Quist said. This election is so important. This is literally a fight for the soul of Montana in so many ways. Its a fight for public lands. Its my great honor to serve the people in the big sky. Lets go win this thing.
In 2009, President Obamas advisor Rahm Emmanuel famously said to never let a good crisis go to waste. In 2017, Gov. Steve Bullock seems intent on using a budget crisis of his creation to push an expansive tax-and-spend agenda.

Since November, Bullock has raised the specter of highway patrol cuts, cancelled infrastructure projects, and even closing a college to justify his appetite for higher taxes.

Bullock wants to raise taxes on everything from driving to drop the kids off at school to meeting friends for an after-work drink. He wants to raise income taxes, taxes on businesses, and even wants to create a new sales tax on medicine.

The sheer scope of Bullocks tax agenda is breathtaking. He has proposed or supported:

 Doubling the tax on wine

 Further increasing the tax on beer, wine and spirits by 10 percent

 Creating a new income tax bracket

 Raising the gas tax by 30 percent

 Levying new taxes on tobacco, vapor products and e-cigarettes by $22 million

 Applying a 6 percent sales tax on medical marijuana

All told, the various tax hikes total $280 million. Think about that: a quarter of a billion dollars in new taxes from the same politician who campaigned on being fiscally responsible and opposed to a sales tax.

There is no rhyme or reason to these tax increases, other than Bullock wants more money. Each of these tax increases; whether it is on gas, medicine, alcohol or income, is a failure on his part to prioritize spending within his administration and govern responsibly.

For instance, in just one year, Bullock handed out $9.5 million in optional pay raises for state employees. These raises were doled out while the Department of Transportation was sending out notices they may have to cancel road projects. Whats worse, an audit of those raises found that 173 of the 200 pay raises looked at were not properly supported according to the requirements of agency policy, state policy or collective bargaining agreements.

Wasteful and inappropriate spending runs rampant in the Bullock administration. In his first two biennial budgets, spending went up a total of $1.5 billion, about a 15 percent increase. The states $350 million rainy day fund was eaten up by the governors overspending.

The truth of the crisis is that Bullock is trying to use his profligate spending to blackmail Montana families into paying more taxes.

If the governor were to exercise spending restraint and prioritize core needs  such as infrastructure and education  there would not be a need for his $280 million of proposed tax increases. If the governor and the Legislature step back and let our economy grow, we will get out of this temporary dip without permanently raising taxes on families. Ultimately, the best long-term solution to funding core government services is to make sure our economy is on stable footing. When the governor threatens families and businesses with higher taxes, he threatens that growth that is necessary for the long-term health of the state.

At Montana Policy Institute, we will continue to fight for your ability to enjoy a beer, afford your medicine, and live and work in our great state without being taxed to death.
I see that Gary Marbut has thrown in with the Koch brothers and their dark money, urging U.S. Sen. Jon Tester to vote for Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch (March 28 letter to the editor).

Youve probably seen the TV commercials advocating the same thing. Why would the Koch-funded Judicial Crisis Network buy airtime in Montana? For one thing, $900,000 buys a lot of TV in our state. More so, JCN needs Gorsuch on the Supreme Court to uphold Citizens United, the ruling that ushered in unlimited, dark money campaign contributions.

Gorsuchs record on environmental regulations, womens rights and corporate overreach is also sketchy, at best.

Marbut, the Koch brothers and Gorsuch do not represent Montanas best interests. Please, Senator Tester, vote no on this Supreme Court nominee.

Pete Talbot,

Missoula
With the stream of bashing political ads starting to crowd the air, I would like to offer my wholehearted support of Rob Quist for Congress.

I grew up with Quist in Cut Bank and can guarantee that, yes, there is something under that hat. He is highly educated and grounded in reality, a compassionate, committed person who has dealt with many of the problems we all havebusiness, raising families, health issues. He loves this state, its wild places and its people.
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Status: Unsolved

Dexter Stefonek was on his way home to Rhinelander, Wisconsin, after visiting his son in Oregon on Nov. 18, 1985. Stefonek told his son that he planned to sleep at rest stops along the way.

The next day, Stefonek's brown 1984 Plymouth Horizon was found burning near the Bad Route rest area southwest of Glendive. Stefonek was nowhere to be found.

Investigators determined that the fire was set intentionally, and that gasoline had been used as an accelerant. They also surmised that a taller driver must have used the car, as Stefonek would likely have had a difficult time driving with the seat positioned as it was when the car was found burning.

The rest stop's custodian, Freg Siegle, and a highway maintenance supervisor, Clyde Mitchell, had both stopped at the rest stop shortly before the car was discovered. Both noticed a white Chevrolet pickup, possibly a Blazer, with a blue stripe on the side. Mitchell noted that the pickup had Arizona license plates.

Siegle stated that shortly after Mitchell left the rest area, Stefonek's car pulled up. The driver got out and retrieved two plastic jugs. He was described as being about 6 feet tall, between 35 and 40 years old, clean-shaven with a light complexion.

Stefonek's fate wasn't determined until March 8, 1986, when William and Cynthia Shaw were dumping garbage in a private landfill and discovered Stefonek's wallet. The Shaws knew of the disappearance, and searched the dump for more clues. They found Stefonek's body under a mattress, preserved by the cold winter. He had been beaten and shot in the head.

Stefonek's suitcase was found in the landfill as well, and still contained money. This led investigators to rule out robbery as a motive for the killing. Oddly, the suitcase and clothes found nearby appeared to have been placed recently, while Dawson County Coroner Lance Silha reported that the body had likely been in the dump since around the time of the murder.

One more clue investigators found before the case went cold was inside the men's restroom at the rest stop where Stefonek's car was found. According to the Ranger Review, scrawled in pencil on the restroom wall was the message "HOT JOCK SHOT WAD FROM WISCONSIN 11/85 SATURDAY THE 3rd." The full message was not given during the April 12, 1989, episode of "Unsolved Mysteries" in which the case was profiled.

The Dawson County Sheriff's Office recently reopened the case, and are looking for any information.
Status: Unsolved

On Aug. 7, 1982, a person going by the name Michael Carmello called the rectory of St. Francis Cathedral in Santa Fe, New Mexico. The caller said he was looking for a priest to offer last rites to his dying grandfather at a rest stop outside of town, near the community of Waldo.

The first priest to talk to the caller said he was unable to drive at night due to poor vision, and told the caller to call back. The second call was received by Father Reynaldo Rivera, who agreed to meet the man at the rest stop.

Rivera's body was found three days later, miles away from the rest area. He had been shot to death, and his last rites kit was missing.

Two years later, Father John Kerrigan was just settling in at his new location at the Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Ronan, south of Polson. On the night of July 20, 1984, Kerrigan left a Polson bakery and was never seen or heard from again.

The day after he disappeared, bloody clothes were found on Highway 35, along the eastern shore of Flathead Lake north of Polson. A bloody coat hanger was found with the clothes. A week later, Kerrigan's car was found off Skyline Drive, near Polson, stained with blood. A bloody shovel was in the trunk.

Kerrigan's wallet was found with more than $1,000 in it, and a $100 bill was found in his shirt pocket, which led investigators to rule out robbery as a motive. His body was never located.

Investigators learned that Kerrigan spent time in New Mexico, not far from where Reynaldo Rivera was murdered. This led them to believe a link might exist between the two cases. It was theorized that the two may have been victims of a killer who was targeting Catholic priests. Both Kerrigan and Rivera were members of the Order of Franciscans. No definitive connection was made between the two men.

Years after the Nov. 23, 1988, episode of "Unsolved Mysteries" that profiled the two cases, it was revealed that Kerrigan was among the list of Montana priests accused of sexual abuse of children. It is believed that the time he spent in New Mexico was related to the allegations against him, as he had been relocated several times before ending up in Ronan.

Rivera was never named as a priest accused of child molestation, and was well respected in Santa Fe. Neither case has been solved, and the connection between the murders is still debated.
Status: Solved

One of the few crimes featured on "Unsolved Mysteries" that were already solved at the time of airing, the investigation into the murders of John and Nancy Bosco was offered as evidence of a man's psychic ability during an October 1994 episode.

On Aug. 12, 1993, John and Nancy Bosco were murdered in their home in Ferndale, a rural community near Bigfork. Shortly after the murders, John's mother contacted Dannion Brinkley, a man who claimed to have psychic abilities, in hopes of finding clues to solve the case.

Brinkley, who said he gained his abilities after being struck by lightning, said the killer was a young, male acquaintance of the Boscos who knew the layout of their home. He also explained that the suspect was a student at a western college, and predicted that the suspect would be arrested in December 1993.

All of Brinkley's predictions turned out to be true when Joseph Shadow Clark was arrested on Dec. 7, 1993, at George Fox College, a Christian college in Oregon. The Boscos had moved from Boulder, Colorado, into a house they purchased from Clark's parents.

No motive was ever determined for the crime. Attorneys said Clark would have likely received a lighter sentence if he had provided a motive, but the killer claimed that he didn't know why he did it. He was sentenced to 220 years (later reduced to 150 years), and won't be eligible for parole until he is 60 years old. He remains incarcerated at the Montana State Prison in Deer Lodge.
POLSON  One man was killed and another was injured in a single-vehicle crash on the Flathead Indian Reservation in northwestern Montana.

The Montana Highway Patrol says a 39-year-old man from St. Ignatius was killed when a vehicle went off the road in Arlee, struck a fence and overturned. A 43-year-old Pablo man was injured in the crash that was reported late Thursday. Lake County Sheriff Don Bell says he was taken to a Missoula hospital for treatment.

The crash is still being investigated. Both men were thrown from the vehicle and the St. Ignatius man was crushed by the vehicle. Officials are still trying to determine when the crash happened and who was driving.
HELENA  A House infrastructure bill failed passage Friday by two votes, nixed by fiscal conservatives who objected to $78 million in bonding contained in a measure that would unclog a backup of long-awaited bridge, sewer and water projects across the state.

The surprising margin gave supporters hope that a long-elusive deal could be hashed out.

"It's so close. I have to believe there's a way forward," said Democratic Rep. Jenny Eck of Helena, the House minority leader.

Nevertheless, the defeat put pressure on the Legislature and Gov. Steve Bullock to draft a consensus plan palatable to fiscal conservatives who find bonds hard to swallow and to Democrats who insist on keeping several big-ticket projects in the package.

With the House measure falling 65-35  two votes short of the two-thirds needed  lawmakers could choose to work with a Senate version that barely advanced to the House earlier this week.

But the Senate version proposes $98 million in bonding, which would almost certainly be a deal-killer for some House Republicans who already balked at the more modest version in their chamber's own proposal.

Eck said supporters might consider resurrecting the failed bill if they can squeeze at least two more votes from the Republican caucus.

After garnering a 56-44 just two days prior, the package picked up nine Republican supporters.

Rep. Jeremy Trebas, a freshman Republican from Great Falls, switched sides to vote in favor of the measure on Friday after opposing it during the earlier vote.

"I wanted to give us more time to negotiate," said Trebas, who said he would support reconsideration of the bill if Democrats were willing to make further concessions.

While no one disagrees that many of the state's roads and bridges are in disrepair and sewer and water systems overburdened and antiquated, there has been strong disagreement about which projects to greenlight and how to pay for them. Fiscal conservatives have favored limiting the projects to traditional public works projects and paying for the package using only cash. As it stands, the leadership of the Republican-controlled House is proposing a $213 million package of cash-paid projects.

Bullock and his fellow Democrats, as well as some Republicans, are pushing to partly finance a bigger package by issuing bonds  including big-ticket building projects and renovations that fiscal conservatives say aren't a priority in tough budget times.

Democratic leaders say they have moved the ball far enough by making major concessions on the bonding issue. Democrats had initially sought a package that relied on about $150 million in bonds.

Republicans had proposed $33 million in bonds for a scaled-back list of projects, but that would have been a deal-breaker for Democrats. Democrats have insisted on using an infrastructure bill to fund a $25 million renovation of Montana State University's Romney Hall in Bozeman, a $10 million veterans' home in Butte, a $5 million for a Great Falls College dental hygiene building addition, and a $5.4 million for a Montana State University-Billings science and technology addition.

To garner more Republican support, Democrats had agreed to pull a $27 million museum project in Helena from the package as a stand-alone proposal using half-percent rise in state lodging tax to pay for it. Separate versions of that proposal were narrowly approved in both chambers on Friday.
Status: Unsolved

Montana has its fair share of unsolved homicides, and a few of them were featured during "Unsolved Mysteries" episodes. Among those featured was the 1985 murder of Great Falls pizza delivery man Morris Davis Jr.

On the night of April 5, 1985, Davis was delivering a pizza to what turned out to be a vacant house in northwest Great Falls when he was ambushed at the door of the house. The assailant shot Davis nine times and left with his delivery wallet.

A second delivery person was sent to the house to look for Davis, and found the body. Among the first to respond at the scene was Davis' younger brother, Cliff, who was working as a paramedic and immediately recognized his brother as the victim.

No suspects were ever charged. Three years after the murder, a receipt for a .22 caliber pistol sold to a Great Falls pawn shop was found on the driver of a stolen car more than 180 miles away from Great Falls. Authorities learned that the gun had been stolen from a man living in Oregon. Ballistics tests linked the gun to the Davis murder, although the validity of those tests has been called into question.

Both the man who stole the gun and the man it was stolen from have been cleared of any involvement in the murder. Police later considered the possibility that Daniel DuBray, who was convicted of the 1986 murder of a Great Falls convenience store clerk, had been involved in the Davis case. DuBray died in prison in 2016. The Morris Davis case remains unsolved.
Status: Unsolved

On June 25, 1983, 4-year-old Nyleen Kay Marshall went missing while on a picnic with her family near her hometown of Clancy, south of Helena. Several of the children Nyleen was playing with at the time claimed that they saw a man in a jogging suit nearby around the time Nyleen disappeared.

Nyleen's parents received three letters, beginning six months after her disappearance, from someone claiming to be their daughter's abductor.

Three years later, a typewritten letter postmarked in Madison, Wisconsin, was mailed to investigators. The author of the letter claimed that he had been raising Nyleen under her middle name, Kay, and had taken her with him on his frequent travels. A person believed to be the letter writer also called missing children networks to talk about the case, and made suggestions of activities that law enforcement officials described as probable sexual abuse. Like the letters, the calls originated from Wisconsin.

Amazingly, a tip from a viewer who saw the November 1990 episode of "Unsolved Mysteries" and thought one of his classmates was Nyleen Marshall led to another missing child being found. Monica Bonilla, who was abducted by her noncustodial father, Guillermo, was returned to her mother after being missing for nearly eight years.

Nyleen Marshall has never been found. Her mother was murdered in Mexico in 1995. Several age progression illustrations have been made using photographs of Nyleen, but no one has ever come forward with her whereabouts.
Status: Solved

Perhaps the most famous Montana case detailed on "Unsolved Mysteries" was one of the first cases the show highlighted, in a September 1987 special that aired before Robert Stack replaced Karl Malden as the show's host.

Between 1978 and 1995, three people were killed and 23 more injured during a terrorist bombing campaign that spanned from coast to coast. Most of the targets were academics or business professionals associated with transportation and technology industries.

The three fatal bombings resulted in the deaths of computer store owner Hugh Scrutton in December 1985 in Sacramento, California, advertising executive Thomas J. Mosser in December 1994 in North Caldwell, New Jersey and timber industry lobbyist Gilbert Murray in April 1995, also in Sacramento.

The case's Montana connection wasn't revealed until authorities arrested Ted Kaczynski for the crimes in April 1996. Kaczynski had been living as a hermit in a small cabin near Lincoln since the early 1970s, assembling homemade bombs and either mailing them or delivering them by hand. He was sentenced to eight life terms without the possibility of parole in 1998, and is currently incarcerated at a federal supermax prison near Florence, Colorado.
William Shakespeare once said April hath put a spirit of youth in everything.

Well, Shakespeare may have been on to something, but April is not just for the young, but for the young at heart as well. Just look at the number of events listed below, that cater to kids and adults, too.

Famous whodunit performed at Western -- Through Saturday, April 1, the University of Montana Western will present Agatha Christie's famous whodunit, And Then There Were None. All performances begin at 7:30 p.m. at 710 S. Atlanta St., Dillon.

The play is based on the queen of mysterys most celebrated novel. There have been several film adaptations of the novel, and has been performed on the radio, stage and television. Tickets to the performance are $8. Students get in free. Details: 406-683-7101.

Whitehall KC plans fish fry -- The Knights of Columbus will have its 12th annual Fish Fry Friday, April 7, at St. Teresa's Hall, 109 E. 2nd St. in Whitehall. This yearly event, held during the Lenten season on the Friday preceding Good Friday, supports such charities as Coats for Kids, Whitehall Food Bank, Special Olympics, and The Poor Clares.

Food will be served from 4:30 to 7 p.m., and the cost is $9 for adults, $6 for children ages 4-10, and $27 for a family.

Horse Packing in Mongolia at Archives -- The Montana Wilderness Association's Southwestern Wildlands chapter will host a presentation on "Horse Packing in Mongolia", with Deborah and Greg Schatz at 2:30 p.m. Saturday, April 8, at the Butte Archives, 17 W. Quartz St.

Having packed thousands of miles in the Bob Marshall Wilderness and Glacier National Park, the couple went to Mongolia in 2016 to exchange packing techniques with local herders.

Hear their stories and see their photos from their journey through the wild open land of Darhad Valley, where they found the local herders are more like Montanans than you may think.

Library hosts Edible Book Festival -- Are you a book lover who likes to create? Bake? Cook? Whether you're a professional chef or just like to play with your food, consider the Edible Book Festival, which is open to anyone in the community.

There are two rules: entries must be edible and they must somehow relate to a book.

The festival starts at 3 p.m. Saturday, April 8, on the third floor of the Butte Public Library, 226 W. Broadway St. Entrees can be dropped off anytime between 1:30 and 2:30. Details: 406-723-3361.

Anaconda chamber dinner April 12 -- The Anaconda Chamber of Commerce will hold their 83rd annual banquet Wednesday, April 12, at Fairmont Hot Springs Resort. This years theme is Speak Easy - Roaring 20s.

The event will begin with a no-host cocktail hour from 5:30-6:30 p.m., followed by a baron of beef or blackened snapper dinner from 6:30 to 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $40 per person in advance or $50 at the door. Advance tickets are available in Anaconda at Pad n Pencil, 210 E. Park, Thrifty Drug, 201 E. Park Ave., and Hoyals, 116 E. Park Avenue.

Library hosts film series, discussions -- The Butte Public Library at 226 W. Broadway will host Montana Tech professor, Henry Gonshak, in a unique film screening and discussion series based on his latest book: Hollywood and the Holocaust.

Each Wednesday at 5:30 p.m., from April 12 through May 3, a film will be featured and then Gonshak will lead a talk on how these films shaped our perceptions of history.

The movie schedule is -- April 12, Cabaret; April 19, Sophies Choice; April 26, The Grey Zone; and May 3, Defiance.

Fun Run scheduled for April 15 -- The Butte Exchange Club and Big Brothers Big Sisters are co-sponsoring the Bruce's Big Butte Challenge -- Be a Hero for Kids fun run Saturday, April 15. Races include a 1-mile, 5K, and 11K. All races start at 10 a.m. at the Montana Tech Hyper Building.

The event is to help raise awareness of the serious problem of child abuse in our community. Pre-registration is from 5 to 7 p.m. Friday, April 14, at Metals Bank. Race day registration is from 8:30 to 9:30 a.m. in the Hyper buildings lobby.

Pre-entry fee is $10 (14 and under), and $20 (15 and over), and includes a t-shirt. The cost goes up to $25 after April 8.

Registration forms can be found at www.butteexchangeclub.org, www.bbbsbutte.org or www.buttpissandmounrunners.com.

Spring polka party April 23 at Elks -- The SNPJ Lodge 207 will hold its spring polka party from 2 to 6 p.m. Sunday, April 23, in the Butte Elks Lodge, corner of Montana and Galena. Admission is $10 and includes dinner, dancing and a door prize drawing. All proceeds will go to the Slovene National Benefit Society Lodge 207s scholarship fund.

Details: Dan Paynich 406-453-1238 or email: foximom@bresnan.net.
HELENA  As Montana legislators near a deadline to approve tax changes, a Virginia-based organization that does not disclose its donors nor its spending has launched an online campaign to attack Gov. Steve Bullock and to fight a bill that would increase the states tobacco tax.

STOP BULLOCKS PERMANENT SALES TAXES. CONTACT YOUR LOCAL LEGISLATOR HERE. TELL THEM TO VOTE NO ON SB 354, reads the website featured in Facebook ads on Monday that stretched the truth about bills under consideration.

Beneath a form people are encouraged to use to contact their senator is a small white box that reads Paid for by American Potential. The group formed in 2016, seemingly for a single purpose: to spend $14,543 on phone banking to support Carly Fiorinas presidential bid ahead of the New Hampshire primary. Despite a request from the Federal Elections Commission in June, the organization declined to disclose any of its donors.

Steve DeMaura of American Potential said the group is an issue advocacy nonprofit not required to disclose its donors under state or federal laws and so declined to answer questions about who has funded the campaign in Montana.

We are a national conservative organization dedicated to keeping taxes low, he said, noting they work on related issues in many states around the nation but declined to name any other campaigns.

That kind of non-response about donors is not surprising, said Edwin Bender, director of the National Institute on Money on State Politics based in Helena.

The bottom line is if groups making independent expenditures on issues or campaigns dont want people to know who they are, you probably wont find out, he said.

State lobbying disclosure laws only apply to organizations that interact directly with the Legislature, such as hiring lobbyists to testify on bills or by sending emails to legislators. Groups that spend money to mobilize average citizens on behalf of their causes are considered grassroots and are not required to disclose any of their activity  even if they are not a local organization or have received considerable financial support from partisan and corporate backers.

Such efforts also might be designed more to collect personal information for political campaign databases than as an attempt to influence an issue.

These campaigns look like an issue-based, grassroots effort, but they frankly are politically funded attack ads, said Lee Banville, a University of Montana professor of politics and journalism. The whole effort is about getting you to submit this letter, but its also about you submitting to somebody your contact information, which puts you on a list of active conservatives interested in taxes and Republican politics that they can use later to reach out to you for money or to volunteer.

DeMaura said information collected by American Potential would be kept private and absolutely not be sold to political campaigns looking to bolster voter databases. He said the names and emails collected help the group know who is on our side, which he described as a common practice.

On March 22, the domain name StopSalesTaxes.com was purchased through a third-party provider, and a matching Facebook page for Montanans Against Sales Taxes appeared last Saturday. So far, about 400 people have liked the Facebook page. Its single post, which directs people to the website, received more than 4,200 views after being promoted as a paid advertisement on Monday.

The website features photos of Bullock seemingly found online and, at least in the case of a Missoulian image from 2012, used without permission. The Facebook pages cover photo is of Glacier National Parks Bearhat Mountain taken from the popular Hidden Lake Overlook. The Italian photographer who took the picture said she did not give anyone permission for its use.

The website also includes a form that can be submitted to Montanas senators, which asks for a full name, email, and zip code. It suggests a message: Montanans reject sales taxes and you should too. Vote no on Governor Bullock's Sales Tax bill, SB 354.

Hundreds of Montanans have used the form to email legislators over the last few days, a handful of senators said. The messages included the email address and message of the senders but did not share the locations or names also filled out on the form. Because so many messages were identical, dozens were sent to legislators' junk folders by spam filters.

I dont pay much attention to the ones that are the cookie-cutter type, Senate President Scott Sales, R-Bozeman, said, noting that he is less inclined to skip over messages that are personal and heartfelt. People should put their name and address down so I can tell if you live in my district.

Some people included additional comments below the form letter, describing why they oppose a statewide, general sales tax  even though thats not what the bill would do. In fact, SB354 would increase taxes on tobacco and nicotine products to support state health programs.

These people must be confused, Sen. Tom Facey, D-Missoula, said.

Bullock has supported some of the product-specific excise taxes, such as one on medical marijuana, but also backs SB351, which proposes adding a ban on a general sales tax to the Montana Constitution. A bill to reform Montana's overall tax structure, including to create a sales tax, was introduced by Rep. Greg Hertz, R-Polson. Both measures, whether to ban or to create a general sales tax, appear likely to die this week.

Its a sleight of hand to turn around and say an excise tax on tobacco is the same as a general sales tax, Bullock said. The folks that are running that should be ashamed.

DeMaura said American Potential opposes all tax increases, regardless of sponsor. He said the inclusion of SB354 in the message to legislators was because it is the primary bill making its way through the Legislature right now, even though the deadline for all tax bills is the same. Asked why the group did not identify bill numbers for other proposals or make it clear what SB354 would do, he said, Its just not the choice we made.

The ill-explained focus on SB354 leads Bender to suspect the groups hidden backers might be corporate tobacco companies.

All the sin (industry) people  tobacco, pot, alcohol, tanning  have to hide. Tobacco hides the most because theyve been criticized so much, he said. If its a bill that raises the tobacco tax, its got to be a tobacco company funding (the campaign against) it.

When asked, DeMaura declined to answer.

Another possibility is that the backers dont care at all whether Montana changes its taxes despite DeMauras description of the group, said Bender and Banville.

American Potentials disclosure forms were all signed by Chris Marston, whose resume includes a management job at the U.S. Department of Education under President George Bush and a post with the House Republican Caucus at the Virginia statehouse. He runs a company, Election CFO, that has consulted on numerous Republican Congressional campaigns. He has been listed as treasurer of 63 political action committees since 2012, including Koch-backed AegisPAC, according to Federal Election Commission records. That list includes American Alliance, which reported the same P.O. Box as American Potential. That PAC supported the campaigns of Los Angeles criminal prosecutor Elan Carr in failed bids for Congress and the county board of supervisors. The majority of that's group's disclosed funding came from Republican super donor Sheldon Adelson.

On Thursday morning, Marston said he was not authorized to speak on behalf of American Potential and passed the interview request to DeMaura, who also has a long history as a Republican consultant working for groups that have been fined for disclosure violations.

In Montana, the website that seems to focus on sales tax legislation might be an attempt by Republican operatives to smear Bullock, a Democrat some speculate might run for a House or Senate seat or even for national office after he completes his final term as governor. Or, it might simply be a way to boost Republican image in the state.

They could be trying to get people agitated a bit, Bender said. Theyre using the threat of a sales tax to help energize the Republican base.

Because of holes in state and federal disclosure laws, Bender said average citizens will continue to struggle to know who is actually funding some political and issue campaigns.

Noting prominent Congressional elections on the horizon, Banville said Montanans should be cautious about what they see on Facebook or other online forums and be sure to fact-check their information sources.

Get good at Googling, because youre going to need to if you want to know whats actually going on, Banville said. Ask yourself, How do I feel about that versus what they tell me I should be mad about?
A coalition of community groups has come together to provide emergency meals for people after an effort to move the Butte Rescue Mission to a new location failed.

The mission, 1204 E. Second St., will close Monday, as mandated by the fire department because it doesnt meet fire and safety codes. It will serve its last meal in the morning. Local agencies continue to work on a more permanent feeding plan, including a location, and will meet again next week.

Meanwhile, Margie Seccomb, director of Action Inc., said Friday the Butte Emergency Food Bank, the Knights of Columbus, Community Counseling and Correctional Services, and others have developed a provisional program to ensure those who previously got their meals at the mission have access to three meals a day.

Seccomb said the coalition met Wednesday and ironed out a program. She said while those folks will certainly be taken care of, there's no telling whether resources may be stretched thin if demand is higher.

Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, extra food will be provided by the regularly scheduled "We Deliver" Program at their normal drop-off locations, including lunch and take-home dinners and breakfasts. Those locations are the City Center Motel, Park and Clark, 1-1:15 p.m.; parking lot above the Motel 6, 220 N. Wyoming St., 1:15-1:30 p.m.; Rocker, 1:30-1:45 p.m.; Eddys Motel, 1205 S. Montana St., 1:45 to 2 p.m.; Walmart, 3901 Harrison Ave., 2 to 2:15 p.m.; and Silver House, 106 W. Broadway,2:45-3 p.m.

"We Deliver" is a collaboration between Action Inc., the Public Housing Authority, CCCS, church groups, and the Western Montana Mental Health Center.

Seccomb said "We Deliver" serves around 60 to 75 people per meal but has stocked up to serve an additional 30 or so thanks to the food bank.

The Knights of Columbus at Park and Idaho will serve free lunch at its regular times on Tuesday and Thursday, with dinner and breakfast packets offered as well.

Those needing food on Saturday and Sunday can pick up weekend food packets at St. John's Episcopal Church, 15 N. Idaho St.

Following a 4-2 vote Monday night by Buttes zoning board which shot down the missions request to move its operations to the vacant Madison School, an official with the faith-based homeless shelter said Tuesday the organization will shut its doors April 3 as planned.

Fire officials inspected the shelter, 1204 E. Second St., in January and found serious code violations and hazards. On March 3, they gave the mission 30 days to stop using the house as a homeless shelter, saying the problems were too numerous to fix for continued use for so many people.

The house was built as a single-family home but has been a shelter for 40 years with as many as 30 to 40 people staying the night there in recent years.

Paul Buckley, mission board president, said earlier this week the mission has no immediate plans to search for a third location for the shelter and is taking preliminary steps toward finding new space for its offices.
Les emplois a Rennes sont abondants et varies. Il y a quelque chose pour tout le monde. Que vous soyez a la recherche dun emploi []
Les blattes ou cafards (Blatta orientalis) sont des insectes qui appartiennent a la famille des Blattoptera. Ils se caracterisent par leur forme allongee, leurs ailes []
Businesswoman Esther Muthoni Passaris has dropped her ambitions for the Nairobi Governors seat in the upcoming August polls.

The Adopt a Light chief executive on Thursday said her candidature for the seat is proving unrealistic for 2017 because of many reasons.

One of the reasons is believed to because her efforts to vie for the Nairobi seat on her Harambee Party ticket were thwarted after the Registrar of Parties declined to register the party.

She joins Nominated Member of Parliament Johnson Sakaja who has since dropped out of the Nairobi governor race and turned his parliamentary ambitions to the senate seat.

Ms Passaris added that she would be trampled in the race as Nairobi politics has been caught up in a show of might and tribalism.

She is, however, weighing on seeking a different position and invited twitter users in Nairobi to advise on which seat she should vie for.

She noted that Embakasi is her political home and would vie for any of the five constituencies should she run as MP.

My aspirations for Governor are proving to be unrealistic for 2017 for many reasons and for that I am sorry. What next? #LetsWinTogether  Esther M Passaris (@EstherPassaris) March 30, 2017
A second-year student at Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology was allegedly beaten to death in a bar in Huruma, Nairobi.

Joseph Nyoike Kangethe, was at Vineyard bar with friends and relatives on Saturday where they claim he was beaten to death.

They accused the police of a cover-up, saying the bar was now guarded by four administration police officers, reports Daily Nation.

Kangethes cousin Joseph Mbucho said Wednesday that they went to the bar, a few meters from their home, with their two friends, Mungai and Mugumo.

At around 2 am, my cousin left us and went to the counter while holding a glass. A few minutes later, I heard a glass break and then my cousin screamed. I went to the counter to check on him, but he was being pushed out by two security guards, Mbucho said.

He said the bar owner, Samuel Muchungu, who is also their neighbour, was seated near the counter and when Mbucho asked why his cousin was being beaten, Mr Muchungu told the guards to throw him out as well.

The two guards returned and beat me up in front of Mr Muchungu. I was hit twice on the head and once on my left shoulder with a rungu, he said.

Mbucho said he went home thinking his cousin had also gone home, only to be woken up in the morning by a relative who told him that Kangethe had died and his body was on a veranda near the bar.

Their uncle, Mr George Kariuki, said the family was distraught and wondered why no arrests had been made.

The bar owner said he had seen Kangethe in the bar that night but denied that he was beaten by the guards.

I have been running the business for 18 years and during that period, I have always asked the guards never to use force if there is need to get customers out of the bar, Mr Muchungu said.

Usually, we throw out anyone causing a commotion in the bar but I can assure you we did not use force on this particular day, he said, adding that he was also shocked at the news of the death.

He has since recorded a statement at Jon Saga police station.

I asked the police to guard my premises because the neighbors had threatened to cause fracas. As a Kenyan, I am entitled to protection whenever I feel threatened, he said.

Nairobi County police boss Japheth Koome said they had not arrested anyone as no witness had gone to the police to give an account of what happened.

But investigations are ongoing, Mr Koome said.

A post-mortem examination by Dr Dorothy Njeru at the Kenyatta University Funeral Home states that Kangethe suffered a broken rib and other soft tissue injuries.
Since the matter of Mombasa Governor Hassan Johos academic credentials came up, many people have been calling for a verification of President Uhurus degree.

Joho and Uhuru have not been seeing eye to eye in recent months, and the President is now flexing his muscle to tame Joho. The latest is a move to investigate alleged forgery of a KCSE certificate by the Mombasa governor.

This week, Joho came out and admitted to having scored a D- in KCSE. However, there are claims that he submitted a C+ certificate to the University of Nairobi, for a degree course he eventually dropped out of.

It is unclear which certificate he submitted to Kampala International University.

Joho however stated this is untrue, saying he earned his degree via the long route. This means starting with a certificate, then a diploma and finally the degree. He however did not reveal which colleges he attended for the long route.

Following these developments, some NASA supporters have called for a verification of the academic credentials of the main aggressor. This was fueled by some tweets Jacob Juma made before his death, and a old report that Amherst College had failed to congratulate President Uhuru after his 2013 victory.

It turns out that unlike Kenya, verifying an academic document in the US is just a few clicks away.

Theres a whole website dedicated to that (paid service) > Studentclearinghouse.org

Someone already requested for a verification, and Uhuru Kenyatta was in fact a student at Amherst College between 1982 and 1985.

He graduated with Bachelor of Arts, majoring in Economics and Political Science.

The academic honors indicated is RITE. It is unclear whether this is in fact the honors we have in mind, and whether it can be equated to the honors Kenyan universities award, i.e. First class, Second Class Upper, Lower and Pass.

Theres even not much on the internet about this kind of honors. But Wikipedia gives it a mention. Rite is used in a few countries like Germany and Hungary.

In Germany, the range of degrees is: rite (duly conferred, that is, the requirements are fulfilled), cum laude (with honors), magna cum laude (with great honors), and summa cum laude (with highest honors).

If we were to use this definition, RITE in Kenyan term might be a Pass or a Second Class Lower.

UPDATE:

Following constant queries by Kenyans on Twitter, Amherst College has also come out to confirm that indeed Uhuru Kenyatta was their student until he graduated in 1985. They however refused to release his grades citing privacy.
There was tragedy in a building in Nairobis Dagoretti estate after a woman fell to her death off a balcony.

Florence Wekesa, 38, met her tragic death as she hung clothes on the third floor of a building in Gatina trading center.

According to reports, she was doing laundry and slipped and fell while hanging the clothesline.

Neighbors managed to rush her Kenyatta National Hospital where she succumbed to the injuries while undergoing treatment.

Her body was taken to the city morgue awaiting postmortem.

Elsewhere, a man in Kasarani, Mirema spring estate, reported to police that he went home and found his wifes lifeless body lying on the floor dead.

According to the police report, James Nyaga went home in the evening and knocked the door but got no response.

He then decided to peep through the window and saw his wife, Norallium Kambua on the floor, having fallen in the bathroom where she was washing clothes.

Her body was taken to Kenyatta University morgue awaiting postmortem.
A big rig that overturned near the intersection of Highways 121 and 29 and blocked traffic for nearly three hours on Wednesday afternoon was carrying 600 empty pallets, according to Napa Police.

The tractor trailer was reported on its side at 3:17 p.m. Police advised motorists to avoid southbound Highway 29 at Imola Avenue via a Nixle alert at 4:41 p.m. Police announced that the road was reopened at 6:21 p.m.

Police said that although the cause of the wreck appears to be speed-related, the investigation is ongoing. No major injuries were reported.
A bright red REACH Air Medical Services helicopter will soon be providing 24/7 service from a new base at the Napa County Airport.

The REACH EC135 helicopters, staffed with flight nurses and paramedics, fly patients from accident scenes to hospitals or from one hospital to another when time is of the essence and more advanced care is needed. REACH hopes to for service from the Napa County Airport to begin in May.

This has been a long time coming for us to figure out a way to serve Napa from Napa, said Anna Blair, REACH Air Medical Services vice president of Strategy. Weve always served Napa from right outside of Napa.

Until now, the 30-year-old company had been serving Napa County residents from its bases in Concord, Santa Rosa and Lake County.

We feel really positively about it, said Jill Kinney, executive director of marketing and communication at St. Helena Hospital. Its great for the community to have this resource.

REACH already does a great job, she said, so having them in Napa should improve emergency response times.

Blair said that the opportunity for REACH to come to Napa was made possible by their acquisition of CALSTAR, another regional air medical services company, last fall. Since there is a REACH base as well as a CALSTAR base located in Contra Costa County, the company decided it was time to move one of them into Napa, she said.

By having a base in Napa, REACH will be able to increase their service and decrease their response times in the county, Blair said. Napa was seeing a longer response time, he said. It doesnt sound like a lot, but minutes matter in time-sensitive critical injuries.

The location at the Napa airport, which is south of Napa, will also allow the air ambulance to continue providing service to their base in Concord, Blair said.

Thats the great thing about air, she said. One helicopter can easily cover a couple hundred miles.

In addition to being an ICU in the sky, the Napa base will have an added service line for neonatal patients, Blair said. Caring for and transporting neonatal patients requires a different level of skill and special equipment, she said. Napas base will be one of two bases that will have the staff and the equipment to serve that population, she said.

The only other base with the same specialized service is REACHs base in Santa Rosa, where the company began. REACH now has 43 air medical base locations in California and six other states.

The majority of our business and our true mission profile is air medical transport, Blair said. Although the company has the ability to and will assist with other calls if requested, its main focus is providing medical transport to patients with critical or near-critical needs.

California Highway Patrol Golden Gate Divisions Air Operations is also based at the Napa County Airport. CHPs Air Operations responds to all types of emergency calls, including medical calls, remote rescues, vehicle chases and other public safety matters.

REACHs presence in Napa will not have an effect on CHP operations, said Patrol Officer Jim Andrews on Thursday. Well still have the same professional relationship that weve had (with REACH), he said.

I feel like the community is lucky now to have both assets locally placed, Blair said.

Bay City News contributed to this article.
The European People's Party adopted a resolution at its annual congress in Malta on Wednesday. The subject? "Russian disinformation undermining Western democracy."

It's the latest chapter in a push to get the European Union to take seriously what is becoming a growing threat to liberal democracy in the world's biggest democratic club. And it comes just as lawmakers in the United States grapple with the fallout of Russia's disinformation campaign during the 2016 election, widely believed to have been meant to help tip the scales in favor of Donald Trump.

Last week, members of the EPP signed an open letter along with government officials and other experts calling on EU foreign minister Federica Mogherini to "Please start taking the Russian disinformation threat seriously!" They asked her to call out Russia "and its proxies" by name as the source of a lot of disinformation and fake news that is helping push Europeans away from the liberal notions that underpinned the creation of the union in the first place. They also asked for her to unleash the very creature - the EEAS East STRATCOM Team - built to counter that threat in the first place.

Russian disinformation, the letter says, is "aimed at destabilising our societies, meddling in our elections and referendums, misleading our political leaders and breaking up the EU unity by supporting those who want to destroy it."

Mogherini did not respond by pledging to increase resources (though she did send out a tweet featuring a cartoon on the importance of remaining a union). Nor did she acknowledge what the letter's signatories seemed to want her to say: that Russian disinformation, as well as the separate but related issues of illiberalism and political extremism, is increasingly becoming a big problem in Europe, and specifically in the "Visegrad Four" countries in Central and Eastern Europe, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia. And far from trying to tackle it - as Finland, for example, has done with some success - those governments seem to be in many cases willing accomplices of a campaign that ultimately makes it easier to cement their own rise to power.

The poster child for touting the Kremlin's line, of course, is Hungary, where the ruling party, Fidesz, switched to an openly pro-Russia stance in 2010. In 2014, Prime Minister Viktor Orban famously called for the creation of an "illiberal" state, and has been vocal in his support for and emulation of Russia.

Nearby, a similar story plays out. The Czech Republic may have established the Center Against Terrorism and Hybrid Threats to counter disinformation, but those efforts have been specifically criticized by Czech President Milos Zeman, who has openly called for an end to sanctions on Russia. And while Slovakia's President Andrej Kiska has criticized Russia's disinformation campaign, the president of the Slovak police corps signed an anti-immigrant letter riddled, as the former prime minister put it, with "absurdities, confused facts and illogical pseudo-connections."

And Russian disinformation seeps into the media, as well. While some is simply perpetuated by sympathetic conspiracy theorists, in some cases, there are direct links to Russia. For example, in Slovakia, the editors of the extreme far-right magazine Zem a Vek met with the Russian ambassador to Slovakia to ask for support, before traveling to Moscow to ask for more support of their magazine and a new TV channel. That channel launched shortly thereafter - after Zem a Vek began promoting the Russian agenda by petitioning for Slovak withdrawal from NATO.

Slovak state media outlet TASR announced a "content sharing" deal with Kremlin-backed outlet Sputnik - and even though TASR pulled out on Thursday after the deal came under media scrutiny, the fact it was made in the first place suggests that the Kremlin line is not viewed as suspiciously as it once was.

Even the one Visegrad country that hasn't taken a friendly line toward Russia - Poland - is still busy copying the Kremlin playbook. Under the Law and Justice Party, Poland has lurched away from liberalism, essentially taking over the constitutional tribunal, flirting with media restrictions, and souring relations with Brussels. Throughout, the government has disseminated dubious information to undermine public confidence in Brussels. Disinformation in Poland doesn't have to come from the Kremlin, in other words, to undermine cohesion within Europe.

"The Polish government, for instance, repeatedly lies about the number of Ukrainian refugees Poland has supposedly accepted," said Mateo Mazzini, a Warsaw native studying in London. "They do so to have an excuse not to accept refugees from the Middle East, but these statements are just blatant lies. Our own, native, Polish lies, though - no need to import them from Moscow."

Put another way: Poland is pushing what some consider illiberal disinformation on its own, but it's cribbing from Hungary, which is copycatting Russia. "The true origins of this phenomenon are local," Maria Snegovaya of Columbia University said - though not exclusively home brewed. "The policies of Fidesz and Law and Justice have a lot in common with Putin's own policies."

And Poland is following Hungary's illiberal model perhaps in part because its government knows there won't be repercussions from the EU. "The message Orban sent to the whole region," said Peter Kreko, a senior associate of the Budapest-based Political Capital Institute, "is: You can do it" - act illiberally and get away with it.

To be sure, ill feelings toward the European Union among people in Central and Eastern Europe aren't solely about Russian disinformation, or even about the rise of far-right political parties. The problem is also in part about the European Union and the European project itself. Even EU boosters acknowledge that the former Soviet-bloc countries were brought into the European Union by roping in local elites. Many regular people felt, and still feel, that the EU has done little to engage on issues that matter to them, from immigration to the economic impact of European accession to the realities of employment in an increasingly globalized Eastern Europe.

Take the issue of Syrian refugees. "One of the root causes" of risking nationalism and EU-skepticism in Poland, said Karol Zwirello, who lives and works in Gdansk, "was Angela Merkel's welcoming policy toward illegal migrants. The pressure for EU countries to divide the number of migrants each of them would have to host has caused strong opposition."

Others struggle to find their views reflected in elitist, mainstream media.

"I have this notion that mass media in Slovakia - really, most of them, 90 percent of the coverage you can get is mostly pro-Western or pro-European oriented," said Peter, who lives and works in Bratislava and asked to be identified only by his first name. "I think it's not proper representation of Slovak society."

And when they don't see it in mainstream outlets, Peter said, they turn to the internet, and to social media, and to ever increasingly extremist sites associated with once-fringe political parties that have moved to the mainstream. And even once-mainstream parties could be seen as having gotten more extreme: Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico called journalists critical of him prostitutes, and said Islam has no place in Slovakia before he later deigned to criticize fascism.

Those parties, too, get a boost from Russian disinformation. "Russian influence is stronger on the far right where it's stronger on the mainstream, most notably in Slovakia and Hungary," said Kreko. "The second rule that we found - the more extreme you go, the stronger the Russian influence is."

The fascist People's Party Our Slovakia, which won eight percent of the vote in elections last March, is anti-EU, anti-NATO, pro-Nazi leaders, and pro-Russia (the party papers over the historical contradictions in that stance by pointing to Slovakia and Russia's shared Slavic roots.) Jobbik, a Hungarian party even further to the right than Orban's Fidesz, is also openly pro-Kremlin, and introduced a Hungarian version of Russia's law requiring NGOs that take foreign funding to declare themselves as foreign agents - a policy since pursued not by a fringe party, but by the Hungarian government.

But Russian kindling isn't even needed to light a far-right fire, with Visegrad countries learning from one another. "Groups such as the National Movement operate and march in public under openly anti-semitic, racist and xenophobic slogans, yet Law and Justice sees no reason for dismantling them," Mazzini said.

Europe's illiberal turn, and Russia's role in accelerating it, isn't irreversible, though it is easier for leaders in the West to push back against a rising illiberal tide than for those in the east already knee-deep. Governments could promote media literacy among the population, get security services involved, and share best practices, said Kacper Rekawek and Daniel Milo of Bratislava's GLOBSEC Policy Institute in Bratislava. Finland has done much of that to parry Russian attempts at manipulation.

And, they said, leaders could craft a new narrative seeking to explain to skeptical populations why liberalism and European values are worth fighting for in the first place.

But what governments have tried so far has been half-hearted. "I don't see a sincere effort" to sell people anew on Europe, Milo said, "and the old narratives aren't working anymore." Rekawek said "it needs to be rebooted."

But that's not likely to come from leaders in Visegrad countries. Orban, Zeman, and Law and Justice chief Jaroslaw Kaczynski benefit at the polls the more voters are skeptical of western liberalism in general and the EU's rules in particular.

What about leaders in Brussels? They haven't even been able to take any meaningful action to censure illiberalism in Poland or Hungary, two member states. And Mogherini, Jakub Janda of the European Values Think Tank said, is eager to maintain working relations with Russia to cooperate on Syria - making her wary of naming Russian disinformation as a threat.

Big elections are coming up in France and Germany, the core of the EU - with plenty of momentum for the far-right, anti-EU National Front leader Marine le Pen in France. That's already got plenty of people in Brussels (and Berlin) nervous that one of the keystones of the 60-year European experiment is about to get hit with a sledgehammer.

As if that weren't enough, as of Wednesday, Brexit is officially underway. That gives the European Union an even bigger and more immediate threat to its shape, unity, and purpose - at the expense, perhaps, of trying to roll back the tide of illiberalism further east. The European Union is understandably trying to grapple with potentially existential threats on its western flank. But perhaps, in doing so, it's ignoring one that's already arrived.

Emily Tamkin is a staff writer at Foreign Policy magazine, where this essay first appeared.
As docents of the Napa Valley Museum in Yountville, John Holt and I have had the privilege of participating in the Wappo Trunk Program. For six years, we took unique Indian artifacts to schools in the Valley from Angwin to American Canyon, targeting primarily the third grade. This educational program satisfied the States requirement that all children receive two hours of the native Indian history of the area in which they lived.

We took the children into the lives of these wonderful people, explained to them how they lived, talked about their houses, the baskets they made, the foods they hunted and fished for, their family life, and, too, their beliefs and customs.

Nature was their only resource. Imagine this, in todays world, living without all our modern conveniences and the technology, could we possibly exist? Yet, sadly, they, as peace-loving tribes, living in a virgin land, surviving as necessity dictated, were to be violated by the coming of the white man with his greed and disease.

Because of this program we feel gratified for having been able to bring their amazing history to, not only the children, but also, on occasion, to the adults as well, newcomers to the valley or perhaps, those living here for many years with, amazingly, little or no knowledge of Napas very own Wappo Indians. Wappo, who were they? When did they live here? What happened to them?

Their memory must not be lost, ignored or forgotten, but remembered with the dignity they deserve, for they were a proud brave people. They loved this valley, for it was their home, and their respect of nature was their religion to which they strongly adhered, all this so painfully surrendered and plundered.

Lest we forget. Ah, yes  how green was their valley.

Jean Kahn

Napa
Citing safety violations that lead to a workers death in August, Trinchero Family Estates has been fined $44,575 by the California Occupational Safety and Health Administration.

On Aug. 31, Jose Alberto Avina, a 43-year-old cellar worker, was crushed while unloading barrel racks from a truck at Joel Gott Wines, 2055 Hoffman Lane in Napa. Trinchero Family Estates owns and operates Joel Gott Wines.

According to his obituary, Avina was married and had four children. He was laid to rest in Mexico.

Trinchero Family Estates did not return requests for a comment this week.

The incident happened as Avina was working with two others to unload 12 stacks of metal barrel racks from a 40-foot container using a forklift. Each stack contained 17 barrel racks nestled together and weighed 1,445 pounds. There was not an unloading dock at the winery at that time, said the OSHA report.

Because the forklift couldnt reach into the container, a chain and nylon straps were linked between the forklift and the racks to help pull the stacks out of the container.

Avina and another man served as guides inside the container as the racks were pulled out of the truck by the forklift.

When the accident occurred we were guiding the rack back, said cellar worker Francisco Javier Medina in a Cal/OSHA statement. We would guide the rack back to within one foot of the edge, then tell the fork truck operator to stop.

Medina said he saw the racks were unstable and then they just started falling. He said he jumped to get out of the way.

Jose Antonio Rubio-Castro, cellar master for Trinchero, said he saw the racks fall, and then he saw Avina.

Avina was unable to jump out of the path of the falling stack of racks and was struck and pinned under the racks on the asphalt parking surface, said the OSHA report.

I got off the fork truck to help free Avina from under the racks, said Rubio-Castro.

But it was too late. Avinas torso was crushed when the racks fell on him, the OSHA report stated.

Avina was pronounced dead at the scene at 11 a.m., the Napa County Sheriffs Office reported said at the time.

Cal/OSHA investigated the incident and noted a series of violations.

Trichero failed to identify and evaluate workplace hazards, the report stated. The company failed to inspect and maintain its forklift. The employer failed to provide training and instruction on using the forklift in this manner.

Trinchero also allowed the use of nylon winch cargo straps that were worn and damaged. The strap was used to pull loads contrary to the manufacturers intended use. Trinchero failed to prevent the barrel racks from tipping and falling, which lead to the death of Avina, Cal/OSHA said.

In his statement to Cal-OSHA, Medina said he hadnt been given instructions about what to do or not do while working around this hazard, only just to be careful.

According to Trinchero Famly Estates Production Manager Julio Ramirez, We did not have a written procedure for unloading the trucks with barrel racks. We did not have any training on how to unload the barrel racks from the trucks.

Avina was an employee of Trinchero Family Estates, and had worked at the Hoffman Lane facility for two harvests, company spokeswoman Elizabeth Hooker previously reported.

This is a terrible tragedy that is felt throughout our organization, CEO and Chairman Roger Trinchero said in August. As a family-run operation, every employee is part of our extended family and the loss is very painful for all of us.

The case was closed on Feb. 28, the OSHA report stated.
SANTA BARBARA  The Pinot Noir grape has been defined as sensual and sexy. Its one of the trickiest of all wine grapes to grow, harvest and vinify due to its thin skins, tightly packed clusters, light colors and low tannins. Yet it makes the most romantic of wines, voluptuous, sweet, yet powerful with aromas and tastes that make many wine drinkers fall in love with a single sip. Its even had a popular Hollywood movie built around its elusive persona.

Yes, the heady, beguiling and poetic world of pinot noir came to Santa Barbara a few days ago where Pinotphiles indulged in the 17th annual World of Pinot Noir. Staged at the tony Bacara Resort and Spa in Santa Barbara on March 3 and 4, the event is an annual mecca for those wishing to immerse themselves in international pinots.

Pinot is the wine of kings, said David Coventry, head winemaker at Talbott Vineyards in the Santa Lucia Highlands in Monterey County. Theres red wine, theres white wine and then theres pinot noir.

There was plenty to choose from for those who became kings for a couple of days as the event featured six dinners, two lunches, four seminars, two grand tastings plus a silent auction.

Attendees savored classic Burgundy pinots from such illustrious names as Domaine de la Vougeraie and Maison Louis Latour, a savory selection from New Zealand, earthy Oregon pinots, fruit-driven wines from Santa Barbara County and seductive ones from Sonomas Russian River Valley and Sonoma Coast.

There was also an interesting selection of pinots from Spain, Italy, Chile and Austria. Among them Alta Pavina produced from grapes planted at 3,000 feet elevation from Spains Ribera del Duoro region; Weingut Weininger, a biodynamic Pinot produced in the hills above Vienna; and a sparkling Alta Langa rose from Italys Banfi Piemonte.

I commented, however, to the events co-founder Brian Talley that the attendance was heavy on American wine producer. In fact, mostly California pinots with over 50 wineries each from Sonoma County and Santa Barbara County alone overwhelmed the global contribution.

The celebration is definitely more West Coast-focused, said Talley, president of Edna Valleys Talley Vineyards and Talley Farms. Burgundy producers are not motivated because they are small and they sell out.

Talley co-founded the event in 2001, with Archie McLaren, producer of the Central Coast Wine Classic. He recalled that his models were two popular events  Oregons International Pinot Noir celebration and Carmels Masters of Food and Wine.

The initial impetus was to bring attention to the Central Coast as a world-class pinot noir region, said Talley.

As I walked into the grand tasting, it was evident that there was too much pinot and too little time even over the two-day period.

The Napa Valley was represented by more than a dozen wineries. Most of these wines are produced from Sonoma County or Anderson Valley fruit; a few, such as Domaine Carneros, Bouchaine and Black Stallion, have vineyards on the Carneros side of Napa.

I met with Megan Gunderson Paredes, winemaker for Walt Pinot Noir produced by Napas Hall winery. She was among the three winemakers on the Pinot and Pate panel that paired imported cheeses and charcuterie offered by San Luis Obispos Fromagerie Sophie with six wines from Sonoma Coast, Russian River Valley, Santa Rita Hills and Santa Lucia Highlands.

Hall is known for cabernet so pinot noir had to have its own story, said Paredes. From Oregon to California, the pinot program is focused on sourcing fruit from the best vineyards along the 1,000-mile stretch of the Pacific Coast, sites that show terroir of specific region, she said. The 25,000 annual-case production is made from vineyards the Hall family purchased in Anderson Valley and Sonoma Coast as well as a long-term lease with the esteemed Clos Pepe vineyards in Santa Rita Hills.

With pinot, the vineyard is the brand, Paredes said, citing names such as Clos Pepe and Gaps Crown in Sonoma.

Other Napa producers included Frank Family Vineyards, En Route (Far Nientes Pinot program from Sonoma), Guarachi Family Wines, Ancien, Artesa Estate, FEL Wines, Fog Crest, Joseph Phelps, Saintsbury , Etude and Hyde Wines.

Larry Hyde, who founded his eponymous winery in Carneros, in 2009 was joined by his wife Betta. The 2,000-case annual production will soon be expanded with the addition of syrah, merlot and viognier from Carneros, Betta told me.

The Santa Barbara County offered a plethora of wines. I started with Richard Sanford, regarded as the regions pioneer when he planted pinot noir vineyards at his winery in the 1970s in the now famous Santa Rita Hills appellation. He sold the winery in the early 2000 and started Alma Rosa Winery in Buellton.

Its interesting that enough vineyards are coming from distinctive regions to develop regional identity, said Sanford, one of the original participants of World of Pinot Noir.

How are they distinctive?

The Russian River Valley is cherry like and both Santa Lucia Highlands and Santa Maria are jammy, Santa Rita Hills has raspberry character and Oregon is savage, Sanford noted. Its a great time to be a pinot lover.

I stopped by to savor the exalted Santa Rita Hills Sea Smoke, a wine with a reputation of a three-year waiting for its allocation. While most wineries offered current vintages of 2014 and 2015, this was one of the few pouring the seductive 2006 pinot noir and a refreshing vintage (zero dosage) sparkling wine, the 2012 Sea Spray.

Others pouring distinctive pinots from the Central Coast corridor Santa included Au Bon Climat, Foxen, Ampelos Cellars, Windward, Adelaida, Baileyana, Bernardus and Scheid.

Sonomas seductive pinots were offered from wineries like Chateau St. Jean, Flowers, DeLoach, Hartford Family, Landmark, Paul Hobbs, Davis Bynum, Gary Farrell, La Crema, Patz and Hall, Twomey and McMurray Estate.

There were more than a dozen Oregon wineries mostly from the Willamette region, among them Erath, Argyle, Archery Summit, Lachini, King Estate and Left Coast Cellars.

Mendocino continues to enjoy its reputation as out there wine region producing top-notch elegant pinot noirs that we got to taste from such remote wineries as Goldeneye, Domaine Anderson, Copain, Black Kite Cellars, Waits-Mast Family Cellars and Maggy Hawk Vineyard.

With more than 3,000 attendees, World of Pinot Noir was a runaway success with sold-out events. At $450 per person and limited to 45 guests, the Vintage Burgundy with the Guild of Sommeliers dinner laid out a six-course dinner prepared by Bacaras chef Vincent Lessage and paired with a 1999 Tattinger and five Grand Cru wines, among them 1999 Denis Mugneret & Fils Clos De Vougeot and 1998 Robert Arnoux Romanee Saint-Vivant.

The Louis Latour dinner limited to 24 guests at $350 per head offered mostly Premier Cru wines such as the 2010 Volnay from Chevret Maison Latour and the 2008 Corton Charlemagne.

Other sold-out events included the Kosta Browne 20th-anniversary dinner; Merry Edwards Rock Star dinner honoring Sonomas legendary vintner alongside wines from Fiddlehead, Brewer Clifton and Hartford Court; and a Hitching Post Retrospective dinner with chef and winemaker Frank Ostini and his partner Gray Hartley offering 11 vintages of Hitching Post Pinot Noir collection dating back to 1991.

The owners of the winery and its namesake Buellton restaurant, featured prominently in the multi-award winning film, Sideways, revealed they originally started their winemaking with table wine from merlot grapes.

But we dont want to talk about merlot tonight, mused Ostini, now a pure Pinot man.

Theres red wine, theres white wine and then theres pinot noir. David Coventry, Talbott Vineyards, Santa Lucia Highlands
Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg briefed media on Friday (31 March 2017) on the agenda of todays meetings of NATO Foreign Ministers. Ministers will discuss fairer burden sharing to keep the trans-Atlantic bond strong. NATOs efforts to project stability and fight terrorism will also be an important topic of discussion.
NATO Foreign Ministers had talks on Friday (31 March 2017) about fairer burden sharing in the Alliance, NATOs response to terrorism and its united approach to Russia. After the meeting at NATO Headquarters, Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg highlighted how the Alliance has made progress on defence spending, with a 10 billion dollar rise in defence spending among European Allies and Canada last year. Mr Stoltenberg said Allies must keep up the momentum on defence spending and that one option being looked at is national plans for Allies to reach the NATO goal of spending 2% of GDP on defence.

Also high on the agenda was NATOs response to terrorism and how the Alliance is projecting stability beyond its borders. The Secretary General said, NATO has untapped potential to do more. One of our best tools in the fight against terrorism is training local forces. As well as its continuing mission in Afghanistan, NATO is helping local forces in Iraq to better counter ISIL, including with training to counter improvised explosive devices. Mr. Stoltenberg said the Alliance would expand its training programme in Iraq with military medicine courses and with training to help maintain tanks and armoured fighting vehicles.

Ministers also assessed the situation in the Western Balkans and the Secretary General underlined how Montenegros accession to NATO will contribute to regional stability. The European Unions High Representative, as well as the Ministers from Finland and Sweden, joined the meeting to discuss NATOs position on Russia: strong defence and deterrence combined with dialogue. The Ministerial ended with a meeting of the NATO-Ukraine Commission and talks on the Alliances strong political and practical support to Ukraine.
NATO delivered and demonstrated 160 sets of counter-IED equipment to Iraqs Ministry of Interior on Sunday (26 March 2017). Financed by NATOs Defence Capacity Building Trust Fund, the equipment is an important contribution to Iraqs efforts to fight terrorism and protect civilians. Speaking at a meeting of NATO Foreign Ministers on Friday (31 March), Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg welcomed the delivery, saying one of our best tools in the fight against terrorism is training local forces this equipment will help save lives.

At Iraqs request, NATO agreed in July 2015 to provide defence capacity building support in a number of areas, including countering improvised explosive devices, explosive ordnance disposal and demining, security sector reform, military medicine and civil military planning.

In 2016, NATO trained over 350 Iraqi officers in Jordan, and at the Warsaw Summit in July 2016, Allies agreed to expand this training into Iraq itself. Since January 2017, NATO advisers have been working in the country, overseeing training activities and working with the Iraqi authorities to reform their security institutions. NATOs presence in Iraq includes a core team and mobile training teams.
(As delivered)

Good morning.

Today we will prepare the ground for the meeting of NATO leaders here in Brussels in May.

Our transatlantic bond has been rock-solid for almost seventy years. It is vital for Europe, and vital for North America and it is especially important now, in times of serious challenges. When our Heads of State and Government meet in eight weeks, their agenda will include two key points.

First, fair burden-sharing to keep the transatlantic bond strong. We have started to increase defence spending, but we need to keep up the momentum and meet the pledge we have all made. This is about more funding, but it is not just about cash. It is also about investing in the capabilities we need and committing forces to NATO deployments. So it is about cash, capabilities, and commitments.

The second major topic will be stepping up NATOs efforts to project stability and fight terrorism. We have made significant contributions for many years - from Afghanistan to the Balkans. But NATO has untapped potential to do more. In Iraq, we are already building the capacity of local forces. Including with life-saving training to counter improvised explosive devices and I hope we will be able to expand our support to new areas. As part of our broad international effort, NATO can and must make a real difference.

Over lunch, we will turn to NATOs relations with Russia. Our key partners  the European Union, Finland and Sweden  will join our talks. We have a united position on Russia: strong defence and deterrence combined with dialogue and we are delivering on both.

We will close the ministerial meeting with a meeting of the NATO-Ukraine Commission. A strong sign of our continued commitment to Ukraine. Our support is both political and practical.

And we are providing assistance in areas including cyber defence, command and control, and medical rehabilitation.

And with that, Im ready for your questions.

Q (WSJ): Mr Secretary General, do you think Americans are pushing too much on defence spending? Do they need to listen to the European explanations about capabilities being just as important? And secondly, do you think Mr Tillerson ruffled feathers here with the scheduling snafu? Are there doubts about the value he places on the Alliance?

SECRETARY GENERAL: We have to remember that defence spending, increased defence spending, is something 28 Allies agreed together in 2014. We were together  the US, Canada and all the NATO Allies from Europe  sitting around the same table, and we decided to stop the cuts in defence spending, gradually increase and then move towards 2% within a decade. So increased defence spending is not about pleasing the United States. It is about investing more in European security because it is important for Europe. Europe is close to the turmoil, the violence we see in North Africa, in the Middle East, Iraq, Syria. And Europe is close to a more assertive Russia, willing to use force against a neighbour, in Ukraine. So investing in defence is in the interest of Europe, and therefore all European Allies agreed when we decided in 2014 to invest more in our collective security.

Then on the rescheduling, I would just say that Foreign Ministers are busy people. And it happens that planned dates dont work. And Im happy that we were able to reschedule the meeting, and to have a meeting today, to actually advance the meeting. And I think that the fact that we were able to reschedule the meeting on such a short notice illustrates the flexibility of the Alliance. But perhaps more importantly, it illustrates the commitment of all Allies to NATO and the transatlantic bond. And it is important that we meet, especially now when we see greater security challenges and we need to strengthen the transatlantic bond.

Im looking forward to welcoming Secretary Tillerson here at the Foreign Ministerial meeting later today, as I was able to welcome Vice President Pence to NATO some weeks ago, and also Secretary Mattis to the defence ministerial meeting. So we see a strong US commitments to NATO, to the transatlantic bond. Not only in words, but also in deeds  by participating in NATO meetings but more importantly by deploying more US forces in Europe.

Q (CNN): Can you speed up the 2% of spending on defence of the GDP?

SECRETARY GENERAL: We have already turned a corner when it comes to defence spending. Because we have to remember that we decided in 2014 was not to spend 2% of GDP on defence next year. We decided to stop the cuts, to gradually increase and then to move towards spending 2% of GDP on defence within a decade. Some Allies already do that. But the good news is for instance that this year, Romania has declared that already in 2017 they will meet the 2% target, adding to those countries which already meet the target. Then next year, Lithuania and Latvia have declared that they will meet the 2% target. And we have seen a significant increase in European spending since we made the decision in the autumn of 2014. In 2015, the cuts stopped. And in 2016, we saw a significant increase in defence spending by 3.8% or 10 billion US dollars in real terms. So we have started to move in the right direction. We still have a long way to go. But I welcome the fact that when we made the decision, we saw that European Allies and Canada started to move in the right direction by stopping the cuts and starting to increase defence spending.

Q (AFP): One of the options would be to have national plans where countries will have a bit more pressure, because theyll have to explain every year how they make progress. Is this something that can be decided today?

SECRETARY GENERAL: I expect national plans to be an important topic to be discussed today. Because the idea of developing national plans for all NATO Allies is something weve started to look into among Allies. And the plan is to make decisions when Heads of State and Government meet in May. But because this meeting is an important building block or preparation for the meeting in May, I expect national plans for how to meet the defence investment pledge that will be an important topic today.

The idea of national plans is to outline how we will implement what we decided on defence spending back in 2014. But its more than defence spending. Its about investing more in defence, - defence spending  but its also about capabilities. Outlining how we will fill the capability gaps, deliver the capabilities we need, and how NATO Allies can deliver or commit forces to NATO missions and operations. So the idea is to have national plans that cover spending, capabilities and commitments to NATO operations and missions. Exactly how that will be done, exactly how we will develop these plans, its a bit too early. But we are now looking into it, theres an ongoing discussion. And I think its also obvious that the design of the plans has to be a bit different from country to country. But the most important thing is to have a document which illustrates and outlines how we will implement what we agreed on defence spending and capabilities and force commitments in 2014.

Q (AP): The new US administrations also looking for more action on counterterrorism work from NATO. NATOs deploying troops to the Baltics and Poland as deterrence. Why cant NATO send out troops to combat terrorists, because thats a concern that a lot of citizens have.

SECRETARY GENERAL: NATO already plays a key role in the fight against terrorism. We have to remember that our biggest military operation ever, our presence in Afghanistan, is about fighting terrorism. Its about preventing Afghanistan from once again becoming a safe haven for international terrorism. And we are there to help and support the Afghan forces in fighting many different terrorist groups and fighting the Taliban.

We provide support to the US-led Coalition fighting ISIL in Iraq and Syria. We train Iraqi officers. We are also providing direct support with our AWACS surveillance planes to the air operations of the Coalition. And we work with different countries like Jordan and Tunisia and other countries to help to build their capacity to fight terrorism themselves. And then Id like to add that NATOs presence also in the Balkans is related to fighting terrorism. Because a stable Balkans is important to address the threats coming from foreign fighters. I recently visited Bosnia Herzegovina and Kosovo, and Im encouraged to see how focused they are on countering the threat of foreign fighters. Then we are looking into what more we can do. And I expect that to be an important issue to be discussed today, but also an issue to be discussed at the meeting in May when President Trump and other Heads of State and Government will meet here in Brussels at the NATO headquarters. Let me add one more thing  and that is that I think an important lesson learned from Kosovo, from Bosnia Herzegovina and from Afghanistan, is that in the long run, it is much better to fight terrorism and project stability by training local forces, building local security institutions, instead of NATO deploying large numbers of our own combat troops in combat operations. Thats exactly what we do in Afghanistan  we have ended our combat operation, but we build local capacity by training the Afghan forces so they can fight the Taliban themselves. And thats also what we do in Iraq by training local forces there.
(Natural News) Last February, an immense asteroid, dubbed 2013K flew by Earths orbit. Researchers at InsuranceQuotes said the meteor  which measured 328 feet wide  could kill more than 2.5 million people if it crashed into a city like New York. This conclusion was made after researchers sifted through NASAs database of more than 36,000 near-Earth encounters. Researchers said buildings would be instantly flattened to a pulp for 2.14 miles around, while a collapse radius may reach over 4.5 miles. The study also revealed that the fireball caused by the impact will have a total coverage of 1.36 mile radius, while radiation may stretch to up to 1.84 miles in all directions. Residues of thermal radiation can be felt by people some 12.05 miles away. This means that residents of Yonkers, Queens and Newark will suffer skin burns in the process. The asteroid was bound to fly by the planets orbit once more in 2021.

Currently, there are approximately more than 300,000 still-unidentified asteroids located too close to the Earth, which could cause extensive damage by crashing into the planet or exploding in the sky. Just this January alone, the University of Arizonas Catalina Sky Survey discovered a massive asteroid flew by Earth at about 50% the distance to the moon. The asteroid, dubbed 2017 AG13, was easily the size of a 10-story building at 15 to 34 meters long and whizzed past the planets orbit at a record speed of 16 kilometers per second.

Astronomy broadcast provider Slooth made a live broadcast of the flyby at 7:47 am E.T. on January 9, Saturday. Astronomer Eric Edelman said the asteroid crossed the orbits of Venus and Earth in the process. While a simulation by Purdue University claimed that the impact would have been underwhelming, experts at Slooth said the size of 2017 AG13 was roughly the same as the 17-meter asteroid that struck Chelyabinsk, Russia in 2013. The effects of the 2013 asteroid impact left the Russian city with shattered windows, dented buildings and personal injuries. In 1908, a massive asteroid about 40 meters wide struck a Russian forest flat with a force similar to detonating about five to 10 megatons of TNT.

Recent study unveils catastrophic damages if asteroid strikes

Data also showed that if an asteroid the size of the 984-foot-wide 2015 BN509 hit San Francisco, the resulting deaths would total to more than 7 million, while the fireball radius may stretch over eight miles. Researchers said buildings located at 26 miles from the site will be instantly flattened, while radiation can be imminent in areas up to 9.38 miles from the impact site. Thermal radiation may extend up to more than 217 miles, easily affecting residents of Reno and Lake Tahoe. Building within 26.25 miles were expected to be instantly demolished. In this scenario, researchers inferred that half of the probable impact may occur in the pacific Oceans, which in turn may generate massive tsunamis with enough power to wipe out coastal areas.

In another scenario, researchers found that a 1,805-foot-wide asteroid hitting Chicago would account for more than 9.5 million deaths, generating a thermal radiation radius of 267.94 miles. This is enough to cover a wide area of land that may stretch as far as the Cedar Rapids, Milwaukee, Grand Rapids, Indianapolis, St. Louis and Louisville. The impact will instantly demolished buildings within 31.07 miles, and may continue to affect infrastructure within an 82.03 mile radius. The fireball radius was estimated to be at 10.10 miles, while radiation radius was expected to stretch to up to 10.33 miles.

Discover more stories about space weather and space events at Space.news.

Sources:

InsuranceQuotes.com

DailyMail.co.uk

BusinessInsider.com
(Natural News) Can too much structure kill creativity? According to researchers at the University of Torontos Rotman School of Management, the answer is yes. In a series of experiments, authors of the study found that an organized structure of activities can place limitations on creativity and inhibit innovation among adults. It has long been believed that structure and organization add clarity and efficiency, but Yeun Joon Kim, co-author of the study, warns: A hierarchically organized information structure may also have a dark side. The paper, entitled Ideas rise from chaos: Information structure and creativity, was published in the January edition of Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes.

Structured thinking leads to a static brain

To better process information, we tend to group data into bite-sized manageable pieces, which prevents us from becoming overwhelmed. We have extended this into all aspects of our lives. The emphasis on organized structures has made managerial strategies entirely focused on efficiency. However, this flat way of thinking reprograms the brain to be inflexible. Kim and his co-author Chen-Bo Zhong conclude that society has become too focused on order, effectively cutting off our natural predilection towards cognitive flexibility. (RELATED: Read more news about the mysteries of the mind at MIND.news.)

The researchers ran a series of three experiments to test their theory. The first two experiments had participants make as many sentences as they could from a group of nouns. In one experiment, the participants were given the nouns in neatly organized categories. In the second, the nouns were not organized in any particular way. In the final experiment, participants were tasked to make an alien out of a box of organized or unorganized bricks. Participants in the organized category were not allowed to dump the bricks onto the table, while those in the unorganized group could do as they pleased with the blocks.

Results show that those who fell under the organized group tended to follow preconceived patterns. They were typically faster than the unorganized group but showed no variation in their wording style or how they built the alien. Authors classified this type of thinking as a hierarchically organized information structure which organizes data based on what is known. This type of structure builds patterns based on familiarity, area of expertise, or discipline. The other form of thinking, flat information structure, sees information without any form of category and therefore has no hindrance to how it can be used.

Put simply: Practice makes perfect  but then we plateau and are no longer able to give new ideas.

The importance of creativity

So why is this important to learn? Science proves that the brain is constantly adapting to situations. Neural connections are strengthened or destroyed based on what it receives every day. So, the brain of a firefighter for example would be much different from the brain of a lab technician. Our brains take in the necessary information and categorizes it to give us the best chance for survival. Learning creativity  or rather, encouraging cognitive flexibility  keeps the brain elastic and pliable. This proves essential during disaster preparedness or experiencing new things.

A Harvard Business Review paper argues that we place too much stock on the term creativity. The ideas that we judge as creative are often based on how novel they are rather than their usefulness. In terms of business, rewards are given to the most innovative without thinking of its implementation. Ted Levitt, who wrote the 2002 article says, A powerful new idea can kick around unused in a company for years, not because its merits are not recognized but because nobody has assumed the responsibility for converting it from words into action. What is often lacking is not creativity in the idea-creating sense but innovation in the action-producing sense, i.e., putting ideas to work.

With the latest study, Kim and Zhong define creativity not as the propensity to generate ideas but how quickly participants were able to shift ideas and thought patterns. This may be a better  and perhaps more accurate  way of defining creativity and its importance in the workplace.

Sources:

ScienceDaily.com

HBR.org

FPSPI.org

CNN.com
Wednesday, March 29, 2017 by: JD Heyes Tags: jihad , priority , Saudi Arabia , terrorism , vaccines This article may contain statements that reflect the opinion of the author

(Natural News) Millions of Americans do not view Saudi Arabia in the way our government does, as a benevolent monarchy in the middle of the worlds largest sand pit with a lot of oil that just wants great relations with its trading partners and natives.

In fact, most Americans who were alive on 9/11 and old enough to understand what was going on, remember that 15 of the 19 hijackers who destroyed the World Trade Center and killed nearly 3,000 Americans, were originally from Saudi Arabia.

Our intelligence community and foreign policy apparatus have long known that factions within the Saudi Arabian government support terrorism, and in particular, jihadists known to target the West. As noted by the CATO Institute, a libertarian-leaning think tank, in 2001:

The Saudi government has been the principal financial backer of Afghanistan s odious Taliban movement since at least 1996. It has also channeled funds to Hamas and other groups that have committed terrorist acts in Israel and other portions of the Middle East.

Worst of all, the Saudi monarchy has funded dubious schools and charities throughout the Islamic world. Those organizations have been hotbeds of anti-Western, and especially, anti-American, indoctrination.

Now, it seems, this state sponsor of jihad and terrorism is set to supply vaccines to the world, having bought a vaccine manufacturing operation from the Danish government, as reported by the Gatestone Institute, which tracks global jihadist operations. (RELATED: Dave Chappelle intelligently questions mandatory vaccines in new Netflix special.)

Selling the crucial manufacture of vaccines to an ideologically hostile country, which might  for whatever reason  suddenly decide to shut down production, does not sound like a good idea Those who say that the Saudis are merely interested in profit, just like everybody else, should know better, said Rachel Ehrenfeld, an expert on the financing of terrorism.

A year ago, Saudi Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman announced the creation of the Public Investment Fund, which eventually plans to control some $2 trillion in a bid to help move the countrys economy away from its primary source  oil. To do that, the Prince announced that the monarchy would sell shares in the parent company of Aramco, the Saudi oil giant, in a bid to transform it into a conglomerate of other companies and interests. Its likely that the purchase of the Danish State Serum Institute by the Aljomaih Group is part of that portfolio diversification.

The problem is, the purchasing group has given donations to the Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamic extremist organization.

Interestingly, the Gatestone Institute notes, Saudis boycotted Danish goods in 2006, after the publication of cartoons depicting Mohammad. What changed is anyones guess.

But it does make you wonder how much trust Danish consumers should have in Saudi-manufactured vaccines.

More about the purchaser: The Aljomaih Group is a Saudi family dynasty, Gatestone notes, and is led by Sheikh AbdulAziz Hamad Aljomaih, the largest stockholder in Arcapita Bank in Bahrain, where he is also the chairman. The bank features a so-called Sharia Supervisory Board, which consists of Islamic scholars who ensure the banks dealings and transactions comply with Sharia law. (RELATED: The Clinton Foundation has scored about $50 MILLION in donations from Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Kuwait.)

There are a number of concerns here. First, while it may seem as though the Saudis diversification is afoot with this purchase, it could also be a way for a supporter of strict Sharia law to control the flow of vaccines into the West, which is currently inundated with Muslim migrants fleeing the war-torn region. As we have seen for the past two years, terrorist incidents have begun to increase in many countries, including France, Germany and Belgium, as more unvetted Islamists continue to pour into the continent.

Another possibility: Would the Saudis intentionally taint already toxic vaccines bound for Western countries as a means of poisoning the population? If that sounds crazy to you, imagine what you would have thought before 9/11 if someone had told you that Saudi terrorists were plotting to fly commercial planes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

Explore more headlines on violence in our world at Violence.news.

J.D. Heyes is a senior writer for NaturalNews.com and NewsTarget.com, as well as editor of The National Sentinel.

Sources:

StraightLineLogic.com

CATO.org

NaturalNews.com
(Natural News) Students of the Detroit, MI, public school system have been dealt a losing hand, according to a new study from the Detroit Regional Workforce Fund. The DRWF is a group that strives to provide citizens of Detroit with workforce training which will increase career readiness and opportunities. They recently released a report stating that 47 percent of people in Detroit are functionally illiterate.

The report, titled Addressing Detroits Basic Skills Crisis, argues that this is as detrimental to Detroit citizens as the Flint water crisis has been to residents of the city of Flint.

According to the report:

Various estimates of the scale of need for basic skills services in the region convey a crisis-level order of magnitude:

The National Institute for Literacy estimates that 47% of adults (more than 200,000 individuals) in the City of Detroit are functionally illiterate, referring to the inability of an individual to use reading, speaking, writing, and computational skills in everyday life situations.

We also know that of the 200,000 adults who are functionally illiterate, approximately half have a high school diploma or GED, so this issue cannot be solely addressed by a focus on adult high-school completion.

The remaining 100,000 of these functionally illiterate adults (age 25 and older) lack a high school diploma or GED, another prerequisite for employment success.

Karen Tyler-Ruiz, who is the Director of the DRWF, spoke to local newsradio station WWJ about just how serious the implications of this study are for the city of Detroit. She said, Not able to fill out basic forms, for getting a job  those types of basic everyday (things). Reading a prescription; whats on the bottle, how many you should take just your basic everyday tasks. I dont really know how they get by, but they do. Are they getting by well? Well, thats another question. (RELATED: Get more news like this at Mind.news)

This study mirrors concerns brought to light in a current lawsuit against the State of Michigan over whether or not literacy is a right owed by all citizens. According to The Detroit News, Governor Rick Snyder made an alarming statement suggesting that Detroit students have no fundamental rights to literacy. Attorneys for Gov. Snyder and state education officials are asking a federal judge to dismiss the case. Per the same news site, the lawsuit, which was filed September 13, 2016, was brought by seven students alleging that for years Detroit schools have been allowed to deteriorate with little to no improvement. This has assisted in greatly impairing the level of education to which these students are subjected. The plaintiffs were students at schools that are considered to be the lowest performing in the district.

The motion, which was filed with the U.S. District Court in Detroit, details disgraceful school building conditions, the scarcity of updated and quality books, the decline of teachers present in school classrooms, and pest outbreaks, among the problems being faced by the students in these schools. Timothy J. Haynes, the assistant attorney general attempting to get the case dismissed, is arguing that these issues go beyond access to education.

Haynes also states that Michigan has not been responsible for Detroit school operations since 1999. According to Detroit News, he said, Contrary to plaintiffs assertions, the state never ran any of the schools, although emergency managers have been appointed to supplant local authority, where necessary.

If the court finds in their favor, the plaintiffs hope that the Court will order the State to take control of the situation and implement guidelines that will improve the literacy of students in the Detroit public school system. In addition, they hope that the schools will take the appropriate measures to bring building conditions up to standard so that students can learn without the distractions caused by outdated, dilapidated structures.

Find more news about how the government treats the voters like sheeple at Sheeple.news.

Sources:

Detroit.CBSLocal.com

BoingBoing.net

CBSDetroit.Files.WordPress.com[PDF]

DetroitNews.com
Wednesday, March 29, 2017 by: Ethan Huff Tags: slave labor , Subway , Wages This article may contain statements that reflect the opinion of the author

(Natural News) Officials in the United Kingdom have launched a new program that aims to educate more young people and better facilitate their transition into the workforce through paid apprenticeships. But the program is already being exploited by multinational corporations like Subway, which was recently exposed for offering pittance wages to young people willing to make sandwiches and clean restaurants.

The U.K.s Independent says advertisements on a government website, which have since been removed, offered to pay young people the U.S. equivalent of about $4 per hour to assume positions at Subway restaurants as Apprentice Sandwich Artists. Its a classy-sounding title, but the description basically describes an average Subway employee throwing meat on a hoagie, scrubbing the bread ovens, and calling the whole thing healthy.

A screenshot of the now-removed Subway advertisement for the apprenticeship positions can be viewed online.

Successful candidates, the advertisement went on, would be paid a whopping $150 per week to work nine-hour shifts from 8a.m. to 5p.m., five days per week. Using traditional math, this adds up to 40 hours per week, minus a one-hour lunch break per day. But on the advertisement, Subway attempted to use some kind of crazy common core math, enticing potential applicants with promises of only having to work 35 hours per week.

The entire charade caught the attention of the media because it showed that Subway is hardly interested in training the next generation and offering young people a leg-up into the emerging workforce. Instead, Subway had attempted to take advantage of a program meant for good by turning it into a cheap labor pool, from which it might draw unwitting individuals into the sandwich-making scheme. (RELATED: More groundbreaking news on industry and government corruption is available at Corruption.News.)

National officer Rhys McCarthy from the U.K. labor union Unite wasnt too keen on Subways abuse of the program, having told The Independent that the Subway advertisement stretches the definition of apprenticeship to a breaking point.

The multi-national sandwich maker is looking more like a rip off artist, he added.

Multinational corporations will stop at nothing to exploit humans for profit

The purpose of an apprenticeship is to teach young people the ropes of a new industry so that by the time they graduate from school, they are ready to enter the workforce with usable skills. Being sucked into Subways sandwich assembly line for mere pennies per day hardly qualifies as a honest apprenticeship, and this is precisely the type of thing that U.K. officials and labor unions like Unite want to stamp out.

We certainly dont expect rich multi-nationals like Subway to be exploiting young people in this way, McCarthy emphasized.

Part of the problem is the way the U.K. government set up the apprenticeship program, which outlines merely the number of new apprenticeships that it hopes to see created. There is no distinction made between quality of apprenticeships versus quantity of apprenticeships; or, in other words, which beckons predatory industries like fast food to weasel their way into the program.

The U.K.s National Audit Office isnt happy with the program either, at least in its current form. If nearly $2 billion worth of public money is going to be funneled into this type of program, then it needs to have proper accountability built into it to ensure that young people are actually learning new skills and being given a real education into their respective industries. Apart from these important metrics, there is no way to assess whether or not the program is a success, nor to evaluate the draw such a flawed system will have for multinational corporations to take advantage of for profit.

Sources for this article include:

Independent.co.uk

FoxNews.com
(Natural News) The rusty patched bumblebee was, at one time, an ordinary bee with a substantial population across the US. But the once-common bee has fallen prey to human action, and the number of these little pollinators has declined drastically. Over the last two decades, the rusty patched bumblebee population has declined by a staggering 90 percent, rendering them the first bee species to be declared endangered in the contiguous United States. On March 21, 2017, the United States Fish and Wildlife Service listed the rusty patched bumblebee as endangered under the Endangered Species Act.

There are many factors in the decline of bee populations: Habitat destruction, disease, pesticides and GMO agriculture are all thought to play a role in the decimation of one of our most needed species of insects. Bees are essential to the pollination of many crops grown for food, and it is doubtful that the loss of these little critters will come without consequences.

The decimation of what was previously a widespread and common bee species shows just how damaging human impact can be. And while many pesticide and herbicide manufacturers, like Monsanto, claim that their products are bee safe, it is clear that simply is not the case.

Monsanto and their ilk have indeed played a substantial role in the devastating decline in bumblebees. Research has shown that glyphosate, which is the most widely used herbicide in the states, can be very harmful to bees.

How Monsanto harms bees

Past research has shown that glyphosate is capable of doing serious damage to bees, even at sub-lethal doses that are equivalent to what may typically be found in the environment. In 2014, researchers from Argentina found that Roundup can actually cause bees to starve by interfering with their senses.

In the study, the researchers used field-relevant doses of glyphosate to examine its effects, and what they found was shocking. Glyphosate exposure actually decreased the bees sensitivity to sucrose, which resulted in a decreased ability to find food. Exposed bees also exhibited poor memory and decreased learning capacity. The researchers noted that bees that come into contact with glyphosate were also more likely to experience Colony Collapse Disorder, most likely because the herbicide renders them unable to find their way back to the hive.

The team also found that indirect exposure to the herbicide occurred as well. After being exposed to glyphosate while gathering nectar, the bees then brought traces of the toxic chemical back to their hives, poisoning the rest of the colony as well. The researchers found that exposure to glyphosate from tainted nectar reduced the entire colonys ability to function normally.

In the studys abstract, the researchers wrote, [W]e speculate that successful forager bees could become a source of constant inflow of nectar with GLY [glyphosate] traces that could then be distributed among nestmates, stored in the hive and have long-term negative consequences on colony performance.

Given that glyphosate is one of the most widely used agrochemicals in the world, the fact that it can cause bees to lose their hives and impair their foraging abilities is quite concerning. While glyphosate is not the only chemical that is known to harm bees, it certainly may be the most common.

Glyphosate, of course, is not the only item produced by Monsanto that has had catastrophic effects on the environment. For example, the nitrogen fertilizers used for Monsantos GM crops have seriously depleted soil quality across the country, and has reduced the soils ability to soak up carbon. In essence, these fertilizers are turning farmland into veritable deserts where nothing useful can grow. GM crops are also associated with a loss of biodiversity, and the elimination of flowering weeds that many pollinators use as a source of nectar.

So in addition to their grievously harmful herbicide, Roundup, being sprayed across the US, Monsanto also contributes to bee deaths in other ways, such as reducing pollinator food sources and habitats. Being that glyphosate is the most-used herbicide in the country, it stands to reason that the harmful effects of this herbicide cause more harm, simply because it is used more often than other chemicals. But, the fact remains that many types of pesticides and agrochemicals can harm bees.

Sources:

Independent.co.uk

FWS.gov

Glyphosate.news

OrganicConsumers.org

OneGreenPlanet.org




MELBOURNE, Florida  Brevard County Sheriff Jack Parker addressed the media at a news conference today regarding the shooting death of a Brevard County Sheriff deputy. Parker said:





Our worst nightmare has come true. One of our own, an incredible deputy sheriff by the name of Barbara Pill was shot and killed in the line of duty this morning. She was responding to a call where two individuals were seen stealing things from the Econo-Lodge on 192.





She pulled over the suspect vehicle. She approached the suspect vehicle. When they wouldnt respond to her commands, she called for back up. Back up was coming to her. When she was waiting for back up, he opened fire on her striking her multiple times, killing her. At which time they fled the scene. There were witnesses to the crime. The suspects tried to abandon their vehicle in a neighborhood, when a person in the neighborhood saw and engaged them, they got back into their vehicle.





Melbourne PD was able to successfully deploy stop sticks. The individual took the corner at too high rate of a speed. The stop stick disabled the front tires and he went into the drainage ditch. Law enforcement did their best to extract the individuals without further injury. Both individuals are in custody at this time.





Barbara is very highly decorated, and has been with us for 15 years. Shes been a agent, a field training officer, she is the kind of person we could depend on to do anything.





She is also from a family of law enforcement. She was one never to stray away from danger.





The individuals who we believe killed Barbara is Brandon Lee Bradley. He has a very long criminal history with two felony convictions in 2007. There were four pending active warrants for him.





The person who was with him, 19-year-old Andrea Michelle Kershner. She has a criminal history of larceny petty theft, marijuana possession, and battery. Certainly not as violent as his.





Deputies who responded to her [Barbara], took care of her. We had other deputies pursue the individuals.





You have a situation beginning with stealing minor items from a motel, and it ends in the first degree murder of a deputy sheriff. In this case, your dealing with a guy who has active warrants and he knows it. He doesnt want to go back to prison.





Id like to thank the law enforcement support, Melbourne PD is the reason we were able to catch this guy and bring him to justice.





This family is an amazing family. Just to give them time to grieve, we are not releasing their indivudaly names. Barbara has been married over 30 years.





She raised two boys who became excellent officers. one of them married one of our crime scene techs.





We are going to miss Barbara very much.









Nearby Melbourne resident Tony Webster said, I heard several gunshots at approximately 11:10 am and this sounded like about 8 rounds from a semi-automatic weapon. Subsequently, there was about 10 minutes of steady sirens from police and other emergency vehicles. Webster added that neighborhood residents are permitted to leave there homes on foot, but not in a vehicle. Media are not being permitted in the neighborhood near the scene.








A Brevard Times Editorial







Two events marked the decimation of the Lagoons environment. First, there was the loss of over 60% of seagrass coverage from 2009 through 2012. Second, there was the Indian River Lagoon Algae Superbloom that lasted from April 2011 through March 2012. Both events were extraordinary because no events of that scale had ever been recorded in the Lagoons history.

Both ecological disasters followed a boom-and-bust economic cycle, suffered the over-grazing of natural grasses, and had a perfect storm of meteorological bad luck combined with human causes.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida  Several comparisons can be drawn between the American Dust Bowl of the 1930s and the recent plight of the Indian River Lagoon on Floridas east coast.

Fukushima Radiation Fallout In Florida and the Indian River Lagoon Superbloom of 2011 Following the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant disaster on March 11, 2011, radioactive fission product material began to spread across the globe. As seen in this time lapse video map of Fukushima radiation distribution across the world, Florida had the meteorological bad luck of being under a concentrated atmospheric radioactive swirl from the second half of March through April 2011.

Instead of addressing those widely-published common causes, this article takes a look at other extraordinary events that occurred which may have led to the seagrass disappearance and the 2011 Superbloom. While nothing in this article is conclusive, it does raise several factors that scientists and politicians have overlooked, but must examine, for both the integrity of scientific inquiry and the legitimacy of public policy lawmaking.

It was more surprising that the event even happened at all given the long-term drought conditions during the 2009  2011 period [and the] decreasing trend in treated wastewater discharges  drought means comparatively little rainfall-runoffThe other major external sources  atmospheric and groundwater  are similarly affected by rainfall and would be diminished during the same period. Therefore; notwithstanding some unreported nutrient-laden discharge, an internal flux of nutrients may be the primary mechanism that fueled the bloom.  (Emphasis added).

In fact, the Saint Johns River Management Districts Indian River Lagoon 2011 Superbloom Investigation noted that scientists could be missing a key piece of the puzzle:

But the strongest evidence against those particular human-related common causes was the geographical location of the start of the Superbloom in the northernmost portion of the Banana River that is bordered by sparse populations because the federal lands of the Kennedy Space Center, Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Canaveral National Seashore, and the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge make up most of that areas landmass.

Despite those events being historically extraordinary statistical outliers, many environmentalists blamed the Lagoons demise on causes that have otherwise remained constant (or even dropped) such as fertilizers, sewage, muck, grass clippings, runoff, pet waste, and even global warming. Some media followed suit by publishing article after article listing those factors while struggling for proof of a causal relationship. Politicians then held meetings, workshops, and began enacting laws and ordinances without clear evidence as to the cause or a definitive cure of the recent seagrass loss and Superbloom.

Those extraordinary events were followed by an unusually high number of manatee deaths beginning in 2012 and continuing throughout 2013. Unusually high dolphin and pelican deaths were also recorded during 2013.

Those extraordinary events were followed by an unusually high number of manatee deaths beginning in 2012 and continuing throughout 2013. Unusually high dolphin and pelican deaths were also recorded during 2013.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ohPgE9oDg9c]

Video Credit: Zentralanstalt fur Meteorologie und Geodynamik (ZAMG)





As a result, Melbourne, Florida in Brevard County recorded the highest single day concentration of Iodine-131 of anywhere in the world, according to measurements taken by the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty Organization. Xenon and Cesium were also detected in Melbourne. Additionally, Cesium-134, 136 and 137; Iodine-131 and 132; and Tellurium-129m and 132 were detected by air filters in nearby Orlando, Florida. North of the Indian River Lagoon, Cesium-134 and Iodine-131 were detected in rainfall in Jacksonville, Florida.

Graphic Credit: National Weather Service

While the radioactive material was overhead and falling onto Florida, severe weather with strong winds, waterspouts, hail, and heavy rainfall fell over east Central Florida during the last few days of March.

As shown in the above graphic, the heaviest rainfall amounts occurred over the Indian River and Banana River in the northern half of Brevard County and correspond geographically where the most intense Superbloom first erupted in April 2011 depicted below.

Graphic Credit: SJRMD  Fukushima radiation symbol added by Brevard Times



The extraordinary event of radioactive material present over the Lagoon followed by severe weather and heavy rainfall that would wash the fission products down from the atmosphere onto the surrounding watershed and into the Lagoon basin raises several questions:



1. During atomic testing in the 1950s, it was discovered that certain species of algae not only survive, but thrive, when absorbing certain radioactive materials. It is suggested by some scientific research that this absorption also causes some algae to become toxic, or at the very least, bad tasting to its predators which allows algae to grow uninhibited.

If fission product materials did indeed enter the Indian River Lagoon, it would explain why algae blooms erupted in military-restricted areas of the Lagoon that are away from civilian populations where fertilizer, sewage, grass clippings, and pet waste would not have been a factor.

2. Did the introduction of fission product materials into the Lagoon cause some species of algae to awaken from a dormant state? This might explain why the unidentified Pedinophyceae class of algae was brought out of its quiescent state and dominated the Superbloom.

3. Of all fission products, Iodine-131 is the most dreaded because exposure to low doses can lead to thyroid cell damage, cancer, and metabolic disorders. Iodine-131 also dissolves easily in water which allows it to move easily into plants and animals. What effect, if any, did the direct exposure of Iodine-131 and other fission products have on marine life in the Lagoon, especially marine mammals such as dolphins and manatees?

4. Beyond algal growth, what were the secondary and tertiary effects of radioactive material throughout the food web in the Indian River Lagoon?

5. Did the introduction of fission product materials into the Lagoon, followed by absorption by algae and other biological organisms, cause those organisms to create biochemical toxins that were not present in the Lagoon before the Fukushima disaster?

6. Did the severe weather by itself, notwithstanding the fission products, stir settled nutrients and dormant algae in the Lagoon to cause the Superbloom?

Readers may wonder why the timing of the Fukushima radiation and the Superbloom hasnt been raised before. It could simply be that it is not widely known that the radioactive materials reached the Indian River Lagoon. In fact, Brevard Times was the only local news source that reported on the Fukushima radiation cloud over Brevard County in Spring 2011.

Additionally, the radiation levels were deemed safe by the Florida Department of Health and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. So the media was not alerted and the public was not instructed to take potassium iodine as a preventative measure against thyroid damage.

While the Fukushima disaster might explain the 2011 Superbloom, it cannot explain why seagrass has been disappearing from the Lagoon beginning in 2009. The most often-cited hypothesis for the seagrass loss by some environmentalists goes something like this:









Fertilizer and sewage send nutrients into the Lagoon, algae feeds on the nutrients,

algae blooms block out sunlight and kill off the seagrass; therefore,

fertilizer and sewage are the reasons why the seagrass disappeared

and the Indian River Lagoon is dying.









But there are geographic and timing flaws to that logic chain when applied to the 2009-2012 seagrass disappearance.

First, seagrass disappeared in areas where there are sparse populations due to federally-protected land surrounding Kennedy Space Center in the northern portions of the Banana and Indian Rivers. Additionally, drought conditions produced little runoff from 2009 to 2011.

Second, the timing of the seagrass disappearance could not have been caused by algal blooms in 2009 and 2010 because there were no statistically outlying algal blooms in Brevard County during those years to kill off the seagrass in such a large quantity.

Moreover, the housing bust coupled with the wind down of NASAs Space Shuttle program left 1 out of every 5 homes on Floridas Space Coast unoccupied, according to the U.S. Census 2008-2012 American Community Survey. Instead of a rise in over-fertilized properties in Brevard during that time, just the opposite was occurring as more and more underwater and foreclosed properties were left neglected.

Graphic Credit: SJRMD. Tropical Storm Fay, Florida Fish and Wildlife Manatee Count, Coldest Winter, Fukushima, and Superbloom added by Brevard Times

Ignoring the 1,500 Pound Sea Cow in the Lagoon

As the above graphic shows, there appears to be an inverse relationship with the manatee population counts and seagrass acreage whenever the manatee count exceeds around 1,700 on Floridas East Coast (the Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission cautions that the published manatee survey count provides a minimum count of manatees, but it does not provide an accurate population estimate).

According to a research study performed by the University of Florida and the U.S. Geological Survey in 2012, the record-breaking manatee population has grown so much in the last decade that they may be reclassified by wildlife management officials from endangered to threatened.

An 800 to 1,200 pound adult sea cow can eat up 10% to 15% of its body weight daily in aquatic vegetation which mostly consists of seagrass. According to a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Manatee Recovery Plan, manatees sometime graze on seagrass which leaves the possibility for regrowth  but manatees also root seagrass  meaning the entire plant is pulled and the underwater sediment is disturbed. Based on those consumption rates, an average manatee can consume and/or destroy around 3 acres of seagrass a year, depending on the density of the seagrass per acre.



It is likely that the removal of the photosynthetic potential of leaves by grazing sea turtles decreased the production and storage of photosynthate in the seagrasses, slowing their growth and reducing the ability of the seagrasses to recover from unfavorable environmental conditions. This makes the effects on seagrasses of the grazing by sea turtles similar to the effects of severe light reduction. (Emphasis added).



Could manatees have consumed all the seagrass that disappeared from 2009-2011?



Even if 2,000 manatees consumed and/or destroyed 3 acres of seagrass per year, that would only amount to 18,000 acres of seagrass (2000 manatees x 3 acres x 3 years). So manatee consumption alone would not have accounted for the total loss of approximately 30,000 acres of seagrass during 2009-2011. Additionally, the amount of seagrass consumed by manatees should have been mitigated by the re-growth of seagrass over those three years.

However, just like in the sea turtle study, the record-breaking manatee population and corresponding increased seagrass consumption could have put enough pressure on the seagrass to reduce its ability to recover from unfavorable environmental conditions such as decreased salinity in the Lagoon from record-breaking rainfall caused by Tropical Storm Fay in 2008, the coldest winter on record in 2009-2010, drought conditions during 2009-2011, and the Superbloom during 2011-2012.

The additional pressure put on on the seagrass by an increased manatee population coupled by weather extremes could have caused a tipping point where less seagrass meant that other herbivores, with less grazing areas, put additional pressure on the remaining seagrass which started the spiraling loss of over 30,000 acres of seagrass before the Superbloom of March 2011.

Also, seagrass absorbs and stores nitrogen and phosphorous. When manatees consume seagrass, they then discharge that stored nitrogen and phosphorous as waste which becomes free nutrients in the Lagoon. The waste from increased manatee population could be the internal flux of nutrients that the Superbloom Investigation hypothesized. Manatee waste, disturbed by severe weather in late March 2011, could also explain why the Superbloom occurred near Kennedy Space Center where there are sparse populations and military-restricted waterways.

The manatees population comeback resulted in another extraordinary event in recent years. Residents in Vero Beach witnessed the full extent of the sea cows voracious appetites end product in 2009 when a mile-long stretch of manatee fecal matter closed area beaches.





Ive never seen anything like it, and Ive lived along beaches all my life, beach-goer Bill Becker told TCPalm . It was disgusting, but mystifying. It looked like Great Dane poop all along the beach.

If weather, manatee overpopulation, and Fukushima fission products were the cause of the other extraordinary events, what does that mean for saving the Indian River Lagoon?



The section of the Banana River north of State Road 528, bordered by federal land and away from civilian populations is the closest sample set we have to a scientific control group for the Indian River Lagoons issues. The occurrence of seagrass loss, algae blooms, dolphin and manatee deaths in that area means that hypothesized causes have to overcome a geographic logic hurdle. Extreme weather, severe weather, Fukushima fission products, and a manatee population rebound overcome that geographic logic hurdle. Moreover, timing is another logic hurdle that not only do those causes overcome, but actually appear to be correlated.

This also means that those extraordinary events have already come and passed and that focus should be placed on restoring the Lagoon rather than wasting precious time and resources on other issues that can be ruled out by time and geography.

There is nothing that decision-makers can do about the weather events or Fukushima fission products that have already occurred. However, the Fukushima radiation issue could open up avenues to more government agency resources for the Lagoon.

The manatee population rebound on the other hand, is something that decision-makers can address and solve. If over 70,000 acres of seagrass could not support the manatee population, then less than 30,000 acres of the remaining seagrass most certainly cannot.

The manatees could continue to devour what remains of the seagrass until none is left and then starve or die of poisoning from eating alternative food sources. All other animals that rely on the food web that the seagrass supports, including fish, sea turtles, dolphins, the American Bald Eagle, migratory birds, pelicans and other seabirds would also die off as a result. If the recent rate of seagrass loss continues (10k to 15k acres per year), a total ecological collapse could occur in the Lagoon by 2015.



Three years have been squandered researching and debating every possible, but certainly less probable, reasons for the seagrass disappearance other than the manatee population rebound. The least expensive and quickest solution would be to erect manatee exclusion barriers in strategic locations throughout the Indian River Lagoon to allow large seagrass beds to grow undisturbed.



The manatee population rebound has also resulted in a lack of genetic diversity where inbreeding could become a problem, according to UF researchers. Intensive management of the Indian River Lagoons manatee population should be put to the forefront as a possible solution for both the health of the Lagoon and the health of the manatee population.
The U.S. Department of the Interior announced on Thursday the downlisting of the West Indian manatee from endangered to threatened. Notable increases in manatee populations and improvements in its habitat allowed the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) to change the species status under the Endangered Species Act (ESA).



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The downlisting means that the manatee is no longer considered in danger of extinction throughout all or a significant portion of its range, but is likely to become so in the foreseeable future without continued ESA protections.

Reclassification of manatees has been pending since 2007 , when the USFWS first announced its intention to move manatees from the endangered list  meaning they were in imminent danger of extinction  to the threatened list, meaning they possibly could become at risk of extinction in the foreseeable future.

Todays estimated population of 6,620 Florida manatees is a dramatic turnaround from the 1970s, when just a few hundred individuals remained. But the manatees continued high population count could spell trouble for the dying Indian River Lagoon . Thats because an 800 to 1,200 pound adult sea cow can eat up 10% to 15% of its body weight daily in aquatic vegetation which mostly consists of seagrass.

As the below graphic shows, there appears to be an inverse relationship with the manatee population counts and seagrass acreage in the Indian River Lagoon whenever the manatee count exceeds around 1,700 on Floridas East Coast.

For the fist time in the decades-long debate between manatee activists and the boating community, the Florida Department of Environmental Protection (FDEP) acknowledged that the increased manatee population does have an effect on nutrient load and seagrass loss in the Indian River Lagoon following a Brevard Times investigation in 2014

At the time the seagrass TMDLs were developed [in 2009], manatees were not considered as major nutrient contributors to the Indian River Lagoon because not all the data needed to quantify the manatee nutrient contribution were available. It is worth noting that manatees have been part of the Indian River Lagoon ecosystem for a long time, FDEP stated in an email to Brevard Times.

Based on the Departments Nutrient and Dissolved Oxygen TMDLs for the Indian River Lagoon and Banana River Lagoon report (FDEP, 2009), the long-term annual average TN [Total Nitrogen] and TP [Total Phosphorous] loads entering the Indian River Lagoon system are about 1511 tons and 216 tons, respectively. The 25 to 109 tons of TN and 2 to 7 tons of TP contributed by manatees only account for about 1.7% to 6.7% of TN loads and 0.7% to 3.0% of TP loads entering the Indian River Lagoon system.

Manatees should actually be classed as a recovered species  meaning they are neither endangered nor threatened, and not listed within the ESA, said Robert Atkins, president of Citizens For Floridas Waterways, a Brevard County-based advocacy group for recreational boaters.

Atkins notes that delaying the decision longer than the decade it has taken would be a disservice to the integrity of the Endangered Species Act (ESA). The people must have faith in the honest assessment of Government Agencies. In this case, Atkins emphasizes that the best available science confirms there is zero chance of manatee extinction over the next 100 years.

But the Save the Manatee Club contends that the declassification was premature and blames the Trump administration.

FWS decided to prematurely downlist manatees without a proven viable plan for reducing record-high watercraft-related manatee deaths and without establishing a long-term plan for the anticipated loss of artificial winter warm water habitat on which more than 60% of the Florida manatee population depends, said Patrick Rose, Executive Director for Save the Manatee Club. A federal reclassification at this time will seriously undermine the chances of securing the manatees long- term survival. With the new federal administration threating to cut 75% of regulations, including those that protect our wildlife and air and water quality, the move to downlist manatees can only be seen as a political one.

Photo credit: FWC
Posted by Mark Williams | March 31, 2017

Concept vehicles, at least those developed by automakers, are usually futuristic versions of what a vehicle might look like one or two generations ahead. But sometimes a company such as Toyota will produce a one-off special vehicle to highlight interesting features; these vehicles are more down-to-earth and just plain fun.

As a "big thank you" to the people of Australia for making the global Toyota Hilux pickup truck one of the country's most popular vehicles  almost 1 million have been sold since its introduction in 1968 (530,000 4x4s, and 390,000 4x2s)  big-toy specialist Toyota and small-toy specialist Tonka have joined forces to create a special-edition off-roading pickup built for adventure.

The Hilux Tonka Concept was the brainchild of Nicolas Hogios, product and design chief for Toyota Australia. Hogios said he was "inspired by the Tonka trucks kids play with in their backyard," and that he wanted to make something special, ready to traverse rocks, rugged terrain and push personal boundaries.

The Hilux Tonka is a double-cab SR5 with a turbo-diesel 2.8-liter inline four-cylinder. It comes with a 6-inch suspension lift to accommodate the custom-made 35-inch mud and sand tires. The custom front bumper has a high-clearance skid plate made from 6-mm-thick aluminum and includes a winch and heavy-duty tow hooks, presumably for rescuing others from mishaps.

The high-mounted rear bumper and bodywork have been modified to provide for better departure angles. The Concept also features a custom tailgate and high-performance LED lighting. Inside the bed the Hilux Tonka has extra water tanks, two fuel cans, fire extinguishers, spare tools and parts, and a full-size spare.

We don't know if Toyota will decide to eventually produce the special-edition Hilux Tonka Concept for Australia, but we'd like to see that happen. What we do know is that Toyota will be showing a special 4x4 vehicle at the 2017 New York International Auto Show in April.

Coincidence? We'll have to wait and see if we might get something similar to the Hilux Tonka or if there might be a new Toyota four-wheeler on the horizon.

Manufacturer images




















































Remembering the glorious past on the last day and last show of Delhi's premier theatre, Regal Cinema, its owner nodded in affirmation that it's not the end. Rather, it will take them a year to come back as a multiplex to relive the past glory again. While talking to ANI yesterday here, one of its owner Vishal Chaudhary said, "I am feeling very nostalgic that today is the last show. But, it was inevitable and we could see it coming. People are feeling sad about it, but it's not the end. We are going to open up soon and it will take us a year's time to come back again." Adding, "It's such a historic place and we want Regal to relive its glorious past again. We want to relive that past again." Talking about restoring back the glory of Regal to its hay day, Smita Datta Makhija, consolation architect of Regal Cinema said, "Only thing that we wish is to restore back the glory of this place." While sharing the fond memories of the movie theatre, an entrepreneur Keval Panjrath, who came for to witness the last day last show, said, "I am coming here since the time I got married in early 80s and its 37 years now. Today, I have come to watch the last show in this theater 'Sangam' as I share many beautiful memories of it." Getting nostalgic about the closing of an age old cinema, another guest, Ashok Ahuja, said, "Two days back I read in newspaper that Regal Theater is about to close. Since then, I am trying to buy a ticket for the movie. We (Me and my wife) have a different attachment with this theater, an attachment from long." Regal was among the earliest to lend its screen to arthouse fare. Films of Mrinal Sen, Shyam Benegal and later Goutam Ghose were played to discerning audiences. The arthouse fare usually started in daily four shows but settled for a longer innings in the morning show. The hall had 154 balcony seats, rear star 285, box 40 and 179 front seats. (ANI)
Looks like comedian Kapil Sharma's infamous mid-air scuffle with Sunil Grover has taken a toll on his show, 'The Kapil Sharma Show,' as it may be heading towards a curtain call. The show is reportedly scheduled for a renewal for another season in April, which will reportedly be a deal of Rs 106 crore, but according to a source, a fresh season seems unlikely. The insider added that since the crew and other celebrities are unwilling to turn up for the episodes, the channel and the makers might have to take a tough decision of killing the show. In a Facebook post on Saturday, Sunil Grover announced an upcoming show, titled Dr Mashoor Gulati's Comedy Clinic, featuring Kiku Sharda and other actors. The gig is scheduled to be held on April 1 in Delhi. Meanwhile, rumour had it that comedian Raju Srivastava was replacing Grover, who features as the characters Rinku Bhabhi and Dr Mashoor Gulati on the show. Not just that, there are rumours that Navjot Singh Sidhu might also have to quit the show due to his government job as a minister. Earlier, the 'Kis Kisko Pyaar Karoon' star allegedly verbally abused and assaulted Sunil Grover with a shoe while 'The Kapil Sharma Show' crew was flying out of Australia. Later, Kapil took to his Facebook page to share an apology to Grover, to which the 'Gabbar is Back' star responded saying "Yes, you hurt me deeply." (ANI)
Agartala city police arrested one Raja Dey, a cashier posted in Prime Minister Gram Sadak Yojana (PMGSY) under PWD department from his rented house at B K Road here for embezzlement of Rs 52 lakh of the project. Police also recovered Bank Pass Books of different Banks, four mobile phones and a sizable amount of gold ornaments from his possession besides, other expensive households and belongings. Police arrested Dey last night following an FIR filed by the executive engineer of PMGSY on February 15 last alleging that he defalcated Rs 52 lakh by forging fake signature of the executive engineer. Based on a secret information police raided his rented house and arrested him. Allegedly, he has looted Rs 52 lakh by 17 cheques forging the signature.UNI BB BM -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0214-1210595.Xml
East Coast Railway( ECoR ) Chief Public Relation Officer Jyoti Mishra said about 15 to 20 armed rebels entered the station at about 0130 hours, pushed out the staff and blasted the station.

The Red ultras had left posters at the station opposing the visit of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to Odisha on April 15 to attend BJP's National Council body meeting.

They also blasted an engine of a goods train standing at the station and left the station at about 0200 hours.

As a result movement of trains in the Rayagada Titlagarh section between Muniguda and Ambadola was hampered.

Partial services resumed after the police gave clearance at about 0900 hours today.

Mr Mishra said only goods trains were being run with restricted sped. Express and passenger trains had been detained and controlled at various stations. Trains held up outside Doikalu station were now being brought to the station.

The CPRO said only after the goods train reach the Doikalu station, will they think of running Express and passenger trains controlled at various stations.

As many as nine long distance Express trains had been detained and controlled at various stations since the attack.MORE UNI DP BM PL

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A day after Bihar Legislative Council was rocked by the issue of his misbehavior with a woman MLC, BJP MLC and state party vice president Lal Babu Prasad was suspended from the party today. Former Deputy Chief Minister and Leader of Opposition in the state legislative council Sushil Kumar Modi told newspersons that Mr Prasad had been suspended from the party with immediate effect for his misbehavior with an LJP MLC Nutan Singh. Mr Modi said Mr Prasad had also been sacked from all party posts. He said Mr Prasad had not been given any post in the reconstituted state party executive. The party had also issued a show cause notice to the MLC to clarify his position on the issue. The pre-lunch session of Bihar Legislative Council had witnessed uproarious scenes yesterday when members of ruling parties demanded action against the BJP MLC for his alleged misbehaviour with a woman member of LJP in the house premises last Wednesday. Chairman Awadhesh Narayan Singh had asserted that he would not allow any such event which could tarnish the image of the House. He said the matter would be forwarded to disciplinary committee if the situation so warranted. As it is, BJP MLA Neeraj Kumar Babloo had reportedly thrashed his party MLC Lal Babu Prasad inside the state legislative council premises when Mr Prasad had allegedly misbehaved with Mr Babloo`s wife and LJP MLC Ms Singh.UNI DH IS BM -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0214-1210718.Xml
The Supreme Court today stayed the Uttarakhand state high court order, which had directed a complete prohibition of sale and consumption of liquor from April 1, 2017, in the state. A bench, headed by Chief Justice of India Jagdish Singh Khehar and also comprising Justice DY Chandrachud passed the order after hearing from the state Additional Advocate General , Mukesh Kumar Giri, and other parties, including the respondent. The apex court also issued a notice to the petitioner, Narayan Tiwari, which had filed the plea in the state High Court. Mr Giri contended that the state High Court had exceeded its jurisdiction. The Uttarakhand High Court in its order had said that the state government was directed to impose a complete ban on possession, distribution, collection, sale and purchase of liquor in the state from April 1st onwards. Challenging the order, the state had moved the apex court seeking relief in the case. UNI XC RP1550 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0431-1210901.Xml
The chargesheet also contains the name of Singh's wife Pratibha along with others, bringing the total upto nine.

Life Insurance Corporation agent Anand Chauhan, his associate Chunni Lal, Joginder Singh Ghalta, Prem Raj, Lawan Kumar Roach, Vakamullah Chandrashekhra and Ram Prakash Bhatia have been named in the chargesheet.

The fresh blow to the Chief Minister comes after the Delhi High Court dismissed his plea challenging the FIR filed by the CBI in the Disproportionate Assets case.

The CBI had registered an FIR for alleged property of Rs. six crore amassed between 2009-12 during Virbhadra's tenure as the union steel minister.

The Chief Minister had earlier dubbed the CBI action as "politically motivated".

Virbhadra and his family members are also facing investigation by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) on same charges.

The CBI had registered a case earlier in 2015.

Virbhadra had initially filed a plea in the Himachal Pradesh High Court for quashing the FIR registered against him.

The matter was later transferred to the Delhi High Court by the Supreme Court. (ANI)
The Animal Preservation (Amendment) Act of 2011 earlier had a seven-year sentence and Rs 50,000-fine levied for those found guilty of slaughtering a cow or transporting beef.

Earlier, Gujarat Chief Minister Vijay Rupani had hinted that his government is thinking of introducing a Bill in the Assembly with more stringent punishments for slaughtering the animal.

The move comes months before the Gujarat Assembly polls. (ANI)
Delhi High Court today dismissed the plea of Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh and his wife who had sought quashing of a disproportionate assets case. The Supreme Court has transferred the case from Himachal Pradesh High Court to Delhi High Court on November 5 last year by passing an order that it was not expressing any opinion on the merits of the suit, but "simply" transferring the petition "in interest of justice and to save the institution (judiciary) from any embarrassment".Delhi High Court Justice Vipin Sanghi also vacated the Himachal Pradesh High Court's interim order of October 1, 2015 restraining the Central Bureau of Investigation from arresting, interrogating or filing a charge sheet in the case without the court's permission. The Court said "The writ petition is dismissed. Stay is vacated." More UNI XC RP1603 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0431-1210928.Xml
Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath today visited Kanha Upvan-a gau shala (Cowshed) accompanied by Samajwadi Party (SP) leader and daughter-in-law of SP patron Mulayam Singh Yadav, Aparna Yadav and her husband Prateek Yadav in the state capital here.Mr Yogi said more shelters like this should be opened for stray animals. Deputy Chief Minister Dinesh Sharma, Town Development Minister Suresh Khanna and Minister of State for Women Development and Child Welfare Swati Singh were also present.Ms Aparna, under whose NGO the Upvan functions, had invited the Chief Minister to visit the Kanha Upvan during her courtesy meeting with him. Caretaker of Upvan Ashok Srivastava said more than 800 cows and bulls are getting shelter here, adding that a team of eight doctors takes care of these animals.UNI JDM SDR RJ 1624 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0431-1210972.Xml
The Hyderabad High Court Friday acquitted a youth who was sentenced to life in 2010 in the sensational rape and murder case of a student in Andhra Pradesh. It also directed the Andhra Pradesh government to pay Rs 1 lakh compensation to Pidatala Satyam Babu, who spent eight years in jail without any evidence of his involvement, while ordering action against the police officers, who investigated the case. The Mahila Sessions Court in Vijayawada on September 30, 2010 had sentenced Satyam Babu to life imprisonment for the rape and murder of Ayesha Meera. The family of the youth had challenged the lower court's order in then Andhra Pradesh and now Hyderabad High Court, which is serving both the states of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh. The 19-year-old B. Pharmacy student was raped and brutally murdered in a private women's hostel in Ibrahimpatnam near Vijayawada on December 27, 2007. The victim's naked blood soaked body was found in the hostel toilet with legs and hands tied to water tap and an iron rod, with her own dress. Police had found a love letter written allegedly by the killer, a left foot print in her room and handwritten word by marker 'Chirutta'(leopard) in Telugu on her chest. Police had picked up few suspects but later released them as no evidence was found. Police claimed a breakthrough when Satyam Babu was arrested in a cellphone robbery case on August 17, 2008. Police said he confessed to the murder. The youth has been suffering from GB Syndrome, which had badly affected his nervous system and his two legs were paralysed. His mother Mariyamma alleged that her son was falsely implicated in the case to save some influential people. The arrest had created a sensation in the state as the girl's parents had claimed that the Dalit youth is being made a scapegoat to save the real culprits. Dalit organisations and human rights activists had also protested the arrest of Satyam Babu, claiming that he is innocent. Meera's parents Shamshad Begam and Iqbal Basha alleged that relatives of then state Minister Koneru Ranga Rao were involved in the rape and murder and to mislead the investigations, Satyam Babu was arrested. Following Friday's court order, Meera's parents said Rs 1 crore should be given compensation for Satyam Babu and demanded that the government set up a fast-track court to try and punish the real culprits. The victim's family alleged involvement of Koneru Ranga Rao's grandson Koneru Satish, who was the sarpanch of the village. Police negligence in protecting the scene of offence had also come in for criticism from legal experts and rights activists. The delay in the process of investigation had created doubts that there is a political interference and pressure on the police. The activists alleged that police choose Satyam Babu, a part-time construction worker from Krishna district as a soft target as there was nobody to talk about him. On May 22, 2010, police claimed that Satyam Babu tried to escape while he was being brought to Vijayawada from Hyderabad. A few hours later, he was surprisingly back in the police custody. Police had tough time to explain how he escaped when he can't even stand on his feet. The rights activists alleged that the police were trying to kill Satyam Babu to close the case and to protect the real culprits. --IANS ms/vd ( 574 Words) 2017-03-31-17:44:07 (IANS)
Opposition Congress and BJP members today stalled the proceedings of the Odisha Assembly right from zero hour demanding a statement from Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik over the gangrape of a minor tribal girl in Chikiti Assembly Constituency in Ganjam district. The house witnessed uproarious scenes forcing Speaker Niranjan Pujari to adjourn it several times during the pre-lunch and post lunch session without transacting any business. Raising the issue during the zero hour Leader of Opposition Narasingha Mishra said they would not allow the house to conduct any business till the chief minister or any minister on his behalf makes a statement on the issue. Describing the incident as a serious breach of law and human rights violation, Mr Mishra demanded a statement from the chief minister and said the house will not run. Narrating the incident, the leader of Opposition said a minor tribal girl (13) was abducted from her house under Patrapur Police station area of Chikiti Assembly constituency was gangraped on March 9 last while she was sleeping with her mother. She was taken to a forest and gang raped by her cousin brothers for ten days allegedly to settle political score with her father. Mr Mishra said though he had raised the issue twice earlier demanding a ruling from the Speaker to direct the chief minister to make a statement on the issue neither the chief minister nor any minister on his behalf has made any statement in this regard so far.The Speaker, he said, also did not give any ruling on the issue.MORE UNI BD-DP KK -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0212-1211110.Xml
President Pranab Mukherjee today asserted the plurality and tolerant nature of Indian society, highlighting how the country has been a melting pot of diverse cultures, languages and religions since time immemorial. "If someone tells me that we Indians are argumentative, I will accept it. But if someone tells me that Indians are intolerant, I refuse to agree to it," he said, adding, "Our traditions, including the teachings of Assam's great scholar and social reformer Shankaradev, never allowed the practice of intolerance." He was speaking while inaugurating 'Namami Brahmaputra', touted as the biggest river festival of India, at the banks of the mighty river here, in the presence of Bhutan Prime Minister Tshering Tobgay, Assam Governor Banwarilal Purohit, Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal and other dignitaries. The President pointed that despite a population of 1.3 ml people, with all seven major religions of the world practiced and 200 languages used in daily activities, India is the only country in the world that has 'one flag, one Constitution'. "Trust and harmony among the common people is the greatest strength of our country," he added. The President, lauding the efforts of the Assam government to showcase the Brahmaputra at the global arena, highlighted how rivers have been carriers of civilizations and the Brahmaputra has also witnessed many occurrences, rise and fall of empires and itself 'shown heroism and lent indomitable spirit to men and women'. He said, "With such long history of the Brahmaputra, I would suggest that this (festival) should be made into a regular programme. The Brahmaputra has many tales to narrate and it will boost tourism in the state." Further stating that Assam is emerging as an economic hub of east India as well as South East Asia, he said, "Assam is the gateway and most influential location to put into place the prime minister's 'Act East Policy'. Investment and business destinations are changing face from the American-European markets to the South East Asian markets and Assam can act as the gateway." Referring to the silver jubilee year of formation of ASEAN, the President said, "We must use the opportunity to build the infrastructure. The people are hard working and natural resources are available. Only a strong desire is needed and the people of Assam have shown that they are capable of providing leadership." He lauded the people of Assam for always 'resisting aggression of land as well as mind', recounting his innumerable visits to all parts of the state during his political career and never encountering any problem even during times of turmoil. Thanking the Bhutan prime minister for his presence, Mr Mukherjee said the world stands to learn from this Hinalayan nation's practice of quantifying its progress in terms of happiness of its people rather that applying materialistic yardsticks. Earlier, Bhutan prime minister Tobgay, in his speech, dwelt on the historic ties of Bhutan and India, especially Assam with which his country shares geographical boundary. He highlighted that not just Bhutan, but all neighboring countries like Bangladesh, stood to gain due to economic development of Assam and north eastern region of India. He said, "This festival is a recognition of the economic potential of the Brahmaputra and this region. Neighboring countries will benefit from Assam's progress." Mr Tobgay particularly stressed on the close ties with Assam, pointing how Bhutan operates the lone international flight from Guwahati airport and has been requesting the government of India permission to open its consulate in the state. Governor Purohit, Chief Minister Sonowal and state Cabinet ministers Chandra Mohan Patowary and Dr Himanta Biswa Sharma also spoke on the occasion. The Festival, which is being held at 27 venues in the 21 districts of the state through which the Brahmaputra flows, is an endeavour to showcase the rich potential and resource of the Brahmaputra. Several dignitaries, including Tibetan spiritual leader Dalai Lama, Yoga guru Ramdev, Union ministers Nitin Gadkari and Mahesh Sarma, Hema Malini and foreign delegates, will attend the festival. UNI SG SJC -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0212-1211161.Xml
Aricent and NASSCOM Foundation jointly today announced the launch of Arise by Aricent Aricent Skills for Employability Program, a unique CSR initiative to create greater employability opportunities for 3400 college students, by up-skilling engineering undergraduates across Delhi-NCR, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Telangana. The Delhi-NCR region itself will have more than 1300 students trained under the ARISE program.Congratulating the team on the successful launch of ARISE, Ashwani Lal, Chief Operations and Quality Officer and Chairman of the CSR Board at Aricent said, "Aricent has always worked towards transforming lives through its innovative product engineering services and our CSR intervention is an extension to this ultimate goal. With the help of this program, we intend to create a win-win situation for the young students and the industry - where the industry gets highly skilled graduates right from the college and the students get vastly enhanced employment opportunities."Speaking on the occasion, Santosh Abraham, VP NASSCOM foundation said, "We are glad to partner with Aricent to train the youth from underserved communities on key technology skills and make them employment ready for any IT BPM company to hire A Win Win for both the society and the industry. This partnership also is a great example of how CSR money can be used for the benefit of creating more employment opportunities for the ever-expanding young population of our country." This on-campus program will engage with 16 Tier-2 and Tier-3 engineering colleges including Bhagwan Parshuram Institute of Technology, IIMT College of Engineering, Greater Noida Institute of Technology & Noida Institute of Engineering and Technology from Greater Noida, ABES College of Engineering, providing the necessary job skills to students from underserved communities. The skills will range from basics like SDLC methodologies, to programming languages like JAVA, and database management languages like SQL, API creation through JDBC, project design, and software testing. The candidates will be asessed on the NDSC- SSC NASSCOM Qualification Packs (QP) and certified for the relevant job roles, further enhancing the chances of employment. UNI ASH SDR GC1822 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0388-1211227.Xml
The order of a panel formed by the central government to recover Rs 97 crore from the AAP for splurging on ads is a conspiracy, Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia said on Friday. He told the media that the three-member panel did not have the mandate to give the recommendation on recovery of money from the Aam Aadmi Party. Lt. Governor Anil Baijal on Wednesday asked the Delhi government to recover Rs 97 crore it spent on certain advertisements from the AAP within a month. The order followed the recommendations of the Committee on Content Regulation in Government Advertising (CCRGA) which found that the advertisements were used to promote the AAP instead of the government. The three-member committee was formed on the basis of Supreme Court guidelines which said its members should be of "unimpeachable neutrality". Sisodia said the AAP was being targeted because of advertisements but the other governments did the same. Several governments organised five-star summits even outside their states to showcase their work. "Every government showcases its work and gives advertisements. Former Delhi Chief Minister went to London to showcase her government's works but only AAP is targeted. If the Congress does the same it is advertisement. When we do, it is misuse," Sisodia said. "The order to recover Rs 97 crore from AAP is a conspiracy to suppress AAP's voice against corruption," he said. "We will tell the masses what work we are doing, which is our right as an elected government. We will also tell the public the problems we are facing. Do whatever you (central government) want." Sisodia said that the government - not the party - only advertised its work. "What crime has the AAP committed and why should it pay? Did AAP order those advertisements?" Sisodia asked. He alleged that the committee had no authority to recommend recovery of money from the party as the Supreme Court had not given any such instruction to the panel. --IANS am/mr ( 336 Words) 2017-03-31-19:14:07 (IANS)
The Second Annual Meeting of the New Development Bank (NDB) started today in the national capital with the Meeting of its Board of Director will focus on building a sustainable future. On the second day of the three day Annual Meeting of NDB will start with BRICS Business Council Meeting which will be followed by the Opening Ceremony of the Second Annual Meeting of the NDB Board of Governors'.The Finance Minister of India and NDB Governor for India, Arun Jaitley will deliver the key note address. Other speakers at the Opening Ceremony would be NDB President KV Kamath, Minister of Finance of China and NDB Governor for China, Xiao Jie among others. Their address will be followed by the address by Secretary for International Affairs, Ministry of Finance, Brazil, Marcelo Estevao.Other speakers during the Opening Ceremony would be Sergey Storchak, Deputy Minister of Finance of Russia and Monale Ratsoma, Deputy Director General (DDG), South Africa Treasury. The Opening Session will also be addressed by Mr Werner Hoyer, President, European Investment Bank (EIB), Mr Akinwumi Adesina, President, African Development Bank (AfDB) and Sir Suma Chakrabarti, President, European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD).The Opening Ceremony will be followed by Signing Ceremony for Memorandum of Understanding (MOU). Five (5) MOUs are likely to be signed by NDB President Mr Kamath, one each with European Investment Bank (EIB), European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), Eurasian Development Bank (EDB) and International Investment Bank (IIB). On the third and last day of the NDB meeting, two seminars will be held. First seminar will be on Financing Sustainable Development in which there will be two Sessions, one on the Government Perspective and another on the Banking Sector Perspective. UNI ADP SDR GC1940 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0429-1211412.Xml
The initiative has been proposed to separate those who oversee the possible rule breaches and those who decide on punitive actions. It will hence, enable the enforcement process to operate fairly and based on evidence.

The EFD shall, inter alia, develop a broad policy for enforcement and initiate enforcement action against the Regulated Entities (REs) for violation consistent with such policy.

EFD would serve as a centralized department to deal with banks only for enforcement action.

This was stated by Minister of State in the Ministry of Finance Santosh Kumar Gangwar, in written reply to a question in the Lok Sabha today.

Currently for banks, the RBI has two departments, regulation and supervision.

Now with the third department of Enforcement, it will look after the issue of any violation by banks and impose penalty or issue warning. (ANI)
Out of the thirty-three Naxalites who surrendered before the Inspector-General (IG) and Superintendent of Police (SP), twenty-nine are males and 4 females.

Sundarraj, IG Bastar while expressing happiness over the surrender of the naxals, said that the people understand the real face of the naxals now.

The district administration will also help the captured naxals in leading a normal life by providing them with basic essentials.

"Influenced by the administrations' surrender policy, 33 people have surrendered here...They have been given immediate help in the form of monetary award of Rs. 10,000 each. They will also be trained for 45 days," Sundarraj told ANI.

"We welcome the ones leaving the network and joining the normal stream of life. The real face of the Naxals is coming in front of the people. We will also try to encourage others to surrender with the help of the ones who have surrendered today," he added.

Having their centre in Darbha and Mardoom regions, these naxalites were working under Commander Vilaash.

The surrendered naxalites also include the three on whom prize money of Rs. 3 lakh had been announced.

In the other update, the two naxalites arrested in Bijapur were already booked in cases of murder and attempt to murder.

They were arrested from the jungles of Chareli. (ANI)
Additional Deputy Commissioner of Police Chinmoy Biswal told IANS that Clara and Rakil, both 22, had partied with their friend Jenny in her rented accommodation in Munirka village on Thursday night.

Clara was living in Delhi with her cousin Liankhanmay and her friend Rakil visited the city from Lucknow on Thursday evening.

The two went to Jenny's room for the party, Biswal said.

While Jenny, who works at a Gurugram-based call centre, left for her office after midnight, Clara and Rakil stayed overnight.

When she returned on Friday morning, she found her room locked from inside, Biswal said, citing Jenny.

"When no one responded to her calls, she peeped inside. She saw Clara and Rakil were lying unconscious. She called Liankhanmay for help," Biswal said.

They somehow managed to open the door and took them to Safdarjung Hospital, Biswal said.

"Doctors at the hospital informed police at 9.20 a.m. about their deaths caused by suspected drugs and alcohol overdose," the officer said.

A medical board to carry out an autopsy "to ascertain the cause of death" has been constituted, said Biswal.

The room where the women were found dead has been sealed and was being inspected by forensic experts.

Clara was presently unemployed while her cousin Liankhanmay works in a call centre.

--IANS sp/sar/pgh/bg

( 252 Words)

2017-03-31-20:22:08 (IANS)
East Godavari District Superintendent of Police Misala Raviprakash today inaugurated three red coloured `Road safety' vehicles for intensive patrolling on the National highway-16 from Siddhantham bridge bordering West Godavari district to Tuni Thandava bridge bordering Visakhapatnam district. While flagging off the vehicles at the district police office, the SP said that each of these vehicles would be manned by an ASI and Head constable and kept under the control of the sub divisional police officers concerned. `Already three such vehicles are on patrolling duty and with this addition their number goes up to six. Their duties include clearance of traffic whenever there was a traffic jam, rushing of the injured in road accidents to hospitals, shifting of the vehicles wrongly parked along the roadside to the nearest police stations, seizure of the autos plying in violation of traffic rules, preventing of travel on Lorries and goods vehicles and sending such passengers by RTC buses', he added. Additional SP Damodar. OSD Ravisankar reddy, DSPs Muralimohan, Muralikrishna, Satyanarayana were among those attended.UNI XC VV CS 2021 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0275-1211546.Xml
Jammu and Kashmir Minister for Food, Civil Supplies and Consumer Affairs Choudhary Zulfkar Ali today asked the oil companies to achieve the target of providing 2.10 lakh gas connections to women belonging to Below Poverty Line under Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana by the end of this year. Chairing a review meeting of the department and representatives of the oil companies, the Minister while lauding the Union Government's initiative of extending the Scheme to Jammu and Kashmir, said that it is an ambitious project initiated by the Centre which will immensely help the BPL women in living a healthy and comfortable life. He asked the representatives of the companies to ensure they complete the target of distributing 2.10 lakh gas connections by end of this year. He advised the companies to set a target of distributing around 69,000 gas connections for next three quarters each to achieve the given target within the stipulated timeframe. The Minister further informed that he had met the concerned Union Minister who assured him that all possibilities would be explored to extend some additional quota to the State under the Scheme.UNI VBH PS RK2147 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0421-1211749.Xml
In its continued efforts to strengthen the exports and investment competitiveness of the region, CII Western Region today organized an interaction on "Enhancing International Trade Relations" with select Consul Generals and senior industry members in the city. According to a press statement, the interaction provided a platform for local CII members in Goa to engage and network with the Counsel Generals and discuss their views and concerns on means to strengthen exports and business relationships. Atul Pai Kane, Chairman, CII WR Sub Committee on MSME, and Chairman, Power Engineering Co Ltd, hosted the interaction for the local members to give the connect and support on international trade to the local members. Atrey Sawant, Chairman CII Goa State Council, and Business Head, Aterya Engineering Works Ltd, specified that for inward investments there was a lot of potential in Goa besides tourism, illustrating the other thrust areas like electronics, ship-building, food processing, bio-technology, telecommunication and pharmaceutical. Consul General Indonesia invited Indian companies to partner or invest in Indonesia where on large scale projects the Government had announced a tax holiday from between five years to ten years. Consul General Portugal was of the opinion that India should take the benefit of Portugal as a gateway to the Portugese speaking countries. Germany had a lot of investment from German companies in India, however the ratio of Investment from India too Germany was drastically low. Deputy Consul General Germany was of the opinion that their dual education system played a large role in preparing the future work force and India should consider partnering on that front amongst other industries. Overall members benefited from the content and were looking forward to future such programs in Goa, the statement added.UNI AKM PS RK2242 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0421-1211781.Xml
According to a press statement here today, the Chief Minister along with Union Minister for Civil Aviation Ashok Ganapathy Raju was present during signing of Memorandum of Agreement between Ministry of Civil Aviation and M/s GMR Airports, concessionaire for Mopa Airport at Goa.

Mr Parrikar called on Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The Prime Minister assured full support for making Goa a model state in every aspect and urged to make Goa the first open defecation free state.

The Chief Minister also met Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh and discussed various administrative as well as policing issues pertaining to the state burueacracy. Mr Parrikar also met Union Minister for Environment, Forest and Climate Change and sought early notification of the Goa specific amendment to the Coastal Regulatory Zone (CRZ) notification 2011.

In his interactions with Union Minister for Power Piyush Goyal, Mr Parrikar stress was laid on steps to be taken up for upgradation and expansion of power infrastructure to provide assured quality power in the state.

In his meeting with Union Minister for Road Transport, Highways and Shipping, the progress of four and six laning of highways as well as bridge construction in the state under central funding were reviewed.UNI AKM PS RK2254

-- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0421-1211783.Xml
Marking a new era in the ambitious civil nuclear programme of the country, the second unit of Kudankulam Nuclear Power Project (KKNPP) became operational, today. 'The country's second 1,000 MW Pressurised Water Reactor (PWR) belonging to the Light Water Category, started its commercial operation, after getting the mandatory clearances from the Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited (NPCIL),' official sources said here tonight. The second unit with the Russian-designed VVER-1000 reactor was synchronised with the Southern grid on August 29 last year after the successful completion of the scheduled tests and it had already reached 100 percent operating capacity. After the synchronization of the second unit, the installed nuclear power generation capacity of India has reached 6,780 MW, the sources added. The Unit 1 of of KKNPP achieved first criticality in mid-2013 and it was connected to the Southern grid in October 2013. It began commercial operation in December 31, 2014. The NPCIL is constructing the third and fourth reactors at KKNPP complex in collaboration with the Rosatom State Atomic Energy Corporation of Russia at an outlay of Rs 39,747 crores. Both the reactors were expected to attain criticality by 2022. Atomstroyexport, a subsidiary of the Russian State Nuclear Energy Corporation Rosatom, is the supplier of equipments' and fuels for the KKNPP. Besides, India and Russia had already signed a general framework agreement and credit protocol for setting up Units five and six at KKNPP complex. With this, KKNPP has a unique distinction of being one of the biggest nuclear power plants in the World with a total installed capacity of 6,000 MW. KKNPP is all set to become similar to the Zaporizhia Nuclear Power Plant in Ukraine. Zaporizhia is the World's fifth largest nuclear power plant with six units of total gross capacity of 6,000 MW, the sources added. UNI GSM GV 2340 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0275-1211811.Xml
Himachal Pradesh Road Transport Corporation one of the three most loss making undertaking resulted the accumulated loss of Rs 1,018.4 crore owing to poor operational efficiencies and productivity , this was stated by Principal Audit General of Himahcal Pradesh, Mr. J M. Johri while releasing Comptroller and Audit General report in a press conference here today.Declaring performance audit done for last six years on HRTC he said that whooping accumulation of losses revealed in report as the potential state transport services rendering heavy losses due to poor operational efficiencies and productivity.A fare structure that did not adequately match operational expenses and lack of a mechanism for route analysis before allotment between HRTC and private operators to encourage bunching of profitable routes with uneconomical ones resulted in accumulation of losses of Rs 1,018.64 Cr during the period of 2011 to 2016 to the HRTC, CAG audit para says.''The operational performance of the Corporation was below the Indian Average in respect of hill states in respect of vehicle productivity achievement of scheduled kilometer and fuel costs which resulted in depriving the HRTC of potential revenue of Rs 579.23 Cr. ''Mr. Johri said that no criteria had been determined to ascertained which routes were to be allotted to HRTC and which to the private Operators. Audit analysis brought out that only ten percent of route frequencies between district headquarters and tourist destinations with maximum flow of commuters were allotted to the HRTC. However 90 p c profitable routes lies with the private operators .There is no mechanism in place to ensure that burden of uneconomical routes were equitably shared by both state and private transporters in the state. Further no mechanism had been established to ensure the responsibility of the price of a route permit and they were being allotted on the adhoc basis, audit para revealed. Mr. Johri said pricing of profitable routes at the higher prices and inviting the bids may generate more revenue to the state.Poor enforcement of judicial decisions as well as the provisions of the Motor Vehicle Act relating to installation of speed governors and vehicles deprived the corporation of potential traffic revenues of Rs 313.29 Cr during they audit period of 2011-16.Inconsistencies in recording of dead kilometers between ISBT Delhi and Parking space in Jagatpur brought out loss of Rs 2.14 Cr on account of extra dead mileage during the period of five years ended on 2016The Corporation consumed 498.38 Cr lakh liters of Excess of the all India average during 2011-16 resulting in extra expenditure of Rs 240.02 Cr. State Government compensates the HRTC for concessions and free passes for various sections of society. However the HRTC submitted its claims only on estimation basis and not on actuals as the out of total estimated claims of Rs 1,111.11 Cr during the 2011-16 the state government reimbursed Rs 895 Cr leaving Rs 216.66 Cr uncovered .UNI ML PS 2340 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0421-1211805.Xml
Nine Malaysians who were detained in Pyongyang returned home on Friday, following an agreement between the two countries to end the diplomatic conflict sparked by the death of North Korean leader's half-brother Kim Jong-nam. Three employees of the Malaysian embassy in Pyongyang and six relatives, arrived at the Kuala Lumpur airport early morning 24 days after being banned from leaving the country, Efe news reported. The diplomatic dispute was resolved after the Malaysian government authorised the return of Kim Jong-nam's body to Pyongyang and allowed the North Koreans in Malaysia to leave the country. The Counsellor of the Malaysian Embassy in North Korea Mohd Nor Azrin Md Zain said that after the ban on leaving the country was implemented, the nine Malaysians had to rely on aid, including food, provided by other embassies in Pyongyang and had to continue with their usual tasks. "We were not harassed by the North Korean authorities, they told us that life would continue as normal," the Counsellor told The Star daily. "But the fact we weren't allowed to travel home was concerning," he added. North Korea banned the departure of Malaysians in response to the expulsion of its ambassador in Kuala Lumpur, after he criticised the investigation into the death of Kim Jong-nam and accused Malaysia of conspiring with Pyongyang's enemies. Malaysia responded with the cancellation of its visa-waiver programme with North Korea and the ban on the departure of the North Koreans in the country, exacerbating the escalation of tensions between the two. Kim Jong-nam died in February after being attacked at the Kuala Lumpur airport by two women, an Indonesian and a Vietnamese, who sprayed his face with a toxic VX nerve agent, deemed by the UN as a weapon of mass destruction. --IANS ksk ( 303 Words) 2017-03-31-11:20:09 (IANS)
Nine Malaysians who were stranded in North Korea following a diplomatic stand-off post the assassination of Kim Jong -Un's half brother Kim Jong- Nam, have arrived in Kuala Lumpur. A diplomatic row ensued between between Malaysia and North Korea after Jong- Nam was killed with the lethal nerve agent VX on February 13 at Kuala Lampur airport, triggering the expulsion of each other's ambassadors and a barr on their citizens from leaving. However North Korean state media on Thursday said both countries would lift their respective travel bans, and Kuala Lumpur would send the body of Jong-Nam to North Korea. Singapore's daily Strait Times quoted Malaysian Foreign Minister Anifah Aman, as saying that the investigation into the murder of Jong-Nam would continue "to bring the perpetrators to justice". "There can be no substitute for diplomacy, for level-headedness in dealing with such situations, and this has served Malaysia well in this instance," he said. Yesterday, following the deal, Malaysian Prime Miniter Mohammad Najib Tun Razak declared, through Twitter, that the "diplomatic crisis is over". "Following the completion of the autopsy on the deceased and receipt of a letter from his family requesting the remains be returned to North Korea, the coroner has approved the release of the body," Prime Minister Najib said in a statement. South Korea has blamed Pyongyang for the assassination, and Kuala Lumpur has sought several North Koreans for questioning, although the only one it arrested was released for lack of evidence. However, Pyongyang has denied this and denounced Malaysia's investigation as an attempt to smear the secretive regime. So far, two women - one Indonesian and one Vietnamese - have been detained, along with a North Korean man. Seven other North Koreans have been named as suspects or are wanted for questioning.(ANI)
Dutch prosecutors said today they had launched an international hunt for people seeking to hide assets and evade taxes after receiving a tip-off about undisclosed accounts at a Swiss bank.The country's office for financial crimes prosecution said coordinated raids began on Thursday in the Netherlands, Britain, Germany, France and Australia.Spokeswoman Wietske Vissers said millions of euros worth of paintings, gold bars, cash and other assets had been seized from holders of several of the 3,800 Dutch-linked accounts at the Swiss bank, which she would not name.The Dutch government has passed information to the other countries about 55,000 suspect accounts at the bank.REUTERS CJ NS1300 -- (Reuters) -- C-1-1-DL0400-1210624.Xml
The Express Tribune quoting an eyewitness stated that the blast took place neat the mosque's female entrance when an unidentified person parked a car next to the building.

Sajid Hussain, a parliamentarian from Parachinar, said that it was a suicide attack.

"The attack took place in a busy area and a women's mosque appears to be the target," he said.

Meanwhile, the security officials and rescue teams have been rushed to the spot. The area has been cordoned off after the blast.

Pakistan's military media wing ISPR said that a chopper has been dispatched to the blast site to shift the injured to nearby hospitals.

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has expressed grief over the blast and condemned the attack.

"It is our responsibility to continue the war against terrorists," the Express Tribune quoted Sharif as saying.

Meanwhile, Pakistan's Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar has ordered an inquiry into the matter.

The attack takes place a year after 21 people were killed when an explosion hit a vegetable market in Parachinar, near the border with Afghanistan. (ANI)
Pakistan has boycotted the 136th Inter Parliamentary Union (IPU) Assembly, which is due to begin from April 1 in Dhaka. Pakistan has cited continued malicious and uncalled for propaganda and unfriendly attitude of the Bangladesh Government against the people and the state behind this move. A 10-member parliamentary delegation from Pakistan was due to participate in the international parliamentary moot under the leadership of National Assembly Speaker Ayaz Sadiq. In his statement, Sadiq said that members of the National Assembly have noted with dismay and disappointment the continuing actions and negative public statements of the leadership, public officials and media of Bangladesh despite Pakistan's restraint and overtures to the country, reports the Express Tribune. "I have, therefore, decided not to travel to Bangladesh as a visit at this point will not serve the purpose," he said. Recalling positive actions of friendship from Islamabad, Sadiq said it was in this spirit that Pakistan's parliamentary delegation had unanimously voted in favour of Bangladesh Speaker Dr Sharmeen Chaudhary for the post of the chairperson of the Executive Committee of Commonwealth Parliamentary Association in Cameroon in 2014. Dr Chaudhary had won this election with a narrow margin of 82 votes in favour and 78 against with 10 votes of Pakistan going in her favour. These positive actions of friendship were again repeated when Bangladesh's candidate Abdul Sabour Chaudhary was voted by Pakistan to become Inter Parliamentary Union's President in 2014 while the same level of cooperation was extended through the platforms of Parliamentary Union of Islamic Countries and the Asian Parliamentary Assembly, he added. "However, it is noted with much regret that the friendly gestures were never reciprocated in the same coin. The speaker of Bangladesh did not visit Pakistan despite repeated invitations," the speaker noted. Bangladesh also boycotted all international parliamentary moots, organised by the parliament of Pakistan during the last two years despite personal requests by the highest parliamentary leadership to the speaker of Bangladesh. This includes the SAARC Young Parliamentarians Conference in August 2016, the International Women Parliamentarians Conference 2017 and the Asian Parliamentary Assembly in 2017. "All such dedicated efforts, unfortunately, went in vain and Pakistan was time and again targeted and maligned. Such hostile environment would not promote the interest of any side. It was, therefore decided, with a heavy heart, not to undertake a visit to Bangladesh at this time," he added. (ANI)
US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson on Friday attended his first NATO foreign ministers meeting in Brussels where he urged the alliance to boost spending and increase its presence in the Middle East. Tillerson arrived at the gathering of top diplomats for the one-day event that had originally been scheduled for April 5, but was brought forward to ensure Washington's representative could attend. Efe news reported. Tillerson said it was important to ensure that the trans-Atlantic alliance "has all of the resources, financial and otherwise, that are necessary for NATO to fulfil its mission". Since President Donald Trump's administration net came to power, Washington has repeatedly called for all 28 NATO member-states to allocate 2 percent of their gross domestic product for defence spending -- a request that the alliance's Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg has agreed to. The US argued that it was disproportionately funding the alliance and threatened to reel in its contribution if other members did not pay up. Tillerson focused on the topic of combating the Islamic State (IS) terror group in the Middle East. "We want to discuss how we can build on NATO's already important involvement in the fight to defeat IS..., and ultimately bring stability to the Middle East," Tillerson said. Ahead of the talks, Tillerson made reference to NATO's role in the ongoing Ukraine crisis. "We want to have a discussion around NATO's posture in Europe, most particularly in eastern Europe in response to Russia's aggression in Ukraine and elsewhere," Tillerson told the media. The alliance has increased its military presence along the European Union's border with Russia since war broke out in Ukraine's east following a pro-Russian uprising after Moscow annexed the Crimean peninsula in 2014. The ministers gathered in Brussels are due to decide on an agenda for the full NATO summit slated for May. --IANS ksk/vt ( 313 Words) 2017-03-31-17:40:08 (IANS)
Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu said today the country's military infrastructure in the Arctic will be fully developed by 2020. Russia has plans to build and equip military facilities mainly on the Novaya Zemlya archipelago, the Franz Josef Archipelago, the New Siberian archipelago and the Wrangel Island, Mr Shoigu said during a conference of the Defence Ministry.Russia is also expanding trade and exploration activities in the Arctic by building transport and energy production infrastructure, as well as installing military facilities and developing the Northern Sea Route, linking Europe and Asia."Every year, we have a fairly large number of facilities. This year, work on some of the islands should be completed. There are great plans for 2018. All this work should be completed by 2020," Mr Shoigu added.In December 2014, Moscow unveiled a revised military doctrine that prioritises the protection of national interests in the Arctic.Russian President Vladimir Putin today discussed the country's military presence in the Arctic at the Russian Security Council session, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said."A sufficiently detailed exchange of views took place on the issues of Russia's military presence in the Arctic and the development of the corresponding infrastructure," Mr Peskov told reporters.UNI XC SDR RJ 1721 -- (UNI) -- C-1-1-DL0431-1211080.Xml
"Geo Pakistan is banned from broadcasting, re-broadcasting, fresh, old or repeat content on Geo News from 9am Monday 3rd April till 12am April 7th 2017," The Express Tribune quoted a statement issued by the media regulatory authority as saying.

The show was banned following a number of complaints from citizens and senior journalists, it added. A showcause notice was also issued to the channel earlier on March 15, asking them to explain their position.

"In case of non-compliance, a process for suspension of licence, under Section 30 of Pemra Ordinance 2002 as amended by Pemra (Amendment) Act 2007 shall be initiated," said the statement.

This comes after the regulatory body banned TV anchor Amir Liaquat for hate speech and derogatory remarks on Bol News. He was then asked to "apologise unconditionally to the viewers for airing the hate-speech". (ANI)
President Donald Trump will seek to rebuild the US relationship with Egypt at a Monday meeting with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi focused on security issues and military aid, a senior White House official said today."He wants to use President Sisi's visit to reboot the bilateral relationship and build on the strong connection the two presidents established when they first met in New York last September," the official told reporters.REUTERS PS RK2145 -- (Reuters) -- C-1-1-DL0421-1211761.Xml
LUSAKA, March 29 (Xinhua) -- The Zambian government on Wednesday called for reinforced partnership with the United Nations (UN) in order to enable the country to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Minister of Information and Broadcasting Kampamba Mulenga, while commending the role played by the UN in alleviating poverty, enhancing good governance and offering guidance and building institutional capacity in country, said there was need to create effective oversight in the implementation of government policies towards the achievement of the goals.

In remarks delivered when a UN delegation led by Resident Coordinator Janet Rogan paid a courtesy call on her, the Zambian minister said the government was committed to and was working towards the achievement of the SDGs.

"The UN system has been supporting regional integration, good governance and coordination on such issues as migration, wellbeing of refugees, trade facilitation, disease eradication, and the prevention and peaceful resolution of conflict and we are grateful for this," she said, according to an emailed statement.

She further informed the delegation that her ministry plans to hold a media conference to chart the way forward regarding professionalism and ethical conduct amongst media practitioners.

For her part, the UN envoy expressed happiness that Zambia was already on the right path in achieving the SDGs.

She further pledged the UN's continued support to Zambia's development efforts.
BELGRADE, March 29 (Xinhua) -- As Britain officially started the Brexit process from the European Union (EU) on Wednesday, experts and officials in Serbia were united in their assessment that the country's dedication to full membership in the bloc will not be harmed in any way by Brexit.

Serbian Foreign Minister Ivica Dacic exchanged his views about its influence on the future of Serbia's integration process with his visiting counterpart of Luxembourg Jean Asselborn, while several experts guessed in media who will lose more, London or Brussels.

However, most were unanimous in the estimation that Serbia's EU path will continue according to plan despite the challenges that might occur.

SERBIA STAYS ON EU PATH DESPITE BREXIT

Dacic said at a press conference after meeting with Asselborn that Brexit will not have any influence on country's European path and that "Serbia, despite Brexit, wishes to become a full member of the European Union (EU)."

"Our goals are unchanged, disregarding the current discussion with the EU," he said, according to the report of the Tanjug News Agency.

Dacic explained that the reasons behind Serbia's dedication to the EU path are "reforms, but also clear economic interests that Serbia would have from becoming a member."

According to Tanjug, Asselborn said that Serbia will soon open Chapter 29 of the EU Acquis that is related to the customs union, as well as four other chapters that are well prepared, and that its EU path does not depend on Brexit.

He said that the Brexit is first of all an issue of the EU, but it is also related to the Western Balkans, because "everyone needs to make efforts and achieve progress."

According to Asselborn, "this cannot destroy the process of EU enlargement."

BREXIT TO BE MARGINALIZED WHEN SERBIA GETS CLOSER TO EU MEMBERSHIP

Dejan Popovic, professor at the Faculty of Law of the Belgrade University and former ambassador of Serbia to Britain, said in an interview to Serbian national broadcaster RTS that Brexit will end in 2019, so it will have no influence on Serbia's accession to the EU.

"Until then some balance will be found and by the time when Serbia gets near EU membership, this problem will be marginalized," Popovic said.

He explained that Britain's political role in the world will not end with Brexit and it will continue to be present in world, in Europe, and especially in the Balkans through its military, intelligence and economy.

He added that it is not easy to predict who will suffer bigger loses from Brexit -- Britain or the 27 EU member countries.

BRITAIN PROBABLY TO HAVE MORE TO LOSE

Slobodan Samardzic, professor at the Faculty of Political Sciences of the Belgrade University and an expert in EU integration, observed that nothing is precisely defined in the negotiation process between Britain and 27 EU members.

He said that Britain can still try to maintain existing benefits and rights, but he believed that they will certainly be the losing side in this process.

Samardzic, said in an interview to Tanjug news agency that British citizens, during the course of Brexit negotiations, will lose EU citizenship along with the right to live or work in EU members and freely move across the territory of the union.

He stressed that the participation of Britain on the common market of the EU will be the main issue, and that it will be resolved "through direct bilateral agreements with Brussels."
Source: Xinhua| 2017-03-31 00:00:34|Editor: huaxia

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DHAKA -- At least seven suspected militants were killed on Thursday after Bangladeshi police stormed a house where members of the Neo-JMB were holed up, police said.

Bangladesh's Couner-Terrorism Police Unit Chief Monirul Islam declared the "Operation Hit Back" was over. Bangladesh-Counter terrorism

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KUALA LUMPUR -- Malaysia will release the body of Kim Jong Nam to the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) and allow its nationals to leave, after the nine stranded Malaysian citizens in DPRK were freed, Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak said in a statement on Thursday.

Najib said the coroner's approval to release the body came after the completion of the autopsy and receipt of a letter from Kim's family requesting the remains to be returned to the DPRK. (Malaysia-DPRK)

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SEOUL -- A South Korean court on Thursday ended the longest-ever hearing here on a warrant to arrest former President Park Geun-hye, who was impeached earlier this month.

For security reason, Park rode to the Seoul Central District Prosecutors' office, a building next to the Seoul Central District Court where she appealed to a judge for her innocence for almost nine hours from 10:30 a.m. local time. (South Korea-Park Geun-hye)

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ISLAMABAD -- Pakistan on Thursday hanged a "hardcore terrorist" who was involved in committing heinous offenses relating to terrorism, the Pakistani military said.

Tahir, an active member of the banned Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, was involved in a jail break in the northwestern Bannu district in April in 2012, and attacks on security forces. (Pakistan-Terrorist) Enditem
Source: Xinhua| 2017-03-31 00:20:37|Editor: Mengjie

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BEIJING, March 30 (Xinhua) -- China's capacity for wind and solar power generation continued to grow in 2016, but a larger percentage of electricity from these clean sources was wasted, an industrial report said Thursday.

The rise of abandoned electricity has affected the sustainable development of new energy in China, said the 2016 China energy development report, released by Electric Power Planning and Engineering Institute, a think tank under the state-owned China Energy Engineering Group.

China has been encouraging the development of clean energy sources in recent years to reduce the country's heavy reliance on coal, which accounts for about 72 percent of the energy consumption mix.

But a race to build wind farms in resource-rich northern regions has led to a serious problem of over-development. Output soon surpassed local demand and there are no adequate transmission facilities to send it elsewhere, or it is not economically viable to do so.

Close to 50 billion kilowatt hours of wind power were abandoned, accounting for 17 percent of the total generated wind power, up 2 percentage points from a year earlier. For solar power, about 20 percent of the electricity produced in the northwest region was also wasted.

"The waste of new energy power is a headache for China as a result of imbalanced distribution of wind resources and an imperfect grid system," said Liu Jizhen, academician at the Chinese Academy of Engineering.

"More transmission lines should be built to make better use of the power generated," he said, citing the report.

China has the world's largest installed capacity of wind and solar power. They, however, account for only 4.9 percent of the country's total energy production mix.

The report predicts the installed capacity of wind and solar power to continue their rapid growth in 2017, but more will be located in the eastern and central regions where the demand is high.

It suggested that new energy power projects should not be approved in regions where more than 10 percent of wind power or 5 percent of solar power were wasted in the previous year.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-03-31 00:35:40|Editor: An

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BEIJING, March 30 (Xinhua) -- More Chinese travelers are coming to Australia and seeking unique, personalized experiences, according to an authority with Tourism Australia.

"Chinese travelers are more confident, more adventurous, and more experiential, and they are making more local Australian friends as they travel. To me, this is the true spirit of friendship between two countries, manifested through rapid development in tourism exchange," Andy Jiang, China Country Manager of Tourism Australia, told Xinhua in an exclusive interview.

In a recent trip to South Australia, he met two young Chinese couples travelling through Port Lincoln, a beautiful spot on Eyre Peninsula.

"They were young, full of passion for travel, and were telling me great experiences that they just had -- tasting fresh oysters from the ocean at Coffin Bay, swimming with sea lions at Baird Bay, gazing at beautiful stars at night in the Flinders Ranges," he said.

"What we are seeing are more and more Chinese travelers are now going beyond the gateway cities of Sydney, Melbourne and the Gold Coast, and they are travelling through some of the best regional locations in Australia and are having a fantastic time," he added.

China is by far Australia's fastest growing and highest spending international market, he said. It is also Australia's fourth-biggest market for international business events spending and third-biggest in terms of international business events arrivals, Jiang said.

In 2016, almost 1.2 million Chinese visited Australia and spent over 9 billion U.S. dollars, up 18 percent year on year. The China market has the potential to be worth 13 billion U.S. dollars by 2020.

Many of those driving the growth are affluent and independently-minded travelers who are young, inquisitive and have a sense of adventure. They are interested in the stunning natural resources, art and culture programs in Australia, he noted, adding that these have also become the focus of Australia's marketing campaigns in China.

To attract the country's young tourists, Tourism Australia has taken targeted measures such as using Virtual Reality (VR) and 360 degree videos to provide an immersive experience showing off Australia's aquatic and coastal attractions.

The year 2017 marks the China-Australia Year of Tourism and the 45th anniversary of diplomatic relations between the two countries, which Jiang believes will be a boost for promoting Australia as an attractive destination.

He pointed out that tourism is an important industry for both countries, bringing jobs and business opportunities to cities and rural communities alike.

As part of initiatives to mark the China-Australia Year of Tourism, Tourism Australia is working to implement a pilot ten-year visa for Chinese travelers, enabling them to apply online in the Chinese language. The milestone policy to open air space has significantly increased flights between China and Australia.

Many tourist attractions in Australia have increased their investment in the outbound Chinese market. For example, the Bridge Climb, a major attraction in Sydney, will launch tailored Mandarin guide services in April this year.

Following Premier Li Keqiang's official visit to Australia last week, the two countries agreed to build on the China-Australia Year of Tourism to organize promotional activities and encourage people-to-people exchanges.

"The more Chinese people visit our nation and the more Australians come here to China, the better we understand each other and the more opportunities we have for further engagement and cooperation at every level," he said.
MOMBASA, Kenya, March 30 (Xinhua) -- Kenyan police on Thursday seized 88 pieces of elephant tusks with a street value of 20,000 U.S. dollars in the coastal county of Kwale.

Msambweni police commander Joseph Chebusit said the ivory that weighed 41.91 kg was found in a house during an operation led by Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) officers.

Chebusit said they are holding a woman suspect who is assisting the police with investigation.

"KWS officers and regularly police raided the house after members of the public tipped them off and managed to seize the ivory stashed in two sacks.

"We have taken the suspect to court on the offence of being in possession of tusks," he said, adding investigations were ongoing.

Chebusit said the state of the trophies indicated that they had been in storage for long and were being prepared for transportation to a buyer in another location.

He said the investigations were on a large number of people including dealers, transporters, recipients and brokers.

The police commander said the suspect is linked to local ivory traffickers in the country.

He said the police have intensified war on poaching at main national parks where several poachers have been killed and assorted weapons recovered recently.

In 2016, Kenya set ablaze more than 100 tonnes of ivory in a move aimed at showing its commitment to saving Africa's population of elephants.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-03-31 01:20:47|Editor: Mengjie

Greek Finance Minister Euclid Tsakalotos speaks at a press briefing in Athens, capital of Greece, on March 30, 2017. Greek Finance Minister Euclid Tsakalotos presented on Thursday a new tool which will help the Greek state to combat widespread tax evasion. (Xinhua/Marios Lolos)

ATHENS, March 30 (Xinhua) -- Greek Finance Minister Euclid Tsakalotos presented on Thursday a new tool which will help the Greek state to combat widespread tax evasion.

He also acknowledged the increased strain on the middle class from the tax hikes implemented to address the debt crisis.

An automated application will help tax office inspectors trace tax dodgers by crosschecking within two minutes their tax declarations of past years to bank deposits and other assets, the minister announced in a press briefing.

In cases of major divergence a more thorough investigation into the tax payer's finances will allow the tax office inspectors to have a clearer picture within a week instead of the average 18 months needed so far.

Suspected tax evaders will be then called to provide explanations. Should they not be able to justify their increased wealth in line with their tax declarations, they will face fines.

"This work could have been concluded in the past if previous administrations had the political will and I am saying they did not," Tsakalotos said, expressing the current government's determination to effectively deal with tax evasion.

The official also appeared confident that more tax dodgers will now feel the pressure and will opt to voluntarily disclose their hidden wealth to avoid heavier penalties.

Tax Office inspectors will first use the application focusing on about 1.3 million taxpayers whose names were included in lists of major depositors to foreign banks, such as the famous so-called Lagarde list, general secretary for Public Revenue Yorgos Pitsilis said.

The Greek state loses about 16 billion euros (17.1 billion U.S. dollars) annually, which accounted for about 9 percent of Greek GDP, in recent years from tax evasion, despite the efforts made to combat the phenomenon after the start of the debt crisis seven years ago, according to a new study released earlier this March by Athens-based think tank DiaNeosis.

According to 2014 tax declarations, 120,000 people, or 1.6 percent of taxpayers, are paying 2.7 billion euros, about 29.5 percent of the total income tax, as most Greeks declare small incomes.

Even though a large part of Greek society has been hit hard by the debt crisis, suffering from chronic unemployment and salary and pension cuts, crosschecks by the tax office in many cases have revealed chronic tax evasion.

According to the authors of the report, the main causes of tax fraud are over taxation, the lack of political will to tackle the phenomenon and a complex and unstable complex tax system.

Asked to comment on the issue of over taxation, Finance Minister Tsakalotos acknowledged that Greeks are facing increased burdens in recent years, but dismissed the criticism that the middle class is strangled.

"I have said we have strained, not razed the middle class," he said.

The minister, however, refused to make a statement during the press conference regarding the ongoing talks with Greece's international lenders to close the second review of the third Greek bailout program.

Addressing the parliament, he just said Athens is close to a deal with its creditors on the review.

According to sources within ruling party MPs who were briefed by Tsakalotos on the progress, a staff level agreement could be reached by this weekend opening the way to the conclusion of the review which should have closed in February 2016 based on the initial timetable.

Labor rights and the liberalization of the energy market were the last two obstacles in talks in recent weeks.
PRETORIA, March 30 (Xinhua) -- President Jacob Zuma on Thursday fired Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan in a cabinet reshuffle that affects at least 15 ministers and deputy ministers.

"I have decided to make changes to the National Executive in order to improve efficiency and effectiveness," Zuma said in a statement.

This came after Zuma summoned the rest of the top six members of the ruling African National Congress (ANC) to an urgent meeting in Pretoria, apparently to discuss the reshuffle.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-03-31 07:21:18|Editor: Mengjie

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RIO DE JANEIRO, March 30 (Xinhua) -- The former president of Brazil's Chamber of Deputies Eduardo Cunha was sentenced to 15 years and 4 months imprisonment on Thursday for corruption, money laundering and tax evasion.

It caps a startling fall from power for one of Brazil's most polarizing politicians who began the impeachment campaign which ultimately ousted former president Dilma Rousseff in August 2016.

Federal judge Sergio Moro, who oversees cases related to the Petrobras corruption ring, accepted the charges presented by the prosecutor-general against Cunha, who was accused of receiving 1.5 million U.S. dollars in bribes to facilitate a Petrobras oil exploration contract in Benin.

Cunha, 58, is a member of President Michel Temer's ruling Brazilian Democratic Movement Party (PMDB). He was president of the Chamber of Deputies from February 2015 until July 2016, when he stepped down due to corruption accusations against him.

In that role, he declared his opposition to Rousseff and began proceedings to impeach her.

A religious conservative, Cunha had been arrested in October on charges of corruption related to the Petrobras investigation.

In September 2016, the Chamber of Deputies ousted him from his seat for having lied under oath about having bank accounts outside Brazil. Swiss authorities discovered bank accounts with millions of dollars in Cunha's name and turned the information over to Brazil.

This is the first sentence against Cunha, one of hundreds of Brazilian politicians linked to the Petrobras corruption ring.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-03-31 09:20:46|Editor: An

People of Buyi ethnic group perform a dance to celebrate the Sanyuesan Festival in Wangmo County, southwest China's Guizhou Province, March 30, 2017. People around China celebrate the Sanyuesan Festival on Tuesday, the third day of the third lunar month. (Xinhua/Zhang Hui)
Former U.S. treasury secretaries Jacob Lew, Timothy Geithner, Robert Rubin and W. Michael Blumenthal (From R to L) attend the "Leader Speak: Treasury Secretaries" event at the China-US SkyClub in New York, the United States, on March 29, 2017.(Xinhua/Wang Ying)

By Xinhua writers Yang Shilong, Zhou Xiaozheng, Wang Naishui

NEW YORK, March 30 (Xinhua) -- Do not allow small frictions and differences in trade to undermine the U.S.-China economic relationship, which is essential to the world economy.

This is among the remarks made by former U.S. treasury secretaries W. Michael Blumenthal, Timothy Geithner, Jacob Lew, and Robert Rubin, in a conversation with Steve Orlins, head of National Committee on U.S.-China Relations, in New York on Wednesday evening.

Economic relations would not enjoy sustained, rapid growth if they were not based on mutual benefit, they said.

"The lesson (from my tenure) is that we each need to understand each other, understand the problems we have with each other, and try to work on them as people who engage in a constructive relationship," said Rubin, who served as treasury secretary during the Clinton administration.

"(Bill) Clinton has a conviction which I think is ever more the case today that the bilateral relations between the U.S. and China was going to become the most important relationship we had, it certainly has become that," he said.

Blumenthal, treasury secretary during the Carter administration, said that since former U.S. President Richard Nixon, the importance of establishing a strong relationship between the United States and China, and working hard to make that happen, has been a "bipartisan matter."

"It doesn't matter there are only four former Democratic secretaries here, because if you have had those serving under Republicans, they would have agreed with much what we have talked about here," said Blumenthal, who once lived in Shanghai for almost a decade in his early years.

China's official data showed bilateral trade surged from 2.5 billion U.S. dollars in 1979 to 519.6 billion dollars in 2016, a more than 200-fold increase.

The vibrant, cooperative economic relationship has already gone well beyond bilateral territory.

Most recently, China and the United States have joined hands and worked together with other countries to counter the international financial crisis and promote a global economic recovery, said Geithner, treasury secretary during the first term of the Obama administration.

"Three quarters of the time we spent with the Chinese leadership was figuring out ways to cooperate during the economic crisis," said Geithner, who once studied the Chinese language in Beijing for six months in the early 1980s.

"I found that we had as deep and broad a relationship with Chinese financial authorities as with those of Germany, Europe and Japan," he said.

The United States and China have also worked together in addressing major international and regional issues.

"On transnational issues, the Chinese really started maturing in the last four to five years. Climate change is a great example," said Lew, treasury secretary from 2013 to 2017 under the Obama administration.

"If the U.S. and China had not moved forward in climate change conversations, the Paris Agreement would not have happened," Lew said.

On the accusation of China manipulating its currency, Rubin said: "I don't know of a mainstream American economist who believes that China is manipulating its currency."

"Objectively over the last year, China has been doing the opposite...to the fact they are intervening at their expense to protect their currency," Lew said.

"If China really had an economic crisis and the RMB plummeted, it could result in a global currency war," Rubin said.

The secretaries agreed that it is all the more important for China and the United States to communicate, coordinate and cooperate more closely for the sake of global stability.

"The best way forward," said Rubin, "is the U.S. and China working together to provide leadership to the global community."
Source: Xinhua| 2017-03-31 07:46:52|Editor: Mengjie

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HAVANA, March 30 (Xinhua) -- Cuba's state-owned telecommunications company Etecsa announced Thursday in a statement that it is to lower the price for surfing the domestic websites on Internet to "ease searches of websites with national content for cultural, informative or research purposes."

The new price for navigation on Cuban networks and the new minimum recharge value of Internet cards is of 0.1 CUC/hour (0.1 U.S. dollars according to official exchange rates).

Until now, the service costs 1.5 CUC/hour, with this cost remaining the same for accessing international websites.

"There are many existing websites and portals in our national network that can be used for schoolwork and to discover the cultural attractions of the entire country, as well as news from Cuba and around the world," pointed out Etecsa.

For a number of years, Cuba has prioritized information and communications technology as a strategic sector to develop the economy.

In line with this, Etecsa has committed this year to expanding its fixed and mobile telephone services, increase Internet access and ease commercialization mechanisms.

According to official data, Etecsa's Nauta web service had 1.5 million permanent accounts in 2016, with 15 million temporary accounts sold that year.

Most Cubans do not have Internet service at home but access it at 240 Wi-fi hotspots across the island in public spaces as well as around 1,000 fixed hotspots at hotels, computer centers and Etecsa offices.

However, in March, after a pilot program among 2,000 users in Havana, Cuba began providing home access to the Internet. Previously, it was only allowed for certain professionals, such as doctors and journalists, as well as foreigners.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-03-31 07:56:53|Editor: Liangyu

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The photo made available by U.S. space firm SpaceX on March 30, 2017 shows the company's Falcon 9 rocket at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, the United States. (Xinhua)

WASHINGTON, March 30 (Xinhua) -- U.S. space firm SpaceX made history on Thursday as it launched an already-used Falcon 9 rocket back into space for the first time and then landed its first stage on a droneship in the Atlantic Ocean.

The two-stage rocket, carrying a communications satellite into orbit for Luxembourg-based satellite operator SES, blasted off at 6:27 p.m. EDT (22:27 GMT) from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

About 10 minutes later, the first stage, or booster, achieved a successful landing on the "Of Course I Still Love You" droneship that was stationed in the Atlantic Ocean.

"We just had an incredible day today," SpaceX CEO Elon Musk said during a live webcast of the launch. "The first reflight of an orbital class booster did its mission perfectly, dropped off the second stage, came back and landed on the droneship, right in the bullseye."

Elon said the feat means it can fly and refly an orbital class booster, which is the most expensive part of the rocket.

"This is going to be ultimately a huge revolution in spaceflight," Musk continued. "It's the difference between if you had airplanes where you threw away an airplane after every flight versus you could reuse them multiple times.

Previously, the first stage of the rocket for the SES-10 mission flew in a cargo resupply mission to the International Space Station cargo for the the U.S. space agency NASA in April 2016.

SpaceX achieved a space industry first in December 2015 when its Falcon 9 rocket booster successfully landed upright on solid ground at Cape Canaveral, Florida, after launching 11 small satellites into orbit.

The feat has since been repeated both on land and at sea for multiple times.

SpaceX's rival firm, Blue Origin, owned by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, successfully completed similar rocket recovery tests, but all of its missions were suborbital, not orbital, ones.

All these attempts were aimed at producing a fully and rapidly reusable rocket, which allegedly will dramatically reduce the cost of space transport.

Traditionally, rockets are designed for a single use only, burning up or crashing into the ocean after liftoff.

Falcon 9's second stage, which currently still is expendable or single use, also succeeded in its mission to send the SES-10 satellite to a geostationary transfer orbit.

Once in position, the satellite will provide telecommunications services to Latin America.

SES has been known to be "a strong supporter" of SpaceX's approach to reusability over the years. Back in 2013, it was the first company to launch a commercial satellite on a Falcon 9 rocket.

The European satellite operator hailed Thursday's launch as "one step closer to rapid rocket reusability" and "one step closer to faster, easier access to space."

"Reusable rockets will not only drive down the launch cost," it said in a statement. "They will also allow a higher launch frequency, which will definitely bring a new agility and competitive edge to the satellite industry."
Source: Xinhua| 2017-03-31 08:52:02|Editor: huaxia

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SEOUL -- Former President Park Geun-hye of South Korea was arrested early Friday as a Seoul court approved the request from prosecutors following her impeachment earlier this month over a corruption scandal embroiling her.

The court said in a statement that Park's major criminal allegations can be justified while concerns remain about a possibility of her destroying evidence. (S. Korea-Park)

- - - -

PYONGYANG -- The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) said late Thursday it has reached an agreement with Malaysia on the dispute over the death of a DPRK national in Kuala Lumpur last month.

In a joint communique issued by the Malaysian and DPRK negotiating parties, Malaysia has agreed to transfer the body of the deceased to his family after the latter produced all the required documentation. (DPRK-Malaysia-Death of national)

- - - -

WASHINGTON -- U.S. space firm SpaceX made history on Thursday as it launched an already-used Falcon 9 rocket back into space for the first time and then landed its first stage on a droneship in the Atlantic Ocean.

The two-stage rocket, carrying a communications satellite into orbit for Luxembourg-based satellite operator SES, blasted off at 6:27 p.m. EDT (2227 GMT) from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. (U.S.-Space)

- - - -

PRETORIA -- President Jacob Zuma on Thursday fired Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan in a cabinet reshuffle that affects at least 15 ministers and deputy ministers.

"I have decided to make changes to the National Executive in order to improve efficiency and effectiveness," Zuma said in a statement. (South Africa-Cabinet reshuffle) Enditem
Source: Xinhua| 2017-03-31 09:12:05|Editor: Xiang Bo

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Former South Korean President Park Geun-hye (C) is transferred in a car from Seoul to a detention house in Gyeonggi province, South Korea, on March 31, 2017. Former President Park Geun-hye of South Korea was arrested early Friday as a Seoul court approved the request from prosecutors following her impeachment earlier this month over a corruption scandal embroiling her. (Xinhua/NEWSIS)

SEOUL, March 31 (Xinhua) -- Former President Park Geun-hye of South Korea was arrested early Friday after a court approved the request from prosecutors, raising a possibility for her to serve jail term over corruption allegations.

A judge in the Seoul Central District Court said in a statement that Park's major criminal allegations could be justified and concerns remained over a possibility of her destroying evidence.

The arrest warrant for Park, which was sought by prosecutors earlier this week, was issued by the court, following the Thursday hearing that had lasted for nearly nine hours, the longest-ever in the country's history.

Park had waited overnight for the court's decision in the Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office, a building next to the Seoul court.

The 65-year-old was seen flanked by two female investigators inside a black sedan, TV footage showed, when she was moved to a detention center outside Seoul, about 15 km away from the prosecution office.

The sedan was escorted by security cars and police motorcycles, trailed by a number of vehicles loaded with local media cameramen. Park went to the detention center at about 4:45 a.m. local time.

A slew of Park supporters were awaiting Park's arrival near the detention center as if they also expected the arrest of the former leader, who had been viewed as a political icon among conservative voters.

Park left the presidential Blue House after his father Park Chung-hee, who had ruled the country for 18 years, was assassinated in 1979 by one of his closest aides. She re-entered the office in early 2013 after being elected the first female president of the country, but she failed to fulfill her five-year term and left the office in disgrace.

The Constitutional Court removed Park from office in a historic ruling on March 10, making Park the country's first president to be ousted by impeachment.

After a brief physical check-up, Park was supposed to change into prison garb and be sent to a solitary cell in the detention center, according to local media reports.

The detention center already accommodated Park's longtime confidante Choi Soon-sil, who is at the center of the corruption scandal that led to Park's impeachment, and Samsung Electronics Vice Chairman Lee Jae-yong over bribery charges.

Park became the third former president to be taken into custody. She will be held in detention for as long as 20 days while being investigated further by prosecutors.

The detention itself does not guarantee Park's conviction, but it raises a possibility of being sentenced to a prison term. If convicted of bribery, Park would face an imprisonment of at least 10 years.

Park is to be indicted before the end of the 20-day detention period on a total of 13 charges, including bribery, abuse of authority, coercion and the leakage of confidential documents.

She is accused of colluding with Choi to receive tens of millions of U.S. dollars in bribes from Samsung's Vice Chairman Lee.

The bribes were offered in return for getting assistance in the transfer of management control of Samsung Group to Vice Chairman Lee from his ailing father Chairman Lee Kun-hee.

The younger Lee, an heir apparent of the country's biggest family-controlled conglomerate, has effectively taken the helm of Samsung since Chairman Lee was hospitalized after a heart attack three years ago.

Choi is charged with extorting tens of millions of dollars from scores of conglomerates to establish two non-profit foundations she used for personal gains. Prosecutors already branded Park and Choi as criminal accomplices.

Choi, at the center of the influence-peddling scandal, is also suspected of receiving secret government documents from one of Park's former secretaries on a regular basis to meddle in state affairs behind the scenes.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-03-31 09:12:05|Editor: Lu Hui

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GENEVA, March 31 (Xinhua) -- The "creativity and strong legacy focus" of both Los Angeles and Paris has been praised by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) Evaluation Commission for the 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games after they completed an initial two-day review.

"The Commission's work is just beginning, but it is already clear that both candidates have embraced the spirit of Olympic Agenda 2020," Patrick Baumann, the Swiss IOC member who replaced Frankie Fredericks as chair of the Evaluation Commission earlier this month, said.

"Both proposals incorporate well-known locations in these two great cities, and would deliver an excellent experience for athletes, spectators and other Games participants.

"We are looking forward to taking a closer look at these two strong candidates during our site visits, to see in more detail how these well-developed plans would come to life at Games time and leave sustainable legacies."

The IOC Evaluation Commission are due to visit the Californian city from May 10 to 12 before they travel to the French capital for an inspection between May 14 and 16.

They will then report to the whole IOC membership at a Candidate City briefing, scheduled to take place in Lausanne on July 11 and 12.

A choice is to be made between the two at the IOC Session in Lima on September 13.

The two cities are the only candidates for 2024 in what was originally a five-horse race before the withdrawal of Hamburg, Rome and Budapest.
Two lorises abandoned on the China-Myanmar border have been rescued by a Chinese villager, and they have more good news to tell: the female primate gave birth to a cute baby during their stay at the villager's home.

Ai En, a farmer of Mansan Village in Damenglong Township of Xishuangbanna Prefecture in southwest China's Yunnan Province, found the two lorises, a species under state protection, on February 25 in a bag believed to have been deserted by Myanmar people.





Lorises are a primate species in tropical forests in south and southeast Asia. According to Ai En, the pair are each more than 20 cm long with big round eyes. Their two small ears hide in their hairy and round heads.

Ai took the two creatures home and to his surprise, the female loris gave birth to a baby less than five days after being rescued.

To feed the newly born, Ai En had to pick bananas in the mountain every day as it ate no other fruits except banana. Thanks to the man's efforts, the baby loris has grown up healthy.

Ai transferred the family of three to local forest police and the wild animal protection office this week. Ai was given an award of 500 yuan (about 75 U.S dollars) while the villagers' committee was awarded 1,000 yuan. (Photos provided to Xinhua; Translation by Xu Yining)
Source: Xinhua| 2017-03-31 10:37:19|Editor: An

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WASHINGTON, March 30 (Xinhua) -- U.S. President Donald Trump looks forward to meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping to chart a way forward on the U.S.-China relationship, the White House said Thursday.

The two leaders will meet at Mar-a-Lago, Florida on April 6-7 for their first meeting since Trump assumed office in January, China and the United States concurrently announced earlier Thursday.

"The president looks forward to meeting with President Xi and exchanging views on each other's respective priorities, and to chart a way forward on a bilateral relationship between our two nations," White House spokesman Sean Spicer told a news briefing.

They will discuss issues of mutual concern, including the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, trade, and regional security, he added.

Spicer said the two sides reached agreement on the dates, locations and agendas of the Xi-Trump summit after several weeks of discussions.

Asked about the U.S. goal for the meeting, Spicer said this will be an opportunity for Trump "to develop a relationship in person with President Xi."
Former South Korean President Park Geun-hye (Front) arrives at the Seoul Central District Court in Seoul, South Korea, on March 30, 2017. (Xinhua/POOL)

SEOUL, March 31 (Xinhua) -- Former President Park Geun-hye of South Korea was arrested early Friday after a court approved the request from prosecutors, raising a possibility for her to serve jail term over corruption allegations.

A judge in the Seoul Central District Court said in a statement that Park's major criminal allegations could be justified and concerns remained over a possibility of her destroying evidence.

The arrest warrant for Park, which was sought by prosecutors earlier this week, was issued by the court, following the Thursday hearing that had lasted for nearly nine hours, the longest-ever in the country's history.

Park had waited overnight for the court's decision in the Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office, a building next to the Seoul court.

The 65-year-old was seen flanked by two female investigators inside a black sedan, TV footage showed, when she was moved to a detention center outside Seoul, about 15 km away from the prosecution office.

The sedan was escorted by security cars and police motorcycles, trailed by a number of vehicles loaded with local media cameramen. Park went to the detention center at about 4:45 a.m. local time.

A slew of Park supporters were awaiting Park's arrival near the detention center as if they also expected the arrest of the former leader, who had been viewed as a political icon among conservative voters.

Park left the presidential Blue House after his father Park Chung-hee, who had ruled the country for 18 years, was assassinated in 1979 by one of his closest aides. She re-entered the office in early 2013 after being elected the first female president of the country, but she failed to fulfill her five-year term and left the office in disgrace.

The Constitutional Court removed Park from office in a historic ruling on March 10, making Park the country's first president to be ousted by impeachment.

After a brief physical check-up, Park was supposed to change into prison garb and be sent to a solitary cell in the detention center, according to local media reports.

Former South Korean President Park Geun-hye (C) is transferred in a car from Seoul to a detention house in Gyeonggi province, South Korea, on March 31, 2017. (Xinhua/NEWSIS)

The detention center already accommodated Park's longtime confidante Choi Soon-sil, who is at the center of the corruption scandal that led to Park's impeachment, and Samsung Electronics Vice Chairman Lee Jae-yong over bribery charges.

Park became the third former president to be taken into custody. She will be held in detention for as long as 20 days while being investigated further by prosecutors.

The detention itself does not guarantee Park's conviction, but it raises a possibility of being sentenced to a prison term. If convicted of bribery, Park would face an imprisonment of at least 10 years.

Park is to be indicted before the end of the 20-day detention period on a total of 13 charges, including bribery, abuse of authority, coercion and the leakage of confidential documents.

She is accused of colluding with Choi to receive tens of millions of U.S. dollars in bribes from Samsung's Vice Chairman Lee.

The bribes were offered in return for getting assistance in the transfer of management control of Samsung Group to Vice Chairman Lee from his ailing father Chairman Lee Kun-hee.

The younger Lee, an heir apparent of the country's biggest family-controlled conglomerate, has effectively taken the helm of Samsung since Chairman Lee was hospitalized after a heart attack three years ago.

Choi is charged with extorting tens of millions of dollars from scores of conglomerates to establish two non-profit foundations she used for personal gains. Prosecutors already branded Park and Choi as criminal accomplices.

Choi, at the center of the influence-peddling scandal, is also suspected of receiving secret government documents from one of Park's former secretaries on a regular basis to meddle in state affairs behind the scenes.
YANGON, March 31 (Xinhua) -- Five armed groups' willingness to sign the Nationwide Cease fire Accord (NCA) has shown rays of hope for peace, Myanmar State Counselor Aung San Suu Kyi said.

Suu Kyi made the remarks at the end of her televised speech marking one year of the NLD government Thursday night shortly after she was informed that the five armed groups would sign the NCA.

However, she warned that "At such a time of great importance, undesirable destructive elements and instigation intended to harm peace might emerge," urging leaders of the ethnic nationalities and her compatriots to be extremely vigilant.

The five armed groups of the United Nationalities Federal Council (UNFC), who expressed their willingness to join in signing the NCA, are Kayinni National Progressive Party (KNPP), New Mon State Party (NMSP), Arakan National Council (ANC), Lahu Democratic Union (LDU) and Wa National Organization (WNO).

With the proposed accession to NCA, there remains only two armed groups yet to follow suit which are the Kachin Independence Organization (KIO) and the Shan State Progressive Party (SSPP) or Shan State Army (SSA).

Suu Kyi said the five armed groups' promised signing of the NCA came after year-long negotiations.

She has stressed the importance of inking the NCA which would pave way for them to attend the upcoming second meeting of the 21st Century Panglong Peace Conference expected in April or May, a dialogue open to all ethnic armed groups.

Myanmar's previous government and eight other armed groups signed the NCA on Oct. 15, 2015, and the first meeting of the 21st Century Panglong Conference was held in Nay Pyi Taw in August 2016, months after the new government led by the National League for Democracy (NLD) took office.

Meanwhile, Myanmar has been holding national region-oriented and race-oriented political dialogue in regions and states across the nation since January.

The outcome of all regional dialogues will be submitted to the upcoming second meeting of the Panglong Peace Conference, which is expected to gather about 700 representatives.
PRETORIA, March 30 (Xinhua) -- South African President Jacob Puma on Thursday fired Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan in a cabinet reshuffle that affects at least 15 ministers and deputy ministers.

"I have decided to make changes to the National Executive in order to improve efficiency and effectiveness," Zuma said in a statement.

This came after Zuma summoned the rest of the top six members of the ruling African National Congress (ANC) to an urgent meeting in Pretoria, administrative capital of South Africa, apparently to discuss the reshuffle.

"The changes bring some younger MPs and women into the National Executive in order to benefit from their energy, experience and expertise," Zuma said.

The reshuffle was seen as one of Zuma's most dramatic moves during his tenure. Zuma also shuffled ministers in the transport, energy, police, sports, public works and tourism portfolios. The sacking of Gordhan, in particular, has sparked an outcry.

The South African Communist Party (SACP), a coalition partner of the ruling ANC party, said it objects to the cabinet reshuffle.

"The SACP wishes to state that as the norm, the President informed us of his intention to effect a Cabinet reshuffle, replacing both the Minister and Deputy Minister of Finance," the party said in a statement.

The ANC has an obligation to consult its alliance partners in exercising political power that has been collectively struggled for, said the SACP.

The SACP confirmed on Thursday that Zuma had told the party that he intended to fire Gordhan based on an "intelligence report."

The report claimed that Gordhan and his deputy Mcebisi Jonas were going to use a trip to Britain and the United States to hold "secret meetings" and push for a change in government.

On Monday, Zuma instructed Gordhan to cancel his overseas investor roadshow and immediately return to South Africa.
HANOI, March 31 (Xinhua) -- Fifty Vietnamese marksmen will attend a friendship match here on Saturday, according to the Vietnam Shooting Federation.

Shooters will compete in two Southeast Asian Games (SEA Games) categories, namely, Trap and Army Rifle.

No Vietnamese marksman has competed at SEA Games' Army Rifle, while very few have lined up for the Trap category, local Tien Phong (Pioneer) newspaper reported on Friday.

The friendship event is aimed at enhancing local players' shooting capacity, said the federation.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-03-31 12:37:36|Editor: Liangyu

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BEIJING, March 31 (Xinhua) -- China hopes the upcoming meeting between President Xi Jinping and his U.S. counterpart Donald Trump will set the direction for the development of the bilateral relationship, an official said on Friday.

"It will be the first meeting between the heads of state of China and the United States since the new U.S. administration took office," Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Zheng Zeguang told a press briefing on the meeting.

On April 6-7, Xi will meet with Trump at Mar-a-Lago, Florida, the United States.

"As the international situation continues undergoing profound and complicated changes, the meeting will be of great significance to chart China-U.S. relationship in a new era, advance the development of the bilateral ties in a healthy and stable way from a new starting point, and promote peace, stability and prosperity in Asia and the Pacific and the world at large," said the Chinese official.

According to Zheng, Xi will hold talks with Trump, during which they will exchange views in an in-depth way on China-U.S. ties and major international and regional affairs of common concern with a view of enhancing mutual understanding and expanding bilateral cooperation.

President Xi and his wife Peng Liyuan will attend a welcome banquet hosted by President Trump and his wife Melania, according to Zheng.

Zheng said the Chinese and U.S. presidents have reached important consensus through phone conversations and letters over the past months.

"They both believe that China and the United States can absolutely be very good partners," Zheng said, adding that the two countries should uphold the principle of no conflict, no confrontation, mutual respect and win-win cooperation in advancing their ties.

Zheng said the Chinese and U.S. sides are making final preparations for the presidents' meeting to make it a complete success.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-03-31 12:42:06|Editor: Lu Hui

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WUHAN, March 31 (Xinhua) -- Nine people were killed and six injured when a section of scaffolding collapsed Monday in central China's Hubei Province, the local government said Friday.

It took the emergency services 59 hours to rescue all the trapped workers, the last was found Thursday. All the injured are receiving hospital treatment, the Macheng city government announced.

The accident occurred at an amusement park construction site in Macheng city at 2:35 p.m. Monday.

Nine people are in police custody.

The provincial safety production supervision authority has sent a work team to the city to investigate the incident.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-03-31 12:47:39|Editor: Lu Hui

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BEIJING, March 31 (Xinhua) -- China's top discipline watchdog is taking a no-holds-barred approach to punishing malpractice in poverty-relief work, punishing offenders regardless of the severity of the crime.

In 2014, Bao Gabao, a former village head in Zhangxian County, a poor backwater in northwest China, embezzled 200,000 yuan (29,000 U.S.dollars) from the local budget, which had been allocated by the local authorities to cover the cost of buying 200 goats.

The goats should have been distributed among the village's poor families to increase their earnings. However, Bao covertly registered a company in the name of his relatives and falsified written consent from the poor families so he could claim the goats as his own assets.

Bao suffered the consequences -- including expulsion from the Communist Party of China (CPC).

Bao's case was one of eight publicized this week by the Central Discipline Inspection Commission of the Central Committee (CCDI), the CPC's top anti-graft organ, when it reviewed corruption in the country's poverty alleviation campaigns.

In another case, an official with the poverty alleviation office in north China's Hebei Province was punished for appropriating funds that were meant to be used to purchase 82 cows for poor families.

For the past four years, China has allocated a total of 196.1 billion yuan (about 28.5 billion U.S. dollars) to various poverty relief projects.

Though the money value of a goat or a cow may seem just like a drop in the ocean when compared with the hefty central budget on poverty relief, it could make or break a family.

In some extreme case, free access to animal husbandry would be the only lifeline for the poor villagers to climb out of poverty.

GOATS MAKE A DIFFERENCE, NO KIDDING

China set 2020 as the target year to complete building a "moderately prosperous society," and a key goal of the target is to eradicate poverty.

It has lifted 700 million people out of poverty over about 30 years, but in the coming years poverty relief work will become increasingly more difficult as it nears its end.

There were still 43.35 million people living in poverty by the end of 2016.

China is now following a targeted poverty alleviation strategy, meaning appropriate resources should be used on the right people, in the right place, at the right time.

Local authorities must make sure every poor family has a program for increasing income and every poor person has a way of casting off poverty.

Efforts have been made to help the poor to have a hand in their own destiny, and various methods, including providing poor families with livestock, have been rolled out to this end.

Poverty eradication does not necessarily mean industrial projects. In rural areas, for example, husbandry is more suitable.

PRECISE SUPERVISION

Against such a backdrop, the central authorities will not accept corruption in any form and, as such, stern measures have been rolled out to address deception, falsification and corruption in poverty elimination work.

China is in the midst of a five-year campaign to crack down on corruption by officials involved in poverty relief work.

Prosecutors targeted some key fields, such as relocation, land use, house renovation, education and fiscal subsidies, in the campaign.

They investigated and handled 1,892 officials who were linked to the misuse or embezzlement of poverty relief funds in 2016, doubled the number in 2015.

The Ministry of Finance and the State Council Leading Group Office of Poverty Alleviation and Development (CPAD) on March 16 also started a targeted inspection on the use and management of poverty relief funds, aiming to uncover any irregularities in the initiative.

Disciplinary departments at the county and town level are now required to go to each village in person to inspect the problems on the ground and talk with residents at the grassroots level.

"Effective use of funds is vital at this phase. By strengthening supervision on the use of money, poverty relief work can achieve better results," said Liu Yongfu, director of the CPAD.

Liu's sentiments were echoed by Wang Yukai, a professor with the Chinese Academy of Governance.

"Only through enhanced supervision and clean governance will precise poverty alleviation advance effectively, helping China accomplish its goal of building a moderately prosperous society in an all-round way," said Wang.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-03-31 13:22:44|Editor: An

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BEIJING, March 31 (Xinhua) -- State-owned China Aerospace Science & Industry Corp. (CASIC) announced plans for a network of 156 mini-satellites that would facilitate global broadband coverage.

This is the first low orbiting, networked satellite project, which will orbit 1,000 km above the ground, developed by China amid its wider push for commercial space development, said the CASIC.

"The network is a general satellite platform," said Bei Chao, an engineer with the CASIC, who added that add-ons and upgrades would be explored next.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-03-31 13:52:48|Editor: An

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BEIJING, March 31 (Xinhua) -- More than two dozen cities in north China have drawn up a detailed action plan to address the notorious winter smog.

Targets and deadlines were outlined in the action plan, which was drafted by several ministries and the governments of Beijing, Tianjin, and 26 smaller cities in the provinces of Hebei, Shanxi, Shandong and Henan.

By the end of October, 13 cities including Beijing vowed to close the majority of polluting businesses that operate on a small scale, provide low-end services, hold insufficient licenses, or do not have sufficient emission treatment facilities.

In the next seven months, the cities of Beijing, Tianjin and neighboring Langfang and Baoding will ban the use of small coal-fired furnaces for winter heating. Areas in these cities will be declared completely "coal free."

Air pollution is more astutely felt in north China in winter. While high concentration of industrial and vehicle emissions are the main culprits, static air and the use of coal for winter heating worsen the situation, experts say.

Provinces around Beijing are also home to the country's major steel-makers, coal mines, aluminum producers, and chemical plants.

The action plan says cities with dense heavy industries in the provinces of Hebei and Henan will roll out a seasonal reduction on steel output capacity, aiming to slash it by half this winter. Aluminum and chemical plants will also scale down production.

Regarding car exhausts, all 28 cities will install monitoring facilities to watch over diesel and high-emitting petrol vehicles. The port of Tianjin, a key sea port in the region, will stop receiving coal by road. Most cargo will be transferred to rail.

A name-and-shame list is ready for local officials as well. According to the plan, the Ministry of Environmental Protection will publish a monthly list profiling the work undertaken by 28 cities to improve air quality. It will be a "major" criterion on performance evaluations of officials.
HO CHI MINH CITY, March 31 (Xinhua) -- A fine arts exhibition will be held here from April 20-30, showcasing 134 works by 98 outstanding artists from 15 Vietnamese cities and provinces, the organizers announced Friday.

The works, including 121 paintings, 10 sculptures, two video artworks and one installation artwork by the artists in the age bracket of 18-45, reflect many contemporary issues in Vietnam and the world as well, said the Ho Chi Minh City Fine Arts Association.

The artworks will be displayed at the Ho Chi Minh City Fine Arts Museum in District 1.

Relevant workshops will also be organized during the exhibition.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-03-31 14:38:00|Editor: An

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By Xinhua writers Liu Wei, Feng Changyong and Zhou Xiangji

CHENGDU, March 31 (Xinhua) -- China plans to build a Giant Panda National Park spanning three provinces to help the endangered animals mingle and enrich their gene pool.

Pandas isolated on six mountains in Gansu, Shaanxi and Sichuan will be able to come together in the proposed national park.

The park will cover 27,134 square kilometers, three times the area of America's Yellowstone National Park. It will have a core area, protecting pandas in 67 current reserves as well as another 8,000 endangered animals and plants.

Like many other endangered species, pandas are suffering habitat loss and fragmentation due to natural disasters, climate change and expanding human activity.

Multiple administrations in three provinces worsen the situation. When a panda crosses a provincial boundary, jurisdiction becomes blurred.

The park will resolve such troubles. When it is complete, pandas will roam freely between the current far-flung habitats. It also means a lot of people will have to move - at least 170,000 people in Sichuan will have to relocate to establish the core protection area.

"Unlike nature reserves, the park does not stand alone. China will formulate an overall plan for the national park system. It will be a haven for biodiversity and provide protection for the whole ecological system," says Hou Rong, director of Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding.

China's national park system comprises the Giant Panda National Park and eight others devoted to endangered species and the headwaters of major rivers. The central authorities last year endorsed reform plans to "advance ecological progress," which included the plan to establish national park system.

Hou says the park will offer residents new homes and work. It could, for example, hire them as guides for tourists and as workers to build infrastructure, so people and nature will benefit together.

People have lived in panda reserves for generations, but they cut bamboo shoots and grazed livestock on hills, eating into the pandas' habitat and disrupting their lives.

Qubie Mazi, of the Yi ethnic minority, has lived in Sichuan's Hei Hezi Village for 40 years, making a living by growing potatoes and collecting herbs. A panda reserve in the village is a key corridor connecting populations in Liangshan Mountain.

Poverty once drove the villagers to poach pandas, but after a penalty and bonus system was introduced, they learned to value national treasure and they now cherish them.

"I saw a panda in one of the village houses a month ago. I guess he came to look for food or company. I know when they need to mate, they will go to the other side of the mountain. When I find something unusual about the pandas, I report it to the reserve," says Qubie.

Asked how he feels about making way for pandas, he says, "I will move, if I can have a new home and a new job."

"We should lead locals to protect the environment, not to spoil it," says Heng Yi, senior staff of China Conservation and Research Center for the Giant Panda (CCRCGP). "The key measure is to help people live a sustainable life and to get them out of poverty."

"Once they have access to electricity, they will stop cutting bamboos. If they have a decent job and steady income, they won't risk to poach pandas," he added.

RETURN TO THE WILD

The national park plan has had to address significant economic and practical challenges, Hou says. Panda conservation work has gone through three major stages: breeding, reintroduction to the wild and the national park.

"We had to start captive-breeding programs in the late 1990s, as the number of pandas dropped dramatically in the 1980s, partly because of a periodic natural die-off of bamboo," says Hou.

Chinese scientists toiled to breed the reclusive animal in captivity, overcoming some early failures. Last year, 64 cubs were born and 54 survive in nature reserves and zoos, according to the State Forestry Administration.

Scientists are also troubled by the pandas' inbreeding. For many years, they worked with international research teams to make pandas one of the most genetically diverse animals in captivity.

In order to enrich the gene pool, CCRCGP started the reintroduction program in 2003. It has reintroduced seven pandas into the wild, but two died.

Keeping them behind the bars is the last thing CCRCGP director Zhang Hemin wants. "The goal of breeding and reintroduction is to eventually put the animals back into bamboo forests and expect them to mate with their wild cousins."

Thanks to these dogged conservation efforts, 1,864 pandas remain in the wild, 17 percent more than a decade ago, according to the most recent national survey in February 2015.

The aim is to raise the wild population to more than 2,000 by 2025. This requires a large protection area and an upgraded eco-system. "That' s why many scientists and conservation experts support the building of a national park," says Hou, who made the suggestion in 2014.

Few people are aware of how pandas live in the wild, says Hou. Much of their range is fragmented, and only a few large continuous tracts remain where the animals can roam freely.

According to a report by WWF, roads and railroads are increasingly fragmenting the forest, which further isolates panda populations and prevents mating, while forest destruction reduces their access to the bamboo they need to survive.

Some sub-populations number fewer than 10 members. This makes them vulnerable to disease and reproductive problems, and less able to adapt to a changing environment.

While the park paints a wonderful picture for the conservation of pandas and the restoration of the ecological system, it also faces challenges and risks.

Restoring effective corridors for panda migration is no easy job. Twenty corridor plans across the six mountains have been proposed since 1988, but few came to reality.

"China still needs to do more empirical studies and to carry out conservation activities to put these corridors into real use," says Melissa Songer, a conservation biologist from the Smithsonian's National Zoological Park.

In 2015, China's National Development and Reform Commission and the Chicago-based Paulson Institute signed a cooperation framework protocol to carry out pilot programs and case studies.

"Past experience has told us how much a national park can do for a country's environment and ecology," says David Wildt, a senior scientist from the Smithsonian's Conservation Biology Institute.

"I am delighted to see China's breakthrough in panda breeding and reintroduction programs. But it's time to test if these measures work out in the new system of national parks."
NEW DELHI, March 31 (Xinhua) -- Indian Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj said the government had rescued 29 workers from Saudi Arabia and was bringing them home.

"We have rescued those 29 workers from Saudi Arabia. We are paying for their air tickets as well," Swaraj wrote on twitter.

Last week the minister asked its ambassador in Saudi Arabia, Ahmad Javed, to seek release of 29 migrant workers detained there.

The Indian migrant workers hailing from southern state of Telangana have reportedly been held in captivity by a company in Saudi Arabia without food or basic amenities.

Swaraj's intervention came after Telangana Non-Resident Indian (NRI) Affairs Minister K T Rama Rao appealed foreign minister that workers be repatriated to India.

According to Rao, the workers had sought leave from the company to visit their homes in India, which the company denied besides demanding a ransom from them.

Over 3 million Indians are working in Saudi Arabia.

With dearth of jobs and low salaries at home, thousands of Indian workers travel to the Middle East every year for better prospects.

Meanwhile, Swaraj also announced that two Indians abducted in South Sudan have been released.

"I am happy to inform about the release of two Indian nationals Midhun and Edward who were abducted in South Sudan," Swaraj wrote on twitter on Friday.

Swaraj has been proactive and prompt in reaching out to people especially distressed Indians abroad and taking cognizance of issues pertaining to her ministry using social media.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-03-31 15:03:05|Editor: xuxin

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WELLINGTON, March 31 (Xinhua) -- Health authorities in New Zealand's biggest city have warned of a typhoid outbreak after 10 people were hospitalized with the potentially deadly illness.

The Auckland Regional Public Health Service (ARPHS) said Friday it was tracing people who had been in contact with the confirmed cases and was following protocols to control the spread of the disease.

It could be a serious illness and was potentially fatal, but it could be treated with antibiotics, medical officer of health Dr David Sinclair said in a statement.

Typhoid was spread primarily through water and food, but could be spread person to person, said Sinclair.

Good basic hand-washing was one of the best means of protection.

Symptoms included a high fever developing over several days, headaches, general weakness and muscle aches.

Stomach pain and constipation are also common but some people get diarrhea.

Sinclair urged anyone with the symptoms feeling see a doctor.

He told Radio New Zealand that the outbreak had developed over the past 10 days or so and the patients were from a range of places in central and southern Auckland.

Most of the typhoid cases in New Zealand were imported, from people coming back into the country, either with symptoms or as carriers, mainly from the Pacific or Southeast Asia.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-03-31 15:13:07|Editor: ZD

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by Xinhua Writer Zhu Junqing

BEIJING, March 31 (Xinhua) -- The upcoming meeting between Chinese President Xi Jinping and his U.S. counterpart Donald Trump, the first of its kind, is expected to set the tone for the future development of China-U.S. ties that matter a great deal for the Asia-Pacific and the world as a whole.

The meeting between the leaders of the world's top two economies is of significance as China-U.S. relations are facing great opportunities after witnessing twists and turns over the past months.

Fortunately, China and the United States have always been able to seek common ground while reserve differences, and have shown willingness to manage their disagreements and jointly maintain stability in bilateral ties, as well as peace in the region and beyond.

In a phone conversation on Feb. 10, the two leaders pledged to build a constructive bilateral relationship. Trump reversed his previous stance and reassured his Chinese counterpart that the U.S. administration will honor the one-China policy, the fundamental for the world's most important bilateral ties.

Meanwhile, the two sides have agreed to build relations according to the principles of non-confrontation, no-conflict, mutual respect and win-win cooperation, principles which U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has reiterated several times on different occasions and which were originally proposed by China in 2013.

Both sides have also recognized that cooperation is the only correct choice, and that there will be important development opportunities resulting from smooth China-U.S. relations.

The upcoming face-to-face meeting between the two presidents is a good opportunity to deepen their personal understanding of each other and to strengthen mutual trust. A strong personal relationship between heads of state often plays a critical and sometimes even indispensable role in helping promote the relations between their countries.

The two-day gathering is expected to lay out a series of guidelines for bilateral relations in the future and the two leaders will exchange views on regional and global issues, such as two-way trade and investment, currency and stability in the South China Sea, among others.

Of course, it would be naive to believe that the two sides can bridge their differences in a single diplomatic meeting. Yet as long as the two nations can maintain their good faith, which they have shown recently, to talk and to make concessions based on mutual respect, then no difference would be too difficult to iron out.

Also, China and the United States are now part of a highly globalized world. For the Trump administration, many of its most urgent tasks, like boosting economic growth, creating jobs and revamping infrastructure, are in the domestic arena. In fact, China's strong economic and trade ties with the United States can be of great help, not obstacles to the Trump administration to deliver on its promises. The incentives for both sides to ruin their important relationship are minimal at best.

Across the world, the two countries also need each other more than ever to tackle such prickly problems as global warming, terrorism, transnational crimes and drug-trafficking, and to maintain world peace and development. The cost of non-cooperation would be very high indeed.

The theory of the Thucydides Trap describes the terrible scenario of China and the United States going to war to compete for global supremacy.

Yet the theory disregards the fact that in a world of interdependence, cooperation is the best and most efficient way for nations like China and the United States to achieve their common interests. As long as the two countries can pursue their shared interests as well as navigate their differences with pragmatism and prudence, they can surely avoid this trap.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-03-31 15:22:38|Editor: xuxin

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by Edna Alcantara

MEXICO CITY, March 31 (Xinhua) -- Never mind the border wall. Mexico has a strong case to sue the United States for territories its northern neighbor seized in the mid 19th century, according to a legal expert.

Armed with historical documents and testimony, Mexico could mount a legal case to annul the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which ceded roughly half of the nation's territory to the United States in 1848, as part of a peace treaty that put an end to the U.S. occupation of Mexico during the Mexican-American War, Mexican criminal lawyer Guillermo Hamdan Castro told Xinhua in an interview.

Over the past three decades, Hamdan has headed a group of legal experts studying the infamous deal, hoping to see the case debated at the Hague-based International Court of Justice.

Hamdan, who says his campaign has the support of Mexican intellectuals, historians and three-time presidential candidate Cuauhtemoc Cardenas, seeks nothing less than to have the treaty "totally nullified."

Mexico "has all of the legal elements to demand the restitution of the more than 2 million square kilometers that were snatched by the United States through the treaty," Hamdan told Xinhua.

Hamdan said Mexico's case is built on a compendium of 17 tomes of testimony from members of the U.S. army and statements from former U.S. presidents, recognizing that "these territories were seized under threat."

The lawyer said the case rests on a simple premise that the accord's first sentence contains an admission that the U.S. army invaded Mexico and signing an agreement in that context renders it null.

The treaty forced Mexico to part with today's U.S. states of California, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, Utah and parts of Colorado, Wyoming, Kansas and Oklahoma.

"It will be the biggest lawsuit in the history of humanity," said Hamdan.

The case could also eclipse, if not prevent, U.S. President Donald Trump's much publicized plan to build a giant wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.

Hamdan conceded it would be "slim chance" for Mexico to recover the lands should the legal claim be upheld, but suggested instead Mexico could demand the United States pay compensation for the use of the land over the past 168 years.

"We are asking to be compensated in gold or in pesos," said Hamdan.

The next step, he said, is to get Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto on board, as the government would have to file the lawsuit at the court.

Hamdan plans to take the documents over to the National Palace, the seat of the federal executive, soon. Meanwhile, the legal team has built a website, called "Demanda lo nuestro" or "Demand what is ours," to gather support for the initiative.
PHNOM PENH, March 31 (Xinhua) -- Approximately 8 million out of the Cambodia's 15 million people have now access to the Internet, Minister of Posts and Telecommunications Tram Iv Tek said on Friday.

"Most of them get online via smart phones and tablet computers," he told reporters. "We expect that 100 percent of the urban dwellers and 80 percent of the rural dwellers will use the Internet by 2020."

The country has 30 internet service providers, he added.

Meanwhile, the minister said that the country has six mobile phone operators. To date, those operators have sold out 19.6 million SIM cards, exceeding the country's population of 15 million because many subscribers own more than one line.

With the rapid growth of Internet users, social media like Facebook has become a very popular way for politicians to communicate with people in Cambodia.

Cambodian Prime Minister Samdech Techo Hun Sen has used his Facebook page to show about the country's peace, stability and development, as well as to hear and solve people's concerns, while opposition politicians have used Facebook to criticize the government and social injustice.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-03-31 15:48:13|Editor: ying

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URUMQI, March 31 (Xinhua) -- The foreign trade volume of northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region soared over 70 percent year on year in the first two months of 2017, local authorities said Friday.

Urumqi Customs data showed that Xinjiang's trade value reached 21.3 billion yuan (about 3.1 billion U.S. dollars) in the first two months, up 74.1 percent year on year.

Exported goods, mainly textiles, shoes and mechanical parts, reached 18.3 billion yuan, up 73.5 percent year on year.

Imported goods, including mechanical equipment and farm produce, stood at 3.01 billion yuan, up 77.7 percent year on year.

Kazakhstan remains Xinjiang's top trade partner, with a trade volume of 6.72 billion yuan, with growth of 77.9 percent.

Increasing global demand and depreciation of the Chinese currency are among the factors contributing to the trade growth, according to customs officials.

The central government and Xinjiang regional government have boosted trade through expanding trade channels between Xinjiang and its trading partners, improving transportation and investing in trade information systems.
ISLAMABAD, March 31 (Xinhua) -- Pakistani security forces have killed a senior Taliban commander and one of his accomplices in South Waziristan tribal region, the military here said on Friday.

An army spokesman said that "high value terrorist" Mehmood ul Hassan alias Khwaja Madni and his accomplice were killed in cordon and search operation near Jandola, a small town in the region.

The commander belonged to Sajna group of the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), which is active in parts of South Waziristan, bordering Afghanistan.

Pakistani forces have cleared most of the areas in the tribal region. However, the militants are hiding in rugged mountains.

An army statement said that weapons and ammunition were also recovered from the terrorists' hideout. The operation was part of a major operation, codenamed "Radd-ul-Fasaad" or reject discord in English, after a series of terrorist attacks killed over 100 people recently.

The statement said that the security forces also carried out intelligence-based operation in Sibbi area of southwestern Balochistan Province and recovered weapons and ammunition including hand grenades, RPG rockets, anti-tank, anti-personal mines, rifles and explosives.
ISLAMABAD, March 31 (Xinhua) -- At least seven people including women and kids were killed and 30 others injured when a blast hit a market area in Pakistan's northwest tribal area of Parachinar Friday morning, local Urdu media reported.

Local officials told reporters that the explosion ripped through the central Noor Market of Parachinar in the Kurram Agency located along Pakistan-Afghanistan border.

Senator Sajid Turi, a lawmaker from the area, said the explosive materials were fixed inside a car parked near a Shia mosque in the market.

The injured have been shifted to nearby hospitals where a state of emergency has been declared. Hospital sources said at least 10 among the injured are in critical conditions.

Around 15 nearby shops were damaged in the blast. Security forces rushed to the site and cordoned it off.

Inter-Services Public Relations, the media wing of Pakistani army, said a disaster relief helicopter has been dispatched to the blast site.

The helicopter will be used to shift seriously injured people to hospitals in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province.

No group has claimed the attack yet.

Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif condemned the blast and vowed to eradicate militancy from the country.

In late January, a market in Parachinar was jolted by a suicide bomb, which left 25 dead and 65 injured. Outlawed organization Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan claimed the January's attack.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-03-31 15:58:15|Editor: ying

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by Xinhua writer Zhu Dongyang

BEIJING, March 31 (Xinhua) -- The upcoming trip of Chinese President Xi Jinping to the United States, where he will meet with his counterpart Donald Trump, would be of great significance to both nations, to the Asia-Pacific and to the globe as a whole, said experts from around the world.

At Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate in the U.S. "Sunshine State" of Florida, Xi and Trump are expected to use the two-day gathering to get a better understanding of each other and exchange views on a trove of issues of mutual concern.

REASSURING NEWS FOR CHINA-U.S. TIES

The meeting will enable Xi and Trump to communicate in a more direct and frank manner. International relations experts agree that a direct link at the top level based on reciprocal rapport is crucial, especially for the world's largest two economies.

"The meeting itself is a major success for both countries," said Stephen K. Sham, mayor of Alhambra City, California. "Trump's invitation to President Xi at the very outset of his presidency delivers quite a positive and reassuring message to the two concerning peoples."

Avory Goldstein, a politics professor at the University of Pennsylvania, said the Xi-Trump meeting is set to "lay out a general roadmap" for the constructive and cooperative ties between Beijing and Washington.

Goldstein noted that Trump, who has been in the White House for just two months, might not have a "comprehensive China strategy" in place. "Nevertheless, it's pretty clear picking up a fight with China would not be good for him and the United States," he said.

Trump, with a "transactional" view on international relations, is "by nature more likely to accept China's proposal for a relationship featuring non-conflict, non-confrontation, mutual respect and win-win cooperation," said Ngeow Chow Bing, a researcher from University of Malaya.

"I think Trump will realize that fundamentally a stable and productive U.S.-China relationship is in the interests of Washington," he added.

A MAJOR STABILIZER TO THE ASIA-PACIFIC

Xi and Trump are also expected to soothe the nerves in the Asia-Pacific, where there have been mounting worries about a potential conflict between Beijing and Washington.

Both being major players in the region, the two countries share a moral obligation to steer away from the Thucydides trap. Treating each other as a strategic partner instead of a strategic rival is key to achieving that.

B.R. Deepak, professor at Jawaharlal Nehru University of India, said the presidential meeting "will provide an opportunity to talk out many differences and concerns, such as security in the Korean Peninsula and the South China Sea."

"So the engagement of Xi and Trump in talking straight -- face to face -- is a starting point to find solutions to these problems," he noted.

Kerry Brown, a professor of Chinese studies at Britain's King's College, said although this meeting "will not clear all the ambiguities up" in the Asia-Pacific, "at least it starts to clear away some and clarifies where Xi and Trump agree and where they do not."

But first, Washington "should not try to keep China poor or prevent China from playing a bigger role in the region; but to figure out how to cooperate and manage difficult issues together," said Goldstein, the U.S. professor.

A LIGHT OF HOPE FOR WORLD

The Xi-Trump meeting is of vital significance to a world troubled by rising anti-globalization sentiments, raging populism, a weak recovery and lingering unconventional threats like refugees, terrorism and global warming.

There is no denying that the stability of China-U.S. relations has an increasing bearing for world peace and prosperity. To be specific, it is crucial for Europe to see Xi and Trump coordinate before this year's Group of 20 Summit on issues of global concern, said Britain's Brown.

As for Africa, Gerishon Ikiara, a lecturer of international economics at the University of Nairobi, said that the continent expects Xi and Trump to "agree on how to develop a common agenda and strategy to fight poverty in the underdeveloped countries."

In Latin America, Jose Luis Leon-Manriquez, a professor at Mexico's Metropolitan Autonomous University, noted that "with a positive scenario, the meeting could send a signal of conciliation to the world."

"I hope this meeting could make Trump's foreign policies increasingly oriented toward a realistic understanding of how the international relations operate today ... and give him very important indications as to where his foreign policies may lead," he said.

(Xinhua writers Yang Shilong, Zhou Xiaozheng, Liu Tong, Jin Zheng, Lu Duobao, Liang Xizhi, Yang Chunxue, Yuan Shuai, Hu Xiaoming, Lu Jiafei, Peter Park and Larry Neild contributed to the story.)
ISLAMABAD, March 31 (Xinhua) -- At least 11 people were killed and 54 others injured when a blast hit a market area in Pakistan's northwest tribal area of Parachinar Friday morning, local officials and hospital sources said.

Sajid Turi, an elected member of the national assembly from the area, confirmed that the 11 killed also included women and kids.

Local officials said the explosion ripped through the central Noor Market of Parachinar in Kurram Agency located along Pakistan-Afghanistan border.

Moeen Begum, a doctor of the agency's hospital, said they have received 54 injured people shifted here by a rescue team.

Turi said the explosive materials were fixed inside a car parked near a Shia mosque in the market. Around 15 nearby shops were damaged in the blast.

The Inter-Services Public Relations, the media wing of Pakistani army, said a relief helicopter has been dispatched to the blast site. It will be used to shift seriously injured people to hospitals in neighboring Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province.

No group has claimed the attack yet.

Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif condemned the blast and vowed to eradicate militancy from the country.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-03-31 16:53:23|Editor: xuxin

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RIO DE JANEIRO, March 30 (Xinhua) -- Brazilian Health Minister Ricardo Barros said Thursday that the outbreak of yellow fever in the country is "technically under control" within World Health Organization (WHO) protocols.

Brazil is following the WHO recommendations on this matter and makes sure that the stocks of vaccine against the disease are sufficient, the minister said.

Since December, there have been 492 confirmed cases of yellow fever in Brazil, all in the four southern states -- Minas Gerais, Espirito Santo, Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo.

So far, only one of the confirmed cases involves a city resident, and that particular patient was infected in a rural region, the country's health authorities said.

In addition to the 492 confirmed cases, there are 1,101 suspected cases of yellow fever in Brazil, which await lab confirmation. So far, 162 people have died from yellow fever since December, and another 95 deaths are pending confirmation.

Several Brazilian regions have started vaccinating its residents against yellow fever.

Since the outbreak of yellow fever in Brazil, a number of countries have also asked Brazilian tourists to be vaccinated against the disease before entering their territories.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-03-31 16:53:23|Editor: xuxin

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Dr. Maleeha Lodhi, the permanent representative of Pakistan to the United Nations, speaks during an exclusive interview with Xinhua News Agency in New York, the United States, March 28, 2017. The Chinese concept of building "a community of shared future for all mankind" is in sync with the fundamental principles of the United Nations (UN) Charter, the top Pakistani diplomat at the organization has said. (Xinhua/Li Muzi)

by Xinhua writer Gu Zhenqiu

UNITED NATIONS, March 31 (Xinhua) -- The Chinese concept of building "a community of shared future for all mankind" is in sync with the fundamental principles of the United Nations (UN) Charter, the top Pakistani diplomat at the organization has said.

Dr. Maleeha Lodhi, permanent representative of Pakistan to the United Nations, said in a recent interview that the recent mention of the Chinese concept in a UN Security Council resolution means wider international recognition of the Chinese contribution to global governance.

The concept was first proposed in the report of the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China in November 2012. In the following years, Chinese President Xi Jinping has mentioned and illustrated the concept on various occasions.

In September 2015, Xi proposed the roadmap of building "a community of shared future for all humankind" at a UN summit. In January 2017, he further expounded his concept in a comprehensive, profound and systematic manner at the UN Office in Geneva.

On March 17, the Chinese concept was incorporated into a UN Security Council resolution for the first time.

It is a concept "that brings the people together, that sees the development of all the people to be in the interest of our shared humanity, is one that takes forward the fundamental principles that brought us together at the United Nations," said the Pakistani ambassador.

"So, to take the Charter's principles forward is to ensure also that our development agenda, the development paradigm that we all signed up to, is something that we are able to actually accomplish," she said.

Furthermore, the Chinese concept is very much relevant in today's world, which has witnessed trends of protectionism and anti-globalization, the diplomat said.

"We are troubled by certain trends that we have seen of certain countries looking toward protectionism, eroding the liberal international economic order which has brought so much prosperity to so many people across the world," Lodhi said.

To reverse the trend toward globalization is "to reverse the economic prosperity of all the people," she added.

"We welcome it (the concept), we support it, we are very much part of this initiative because we do believe that this will bring benefit to all the people in our region and beyond," she said.

"I think the initiative is win-win for everyone," she said. "It is one that will help to foster the notion that we have a shared future, and that although we confront common challenges, we also have common opportunities."

She said that her mission will include the Chinese concept in their statements at relevant UN meetings and discussions.

Lodhi, Pakistan's first female UN ambassador, served as Pakistan's ambassador to the United States twice (1993-1996, 1999-2002) and as high commissioner to Britain (2003-2008).

She also served as a member of the UN secretary-general's Advisory Board on Disarmament Matters from 2001 to 2005.

In 1994, the U.S. magazine Time nominated her as one of a hundred people in the world who would help shape the 21st century.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-03-31 17:03:25|Editor: ying

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JERUSALEM, March 31 (Xinhua) -- After weeks of a crisis looming over Israel's government, an agreement was reached on Thursday between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Moshe Kahlon, his finance minister.

Kahlon leads the "Kulanu" ("everybody" in Hebrew) party, the largest member of the Netanyahu-led coalition.

The two disagreed on the fate of a new broadcasting body.

In 2014, a law was passed ordering the state-run Israeli Broadcasting Authority (IBA) to be closed and opening a new one named "Kan" ("here" in Hebrew), the new Israeli Broadcasting Corporation.

For years, the IBA was struggling to survive and attempted to reform, but failed. It was an inflated body with a large budget.

Israel's right-wing members and supporters have often complained that the media in the country is traditionally associated with the left.

Those in favor of the new authority were after a broadcaster that will express less leftist opinions.

But the implementation of the law was also a struggle, as journalists needed to be fired from IBA, different journalists to be hired by Kan with many political obstacles on the way.

Some decisions had the strong whiff of politics, with criticism that Netanyahu wanted to ensure the new broadcasting authority would provide favorable coverage.

The Israeli Prime Minister has repeatedly said there is media biased against him.

The new broadcaster was to begin airing in the end of April. Netanyahu wanted a change course to try to avert the birth of the new authority.

According to media reports, he realized many of the employees in Kan were not going to supply the favorable coverage he sought out to get. On the record, the Israeli premier said there was no longer a reason to shutdown the IBA as it became an efficient body once hundreds of employees were let go.

The Kulanu party objected saying the law must be upheld.

Before departing for an official visit to China last week, Netanyahu told reporters he did not understand Kahlon's resistance and that there is now no reason for a new authority to be created.

There was speculation in the Israeli media and amongst politicians that the crisis could lead to the toppling of the government. Both Kahlon and Netanyahu were quoted by associates saying they were willing to go to elections over the crisis.

Netanyahu is currently under several investigations. One of them is related to recorded deliberations he held with a publisher of a leading Israeli newspaper in which the Israeli PM asked for positive coverage in return for limiting the newspaper's competition.

Two weeks of deliberations between the prime minister and Kahlon came to an end Wednesday.

The IBA will close, Kan will open but will not deal with news. A separate news corporation will be created. It will have a separate management, one that Netanyahu can easily swallow. The heads of Kan will not have any involvement in current events.

It is still unclear who will head the new news corporation and who will appoint it's management and journalists.

The original law from 2014 has to be amended in the coming weeks.

The deal sparked criticism from Netanyahu's opponents and from journalists who were hired to work in the new authority.

"There is no public broadcasting like this anywhere else in the world. There will be no authority, no corporation and no news. Everyone has lost, above all the Israeli public. They destroyed the IBA and built nothing in it's place," said Nachman Shai as quoted by the Israeli media.

Shai is a member of parliament, part of the opposition and a former chairman of the IBA.

But the head of the coalition, David Bitan praised the settlement.

"It is a plan that both sides can live with, it will avoid elections and ensure the continuation of a coalition that is good for Israel... good for all of us and good for the media," he was quoted as saying.

The new set-up will likely be petitioned in court and may not pass the test.

For now, a coalition crisis has been averted and the current Israeli government remains seated with it's future highly dependent on the outcome of the investigations against Netanyahu.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-03-31 17:13:27|Editor: ying

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HAVANA, March 30 (Xinhua) -- Bolivian President Evo Morales is in "good spirits" in Cuba just hours before a throat surgery to remove a benign nodule that has affected him over the last few months, a minister said Thursday.

Morales arrived here earlier in the day and proceeded to medical checkups, Rene Martinez, Bolivian presidential minister, said in a statement on Cuban state television.

"The team of doctors determined the flu symptoms he experienced over the last few days aren't present anymore and he's cleared to have the surgery on Friday," said Martinez, who accompanied Morales to the Cuban capital.

Martinez added that the president even made jokes with his colleagues.

"He's been following the events in our country and talked to leaders of social organizations, just waiting for tomorrow's medical intervention," he said.

The surgery will last about 15 minutes and it was first scheduled for April 8, but the Bolivian president decided to do it sooner because he was experiencing discomfort in his vocal chords due to the nodule.

After the surgery, Morales must keep "absolute medical rest" for at least 48 hours, Bolivian Health Minister Ariana Campero said earlier this week.

Morales will have the nodule presumably removed at a military hospital in western Havana, off limits to the press as this visit is considered strictly private.
DHAKA, March 31 (Xinhua) -- The intelligence chief of Bangladesh's anti-crime elite force -- Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) died from blast injuries Friday at the Combined Military Hospital (CMH).

An official said, "RAB Intelligence Wing Director Abul Kalam Azad died at CMH at around 12:05 a.m. (local time) on Friday."

Azad, hit by splinters in the March 25 blast in Sylhet, was flown back to Dhaka Wednesday night on life support from a Singapore hospital where he had been taken on Sunday for better treatment.

With Azad, death toll in the twin blasts near a militant den in Sylhet has risen to seven, including two police officials and four civilians. Dozens of people were injured in the blasts.

The Islamic State (IS) has reportedly claimed responsibility for the blasts.

Four militants were killed in an assault on the militant hideout, led by commandos of Bangladesh Army Para-Commando Battalion.

Brigadier General Fakhrul Ahsan, a spokesperson of the operation, said at a press briefing on Monday night that they found four bodies inside the militants' hideout.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-03-31 17:53:01|Editor: ZD

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan (R) shakes hands with U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson in Ankara, Turkey, on March 30, 2017. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan met with visiting U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson in capital Ankara on Thursday, urging U.S. to work with "legitimate actors" in fighting against the Islamic State (IS). (Xinhua/Mustafa Kaya)

By Burak Akinci

ANKARA, March 31 (Xinhua) -- Top U.S. diplomat Rex Tillerson had challenging yet unfruitful discussions Thursday with Turkey's leadership in Ankara on joint efforts for a decisive push against Islamic State (IS) in Syria's Raqqa stronghold amid frictions on the future role of the Kurdish militias there.

Kurds aren't the only source of friction in the U.S.-Turkey relations. Ankara insists on his NATO ally to hand over the Turkish cleric Fethullah Gulen, accused of orchestrating a coup attempt last summer.

Furthermore, this week, U.S. officials arrested the deputy CEO of a public Turkish bank, Halkbank, closely allied to the country's elites for violating sanctions against Iran.

And a day before Tillerson left for Ankara, the State Department warned Americans of increased terror threats in Turkey, asking them to "carefully consider" whether they should travel there.

Rex Tillerson is the most senior U.S. diplomat to visit Turkey since President Donald Trump took office in January. The important visit in a country where the anti-American sentiment is on the rise, failed however to address Turkish concerns and frustrations on the Syria conflict.

Presidential sources said Erdogan told Tillerson that it was important for the fight against terrorism in Syria to be conducted with "right and legitimate" partners, clearly excluding the Kurdish militia, the People's Protection Units (YPG), whom the Turks brand as terrorists.

During a press conference in the Turkish capital with his counterpart Mevlut Cavusoglu, Tillerson who also met the Turkish president, evaded questions on the Syrian Kurdish fighters of YPG that Ankara views as an offshoot of Kurdish rebels PKK, outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party, while Cavusoglu centered his statement on U.S. support to YPG, saying that his government is "saddened" by this fact.

Tillerson said that he and Turkish leaders are exploring "a number of options and alternatives" for liberating Raqqa but he suggested that no agreement has been reached.

"There is no space" between Turkey and the United States in their determination to defeat IS, acknowledging the difficult choices that his country has to make in Syria.

"What we have discussed today are options available to us. They are difficult options. Let me be very frank, it's not easy," Tillerson told reporters.

He stated on the other hand that Syrian president al-Assad's long-term status is to be decided by the Syria people, signalling possibly the end of "Assad must go" policy which is still vehemently pursued by Turkey.

"It takes challenging diplomacy for the U.S. and Turkey to stay committed to their long-standing partnership while having different views on ways to destruct IS," Deniz Zeyrek, political commentator and journalist, said to Xinhua.

Tillerson's visit also came ahead of a Turkish referendum in April to decide whether to expand Erdogan's executive powers and allow him to remain as president for another 12 years.

The Turkish leader repeats at every occasion that he doesn't want to see the Kurds expanding their territory in Syria and that he is strongly opposed to the U.S. becoming a permanent supporter of the Kurds.

Seemingly not to anger Turks any further and put strained relations in any more jeopardy, Tillerson did not meet with any members of the Turkish opposition while in Ankara, criticized by European nations of having launched a major crackdown of suspected followers of the Gulen network after the failed coup.

Tillerson did not comment on the broad crackdown on civil society members, journalists and academics.

According to Turkish sources, Tillerson also had discussions on Iran, Syria, Iraq, trade and investment, and he offered condolences to the Turkish loss of life to terrorism and appreciation for their work to defeat IS.

Less than 24 hours before his arrival, Turkey announced its six-month long military campaign inside northern Syria, the Euphrates Shield, has been "concluded successfully."

Since the onset of the unprecedented operation, Turkey-backed rebels from the Free Syrian Army have captured from jihadists several towns, including Jarablus and Al-Bab, where Turkish forces sustained heavy casualties.

Erdogan has repeatedly blasted the previous Obama administration and said Turkey wants to work with its allies to capture Raqqa but without the involvement of the YPG.

"This is not going to happen, it's over. With the end of Euphrates Shield, Turkey will have no say in a Raqqa offensive and Tillerson had the uneasy job to tell it to the Turkish partner," argued Deniz Zeyrek.

The U.S. knows connections between the PKK and YPG, but sees them as two separate groups. Turkish officials, however, argue that weapons and support that the U.S. gives the Syrian militia will end up in the hands of the PKK that will use them to launch attacks in Turkey.

The matter on the extradition of Fethullah Gulen also seemed unresolved though government sources said that parties discussed steps that should be taken for Gulen's return to his home country.

"The question of this individual's extradition was also discussed, we have to work on it within a spirit of cooperation but there is still a lot of work to be done," said the Turkish diplomatic source.

American officials have said the evidence provided by Turkey so far is insufficient to make a legal case for extradition.
NAIROBI, March 31 (Xinhua) -- Kenya has announced a drastic cut in the fiscal deficit from 9 percent of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) to 4 percent by 2019/2020, buoyed by increased domestic revenue collection and the restructuring of the foreign debt.

Treasury Minister Henry Rotich told Parliament on Thursday evening that the government recorded a higher financial shortfall equivalent to 9 percent of the country's overall economic strength as a result of overspending on a strike by doctors, nurses and teachers, security and challenges of handling drought.

"The result was a higher fiscal deficit of 9 percent of GDP, financed by external debt, fiscal consolidation and increased grants," Rotich said while presenting this year's budget statement for the 2017/18.

Kenya and other East African countries usually present their annual spending plans on a simultaneous date across the region as part of the ongoing effort to synchronize economic cooperation.

Kenya, which released this year's fiscal plan, ahead of other East African countries because Parliament needs to be dissolved ahead of this year's August polls, said improved tax collection effort and minimized leakage of government taxes were part of measures to cut the overall fiscal deficit.

Kenya unveiled its 26 billion U.S. dollar budget on Thursday, saying the new budget for the year, would guarantee funds to the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) to conduct the elections in August.

The government also announced allocation of funds to improve public infrastructure, such as 750 million dollars towards the continuation of the Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) project to Naivasha, 100 km outside Nairobi, to enhance transport within the country.

Rotich said measures under implementation this year would enable the government to achieve rapid economic growth, cut the fiscal deficit and bolster the tax administration system through technology.

The new measures announced by the government follow the recent launch on a trial basis of the mobile-phone enabled government bond purchase programme.

Rotich also introduced a 50 percent tax on the gambling industry. Rotich introduced new tax measures in the 2016 Finance Act that set betting taxes on gaming revenues at 7.5 percent, lottery tax on turnover at 5 percent and gaming tax at 12 percent.

"The betting and gaming have become widespread in our society in an environment that is inadequately regulated. Its expansion is beginning to have negative social effects in particular on the young and vulnerable members of our society," Rotich said.

"I, therefore, propose to raise taxes for betting, lottery, gaming and competition from the current rates of 7.5 percent, 5 percent, 12 percent and 15 percent, respectively to a uniform tax rate of 50 percent for all categories," Rotich said in his budget speech.
NAIROBI, March 31 (Xinhua) -- Countries in the Greater Horn of Africa region on Friday renewed their commitment to scaling up investments in drought resilience programs in order to cushion vulnerable population from an escalating food and water insecurity.

Senior policymakers and experts from Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD) attending a forum in Nairobi said targeted investments in early warning, public awareness and climate resilient agricultural systems is key to containing endemic hunger, malnutrition and water stress blighting the region.

Kenya's Cabinet Secretary for Planning and Devolution Mwangi Kiunjuri said improved weather forecast technology, ecosystems regeneration and public awareness are key to minimize the impact of recurrent droughts in Greater Horn of Africa region.

"Our region is going through a major drought that poses serious threat to livelihoods and economic development. It is critical for countries to invest in farming systems and infrastructure that are resilient to droughts that are expected to occur frequently due to climate change," Kiunjuri said.

The UN contends that an estimated 20 million people are affected by drought in the East and Horn of Africa region owing to suppressed rains in the previous seasons.

Kiunjuri noted that compared to 2011, the current drought in the region is unprecedented in terms of intensity and geographical reach while timely interventions have averted deaths.

"The impacts of the current drought have not been so severe when compared to the one in 2011 thanks to better preparedness and response from individual countries and humanitarian agencies," said Kiunjuri.

He urged governments in the region and their bilateral partners to invest in long-term drought resilience measures like improved crop and animal husbandry as well as sound ecosystems management.

"We need to plan and budget for worst case scenarios, expand social safety net programs and establish drought recovery fund to cater for the most vulnerable," Kiunjuri said.

He revealed that Kenya's emergency drought response fund set up by the national government recently has strengthened lifesaving interventions earmarked for an estimated 3 million people affected by the phenomenon in 23 counties.

Countries in the Greater Horn of African region are exploring innovative financing mechanisms to enhance their response to frequent drought cycles linked to climate change.

The Executive Secretary of IGAD Mahboub Maalim said political goodwill and improved cross-border information sharing will strengthen drought resilience in the region.

"We are not yet out of the woods and should brace for severe droughts in every two-year cycle. The priority should be rapid investment in resilience programs," said Maalim.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan meets with visiting U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson in Ankara, urging U.S. to work with "legitimate actors" in fighting against the IS. (Xinhua/Mustafa Kaya)

ANKARA, March 31 (Xinhua) -- Top U.S. diplomat Rex Tillerson had challenging yet unfruitful discussions Thursday with Turkey's leadership in Ankara on joint efforts for a decisive push against Islamic State (IS) in Syria's Raqqa stronghold amid frictions on the future role of the Kurdish militias there.

Kurds aren't the only source of friction in the U.S.-Turkey relations. Ankara insists on his NATO ally to hand over the Turkish cleric Fethullah Gulen, accused of orchestrating a coup attempt last summer.

Furthermore, this week, U.S. officials arrested the deputy CEO of a public Turkish bank, Halkbank, closely allied to the country's elites for violating sanctions against Iran.

And a day before Tillerson left for Ankara, the State Department warned Americans of increased terror threats in Turkey, asking them to "carefully consider" whether they should travel there.

Rex Tillerson is the most senior U.S. diplomat to visit Turkey since President Donald Trump took office in January. The important visit in a country where the anti-American sentiment is on the rise, failed however to address Turkish concerns and frustrations on the Syria conflict.

Presidential sources said Erdogan told Tillerson that it was important for the fight against terrorism in Syria to be conducted with "right and legitimate" partners, clearly excluding the Kurdish militia, the People's Protection Units (YPG), whom the Turks brand as terrorists.

During a press conference in the Turkish capital with his counterpart Mevlut Cavusoglu, Tillerson who also met the Turkish president, evaded questions on the Syrian Kurdish fighters of YPG that Ankara views as an offshoot of Kurdish rebels PKK, outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party, while Cavusoglu centered his statement on U.S. support to YPG, saying that his government is "saddened" by this fact.

Tillerson said that he and Turkish leaders are exploring "a number of options and alternatives" for liberating Raqqa but he suggested that no agreement has been reached.

"There is no space" between Turkey and the United States in their determination to defeat IS, acknowledging the difficult choices that his country has to make in Syria.

"What we have discussed today are options available to us. They are difficult options. Let me be very frank, it's not easy," Tillerson told reporters.

He stated on the other hand that Syrian president al-Assad's long-term status is to be decided by the Syria people, signalling possibly the end of "Assad must go" policy which is still vehemently pursued by Turkey.

"It takes challenging diplomacy for the U.S. and Turkey to stay committed to their long-standing partnership while having different views on ways to destruct IS," Deniz Zeyrek, political commentator and journalist, said to Xinhua.

Tillerson's visit also came ahead of a Turkish referendum in April to decide whether to expand Erdogan's executive powers and allow him to remain as president for another 12 years.

The Turkish leader repeats at every occasion that he doesn't want to see the Kurds expanding their territory in Syria and that he is strongly opposed to the U.S. becoming a permanent supporter of the Kurds.

Seemingly not to anger Turks any further and put strained relations in any more jeopardy, Tillerson did not meet with any members of the Turkish opposition while in Ankara, criticized by European nations of having launched a major crackdown of suspected followers of the Gulen network after the failed coup.

Tillerson did not comment on the broad crackdown on civil society members, journalists and academics.

According to Turkish sources, Tillerson also had discussions on Iran, Syria, Iraq, trade and investment, and he offered condolences to the Turkish loss of life to terrorism and appreciation for their work to defeat IS.

Less than 24 hours before his arrival, Turkey announced its six-month long military campaign inside northern Syria, the Euphrates Shield, has been "concluded successfully."

Since the onset of the unprecedented operation, Turkey-backed rebels from the Free Syrian Army have captured from jihadists several towns, including Jarablus and Al-Bab, where Turkish forces sustained heavy casualties.

Erdogan has repeatedly blasted the previous Obama administration and said Turkey wants to work with its allies to capture Raqqa but without the involvement of the YPG.

"This is not going to happen, it's over. With the end of Euphrates Shield, Turkey will have no say in a Raqqa offensive and Tillerson had the uneasy job to tell it to the Turkish partner," argued Deniz Zeyrek.

The U.S. knows connections between the PKK and YPG, but sees them as two separate groups. Turkish officials, however, argue that weapons and support that the U.S. gives the Syrian militia will end up in the hands of the PKK that will use them to launch attacks in Turkey.

The matter on the extradition of Fethullah Gulen also seemed unresolved though government sources said that parties discussed steps that should be taken for Gulen's return to his home country.

"The question of this individual's extradition was also discussed, we have to work on it within a spirit of cooperation but there is still a lot of work to be done," said the Turkish diplomatic source.

American officials have said the evidence provided by Turkey so far is insufficient to make a legal case for extradition.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-03-31 18:48:43|Editor: ZD

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BEIJING, March 31 (Xinhua) -- China hopes the upcoming meeting between President Xi Jinping and his U.S. counterpart Donald Trump will set the direction for the development of bilateral ties, an official said Friday.

"It will be the first meeting between the heads of state of China and the United States since the new U.S. administration took office," Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Zheng Zeguang told a press briefing.

From April 6 to 7, Xi will meet with Trump at Mar-a-Lago, Florida, the United States.

"As the international situation continues undergoing profound and complicated changes, the meeting will be of great significance to charting China-U.S. relationship in a new era, advancing the development of bilateral ties in a healthy and stable way from a new starting point, and promoting peace, stability and prosperity in Asia and the Pacific and the world at large," Zheng said.

According to Zheng, Xi will hold talks with Trump, during which they will exchange in-depth views on China-U.S. ties and major international and regional affairs of common concern with a view to enhancing mutual understanding and expanding bilateral cooperation.

President Xi and his wife Peng Liyuan will attend a welcome banquet hosted by President Trump and his wife Melania, according to Zheng.

Zheng said the Chinese and U.S. presidents have reached important consensus through phone conversations and letters over the past months.

"They both believe that China and the United States can absolutely be very good partners," Zheng said, adding that the two countries should uphold the principle of no conflict, no confrontation, mutual respect and win-win cooperation.

Zheng said the Chinese side would work closely with the U.S. side on various preparations for the meeting to make it a success.

Speaking of the United States' trade deficit with China, Zheng explained that this was a result of the global distribution of industries and the division of labor, as well as the two countries' different economic structures.

"In China-U.S. trade, although we are running surplus in trading goods, we are on the deficit side when it comes to trading services," Zheng said.

From 2001 to 2016, U.S. exports of services to China increased 15-fold, with the U.S. service trade surplus rising 29-fold, according to statistics from China's Ministry of Commerce.

"China does not seek a trading surplus, and it is not our intention to stimulate export through competitive currency devaluation," he said.

Zheng expressed hope that the U.S. could relax its controls on high-tech exports, create a level-playing field and provide policy facilitation for Chinese companies investing in the United States, which could help address the trade deficit.

As the world's first and second largest economies, the two countries have great potential to expand trade and economic cooperation, and could properly manage trade friction in line with the principle of mutual benefits and seeking win-win outcome, he said.
KUALA LUMPUR, March 31 (Xinhua) -- Malaysia on Friday called on the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) to hand over four suspects in connection with the death of Kim Jong Nam.

Malaysian police chief Khalid Abu Bakar told reporters Friday that a criminal investigation into the case of Kim's death is still ongoing even after both sides freed each other's nationals.

Khalid made the remarks while attending an event here. He said the criminal investigation was not compromised by negotiations between the governments of Malaysia and DPRK.

Malaysian police had previously said two female suspects, one Indonesian and one Vietnamese, together with four DPRK suspects, carried out the Feb. 13 attack on Kim Jong Nam at the Kuala Lumpur airport.

Khalid said the police could wait "for years" for the DPRK to hand over the suspects, who are also wanted by the Interpol which has issued a red notice on them over Kim's death.

On Friday morning, a plane piloted by several Malaysian air force pilots brought back the nine Malaysian citizens who had been stranded in DPRK to Kuala Lumpur International Airport.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-03-31 19:31:10|Editor: xuxin

Photo taken on March 29, 2017 shows an outdoor advertisement with image of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, saying "For strong ruling, leading country, strong turkey, our decision is clear--say yes". Turkey will hold constitutional referendum on April 16, which will switch parliamentary system to presidential system. The reforms would hand wide-ranging executive powers to the president and the post of prime minister would be abolished. Recently, with argument on "Say Yes" or "Say no" to the constitutional amendment, Turkish main political parties start running advertisement in Ankara. (Xinhua/Qin Yanyang)
PYONGYANG, March 31 (Xinhua) -- The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) has reaffirmed its strategy to develop a nuclear strike capability to foil the U.S. ambition to annex it and "reduce all Koreans to modern-day slaves," the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported Friday.

Top DPRK leader Kim Jong Un "laid down a fresh strategic line of simultaneously pushing forward the economic construction and the building of nuclear force at the March 2013 Plenary Meeting of the Central Committee of the Workers' Party of Korea," said KCNA, quoting a memorandum it said was released by the DPRK government on Thursday.

The memorandum praised Kim for setting "the line as a strategic one of the party and the state by carrying forward the exploits of President Kim Il Sung and leader Kim Jong Il who accomplished the great cause of having access to nuclear weapons despite all difficulties."

"He thus broke the world political structure centered on the existing nuclear powers and fundamentally changed the world political landscape ...," it said.

The fresh line provided the army and people of the DPRK with a firm guarantee for frustrating "the U.S. imperialists' wild ambition to annex the northern half of the Republic and reduce all Koreans to modern-day slaves," it added.

The memorandum came at a time when tension is high on the Korean Peninsula with the United States and South Korea staging a large-scale joint military exercise, which the DPRK said is aimed at preparing for special operations to strike its supreme leadership and destroy its strategic nuclear and missile bases.

The DPRK has justified its efforts to develop nuclear weapons and warned the United States of preemptive strikes by its military without warning.

On March 13, South Korean and the U.S. combined forces kicked off the annual command post exercise code-named Key Resolve, following the launch on March 1 of the joint field training drill coded Foal Eagle. The DPRK has denounced the joint military exercises as a dress rehearsal for northward invasion.

The Key Resolve drill reportedly included operation plans on preemptive strikes against the DPRK's nuclear and missile facilities when signs of attack are detected.

The DPRK conducted a ballistic missile launch on March 21 and a ballistic missile engine test on March 19, which were strongly condemned by the United Nations Security Council.
BUDAPEST, March 31 (Xinhua) -- Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban charged the Central European University (CEU) here with regulative irregularities on Kossuth public radio on Friday because it had been issuing both Hungarian and American degrees.

The government submitted a bill to parliament earlier this week, re-regulating foreign higher education institutes operating in Hungary, which CEU rector and Canadian national Michael Ignatieff has said is aimed directly against CEU.

CEU is a private graduate-level university located in Budapest, and is accredited both in the United States, through the State University of New York (SUNY), and in Hungary. Founded in 1991, it currently has approximately 1,400 students and faculty members from more than 130 countries.

Orban said that the future of CEU depended on talks and an accord between the American and Hungarian governments.

Peter Torcsi, research director of the Hungarian Research Center on Fundamental Rights, said the CEU was not the only school targeted, since the bill before parliament would affect an additional 27 foreign schools. The new law will require that a school operating in Hungary have a "country of origin", he said.

According to Janos Lazar, the minister of the prime minister's office, the new law will require an international treaty with the government of the home country of a university operating in Hungary. The school must also have accredited courses in its home country. He called CEU's protest against the pending legislation "inciting political hysteria".

The United States' embassy in Budapest has voiced its concern over the Hungarian move, describing CEU as a "premier academic institution".

Scholars, including Hungarian Academy of Sciences President Laszlo Lovasz, have praised the school. Lovasz called it a "very significant scientific center" on the academy's website.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-03-31 19:54:00|Editor: ying

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HARBIN, March 31 (Xinhua) -- Gu Chunli, former vice governor of northeast China's Jilin Province, was sentenced to 12 years in prison for taking bribes on Friday at a court in neighboring Heilongjiang Province.

Personal assets worth 2 million yuan (around 290,000 U.S. dollars) belonging to Gu were confiscated, and his illegal gains shall be recovered and turned over to the state treasury, according to a statement by the Harbin City Intermediate People's Court in Heilongjiang.

Gu was found to have taken advantage of various official posts from 2002 to 2015 to help others with business operations, construction, loans, case handling and job promotions.

The court found that he accepted bribes worth 43.65 million yuan either personally or through his family.

The court showed leniency, taking into consideration the fact that he confessed, exposed the crimes of others, expressed remorse and voluntarily turned over all his proceeds.
KATHMANDU, March 31 (Xinhua) -- Himalaya Airlines, a China-Nepal joint-venture company, took delivery of third new Airbus A320-214 on Friday as the company moves to expand its fleet.

The airline, which started its first scheduled flight operations from May 31, 2016, flying directly to Doha, Qatar, had added the other two planes in its fleet in less than a year of commercial operations of flight.

In a press release on Friday, Himalaya Airlines termed adding up to three Airbus 320 in a single year of commercial flight operations as a remarkable achievement for a Nepalese private airline company.

The plane arrived at Tribhuvan International Airport in capital Kathmandu from Hamburg, Germany on Friday. The aircraft, with the registration number 9N-ALW, was welcomed by a ceremonial water cannon salute after it touched down the ground.

The company said that the third Airbus will enter into service in April.

"The year 2017 is the year of achievements for Himalaya Airlines as we have welcomed our second aircraft on January 31, and launched two new sectors -- Kuala Lumpur and Yangon in February," said Vijay Shrestha, vice president (administration) of the joint venture airline.

"With the arrival of third Airbus 320, we plan to expand our global network and strengthen the air connectivity of Nepal to the international arena," Vijay Shrestha added.
TOKYO, March 31 (Xinhua) -- Revelations this week that large numbers of officials from Japan's education ministry have been involved in illegally helping their colleagues secure top-notch retirement jobs has forced the government to concede the illegal practice is endemic and likely spans other sectors.

A probe was launched two months ago by the education ministry and Cabinet Office into the illegal practice known locally here as "amakudari" (descent from heaven).

The practice involves current or former bureaucrats using their career-made connections through the ministry to find highly desirable jobs for retired or soon-to-be-retired bureaucrats.

Following the latest investigation, it was found that on top of 27 cases that initially shocked the nation involving ministry officials deliberately dodging laws to quash the illegal practice, 35 more ministry-linked officials have also been involved in "amakudari" offenses.

Sixty two cases in total, thus far, have been unearthed by the probe which covered all education ministry employees as well as retired officials.

An "unprecedented" 43 officials have already been disciplined, with 37 of them receiving punishments on Thursday alone, the education ministry said.

The practice of "amakudari" was effectively banned in 2007 when legislation was changed regarding the re-employment of civil servants, largely due to the potential for corruption.

But those found guilty recently almost certainly side-stepped the law by using retired civil servants to deal with the illegal job placements, informed sources have said.

Japanese Education Minister Hirokazu Matsuno said Thursday that it was highly regrettable that the ministry had to deal with such an unprecedented large number of offenses and added his ministry would change its human resources practices and organizational structure.

The embattled education ministry acknowledged that its officials have been involved in making "systematic efforts" in arranging such lobbying for jobs.

Matsuno conceded that the education ministry had through its involvement in the job placement racket lost the trust of the public.

The most recent round of "amakudari" scandals came to light in January this year when it was discovered that a former bureau chief who was in charge of overseeing colleges and universities "landed" a cushy professor post at a private university soon after retirement.

With the practice of "amakudari" seemingly ingrained into the cultural fabric of the education ministry, it was not a great leap for investigators to assume that the practice was likely occurring in other public sectors, with the foreign ministry here confirming that this was indeed the case.

Following a report on the probe being released Thursday, Japan's soon-to-be-former ambassador to Bulgaria Shinichi Yamanaka was found to be guilty of the illegal practice when he served at the education ministry.

Furthermore, Japan's foreign ministry said it had charged a former head of its human resources department for passing on a resume for preferential treatment by the education ministry in securing a job.

The report itself revealed that high-ranking officials knew the practice of "amakudari" was endemic and that ministry bigwigs had been involved in the scheme's creation and implementation.

Previously, former vice minister Kihei Maekawa, who stepped down from the top bureaucratic spot over the scandal, was named as being involved in the job placement racket.

A list of prestigious universities that employed former ministry bureaucrats through the illegal scheme has also been made available to investigators.

The now government-wide investigation since ordered by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is to find out how deeply-entrenched the illegal practice is within the public sector and how many other ministry's are involved.

Abe's top government spokesperson Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said after the scandal came to light that the government has been ordered to flush out the issue from scratch at all ministries and agencies.

With cases involving the education ministry specifically, he said it was unallowable and highly problematic for the authority in charge of education to have been entangled in the practice.

Regarding the likelihood the racket spans other sectors, he said the public will be made aware of the full results of the investigation.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-03-31 20:19:04|Editor: ying

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XI'AN, March 31 (Xinhua) -- Former vice chair of the government of northwest China's Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, Bai Xueshan, stood trial Friday on charges of corruption at a court in the northwestern province of Shaanxi.

Bai was tried at the Intermediate People's Court in Xi'an, capital city of Shaanxi Province.

The people's procuratorate of Xi'an alleged that from 1994 to 2015, Bai took advantage of his various posts to offer assistance to entities and individuals in land-related procedures, project approvals and contracting and adjustment of positions.

In return, Bai accepted bribes worth about 38.87 million yuan (5.63 million U.S. dollars), prosecutors said.

Bai made a statement to the court in which he pled guilty and expressed remorse.

The court has adjourned to decide on sentencing.

More than 50 people, including Bai's relatives, legislators, political advisors, journalists and members of the public, were present at the open trial.
SEOUL, March 31 (Xinhua) -- The passenger ferry Sewol of South Korea, which sank three years ago in waters off the country's southwestern coast and killed over 300 people, was transported Friday to a nearby port for search and inspection.

The semi-submersible transport vessel carrying the ill-fated ferry arrived at the Mokpo port at about 1 p.m. local time, some 90 km away from the sea off the Jindo Island where the Sewol capsized and sank on April 16, 2014.

Among 476 passengers, only 172 were rescued. The victims were mostly high school students on a school trip to the southern resort island of Jeju from Incheon, west of Seoul. Nine bodies remain unaccounted for.

The ferry, which had lain on its left side at a depth of about 40 meters for almost three years, was lifted last week to the surface. At the port, it was set to be mounted on a dry dock to search the missing people and determine the clear cause of the disaster.

Shanghai Salvage, a Chinese company which had led the salvaging operation, said its team will focus on the final landing of the ferry to make the complicated, time-consuming task successful. The task is forecast to come to an end next Thursday.

Since the Shanghai Salvage came to South Korea in August, 2015, its divers have taken turns in going underwater for almost 13,000 hours and sought to float the Sewol more than 3,000 times to put beams underneath the ferry.

The beams were attached to wires that were pulled up by two jack-up barges. Then, the raised Sewol was moved to the semi-submersible vessel that carried the ferry to the port.

The salvaging efforts were made in the water, which is infamous for fast currents and unstable weather conditions.

The Chinese company said the hardest work was to lift the vessel as a whole while maintaining its original status without damaging its main structure, in order to protect the missing bodies inside the ferry.

To achieve the goal, the Shanghai team said it created fresh technologies and kept on reforming equipments.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-03-31 20:38:36|Editor: ying

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BEIJING, March 31 (Xinhua) -- Nestle Health Science (NHSc) and the Chinese Stroke Association (CSA) announced a partnership Thursday that will seek to help stroke patients tackle swallowing difficulties.

As part of the collaboration, NHSc will roll out its thickening agent, Thicken Up, across leading hospitals in 25 provinces and municipalities in China.

It will also work with the CSA to introduce clinical innovation and best practice standards in China's leading stroke centers. For out-patients, NHSc has also launched an "Easy Eating" hotline.

It is estimated that 3.4-7.4 million patients are suffering from dysphagia in China, with strokes the greatest cause of the condition in hospital, according to NHSc.

"We are actively developing innovative nutritional therapies for conditions like dysphagia to improve patients'quality of life. China is a very important part of this and we are delighted to serve the market in China, its healthcare system and its people," according to Greg Behar, CEO of NHSc.

Cecily Gu, Business Head of NHSc Greater China Region, observed a clear evolution in the medical approach in China from addressing survival two decades ago to improving the quality of life now, especially the quality of life and mental health in the rehabilitation process.

Nestle Health Science's factory in east China's Taizhou City is expected to produce food for special medical purposes by the end of this year and the company is now working with a Hong Kong firm to develop products based on traditional Chinese medicine.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-03-31 20:49:13|Editor: ying

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BEIJING, March 31 (Xinhua) -- An industry association in Beijing's hi-tech heartland Zhongguancun has launched a project to create more job opportunities for international students studying in China.

"Cirrus Project"- Job Search (CPJS), launched by Zhongguancun the Belt and Road Industry Promotion Association (ZBRA), aims to attract foreign talent by offering internships and training with enterprises at Zhongguancun, said Zhang Xiaodong, director of ZBRA.

The association was founded by high-tech firms, research institutes and entrepreneurs in Zhongguancun park. It aims to push for international cooperation for companies in the park.

Under the CPJS, foreign students can seek internship opportunities with companies at Zhongguancun through outreach programs at university. Students with a good internship report will also be rewarded, said Zhang.

Now the CPJS has established contact with universities including the University of International Business and Economics, Beijing Institute of Technology and Renmin University of China.

"This is my first time attending such programs," said Jeun Yeong, a South Korean student studying Japanese in Renmin University. He attended a CPJS job affair in his university on Friday.

"I will graduate in a year, and I hope my Chinese, Japanese and Korean skills can help me find a good job here," Jeun said.

There are more than 7,000 high-tech companies in Zhongguancun Haidian science park, said Huang Ying, deputy director of the park, "Many are in urgent need of international talent for their overseas expansion."

The CPJS aims to reach more than 10,000 international students in five years and help more than 1,000 students establish close contact with local companies.

In January, China dropped the work experience requirement for foreign postgraduates and allows foreign students with a postgraduate degree or higher from Chinese universities to be employed within a year after graduation.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-03-31 20:49:13|Editor: Liangyu

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BEIJING, March 31 (Xinhua) -- A third group of free trade zones (FTZ), including seven Chinese provinces and municipalities, will start operation on April 1, local authorities said.

The State Council has approved the seven new zones in the provinces of Liaoning, Zhejiang, Henan, Hubei, Sichuan and Shaanxi as well as Chongqing Municipality, according to an official statement released Friday.

China established its first FTZ in Shanghai in 2013, and expanded to three more provincial-level areas of Tianjin, Fujian and Guangdong. The new FTZs will bring the total number of the zones to 11.

The decision carries strategic importance in terms of opening up and reform, cutting bureaucratic red tape and exploring financial innovation, according to the statement.

Statistics with the Ministry of Commerce show more than 90,000 companies were set up in four trade zones as of 2015. In the first half of 2016, 4,923 foreign-funded firms were established in the four FTZs, with investment totaling 359 billion yuan.

The first two sets of zones successfully introduced a "negative list," which specified the investment sectors off-limits to foreign investors and allowed industries not on the list to follow the same new investment rules as domestic firms.

The four FTZs have attracted 10 percent of the country's total foreign investment and accumulated R&D power, entrepreneurship, e-commerce and trade projects, experts said.

PUSHING FORWARD NATIONAL STRATEGIES

So far, about one-third of Chinese provincial-level areas have FTZs. Five of them are in inland provinces and six are along the coast.

Observers said FTZs will help carry out major national endeavors such as the Belt and Road initiative, the Yangtze Economic Belt and the development of central and western China.

Liaoning Province will focus on reinvigorating the Rust Belt, an industrial area in China's northeast. Zhejiang is expected to capitalize on its e-commerce power and develop bulk commodities businesses. Henan will use its strategic location in China's heartland and grow stronger as a regional logistics hub. Hubei will spearhead the building of the Yangtze Economic Belt, named after the river that flows through the province. Chongqing and its neighbor, Sichuan, will be built in an inland area for opening-up. Shaanxi will seek to develop cultural and economic relations with countries along the Silk Road.

Li Qian, director of Chongqing FTZ management office, said Chongqing, through its efforts to build land trade routes with Europe, will help set the rules for land trade, as compared to trade via marine routes.

"An FTZ will get Chongqing more policy favors when it joins the international competition as a cargo trade hub," Li said.

"The plan for the FTZs reflects that China wants to build an open economy as a whole, but before doing that, it has to experiment with FTZs in different parts of the country," said Lu Shanbing, deputy director of the Silk Road Research Institute of Northwest University.

"The FTZs will not prioritize a certain area, rather, they will help coordinate development between the mid-west and the east and close the gaps," he said.

TAKING-OFF

Lei Hongli has worked at the Henan Airport Group for 21 years. When she started her job at the Zhengzhou airport, she had little occasion to use her English skills.

"There were just a few foreign planes. Mostly they were domestic flights carrying vegetables, animal hides and chickens," she said.

In 2016, nearly half a million tonnes of cargo were transported through Zhengzhou airport, and over 50 percent were international cargo, said Lei, assistant to the general manager of the Henan airport group.

"Henan is neither near the sea nor any border, so it has put up its strength to develop air transport," she said.

"Few international consignors knew about Zhengzhou a few years ago, but now it is one of the most popular airports for handling cargo," she added.

Wieger Ketellapper, vice president of Cargolux Airlines International, spends at least three weeks every month in Zhengzhou.

The company operates 15 flights a week between Luxembourg and Zhengzhou. In 2017, the number will reach 17. The planes bring in luxury consumer goods, fruit, car parts, aircraft parts, and helicopter parts to China and transport electronics, fashion goods and machinery parts out of the country.

"In 2014, we moved 15,000 tonnes, and the number reached 100,000 tonnes in 2016," Ketellapper said.

"The FTZ will be an important 'soft infrastructure' that will enable Henan to fully use its hard infrastructure," said John D. Kasarda, director of the Center for Air Commerce at the University of North Carolina's Kenan-Flagler Business School and president of the Aerotropolis Institute in Zhengzhou.

Kasarda noted that there are three fundamental objectives for the Henan FTZ. First is capitalizing on its status as an international logistics hub. Another is leveraging high-end manufacturing and services to move up the value chain. The final aim is liberalization and deregulation of areas such as currency conversion and the free flow of capital, he said.

DIFFERENT APPROACHES NEEDED

Experts believe the key to the new FTZs, which are important for the opening-up of the country's landlocked central and western regions, is to find their own focuses.

"The first and second groups of FTZs are based in the country's most developed coastal regions. Their successful experience would not necessarily work for inland areas," said Xing Houyuan, deputy director of the service outsourcing research center of the Ministry of Commerce.

There is a gap between coastal and inland areas in terms of development and governance, and they have different favorable industries, according to Xing.

The coastal FTZs have proven effective in stimulating regional economies, but it could be a challenge for the third group, located in relatively backward areas, to attain similar effects, she said.

"We expect more specific policies to be made in accordance with the FTZ status in Henan and, more importantly, in line with the conditions and realities of individual areas," said Du Mingjun, an economics researcher in Henan.

"In attracting investors and trade, Henan, for example, has to look at its advantages and disadvantages and put its strength in places where it can develop best," he said.
SEOUL, March 31 (Xinhua) -- The ill-fated South Korean passenger ferry Sewol finally ended a long-running ordeal as it came out of water and was moved to a port on Friday to get to the bottom of the country's worst maritime disaster.

Sewol was raised from the waters off Jindo Island last week, nearly three years after the ferry carrying 476 people sank on April 16, 2014. A semi-submersible transport vessel moved the salvaged ferry to a port in Mokpo, around 90 km away from the site, at about 1:00 p.m. local time on Friday.

In the early morning hours, the transport vessel was preparing to set sail for the port. Families of the nine missing passengers get on a ship offered by the oceans ministry to follow the Sewol's last journey to Mokpo.

Among the total, only 172 people were rescued from the sinking ferry. Over 300 people were killed, mostly high school students on a school trip to the southern resort island of Jeju. Nine bodies were never recovered.

It was raining and still covered with a veil of darkness when the transport ship was about to depart, according to a pool report. The families of the missing looked tired as if they tossed and turned all night.

"I didn't sleep at all. I ate little. (My husband) is about to go to Mokpo after having stayed in the scary, deep sea for three years," said Yoo Baek-hyung, whose husband was the teacher of Danwon High School in Ansan, outside of Seoul. Her husband is still unaccounted for.

As the Sewol was salvaged and would be transported to a dry dock in Mokpo for inspection, she hoped to find a strand of her husband's hair or a wedding ring on his hand.

On the way to Mokpo, some continued to wipe away tears while others called their missing families, saying "Let's go home. Let's go home now." They comforted each other during the last journey as they shared deep wounds while awaiting the salvage together.

The Sewol was escorted by five patrol boats of the coast guard, accompanied by 10 vessels carrying the bereaved families and the families of the missing people.

On the deck of one of the family-carrying boats, Park Eun-mi, whose daughter Huh Dah-yoon is still unaccounted for, said nobody must go through the same as what they have suffered in the past three years.

When she got to know the disaster occurred in 2014, she hurriedly moved to the island without realizing that her wait would be so long. Since then, she has cherished her daughter in her heart.

"Time has passed so long. It would have been better if my daughter came back to me earlier. It was the very long school trip," said the mother who had a plan to say sorry to her daughter if her body is found, as she did nothing but to await her child. And, she will say thanks to her daughter for the comeback.

The Sewol's last journey ended at about 1:00 p.m., anchoring at the Mokpo port to be mounted onto a dry dock. It was aimed to search the missing bodies and determine the clear cause of the disaster.

Shanghai Salvage, a Chinese company which had led the salvaging operation, said its team will focus on the final landing of the ferry to make the complicated, time-consuming task successful. The task is forecast to come to an end next Thursday.

"I myself am a father and deeply love my family. I know there might be young victims trapped in the ferry," Wang Weiping, an engineer of the Shanghai Salvage participating in the salvaging operation, told Xinhua.

Wang said he and his colleagues had always kept in mind their goal of sending the missing people back home as their parents are waiting there.

Lee Kum-hee, mother of Cho Eun-hwa of Danwon High School who was never recovered, said her only wish was to become the bereaved families like others.

Lee said former President Park Geun-hye faced what she deserved as Park, as the country's president, should have served as the "parent" for all of South Koreans including the victims of the ferry disaster.

Park was arrested early Friday, hours before the transport vessel carrying the Sewol set sail for the Mokpo port.

The first South Korean female president was under harsh criticism as her whereabouts were unknown for seven hours of the day when the ferry tragedy unfolded. The initial bungling of rescue operations was believed to have increased the number of deaths.

Public dissatisfaction with the rescue operations contributed to the removal of Park from office on March 10. Park became the first South Korean leader to be ousted through impeachment.
NAIROBI, March 31 (Xinhua) -- Kenya on Friday kicked off a Green Bond Programme that aims to raise funds to finance green economy projects.

Kenya central bank governor Patrick Njoroge told a media briefing in Nairobi that the program will develop a legal and policy framework that will enable Kenya to issue green bonds.

"According to the program, the first green bond which will be used to gauge the appetite of investors will be floated by the end of the year," Njoroge said.

The program is a joint effort of the Kenya Bankers Association (KBA), Nairobi Securities Exchange (NSE) as well as the Financial Sector Deepening (FSD) Africa.

Njoroge said that Kenya is already a regional financial hub and so it hopes to lead the region in the adoption of green bonds.

During the launch, FSD Africa committed funding amounting to 600,000 U.S. dollars over a period of three years to fund the program with the objectives of aiding KBA to be in a position to tap the growing investor demand for green investments.

Njoroge added that the green bonds will help Kenya mitigate and adapt to the effects of climate change.

He noted that Kenya is already feeling the impact of the climate change that has caused the present drought in the arid and semi-arid parts of the country.

KBA CEO Habil Olaka said that the global financial community is already transiting towards green finance because it promotes sustainable development.

"We will therefore develop and sustain the best green bond practices that will inevitably strengthen financial structures in the country," Olaka said.

NSE CEO Geoffrey Odundo said that the exchange is committed to developing a vibrant green market for the East African region.

"Through the NSE, issuers and investors will have a platform where they can come together and fulfill their green objectives," Odundo said.
File photo shows Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) wait to be airlifted to the South Sudanese Northern State of Eastern Nile, in Juba, capital of South Sudan, Janl. 7, 2017. (Xinhua/Gale Julius)

JUBA, March 31 (Xinhua) -- Increased violence in South Sudan is affecting food security in some of the more stable areas, Head of the United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) David Shearer said Thursday.

"Dwindling provisions arriving in the town and skyrocketing food prices have meant that places like Aweil, which are generally peaceful, have suffered the effects of the conflict taking part in other parts of the country," Shearer said in a statement.

The World Food Programme (WFP) in October last year estimated that about 840,000 people were severely food insecure in the northern Bahr el Ghazal region where the newly created Aweil state lies.

"It is imperative that fighting stops, so the citizens of the world's newest nation can live in peace and enjoy the benefits of independence," Shearer said.

He added that insecurity has directly affected the cost of goods in greater Aweil, hence forcing many families to migrate to neighboring Sudan because they could either not produce crops or could not afford the high price of staple foods in the market.

"Those agencies have stepped in to provide emergency humanitarian aid in a region where the UN Food and Agriculture Agency (FAO) says 52 percent of people are food insecure," said Shearer said.

The UN in late February declared famine in some parts of the country with 100,000 people starving, and 1 million on the brink of starvation and a further 5.5 million in dire need of food assistance caused by more than three years of fighting since December 2013.

"I fear for the immediate future of the people here (Aweil) particularly their ability to cope during the imminent rainy season while their crops are growing," Shearer said.
BRATISLAVA, March 31 (Xinhua) -- Slovak veterinary inspectors have found 21 tons of spoiled Brazilian meat tainted with salmonella in the capital Bratislava, officials said Friday.

"The Brazilian meat was imported into Slovakia via the Netherlands and Poland," Slovak Agriculture and Rural Development Minister Gabriela Matecna told a press conference.

"Our veterinary inspectors immediately ordered this meat to be withdrawn, as it had been distributed to as many as 54 restaurants throughout the country," Matecna said.

The Slovak Agriculture Ministry immediately halted the sale of Brazilian meat in the country. Matecna said inspectors have checked 341 products so far.

The laboratory tests to date have discovered 17 irregular items, according to Slovak State Veterinary and Food Directorate general director Jozef Bires.

"We're continuing to perform inspections, focusing mainly on entities with warehouses that are engaged in relatively large-scale trade in this commodity, supplying it to restaurants and end consumers," Bires added.

Slovak inspectors so far haven't found any of the chemical substances that were allegedly used in Brazil to mask rotten meat.

Brazil is the world's largest exporter of red meat, with its meat products sold in 150 countries worldwide.

Earlier this month, the Brazilian police uncovered a massive scheme of meat adulteration, which involves some of the country's largest meat producers.

The crackdown action came as part of the so-called "Operation Weak Flesh" launched by the police targeting some of the major meatpacking companies in Brazil, such as market leaders JBS Friboi and Brasil Foods.

The Federal Police said the meatpacking companies under investigation were selling expired meats. In order to disguise the odor of the meats, they were adding ascorbic acid to the pieces.

The companies then paid bribes to the Agricultural Ministry inspectors to authorize the sale of the contaminated meats. According to the police, the adulterated meats was sold in the domestic market and exported as well.
HO CHI MINH CITY, March 31 (Xinhua) -- By Friday evening, six bodies of crewmen have been recovered and three sailors still listed as missing after a local cargo ship sank off the coast of Vung Tau city in Ba Ria-Vung Tau province on Tuesday, the provincial authorities said Friday.

The 3,000-ton ship, named Hai Thanh 26, sank after collision with another cargo ship called Petrolimex 14 of a Vietnamese oil company, 44 nautical miles east of the city, two crewmen, including the captain were rescued.

Hai Thanh 26 was carrying 11 crewmen and clinker from northern Hai Phong city to southern Can Tho city.

On Friday, the oil company, Vitaco, offered 100 million Vietnamese dong (nearly 4,500 U.S. dollars) to each family of the dead or missing crewmen, and 50 million Vietnamese dong to each of the two rescued crewmen.
SEOUL, March 31 (Xinhua) -- The ill-fated South Korean passenger ferry Sewol finally ended a long-running ordeal as it came out of water and was moved to a port on Friday to get to the bottom of the country's worst maritime disaster.

Sewol was raised from the waters off Jindo Island last week, nearly three years after the ferry carrying 476 people sank on April 16, 2014. A semi-submersible transport vessel moved the salvaged ferry to a port in Mokpo, around 90 km away from the site, at about 1:00 p.m. local time on Friday.

In the early morning hours, the transport vessel was preparing to set sail for the port. Families of the nine missing passengers get on a ship offered by the oceans ministry to follow the Sewol's last journey to Mokpo.

Among the total, only 172 people were rescued from the sinking ferry. Over 300 people were killed, mostly high school students on a school trip to the southern resort island of Jeju. Nine bodies were never recovered.

It was raining and still covered with a veil of darkness when the transport ship was about to depart, according to a pool report. The families of the missing looked tired as if they tossed and turned all night.

"I didn't sleep at all. I ate little. (My husband) is about to go to Mokpo after having stayed in the scary, deep sea for three years," said Yoo Baek-hyung, whose husband was the teacher of Danwon High School in Ansan, outside of Seoul. Her husband is still unaccounted for.

As the Sewol was salvaged and would be transported to a dry dock in Mokpo for inspection, she hoped to find a strand of her husband's hair or a wedding ring on his hand.

On the way to Mokpo, some continued to wipe away tears while others called their missing families, saying "Let's go home. Let's go home now." They comforted each other during the last journey as they shared deep wounds while awaiting the salvage together.

The Sewol was escorted by five patrol boats of the coast guard, accompanied by 10 vessels carrying the bereaved families and the families of the missing people.

On the deck of one of the family-carrying boats, Park Eun-mi, whose daughter Huh Dah-yoon is still unaccounted for, said nobody must go through the same as what they have suffered in the past three years.

When she got to know the disaster occurred in 2014, she hurriedly moved to the island without realizing that her wait would be so long. Since then, she has cherished her daughter in her heart.

"Time has passed so long. It would have been better if my daughter came back to me earlier. It was the very long school trip," said the mother who had a plan to say sorry to her daughter if her body is found, as she did nothing but to await her child. And, she will say thanks to her daughter for the comeback.

The Sewol's last journey ended at about 1:00 p.m., anchoring at the Mokpo port to be mounted onto a dry dock. It was aimed to search the missing bodies and determine the clear cause of the disaster.

Shanghai Salvage, a Chinese company which had led the salvaging operation, said its team will focus on the final landing of the ferry to make the complicated, time-consuming task successful. The task is forecast to come to an end next Thursday.

"I myself am a father and deeply love my family. I know there might be young victims trapped in the ferry," an engineer of the Shanghai Salvage participating in the salvaging operation, told Xinhua.

The engineer said he and his colleagues had always kept in mind their goal of sending the missing people back home as their parents are waiting there.

Lee Kum-hee, mother of Cho Eun-hwa of Danwon High School who was never recovered, said her only wish was to become the bereaved families like others.

Lee said former President Park Geun-hye faced what she deserved as Park, as the country's president, should have served as the "parent" for all of South Koreans including the victims of the ferry disaster.

Park was arrested early Friday, hours before the transport vessel carrying the Sewol set sail for the Mokpo port.

The first South Korean female president was under harsh criticism as her whereabouts were unknown for seven hours of the day when the ferry tragedy unfolded. The initial bungling of rescue operations was believed to have increased the number of deaths.

Public dissatisfaction with the rescue operations contributed to the removal of Park from office on March 10. Park became the first South Korean leader to be ousted through impeachment.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-03-31 21:39:23|Editor: xuxin

The remains of sunken South Korean passenger ferry Sewol arrive at a port in Mokpo, some 90 km away from the Jindo Island, South Korea, March 31, 2017. The 6,825-ton passenger ferry Sewol capsized and sank in waters off Jindo Island on April 16, 2014. It claimed the lives of 304 people, mostly high school students on a school trip. (Xinhua/Yao Qilin)

SEOUL, March 31 (Xinhua) -- The passenger ferry Sewol of South Korea, which sank three years ago in waters off the country's southwestern coast and killed over 300 people, was transported Friday to a nearby port for search and inspection.

The semi-submersible transport vessel carrying the ill-fated ferry arrived at the Mokpo port at about 1 p.m. local time, some 90 km away from the sea off the Jindo Island where the Sewol capsized and sank on April 16, 2014.

Among 476 passengers, only 172 were rescued. The victims were mostly high school students on a school trip to the southern resort island of Jeju from Incheon, west of Seoul. Nine bodies remain unaccounted for.

The ferry, which had lain on its left side at a depth of about 40 meters for almost three years, was lifted last week to the surface. At the port, it was set to be mounted on a dry dock to search the missing people and determine the clear cause of the disaster.

Shanghai Salvage, a Chinese company which had led the salvaging operation, said its team is now focusing on the final landing of the ferry to make the complicated, time-consuming task successful. The task is forecast to come to an end next Thursday.

Since the Shanghai Salvage came to South Korea in August, 2015, its divers have taken turns in going underwater for almost 13,000 hours while having dispatched ships over 3,000 times for preparatory works and the final lifting.

Evaluating the salvaging operation, a British consultancy told a press conference in Mokpo that works of Shanghai Salvage were very satisfactory as all were done as planned without any setback.

To raise the Sewol, beams were put underneath the ferry. The beams were attached to wires that were pulled up by two jack-up barges. Then, the raised Sewol was moved to the semi-submersible vessel that carried the ferry to the port.

The salvaging efforts were made in the water, which is infamous for fast currents and unstable weather conditions.

The Chinese company said the hardest work was to lift the vessel as a whole while maintaining its original status without damaging its main structure, in order to protect the missing bodies inside the ferry.

To achieve that goal, the Shanghai team said it created fresh technologies and kept on reforming equipments.


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MOGADISHU, March 31 (Xinhua) -- The UN envoy in Somalia on Friday lauded the parliamentary approval of the new cabinet and called on ministers to move swiftly to tackle myriad challenges facing the Horn of Africa nation.

The Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Somalia Michael Keating said the new cabinet contains a healthy mix of experienced leaders and relative newcomers to the political stage which is ready to get into action.

"The parliamentary approval was a bright green light. The challenges ahead, including drought, insecurity and corruption, are enormous," Keating said in a statement issued in Mogadishu.

The newly installed 27 cabinet ministers which include six women, the largest number of female ministers ever to be named to a federal government cabinet, was approved by Parliament on Wednesday.

Keating said the number of women represented another positive step towards empowering Somali women in the political affairs of their country.

Some 24 percent of the seats in Somalia's tenth parliament were occupied by women during the recently concluded electoral process.

The UN envoy also noted with approval the Federal Government's blueprint spelled out by Prime Minister Hassan Ali Khaire just prior to the parliamentary vote on the cabinet.

Khaire had underlined the need to eradicate poverty, build up Somalia's security services in order to eliminate the scourge of terrorism, and expedite the constitutional review process that will lay the foundations for the holding of one-person, one-vote elections in 2020.

Keating said the UN will work with Somalia's international partners to support the government's efforts to deliver tangible outcomes on these priorities.

"The UN and international partners look forward to working closely and fruitfully with the president, the PM and the new cabinet as they tackle the many political, economic, security and humanitarian tasks facing Somalia today," Keating said.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-03-31 21:49:25|Editor: Liangyu

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Chinese Premier Li Keqiang (C) presides over the 7th plenary meeting of the State Council in Beijing, capital of China, March 31, 2017. The State Council decided at the meeting to appoint Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor the fifth-term chief executive of Hong Kong Special Administrative Region. Lam will assume office on July 1, 2017. (Xinhua/Ding Lin)

BEIJING, March 31 (Xinhua) -- The State Council decided at a meeting Friday to appoint Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor as the fifth-term chief executive of Hong Kong Special Administrative Region.

Lam will assume office on July 1, 2017.

Premier Li Keqiang presided over the meeting and signed a State Council decree on the appointment.

Lam won the election to become the fifth-term chief executive of HKSAR on Sunday with 777 of 1,163 valid votes.

The election was conducted in line with the HKSAR Basic Law, relevant decisions of the National People's Congress Standing Committee and relevant laws of the HKSAR, Li said, adding that it "embodied the principle of openness, fair play and justice."

The result showed that Hong Kong society has extensive recognition, trust and expectations for Lam, according to the premier.

The central government will continue to fully and accurately implement the principle of "one country, two systems," "Hong Kong people governing Hong Kong" with a high degree of autonomy, and will act strictly in accordance with the Constitution and the Basic Law to ensure that the principle of "one country, two systems" is steadfastly applied in Hong Kong without bending or distortion, Li said.

The premier vowed the central government's full support for the chief executive and the SAR government in their administering of Hong Kong in accordance with the law, developing the economy, improving the people's quality of life, advancing democracy and promoting harmony.

The central government will "take effective measures to deepen cooperation between the mainland and Hong Kong, promote the development of a city cluster in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, give play to Hong Kong's unique advantage, and raise Hong Kong's status and function in national economic development and opening up," Li said.

Li expressed his belief that Lam, after taking office, will unite and lead the HKSAR government and that people from all walks of life in Hong Kong will make pragmatic progress and forge ahead to maintain Hong Kong's long-term prosperity and stability and create a brighter future.

Vice premiers Zhang Gaoli, Liu Yandong and Ma Kai also attended Friday's meeting.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-03-31 21:59:27|Editor: ying

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HANOI, March 31 (Xinhua) -- Vietnam's National Assembly (NA) received here Friday a series of office equipment worth over 290,000 U.S. dollars from the Chinese government.

Thanks to the joint efforts of both sides, the China-Vietnam relations have maintained good development trend, which is in line with the common interests of both countries and their peoples, Chinese Ambassador to Vietnam Hong Xiaoyong said on the reception ceremony.

Nguyen Hanh Phuc, chairman of Vietnamese NA Office, for his part, said the gift is of great importance and great encouragement to Vietnamese NA in general and to the staff working in the NA bodies in particular.

The offer shows the attention of the Chinese government and the Standing Committee of China's National People's Congress to cooperation between the two legislatures, said Nguyen Hanh Phuc.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-03-31 21:59:27|Editor: ying

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HARARE, March 31 (Xinhua) -- China on Friday handed over 1.06 million U.S. dollars to Zimbabwe to help hundreds of families affected by floods that hit the southern parts of the country in February.

Chinese ambassador to Zimbabwe Huang Ping said the friendship which exists between the two countries had spurred China to come to Zimbabwe's aid.

The Chinese government donated 1 million dollars while the Red Cross Society of China gave 50,000 dollars and the Chinese community in Zimbabwe chipped in with another 10,000 dollars.

The southern African country of Namibia also donated 1.2 million tins of canned fish to help avert an unfolding humanitarian crisis facing the nation.

Namibian ambassador to Zimbabwe Balbina des Pienaar said her government would also donate medical supplies on top of the canned fish, news agency New Ziana reported.

Zimbabwe's Acting Local Government, Public Works and National Housing Minister Sydney Sekeramayi thanked the governments of China and Namibia for helping Zimbabwe during its time of need.

Heavy rains that were worsened by Cyclone Dineo last month left 271 people dead, another 128 injured and nearly 2,000 homeless in the country.

The deaths were caused by lightning strikes, drowning and landslides, according to the Civil Protection Unit, which added that nearly 2,600 homesteads were damaged in varying degrees.

The worst affected district was Tsholotsho (Matabeleland North Province) where a total of 859 people were left homeless and are currently in a transit camp and an additional 100 households remain at risk.

According to the Zimbabwe National Water Authority, over 100,000 people are without safe drinking water following the damage to water supply infrastructure.

President Robert Mugabe on March 2 declared a State of Flood Disaster, leading to the launching of a domestic and international appeal for nearly 189 million dollars to help victims and repair infrastructure such as homes, roads, bridges, dams, schools, water and sanitation.
DHAKA, March 31 (Xinhua) -- The death toll from a boat sinking accident in a southwestern Bangladesh district has risen to 17, officials said on Friday, indicating that the vessel was overloaded.

Official figures showed that 17 people had died when the wooden boat capsized in the river of Panguchi in the country's Bagerhat district, some 178 km southwest of capital Dhaka, on Tuesday, with at least 50 people listed as survivors.

"Another two missing bodies were recovered on Friday morning which takes the number of total death toll to 17," Moniruzzaman Mithu, additional superintendent of police in Bagerhat, told Xinhua over phone on Friday.

He said most of the bodies were recovered from the river of Panguchi, where the vessel carrying on board some 70 passengers sank.

Mithu said that according to the relatives of passengers, two people were still missing.

He said a search operation is still under way for the missing.

The boat has been dragged to the bank, he added.

While the government has launched an investigation into the accident, a Bagerhat district administration official who declined to be named said the boat was overcrowded.

Masud Sarder, a deputy assistant director of Bangladesh Fire Service and Civil Defence, had also said earlier that the boat sank due to overloading.

Ferry is a key means of transport in the country, and most of them are often overcrowded.

Many of the boats plying Bangladesh's waterways do not maintain passenger registers.

Boat accidents are frequent in the country which is criss-crossed by more than 300 rivers.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-03-31 22:08:57|Editor: Liangyu

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Chinese Premier Li Keqiang (R) meets with visiting Serbian President Tomislav Nikolic in Beijing, capital of China, March 31, 2017. (Xinhua/Pang Xinglei)

BEIJING, March 31 (Xinhua) -- Chinese Premier Li Keqiang on Friday called for more cooperation with Serbia within the 16+1 cooperation mechanism to realize mutually beneficial and sustainable development.

Li made the pledge when meeting with visiting Serbian President Tomislav Nikolic at the Great Hall of the People.

The "16+1" refers to China and the 16 Central and Eastern European countries (CEEC).

Li said trade and investment between China and Serbia have grown rapidly and bilateral cooperation on production capacity and infrastructure construction continued to make breakthroughs.

He encouraged both sides to further explore cooperation potential, give full play to the 16+1 mechanism and forge ahead with major cooperation projects under market principles and a commercial framework to achieve sustainable development on the basis of win-win cooperation.

Both countries should further promote the Serbia-Hungary railway and make the project an example of China-Serbia flagship cooperation and China-CEEC cooperation on production capacity, Li said.

He also called on the two countries to expand two-way trade, strengthen cooperation in areas including finance, customs, culture, tourism, and people-to-people exchanges, and intensify coordination within the 16+1 framework.

Nikolic, for his part, said Serbia is the first country among the CEECs to establish a comprehensive strategic partnership with China.

Serbia is ready to expand cooperation with China and welcome Chinese enterprises to invest in the country, he said.

He also called for more cooperation on projects in the fields of infrastructure and production capacity, expanding trade of agricultural produce and exploring opportunities on a third market.

Also on Friday, top Chinese legislator Zhang Dejiang met with Nikolic.

Zhang, chairman of the National People's Congress (NPC) Standing Committee, said China's NPC attaches great importance to relations with the Serbian National Assembly and would like to step up bilateral exchanges at all levels.

Nikolic said he is full of confidence in the future of bilateral ties and supports cooperation between the two legislature bodies.

Prior to his meeting with Li and Zhang, Nikolic offered a wreath to the Monument to the People's Heroes at Tian'anmen Square in Beijing.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-03-31 22:08:58|Editor: Tian Shaohui

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Liu Yunshan (C, rear), a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and the Secretariat of the CPC Central Committee, attends a symposium to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the birth of late procurator-general Liu Fuzhi, in Beijing, capital of China, March 31, 2017. (Xinhua/Liu Weibing)

BEIJING, March 31 (Xinhua) -- A symposium was held Friday in Beijing to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the birth of late procurator-general Liu Fuzhi, with senior Communist Party of China (CPC) leader Liu Yunshan attending the event.

Liu Yunshan, a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee and the Secretariat of the CPC Central Committee, also met with Liu Fuzhi's relatives prior to the symposium.

As an outstanding leader of China's political and legal work, Liu Fuzhi was a member of the 12th Central Committee of the CPC and worked as procurator-general of the Supreme People's Procuratorate from 1988 to 1993.

He died of illness in 2013 at the age of 96.

Meng Jianzhu, a member of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee and head of the Commission for Political and Legal Affairs of the CPC Central Committee, also attended the gathering, calling on officials to learn from Liu Fuzhi's firm beliefs and to be always loyal to the CPC.

Procurator-general Cao Jianming presided over the symposium.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-03-31 22:12:19|Editor: xuxin

Kashmiri protesters throw stones at Indian paramilitary troopers and policemen during a protest in outskirts of Srinagar city, the summer capital of Indian-controlled Kashmir, March 31, 2017. Clashes erupted in parts of Indian-controlled Kashmir between Kashmiri protesters and government forces during protests call given by Kashmiri separatist groups against killings of three civilians by government forces on Tuesday during protests near site of a gunfight between militants and government forces. (Xinhua/Javed Dar)
Source: Xinhua| 2017-03-31 22:19:32|Editor: xuxin

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ANKARA, March 31 (Xinhua) -- Turkey has declared the end of its "Euphrates Shield" operation in northern Syria, so as not to confront with Russia and the U.S. in Syria, local experts said Friday.

Turkey has officially ended the operation, Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said on late Wednesday, but suggested there might be more cross-border campaigns to come. He did not specify whether Turkey will withdraw troops.

"Turkey wanted to give the message that it does not have an eye on Syrian lands. Making the statement, Ankara shows good intention in this conjuncture since it does not want confrontation with global forces," Abdullah Agar, a security expert, told Xinhua.

"Operation Euphrates Shield has been successful and is finished. Any operation following this one will have a different name," Yildirim said in a televised interview.

His remarks came one day before the U.S. Secretary of State's visit to Ankara, with the high possibility that Washington will not drop its alliance with the Syrian Kurds for an upcoming offensive in Raqqa, the de facto capital of the jihadist Islamic State (IS).

Last August, Turkey sent troops and military vehicles to support Free Syrian Army (FSA) rebels to defeat IS away from its border and stop the advance of Kurdish militia fighters. The Turkish-backed Syrian rebels have captured several towns in northern Syria, including Jarablus, Dabiq and the strategic town of al-Bab.

The IS threat along Turkish border is eliminated, Agar said. He identified the operation successful in military terms, as 3,037 IS members were killed and more than 4,500 explosives were destroyed. No other anti-IS coalition has reached such figures, the expert noted.

"Turkish military proved that this kind of military campaign can maintain stability in this area and it has done the operation with its land owners," Agar said referring to Free Syrian Army fighters.

Nearly 70 Turkish soldiers were killed in the offensive at which Turkish military-backed rebels have gained control of nearly 2,000 square-kilometer area.

After capturing al-Bab town, Turkish leadership vowed the offensive would push the Syrian Kurdish militia out of Manbij, before moving south to Raqqa. But neither of these plans realized, at least for now, as Russia and the U.S. lend support to the People's Protection Units (YPG) of Syrian Kurds.

Ankara sees the YPG as the Syrian extension of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which has fought an insurgency in Turkey's southeast since 1984 for greater autonomy.

As the Syrian Kurds carve out a self-governing territory in northern Syria, Turkey fears that it will embolden its own large Kurdish minority to try to forge a similar autonomy inside its borders.

Ankara had to declare end of the operation, according to Bora Bayraktar, an international relations academic from Kultur University.

The expert stated that Turkish plans to move further to Manbij were thwarted after Russia has got involved the dispute between the YPG and Turkey as the latter threatened to move beyond east of al-Bab town if the Kurds do not leave Manbij region.

The Kurdish militia handed over several villages in western Manbij to the Syrian army to serve as a buffer zone with the Turkish troops.

He recalled that the U.S. also "unfurled its flag" in the Kurdish region, with some U.S. troops stationed inside and in rural parts of western Manbij, and these moves have deterred a Turkish advance.

Manbij lies about 30 kilometers to the west of the Euphrates River and is strategically important to unite the two Kurdish cantons in northeastern Syria with the third Afrin canton in the western part of the river.

Turkey announced it's operation is over for now, because Ankara does not want to engage in a diplomatic crisis with Russia, the expert said.

"Turkey is now in a phase of waiting. I don't think it will simply withdraw its troops. Turkey is a regional power waiting for a new opportunity," he noted.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-03-31 22:24:33|Editor: ying

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BEIJING, March 31 (Xinhua) -- Norwegian Prime Minister Erna Solberg will pay an official visit to China from April 7 to 11 at the invitation of Chinese Premier Li Keqiang, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lu Kang announced Friday.

"We attach importance to Solberg's visit to China," Lu said, noting that she will meet and hold talks with Chinese leaders and they will exchange views on bilateral ties and issues of common concern.

Norway was among the first Western countries to have recognized the People's Republic of China, Lu said, adding that China and Norway have traditional friendship and pragmatic cooperation.

China and Norway issued a statement in December last year on the normalization of ties.

At present, bilateral ties face new opportunities, and Solberg's visit will enhance political trust, expand pragmatic cooperation and promote healthy and stable development of bilateral ties, Lu said.

When asked to comment on whether China and Norway will resume their dialogue on human rights issues, Lu said China has never objected to the dialogue and it is China's long-standing position to carry out dialogue on human rights issues on the basis of equality and mutual respect to promote international human rights causes.

China firmly opposes any country's attempt to interfere in others' domestic affairs in the name of human rights issues, Lu said.

As long as China and Norway adhere to the basis of mutual respect, there is no obstacle to holding human rights dialogue, Lu said.

It was reported that during Solberg's visit next week, negotiations on a free trade arrangement will be resumed. Lu said reaching consensus on the free trade arrangement as soon as possible will benefit the companies and consumers of both countries.

"If there is good news, I will tell you," he told the reporters.
KHARTOUM, March 31 (Xinhua) -- Sudan government on Friday denounced a warning by the United States for its citizens not to travel to Sudan for security risks, saying the warning was not based on objective justifications.

"We express rejection of this warning, which does not consider the important developments and great transformations witnessed in the country," said Sudan's Foreign Ministry in a statement Friday.

It said the warning "contradictory to reports by the United Nations, the African Union and the Arab League which confirmed security and stability in Darfur, South Kordofan and Blue Nile regions."

It added that the claim of terrorism in Sudan contradicts the commendations made by heads of the American Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and other senior U.S. officials, regarding the considerable efforts and great cooperation by Sudan in combating terrorism and extremism.

The Sudanese foreign ministry further urged its U.S. counterpart to objectively reconsider its inaccurate information, with the spirit of the high-level and positive bilateral dialogue, which is progressing toward normal ties.

On Thursday, the U.S. Department of State warned U.S. citizens not to travel to Sudan due to what it termed as "risks of terrorism."

Additionally, the U.S. embassy required U.S. government personnel in Sudan to use armored vehicles for all travel, and prohibited travel outside of Khartoum without advance permission and extra security precautions.

Although the previous U.S. administration lifted the economic sanctions on Sudan last January, the U.S. is still keeping Sudan on its list of countries sponsoring terrorism.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-03-31 22:29:33|Editor: ying

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GENEVA, March 31 (Xinhua) -- A National People's Congress (NPC) delegation of legislators from China's Tibet Autonomous Region on Friday wrapped up a four-day visit in Switzerland where they met parliamentary and governmental officials and held talks with Tibetan inhabitants.

The delegation was led by Padma Choling, who is also a senior member of China's NPC Standing Committee.

In Bern, the delegation Thursday held meetings with President of the Swiss National Council Jurg Stahl, former president of the Swiss National Council Christa Markwalder, as well as Deputy State Secretary of the Federal Department of Foreign Affairs Krystyna Marty Lang.

In the meeting with Stahl, Choling said the purpose of the visit was to deepen exchanges between the two parliaments and introduce Tibet's poverty alleviation efforts, traditional cultural protection and development, as well as ecological protection to their Swiss counterparts.

Stahl noted that relations between Switzerland and China have maintained a good momentum, highlighting that Switzerland has always pursued the one-China policy. This visit will help Swiss people better understand a true Tibet, he said.

During his meeting with Markwalder, Choling said it was pleasant to have extensive exchanges with the Swiss Parliament. He welcomed more Swiss lawmakers to visit Tibet.

Markwalder said she would like to visit China again and travel to Tibet.

Based on his own work experience, Choling explained to Lang China's system of regional ethnic autonomy, central government's supportive policies for Tibet and other ethnic minority regions, as well as Tibet's economic and social development in recent years.

Lang said the Chinese government has done a lot of work for the development of ethnic minority areas, which has facilitated economic and social development there.

With 2017 marking the Sino-Swiss tourism year, Lang said she expected increased tourist exchanges between Switzerland and China.

During visiting Zurich, members of the Tibetan delegation talked to Tibetans living in Zurich and Liechtenstein and briefed them about economic and social development and livelihood improvement in Tibet in recent years, especially in poverty alleviation.
Photo taken on Feb. 10, 2016 shows a refugee camp in Kilis, Turkey. (Xinhua/Cihan)

GENEVA, March 31 (Xinhua) -- The number of Syrians who have fled to Turkey, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan and Lebanon because of protracted fighting in the middle-eastern country has surpassed the 5 million mark, the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) said Thursday.

According to latest data collected by UNHCR and the government of Turkey, 5,018,168 Syrians have left their country to seek refuge in the region since Syria's conflict kicked off in March 2011.

Despite a high-level meeting on Syria last year that aimed to resettle 10 percent of all refugees by 2018, UNHCR warned that only 250,000 places for refugees have been made available to date.

"We still have a long road to travel in expanding resettlement and the number and range of complementary pathways available for refugees," said the UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi in a statement.

"To meet this challenge, we not only need additional places, but also need to accelerate the implementation of existing pledges," he added.
Photo shows NPC delegation meet with Swiss Deputy State Secretary of the Federal Department of Foreign Affairs Krystyna Marty Lang. (XINHUA/Zhang Miao)

GENEVA, March 31 (Xinhua) -- A National People's Congress (NPC) delegation of legislators from China's Tibet Autonomous Region on Friday wrapped up a four-day visit in Switzerland where they met parliamentary and governmental officials and held talks with Tibetan inhabitants.

The delegation was led by Padma Choling, who is also a senior member of China's NPC Standing Committee.

In Bern, the delegation Thursday held meetings with President of the Swiss National Council Jurg Stahl, former president of the Swiss National Council Christa Markwalder, as well as Deputy State Secretary of the Federal Department of Foreign Affairs Krystyna Marty Lang.

In the meeting with Stahl, Choling said the purpose of the visit was to deepen exchanges between the two parliaments and introduce Tibet's poverty alleviation efforts, traditional cultural protection and development, as well as ecological protection to their Swiss counterparts.

Stahl noted that relations between Switzerland and China have maintained a good momentum, highlighting that Switzerland has always pursued the one-China policy. This visit will help Swiss people better understand a true Tibet, he said.

During his meeting with Markwalder, Choling said it was pleasant to have extensive exchanges with the Swiss Parliament. He welcomed more Swiss lawmakers to visit Tibet.

Markwalder said she would like to visit China again and travel to Tibet.

Based on his own work experience, Choling explained to Lang China's system of regional ethnic autonomy, central government's supportive policies for Tibet and other ethnic minority regions, as well as Tibet's economic and social development in recent years.

Lang said the Chinese government has done a lot of work for the development of ethnic minority areas, which has facilitated economic and social development there.

With 2017 marking the Sino-Swiss tourism year, Lang said she expected increased tourist exchanges between Switzerland and China.

During visiting Zurich, members of the Tibetan delegation talked to Tibetans living in Zurich and Liechtenstein and briefed them about economic and social development and livelihood improvement in Tibet in recent years, especially in poverty alleviation.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-03-31 22:49:37|Editor: Tian Shaohui

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Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lu Kang (Source: fmprc.gov.cn)

BEIJING, March 31 (Xinhua) -- China is firmly opposed to any visit by the Dalai Lama to the disputed border region between China and India, a Foreign Ministry spokesperson said Friday.

Spokesperson Lu Kang made the comment when asked if China has protested to India about the Dalai Lama's scheduled visit next week to a disputed zone in the eastern part of the China-India border area.

"China is gravely concerned about this. Our stance on the eastern part of the China-India border is clear and consistent," Lu said at a routine press briefing.

Lu said the Dalai Lama has long engaged in anti-China separatist activities and has behaved disgracefully on the China-India border issue.

India understands the seriousness of the Dalai Lama issue and the sensitivity of the border disputes, he said, noting that India's invitation to the Dalai Lama for activities in the disputed border areas will gravely damage peace and stability of the border areas, as well as bilateral relations.

Lu said China demands the Indian side meet its political commitments on Tibet-related issues and abide by the consensus reached by the two sides on border issues.

He urged India to refrain from taking actions that could further complicate the China-India border issue and to not provide a platform for separatist activities of the Dalai Lama clique in order to safeguard the healthy and stable development of bilateral ties.

"Maintaining a good relationship between the two big developing countries serves the interests of the two peoples. But China-India relations are based on certain principles," Lu said.

Similar incidents have happened in the past and triggered opposition from China, resulting in harm to bilateral relations, Lu said.

"Therefore, we urge the Indian side to deliver its political commitments on this issue so that bilateral relations won't be hurt. Otherwise, it will also be detrimental to India," the spokesperson said.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-03-31 22:49:37|Editor: yan

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BEIJING, March 31 (Xinhua) -- More than two dozen cities in north China have drawn up a detailed action plan to address the notorious winter smog.

Targets and deadlines were outlined in the action plan, which was drafted by several ministries and the governments of Beijing, Tianjin, and 26 smaller cities in the provinces of Hebei, Shanxi, Shandong and Henan.

By the end of October, 13 cities including Beijing vowed to close the majority of polluting businesses that operate on a small scale, provide low-end services, hold insufficient licenses, or do not have sufficient emission treatment facilities.

In the next seven months, the cities of Beijing, Tianjin and neighboring Langfang and Baoding will ban the use of small coal-fired furnaces for winter heating. Areas in these cities will be declared completely "coal free."

Air pollution is more astutely felt in north China in winter. While high concentrations of industrial and vehicle emissions are the main culprits, static air and the use of coal for winter heating only worsen the situation, experts say.

Provinces around Beijing are also home to the country's major steel-makers, coal mines, aluminum producers, and chemical plants.

The action plan reads that cities with dense heavy industries in the provinces of Hebei and Henan will implement a seasonal reduction on steel output capacity, aiming to slash it by half this winter. Aluminum and chemical plants will also scale down production.

Regarding car exhausts, all 28 cities will install monitoring facilities to watch over diesel and high-emitting petrol vehicles. The port of Tianjin will stop receiving coal by road. Most cargo will be transferred to rail.

A name-and-shame list is ready for local officials as well. According to the plan, the Ministry of Environmental Protection will publish a monthly list profiling the work undertaken by 28 cities to improve air quality. It will be a "major" criterion on performance evaluations of officials.

According to a national action plan issued in September 2013, the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region should cut PM2.5, a key indicator of air pollution, by 25 percent from the 2012 levels by 2017.

Despite years of efforts to address pollution and a substantial drop of average PM2.5 density, large parts of China still suffer from frequent and severe smog in winter.

The average PM2.5 density in 2016 in the region is 71 micrograms per cubic meter of air, down 33 percent than the 2013 levels. But the density in January and February surged 48 percent year on year to 111 micrograms per cubic meter of air in 13 cities of the region.

Hebei Province has targeted to further cut PM2.5 density by 10 percent in 2017, and by 15 percent in winter, from the 2016 levels.

To curb winter emissions, the province plans to adjust its energy structure and lower coal consumption, provincial Party head Zhao Kezhi said at an air pollution control meeting on Friday.

This year the province will require 1.8 million households in 134 counties to replace their coal-fired furnaces with gas or electric heaters, said Zhao.

Energy planning official Ma Haiyan with Langfang City, one of the coal-free zones near Beijing, said the city government has offered a grant of 7,900 yuan (1,150 U.S. dollars) or 9,800 yuan who upgrade to gas or electricity heaters.

The province this year will also launch a campaign to reduce consumption of inferior coal, said Zhao.

A sampling inspection showed that only 35 percent of coal consumption in rural area was qualified and 40 percent of coal products from dealers met the required standards.

Coal accounts for 86 percent of the entire structure of primary energy consumption, and bulk coal takes over 88 percent of combustion sources, a major contributor to PM2.5 emission. Total bulk coal consumption in Hebei's rural area reaches 31.4 million tonnes, according to Zhao.

Chinese Premier Li Keqiang said earlier this month that coal-burning, automobile exhausts and dust will be reduced to tackle the smog, acknowledging it takes time to win the battle.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-03-31 23:04:08|Editor: yan

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BEIJING, March 31 (Xinhua) -- Fan Changlong, vice chairman of China's Central Military Commission, and Chang Wanquan, Chinese defense minister and state councilor, on Friday met separately with Guy Parmelin, head of the Swiss Federal Department of Defense, Civil Protection and Sport.

Fan Changlong said China is willing to work with Switzerland to implement consensus reached by leaders of the two countries, enhance strategic communication, enrich military-to-military relations, and make positive contributions to the China-Switzerland innovative strategic partnership.

Fan hailed the smooth development of military-to-military relations in recent years and deepening of exchanges and cooperation in areas such as the exchange of high-level visits, personnel training and international peacekeeping missions.

Parmelin said that Switzerland adheres to the one-China policy and is willing to advance pragmatic cooperation with China in all fields.

Noting the good momentum of development in military-to-military relations, Chang Wanquan said China is willing to work with Switzerland to deepen exchanges and pragmatic cooperation between the two militaries.

Parmelin told Chang that Switzerland attaches much importance to developing ties with China and is willing to work together with China to elevate military-to-military relations to a new level.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-03-31 23:04:10|Editor: yan

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HAVANA, March 31 (Xinhua) -- Cuba dispatched Thursday night a 23-staff medical brigade to assist the victims of the heavy rains affecting Peru, the official Cuban News Agency said Friday.

The group included 11 doctors and was accompanied to the airport by the country's Health Minister Roberto Morales.

Morales highlighted the preparation of the doctors and noted that some of them have fulfilled five and six missions abroad as part of the international medical contingent Henry Reeve.

"We are convinced that with the experience acquired by the Brigade members in previous missions, they will be able to assist the population and above all to prevent epidemics that could emerge as the consequence of the current situation," said Morales.

Brigade 23 of the Henry Reeve contingent will be deployed in the Piura area to mitigate the damage caused by climate adversities which claimed 97 lives and affected some 125,000 people.

The Cuban doctors are taking to Peru 4.2 tons of medicines and expendable medical supplies, which will allow them to take care of about 20,000 people.

They also carry 6 million tablets of chlorine, an amount enough to purify over 80 million liters of water, which will be "a resource of vital importance in the current conjuncture," according to the minister.

Since December, Peru has been lashed by torrential rains sparked by the so-called Coastal El Nino phenomenon caused by unusually high sea temperatures, which have brought heavy flooding and mudslide.

The Henry Reeve contingent was created in 2005 by late President Fidel Castro, after hurricane Katrina devastated the U.S. city of New Orleans.

At present, about 52,000 Cuban health professionals work on humanitarian missions in 62 countries, according to figures from the island's Health Ministry.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-03-31 23:24:45|Editor: yan

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by Xinhua writers Zhou Xiaozheng, Yang Shilong

WASHINGTON, March 31 (Xinhua) -- The ambitious infrastructure repair and rebuilding plan of the Trump administration is likely to be rolled out in the third quarter this year, with possible involvement of foreign companies, U.S. Secretary of Transportation Elaine Chao has said.

INITIATIVES UNDER PREPARATION

"We need to address the deteriorating infrastructure of this country ... This is one of the president's top priorities," Chao told Xinhua in a recent interview in her Washington D.C. office.

But it is quite likely that "this will be a third-quarter initiative," as the president had to go through healthcare and tax reforms first, said Chao, who became the 18th transportation secretary after winning Senate confirmation on Jan. 31.

"We are working on the outlines and possible details of the infrastructure initiative. A package will be coming out later ... in the next several months," she added, without further elaboration.

As a key part of his "Make America Great Again" campaign pledge, President Donald Trump has proposed investing 1 trillion U.S. dollars over 10 years to upgrade the country's infrastructure, which he described as being on a par with "a third-world country."

The American Society of Civil Engineers gave the nation's overall infrastructure a grade of D+ in its 2017 Infrastructure Report Card released earlier this month.

A total investment of 4.59 trillion dollars would be required to lift the U.S. infrastructure from a D+ to a B grade, the report card projected.

"GREATER AWARENESS" of "BUY AMERICAN, HIRE AMERICAN"

Chao said the United States "could certainly learn from other countries," adding that "there are (infrastructure) technologies and skill sets that we don't possess in the United States."

Trump has repeatedly praised the up-to-date infrastructure facilities in places like Dubai, Qatar and China.

However, Chao said that whether foreign companies would be allowed to participate in Trump's new infrastructure programs is still a "subject of discussion right now."

Even if they are granted access, foreign companies also need to change their old way of doing business in the United States, she said.

Trump's emphasis on "Buy American, Hire American" will foster a "greater awareness" on the part of these foreign companies that if they come to the United States they need to help create American jobs, she added.

The new administration is also seeking to cut the red tape and shorten the process for an infrastructure project's review and implementation, she said.

Sometimes it takes 15 years to build a road in the United States because as many as eight to nine government agencies are involved in the project, she added.

THREE-FOLD GOALS

Talking about her new job, Chao, the only member of Trump's cabinet to have served in a previous administration, has strong self-confidence in facing up all the challenges.

"I am a veteran... I know very well what to do, how to manage the process, how to reach people, how to coordinate with different people," she said.

"My goals are three folds," Chao said. "Safety is always the Number One: We want the traveling public to go from point A to point B efficiently and safely."

The second thing is to "build the infrastructure for tomorrow" to "maintain America's competitiveness, and also productivity," she said.

The third is to "look to the future," which means regulating and overseeing emerging technologies, like self-driving cars and drones for package delivering, in transportation, with the aim to preserve innovation and creativity in America, she said.

Chao, 64, is the first Asian-American woman to be appointed to U.S. cabinet roles.

She was the 24th U.S. labor secretary for eight years under President George W. Bush. She also served as deputy secretary of transportation under President George H. W. Bush from 1989 to 1991.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-03-31 23:39:48|Editor: yan

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SHANGHAI, March 31 (Xinhua) -- Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba assisted police in busting more than 1,400 counterfeit production sites, leading to the arrest of 880 suspects last year, according to a report issued Friday.

The cases involved more than 3 billion yuan (435 million U.S. dollars), double the amount in 2015, said the report.

As of last year, Alibaba was cooperating with more than 18,000 international brands on the anti-counterfeit initiative.

Counterfeiting in cross-border trade has become a new front for the initiative, as approximately 30,000 cross-border sellers were purged by Alibaba from its platforms with the help of big data technology from February 2016 to the end of last month.

"Traditionally, counterfeiters produce in China and sell overseas, but now they are apt to produce abroad and sell domestically," said Zheng Junfang, chief platform governance officer of Alibaba.

One typical case, in which lubricating oil labeled under famous brand names, such as Shell, was bottled in Malaysia and sold in China, was solved with the intervention of the Malaysian government.

"The outcome was hard won," Zheng said, adding that crackdowns on cross-border counterfeiting are difficult given complicated law enforcement issues in different countries.

Despite Alibaba's continuous efforts to cleanse its platforms of fake goods, its customer-to-customer marketplace, Taobao.com, returned to the U.S. trade representative's blacklist of "notorious marketplaces" known for sale of counterfeit goods and violations of intellectual property rights in December 2016. Taobao was first put on the blacklist in 2011 but removed in 2012 after effective rectification.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-03-31 23:54:50|Editor: yan

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CAPE TOWN, March 31 (Xinhua) -- South Africa's ruling African National Congress (ANC) on Friday called for unity among its ranks following an overnight cabinet reshuffle which reportedly has plunged the country into chaos.

"Members and leaders of the organization are expected to focus more on what contributes to unify the nation than what divides us," the ANC said.

This came after President Jacob Zuma announced changes to the cabinet in the early hours of Friday.

The reshuffle, seen as one of Zuma's most dramatic moves during his tenure, affected 20 ministers and deputy ministers, notably Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan.

This has led to ANC members expressing varying opinions on the reshuffle.

Among them is Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa who objected the reshuffle.

Before effecting his cabinet reshuffle, Zuma met top ANC leaders, but it was just a process of informing them of his decision, according to Ramaphosa.

"It was not a consultation, because he came with a ready-made list," Ramaphosa said.

Ramaphosa raised his concern and objection about the removal of Gordhan, largely because he was being removed based on an intelligence report that he and his deputy Mcebisi Jonas were going to London to mobilise financial markets against South Africa.

This report had unsubstantiated allegations, Ramaphosa said.

"Now that I find totally totally unacceptable that a person who has served our country with such distinction would do something like that," he said.

Ramaphosa said this reminded him of his own situation in 2001 when there was an intelligence report that alleged that he was involved in a plot to overthrow the government of then President Thabo Mbeki.

In view of differing views about the reshuffle, the national officials of the ANC will meet soon to further appraise each other on this matter and collectively give guidance and leadership to the organization, ANC national spokesperson Zizi Kodwa said.

South Africans have bestowed upon the ANC the leadership responsibility to make a success of the country, thus requiring committed and focused action amongst members and leaders of the organization, working hand in glove, with all societal partners, Kodwa said.

"The ANC therefore at all times should focus on common and national challenges in the interest of the people and to advance their aspirations," he said.

Accordingly the ANC calls on its members and leaders to display unity of purpose at this time, said Kodwa.

From time to time there shall be divergent views on the nature and means to achieve the type of society the ANC wishes to construct, Kodwa said.

"Diversity and plurality of views does not mean division but robust and necessary engagement within our movement in our quest to deliver on our responsibility to our people," said Kodwa.

Members of the Executive are as always expected to display the highest levels of integrity, selflessness, trustworthiness, honesty and commitment to serve the people in the execution of their duties, added Kodwa.

Also on Friday, lobby group Save South Africa (SSA) vowed that its members would occupy the National Treasury until their cries were heard.

Scores of SSA members gathered outside the National Treasury in Pretoria, protesting against the reshuffle and calling for Zuma to step down.

The Thabo Mbeki Foundation has asked Zuma to explain to the country why he decided on the cabinet changes.

Gordhan's removal intensifies the notion that the process of total state capture has now been set firmly in motion, the Federation of Unions of South Africa (FEDUSA) said.

This refers to the undue influence exerted by the Indian Gupta family on Zuma.

FEDUSA General Secretary Dennis George said his organization "is deeply disappointed and outraged" with the manner in which Zuma has handled the cabinet reshuffle.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-04-01 00:04:55|Editor: yan

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KUALA LUMPUR, March 31 (Xinhua) -- Malaysia on Friday called on the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) to hand over four suspects in connection with the death of a DPRK man last month at the Kuala Lumpur airport.

Malaysia's Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi had said earlier this month that the DPRK man had been confirmed as Kim Jong Nam, based on the DNA sample obtained from his child.

On Friday, Malaysian police chief Khalid Abu Bakar told reporters that a criminal investigation into the case of the DPRK man's death is still ongoing even after both sides freed each other's nationals.

Khalid made the remarks while attending an event here. He said the criminal investigation was not compromised by negotiations between the governments of Malaysia and DPRK.

Malaysian police had previously said two female suspects, one Indonesian and one Vietnamese, together with four DPRK suspects, carried out the Feb. 13 attack on the DPRK man at the airport.

Khalid said the police could wait "for years" for the DPRK to hand over the suspects, who are also wanted by the Interpol which has issued a red notice on them.

On Friday morning, a plane piloted by several Malaysian air force pilots brought back the nine Malaysian citizens who had been stranded in DPRK to Kuala Lumpur International Airport.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-04-01 00:09:56|Editor: Zhang Dongmiao

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko (2nd R) meets the crew after an An-132 light transport plane made a successful maiden flight from the Svyatoshyn airfield in the Ukrainian capital to the Antonov airfield in Kiev region, at the Antonov airfield in Kiev region, Ukraine, on March 31, 2017. Ukraine-produced An-132 light transport plane has taken to the skies for the first time on Friday, Ukrainian state-run aircraft producer Antonov said in a statement. The multi-purpose plane, capable of carrying up to 9.2 tons of cargo, could be used in emergency medicine, fire-fighting, skydiving, cargo transportation and reconnaissance missions. (Xinhua/Sergey)

KIEV, March 31 (Xinhua) -- Ukraine-produced An-132 light transport plane has taken to the skies for the first time on Friday, Ukrainian state-run aircraft producer Antonov said in a statement.

The plane, which was developed by Antonov in cooperation with the Saudi company Taqnia Aeronautics, has made a successful maiden flight from the Svyatoshyn airfield in the Ukrainian capital to the Antonov airfield in Kiev region.

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, who has observed the flight, hailed the development of the country's aircraft-manufacturing industry.

"I feel pride for my compatriots, for thousands of workers of the Antonov plant and other Ukrainian enterprises, who are making efforts to put the An-132 in mass production," Poroshenko told reporters.

The An-132 aircraft with a top speed of some 500 km per hour, which is able to serve the short and medium range air routes, was unveiled to the public in December 2016.

The multi-purpose plane, capable of carrying up to 9.2 tons of cargo, could be used in emergency medicine, fire-fighting, skydiving, cargo transportation and reconnaissance missions.

According to the manufacturer, the distinctive feature of the new aircraft is that it can operate on the unpaved runways, in mountainous areas and in difficult climatic conditions.

The Ukrainian government has estimated the market demand for the An-132 at between 260 and 290 planes by 2035.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-04-01 00:09:56|Editor: yan

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KIGALI, March 31 (Xinhua) -- A massive fire on Friday morning raged through Kimironko prison in Gasabo District in the country's capital Kigali, injuring seven inmates.

The cause of the fire was not readily established. Property was destroyed by the inferno despite the fact that Rwanda police fire fighters immediately intervened to put out fire before gutting down all prison facilities.

Inmates were evacuated to separate facilities. Police, soldiers and prison guards surrounded the prison to ensure no inmate could take advantage to escape.

Speaking to reporters at the scene, George Rwigamba, Commissioner General Rwanda Correctional Services (RCS) said that seven people received minor injuries in the fire and inmates have been evacuated to a separate wing within the prison facility.

"No death has been recorded and no inmate escaped, however their properties including mattresses, hygiene materials among others were all destroyed," he added.

Rwigamba stated that those injured will be treated inside the prison adding that investigations are ongoing to find out the root cause of the fire.

The fire started at about 8:30 a.m. local time and spread fast to three prison cells, according to RCS authority.

Neighboring residents told journalists that they heard gunshots inside the prison when the fire broke out, however Xinhua could not independently verify this.

For the last three years, prisons like Muhanga (Southern Province) Rubavu (Western Province) and Nyarugenge (Kigali City) were gutted by fire with the latter having been burned last year in December.
Photo shows NPC delegation meet with Swisse Deputy State Secretary of the Federal Department of Foreign Affairs Krystyna Marty Lang. (XINHUA/Zhang Miao)

GENEVA, March 31 (Xinhua) -- A National People's Congress (NPC) delegation of legislators from China's Tibet Autonomous Region on Friday wrapped up a four-day visit in Switzerland where they met parliamentary and governmental officials and held talks with Tibetan inhabitants.

The delegation was led by Padma Choling, who is also a senior member of China's NPC Standing Committee.

In Bern, the delegation Thursday held meetings with President of the Swiss National Council Jurg Stahl, former president of the Swiss National Council Christa Markwalder, as well as Deputy State Secretary of the Federal Department of Foreign Affairs Krystyna Marty Lang.

In the meeting with Stahl, Choling said the purpose of the visit was to deepen exchanges between the two parliaments and introduce Tibet's poverty alleviation efforts, traditional cultural protection and development, as well as ecological protection to their Swiss counterparts.

Stahl noted that relations between Switzerland and China have maintained a good momentum, highlighting that Switzerland has always pursued the one-China policy. This visit will help Swiss people better understand a true Tibet, he said.

During his meeting with Markwalder, Choling said it was pleasant to have extensive exchanges with the Swiss Parliament. He welcomed more Swiss lawmakers to visit Tibet.

Markwalder said she would like to visit China again and travel to Tibet.

Based on his own work experience, Choling explained to Lang China's system of regional ethnic autonomy, central government's supportive policies for Tibet and other ethnic minority regions, as well as Tibet's economic and social development in recent years.

Lang said the Chinese government has done a lot of work for the development of ethnic minority areas, which has facilitated economic and social development there.

With 2017 marking the Sino-Swiss tourism year, Lang said she expected increased tourist exchanges between Switzerland and China.

During visiting Zurich, members of the Tibetan delegation talked to Tibetans living in Zurich and Liechtenstein and briefed them about economic and social development and livelihood improvement in Tibet in recent years, especially in poverty alleviation.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-04-01 00:19:57|Editor: yan

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TAIPEI, March 31 (Xinhua) -- Taiwan's coast guard authority said it seized a mainland fishing boat and 10 crew on Friday for alleged "trespassing" following its detention of nine fishermen on Wednesday.

The latest boat and its crew, registered in Zhejiang Province, were caught fishing in "limited waters" off the Pengjia Islet Friday morning, and the 10 members are currently being held in New Taipei City to receive investigation, according to a statement released by the coast guard authority in Keelung City.

The boat left Zhejiang on March 17. Its owners may be given a fine ranging from 1.2 to 2.4 million new Taiwan dollars (NTD), according to the authority. The nine fishermen caught on Wednesday under the "trespassing" charge are still being held in Taiwan.

Aside from the two fishing boats seized this week, the Keelung coastal guard authority had previously seized four mainland fishing boats since the beginning of 2017 and fined them for a total of 6.6 million NTD.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-04-01 00:29:27|Editor: yan

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ARUSHA, Tanzania, March 31 (Xinhua) -- At least five people have been killed and several others went missing after heavy rains pummelled Tanzania's western region of Katavi, local leaders said Friday.

Reports said that the heavy rains started in the area at around 2 a.m. local time, damaging dozens of houses in villages located in Mlele District.

Silasi Ilumba, Kasansa ward councilor said that people's properties and wild animals like baboons were swept off by the floods.

"Heavy rains started raining midnight when most people were asleep. Those rains caused floods which swept off people and wild animals, taking into account that the affected areas are close to Katavi National Park," the official said.

Ilumba said among the dead include three school children and five people are nowhere to be seen.

According to the local leader, 27 houses were completely swept off by floods, rendering more than 100 people homeless.

Elika Ntabagi, Kasansa ward executive officer, said that some people have been trapped as the roads are becoming impassable, hindering efforts to assist them.

"The challenge is caused by the fact that it has been raining on the mountain side, posing a catastrophic situation for people living in the lowland areas," he said, adding that district authorities have been informed on the disaster that needs an immediate response.

Authorities in the area have suspended classes in the area after a number of school buildings were damaged.

Issa Suleiman Njiku, Mlele District Commissioner said a rescue team has been dispatched to the affected areas to find survivors.
Chinese pharmaceutical company Namax donated anti-malaria medicine worth 39,000 U.S. dollars to the Namibia on March 30, 2017. (Xinhua)

WINDHOEK, March 31 (Xinhua) -- The Chinese-Namibian Chamber of Commerce and Industry and Chinese pharmaceutical company Namax jointly donated anti-malaria medicine worth 500,000 Namibian dollars (39,000 U.S. dollars) to the Namibian Ministry of Health and Social Services (MoHSS) on Thursday.

Ying Xiangyu from Namax explained the reason for his company making an urgent intervention by introducing the medicinal treatment known as the Artesun Artesunate powder for injection (60 mg).

"It is a lifesaving medicine which has been qualified by World Health Organization (and) will be in high demand for the treatment of malaria ... because we want to be involved in the process of saving lives in Namibia," said Ying.

Namax is a Chinese pharmaceutical company which specializes in malaria, tuberculosis and HIV treatment.

The Permanent Secretary of MoHSS, Andreas Mwoombola called on more corporate sector partners to assist the government with medicine as there was a decrease in anti-malaria medicine supply before the Namax donation.

"The Ministry of Health and Social Services has objectives of eliminating malaria from Namibia by the year 2020 and we are calling on the private sector to assist the government with medicine," said Mwoombola.

Also speaking at the occasion of the donation, Charge de'affaires ad interim of Chinese Embassy in Namibia Li Nan said that the Chinese government will continue to work closely with Namibia help Namibia in their attempts to eliminate this disease.

"It is our full duty to take care of our Namibian brothers and sisters especially in the north, where the outbreak of malaria is severe. The donation embodies the relationship between Namibia and China. By working together we can win this fight against malaria not only in Namibia but also in the entire Africa," said Li.
Iraqi Kurdish leader Massud Barzani (C-R) greets UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres (C-L) upon his arrival in Arbil, the capital of the Kurdish autonomous region in northern Iraq, on March 30, 2017.(AFP Photo)

ANKARA, March 31 (Xinhua) -- Turkey disapproved the referendum bid for independence of Iraqi Kurdish Regional Government (KRG), Turkish presidential spokesman said on Friday.

It would be "a wrong step," said the spokesman, Ibrahim Kalin, at a press conference in the presidential complex in Ankara.

Iraq is passing through a fragile period and there are several security risks at the highest levels, said Kalin as quoted by private broadcaster NTV.

Kalin noted that Turkey had discussed the issue with the KRG leadership on several occasions in the past and delivered its message that disrupting Iraq's territorial integrity on ethnic and sectarian lines would not be right.

KRG President Massoud Barzani said on Thursday at a meeting with UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres that an independence referendum will be carried out in the "near future."

According to local daily Hurriyet, Safeen Dizayee, a spokesperson for the KRG government confirmed the plans for independence vote. "We should enter a serious dialogue with Baghdad to reach an amicable solution, an amicable solution for divorce," he said.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-04-01 01:10:07|Editor: Zhang Dongmiao

Tanzanian President John Magufuli (R) meets with the visiting Ethiopian Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn at State House in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, March 31, 2017. (Xinhua/Anthony Siame)

ARUSHA, Tanzania, March 31 (Xinhua) -- Ethiopian Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn on Friday arrived in Tanzania's commercial capital Dar es Salaam for his two-day state visit in the east African nation to strengthen bilateral ties.

According to the statement issued by Tanzania's Ministry of Foreign Affairs and East African Cooperation, the visit followed an invitation from Tanzanian President John Magufuli.

Magufuli extended the invitation during his meeting with the Ethiopian prime minister held on the sideline of the 28th Summit of Heads of State and Government of the African Union held in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia early this year.

The visit is aimed at consolidating the existing diplomatic relations between Tanzania and Ethiopia through exploring new areas of cooperation including trade and investment.

During the visit, the Ethiopian prime minister will meet Magufuli in private talks at the state house followed later by official talks between the two countries.

Magufuli and his guest will witness the signing of three cooperation agreements.

"Tanzania and Ethiopia enjoy excellent relations and the latter intends to establish its embassy in the country," the statement said, adding that Ethiopia is currently represented in Tanzania by its ambassador based in Nairobi, Kenya.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-04-01 01:25:08|Editor: yan

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UNITED NATIONS, March 31 (Xinhua) -- UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Friday expressed disappointment and alarm at the decision by Israel to build a new settlement in the occupied West Bank.

On Thursday night, Israeli security cabinet unanimously approved the establishment of the new settlement to house settlers evacuated from the illegal outpost of Amona.

Guterres "condemns all unilateral actions that, like the present one, threaten peace and undermine the two-state solution," UN Deputy Spokesperson Farhan Haq told a daily briefing.

"The Secretary-General has consistently stressed that there is no Plan B for Israelis and Palestinians to live together in peace and security," said Haq.

"Settlement activities are illegal under international law and present an obstacle to peace," he added.

This is the first time in over 20 years that Israeli government has decided to establish a new West Bank settlement.

Israel also announced the approval of some 2,000 new settlement houses.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said some 900 dunams (about 222 acres) of territory in the West Bank would be registered as state land.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-04-01 02:05:17|Editor: Zhang Dongmiao

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg speaks during a press conference in the end of the NATO Foreign Ministers meeting at its headquarters in Brussels, Belgium, March 31, 2017. (Xinhua/Ye Pingfan)

BRUSSELS, March 31 (Xinhua) -- NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg on Friday called on NATO allies to "keep up momentum on defense spending" at a press conference following a meeting of NATO foreign ministers.

Fairer burden-sharing was top the agenda of NATO foreign ministers' discussion.

Highlighting the progress made by the alliance in this area, Stoltenberg said NATO European Allies and Canada increased 10 billion U.S. dollars in defense spending last year.

He said ministers talked about the idea of developing national plans for NATO allies to reach the NATO goal of spending 2 percent of GDP on defense. "This is about cash, capabilities and commitment to deployments -- all three are important," he added.

Another topic of the meeting was NATO's response to terrorism. "One of our best tools in the fight against terrorism is training local forces," Stoltenberg said.

According to him, NATO is helping local forces in Iraq to better counter Islamic State (IS), including the training to counter improvised explosive devices.

NATO foreign ministers also discussed relations with Russia, in presence of Federica Mogherini, the European Union's foreign policy chief, as well as ministers from Finland and Sweden.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-04-01 02:30:22|Editor: yan

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WINDHOEK, March 30 (Xinhua) -- The Chinese business community in Namibia donated 600,000 Namibian dollars (about 47,000 U.S. dollars) to an anti-poverty fund on Friday.

"I feel like it is my obligation as part of the community to do what is in my capabilities to help those in need," said Stina Wu from the Chinese business community in Namibia while delivering the donation.

"For a long time, we have done the best we can in various forms of charity to plough back to society, give back to the country I love and the people of this people that I love," said Wu.

Namibian First Lady and founder of the One Economy Foundation Monica Geingos explained what the Foundation is all about.

The One Economy Foundation is a Section 21 organization at the Ministry of Trade, Industrialization and SME Development, which has the mandate to break the cycle of poverty.

"Ninety-eight percent of what One Economy Foundation makes is handed over to its beneficiaries." said Geingos.

Also speaking on the occasion of the donation, the Charge d'affaires ad interim of Chinese Embassy to Namibia, Li Nan, lauded the Chinese business community for making donations for the fight against poverty in Namibia.

"This donation represents the goodwill and friendship from the local Chinese community and represents a true feeling of the Chinese people at large," said the diplomat.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-04-01 02:44:55|Editor: Liangyu

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Photo provided by Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) on March 7, 2017 shows top leader of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) Kim Jong Un (unseen) recently supervising a ballistic rocket launching drill of the Korean People's Army (KPA). (Xinhua/KCNA)

WASHINGTON, March 31 (Xinhua) -- The U.S. government announced Friday sanctions on one entity and 11 individuals for their links to the nuclear and missile programs by the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK).

"Today's action targets North Korean nationals working as agents of the regime in Russia, China, Vietnam, and Cuba to provide financial support or WMD procurement services for UN- or U.S.-designated sanctioned entities," the U.S. Treasury Department said in a statement.

The action was taken "in response to North Korea's ongoing development of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and continued violations of United Nations Security Council Resolutions," it added.

The one entity that was sanctioned is the DPRK-based Paeksol Trading Corporation (Paeksol), which the U.S. alleged has sold, supplied, transferred, or purchased metal or coal to earn revenue that may have benefited the DPRK.

The individuals included Kang Chol Su, Pak Il Gyu and Ri Su Yong, who are officials of the Korea Ryonbong General Corporation (Ryonbong). Kang and Pak are Ryonbong officials in China, while Ri is a Ryonbong official in Cuba.

Meanwhile, Kim Tong Ho, Kim Mun Chol, Kim Nam Ung, and Choe Chun Yong were also sanctioned by the U.S. for being representatives of several banks involved in the DPRK nuclear and missile programs.

Jang Sung Nam, chief of Tangun Trading Corporation branch in China, Jo Chol Song, Kwangson Banking Corporation's (KKBC's) deputy representative in China, Han Jang Su, Foreign Trade Bank's chief representative in Russia, and Kim Yong Su, shipping representative for the DPRK's Marine Transport Office in Vietnam, were also on the list.

The sanctions are aimed at disrupting the networks and methods that the DPRK employs to fund its nuclear, ballistic missile and proliferation programs, U.S. Secretary of the Treasury Steven Mnuchin said in a statement.

Related:

DPRK accuses S. Korean officials of teaming up with U.S. over nuclear issue

PYONGYANG, March 30 (Xinhua) -- The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) Thursday accused some South Korean officials of trying to make inter-Korean relations "irreversible" by seeking "strengthened cooperation over the nuclear issue" with the United States against the DPRK.

The official daily Rodong Sinmun (Labor Daily) said the chief of the South Korean presidential security office and U.S. White House security advisers recently met in Washington "to stage the anti-DPRK confab." Full story

DPRK says to hold U.S. responsible for likely outbreak of war on Korean Peninsula

PYONGYANG, March 30 (Xinhua) -- The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) said Thursday it will hold the United States responsible if a war breaks out on the Korean Peninsula, in the latest development of an exchange of accusations between Pyongyang and Washington.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-04-01 02:54:56|Editor: yan

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LJUBLJANA, March 31 (Xinhua) -- The Slovenian Environment Ministry has expressed concern over U.S. President Donald Trump's executive order aimed at reversing his predecessor's efforts to address climate change, warning that the Paris climate agreement may be ruined.

According to the national Slovenian Press Agency (STA) on Friday, the ministry said if the Trump's decision overturning the measures taken by Barack Obama administration is implemented, "the U.S. will have a hard time meeting its goals set in the Paris climate agreement."

Trump signed on Tuesday the executive order, which the STA quoted the ministry as saying that runs contrary to the shared efforts of countries all over the world as part of the Paris Agreement.

The main target of the order is the so-called Clean Power Plan, a signature effort by Obama to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from coal-fired power plants in keeping with promises of the 2015 landmark global climate deal known as Paris Agreement.

"The U.S. has thereby appeared to have excluded itself from the Paris agreement commitments, as it will be extremely difficult to replace the effects of the annulled regulation with any other potential measures," the ministry said.

But given that NGOs and legal experts in the U.S. have announced an appeal against the president's decision, the ministry maintains hope that the U.S. will not formally withdraw from the Paris Agreement.

White House spokesperson Sean Spicer said on Thursday that a decision on this would be made before the May G7 meeting, according to STA.

Given that the U.S. and China were seen as the driving forces of the 2015 Paris Agreement, "the U.S.'s moving away from the agreement's goals opens many very demanding questions on how to preserve the U.S.'s role in the joint global efforts" against climate change, the ministry was quoted.

The ministry also shares the concern of many other countries over the U.S. decision to reduce climate aid for developing countries.

"Without the necessary funding, which is key for a successful and efficient implementation of the Paris agreement, the ambitions of the whole Paris agreement are at risk," it said.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-04-01 03:15:32|Editor: Tian Shaohui

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Representatives of Kenya Overseas Chinese Association attend a donation ceremony in Nairobi, capital of Kenya, on March 31, 2017. The Chinese community in Kenya, Kenya Overseas Chinese Association, on Friday donated two million Kenya shillings (about 20,000 U.S. dollars) to the Kenya Red Cross (KRC) to strengthen life-saving interventions for drought victims in the country. (Xinhua/Li Baishun)

NAIROBI, March 31 (Xinhua) -- The Chinese community in Kenya on Friday donated 20,000 U.S. dollars to the Kenya Red Cross (KRC) to strengthen life-saving interventions for drought victims in the country.

Representatives of Kenya Overseas Chinese Association presented the cash donation to support provision of relief food to communities affected by a biting drought that peaked early this year.

"When the Kenyan government declared drought a national disaster in February, we launched a fund raising initiative to help the victims. Today's donation will be channeled to populations in need of food," said the Chairman of Kenya Overseas Chinese Association, Guo Wenchang.

He added that the Chinese community in Kenya is committed to assisting local communities affected by natural disasters like drought.

"We believe Kenyans are our brothers and sisters and will uphold the Chinese tradition of helping those in difficult situation," Guo remarked.

Chinese nationals lend a hand when Kenya experienced a devastating drought in 2011. Guo revealed that the Chinese community donated 60 tons of food for distribution to drought stricken northern counties.

Kenya Red Cross Secretary General Abbas Gullet said donation from Chinese citizens will provide respite to communities facing a dire humanitarian crisis occasioned by prolonged dry spell.

"The Chinese community's contribution to drought relief is a very noble gesture," said Gullet.

An estimated 3 million Kenyans in 23 counties are affected by a severe drought that is expected to subsidize when the long rain season peak in April and May.

Gullet said that relief agencies have intensified fundraising to avert a humanitarian crisis in drought affected counties.
Dr. Maleeha Lodhi, the permanent representative of Pakistan to the United Nations, speaks during an exclusive interview with Xinhua News Agency in New York, the United States, March 28, 2017.(Xinhua/Li Muzi)

by Xinhua writer Gu Zhenqiu

UNITED NATIONS, March 31 (Xinhua) -- The Chinese concept of building "a community of shared future for all mankind" is in sync with the fundamental principles of the United Nations (UN) Charter, the top Pakistani diplomat at the organization has said.

Dr. Maleeha Lodhi, permanent representative of Pakistan to the United Nations, said in a recent interview that the recent mention of the Chinese concept in a UN Security Council resolution means wider international recognition of the Chinese contribution to global governance.

The concept was first proposed in the report of the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China in November 2012. In the following years, Chinese President Xi Jinping has mentioned and illustrated the concept on various occasions.

In September 2015, Xi proposed the roadmap of building "a community of shared future for all humankind" at a UN summit. In January 2017, he further expounded his concept in a comprehensive, profound and systematic manner at the UN Office in Geneva.

On March 17, the Chinese concept was incorporated into a UN Security Council resolution for the first time.

It is a concept "that brings the people together, that sees the development of all the people to be in the interest of our shared humanity, is one that takes forward the fundamental principles that brought us together at the United Nations," said the Pakistani ambassador.

"So, to take the Charter's principles forward is to ensure also that our development agenda, the development paradigm that we all signed up to, is something that we are able to actually accomplish," she said.

Furthermore, the Chinese concept is very much relevant in today's world, which has witnessed trends of protectionism and anti-globalization, the diplomat said.

"We are troubled by certain trends that we have seen of certain countries looking toward protectionism, eroding the liberal international economic order which has brought so much prosperity to so many people across the world," Lodhi said.

To reverse the trend toward globalization is "to reverse the economic prosperity of all the people," she added.

"We welcome it (the concept), we support it, we are very much part of this initiative because we do believe that this will bring benefit to all the people in our region and beyond," she said.

"I think the initiative is win-win for everyone," she said. "It is one that will help to foster the notion that we have a shared future, and that although we confront common challenges, we also have common opportunities."

She said that her mission will include the Chinese concept in their statements at relevant UN meetings and discussions.

Lodhi, Pakistan's first female UN ambassador, served as Pakistan's ambassador to the United States twice (1993-1996, 1999-2002) and as high commissioner to Britain (2003-2008).

She also served as a member of the UN secretary-general's Advisory Board on Disarmament Matters from 2001 to 2005.

In 1994, the U.S. magazine Time nominated her as one of a hundred people in the world who would help shape the 21st century.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-04-01 04:10:45|Editor: yan

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BAKU, March 31 (Xinhua) -- Relationship between Azerbaijan and China has reached a high level of political dialogue and active economic cooperation, Deputy Head of the Foreign Relations Department of the Presidential Administration of Azerbaijan Arastu Habibbayli said in an interview with Xinhua on Friday.

He said the coming April 2 marks the 25th anniversary of diplomatic ties between the two countries, adding that relations between China and Azerbaijan developed successfully on the basis of principles of friendship and mutual productive partnership.

Stressing that both China and Azerbaijan are important players in various international transport and logistics projects, Habibbayli emphasized that the countries are working actively to realize great potential of cooperation.

He said Azerbaijan will be an important component of the Silk Road Economic Belt initiative. According to Habibbayli, the project will bring valuable opportunities to Azerbaijan, particularly in terms of the transit fees and industrial cooperation opportunities.

"Relations between China and Azerbaijan are growing fast and Azerbaijan has great potential to become a valuable partner in the Silk Road project - one of the great initiatives of the 21st century," he said.

He outlined the importance of the state visit of President Ilham Aliyev to China in December 2015, adding that reciprocal visits contribute to the steadily development of ties between the two countries.

China and Azerbaijan are celebrating the 25th anniversary of their diplomatic ties this year.

In December 2015, President Aliyev visited China. During his visit, he signed a series of agreements with China including a memorandum of understanding over the Silk Road Economic Belt.

China is a huge opportunity and a priority market for Azerbaijan. More than 50 agreements were signed between the two countries so far. The two countries have great potential in energy, transport, agricultural products trade, high-technology and tourism.

Trade turnover between China and Azerbaijan reached 641.39 million U.S. dollars in January-September 2016, 145.81 million dollars of which account for export to China, according to Azerbaijan's State Customs Committee. China is one of main trade partners of Azerbaijan - the country ranks the fifth in Azerbaijan's trade turnover over the nine months of 2016, the third in Azerbaijan's import and the 12th in export.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-04-01 04:15:47|Editor: Zhang Dongmiao

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by Chrispinus Omar

NAIROBI, March 31 (Xinhua) -- The worsening drought in Somalia has put the lives of 300,000 children at risk of death and starvation as the country confronts one of its worst droughts since 2011, a global aid agency said on Friday.

Simon Nyabwengi, National Director of World Vision International-Somalia Programme, told Xinhua that the drought situation is worsened by the lack of funding to address a growing humanitarian catastrophe.

"Failure of two consecutive rainy seasons, Gu (short) and Deyr (long) has brought severe drought to Somalia since 2015. The continuous failure of rain throughout 2016 has made the situation even worse," Nyabwengi said.

He said the drought which has hit large parts of Somalia has caused a critical shortage of water, forcing children, women and men to walk long distances in search of drinking water, mostly from contaminated sources.

The consumption of the contaminated water has been attributed to an outbreak of cholera and the Acute Watery Diarrhea (AWD).

At least 875 people were reported to have been affected by the outbreak which has claimed the lives of 66 people in Southern Somalia's Jubbaland State.

The World Vision official said the drought has particularly taken a heavy toll on children. The children mostly lack access to key sources of nutritious food, such as milk because of the ongoing drought.

This has left the children more vulnerable to starvation and death. Somalia's efforts to attract the attention of international donors to its drought have not gained momentum.

According to World Vision, only 20 percent of Somalia's required emergency funding has been received, leaving millions of people at the risk of famine.

Somalia humanitarian operational plan is less than 20 percent funded. Approximately 825 million U.S. dollars is required to reach 5.5 million Somalis facing possible famine by June.

Nyabwengi said urgent action at this stage has a high chance of saving over 300,000 children who are acutely malnourished as well as over 6 million people facing possible starvation.

The charity said the drought has caused several disruptions, including new population movement trends. More people are moving from the regions in Madug, Nugal and Puntland towards Bari, near the Red Sea, in search of pasture.

"The current movements have been seen more in the Southern and Central Somalia. People are moving from villages to urban centres where they assume help would be available," Nyabwengi told Xinhua.

The drought-related distress migration from rural areas to towns is widespread. At least 250,000 people have been internally displaced due to drought since November 2016, UN figures show.

Somalia is staring at a health crisis. A cholera outbreak is spreading at a rapid pace and leading to deaths and disease in a majority of regions.

There is a sharp increase in cases of cholera in 12 of 18 regions, in particular in Bay and Bakool regions, World Vision International said. The drought has resulted from successive poor rainfall, which wiped out crops and killed livestock.

The severe drought has made local communities more volunerable. Most have been forced to sell their assets and borrow food and money to survive.

Nyabwengi said access to sufficient safe drinking water has become a challenge for drought affected communities. "The extreme lack of access to water is a key driver of the crisis in arid areas," the World Vision official said.

From January to March, World Vision said it has assisted a total of 136,278 drought-affected.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-04-01 04:15:47|Editor: yan

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TIRANA, March 31 (Xinhua) -- The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) will keep supporting major projects in Albania's financial stability, agribusiness and energy, EBRD officials told Friday Governor of the Bank of Albania (BoA).

Representatives of the EBRD Board of Directors were received by BoA governor Gent Sejko as part of their three-day visit to Tirana, where they met government representatives, entrepreneurs and civil society organizations, local media reported.

The representatives praised BoA policies and its role in maintaining the country's macroeconomic stability and stimulating growth, the bank said in a press release.

On his part, Sejko briefed the representatives on the recent economic and financial developments in the country, noting that Albania's economic growth has been following a positive trajectory.

He also told them that the main macroeconomic balances were expected to strengthen in the future.

The development of capital market to further expand financial system, its compliance with international guidelines in terms of money laundering, as well as the focus on the broader financial education of the public and other stakeholders were some of the issues addressed during the meeting, said the release.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-04-01 04:30:50|Editor: yan

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WASHINGTON, March 31 (Xinhua) -- A gunman who killed nine people in a South Carolina church in 2015 will plead guilty to murder charges next month, attorneys said Friday.

Dylann Roof, who has been convicted of murder and hate crimes, will be given a life sentence in exchange for his plea, instead of the death sentence he was given in January, Scarlett Wilson, a prosecutor involved in his case said in a letter.

The plea will mean that the plaintiffs will be spared from a second wound-tearing death-penalty trial.

The update was confirmed by Ashley Pennington, Roof's defending attorney.

Nine people were killed in the evening of June 17, 2015 at an African-American church in Charleston, South Carolina in what the authorities described as "a hate crime" by a white gunman, later identified as Roof.
French soldiers, who are part of NATO's plan to reinforce its eastern flank to deter a militarily resurgent Russia, arrive at Amari military air base in Estonia on March 20, 2017. (AFP PHOTO)

MOSCOW, March 31 (Xinhua) -- Moscow is being pressured to take a confrontational stance in relations with NATO based on the logic of a military standoff, the Russian Foreign Ministry said Friday.

"What kind of 'constructive' relationship can be expected between Russian and NATO when the U.S. and its allies continue to act on old patterns and have been obsessed with building up their military presence on our borders, justifying this with the need to 'contain Russia'?" The ministry said in a statement commenting on the results of the latest Russia-NATO Council meeting at the ambassadorial level in Brussels.

Noting that NATO is not ready to return to practical cooperation with Russia in resolving real security challenges regionally and globally, the ministry called for a radical change in the nature of the alliance so as to better ensure European security.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg Thursday voiced deep concern over the security situation in eastern Ukraine at a press conference after the meeting, saying that "ceasefire violations in eastern Ukraine have reached record levels."

According to sources, the sanctions introduced against Russia over the conflict in eastern Ukraine can be expanded if Moscow continues "aggressive behavior".
Source: Xinhua| 2017-04-01 04:40:29|Editor: Liangyu

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BAGHDAD, March 31 (Xinhua) -- The Iraqi military on Friday said that airstrikes during the day killed more than 150 Islamic State (IS) militants in the region near the Syrian border.

Iraqi Joint Operations Command said in a statement that three hiding places around Baaj Town were bombed in this operation, and 150 to 200 terrorists, who entered Iraq from Syria, were killed.

Baaj, located about 135 km southwest of Mosul, is still under IS control and is regarded as an important corridor for the militants to cross the border.

In 2014, the IS group occupied large swaths of territories in northern and western Iraq, including Mosul, the second largest city, and established a self-styled Islamic caliphate in the regions of Iraq and Syria under its control.

Iraqi forces launched the battle on Oct. 17, 2016 for Mosul, the last stronghold for IS militants in Iraq, and recaptured its eastern part late January. The offensive to liberate western Mosul started on Feb. 19.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-04-01 04:45:31|Editor: yan

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HAVANA, March 31 (Xinhua) -- U.S. cruise company Royal Caribbean docked its first ever ship in Cuba on Friday and became the fourth American cruise operator to sail to the island after the two countries reestablished diplomatic relations in 2015.

The ship "Azamara Quest" docked at Havana's harbor about 8:30 a.m. with more than 650 passengers on board.

"It was stunning coming through the harbor and seeing this beautiful city of Havana at sunrise," Marie St. Clair, one of the cruise passengers, told Xinhua.

For this first voyage to the Cuban capital, many Royal Caribbean executives traveled to the island, including the company's CEO, Adam Goldstein.

"The ships of our company visit almost 500 ports around the world. But there has been exactly one place where we have been wanting to go to for 50 years and that is Havana, Cuba. This really fills in an opportunity that we have wanted to provide to our guests for decades," Goldstein told reporters.

Royal Caribbean joins other operators, Carnival, Pearl Seas and Norwegian Cruise Lines, who have already sailed to Havana and other Cuban cities.

"We put an emphasis on guest satisfaction and we look forward to making our Cuba cruises a wonderful cultural, historical and social experience for our guests," added the Royal Caribbean top official.

Although U.S. citizens are still officially banned from tourism in Cuba, they can visit the island through 12 categories which include people-to-people exchanges and cultural trips.

The ship was met by Cuban officials from the Ministry of Transportation, which highlighted the possibility of receiving more U.S. visitors who could appreciate the island's cultural and natural richness.

"Despite the restrictions, cruise operations from the United States and the arrival of travelers have multiplied... after the first cruise from Carnival docked in Havana in May 2016," said Angel Diaz, general manager of Aries Transportation, the Cuban entity in charge of cruise tourism.

For some on board, this was a unique opportunity to discover a rare destination for American visitors.

"I think it is great. We looked forward to visiting Cuba as a place we hadn't been to before. I really like the vintage cars that stroll around the city and I'm going to feel right at home," Bill Brown, who travelled from California, told Xinhua.

Cruise tourism to Cuba grew almost 400 percent in 2016 as companies from Russia, Spain, Turkey and the United States began operations or increased their routes to the island.

According to the Ministry of Tourism, around 75,000 tourists arrived on cruises last year and more than 110,000 are expected in 2017.

This year, Cuba saw more than one million visitors in the first three months and intends to reach 4.2 million tourists overall.

The tourism industry is the second source of revenue for the Cuban government with revenue of over 2 billion U.S. dollars in 2016.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-04-01 05:06:06|Editor: Zhang Dongmiao

Venezuela's Attorney General Luisa Ortega Diaz delivers a speech during the presentation of her office's annual report on 2016 in Caracas, Venezuela, April 1, 2017. Venezuela's Attorney General Luisa Ortega Diaz on Friday ruled out the prospect of foreign intervention, as the country's political crisis deepened. (Xinhua/Pedro Mattey/AVN)

CARACAS, March 31 (Xinhua) -- Venezuela's Attorney General Luisa Ortega Diaz on Friday rejected the prospect of foreign intervention, as the country's political crisis deepened.

"I want to firmly say that Venezuela is a sovereign country and Venezuelans do not accept foreign intervention," Ortega said during the presentation of her office's annual report on 2016.

"I am against any type of intervention, against any step that threatens Venezuela's self-determination," said Ortega, while at the same time acknowledging the political turmoil gripping the country and calling for dialogue between the ruling socialist party and the right-wing opposition.

The latest crisis was sparked by Venezuela's Supreme Court of Justice (TSJ) announcement on Thursday that it was taking on legislative duties, leading the National Assembly to accuse the court of a coup.

Ortega's rejection of outside intervention coincided with a joint statement by seven Latin American countries and the Union of South American Nations, condemning the situation in Venezuela.

The statement, signed by Uruguay, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Peru and Paraguay, calls on Venezuela to restore the balance of power.

Foreign affairs ministers from South American trade and integration bloc -- the Southern Common Market will hold an emergency meeting on Saturday "to analyze possible solutions" to the Venezuelan crisis, Argentina's Foreign Affairs Ministry said.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-04-01 05:16:08|Editor: yan

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QUITO, March 31 (Xinhua) -- The dialogue between the Colombian government and the National Liberation Army (ELN) is seeing progress on topics such as the participation of Colombian society in the peace process, Pablo Beltran, the ELN's chief negotiator said Friday.

In an interview with Radio Public de Ecuador, Beltran called the first round of peace talks, which began on Feb. 7 in Quito, Ecuador, as positive.

The two sides are seeking to put a definitive end to half a century of armed conflict in Colombia.

"We have begun the first two roundtable discussions in this first month, we have a two-stage process for the participation of society, which is a major first step," indicated Beltran. "We have also advanced on common areas such as the first humanitarian relief agreements."

According to the negotiator, the government's demand for the ELN to stop kidnappings "is a point of debate...to produce a first humanitarian agreement."

However, the ELN is concerned about how to "stop the political genocide happening against leaders from alternative social movements in Colombia."

Finally, Beltran guaranteed that Ecuador would continue to support the Colombian peace process, no matter who wins Sunday's presidential elections. Ecuador is a guarantor of the peace talks, along with Brazil, Chile, Cuba, Norway and Venezuela.

He said that, if Colombia's armed conflict ends, the political struggle will continue to improve the quality of life and sovereignty in Colombia but "without force, without violence."

The ELN is the only remaining active guerrilla group in Colombia, with about 1,500 soldiers, after the government sealed a peace agreement with the FARC in 2016.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-04-01 05:20:38|Editor: yan

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BERLIN, March 31 (Xinhua) -- Following the German Federal Council's approval of a law enabling highway tolls to be introduced, Austria responded by saying it would challenge the decision in the European Court of Justice.

The new law to introduce an "infrastructure fee" took nearly four years to pass in the face of considerable opposition from Germany's neighbors who argued it is discriminatory. This is because German motorists will receive a corresponding reduction in their annual vehicle tax bill.

Austria's legal challenge is that motorists will pay a charge for using German highways, ranging from 2.50 euros for 10 days up to 130 euros per year. And vehicles will pay more or less depending on factors such as size, environmental efficiency, whether they have diesel engines or meet the Euro 6 emissions standards.

Horst Seehofer, Bavarian prime minister and chairman of Christian Social Union (CSU), the Bavarian sister party to Chancellor Merkel's CDU, in 2013 refused to sign the coalition agreement unless the government committed to introducing a toll for "foreign car drivers".

The law has been pushed through by the Federal Minister for Transport Alexander Dobrindt.

The European Commission had claimed the toll breached European law, but an accommodation was subsequently reached between Dobrindt and the president of the European Commission Jean-Claude Juncker.

The German government has claimed that the tolls would generate a surplus 500 million euros that could be spent on roads and infrastructure, but Thoms Puls of the Cologne Institute for Economic Research -- among of many sceptical of the government's claims -- has pointed out that other forecasts were significantly lower.
The People's Republic of China flag and the U.S. Stars and Stripes fly along Pennsylvania Avenue near the U.S. Capitol during Chinese President Hu Jintao's state visit in Washington, DC, U.S. on January 18, 2011.(Xinhua/REUTERS)

WASHINGTON, March 31 (Xinhua) -- A U.S. trade war with China could be averted as the numbers of U.S. trade deficits do not necessarily reflect the reality, a U.S. China expert told Xinhua in a recent interview.

Despite the worry about a possible showdown between the top two economies due to the U.S. complaints about its trade deficits with China, Douglas Paal, vice president for studies and director of Asia Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, was somewhat optimistic that such scenario would not become a reality.

"I tend to think we are not gonna go to a trade war, because an American trade war with China will also be a trade war with all the suppliers to China, who are friendly with us and have good economic relations (with us)," he told Xinhua.

Paal, a former director of Asian affairs at the National Security Council in the White House, cited the trade disputes that existed between the U.S. and Japan during the 1980s.

He noted that during that time Japan was a trade harbor for all the Asian tigers and, as a result, it boasted a huge trade surplus with the United States.

"But over the last two 20 years, that shifted to China. But it's the same problem which is China is the last point of export (to the U.S.), so the numbers always seem too high for China and too low for everyone else," Paal said.

"That's just near illusion, it's not necessarily reality," he commented on the U.S. deficits in its trade with China.

Still, there are trade issues that need to be addressed, and the Trump administration has to prioritize all the issues, whether it's market access, technology transfer, investment, or anti-dumping measures, Paal said.

Paal believed China understands this and has prepared well for it as it is willing to consider measures, including increasing investment and buying more American goods, technologies and bonds, "to help the American economy and help balance the strong imbalance in the U.S.-China trade."

He noted that the Trump administration is still in the process of formulating its China policy and other policies due to the short time since it took office and the staffing problems which have left many positions unfilled so far.

"But I think the Trump people will be trying to lay the ground work for longer-term cooperation that may be more mutually beneficial in the economic sphere and (for) its high focus on North Korea's nuclear threat," he said.

NEED FOR LONG-TERM PERSPECTIVES ON KOREAN PENINSULA

Asked to comment on the possible China-U.S. cooperation on containing the rising tensions on the Korean peninsula after the recent nuclear test and test launching of missiles by the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), Paal said efforts should be first made to restart talks.

This is an urgent matter for the Trump administration to deal with, but not as urgent as demanding for an immediate solution due to its complexity, Paal said.

"The Trump administration is not ready yet with staffing and internal processes to do a complicated and careful consideration of various options," he said, adding that South Korea demands more U.S. attention as it is in the middle of "a very disruptive political period" ahead of the coming election.

"So I think we need take it as an urgent matter, but not an immediate matter... Don't rush to judgment," he said.

Calling for talks to resolve the DPRK crisis, Paal said if the talks fail, then stronger pressure should be exerted on the DPRK with tougher sanctions.

"But I am not a believer that there is a magic formula to turn North Korea around. In fact, I hope we have a very complicated policy to start with making another effort offering talks and try to hold together the coalition of commonly interested nations like South Korea, the U.S., Russia and China," he said.

Paal also urged China and U.S. leaders to discuss the DPRK issue from the long-term perspectives.

"I think the United States and China at the very top need to discuss how we think the Korean Peninsula should look in 10 and 20 years, not just about what we would do tomorrow," he said.

Only the leaders can give mutual assurances to each other that they will not explore the possible chaotic situation on the peninsula to its advantage and take unilateral measures, he said.

TAKING ADVANTAGE OF RELATIVE TRANQUILITY IN S. CHINA SEA

On another contentious issue of South China Sea, Paal played down its urgency, saying he did not foresee new flare-up of tensions in the region in the near term.

He noted that currently there is a "relative tranquility" in the region, largely due to two reasons: First, China made big advances in the past two years with its construction activities and it is time "to digest, to consume" the advances.

Second, China has reached an understanding with the new Philippine government.

"I would hope that during the period of relative tranquility, we can focus on things of our common interests," Paal said.

He called for speeding up talks on reach a code of conduct in the South China Sea between China and some members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).

Paal also suggested China and the U.S. play a leading role in managing the fishing stocks in the region to benefit all parties involved.

SOME OF CHINA-U.S. DIALOGUES EXPECTED TO CONTINUE

So far Trump has not taken aggressive actions toward China despite his tough talk during and after the campaign. Paal said that, as a former businessman, Trump may try to hold talks first to "start the tone and certainly trust" before getting to the hard issues.

Such talks could get very tough, and if they do not go well, the Trump administration could harden its stance toward China, he cautioned.

Meanwhile, Paal expected China and the U.S. to continue some of over 90 official dialogue mechanisms that were established during the previous Obama administration.

But he predicted that there will be serious reevaluation of some of the China-U.S. dialogues, led by the annual Strategic and Economic Dialogue (S&ED).

He proposed separating the strategic track and economic track because the S&ED has become less efficient as it has grown too big and too bureaucratic to get things done.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-04-01 05:30:41|Editor: yan

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CHICAGO, March 31 (Xinhua) -- Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT) grains futures closed mixed on Friday with soybean futures falling to fresh five-month lows after federal crop forecasters said spring plantings would reach an all-time high above traders' expectations.

The most active corn contract for May delivery rose 6.75 cents, or 1.89 percent, to 3.6425 dollars per bushel. May wheat delivery added 5.5 cents, or 1.31 percent to 4.265 dollars per bushel. May soybeans dropped 17 cents, or 1.77 percent, to 9.46 dollars per bushel.

Farmers in arid Plains states, the Midwest and south are shifting to plant soybeans, instead of corn and wheat, as the crop provides one of the few bright spots in a gloomy agricultural economy.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) estimated they will increase soybean plantings by 7 percent from last year to 89.5 million acres, while reducing corn plantings by 4 percent to 90 million acres. The agency issued the forecasts after surveying about 83,000 farmers about their plans.

Wheat and corn futures rose, recovering from recent multi-week lows, after the USDA said plantings would be slightly smaller than analysts expected.

All the markets came under pressure from large supplies held in reserve, following recent bin-busting harvests. Low prices for crops have encouraged farmers to keep them in storage, rather than selling them to processors or livestock operations.

The USDA said soybeans in storage totalled nearly 1.74 billion bushels as of March 1, up 13 percent from a year ago. Corn stocks were up 10 percent at 8.62 billion, and wheat stocks were up 21 percent at 1.66 billion.

Global supplies have also swelled, with South American countries harvesting bumper crops. Farm consultancy Agroconsult on Thursday raised its estimate for Brazil's 2016-17 soybean crop to a record 113.3 million tonnes.

With surpluses in place, poor weather will need to disrupt U.S. spring plantings or crop development in the summer to spark strong gains in the futures markets, traders said.

The USDA data "still says we have too much grain," said Don Roose, president of Iowa-based broker U.S. Commodities.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-04-01 05:36:14|Editor: yan

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UNITED NATIONS, March 31 (Xinhua) -- The UN Security Council on Friday extended the mandate of UN Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUSCO) until March 31, 2018.

In a resolution adopted here, the Security Council decided that the mission's troop ceiling will be comprised of 16,215 military personnel, 660 military observers and staff officers, 391 police personnel, and 1,050 personnel of formed police units.

The 15-nation council also authorized the mission to protect civilians, support the the electoral process in DRC and to collect information on criminal networks of local armed groups and thus make tailored responses.

The DRC has continued to suffer from recurring cycles of conflict and persistent violence by the armed groups.

Earlier this week, bodies of two members of a UN group of experts who went missing since March 12 were discovered by MONUSCO peacekeepers outside the city of Kananga.

The two UN experts were appointed by the Security Council to investigate a new rebellion.

In this regard, the Security Council urged all parties to protect and respect the UN, diplomatic and foreign premises and other civilians in DRC.

It also called for joint operations by the DRC armed forces and MONUSCO, including joint planning and tactical cooperation, to neutralize the armed groups.
Photo provided by Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) on Dec. 21, 2016 shows top leader of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) Kim Jong Un (unseen) recently guiding a firing training among multiple launch rocket system (MLRS) batteries selected from large combined units of the Korean People's Army. (Xinhua/KCNA)

WASHINGTON, March 31 (Xinhua) -- The U.S. government announced Friday sanctions on one entity and 11 individuals for their links to the nuclear and missile programs by the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK).

"Today's action targets North Korean nationals working as agents of the regime in Russia, China, Vietnam, and Cuba to provide financial support or WMD procurement services for UN- or U.S.-designated sanctioned entities," the U.S. Treasury Department said in a statement.

The action was taken "in response to North Korea's ongoing development of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and continued violations of United Nations Security Council Resolutions," it added.

The one entity that was sanctioned is the DPRK-based Paeksol Trading Corporation (Paeksol), which the U.S. alleged has sold, supplied, transferred, or purchased metal or coal to earn revenue that may have benefited the DPRK.

The individuals included Kang Chol Su, Pak Il Gyu and Ri Su Yong, who are officials of the Korea Ryonbong General Corporation (Ryonbong). Kang and Pak are Ryonbong officials in China, while Ri is a Ryonbong official in Cuba.

Meanwhile, Kim Tong Ho, Kim Mun Chol, Kim Nam Ung, and Choe Chun Yong were also sanctioned by the U.S. for being representatives of several banks involved in the DPRK nuclear and missile programs.

Jang Sung Nam, chief of Tangun Trading Corporation branch in China, Jo Chol Song, Kwangson Banking Corporation's (KKBC's) deputy representative in China, Han Jang Su, Foreign Trade Bank's chief representative in Russia, and Kim Yong Su, shipping representative for the DPRK's Marine Transport Office in Vietnam, were also on the list.

The sanctions are aimed at disrupting the networks and methods that the DPRK employs to fund its nuclear, ballistic missile and proliferation programs, U.S. Secretary of the Treasury Steven Mnuchin said in a statement.
Candles are lit during the demonstration in front of City Hall in Paris, France on March 29, 2017. The demonstration of the Chinese community carried on for the third day in front of the City Hall to protest against police killing of a Chinese national in a conflict last Sunday night.(Xinhua/Chen Yichen)

Related:

Spotlight: Police killing of Chinese national in Paris sparks outrage

France stresses security of Chinese community "priority": foreign ministry
Unruly ISIS, Rasta City gangsters held

The exercise began at 8 pm on Wednesday and ended at midday yesterday. The Rasta City gang member was held with a quantity of marijuana while the Unruly ISIS members were found with ammunition and drugs. Police also searched several houses for a drone which was being used by a member of the Unruly ISIS to spy on police.

Police said they intend to find this drone so they can examine footage captured while the drone was in use. Also during the protest, officers went to the scene of a fiery protest mainly by women in Longdenville on Wednesday evening.

The women were protesting the arrest of a male relative of murdered businessman and reputed crime lord Selwyn Robocop Alexis. During a search of the area where the women were protesting officers found a pistol and several rounds of ammunition buried in a heap of gravel at the side of the road. No arrest was made.

Yesterday, ACP (Central) Surujdean Persad said that similar exercises in Central Trinidad will be carried out in the coming days. Up to press time, the gang members were still in custody assisting lawmen in several investigations.
Inquest into soldiers death

On Wednesday, an autopsy by pathologist Dr Eslyn McDonald Burris revealed a single gunshot wound to the head killed the soldier. The autopsy report did not identity any other injuries on Samaroos body.

Yesterday, Snr Supt Jacob told Newsday when he receives the file it will then be submitted to a Coroner and the police will be recommending that an inquest be held to ascertain the circumstances surrounding the soldiers death.

The top cop described as reckless, media reports which suggested the soldier may have been murdered and the scene staged to suggest a suicide. He reiterated that the police have classified the death as suicide.

Newsday understands that Samaroos driver as well as two other soldiers, who discovered his body in a dormitory at Camp Cumuto on Tuesday, have submitted statements to Sgt Denoon.

At 7.10 am on Tuesday Samaroo arrived for duty at Camp Cumuto and went to the armoury where he was issued a Sig Saur pistol and an empty magazine. At 9.45 am, a shot was heard from the dormitory and soldiers who rushed to investigate, found the soldier on the ground, holding the pistol in his right hand which was resting on his chest.

He was rushed to the Arima Hospital and transferred to the Eric Williams Medical Sciences Complex in Mt Hope where he died at 11.30 pm.

Funeral arrangements were being finalised yesterday. Samaroo was said to be a family- oriented person who had an especially close bond with his daughter.

He had 27 years service in the Defence Force and lived in St Helena.
Schoolboys facing charges

The boys aged 15 and 16 will go before a Princes Town magistrate.

Police said that at about 2.15 pm on Tuesday, taxi-driver Suresh Seujattan was near the junction of New Colonial and Papourie Roads in Barrackpore, awaiting passengers on the Princes Town/Barrackpore taxistand.

The report added that three male students approached Seujattan, 50, and asked to be taken to Princes Town. However, the taxi-driver of Congo Hill, Barrackpore refused and the male students, all dressed in uniform, walked off.

Shortly after, four female students boarded the car and two of the males returned and accosted Seujattan.

There was a verbal confrontation during which the boys cuffed Seujattan on the head and upper body.

The commotion drew the attention of police who went and arrested the two school boys.

Seujattan was taken to the Princes Town Area Hospital where he was treated and discharged.
Fined for wasting polices time

According to police reports, 35-year-old Kevin Samaroo of Carlsen Field, Chaguanas was reported missing last Sunday to the Chaguanas Police Station, by his wife Crystal Partapsingh.

He was later found at a house in California, Couva. While being questioned by police, Samaroo alleged that he was a victim of kidnapping and robbery. But on further investigations, police found this to be false. They then preferred a charge of wasteful employment of the polices time.
Reaching out for jobs

Based on Lady Hailes Avenue, San Fernando, the founder and owner of the Kieron Sargeant Dance and Performing Arts Agency said he did so with the express aim of supporting the continuing development of artistic and cultural efforts of our performing artistes, by facilitating mutually beneficial collaborative partnerships between the public, private and international sectors of the creative arts industry.

Our agency represents dancers, choreographers, dance educators, theatre practitioners and musicians who are experts in the performing arts and culture of Trinidad and Tobago.

Choreographers are trained in all genres of dance in both style and conception and they strive to shape their movement and creativity to evolve with the times. Explaining how his business operates he said: Usually I am contacted by the agent who is hosting an event and if they need performers for the event I usually will get in contact with persons who are registered with our agency to do the performances.

Each performer is paid according to the nature of the job, and a percentage goes towards the agency. This agency is funded 100 percent by me. The agency has a secretary, business administrator, costume mistress and a chief choreographer which is me. I run the business from home and if I have to do dance choreography for job I usually use my dance studio at work. He lamented that jobs in the industry are very difficult to get, unless there is an event that requires a performer such as the Soca Monarch, Dimanche Gras, private and public sector functions or an international invitation. Hence, Sargeant set up the agency to assist performing arts artistes who are unemployed and looking for small jobs to assist their needs.

The only jobs that are available are teaching positions in the Ministry of Education for which some of the persons may not be qualified, but have the God-given talent, and the Trinidad and Tobago Theatre Arts Company. Other than those two entities, artistes in Trinidad and Tobago have to look for private gigs on their own. But because of this agency and my vision, some of them could earn a dollar to provide for their families, he said.

His aim is to get the agency more out there in the public and push people who do not have a full-time job, to make a dollar.

Its all about helping the arts and promoting the culture. My ultimate goal is to partner with the Ministry of Culture, Ministry of Tourism, the private and public sectors, and also NGOs to search for jobs for talented artistes of TT , both locally and internationally, he said. Among the artistes the agency is associated with thus far are choreographers Tevin Kayode Daniel, Chervelle Delecia Williams, Lucette Regis and Julia Le Gendre-Stewart, dancer Akimo Randy Isaiah Sandy, and choreographer/ dancer/performers Priscilla Gueverra, Ana Solis and Jamie Thompson.

So far the agency has been very successful with overseas jobs in Italy, Spain, Portugal, Barcelona, France, Barbados and St Lucia, Sargeant said. This agency allows the world to see our rich folk heritage/ folk dances where we give them a feel of Caribbean flavour.

Many dancers have gotten the opportunity to be a part of this journey to travel abroad. Sargeant holds a Certificate in Dance and Dance Education, Diploma in Adult Literacy and Design, Diploma in Health and Family Life Education Instruction and Bachelor of the Arts in Dance Education which he obtained from The University of West Indies (UWI). He is currently pursuing a Master of Science in Management and Educational Leadership at the UWI. He was accepted at the University of Roehampton in London to pursue a Master of Fine Arts in Choreography in 2017.

He has been a choreographer for the 2015 and 2016 Touring UniverSoul Circus based in Atlanta.

He also worked as dancer with the Embacadere Travellers, a choreographer with Barataria Community Council, BonBassa productions and is now the new assistant artistic and dance director of the Malick Folk Performing Company where his talents and skills have been honed and showcased at the Prime Ministers Best Village Trophy Competition. He has won numerous prizes for dance at this competition and is the only person in the history of the competition to win the Best Male dance category three years consecutively.

Sargeant has contributed to the dance landscape through the Tobago Heritage Festival, International Dance Day celebrations, San Fernando Arts Festival and the Secondary School Dance Festival, among others. His creative guidance and work has won awards at the San Fernando Junior Arts Festival and Secondary School Dance Festival from 2009-2014.

He was a part of the curriculum team of Ministry of Education and contributed to rewriting the Visual and Performing Syllabus for Dance (2014-2017). For more info: email kieronsargeant1985@gmail.com or www.ksdpaa.com
NOT ONE BLACK CENT

Since September 7, 2015 the IRO has not received one single black cent from this Government.

And this has curtailed a tremendous amount of programmes we used to have, Maharaj said. He added that in contrast, the previous Peoples Partnership (PP) government led by Kamla Persad-Bissessar began giving the IRO a subvention of $62,500 every three months from 2013.

Maharaj claimed Finance Minister Colm Imbert told the IRO they would receive more money than they had under the Partnership, but instead, they have received, zero, zero, zero. Back in December 2015, Maharaj stated that with the announcement of the country being in recession, he did not expect the receive the quarterly subvention from the PNM nor did he expect any funding from Government for Christian churches that Yuletide season.

Yesterday, Maharaj said with the subventions from the PP, the IRO was able host initiatives in various communities on child development, women, crime and counselling. He recalled that on July 12, 2015 it was the IRO that went into the Enterprise area, to bring calm and peace, in the midst of gang wars.

And you see what is happening in Enterprise (now), he said. Maharaj was asked to respond to complaints from chairman of the Spiritual Baptists Shouter Prohibition Ordinance Centenary Commemoration Committee, Rev Hazel-Ann Gibbs-De Peza, that $20,000 received from the State for yesterdays Spiritual Baptist Liberation Day celebrations, was the lowest ever received and was insulting and disrespectful. His response was that unless and until all governments recognise religious organisations assist with improving the country and have an important role, there will continue to be issues where funding is concerned. Asked about the view that religious bodies should not receive any State funding but raise their own money, Maharaj said, If that be the case then include everything like Carnival, chutney singing, soca monarch in the list of events and organisations not to receive state funding. And what is worse, he added, is that these Carnival shows have promoters who charge patrons a fee to enter the show thereby generating profit even when getting Government assistance. He stressed that religious gatherings such as yesterdays Spiritual Baptist celebrations were not designed for making money but for bringing people together in a joyful worship.

Maharaj said events require money for things such as refreshments, transport, tents, portable toilets etc. Unless and until governments recognise importance and value of faith-based organisations we will continue to have rampant crime, he warned.

Maharaj said he was not surprised to see that other religious organisations were having issues with funding while there continues to be squandermania in other areas of public spending. He added that this country does not have a problem with money per se, but with how expenditure is prioritised.

He said that for the IRO to serve the country as it has done in the past then either the Government or the private sector needs to come forward and assist. We can only do as much by ourselves, Maharaj said.

Repeated efforts by Newsday to get responses yesterday from Finance Minister (and acting Prime Minister) Colm Imbert and Community Development, Culture and the Arts Minister Dr Nyan Gadsby- Dolly, proved futile.

The IRO was founded in 1970 and currently comprises 25 religious organisations including the Anglican Church, Catholic Church, Spiritual Baptists, Bahai Faith, Hindu, Muslim and Orisha.
BP to invest US$5B

This was one of the topics discussed at a high-level meeting on Wednesday between senior BP executives and Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley, according to a release issued yesterday from the Office of the Prime Minister.

Rowley and Minister in the Office of the Attorney General and Legal Affairs/Minister in the Office of the Prime Minister Stuart Young are in Houston, Texas for a series of critical talks with leaders in the energy industry.

BP Upstream Chief Executive Bernard Looney, BP Chief Operating Officer Andy Hopwood and BP Trinidad and Tobago (bpTT) Regional President Norman Christie represented TT at the meeting; bpTT is one of the leading oil and gas production companies in this country.

This important meeting between Trinidad and Tobago and BP brought discussions and negotiations that have been ongoing for months closer to finalisation, the release stated.

It was also reported that at the meeting it was determined that the final agreement between the National Gas Company and BP for Angelin gas field, which is 40 km offshore Trinidad and Tobagos east coast, will be executed shortly and that this project will be kept on schedule. The parties discussed the investment by BP of between US $5-6 billion in Trinidad and Tobago over the next five years, with BP committing to further exploration and production and there was also discussion with respect to Atlantic LNG, though no details were provided in the release.

The release also reported another matter raised at the meeting, the settlement of long outstanding Royalty Gas positions, It is expected that this will be resolved in the coming weeks.

The parties also discussed the future of the hydrocarbon industry in Trinidad and Tobago and the continuation of the relationship between Trinidad and Tobago and BP. In the coming weeks both parties are expected to make further announcements about the successful execution of certain agreements, the release added.

Rowley and Young were scheduled to meet with representatives of energy company Shell yesterday.
Meet me in Enterprise to pray

Senator Foster Cummings, an active member of the Spiritual Baptist faith, yesterday said, So come, dress up nice in your Baptist clothes, and join him at the one of the main roadways leading to the besieged community.

You have the place? You have the date? You have the time? I will see you there. Let us meet Sunday at 6 am at Enterprise Street.

All the Baptists from Enterprise, from all over TT, I want to invite you to pray with me, Cummings said, to which the congregation responded with a resounding, Yes! He was speaking at the St Anns Church of Spiritual Metaphysics in Mc Bean Village, Couva yesterday during annual thanksgiving service in commemoration of the Spiritual Shouter Baptist Day celebrations.

Also at the celebrations was Community Development, Culture and the Arts Minister Dr Nyan Gadsby- Dolly.

In praying for the community, Cummings called on citizens to take time out from what they are doing and, For the next couple days remember those in Enterprise.

We pray that these young men return to Jesus. We pray for God to draw them away from crime.

We send some love to Enterprise...

sometimes when the land is troubled, we need to call upon God, Cummings added.

Yesterday, scores of Shouter Baptists flocked to the Couva church in a vibrant ceremony to worship, following a street procession which commenced at Deonarine Junction.

Prior to Cummings invitation, Archbishop Patrick Brown of the Church yesterday said the solutions to crime are love, unity and prayers especially among the youth.

We want an injection to come down from God to inject them from sin to righteous. If we do not get that medicine, marching comes like nothing and prayer comes like nothing. We must have love in the country. We want the youths to have love and not hatred and jealously for one another, Brown said.

In commenting on the amount of money government allocated to the Shouter Baptist groups, Cummings said the $20,000 figure was, not completely accurate.

He admitted while he did not have the exact figures, $20,000 may have been what one group received.

We live in difficult times now.

The country is not in a position to fund things as before, but I would prefer in terms of the specifics as to how much was given to the Baptist community, the ministry gave those figures. I know it was well over $20,000, he said.

Minister Gadsby-Dolly, in addressing the congregation, called on them to reflect on how their forefathers may have felt back in 1917, when the ordinance had passed.

How would we feel now if that is to happen to us? Would some of us continue to worship anyway? Would some of us feel to go and hide and go into other religions just because we cannot celebrate the way we want to? Gadsby-Dolly called on citizens notwithstanding their religion to help heal the country which is facing many challenges. We all know that at this time your country is facing challenges and we the people are hurting and all of us have a responsibility to heal and help our country, she said.
No Cabinet approval $M spent

This was one of several irregularities cited in the Auditor Generals Report of September 30, 2014 into the Health Ministry.

This report was also the subject of a public hearing held earlier in the week by the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) at Tower D of the Port-of-Spain International Waterfront Centre.

During the hearing, Government Senator Dr Lester Henry expressed concern about questionable expenditure in the renal- dialysis programme from 2014 to 2015, saying companies which existed in 2015 had been nonexistent in 2014.

The Auditor Generals Report indicated there was no evidence of approval being given after November 22, 2013 by the Kamla Persad-Bissessar Cabinet for the payments to private institutions and health care providers for renal dialysis.

In response to a question from Independent Senator Jennifer Raffoul, Director of Health Policy (Research and Planning) Lawrence Jaisingh said checks showed that two non-governmental organisations (NGOs) which entered into memoranda of understanding (MOUs) with the ministry did not exist.

The report said MOUs with six non-profit institutions and relevant site visits required to facilitate verification of the use of funds totalling $10,850,259 for intended purposes were not produced.

The Auditor General also said lease agreements were not provided for nine properties, for which monthly payments of $1,251,194.74 were made. A duly signed contract with Nipdec, for the construction of an outpatient clinic building at the Mt Hope Womens Hospital at a cost of $79,333,202.05, was not provided.

Contracts between the ministry and Nipdec for upgrade works at the C40 Building in Chaguaramas, valued at $437,102.15, were not produced for audit.

In terms of physical investments, payments totalling $3,418,771.86, relating to the Hospital Enhancement and Development Programme were incorrectly charged to Physical Investments, in contravention of Financial Regulation 65 (1).

Status reports on the expansion of the maternity ward at the Sangre Grande Hospital ($650,823.50) and the purchase of ethylene oxide sterilizer by the North Central Regional Health Authority (NCRHA), were not provided. Two projects shown as 100 percent complete on the overall status report as at September 30, 2015, were shown as ongoing on the individual reports.

The Auditor General also said the number of contract employees at the ministry increased from 391 in 2013 to 735 in 2014. The total salaries paid to contract employees increased from $117,992,023 in 2013 to $127,154,294.84 in 2014.
Why did CT scanners fail?

Responding to a question from Public Accounts Committee (PAC) chairman Dr Bhoendradatt Tewarie about them, Health Ministry Permanent Secretary Richard Madray replied, I dont think that there is a reasonable explanation. Tewarie posed his question to Madray and other ministry officials during a public inquiry at Tower D of the Port-of-Spain International Waterfront Centre.

He asked whether this situation could have been the result of system failure, sabotage or poor monitoring. Ministry project manager Ronald Koylass said the problems with the scanners at each of the hospitals could have been the combination of some of those things. On Tuesday, Health Minister Terrence Deyalsingh outlined what was being done to remedy the scanner problems.

Koylass also said bio-medical engineering units at each of the countrys regional health authorities (RHAs) had a responsibility to monitor medical equipment at each RHA. When Tewarie asked if a failure to monitor led to the CT scanner problems, Koylass replied, I am not saying that. While admitting that medical equipment was always vulnerable to breakdowns, Koylass said there should be, monitoring of service contracts and the provision of quality service being provided on major medical equipment equipment. Tewarie said this was important in light of close to $16 billion being allocated to the health sector from 2015 to 2017. Koylass also told Tewarie two new air-conditioning units at the Sangre Grande Hospital would be installed this fiscal year.

Madray told PAC members about the need for a strong centre within the health sector. He said the absence of this had the potential for dysfunction and even the potential for chaos, as the different RHAs would act independently of each other. He also said different RHAs paid different rates for the same position.
Schweizer: Theres more evidence of Podesta-Clinton collusion with Russia than there ever was with Trump

Author Peter Schweizer, Breitbart News editor-at-large, told the news sites SiriusXM radio program Thursday that the campaign manager of Hillary Clintons recent campaign and longtime friend of her and husband Bill may have violated the law in his dealings with Russia.

Telling Breitbart Daily News that Podesta has a very interesting relationship with Russia, going back to when Hillary Clinton was secretary of state, Schweizer  author of Clinton Cash, which exposed how foreign governments helped enrich the Clintons through their foundation  detailed how Podesta and Russian President Vladimir Putin became intertwined.

When she was secretary of state, he was an advisor who had a seat on Clintons foreign policy advisory board, Schweizer said. Based on emails released through Wikileaks, we knowthat he was talking to her all the time on everything from speeches to personnel directions to policy positions.

Podesta, who joined the Obama White House as a presidential advisor in 2013, first linked up in 2011 with the executive board of a small Massachusetts energy company called Joule Energy. A couple months later, the company got a large infusion of cash  one billion rubles, or about $35 to $45 million, invested from Russia. (RELATED: If Trump or his people really did something illegal with Russia, they would have been charged already)

That money came from a very unusual entity called RUSNANO, which is a government-funded investment fund also known as Putins Child according to the Russian Science Ministry. So it shows you how connected this fund is, Schweizer said.

They actually buy an equity stake in this John Podesta-linked company, which they can do. You can raise the question of why theyre doing it while hes advising Hillary Clinton, but they can legally do that, he said.

The problem for Podesta, he continued, is that when he joined the White House he was required to file a large amount of paperwork, including financial disclosure forms, the boards on which he sits, stock holdings and so forth.

In the case of Podesta, there are two omissions. One of them is the way the Joule was structured, it has three corporate boards. It has one based in Massachusetts, one based in the Netherlands, and then it has a holding company. John Podesta, according to corporate records, was on all three of those boards. He only listed two of them on his financial disclosure. He omitted probably the most important one, which was the holding company, said Schweizer.

While the Clinton author submitted the possibility that the omission could have been an oversight, Schweizer said Podesta did not disclose what he did with 75,000 shares of stock he had in Joule Energy that were given to him as part of his compensation for being on the companys executive board.

He gave them to his daughter through an LLC, Schweizer explained, but it wasnt clear whether or not she actually became the owner. By that, he explained, I mean the Podesta emails that show he had an extensive conversation with company execs and others connected to them, though ostensibly he didnt own the stock any longer.

By failing to disclose what he had done with the stock, Podesta  who has been around government before  committed a clear violation of what you are supposed to disclose on these federal forms, said Schweizer.

Host Alex Marlow then said it appears there is much more evidence connecting the Clintons and Podesta to Russia than there has ever been of President Donald J. Trump and his circle of advisers. (RELATED: McCain Challenges Trump To Prove Obama Wiretapped Him Even Though Theres Clear Evidence He Did)

And yet the media is obsessed with one and not the other, Schweizer said, noting the wall-to-wall coverage of the alleged Trump/Russia collusion to steal the election from Clinton despite the very obvious lack of evidence to support the allegation.

The Clinton Cash author also noted that, based on Trumps selection of Cabinet appointees and national security advisors, the Trump-Putin connection makes no sense.

The thesis that everybody is operating on is the Russians helped Trump win and Trump is going to do all these favors for Russia. The problem is, when you look at the personnel decisions, whos running Russia policy in the United States  whether thats General Mattis at the Pentagon, whether that is McMaster, the national security adviser, whether thats the CIA director, whether thats the director of Russia policy on the National Security Council, whos a very solid scholar from the Brookings Institution  none of these are remotely pro-Putin, he said.

J.D. Heyes is a senior writer for NaturalNews.com and NewsTarget.com, as well as editor of The National Sentinel.

Sources:

Breitbart.com

Trump.news

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Mobile technology is the primary source of Internet access for the vast majority of developing countries around the world. And as more affordable smartphones enter the marketplace, the combination with broadband wireless is providing new streams of revenue for telecom operators. For the people in these developing countries, it means they will be able to access next generation communications services just as everywhere else.





In the Philippines, the commitment by its leading telecom operator, PLDT (News - Alert), and its wireless subsidiary, Smart Communications, to accelerate Long Term Evolution (LTE) deployment to users in 1,551 cities and municipalities across the country by the end of 2018 just got great news. The company announced the coverage will reach 785 municipalities by the end of 2017, which is a little more than half of its goal.

Smart Communications and its parent company PLDT pledged to the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) that they will be covering the country with LTE (News - Alert) deployment to provide next generation communications. With 785 municipalities slated to be covered by the end of 2017, the remaining 766 should also have LTE networks by the end of 2018 if all goes as planned. According to the company, this is part of a three-year network roll-out plan PLDT submitted to NTC in 2016.

A total of 5,733 sites will be targeted by Smart, with 2,165 sites with LTE in low spectrum bands and 3,568 sites in high spectrum bands. High-frequency bands like 1800 MHz and 2100 MHz will also be deployed to increase smart cell site capacity so they can handle more traffic.

The roll out of our LTE network is strategic not only because it gives an immediate boost to internet speeds and reliability, but also because this lays the foundation for further improvements. As more LTE-A capable handsets become available, we can turn on the carrier aggregation feature of LTE and quickly raise internet speeds even more. We are also conducting our LTE roll out in ways that prepare us for the arrival of 5G, which is just three years away, said Joachim Horn, Chief Technology and Information Advisor of PLDT and Smart.

This rollout is part of Smart's network improvement of 4G and 3G coverage using low-band frequencies, which are now responsible for improved mobile Internet user experiences across several cities in the Philippines. In some of the metropolitan cities, average LTE download speeds of 20 Mbps and average 3G download rates of 6 Mbps have been recorded. This will give Smart the ability to deliver next generation communications solutions for its millions of customers in those areas where the networks have been upgraded.

The next step is making LTE-capable handsets more affordable for the users in the Philippines, so Smart Communications can fully leverage all of the monetization possibilities of LTE networks.

Edited by Alicia Young
Problems have always arisen when it comes to Election Day  whether it be voting fraud, the location of the voting precinct or just simply registering to vote. For the upcoming 2022 election, Nebraska is facing one of the toughest choices for the voting process: Voter IDs. While some believe
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The United Nations Conference to negotiate a nuclear-weapon ban elected Moroccos permanent representative at the UN headquarters in New York, Ambassador Omar Hilale, as Vice-President.

Both Morocco and South Africa were elected to the position as representatives of Africa, announced the President of the UN Conference on the nuclear arms ban, Elayne Whyte Gomez of Costa Rica at a plenary session.

Other elected countries for their respective regions are: Austria (Western Europe), Iran (Asia), New Zealand (Oceania) and Chile (Latin America).

Despite objections from major nuclear powers, more than 100 countries launched the first UN talks on a global nuclear weapons ban last Monday.

A total of 123 UN members announced in October that they would launch the UN conference to negotiate a legally binding nuclear ban treaty, even as most of the worlds declared and undeclared nuclear powers voted against the talks.

The United States, Britain, and France are among some 40 countries that have not participated in the conference.

The United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution in December  113 in favor to 35 against, with 13 abstentions -that decided to negotiate a legally binding instrument to prohibit nuclear weapons, leading towards their total elimination and encouraged all member states to participate.
Anger and frustration are mounting in Algeria following the unprecedented increase in all food prices that hits badly the consumers in the OPEC member country.

The prices of some products have become up to 1,000 pc more expensive because of speculation and structural problems. For example, garlic prices went up from 200 dinars ($ 1.8) per kilo to 2,000 dinars, leading Algerians to make fun of the issue on social media, comparing the prices of garlic and meat.

Tomato prices have increased from around 80 dinars per kilo to about 200 dinars ($ 1.8), while the price of potatoes has increased from about 50 dinars to about 150 ($ 1.4). At the same time, banana and apple prices have risen significantly in recent times, with the price per kilo exceeding 900 dinars ($ 8.2).

During the winter season, several Algerian villages in the central and eastern regions were isolated by snow for many weeks and deprived of food supply, adding more misery to the Algerians who are already suffering from deteriorating living conditions.

The authorities are finding it more and more difficult to contain social unrests or quell angry demonstrators demanding decent life. The Kabylie and other neighboring provinces were rocked lately by violent clashes between security forces and demonstrators protesting against the rising cost of living and higher taxes on fuel, tobacco and electricity.

Algeria, one of the major oil and gas producers, was forced to make budget cuts following the fall in oil and natural gas prices, its main sources of revenue. But the governments austerity measures, imposing new taxes on a variety of consumable goods and cutting 14 pc of overall spending were very painful for Algerian people who blame the authorities for the situation.

The North African country, hit by a high deficit and an imbalanced economy, has little room to satisfy social claims, raising regional and international concerns over the prospects of more violent unrests to be unfolding as social resentment is growing.

If they intensify, they could destabilize the country and disrupt Algerian energy exports. Southern European countries, which rely on Algerian natural gas supplies, are making contingency plans as the political crisis is deepening.

The latest reappearance of President Abdelaziz Bouteflika in a footage broadcast by Algerian TV did not dispel serious concerns over his frail health. Bouteflika, 80, who serves his fourth presidential term, suffered a stroke in 2013 that affected his mobility.
Sam Brownback of Kansas is emblematic of conservatives who oppose Medicaid expansion on ideological grounds. Photo: Bo Rader/TNS via Getty Images

The train wreck involving the American Health Care Act in the U.S. House last week offered a burst of fresh hope to those in the 19 states that have not yet accepted the Medicaid expansion authorized by the Affordable Care Act and made optional by the U.S. Supreme Court. Most versions of GOP health legislation have canceled the expansion and its generous federal funding with variations in terms of speed and ferocity. The version of AHCA that slipped and fell while approaching the House floor contained a flat prohibition on any new expansions, reportedly at the behest of the House Freedom Caucus.

Coincidentally or not, early this week a coalition of Democrats and moderate Republicans in the Kansas legislature sent conservative governor Sam Brownback a bill designed to make that state the 32nd to expand Medicaid eligibility to poor people without children or disabilities. There were rumors other states might follow. But alas for any sense of momentum for Medicaid expansions, Brownback promptly vetoed the legislation, with a message that should remind everyone that rejection of the expansion has often been about ideology rather than money:

I am vetoing this expansion of ObamaCare because it fails to serve the truly vulnerable before the able-bodied, lacks work requirements to help able-bodied Kansans escape poverty, and burdens the state budget with unrestrainable entitlement costs.



Most grievously, this legislation funnels more taxpayer dollars to Planned Parenthood and the abortion industry. From its infancy, the state of Kansas has affirmed the dignity and equality of each human life. I will not support this legislation that continues to fund organizations that undermine a culture of life.

Alrighty then!

Vox has just conducted a quick survey of the non-expansion states and didnt find much new activity despite some optimistic talk from expansion proponents. Virginia governor Terry McAuliffe has launched a new Medicaid-expansion campaign, but unless Democrats make gains in the legislature he will continue to be blocked. In Maine a ballot initiative has already been certified for November of this year to force an expansion that Governor Paul LePage has bitterly opposed.

Theres some mysterious talk in Georgia about Governor Nathan Deals administration approaching former Georgia congressman and now HHS Secretary Tom Price for major changes to the Medicaid program. Under HHS previous management, this might have been an allusion to one of those deals the Obama administration encouraged whereby states were given waivers to conduct conservative policy experiments with the entire Medicaid program in exchange for grudgingly accepting expansion and the massive federal funding that accompanied it. Since the Trump administration doesnt support the expansion in the first place, its unlikely that it will be interested in bribing additional states into going along. Its more likely Georgia will seek and perhaps receive permission to do unpleasant things to the existing Medicaid population.

All in all, the AHCA fiasco removed a big new disincentive to additional Medicaid expansions. But it didnt remove the determination of conservatives in many states to reject free money to achieve better health coverage on grounds that it would benefit the undeserving, or make government too popular. Thats a forever thing.
Jason Chaffetz, chairman of the House Oversight Committee, casting a vigilant eye in case Hillary Clinton somehow becomes president. Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

The House Republicans civil war is understandably attracting a lot of attention. But the truly unprecedented dynamic within the party right now is the complete submission of its investigatory apparatus. Devin Nunes, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, is essentially acting as an agent of the administration he is supposed to be investigating. (Nunes works for the president, he answers to the president, explained his colleague, Representative Ted Yoho, in a moment of unintentional candor.) Republicans on the House Ways and Means Committee voted this week not to compel the release of President Trumps tax returns. And Jason Chaffetz, chairman of the House Oversight Committee, who claimed before the election that he had years of investigations on Hillary Clinton already teed up, is committing himself not to exercise any oversight over Trumps flagrant and spreading self-enrichment.

A bipartisan norm for decades has required presidents to abjure any financial interest that could influence their decisions in office, however slight or remote. Jimmy Carter was famously required to sell off his peanut farm and subjected to a lengthy investigation ensuring the severance was absolute, to ensure he did not allow any pro-peanut bias to inflect his agenda. Trump has made a mockery of the ideal. He is not only holding onto his vast empire, and refusing to disclose its contours  which means his policies could be lining his pockets in ways about which the public has no inkling  but he is leveraging his power to make himself even richer. McKay Coppins asks Chaffetz if any of these actions strike him as the kind of thing he should exercise his oversight authority over. Chaffetzs quotes are incredible:

One of the stories I flagged reported that online sales had skyrocketed for the First Daughters clothing line after Kellyanne Conway went on TV and urged Americans to buy Ivankas stuff. I asked Chaffetz if he was concerned about Trump reaping financial rewards from his presidency, but he just shrugged.



Hes already rich, Chaffetz said. Hes very rich. I dont think that he ran for this office to line his pockets even more. I just dont see it like that.



What about the recent New York Times story about Jared Kushners family exploring a $400 million deal with a Chinese company while he serves as a foreign policy adviser to the presidentwas that worthy of investigation?



I dont see how that affects the average American and their taxpayer dollars, Chaffetz said. Just the fact that a staff persons family is making money? Its not enough.



He promised that Trump wont get an entirely free ride under his watch. Somebodyll do something stupid at some point, and well be all over it. But, he added, I think the people who voted for Donald Trump went into it with eyes wide open. Everybody knew he was rich, everybody knew he had lots of different entanglements  These other little intrigues about a wealthy family making money is a bit of a sideshow.

Whats striking about these statements is how open-ended they are. In the above exchange, Chaffetz offers the following defenses:

1. Trump is already rich.

2. Trump enriching himself or his family in office does not affect the average American.

3. Chaffetz doesnt think he ran with the purpose of getting richer.

4. The voters already knew he had entanglements.

The logic outlined by Chaffetz leaves no possibility for Trump to engage in corruption. What if Trump asks Congress to build a highway to make it easier for customers to access one of his hotels? What if foreign countries are giving Trumps family preferred stock in return for favorable foreign-policy decisions? Reasons onefour supply sufficient reasons for the chairman of the House Oversight Committee to neither know nor care.
Kathleen Sebelius. Photo: Nicholas Kamm/AFP/Getty Images

The collapse of the Republicans health-care bill on Friday certainly doesnt spell the end of President Trumps efforts to muck with Obamacare. Under pressure from the far-right wing of their base, Paul Ryan and other GOP leaders have already vowed to give repeal-and-replace another go, even if party members still cant agree on what kinds of reforms they want. In the meantime, Trump and his new Secretary of Health and Human Services, Tom Price, may well use Executive power to dismantle Obamacare piece by piece.

Likely no one understands better how the cabinet secretary might go about reshaping American health care than Kathleen Sebelius, who from 2009 to 2014 held the job Price now holds. Under President Obama, she helped implement Obamacare, including the much maligned rollout of Healthcare.gov  which ultimately contributed to her resignation. She spoke to us this week from Kansas, where she once served as governor and now works as a consultant.

What could Tom Price do, without the involvement of Congress, to alter or even dismantle Obamacare?

The secretary actually already has a good deal of authority within the confines of the Affordable Care Act. Step one really is a question of whether or not HHS will continue to reimburse insurance companies for cost-sharing expenses. The way the law is written, people who are under 250 percent of poverty, who have a marketplace plan, also are eligible to have some of their deductible and co-pay expenses paid through cost-sharing. Insurance companies basically front the money and are reimbursed by the federal government, by HHS.

Republican House members, including Tom Price, when he was still in the Republican House, sued HHS, suggesting that payment to insurance companies for cost-sharing exceeded the authority of HHS. That case was basically withdrawn when President Trump was elected, in hopes that the Affordable Care Act would be repealed  but were back to the law.

But now the lawsuit doesnt matter, because the Republicans can simply cut off the reimbursements without the courts involvement?

Correct. They can just stop paying. So one question companies will have is whether they will be reimbursed for those costs. If not, it could cause a number of companies now offering plans in the marketplace to not sign up again for 2018. They dont want to be suddenly faced with a billion dollars worth of costs that arent going to be reimbursed. Companies have to make a decision this spring. In many states you have to start the filing process for 2018 as early as April.

Another question is: Administratively, will the current HHS secretary do anything to encourage more companies to participate in the market? Particularly in states where there is limited competition? They can do a lot: They can use the powers of persuasion; they can get the president involved, which we used to do; they can figure out incentives for companies; or they could do nothing and allow some of those marketplaces to become even less competitive.

HHS currently runs the entire framework: the website, the call centers, the outreach and education program for Healthcare.gov, which is actually the platform for shopping that is used by 37 states. Again, are they going to continue to update and improve the website? Are they going to hire enough people to actually staff the website? Will they run call centers? Will they have people on the ground to help with outreach education and enrollment? That all is within the administrative authority of the department, but it impacts about two-thirds of the states in the country. Those are decisions that have to be made very quickly and could have a big impact.

You know, Im a former insurance regulator. What companies really want and need is some clarity about what the rules are. Then they can make a business determination about whether or not this makes sense for their portfolio. I would say right now there is no clarity about what is likely to happen, about whether or not they can count on the law being in place for a while, whether its likely to change. Its a whole atmosphere of uncertainty that could accelerate market collapse here.

After the GOP plan failed last week, Trump tweeted that the Democrats will be ready to bargain with him as soon as Obamacare folds, which he predicted would happen in the near future. It sounds like the Republicans could hasten its demise if they want. Do you see any political advantage in doing that?

I frankly dont understand what the goal has been all along. It is one of the issues that was difficult to discern by reading the Republicans bill. Is the goal to reduce the amount of money that the federal government spends on health care, in both Medicaid and the marketplaces? That succeeded on one hand, but on the other hand, you had a lot of people who then lacked coverage, and they were willing to put money back in. Is it to get rid of the taxes on folks, which then provides the capital to pay for the subsidy?

The notion that continues to be put forward by members of Congress and by the president is, This is a disaster. Its exploding. Its imploding. Its going to fall apart. But I dont understand a scenario where this is beneficial to them, because it jeopardizes the individuals who have already purchased coverage, and also the insurance companies, which bear significant financial risk with their portfolios now in jeopardy. The rest of the insurance market in the states is very much at risk if these plans dont work. For that matter, so are hospitals and doctors, who have customers who will suddenly be faced with a lot of unpaid bills. Who gets blamed, who tries to blame whom, is less relevant than 12 million people losing their health care, as far as Im concerned.

A sixth of our economy is involved in health care, so if you begin to have hospitals jeopardized by unpaid bills, if you have doctors who cant get paid, if you have drug companies that have people suddenly drop their medications because they cant any longer afford a prescription, that has a big domino effect on the economies in those various areas. It also affects the insurance companies themselves, and all the patients and their families. There will be a lot of ramifications throughout the economy if this all just collapses.

What reforms do you think Obamacare needs most right now?Theres no question that in some of the markets, in some of the parts of the country, there is not enough competition, not enough insurance-company participation. In many of those parts of the country, that was true before the Affordable Care Act, in the individual market, and it continues to be true. Theres a portion of the House bill that I think they called the State Stabilization Fund, where money would be essentially given to states to do anything from reinsurance pools, to incentives to companies to participate. I think thats a great idea. I think that should be funded and pushed. Insurance is regulated at the state level, and I think thats where states know their markets well. They know the companies who have the capacity to participate, and they can figure out what the issues are in that state that would encourage more companies to be in the market. Thats step one: more competition, more companies.

I think theres a very legitimate issue with the subsidies, and a question about whether or not the income levels that allows people to qualify for tax incentives and financial help paying for their own premiums, are set at the right level. There are lots of people who say, Im just over on the other side, I cant afford this premium. The vast majority of people who actually have marketplace coverage, about 80 percent of them, saw no premium increase even though the rates went up, because their subsidies also rose along with the premiums. The consumers in many of the cases were fine.

The people outside of that subsidy category are the ones who legitimately say, Wait a minute. This doesnt work for me. Its way too expensive. I think that again is an issue that can be addressed by reexamining the subsidy level. Its really a substitute for an employer paying a share of your insurance coverage, which 180 million people have in their workplace. These are folks who are actually paying 100 percent of the cost themselves. Also, the Affordable Care Act has caps on out-of-pocket costs, and they may still be too high. That can be solved and resolved by some additional assistance.

I definitely think Congress should move into the drug-pricing area, and at a minimum, in whatever health-care bill comes next, look at Medicare negotiating authority. Medicare is the largest purchaser of drugs in the United States, and they are banned by law from negotiating for price, which doesnt make a lot of sense.

The whole idea of single-payer health care is to give the government that kind of bargaining power, right?

You bet  and right now they are prohibited. President Obama tried to get that in the Affordable Care Act in 2010. There wasnt enough Democratic support to put it in the bill. I think those days have changed. I think a bill would be widely supported, in a bipartisan fashion, now.

Theres also a question of whether or not the tax penalty as written is an appropriate way to encourage young and healthy people to begin to purchase health insurance, or whether there should be a different level of a plan that they could have  a skinnier package, if you will, of benefits, that may be priced at a lower level. I think new strategies for how to have a broad-based risk pool need to be on the table, and price is arguably one of them.

My understanding is that the 2017 enrollment, which had about 12.2 million people, has a pretty healthy mix. I think about 36 percent of those folks who signed up are under 35. Thats a good number. But how to continue that, how to make sure that you dont just have older and sicker people purchasing coverage, is an ongoing concern. Thats an area that should be examined.

Those are all doable, fixable issues. I like to talk about supporting and sustaining the Affordable Care Act, as opposed to repeal and replace. I think the framework saying, Everybody should have coverage; whats the cheapest, best way to do it? How do we bring costs down for everybody? is a very valuable discussion and one that would lend itself to the bipartisan effort. If the framework starts with, Lets scrap everything we have, let some people have the coverage and then see how we can fill the gap  I think that is a much more difficult approach that is unlikely to get people to the table.

However, it sounds as though youre a little more concerned about whats going to happen over the next six months or year than you are the whole term of the presidency.

Well, if some decisions arent made pretty quickly that stabilize the market and actually encourage more competition for 2018, I think you may see, sooner rather than later, a market collapse. In general, most economists believe that this is not a market currently that is in a so-called death spiral. Its fragile in some parts of the country, but theres good competition and good rates in other parts of the country. There are still 12 million people who have signed up with a good rate mix. None of that says this is a program that will fall apart. But if the administration actually, intentionally wants it to fall apart, then it could happen.
A scourge to this city. Photo: Spencer Platt/Getty Images

Mayor Bill de Blasio vowed Friday to close the jail on Rikers Island within the next ten years and replace it with several different facilities that improve conditions for both inmates and guards.

It will take many years. It will take many tough decisions along the way. But it will happen, he said at a City Hall press conference.

The announcement comes ahead of this weekends release of a report, prepared by a blue-ribbon panel, that will call for the jails closing. The report is expected to recommend smaller jails in each borough, but de Blasio stopped short of supporting that specific plan.

Im working from a neutral position of saying I only know this: We will need a few more facilities, he said. Theres no assumption on the number or location or how many.

The news was greeted with celebration by advocates for criminal-justice reform. (See New Yorks in-depth 2015 feature story about Rikers.) Seymour James, the head of the Legal Aid Society, said the dream of closing Rikers Island will finally become reality. He added that the Rikers Island jail, which opened in 1931, is a long scourge to this city besetting justice, perpetuating recidivism and destroying black and brown communities.
Nunes talks to reporters outside the White House on March 22, 2017. Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images

Last week, Representative Devin Nunes, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, went to the White House to inform President Trump that members of his team had been incidentally surveilled during the last days of the Obama administration. Thats perfectly legal, but Nunes claimed hed seen intelligence reports where the Trump officials names were not properly masked.

After the meeting, reporters asked Nunes why he risked compromising the House investigation into Trumps alleged Russia ties by briefing the president even before the top Democrat on the committee.

This is information that was brought to me that I thought the president needed to know about incidental collection, Nunes said. I thought it was important that the president know this. Thats why I briefed the speaker this morning, and thats why I came down here as soon as I could.

As it turns out, President Trump could have learned this information even sooner, if hed just talked with the White House staffers who discussed it with Nunes a day earlier. On Thursday, the New York Times reported that Ezra Cohen-Watnick, the senior director for intelligence at the National Security Council, and Michael Ellis, an attorney who works on national security at the White House Counsels office, shared the intelligence files with Nunes. Later, the Washington Post said Cohen-Watnick gathered the information while researching whether unmasking rules were being used properly. Sources said he brought the matter to the attention of John Eisenberg, the top lawyer for the NSC, but wasnt involved in sharing it with Nunes.

On Thursday night, Bloombergs Eli Lake said that Nunes told him unspecified elements of those reports were inaccurate. However, he admitted, I did use the White House to help to confirm what I already knew from other sources.

Earlier this week, Nunes told Lake that he secretly visited the White House on the night before his briefing because he and his source needed a secure location to review intelligence files. He said he got the information from an intelligence official, not a White House staffer. It turns out, he misled me, Lake wrote.

Nuness new claim that White House officials were merely backing up information he received from some other source doesnt jibe with his public statements. On Monday, CNNs Wolf Blitzer asked Nunes if he met with any of the presidents aides during his secret trip to the White House. No. And in fact, Im quite sure that people in the West Wing had no idea I was there, the chairman said.

Exchange from Monday:@wolfblitzer: Did you meet with the President or any WH aides that night?

Rep. Nunes: No https://t.co/2LZJGY57Me  The Situation Room (@CNNSitRoom) March 30, 2017

White House press secretary Sean Spicer has denied that Nunes met with White House staffers as well.

I dont know why he would brief the speaker, then come down here to brief us on something that we wouldve briefed him on, Spicer said. It doesnt really seem to make a ton of sense. So, Im not aware of it. But it doesnt really pass the smell test.

Spicers right. That does seem awfully fishy.
The thinker. Photo: Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post/Getty Images

Donald Trump is sick of losing. More than 70 days into his tenure, the president has yet to autograph a major piece of legislation. He lost his pseudoMuslim ban to the courts, Obamacare repeal to the House GOP, and his national security adviser to a scandal that casts a shadow over his entire administration. Now, his party is struggling just to keep the government open through the end of next month, and his approval rating is dipping lower than Obamas ever did.

The White House knows it needs to make a change. And this week, Chief of Staff Reince Priebuss deputy, Katie Walsh, left the White House to help launch Trumps outside group, America First Policies. In an interview with Axios, Trumps top aides framed Walshs departure as a sign of the administrations Sillicon Valleyesque openness to creative destruction.

[D]uring the conversation one of the officials made a revealing comment. He views the Trump White House in terms that could be applied to the iterative process of designing software. Its a beta White House.



The senior official  the comment was on background  said the White House was operating on similar principles to the Trump campaign:



We rode something until it didnt work any more, the official said. We recognized it didnt work, we changed it, we adjusted it and then we kind of got better  [T]his was much more entrepreneurial. In the White House, he said, were going to keep adjusting until we get it right.

Theres no question that the Trump campaign made radical adjustments over the course of 2016. But the candidate himself was anything but adaptable  as the perpetual embarrassment of every pundit who cried pivot amply demonstrated.

The idea that the Trump administration is akin to an agile software start-up is among this White Houses most laughable delusions (which is saying quite a bit). You can shuffle the pawns all you want, but the king is all but immovable, as the very same Axios piece makes clear:

President Trump brought his chaos-and-loyalty theory of management into the White House, relying on competing factions, balanced by trusted family members, with himself perched atop as the gut-instinct decider. He now realizes this approach has flopped, and feels baffled and paralyzed by how to fix it, numerous friends and advisers tell us.

Trump recognizes that his patented management strategy of defaming his enemies, pitting his underlings against one another in a perpetual game of Last Sycophant Standing, and leveraging his celebrity to con the gullible just isnt a recipe for success on Capitol Hill.

But the president is also a 70-year-old billionaire who has been far too rich  for far too long  to know how to adjust his habits to other peoples needs.

Does Trump even like being President? Take a look at the evidence.

Trump has done (virtually) everything in his power to prevent his presidency from disrupting his lifestyle. After promising that his family members would have no role in his administration, he has brought his daughter and son-in-law into the West Wing. After arguing that presidents should spend all their time in the White House, working continuously, Trump has retreated to his Florida resort nearly every weekend, at great taxpayer expense. After a campaign centered on his opponents irresponsible flouting of IT security, it took two months for his staffers to pry his unsecured Android phone from his cold, tiny hands.

Trumps aversion to adaptation in the personal realm carries over into the political one. The presidents resolute refusal to educate himself on policy matters left him reliant on the good judgment of Paul Ryan, a man whose political vision Trump won the White House by decrying. Instead of trying to consolidate his gains among working-class swing voters  and divide the congressional Democrats against themselves  by opening his presidency with a push on infrastructure, he let himself be dragged into a losing battle against an entitlement program he spent his campaign vowing to protect.

By the end of February, it was clear that Trumps incendiary rhetorical style was doing him no favors. His racist jabs at prominent Democrats only energized the liberal base, while his tirades about the failing New York Times only won the paper new subscribers. When Trump turned things down a notch  and made it through an entire address to Congress without disparaging any branch of government or racial group  the media sung his praises. A large swath of the Fourth Estate was eager enough for a truce that it was willing to meet the populist president more than halfway. With just a few paeans to unity and condemnations of hate crimes, liberal pundits were hailing a speech that announced the creation of a new government office whose sole purpose was to encourage Americans to associate immigrants with crime.

But Trump did not delete his account. Within a week, he was baselessly accusing his predecessor of wiretapping his phones, forcing even minimally self-respecting conservative journalists into an adversarial stance.

After the untimely death of Trumpcare, the president has mulled the idea of pivoting to the left  allying with moderate Democrats to avoid further conflict with the Houses recalcitrant Freedom Caucus.

But even as he considered reorganizing his whole legislative calendar around that gambit, he carried on defaming the most popular Democrats in the country. In his first televised remarks after the failure of his health-care bill, Trump suggested that he would eventually work with Democrats on a bipartisan alternative  and suggested that the Affordable Care Act was certain to collapse in 2017, as Barack Obama had purposely designed his signature law to self-destruct at the end of his (then-hypothetical) second term, because he knew he wasnt going to be here.

Less than a week later, he was vowing to fight both the House Freedom Caucus and congressional Democrats  a two-front war that would leave him without any possible House majority for his agenda.

The Freedom Caucus will hurt the entire Republican agenda if they don't get on the team, & fast. We must fight them, & Dems, in 2018!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 30, 2017

All this has left even moderate Democrats in districts Trump won with little incentive to work with the president. As Politico reports:

Trump won by 4 points in the district of Iowa Democratic Rep. Dave Loebsack and by a point in the districts of New Hampshire Democrat Carol Shea-Porter and Illinois Democrat Cheri Bustos. Bustos, though, said the failed drive to repeal Obamacare has energized opposition to Trump in her district.



I have a swing district. You wouldve thought that I had a 95 percent Democratic district if you went to my town hall this weekend, she said. We have Democrats going home to standing ovations.

Giving Reince Priebus a new deputy isnt going to make the White House more entrepreneurial or responsive to shifting circumstances. To do that, youd have to give the Oval Office a new occupant.
With an expensive challenge from Rick Scott very possible in 2018, youd figure Florida senator Bill Nelson would be playing pretty with Republicans. But hes not. Photo: Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg via Getty Images

When it came to managing the U.S. Senate, the supposed ace in the hole for Republicans this year was supposed to be the political tremors experienced by the ten Democratic senators up for reelection in 2018 who were from states carried by Donald Trump last year. Its not really working out that way.

So far the only controversial thing the Senate has been able to pass was the overturning of an Obama administration regulation that kept states from banning use of federal funds by Planned Parenthood. And that happened only because (a) it was under the aegis of the Congressional Review Act that prevents filibusters, (b) one ailing Republican, Johnny Isakson, arrived on the floor with a walker, and (c) Vice-President Mike Pence broke a tie vote. For all their occasional talk of bipartisanship and willingness to work with Donald Trump, Senate Democrats havent broken ranks yet.

It was widely thought the question of confirming Neil Gorsuch for the Supreme Court might break the mold, partially because he did well in his confirmation hearings, and partially because the Democratic leadership has signaled it will pursue an unprecedented SCOTUS filibuster, which in turn is very likely to lead to the invocation of the nuclear option to eliminate future SCOTUS filibusters.

So far just two of the 11 red-state Senate Democrats have indicated that they will vote to confirm Gorsuch, and they do happen to be from two states Trump carried by massive landslides, Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota. Five Democrats from states carried by Trump, however, have publicly announced they will join the filibuster: Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin, Robert Casey of Pennsylvania, Bill Nelson of Florida, and Gary Peters and Debbie Stabenow of Michigan. All but Peters are up for reelection in 2018. Nelson was the real revelation: Hes a longtime centrist who had voted for cloture when fellow Democrats sought to filibuster Samuel Alitos confirmation in 2006, and who faces a potentially crazy-expensive reelection challenge from Governor Rick Scott next year. Call it a matter of fearing the base more than the opposition, or call it revenge for the GOPs treatment of Merrick Garland, or call it a recognition that the GOP wont cut Democrats any slack for playing pretty: Any way you slice it, theres a new calculation Democrats seem to be making on votes like this. It may well be theyre thinking the wind may blow in a very favorable direction in this particular midterm.

Its unclear, however, what is going to happen in the end, since according to the Washington Posts whip count, 12 Democrats  including four (Sherrod Brown of Ohio, Joe Donnelly of Indiana, Claire McCaskill of Missouri, and Jon Tester of Montana) from states carried by Trump  are publicly undecided. Gorsuch needs six more votes to break the filibuster. Its hard to imagine Brown voting to help Gorsuch get confirmed, and there is at least one blue-state senator (Pat Leahy) who has made noises about not favoring SCOTUS filibusters. So it will be close, but either way, there are few indications the GOP can regularly count on any Democratic senators, no matter where they are from and how tough a row they have to hoe in 2018. And thats definitely a problem for a Republican Party that is having its own discipline issues of late.
Before the fall. Photo: Thos Robinson/Getty Images

More than 6,000 people who accused President Trump of ripping them off with his phony university will get back some of the money he swindled from them after a federal judge approved Friday the $25 million settlement between the president and former students of Trump University.

U.S. District Judge Gonzalo Curiel, the Indiana-born judge who Trump accused of bias because hes Latino, approved the deal more than four months after it was struck, bringing an end to three separate lawsuits against Trump University.

The settlement nearly fell through after a Florida woman argued that she should be exempt from it and allowed to sue Trump on her own. Sherri Simpson wants an apology and to see Trump face criminal racketeering charges.

I would like an admission that he was wrong, an admission that, Oops, maybe I didnt handle it as well as I should have, I didnt set it up as well as I should have, that I didnt maintain it or oversee it as well as I should have, Simpson told the Orlando Sentinel this week.

Ultimately Curiel decided to approve the settlement after lawyers for class-action plaintiffs argued that they would recoup nearly 90 percent of the money wasted on the bogus classes at Trump University.

The court finds that the amount offered in settlement is fair, adequate, and reasonable, and accordingly concludes that this factor weighs in favor of final approval, Judge Curiel wrote.

The case was set to go to trial late last year, which would have forced Trump to testify during his transition and allowed thousands of former students to air their complaints about aggressive sales and useless classes. Instead, the guy who said he never settles cases, settled the case.
Tillerson. Photo: Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images

U.S. sanctions on Russia will remain in place until the nation calls off its annexation of Crimea, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said Friday. Its a noteworthy statement given the lack of clarity from President Trump on the issue.

We do not, and will not, accept Russian efforts to change the borders of territory of Ukraine, he said at a NATO meeting in Brussels. The United States sanctions will remain until Moscow reverses the actions that triggered our sanctions.

During the campaign, Trump suggested that he would be looking into recognizing Russias 2014 annexation of Crimea. His stance on the future of sanctions has become murkier since. First, there was former national security adviser Michael Flynn discussing sanctions with the Russian ambassador and then lying to Vice-President Mike Pence about it. And then there was the report alleging that Trumps personal lawyer, Michael D. Cohen, lobbied for a plan to remove sanctions on behalf of a pro-Putin Ukrainian lawmaker.

On the other hand, Trump also tweeted last month that Crimea was TAKEN by Russia. As with so many issues, its difficult to tell exactly where Trump stands on this one.

Tillersons hard-line stance is not the first time a top U.S. diplomat has insisted that Russia reverse course in Ukraine before sanctions are lifted. U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley said last month that Crimea-related sanctions will remain in place until Russia returns control over the peninsula to Ukraine.

Russias response to Tillersons message appears to be the equivalent of a shoulder shrug. Speaking to CNN, a foreign-ministry spokeswoman left open the possibility that Trumps actions will be more favorable to Russia than the words of his diplomats. We want to see the U.S. foreign policy, not just quotes, the spokeswoman said, suggesting that Moscow is learning a lesson Americans are also catching on to: Ignore what Trump says and focus on what he does.
Dont lock me up. Photo: The Washington Post/The Washington Post/Getty Images

On Thursday night, The Wall Street Journal reported that former national security adviser Michael Flynn is seeking an immunity deal from the FBI and the Senate and House intelligence committees in exchange for his testimony on the Trump campaigns alleged ties to Russia.

This sparked predicable reactions from both sides of the political spectrum. Many on the left took the bombshell report as an indication that Flynn intends to incriminate top White House officials. Even some Democratic lawmakers suggested the Trump administrations days were numbered:

Trump's campaign is under an FBI counterintelligence investigation. His former NS advisor is asking for immunity. Your move, Republicans.   Maxine Waters (@RepMaxineWaters) March 31, 2017

Is this the beginning of the end for Team Trump? https://t.co/1sWSkHU7rs  Hakeem Jeffries (@RepJeffries) March 31, 2017

Meanwhile, right-wing social media immediately branded the story fake news. Weirdly, Flynns son retweeted several claims that the story was untrue, even as his fathers lawyer released a statement that seems to confirm the Journals report. Attorney Robert Kelner didnt use the word immunity, but he said Flynn has had discussions with the intelligence committees, and noted no one would submit to questioning in such a highly politicized, witch hunt environment without assurances against unfair prosecution.

A statement by counsel to General Flynn. pic.twitter.com/JQs90OI2OY  Robert Kelner (@robkelner) March 30, 2017

If Kelner was trying to shut down the wild speculation about his client, he wouldnt have teased, General Flynn certainly has a story to tell, and he very much wants to tell it, should the circumstances permit. But the move might actually suggest that Flynns story is less explosive than Trumps opponents hope.

Its not unusual for potential congressional witnesses to seek immunity, but the blog Just Security notes this isnt the way to do it. Usually, a witness would privately outline the evidence they could offer, then Justice Department prosecutors would discuss a deal. Alex Whiting writes:

The fact that Flynn and his lawyer have made his offer publicly suggests that he has nothing good to give the prosecutors (either because he cannot incriminate others or is unwilling to do so). If he had something good, Flynn and his lawyer would approach the prosecutors quietly, go through the proffer process in confidence, and reach a deal. Why? Because prosecutors have an interest in keeping their investigation secret, and Flynns lawyer knows that. The last thing Flynns lawyer would do if he thought he had the goods would be to go public, because that would potentially compromise the criminal inquiry and would certainly irritate the prosecutors, the very people Flynns lawyer would be trying to win over.

Whiting speculates that Flynns attorney might have been hoping that one of the Congressional committees will take the bait and grant him immunity in exchange for his testimony. As the New York Times explains, Congress can grant witnesses immunity, but it would be unusual for lawmakers to make a move that could compromise the Justice Departments investigation:

Under federal law, Congress can grant witnesses immunity for their testimony, but lawmakers normally do so only after consulting with prosecutors.



Congress normally avoids doing anything that could disrupt a federal investigation. Federal law allows the Justice Department to delay a congressional immunity deal but not block it outright.

Officials told the Journal that at this point FBI and congressional investigators have no interest in pursuing an immunity deal with Flynn. But in light of the mess surrounding House Intelligence Committee Chair Devin Nuness attempt to validate President Trumps wiretapping claims, it isnt ridiculous to think that a member of Congress might be willing to break protocol in an effort to secure Flynns testimony.

Flynn has reason to pursue an immunity deal even if the press already revealed everything there is to know about his contact with foreign agents. The most serious allegations against Flynn so far are that he made false statements to the FBI about his discussions with Russias ambassador to the U.S. and failed to register his lobbying on behalf of Turkey with the Justice Department. According to media reports, the FBI is not expected to pursue charges against Flynn for his misleading statements, and the Justice Department usually works with lobbyists to file the correct paperwork rather than charging them.

But a Flynn associate tells Politico that the retired general has not received official assurances that hes in the clear. I know of no official at the FBI telling him, Hey, were not prosecuting you. Only in the press, the associate said.

On the other hand, maybe Flynns attempt to secure an immunity deal is a sign that hes guilty of far more serious crimes. As a former high-ranking government official once said, When you are given immunity, that means that you have probably committed a crime.


Photo: Ian McKinnell/Getty Images

Last December, the FCC adopted new rules intended to prohibit internet-service providers from selling sensitive user data  such as ones internet-browsing history  to third parties, mostly advertisers. Those regulations lasted all of four months: This week, Congress used its authority under the Congressional Review Act to roll them back  the first move in whats likely to be an actively deregulatory period for the FCC.

This doesnt mean that you can just call up Comcast and request the internet-usage records for John Doe (or, as some have tried, members of Congress). The Communications Act of 1934  specifically Section 222 of Title II  still has some regulatory power over the privacy of telecom customer information. What ISPs want to do with your data is more along the lines of what Facebook and Google do  anonymize it, bundle it with reams of other data, and sell it to advertisers looking to target certain populations and demographics. The reason this seems more insidious is that, unlike Google and Facebook, your ISP can see what you do across the entirety of the internet. If Facebook is some dude with binoculars at the top of One World Trade Center, your ISP is a satellite in space.

Still, the rollback should give anyone who uses the internet (so: everyone) pause. Its a rarely seen, brazen admittance by the telecom industry that it would like to make money not just by providing internet service to customers, but by selling their usage records in some form as well.

In the past, the mass mobilization of internet users has managed to stop pro-corporate, anti-user deregulation in its tracks. But that mass mobilization has always been spurred and organized by the large corporations that would be most affected by deregulation. When net neutrality  the principle that ISPs are required to treat all traffic equally  was placed on the chopping block a few years ago, the biggest Silicon Valley companies flexed their muscles. Facebook, Google, and dozens of other smaller (but still rich) companies that benefit from an open, global network rallied 3.7 million users to leave comment with the FCC in support of net neutrality  and spent millions of dollars lobbying Congress and making campaign contributions. Similarly, those same companies used their might when SOPA and PIPA, ill-conceived anti-piracy bills that threatened the internets content ecosystem, came before Congress in early 2012.

The difference with this weeks deregulation is that Google and Facebook are not going to help users fight for stronger privacy protection. Both companies profit off of your data in the same ways that your ISP wants to. In fact, heres an excerpt from a letter Google sent to the FCC last October, defending ISPs and complaining about the new privacy rules: [A]lthough Google and other companies take strong measures to avoid using sensitive data for purposes like targeting ads, consumers benefit from responsible online advertising, individualized content, and product improvements based on browsing information.

They conclude: The FCC should not attempt to draw a categorical distinction between web browsing information and other information  particularly where such a novel and untested approach would unnecessarily increase regulatory burdens on the Internet. Google doesnt want regulation that affects its ad business either.

One of the most interesting (and encouraging) revelations of this weeks privacy outcry is how much it cuts across party lines. Trump supporters who spend much of their day online are as invested in a secure, open internet with robust privacy protections as liberal Democrats.

The Donald Subreddit are losing their minds over Congress stripping away FCC privacy regulations pic.twitter.com/xLZrsvH5r6  Kevin Boueri (@ChevreBoueri) March 28, 2017

reddit's reaction to the ISP bill is producing some truly outstanding comments pic.twitter.com/stO8AtIjbR  Neil (@guyneiljames) March 29, 2017

This past January, as the ISP-sympathetic, anti-regulatory FCC chairman Ajit Pai took office, I covered how online reaction from Trump-fanatic hives like /r/the_donald was mostly muted. Supporters appeared caught between unquestioning Trump fandom and an appointee who has explicitly promised to dismantle long-standing internet principles such as net neutrality.

Following this weeks approval of the rule rollback in the House, sending it to the presidents desk to be signed into law, forum lurkers had a good little laugh at how his most ardent online followers, often posting under the cloak of pseudonymity, were worried about the government rolling over for corporations when it came to internet privacy.

Even the most ardent free-marketeers are troubled by these privacy rollbacks because many internet customers have little choice in service providers. ISPs need to get permission from local governments to dig up city streets and lay cable, building out their network infrastructure, and many incumbents enjoy protection from local governments that do not allow competing ISPs to lay a similar foundation, resulting in less competition and stronger regional monopolies. For the most part, the biggest providers have an informal, unspoken agreement not to invade each others turf, resulting in de facto monopolies with none of the de jure protections that would come with public infrastructure ownership.

This means that most broadband providers have a captive customer base with no other viable options. If a customers ISP wants to monetize their browsing history, that customer often has nowhere else to go, and the potential for a privacy-conscious ISP to conquer the market by providing an alternative is nil. In other words, hoping that free-market competition will fix this situation is foolish.

Leading up to the congressional votes, the telecom industry argued that already-standing policy directives  such as the Federal Trade Commissions consumer privacy framework, and the Obama administrations 2012 Online Privacy Bill of Rights  were sufficient user protections.

But the ISPs werent wrong about everything. The telecom industrys main complaint about the now-dead FCC rules was that the regulation did not also cover edge providers  the boring industry term for services running on the internet like Google and Facebook. This meant that while ISPs like Time Warner and Comcast had to obey the new rules, sites that arguably collect as much (if not more) data, like Facebook and Google, did not. The telecom industry thought this was unfair. Their point was that all companies should be governed by similar privacy regulations. Theyre right, just in the wrong way.

So lets recap: Internet-service providers that can see all of your web activity will not support stronger privacy controls. Edge providers that harvest and monetize your data will not support stronger privacy controls. The free market will not conjure a pro-consumer alternative to these models, and Congress has shown neither the expertise nor the investment to do so.

Which means theres one option left, if we want to ensure an internet free of the nightmare of surveillance: A true grassroots movement in support of online privacy. Its time to start considering the internet ecosystem we know as something in need of legal protection from government malfeasance and corporate greed. This is the rare issue that people on the left and right can agree on  yet, it gets little public support from those up top. Its important that we figure out what to fight for, instead of drumming up support when bad legislation makes its way to the presidents desk.

The first step is to determine what, precisely, we users of the internet want. In 2004, then-FCC chairman Michael Powell outlined his four internet freedoms. These are the freedom to access any legal content they want, the freedom to run any application they want, the freedom to access the network using any device that they want, and the freedom to obtain information about their service plans. These are a good start, but are insufficient in a culture now inundated with social media. These points are the bare minimum that we work with now.

In a 2015 talk at the Fremtidens Internet conference in Denmark, developer Maciej Ceglowski outlined six privacy rights that web surfers deserve in the age of tracking cookies and programmatic-ad buys.

The right to download: you should be able to obtain the information that has been collected about you. You should be able to know how companies harvesting your data are tracking you. A few years ago, Facebook users became worried after they came to believe that the service was collecting status messages that users typed out, even if they didnt actually publish them.

The right to delete: you should be able to delete said information from those services. This means a hard delete that actually wipes it from storage, rather than a soft delete that just makes the data inaccessible. (A fun economic fact is that one of the reasons that companies collect and retain so much data is that its actually cheaper to buy new physical storage than to truly erase data.)

Limits on behavioral data: the number of signals that companies collect on any given web page is shockingly high. They can measure everything from how long you watch a video to where your mouse hovers to which of your friends profiles youre most interested in, and then behave accordingly. That behavioral data currently lasts forever. Ceglowski rightfully believes it should expire, and be wiped from the server after 90 days.

The right to go offline: Internet of Things devices like smart TVs shouldnt need to have internet access in order to perform basic functions. They need to have hardwired switches that completely turn off their wireless capabilities.

Less invasive ad-tracking: Ad-tracking, Ceglowski argues, should only be based on the content the ad is placed against, and what the site you are visiting knows about you. This ban would eliminate much of the advertising ecosystem, which is one of the best things about it, he said.

Lastly, there should be legitimate consequences for violating these principles, ones that should make companies fearful of violating them, rather than blithely spending their way through insufficient fines.

There are a number of ways these rights and responsibilities could be implemented. Here at Select All in January, cybersecurity expert Bruce Schneier proposed a federal Department of Technology Policy that would, among other things, ensure security, enforce regulations, and protect consumers. He wrote :

We need government to ensure companies follow good security practices: testing, patching, secure defaults  and we need to be able to hold companies liable when they fail to do these things. We need government to mandate strong personal data protections, and limitations on data collection and use. We need to ensure that responsible security research is legal and well-funded. We need to enforce transparency in design, some sort of code escrow in case a company goes out of business, and interoperability between devices of different manufacturers, to counterbalance the monopolistic effects of interconnected technologies. Individuals need the right to take their data with them. And internet-enabled devices should retain some minimal functionality if disconnected from the internet.

Codifying privacy rights is important, but there are other actions that we can take as well. On a state-government level, 20 states have laws, written at the behest of large telecom providers, that prevent municipalities from offering their own broadband option, snuffing out competition before it can even exist. Those laws should be repealed (the FCC tried to challenge a few of them and failed because it has no authority to overturn state law).

These are solid, justifiable, actionable things that anyone concerned with privacy, on the left or the right, should be asking for. Companies and Congress will say that more regulation will be too heavy a regulatory burden, yet they already contend with much stricter privacy laws in the European Union. They will also claim that they need all of this data in order to customize your experience  they are lying. The deck is stacked against consumers. Its time to ask for clear, actionable privacy laws, and break up broadband monopolies.

It is, admittedly, easy to let this issue slide as a minor one compared to the many others facing Americans today. But the internet is now essential to many of your day-to-day functions  not just how you talk with friends, but where you shop, manage your finances, search for a job, and find out whats happening in the world. It can seem weird, in a moment when toxicity online feels like its at an all-time high, to think of the internet as something worth fighting for, but it is. Its time to protect it.
Public Advocate Letitia James. Photo: Noam Galai/WireImage/Getty

On Wednesday, New York City Public Advocate Letitia James bill that bans employers citywide from asking prospective employees about their salary histories passed City Council.

Jamess bill makes it illegal for businesses in both the public and private sectors from asking for salary histories from job applicants. Being underpaid once should not condemn you to a lifetime of inequity, James said at a round table discussion last week in New York about the wage gap. This bill is not a panacea, by no means, she said, but she acknowledged how important it was as a starting point.

James has positioned herself as a fierce champion of womens causes in the city (at a Planned Parenthood rally in January, she warmed up the snow-covered crowd with her rallying cry to never back down). She first introduced the salary-history legislation in August in an effort to help women start their careers on a level playing field with men. Three months later, Mayor Bill de Blasio signed an executive order enforcing that ban on municipal employees. At the time he said he believed that we could move very quickly in achieving the same measures in the private sector. Today, that became a reality.

Salary-history bans exist in Philadelphia and the entire state of Massachusetts, and legislation is being considered in California as well.
Pam Anderson delivered a vegan lunch to Julian Assange. Photo: Ben A. Pruchnie/Getty Images

Though rumors of a relationship between Pamela Anderson and Julian Assange were launched by a vegan-lunch delivery and sustained by Andersons repeated visits to the Ecuadorian embassy in London, theyve been far from unconfirmed. But on Friday the actress published yet another cryptic blog post calling the WikiLeaks founder one of my favorite people and gushing about his empathy and bravery.

My relationship with Julian  its no secret, she wrote. He is one of my favorite people, and he might be the most famous, most politicized refugee

of our time. She goes on for several more would-be stanzas:

Julian is a human being who is extremely empathetic and cares deeply about the world.

And -

because of his work .

He has made some powerful enemies in a few countries- America especially

by exposing them.



Julian is trying to

Free the world by educating it.

It is a romantic struggle

I love him for this-

He is the strongest person

I know-

but,

living as he is,

is very unhealthy,

demeaning

and inhumane.

She expresses hope that Sweden, a politically progressive country, will dismiss the arrest warrant for Assange, whos wanted for questioning regarding 2010 rape allegations. Coincidentally, the rest of her post is a meditation on todays dating culture, which she says is hyper critical and can be risky for men. We naturally worry about our daughters, she writes. But we MUST also worry about our sons.

If you, reader, are confused by this, dont worry  shell clarify her thoughts in her upcoming book, The Sensual Revolution, which Anderson says shes writing full-time. As for dating Assange? Lets see what happens when hes free, she said.
Anna and Kathleen (Rainbow), 2016. Photo: Petra Collins

After picking up a camera at age 15, Petra Collins established her career photographing for Rookie and designing graphic T-shirts for American Apparel. Though the 24-year-old artist is best known for her portraits of teenage girlhood and fashion spreads (see her Kim Kardashian shoot, or a recent eyewear campaign for Gucci), her latest exhibition turns the lens away from models and celebrities to her own family.

This is probably one of the most personal shows Ive ever done, Collins told the Cut. Titled Pacifier, the show opens April 29 at the Scotiabank CONTACT Photography Festival in Toronto, Collinss hometown. Its this mix of my family from all over the world and how its connected and disconnected, and then using that to sort of tell my life story, she explained. Collins photographed her sister and father in Toronto and traveled to Hungary, where her mother lived during the countrys communist regime before fleeing to Canada as a refugee, and shot her mother and sister there along with her cousins. The photographs are more intimate than her previous projects, often shot up close.

Collins said she believes using art to tell a personal story is now more important than ever. When you see stories about women that arent being told by women, it can make you feel like you dont exist, she said. I think its important for not just me but women of color, trans women, and people who are marginalized to be telling stories of themselves. Its important for us to be behind the lens.

Click ahead to preview photographs from Pacifier, which will run through June 24.

Photo: Petra Collins

Anna Tear, 2015.

Photo: Petra Collins

Bundle, 2016.

Photo: Petra Collins

Daddy and Me, 2016.

Photo: Petra Collins

Trustfall, 2016.

Photo: Petra Collins

Anna and Kathleen (Rainbow), 2016.
I'm so depressed.

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Literally my first and only thought.

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omg was just checking ONTD hoping for a celebs react post

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;)



fabulous icon bb!

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shit is about to go DOWNNN. flynn better spill his guts.



pence's 'i dont eat dinner with women w/o my wife there' is so creepy and suspect. reason #49348398312354231232 he has no respect for women at all.

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Can you imagine his ~~rules for her? Yikes!

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and then there's this douche:

I don't even text/email a female +/- 10 years of my age without copying either her spouse or my spouse, regardless of subject.  Joel Barker (@joelabarker) March 30, 2017

it's also unfair professionally speaking bc it means he won't have any women in key positions close to him. a male subordinate has an advantage bc they're not banned from business lunches or dinners with pence.and then there's this douche:

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WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH MEN

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these stupid useless men. k*ll them all.

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I've read so many tweets about this subject, some of what I thought were the funniest joke ones turned out to be serious ones.

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ofc he would say "a female"

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From that icon, he really doesn't have to.

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I get a gay vibe from Pence, like I legit think he hates/is afraid of women.

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Today's news has strongly reminded me of the way that men at my old church acted. I remember a guy just a few years older than me who wouldn't even accept my Facebook friend request. We'd known each other for almost 20 years and I was just adding everyone I knew from church, but he considered it inappropriate to even be Facebook friends with women who weren't his wife or his relatives.



At the time it was seen as "respectful," but now I just find it gross and pathetic. It's essentially a proclamation that you can't be around any woman without wanting to fuck her.

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it's funny because I'm sure the people who say shit like this think they sound virtuous and thoughtful, but it just makes it sound like they're aware they're creeps who wouldn't be able to control themselves were they alone with someone else. like, normal people can platonically spend time with others without cheating, you fucking weirdo.

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doesn't he call his wife "mother"?

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Please, God, let the Mike Flynn thing turn out to be as good as it sounds. I desperately need to hear some good political news.

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Mr DNA don't get your hopes up. I fear this administration is going to be the cockroach of politics.

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LMAO. This is so sad, yet so accurate.

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I dare to dream. And to see what kind of deals costco has on Raid.

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I don't know if this is just me over reacting due to hormones, but this is absolutely heart-breaking. I fear for the future of my nieces and nephews and stupid country 

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the whole Nunes saga is just bonkers, how dumb are these people (don't answer that)

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Having read that he did this over information that didn't have anything to do with any of them leaves me to believe they are certifiable idiots lol

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This fucker will definitely be granted immunity but he doesn't deserve it. But what if they rescind the immunity after he talks? I will ascend.

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Omg same. The ultimate scam

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Edited at 2017-03-31 01:29 am (UTC)

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Joanne on da case

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But what if they rescind the immunity after he talks?



Can they do that? I really want them to!

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Private school choice?

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basically what DeVos wants

taking tax payer money and giving funding to private schools as an option for students to go to

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I just want to leave this here for when your head is about to explode in rage.





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now i'm crying for two reasons

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o m gggggggggggg

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so cute!!!

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Free ur mammal brethren doggy

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bless you

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lol awwwww, this puppy's all "I'll free you from the hell of being tied up outside!" and the horse is like "k w/e."

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I love how the horse just goes with him lmao.

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can we have whole conversations about how much I love this insta though?

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if he wants immunity, he has some shit to spill.



idk if its the smoking gun but the FlopOP has to be SHOOK.

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Republicans can DIAF

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Oh honey there are so many other, much worse ways than just death in a fire...

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True.



Republicans can get swallowed whole by a python.

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destruction by ice would be great

and should suffice

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my pic is always by volcano, no clean up necessary!

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Let's have them drawn and quartered! They're so fond of torture, after all.

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Maybe they'll all drown at Mar-a-lago once the sea level rises enough to take it out!

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It's so hilarious when these d-bags are guilty of crap they said about other people (also annoying cause they get away with it).

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Suddenly the koons is lock him up.



lmaooasodjad

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damn. he better have some legit juice to spill for immunity with all the shit he spewed about hillary.

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Ha. Flynn can die.

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AAAA++++ DEAD at the last vid

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Lol right?

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They are masters of projection. Everything they say the other side did, they've done.



Someone dig deeper into Pizzagate

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Koons jokes will never get old. EVA.

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'Suddenly the kooks is lock him up' - I CRIED omgggg

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i didnt really think much of his not eating alone with women thing because i know a lot of religious sects have similar bizarre traditions.i do see how it can hurt women that work with him, but im not sure how many women he employs to begin with. also it was distracting from bigger things like this PP thing. also isnt defunding PP just taking away medicaid reimbursements!?

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He's a politician though, there are all kinds of situations where he might have to have dinner with a woman. His religion shouldn't interfere with his job.

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i agree, i guess. i feel this way about so many islamic cultural practices too even though im muslim too.

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Yeah, believing that men and women can't interact as friends or acquaintances alone together without having sex with each other is a surprisingly common opinion especially among religious people. It mostly matters because it's indicative of his overall opinion of women.

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It's kind of like the "ThanksForTyping" hashtag that was going on the other day: it invalidates every act a woman can do to move to her career for the sake of his. The article I read earlier pointed out he has two higher key members of staff. If women aren't allowed at his dinner table, say while in Washington, then they're left out important information. Information that could then be used to actually fire them for not performing the job to the best of their ability. Sure, it might be illegal. But this administration and GOP-run hellhole has proven that laws are far below alternative facts. It's not a single-issue problem. It's a wider symptom of his disregard for separating church and state. He's going to do what West Virginians in that Guardian piece wanted: crumble the separation of church and state. And evangelical religions hate women.

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conservatives hate women so much, i want nothing but the worst to happen to them

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Everyone in my class today was talking about the repeal of Internet privacy protections, but that wasn't even the half of it, so much horrible shit happened this week. And oh my god, when will people understand that planned parenthood is essential?



Edited at 2017-03-31 12:39 am (UTC)

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the nazis have been so upset that Dear Leader sold all our privacy

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What have they said?

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Educate ha

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Shaqueen

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Or queenkira

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What a Queen!

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Maybe OT but I love that she got on instagram early enough to secure her name as her handle.

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I think celebrites can ask Instagram to get their name back if someone uses it. it's odd but no one took the username "Rihanna"... i dont think they're allowed to?!

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Who is this woman? I see her popping up on a lot of features lately (Carlos Vives, Maluma, Prince Royce). Is this the singer that had a song with Fat Joe back in the day?

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No, she's the up-and-coming Colombian singer who's ready to take over Pitbull's place as the token Latino feature. Stay tuned because tomorrow you'll be able to see her in the video for "Comme Moi," the new single of French rapper Black M!

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lol and we STILL have 2 more features left, the Puerto Rican regetonero (whose name escapes me rn) and David Gueta lmao

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Yep lol, nicky jam is the regetonero I was forgetting (there was a post on here about it) and with the king of dated edm David Gueta!

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Oh wow! She seems to be getting a lot of work! Are they doing the Nicki Minaj thing where they feature her on a lot of songs before she debuts? Is she signed? Does she have an ALBUM coming out or a SOLO song?

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She's signed lol but ha record company is pulling a Michael Jackson on ha -not promoting ha- even tho she's the biggest thing (in Latin America at least lol)



And she does have an album coming out but at this point she will get pregnant and the album will be scrapped and then another uninspired and boring album like ha self titled will be released 



Edited at 2017-03-31 02:46 pm (UTC)

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are you for real?

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She is truly a wonderful person :D

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That's what you use your money for yes good well done

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Oman has struck a deal with several banks for a $4 billion loan to be repaid in future oil deliveries. Abu Dhabi signed a contract with commodity trading giant Vitol to supply it with over half a million tons of liquefied petroleum gas annually over the next decade in exchange for an upfront payment. According to the Wall Street Journal, other Middle Eastern producers are also considering oil-for-loan schemes, desperate for cash as oil prices stubbornly refuse to go up to the levels they need.

Will these producers fall into the trap that has already claimed Venezuela?

The South American country that is home to the largest oil reserves in the world owes China and Russia around $50 billion. The loans were provided in exchange for crude oil deliveries that Venezuela is now struggling to make.

The problem with loan-for-oil schemes is that it can cost the supplier market share in other countries. For Venezuela, this was India. After years of consistently building its presence in the Indian market  one of the top three in terms of oil consumption  PDVSA was forced to start reducing shipments to Indian refineries in order to meet its oil obligations to China and Russia.

Kazakhstan is another country that has turned to loan-for-oil schemes in difficult times. State-owned Kazmunaigaz closed a $3-billion deal with Vitol in 2015 to repay debts. In exchange for the advance payment, the company undertook to transfer to the trader supplies from its 20-percent stake in the Tengiz oil field. The field yields about a third of Kazakshtans oil output. Related: Russia Reaches 2/3 Of Oil Output Cut Target

Now Oman and Abu Dhabi are stripped of alternatives: it appears that they need cash and they need it fast, having resorted to this far from mutually beneficial option. Other producers in the region may also have to consider such deals as oil prices show no signs of improving  not nearly enough for the Middle Eastern economies with their expansive public service sectors, which are eating up a large part of oil revenues, and with their lavish spending programs.

While its a fact that local governments have implemented some cost-cutting measures, it is also a fact that reversing a decades-old spending habit is difficult, and the effects will not be felt overnight unless the governments want riots on their hands.

Loan-for-oil deals were made popular by Rosneft  the company has enough cash because it has access to the state coffers. Rosneft spent over $40 billion in such deals over the last three years to ensure crude oil supply at competitive rates and to spread risk among more producers.

Rosnefts two latest such deals illustrate clearly why loan-for-oil deals are a last resort: one was a $3-billion prepayment contract with the autonomous region of Kurdistan  another oil producer that is suffering a major cash shortage. The other was a preliminary deal with Libyas NOC, which is having serious headaches with various armed groups, preventing it from expanding production at the rate it would have liked. Related: Mysterious Outage In Libya Could Drive Oil Prices Higher

The problem for the oil suppliers is that sometimes there is just no alternative: its either loss of market share and future oil revenues, or no cash for investing in further oil production to ensure future oil revenues. Oil producers in such a situation are truly between a rock and a hard place.

By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com

More Top Reads From Oilprice.com:
Oil prices rose this week as markets are more optimistic about an extension of the OPEC output deal and falling gasoline inventories

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Friday, March 31, 2017

Oil prices rebounded at the end of the week on news that a growing number of OPEC countries are supporting an extension of their cuts for another six months. Kuwait is lending its weight to the cause and so are a half dozen other members. Of course, the official decision wont come until May, but the markets are growing confident in an extension. Meanwhile, the EIA reported a solid drawdown in gasoline inventories even as crude stocks saw a slight uptick. The data is being interpreted as a sign of solid demand. Oil prices jumped to three-week highs on the news.

ConocoPhillips to sell $13.3 billion in oil sands. ConocoPhillips (NYSE: COP) announced a deal to sell most of its oil sands assets to Cenovus Energy (NYSE: CVE), a deal worth as much as $13.3 billion. The sale reflects a remarkable difference in opinion between the two companies. Conoco wants to offload highly costly oil sands that are much less competitive in a world of cheap oil. Cenovus is so optimistic about the assets that it was willing to take on a massive amount of debt to secure the deal. The stock markets appeared unanimous in their belief that Conoco got the better of this deal  Conocos stock jumped on the news while Cenovus sank more than 13 percent on Thursday.

Fracking techniques continue to improve. The WSJ reports that shale drillers such as EOG Resources (NYSE: EOG) continue to tweak their drilling techniques, finding ways to become more efficient. EOG is using software that gathers data while drilling a well, which can be used to make directional drilling much more precise. The upshot is that shale drillers could end up producing more oil at lower prices, and could do so for years to come. That would undermine the influence of OPEC over the long-term and make global supplies more flexible to marginal changes in prices and demand.

Oil traders warn of oversupply. Even as some argue that shale could be a long-term phenomenon, some of the worlds largest oil traders are cautioning against too much reliance on short-cycle projects in Texas. At the FTs Commodities Global Summit, two executives from Mercuria Energy Group and Trafigura Group said that the market could see a supply crunch towards the end of the decade because of a shortage of investment today. That echoes a warning from the IEA in early March. The low-hanging fruit on the short-cycle projects are being used now so I am more in this camp that says we are starting to see potential issues three or four years down the track, co-head of group market risk and former head of crude trading at Trafigura Group Ltd., told the audience. Related: Mysterious Outage In Libya Could Drive Oil Prices Higher

IEA: price rally not significant even with OPEC extension. The head of the IEA cautioned investors against expectations of a substantial price rally even if OPEC extends its cuts for another six months. Huge inventories will weigh on the market and new non-OPEC supply would come online if prices moved too high.

PetroChina to increase spending. One of Chinas oil giants will increase spending for the first time in five years. PetroChina said it would increase spending by 11 percent this year in a bid to boost production. Chinas state-owned oil companies have been hit hard by the oil price downturn, with a few of them posting record low levels of profit. Chinas oil production has declined as a result of the downturn in spending, with output down more than 5 percent last year.

Russia to comply with OPEC agreement. Russia along with a handful of other non-OPEC countries, pledged to cut their output by nearly 600,000 bpd between January and June, with Russia accounting for about 300,000 bpd of cuts. Russia reiterated its intentions to meet those promises. "The decrease in production in January and February were ahead of tempo with regards our initial plans. Currently, in March we have already reached a reduction level of 200,000 barrels a day. We anticipate complying with the figure set forth in the agreement by the end of April," Russian energy minister Alexander Novak told CNBC. Meanwhile, the minister said that Russias long-term production profile will increasing come from the Arctic  Russia gets 17 percent of its output from the Arctic, but that figure will rise to 26 percent in 20 years.

Permian pipeline constraints. Output in the Permian Basin is rising so quickly that the region could bump against a shortage of pipeline capacity. As a result, the discount between Midland oil, a benchmark for oil from West Texas, and WTI, has widened. Permian production is expected to rise to 2.65 million barrels per day (mb/d) by the end of the year, but pipeline capacity might only reach 2.54 mb/d. Related: What Gold Can Tell You About Oil Prices

2016 record year for renewables. The world saw the installation of 161 GW of renewable energy last year, according to new figures from the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA). Solar alone accounted for 71 GW of that total.

Venezuela political crisis deepens. The Venezuelan Supreme Court, effectively an arm of the Maduro government, moved to defang the National Assembly. Provoking both a national and international outcry, the move is being criticized as a decisive step towards a full-on dictatorship. The political and economic crisis has steadily worsened in the past two years, but things could come to a head this year.

By Tom Kool of Oilprice.com

More Top Reads From Oilprice.com:
The City Club of Salem hosted Soraya Deen last Wednesday to talk about what its like being a Muslim in America. You can hear the story of her faith in Islam and her optimistic faith in America at the City Club of Portland today at 12:15.

As you might imagine, she has faced some prejudice, and yet it was clear from her talk that she loves this country as much as the rest of us. Shes lived in the United States for a while now and is still amazed by the strength of our civil society.

The attacks on September 11, 2001 were a pivotal moment for all Americans and she describes how, in addition to the empathy for the victims that day and the fear of becoming another one herself from additional attacks, Deen had an additional challenge when she had to answer her sons sobbing question when she picked him up from school. With tears in his eyes, he asked: mommy are we terrorists?

After explaining the ways of the world to her son, she began working to combat the negative images of her faith that a small number of radicals had so successfully manipulated our cognitive biases with. Deens central theme is that Islam is so diverse; its impossible to judge a person with that information just as we ought not to judge her by the color of her skin.

Indeed, Deen is from Sri Lanka and points out that there are more Muslims east of the Middle East than all of the Arab populations combined. Yet most of what constitutes radical Islamic terrorism is really just a byproduct of Middle East politics which is as violent when its secular as when it hijacks the name of a religion.

If youve never met a real Muslim American, I suggest you come downtown this afternoon to meet her. Its people like Soraya Deen that make America great.

Eric Shierman lives in Salem and is the author of a Brief History of Political Cultural Change.
Oregon State Representatives Bill Post (R-Keizer) and Dan Rayfield (D-Corvallis) have released a preview of their new, bipartisan talk show. Behind the Scenes pulls back the curtain on the Oregon Legislature which is currently meeting at the Oregon State Capitol in Salem. The first full episode will be streamed live on April 12th using Facebook Live and will also be available on YouTube. We will post the links here at Oregon Catalyst when they become available.

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From Greg Swank, 12-4-2 You are about to read a list of 45 goals that found their way down the halls of our great Capitol back in 1963. As...
President Akufo-Addo is expected to begin a three-day thank you tour in the Ashanti Region tomorrow [Friday]. Speaking to Citi News, the Ashanti Regional Secretary of the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP), Sam Pyne said the region is ready to receive the President.

He said the President is expected to address a rally of party members on his final leg of the tour on Sunday, before returning to Accra. Whatever he is coming to do, so far as he is a President, he comes with state protocol. The only thing that will be purely partisan or purely political is the rally that we will be holding on Sunday so that is what we are looking at.

The rest will be organised by state protocol. The rallies are about meeting with party people and talking about issues that are out and addressing the crowd to say thank you to them for the elections. A few days ago, the NPPs Ashanti Regional Communication team announced a boycott on all media outlets as according to the team, the party had neglected them after the election. But Sam Pyne said the party had met with the team and resolved the matter. It was yesterday that they boycotted radio.

The same yesterday, they tended that decision with another statement and they have started doing what they are suppose to do. We have been speaking to them and we scheduled a meeting with them to resolve this issue. The President since his electoral victory has been on a thank you tour in some regions in the country. He has so far visited the Northern, Western, Upper West and Upper East regions among others .

Source: citifmonline.com









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LOS REVOLUCIONARIOS NO TOMAN CACA-COLA No se trata solamente de un capricho, sino de una sana actitud en todos los sentidos. Desde la solidaridad con el pueblo colombiano donde la empresa Caca-Cola ha cometido los mas grandes abusos contra sus trabajadores incluyendo el presunto secuestro y asesinato de los dirigentes del sindicato, hasta la proteccion de la salud de nuestros hijos, enviciados por ese jarabe de cola y azucar, que les produce obesidad prematura. Pensemos tambien los revolucionarios, que ese dinero que gastamos en los refrescos es utilizado por esas empresas para financiar el terrorismo en nuestro pais. Es cierto, no se trata solo de la Caca-Cola, sino tambien de la cerveza, de los cigarrillos y todos esos articulos innecesarios y mas que eso, daninos para nuestra salud. Podriamos incluso pensar en un dia de parada para cada uno de ellos. Es cuestion de irnos organizando. Pero para empezar, que tal si dejamos de comprar Caca-Cola y sus similares?



























Cuando lo extraordinario se vuelve cotidiano...



Discurso del Acto de Grado en Barinas en 12 de Febrero del 2005 Queridos Graduandos:



Mas que un discurso, quiero dirigirles algunas palabras que escribi anoche, despues de visitar en las clinicas, a los estudiantes heridos, a consecuencia de los enfrentamientos con la policia de hace apenas dos dias.



Me ha tocado por razones del destino, ser la persona que les otorgue el titulo que bien merecieron con sus estudios. Y me siento sumamente orgulloso de serlo. Me consta que la Universidad de Los Llanos Occidentales Ezequiel Zamora, a pesar de lo dicho por los enemigos de esta universidad, es una universidad de primera.



No tendremos la mejor planta fisica, en los salones hace calor. En el comedor hace calor. Pero no es en lo material que las cosas deben valorarse. El mayor capital es el ser humano. Y en eso, nuestra UNELLEZ, lo digo con conocimiento de causa, esta sobrada. Los llaneros venezolanos son nobles, valientes, de coraje.



En la UNELLEZ hacen vida, en este momento, aproximadamente 67000 personas. El 97% de ellas son estudiantes. Jovenes que, como Ustedes hasta el dia de hoy, buscan ese titulo, que constata los anos de dedicacion y de estudio.



Los jovenes son el rio de la vida, ustedes graduados deben ser los capitanes de esos barcos que naveguen por el rio de la vida.



Nuestra Patria atraviesa momentos muy dificiles porque decidio dejar de ser esa matrona de edad vetusta y complaciente, para ser joven, rebelde y altanera. Nuestra imagen ya no es la de una acaudalada ricachona mayamera. En nuestro rostro brilla ahora la sonrisa del Che Guevara, con su diente delantero torcido, su pelo largo y su boina con la estrella.



Entender esto, a mi me ha tomado practicamente toda la vida. Tengo 53 anos, y ya perdi mi oportunidad de derramar sangre joven a causa de un ideal.



Ustedes son jovenes, estan en la flor de la vida. No cometan por favor el error de renunciar a su instinto de rebelion. El Che Guevara fue Ministro de a Economia en Cuba. Los billetes y las monedas se adornaban con su rostro. Nada de eso le importo. Primero fue a Angola donde paso un penoso ano de combate. Despues se fue a Bolivia, donde encontro la muerte. El Che era el ultimo que comia, el que cargaba la mochila mas pesada. Siempre se sacrificaba por los demas en un estoicismo que mas parecia fervor religioso que ideologia marxista.



Si quieren un modelo de vida. Ahi lo tienen.



Dije hace unos momentos que el 97% de la poblacion de la UNELLEZ es estudiante. Se imaginan Ustedes la Universidad que podriamos tener si todos los estudiantes tuvieran la abnegacion, la combatividad del Che?



Los momentos que se avecinan van a requerir de una gran unidad del pueblo venezolano. La alternativa de continuar siendo libres o regresar a la pobreza se nos planteara en los proximos dias de forma enmascarada, o quizas peor, desenmascarada, vestida con uniforme de soldado del Imperio.



Por nuestra parte podemos esperar lo mejor. La macroeconomia no podria ir mejor, la justicia social ha mejorado notablemente. Las misiones ocupan un papel muy importante en el pago de dicha justicia social. Aqui en Barinas ya hemos cumplido con dos de las misiones, la mision Robinson y la mision Sucre. No hay analfabetismo y no hay exclusion en la educacion superior, en estas tierras de Zamora.



Pero ay malhaya! Son precisamente estos exitos los que nos hacen mas antipaticos al Imperio. Para ellos, somos inclusive un mal ejemplo que se esta contagiando al resto del continente y cuidado sino al resto del mundo.



Nunca venceremos al Imperio. Estara siempre ahi, acechando. Por lo menos hasta que el mismo no se autodestruya. Porque, sepanlo senores, el neoliberalismo es canibal. Cuando le ataque el hambre, se devorara a si mismo.



Ustedes, queridos graduandos, a partir de hoy pasan a conformar la elite profesional que debe sostener este pais en los proximos cuarenta o cincuenta anos. Anos decisivos para el logro de nuestra libertad y del rescate de nuestra Soberania.



No se dejen comprar. No se dejen corromper. No se dejen gritar. No se dejen pisar. Que nadie les diga que comer, o que vestirse, o que leer. Sean siempre autenticos, rebeldes, contestatarios. Pero eso si, profundamente patriotas, dignos de ser hijos de Bolivar.



Muchas gracias y que Dios los bendiga.





Alguna duda?



Medio siglo de Holocausto Palestino



Oscar Zanartu Nacio en Caracas en 1960. Ha realizado exposiciones individuales en las galerias Minotauro, Clave y San Francisco, y en salas de Coro, estado Falcon, y Puerto Ordaz, estado Bolivar. En Paris su obra ha sido exhibida en el Centro Cultural Tanagra, en la Exposicion Cite Internationale des Arts, en las galerias De Mars y Arver Space, al igual que en la Galeria Municipal Levallois, en Levallois Perret (Francia). En muestras colectivas, su obra se ha expuesto en Belgica, Francia, Estados Unidos y Venezuela; en Caracas intervino en la exposicion "Del genesis a la memoria", 1995, organizada por la Fundacion La Previsora. En 1982 obtuvo el Premio Nacional Critven y en 1990 la Mencion de Honor Jose Antonio Paez, en la Embajada de Venezuela en Paris. En 1991 se le concedio el primer premio de Pintura Itinerante, en Levallois Perret, Francia.



OZ1



OZ2



OZ3



OZ4



Homenaje a Jason Galarraga



La Victoria de Samotracia



Odalisca



Mas fotos de la nevada del pasado agosto 2008



























La Sierra Nevada de Merida



Nuestro precioso Churum Meru



Homenaje a Picasso



Autoretrato



Sabes lo que bebes en una Coca-Cola?

La formula de la Pepsi tiene una diferencia basica con la de la Coca-Cola y es intencional, para evitar el proceso judicial. La diferencia es a proposito, pero suficientemente parecida como para atraer a los consumidores de Coca-Cola que prefieren un gusto diferente con menos sal y azucar.

Mi profesion?

Tuve que aprender quimica, entender todo sobre componentes de gaseosas, conservantes, sales, acidos, cafeina, enlatado, produccion, permisos, aprobaciones y muchas otras cosas. Monte mi propio mini-laboratorio de analisis de productos.

Sal en la Coca Cola?

A patadas. El Cloruro de Sodio no solo refresca sino da mas sed, como para pedir otra gaseosa. Y no resulta desagradable porque la sal mata literalmente la sensibilidad al dulce... del que por cierto tambien tiene mucho: 39 gramos de azucar.

De los 350 gramos de producto liquido, mas del 10% es azucar, o sea que en una lata de Coca-Cola mas de un centimetro y medio es puro azucar en polvo. Aproximadamente tres cucharadas soperas llenas de azucar por lata!!La formula de la Coca Cola es muy sencilla:

Concentrado de azucar quemado caramelo- para dar color oscuro y gusto

Acido fosforito (para darle el sabor acido)

azucar (HFCS-jarabe de maiz de alta fructosa)

Extracto de hojas de la planta de Coca (Africa e India) y otros pocos aromatizantes naturales de otras plantas

Mucha Cafeina

Conservante que puede ser Benzoato de Sodio o Potasio

Dioxido de Carbono en cantidad para sentir freir la lengua cuando se bebe

Sal para dar la sensacion de refrigeracion

El uso del acido fosforito y no del acido citrico como en todas las demas gaseosas, es para dar la sensacion de dientes y boca limpia al beber. El acido fosforito literalmente frie todo y dana el esmalte de los dientes, cosa que el acido citrico lo hace en menor grado.Trate de comprar acido fosforito para ver las mil recomendaciones de seguridad que te dan para su manipulacion (quema el cristalino del ojo, quema la piel, etc...). Esta prohibido usar el acido fosforito en cualquier otra gaseosa; solo la Coca Cola tiene permiso. Porque claro, sin el acido fosforico, la Coca Cola sabria a jabon.El extracto de coca y otras hojas casi no cambia en nada el sabor. Es mas bien un efecto cosmetico. El extracto forma parte de la Coca-Cola porque legalmente tiene que ser asi. Pero sin el, no se nota ninguna diferencia en el gusto, que esta dado basicamente por las cantidades diferentes de azucar, azucar quemada, sales, acidos y conservantes.Sabor a que...? ja, ja, ja.

Aqui en Bartow, sur de Orlando, hay una empresa quimica que produce aromatizantes y esencias para zumos. Envian diariamente camionadas de sales concentradas y esencias para las fabricas de helados, gaseosas, jugos, enlatados y comida colorida y aromatizada.Cuando visite por primera vez la fabrica, pedi ver el deposito de concentrados de frutas, que deberia ser inmenso, especialmente los de naranja, pina, fresa y tantos otros. El encargado me miro, se rio y me llevo a visitar los depositos inmensos... pero de colorantes y componentes quimicos.

Las gaseosa de naranja no contiene naranja.

En los zumos dizque de fresa, hasta los puntitos que quedan en suspension estan hechos de goma (una liga quimica que envuelve un semi-polimero).

Pina, es un popurri de acidos y goma.

La esencia para helado de aguacate usa peroxido de hidrogeno (agua oxigenada) para dar la sensacion espumosa tipica del aguacate.

Bebidas Light?

Quieres saber la cantidad de basura que tiene un refresco 'light'? Yo ni siquiera los uso para destapar mi lavaplatos pues temo que danen los tubos de PVC. Los productos endulzantes 'ligth' tienen una vida media muy corta. Por ejemplo el

Despues de toda mi experiencia con la produccion de bebidas embasadas, puedo afirmar sin dudar un segundo: la mejor bebida es el agua, como tambien los jugos exprimidos de naranja o limon. Nada mas, cero azucar y cero sal.



Publicado por loretahur



En realidad, la formula secreta de la Coca-Cola se puede detallar en 18 segundos en cualquier espectrometro optico, y basicamente la conocen hasta los perros. Lo que ocurre es que no se puede fabricar igual, a no ser que uno disponga de unos cuantos millones de dolares para ganarle la demanda que te metera la Coca-Cola ante la justicia (ellos no perderian).La formula de la Pepsi tiene una diferencia basica con la de la Coca-Cola y es intencional, para evitar el proceso judicial. La diferencia es a proposito, pero suficientemente parecida como para atraer a los consumidores de Coca-Cola que prefieren un gusto diferente con menos sal y azucar.Tuve que aprender quimica, entender todo sobre componentes de gaseosas, conservantes, sales, acidos, cafeina, enlatado, produccion, permisos, aprobaciones y muchas otras cosas. Monte mi propio mini-laboratorio de analisis de productos.A patadas. El Cloruro de Sodio no solo refresca sino da mas sed, como para pedir otra gaseosa. Y no resulta desagradable porque la sal mata literalmente la sensibilidad al dulce... del que por cierto tambien tiene mucho: 39 gramos de azucar.De los 350 gramos de producto liquido, mas del 10% es azucar, o sea que en una lata de Coca-Cola mas de un centimetro y medio es puro azucar en polvo. Aproximadamente tres cucharadas soperas llenas de azucar por lata!!La formula de la Coca Cola es muy sencilla:Concentrado de azucar quemado caramelo- para dar color oscuro y gustoAcido fosforito (para darle el sabor acido)azucar (HFCS-jarabe de maiz de alta fructosa)Extracto de hojas de la planta de Coca (Africa e India) y otros pocos aromatizantes naturales de otras plantasMucha CafeinaConservante que puede ser Benzoato de Sodio o PotasioDioxido de Carbono en cantidad para sentir freir la lengua cuando se bebeSal para dar la sensacion de refrigeracionEl uso del acido fosforito y no del acido citrico como en todas las demas gaseosas, es para dar la sensacion de dientes y boca limpia al beber. El acido fosforito literalmente frie todo y dana el esmalte de los dientes, cosa que el acido citrico lo hace en menor grado.Trate de comprar acido fosforito para ver las mil recomendaciones de seguridad que te dan para su manipulacion (quema el cristalino del ojo, quema la piel, etc...). Esta prohibido usar el acido fosforito en cualquier otra gaseosa; solo la Coca Cola tiene permiso. Porque claro, sin el acido fosforico, la Coca Cola sabria a jabon.El extracto de coca y otras hojas casi no cambia en nada el sabor. Es mas bien un efecto cosmetico. El extracto forma parte de la Coca-Cola porque legalmente tiene que ser asi. Pero sin el, no se nota ninguna diferencia en el gusto, que esta dado basicamente por las cantidades diferentes de azucar, azucar quemada, sales, acidos y conservantes.Sabor a que...? ja, ja, ja.Aqui en Bartow, sur de Orlando, hay una empresa quimica que produce aromatizantes y esencias para zumos. Envian diariamente camionadas de sales concentradas y esencias para las fabricas de helados, gaseosas, jugos, enlatados y comida colorida y aromatizada.Cuando visite por primera vez la fabrica, pedi ver el deposito de concentrados de frutas, que deberia ser inmenso, especialmente los de naranja, pina, fresa y tantos otros. El encargado me miro, se rio y me llevo a visitar los depositos inmensos... pero de colorantes y componentes quimicos.Las gaseosa de naranja no contiene naranja.En los zumos dizque de fresa, hasta los puntitos que quedan en suspension estan hechos de goma (una liga quimica que envuelve un semi-polimero).Pina, es un popurri de acidos y goma.La esencia para helado de aguacate usa peroxido de hidrogeno (agua oxigenada) para dar la sensacion espumosa tipica del aguacate.Quieres saber la cantidad de basura que tiene un refresco 'light'? Yo ni siquiera los uso para destapar mi lavaplatos pues temo que danen los tubos de PVC. Los productos endulzantes 'ligth' tienen una vida media muy corta. Por ejemplo el aspartamo , despues de tres semanas mojado, pasa a tener gusto de trapo viejo sucio.Para evitar eso, se agregan una infinidad de otros productos quimicos, uno para alargar la vida del aspartamo, otro para neutralizar el color, otro para mantener el tercer quimico en suspension porque sino el fondo de la gaseosa quedaria oscuro, otro para evitar la cristalizacion del aspartamo, otro para realzar el sabor, dar mas intensidad al acido citrico o fosforito que perderia su sabor por el efecto de los cuatro productos quimicos iniciales... y asi sucesivamente.Un consejo final !!Despues de toda mi experiencia con la produccion de bebidas embasadas, puedo afirmar sin dudar un segundo: la mejor bebida es el agua, como tambien los jugos exprimidos de naranja o limon. Nada mas, cero azucar y cero sal.Publicado por loretahur

MARGARINA o MANTEQUILLA La margarina fue producida originalmente para engordar a los pavos; cuandolo que hizo en realidad fue matarlos.Las personas que habian puesto el dinero para la investigacion quisieronrecobrarlo asi que empezaron a pensar en una forma de hacerlo.Tenian una sustancia blanca, que no tenia ningun atractivo como comestible,asi que le anadieron el color amarillo, para venderselo a lagente en lugar de la mantequilla.Que tal esa?... Ahora han sacado algunos nuevos sabores para vender mas alos incautos como usted y yo.CONOCE USTED la diferencia entre la margarina y la mantequilla?Siga leyendo hasta el final... porque se pone bastante interesante!Comparacion entre mantequilla y margarina:

1.- Ambas tienen la misma cantidad de calorias.

2.- La mantequilla es ligeramente mas alta en grasas saturadas: 8 gramos,comparada con los 5 gramos que tiene la margarina.

3.- Comer margarina en vez de mantequilla puede aumentar en 53% el riesgo deenfermedades coronarias en las mujeres, de acuerdo con un estudiomedico reciente de la Universidad de Harvard.

4.- Comer mantequilla aumenta la absorcion de gran cantidad de nutrientesque se encuentran en otros alimentos.

5.- La mantequilla provee beneficios nutricionales propios mientras lamargarina tiene solo los que le hayan sido anadidos al fabricarla.

6.- La mantequilla sabe mucho mejor que la margarina y mejora el sabor deotros alimentos.7.- La mantequilla ha existido durante siglos mientras que la margarinatiene menos de 100 anos.

Ahora... sobre la margarina:

1.- Es muy alta en acidos grasos trans. (Si, esos que recien ahora loscientificos descubrieron que son malisimos y los gobiernoscomenzaron a prohibirlos) .

2.- Triple riesgo de enfermedades coronarias.

3.- Aumenta el colesterol total y el LDL (el colesterol malo) y disminuye elHDL (el colesterol bueno).

4.- Aumenta en cinco veces el riesgo de cancer.

5.- Disminuye la calidad de la leche materna.

6.- Disminuye la reaccion inmunologica del organismo.

7.- Disminuye la reaccion a la insulina.

Y he aqui el factor mas inquietante (AQUI ESTA LA PARTE MAS INTERESANTE! ):A la margarina le falta UNA MOLECULA para ser PLASTICO...!!Solo este hecho es suficiente para evitar el uso de la margarina de porvida, y de cualquier otra cosa que sea hidrogenada (esto significaque se le anade hidrogeno, lo cual cambia la estructura molecular de lassubstancias).Usted puede ensayar lo siguiente:Compre un poco de margarina y dejela en el garaje o en un sitio sombreado.Dentro de unos dias notara dos cosas:

* No habra moscas; ni siquiera esos molestos bichos se le acercaran (esto yale debe decir a usted algo).

* No se pudre ni huele mal o diferente porque no tiene valor nutritivo; nadacrece en ella. Ni siquiera los diminutos microorganismos puedencrecer en ella.Por que? Porque es casi plastico!!



No a la guerra, Si a la Paz



Misterios de la ciencia...



Los costos de la guerra



medicos y capitalismo...



Capitalismo...



medicos (2)



Quien educa a nuestros hijos?



Los Medios...



Sin Palabras...



Chistes feministas

- Cual es el problema, Eva?

- Se que me has creado, que me has dado este hermoso jardin, todos estos maravillosos animales y esa serpiente con la que me muero de risa... pero no soy del todo feliz...

- Como es eso, Eva? - replico Dios desde las alturas.

- Me encuentro sola, y ademas estoy harta de comer manzanas...

- Bueno Eva, en tal caso, tengo una solucion... creare un hombre para ti.

- Que es un hombre?

- Un hombre sera una criatura imperfecta, con muchas artimanas. Mentira, hara trampas, sera engreido... vamos, que te va a dar problemas... Pero, va a ser mas fuerte y rapido que tu y le gustara cazar y matar cosas... Tendra un aspecto simple, pero como te estas quejando, le creare de tal forma que satisfaga tus... eh... necesidades fisicas... Y tampoco sera muy listo, y destacara en cosas infantiles como pegarse o dar patadas a un balon... Necesitara tu consejo siempre para actuar cuerdamente.

- Suena bien - dijo Eva, mientras levantaba la ceja ironicamente.

- Cual es el truco?.

- Pues... que lo tendras con una condicion.

- Cual?

- Como te decia, sera chulo, arrogante y muy narcisista... asi que le tendras que hacer creer que le hice a el primero... recuerda... es nuestro secreto... de mujer a mujer.





Por que a los hombres no les puede dar la enfermedad de las vacas locas?  Porque todos son unos cerdos

Un dia, en el Paraiso, Eva llamo a Dios: Tengo un problema.- Cual es el problema, Eva?- Se que me has creado, que me has dado este hermoso jardin, todos estos maravillosos animales y esa serpiente con la que me muero de risa... pero no soy del todo feliz... - Como es eso, Eva? - replico Dios desde las alturas.- Me encuentro sola, y ademas estoy harta de comer manzanas...- Bueno Eva, en tal caso, tengo una solucion... creare un hombre para ti.- Que es un hombre?- Un hombre sera una criatura imperfecta, con muchas artimanas. Mentira, hara trampas, sera engreido... vamos, que te va a dar problemas... Pero, va a ser mas fuerte y rapido que tu y le gustara cazar y matar cosas... Tendra un aspecto simple, pero como te estas quejando, le creare de tal forma que satisfaga tus... eh... necesidades fisicas... Y tampoco sera muy listo, y destacara en cosas infantiles como pegarse o dar patadas a un balon... Necesitara tu consejo siempre para actuar cuerdamente.- Suena bien - dijo Eva, mientras levantaba la ceja ironicamente.- Cual es el truco?.- Pues... que lo tendras con una condicion.- Cual?- Como te decia, sera chulo, arrogante y muy narcisista... asi que le tendras que hacer creer que le hice a el primero... recuerda... es nuestro secreto... de mujer a mujer.Por que a los hombres no les puede dar la enfermedad de las vacas locas?  Porque todos son unos cerdos

Ellas...



Ellas (2)...



Tres venganzas femeninas VENGANZA NUMERO 1

Hoy mi hija cumple 21 anos y estoy muy contento porque es el ultimo pago de pension alimenticia que le doy, asi que llame a mi hijita para que viniera a mi casa y cuando llego le dije:

-Hijita, quiero que lleves este cheque a casa de tu mama y que le digas que: Este es el ultimo maldito cheque que va recibir de mi en todo lo que le queda de su puta vida!!! Quiero que me digas la expresion que pone en su rostro.

Asi que mi hija fue a entregar el cheque. Yo estaba ansioso por saber lo que la bruja tenia que decir y que cara pondria.

Cuando mi hijita entro, le pregunte inmediatamente: -Que fue lo que te dijo tu madre?

-Me dijo que justamente estaba esperando este dia para decirte que no eres mi papa!



VENGANZA NUMERO 2

Un hombre que siempre molestaba a su mujer, paso un dia por la casa de unos amigos para que lo acompanaran al aeropuerto a dejar a su esposa que viajaba a Paris.

A la salida de inmigracion, frente a todo el mundo, el le desea buen viaje y en tono burlon le grita:

- Amor, no te olvides de traerme una hermosa francesita Ja ja ja!!

Ella bajo la cabeza y se embarco muy molesta.

La mujer paso quince dias en Francia.

El marido otra vez pidio a sus amigos que lo acompanasen al aeropuerto a recibirla.

Al verla llegar, lo primero que le grita a toda voz es:

- Y amor me trajiste mi francesita??

- Hice todo lo posible, - contesta ella - ahora solo tenemos que rezar para que nazca nina.



VENGANZA NUMERO 3

El marido, en su lecho de muerte, llama a su mujer. Con voz ronca y ya debil, le dice: - Muy bien, llego mi hora, pero antes quiero hacerte una confesion.

- No, no, tranquilo, tu no debes hacer ningun esfuerzo.

- Pero, mujer, es preciso - insiste el marido - Es preciso morir en paz.

Te quiero confesar algo.

- Esta bien, esta bien. Habla!

- He tenido relaciones con tu hermana, tu mama y tu mejor amiga.

- Lo se, lo se Por eso te envenene, hijo de puta!!!



machismo y cibernetica



Chiste machista La NASA ha enviado al espacio una mision experimental tripulada por dos monos y una mujer.Apenas abandona la atmosfera, se establece comunicacion con Houston.

-Atencion, simio 1, verifique sistemas hidraulicos, controle adecuada presion de los propulsores de arranque. A 60.000 pies disminuya un 25% la velocidad.

El simio hace la sena de OK.

-Atencion, simio 2, nivele al cruzar la estratosfera y active sistemas anticongelantes. No olvide monitorear sistemas de comunicacion e indicadores de presion. Comprendido?.

El simio hace la sena de OK.

-Atencion, Houston llamando a mujer: no se olvide.

-Mujer: Si, si, ya se! -interrumpe enojada- que no me olvide darles de comer a estos monos de mierda y que no se me vaya a ocurrir tocar nada!.



.Spaghetti, Spaghetti, Spaghetti, Spaghetti, Spaghetti.

Un abogado mantiene un romance con su secretaria.Al poco tiempo, esta queda embarazada y el abogado, que no quiere que su esposa se entere, le da a la secretaria una buena suma de dinero y le pide que se vaya a parir a Italia.Esta pregunta: Y como voy a hacerte saber cuando nazca el bebe ? El abogado responde: Para que mi mujer no se entere, tan solo enviame una postal y escribe por detras: Spaghetti. Y no te preocupes mas, que yo me encargare de todos los gastos.

Pasan los meses y una manana la esposa del abogado lo llama al bufete, algo exaltada: Querido, acabo de recibir el correo y hay una postal muy extrana viene desde Italia. La verdad, no entiendo que significa.El abogado, tratando de ocultar sus nervios, contesta:Espera a que llegue a casa, a ver si yo entiendoCuando el hombre llega a casa y lee la postal, cae al suelo fulminado por un infarto.Llega una ambulancia y se lo lleva. Ya en el hospital, el jefe de cardiologia se queda consolando a la esposa y le pregunta cual ha sido el evento que precipito tan masivo ataque cardiaco.

Entonces la esposa saca la postal y se la muestra diciendole: No me explico, doctor; el solamente leyo esta postal. Vea usted mismo lo que trae escrito.Spaghetti, Spaghetti, Spaghetti, Spaghetti, Spaghetti."Tres con salchicha y albondigas y dos con almejas



Gol !!!!



Chistes de Borrachos Entra un borracho a su casa todo manchado con lapiz labial por todos lados hecho un desastre, y la mujer le pregunta:-Hombre que te paso?Y el borracho le responde:-No me vas a creer, me pelee con un payaso!



Este es un borracho que entra en un bar y le dice al camarero:-Me da cinco copas de whisky?Al rato:-Me da cuatro?Al rato:-Me da tres copas?Despues:-Me da dos copas?Luego le dice:-Me da una copa?Y le dice al camarero:-Ves? Cuanto menos bebo, mas borracho estoy!


This is the latest in a series of posts about the 1916 presidential election between Democratic incumbent Woodrow Wilson and Republican challenger Charles Evans Hughes, a Glens Falls native.

Charles Evans Hughes was a trend setter in 1916 when he became the first Republican presidential candidate to have a womens campaign team -- known as The Hughesettes.

The trend did not take long to catch on.

All three early Republican presidential candidates in 1920 had womens campaign teams, Martha Coman reported in the March 14, 1920 issue of The Sun and the New York Herald.

Women are now advancing to the more important arena of practical politics, Coman wrote.

Miss Harriet Vittum, womens campaign director for Gen. Leonard Wood, was a veteran of the Hughes campaign.

Vittum, of Chicago, was a delegate to the 1916 Progressive National Convention and managed the western department of Hughes 1916 womens campaign.

She was head of Northwestern University Settlement for 14 years and helped organize the Chicago Womens Club.

She was director of the Illinois Section of the Council on National Defense and ran once for Chicago Alderman.

Click here, here and here to read more about the Hughesettes.

Click here to read the most recent previous post in the series.
It's been interesting to listen to the debate over Gov. Andrew Cuomo's proposal to give students from middle-class families free tuition at SUNY schools.

As is the case with many discussions these days, people tend to spout off about it without really educating themselves as to the issues at play. Many seemed to think it means "free" college for all, not realizing that it would only cover tuition and not room-and-board, which is the lion's share of student costs these days.

(When I was in college 30 years ago, tuition was the higher of the costs, so I don't know how it turned the other way as it did. Maybe it is the absurd all-you-can-eat buffets that these dining halls have become. But I digress.)

As the father of a son who will soon head off to college, I can tell you that the room-and-board costs are typically twice the cost of tuition at a SUNY school. At a typical SUNY four-year institution, tuition is around $6,500 a year, room-and-board between $12,000 and $13,000.

The proposal would also only cover the true middle class, as those with lower incomes already qualify for free or discounted tuition through financial aid programs, and those who are over the income threshold (likely around $100,000, if the bill passes) won't qualify.

Another misconception is that the TAP (Tuition Assistance Program) grant program already defrays a large portion of the costs. Not true anymore. Our financial aid applications, and those of other families I know, resulted in a maximum of $500 a year or so from TAP.

For a more thorough look at all of the issues here, The Times-Union published this interesting rundown earlier this year.

I do understand why private colleges are taking issue with the state schools getting a leg up, but some of these private colleges need a bit of a wakeup call when it comes to what they charge. When many small colleges in podunk parts of New York and New England have sticker prices of over $50,000 a year, something is wrong.

It will be interesting to see how this works out, from a personal and professional perspective, with state budget talks headed down to the wire. Gov. Cuomo's administration has said the $163 million needed for the middle-class tuition program is available. Will he have the political capital to make it happen?

-- Don Lehman
I was about 200 pages into "The War on Alcohol: Prohibition and the Rise of the American State," by Harvard historian Lisa McGirr, when suddenly she made a somewhat local reference.

McGirr was discussing the overcrowded, deplorable conditions of jails during alcohol prohibition in the 1920s. One of her prime examples of the issue? Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora, just outside of Plattsburgh. That's the same prison that convicted murderers David Sweat and Richard Matt escaped from two years ago, causing a national stir.

According to McGirr, the prison was so packed with consumers of alcohol, it reached double its capacity. That led to riots inside the jail in 1929.

New York state played a big role in alcohol prohibition and the eventual repeal of it. One of prohibition's most outspoken critics was New York Gov. Al Smith. Smith ran for president in 1928 as a "wet," meaning he wanted to repeal alcohol prohibition. He was clobbered that year by Herbert Hoover, who won all but seven states.

However, during the following presidential election, New York's new governor, Franklin D. Roosevelt, won the presidential election, thanks in large part to his opposition to prohibition.

It's interesting to see the role this state, particularly this area, played in the prohibition battle. After all, Argyle's still a dry town.
Local counties will receive nearly $3.5 million in state funding this year to help improve their emergency radio systems.

The state announced Tuesday that $45 million was going to be distributed to counties for improvement plans they submitted for the 2016-17 fiscal year. The money comes as both Warren and Washington counties have dealt with emergency radio transmission and reception issues in recent years.

Local counties will receive from $471,000 to nearly $875,000 for upgrades to their dispatch centers, money that comes as they prepare for what could be an expensive transition to next generation 911 programs, according to the state Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Services.

This critical funding will improve the quality and efficiency of emergency response capabilities across New York, while supporting the brave first responders who put their lives on the line every day to protect their neighbors and their community, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said in a news release.

Washington County will get $709,086. It had not received funding through the state program for seven years, said Glen Gosnell, the countys public safety director.

Counties used to compete with each other to submit plans for funding, but the money is now made available to counties whose repair and improvement projects are deemed eligible for it, he said.

The last time Washington County received state interoperable communication grant money was with round one back in 2010. We were awarded $171,500, Gosnell said. This is considerably more than weve gotten in the past.

Gosnell said the money will be used for infrastructure and equipment upgrades, based on state guidelines for spending the money.

Warren County Undersheriff Shawn Lamouree said the $523,375 awarded to Warren County can be used to pay for equipment the county is installing to address dead spots in the emergency radio system in parts of Queensbury and the southwestern corner of the county. New transmitters, equipment that strengthens signals and portable radios have been purchased, and the funding can help pay for them, he said.

The latest round of money comes on top of the $500,000 grant the county got last year for the work, which, it has been estimated, will cost up to $2 million when done.

State funding for dispatching and dispatch center improvements has been increased by more than 50 percent since 2010, with 10 regional consortiums organizing to aid improvements in their region.
GRANVILLE  A Granville woman was jailed Thursday night after three domestic violence-related arrests in less than 48 hours, according to State Police.

Carry M. Valastro, 31, faces five misdemeanors and two non-criminal violations for a series of incidents at a home in Granville between Tuesday night and Thursday afternoon, troopers said in a press release.

The Thursday incident occurred when she refused to leave the DeKalb Road home when police served her with a no-contact order of protection, and she allegedly threatened Washington County Child Protective Services caseworkers who had gone to the home to check on children there, according to State Police.

She was accused earlier of damaging property at the home, violating an order of protection and having unwanted physical contact with someone at the home, police said.

Valastro faces counts of criminal mischief, endangering the welfare of a child, criminal contempt and harassment. She was arraigned after the Thursday arrest and sent to Washington County Jail for lack of bail. She also faces a felony burglary count for a break-in and theft in Whitehall last fall, officials said.
FORT EDWARD  The Fort Miller Reformed Church will be hosting a roast beef dinner from 4:30 to 6 p.m. Saturday at the church on River Road in Fort Miller.

In addition to roast beef there will be gravy, herbed potatoes, corn casserole, carrots, coleslaw, rolls, Hawaiian cake and beverages.

Eat in or take-out is available. Cost for adults is $10; $5 for children younger than 12; and free for children 4 and younger. No reservations needed.
GLENS FALLS  Just Beverages transports water packaged in Glens Falls to the West Coast by rail.

Its a small but growing part of our business, said Jim Siplon, the chief operating officer, of the companys rail shipments.

The shipments now account for about a fifth of the companys business but eventually could be as much as half, he said.

Just Beverages is emblematic of a need for reliable rail freight service that will become greater as the Downtown Revitalization Initiative plan helps to make the city a hub for food and craft beverage production, said Siplon. He served on the revitalization planning committee and is a member of the Warren County Economic Development Corp. board.

Its more cost-effective, often. But its also more carbon-effective, he said.

EDC Warren County is preparing to conduct an analysis of local rail freight service.

We will be examining the issue of freight rail service, its current viability and usage, along with potential for increased service, said EDC Warren County President Edward Bartholomew.

The analysis, expected to be completed by the end of the year, will include evaluating regional collaboration with SMS Rail Lines, a short-line rail carrier now servicing the industrial park in Fort Edward at the former dewatering site for the Hudson River dredging project.

Rail freight is important to long-term manufacturers, not just recruitment of new ones.

Limited and inconsistent rail freight service in recent years has increased costs for Finch Paper, which brings starch and other raw materials used in the pulp-making process in to its Glens Falls mill via rail, said Derek Basile, the companys vice president and chief financial officer.

In 2013, CP Rail, which operates trains on a spur from Fort Edward to the Finch mill in Glens Falls, cut back service to three days a week.

There also have been intermittent disruptions of service because of labor and CP Rail budget issues, Basile said.

Finch must buy supplies in large quantities, which sometimes forces the company to rent space at CP Rails Fort Edward yard, or to bring supplies in by truck, which is more expensive than rail.

That had a material impact on our business, Basile said.

Just Beverages now transports its product via truck to Albany, where the trailers are transferred on to flatbed rail cars.

Bringing freight rail access closer to Glens Falls would help, Siplon said.

The object is to try to continue to bring that rail network closer to the economy, he said. What is needed is more volume in order for us to take advantage of it.

Finch has the capability to ship products out by rail but does not because of the inconsistency of service, Basile said. Finchs customers largely are printing companies that order paper for immediate jobs at hand.

With consistent, reliable outgoing rail freight service from Glens Falls, Finch could expand its customer base on the West Coast, Basile said.

Finch would ship products to a regional distribution point, which would be carried the final mile from there via truck.

Thats really a very economical way for us to deliver, predominantly, to areas west of the Mississippi, he said.

It is conceivable the short line carrier that services the Fort Edward industrial park could expand service to companies such as Irving Tissue in Fort Edward and Lehigh Northeast Cement and Finch Paper in Glens Falls, but it would require negotiating an agreement with CP Rail to use the line from Fort Edward into Glens Falls, said John Davidson, an official with the Fort Edward industrial park.

We brought them on board just to switch our yard  the rail cars in the facility and out of the facility, Davidson said. That carrier does not have any agreements with CP Rail or any other main line railroads to transport on their lines.
WHITEHALL  A project nine years in the making may finally get underway.

Village officials awarded contracts to Arold Construction Co. and Kenyon Pipeline Inspection for work on Phase I and Phase II, respectively, of a multi-million-dollar sanitary sewer project. The total project, at last estimate, is projected to cost $26 million but will be broken down into multiple phases so the village can get started.

Nine years ago they said they were going to break ground that year, Mayor Ken Bartholomew said. Supposedly theyll break ground this year  well see.

Phase I will cost $2.6 million, and Phase II will cost $401,144. These phases will upgrade the villages sewer system on 20 streets. But its the two streets that wont be addressed  Poultney and Saunders streets  that have some village officials concerned.

Thats where all the infiltration is coming from, said Trustee Pat Norton, the villages outgoing water commissioner. This took out the worst part.

We had to pull out of Poultney and Saunders to stay on budget, said Janet Tallman of Environmental Design Partnership, the consulting firm working with the village on the project.

The Department of Environmental Conservation ranked those two streets as the lowest priority out of the 22 being addressed in the project, Tallman said.

We cant change what DEC says the priorities are, she said.

The good news for the village is that work is continuing to secure more money, which could bring more roads into the project.

Saunders could get added back in and were currently in the process of getting documents for another CDBG of $600,000, Tallman said. Poultney could be added to it.

That makes me feel better, Norton said in response.

In 2014, the village received a $2 million grant and another $700,000 in low-interest loans obtained by Sens. Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand to pay for the first phase.

In a press release, Gillibrand said, The village of Whitehall has experienced several sewer overflows and violations of regulatory requirements over the past few years. This federal investment will help with Phase I of the project, including eliminating storm sewer cross connections, managing sewer overflows and rehabilitating many of the worst sections of gravity sewer mains.

Bartholomew has repeatedly called sewer one of the most urgent issues facing the village.

While Bartholomew has signed the document awarding the contracts, it will be up to the new board to ratify the contracts. Mayor-elect Phil Smith, on Election Day said he, like Bartholomew, would focus on infrastructure issues.
GLENS FALLS  Seina Yamuguchi put her face within 2 inches of a watercolor painting titled Drying Traps at The Hyde Collection. Then she stepped back and got a broader view of the artwork.

Yamuguchi and her fellow college students visiting from Saga City, Japan, Glens Falls sister city, toured The Hyde on Friday, taking in the architecture of the Hyde House and the black and white artwork of Lorna Bieber.

Yamuguchi, who hasnt visited many museums, said she enjoyed the opportunity to explore the Hyde. An education major, Yamuguchi said her trip to Glens Falls has been the best experience.

This is my dream to come to the states, she said through interpreter Milly Koh. And my dream came true.

This is the 20th year that SUNY Adirondack has partnered with Saga City, Japan, said Ruth Liberman, a SUNY Adirondack professor who is on the coordinating committee. Liberman taught a morning English class to the group.

Theyre always correcting my Japanese, she laughed. Thats OK. Im correcting their English.

While at the art museum Friday, the Japanese students learned a bit about Louis and Charlotte Hyde, whose father owned the paper mill behind the museum.

That is the fortune that helped build this museum, said Museum Educator Jenny Hutchinson, standing in the Hyde House.

For them, this architecture is very different, Liberman pointed out.

Over the past two weeks, the students have toured the city of Glens Falls, visited the state Capitol in Albany, explored the Olympic sites in Lake Placid, toured the National Museum of Dance in Saratoga, gone indoor rock climbing at Rocksport, shopped at the Queensbury outlet stores, spent a day at the Great Escape Lodge and Indoor Waterpark and visited with students at Queensbury Elementary School.

A lot of them are education majors, Liberman said, so they love seeing what American schools are like.

They spent a day in Washington County learning how maple syrup is made and visited the collection of taxidermic animals at the Pember Library and Museum in Granville. Thursday evening they said goodbye to their host families at a farewell party.

Lots of tears, Liberman said.

The group will head to New York City this weekend, where they will see Cats, before flying back home to Japan on Monday.

Liberman said the coordinating committee tried to give the visitors a taste of many different aspects of the area.

For some of them, it may be the only time they come to America, she said. Its a big trip.
THURMAN  This years Jack Wax Party raised nearly $3,000 for the American Cancer Society.

The dinner on March 11, also known as the Thurman Maple Sugar party, collected $2,990. The money includes proceeds from dinner purchases and raffles and donations made through the GoFundMe page at the dinner and before and after the event. The money will be delivered to the organization within the week, according to a news release from the Thurman Station Association.

The association stepped up to run this years event after Town Board members said they did not want to have direct involvement.

Because of Department of Health regulations, home-baked goods could no longer be accepted at the event. The association launched a GoFundMe campaign, which raised $950. Money left over after the purchase of groceries and supplies was added to the donation check.

Money alone could never have made the event succeed, said the associations president, Perky Granger. The key was  and always has been  community support, volunteers willing to pitch in. Whether shopping, mopping, scrubbing the refrigerator, recruiting help, making signs, soliciting donations of raffle items and store credit, record-keeping, cooking, serving food or carrying out trash, each persons contribution of time had inestimable value, both for the work done and the community spirit shown.

Grace Harris Cameron, whose family home is now owned by the town of Thurman and whose marital home was built on the west side of todays Town Hall, wrote in her 1930s diaries that fundraisers at the neighboring Athol Methodist Church helped maintain the building.

The last one in 1958 raised money for the family of a boy who had leukemia. The church closed the following year because of structural problems and the party moved to the then-new town hall, according to a news release. The boy lost his battle with cancer, but the community decided to dedicate the funds in 1959 to the American Cancer Society.




















The UK, France and Germany on Friday condemned the Israeli security cabinets unanimous approval on Thursday to build the first officially sanctioned new settlement in the West Bank in more than 20 years.





The new settlement late was approved late on Thursday for the evacuees of the illegal Amona outpost, which was razed last month after the High Court of Justice ruled that it was built on private Palestinian land. The new settlement will be built next to Shilo.





The cabinet on Thursday also announced the approval of tenders for some 2,000 new settlement homes in the West Bank  housing units whose planned construction, among some 5,500, was first announced in January.





Britains Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson said in a statement: These announcements are contrary to international law and seriously undermine the prospects of two states for two peoples. As a strong friend of Israel, and one prepared to stand up for Israel when it faces bias and unreasonable criticism, I urge Israel not to take steps such as these, which move us away from our shared goal of peace and security and make it harder to achieve a different relationship between Israel and the Arab world.





Johnson added that he was disappointed that Israel plans to expropriate additional West Bank territory as state land, and press forward with plans for almost 2,000 housing units in spite of significant international concern.









The French Foreign Ministry said Israels announcements were extremely worrying and that Paris firmly condemns these decisions that threaten peace and risk exacerbating tensions on the ground.









France reiterates that settlements are illegal under international law, notably under Resolution 2334 of the UN Security Council. It calls on Israel to respect its international obligation, the statement read, in reference to the controversial resolution passed in December, with a US abstention, which labeled Israeli settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem illegal.





A German government spokesperson cited by Haaretz said that the federal government expects the Israeli government to clarify which solution they are pursuing for a lasting peace with the Palestinians. Germany will not recognize any change in the 1967 lines, which has not been agreed between the parties









According to Haaretz, the three European papers published their condemnation statements in close proximity and timed the statements to come out at the same time. Earlier Friday, the United Nations also expressed its disapproval of the newly planned settlement with a spokesman for UN chief Antonio Guterres saying the secretary-general expressed disappointment and alarm at the announcement.

The secretary general has consistently stressed that there is no Plan B for Israelis and Palestinians to live together in peace and security. He condemns all unilateral actions that, like the present one, threaten peace and undermine the two-state solution, Stephane Dujarric said in a statement. The Palestinians reacted furiously to the plans.

PLO Secretary General Saeb Erekat said in a statement on Friday that the Palestinians will hold Benjamin Netanyahu and his extremist government fully responsible for the consequences of such violations. We send a clear message to the US administration, the United Nations and to the European Union: Peace is not going to be achieved by tolerating such crimes, he added. Senior Palestinian official Hanan Ashrawi said the move showed the government was pushing ahead with their systematic policies of settler colonialism, apartheid and ethnic cleansing, showing a total and blatant disregard for Palestinian human rights.

The White House, meanwhile, warned Israel against unrestrained settlement activity, cautioning that while the existence of settlements is not in itself an impediment to peace, further unrestrained settlement activity does not help advance peace, according to an official. But the Trump administration did say it welcomed Netanyahus announcement Thursday, after the approval of the new settlement, that Israel will curb construction in West Bank settlements as a goodwill gesture to US President Donald Trump.





































Israels announcement of a new policy of restraint in settlement expansion was well-orchestrated.





On Thursday morning, during a meeting with the Slovak president, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced that later in the day the cabinet would greenlight a new West Bank settlement for the evacuees of Amona, an illegal outpost dismantled in February. I promised at the outset that we would build a new community. I believe that I first gave that promise back in December and we will uphold it today, he said.





At 10:25 p.m., the Prime Ministers Office announced that the cabinet had indeed decided, in a unanimous vote, to create the first new officially sanctioned West Bank settlement in some 25 years. The announcement came just in time to make the Friday morning newspapers.





But once the papers deadlines had passed  at 1:21 a.m.  Israeli reporters were informed that the government had also decided to significantly restrain the expansion of settlements beyond their current boundaries, in a nod to the US administrations concerns regarding settlement construction.





The timing of that announcement guaranteed that no newspaper would mention that important caveat in its reports on the first new settlement in decades, thus dramatically decreasing the chance of it becoming a topic for discussion at Shabbat dinner tables around the country on Friday evening. Israels new policy, as the government itself called it, is a far cry from the not one brick policy of former US president Barack Obama, who vehemently opposed any settlement construction beyond the 1967 lines, including in Jerusalem neighborhoods that will remain under Israeli sovereignty in any conceivable peace agreement.

Indeed, the new arrangement allows Israel, in theory, to expand any settlement it wishes, anywhere in the West Bank, under the condition that the construction does not expand an existing settlements footprint. The cabinet also said that no new settlements  besides the one to compensate the evacuees of Amona, announced earlier on Thursday  would be built. Likud ministers on Friday morning defended the new policy, stressing that no settlement would be uprooted and that Israel would be allowed to build anywhere in its eternal united capital of Jerusalem. That was to be expected, since it was the leader of their party who was behind the new policy.

But even the pro-settlement Yesha Council accepted the new framework without protest . The understandings reached between the government of Israel and the US administration allow for the continuation of settlement construction in all communities in Judea and Samaria, in addition to the establishment of a new community for the residents of Amona, the group said in a statement.




















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Members of the Peruvian National Police's Anti-drugs Office arrested six people, among them a Serbian man and five Peruvians suspected of running a smuggling operation from a gourmet food business that canned fruits and vegetables for shipment, authorities said on Thursday.

Police raided the property late on Wednesday night, after intelligence and surveillance work indicated criminal activity, police and the attorney general's office said in a statement.

The men arrested ranged in age from 24 to 49.

Authorities reportedly put the value of the shipment at $4 million in Peru and $174 million at its destination.

Two 4x4 SUVs, $75,000 in cash, computer and communication equipment, and a Glock pistol were also seized in the raid on the property of the exporter, Fresh Aromas of Peru Corporation, which is located in the district of Ate on the eastern outskirts of Lima.

According to a local prosecutor, the group arrested was part of a international drug-trafficking network that shipped cocaine to European countries. The shipment intercepted at the property was ready for transport to Peru's main port, west of Peru on the Pacific Ocean, from where it would head to Amsterdam.

The investigation began in November, when prosecutors focused on organized-crime activity began gathering evidence on the group's leaders, who were allegedly acquiring cocaine from the Huallaga region, located in the northern part of Peru's Amazon rainforest, then transporting it to Lima to be concealed and shipped.

The final state in the investigation involved telephone intercepts and an extended period of surveillance and monitoring, according to RPP Noticias. Authorities moved in on the property at 9 on Wednesday night.

Three suspects were detained there and the other three, who had left the building prior to the raid, were apprehended soon after in neighboring districts of the city.

Peru is virtually tied with Colombia as the world's biggest cocaine producer. Peru is also among the world's largest producers of asparagus, quinoa, avocado, and artichoke.

Authorities there have warned about the growing presence of drug traffickers, and there is extensive evidence that the criminal organizations involved in the drug trade have infiltrated or, at times, bought off parts of Peru's political and law-enforcement apparatus. Some officials have warned the country is closing to becoming a full-fledged "narco state."

Drug trafficking from Peruvian ports is believed to have risen since a new law authorizing the military to shoot down drug-smuggling aircraft in the jungle was passed in 2015. The movement of drugs through Peru's ports has been aided in recent years by efforts by criminal organizations to recruit dock workers to help conceal and transport drug shipments.
Robert Kelner, the attonrney representing Flynn, reportedly made the offer to the FBI and the intelligence committees in both the House and Senate in order to avoid what he called "unfair prosecution," however, so far, none of the officials have accepted Flynn's terms, The Journal reported.

One of the newspaper's sources added that given the nature of Flynn's willingness to come forward with his testimony, he may be in legal jeopardy for his short tenure as a top security official in the Trump White House.

Kelner's statement read in part:

He continued:

Though offering to testify may have been one legal recourse for Flynn, he asserted in an MSNBC interview last year that asking for immunity in such circumstances "means you have probably committed a crime." Flynn at the time was referring to the FBI's investigation into then-presidential candidate Hillary Clinton's private email server scandal.

Flynns downfall

As a security adviser who handled matters of utmost sensitivity, Flynn had access to top-secret materials and was allegedly involved in discussions regarding potential lifting of sanctions on Russia that were initiated in the last weeks of President Barack Obama's administration  sanctions that were imposed for Russia's alleged role in "malicious cyber-enabled activities."

Flynn eventually resigned in February, following reports that he misled Vice President Mike Pence and other White House officials about his phone conversations with Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak, during Trump's transition to the Oval Office.

Flynn said he apologized to Pence, saying he may have discussed Obama's sanctions against Russia with Kislyak before Trump was sworn in. Prior to that revelation, Flynn adamantly contended that US sanctions never came up during the conversations.

"Unfortunately, because of the fast pace of events, I inadvertently briefed the vice president-elect and others with incomplete information regarding my phone calls with the Russian ambassador," Flynn wrote in his resignation letter. "I have sincerely apologized to the president and vice president, and they have accepted my apology."

Ticking time bomb?

The timing of Flynn's offer to the FBI and intelligence committees was seen as curious, considering it comes amid a wide-ranging, multi-agency investigation into possible ties between people in Trump's orbit and the Kremlin.

One of those investigations appeared to stall in the last week, after House Intelligence Committee chair Devin Nunes became involved with classified information-sharing with sources inside the White House. Nunes' actions have sparked a bipartisan outcry.

"We're doing our best to try and get the investigation back on track," said Rep. Adam Schiff, a ranking member of the committee said in a CNN report published Thursday. "We're in the process of exchanging witness lists and are going to see if by the end of the day we can agree on at least a common set of initial witnesses."
"It can be difficult to make assessments about North Korea's nuclear capabilities given that we have very little access to North Korea's missile facilities," Kelsey Davenport, the director of nonproliferation policy and a North Korea expert at the Arms Control Association, told Business Insider.

"But it's clear that North Korea has made significant advances both with nuclear warheads and with ballistic missiles," Davenport said.

North Korea's nuclear arsenal is still in its early phases, but Kim Jong Un, the country's leader, commands about 100 missile launchers with several missiles for each, according to Jeffrey Lewis, the founding publisher of Arms Control Wonk.

While there's some debate about North Korea's stockpile of nuclear materials, "you're looking at a few tens of warheads, but that number's going to keep going up every year," Lewis told Business Insider.

In comparison, the US has 1,796 nuclear missiles deployed, another 4,500 stockpiled, and 2,800 retired and waiting to be dismantled, according to the Arms Control Association.

Furthermore, North Korea presently has no way of reaching any part of the US with a missile of any sort, but Pyongyang is "likely at the point now where it could mount a nuclear warhead on a medium-range missile, and that would put South Korea, Japan, and US military installations in range of the North Korean nuclear threat," Davenport said.

North Korea is a tiny, poor, backward nation with limited missile capabilities and a small nuclear stockpile, but it poses a very serious threat to the US and its allies. Ultimately, there's extremely little the US could do to stop the rogue nation should it chose to strike.

Could the US stop a North Korean nuclear attack?

It's complicated.

The US and its allies have three major forms of missile defense against North Korea.

"Missiles come in a variety of ranges," Lewis said. "Every missile defense system is set to deal with a small subset of missiles in a particular range and at one stage in flight."

For the short- and medium-range missiles with which North Korea could look to strike a nearby foe  or the 25,000 US troops stationed in South Korea  the US has Aegis radar-equipped Navy destroyers.

"That's good for medium-range missiles," Lewis said.

Next, Patriot Advanced Capability-3 interceptors defend against missiles at their final, or terminal, stage. These are "mostly good at short- and medium-range ballistic missiles," said Lewis. The PAC-3 "would cover a city or an airfield," he added.

Finally, the biggest and perhaps best system is the Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense system. "THAAD could cover all of South Korea, including everything up to a Nodong missile," North Korea's medium-range system, Lewis said.

On maps and graphics, you can see the overlapping areas of protection provided by these three systems, but looks can deceive; with missile defense, all systems deal in probabilities, not certainties.

"You actually have to see the thing get launched, understand where it's heading, and pass the information along to battlefield management software, the brain that makes all of this work," said Lewis.

Of all the steps in the process, not one is immune to distortion.

"Radars can be defeated by chaff or clutter," Lewis said. "North Korea could launch a radar blackout attack, where a nuke detonates in the atmosphere and can black out a radar for a few seconds. Those could be the few seconds you need."

Davenport said, "It's important to note that this THAAD system will only cover North Korea, but North Korea could evade that by launching a nuke from a submarine from outside of THAAD radar."

And North Korea may "try to confuse the THAAD system by launching multiple missiles at once or launching decoys," she said.

But could North Korean missiles overwhelm the US's defenses in its homeland? Experts say we have every reason to believe Kim when he says he's working toward an intercontinental ballistic missile, and the US's defenses suffer from the same uncertainties as systems abroad.

The US protects its western coast from a fixed site in Alaska, where interceptor missiles would theoretically strike an incoming ICBM "midtrajectory, while it's traveling through space," Lewis said.

However, as a recent Bloomberg article noted, the office that tests this system concluded it had "limited capability to defend the US homeland from small numbers of simple" ICBMs, according to its last report.

Lewis echoed this, saying it has "a spotty test record" and that there are multiple questions about how well it would perform. Unlike THAAD, the Alaska site fires salvos, a series of interceptor missiles for each incoming threat, which serves as an admission that the system falls short of perfection, according to Lewis.

"The system in Alaska needs to be redesigned," Lewis said. "They plan to salvo-fire it, so every interceptor has a 50-50 chance of hitting. ... If they fire five, they're gonna be up in the high-confidence territory" for intercepts.

But this high ratio of interceptors to threats means that a North Korean salvo could possibly exhaust the US's supply of interceptors with decoys, leaving the US defenseless.

So for now, the only guarantee the US has against North Korean ICBMs is that such a threat doesn't exist.

So why doesnt the US just destroy North Koreas nuclear capabilities?

Each day, North Korea gets closer to issuing a real threat to the US, and it already significantly endangers the lives of millions within its range. Yet the US can't exactly swoop in and stop it.

"A preemptive strike on North Korea would carry an enormous risk of retaliation on South Korea or US assets in the area," Davenport said.

"The big dynamic that's a problem is that, I think, North Korea plans to use those missiles armed with nuclear weapons at the early part of the conflict to destroy US forces in the region and those coming in," said Lewis, adding that Kim's strategy would likely be to "impede an invasion and shock us."

"The problem the US and South Korea faces is that the options for defense are not all that appealing," said Lewis.

US pilots currently train in mock North Korean airspace with stealth planes like the F-22 and F-35 to destroy surface-to-air missiles, or SAM, and nuclear sites. While the fifth-generation aircraft would likely succeed and overwhelm North Korean forces, the nuclear sites are just too spread out and mysterious to knock out before Pyongyang would have a chance to strike back.

"There are so many unknowns about the number of warheads North Korea has, where it stores them. ... It would be incredibly difficult to ensure that a preemptive strike would neutralize the North Korean threat or even the conventional threat posed to Seoul," said Davenport, alluding to the huge artillery installations North Korea has fixed on the South Korean capital that are ready to blast away.

When it comes to using jets to hunt down SAM and nuclear sites, "the US tried this in Iraq in 1991, and it was a total failure," Lewis said. The US's considerable losses of aircraft to antiaircraft batteries during the Gulf War was a "searing experience for the US Air Force," Lewis said.

While there's plenty of reason to think that today's F-22s and the coming F-35s would far outmatch North Korea's technology and air defenses, the terrain of North Korea plays well for Kim.

Iraq's countryside is defined by flat desert expanses, where road-mobile antiaircraft batteries can easily navigate but have nowhere to hide. North Korea, on the other hand, has mountains and forests, though the country is smaller  therefore, the road-mobile missile launchers and antiaircraft batteries would have more opportunities to hide but less space to do so.

In any case, the landscape presents difficulties in hunting down sensitive sites, even with the best jets the US has to offer.

And unlike the US, North Korea has road-mobile missile launchers that can hide anywhere.

"One hundred launchers, so it would be a pretty big lift, and you have to do it pretty fast" to avoid a North Korean counterattack, said Lewis. Many have suggested that instead of disarming North Korea with a lightning-quick blitz from the air, forces decapitate the regime by striking Kim himself.

In fact, South Korea recently announced plans to form a small "decapitation brigade" that would surgically destroy the leader and his top leadership  but that's a best-case scenario.

The terrifying truth about North Korea's nuclear threat is that it can't be stopped by one system or even multiple systems. It can't be blitzed from the sky. It can't be effectively debilitated by sanctions, as time has proven, and it only strengthens over time.

Several possible solutions circulate in the national-security arena, all with strengths and weaknesses, all risking innocent lives. And each side appears set on striking first and ending the conflict before it begins.
The reports said Trump and House Republicans were developing plans to fund the border wall using taxpayer money through a 2006 law enacted by President George W. Bush that provided for over 700 miles of barriers along the southern US border.

CNN cited House Republican officials who said the plan could be taken up as early as April.

The proposed border wall  and Trump's assertion that Mexico would pay for it  was one of his principal campaign pledges. The matter generated some fallout between Trump and Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto when the two publicly disagreed about the wall payment after Trump flew to Mexico to meet with him in August.

On his return to the US, Trump claimed he and Pena Nieto never discussed payment. Pena Nieto immediately fired back in Spanish: "I repeat what I told you personally, Mr. Trump: Mexico will never pay for a wall."

Trump modified his plans during a speech in late October when he outlined an idea for a proposed "End Illegal Immigration Act," in which the US would pay for the wall and seek reimbursement from Mexico.

Trump reiterated his reimbursement plan in a tweet Friday morning:
A US-led coalition has supported Iraqi forces throughout the campaign, including a November 16 strike that destroyed an ISIS watercraft  vital for navigating Iraq's extensive rivers  near Mosul.

Coalition-led airstrikes near Mosul on November 16 targeted four watercraft, destroying them and six mortar systems, two fighting positions, two vehicles, a bunker, and an ISIS-held building. Those strikes also targeted tunnels and tactical units.

Mosul is bisected by the Tigris River and had five bridges connecting the eastern and western halves of the city. ISIS militants in the city mined and booby-trapped the bridges, and as of late November, four of the five had been destroyed.

The US-led coalition has gone after ISIS watercraft on numerous occasions, particularly in the run-up to the Mosul campaign, which kicked off in mid-October.

In September alone, coalition warplanes destroyed 65 boats, which ISIS has used both as a means of transport and a way to mount improvised-explosive attacks.

Boats have also figured into ongoing fight for control of Mosul and its environs. On September 14 and 16, strikes near the towns of Qayyara and Sultan Abdallah, which are south of Mosul on the Tigris River, destroyed more than 50 boats.

The Iraqi campaign has so far recaptured about one-quarter of Mosul from ISIS, and the terror group has maintained some freedom of movement to launch counterattacks, mounting vehicle-borne suicide-bomb attacks with relative alacrity.

When the operation against ISIS in Mosul began, there were believed to be about 1 million civilians caught in the city. In the weeks of fighting, tens of thousands have been displaced, but many more remain in contested parts of the city or in areas under ISIS control.

Civilians are frequently caught in the crossfire, in some instances reportedly by coalition or Iraqi government forces. Even civilians in liberated parts of Mosul are not safe from the fighting.

Iraqi officials have not released statistics about those killed and wounded in the Mosul offensive, but the UN said in mid-November that civilian casualties were overwhelming Iraqi government and international aid groups in the area.

"Since then, the situation seems to have deteriorated," Reuters reported this week.
1. London's transport body wants to encourage diversity in its advertising. TfL set up an advertising steering group, which discussed the idea of encouraging brands to feature more diverse groups of people in their ads.

2. Tech companies agreed to do more to reduce the spread of extremist content online. Google, Facebook, Twitter, and Microsoft agreed to develop technical tools to identify and remove terrorist propaganda after a meeting with the UK home secretary, The Drum reported.

3. How Intuit's cofounder invested in Snapchat. Scott Cook initially didn't believe in the product but invested after meeting the app's founder Evan Spiegel in a Stanford class.

4. Facebook is building its own personal donation feature to compete with GoFundMe. The new feature is available to everyone over the age of 18 in the United States.

5. BETC London is the latest agency to name a female chief creative officer. The French agency named Rosie Bardales its new CCO, according to Campaign.

6. Twitter will stop counting usernames in tweets. The social media company is making the changes based on user feedback, The Drum reported.

7. Marriot is giving four influencers Snap Spectacles for a new campaign. The social media stars will take over the brand's Snapchat account for the campaign which runs until July, as Ad Week reported.

8. Carl's Jr.'s outgoing CEO took credit for the brand's marketing u-turn. After saying he liked the brands' racy ads in a 2015 interview, Andrew Puzder said he approached agency 72&Sunny and told them they didn't work anymore, according to Ad Week.

9. Inside Verizon's battle to save mobile streaming service go90. The mobile-focused video service is struggling to get traction.
He further added that this system when utilised properly will drive patronage for electronic payment options, which are more efficient.

The obvious advantage of Direct Debit is that it allows utility bills, subscriptions and any other forms of regularly payments to be made timely.

He said the Direct Debit system benefits both the customer and service provider.

When customers default in paying bills or subscriptions, the service providers or organisations suffer, so if they encourage customers to use Direct Debit, they would be happier for it, Mr Hesse explained.

READ ALSO: Ghana targets 1m tonnes

He added that Ghana can also implement the system since other developed countries have done same.

The Automated Clearing House (ACH) Direct Debit is offered by banks and it is an electronic form of payment that customers can use to pay mortgage, utility bills, and various forms of fixed subscriptions such as for gyms, magazines, pay-TV, and association membership dues among others.

The customer only needs to fill a Direct Debit form that will authorise the companies or institutions they need to make these regular payments to collect the stated amount from their bank accounts on specific dates.

Direct Debit appears to be similar to Standing Orders, but the former can be used for the payment of both fixed and variable amounts.
Mr. Grant has always advised investors to take advantage of governments pro-business initiatives which can ensure job creation.

GIPC together with a number of businesses, civil society organisations and policymakers from Ghana are expected to join several thousands of other interested participants from over 140 countries at arguably the worlds largest FDI and strategic networking platform.

Vice President and Prime Minister of the United Arab Emirates and ruler of Dubai, Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum are the organisers for the conference.

The event will take place from April 2 to 4 at the Dubai International Convention and Exhibition Centre.

READ ALSO:Yoofi Grant is new CEO of GIPC

It is expected to provide key insights on how the government and other stakeholders stimulate and facilitate the flow of investments between countries and establish investment partnerships in vital sectors.

Held under the theme International Investment, Path to Competitiveness & Development, this years edition of AIM will gather more than 150,000 attendees including renowned personalities, key decision makers in industry, finance and politics from the Mena region and around the globe.

The international forum will be host to 100 high-level officials, 500 exhibitors and more than 100 media partners.
He noted that such actions contravened directives from the Ministry directing heads of second cycle institutions not to prevent students from writing the examinations.

Opoku Prempeh ordered that no Headmaster/Headmistress is mandated to prevent the students from taking part in the examinations.

The practice of some heads of senior high schools (SHSs) collecting school fees for the second and the third terms from students preparing for the West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) still persists, contrary to the law.

READ MORE: WAEC releases results of private WASSCE candidates

The Minister gave the warning in Accra when he visited selected SHSs including Legon Presbyterian SHS, Achimota SHS and Accra Girls SHS at the start of this years WASSCE to monitor the situation on the ground.

Addressing the media, Opoku Prempeh expressed satisfaction about the serene environment, the security and safety at the schools, and the peaceful manner in which the exams were being conducted.

Oftentimes a usual occurrence prior to and during the WASSCE, candidates are even sacked from the examination halls over unpaid school fees.

READ MORE:70 students to write Arabic in WASSCE 2017

It is perhaps in this vein that the minister asked school authorities to refrain from unauthorized means to collect fees from final year students.

However, a statement signed by the Chief Director at the Ministry of Education, Enoch Cobbinah also directed these Heads to "desist from collecting unapproved fees, particularly from Form Three students of the 2016/17 academic year".
He made this shocking revelation in an interview with United Television.

Chairman Wontumi real name Benard Antwi Boasiako said, I always said he is greedy. When you look at him, he does appear as someone who wants to work to make a living.

READ ALSO: Here are 12 celebrity siblings who are in the same field of work

He is too smart, always on Facebook to attract women. He wants to use his intelligence to earn money. He takes money from women after sleeping with them. He is an opportunist, lazy and criminal.

The 33-year-old, John Dumelo has been trending in Ghana after the National Security Operatives caught him attempting to rebrand one of the missing state cars, a black V8 Toyota Land Cruiser with registration number GE 8118-16 in a workshop at Abelempke, Accra.

READ ALSO: Here are 7 celebrities who are accused of bleaching
Onipede, whose address was not given, is facing a two-count charge of a breach of the peace and unlawful damage.

The prosecutor, Insp. Igonbo Emby, told the court that the accused committed the offences with some others still at large on March 29, at 4:00p.m., on Victoria Island, Lagos.

He said the accused threw stones at the complainant, Mr Saka Kamorudeen, an officer of VIO, while he was carrying out his official duty.

The accused unlawfully damaged the head lamp and the rear lamp of a Toyota Hilux belonging to the VIO, valued at N70, 000, he said.

The prosecutor said that the offences contravened Sections 166 (1) and 337 of the Criminal Law of Lagos State, 2011.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that Section 166 stipulates a N15, 000 fine for the first offence and a fine of N45, 000 or a three-month imprisonment or both for every subsequent offence.

The counsel to the defence, Mrs Helen Ibeji, urged the court to grant his client bail on liberal terms.

The magistrate, Mr W. B. Balogun, granted the accused bail in the sum of N100, 000 with one surety in like sum.

Balogun said the surety should be gainfully employed and should show evidence of tax payment to the Lagos State Government (LASG).
The defendant is standing trial on a one-count charge of absence items.

The defendant, a resident of Utako market, Abuja pleaded not guilty to the offence.

Earlier, the prosecutor, Florence Auhioboh, told the court that one Samuel Peters of Multi pro-consumer production Ltd, Kagini junction, Kubwa Abuja, reported the matter at the Utako Police Station on March 27.

Auhioboh said that the complainant alleged that on March 23, he bought a cartoon of hypo from the defendant at the rate of N4, 000 as against of N4, 300, adding that he later discovered that the product he purchased was adulterated.

Auhioboh said that during police investigation, two cartoons of the suspected adulterated product were also recovered from the accused.

The prosecutor also said that the offence contravened Section 202 of the Penal Code.

The counsel to the defendant, Isaac Mathew, applied for the bail of the accused and assured the court that Omih would not the jump bail.

The Judge, Alhaji Abubakar Sadiq, granted the accused bail in the sum of N30, 000 and one surety in like sum.
The rising model and feminist was an epitome of strength, grace and glamour as she posed for the double covers a blue Versace trench court and a Mexican wide-brimmed hat.

She was shot by fashion photographer Giampaolo Sgura and styled by Patrick Mackie for the new issue which is also Latin Americas biggest publication. On the second cover, she wore a Proenza Schouler cross-over crop top with a pleated skirt. Her face was painted by beauty artist Benjamin Puckey, and hair styling by Ward Stegerhoek.

24-year old Adwoa is the daughter of Ghanaian scout, Charles Aboah and Camilla Lowther, owner of the CLM agency that represents photographers, stylists, makeup artists, hairstylists and manicurists across the fashion industry.

READ MORE: 11 really cute celebrity babies you should check out right now

Her unique image has her fronting and walking for famous designer brands including Marc Jacobs, Calvin Klein, Fendi, DKNY, Alexander Wang, Theory, H&M, Aldo, Versus (Versace), Topshop, Rihanna x Puma, Kenzo to name but a few.

Aboa also appeared on the cover of American Vogue to mark its 125th Anniversary with other supermodels including Liu Wen, Ashley Graham, Kendall Jenner, Gigi Hadid, Imaan Hammam, and Vittoria Ceretti in March 2017. She has also been on the cover of Vogue Italia, i-D and has starred alongside Scarlett Johansen in a sci-fi drama Ghost In The Shell.

READ MORE: Meet one of the designers who makes Samira Bawumia looks so good

The Gurls Talk founder has also been vocal about her personal struggles with suicide, depression, self-esteem and drug abuse after she checked out of rehab. She told Vogue "losing out on jobs and being judged on your appearance. I definitely grew a second skin and got used to it but more so now I realise that it definitely contributed to a lot of the things I feel about myself.

Adwoa Aboah is also big sister to model Kessewa Aboah who admits that their Ghanaian heritage has had a huge influence on their modelling career.
She also attributed her success and creative ability to meet the demands of her customers to God.

I would say, it is all by grace, sometimes you just dont know. It comes to you like this will be nice and it keeps changing. There are times maybe you will be sitting down somewhere, very little things around can inspire you to create something.

According to Akua, she was fascinated by unique sight in other countries and decided to start up the floral business in Ghana. They started with giving flowers to people, decorating homes, creating centerpieces for wedding events and with time they ventured into full time event organising.

She recounted the difficulty of selling flowers to Ghanaians. Initially it was difficult. People were not into giving out flowers. But with the course of time, they see beautiful things and yes I have this, I can do this in my house and all of that. So with that people started warming up to it.
According to the court presided over by Mrs Justice Ayisi Addo, DSP Tehoda's dismissal was in breach of natural justice and her right to fair trial.

The court also awarded GHc 10, 000 compensation for her dismissal and Ghc 5, 000 for her detention in BNI custody for 45 days.

Background

READ ALSO:

The parcels of suspected cocaine later turned into baking soda under mysterious circumstances in court.

Gifty Tehoda was linked to the disappearance of the cocaine and was arrested, interdicted and dismissed shortly after.
Mr Tanoh is said to have breached Articles 13, 111, 121 and 124 of the partys constitution which are related to the conduct of executive officers.

Take heed to return any party property, document, or material in your possession which came under your custody as Acting General Secretary in your own interest, a letter signed by CPP National Chairman, Prof Edmund N. Delle said.

But Mr Tanoh has denied committing any offence.

According to him, he only spoke publicly about what he calls the corrupt activities of the partys 2016 flagbearer, Ivor Kobina Greenstreet and other executive members of the CPP.
This is his second major visit of the president to the region since he was elected after an initial one on December 14, 2016 after he was declared by the Electoral Commission as the president-elect.

READ MORE: Chaos erupts in Parliament over bribery report

The president would among other activities on Sunday April 2, as part of his visit address a mammoth rally of party supporters.

READ ALSO:Ken Agyapong vows to commit suicide if Mahama is not jailed
Mr Appiah-Ofori argued that Mahama Ayariga has brought the image of parliament into disrepute after being found to be in contempt of the House.

In an interview on Accra-based Class FM, he argued that such a sanction against Mr Ayariga will serve as a deterrent to others from engaging in similar acts.

READ ALSO: Joe Ghartey committee finds Mahama Ayariga guilty of contempt

If the committee has said this is the offence he committed, then I am saying that he should not be just requested to apologise but he should be expelled from parliament so that it will serve as a deterrent to others."

If he says the Appointments Committee had collected bribe from an appointee, it has reduced the image of parliament completely, he added.

MP for Bawku Central, Mahama Ayariga was charged with contempt by the ad hoc committee set up to investigate the bribery allegation that was levelled against the leadership of the Appointments Committee.

READ ALSO: Chaos erupts in Parliament over bribery report

As part of recommendations by the Joe Ghartey committee, Mr Ayariga was asked to apologise to the House.

After several protestations, Ayariga who appeared dissatisfied with the committee's work said that "Mr Speaker if you say I should apologise, I apologise."

This half-hearted apology did not go down well with the majority side in the house, leading to exchange of words.

The back and forth continued until the Speaker of Parliament, Professor Aaron Mike Oquaye adjourned sitting to Friday.

Members from both sides converged in the middle with Sam George leading the onslaught for the Minority side.

But for the timely intervention of some other MPs and some staff of Parliament, there would have been a fierce exchange of blows.

Findings in the report

According to the report, Ayariga "failed to ascertain the veracity of the rumour prior to publishing same. The Committee further observed that as a result of the publication, trust and confidence among members and inter-party cohesion needed for consensus building at the Appointments Committee has broken down considerably."

READ ALSO: Valerie responds to faceless NDC attackers

"Individual members of the Appointments Committee had become suspicious of each other. The chairman of the appointments committee indicated his distrust for Mr Mahama Ayariga while Alhaji Muntaka stressed that it will be difficult to deal with his accusers."

"The reputation and image of the institution of Parliament has been greatly injured by the allegation. The reputation and dignity of the First Deputy Speaker, other members of the Appointments Committee and that of the Minister for Energy equally suffered considerable damage."

The report added: "As a results of these observations, the committee came to the firm conclusion that Mr Mahama Ayariga is in contempt of Parliament on the strength of Article 122 of the 1992 Constitution, Section 32 of the Parliament Act (1965) Act 300 and Orders 28 and 30 (2) of the Standing Orders of Parliament.
He said the abusive language and insults hurled at some MPs by Alhassan Suhuyini was not the best.

Suhuyini was seen throwing his hands and speaking angrily to some MPs on the floor of Parliament during the presentation and debate of the report in connection with a bribery allegation made by Bawku Central MP Mahama Ayariga against the leadership of the Appointments Committee.

He moved from his original sitting place in the chamber to seat closer to the MP for Bawku Central Mahama Ayariga. An action Osei Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu described as unfortunate.

He added that amidst a near-brawl on the floor during the debate, the first-time opposition MP, was heard and seen making aggressive gestures at an MP accompanied with insults.

He came to occupy the seat just close to where Ayariga sits Im talking about Suhuyini, and Im saying that its most unfortunate. I mean you dont conduct yourself like that. I mean on a couple of occasions, Ive had word with him that he should watch his own attitude in the house, its not the best, on a couple of occasions hes been made to apologise to people and so on and so forth.
DuPont is being forced by the European Commission to sell off various parts of their business to meet the anti-trust requirements of their merger with DOW Chemical.

According to the press release:

"FMC will acquire DuPont's global chewing pest insecticide portfolio, its global cereal broadleaf herbicides, and a substantial portion of DuPont's global crop protection R&D capabilities. In 2017, FMC expects this acquired business will generate approximately $1.5 billion in revenue and $475 million of EBITDA."

This deal will make FMC the fifth largest crop protector in the world by revenue.

Many of the chemicals that FMC is acquiring are proprietary to DuPont and will give FMC exclusive access to various agricultural markets.

The deal included DuPont's crop protection R&D lab in Delaware and the 15 synthetic proprietary chemicals that Dupont is currently working on there.
Polls released this week showed that Trump's already low approval rating dropped again. A Gallup tracking poll had it at just 35% on Wednesday, The Hill reported.

"This is supposed to be the honeymoon period," Meyers said. "And Trump should be good at those. He's had three of them.

"To give you some perspective, 35% is worse than Richard Nixon's approval rating during Watergate and George W. Bush's approval rating after Hurricane Katrina."

The low rating arrives amid the failure of the Republican healthcare plan, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes' recent actions that have cast doubt on the committee's investigation into the Trump team's potential ties to Russia, and a vote in Congress to dismantle rules that would have made companies unable to buy and sell consumers' online history and data without their consent.

Even some of Trump's most ardent supporters are losing trust in the president, Meyers said.

The host used two recent developments to show why he believes trust in the president is at an all-time low. First, a recent report said Nunes received information from White House sources that led to his claim last week that members of Trump's transition team might have been "incidentally" surveilled.

"That means Nunes went to the White House to brief Trump on information he got from the White House," Meyers said. "It's like when you send yourself an email reminder, and two minutes later go, 'Oh, a new email!'"

Then there was the vote to gut Obama-era rules about internet privacy, which has become a hot-button issue among legislators and citizens.

"If this bill sounds outrageous to you, you're not alone," Meyers said of the resolution passed by Congress on Tuesday. "The question now is will there be as much grassroots resistance to Trump's agenda going forward as there was to his healthcare bill? So far, all signs point to yes."
The Times Square New Year's Eve event is already a heavily policed affair, but the stakes are even higher this year after a series of terrorist attacks erupted in Europe  some of which involved the use of heavy vehicles.

A Tunisian man who drove a heavy truck into a Christmas market in Berlin this month killed 12 people and injured 56 others. His attack followed a more deadly assault in Nice, France, in July that left 86 people dead when a man drove a 20-ton refrigerated truck into a crowd celebrating Bastille Day.

Officials cited by the Associated Press said they were unaware of any specific threats against Times Square.

Heres some of what you might see there on New Years Eve:

The truck tactic has been used before.

Garbage-haulers were parked around Trump Tower and Hillary Clinton's election headquarters on Election Day in November.

Similar preparations are being made for New Year's Eve festivities in Las Vegas.
Most of the stores will start liquidation sales on January 6 and go out of business between late March and mid-April.

Sears announced the closures internally on Tuesday but did not publicly release a comprehensive list of the stores that would close.

Business Insider confirmed the closures with store employees at each location. We will add to this list as we confirm additional closures.

30 Kmart stores closing:

1801 NW US Hwy 19, Crystal River, Florida

McGregor Point Shopping Center, Fort Myers, Florida

33 W. Montgomery Cross Road, Savannah, Georgia



4561 Salt Lake Blvd, Honolulu, Hawaii



222 North Point Blvd, Baltimore, Maryland

17 Sears stores closing:

Florence Mall, Florence, Alabama

9605 Queens Blvd., Rego Park, New York

10 Whitten Rd., Augusta, Maine

Shenango Valley Mall, Hermitage, Pennsylvania

This latest round of closures will bring the total number of stores that Sears has closed this fiscal year to more than 200.

That means the retailer will have fewer than 1,500 stores left by early 2017. That's down nearly 60% from 2011, when Sears had more than 3,500 stores.

Sears is shutting down stores to help stem losses from falling sales.

In the most recent quarter, Sears' revenue fell 13%, to $5 billion, and its losses widened to $748 million from $454 million in the period last year.

Same-store sales dropped 7.4%, including a 10% decrease at Sears stores and a 4.4% decrease at Kmart stores.

Northwoods Mall in Charleston, South Carolina was closing. Approximately half the store will be closed and redeveloped, while the other half will remain open.
In a statement, the Ministrys Director of information, Mr Salisu Dambatta, explained that the extension would last till May or the passage of the 2017 Budget, whichever was the earlier.

Adeosun said that the extension was to ensure the completion of on-going projects and urged Federal Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) to take note of the changes.

The minister had earlier said that the capital releases to Federal MDAs for the 2016 budget had reached a record one trillion naira out of the budgeted N1.6 trillion.

She expressed confidence that the Federal Government would be able to achieve more from the 2017 budget with the current stability in oil price and the return of normalcy in the Niger Delta region.

In recent times, delays in the passage of the annual budget by the National Assembly have necessitated the extension of the life of the budget for the past year.

Such delays have led to calls for the early presentation of the budget by the executive arm of government.
By adopting sound investment policies over the past two decades, in tandem with key reforms, many African Governments started a trajectory of economic growth that is set to beat the resource curse. Although governance has improved, the perception on transparency remains a concern for international analysts and large institutional investors.

The research on this subject indicates that beyond societal flaws in morality and ethics, corruption thrives in context of generalized poverty, inadequate remuneration, inappropriate work conditions and convoluted administrative procedures.

This observation alone poses risks for reputable investors and businesses that wish to take advantage of the growing investment opportunities in the continent. Because in fact, many African nations are just compensating for the long periods of economic subservience, political instability and sluggish growth that plagued the continent during the end of the previous century.

Corruption reduces the amount of investment that truly goes into the production of goods and services, thereby affecting job creation, industrialization and economic growth. A recent World Bank report indicates that nearly $1 trillion is paid each year in bribes around the world.

World Bank Enterprise Surveys data also shows that Sub-Saharan Africa has some of the worlds highest levels of corporate bribery. Its data shows that 22.6% of companies surveyed in the region have experienced at least one bribe payment request.

This compares to 24% for MENA, 30% for East Asia and Pacific, 10.4% for Latin America and the Caribbean and only 1.9% for high-income OECD countries. Thus, addressing the causes of corruption is important for investment efficiency and socioeconomic development in Africa.

In the current context of low commodity prices, the Governments of many extractive economies in the continent are resorting to expenditure cuts and refocussing on key national priorities such as health, nourishment, public safety and attracting investments.

Major oil producers, such as Angola and Nigeria are courting foreign banks and investors in a bid to maintain the inward flow of exchangeable currencies to the domestic economy in order to sustain the past investment levels. This exercise is favouring exotic funding models, such as PPPs, BOOTs, and even absolute privatizations.

As additional support for inward private investment, countries such as Senegal, Nigeria and Angola have set up sovereign wealth funds, dedicated to the highest standards of transparency and accountability, which co-invest alongside private investors in key domestic industries.

Angolas sovereign wealth fund, Fundo Soberano de Angola (FSDEA), which was created in 2012 with a $5 billion endowment ensued rigorous governance measures before it spent a single penny of the nations money. Deloitte & Touch, was appointed by the government to independently audit its financial performance.

And it signed up to the generally accepted principles and practices defined by the International Working Group of Sovereign Wealth Funds, an association established by the IMF. FSDEA is required to produce financial statements in accordance with the International Financial Reporting Standards.

Other noticeable steps have been taken to improve institutional efficiency in the continent. Many Governments have committed to reducing bureaucratic red tape and reinforcing the legislative and judicial systems in recent years.

Rwanda, Morocco, Kenya, Ghana and Angola, have simplified their tax regimes and reduced the time required to start-up a business by reducing the minimum investment criteria, offering one-stop shops for administrative support and all nature of registrations, and investing in business-critical infrastructure, such as energy and transport.

The commitment to reducing corruption has even reached one of the regions most serious economic concerns  money laundering. The Financial Action Task Force (FATF), for instance, removed Angola from its black list in 2016, after confirming the national adoption of a set of strict banking regulations, set to improve transparency in the business sector.

Algeria was also removed from the black list this year  illustrating that two major economies in the continent have made significant progress in addressing this issue. A research carried out by the Hong Kong Baptist University estimate that each 1% increase in the corruption level reduces the growth rate by about 0.72%. Therefore, the measures being adopted by African Governments are key for socioeconomic development.

Over recent decades, the socio-political context of African nations has improved dramatically. Since the beginning of the current century, the number of civil conflicts have steadily declined, in tandem with establishment of democracies and adoption of market reforms.

This socio-political stability has set the continent on a growth path with several of the continents economies are among the fastest growing in the world. And whereas there is scope for improvement, African governments have proven to be committed to this positive trajectory.

So, it is up to international analysts and large institutional investors to add optimism to their observations in order to reap the benefits of undisputable growth or let the more audacious others take over.
Another Nigerian based in that country, Mike Osaro , posted the gory photos and gave details of the gang war involving members of the Eiye and Viking Confraternities.

Osaro narrated that the war which took place in Pretoria saw one of his friends named Chibuikemacheted to death in the process while reprisal attacks also took place in other towns like Yeoville and Johannesburg, all in the name of supremacy.
They were, however, released on N400, 000 bail.

The eight women  Jessita Nelson, 25; Chinyere Elon, 25; Cynthia Nwoke, 38; Taiwo Ali, 45; Abigal Moses, 29; Ifeanyi Okoro, 30; Chiwendu Anah, 40; and Ivie Osasa, 25  are facing a charge of soliciting for immoral purpose.They all denied the charge.

The Prosecutor, Sgt. Christopher Okoliko told the court that Nelson and Elon committed the offence on March 27 at about 12.30 a.m. on Babs Animashaun Road, Surulere, while the six others committed the offence on March 27 at about 12.00 .a.m. along Adeniran Ogunsanya Street, Surulere.

According to him, the eight women have been sighted at the various spots for alleged solicitation of prostitution.

The offence contravened Section 142 (b) of the Criminal Law of Lagos State 2015 (Revised).

The Chief Magistrate, Mr A.A. Paul, granted the women N50,000 each with one surety in like sum.

He said surety must be gainfully employed and also provide evidence of tax payments to the government.
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Wisdom, whose address is unknown, is facing a charge of stealing.

She pleaded innocence of the offence, but the Prosecutor, Sgt. Christopher Okoliko, insisted that the accused committed the offence between May 23, 2016 and March 21, 2017 at No. 41, Onitana St., Surulere.

The offence contravened Section 287 (7) of the Criminal Law of Lagos State, 2015 (Revised).

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the section provides that any clerk or servant who steals the property of his employer, is liable on conviction to seven years imprisonment.

Ruling on the womans bail application, the Chief Magistrate, Mr A.A. Paul, granted her bail in the sum of N100,000 with two sureties in like sum.

Paul said one of the sureties must be a blood relation of the accused, while the other surety must be a community leader or cleric.

In addition, he said the sureties should provide evidence of tax payments to the government.
The new order sending back the daughter of a one-time governor of Oyo State, Victor Olunloyo to prison was made by a Federal High Court which refused to grant her bail.

Olunloyo who has had issues with many celebrities in the country was arrested after she published a story about a popular man of God, Pastor David Ibiyomie, who felt she had defamed his character and maligned his image.

The cleric had petitioned the Inspector General of Police and Olunloyo was arrested alongside a Port Harcourt-based journalist and publisher, Samuel Walson over the alleged publication and they were slammed into prison.
The Senior Magistrate, Mrs Patricia Adetuyibi in her ruling, sentenced Dauda to 40 days in Agodi prison with hard labour, after he pleaded guilty to the offence.

Adetuyibi did not give the convict an option of fine even though he was a first time offender.

Dauda of Isale Jaba area of Saki, Oyo State, pleaded guilty to the two-count charge against him after the First Information Report (FIR) was read and his confessional statement was presented in court.

The prosecutor, Sgt. Olalekan Adegbite, told the court that Dauda broke and entered the electronics shop of Dare Alabi on March 28 at about 4 a.m. in Samonda area, Ibadan.

Adegbite said Dauda stole two scales valued at N30,000 and one amplifier valued at N20,000 with total value of the stolen items at N50,000.

The convict broke into the shop and carting away the goods before he was arrested by security guard in the area and handed over to police at Bodija market.
The judge, Mr Umar Kagarko, ordered the remand of the defendant as he pleaded guilty and adjourned the case till April 17 for conviction and sentencing.

Kagarko, who recognised Mohammed as a `senior customer of the court, said: Mohammed has appeared before me and has been convicted for various offences of theft more than 12 times before this appearance.

Mohammed of NEPA Junction, Apo, who pleaded guilty to the charges of criminal trespass and theft preferred against him, told the judge that it was the devil that caused him to steal.

Earlier, prosecutor Fidelis Ogbobe, told the court that one Ifeanyi Kingsley of Phigba Sama, Apo, FCT, reported the matter at the Apo Police Station on March 3.

On March 3, Mohammed criminally went to the complainants shop and pretended to be a genuine customer.

He then stole the complainants Ipad valued at N180, 000 from the shop and disappeared until March 8, when he was sighted and arrested, Ogbobe said.

He also said that during police investigation, he confessed to have sold the Ipad to a prospective buyer.
Mr Ayo Oyewole, the EFCC Head of Public Affairs, Ibadan Zonal Office, told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Ibadan on Thursday that the suspect had engaged in Advance Fee Fraud.

Oyewole stated that Okiribiti, with others now at large, had allegedly conspired, using the pretence of providing cure and spiritual solution to health challenges, to defraud the women (name withheld) of a sum of N45 million.

He said that Aminat, age 34, married to one Wande Okiribiti (47) who is still at large, had confessed to committing the crime.

He said she had confessed that some of the money obtained from the victim, was collected by her through her bank account in a new generation bank, located in Ibadan.

Recounting her ordeal, the complainant said that she met Wande (suspects husband) sometimes in October 2014 at Utako, Abuja while in search of a cure for the health challenges of her children.

According to her, Wande presented himself as a local herb hawker and a spiritualist capable of providing solutions to all problems and lured me into believing he had the cure to my childrens challenges.

I subsequently made different payments as advised, totaling N45 million, but became suspicious at the request for funds transfers, which continued without solution to the problem.

Oyewole said that the complainant, having suspected foul play, wrote petitioned the commission, necessitating the arrest of the suspect.

He urged members of the public to be wary of the age-long tactics to avoid falling into the hands of fraudsters.
Total Media reports that Olubayode, a resident of Odode-Idanre in the Idanre Local Government Area of the state was arraigned in the court by the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC), and was charged with one count of having an incestuous relationship with his daughter resulting in the pregnancy.

The prosecuting officer, Ebriku David, had earlier told the court that the offense was contrary to and punishable under sections 31 (1) and 31 (2) of the Ondo State Childs Right Law of the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps, 2007.

David said the court that the victim, an apprentice, and her boss had reported the case to the NSCDCs office in Idanre when it was discovered that the girl was pregnant and the case was transferred to the Akure division of the corps, where the victim informed the command that her father was responsible for the pregnancy.

David also told the court that the convict had earlier confessed at the NSCDC office that he committed the offense.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the deportees arrived at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport (MMlA) Lagos at about 6.a.m on Friday.

The deportees,who are all males, were brought back in a chartered aircraft.

DSP Joseph Alabi, the Spokesman of the Lagos Airport Police Command, confirmed the development to NAN.

Also on ground to receive them were officials of the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN).

NAN gathered that the deportees were profiled by immigration authorities and given stipends to facilitate their transportation to their respective states.
The VP made the comments on Thursday, March 30, while speaking at an anti-corruption forum in Paris.

Countries hosting global financial centers, and other usually targeted destinations of illicit flows must be held more accountable to enforce mechanisms which ensure transparency of ownership, control, beneficial ownerships, trusts and other legal contrivances that may be used to camouflage financial or other assets, he said.

Open contracting and information systems, are also crucial. Responsible government authorities ought to have information about which companies won what contracts, and what they have paid as taxes to governments in host and home countries.

This is especially important for the extractive industry. Nigeria is committed to these standards having joined the Open Government Partnership in 2016.

The tracing, freezing and return of stolen assets has proved in many cases to be exceptionally difficult for most African countries. We in Nigeria have seen just how difficult it is to get back stolen assets from the international financial system, banks, that ought not have received those funds in the first place if the most routine question were asked.

There is now hardly any credible opposition to the notion that corruption and Illicit financial flows constitute perhaps the gravest challenge to development. And this is especially true of developing countries.

Indeed there is a sense in which corruption, grand corruption should be regarded as a crime against humanity. Corruption and illicit financial flows are different. But they really must be twinned. This is because for practical purposes it is an eminently more sensible approach to treat most of the sources of illicit financial flows as corrupt activity, within a broader use of the term, he added.

ALSO READ: APC congratulates Acting President Osinbajo at 60
President Muhammadu Buhari had on March 23 approved the disbursement of the second tranche of the Paris Club loan refunds to states that had disbursed the first tranche to local governments.

It was also gathered that accountability of the disbursement of the first tranche was a prerequisite for states to benefit from the second tranche of the disbursement.

This has raised fears that states that diverted the first tranche might be disqualified from benefitting from the second tranche due for disbursement.

The Bayelsa chapter of Association of Local Governments of Nigeria,(ALGON) through its spokesman and Chairman of Brass Local Government, Mr Bello Bina, confirmed that they had received the fund.

Bina Confirmed the receipt of the refund when he received the executives of the State Council of the Nigerian Union of Journalists, (NUJ) in Yenagoa.

He said that Gov. Seriake Dicksons judicious utilisation of the Paris Club fund had attracted commendations from the anti-graft agencies, including the Economic and Financial Crime Commission (EFCC).

Bina noted that in spite of the delay, the local governments were poised to properly utilise the money received as share from the Paris club refund.

The fund has been released to councils and we are currently trying to clear the backlog.

The council chairmen are trying to pay salaries and embark on capital projects, he said.

Bina explained that N158 million was remitted to the Brass Local Government Area of the State.

He said that the wage bill of teachers would gulp N47 million and the civil servants N72 million.The breakdown of the N1.3 billion shared among the eight councils were Brass Local Government, N158.5 million; Ekeremor Local Government, N182.2 million; Kolokuma/Opokuma, N122.6 million; and Ogbia, N157.9 million.

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The others were Sagbama N155.4 million; Nembe, N147.9 million; Southern Ijaw, N209.4 million; and Yenagoa, N199.1 million.

He commended the media practitioners in the state for fair and balanced reportage of events during and after the last state governorship election.
Bello stated this while fielding questions from State House correspondents after joining President Muhammadu Buhari to perform the weekly Jumat prayers at Presidential Villa Mosque, Abuja on Friday.

According to him, contrary to such insinuations, the resources of the state are being utilised for the general good of the people of the state.

He expressed satisfaction that President Buhari was recuperating very well since he came back from vacation, adding that Nigerians should not relent in their prayers for him.

We followed Mr President to perform Jumat prayers and we are happy that he is getting stronger and stronger by the day.

We can only thank Almighty Allah for this wonderful job that he (Buhari) has done for this country.

I only urge all Nigerians to continue to pray and give him all the necessary support. Nigeria is going to be better, he said.

The governor revealed that the cases of kidnapping and armed robbery, which used to characterize the state, had been brought under control.

He said the state, under his stewardship, had changed drastically as a result of responsible leadership.

 Kogi is changing from the dark days to the present economic prosperity; we are following our economic blueprint and things are changing, infrastructurally.

The civil service is being reformed, pension too is being reformed and investors are coming in because we have largely secured the state, he added.

On the nomination of Prof. Steven Ocheni as Minister to represent Kogi in the Federal Executive Council, Bello said the renowned professor would make Nigeria, people of Kogi and President Buhari, proud.

He thanked the president for nominating Ocheni, whom he described as a versatile and workaholic professor.

Similarly, Gov.Abdullahi Ganduje of Kano state lauded President Buhari for bringing peace and stability to Nigeria, especially for fighting the insurgency in the North Eastern part of the country.

Ganduje, who equally performed the Jumat prayers at the Presidential Villa together with the president, announced that with the restoration of peace, Kano state would be hosting an economic summit on April 24, to boost socio-economic activities in the state.
Tinubu was celebrating his 65th birthday with a colloquium.

Tinubu celebrates his birthday annually with a colloquium.

The hall for this years event was packed full as usual.

The theme for the 9th Bola Ahmed Tinubu colloquium was: Make It In Nigeria: Make What We Use, Use What We Make.

Speeches revolved around how Nigeria can make it out of its current economic troubles by consuming what it produces and producing what it consumes.

Pulse was specially invited to this gathering of politicians and dignitaries. Yeah, we kinda brag different around here.

And as usual, our Eagle eyes didnt miss a thing.

1. Who hired the noisy praise-singers?

As we drove to the Eko Hotel venue of the event, we couldnt help but notice a band of drummers forming a ring at the parking lot.

These drummers wore attires bearing the logo of the APCNigerias governing party.

As we awaited our accreditation at the hotel lobby, the job description of these drummers hit home.

They drummed each time a big man strode through the red carpet and eulogized the dignitary by chanting all sorts of appellations.

They were loud and all over the place.

They drummed when Vice President Yemi Osinbajo strode through, went into gyrations when Tinubu and some of his aides approached and went gaga when Musiliu Obanikoro, service chiefs, Governor El-Rufai,Governor Rauf Aregbesola, Aliko Dangote, Kemi Adeosun, Okechukwu Enelamah etc made for the doorway of the event.

During the event, the drummers were there too, as loud as ever.

Every speaker who was a politician had his speech and introduction interrupted by drummers and more praise-singing.

Governor Akinwunmi Ambode of Lagos State had his speech interrupted time and again by these drummers.

Who footed their bills, though?

For all that noise, their pay has got to be very huge.

2. Buhari refers to Tinubu as Asiwaju of the Universe

President Muhammadu Buhari wasnt physically present, but he sent a representative in the person of Interior minister, Abdulrahman Dambazau.

We always thought Tinubu was Asiwaju of Lagos--or if you want a stretch, Asiwaju of Southwest Nigeria.

Pronounced as Ashi-wa-ju in Yoruba, the title now firmly associated with the former Governor of Lagos, literally translates to Pacesetter in the English language.

Dambazau delivered President Buharis speech as good as you'll want a President's speech delivered.

While reading the Presidents goodwill message to the celebrant, Dambazau referred to Tinubu as the "Asiwaju of the Universe", immediately drawing plenty of applause from the audience and a broad smile from Tinubu.

ALSO READ: Aregbesola says Jagaban is a rare breed

Buhari also said the Jagaban of Borgu is the outstanding Yoruba politician of his generation.

3. Area boys are still a thing in Lagos

Like, you cant even hold an event in the nations commercial capital without fashioning out a plan for how to deal with area boys.

Pulse counted hordes and hordes of these miscreants before and after the event, milling in and around Eko Hotel.

It was little wonder that Lagos Police Commissioner, Fatai Owoseni, was physically present to ward off the area boys from the dignitaries.

Owoseni and his men had a tough task on their hands all day.

4. Ambode likens Tinubu to a coconut and, wait for it.

Okay, the Lagos Governors prepared remarks came from a good speech writer, we've got to be honest here.

Comparing Tinubu to a coconut tree that keeps bearing coconuts, seemed apt.

Ambode harped on every word and sentence as he delivered his speech.

It was a remarkable delivery.

Toward the end of the event, Tinubu had his opportunity to respond to his being compared to a coconut.

I am not coconut, Tinubu said, as the audience devolved into fits of laughter.

However, somewhere later in his address, Tinubu accepted his fate.

No wonder I have coconut head, the Asiwaju of the universe said light-heartedly, to more laughter.

5. Did Ambode throw a jibe at Fashola?

Just in case youve been under a rock, Ambode and his predecessor, Babatunde Fashola, arent the best of friends at the moment.

For all about their fight and what has made them sworn enemies, please read this.

It was therefore not a surprise that Fashola was nowhere to be found during the event.

We reached out to an aide of his who told us that the minister of power, works and housing, had taken ill from his trips across Nigeria to inspect road projects and needed a rest.

We dont believe that excuse. Not in a million years.

Fashola and Tinubu have also fallen out in the past.

Osinbajo has been around the country as well lately, but there he was at the Eko Hotel throughout the event.

So, as Ambode spoke about the coconuts the coconut tree (Tibubu) has been able to bring forth, he said something along the lines of some will be bad coconuts...

My friends and I shared knowing looks.

The only bad coconut borne by Tinubu that wasnt in the room, given latest events, was

In Abuja..

Your guess is just as good as ours.

6. Tinubus wife is domineering

During cake cutting and group photo session, Senator Oluremi Tinubu who is the celebrants wife, took over the microphone from the comperes.

I am going to take over from this point, she announced.

And so it was.

Before Mrs. Tinubu's announcement, there was plenty of disorderliness on the stage as photographers hustled to take a shot or two.

Mrs. Tinubu didnt like this, hence the takeover.

After the photo session, she announced that dignitaries should report to the next building for lunch.

Two words to describe Oluremi Tinubu on the day: Boss lady.

7. Osinbajo can be very loyal

VP Osinbajo and his pretty wife, Dolapo, sat through the entire event without a word.

They flashed an occasional broad grin this way and that.

They were enjoying the afternoon.

A few dignitaries left before the end of proceedings, noticeably Africas richest man Aliko Dangote.

Not Osinbajo.

He owes his rise up the political ladder to Tinubu and on the day, he showed hes still very loyal to his godfather.

8. Surprise guests

was a bit surprised to see a few guests walk past, before the event.

Musiliu Obanikoro? Hes never been a Tinubu or APC fan. But here he was.

Namadi Sambo? Nigerias immediate past Vice President was booted out of Aso Rock alongside his boss, Goodluck Jonathan, thanks to the Tinubu political machinery.

Rotimi Akeredolu? The Ondo Governor didnt have Tinubus support ahead of his election, but he swaggered past us, beard gang and all.

Politicians may disagree publicly but can be buddies behind the scenes.

Here's a little warning: dont kill or beef on their behalf.

9. Kemi Adeosun can disappear sha

Ok, so after the event, the famous area boys waylaid the dignitaries one after the other to beg for money.

Gun-toting security personnel were kicking some members of the crowd to make way for the big boys who wanted to get into their SUVs.

Eko Hotel was a huge madhouse after the event. The traffic from the event venue spilled into all of Lagos.

Finance Minister, Kemi Adeosun, didnt need the services of police officers or soldiers to keep her away from miscreants and hangers-on.

She tiptoed her way out of the venue, to the parking lot and into her car without fuss.

She melted into the crowd and was out of sight before you could say 'cockney'.

No one harassed her and she didnt need a disguise.

Get her a freaking Oscars!

10. Eko Hotel should have a wi-fi

So, we were supposed to be sending live updates from the event to the newsroom back in Lekki.

Fat chance.

My internet Mi-fi and those of everyone else, died as soon as we sauntered into Zinnia hall, Eko Hotel.

Eko Hotel swallows your internet service provider on the best of days. Everyone knows this.

So, why didnt the organisers of this grand birthday party make provision for something as easy, necessary and basic as a Wi-fi?
According to Daily Post, the Speaker described the Governor as a total failure, adding that he has not performed.

Dogara said this while speaking to newsmen in Abuja on Friday, March 31, 2017.

He said "What bothers me is the people that we sold this agenda to, and I know how politically sophisticated Bauchi State is, it is one of the most politically sophisticated states in Nigeria. Since 2007 you can hardly rig elections in Bauchi, if you win elections in Bauchi, you have won it.

You can imagine the sitting 2007 governor who wanted to be a senator and he didnt win. He won in only one local government out of seven.

So, for us who are members of the political class, that is like a red flag warning that you must perform. Even though I will never engage in confrontation towards the governor; I will never support a situation where we are not delivering the goods.

That is just where the problem is, it doesnt matter. Anybody who is delivering, who is fulfilling is my wonderful person, but if you are not doing that, I cannot be party to it, so that when the destruction comes as it is certain to come, Ill be excluded, so that you know that it was not with your consent that this thing happened, he added.
1. There shall now be full biometric accreditation of voters with Smart Card Readers and/or other technological devices, as INEC may introduce for elections from time to time.

2. Presiding Officers must now instantly transmit accreditation data and results from Polling Units to various collation centers. Presiding officer who contravene this shall be imprisoned for at least 5 years (no option of fine).

3. All Presiding Officer must now first record accreditation data and polling results on INECs prescribed forms before transmitting them. The data/result recorded must be the same with what they transmitted.

4. INEC now has unfettered powers to conduct elections by electronic voting.

5. Besides manual registers, INEC is now mandated to keep Electronic registers of voters.

6. INEC is now mandated to publish voters registers on its official website(s) for public scrutiny at least 30 days before a general election and any INEC staff who is responsible for this but fails to act as prescribed shall be liable on conviction to 6 months imprisonment.

7. INEC is now mandated to keep a National Electronic Register of Election Results as a distinct database or repository of polling unit by polling unit results for all elections conducted by INEC.

8. Collation of election result is now mainly electronic, as transmitted unit results will help to determine final results on real time basis.

9. INEC is now mandated to record details of electoral materials  quantities, serial numbers used to conduct elections (for proper tracking).

10. A political party whose candidate dies after commencement of an election and before the declaration of the result of that election now has a 14-day window to conduct a fresh primary in order for INEC to conduct a fresh election within 21 days of the death of the partys candidate;

11. Political parties Polling Agents are now entitled to inspect originals of electoral materials before commencement of election and any Presiding Officer who violates this provision of the law shall be imprisoned for at least1 year.

12. No political party can impose qualification/disqualification criteria, measures or conditions on any Nigerian for the purpose of nomination for elective offices, except as provided in the 1999 Constitution.

13. The election of a winner of an election can no longer be challenged on grounds of qualification, if the he (winner) satisfied the applicable requirements of sections 65, 106, 131 or 177 of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999 (as amended) and he is not, as may be applicable, in breach of sections 66, 107, 137 or 182 of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999. [For example, a persons election cannot be challenged on the ground that he did not pay tax, as this is not a qualifying condition under the Constitution.]

14. All members of political parties are now eligible to determine the ad-hoc delegates to elect candidates of parties in indirect primaries. The capacity of party executives to unduly influence or rig party primaries has been reasonably curtailed, if not totally removed.

15. Parties can no longer impose arbitrary nomination fees on political aspirants. The Bill passed prescribes limits for each elective office as follows:

(a) One Hundred and Fifty Thousand Naira (N150,000) for a Ward Councillorship aspirant in the FCT;

(b) Two Hundred and Fifty Thousand Naira (N250,000) for an Area Council Chairmanship aspirant in the FCT;

(c) Five Hundred Thousand Naira (N500,000) for a House of Assembly aspirant;

(d) One Million Naira (N1,000,000) for a House of Representatives aspirant;

(e) Two Million Naira (N2,000,000) for a Senatorial aspirant;

(f) Five Million naira (N5,000,000) for a Governorship aspirant; and

(g) Ten Million Naira (N10,000,000) for a Presidential aspirant.

16. Relying on the powers of the National Assembly in Paragraph 11 of Part II (Concurrent Legislative List) of the Second Schedule (Legislative Powers) to the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999 (as amended), the Senate also passed measures reforming procedures regulating Local Government Elections. State Independent Electoral Commissions can no longer conduct elections that do not meet minimum standards of credibility.

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Welcome to the Pulse Community! We will now be sending you a daily newsletter on news, entertainment and more. Also join us across all of our other channels - we love to be connected! Welcome to the Pulse Community! We will now be sending you a daily newsletter on news, entertainment and more. Also join us across all of our other channels - we love to be connected!
More than 200,000 civilians have fled IS-held west Mosul since last month, while the fighting has taken a devastating toll among the hundreds of thousands more still trapped in the battleground.

"We don't have the resources that are necessary to support these people and we don't have the international solidarity that is needed," Guterres told journalists during a visit to the Hasan Sham Camp.

"Unfortunately, our programme here is only funded at eight percent. That shows how limited our resources are," he said.

"These people have suffered enormously, and they go on suffering. We need more solidarity from the international community."

Guterres said there were not enough resources available to provide acceptable living conditions for the people of Mosul or for the reconciliation efforts that will need to follow when the city has been fully recaptured.

Whether or not real reconciliation occurs in Mosul and elsewhere will play a major role in determining whether Iraq moves towards stability or further violence.

Guterres is on the second day of a visit to Iraq, after meeting top officials, including Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, on Thursday.

As he began his visit in Baghdad, Guterres called for the protection of civilians to be the "absolute priority," after the battle for Mosul resulted in numerous civilian deaths and widespread privation.

Deadly toll on civilians

The UN said earlier this month that around 600,000 civilians were still in west Mosul, 400,000 of them trapped in siege-like conditions in the Old City.

Remaining in the city has posed deadly danger to residents, with the UN human rights office saying more than 300 civilians were killed in west Mosul in little over a month.

Gunfire, shelling, bombs and air strikes have all taken their toll.

The Iraqi government has sought to blame the jihadists for the deaths.

Colonel Joe Scrocca, a spokesman for the US-led coalition against IS, has also accused the jihadists of trying to provoke strikes that would kill civilians in order "to take advantage of the public outcry and the terror."

Belgium, which is part of the coalition, has opened an investigation into the suspected involvement of its warplanes in strikes that killed civilians in Mosul.

"We have opened a preliminary investigation to establish... whether all procedures were observed during two incidents," prosecutors' spokesman Eric Van Der Sypt told AFP.

"If rules of engagement were properly observed... it is possible that no crime was committed," Van Der Sypt said.

Iraqi authorities say more than 200,000 civilians have fled the fighting since mid-February.

Camps have been set up around the city to provide shelter for the displaced, while others are staying with relatives, renting accommodation or residing in makeshift shelters or unfinished buildings.

IS overran large areas north and west of Baghdad in 2014, but Iraqi forces backed by US-led air strikes have since regained much of the territory they lost.

Iraqi forces launched the operation to retake Mosul in October, retaking its east side in January before setting their sights on the smaller but more densely populated west.

The fighting has inflicted heavy casualties on the Iraqi security forces, according to the head of US Central Command, General Joseph Votel.
"Those who take aim at European unity threaten their own communities," EU President Donald Tusk told a congress of the European People's Party (EPP) in Malta, which currently holds the presidency of the bloc.

"We must challenge the populists, we must say loud and clear that they are the opposite of modern patriotism.

"Today they are efficiently and cynically taking advantage of social fears and uncertainty, building their own model of security based on prejudice, authoritarianism and organised hatred. Our response must be clear and decisive," he said.

Britain launched the historic process of leaving the European Union on Wednesday, but its European partners were quick to warn of the difficult path that lies ahead amid fears a good deal for London could encourage others to leave.

The centre-right EPP, the biggest party in the European Parliament, approved a document after the two-day congress warning that voters' fears were being exploited by "extremists from both left and right" and "time is running out".

'Should have listened'

The caution came less than a month before France's presidential election and ahead of Germans going to the polls in September.

"Our open societies, open democracies and open economies within the EU are under threat from those longing for a nostalgic nationalism which would be harmful for our prosperity and which would undermine our values," the EPP said.

Some on Thursday admitted they had underestimated the wave of anti-EU sentiment that saw the British vote with their feet.

"We have not always listened as we should, and we angered people," Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny told the congress.

Hungary's right-wing Prime Minister Viktor Orban blamed migration, the "Trojan horse of terrorism", for the continent's woes and slammed liberals, saying "leftist politicians are disarming Europe in the face of the Muslim invasion".

The migration issue, the most serious since the end of World War II, has fuelled anger against the EU as it struggles to present a united front on how to tackle the arrival of over one million people fleeing war, poverty and oppression.

'Foolish and dangerous'

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who opened the door to hundreds of thousands of refugees from Syria and elsewhere in 2015, admitted "we cannot behave as if we do not have an external border".

But she insisted the EU was "a project of peace", with no room for fear-mongers.

And Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy criticised those who courted voters with false promises, saying "never has a populist party brought its people answers".

The tone was briefly lightened by European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, who said Brussels was going to start cutting red tape by getting rid of small, irritating regulations.

"We decided not to annoy people anymore", he quipped, before turning serious and saying that "Brexit is not the end of everything, but we must make it a beginning of something that will be new, stronger and better."

"I suggest we get a move on because otherwise the populists are going to keep running," he said.

Tusk agreed, insisting it was time to stamp out the myth "that we are losing control over our own fates as we delegate part of our powers to the European community... that it is difficult to reconcile being Europeans and patriots".
Moro, frequently cited as a hero by Brazilians at demonstrations, cited Cunha's conviction for corruption, money laundering and tax evasion in handing down the sentence of 15 years and four months.

Cunha "took wrongful advantage of his mandate as a federal (congressional) deputy," Moro wrote. "There can be no more serious offense than betraying the parliamentary mandate and the sacred trust placed in him by the people for personal gain."

Cunha's defense lawyer said an appeal would be lodged. However, Cunha will remain incarcerated in Curitiba, in the south of Brazil.

Prosecutors said he took millions of dollars in bribes as part of a sprawling corruption network in which politicians and major contractors embezzled from state oil company Petrobras.

The investigation, dubbed Operation Car Wash, has upended Brazilian politics, with dozens of politicians accused of participating in the scheme.

A member of current President Michel Temer's PMDB party, Cunha, 58, was one of Brazil's most influential politicians until he was removed from his speaker's post in July and arrested in October 2016.

When he outmaneuvered Rousseff and triggered impeachment proceedings, she was replaced by Temer -- who at the time was her conservative vice president in a coalition between the PMDB and Rousseff's Workers' Party. This briefly left Cunha first in the line of succession for the presidency.

Widely hated by Brazilians, Cunha earned a reputation as the ultimate master of dark political arts and was dubbed Brazil's Frank Underwood -- the scheming, corrupt anti-hero of the hit Netflix series "House of Cards" about a US politician.

Symbol of rot

Cunha is only one of many politicians tainted by the Car Wash probe or by other investigations. No less than one in three members of the lower house -- 155 out of 513 deputies -- face criminal cases, according to the specialist political website Congresso em Foco.

That number could spike soon when the Supreme Court, which handles all cases involving sitting politicians, acts on a request by the prosecutor general to open new Car Wash-related probes against about 100 as-yet unnamed politicians.

Among the many big names already in the crosshairs is former president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, a larger-than-life figure in leftwing Latin American politics who founded the Workers' Party and helped Rousseff into power.

Like Cunha, Lula is accused of corruption and money laundering and will be tried by Moro because he is no longer a serving politician.

By contrast, the overburdened Supreme Court may not complete cases of many other high-profile suspects for years -- raising the question of whether Cunha is the sign of more to come from Car Wash or one of its high water marks.

Cunha stood out in Congress as a feared and grudgingly admired political operator who ended up symbolizing the thieving and lack of accountability in the capital Brasilia.

Even before his arrest, Cunha was already in trouble for lying to Congress. Through a variety of delaying tactics he managed to avoid his eventual expulsion from the legislature for months.

During his trial before Moro he asked Temer to be a witness, but his questions were excluded after being ruled to be an attempt to "intimidate" the president even from behind bars.

Cunha's sentence is one of the harshest so far in the Car Wash saga.
Arnault said: As for registration, we are at 85 percent of the weapons in the camps.

This weekend we will reach a figure of approximately 7,000 registered weapons. On these weapons there are concerns: many are new and are short and long weapons, high calibre.

It is a record that covers the range of FARC-EP weapons.

He said the weapons hand over had been in place since the beginning of the month and the UN hoped to possess 60 per cent of all FARC-EP arms by April 1.

Arnault, however, said accessing hidden and hard to reach caches could delay the process.

He said a further 1,000 weapons were set to be received from FARC-EP members participating in peace promotion or, pedagogia de paz, bringing the number of arms collected by the UN to 8,000.

The UN official said that commitments made at the Cartagena meeting of the Follow up, Promotion and Implementation Commission to make progress on preparation of registration zones and camps, security and legal guarantees and provision of health services, would further accelerate the laydown of arms process.
The protesters, including many from the Chinese immigrant community, gathered at the central Place de la Republique and waved banners bearing slogans such as "colonialist police" and "Wake up French Asians! You are still oppressed in this country".

The incident happened on Sunday night when police shot and killed a 56-year-old Chinese man named as Liu Shaoyo.

Three officers were slightly injured in the incident and one police vehicle was damaged by an incendiary device.

A police source told AFP that officers were called to the Chinese man's house after reports of a domestic dispute.

The source said the man attacked the officer with a knife "as soon as the door opened", injuring him.

A police colleague then opened fire, killing the Chinese man, authorities say.

Lawyer Calvin Job has said the family of the dead man "totally disputes this version of events."

Yehman Chen, 49, attending Thursday's protest said of the police, "my feeling is that they came to his apartment to kill him."

There have been some violents incidents with 45 people, including minors, arrested.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility but the blast, which occurred as people gathered for Friday prayers near the womens entrance of a Shia mosque in the central bazaar, follows a series of attacks this year.

A parliamentarian from Parachinar, in the remote northwestern tribal region bordering Afghanistan, Sajid Hussain, said it was a suicide attack and was preceded by gunfire.

The attack took place in a busy area and a womens mosque appears to be the target, he said.

Mumtaz Hussain, a doctor at the local Agency Headquarters Hospital, said five bodies, including a woman and two children, and more than three dozen wounded had been brought to the hospital and an appeal had been issued for blood donors.

Patients are being brought to us in private cars and ambulances and we have received over three dozen patients so far, Hussain told Reuters.

The attacks have shattered hopes that Pakistan may have come through the militant violence that had scarred its recent history and increased pressure on Prime Minister Nawaz Sharifs government to show it was improving security.

Parachinar is the capital of the Kurram tribal region, where Pakistani security forces have battled militant groups for years.

In January, at least 21 people were killed when an explosion hit a vegetable market in Parachinar itself.
Pentagon Spokesman, Capt. Jeff Davis, said on Thursday in a statement in New York that U.S. counter-terrorism operations in Somalia would further increase pressure on al-Shabaab.

He added that the President has approved a proposal to provide additional precision fires in support of African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) and Somali security forces operations to defeat al-Shabaab in Somalia.

This authority is consistent with our approach of developing capable Somali security forces and supporting regional partners in their efforts to combat al-Shabaab.

He said additional U.S. support will help to increase pressure on al-Shabaab and reduce the risk to our partner forces when they conduct operations.

We stand with the international community in supporting the Federal Government of Somalia as it strives to improve stability and security in Somalia.

The additional support provided by this authority will deny al-Shabaab safe havens from which it could attack U.S. citizens or U.S. interests in the region, Davis said.
Kim Jong-Nam was killed with the lethal nerve agent VX on February 13 in a Kuala Lumpur airport, in a brutally clinical operation which removed a potential claimant to the Kim throne -- he was late leader Kim Jong-Il's first-born -- who was an embarrassment to Pyongyang.

The murder triggered a diplomatic row between Malaysia and North Korea, which expelled each other's ambassadors and barred their citizens from leaving.

But in a deal announced by both, they said they would lift their travel bans, and Kuala Lumpur would send the body to North Korea.

Analysts say Pyongyang will immediately dispose of the corpse and try to bury the issue.

"They will burn the body," said Kim Kwang-Jin, a defector-turned-researcher at Seoul's Institute for National Security Strategy.

Pyongyang will declare the man had died of natural causes and blame the controversy on its opponents, said Kim.

"North Korea will say that its citizen named Kim Chol died from a heart attack and claim that enemies South Korea and the US have stirred up drama," he said.

Pyongyang has refused to confirm the identity of the victim, who was carrying a North Korean passport bearing the name Kim Chol when he was killed.

Malaysia however has officially confirmed his identity using DNA evidence, and had said it had been waiting for his next of kin to claim the body.

The joint statement referred to the North providing documentation from the family -- which could mean Kim Jong-Un himself or any of his relatives, rather than the dead man's wives or children.

At the same time, destroying the evidence also avoids it becoming a focal point for opponents of the regime, added researcher Kim, who worked for the North's state insurance company before fleeing to the South.

"It is natural for them to want the body because it will continue to draw attention if it is anywhere else," he told AFP.

'Everyone knows'

South Korea has blamed Pyongyang for the Cold War-style killing, citing what officials say was a standing order from North Korea's leader to eliminate his exiled and estranged half-brother.

Some analysts say the North will be very discreet about the handling of Kim's body to keep the truth of the incident a secret from its own citizens.

"Kim Jong-Nam's existence and his murder are like a Pandora's box that cannot be known by the people," said Kim Yong-Hyun, professor of North Korean studies at Dongguk University.

"Everything will be done in secret with minimal procedures," he said.

Even so, analysts said, retrieving the corpse would not resolve the repercussions of the assassination for Pyongyang.

"The case has been closed for now and the body swap was a small victory by the North," said Chang Yong-Seok, senior researcher at Seoul National University's Institute for Peace and Unification Studies.

But Pyongyang had suffered "irreparable damage" from Kim's killing, which cemented its inhumane image and set it at loggerheads with one of its few diplomatic friends, he said.

South Korea has repeatedly referred to the assassination as a clear example of the North Korean leadership's brutality and recklessness.
"As President Trump has made clear, it is no longer sustainable for the US to maintain a disproportionate share of NATO's defence expenditures," Tillerson said in Brussels.

He urged his fellow foreign ministers to agree at the May summit to produce plans by the end of the year to meet the spending pledge.

NATO countries originally agreed at a summit in Wales in 2014 to contribute the equivalent of two percent of their gross domestic product to defence.

Seeking to draw a line under the funding row, NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg said NATO members understood they had to boost spending not so much to please Washington but to counter new threats from both the east and the south.

"One option we are examining is national plans to deliver on the commitments we have made," Stoltenberg told a press conference ending five hours of talks.

The former Norwegian premier set the tone early when he dismissed anew fears that Trump was less committed to the transatlantic alliance than his predecessors, citing words of support and increased US troop deployments in eastern Europe.

"We see a strong US commitment to NATO," Stoltenberg said.

'Ongoing hostility'

Tillerson's remarks, reinforced later by those from Defence Secretary Jim Mattis in London, were tougher on Russia than those previously made by Trump or his cabinet officials.

Trump had stressed the need to improve US relations with Moscow after they had sunk to a low under president Barack Obama over the crisis in Ukraine.

Tillerson told the alliance's forum with Ukraine co-chaired by Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin that "American and NATO support for Ukraine remains steadfast" in the wake of "Russia's aggression against Ukraine" three years ago when it annexed Crimea.

"Today, Russias ongoing hostility and occupation is compromising our shared vision of a Europe that is whole, free, and at peace," Tillerson said.

He vowed that the US administraiton will keep sanctions in place until Russia reverses the actions that triggered them and oppose any further bid by Russia to redraw Ukraine's borders.

He also pressed Russia to fulfill its obligations under the Minsk agreements to end the war in eastern Ukraine, where he said "Russian-led separatist forces" are fighting Ukrainian government forces.

Klimkin, speaking to reporters afterward, accused Russia of "creeping annexation" in the Donbass region of Ukraine.

Allies have been alarmed at the prospect of Trump seeking to improve relations with Russia at the expense of support for the pro-Western government in Ukraine or NATO allies in former Soviet parts of eastern Europe.

Their concerns were reinforced when Tillerson initially planned to skip the NATO meeting scheduled for next week, citing various commitments including a trip to Russia.

However, they eased when he agreed to attend talks rescheduled for Friday.

'Totally unrealistic'

Tillerson arrived in Brussels following a visit to Turkey, a NATO ally and key player in both Syria and Iraq where Washington wants to defeat the Islamic State jihadists.

In the last two years, IS has claimed or hailed a wave of deadly attacks in the United States and European cities, including Brussels.

Saying building "local capacity" is the best way to fight terrorism, Stoltenberg announced the alliance will increase aid to the Iraqi government by training medical personnel and staff who maintain armoured vehicles.

But the NATO funding row remains central.

NATO's 2016 annual report said only five countries met the two percent target -- the United States, Britain, Greece, Poland and Estonia -- while Washington still accounted for nearly 70 percent of combined alliance defence spending.

During a visit to NATO in February, Mattis voiced staunch support for NATO but warned that Washington could "moderate" its commitment if allies fail to pay up.

Trump said after a visit by German Chancellor Angela Merkel this month that Germany owes "vast sums of money" to NATO and the US.

But German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel told reporters it was "totally unrealistic" for his country to meet the two-percent of GDP target.
"Trump declares war on the Vespa" said a headline in national daily Il Messaggero, reflecting the tone of most of the media coverage on an issue that dominated front pages and topped news bulletins.

The alarm followed reports that scooters and motorcycles feature on a 'blacklist' of 90 European products earmarked for the imposition of 100 percent duties as Trump prepares to launch an offensive against "trade cheats".

The US president was due Friday to issue two executive orders instructing staff to pinpoint goods and countries responsible for the near $50-billion deficit and to recommend action.

Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said officials would be looking for evidence of "cheating," inappropriate behaviour, trade deals that have not lived up to their promise, lax enforcement, currency misalignment and troublesome World Trade Organization (WTO) constraints.

The European products are vulnerable to potential measures because of a transatlantic dispute over Europe's ban on beef produced with the aid of hormones that pre-dates Trump coming to power.

Along with mopeds, the symbolic Italian products that could have punitive duties slapped on them reportedly include tomatoes in every form, salami and Parma ham, and San Pellegrino mineral water, now owned by Switzerland's Nestle.

Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni Friday voiced concern over the shift in US trade policy towards a more protectionist stance.

Gentiloni said a meeting of Group of Seven leaders in Sicily at the end of May had to "take a clear position on an issue about which there can be no ambiguity.

"We have to reiterate our confidence in the open economies and societies on which we have built decades of prosperity," he said.

"We have to restate our backing for free markets and free trade, the most powerful engines of economic growth in history."

Italy's exports to the United States in 2016 were worth 37 billion euros, just over ten percent of the European Union (including Britain) total of 362 billion euros.

However, the products reportedly targeted only make up a small part of the total: for example, the mopeds and motorbikes potentially affected accounted for 182 million euros of exports in 2016, compared with four billion euros for cars.

Although reports of the blacklist hit shares in Vespa manufacturer Piaggio, the company stressed that US sales represented less than five percent of its total turnover, and that it could export from its factories in Vietnam if the duties are imposed.
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A Davenport man was sentenced Friday to up to five years in prison for pointing a gun at a man and firing at his car in May.

Terrill LC Austin, 33, pleaded guilty in November to possession of a firearm or offensive weapon by a felon, a Class D felony. In exchange for his plea, Scott County prosecutors dismissed a charge of intimidation with a dangerous weapon.

The incident happened at 1:13 a.m. May 23 in the 5600 block of Gaines Street.

According to police, Austin pointed a firearm at the man, who was in the drivers seat of a passenger vehicle. The two had gotten into an argument several hours earlier.

The man said he heard two clicks from the firearm and saw Austin back away from the vehicle, according to police. During the incident, the rear passenger side door was struck, according to police.

The man was able to drive away from the scene, according to police.

Several residents reported that they heard at least one gunshot. A bullet fragment was recovered from inside the rear passenger door interior panel of the mans vehicle, according to police.

The man picked Austin as the shooter when shown a photo lineup, according to police.

Austin has several felony convictions in Scott County, which prohibits him from possessing a firearm.
Thousands upon thousands of Americans travel to Europe every year for the river cruise experience, but in their own backyard, untapped resources are primed to call them back home.

Fourteen new river cruise boats have been ordered for worldwide production this year, with the biggest change over the past few years that more boats are being ordered and renovated for operations in the U.S.

On the Mississippi River, American Queen Steamboat Co. president and COO Ted Sykes said the market is being underserved with current offerings serving about two-thirds of the markets capacity, and interest from both patrons and domestic operators continues to rise.

We, American Queen Steamboat Co., envision plenty of upside on the present Mississippi carry, Sykes said. For that reason, we are building out another vessel to enter service this summer and have plans for more capacity that we will announce when appropriate.

The vessel added to American Queen's collection that Sykes was referring to is the American Duchess, which Quad-City residents would know as the former Isle of Capri casino boat.

Sykes was joined last month by David Simmons, a consultant for Viking River Cruises, during the Mississippi River Cities and Towns initiative, and both spoke to the importance of infrastructure on the river cruise industry, which is expected to surge over the next six years.

"By 2023, we anticipate the market to be well over 200,000, so there's quite a spread there as Viking River Cruises looks at somewhere between the six- to eight-range of vessels," Simmons said. "Tourism is huge, and it's only going to get bigger and bigger."

Simmons said Americans constitute 85 percent of Viking River Cruise passengers, yet the firm has no product in the U.S.

Vikings entrance in the market, however, has not been smooth sailing.

The Jones Act

Two years ago, the cruise giant announced its intentions to enter the U.S. market this year, only for its debut to be sidelined until 2018 because of the 1920 Federal Merchant Marine Act, otherwise known as the Jones Act.

The Jones Act requires travel between U.S. ports to be conducted by U.S.-built, -crewed, -registered and -owned ships.

Edelman, the firm handling Viking River Cruises public relations, has recycled the same statement over the past few months with regard to Vikings plans to enter the U.S. market or if the company had reached an agreement with a U.S. shipyard to build its boats.

We are actively working with our partners to launch on the Mississippi River, but at this point in time we do not have any details to share regarding product specifics or a launch timeline, the statement said.

While Vikings media statement offered few details, Davenport Mayor Frank Klipsch revealed during Tuesdays Davenport Levee Improvement Commission meeting that Viking continues to be hampered by the restrictions imposed by the Jones Act.

Klipsch said Viking has not built any boats nor hired any crews, but the city would welcome the cruise line once it gets its affairs in order.

Viking's delays also present opportunities for other cruise operators.

In early March, American Cruise Lines, the largest domestic cruise operator, announced a new class of five riverboats, which will operate in the U.S. beginning next year.

American Cruise Lines also will debut a new cruise ship, American Constellation, later this year on the Wicomico River in Maryland.

That's not to say there isn't room for everyone. Sykes thinks supply will continue to lag behind demand for river cruises.

"The market is certainly large enough to accommodate others," Sykes said. "The present capacity operating on the river is only equal to the carry from several years ago. With the European river cruising market now well developed and from that  a large and growing base of Americans who have experienced river cruises (and) who want to replicate that experience here  there is a large 'installed base' of river cruisers who could fill this market."

The other market

While officials in Davenport await the arrival of Viking, across the river sits a family-owned cruise business that is entering its 33rd year.

Celebration River Cruises will kick off its cruising season Saturday.

Owner Scott Schadler said although the market is different for his business, offering shorter and more affordable jaunts on the river, the appeal of river cruises has remained strong over the business' tenure.

"We market to the entire U.S. to bring people to the Mississippi River," Schadler said. "But we also have our niche and a good local following."

Schadler said his business estimated between 35,000 and 40,000 passengers over the cruise season, which runs from April to the end of October.

With Deere & Co. headquartered in Moline, Schadler said his clientele comes from all over world, with passengers hailing from China, Mexico, Germany and Brazil to name a few countries.

But regardless of where the person comes from, it's the Mississippi River that's the biggest driver of tourism.

The river is the biggest draw, Schadler said. Thats what they want to see. Thats what they want to do: see it, ride it and touch it.
A talk about the "orphan train" that rolled through Henry County, Illinois, will be presented at 7 p.m. Wednesday at the regular meeting of the Moline Preservation Society at Butterworth Center, 1105 8th St., Moline.

Angie Snook, executive director of the Geneseo Historical Museum, will talk about the trains that, from 1853 until about 1930, carried 150,000 to 200,000 children from infants to age 16 from the East Coast to new homes in the Midwest.
CAMANCHE, Iowa  Sitting in the rear of the 29-foot boat for the first time, Chuck Jacobsen felt an urge to sing.

But no one else on board knew the words to Alouette, a French-Canadian folk song once popular among fur traders called, "voyageurs" (travelers), who transported goods in long birch-bark canoes during the 17th to 19th centuries.

"I often sing when I'm paddling," said Jacobsen, a naturalist with Clinton County Conservation whose choice of song was symbolic.

The conservation department recently acquired two voyageur-style canoes, which resemble the vessels that fur traders and explorers would have used hundreds of years ago.

Instead of bark, however, the custom-designed watercraft, which can carry up to 14 people each, are made of Kevlar. Western Canoeing and Kayaking, a retailer near Vancouver in British Columbia, Canada, manufactured and delivered the pair of canoes earlier this month to the U.S.

This week, Jacobsen and five of his colleagues unloaded one of the boats into the water for the first time at Rock Creek Marina and Campground, their new home more than 2,000 miles away from where they were built.

Widely considered to be the only publicly owned canoes of their kind in Iowa, Clinton County Conservation plans to unveil them to the public on April 15.

They plan to host additional guided trips and rides this spring and summer for the public, but the boats will not be available for rent.

"They are too expensive to not have them under our supervision," said Mark Roberts, education coordinator for Clinton County Conservation.

The department paid almost $22,000 for the equipment, thanks in large part to a $38,000-plus grant from the Clinton County Development Association. The total cost also included shipping, paddles, life jackets and a trailer to haul the boats, said Roberts, who filed the grant application last spring.

Roberts said the inspiration to investigate voyageur-style canoes hit him and Jacobsen while they were watching an episode of HBO's "Game of Thrones" off the clock, when they get a lot of their ideas.

Jacobsen, the most-experienced paddler in the group, said he looks forward to introducing elementary school students and others to the boats.

Sometimes, he said, children walk away discouraged from an outing on the water in standard canoes, but he thinks the newest additions to their fleet could spur an interest in paddling.

"They fit really well into our teamwork regiment," he said, noting that the long and narrow boats require skill and coordination to turn. "This way, we're all in the boat together, and everybody's still paddling."

Jacobsen, who hopes to recruit practiced paddlers to help lead guided excursions, made a presentation to the Quad-City based Saukenuk Paddlers Canoe and Kayak Club this week.

Dan Garrett of Blue Grass, who runs the organization's Meetup group, said he can see himself volunteering in the future.

"I think they're going to be great educational tools," the retiree said. "It's a good way to get inexperienced paddlers on the water."

News of the unique canoes' arrival in Iowa also has drawn the attention of paddle enthusiasts in other parts of the state.

Gregg Stark of Cedar Rapids, who maintains the Iowa Water Trails Association website, plans to attend the conservation department's christening event on April 15.

I have been part of the Iowa paddling scene for many years and have never heard of any permanently located here, Stark said.

While he never has paddled a voyageur-style canoe, Stark compared it to the Chinese-style dragon boat.

"You need a lot of people to make it fun, and when you get that many paddles in the water, it should fly right along," he said. "I hope people get out there to give this a try and not only paddle the boat, but learn a little about the history."

In 1673, Jacques Marquette, a French Jesuit missionary, and Louis Joliet, a fur trader, explored North America in a voyageur canoe and became the first Europeans to step foot in what now is Iowa, Jacobsen said.

Next spring, he wants to lead an expedition down the Wisconsin and Mississippi rivers, retracing a portion" of the explorers' route.

"This is right up my alley, Jacobsen said. "I hope to be camping under those one night."
Survey results confirm warm weather and inconsistent ice conditions this winter made for a below-average season of eagle-watching on the Mississippi River in the Quad-Cities.

In the Mid-Winter Bald Eagle Count, area wildlife biologist Kelly McKay tallied 957 eagles along an 81.5-mile stretch of river between Lock & Dam 13 in Fulton, Illinois, down to Keithsburg, Illinois.

Looking back, this was the third-lowest number Ive had along this stretch in the 24 years I've done this, said McKay, who counted 728 eagles last year.

His lowest count was 548 in 2010.

McKay, who lives in Hampton, Illinois, took his counts this year on Jan. 13, 14 and 15 and submitted his data to the Iowa Department of Natural Resources and the Illinois Audubon Society.

Both organizations recently compiled statewide numbers, which were up from last year, but average, officials said.

This years count in Illinois totaled 2,002 birds, about 81 percent of which were spotted along the Mississippi River, Jim Herkert, director of the Illinois Audubon Society, said.

Last years count in Illinois was 946.

This year in Iowa, researchers counted 2,860 birds, including 625 along the Mississippi River.

Last year, data collectors counted just 1,939 birds along more than a dozen rivers throughout the state, Stephanie Shepherd, a wildlife diversity biologist for the Iowa DNR, reported.

Most of these year-to-year fluctuations are likely influenced by the weather," she said. "A mild winter disperses the birds more widely across the landscape."

The agencies soon will turn in detailed reports to a national count, organized and analyzed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, to gauge the health of the once-endangered eagle.

The low total in the Quad-City region surprised McKay, who expected the massive freeze and "significant" ice cover in December would have kept eagles here at least through January.

There should have been a bunch of birds in our area this winter, but there really werent, he said. More and more eagles seem to be going inland.

While McKay said weather definitely played a role, he also suspects there could have been a shortage of prey, specifically gizzard shad, in the river.

However, he does not have any facts to support his theory, just anecdotal observations. McKay said the major freeze should have killed off thousands of gizzard shad, an oxygen-sensitive species.

We should have had monstrous levels of dead shad, he said. I did not see a single dead shad anywhere on the shoreline or near any of the lock chambers.

Shepherd, the biologist with the Iowa DNR, called McKay's hypothesis an "educated speculation" that makes sense.

His observations are good, but we just dont have any systematically collected data on shad in the river, she said.

Of the 957 eagles McKay counted this year, 62 percent were adults, 37 percent were immature and 1 percent were indeterminate. The number of immature eagles is important in gauging the health of the population, because young eagles need to be replenishing the older crowd.

Three years ago, he recorded 4,958 eagles, his biggest count.
DES MOINES  State Rep. Ken Rizer calls a Democratic leader's request for an investigation into whether he lives in the Linn County district he represents blatant politics.

The claim that he no longer lives in House District 68, which includes Marion, Bertram, Ely and Putnam, has been investigated and determined to be unfounded, Rizer, a second-term Republican, said Thursday.

In a letter to news media, Linn County Democratic Chairman Brett Nilles said he had asked the Linn County auditor and the secretary of state to investigate Rizers residence.

If Rep. Rizer is no longer living in this district, then he shouldnt be representing it, Nilles wrote. Since Rep. Rizer is so focused on voting rules and regulations this session  trying to enact legislation that will solve a non-existent voting problem, while at the same time making it more difficult for people to vote  Im sure hell want to be certain to follow the letter of the law on this matter as well.

Theres nothing to the complaint, Rizer said Thursday.

Im paying rent, he said as he displayed a voter registration card with a Marion street address. He did move from Cedar Rapids to Marion earlier this year following a divorce.

Its not the first complaint about Rizers residency. A complaint in February was investigated by Linn County Auditor Joel Miller, a Democrat who has been critical of the election integrity bill that Rizer, chairman of the State Government Committee, has been managing in the Iowa House.

That complaint was filed before the paperwork transferring ownership of Rizers Cedar Rapids homes had been recorded by the county, Miller said.

In a text message, Miller wrote to Rizer: Fully corroborated to my satisfaction. We will notify the complainant that her allegation is without merit.

Miller said in a Thursday email he has received similar inquiries from two legislators and at least two Democratic activists.

I have reviewed the law and his voter registration record and talked to him face-to-face, Miller said. At this time, I am satisfied that Rep. Rizer has met all of the requirements of the law to represent his district in the House.

A spokesman for the Secretary of States Office said no complaint has been received.

Iowa GOP Chairman Jeff Kaufmann called the inquiry another feeble attack on a capable legislator.

Its clear that theyre just throwing everything and the kitchen sink at him because theyve tried and failed twice to beat him on the merits, Kaufmann said.

Nilles did not immediately respond to a request for comment Thursday.

Rizer agreed that its part of an effort by Democrats to go after swing district GOP incumbents.

I think, on the Democratic activist side of the House, they are unhappy with the voter ID bill even though 69 percent of Iowans support it, Rizer said. So I think they are gearing up to contest in my district and, really, all the other swing districts.

Rizer was re-elected in November, 52 percent to 44 percent, over Democrat Molly Donahue, despite Democrats having a voter registration advantage in House 68.
This week, the podcast crew discusses the potential rift between the Freedom Caucus and President Donald Trump. They also look into the possible nominations for lieutenant governor, as well as discuss the Democrats' field of potential candidates in 2018.

On Iowa Politics is a weekly news and analysis podcast that re-creates the conversations that happen when Iowa's political reporters get together after the day's deadlines have been met. This week's show features James Q. Lynch, Erin Murphy, Christinia Crippes, Todd Dorman and Ed Tibbetts.

The show was produced by Richard Pratt, and the music is courtesy of Dead Larry. Find us at qctimes.com, chat with us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter @OnIowaPolitics and subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher. Know an Iowa musician who should be on our show? Send their band sound files to oniowapolitics@gmail.com.
This post is a combination of two "Bottom Line" columns previously published in The SOMM Journal and Sommelier Journal

Is it okay to talk about terroir in terms of minerals?

When you become a working sommelier , and are privy to tastings of wines from around the world, you invariably develop an increased appreciation for wines tasting distinctly of their sense of place  commonly known as terroir . The current obsession with concepts like balance in lieu of sensations associated with oak, overripe fruit, alcohol or other excesses is, in one sense, really an expression of our longings for wines that taste more of vineyards or terroir, rather manipulations thereof through the heavy handed intervention of winemakers.

I have always thought of terroir as like a tree falling in the forest. Just because you cant hear it, it doesnt mean there is no sound. As subtle as terroir related sensory delineations can be, they often arent. A Chablis , for instance, is far less weighty than a Puligny-Montrachet , even though both are grown in Burgundy and made from Chardonnay . The difference between a Chablis and Carneros grown Chardonnay is even more graphic  more acid, less alcohol/body, and far less tropical fruit aromas. The impact of terroir  entailing everything defining a vineyard or region, from soil to climate, aspect to temperature, altitude to latitude, viticultural decisions to winemaking practices, et al.  can be so big, wines made from the same grapes often barely resemble each other.

But what of wine aromas and flavors commonly associated with regions and vineyards, usually described as some kind of? Chablis is commonly identified with sensations of chalkiness, Pouilly-Fume by a flintiness, Savennieres by a somewhat loamier flintiness, and Mosel-Saar-Ruwers by an entire range of sensations suggesting slate or flint. In the past, these would all be examples of wines with characteristics traditionally attributed directly to components contained in the soils in which they are grown.

Bullshit, I once heard Santa Barbaras Peter Cargassachi say, vines do not have the capacity to uptake the taste of minerals through root systems... thats been proven over and over again. I cannot disagree with that. We all know, of course, that aromas and flavors of wines are not directly related to biological factors such as soil. When you describe a Riesling as flowery, a Chardonnay as tropical-fruity, or a Zinfandel as peppery, it doesnt mean there are flowers, mango, papaya or peppercorns growing in the ground among the vines, directly effecting the taste of resulting wines. By the same token, mineral sensations in wines do not come from minerals in the ground. But if this is so, wheresensations of minerality come from?

In a piece by Jordan Ross called Minerality, Rigorous or Romantic? published in(Winter 2012), scientists like Alex Maltman (University of Wales), Anna Katherine Mansfield (Cornell Department of Food Science) and Carole Meredith (U.C. Davis Department of Viticulture & Enology) are all quoted to say basically the same thing: tiny amounts of dissolved ions are typically absorbed by vine roots, but none of them are of sufficient enough efficacy to contribute to actual sensations of minerality in a wines aroma or flavor.

But it is no coincidence, Ross explains, that sensations of minerality also happen to correlate with wines grown in colder climates  wines, as such, retaining higher natural acidity. In his article, Ross cites Gregoire Pissot of Cave de Lugny in Macon as saying, Mineral is, at times, used when acid would be more appropriate. The Mosels Nik Weis concurs, drawing attention to the fact that, although grown in similar gray slate, a higher acid Ockfener Bockstein will always taste more minerally than a lower acid Piesporter Goldtropfchen, most likely because Goldtropfchen is a warmer site.

Still, as sommeliers we know that minerality is not an abstraction  we canit. An Ockfener Bockstein , for instance, retains mineral notes that are slightly different from that of nearby Uziger Wurzgarten . The question is, are the differences logically attributable to the high iron content of Wurzgartens red slate slope, as opposed to Bocksteins gray slate and sandstone? Wurzgarten, after all, does not translate as spice garden for nothing.

Whether or not the differences among Germanys great Riesling growths are directly related to variations of aspect, slope, soil, or any number of topographic factors that influence grape expression, the fact remains: under similar cold climate conditions, the minerality of a Bockstein is different from the minerality of a Wurzgarten; just as both taste different from a pungently minerally Maximum Grunhauser Herrenberg , and the oft-times dramatic, pervasive earthiness found in Rieslings grown in evensites, such as the Rheinhessens NackenheimerRothenberg or the Pfalzs Forster Ungeheuer

Yet the connection between minerality and acidity make sense. A few years ago I spent a day studying Chardonnays grown on four different slopes in the immediate vicinity of Thomas Fogarty Winery & Vineyards , 1700 to 2000 ft. up in the Santa Cruz Mountains . All four vineyards were planted in the early 1980s on identical trellis systems, and all to Clone 04 Chardonnay (Californias most ubiquitous selection, known for itsamenities). No question: across multiple vintages, Fogartys two coolest, slowest ripening sites (Portola Springs and Albutom Estate) consistently taste more minerally  like the common taste of wet stones  than the two warmer sites (Langley Hill and Damiana Vineyard). Higher acid sensations also correlated with increased minerality. Moreover, the more a Fogarty Chardonnay tastes of ripe, sweet toned peach, pear or apple-like fruit, the less minerally the flavor.

Then there is the consistent inverse relationship between high pH in soil and lower pH in wine , which is another reason why wines grown in more alkaline calcareous soils are often associated with increased minerality. Nonetheless, warmer climate wine regions that have calcareous soils with off-the-charts alkalinity, such as much of Californias Paso Robles AVA , are not nearly as closely associated with wines replete with minerality as colder climate calcareous terroirs such as those found in Frances Burgundy and Loire Valley . Climate clearly trumps soil when it comes to higher acid wines with actual imprints of minerality.

Still, as difficult as it is to prove direct connections between minerality and soil composition, there will always be hard workingwho will vouch for it. WillametteValley s Ken Wright , for instance, is as respected as they come. He says that it is precisely because there is a symbiotic relationship between positive microorganisms in soils and healthy plants that there is a direct contribution to wine flavor from soil via root systems.

As someone who has planted many a vineyard over 35 years, says Wright, I can say that without question, when vines roots reach the mineral rich parent material something wonderful happens. Wrights conclusions are based upon his own lab reports tracking soil composition as a result of farming improvements documented over several decades: the higher the uptake of ionic minerals through enhanced root systems, the higher the clarity of resulting wines. Wines from these vines go from being muddled and indistinct to having recognizable, crystal clear aromatic and flavor traits. Wright, however, is not talking exclusively about sensations associated with minerality. He cites aroma-related flavors such as chocolate, tobacco, anise, or cola, on top of increased profiles related to iron/stony qualities, which remain consistent from year to year.

Yet lately I have been feeling a disturbance in the universe. The profession of sommelier has been under fire, which is not surprising. The number of working sommeliers has increased significantly in recent years, which leaves the trade all the more open to persistent stigmas: sommeliers are snobs, sommeliers are arrogant, sommeliers are the cause of ridiculous restaurant prices and, apparently, numerous other things wrong with the wine and restaurant industries.

Earlier this year I found myself taking flak for suggesting that a newly published book, entitled Terroir and Other Myths of Winegrowing (University of California Press), is not entirely copacetic. According to the author, Mark A. Matthews (a Professor of Vit

iculture at U.C. Davis), terroir is a crock essentially because 

minerals derived from rocks may represent a relatively small part of the soils impact on plants, and mineral nutrients have no established contribution to flavor in wines.

Because of that, Matthews concludes, terroir is nothing more than

a shibboleth that establishes an in-group in a world unto itself... This isnt wine appreciation it is more like wine snobbery.




SIOUX FALLS | A judge has ruled that the Rosebud Sioux Tribe in South Dakota can move forward on its lawsuit accusing the Indian Health Service of failing to provide adequate medical care to tribal members.

The suit was filed last year after the IHS shut down the emergency room at the Rosebud Hospital, following an investigation by federal inspectors who found serious failures they said were putting patients' lives at risk. The ER has since reopened.

U.S. District Judge Roberto Lange in a ruling posted Friday rejected the government's motion to dismiss the case. He cited the 1868 Treaty of Fort Laramie that shows the government promised to provide a physician for the tribe.

The tribe's attorney, Timothy Purdon, says his clients believe that IHS "violated its trust responsibility" to tribal members.
Your internet browsing history may soon be an open book that is up for sale to advertisers, and South Dakota's three members of Congress supported the move.

During the past two weeks, the U.S. Congress passed a resolution that would allow internet service providers to track and sell your online browsing information with much greater ease.

If signed by President Donald Trump, the bill would roll back a Federal Communications Commission decision that would have given consumers greater control over what their internet service provider can do with their data by requiring those companies to get permission from customers before using their information to create targeted advertisements. Those FCC rules had not yet gone into effect but were slated to take effect later this year.

Several members of Congress who voted for the bill  including the three members of the South Dakota delegation  received sizable campaign donations from the telecom industry.

The measure was sponsored by Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., and started in the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation  a committee chaired by Sen. John Thune, a Republican from South Dakota. All three members of South Dakota's delegation voted in favor of the bill.

Without protections in place, consumer advocates fear that broadband providers will be able to do what they like with people's data.

"Advertisers and marketers are lining up to get access to all the information that's now available about us," said Jeff Chester of the Center for Digital Democracy, which advocates for tougher internet privacy measures.

However, cable companies, cellphone carriers and the advertising industry attacked the FCC rules as an overreach. Having to get permission from customers to use their browsing and app histories would likely make it more difficult to build stronger advertising revenues, as telecom companies want to do.

Internet companies such as Google and Facebook operate under less restrictive requirements and don't have to ask users for permission before tracking what sites they visit. Those companies are under the oversight of the Federal Trade Commission, not the Federal Communications Commission. Republicans and industry groups have decried that discrepancy, saying it was unfair and confusing for consumers, since oversight of broadband companies changed from the FTC to the FCC in 2015.

As technology changes, we have to keep looking at how to best protect online consumer privacy under one consistently enforced standard. The FCCs flawed proposal for new rules, which never went into effect, would have applied to some but not all companies handling consumer data on the internet," Thune said in an emailed statement. "These misguided rules were not an improvement over the federal governments existing legal authority to enforce online privacy and would have led to unnecessary confusion and additional red tape.

The Journal spoke with several Republican staffers from Thune's office and the commerce committee. They argued that by rolling back the regulations before they were enacted, consumers would get more online advertising that was of interest to them. The officials acknowledged that the broadband companies stood to make more money without this regulation but said the money may ultimately be used to improve infrastructure that could be a benefit to the customers.

A look at campaign finance reports from this election cycle may reveal another reason why some in Congress may have been eager to get the bill passed. The Journal used data compiled by the National Institute on Money in State Politics and found that members of Congress who voted for the bill received large sums of money from telecommunications companies.

Thune received the most money of any member of Congress from the telecommunications industry this election cycle  $215,000. Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., received $251,000 from the telecom industry during his last election in 2014.

An aide for Thune denied that campaign money influenced his vote and said the senator has always voted with South Dakota's interests in mind.

Democrats, who largely voted against the bill, also received large donations from the telecom industry but at a much smaller rate compared with Republicans. In 2016, Republicans made up seven of the top 10 congressional candidates who received money from the telecommunications industry.

Thune's donations included $10,000 contributions each from AT&T, Centurylink, Charter Communications, Comcast, Sprint and the National Cable & Telecommunications Association. He received slightly smaller amounts from other big players including Qualcomm, Verizon, Windstream Communications and Level 3 Communications. His biggest donation from the telecom industry was $15,000, from Time Warner Cable.

U.S. Sen. Mike Rounds and U.S. Rep. Krisi Noem of South Dakota each received roughly $40,000 in campaign donations from the telecom industry.

A few states do regulate specific practices by broadband providers, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures, which tracks state laws. Minnesota, for instance, requires internet service providers to get customer permission before sharing their web-browsing histories. The Minnesota Legislature voted to strengthen that law Thursday in response to the federal bill.

Kristi Fiegen, chairperson of the South Dakota Public Utilities Commission, said South Dakota doesn't have a law like Minnesota's that would protect consumer privacy from broadband providers. There is a similar law that protects consumer privacy from being sold by investor-owned utilities, such as Black Hills Energy, but that law doesn't apply to broadband providers.

She doesn't predict a state broadband law would be adopted in South Dakota because she believes the Federal Trade Commission would be able to handle any problems that arise.

"We will look to the federal government for one standard and consistent set of rules on this issue," Fiegen said. "We want the FTC to be the cops, and then if they don't do their job the state will step in."
OMAHA, Neb. | Another department store operator has won the chance to buy about half of Gordmans' more than 100 stores out of bankruptcy.

Stage Stores Inc. said Thursday that it was the winning bidder for Gordmans' assets, and it plans to buy and run at least 50 stores and one of Gordmans' distribution centers.

Among the approximately 100 stores operated by the Omaha-based chain are locations in Rapid City, Sioux Falls and Bismarck, N.D.

A Stage Stores representative told the Journal in an email that a list of the 50 stores included in the purchase could be released as early as next week on the Gordmans website.

We are still in negotiations on some stores so we are not at the point to discuss which of the 50 Stage will operate, she said.

The rest of Omaha, Neb.-based Gordmans' assets will be liquidated by Tiger Capital Group and Great American Group.

It wasn't immediately clear how many of Gordmans' more than 5,000 employees will keep their jobs in the deal. Houston-based Stage Stores already operates roughly 800 stores under several brands.

Stage CEO Michael Glazer said buying the most-profitable Gordmans locations across 22 states in the Midwest makes sense for his company.

"We believe the Gordmans business model offers great potential and, without the burden of a high level of debt, unprofitable locations and an oversized infrastructure, we expect the Gordmans business will be accretive to our earnings," Glazer said in a statement.

Private equity firm Sun Capital Partners bought Gordmans in 2008 and then took it public in 2010. Sun Capital still owned nearly half of the company when it filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

The company began operations with a single store in Omaha in 1915. Previously, it operated stores under the Richman Gordman and Half Price Stores names before rebranding all of its stores Gordmans by 2000.
Multiple people on social media talked about seeing an Air Force One plane flying over Rapid City and Ellsworth Air Force Base on Thursday.

Local resident Alex Calderon, who was in a building on Rapid City's east side, told the Journal he and several people saw the plane flying around from 1:30 to 2 p.m. It made at least four "touch and goes" at Ellsworth Air Force Base and appeared to be doing practice landings, he said.

Calderon sent the newspaper a photo of a white plane with a darker-colored nose and dark horizontal line along the body. The image, he said, was taken with a cellphone camera pressed against a pair of binoculars.

"We saw it, and we were like, 'Wow, that really looks like Air Force One," said Calderon, who tweeted about the sighting. "We compared it to the photos online. It was definitely Air Force One  it had the same paint scheme."

Emily Johnston, a Box Elder resident who posted on Facebook about seeing the plane, told the Journal the aircraft's paint job was "unmistakable." She said she saw the Boeing 747 circling her neighborhood about 10 times between 1 and 2 p.m.

Johnston, 68, described the experience as "very cool."

Calderon said seeing the plane would have been more exciting had he known if President Donald Trump was on it.

Technically, an aircraft is designated as Air Force One only if it is transporting the president, according to the White House Press Office.

The office, when asked if Trump made a trip to South Dakota on Thursday, said the president was in Washington, D.C., all day. The office referred the Journal to the president's official schedule for the day, which included a meeting with Denmark's prime minister at 1:10 p.m. Mountain time.

Ellsworth's Public Affairs Office could not immediately confirm if one of the president's official planes flew to the base Thursday.

In February 2001, one of the two Boeing 747s used as Air Force One flew past Mount Rushmore National Memorial for a photo op.

According to the White House's website, the term "Air Force One" can describe any Air Force aircraft carrying the president. Since the middle of the 20th century, it has been standard practice to refer to specific planes that are equipped to transport the president as Air Force One.
RCA RecordsBleachers is back. Jack Antonoff's band has released a new track called "Don't Take the Money," which you can listen to now on YouTube.

"Don't Take the Money" is an '80s-sounding jam that feels straight off The Breakfast Club soundtrack. Toward the end of the track, you can hear backing vocals from the one and only Lorde.

"'Don't take the money' is a phrase I say in my head all the time," says Antonoff in a statement. "It has nothing to do with actual money. It means to follow the light. Don't ignore a gut feeling."

The track is the first single from the second Bleachers album, due out this summer. Before the album drops, Antonoff and company will embark on a headlining North American tour, which kicks off April 25 in New York City. For ticket info, visit BleachersMusic.com.

Bleachers' debut album, Strange Desire, was released in 2014. Antonoff has kept busy since then, working with artists including Taylor Swift and Carly Rae Jepsen. He also co-wrote and co-produced Lorde's new single, "Green Light."

Here are Bleachers' spring tour dates:

4/25 -- New York, NY, Studio at Webster Hall

4/27 -- Los Angeles, CA, The Roxy

5/14 -- Atlanta, GA, Shaky Knees Festival

5/20 -- Tinley Park, IL, Hollywood Casino Amphitheatre

5/21 -- Omaha, NE, Slowdown

5/23 -- Colorado Springs, CO, Rawkus

5/24 -- Salt Lake City, UT, Gallivan Center

5/27 -- George, WA, Sasquatch Festival

6/2 -- New York, NY, Governors Ball

6/11 -- Philadelphia, PA, BB&T Pavilion

6/13 -- Richmond, VA, The National

6/14 -- Charlotte, NC, The Underground

6/16 -- Columbus, OH, Express Live!

6/18 -- Dover, DE, Firefly Music Festival

6/20 -- Cambridge, MA, The Sinclair

6/21 -- Rochester, NY, Anthology

6/23 -- Baltimore, MD, Rams Head Live!

6/25 -- Detroit, MI, St. Andrews Hall

6/27 -- Indianapolis, IN, Deluxe @ Old National Center

6/28 -- St. Louis, MO, Delmar Hall

6/30 -- Kansas City, MO, Kansas City Live!

Copyright  2017, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.
Investigators seek extension of FSB officers detention in bribery case

MOSCOW, March 31 (RAPSI, Yevgeniya Sokolova)  Investigators have filed a motion with the Moscow Garrison Military Court demanding to extend detention of former and current officers of the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB), who stand charged with taking a 5-million-ruble bribe ($77,000), until June 6, attorney Dagir Khasavov told RAPSI.

The court will hear a motion on April 3.

As reported earlier, Vlad Novikov, a former officer of the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB), and Karen Krayukhin, an officer still in FSB service, have been arrested on suspicion of taking a bribe from the Turkish construction firm Esta Construction.

Esta Construction lawyer Valerian Kochergin, who has been recognized as victim in the case, has filed a 10-million-ruble civil lawsuit against defendants. He seeks 5 million rubles ($77,000) in compensation for property damage and 5 million in moral damages.

Investigators claim that Esta Construction has been fined over 37 million rubles ($570,000) for violation of migration legislation. The companys lawyer in order to avoid payment of the fine asked the defendants for help in the termination of the case for 5 million rubles ($77,000).

Esta Construction is a contracting company established by Bahattin Demirbilek in Moscow in 2006 and operating as a general contractor and project designer in international construction market, the firms website says.
Death rate drops by 10% in Russian prisons  official

MOSCOW, March 31 (RAPSI) - The mortality rate in Russia's prisons has dropped recently by 10%, Deputy Head of Chancery of the High Commissioner for Human Rights Ivan Solovyov announced during a round-table conference in the Federation Council on Friday.

Issues related to courts refusal to release inmates, who suffer from grave diseases preventing service of sentence, belong to the scope of legislative regulation, Solovyov noted during discussion of improving the order of release on medical grounds. According to the official, there is the Resolution of Plenum of Russias Supreme Court handling matters of release on parole and release because of serious illness. He suggested to separate the Resolution to prevent courts from confusion of the matters because grounds for parole are frequently applied to seriously ill convicts.

In 2016, 3,500 petitions were lodged seeking release on medical grounds, according to Solovyov. Subsequently, 749 applicants died prior to the beginning of court hearings, 119 people deceased pending the entry of a court ruling into force, 1,678 individuals were released and 941 convicts were denied release.
Weeks after John F. Kennedy defeated Richard Nixon in the 1960 presidential election, a retired postal worker nearly killed the President-Elect. Richard Pavlick, a mentally unbalanced man who hated Catholics and often went on political rants, traveled from New Hampshire to Florida with a singular goal in mind  to kill President-Elect Kennedy.

Pavlick believed that Kennedy and his family had bought the 1960 election. As would later prove to be pivotal turn of events, Pavlick drew the attention of his hometown postmaster Thomas Murphy. As he stalked Kennedy, Pavlick sent postcards to Murphy from various places across the country. As postal workers are wont to do, Murphy zeroed in on the postmarks and noticed a curious thing - they corresponded with the locations of JFKs public appearances.

About five weeks after his election, while enjoying an extended family vacation in Palm Beach, Florida, Kennedy prepared to attend Sunday morning church service. Pavlick had loaded his 1950 Buick with seven to ten sticks of dynamite, along with a detonation device; As Pavlick looked on, President-Elect Kennedy exited his vacation house.

Because suicide bombers were unknown in the United States at that time, Pavlick intended to ram his Buick into Kennedys limousine, and blow up both Kennedy and himself before the Secret Service had time to act. Unfortunately for Pavlick, Jackie and the children were also accompanying John. Since Pavlick only wanted to assassinate the President-elect and not his family, he abandoned his scheme for the time being; there would come another day.

Pavlick continued to stalk JFK while in Palm Beach, looking for another chance to kill the President-Elect. At some point, both Pavlick and Kennedy were even in St. Edwards Cathedral at the same time. Pavlick also carefully took note of the actions of Kennedys Secret Service agents looking for anything he could exploit.

In the meantime, back in Pavlicks hometown, Postmaster Murphy alerted authorities after having learned that Pavlick had purchased dynamite,. Four days later, Secret Service agents located Pavlick after a Palm Bach patrolman stopped the 73-year-old man for a relatively minor traffic violation  driving over a white line. It was at that point that the police discovered enough dynamite in the car take out an entire city block. Authorities were later able to determine that Pavlick had checked out the Kennedy homes at Hyannisport and Georgetown, and also the Palm Beach Airport.

The story of the attempted assassination plot never got the publicity it deserved because Pavlicks arrest came on the same day as a mid-air collision that killed 132 of 133 people on board the two planes.

Pavlick later confessed to the plot to kill Kennedy. But, instead of being put on trial, he spent the next five years in a mental institution. After being released, Pavlick focused his attention on tormenting his perceived nemesis, Postmaster Murphy. He also self-published a book titled An Innocent Man Illegally Arrested Spent Six Years in Hell which was an autobiography of his life and the true story of his perceived illegal arrest, indictments, and false charges. Pavlick died in 1975, having never spent a single day in prison for his assassination plot.

Had Pavlick been successful, the assassination by Lee Harvey Oswald and his murder by Jack Ruby would never have occurred, and Lyndon Johnson would have been President during the Cuban Missile Crisis.
Mary Meyer remembers the feeling of terror when it came her turn to perform the overhead T-weld in front of her peers.

And she remembers the pride she felt when the FFA judges gave her a perfect score for her efforts.

It was the first time I had ever attempted to do an overhead T-weld, Meyer said. Gravity was not in your favor.  I was so proud when I brought it home to show my dad. I still have it.

My dad was always a very good welder, she said. I think that meant a lot to him.

It would turn out to be just one of the myriad of skills that Meyer and her two brothers would take away from the program her father, Jay, has supported since the first time he slipped on the telltale blue coat proudly worn by Future Farmers of America members.

Last weekend, Jay Meyer of Stevensville was honored for the years of dedication that hes provided to the program with the Montana FFAs Distinguished Service Award.

Jay Meyers own journey with the program designed to open minds about the vast potential of jobs associated with agriculture started back in the 1960s when he took his first vo-ag class at Stevensville High School.

Throughout his life, he never veered from that path.

Meyer has been instrumental in bringing back agriculture education and the accompanying school-sponsored FFA program to Corvallis and Victor. He hopes someday soon to add Hamilton to that list.

There are so many different career fields that young people can pursue, Jay Meyer said. It opens everyones eyes to the possibilities in fields that they might not even considered before.

But it goes far beyond that.

The FFA program provides young people with a chance to learn some the skills required in a variety of trades, offers them a chance to gain confidence with public speaking and, perhaps most important, develops friendships that can last a lifetime.

Its like they become a family, Jay Meyer said. They get done with school and hang out with each other as they learn about all sorts of different things.

Meyers son, Ben, now works for the National FFA Association from his home just across Meyer Lane from his parents place.

We all grew up knowing that dad was a FFA member, but our parents certainly wanted all three of us to pick our own paths, Ben Meyer said. We all certainly fell into FAA and we couldnt have been happier.

In high school, Ben Meyer said FFA offered a connection to like-minded people across the state and eventually the entire country.

They all had this passion for natural resources and understanding the land and developing an advocacy for it, Ben Meyer said.

Today, the organization has 650,000 members in the United States and Puerto Rico. FFA is the largest school-based organization in the nation.

As part of my job, I now get to see the same light bulb come on inside of these young people coming into the program that my dad had seen happen over and over again, he said.

Jay Meyer has seen the program change over the years.

When he first became a member in high school, the program was focused on production agriculture. It provided the skills that high school students would need to go right to work on a farm or a ranch.

Today, FFA has expanded its reach to offer students the opportunity to test the waters of fields that require a college degree.

Ive seen kids say right from the beginning that they dont want to be a farmer, so why would they be interested in FFA? Jay Meyer said. But then they take the class, get involved and they say, Wow. I would have never guessed.

I can tell you story after story about that happening over the years, he said.

Along the way, those students learn the morals, ethics and leadership skills that develop them into the kind of people who have very successful careers.

Once youre in, youre in for life.

On Thursday morning, Meyers wife, Colleen, placed her husbands high school FFA jacket on the table. Carefully covered in plastic, its obvious that garment means a lot to Meyer.

That coat symbolizes the Forever Blue relationship that all FFA members have with each other, Jay Meyer said. There are a lot of fond memories wrapped up in that jacket.

It was a special day for everyone in the family when Meyer received his Distinguished Service Award.

Mom was able to keep it a surprise, Mary Meyer said. Hes spent the best part of his life pouring years of dedication into FFA. Hes sought out new chapters, been involved with the foundation and supported a countless number of kids. It was a special moment to see him receive that honor.

Mary Meyer is now the Montana State University Extension Agent for Lewis and Clark County in Helena. She was the youngest of the Meyers children.

I graduated from high school in 2002, she said. He never stopped helping with FFA. From when he was a member until now, FFA has played a huge part in our lives. Were all better for it.
An error occurred while processing your request. The page you are looking for on this website is unavailable, has moved, or does not exist. Please visit collinsaerospace.com to find the product or service you are looking for.
catchnews - 30 March 2017

A first of its kind convergence is taking place this week at the headquarters of the United Nations in New York, where more than 120 countries are discussing a formal and comprehensive ban on use, possession, production and deployment of nuclear weapons.

Octogenarian Setsuko Thurlow, a survivor of the Hiroshima bombing, gave an evocative speech in the UN General Assembly this week at the beginning of the negotiations.

Thurlow, in her speech, gave a fervent call for banning nuclear weapons while her generation of victims fade away.

An unprecedented moment

There are two things that make the negotiations distinct time:

a First, the initiative seeks to outlaw all atomic weapons, going beyond the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) which created categories of nuclear haves and have-nots. If adopted by a majority in the UN General Assembly (UNGA), the proposed Nuclear Ban Treaty would make all nuclear weapons illegal.

Although a legal ban is not the same as physical dismantling of existing stockpiles, it would be an important step in stigmatising and discouraging atomic weapons.

The negotiations are aimed at filling the alegal gapa in the international system concerning nuclear weapons.

a Second, this new initiative does not depend on bringing the Nuclear Weapons States on the table and convincing them for disarmament. Institutionalising a legal prohibition requires a majority with the UNGA and an overwhelming majority of countries in the world have been supporting nuclear disarmament at various forums including NPT Review Conferences.

In fact, the frustration with decades of disarmament efforts, within the NPT architecture, thwarted by the nuclear powers, has been the key reason behind this process.

It started with a conference in Oslo in 2013 on the Humanitarian Impacts of Nuclear Weapons, where new evidence of the unacceptable consequences of a future nuclear use were presented by leading scientist bodies, civil society organisations as well as former policy makers.

The Oslo Conference brought forth newer evidence a from the declassified nuclear command and control information to scientific studies on potential consequences of a nuclear war and testimonies of victims of nuclear tests from across the world of irreversible, unacceptable damage that a nuclear use would unleash.

For the first time ever, global civil society organisations and governments of non-nuclear states addressed the issues of catastrophic impacts of an atomic detonation.

The Oslo Conference was followed by similar conferences in Mexico and Austria in the subsequent years, emphasising on the need to rethink nuclear weapons in the light of new evidences and find a way to bridge the legal gap as nuclear weapons are the only form of WMDs which are not legally prohibited.

Various prominent actors like the non-aligned nations and other disarmament groups like Global Zero, renowned international bodies such as the International Physicians for Prevention of Nuclear Weapons (IPPNW), the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Committee (ICRC) have supported this initiative, asserting that no civil response could be possible in the event of a nuclear explosion.

India shedding its moral fig-leaf

However, the Indian government under Narendra Modi has chosen to stay away from these negotiations. And this is a big departure from Indiaas long-standing posture on nuclear disarmament, which it maintained even after conducting nuclear tests in 1998.

Unlike other Nuclear Weapons States, India has adopted a morally righteous stance of demanding a comprehensive and global disarmament, alleging that the existing nuclear regime, which is centred around the NPT, does not go that far. India posited itself in the world as a reluctant nuclear power which has been forced to go nuclear, after getting frustrated with pursuing nuclear disarmament for decades while the P-5 refused to negotiate nuclear abolition.

This morally upright posture, and the rallying cry against what India called anuclear apartheida has resonated with large sections of its public.

This posture has been used to justify nuclear weapons, even as scholars and peace activists on the other side have questioned not just the consistency of supporting nuclear-free world and going nuclear ourselves, but also the military efficacy, huge costs and risks of maintaining a nuclear arsenal.

Therefore, staying away when an actual opportunity of negotiating a comprehensive ban has arrived, is a complete turn-around from the moral rhetoric on which support for nuclear weapons in India has been perpetuated.

The Modi government has summarily abandoned the traditional Indian posture of being a reluctant nuclear power which is still ready to embrace nuclear disarmament if it is discussed in an universal, non-discriminatory and legally binding terms.

The importance of the ban treaty currently under negotiation is that it would establish, for the first time, a universal and global, legal and moral principle highlighting the criminality of possessing, let alone producing, and using nuclear weapons.

While it does not ensure an immediate and actual physical dismantling of nuclear arsenals, it is definitely much larger in its scope than the universal no-first use treaty that India has proposed internationally in the recent years.

As Professor Achin Vanaik, a renowned scholar of international relations and a famous peace activist, suggested a aIndia, while staying out of the NPT, has always made much of its public commitment to universal nuclear disarmament. It is now being put to the test of matching its deeds to its words. Its refusal to participate in the negotiations shows that it has failed this test.a

Why so silent?

The domestic mediaas silence over the issue is equally shocking. Newspapers have headlines like aNuclear ban talks begin at the UN, but US and others boycotta (Indian Express 27 March), but without any mention of Indiaas boycott.

No editorials, no major Op-Eds, no panel discussions holding the Indian government responsible to its own rhetoric have appeared in any of the major newspapers or television channels.

This signifies a silent and complete burial of the principled foreign policy matters and all things nuclear, and a brazen ganging up with the P-5 and their supporters, whom India has been castigating for perpetuating the nuclear apartheid.

Modias India has shed all pretensions of a principled foreign policy. From adopting a moral stance even in support of its nuclear weaponisation, to an open refusal to join nuclear ban negotiations even if all nuclear weapons are banned, Indiaas love for the most destructive weapons has brought it a long way.

The author is Senior Researcher with the Coalition for Nuclear Disarmament and Peace (CNDP).
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Aibd : Reception de louvrage en fin avril

Le ministre du Tourisme et des transports aeriens a annonce que le nouvel aeroport sera receptionne en fin avril.  La reception de louvrage est attendue a la fin du mois davril et le demarrage de son exploitation avant la fin de lannee , a annonce le ministre. Elle a ajoute quapres plusieurs mois de blocages, les travaux de construction du nouvel aeroport international Blaise Diagne ont repris avec un rythme soutenu  sans aucun impact sur son cout .

Le ministre a declare egalement que lexploitation de la compagnie nationale Air Senegal SA devrait egalement etre lancee avant cette echeance.  Notre ambition est dassurer le vol inaugural de lAeroport international Blaise Diagne avec un avion propre de la compagnie nationale , a affirme Maimouna Ndoye Seck.  Nous lavons attendu, nous y voila ! , a lance le directeur general de laeroport international Blaise Diagne, Abdoulaye Mbodj, en prenant la parole pour presenter louvrage.

En fevrier 2016, les societes turques Summa et Limak avaient pris le relais de Saudi Bin Laden Group pour terminer la construction de laeroport international Blaise-Diagne (Aibd). Le delai dexecution des travaux a ete reporte plusieurs fois et la societe saoudienne (Saudi Bin Laden Group) avait demande, en fin 2015, un avenant qui devait couter 63 milliards de FCfa a lEtat du Senegal, pour terminer la construction de laeroport. Une demande que la partie senegalaise avait rejete.
 White House adviser Jared Kushner and Senate Judiciary Chair Charles Grassley meet on federal criminal justice reform | Main | New report spotlights concerns with disabilities and bad lawyering for eight Arkansas condemned scheduled for execution next month 

This New York Times article, headlined "Lock Em Up? Prosecutors Who Say Not So Fast Face a Backlash," discusses the debate over a new local Florida prosecutor's announcement that she will not pursue capital cases together with the broader dynamic that more local prosecutors are running and winning on a criminal justice reform platform. (The companion piece briefly profiles "5 Prosecutors With a Fresh Approach.") Here are excerpts:

In Tampa, the top prosecutor says too many children are charged as adults. In Houston, the district attorney will no longer press charges in low-level marijuana cases. And in Chicago, prosecutors will no longer oppose the release of many nonviolent offenders who cannot afford to post bond. Two more newly elected prosecutors, in Denver and Orlando, have vowed not to seek the death penalty, even for the most egregious killers.

They are part of a new vanguard that has jettisoned the traditional lock-em-up approach, instead winning over voters by embracing alternatives to harsh punishment. But in their eagerness to enact changes, some are facing a backlash from law enforcement groups and more conservative politicians.

In Texas, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, a Republican, warned that failing to punish drug crimes would make Houston akin to a sanctuary city for illegal enterprise. In Chicago, a suburban police chief warned that a move to classify more shoplifting cases as misdemeanors was a slippery slope.

But nowhere has there been more vitriol than in Florida, where a battle over the death penalty shows just how volatile an issue capital punishment remains, especially when the death of a police officer is involved....

The new breed of prosecutors was helped into office by voters skeptical of wrongful convictions, mass incarceration and evidence of racial bias in law enforcement. As candidates, many received help from the liberal billionaire George Soros, who spent millions on campaigns in states including Arizona, Mississippi and Missouri. Of the 15 candidates supported by his political action committees (including one for sheriff), 12 were victors.

But some change-minded prosecutors won without Soros money, showing that attitudes across the country are changing regardless of outsize political contributions, said David A. Sklansky, a professor at Stanford Law School who closely follows the issue. Its now possible in at least some places for district attorneys to campaign successfully and win office on a platform thats not just harsher, harsher, more, more punishment, he said. That was unheard-of 10 years ago.

Bob Ferguson, the attorney general of Washington State, said, I think our publics view of our criminal justice system has evolved. Speaking out against the death penalty, he added, is not the third rail people think it is.
The Union Square-area Forever 21 store in San Francisco is the target of a civil rights claim by the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing after it came to light that management at the store was allegedly requiring all employees to speak English only during work hours  which is a violation of state law. As the Chronicle reports, three Spanish-speaking employees brought the claim after having their work hours reduced following complaints they made about the rule, which prevented them from speaking in Spanish with each other, or with customers who primarily spoke Spanish.

The agency is seeking damages on behalf of the employees for discriminating against them based on their national origin. Says Kevin Kish, the state agencys director, "Linguistic diversity is a business reality in the California workplace, and the department will carefully scrutinize English-only rules to ensure that all employees are treated equally, regardless of their national origin."

The Forever 21 corporation, which is based in Los Angeles, denies that any of their stores has ever had an English-only policy, and said in a statement that the company is "committed to diversity and inclusion in all of our stores."

The store in question appears to be not the former Forever 21 at Powell, which closed two years ago, but the XXI Forever-branded store at Stockton and Market.
LGBT rights advocates are speaking out in anger after the U.S. Census Bureau seemed to be reneging on a proposal to include questions about sexual orientation and gender identity in the upcoming decennial census in 2020. As the Associated Press reports, the Bureau issued a statement Wednesday after submitting to Congress a list of proposed subjects to ask Americans in the next census, saying that the subjects "sexual orientation and gender identity" were listed "inadvertently," and "This topic is not being proposed to Congress for the 2020 Census or American Community Survey. The report has been corrected."

Census data, often critical in public policy decisions and funding relating to housing and health care, is also used by marketers to better understand demographics by region. The American Community Survey (ACS), which uses a smaller sample but asks more in-depth questions about one's family, occupation, and living situation, have been used by demographers to infer populations of gay and lesbian people, but because there has never been a direct question about sexual orientation, all these numbers have been based on same-sex couples sharing households. The census has never provided a complete picture of gay and lesbian people across the country, particularly those who live alone or with family, and this can lead to arguments about how many LGBT people there actually are in the country.

As the Christian Science Monitor reports, LGBT groups like the LGBTQ National Task Force are outraged at what seems to have been a quick move by conservatives, and/or the Trump Administration, to keep LGBT people from being counted once again. "We've been erased!" declares this blog post showing the proposed subject and its removal from the draft document by the Census Bureau. Meanwhile the Human Rights Campaign announced they were submitting a Freedom of Information Act request to get to the bottom of this, and they're circulating the hashtag #CantEraseUs.

In his statement about the revision, John Thompson, director of the Census Bureau said that a department review "concluded there was no federal data need to change the planned census and ACS subjects."

75 members of Congress joined LGBT advocates last year in asking that the Census Bureau add the question about sexual orientation for the first. Retired demographer Dr. Gary Gates, who spent the last five years serving on the Census Scientific Advisory Committee, tells the Christian Science Monitor, "Theres no federal data source in which you can access how many LGBT people there are even at a state level. Its critical that we have those kinds of data if were to serve this population that we know has been subject to great social stigma. Other populations have data resources to document and make the case of why its important to serve them."

Gates admits, though, that it may already be too late to get the questions included for 2020 as it takes years to test and hone the language of the questions that are used. He tells the CSM, "If advocates want a sexual orientation or gender identity measurement on the US census, they actually need to start now to try to convince to the Census Bureau to begin the process of testing measures for inclusion on the American Community Survey. Then that would set you up to make the argument to get the question on the 2030 census. But it has to happen now, it takes that long."


Plaquemines Port Harbor & Terminal District and American Patriot Holdings, LLC want to build a container port and river vessel to move containers to and from ports on the Mississippi and Illinois rivers.



Source: American Patriot Holdings LLC.

Plaquemines Port Harbor & Terminal District and American Patriot Holdings, LLC want to build a container port and river vessel to move containers to and from ports on the Mississippi and Illinois rivers.

Plaquemines Port Harbor & Terminal District (PPHTD) and American Patriot Holdings, LLC (APH) announced plans this week to develop an intermodal container terminal on the lower Mississippi River that would handle containers moving to and from ports on the Mississippi and Illinois rivers.

An APH subsidiary, American Patriot Container Transport, has also designed an innovative self-propelled vessel that it said would be able to move containers on the river system much more quickly than on conventional barge tows.

APH and the port said they entered into an agreement to jointly develop the logistics system for vessel operations comprised of both deep-water docking at the Pointe Celeste Container Terminal and multiple upriver terminals, initially planned for the Memphis and St. Louis areas.

The new container port would be located between mile 50 and 55 on the Mississippi River, about half as far upriver as the Port of New Orleans Napoleon Avenue Container Terminal, which is located at mile 99.7.

Were building a new, modern technology port from the ground up where berthing depths exceed 60 feet and with the capability to accommodate the larger post-Panamax vessels coming through the widened and deepened Panama Canal, said Sandy Sanders, executive director of Plaquemines Port. Containers imported to the Plaquemines Port would be transferred to APCTs revolutionary vessels for delivery to their upriver port destination. Export containers will be efficiently delivered from upriver ports to the Plaquemines Port for export on ocean carriers.

Beneficial cargo owners and ocean carriers alike should look at the planned port as a solution to their logistic problems and the high intermodal costs that plague them today, Sanders added. Cargo flows through the most efficient economical route and our plans are to provide shorter dwell times, lowest cost, with fast and reliable routes.

The port district includes a recently announced $8.5 billion LNG re-liquefaction facility being developed by Venture Global.

It said the container terminal it plans to build, along with a breakbulk terminal, would encompass about 1,000 acres. The facility would be designed to service the largest ocean carriers, capable of safely docking vessels up to 20,000 TEUs.

The vessel that APH plans to build was designed in conjunction with naval architect Naviform Consulting & Research Ltd. (NAVIFORM).

The self propelled vessel would only have a draft of 9 feet and have an exoskeleton that the company said would maximize container payload. Designs call for ships with a capacity ranging from 1,824 to 2,960 TEUs, and overall lengths from 592 feet to 952 feet.

The company said a patented bow design enables the vessels to travel at 13 miles per hour north and southbound with essentially no wake.

The propulsion system would consist of four azimuthing thrusters (Z-Drive) and two bow pumps, burning LNG.

APCT expects upriver round trips from the Pointe Celeste Terminal will take seven days to Memphis and 11 days to St. Louis.

The company pointed to agricultural products including refrigerated cargo, as well as dry commodities such as chemicals as potential sources of cargo.

The management team of APCT includes, Joseph P. Gehegan, former chief executive officer of U.S. Shipping Corp.; Robert W. McCormack, former global vice-president of marine commercial and business development at ExxonMobil; and Salvatore Litrico, former CEO of United Maritime Group.

The port district and APH said they are holding discussions with investors, beneficial cargo owners, ocean carriers and terminal operators to advance the project.
A former single-resident occupancy hotel in Oakland that's being renovated by an upstart San Francisco real estate company could sport a literally luxe first floor bar and lounge. According to an East Bay Express writer, the first floor of the former Hotel Travelers, a low-income housing space, bears a sign indicating a business called, at least provisionally, Lux Pub + Club, is seeking a liquor license.

The Chronicle makes the connection between the first floor project and the hotel's renovation, although the exact relationship there isn't clear. But "Lux Pub" is listed as a "Tech, Bar and Lounge," whatever that means, and the T word alone are likely to trigger concerns about gentrification, which were already voiced after the real estate company moved in last year.

First floor of the old Hotel Travelers (was SRO low-income housing) in Oakland is set to become "Tech, Bar & Lounge," run by Lux, Inc. pic.twitter.com/Fb6dtCyZm6  Darwin BondGraham (@DarwinBondGraha) March 28, 2017

Danny Haber and business partner Yaniv Lushinsky are the force behind the remodeling effort at the Hotel Travelers, and their track record in San Francisco may be cause for concern. Here, they created the Negev, a co-living community of dozens of tiny bedrooms. Aside from some residents' complaints about the Negev's conditions, the biggest issue was the way it came to be. CBS 5 reports that a group of former residents of the space, where a fire had cleared out an SRO, sued Haber for wrongful eviction, settling for $475,000. SFist left a message with Haber requesting comment.

The Chronicle wrote about Haber and Lushinsky's East Bay work under the headline "Firm transforms distressed Oakland buildings for well-off tenants," and according to the Negev's website, it already has two spaces in Oakland.

Weve taken dilapidated, burnt-out buildings  buildings that were firetraps, Haber told the Chronicle. We turn them into housing that is not quite affordable but still low-priced for people in the neighborhood.

Related: SoMa Tech Co-Op The Negev Facing City Scrutiny For Sub-Par Living Situations




Chad Litz charged w/ felony counts for working as #nurse at SF City Impact clinic. He's not a nurse. DA: If he treated you, call authorities pic.twitter.com/WWlZ14cbLi  Katie Marzullo (@KatieABC7) March 31, 2017

Chad Brian Litz got quite a surprise when he hopped off a cruise ship in Tampa, Florida earlier this month: Police officers were waiting for his arrival, eager to arrest him after officials say it was revealed that the medically-untrained Litz had successfully scammed his way into a nurse practitioner position at a San Francisco health clinic for a four month period.

According to a press release sent by the San Francsico District Attorney's office, the 39-year-old Daly City resident had volunteered at the San Francisco City Impact health clinic at 232 Jones Street for four months, where he treated "at least 28 different patients...with little supervision, including prescribing privileges that enabled him to dispense controlled substances to patients." But according to the DA's office, Litz "has no apparent medical training or experience," and used "a forged certificate from the American Academy of Nurse Practitioners as well as other fraudulent materials" to obtain the gig.

Litz, who the DA's office says "has never been licensed to practice as a nurse or doctor" but worked at the clinic for four months, from when the clinic from December 2013 through April 2014, the Chron reports.

According to its website, the San Francisco City Impact Health and Wellness Center

...is under the umbrella of San Francisco City Impact Rescue Mission, serving 47,000 residents of the Tenderloin District of San Francisco with a hot meals, spiritual and practical encouragement through volunteers, social workers and staff. City Impact also operates City Academy, a private elementary through high school attended by over 100 students from low income families as well as the home of the Adopt a Building program. Adopt a Building brings hope to the poor through positive personal relationships fostered by the program. We offer an Urgent Care, 9 Specialists, Community Health Education, Patient Advocacy and a unique "Total Wellness Program." We are working towards becoming the medical home for low income residents in the Tenderloin that fall 250% below the federal description of the poverty line. We are a place where a patient can receive a free screening and treatment, discuss and set health goals that encompasses the body, mind and spirit. Our treatment philosophy is similar to that of family medicine by taking into account a patient's total living environment, proactively seeking improvement through health education, lifestyle changes, and the availability of new positive relational experiences.

"All clinic services are provided by volunteers, free-of-charge for [sic] serviced provided by our clinic," they say on their site., which says the organization was launched thusly:

One early morning in 1984 after getting off the graveyard shift, Roger Huang was waiting for a tow truck in the Tenderloin. He noticed a young boy being picked on by a group of bullies. Torn between intervening to help the boy and not wanting to get involved, he drove away with a heavy heart. On the way home God laid the burden on his heart, What if that was your son being picked on? The next morning Roger and Maite made 50 sandwiches, and Roger went back to the Tenderloin to give them away to the homeless that same day. The following week he brought his wife Maite to the Tenderloin to help with the ministry, and San Francisco City Impact was born.

In a written statement regarding the case, San Francisco City Impact says:

Chad Litz was a volunteer (not an employee) in December 2013 as we were just getting started as a clinic and were pursuing a license. Shortly after he started volunteering, USF nursing school notified us that he had a criminal background and we appropriately responded and alerted authorities. We were contacted by the department of consumers affairs and went through a thorough investigation, reviewing all documentation and patients he saw. We did everything to ensure that our patients were safe and that the care did not cause any harmful outcomes. As part of credentialing, we collect resume IDs and any relevant licenses. He produced said licenses and an NPI number, which turned out to be fraudulent. Our clinics scope of practice was very limited at the time because of its infancy. Nonetheless, all patients and visits were reported to the Department of consumer affairs during thorough investigation.

According to ABC 7, "Litz was sentenced to four years in prison for identity theft in 2011. He was released in March of 2013." He was cited by the California Board of Registered Nursing in 2015 for "unlawful practice and being a nurse imposter."

According to ABC 7, Litz's "LinkedIn page lists extensive credentials including two master's degrees" and claims he also worked at Opera Plaza Dentistry. As of Friday morning, the profile, nicknamed "nursechad," appears to be deleted.

SF Weekly also points us to this Twitter account they say might be his, which "discloses that he may have been on a Holland America Line, where he claims he was overcharged by the spa services on board."

@HALcruises wow onboard and your spa (I purchased prepaid services) is over charging my by almost 1000$ GS desk won't connect me to purser  LitzChat.com (@ChadLitz) March 6, 2017

"Tourism and Medicine , that's mostly my life," the bio on the account, monikered @ChadLitz, reads.

It was the former pursuit that the suspect appeared to be enjoying when he was arrested on March 10 as he stepped off the boat "on a warrant alleging four felony counts for practicing medicine without a license and one felony count for identity theft," the DA's office says.

But for now, his traveling days are over, as he remains in custody with bail set at $65,000. According to the DA's office, Litz was arraigned Thursday and pled not guilty, and will return to court on April 11 at 9 a.m. for a preliminary hearing.

Meanwhile, the DA's office asks that anyone who believes they've been treated by Litz contact investigator Andrea Todd at San Francisco's Department of Consumer Affairs. She can be reached at 510-888-7072.
Though her family has already called this "victim blaming at its most egregious," the Sacramento Bee has just published a story following up on the ongoing investigation into the November disappearance of 34-year-old Sherri Papini. Papini's story made national headlines after she was allegedly kidnapped while jogging in the area of Redding, California, only to be found by the side of a road 22 days later, bruised, branded, and with her blonde hair cut off. According to the Bee, Papini had had brushes with law enforcement as a young woman, which they learn of via records of police calls dating back to 2000  records that are the only pieces of evidence in the case publicly released so far by Shasta County detectives.

Back in 2000, when Papini was 18 years old, the Shasta County Sheriffs Office received a call from Papini's father, Richard Graeff, who claimed that his daughter had burglarized his residence. The same year, Sheila Koester, Papini's sister, called the cops on her saying that her back door had been kicked in and she suspected Papini was the culprit, according to the Bee. Three years later, in 2003, her father would allege that Papini had made unauthorized withdrawals from his checking account, and her mother, Loretta Graeff, would file an incident report with the Sheriff's Office saying she believed her daughter was harming herself and trying to blame the injuries on her.

These of course could all just be the indiscretions of a rebellious youth, though the latter accusation is fair bit more troubling given the nature of the 2016 case.

ABC News reports via Shasta County Sheriff's Office Lt. Pat Kropholler that no charges were ever filed against Papini in any of the above situations, and her family only "made the calls to ask questions and seek advice from law enforcement."

Papini family spokesperson Nicole Wool gave a statement to ABC News expressing their disgust with the Sacramento Bee for publishing these reports:

Sherri Papini and her family are the very recent victims of an extremely violent crime that has painfully and dramatically changed the course of their lives forever. It is shameful that a media outlet would intentionally exploit Sherri and Keith Papini and their young children's trauma for the sole purpose of clickbait and selling papers. This newspapers decision to aggressively seek out and publish unsubstantiated online activity and distort phone conversations from 16 years ago is victim-blaming at its most egregious. It is our hope that the media will honor their privacy as they work through this difficult time.

When she was returned to her husband and two children last November 24, after being missing for three weeks, Papini described being abducted by two Hispanic women and being tortured and beaten during her captivity. Her husband Keith Papini described first seeing her in her hospital bed "emaciated" and "covered in multi colored bruises, severe burns, red rashes, and chain markings." He also said she had been branded, and when she was released by her captors she was "thrown from a vehicle with a chain around her waist, attached to her wrists and a bag over her head." An investigator later revealed that the branding contained "a message."

Papini, however, has not appeared publicly since the ordeal, and no motive for the kidnapping was ever revealed. The outlandish story, much like the one in the film Gone Girl and the kidnapping of Denise Huskins in Vallejo  which turned out not to be a hoax at all despite initial suspicions  has been widely speculated about in the media. Shasta County authorities have never said they had any reason to doubt Papini's story, but during the weeks of her disappearance "police had filed at least 20 search warrants in court linked to the investigation... [and] investigators were also looking through her computer records, probing past relationships and seeking surveillance footage that could offer clues," as was reported by the Associated Press.



Previously: Husband Of Missing NorCal Woman Describes Abduction Skeptics As 'Malicious, Sub Human'


Anthony Levandowski, an Uber executive whom CEO Travis Kalanick once called his "brother from another mother," is asserting his Fifth Amendment rights in a lawsuit filed by his former employer, Google. Levandowski's lawyers say he's invoking the right to avoid self-incrimination because there's "potential for criminal action" in the case, according to court transcripts obtained by the New York Times, news that adds another dimension to a mounting legal battle that could rage into a full-on war.

Levandowski's former employer, Google, brought suit against Uber in late February, alleging that Levandowski and others stole self-driving secrets from them. It was this autonomous technology, created at Google/Alphabet-owned driverless car company Waymo, which Levandowski used to launch his self-driving truck company, Otto, or so Google's lawyers assert. Otto was quickly acquired for $680 million by Uber  along with its autonomous technology innovations, which gave the ride-hailing company a much needed speed-boost in the race to develop and deploy self-driving cars.

As part of a motion Google filed seeking a temporary injunction against Uber's autonomous vehicle development, Google demanded that Uber hand over 14,000 files he allegedly downloaded on his way out of Google and brought with him to Uber. Levandowski has said he downloaded the files to work from home with them.

The transcript of a private hearing before a US District Court judge in San Francisco obtained by the Times reveals that Levandowski's lawyers said he wouldn't turn over the files, an aspect of his Fifth Amendment rights, they said. An Uber lawyer representing Levandowski said the exec's rights protect against compelled disclosure that would identify the existence, location or possession of any responsive documents.

That wasn't doing it for the judge, William Alsup: "If you think for a moment that I'm going to stay my hand, because your guy is taking the Fifth Amendment, and not issue a preliminary injunction to shut down what happened here, youre wrong," Alsup said according to Bloomberg, who also obtained the transcript. According to the Times, Alsup pointed out to Uber that the company had the right to force Levandowski to speak on the matter and turn over the files  by ordering him to do so, or be fired from the company.

In a statement, Angela Padilla, Uber's associate general counsel, projected assuredness. "We look forward to our first public response laying out our case on Friday, April 7," she said according to Bloomberg. "We are very confident that Waymos claims against Uber are baseless and that Anthony Levandowski has not used any files from Google in his work with Otto or Uber."

Related: Autonomous Ubers Drive Under A Mile On Average Before A Human Has To Take Over
SIOUX CITY | The Sioux City Community Theatre will present "The Star on My Heart," the signature event of 2017 Tolerance Week, at 7:30 p.m. Thursday at the Orpheum Theatre. Admission is free.

"The Star on My Heart" is the story of Holocaust survivor Inge Auerbacher, who was imprisoned in the Terezin concentration camp in Czechoslovakia from the age of 7 to 10. Liberated by the Russian army on May 8, 1945, Ms. Auerbacher and her family moved to New York a year later.
Meetings

Nebraska Polio Survivors Association April meeting, 2 p.m. Sunday at Bloomfield Forum, 98th and Nicholas, Omaha, Nebraska.

Screenings

Free blood pressure screenings, 9:30-11 a.m. Wednesdays at Countryside Senior Living, front lobby. No appointment necessary.

Programs/Self-Help Groups

Al-Anon Information Center, call 712-255-6724.

Al-Anon and Alateen, meetings locally. For times, dates and locations of area meetings, call 712-255-6724.

Alcoholics Anonymous, beginners information, call 712-252-1333.

Arc of Woodbury County, serving the mentally challenged, 5:15 p.m. meeting, second Monday of the month at Mid-Step Services, 4303 Stone Ave. For families and interested persons.

Child Care Resource and Referral, provides resources, education and advocacy for children, parents, and child care providers. Assists in child care needs. For more information, call 712-277-1180.

Co-Dependence Anonymous, 7 p.m. Mondays and Thursdays at First Lutheran Church, Fireside Room.

Co-Dependents Anonymous (CODA), 10 a.m. Saturdays at Hawkeye Club, 420 Jones St.

Compassionate Friends, 7 p.m. fourth Wednesday of each month (third Thursday in November and second Sunday December) in Mercy Medical Center's Leiter Room. For families who have lost children. Contact Nancy Webb 712-212-4032 or Don Mulder 712-541-5512.

Clinics

Siouxland District Health immunization clinics, call for appointment, 712-279-6119 or 1-800-587-3005.

Information

Family and Addictive Illness series, for more information, call 234-2300.

Iowa Fathers, 6 to 8 p.m. fourth Tuesday of each month at Hope Lutheran Church, Education Building, 218 W. 18th St., South Sioux City, Neb. Support group to help single, divorcing and divorced parents residing in the state of Iowa.

Mercy Pathways Outpatient Program, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, on the third floor, Mercy's Central Medical Building, 801 Fifth St., Suite 360. Provides hope, help, opportunity to connect through group therapy for individuals experiencing personal, relationship, psychiatric issues. For more information, call 712-279-5991.

Narcotics Anonymous, meetings daily, various times, dates and locations. For more information, call 712-279-0733.

Overeaters Anonymous, 1 p.m. Tuesdays at Wesley United Methodist Church, 3700 Indian Hills Drive; 6 p.m. Tuesdays at St. John's Lutheran Church, 402 Lane Ave., Storm Lake; 7 p.m. Tuesdays at Church of the Nazarene, 226 N. Main St., Viborg, S.D.; 5:30 p.m. Thursdays and 9 a.m. Saturdays at Newman Center, 320 E. Cherry St., Vermillion, S.D.; 10:30 a.m. Saturdays at Hawkeye Club, 420 Jones St. A 12-step recovery program for people who have problems with food and weight. No fees.

St. Lukes Outpatient Behavioral Health Program, 9 a.m. to noon Monday, Tuesday and Thursday on fifth floor of St. Luke's, located at 2720 Stone Park Blvd. Offers several levels of outpatient care including partial hospitalization, intensive outpatient, and group therapy. This program provides support and integrated treatment to individuals experiencing personal or relationship issues as a result of their mental illness. For more information and admission criteria, call 712-279-3906.

Sobriety By Faith, 8:30 a.m. Saturdays at Mt. Zion Missionary Baptist Church, 1421 Geneva St. For more information, call James Mothershead at 712-577-9715.

The Link-Recovery and Freedom, 1603 Glen Ellen Road; 9:30 to 10:30 a.m. Saturday workshop, and Christian 12-step meeting 7 to 8 p.m. Tuesday. For all ages. Call Dee at 389-7432.

Women in Recovery, meets monthly at Mt. Zion Missionary Baptist Church, 1421 Geneva St. For details, call 712-255-4623.

Tarahouse Meditation Center, 8 a.m. Mondays through Thursdays; 6:30 p.m. Fridays; 10 a.m. Saturdays and Sundays, all at 3112 Rebecca St. Three easy 10-minute sessions in small group; beginners welcome. For more information, call 490-6410.

Blood pressure and blood sugar screening, 9 to 11 a.m. Wednesdays in the lobby at Westwood Nursing and Rehabilitation Center. Free to public.

Support Groups

Food Addicts in Recovery Anonymous, 7-8:30 p.m. Wednesdays at Hawkeye Club basement, 420 Jones St. For more information, call 277-5935.

Celebrate Recovery, Bible-based 12-step recovery group. Thursdays at 6 p.m. at Sunnybrook Community Church, 5601 Sunnybrook Drive. Childcare provided. 712-490-3343. All welcome.

PFLAG of Siouxland, (Parents & Friends of Lesbians and Gays), 7 p.m., fourth Monday of January, March, May, July, September and November. St. Mark ELCA Church, 5200 Glenn Ave., in the upstairs meeting area. 712-258-3116.

Singles widowed and divorced, all ages, 4 p.m., Sundays. McDonald's at Sixth Street and Lewis Boulevard. 712-252-2675.

GriefShare, 6:30 -8:30 p.m. every Tuesday until Dec. 6 at Sunnybrook Community Church, 5601 Sunnybrook Drive, Sioux City. 712-276-5814.

HIV/AIDS Support Group, meets weekly. For more information, call Darla or Teri at Siouxland Community Health Center, 712-252-2477 or 888-371-1965.

Hospice of Siouxland, seeking volunteers. For more information, call 712-233-4144 and ask for a volunteer coordinator.

La Leche League of Siouxland, breastfeeding support group meets every third Thursday at 11 a.m. at Morningside Lutheran Church. Children are welcome. For more information, call Mary at 712-546-7280 or Jacquie at 712-255-2998.

Living Each Day Cancer Support Group, 7-8 p.m. second Thursday of the month, Floyd Valley Hospital, Conference Center Room 2, Le Mars, Iowa. Open to all cancer patients, cancer survivors and family members. No charge. Pre-register by calling 712-546-3441 or 800-642-6074, ext. 441.

Mom and Baby Support Group, 10-11 a.m. last Monday of the month at the Orange City (Iowa) Hospital, lower level. For new moms and babies. 712-737-5260.

Tri-State Sober Project, 12-step meeting, 7:30-8:30 p.m., Tuesdays, Friendship Community Church, 305 Sergeant Square Drive, Sergeant Bluff. 6-7 p.m., Thursdays, Transitional Services of Iowa, 1221 Pierce St., Sioux City.

Doug's Donors Support Group, information for organ donors and recipients, 12:30-1:30 p.m. Fridays, 5:15-6:30 p.m. second Thursdays of the month at Mercy Cafeteria Woodbury Room. 712-277-1050.

Divorce Care, 6:30 -8:30 p.m. every Tuesday until Dec. 6 at Sunnybrook Community Church, 5601 Sunnybrook Drive, Sioux City. 712-276-5814.

NAMI Siouxland, (National Alliance on Mental Illness) Support Group meets 6:30 p.m., second Tuesday of the month at Friendship House, 1101 Court St. For individuals and family members dealing with mental illness. 712-255-4209.

New Life Life Support Group, 3:30 p.m. every Saturday at 2929 W. Fourth St. Spiritual 12-step program. For more information, call Donald at 712-574-1744 or James at 712-255-7624.

Orphan Sunday, 3:30-5 p.m. Sunday at Sunnybrook Community Church loft, 5601 Sunnybrook Drive.

Post Polio Support Group, 11 a.m. first Thursday of the month at Perkins Restaurant by Menards. 712-490-8213.

Relationship Support Group, 7 p.m. Fridays at Marketplace Mall. For more information, call 239-3129.

Sexual Assault and Domestic Violence, Individual and Support Groups. For more information, call CSADV in Sioux City at 712-258-7233; Plymouth County at 712-546-6764; Monona County at 712-423-3443. Advocacy and support available 24 hours a day at 1-800-982-7233. All services free of charge and confidential.

Sickle Cell Disease Support Group, 11 a.m. third Saturday of each month at St. Luke's Hospital, meeting room 1. For patients, their family and any concerned member. Call La'Keshia Rainey at 712-203-2019 for more information.

Single and Parenting, 6:30 -8:30 p.m. every Tuesday until Dec. 6 at Sunnybrook Community Church, 5601 Sunnybrook Drive, Sioux City. 712-276-5814.

Sioux City Association of the Deaf, 7 p.m. third Saturday of the month at Morningside Church of Christ, 5015 Garretson Ave. Regular meeting, September-May; no meeting, June, July, August and December.

Siouxland Autism Support Group, second Thursday of the month at Northwest Area Education Agency, 1520 Morningside Ave. For more information, call Julie Case at 712-490-8939.

Siouxland Epilepsy Support Group, 5 p.m. third Tuesday of the month at Prestwick Apartment Clubhouse, 4230 Hickory Lane. For anyone diagnosed with seizures or epilepsy and family or friends. For more information, call Steve at 274-6927.

Siouxland IC support group, meets quarterly in Sioux City. For patients struggling with interstital cystitis. For more information, call Jacque Dundas 316-641-9766.

Siouxland Informational Group for the Blind, 2-5 p.m. second Tuesday of the month at Northern Hills Retirement Community, 4002 Teton Trace. For more information, call 712-266-8926 or 258-8151.

Grief support group, 5:30-7:30 p.m., beginning Oct. 5 for 13 weeks (may join at any time), Crescent Park United Methodist Church, 2826 Myrtle St., Sioux City. Scott, 712-899-6315.

Siouxland Ostomy Association, 2 p.m. first Sunday of each month (except September, which will be second Sunday; and no meetings June, July, August), in Room 300 at Mercy Medical Center, 801 Fifth St. For more information, call Dick Lindblom at 251-2453.

Siouxland Parkinson Disease Support Group, 1 p.m. fourth Monday of the month at Siouxland Center for Active Generations, 313 Cook St. For more information, call Sally Reinert at 402-987-3516.

South Sioux City Weight Support Group, 8:30 a.m. Wednesdays at St. Paul United Methodist Church, South Sioux City. For more information, call 494-1401 or 494-2133.

Disabilities Resource Center of Siouxland, 520 Nebraska St., Suite 101: Women's Support Group, 1:30 p.m. first Wednesday of the month; LGBT Support Group, 1:30 p.m. first Friday of the month; Adult ADHD, 6 p.m. second Tuesday of the month; Advocacy Group, 1:30 p.m. third Tuesday of the month. For more information, call 712-255-1065.

Take Off Pounds Sensibly, group meetings various times, days and locations in Siouxland. For information on the chapter in your area, call 1-800-932-TOPS.

Voice Disorder Support Group, meets as needed at Mercy Medical Center, Buena Vista Room. 712-279-2686.

Women's Peer Support Group, in Wayne and South Sioux City, Neb., for those who have experienced domestic abuse. For more information, call the Wayne office at 402-375-4633 or 1-800-440-4633; in South Sioux City, call 402-494-7592. Help and support available 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Services free and confidential.

Woodbury County D.M.D.A., noon-2 p.m. first Saturday of the month at Country Friendship Acres, 4501 West St.; 7-8 p.m. first Tuesday of the month at 515 Court St. in the Community Room; 7-8 p.m. second Tuesday of the month at 441 W. Third St. in the Community Room; 7-8 p.m. third Tuesday of the month at 409 W. Third St. in the Community Room. Support group for people with disabilities and mental disorders.

Natural Mamas in Siouxland, 1 p.m., third Tuesday of each month in the Garretson room of the Morningside Public Library. All ages of children are welcome to come with moms. For sharing natural living tips, recipes, natural remedies and health, homemaking, mothering, etc. For more information, call 402-913-0038 or visit their Facebook page.

A Step Beyond support group, 3:30 p.m. second Tuesday of the month, except for August, November and December when it meets at 5:30 p.m. (no meeting in January) at the Christy-Smith Resource Center, 1819 Morningside Ave. For more information, call 712-276-7319.

Divorce care, 5 p.m., Sundays. Fireside room, Morningside Lutheran Church, 700 South Martha St.

Gamblers Anonymous meetings, 4 p.m. Thursdays at Immanuel Lutheran Church, 315 Hamilton Blvd.; 7 p.m. Wednesdays, Morningside Presbyterian Church, 4327 Morningside Ave.; 7 p.m. Tuesdays, St. John Lutheran Church; 7 p.m. Sundays, Hawkeye Club, 420 Jones St.. 712-277-2901.

Art therapy support group, 5:30 p.m. second Thursday of the month at the June E. Nylen Cancer Center. Registration required, call 252-9387.

After Breast Cancer Support Group, 5:30 p.m. third Tuesday of the month at the June E. Nylen Cancer Center. For more information, call Brenda, 252-9370.

After Prostate Cancer Support Group, 5:15 p.m. first Tuesday of the month at the June E. Nylen Cancer Center. For more information, call 252-9426.

Alzheimer's Association, Big Sioux Chapter Support Group, 2 p.m. second Tuesday of the month; 4 p.m. third Tuesday of the month (under age 65) at 201 Pierce St., Suite 110 (Famous Dave's building); and 6 p.m. first Tuesday of the month at the Barnes and Noble Cafe. For more information, call Emily Lord at 712-279-5802.

Christy-Smith Funeral Homes of Sioux City, extensive grief library at the Morningside location. Open to the public during weekday hours. For more information, call 276-7319.

Chronic Pain/Chronic Illness Support Group, 7:30 p.m. fourth Wednesday of the month in the lower level of the Orange City Hospital. For more information, call 712-737-5260.

Connections Area Agency on Aging, and Mercy Medical Centers Older Adult Services Welcome to Medicare, 1:30-4 p.m., the first Friday of every month at Connections Area Agency on Aging, 2301 Pierce St. To pre-register, or for more information, contact Connections Area Agency on Aging at 712-279-6900.
FRESNO, Calif.  A group of Syrian refugees and Christian churchgoers in Fresno met last year with a simple greeting: Peace be upon you.

The members of Wesley United Methodist Church taught themselves how to say it in Arabic during a Sunday service before walking across their parking lot after church to introduce themselves to their new neighbors in El Dorado Park, a community just west of Fresno State.

Deep friendships have formed since then that continue to support a growing number of Syrian refugees in Fresno.

I call them our new neighbors  I do not call them Syrian refugees, said Jackie Holms, a volunteer with Wesley who runs a community classroom with donated computers that Syrian families often visit.

A majority of around 25 Syrian families now here in Fresno as either refugees or asylum seekers live near Wesley. Many arrived in the fall. The latest arrivals  one Syrian family that had been living in Texas, and another previously living in Dubai  relocated to Fresno a couple weeks ago.

One of the first persons they met was Jim Call, a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Hes become a go-to volunteer furniture mover and provider for Syrian families. He says where much is given, much is expected, and Ive been given much. His Mormon faith also calls him to lend a helping hand.

Really, in serving those who are underserved or not taken care of, we are serving Jesus Christ, he said.

Call and Holms are among numerous volunteers from different faiths working in tandem with Muslims at Fresno mosques and centers to help Syrian refugees  and faith-based groups arent the only ones offering support. Fresno Interdenominational Refugee Ministries is expected to soon receive a major boost from Fresno County  a commitment of around $375,000 over the next four and a half years to fund several part-time staff to help Syrian refugees in Fresno. County staff will ask the Board of Supervisors to amend a contract later this month to include Syrian refugees among those eligible to receive assistance from cultural-based access navigation specialists, who provide linguistic support and culturally-appropriate health education and services to underserved groups. County staff say funding for these contracted specialists is provided through the Mental Health Services Act (created by the passage of Proposition 63).

Among the specialists is Wasan Abu-Baker, a key Fresno coordinator for people helping Syrian refugees in Fresno.

The best way people can help these families, she says: Just letting them know that they are home, and we all hear their voices.

SHARING LOVE

The first family to settle in Fresno after fleeing the civil war in Syria was Said Habbaba, and his wife, Iman Akroum, and their young daughter, Malak Habbaba. In Syria, Said worked as a real estate developer and Iman as an attorney. The couple now run a catering business out of their Fresno home.

Through an interpreter, Said said that Fresnans always have smiles on their faces and are ready to help people.

Among those assisting his family are volunteers Ani Chamichian and Susan Popovich, who visit several times a week to teach Iman how to speak English.

Chamichians mother is from now war-torn Aleppo, Syria. Her Buddhist faith also inspires her to help.

We need to take care of each other, Chamichian said, and we really are all one.  The bottom line is love.

Said and Iman reciprocate that love.

On a recent evening when Popovich didnt answer the telephone, the Syrian couple rushed to her home to make sure she was OK. Popovich was at an Ash Wednesday service at First Congregational Church of Fresno (the Big Red Church).

I live alone  my only child is out of the country. They are family now, she said of Said, Iman and Malak. They were almost instantly family from the first hug.

Maraika Kuipers-Sharsher  who is helping organize fundraiser dinners to help Syrian refugees through the Human Rights Coalition of the Central Valley at Wesley and the St. Paul Catholic Newman Center  said that some peoples perception of Syrian refugees as radical and nonapproachable is far from the truth.

My hope is that the community will come together in a loving way to not only welcome the new families, but to let them know we support them and we value them and we dont give into the stigma that attaches to the name refugee,  Kuipers-Sharsher said. We view them as strong, and we view them as human beings that are truly valued in our society.

(EDITORS: STORY CAN END HERE)

Helen Siporin with Temple Beth Israel is showing her support by teaching Syrian women how to sew.

Jews for a very long time have been on the run from many places and have experienced that feeling of being a refugee, Siporin said. Theres a real bond the (Jewish) community feels with people who have to flee.

Through Abu-Baker, serving as his interpreter, Said said he wanted to come to the U.S. because he learned the country has historically opened its doors to immigrants and refugees and that Americans respect diversity and they respect his beliefs.

He and his family are officially here as asylum seekers, instead of refugees, because they only planned on staying in the U.S. for a few months. Said expected the war in Syria would have ended by now.

Hes asking our new president to work with other countries to stop the war in Syria and start the peace process there, Abu-Baker said. He wants to go back, thats what he wants. If Syria is in peace, the war ended, he will go back.

(EDITORS: STORY CAN END HERE)

FRESNOS REFUGEE PAST

Fresno has lots of experience helping refugees. Over the years, the city has been a safe haven for many Hmong, Armenians, Central Americans and other people groups fleeing violence in their homelands.

Our Central Valley has a long history of assimilating refugees and really receiving the blessing that comes with assimilating new people, groups and cultures into our lives together, said the Rev. Ara Guekguezian of First Congregational, whose Armenian mother immigrated from Aleppo years ago. We see that influence all the time in a very positive way.

One small example of this positive influence, he says: Its hard to imagine Fresno without good pho  a Vietnamese noodle soup.

Abu-Bakers office with Fresno Interdenominational Refugee Ministries is located in a building used by Stone Soup Fresno  an initiative born out of Wesley to help Southeast Asian refugees who settled in Fresno after the Vietnam war.

We have an open door to all people  this is who we are, the Rev. Karen Stoffers-Pugh of Wesley explains simply.

Kathleen Chavoor-Bergen  who worked with Abu-Baker to create a Facebook page, Fresno Support for Syrian Refugees, to better coordinate services  believes supporting these families can also help heal the wounds of those affected by the Armenian genocide.

In order to not forget their past, they have to look at whats happening currently and how trauma is not just culturally specific, that its pervasive, she said of her Armenian community. Its my hope to get more Armenians to remember their trauma through others.

Zachary Darrah, executive director of Fresno Interdenominational Refugee Ministries, said Islamophobia remains a barrier to getting affected families more support.

Darrah said its important to remember that Syrian refugees are victims of the same terrorism that Americans feel they are victims of.

In the name of security, a presidential executive order issued in January that blocked citizens from seven Muslim-majority nations from entering the U.S. also suspended the U.S. refugee program. After President Trump revised the order earlier this month  which included reducing the number of blocked countries from seven to six, and replacing a ban on Syrian refugees with a 120-day freeze requiring review and renewal  it was blocked last week by federal judges in Hawaii and Maryland before it was scheduled to take effect on Thursday. The Hawaii ruling addressed both the travel ban and refugee ban, and the Maryland ruling applied only to the travel ban.

The reality is most of the people who speak the loudest against refugees or undocumented or the Muslim community dont know one personally  and in our community, its not hard to be personally connected, Darrah said.

Holms describes the Syrians shes met in Fresno as intelligent and competitive because it was not easy for them to get here.

I do not see them as needy people, Holms said. I see them as people with a lot to offer.

Darrah is encouraged by support hes seen Fresnans show new neighbors from Syria.

Compassion and love, he said, thats the unifying factor for all of these groups.
SIOUX CITY | Washington Post Executive Editor Martin Baron will receive the Al Neuharth Award for Excellence in the Media in 2017.

The award will be presented to Baron on June 19 at the Newseum in Washington, D.C., by the University of South Dakota, the Freedom Forum, and the Newseum Institute.

USD is proud to join the Newseum Institute in honoring Marty Baron, University of South Dakota President James W. Abbott said in a Friday release.

His success in guiding journalistic investigations of important public issues exemplifies the qualities we teach aspiring journalists through the Department of Media and Journalism and the Al Neuharth Media Center.

Baron has been executive editor of The Washington Post since January 2013. Prior to that, he was editor at The Boston Globe from 2001 to 2012.

Baron's investigative team coverage of the sexual abuse scandal in the Catholic archdiocese of Boston earned the Globe a Pulitzer Prize. The story about the newspaper investigation was featured in the 2015 movie "Spotlight," which won the Academy Award for Best Picture and Best Original Screenplay.

Neuharth, a South Dakota native, graduated in 1950 from USD, which is home to the Al Neuharth Media Center. Media mogul Neuharth, who founded USA TODAY, died in 2013 at the age of 89.

The Neuharth award continues following his death, but in a different format. The award ceremony was formerly held on the USD campus during Dakota Days homecoming weekend.

Baron will be the 31st person to receive the Award for Excellence, which honors lifetime achievement in the media industry. Legendary CBS News anchor Walter Cronkite was the first selection.

Since Baron became executive editor of the Post in 2013, the paper has won numerous awards for coverage, including Pulitzer Prizes for its reporting on killings by police officers, security lapses at the Secret Service, and secret surveillance programs by the National Security Agency.
STORM LAKE, Iowa | Spaghetti suppers and pig scrambles warranted mention in a press conference to introduce the new Buena Vista University president.

"We're' the type of family you'll see at spaghetti suppers," said Dr. Joshua Merchant, 43, sounding off on a theme of family community involvement during a 30-minute question-and-answer session in Siebens Forum on the BVU campus in Storm Lake on Wednesday.

As a chilly rain pounded the pavement outside, Merchant offered his "good view" (English for the Spanish "Buena Vista") in the underground building, erected after entrepreneur Harold Walter Siebens presented the school with an $18 million gift in 1980.

Merchant comes to Buena Vista from the University of North Florida in Jacksonville, Florida, where he served a school of some 15,944 students as vice president of development and alumni engagement and executive director and CEO of the UNF Foundation Inc. The bulk of his 19-year career in education has been spent in fundraising, marketing and enrollment.

He'll replace outgoing President Dr. Frederick Moore on July 1 by immersing himself and his family into all things Storm Lake. If that means chasing pigs at the Buena Vista County Fair, so be it. If it means dining on spaghetti to help outfit the school band, then, by gosh, set a table for this family of four.

"We'll be visible in this community," Merchant repeated, adding he might lead cheers when the Beavers take the field or the court.

Merchant, who was joined by his wife, Carrie Merchant, at the event, said they can't wait to help get their sons, Elijah, 15, and Griffin, 11, settled into their new school and community. Both sons, like their father, have an interest in 4-H. Carrie stopped at the ISU Extension office in Storm Lake to visit about 4-H on Wednesday.

"Do they have pig scrambles?" Merchant said, repeating a question posed to him by son Griffin. A pig scramble, the president explained to his Iowa audience, is a Michigan tradition whereupon 4-H members were challenged to catch a pig, take it home, raise it, and bring it to the county fair.

Merchant also spoke of his experience as a first-generation college student, the first of four siblings to attend Albion College in his native Michigan, where he was raised on a farm, in an area similar to Storm Lake. He talked about reaching out to the hundreds -- or thousands -- of Storm Lake-area residents who are recent immigrants and, like Merchant, could become first-generation college students, at BVU.

Storm Lake High School just finished a $19 million expansion as the campus facility had grown cramped for an enrollment that has ballooned over the years, to nearly 700 this year. Storm Lake Elementary School, constructed on the west side of the Buena Vista County seat, was built for 850 students in grades K-4 in 2009. That facility reached an enrollment of 924 students in 2015, a large percentage of them children of newcomers.

How then, can BVU, whose undergraduate enrollment on the Storm Lake campus totals 743, get this next generation of students through the Victory Arch atop Siebens Forum and into class?

The University of North Florida, Merchant said, looked at scholarships for first-generation college students, while examining other opportunities as ways to show students what access and success looks like.

"I've got ideas, but I'm a little reserved about sharing them," he said, noting that he'll broach these topics first with the cabinet serving BVU and its Board of Trustees. He admitted he doesn't have all the answers; and that what works in Jacksonville or Albion may not translate to Northwest Iowa.

In his six years of work at Albion, he added, the college faced enrollment challenges in a diverse community of 8,000 people, again, sharing similarities to BVU and Storm Lake, population 10,910.

Merchant said he can't wait to get settled and involved, tackling such challenges and building upon opportunities that arise on campus and throughout Storm Lake.

"I'm humbled, we are blessed and so looking forward to becoming a part of this community," he said.
SIOUX CITY | Siouxlanders will celebrate the region's diversity Sunday at the annual Faces of Siouxland multicultural fair.

Sponsored by the Sioux City Human Rights Commission, the annual fair reflects and celebrates the region's diversity. It will take place from noon to 4 p.m. Sunday at the Sioux City Convention Center, 801 Fourth St.

More than 70 local organizations will have informational booths at the event. Vendors will also sell ethnic food, baked goods and arts and crafts.

Live performers will include the mariachi band Mariachi Nuevo Guachinango, Native American drummers, dancers from the Pho Mon Temple, the Mt. Zion Baptist Church praise team and the La Perla Tapatia dancers from Irving Elementary School.

A supervised kids space will also be available. The event is free to the public.
SIOUX CITY | A new Sioux City Public Museum exhibit on display through the month of April features a collection of diaries and handwritten notes from a variety of areas in Europe during the Holocaust.

Diaries of Humanity, an exhibit on loan from The Institute for Holocaust Education in Omaha opened Friday. The collection features writings of a variety of individuals affected by World War II.

The display also includes images from the Sioux City Public Museum's own Vernon Tott Collection, taken by a Sioux City native who served as a radio operator in the U.S. Army during World War II.

The museum will hold an opening luncheon and tour of the exhibit at noon Tuesday in conjunction with Sioux City's Tolerance Week. Reservations are required, as seating is limited to 90 attendees. To reserve a spot, call the museum at 712-279-6174.

The museum, 607 Fourth St., is open 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday and 1 to 5 p.m. Sunday. Admission is free.
DAKOTA CITY | A judge has ordered that one of two men charged in a Dakota County murder case undergo a psychiatric examination to determine if he is mentally competent to stand trial.

In an order filed Thursday in Dakota County District Court, District Judge Paul Vaughan said Andres Surber should be examined within 30 days at the Lincoln Correctional Center by a state mental health professional.

Surber's attorney, Todd Lancaster, had requested the exam in a motion filed Wednesday in which he said he "is aware of sufficient facts about defendant's mental condition to reasonably raise an issue about defendant's competency, and that this issue needs to be resolved prior to trial in this case."

No trial date has been set.

Surber, 26, and Bryan Galvan-Hernandez, 19, both of Wakefield, Nebraska, have each pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder and use of a firearm to commit a felony. Surber also is charged with possession of a firearm by a prohibited person. They are charged with the Nov. 1 shooting death of Kraig Kubik, 41, of Emerson, Nebraska.

Earlier this month, Surber was removed from the courtroom after standing up and yelling profanities during Galvan-Hernandez' pretrial conference. When it came time for Surber's pretrial conference, Vaughan conducted it without him being present.

Vaughan said in Thursday's order that mental health professionals must determine whether Surber understands the nature of the proceedings against him, is able to comprehend his own condition and has the capacity to make a rational defense.

Surber and Galvan-Hernandez are both scheduled to appear in court April 26 when Vaughan will consider a prosecution motion to consolidate their trials and also hear arguments on a defense motion to suppress evidence that Lancaster said was gathered by authorities conducting illegal searches of Surber's home and car.

Lancaster, of the Nebraska Commission on Public Advocacy in Lincoln, has asked that search warrants be unsealed, a motion Vaughan granted Wednesday.

Galvan-Hernandez is scheduled to stand trial May 9, but prosecutors have asked that the date be moved to allow more time to prepare. Vaughan indicated during the pretrial conference that he would reschedule the trial for a later date.

Surber and Galvan-Hernandez are accused of shooting Kubik with a 9-mm firearm and dismembering his body. Investigators on Nov. 2 found a severed arm and leg in the trunk of a car at an abandoned farmhouse in rural Dixon County, Nebraska. The rest of Kubik's remains were found three days later in a creek about four miles away. Autopsy results showed a gunshot wound to Kubik's head.
SIOUX CITY | More developers have expressed interest in constructing a hotel near the proposed ag expo and learning center in Sioux City's former stockyards area.

City economic development director Marty Dougherty said Wednesday that four to five developers are now putting together proposals for the hotel, which would be the second hotel included in the city's bid for $14 million in future sales and hotel taxes from a state board.

Dougherty said interest has been "very high" since North Liberty, Iowa-based Kinseth Hospitality Co. announced plans to partner with the city on a $21 million Courtyard by Marriott that would be connected to the Convention Center.

Since the proposal was presented on the (Courtyard by Marriott) hotel, weve had actually quite a bit of interest, Dougherty said. Were working with a number of developers."

While the Marriott branded hotel is aimed at turning around the sagging fortunes of the Convention Center, a second hotel would be geared towards visitors attending events at the proposed Bomgaars Ag Expo and Learning Center. The second hotel would either be positioned adjacent to the proposed venue or would be a substantially renovated hotel nearby, according to current plans.

Dougherty said the newest proposals would be for brand-new hotels. He did not identify any of the developers but said they would be "quality developers."

The city also has resumed talks with the new owners of the Holiday Inn at 701 Gordon Drive, which is planning major renovations to its guest rooms and lobby and is replacing its former Charlie's restaurant with a Bar Louie, a national chain.

Adding the Holiday Inn to the city's reinvestment application likely would require adjusting the district's boundaries. The reinvestment district cannot exceed 25 acres in size.

To qualify for the reinvestment program, an existing hotel must undergo improvements equaling at least 50 percent of the property's assessed value without the land. The Holiday Inn's assessed building valuation is $1.7 million, according to records from the city assessor's office.

The ag center and the hotel would be part of Sioux City's bid for $14 million in future state hotel and sales taxes through the Iowa Economic Development Authority's Reinvestment District program. The local project also includes Ho-Chunk Inc.'s Virginia Square, a commercial and residential development in the 100 block of Virginia Street.

The ag center's board of directors is continuing its push to raise $5 million in private funding. Gene Leman, the board's head and one of the driving forces behind the project, resigned from in December. Leman, a retired Tyson Foods executive, told the Journal Thursday he believes the project needs professional management.

Joe Kelley, a consultant hired in October who has decades of experience directing ag-related facilities in the Reno, Nevada, and Fort Worth, Texas, areas, also left the project earlier this year, Leman said.

Despite the departures, Dougherty said the board remains active and will be meeting next month.

"I think youre going to see a whole lot of activity very soon," he said.

The second hotel brand and developer are the only portions of the project that remain unannounced at this point. The project has been in the works for two years.

On Monday, city staff is scheduled to present an update on the reinvestment district project to the City Council at its regularly scheduled meeting. The presentation was scheduled after Mayor Bob Scott suggested the city consider converting the Convention Center into a city recreation center, saying the Courtyard by Marriott project "makes absolutely no sense whatsoever." No other council members have voiced objections to the convention center hotel plans, which would also require the city to build a parking ramp. The ramp would replace the surface parking lot next to the convention center that would be used to build the hotel.

Final approval of the land purchase and development agreements are scheduled to go before the council at its April 17 meeting.
SHELDON, Iowa | An administrator who has worked for the Sheldon School District since 2001 has been named 2017 Iowa Middle Level Principal of the Year by the School Administrators of Iowa.

Principal Cindy Barwick was named for the honor on Thursday, according to a press release from the School Administrators of Iowa.

"The efforts (Barwick) has made over time to work with staff and students to create an amazing climate of learning in her building is a model for all of us in educational leadership," SAI Executive Director Roark Horn said.

Barwick said the award is an honor, and she is grateful to work at Sheldon Middle School. She said there is a good team working in the middle school to teach pupils, while being cognizant of the social and emotional changes the students experience.

"Middle level education is one full of joy, rewards and challenges," Barwick said.

"I am proud to be able to work with Sheldon Middle School students on a daily basis and to be able to form relationships with them that allow us to make strides in achievement, while also maintaining a respectful, enjoyable, fun school environment."

Barwick previously taught at Decorah, Iowa, before taking a position in Sheldon. She has degrees from Iowa State University and the University of South Dakota.
SIOUX CITY | The Iowa State Medical Examiners Office has ruled that Sudden Infant Death Syndrome caused the February death of a young child in Buena Vista County.

The Storm Lake Police Department in a Friday release said the medical examiners office made the ruling after an autopsy.

According to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Sudden Infant Death Syndrome is defined as the death of a child less than one year of age, which cannot be explained after a thorough investigation is conducted, including a complete autopsy, examination of the death scene and a review of clinical history.

The two-month-old infant was brought by her parents on Feb. 18 to the Buena Vista Regional Medical Center emergency room in Storm Lake. After arriving at the hospital, police determined the girl was dead.

The child was brought to the hospital from a Storm Lake residence. The identity of the child and her family have not been released.

About 1,600 infants died of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome in 2015 in the United States, and it is the leading cause of death among infants one to 12 months old. The CDC says in some cases it is difficult to tell SIDS apart from other sleep-related infant deaths, such as suffocation by soft bedding.
SIOUX CITY | A Northwest Iowa man faces additional forgery charges, after the Storm Lake Police Department on Friday said he wrote more forged checks.

Kyle Klink, 25, of Newell, Iowa, was originally charged Tuesday afternoon with ongoing criminal conduct, five counts of forgery and possession of stolen property.

Police initially responded to Citizens First National Bank in Storm Lake, where bank staff said Klink had forged three checks at the bank March 23, and an additional check Monday at another bank branch. The amount of the checks totaled $5,400.

On Friday, the Storm Lake Police Department in a release said another check from Klink was found to be forged at Citizens bank. Additionally, three more counts of forgery were announced, after checks totaling $1,900 arrived at Citizens Community Credit Union in Storm Lake by Thursday.

Klink now faces a total of nine felony fraud charges. He is being held in Buena Vista County Jail.
SIOUX CITY | Attendees of a Sunday presentation at the Sioux City Public Museum will learn about the role of a Johnston, Iowa, military installation during World War I.

"Camp Dodge: Home Away From Home 1917-1918" will be a 45-minute presentation focusing on several aspects of the military training conducted at Camp Dodge during World War I. It will include a slideshow of photographs from the Iowa Gold Star Military Museum collection.

The program, which falls on the 100th anniversary of President Woodrow Wilson's request of a declaration of war against Germany, will begin 2 p.m. Sunday.

Michael Vogt, curator of the Iowa Gold Star Military Museum at Camp Dodge, will be the main presenter of the program. Vogt has bachelor's and master's degrees in history from the University of Northern Iowa and has served on the Iowa Museum Association and State Historical Society of Iowa board of trustees.

The presentation is funded through Humanities Iowa and will be free and open to the public.
SIOUX CITY | In the coming months, Sioux City Police Department will be giving away car seats to families in need thanks to the donation in memory of a community volunteer.

In a news release, the police department said it received a donation of 88 infant and child car seats from the family of Yvonne J. Anderson, who was involved in many volunteer efforts that revolved around the children and youth of Sioux City before her death in March of 2014. Anderson's family felt the car seat donations would be a way to honor her and continue her efforts.
SIOUX CITY | Carter and Kai Jensen's parents know telling which twin was born first would cause additional boasting between the Bishop Heelan High School freshmen.

"They won't tell us because they know the older will hold it against the other one," Carter, 15, quipped. "But I think I'm older."

"It's always a competition between us, and that's the part I like," Kai added. "Because having that competition pushes us to be better in school. Even though I'm smarter."

"I am better looking, though," Carter claimed.

"We look the same!" Kai yelled.

The amiable disagreement took place after a Thursday photo shoot for the "Twins and Triplets" page of the school's annual yearbook, The Shield. The school this year has one set of triplets and six pairs of twins enrolled. School officials say that's one of the highest counts in recent memory.

The page will showcase each set posing with each other.

"It's just something fun we like to do every couple of years," Emily Bonnema, the yearbook's coordinator and teacher, said.

Twins Callie and Brooke Doohen -- who were born 37 minutes apart -- picked a piggyback pose for the yearbook. The 16-year-olds say they like having a clone around.

"There are sometimes where I just look at her and know what she is feeling. It's actually really weird," Brooke, the younger of the identical set, said.

Both of the juniors have aspirations of going to college to prepare for a career in the medical field but say they don't necessarily want to go to the same school.

"But I hope she goes to a school close by," Callie said with her sister agreeing next to her.
SIOUX CITY | The ride-hailing mobile app Uber launched in Sioux City Friday.

The San Francisco-based company uses a smartphone application to pair people looking for a ride with drivers who are independently contracted by the service.

"Whether its serving as an alternative to drunk driving or offering a new, flexible way to earn money on your own schedule, were looking forward to serving riders and drivers in Sioux City and learning more about... how Uber can extend transportation options for the community, said Carrol Chang, Uber Iowa general manager, in a release Thursday.

All pickup requests are blindly matched based on the closest available driver. Uber customers can use a phone map to track where the car is proceeding to get them. After the trip, both riders and drivers rate each other on a 1-to-5 scale so Uber officials can monitor the experience. All costs for the trip are automatically charged to the payment method on file to the rider's account.

The release said to celebrate the launch, Uber is offering new and existing users two free rides up to $15 each. Users can enter RIDESIOUXCITY into the app to redeem the offer until 11:59 p.m. Sunday.

Uber's ride-booking competitor Lyft immediately started offering rides in Sioux City in late February, a day after Uber announced its March launch date.
SIOUX CITY | IA Health Link program participants enrolled in UnitedHealthcare Community Plan of Iowa now have greater access to all of Mercy Health Network and UniNet's facilities and care providers.

In a statement released Thursday, UnitedHealthcare announced that it has established expanded relationships with Mercy Health Network and UniNet Healthcare Network. UnitedHealthcare provides health benefits to Iowans through their employers, the armed forces and Medicare and also delivers care to Medicaid beneficiaries in the state through the IA Health Link program.

"UnitedHealthcare is partnering with Mercy Health Network and UniNet Healthcare Network to deliver coordinated, high-quality and affordable health care for IA Health Link members," said Kim Foltz, CEO of UnitedHealthcare Community Plan of Iowa.

Mercy Health Network includes eight medical centers in six major markets and community hospitals in seven other locations. Dave Vellinga, CEO of Mercy Health Network, said the integrated system of hospitals, clinics and other health care facilities has more than 2,000 physicians and advanced practice clinicians dedicated to helping Iowans live healthier lives.

Ann Oasan, UniNet president, said the partnership with UnitedHealthcare will enhance the clinically integrated network's ability to deliver comprehensive, individualized and data-driven care to Iowa patients.

UniNet Healthcare Network has 2,700 physicians and clinicians serving patients in western Iowa and Nebraska with locations in Grand Island, Kearney, Lincoln and Omaha. UniNet builds on the successes and strengths of CHI Health and affiliated providers to improve patient health, enhance efficiency and succeed in today's changing health care payment and delivery environments.

"UniNet and CHI Health care providers look forward to working with UnitedHealthcare in Iowa to focus on improving quality and satisfaction for patients while lowering the cost of care," Oasan said.

People enrolled in UnitedHealthcare Community Plan who need more information about their coverage may call 800-464-9484 or visit UHCCommunityPlan.com/ia.
Iowans from Sioux City to Davenport know why I serve on these committees: Armed Services; Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry; Environment and Public Works; and Small Business and Entrepreneurship. Iowans have seen that these committees can have a tremendous impact on our farmers, military and small businesses.

As the newly appointed chair of the Emerging Threats and Capabilities Subcommittee, I want to explain why this panel matters to Iowa, too.

As chairman of this subcommittee, I am focused on things like counter-terrorism and oversight of special operations forces. In addition, I largely focus on advanced science and technology for our Department of Defense.

The concepts I focus on daily are designed to deter our adversaries like Russia and China, in addition to protecting our homeland from radical Islamic terrorists.

At first mention, things like next-generation lasers, smart drones, biological countermeasures and additive manufacturing may not seem to have a direct connection to Iowa. The truth is, however, the Pentagons pursuit and utilization of cutting-edge equipment influences Iowas farms, schools and jobs.

The following are just a few examples of so-called dual-use technologies being developed by the armed services whose applications impact Iowas industries:

 Americas Navy is testing lasers intended to defend aircraft carriers from super-sonic anti-ship cruise missiles. Similar lasers can also help Iowas farmers by providing precision guidance to machinery and geographical analysis.

 While the Air Force is developing swarming drones to overwhelm enemy air defenses, similar drones can perform mechanical functions like planting, spraying and monitoring crops. Moreover, drones can also identify fields needing irrigation or detect early stages of bacterial or fungal infections.

 The Army is looking at biological engineering methods as a means to counter attacks employed by terrorists. Some of these techniques can also be used to boost soybean resistance to pests or reduce the toll of disease on pigs.

 For our special forces, nanotechnologies can provide servicemembers with conforming lightweight, bulletproof battle suits. The same technologies can be used to deliver pesticides, fertilizers and vaccines to crops and livestock more efficiently.

Some of these emerging capabilities have already been in Iowa for quite some time, thanks to Iowas innovative universities and robust manufacturing sector.

For example, Iowa universities are paving the way in virtual reality concepts used to train servicemembers who paint stealth coatings on ships and airplanes. They are also leading in developing new defense equipment by utilizing state-of -the art computer technology.

In addition to the work of the universities, Iowas advanced manufacturing industry, which employs 210,000 workers at 4,000 companies, is also a national leader in 3D printing. This is the same technology the Marines are exploring as a means to reduce costs and expedite logistics timelines.

As our armed services become increasingly dependent on Iowas core competencies, our schools, workers and businesses reap the benefits.

At the same time, it is important to recognize that technologies offering a stronger national defense and a more robust economy can also be destructive when pursued by actors who wish to do us harm.

Russia is using drones, cyberattacks and GPS jamming to violate Ukraines sovereignty and to threaten others. They even pose a threat to Iowas sister state, Kosovo. This is why I recently held my first open hearing to identify how we can better defend ourselves, and our partners, from attacks by Russia.

I will continue using my subcommittee to help other lawmakers understand the potential advantages and disadvantages of emerging capabilities  those intended for use domestically and others tailored for use abroad.

Throughout that process, Iowa will have a seat at the table. The interests of Iowans will be what drives the Emerging Threats and Capabilities conversation in the Senate, in America and around the world.

Republican Joni Ernst represents Iowa in the United States Senate.
DES MOINES | A bill that may go before the full Iowa Senate next week would allow law enforcement agencies to keep secret 911 recordings reporting injuries or medical issues.

Bill sponsor Rep. Dean Fisher, R-Montour, said House File 571 would require law enforcement agencies to edit medical information out of 911 recordings or provide redacted transcripts when the public requests the recordings, now considered public records under Iowa law.

If Im laying on the floor with a heart attack and my wife calls 911, Fisher said Friday, does the public need to know that? No.

However, Sen. Jeff Danielson, D-Waterloo, voted against the bill Thursday because he fears it could be more broadly applied to keep secret all 911 recordings, body camera videos and police logs  records Danielson thinks provide police accountability to the public.

We should be opening up our decision-making process, said Danielson, a firefighter.

The bill would exempt from Iowas open records law medical records including information contained in audio or video call recording, including but not limited to, an audio or video 911 recording, relating to the injury or medical condition of a person who is the subject of the call.

All 911 recordings concerning juveniles also would be confidential under the proposal.

Fisher said he proposed the bill after a request by the Tama County Emergency Management Agency.

The request likely was spurred by 911 recordings the Associated Press obtained last year about accidental shootings, Fisher said. One case involved the 2015 death of Emma Redlinger, a 14-year-old shot inadvertently by a classmate inside a Vinton home. Another case reported by the AP involved a 12-year-old girl fatally shot in a 2014 hunting accident near Traer.

Randy Evans, executive director of the Iowa Freedom of Information Council, said those news reports shined light on the dangers of firearms access.

Evans shares Danielsons concern that HF 571 could lead to shielding of many different types of police records that let the public decide whether police acted legally or ethically.

Sealing off those records will make it ever more difficult to hold public officials accountable, he said.
DES MOINES | Gov. Terry Branstad and legislative majority Republicans arent done enacting their pro-life agenda, the governor told the Rally for Life at the Capitol Thursday.

The rally that packed the rotunda came on the heels of the House Human Resources Committee approving a ban on abortions after the 20th week of pregnancy Wednesday night. A similar ban has been approved in the Senate.

Ive been fighting for life since 1972 when I was elected to the Legislature for the first time, and I will not stop now, Branstad told the prolife activists. He also thanked them for their tireless work over so many years advancing the prolife movement.

Branstad and Senate Majority Leader Bill Dix, R-Shell Rock, reminded them that progress, like the legislation being considered by lawmakers, can take time. The Senate-passed legislation would ban abortion after 20 weeks rather than the current 26 weeks, Dix said.

I know its not as much as everybody would like, Branstad said, but this is an incremental, ongoing effort.

He noted that abortions in Iowa have decreased by 26 percent since 2010 and there have been no Medicaid-funded abortions in Iowa in the past four years.

So long as I have the honor of serving you I will continue to be a strong advocate for the unborn, said Branstad, who expects to resign as governor this spring to become ambassador to China.

We have more work to do, he said, but assured the activists his successor, Lt. Gov. Kim Reynolds, is as steadfast in her support for prolife legislation and policy.

Reynolds said it was an honor for her to be part of the most prolife administration in the history of the state of Iowa.

Given the progress lawmakers have made on the 20-week abortion ban and prohibiting taxpayer dollars to be used for abortion and abortion providers, Reynolds said 2017 is looking pretty bright for the prolife movement in Iowa.

Were on our way, she said. This year, as life issues come before our legislators, the power and united voice of individuals like you is undeniable. We must continue to work together to change hearts and minds, to return to a culture once again that respects all human life, not just the planned and the perfect, but all human life.
In back-to-back ceremonies, the governor signed a bill immediately barring cities and counties from setting minimum wages higher than the statewide $7.25 hourly floor and a separate measure making significant changes to the states workers compensation law.

This is a bill Ive waited for for a long time, said Branstad, before inking his name on House File 518  the bill that rewrites Iowas 1913 workers comp law that he declared would improve Iowas competitive position with other states while balancing the needs of providing a safety net for injured workers.

In the past 10 years, Iowas workers compensation system has mutated into a system benefiting trial lawyers at the expense of Iowa businesses and Iowa workers, said Branstad. Today, that ends by rebalancing the scales to ensure employees are compensated fairly for being injured on the job, while ensuring that abuses are curtailed.

However, Mike Owen, executive director of the Iowa Policy Project called the governors two-pronged action Thursday a triumph for ideology, spin and brute political power that both limited workers injury recoveries and suppressed their wages.

With a stroke of a pen, the governor can take away authority of local officials, Owen said in a statement. With another stroke he can hurt vulnerable Iowans who have been hurt on the job. It is likely, however, that Iowans will note the courage of elected supervisors in five counties to act when their state Legislature and governor could not find the will.

House File 295, the local pre-emption bill, rolls back higher minimum wage thresholds approved in five counties, including Johnson and Linn, and asserts the state has sole authority in setting business and employment standards for Iowa.

Different county minimum wages create confusion, especially for cities that are in more than one county, the governor said. This bill provides uniformity through the state on Iowas minimum wage. It does nothing to force businesses to pay employees less than they are currently paying. I want to thank all of those who worked hard to provide local governments and Iowa businesses with predictability.

Branstad has said he would be open to a modest raise to Iowas minimum wage but GOP leaders in the House and Senate have ruled that out this session. However, House Speaker Linda Upmeyer, R-Clear Lake, told reporters the issue might not be completely off the table for the biennium.

I think well continue to have conversation about that and perhaps that is the case, Upmeyer said about revisiting the topic in 2018. Well see where we can build consensus around that issue to bring it forward and take some action on it.

Senate Majority Leader Bill Dix, R-Shell Rock, said GOP legislators are focused on improving Iowas business climate to attract investment that will result in high-paying careers. He said the changes to modernize and rebalance the workers compensation system will enhance that effort.

The reason we needed to take action is it was regulators and court decisions that had really tipped the balance in the opposite direction and in order to maintain that equity and fairness the Legislature needed to pursue some of those changes, he said. This is really been what we felt was the best path.

In all, Branstad signed nine bills into law on Thursday.
DES MOINES | Democrats on the House Transportation Committee pushed on the brakes but werent able to stop legislation to regulate traffic enforcement devices such as red-light and speed cameras from moving forward Thursday.

All eight Democrats on the committee voted against Senate File 220, which would allow the devices for safety reasons where there is high traffic volume or a history of crashes. Without discussion, the bill cleared the committee, 13-8.

People in my caucus really dont like traffic enforcement cameras, said Rep. John Forbes of Des Moines, the committees ranking Democrat.

That was the extent of funnel week drama Thursday  the last day most lawmakers will be at the Capitol before todays deadline for bills to win approval in one chamber and from a committee in the other.

An attempt by House Minority Leader Mark Smith, D-Marshalltown, to block the reorganization of the Des Moines Water Works from being put on unfinished business was defeated 57-40 on a party-line vote.

The reorganization, which many people suspected was revenge for the Water Works suing three northwest Iowa counties about water quality, seemed to be on Republicans must-do list early in the session. Now, its questionable whether it will get a House debate.

If we find a path, good. If we dont, we have next year. House Speaker Linda Upmeyer, R-Clear Lake, said.

House leaders rolled more than two dozen bills to the unfinished business debate calendar to keep them alive. Senate GOP leaders are expected to take similar action today before the second funnel deadline officially lapses.

GOP pleased, Dems not

Senate Majority Leader Bill Dix, R-Shell Rock, said he is pleased with the sessions progress so far.

He said majority Republicans have passed legislation dealing with collective bargaining, workers compensation and school funding changes that should provide for flexibility for state agencies and local government entities that help save taxpayers money.

I feel like its been a very successful session, Dix said. Iowa voters sent us here to change the way we do business.

Upmeyer agreed both chambers have made real progress in their first year of GOP control of both chambers in 20 years.

Theyve moved forward on things that weve worked on in the past that were, perhaps, not welcomed as heartily in the Senate, Upmeyer said. Now we have a Senate that is interested in some of the things weve moved forward, and were interested in things theyve moved forward.

Senate Minority Leader Rob Hogg, D-Cedar Rapids, saw the 2017 legislative work product differently.

The reality is the Republican majority has done enough damage to the people of this state already this session, Hogg said. They need to stop the damage, they need to focus on this budget thats an absolute mess, and they need to get this session over with before they pass anything that hurts Iowans.

Thursday saw a flurry of activity

l The Senate Local Government Committee approving a bill that would abolish county compensation boards and place responsibility for setting county elected officials salaries with boards of supervisors,

l The Senate State Government Committee passed House bills to change the date of school board elections and expand confidentiality of cybersecurity and medical information related to 911 calls or police body camera audio and video recordings.

l The Senate Judiciary Committee beat the funnel deadline by approving measures dealing with eminent domain, sentencing reform and so-called revenge porn harassment.

l The House Judiciary Committee approved a Senate bill to provide legal protection to 911 callers who are under the legal drinking age of 21 but need help in an emergency when underage drinking has taken place. It also approved another bill reforming Iowas civil asset forfeiture law.

Buttercup dies

The so-called suck it up, buttercup bill that would create penalties for protesters blocking a highway, did not survive the funnel deadline.

Its disappointing, but guess what? This is the first year of the General Assembly, said Sen. Jake Chapman, R-Adel. Well take it up again next year and hopefully get it through and get this passed.

In the meantime, he said, I certainly hope we dont have protesters out there getting injured or injuring someone else when we could have taken action this year to get that done.

Some policy bills that failed to advance under the funnel structure are expected to resurface in budget bills. One is Senate File 2, a bill to defund Planned Parenthood and shift government funds to clinics not offering abortion. It has passed the Senate, but the House plans to make it a budget issue.

Cannabis oil

Both chambers were working on a way to at least extend a law granting limited access to cannabis oil if an agreement could not be reached to expand the program.

Upmeyer believes there may be an opportunity to expand the medical use of marijuana or cannabis. It would be helpful to get a signal from the Trump administration, specifically Attorney General Jeff Sessions, on what the federal policy will be toward states that enact medical cannabis laws, she said.

Even then, Upmeyer said of establishing a grow-and-sell operation, one of the biggest, hardest pieces is making it economically viable.
The gravity of the existential threat we face from Islamic Jihad is truly of epic proportions. It is essentially a battle pitting free-civilized man against a totalitarian barbarian. What is at stake is the struggle for our very soul - namely who we are and what we represent. The lives that were sacrificed for individual rights and freedoms that we've come to cherish are being chiseled away from right under our noses by the stealth jihadists. And many of us are in denial and totally clueless.



The left's appeasement and pandering to evil is nothing new. What makes their utopian delusions so infuriating and unpardonable is that it is not only they who will have to pay the consequences, and deservedly, so, they are thwarting and undermining our best efforts at resistance and are thus dragging us down in the process as well.







By Peter Lancz,, the head of the Raoul Wallenberg World Campaign Against Racism.
John "Bubby" Collins, 34, passed away Friday, March 24, 2017, from a tragic accident in Prince Frederick, Maryland. He is preceded in death by his mother Susan Patton and grandfather Earnest Logan Patton.



John was loved by many for his huge personality, infectious smile, and true heart. He brought so many laughter, excitement, and love. We were all blessed to have him in our lives. We will forever mourn the loss of his beautiful soul, but have peace knowing he is with the eternal Father, and we will one day be together again.



He is survived by his grandmother, Tina Patton Walters; sister, Rachel Collins; Uncle & Aunt, John & Kathy Patton; Girlfriend, Shelley Bailey; Nieces and nephews, Sydney, Juliet, Joshuah and Jonathan; Relatives, Liz Drew, Jessie & Briana Kirby, Joel Walters, and Teressa Beavers,



Services will be held Saturday, April 1, 2017 at Rausch Funeral Home in St. Leonard, Maryland. We Will begin receiving friends at 10am, and the Memorial service will start at 11am. Directly after, graveside services will be held at Asbury Cemetery in Prince Frederick, Maryland. We will then ask everyone to join us after for a reception. Arrangements by Rausch Funeral Home.


A bill intended to lower the cost of HIV medications is gaining little traction in Tallahassee.

According to the office of Representative Carlos Guillermo Smith, House Bill 1405 is not moving. The bill, touted as bipartisan effort to improve health equity and quality care for people living with HIV, currently sits in the house health innovation subcommittee and has yet to receive a hearing.

The bill, Smith said, would prohibit HMOs from classifying prescriptions for people living with HIV at the highest tier in regards to copays and deductibles.

Our bill allows the prescribing physician, not HMO bureaucrats, to decide the appropriate drug refills, step therapy requirements, drug quantities and utilization techniques that will be in the best interest of the health of the patient, said Smith, a gay Democrat from Orlando.

Jason King, legislative affairs manager for the AIDS Healthcare Foundations Southern Bureau, said adjustments to prescription drug pricing are vital.

We have been hearing from our patients that they cannot afford the medications that are being prescribed to them by their doctors, King told SFGN. Over the years, insurers have purposefully designed their plans to discourage HIV+ patients from enrolling by requiring excessively high deductibles, and medication copays and coinsurance. Knowing they cant meet the required cost share, patients seek health plans elsewhere, or they enroll into these cost-prohibitive plans without the ability to consistently afford their medications.

In 2015, the Florida Department of Health reported 4,868 diagnosed HIV/AIDS cases. FDH estimates there are 127,589 Floridians living with HIV and of that figure  12.4 percent are unaware of their status.

Expensive remedies to HIV infection are a deterrent to treatment, King said.

Whats worse is some patients forgo enrolling into a plan altogether, meaning they may not be taking their medications needed to remain virally suppressed and not transmit HIV to others, King said. Florida has some of the highest rates of new HIV infections in the country. The only way thats going to change is if every person living with HIV can afford and take the medications they need.

SFGN contacted Smiths Tallahassee office Friday morning for an update on HB 1405. Ida Eskamani, Smiths legislative assistant said the bill has not been placed on the house health innovation subcommittee agenda.

Senator Rene Garcia, a Hialeah Republican, has filed a companion bill which currently sits in the senate banking and insurance committee. There have been no votes recorded on Garcias bill.

Such feet dragging by lawmakers is not helping matters, said King.

The Legislature should take seriously the affordability of HIV drugs if the state truly wants to achieve zero infections in Florida, King said. These bills are about patients being able to afford the medications they need to live and thrive, and we at AHF are going to do everything we can to support Senator Garcia and Representative Smith and their efforts around these bills.
Island RecordsIncubus has shared another preview of their forthcoming album 8 with a new track called "State of the Art," which you can download now on iTunes.

"State of the Art" is the third track Incubus has released from 8, following "Glitterbomb" and the lead single, "Nimble Bastard." The album will arrive in full April 21.

Incubus will be touring North America this summer in support of 8, starting July 6 in West Palm Beach, Florida. They'll be joined on the outing by Jimmy Eat World and Judah & the Lion.

Additionally, Incubus is playing a benefit concert in support of the American Civil Liberties Union at the Staples Center in Los Angeles this Monday, April 3.

Copyright  2017, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.
Le Collectif Cheikh Yassine a organise un certain nombre dactivites et de festivites pour les enfants de Gaza sous le theme  La joie des enfants de Gaza pour lAid . Ces activites ont commence le premier jour de lAid et continue jusquau 4eme jour de lAid dans la bande de Gaza.



Plusieurs activites, ont ete organisees parmi lesquelles : des competitions recompensees par des prix, des jeux, des animations et des chants presentes par un groupe ainsi que des distributions de cadeaux et daides financieres.




After the first leg of the North American Amateur Drivers Associations (NAADA) Trotting Series was snowed out at Monticello Raceway on March 16 the series got underway at the Catskills mountain oval on March 30, and when the two divisions were completed each leg was won by a former National Amateur Driver of the Year.

Alan Schwartz copped his leg with Ladys Big Stormont while Robert Krivelin won his division with Current Crisis.

In his split, Schwartz went down the proverbial road and made every pole a winning won en route to a 2:00 triumph.

I hadnt planned to be on the front-end from the five-hole but when the gate sprung my horse left like a runner and we were on top before the turn, Schwartz related after his driving victory. Although he (Ladys Big Stormont) had been racing well this was the first time I had him on the lead. And he really seemed comfortable there, so much so, that I might have to send him to the front again.

After Ladys Big Stormont gained command Schwartz and his trotter coasted through fractions of :30.1, 1:00.2 and 1:30.2 before kicking in a :29.3 final panel to score an easy one-length victory over Sim Brown and driver John Kokinos. Joe Lee took home the show dough with Woody.

Sent off at odds of over 2-1 Ladys Big Stormont returned a $6.30 win mutuel. It was the second seasonal triumph for the six-year-old Earl of Stormont gelding whos also owned by Schwartz and trained by Raheim Strong.

For Schwartz, the National Amateur Driver of the Year in 2000, his driving victory was the 579th of his amateur career.

In the other division Krivelin also sent his trotter to the lead but they didnt gain command until the first stanza which was trotted in :29.1. From there Current Crisis showed the way past the half in .59.4 and by the three quarters in 1:30.1. At that point Tony Ciuffetelli mounted a charge with Tropical Storm Bi and although they were charging in the deep stretch they fell a nose short in the 2:00.1 clocked mile. Third place went to The Fighter, driven by Alan Schwartz.

Hes been a good horse for me ever since I bought him from Donnie Richards at the end of his three-year-old season where he was the Maine Sires Stakes champion, Krivelin said of the eight-year old Current Crisis. Over the years I won two Billings Finals with him and hes earned me well over $200,000.

It was the third seasonal triumph for Current Crisis whos owned by Krivelins Hero Stables and also trained by Krivelin. Sent off at odds of over 6-1, Current Crisis paid $14.20 for win.

For Krivelin, who was National Amateur Driver of the Year in 2001, 2012, and 2014, the victory was the 205th of his career.

(NAADA)
Trainer Clyde Francis started seven Delaware-breds in Thursdays four divisions of the Delaware Standardbred Breeders Fund for three-year-old male pacers at Dover Downs, and he sent out a set of winners in the opening-leg festivities.

Henry The Dragon toyed with five rivals in the first $20,000 DSBF thanks to his wire-to-wire triumph in 1:52 with Montrell Teague at the controls. A son of a former Teagues stakes winner Custard The Dragon, Henry The Dragon scored his second win of the year and the seventh of his career. Unbroken Vision (Corey Callahan) was a game second in front of Almost Cut My Hair (Vic Kirby) third.

Montrell Teague got the lead early guiding Daiymir in his first lifetime start and never was headed the rest of a 1:52.4 mile holding off the DSBF colt champion Bags To Riches (Tim Tetrick) by a length in another $20,000 prelim. Wake Up And Go (Callahan) was the show horse.

Rivers Crest notched a 1:53.2 triumph in the third division for owner-trainer Art Stafford, Jr. who owns the Roddys Bags Again-Eastern Lady colt with his dad, brother and well-known auctioneer, Larry Martin. Aint It Fun was second, with l Art Of Fire was third.

The last $20,000 DSBF prelim was won by fast finishing Automatic Dragon owned by Tina and Brian Clark and trained by Bobby Clark. James Isaac (Tony Morgan) made a big move on the backstretch to get the lead but could not hold off the Vic Kirby driven winner in 1:53.1. Race favourite Stay In You Place (M.Teague) collected third money.

Under new ownership but still the same quality racehorse, Major Uptrend, now owned by trainer Tim Crissman and Niss Allen Inc, the Somebeachsomewhere-Tricky Tooshie gelding handled by Tony Morgan held off Limelight Beach (Yannick Gingras) for a 1:49.3 victory in the $30,000 Preferred Handicap pace. Sweet Rock (Allan Davis) wad third.

Corey Callahan drove Jet Airway to a 1:51 win in a $20,000 Open Pace. The Jeremes Jet-Aromatic six-year-old owned by Mike Casalino and trainer Dylan Davis won for the third time this meet and 65th in his career while banking $477,930. Poisonous (Ross Wolfenden) closed strongly for second. Rangers Sureshot (Morgan) took third.

(With files from Dover Downs)
LA Times Blasts CA AG Over Indictments

Contact: Liberty Counsel, 407-875-1776, Media@LC.org; Press Kit



SAN FRANCISCO, March 31, 2017 /Standard Newswire/ -- The Los Angeles Times Editorial Board has blasted California Attorney General Xavier Becerra's recent criminal indictment of the two pro-life journalists, Sandra "Susan" Merritt and David Daleiden, based on their undercover videos of Planned Parenthood.

The core of the indictment claims that Daleiden and Merritt wrongly recorded alleged "confidential communications" at public conferences and at public restaurants. However, the Washington Street Journal published Noah Rothman's statement from the Commentary Magazine: "Planned Parenthood's President Cecile Richards confessed under oath before Congress that these tapes were recorded in 'a nonconfidential area.'"

The Los Angeles Times Editorial Board also blasted Attorney General Becerra, writing: "It's disturbingly aggressive for Becerra to apply this criminal statute to people who were trying to influence a contested issue of public policy."

Each of the Planned Parenthood organizations featured in undercover video recordings released by the Center for Medical Progress clearly indicate the illegal trafficking of aborted baby body parts for profit to three organ procurement organizations, including StemExpress, LLC, Advanced Bioscience Resources, Inc. and Novogenix Laboratories, LLC.

In one of the videos, a former StemExpress technician describes an experience at Planned Parenthood Mar Monte's Alameda Clinic in San Jose, California, where she witnessed an aborted baby's heart beating and then was told to "harvest" the child's brain. The technician testified, "[She] gave me the scissors and told me that I had to cut down the middle of the face."

Mat Staver, Founder and Chairman of Liberty Counsel said, "The California Penal Code defines murder as the 'unlawful killing of a human being, or a fetus, with malice aforethought' and state law requires rendering care to a born-alive infant. Yet, Attorney General Becerra insists on punishing innocent journalists while overlooking the horrors of Planned Parenthood profiting from human genocide. Becerra obviously has his political agenda ahead of the law," said Staver.

Liberty Counsel is an international nonprofit, litigation, education, and policy organization dedicated to advancing religious freedom, the sanctity of life, and the family since 1989, by providing pro bono assistance and representation on these and related topics.
Dit schreef ik ruim 20 jaar geleden over Paul Cliteur Het recht om Cliteur te kwetsen Ik vermoed dat het de drie sloten op zijn voordeur zij...
As'ad's Bio

As'ad AbuKhalil, born March 16, 1960. From Tyre, Lebanon, grew up in Beirut. Received his BA and MA from American University of Beirut in pol sc. Came to US in 1983 and received his PhD in comparative government from Georgetown University. Taught at Tufts University, Georgetown University, George Washington University, Colorado College, and Randolph-Macon Woman's College. Served as a Scholar-in-Residence at Middle East Institute in Washington DC. He served as free-lance Middle East consultant for NBC News and ABC News, an experience that only served to increase his disdain for maintream US media. He is now professor of political science at California State University, Stanislaus. His favorite food is fried eggplants.
More than 60 businesses have benefitted from the program, which was extended through May 1 while a permanent program is in the works.
Its funny how people drift in and out of our lives sometimes.

Thats also true with hunting and fishing partners. I can think of a half-dozen people with whom I shared numerous trips afield, only to gradually lose contact.

Some of them live within walking distance.

That is nobodys fault, and it didnt happen because of disputes or disagreements; it just happened.

For whatever reason, it works that way sometimes.

I thought about that the other day when I received an email from a reader whod seen my story about Chuck Lindner, the Warroad, Minn., man who recently completed the 350-mile portion of the Iditarod Trail Invitational in Alaska on a fat bike.

I dont know if you remember me  the email began.

I did remember, of course, and we spent the next couple of days trading emails, swapping fish photos and catching up on old times.

I hadnt thought about him in years.

The first time we fished together was Minnesota walleye opener 1999 on Lake of the Woods. In typical Minnesota walleye opener fashion, the weather went from warm and sunny earlier in the week to windy, cold and rainy by opening day.

Perfect.

The plan that day was to deviate and fish northern pike instead of walleyes because that was my fishing partners passion. All the better because Lake of the Woods is his home water.

I woke up about 4:30 opening day morning to the sound of howling wind and rain pelting the windows. I can pretty much guarantee that kind of weather today would have me bagging the trip.

Back then, it was just a minor inconvenience.

We met up at a restaurant in Baudette, Minn., about 7 a.m. and spent the first couple of hours drinking coffee and doing our best to avoid the elements that raged outside.

The big lake would be in an ugly mood.

Finally, though, lack of common sense won out, and we headed for the boat ramp at Wheelers Point north of Baudette near the mouth of the Rainy River. The water temperature had plummeted, but my fishing partner managed to catch a 37-inch pike fairly early in the day.

There was a whole lot of nothing for the next several hours, even after we switched to walleyes.

Walleye opener also coincided with the last day of sturgeon season, and so we decided to switch gears yet again and drop anchor in Four-Mile Bay. The sturgeon were elusive, but the walleyes turned on about the time the skies cleared and the wind subsided.

A few weeks later, we hooked up for another pike excursion and both landed 40-inch or better fish on a day that was much friendlier than the blustery walleye opener.

We fished again a year or two later during the spring walleye run on the Rainy River. I dont remember the year, but I remember the walleyes cooperating.

And that was it.

Until the email I received last Sunday.

He still lives in Baudette and shared photos of a recent day hed spent with his daughter ice fishing the Ontario side of Lake of the Woods. He also shared photos of walleyes, pike, lake trout and smallmouth bass from other recent excursions.

Not to be outdone, I shared some photos of my own.

If all goes according to plan, the divergent paths weve taken for more than 15 years will cross again sometime in the next few months.

If the emails and stories we swapped are any indication, that will be an absolute blast.
WICHITA, Kan.  Jeremy Conway was running late at a recent fishing tournament at La Cygne Reservoir. He had neither a game plan nor his gear ready when he launched his boat so he stopped by a steep bank hed fished in past years. Once he had a rod ready, he made his first cast.

Its always been a pretty good bank to fish so I decided to start there, said Conway, of Lawrence. But I never thought Id catch one on my first cast, or catch one that was almost 11 pounds.

But thats what he did, breaking the rare and coveted 10-pound mark for a Kansas largemouth bass. Even after swimming in a livewell all day, the fish weighed 10 pounds, 15 ounces at the tournaments late-afternoon weigh-in. The fish is thought to be the biggest largemouth bass ever from La Cygne, and probably any public water in Kansas. It missed the current state record of 11.8 pounds by less than a breakfast of a nice-sized crappie.

But Conways trophy fish didnt come easy.

He was part way through his first cast with a Rapala crank bait when he felt a pretty hard hit, then just the deadweight serious anglers dread of a fish thats gotten tangled underwater, like in a submerged tree.

I knew it was in some kind of brush, so I just got my boat straight over it and started pulling my line at different angles, hoping it would come free, Conway said. He knew his decision to cast 10-pound-test line, so the lure could run deeper with small-diameter line, wasnt in his favor and could easily be snapped. After a long two minutes the bass became free and came to the surface.

Conway said his first thoughts were that hed hooked a bass of seven to eight pounds. Either would have been his best bass. Netting the fish was easy. Lifting it aboard the boat was not.

When I got my hands on it, thats when I realized she was probably a lot bigger, Conway said. I honestly figured she was just over 10 pounds. I got her in the live well, then called my wife and told her Id just caught a bass bigger than any Id ever even seen before in person.



Those whove caught largemouth bass of 10-plus pounds in Kansas waters are part of a small club.

Mike Miller, Kansas Department of Wildlife, Parks and Tourism information chief, said his agency rarely gets credible reports of bass that weight 10 pounds or more.

Despite 100 or more years of bass fishing in Kansas, the first state record fish over 10 pounds was a 10 pound, 1 once fish in 1962. One in 1965 reached 11 pounds, 3 ounces. The next state record of 11.75 pounds was caught in a Jefferson County farm pond in 1977. It lasted until 2008 when the current record, 11.80 pounds, was caught from a private strip pit in extreme southeast Kansas.

A check in the agencys Master Angler program, which began in the early 1980s, only showed four 10-pound or better bass entered through 2000, said Miller.

Since that year, fish have been measured in inches rather than pounds for the awards program, so anglers can release fish more easily.

Since no two bass of the same length will weight the same, its now hard to tell how many bass entered recently would crack 10 pounds. Conway said his fish was right at 27 inches, based on the width of the bag he used to carry it to the tournament weigh in.

Millers research showed a record of a bass of right at 10 pounds being 26 inches long when entered in 2000. Records show only six bass measuring 26 inches or longer have been entered in the statewide program over the past 12 years. Most of those fish have come from private waters. The few that have been from public have mostly come from La Cygne.

  

Theres just no doubt that La Cygne is the best of our lakes when it comes to quality bass, said Doug Nygren, Wildlife and Parks fisheries chief. Most years, out of all those lakes we sample, the biggest are in La Cygne. Its special.

Since 1979, he said nearly half of all the bass over eight pounds, sampled from dozens of reservoirs, state and community lakes in Kansas, have come from La Cygne.

The 2,600-acre lake sits about 60 miles south of downtown Kansas City.

Per Kansas standards, Nygren said the lake has the best of all worlds needed to grow big bass. Part of a coal-fired power plant, discharge waters means the lake seldom freezes. That equates to longer growing seasons for everything from plankton to major predators, like Conways big bass.

La Cygne also has an abundance of habitat, like water willow, which offers shelter for young bass and for the fish upon which bigger bass feed. Unlike most reservoirs, La Cygne has a healthy population of big bluegill. Nygren said current research shows bluegill can be an important forage for largemouth bass.

The lakes fish also have the best genetics of any public water largemouth bass in Kansas.

Nygren said 38 years ago Florida-strain largemouth bass were released into La Cygne, hoping the warmer water might fit the needs of the sub-species thats known to grow to bigger proportions than most bass. Though no research has been done for several years, for decades after that long-ago stocking La Cygnes largemouth bass still carried considerable Florida-strain genetics.

Still, Nygren rated honest 10-pounders in La Cygne as a rarity, but added the lake has both quality and quantity with lots of nice bass that would be considered big bass in most places. Conway said a bass of 81/2 pounds was weighed at the same annual tournament in 2016 at the lake. He only caught one more keeper after that monster fish last weekend, but it weighed four pounds.

Who knows, maybe next year, at the same tournament, hell be the first to crack 11 pounds at La Cygne or even set a new state record? He could even do it with the same fish, with normal growth rates.

She was good and healthy. Right off I noticed she was in really good shape, Conway said. I made sure we took really good care of her. When we released her, she took off really well. Hopefully someone else will get to catch her again  maybe even me.
Summer steelhead returns to the upper Columbia and Snake rivers are forecast to be the worst in three decades in 2017 with angling restrictions almost certain  and partial closures possible  at popular spots like the mouths of the Cowlitz, Lewis, Wind and Deschutes rivers plus Drano Lake.

State biologists are forecasting a return of just 130,700 steelhead to waters upstream of Bonneville Dam, down from 182,737 in 2016 and 261,400 in 2015. Returns were 601,000 as recently as 2009.

In worst shape are the Group B steelhead headed for Idaho. Group B are larger, later-returning steelhead headed for Idahos Clearwater River, a major tributary of the Snake River.

Forecasts are for 6,200 hatchery-origin Group B steelhead and a mere 1,100 wild Group B steelhead.

Hatcheries in the Clearwater basin need 2,000 adult steelhead for spawning.

The federal Endangered Species Act limits non-Indian harvest of wild Group A and wild Group B steelhead to 2 percent incidental catch in the process of catching fish from healthy stocks.

That means only 22 wild Group B steelhead can be killed in the plethora of sport fisheries between the Columbia River mouth and Idaho, plus in commercial gillnet fisheries between Woodland and Beacon Rock in the fall.

So, not very much there, said Ron Roler, Columbia River policy coordinator for the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife.

Tucker Jones, ocean and Columbia River salmon manager for the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, said 65 percent to 70 percent of the catch is upstream of Bonneville.

Most of the steelhead harvest in Oregon comes at the mouth of the Deschutes River or in the John Day arm, said Chris Kern, deputy administrator of the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife. The arm is the seven-mile stretch where the Columbia inundates the lower John Day River.

Steelhead seek out and rest in cool-water spots in the Columbia River as they migrate upstream. Downstream of Bonneville Dam, those spots include the mouths of the Cowlitz and Lewis rivers.

In the Columbia Gorge, those spots include the mouths of Wind River, White Salmon River and Herman Creek. Drano Lake, a large backwater of the Little White Salmon River, has a very popular 24-hour-a-day fishery in August and early September.

Roler said steelhead fishing restrictions and possible closures will hit hardest east of the Cascades, where most of the catch occurs.

However, restrictions are needed on the west side of the mountains, too, he said.

We need to show efforts to reduce harvest in the lower river, to share the pain, Roler said.

Among the options being considered are a daily limit of one hatchery steelhead, a closure of night fishing, a 30-inch maximum size limit and gear restrictions.

Even with a one-fish bag or a night closure, its still not going to get us where we need to be, Roler said. I believe some sort of closure somewhere will be necessary.

Capt. Jeff Wickersham of the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife police, said a night closure would be a good start.

Wickersham recounted an incident where officers found three wild Group B steelhead illegally harvested in one night at Drano Lake.

A night closure across the board will curtail a lot of our problems, he said.

A month-long closure at Drano Lake was one option mentioned at a public meeting last week in Vancouver. No specific dates were mentioned.

Jones said outmigration conditions in the warm-water summer of 2015 most likely took a toll on summer steelhead.

However, ocean conditions for young fish in the north Pacific in 2015 were among the worst on record and are suspected to be the No. 1 culprit for the poor returns, he said.
The Love Overwhelming homeless shelter closed Thursday morning, at least temporarily ending its turbulent history and sending dozens of people out into precarious futures.

Community members and social service groups showed up early in the morning to give food, tents and other supplies to those displaced by the closure, hoping to ease their transition back to the streets or wherever place they may find to lay their heads.

But by early evening, about 25 former shelter residents were back at the Kelso shelter, located at 304 Cowlitz Way. They pitched about a dozen tents in the parking lot of the empty building.

A few of them were in wheelchairs, and several others huddled together under blankets or around camp chairs.

Kelso police ordered the tents to be taken down as officers enforced a Feb. 26 city ordinance that bars camping on public property, except from 9:30 p.m. to 6:30 a.m.

The residents complied but were planning to re-establish the camp after it became legal at 9:30 p.m.

Several residents said after LO no longer has control over the Cowlitz Way property, they would find other public places to pitch tents.

Its sad. Its very, very sad. We have people camping out here right now next to an empty building that I had to lock up. How is that okay? I have the keys right here on my chest right now and I cant open it up, said Vanessa Plinck, an outreach worker for LO.

Earlier in the day, bundles of belongings and piles of supplies were strewn across the parking lot as 30 or so residents gathered outside the shelter and prepared themselves to live on the streets or in homeless camps.

Where are you going to camp? residents kept asking one another.

Less than 12 hours later, many of the same bundles of belongings were still in the same spots.

Every resident received a tent, and many got tarps, portable stoves, clothes and food.

Reneese Lloid, who had her 11-year-old dog with her, laughed and cried upon getting a portable stove, tarp and tent in the morning.

Lloid, 51, who has been in the shelter about a month, said she returned to the area after receiving a kidney transplant in California. But her kidneys and heart are failing again, and her medical bills made her homeless, she said.

Lloid said she has a small amount of cash to pay for a hotel room, but she doesnt know where shell go when the money runs out.

She said she hopes the community doesnt ridicule those who must return to the streets.

Emotions among the shelters residents were running high and everyone was on edge Thursday morning, she said.

Instead of degrading homeless people, (the community) should be putting out their hearts, because what if it was one of their family members? Lloid said through tears. People are quick to judge. You carry a backpack, youre slime. Youre a thief, youre homeless. ... Not all of us do drugs, but everyone just automatically assumes we are drug addicts and thieves.

Lloid said she appreciated the community members who made donations, provided food and showed their support Thursday morning.

Chuck Hendrickson, executive director of Love Overwhelming, said in addition to the displacement of the shelter clients, nine employees were laid off.

The building on Cowlitz Way has housed the shelter a little more than two years, but Cowlitz County has agreed to purchase the building from its owner, the Emergency Support Shelter. LO, which housed about 45 residents a night, was given a move-out date of April 1.

It has been unable to find a new location, partly because of a Longview moratorium temporarily barring new emergency shelters and the shelter's operational model, which does not require sobriety.

The shelters future is in limbo. Hendrickson said LO will apply for a special use permit to convert the rented former carpenters union building on 14th Avenue in Longview for administrative offices and an emergency shelter. That building is not zoned for either purpose.

Hendrickson said LOs outreach team will try to keep shelter residents connected to counseling, medical appointments and other services. Staff also obtained motel vouchers or interim or permanent housing for several of the most vulnerable people.

Hendrickson said he hopes residents dont get harassed out on the streets.

Everybody has a right to their opinions, but its unfortunate that some people feel that shaming is helping, Hendrickson said. I often wonder what it would have been like if people would have tried to help instead of always assuming the worst.

Hendrickson said he was worried about the safety of the shelters residents and hoped that LO could continue to help get the homeless housed. He said he wanted to make sure the residents on Thursday morning knew people cared about them.

It probably hasnt sunk in completely. Im thankful for the time that we had ... and the people that we served. Theyre ultimately the heroes in this story. Love Overwhelming is just a guide for people that we were able to assist, support and empower people to continue to take their next step in their recovery, Hendrickson said.

David Hamar has been staying in the shelter for around seven weeks after domestic and medical problems rendered him homeless. Hamar, 49, said he was grateful the shelter existed, but hes worried some residents may not survive its closure.

I heard more people crying out for desperate help ... threatening suicide, talking about it because they feel like they have no options. Its put some of this human element in a place where were so valueless to society, we become valueless to ourselves as well.

Hamar said he has a friend with private property where he and some of the other residents were planning to camp. He said some of them might forage for mushrooms and sell them to pay for a hotel room. But Hamar said he wasnt optimistic about his prospects.

To put it blunt: To die quickly. Thats what we have to look forward to, Hamar said. But he was grateful to the community members who came out Thursday morning to make the transition back to the streets easier.

Im blessed to be here. Today were blessed, another day. Were all standing here together, weve been fed, weve been shown love and support by the community, Hamar said. I dont know what tomorrow is going to bring, but today Im blessed.
Cowlitz Countys baby steps toward improved health have stalled, though the area continues to avoid the stigma of being among the five unhealthiest counties in the state, according to an annual review of the nations health.

The county, which rated dead last in the state in the 2010-14 reports, still ranks only 32nd among the states 39 counties in overall health outcomes. Thats a notch worse than 31st last year, showing theres still a lot of room for improvement.

For one thing, the number of premature deaths here remains significantly higher than the state average.

And, largely, the citizens have it mostly within their control to improve their lot, as poor health behaviors such as smoking, obesity, inactivity and sexually transmitted infections are among the chief reasons for the areas continuing low ranking. Two other factors  low educational achievement and poverty  also undercut the areas health. In this, the area suffers from challenges that are difficult to turn around quickly.

The rankings are produced annually by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the University of Wisconsin Population Institute. The 2017 rankings for all U.S. counties are available at www.countyhealthrankings.org. It is based on data from 2011 to 2015.

Two other Southwest Washington counties  Wahkiakum and Grays Harbor  were among the five unhealthiest in the state. The five healthiest counties, in order, were San Juan, King, Island, Jefferson and Whatcom counties. The five worst (listed from the worst) were Pend Oreille, Ferry, Wahkiakum, Grays Harbor and Okanogan counties.

The rankings show that where you live influences how well and how long you live. The local level data makes it clear that good health is influenced by many factors beyond medical care, including housing, education, jobs, access to healthy foods and more, according to a press release from the Foundation.

The groups analysis for 2016 focused special attention on premature death, which it defines as death under the age of 75. The report finds that a dramatic rise in premature deaths nationally is due an 85 percent increase in deaths in the 15 to 44 year old U.S. population. It blames the spike on drug overdoses, noting that the drug overdose epidemic is the leading cause of death among 25- to 44-year olds

The report notes that 23 of 39 Washington counties saw improvements in premature death rates from 1997 and 2014, and the rest saw no change.

Last year in Cowlitz County, premature deaths accounted for 7,200 years of potential life lost per 100,000 people. The trend has been steady over several years, but it remains well above the state rate (5,500 per 100,000). The leading causes of premature deaths in the county last year were cancer, heart disease and accidents. Drug overdose deaths likely played a role, as the recorded 20 drug-overdose related deaths per 100,000 people. The state rate was 14 drug deaths per 100,000.

Other highlights from the report:

The countys children are in trouble: About 23 percent of them live in poverty, well above the state rate (16 percent). And 34 percent of local kids live in single-parent households, well above the state rate (29 percent). Poverty typically correlates with health problems.

In one positive development, the countys rate of preventable hospital stays per 1,000 Medicare enrollees with walking difficulty was slightly higher than the state average (33).

The area was woefully short of mental health providers, a serious problem that many social service officials say is a factor in the areas drug and homeless problems. The area also has an acute shortage of primary care physicians and dentists.

Surprisingly, given the countys cluster of heavy industry, local residents are not exposed to any more air pollution from fine dust particles than the statewide average, and only slightly more than Americans as a whole.

The percentage of people here who were uninsured in 2012-14  and who presumably get less medical attention  was 11 percent, the same as the state average. The most recent county number is 9 percent, according to the state insurance commissioners office.
PTI

Apple Inc will be ready to start assembling high-end iPhones in the city in less than a month to boost its chances of gaining a foothold in the fast growing Indian market, Karnataka IT Minister Priyank Kharge said on Thursday.

"In less than a month, we will have something out - Apple will start assembling and making its high-end iPhones at its plant in the city. Taiwanese contract manufacturer Wistron Corp will help Apple in doing so," he told PTI in Bengaluru.

Kharge said making iPhones in India would help Apple lower prices, which will help it gain a foothold in the fast growing Indian market.

"Assembling and making of iPhones in Bengaluru will boost Apple's chances of gaining a foothold in the fast growing Indian market because it will allow the company to lower prices," he said.

Karnataka government has been in talks with the Centre for strengthening the ecosystem even as Apple is negotiating with it for its next level of production in India, he said.

Apple wants to bring its component manufacturers to India to make parts and export finished phones and is seeking tax concessions on import of key components. However the Indian government has rejected most of the demands of the US company.

Kharge said if the Centre was keen on taking on China, it should not give special treatment to Apple alone, but to other players, including Samsung and Lenovo, if they are desirous of opening a manufacturing units in India, especially Karnataka.

"My position with the central government has been don't give special treatment to Apple alone, but treat other players equally. Open the entire ecosystem for high-end manufacturing of electronics if you really want to compete with China and Taiwan," he said.

Kharge said government should also give companies, including Apple, certain timelines, subsidies and incentives to create a level-playing field for them.

"The government should give companies a timeline, say in 10 years they should be able to manufacture 100 percent of phones and its components by procuring them from the local market. Such a timeline should be given because we don't have that environment now," he said.

"The government should also give companies subsidies and incentives to create a level-playing field for them to strengthen the Indian ecosystem," Kharge said.

Asked about the Stayzilla case, whose co-founder Yogendra Vasupal was arrested for alleged non-payment of dues filed by a Chennai based advertisement agency, Kharge said it should be a learning curve for startups to work under the parameters of the Indian legal system.

Vasupal was arrested on 15 March.
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The U.S. judge overseeing a blockbuster case over self-driving car technology suggested Uber could face an injunction if a key Uber executive does not testify for fear of exposing himself to criminal prosecution, according to a transcript seen by Reuters.

Waymo, the self-driving car unit of Alphabet, sued ride services company Uber Technologies last month, alleging that a former Waymo executive, Anthony Levandowski, downloaded over 14,000 confidential documents before leaving the company to subsequently join Uber, which benefited from the stolen secrets.

Levandowski is not a defendant in the case, but he is a central figure in the high-profile litigation, which pits two Silicon Valley technology giants against each other, both of which are vying to dominate in the competitive autonomous vehicles sector.

Waymo is seeking a preliminary injunction from the court, which would temporarily stop Uber from using any of the allegedly stolen intellectual property. A hearing is scheduled for May 3. Uber, which has said the allegations are baseless but has not yet responded to Waymo's complaint in court, has argued that the trade secrets issue should be sent to arbitration.

"You represent somebody who's in a mess," U.S. District Court Judge William Alsup in San Francisco told the attorney for Levandowski, Miles Ehrlich, during a closed court hearing on Wednesday. Ehrlich had told the court that based on the "potential for criminal action" against Levandowski, the engineer would be asserting his Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination.

In the hearing, Alsup bandied with lawyers for Uber and Levandowski over the allegedly stolen documents, some of which Uber said were not in its possession, but in Levandowski's. "I'm sorry that Mr. Levandowski has got his -- got himself in a fix. That's what happens, I guess, when you download 14,000 documents and take them, if he did. But I don't hear anybody denying that," Alsup said.

Uber attorney Arturo Gonzalez said he would like Levandowski to testify in court, but could not force him to. But if the case was sent to arbitration, Levandowski might choose to testify, Gonzalez said, because arbitration proceedings are not public.

"At least it's not in the public where it's going to be in the front page of The New York Times the next day," Gonzalez said, an argument rejected by the court, which said the public had a right to know details of the case. Gonzalez suggested Uber's strategy would be to convince the court that Uber was "not using any of these things" Waymo says he stole.

Still, Alsup warned Uber of its difficulty in dodging a preliminary injunction in light of Levandowski's Fifth Amendment privilege. "They have a record over there of theft," Alsup said, referring to Waymo. "And if you think for a moment that I'm going to stay my hand because your guy is taking the Fifth Amendment and not issue a preliminary injunction to shut down that ... you're wrong."

Reuters
tech2 News Staff

OnePlus has been capitalising on its Dash fast charging technology which was announced with the OnePlus 3. It is indeed one of the quickest when it comes to charging smartphones. To celebrate the success of its charging technology the company has announced a new product, but its not what you think.

It's an energy drink called Dash Energy. Like their high-capacity charger, this drink will provide you energy that will last all day in just half an hour, atleast that's what the company claims. While it sounds like a nice way to capitalise on April Fools, it is not a joke.

The company has actually made it and in limited quanitites. It will be handing out Dash Energy drinks in two cities, London and Bengaluru. People staying in Europe also have a chance to get their hands on the limited drink through a raffle online.

The company is giving away a limited number of cans of Dash Energy in London from 12-4pm at Bishops Square, Spitalfields, London E1 6EW. In Bengaluru, the company will give out the energy drink at its OnePlus Experience Store on 1 April from 11am. In Europe, one can enter the raffle online at OnePlus.net for a chance to win a four pack of Dash Energy.
tech2 News Staff

Samsung has announced the details for its DeX station on its website along with availability details. According to the company, Samsung DeX will sell for $149.99 (Rs 9,700 approximately). The Station is available for pre-order right now and will start shipping from "late April" according to the product page. The prices and availability details mentioned on the product page do not indicate details about the launch of DeX Station in India but do give us an indication of what price to expect for the dock.

The features of Samsung DeX mirror the functionality to that of Microsoft Continuum allowing the user to transform their smartphones into portable desktops of fully functional machines for work as detailed previously.

DeX has two components, the first is a Samsung Galaxy S8 or Galaxy S8+ and the second is DeX Station. Samsung DeX Station includes two USB 2.0 ports, one Ethernet port, one USB Type-C power in, and a cooling fan. The station is also equipped with an Adaptive Fast Charging technology to charge your smartphone faster when connected to the station.

Samsung has optimised Android to provide a desktop-like experience which plays nice with keyboard and mouse. This means that you can use keyboard shortcuts along with gestures like drag and drop to work on your files.

Samsung has added resizable windows, contextual menus and desktop version web browser in collaboration with Google.
tech2 News Staff

As Samsung prepares to bring its Galaxy Note 7 phablets back to select markets around the globe, the device was found to be used in a rather odd section of its smartphone and battery testing facility in Gumi, South Korea.

According to Mashable, the Samsung has so many Note 7 phablets lying around that it decided to use them as cameras to monitor rows of Galaxy S8 smartphones being tested using Samsung's now standard 8-point battery quality test.

The test includes rows and rows of smartphones plugged into charging cables that charge and discharge smartphones several times, before they are deemed fit and certified for use.

We have seen the image before, but little did we know that the devices that appear to be surveillance cameras mounted on retractable poles (that look like selfie sticks) are actually Galaxy Note 7 units.

Back in February, South Korea said it will strengthen lithium-ion battery safety requirements and conduct regular inspections to avoid repeats of fires which forced Samsung Electronics Co Ltd to withdraw its premium Galaxy Note 7 handset.

Manufacturers of lithium-ion batteries, commonly used in portable devices, would be subjected to greater oversight and regular inspections, the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy said in a statement. Devices using lithium-ion batteries also would be subjected to more regular safety tests, it added.
Aditya Madanapalle

Pluto is no longer considered a planet by the International Astronomical Union (ISU), much to the dismay of planetary scientists around the world. The distant, icy world has been relegated to the category of dwarf-planets and the main reason for the demotion is that Pluto has failed to clear all the other objects in its orbit. Defining an object according to external factors is arbitrary and counter-intuitive. Michael Tanne, an angel investor has pointed out on a post on Medium, that by the same logic, the Earth no longer qualifies as a planet.

The Asteroid 2016 H03 discovered in the Pan-STARRS 1 survey, is a companion to the Earth in its orbit around the Sun. The Earth has not captured the asteroid and the Earth has failed to clear the orbit. That means that according to the definition of the International Astronomical Union, the Earth cannot technically be considered as a planet and that it is, in fact, a dwarf-planet.

The International Astronomical Union defines a planet as: "A celestial body that (a) is in orbit around the Sun, (b) has sufficient mass for its self-gravity to overcome rigid body forces so that it assumes a hydrostatic equilibrium (nearly round) shape, and (c) has cleared the neighbourhood around its orbit." For planetary scientists, a more useful definition is one that depends on internal factors of the object being studied. If a celestial object is spherical, and is not on fire, then it is a planet irrespective of what is happening around it. Alan Stern, the lead scientist on the New Horizon mission by Nasa, has told Tech Insider that the definition of a planet currently used by the IAU is Bull****.

The definition is not useful because of the lack of information about exoplanets. Discovering the planets in orbit around distant stars by monitoring the dips in the brightness of the host star is itself challenging. There were seven earth sized objects discovered in orbit around an ultracool dwarf star forty light years away using this method. Now, the objects in the Trappist-1 system can only be considered as planets once it has been established that they have cleared all other objects in their orbits, according to the International Astronomical Union. So to call a planet, a planet, it is necessary to discover the lack of asteroids in its orbit as well. How senseless is that?

Planetary scientists who actually study Pluto and other celestial objects in the solar system say that Pluto is a planet irrespective of what the IAU defines it as. Pluto is a remote, icy world and exhibits all the characteristics that one would associate with a planet. Johns Hopkins University scientist Kirby Runyon has suggested a simple definition, "a sub-stellar mass body that has never undergone nuclear fusion and that has sufficient self-gravitation to assume a spheroidal shape adequately described by a triaxial ellipsoid regardless of its orbital parameters.". The various moons of the planets, and the dwarf-planets are all planets, and there are more than 100 planets in the solar system.

Planetary scientists, including those from Nasa, want to promote Pluto back to the status of a planet. If the gas giants such as Saturn, Uranus and Jupiter are not in a category of their own, what is the need for treating smaller planets any differently? For school textbooks, the scientists have proposed the definition "round objects in space that are smaller than stars."

Will students have to learn the names of more than 110 planets in the solar system? Not really, there can be a focus on the more important planets, and the most important thing is communicating the different types of planets in the different zones. There are rocky planets closer to the sun, then the gas giants, and then the remote icy rocky dwarf-planets in the outer reaches of the solar system. Tanne writes, "Will scientists drop the politics, put on their scientific thinking hats, and restore the faith children everywhere have in the scientific process they are taught, and the intuition we all have that Pluto, is in fact, a planet."
tech2 News Staff

At the time of announcement of Samsung's all-new Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8+ smartphone, head of mobile, DJ Koh confirmed that the company will not face any supply issues when the smartphone launches on 21 April.

According to a report in the Korean Herald, Samsung will not run short of supply or face supply delays as it has come prepared. The company has so far prepared 20 million units of its Galaxy S8 and S8+ in the first production run. So yes, Samsung is going to be all ready this time around.

In all Samsung wants to sell twice as many Galaxy S8 smartphones this year as it did last year with the successful S7 model.

"Since we are preparing the supply without difficulty, there will be no issue of supply delay," said Koh.

For the customer, this would mean shorter queues at Samsung Mobile stores as they would not need to worry about not being able to obtain one.

What has still kept everyone at the edge of their seats is the pricing. For now there are no details on this front for India. In the US pre-orders have opened up with the standard Galaxy S8 selling for $750 (roughly Rs 48,631) and the bigger Galaxy S8+ for $850 (roughly Rs 55,000) Samsung is also offering an "Experience Box" that contains a Gear VR, Controller, Harmon Kardon headphones and 256GB microSD card for $99 (approximately Rs 6,419).
Analog Devices announced the acquisition of OneTree Microdevices, a privately held company based in Santa Rosa, California. ADI is a leading supplier of mixed signal solutions for cable access ranging from data converters through clocking and control/power conditioning. With the acquisition of OneTree Microdevices GaAs and GaN amplifier portfolio, which offers best-in-class linearity, output power and efficiency, ADI now supports the complete signal chain for next-generation cable access networks. Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

Analog Devices, in combination with OneTree Microdevices, is uniquely positioned to solve the bandwidth and power efficiency challenges facing cable operators today in their efforts to increase broadband internet services for homes and businesses, said Greg Henderson, vice president, RF and Microwave Business, Analog Devices. OneTrees expertise aligns with ADIs strategic focus on GaN technology and extends ADIs broad portfolio of high performance, RF and microwave signal chain solutions for infrastructure, defense and instrumentation markets.

Todays cable operators are counting on next generation architectures such as DOCSIS 3.1 (Data Over Cable Service Interface Specification) and Remote PHY to increase the capacity of cable networks. We are excited to become part of Analog Devices and its complete solution offerings for cable access, said Chris Day, co-founder, OneTree Microdevices. Both ADI and OneTree are directly engaged with customers, cable operators and industry standards groups to drive cable standards discussions. Together, we will be able to effectively assist cable operators in their quest to provide compelling cost and data rates to home and business users.

@Technuter.com News Service
American analyst firm Drexel Hamilton has stated that current mobile trends point to Huawei, presently the worlds second largest android smartphone manufacturer, dethroning Samsung to become Apples main challenger in years to come.

With a wide pipeline of products to cater to various market segments, both Huawei and Honor have put the needs of the Indian consumer first and have focused on channel, retail, brand, marketing and services, to strengthen the business base and streamline operations and customer service. Keeping in line with the governments Make in India policy, Huawei recently opened a manufacturing facility in Chennai. After China, India has the most localized facilities with a pan-India presence having 14 circle offices, over 200 service centers across India, 2 customer experience centers in India 1 R&D center, 1 Innovation Solution & Demo Center. Huawei also has 8000 employees across India (92% Indian) with 3000 working in R&D.

Huawei/Honor EMUI presently supports 14 local Indian languages and was the first brand to introduce the SOS feature in all smartphones, as per the governments directive. Huawei/Honor are presently looking at expanding offline distribution in a bid to help increase accessibility of their smartphones in all markets.

@Technuter.com News Service
PNG Attitude has published many stories on the issue covering organised crime , Australias as a corruption haven and even a contrarian piece on Transparencys own role .

There have in the past been many allegations of corrupt funds from Papua New Guinea being used to purchase property in key Australian markets, especially in north Queensland and Brisbane.

TRANSPARENCY International says that the Australian government needs to close glaring legal loopholes to prevent crooked elites laundering the proceeds of corruption in its real estate markets.

In a new report, Doors Wide Open: Corruption and Real Estate in Key Markets, Transparency International identifies problems related to real estate and money laundering and makes recommendations on how to address them.

The report focuses on four countries, including Australia, that are known hotspots where corrupt politicians and others invest and launder money.

The report says Australia has severe deficiencies in this area and is not in line with any of the commitments to tackle corruption and money laundering in real estate made in international forums.

There is clear evidence that such investment in Australian property is an easy and convenient way to hide hundreds of millions of dollars from criminal investigators, tax authorities or others tracking criminal behaviour and the proceeds of crime.

The report continues:

In Australia, real estate agents are not subject to the provisions of the Anti-Money Laundering and Counter Terrorism Financing Act 2006. Other professionals such as lawyers and accountants who may also play a role in the sector are not covered either. This means that properties can be bought and sold without any due diligence on the parties. Governments must close the loopholes that allow corrupt politicians, civil servants and business executives to be able to hide stolen wealth through the purchase of expensive houses in London, New York, Sydney and Vancouver, said Jose Ugaz, Chair of Transparency International."

Real estate has long provided a way for individuals to secretly launder or invest stolen money and other illicit funds. According to the Financial Action Task Force, real estate accounted for up to 30% of criminal assets confiscated worldwide from 2011-13.

Australia, Canada and the US rely almost exclusively on banks to stop money laundering, even though real estate agents, accountants, tax planners, lawyers and others participate in deal-making. This makes all-cash deals which do not require the involvement of a bank especially difficult to track.

You can read the full report here: Download Doors Wide Open_Transparency International
With consummately satiric condescension, a couple of grown-ups have acted to defuse the effects of Her Majesty's Government's yapping and urine-spraying over Europe's collective security. Tin-Pot Tessie has made some not terribly subtle remarks about how nice it is to be secure and how nasty it might be if Britain were motivated to pick up its toys and go off in a sulk. The blustering blimp in charge of wog-bombing, Michael Fallon, has been blathering about our new-found freedom to establish a special relationship with the Trumpster, which our tainted intimacy with the filthy Euro-wogs had apparently prevented all through the recent glorious campaigns in Bosnia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and so forth. The prime minister of Malta, which holds the rotating EU presidency, and the president of the European Council have magnanimously accepted that the whole thing was a misunderstanding, and Her Majesty's Government has helped its own case in the usual manner by proclaiming that it was merely pointing out the importance of security in case the Euro-wogs were too dim-witted to realise on their own.
China downplays tensions with US as Xi prepares to meet Trump

The White House said Donald Trump will host Xi Jinping next Thursday and Friday.

Reuters, Beijing :

Beijing sought to play down tensions with the United States and put on a positive face on Friday, as the U.S. administration slammed China on a range of business issues ahead of President Xi Jinping's first meeting with President Donald Trump.

Trump set the tone for what could be a tense meeting at his Mar-a-Lago retreat next week by tweeting on Thursday that the United States could no longer tolerate massive trade deficits and job losses.

Trump said the highly anticipated meeting, which is also expected to cover differences over North Korea and China's strategic ambitions in the South China Sea, "will be a very difficult one."

Ahead of the meeting, Trump will sign executive orders on Friday aimed at identifying abuses that are causing massive U.S. trade deficits and clamping down on non-payment of anti-dumping and anti-subsidy duties on imports, his top trade officials said.

Separately, the U.S. Trade Representative's office, controlled by the White House, said Beijing's industrial policies and financial support for industries such as steel and aluminum have resulted in over-production and a flood of exports that have distorted global markets and undermined competitive companies.

Seeking to downplay the rift, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang reiterated a desire for cooperation on trade.

"With regard to the problems existing between China and the United States in trade relations, both sides should in a mutual respectful and mutual beneficial way find appropriate resolutions, and ensure the stable development of Sino-U.S. trade relations," he told a daily news briefing.

The leaders of the world's two largest economies are scheduled to meet next Thursday and Friday for the first time since Trump assumed office on Jan. 20.

Speaking earlier at a briefing on the Xi-Trump meeting, Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Zheng Zeguang acknowledged the trade imbalance, but said it was mostly due to differences in their two economic structures and noted that China had a trade deficit in services.

"China does not deliberately seek a trade surplus. We also have no intention of carrying out competitive currency devaluation to stimulate exports. This is not our policy," Zheng said.
US gives NATO allies 2 months for defense spending plans

U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, left, shakes hands with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg during a meeting of the North Atlantic Council at NATO headquarters in Brussels on Friday.

AP, Brussels :

US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson warned NATO allies Friday to boost defense spending or come up with plans to reach the alliance's budget guidelines within two months.

Tillerson, in his first talks with NATO counterparts in Brussels, said that Washington is spending a "disproportionate share" on defense compared with its 27 partners, and that he expects action by the time President Donald Trump meets with other alliance leaders on May 25.

NATO leaders pledged in 2014 to halt defense spending cuts and move toward a guideline target of 2 percent of gross domestic product within a decade. Only four other nations currently meet the target: Britain, Estonia, Greece and Poland.

"Our goal should be to agree at the May leaders meeting that by the end of the year all allies will have either met the pledge guidelines or will have developed plans that clearly articulate how, with annual milestone progress commitments, the pledge will be fulfilled," Tillerson told the ministers.

"Allies that do not have a concrete plan to spend 2 percent of GDP on defense by 2024 need to establish one now. Allies that have a plan to reach the 2 percent guideline need to accelerate efforts and show results," he said.

Tillerson did not say what would happen if European allies and Canada fail to respect their pledges. During election campaigning, Trump suggested that he might not come to the defense of those allies who do not do their fair share, rocking allies with borders near an increasingly aggressive Russia, like Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland.

However, Tillerson sought to calm any fears, saying Friday that "we understand that a threat against one of us is a threat against all of us, and we will respond accordingly. We will uphold the agreements we have made to defend our allies.

U.S. allies also want to hear exactly what more Washington expects NATO to do against the Islamic State group.

NATO has fought insurgents in Afghanistan, and is training Iraqi officers so that local forces can make a strong stand against extremists. There is no appetite to deploy troops in counter-terrorism operations. Allies believe that the international coalition against the Islamic State group should be leading combat operations, not NATO.

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said the lesson learned from operations in Afghanistan, but also in Kosovo and Bosnia-Herzegovina, is that "in the long run it is much better to fight terrorism and project stability by training local forces, building local security institutions, instead of NATO deploying a large number of combat troops."

France's foreign minister, Jean-Marc Ayrault, insisted that only a political solution can bring peace to Syria and cut extremism off at its roots.
Women want Trump impeached, men don`t, poll finds

Newsweek :

When it comes to President Donald Trump, it's a battle of the sexes. Two months into his presidency, a majority of women want to see the president impeached, while a majority of men are against the idea, a poll found Thursday.

Fifty-one percent of women support impeaching Trump, found a survey from Public Policy Polling (PPP), a firm that does surveys for public consumption but also polling for Democratic candidates. Just 36 percent of men supported impeaching Trump, while 51 percent opposed the idea.

Overall, the survey found 44 percent of registered voters supported impeaching Trump, while 45 percent opposed. Eleven percent were unsure.PPP found that voters are concerned with an investigation into potential coordination between the Trump campaign and Russia. The U.S. intelligence community has already assessed that the Kremlin worked to get the Republican nominee elected over Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.

"Voters are inclined to think Donald Trump should resign if proof emerges of direct coordination between his campaign team and Russia in the election last fall," PPP President Dean Debnam said in a statement. Sixty-two percent of voters supported an independent investigation into Trump and Russia, and 60 percent believed Russia worked to get him elected, PPP found. The firm surveyed 677 registered voters from March 27-28 and the poll had a margin of error of plus or minus 3.8 percentage points.


11 wood-laden boats seized from Sundarbans

Khulna (South) Correspondent :

Eleven boats laden with 'sundari wood' and goalpata were seized from the East Sundarbans and the boats were kept at Betbunia Kheya Ghat in Paikgachha upazila area of Khulna for the last five days due to mysterious reason. Some influential persons are trying to release the boats by giving so -called fine, it is alleged.

Sources said, members of Coast Guard of Nolian office seized 11 boats laden with Sundari wood and goalpata from the east Sundarbans on Monday while 17 boats were going towards Paikgachha after collecting sundari wood and goalpata from sundarbans violating rules.

Members of coastguard asked to stop them but 6 of them fled away and the rest 11 boats were seized as they were going with engine-run trawlers which are illegal, according to the members of coastguard. Out of the seized boats, owners of 2 boats are of Latif Gazi of Dhamrail in Paikgachha

upazila, 3 of Montu gazi, Robiul Sana, Titu Sana and Nizam Sana of the same area and 6 boats are of Moslem Morol, Mizan Gazi, Abdur Rahman Sardar, Yunus Biswas, Anis Biswas and another one of Fatehpur area.
Call to prevent corruption

BSS, Rangpur :

Speakers here called upon the heads of different government departments and organisations to work sincerely as public servants for preventing corruption in their respective offices and institutions.

The opinion came at a views-sharing meeting on 'Role of government-

Non-government organisations in preventing corruption' organised by District Corruption Prevention Committee (CPC) here on Thursday.

The district administration and District Combined Office of Anti-corruption Commission (ACC) jointly arranged the meeting at conference room of the Deputy Commissioner in observance of the Corruption Prevention Week- 2017.

Members of district CPC, heads of different service providing government and nongovernment organisations and educational institutions, members of school level Integrity Units, advisers, professionals and civil society members participated.

Acting Deputy Commissioner Sultana Pervin presided over the meeting moderated by General Secretary of district CPC Akbar Hossain.

Deputy Director of the Combined District Office of ACC Mozahar Ali Sarder narrated the activities of ACC, alongside the role of the government and nongovernment organisations in reducing corruption.

President of District CPC Professor Md Rakibul Hassan, Professor of Begum Rokeya University Dr Sharifa Salowa Dina, Director of Rangpur Group Major (Retd) Nasim, Members of district CPC Mamun Islam and Aftab Hossain, Additional Deputy Commissioner (General) Priyosindhu Talukder, addressed, among others.

Mozahar Ali Sarder said corruption may be eliminated if the heads of government departments and organisations as well as the employees perform the duties and responsibilities with transparency.

Rakibul Hasan emphasised on creating awareness among the service-recipients and the service providers in providing services without bribes.

Sultana Pervin mentioned government steps taken for preventing

corruption. She called upon concerned people for working sincerely from own position to build a Sonar Bangla as dreamt by Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.

Nation can never reimburse debt to FFs: Speakers

Another report adds: The grateful nation can never reimburse the debt it owes to the freedom fighters (FFs), but it must show due honour to them for upholding real spirit of the War of Liberation.

The observations came at a ceremony held here today to accord warm reception to three freedom fighters for their extra ordinary contributions and heroism during the War of Liberation in 1971.

Rangpur Chamber of Commerce and Industry (RCCI) organised the ceremony at its auditorium in the city with its President Md Abul Kashem in the chair.

Commander of Rangpur district unit of Bangladesh Muktijoddha Sangshad, former RCCI President and incumbent Director of FBCCI Mosaddek Hossain Bablu attended the ceremony as the chief guest.

Former President of RCCI Mostafa Sohrab Chowdhury Titu, Principal of Rangpur Millennium Stars School and College Lieutenant Colonel Nazmur Rahman and Vice-president of RCCI Mozammel Haque Dambel addressed as special guests.

Senior Vice-president of RCCI Mostafa Ahmed delivered welcome speech narrating the heroism and contributions of the three freedom fighters in liberating the country through snatching away independence for the Nation.

On the occasion, crests and cash were distributed among freedom fighters Nurul Alam Khokan of Alamnagar area, Gangachara Upazila Muktijoddha Commander Azizul Islam and Nurul Haque of Pirganj upazila in the ceremony.

Video films were also screened in the ceremony on the three freedoms fighters demonstrating the heroism while taking part in the War of Liberation in liberating the nation from the clutches and occupation of the Pakistani army.
Levy customs duty as per tariff value on the date of presentation of Bill of Entry

Appellate Division (Civil)

Md Abdul Wahhab Miah J

Nazmun Ara Sultana J

Md Imman Ali J

Md Nizamul Huq J

Judgment

March 1st, 2016

Moshtaq (Md) and others . ........ Appellants

vs

Collector of Customs and others ........Respondents

Customs Act (IV of 1969)

Section 25(7)

Customs duty-Customs duty shall be levied as per the tariff value prevalent on the date of presentation of the Bill of Entry. After the opening of the respective letter of credit, tariff value of the respective imported goods was enhanced by the SROs in question. One of the points raised by the appellants in these appeals is that the tariff value was enhanced by the SROs in question in exercising the unfettered power vested upon the Government under section 25(7) of the Act, as there is no guideline to fix the tariff value, but this point has got no substance.

That prior to the fixation of tariff value of the respective merchandise imported by the respective writpetitioner, the matter was inquired into by a high powered committee and that the committee after due deliberations with the members of the business community, the representatives of the different trade organization, representatives of the different business groups, the representatives of the apex body of the business community as well as on consideration of the materials collected from different sources through different agencies had made recommendation and then the tariff rate was fixed. Tariff value of the respective merchandise imported by the respective writ-petitioner was not fixed in the manner as alleged by them and that from the papers placed before them by the learned Assistant Attorney-General, it appeared that the tariff value of the respective merchandise imported by them was fixed on objective basis. (16)

Md Wahidullah, Advocate-on- Record-For the Appellants (in all the cases).

SM Moniruzzaman, Deputy Attorney-General instructed by Sufia Khatun, Advocate-on-Record-For the Respondents (in all the cases).

Judgment

Md Abdul Wahhab Miah J : These appeals, by leave, are from the common judgment and order passed by the High Court Division in Writ Petition Nos. 1736, 1630, 1861, 1862, 1863, 1824, 17,2336,2370 of 1994 and in Writ Petition Nos.625, 902, 2302 and 2104 of 1994 discharging all the Rules Nisi.

2. Facts giving rise to these appeals are that in Civil Appeal Nos. 20-27 of 2004, the common appellant is Mohammad Mushtaque, Proprietor of M/s Mushtaque and Brothers.

3. In Civil Appeal No. 28 of 2004, Nur Mohammad, Proprietor of Khan Jahan Ali is the appellant.

4. In Civil Appeal Nos. 29, 30 and 32 of 2004, the common appellant is M/s Meghna Dairy and Food Products Ltd.

5. In Civil Appeal No. 31 of 2004 M/s Beauty Aktar, wife of Mostafa Kamal, Proprietor M/s Bangladesh Trading Agency is the appellant.

6. In all these appeals, the Collector of Customs and other officials are the respondents.

7. As the appeals involved the common question of law and similar facts, these are being disposed of by this single judgment.

8. Appellant, Mohammad Mushtaque, opened the respective letter of credit for import of Cassia (Cinnamon) at the rate of US $1,900 per metric ton C & F, Chittagong. On arrival of the Vessel 'SS Ad Conchfnov',' the appellant through his clearing agent submitted bills of entry for clearance of the imported goods on payment of Customs Duty, VAT and other charges, When respondent No, 2, by an endorsement on the bill of entry directed the appellant to give declaration of the goods at a tariff value pursuant to an SRO issued subsequent to the date of opening of the respective letter of credit by the appellant. The tariff value fixed was much higher than the value declared in the bills of entry. The appellant being aggrieved by the direction of respondent No, 2 moved the High Court Division with the above mentioned writ petitions.

9. It was contended that the tariff value which was fixed through notification, was arbitrary and that there was no objective basis on fixing the tariff value.

10. On the other hand, it was argued on behalf of the respondents that in view of the provisions of section 25(7) of the Customs Act, 1969, the Government was quite competent to fix tariff value through notification in the official gazette and the tariff value so fixed was not an arbitrary one, The said tariff value was fixed after inquiry into by a high powered committee and that the committee after due deliberation with the members of the business community, the representatives of the different trade organizations and the representatives of the apex body of the business community as well as on consideration of the materials collected from different sources through different agencies fixed the tariff value.

11. On examination of the papers placed before it by the learned Assistant Attorney-General in the course of hearing of the Rules, the High Court Division found that the tariff value of the respective merchandise imported by the appellant was fixed on objective basis and though the contention of the appellant that the tariff value fixed was an arbitrary one and that there was no objective basis in the fixation of the tariff value as notified was of no 'substance and accordingly discharged the Rules.

12. In Civil Appeal No, 28 of 2004, appellant-Nur Mohammad, proprietor of Khan Jahan Ali Stores imported "Dano" Brand Milk powder, In Civil Appeal Nos, 29, 30 and 32 of 2004, M/s Meghna Dairy and Food Products Ltd and in Civil Appeal No, 31 of 2004, M/s Beauty Aktar, Proprietor of Mis Bangladesh Trading Agency imported Full Cream Milk Powder under the respective letter of credit. The respondents, however, directed the respective appellant to pay customs duties at an enhanced rate of tariff value on the basis of SRO which was issued after opening of the respective letter of credit. The High Court Division, however, discharged the Rules holding that the tariff value was not fixed arbitrarily.

13. Being aggrieved by and dissatisfied with the judgment and order of the High Court Division, the respective appellant filed' Petitions for Leave to Appeal Nos. 7-15 and 54-57 of 1999. All the leave petitions were heard together as common question of law and similar facts were involved and leave was granted by this Court in all the petitions to consider the submissions as under:

"Mr Abdul Baset Majumder, the learned counsel appearing for the petitioners submitted before us that (1) the High Court Division having noted the fact that section 25(7) did not contain any guidelines and that no rules had been framed for determination' of tariff value erred in holding that section 25(7), 30 or 30A of the Act, 1969 provide guidelines which regulated the unfettered power expressly conferred by section 25(7) of the Act, (II) The High Court Division erred in construing section 25(7) in a manner while upheld its validity despite its conferment of arbitrary and unfettered power which in effect allow the executive to fix arbitrary tariff values for assessment of customs duty without any objective basis and without having to follow any objective criterion or guidelines and thus are repugnant to Articles 27, 65 and 83 of the Constitution. (Ill) Further submitted that section 25(7) of the Customs Act having conferred on the government an unfettered power to determine/fix the tariff value without laying down any guideline or criteria for exercise of such power to fix/ determine the tariff value, such unfettered power having resulted in an excessive delegation of the legislative power without any statutory guideline or limitation for exercise of such power, the said provision of section 25(7) is unconstitutional and ultra vires, and the High Court Division was wrong in not holding that the fixation of tariff value in exercise of such power is without lawful authority, discriminatory and ultra vires to the Constitution of Bangladesh since the said section 25(7) itself is unconstitutional. (IV) For that the non-obstinate clause of section 25(7) having the effect that no guideline could be derived from section 25(1) of the Customs Act, the High Court Division was wrong in not considering that unfettered power under on 25(7) has no guideline for its exercise in the Customs Act or in section 25(7) or in any rules framed under the Customs Act for such determination of the tariff value, and the power has been exercised .arbitrarily and without lawful authority particularly when there was no affidavit-in-opposition filed by the respondents disclosing any objective material or rationale or criteria or basis on the tariff value so fixed."

14. Heard Mvi. Md Wahidullah, learned Advocate-on-Record, for the appellants in all the appeals and Mr SM Moniruzzaman, learned Deputy Attorney-General, for the respondents in all the appeals.

15. From the' leave granting order as quoted above, it is apparent that the appellants, in fact, challenged the vires of section 25(7) of the Customs Act, 1969 being repugnant to articles 27, 65 and 83 of the Constitution as the section has conferred unfettered power upon the Government to fix tariff value for assessment of Customs Duty of the imported goods whereas, in the respective writ petition only the SRO fixing tariff value of the respective imported goods was challenged and the Rule was issued accordingly.

16. In view of the facts as noted in the impugned judgment and order the findings given therein and the questions involved in the respective writ petition, we are of the view that vires of section 25(7) of the Customs Act need not be gone into and these appeals can be disposed of on the facts and circumstances of the respective case. It is by now a well settled legal proposition that Customs Duty shall be levied as per the tariff value' prevalent on the date of presentation of the bill of entry. From the facts as stated hereinbefore, it is clear that after the opening of the respective letter of credit in the respective writ petition, tariff value of the respective imported goods was' enhanced by the SROs in question. One of the points raised by the appellants in these appeals is that the tariff value was enhanced by the SROs in question in exercising the unfettered power vested upon the Government under section 25(7) of the Customs Act, 1969 as there is no guideline to fix the tariff value, but this point has got no substance. In view of the findings of the High Court Division that during the course of hearing of the Rules, learned Assistant Attorney-General placed papers before it to substantiate his submission that prior to the fixation of tariff value of the respective merchandise imported by the respective writ petitioner, the matter was inquired into by a high powered committee and that the committee after due deliberations with the members of the business community, the representatives of the different trade organization, representatives of the different business groups, the representatives of the apex body of the business community as well as on consideration of the materials collected from different sources through different agencies had made recommendation and then the tariff rate was fixed. The High Court Division further observed that on perusal of the papers placed before it in the course of hearing of the Rules by the learned Assistant Attorney-General, they were quite convinced that the tariff value of the respective merchandise imported by the respective writ-petitioner was not fixed in the manner as alleged by them and that from the papers placed before them by the learned Assistant Attorney-General' it appeared that the tariff value of the respective merchandise imported by them was fixed on objective basis.

17. From the above, it is clear that the tariff value of the goods in question was fixed by taking a reasonable approach in the matter and on verification of the market price and in consultation with the concerned persons such as, business community, representatives of different trade unions and of different business groups. Therefore, it cannot be said that the tariff value of the respective imported goods was fixed arbitrarily.

In view of the above, we find no merit in these appeals and accordingly, the same are dismissed.
Adequate treatment for drug addicts vital for rehabilitation

City Desk :

Police officials, development activists and other stakeholders at a discussion unequivocally called for more modern and adequate safe treatment facilities towards the drug addicts for their rehabilitation.

They mentioned addiction can tear families and destroy lives.

The people who inject drugs and suffer from addiction need a great deal of professional help to overcome this disease. Drug addiction and HIV/AIDS are interlinked. So, there is no alternative to concerted efforts.

The observation came yesterday in a view-sharing meeting titled "Treatment and Rehabilitation of Drug Addicts" at conference hall of Ashokta Punarbason Sangstha (APS) in Rajshahi.

Rajshahi Metropolitan Police (RMP) and APS jointly organized the meeting discussing ways and means on how to rehabilitate the drug addicts through providing them with proper treatment.

RMP Commissioner Shafiqul Islam addressed the discussion as chief guest with APS Executive Director Abul Bashar in the chair.

Deputy Director of Department of Drugs and Narcotics Control Lutfor Rahman, RMP Additional Deputy Commissioners Shirin Akhter Jahan, Kamrun Nahar and Ibney Mijan, Assistant Commissioner Ifte Khaer Alam and Officer-in-Charge of Rajpara Police Station Aman Ullah also spoke.

The discussants demanded launching opioid substitution treatment through methadone method here for the drug addicts for sake of their quick recovery.

APS Executive Director Abul Bashar told the meeting that people, especially the young generation and students of different educational institutions including a number of females, have become addicted to different kinds of injecting drugs and heroin, phensidyl and yaba.

These contraband items are sold at different spots and shops of the city and a large number of drug addicts gathering at those places regularly to buy the items and involve them in drug abuse, he added.

On the other hand, to treat the drugs addicts, there is only one government and five private drug rehabilitation centres in the city.
On populism and nationalism

Duncan Green :

A couple of Oxfamers were over from the US recently so ODI kindly pulled together a seriously stimulating conversation about life, the universe and everything. More specifically, how should 'we' - the aid community broadly defined - respond to the rising tide of nationalism, populism, and attacks on aid.

It was Chatham House rules, so I've already told you too much, but here are some of the highlights:

North v South: The traditional focus of international development NGOs has been the 'Global South' distinctions have become increasingly dubious). Should that now change? Some people stressed that we need to focus more on politics in the North, both because the risks to progressive values that we used to consider the consensus are now very real. In the UK 'the winning side (on Brexit) is starting to change the minds of the losing side' - people who weren't bothered about immigration before now accept that it is 'an issue'. 'Ethics are like a muscle - they have to be exercised regularly or they will atrophy'.

There is also an instrumental argument: 'we need to invest in the North, or we'll lose the ability to have impact in the South.' Specifically 'we need to spend less time on policy and more on shaping public debate.'

In addition, maybe the current turmoil could provide the 'window of opportunity' to do more to refocus the long term agenda on promoting local control, stewardship, ownership etc, including giving higher priority to domestic taxation and the social contract between citizens and state.

Universalism v Nationalism: I was struck by how many people take the SDGs seriously as a symbol that we have moved beyond North-South to universalism, in which issues like rights, inequality and climate change are truly shared. But there was some fascinating scepticism in the room about how far 'we' can shift to a truly universalist approach. 'Aren't we part of the 1945-2015 consensus (on the division of the world into North and South)? Don't we just need to get out of the way and let a new generation of people and organizations move towards universalism?' That resonated with me, because I have seen just how hard it is for NGOs to move beyond a North-South frame in which the people we help are hungry, rural, oppressed and a long way away. Oxfam has been about to go urban since the late 1980s, according to successive strategic plans (thanks John Magrath for doing the digging on that!). It is very hard for development organizations to start working on shared agendas on tobacco, road traffic or obesity, however important they may be, simply because they fall so far outside our traditional narrative of what matters in developing countries.

Hug Populism, reject it or prepare for its collapse? 'We have fundamentally miscalculated our fellow citizens' in assuming a progressive consensus existed on at least some issues. What next? First, there is a risk of over-reacting - people have multiple identities bubbling away, and at different times, different ones come to the fore. We should still appeal to the better angels of people's natures because those angels are still there.

But is it better to respond to rising nationalism by engaging with it, trying to understand it better, building bridges with some elements within it etc, or is that a fool's errand in which we are forced to abandon principles and cross red lines with very little to show for it?

Elements of the progressive agenda (inequality, industrial policy) feature in the populist rhetoric (if not their practice) so should we try and reclaim them for the progressive cause or pick other battles? In any case, what if the populist tide is peaking, shortly to come crashing down amid economic and political chaos? If so, wouldn't it be better to start preparing messages, alliances, ideas etc in advance so that we are as ready as possible for that historical critical juncture when it comes?

Aid: and then there's aid. We met the day after President Trump recommended a 28% cut in US aid, so understandably we kept coming back to it. People contrasted 2015 and 2017. 2015 = an illusion of consensus, everyone debating the content of the SDGs; an 'end of history' moment when all that was required was better data. Fast forward two years and there is a 'relentless assault' on both sides of the Atlantic. When aid gets attacked, out of both self interest and commitment to the aid project, aid organizations spring to its defence. But isn't that one reason why they are the wrong ones to lead on universalism? And anyway 'whenever we try and move 'beyond aid', we do so by doing things through aid'. Ouch.

Overall, I was left confused and concerned (doubtless the mark of a good conversation). Concerned that the development community could jump into current northern battles on populism, Brexit etc not primarily because doing so is vital to helping the world end poverty in the long term, or because the issues that matter have suddenly become universal, but because the values of northern activists push them to get involved for personal reasons. If that happens, we risk forfeiting our legitimacy, which in the eyes of northern publics and policy makers is rooted in our links with and understanding of events in the South. And what do we gain if 'Going Northern' doesn't add much to the existing progressive forces in the North?

And although many issues like equal rights, inequality etc are universal, some things (like famine) are not. There are still huge differences between rich and poor people and countries, and that matters. Take fragile and conflict-affected states - you simply can't equate what goes on in rich countries and events in places such as Yemen or Somalia: perhaps unfortunately, they are the likely future of the aid industry, simply because more stable countries will graduate through a combination of growth, poverty reduction and rising taxation. Whatever we do in the North, we need to ask ourselves whether it is relevant and helpful to the communities in those places. If the answer is 'not really', we should worry about that.



(This is a conversational blog written and maintained by Duncan Green, strategic adviser for Oxfam GB and author of 'From Poverty to Power'. This personal reflection is not intended as a comprehensive statement of Oxfam's agreed policies).
Papua New Guinea isn't a place you necessarily want to linger. Its capital, Port Moresby, ranks among the most dangerous and least liveable cities in the world. Tribal fighting and sexual violence against children mar the provinces. In some areas, women accused of witchcraft are still bashed or burnt alive.

On the plane they brandish paraphernalia for various mining companies: oil, gas, maybe gold. A New Zealander is going to spend two weeks fixing wells at petrol stations. Fly in, fly out. Quickly.

IT STARTS at the boarding lounge in Brisbane. Men: white, middle-aged, dull. They flash their passports: German, British, Australian.

This is happening 500 kilometres from Queensland.

Australia gives $550 million a year to our nearest neighbour; it's more than we give to anyone else and more than any other donor to PNG. Critics of development assistance often ask the question: "What does our money achieve?"

And PNG is a perfect illustration of the confusing answer: development aid is making a tangible difference in people's lives, and yet the big picture remains relatively unchanged.

Despite massive growth in gross domestic product, the country has flat lined at the bottom of the Human Development Index. In 2012, PNG ranked 125 out of 128 countries on The Economist's index of women's economic opportunity.

According to Save the Children, there are regions in which 75-100% of women experience some form of physical violence.

In Tari, capital of the mountainous Hela province about 600 kilometres north-west of Port Moresby, we meet a woman who has survived the impossible. Armed with a machete, her husband hacked off one of her arms and her legs, before removing her scalp.

Every month, the family support unit at the Tari hospital meets up to 100 new women and children who are victims of sexual and physical violence.

The nurse who runs the clinic is a small, unassuming woman named Clare Lembo. "According to Hela culture, men are the head of the community, head of the family," she explains.

"Women have no rights. Women will just sit there and listen to the men only. Sometimes if a woman was to speak out and say: 'I'm also like man, I have every right', the man has the power to beat them up."

These days the hospital is effectively managed by an oil company. When Medecins Sans Frontieres pulled out in April last year, the Oil Search Foundation took over. Oil Search is one of PNG's largest firms, at one point accounting for 13% of the country's GDP.

In addition to control of the country's oilfields, it maintains a 29% stake in ExxonMobil's $US19 billion PNG liquefied natural gas project, which supplies eight million tonnes of gas annually to China and Japan.

Managing director Peter Botten, sometimes called "the No 1 man in Tari", now chairs the hospital board. In the first nine months of 2016, we are told, the ramshackle hospital performed a staggering 635 serious surgeries, dealt with 26,305 outpatient presentations and had its budget increased to $6 million in order to become a regional hub for 400,000 people.

Botten tilts his head. Twenty minutes down the road, amid this entrenched poverty, is one of the biggest gas fields in south-east Asia. He concedes the benefits of this do not always reach people on the ground. "One of the fundamentals of PNG is you actually have to bring communities along with you," Botten says. "If we get this wrong, we will be shut down."

Stephen Howes, a former chief economist at AusAID and now the director of the Development Policy Centre at ANU, is nonplussed about the reliance on corporate charity.

"It may not be ideal but in the circumstances it's great," he says. "PNG is a very resource-rich country - it is going to have these big resource projects and you want those companies to contribute."

At a library opening at Kuluanda Primary School, parent Doreen Pipiki thanks Oil Search for her ongoing job at Tari hospital, where she works in family planning. It's an especially important task given the hospital does not perform terminations.

Her own daughter Marianne-David is in the fifth grade and achieving solid results. But most children here don't start school until they are seven or eight years old. By then, says Pipiki, "it's too late".

Those who start school are extremely unlikely to finish. Statistics can be difficult to nail down in PNG, but it is estimated just 2% of children who start Year 1 will go on to complete Year 12.

"I think that's really alarming," says 22-year-old Johnetta Lili, an accounting student at the University of Papua New Guinea. Her friend Jollanda Methew is the first in her family to go to university. Both study at a new business faculty headquarters funded by Australian aid.

Men might dominate PNG's power structures, but on the ground, it's women who are doing the hard yards.

Women like the softly-spoken Martina, who lives in the impoverished Nine Mile settlement outside Moresby, and sells her crops at the local market each morning to support her parents and daughter Angeline. Women like Esther Mwayemwanna, a teacher for 31 years and principal of Caritas Tech, a Catholic secondary school for girls who have fallen out of the public system.

And women like Lucinda Gulluman-Kisip, who helps establish libraries for preschool children. "There's a lot of change happening," the 39-year-old says over a meal on the flight back to Port Moresby.

"A lot of the things we're doing are against the traditional practices. We're seeing a lot of women taking on work and being breadwinners, even. It's really hard for a Papua New Guinean man for his wife to be a breadwinner. It does create - how should I say this - conflict between the new and the old."

Continuity and change, perhaps. It is evident at the Duffy Cafe in Port Moresby, a regular hangout for diplomatic types. It's easy to see why: cold-drip coffee and avocado on toast make it a veritable home-away-from-home for Australians. But this oasis can only exist in a heavily-guarded compound, behind two sets of security gates, such is the omnipresent danger of Moresby's streets.

At the Boroko police station and remand centre, cops dressed immaculately in patent leather shoes proudly lead us around the redeveloped cell block. There are still no beds and no mattresses. As many as 15 people will be interred in each cell, for as long as two or three months, a constable says. Outside the station, two women shelter from the heat under a gazebo, waiting to talk to the police. They have come to report - again - their husbands' violence.

Siniva, 24, says her husband flies into a jealous rage if she so much as acknowledges another man on the street. "If I'm smiling or if I say hello, when I go back to the house he hits me," she says. "He cuts me with [a] knife, both my thighs. I always go to police station but they don't help me."

Macklyn, 25, is beaten weekly by her husband. "He says that I'm a lousy wife, I have no money. He doesn't want to sit down and listen," she says. "He always tells me that he will never change."

In just a few days in PNG, Fairfax Media meets countless women who have survived violence and are now working to stop it. But there's also an uneasy question: where are the men? One of the politicians in our delegation, Victorian Nationals MP Damian Drum, makes the point during a briefing with Oxfam.

"This is not a women's problem. It's a man's problem," he says. "We can't have women telling men they have to change their behaviour -we need to have men telling men."

Ian Lapu, a case manager at Oxfam, is trying to do exactly that. In his workshops and conversations with men, he talks about the law and human rights - a foreign concept for many of his compatriots. He appeals to their sense of nationalism: treat women with respect and they will raise healthy children, the country's future custodians. It's an odd pitch but apparently it works.

"Everybody wants to make world a better place," Lapu says. "But they will not make the world a better place until they end violence."

Tackling gender inequity is one of the key pillars of Australia's aid program in PNG, and the ANU's Howes says we can take credit for "positive trends" in getting the problem taken seriously. In other areas it's a mixed bag.

ANU research found between 2002 and 2012, educational outcomes improved, with more teachers, better classrooms and more children going to school. But the health system went backwards at the same time.

The massive GDP growth that accompanied the liquefied natural gas boom has given way to collapsed commodity prices, a fiscal crisis and a country that cannot fund basic services.

Howes wants more Australian aid to go directly to NGOs, churches and even the PNG government. Otherwise, he warns, the program runs the risk of building infrastructure the country cannot support in the long-term.

Howes cautions against lofty expectations for what is, at $550 million, not a huge amount of money. "As long as PNG is struggling, it's going to be hard to view the aid program as a success, no matter what it does," he says. "We can't save PNG. That shouldn't be the aim. PNG's destiny is in its own hands."

The writer travelled to Papua New Guinea courtesy of Save the Children.
AL intra-party feud main reason

Staff Reporter :

While the ruling Awami League has detected the 'intra-party conflict' as the main reason behind the big failure in Comilla Mayoral polls, the opposition BNP has said that the difference between the two candidates to be wider if there was no vote rigging.

""We could not keep our party united in Comilla as there were some internal problems in the party. Comilla City Corporation election has, however, proved that free and fair election is possible under the Sheikh Hasina's government," Road Transport and Bridges Minister and Awami League General Secretary Obaidul Quader said on Friday.

Making the above remarks, the AL leader further said, "Our aim was holding a free and fair election. We got directives from the Prime Minister in this regard and we've implemented her order."

Echoing the same, AL Joint-General Secretary Mahabubul Alam Hanif has said that the 'prime reason' behind the setback in Comilla City election was nothing but intra-party feud among the AL local leaders.

The statements of AL stalwarts came at a time when BNP claimed that free and fair election was not possible under the present government. "Now it has been proved through the Comilla City Corporation election that it is possible," Quader said.

Earlier, the BNP categorically blamed that the Election Commission failed to hold a free and fair election in Comilla City Corporation.

"The EC is serving the government's design in the election. Instead of carrying out its Constitutional duty, it is fulfilling the government's desire. The police were seeking votes for Awami League-nominated candidate," BNP's Senior Joint Secretary General Ruhul Kabir Rizvi said.

Asking the EC to work neutrally to earn people's trust, Rizvi has also demanded that the EC should resign from the office for its total failure to conduct a free and fair election. The BNP has also alleged that the Comilla City Corporation polls were 'marred by widespread violence, vote rigging and irregularities'.

"The ruling party men became desperate in the afternoon of voting day and indulged in stuffing ballots, capturing almost all centres by blasting crude bombs," Rizvi further said.

Turning down the allegation, AL General Secretary yesterday further said that his party's main focus was not the election result. "Our main focus was free, fair and impartial elections," he said.

Interestingly, AL candidate Anjum Sultana Sima said that she was satisfied with the Comilla City Corporation polls. Sima also said that she has fallen in an embarrassing situation due to failure before the party chief, which took place for internal conflicts of local ruling party leaders.


RAB Intel Chief laid to rest

Staff Reporter :

The Chief of the Intelligence Unit of the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) Lieutenant Colonel Abul Kalam Azad, who received severe injuries during the 'Operation Twilight' in Sylhet on March 25, was raid to rest at Banani military graveyard in the city on Friday afternoon.

An unit of the Bangladesh Army gave late

Abul Kalam Azad guard of honour during his burial at 4:45pm. A RAB unit also gave him the guard of honour at the RAB Headquarters int Uttara around 3:30pm.

He was declared death by the on duty doctors at the Combined Military Hospital (CMH) at about 12:05 am on Friday. His first Namaj-e-Janaza was held at the Cantonment Central Mosque after Jumma prayers and the second one in the RAB Headquarters at around 3:30pm.

The Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal, Inspector General of Police (IGP) AKM Shahidul Hoque, the Military Secretary to Prime Minister Major General Mia Md Joynal Abedin, Additional IGP Javed Patwari, the Rapid Action Battalion Director General (DG) Benzazir Ahmed, Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP) Commissioner Asaduzzaman Miah, Commanding Officers of different battalions of the elite force, among others, were present at the Namaj-e-Janaza. According to the autopsy report, splinters from the blast that passing through his eyes into his brain caused the death of smart RAB official. Doctors found splinters stuck inside his brain, said Dr Sohel Mahmud, Head of the Forensics at Dhaka Medical College and Hospital (DMCH) on Saturday morning. The splinters pierced through his left eye, got stuck in his brain and it eventually caused death, he said. Lt Colonel Abul Kalam Azad was hit by the blasts near the Atia Mahal on March 25. He was taken to Singapore for better treatment after his injuries in bomb blasts the same day.

Six persons, including two policemen, were killed and 40 others injured, on the fateful day.
Teachers under surveillance!

M M Jasim :

The Education Ministry has taken plan to bring a section of teachers involved with question paper leakage under surveillance with a view to holding the upcoming Higher Secondary Certificate (HSC) examinations peacefully.

The Ministry has already asked all Upazila and District Education officials to intensify their activities to prevent any further question papers leakage, sources said.

Meanwhile, the High officials of the Ministry and chairmen of all Education Boards sat with the law enforcing agencies to nab the persons involved with any irregularities.

The Ministry believes that a group of unscrupulous teachers have been involved with the question papers leakage and selling those for Tk 500 to 5000 apiece.

Education Minister Nurul Islam Nahid told The New Nation on Friday that a section of teachers are responsible for the leak of question papers.

"The question is being leaked over Facebook just after handing it over to teachers on the examination day," he said.

"We are in such a condition that we can neither disclose everything nor accept. But we will not tolerate these further," the Minister said.

The authorities are bound to provide question papers two hours before the examination.

So, who are leaking the question, the Minister asked?

"Sincerely, we need teachers with moral norms and values," he said.

The Education Minister on Wednesday at a press briefing said the teachers who are involved in the leakage of question papers would be brought to justice.

He also urged them (dishonest) to quit teaching for the nation's sake.

"Question papers of some public examinations were also leaked in the past but those incidents did not come in the limelight as the number of media outlets was very limited at that time," Nahid said.

He also urged the journalists to come forward and give the government information about the incidents of question papers leakage.

An official of the Ministry told this correspondent that the ministry has already identified those involved in such incidents and they would be held soon.

"The Ministry has prepared a list of the teachers and will hand them over to the law enforcing agencies. It (Ministry) is firm to nab the unscrupulous teachers and bring them under justice," he said.

It may be mentioned that Dhaka Metropolitan Police arrested nine persons, including a Principal, for their alleged involvement in advertising and selling fake question papers of public examinations from the capital's Tejgaon area on Tuesday.

The arrested Principal of AM High School and College in Ashulia Md Mozaffar Hossain received the question papers from the Deputy Commissioner's office of Dhaka.

Later, the Principal sent the question papers to his two colleagues through facebook, viber and whatsup for spreading those among the students and guardians. They took at Tk 500 to 5,000 from the students per question paper.


Tannery Estate in Savar

CETP, pipe network, inside roads, gas, electric transformer not yet completed: We will shift in six months if all facilities ensured, say tanners.

Machinery of a unit out of four Central Effluent Treatment Plant (CETP) of Savar\'s Tannery Industrial Estate found kept packed although Project Authority claimed that their all sorts of preparation for giving support to the tanners. Slow activities of th

Badrul Ahsan :

The tanners operating in the city's Hazaribagh area are in a fix after the High Court's order to shift the factories to the Tannery Industrial Estate at Hemayetpur in Savar within April 6, although the project authority is yet to complete necessary construction works and utility connections there.

Visiting the Savar tannery estate on Thursday, this correspondent found that construction of the Central Effluent Treatment Plant (CETP) and its pipe network is yet to be completed. Setting up power transformer and its necessary works was also not fully done.

It was also found that waste of the running factories being dumped into a big pond dug inside the project and also partially being dumped into the Dhaleshwari River.

Besides, most of the roads inside the estate are still under construction and water lines to the industrial plots little done.

Moreover, no factory could get gas connection, a major energy resource to run a tannery till Thursday, although some 37 factories started their operation in the Estate in a limited scale.

Talking to The New Nation, people at running tanneries in the Estate said they have been processing only wet blue hides using generator and deep tubewell.

"Gas connection is the number one condition to run a tannery, but none of our fellow businessmen could manage connections despite repeated try. Project officials also never extend their hands to help us getting the connection," Hazi Nur Alam, Managing Director of Progoti Leather told The New Nation.

"We are now processing wet blue in Savar and doing rest of the finishing work in Hazaribagh which is pushing our production cost and making us less competitive in the international markets,"

said Hasan Chowdhury, Managing Director of Chowdhury and Co.

"Besides, the Project Authority is now releasing waste water through an alternative way. If all the factories would come into operation in the meantime, what would be the scenario than? he questioned.

However, President of Bangladesh Tanners Association (BTA) Md. Shaheen Ahmed expressing grave concern over the situation said the sector fears a loss of more than Tk 100 million every day if the government forces them to shut operation in Hazaribagh area.

"We have no other option but to shut our factories as it is not possible to run factories in Savar for lack of utility connections," he added.

Replying to a query, he said they would be able to shift to Savar fully in six months if the government ensures them all necessary utility connections like Gas, Electricity, ETP and Water lines in their factories.

"Leather and Leather goods, the second largest export earning sector would face a big blow in the coming days if we are forced to shut our factories right now," said Shakwat Hossain, General Secretary of BTA.

"Export earnings from this sector will surely drop this year as we will have no option but to shut our production if the government forces," he said.

Meanwhile, Abdul Qaiyum, Project Director of the Tannery Estate, claimed that they have made all preparations and are now waiting for more tanners to come to Savar and start their work.

"We need around 10,000 cubic feet of waste to make the CETP functional. But we are getting around 3,000 cubic feet. We need 40 more industrial units to generate waste for making our CETP fully functional," Qaiyum told

Project Consultant Prof Delowar Hossain said the CETP has four modules and eight sections. Construction of three modules -- A1, A2 and A3 -- is complete, and that of A4 would be completed this month.

He also informed that experts from BUET are unwilling to accept some metal pipes brought from abroad for connecting treated water with the disinfection unit at the CETP as those were not up to standard.

"Those pipes are still lying at the Chittagong Port. We don't want those sub-standard pipes," he said.

Though construction of the CETP still awaits completion, the authorities have been conducting its test run since November last year, using generators.

However, Kazi Sarwar Imtiaz Hashmi, acting Director General of Department of Environment told The New Nation that after getting the court order, they would take immediate steps to shut down all the tanneries that are yet to relocate from Hazaribagh to Savar.

"We will cut-off the gas lines, power and water lines to those factories after getting the copy of the High Court verdict. We will also seize all equipment so that they cannot run these factories," Hashmi added.

However, following a writ petition, filed by Bangladesh Environment Lawyers Association (BELA), the High Court in June 2009 directed the tannery owners to move their tanneries from Hazaribagh to Savar. The High Court had set several deadlines for shifting the factories to Savar from Hazaribagh but the tanners missed all of those.

Meanwhile, The New Nation correspondent found that civil construction work in almost all the plots and installation work of machinery in some factories are going on in full-swing.

The government has so far allotted some 154 industrial plots to the tanners in Savar.
Bomb blast leaves 24 dead in Pakistan

Car bomb exploded as people gathered for prayers on Friday.

BBC Online :

At least 24 people have been killed and more than 70 injured in a blast outside a mosque in north-west Pakistan.

The explosion happened in the city of Parachinar, a mainly Shia Muslim area on the Afghan border.

Reports say a car packed with explosives was left near the women's entrance of the mosque as people gathered for Friday prayers. A faction of the Pakistani Taliban (TTP), Jamaat-ul-Ahrar (JuA), said it had carried out the attack. Many shops and vehicles close to the mosque were damaged in the powerful blast.

"People were screaming for help... When I looked back everything was filled with dust," shopkeeper Sardar Hussain told AFP news agency. Kamran Ali told the Associated Press news agency he was inside his shop when the blast happened. "My shop partially collapsed and I was unable to move for the next 30 minutes or so, and then residents brought me to hospital," he said. The Pakistani Army sent a helicopter to help take the injured to hospital. A doctor at a local hospital said an appeal was being made for blood donors to help treat the wounded. "Patients are being brought to us in private cars and ambulances and we have received over three dozen patients so far," the doctor told Reuters news agency. This bombing in Parachinar, in Kurram district, is the second since January, and just as deadly. Many among the injured are said to be in a critical state.

Kurram is the only Shia Muslim region in a predominantly Sunni country. Sunni hardliners, currently operating through different

Taliban factions including the Islamic State group, consider them heretics and worthy of death. These groups have sanctuaries in Afghan and Pakistani areas surrounding Kurram, and have launched frequent attacks against civilians in Parachinar. Locals blame the military for security failures and allege its policy of tolerating some Sunni militant groups has given extremists a new lease of life.


UN experts raise alert over undemocratic US state bills

Al Jazeera News :

Nineteen US states have introduced bills that would curb freedom of expression and the right to protest since Donald Trump's election as president, an "alarming and undemocratic" trend, UN human rights investigators say.

Maina Kiai and David Kaye, independent UN experts on freedom of peaceful assembly and expression, said on Thursday the moves were incompatible with international human rights law. "The trend also threatens to jeopardise one of the United States' constitutional pillars: free speech," they said in a statement, calling for action to reverse such legislation. "From the Black Lives Matter movement, to the environmental and Native American movements in opposition to the Dakota Access oil pipeline, and the Women's Marches, individuals and organisations across [American] society have mobilised in peaceful protests," Kiai and Kaye said.

The UN experts said it was Americans' fundamental right to protest, but the bills in Republican-governed states such as Indiana, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan and Missouri sought to stop them exercising that right. Several bills proposed in Colorado, North Dakota, and Oklahoma targeted opponents of the Dakota Access Pipeline in North Dakota and would have "a chilling effect on environmental protesters", the experts said. Last month, dozens of armed US law enforcement officers swept through a protest camp near the site of the pipeline, clearing the gathering that for months served as a base of opposition to the multi-billion-dollar project. In Missouri, a bill proposed a seven-year prison term for "unlawful obstruction of traffic", while the Minnesota bill would criminalise peaceful protesters for participating in demonstrations that subsequently turned violent. The UN experts said there was no such thing as a violent protest, only violent protesters.

"One person's decision to resort to violence does not strip other protesters of their right to freedom of peaceful assembly," Kaye and Kiai said. Supporters of the US state legislative action say it sums up the frustration some people feel about protests that get in the way of daily lives, and reflects a wish to maintain public safety. Free speech advocates say the bills are worrying, seeing them as opening the way to criminalising peaceful protests.
Kitchen market volatile

Anisul Islam Noor :

The prices of rice, fish, fruits and some vegetables increased, while that of other commodities remained stable at the weekend on Friday in the city's kitchen markets.

Aromatic rice price increased by Tk five to six a kilo in the last seven days. Kalijeera and Chinigura varieties were sold at Tk 98 to Tk 110 and Kataribhog at Tk 72 to 78 per kg.

Medium quality of BRRIdhan-28 and Kajol Lata were sold at Tk 44 to Tk 46. Nazirshail at Tk 50 to 60 per kilo, marking an increase of Tk two.

Grocer Jamal Uddin said at Malibagh on Friday that the price of Aromatic rice rose by Tk 60 to Tk 100 for 50-kg sack in the last 10 days.

Aromatic rice trader and exporter Abdul Hoque said, fragrant rice grows during the Aman season only. The last harvesting season started with high price and it remained unchanged.

The price of most the fishes increased by Tk 20 to Tk100 a kg or per piece. Hilsha prices increased further by Tk 80 to Tk 100 a kg or piece.

Farm Rui and Katla were sold at Tk 190 to Tk 300 a kg. Indigenous Rui price increased by Tk 100 for five kilos and was sold at Tk 4,800 to Tk 5,000.

Bangladesh Fish Traders Association President Md Golam Mortuza told The New Nation that the government imposed ban on the Hilsha fishing. Moreover, many traders have been preserving Hilsha and other river fishes for extra profits during the upcoming Boishakh festival.

The price of seasonal fruits like sapodilla, berry, wood apple and custard apple has showed a Tk 10 to Tk 20 hike a kg in the last week. Sapodilla was sold at Tk 80-Tk 120 and custard apple at Tk 180-Tk 220 a kg in the fruits

markets. Watermelon was sold at Tk 160-Tk 300 a piece based on size last week.

Of the vegetables, brinjal was selling at Tk 40 to 50 per kg, bean at Tk 35 to 45, tomato at Tk 30 to 35, Sajina at Tk 100 to 120 per kg, potato at Tk 16 to 20, carrot at Tk 25 to 30, bitter gourd at Tk 50 to 60, cucumber at Tk 30, khira at Tk 20 to 25, spone gourd at Tk 60 to 70, turnip at Tk 20 to 25, green pea at Tk 50 to 60, beat at Tk 70, papaya at Tk 25 to 30, french at Tk 60 to 70, snake gourd at Tk 60 to 70, okra at Tk 70, radish at Tk 20, pumpkin (medium size) at Tk 30 to 50 per piece, bottle gourd at Tk 30 to 45, ash gourd at Tk 20 to 35 per piece, cabbage at Tk 15 to 25, cauliflower at 25 to 30 per piece, coriander leaves at Tk 120 per kg, green chilli at 40 to 50 kg, capsicum (red) at Tk 300 per kg and capsicum (green) at Tk 250 to 260 per kg and spinach Tk five per bundle.

Lemon four pieces were selling at Tk 32 to 45.

Rupchanda, a brand of Bangladesh Edible Oil Ltd (BOEL) was selling at Tk 107 (1 litre), Tk 212 (2 litre) and Tk 530 (five litre), which was Tk 102, Tk 200 and Tk 500 respectively. Teer and Fresh branded oil, products of City Group and Meghna Group respectively, were selling at Tk 105 a litre.

Broiler chicken was sold at Tk 155 to Tk 165 per kg and layer at Tk 185 toTk 195 per kg on Friday.

Indigenous chicken was sold at Tk 390 to Tk 420 per kg while Pakistani variety was traded for Tk 240 to Tk 270 per kg.

Beef was sold at Tk 490-Tk 500 and red meat at Tk 750 to Tk 800 per kg respectively.

Onion was selling at Tk 25 per kg, and green chilli at Tk 50 to 70 per kg.
OSWEGO  During his first term in Congress, U.S. Rep. John Katko heard from countless constituents who were affected by the opioid and synthetic drug epidemics.

At a forum Thursday in Oswego  Katko's first public forum of his second term  he listened to stories from first responders, parents of children who died of drug overdoses and even a few recovering addicts.

"The epidemic is still raging," Katko, R-Camillus, said in his opening remarks.

For more than 90 minutes, Katko and a group of panelists, including John and Tina Socci of Owasco, shared their perspectives on the drug problem and what steps have been taken to address the epidemic.

John and Tina Socci, who represented the Heroin Epidemic Action League at the forum, lost their son, Christopher, to a heroin overdose. Tina Socci said Christopher never used heroin before the fateful night when he was persuaded to try the drug  an experiment that turned fatal.

Many of the panelists, including John Socci, acknowledged that the opioid epidemic isn't solely an urban problem. That's been the stereotype used to describe drug users in the past, but it's much different now.

"This is across the country," John Socci said. "It's every class, every race, every income level."

Katko highlighted legislation approved by Congress last year, the Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act, which established grant programs to fund substance abuse treatment initiatives and aims to combat the opioid and synthetic drug epidemics.

He acknowledged that there's more Congress can do.

One issue he believes needs to be addressed is how doctors prescribe prescription drugs for pain management. He recalled his sons having wisdom teeth extracted and the dentists giving them a month's worth of painkillers.

But that's one part of it. The other is having surplus prescription drugs sitting unused in your home. Katko had a simple message for attendees who may have unused prescription drugs in their home.

"Get rid of them," he said.

The treatment gap remains one of the biggest hurdles. In central New York, Crouse Hospital operates a clinic to treat drug addicts, particularly those who abuse heroin and opioids. The facility can treat 500 patients at a time and there's often 500 more people on the waiting list to get in, Katko said.

Monika Taylor, director of behavioral health services at Crouse Hospital, said there's another challenge: A limited number of physicians who can care for those in need of treatment.

"In our counties, we don't have enough primary care doctors," she said.

While the drug issue was the main focus of the forum, the conversation shifted to the Affordable Care Act. Katko has long supported the repeal of the 2010 health care law. Republicans recently introduced legislation, the American Health Care Act, that would dismantle significant portions of the law.

Katko didn't join his party in supporting the bill. One of the proposals put forth by members of the conservative House Freedom Caucus was to eliminate the list of essential health benefits that should be covered by insurance companies. Among the essential health benefits is mental health and substance abuse disorder services.

"That is one of the reasons why I opposed it," he said.
OSWEGO  U.S. Rep. John Katko defended his record of holding public events following a forum Thursday on central New York's opioid and synthetic drug epidemic.

Katko, R-Camillus, has been criticized by Democratic Party-linked groups for not holding a general town hall meeting. Since entering Congress in 2015, he's held issue-specific public forums on the heroin epidemic, agriculture and economic development. Often at these events, he'll take general questions at the end.

At Thursday's forum, he addressed his views on the Affordable Care Act and the Republicans' attempt to repeal the 2010 health care law. He also took a question on environmental issues near the conclusion of the event.

During an interview with reporters following the forum, he was asked why he didn't take more questions on other topics. Katko disputed the claim.

"We had a lot of discussions. We talked about the Affordable Care Act, talked about the (Environmental Protection Agency)," he said. "We talked about a lot of different issues and they were woven into the fabric of this.

"I challenge anybody to say that we didn't answer a ton of questions tonight. By the way, every single person here who has any question at all, it's written down. We're going to respond to them in writing, for sure."

Katko has been targeted by Democrats and organizations in the region, namely the CNY Solidarity Coalition. The groups have been demanding that he hold a public forum, specifically a town hall meeting, so they can ask him questions about a range of topics.

The CNY Solidarity Coalition rallied outside of a Katko fundraiser in early March. Katko surprised the group by speaking with them and addressing some of their concerns. They once again urged him to hold a town hall meeting.

Katko believes Thursday's public forum in Oswego was a town hall-style meeting.

"People asked all different types of questions. We touched on all kinds of topics," he said. "We took people who spontaneously asked questions from the audience. We're going to continue to do this."

Since taking office, Katko said his office has responded to up to 85,000 messages from constituents. In addition to his in-person forums, he's held 20 telephone town halls.

"I am out there. I am available," he said. "I think it's a false narrative that I'm not and I'm going to continue to do that and I'm going to continue to let people ask any questions they want."

Katko, without revealing specific details, said there are other forums planned in the near future. And in a week, he'll have plenty of time to hold the events.

The House of Representatives has been in session for nearly six consecutive weeks, which means Katko has spent most of that time in Washington.

After next week, the House will take a two-week break. That will give representatives an opportunity to hold events in their districts.

While nothing has been announced, that period could be when Katko holds his next forum.

"We're going to continue to do things like this," he said. "I think it's a good format."
Downtown Alive! welcomes Feufollet on Friday, March 31 at Parc Sans Souci. Gates open at 5:30 p.m. Admission is free.

IND L!VE offers highlights of the many live music events taking place around Acadiana this weekend.

DTA! FEUFOLLET

Friday, March 31

Parc Sans Souci

Doors: 5:30 p.m.

Admission: Free

Downtown Alive! welcomes Feufollet on March 31 at Parc Sans Souci. Ice chests and outside beverages will not be allowed at DTA! in order to help us pay for the band by encouraging you to purchase drinks and food inside the parc. Smoking and pets are not allowed to encourage a safe and family-friendly event for all.

3 KINGS PRESENTS: WOCHEE 6TH ANNUAL BIRTHDAY PARTY

Friday, March 31

The District

Doors: 10 p.m.

The District welcomes 3 Kingz as they present the 6th Annual Wochee Pastel Party this Friday.

BATTLE OF THE BEEHIVES: SABRA & THE GET RIGHTS + THE WASTED LIVES

Friday, March 31

Artmosphere Bistro

Doors: 9 p.m.

Admission: $10

It's time to tease thy hair and get yo'self closer to God...this Friday with Sabra & The Get Rights and the Wasted Lives at Artmosphere. Cover is $10.

BOOM! BOOM! BURLESQUE PRESENTS TRES CLASSIQUE!

Friday, March 31

Poets

Doors: 10 p.m.

Admission: $10

Boom Boom Burlesque is proud to present "Tres Classique" a show inspired by the glitz and glamour of 1940s and 1950s era burlesque!

DURWOOD + REECE SULLIVAN + JIM & MANDY

Friday, March 31

Steam Press Cafe

Doors: 10 p.m.

Durwood will be playing with Reece Sullivan: Jim and Mandy at the Steam Press on Friday March 31st. Show starts at 10pm.

FRAMING OJ

Friday, March 31

The Grouse Room

Doors: 10 p.m.

Framing OJ from Lafayette, Louisiana, is a powerhouse four piece band that plays alternative and hard rock music from your favorite artists from the 90's to today.

MIA BORDERS & RAY BOUDREAUX

Friday, March 31

Blue Moon Saloon

Doors: 10 p.m.

The Blue Moon Saloon welcomes Mia Borders at 10 p.m. with Ray Boudreaux to follow this Friday.

MANGATA

Friday, March 31

The Greenroom

Doors: 10 p.m.

Admission: Free

Mangata is a local Lafayette Female-fronted progessive indie rock band with jazz influences. Come check them out for a great, free show!

DWIGHT J. ROY + SWAMP BREW EP RELEASE

Saturday, April 1

Artmosphere Bistro

Doors: 9 p.m.

Admission: $10

Artmosphere welcomes Dwight Roy and Swamp Brew for their dual EP rerelease this Saturday. Cover is $10.

FOOL'S FEST BIG 102.1 - SIDESHOW

Saturday, April 1

The Grouse Room

Doors: 9 p.m.

Enter to win tickets to 102.1 Fool's Fest for a show starting at 6:30 p.m., and if you don't get that opportunity, there will be a second show beginning at 10 p.m. where guests can pay the cover at the door.

HALL OF FAME SHOW: PEARL JAM + 2PAC

Saturday, April 1

Blue Moon Saloon

Doors: 9 p.m.

Sour Sedans & friends pay tribute to 2017 Rock N Roll Hall of Fame inductees Pearl Jam and 2pac.

OFFICIAL ACADIANA PO-BOY FESTIVAL AFTER-PARTY

Saturday, April 1

The Wurst Biergarten

Doors: 6 p.m.

Join the Wurst Biergarten after the Acadiana Po-boy Festival for an after party featuring Ray Boudreaux. Come dance all those po-boys off in the Wurst Artmarket. DJ set by DJ Moon. Show begins promptly after the festival so walk right on through the parking garage to keep the party going at The Wurst.

STOP THE CLOCK COWBOY JAZZ BAND

Sunday, April 2

Feed & Seed

Doors: 6 p.m.

Stop the Clock Cowboy Jazz band plays classic Western Swing tunes from Bob Wills, Cindy Walker, Spade Cooley, Fats Waller, Hank Thompson, Ray Price, and Patsy Cline, among others.
Gov. John Bel Edwards unveiled a tax overhaul package that targets big companies and seems certain to put him at odds with the business lobbying organizations hes battled during prior tax debates.

A new tax and budget debate may be starting in the Louisiana Legislature, but the dividing lines remain the same.

Gov. John Bel Edwards unveiled a tax overhaul package that targets big companies and seems certain to put him at odds with the business lobbying organizations hes battled during prior tax and other debates.

As part of the plan, the Democratic governor aims to raise more money for state government expenses, a position that is amplifying his strained relationship with many Republican lawmakers, particularly GOP House leaders.

While Edwards is talking about needing more dollars to pay for the TOPS college tuition program, road work, child protective services and K-12 education, Republican lawmakers are talking about needing to pare back spending.

The disconnects couldnt seem wider ahead of the legislative session that begins next week.

That raises questions about whether Edwards and lawmakers will bridge the gaps, find a way to stabilize state finances and end nearly a decade of budget chaos - or whether the session will bring continued gridlock and little change.

Optimism seems in short supply.

I have never seen Louisiana in the partisan situation that it faces right now. We have devolved into a mini-Washington unfortunately, Commissioner of Administration Jay Dardenne, a Republican who works as Edwards chief budget architect, said Thursday.

Edwards is pushing tax changes he says would lower the tax bills of 90 percent of personal income taxpayers by shifting more tax burden to business.

To help replace $1.3 billion in temporary, mainly sales taxes set to expire in mid-2018 while also raising more money, Edwards wants to levy a new tax on gross receipts. Its estimated to raise up to $900 million annually from businesses.

The 0.35 percent tax on sales would be charged on businesses with more than $1.5 million in gross receipts annually, which the Edwards administration estimates is 6 percent of Louisianas companies. Other businesses would be assessed a flat tax from $250 to $750.

Edwards says of 149,000 corporate income tax filers in Louisiana, more than 129,000 didnt pay state income taxes in 2015.

What this approach is designed to do is make sure that those entities pay something, their fair share. Otherwise, it is inevitable that the individual taxpayer, middle class and below, are paying more than their fair share  and in many cases, paying more than some of the largest, most profitable businesses in the state, he said.

Critics say the tax harms companies working on tight margins by not accounting for profit or expenses. They say it can have a pyramiding effect, applying to every transaction in a production chain.

Business is paying more than its fair share of taxes today. To allege otherwise is absolutely false, Jim Patterson, tax council director for the Louisiana Association of Business and Industry, said in a statement.

He said businesses pay the majority of property taxes, individual and corporate income taxes, half of all sales taxes in Louisiana and other taxes.

Louisiana Chemical Association President Greg Bowser and Louisiana Mid-Continent Oil and Gas Association President Chris John issued a joint statement expressing concern.

Louisiana is currently in a recession, and we now have the third-highest unemployment rate in the country. History suggests that increasing taxes during a recession often leads to greater unemployment and job losses, they said.

Meanwhile, many Republican lawmakers resist the idea of changing Louisianas tax structure to bring in more dollars for government. Several House Appropriations Committee members said theyre interested in steeper cuts to the $29 billion operating budget proposal for the upcoming fiscal year.

Rep. Blake Miguez, R-Erath, said he cant support tax hikes when workers in his district are struggling with the oil and gas industry decline and job losses. State government must do like households and live within your means, Miguez said repeatedly.

Other committee members, including Chairman Cameron Henry, R-Metairie, support spending only 98 percent of Louisianas income forecast, to hedge against overly optimistic estimates that could cause midyear cuts.

As lawmakers talked about deeper spending reductions, however, they spoke in generalities, not offering specific cut ideas, a point noted by the governors office.

The legislative session may only last two months, but those months are shaping up to be contentious.
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The James A. FitzPatrick Nuclear Power Plant in Scriba, Oswego County, is under new ownership.

Exelon has officially acquired the plant after completing a $110 million transaction with Entergy, FitzPatrick's former operator. Both companies announced Friday that the sale has been finalized.

"We look forward to bringing FitzPatrick's highly skilled team of professionals into the Exelon Generation nuclear program, and to continue delivering to New York the environmental, economic and grid reliability benefits of this important energy asset," Exelon President and CEO Chris Crane said.

With the sale's completion, Exelon has named Joseph Pacher as FitzPatrick's new site vice president. Pacher, who held the same position at R.E. Ginna Nuclear Power Plant in Wayne County, will oversee operations at the facility.

Pacher succeeds Brian Sullivan, FitzPatrick's former site vice president who was retained by Entergy.

Exelon's acquisition ensures that FitzPatrick will remain operational and continue to employ approximately 600 people.

The plant's outlook wasn't as positive nearly two years ago. After months of speculation in 2015, Entergy announced plans to close the plant. The company scheduled January 2017 as the closing date for the facility.

As Entergy advanced its plan to close the plant, negotiations with federal, state and local officials continued. The state Public Service Commission then adopted the Clean Energy Standard, which would support New York's nuclear power plants with up to $8 billion in subsidies paid for by utility ratepayers.

Following the Public Service Commission's action, Exelon announced its intent in August 2016 to acquire FitzPatrick from Entergy for $110 million.

The plant's sale was approved by state regulators in November. Two federal agencies  the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission  also signed off on the transaction.

U.S. Rep. John Katko, who was involved in discussions about the future of FitzPatrick, said he's thrilled the sale of the plant to Exelon has been completed.

"Throughout this process, I've worked with the companies, local and state leaders and the hardworking men and women employed at FitzPatrick to ensure a smooth transition," Katko, R-Camillus, said. "The nuclear industry remains a critical economic driver here in central New York, and I will continue to be a steadfast champion for this clean, dependable source of power."
ISP said in a Friday news release that its investigation found that Henshaw died as a result of a cervical spine fracture from an accidental fall down the steps in his residence. ISP said it does not believe any foul play was involved in Henshaw's sudden death at 72.
A man and woman from Anna have been sentenced for their roles in a December 2016 home invasion and robbery in Jonesboro.

Union County State's Attorney Tyler Edmonds said in a Friday news release that Brooke T. Stanton, 21, and Devin James Salyers, 21, both of Anna, pleaded guilty to their roles in the incident.

Stanton was sentenced to 14 years in prison and three years of mandatory supervised release, and Salyers was sentenced to 10 years in prison and three years of supervised release after they both pleaded guilty to one count each of home invasion, a Class X felony.

A third person, a juvenile, remains in detention and is charged with home invasion and armed robbery, Edmonds said.

The case was investigated by Jonesboro Police Department, Union County Sheriff's Office and Illinois State Police.

Two Rivers Child Advocacy Center in Anna facilitated an interview of a minor victim in the incident.

 The Southern
On Thursday March 30, Southeastern Illinois College held a ribbon cutting for the memorial and fountain built on campus honoring the victims of the 2012 Leap Day Tornado.

During the event, many representatives of SIC spoke, including Dr. Jonah Rice, SIC President;

David Port, SIC Foundation Board Chair; Brenna Butler, former SIC Student Government President and Dr. Pat York, SIC Board of Trustees Chair.

Port spoke of the collaboration with SIC, the Foundation and Student Government and how the combined effort turned an idea into a reality.

Working together is something we take great pride in doing here at Southeastern, said Port. SICs Student Government had a vision to honor those who suffered during the tornado, and to improve the fountain and student center. Alone, this seemed like just a dream, but in cooperation with SIC and the Foundation, we are now seeing this vision to fruition.

This event was the culmination of the fundraising campaign, Building for Tomorrow led by SICs Student Government in 2016.

Since 2012, it has been Student Governments desire to have a permanent memorial on campus to honor those who lost their lives on that devastating February morning, said Butler. We are proud to see this project completed in honor of those we love.

The memorial includes the saying Those we love dont go away, the walk beside us every day, unseen, unheard, but always near, still loved, still missed and very dear. The existing fountain was resurfaced and given a fresh, new look, including a bubbling fountain out of a large stone reminiscent of those found in the Shawnee National Forest.

The memorial project began on February 24, 2016 with a kickoff ceremony, and bricks were sold from then through the end of May 2016. Over $22,000 was raised by selling 220 engraved bricks to complete the memorial and fountain. Additional funds raised will now go to support student services and scholarships through the SIC Foundation.

Engravings were purchased in an individuals name or the name of a friend or family member; in celebration of a graduation, in honor of a soldier or veteran, and in memory of loved ones. Bricks were also used to honor campus clubs and organizations, commemorate retirees and employees and to leave legacies for families on the college grounds for future generations. Businesses, firms and organizations also participated.
SPRINGFIELD  A long-debated plan to wrest the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum free of what critics call a stifling bureaucracy occurred Friday when Gov. Bruce Rauner signed an executive order creating a separate state agency for the once-vaunted showplace.

It began as Democratic House Speaker Michael Madigan's idea to bolster the facility's impact and update tourist-worn exhibits three years ago, then became a subject of bogged-down negotiations between Madigan and a newly inaugurated Rauner a year later. It culminated with a stroke of the executive pen in a rare if unintended moment of agreement between the feuding political powers.

"We have made government transformation a priority in order to deliver the best services to taxpayers at the best value," Rauner said in a statement. "We owe it to our citizens to be good stewards of the state's resources, and these changes will deliver on that promise."

The order dissolves the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency, which had oversight of the library and museum. The Department of Natural Resources will absorb its remaining functions. It's expected to save $3.2 million a year  40 percent less than the estimated savings when Rauner promoted the plan just two years ago.

In a separate order signed Friday, Rauner combined the Human Rights Commission with the Illinois Department of Human Rights, promising that it will speed up resolution of discrimination complaints.

The $115 million library and museum, financed heavily with federal earmarks and christened in 2005 by then-President George W. Bush, was lauded as a crowning tribute to Illinois' adopted son, Lincoln, the 16th president. It drew its 4 millionth visitor in February.

But the state's constant budget struggles, even predating the current two-year stalemate on an annual spending plan largely viewed as a Rauner-Madigan showdown, has left its exhibits unchanged and some of its technological wizardry dated although the trove of Lincoln documents it holds lures researchers worldwide.

Critics such as Madigan have blamed shortcomings on red tape produced by the Historic Preservation Agency, administrator of 29 other historic sites and numerous memorials that drew 1.6 million visitors in 2016. If the library and museum stood alone, they say, it would be able to move more quickly in hiring experts and act with the necessary rapidity to snare historic collections up for sale.

"The museum is a great asset to the state of Illinois and is kind of buried as a division within an agency," Madigan spokesman Steve Brown said Friday. "It will flourish as a stand-alone agency."

The extrication has also been sold as a money saver during the nation's longest budget standoff since World War II. Government continues to operate because of court orders and patchwork appropriations. State records indicate the Historic Preservation Agency budget to be roughly $22 million, with about $12 million dedicated to the Lincoln library and museum.

When Rauner proposed in 2015 that the Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity's tourism division take over the remaining historic preservation functions, his office estimated an annual savings of $5.7 million. A year later, Rauner's proposed budget estimated the transfer to DCEO would save $4.5 million. In the governor's proposed budget for the year that begins July 1, the merger with Natural Resources would save $3.2 million.

Madigan proposed the idea in May 2014. Critics said he was doing a favor for the landlord of his state office in Chicago and the landlord's friend, Eileen Mackevich, then the library and museum director. But Madigan said neither had lobbied him. Mackevich resigned in late 2015.

Madigan, at the dawn of tense budget negotiations with newcomer Rauner in the spring of 2015, resurrected the library and museum separation. Rauner and he discussed a trade: Madigan's separate Lincoln agency for a privatized commerce department for Rauner. But talks broke down and neither happened.

Current Madigan legislation to separate the museum has moved to the House floor. Brown said the speaker's staff has worked with Rauner's on the executive order language. Madigan will continue to push the legislation so the breakup has the force of law.

Rauner spokeswoman Eleni Demertzis downplayed a connection between Rauner's action and Madigan's wishes. She said it is standard practice for a governor to consult legislative leaders before penning executive orders that reorganize government.
iStock/Thinkstock(NEW BRAUNFELS, Texas) -- Most -- if not all -- of the occupants of a bus transporting churchgoers from a retreat in Texas were wearing their seat belts at the time of the crash, according to the NTSB.



While the driver and front-seat passenger were equipped with standard three-point seat belts, the rear passenger seats were equipped with lap-only belts, said NTSB Investigator-in-Charge Jennifer Morrison at a press conference Friday.



Only one passenger on the bus -- 64-year-old Rose Mary Harris -- survived, according to authorities. Both Harris and the driver of a pickup truck that crashed into the crash, 20-year-old Jack Dillon Young, sustained serious injuries, the NTSB said on Friday afternoon.



NTSB investigators are looking to interview both Harris and Young when they are well enough to speak with authorities, Morrison said.



The bus driver and remaining 12 passengers died.



Emergency calls made to the Real County Sheriff's Office and obtained by ABC San Antonio affiliate KSAT reveal that a witness called to report a white Dodge truck, the same model involved in the crash, that was "all over the road."



"Somebody needs to stop this guy," the witness told the dispatcher. "... Somebody needs to get this guy off the road."



The NTSB completed its first full day of investigations of Wednesday's crash today, said Morrison. The NTSB's investigation is focusing on transportation safety and what could have been done to prevent future crashes and fatalities.



Morrison did not discuss the cause of the crash, adding that the on-scene investigation will continue for about a week.



The bus was carrying members of the First Baptist Church in New Braunfels, who were returning home from a three-day retreat at the Alto Frio Baptist Encampment, according to the church.



Young, who was driving a white Dodge Ram pickup truck, veered into the opposite lane of U.S. Route 83 near Concon before he crashed into the bus head-on, authorities said.



Most of the passengers on the bus were in their 80s, according to officials. The youngest victim was 61-year-old Rhonda Barlow Allen, the Department of Public Safety said.

Copyright  2017, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.
To the Editor:

Dear Christian friends, if you voted for the fool in the White House, please have the courage to acknowledge your mistakes (as he never will).

Please do not say, "Oh, bad government is just getting worse"

No, good governance can do great good, and poor governance can do great harm. The current administration (or lack thereof) is poised to do great harm to you, your family, your neighbors, this country and the world. It was not inevitable.

Please do not say, "Oh, this old world will stumble along somehow, and the Lord will make it all right"

No, the Lord may make it all right, but it does not make human error any less grievous and it does not make the suffering and damage done less grievous and it does not excuse the grave error of placing a fool in the White House.

It is the Lenten season and it would be a good time to repent and seek wisdom and compassion.

Then, it would be appropriate to contact your representatives and senators and tell them you are sorry, that you made a mistake and that you do want good governance, a civil society and their service in the public interest.

And then I will be able to thank you for being the Christian leaven in this culture.

Julie Murphy

Cobden
To the Editor:

Rebecca Borgsmiller is a candidate for the John A. Logan College Board of Trustees in the April 4 election. Becky is the only candidate for the John A. Logan College Board of Trustees who is able to hit the ground running.

With over 25 years of leadership experience at John A. Logan College, she understands JALC operations and the Illinois Community College System. Becky will ask the hard questions, research the right answers and will not go along to get along.

Becky also understands and appreciates the values of transparency, collegiality and shared governance that are important for the future success of John A. Logan College.

Rebecca Borgsmiller is ready to serve as your Trustee for John A. Logan College and to represent all the people of Community College District 530.

Mike Bitting

Carbondale
ALBANY  Disagreement over proposals to try 16- and 17-year-old offenders in family court tied up state budget negotiations Friday and dashed the prospects for an on-time budget ahead of a key Saturday deadline.

Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie and his fellow Democrats have long wanted to raise the age of criminal responsibility so 16- and 17-year-old offenders are prosecuted in family court. As an alternative, Republicans in the state Senate have proposed creating a new youth court within the adult justice system for violent or felony offenders.

The ongoing dispute will delay any budget vote into Saturday at the earliest. State leaders had hoped to approve a budget before Saturday, when a new fiscal year begins. Senate Republicans left Albany on Friday evening, though they said they planned to return when a budget deal is reached.

More lawmakers began discussing the option of removing the raise-the-age proposal entirely so a budget could be adopted quickly.

"I don't know that there's any progress on raise the age," said Sen. Patrick Gallivan, R-Erie County, chairman of the Senate committee on corrections and crime. "If for some reason it's not in the budget, the discussions will continue."

Removing it from the budget would represent a major defeat for Heastie and Democrats who say the age of criminal responsibility is a civil rights issue.

A late budget, however, would be a disappointment to Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who had a string of on-time budgets early in his tenure and has criticized the late budgets of the past as a symptom of political dysfunction.

Other top issues in this year's budget debate include greater tuition assistance for students, proposals to allow Uber and Lyft to expand upstate, and investments in the state's aging water systems.

Cuomo introduced his $152 billion budget proposal in January. It keeps the status quo when it comes to taxes, adds $1 billion in new public education spending, includes expanded childcare tax credits and a new initiative making state college tuition free for students from families making $125,000 or less.

The governor has not discussed the budget publicly since Tuesday, when he said "more than conceptual" deals had been reached on the budget's major issues  a claim later contradicted by events.

While raise the age remained the most significant outstanding issue Friday, the details of other budget items were still being negotiated in closed-door horse-trading sessions.

"It's just whack-a-mole," said Sen. John DeFrancisco, R-Syracuse. Then he muttered, "I don't like whack-a-mole."
HUNTSVILLE, Ala.  A top administrator at Alabama A&M University is resigning in a plea deal with prosecutors. He is a former South Carolina State University official.

Court documents show that A&M's chief operating officer, Kevin Rolle, submitted his resignation as part of a plea agreement on Thursday.

Rolle pleaded guilty to forgery less than a week before he was scheduled to go on trial on two felony charges.

Rolle was indicted in 2015 with prosecutors claiming he wrongly collected about $6,500 in moving expenses when he relocated to Alabama from South Carolina to work at Alabama A&M in 2009.

He has since repaid the university but was still charged with crimes.

Rolle pleaded guilty to possession of a forged instrument, a misdemeanor. He will serve a year in the Madison County Jail under the plea deal. He may argue for a suspended sentence, according to AL.com.

Rolle previously served as vice president of student services at South Carolina State.

He has been on administrative leave since he was indicted in October 2015, collecting more than $260,000 in salary, according to AL.com.

Dr. Andrew Hugine is the president of Alabama A&M. He was president of S.C. State during much of Rolles time there.
A truck hauling peanut butter split in half just before noon Thursday at the intersection of John C. Calhoun Drive and Stonewall Jackson Boulevard, Orangeburg Department of Public Safety Lt. J. Fisher said. Upon arrival, we found the trailer compartment split in half, Fisher said. Fisher said the split may be due to a structural defect in the trailer. The driver of the truck wasnt injured. The State Transport Police also responded to the scene.
Revitalization of U.S. infrastructure hinges on something obvious but rarely discussed, even among policymakers weighing historic plans to rebuild the nations highways, bridges and waterways.

That stealth factor is U.S.-made cement. Because of the wide use of concrete in infrastructure down through the ages  from the Pantheon in Rome to the skyscrapers of New York to the ribbons of highway traversing the nation  cement, the essential component of concrete, has become the secret and often overlooked ingredient to civilizations success.

President Donald Trump has consistently highlighted the critical need for new infrastructure. Crumbling infrastructure will be replaced with new roads, bridges, tunnels, airports and railways, gleaming across our very, very beautiful land, he said in his first address to Congress.

But infrastructure revitalization simply will not happen without sufficient quantities of U.S. cement. As a centerpiece policy proposed by the new administration and talked about in the halls of Congress, federal investments in infrastructure will rely upon it.

A new examination of U.S. cement manufacturing has concluded that the country has sufficient capacity to produce the most advanced and modern cement needed for what the administration and Congress hope will be a sweeping program that revitalizes the nations infrastructure.

The report by the nations major cement manufacturers takes into account a plethora of infrastructure projects discussed in Washington  including those aimed at restoring the nations highways, waterways, pipelines, runways and even a potential border wall with Mexico.

The U.S. cement industry has more than enough supply potential to feed even the most optimistic infrastructure spending program, said the analysis by the organization I represent. The U.S. cement industrys capacity utilization rate is improving but remains well below its potential maximum level.

Constructing a wall along the border with Mexico would hardly put a dent in U.S. cement capacity. Total cement consumption attributed to the construction of a wall would represent only a fraction of total U.S. cement consumption, the report found. And along the Border States, cement manufacturing capacity rates are low and may offer significant opportunity to supply wall material requirements.

The analysis puts a firm stake in the ground for the industry that quite literally will underpin much, if not all, of the major infrastructure projects under consideration. And it also highlights the importance of an industry that often flies under the radar.

Today, the U.S. cement industry is operating at roughly 79 percent of full production capacity, which is estimated at 108 million metric tons per year. U.S. cement manufacturers are adding even more production capacity each year: 1.3 million metric tons in 2016 alone, and an additional 1.6 million metric tons planned by 2018. Adding in its import-export capacity, the U.S. cement industry can supply more than 150 million metric tons of cement each year to the U.S. market.

The U.S. cement industry has an extensive presence across the country, with more than 90 manufacturing plants in 32 states, distribution facilities in every state, and annual shipments valued at $9 billion.

In terms of specific infrastructure priorities, Americas cement producers believe they can help expand oil, gas and other pipeline development to supply low-cost domestic energy, boost the economy and provide jobs, while conserving natural resources. Cement makers also back new coastal infrastructure to protect against natural disasters. And, of course, we need to rebuild our roads and bridges.

American Society of Civil Engineers recently gave U.S. infrastructure a near-failing grade of D+. U.S. cement companies are eager to reverse this decline. They have made major investments to increase capacity, productivity and energy efficiency. Those investments and innovations will pay off as the nations cement manufacturers are called upon to support the infrastructure revival America so desperately needs.
ALBANY  Compromise proved elusive Thursday as New York lawmakers and Gov. Andrew Cuomo worked to hammer out budget deals on ride-hailing, juvenile justice reforms and college tuition assistance ahead of a key deadline.

They had hoped to pass the state's new spending plan before Saturday, but that's looking unlikely thanks to the slow pace of closed-door negotiations.

"Everything is really still outstanding  close  but still outstanding," said Senate Leader John Flanagan, R-Long Island.

Here's where top budget issues stand as lawmakers race the clock:

RAISE THE AGE

New York is one of only two states to automatically prosecute 16- and 17-year-olds in adult criminal courts, a system youth advocates say eschews rehabilitation and sets children up to be lifelong criminals.

Cuomo and legislative leaders have agreed most of the age group should be moved out of the adult system. Top leaders have floated the idea of sending felony offenders to "youth courts," where lawyers could recommend whether the case should be tried in family or criminal courts.

Republicans and Democrats are stalled in arguments about which crimes would qualify for these courts how much say the district attorneys and judges would have.

RIDE HAILING

App-based ride-hailing services like Uber and Lyft have pushed for years for state regulations allowing them to move into cities such as Rochester, Buffalo, Albany and Syracuse but remain limited to the New York City area. The Senate and Cuomo, a Democrat, support the companies' expansion, but a proposal in the Assembly would subject ride-hailing to local regulation too.

One possible compromise would allow large cities to voluntarily prohibit ride-hailing.

Uber spokeswoman Alix Anfang said the company is "hopeful that lawmakers will soon reach a compromise to ensure that New Yorkers will gain access to affordable, reliable transportation options."

WATER

New York has some of the oldest and leakiest pipes in the nation, and contamination from old industrial sites continues to threaten water quality.

In response, the Senate proposed $8 billion for water quality protection and upgrades to drinking water and sewer systems around the state. The Assembly and Cuomo have suggested $2 billion. Deals floating around the Capitol on Thursday would put the agreed-upon number closer to the Assembly-Cuomo figure.

"Close, but nothing final," said Sen. Jeff Klein, D-Bronx, when asked about water funding.

SCHOOLS

Both chambers also want to increase investments in public schools. The Assembly proposes $26.5 billion in overall school funding, a $1.8 billion increase, compared with a $1.2 billion increase in the Senate version. Both houses would maintain the state's formula that determines how much money schools receive, but would not fulfill those calculated amounts in their entirety.

"I'm for full funding," said Glenville Republican Sen. Jim Tedisco. "I think it's that important. But there's only so much money and only so much agreement we can get."

Tedisco said the Senate and Assembly also are squabbling over the amount of that funding that would go to tuition payments for privately run charter schools.
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Friday, March 31, 2017 at 10:21AM

Infinite Possibility

The short correspondence of Ludwig Wittgenstein retains a certain zest. Ludwig was most certainly gay, most definitely eccentric, and intellectually demanding beyond all measure. His time at Cambridge brought security and stability to his career; he was often treated with kid gloves by an understanding administration. He was left to his own devices, and in his letters with luminaries like Bertrand Russell, John Maynard Keynes and George Edward Moore, he hints at the machinations involved in the greatest philosophical mind of his century.

6/22/12

Dear Bertrand Russell,

There are yet some nice events happening in ones life e.g. getting a letter from you (thanks very much for it). Much less nice is the following event: I had a discussion with Myers about the relations between Logic and Psychology. I was very candid and I am sure he thinks that I am the most arrogant devil who ever lived.

Poor Mrs Myers who was also present got, I think, quite wild about me. However, I think he was a bit less confused after the discussion than before. Whenever I have time I now read Jamess Varieties of religious experience. This book does me a lot of good. I dont mean to say that I will be a saint soon, but I am not sure that it does not improve me a little in a way in which I would like to improve very much: namely I think that it helps me to get rid of the Sorge (in the sense in which Goethe used the word in the 2nd part of Faust).

Logic is still in the melting-pot but one thing gets more and more obvious to me: The propositions of Logic contain ONLY APPARENT variables and whatever may turn out to be the proper explanation of apparent variables, its consequence must be that there are NO logical constants.

Logic must turn out to be of a totally different kind than any other science.

The piece of poetry which you sent me is most splendid! Do come to Cambridge soon.

Yours most, etc.

Ludwig Wittgenstein

8/16/12

Dear Bertrand Russell,

Thanks for your letter. I am glad you read the lives of Mozart and Beethoven. These are the actual sons of God.

Now as to p v q, etc.: I have thought that possibility  namely that all our troubles could be overcome by assuming different sorts of Relations of signs to things  over and over and over again! for the last 8 weeks!!!

But I have come to the conclusion that this assumption does not help us a bit. In fact if you work out any such theory  I believe you will see that it does not even touch our problem. I have lately seen a new way out (or perhaps not out) of the difficulty. It is too long to be explained here, but I tell you so much that it is based on new forms of propositions.

All this however seems to me not half as important as the fact (if it is one) that the whole problem has become very much clearer to me now than it has ever been before. I wish you were here and I could tell you the whole matter for I cannot write it down; it is much too long!

Do write again soon!

Yours most, etc.

Ludwig Wittgenstein

I feel like mad.

11/29/12

From the Minutes of the Moral Science Club

Mr Wittgenstein read a paper entitled What is Philosophy? The paper lasted only about 4 minutes thus cutting the previous record established by Mr Tye by nearly two minutes.

Philosophy was defined as all those primitive propositions which are assumed as true without proof by the various sciences. This definition was much discussed but there was no general disposition to accept it.

At an earlier meeting that term the Club had adopted the following rule: The whole object of papers read shall be, as a general rule, to open a discussion, and therefore no paper shall last longer than seven minutes, except by special permission of the Chairman on a special occasion.

12/26/12

Dear Bertrand Russell,

On arriving here I found my father very ill. There is no hope that he may recover.

These circumstances have  I am afraid  rather lamed my thoughts and I am muddled although I struggle against it. I had a long discussion with Frege about our Theory of Symbolism of which, I think, he roughly understood the general outline. He said he would think the matter over. The complex problem is now clearer to me and I hope very much that I may solve it. I wish I knew how you are and what sort of time you are having, and all about you!

Yours ever most, etc.

Ludwig Wittgenstein

1/12/13

Dear Bertrand Russell,

My dear father died yesterday in the afternoon. He had the most beautiful death that I can imagine; without the slightest pains and falling asleep like a child! I did not feel sad for a single moment during all the last hours, but most joyful and I think that this death was worth a whole life.

I will leave Vienna on Saturday the 25th and will be in Cambridge either on Sunday night or Monday morning. I long very much to see you again.

Yours ever

Ludwig Wittgenstein





3/25/13

Dear Russell,

I cant refrain from writing to you, although I have nothing to tell you. I am as perfectly sterile as I never was, and I doubt whether I shall ever again get ideas. Whenever I try to think about Logic, my thoughts are so vague that nothing ever can crystallize out. What I feel is the curse of all those who have only half a talent; it is like a man who leads you along a dark corridor with a light and just when you are in the middle of it the light goes out and you are left alone.

I suppose you are staying with the Whiteheads at present and hope you are having a good time. If once you have nothing better to do, do send me a line letting me know how you are, etc., etc.

L. Wittgenstein

Russell wrote to the lady Ottoline Morrell about his encounter with Wittgenstein:

I have much to tell you that is of interest. I leave here today, after a fortnights stay, during a week of which Wittgenstein was here, and we discussed his book every day. I came to think even better of it than I had done; I feel sure it is a really great book, though I do not feel sure it is right.

I told him I could not refute it, and that I was sure it was either all right or all wrong, which I considered the mark of a good book; but it would take me years to decide this. This of course didnt satisfy him, but I couldnt say more.

I had felt in his book a flavour of mysticism, but was astonished when I found that he has become a complete mystic. He reads people like Kierkegaard and Angelus Silesius, and he seriously contemplates becoming a monk. It all started from William James Varieties of Religious Experience, and grew (not unnaturally) during the winter he spent alone in Norway before the war, when he was nearly mad.

Then during the war a curious thing happened. He went on duty to the town of Tarnov in Galicia, and happened to come upon a bookshop which however seemed to contain nothing but picture poscards. However, he went inside and found that it contained just one book: Tolstoy on The Gospels. He bought it merely because there was no other. He read it and re-read it, and thenceforth had it always with him, under fire and at all times. But on the whole he likes Tolstoy less than Dostoevski (especially Karamazov). He has penetrated deep into mystical ways of thought and feeling, but I think (though he wouldnt agree) that what he likes best in mysticism is its power to make him stop thinking.

I dont much think he will really become a monk  it is an idea, not an intention. His intention is to be a teacher. He gave all his money to his brothers and sisters, because he found earthly possessions a burden. I wish you had seen him.

John Maynard Keynes



7/6/13

Dear J.M. Keynes,

Thanks very much for the trouble you take over my business.  My reason for not seeing you oftener last term was, that I did not wish our intercourse to continue without any sign that you wished to continue it.

Yours sincerely

Ludwig Wittgenstein

Russell teaching at UCLA



9/5/13

Dear Bertrand Russell,

I am sitting here in a little place inside a beautiful fiord and thinking about the beastly theory of types. There are still some very difficult problems (and very fundamental ones too) to be solved and I wont begin to write until I have got some sort of a solution for them. However I dont think that will in any way affect the Bipolarity business which still seems to me to be absolutely untangible. Pinsent is an enormous comfort to me here. We have hired a little sailing boat and go about with it on the fiord, or rather Pinsent is doing all the sailing and I sit in the boat and work. Shall I get anything out??! It would be awful if I did not and all my work would be lost.

However I am not losing courage and go on thinking. Pray for me! If you see the Whiteheads please remember me to them. My address for the next 3 weeks shall be: Hotel Oistensjo, Oistensjo, Norway.

If youve nothing better to do, do write to me how you are, etc. I very often now have the indescribable feeling as though my work was all sure to be lost entirely in some way or other. But I still hope that this wont come true.

Whatever happens dont forget me! Yours ever most, etc.

L.W.

with Georg von Wright

9/20/13

Dear Bertrand Russell,

Types are not yet solved but I have had all sorts of ideas which seem to me very fundamental. Now the feeling that I shall have to die before being able to publish them is growing stronger and stronger in me every day and my greatest wish would therefore be to communicate everything I have done so far to you, as soon as possible. Dont think that I believe that my ideas are very important but I cannot help feeling that they might help people to avoid some errors. Or am I mistaken? If so dont take any notice of this letter.

I have of course no judgment at all as to whether my ideas are worth preserving after my death or not. And perhaps it is ridiculous of me even to consider this question at all. But if this is ridiculous please try to excuse this foolishness of mine because it is not a superficial foolishness but the deepest of which I am capable. I see that the further I get on with this letter the less I dare to come to my Point.

But my point is this: I want to ask you to let me meet you as soon as possible and give me time enough to give you a survey of the whole field of what I have done up to now and if possible to let me make notes for you in your presence. I shall arrive in London on the 1st of Oct and shall have to be in London again on Oct 3rd (evening). Otherwise I am not fixed in any way and can meet you wherever you like. My address will be the Grand Hotel.

I know that it may be both arrogant and silly to ask you what I have asked you. But such I am and think of me what you like.

I will always be yours

L.W.

3/5/14

Dear George Edward Moore,

Only a few lines because Im just now in the right mood.

First of all: write soon when exactly youre going to come to Bergen.

Secondly: come soon.

Thirdly: Ive got out lots of new logical stuff. (I dont dare to say more.)

Fourthly: If you see Johnson please give him my kindest regards.

Fifthly: if you see Muscio please tell him that hes a beast (hell know why).

Sixthly: once more  come soon. Thats all. Yours, etc., etc.

L.W.

Russell hitting the UCLA campus



2/9/19

Dear Bertrand Russell,

I dont know your precise address but hope these lines will reach you somehow. I am prisoner in Italy since November and hope I may communicate with you after a three years interruption. I have done lots of logical work which I am dying to let you know before publishing it.

Ever yours

Ludwig Wittgenstein

3/10/19

Dear Bertrand Russell,

You cant imagine how glad I was to get your cards! I am afraid though there is no hope that we may meet before long. Unless you came to see me here, but this would be too much joy for me. I cant write on Logic as Im not allowed to write more than 2 cards (15 lines each) a week. Ive written a book which will be published as soon as I get home. I think I have solved our problems finally. Write to me often.

It will shorten my prison. God bless you.

Ever yours

Wittgenstein





3/19/20

Dear Russell,

It is a very long time since you heard from me. How are things with the introduction? Is it finished yet? And how is your collarbone? How did you manage to break it?

How much Id like to see you again! Im no longer in any condition to acquire new friends and Im losing my old ones. Its terribly sad. Nearly every day I remember poor David Pinsent. Because, however odd it sounds, Im too stupid for nearly everybody.

Do write to me soon and also send your introduction.

Yours sadly,

Ludwig Wittgenstein

8/13/19

Dear Wittgenstein,

I have now read your book twice carefully. There are still points I dont understand, some of them important ones. I send you some queries on separate sheets. I am convinced you are right in your main contention, that logical props are tautologies, which are not true in the sense that substantial props are true. I do not understand why you are content with a purely ordinal theory of number, nor why you use for the purpose an ancestral relation, when you object to ancestral relations.

This part of your work I want further explained. Also you do not state your reasons against classes. I am sure you are right in thinking the book of first-class importance. But in places it is obscure through brevity. I have a most intense desire to see you, to talk it over, as well as simply because I want to see you. But I cant get abroad as yet.

Probably you will be free to come to England before I am free to go abroad. I will send back your MS when I know where to send it, but I am hoping you will soon be at liberty.

All best wishes. Do write again soon.

Yours ever,

B. Russell

Haus Wittgenstein



5/6/20

Dear Russell,

Many thanks indeed for your kind letter. But now youll be angry with me when I tell you something: Your Introduction is not going to be printed and as a consequence my book probably wont be either.  You see, when I actually saw the German translation of the Introduction, I couldnt bring myself to let it be printed with my work. All the refinement of your English style was, obviously, lost in the translation and what remained was superficiality and misunderstanding.

Well, I sent the treatise with your Introduction to Reclam and wrote saying that I didnt want the Introduction printed, it was meant to serve only for his own orientation in relation to my work. It is now highly probable that as a result Reclam wont accept my work (though Ive had no answer from him yet). But Ive already comforted myself on that score, by means of the following argument, which seems to me unanswerable. Either my piece is a work of the highest rank, or it is not a work of the highest rank. In the latter (and more probable) case I myself am in favour of its not being printed.

And in the former case its a matter of indifference whether its printed twenty or a hundred years sooner or later. After all, who asks whether the Critique of Pure Reason, for example, was written in 17x or y. So really in the former case too my treatise wouldnt need to be printed. And now, dont be angry! Perhaps it was ungrateful of me but I couldnt do anything else.

Warmest regards from your devoted friend

Ludwig Wittgenstein

It would be marvelous if you could come to Vienna in the summer.

Russell in office hours



9/20/20

Dear Bertand Russell,

Thank you for your kind letter. I have now obtained a position: I am to be an elementary-school teacher in a tiny village called Trattenbach. Its in the mountains, about four hours journey south of Vienna. It must be the first time that the schoolmaster at Trattenbach has ever corresponded with a professor in Peking. How are you? And what are you lecturing on? Philosophy? If so, I wish I could attend and could argue with you afterwards. A short while ago I was terribly depressed and tired of living, but now I am slightly more hopeful, and one of the things I hope is that well meet again.

God be with you!

Warmest regards from

Your devoted friend

Ludwig Wittgenstein

From Bertrand Russell

to the Council of Trinity College 5/8/30

Owing to illness I have been prevented from studying Wittgensteins recent work as thoroughly as I had intended to do. I spent five days in discussion with him, while he explained his ideas, and he left with me a bulky typescript, Philosophische Bemerkungen, of which I have read about a third. The typescript, which consists merely of rough notes, would have been very difficult to understand without the help of the conversations. As it is, however, I believe that the following represents at least a part of the ideas which are new since the time of his Tractatus: According to Wittgenstein, when anything is the case there are certain other things that might have been the case in regard, so to speak, to that particular region of fact.

Suppose, for example, a certain patch of wall is blue; it might have been red, or green, or so. To say it is any of these colours is false, but not meaningless. On the other hand, to say that it is loud, or shrill, or to apply to it any other adjective appropriate to sound would be to talk nonsense. There is thus a collection of possibilities of a certain kind which is concerned in any fact. Such a collection of possibilities Wittgenstein calls a space. Thus there is a space of colours and a space of sounds. There are various relations among colours which constitute the geometry of that space. All this is, in one sense, independent of experience: that is to say, we need the kind of experience through which we know what green is, but not the kind through which we know that a certain patch of wall is green. Wittgenstein uses the word grammar to cover what corresponds in language to the existence of these various spaces. Wherever a word denoting a region in a certain space occurs, the word denoting another region in that space can be substituted without producing nonsense, but a word denoting any region belonging to any other space cannot be substituted without bad grammar, i.e. nonsense.

A considerable part of Wittgensteins work is concerned with the interpretation of mathematics. He considers it false to say that mathematics is logic or consists of tautologies. He discusses infinity at considerable lengths and links it with the conception of possibility that he has developed in connection with his various spaces. He believes in infinite possibility, as he calls it, but not in actual infinite classes or infinite series. What he says about infinity tends, obviously against his will, to have a certain resemblance to what has been said by Brouwer. I think perhaps the resemblance is not so close as it appears at first sight. There is much discussion of mathematical induction.

The theories contained in this new work of Wittgensteins are novel, very original, and indubitably important. Whether they are true, I dont know. As a logician who likes simplicity, I should wish to think that they are not, but from what I have read of them I am quite sure that he ought to have an opportunity to work them out, since when completed they may easily prove to constitute a whole new philosophy.

Bertrand Russell

Wittgenstein's sketch of his house



2/18/31

Dear Piero Sraffa,

I am expecting you in my room on Friday about 7.45 as our Hall begins at 8.

Yours

Ludwig Wittgenstein

I want to talk with you about vivisection. I think it is closely related to the things we are talking about.

6/13/32

My dear W.H. Watson,

Thanks so much for your letter and the cutting. Yes, I believe Einstein is just a bloody journalist  I was glad to hear that youve got a little animal and hope hes doing well. Ive had a very busy term, doing lots of work and seeing pupils. But my work progresses very slowly for its such a huge job and Im not equal to it.

What you wrote about your boss interested me very much, its such a typical thing to happen nowadays to otherwise good and kind people.

I wish I could come over some time and see you and have discussions and conversations with you.

Yours ever

Ludwig Wittgenstein

11/24/32

My dear W.H. Watson,

Thanks so much for your letter and the photo. The boy looks very sweet, I must say. I dont say this to flatter you. Ive been feeling rather rotten for the last 2 or 3 weeks and am always afraid of a kind of mental breakdown. I havent been able to touch my work for about 10 days except today Ive done a little work and perhaps Im beginning to get better. I have however kept on lecturing the whole time.

My classes are middling. Moore still comes to them and there are two mathematicians who are rather good (you dont know them). Ive been to the cinema only about 3 or 4 times this term and once to the "Kinema" (Mill Rd.) to a perfectly rotten war film. Lee, whom I think youll remember sent me the enclosed cutting which by the way I want back for my collection but I want you to see it just to get an idea.

Let me hear from you soon again.

Yours ever

Ludwig Wittgenstein

1/31/34

Dear Piero Sraffa,

I wish to say one more thing: I think that your fault in a discussion is this: you are not helpful! I am like a man inviting you to tea to my room; but my room is hardly furnished, one has to sit on boxes and the teacups stand on the floor and the cups have no handles, etc etc. I hustle about fetching anything I can think of to make it possible that we should have tea together. You stand about with a sulky face; say that you cant sit down on a box, and cannt hold a cup without a handle, and generally make things difficult.  At least thats how it seems to me.

Yours

Ludwig Wittgenstein

From the Minutes of the Moral Science Club

10/25/40

Prof. L. Wittgenstein: Other Minds

The second meeting was held in Mr. T. Moores rooms in Trinity, with Mr. Lewy in the chair. Prof. Wittgenstein read a paper in which he discussed various problems connected with other peoples minds. First he mentioned several of the answers which have been given to the question How do we know of the existence of other peoples minds?, and explained why he considered the analogical argument to be unsatisfactory.

Then he discussed the nature of this question itself; and, among other things, described at some length the sort of circumstances under which he would wish to say that a person did not believe that other people had minds, or did believe that flowers felt.

A discussion followed.

Timothy Moore

From the Minutes of the Moral Science Club

10/25/40

Prof. L. Wittgenstein: Other Minds

The second meeting was held in Mr. T. Moores rooms in Trinity, with Mr. Lewy in the chair. Prof. Wittgenstein read a paper in which he discussed various problems connected with other peoples minds. First he mentioned several of the answers which have been given to the question How do we know of the existence of other peoples minds?, and explained why he considered the analogical argument to be unsatisfactory.

Then he discussed the nature of this question itself; and, among other things, described at some length the sort of circumstances under which he would wish to say that a person did not believe that other people had minds, or did believe that flowers felt.

A discussion followed.
By Azernews





By Amina Nazarli

1918 went into history of Azerbaijan as one of the bloodiest pages. Ninety-nine years ago Armenian nationalists with the support of the Bolsheviks committed genocide of Azerbaijanis in Baku and its environs. Bloody events soon spread out covering the entire territory of Azerbaijan.

Bloody streets full of corpses opened a horrifying scene in the capital Baku... Armenians killed Azerbaijanis in every corner of the city just because they were Azerbaijanis.

Professor Ali Hasanov, Assistant of the Azerbaijani President for Public and Political Affairs, Doctor of Science in History in his book gives information about the settlement of Armenians in the territory of Azerbaijan.

Resettlement of the Armenians to Azerbaijani lands

The policy of ethnic cleansing, genocide and aggression deliberately carried out by Armenian nationalists against Azerbaijani people over the past two centuries represents extremely painful and tragic stages in the history of Azerbaijan, including bloody events.



The main objective of this nationalist and chauvinist policy was to oust the Azerbaijanis from their ancestral lands and to create a fictional state of "Great Armenia" on Azerbaijani territories. Historical facts indicate that the resettlement of numerous Armenians from Iran and Turkey to the mountainous part of Karabakh region of Azerbaijan, which represented tremendous importance in strategic terms, was carried out from the beginning of the 19th century. Over this period, the Imperial Russia, which sought to establish control over the region's vast natural resources, used the "Armenian factor" as a political tool in the war against Turkey and Iran in the late 19th and early 19th century, the historian writes.

A significant increase in the number of the Armenians in the mountainous part of Karabakh took place in the 1920s, especially after the Russian occupation of the South Caucasus. As a result of mass resettlement of the Armenians in the Russian-Iranian war of 1804-1813 and 1826-1828, the Russian-Turkish war of 1828-1829, and then from Iran, Turkey and South Azerbaijan to the South Caucasus, their numbers here started to increase with every year.

A total of 124,000 Armenians were initially resettled to the mountainous part of Karabakh officially, followed by a large number of those resettled unofficially. Overall, more than 200,000 Armenians were resettled to the mountainous part of Karabakh in 1828-1830s.

Armenian genocide against the Azerbaijanis in the early 20th century

The process of resettlement, which was an integral part of the colonial policy of czarist Russia, continued throughout the 19th century and eventually influenced the demographic situation in the region, according to Hasanov.

The artificial increase of the number of Armenians in the region contributed to the fact that starting from the beginning of the 20th century they began to put forward territorial claims and pursue an aggressive policy against Azerbaijan.

In the early 20th century, Armenian nationalists expanded their activities towards the idea of a "Great Armenia" put forward by the Dashnaktsutyun Party, systematically expelled Azerbaijanis from their historical lands and native homes and embarked on a policy of ethnic cleansing and genocide. For example, in 1905-1906 the Armenians committed massacres against Azerbaijani civilians in Baku, Ganja, Karabakh, Erivan, Nakhchivan, Ordubad, Sharur-Daralayaz, Tiflis, Zangezur, Gazakh and other places, perpetrated ruthless massacres against the local population, burned and destroyed cities and villages. Armenian armed forces destroyed more than 200 Azerbaijani villages in Shusha, Zangezur and Jabrayil district, Erivan and Ganja provinces, tens of thousands of our compatriots were expelled from their homes and became refugees and IDPs. After indiscriminately killing more than 200,000 Azerbaijanis (children, women and the elderly), the Armenians carried out ethnic cleansing to create an Armenian state on these territories promised to them by czarist Russia. Thus, the Armenians who also enjoyed the patronage of czarism during World War One, continued to inflict punishment on Azerbaijanis.

After the developments that occurred in Russia in February and October of 1917, the Dashnaktsutyun Party and the Armenian National Congress launched even wider activities.

In early 1918, i.e. on the eve of the March massacre, the number of Armenian armed forces that reported directly to the Shaumyan constituted nearly 20,000 people. With the support of the Bolsheviks, including Lenin, Shaumyan became the leader of the Baku Commune. On 30 March of that year, Armenian-Bolshevik units subjected Baku to volley fire from ships. Then armed Dashnaks attacked the homes of Azerbaijanis and staged merciless slaughter. On March 31 and in the first days of April, the carnage became even more ruthless. Thousands of Azerbaijani civilians were killed only because of their ethnicity. In those days, Armenian-Bolshevik units destroyed 12,000 Azerbaijani civilians in Baku. During those bloody events people were burned in their homes, killed and tortured with unparalleled cruelty.

As a result of an armed attack by the Armenians, more than 16,000 people were killed with utmost cruelty in Guba province in the first five months of 1918, a total of 167 villages were destroyed, of which 35 do not exist to this day. The facts of mass extermination of the Azerbaijanis of Guba district by Armenian-Dashnak gangs have been recently proven again. Thus, the discovery in 2007 of mass graves in Guba is a fact confirming Armenian vandalism. The study of the burial site has revealed that during an Armenian armed attack on Guba in 1918 people were subjected to unprecedented violence and killed with cruelty. The grave contains remains of mass burials of local residents. It should also be noted that Armenian armed forces under the command of Amazasp also slaughtered the local Jews along with the Turkic-Muslim population. The research has established that in 1918-1919 the Armenians massacred about 3,000 Jews in Guba.

In addition, hundreds of settlements were destroyed and burned in Azerbaijan, including more than 150 villages in Karabakh. A ruthless massacre of the Azerbaijanis was perpetrated in Shusha. In March-April 1918, Armenian Dashnaks tortured and killed about 50,000 people in Baku and other regions of Azerbaijan. More than 10,000 people were ruthlessly slaughtered in Zangezur district, 10,270 in Shamakhi district and 18,270 Azerbaijanis in the city of Shamakhi.

In 1918-1920, of the 575,000 Azerbaijanis living on the territory of the present-day Armenia, 565,000 people were killed and expelled from their native lands. Confirming this figure in a book called "Population of Soviet Armenia in 1831-1931", Z. Korkodyan writes that "in 1920 the Soviet government inherited a little more than 10,000 Turkic (Azerbaijani) population from the Dashnaks. In 1922, after the return of 60,000 Azerbaijanis refugees there were 72,596 people and 105,838 in 1931." In the last two months of 1919, a total of 96 villages were destroyed in Echmiadzin and Surmali districts, all villages in Erivan district and 132,000 Azerbaijanis in Erivan province.

Overall, as a result of the incessant and ruthless massacres unleashed by the Armenians in 1918-1920, tens of thousands of Azerbaijanis were killed and more than a million people were expelled from their native lands in Baku, Guba, Shamakhi, Lankaran, Kurdamir and Shusha, on the territory of Erivan province, Zangezur, Nakhchivan, Sharur, Ordubad, Kars and other regions. When committing these atrocities on historical Azerbaijani lands, the Armenians burned schools and mosques and destroyed samples of material culture.

Territorial claims and military aggression of Armenia against Azerbaijan in the late 20th century

In the late 1980s the Armenians with the help of their patrons in the near and far abroad and using the situation to implement the idea of "Great Armenia", made territorial claims to the Nagorno-Karabakh region of Azerbaijan. Whenever territorial claims to Karabakh were brought forth from the outside under the influence of propaganda, incitement and pressure by the Armenian side, they did not occur immediately, but even before that were prudently prepared by supporters in Yerevan and in the West, also on the basis of a comprehensive plan.

In Soviet times, central authorities have launched a deliberate propaganda campaign against Azerbaijan, which formed a negative public opinion. Armenian ideologists and their inspirers brazenly manipulated information about the history and socio-economic development of Azerbaijan. When the events of 1988 just started, long rallies and demonstrations were organized, the work of enterprises was halted in Khankendi and Yerevan under a deliberate plan to annex the Nagorno-Karabakh to Armenia under the pretext of economic backwardness of the region which was elaborated by Armenian politicians, who were trying to aggravate the situation and mislead the public opinion, and their patrons in the center.

However, subsequent events showed that a false thesis on the socio-economic plight of the Nagorno-Karabakh professed by Armenian politicians and their patrons in the center, was just a pretext, while the main goal was the territorial claims of Armenia against Azerbaijan. Armenian-Azerbaijani ethnic hostilities escalated in the second half of 1980, when the Azerbaijani community of the Nagorno-Karabakh was brutally attacked.

Unfortunately, nobody stopped the Armenian separatists at the beginning, and it just escalated the situation. As a result, receiving both Armenian and Russian material and military support, Armenians committed mass killings of Azerbaijani civilians and these bloody crimes against the Azerbaijanis led to a further widening of the conflict and its expansion into a full-fledged war.

In 1991 the tension in the mountainous part of Karabakh started to gradually worsen. Socio-political situation has already foreshadowed the approach of a major disaster.

In general, from 1988 to 1991, that is, from the beginning of the events until the collapse of the Soviet Union, patronized by the ruling circles of the USSR, Armenia pursued an aggressive policy against Azerbaijan. As a result of this policy, the Azerbaijani civilians were killed, their villages were destroyed, burned and looted. Aggressive state artificially instilled Armenians living in Nagorno-Karabakh region the idea of separation from Azerbaijan and unification with Armenia. To achieve this goal the Armenians subjected to genocide 50,000 Azerbaijanis of Nagorno-Karabakh and forced them to leave their homeland. During these years, Armenians committed 2,559 clashes, 315 armed attacks and 1,388 fires, killing 514 and injuring 1,318 people in the Nagorno-Karabakh.

At the same time during this period as a result of ethnic cleansing an estimated 250,000 civilians living in 185 Azerbaijani villages in Armenia were subjected to aggression and were forced to leave their homes. It was an action of ethnic cleansing, 216 Azerbaijanis were savagely killed, thousands of women, children and old people were injured and property was looted.

In the beginning of 1992, the Armenian army occupied the last Azerbaijani villages in the Nagorno-Karabakh.

Currently, more than 20 percent of Azerbaijani territory is under occupation of the Armenian armed forces.



The aggressive policy of the Armenian armed forces was accompanied by mass slaughters. Thus, in the years 1988-1993 as a result of a military aggression of Armenia more than 20,000 Azerbaijanis were killed, over 100,000 people were injured and 50,000 people became disabled. During the conflict 4,853 people went missing, 1,357 of them were released and 783 are still in captivity in Armenia. According to the International Committee of the Red Cross, 439 people were killed in captivity.

Genocide committed by Armenians in the late 20th century in Khojaly, is regarded as one of the most serious crimes against humanity and civilization. In the history of humanity, the Khojaly tragedy is comparable to tragedies in Khatyn, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, My Lai, Rwanda, Srebrenica, as well as the Holocaust, which will never be erased from historical memory. These massacres are considered the acts of genocide against the civilian population and caused a wide resonance in the world.

Azerbaijan's Ombudsman Elmira Suleymanova said that the genocide committed on March 31, 1918, has not received duly legal assessment on the international arena.

The purpose of the genocide policy, ethnic cleansing and deportation purposefully carried out by Armenian nationalists and their patrons against Azerbaijanis for more than two centuries, is to drive Azerbaijanis from their historical lands so that to create "Great Armenia in these territories," she said.
By Azertac





Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev received a group of servicemen on the anniversary of the April victories of the Azerbaijani Army in Baku on March 31, Azertac reported.

The April battles are a glorious military victory showing the power of the Azerbaijani state, people and army, President Aliyev said addressing the event.

The president said that today Azerbaijans flag flies in the Fuzuli, Jabrayil and Agdere districts territories liberated from the Armenian occupation in the April battles.

These battles show that the Azerbaijani people and state will never reconcile to the occupation, and will restore Azerbaijans territorial integrity at all costs, he noted.

President Aliyev added that the April battles showed the professionalism of the Azerbaijani army.

Our army took strategic positions by conducting a counter-attack from unfavorable positions. Today these strategic heights, positions, territories liberated from the occupation allow us to completely control the situation on the line of contact and take the measures we want, noted the president.

He added that the April battles should be included in military textbooks.

The April battles, in terms of both professionalism and patriotism, once again showed that the Azerbaijanis are a heroic people.

They showed once again that we wont reconcile to this situation, said President Aliyev.

The April battles demonstrated that the unity of people and government in Azerbaijan is ensured at the highest level, he added.

The president further added that during the April battles the Armenians appealed to international organizations, different countries so that the battles end as soon as possible.

Then they accused several countries of not helping them. But the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict is our internal affair. The Nagorno-Karabakh is recognized by the entire world, co-chair countries of the Minsk Group as an integral part of Azerbaijan. What is happening and what may happen in the Nagorno-Karabakh and all the occupied lands is our internal affair. No international organization or country can interfere with our internal affair, noted the president.

During the April battles the Armenian leadership was completely exposed because they suffered a heavy defeat and did not receive any political support. But, they relied on that support too much. And when they did not receive that support they, as usual, started to accuse different countries. At the end of the day, they were forced to admit their defeat in the April battles. First, they said that they did not lose the lands. Then they said that these lands are unimportant. Then they said that they will retake these territories. All this is totally untrue. The Armenian leadership has put itself in such a ridiculous situation that Armenia still feels grave consequences of this, added President Aliyev.

The Nagorno-Karabakh conflict erupted in April 2016 bringing Armenia and Azerbaijan face to face once again after years of silence. The situation on the frontline aggravated on April 2 after the Armenian military units in the occupied lands began shelling Azerbaijans positions. To protect civilian population, the Azerbaijani Armed Forces launched counter attacks and as a result, the Azerbaijani troops retook hills around the village of Talish, as well as Seysulan settlement, and also took over Lele Tepe hill located in the direction of Fizuli region. Azerbaijan and Armenia declared a truce brokered by Russia on April 5. Over 320 Armenian servicemen were killed, more than 500 Armenian soldiers were injured, 30 enemy tanks and other armored vehicles, as well as more than 25 artillery pieces were destroyed during the counter attacks of Azerbaijan, the Azerbaijani Defense Ministry reported.




Harriet might not be coming home after all.

An album containing a newly discovered photo of Harriet Tubman was sold at a New York City auction Thursday morning for a total of $161,000, the Associated Press reported.

The winning bidder was Lion Heart Autographs, of Manhattan. It bid a hammer price of $130,000 for the photo; a $31,000 fee for auctioneer Swann Galleries was added.

The album was expected to fetch between $20,000 and $30,000.

However, Lion Heart didn't buy the photo for itself  it did so on behalf of a client, Senior Associate Heather Wightman said Thursday. Though she declined to identify the client, she said "it's an American institution."

Wightman said Lion Heart will hand the photo over to the client, whom she expects will identify itself with a public announcement in the next few days.

Out of contention due to the price increase was the Harriet Tubman Home in Auburn, which raised more than $27,000 to bid on the photo through a crowdfunding campaign.

New photo of Harriet Tubman surfaces, biographer calls it 'remarkable' For decades, there have been few photographic images of Harriet Tubman depicting how the abo

According to the website for the campaign, #BringHarrietHome, donors now have the option of having their donations returned or leaving them with the Tubman home to support its work preserving its namesake's legacy.

The photo depicts Tubman in the late 1860s, earlier than most images of the abolitionist and Civil War spy. According to writing on the back of the photo, it was taken at "Powelson Photography, 77 Genesee St., Auburn." The album was the property of Tubman friend and fellow abolitionist Emily Howland, of Sherwood.

Tubman biographer Kate Clifford Larson, who authenticated the photo after its discovery, said: "What's remarkable about this photograph is that she's so proud and dignified and beautiful. She looks so young. ... This is the vibrant young Tubman just coming off her work during the Civil War. She's building her life with her family in Auburn."

Harriet Tubman Home President/CEO Karen Hill told The Citizen at the launch of the #BringHarrietHome campaign that if the home won the photo, it would interpret the image as part of the forthcoming Harriet Tubman National Historical Park.

"This is a campaign for Auburn to lift Harriet Tubman's profile as an Auburn citizen and for people to really get to see her," Hill said, "to see how she dressed and looked when she was interfacing with William H. Seward and other abolitionists."
By Azernews





By Rashid Shirinov

It is now high time for a focus on pragmatic and practical steps for confidence-building and resumption of substantive negotiations over the Nagorno-Karabakh issue, said Sebastian Kurz, Austrias Foreign Minister and OSCE Chairperson-in-Office.

Kurz, in his statement released on March 31, joined the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs call for the sides to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict to renew engagement in the political settlement process.

The fighting and the violence we witnessed one year ago  the worst in the past two decades  caused destruction, suffering and human losses. It was a vivid reminder of how quickly the machinery of war can undermine efforts for peace, Kurz said.

He called on the sides to refrain from any actions that jeopardize the ceasefire. All sides must live up to their commitment to strictly observe their international humanitarian obligations  war crimes can never be justified, said Kurz.

The Nagorno-Karabakh conflict erupted in April 2016 bringing Armenia and Azerbaijan face to face once again after years of silence.

The situation on the frontline aggravated on April 2 after the Armenian military units in the occupied lands began shelling Azerbaijans positions. To protect civilian population, the Azerbaijani Armed Forces launched counter attacks and as a result, the Azerbaijani troops retook hills around the village of Talish, as well as Seysulan settlement, and also took over Lele Tepe hill located in the direction of Fizuli region.

Azerbaijan and Armenia declared a truce brokered by Russia on April 5.

Recalling the outbreak of violence in April 2016 along the line of contact, he underlined his hope for fresh impetus in the negotiations:

Clashes and serious violations of the ceasefire on the line of contact, resulting in casualties, were of particular concern to us throughout the past year. It is now high time for a focus on pragmatic and practical steps for confidence-building as well as a resumption of substantive negotiations, he said.

Kurz also voiced his regret at the loss of lives since the tragic events in April 2016 and expressed his condolences to the affected families. As I have stated on numerous occasions, there is no military solution to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. We should plan for peace now, and not allow war to return with all of its terrible consequences, Kurz added.

He also commended the work of Ambassador Andrzej Kasprzyk and his team, illustrated by the active facilitation of a humanitarian operation by the International Committee of the Red Cross in February 2017 to retrieve the remains of the deceased servicemen.

The OSCE Chairmanship stands ready to contribute to the efforts of the sides to further advance and implement the agreements reached during the summits in Vienna and St. Petersburg in 2016, concluded Kurz.

After the meetings of the Azerbaijani and Armenian presidents in Vienna and St. Petersburg, which took place after the April clashes, the negotiation process came to the dead end due to the denial of Yerevan to continue serious talks.

Armenia still controls fifth part of Azerbaijan's territory and rejects implementing four UN Security Council resolutions on withdrawal of its armed forces from the Nagorno-Karabakh and surrounding districts.
By Azernews





By Rashid Shirinov

A growing number of people keep joining the Armenia-Azerbaijan Platform for Peace, created by Azerbaijan to accelerate the process of peaceful settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict through the people's diplomacy.

President of the International Sustainable Energy Organization (ISEO) Gustav R. Grob made a statement on March 30 about his joining the Platform.

After centuries of hatred and wars it is time for world-wide peace, tolerance and fruitful cooperation, his statement reads.

Grob expressed his respect and support to territorial integrity, sovereignty and internationally recognized borders of the conflicting countries and added that he believes in peaceful solution of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

He also emphasized the necessity of implementation of resolutions adopted by the UN Security Council, as well as resolutions and decisions of different international organizations.

I would like to note the importance of efforts of the OSCE Minsk Group regarding the settlement of the conflict, Grob stated.

Referring to the long tradition of coexistence of the peoples of Azerbaijan and Armenia, he noted with regret that the young generations in both countries have formed their perception about each other in the context of war resulting from the unresolved conflict.

Armenia-Azerbaijan Peace Platform is a unique opportunity to a fast peaceful resolution of Nagorno-Karabakh conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan, Grob stated.

The Armenia-Azerbaijan Peace Platform was founded on December 6 in Baku 2016 by a group of Azerbaijani and Armenian public figures and peacekeepers. It was created to bring together representatives of civil society of the two countries for creating dialogue between Azerbaijan and Armenia, the sides to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

However, this initiative was negatively perceived by the Armenian government, which started persecution of those Armenians who joined the Platform.

Chairman of Arabian Platform for Renewable and Efficient Energy and of Tunisian organization Women for Sustainable Development, Kamel Esseghairi also made a statement about joining the Armenia-Azerbaijan Platform for Peace.

He also highlighted the necessity of implementing the resolutions adopted by the UN Security Council and other international organizations and recalled the efforts of the OSCE Minsk Group.

I believe that this initiative will contribute to the solution of the conflict. Therefore, I make a statement about joining the Armenia-Azerbaijan Platform for Peace, which is aimed at a peaceful settlement of the Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict and restoring and preserving peace in South Caucasus, Esseghairi writes.

Thus, the Platform for Peace is gaining strength as increasing number of people from around the world, including Armenia, joins it. Apart from the official negotiations of the presidents and foreign ministers of the conflicting countries, the people's diplomacy is of high importance, and this has been stated by many international experts.
By Trend





Uzbekneftegaz, national oil and gas industry holding company of Uzbekistan, and KazMunayGas, the state-owned oil and gas company of Kazakhstan, signed an agreement on cooperation in the oil and gas sector.

"The bilateral documents include an agreement on cooperation between Uzbekneftegaz and KazMunayGas National Company JSC in the development of joint marketing and logistics of oil products, the mutual interest in increasing the supply of crude oil to Uzbekistan, as well as the transit of crude oil through Kazakhstan," the Uzbek company said in a message.

A total of 10 documents worth about $97 million were signed last week at the Kazakh-Uzbek business forum held during the visit of Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev to Astana.

The signed documents also include a memorandum of understanding between Uzbekneftegaz and the Kazakh Energy Ministry for cooperation in the oil and gas industry.

Earlier, it was reported that Uzbekistan, in order to supply its refineries with oil, reached an agreement with Kazakhstan on the use of the Omsk-Pavlodar-Shymkent oil pipeline.
By Trend





The South Korean court has approved an arrest warrant for former President Park Geun-hye over the corruption probe, Sputnik reported.

Earlier in the day, Park appeared before the court at around 10:20 a.m. local time (01:20 GMT) and refused to give any comments to reporters, who gathered at the courthouse.

The corruption scandal involving Park and her friend and close associate Choi Soon-sil erupted in October 2016, leading to Parks impeachment in December. Choi was allegedly meddling in state affairs without holding any official post, and helping to extort money from big corporations.

On Monday, media reported that South Korean prosecutors had requested an arrest warrant for Park as they suspect her of involvement in 13 different cases of bribery, coercion and abuse of power.

Park, in particular, has been charged with forcing major corporations, including Samsung, to donate to foundations controlled by Choi and taking bribes, as well as with forcing companies to sign contracts beneficial for Choi herself and her associates.

The ex-president was also accused of compiling a blacklist of cultural figures, who had been banned from state support, and pressing some Culture Ministry officials to resign over different reasons.

Earlier in March, Park denied all charges against her during the first questioning period.

On March 10, the Constitutional court upheld the parliaments decision to impeach Park. An early presidential election in the country is scheduled to take place on May 9.
By Trend





NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg reacted positively to U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillersons official visit to Turkey on Thursday, Anadolu reported.

Speaking ahead a NATO Foreign Ministers Summit in Brussels, Stoltenberg welcomed the discussion on fighting against Daesh and cooperation in Syria between two allies of the military alliance.

I just welcome that two allies the United States and Turkey sat together and discussed how to, in the best possible way, fight against ISIL [Daesh] and to make sure that they work together to fight in the best possible way in northern Syria, Stoltenberg said.

His statement comes amid Tillersons visit to Ankara where he met Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Prime Minister Binali Yildirim and Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu.

During his meeting with Turkish officials Tillerson discussed Turkeys fight against Daesh, the PKK, the Fetullah Terrorist Organization (FETO) and the extradition of FETO leader Fetullah Gulen who resides in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania.

Stoltenberg told reporters that NATO forces had not joined the field operation in northern Syria but supported some NATO member states counter-terrorism efforts in the area.

Referring to a recent U.S. raid in Mosul that killed at least 200 Iraqis, Stoltenberg said that he was waiting for the results of some different reports to speak about the incident.

Foreign ministers of 28 member states of the intergovernmental military alliance will come together at its headquarters in Brussels on Friday to discuss defense spending and the fight against terrorism.

Turkish FM Cavusoglu is expected to attend the meeting which will also pave the way for a Brussels gathering of NATO leaders on May 25.
By Trend





Ashgabat will host International Energy Charter Forum on May 30-31, the Turkmen Foreign Ministry said in a message.

Meetings of this year are held under Turkmenistans presidency at the Energy Charter Conference.

The forum, titled Towards a Multilateral Framework Agreement on Transit of Energy Resources, will provide a platform for a policy dialogue on energy transit in order to promote open energy markets, diversification of supply sources and routes, and sustainable development.

The forum will address operational, regulatory and legal aspects of energy transit, including natural gas, oil and electricity. It will bring together government officials, representatives of international organizations, industry and academic institutions to discuss existing challenges and opportunities stemming from cross-border energy flows.

According to the message, the forum will be followed by the International Energy Media Forum to brief representatives of diplomatic corps in Turkmenistan and mass media on the Energy Charter Process and priorities of Turkmenistans chairmanship in 2017.

One of main aspects of Turkmenistans strategy is the diversification, expansion of geography of natural gas export, creation of multi-vector gas transportation system.

The international legal regulation of energy resources transit is also among priorities.

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 nine percent of total global reserves, which puts Turkmenistan on the fourth position in this field after Iran, Russia and Qatar.
By Azernews





By Kamila Aliyeva

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg reacted positively to U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillersons official visit to Turkey on March 30, Anadolu Agency reported.

Speaking ahead a NATO Foreign Ministers Summit in Brussels, Stoltenberg welcomed the discussion on fighting against Daesh and cooperation in Syria between two allies of the military alliance.

I just welcome that two allies the United States and Turkey sat together and discussed how to, in the best possible way, fight against ISIL [Daesh] and to make sure that they work together to fight in the best possible way in northern Syria, Stoltenberg said.

His statement comes amid Tillersons visit to Ankara where he met Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Prime Minister Binali Yildirim and Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu.

During his meeting with Turkish officials Tillerson discussed Turkeys fight against Daesh, the PKK, the Fetullah Terrorist Organization (FETO) and the extradition of FETO leader Fetullah Gulen who resides in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania.

Following the meeting, Cavusoglu stated that Washington is coming to agreement with Turkeys view that the terrorist PKK and its Syria wing, the YPG, are indistinguishable. He also said that Turkish authorities have made it clear to U.S. officials that it makes no sense to cooperate with one terrorist group -- the PKK/YPG -- to fight another -- Daesh.

As for Fetullah Gulens extradition, Cavusoglu said that Turkey has been sending the U.S. documents and evidence for Gulen's provisional arrest as well as extradition since last July.

"As our justice minister and Mr. Tillerson told us, the documents are still being examined in detail," he said adding that Turkey expects some concrete steps, at least some measures at the administrative level.

Led by U.S.-based Fetullah Gulen, FETO is accused of orchestrating the July 2016 coup plot in Turkey as well as being behind a long-running campaign to overthrow the state through the infiltration of Turkish institutions, particularly the military, police, and judiciary.

The Turkish government has repeatedly requested Gulens extradition, while the Obama administration has said extradition is a lengthy, demanding legal procedure.

Foreign ministers of 28 member states of the intergovernmental military alliance will come together at its headquarters in Brussels on Friday to discuss defense spending and the fight against terrorism.

Turkish FM Cavusoglu is expected to attend the meeting which will also pave the way for a Brussels gathering of NATO leaders on May 25.
By Azernews





By Kamila Aliyeva

Total volume of Turkeys GDP rose by 2.9 percent in 2016, says a report of the countrys Statistical Institute (TUIK) issued on March 31.

Taking into account the 2016 events  military coup attempt, terrorist attacks and political crises, the growth rate of GDP was forecasted at the level of 2.2 percent.

Total volume of Turkeys GDP amounted to 2.59 trillion Turkish liras ($856.791 billion) in 2016, as compared to 2.337 trillion liras ($861.467 billion) in 2015.

In 2015, Turkeys GDP growth rate was at the level of 6.1 percent. The GDP growth rate was 4.5 percent in 1Q2016, 5.3 percent  in 2Q2016, and the volume of value added production decreased by 1.3 percent in 3Q2016, and it rose again by 3.54 percent in 4Q2016.

The GDP per capita amounted to 32,676 Turkish liras or $10,807 in Turkey in 2016.

Earlier, Turkeys Deputy Prime Minister Nurettin Canikli said that the countrys GDP growth rate will be at the level of about three percent , while Development Minister Lutfi Elvan expected the Turkish economy to increase by 2.5 percent in 2016.

The volume of Turkey's foreign trade decreased by 2.8 percent in 2016, compared with the previous year, reaching $341.2 billion, according to the Turkish Statistics Institute.

Last year, Turkey exported goods worth $142.6 billion, while imports amounted to $198.6 billion.

The leader in the Turkish export is Germany, which imported goods worth $14 billion last year. Germany is followed by the UK and Iraq, whose imported goods amount to $11.6 and $7.6 billion respectively.

The greatest decline was observed in the export of goods to Russia. It decreased by 51.7 percent and accounted for $1.733 billion.

Leading position in the Turkish import is taken by China, which exported goods worth $25.4 billion to Turkey in 2016. In the past year, Turkey has imported goods from Germany and Russia in the amount of $21.4 and $15.1 billion respectively.
The government of Kuwait is pressing ahead with multiple plans that will see billions of dollars invested in tourism projects and a further $1 billion budget earmarked to promote the Gulf state over the same period.

Plans are in place to establish a Supreme Commission for Tourism to initiate its tourism strategy as the country prepares to showcase at Arabian Travel Market (ATM) 2017, which takes place at Dubai World Trade Centre from April 24 to 27.

A number of mega-projects will share the multi-billion dollar development budget, including: Madinat Al Hareer and Silk City, a proposed mega-development in the countrys north; the expansion of Kuwait International Airport, reaching 25 million passenger per year capacity by 2025; and cultural attractions such as Sheikh Saad Al-Abdullah Islamic Centre.

Simon Press, senior exhibition director, ATM, said: Kuwait is evolving into a multifaceted destination with many things to offer both corporate and leisure visitors. The government is making huge investments at a crucial time for the countrys development and, in channeling significant funds into tourism infrastructure, leisure developments and lifestyle destinations, in the long-term Kuwait is telling the world its very much open for business.

According to figures from the World Travel and Tourism Council, travel and tourism investment in Kuwait is set to rise 1.5 per cent per annum over the next 10years.

The latest Colliers International Kuwait Hospitality Market Snapshot, reports 70 per cent of visitors arrived in Kuwait as corporate travellers in 2016, with the countrys leisure industry comprising only 6 per cent of total arrivals. Hotel performance declined 6 per cent overall for the year as a result. Business spending also suffered losses, falling 2.4 per cent over the course of the year, an ATM statement said.

Key hotel performance indicators showed slight declines in 2016 with ADR down 2.3 per cent, RevPAR down 4.8 per cent and occupancy down 2.6 per cent.

Performance is forecast for strong recovery in 2017 with continued growth to 2026, reaching values of KD501.3 million. Leisure travel spending is expected rise by 4.5 per cent per annum to KD1,939.1 million in 2026, following an annual growth rate of 8.7 per cent in 2016.

Press said: Kuwait is actively working to diversify its guest segmentation and that will be important to securing the projected levels of growth over the coming years. We expect to see a corresponding diversification in hotel stock as more leisure, health and wellness tourists discover the countrys unique offerings.

This year, ATM will host a number of exhibitors from Kuwait, including the Ministry of Information  Tourism Sector, Holidays Arabia, Kuwait Hotel Owners Association, Kuwait Tourism and Services.

ATM, considered by many industry professionals as a barometer for the Middle East and North Africa tourism sector, witnessed a year-on-year visitor attendance increase of 9 per cent to over 28,500 in 2016, with 2,785 exhibiting companies, signing business deals worth more than $ 2.5 billion over four days.

ATM 2017 will build on its success with the announcement of an additional hall as Reed Travel Exhibitions looks to add to its record-breaking achievements of 2016, the statement said. - TradeArabia News Service
The best in in the industry across the Middle East and the Indian Subcontinent from the shipping, ports and related maritime sectors will attend the Maritime Standard Awards (TMS Awards) 2017, which will take place later this year, in Dubai, UAE.



The region's leading maritime industry awards, now in its fourth year, will take place on October 23, at the Atlantis Ballroom, Atlantis, The Palm.



The event will celebrate and reward the achievements of the top performers in the industry at a high quality gala dinner, said a statement.



Trevor Pereira, managing director, said: We have earned a deserved reputation for offering the very best in terms of the value and profile of the awards and for the integrity of the judging process itself.



But we cannot rest on our laurels. So this year we are planning to make the awards even bigger, bolder and grander than ever before, to ensure we add real value to the industry in this part of the world, he said.



The event will be attended by over 700 top maritime executives and decision-makers not only from across the region, but also worldwide.



A total of 30 awards will be presented on the night, including a new one for Superyacht and Passenger Shipbuilder of the Year, reflecting the growing influence of the region in this particular market segment.



Of these 22 will be selected by an elite panel of judges, handpicked for their knowledge and experience, while eight will be chosen by The Maritime Standard team to mark exceptional individual achievements.



Winning an award gives companies and individuals a chance to significantly raise their profile. As Sheikh Daij Bin Salman Al Khalifa, chairman of Bahrain shipyard, Asry, who won The Maritime Standard Editors Choice of the Year Award, said: The high quality of the guests and the audience was truly impressive. I would like to congratulate TMS for the professional manner in which the event was organised, which made it both valuable and enjoyable.



A host of leading companies from the region's shipping and maritime related industries have already confirmed their attendance and sponsorship, it added.



Those organisations supporting the Maritime Standard Awards 2017 includes, Abu Dhabi Ports, Bahri, DNV GL, DP World, Islamic P & I Club, Kuwait Oil Tanker Company, Mercantile Marine Management, Oman Shipping Company and Safeen.



The supporting associations for the event includes, UAE Shipping Association (UAESA); The Organisation of Islamic Shipowners Association (OISA); The Dubai Council for Marine and Maritime Industries (DCMMI); Mission to Seafarers UAE; Women's International Shipping & Trading Association (WISTA), UAE Branch; Indian National Shipowner's Association (INSA); Pakistan Ships Agents Association; Ceylon Association of Ship Agents; World Freight Network; Specialist Freight Network; The Cooperative Logistics Network; Conqueror Freight Network; Globalia Logistics Network, it stated.  TradeArabia News Service
Pictured is Kyle Hewitt, who was arrested by State Police for allegedly pouring bleach into the gas tank of what he thought was the vehicle driven by someone he was engaged in a dispute with. The vehicle actually belonged to someone who was not involved in the episode.
The Big Clearance Sale, which kicked off yesterday (March 30) in Dubai, UAE is featuring over 100 of the worlds most famous fashion, lifestyle and beauty brands offering discounts of more than 80 per cent.



The Big Clearance Sale, which is open from 11:00am to 11:00pm over the weekend, is organised by the Dubai Festivals and Retail Establishment (DFRE), an agency of the Department of Tourism and Commerce Marketing (Dubai Tourism).



The three-day sale is spread across three halls of the Dubai World Trade Centre, featuring top brands brought to the event by leading retail groups in the UAE including Apparel Group, Azadea, Landmark Group, M H Alshaya Co, Concept Brands Group, and Ginza Fashion.



Saeed Mohammad Measam Al Falasi, executive director, Retail and Strategic Alliances, DFRE, said: We are very pleased to see the large turnout for the first day of The Big Clearance Sale, as it is a strong indication of the popularity of this must-visit shopping event. We thank all our retail partners for their continued whole-hearted support, which has enabled us to now make this event a permanent fixture of Dubais retail calendar. With leading brands and massive discounts, this truly is a shoppers paradise, and we invite everyone to make the most of the remaining two days of our biggest-ever edition of The Big Clearance Sale.



To enhance the shopping experience, visitors also stand a chance to win with a Visit and Win daily draw, offering two winners a prize of Dh5,000 ($1,361) in cash every day. Additionally, those who spend Dh300 at The Big Clearance Sale will receive a Shop and Win raffle coupon that gives them the chance to win a grand prize of a Jeep Wrangler Sport on the final day of the event.



The Big Clearance Sale is sponsored by Emirates NBD, and customers of the bank can double their chances to win the grand prize by using their Emirates NBD Card to shop at the various outlets.  TradeArabia News Service
A majority of Wyomingites believe climate change is occurring, but residents are split over whether human activities are causing the phenomenon, according to a new Yale University study.

Sixty-one percent of the states residents said they believed in climate change when the study was conducted last year, according to the data and mapping by the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication.

That is below the national average of 70 percent who believe in global climate change.

While 42 percent of Wyomingites believed climate change is human-caused, another 42 percent believed natural changes were bringing about global warming.

Meanwhile, 53 percent of Americans believe human activities are causing warming.

The results might be expected from a state with residents who passionately defend fossil fuels at a time when many argue its time to move away from them. Wyoming is the countrys top coal producer. Its fourth in natural gas and eighth in crude oil, according to federal data.

And related to the states economy is its conservative political beliefs.

The Yale researchers created a map of all U.S. states, with different colors and shades reflecting global warming attitudes.

University of Wyoming energy economics professor Rob Godby noted that the Yale map could be superimposed with any electoral map from the 2016 presidential race.

The states with the highest proportion of responses that humans are not causing climate change are the ones in which President Donald Trump won by the largest margins, Godby said.

And in Wyoming, seven in 10 voters voted for Trump, the highest proportion in the country.

In most industrialized countries, climate change is accepted as science, since over 90 percent of researchers agree that humans are contributing to the warming of the planet, Godby said. But in the U.S., the issue has become politicized, he said.

What that means is if youre on one side, you choose to believe in one thing and if youre in another side, you believe in another thing, he said.

Godby blames the media in part. He said that each time theres a story about climate change, theres always one source who is arguing about its existence and another against  creating an illusion that the scientific community is split on the issue when it is not, he said.

He also said people tend to consume media that lines up with their politics and associate with others of the same views. If someones boss says climate change is a hoax, the worker may believe him because employees tend to respect their leaders, Godby said.

This is human nature, he said.

In this highly politicized environment that we are in, you basically consume information, look for information that you selectively filter, he said.

Only 38 percent of Wyomingites trust scientists on global warming research, 12 percent lower than the national average, the study found.

Trump, who in 2012 claimed global warming was a hoax created by the Chinese, on Tuesday signed an executive order that will require a rewrite of the Clean Power Plan. The order repeals other Obama-era regulations, including lifting a moratorium on coal leases on federal land.

Godby said that the Clean Power Plan aimed to comply with a 2009 Supreme Court ruling that carbon dioxide is bad for human health and should be curbed. But Godby said the Obama administration may have been too creative in trying to conform it to existing laws.

It was loathed by many conservatives, especially in energy-producing states.

In our system, you need to do better than that before you set policy, he said. You cant ignore the minority.

The majority of Wyomingites want policies to address warming, the Yale study found.

Sixty-six percent of Wyomingites want to regulate carbon dioxide as a pollutant, 8 percent lower than the national average.

Fifty-five percent in Wyoming support strict carbon dioxide limits on coal-fired power plants, 14 percent below the national average.

And 55 percent in the state want to require utilities to produce at least 20 percent of electricity from renewables, 11 percent below the national average.

And perhaps most surprisingly in a state economically dependent on fossil fuels, 82 percent of Wyomingites support funding research into renewable energy resources  the same proportion as the national average.

I take heart from the fact most people are willing to do something, Godby said.
A long-tailed mouse in northeast Colorado and southeast Wyoming thats caused more than a decade of controversy is once again gaining attention.

A coalition made primarily of livestock and construction groups in the two states submitted a petition Thursday asking the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to remove the Prebles meadow jumping mouse from the endangered species list. The mouse is not, they said in a petition, a distinct subspecies of the meadow jumping mouse.

Wyoming has two species of jumping mouse, the western jumping mouse, which lives at high elevations, and the meadow jumping mouse. The meadow jumping mouse then has two subspecies, including the Prebles, said Gary Beauvais, director of the Wyoming Natural Diversity Database.

Sometime after the Prebles mouse was listed in the late 90s, two differing scientific viewpoints emerged, one saying that the mouse was distinct and different and another saying it wasnt. Scientific consensus at the time was that the Prebles mouse was distinct, and it remained on the endangered species list.

This isnt the first time groups have petitioned the mouse to be delisted. The state of Wyoming and Coloradoans for Water Conservation had asked the Fish and Wildlife Service to remove the mouse from the list in the early 2000s, but the Service declined in 2013, according to the Associated Press.

Human populations continue to increase along the Front Range of Colorado and in Wyoming, and as a result, urban development, flood control, water development, aggregate mining and other human land uses continue to adversely affect Prebles habitats and populations, the Fish and Wildlife Service said in a release at the time.

The mouse had originally been listed only in Colorado, but environmental groups successfully petitioned to have it listed in Wyoming, too, saying animal species do not understand state lines.

The newest petition cites a 2013 study explaining how the Prebles mouse is actually part of a much larger group of jumping mice. As a result, the petition asks the service to remove the Prebles meadow mouse from the endangered species list.

The service has 90 days to respond to the petition.

A listing of the mouse has been contentious in Wyoming and Colorado mostly because of restrictions on land management.

The Prebles jumping mouse has unusually large hind feet and a long tail. It is one of few mice that hibernate in the winter.
CHEYENNE  Plans to drill subsurface oil and gas wells under a Cheyenne neighborhood have stalled.

Oklahoma-based Ward Petroleum has withdrawn its applications seeking approval for horizontal drilling on the city's eastern boundary.

Ward Petroleum Regulatory and Community Relations Manager Dave Brown says the company needs to do some additional planning before proceeding with the proposal.

The setback comes a week after Ward Petroleum held a meeting to hear public comment from residents in the affected neighborhood. Many residents spoke out against the proposal.
Editor:

As the newly elected chairman of the Sweetwater County Democratic party, I'd like to publicly thank our Democratic legislators for all the hard work they put in during the recent legislative session. These dedicated individuals spent months away from their homes, families and jobs in order to serve the people of Wyoming. They worked tirelessly in the face of adversity and still maintained the energy and courage to fight for the ideals we hold dear. They fought to preserve basic human rights, and stood up for education, health care and a woman's right to choose. They sought out common sense decisions when it came to budgeting, public lands and second amendment rights. I applaud their passion and dedication to making Wyoming a great place to live.

In a recent letter sent to newspapers across our state, Wyoming Republican Party Chairman Matt Micheli stated, "[Legislators] debated and worked through solutions to address Wyoming's education funding shortfall and set us on a path to make necessary reduction while not cutting quality in the classroom." The very next day the Rock Springs Daily Rocket Miner published an article about Sweetwater School District #2 cutting 13 staff members due to budget cuts. There is no doubt that this will include teachers and paraprofessionals who work directly with students in the classroom. Even Micheli should realize that quality will be lost. Frankly, these cuts seem like an excuse for Republican lawmakers to grandstand in the name of fiscal conservatism. Spending dollars responsibly is a no brainer, but cutting it from education is nothing short of reprehensible.

This June, the state will be getting $83 million in Capital gains money that will go straight into the LSRA, otherwise called the "Rainy Day Fund," yet with this knowledge, Republicans still pushed for deep and painful cuts. Wyoming families, students and educators deserve better. How much more must our state suffer under the shortsightedness of GOP control? It's time the people of Wyoming held Republican lawmakers accountable. Election Day is Nov. 6, 2018, and I urge everyone to practice due diligence when choosing candidates.
Tribal leaders called on Congress Wednesday to exempt their governments and government-run businesses from oversight by the National Labor Relations Board, a right they said is enjoyed by every other government in the country.

Navajo Nation Council Delegate Nathaniel Brown and others told a House Education and the Workforce subcommittee that the Tribal Labor Sovereignty Act of 2017 would treat tribes as self-governing entities when it comes to handling labor-related issues.

What this bill does is it will give the nation the parity that we want, Brown said after the hearing. It will strengthen who we are as a sovereign Indian nation.

But critics of the bill said it would remove any protections tribal workers might have, by letting tribes freeze out labor unions and leaving workers nowhere to turn for help.

John Gribbon, political director of the labor union UNITE HERE, said that exempting tribes from the National Labor Relations Act and taking them out from under NLRB oversight could open the door to harassment and other forms of discrimination. He called protections of the labor act absolutely a bare minimum.

My argument is, and my argument would be  that workers deserve better rights than they receive in this country, Gribbon told the subcommittee. Whether they be on Indian lands or not, that workers have been harassed and abused.

The bill would amend the NLRA by adding any Indian tribe, or any enterprise or institution owned and operated by an Indian tribe and located on its Indian lands to the list of federal, state and local governments that are not subject to NLRB oversight.

The bill is a response to a 2004 NLRB decision to hear an unfair labor practices case at a casino on Native American land in California. That reversed what tribal officials said was 70 years of precedent, during which they had been exempt from board review.

Gribbon stressed that the board has insisted it will deal only with labor questions and will not interfere with internal tribal government matters.

That was challenged by National Congress of American Indians President Brian Cladoosby, who said that forcing tribal governments to abide by regulations meant for commercial businesses is a formula for destabilizing any government and influencing internal government affairs.

Unlike private businesses, no government can shut down its enterprise operations because of labor disputes, Cladoosby said during his testimony.

Brown rejected claims by critics that the bill only aims to block unions.

Indian Country does not view this as a fight between tribal governments and labor, Brown said. In many tribal communities across the country, tribal governments and unions work hand in hand to improve the working conditions of Indian and non-Indian workers.

The main sponsor of the bill  which is being co-sponsored by Rep. Paul Gosar, R-Prescott  said it addresses a simple question.

Do we think that our Native American leaders are any less legitimate  than our state and local leaders? asked Rep. Todd Rokita R-Indiana.

That argument was stressed by tribal witnesses, who said labor matters are sovereign issues that they are capable of handling, as they are a mirror to the federal government.

Within the judicial, we do have a court system, we have our labor relations office and we also have the Navajo Nation labor laws that protect our people, Brown said.

Making tribal governments subject to the NLRB takes away that right to govern themselves, witnesses said. Cladoosby asked the lawmakers to consider what might happen if the state or local government in their districts had the same thing happen.

You have governments in your district and if those governments were treated differently by the NLRA, you would hear it loud and clear, he said.

Rokita said that for him it boils down to that question of sovereignty.
A Buddhist teacher and monks will create a mandala at the University of Arizona BookStores, 1209 E. University Blvd., Sunday, April 2 through Thursday, April 6.

Drupon Thinley Ningpo Rinpoche, along with several monks, will create the mandala out of colored sand 11:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday and 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Thursday, according to press materials.

The mandala will be ritually dissolved 5:30 p.m. Thursday, April 6 with a lecture titled "Mandala and Mindfulness" following.

The event is supported by the Arizona Friends of Tibet, the local Buddhist center Drikung Namgyal Ling, the Khyentse Foundation and the UA's religious studies, classics and East Asian studies departments.
St. Alban's Episcopal Church, 3738 N. Old Sabino Canyon Road, will host "Spirituality for the Second Half of Life" 1 to 3 p.m. Saturday, April 1.

The presentation, followed by a wine and cheese social, will discuss changing spiritual needs for people age 50 and older, according to press materials.
For years, some conservatives have been pursuing a Convention of States  a never-used tool to amend the U.S. Constitution.

Article V of the Constitution says that if two-thirds of the state legislatures call for a convention, it can occur, and then three-fourths of the states must approve any amendment that emerges from the convention.

The idea has passed from seemingly ridiculous, because its so difficult, to possibly, just maybe realistic. Arizonas Legislature approved a call for a convention this week. It could do so because convention opponent and former Senate President Andy Biggs is out of the way in Congress.Gov. Doug Ducey signed the resolution Thursday.

The idea has also drifted from the right to the left. A few people on the liberal side of the spectrum embrace it, even though it is being pushed by some wealthy libertarians who would like to restrict the power of the federal government.

This is where you get a little bit of overlap, from the far left and far right, Rep. Randy Friese, the Tucson Democrat who is assistant minority leader of the House, told me Thursday.

I attended a Democrats of Greater Tucson luncheon this week at which political scientist Marriah Star presented a liberal argument for a convention of states. Boiled down, he argued that such a convention is the only way to address intractable issues such as plutocrats controlling elected politicians and disenfranchisement of voters. The Constitutional Convention is the only way we have, he said. All the other ways are blocked.

Star received a lot of skepticism from the crowd, and I counted myself among the skeptics. The agenda of any such convention is likely to be driven by those who have passed the resolution, and those people are largely concerned with passing a balanced budget amendment, not ending plutocratic domination of politics.

Jeff Utsch, a local proponent of a convention, explained to me there are two main initiatives to call a convention. The one he favors, called a Compact for America, would send whats essentially a prepackaged balanced-budget amendment to a convention, which would be limited to that purpose.

A convention of states without such a limited purpose could be opened up to any ideas, left or right. Many opponents of a convention, such as Biggs, see that as a major flaw. For me, thats the best feature: Seeing what ideas can capture the imagination of delegates and be sent back to the states for passage.

That may be a high-risk approach, but there is the fail-safe of the requirement that three-fourths of states, or 38, pass any amendments.

Star listed at least 13 Democratic-controlled states that would be likely to block any unpopular conservative amendment. But as Friese noted, theres no mandated time limit on state approvals of proposed constitutional amendments.

Nevada just approved the Equal Rights Amendment, originally passed by Congress in 1972. It was the 36th state to pass the amendment, out of 38 needed. Any amendment passed by a convention of states could presumably linger on similarly.
Nearly five years after she disappeared, Tucson police announced Friday that the remains of Isabel Celis were recovered from a site in rural Pima County.

Police Chief Chris Magnus made the grim announcement about how the remains found earlier this month were positively identified by DNA testing as those of Isabel, who was 6 years old when she went missing from her midtown home in 2012.

Magnus said no arrests have been made. He said the circumstances of police finding the remains were "not happenstance."

Isabel's disappearance from her family's home resulted in a missing child case that involved a massive search in Tucson by hundreds of law enforcement personnel, national media attention and public scrutiny of her parents.

"The loss of any child is a loss to the family and to our entire community," Magnus said. He urged anyone with information to call 88-CRIME, the anonymous tip line.

He said he could not release more details because the investigation is ongoing.

He said the department followed up on more than 2,200 leads in the case and that they will continue the investigation to locate anyone connected to the girl's death.

Magnus said he could not reveal how investigators learned where the remains where.

Isabel's family issued a statement through Tucson Medical Center, where her mother Becky Celis works as a nurse.

"We want to thank the community for the support they have continued to show for Isa over the years and for refusing to give up hope. Now is our time to mourn. We ask for our privacy during this time so that we can do that. The statement said the family would have no additional comments at this time.

Isabel went missing from her bedroom in her familys midtown home five years ago. It was during the night, while the family slept. No one heard sounds, not even from the family's dogs. Her father, Sergio Celis, reported her missing on the morning of April 21, 2012. Becky Celis had already left for work.

For many years, the Celis familys house near Park Place mall had a banner displayed with the face of Isabel pictured smiling with long, brown hair and hazel eyes. Other banners informed the public about an 88-CRIME reward.

The case remained opened with police investigators conducting numerous follow up interviews, re-canvassing the family's neighborhood and periodically asking the public's help for information. Tips that poured in at first, dropped to a trickle then stopped. New detective were assigned to the case several years later to offer fresh eyes. The department's website to this date still has information and images of Isabel with a link to provide tips.

Both Sergio and Becky faced intense public scrutiny in the weeks after their daughter went missing. At one point, Sergio entered into an agreement with state child protective services that he would not have contact for a period of time with his two sons, Isabels older brothers.

Becky said in an interview several years ago they all were coping because of the support from their family, faith in God and the love they each have for one another.

God is listening to us. We just have to be patient. We have to have faith in God. God has a plan, and eventually He will bring her home, said Becky, adding that she feels frustrated and anxious about not knowing how or where Isabel is. That anxiety doesnt go away, said Becky, a nurse at TMC.

For Sergio, an oral surgery assistant at a dental office who also performs opera, the not knowing about his little girl is creating a lot of frustration, a lot of anger, a lot of wanting to shake your fists and constantly saying why, and why and why.

The last time anyone saw her was when she went to bed the night before.

At 8 a.m., Sergio said he discovered his daughter missing when he went to wake her so she could get ready for her Little League game. Her mother, Becky, had already left for work.

Sergio said he and his sons searched the house before calling 911. In a 911 recording, Sergio, tells a dispatcher that my oldest son noticed that her window was wide open and the screen was laying in the back yard.

About 250 law enforcement officers from multiple agencies scoured the neighborhood area, and fanned out into sections of the city and county. Tracking dogs, including a special FBI search dog, were used. FBI profilers, behavioral analysts and an evidence-recovery team were brought in.
While one branch of the U.S. government reviews a plan to bring back the endangered jaguar, another branch wants to waive legal protections for the species to build the border wall.

This week, new Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke told a ranching advocacy group that U.S. Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly will put forward a waiver on the border, which will allow me much more flexibility in managing the jaguar there, according to E&E News, an environmental news service.

Zinkes talk to the Public Lands Council in Washington, D.C., didnt elaborate on how that would happen.

Secretary Zinke is committed to carrying out the presidents vision for an immigration system that is lawful and includes border security, Interior spokeswoman Heather Swift wrote in an email.

Swift referred a reporter to Kelly for details on Homeland Securitys position. Homeland Security spokeswoman Jenny Burke emailed the Star on Thursday to say Ill look into this for you," but otherwise didnt respond to a request for comment.

Zinkes comment Tuesday came eight days after the Fish and Wildlife Service took final public comments on a detailed jaguar recovery plan. The 508-page document proposes a complex blueprint of measures costing about $56 million over five years and $605 million over 50 years to help the jaguar recover from what many believe is a precarious state.

The plan lacks the force of law but does propose measures to strengthen legal protections and numerous programs to improve jaguar habitat, expand monitoring and improve research of the species. The wildlife service has received well over 200 emailed comments and a handful of written letters. It should decide on a final plan in about a year.

Steve Spangle, the wildlife services top Arizona official, said its a fair question to ask if federal agencies are behaving in a classic manner in which the right hand doesnt know what the left hand is doing.

The answer is quite simple, Spangle said. A recovery plan (consists of) recommendations to recover a species. If agencies or individuals choose not to follow it, thats perfectly their right.

Our recovery plan lays out what we believe is necessary to conserve the jaguar. What happens in the land management world may not be consistent with the recovery plan.

If President Trump wants to invoke any more waivers, he should know that he will see us in court, said Dan Millis, borderlands program coordinator for the Sierra Clubs Grand Canyon chapter. That waiver authority is unconstitutional and we will challenge it.

Under the 2005 federal Real ID Act, the government has the right to formally waive restrictions under the Endangered Species Act and other environmental laws in pursuit of building border fencing. Homeland Security used that law to help it build about 650 miles of border fencing and walls during the 2000s.

While the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear court challenges to the act in the 2000s, now that the border wall is front and center in the news, and its Trumps pet project and Trump is under the microscope, I think the Supreme Court will be more motivated to look at the case, Millis said. Its very unfair that the borderlands resources and communities are unable to count on the same protections that the rest of Americans take for granted.

The jaguar does have legal protection in the U.S. in the form of the wildlife services formal designation of much of the Arizona-New Mexico border with the Mexican states of Sonora and Chihuahua as critical habitat for the large mammal.

The jaguar is known to live in 19 countries including the U.S., but it is considered vulnerable to a wide range of threats including habitat destruction and illegal killing.

Seven jaguars have been documented in the U.S. since 1996  five in Southern Arizona and two in southwestern New Mexico, including one near the Arizona border. Two were photographed in Southern Arizona late last year.

The Endangered Species Act forbids destruction or adverse modification of critical habitat. That typically is taken to mean damaging the land severely enough to destroy its usefulness to the endangered species.

A continuous border wall  of the kind Trump has favored building but not yet formally proposed  would slice directly through five of six formal units of critical habitat that the wildlife service designated for the jaguar in 2014. The sixth unit connects directly to another unit next to the border. In all, about 764,000 acres of critical jaguar habitat exist in Arizona and New Mexico.

Improving and maintaining connectivity of jaguar habitats in Arizona with those in northern Mexico were key factors used to choose lands for critical habitat and to draw up key provisions for the recovery plan, wildlife officials said.

Typically, if a federal project is believed likely to negatively affect an endangered or threatened species, the agency proposing it must consult with the wildlife service to detail impacts and to compensate for them.

But if Homeland Security chooses to invoke the Real ID Act and ask for a waiver, we would not even consult on the wall, Spangle said. Thats what happened a decade ago when then-Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff invoked the law.

The proposed jaguar recovery plan talks explicitly about the existing border fencings impacts on the big cats. The fencing stretching through jaguar habitat from the Tohono OOdham Nation to southwest New Mexico contains a mix of pedestrian fencing that is too big and continuous for jaguars to pass through, and vehicle barriers that have openings large enough to accommodate wildlife.

Fences designed to prevent the passage of humans across the border also prevent passage of jaguars. Because jaguars in Arizona and New Mexico are believed to be part of a population centered in northern Mexico, impeding jaguar movement from Mexico to the U.S. would likely adversely affect the presence and persistence of jaguars in the U.S., the recovery plan said.

Obviously, any walls that humans cant get past will inhibit jaguars ability to go from one habitat to another, Spangle said, but until you see the design and location on any plans for a wall, we cant really say.

But the species controversy about the wall is not just about jaguars crossing the border into the U.S. They need to be able to roam back and forth across the border to thrive, said Randy Serraglio, a conservation advocate for the Tucson-based Center for Biological Diversity, which like the Sierra Club opposes a border wall.

Real recovery is not just increasing the number of individuals found on the landscape. Its increasing the number of places in which they can be found, Serraglio said.
PHOENIX  Arizona voters may get the last word on whether they want to ban paying petition circulators on a per-name basis.

Foes of HB 2404, signed into law last week by Gov. Doug Ducey, submitted paperwork Thursday to the secretary of states office that will allow them to start gathering signatures to refer the measure to the 2018 ballot. They have until 90 days after the session ends  whenever that finally happens  to gather at least 75,321 valid signatures.

One thing working in their favor is that because the law they oppose is not yet in effect, they can hire paid circulators and pay them according to the number of signatures they gather for the petitions.

And if they get enough signatures, that puts off enforcement of the law until the 2018 election.
A jury of students tries to flip lone "innocent" holdout voter Jeidon Gaither, 12, right, as undergrad law student Kendyl Ashley, left, recounts details of the trial of "Goldilocks" during the 10th annual School of R.O.K. (Rights of Kids) day at the University of Arizona on March 31, 2017, in Tucson, Ariz. The UA chapter of the Phi Alpha Delta law fraternity hosted 16 middle-schoolers from Pima Partnership to educate them about law and how it applies to their age demographic. Among the activities were guest speakers, talks on cyber-bullying and the juvenile court system and a mock trial where the jury of students had to decide the guilt or innocence of "Goldilocks".
Coconino Community College student Alexandra Greer has been selected as a 2017 Phi Theta Kappa Guistwhite Scholar.

Greer was one of 15 recipients nationally of a medallion and a $5,000 scholarship. Guistwhite Scholars are chosen based on academic achievement, leadership accomplishment and engagement in PTK programs.

Greer and the other Guistwhite Scholars will be honored at the PTK Catalyst annual convention, April 6-8, in Nashville, Tenn.

Last year, Greer was selected to the All-Arizona Academic Team, and she plans to continue her studies at the University of Arizona in the fall.
Last week, several Kaibab National Forest employees spent a day at Williams Elementary-Middle School teaching 140 students in sixth, seventh and eighth grade how to make discoveries about plants and animals near their homes and on their public lands, thereby creating a small army of young citizen scientists who can assist land managers in understanding the biodiversity of the area.

Kaibab National Forest resource specialists demonstrated to students a new way to interact with the forest and its flora and fauna using their smart phones and the free online platform iNaturalist.org. At the beginning of 2017, the Kaibab began a citizen science project to identify and document the biodiversity of the forest by encouraging visitors to take photos of plants and animals and post them to the project page using the free iNaturalist app.

The students loved the iNaturalist day. The number of Forest Service employees in my classroom was phenomenal. Students were able to learn about a bunch of different parts of the Forest Service, and the adult-to-student ratio allowed for small groups while working outside, said Isabel Caldwell, Williams Middle School science teacher. Students were also able to learn how they can contribute to science in their own home, and they were given a tool to help them do that. The students were incredibly excited and thankful to have community members come into the classroom and work with them.

Involving students in the fun but also scientifically valuable project is just one way Kaibab National Forest employees hope to connect members of the public with their public lands. By the end of one day, the Williams students had collected more than 200 observations, and that number keeps increasing as students continue their citizen science work outside of the classroom. Students without smartphones are still able to participate by using the schools laptops to upload photos of their scientific finds.

Its days like the one we had with the students that remind me why we do what we do, said Mark Christiano, geographic information systems coordinator for the Kaibab National Forest and the planner of the citizen science project with the school. Getting out to a school and connecting with kids is so important. Not only did we teach them a whole new way to interact with the forest, but we also connected them with a global community of citizen scientists.

Once participants post photos of plants or animals to the Kaibab NF 2017 Citizen Science Project, they receive expert feedback from the iNaturalist community on their discoveries. Kaibab National Forest biologists also help identify or confirm findings, providing a connection to local scientists who are interested in knowing more about and tracking the abundance and distribution of species on the forest.

I hope our students learn to stop and smell the roses. Sometimes, they move so fast that they miss the beauty in their own backyard, said Maya Caldwell, director of student services for the Williams Unified School District. Williams is a beautiful town, and I hope this program helps them see how special our area is and how much northern Arizona has to offer them. I also hope we have a few future scientists that bloom because of these experiences.

The Kaibab National Forest created the year-long citizen science project with a couple goals in mind. First, biologists and planners hope to increase knowledge of plant and animal species, especially unusual or rare ones, and to inform the overall species list for the forest as well as management approach. Second, forest managers see the project as a way to build relationships with local communities and visitors, creating an opportunity for shared stewardship and turning visitors into scientists and champions of public lands and the resources they offer.

By connecting people with natural and cultural resources, we hopefully help them understand the importance of public lands and the need to keep them public for our grandchildren and their children, said Heather Provencio, forest supervisor for the Kaibab National Forest. The Kaibab has so many special places and opportunities for everyone, and Im excited this project is helping inspire young people to experience those things.

Teaching the Williams Middle School students about citizen science and how to get involved through iNaturalist was just the first step. The Kaibab National Forest is planning a day-long field trip May 4 for the students to visit the forest and collect observations side-by-side with wildlife biologists, botanists, silviculturists, archaeologists and other resource specialists. In the interim, students have been collecting observations around their homes or while out with their families camping, hiking, fishing, hunting or participating in other outdoor adventures.

To participate with the Kaibab National Forest in its citizen science project, visit Kaibab NF 2017 Citizen Science Project on iNaturalist.org.
PHOENIX  Residents of Yarnell who lost their homes in the 2013 blaze have no legal right to sue the state for failing to save their homes, the Arizona Court of Appeals ruled Thursday.

In an extensive decision, the court rejected the contention of the homeowners' attorney that the state, which was trying to contain the wildfire that started on public land, had some duty to also protect the structures. Judge Kent Cattani, writing for the unanimous court, said that is not true.

Potentially more significant, the judge said forcing the state to defend private properties simply because it already is fighting the fire on public lands would lead to perverse incentives.

Prevention and suppression of wildfires  like the emergency response to any natural disaster  is a fundamental public safety obligation, Cattani wrote. Public policy should encourage a prompt and efficacious response from the state.

But the judge that falls apart if public officials have to fear that deciding to fight a fire would impose liability for damages to others.

The state could shield itself from liability by simply doing nothing, Cattani said. Such a result is contrary to the overriding needs of the public.

The fire that started with a lightning strike on state land destroyed more than 120 homes and resulted in the deaths of 19 firefighters.

Attorney David Abney said there's plenty of evidence that the Forestry Division botched the job. But Abney has been unable to present the evidence to a jury because Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Richard Gama threw the case out, ruling that the state, in fighting the fire on public lands, had no duty to specifically protect Yarnell residents and their property.

The appellate court ruling affirms that decision and, unless overturned on appeal, leaves Yarnell residents with no legal option. And Abney promised an appeal.

Abney argued that even if the state does not have an automatic duty to protect the homes, the facts in this case show why the court should conclude there is liability in this case.

He said that the state, having decided to fight the fire, assumed the legal obligation to protect the homeowners. As proof he said the state acted to protect the community, citing efforts to contain the fire, provide some point protection around the community, make fire breaks and do some aerial retardant drops.

The judges were unconvinced, saying that's all legally irrelevant.

These actions are consistent with the state forester's discretionary authority to provide wildfire suppression services in and in the interest of protecting state lands ... rather than an undertaking directed to the benefit and protection of the residents' property, Cattani wrote.

Abney had no better luck with his claim that the state, which owns the land where the fire started, was responsible for ensuring that it did not spread.

Cattani said there might be some claim if the state had started the fire or created artificial conditions that resulted in the fire starting or spreading. But he said there was no liability because the evidence was that the fire arose from a natural cause on land that remained unused and in natural condition.

In writing Thursday's ruling, Cattani said the court understands the homeowners' concerns.

This is not to suggest that the state forester should ignore the fire's potential impact on nearby properties and communities and part of the statutorily directed assessment of what wildfire suppression services are in the best interests of the state, he said.

Certainly there was a hoped-for benefit to the residents here as a result of the state's work to contain the fire, Cattani continued. But a hoped-for benefit that may arise incidental to broader public-safety concerns and the best interests of the state does not establish a duty.
Frederick County Sheriff's Office(THURMONT, Md.) -- A Maryland teenage girl accused of plotting a shooting at her high school was released from the hospital this morning and taken into custody, where she was served with outstanding arrest warrants, officials said.



Nicole Cevario, 18, had been in the hospital since March 23, after her father told officials at Catoctin High School in Thurmont, Maryland, about a "potential threat of violence toward the school," the Frederick County Sheriff's Office said.



Authorities searched Cevario's home, where they say they found a diary that indicated she planned to carry out a mass shooting at her high school less than two weeks later, on April 5. Her diary mentioned the 1999 Columbine High School shooting in Littleton, Colorado, and the 2012 Newtown, Connecticut, elementary school shooting, Frederick County Sheriff Charles Jenkins told ABC News.



The sheriff's office said Cevario's journal showed she had been plotting the alleged attack "for some time and had been compiling intelligence on behavior activities of the school, noting emergency procedures associated with drills conducted by school staff and obtaining intelligence on the school resource deputy."



Authorities searching Cevario's home also found a shotgun with ammunition and "bombmaking materials to include pipes with end caps, shrapnel, fireworks, magnesium tape and fuse material," the sheriff's office said.



The sheriff's office said earlier that Cevario was struggling with mental health issues.



After Cevario was released from the hospital Friday, she was taken to the Frederick County Adult Detention Center, where she is being held on no bond pending an evaluation from the Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, the sheriffs office said.



The arrest warrants were for possession of explosive material with intent to create a destructive device and possession of incendiary material with the intent to create a destructive device, the sheriffs office said previously.



Frederick County Sheriff Charles Jenkins said all the items Cevario bought were legal. Authorities also said that no one other than Cevario was involved.



The office of Cevario's attorney declined to comment.



Jenkins said earlier this week, "I have no doubt based on what we saw in her diary, the evidence we found, the information that we have taken throughout the investigation, that this was going to occur ... April 5."



There was never a weapon or explosive device on school property, authorities said, and the materials were never combined into an explosive device, officials said.



Jenkins added of the suspect's parents, "I can't tell you how thankful I am that they stepped forward, offered this information to school administrators and contacted us. Without their help with this thing, we would have been dealing with an aftermath, rather than averting."

Copyright  2017, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.
After a noisy, windy night that saw near gale-force winds, Flagstaff residents woke up this morning to a dusting of snow and the prospect of cold, showery weather through Saturday.

The National Weather Service in Bellemont reported a wind gust of 66 mph Thursday night amid thunderstorms that rattled windows throughout the region.

Slick roadways west of Flagstaff may have contributed to two accidents that temporarily closed Interstate 40  one around 8:30 p.m. near Ash Fork and another earlier this morning near Williams that has left the westbound lanes partially closed.

The Weather Service is calling for winds to continue blustery with snow showers and thunder throughout Friday and into Saturday morning, with a total snow accumulation of up to three inches. The high today will be just 37 degrees, with an overnight low of 24.

Skies will clear by Saturday afternoon, and Sunday will be sunny with a high of 57 before another cold front moves into the region Monday.

Following is the detailed Weather Service forecast for Flagstaff through Thursday:

Today

Snow showers likely. Some thunder is also possible. Cloudy, with a high near 37. Southwest wind around 15 mph, with gusts as high as 21 mph. Chance of precipitation is 70%. Total daytime snow accumulation of around an inch possible.

Tonight

A 50 percent chance of snow showers. Mostly cloudy, with a low around 24. West southwest wind 5 to 9 mph becoming calm in the evening. New snow accumulation of 1 to 2 inches possible.

Saturday

A slight chance of snow showers before 11am, then a slight chance of rain and snow showers. Mostly sunny, with a high near 48. Light north northeast wind becoming northeast 5 to 10 mph in the morning. Chance of precipitation is 10%.

Saturday Night

Mostly clear, with a low around 27. North northeast wind 5 to 10 mph becoming light north northwest in the evening.

Sunday

Sunny, with a high near 57. Light northwest wind becoming west 5 to 9 mph in the morning.

Sunday Night

Mostly clear, with a low around 33.

Monday

A 20 percent chance of showers after 11am. Mostly sunny, with a high near 56. Breezy.

Monday Night

Partly cloudy, with a low around 30. Breezy.

Tuesday

Sunny, with a high near 54.

Tuesday Night

Mostly clear, with a low around 26.

Wednesday

Sunny, with a high near 57.

Wednesday Night

Mostly clear, with a low around 28.

Thursday

Sunny, with a high near 64.

5:15 p.m. Thursday: Wind, thunder, rain -- then up to three inches of snow

The National Weather Service in Bellemont says the first raindrops from the strong cold front that brought high winds to Flagstaff this afternoon are expected to fall soon.

By late tonight, the rain will turn to snow -- up to 8 inches on the Kaibab Plateau and up to 3 inches in Flagstaff before the storm is done Saturday morning. Snow levels could reach down to 4,500 feet.

Friday will be raw and blustery, with snow showers and winds gusting to 24 mph. The high in Flagstaff will be just 41 degrees.

Winds will die Friday night but the chance of snow showers will persist through Saturday morning. The rest of Saturday and all of Sunday will be sunny and warmer before more unsettled weather arrives in the region Monday and Tuesday.

10 a.m. Thursday: Strong winds today, then rain, light snow tonight

First the wind, then the snow.

Thats the word from the National Weather Service for Thursday in the Flagstaff region.

The Weather Service has issued a high wind warning for western Coconino County starting at noon through 8 p.m., with winds 25 to 35 mph, gusting to 50 to 60 mph. The rest of northern Arizona will see winds only slightly lighter: 20 to 30 mph, gusting to 50 mph.

By late Thursday night, scattered showers and thunderstorms will develop as a cold front moves across the region, then turn to snow overnight down to 4,500 to 5,500 feet.

The overnight low will be 30 degrees, with a high on Friday of just 41 degrees. Snow accumulations in Flagstaff are expected to be light, with snow showers lingering through Saturday morning.

Sunny skies return in full Sunday before another cold front brings strong winds and a chance of precipitation Monday and Tuesday.
President Donald Trump says lots of nutty, made-up things that invariably generate lots of appalled reactions from the news media and the wonkocracy. His statements about the unemployment rate have generated lots of appalled reactions, too. But, as Ive written before, theyre not entirely nutty or made up. In fact, they address  albeit in exaggerated Trumpian fashion  a real measurement problem.

Here, for example, is the president in his much-discussed (and yes, in parts quite nutty) interview last week with Times Michael Scherer:

I inherited a mess with jobs, despite the statistics, you know, my statistics are even better, but they are not the real statistics because you have millions of people that cant get a job, OK.

OK! Although I wouldnt put it exactly that way. Heres what Trump should have said if he wanted to do more to court the crucial econowonk demographic:

Yes, the unemployment rate is low  and going lower! But the job market still isnt in great shape, which the unemployment rate misses because it fails to count the millions of people who have given up looking for work. A better measure to focus on would be the prime-age employment-to-population ratio, or the Hornstein-Kudlyak-Lange Non-Employment Index. Did I pronounce Kudlyak right?

The latter measure was devised in 2014 by Andreas Hornstein of the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, Marianna Kudlyak of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco and Fabian Lange of Montreals McGill University in an attempt to better reflect the role played by labor-force dropouts. These are the people who tell government survey takers that they neither have a job nor have looked for one in the previous four weeks, and they dont show up at all in the headline unemployment rate. Those who havent looked for a job in the past four weeks but have in the past 12 months are considered marginally attached to the labor force and show up in alternative Bureau of Labor Statistics measures, such as U-6 unemployment, which includes discouraged workers and involuntary part-timers. But all other non-job-holders are omitted from the calculations.

This is not the result of some sneaky plot by recent administrations to make the numbers look better. Its basically the way unemployment has been calculated since the 1940s. The reasoning is that you dont want to count as unemployed people who are extremely unlikely to join the labor market in any case, because that would give employers and economic policy makers a skewed picture of how much slack there is in the labor market. Yes, counting the labor-force dropouts would also invariably make things look worse  Im not denying that theres some public-relations thinking at work here, just that theres anything new about it. What is new is how many labor-force dropouts there are, especially male ones, although after rising for decades the female labor-force participation rate has fallen since 2000 as well.

Lots of these dropouts do get jobs eventually. As Hornstein, Kulyak and Lange wrote in 2014:

In the U.S. labor market unemployed individuals that are actively looking for work are more than three times as likely to become employed as those individuals that are not actively looking for work and are considered to be out of the labor force (OLF). Yet, on average, every month twice as many people make the transition from OLF to employment than do from unemployment to employment. These observations on labor market transitions suggest that the standard unemployment rate and its extensions proposed by the Bureau of Labor Statistics are both too coarse and too narrow as measures of resource utilization in the labor market. These measures are too narrow since they exclude a large part of the population that is potentially employable, and they are too coarse since they assume the same labor force attachment for all nonemployed individuals.

So they set out to create a measure that includes the labor-force dropouts, weighted to reflect the propensity of the different subgroups among them (disabled, retired, in school, not in school, discouraged, etc.) to return to the workforce. The latest edition of their non-employment index came out Tuesday, and it showed a rate of 8.2 percent for February. Add in people working part time for economic reasons (aka involuntary part-time workers), and it was 9.3 percent. That compares with a headline unemployment rate of 4.7 percent, which is interesting. Also interesting is how this compares with past non-employment rates  which we can do because Hornstein, Kulyak and Lange back-filled their index using data going back to 1994.

The non-employment index has fallen a lot since the recession, although it hasnt fallen as fast as the unemployment rate. Its still somewhat above its lows of 2007 and 2000, but thats true of the unemployment rate, too. So, a different picture, but not one that shows all that much more evidence of a mess with jobs, historically speaking, than the unemployment rate.

But maybe you want even more historical sweep and dont care about all those fancy weightings. Thats where the prime-age employment-to-population ratio comes in. Its just the number of employed people, divided by the number of civilians aged 25 through 54 (prisoners and uniformed military arent part of the calculations):

Here you can see that there are still a lot more people not working than during the economic expansions of the 2000s, 1990s and 1980s. Its a little hard to compare going back further than that, though, because the great wave of women entering the paid workforce swamps almost everything else. So lets just look at men:

In March 1953, only 4 percent of prime-age men didnt have jobs. In February, that figure was 14.7 percent  which is a lot better than the nearly 20 percent rate at the depths of the last recession but still an awful lot of men without paid work. Men staying in school longer account for some of this. So do stay-at-home dads and very early retirees. But mostly these men have dropped out of the labor force for other, unhappier reasons, as Nicholas Eberstadt recounted in his recent book Men Without Work: Americas Invisible Crisis.

I think its fair to characterize this as a mess with jobs  although its a mess thats been many decades in the making, and I doubt President Trump really knows what to do about it.
Threatening notes found at Flagstaff High School have targeted individual students and teachers at the school, according to Flagstaff Police officials.

At least one of the five threatening notes found by police personally threatened three teachers and four students by name.

Police also stated that the note specifically mentioned that the seven individuals were Christian; however, it did not specifically say that they were being targeted solely because of their religion.

The individuals have been notified about the note.

Police would not release the contents of the letters, stating that they had evidentiary value.

Flagstaff Police Deputy Chief Dan Musselman said that not disclosing the notes contents will better help police with their investigation.

By keeping the content guarded, when a lead comes forward we are better able to interrogate possible suspects, Musselman said. Although the evidentiary value is limited, it is one of the investigative tools we have.

Information on the case has been forwarded to the FBI.

FBI Flagstaff Supervisory Agent Brian Fuller would not confirm or deny an investigation into the notes by his department, but did state that the agency is fully aware, of the situation.

The five notes refer to a Columbine-type incident occurring possibly in March or the anniversary of the Columbine shooting on April 20.

The first note in the threatening series was found by a student in the boys bathroom at Flagstaff High on March 8, the second, third and fourth notes were found in the girls bathroom on March 9, March 20 and March 23.

The police and Flagstaff Unified School District are investigating the situation as a felony. A school resource officer from the police department has been assigned to work at Flagstaff High School full time during school hours throughout the next several weeks. Police are encouraging students who have information to call Detective Barreras at (928) 679-4055 or Silent Witness at (928) 774-6111.
You may be wondering whether that is cheese. (And more generally, what the heck that entire thing is.)

Answers: No it is not cheese. And the thing is chaat, a popular street food in northern India that features fried bread or crackers topped with a slurry of sauces like yogurt, curry, etc. On top they sprinkle a layer of yellow chickpea noodles called sev. They're not melty and cheesy. They're crackly.

I have never eaten this thing before, but I am now obsessed. Chaat has a rather commanding presence when it comes to the table. It is big, and colorful, and you have to eat it fast. (Otherwise it gets salty and soggy, our server told us.) He said this to us in the back room of a neighborhood market on Stone, the kind you usually just drive by. Make your way past the wall of spices and you'll come to an airy cafe with a small buffet flanking the back door. The place is called Yogi's Indian Cafe and Market.

The buffet looked decent, but we skipped it. You want to order off the menu here, because the first page is filled with Indian street foods you won't find anywhere else in town. The main deal is probably the "Indian burritos," but unfortunately they were out during our visit. Kathi rolls from the city of Calcutta are basically tikka masala stuffed into a tortilla-like flatbread called a paratha. (More on that later, if I get lucky!)

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I was also surprised to find dumplings on the menu. The manager, a young guy from Boston named Dhwanit Paul, told us that most of the kitchen staff are from Nepal, a landlocked Himalayan country that borders China. These dumplings are their specialty. They are called momos, $8.99, and they're made from scratch, with a dough that's just a little less puffy than your typical freezer dumpling varieties.

They were filled with delicate shards of veggies and some springy clear noodles. We dipped them in a vibrant tomato sauce that was sweet like a chutney. (Paul just called it "tomato sauce," but I found this recipe online.) Everything else on the menu is from Northern India, particularly the state of Haryana where Paul and his family are from.

Check this out. These whimsical little things are pani pooris, $5.99. You take a spherical wheat flour cracker, hollow it out and fill the inside with chickpeas, potatoes and red onions. You prepare a cold broth of water and various Indian spices. The diner then fills each cracker with broth and tamarind sauce, taking a bite of sweet herbal crunch. How did all these snacks make me full? I am not sure, but a dinner of appetizers sounds pretty good right now ...
And just like in Berlin in 1945, the last line of defence is made up of foreign fighters, who know there is only one way out for them The comparison with the assault on Berlin stops there however, because the war in Iraq will not end with IS losing its Iraqi capital. Instead, the Mosul battlefield is likely to turn into the birth place of the next insurgency. Too many mistakes have been made, are still being made, and too many factors are playing into the hands of those insurgents who prepare for the "day after".

Contrary to what is stated in most media accounts, he never actually declared the establishment of a new Caliphate during his sermon. That was done a few days earlier via an audio message of his spokesman, Abu Muhammad al-Adnani, who was killed by a US drone in August 2016. The symbolic value of the Nuri mosque however is huge and its recapture by Iraqi troops would be something like the Red Army raising its flag over the Reichstag of Berlin, in 1945. No wonder, Baghdadi's troops aren't keen on such a prospect and consider blowing up the old historic place of worship rather than relinquishing control over it. Again, the attitude seems like a distant echo of SS "die hards" fighting to the bitter end in the ruins of their "Reich" that was supposed to last a thousand years.

Day after day, news are trickling in about further advances of the Iraqi forces, luring the US public into a false sense of "mission being accomplished". The countdown to full control over Mosul is on, there is no doubt about that, but what will be left of the city at that point is not yet clear. Eastern Mosul was freed by early January, and progression in the old city in central Western Mosul is ongoing. Various Iraqi forces are grinding their way through the last areas held by IS fighters and armoured units are edging closer to the Great Mosque of al-Nuri, from which Abubakr al-Baghdadi, then newly anointed "Caliph" of the so-called Islamic State, made his first and only public appearance, on July 4th 2014.

Initially, when plans to retake Mosul were first drawn up, the city was supposed to fall into Iraqi hands by mid-2016 at the latest. Logistical issues, battefield shaping manoeuvers, as well as Iraqi and international politics however delayed the offensive, which finally got under way by mid-October of last year. By that time, a huge "Mexican army"  Iraqi style  lay siege to the big city in Northern Iraq. The mood among the troops (and the many embedded reporters) was positive, the outlook for quick victory was good. Five and a half months into the battle, and despite major gains against the Jihadis, there isn't much left of that optimism.

Chatter is getting louder these days about the Mosul offensive against IS nearing its end. Considering the significant territorial gains achieved by Iraqi forces, this is obviously a positive development. The coming victory however will come at a cost, and in the long run, this cost may very well outweigh the short term benefits of this offensive. For now, it is too early to talk about victory. Actually, victory has not even been achieved yet, as the fighting is heading towards the six months mark. But a look into the rear view mirror might already give a few pointers as to where all this is heading

Rising Civilian Casualties

In recent weeks, there has been alarming information about the increase in civilian casualties. Commentators who were lambasting the Russian approach to Aleppo will probably wish they had bitten their lip back then, for things look as though we have gone the Russian way... The truth of the matter is that combat in urban terrain  especially one such as Mosul, and Western Mosul in particular  is not possible without significant collateral damage, especially when you're fighting an opponent that is defending fortified positions, embedded within the civilian population and committed to fighting to the death rather than surrendering.

Therefore, the number of dead and wounded civilians will not come as a surprise to anyone who has seriously studied the local terrain and analysed IS' defensive tactics and strategies. In early December already, the Iraqi forces had an "operational break", which followed a period of very serious casualties they took during the operations in Eastern Mosul. Even though they managed to take back the neighbourhoods on the left shore of the Tigris, the Iraqis displayed serious operational shortcomings and very poor leadership at some points. These errors, as is usually the case in war, resulted in a substantial number of troops either wounded or killed.

Yesterday, CENTCOM Commander Joseph Votel testified as to the number of Iraqi casualties during the offensive. According to official Iraqi numbers, the forces involved in the assault sustained 5 400 casualties so far (800 KIA and 4 600 wounded). Whether these numbers are realistic is very much up for debate. But even if they are, they still represent a very high attrition rate, for the number of units actively involved in taking back the city is rather low. Efforts are currently under way to replenish and retrain the much famed "Golden Division" (ISOF1), which is being decimated by the vicious fighting taking place in Mosul.

This points to one of the major flaws in the Iraqi build-up to the battle. Despite the tens of thousands troops that have been "trained and equipped" by Western advisors since mid-2014, despite the massive amount of cash and the equipment that has gone Baghdad's (and Erbil's) way, the Iraqi armed forces still aren't proficient enough to take on a garrison of 5 000 to 7 000 dead-enders. And even with the help and supports of Kurdish militias, Shia PMUs, as well as local tribal fighters, totalling somewhere around 80 000 and 100 000 troops, they still haven't finished off the Mosul job. Five and a half months fighting, and going  One has to wonder where the offensive would be right now, without US and Western ISR, air strikes, artillery support and special forces !

Structural Issues with the Iraqi Forces

This is probably the 3rd Iraqi army that the US have rebuilt over the past 15 years. How many more will it have to sustain until the country is in a position to fight off the head-choppers from Anbar ? By contrast, Bashar al-Assad's often vilified SAA looks like a new model army that has managed to resist the Jihadi onslaught for years now. In Mosul however, the study of tactics and operational skills does not shed a very positive light on Iraqi security forces. A "bad plan, poorly executed" would be a fitting description for an effort that has highlighted the many shortcomings of the Iraqi forces as far as combined arms in urban combat is concerned. Examples of operations gone awfully wrong, from the Salam hospital to the narrow alleys of the old city are manifold. There is a lack of skill and leadership from top to bottom: combined arms at platoon or company level, meaning in this instance having infantry and tanks fight along each other, is almost non existent...

The same units rotate in and out, over and over, and the casualty rates are making sure that precious experience is being lost and not being replaced by anything equivalent. It is going to take years to rebuild the few decent units this army had to offer. The lack of expertise of the men on the ground is only matched by the leadership of the officer corps, which is probably more interested in pleasing the politicians in Baghdad (or D.C.) rather than coming up with a sound plan to take the city without actually destroying it. Much has been said about ROEs for US and Coalition air strikes being loosened ever since Donald Trump took over at the White House.

The truth is that this trend had already started in the dying days of the previous administration. During the operational break of December however, it was decided to delegate the green lighting of air strikes to field commanders. In plain English, it means that the Iraqis and the human intelligence they are providing are weighing in more heavily on the process. And the Iraqis are actually the side that is putting more pressure on Coalition air power to go and hit buildings they cannot get under control, regardless of collateral civilian damage. So far, 4 000 civilians are estimated to have died in the offensive on Western Mosul alone. These are staggering numbers that do not bode well for the future.

Refugees as a Ticking Time Bomb

The bad news does not stop there. Some 400 000 Muslawis have fled the city since October. Only 80 000 have returned so far. The rest are living in huge refugee camps, miles away from the city, in the East and South. Could IS' propagandists wish for a better breeding and recruitment ground than those camps ? In that regard, refugees from Mosul are just the tip of the iceberg. There are currently 3 million "internally displaced persons" in Iraq (half as many as in Syria), but their situation is much more worrying than in the neighbouring country, where people from all creeds have fled from the opposing side's forces.



In Iraq, the vast majority of refugees are Sunnis who have lost their homes as a result of government forces "liberating" cities from ISIS and turned them into a pile of rubble while doing so. The vast majority of those Sunnis come from the exact same provinces that have been ISIS strongholds for years. They may not be staunch supporters of Baghdadi, but they definitely won't hold him entirely responsible for the situation they are in now.

Think of where the PLO got its staunchest supporters from ! If these people aren't going home any time soon, don't be surprised if they turn into one of the main incubators for the next insurgency. Additionally, heavy handed policing in the Mosul neighbourhoods that have been retaken from IS only inflames things further. Masked gunmen parading as police take suspects into custody. There are rumours of arbitrary detentions and summary executions... Fact is, people are getting disappeared on a daily basis, just like in the old days of the Sunni-Shia civil war for control over Baghdad (2004-2007).

Clearing and Holding Mosul

Obviously, there is a need for clearing the area of IS sleeper cells, informants and sympathizers, but the tactics used by the various forces involved, some of them sectarian militias that aren't much better than IS itself, are going to be counter-productive in the long run. Resentment is slow in the making, but once installed, it is always difficult to eradicate.

Meanwhile, areas far away from Mosul might turn into IS sanctuaries, areas where fighters and leaders of the organisation could take shelter, hiding among friendly locals until an opportunity to resurface presents itself. Diyala for example comes to mind as a perfect hiding place, one that had been chosen already by notorious Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Ten years on and not that much has changed in Diyala The border areas to Syria, along the Euphrates valley, also probably shelter a significant number of IS members gone into hiding.



The picture emerging from these trends will make the coming insurgency even more difficult to handle: IS will have been scattered all over the place, it will go into sleeping mode and gradually turn back into the insurgency it used to be in 2009, only this time, it will not just come out of the deserts of Anbar. It might morph into various shapes, with the refugee camps not exactly providing for the same kind of threat as the rural areas of Iraq or the disenfranchised neighbourhoods of Mosul, Ramadi or Fallujah.

More broadly still, the "Caliphate" has been preparing to go back underground in the Middle-East for a while now. Its leaders, assuming they are going to survive the current wave of fighting, realize they will emerge seriously weakened from the battle of Mosul (and soon Raqqa). But it is important not to forget that they have a global view of their so-called State. The Caliphate with its bureaucracy and (poor) infrastructure might be lost, but not the idea it is feeding on.

A "Deterritorialized" Global Caliphate ?

In Libya for example, despite major military operations in Sirte, IS is not willing to die. Through Libya goes the road into sub-saharan Africa, through Mali with its newly merged Jihadi scene, all the way to Nigerian Boko Haram. The "growth potential" for IS there is tremendous. In 2015 already, ISIS Central sent two dozen military trainers to Boko Haram, according to Western intelligence reports. It is quite likely they did not stop at that and will try and secure a broader operational base in the region.

South-East Asia too is an area of concern, especially countries that have not been confronted with major threats up until now. The number of Indonesians among IS fighters for example is significant and chances are, some of them at least will manage to return home once their "dream" of establishing an Islamic State in the Middle-East will have turned to dust. Who is to say what they will be up to once back home, in a country where reasons to be unhappy about the current state of affairs are plenty ?



The only upside from the current events is that next time around, there won't be a spill-over effect between Iraq and Syria, as there was between 2011 and 2014. Despite gloomy predictions about the future of neighbouring Syria, the truth is that IS is and always has been a Iraq centric organisation. Syria has been a safe haven, an area providing strategic depth to the organisation, but it has never been at the core of its political and sectarian utopia. Of course, if the Jihadis could have taken Damascus, they would have done so. But they did not and they settled for Raqqa and the Jazeera Desert instead. Most Syrians hate the organisation. They may support local Al Qaeda franchises, which adopted a wiser approach to getting embedded with the locals, but they do not want to live under the rule of Baghdadi or any other Caliph.

The Coming Insurgency

Soon, Raqqa too will be subjected to a siege. It remains to be seen which forces will gather at its gates. Chances are, contrary to popular belief, that a coordinated assault involving both US (Western) and Russian proxies will make sure the city is taken back. It is of course difficult to make any predictions, but it would not be surprising if things did go more smoothly in Raqqa than Mosul, unless of course a major disaster happens (like Thawra dam breaking down for example). Short of this however, the Islamic State in Syria will vanish into the deserts it came from, turning back to its historic birth place, in Iraq.

Iraq is where ISIS was almost broken some 8 years ago. It is also where the organisation has the best chance to survive, to regroup and ultimately to regain momentum. If we are serious about putting an end to it, we need to pay better attention and avoid mistakes that were made in the past. Considering that past however, as well as our present inability to apply our "lessons learnt", there is no reason to be overly optimistic about our chances to prevail. The next insurgency might already be upon us, or rather upon unlucky Iraq.
Help India!

By TCN News

The Punjab Documentation and Advocacy Project [PDAP] in collaboration with prominent human rights organisations in Punjab and India will be holding a two-day Independent Peoples Tribunal on the 1st and 2nd April 2017. We are pleased to announce that an expert panel of distinguished jurists, human rights activists and academics from across India will be hearing the forgotten voices of hundreds of victim families of enforced disappearances and extrajudicial killings (fake encounters) that occurred in Punjab from the mid-1980s to mid-1990s. Many of whom were cremated as unclaimed and unidentified by the Punjab Police in 22 of Punjabs districts.

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The expert panel will consist of Justice A K Ganguly, Soni Sori, Justice Suresh, Babloo Loitongbam, Colin Gonsalves, Bibi Paramjit Kaur Khalra, Kavita Srivastava, Tapan Bose and Parveena Ahangar.

The panel will consider and deliberate on the status of over 2,000 unclaimed, unidentified mass cremations, which took place in 3 cremation grounds in Patti, Tarn Taran and Amritsar exposed by Sardar Jaswant Singh Khalra. Where over 500 victims remain unidentified, despite 20 years of litigation before the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) and the Supreme Court.

An overwhelming number of victims voices have never been heard in the public domain. The victims who have been awaiting basic acknowledgement, accountability and redress have been grounded down by the endless facades of litigation.

The IPT seeks to lay bare the endemic failures of the judicial process to investigate, prosecute, and hold to account those responsible for mass state violence. It will critically analyse the apathy and indifference of the Indian judiciary in perhaps the worst case of mass state killings ever litigated in independent India. The Punjab Mass Cremations Case before the NHRC, remains one the most protracted cases in Indian legal history concerning mass killings by the State.

The IPT will analyse why none of the minuscule number, less than 2% of cases (30 cases out of 1513) investigated by the CBI have resulted in a single conviction and are themselves currently subject to judicial stays.

The IPT will analyse why the NHRC has made no comment in a single case concerning 1513 identified cases as to whether they were genuine encounter killings using legally sanctioned lethal force or whether they were extra-judicial killings (fake encounters). Whilst the NHRC has conducted high profile fact findings in other states in India, there has never been an NHRC led enquiry that has ever visited Punjab to investigate and consider the accuracy of thousands of police killings in so-called encounters.

In the 22 years of these proceedings, not a single witness has deposed or given evidence before the Commission. Not a single police officer, nor a government official, has ever been cross examined or given evidence despite 3 Sub-commissions of enquiry (Bains Committee, Bhalla Committee and Kang Committee). After over two decades of litigation, 525 persons are still classified and remain unclaimed/unidentified. Not a single case outside of the three cremations grounds was considered for compensation, which ignores over 25,000 other unclaimed/unidentified cases throughout Punjab.

A report will be presented to the IPT setting out the preliminary findings of a number of these cases, which have never been considered by the courts and the fate of 1513 unclaimed unidentified cases, have yet to be properly investigated. The report argues that there remains a cogent and compelling case for on-going effective investigation,prosecution and re-dressing these grave human rights violations. The IPT will also consider the similar position of a further 3000 cases, the facts of which mirror the Amritsar Mass cremations case for which there has been no judicial process or accountability at all.

The IPT will examine the disparate, inconsistent and flawed approach towards mass state crimes, when the Punjab experience is compared to similar conflicts in India. How the failure to provide justice or any meaningful post conflict resolution to this dark chapter in Punjabs history is inextricably linked to Punjabs present problems, and its future.

The IPT aims to dispel the fear psychosis which shroud such discussions through critical analyses, meaningful discussion and a constructive approach as to what can be done through a distinguished panel of retired judges, human rights activists, lawyers, media and others who have advanced the cause of truth, justice and accountability.

The IPT is the latest step in a concerted effort to uncover the truth and for truth, justice, reconciliation and rehabilitation for the affected people of Punjab.
Help India!

By Mohammed Sirajuddeen for Twocircles.net

The Human Rights Council Universal Periodic Review (Third Cycle) of the 27th session is going to be held in early May 2017. Along with India, Bahrain, Ecuador, Tunisia, Morocco, Indonesia, Finland, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, Brazil, Philippines, Algeria, Poland, Netherlands, and South Africa are the other member states whose human rights records are under consideration in the session. According to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), the Periodic Review will assess the member states commitment to the universal human rights obligations as expounded by the UN Charter, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Human Rights Instruments to which the states are party or Human Rights treaties as ratified by the states concerned, international law and the voluntary pledges on rights.

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Individuals and civil societies are to put shadow report prior to the review. Jammu Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society (JKCCS) had submitted their report in September 2016. Govt. of India, the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) also submits their respective reports to the Council. JKCCS representatives visit to Switzerland in September last year was to submit their report on state excesses in Kashmir and lobby different government representatives to bring Kashmir situation to limelight. Before attending the 2016 Geneva Session, JKCCS delegation had approached many embassies in New Delhi to garner opinion in favor of Kashmir. In Geneva they sought to consult UN mechanism and representatives of the international community. Despite the absence of Khurram Parvez who was stopped at the behest of Intelligence Bureau at the Delhi Airport before his departure, the participation got a logical conclusion with the efforts of Parvez Imroz even though formers arrest had put immense pressure on the delegation from Kashmir. The session was dominated by the uncertainties born out of Khurrams arrest and the JKCCS delegation tried to lobby for garnering support for the release of Khurram Parvez and they took the matter to the UN Special Rapporteur. On their way back to India, Kartik Murukutla the lawyer who was part of the delegation was questioned by authorities in India.

Valley of Resistance

In the 2016 turmoil Kashmir witnessed an intense clash unlike the sentimental reactions of early 1990s. As opposed to the previous unrests of 2008 and 2010, Kashmiris this time knew why the protests were important and were highly motivated by the zeal of sacrifice. While earlier protests were primarily issue based reactions that triggered massive outburst of discontents, in 2016 the discontent permeated to every cell of Kashmiri life and it is considered as a fight for survival and it didnt leave the more pertinent political issues like Pandit-Sainik colonies to the back burner. It is reckoned that the state response to protests rendered 15,000 injured, 8,000 or more arrested, 500 or more blinded and around a hundred or more people got killed. The unrest phase also witnessed a militant attack in Uri Army Camp (Indian soldiers were killed in the incident) in September 2016 and security forces in India asserted a surgical strike beyond the border to destroy what they termed as the terror launch pads. Even though the killing of Burhan sparked the unrest, signs of major outbursts were simmering in Kashmir since early 2016 when the alleged Handwara molestation by Army personnel had propped up in Kupwara. The state could then tactfully contain it by force before budding into an upheaval and the overall accumulated anger came all together with the fall of Burhan in early July 2016. For Kashmiris, Burhan was a revered mujahid and he is considered as the hero of rising rage against the State violence. The significance of Burhan lies in his role of bring into the forefront the accumulated discontent in mainstream through protracted glorification of what Kashmiri people call resistance. It seems that the resistance leadership streamed by All Parties Hurriyat Conference (APHC) is fully aware of the historical precedents of what they call national resistance movements around the globe. They believe that until and unless the sacrifices are glorified the movement wont consolidate in full swing. For that matter Burhan moment in Kashmirs history will be remembered as a case of spontaneous outburst with severe cascading effects on Indias Security establishment and the world is testimony to the ill treatment meted out to people of Kashmir in the past decades.

Speaking Rights in Kashmir

In the last three decades, we heard stories on cycle of violence in Kashmir sponsored by the state. By the interventions of the civil society groups, issues came to the realm of discussions at the international plane. In early 1990s, Human Rights activism in Kashmir was a limited exercise. The coming of organizations like APDP and later JKCCS introduced in Kashmir a new culture based on a belief in non-violent resolution of conflict. They wanted that the right to dissent be acknowledged, reason, truth and justice should prevail. As far as extrajudicial violence is concerned, various patterns emerged as a chronicle resulting mass massacres, enforced disappearances, sexual violence, and torture. In Kashmir various human rights groups have estimated torture survivors that run in lakhs in numbers. Around Globe, Commissions were appointed to investigate the cases of disappearances but in Kashmir that did not happen till now. State sponsored vigilante force popularly known as Ikhwans or renegades was introduced in Kashmir that had aggravated the violence since mid 1990s. The militants hunted by Hizb-ul-Mujahideen surrendered, anti-social elements also joined the informal force created by the Security Forces. By the virtue of weapons, power and institutional backing of special cells aided from Delhi they reigned terror and extorted money in Kashmir. While many were forced to join others were lured with inducements.

Human rights activism started strengthening since the campaigning of APDP from 1994. Thousands have become the victims of enforced disappearances but the Government at different junctures did not accept it more than 4000. When JKCCS was formed since 2000s their volunteers started dealing with all kinds of human rights violations bringing the cases of enforced disappearances as well as the issue of mass graves to the forefront. The coalition is a broader network identifying and documenting such cases. The state-crimes in Kashmir which was once systematically institutional have now become a policy. Vibrant civil society activism in Kashmir has sought the accountability of perpetrators by documenting the human rights violations. By investigations, they brought into picture thousands of mass graves which is also confirmed by the State Human Rights Commission (SHRC). An early day motion tabled in the British Parliament dating January 2012, had commented on the discovery of unmarked graves and expressed its sadness and regret over 6,000 unmarked graves, majority of which is believed to be consisting of the bodies of thousands deemed disappeared in Kashmir. The European Parliament had passed a resolution on 10 July 2008 offering technical expertise and monetary assistance for conducting the DNA tests.

By engaging with both Indian and Global civil Society, they sought to move ahead in bringing justice for the victims through concrete demands. The Human Rights collectives in Kashmir also believe that theirs is a case of occupation and desire an end to the current disciplinary state. Like the popular perceptions in Kashmir these groups also point to the broken promises with regard to the question of self-determination. They attribute this back out to the nefarious designs of the ruling dispensations in India which wanted to convince the dominant national conscience. Moreover, the mutual relationship of these organizations with other political groups is based on consensus and differences that focus a democratic culture. While they constantly exposed the violations by the security forces, they also had projected the mistakes committed by militants in Kashmir.

Time to Introspect

Government is convinced that in the face of instant exposition of state crimes throughout the years, only crackdown is the way to evade from responsibilities and it has now intensified the tangible control mechanism through different ways. The resistance peak in Kashmir therefore is reminiscent of what Parvez Imroz calls the Newtons law, that is every action has an equal and opposite reaction which the security establishment has to bear in terms of its behavior. The government according to him is therefore loosing the state of mind in Kashmir and it seems no one can stop an idea whose time has come. Human Rights defenders claim that the past decades were filled with institutional injustice in Kashmir. Post 2010 unrest, only few cases of state crimes were allowed to be questioned institutionally and justice is not delivered yet. In that respect, given the nature of crackdowns in 2016, there seems a negligible space for legal interventions for impartial results. Surprising is the fact that even in the case of Israel, the worst perpetrators of extrajudicial crimes were convicted. Kashmir is unique of all conflict zones in terms of day today surveillance technologies and militarization. Why is always disproportionate force maintained in Kashmir? Why always asymmetrical responses to protests in Kashmir while all prolific protests were met with soft actions in other parts of India starting from the cases of demonstrations in Haryana to Jallikattu in Tamil Nadu? It is not the question of lethal and non-lethal weapons used that matters, more important is the mindset of the political class in India and their approach on Kashmir question.

The author is a doctoral researcher at the Centre for Political Studies, School of Social Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India.
Help India!

By Shamsul Islam for Twocircles.net

The senior RSS/BJP ideologues lately have been hailing UP chief minister, Mahant Yogi Adityanath as sanyasi (Hindu ascetics) of novel Anandmath (Abbey of Bliss) penned by Bankim Chander Chatterjee (1838-94). Anandmath, novel written by Bankim in Bengali, was the first most important work outlining the concept of a Hindu Rashtra. Anandmath is the Bible even today for the believer in the concept of a Hindu nation. Before familiarizing with the contents of this novel, it will be appropriate to know few important facts about the novel and its author. This is the same novel in which Bankim presented the song Vande Mataram which equated nationalism to mother-worship. Anandmath is basically the story of the Hindu sanyasi rebellion of the late eighteenth century in North Bengal of India against rule of the Muslim nabobs. These rebels called themselves Santans (children). This novel appeared in 18825, about 25 years after the defeat of the Indians in the Great War of Independence of 1857, when even the ceremonial authority of the Muslim rulers was gone. It is to be noted that the British rulers held mainly Muslims responsible for the 1857 Mutiny and consequently penalized them heavily. Anandmath appeared when British sovereignty had been formally established over a large part of India. It will be interesting to note that this novel touted as the greatest tome of the Hindu nationalism did not get much attention for almost 25 years after its publication in Bengali. It became popular after the Partition of Bengal (1905) with its translation into English. It prepared ground for the rise of Hindu and Muslims variants of nationalism.

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Interestingly, Bankim, the author of Anandmath, was appointed directly to the post of Deputy Magistrate in the year 1858 by the British Lieutenant Governor of Bengal. He was the first Indian to be appointed to such a post immediately after 1857 when Mutiny was still on. After serving the British rulers for 33 years when Bankim retired as District Magistrate in the year 1891 he was conferred with the titles of Rai Bahadur and CIE (Companion of the Order of the Indian Empire) by the British Crown for his services to the British Raj, specially, restoring peace and order in the region of eastern canals.

When RSS/BJP equates Adityanath with sanyasis of Sanatan Sena of 18th century they do it consciously and well aware of the fact that these sanyasis led a violent campaign to cleanse Muslims from Bengal. Interestingly, Anandmath not only preached cleansing of Muslims but also welcomed and hailed the subjugation of India by the British rulers. In order to understand the debased, inhuman and anti-national content of this novel, some of the relevant portions are being directly produced below.

How Muslims were looted and their villages burnt: Distribution of the loot secured more santan cadres

According to Anandmath, santans,

started sending up the spies to the village after village. After going to the villages and finding out the Hindus there, the spies asked them, brothers, would you worship the Lord Bishnu? They gathered 20/25 persons by this means, they came down to the Muslim villages and torched their houses. The Muslims were worried for safety of their lives and the Santans robbed them of everything and distributed the booty amongst the new devotees of the Lord Bishnu. Obtaining share of the booty, the rural people were satisfied, they were brought down to the Bishnu temple and converted to the virtues of Santans after touching the feet of the idol. The people found that Santanism paid instant dividendsThey organized themselves in groups and went out to subdue the MuslimsThey brought home money by way of looting wherever they found it. Wherever they got the Muslim villages, they reduced them to ashes by arson.

Rejoicing killing of Muslims & building of temple after demolishing a mosque

Someone shouted, kill, kill, kill Muslims, others shouted as victory, victory, victory to the MaharajSome other said, brothers, when the Sunday would come up while I would build up a temple of Radhamadhab, demolishing down the mosque.

Anandmath also contains the following graphic details of the post-victory cleansing of Muslims by the Santan Hindu Army

The country was repleted [sic] with the shouting of name of Hare in the night. The Santans wandered here and there in group-by-group Someone ran amuck towards the village, someone towards the town, caught the traveler or other house-hold people and asked them to recite as I salute thee mother otherwise I would kill you, someone lives on looting of the sweet-makers shop, someone goes to the house of the cow-heard, sips the curd after bringing down the soil pots. Someones [sic] say, we are milkmen coming from Braja, where are the milkmaids? Great uproars prevailed in village after village, town after town within one night. Everybody said, the Muslims have been defeated; the country belonged to the Hindus again. All of you tell once again in open loud voice, Hari, Hari. The rural people ran out to kill the Muslims while coming across them. In the night, someones were organized in groups and going to the Muslim locality, they torched their houses and looted their everything. Many Muslims were killed, many of them shaved their beards, smeared their bodies with soil and started singing the name of Hari. When asked, they said, we were Hindus. The frightened Muslims rushed towards the town in group after groupThe Muslims said, Allah, Allah! Is the Koran Sareef [sic] [holy Koran] proved entirely wrong after so many days? We pray namaz for five times but couldnt finish the sandal-pasted Hindus. All the universe is false.

It may be noted here that many of these gruesome acts of violence against Muslims are re-enacted as games in training sessions of Hindutva organizations. The methods of massacre of Muslims during pre and post Babri mosque demolition in 1992 and 2002 Gujarat carnage showed clear imprint of techniques of Anandmath.

Glorification of the British rulers

In Anandmath, a leader of the Hindu Army, Bhavanand, while explaining the difference between Muslims and the Britishers, told to a new recruit:

One Englishman does not flee away even at the risk of his life, the Muslim flees while sweating his body he searches for the sherbat [sweet drink]supposing, the Englishmen have their tenacity whatever they start, they accomplish it, while the Muslims have only foolhardinessThen last word is couragewhile finding one cannon-ball [falling] Muslims would flee away with their entire communitywhile coming across the barrage of cannon-balls, not a single Englishman would flee away.

There is no possibility of restoring the Sanatan virtue without the Englishman becoming King.

When some of the Santan cadres dissatisfied with the outcome demanded to fight against the British also, a mystic leader appeared and told them:

There is no possibility of restoring the Sanatan virtue without the Englishman becoming KingThe subjects [Hindus] would be happy in the English kingdom they would practice the virtue without any trouble. Therefore, oh prudent you refrain from waging the war with the Englishmen and follow meYour mission has been successfulyou have performed well-being of the Motherthe English reign has been established. You give up the war and enmity-mood. Let the people be engaged in cultivationlet the earth be full of corns, let the people be prosperousThere is no more enemy. The Englishman is our ally King. Moreover, none possesses such power who can win the war with the Englishmen ultimately.

The two fundamental traits of Anandmath; violent opposition to Islam/Muslims and kow-towing to the White masters remained the fundamental pillars of the Hindu nationalism. These were clearly visible in the writings and deeds of Hindutva stalwarts like VD Savarkar, KB Hedgewar, BS Moonje and MS Golwalkar. Adityanaths depiction as sanyasi of Anandmath by the Hindutva brigade is reaffirmation of the fact that fundamental agenda of the RSS/BJP remains the same; cleansing of Muslims from India.

This aspect of Anandmath is not worrisome only in the present times. One of the greatest literary giants of the Bengali literature, Nares Chandra Sen-Gupta 1882-1964, who translated Anandmath for the first time in English in 1906, made it very clear in the preface that, two outstanding features of our authors conception of patriotism are its provincialism and its religious tone. As for the provincialism in his patriotism, it is difficult to believe that he was a stranger to the idea of greater nationality which is the goal of cultured Indians today

Nares decrying the talk of Hindu nation based on superstition in this novel lamented the fact that, Two very sinister consequences are seen to flow from this conception of a religious basis of nationality in the present work. The first is the attempt to rehabilitate the Hindu Pantheon with new-fangled patriotic gods and goddesses, and the second is the morbid dislike of Mussulmans [sic] that seems to be indicated in this work. Neither would seem to be the least profitable. As for the first, it sets a premium upon superstition and suggests a procedure which has been unhappily followed by some of our public men of today. If it is sought by this means to instil patriotism into the superstitious mind through superstition, it fails sadly; for patriotism thus distorted can never develop into genuine patriotism and must remain a superstition for ever

Nares also was of the opinion that any talk of Hindu nationalism would hinder the growth of true Indian Nationality by preventing the participation of Hindus and Mussulmans and other religious communities in a common patriotic work. The experiment therefore of degrading patriotism by basing it on superstition is not only fruitless but positively harmful.

Regretting the anti-Islam/Muslim sentiments of the novel, Nares concluded:

Now one thing that would-be patent to every reader of this novel is that its heroes are frankly hostile to Mussulmans. This has led me to think thrice before placing the work before a larger public by translation. Our Mussulman friends have no doubt a good right to get offended at the way in which the anti-Mussulman sentiment has been developed in this novel

It is unfortunate that a novel which played prominent role in fracturing the united freedom struggle against the British rulers, is being resurrected. The UP victory of RSS/BJP (securing only 39.7% of the polled votes) is being celebrated as the victory of Santan Sena over Muslims in Anandmath. India seems to be standing at a cross-road; to continue on the path of a democratic-secular polity or embark on the path of Anandmath is the greatest challenge after Independence. It is hoped that an all-inclusive India will not let RSS/BJP succeed in its nefarious goal of letting ghosts of sanyasis of Anandmath to undo present India.

The author is an academician. Some of the authors writings in English, Hindi, Malayalam, Kannada, Bengali, Telugu, Punjabi, Urdu & Gujarati can be read here:
The importance of Emergency Education: - For hundreds of thousands of children in African countries, the refugee camp is their one opportunity to get an education. Many of these children have been the victims of violent conflicts resulting in their separation from parents, friends and family. They have lost the security they once had and for some, they have never known what it is to feel secure. Emergency education in refugee camps allows children to regain some sense of security and to feel that in some way, they have something worth living for.

Emergency education contributes to the physical and emotional development of displaced children while giving them a sense of belongs to a community through social interaction.

A right to education

Emergency education is practiced in areas where children have no access to traditional education systems as a result of wars, civil wars, natural disasters and other such emergencies. Many Human Rights Declaration and conventions address a child's right to education. The 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, guarantees the right to elementary education. UN agencies like UNICEF, UNHCR and UNESCO. UNHCR are charged with implementing these conventions.

The program

In Mogadishu, Kenya, Djibouti, Yemen and Ethiopia, Rwandan, Somalia and Somaliland, emergency refugee programs are in place thanks to The Programme for Education in Emergencies and Reconstruction (PEER)under the UNESCO umbrella.

PEER has developed the Teacher Emergency Package (TEP) which contributes significantly to emergency education in these regions. The focus of TEP is on numeracy and literacy with the intention of creating a bridge between no schooling and the start of some form of schooling. Emergency education practices also provide the opportunity for displaced teachers to resume their teaching activity, albeit in refugee camps in Africa.

Not all African refugee camps follow the TEP program. There is one report that Burundian refugee camps, instead of applying the transitional approach, went directly for the formal school education program. In other African refugee camps, there has been conflict between the agencies providing the education and the government of the host country.

At one point, the Tanzanian government even banned any schooling in refugee camps which led agencies like the NGO, to create "activity centers" in Burundian refugee camps. These were essentially, schools under cover.

Order in the midst of chaos

Emergency education in African Refugee camps is challenging work. The need for some semblance of order in chaotic times is undeniable. Refugees are traumatized, confused and in a state of deep despair as they try to make sense of the disasters that surround them. Humanitarian organizations play a central role during times like these by offering assistance to the cold, weary, hungry and panicked. Emergency education is one form of assistance that serves to bring a sense of normalcy, hope and familial bonds to the refugee camps.
article 50 has officially been triggered by Theresa May but with the economic effects widely reported, little has been made of the environmental issues that will follow from Britains exit from the European Union (EU). This the first of two parts taking a look at the issues the government will face when negotiating with the EU and the problems when sorting through the legislation and regulation post-Brexit.

The first part takes a brief look at Nature Preservation and climate change, both issues the UK will need to tackle globally as well as nationally.

Nature Preservation

For decades now the UK has worked with the EU to develop its policy regarding climate change, pollution, and nature policies.

Firstly, there is legislation for nature preservation that has significantly benefitted both terrestrial and marine animals within the UK. This probably would not have been realised if it werent for the EU. Nonetheless, this legislation would continue to be important to achieve the target for reducing the decline of habitats and species. Examples of their work is cross-border threats, such as invasive alien species and climate change.

The threat this Brexit could pose to nature preservation policy is significant. Policies such as the bird and habitat directives have been the backbone of conservation in the EU. Both of these policies have had a significant impact on species and habitats, generating drastic improvements for either.

The UK government would be at liberty to change this legislation, although international environmental law would still apply. But this would not provide the level of protection nor the enforcement measures the EU membership applies.

Climate Change

The UK has had a significant influence over climate and energy policy within the EU, and has overseen drastic changes over the level of ambition it brings to international negotiations.

The general consensus of climate change policy is relatively the same amongst the usual UK political parties. The ambitious approach to climate mitigation targets has gone through a succession of General Elections. Because of this, it has been able to be pursued on in a European context with little impact on UK firms, as opposed to their competitors within other member states.

However, the current UK government have often been accused of cutting the UKs ability to move onto renewable sources in the future. There are multiple risks to the UKs environmental policy through the result of leaving the EU. A combination of the current, domestic decarbonisation ambitions; a reduced influence over EU and international negotiations on climate change. These restraints at both European and international levels, will have a detrimental effect on UK industry members in other states.

The governments concern

The government have recently cut funding to numerous agricultural policies and renewable energy to combat these issues. There is a concern amongst the renewable industry that the government is looking to bury them and favour fracking and nuclear, both of which are currently very dangerous to the environment.

They are also less economically beneficial to the UK. The government needs to listen to what industry experts are saying and what research suggest but they are too concerned with cutting corporate tax and benefits for a progressive future.
In the wake of the death of the late anti-apartheid activist Ahmed Kathrada this week, the growing unpopularity of President Zuma and calls for him to step down have mounted.

At the request of Ahmed Kathradas family, President Zuma was asked not to attend one of the most important state funerals within recent times. And so he readily complied.

Whilst still mired in allegations of corruption, President Zuma was at the forefront of the hosting the countrys mourning over the man that was Madiba. And whilst Kathrada holds a slightly lesser rank in the historical annals of the fight against apartheid than Mandela; the move to sideline Zuma is no less a blight on his administration.

The end is nigh

Anyone who is aware of Ahmeds ongoing political activism until his death would know of his recent anti-Zuma stance amidst the past the past and ongoing political and financial scandal. Last year, Kathrada did not mince his words when writing a letter to Zuma last year to resign.

These words were echoed during the funeral. In what turned quite hastily into a pep rally, former South African President Kgalema Motlanth said Kathrada was "deeply disturbed by the current post-apartheid failure of politics". And that  he found current leadership wanting on many fronts

That the old guard of the ANC and many within the party discredit Zuma at such an illustrious and monumental event is not one for which history will take light note.But neither is it to say that the ANCs own sheet is blank white clean.

Opposition Democratic Alliance leader Mmusi Maimane maintains that the issue is not a Jacob Zuma problem, its an ANC problem, because Zuma is entirely a product of the ANC.

He is the child of the party that was supposed to bring an era of change to the rainbow nation, but infighting and spells of corruption have slowly eaten away at this.

Sociologist Roger Southall from the University of the Witwatersrand argues the crisis of morality within the ANC can, in fact, be traced back to the 1994 political transition; relating primarily to the partys need for funding and how the ANC chose 'National Democratic Revolution'.

Popularity at an all time low

There are many polls reflecting these trends.

According to an IPSOS Approval rating poll which surveyed over 3,000 South African adults between October and November 2016, the researchers noted president Zumas popularity has decreased substantially over a period of time from 5.7 at the start of his second term, to 4.0. The EFF and DA supporters were found to have more positive views of their own party leaders, who gave them 7.6 and 7.0 respectively.

These statistics can be understood in light of last years local municipal elections in early August which many considered to be a wake-up call for the party. The end of racial politics it was termed. But these elections produced no majority winner in many districts which led to hung municipalities and the formation of coalition entities.

At the time, the ANC could be said to be a cliff-hanger, making it just in time to be delivered. But the plot continues to thicken.

On Thursday, firebrand opposition figure Julius Malema from the Economic Freedom Fighters party, applied to the constitutional court to start impeachment proceedings against Zuma. He said outside the court that, The dark clouds are gathering over Zuma's head......He is the one who is having a key to the door where he is going to exit. It could be argued that the key is the removal of his finance minister Pravin Gordhan with whom he has been at loggerheads for months.

This move could hurt Zuma greatly, especially now with news that the South Africa rand has plunged by 5% overnight.

Gordhan is supported by several senior ministers, by veterans of the anti-apartheid struggle and many ordinary South Africans.

Last November 2016, Zuma barely escaped an impeachment, recent events suggest that he may not be so lucky in the near future.
While Sisi was attending the United Nations General Assembly in 2016, back then, Republic nominee Donald Trump and President Sisi met. After the one single meeting between them, both men came out ready to praise one another. President Sisi said he had no doubt Donald Trump would make a strong leader, and Donald Trump paid tribute to Sisi calling him a fantastic guy. I thought it was very productive  We met for a long time, actually. There was a good chemistry there. You know when you have good chemistry with people. Theres a good feeling between us.

And the official statement that came out of the Trump/Pence campaign was promising.

Mr. Trump thanked President El-Sisi and the Egyptian people for what they have done in defense of their country and for the betterment of the world over the last few years Mr. Trump expressed to President El-Sisi his strong support for Egypts war on terrorism, and how under a Trump Administration, the United States of America will be a loyal friend, not simply an ally, that Egypt can count on in the days and years ahead.

More importantly, Mr. Trump said that if he were fortunate enough to win the election, he would, invite President Sisi on an official visit to the United States and would be honored to visit Egypt and the Egyptian people who he has a great fondness for.

Soon afterwards, President Sisi was of the first leaders to congratulate President-Elect Trump. And re a phone call after the presidential inauguration, White House Press Secretary, Sean Spicer, said that Trump and Sissi discussed "ways to deepen the bilateral relationship between the two countries, fight terrorism and boost Egypt's struggling economy. And Egyptian spokesperson, Alaa Youssef reiterated same, affirming President Trumps appreciation of the difficulties faced by Egypt in its war on terror and affirmed his administration's commitment to supporting the country.

And here we are about to see the visit transpire. And while the chemistry is there, what do Egyptians hope to gain from the visit? Actually, much.

The first pay off lies in the invite itself, which will be followed by the visit. Less than three months after Trump became president. President Sisi will join only the few prominent visitors that were officially invited to meet Trump including Teresa May, Angela Merkel and Justin Trudeau.

By the same token, the visit tells the world at large that indeed it is beneficial to the US to mend the broken ties and establish better relationship with Egypt, that Egypt is a partner against terrorism, an ally to be reckoned with, and a pivotal role player in the Middle East.

Not only does it give weight to Egypt but it also remedies President Obamas snub to the Egyptian president, a snub which seriously strained the relations between Egypt and the US. It may assist in eradicating the bitter feelings that lingered after President Obama withheld F-16 fighter jets, cancelled joint military exercises, suspended aid, and remained oblivious to the hardships Egypt was facing.

Under President Obama, Egyptians views of the US worsened believing the US caused much of the havoc wreaked in Syria, Iraq, and Libya. The visit, if fruitful, can alleviate mistrust and eradicate skepticism.

During the bilateral discussions about to take place, President Sisi should forgo niceties and corroborate with proof the stance the Muslim Brotherhood undertook and the culprit that is behind much of the terrorism occurring in Egypt. He must convince President Trump that the Muslim Brotherhood should be designated as a terrorist group. The evidence exists; presenting it to the American side wouldnt be difficult.

Recently the motion designating the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist group was tabled. The State Departments memo on the motion states theres not one monolithic Muslim Brotherhood, that while the MB may be connected to terrorist groups, it has many legitimate apolitical activities. It is up to President Sisi to prove otherwise.

In the 60s the West watched as Egypt turned to Russia. When the US left Egypt to fend for itself against terrorism and economic challenges, Egypt turned to other alliances and partners, such as Russia, again, and China, in addition to the Gulf States, while maintaining an aloof and distant relationship with the US. The visit may effect another change: bring the two countries closer in course, mindset, and disposition, as the US retains Egypt as an ally in the region.

While the Arab World is in disarray, this is a valuable opportunity for President Sisi to speak on behalf of the whole Arab World and work on resolving the issues that threaten the area. Without the assistance and determination of the US, it will take longer to resolve the issues in the threatened countries, if at all.

Egypt needs to protect its borders and safeguard Sinai, its territories, and its people in general. It needs to explain to the world its obligation towards itself and the Arab World, and who else can project this to the western world but President Sisi via President Trump.

The US needs a strong ally in Egypt, and Egypt needs a strong ally in the US. This trip may be the turning point in the relations.
The majority of Brits believe Britain can retain full access to the single market whilst also having control over immigration coming from the European Union, according to a recent YouGov poll. 16% of those asked stated that immigration was more important than Free Trade, compared to 24% who argued the opposite. However, both these numbers were well beaten by those who believe that Britain can get both at the same time (a whopping 40%).

In light of these findings, it seems that a large portion of the public are following the rhetoric of Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, who publicly said: Our policy is having our cake and eating it. Unsurprisingly, many EU senior officials have argued that control over immigration would come at a cost of free trade, or vice versa.

Chancellor Philip Hammond has also recently come out in disagreement over his cabinet chums choice of words, saying that when it came down to it: We can't cherry pick.

No sign of Bregret

Contrary to popular belief, YouGov also found little support for Bregret, noting that the percentage of people who believed it was right or wrong to leave the EU hasnt changed significantly since polling began last summer. This will no doubt be a painful blow to many in the media, whove spent several months carefully constructing the narrative that weve changed our minds and want back in.

Most Brits want Britain to leave EU  even the Remainers

The number of people wanting Brexit to go ahead is also staying steady.

Ignoring the 10% of people who couldnt muster a simple yes or no concerning one of the most important pieces of legislation to happen to this country in decades, just over one in five (21%) of voters want to see the results of last years referendum overturned.

With 44% of people saying they had voted leave and had no intention of backing down on it, it appears that the remain vote is split roughly down the middle.

Half of those who voted to stay in the EU are willing to honour the democratic process even if their side lost, with the other half probably still fuming about that ridiculous bus.

No deal is better than a bad deal

Finally, in a matter of 55% to 24%, the public seem to agree that Britain should walk away from a bad Brexit deal, echoing Prime Minister Theresa Mays statement that no deal is better than a bad deal.

In fact, YouGov found that Mays doing pretty well for herself in the polls. Almost half (48%) of people polled said they were confident in her ability to negotiate a good deal from the EU, compared to 39% who said they werent.
The Secretary of State for northern ireland, James Brokenshire, has given the Executive an extension of a further few short weeks in order to try and reach an agreement.

The Northern Ireland Assembly N. Irelands devolved government collapsed in January after a scandal came to light regarding a renewable heating scheme overseen by the First Minister Arlene Foster, the leader of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP). Foster was elected First Minister in May 2016 and held her seat for just 10 months before it collapsed.

Sinn Fein had called on Foster to step down as First Minister whilst investigations into the scandal were ongoing.

Fosters refusal to do so had prompted the late Martin McGuiness, former Sinn Fein deputy First Minister, to stand down in remonstration, although there had been speculation that his worsening health also influenced his actions.

His decision to stand down meant that the power-sharing government collapsed. Since the Good Friday Agreement in 1998, Northern Irelands government has been ruled by the two majority parties, one Unionist party and one Nationalist party, as opposed to the more common one-majority party system found in most other governments. This was designed to help alleviate tensions between the two sides of the community after years of violence and political tension, often referred to as The Troubles.

Assembly Collapsed

As McGuiness has stood down as Deputy First Minister, there was no longer the required Nationalist and Unionist joint representation and the Assembly collapsed. Snap elections were held in early March that saw both Sinn Fein and the DUP return as the two biggest parties in Northern Ireland. Since the election results, both parties have been in talks with The Secretary of State, Tory party member James Brokenshire.

Both parties have blamed each other for the deadlock with Foster questioning whether Sinn Fein were serious about reaching an agreement at this time. See video below for full statement.

Likewise, Sinn Feins newly nominated leader for the Northern Ireland branch of the party, Michelle ONeill has said: We came at the negotiations with the right attitude, wanting to make the institutions work, wanting to deliver for all citizens. Unfortunately, the DUP maintained their position in relation to blocking equality, delivery of equality for citizens  that was the problem.

Northern Ireland: What Happens Next?

If an agreement is still not reached by the end of the extended talks then it looks likely that there will either be another snap election or Northern Ireland will return to Direct Rule from London, meaning all governmental decisions will be made by Westminster.

Brokenshire will make a full statement on Tuesday 28th March.
india and Russia had decided to invest $ 25 billion in a new 5Th Generation interceptor. The deal which involved the transfer of technology was to be signed in 2016. The deal till date is not signed and it appears, the Russians are not very keen to conclude the deal now. They are also not giving the codes for the various military software imports from Russia. The Russians are peeved that India is abandoning them and moving closer to the US, which the Russians consider their opponent. This cold-shouldering of India is something new as India and Russia for decades had a close relationship.

The Russians are also cultivating Pakistan, which they had never done before.

Earlier close relationship

India has been allied with Russia since the fifties when the left-leaning defence minister Krishna Menon took India into the Soviet orbit. In 1970 India also signed a mutual defence and security pact. This came in handy when India invaded East Pakistan in 1971 as the Soviets backed India. Their submarine fleet also tacked along the 7th fleet as it sailed to the Bay of Bengal. India remained a close friend of Russia but things are changing now. The Russians are wary of India as India moves closer to the US.

The close military relationship with Russia lasted almost 50 years. The Russians supplied India with all their military hardware including Transport planes, tanks, field guns, aircraft, and missiles.

The MIG and the Sukhoi were mainstays of the IAF. Things began to change in the 21st century as the US also decided that India could be the strategic partner to counter China. The Obama years saw India and US move closer as India went in for US military equipment.

Donald and Modi

Donald Trump has now rung up and congratulated the Indian PM Modi on his victory in the recent state elections.

He has also invited Modi to visit the US towards the end of this year. Modi was among the first leaders Donald spoke after becoming president. This is not to the liking of Russia. Though India would like to do a balancing act and also remain friends with Russia, it is not possible. Modi will have to decide between Russia and America.

Future

It will be interesting to see how the US accommodates India in the future. The US also backs Pakistan to a certain extent and this is not to India's liking. Possibly Modi will try and keep relations friendly with Russia, but America is now the preferred partner.
'Fleabag' actress Phoebe Waller-Bridge has emerged as the current front runner for the role of Dr Who after Peter Capaldi announced his decision to step down from the role later this year.

What is known about the front-runner?

The 31 year old Londoner made her acting debut in 2009 at the Soho Theatre and is probably best known for her role in the BBC 3 sitcom 'Fleabag' which she wrote as an adaptation of her own play. She has also played the role of a barrister in series 2 of 'Broadchurch'. However, she will shortly be making the step to the big screen with a role in the forthcoming Han Solo movie.

Rumors that Waller-Bridge is in line for the role have been fueled by the appointment of Chris Chibnall as the series showrunner. Chibnall had worked with Waller-Bridge previously on 'Broadchurch'. In addition, Peter Capaldi has openly stated that he would welcome the appointment of a female doctor. Bookmakers have seen a flurry of bets being laid on Ms Waller-Bridge slashing her odds from 20/1 on Monday to 2/1 today.

Who else is in the running?

Waller-Bridge is not the only actress in the running for the coveted role. 'Death in Paradise' and 'My Family' actor Kris Marshall is also a favorite at 2/1 after quitting the hit series set in the Caribbean. Other famous faces linked to the role include Tilda Swinton, David Harewood and Olivia Colman.

Peter Capaldi's Dr.

Capaldi has held the iconic role for three years before deciding to quit. He was offered help with his decision by previous Doctors Matt Smith and David Tennant. Three years is a familiar length in service for the Doctor, with only three remaining in the post for longer. The general feeling among the show's insiders is that Capaldi has 'cracked' the role and it is now time to move on.

Dr Who's past

The show began in 1963 and has so far featured 12 incarnations of the famous time traveler, none of which have been female so if Waller-Bridge were appointed could it open the doors for more females to take on iconic male roles. Maybe we could see a Jane Bond in the not too distant future ?
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On Tuesday, wells fargo & Company (NYSE: WFC) announced that it had reached a "preliminary settlement" in a number of lawsuits it faces over millions of fake accounts that were opened in customers' names by mangers and employees pushed to hit impossible sales targets. CNN reports that the settlement still needs to be approved by a judge, and it is unclear how much each customer will receive, because the number of people involved in the case is still being determined. However, the company has stated that the settlement will cover "all persons" who employees opened unauthorized accounts and completed fraudulent product sign-ups on behalf of.

Previously, Wells Fargo paid 130,000 customers about $25 each to resolve the unauthorized access of customer accounts by employees with the bank. In November 2016, attempting to hold customers to fine print in forms signed when opening accounts, Well Fargo moved to "force dozens of those customers to resolve their claims quietly in closed-door arbitration instead of open court." Tuesday's settlement is described as marking "a reversal" of the firm's direction with the suit last year.

Employees fired for both taking part and not taking part

While 5,300 employees were said to have been fired for their part in the Wells Fargo fake accounts scandal, an unknown number may have been fired, or quietly quit, unwilling to take part in seeming fraud.

One former employee interviewed by NPR recounted being fired, after taking to calling the bank's ethics hotline, and human resources department, on a almost daily basis. In January 2008, the employee reported that quotas had been raised from eight new product sales each day, to 20.

Once a judge has approved the settlement, Wells Fargo expects to send instructions to affected customers, explaining how to proceed.

Former Chief Executive Officer John Stumpf stepped down from his position in October 2016, as a result of how he "handled the fallout of the bank's phony account scandal," as reported by Fortune; he first blamed the 5,300 employees for acting alone. He was reported to earn about $133 million with his departure.

WFC stock keeps pace with general market

Current CEO Tim Sloan told CNN that yesterday's news represents "another step in our journey to make things right with customers." Yahoo Finance reports that Mr. Sloan earned $2.35 million in 2016, in addition to exercising $5.45 million in options. WFC stock has gained in value by close to 15 percent over the past 12 months, and pays quarterly dividends totaling $1.52 annually, currently yielding 2.74 percent. The general market, as measured by the Standard & Poor's 500 Index, returned 14.5 percent over the same period.

Twenty-eight research firms publish prices targets for WFC stock, which range from $45 to $65, and average $58.48. The average recommendation among firms is 2.8, where 1.0 is a "strong buy," and 5.0 is a "sell." Over the coming five years, the Wall Street analyst consensus is for Wells Fargo to grow its earnings per share at an average annual rate of 7.46 percent. WFC stock traded down, by $0.26 or 0.46 percent, to 55.70 on the news.
On Tuesday, two well respected African-American women were put in an uncomfortable position after comments were made by high-profiled conservatives. After both incidents took place, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton decided to give her thoughts.

Clinton responds

On Tuesday morning, Fox News host Bill O'Reilly was a guest on "Fox & Friends." During the show, a clip was played of Democratic Rep. Maxine Waters being critical of President Donald Trump. In response, O'Reilly mocked Waters for looking like she was wearing a "James Brown wig." O'Reilly's comment were quickly met with backlash, with many calling of the network to fire the host for alleged racially charged language.

Not long after, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer got into a heated exchange with reporter April Ryan of American Urban Radio Networks. During the questioning, Spicer lashed out at Ryan, telling her to "stop shaking your head." Both comments have been viewed as disrespectful, with many on the left labeling them racist due to both men being white, and the two women being African-American. As reported by The Hill on March 28, Hillary Clinton was quick to hit back.

While appearing in San Francisco, California for the Professional Business Women of California conference on Tuesday, Hillary Clinton came to the defense of both Maxine Waters and April Ryan.

"April Ryan, a respected journalist with unrivaled integrity, was doing her job just this afternoon in the White House press room when she was patronized and cut off trying to ask a question," Clinton said, in clear reference to Sean Spicer.

Clinton stands up for female reporter who was told by Spicer to stop shaking her head https://t.co/I0wWKFhfXX pic.twitter.com/mpGOEP499m  The Hill (@thehill) March 28, 2017

Hillary Clinton then shifted to the incident involving Maxine Waters and Bill O'Reilly, while not holding back her thoughts over the "racist" remarks made by the Fox News host.

"One of our own California congressmen Maxine Waters was taunted with a racist joke about her hair," Clinton told those in attendance, while saying Waters and April Ryan were just "women who were simply doing their jobs" when they were insulted by O'Reilly and Spicer.

Next up

Since Election Day, Hillary Clinton has remained mostly out of the spotlight, with the occasional appearance at a fundraiser or gathering. While it's unlikely that she will throw her hat in to run for president in 2020, reports have indicated that she could make a run for Mayor in New York City.
Donald Trump has long talked about his plan to increase the United States military, but never went into detail about how he would offset the cost. In a recent proposal to Congress, the president has suggested that hundreds of millions of dollars be cut from AIDS research and relief.

Trump on budget

One prerequisite to run as a Republican candidate is to support an increase in military spending and the defense budget. Despite the United States having the largest military in the world, conservative don't believe that enough resources and taxpayer dollars have been invested into national defense.

During the 2016 presidential election, Donald Trump promised to build up American defense, while accusing former presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush of hurting the military over the last 15 years. In his latest proposal, the former host of "The Apprentice" has called for a $30 billion increase to the military, but has recommended critical cuts to other programs, as reported by CNN on March 29.

In an attempt to balance his potential $30 billion defense increase, Donald Trump sent a list of recommendations to Congress in an attempt to cut other areas of the budget by $18 billion. CNN reports that the largest cuts come in the form of education, health services, and labor, with universities feeling the brunt of the blow through the removal of several grants.

Under Trump's suggestion, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention would see a cut of $314 million, with other programs, like AmeriCorps and the Senior Community Service Employment Program, both seeing a decrease in funding by over $400 million each.

AIDS cut

In one of the most alarming areas that Donald Trump wants to see slashed is to President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, known as PEPFAR, which was created during the George W.

Bush administration and continued under Barack Obama. If Congress followed Trump's plan, $292 million would be cut from the AIDS relief program. As of press time, it's not known how much, if any, Congress will attempt to cut in order to allocate money to the defense budget increase.
On Thursday night, reports broke that revealed retired Gen. Michael Flynn was willing to break his silence when it came to the ongoing Russian scandal as long as he received immunity in the process. The following morning, Donald Trump decided to give his thoughts.

Trump on Flynn

Not long after Donald Trump was elected president last November, he hired Michael Flynn to serve as his National Security Adviser. The decision was quickly met with backlash due to Flynn's controversial history, especially when it comes to his feelings on Islamic terrorism.

However, Flynn didn't last too long in the job after he was exposed for being in communication with high-ranking Russian officials just weeks after the election. When Flynn reportedly lied about issue to Vice President Mike Pence, he was asked to resign. Fast forward to present day and Flynn is in the position where he could soon flip on the White House and spill the beans about Russia and its influence on the election and the Trump administration. As seen during a March 31 post on Twitter, the president has decided to give his thoughts.

Mike Flynn should ask for immunity in that this is a witch hunt (excuse for big election loss), by media & Dems, of historic proportion!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 31, 2017

"Mike Flynn should ask for immunity in that this is a witch hunt (excuse for big election loss), by media & Dems, of historic proportion!" Donald Trump wrote on Twitter early Friday morning.

The tweet came just moments after Fox News contributor Tony Shaffer supported Michael Flynn asking for immunity during an interview on "Fox & Friends," saying the retired general would be "stupid" not to push for it.

Michael Flynn offers to testify before Congress in exchange for immunity https://t.co/Lzs4g3KwL4  The New York Times (@nytimes) March 31, 2017

Next step

While it's unknown what information Michael Flynn could reveal about the administration's relationship with Russia, it appears that Donald Trump is not concerned that it would be damaging in anyway.

Over the last year and a half, the former host of "The Apprentice" has been forced to push back against allegations that he has close ties to the Kremlin, which have only intensified since Inauguration Day. Only time will tell what happens moving forward, but the House Intelligence Committee is currently investigating the issue, and the president is not happy about it.
While the European Union President has been known for his humor and outspoken attitude in the past, Jean-Claude Juncker sounded quite serious when he spoke out against Trump at a meeting of the leaders of the European Peoples Party in Malta on Thursday. After the White House has made claims that Trump was a leader on the controversial Brexit, Juncker said he will promote Ohios independence, as well as the exit of Texas, from the United States.

According to a report by Politico, the EU president believes in the open border policy and wants an EU that has ever-closer relations between its members.

This policy of openness allows companies to hire people across borders, without immigration restrictions. His announcement came on the day after U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May officially triggered Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty, giving the U.K. two years to tie up its exit from the EU bloc. While the U.K. is the only country so far to officially wish to leave the EU block, Juncker had warned them against the move, calling Brits who voted to leave deserters and saying Brexit will have catastrophic consequences for the U.K. However, according to Juncker, the results of Brexit will make every other EU member realize it is not worth leaving.

Breakup of the EU could lead to war

According to a report by the Financial Times, Juncker reportedly told Vice President Mike Pence that Trumps continued encouragement of EU countries to follow the Brexit trend could lead to a breakup of the EU, followed by a war in the Balkans.

He said by leaving those countries to their own devices, there would definitely be a war again.

European Commission's Jean-Claude Juncker hits back at Donald Trump's support for Brexit https://t.co/9FYYvq965y pic.twitter.com/yK4rZWHJN2  Bloomberg Brexit (@Brexit) March 30, 2017

EU President to visit Washington

According to a report by the Atlantic, while Juncker is outspoken on Trumps continued support for the break-up of the EU, it is unsure if the EU President will meet with the U.S.

President on a scheduled visit to Washington. He told the Financial Times that they are trying to set up a meeting between the pair, but that Trump has other priorities. Juncker went on to add that Trump doesnt understand anything about Europe, saying the U.S. president once spoke to Donald Tusk  president of the European Council  on the telephone, believing he was speaking to Juncker himself.
It's been a dramatic and intriguing two days in Washington, with former national security adviser #Michael Flynn offering an interview to House and Senate investigative teams in exchange for immunity. Sounds like a cold war spy novel  and not contemporary US politics. The Washington Post broke the story on Tuesday, and there has been a flurry of interest in the developing Trump-Russia narrative.

The Senate investigators are carefully probing and scrutinizing Team Trump's potentially complicated campaign ties to the ex-Cold War country #Russia.

Flynn, in politely asking for Immunity From Prosecution in the courts, has made many people very, very suspicious. He tasked his lawyer to pronounce the request and, investigators and White House officials are now busy dealing with the mounting tension as Trump deals with the potential political fall out.

According to a senior congressional official involved in the business, those investigating the issue were not willing to forge a deal with the seemingly shadowy Flynn, who has caused much wariness since he was fired last month. He was asked to step down for deceiving a coterie of #White House officials in regards to his seemingly complicated Russian associates and the contact made with them, specifically the intriguing Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak, who has become somewhat a person of interest in the developing Trump-Russia narrative.

The congressional officials claim that until they know more information, investigators won't know whether they will be brokering a deal with him or not.

Witch hunt or cold war spy thriller?

On Thursday evening, Flynns no doubt hardworking lawyer affirmed that discussions had taken place between his client and the House and Senate intelligence committees.

They discussed a potential testimony by #Flynn but the lawyer, who is called Robert Kelner, did not illuminate or elucidate the terms surrounding how Flynn might testify. Kelner voiced that nobody with a reasonable nature, and with legal counsel, would submit to questioning in such a highly politicized, #witch-hunt environment without assurances against unfair prosecution.

The lawyer continued, saying that Flynn absolutely has a story to tell and that he wants to tell it, should circumstances permit," which is legal speak for 'we will talk if you grant us what we are requesting', which in this case is #immunity from prosecution.

The #Federal Bureau of Investigation is also hard at work scrutinizing whether anybody in Team Trump, or within his wider range of associates, conspired with the Russian government in a quest to change and dislocate the 2016 US presidential election cycle. If Flynn does gain an immunity deal from the House and Senate, then it will be cumbersome and exceedingly difficult for the #Justice Department to prosecute him.

There has been no indication whether any other #Trump associates have requested immunity from the congressional investigations, but if they do there will be further speculation in the media that the Russian investigations aren't merely a witch hunt or a spy thriller but potentially real event.
Gov. Chris Christie admitted that there's no way to "sugarcoat" it, the Republican failed to get the Health Care Bill approved, NJ reported. Christie has faith that Trump will work with Congress to develop a new plan that will make both parties happy.

It isn't over

The New Jersey governor says health care reform is "far from over." He has faith that President Trump will work on a new plan but he admitted that it may be "difficult" for the parties to come to an agreement.

Chris explained that Trump has only been president for nine weeks and he is still learning.

He believes that eventually, Trump administration will come with a health care bill that most of Americans are happy with.

Can the Republicans come up with another plan?

Christie said after both parties had time to recover from the failed Health Care Reform bill, they can come together and figure out another plan. Chris argued that it took President Obama 15 months to get the Affordable Care Act passed.

Chris Christie noted that Trump has 199 weeks left in his term. He feels confident that the president will "come up with a new plan" soon.
Two former allies of Gov. Chris Christie received their sentence for the George Washington Bridge scandal. According to New York Times, Bridget Anne Kelly and Bill Baroni received their sentences--- both will serve some jail time.

The Bridgegate scandal sentencing

Kelly was a top aide to Christie and was sentenced to 18 months in prison for her role in closing access lane access to the George Washington Bridge. Baroni served as executive director of Port Authority of New York and New Jersey was sentenced to two years.

Chris Christie allies should get 3 years in prison for bridge plot, prosecutors say https://t.co/WmX0YxlNuy pic.twitter.com/K7DMPHbALQ  Bloomberg (@business) March 27, 2017

The Bridgegate Scandal shot down any chance that Chris Christie had to become president and later affected Trump's decision not to ask him to be his running mate.

What was the scandal about?

In 2013, members of the governor's office decided to punish Mayor Mark Sokolich of Fort Lee for not backing Christie for a re-election bid. The governor's office schemed with the Port Authority officials and triggered a massive traffic jam.

The plan was reportedly put into motion after Kelly sent the Port Authority an email that said, "Time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee."

The Bridgegate scandal was one of the biggest in New Jersey history. Both Kelly and Baroni plan to appeal their sentencing.
law enforcement shooting U.S. citizens is seeming to become a common practice in the America. The situation has now hit South Carolina. The family of Waltki Williams is suing a South Carolina police department. Williams, 35, was shot in the back 17 times while laying down on the ground. The lawsuit was filed last week. It states that the deceased didnt have a weapon on him when a Sumter police officer shot at him at least 24 times. State law officials are currently investigating the fatality. No video footage of shooting has been released.

Fatal attraction

The whole scenario started when police responded to a domestic violence dispute that escalated between Williams and his girlfriend. It has been reported by law enforcement that this story originated at Sumter mall. The girlfriend, who has not been named, was afraid to leave the mall after Williams pointed a gun at her in her car on December 10, 2016. Police attempted to arrest the suspect but he ran so a high-speed chase began.

The chase became short-lived when Williams wrecked the SUV he was driving a few feet down the road. In the lawsuit, filed by his sister, it states that the Man threw an unknown object out of the window and started to run. Multiple officers proceeded to capture him and restrained him to the ground.

They took a few steps back and thats when at least three of the officer allegedly fired over a dozen shots.

Sumter Police Chief Russell Roark said in a statement, This incident shows the devastating, far-reaching effects of domestic violence.

Responses to the tragedy

The Sumter Police Department states that they have yet to see the lawsuit.

Williams autopsy results show that the man was shot 19 times, 17 of those were in his back. The three officers who are said to have opened fire on the gunman have been placed on leave while the investigation continues to unfold.

Lawyer C. Carter Elliott has stated that even though Williams had a gun at some point during the chase, we take the position that when he was lying on the ground and they shot him in the back he was not a threat." The Law Enforcement Division of South Carolina (SLED) mentioned that there is video footage of what happened.

They will be reviewing it while they are still considering the shooting.

Carter Elliot said, "It ended with a ton of shots, a lot of them in his back. It doesn't make sense to me. There's two eyewitnesses that saw it and we are pushing to get the officers' bodycam video that recorded what happened." Elliott also commented that he has continuously requested access to the video now needs the courts subpoena to have it in his clients suit.

The lawsuit states, "Sumter Police Department officers had the obligation and opportunity to refrain from utilizing inappropriate and unnecessary deadly force. However, the officers in question made the conscious decision to use inappropriate and unnecessary force."

Special Agent Thom Berry says, The SLED investigation is ongoing. We have not concluded our work on the matter.
Marco Contreras, 41, was released from Calipatria State Prison on Tuesday. Contreras has spent more than two decades in prison after being wrongfully convicted of Attempted Murder in 1997. The Loyola Law Schools Project for the Innocent (LPI) is the main contributor to his release. Over the past 20 Years, theyve pointed out several inconvenient factors that resulted in the false conviction of Contreras. His sentence was a result of what happened after a shooting and robbery took place at a Compton gas station in 1996.

Prior to conviction

Marco was at home resting in his house when he let someone borrow his vehicle.

When the armed robbery escalated, his car was in the area. One of the eyewitnesses on the scene mistakenly identified Contreras as the shooter. They eyewitness testified in court she wasnt certain that the man she identified was Contreras. However, he was still convicted and sentenced to prison for life.

This is a huge problem, said Adam Grant. He's been the attorney for Contreras. He is also the LPI's Program Director. He added back then, Its a thorny problem because the public considers it reliable.

The fight for his release

The Sheriffs Department and district attorney found that Marco Contreras was innocent of the crime and wrongfully convicted. The Loyola law school project petitioned Judge William Ryan to release him after law enforcement arrested another person in the case that had a strikingly similar appearance to Contreras.

Chief Deputy District Attorney John K. Spillane mentioned to the judge, Newly discovered evidence suggests that a person other than Marco is guilty of the attempted murder of Jose Garcia.

Last week, Judge Ryan finally acknowledged Contreras's innocence. He released him during a hearing before the Los Angeles Superior Court.

A free man

"The court finds the petitioner to be factually innocent," Judge William Ryan stated at the court hearing.

Contreras added, I just had to be patient, and wait. He noted that his release from prison would eventually have to happen.

Loyola Law School professor Laurie Levinson attended the hearing. She strongly acknowledged that this mans release was not due to a technicality.

He got out because hes actually innocent, she said.

After two decades of confined turmoil, Marco Contreras remained in good graces. Id like to thank you for allowing me to be here, he said to the courtroom on Tuesday. Also, the D.A.  Id like to say thank you to everybody.

Warning him that the world has changed in the past 20 years, Judge Ryan told Contreras, This is a new chapter. Good luck to you, sir.
Former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, who got forced to resign after less than a month into his role for misleading Vice President Mike Pence, is apparently now ready to tell his side of the story. In a statement released late Thursday night, Flynn's lawyer Robert Kelner stated that, "General Flynn has a story to tell" but wants to be granted immunity first. This could be bad news for President Donald Trump with the multiple ongoing investigations into his possible ties to Russia and their involvement in the 2016 Presidential Election.

Flynn supposedly in talks for immunity

Michael Flynn is willing to testify to the House Intelligence committee, Senate Intelligence Committee and the FBI who are all conducting ongoing investigations into Russia. Some sources are reporting that Flynn is in talks to try to receive a promise of immunity, but that no deal had been reached. However, aides to those on the House Intelligence Committee have said that they had not gotten any such requests from him. For its part the Senate Intelligence Committee and the White House declined to give any official comment or statement on the matter. In case one may have forgotten Flynn resigned due to lying and misleading about his communicates with the ambassador of Russia, Sergey Kislyak.

Russian connection with Trump?

Already, former campaign chairman Paul Manafort, former policy adviser Carter Paige and former adviser Roger Stone have said that they would agree to step in and testify to the House and Senate Intelligence Committee's on the investigation into Russia and the 2016 presidential election. These three-man were all key aides at some point during President Donald Trump's campaign for president.

With Flynn offering to give information on behalf on being granted immunity for his testimony, it is possible that he could provide damning information that connects Trump and Russia. Considering the already alleged shady ties between Trump and Russia, this testimony could be the start of a floodgate that can't be closed.
On Tuesday night, President Donald Trump spoke to a joint session of Congress for the first time as commander in chief. During his speech, Trump addressed Carryn Owens, the widow of Navy SEAL William "Ryan" Owens who was killed last month during a bitched mission in Yemen.

Fake news debunked

Chief Petty Officer William "Ryan" Owens was part a raid last month in Yemen which was designed to extract as much information as possible about al-Qaeda in the region. Though 14 members of al-Qaeda were killed in the raid, Owens lost his life along with as many as 30 civilians.

Owens wife, Carryn Owens, was invited as a guest to Donald Trump's speech to Congress, and when the president highlighted her, she received a standing ovation that lasted minutes. Not long after the incident took place, right-wing news outlets took screen shots from the video stream and claimed that members of the Democratic Party refused to stand and show their respect for Owens. As reported by Snopes on March 1, the right-wing reports have been debunked as nothing more than fake news.

Did Democrats Refuse to Stand for a Navy SEALs Widow? https://t.co/1SKe7VUX3w  snopes.com (@snopes) March 1, 2017

On Twitter Tuesday night, Benny Johnson of the Independent Journal tweeted out that Democratic Rep.

Keith Ellison and Rep. Debbie Wasserman-Schultz refused to get on their feet during the standing ovation for Carryn Owens. The story went viral after the Daily Wire, run by conservative Ben Shapiro, published an article appearing to validate the claims. While the Daily Wire article included a video of the moment, it never clearly showed the two Democrats, leaving many questions unanswered.

AWFUL: Top Democrats Refuse To Stand, Clap For Navy SEAL Widow Honored By Trump https://t.co/TedaB6Ti1U  The Daily Wire (@realDailyWire) March 1, 2017

Further evidence

On Wednesday, Snopes looked into the allegations, and labeled them as "FALSE." After digging through the video files, Snopes found that the still image used to show Debbie Wasserman-Schultz and Keith Ellison sitting was from an earlier portion of the speech, which was used as a way to push the false allegation against them.

When the full video was released on the offical White House website, both Wasserman-Schultz and Ellison could be seen standing and cheering along with the rest of those in attendance. As of press time, no comment as been offered by the Daily Wire or Johnson, though the damage appears to have already been done with the story becoming viral across social media.
On March 28 the United Nations News Center announced the discovery of a shallow grave containing the remains of two UN experts and their interpreter. The remains found were those of Michael Sharp, 34, a US citizen and Zaida Catalan, 37, a Swedish citizen. A third body was found in the same location which was discovered to be Betu Tshintela, their Congolese interpreter. The pair reportedly went missing on March 12, close to Moyo River and the town of Tshimbulu.

Michael Sharp's grateful for support

The International Business Times quotes Texas resident John Sharp, the father of Michael Sharp, as thanking everyone on his Facebook page for their support and paying tribute to his late son.

He said it was difficult to find words, except to thank everyone for their support. He hoped that in time the words would come.

Mass graves in the DRC

Reportedly Michael worked with his colleague, Catalan, as a coordinator with the United Nations Group of Experts for Congo. They had traveled to the troubled Kasai-Central region of the county to investigate the summary executions of Congolese citizens and had themselves uncovered mass graves in the region. it was after this discovery that the two United Nations experts and their translator were kidnapped, along with three locally based drivers.

American found dead in Congo: Haley says group 'killed senselessly' https://t.co/udQwcYT2JG pic.twitter.com/ZvAyAvY6wr  United Nations News (@UNolizer) March 29, 2017

Swedish Prime Minister expressed sorrow

Prime Minister Stefan Lofven of Sweden issued a statement on March 29, expressing sorrow and dismay at the murder of Catalan.

He stated that Catalan was employed as a humanitarian expert and was in the DRC to strengthen peace in the region. Lofven said that task is crucial in efforts to create greater security in the DRC and to inspire hope in a country that has long suffered destruction and violence. He added that Catalan had been working tirelessly in her role with the United Nations and had risked her life to save others.

Lofven then went on to share the sense of despair and loss with Catalans family and friends saying, it was important to find out exactly what happened to Catalan and her colleagues as well as other people affected by the violence. Sweden pledged the country is ready to investigate the incident and to help in holding those responsible accountable for their actions.

#Sweden's prime minister issues statement of sorrow and dismay at murder of #UN expert Zaida Catalan in #DRC. https://t.co/2lD2aIovpD pic.twitter.com/CFuHTz5SOW  Anneke VanWoudenberg (@woudena) March 29, 2017

The United Nations News Center quoted Secretary General Antonio Guterres as saying on March 29 that the UN vows to do everything possible to obtain justice in the murder of the two experts and their Congolese interpreter. He went on to confirm that the UN will be conducting an official inquiry into the killing.
Saturday Night Live has been a hotbed of political satire for years and in this season has had a huge amount of material available to it from one of the most unorthodox and controversial White Houses for years. But news this week may show that there are times when satire may not be enough to overcome reality.

Impersonation

This season Alec Baldwin has won rave reviews for his impersonation of President #Donald Trump. Although the businessman become politician has not hidden his disdain and at times anger at the impersonation the ratings for the actors sketches have shown that the public have appreciated and understood its underlying messages and concerns.

Yesterday Baldwin told the Press Association that it was probably time to retire the successful routine. Part of an actors job is to know the limits of routines and when is the right time to stop; that moment may have come for Baldwin on Saturday Night Live. He will continue the impersonation until the end of the season and then decide.

President

Baldwin stated that one of the reasons was that Donald Trump seemed to be immune to satire. While some Presidents, including Barack Obama and Bill Clinton, enjoyed the ribbing and were often self deprecatory, the 45th President has shown little sympathy for anything that he feels impinges on his image.

Yet Baldwins comments are also just as much political as they were artistic when he also stated that by September the national frame of mind will be very different.

We do not know the timing of the interview, whether it was before or after Thursdays revelations regarding the investigations into the allegations of Russian hacking of the presidential election and in particular the reported offer by former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn to testify to the two House Intelligence Committees and the FBI, but the allusions to political developments are obvious on the part of the actor.

Role

Satire plays an important role not only in giving messages to the public and politicians but also in lessening tensions during difficult periods nationally and the six months that separate us from the presidential election have truly been a difficult period for the country.

The public protests at the Moslem ban and the proposed repeal and replacement of the Affordable Care Act and the unease of many citizens in regards to the investigations of collusion of some members of the Trump team with Russian agents have created a climate of conflict within the community.

This split is also reflected in the very open splits even within the Republican Party.

If this atmosphere is such that even a satirist must consider whether or not his most popular role is appropriate, then this is a sign that should worry the countrys leaders.

Discomfort

In revealing his own discomfort about the developments Baldwin is expressing the feelings of many other citizens at the revelations over the last few months and we can all hope that the country will have definitive answers in the near future in regards to the revelations. Sadly this seems unlikely.

In any case, even the simple fact that Baldwin in considering this possibility and for these reasons should give the countrys leaders serious food for thought about the current political climate of the United States, beginning with Donald Trump himself.

At best it is unhealthy and only the results of the investigations will tell us the degree of seriousness of the situation.
On November 9th the democrats were a Party in depression having lost a seemingly ironclad presidential campaign and failed to achieve at least one House majority that seemed on the cards according to most polls. In the nearly six months since then the political stage has changed in a manner that few would have expected in the aftermath of elections.

Transition

The transition period leading up to Donald Trumps Inauguration gave signs of the turmoil that have dogged the new Administration. Then rumours of possible Russian interference in the election campaign seemed more the beginning of a political thriller rather than a matter for serious investigations.

During that period the Democrats had to rethink their tactics. The seemingly solid Republican majority in Congress meant that the Partys only true battlefield would be the Senate where the one seat Republican majority gave hope for some victories to raise the profile of the Party as it rebuilt for what seemed an uncertain future.

The loss by Hillary Clinton also meant that the Party was in need of a leader to guide it towards the 2018 midterms that gave few hopes for victory. Then the confirmation hearings and other matters began.

The confirmation hearings, particularly that of the controversial Jeff Sessions for Attorney General, gave the Democrats a chance to regroup and to fight back against what was obviously an unusual and controversial White House.

The challenge to the oval office was best illustrated during the confirmation debate when Elizabeth Warren was banned from speaking when she attempted to read a letter by Coretta Scott King about the soon to be confirmed Attorney General.

The use of a little known regulation only raised the profile of the letter as it was placed on Warrens website and then distributed widely on the social media.

This incident raised the Senators profile as a future leader for the Party and also showed the public that the Republicans had little interest in working together with the Democrats.

Shackles

In effect the incident with the letter was what unshackled the Democrats into increasing aggressiveness in their tactics in both Houses.

The news of investigations into possible Russian hacking of the presidential campaign then began to give the party ammunition to use in the Houses and also publicly.

While the first months of the legislative process began predictably the wave of executive orders from the Oval Office began a series of protests against the Mexican border wall and particularly against the repeal and replacement of the ACA.

In effect the midterms that seemed so difficult only a few weeks ago began to become winnable for the Democrats and particularly in light of the now publicly revealed Republican divisions in Congress where Paul Ryans proposed bill to replace the ACA which was withdrawn to avoid an embarrassing defeat on the floor.

Tactics

The GOP divisions and the increasing revelations of Russian interference in the election and the confirmation by FBI Director James Comey that investigations are ongoing of collusion between the Trump team and Russian agents during the campaign and the transition period have charged up Novembers defeated Party.

Now the Democrats have the opportunity to go on the charge against the Republicans in the House and in particular against the Oval Office itself as news comes out of developments in the investigations.

House Democrat Leader Nancy Pelosi and Senate Leader Chuck Schumer now have the opportunity to seriously block legislation by the Oval Office as the GOP politicians become more worried about their electoral chances in next years midterms.

They will be unwillingly aided by the now open warfare between Donald Trump and the more conservative factions in the GOP beginning with the Freedom Caucus which will give impetus to the Democrat charge.

The Senate and Congress have now become battlefields that were unimaginable in November and the midterms may well change the future of the Oval Office even more.
While House Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes continued to feel the pressure about his behaviour over recent days Thursday gave us news that can only confirm that the investigations into the collusion between members of the Trump team and Russian agents are not simply the fake news that the #White House wants the public to believe.

Staff

The first piece of news was the revelation that two members of the white house staff had provided the information that Devin Nunes had highlighted as proof of accidental wiretapping of White House staff and possibly event President Donald Trump in the course of monitoring activities.

In naming former intelligence officials Ezra Cohen-Watnick and Michael Ellis as the source of the information the New York Times report raises even more questions not only about Nunes' explanations for his briefing of President Donald Trump but also of his neutrality in the investigations. This neutrality had already been in doubt due to his previous role in the Trump transition period.

Senate Committee

The day also saw a rare public sitting of the Senate Intelligence Committee. Unlike the obviously split House Committee the Republican and Democrats members of the Senate Committee have publicly stated their intention to work together in an open and transparent matter on the investigations.

In yesterdays hearings the Cyber warfare and other experts called to testify gave details and backgrounds on the Russian capacity to spread disinformation false news to further their programme of destabilizing rival countries including the United States.

Despite the denials from Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow, the experts gave details of the manner with which these activities are carried out.

Yet the most dramatic and important news of the day came from an unexpected source.

Flynn

Again as reported by the New York Times, disgraced former National Security Advisor #Michael Flynn offered to be interviewed by the House and Senate Intelligence Committees, as well as by the FBI.

This testimony would be in exchange for immunity from unfair prosecution.

Flynn had resigned his position in the Trump Administration after having lied about the nature of his contacts with Sergey Kislyak, Russias Ambassador to the United States during the presidential campaign and the transition period.

While the news was surprising in itself it raises many doubts of the reasons for his offer.

In fact, journalists and the social media were quick in reminding the public that last September Ryan said about immunity When you are given immunity that means you probably committed a crime.

While it is still too early to predict what Flynn would or could say to the investigations the offer of immunity was refused by all involved and the FBI refused to comment until the investigations are further advanced.

Burden

The effects of Thursdays news and revelations only confirm that the investigations are becoming increasingly a serious burden on the White House and put more pressure on President Donald Trump.

While the Constitution rightly states that all citizens are innocent until proven guilty the seriousness of the charges and the many questions being raised by individuals and institutions can no longer be ignored.

Should any aspect of the allegations be confirmed then the legitimacy of the election win would be put into serious doubt by many citizens.

As journalists continue to dig for scoops and the Senate and House Committees and the intelligence community continue their investigations we can only hope that the results and definitive proof of any findings comes as soon as possible. Until then a dark shadow will continue to hover over the White House.
Early Monday morning the curators of the Bode Museum in the German capital city of Berlin, discovered that the 'Big Maple Leaf' coin had been somehow stolen by thieves. Berlin police are now investigating, trying to figure out who, how, and why the thieves broke into the museum to steal the large, record-setting Gold Coin.

What is the 'Big Maple Leaf' coin?

The 'Big Maple Leaf' coin was produced by the Royal Canadian Mint back in 2007, with six in total being made. The front of the coin depicts Queen Elizabeth II. The back illustrates a stylized maple leaf, hence the name of the coin.

Each coin weights a total of 221 pounds (100 kilograms) and is 1.18 inches (3 centimeters) thick with a diameter of 20.9 inches (53 cm). They are also in the Guinness Book of World Records since the purity of each coin is 999.99/1000 gold. The face value given for each coin is $1 million dollars, but due to the coin's weight and makeup, it is estimated to be worth around $4.5 million on the open market. The 'Big Maple Leaf' coin in the Bode Museum was lent to the museum in 2010 to be a part of its prestigious coin collection and was one of the most prominent objects in the museum on loan.

How the coin got stolen

The thieves entered the Bode Museum through a window by using a ladder to bridge the gap between the light-rail tracks they were on and the museum's top floor window.

They crossed the 4 meter (13 foot) gap and forced open the window to enter at some point around 3:30 a.m. early Monday morning. They then located and broke into the museum's coin cabinet, which is home to one of the largest and most comprehensive coin collections in the world, to steal the 'Big Maple Leaf.' The thieves got away about 15 minutes before police arrived on the scene.

Berlin police found a ladder near the rail tracks to support this theory and believe that the thieves left the museum the way they entered it. The theft of the massive gold coin is the largest heist from any German museum in the country since World War II ended.
In an age where many brick and mortar retailers have shuttered due to the impact of e-commerce, convenience stores have been firmly holding their ground and experiencing healthy growth in the Chinese market

There is a common saying among young people in China that goes: "Convenience stores are more reliable than a boyfriend, and more considerate than a good female friend."

Gu Si, who recently started her internship in Shanghai, said she completely agrees with this statement. After all, the convenience store is the place where she buys most of her breakfast meals, in addition to the occasional fast food and snacks.

"Whenever I need to restore my energy in the late afternoon, the convenience store is a good choice for me," said the native of Xiamen, Fujian province.

Wang Hongtao, deputy secretary-general of the China Chain Store and Franchise Association, said that there are about 80,000 branded convenience stores across China and their revenue growth over the past few years has been an average of about 15 percent year-on-year. He added that convenience stores are typically smaller operations compared to large supermarkets, and this affords them a flexibility when it comes to tailoring their product offerings according to customer demands and trends.

Qi Xiaozhai, director of the Shanghai Commercial Economic Research Center, said that nearly all the goods supplied at convenience stores are daily necessities so the demand is hardly affected by other modes of shopping.

Ben Cavender, principal of China Market Research Group, echoed this point.

"Convenience stores continue to see strong growth in China because consumers need fast access to pre-prepared meals, snacks and beverages. When they cannot find affordable restaurants or supermarkets, the convenience store is a natural choice," said Cavender.

"Department stores haven't done well because they are not really providing a unique, compelling product or experience to consumers, so consumers have no reason to go. But convenience stores right now are often the only choice to buy cheap food that consumers are familiar with, such as mantou, or baozi (steamed buns), especially as a lot of street food sellers are no longer operating."

According to Wang, who is also the chief of the convenience store committee in China, there are more convenience stores in East China and South China than other regions due to the warmer weather and stronger mom-and-pop shop business culture in these areas.

Based on the latest convenience store index report from the China Chain Store and Franchise Association, there are nearly 7,000 convenience stores in Shanghai, with an average of 3,466 people per store.

The density of stores in Shanghai, which is home to more than 10 convenience store brands, is ranked sixth among all major cities across the nation, higher than Beijing's 7,185 people per store. Dongguan of Guangdong province was ranked first with 1,096 people per store.

"A distinctive characteristic of Shanghai's convenience store scene is that it has been more stable than other cities in the past two years, partly due to the maturity of the market after nearly two decades of development," said Wang.

Qi said he has noticed that multinational brands that have more international experience are beginning to overtake local brands in Shanghai.

The king of convenience

Originating from the United States but currently owned by Japanese Seven & i Holdings Co, 7-Eleven is the world's largest international convenience store chain that can be found in most major cities around the world.

According to Wang, 7-Eleven has more than 60,000 outlets globally, even more than fast food chain McDonald's. He also pointed out that the success of the brand might have to do with the Japanese work style that focuses on precision and productivity.

The first 7-Eleven outlet was opened in Guangzhou of Guangdong province in December 1996. As of the end of 2016, the brand has 2,375 branches in the Chinese mainland - 219 in Beijing, 102 in Shanghai, 82 in Tianjin and 67 in Chengdu of Sichuan province.

Shinji Uchida, chairman and president of Seven-Eleven China Investment Co Ltd, said that a standard 7-Eleven offers more than 3,000 products, and its product categories increase on a yearly basis.

"Presently, 7-Eleven's Chinese outlets account for 3.86 percent of our total 61,554 stores, and I see great potential for our business to expand in China," said Uchida.

"Apart from oden and steamed buns with different fillings, we have seen quick sales growth for our rice rolls, sushi, sandwiches and breads in recent years. We will diversify our products according to customers' demand and sales."

Oden is a Japanese-style snack that comprises fishcake, meatballs, tofu or kelp skewered and boiled in broth.

Local contenders

Despite being a latecomer to the local scene, Shanghai FamilyMart Co Ltd has been stealing the spotlight from the competition. FamilyMart is a Japanese brand and is operated by Ting Hsin International Group, a company that is no stranger to running food labels, such as the well-known instant noodle and drinks brand Master Kong, also known as Kangshifu. The first FamilyMart store in China was opened in Shanghai in 2004.

Based on Dianping.com, the country's leading local life information and trading platform, there are 1,067 FamilyMart outlets in Shanghai. As of the end of 2016, the company has 1,800 FamilyMart outlets in nine Chinese cities.

According to FamilyMart, their stores in China stock between 2,000 and 3,000 daily necessities and more than half of their products will be swapped on a yearly basis.

Shanghai's older convenience stores include All Days (Haode), Kedi, Quik (Kuaike), Buddys and Lawson. Quik, which is owned by Shanghai-based Lianhua Supermarket Holdings Co Ltd, used to be the city's biggest convenience store brand with 1,300 outlets that accounted for about 25 percent of total sales in Shanghai, said Qiu Yujun, a retail analyst at Planet Retail, in a report published by Wharton University of Pennsylvania. A search on Dianping reveals that there are 956 Quik outlets in Shanghai.

Key to success

On the other hand, Lawson, which opened its first store in China in July 1996, has been one of the better performers because its products are tailored for the young and trendy, said Qi.

"In every city we go to, we research and develop unique snacks, set lunches or even desserts according to the unique characteristics of the local market," said Zhang Sheng, executive vice-president of Lawson (China) Holdings Inc, and president of Shanghai Lawson Inc.

"In Beijing, we offer set lunches that are freshly made. In Chongqing, we provide noodles in local flavors. In Shanghai, our largest market in China, we have special offerings every year such as desserts, 24-hour bakeries, ramen, barbecued items, exclusive toys and daily necessities."

According to Zhang, it took Lawson China 18 years to grow from zero to 500, but just two years to snowball that figure to 1,000. As of the end of January, there are 659 outlets in the Yangtze River Delta region, 134 in Chongqing, 81 in Dalian of Liaoning province, 59 in Wuhan of Hubei province and 48 in Beijing.

He pointed out that Lawson even has a special research and development division under each regional office that performs a series of tests to guarantee the quality of newly developed products before the green light is given for mass production.

Zhang believes that sticking to its self-developed products will be pivotal to unlocking more growth in the future. Up to 40 percent of the products sold in Lawson stores today are made by the brand.

"Lawson has developed a successful supply chain and has spent more than two decades understanding the Chinese market. It is now time for us to take off and accelerate the expansion," said Zhang, revealing that the brand aims to own 10,000 stores in China by 2025.

Qi believes that convenience stores should embrace the e-commerce trend as part of their efforts to innovate while Wang noted that the fast expansion of foreign convenience store brands actually provides a great opportunity for local companies to learn.

"Considering how the smaller Chinese brands understand the local market better and have more flexible business models, I believe these local convenience stores have great potential to grow further in the future. The market is huge enough for players from home and abroad," said Wang.

wang_ying@chinadaily.com.cn
The city's management office for matters related to the annual Qingming Festival, also known as the Tomb-Sweeping Day, has suggested that people should visit the tombs of their ancestors before or after the three-day public holiday to avoid the crowds.

This year's Qingming Festival falls on April 4.

Officials expect about 5 million people to visit memorial parks around the city from April 2 to 4, with crowd figures peaking on the actual day at 2.7 million. They added that 740,000 people have already visited the memorial parks on the weekend of March 25 and 26.

"It's a tradition to visit the tomb of a loved one on Tomb-Sweeping Day within three years of the death. This is why memorial parks are usually extremely crowded on the day itself," explained Qiao Meixiao, a 59-year-old Shanghai native.

"After three years, people can select any day to visit the tomb. It could be the day the ashes of the deceased was buried or sometime around the winter solstice. But people usually pick a day before Tomb-Sweeping Day," she added.

Tomb-Sweeping Day, which takes place between the second and the third month of spring on the Chinese lunar calendar, originated during the Zhou dynasties (c.11th century-256 BC). The occasion is considered one of the most important traditional Chinese festivals, alongside the Spring Festival, Mid-Autumn Festival and Dragon Boat Festival.

In May 2006, the State Council placed the event on the first national-level list of intangible cultural heritages. The event has since 2009 been a three-day holiday as some people have to make long trips back to their hometowns for the occasion.

Families usually prepare two types of items before visiting the memorial parks: paper offerings and cooked food.

"We used to handmake the 'bank notes' with tinfoil paper but most people today buy them as it's more convenient. People believe that by burning these offerings, the dead would have money to spend in the other world," said Bao Meiyuan, an 87-year-old Shanghai resident.

"People usually prepare the favorite dishes of their late family members. The number of the dishes and the number of each kind of fruit must be an odd number as even numbers are usually reserved for joyous occasions, such as the birth of a child and weddings."

She added it is a practice for people to speak to the tombs as a way of updating the deceased about the latest changes in the family, such as a new child or if someone was promoted.

"We also request the deceased to bless us as we believe the forefathers are closely related to the rise and fall of their offspring," said Bao.

Wearing bright colored clothes to memorial parks is frowned upon and pregnant women, infants and young children are usually not brought along for these visits.

"It's not a place associated with good luck," she explained.

zhouwenting@chinadaily.com.cn
When it is merely a matter of satiating his hunger, Liu Yichen said that a cheap snack that costs around 10 yuan ($1.45) in a convenience store is far more satisfying than a 1,000 yuan-meal in a swanky restaurant set in a classical mansion.

Liu was recalling his recent dining experience during the Chinese Lunar New Year when he met up with a classmate from his senior high school.

"The food and wine served at the mansion are premium but they seemed to have formed an invisible wall between the two old buddies. The dinner felt more like a business event rather than a reunion," said Liu, a white-collar worker from Beijing.

"After the dinner was over, I walked into a convenience store on the way home and bought some noodles, a salted duck egg and a cup of oden. That was a real meal that truly satisfied my stomach."

"Besides, convenience stores are a very special place because they are always there for us around the clock, regardless of what time it is."

Liao Chen, a junior manager at a financial company, shares Liu's love for convenience stores. He said that the microwave meal of fried chicken fillet and rice sold at FamilyMart store ranks among his favorite lunch options.

"My current job requires me to do a lot of overtime. Whenever I have no time to cook, I will go to a convenience store. The food there may not taste as delicious as what is cooked in restaurants, but they are clean, cheap and time-saving," said Liu.

A staff from a Lawson store in Songjiang district, Shanghai, said their customers don't just patronize the store for main meals - many seek out seasonal snacks too. He said that as the Qingming Festival is approaching, sweet green rice balls, the traditional snack for this festival when Chinese visit their ancestors' tombs, has been selling well.

Tang Zhuyan, who runs a business on social networking platform Wechat, said that she always goes to convenience stores whenever she travels to large Chinese cities or abroad. She said that such stores usually allow a traveler to buy something that is unique to the city.

To Cao Ming, convenience stores are more than just a place where he can buy daily essentials - it can be a courier delivery point too. "When I am away from home and cannot receive packages, I would ask the courier to send the package to a nearby convenience store. This saves me a lot of time," said Cao.

Zhang Han and Lu Qian in Shanghai contributed to the story.
TAIPEI -- Taiwan's coast guard authority said it seized a mainland fishing boat and 10 crew on Friday for alleged "trespassing" following its detention of nine fishermen on Wednesday.

The latest boat and its crew, registered in Zhejiang Province, were caught fishing in "limited waters" off the Pengjia Islet Friday morning, and the 10 members are currently being held in New Taipei City to receive investigation, according to a statement released by the coast guard authority in Keelung City.

The boat left Zhejiang on March 17. Its owners may be given a fine ranging from NT$1.2 to NT$2.4 million, according to the authority. The nine fishermen caught on Wednesday under the "trespassing" charge are still being held in Taiwan.

Aside from the two fishing boats seized this week, the Keelung coastal guard authority had previously seized four mainland fishing boats since the beginning of 2017 and fined them for a total of NT$6.6 million.
Karen Kwan, a Democrat elected to the Utah House of Representatives in November, is the first Chinese-American lawmaker from the western US state. Provided to China Daily

She is a mother of three beautiful daughters, a university psychology instructor and now a state lawmaker trying to make a difference in the community.

Karen Kwan, a Democrat who represents Taylorsville, became Utahs first Chinese-American lawmaker in last Novembers election.

"When I was campaigning, it was really important that I stayed true to myself, that everything I did was rooted in good intentions and in the belief that we as a community could always strive to do better and to be better for each other," Kwan told China Daily recently.

"Face-to-face time with my constituents was also something I placed a lot of value on," she said. "If I was going to represent my community and truly be able to serve them, I needed to get to know them and find out what was most important to them and to their families.

"I had a phenomenal team with me every step of the way. The love, time and support that were given to me by my volunteers, specifically the members of Utahs Chinese community, played a large part in my election. I surrounded myself with like-minded people who felt strongly about education, senior issues, economic growth, healthcare and public safety."

An ancestor of Kwans worked on the railroads in the US 150 years ago, and she is very proud of her Chinese heritage.

"Chinese culture is rich in history and traditions. It is very much of who I am. I hope that I honor his legacy, borne out of great sacrifices, as the first Chinese-American woman elected to the Utah State House of Representatives," she said.

Kwan said that "Asian Americans are the fastest-growing racial group in the United States. Our most effective influence right now is our vote. We are in a unique place right now because of our growing numbers. We have the ability as a community to swing elections and to really have our voices heard."

She believes that Asian Americans are growing more vocal and confident of their own identities and backgrounds.

"There is a growing number of Asian Americans who are becoming politically involved. Just look at my campaign, for example, it was a first for many of my Asian-American volunteers. A lot of them have never worked on a campaign before, but there are issues like immigration, income equality, healthcare and education that have compelled Asian Americans to become involved.

"We also have organizations like APIA Vote, OCA, Asian Americans Advancing Justice and many others who are doing outreach and whose main focus is to engage Asian Americans," she said.

"Most of these organizations are broken up into chapters. There are a lot of opportunities for organizing and leadership training. Attend meetings for whichever party you identify with and then start volunteering, work on a campaign and then get your family and friends involved."

Kwan began serving the community at a young age.

"My father has ties with the community, and we think we should not just care about the family but work for a better community for all the people," Kwan said.

Last month, Kwan presented a resolution to recognize the 2017 Chinese Lunar New Year and the Utahans who celebrate it. Kwans resolution would bring that celebration to Utah and recognize not only the holiday, but also the contributions of Asian Americans in the state.

"We have about 45,000 Utahans here who represent communities who celebrate Lunar New Year," Kwan told the House Economic Development and Workforce Services Committee. "There are 4,500 Asian-owned businesses here in Utah, with sales over $1 billion, who employ more than 12,000 people."

Kwan detailed the contributions of Asian-Americans in more than 150 years of Utah history, including the completion of the Transcontinental Railroad and the driving of the golden spike at Promontory Point.

Now Kwan is working on bills that help working families.
China Comes to Tech: 1877-1931 gathers materials from this chapter in Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) history for the first time. The exhibit will run through November at MITs Maihaugen Gallery in Cambridge. Photos provided to China Daily

The presence of Chinese students at US universities is well known. But would anyone guess that the first Chinese student to attend the prestigious Massachusetts Institute of Technology did so in 1877?

That student was Zhang Wenzhan, who went by the name of Mon Cham Cheong. He was a member of the Class of 1883, and a native of Guhe village in Xiangshan (now Zhongshan) county, Guangdong province.

According to an early report, he was the son of a rich man whose studies were financed by his father in order that he might acquire "a thorough knowledge of mechanics, with a view to its practical use when he goes back".

By 1910, China was sending more students to MIT than any other foreign country. According to school records, about 400 Chinese students studied at the school in Cambridge between 1877 and 1931.

A current exhibition, China Comes to Tech: 1877-1931 is commemorating the 140th anniversary of Chinese students at MIT and can be viewed at MIT Libraries Exhibits' Maihaugen Gallery.

Harboring a dream of saving China through science and technology, the students who returned after graduation made vital contributions to China's modernization through engineering, science commerce and education.

"The institute is justly proud of the splendid part which her graduates have played in the New China and is happy to be of service in the further training of the young men to whom will come the opportunity and responsibility to organize the resources of this great sister republic, especially in science, engineering and business administration," Karl T. Compton, the MIT president, said in 1930.

"The idea (for the exhibition) was a joint proposal by me and an MIT librarian who was also interested in this history," Emma Teng, a professor of history and global studies at MIT, wrote in an email to China Daily.

"It grew out of a workshop that we had done for several years for my class on Chinese migration (which studies periods back to 1567). We invited the students to come to the archive to look at materials related to the history of the earliest Chinese students at MIT," said Teng, who helped develop and curate the exhibition.

"The students really enjoyed learning about this history and saw connections with their own lives. We noticed that this history was not broadly known at MIT, so we decided to launch the exhibit as a diversity initiative," she wrote.

Teng delved into the archives at MIT and also from the greater Boston area to look at materials related to the history of the earliest Chinese students at MIT. She said it was a laborious process for her and a team of archivists and librarians.

The exhibition not only features the earliest Chinese alumni, but also addresses historical topics, such as the Chinese Educational Mission and the Chinese Exclusion Act.

"I'm hoping the exhibit will really inspire people to reflect on what international students contribute to their universities and to America at large," Teng wrote.
Treasury notes - New York Four former US Treasury Secretaries discuss US-China economic relations on Wednesday at a panel held by the National Committee on US-China Relations in New York. From left: Michael Blumenthal, secretary during the Carter administration; Robert Rubin, secretary during the Clinton Administration; Timothy Geithner, fi rst secretary under Obama; Jacob Lew, second secretary under Obama; and moderator Stephen Orlins, president of the National Committee. Amy He / Cihna Daily
Changes Looming in How You Enjoy Oregon Coast, Video

Published 03/30/2017 at 10:03 PM PDT - Updated 03/30/2017 at 10:04 PM PDT

By Oregon Coast Beach Connection staff





(Oregon Coast)  Get ready for something different on the Oregon coast. This latter half of spring will be quite out of the ordinary, and yet few know about it. There are literally some new ways to enjoy the beaches in April and May. (Photo: a vibrant spring sunset in Oceanside).

Paradoxically, it's also when fewer people head to the coast  which, once more paradoxically  is one of the aspects that make it most enjoyable and different. The shoreline is bereft of crowds, weather does some interesting things, ocean skies are at their most photogenic of the year, Orcas start showing up, sea foam can get unusually spectacular, lodging prices can be truly enticing, your chances increase of seeing glowing sand, and a whole new load of unusual stuff starts washing up.

Some on the coast have actually referred to this time of year as the Secret Season, thanks to its unknown amenities and the lack of crowds. Also see the video below.



Above: Rockaway Beach on one of those photogenic, moody days



Striking Spring Skies. Ocean shore clouds become their most interesting and dramatic from March through May, creating more amazing sunset colors and arguably the most photogenic time of year. You'll notice lots of puffy clouds on the horizon, and in between them some amazing things can happen. Thanks to the manic mood swings of the weather on the coast, abruptly shifting from rainy to sunny, these conditions make for more vibrant hues at dusk than at any other time of the year.

Both summer and winter sunsets, though often striking, tend to lean towards one color. But in spring, those fat, globby clouds and unstable air masses give the sunlight more things to refract it and bounce off. This, in turn, creates the more intense hues and different shades.

Especially towards May, in full sunlight, you get large and often darkened clouds. But there are frequently breaks breaks them, creating photo opps where you get looming, moody clouds in the background and objects in the foreground lit up brightly. The contrasts can be jaw-dropping and easily make for the most remarkable beach shots you'll get all year.

Meteorologists say it can come down to increased humidity and the cleaner air (although summer's pollution does create some outstanding sights as well).

Orcas and Gray Whales. It's well known that this time of year is the big whale migration season, with thousands of gray whales moving past here with their babies in tow. While the most attention is paid to the late March portion of this journey, grays continue their trek well into April in great numbers.

Lesser known, however, is that Orcas come up the Oregon coast tracking the young ones for food. This is an unusual pod of killer whales, which scientists don't know much about. It results in awe-inspiring sightings throughout April, sometimes lasting well into May or early June. They've even been seen chasing seals through Newport's Yaquina Bay and up the river a couple of miles.

Crazed Sea Foam and Glowing Sand. The two of these are definitely connected.

Thanks to that nutty, indecisive weather of spring  where squalls and storms intermix with glorious bouts of sun  the oceans get seriously churned up. Spring is also the time of many phytoplankton blooms, when their population rises greatly. Since they are what makes up sea foam, and storms create even more sudsy bubbles with its oxygen-infusing churning, you can get foam going wild.



Brown waves in Seaside

Sometimes this appears as giant banks of foam that look like snow. It can cause giant globs of the stuff to go flying over Highway 101. At the Devil's Churn near Yachats, the formation there can create an unusual sight where blobs of the stuff can get sent flying upwards, looking like snow going the wrong direction.

A kind of phytoplankton called diatoms is what usually makes most sea foam, and if there's an especially large concentration, they can taint the waves brown. This happens frequently in Seaside and Warrenton, where it causes the foam to look like brownish sludge. Such sights often alarm visitors, but the town has signs pointing out that this is a good thing and the sign of a very healthy ocean.

Perhaps even more amazing, however, are the blooms of dinoflagellate phytoplankton, which are bioluminescent and can cause the sand to glow at night. Referred to as glowing sand, you need a dark beach, free of light sources, and then you have to scoot your feet backwards. If they're present, you'll see tiny, green-blue flashes.

You see this more in summer and fall when things are warmer, but if you're seeing tons of foam during the day, this can mean some amount of glowing phytoplankton are around.

Spring's Surreal Finds. With some amount of wintry storm still pummeling on occasion, the funky beach finds continue beyond winter. By this time, it's not impossible to find the real glass floats from Japan, which were so treasured for generations.

Other fun creatures include the velella velella, which really start hitting the sands in April or May. (Indeed they're being sighted now).

Lodging Price Nirvana. Oregon coast officials say lodging prices are still near winter lows, but hoteliers really get motivated by the lack of crowds in April and early May so that exceptional deals can rise up. Two-for-one specials abound, as do situations like stay two nights, get the third free. You can find a huge list of Oregon coast lodging here.

More Motivation. April and May are when the lowest tides of the year happen, sometimes dipping into minus one foot or even three feet. Agate beds really pop up in many places, thanks to all that tidal melee. They also disappear quickly, however.

A true insiders tip: the week before Memorial Day weekend is one of the most inviting, as nearly not a soul heads to the Oregon coast then. You have all sorts of beaches and amenities to yourself, and many lodgings are nearly desperate to get people out there. Oregon Coast Hotels for this - Where to eat - Maps - Virtual Tours

Oregon Coast in Spring: What You Don't Know #OregonCoast in Spring: what you don't know. Crazed sea foam, grey whales, killer whales, the most photogenic skies of the year, glowing sand....and hardly a soul out there. Full stories at https://www.beachconnection.net/oregoncoastspring Posted by Oregon Coast Beach Connection on Monday, March 13, 2017

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WASHINGTON, NC High school students can earn a college certificate for free without stepping foot on campus. Beaufort County Community College will offer its Certificate in Criminal Justice online again during the 2017-2018 school year. Registration for these classes is currently ongoing.High school students can participate in BCCC's Career Technical Education (CTE) classes as a way to start receiving college credit for free before they finish high school. The Basics of Criminal Justice Certificate can be completed in one year if a student can take two classes per semester.said Crystal Watts, criminal justice instructor at BCCC.Classes in this certificate can help students interested in a bachelor's degree in criminal justice get a start on their education. While they can help students obtain a four-year degree faster, certificates can also help students gain a competitive edge if they choose to enter the workforce immediately after high school.In 2016, Northside High School student Noah Phipps graduated high school and earned his Certificate in Criminal Justice at the same time. The CTE program also offers the Essential Police Operations Certificate and Corrections Certificate. These certificates involve some time on campus, but operate on the same timeline of the Basics of Criminal Justice Certificate.
With the Midterm Elections less than one week away: What do you consider the top issues that you will be voting on to be corrected by your better representation?

Education Crime Big Government getting Bigger Biden /Democrat controlled Spike in Energy Cost Inflation created by Legislation of Majority in Power Gender Reassignment Corrupted Bureaucratic /Service (DOJ, FBI, etc.) Institutions Abortion Discredited Legacy Media Ending the Corruption of Dishonest Politicians Corruptive Influence of Social Media Wide Open Southern Border
Your digital subscription includes access to all content on our agricultural websites across the nation. Access unlimited content and the digital versions of our print editions - This Week's Paper.
A Public Service announcement for Young Men

UNDERSTANDING WOMEN

NO GO ZONE

Learning through trial and error is not the best way to gain knowledge. We all need some guidance or we will fall into the Cliche "those who do not learn history are doomed to repeat it."I offer this short seven minute video as public service announcement to young men everywhere. This is based on careful research and the application of math to an age-old problem. You have been warned, disregard at your won risk.Now for some of us older gents in the readership, there is a much simpler way to navigate the chart. If you are afraid to share this with your wife, or if you did and she did not find this "somewhat" funny, you may have selected her from the:
Le Hai Binh, spokesperson of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs __Photo: Internet

, , ,

Vietnam has protested against a live-fire military drill conducted this week by Taiwan in the Truong Sa archipelago, demanding that it refrain from repeating such activity, Foreign Ministry spokesman Le Hai Binh said on March 30.Binh asked parties involved in the Truong Sa (Spratly) and Hoang Sa (Paracel) archipelagoes to respect Vietnams sovereignty in the area and act responsibly.He spoke to reporters in response to a query about Vietnams reaction to reports that China is completing big military works on illegal man-made islands in Vietnams Truong Sa archipelago.Vietnamese agencies are checking that information, Binh said, reiterating that Vietnam has a full legal foundation and historical evidence to affirm its sovereignty over Truong Sa and Hoang Sa.Vietnam also resolutely protested against Taiwan (China)s live-fire drill in waters around Ba Binh (Itu Aba) in Vietnams Truong Sa archipelago, Binh said. Taiwans Coast Guard Administration held a live-fire exercise in Ba Binh waters from March 27-30.Binh declared that the move seriously violates Vietnams sovereignty" over Truong Sa archipelago. It also threatens peace, stability and maritime safety and security in the East Sea, while elevating tension and complicating the situation in the waters, he added.Parties concerned need to respect Vietnams sovereignty, act responsibly, and take no actions that complicate the situation and threaten peace in the East Sea (South China Sea), the spokesperson said.-
KHANH HOA  The Central Power Corporation (CPC) under the Viet Nam Electricity Group (EVN) will build a solar plant project with a capacity of 50 megawatts (MW) and solar farms in the south-central coastal province of Khanh Hoa.

CPCs deputy general director, Nguyen Thanh, told Viet Nam News on Thursday that the plant will be located on 70ha in five rural communes of Cam Lam District and Cam Ranh City, 40km south of the city of Nha Trang.

He said the company has been awarded an investment certificate by the provincial Peoples Committee, and a feasibility study would begin in late 2017. As scheduled, the plant will supply renewable energy for rural areas and the national grid from 2019.

Thanh said the corporation and EVN have been negotiating with the Asia Development Bank (ADB) in seeking preferential loans for the project. The a Nang-based corporation also plans to co-operate with Japanese Mitsubishi in production of battery-powered cars.

According to a survey, Khanh Hoa has great potential for solar energy with solar radiation of 5.4Kwh per square metre each day, and over 2,600 sunshine hours a year.

The province said 10 investors have registered to develop solar power projects in Khanh Hoa, with a total capacity of 2,000MW.

In 2014, Viet Nams first solar power project with a 19.2MW-capacity was built in the central province of Quang Ngai.  VNS
HA NOI  The Ministry of Industry and Trade on Thursday officially decided to levy anti-dumping duties on imported coated steel from mainland China (including Hong Kong) and South Korea.

Accordingly, Bazhou Sanqiang Metal Products will be taxed 26.36 per cent, BX Steel POSCO Cold Rolled Sheet 38.34 per cent, Bengang Steel Plates 27.36 per cent, Tianjin Haigang Steel Coil 26.32 per cent, Hebei Iron & Steel Co Ltd, Tangshan Branch 38.34 per cent, Wuhan Iron and Steel 33.49 per cent. Chinese Yeih Phui Technomaterial was axed at the lowest rate of 3.17 per cent.

South Korean POSCO will be charged 7.02 per cent anti-dumping tax while other South Korean exporters will be taxed 19 per cent.

The decision takes effect after 15 days after the signing and will be in place for five years.

It follows a December 2015 appeal by four local steelmakers asking the Government for measures to prevent coated steel sheets shipped from mainland China and South Korea from being sold at cheap prices.

The ministry issued a decision on March 3, 2016 on initiating an investigation of the claims by domestic steelmakers and on September 1, the ministry issued temporary anti-dumping duties on the products.

Nguyen Van Sua, vice chairman of the Viet Nam Steel Association (VSA), said imported steel from South Korea accounted for a small portion of 4.57 per cent during the investigation period in comparison with other imported products, including coated steel for high-end markets of automobiles and electronics. In addition, the price of coated steel imported from South Korea was US$85 per tonne higher than that of locally produced steel in Viet Nam.

Steel exports show optimism

Viet Nams import-export report issued for the first time by the Ministry of Industry and Trade in the capital city on Wednesday predicts a positive outlook for steel exports as Chinas steel exports are expected to decline due to surging demand at home.

However, it also notes that the industry faces fierce competition from cheap imported steel, and anti-dumping duties imposed by many countries including the US, Canada, Turkey, Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia.

Since 2007, Viet Nams steel exports have faced 29 lawsuits, 18 of them for anti-dumping duties.

But despite the lawsuits, in 2016, the countrys steel exports rose 36 per cent from the previous year to 3.48 million tonnes worth $2.03 billion. Prices reached $580 per tonne, a 12 per cent year-on-year decrease.

In recent years, Viet Nams steel has been mostly exported to ASEAN markets due to high demand. However, exports to ASEAN have dropped due to trade defence measures by importing countries.

Last year, steel exports to the region reached only 1.81 million tonnes, 7.3 per cent and 18 per cent less in terms of quantity and value from the previous year.

On the other hand, exports surged to certain countries reaching $568.5 million (up 328 per cent) to the US, $121.4 million to South Korea (up 147.7 per cent), $33.3 million to Taiwan (up 270 per cent) and $37.5 million to Pakistan (up 221.5 per cent).  VNS
HCM CITY  The "Establishing a Sustainable Pangasius Supply Chain in Viet Nam" project (SUPA) has brought significant improvement to the pangasius supply chain, resolving environmental concerns, improving efficiency and ensuring consistent quality, a meeting heard in HCM City on Wednesday.

The project has also opened up new markets for Vietnamese pangasius products.

Before the programme began, pangasius exports had been rising sharply to account for 30 per cent of the countrys total aquaculture exports, but the sectors development was not steady.

The rapid growth had caused concern among stakeholders and the Government, who were wondering how to ensure the sectors long-term sustainability.

In 2013, the project, in co-operation with the World Wide Fund for Nature, the Viet Nam Cleaner Production Centre and the Viet Nam Association of Seafood Exporters and Producers, started implementing strategic activities to support pangasius producers and processors in the Cuu Long (Mekong) Delta.

Funded by the EU through its EU SWITCH-Asia programme, the project was undertaken for four years until March 2017, seeking to enhance the global competitiveness of Viet Nams pangasius industry, minimise the environmental fallouts and boost responsible production.

Speaking at the closing ceremony of the project, Tran Van Top, vice principal of the Ha Noi University of Science and Technology and chairman of the SUPA Steering Committee, said the project supported over 50 enterprises, 120 farms, 130 households and 12 co-operatives, as well as trained nearly 3,000 participants.

It consulted and trained farmers in increasing the fishs survival rate and reducing feed costs and environmental effects during the process of hatching and production.

It also technically supported 33 farms and co-operatives in obtaining international sustainable seafood certification, including from the Aquaculture Stewardship Council.

The project helped processing firms improve their capacity and advised more than 70 plants in resource efficiency and cleaner production, helping them cut electricity consumption by 18-20 per cent and water consumption by 26-30 per cent.

In this manner, the programme helped 54 pangasius processing plants annually cut production costs by VN2-5 billion (US$87,800- 219,300) per plant and CO2 emissions by 21,000 tonnes.

It also connected producers in Viet Nam with international buyers, especially in the EU, creating better export opportunities, Le Xuan Thinh, project manager, Viet Nam Cleaner Production Centre, said.

It collaborated with experts to organise co-creation sessions with consumers in Europe and Viet Nam to help the producers create new products with improved quality and meet consumers demands, he said.

Mag.Karim Ben Romdhane, seafood analyst at WWF Austria, said besides helping promote Vietnamese pangasius at the Seafood Expo Global, the worlds largest seafood expo, for the last three years, the WWF also invited European retailers to visit Viet Nam and take a look at certified pangasius farms as a way to attract buying.

There was still a negative image of pangasius in certain parts of Europe, and so WWF and the Vietnamese pangasius industry had to communicate the improvements achieved through the project to European consumers, he said.

Improvements have been achieved but not communicated to consumers in Europe yet. So I would invest more energy, more money to communicate these improvements to European consumers so that the image of pangasius gradually changes in the next few years.

Le Xuan Thinh suggested establishing an information centre for seafood, especially for pangasius, to promote Vietnamese seafood including pangasius and protest against the media smear campaign in Europe.

He also urged donors to continue assisting the pangasius industry with technical and quality standards.

Tran inh Luan, deputy director of the General Directorate of Fisheries, hailed the programmes achievements, saying that the programme had helped producers cut costs, develop new, popular products and, especially, create a closed supply chain.

The directorate was undertaking many activities to help the sectors development, he said.  VNS
HA NOI  The Viet Nam National Petroleum Group (Petrolimex) announced at a shareholder meeting on Wednesday that it will list on the stock market in mid April.

The company plans to list more than 1.29 billion shares on the HCM Stock Exchange (HOSE) between April 18 and 20 of this year.

Petrolimex chairman Bui Ngoc Bao said at the meeting that listing on the HOSE as the major bourse has higher standards and requirements for listed companies, and those standards/requirements are almost alike international ones.

HOSE is also the exchange that gathers the biggest companies in Viet Nam with its VN30 Index, which tracks the performance of the largest 30 firms by market capitalisation, Bao said.

Petrolimex will be admitted to the VN30 Index. This is the target and expectation by both the company and its shareholders, Bao said.

Debut price for Petrolimex remains unknown but Bao said the price would be calculated by the market but still ensure the interests of shareholders.

Petrolimex would announce its debut share price when the first trading day was near, he added.

The IPO price will not be lower than the price level, at which Petrolimex sold a part of its capital to JX Nippon Oil & Energy, a member of the Japanese energy group JX Holdings.

JX Nippon Oil and Energy in late 2015 spent VN39,017 (US$1.71) per share to purchase 103.5 million new shares issued by Petrolimex. The deal was worth VN4 trillion.

The deal was considered profitable for the Japanese company, as many investors have offered to buy shares of Petrolimex at higher price levels.

The trading price of Petrolimexs shares on the Over-the-Counter (OTC) market had varied between VN47,000-50,000 per share, Bao said. Petrolimexs shares were traded at VN49,000 per share on Thursday on the OTC market.

The Japanese firm will be the only strategic investor at Petrolimex, and it may increase its ownership in the Vietnamese petroleum company, Bao said.

JX Nippon Oil and Energy is holding an 8 per cent stake in Petrolimex. The Japanese investor could raise its ownership in the Vietnamese side up to 25 per cent.

After the debut, Petrolimex will become one of the top 10 largest listed companies by market capitalisation, according to Sai Gon Securities Inc (SSI). The market capitalisation of Petrolimex on the debut is estimated at $2 billion. The company will rank fifth on the major bourse by total asset, and its earnings per share will rank second after dairy producer Vinamilk (VNM).

Petrolimex also planned to list on the Singapores stock market as Singapore is a financial centre of the region and many energy firms were trading on the Singapore Exchange, Bao said.

Petrolimex is now the biggest petroleum dealer in Viet Nam, occupying 48-50 per cent of the total market. The petroleum business unit contributes 50 per cent of the groups earnings.  VNS
A NANG  Businesses from the Chinese province of Shandong have been seeking more investment and co-operation opportunities with local partners in the fields of agriculture, trade, agricultural machinery production, farm produce export, bio industry, hi-tech farm and food safety in the central city.

Head of Shandongs working delegation, Wang Junmin spoke at a seminar on agriculture and business co-operation in the city yesterday.

Wang said Vietnamese fresh fruits are a popular farm produce in Shandong as well as rubber, while garlic, ginger and agricultural machinery have been made available for the Viet Nam market.

He said 102 investment projects with total registered investment capital of US$1.22 billion from Shandong have been approved by the central citys Peoples Committee.

Wang said businesses from the province have so far poured $4.1 billion in Viet Nam.

We have called for a co-operative mechanism in boosting investment, tourism, cultural exchange and connections among travel and enterprise associations and universities between a Nang and Shandong, Wang said.

He also invited a Nang to join the Ocean Forum to be held in Shandong this September, strengthening the relationship of the two locations.

Vice Chairman of a Nang citys Peoples Committee, Ho Ky Minh said the city would offer favourable conditions for Chinese investors with long-term projects in hi-tech farming, green technology and food processing.

Minh also said the city has offered preferential policies for businesses from Shandong who invest in the citys Hi-tech Park and Information Technology park as well as available Industrial Zones.

The two cities set up a relationship in 1994, but trade and investment progress has failed to reach its full potential.

In 2012, the two sides agreed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on tourism cooperation and the investment environment.

According to a report from the industry and trade department, the city of 1 million consumes 145,000 tonnes of seafood and 140,000 tonnes of vegetables per year. However, the citys 80ha of farms only provide 10 per cent of daily vegetable demand.

In terms of tourism, a Nang hosted 443,000 Chinese tourists, 27 per cent of total foreign visitors  in 2016.  VNS
AK NONG  The Peoples Procuracy of Central Highlands ak Nong Province has arrested the former director of a forestry company as part of an investigation into the destruction of 2,000 hectares of forest.

Le Xuan Bao, former director of Quang uc Forestry Co. Ltd., will be prosecuted for irresponsible management of the forest area, resulting in serious consequences.

According to initial investigations, in 2010, the province handed over 12,301 hectares of forest to the Quang uc company to carry out forestry protection activities including growing, preserving and managing the forest areas.

However, Bao and the former head of the companys forest protection and management board, Thai Thanh Tam, were irresponsible in the leadership of the company. As a result, more than 2,000 hectares were destroyed and encroached upon.

Tam will also be prosecuted alongside Bao, and faces the same charges.

The investigation is ongoing.  VNS
QUANG NAM  TripAdvisor users have again chosen Hoi An as one of the worlds best destinations.

The ancient town was in 13th position in a list of the 25 best destinations in this years Travelers Choice Awards.

It has been hailed as a "well-preserved" example of Southeast Asian trading ports from the 15th-19th centuries.

According to TripAdvisor, the biggest highlight of Hoi An is the lantern festival held on the 14th day of each lunar month, when the town trades its electric lights for traditional coloured lanterns.

The site also recommends that travellers should visit the 400-year-old Japanese Bridge and three-century-old Fukian Assembly Hall.

Tailor shops are another higlight of Hoi An, with tourists told to let the towns expert tailors make you some bespoke clothig.

Hoi An received more than 1.3 million foreign visitors last year, up 26 percent from 2015, according to official data.  VNS
HCM CITY  HCM Citys tourism industry will strengthen co-operation with official agencies, district administrations and various industry stakeholders to improve tourism promotion and marketing, city officials have said.

Tran Vinh Tuyen, deputy chairman of the Peoples Committee, said the city is focusing on developing river tourism and promoting rural, ecological and cultural tourism in districts 9, 5, Cu Chi, and Can Gio in the coming months.

Every month the Peoples Committee would organise meetings to assess tourism growth, he told a meeting this week.

Close co-ordination between State agencies and stake holders is vital to gather feedback for developing tourism, he said.

Bui Ta Hoang Vu, director of the Department of Tourism, said there would be at least one tourism event held in the city every month.

Processes to ensure the safety of tourists visiting the city would be strengthened, he said.

The Department of Tourism will work with the Department of Transport to upgrade piers for tourist boats to dock.

It is expected that the first river public transit route from Bach ang Wharf in District 1 to Thu uc District will start at the end of June.

Route No.2 from Bach ang Wharf to District 8 will begin early next year.

This year the department has promoted tourism products in districts 5, Cu Chi and Can Gio through field trips to tourist destinations and meetings with local authorities, major tour operators and tourism services providers, Vu said.

A wide range of tourism promotion activities and events to attract tourists have been held, including a ceremony to welcome the five millionth international tourist, the HCM City Ao Dai Festival, Tourism Fair, and the Viet Nam-HCM City Promotion Programme in Russia.

The number of foreigners visiting the city soared 15 per cent in the first quarter of the year to more than 1.5 million.

Turnover from tourism is estimated at VN27.7 trillion (US$1.22 billion), a year-on-year increase of 15.6 per cent.  VNS
Charles Gorham Keane Gorham



On 03-24-2017, Investigators with the Beaufort County Sheriff's Office Drug Unit arrested Charles Gorham, 32 years of age, of 124 Minuteman Lane in Washington and Keane Gorham, 37 years of age, of 1109 Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington.Charles Gorham was charged with three counts of Possession with Intent to Sell and Deliver Cocaine, Possession with intent to Sell and Deliver Marijuana and Possession of Oxycontin a Schedule II Controlled Substance. Keane Gorham was charged with Felony Possession of Marijuana and Possession with Intent to Sell and Deliver Marijuana.Their arrest stemmed from Investigators making purchases of cocaine from Charles Gorham. Investigators conducted a vehicle stop on a vehicle that Keane Gorham was driving and Charles Gorham was the passenger. Investigators conducted a search and found approximately 4.5 grams of crack cocaine and Oxycontin on Charles Gorham. Investigators found approximately 75 grams of marijuana in the center console.Charles Gorham was confined in the Beaufort County Detention Center under a $25,000.00 secured bond. Keane Gorham was confined in the Beaufort County Detention Center under a $15,000.00 secured bond.Lieutenant Russell Davenport210 N Market StreetWashington NC 27889Office Cell
NEW YORK  The first works by Nobel laureates following the prize inevitably draw extra attention. For Bob Dylan, his release is as unorthodox as his selection for literatures top award.

On the heels of the Nobel committees decision to honor him as the original poet of rock, Dylan is putting out his third straight album not of his own songwriting but of covers of pop standards.

Triplicate, which comes out Friday, is also the first three-disc original album by the rock legend as he interprets 30 songs from the 1930s through 1950s, most of them sung at some point by Frank Sinatra.

For an artist who over a half-century has famously flouted convention -- from going electric in 1965 to writing long-winding songs that broke radio formats -- the 75-year-olds recent passion for the music of his youth is clearly no fluke.

Dylans Sentimental Journey, to quote the title of one of the songs on the album, is at once a celebration of a golden age in songwriting and a rejection of the simplicity and over-production of contemporary pop music.

Many of the songs on Triplicate are deceptively complex, with multiple shifts in key and time signature.

Dylan, whose grainy voice has rarely been described as a reason for his success, recorded in live sessions with his band in a Los Angeles studio, declining to go back in production and gloss over the rough edges of his vocals.

Emotional directness

Dylan concentrates the albums third disc on existential songs about life such as Hoagy Carmichaels perennial favorite Stardust, doo-wop legends The Ink Spots Its Funny to Everyone But Me and Why Was I Born? popularised by Billie Holiday.

"These songs are some of the most heartbreaking stuff ever put on record and I wanted to do them justice," Dylan told the writer Bill Flanagan in a rare interview that the rocker posted on his website.

"Now that I have lived them and lived through them, I understand them better. They take you out of that mainstream grind where youre trapped between differences which might seem different but are essentially the same.

"Modern music and songs are so institutionalised that you dont realise it. These songs are cold and clear-sighted, there is a direct realism in them, faith in ordinary life just like in early rock and roll," he said.

Whereas Sinatra brought an ebullience to his songs, Dylan chooses restraint. On The Best Is Yet to Come, a song that so marked Sinatras spirit that the line is on his epitaph, Dylan gives a steady, bluesy delivery.

On When the World Was Young, an oft-covered song whose French original was performed by Edith Piaf, Dylan brings a sense of loneliness to a tune of nostalgia that for Sinatra carried hope and for Aretha Franklin brought glamour.

Dylans take bears more emotional resemblance to Peggy Lees version, but he creates a steamier atmosphere led as elsewhere on the album by understated guitar riffs.

The ever-reclusive Dylan chose to focus on Triplicate and his constant touring rather than head to Sweden last year to accept the Nobel Prize.

The Swedish Academy said Dylan will finally pick up the award this weekend when he performs in Stockholm, but no media will be present and he will tape a required lecture at a later date.  AFP
HA NOI  Vietnamese architect Vo Trong Nghia on Thursday received the 2016 Prince Claus Awards from the Embassy of the Netherlands.

The award was presented to honour his contribution to Viet Nams urban planning with focus on sustainable architecture.

In December last year, at the Royal Palace in Amsterdam, Nghia was also given the award by His Royal Highness Prince Constantijn, President of the Prince Claus Fund.

Ambassador of the Netherlands Nienke Trooster said at the ceremony yesterday she was very impressed by Nghias works.

He promotes his countrys culture and heritage by combining local materials and traditional skills with 21st century design. And he has taken an interest in supporting the poor, remote communities by designing durable but inexpensive housing."

Nghia is now well-known for his environmentally friendly architecture, and ability to balance culture and nature. For me personally, and for our government, it is really important that we strike a balance and respect people, planet and profit in our governance, our architecture and our businesses"

Born in 1976 in central Quang Binh Province, Vo Trong Nghia is putting Vietnamese sustainable architecture on the map by combining local materials and traditional skills with 21st century design. With a focus on green spaces, his designs range from large urban structures to durable but inexpensive housing for remote communities. His approach to urban design help shape the future of Viet Nam architecture and transforming the countrys urban landscape. At the core of his practice, Nghia hopes to use the physical environment to reconnect humans with nature.

She added that laureates of the Prince Claus Award were more than just individual artists.

They use their personality, skills and ground-breaking ideas to inspire others and make things happen that have an impact on their surroundings. she said.

In 2014, Al Jazeera produced an episode about Nghia and his innovative green architecture for the series titled Rebel Architecture. He has received numerous international prizes and honours. In 2012, he was selected for Architect of the year in Viet Nam. Besides running his architectural practice, Nghia continues to be involved in architecture at the grass roots level by teaching at the Nagoya Institute of Technology since 2011.

Since its inception in 1996, the Prince Claus Awards have honoured outstanding achievements in the fields of culture and development. The awards are presented annually to visionary and pioneering individuals, groups and organisations whose cultural actions have a positive impact on the development of their societies.

Famous Vietnamese laureates of the Prince Claus Awards include painter Tran Luong in 2014 and fine arts photographer Le Quang inh in 2010, who is a member of this years Prince Claus Awards Committee.  VNS
HA NOI  This year, the Viet Nam Writers Association will present posthumous Devotion Awards to Vietnamese literary works that have not received any awards by the association, the Alliance of Arts and Literature Associations.

According to poet Huu Thinh, the chairman of Viet Nam Writers Association, Devotion Awards will be granted every five year to works by authors who significantly contributed to the development of the countrys literature.

He added that the first award will be delivered on the occasion of the associations 60th anniversary (1957-2017), which falls on April 4.

For the first time, works by 22 late writers who made great contributions to Viet Nams literature over the past 60 years will be posthumously granted Devotion Awards.

Some of the works include Hai Tran Tuyen (Two Front Lines), Trong Long Ha Noi (In the Heart of Ha Noi), Vao oi (Make Way in the World) all by writer Ha Minh Tuan (1929-1992). In addition, the association will honour the translated version of the literary masterpiece And Quiet Flows the Don by writer and translator Nguyen Thuy Ung (1926-2007) and the poem collection Thom Ngat Huong Cau (Fragrant the Areca Flowers) by writer Vo Hong (1921-2013).  VNS




Nguyen Khanh Chi

A young woman recently shared a very sad story about the death of her father on Facebook.

The 48-year-old man died after drinking methanol-tainted alcohol.

The grief-stricken daughter said shed read and heard about methanol related deaths, but never thought it would ever happen to her father.

I cant imagine the pain of losing a father too early. It seems unbearable, so my heart grew heavier as I looked a bit deeper into the issue.

At least 25 cases of poisoning caused by home-brewed spirits occurred in Ha Noi alone within three weeks, from February 22 to March 14. Three died.

Earlier in February, the mountainous Lai Chau Province saw the biggest case alcohol poisoning. Seven died and 33 were hospitalised. The culprit in this case was methanol, too.

A Belgian man is currently being treated at a local hospital in Ha Noi after suffering temporary blindness following consumption of a drink containing methanol.

How can such a harmful substance be so easily available?

Methanol is the simplest form of alcohol. Its closely related to ethanol, the type of alcohol normally found in beer, wine and spirits  but much more lethal.

Methanol is converted in the body into formaldehyde and formic acid, which are extremely toxic, says Doctor Nguyen Trung Nguyen of the Bach Mai Hospitals Poison Control Centre.

If consumed in excess, it can lead to blurred vision, headaches, nausea and respiratory problems. Later, symptoms often worsen to include organ failure, brain damage or death, he said.

A recent news report reminded readers that methanol leads to more deaths per capita than cigarettes, methamphetamine, opiates and even heroin.

If this is bad, relevant figures are worse. About 90 per cent of Vietnamese men drink beer and other forms of liquor, and 96 per cent of these consume home-distilled wine, 50 per cent of which contains methanol.

A 2015 survey by the Vietnam Beverage Association revealed that local drinkers consumed 3.4 billion litres of beer and 342 million litres of other spirits, a 40 per cent increase over 2010. This places Viet Nam in the top 10 list of alcohol consumers in the world.

According to the Ministry of Health (MoH), as many as 1,000 cases of food poisoning were recorded from 2011 to 2016, affecting 30,000 people, killing 164. On average, 170 food poisoning cases involving 5,000 people take place every year, killing 30.

The problem is serious enough that the making of and trading in fake alcohol, methanol-tainted alcohol in particular, should be stopped by all means.

Slaps on the wrist

However, these offences only attract administrative penalties ranging from VN2 million to VN120 million (US$87 - $5,200). In accordance with Decree 185 issued in November, 2013, the culprits can also have their licences (if any) revoked, business suspended with all related equipment and facilities confiscated.

Profits earned from making and selling fake liquor are 10 to 12 times higher because the spurious products are sold at the same price as the real one.

In any illegal trade, high profits always blur or blind the eyes of the wrongdoers, so if laws are not strong enough and implementation is weak, the ground for malpractice becomes fertile.

On March 15, the Ha Noi Peoples Court sentenced Tran Thi Hoa and her husband to 30 and 24 months in prison respectively for making fake imported wine liquor. That Hoa had previously served a 19-month sentence for the same offence shows how attractive the profits are.

Public warning

The Ministry of Health has responded to the situation by warning people to stay away from industrial alcohol as well as liquor that contains more than 0.1 per cent of methanol, saying this could cause blindness and death.

A draft law on preventing the harmful effects of beer, liquor and cigarettes is expected to be issued later this year. This law has a separate chapter regulating measures to reduce demands for alcoholic beverages, for example, requiring warnings printed on bottles, or a ban on selling beer and other liquor in public places like hospitals, schools or playgrounds.

I dont think these measures will work well, because it is difficult to implement them.

You cant see, smell or taste it. So how would you know if a home-distilled spirit contains methanol? How would you know the home-brewed drink is drinkable? Can any test be conducted before drinking it?

Drinking alcohol has become such an intrinsic part of Vietnamese culture that it is not feasible to think of eliminating it. But there is an urgent need to make it a safe habit.

For this we need strict regulations, like making it mandatory for register the making and trading of home-brewed alcohol. Such people or households must be provided with permits and there should be authorised agencies that test the products before they are sold or otherwise consumed.

Just last Wednesday, the ministry recommended that a separate chapter on managing home-brewed alcohol is included in the draft Decree on Wine Trading. This is needed to manage the quality of liquor and to register the product with local authorities whose responsbility must also be heightened, the ministry said.

Responding to the spike in alcohol poisoning, Ha Noi has had hundreds of inspection teams join forces from various sectors to crackdown on fake wine. The inspections, which began this month, will last until mid-April. Thus, 2,200 litres of liquor of unclear origin have been destroyed and fines of over VN700 million collected so far.

So far, so good, but we need more inspections and stiffer fines to deter future crimes in this field. Unless people understand better the dangers of methanol and see that authorities have adopted a zero-tolerance policy for production and consumption of fake liquor, the problem is likely to persist.

At this stage, a complete ban on homemade liquor does not seem warranted, but that would be preferable to having another father, brother or son die an untimely death.  VNS
Deputy Minister of Education and Training Bui Van Ga met on Thursday with President of the Swiss Council of States, Ivo Bischofberger, to compare notes on education co-operation between the two countries.  VNA/VNS Photo Pham Kien

HA NOI  Deputy Minister of Education and Training Bui Van Ga met on Thursday with President of the Swiss Council of States, Ivo Bischofberger, to compare notes on education co-operation between the two countries.

Deputy Minister Ga spoke highly of the Swiss education and co-operation between the two countries over the past years. He briefed Bischofberger about Viet Nams higher education system and the fields that need support from other countries, including Switzerland.

The deputy minister expressed his hope of promoting a deal on bilateral education and training co-operation, expected to be signed in 2018. In addition, he suggested the Swiss side provide support for a Swiss made training model in Viet Nam in 2018 in hotel, tourism and banking-finance studies, which are strengths of the European country.

Viet Nam also wants Switzerland to create more incentives for outstanding Vietnamese students to access scholarships of the Swiss government, he added.

For his part, Bischofberger acknowledged the suggestions, saying he appreciated opportunities for co-operation between the two countries given Viet Nams young, enthusiastic and keen-to-learn labour force.  VNS
HA NOI  Vietnamese authorities and media outlets are willing to provide all possible support for the operation of Agence France-Presse in the country, President Tran ai Quang said on Thursday at a Ha Noi reception for the chairman and CEO of the French news agency, Emmanuel Hoog.

The State leader hailed AFPs media tradition and stature as one of the three largest press agencies in the world, saying that AFP was the first and only foreign outlet based in Viet Nam since 1950.

He expressed appreciation for AFPs widespread and comprehensive coverage of Viet Nam through traditional and novel news platforms over nearly 70 years.

The Vietnamese media landscape is changing significantly with the emergence of new platforms, such as digital, internet and electronic news, he said, adding that more than half the Vietnamese population use the web.

Speaking highly of effective co-operation between AFP and domestic press agencies, such as the Vietnam News Agency and Vietnam Television, Quang noted that there remain many co-operation opportunities for AFP in Viet Nam.

The host took the occasion to ask the French news agency to continue providing the world with objective coverage of Viet Nam as well as the growing Viet Nam-France ties in diverse areas.

The development of the Viet Nam-France strategic partnership is always one of the priorities in Viet Nams external policy of openness and integration into the world, he said.

Hoog, for his part, underscored the importance of AFPs permanent presence in Viet Nam. He said AFP has made a strong commitment to Viet Nam regarding professional co-operation and is modernising ways of communications.

According to him, seven Vietnamese television channels have contracted with AFP to use its television footage, and the growing demand for television news in Viet Nam has strengthened AFPs belief in venturing onto such a path.  VNS
HA NOI  Viet Nam has protested against a live-fire military drill conducted this week by Taiwan in the Truong Sa archipelago, demanding that it refrain from repeating such activity, Foreign Ministry spokesman Le Hai Binh said on Thursday.

Binh asked parties involved in the Truong Sa (Spratly) and Hoang Sa (Paracel) archipelagoes to respect Viet Nams sovereignty in the area and act responsibly.

He spoke to reporters in response to a query about Viet Nams reaction to reports that China is completing big military works on illegal man-made islands in Viet Nams Truong Sa archipelago.

Vietnamese agencies are checking that information, Binh said, reiterating that Viet Nam has a full legal foundation and historical evidence to affirm its sovereignty over Truong Sa and Hoang Sa.

Viet Nam also resolutely protested against Taiwan (China)s live-fire drill in waters around Ba Binh (Itu Aba) in Viet Nams Truong Sa archipelago, Binh said. Taiwans Coast Guard Administration held a live-fire exercise in Ba Binh waters from March 27-30.

Binh declared that the move seriously violates Viet Nams sovereignty" over Truong Sa archipelago. It also threatens peace, stability and maritime safety and security in the East Sea, while elevating tension and complicating the situation in the waters, he added.

Parties concerned need to respect Viet Nams sovereignty, act responsibly, and take no actions that complicate the situation and threaten peace in the East Sea (South China Sea), the spokesperson said.

Bloggers US award

The US State Departments honouring of a Vietnamese blogger in custody over legal breaches is neither objective nor suitable, and does not benefit the development of the two countries relations, the spokesman said.

The US State Department earlier on Wednesday awarded a Vietnamese national, Nguyen Ngoc Nhu Quynh or blogger Me Nam, the International Women of Courage Award.

Viet Nams consistent policy is always protecting and promoting peoples fundamental rights, including womens rights, Binh said, adding that the countrys efforts and achievements in ensuring and improving human rights have been recognised and highly valued by the international community.

Citizen protection abroad

Viet Nam strongly condemned the inhumane killing of a nine-year-old Vietnamese girl in Japan, the foreign ministry spokesman said, conveying deepest condolences to her family.

The Foreign Ministry directed the Vietnamese embassy in Japan to work closely with local authorities in efforts to shed light on the death, expressing confidence that Japan would find the culprit.

Regarding the death of a Vietnamese national in a detention centre in Japan, Binh said the Vietnamese embassy in Japan is working with Japanese agencies on the case, but no information has been revealed so far.

About legal protection for oan Thi Huong, a suspect in the death of Democratic Peoples Republic of Korean citizen Kim Chol in Malaysia, Binh assured reporters that two Malaysian defence lawyers for Huong are highly capable and more information will be provided at a suitable time.

Regarding the arrest of 43 Vietnamese fishermen and three vessels in the Solomon Islands, Binh said the Vietnamese embassy in Australia and Solomon is working with authorities to verify the information and will take appropriate citizen protection measures.

New spokesperson

Thursdays press briefing also marked the last one by Le Hai Binh, who is being replaced by Le Thi Thu Hang as the new foreign ministry spokesperson.

Incoming spokesperson Hang said she hopes the press will continue working with the Foreign Ministry in updating the world about Viet Nam. She affirmed that she is open to the medias opinions so as to serve the country as well as possible.

Hang worked in the Press and Information Department for nearly two decades before serving as Minister Counsellor at the Vietnamese Embassy in the UK from 2012 to 2015.

After finishing her tenure in the UK, Hang was chosen to be acting director and then director of the information and culture department under the ministrys State Commission for Overseas Vietnamese Affairs.  VNS
Lao Prime Minister Thongloun Sisoulith (R) receives Finance Minister inh Tien Dung in Vientiane on Thursday.  VNA/VNS Photo Pham Kien

VIENTAINE  Lao Prime Minister Thongloun Sisoulith on Thursday applauded the effective co-operation between his countrys finance ministry and its Vietnamese counterpart, which his helping improve Lao tax collection and other financial mechanisms.

Speaking at a reception for a top-level Vietnamese financial delegation in Vientiane on Thursday, he asked the two sides to increase information and experience exchange, noting that Viet Nams experience is valuable, especially in light of Laos difficulties in budget collection.

Vietnamese Finance Minister inh Tien Dung, on his part, said that Viet Nam is ready to share its experience and assist the Lao Finance Ministry to develop the treasury, taxation and customs systems.

On the same day, Minister Dung and his Lao counterpart Somdy Douangdy, who is also a Deputy Prime Minister, co-chaired the 13th meeting of the steering board for the two ministries co-operation.

They agreed to approve the co-operation plan for 2017 and specific co-operation priorities for 2017-2020.

Accordingly, Viet Nams Ministry of Finance will continue helping its Lao counterpart in institutional reform and overhaul of the legal framework for public debt management, budget collection, and organisation of taxation, customs and treasury sectors.

It will also support Lao financial personnel to improve their capacity through training, including on-the-spot courses at the Vietnamese ministry.

Both ministries also agreed to enhance mutual visits at all levels, continue infrastructure construction for schools managed by Laos Finance Ministry, and raise the quality of personnel exchanges.  VNS
HCM CITY  Three apartment buildings in HCM City will be rebuilt this year as part of the citys plan to renovate or replace old apartment buildings by 2020, Tran Trong Tuan, director of the citys Department of Construction, has said.

The apartment buildings are located at 251 Hoang Van Thu Street in Tan Binh District, 11 Vo Van Tan Street in District 3 and an unidentified building in District 1, according to Tuan.

The city in early March asked all district peoples committees to inspect pre-1975 buildings and propose relocation, detailed renovation plans on a 1:5,000 scale, and issuance of construction licences.

The districts have reported that 20 old apartment buildings failed to meet standards, including 16 apartment buildings in Tan Binh District and two apartment buildings each in Thu uc District and District 4.

The city has 474 old apartment buildings. Of these, 14 are in serious disrepair and tenants should be moved out as soon as possible, according to the Construction Department.

A representative of District 5s Peoples Committee said many apartment buildings were in bad shape and that the district had faced problems resettling tenants who lived in the old 440 Tran Hung ao Apartment Building.

The Peoples Committee of District 4 said it had no areas to relocate tenants in old buildings.

Tuan said that District 5 should work with investors in the HCM City Power Company Building and others along Vo Van Kiet Boulevard to arrange apartments for relocated tenants.

In District 4, many commercial housing projects are preparing to start work along Ben Van on Street. These are favourable locations for resettlement, he said

He said that investors should be asked to use 20 per cent of their apartment buildings for resettled households, instead of the requested contribution of VN5-10 billion (US$220,000-440,000) for infrastructure construction.

District 10

District 10s Peoples Committee said the district held a meeting with tenants and investors on March 24 about the construction of the new Ngo Gia Tu Apartment Building.

Nguyen Thi Thu Nga, deputy chairwoman of the district, said the district must take the initiative to repair old apartment buildings by the citys deadline of 2020.

The district has about 40 pre-1975 apartment buildings. It has razed 15 old apartment blocks and rebuilt four apartment buildings, while the remaining 25 have been inspected and evaluated.

The district has completed the paperwork for site clearance for the 25 remaining buildings and provided the information to both tenants and investors.

In an interview with Sai Gon Giai Phong (Liberated Sai Gon) newspaper, Nga said the citys People Committee had agreed to take back public land areas that have been used ineffectively and give them to the district for resettlement purposes.

The district was granted more than 27,000sq.m of land and has built apartment buildings on 10,000sq.m of land, she said.

District 10 has also ensured a land fund for resettlement and plans to renovate or replace about 17 old apartment buildings by 2020, she said.  VNS
A NANG  a Nang University, in co-operation with University of Nice Sophia Antipolis and the Agence Universitaire de la Francophonie (AUF) (Francophone University Association), have inked a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) in the fields of scientific research, education and student exchange, technology transfer, communications, business management, water management, and embedded software systems.

Following the MoU, the French partners plan to launch a Master of Business Administration (MBA) course, updated technology applications, innovation research and scientific information exchange.

As scheduled, Vietnamese and French students can enjoy education exchange programmes in both a Nang and France.

a Nang University is one of the top 50 universities in ASEAN, and a key human resource centre for the central and Central Highlands regions.

The university also plans to establish a teacher training college for engineering and the Viet Nam-United Kingdom University in the central city from next year.

The a Nang University Village project, which was planned in 1997 with total investment of VN1.7 trillion (US$75.2 million), will resume construction later this year after a 20-year delay.

The university, which has developed 12 college-level education centres in the last 20 years, trains 90,000 students in technology, engineering, science, economics, trade, finance, foreign languages, medicine, culture, tourism and media studies per year.  VNS
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Fifteen leading Australian universities and executive training providers next month will participate in the Viet Nam  Australia Executive Education and Training Showcase to be held in Viet Nam for the first time.  Photo SACE Vietnam

HCM CITY  Fifteen leading Australian universities and executive training providers next month will participate in the Viet Nam  Australia Executive Education and Training Showcase to be held in Viet Nam for the first time.

The event will be held in Ha Noi and HCM City on April 4 and 5, respectively.

The institutions will showcase their expertise and excellence in executive education and training for middle managers and future leaders.

They will also discuss potential institutional linkages, commercial partnerships, and collaboration with the aim of enhancing the capacity of future leaders.

A presentation by Austrades Chief Economist on Building human capital to meet the challenges of a world economy in transition will be included.

In addition, there will be two panel discussions: Training for a more competitive Viet Nam, increasing productivity and innovation and Developing managers and future leaders in the digital age.

The showcase will be followed by one-on-one meetings between the Australian and Vietnamese representatives from ministries, provincial departments, universities, training organisations and business organisations.

The showcase is designed to support Viet Nam in addressing some of the challenges in aligning with the recent World Banks Viet Nam 2035 report Toward Prosperity, Creativity, Equity and Democracy and VCCIs report Viet Nam in Transition: Skills and Productivity in the Labour Market.

The event will be opened by Keith Pitt, Australias assistant minister for Trade, Tourism and Investment, during his visit to Viet Nam.

Australian universities and training providers have a strong reputation around the world and this showcase will bring them face to face with the Vietnamese Government, businesses and multinational corporations to discuss new opportunities, he said.

The Australian training providers can offer tailored training courses to these organisations in order to build their executive workforce to address specific gaps in management, leadership and planning.

The showcase is organised by the Australian Government, in collaboration with the Viet Nam Chamber of Commerce and Industry (VCCI), the Viet Nam Human Resources Club, and CPA Australia and Human Resources Association.  VNS
HCM CITY  The proportion of people with HIV/AIDS in HCM City who have health insurance surged to 70 per cent last February from 20 per cent in April last year, according to the city HIV/AIDS Prevention Centre.

The Viet Nam Administration of HIV/AIDS Control reported that aid under the US Presidents Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, known as PEPFAR, for free anti-retroviral (ARV) drugs and treatment would be cut by 40 per cent this year end and end next year.

For the 2016-20 period the Government has allocated only VN100 billion (US$4.4 million) for buying ARV drugs for health facilities, Dr Vu uc Long of the administration, said.

This means HIV/AIDS patients have to pay for medicines and treatment, he told a workshop held on Thursday to review HIV/AIDS treatment in the city last year paid for by health insurance.

But many of the patients have financial difficulties, he said.

Dr Duong Minh Hai of the HIV/AIDS Prevention Centre said since last May the centre and other relevant organisations have counselled 27,685 out of 29,402 patients getting treatment.

This has helped them understand the benefits of health insurance, he said.

As a consequence 70 per cent of the patients have bought health insurance, he added.

Of the remaining, 408 cannot afford it, 751 lack identification cards and other documents such as temporary or permanent residential book.

Dr Nguyen Huu Hung, deputy head of the city Department of Health, said the department has recommended that the Peoples Committee should approve the purchase of health insurance for poor HIV/AIDS patents using the abundance of money in the health insurance fund.

Nguyen Anh Phong of the Viet Nam Network of People Living with HIV said members want to collaborate with the centre to help people with HIV/AIDS lacking relevant documents buy insurance.

They hope to help them acquire the documents, he explained.

Bui uc Duong, deputy head of the Viet Nam Administration of HIV/AIDS Control, said however that patients without insurance are not left behind because the managers and staff of health facilities usually mobilise donations to fund their treatment.

Thu uc District Hospital, for instance, has funded the purchase of health insurance for 40 patients who cannot afford it.

Tieu Thi Thu Van, head of the city HIV/AIDS Prevention Centre, said patients are now treated at four city-level hospitals, many preventive health centres and 16 district general hospitals.

Around 3,000 are treated at ward and commune health centres, she said.

The Department of Health plans to allow private general clinics to treat patients with ARV drugs, she added.

As of January 31 last year 116,000 patients were getting ARV therapy at 393 health facilities and 32 prisons, according to the Viet Nam Administration of HIV/AIDS Control.  VNS
HA NOI  Recreational abuse of synthetic drugs is becoming increasingly popular among Vietnamese youth who want to get high. However, most youngsters are not aware of the long-term risks that the drugs might pose to the young mind, ending with consequences even more serious than traditional drugs.

Common synthetic drugs are methamphetamine, ecstasy, ketamine, amphetamine, cannabinoid--all of which offer varying mental states of heightened sensations. Unlike traditional drugs, users tend to develop easily-recognised symptoms such as physical and mental malfunction and exhaustion.

Synthetic drug users do not depend on the drugs like traditional ones. They can take synthetic drugs once every week or every month without having addictions. Many young people think synthetic drugs are not addictive so they are easily lured to use them many times, a representative of the drug crime investigation sub-department under Ha Noi Police Department told the Tien Phong (Vanguard) newspaper.

Hidden harm

The representative said that Vietnamese drug workers began to learn manufacturing techniques in 2010-2011 in the Czech Republic. They then brought their methods home and sold products to local users at cheap prices to earn profits.

Home-made synthetic drugs began to be discovered, including the case of 36-year-old Hoang Tuan Linh, a pharmacy Master in France. Police seized 24,000ml of liquid to make drugs. Linh confessed that while in France he found that methamphetamine there is clean and does not contain high level of chemicals. He then researched how to make it, with an aim to show his ability. Upon returning to Viet Nam, he made the drugs at an undisclosed location.

In the first three months of this year, up to 5,775 instances of drug trafficking cases were discovered nationwide. Police confiscated 148kg of heroin, 216kg and 101,810 tablets of synthetic drugs and 13kg of marijuana.

An experienced drug police officer in Ha Noi told the Tien Phong newspaper that majority of youth are not fully aware of drug substances and their effects.

Many young people use ecstasy and weed to express themselves. Other youths are excited by the promise of a quick high with no risk of addiction, so they think synthetic drugs are not harmful. Then, they form habits, he said.

An officer of drug criminal investigative police department in Ha Noi said that synthetic drugs have strong effects on users nerve system and brain, resulting in memory malfunction and slow reaction as well as mental disorders.

There currently are no treatment therapies for synthetic drug users, he said.

The police officer said that education for adolescents on drugs and their effects should be delivered to equip kids with the skills to protect themselves. It should be taught as a subject at school, he added.

Health effects

Doctor Tran Thi Hong Thu, head of Clinical Department of Mental Health at Mai Huong Hospital, said that using synthetic drugs once or many times might have immediate or long-term effects. In many cases, users develop mental disorders after stopping taking drugs for several months or years.

To help drug addicts recover, rehabilitation therapies might include bio-chemistry therapy, psychological therapy, group therapy, family therapy, she said.  VNS
HAI PHONG Vietnam Air Traffic Management Corporation is taking strict disciplinary actions against several officials involved in air traffic service disruptions at the Hai Phong-based Cat Bi International Airport early this month.

The officials were found to be sleeping on duty.

In a report on violations leading to air traffic service disruptions at Cat Bi International Airport sent to the Ministry of Transport, the corporation said it has asked the Standing Committee and the leaders of the Northern Flight Management Company to revise responsibilities of the organisation and individuals involved in the incidents.

All leaders and staff of the Cat Bi Air Traffic Control Station have been given warnings for not fulfilling their tasks.

Specifically, Nguyen Chi Manh, secretariat of the control station, was dismissed for unfinished tasks and lack of determination and supervision. Nguyen Van Chanh, a staff member, was dismissed for violating labour discipline, failing to complete duties and leaving the on-duty position without reporting to the officer in charge.

Luong Van Binh, deputy head of the control station, was given a warning for not displaying responsible behavior during supervision.

The corporation also reprimanded Nguyen uc Hieu, deputy director of the Northern Flight Management Company, for failing to fulfill his assigned task of directing the Cat Bi Air Traffic Control Station.

Nguyen Tien Thanh, an employee of the Safety and Security Department of the company, was censured for lack of supervision to ensure safety requirements of the air control station.

Another staffer Luong Minh Thu was moved to another position with lower salary.

Pham Viet Dung, head of the corporation, said the corporation had organised online meetings with central and southern air traffic management companies, and all air traffic control stations nation-wide.

The meeting had taken serious note of the incident at Cat Bi airport and was implementing measures to improve safety and quality of service, according to Dung.

The official said the corporation would continue revising responsibilities of those involved and report to the Ministry of Transport before April 15.

Previously, on March 9, the crew on two flights  one departing for South Korea and the other arriving from HCM City -- could not get in touch with the Cat Bi Air Traffic Control Station for more than half an hour as the main duty air controller working on the night shift was sleeping and the sub-duty controller was absent.

The head of the station and the two air traffic controllers working on the night shifts have been suspended for delaying the two flights. The air traffic control licences of the two controllers were revoked for two months and they were fined VN7.5 million (USS330) each.  VNS
KON TUM  A fire broke out on Thursday after a fuel tanker carrying a huge quantity of gasoline overturned in Central Highlands Kon Tum Province, killing one person and leaving another seriously injured.

At 3pm on Thursday, the fuel tanker, belonging to a Nang-based Ngoc Khanh Petrolium Company, overturned and caught fire while travelling in ak Glei Districts ak Man Commune. Nguyen ac Phuoc, the truck assistant, was seriously injured and died on way to the provinces general hospital. Driver Nguyen Van Tu suffered multiple injuries and was being treated at the hospital.

Following the accident, gasoline spilled out and caused fires around. A fire fighting truck was mobilised to extinguish the blaze.

The tanker blocked traffic for nearly three hours. The cause of the accident is under investigation.  VNS
HA NOI  The Ha Noi Police, in co-operation with Traffic Police Department and the Mobile Police High Command, have discovered and seized 13 illegal sand exploitation vessels in the Hong (Red) Rivers border area between Ha Noi and Phu Tho Province.

Senior Lieutenant Colonel Nguyen Van Cuong, deputy head of Ha Noi Polices Waterways Police Division, said on Thursday the city police had also worked with local police in Ba Vi District to clarify violations flouted by these vessels.

Among the vehicles seized on Thursday morning, four were exploiting vessels, two were sand suckers and the remaining were sand transporters. All had capacity of some 500 tonnes each.

Initial investigation revealed that four of the vessels were from Quang Tay JSC and others private business households.

Quang Tay JSC was licensed to exploit sand by the citys Peoples Committee in 2015 over an area of 20ha or equal to a volume of 1.03 million cubic metres in 10 years.

However, the company had moved vessels out of the licensed area and exploited sand to increase profit.

The case is under further investigation.  VNS
HA GIANG  Police in the province of Ha Giang have arrested two people suspected of illegally selling and storing nearly 650kg of fireworks.

The two suspects, Nguyen Van Tung, 31 from Tuyen Quang Province and Hoang Van Phuc, 21 from Ha Giangs Quan Ba District were arrested on Thursday.

Earlier, on March 26, the police received information from a local about a suspect shipment at the bus station in Ha Giang Citys Nguyen Trai Ward.

Upon inspection, the police detected five cartons containing some 130kg of Chinese-made fireworks.

The investigation agency seized the shipment and issued an urgent arrest warrant for Tung - the owner of the goods.

Following a further search, police also arrested Phuc and seized 19 cartons containing 500kg of fireworks.

The case is under further investigation.  VNS
SON LA  Police in the northern mountain province of Son Las Moc Chau District have arrested a woman for trafficking her daughter, a niece and other local women to China.

The woman, identified as Mua Thi Chi from Tan Lap Communes Ta Phinh Village, confessed to police that she was a victim of cross-border human trafficking three years ago.

To earn some money, upon her return from China, Chi sold her daughter and niece.

She also proceeded to dupe two local women to sell them to Chinese men.

On Thursday, Chi was set to catch a bus to take the two women to China. Fortunately, the police arrested her in time and rescued the two victims.  VNS
UNITED NATIONS, United States  The United Nations Security Council will vote on Friday to cut the number of troops in its peacekeeping mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

US ambassador Nikki Haley said the forces currently authorised strength of 19,815 would be cut by 3,600 -- but that 3,100 of these places are already unfilled.

The central African giant is under pressure to hold key elections this year, despite ongoing fighting between armed factions, political chaos and widespread corruption.

But UN member states, in particular President Donald Trumps new US administration, want to scale back UN spending on its missions around the globe.

According to a draft council resolution seen by AFP, which diplomats are expected to pass unanimously, the Blue Helmet military force will be reduced to 16,215.

In practice, this will mean 500 fewer troops on the ground, since the mission, known as MONUSCO, was already not at full strength. UN police numbers are unchanged.

"You have to look at the political side of the peacekeeping mission," Haley said.

"Were trying to get aid to the people on the ground, and the government is not letting us. Adding more troops will not change that problem."

"All were doing is reducing 500 troops," she said, promising the whole strategy of the mission would be reviewed and the Congolese government held accountable.

Good agreement

France had warned against too dramatic a cut in the size of the forces, warning that it might endanger what little progress has been made towards stabilizing the DRC.

But Frances UN ambassador pronounced himself satisfied with the draft resolution.

"You know it is the outcome of an important negotiation. And so if things go well we will go for a vote tomorrow at noon," Francois Delattre told reporters.

"And I think it is important for DRC, for MONUSCO and for peacekeeping in general. This is a good agreement."

On Wednesday, Haley said she would use her presidency of the Security Council next month to launch a review of peacekeeping.

"We will go back to first principles and ask hard questions," she told the Council of Foreign Relations, a New York think tank.

"What was the original intent of the mission? Is the mission achieving its objective? Do we have an exit plan and is there accountability?"

General strike

Meanwhile, the situation on the ground in the DRC is tense.

On the last day of 2016, President Joseph Kabila signed a deal to share power with the opposition as officials work to set up national elections later this year.

The agreement was never fully implemented, despite international pressure, and an opposition umbrella group has called for a general strike from Monday in protest.

Kabila first took power in 2001 to replace his assassinated father as war ravaged the country.

His unwillingness to step down and enable elections at the end of his constitutional mandate last year led to protests in which at least 17 people were killed.

Under a deal brokered by the countrys influential Roman Catholic bishops, Kabila was allowed to stay in office in tandem with a transitional body and a new premier.

But talks on implementing the accord appear to have broken down, and violence has flared.

Last week, 39 police were killed in an ambush by rebels in the remote central region of Kasai.

In a separate incident, two foreign UN experts, an American and a Swede, were killed in the same region.

Diplomats at the UN said that the murdered pair had been investigating reports of mass graves.

On Tuesday, the UN, the European Union and the African Union called for an opposition figure to be named premier as had been agreed under the December 31 deal.

"A step forward of this kind will help the countrys stabilisation process, the restoration of public order... and the holding of elections as scheduled," they said.

The opposition coalition was formed around Etienne Tshisekedi, a veteran foe of successive Kinshasa regimes who died in Brussels in February, aged 84.  AFP
BRUSSELS  US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson will push his NATO allies to boost defence spending, at their first talks on Friday, by warning them that the disproportionate US share is "unsustainable", officials said.

Tillerson will be the latest top US administration official to deliver that message when he meets fellow NATO foreign ministers in Brussels.

The meeting is in preparation for a May 25 NATO summit in the Belgian capital which US President Donald Trump will attend.

While saying the allies themselves know they must do more, NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg dismissed concerns that Trump is less committed to the 28-nation alliance than his predecessors.

"They are very committed to NATO and the transatlantic bond because they see the importance of NATO for Europe but they also see the importance of NATO for the US," Stoltenberg told a press conference on the meetings eve.

Tillerson will also push the allies to increase their role in fighting terrorism, a senior State Department official told reporters ahead of the trip.

Tillerson travelled to Brussels following a visit to Turkey, a NATO ally and key player in both Syria and Iraq where Washington wants to defeat the Islamic State group.

In the last two years, IS has claimed or hailed a wave of deadly attacks in US and European cities, including Brussels.

Tillerson will also work with NATO allies to press Russia to fulfil its obligations under the Minsk agreements to end the war in eastern Ukraine, the US official said.

Allies had expressed fears Trump would improve relations with Russia at the expense of support for the pro-Western government in Ukraine or NATO allies in former Soviet parts of eastern Europe.

Their concerns were reinforced when Tillerson initially planned to skip the NATO meeting, citing various commitments including a trip to Russia.

But Tillerson, a press-shy former oilman who had friendly ties with Russian President Vladimir Putin, agreed to attend when NATO rescheduled the meeting for Friday.

Russia set off alarm bells in 2014 when it annexed Crimea from Ukraine and backed separatists in eastern Ukraine.

But a senior NATO official told reporters on condition of anonymity that the Trump administration was now taking a more "mainstream" approach to NATO and anxiety among allies had eased.

US officials said Tillerson will push the allies to do more to reach the goal of boosting defence spending to two percent of gross domestic product by 2024, which they set during a summit in Wales in 2014.

The NATO 2016 annual report said only five countries met the two percent target -- the United States, Britain, Greece, Poland and Estonia -- while Washington still accounted for nearly 70 percent of combined alliance defence spending.

And Tillerson will point that out clearly on Friday.

"Its no longer sustainable for the United States to maintain a disproportionate share of NATOs deterrence and defence spending," the State Department official said.

Tillerson will also push very hard for allies to spend a fifth of their defence budgets on military-capacity building, the US official said.

National plannings

But the official gave no indication of what would happen if the allies fail to deliver on increased spending.

During a visit to NATO in February, US Defense Secretary James Mattis voiced staunch support for NATO but warned that Washington could "moderate" its commitment if allies fail to pay up.

Making a similar visit the same month, US Vice President Mike Pence also stressed US commitment to NATO even while demanding laggards in the alliance meet their spending pledges.

Stoltenberg, who heard similar messages during a recent visit to Washington, said the allies were looking at some "tools" to ensure increased spending.

In this way, he said, "all allies have to develop national plannings in which they outline how they can implement and reach the pledge they made in 2014 on defence investments."

The NATO meeting is due to begin at 10:50 (0850 GMT).  AFP
The Yellowstone Valley Audubon Society is launching its 2017 field trip season on April 8 with a visit to the Exxon Ponds and Emerald Hills.

All trips are free and open to the public, with the exception of the Bear Gulch event on May 21 which has a $15 charge.

These field trips offer participants the opportunity to visit leks in the Pryor Mountains where sage grouse display, tour the Clark Fork Wildlife Management Area and Bluewater Fish Hatchery, and closer to home bird watching at Riverfront Park. More than 20 outings are scheduled. All will be led by YVAS members.

For details about the April 8 event and the other opportunities throughout the summer, visit the Society's website at yvaudubon.org or contact YVAS president Steve Regele at 962-3115 or smregele@gmail.com.
UNITED NATIONS, United States  The United States admitted on Thursday that it is no longer focused on ousting Bashar al-Assad as it seeks a new strategy to end Syrias civil war.

American officials have been shifting away from their former insistence that he must go for some time, but now they have made it explicit.

In New York, the US ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley said Washington would focus on working with powers like Turkey and Russia to seek a political settlement, rather than focusing on Assad.

"You pick and choose your battles," Haley told reporters.

"And when were looking at this, its about changing up priorities and our priority is no longer to sit and focus on getting Assad out."

Shortly before Haley briefed a small group of journalists, US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson sent a similar signal at a news conference in Turkey.

"I think the... longer term status of President Assad will be decided by the Syrian people," Tillerson said, standing alongside Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu.

The Syrian opposition, whose cooperation will be needed in any negotiated solution. reacted furiously to the US shift in stance.

Under Barack Obamas administration, the US made Assads departure a key goal, but new president Donald Trump has put the accent on defeating the Islamic State group.

"Our priority is to really look at how do we get things done? Who do we need to work with to really make a difference for the people in Syria," Haley said.

"We cant necessarily focus on Assad the way the previous administration maybe did. Do we think hes a hindrance? Yes," she said.

"Are we going to sit there and focus on getting him out? No."

US officials sought to play down the significance of the change in tone, but experts said the switch in focus was an important admission.

Joseph Bahout, of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington noted that Tillerson had spoken after meeting Turkeys President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Erdogan was once a strong foe of Assad, but recently Turkish-backed rebels in Syria have focused on fighting Kurdish militias and the IS group.

Tillerson is due in Moscow next month for talks with Russian leaders, and Trump has long argued the powers should work together against the IS group.

US-backed forces are closing in on the jihadist Islamic States Syrian stronghold of Raqa, laying the groundwork for an assault on the capital of their so-called "caliphate".

Tillersons trip came the day after Turkey announced the end of "Euphrates Shield", its own six-month-old military offensive in northern Syria.

Ties between the NATO allies were strained under Obama, particularly over US cooperation with the Syrian Kurdish militia fighting against IS.

Difficult choices

Turkey wants to join any operation to capture Raqa, but without the US-backed Kurdish YPG militia, which it regards as terrorist.

"Theres no space between Turkey and the US and our commitment to defeat Daesh, to defeat ISIS," Tillerson said, using the US governments terms for IS.

"What we discussed today were options that are available to us... These are not easy decisions. There are difficult choices that have to be made," he said.

However, Cavusoglu said Ankara was still concerned about the YPG, warning: "It is not good or realistic to work with a terror group while fighting another terror group."

Numerous diplomatic efforts have failed to end the Syrian conflict, which has killed more than 320,000 people and displaced millions since it erupted in March 2011.

A fifth round of UN-sponsored peace talks is taking place in Geneva but no breakthrough has been reported and they are scheduled to end on Friday.  AFP
WATERLOO  A Waterloo man wanted for breaking into a Raymond tavern and a rural Cedar Falls meat shop has been detained in California.

Stephen Michael Hollingsworth, 24, was arrested March 24 in San Diego on a warrant out of Black Hawk County for second- and third-degree burglary and second-degree theft. He also was arrested on a bench warrant for allegedly missing court dates for an operating while intoxicated charge.

Hollingsworth was at the San Diego Central Jails as of Thursday.

According to court records, Hollingsworth is accused of taking an ATM machine, food and liquor from Tipsyz Bar and Grill in Raymond on Jan. 18. He also is charged with stealing a .22-caliber rifle, laptop computer, drill and other items from Steeges Meat Market in rural Cedar Falls on Jan. 25.

Hollingsworth also is charged with possessing a TV, liquor, tools and other property totaling $1,437 that had been taken from the O-Zone bar in Urbana. Black Hawk County deputies investigating the local break-ins found the O-Zone property while searching a Lafayette Street home Jan. 26.

Hollingsworth is the second person to be arrested in connection with the Raymond and Cedar Falls break-ins. In February, Gavin Dale James Eastman of Denver was arrested for burglary and theft.

One arrested

in burglary

WATERLOO  Police have arrested a Cedar Falls man for allegedly breaking into a Waterloo sandwich shop Wednesday.

Authorities said the suspect was discovered inside the Jimmy Johns at 703 Progress Ave., but he fled and eluded officers.

Hours later, a resident reported a suspicious person in the area, and investigators were able to link him to the restaurant burglary with the help of the businesss security camera.

Scott Ryan Jameson, 31, of 4410 University Ave., was arrested for two counts of third-degree burglary, burglary to a vehicle, interference and providing false identification information. His bond was set at $13,000.

According to police, the Jimmy Johns manager noticed someone carrying a duffle bag inside the restaurant after arriving for work about 5:40 a.m. The burglar left through a back door, and police unsuccessfully tried to track him.

Then at 8:48 a.m., a resident reported seeing a man in an unlocked garage at 1245 S. Hackett Road where a coat and pool cue had been taken and the electrical breaker had been turned off. Police found Jameson in the area of Huntington Road and Luke Street, and he was detained following a short foot pursuit. Officers said he also gave a fake name, court records state.

In addition to the sandwich shop and garage burglaries, police tied Jameson to a burglary to an unlocked vehicle parked in the 1300 block of Ingersol Road. He was allegedly carrying a backpack that had been taken from the vehicle, records state.

Former official charged in theft

VINTON  Authorities have accused a former executive director of a Benton County economic development group with using its money to make personal purchases.

Online court records say 46-year-old Ranae Becker is charged with theft. A phone listed for Becker in Vinton rang unanswered Wednesday.

A state audit report issued Wednesday says auditors have identified more than $49,600 in improper and unsupported disbursements from the Benton Development Group from January 2009 through August 2014. The report says the improper disbursements include more than $17,400 of improper purchases with the groups credit card and more than $12,800 in improper payroll disbursements to Becker.

Benton Development Group helps communities, individuals and businesses with economic growth.

Woman killed

in two-car crash

ELBERON  An Ottumwa woman died in a two-vehicle crash south of Dysart on Wednesday.

Sandra M. Morrow, 29, was pronounced dead at the scene. The crash was reported about 3:45 p.m. on Highway 21 south of 68th Street near Elberon.

The Iowa State Patrol said Morrow was northbound on Highway 21 when she crossed the center line for unknown reasons and collided with a truck being driven by Mark M. Calvin, 58, of Morning Sun.

The crash remains under investigation.
WATERLOO -- When Sarah Ernst was a new parent, she knew she needed help. Family & Childrens Council of Black Hawk County gave her the tools to create a support system.

It really takes a village to raise a child, explained Ernst, who joined a parent education group. Thats what the other parents were for me -- the village. They supported me and helped me out.

Seeking assistance isnt easy for many parents, said Missy Denning, program director for Family & Childrens Council.

There is a stigma attached to asking for help, she said.

That was true for Ernst.

I used to never ask for help. I would count pennies for diapers instead of asking for help, she recalled. Then I realized everything doesnt have to be a struggle. There are people who can help, and they want to.

Seeking help -- and taking it -- can make a difference for any parent struggling to juggle work, caregiving, running a household and other stress, Denning noted.

In extreme cases, unmanaged stress leads some parents to verbally or physically abuse their children.

April is National Child Abuse Awareness Month, a time when agencies like Family & Childrens Council seek to raise awareness and remind parents and caregivers of resources and tools.

Established in 1983, the observance is intended to raise awareness and curb child abuse and neglect. According to Family & Childrens Council, 1 in 5 area children is affected by child abuse, with Black Hawk County ranking fourth in Iowa for reported child abuse cases.

Our programs and services reach 13,000 children and families annually, said Denning. Weve been collaborating with community partners since 1980 to fulfill our mission.

The mission of Family & Childrens Council is to prevent child abuse and strengthen families. The organization divides is activities into three emphases: direct services and school and community programming.

Direct services focus on education, support and resources for parents, who can take part in group education and an individual, in-home option.

Educational programs start at childbirth, and representatives of Family & Childrens Council are among the first to visit women who give birth in area hospitals.

Theres a misconception or assumption that everyone knows what to do when a baby is handed to them, said Denning. They might get a lot differing information from friends, family and others. All these people telling you what to do can be overwhelming. Were there to provide a listening ear, be supportive and meet you where you are, with no judgment.

A parent education group was Ernsts first contact with Family & Childrens Council when her oldest son was a baby. Shes now mother of three boys, aged 7 to 15, and has transitioned to a program volunteer.

Today, other parents see Ernst as a trusted mentor.

Theres no greater resource or tool than word of mouth, Denning said. Its great to have Sarah out there paying it forward.

Ernst is happy to support and encourage other parents.

Ive been through a lot of difficult situations in my life, she said. Now, I can talk to other parents about what Ive learned. I dont give advice.  I share my experiences, because Ive been through some of the same things. Maybe I can help them find resources or connect with people.

Family & Childrens Council also works with children in area schools, providing education and resources for sexual abuse prevention.

This includes Stewards of Children, an adult training program that focuses on recognizing and reacting responsibility to child abuse, along with prevention. It is an evidence-based program appropriate for individuals, businesses and organizations that serve children directly.

Take Charge of Your Body is a sexual abuse prevention program taught by trained staff and volunteers in all local elementary schools. Children learn the difference between positive, healthy touches and inappropriate and unwanted touches. Meanwhile, Wise Guys is a male-oriented teen pregnancy prevention program for boys aged 11 to 17.

Community-based initiatives include everything from informational presentations to baby sleep and car seat projects and professional training.

The F&CC resource, Whats Where in Parenting, is a calendar and indexed directory that includes information on daycare and preschools, counseling, support groups and a host of other family resources.

The directory is available in hard copy by request and online (www.FCCouncil.net) for anyone regardless of income level, race, education or need. Directories are widely distributed, from participants in parenting classes to anyone who has a baby at UnityPoint-Allen and Covenant Medical Center. Since 2015, more than 6,000 directories have been distributed.

Nonprofit organizations that wish to be included in the directory should contact Family & Childrens Council at 234-7600.
Human beings have a checkered history with hair.

Hair on top of our heads, facial and body hair  its all been scrutinized, stylized and inculcated. For thousands of years, weve opined on the topic of hair, good, bad and otherwise. Hair surfaces in art, literature, music, drama, political commentary, religious rules and more.

We judge people because of their hair, or lack thereof. You can have too much of it and too little. Many religions set forth guidelines for how hair should be worn, shorn, adorned, displayed, hidden, cared for or left to its unruly devices.

Several faiths dictate how clergy must wear their hair, and some have mandates about hair and facial hair for all believers. Many hairstyles actually have a religious and/or cultural basis, such as dreadlocks and beards.

Consider theres little information about what Buddha looked like. However, the texts that do attempt to document his appearance devote ample space to describing his hair, from color to texture. Even less was written about Jesus appearance, but in that one line, texture and color is mentioned.

But its just hair, right?

According WebMD, hair is made of keratin, a tough protein. The bulb that forms the base of the hair follicle and anchors it to the skin is a living cell. Over time, it divides and grows to build the hair shaft. What grows out of heads, faces and bodies is the result of a complex bodily function, carrying genetic markers of what and who were made of.

For thousands of years, hair has been an important symbol of class, gender, ethnicity, conformity, authority and power, writes Victoria L. Sherrow in Encyclopedia of Hair: A Cultural History.

That is, hair is a big deal, whether we like it or not.

Several years ago, I was at a training event hosted by a church denomination. One of the trainers made an offhand comment:  just like you want to avoid the topic of hair with any group of women  all ages, backgrounds, races, colors, creeds and/or heritages.

It was a large group of women, diverse in ages, economics, cultures, races, ethnicities and geographic origins. Talking about hair, much to the chagrin of the presenter, unified them that day. For nearly an hour, she struggled to regain control of the session.

The women wanted to tell stories. They wanted to talk about perceptions, expectations, texture, length and feelings  oh, the feelings. Several times, the trainer said, OK, one more comment, to no avail. Each final comment would spark a flurry of others.

I dont believe this was because it was a group of women. Its unlikely you could drop a casual reference to long hair or beards in a group of men without being bombarded with comments. The idea of mentioning hair to anyone without talking about hair doesnt seem possible.

I asked my friends what they have learned, unlearned, believe and think about hair  honestly. Did their relationship with their hair have an impact on their religious and spiritual beliefs? Does it still? In the coming weeks, Ill share some of their reflections.

I also want to ask you: What about hair? What have you learned? What do you believe? Has hair impacted your faith? Your relationships? Your perception of others and/or yourself?

Email me or write in care of The Courier.
CEDAR FALLS  As Dakota Funk was still figuring out his own sexuality, as an 18-year-old freshman at the University of Northern Iowa, he was sexually assaulted by a man he knew.

That made it even more difficult to tell family and friends he was gay, he said.

So even when I did come out ... at the same time, I had to process the rape and the trauma behind it, Funk, now a graduate student at UNI, said. That was very complex for me.

Funk is one of five men telling their stories of sexual assault in a new documentary, The Voiceless, by Vanessa McNeal. It will be screened for free at 5:30 p.m. Wednesday at Gallagher-Bluedorn Performing Arts Center and will go up online after that time.

McNeals previous films, I Am: The Vanessa McNeal Story and We Are Survivors, focused on her own personal story as a sexual assault survivor and the stories of other women.

Women still make up the vast majority of reported sexual assaults across the country, with 1 in 5 U.S. women reporting being raped in their lifetimes, according to the 2010 National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey, part of the Centers for Disease Control.

But men are assaulted too: 1 in 71 men or 1 in 21 men also have been sexually assaulted in their lifetimes, depending on how the sexual assault is classified, according to that same survey. Other surveys from nonprofits like No More put that number as high as 1 in 6.

(Men) are often left out of the conversation about sexual assault, McNeal said.

Thats mainly due to stigmas about what masculinity is, she said.

We live in a culture that tells men that it cant happen to them, so they feel shame and guilt about that, McNeal said.

Funk agreed that society expects men to be tough, and when sexual assault happens, theyre expected to hide it.

It makes it seem like men are weak if something like that has happened, or youre weak if you talk about it, he said.

McNeal came to the project after hearing from male survivors during screenings of We Are Survivors, including Funk. But she said it was more difficult finding men to go on camera than it was for her previous film about women.

Funk also struggled with whether to do the project.

A lot of times, I wanted to back out, but I knew it was the best way to heal, Funk said. Hopefully my story can resonate with others.

Challenging peoples stereotypes of sexual assault victims is also something both Funk and McNeal want to accomplish.

Its not just an LGBT issue, its not just a womens issue, its a human issue, Funk said. Hopefully people can look at it holistically and break through their views of rape or sexual attraction.
Chinas public-park restrooms have for years suffered toilet-paper theft by local residents who raid dispensers for their own homes (a cultural habit, wrote Hong Kongs South China Morning Post, expressing taxpayer feelings of owning public facilities), but the government recently fought back with technology. At Beijings popular Temple of Heaven park, dispensers now have facial-recognition scanners beside the six toilets, with pre-cut paper (about 24 inches long) issued only to users who pose for a picture. Just one slug of paper can be dispensed to the same face in a 9-minute period, catastrophic for the diarrhea-stricken and requiring calling an attendant to override the machine.

Royal babies

Babies born on the Indonesian island of Bali are still today treated regally under an obscure Hindu tradition, according to a February New York Times report, and must not be allowed to touch the earth for 105 days (in some areas, 210). Carrying the infant in a bucket and setting that on the ground is apparently acceptable. Each birth is actually a re-birth, they say, with ancestors returning as their own descendants. Accidentally touching the ground does not condemn the baby, but may leave questions about negative influences.

A little remorse, please

Royce Atkins, 23, told the judge in Northampton County (Pennsylvania) in March that he was so sorry he did not stop his car in 2015 and help the 9-year-old boy he had just hit and killed. However, Atkins had earlier been jailhouse-recorded viciously trash-talking the boys family for reacting like theyre the victims. What about my family? My family is the victim, too. Atkins got a four-year sentence.

In February, in a Wayne County (Michigan) court during sentencing for a DUI driver who had killed a man and severely injured his fiancee, Judge Qiana Lillard kicked the drivers mother out of the courtroom for laughing at the victims sister who was tearfully addressing the judge. (Lillard sentenced the mother to 93 days for contempt, but later reduced it to one day).

Eyewitness news

On the morning of March 20 in Winter Park, Fla., Charles Howard, standing outside his home being interviewed live by a WFTV reporter, denied he had committed a crime in a widely reported series of voicemail messages to a U.S. Congressman, containing threats to wrap a rope around your neck and hang you from a lamp post. He boasted that proof of his having done nothing wrong was that if he had, he would have already been arrested. Three minutes later, according to the reporter, agents drove up and arrested Howard.

Sobriety testing

A 23-year-old Albuquerque woman performed cartwheels instead of a standard field sobriety test at a DUI stop in February, but she did poorly and was charged anyway. On the other hand, student Blayk Puckett, stopped by University of Central Arkansas police, helped shield himself from a DUI by juggling for the officer.
WATERLOO  Mount Carmel Church, 805 Adams St., will celebrate its annual 200 Women in Black pew rally at 5 p.m. Sunday.

Guest speaker will be Cynthia Perkins Smith, a member of the Historic Bethel Baptist Church in Detroit, where her husband, the Rev. Robert Smith Jr., is the pastor.

She has received many accolades and honors, including the Grace A. Cobb Missionary Award and the Michigan Chronicle Salute to First Ladies Award, and just completed writing her autobiography.

Other guests include Lea Bryant of Antioch Baptist Church, Amber Robinson, first lady of Corinthian Baptist Church, and the Corinthian Baptist Church Choir. Call the church at 233-9482.

WATERLOO  The Antioch Baptist Church Sunday School annual conference will be today and Saturday.

Dr. Derrick Jackson, executive director of Sunday School Publishing, will be the guest speaker for tonights worship service, and Dr. Winfred Hope of Athens, Ga., will be the guest at 11 a.m. Saturday.

Fee is $65, including breakfast, lunch and class materials. Classes include The Synoptic Gospels, Baptist Doctrine, History of Baptists, Staff Development and Growing the Church through the Sunday School. Call 233-2587 or go to http://antiochbc.org/onlinereg.asp.

CEDAR FALLS  St. Lukes Episcopal Churchs FILM: TALK series continues at 1:30 p.m. Sunday with a discussion of Babettes Feast, the 1987 Best Foreign Film Oscar-winner.

Participants should view the movie on their own prior to the discussion. The discussion is at St. Lukes, 2410 Melrose Drive.

WATERLOO  The April forum meeting of Church Women United will be start at 9:30 a.m. April 7 at the YWCA.

Speaker will be from the House of Hope.

This meeting is open to the public, and members will be discussing the upcoming May Friendship Day Program and Luncheon.

CEDAR FALLS  Orchard Hill Church, 3900 Orchard Hill Drive, will present the Lenten Lunch Hour series from 11:30 a.m. to 12:45 p.m. Wednesdays in the Commons.

The theme is A Lenten Journey Through the Eyes of Mark, and there will be a meal of two soups, fresh bread and dessert, followed by a message. A $4 meal donation is suggested.
Lodge to hold fish fry today

WASHBURN  The Moose Lodge 328, 6636 La Porte Road, will serve an all all-you-can-eat fish fry from 5 to 7 p.m. today.

The menu also includes smoked turkey and a salad bar.

Cost is $8 for adults.

A bean bag tournament is set for Saturday; bring a partner, and practice starts at 5.

Cafe to benefit veterans, seniors

WAVERLY  Two Waverly nonprofit organizations have teamed up to offer a new lunch option in Waverly with a purpose.

Board members of Rally Point Cedar Valley Veterans and the Waverly Senior Center have created The 506 Cafe.

The cafe will be open to the public on the first Tuesday of the month at the Waverly Senior Center. For $10, one can enjoy a home-cooked meal including drinks and dessert. All profits will go to support Rally Point CVV, serving Cedar Valley homeless veterans, and the Waverly Senior Center, serving area senior citizens. The meal is not just for seniors.

The 506 Cafe will be open from 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. on the first Tuesday of the month through 2018.

Lunch reservations are not required, but they help in planning. A private room for up to 10 people is available upon request. Call 352-5678 for more information.

Snowden house Seuss tea set

WATERLOO  The Grout Museum Districts Snowden House, 306 Washington St., will host a Dr. Seuss tea from 10 a.m. to noon April 8.

Cost is $8 for members and $10 for nonmembers. To sign up, go to www.gmdistrict.org/calendar.

Blood drive set at Crossroads

WATERLOO  There will be an American Red Cross blood drive from noon to 5 p.m. Tuesday on the main level at Crossroads Mall.

To make an appointment, go to redcrossblood.org or call (800) 733-2767.

Church to host Easter egg hunt

WATERLOO  Kimball Avenue United Methodist Church, 1207 Kimball Ave., will host its annual Easter egg hunt from 10 a.m. to noon April 8.

Children from preschool to sixth grade are welcome and must be accompanied by a parent or adult guardian.

The event is free and will be held rain or shine. The annual pinata breaking also will be held with a light snack served at the end.

For more information, call the church at 232-4103 or 215-6151.
CHARLES CITY -- The investigation that led to the arrest of three Charles City Middle School students revealed comments a prosecutor described Thursday as "personal and graphic."

The teenagers, a boy and girl 14-year-olds and a male 15-year-old, were ordered to remain in custody after appearing separately in juvenile court Thursday.

All had been referred to Juvenile Court Services for felony threat of terrorism, a charge described in Iowa law as using the threat of a dangerous weapon to intimidate or coerce a group of people or influence the conduct of government.

Their names are not given because they are charged in juvenile court.

The oldest, a boy, was removed from school and arrested last week after a mother reported what school officials deemed an "inappropriate comment" on social media. The two 14-year-olds were arrested earlier this week.

School officials and police have refused to describe the messages, and almost all juvenile court records are now private by state law, but testimony from the 14-year-old girl's mother at Thursday's court hearing shed some light on the allegations.

The woman, a Charles City resident, testified in an effort to convince the judge to allow her daughter to be sent home while the case is pending.

The mother told Judge Karen Salic she found the comments after receiving a Facebook notification on her cell phone. Her daughter's account is configured to send notifications about activity on the page to her mother's cell phone.

"I wanted to know what my child is doing at all times," her mother said.

The woman said she reported the messages to authorities because she feared for other children as well as her daughter.

"I didn't know that she was this far involved," she said. "I just want my kid home."

Assistant Floyd County Attorney Randall Tilton questioned the girl's mother about comments her daughter allegedly made during an interview with Charles City police investigator Kevin Beaver.

He asked if the woman was shocked that her daughter told the investigator she wanted to "watch another individual die."

"Yes," she said.

In asking for the girl to remain in custody, Tilton said her comments were most disturbing of three in terms of the "personal and graphic" nature of the comments.

He didn't read the comments in court or further explain what they allegedly contained.

Calling the allegations "significant" and noting prosecutor's concerns the girl was a flight risk, the judge ordered the girl remain in custody. She cried as a deputy led her out of the courtroom, mother and family trailing behind her. Salic had ordered the same of the two boys also charged in the case.
WAUCOMA -- A Waterloo woman was jailed on numerous charges following an incident in Fayette County Thursday afternoon.

Patti Dee Farmer, 40, faces charges of second-offense operating while intoxicated, driving while her license is barred, third-degree burglary and two counts of operating a vehicle without the owner's consent.

The incident began about noon Thursday when the Fayette County Sheriff's Office received a report of careless driving in the Waucoma area. At about 12:15 p.m., the Fayette County Sheriff's Office received additional information that the suspect vehicle, a Green 1997 Ford F-250, had gone into the ditch just south of Waucoma on W Avenue. While deputies were responding, another 911 call came in reporting a stolen motor vehicle from a farm on W Avenue just south of Waucoma.

Deputies then located the stolen vehicle and arrested Farmer. Deputies also learned the first motor vehicle was also stolen from Waucoma. Farmer was taken into custody and transported to Fayette County Jail where she awaits initial appearance. Damage to both vehicles was minimal.
HELENA  As Montana legislators near a deadline to approve tax changes, a Virginia-based organization that does not disclose its donors nor its spending has launched an online campaign to attack Gov. Steve Bullock and to fight a bill that would increase the states tobacco tax.

STOP BULLOCKS PERMANENT SALES TAXES. CONTACT YOUR LOCAL LEGISLATOR HERE. TELL THEM TO VOTE NO ON SB 354, reads the website featured in Facebook ads on Monday that stretched the truth about bills under consideration.

Beneath a form people are encouraged to use to contact their senator is a small white box that reads, Paid for by American Potential. The group formed in 2016, seemingly for a single purpose: to spend $14,543 on phone banking to support Carly Fiorinas presidential bid ahead of the New Hampshire primary. Despite a request from the Federal Election Commission in June, the organization declined to disclose any of its donors.

Steve DeMaura of American Potential said the group is an issue advocacy nonprofit not required to disclose its donors under state or federal laws and so declined to answer questions about who has funded the campaign in Montana.

We are a national conservative organization dedicated to keeping taxes low, he said, noting they work on related issues in many states around the nation but declined to name any other campaigns.

That kind of non-response about donors is not surprising, said Edwin Bender, director of the National Institute on Money in State Politics based in Helena.

The bottom line is if groups making independent expenditures on issues or campaigns dont want people to know who they are, you probably wont find out, he said.

State lobbying disclosure laws only apply to organizations that interact directly with the Legislature, such as hiring lobbyists to testify on bills or by sending emails to legislators. Groups that spend money to mobilize average citizens on behalf of their causes are considered grassroots and are not required to disclose any of their activity  even if they are not a local organization or have received considerable financial support from partisan and corporate backers.

Such efforts also might be designed more to collect personal information for political campaign databases than as an attempt to influence an issue.

These campaigns look like an issue-based, grassroots effort, but they frankly are politically funded attack ads, said Lee Banville, a University of Montana professor of politics and journalism. The whole effort is about getting you to submit this letter, but its also about you submitting to somebody your contact information, which puts you on a list of active conservatives interested in taxes and Republican politics that they can use later to reach out to you for money or to volunteer.

DeMaura said information collected by American Potential would be kept private and absolutely not be sold to political campaigns looking to bolster voter databases. He said the names and emails collected help the group know who is on our side, which he described as a common practice.

On March 22, the domain name StopSalesTaxes.com was purchased through a third-party provider and a matching Facebook page for Montanans Against Sales Taxes appeared last Saturday. So far, about 400 people have liked the Facebook page. Its single post, which directs people to the website, received more than 4,200 views after being promoted as a paid advertisement on Monday.

The website features photos of Bullock seemingly found online and, at least in the case of a Missoulian image from 2012, used without permission. The Facebook pages cover photo is of Glacier National Parks Bearhat Mountain taken from the popular Hidden Lake Overlook. The Italian photographer who took the picture said she did not give anyone permission for its use.

The website also includes a form that can be submitted to Montanas senators, which asks for a full name, email and zip code. It suggests a message: Montanans reject sales taxes and you should too. Vote no on Governor Bullock's Sales Tax bill, SB 354.

Hundreds of Montanans have used the form to email legislators over the past few days, a handful of senators said. The messages included the email address and message of the senders, but did not share the locations or names also filled out on the form. Because so many messages were identical, dozens were sent to legislators' junk folders by spam filters.

I dont pay much attention to the ones that are the cookie-cutter type, Senate President Scott Sales, R-Bozeman, said, noting that he is less inclined to skip over messages that are personal and heartfelt. People should put their name and address down so I can tell if you live in my district.

Some people included additional comments below the form letter, describing why they oppose a statewide, general sales tax  even though thats not what the bill would do. In fact, SB 354 would increase taxes on tobacco and nicotine products to support state health programs.

These people must be confused, Sen. Tom Facey, D-Missoula, said.

Bullock has supported some of the product-specific excise taxes, such as one on medical marijuana, but also backs SB 351, which proposes adding a ban on a general sales tax to the Montana Constitution. A bill to reform Montana's overall tax structure, including to create a sales tax, was introduced by Rep. Greg Hertz, R-Polson. Both measures, whether to ban or to create, a general sales tax appear likely to die this week.

Its a sleight of hand to turn around and say an excise tax on tobacco is the same as a general sales tax, Bullock said. The folks that are running that should be ashamed.

DeMaura said American Potential opposes all tax increases, regardless of sponsor. He said the inclusion of SB 354 in the message to legislators was because it is the primary bill making its way through the Legislature right now, even though the deadline for all tax bills is the same. Asked why the group did not identify bill numbers for other proposals or make it clear what SB 354 would do, he said, Its just not the choice we made.

The ill-explained focus on SB 354 leads Bender to suspect the groups hidden backers might be corporate tobacco companies.

All the sin (industry) people  tobacco, pot, alcohol, tanning  have to hide. Tobacco hides the most because theyve been criticized so much, he said. If its a bill that raises the tobacco tax, its got to be a tobacco company funding it.

When asked, DeMaura declined to answer.

Another possibility is that the backers dont care at all whether Montana changes its taxes despite DeMauras description of the group, said Bender and Banville.

American Potentials disclosure forms were all signed by Chris Marston, whose resume includes a management job at the U.S. Department of Education under President George Bush and a post with the House Republican Caucus at the Virginia statehouse. He runs a company, Election CFO, that has consulted on numerous Republican Congressional campaigns. He has been listed as treasurer of 63 political action committees since 2012, including Koch-backed AegisPAC, according to Federal Election Commission records. That list includes American Alliance, which reported the same PO Box as American Potential. That PAC supported the campaigns of Los Angeles criminal prosecutor Elan Carr in failed bids for Congress and the County Board of Supervisors. The majority of that's group's disclosed funding came from Republican super donor Sheldon Adelson.

On Thursday morning, Marston said he was not authorized to speak on behalf of American Potential and passed the interview request to DeMaura, who also has a long history as a Republican consultant working for groups that have been fined for disclosure violations.

In Montana, the website that seems to focus on sales tax legislation might be an attempt by Republican operatives to smear Bullock, a Democrat some speculate might run for a House or Senate seat or even for national office after he completes his final term as governor. Or, it might simply be a way to boost Republican image in the state.

They could be trying to get people agitated a bit, Bender said. Theyre using the threat of a sales tax to help energize the Republican base.

Because of holes in state and federal disclosure laws, Bender said average citizens will continue to struggle to know who is at actually funding some political and issue campaigns.

Noting prominent Congressional elections on the horizon, Banville said Montanans should be cautious about what they see on Facebook or other online forums and to be sure to fact-check their information sources.

Get good at Googling because youre going to need to if you want to know whats actually going on, Banville said. Ask yourself, How do I feel about that versus what they tell me I should be mad about?
CEDAR FALLS  University of Northern Iowas history with mass media and publication began 125 years ago with the publication of a student newspaper. Its a gross understatement to say things have changed in media since that time.

And as mass media has changed in the last century, UNIs department of communication studies has adapted to the times. Media grew from print to include radio, television, broadcast and then electronic forms. Thursday marked another sign of change.

UNI launched a digital media program Thursday, which replaces its electronic media program, to emphasize new ways of reporting and production.

The media production area and the journalism area both have really rich and long histories in our department, said Paul Siddens III, UNIs communication studies department head. Were really proud that our faculty keeps an eye on not just today and the past, but on the future as well.

He added, And to see the changes that are coming up are very exciting.

The new program will add three majors  digital journalism, digital media leadership and digital media production.

The faculty emphasized throughout a launch party event in Lang Hall on campus the new offerings will help better prepare students for their working careers.

Two students, UNI senior Carli Galligan and UNI junior Claire Collins, offered a demonstration of their forays into mobile reporting during the event. Both said they had been learning a lot in their digital journalism class that required them to set up a website, do reporting on the go and post to their respective sites.

Armed with iPhones, the students have been reporting on health and wellness in the Cedar Valley and on the millennial generation, respectively. Their reports have been podcasts, videos, live videos, pictures and writing.

Being a part of the millennial generation, theres so many negative connotations with cell phones, but what were really learning is how your cell phone can record stories on the go, said Collins. You look back to what recording and everything used to be and how you would have to carry all that equipment. And now we take out a single cell phone and we can get that story right away.

Galligan added, You can really branch out and explore a lot of different areas easily, since youre just using a phone, like its so small, you can take it anywhere.

Other demonstrations during the event focused on investigative journalism and television production and reporting, among others.

UNI professor Christopher Martin said the name digital media better reflects everything were doing now in terms of the internet, in terms of apps, in terms of mobile communications.

College of Humanities, Arts and Sciences Dean John Fritch, who previously headed UNIs department of communication studies, said he first toured the media production space in Lang Hall in 2002.

I walked in here in 2002. I walk in in 2017, and the place has changed. It has not gotten older; it has not aged. It looks better than ever, said Fritch.
DES MOINES  Gov. Terry Branstad and legislative majority Republicans arent done enacting their anti-abortion agenda, the governor told the Rally for Life at the Capitol Thursday.

The rally that packed the rotunda came on the heels of the House Human Resources Committee approving a ban on abortions after the 20th week of pregnancy Wednesday night. A similar ban has been approved in the Senate.

Ive been fighting for life since 1972 when I was elected to the Legislature for the first time, and I will not stop now, Branstad told anti-abortion activists. He also thanked them for their tireless work over so many years advancing the pro-life movement.

Branstad and Senate Majority Leader Bill Dix, R-Shell Rock, reminded the crowd progress, like the legislation being considered by lawmakers, can take time. The Senate-passed legislation would ban abortion after 20 weeks rather than the current 26 weeks, Dix said.

I know its not as much as everybody would like, Branstad said, but this is an incremental, ongoing effort.

He noted abortions in Iowa have decreased by 26 percent since 2010, and there have been no Medicaid-funded abortions in Iowa in the past four years.

So long as I have the honor of serving you I will continue to be a strong advocate for the unborn, said Branstad, who expects to resign as governor this spring to become ambassador to China.

We have more work to do, he said, but assured the activists his successor, Lt. Gov. Kim Reynolds, is as steadfast in her opposition to abortion.

Reynolds said it was an honor for her to be part of the most pro-life administration in the history of the state of Iowa.

Given the progress lawmakers have made on the 20-week abortion ban and prohibiting taxpayer dollars to be used for abortion, Reynolds said 2017 is looking pretty bright for the pro-life movement in Iowa.

Were on our way, she said. This year as life issues come before our legislators, the power and united voice of individuals like you is undeniable. We must continue to work together to change hearts and minds, to return to a culture once again that respects all human life, not just the planned and the perfect, but all human life.
DES MOINES  Kim Reynolds, Iowas governor-in-waiting, has a big decision to make.

Who will be her second-in-command?

Reynolds will succeed Gov. Terry Branstad as Iowas chief executive for the remainder of his term when Branstad is confirmed as the next U.S. ambassador to China sometime in the coming weeks. No official date for Branstad's move has been announced.

Reynolds plans to choose a new lieutenant governor, even though there is a difference of opinion on whether that should be permitted. More on that later.

The selection is critical for multiple reasons, starting with the fact the lieutenant governor is first in line should the governor become unable to fulfill the duties of the office.

The chosen individual also will play a critical role in the 2018 election, assuming Reynolds runs. And although Reynolds has not yet officially said she will run for election in 2018, it is widely expected she will.

Branstad has been grooming Reynolds to be his successor since his return to the office in 2011, giving her an increasingly public role in the administration.

Soon, Reynolds will choose someone to fill that role.

Political and geographical considerations could enter Reynolds equation. For example, it may be prudent she choose someone who is well known in one of Iowa's bigger cities. It also could prove wise to pluck someone from Iowa's more conservative western portion.

But a few veteran Iowa Republicans said those qualities may not be as important as finding a partner with whom to work.

At the end of the day I think the pick is going to be just something in her gut that she thinks feels right, said Jeff Boeyink, Branstad's former chief of staff who oversaw Branstads selection of Reynolds as his running mate. Quite honestly, my advice to her has been dont worry about checking boxes on ideology and geography. ...

Ive never been a believer in that. At the end of the day, people vote for the governor, not the lieutenant governor. ... Because you are in the furnace together, it has to be someone who you trust and will have your back at all times.

John Stineman, a Republican strategist with campaign experience, also said he thinks Reynolds will value a personal relationship over a political checklist.

I dont think theres any reason to believe that (Reynolds) wouldnt be approaching it the same way that Governor Branstad did when he approached her, Stineman said. And that means looking for someone who is a partner in it, someone that is not just capable of taking over if something goes wrong ... but is somebody that you have a shared vision, that you want to work closely and collaboratively with, that you want to see very involved, that they would one day be prepared to be governor, not just somebody to just put behind glass and say you break in case of emergency.

Jimmy Centers, a former spokesman for the administration who works for a bipartisan public affairs business, said he expects Reynolds to choose someone who can work with her in the same way she has worked with Branstad.

Lt. Governor Reynolds is likely looking for someone to operate in same framework as she has been in as lieutenant governor: a full partner in governing, crafting the budget, messaging, developing policy, and come 2018, campaigning, Centers said in an email. This type of experience and partnership would allow her lieutenant governor to be fully prepared should he or she ever be put in a position to assume the office.

Reynolds reportedly has spoken with many individuals about the position. Reynolds has not said when she will name her first mate.

In working for Lt. Governor Reynolds, I can tell you that she has an eye for talent. She visits all 99 Iowa counties each year and meets with countless strong leaders in their local communities, Centers said. By engaging with those types of leaders, and due to the success of the Republican Party of Iowa since 2010, there is a lot of talent for her to consider for the job. I suspect that she is likely talking to a wide range of people and I wouldn't expect a decision to be revealed until the official transition is imminent.

Still, there remains a question of whether Reynolds should be able to choose a lieutenant governor.

The Iowa Constitution and state law are not clear on whether a replacement governor should select a new lieutenant governor. The governor is given clear authority to fill a vacancy for lieutenant governor. The disagreement is over whether a promoted lieutenant governor becomes a full-fledged governor or just an acting governor.

The Branstad administration contends Reynolds will gain all the authority of a governor and thus have the ability to name a lieutenant governor. The offices of the state attorney general and secretary of state are in agreement.

But Iowa Sen. David Johnson, a former Republican turned independent from Ocheyedan, has written the Attorney Generals Office asking for further clarification.

Johnson said his concern is if Reynolds is allowed to name her lieutenant governor and something were to happen to her, an individual who was not elected by Iowans could become governor.

The next position in Iowas line of succession is the president of the Senate, a position held by state Sen. Jack Whitver, a Republican from Ankeny.

It raises the prospect of an unelected official theoretically becoming governor, Johnson said. You could have somebody whos never been in an election. Plus, the political implications of setting that person up for a future run for governor.

Possible picks

Based on conversations with dozens of Iowa Republicans and political insiders, here are some possible choices for Kim Reynolds lieutenant governor and their qualifications:

Adam Gregg

Greggs name came up often in discussions with Republican political insiders. The 33-year-old native of Hawarden, in northwest Iowa, is an attorney by trade and has served as the states public defender since being appointed by Gov. Terry Branstad in late 2014. He ran for state attorney general in 2014. Although he lost to longtime attorney general Tom Miller, in the process, Gregg gained experience running a statewide campaign.

Prior to serving as public defender, Gregg served as policy adviser and liaison to the Legislature for the Branstad administration during the 2013 and 2014 sessions.

Boeyink, the former Branstad chief of staff, said Gregg and Reynolds worked well together.

Bill Northey

Northey has served as Iowas secretary of agriculture since 2007; he is serving is third four-year term. That gives the 57-year-old Northey a decade of experience serving in statewide office and running statewide campaigns. And he is well-regarded as an agricultural leader. Like so many Republicans in statewide office, he travels to each of the states 99 counties each year.

Northey, of Spirit Lake, may have run for governor himself but decided against it after the announcement Reynolds would fill in as governor for a couple of years prior to the 2018 election. Northey immediately said he would not run for governor in a Republican primary against Reynolds and said he would consider serving as her lieutenant governor if asked.

Peter Cownie

A state legislator from West Des Moines, the 36-year-old Cownie has served in the Legislature since 2009 and chaired committees on state government and commerce. Cownie comes from a politically active family: His father James Cownie, a businessman and developer, has donated more than $600,000 to Iowa campaigns and political organizations since 2003 and is a second cousin of Des Moines Mayor Frank Cownie.

Zach Nunn

Nunn is a relatively new state legislator; the 37-year-old from Bondurant was first elected in 2014. Nunn has military experience: He is a major with the U.S. Air Force serving with the Iowa Air National Guard and did three overseas tours, according to his legislative biography.

Bill Anderson

Anderson is a 40-year-old state senator from Pierson with extensive political experience. He is a policy adviser to U.S. Rep. Steve King, who has represented western Iowa in Congress since 2003. Anderson also has military experience, having served in the Iowa U.S. Army National Guard from 1994 to 2002. The Sioux City native chairs the Senate committee on commerce.

Chris McGowan

McGowan is president of the Siouxland Chamber of Commerce, a post formerly held by state economic development director Debi Durham. The 50-year-old McGowan served in the U.S. Air National Guard, and after graduating from law school he worked part time in the civil and criminal divisions of the U.S. Attorney's Office in Detroit. He has been president of the Siouxland chamber since 2011.
DES MOINES  Democrats on the House Transportation Committee hit the brakes but couldn't stop legislation to regulate traffic cameras from moving forward Thursday.

All eight Democrats on the committee voted against Senate File 220, which would regulate but allow the devices. It cleared the committee, 13-8 without discussion.

People in my caucus really dont like traffic enforcement cameras, said Rep. John Forbes of Des Moines, the committees ranking Democrat.

That was the extent of funnel-week drama Thursday  the last day most lawmakers will be at the Capitol before todays deadline for bills to win approval in one chamber and from a committee in the other.

House leaders rolled more than two dozen bills to the unfinished business debate calendar to keep them alive. Senate GOP leaders are expected to take similar action today before the second funnel deadline officially lapses.

GOP pleased

Senate Majority Leader Bill Dix, R-Shell Rock, said he is pleased with the sessions progress so far.

He noted majority Republicans have passed legislation dealing with curtailing collective bargaining by public employees, curbed workers compensation and made school funding changes. Those moves will save taxpayers money, he said.

I feel like its been a very successful session, Dix said. Iowa voters sent us here to change the way we do business.

Senate Minority Leader Rob Hogg, D-Cedar Rapids, saw things differently.

The reality is the Republican majority has done enough damage to the people of this state already this session, Hogg said. They need to stop the damage, they need to focus on this budget thats an absolute mess, and they need to get this session over with before they pass anything that hurts Iowans.

Lots of action

Thursday saw a flurry of activity:

The Senate Local Government Committee approving a bill that would abolish county compensation boards and place responsibility for setting county elected officials salaries with boards of supervisors.

The Senate State Government Committee passed House bills to expand confidentiality for 911 calls or police body camera audio and video recordings. GOP Rep. Dean Fisher said the legislation comes in response to the release of 911 calls to The Associated Press last year that exposed a string of gun accidents in Tama County that killed two teens and injured a third.

The Senate Judiciary Committee approved measures dealing with eminent domain, sentencing reform and so-called revenge porn harassment.

The House Judiciary Committee approved a Senate bill to provide legal protection to 911 callers who are under the legal drinking age of 21 but need help in an emergency when underage drinking has taken place. It also approved another bill reforming Iowas civil asset forfeiture law.

'Buttercup' dies

The so-called suck it up, buttercup bill to create penalties for protesters blocking a highway did not survive.

Its disappointing, but guess what? ... Well take it up again next year and hopefully get it through and get this passed, said Sen. Jake Chapman, R-Adel.

Some measures that failed to advance could resurface in budget bills. One is Senate File 2, a bill to defund Planned Parenthood and shift government funds to clinics not offering abortion. It has passed the Senate, but the House plans to make it a budget issue.

Cannabis oil

Both chambers were working on a way to at least extend a law granting limited access to cannabis oil if an agreement could not be reached to expand the program.

House Speaker Linda Upmeyer said there still may be an opportunity to expand the medical use of marijuana or cannabis. It would be helpful to get a signal from U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions on what the federal policy will be, she said.

Budget is next

The budget is the next big thing facing lawmakers, said Senate President Jack Whitver, R-Ankeny. I believe well be able to get that settled and done on time and hopefully get out right when were supposed to.

The last day of the 110-day session was supposed to be April 28. Lawmakers now plan to finish April 18.
SIOUX CITY -- The congressional team of U.S. Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, is encouraging people to write letters to newspapers in support of work the 15-year lawmaker is doing.

A representative of King's district office in Sioux City recently sent an email with the subject line "Letters to support Steve King."

The email, a copy of which was obtained by the Sioux City Journal, begins, "Congressman King is being accused of not being effective for his district. Unfortunately, the media seldom publish the good work done by Steve King. You can use the following points in your support letters to the editor. Let me know when and where you send your support letter so we can track it. This year alone Steve King has promoted the following issues," then 15 bills are cited as examples to use.

The email seeking supportive letters comes on the heels of a period where King, who represents Iowa's 4th congressional district, was high in the national news cycle two weeks ago.

King on March 12 tweeted that America "can't restore our civilization with somebody else's babies." The tweet was in support of a Dutch politician who opposes immigration and has spoken against Islam. King tweeted that Geert Wilders "understands that culture and demographics are our destiny."

King followed the controversial social media post with several interviews on national outlets where he defended his comments. Critics accused King of racism and condemned the support the tweet received from some white nationalist leaders. Many also renewed charges that King was an ineffective congressman who should be focusing more on his district and less on national wedge issues like immigration.

The content of the email notes the congressman has introduced bills in the U.S. House involving issues in education, immigration and health.

Here are some of the bills King is touted for introducing, from the email:

"Congressman Steve King introduced the Choices in Education Act of 2017. This bill would both promote and protect school choice by ensuring States the ability to carry out their education voucher program and by giving parents the ability to choose the best form of education for their children."

"Jan. 3: Washington, D.C.  Congressman Steve King introduced, in conjunction with his 100 percent repeal Obamacare Act also introduced today, a bill to prohibit the Supreme Court from Citing Obamacare in future decisions."

"Jan. 3: Congressman Steve King reintroduced four immigration bills at the start of the 115th Congress: Sarahs Law, Birthright Citizenship Act of 2017, Religious Worker Visa Reciprocity Act of 2017 and New IDEA Act."

"Jan. 12: Congressman Steve King introduced The Heartbeat Bill, that would require physicians to detect the heartbeat and prohibit the abortion of a baby with a beating heart."
Last week on CNN I debated a liberal commentator who complained the problem with President Donald Trumps budget blueprint is it lacks compassion for the poor, for children and for the disabled. This woman went on to ask me how I could defend a budget that would cut Meals on Wheels, after-school programs and special-education funding, because without the federal dollars, these vital services would go away.

This ideology  that the government action is a sign of compassion  is upside-down and contrary to the Christian notion of charity.

We all, as individuals, can and should act compassionately and charitably. We can volunteer our time, energy and dollars to help the underprivileged. We can feed the hungry, house the homeless. Most of us feel a moral and ethical responsibility to do so  to do unto others.

And we do fulfill that obligation more than the citizens of almost any other nation. International statistics show that Americans are the most charitable people in the world and the most likely to engage in volunteerism. Whenever there is an international crisis  an earthquake, a flood, a war  Americans provide more assistance than the people of any other nation.

But government, by its nature, is not compassionate. It cant be. It is nothing other than a force. Government can only spend a dollar to help someone when it forcibly takes a dollar from someone else. At its core, government welfare is predicated on a false compassion. This isnt to say government should never take collective action to help people. But these actions are based on compulsion, not compassion.

If every so-called patriotic millionaire would simply donate half of their wealth to serving others we could solve so many of the social problems in this country without a penny of new debt or taxes.

My friend Arthur Brooks, the president of American Enterprise Institute, has noted in his fabulous book Who Really Cares: The Surprising Truth About Compassionate Conservatism that conservatives donate more than the self-proclaimed compassionate liberals.

The liberal creed seems to be: We care so much about poor people, climate change, income inequality and protecting the environment (or whatever the cause of the day) that there is no limit to how much money should be taken out of other peoples wallets to solve these problems.

Lets take Meals on Wheels. Is this a valuable program to get a nutritious lunch or dinner to infirmed senior citizens? Of course, yes. Do we need the government to fund it? Of course not. I have participated in Meals on Wheels and other such programs, making sandwiches or delivering hot lunches. And many tens of thousands of others donate their time and money every day for this worthy cause.

Why is there any need for government here? The program works fine on its own. Turning this sort of charitable task over to government only makes people act less charitably on their own. It leads to an I gave at the office mentality, which leads to less generosity. It also subjects these programs to federal rules and regulations that could cripple the programs. Why must the federal government be funding after-school programs  or any school programs, for that matter?

One of my favorite stories of American history dates back to the 19th century when Col. Davy Crockett, who fought at the Alamo, served in Congress. In a famous incident, Congress wanted to appropriate $100,000 to the widow of a distinguished navel officer. Crockett took to the House floor and delivered his famous speech, relevant as ever: We have the right, as individuals, to give away as much of our own money as we please in charity; but as members of Congress we have no right to so appropriate a dollar of the public money. ... I am the poorest man on this floor. I cannot vote for this bill, but I will give one weeks pay to the object, and if every member of Congress will do the same, it will amount to more than the bill asks.

Crockett was the only member of Congress who donated personally to the widow, while the members of Congress who pretended to be so caring and compassionate closed their wallets.

It all goes to show liberal do-gooders were as hypocritical then as they are today.
In Dec. 19 and Jan. 13 editorials, we expressed our wariness about Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., a member of the Trump transition team, leading the House Intelligence Committees inquiry into possible collusion between the presidents campaign and Russia.

Nunes has since made it abundantly clear he is unfit, trying to justify President Donald Trumps unsubstantiated tweets that President Barack Obama authorized Trump Tower wiretaps and later seeking to close scheduled hearings.

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., called Nunes actions bizarre.

FBI Director James Comey stated during his March 17 testimony no foundation existed for Trumps tweets. Instead, he confirmed the FBI has been investigating Russian interference in the election and possible Trump campaign collusion since July.

That prompted Nunes to launch his own investigation. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., compared him to the bumbling French Inspector Clouseau of Pink Panther movies, except Clouseau didnt conspire with potential suspects.

Although House and Senate intelligence committee members have access to Central Intelligence Agency and National Security Agency repositories of secret information, Nunes chose a secret meeting at the Eisenhower Executive Office on the White House grounds to review classified information.

According to the Washington Post, Nunes was headed to a Washington event when he took a phone call, then swapped cars and slipped away from his staff.  He appears to have used that unaccounted-for stretch of time to review classified intelligence files brought to his attention by sources he has said he will not name.

The next day Nunes told Trump that U.S. intelligence agencies had incidentally collected information about U.S. citizens involved in the Trump transition.

He told reporters the surveillance involved high-level people in the Trump transition, but was focused on a foreign target and had been routine and legal.

He declined to share his information with the committee.

Trump said the disclosure somewhat vindicated his tweets. I very much appreciated the fact that they found what they found.

Nunes has been on a crusade to debunk allegations of Russian-Trump campaign ties.

After a CIA report in December gave substance to the claims, Nunes called it a lot of innuendo, lots of circumstantial evidence, thats it. He maintained the FBI didnt agree with the findings.

Then-CIA Director John Brennan responded the FBI, CIA and Director of National Intelligence were in agreement. There is strong consensus among us on the scope, nature and intent of Russian interference.

Nunes was critical of leaks concerning former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, whose communications with Russian ambassador Sergei Kislyak were intercepted by U.S. intelligence. Flynns misleading statements about those talks led to his firing.

Other Trumps confidantes have made similar misleading statements, including U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who recused himself from the investigation, former campaign manager Paul Manafort and Trumps son-in-law and adviser Jared Kushner.

Kushner had a previously undisclosed meeting with Sergey Gorkov, chief of Russian government-owned Vnesheconombank, which was sanctioned after Russias July 2014 intervention in Ukraine. The bank also is linked to Russian intelligence. A New York employee pleaded guilty to espionage last year.

In addition, long-time Trump adviser Roger Stone had contacts with a WikiLeaks intermediary, tweeting about Clinton campaign email releases in advance and Russian hacker Guccifer 2.0.

Last week, Nunes declared the House investigation needed to be held behind closed doors, presumably to avoid embarrassing Trump. Scheduled open hearings with former Acting Attorney General Sally Yates, former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and Brennan were canceled.

The Post obtained Justice Department letters attempting to stop Yates from testifying because of presidential communications privilege.

Previously, Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee became so infuriated by the Justice Department stonewalling his committees investigation the Post described him as screaming into the phone during an interview.

It doesnt matter whether you have a Republican or Democrat president, every time they come up here for their nomination hearing ... I ask them, Are you going to answer phone calls and our letters? And, Are you going to give us the documents we want? And every time we get a real positive yes. And then they end up being liars.  Its not if theyre treating us differently than another committee  its if theyre responding at all.

While Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr, R-N.C., and Democratic colleague Mark Warner, D-Va., appear to be handling their investigation properly, McCain concluded, No longer does the Congress have credibility to handle this alone. And I dont say that lightly.

He wants a Watergate-style bipartisan select committee to investigate, which recalls the pertinent question of Sen. Howard Baker, R-Tenn., What did the president know, and when did he know it?

Wed prefer an independent commission, but any panel devoid of Nunes-like nonsense would be an improvement.
The Senate Taxation Committee on Friday heard the last of more than 10 bills designed to reform tax increment financing, an economic development tool communities use help eliminate blight and spur development in targeted neighborhoods.

House Bill 573, introduced by Rep. Rob Cook, R-Conrad, would revise education funding laws related to TIF funding and exempt public school equalization mill levies from tax increment financing after 15 years. The bill received House approval on third reading on March 23 on a 63-37 vote.

Cook told the committee that by waiting 15 years to exclude school levies from TIF calculations, we wont mess up any bond payments. I think its time to address the fact that 95 mills should have never gone to TIF (districts).

Cook was the only one to speak in favor of his bill.

Dan Lloyd of the Governors Office of Economic Development said the bill would significantly weaken one of the only tools Montana communities have for economic development and job creation. A better option, he said, is to pass House Joint Resolution 18, which would produce a study of urban renewal districts and targeted economic development districts that use tax increment financing.

Cook said hes heard that solution before.

I was up before this committee two years ago when we said, Lets do an interim study, he said. Nothing has happened, and TIF districts seem to exist in perpetuity. If you do an interim study, I hope something comes out of it.

Kelly Lynch, deputy director and legal counsel for the Montana League of Cities and Towns, said that Cook's bill would cut infrastructure development by up to 20 percent.

Keeping school equalization mill levies in the TIF calculation allows TIF districts to grow their incremental value over time, leveraging private investment as it does so, she said.

Asked by Sen. Brad Hoven, R-Great Falls, whether the League would support the bill if the 15-year time period were extended to, say, 25 years, Lynch said no.

We are opposed to any limitation on using the 95 (school) mills in the increment, she said. Since bond issues are typically 20 years, by then you are at the 35-year level. That is the nature of the beast, she said.

Bridger Mahlum, government relations director for the Montana Chamber of Commerce, called infrastructure development a huge priority for us. We agree that this is the best time to look into the study about what can be done about reforming TIF districts, he said.

While closing on his bill, Cook offered the committee this observation: As you can see, he told the committee, my TIF fan club has followed me again.

The committee took no action on the bill.
CASPER, Wyo.  People or companies from 19 foreign countries, including Saudi Arabia, Russia and Argentina, have inquired with the U.S. Customs office in Casper about flying private jets to Natrona County during the eclipse in August.

Customs and Border Protection officer Dale Leatham said he couldn't provide many details but confirmed he has fielded calls from interested parties around the world.

"They've called me and inquired about coming in and whether I'd be available," Leatham told the Casper Star-Tribune (http://bit.ly/2oCQwvc). "I've told them that I am."

Leatham said he's the only immigration officer in Wyoming. He said the ability of international jetsetters to fly straight to Casper may give the town a leg up on other communities along the path of the total solar eclipse taking place Aug. 21.

Five international airports are within the path of the eclipse. But Natrona County's sits closest to the most central path, offering the longest eclipse duration.

Weather permitting, visitors could witness the full magnitude of the eclipse from the tarmac in Casper.

Wyoming Eclipse Festival director Anna Wilcox said she hopes that the foreign visitors leave the airport and experience Casper.

"Look away from the billionaire and consider just the international traveler," Wilcox said. "The Wyoming culture is totally foreign."

Whatever the private jet crowd does or doesn't do in Casper isn't much of a concern for Glenn Januska, director of the Casper-Natrona County International Airport.

"We're making sure we can process the aircraft, have a place to park them, secure them, a place to get the passengers off," he said.

The airport was also reaching out to commercial airlines Delta and United, which offer regular service to Casper from Salt Lake City and Denver, to let them know more passengers may be booking flights for the eclipse weekend.

___

Information from: Casper (Wyo.) Star-Tribune, http://www.trib.com
By The Associated Press

By The Associated Press Mar. 29, 2017 | 09:57 PM | FRANKFORT, KY

A bill that would require the state Board of Education to develop guidelines for Bible literacy courses is on its way to Republican Gov. Matt Bevin's desk.

The state Senate gave final passage to House Bill 128 on Wednesday. It would require the state board to develop administrative regulations for elective social studies courses on the Bible.

Many school districts already offer the courses. But Republican state Sen. C.B. Embry said state guidelines would offer "uniformity statewide and clarity to districts who would like to offer the course."

The bill requires Bible classes to maintain "religious neutrality" and to accommodate "diverse religious views."
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The rollback of Obama-era climate policies continued in Washington on Wednesday, when Rep. Liz Cheney introduced a bill to hinge future coal moratoriums on joint approval by Congress.

Cheneys legislation continues national controversy regarding coal regulations. An executive order signed by President Donald Trump on Tuesday mandates a review of the controversial Clean Power Plan. The president also lifted the Obama-era stay on new coal leases.

Coal development had been effectively put on hold by the former administration to give the Department of Interior time to assess its coal royalties policy.

After Trumps order, a number of environmental groups filed lawsuits to protect both the moratorium and the royalty review.

Newly minted Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke said in a press conference Wednesday that his agency would review royalties via a committee instead of a program-wide assessment. Comprising about 20 people, the group will report directly to the secretary on how best to value federal coal.

Despite the political fervor, most experts agree that the coal moratorium had little impact on the coal industry. The industry has been grappling with reduced demand and increasing competition with cheap natural gas. New investments have been few and far between.

Zinke admitted that coal faces market challenges, particularly as a result of fracking for natural gas. However, government should not be in the position of creating losers and winners in the market, he said Wednesday.

Coal still provides significant amounts of energy to the U.S. as our stable load, he said. I dont see that changing in great volumes.

In a statement Thursday, Cheney called Wyoming coal a national treasure and praised Zinke and the president for their work.

[Trumps executive order] was an important first step in repairing the damage done to Wyoming during the last eight years, the congresswoman said. Obama-era energy policies focused on destroying our fossil fuel industry, killing jobs and devastating communities across Wyoming.
Hungary gets site licence for Paks II project

31 March 2017

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The Hungarian Atomic Energy Authority yesterday issued the site licence required to build two new units at the Paks nuclear power plant, while the environmental licence is expected to be finalised within weeks. Attila Aszodi, the government commissioner responsible for the Paks II project, told World Nuclear News today that receiving the site licence is a "major milestone" and the target remains for the first unit to be completed in 2025 and the second in 2026.

The new units would be adjacent to the four existing Paks reactors (Image: Paks NPP)

Paks currently comprises four Russian-supplied VVER-440 pressurized water reactors, which started up between 1982 and 1987. These units account for about half of Hungary's electricity production. An inter-governmental agreement signed in early 2014 would see Russian enterprises and their international sub-contractors supply two new units at Paks - VVER-1200 reactors - as well as a Russian state loan of up to 10.0 billion ($11.2 billion) to finance 80% of the project.

Hungary received European Commission approval of the project on 6 March, accepting commitments it has made to limit distortions of competition. The Commission concluded that Hungary's financial support for the Paks II project involves state aid, but it could approve this support under EU state aid rules on the basis of these commitments.

These commitments require Hungary "to establish a framework", rather than create any "limitations", Aszodi said. "So we can proceed with the project."

Project company MVM Paks II received an environmental licence in late September, but this was challenged by two environmental groups, Aszodi said. The licence is now being reviewed by the regulatory authorities, but the "second instance" licence is expected to be granted in the coming weeks, he added.

"The first priority now is the construction licence application and in parallel with this some preparations are needed on the site to accommodate construction, such as some supporting infrastructure that will have to be licensed and built before ground breaking for the nuclear installation can be made."

Russia's Atomstroyexport, the general contractor for the Paks II project, will launch the first round of tenders for sub-contractors "quite soon", he said.

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New Mexico used fuel project put to regulators

31 March 2017

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A regulatory application was lodged today for a large used fuel storage facility in the US state of New Mexico. With a capacity of 10,000 canisters, Holtec's Hi-Store Consolidated Interim Storage facility could store used fuel from any US nuclear power plant.

The facility will provide an interim option for US nuclear power plant operators that need to store used fuel assemblies in the absence of a federal disposal solution. In recent years it has become increasingly common for utilities to store used fuel in dry casks at power plant sites.

Today's application concerns a 1000-acre (405-hectare) site mid-way between Hobbs and Carlsbad, New Mexico. It is a remote, geologically stable, dry location with existing infrastructure, including rail, and a pre-existing and robust scientific and nuclear operations workforce. The Waste Isolation Pilot Plant is to the south while International Isotopes Inc, Louisiana Energy Services and Waste Control Specialists are to the east. Documents lodged by Holtec with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission "comprise a complete package of documents", said the company, "including the Safety Analysis Report and the Environmental Report".

How casks of used fuel would be stored below ground (Image: Holtec)

Holtec proposes to install its Hi-Storm UMax system, which would see casks of used fuel placed below ground in a concrete lot. The system is "truly universal", Holtec said, because it "is designed to accept every canister currently loaded at every US nuclear power plant". With the radiation shielding provided by the casks complemented by below-ground storage, "the dose emitted... is virtually zero", said Holtec.

US law places responsibility for used nuclear fuel disposal with the federal government, which in 1987 selected Yucca Mountain in Nevada as the country's single disposal site for high-level radioactive waste including used fuel. Yucca Mountain was supposed to begin accepting waste packaged in 1998, but had only reached licensing stage in 2009 when President Barack Obama's administration effectively terminated it by defunding the regulatory process. With no national facility available, nuclear power plant owners developed their own interim solutions, with many opting to place used fuel assemblies in tall concrete casks stored on site. The US Department of Energy is liable for the costs of all such storage arising since 1998, estimated at $36 billion to date by a US Nuclear Infrastructure Council working group. Obama's disruption of the US repository program inspired both Holtec's New Mexico project and a similar scheme by Waste Management Specialists in Texas.

The new administration of President Donald Trump is talking to stakeholders about re-starting the Yucca Mountain project and has requested $120 million for renewed licensing. Energy Secretary Rick Perry visited the site, in Nevada, for discussions on 27 March.



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Educators in Wyoming say they aren't surprised by the Campbell County school board's decision to authorize future lawsuits against the state over education cuts.

"They were the hardest hit with the extreme loss in students, so that was a big hit financially," said Kathy Vetter, the president of the Wyoming Education Association. She was referring to the roughly 500 students who've left Campbell County in the past year. "And they had big cuts with the cuts this year to education, so not a big surprise."

Other districts, meanwhile, indicated they will likely follow Campbell County's lead and pass similar resolutions.

The district's board passed the resolution unanimously Tuesday. While it doesn't say that a lawsuit is imminent or deliver an ultimatum, the board's actions represent a warning shot to lawmakers, some of whom will convene next week to begin recalibrating the state's education funding model.

Normally, that process wouldn't take place until 2020. But Wyoming faces a $400 million annual education shortfall in the coming years, and lawmakers spent weeks during the session trying to solve the crisis. Ultimately, they settled on a bill that will cut more than $34 million from public schools next year while initiating recalibration early.

On Wednesday, Campbell County educators indicated that future litigation may hinge on how recalibration talks progress. Other school officials across the state agreed and expressed concern about how lawmakers will use recalibration, a process that determines how much money schools need to deliver an adequate and equitable education to all of Wyoming's 93,000 students.

Educators said the recalibration process must start with lawmakers deciding what constitutes an adequate education, and then they must determine how much that will cost.

It is not a tool to be used only to trim budgets, they said.

"I think everybody has to be concerned about that approach if it is simply driven as a measure of making cuts," said Brian Farmer, the executive director of the Wyoming School Boards Association. "That is clearly in violation of the direction of the court, and I would expect districts would have to challenge that."

Farmer was referring to the Wyoming Supreme Court's rulings in a series of decisions known as the Campbell decisions. The justices determined that statewide education here must be adequate, equitable and cost-based. They established that spending changes must be based on a rational basis, and Farmer said arbitrary cuts would not meet that standard.

On Wednesday, Campbell County officials said other districts were prepared to propose and vote on similar resolutions and that they may join any lawsuits that are filed. Donna Little-Kaumo, the superintendent of Sweetwater County School District No. 2, said her district would vote on a nearly identical resolution at an upcoming meeting.

Sweetwater 2 is part of a coalition of school districts across the state that have been active in insuring that legislators meet their educational funding obligations, Farmer said. He and Little-Kaumo suggested other members of the coalition, which include Laramie County School District but not Natrona County, are prepared to move forward with similar resolutions.

Little-Kaumo said that Sweetwater School District No. 1 will also bring up a resolution at its next board meeting. A message left for that district's superintendent, Kelly McGovern, was not immediately returned Wednesday.

John Lyttle, the superintendent in Laramie County, said his board would begin talking about a similar resolution in the coming weeks. Charles Auzqui, who heads Sheridan County School District 3, also said discussions would begin with the board at its next meeting. In terms of enrollment, his district is the smallest in the state, and he noted that the recent cuts hit smaller school districts particularly hard.

Natrona County's position is unclear: Kevin Christopherson, the chairman of the school board there, did not immediately return messages left for him Wednesday.

Meanwhile, leading education lawmakers said they also weren't surprised. Reached Wednesday in Arizona, Sen. Hank Coe said it was discouraging but not surprising that Campbell County passed the resolution. Coe is the chairman of the Senate's education committee.

Rep. David Northrup said late Wednesday night that he was surprised that the district hadn't filed a suit already.

"I wish they would hold off and let things settle down a little bit," said Northrup, who chairs the House's education committee. "But it sounds like any cuts are going to mean a lawsuit. So I'm surprised they haven't filed it already."
Mar 31, 2017 | By Julia

Engineers at the Association of Innovative Technologies (Stowarzyszenie Innowacyjnych Technologii  SIT) in Poland have prototyped a 3D printer for applying plaster to building facades. The first device of its kind in the world, the 3D printer SKRIBI will be able to create precise images in monochrome or multicolour, including exact copies of photographs or other digital graphics.

Photo: SIT Polska

The effect is reminiscent of sgraffito, a technique of wall decor popularized in Italy in the 15th and 16th centuries, but with recorded uses in African art as well. Classically, the technique involved applying layers of plaster in contrasting colours to a moistened surface.

It had been very popular in Europe until the post-war years of the twentieth century, but has been abandoned due to high labour intensity, explains Janusz Wojcik, a representative of SIT.

Now, the SKRIBI 3D printer is bringing back that lost art, but with a decidedly contemporary twist. First a facade design is created on the computer, divided into smaller pieces, and then 3D printed. By hanging the 3D printer on specialized, moveable rails, the prototype is able to print masses of plaster with a thickness between 1 and 10 mm. Finally, the plaster is applied layer by layer to the building facade.

3D Printing a multi-storey facade does take some time: anywhere from a few days to over a month. But SIT developers are proud of the printers autonomous nature. Apparently only two people are needed to supervise the entire print job.



For the moment, the SKRIBI prototype can only print monochrome designs, but upgrades are already in the works. Wojcik says the team is hard at work creating a 3D printer with six or seven separate nozzles, which would result in a dazzling multi-coloured plaster effect.

We havent seen a similar facade printer yet, he said. We are excited to say that, with a high dose of probability, our project is truly innovative.

the 3D Printing Days conference

SIT announced the big news at a recent press conference at the Institute of Design in Kielce, Poland. The SKRIBI protoype was showcased at the ninth 3D Printing Days conference at the Kielce Traide Fair Centre, running this year on March 28th and 29th.

The Association of Innovative Technologies (SIT) was founded three years ago. By bringing together 3D printing enthusiasts and new technologies, the group is dedicated to building equipment and machines out of their studio at the Kielce Institute of Design.



SIT is the lead organizer of 3D Printing Days, which takes place annually in Kielce.

Posted in 3D Printer

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Mar 31, 2017 | By Tess

UAE-based Strata Manufacturing, an advanced composite aero-structure manufacturer, has announced plans to establish a second manufacturing facility at the Nibras Al Ain Aerospace Park in Abu Dhabi. The new facility, called Strata 2.0, will be built as a Factory of the Future and will feature many advanced manufacturing technologies and solutions, including 3D printing and other smart technologies.

Nibras Al Ain Aerospace Park in Abu Dhabi

Strata Manufacturing, a wholly owned part of Abu Dhabis Mubadala Development Company, was founded in 2009 and has gone on to work in partnership with many notable aerospace and manufacturing companies, including Boeing, Airbus, and Siemens (with whom it recently partnered to make the UAEs first 3D printed aircraft interior parts). With the upcoming establishment of its second manufacturing facility, Strata says it is continuing towards its goal of becoming one of the top aero-structure companies in the world.

According to a press release, Strata 2.0 is expected to more than double the companys current manufacturing capacity, and will span an impressive 60,000 square meters when complete. Strata is aiming to break ground on the project by 2018, and plans to have the new facilitywhich will be built next to its current oneoperational by 2020.

Ismail Ali Abdulla, Deputy CEO of Strata Manufacturing, commented on the announcement: Since its inception in 2009, Strata has been a catalyst for socio-economic growth, delivering on Abu Dhabis Economic Vision 2030. As we look to build upon our success to date, the Factory of the Future vision is centered around the 4th industrial revolution. We have identified key guiding pillars for the new factory; Smart Building, Smart Manufacturing and a Smart Workforce. Strata 2.0 will unify these pillars inside the new iconic facility.

Ismail Ali Abdulla

While it may be a few years before we see the products of the Strata 2.0 facility, the prospect of a new Factory of the Future is still very exciting. The new facility is part of Strata Manufacturings new business model, which is based on the notion that smart and connected technologies can facilitate analytical insights, and will thus help to address the current and future needs of the global aerospace industry in innovative and effective ways.

The vision for the Strata 2.0 facility is to revolutionize traditional production methods in aerospace with the increased integration of additive manufacturing, and other unspecified smart technologies. Once operational, the new factory will be tasked with manufacturing two complex work packages: the Horizontal Tail Plane (HTP) for the Airbus A320, and the Vertical Fin for Boeings B787 airliners. Strata 2.0 will be responsible for manufacturing, equipping, testing, and delivering the aerospace structures to their respective assembly lines.

Strata has developed an ecosystem of its own in Al Ain, and it has been built on the trust and confidence of our global partners, added Abdulla. We are proud to have fostered an Emirati manufacturing talent base, now employing hundreds of highly-skilled male and female UAE nationals in a very dynamic setting, and they themselves will lead the introduction of Smart technologies in Strata 2.0.

In recent years, the UAE has made significant headway in the integration and proliferation of 3D printing technologies, seeking to increase its applications in the aerospace, construction, medical, and consumer products sector. Within the field of aerospace, Strata Manufacturing is undoubtedly the Middle Eastern countrys beacon.

Posted in 3D Printing Application

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Berry L Garner wrote at 4/10/2017 3:04:10 AM:I will be your senior manufacturing welding engineer.




Ira Wells in the Literary Review of Canada:

Among those invested in the notion that higher education is currently collapsing before our eyes, fewer pieces of evidence are proffered more frequently (or more uncritically) than the modern universitys supposed tendency to nurture and promote offence taking as a default attitude toward the world. Our universities, we are told, have discarded their traditional raisonin order to become incubators of moral outrage. Administrators, having abandoned time-honoured liberal arts ideals, today quiver to the cheap thrill of indignation; professors, having given up on Shakespeare and the great books, now indoctrinate students in radical Marxist ideology and seek to cultivate a generation of social justice warriors. Our campuses have become closed, ideologically insular places that are hostile to the freedom of speech and intolerant of dissent.

This opinionbroadcast by bilious media personalities who have never listened in on a faculty meeting, have no knowledge of universities academic priorities and have not set foot in an undergraduate lecture since Trudeau pere occupied 24 Sussexis, unsurprisingly, a grotesque parody of the complex, often internally conflicted reality of modern institutions of higher learning.

Yet this view, however exaggerated, is not entirely baseless. An increasingly sensitive and fine-grained vocabulary for registering and opposing forms of sexism, racism, ableism and religious intolerance has undeniably been developing within higher education.

More here.
As the movie opens, the couple (Jessica Chastain and Johan Heldenbergh) are living in a sort of urban Eden, their lovely house set in the middle of a benign menagerie of tigers, camels, elephants and countless smaller birds and furry critters. Each morning Antonina rides her bicycle to the zoo's iron gate and swings it open to a horde of eager animal lovers.

But then comes the blitzkrieg of September 1939, and the Nazis compound their human atrocities by largely wiping out the zoo's wild inhabitants. A few are spared, but only so a jackbooted zoologist named Lutz (Daniel Bruhl) can haul them back to Berlin for Der Fuhrer's personal collection.

In twisted Master Race fashion, Lutz plans to crossbreed some of the critters to create distinctively Nazi hybrids. He also has his eye on the lovely Antonina, who conspires with her husband to string the German along just enough to distract him from noticing the couple has begun liberating Jews from the blockaded Warsaw ghetto. The couple hide the fugitives in the basement of their home, then spirit them to safety under cover of night.

Since its publication nearly a decade ago, The Zookeeper's Wife has joined its literary cousins The Aviator's Wife, The Time Traveler's Wife and The Paris Wife as favorite reads of women's book clubs across the land. That, and the well-publicized fact that the film was directed by a woman (Niki Caro) and written by a woman (Angela Workman), may tempt guys to stay home alone and clean paintbrushes or whatever.
It's hilarious when other people think, 'Poor Michael!'

Has any American in public life confounded expectations more than Michael J. Fox? Even Fox is surprised to find himself where he is today  alive and well (enough), and at this moment in jeans and a baggy T-shirt, comfortably ensconced on an old leather couch near his Great Dane mix, Gus, who is splayed and snoring on a well-worn rug in an office that Fox keeps in the New York apartment building where he lives.

He's also surprised to find himself so mentally hale  as sharp, earnest, open and golly-gee as when he first came out of our cathode Trinitrons and into our living rooms as Alex P. Keaton in the early 1980s. At 55, the father of four is happily married to his first and only wife, the actress Tracy Pollan. And against all odds, Fox has continued to act, earning his 18th Emmy nomination last year for his role as the Machiavellian lawyer Louis Canning on The Good Wife. His eponymous foundation, meanwhile, has funded more than $700 million for research into Parkinson's disease. If anyone had predicted any of this back when . Well, of course nobody did, because people  doctors in fact  told Fox more than two and a half decades ago that he only had about ten good working years left.

"You sure you want the truth?" Fox asks, raising his right arm and beholding the hand as it flutters about, as if in pursuit of some irksome flying pest . "The truth is that on most days, there comes a point where I literally can't stop laughing at my own symptoms."

He clasps his arm to his chest, restricting the renegade hand to a fitful scratching motion.

"Just the other morning. I come into the kitchen. Oh, good, coffee. I'm gonna get some! No, wait  I'm gonna get some for Tracy  who's at the table with the paper. I pour a cup  a little trouble there. Then I put both hands around the cup. She's watching. 'Can I get that for you, dear?' 'Nah, I got it!' Then I begin this trek across the kitchen. It starts off bad. Only gets worse. Hot java's sloshing onto my hands, onto the floor "

Fox begins to raise the volume and pitch of his voice to convey his own teetering ineptitude and denial.

" And Tracy's watching calmly, going, 'Darling, why don't you [emphatic expletive] let me get it?' 'I'm almost there, babe !' Of course, by the time I reach the table, the cup's all but empty. 'Here's your coffee, dear  enjoy!'"

A great yuk, like a great melody, tends to defy reason. But when I ask Fox if he can explain why this bit of slapstick so thoroughly slays him, he nails it.

"There's the fact that it's 7 in the morning and 'This is how we begin our day  the right way!' But the thing that makes it hilarious to me is when I think of someone else watching all this and thinking, Poor Michael can't even get the coffee  it's so sad!

"After I made my diagnosis public back in 1998, I began to realize that Parkinson's gives you two things to reckon with," Fox explains. "You deal with the condition, and you deal with people's perception of the condition. It was easy for me to tune in to the way other people were looking into my eyes and seeing their own fear reflected back. I'd assure them that 'I'm doing great'  because I was. After a while, the disconnect between the way I felt and the dread people were projecting just seemed, you know, funny."

His wife said, 'Hold my hand, and we'll get over that'
Congress is raising obstacles that would discourage cities and states from setting up retirement plans for millions of private-sector workers who dont have a plan on the job.

The Senate narrowly voted Thursday to roll back rules issued last year by the Department of Labor that allow cities to create such retirement plans, sometimes called work and save plans, without fear of running afoul of federal pension laws. The Senate is expected to take up a similar measure covering state-sponsored plans next month.

The U.S. House of Representatives voted to scrap the DOL rules last month.

States wanted the Department of Labor to exempt them from certain federal laws and clear the way for them to offer savings plans to employees who dont have them. But the recent congressional action amounts to a massive roadblock that AARP says will have a chilling effect on cities and states.

Tremendous momentum has been building across the country to meet the needs of workers who want to save for retirement out of each paycheck but have no opportunity to do so, said AARP Executive Vice President Nancy LeaMond. The fact is that many Americans who lack a workplace savings plan do not save enough for retirement and run the risk of relying exclusively on Social Securitys modest benefits when they retire. As a result of having insufficient retirement income, they are more likely to need the assistance of social safety net programs.

About 55 million workers dont have access to a retirement plan at work. Thirty states, including Utah, New York and Arkansas, as well as cities including Seattle, Philadelphia and New York City are considering setting up retirement accounts for private-sector workers. These work and save plans, which are sometimes called secure choice, often require employers to automatically enroll workers into an IRA through payroll deduction. Workers can opt out, and employers dont contribute to the account.

Such plans have met resistance from outside groups. The financial services industry, for instance, sees these plans as unfair competition to banks and investment firms.
LARAMIE, Wyo.  University of Wyoming officials are opening a center for Native American students that they hope will help with student recruitment and retention.

The Laramie Boomerang reports (http://bit.ly/2nPtVyy ) that UW Vice President of Student Affairs Sara Axelson told the UW Board of Trustees on Friday that Native American student retention for fall 2015-2016 was about 50 percent.

UW officials hope the center will create a community atmosphere. The proposed center will be located inside the UW Honors Program Red House.

Former board member and project coordinator James Trosper said the center could help reshape young Native Americans' opinions of higher education. He said that the history of boarding schools have caused a general mistrust in the education system in some students.

___

Information from: Laramie Boomerang, http://www.laramieboomerang.com
Alamy, Ramona Rosales/AUGUST

Last fall, the true identity of the woman who inspired the iconic Rosie the Riveter WWII posters was revealed as 95-year-old Naomi Parker-Fraley. For years, the model for artist J. Howard Miller's famous poster was misidentified as Gerald Hoff Doyle, but a 2016 Rhetoric and Public Affairs article set the record straight and gave Parker-Fraley her proper place in history.

Now, a Michigan museum is on a quest to track down more women who worked in the wartime industry during World War II as part of its project to celebrate and preserve the stories of the Original Rosies.

These women and their memories are the threads woven in the fabric of our community, Julie Osborne, curatorial director at the Yankee Air Museum in Belleville, Mich., told the Ann Arbor News. We hope as many people as possible will reach out to us with Original Rosies to interview.
What was South Dakota's biggest lottery winning? Here's the top 10.

The top 10 biggest lottery winners in the state's history, according to the South Dakota Lottery.
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CASPER, Wyo.  A University of Wyoming employee who was fired and then rehired says the termination was an act of retaliation.

KTWO-AM reports (http://bit.ly/2nDL5yD ) that Mandy Davis has filed a lawsuit claiming the elimination of her position as human resources manager for the foundation was an unlawful ploy.

In July 2015, Davis filed a complaint against two higher-ranking officials with the UW Office of Diversity and Employment Practices, claiming they had made comments about an employee with a physical disability. She expressed fear she would lose her job for reporting their comments.

On Dec. 1, 2015, Davis was told her position, along with three others, was being eliminated through a reorganization. She was re-hired in March 2016.

The UW Foundation did not respond to requests for comment.

___


Invigor Partners with GoDaddy to Drive SpotLite Subscribers

Sydney, Mar 31, 2017 AEST (ABN Newswire) - Leading big data solutions company Invigor Group Limited ( ASX:IVO ) ("Invigor", "the Company") is pleased to announce it has teamed up with the world's largest domain name registrar GoDaddy Inc ( NYSE:GDDY ) ("GoDaddy"), with more than 14.5 million customers worldwide and more than 63 million domain names under management around the world.



- Marketing collaboration allows Invigor to leverage the world's largest domain name registrar to boost SpotLite's subscription pipeline, starting in the Australian market.



- GoDaddy customers to get 50% discount for the first three months on subscriptions to Invigor's cloud-based SpotLite competitor pricing analysis platform.



- Strong signup and conversion rates within first two months, over 20 businesses signing up to use SpotLite.



- New SpotLite features released with more to come in coming weeks



GoDaddy Agreement



This collaboration will significantly help drive subscriptions for Invigor's Australian first price tracking solution SpotLite. First announced in December 2016 (see ASX announcement 15 December 2016) and officially launched in February 2017 (see ASX announcement 6 February 2017), SpotLite is a revolutionary cloud-based software-as-a-service platform that provides businesses of all industries and sizes with invaluable real-time competitor pricing data and analytics.



Under the marketing agreement, GoDaddy's customers will receive a 50% discount during the first three months of their subscriptions to Invigor's SpotLite platform.



The Agreement leverages the strong synergies that exist between the SpotLite cloud-based market intelligence platform and GoDaddy's range of services, which are used by millions of online retail businesses around the world.



Conversion



Since the official launch in February, initial subscriptions have been pleasing with over 20 businesses signing up to use SpotLite. Conversion rates from the free trial to paid subscriptions are also encouraging and growing with both domestic and international businesses as paying customers.



New Releases



Invigor is also pleased to announce that it is rolling out a number of improvements to the SpotLite platform this week, following user feedback and careful analysis of usage patterns in order to enhance not only the user experience, but provide businesses with new functionality to help them increase productivity and grow revenue.



New features will allow customers to include additional information regarding the products they're tracking through product meta data (suppliers, brands and stock keeping unit codes), as well as a product pricing summary with a quick view of recent changes. Additional upgrades, including a new bulk import feature are currently in the development pipeline.



Management Commentary:



Invigor's Chairman and CEO, Mr Gary Cohen, said: "We are thrilled to partner with GoDaddy who have a globally-recognised brand that is trusted by millions of internet-savvy business owners in Australia and around the world.



Attracting a partner of GoDaddy's scale demonstrates the growing recognition that Invigor is an innovation-leader in the big data analytics market, and will significantly strengthen the subscription growth pipeline for the SpotLite platform.



The conversion rate for users provides solid validation for SpotLite, demonstrating that the platform has quickly become an invaluable tool for a growing number of business owners and managers looking for insights that give them a significant competitive advantage in the marketplace."



GoDaddy's Vice President Australia and New Zealand, Ms. Tara Commerford, said "GoDaddy helps entrepreneurs and small businesses find their domain name, create a website and drive results for their ventures online. Through this collaboration with SpotLite, subscribers will have the opportunity to try GoDaddy's online tools to help promote their ideas."



About GoDaddy



GoDaddy powers the world's largest cloud platform dedicated to small, independent ventures. With more than 14.5 million customers worldwide and more than 63 million domain names under management, GoDaddy is the place people come to name their idea, build a professional website, attract customers and manage their work. Our mission is to give our customers the tools, insights and the people to transform their ideas and personal initiative into success. To learn more about the company, visit htpp://www.GoDaddy.com.





About Invigor Group Ltd





Invigor Group (ASX:IVO) uses its complementary suite of big data products to source, aggregate, analyse and publish content for the benefit of businesses and consumers.

Today its interconnected data sets enable enterprise clients including retailers, brands, shopping centres and government bodies to identify and better understand competitors, consumers, markets and demographics while providing the consumer with the best value-for-money.

Using its current products and a pipeline of additional offerings Invigor will have the ability to provide an end-to-end solution spanning sales, product management, business intelligence, marketing, advertising, content creation and distribution, while monetising each step of the process.
Quarterly Cash Flow Report and Appendix 4C



Increases Cash Balance to $30.6 Million, Up by $10.5 Million

Sydney, Mar 31, 2017 AEST (ABN Newswire) - Tianmei Beverage Group Corporation Limited ( ASX:TB8 ) (the "Company" or "Tianmei") has today released its Appendix 4C - Quarterly Cashflow report for the quarter ended 28 February 2017 (Q1 FY2017).



Our cash balance as at 28 February 2017 was A$30.6 million, which represents an increase of approximately A$10.5 million from the Company's cash balance as at the end of the previous financial year ended 30 November 2016.



Receipts from customers and net cash from operating activities for Q1 FY2017 were A$24.2 million and A$4.1 million respectively. Key payments during this period were put towards:



- Continued investment in our R&D initiatives;



- Manufacturing of our various water products and the payment of slotting fees to promote products through our network of over 940 contracted stores in Guangdong;



- Advertising and marketing expenses related to our water products business as well as marketing of our product promotions business; and



- Leasing costs of our warehouse and offices, including a new office building we commenced the lease on in December 2016.



On 27 February 2016, we successfully completed our ASX listing, raising A$10 million as part of the Initial Public Offering ("IPO"). The new funding and our growing revenue base gives us the required financial flexibility to facilitate growth and development from the current quarter onwards.



We are committed to expanding our business and at the end of February 2017, we made some large investments towards this goal. Our total investment expenditure over the quarter was A$4.1 million, with key investment items outlined below:



- We completed the acquisition of the Qianlifeng water plant. This helps us to consolidate our margins as well as giving us confidence and greater certainty in our water supply for our varied product set, including our specialised infant water. The payments related to this were A$0.76 million representing 80% of the acquisition price, with the remaining 20% having been paid when we entered into the agreement to acquire the water plant in the previous financial year.



- We acquired the land use rights to the land adjacent to the water plant so that we can begin the expansion of the water plant. The land is approximately 17,800 square meters in area with a lease period of 20 years (to the end of February 2037). The cost of the acquiring this land use right was approximately A$1.5 million.



- We intend to increase the production capacity of the water plant from its current approx. 35 million litres of drinking water per annum to approx. 100 million litres of drinking water per annum. In order to accomplish this, we have recently signed an agreement with a contractor to prepare the land and build the required infrastructure and facilities. The total cost of this project is anticipated to amount to approximately RMB 19.5 million with 50% of the cost paid in Q1 FY2017 (approximately A$1.85 million).



The aforementioned investments in our water production facilities will help us to meet anticipated future demand for our water products.



We will continue to update shareholders on operational and corporate progress and initiatives as key developments occur.



To the full release including Appendix 4C, please visit:

http://abnnewswire.net/lnk/2YXRZW19





About Tianmei Beverage Group Corporation Limited





Tianmei Beverage Group Corporation Limited (ASX:TB8) provides promotional services to producers of FMCG goods as well as its own water products in the Guangdong province in China. Guangdong province is one of China's most developed provinces with a gross domestic product of US$1.1 trillion in 2014 and has as its capital, Guangzhou city, which is China's third largest city with a population of approximately 13 million people.

Product Promotion

Tianmei have contracts with over 940 terminal supermarkets and convenience stores in Guangdong. Through this network of stores, the Company promotes fast moving consumer goods, including food, beverage and general grocery products for over 65 FMCG suppliers.

Water Products

The Company's water products business focuses on the sale of Tianmei-branded water products, including bottled water, infant water and water dispensers through a network of over 500 retail outlets. The Company have a number of patents approved and pending surrounding it's water products and production equipment.
GILLETTE, Wyo.  Firefighters in the northeast Wyoming city of Gillette successfully freed a 12-year-old boy who had become trapped under large landscaping boulders.

Capt. Bryan Borgialli of the Campbell County Fire Department said they were called to a home at about 7:50 p.m. Tuesday and worked for about 40 minutes to free the boy, who was not hurt.

Borgialli told the Gillette News Record (http://bit.ly/2nNaO8q ) that the boy had been playing underneath some rocks when two rocks shifted, pinning him to the ground by his chest and head.

Borgialli estimated that one of the rocks weighed between 750 and 1,000 pounds, while another weighed about 1,500 to 2,000 pounds.

He said firefighters used a Jaws of Life tool, chains, air hammers, high-pressure air bags and a lot of caution to free the boy.

___

Information from: The Gillette (Wyo.) News Record, http://www.gillettenewsrecord.com
AF seeks to increase modernization budget

Air Force senior leaders testified about Air Force modernization before the Senate Armed Services Committee in Washington, D.C., March 22, 2017.



Lt. Gen. Chris Nowland, the deputy chief of staff for Air Force Operations; Lt. Gen. Arnold Bunch, the military deputy for the Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Acquisition; and Lt. Gen. Jerry Harris, the deputy chief of staff for Air Force Strategic Plans, Programs and Requirements shared Air Force needs before the Tactical Air and Land Forces subcommittee.



(Modernization) is critical to our operators, to give our Airmen the best chance of success, Nowland said.



The Air Force emphasized the need for a defense appropriation over a year-long continuing resolution, citing the devastating impact a year-long continuing resolution would have on both readiness and modernization efforts. Senior leaders also requested permanent relief from the Budget Control Act, increased funding, flexible execution authority and manpower to recover full-spectrum readiness. In 2013, sequestration forced the total force to make sacrifices in readiness and size to ensure technological superiority.



The best thing we can get out of Congress is a stable budget that predicts -- allows us to have a good prediction of where we'll be in the future, Harris said.



Sustainable funding across multiple fiscal year defense plans is critical to ensure the Air Force can meet todays demand for capability and capacity without sacrificing modernization for tomorrows multi-domain high-end fight against a full array of potential adversaries, the generals said.



I want our organization to operate efficiently and effectively, to maximize the use of those dollars, Bunch said. Get that capability for our most important treasure, our Airmen, Americas sons and daughters and have a decided advantage on the battlefield.



There is a disparity between commitments and the resources necessary to achieve national security objectives, according to the generals. The first step to regain full-spectrum readiness is to rebuild the operational training infrastructure. This includes virtual and constructive environments as well as ranges and space necessary to train against high-end threat systems in a multi-domain environment. Once established, fourth and fifth generation fighter units will need to train for emerging threats.



We perform multi-domain operations, Nowland said. We need to think about how we operate in space, cyber, air, land, maritime, and bring joint effects to the battlefield. Were going to out-think our enemy while we simultaneously  with your help  re-establish and renew our weapon systems.



The Air Force currently has 55 combat fighter squadrons and wants to grow to 60 and increase the total number of aircraft from 1,900 to 2,100.



We're increasing our fighter and tanker procurement to modernize the force and soon we'll be producing the B-21 (Raider) to modernize our long-range strike fleet, Harris said. We are also in the early stages of replacing a portion of our training aircraft, which will enable shorter training timelines and better trained aircrew.



Linking all of the systems needed for tomorrows fight and accomplishing training requires both manpower and funding. The Air Force requested an increased end strength to meet national security requirements.



The Air Force is developing plans to address shortfalls in a number of key areas, including critical career fields such as aircraft maintenance, pilots, nuclear command, control and communications, intelligence, cyber and battlefield Airmen. The Air Force is short approximately 3,400 aircraft maintainers and 1,555 pilots across the total force.



Congress increased the Air Force end strength to 321,000 in 2017. However, the Air Force senior leaders project that 350,000 is needed to have a total force that doesnt have to be stretched to meet the national security requirements. The generals highlighted that a year-long continuing resolution would force end-strength growth to halt at 319,000, further stressing the existing manpower challenge.



We can execute the (national defense) strategy, but to be perfectly honest, it will be great Airmen that will make it happen and we'll do it on the back of our Airmen, said Nowland.
SecAF nominee testifies before Congress

Heather Wilson testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee during her confirmation hearing for secretary of the Air Force in Washington, D.C., March 30, 2017.



The Air Force veteran and former New Mexico representative was introduced by Senators John Thune and Mike Rounds of South Dakota.



If confirmed, she will become the first Air Force Academy graduate in history to serve as the secretary of the Air Force, Thune said.



She has served on the National Security staff for President George W. Bush and is currently the president of the South Dakota School for Mines and Technology.



People who worked with her in South Dakota described her as a great manager and inspiring leader, Rounds said. South Dakotas loss will be our nations gain.



As secretary of the Air Force, Wilson said she will modernize fighters, tankers, bombers, intelligence platforms, the nuclear deterrent force, munitions, space capabilities and more.



If confirmed, I will work with the secretary of defense and the United States Congress to restore the readiness of the force, she said. I will also work with Congress to address constraints imposed by the Budget Control Act so that the Air Force can be cost-effectively modernized.



Wilson, the first female veteran to serve in Congress, addressed several topics, including the pilot shortage across the total force.



We are short fighter pilots, she said. The Air Force is not currently ready to fight against a near-peer competitor, and that should concern all of us.



Wilson said if confirmed as secretary of the Air Force, she will focus on innovation that supports readiness.



The pace of change is going to accelerate, Wilson said. Were either going to have to rapidly accelerate ourselves and be able to spin-on innovation to the service, or were going to be left behind.



The nominee for secretary of the Air Force concluded her confirmation hearing stating senior leaders need to think about the full range of potential conflicts.



From low-intensity warfare through a near-peer adversary and nuclear deterrents, she said. There are new techniques, and cyber is one of them, that can be used by both nation states and by terrorists or insurgents to achieve their political objectives  we need to be able to play both offense and defense in all of those realms.
-- On this look around the Air Force, Dr. Heather Wilson, the secretary of the Air Force nominee, answers questions from the Senate Armed Services Committee and Lt. Gen. Gina Grosso, the Air Force deputy chief of staff for manpower, personnel and services, answers questions from a House Armed Services Committee Military Personnel subcommittee in regard to the Air Forces pilot shortage. Hosted by Airman 1st Class Cory Kuttler.For previous episodes, click here Related stories:
In a career spanning over 55 years and over 30 albums, Joan Baez is still touring and still mesmerizing audiences all over the world. Her soci
An influential group of nine Democratic Senators has urged US President Donald Trump to not let a Canadian company use foreign made steel, in particular from India and Italy, in the trans-national multi-billion controversial Keystone oil pipeline.

Your memorandum explicitly covers new and expanded pipeline projects so we were confused and disappointed to learn that the Keystone XL pipeline would not be required to use 100 per cent American-made steel, the nine Senators wrote in their joint letter to Mr Trump, a copy of which was released to the press yesterday.

Further, we are deeply concerned that by allowing this Canadian firm to use foreign steel from countries like India and Italy, which have a history of dumping steel products in the US market at unfair, illegal prices, you are establishing a precedent that will have the effect of costing US jobs and undermining the spirit of your Presidential Memorandum, the Senators wrote.

Led by Senators Chris Van Hollen and Tammy Duckworth, the Democratic lawmakers urged Mr Trump to protect American jobs by ensuring all new pipelines  if approved  are constructed and maintained with American made products and equipment.

Other signatories to the letter are Cory A Booker, Thomas R Carper, Al Franken, Christopher S Murphy, Debbie Stabenow, Joe Donnelly Claire McCaskill, Robert Menendez, and Gary C Peters.

As champions of expanding Buy American requirements to make sure taxpayer-supported projects contract with American companies to the greatest extent possible, we were initially encouraged by this memorandum, they said.

We were disappointed, however, when we learned that your administration would exempt the Keystone XL pipeline project from this Buy American policy, the letter added.

On January 24, Mr Trump issued a Presidential Memorandum to the Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross directing him to develop a plan under which all new pipelines, as well as retrofitted, repaired, or expanded pipelines, inside the borders of the US, including portions of pipelines, use materials and equipment produced in the US, to the maximum extent possible and to the extent permitted by law.

However, Mr. Trump has exempted Keystone pipeline from this.

We request that you reconsider your decision to allow a foreign company to use foreign steel in the Keystone XL pipeline and urge you to secure a firm commitment to source 100 per cent American-made steel for this project, the Senators wrote.
The Maharashtra government clarified that the farmer from Aurangabad, who had wanted to meet Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis at Mantralaya (state secretariat) last week, was not assaulted by police.

Making a statement in the Legislative Council, Minister of State for Home Ranjit Patil said that the government will positively consider the problems being faced by him.

Rameshwar Bhusare, a farmer from Ghatshendre village in Aurangabad, had come to Mantralaya on March 23 to meet Fadnavis and to demand compensation for losses he had incurred due to unseasonal rains and hailstorms in 2015.

He had however claimed that he was beaten up by the police deployed at Mantralaya.

Patil clarified that no policeman hit him.

When he was on his way to the police station in the police van, Bhusare tried to hang himself with a rope lying inside the van and a policeman tried to stop him, Patil said.

The government has a sympathetic approach towards Bhusare and will positively consider to resolve his problems related to loans, Patil assured.

The incident had led to uproarious scenes in the Upper House, with Opposition members criticising the government for being anti-farmer and having no mercy towards their problems.
Gujarat cleared a new bill on Friday calling for severe punishment against those who kill cows in the state. Gujarat Animal Preservation (amendment)  Bill 2017 was passed by the majority votes in the absence of opposition members. After passing this law, Gujarat becomes the first state in India which conferred harshest punishment on cow slaughtering.

The amendment bill makes the law stricter and provides for harsher punishment and higher penalties to prevent cow slaughter in the state.

The Bill introduced in the House stated that maximum punishment for cow slaughter will be 10 years but not less than seven years. However, junior Home minister Pradipsinh Jadeja sought an amendment to enhance the punishment to life term, which was passed and adopted in the Bill.

With the passing of the amendment Bill, Gujarat becomes the first State in the country to make cow slaughter punishable.

During this auspicious occasion of Chhetri Navratri, the government, on suggestions of several sadhu-sants, has made amendments to the Gujarat Animal Protection (Amendment) Act, 2011. This is the harshest law in the country, said minister of state for home Pradeepsinh Jadeja.

As the move comes months before the assembly election scheduled for November-December, opposition Congress termed it politically motivated.

This is not out of concern for cows. The BJP has passed this bill to get votes. Through this bill, it has been proved that BJP is anti-Dalit, said Congress MLA Shaktisinh Gohi, referring to the flogging of Dalits by self-proclaimed cow vigilantes in Una last year.

Another important provision is with regard to vehicles used for transportation of animals for slaughtering.

It says, The vehicles or any conveyance so seized under sub section (3) shall stand forfeited to government in the manner as my be prescribed. It is, however, experienced while implementing the said Act that still more stringent provisions are required to be made amending the said Act for curbing the menace of illegal slaughtering of the animals covered under the said Act to provide for more stringent punishment and effectively check the rampant use of vehicles for transporting such animals.

Yogi Adityanath has also been invited to campaign in Gujarat, a move that the opposition Congress says indicates a plan to polarize voters.

The slaughter and transport of cows was banned in Gujarat in 2011, when the state was ruled by Narendra Modi, now Prime Minister.
Three North Koreans wanted for questioning over the murder of the estranged half-brother of their countrys leader returned home on Friday along with the body of victim Kim Jong Nam after Malaysia agreed a swap deal with the reclusive state.

Malaysian police investigating what US and South Korean officials say was an assassination carried out by North Korean agents took statements from the three North Koreans before they were allowed to leave the country.

We have obtained whatever we want from them They have assisted us and they have been allowed to leave, police chief Khalid Abu Bakar said in Kuala Lumpur, saying there was no grounds to hold the men.

Kim Jong Nam, the elder half-brother of the Norths young, unpredictable leader Kim Jong Un, was killed at Kuala Lumpurs airport on Feb. 13 in a bizarre assassination using VX nerve agent, a chemical so lethal that it is on a U.N. list of weapons of mass destruction.

Chinas Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang said the remains of a North Korean citizen killed in Malaysia were returned to North Korea via Beijing along with relevant North Korean citizens.

Malaysian authorities released Kims body on Thursday in a deal that secured the release of nine Malaysian citizens held in Pyongyang after a drawn out diplomatic spat.

Malaysian police had named eight North Koreans they wanted to question in the case, including the three who were given safe passage to leave Malaysia on Thursday evening.
We recently attended an art show in Bismarcks Capital Gallery that called to mind an early memory of the time my father rode the Empire Builder to visit a brother in the Great Falls, Mont., area. I was too young to remember much about his absence except for his return and the purchases he brought with him that have been a part of my life ever since. From his suitcase emerged a large manila envelope from which slid an array of a dozen or so full-colored Charles M. Russell art prints depicting scenes of the Old West. With wide-eyed admiration, Ive gazed on them and gained a love of them lasting over 70 years.

The Capital Gallerys art show honored Bismarck artist Vern Erickson and his art which makes me reminiscent of those Russell pictures. While Russell painted with a backdrop of western Montana, Ericksons work depicts the North Dakota panorama where people and animals roam freely and interact with each other in this familiar environment.

The next day I met with Erickson over a cup of coffee to discuss his work and sensed that his eye for composing art scenes developed early because as a boy hed climb the water tower in Esmond to take photographs with a camera his mother had given him. As he grew into his art, the work of established artists attracted him and gave him summits to climb for self-study in such things as brush strokes, shading, composition techniques, and whatever unnamed things an artists eye sees.

Erickson likes to travel to such places as Cody, Wyo., to visit the art collections at the Buffalo Bill Center of the West and the C.M. Russell Museum in Great Falls, which on one occasion gave rise to an interesting story. He was in attendance at one crowded auction event at the Russell Museum where a large painting named The Exalted Ruler hung on display. Russell had painted and presented it as a gift to the Elks Club in Great Falls, but now, with their coming on hard financial times, they wanted to sell it. A man sitting beside Erickson said within earshot, Dad gave it to them as a gift and they dont have the right to sell it. The man was Russells son, Jack. Generous benefactors came to its financial rescue to deny its sale to an out-of-state collector.

As one might imagine, great art depicts more than just an image painted on a canvas. For example, strong meaning runs beneath the surface of The Exalted Ruler. In the forefront stands the proud leader of the elk herd, off to his left wanders the deposed leader, and to his right a younger male waits to take his turn when he possesses the strength to dethrone him. In a fraternal lodge leadership changes in an orderly, friendly manner, but in Russells natural world, elk lock antlers in combat to decide the champion.

Erickson stays in touch with relevant literature and asked me if Id seen a new book by Rolf Sletten, Roosevelts Ranches. No, I hadnt, but when I next visited the library, there it sat on the new book shelf. As I read, one passage stood out. During Teddy Roosevelts time in the Bad Lands, cattle were mixing freely on the open range where it took a large roundup to separate each owners herd for market. These were the days when real cowboys worked as hired hands. Often undisciplined, much of the Western myth originated with their antics, and here I read that on their way to the cow camp, a few rode past a bar that drew them like a magnet. One mischief-maker rode his horse inside, others followed, then someone slammed the door and shot out the lantern lights. Imagine the scene, dark, filled with excited horses, men hollering, and furniture splintering. Next day the bar owner came to the cow camp with the bill.

Its a relevant scene because Charlie Russell painted one similar, possibly inspired from this deviltry, that he titled In Without Knocking. In it a group of mounted cowboys fire their sidearms and crowd into a bars entrance, possibly inspired from the actual incident. Studying artists of Russells ilk whetted has Ericksons creative appetite and continues to prod his painting of scenes as they might have occurred near the Missouri River, on the prairie, among a herd of bison, with men in pursuit of rustlers, or accompanying Lewis and Clark. Its easy to appreciate his work because its the subject matter Ive followed since a young boy. By the way, In Without Knocking is familiar because it was one of the prints that slid from the manila envelope Dad brought home.
FILE- In this June 13, 2014 file photo, construction continues on a new nuclear reactor at Plant Vogtle power plant in Waynesboro, Ga. The delays in the nuclear industry are adding up, adding hundreds of millions of dollars to already expensive projects. The latest announcement came from SCANA Corp., which expects a year-long delay in the completion of its two reactors under construction in South Carolina. That announcement raised questions about whether an identical plant under construction by the same builders in Georgia will also see expensive delays.
According to the Alzheimer's Association of North Dakota in 2016 alone 30,000 caregivers spent 35 million hours caring for individuals affected by Alzheimers disease in the state.

This came to $438 million in the total value of unpaid care and $24 million in higher health costs of caregivers. Alzheimers is a cognitive disease that destroys brain cells causing issues with memory, thinking and behavior. It is cited as the most common form of dementia.

The Mandan Alzheimer's Association is hosting a free Dementia Education Series, at their office, 406 W. Main St., Suite 105, for individuals interested in learning more about the disease and other dementias. From 11 a.m. to 1 p.m., on April 3 the association will host the first part of, Living with Alzheimers for Caregivers: Middle Stage, which will focus on information for caregivers of people with middle-stage Alzheimers disease.

Sometimes we have a role reversal where theres an adult child taking caring of their parent who has the disease and now they are their caretaker, said Nikki Wegner, Western North Dakota program manager at Mandans Alzheimer's Association. Wagner also added a shift in relationship dynamics between spouses can occur.

According to the association during the middle stages of Alzheimer's, damage to the brain can make it difficult to express thoughts and perform routine tasks. Loved ones may notice the person with Alzheimer's jumbling words, having trouble dressing, getting frustrated or angry, acting in unexpected ways, such as refusing to bathe.

Future classes in the series include, 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. April 7, Living with Alzheimers for Caregivers: Middle Stage Part 2; noon to 1 p.m. May 8, Healthy Living for Your Brain and Body: Tips from the Latest Research; noon to 1:30 p.m. May 22, The Dementia and Driving Dilemma.

For more information on the Alzheimer's Association Minnesota-North Dakota Chapter visit, www.alz.org/mnnd/ or call the Mandan office at 701-258-4933.
March 31, 2017

Meeting just a few kilometers from the occupied Palestinian lands on March 29, Arab leaders brought the Palestinian conflict back to the top of their agenda.

The 28th Arab League Summit, held on the Jordanian side of the Dead Sea with King Abdullah presiding, set the stage for the upcoming April Washington visits by three Arab leaders.

Egypt's Abdel Fattah al-Sisi will visit the White House early on April 3, and Abdullahs visit has been set for April 5. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' visit has yet to be scheduled.

Typically, Arab summits are long on public speeches and short on closed meetings, and this year's summit was no exception. However, with all the internal violence in the Arab world, the presence of 16 Arab leaders at the summit is seen by many as a success and will lend Abdullah as host additional strength in pursuing Arab goals. The 27th Arab Summit held in Mauritania's capital Nowak Shod in July 2016 was attended by only five Arab heads of state.

Palestinian leaders expressed happiness that their main concerns were addressed in the final communique prepared largely in advance by foreign ministers. It stated, First, we reiterate our continuous effort to relaunch serious and effective Palestinian-Israeli peace negotiations that can end the political deadlock and that can move with a clearly stated timeline to end the conflict on the basis of two states, ensuring the creation of an independent Palestinian state on the June 4, 1967, borders with East Jerusalem as its capital. This is the only way to reach peace and stability.

Ziad Khalil Abu Zayyad, Fatah's spokesman for international affairs, told Al-Monitor that the results of the summit were comforting for Palestinians. "In the final communique, Arab leaders reiterated total support for an independent Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital, opposed settlements and Israel's attempts to Judaize Jerusalem, and called on the world community not to think of moving their embassies to Jerusalem, while also repeating their support for the 2002 Beirut summit Arab Peace Initiative."

Khaled Hroub, a political science professor at Northeastern University in Qatar, told Al-Monitor in an email that the situation was looking bad a few months ago. "Palestinians got out of this one with the least number of casualties," he said. "Many had expected that Arab leaders would make substantial compromises to the Arab Peace Initiative, but in the end they stuck to it without any changes," he said.

Hroub pointed to the storm that erupted March 17 following the issuance of a United Nations report accusing Israel of apartheid, a war crime, saying that it contributed to the Arab resolve. "When Rima Khalaf, the secretary-general of the UN Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia, resigned rather than succumb to pressures from the UN secretary-general to withdraw her report, she became a folk hero in the Arab world and made it difficult for any Arab leader to show signs of weakness."

There has not been much excitement in the streets of the Gaza Strip, however. This apathy was reflected in social media posts throughout the Arab world. Photos of Arab leaders dozing off during the conference's public sessions went viral, complete with disparaging comments about the aging Arab leaders.

The yearly Arab summit has become a platform for leaders to show their people that they are still committed to Arab causes. It has done little to convince the world of Arab resolve on any one issue, while Arab leaders have been unable to stop the civil wars in Syria, Iraq, Libya and Yemen. Palestine seems to be the only rallying point for which all are willing to provide lip service. Palestinian leaders are hoping that with the public pronouncement so clear, Arab leaders meeting the US president will stay on course and not allow the United States to ignore Palestinian national aspirations.
March 31, 2017

A new wave of violence seems to be shaking the fragile truce in Syria. On March 19, opposition groups launched a surprise attack on Damascus in apparent coordination with a separate offensive in the countryside of Hama province. The escalation was not solely aimed at the Syrian regime, but also at the two international de facto "caretakers" of the Syrian crisis, Russia and Turkey.

According to an Arab diplomatic source in Beirut who spoke to Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity, the aim of the opposition attacks has been to remind all the parties involved in the Syrian war that no one is totally in control. In this regard, the source said, The US and the GCC [Gulf Cooperation Council] states were completely absent for the past 6 months, from the US [presidential] election until the Saudi deputy [crown prince and apparent] heir, Mohammad bin Salman, visited Washington. The visit was probably the turning point.

The source indicated that Saudi Arabia and its Gulf allies in Syria wanted to hang back after the election of Donald Trump to see whether the new US president had a clear strategy with respect to the war-torn country. The diplomat told Al-Monitor, Many thought that Saudi Arabia had given up on the Syrian issue and that Turkey is the oppositions caretaker. This is not the case. It was only temporary, to unify the [anti-regime] stance, and for sure, now is the right time to say theres a new strategy.

This new Saudi-US strategy is most likely geared toward influencing the attempts by Russia and Turkey to reach a broader and lasting cease-fire and forge a new political path under Ankara and Moscow's auspices. For the opposition, the new strategy likely raises the prospect of causing complications. For President Bashar al-Assad's regime, it might not directly affect the talks. In Iran's case, however, the strategy will likely boost its militarys position, which sees greater significance in advances on the battlefield than at the negotiating table, given its experiences of the past few years.

An Iranian military source who spoke to Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity said, Weve been reading the whole landscape, and its clear to us that the backers of the terrorist groups want to give them some time to breathe and return stronger. They arent ready to talk, and they have differences among themselves.

The Iranian source added, The Russian ally has its own vision, which sometimes does not correspond with ours  especially when it comes to trusting countries and groups that have already been tried before and always failed the test.

In this vein, Hossein Amir Abdollahian, a former Iranian deputy foreign minister for Arab and African affairs, accused opposition groups in Syria of exploiting the political talks led by Russia, Iran and Turkey and those in Geneva to empower their positions on the battlefield, pointing to the recent attacks in Damascus and Hama province. Abdollahian, now foreign policy adviser to Iranian parliament Speaker Ali Larijani, told Al-Monitor, After changing their names, these groups went to the talks while their comrades are in the [battle]field committing crimes. Recognizing these groups and acquitting them [of their actions on the battlefield] will harm the path of the political solution.

Rumors of disagreement between Iran and Russia over which strategy to pursue in Syria has been the subject of several reports during the past few months, even as the two countries appear to be moving ever closer. On March 27, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani arrived in Moscow for a two-day visit for meetings with Russian President Vladimir Putin and other senior officials.

Added to this equation, however, is Israeli pressure on Russia to try to limit Irans power and influence in Syria. On March 20, Chagain Tzuriel, the director general of Israels Intelligence Ministry, said, There is a need for Russia and other powers to work to avoid the threat that Iran ends up with military, air and naval bases in Syria." Tzuriels call for Irans expulsion from Syria, along with the potential for a direct clash of interests between Iran and Russia, has been raising questions in Tehran about how the Syrian war might end, including who will emerge the primary victors.

For Iran, as noted March 16 in Al-Monitor, there is simply no option but to win the war. In this equation, there is no choice but to keep Assad in power. Russia, however, may define victory differently, with a focus on preserving the Syrian state rather than its figurehead.

As such, a Syrian official source who spoke to Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity noted that in dealing with Iran and Russia, Damascus is exerting a genuine effort to reach a compromise. He said, Both are partners in the victory we are achieving against the terrorist organizations and the regional and international powers backing them. Yet each has [its own] objectives and visions. The Iranians are very skeptical with respect to the negotiations path, as they think the talks are being exploited to impose conditions that will target them. Meanwhile, the Russians believe that the [battle]field [situation] will have a minor impact on the final outcome of the war.

In Iran, the conventional wisdom among those handling the Syrian file is that the major powers in the region and around the globe  the same powers that have been backing the opposition in the fight to topple Assad  have a clear objective: to force Iran and Hezbollah out of Syria. An Iranian official who shares this concern told Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity, Israel and the United States are pressuring the main players to reach a compromise at any price, whereas if Iran loses its gains in Syria, the main arms route to Hezbollah will no longer exist. Its all about the security of Israel.
March 30, 2017

The subject of whether US troops should remain in Iraq once the Islamic State (IS) is defeated in Mosul is raising questions and fueling controversy among Iraqis.

On March 26, the Iraqi government officially announced it favors the idea of some US forces staying. Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said in a Fox News interview that he supports retaining enough US troops to support Iraqi forces in a post-IS Iraq.

"We are concentrating on training, logistical support, and intelligence cooperation and gathering; these are three important elements for which I think we need some US troops to stay in Iraq to continue the task," he stated.

It appears that parliament's Security and Defense Committee has information that work has already begun on some US bases. Committee member Majid al-Gharawi told Al-Monitor, "The US troops, present in Iraq in rising numbers each day, are meant to stay in Iraq." Gharawi, a political representative of the Sadrist movement, not surprisingly opposes the idea. "American forces in Iraq will be met by resistance at the hand of Iraqis. Any foreign military presence on Iraqi soil will not be tolerated," he said.

Jaafar al-Moussawi, the spokesperson for Sadrist movement leader Muqtada al-Sadr, concurred. He said, "Any continued presence of foreign forces in Iraq, whether they are American or not, without agreement by the Iraqi parliament is considered an occupation. Hence, it will face resistance by the Sadrist movement or the rest of Iraqis, as the movement's stance on a US presence hasnt changed."

Before his interview on Fox, Abadi wrote a piece in The Washington Post March 23 saying he had met with US President Donald Trump earlier in the week. "My country needs more help from the US," he wrote. "President Trump and I discussed how to build upon the Strategic Framework Agreement our two countries signed in 2008."

Trump hinted March 20 that he intends to keep US forces in Iraq even once IS is gone. When asked whether the United States should withdraw from Iraq, he told journalists, "We should never have left."

A thousand US troops  and more from the international coalition  are based in Qayyara military air base near Mosul. There are indications these troops might remain in a post-IS Iraq.

Khalaf al-Hadidi, a Ninevah city council member, said the United States is very interested in the Qayyara area, about 56 kilometers (35 miles) south of Mosul in the Ninevah governorate, which is seen as a possible US alternative to Turkey's Incirlik Air Base. In a statement, Hadidi said, "US forces are constructing another base at the Mosul Dam. However, it is not as big as the Qayyara air base. Work is underway, and we expect that Washington will have influence [in the matter], particularly in Ninevah."

Hisham al-Hashimi, an Iraqi analyst and writer specialized in security affairs, told Al-Monitor there are about 8,400 US soldiers in northern and western Iraq at regular and temporary bases, which include Qayyara, Hamam al-Alil, Erbil, Dahuk, Sulaimaniyah, Kirkuk, Ayn al-Assad, Rabia, Habbaniyah, Halabja and the Baghdad International Airport. However, "All the places where US troops are present cannot possibly be called bases, but rather camps, as they do not use runways except for Baghdad International Airport," Hashimi noted.

Ammar Hikmat Baldawi, deputy governor of Salahuddin, confirmed to Al-Monitor that US troops intend to stay longer at bases in Balad and Tikrit in his governorate, and al-Mansuriya base in Diyala governorate.

It seems that Sunnis and Kurds welcome the idea of US troops remaining in the post-IS stage, as some believe that's the only way to reduce Iran's Shiite influence in Iraq, and that of the armed groups supporting Iran. They see US troops as a means to control security and neutralize the rampant proliferation of weapons and militias in the country.

Iraqi Kurdistan might become the region with the largest presence of US bases in Iraq. It enjoys a safe environment where there is little if any political or social disapproval of America's presence, unlike many Iraqi governorates with Sunni or Shiite majorities, where armed factions and militias consider American presence an occupation.

However, some local governments outside the Kurdistan Region also support the idea of the keeping the US military bases, especially in unstable areas, to maintain security and prepare the areas for investment and reconstruction.

"We support keeping the US forces in the military bases in the province under the Iraqi-US agreement in 2008, because this brings more stability to our province," Baldawi said. "We are even looking forward to the full activation of the agreement."

He added, "We appreciate the efforts of the international coalition led by the United States in supporting Iraqi forces in the liberation of our province and Iraq as a whole." Baldawi's province has witnessed cycles of fighting and violence since the United States invaded in 2003. Most of the province fell at the hands of IS in 2014, but is now under Iraq's full control.

Al-Monitor tried to determine the current stance of the Popular Mobilization Units (PMU) on the presence of US troops. However, the response by PMU security spokesman Youssef al-Kilabi was short and carefully worded: "The PMU is part of the Iraqi armed forces, and it holds the same stance as the Iraqi government." In the past, some PMU factions did not mince words.

Naturally, the following questions remain unanswered. First, will Abadi be able to convince his rivals and friends that US troops should remain in Iraq? Second, will allowing them to remain guarantee Iraq opportunities for stability and guard against a succession of crises? Third, if Iraq invites US troops to stay without consulting Iran, will Iran take actions to confront the troops?
March 31, 2017

On Friday mornings in a class on the heritage of Babylonian Jewry, Oded Amit has taught a small group of Israelis to speak Jewish Iraqi, the language of his ancestors. Amit, 70, was born and raised in Baghdad, and Jewish Iraqi was the language in which his mother raised him.

Its a beautiful language, rich, full of wisdom and wit, but it is disappearing, Amit told Al-Monitor. What Im doing is an attempt, perhaps desperate, to save something of it  to keep it alive a little longer. The younger generation doesnt speak it anymore. They heard their aunt or grandma speaking it, but for them its not a mother tongue, its a curiosity.

For hundreds of years, this dialect of Babylonian Jews flourished in their communities throughout Iraq. When most of them left in the early 1950s, Iraq lost the speakers of this unique language. The dialect is now spoken primarily in Israel and London, the two main centers of Babylonian Jewry. These days, there is no Jewish life per se in Baghdad. Only 12 Jews remain, so the community, more than 2,600 years old, is near its end. This is what motivated Amit, a retired engineer and a multitalented artist, to start his new career of teaching late in life.

Amit's course requires some basic knowledge, so all of those who register are sons and daughters of immigrants from Iraq. It consists of eight 90-minute sessions. After 12 hours, its graduates are able to chat fluently with grandma or can better understand what she is mumbling. Before Amit began teaching, he spent long hours extracting the rules of grammar from his mothers language.

I conjugated the verb to write and derived the rules from that, he said. The problem is that there are many exceptions. His work is important for historical documentation, because literature on the Babylonian dialect is relatively scant. It includes a dictionary published by Gila Yona and Rahamim Rajouan in 1995, a dictionary by Yitzhak Avishur published in 2008 and the updatable online collection of researcher Yehuda Katz from Herzliya. The Center for Babylonian Jewish Heritage has a collection of many items, including vocal and visual documentation of the language. It is clear to all that, within a decade at the most, the living language will no longer be heard.

Anyone familiar with the language of Iraqi Jews would agree that it is a warm and funny language in its sound, tones and its mix of sources. Like Yiddish, only Jews speak it, and its vocabulary reflects numerous external influences. Amit explained, While its mostly based on Arabic, it has many expressions from Hebrew, Aramaic, Turkish and Persian and a little English and French.

One of the well-known aspects of the dialect of Babylonian Jewry is its juicy curses. Yona and Rajouan included an appendix dedicated to curses in their dictionary. Especially entertaining are those that wish death by certain means on others. Someone you wish to see hanged is called maqtua al-raqba, that is, decapitated neck. For someone you wish would die in agony, you say, Nfaqsit eino, that is, May his eye burst. For wishing a simple death, theres the moniker zawaj a-almana, meaning the widows husband. If the death wish applies to several people, you say wahad thakal lakh, meaning that each would mourn the other. Many curses are surprisingly also forms of praise. For instance, the word naghl, meaning bastard, is a curse that suggests spitting at a fathers crotch, since thanks to it, the child came into the world. It is usually meant as an expression of admiration.

Amit has an interesting explanation for the reason for the insults. He said, If you compliment someone, its like you attracted the evil eye to him. When you curse him, you drive away the evil eye. Many curses are directed at parents, since they are responsible for the childs education.

The third of four children, Amit was born Adel Mualem to Eliyahu Menashe Mualem and his wife, Violet, nee Bekhor. I grew up in the Bathawin neighborhood, he recalled. With a smile, he added, Al-Rawsaf Street 7/14/1.

In the early 1950s, most of the Jewish community left Iraq for Israel, but his family stayed behind, along with another 3,000 Jews who chose to cling to their native land. They later left as well, gradually. The rise of the Baath Party in 1963 and the 1967 Six-Day War brought dark days to the Jews. They were forbidden to study at the university. Their phone lines were disconnected, and they were not allowed to sell property or withdraw money from the bank. In 1969, the 10 martyrs  Jews who allegedly spied for Israel  were hanged, along with four non-Jews, and dozens of others were arrested and tortured.

We lived a life of humiliation and fear there, and thats why we looked to the West, Amit said. Our cultural heroes were Charles Aznavour and the Beatles. At home, we listened to Elvis Presley and Cliff Richard. Together with four Jewish friends, Amit formed a band, Capri, which played Western music.

In 1967, following the Six-Day War, came the end of the community, he said. I finished my studies in construction engineering in 1968, and no one would hire me.

In December 1970, Amit fled with his sister Nadia to Iran, and from there, to Israel. The rest of the family followed them. Amit settled in Tel Aviv and found work with the Israeli Standards Institution. He eventually earned a master's degree in engineering, but the artistic bug stayed with him.

Amit, a construction engineer and teacher, is also an actor, a musician and a comic. He has his own show, Oded Amit and Friends, in which he tells stories and sings. Sometimes, he said, he misses the days of his youth, the Tigris and his friends at Al-Hikmah University, but he will not return. Im a total Israeli, he said. I even changed my name to a Hebrew name.

I mentioned to him that his native language is Arabic, his roots are on the banks of the Tigris and he is even an authority in the study of Arabic. Does he  by these measures  not consider himself an Arab?

For a certain time, I believed I was an Arab Jew, like theres an Arab Christian, he responded. I really love Arabs, and like to speak with them, but Im not an Arab. Maybe if Arabs would treat me like an equal, I would feel like one.

In another decade, maybe less, few will walk among us who speak the dialect of Babylonian Jewry. Amit does not delude himself into thinking that his teaching will halt progress toward its disappearance, but he hopes that even when it is gone, the dialect will leave as many marks as possible in the memories of the communitys descendants.

I feel that I received a cultural inheritance, and my duty is to pass it on to the next generation, he said. I ask that this language be given a corner, perhaps in a museum. Im the last Mohican, and Im ready to fight for it.
March 31, 2017

For several weeks now, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon have locked horns over the launching of the Public Broadcasting Corporation, designed to replace the bankrupt Israel Broadcasting Authority. And while the fourth Netanyahu government was being rocked by the issue, the Knesset's Finance Committee convened on March 27 for a special recess session. Signs have been growing that the crisis between Netanyahu and Kahlon is deepening. Netanyahu had continued to insist that the corporation be stopped, whereas Kahlon, having promised that the corporation would begin operations on April 30 as stipulated by law, kept signaling that he had no intention of giving in.

At the committee meeting, Knesset member Moshe Gafni of the ultra-Orthodox Yahadut HaTorah came out with the surprising announcement that his party was not averse to moving up the elections scheduled for 2019. Only the day before, the heads of the ultra-Orthodox parties had been quoted as telling Netanyahu that they would not go along with early elections, and now Gafni was singing a different tune. I would like to announce that we are not opposed to elections  we believe that for a state like ours, facing such big challenges and difficult problems, to go to elections over the issue of public broadcasting is an irresponsible act  [but] we are the last ones to fear elections.

Gafnis declaration made it clear that the prime minister's threat to dissolve the coalition over the issue was empty. It also pulled the rug out from under plans to establish an alternative government that opposition head Isaac Herzog was cobbling together with senior Likud figures. The plan, in any case, was never feasible since the chairman of the centrist Yesh Atid, Yair Lapid, made clear from day one that he would not take part in such a maneuver and would instead support early elections.

Gafnis announcement also placed Kahlon in the untenable position of being isolated within the ruling coalition. The ultra-Orthodox parties and the two senior coalition partners, Yisrael Beitenu Chair Avigdor Liberman and HaBayit HaYehudi Chair Naftali Bennett, left him to fend for himself. From the very start, they hadnt understood why he got himself into such a bind over the public broadcasting corporation  an issue that he had never championed.

The compromise Netanyahu and Kahlon presented on March 30 brought the government out of its tailspin. But the question of whether Netanyahu wanted early elections because of the criminal investigations he faces and the US administrations pressure to conduct negotiations with the Palestinians remains unanswered.

From the beginning, the crisis over the broadcasting corporation has not generated much interest except among politicians and the media. From a political standpoint, it was a power struggle between a prime minister and a finance minister who simply did not understand how serious the premier was and how adamantly he would refuse to surrender. Kahlon was wrong when he assumed that Netanyahu would be easily coerced and manipulated and would eventually give in for fear of an early election. Over the past two weeks, Kahlon learned the hard way that the Netanyahu of 2017 is reckless and uninhibited, unlike the Netanyahu of 2015, before his major electoral victory.

As Netanyahu dug in, the dream of replacing him without holding elections slipped away from Herzog as well as top Likud Minister Israel Katz, and Kahlon understood that he stood to lose everything. The prospect of early elections, with polls predicting only five to seven Knesset sets for his Kulanu was a nightmare.

Kahlon was brought to his knees. According to the compromise, the corporation will begin operations with no news division, which is the heart of public broadcasting. At a news conference he convened on March 31 to announce the deal, his body language said it all. Kahlon looked humorless, even shell shocked. He boasted of having blocked Netanyahu's draconian legislation that would have dealt a serious blow to press freedom. The bottom line, he said, is that the broadcasting corporation would be established. In a departure from his usual practice, Kahlon read a written statement and left without answering reporters questions.

Netanyahu got his way, burying the original 2014 legislation that called for the establishment of a public broadcasting corporation. But the events of the past few weeks will not be forgotten. The fourth Netanyahu government is back in business, but Kahlon will be waiting on the sidelines. He has undergone a formative experience with Netanyahu, and one day he could well seek revenge.

In the short term, Netanyahu proved that he is able to bend anyone to his will. In charging ahead, he left behind not only a bruised Kahlon, but also an emasculated generation of top Likud figures. Netanyahu did not like Katz' statement that the Likud would prevent him from calling snap elections, and he has a score to settle with another top Likud senior, Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan, over the public broadcasting legislation he had advanced. All in all, Netanyahus standing in his party is strong despite the criminal probes and the public broadcasting crisis. No one in the party leadership is willing to stand up to Netanyahu in a confrontational manner, because Netanyahu is still considered the partys strongest electoral asset, the man who knows how to bring the Likud to power.

Netanyahu also appears to be restoring calm on other fronts. Under his leadership, the Cabinet approved on March 30 the establishment of a new West Bank settlement for the evicted residents of the illegal outpost of Amona, a move that will satisfy his pro-settlement coalition partner HaBayit HaYehudi. He has also calmed jitters on the diplomatic front with US President Donald Trump, with the Cabinet agreeing to restrain construction in other settlements. None of his partners  especially not Kahlon  is interested in going to the polls at this time. The governments stability is secure, at least until the criminal investigations into the prime minister are complete.
March 30, 2017

Fliers distributed throughout the ultra-Orthodox neighborhood of Beit Shemesh on March 24 called for people to pray for the death of Major Yaakov Rashi, the commander of the Israel Defense Forces' (IDF) ultra-Orthodox induction center. These threats against Rashi are part of a violent ultra-Orthodox struggle against the IDF, which broke out over the past few weeks after several rabbinical college students were arrested. The reason for their arrests was that they had violated an accepted procedure, agreed upon by the ultra-Orthodox seminars, and refused to show up at the IDF induction center upon receiving their first draft notice, so that they could request an exemption from military service. This got them listed as deserters.

The protests included violent demonstrations, the blocking of roads and physical attacks against ultra-Orthodox men serving in the IDF and their families. The struggle has intensified over the past few days, reaching its climax in a violent incident captured by a Channel 2 film crew, in which young ultra-Orthodox men and boys attacked a young secular woman, who got caught in the middle of a Jerusalem demonstration. Anyone who has seen the chilling footage cannot help but think that if the woman had not been extracted so quickly by border patrol officers at the site, the incident could have ended much worse than it did.

In the case of Rashi, incitement against him is unhinged and particularly focused on him personally. The demonstrators describe him as nothing less than the enemy and as someone who deserves to die. Rashi, a religious man, was appointed to the position in 2014 as part of the IDF's preparations to fulfill the "Sharing the Burden" law  by which all young men must enlist in the IDF, including ultra-Orthodox men  enacted under the leadership of the Chairman of Yesh Atid Yair Lapid (in the previous Netanyahu government). That law was intended to boost significantly the number of ultra-Orthodox men serving in the IDF.

But then, in 2015, the fourth Netanyahu government overturned the revolutionary new law as part of coalition agreements with ultra-Orthodox parties. Instead, the old status quo  where students of rabbinical colleges are exempt from enlisting  was restored. Since that time, ultra-Orthodox men were no longer required to enlist. They were simply required to show up at the induction center upon receiving their first draft notice so that they could declare that "studying the Torah was their profession." It is hard to believe, but the trigger for these violent demonstrations, which are only getting worse, was the requirement that young ultra-Orthodox men pay a single visit to the induction center, rather than commit to compulsory military service, like all the other Jewish citizens of Israel.

Most of the ultra-Orthodox public, including its top political leadership, is not a part of these protests. Most even oppose them, realizing that if anyone gets hurt, "sharing the burden" will once again climb to the top of Israel's agenda. In other words, they will be the ones to pay the price for it.

The violent protests are being led by Rabbi Shmuel Auerbach, a leader of a Lithuanian ultra-Orthodox faction known as the "Jerusalem branch." This is a radical, anti-Zionist community, which rejects all the institutions of the state and its very legitimacy. It does not even send representatives to the Knesset. That is why its leaders consider something as trivial as insisting that its young men appear once at the induction center to receive an exemption to be a crime by the State of Israel against Judaism itself. Auerbach and his followers do not accept the authority of the foremost leader of the Lithuanian faction, Rabbi Aharon Leib Shteinman.

For this reason, over the past few days, the most prominent ultra-Orthodox journalists have taken a very hard line against the violent demonstrations led by Auerbach. In an interview with the ultra-Orthodox paper Kikar HaShabbat, Interior Minister Aryeh Deri (Shas Party) called the struggle "a desecration of the Divine Name." As an experienced politician, Deri recognizes the potential damage to the reputation of the ultra-Orthodox community among the larger public, which is being exposed to such violent demonstrations.

It is true that internecine political squabbling within the Lithuanian faction of ultra-Orthodoxy has erupted outward, staining the reputation of the ultra-Orthodox community at large. Nevertheless, the silence of politicians in the wake of the violence and death threats is disappointing. Deri's statement is not enough. Right now there is a vital need to recruit the entire ultra-Orthodox leadership for this state of emergency, so that they do what they can to restore calm.

In a March 27 interview, Chaim Rashi, the father of Yaakov Rashi, said that his son was strong and that he would not break, despite the threats against him. At the same time, he rightfully criticized the ultra-Orthodox leadership, saying, "Where are all the ultra-Orthodox leaders? The heads of the rabbinical colleges? Why aren't they being heard?  These demonstrators are doing a disservice to all of ultra-Orthodox Judaism.  Where are all the members of the Knesset? They're allowing anarchy to run rampant and for what? They have to take the financial oxygen [state budgetary support of the colleges] away from the demonstrators. Then these demonstrations will die. Right now it is anarchy in every sense of the word."

Rashi's father also pointed out another disconcerting phenomenon. While politicians, and not just ultra-Orthodox politicians, are silent, other official state bodies have also been lax in responding to the violence. Apart from just arresting a handful of demonstrators, which only exacerbates the fury on the ground, there is a wide range of measures that can be taken, from arresting the people behind the incitement to stopping state funding to those groups involved in the demonstrations. The same is true of the police. While they initially decided to contain the demonstrations only, they must now change course and recognize that the phenomenon is getting worse by the day.

Though Netanyahu is currently busy dealing with the Public Broadcasting Corporation crisis, he could have instructed State Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit to come up with an emergency plan to deal with this new wave of violence, in conjunction with law enforcement, the legal system, the IDF and the police. Anyone hoping to hear that Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked (HaBayit HaYehudi) had been taking action in response to this incitement to murder will come away disappointed as well. If Lapid, who led the struggle on behalf of "sharing the burden," will not go out of his way now to stop the violent protests against the IDF because of personal political considerations, why should other politicians volunteer to do the job for him and risk getting into a conflict with the ultra-Orthodox parties?

Like Lapid, Isaac Herzog, the leader of the opposition and of the Zionist Camp, realizes that he must maintain good relations with the ultra-Orthodox if he ever plans to put a coalition together. And so, the violence runs rampant, disaster looms right around the corner, and the authorities stand idly by.
March 31, 2017

RAMALLAH, West Bank  During its weekly meeting on March 7, the Palestinian Cabinet decided to form a National Disaster Risk Management Committee headed by Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah. The committee is tasked with forming a technical team representing ministries, governmental agencies, and the private and academic sectors. This team will establish a National Disaster Risk Management Center, and a law will regulate the work of the center.

The institutional and legal framework of the disaster risk management system has been set by a national team of 35 representatives of governmental agencies. An international advisory team, represented by the Istidamah Development Sustainability Company that brought an international expert from Iceland, started working with the national team in February 2015. Both teams also worked alongside Palestinian legal expert Mahmoud Dudin, who drafted the final version of the framework, which took a year and a half to be completed.

The work achieved during the first stage of the framework drafting was handed over to the Cabinet in June 2015 for examination and review with local partners. As for the system procedures, they will be finalized and submitted to the Cabinet in June, Mohammed Odeh, the coordinator of the National Disaster Risk Management Team, told Al-Monitor.

The center aims to effectively institutionalize the disaster management process in Palestine through a system with clear competencies and adequate capabilities. Such a system would ensure the smooth achievement of disaster management goals away from administrative and bureaucratic complexity. It also seeks to set effective and efficient coordination mechanisms among the various involved components when responding to disasters and sudden-onset emergencies. These components include civil society organizations, the private sector, citizens, and possibly international relief and international organizations such as the United Nations.

Odeh said the framework of the system was developed based on the situation in both the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, and that it will serve as a national project that would benefit all Palestinian territories.

The Palestinian governments interest in establishing a disaster management system became clear after Hamdallah included the disaster management policy in the 2017-2022 National Policy Agenda that was released Feb. 22.

Asked about the reasons that led Palestine to create a disaster risk management system, Odeh said that Palestine needs to coordinate its disaster risk management efforts so that it is ready for disasters before they occur. Palestine did not attend the events of the 2005-2015 Hyogo Framework for Action, which was adopted by the UN member states as the main risk reduction tool and whose goal is to build the resilience of states and communities to disasters. Palestine joined the 2015-2030 Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction  which was held on March 18, 2015, in Japan  to make up for its absence from the Hyogo Framework for Action.

Odeh said that Ban Ki-moon, the former secretary-general of the United Nation, visited Palestine in August 2013 and signed a general cooperation agreement with Palestine to help it cope with disasters. The visit was preceded by several meetings between Bans Special Representative for Disaster Risk Reduction Margareta Wahlstrom and several Palestinian ministries and institutions in February 2013.

Also, the Palestinian presidency and the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) signed a memorandum of understanding in December 2013 to form a national technical team tasked with developing a disaster risk management system. The team, once formed, worked with the UNDP and coordinated with the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs to organize an international field visit to the Palestinian territories.

As per the memorandum, the UN sent in March 2014 a Geneva-based United Nations Disaster Assessment and Coordination team consisting of 15 experts headed by Terje Skavdal to Palestine for two weeks. The team issued its final report on April 3, 2014, and emphasized that for the world to support Palestine to access a disaster risk management system, Palestine must develop a legal environment as far as risk management is concerned and create an institutional framework capable of managing and dealing with risks and disasters, according to Odeh.

In December 2014, the Palestinian presidency signed another joint cooperation agreement with the UNDP to develop the legal environment and the institutional framework of the disaster risk management system.

The second stage of the risk management development program was the signing of an agreement between the Palestinian prime minister and the UN in September 2016, under which the prime minister secured the political will to form and establish a disaster risk management system and invite agencies and ministries to cooperate in this regard, Odeh said.

He noted that Palestine will start preparing a risk analysis study and a national disaster risk management strategy in early 2018. In the second half of the year, a risk map will be established for Palestine for the coming years. The map will require a year and a half to be completed and will show the most prominent risks and disasters that may face Palestine and show the likelihood of their occurrence based on scientific studies to be carried out.

Jalal al-Dabbeek, the director of the Urban Planning and Disaster Risk Reduction Center at An-Najah National University in Nablus, told Al-Monitor that the establishment of the National Disaster Risk Management Center within a clear law that regulates its work aims to keep pace with international developments related to the application of global concepts similar to the Hyogo and Sendai frameworks.

He noted that the national center, which will be headed by the Council of Ministers, will form a national committee composed of officials from governmental and nongovernmental institutions to manage and follow up on the work of the center through government funding. Therefore, it will have a great impact compared to the individual work that was carried out by the civil defense, the police or the Red Crescent prior to the establishment of the center.

Dabbeek emphasized the need to train and develop the capacities of the local staff in the ministries and municipalities to implement the disaster management system in line with the mechanisms to be developed.

If these capacities are not built and developed, there will be a slowdown in the achievement of the objectives and functions of the center, he said.

To develop the human potential for disaster risk management, An-Najah National University launched in September 2015 a new masters degree program titled Disaster Risk Management and headed by Dabbeek. This came in response to Palestine's need for this specialization and the recommendations of involved international and Arab institutions, most importantly the UN International Strategy for Disaster Risk Reduction and the Hyogo and Sendai frameworks.

The university program was launched through the implementation of the Earthquake Risk Reduction Project in Palestine in coordination with the European Center for Training and Research in Earthquake Engineering.

According to Dabbeek, the program aims to develop the capacity of the Palestinian community and its institutions, namely ministries, municipalities and Palestinian governmental and nongovernmental institutions, all the while providing them with the basic disaster management planning and risk reduction concepts and elements.

Although the efforts of national institutions in times of disaster were already felt  albeit in an improvised and random manner  the system that Palestine is seeking to establish will form a strong framework of networking between the involved components. It will lead to coordination among the provinces and municipalities because it is binding on all parties, which could help contain disasters and mitigate their effects.
March 30, 2017

Although Hamas is working on maintaining warm relations with Turkey and Qatar amid frosty dealings with several countries in the Arab world such as Egypt, Iran, Jordan and Syria, it hasnt been all good for Hamas and Turkey.

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu made a sudden announcement March 22 during a meeting at the National Press Club in Washington, saying that Turkey has pressured Hamas to shift away from armed resistance and engage in negotiations with Israel and that Hamas showed readiness to recognize Israel. Cavusoglu did not specify when Turkey actually pressured Hamas.

On March 22, Al-Mayadeen website, which is close to Iran, cited a Hamas source on condition of anonymity commenting on Cavusoglus statements. The source said that Turkey pressured Hamas to recognize Israel, but that Hamas did not oblige.

On the same day, Hamas issued an official statement condemning the news that was being circulated in the media about its caving in to pressure to recognize Israel, and dismissing the reports as lies and false allegations.

Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum told Al-Monitor, The allegations in the media are false. Everyone knows how firm Hamas stance is in regard to its refusal of the recognition of the Zionist entity. I call on media outlets to be careful and professional before spreading news and fabrications that distort facts, harm Hamas and twist its stances.

The Turkish Foreign Ministry did not issue any clarifying statements, which leaves room for interpretation. Did the silence confirm Cavusoglus words or did it admit to Turkish pressure on Hamas?

Hamas official statement did not denounce Cavusoglus statements but only condemned the media outlets that circulated the news, thus revealing Hamas possible reluctance to having a diplomatic confrontation with Turkey.

Member of Fatahs Revolutionary Council and head of the Political Committee at the Palestinian Legislative Council Abdullah Abdullah told Al-Monitor, Turkey is trying to convince Hamas of the peace process and the negotiations with Israel to keep hold of the Palestinian card, since it [Turkey] has tight relations with Hamas. And the movement itself wants to maintain good relations with Turkey.

He added, Hamas military leaders need money and arms from Iran because Turkey does not supply them. But Hamas is generally closer to Turkey than Iran, and it will be careful not to anger Turkey. The latter supports the Muslim Brotherhood, which Hamas is affiliated with. Turkey considers itself among the main Sunni countries competing with the Shiite Iranian axis in the region.

This is not the first time that Cavusoglu talks about Turkeys efforts to convince Hamas to recognize Israel. In January 2015, he declared that Turkey is one of the countries that contributed the most to making a difference in Hamas former and current political line.

He added, We convinced Hamas that reaching a political solution would necessitate recognizing Israel. Hamas kept silent back then, which was surprising.

Ahmed Yousef, who has good relations with Turkish officials and is a former political adviser to Ismail Haniyeh, deputy chairman of Hamas' political bureau, told Al-Monitor, Turks are searching for a solution to the [Palestinian] conflict with Israel. Given Turkeys relations with both Hamas and Israel, it is deploying efforts to reach a settlement that would establish a Palestinian state according to the 1967 borders and is trying to attenuate Hamas stances by reducing pressure on the movement and giving the impression that Hamas is seeking a political solution. Perhaps the Turkish-Israeli reconciliation in June 2016 further entrenched the Turkish brokerage between Hamas and Israel, and Turkeys interest in Palestinian rights and its contribution to loosening the siege on the movement by convincing Israel to accept political solutions.

Hamas and Turkey had a row a few weeks back when Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim and his deputy Mehmet Simsek condemned the Palestinian attack on Jerusalem on Jan. 9, which killed four Israeli soldiers. On the same day, Hamas expressed its disapproval of the Turkish stance and said that resistance is a lawful right in international laws and Israels acts against the Palestinian people are terrorist acts.

Turkish Ambassador to Israel Kemal Okem announced during a lecture at Tel Aviv University on March 20 that Turkey does not support Hamas, but rather the people of the Gaza Strip, and wants to reduce their suffering.

Ali Bakir, an independent researcher in Turkey, who is close to Turkish politicians, told Al-Monitor, Turkey supports a fair peace process and the establishment of an independent Palestinian state as per the 1967 borders and encourages all parties to move in this direction; Israel must keep potential commitments and Hamas must agree. But Turkey can only advise Hamas. I don't think Hamas would cave in to Turkish pressure or that Turkey would put pressure to begin with because Israel has not made any commitments. Still Hamas is preparing a political document, which is an important step that resulted from the movements introspection and negotiations with countries in the region like Turkey.

A Palestinian Foreign Ministry official in Ramallah told Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity, Turkey  which has good relations with Hamas  is not hiding its endeavors to tame Hamas and embellish its image before the international community to show that the movement is capable of handling the Palestinian leadership, either through bypassing Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas or keeping Hamas by his [Abbas] side. By prolonging peace between Israel and Hamas in Gaza for years to come, Turkey is paving the way for a potential role in the Gaza Strip. Hamas political document will soon be issued, and it will reflect a new rhetoric that approves of a Palestinian state as per the 1967 borders.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogans Turkey has personal and close relations with Hamas, mostly with Hamas former political bureau head Khaled Meshaal who is a constant guest in Ankara, most recently in December. Turkey welcomed several former Hamas detainees who were released from Israeli prisons as part of the Hamas-Israel exchange deal in 2011, while Hamas warmed up to a Turkish role in a new exchange deal with Israel. Hamas also congratulated Erdogan on thwarting the coup attempt in July.

Turkey hopes that this harmony with Hamas will engage the movement in the peace process, but Hamas election of a more radical, pro-Iran leader, Yahya Sinwar, at the end of February might foil Turkeys pre-made plans.
An event featuring the work of local photographers aims to introduce Bismarck residents to newly arrived immigrants and refugees living in the community.

Hosted by Bismarck Global Neighbors, a local nonprofit, the April 9 event will showcase 2-by-3-foot portraits of nine refugees and immigrants living in North Dakota. The Global Gallery Gala will feature subjects in their traditional garb to introduce locals to different cultures, food and music.

Leah Hargrove, who moved to Bismarck in 2014, is the founder of Global Neighbors. While living in Grand Forks for two years, she discovered a mentorship program called Global Friends Coalition. Through that program, she mentored a Liberian and Nepali family and thought she could do the same here.

Since her programs inception, it has formed 17 mentorships with 20 to 30 immigrants and refugees.

I come from the South, and, even for me, the culture here is difficult for me to adjust to, she said.

The photographs feature the subjects in traditional garb in scenes recognizable to North Dakotans, including the Badlands and along the Missouri River.

I had this idea about having photos of our new Americans in a really traditional, North Dakota setting," Hargrove said.

Global Neighbors has held two panel discussions in Bismarck on refugee resettlement. The organization also has partnered with the Adult Learning Center and Bismarck Public Library to hold programs to help immigrants and refugees learn basic skills through such activities as English conversation groups and driving practice.

The group is registered as a nonprofit with the state, but Hargrove said she hopes the gala will raise money with the aim of becoming a federally recognized nonprofit so she can apply for grants and pay full-time staff.

With any additional funds raised through the event, Hargrove said she hopes her organization can host more events with mentors and mentees, including a trip to Theodore Roosevelt National Park.
March 30, 2017

WASHINGTON  Some UN and US humanitarian officials have expressed alarm as the Trump administration considers whether to provide increased US logistical and intelligence support for an Emirati/Saudi coalition military operation to take the Red Sea port of Hodeidah from Yemens Houthi rebels.

The proposed operation comes two years into a grinding civil war in Yemen that has killed 10,000 people and led to a stalemate, and as aid groups warn the impoverished nation of 27 million people could be on the brink of famine.

Proponents of the operation, including officials in the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia as well as some in the State Department and Pentagon, say it could pressure the Houthis into agreeing to return to the negotiating table, and bolster relations between Washington and Gulf allies. Critics of the proposal, including former USAID and Obama National Security Council (NSC) officials and experts at the United Nations, say that if the operation to take the port from the Houthis is successful, it would create a new front line through which it would not be possible to bring food at the needed scale into Sanaa, the capital of 2 million people, and could tip large swaths of the country into famine.

The United Nations special envoy for Yemen, Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed, strongly warned against escalating the military conflict.

It is my firm belief that further military escalation and humanitarian suffering will not bring the parties closer together, Ahmed told the UN Security Council on March 29.

The only way to prevent a worsening of the situation is to reach a peaceful resolution to this conflict, which has been going on for too long, Ahmed said. "We must give peace another chance.

US Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis proposed the United States provide limited support to the UAE-led operation in a memo to national security adviser H.R. McMaster this month, the Washington Post reported.

The National Security Council did not respond to queries about whether it has taken into account the concerns of USAID and UN officials that the operation could escalate the humanitarian disaster in Yemen.

The former top NSC official on Yemen said taking the port of Hodeidah could lead to humanitarian tragedy.

The warring parties are waiting for the math to change based on military moves, Eric Pelofsky, former special assistant to the president and former NSC senior director for North Africa and Yemen, told Al-Monitor.

From the negotiations, you can see why the coalition is convinced that there is a need for military pressure on the Houthis.

But I think moving against Hodeidah port could lead to terrible humanitarian consequences, Pelofsky, now with the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said. The risk of humanitarian harm is so great.

If you ask humanitarian workers about the feasibility of getting humanitarian aid through battle lines at scale to feed a capital of 2 million people, they will say no  you cant get that volume through, Pelofsky said.

Former US Ambassador to Yemen Gerald Feierstein disagreed, saying if the coalition could actually take Hodeidah and repair the port, it could potentially facilitate humanitarian access. He said American officials were not convinced, however, that the UAE/Saudi coalition plans to conduct the operation would succeed.

If they can get control of Hodeidah ... then repair the damage to the port and get it functioning again and provide unfettered access to humanitarian relief organizations, it may be a way of addressing the humanitarian crisis, Feierstein, now with the Middle East Institute, told Al-Monitor.

So the issue is, does the coalition have a plan that looks like it might succeed, Feierstein said. That seems to be where the debate is now. Because my understanding is, to the extent they have shown what they were thinking, our response has been, We dont think that is going to work. You need to do some more work on this. There is no point if they basically end up leveling Hodeidah.

The other issue is  it is not only a question of can they get ahold of it, but can they keep it, Feierstein added.

There was an internal debate over the final year of the Obama administration about whether the United States should support potential future efforts by the coalition to take the Hodeidah port, but ultimately the administration decided against it, said Jeremy Konyndyk, a former top USAID official.

From USAIDs perspective, we thought the US should strongly oppose this, Konyndyk, the former director of USAIDs Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance, told Al-Monitor. That is where the administration ultimately came out. Some at [the] State [Department], DoD [Department of Defense] felt differently.

He said, From our point of view, it would be disastrous in terms of humanitarian impact if the coalition were to disrupt the aid pipeline and commercial pipeline that moves through that port. He said about 70% of all of the food supply to northern Yemen  where most of the population is  goes through that port. In terms of aid, nearly all of the food aid that goes into Yemen also runs into that port.

He said, The concern is [after they would take the port], they would push inland a certain distance, and you would have a front line stand in the way of the vast bulk of commercial food imports and aid flows. This is a country that depends on food imports for 90% of its staple foods.  You [could] end up with a situation where most of the population is on the wrong side of the front line from the two ports that have greatest capacity to import food. Even with Hodeidah functioning and accessible to UN aid operators, it has been a struggle to keep the country from crossing into famine.

The view that we had at [US]AID  among [US]AID leadership  was that if that port were to be lost, it would likely be enough to tip the country into famine, Konyndyk warned.

Some former US officials said they were concerned that the Trump administration might be debating decisions on the matter in an interagency group currently dominated by the military, and without senior staff appointed and representing dissenting views from, for instance, USAID, and State Department bureaus less sympathetic to Gulf allies points of view. Rather than supporting escalation of the 2-year-old Saudi-led war in Yemen as a demonstration of alliance management, the US administration should be focused on how to get the parties back to negotiations to end the war, one official said. Yemen is also not the best venue for the Trump administration to demonstrate its intent to push back on malign Iranian actions in the region, he said.

With so many positions unfilled at the [State] Department, the Gulf experts are almost exclusively shaping the Department's approach, a former senior US official who worked on the Middle East, speaking not for attribution, told Al-Monitor. This means reverting to terms that the [exiled Yemeni President Abed Rabbo Mansour] Hadi government is willing to accept, many of which are nonstarters for the Houthis and [former Yemeni President Ali Abdullah] Saleh  which means the peace process is really pretty much on hold.

It appears that the new US administration feels like Yemen is the safest space to push back on Iran with the least spillover/consequence/escalation risk, a former senior US official who worked in the Middle East, speaking not for attribution, told Al-Monitor. That is a risky conclusion, especially if it is wrong.

The Iranians could respond just as much there as anywhere else, he said. I think the administration reassures itself that it can win any escalation. But that assumes attribution and assumes that the escalation is symmetric. But if the escalation is asymmetric and attribution is incomplete, then we may or may not be able to respond effectively and significant US interests could be at risk.
bentley.PNG

A photo released by Gov. Robert Bentley's office shows him signing an initiative in Alabaster Friday, March 31, 2017.

(Governor's office)

Gov. Robert Bentley today announced an initiative aimed at having 65 percent of the state's workforce having a "high-quality certificate, credential or degree" by 2025.

Bentley signed an order laying out the goal during a visit to the Alabama Department of Labor Alabaster Career Center today. The executive order directs the Alabama Workforce Council to appoint a subcommittee to develop and recommend a strategic plan toward the goal.

Currently, about 37 percent of the state's workforce holds a degree or certification, state officials said.

In particular, the plan will target low-income and minority residents, identify workforce needs, and adopt interim and long-term goals to be monitored and reported on annually, state officials said.

The subcommittee has to submit the plan by year's end.

In a statement, Bentley said the initiative "brings together education, industry and government agencies to develop a strategic plan that will recognize attainment gaps in various groups."

"The end goal is to provide the best training opportunity possible for students to obtain a skilled well-paying job," he said.

Alabama Workforce Council Chair Zeke Smith said the effort will "transform our state's workforce system and ... improve the lives of millions of Alabama families for years to come."
The executive of the nonprofit that runs four virtually unregulated day care centers in Montgomery received compensation of $1.33 million in 2015, the most recently available IRS documents show.

United Family Services Outreach's Director Jesse Thomas' 2014 compensation of $1.29 million put him between two hospital CEOs as among the highest paid nonprofit leaders in the state in 2014, according a Wall Street Journal analysis of IRS records. The only other nonprofit workers in Alabama who earned more than a million dollars per year in compensation were all either doctors, hospital administrators or Southeastern Conference leaders. No social services administrators had compensation that high.

The day cares operated by Thomas weren't always run under the umbrella of a nonprofit. In 1997, Thomas incorporated Thomas Child Care Centers Inc., a corporation that was dissolved in early 2013.

A former location of Sunnyside Child Care in Montgomery now sits vacant after an incident in 2015 in which 86 children were sent to the hospital for food poisoning after eating lunch at this day care and another Sunnyside location.

In 2010, the state Department of Human Resources suspended one of Thomas' day care's licenses pending a hearing after a child was found in a day care van for more than two hours during the summer, according to Alabama DHR. That child's guardian sued the centers, and that lawsuit was eventually settled.

Thomas didn't go through with that hearing. Instead, he opened day cares later in 2010 under the nonprofit UFSO using the state's exemption for religious day cares. The exemption allows day cares to operate with virtually no oversight. Eighty-six children were treated for staph they contracted while in the care of Sunnyside Child Care Center in the Summer of 2015 - the Department of Health later found the toxin in food served that day.

UFSO has no congregation, pastor, worship services, or religious elementary school, despite operating under the church exemption, according to a legal complaint on behalf of the parents of those children. AL.com asked Thomas about this via email, and he did not respond to this question. UFSO said on its mission statement that its mission includes providing services like family reunification, job readiness training, and parenting skills.

'Something that's clearly off'

AL.com spoke to two attorneys who represent nonprofits who said United Family Services Outreach's financial forms filed with the IRS, or Form 990s, were poorly filled out with several important pieces of information missing.

"Normally what we do in a situation like this is look at other nonprofit organizations of similar size and similar programming and similar geographic location, of course, and see what they're paid, what the compensation is," said Bruce Hopkins, an attorney who practices nonprofit law and a professor at the University of Kansas School of Law. "I don't know, I just can't imagine that someone with this kind of entity is being paid that much ... on the face of it, it looks excessive."

Matthew Journy, an attorney at GKG Law in Washington, D.C. who specializes in nonprofit compensation, said Thomas' compensation appears "Clearly excessive."

"The 990s are poorly done, they're incomplete, they miss key information, and the organization doesn't appear to qualify to be a public charity, or to qualify to be a 501c3," Journy said. "They appear to have excessive payments to Jesse Thomas."

The 2015 990 also lists payments between $4,637 and $20,712 to five different Thomas family members described as contract services.

Thomas, speaking in an email through his attorney Andy Donaldson, said the listed compensation is incorrect.

"We are not however going to answer questions about our personal finances," Thomas wrote in an email. "United Family Services continues to prepare accountings for agencies that we receive funding from. Those statements have been accepted and if there have been questions concerning the allocation of funds or how funds were used we have provided that information to the satisfaction of that agency to the best of our knowledge."

UFSO reported total revenue of $1.88 million in 2015. That would make Thomas' listed compensation a full 71 percent of the nonprofit's earnings for the year. UFSO listed its total expenses for 2015 as $1.76 million, which would make Thomas' listed compensation about 76 percent of the nonprofit's total expenses.

"To be honest with you, I have no idea how this organization actually received its recognition of charitable status," Journy said.

While the UFSO lists Thomas' compensation as $1.33 million, it lists a payment of the same amount to "Sunnyside Childcare/Jesse Thomas" as an independent contractor. Donaldson said he understands that the money in question is used for the cost of running the centers, for expenses like utilities and teacher pay, not a salary that Thomas keeps, but he stressed that he couldn't talk about the compensation because he is not an accountant. AL.com asked to speak to UFSO's accountant, but AL.com was not provided with contact information for the accountant by publication.

Nonprofit organizations are required by the IRS to accurately report the compensation of their executives on their 990s under penalty of perjury and make them available for public inspection.

"They've reported them as compensation, and signed and stated the returns under penalty of perjury as compensation," Journy said. "They have told you (Al.com), not under penalty of perjury, that it is not their compensation, so take that as you will."

Journy said even if that $1.33 million payment is to run the day care centers, it appears based on the 990s that if any of that money goes toward Thomas' compensation it would be required to be reported on one of the forms called the Schedule J, which details compensation from related organizations. The form deals only with compensation, and the form again lists Thomas' compensation as $1.33 million.

"There's something that's clearly off here," Journy said. "The money doesn't appear to be used for charitable purposes, as is required. It doesn't appear the organization should be exempt. To the extent that the organization is exempt, this seems like a good example for the IRS to use excise taxes on Thomas."

Hopkins also said that if Thomas was in fact compensated $1.33 million in 2015, he would be a good candidate for excise taxes.

The IRS can require a nonprofit executive to pay excise taxes if it deems the executive has received excessive compensation from a charitable organization. The IRS can decide what it deems to be a reasonable amount, and require the person to return the remaining amount of his or her compensation to the organization and, in addition, require a 25 percent tax on what it determines to be the excessive amount.

Tax dollars

Another day care in Montgomery operated by United Family Services Outreach, this one on Norman Bridge Road.

UFSO lists its sole source of revenue as "Childcare tuition/CNP program." CNP presumably stands for Child Nutrition Programs, a program of the federal government that provides child care centers money for breakfasts and lunches for low income families. AL.com asked Thomas' attorney if CNP stood for Child Nutrition Programs and did not receive a response by publication.

State records show that in the 2015 fiscal year the nonprofit received $632,345 in federal grants. That number has only grown since then: records show that in 2016 UFSO received $639,087, and have received $226,414 so far in 2017.

DHR records show that UFSO has received more than $3 million in reimbursement through the Child Care Subsidy Program in the last three full calendar years. In 2015 it received $1.1 million, and in 2016 $1.13 million, records show. The program aims to provide low- and moderate-income families with equal access to child care services.

On that June 2015 day where children were infected with staph, there were at least 300 children in two of the four locations, according to multiple sources. Eighty-six of those children received emergency medical treatment; 30 had to be admitted to hospitals for further observation or treatment. That lawsuit was eventually settled.

Donaldson said in an email that UFSO doesn't advertise, and receives children through word of mouth or requests from DHR to enroll children at a center. It also provides clothing, blankets and other supplies to those in need, he said. The summer Day Care Center at Sunnyside is free for children to attend, he said. There's no charge for children to attend that center when it's open in the summer.

'Figuring things out'

Delores Selmon, now 40, worked for the day cares as an administrative assistant under the director of one of the day care centers, but she said her day-to-day job varied. She was usually in charge of making sure children were checked in and keeping track of payments made and who owed money, but she also filled in for days where the center was short-staffed. Some of those duties included cooking, filling in for childcare workers on their lunch breaks, and occasionally driving the center's van.

"My job varied day-to-day," Selmon said. "One day I might be cooking in the kitchen, the next day I might be in the classroom."

Selmon got the job through a relative of her husband's, and worked there from September 2013 through July 2014.

Driving the van made her uneasy, Selmon said. Sometimes there would be more children in the van than there were seats, she said, and there weren't car seats for children far too small to safely drive without them. Selmon said she was terminated shortly after she told her supervisor she was uncomfortable driving the van.

It was typical for only one person to staff the infant room, where there'd be at least 18 babies at a time, Selmon said. It was also typical for one person to staff the toddler room, which again would usually house at least 18 children, she said. DHR licensed day cares require a ratio of no more than five children younger than 18 months to every child care worker and no more than seven children between 18 months and 2.5 years to every worker.

Thomas said through his attorney that he cannot discuss Selmon's employment due to legal constraints except to confirm that she was indeed an employee. Thomas also said in an email that Sunnyside denies each statement Selmon has made for this article. Donaldson also told AL.com that UFSO's day cares are consistent with DHR's recommended ratio.

"I had never worked at a day care before, and I came from California, and I knew the laws were different," Selmon said. "When I started really figuring things out, I felt like I was doing a lot of their dirty work and not really realizing it."

2015 UFSO 990_Redacted by Kelly Poe on Scribd
Metro Diner

Fried chicken and waffles with house-made strawberry butter from Metro Diner. (Courtesy)

A highly-anticipated Florida restaurant featured on Food Network has set an opening date for its first location in Alabama.

Metro Diner will open April 11 on 1800 McFarland Boulevard East, #404, at Midtown Village in Tuscaloosa. The 3,300-square-foot eatery seats 95, has an outdoor patio and will serve all day breakfast, lunch, dinner, beer, wine and mimosas.

Managing Partner David Charboneau said Tuscaloosa was a natural fit for Metro Diner to expand into Alabama.

"I've watched Tuscaloosa and the university grow immensely over the last 16 years, and I'm looking forward to having us become the go-to diner and a part of the Roll Tide community," he said.

Some of Metro Diner's most beloved dishes include fried chicken and waffles with house-made strawberry butter, Charleston Shrimp and Grits and hand-cut home fries. The company said most entrees cost less than $15.

Pre-opening charity events will take place April 8-9 at the restaurant. Customers who make a donation at the fundraiser will receive a sneak peek of Metro Diner and enjoy food before the restaurant opens. Guests can make reservations for the event by calling 205-861-0268.

Hours of operation will be 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. Sunday through Thursday, and 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. Friday and Saturday.

Metro Diner, which specializes in "classic comfort food with flair," once starred on "Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives" with chef and TV host Guy Fieri. Three of Metro Diner's most popular dishes -- the Meatloaf Plate, Pittsburgh Steak Salad and Yo Hala on the Square -- were featured on the episode.

Check out a clip of Metro Diner on Food Network below:
The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has filed a suit against a car wash company, alleging the company denied promotions to a class of black employees because of their race.

The suit alleges that Car Wash Headquarters Inc. - the parent company of Mister Car Wash - repeatedly refused to promote black employees to management positions at its Birmingham-area locations.

"Mister Car Wash does not make employment decisions based on race. We believe the claims made in the EEOC lawsuit are without merit and we will vigorously defend ourselves in court," Mister Car Wash said in a statement.

The lawsuit alleges that Antonio Purdom, Walter Gibson, Marcus Kidd, and Anthony Graham, and other black employees repeated expressed interest in management positions that opened from 2013 to the present, but were rejected despite some of them working at the Birmingham locations since as early as 2003. The company instead promoted less qualified and less experienced white people, the suit states.

Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits employers from denying a position to someone using race as a factor.

The lawsuit is filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Alabama.

"Employers cannot make personnel decisions based on an employee's race," Marsha Rucker, regional attorney for the EEOC's Birmingham District Office, said in a press release. "Employers who allow race to motivate their workplace decisions are violating their employee's rights, and the EEOC will take action to enforce federal law and stop this harmful and self-defeating practice."

Car Wash Headquarters, headquartered in Tucson, Arizona, has more than 200 locations in 20 states, including two in the Birmingham area.

Updated 3:33 p.m. with statement from Mister Car Wash.
Drastic budget cuts are coming at North Dakota State University. The schools new president said in a campus-wide email Tuesday that significant reductions will be necessary due to decreasing enrollments over the past several years. David Cook describes the cuts as incredibly difficult. The north Fargo campus is facing a $10.5 budget shortfall for the next biennium. Cook says he has asked the school's deans to help with rightsizing and reorganizing the academic enterprise and creating new programs to meet workforce needs. The email does not mention layoffs. Cook says most of the NDSUs money comes from tuition and state revenue, both of which are dependent on student numbers. Enrollment at the university is at a 15-year low.
In states where a series of bills aim to restrict access to the procedure, women are speaking out.

Last week, Robin Utz went to Washington.

Utz, an American woman from the Midwestern state of Missouri, arrived there during the confirmation hearings for President Donald Trumps choice for the nations highest court, which Trump has indicated he would like to ban abortion in the United States. She went, invited by elected officials, to tell the story of her abortion in November.

The mission is to tell our story, Utz says, referring to herself and other American women whove chosen to have abortions.

In Washington, Utzs story featured prominently in California Senator Dianne Feinsteins statements of opposition to Trumps nominee for US Supreme Court judge, Neil Gorsuch. It was used as an example of how anti-abortion legislation, Feinstein argued, often appears to be at odds with the medical profession.

Fighting the bigger battle

Utz is at the helm of a growing push among American women  in her state and beyond  to tell their own stories about abortion and to ensure access to the procedure for future generations. It is difficult to do that, she says. Theres a lot of stigma surrounding the procedure in the US and particularly where she lives; Missouri is an example of the many states across the country engaged in a mounting bid to restrict access to abortion with a series of bills  some of which are meant to bar certain aspects of the procedure, others to convince and embolden people against it.





When Utz tells her story, she races through the details she finds more difficult to discuss. This is not because of the abortion itself, she is careful to note, but because of what many campaigners for access to legal, safe abortion say is misinformation about the emotional toll of the procedure. Utzs story is difficult for her because she wanted her pregnancy. An ultrasound revealed foetal anomalies  a rare kidney disease  that her child would not have been able to survive.

Wed have had to immediately put her on life support, she says. Utz had hoped to act as quickly as possible. This is just inhumane to our daughter, she recalled thinking. We have to do this now before shes developed a nervous system.

Utz had the full support of her husband and parents  and even her husbands friend, a nun, despite the Catholic Churchs steadfast stance against the procedure. But she had to wait for 72 hours, because of a controversial law enacted in 2014 requiring that delay. New legislation also mandated that in that time, she received what doctors have called medically inaccurate information on abortion designed to shame or frighten her out of the procedure.

Particularly given her circumstances, these things were at a minimum tone deaf and at worst just callous, she says, adding that she would feel no differently if the pregnancy was unwanted.

There is always a reason

Among the women she has spoken to about their experiences, even those whove had birth control fail, had a good reason, she says. Contrary to claims by abortion opponents, she adds, she has never known a woman to use abortion  particularly given the comparative cost relative to prophylactics  as birth control; its never an easy or inexpensive choice, she reflects.

I dont feel ashamed of any of it. Abortion doesnt have to be a shameful thing, she says, adding that she would like to engage her opponents in a rational and respectful conversation about it. She admits that a sober, empathetic discussion among opponents on abortion is a tall order in Missouri and elsewhere in the US, where the topic rouses sensibilities on both sides.

Abortion is, for campaigners for access to the procedure, a lightning rod on a number of problems in the US: The rapid erosion of womens rights, the ever-flailing bid for equitable healthcare, the fight to maintain the separation of church and state guaranteed in the US constitution. For abortions opponents, who believe  often premised on religious principle  that life starts at conception, the procedure amounts to killing.

This year, there is an unusually high number of bills before the Missouri state legislature that would restrict access to abortion there. Among the 40 different potential laws blocking access to the procedure, activists for access say one calls for an exhibit at a museum in the states capital that would have for its theme comparisons between abortion, the Holocaust and the USs history of slavery.

It is the highest number of bills weve seen introduced in the past four years, says MEvie Mead, director of organising at Planned Parenthood affiliates in Missouri. Planned Parenthood is a nationwide organisation that offers a host of reproductive healthcare services. The organisation has been attacked by conservatives  most recently in the Trump administration  because among those services is abortion and counselling services related to the procedure.

Mead explains that over the past few years, 25 to 35 new bills that would restrict abortion have been proposed, and that in a typical year, only one or two actually become law.

But Mead has noticed an effort to have your name on [an] anti-choice bill among conservative state politicians seeking re-election for the states legislature next year.

Missouri State Representative Tom Hurst, another Republican, introduced a bill that would make it illegal to transport a minor across state lines without parental consent. Hurst argues that the bill would both prevent minors from obtaining abortions without parental consent and also guard against sex trafficking of minors.

Another bill sponsored by Hurst is one allowing the burial of a baby that has been aborted. [It] gives the parent the choice of burying their baby so that Planned Parenthood cannot sell the body parts, he said, alluding to claims by abortion opponents  repeatedly disproven in investigations  that Planned Parenthood sells body parts.

We honor life and wish to protect it, he said.

On Trump, Hurst said, I am hopeful he will respect our concerns and help with our effort.

I hope our government has better respect for human life than the previous [Obama] administration, he added.

Hurst was the only anti-abortion legislator or activist to respond to an interview request from Al Jazeera.

READ MORE: Dutch call for fund to offset Trump abortion NGO move

Atrocious and salacious

Mike Moon, the Missouri state representative behind the bill calling for the museum exhibit, did not respond to Al Jazeeras questions about what inspired the comparison. Mead characterises Moons comparison as atrocious and salacious.

Many of Moons fellow Republican Party members  in government and out of it  have ignored interview requests since Trumps inauguration in January.

Some say the legislators are encouraged by a Trump White House that has pledged to come to their support.





Trump has promised to overturn Roe v Wade, the landmark Supreme Court decision that in 1973 guaranteed access to abortions for American women. Gorsuch has promised to respect the precedent set by the ruling in that case, but Senator Feinstein has cautioned that his responses to her questions at his confirmation hearing have evaded any specific indication of what he would do if a case came before the court in which a ruling might drastically restrict the availability of the procedure.

Abortion access campaigners, including the National Abortion Rights Action League, say that before Roe v Wade, thousands of women died each year in botched illegal abortions. An accurate number is impossible to obtain due to the secrecy enshrouding these deaths.

A return to that era of American history is possible under this administration, some warn. Trump is unpredictable, says Colleen McNicholas, a doctor at Washington University School of Medicine  one of a few performing abortions for Midwestern women.

I think what we all should be thinking is there is no way to predict what he will do, McNicholas says. He has traditionally not been conservative on social issues, although like is true of most politicians, it seems like giving up principals in the quest for political advancement and power is common place.

Mead also acknowledges that Trump was not always in favour of banning abortion, but that does not seem to concern some opponents of the medical procedure.

Trump famously said on the campaign trail that women should be punished for having abortions.

McNicholas says that Trumps firebrand rhetoric has put many people across the country in danger.

The rhetoric demonising these entities is really dangerous and has led to an uptick of violence targeting abortion providers and clinics. Our elected officials have a responsibility to choose their words carefully, and at a minimum to make sure the statements they put out are accurate, she says.

But that is sort of the crux of it  isnt it? We live in a world  in the US  of alternative facts  where science and evidence only matter when it supports your argument. One of the most fascinating perspectives from my standpoint is that if you support reproductive choice and freedom you support someones decision not only to have an abortion but to not have one as well.

McNicholas travels long distances regionally to provide abortions to women living in states where now  following a series of state legislature restrictions that demand that clinics meet what she and other abortion access campaigners say are impossible standards for their facilities  there is often only one abortion clinic within hundreds of miles. She estimates that women in Missouri travel, on average, more than 100 miles to get the procedure.

Overwhelming costs

Utz says she is privileged to have been able to get an abortion. She lives in Missouris largest city, St Louis, and has health insurance and the support of her family. Many women, she says, cannot afford, without ample financial support, to take time off work, find child care, travel 100 miles and then find a hotel where they wait 72 hours for a procedure that can cost anywhere between hundreds and thousands of dollars, with insurance.

Like Utz, Sally, a pseudonym as she spoke under the condition of anonymity for safety reasons, lives in Missouri. I drive by Planned Parenthood every day on the way to work and there are people protesting and there are people that dont want to let women have choice within two miles from my home, she says.

People have bombed abortion clinics. There have been people shot and killed. The people who have been protesting there arent always mentally level.

Sally had an abortion in her late 30s. As a single, working-class woman, its expensive, you have to take time off work, so youre missing work, she says. In total, including her time off work, it cost her more than $2,000.

I dont think anyone should have to worry about their decision  whether it be because they made a mistake or their child would be born with an illness and just a 10 percent chance of survival, she explains.

Like Utz, Rachel Goldberg is a Missourian who wanted her pregnancy, but foetal abnormalities led her to make the difficult decision to terminate rather than see her would-be child suffer and almost inevitably die.

Because of Missouris abortion restriction, Goldberg had to leave the state. My husband and I travelled to Colorado, we took out a loan to cover the cost of the procedure, she says. These practical considerations compounded what she describes as an overwhelming emotional burden.

Women die from lack of access to adequate reproductive rights, and Trumps agenda shows a disdain for their lives, Goldberg says.

Because of the circumstances of her abortion, Goldberg was unable to receive an autopsy that would explain why the foetus had not properly developed  leaving her uncertain of whether she should again try to conceive.

The best medical advice I received was to try again, but it seems scarier to me to make those decisions now, because of the agendas of both my state and national representatives, she says. Will I be denied healthcare that could save my life? Will I have a right to make choices about my body?

It cost Kadie Tannehill about $5,000 to get an abortion, with insurance. I would say abortion is not affordable for all women where I am from, no, she says. For her, there were religious considerations that made the decision difficult, compounded by practical ones. Even as a religious woman, I think abortion will always be a hot-button issue as long as we allow government to be driven by religion, Tannehill reflects.

READ MORE: Trumps first week  Executive overdrive

A womans march

Utz is in contact with other Missouri women, forming strategies about potential activism.

Its difficult to get involved, she says. I have struggled at times to focus my energy and desire to make a difference; there isnt a playbook for becoming an advocate for abortion.

Despite warmth, gratitude and enthusiasm from others at the frontline of this battle, Im finding there isnt always a lot of actionable items Im able to do, she says.

Itd be great to have a process where, if someone wants to advocate, there is a process to notify and enrol them with all necessary parties, she adds. I am trying to build a framework around this, but I cant even figure out if Im reinventing the wheel [and] who to collaborate with yet.





Sally, Goldberg and Tannehill also say that they are actively seeking ways to guarantee womens access to the procedure as elected officials at the federal and state level carry on with plans to eradicate the procedure. But Sally says that speaking to the press was, in itself, a feat for her, where she lives.

While these women find their way in grassroots activism, others continue to note the importance of that work. Under a Trump presidency, many of these women believe that the fight for access to safe, legal abortions is becoming ever more emblematic of many other fights.

It is my belief that reproductive choice and justice means so much more than just being able to have an abortion, McNicholas, the Washington University doctor, says.

It means supporting women who desire sterilisation before having any children, it means supporting women who want to have 10 children, it means improving our public education system so that children of all [socioeconomic backgrounds] have an equal playing field, it means supporting equal pay initiatives, and it means supporting paid maternity/paternity policies. Abortion, no matter how much they try to spin it, does not exist in a vacuum. It is just a small piece of the larger picture of equity.

Kadie Tannehills husband, Justin, observes that there are reasons across party lines to support access, if not the actual procedure. I would like to point out one of the platform issues of the Missouri Republican Party, We believe government governs best when it governs least,' he says. And how they contradict themselves with that very statement.

For Kadie Tannehill, like Utz, abortion is emblematic of a pantheon of US civil liberties concerns  causes of the left in a country where all branches of government are now dominated by the right.

I can also go a step further and say that it is a political indicator and that I believe in funding sex education, universal healthcare, medical marijuana, marriage and gender equality, she says. I think a lot of politicians like to weigh in on abortion because they will receive support either way on the topic, but when it comes down to it, no one should be able to tell someone what to do for or to themselves. Its my body, my life, my child.
The parents of a young man who died shortly after becoming a confidential informant in 2014 provided a tearful plea before lawmakers Tuesday to improve standards in order to prevent further tragedies in the risky world of providing law enforcement information.

As proposed, House Bill 1221 establishes guidelines for the use of confidential informants and enhances protections for them. It also includes record-keeping provisions for law enforcement.

Andrew Sadek was a 20-year-old North Dakota State College of Science student who went missing in May 2014. He was found dead nearly two months later near Wahpeton with a gunshot wound to the head.

Hed been recruited by law enforcement for work as a confidential informant after facing potential criminal charges for selling small quantities of marijuana on campus on multiple occasions.

It is my belief that Andrews death was as a result of his work as a confidential informant, Rogers resident Tammy Sadek, mother of Andrew Sadek, said while fighting back tears before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

An investigation into his death was unable to determine whether it was a case of murder or suicide.

Tammy Sadek says she believes her son agreed to become an informant out of fear.

One of the most dangerous jobs in the world, Tammy Sadek said of being an informant.

People in that situation should be better informed of their legal options and be advised by a lawyer to more fully understand the risks of taking on such a role, she said.

HB1221 primary bill sponsor Rep. Rick Becker, R-Bismarck, agreed.

Becker, who began crafting the bill over the past year, said it is not really that limiting for law enforcement.

Andrew Sadeks death is a situation where someone fell through the cracks, according to Becker.

McLean County States Attorney Ladd Erickson spoke in opposition to the bill, saying it could negatively impact efforts to utilize the informant program.

HB1221 passed the House by a 92-0 vote last month.

No action was immediately taken on HB1221 Tuesday afternoon.
Beirut, Lebanon  Earlier this month, the new Lebanese government, led by President Michel Aoun, published a tender to explore untapped gas and oil reserves that lie in the eastern Mediterranean.

Lebanese Minister of Energy and Water Cesar Abou Khalil has said that the offshore resources could be a major economic boost for the country at a time when its financial lifelines, namely tourism, have taken a major hit due to the ongoing war in neighbouring Syria.

However, other troubles have quickly appeared on the horizon.

The fate of the project is now in jeopardy after Israel made the claim this week that the maritime area off the coast of the Israel-Lebanon border is Israeli territory, thus should be placed under Israeli sovereign control. Following that proclamation, the Israeli government announced that the Knesset will soon vote on a bill clearly defining where its maritime economic border with Lebanon lies.

In response, Lebanons parliament speaker, Nabih Berri, said last week that the Israeli bill claiming the 860sq km zone was a new attack on Lebanons sovereignty. The recent decision taken by Israel on the territorial waters is equal to a declaration of war on Lebanon, he told local media.

The area claimed by both countries covers a triangular expanse of approximately 800sq km, which is rich in coveted natural resources like gas and oil.

READ MORE: Thousands rally in Beirut against proposed tax hikes

The move comes on the heels of years of failed initiatives by the United States and United Nations to mediate a peaceful resolution to the maritime dispute. While the initiatives were unsuccessful in yielding the desired result of splitting the territory between both countries, they were successful in stalling Israels unilateral annexation of the area.

However, if passed by the Knesset, Israel has said that the new bill will provide it with the political justification for annexing the territory, and effectively place it under Israeli sovereignty, mainly for the purpose of harvesting the natural resources found there.

Elias Khoury, a local journalist in Beirut who has been focusing on the issue since 2007, told Al Jazeera that Israels threats of annexation are unacceptable.

Both Lebanon and Israel have been unofficially exploring those waters for years now, and theres been a tacit agreement that they will stay out of each others way, he said.

But Aouns government broke that status-quo recently by announcing its intention to search for gas and oil, which officialised Lebanons claim that the area is Lebanese territory.

After news of the proposed Knesset bill broke out earlier in the week, senior legislators in Aouns government were reported as saying that Lebanon will not yield its maritime territory to Israel.

Both countries have made claims to the ocean territory for decades, but the dispute was exacerbated following separate maritime agreements with Cyprus, signed by Lebanon in 2007 and Israel in 2010.

Overlaps between the distance of both the Israeli and Lebanese borders caused a diplomatic quarrel to break out, ending with each side accusing the other of territorial theft.





Ramat Jalloh, a specialist in maritime law from the International Maritime Law Institute, told Al Jazeera over the phone from her office in Malta that unilateral annexation is not a legal option.

International law is very clear on this, in cases where states share a maritime zone, perhaps a border like the case with Israel and Lebanon, it is customary to divide the territory between the states that sit near that maritime area, Jalloh said. This should always be achieved through bilateral and mutual treaties or agreements. In other words, both sides must meet at a halfway point.

Our country is coping with a lot of political unrest and the new jobs and prosperity brought by that new industry would provide the optimism we need I think. by Elias Khoury, journalist

Unfortunately, it seems that few are optimistic about the possibility of both countries reaching a mutual agreement on demarcating the area equally.

An official from the Lebanese Ministry of National Defence  who wished to remain anonymous due to the sensitivity of the story  is quick to dismiss the idea: There are two reasons why Israel will absolutely not share that territory.

Firstly, zoom out and consider Israels behaviour in regards to other territorial disputes with Lebanon, like the Shebaa farms, which they still occupy. Or maybe the Syrian Golan Heights. They do not have the incentive to leave, because nobody makes them do so, they can take areas whenever they like with impunity, he said.

The United States has also supported them in this and now they have the support of Trump. Secondly, we predict with certainty that there are approximately 865 million barrels of oil and 96 trillion cubic feet of gas in that area, this is something that Israel will fight tooth and nail for.

Lebanese officials continue to assert that the entire triangle of territory falls within Lebanons Exclusive Economic Zone, and that Israels taking of it would be tantamount to violation of Lebanese sovereignty, justifying a case at the international courts.

An exclusive economic zone (EEZ), is enshrined in the United Nations Convention on the Law of Seas and says that a state has special rights over the exploration and use of marine resources within its coastal waters.

But with stagnant economic growth and playing host to more than one million Syrian refugees, Lebanons drying up coffers desperately need filling.

Khoury says that Lebanon cannot afford to be dealt the short straw on the maritime territory. After floating the idea of oil and gas exploration a few years ago, we had massive investor interest and a number of oil companies saying they would like to bid, Khoury said.

Our country is coping with a lot of political unrest and the new jobs and prosperity brought by that new industry would provide the optimism we need, I think.

We must do everything we can to stop Israel from taking it, even if that means taking them to the international courts.
Johannesburg, South Africa  Flags were lowered to half-mast and mourners lined the streets outside Westpark Cemetery on Wednesday morning. Many embraced tearfully as the white hearse, escorted by a fleet of police motorcycles and bearing the coffin draped in the ruling African National Congress flag of green, yellow and black, made its way towards Heroes Acre. This burial site for prominent South Africans is the final resting place for Ahmed Kathrada, stalwart of the anti-apartheid struggle, activist and former political prisoner.

South Africa is a nation in mourning. After three-quarters of a century fighting for equality, freedom and dignity, Kathradas watch has ended.

Fondly known as Uncle Kathy, Kathrada died in hospital early on Tuesday morning, aged 87, due to complications following brain surgery to remove a blood clot. He later developed pneumonia in both lungs and was kept under sedation. Despite this, there was a constant stream of comrades, family and friends by his bedside as his condition deteriorated.

Born on August 21, 1929, to Indian immigrant parents in the small northwestern farming town of Schweizer-Reneke, also known as the City of Sunflowers, Kathrada was the fourth of six children. Owing to their Indian heritage and the policies of the time, Kathrada could not attend either the European or African schools in the area. At the age of eight he was forced to move to Johannesburg to pursue an education. Hailed as belonging to the golden era of incorruptible freedom fighters  the selfless generation  he there began his political career at the tender age of 12, handing out pamphlets for the Young Communist League of South Africa.

Instrumental in the Womens March

Speaking at his funeral, Sophia Williams-De Bruyn remembered a young Kathrada. She is an anti-apartheid hero in her own right and the first woman to receive the Womens Award for exceptional national service from the South African government. She is also the last living leader of the Womens March of 1956, protesting against the implementation of pass laws for black women.

But when she met Kathrada in the early 1950s, they did not meet on the political battlefield; they met at a party.

He couldnt dance, she laughed, shaking her head, adding that he never let that small detail stop him from trying. He had two left feet but oh, he loved dancing.

Their friendship was cemented after that first party nearly 70 years ago. She remembers fondly how Kathrada was an organiser, and how he made sure she ate at least one meal a day, arranging for fellow comrade Helen Joseph to put a plate of food aside for her, despite limited funds.

He was also very instrumental in the Womens March, she recalls, smiling as she details how it was Kathradas job to quell the Indian husbands fears about their women joining the protest.

He also drove her, and some of the other women who participated in this monumental occasion, to their various locations, despite being placed under restrictions by apartheid security police and having a banning order against him at the time. Under the apartheid regime, banned people endured severe restrictions on their movements, political activities and associations. They were barred from entering places where large numbers of people gathered or worked, such as factories, airports, schools, universities and courts. They were often not allowed to join political parties or to publish in newspapers. They were definitely not allowed to attend mass marches against the regime.

Williams De-Bruyn said that despite his being much younger than many of the other leaders, Kathrada was known for always speaking truth to power, a quality that would persist into his later years.

READ MORE: Ahmed Kathrada  The Robben Island diaries

Freedom fighter

Kathrada was arrested for the first time in 1946 at the age of 17, along with 2,000 other peaceful protesters. These passive resisters were arrested for defying laws put in place by the apartheid government discriminating against Indian citizens, and Kathrada spent one month in prison. Two years later, with the banning of the African National Congress, Kathrada was placed under house arrest.

He would be jailed a further 18 times before being sentenced to life imprisonment in 1964 at the age of 34 following the infamous Rivonia Trial, along with fellow revolutionaries Nelson Mandela, Walter Sisulu, Govan Mbeki and seven other defendants. He spent 26 years and three months in prison, serving 18 of those years on Robben Island off the coast of Cape Town. He was released in 1989 at the age of 60, just four months before Mandela.

Now that Kathrada is gone, only two Rivonia Trialists  Denis Goldberg and Andrew Mlangeni  remain. Both attended Kathradas funeral. Also in attendance were embattled former finance minister Pravin Gordhan (who was sacked today by President Jacob Zuma); David Makhura, premier of Gauteng; Graca Machel, the widow of Nelson Mandela; deputy president Cyril Ramaphosa; ANC general secretary Gwede Mantashe; Winnie Madikizela-Mandela and former acting president Kgalema Motlanthe.

A nations father

Zenani Mandela, the daughter of Nelson Mandela  South Africas first democratically elected president and a close friend of Kathrada  and his second wife Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, choked down tears as she spoke about her Uncle Kathy at a special prayer meeting held for Kathrada on Tuesday.

She said South Africans must never forget the role he played in the fight for freedom and the toll it took on him.

Because it was a fight, for all his gentleness, Uncle Kathy was there in the trenches, she said. She began to cry as she recalled the unique relationship she and her family shared with Kathrada.

For Uncle Kathy, as it is for my father, it is abundantly clear that millions of South Africans consider them as relatives of the first order. by Zenani Mandela, daughter of Nelson Mandela

There are people who come into your life and never leave, because they are truly special. They have what we call presence, that rare ability to loom large in our lives so that their impact on our lives is multiplied a thousand times over. He was my other father.

She said she had only the fondest memories of the gentle giant whom she describes as one as the last of a generation who fought so valiantly for South Africa and even in liberation still managed to practise what was preached during the struggle.

Kathy, she said, walked the talk. Uncle Kathy was my dads best friend, brother and confidante.

She says she had arranged for the two to spend time together during Madibas final days. I loved watching the two of them share jokes, reminiscing about the past, and it is one of my lifes most abiding memories, she said.

Despite her personal connection to both men, she says that perhaps the measure of a legacy is not what the person means to their immediate family, but rather how many outsiders consider them flesh and blood.

For Uncle Kathy, as it is for my father, it is abundantly clear that millions of South Africans consider them as relatives of the first order, she said.

South Africa, she said, has not just lost a leader, but a father as well.

The prayer event was also one of Winnie Mandelas first public appearances since her recent hospitalisation. Speaking to the media at the event, Madikizela-Mandela said that the passing of Kathrada is so much more than the death of just another veteran in the fight for freedom. It was a rehash of Madibas passing. His passing just brings the finality to a chapter in the history of our struggle, she said.

She said she wishes that he hadnt left her, and the country, during this particular time of crisis. What he had fought for isnt what is going on today, and it is a tragedy.

OPINION: The Mandela legacy

Jacob Zumas absence

Noticeably absent from the funeral was South African president Jacob Zuma.

Zuma had not been invited to speak at the event, and indicated that he would not be attending the funeral at the request of the Kathrada family, a blow to a sitting president and fellow struggle veteran.

Just under a year ago, Kathrada penned an open letter to Zuma, asking him to step down as president or risk to further deepen the crisis of confidence in the government of the country. This, in face of persistently widespread criticism, condemnation and demand following the scathing Constitutional Court judgment on the Nkandla matter, dealing with upgrades to the presidential homestead.

The Constitutional Court of South Africa last year found that the 246m rand ($18m) spent, initially said to have been for security upgrades, unduly benefited the president and that he had spent public money to upgrade his private residence.

Kathrada further wrote that if he were president, he would step down with immediate effect, paraphrasing the motto of the ANCs armed wing Umkhonto we Sizwe that there comes a time in the life of every nation when it must choose to submit or fight.

With that, he urged the president to submit to the will of the people and resign.

At the funeral, Kathradas written words were echoed again as Kgalema Motlanthe included excerpts from the letter in his speech. Kathrada was hailed for his courage in breaking ranks and taking a stand against his president, party leader and comrade.

READ MORE: Anti-apartheid icon Ahmed Kathrada laid to rest

Championing a non-racial South Africa

Various other speakers at the funeral remembered Uncle Kathy as one of the finest sons of the soil, saying he dedicated his life to freedom, equality and justice. He was described as a social and political giant, but humble to his last day. He will be remembered as soft-spoken but strong-willed with a sharp wit, incorruptible in both his politics and his personal life.

He was described as being ahead of his time, opting for the building of a non-racial South Africa at a time when it would have been very easy to mobilise the oppressed black masses on the notion of being anti-white.

But its not just the older generation of stalwarts and activists that have paid homage to Kathrada.

He was described as a social and political giant, but humble to his last day. by

Leaders and student activists from the countrys recent Fees Must Fall protests have also added their voices in interviews and on social media to the chorus of praise, not just for Kathradas historic contribution but for his ongoing support during the student protests which have been an annual occurrence since 2015.

In October 2016, student activist and former Student Representative Council for Wits University leader Shaeera Kalla was shot with rubber bullets by riot police while protesting for free, quality and decolonised education for all. She was shot 13 times at close range, in the back, resulting in her hospitalisation. His support extended beyond the political.

Just a few months ago #Uncle Kathy came to see me in hospital, Kalla said on Twitter.

Just before that, he had apparently been to the University of the Witwatersrand to address student protesters and activists. He was active till the end, she said in the same tweet.

He was shocked at the police brutality on campus. During his brief visit, he expressed his support for our movement and told me to keep fighting. I will forever be grateful that a man of such stature was so concerned with my recovery, Kalla told Al Jazeera.

A photograph that Kalla tweeted shows her lying in a hospital bed on her stomach, while Kathrada holds her hand  a unique meeting of the struggle leaders from both the old and the new generation.

OPINION: #FeesMustFall  Decolonising education

Raising up tomorrows leaders

When thousands of student protesters gathered on the lawns of the Union Building in Pretoria in 2015, demanding to be addressed by the president about the deepening education crisis, many were surprised by the presence of a stoic figure on their side of the picket line: Kathrada was at their march.

His presence did not go unnoticed by the students  a generation that feels disenfranchised and forgotten by the former liberators of the countrys oppressed.

Kalla recalled the renewed fire in their hearts when they realised that Kathrada had not forgotten them.

Having someone of his calibre there on the picket lines with us was very, very important as we as young people felt let down by our elders who had neglected us in our struggle, Kalla told Al Jazeera. But that day, we knew Uncle Kathy would never do that to us.

Like his friend Mandela, Kathrada always had a soft spot for the youth, believing that it was from their ranks that the future of South Africa would rise.

This task is a difficult one, but we were raised on the shoulders of giants, and we cannot let them down. by Shaeera Kalla, student activist

Williams-De Bruyn said he wanted to help equip the leaders of tomorrow and ease the suffering of those who would pick up the baton and continue the fight.

He was quite aware that the young people would have to carry out another struggle. A struggle of now. And so he has equipped you properly, politically, but you also stand in good stead to fight this struggle because now you are educated and the resources are there, she said at the funeral.

The ongoing student movement embodies many of Kathradas ideals: It is young, passionate, and represents various classes, races, genders, religions and sexual orientations. And they know the struggle is far from over.

By being involved in activism until his last days he made us realise that the struggle for equality and emancipation is never over, Kalla said. Uncle Kathy left us as young people with a challenge and that challenge is to continue his generations fight for liberation.

She says she knows it wont be easy. This task is a difficult one, but we were raised on the shoulders of giants, and we cannot let them down.

Neeshan Balton from the Ahmed Kathrada Foundation said at the end of the funeral service that on Heroes Acre, with neighbours such as South African cleric and leading white Afrikaner anti-apartheid activist Beyers Naude, even in death Kathrada will be in a non-racial environment, as he would have wanted.

In a moving statement, emeritus archbishop Desmond Tutu envisioned Kathradas imminent reunion with friends long gone.

May Ahmed rest in peace and rise in glory, Tutu said. May he rejoice in many heavenly cups of hot chocolate with his old friends and comrades, Mandela, Sisulu, Mbeki, Motsoaledi and Mahlaba, among them.

When Mandela, his fellow Robben Island inmate and close friend, died in 2013, Kathrada wrote in a tribute letter: In death, you once more challenge people from every strata, religion and position to think about how their own actions do and can change the world for better or worse.

Now, his own death is challenging South Africans to reflect on how far they have come as a nation, and how far they still have to go to achieve the vision and goal of the non-racial, non-sexist society envisioned by this African National Congress leader.

Despite being eligible for a state burial, Ahmed Mohamed Kathrada was laid to rest on Wednesday in a simple burial as per his Islamic faith.
Confucius is synonymous with Brand China, but can the Chinese government live up to the wisdom of Confucius?

Ask any educated person in the world to name one great Chinese thinker, and youll always get the same answer: Confucius. Ask that person to name a second Chinese thinker, and chances are youll draw a blank.

China is home to several of the worlds oldest and greatest philosophical traditions, but outside East Asia their key personalities are largely unknown. Qin Shi Huang, the first emperor of the Qin dynasty, is known for his terracotta army and Sun Tzu for the ancient art of war. But the only Chinese philosopher who really registers for the rest of the world is Confucius.

So its no wonder that when the Chinese government launched its soft power drive to spread Chinese language and culture around the world, it turned to the one figure who is the beginning and the end of Brand China: Confucius.

Brand China





Chinas Confucius Institute is the biggest public diplomacy programme in the world. There are now more than 1,000 Confucius institutes and classrooms in 120 countries (and counting). Confucius institutes are major university-based teaching centres, while Confucius classrooms are smaller language learning support units for high schools.

Confucius also increasingly represents Brand China inside China itself. With 4,000 years of history to draw on, the Communist Party seems to have chosen Confucius to replace Mao as the countrys icon. Maos image may still appear on the currency, but these days Confucius dominates the school curriculum.

Long gone is the Little Red Book, the selection of Maos maxims that students once had to study and memorise. Now its the Analects of Confucius. Centuries ago, the mastery of Confucian thought was the key to passing imperial Chinas famous civil service exams. Today schools are once again teaching a Confucian curriculum to the children of the elite.

OPINION: Chinas Cultural Revolution must be confronted

For a brief time in 2011 there was even a statue of Confucius just off Tiananmen Square in the heart of Beijing; it was mysteriously removed and relocated to a less conspicuous location after just four months. There is tension between Maoist true believers and Confucius new acolytes. Confuciuss yellow star is rising, but Maos red star hasnt fully set yet.

Mao was so vehemently anti-Confucius that after he died in 1976 it took nearly 30 years for Confucius to come out of hiding. by

Down with Confucius

Modern China was not always so proud of its Confucian heritage. The Chinese Communist Party was born out of the May 4 Movement of 1919, a student protest movement dedicated to eradicating the traditional society of Chinas imperial past. One of the main slogans of the May 4 protests was Down with Confucius and Sons  a demand for the end of patriarchy and the authoritarian government.

Communist Chinas first leader, Mao Zedong, identified Confucius with the subjugation of women. He blamed Confucianism for promoting a conservative ideology of the family that prevented women from receiving an education and promoted the barbaric practice of foot binding, in which girls feet are tightly wrapped to stunt their growth.

Mao was so vehemently anti-Confucius that after he died in 1976 it took nearly 30 years for Confucius to come out of hiding. In 2005, Chinese President Hu Jintao unveiled his Confucian harmonious society slogan without mentioning the sage by name. It was left for Hus successor, Xi Jinping, to officially rehabilitate Confucius in a 2014 speech marking his 2,565th birthday.

OPINION: Chinas misunderstood soft power

Confucius is now front and centre of Chinese political rhetoric, whatever the fate of his nine-metre tall statue. Maos portrait will certainly stay on Chinese currency until the centenary of the Communist Party in 2021, but we may witness a change shortly thereafter. Confucius is set to become the new face of official China.

Speaking truth to power





The name Confucius is a corruption of the Chinese name Kong Fuzi, which literally translates as Grand Master Kong. The Grand Master himself might be shocked to discover that he is revered as a fount of wisdom in 21st-century China. During his own lifetime he wandered from kingdom to kingdom, repeatedly exiled for condemning corruption and speaking truth to power.

At the foundation of Confucian thought are the three principles of ren (benevolence or love of humanity), li (propriety or proper behaviour), and yi (justice or righteousness). You might think that a philosophy based on benevolence, propriety, and justice would be a tough sell for a government that is extravagantly corrupt and firmly represses all dissent.

In fact many Chinese netizens do poke fun at the irony of Communist Party calls for Confucian harmony. In todays China, harmony seems to mean not causing a disturbance by disagreeing with the government.

The Communist Party has embraced Confucius because he taught respect for authority  and the Party is in charge, at least for now. But the Confucian mirror image of respect for authority is the obligation owed by governors to the governed. Here the Communist Party of China increasingly falls short.

READ MORE: Chinas leftover women

Confucius was no democrat. But by all accounts he was a curmudgeonly critic of all of the governments of his day. It seems hard to believe that he would have approved of todays Chinese government. If too many of its people actually go and read Confucius for themselves, the Chinese government may one day regret idolising the cantankerous Grand Master.

Salvatore Babones is a comparative sociologist at the University of Sydney. He is a specialist in global economic structure.

The views expressed in this article are the authors own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeeras editorial policy.
Despite all the noise about a race for the Arctic, there is actually a coordinated effort to govern the region.

The race is on. The Arctic is open for business. Thus runs the decade-old narrative on the Arctic, depicting it as a new open frontier replete with riches up for grabs.

This assumption gained momentum through confluence of a few developments between 2007 and 2008. Arctic sea ice loss was reported as the worst in recorded history, outpacing forecasted decline, which was followed by the US Geological Survey claiming that the Arctic held 13 percent of the worlds remaining undiscovered conventional oil and 30 percent of its gas resources. To some this suggested that there were vast economic opportunities in the Arctic.

The idea of an Arctic race for resources was further encouraged by two Russian mini-submarines planting a flag on the seabed under the North Pole. Although Russias adventure to the depths of the Arctic Ocean was more of a technical feat and an effective national PR stunt, the subsequent media narrative was filled with inflamed political rhetoric and misguided coverage.

Today, the forbidding natural environment is still not allowing quick access to the much-coveted natural resources, nor to shipping routes between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. And the race looks much more like an organised collaboration than a disorderly scramble.

An orderly race





Despite all the noise about an international race in the Arctic, governance of the regions resources and sea-lanes is actually a coordinated effort proceeding in an orderly manner.

The Arctic region is comprised of eight states with rights and privileges afforded to all of them: the coastal states of Canada, Denmark via Greenland, Norway, Russia and the United States in addition to Finland, Iceland and Sweden. These states gather regularly on formal and informal bases at the Arctic Council, which was founded in 1996 as a high-level intergovernmental forum for purposes of cooperation and coordination on matters of common concern.

Decisions are made by consensus. Indigenous peoples organisations hold the unique position of Permanent Participants, which gives them full consultation rights in Council decision-making. In other words, Arctic states alongside northern indigenous groups function together in a relatively well-ordered fashion.

Independent of the Council, but as a function of state sovereignty, the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) agreement defines the rights and responsibilities of nations regarding the worlds oceans. Under UNCLOS, coastal states are granted exclusive economic rights to any natural resources found on, or beneath the seabed extending 200 nautical miles from the shoreline. In the event of an overlapping claim Arctic coastal states have agreed to negotiate disputes peacefully. The US is yet to ratify UNCLOS.

OPINION: Time to put Russia-Canada tensions in the deep freeze

Much attention has also been given to vessels transiting though Arctic waters, which is yet to amount to much. At present, however, Russias Northern Sea Route is the most viable choice, but the Northwest Passage (NWP), located in North American waters, may be passable in the not-too-distant future. For now the NWP is limited by sea ice, the lack of infrastructure, and an ongoing friendly dispute between Canada that claims jurisdiction and the US claim that these are international waters.

But, given the speed of warming waters, and resulting international interest, standards and regulations must be set in order to deal with increased traffic. One such instrument is the long-awaited International Maritime Organizations Polar Code, which came into effect in January 2017. Notably, the Arctic Councils Arctic Marine Shipping Assessment stressed the need for a Polar Code in 2009.

The Arctic is indeed global in scope, but unfettered access is not in the cards. by

Claims of Arctic proximity

This idea of a race, however, did draw a good deal of international attention to the Arctic. Numerous nations expressed a keen interest in joining the Arctic Council. Under the status of Observer, non-Arctic states, NGOs and intergovernmental organisations participate with Council activities, in a limited manner.

To accommodate the growing interest of countries such as China, South Korea and India, at the 2013 Kiruna Ministerial Meeting Council members adopted the new Observer manual that governs the activities of Observer states. Recognising that an increase in Observers could affect the balance of the AC, member states developed more robust standards, including requisite recognition of the special role of the Permanent Participants.

Without doubt the Arctic is increasingly part of the global economy. However, where we see the greatest evidence of this, in my view, is in the recent development of numerous new organisations geared toward increased economic activity.

In 2014 the Arctic Economic Council (AEC) was launched during Canadas Arctic Council chairmanship (2013-2015). Much to the credit of Canadas Leona Aglukkaq, the first ever Inuk to chair the Arctic Council, one of her priorities was to address the very real economic challenges of Northerners.

OPINION: A heatwave in the Arctic, a Trump in the White House

Noting the lack of a northern forum for addressing common issues, Aglukkaq said: It became clear there is a gap in Arctic-to-Arctic expertise; we tend to go south for solutions. The first chair elected to the AEC is Tara Sweeney, an Inupiat from Barrow Alaska and senior vice president of external affairs for the Arctic Slope Regional Corp. Concurrent with the handover of the Arctic Council chairmanship from the US to Finland in April 2017, the AEC chair will also pass to a representative from Finland.





Whereas the Arctic Economic Council aims to address economic challenges with a strong focus on the northern voice, the Arctic Circle Assembly could be depicted as an open invitation to interested parties worldwide to exchange ideas on a wide range of issues.

Launching the Arctic Circle in 2013, Icelands then President, Olafur Ragnar Grimsson, said at a Washington DC National Press Club luncheon: The aim of the Arctic Circle is to strengthen the policymaking process by bringing together as many Arctic and international players as possible under one large open tent.'

Held in Reykjavik, Iceland, the 2016 Assembly was well attended by more than 2,000 participants from 50 nations. But what I found most enlightening during the proceedings was the choice of words used by speakers at the opening session.

China is near Arctic state, announced Gao Feng from the foreign ministry. This was not unexpected, as China has claimed this status to justify why it should be considered an Arctic stakeholder. France, like China, is a near Arctic state, said Laurent Mayet, Deputy Ambassador to the Polar Regions. Swiss Secretary of State Yves Rossier declared that Switzerland is a vertical Arctic country. But keynote speaker Nicola Sturgeon, First Minister of Scotland, may have topped the others when she assured the now-amused audience that Scotland is the closest Arctic neighbour.

READ MORE: Massive iceberg expected to crack off Antarctica

The Arctic is indeed global in scope, but unfettered access is not on the cards. In deference to the indigenous peoples who have called it home for millennia, and others whose families are now well established in the North, states should tread lightly. Its their environment and economic needs that are paramount.

Erica Dingman is a senior fellow at the World Policy Institute and director of Arctic in Context.

The views expressed in this article are the authors own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeeras editorial policy.
Calls for end of three-week detention of Abdul who worked with American forces in Afghanistan and holds a valid visa.

Washington, DC  Rights groups are calling for the release of an Afghan man with a special visa given to those who assist the United States military overseas who has been held by immigration authorities for nearly three weeks.

Abdul, whose full name is not being revealed for security reasons, arrived at the Newark, New Jersey airport on March 13 as part of the Special Immigrant Visa (SIV) programme. Afghans who are in life-threatening danger are eligible for this status.

Border agents coerced him into signing away his fundamental rights, even though the federal government understood his life was in danger in Afghanistan because of his service to the United States, Jeanne LoCicero, a lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union, said in a statement.





The man and his family had previously been attacked by the Taliban armed group. US immigration authorities are trying to deport him.

Abdul, who holds a sponsorship letter from a retired US Army sergeant, worked as a cashier for five years at a cafeteria next to the US embassy in Afghanistans capital Kabul until February, shortly before he departed for the United States.

Instead of a warm welcome, Abdul was detained on arrival.

If they had stamped his passport, he would be a lawful US resident, Jason Scott Camilo, an immigration lawyer representing Abdul, told Al Jazeera.

Camilo said the Afghan was initially interrogated for 28 hours by agents from the Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and Immigration and Customs (ICE) agencies.

The lawyer said Abdul was without legal counsel for more than a day. He was held in a big waiting room. Theres a couple of jail-like cells without beds  He couldnt sleep, Camilo said.

Shortly before his scheduled deportation, the International Refugee Assistance Project (IRAP) filed a case on Abduls behalf, which was denied. It then filed an emergency appeal and a court placed a temporary stay on his deportation pending a review of his case.

Abdul has since passed an initial interview for refugee status and is awaiting a court review in mid-April. However, he remains locked up in the Elizabeth Detention Center, a private facility contracted by ICE.

Betsy Fisher, IRAPs policy director, said Abduls detention is part of a larger clampdown on the Special Immigrant Visa programme.

In December 2016, then-president Barack Obama signed the National Defense Authorization Act, which only allocated 1,500 more SIV visas. With so few visas available, Fisher explained, interviews for applicants at the US embassy in Kabul ended on March 1.

There are roughly 10,000 people still waiting for SIVs, Fisher told Al Jazeera. The fact that applicants are now in indefinite limbo because Congress has failed to provide the number of visas we knew were needed is a disgrace and abandonment of our allies.

Abdul is the second Afghan SIV recipient to be detained this month. On March 4, a family of five that had been granted approval to move to the US because of their fathers work was detained in Los Angeles.

Al Jazeera contacted ICE and CBP for comment, but did not immediately receive a response.

Follow Creede Newton on Twitter: @creedenewton
Investigation under way by Belgian prosecutors over two incidents in west Mosul where dozens of civilians were killed.

Belgium has opened an investigation into the suspected involvement of Belgian fighter jets in air strikes in west Mosul that killed dozens of civilians, prosecutors said on Friday.

Iraqi authorities believe more than 130 civilians were killed in strikes over several days in Mosuls al-Jadida area, and attention has focused on one particularly deadly attack on March 17. Other estimates say as many as 400 people may have died.

We have opened a preliminary investigation to establish  whether all procedures were observed during two incidents, prosecutors spokesman Eric Van Der Sypt told AFP news agency.

If rules of engagement were properly observed  it is possible that no crime was committed, Van Der Sypt said.

READ MORE: US probably involved in mass Iraqi civilian deaths

Belgian MP Wouter De Vriendt told Flemish broadcaster VRT the case involved strikes carried out by Belgian F-16 fighter jets on March 17.

The US-led coalition had previously said it carried out a strike on March 17 in an area of west Mosul in which civilian casualties were reported, and it had opened an investigation.





Belgium takes part in the US-led coalition against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group, which has conducted tens of thousands of air strikes against the fighters in Iraq and Syria.

The coalition insists ISIL has targeted civilians and used them as human shields, while acknowledging air strikes by anti-ISIL forces have also left civilians dead.

The United States carries out most Iraq air operations, but Australia, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Jordan, the Netherlands, and Britain also carry out missions.

General Stephen Townsend, the senior US commander in Iraq, said this week a coalition strike in the northern city earlier this month probably killed dozens of civilians.

US investigators are also looking at the apparent bombing of a school in Mansura near Raqqa, Syria on March 21, and a building next to a mosque on March 16 in al-Jineh, in Aleppo province.
At least 10 killed, dozens wounded in a blast claimed by the Pakistan Taliban in Kurram Agencys Parachinar city.

A bomb apparently targeting a mosque in Pakistans northwestern city of Parachinar killed at least 10 people on Friday and wounded dozens in an attack claimed by the Pakistan Taliban.

It is suspected to be a remote-controlled device planted in a vehicle, Ikramullah Khan, a political agent for Kurram agency, told Al Jazeera, adding that at least five wounded were in critical condition.

Television footage from the scene showed damaged buildings in a busy marketplace, with crowds gathered around the site. Local officials said the blast took place near the entrance to a Shia mosque.

Mumtaz Hussain, a doctor at the local Agency Headquarters Hospital, earlier said five bodies, including a woman and two children, and more than three dozen wounded had been brought to the hospital and an appeal had been issued for blood donors.

READ MORE: Pakistan starts building fence along Afghanistan border

Patients are being brought to us in private cars and ambulances and we have received over three dozen patients so far, Hussain told Reuters.

The banned armed group Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, often referred to as the Pakistan Taliban, said the blast was part of its operation Ghazi, named after their leader killed by Pakistani security forces in 2007.

Sajid Hussain Turi, a member of parliament from Kurram, told local television channel Geo:

There have been threats for at least two months, but I am sad to say the administration and the [special forces] soldiers have just been bothering people here  and yet this attack still happened. This is both a question mark [on the security arrangements] and to be marked with sadness.

Parachinar is the capital of the Kurram tribal area in Pakistans northwest, located about 275km west of the capital Islamabad. The district has seen several blasts targeting its sizeable Shia Muslim minority.

In January, at least 25 people were killed and 87 wounded when a bomb went off in a busy vegetable market in Parachinar.

Last month, more than 70 people were killed and dozens wounded in an attack on a crowded Sufi shrine in southern Pakistan.

The attacks have shattered hopes that Pakistan may have come through the armed groups violence that had scarred its recent history and increased pressure on Prime Minister Nawaz Sharifs government to show it was improving security.
US president backs his former adviser Michael Flynns move to ask for immunity if he were to testify.

President Donald Trump has blasted a probe into his teams ties to Russia as an opposition witch-hunt, defending his former top aide Michael Flynns decision to ask for immunity in the case.

Trumps ex-national security adviser, whose links to Russia are one focus of the investigation, has sought protection in exchange for his testimony to the FBI and congressional committees.

Flynns lawyer said in a statement on Thursday that his client has a story to tell, and he very much wants to tell it, should the circumstances permit.

But two key committees in the probe, the House and Senate Intelligence Committees, both suggested the immunity proposal was premature.

Trump nevertheless encouraged Flynns move in a tweet.

Mike Flynn should ask for immunity in that this is a witch hunt (excuse for big election loss), by media & Dems, of historic proportion!

Flynn could be a key witness as the FBI, as well as the House and Senate intelligence committees, seek to determine whether Trump advisers colluded with Russias interference in last years presidential election.

READ MORE: US senator accuses Russia of propaganda on steroids

But Adam Schiff, the senior Democrat on the House panel, said there was still much work and many more witnesses and documents to obtain before any immunity request from any witness can be considered.

We should first acknowledge what a grave and momentous step it is for a former national security adviser to the president of the United States to ask for immunity from prosecution, Schiff said.





A close adviser to Trumps 2016 campaign, Flynn was forced to step down after just 24 days in his White House job after misleading the vice president about conversations he had with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak after the election.

He is also in focus over receiving $33,000 from Russian television RT to attend a 2015 gala in Moscow where he sat with Russian President Vladimir Putin and $530,000 from Turkey for lobbying services.

But Flynn is not the only Trump associate to have had contacts with Russia during the campaign.

Investigators want to know whether there was any collusion between them and Moscows concerted effort last year to hurt Trumps Democratic election rival, Hillary Clinton.

The Russian government has denied the allegations and denied that it hacked emails of Democratic groups and released information to tip the election towards Trump, who has called for better US relations with Moscow.

What Flynn could tell investigators is unknown. US prosecutors can offer a suspect immunity in exchange for information that can incriminate others in a case, particularly larger figures.

Critics assailed the president over his tweet, noting that during last years campaign, Trump said in a speech that If youre not guilty of a crime, what do you need immunity for?

Asked by journalists on Friday if Trump though Flynn was guilty of something, White House spokesman Sean Spicer said the president just wants Flynn to testify.

He thinks Mike Flynn should go testify and do what he has to do to get the story out, Spicer said.
Duterte allies cite war on drugs in move to postpone local elections that would vastly extend the presidents powers.

Allies of Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte have drafted a bill aimed at postponing more than 40,000 village council elections as part of the governments war on drugs, granting him power to choose replacements.

If passed by congress, the move would make Duterte, the Philippines most powerful leader since former President Ferdinand Marcos rule.

Duterte claimed that 40 percent of the countrys village chiefs, identified as barangay captains, are into drugs and are hindering his administrations anti-drug crackdown, which has killed more than 8,000 people since he took office in June last year.

A third of the people were killed in raids and sting operations by police who say they acted in self-defence, while the rest were killed by unknown gunmen.

OPINION: Peace is still possible in Dutertes Philippines

The bid to delay the barangay polls due in October has been filed by Congressman Robert Barbers, with the support of Duterte follower and House of Representatives speaker Pantaleon Alvarez. They say the aim is to stop local drugs barons from winning posts.

Barbers, who heads the house committee on drugs, told Reuters news agency that the move was neither authoritarian nor undemocratic because extraordinary times need extraordinary measures.

Especially if we give access to the drug lords to come into play, maybe run for public office. And thats more dangerous, he said.

The legislation, scheduled to be discussed when congress resumes on May 2, seeks to postpone for a second consecutive year the ballot for 336,000 chairmen and councillors in the countrys 42,000 barangays. The barangay is the smallest political unit in the Philippines.





Dutertes spokesman, Ernesto Abella, said the president wanted to keep drugs out of politics, but would let legislators decide on the elections.

He is aware of the process, respects the law, and defers to the independence of congress, Abella said.

However, instead of extending the tenure of incumbents, Dutertes supporters want to declare all positions vacant until 2020, and allow the president to appoint councillors of his choice, effectively expanding his control of the executive and legislative branches to the local government apparatus.

Critics say Duterte has no authority to postpone the elections and are suspicious of his motives.

Congressman Edcel Lagman said the democratic process should never be sacrificed to the questionable scheme of the president and his cheerleaders.

Former Senate President Aquilino Pimentel, the author of a 1991 Local Government Code, called the plan a joke and said Duterte should jail rogue officials instead of purging all barangay leaders.

We cannot do away with the right of the people to elect their own leaders, he said on television.

READ MORE: Philippines  Drug suspects routinely killed by police

Meanwhile, Duterte unleashed an expletive-laden tirade on Thursday against the countrys leading newspaper and television network, threatening to humiliate them and their owners, whom he accused of distorting news of his anti-drug campaign.

Duterte, who has had a thorny relationship with the media, complained that his administrations anti-drug campaign has been portrayed as targeting the poor in a televised appearance.

Responding to accounts of his alleged corruption, Duterte said he will resign if reports of undeclared bank deposits are proven.

Describing the owners of the Philippine Daily Inquirer and ABS-CBN television network as fools, he said that he would use the state-owned network to ridicule them in order to get even.

There are press [people] who are sons of b****es and who know nothing but lies, Duterte said in a national speech at the oath-taking of government officials at Manilas presidential palace.

Inquirer, youve never been fair. I know that its supposed to be antagonistic but fair? Youre rude, he added.

ABS-CBN is also rude, really rude.

In response, the Philippine Daily Inquirer Executive Editor Jose Ma. Nolasco said in a statement that it has been fair in its coverage of Duterte and his administration, and has continuously included his side in any controversy, adding that the newspaper runs an opinion column, where cabinet officials expand on government policies.

There has been no immediate statement from ABS-CBN.
Michael Flynn, who resigned over contacts with Russian officials, wants protection against unfair prosecution.

Donald Trumps former national security adviser, Michael Flynn, has offered to testify before congressional committees probing potential ties between the Trump campaign and Russia but wants protection against unfair prosecution, his lawyer has said.

Flynn was forced to resign as Trumps national security adviser in February over contacts with Russian officials.

General Flynn certainly has a story to tell, and he very much wants to tell it, should the circumstances permit, said a statement on Thursday from Flynns lawyer, Robert Kelner.

Testimony from Flynn could help shed light on the conversations he had with Russian Ambassador to the United States Sergey Kisylak last year when he was the national security adviser for Trumps presidential campaign.

Kelner said discussions had taken place about Flynns availability to testify with officials of the intelligence committees of both the US Senate and the House of Representatives.

Both committees are investigating allegations of Russian meddling in the US election campaign last year as well as possible ties between the Trump campaign and Russians.

Trumps Russia mess: Five things to know

Flynn stepped down after revelations that he had failed to disclose talks with the Russian ambassador before Trump took office about US sanctions on Moscow and mislead Vice President Mike Pence about the conversations.

Questions remain about the scope of the discussions and what other contacts took place between other Trump advisers with the Russians.

Russian hacking

Earlier this week, the White House disclosed that Trumps son-in-law and White House senior adviser, Jared Kushner, met executives of Russian state development bank Vnesheconombank, or VEB, in December.

During a US Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on Thursday, Democratic Senator Mark Warner alleged that Russia attempted to undermine the 2016 US presidential election with a propaganda campaign on steroids, using trolls and networks of hacked or infected devices to flood social media with disinformation.

US intelligence agencies have said Russia hacked emails of senior Democrats and orchestrated the release of embarrassing information in a bid to tip the presidential election in favour of Trump, whose views were seen as more in line with the Moscows.

Russian President Vladimir Putin denied the accusations on Thursday calling them lies. When asked if Russia interfered in the US vote Putin said, Read my lips: No.

White House spokesman Sean Spicer earlier this week downplayed questions about Russia ties .

If the president puts Russian salad dressing on his salad tonight, somehow thats a Russia connection, he said in an exchange with reporters.

OPINION: Why is Russia so happy with Trump?

The Wall Street Journal, citing officials with knowledge of the matter, reported that Flynn had sought immunity from the FBI and the House and Senate intelligence panels in exchange for his testimony. The newspaper said he had so far found no takers.

The House denied the Journal report. Michael Flynn has not offered to testify to HPSCI in exchange for immunity, committee spokesman Jack Langer said in a statement.

The FBI declined to comment. The Senate committee did not immediately respond to a request from Reuters for comment.

Kelners statement did not mention the FBI.

He said Flynn is now the target of unsubstantiated public demands by Members of Congress and other political critics that he be criminally investigated.

Kelner said Flynn would not submit to questioning in such a highly politicised, witch hunt environment without assurances against unfair prosecution.
About 300 residents remain to be connected to a new city-wide water use monitoring system.

With water analytics, city staff say residents will see improved customer service, streamlined meter reading and better water management. About 22,000 have been connected between 2014 and early 2016.

The project was a partnership between the city of Bismarck and Montana-Dakota Utilities Co. MDU maintains the fixed network to read both Bismarcks water meters and MDUs utility meters. Residents are then able to set up accounts and monitor their usage down to the hour.

Michelle Klose, director, Bismarck public works utility operations, said the system allows cost savings over time by eliminating the need for city staff to go home to home for water meter readings. It also makes the citys water treatment plant more efficient by providing data on the citys water needs.

This has been a great partnership for Montana-Dakota Utilities. The citys meters are within our footprint so it made sense to collaborate and allow the city to use our collection infrastructure, said Sheila Kraft, senior business analyst for Montana-Dakota Utilities. We benefit by being able to install data collectors on city-owned structures, such as water towers, which strengthens our system.

Beyond logging into their accounts, Bernadette Houser, Bismarck public works customer service manager, said residents can set up text message or email alerts for unusual water usage at their property.

For more information and to set up your water analytics account visit www.bismarcknd.gov/wateranalytics.
While acknowledging the Syrian president is a hindrance to peace, US ambassador to UN says he is no longer the focus.

The United States has said that it is no longer focused on ousting President Bashar al-Assad as it seeks a new strategy to end Syrias civil war.

American officials have been shifting away for some time from their former insistence that he must go, but now they have made it explicit.

In New York on Thursday, the US ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, condemned Assads history of human rights abuses against his own people.

But she said Washington would focus on working with powers such as Turkey and Russia to seek a political settlement, rather than focusing on Assad.

You pick and choose your battles, Haley told reporters.

And when were looking at this, its about changing up priorities and our priority is no longer to sit and focus on getting Assad out.

OPINION: Implications for a Syrian transition under Assad

Shortly after Haley briefed a small group of journalists, US officials tried to clarify her comments.

A US mission official told Al Jazeera that while the US does not believe that Assad is a legitimate leader of Syria, his future is not the countrys only concern.

The official said the US is also very interested in trying to create the conditions so that the Syrian people themselves can pick their new government, one without Assad.

Other aims of the US in Syria are to get rid of the threat from ISIL and to curb Iranian influence, the official said.

US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson also addressed the future of Assad at a news conference in Turkey.

I think the  longer-term status of President Assad will be decided by the Syrian people, Tillerson said, standing alongside Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu.

The comment reflected language long used by Assads ally Russia, whose assistance Washington is courting.

Opposition angered

The Syrian opposition, whose cooperation will be needed in any negotiated solution, reacted furiously to the US shift in stance.

The opposition will never accept any role for Bashar al-Assad at any phase, said Monzer Makhos, a spokesman for the High Negotiations Committee, which represents the opposition in negotiations over Syrias war.





There will be no change in our position, he warned.

Under Barack Obamas administration, the US made Assads departure a key goal, but new president Donald Trump has put the accent on defeating the Islamic State of Iraq of the Levant group, known as ISIL or ISIS.

Our priority is to really look at how do we get things done. Who do we need to work with to really make a difference for the people in Syria? Haley said.

We cant necessarily focus on Assad the way the previous administration maybe did. Do we think hes a hindrance? Yes, she said.

Are we going to sit there and focus on getting him out? No.

Previously, the United States has stuck by a UN-backed peace plan that would see Assad transition from office while an interim government is formed.

Tillerson is due in Moscow next month for talks with Russian leaders, and Trump has long argued the powers should work together against ISIL.

US-backed forces are closing in on the groups Syrian stronghold of Raqqa, laying the groundwork for an assault on the city.

Numerous diplomatic efforts have failed to end the Syrian conflict, which has killed more than 320,000 people and displaced millions since it erupted in 2011.

A fifth round of UN-sponsored peace talks is taking place in Geneva but no breakthrough has been reported and they are scheduled to end on Friday.
Security Council cuts number of MONUSCO mission troops as US seeks cutting costs and streamlining of UNs operations.

The United Nations Security Council has renewed the mandate of the peacekeeping force in the Democratic Republic of Congo but decided to cut its numbers.

The 15-member council on Friday unanimously renewed the $1.2bn mission for another year amid warnings that violence was spreading across the country before elections this year.

The French-drafted resolution reduced the authorised size of the military component of the MONUSCO mission from 19,815 to 16,215 troops, but the force is already under-strength and, in practice, fewer than 500 will go home.

The document is the first adopted since the United States began a review of the 16 UN peacekeeping missions as part of its plan to cut foreign aid and reform the world bodys operations.





The resolution authorises the replacement of some troops with better-trained specialised units and gives the force a green light to intervene anywhere in the country if needed and not just in the volatile east.

It also calls for a dialogue between the UN and the Congolese government, led by President Joseph Kabila, on an exit strategy.

Support of the resolution by all 15 council members reflects widespread backing for the US goal of streamlining the UNs operations that deploy over 107,000 troops and civilians at an annual cost of more than $7.8bn.

MONUSCO is the biggest and costliest UN mission with about 22,400 people, including nearly 17,000 soldiers and over 1,350 police.

Nikki Haley, the US ambassador to the UN, told the council she was very proud that all members had voted to cut the troop ceiling and make the mission stronger and more effective.

The UN force is going to make sure the elections are safe, to make sure that were keeping people safe, and that were actually looking at the political problems on the ground, she said.

Potential war crime

At the start of Fridays council meeting, members stood in silent tribute to two UN experts killed while investigating alleged human rights violations by Congolese forces and local militia groups and all other victims of violence in the country.

The bodies of American Michael Sharp, Swedish national Zaida Catalan and their interpreter, Betu Tshintela, were found earlier this week  but three other Congolese members of their team remain missing.

READ MORE: Bodies of missing UN workers found in DRC

Recent acts of violence, including the killing of the experts, could constitute war crimes, the International Criminal Courts prosecutor said on Friday.

There have been reports of violent clashes between local militia and Congolese forces, a large number of killings of both civilians and non-civilians, kidnappings and summary executions, Fatou Bensouda wrote in a statement.

Such acts could constitute crimes within the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court.

The remote central province of Kasai has been plagued by violence since mid-August, when government forces killed Kamwina Nsapu, a tribal chief and militia leader who had rebelled against Kabilas central government.

The violence has spilled over from Kasai to the neighbouring provinces of Kasai-Oriental and Lomami, leaving at least 400 people dead.

UN members are pressing Kabilas government to honour a power-sharing deal with the opposition before elections later this year.
Scottish Minister Nicola Sturgeon requests independence vote for late 2018 or early 2019 in letter to UK PM Theresa May.

The Scottish government has formally asked the UK Prime Minister Theresa May for a second referendum on independence, deepening a crisis sparked by the Brexit vote.

Scotlands First Minister Nicola Sturgeon made the request in a letter to May on Friday, two days after the UK triggered Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty which starts Britains formal withdrawal from the European Union.





Sturgeon requested an independence referendum for late 2018 or early 2019, once the terms of Britains exit from the EU had become clearer.

The people of Scotland must have the right to choose our own future  our right of self-determination, Sturgeon said in the letter.

She added that the voices of devolved administrations were largely ignored, adding that all attempts at compromise had been rejected in most cases with no prior consultation.

I am therefore writing to begin early discussions between our governments to agree an order under section 30 of the Scotland Act 1998 that would enable a referendum to be legislated for by the Scottish parliament, she added.

READ MORE: How would Scotland vote in second referendum?

A spokesman for May said the UK government would respond in due course, but ruled out discussions on a second secession vote.

At this point, all our focus should be on our negotiations with the European Union, making sure we get the right deal for the whole of the UK, the spokesman said.

The June 23, 2016 Brexit referendum vote brought the United Kingdoms future into question as England and Wales voted to leave the EU while Scotland and Northern Ireland voted to stay.

About 51.9 percent of the electorate, 17.4 million people, voted leave, while 48.1 percent, or 16.1 million people, voted remain.

Some 62 percent of Scottish voters were in favour of remaining in the EU.

OPINION: If Scotland leaves, England will lose the Brexit game

On Tuesday, the Scottish parliament voted by 69 votes to 59 for the second referendum, but the UK government in Westminster must give its approval before any such poll can be held.

May has previously said it is not the right time for another vote, having only just started the complex two-year divorce talks between the UK and its 27 EU partners.

Sturgeon has already indicated she will take unspecified steps for holding a referendum in case her request for one is ignored.

There appears to be no rational reason for you to stand in the way of the will of the Scottish parliament and I hope you will not do so, she wrote in the letter.

Scotland rejected independence by 55 to 45 percent in a September 2014 referendum, though the vote energised Scottish politics and support for the Scottish National Party has surged since then.
UN chief calls decision to build another illegal settlement on occupied Palestinian land an obstacle to peace.

The United Nations has lambasted the Israeli government after it approved the construction of its first new settlement in the occupied West Bank in decades.

A spokesman for UN chief Antonio Guterres said that the secretary-general expressed disappointment and alarm at the Israeli security cabinets decision on Thursday to build a new settlement  considered illegal under international law  on land stolen from the Palestinians.

The secretary-general has consistently stressed that there is no Plan B for Israelis and Palestinians to live together in peace and security, Stephane Dujarric said in a statement on Friday.

He condemns all unilateral actions  that threaten peace and undermine the two-state solution.

The decision to build a new settlement in Emek Shilo, close to the Palestinian city of Ramallah, came less than a week after the UN criticised Israel for not taking any steps to halt construction on occupied Palestinian territory, as demanded by the UNSC in a resolution it passed in December.

READ MORE: Israels relentless land grab continues

Settlements are seen as a major stumbling block to peace efforts as they are built on land the Palestinians see as part of their future state.

The Israeli governments move also drew instant condemnation from Palestinian leaders, international rights groups and activists.

Israel continues to destroy the prospects of peace, said Saeb Erekat, a senior Palestinian official, who also criticised the UN, European Union and United States for not doing enough to punish Israel for continuing to expand settlements in the West Bank.

Peace is not going to be achieved by tolerating such crimes, he said.

Yousef Mahmoud, a Palestinian government spokesman, said in a statement that this new escalation reveals the persistence of the occupation government to continue opposing and obstructing all efforts exerted to resume the peace process.

International human rights group Amnesty International also condemned the decision, saying all settlement activity  constitutes a flagrant violation of international humanitarian law and constitutes a war crime.

Israel has long pursued a policy of constructing Jewish-only settlements on land captured in the 1967 war, with more than 600,000 Israelis currently living in illegal settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

Since the January 20 inauguration of US President Donald Trump, Israel has approved the construction of 566 housing units in three settlement areas of occupied East Jerusalem, and announced the building of 2,502 more in the West Bank.

READ MORE: Israels false narrative on land swaps

In a statement on Friday, Trumps administration refrained from criticising Israels move, saying that while the existence of settlements is not in itself an impediment to peace, further unrestrained settlement activity does not help advance peace.

Thats really a statement thats been seen by the Israelis as a green light to go ahead and build this new settlement, Al Jazeeras Imran Khan, reporting from the occupied West Bank, said.

US presidents have long maintained a close friendship with Israel, lavishing the country with aid and advanced weaponry.

The latest settlement in Emek Shilo comes weeks after Israels Supreme Court ordered the demolition of the Amona settler outpost because it was built on private Palestinian land.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had promised to build a new colony for its residents after their eviction.

Al Jazeeras Khan said the cabinets decision came as Netanyahu faced growing pressure in the Knesset and the threat of early elections.

[Netanyahu] needs to placate his domestic vote base and that is the settlers  its a large part of who supports him and the settlers are really happy about this latest announcement, he said.

In recent years, construction had focused on expanding existing settlements, making this the first entirely new settlement that an Israeli government has approved since 1991, the anti-settlement NGO Peace Now said.

The new settlements location was strategic for the fragmentation of the West Bank, the group said.

Netanyahu is held captive by the settlers, and chooses his political survival over the interest of the state of Israel, the NGO said, adding it was pushing Israelis and Palestinians closer to apartheid.
Major cabinet reshuffle comes as calls for South African president to quit grow amid political and financial turmoil.

South Africas President Jacob Zuma has come under mounting pressure over his decision to sack Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan in a dramatic cabinet reshuffle after days of speculation that rocked the countrys markets and currency.

A statement from the presidents office in the early hours of Friday said Zuma had replaced Gordhan with Malusi Gigaba, former minister of home affairs. Sfiso Buthelezi was also appointed as deputy finance minister, a post previously held by Mcebisi Jonas.

In a televised statement, Zuma, the head of the ruling African National Congress (ANC), said he was making room for new talent and ideas, as he announced changes to 10 of the countrys 35 ministries, including energy, police and tourism.

The changes bring some younger MPs and women into the national executive in order to benefit from their energy, experience and expertise, he said.

But Zumas move to replace Gordhan, respected by many as a responsible steward of an economy facing possible credit rating downgrades, drew widespread criticism  even within ANCs ranks.

Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa, who is one of the leading candidates to replace Zuma as ANC president, expressed his strong objection to Gordhans removal, describing it as totally, totally unacceptable.

The comments by Ramaphosa, who usually publicly backs Zuma, were a sign of deepening division in the ANC that are likely to worsen until the party elects a new leader in December.

Divisions within the ANC have been laid bare this week, and despite party leaders and allies warning against Gordhans sacking the president has done what he wanted to, stamping his authority on the cabinet and the ruling party, Al Jazeeras Tania Page, reporting from Johannesburg, said.

Pressure has been growing on Zuma after he recalled Gordhan, who has a strong reputation as a bulwark against corruption, from a trade trip in London earlier this week. The recall caused South Africas rand to lose nearly five percent.

South Africas two main opposition parties also took aim at the president, with one appealing to the highest court to order impeachment proceedings and the other announcing it will launch a vote of no confidence in Zuma.

Zuma has bowed to the whims of those who are determined to enrich themselves at the expense of the poor and jobless, the countrys main opposition party, the Democratic Alliance, said after the announcement. The party on Thursday said it would launch a vote of no confidence in Zuma in parliament.

The Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) opposition party appealed to the countrys highest court on Thursday to order parliament to begin impeachment proceedings against the president for lying to the legislative body.

The EFF called it a last resort, with party leader Julius Malema accusing parliament, which is dominated by the ANC, of failing in its duty to hold the president accountable.

Hundreds of protesters gathered in front of the parliament building in Cape Town, carrying posters reading: Zuma must fall and Hands off the treasury. Some placards called Zuma a tsotsi, a South

African slang word for criminal.

But Zumas supporters defended his move, said it is the presidents prerogative to reshuffle cabinet.

The world should not mistake and take the view of the minority and make it a national issue as if its the view of the majority, Mswanele Manyi, a former government spokesman, told Al Jazeera.

Its not the view of the majority, the great majority of people of this country are fully behind President Zuma.

THE LISTENING POST: President Zuma and the media in South Africa

On Wednesday, Gordhan inspired a standing ovation at the funeral of Ahmed Kathrada, one of South Africas leading anti-apartheid activists, as longtime leaders of the ruling ANC called for Zuma to step down. The outcry by funeral-goers, including the ex-wife of Nelson Mandela, Winnie Madikizela Mandela, further exposed the ruling partys divide.

The cabinet shuffle comes as the calls for Zuma to step down grow.





Zuma, who has faced numerous corruption allegations, in November survived an attempt by senior party members to remove him as president.

Last year, the Constitutional Court ordered Zuma to repay 7.8 million rand ($579,004) in inappropriate state spending on his sprawling country home.

Alarming concerns

Political and business leaders condemned Zuma and predicted that South Africas sovereign credit rating would be downgraded to junk in the coming months.

ANC ally, the South African Communist Party, said the firing of Gordhan, who was respected by investors locally and abroad as a champion of fiscal responsibility, risked triggering the looting of the treasury.

South Africas Banking Association said changing the finance minister  the fourth in the past 18 months  and deputy finance minister raised alarming concerns over fiscal discipline.

Gordhan became South Africas finance minister after Zumas abrupt decision in December 2015 to fire Finance Minister Nhlanhla Nene and replace him with David van Rooyen, a relatively unknown figure, which unsettled markets and prompted a national outcry.

Late last year, prosecutors dropped fraud charges against Gordhan that were criticised by many South Africans as politically motivated and deepened concern about alleged government mismanagement.
101 East reports from the front lines in the fight to take back the city of Mosul from ISIL.

In 2014, forces of the Islamic State group ISIL, also known as ISIS, overran the largest city in northern Iraq, Mosul  shocking the world with the speed and the ferocity of their victory.

The Islamic State that we saw sweep into northern Iraq  was really an army. This was not an insurgent force, it wasnt terrorist cells, this was really a conventional army that had enormous experience from the Syrian battlefields, said General David Petraeus, former commander of the multinational force.

It was in Mosul that ISIL announced the formation of his caliphate.

Today, the city is an active combat zone, as Iraqi forces fight to take the city back, street by street, in fierce urban warfare.

101 East travels to the front line, recording the experiences of the soldiers fighting to liberate their home towns, and the civilians caught in the crossfire.

Join the conversation @AJ101East
As students enter the University Auditorium on Monday to hear Ben Shapiro speak, Nate Quinn will stand outside and protest.

Quinn, a UF psychology freshman, said the conservative political commentators hateful rhetoric inspired him to organize a demonstration against him.

On Wednesday, Quinn created a Facebook event page advertising his planned demonstration and posted fliers on Turlington Plaza.

Hes rude and disrespectful, the 19-year- old said. Hes flat-out offensive to a lot of minority groups.

Accent Speakers Bureau and the UF chapter of Young Americans for Freedom will pay Shapiro $20,000 for his 6 p.m. appearance, according to Alligator archives.

Protesters will chant and give out information about Shapiros hateful comments at the auditorium entrance facing Turlington Plaza, Quinn said.

So far, eight Facebook users  including Quinn  have marked going on the protests Facebook page.

Quinn said Shapiro is anti-Black Lives Matter, anti-immigration, anti-Muslim and anti-transgender.

Gloria Li, a UF environmental science and philosophy sophomore, said although protesters may think UF is sponsoring Shapiros opinions, she doesnt agree.

Li, 19, said although her political beliefs lean left, she will attend the event to hear what Shapiro says. She said she hopes the protest is peaceful.

It would be an embarrassment to me as a student if violence happened, she said.

Contact Jimena Tavel at jtavel@alligator.org and follow her on Twitter at @taveljimena

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Ben Shapiro
On March 29, 2017, the Executive Board of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) concluded the Article IV consultation [1] with Nigeria. With oil receipts dominating fiscal revenue and exports, the Nigerian economy has been hit hard by low oil prices and falling oil production. The country entered into a recession in 2016, with growth contracting []http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Appa-sourceTheAfric...
Port and container loading equipment was delivered to Puerto Rico, Mexico and the Bahamas this month, including the largest operated crane in the Caribbean.



Liebherr Maritime said it delivered new equipment units to Caribbean and Mexican ports in March.

Three new ship-to-shore container cranes were delivered to Crowley Maritimes Isla Grande Terminal in San Juan, Puerto Rico. The cranes have an outreach of over 39 meters, a span of more than 30 meters and a back reach exceeding 15 meters. The cranes also feature a lift height over rail of 35 meters and a safe working load of 65 metric tons under twin lift spreader. The delivery to Puerto Rico marks the first for Liebherr Container Cranes.

In Jamaica, Liebherr delivered a new mobile harbor crane (MHC) type LHM 600 in high-rise version for Kingston Wharves Limiteds multipurpose terminal. As the largest crane-operated machine in the Caribbean, a 12-meter tower extension and a higher tower cabin at 37 meters increases safety, Liebherr said. Dubbed the King of the Caribbean, the unit has a maximum outreach of 58 meters and can handle fully loaded containers in the 19th container row across the ship. The unit is now one of two high-rise version LHM units at the Kingston terminal, the first of which is only a 550 high-rise version.

Liebherr is currently assembling two new MHCs in Altamira, Mexico. The LHM 420 units feature a 48-meter boom and maximum lifting capacity of up to 124 metric tons. They will be equipped with a special pipe handling attachment for a camera system to improve sight when loading. The cranes are being built for Bredero Shaw International B.V.

After Hurricane Matthew hit the Caribbean last fall, Freeport Container Port suffered damage to port and yard machinery, including two ship-to-shore cranes, which toppled backwards.

While waiting for new ship-to-shore cranes to be ready for operation, Freeport was able to temporary receive LHM 550 and LHM 600 units from Liebherr in only four weeks. Engineers were able to install them in one week, and business at Freeport was able to continue shortly thereafter.

Based out of Germany, Liebherr constructs port equipment from Rostock, as well as in Ireland, Austria and Great Britain.
Jaxport CEO Eric Green said the $23.5 million grant marks a milestone in our initiatives to build the port of the future and move cargo in the most efficient and eco-friendly way possible.
Prosecuting authorities across the country will be required to send officers to stay at, or pay regular visits to, police stations to ensure justice by beefing up supervision over criminal investigations.

The move, issued in a circular by the Supreme People's Procuratorate on Wednesday, aims to better monitor public security departments to prevent police misconduct such as forcing confessions, according to the top procuratorate.

"Tightening the supervision over police criminal probes is to prevent torture and illegal evidence collection, thus better protecting the rights of suspects and ensuring accusations against them are proper," said Dai Peng, a professor of criminal investigation at the People's Public Security University of China.

In recent years, a number of miscarriages of justice have been reported around the country, many of which resulted from forced confessions. Such wrongful cases have triggered heated public discussion and criticism.

Since 2015, the top procuratorate has operated a pilot program to send prosecutors to police stations in 10 provincial regions.

Data from the Supreme People's Procuratorate show that officers from 1,064 prosecuting departments have been deployed to 8,370 local police stations in those areas. They have put forward 15,162 rectification suggestions and helped to ensure standardized police actions, according to the SPP.

"Through the supervision, the quality of police probes has greatly improved and the number of wrongly charged cases has sharply dropped," Sun Qian, deputy prosecutor-general of the SPP, said previously.

The top procuratorate has required the practice to be extended to all police stations in the pilot regions in the first half of this year, and procuratorates in other parts of the country have been told to follow suit by the end of this year.

Special attention will be paid to stopping illegal evidence from being produced. Cases that have caused, or may cause, strong public sentiment also will be watched closely, SPP officials said.

Police use of criminal means to handle economic disputes, and the protection of suspects' personal and property rights, will also be closely watched, according to the SPP.

Last month, a local procuratorate in Lanshan district in Rizhao, Shandong province, set up an office at the district police bureau, local media reported.

Qin Xiaolei, a senior officer at Lanshan district procuratorate, said the office enabled prosecutors to monitor police work in a timely way, particularly in major or complex cases. Prosecutors issue targeted suggestions if they discover illegal conduct, Qin said.

"The office has built a communication bridge between prosecutors and police to timely share information and plays an active role in standardizing law enforcement," she said.
WASHINGTON  On what seems a regular basis, the United Nations takes a poke at Israel  for its settlements policy, its treatment of Palestinians and, once, in the 1975 resolution equating Zionism with racism, merely for existing. Altogether, the U.N. and its agencies have condemned Israel so many times that, on one of those proportional maps, tiny Israel would loom over Saudi Arabia, with its beheadings and ban on women driving. This, in itself, calls for a resolution.

Recently, a report prepared for a U.N. agency returned to the racism theme and called Israel an "apartheid regime." It was an insulting choice of words, since apartheid harkens back to white-supremacist rule in South Africa. That government was so obsessed with race that it created its own categories  white; black; "colored," for mixed race persons; and one for people of Indian/Asian extraction.

The word "apartheid" clearly does not apply to Israel. Its founding document, the Declaration of Independence of 1948, is admirably liberal. It ensures "complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex." And true to its word, Israel grants its Arab minority the vote, seats its representatives in the Knesset and, years ago, had a female prime minister, the formidable Golda Meir. The U.S., as the November debacle proved, is not yet there.

I am intellectually and emotionally pro-Israel. It is the only miracle about which I am not the least bit cynical  the creation of a nation and a culture where a century or so ago none existed. Even the language is new. In the riveting Netflix series "Fauda," Israelis make adulterous love in a language once used mostly for prayer. Theodor Herzl, the creator of secular Zionism, could not have envisioned such a thing. (Anyway, he preferred German.)

But the word "apartheid" looms like thunderheads on the horizon. Israel's continued occupation of the West Bank means the continued oppression of its Palestinian residents. If Israel annexes additional sections of the West Bank, then additional Palestinians will be oppressed. The occupation has not only gnawed at Israel's image worldwide, it has weakened Israel democracy itself. A new law bars entry into Israel of anyone who supports the international boycotts of Israel.

Some of those movements  BDS is the shorthand for boycott, divestment and sanctions  would apply to anything produced anywhere in Israel. But some prominent American Jews support a limited version of BDS. They would boycott only products made in the West Bank settlements unrecognized by international law. One such advocate is Letty Cottin Pogrebin, a staunch Zionist, liberal and feminist (she was a founder of Ms. magazine). She supports a settlement boycott.

"If that makes me an enemy of the state, so be it," she wrote in a recent op-ed for the Israeli newspaper Haaretz.

She also rues the direction Israel is going. Israel has legalized the creation of additional West Bank settlements, built roads that only Jewish Israelis may use and, while recoiling from the word "apartheid," has adopted some of its techniques. For many Palestinians, freedom of movement is impossible.

Once upon a time, Zionism was embraced by the left. The British Labor Party nearly a dozen times called for the creation of Israel and, in the U.S., Democrats outdid Republicans in support of Israel. Now, though, the Labor Party is hostile to Israel and the Democratic Party here is drifting that way. Support for Israel has become a right-wing affectation  along with small government, lower taxes and opposition to abortion. Golda Meir, that old Milwaukee socialist, would be appalled.

I leave it to Jared Kushner to come up with a swift solution to the century-old Jewish-Arab struggle. Lives are at stake and positions have hardened. Israel pulled out of Gaza and was thanked with rocket attacks. The Palestinian leadership is split, feckless and often inept. For its part, Israel has drifted to the right, content to let the clock tick.

The United Nations' obsession with Israel obscures the far-more dangerous erosion of support for the Jewish state in places where it once was fervently embraced. It permits too many Israel supporters to dismiss legitimate criticism as anti-Semitic babbling or to focus on the astounding failings of the Palestinians and not on the rightward drift of Israel in response. A law that stifles dissidence, that bars lovers of Israel from Israel itself, is not only repugnant on the face of it, but additional evidence that occupation of the West Bank is corroding Israeli democracy. Israel may win the West Bank and lose its soul.
British Prime Minister Theresa May is making history from which there is no turning back in the effort to restore what she called our national self-determination after 44 years of British membership first of the EEC, the Common Market, and then of the European Union. On March 29, 2017 she officially invoked Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty of December 2007 to start the Brexit process, withdrawal from the EU in accordance with the vote on the referendum on the issue on June 23, 2016, when 51.9% voted in favor of leaving the EU.

The Lisbon Treaty provides for a member state to withdraw from the EU in accordance with its own constitutional requirements. In view of increasing British criticism of the bias against Israel in United Nations bodies, especially the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC), perhaps Prime Minister May is considering invoking similar constitutional requirements to withdraw from them.

Certainly, there are some indications of this possibility. The British government changed its vote on March 24, 2017 at the UNHRC meeting which issued a perverse resolution against Israel allegedly mistreating Druze residents on the Golan Heights. May asserted that in the future Britain would oppose all UNHRC resolutions concerning Israel unless the bias of the organization stopped. Britain had in the past usually abstained in the resolutions condemning Israel introduced by the Syrian and Islamic states. Now Britain, like the U.S., will vote against them.

The British ambassador to the UN, Julian Braithwaite, on March 24, 2017 spoke truth to the organization about its bias. The UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) had passed a series of four resolutions singling out, as usual, only Israel for violating human rights of Palestinians, and calling on Israel to return control of the Golan Heights to Syria. Ambassador Braithwaite asserted "Today we are putting the UNHRC on notice. If things do not change in the future, we will adopt a policy of voting against all resolutions concerning Israel's conduct in the occupied Syrian and Palestinian territories."

By tragic coincidence the UN bias was manifest that very week concerning the Islamist terror attack on Westminster Bridge and Parliament in London that killed five people and injured more than 30. The silence of the UNHRC on this terrorist attack, as well as on the 25 terrorist attacks and incitements in which at least 30 Israelis were killed, was deafening.

The stronger British position on UN bias follows the straightforward and unusual remarks on December 28, 2016 by Prime Minister Theresa May, who severely criticized the speech of then Secretary of State John Kerry. She rebuked Kerry, who had blamed Israel for the stalled peace process and had disrespectfully referred to the government of Israel as the most right-wing government in Israeli history. May regarded this as an unwarranted attack on the composition of the democratically elected government of an ally.

In similar spirit to the British pronouncements, the U.S. State Department Spokesman Mark Toner announced on March 20, 2017 that the U.S. will boycott a session of UNHRC that will discuss once again alleged Israeli human rights abuses against the Palestinians. For some time, it has been a travesty of objectivity that Agenda Item Seven of UNHRC rules mandates that the organization must discuss alleged Israeli human rights abuses at every session of the council.

The significance of this mandate is that Israel will be discussed regardless of what is happening in other countries in the Middle East or the rest of the world. Israel is the only country in the world to which a specific mandate applies. Alleged abuses of human rights in all other countries are discussed under Agenda Item Four. The U.S. is opposed to the Agenda Item Seven mandate. So far President Trump has not made any formal statement on the issue, but the administration is reconsidering its participation in UNHRC.

It is pertinent to the decision on this that President George W. Bush in 2006 refused to join UNHRC, but President Barack Obama in 2009 decided to join, and rejoin when its first term of three years ended.

The British diplomat Julian Braithwaite also opposed Agenda Item Seven, pointing out that while Israel had been condemned for its occupation of Golan Heights, formerly in the hands of Syria; by contrast Syria, which has been murdering and butchering people on a daily basis, is not a permanent standing item on the councils agenda.

Even more forthright is Nikki Haley, former governor of South Carolina and now U.S. ambassador to the UN. She declared to the UN, You are not going to take our number one democratic friend in the Middle East and beat up on them. Displaying herself as a new sheriff in town, she warned the UN that the days of Israel bashing are over.

But not all nations feel as do the U.S. and UK regarding the animosity towards Israel. In recent weeks, this has been shown in the Netherlands and in Sweden.

Although Dutch Jewish leaders, fearing the event would incite anti-Semitism or pro-terrorist sentiment and embolden terrorists, urged the Mayor of Rotterdam to cancel a conference of pro-Hamas group, the Palestinian Return Center due to be held on April 15, he refused to do so. His excuse was that there was no proof that Hamas is involved and therefore he could not do anything.

More serious has been the little-known activity of Sweden regarding Israel. Some of this has been revealed in a French report issued on March 29, 2017, Les Liaisons Dangereuses de Banques Francaises avec la Colonisation Israelienne. The report makes recommendations to French banks, insurance, and utility companies in relation to Israel settlements. The title indicates the thrust of the report, which condemns Israeli colonization, the illegality of the Israeli colonies that restrict the Palestinian people and are an obstacle to the resolution of the conflict. It concentrates on the Israeli banking system that it regards as an essential tool of colonization.

Three things are pertinent about the report. One is that the settlements in the disputed area are always referred to as colonization. The second is that it is based on UN Security Council Resolution 2334 of December 23, 2016 and calls on French institutions to respect it and implement recommendations regarding Israeli settlements. 2334 was the resolution the Obama administration allowed to pass the Security Council because it abstained, refusing to veto the resolution.

The third most important issue is the funding of the report. It was produced by a number of Palestinian and pro-Palestinian organizations, including the Association France Palestine Solidarite, French League of Human Rights, founded in 2001, the CGT (General Confederation of Labor, one close to the Communist Party), and Al Haq, based in Ramallah, whose director is alleged to have ties to the extreme PFLP (Front for the Liberation of Palestine). But it was funded by the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency, a government agency of the Swedish Ministry of Foreign Affairs based in Stockholm. The Agency has for some time development assistance for Palestinian economic and social development.

Perhaps the Trump administration will not be able to influence Sweden to change its anti-Israeli position, but like the British May government, it can and should stick by its threat to pull out of the UNHRC, and by inference other UN bodies, if they continue their anti-Israeli bias.
I believe that many people would agree that it is time to at least consider amendments to the U.S. Constitution, something that is usually contemplated with trepidation, and with good reason. But, chronic, very serious, problems in the body politic -- universally acknowledged, by the way -- some of which have been legislatively addressed only to be shot down as being Constitutionally incompatible, have created the zeitgeist for serious consideration. Here, then, are nine vital amendments which would go a long way towards healing some of the serious troubles within the commonwealth, along with the reasons that favor them.

Balanced budget. This is a bipartisan goal, at least on the surface. Most politicians balk at having their pork eliminated while others retain theirs. Remember when the pundits and the politicians warned hysterically that the country would collapse when sequestering would go into effect? Nothing happened. Therefore, during peacetime each year, Congress shall adopt a yearly budget for the running of the government which said budget does not run at a deficit and may, instead, try to have a surplus for the purpose of eliminating the national debt. Should the Congress not adopt such a budget, neither the members of Congress nor the President will receive a salary or any other benefits that accrue from being in office.

Line item veto. Approval for a line-item veto has also had bipartisan support for years, but a bipartisan law establishing it was struck down by the Supreme Court as going against the present tenets of the Constitution. By giving the President the power to veto individual items that are always appended to a major bill -- colloquially called pork -- would eliminate a gargantuan waste of taxpayer money. The reason for the bipartisan support is that individual legislators view with contempt the inclusion of spending items, but since that is being done, might as well do it for their own states in order to send federal money their way. But if nobody gets to take advantage of the system then they are all in favor of eliminating pork. Therefore, the President has authority to veto individual projects that are included in a bill passed by Congress.

Electoral College. I used to believe that the Electoral College was an absurdity, that it made no sense in a democracy and was in fact, counter to the concept of democracy. Serious study of American history, culture, and the legal system has dissuaded me from such a conclusion. In fact, the Electoral College is similar to the redistricting that takes place every few years after a census takes place. Federal courts, for example, take Federalism very, very seriously, that the United States is a federation, each state with its own customs and laws and not a unitary monolith, as is the case in, say, France. Having an electoral college during the presidential elections guarantees that the politicians, against their inclination, will pay attention to small states and the concerns of the citizens of those small states---or, actually, pretend to do so. This is why small states like New Hampshire and Iowa go first in their primaries. If that was not the case, presidential candidates would focus their entire campaign efforts at those states with a huge population -- like California, New York, Florida, Pennsylvania, Ohio -- and essentially would tell the people of less populated states like Wyoming, Maine, Kentucky, Kansas to go to hell.

Having said that, however, there is an undeniable shortcoming to the concept of the Electoral College, which has twice become evident in the past decade. That is, that on rare occasions, the popular vote is higher than the electoral count, and so, the loser is actually the winner. This creates justifiable resentment. On top of that, recently there have been individuals who have advocated scrapping the Constitution in regards to the electoral process itself because they did not like who was voted President, and some of these have been electors. Therefore, a constitutional amendment should read that, in those cases where the popular vote is higher than the electoral count, the winner of the presidential election is the person with the highest votes. Additonally, electors must vote for the individual that won the election in the state; any elector that votes for someone else will be subjected to legal penalties and the miscast vote instantly corrected.

Foreign intervention. Although Congress has legally the right to declare war, in the past half century, the President has sent military forces overseas to other countries and the Supreme Court has paradoxically given its sanction as being legal. During the Cold War, the United States did so in order to stop Communist imperialism but now that urgency has passed. It has become evident by now that America has militarily intervened too many times in foreign affairs, whether as an act of war, or, on humanitarian grounds. It has become an addiction. It has become addictive to try to correct the worlds problems by sticking our noses into situations, most of which times, our government officials had no idea what was truly going on, but were urged to do so by a hysterical media, and by doing so, actually worsened a situation.

On the other hand, a future situation can be imagined wherein the President must act rapidly to an immediate threat. Therefore, the President may not militarily attack other countries, nor send any armed forces into another country, without the approval of Congress. The exceptions are: 1) if the United States has military bases in a country, the President may send additional forces into those bases during times of peace 2) if a country with which the United States of America is allied with by treaty is invaded by the forces of another country, and not by insurgents, the President may honor its treaty obligations by sending military forces for military purposes, at which point Congress shall determine whether a state of war exists.

Burning the flag. This is a no-brainer, although those Americans who have been brainwashed to hate their country will oppose it, claiming that it is a violation of free speech. Such individuals, as a rule, hypocritically violate others free speech as offensive and so need not be listened to. Therefore, anyone who burns the American flag, or deliberately desecrates it, will be punished by law.

No foreign aid. This is the amendment that will be fought tooth and nail. Foreign countries will pour millions into traitorous American lobbyists and politicians to scuttle this amendment, both at the federal and the state levels. During the Second World War (with Lend Lease), and during the Cold War, trillions of dollars were sent overseas, either in cash or in material aid, to other countries in the belief that such aid would stop Nazi expansionism and would undermine support for Communist movements in those countries, since it was the belief -- the mistaken belief -- that communism sprang from the dissatisfied and frustrated lower class; in actuality, the communist movements came from middle-class power-hungry intellectuals; there were few actual peasants and workers in those movements (but thats another story: read Eric Hoffer's The True Believer or any of his other books). Foreign countries learned through the years the technique of sucking off money from the American taxpayer to the tune of trillions of dollars, aided by mediocre, corrupt, politicians and bureaucrats, whether it was to buy a chalet at the south of France or fighting ebola or AIDS or poverty or ingrown toenails. Rulers in other countries were amazed that they could insult America or its leaders and they would still get foreign aid (Duterte is a recent example) and mediocrities like Kerry were eager to comply, to give away money that wasnt theirs. The end result is that at present, America is close to bankruptcy, yet the politicians keep sending money to other countries for a variety of vital issues; these countries, of course, dont give a damn about what will happen to our country or to our citizens if this continues, they just want more of our money. Therefore, the United States will not send money to other countries or organizations in other countries unless those countries are allied to us by treaty and are at war with our common enemy. Nor will other countries receive material aid without immediately paying in full value for said aid unless those countries are allied to us by treaty and are at war with our common enemy.

Term limits. The professional politician is a blight. Members of Congress will be restricted to serve for three terms in a particular elected office, although they may run and serve for a different elected, or appointed, office.

Puerto Rico. In a manner of speaking, the island has been in a state of limbo for over a century. Because the population has its own language and culture, and is so distant from the mainland, it will never become fully assimilated into American culture, nor should it. Its present commonwealth status has severe financial detriments both for Puerto Ricans and Americans too numerous to detail here. On top of that, as a Commonwealth, Puerto Rico cannot vote in national elections, so that it has taxation without representation. Lastly, a small but sizeable section of the population see themselves as a colony which must achieve independence, by violence if necessary, so that continuing with the status quo, or statehood, would prolong this open sore. Therefore, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico is hereby declared an independent country.

Adopting all, or any, of these amendments would go a long way in eliminating political and financial problems in the country. What is particularly attractive is that almost all have bipartisan support, if past history is any indication. During the past decade the Congress received justifiable contempt and loathing from citizens for basically being obstructionist and not doing any actual work. These amendments would be a way to vindicate itself.

Armando Simon is a retired college professor who lives in San Antonio and is the author of The Only Red Star I Liked Was a Starfish, A Prison Mosaic and A Cuban from Kansas.
Members of an Iran-backed terrorist cell were arrested by Bahrain authorities over the weekend, all being accused of planning assassinations aimed at targeting senior government officials. There are reasons to believe this cell is responsible for a February bus bombing that left several policemen wounded.

Irans Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) provided military training for six of the arrested suspects, while the Iraqi Hizballah terrorist organization -- funded by Iran -- trained five other members, according to the BNA, Bahrains state news agency. Three other cell members received their training inside Bahrain.

This occurred parallel to a call made by U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan suggesting the Trump administration to issue further sanctions on Iran and most specifically target the IRGC, describing the entity as Irans army of terror.

The speaker went to make a very specific call that will raise the stakes with Iran and place the IRGC where it belongs.

I think we should designate them as a terrorist organization, he added.

The Tunisian Foreign Ministry has also voiced its concerns and strongly condemned all measures causing insecurity and instability in Bahrain, and making it clear its government stands beside Manama.

According to a Bahrain Interior Ministry statement, two exiled Bahrain nationals currently living in Iran were coordinating the terrorist cells activities. Mortada Majid al-Sanadi is one such individual, who also happens to be designated as global terrorist by the U.S. State Department.

A similar IRGC and Lebanese Hizballah plot aimed at launching terrorist attacks across Bahrain was foiled by the countrys authorities.

Bahrain had in the past also arrested 47 individuals, all accused of having links to terrorist elements in Iran, who in November 2015 blueprinted plans to carry out imminent attacks throughout the country. Bahrain recalled its ambassador from Iran a month later in response to a raid targeting a bomb-making workshop discovered in Bahrain. A significant number of individuals were also arrested due to suspected ties with the IRGC.

Through the course of Sundays arrests, Bahrain security forces also seized a large quantity of explosives manufactured domestically, alongside communications equipment and different weapons, all from the homes of the detained suspects. Iranian sponsored proxies, not enjoying a remarkable report card, are now further accused of providing support to local Bahraini cells in building bombs.

Lebanese Hizballah leader Hassan Nasaralah has reportedly provided the main suspect in Sundays arrests, known as Ali Ahmed Fakhwari, a whopping $20,000 to provide necessary funding to wreak havoc through terrorist attacks across Bahrain, according to the wired BNA report.

Bahrain had earlier this month also announced the discovery of a 54-man group of individuals suspected of being involved in attacks targeting security forces. Such plots included planning a prison break in January and obtaining automatic weapons.

Iran has a history of plotting and conducting terrorist and sectarian attacks across the globe recently, mostly through a network of proxies including the likes of the Lebanese Hizballah, the IRGC Quds Force, Shiite extremists in Iraq, the Houthis in Yemen, and Shiite foot-soldiers dispatched from Pakistan and Afghanistan to Syria. Irans terror plots and attacks have targeted various countries including Cyprus, Egypt, Georgia, India, Thailand, and others. Hizballah was specifically accused of being behind a July 2012 bus bombing in Bulgaria, that resulted in five Israeli tourists and the driver being killed.

U.S. authorities were also able to foil an Iranian plot aimed at assassinating the Saudi Arabian ambassador to the U.S. in Washington back in October 2011, while Iran was also pursuing plans to bomb the Israeli and Saudi embassies in the U.S. capital.

Former UN ambassador John Bolton recently put it best emphasizing how Iran is the worlds main state sponsor of terrorism. As the war against Daesh (ISIS/ISIL) ends in victory against the group, the regime in Iran should be next on the list, as Tehran arms and finances Sunni and Shiite terrorists under the banner of Islam, he said. The mullahs are truly the epicenter of a global terrorist network, Bolton added.

Recent developments emphasize how the spotlight needs to be shone on Iran and its dangerous meddling in the region, described by the Iranian opposition National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) as far more dangerous than the mullahs nuclear program.

As Speaker Paul Ryan explained, the NCRI in a recent statement also emphasized on the necessity to campaign all assets to place the IRGC and all affiliated proxy groups in terrorist lists of the United Nations, United States and European Union; referring Irans Middle East crimes dossier to the UN Security Council; adopting binding resolutions to expel the IRGC and proxy groups from the region; and ending all political and economic relations with Tehran are amongst such measures.

With crucial presidential elections just around the corner for Iran, rest assured the regime will resort to more such warmongering across the region in attempts to place a lid and cloak all domestic crises that bear the potential of inflating into 2009-like uprisings.
Several weeks ago, mainstream media ratcheted up the national hysteria meter shortly after President Trump's first draft of his 2018 budget was released.

CNN was first, announcing, "The preliminary outline for President Donald Trump's 2018 budget could slash some funding for a program that provides meals for older, impoverished Americans." Automatically and in harmony, the rest of the alphabet network cabal jumped on the bandwagon, going so far as to announce that seniors across America would starve to death, thanks to President Trump. Adding to the maelstrom, Meals on Wheels national spokeswoman Jenny Bertolette said, "It is difficult to imagine a scenario in which they will not be significantly and negatively impacted if the President's budget were [sic] enacted." Was it difficult for Ms. Bertolette to imagine the forthcoming windfall bestowed upon Meals on Wheels, thanks in part to fake news reporting?

First, and in the interest of full disclosure, I am a regular, weekly volunteer at Meals on Wheels (MOW) in the city where I live. I believe that it's important to divulge this information for two reasons: 1) I was inundated with questions from and asked for my opinion by family and friends, who are aware of my MOW association, and 2) I took the time to point-blank ask the fund developer (a paid staff member) at the MOW kitchen where I volunteer if there is actually any shred of truth to what the media were reporting. I also did some in-depth research about Meals on Wheels funding, not only on the national level, but locally, too.

Of course, and as it is with most hysterical news these days, the truth can usually be found somewhere in the fine print, twisted in translation, or buried at the bottom of the page.

This particular episode of fake news hysteria was born out of the preliminary 2018 budget draft, in which Trump proposed to trim the pork-riddled program at the Department of Housing Development  specifically, the Community Development Block Grants program, which does provide a fraction of funding for some Meals on Wheels groups across the country.

It's important to note that not all MOW kitchens receive these funds, as I found out when I visited with the fund developer where I volunteer. As a matter of fact, the MOW kitchen in my city receives absolutely no community block grant funding. It does receive about 7% of its annual funding from a local non-profit community group that raises funds year round and then portions out those funds to numerous non-profits across the city. The rest (93%) of the MOW annual budget is derived from the direct sales of meals, private donors, corporate grants, food vendors (who donate food/funds or both), and an annual, local fund raising event during the December holiday season.

Investor's Business Daily editors provided a detailed and more accurate explanation:

What Trump's budget does propose is cutting is the corruption-prone Community Development Block Grant program, run out of Housing and Urban Development. Some, but not all, state and local governments use a tiny portion of that grant money, at their own discretion, to "augment funding for Meals on Wheels," according to the statement.  So what's really going on? As Meals on Wheels America explained, some Community Development Block Grant money does end up going to some of the local Meals on Wheels programs. But it's a small amount. HUD's own website shows that just 1% of CDBG grant money goes to the broad category of "senior services." And 0.17% goes to "food banks."  All of this information was easily available to anyone reporting on this story, or anyone commenting on it, which would have prevented the false claims about the Meals on Wheels program from spreading in the first place. But why bother reporting facts when you can make up a story?

Surprisingly, and as it applies to the media-fueled "starving senior apocalypse" across America, Meals on Wheels has been the inadvertent winner, thanks to the intentional attempt to personally blame and prosecute Trump for budget cuts. Not only has the MOW organization where I volunteer seen a 20% uptick in private donations, but, as Investor's Business Daily noted:

[T]his fake budget-cutting story ended up revealing how programs like Meals on Wheels can survive without federal help. As soon as the story started to spread, donations began pouring into Meals on Wheels. In two days, the charity got more than $100,000 in donations  50 times more than they'd normally receive. Clearly, individuals are ready, willing and eager to support this program once they perceive a need. Isn't this how charity is supposed to work, with people donating their own time, money and resources to causes they feel are important, rather than sitting back and expecting the federal government to do it for them?

Moral of the story? Americans can be assured, without any doubt, that the media purveyors of fake news will go to every effort to exploit and distort President Trump's policymaking decisions for the purpose of hysterical extortion. And as the Investor's Business Daily editors noted, "Why bother reporting facts when you can make up a story[?]"

As the Meals on Wheels organization found out, fake news is big business; in fact, it's a profitable business, especially when it comes to raising funds without even lifting a finger, sending out donor requests, or making a phone call. All non-profit fund developers, please take note.
The buzzards are out. These are a subspecies, Bueto Nevertrump vulpinus. The carcass of healthcare reform has them circling. No, actually, they believe its the carcass of Donald Trumps presidency. Repeal and replace dies, so the automatics kick in. Trumps failed. He was never up to the job. His presidency hangs by a thread! And the variation: Its good Trump failed, cause Paul Ryans bill was a vehicle for socialized medicine. Trumps an unscrupulous lib. Hes a pretender, and now theres more proof!

Not proof, mind you, of House GOP incompetence. Not proof of a weak speaker and flabby leadership team. Cut em slack. House Republicans only had seven years to figure out healthcare reform and get their act together. The failure belongs to Trump, and shows that his presidency is beginning to unravel 40-odd days into his administration. The next three years and 325 days are just epilogue.

Reports of Trumps political death arent just exaggerated. Theyre absurd. Its sky-high wishful thinking. So is the cliche that Trumps itching to go left. It doesnt stack up against the facts. For those who pegged Trump as a charlatan from the get-go, its a never-ending quest for validation. They just cant be wrong. Theyre always doubling down.

If Trumps first 40-plus days in the White House are any indication, he has a real crack at making an historic presidency. He could rechart the nations course for a generation -- in ways that advance liberty and prosperity.

The GOPs healthcare measure was plenty flawed. Trump does have his fingerprints on it. But thats hardly evidence of Trump super-secretly hankering for government-run healthcare. It points more to Trump wanting a win. Had the bill passed the House, it had a long and uncertain ride ahead of it. Senate Republicans would mark it up or offer their own version. Democrats would have their say. Then there would be a conference committee.

Instead, the House GOPs healthcare bill tanked. Is that fatal to Trump and the GOP? Not if Trump and congressional Republicans agree on better legislation and a smarter approach. Trump needs the win, and so do congressional Republicans. Voters wont hold Republicans accountable in next years midterms for failing to repeal and replace? Goofy. They gave undivided government to the GOP to fulfill their promises.

Speaking of promises, lets get back to Trumps fledging presidency. Peering through the fog of political war, we see excellent starts and ample successes for the president in his early days. All on the record.

Despite 24/7 assaults from Democrats, the mainstream media, celebs, and spoiled brats who took to the streets, Trumps racking up Ws. Where to begin?

In the teeth of Democrats obstruction, the presidents assembling a cabinet of accomplished men and women. Overall, the cabinet profiles as conservative. He nominated a prudent jurist, Neil Gorsuch, to replace the late, great Justice Scalia. Gorsuch should be confirmed if Mitch McConnell and Senate Republicans do their jobs. The president will have other chances to nominate justices (SCOTUS and federal benches). Expect those nominees to be cut from Gorsuchs cloth. Confirmations mean an originalist tilt to the Supreme Court for years.

The president has aggressively used his pen to deep-six many of Obamas most ruinous executive orders. Notably, in the areas of illegals, energy, and climate. Attorney General Jeff Sessions is putting sanctuary cities on notice: no federal funds if your city harbors illegals in defiance of the law. The Homeland Security Department has sought proposals for border wall construction. The president seeks to bulk up the U.S. Border Patrol and ICE. The liberal Ninth Circuit cant block Trumps travel ban indefinitely. Extreme vetting will happen.

The Keystone Pipeline will be constructed. The coal industrys shackles are being smashed. The president has consistently stated his goal: U.S. energy independence. Hes only begun to free up the nations energy industries. Achieving energy independence has outsized economic benefits, but, more so, it has critical national security advantages. The country should never again be held hostage by OPEC or the equivalent.

Trumps executive orders are peeling back Obamas climate change regs. He proposes to make sweeping cuts to the EPA. His EPA director, Scott Pruitt, is a tough, no-bones reformer. Pruitt aims to depoliticize the EPAs mission.

The president is committed to boosting military spending. After years of neglect and downsizing, the U.S. Navy is up for revitalization. The PRCs claim to, and ongoing militarization of, the East and South China Seas (international waters), menaces commercial shipping that transits those waters. Thats hundreds of billions of dollars annually in cargo. Much of that commerce is American.

Trump is stepping up efforts to defeat ISIS. Hes not just trying to drone ISIS to death. Hes inserting two companies from 82nd Airborne to help win battles against ISIS in Iraq.

The president has warned the treacherous North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, that aggression or nuclear attack against the South or regional allies or the U.S. will be met with a deadly U.S. response. Rex Tillerson has pressed the Chinese to exert more influence over the North Koreans.

The president is designating his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, a smart-as-a-whip business mind, to fundamentally reform the federal government. Trump wants smaller, leaner, and less intrusive government. As an entrepreneur, Trumps had to grapple with miles of red tape and meddlesome bureaucrats. A major government overhaul isnt sexy, but matters greatly to the economy and liberty.

Those are just brushstrokes. Trumps efforts have been prodigious in a short time. Tax cuts and reform will be huge in the coming weeks.

Thats not to gainsay the importance of repeal and replace. Healthcare reform is a marquee issue, and it has to get done the right way. Though sobered when Ryan pulled the bill, Trump hasnt let the failure stop him. Hes pressing on with other critical business. He has moved on while working behind the scenes to make the next go at healthcare reform a success. Well see how that transpires.

The president is a businessman, not a movement anything. That and Trumps history bugs #NeverTrump conservatives. Short of Trump being immersed in water at a Heritage Foundation fount and born again, these conservatives will continue to find fault with the president. Even then, theyd say Trump was faking it. So be it.

Trumps actions as president are revealing him to be a practical conservative. That doesnt mean hell satisfy conservatives on every issue. Yet, in the early going, the president is keeping his promises. The herculean task of moving the nation away Obamas leftism is underway. Underway, that is, to those willing to drop their biases and look.
Many years ago, I met a former mayor (selectman) of a small New England township whose brief political career had amazing similarities to that of the man who would become president in 2017. His story is in many ways a microcosm of the present. I shall partly fictionalize the account for obvious reasons, but the relevant facts remain, as best as I can remember them.

Mister Smith (as I shall call him) owned a small business. He was concerned that his business, and others in the township, were being stifled due to a number of local political factors, including cronyism, incompetence, and even some outright corruption.

Smith was able to get some of his fellow businessmen to raise a little money (a pittance by normal standards) for his run at the top office in the township. Then, to the shock and dismay of the establishment, he won the election. Nobody saw it coming, except, of course, for the voters, who not only liked Smith's message, but liked his personality  that of a humble (okay, perhaps not so much like Trump in that regard), honest, and sincere political outsider who vowed to clean up the mess. Smith and the voters looked forward to what would finally be an administration that would work for the people.

Alas, there was no storybook ending. As Smith recounted to me, from day one, everything he did as town selectman was opposed by the others in the local government. It seems that in New England, there were still old laws on the books from as far back as colonial days, some of them even authored under British governors. However arcane, the establishmentarians knew those laws and threw up challenges to every proposal Smith made.

Worse, the lesser officials had cordial relations with the "Town Herald" (or whatever was the name of the local newspaper) and were able to twist every story to their advantage. Even worse, some of the stories were what today we would call "fake news." The final atrociousness involved making sure that potholes in the street were not fixed and storefront sidewalks fell into disrepair.

As planned by his enemies, Smith decided not to run for re-election. After his term ended, the township presumably returned to its normal, bleak conditions. Smith moved away to work for a corporation, where I met him.

Decades later, his story is one of several similar accounts I remember from people who had ventured into politics and then discovered the treachery and dysfunction of real-life governments.

Smith himself, afterward, remained optimistic that the problems can be overcome, but he acknowledged that doing so requires quite a bit more than good intentions and enthusiasm.

On the optimistic side, Trump is not exactly the stereotypical neophyte when it comes to matters of "the swamp." True, he was by no means seasoned in the art of political intrigue, but neither did he enter the fray naively. He is a fast learner, and unlike Smith, he is not as vulnerable as Smith was to the fear of personal poverty. So Trump has a great deal going for him.

Even so, Smith's experience is instructive to an understanding of what Trump (and we, his supporters) have stepped into. While Smith got bruised in the sandbox, Trump's enemies are polished battlefield professionals, skilled in the dangerous arts of political assassination (so to speak), and utterly without qualm or conscience. In the end, because Democrats understand that they are losing in an existential struggle, they will stop at nothing  even if it turns out that only physical force is available to them.

There are many things we may dislike about Trump's policy proposals. There is nothing we would have found acceptable had Hillary Clinton been elected instead. Let's not forget that.
To get a whiff at how weak the Democrat candidate pool has become, get a load of California governor Jerry Brown's latest tease:

"I don't think I'm running for office," he quipped during a news conference as he stood on an unused Concord road flanked by by a sea of orange-vest-clad construction workers and more formally dressed politicians, including state Senate President pro Tem Kevin de Leon, D-Los Angeles and Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon, D-Paramount (Los Angeles County). "I only have lieutenant governor, treasurer and controller left," Brown said. Someone in the crowed shouted out: "President." "But I'd be 82 then," he said, pausing. "Don't rule it out."

Incredibly, it might just happen, given the shallowness of the Democratic Party's candidate pool and its emerging standard-bearers. The loopy lunatic of off-the-wall popping off, Maxine Waters, seems to have moved into a position of leadership in this vortex. Bernie Sanders, like Brown, pushing 80, is also in the running with a void. Seventy-plus Hillary Clinton has gone New Nixon with the headline "Hillary Clinton wears leather, talks trash and blows a stop light." The just-re-elected House party leader is badly aging Nancy Pelosi. There are the smirking twerpy Castro brothers. There is the hardcore abuser of power in party leader Tom Perez. Then there are Muslim crazies like Keith Ellison to round out the stew.

Seriously, whom do they have? Brown looks positively statesmanlike compared to this bar scene at Star Wars.

Yet Brown's record is not assuring. He's a walking, talking invitation to illegal immigrants to come to the states. His signature accomplishment is the cost overrun-plagued, overpromised, and under-delivered Bullet Train that few want anymore. He remains the nation's biggest wacko on global warming and is constantly cooking up new taxes and insulting those who work for a living. He absolutely failed to resolve California's water drought crisis (unlike his pop, Gov. Pat Brown, the visionary who designed the California aqueduct system to transport abundant water from the north to the parched south) and has made loopy "baptism" statements about the significance of water instead, living up to his Moonbeam nickname. His budgets are disasters. One wonders if he can make it to election time before the state gravy runs out. Now he's talking pork-shoveling infrastructure for the state's crumbling highways as if he didn't like them crumbling in the name of global warming earlier.

Yet this is all the Democrats have got. Yes, he's a smart. polished politician, and his health seems very vigorous  definitely enough to carry him through his 80s. But his record shows one failure after another. Perhaps the only thing for a conservative to say is "Run, Jerry, run."
The New York education commissioner defended a local teacher's assignment asking students to argue in favor of exterminating Jews. It sounds incomprehensible, but MaryEllen Elia, speaking in Syracuse, N.Y. (Onondaga County) this past Thursday morning, did just that. It seems especially hideous, contemporarily, since that city's Jewish Community Center has been under lockdown three times this year: twice for bomb threats and most recently for a vaguely described "threat of violence."

The education commissioner was addressing an assignment given by a teacher in neighboring Oswego County this past February. The teacher, Michael DeNobile, gave the assignment as part of the Oswego County CiTi/BOCES New Vision program. According to local reporter Julie McMahon, the students were asked to "put themselves in a Nazi leaders' shoes and argue for or against the 'Final Solution' to exterminate Jewish people."

It seems that only two students were disturbed by this request. Jordan April and Archer Shurtliff (neither are Jewish) are both seniors at Oswego County high schools participating in the New Vision program. The program allows students to take college-level classes on the SUNY Oswego campus. April and Shurtliff brought their concerns directly to DeNobile, higher administrators, and even the Anti-Defamation League (ADL). The two girls' goal was "to make sure no other student would be asked to argue in favor of killing Jews again." They also asked for the New Vision program to retract the assignment completely. They were unsuccessful. In exchange for their complaints, however, the entire class was given the opportunity to choose their own alternative project. Only three students took advantage of that, including April and Shurtliff.

Education commissioner Elia held strong to her support of the assignment, citing critical thinking as the supposed learning tool, saying, "I think it's certainly a question where you want students to think on both sides and analyze ... which position a person is taking." Student Archer Shurtliff, in a separate interview, stated conversely that "it's settled opinion[.] ... [Y]ou can't say that Jews deserve to die. It should be a settled thing."

Dogged local reporter McMahon posted the actual homework assignment on Syracuse's online news website. Eerily, it was stamped "Top Secret" in red at the top. McMahon writes:

The assignment itself notes that the point is "not for you to be sympathetic to the Nazi point of view[.] ... Ultimately, this is an exercise on expanding your point of view by going outside your comfort zone and training your brain to logistically [sic] find the evidence necessary to prove a point, even if it is existentially and philosophically against what you believe," the assignment says.

(Ironically, Oswego County is home to "Safe Haven Holocaust Refugee Shelter Museum," which commemorates America's only refugee camp for victims of WWII. In 1944, nearly 1,000 refugees were housed in the army barracks there as "guests" of President Roosevelt. According to previous newspaper reports, approximately 900 of them were Jewish. Strangely, the words "Jew" and "Jewish" are apparently mentioned only once on the museum's website.)

ADL education director Beth Martinez said the whole thing is "deeply troubling," adding that students should never be given an assignment "that even hints at their [sic] being 'two sides' to the 'Final Solution' / Holocaust." Martinez said she was notified by Roseann Bayne, the assistant superintendent for the CiTi program, that the assignment was still being offered along with an alternative.

Martinez cited Common Core as a catalyst for pushing students to argue from a perspective from which they do not agree. This sounds benign at first glance  until you see an example like this, where a student is asked to justify mass murder as part of a learning experience. One can only hope such a thing would be outside most people's "comfort zone" and remain there.

The fight is definitely not over for two 17-year-old girls who had the guts to take on a monumental task: teaching some seriously misguided adults that "critical thinking" does not mean abandoning all human decency at the schoolhouse door.

Susan D. Harris can be reached at www.susandharris.com.
Let me ask you a question: if Angela Davis and her gang were running things, would they invite an anti-abortion, pro-marriage priest to speak at their government-run universities? Would they teach everything from socialism to capitalism? What version of Hiroshima would they tell? Would they refer to George Washington as the father of the country or another rotten white slave-owner?

I think that you know the answers.

You can look at Cuba, one of Angela's favorite regimes, for an example of what happens when communists run things. Simply put, "inclusion" is not a word in their way of doing things!

Nevertheless, Marquette University has just invited Angela Davis:

Marquette University, a Jesuit school in Milwaukee, plans to host radical communist activist Angela Davis for a lecture Wednesday night. The lecture is part of a series of "inclusive conversations" the school is hosting in order to confront the challenges of racial inequality. "As a Catholic, Jesuit university committed to social justice," the university's website reads, "we seek to energize our campus and engage all Milwaukee's communities by asking, 'What is your freedom dream now?'" Davis is most renowned for her career of radical leftist activism, involving leadership stints in both the Black Panther Party and Communist Party. Today, she continues to proclaim that "capitalism is the most dangerous kind of future we can imagine" telling the Los Angeles Times recently, "as long as we inhabit a capitalist democracy, a future of racial equality, gender equality, economic equality will elude us." Davis is notorious for landing on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted list in 1970 for fleeing police after she was charged with purchasing the murder weapon used in a courtroom shootout in 1970. At the Women's March in January, Davis called on activists to become "more militant." "Those who still defend the supremacy of white male hetero-patriarchy," she said, "had better watch out." Her views on abortion and marriage openly contradict Catholic teachings. Nevertheless, Marquette is touting Davis as a "living witness to history" and featuring her remarks as a "distinguished lecture." Davis' speaking fee has previously been listed between $10,000 and $20,000.

As someone who grew up in Wisconsin, I have several friends still up there. Last night, I checked in with one of them, and he's outraged. I won't tell you what he said because it is not suitable for print.

I am hoping someone in the audience will ask Miss Davis a few questions.

One can start with one simple question: why does a black doctor in Cuba (Dr. Oscar Elias Biscet) get thrown in jail for refusing to do an abortion?

Here is a follow-up: will Angela join us in protesting the lack of "inclusion" in her favorite regimes?

Marquette's administration is making a big mistake here.

I wonder how they will explain this to the police officers protecting Miss Angela.

P.S. You can listen to my show (Canto Talk) and follow me on Twitter.
GRAND FORKS -- Some North Dakota parents of autistic children are skeptical theyll receive promised insurance coverage for a costly therapy regimen after the Senate defeat last week of a mandate bill.

Lawmakers rejected House Bill 1434 after debating the necessity of using legislation to compel insurers to provide coverage for applied behavioral analysis, or ABA, a specific behavioral treatment for autism disorders not currently included in most insurance plans offered in the state.

Central to some of the argument against the bill was the testimony of Blue Cross Blue Shield North Dakota, the largest-single medical insurance provider in the state, that it would provide coverage for ABA without a mandate beginning Jan. 1, 2018.

Though a litany of other treatments are available through the states insurers, many parents and autism advocacy groups stand by ABA as a critical treatment and now, as the dust clears, some are still not confident the therapy will be provided without a mandate from the state.

Legislators are relying on the hope that BCBS will start covering these treatments for children with autism, and its not a promise that we wanted to rely on, Janice Kern, a mother of an autistic son and a leader of the North Dakota organization Talk About Curing Autism, or TACA. We are worried that, without a mandate, children will continue to wait and not be able to access treatment.

Coverage caps

The bill included coverage caps pegged to the age of the recipient of the therapy, with younger patients -- for whom ABA is shown to have a greater effect -- eligible for higher levels of insured service. The bill also required the mandate to be tested in the North Dakota Public Employees Retirement System for two years before being applied to the general insurance market.

BCBS North Dakota currently holds more than 70 percent of the medical insurance market in North Dakota. Beyond its testimony to legislators, representatives of the insurer also held a public meeting in Fargo to address coverage questions from families of autistic children.

Beth Mauch, a Fargo resident and mother of a child with autism, attended the meeting to learn more about the prospect of future coverage. Mauch said she felt parents didnt accomplish a whole lot in the discussion, which she described as devoid of details as to how coverage might be provided.

Thats why parents are so worried, we couldnt nail down any specific information or nail them down on a statement  some kind of hard statement, Mauch said. The response back was, Well, we hope to have it implemented in 2018.

A statement provided by Denise Kolpack, BCBS North Dakota senior vice president of communications, said the insurer is finalizing its internal analyses and now is planning to expand its autism coverage to include ABA.

We fully expect we will be adding ABA benefits beginning January 2018, which coincides with our biannual benefit rewrite process, Kolpack wrote.

In an additional statement, she wrote that BCBS North Dakota had opposed the bill because it did not include a cohesive, standardized approach to ABA treatment coverage, which it characterized as only recently supported by research as an evidence-based, medically effective treatment method.

At least one other major North Dakota medical insurance provider may follow suit.

Sanfords plan

A statement by Sanford Health Plan indicated the insurer has its own goal to also have ABA benefit coverage in place by the start of 2018.

In recent years, Sanford Health Plan has studied and engaged in robust dialogue about emerging treatments for children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD), Cindy Morrison, the insurers chief policy officer, stated. As a result of these ongoing efforts, we are currently planning to implement ABA benefit coverage in North Dakota.

Sen. Nicole Poolman, R-Bismarck, opposed the bill to mandate coverage in expectation of the BCBS initiative to provide coverage on its own accord. Poolman said shed spoken with representatives of the insurer who stated the companys own coverage could provide between $100,000 to $200,000 in benefits per child per year, a sum which would surpass the amount which would have been allotted in HB1434.

Poolman said she thought the parents who brought the bill to Bismarck should be commended for drawing attention to the need for insurance coverage.

I dont believe that other insurers realized how important this was to families across the state, so I believe that their work, even though their bill didnt pass, will pay off, she said.

Poolman acknowledged the lack of trust among some families regarding the insurers statements that coverage will be provided without the mandate, but she stood by her position against the bill, arguing the legislative proposal would have ultimately limited the available coverage for ABA.

She believed the insurers would follow through on their promises to extend their offerings to include the therapy. If they do not, Poolman added, she will be the first to hold a press conference calling them out on it.

My question to (skeptics) would be, why would an insurance company put themselves on the record so many times and have this very public battle with parents saying their coverage is going to be better and then not follow through? she said. Thatd be a public relations nightmare.
North Dakota senators defeated a bill seeking to protect the state from the application of foreign laws Friday, March 31, with some lawmakers calling it unnecessary and an insult to judges who swear to uphold the Constitution.

Sen. Janne Myrdal, R-Edinburg, urged lawmakers to support the bill as a preemptive measure. She said it would help affirm constitutional rights, including religious freedoms.

Were one of the few nations in the world that has equality under rule of law, said Myrdal, who said she welcomed immigrants but warned that some are coming here for the purposes of occupying, not assimilating to American values.

But Judiciary Committee Chairman Sen. Kelly Armstrong, R-Dickinson, said neither the state nor U.S. Constitution needs enabling legislation.

The U.S. Constitution may be the most perfect document in the history of the world and it does not need further protection, he said.

An American Civil Liberties Union of North Dakota official previously told a House committee the bill was based on an unfounded concern about Sharia law making its way into the states court system. It was supported by the Center for Security Policy, a group that warns that some are seeking to install Sharia as a parallel legal and political system in the United States, according to its website.

Although the bills primary sponsor previously noted the bill doesnt mention the Islamic legal framework, Sen. Oley Larsen, R-Minot, said Sharia law is a problem coming into the United States. He faulted judges for being culturally compassionate and made claims about people marrying their kids off and men being allowed to marry infant girls, among other assertions.

Jennifer Cook, policy director for the ACLU of North Dakota, said in previous testimony there is no evidence Sharia law could overtake the states court system. She said such foreign law bans are discriminatory and susceptible to constitutional challenge.

House Bill 1425, introduced by Rep. Kim Koppelman, R-West Fargo, said any ruling thats based on a law or system that wouldnt grant the parties constitutional rights is void and unenforceable. The House passed it in a 62-30 vote last month but the Senate rejected it Friday in a 15-29 vote.

Myrdal, a native of Norway who is now a U.S. citizen, said there are cases in other states where judges have used foreign or religious laws to override constitutional rights. After the floor session, she deferred to Koppelman for a citation of those cases, but he did not provide a specific source for that information.

Sen. Tim Mathern, D-Fargo, said the bill was an insult to judges who already required to carry out the Constitution.

We dont need this bill, he said.
House lawmakers voted to limit matching funds for senior citizen programs Thursday, a move supporters called responsible government while opponents said it could make it tougher for seniors to stay in their homes.

House members voted 69-21 in favor of amendments to Senate Bill 2273, which caps funding for senior programs at $7 million for 2017-19, roughly the same funding level the programs received in 2015-17.

The state funds match locally supported programs for seniors such as Meals on Wheels, transportation services, home health care and maintenance for senior centers.

Brian Arett, executive director for Valley Senior Services in Fargo, said demand for those services has grown every year, but a cap on state matching funds would make it difficult to continue meeting the needs.

Without the cap, the programs statewide were projected to receive an additional $400,000 for fiscal year 2018, Arett said. The change to state funding coincides with cuts anticipated at the federal level.

Were going to struggle to keep up, said Arett, whose organization serves seniors in six southeast North Dakota counties.

Supporters of the amendments said the state matching funds have increased 227 percent in the past 10 years and the cap prevents it from continuing to increase automatically.

I dont think its responsible government to allow a continuing appropriation that automatically increases with something that is out of our control, said Rep. Craig Headland, R-Montpelier, the chairman of the House Finance and Taxation Committee.

Rep. Ben Koppelman, R-West Fargo, said even with the cap, the level of funding proposed for 2017-19 is a slight increase over current funding.

This is a very realistic idea, especially at a time when were cutting budgets quite a bit, Koppelman said.

Opponents of the amendments said seniors who receive home-delivered meals and other services are healthier and able to stay in their homes longer rather than entering expensive long-term care facilities.

There are seniors who are skipping meals because they dont have the resources, said House Minority Leader Corey Mock, D-Grand Forks.

Several legislators also said the cap could lead to local property tax increases, creating a further burden on senior citizens.

The House voted 68-23 to approve the full bill. Sen. Dwight Cook, R-Mandan, chairman of the Senate Finance and Taxation Committee, said his committee will likely begin discussing the changes to the bill on Monday.
FARGO  North Dakotas on track to have its first statewide restriction on where high-risk sex offenders can live, with lawmakers voting almost unanimously for a bill that would prohibit such offenders from residing within 500 feet of a school.

House Bill 1334, which has received little media attention, quietly passed the House in February and the Senate this week. The bill has not yet been sent to Gov. Doug Burgum, who generally does not comment on legislation before it reaches his desk, his spokesman Mike Nowatzki said Thursday.

Over two-dozen other states have imposed blanket restrictions on where sex offenders can live. But no research has shown that these restrictions prevent sex crimes. Rather, in some cases theyve led to loss of housing, loss of support systems, and financial hardship that may aggravate rather than mitigate offender risk, according to a 2014 report by the U.S. Department of Justice.

The manager of North Dakotas sex offender program, who testified against the bill, agrees that such restrictions dont have the desired effect. Setting up an imaginary boundary of 500 feet from a school, I think, could provide a false sense of security and that, I think, could be very dangerous, said Barb Breiland of the states parole and probation division.

Breiland said 583 high-risk offenders live in North Dakota communities. Its unclear how many of them live near schools and would need to move if the bill becomes law on July 1, she said.

Depending on where an areas schools are located, she said, she thinks the restriction could exclude offenders from entire towns. The Justice Department report said residence restrictions lead to the displacement and clustering of sex offenders into other areas, particularly rural areas.

The bill would apply to private and public elementary, middle and high schools, as well as state-licensed preschools. North Dakota has 132 such preschools, including 36 in Fargo and West Fargo, according to the state Department of Human Services.

A real uneasy feeling

In 2009, the North Dakota House defeated a bill that would have made it illegal for sex offenders to live within 1,000 feet of schools, day care centers and other areas with children. At the time, law enforcement officers opposed the bill, saying it did not offer the protection it seemed to, while making it harder for offenders to find housing.

Rep. Lisa Meier, the main sponsor of this sessions bill, said no law enforcement officers testified against her legislation, which applies only to offenders deemed a high risk to re-offend and has a smaller buffer zone. Five hundred feet seems really like a great, you know, place to go with this," she said.

Meier, R-Bismarck, said she submitted the bill after a student and her mother raised concerns about a high-risk offender living near Light of Christ Catholic School and St. Marys Central High School in Bismarck. Meier said the offenders presence put parents and students on guard a little bit and gave them a real uneasy feeling."

Meier said two students testified in favor of the bill. They were mainly concerned that a high-risk sex offender's living right across the street, you know, staring at kids all day," she said.

Meier said the offender no longer lives next to the school. Right now, the closest high-risk offender lives in an apartment about three blocks away, roughly 1,250 feet from the school.

The lone dissenting vote against Meiers bill came from Rep. Luke Simons, R-Dickinson, who believes decisions on sex-offender residency restrictions should be left up to local municipalities.

Simons said several representatives approached him after the vote and told him they wished they could have voted with him. "But they were afraid the news media would have ripped them up too much," he said. "It's such an unpopular opinion that nobody wants to talk about."

A start-over card

As a volunteer ministerial councilor, Simons said, hes worked with sex offenders behind bars. I do not think that sex offenders should be getting off easy," he said. "But I also believe that once somebody gets out of prison in America, you get a start-over card."

Sgt. Junell Krabbenhoft, who oversees sex-offender registration for the Fargo Police Department, said she doesnt have an opinion on the bill, and Deputy Chief Joe Anderson, the departments spokesman, declined to comment. But Krabbenhoft did review the citys list of about 25 high-risk offenders and estimated that four of them would need to move if the bill is enacted. Unclear what defined a preschool, she said her review only encompassed K-12 schools.

Krabbenhofts counterpart at the Bismarck Police Department, Lt. Gary Malo, said he doesnt know how many offenders the bill would affect in his city, but he expected some would be.

With many offenders living out of their cars, Malo said his main concern with the bill is that its already hard for them to find housing because landlords dont want to rent to them. "I'd rather have an address of where they're at and know where to check up on them," he said.

Fargos city leaders in 2010 and Moorheads in 2014 considered ordinances that would have created sex-offender residency restrictions. But neither ordinance passed after police officials showed opposition, saying that such restrictions would make it tougher for police to track offenders.

In North Dakota, parole officials and judges currently have the power to prohibit an offender from living near a school, park or other place where kids gather. Breiland said North Dakota has a policy of using GPS devices to monitor high-risk offenders at the start of their probation terms.

In 2002, Iowa became one of the first states to enact statewide residency restrictions. Offenders there can't live within 2,000 feet of a school or day care. Minnesota, South Dakota, Montana and Wisconsin dont have blanket restrictions.

Under the House version of the North Dakota bill, living near a school would be a Class A misdemeanor for a high-risk sex offender. The Senates version makes the violation a Class C felony, so the bill will be sent back to the House for concurrence, said Michelle Linster, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.
(ANSA) - Rome, March 30 - Facebook Italia country manager Luca Colombo on Thursday was critical of US President Donald Trump for threatening punitive tariffs on European goods including Italy's Vespa scooters and San Pellegrino mineral water in what would be a tit-for-tat move following an EU No to US hormone-boosted beef.

Speaking at an ANSA forum, Colombo said "protectionism for us is a semi-disaster, it's in Facebook's mission to make the world open and connected.

Colombo said protectionism "doesn't make sense for the many actors in this sector and the many digital platforms".

The ANSA forum, also featuring the youth section chief of influential industrial employers group Confindustria, discussed the challenges and opportunities afforded by the digital economy. Confindustria deputy executive chairman Marco Gay, head of the youth section of the employers group, underscored at the ANSA forum that "ideas come before the business plan. Ideas first, always. When you begin with human capital, then everything else can be developed." He added that the business incubator Digital Magic receives about 1,500 requests per year for innovative start-ups, and that it "brings into being about 10 to 15 enterprises per year" with a "peak of 20". Thus, he said, it is not a war between traditional enterprises and innovative start-ups, but rather a "win-win contest. Both the traditional enterprise that innovates and the start-up entering the market win." Colombo, the country manager of Facebook Italia, stressed at the forum that "data management is important both for enterprises and users, and education is needed on these issues".

"Enterprises must understand the regulations and manage personal data correctly, otherwise they will pay the price over the long term," he added. Colombo said that consumers are shifting ever more to digital means and that "the revolution is hard, but repaid with the advantages it brings with it". "In the European digitalization rankings, Italy is in 25th place out of 28. This is a position that absolutely does not reflect the intensity and will of a world that wants to use digitalization as a lever for the economy," Gay said, noting that this is an "absurd contradiction. Because we are the second top country in manufacturing in Europe but the third to the last in digitalization." Calling it the "first real industrial policy plan in 20 years," Gay said that the Industry 4.0 - the current trend of automation and data exchange in manufacturing technologies is leading to "a different vision" looking towards the medium-long term, and that there is greater attention to training. This, in his view, is a positive development and "a direction in which the entire continent is going. One speaks of European Industry 4.0 and of raising Europe's value in the manufacturing field, with Italy being able to take on a key role due to the skills it has." He added that the challenges of the digital economy redistributes jobs and does not eliminate them, but that it depends on "those engaging in it, since you are either subjected to change or you manage it. Digitalisation needs to be managed better than other challenges have been, such as globalization." "Today over 22% of the jobs available in Italy cannot be filled because they can't find qualified personnel", while "The EU estimates that there will be 500,00 new jobs available over the next three years for those with digital skills," he said.


Israel new homes only in current settlements, media reports After cabinet 'yes' vote on first West Bank settlement in 20 yrs

(ANSAmed) - TEL AVIV, MARCH 31 - Israel will limit its new home construction to Jewish settlements that already exist in the West Bank, or in some cases to specific adjacent areas, and not build them in new settlements, according to media reports that cite the decision by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his cabinet as an act of "goodwill" towards the administration of US President Donald Trump.



According to Haaretz, Netanyahu said during a cabinet meeting that the decision is a response to Trump's reservations on new settlements, thus adopting a unilateral policy restricting new home building and limiting them to already developed areas within currently existing settlements The decision came following the cabinet's approval on Thursday of a new settlement in the West Bank - the first in 20 years - destined for the former residents of the illegal outpost of Amona, which was evacuated following a Supreme Court ruling. The decision was made in order to keep a promise that Netanyahu had made to Amona residents about two months ago at the time of the evacuation.



The country's Supreme Court ordered that the illegal outpost be demolished because it was built illegally on private Palestinian land.



According to media reports, the new settlement will be built in the West Bank near one already in existence called Shiloh, and will house about 2,000 residents.



Media reports said that during talks currently underway with the United States, Netanyahu made the US aware of the situation and of the fact that for him it would be impossible not to keep his promise.(ANSAmed).




Unprecedented protectionist threat says B7 in Rome No ambiguity on free trade says Gentiloni

(by Denis Greenan).



(ANSAmed) - ROME, MARCH 31 - There is an "unprecedented" threat of protectionism in the global economy after the advent of Donald Trump, the 'B7' Business Summit said in Rome Friday, while Italian Premier Paolo Gentiloni told the business leaders there could be "no ambiguity" on free trade.



They were speaking a day after the US president threatened punitive tariffs on a range of EU goods including Vespa scooters and San Pellegrino mineral water in retaliation for a long-standing EU ban on US hormone-boosted beef.



International industrialists at the B7 said "trade governance is struggling to keep up with globalisation and is threatened by unprecedented protectionist tendencies". It cited two priority challenges: the governance of world trade and the challenge of "innovation and sustainability".



US business leader John Hopkins said that "we are at the start of the new administration: we are working so that trade remains open. "We have three million firms that will make themselves heard: the White House will have to listen to us".



European business group chief Emma Marcegaglia said a border tax would be "a declaration of a trade war" to be reported to the World Trade Organisation while Italian business leader Vincenzo Boccia, the head of industrial employers' group Confindustria, urged participants to "work towards a solution in everyone's interests".



Gentiloni, for his part, said the Group of Seven (G7) in Taormina in May will have to "also adopt a stance towards underlying choices that do not tolerate ambiguity: we must renew the faith in the open economy and open societies on which we have built decades of prosperity". He said "we must bet again on the free market and free trade, the greatest economic engine in history". Gentiloni said that economies must be further opened up and protection must not become "closure".



He said free-trade treaties were in difficulty and should produce a "win-win" situation for workers.



European Parliament President Antonio Tajani, meanwhile, said he hoped there would be no "escalation" between the US and EU. "I hope a deal can be reached," said Tajani. On the importation of US beef, Tajani said "we have iron-clad rules for safeguarding citizens' health" and therefore it was not a trade issue. In any case, he said "it's in nobody's interest to have a trade war, especially with the US". Tajani went on: "It's a delicate moment that must make us understand that we have to stay united: in these moments there is a need for Europe, because if a country acts on its own it would risk being too fragile, being a vulnerable target for giants.



"The question of the importation of meat that could contain hormones from the US started in 1992 and in any case whoever the president of the United States it remains our major interlocutor. Tajani said trade talks had already started with the US and said "I hope the US realises that closing the door means creating damage for everyone". He said "closing oneself behind one's frontiers is a mistake, in my opinion". Tariffs hurt those who wield them too, Confcommercio retail group President Caro Sangalli said.



"We are heirs to the tradition of Italian merchants and Marco Polo," he said. "We believe in free trade and the force and quality of 'made in Italy': tariffs wreak serious damage on those who set them and those who are subjected to them." US Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said the US has already been in "a trade war" for many years.



Cardinal Peter Turkson, the Vatican's Prefect for the Dicastery of Integral Human Development, meanwhile denied the Vatican was against Trump. "Pitting the Vatican against President Trump is rather exaggerated," Turkson told ANSA. "The United States has a valid and democratic government that deserves all our respect" and which is now "carrying out election pledges".



He added, however, that "in the USA there is a system of checks and balances, in which we trust just as much, able, to revise some of the promises made during the campaign".



Turkson was speaking a day after saying that The Vatican is hoping Trump will revise his policies and is "counting" on lobbying by the Catholic Church in the USA. Trump's decisions are "concerning", Turkson said, "but luckily there are dissenting voices, contrary voices, in the US, in explicit disagreement with Trump's positions: his immigration ban was blocked by a lawyer in Hawaii." Turkson said "that is a sign that there can be another voice and hopefully via political means, gradually Trump himself will start rethinking some of his decisions".(ANSAmed).




WASHINGTON - US Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley said the US is changing course on Syria, and that the removal of Syrian President Bashar Assad is no longer a priority.



"Our priority is no longer to sit there and focus on getting Assad out," Haley told a group of journalists including the Associated Press.



Haley said she wants to work with countries such as Turkey and Russia to find a long-term political solution in Syria, rather than keep the focus on the Syrian president's future.



Just prior to Haley's comments, US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson held a joint press conference in Turkey with his counterpart there, Mevlut Cavusoglu, and signaled the change in direction for US diplomacy.



Tillerson said "Assad's long-term presence must be decided by the Syrian people".
If youre considering a subscription to the Disney Plus streaming service, you may be wondering how much it costs. The service is available on both
BISMARCK  The North Dakota Senate failed to override Gov. Doug Burgum's first veto Thursday, March 30.

At issue was a bill that sought to limit recruitment and retention bonuses paid to the governor's staff and state officers appointed by the governor to 10 percent of the employee's annual salary or $5,000, whichever is less.

Only 13 of 47 senators voted to override the veto Thursday, a day after the House did so in a landslide vote and less than two weeks after 36 senators voted to pass House Bill 1153. The Legislature may override a governor's veto with a two-thirds vote in both the House and Senate.

In a statement, Burgum said the Senates vote was greatly appreciated.

Strong leadership matters, and having the flexibility to attract and retain high-performing cabinet leaders and staff will save taxpayer dollars in the long run through more efficient operations and delivery of government services, the first-term Republican governor added.

Sen. Kyle Davison, R-Fargo, urged his colleagues to sustain Burgum's veto. He said the bill unfairly singles out the governor and was an overreaction to an unpopular decision by a previous administration.

In a Monday letter to Speaker of the House Rep. Larry Bellew, R-Minot, Burgum said the bill serves "no constructive purpose." He added it violates the "constitutional exercise of executive authority.

The bill came in response to almost $100,000 in bonuses paid to five of former Gov. Jack Dalrymple's staffers in 2015. Two of Dalrymple's Cabinet members also received large bonuses, as did the superintendent of the State Hospital in Jamestown.

Dalrymple defended the bonuses at the time, but lawmakers said they felt public backlash. House Majority Leader Al Carlson, R-Fargo, said Wednesday his phone and email "lit up like a Christmas tree" after the news of the bonuses.

House Minority Leader Corey Mock, D-Grand Forks, said the "optics of this are vitally important," pointing to state revenue shortfalls that are forcing job cuts and flat wages. Burgum has also proposed that state employees pay 5 percent of their health insurance premiums.

I think every public employee deserves to feel valued in their jobs, said Sen. Erin Oban, D-Bismarck, who voted to override Burgums veto.
Not at all. It just seems like a lot of back-and-forth talk.

Yes. I'm growing very worried over what might happen.

If it keeps up, I might be a little more concerned.

I think there are much larger things to concern us as a country.

It's hard to tell; I can't take the leader of either country seriously.

Vote

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YEREVAN, MARCH 31, ARMENPRESS. The ranking Democratic members of the US Senates Foreign Relations, Banking, and Judiciary committees have written a joint letter to several Trump Administration officials asking them to address the possibility that the Trump Organization violated several laws in its dealings in Azerbaijan, The New Yorker reported.

The letter, by Senators Sherrod Brown, of Ohio, Dianne Feinstein, of California, and Ben Cardin, of Maryland, was sent to the Attorney General, Jeff Sessions, the Treasury Secretary, Steven Mnuchin, and the F.B.I. director, James Comey.

The article says Trumps company worked with Anar and Elton Mammedov, family members of the transportation minister. Elton Mammedov is also a member of parliament. According to journalists, this fact proves that Trumps company violated American laws.

The U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act makes it a crime for American companies to provide benefit to foreign government officials in hopes of profiting from their power.
YEREVAN, MARCH 31, ARMENPRESS. March 31 is the last day of election campaign for Armenias upcoming parliamentary election which will be followed by a day of silence.

All 9 political forces taking part in the election presented their election program provisions and their visions over countrys development and progress to the public through various platforms.

Political scientists gave an interview to Armenpress, summarizing the election campaign, as well as revealing the political forces that have chances to have seats in the Parliament.

Political scientist Hrant Melik-Shahnazaryan said the campaign, in general, had an interesting process. I think the public was waiting for more substantive discussions, however, their expectations werent justified. Nevertheless, the campaign was interesting and revealed the weak and strong sides and chances of political forces to some extent, he said.

The political scientist said the ruling Republican Party and Tsarukyan alliance will compete for the leading post. Melik-Shahnazaryan said the ARF will be in the third place. I think the Yelk alliance and Armenian Revival party will compete for overcoming the necessary threshold and having seats in the Parliament, he said.

Political scientist Sergey Minasyan stated the campaign passed in a calm atmosphere than he expected. I believed the campaign would be more emotional, but the process was quite calm. Although I dont rule out that post-election developments may happen and this gap will be filled due to it, Minasyan said. He said the ruling RPA, Tsarukyan and Yelk alliances will definitely have seats in the Parliament. As for the remaining political forces, I can say everything will depend on how many votes Tsarukyan bloc will receive and based on this it will be clear what chances the ARF and the Armenian Revival will have. As for the Armenian National Congress  Peoples Party of Armenia, I must state that in addition to political problems faced by the alliance in connection with their peace program, it also faces technical issues since it is an alliance and must have 7, rather than 5% for appearing in the Parliament. Ohanyan-Raffi-Oskanyan alliance also faces the same problem. It also faces political problem since it is guided by people who previously were Ministers and now they face problems in terms of getting opposition votes, Sergey Minasyan said.

Political scientist Levon Shirinyan said contrary to his expectations, the campaign had a politicized process. According to him, Tsarukyan alliance is leading. Compared to his colleagues, Shirinyan said the third place is Ohanyan-Raffi-Oskanyan alliance the election program of which contains many reforms related to protection of statehood. Commenting on Yelk alliance, Shirinyan said it has a chance to have seats in the Parliament since it managed to leave a positive impression on people during the campaign. He considered the chances of ARF low.

Armenias parliamentary election will be held on April 2.
YEREVAN, MARCH 31, ARMENPRESS. Ticket prices of Taron-Avia airlines will begin at 10,000 drams. Passengers will be enabled to carry up to 7kg of hand luggage without additional payments regardless of the ticket price, as well as 25kg baggage.

Taron-Avia director Garnik Papikyan told ARMENPRESS the 10,000 dram price concerns all directions.

Its just that tickets under this price will be limited, he said.

In accordance to an agreement between Taron-Avia airlines and the General Department of Civil Aviation, Taron-Avia will launch regular and charter flights from April 2017 from Gyumris Shirak airport. The airlines hub will also be Shirak airport.

The operations of the airline will contribute to creation of jobs, tourism and development of economy.
FARGO -- Drew Wrigley, former North Dakota lieutenant governor and former lead prosecutor in the trial of Alfonso Rodriguez Jr., will not have to provide testimony as part an attempt by defense attorneys to overturn Rodriguezs death sentence for the murder of Dru Sjodin, but the government will provide the defense with additional documents.

Thats the upshot of an agreement reached between Rodriguezs defense team and federal prosecutors that led to the withdrawal of a recently filed defense motion that sought to compel former prosecutors to testify under oath about whether they knowingly presented or failed to correct false testimony of a key trial witness.

U.S. District Court records indicate the motion was withdrawn after both sides settled issues raised by the motion.

First Assistant U.S. Attorney Keith Reisenauer said on Thursday, March 30, that both sides agreed testimony from Wrigley and another former federal prosecutor, Norman Anderson, who is now a district court judge, isnt needed in light of the governments willingness to provide additional discovery documents requested by the defense.

Rodriguez, 64, of Crookston, Minn., was sentenced to death for the 2003 kidnapping, rape and murder of 22-year-old Dru Sjodin, a University of North Dakota student abducted in Grand Forks.

In 2011, defense attorneys filed a habeas corpus motion to appeal Rodriguezs death sentence, arguing Rodriguez is mentally disabled and was insane at the time of the crime, making him ineligible for the death penalty.

As part of the defense motion that was recently withdrawn, Rodriguezs attorneys claimed that before Rodriguez was sentenced, prosecutors presented false testimony on the question of whether Sjodin was raped. The motion sought to compel testimony from Wrigley and Anderson on that issue.

The motion also requested disclosure of any and all correspondence between law enforcement entities in the case concerning testing of swabs taken from Sjodins body at the time of her autopsy.

An evidentiary hearing connected to Rodriguez's appeal of his death sentence is scheduled for June.
The United Kingdom took its first concrete step towards leaving the European Union when it formally notified the president of the European Council of that intention on Wednesday afternoon.

Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May leaves 10 Downing Street in London, March 29, 2017. [Photo/Agencies]

The formal notification triggers a two-year period of intense and complex negotiations and equally complex period of ratification by the European Parliament and the European Council and it is possible that all 27 national parliaments will also have to ratify the deal.

British prime minister Theresa May confirmed the dispatch of the notification to Parliament in London on Wednesday. The Article 50 process is now underway. The UK is leaving the EU.

Its a historic moment and there can be no turning back.We are going to take control of the things that matter most to us.

May emphasised that she will seek to build a deep and special partnership with the European Union in the interests of both parties, as she struck a more conciliatory tone towards the EU.

The process of ending the 44-year relationship with Brussels began on Tuesday afternoon when May signed the letter which invoked Article 50 of the Treaty of Lisbon, which created the European Union. The six-page letter was then given to the UKs ambassador to the EU, Sir Tim Barrow, who travelled to Brussels on Tuesday night before giving it to Donald Tusk, the president of the European Council, just before 1.30pm local time on Wednesday.

On receipt of the letter, Tusk tweeted: After nine months, the UK has delivered #Brexit.

Later he said that he could not pretend that it was a happy day but emphasised that nothing had yet changed in the UKs relations with the EU. We will act as one and start negotiations by focusing on arrangements for an orderly withdrawal, he said.

Tusk will reply to the letter within 48 hours and set out a preliminary timetable for the process. The first date on the agenda will be an extraordinary summit of the remaining 27 members of the EU on April 29 where they will decide what they will ask of the UK.
Karnan refused to apologise for accusing several top judges of corruption.

New Delhi: Calcutta high courts Justice C.S. Karnan, appearing for the first time before the Supreme Court in the contempt case against him, was insolent as ever. He refused to apologise for accusing several top judges of corruption and demanded that judicial work taken from him in February be restored.

In the openly confrontational hearing, when the seven-judge bench headed by Chief Justice of India Jagdish Singh Khehar declined, and asked Justice Karnan to file a proper reply in four weeks, the 61-year-old judge declared that he would not appear before the court again and challenged the court to arrest and put me in jail for contempt.

When the CJI said that the court will proceed only after it gets a written response from him, Justice Karnan replied, If my work is not restored I cannot file a reply. I am very mentally disturbed.

To which the CJI responded, If you feel that you are mentally not in a position to reply give a medical certificate. Then we will consider.
A defiant Justice Karnan told the court he would not appear before it again even if he was arrested and put in jail.

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Friday asked Calcutta high court judge C.S. Karnan, who appeared before the court in the contempt case against him, to file a proper reply in four weeks even as he dared the seven-judge bench to arrest and send him to jail. Justice Karnan also sought restoration of his powers as a condition for his re-appearance, but the plea was rejected.

A defiant Justice Karnan told the court he would not appear before it again even if he was arrested and put in jail. A seven-judge bench of Chief Justice J.S. Khehar and Justices Dipak Misra, J. Chelameswar, Ranjan Gogoi, Madan Lokur, Pinaki Chandra Ghose and Kurian Joseph had issued a bailable warrant to secure the presence of Justice Karnan.

This is for the first time in the annals of Indian judiciary that a sitting high court judge has been hauled up for contempt and a bailable warrant issued to answer contempt charges for his allegations of corruption against judges of Madras high curt and apex court.

When the CJI asked Justice Karnan whether he was affirming the allegations he had made in his various letters, he told the court that I had sent a number of complaints against several other judges. Instead of action being taken against them, action is taken against me. Please restore my judicial work. I am withdrawing the letters sent to the Prime Minister on January 23 against 20 judges.

Referring to the note submitted by Justice Karnan in the court tendering unconditional apology, Justice Misra asked him whether he was tendering unconditional apology. Justice Karnan said he will apologise if judicial and administrative work is restored to him.

We will allow you to think. We want you to be completely relaxed, the CJI said

To this Justice Karnan replied: After restoring my work, I can relax. Only then I can relax.

Taking exception to police serving the bailable warrant, Justice Karnan asked the court Why was police sent? What did I do? I am not a terrorist or an anti-social element. Your lordship should protect my dignity. It has been spoiled in public. I am also holding a constitutional office.

The CJI said, When we issued a notice to you you did not enter presence. That is why bailable warrant was issued.... It is not as if you are a terrorist.

Despite being a judge you were not complying with a courts directions.

Justice Karnan said, First you restore my work. If contempt proceedings proved against me any punishment is fine

THe CJI said, We will proceed only after we get a written response from you by way of an affidavit.

Justice Karnan said If my work is not restored I cannot file a reply. I am very mentally disturbed.

CJI said If you feel that you are mentally not in a position to reply give a medical certificate. Then we will consider.

Justice Karnan said I want punishment. Send me to jail. Please record this. I will not appear before you on the next date of hearing. Arrest me. Put me in jail.

Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi, however said that Justice Karnan was perfectly aware of what he was saying and doing. His response will show that he was aware of what he is doing.

Later Justice Karnan told the media on the apex court lawns, I am going to pass an order against the seven-judges. I will ask the Secretary General to withdraw work to the CJI.

Justice C.S. Karnan, did not appear in the apex court on February 13 as directed by a seven-judge bench on February 8. He was given a second opportunity to appear on March 10. As he did not appear a bailable warrant was issued. The Bench directed the matter for further hearing on May 1, when he was asked to be present in the court along with his lawyer.
Subramanian Swamy told the court that he had filed an intervention application as his fundamental right to worship was being affected.

New Delhi: Chief Justice of India J.S. Khehar, who had on March 21 offered to mediate and help resolve the Ayodhya Ram temple-Babri Masjid title dispute, withdrew his offer on Friday, putting to rest his controversial suggestion of an out-of-court settlement.

The Supreme Courts proposal, Justice Khehar clarified, was based on the erroneous understanding that BJP leader Dr Subramanian Swami, who had approached the court requesting early hearing of the appeals pending since 2010, was a party to the ongoing litigation.

The CJI, sitting with Justice D.Y. Chhandrachud, said on Friday, You did not tell us that you were not a party to the case, we only got to know that from the press.

Dr Swamy told the court that he had filed an intervention application as his fundamental right to worship was being affected. My right to offer prayer and worship is affected by the pending case and I had filed an application, he told the court.

Counsel for the parties to the dispute told the court that Dr Swamy had made a mention for early hearing without informing them.

The bench then said that there was no urgency and it was therefore not going to fast-track the matter. The appeals against the Allahabad high courts 2010 judgment will come up in the normal course.

After the courts refusal to expedite the matter, Dr Swamy said he was not happy. So dont be happy, the top court said.

Three years ago Dr Swamy had filed a plea seeking permission to build a Ram temple at the site of the demolished Babri mosque though he is not a party to the main appeals against the 2010 Allahabad high court verdict that mandated a three-way division of the disputed 2.77- acre site.

The Lucknow bench of Allahabad high court had ruled in favour of partitioning the land equally among three parties  the Sunni Waqf Board, Nirmohi Akhara and the Ram Lalla (infant Lord Ram), represented by the Hindu Mahasabha.

On March 21, when Dr Swami made a mention for early hearing of the appeals pending since 2010, the CJI had suggested an out-of-court settlement to the dispute observing that issues of religion and sentiments are best resolved through talk and asked him to mention the matter on March 31.

The CJI had then offered a sitting judge to mediate between the parties.

If you want any sitting judge to sit in-between, we can give you one. You can have me. Or you can have my brother (Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul). We will not then hear the case later. You need a moderator to sit in-between because there are tough issues to sort out. But this is the best way to sort such issues out. Speak to them again. Any sitting judge of you choice. Take whoever. These are issues of religion involving sentiments. Sit across the board and settle.

The CJIs offer of medation had evoked mixed response. While Muslim bodies were baffled and upset, Hindu bodies had welcomed it.
The development comes as a setback to the Congress, which recently lost Uttarakhand to the BJP.

New Delhi: The CBI on Friday chargesheeted Himachal Pradesh chief minister Virbhadra Singh, his wife and nine others in a disproportionate assets case.

The chargesheet was filed within hours of the Delhi high court dismissing a plea filed by Mr Singh seeking quashing of an FIR filed by the CBI. The high court also removed an interim stay on his interrogation or arrest.

The development comes as a setback to the Congress, which recently lost Uttarakhand to the BJP. The corruption case could snowball into an electoral issue as Himachal Pradesh is set to go to the polls later this year.

The BJP which is riding high on sweeping wins both in Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand would rake up the charges against the sitting CM during campaigning.

The CBI filed the chargesheet before special judge Virender Kumar Goyal against Mr Singh, his wife Pratibha Singh and nine others under Section 109 (abetment) of the IPC and the Prevention of Corruption Act.

The chargesheet also names LIC agent Anand Chauhan, who is in judicial custody. He was arrested by the Enforcement Directorate on July 9 last year in a money-laundering case which is linked to the present CBI case as well.

The chargesheet, which runs into more than 500 pages, has also named Chunni Lal Chauhan, Joginder Singh Ghalta, Prem Raj, Lawan Kumar Roach, Vakamulla Chandrasekhar and Ram Prakash Bhatia as accused.

The chargesheet, filed under Sections 109 (abetment) and 465 (punishment for forgery) of the IPC and under various Sections of the PC Act claims that the politician had amassed assets worth around `10 crore disproportionate by 192 per cent of his total income during his tenure as a Union minister. The chargesheet mentions about 225 witnesses and 442 documents.

Earlier Justice Vipin Sanghi of the Delhi high court while dismissing Mr Singhs plea for quashing of the FIR lodged by the CBI in connection with the DA case also vacated the Himachal Pradesh high courts interim order of October 1, 2015 restraining the CBI from arresting, interrogating or filing a chargesheet in the case without the courts permission.

Both Mr Singh and his wife had claimed in their plea that there was no order, direction or judgment by any court that had authorised the CBI to inquire, investigate or register regular cases and exercise jurisdiction in the territory of Himachal Pradesh.

In October, 2015, Mr Singh got an interim order from the Himachal Pradesh high court restraining the CBI from arresting, interrogating or filing a charge sheet in the case without the courts permission.

The matter was subsequently transferred by the Supreme Court to the Delhi high court, which in April last year asked the CBI not to arrest Mr Singh and had directed him to join the probe.
The advisory was sent to the Press Council of India and News Broadcasters Association.

The Election Commission asked the media to refrain from airing and publishing such programmes in future elections.

New Delhi: The Election Commission on Thursday plugged the loophole some TV channels have been using to bypass the ban on exit polls and predict poll outcomes.

In an advisory, the EC said that all forecast of poll results  whether done by political analysts, or by astrologers and tarot card readers  is banned during the poll process, and asked the media not to telecast or publish any programme where polls results are predicted.

This means that even astrologers and tarot card readers cannot provide any prediction on polls for 48 hours after the last vote has been cast.

The commission is of the view that the prediction of election results in any form or manner by way of prediction of results by astrologers, tarot readers, political analysts put forward during the prohibited period will influence voters, the commission said.

In lieu of exit polls  banned by the EC  several news channels featured astrologers and tarot card readers predictions who will win the recently-conducted Assembly elections.

The commission asked the media to refrain from airing and publishing such programmes in future elections.

The poll watchdog said that Section 126A of the Representation of the People Act states that no person shall conduct any exit poll and publish or publicise by means of the print and electronic media or disseminate in any other manner, whatsoever, the result of any exit poll during such period as may be notified by the Election Commission...

It said that some TV channels telecast certain programmes projecting the number of seats likely to be won by political parties during the period in which exit polls were prohibited.

On one of the channels, in fact, the panelists on the show, who were from different fields, had put forward the projected number of seats likely to be won by different parties in Uttar Pradesh.

The advisory was sent to the Press Council of India and News Broadcasters Association.
Israeli President Reuven Rivlins visit to India last November had set the stage for PM Modis historic visit to the Jewish state.

New Delhi: Senior Congress leader and Lok Sabha MP Shashi Tharoor said that Prime Minister Narendra Modis scheduled visit to Israel later this year is in the right order. He said that he hoped he will travel there with a bipartisan delegation. Delivering the keynote address at an international conference here, he also said terrorism has become a major cementing factor contributing to growing Indo-Israeli ties.

We have the PMs visit to Israel coming up. (Israeli) President has set a precedent (by visiting India) and for this PM to undertake this visit this time after he has shored up his relationship with the Arab world in the Gulf countries, is in the right order, the right way to do it, Mr Tharoor said.

Israeli President Reuven Rivlins visit to India last November had set the stage for PM Modis historic visit to the Jewish state which is likely to take place in the middle of this year.

Many expected the order to be reversed, but that would have been a mistake because of Indias dependence on West Asia for oil, and the 6-7 million Indians working in the Gulf countries, those positions should not have been jeopardised, said Mr Tharoor.

Having shored up the position of the Indian government in those areas, I think the PM can travel with confidence to Israel, feeling in many ways that what he is doing is something that speaks for Indias independent foreign policy without in anyway compromising its relationship with anybody else. And, I certainly hope that he travels with a bipartisan delegation of people from across the political spectrum, Mr Tharoor added.

He further highlighted the common bond between the two nations, So, the sense that we are facing similar threats from similar sources, this certainly contributed to the growing closeness, enhanced defence cooperation, increasing intensification of cooperation in areas of counter-terrorism and intelligence sharing and sale of weapon systems from Israel to India, of which the most famous example is the Phalcon.
The issue also echoed in Parliament with the entire Rajya Sabha condemning the attacks in one voice.

New Delhi: India on Thursday refused to categorise recent attacks on Africans in Greater Noida as racial, and said it was not correct to draw a conclusion on the nature and the reason of these acts till investigations were over.

Nigeria is reported to have called the Indian envoy in Abuja to register its protest over the attacks and sought diligent prosecution against the perpetrators.

On Monday, four Nigerian students were beaten up by a group of residents following the death of a local teenager from a suspected drug overdose. Violence escalated the next day when two Nigerian brothers were attacked by a mob inside a shopping mall.

India said the Nigerian foreign ministry had discussions with its envoy on the attacks. India said it assured Nigeria that steps were being taken to ensure the safety and security of Africans.

The issue also echoed in Parliament with the entire Rajya Sabha condemning the attacks in one voice.

External affairs minister Sushma Swaraj said the UP government was conducting an independent probe and action would be taken. The moment I got information about the attacks on Nigerian students, I immediately sought a report from the UP government. CM Yogi Adityanath has promised an impartial probe, she said.

Meanwhile, Indias foreign ministry indicated on Thursday that Kenyan diplomats have said that the Kenyan woman, who was allegedly attacked by locals in UPs Greater Noida on Wednesday, was not attacked, but the ministry did not say what exactly had happened in the case.

The Noida police also reportedly claimed that the womans complaint was found to be false. According to news agencies, a Kenyan Embassy official also said the woman was tense due to family problems and had fabricated the assault story.

The woman, identified by the police as Maria Burendi, had alleged that she was dragged out of a cab, slapped and punched in the abdomen without any provocation by a group of locals.
The amendments moved in the Upper House do not hold water as changes suggested for the Finance Bill by it are non-binding.

New Delhi: The Lok Sabha passed on Thursday the Finance Bill but rejected all five amendments approved by the Rajya Sabha a day before.

Union finance minister Arun Jaitley, however, invited suggestions from political parties on issues such as making election funding more transparent. This was one of the amendments by the Upper House.

A cap on donations to parties by private companies and curbing more powers given to taxmen were among the five amendments moved and approved by the Opposition parties, chiefly the Congress, in the Upper House.

The amendments moved in the Upper House do not hold water as changes suggested for the Finance Bill by it are non-binding.

Mr Jaitley said that the government could not accept the amendments, but invited suggestions from political parties, including the Congress and the BJD, to make election funding cleaner and more transparent.

The Lok Sabha later rejected the Rajya Sabha amendments by a voice vote, thus passing the Finance Bill 2017 and completing the budgetary exercise for 2017-18.

The finance minister said that most donations that come to political parties now were from unclean money, and there was complete non-transparency. He said it was not possible for the government to accept the amendment as it would limit the number of donors to political parties.

The harsh reality is that we continue to do politics on the basis of undeclared money because if we do it on the basis of declared money somebody will write an editorial and will have a problem with every solution we offer, he said.

As for the taxation amendments proposed by the Rajya Sabha, he said the current position would continue, and as a matter of abundant caution and to protect whistle-blowers, the bill has specified that the satisfaction note will not be given to the target of investigation.

Since 1961, he said, there has been no example that the target of investigation was revealed the satisfaction note, which forms the basis of investigation with regard to tax evasion.

The Rajya Sabha had also approved an amendment that there should be a cap of 7.5 per cent of net profit of the last three financial years for donation to political parties. It also approved a provision to disclose the name of political parties to which contributions have been made by a company.
Suresh Prabhu also said that the government plans to save Rs 41,000 crore in energy bill in the next 10 years by using wind power.

New Delhi: Asserting that the Modi government is working to-wards a zero accident level, railways minister Suresh Prabhu on Thursday informed Parliament about the various measures in this regard, including renewal of tracks, train protection warning system and eliminate all unmanned level crossings across the country. Incidentally, the Delhi-bound Mahakaushal Express derailed due to rail fracture near Mahoba in Uttar Pradesh, resulting in injuries to at least 52 people.

Replying to a debate on Appropriation (Railways) Bill, 2017, and working of his ministry, in Rajya Sabha, Mr Prabhu also said that efforts are on to make railways more environment friendly and transparency in all commercial decisions. Earlier, members voiced concern over the safety of the railways and raised questions over upgradation of its infrastructure. In order to improve the profitability of railways, Mr Prabhu said the government is trying to maximise revenues from fares as well as non-fare methods besides reducing the cost of operations.

While asserting that the rate of train accidents in India has come down, as per the global index, the minister said, It does not mean I am happy with this. We would like to work towards zero accident.

Announcing that the ministry will spend about Rs 10,000 crore for renewal of tracks, Mr Prabhu said the government is trying to maximise revenues from fares as well as non-fare methods, besides reducing the cost of operations, to improve profitability.

He also said that the government plans to save Rs 41,000 crore in energy bill in the next 10 years by using wind power.

Referring to the recent train mishap in Kanpur which is being probed by the NIA, he expressed concern about the cause of the accident. He also said that the government plans to save Rs 41,000 crore in energy bill in the next 10 years by using wind power besides energy mix, use of LED bulbs, waste to energy plant.

As part of the railway safety measure, the government is changing rolling stock and making sure that tracks are properly renewed. New technologies like ultra sonic detection system, train protection warning system, train collision avoidance system, use of strong couplings will be used to check accidents due to human error.

The minister said expansion of rail track through doubling and tripling is necessary as currently 16 per cent of the track is catering to the 60 per cent of the traffic, as a result of which major trunk routes are saturated. Raising the issue of paucity of space at stations for accommodating the increasing number of trains, Mr Prabhu wondered whether rail tracks could be constructed beneath and above the existing ones to de-congest the platforms.

Highlighting decline in investment in the railways and increase in the road sector over the years, he said The government has decided to go for more investment in the rail sector. Railways has earmarked Rs 8.5 lakh crore for the five years.
Justice Karnan alleged that these seven judges of the Supreme Court were operating on malafide intentions.

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Friday asked Calcutta High Court Justice CS Karnan, who has levelled allegations of corruption and caste discrimination against senior judges of the Madras High Court and the apex court, to file his reply within four weeks.

Justice Karnan, who on Friday appeared before the apex court after a bailable warrant was issued against him, asked the top court to restore his judicial and administrative work before responding to the contempt notice.

"Please permit me to perform my judicial and administrative work," Justice Karnan told an apex court bench headed by Chief Justice of India Jagdish Singh Khehar.

However, the apex court bench refused to pay heed to his plea and said, "If you remain apologetic then the matter would be different."

Justice Karnan in his reply told the court that his statement should be recorded so that he does not have to appear during the next hearing.

After conclusion of the hearing, Justice Karnan told the media that he would pass on order against the seven judges of the bench to restrain their administrative power.

"I ordered the registrar general of the Supreme Court that he deduct 50, 000 every month from the salary of these seven judges of the bench who defied to pay me the compensation of Rs. 14 crore which I have demanded through a letter dated 15/03/2017 for defamation," he said.

He alleged that these seven judges of the Supreme Court were operating on malafide intentions.

"The attitude and the behavior was against Indian norms and construction. This sort of behavior will not only be known to Indians but the international community," he said.

Earlier in March, the Supreme Court had issued a bailable warrant against Justice Karnan to secure his presence in the court on March 31.

This is for the first time in the history of Indian judiciary that a sitting High Court Judge is personally appearing before the apex court and defending himself in a case.
BSP MLA Mukhtar Ansari among tainted 15 to be transferred.

Lucknow: Fifteen politicians who had a criminal past, and criminals having political links in Uttar Pradesh, are being shifted to far-flung jails in the state.

According to ADG prison G.L. Meena, the first in the list is Mukhtar Ansari, who was recently elected for the fifth time on a Bahujan Samaj Party ticket.

Ansari, who is lodged in Lucknow jail, is being shifted to Banda jail in Bundelkhand region.

However, Banda district officials expressed their inability to ensure the security of Ansari, who is now expected to be shifted to another jail.

Ansari was earlier lodged in Agra jail, and was shifted to Lucknow as soon as the merger of his Qaumi Ekta Dal was announced in June last year.

Ansari, who was in the Vidhan Sabha for the oath-taking ceremony of MLAs, told reporters that he faced a threat to his life and had appealed to chief minister Yogi Adityanath to ensure his safety.

Another criminal to be shifted is former BSP MLA Shekhar Tiwari, who was convicted for lynching engineer Manoj Gupta in 2008 when the latter refused to pay for Mayawatis birthday funds.

Tiwari, who is serving a life sentence, is lodged in Barabanki jail and will be shifted to Maharajganj jail.

Other criminals to be shifted are Maulana Anwarul Haq, charged with rape, who is being shifted from Bijnore jail to Fatehgarh jail, and Jeetu, who is being shifted to Lakhimpur jail from Mainpuri.
In March 2006, Bitti Mohanty was arrested for raping a German woman at a hotel in Alwar.

Bhubaneswar: The Supreme Court, on Friday, granted conditional bail to Bittihotra Mohanty, son former Odisha director general of police (fire services) Bidya Bhusan Mohanty in the rape case of a German woman.

Hearing a bail plea moved by Bittihotra, alias Bitti, who is at present lodged in the Jaipur Central Jail of Rajasthan, the apex court ordered the release of the ex-DGP son on a surety of Rs 2.5 lakh. The court also ordered him to appear monthly at the Cantonment police station in Cuttack during the bail period.

Besides, Bitti was asked by the Supreme Court to surrender his passport, if he has any. In New Delhi, Bittis counsel Sarthak Nayak told newsmen that the apex court granted bail to Bitti after listening to the arguments from both the sides.

Though the Rajasthan state government vehemently opposed Bittis bail plea, the apex court was of the view that justice demands that the applicant must be released on a bail, counsel Mr Nayak said.

In March 2006, Bitti Mohanty was arrested for raping a German woman at a hotel in Alwar, who he had accompanied from New Delhi to Rajasthan on a study trip.

He was later found guilty in the case by a local fast-track court in Rajasthan and awarded a seven-year jail term.

In November 2006, Bitti, who was released on a 15-day parole to visit his ailing mother, did not return to jail when his parole period expired on December 4, 2006.

Later on March 2013, Bitti was arrested in Kannur by the Kerala police where he was posing as a probationary officer in the State Bank of Travancore.
The airline had earlier issued a "non-acceptance order" to all its station managers and booking offices, on ticket requests from Gaikwad.

New Delhi: Barred from flying by domestic airlines and booked by police for assaulting an Air India staffer, Shiv Sena MP Ravindra Gaikwad has tried at least thrice to book a seat on the national carrier, using a new alias each time.

Earlier this week, a staff member of the Sena politician dialled Air India's call centre to book flight AI 806 from Mumbai to Delhi for the following day, i.e. Wednesday, and dictated the passenger's name as Ravindra Gaikwad. The ticket was promptly cancelled, an airline source said.

Thereafter, a seat was booked on flight AI 551 from Hyderabad to Delhi in the name of Professor V Ravindra Gaikwad. This ticket was cancelled too.

A third attempt was made the next day for travel from Nagpur to Delhi via Mumbai when the MP's staff contacted a travel agent to book a flight for "Professor Ravindra Gaikwad".

The travel agent immediately contacted the local station manager and the information was forwarded to Air India's headquarters in New Delhi, the source said.

The airline had earlier issued a "non-acceptance order" to all its station managers and booking offices, instructing them to ensure that "restriction on acceptance and travel of potentially unruly and unsafe passengers is being followed on Air India flights for Mr Ravindra Gaikwad".

In an unprecedented step in Indian aviation history, the Sena MP was earlier barred from flying by all major domestic airlines for assaulting an elderly Air India employee last Thursday.

The MP was angry at not being given a business class seat though he had boarded an-economy flight.
The bungalow is said to be cursed and its occupants, in the past year, have fallen on bad days.

The bungalow, once much sought-after because of its proximity to the chief ministers residence, has no takers now.

Lucknow: The most coveted address in Uttar Pradesh is 5 Kalidas Marg, the official residence of the chief minister, but it is the adjoining bungalow at 6 Kalidas Marg that evokes fear among politicians.

The bungalow, once much sought-after because of its proximity to the chief ministers residence, has no takers now.

The bungalow is said to be cursed and its occupants, in the past year, have fallen on bad days.

It could be a coincidence, but the occupants of this bungalow have invariably been the one who held the number two position in the state government, said an official of the estate department who did not want to be identified. About two decades ago, top officials used to occupy this bungalow and most of them have also fallen from grace. None of the ministers are now ready to get this bungalow allotted in their name, the official said.

Some of the recent occupants of 6, Kalidas Marg have been Babu Singh Khushwaha, a former Bahujan Samaj Party minister who went to jail in the National Rural Health Mission scam.

Others include Amar Singh, who also went to jail in the cash-for-vote scam, and former Samajwadi Party minister Waqar Ahmad Shah, who lived in the bungalow for barely six months before he slipped into coma. He has been in hospital for the past five years.

Top bureaucrats who lived in this bungalow include former chief secretary Neera Yadav, who was jailed in the Noida plot scam, and Pradeep Shukla, who went to jail in the NRHM scam.

SP leader and former chairman of the UP pollution control board Javed Abdi was allotted the bungalow when Akhilesh Yadav was chief minister. A few months later, Mr Abdi was dismissed from his post. After Mr Abdis fall from grace, the bungalow has been declared inauspicious.

Officials in the estate department say that 6, Kalidas Marg could either be converted into a security office of the chief minister or demolished and made a part of 7 Kalidas Marg, which has been allotted to deputy chief minister Keshav Maurya.

Former minister Rajendra Chaudhary was allotted this bungalow three years ago, but he vacated it within three days because he lost two of his important portfolios within 24 hours of entering the bungalow.

Another bungalow with a curse is 22, Gautam Palli because three ministers in the previous regime who lived here were sacked from the ministry. They include Anand Singh, Shivakant Ojha and Shadab Fatima.

Even room number 58 in the Vidhan Bhawan has not been taken by any minister so far because it is believed that the occupant of this room never completes a tenure.
Modi met party MPs from Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Odisha, Telangana, Jharkhand and Tamil Nadu, besides nominated parliamentarians.

New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday said mobile phones will be the biggest interface between politicians and voters in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls and asked BJP MPs to use them extensively to stay in touch with people.

At a meeting with MPs from different states, his fifth and last such exercise, he told them that they need to have presence on digital platforms, especially through mobile phones, and use Facebook, Whatsapp and Twitter extensively.

"Interface is changing and we all need to have presence on digital platforms, social media and especially mobile. Each one of our leaders and MPs should have presence on Facebook, Twitter and Whatsapp among others.

"In 2019, digital platform will assume greater importance and mobile phones will be the greatest interface to communicate and convey your message to the people at large," Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ananth Kumar quoted Modi as having said.

He met party MPs from Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Odisha, Telangana, Jharkhand and Tamil Nadu, besides nominated parliamentarians.

The digital platform is more transparent and real time, Modi said.
UP CM will have 25-28 commandos protecting him at all times, while his convoy would be accompanied by a pilot and escort vehicles armed with jammers.

New Delhi: The Centre has cleared a proposal to provide top category Z-plus security cover to Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath.

People familiar with the matter said the newly appointed CM would be protected by a commando team of the Central Industrial Security Force, in addition to a small contingent of the Uttar Pradesh police.

Mr Adityanath presently had a Y category VVIP cover by the CISF in his capacity as a Bharatiya Janata Party member of Parliament from Gorakhpur, but after becoming CM, the threat perception carried out by Central security agencies stated that his security cover should be upgraded. The chief ministers security cover has been beefed up and he will now be secured by a strong team of CISF commandos every time he moves across the country. A similar commando contingent will be deployed at his official residence, a senior officer said. As part of the new security arrangement, Mr Adityanath will have 25-28 commandos protecting him at all times, while his convoy would be accompanied by a pilot and escort vehicles armed with jammers.

As part of the Y security cover, he was accompanied by two-three commandos when he travelled.
Groove Beach, Kovalam, is all set to host the first-ever underwater conference of five CEOs to focus on marine pollution and discuss steps to curb it.

The ocean is very much part of our life. However, it is being polluted now due to various human practices. Knowingly or unknowingly, we have put the marine life in danger. A group of CEOs are trying to bring a change to this situation by organising an underwater CEO conference at Groove Beach in Kovalam, Kerala on April 10. Claimed to be the first-ever underwater CEO conference in the world, it will allow five CEOs to meet under the ocean.

The whole aim of the conference is to bring the marine issues to the forefront. An ambience required for a conference will be set under the ocean. With the help of instructors, the participants will be given proper training in diving and conducting a meeting under water. They will discuss various marine issues and take decisions to curb it.

The basic idea of the conference is to bring public attention to marine pollution and global warming and urge opinion and policy makers to take adequate steps to safeguard ocean life, explains Jackson Peter, Managing Director of Bond Safari, Kovalam. Many studies have been conducted on land and there are laws to protect the land. But, marine life is yet to get attention. There is an urgent need for effective implementation of necessary measures to protect our marine resources, says Jackson.

The campaign is not going to conclude with a mere conference. The team is planning to launch a Beach and Marine Environment Protection Club (BMEPC) that comprises hotels and resorts situated in the coastal belt of South India. The club will be launched on June 8, World Oceans Day.

The aim of this club is to educate our citizens that waste disposal should be proper so that it won't contaminate our water bodies. Hotels and resorts on the Coastal belt of South India will form an agenda to reduce marine debris through routine beach and under water cleaning in association with agencies and experts in underwater diving and marine studies to have a close watch on keeping the Marine life safe. The ocean is very much part of our life. We cannot take it for granted, says Jackson.
Sources said he was not happy with the ticket distribution in his constituency for the upcoming MCD polls.

New Delhi: Days after Bawana MLA Ved Parkash quit the AAP, another party legislator aired his discontent on Friday, cautioning Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal against "sycophants".

In a series of tweets, AAP's Janakpuri MLA Rajesh Rishi quoted couplets saying a regime nears its end if one relies on sycophants and tagged Kejriwal.

However, Rishi later deleted the tweets and said he was not quitting the party.

"I am with the party since the India Against Corruption days and will not quit the AAP or join any other party," he said.

Sources said he was not happy with the ticket distribution in his constituency for the upcoming MCD polls.

The development left the ruling AAP embarrassed as it is in the middle of preparations to contest its first civic polls in Delhi on April 23 after the disappointing performance in Punjab and Goa assembly polls.

The party tried to control the damage claiming that everything is fine between the leadership and the MLA.

After announcing candidates for MCD polls, the AAP replaced 15 of them. The party also termed it as an "internal matter" without giving the reason behind the move.

It is not only trying to pacify those who were replaced, but also trying to deal with workers unhappy with ticket distribution. Even some MLAs are believed to have been unhappy with ticket distribution.

AAP's Bawana MLA had quit the party early this week and attacked the Delhi government, saying it was "being run through laptop" and there is no connect with the ground reality.

Parkash was also learnt to have been upset with the party over ticket distribution. AAP has 65 MLAs in the 70-member Assembly.

Rishi was in news after his brother was arrested for assaulting women last month.

Interestingly, the party had fielded Rishi, along with other Poorvanchali MLAs, to take on Delhi BJP President Manoj Tiwari when note ban was announced.
Foreign Ministry of India assured Nigeria all steps were being taken to protect their citizens in India.

New Delhi: Police have made a sixth arrest in connection with a brutal mob attack on Nigerian students in northern India that rights groups labelled a hate crime, an officer said Friday.

The students were thrashed with sticks and metal chairs in Greater Noida in a vicious assault that was captured on camera and shared widely on social media.

"He (the sixth suspect) was under tremendous pressure, so he came to the police station and surrendered himself," Superintendent Sujata Singh said, adding that police hoped to make four more arrests.

The incident made headlines in Nigeria, with India's ambassador summoned for questioning in Abuja as Delhi labelled the incident "deplorable".

The students were set upon after the death of an Indian teenager from a suspected drug overdose, which locals blamed on the Nigerians.

Security has been beefed up in Greater Noida, with police assisting African students with their shopping runs and escorting them to class.

Police have identified roughly 60 people from footage of the attack who they plan to charge with rioting and unlawful assembly, she added.

Video footage showed a mob attacking a car, while in another clip dozens of men assaulted shoppers in a mall with metal chairs and garbage cans.

A Kenyan woman that reported a separate assault later retracted her story after it was proven false.

Hundreds of African students live in Greater Noida, where there are several popular universities, engineering colleges and other educational institutions.

Human Rights Watch said "hate-filled crimes against foreign students and vigilante attacks in India's cities" were not new, and authorities should label this as a crime fuelled by race.

Foreign Ministry of India assured Nigeria all steps were being taken to protect their citizens in India, as Abuja demanded "diligent prosecution" of the culprits.
Police suspected that the victim was stabbed close to a dozen times and her throat was slit.

The body of a woman with her throats lit and multiple stab wounds was found from the bushes behind Rajghat in central Delhi this afternoon, police said. (Representational Image)

New Delhi: The body of a woman with her throats lit and multiple stab wounds was found from the bushes behind Rajghat in central Delhi this afternoon, police said.

The woman, aged around 25 years, has not been identified yet. It is suspected that she was killed somewhere else and her body was dumped in the bushes near a CNG pump located behind Rajghat, they said.

The body has been preserved at the mortuary of Lok Nayak Jai Prakash Narayan Hospital.

The body was noticed by a passerby who alerted the police. It is suspected that she was stabbed close to a dozen times and her throat was slit, police said.

Police said that the person who killed her seemed to be well-aware of the topography of the area and dumped the body in the bushes so that it isn't found.
Police, KMC raid wholesale shop in Sealdah, collects samples.

Kolkata: Concerned after the complaint lodged by a woman residing at Karaya police station area near Park Circus about finding plastic-like thing inside some eggs, the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) along with the police raided an egg wholesale shop at Sealdah and collected three crates of eggs that were sent for examination at the state animal husbandry laboratory. Meanwhile, acting upon the compliant lodged by Anita Kumar, the police on Thursday night arrested Mohammed Shamim Ansari from whom she had purchased the eggs.

He was produced at Alipore court and was remanded to police custody till April 4. The shop of the accused in Beckbagan area was also sealed.

The woman had called up mayor Sovan Chatterjee on Thursday evening and had told him about finding plastic egg which she felt had resulted in her one-year-old sons illness.

The civic body along with the police rushed to the house of Ms Kumar and collected samples of the eggs that she had put on the frying pan for making an omelette for his son and was surprised to find that the yolk seemed to be like plastic. We immediately sent the sample for examination. Only after the test reports arrive will we be able to come at a conclusion. But there is surely something unusual about the eggs, KMC mayor in council (health) Atin Ghosh said.

The wholesale shop Ramakrishna Sarada Traders in Sealdah, where the raid was conducted, has informed us that they procure eggs from Guntur and Hyderabad following which the KMC has asked the state government to speak with their counterparts in Andhra Pradesh on this issue.

The stock of eggs that was sold by Shamim to the woman was purchased on March 24.

We seized three crates from the same stock and sent it for examination. What is most amazing is the fact that whoever is involved in this practice is not doing it for economic gain but for some other unknown reasons. People consuming these eggs are prone to serious health hazards, a KMC health officer said.

Mr Ghosh said that the civic body will be conducting drives on a regular basis to make the retail as well as wholesale traders of egg aware that they should be careful enough before selling eggs.

The FSSAI Act is very stringent and selling things that may lead to human loss may land a person in jail with life imprisonment, Mr Ghosh said. He also urged the consumers to be extra cautious while cooking eggs.
Manish Bhangale had alleged Eknath Khadse had been speaking to fugitive gangster.

Mumbai: The Cyber Cell of the Mumbai crime branch on Thursday arrested self-styled ethical hacker Manish Bhangale, who had alleged that former minister Eknath Khadse had been speaking to fugitive gangster Dawood Ibrahim, for faking those claims.

Officials said they arrested Bhangale after the probe revealed that he had allegedly faked the claims before the authorities. Bhangale had falsely created Gmail accounts and was hiding details of information he got on hacking into Pakistani email addresses.

Cyber Cell sources said Bhangale had allegedly downloaded the bills from the website of Pakistan Telecom Limited and then changed the details including the phone numbers and ownership information to project that the bill belonged to Dawood and calls were exchanged between him and Khadse.

Khadse said Bhangale is just a pawn and there is a mastermind behind his allegations. He will be exposed, I hope, he said.

Apparently in May 2016, Bhangale had given a detailed presentation to Mumbai police commissioner Dattatray Padsalgikar and other senior officers showing the process by which he had accessed the call detail records (CDR) of Khadse.

The probe in the case revealed that Bhangale had downloaded the concerned documents and then forged the details on it to show that the bills belonged to Khadse. We are investigating the case further, said Sanjeev Saxena, joint commissioner of police (crime).

The officials are yet to find out what motivated Bhangale to do this or at whose behest he acted.

The officials had also sought details from Google of all downloads made by Bhangale by providing them his Internet protocol (IP) address. The details revealed that he had allegedly downloaded the raw bills from the website and then fudged the details on them to show that calls were exchanged between Khadse and Dawood.

Meanwhile, Preeti Sharma Menon, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) spokesperson, who had supported Bhangale when he had made the accusations, said, It was inevitable after the government first issued a clean chit to Khadse within hours of the allegations. The government never wanted to probe the allegations. Bhangale has been fixed in the case.

The police has registered a case against Bhangale under relevant sections of the Indian Penal Code and relevant sections of the Information Technology Act. Bhangale was produced in a local court, which remanded him to police custody till April 6.

Khadse, meanwhile, said, I have been stating this from the start that I have nothing to do with Dawood or his wife. I had never spoken with them in my life but nobody was ready to believe. In last six-seven months I gathered information about this Manish Bhangale. My worker Ravi Barhate had lodged a complaint against Bhangale on March 5, 2017.
Mr Fadnavis informed the House that December 2019 was the deadline set for the solid waste management project.

Mumbai: In a different approach to solid waste management, the state government, beginning this Maharashtra Day, will start segregation of dry and wet garbage. Chief minister Devendra Fadnavis informed the Assembly about the policy coming into effect from May 1. A dumping ground is not the solution for solid waste management.

Over the years, this approach has not worked. We need to look beyond the usual. Segregation of garbage and making it more environment-friendly is the only way to go forward. Our government will launch this scheme starting May 1, he announced.

Segregation of dry and wet garbage will start from May 1. We will launch a mega public awareness programme. By end of this year, we will complete the entire states segregation, Mr Fadnavis said. He added that the state would distribute a handbook of technology to create awareness about segregation.

Simultaneously, we will start producing fertilisers from wet garbage. These fertilisers will be sold to farmers at a minimum price. For this, we are introducing the Harit Mahacity Compost scheme. We will create this brand of fertiliser in professional manner, the chief minister said.

Mr Fadnavis said that the state had finalised a three-step programme to include all municipalities in this project.

We have appointed three companies that will help city administration in making the project feasible. Three more companies will be finalised to expedite the work. For the next stage of technical clearance, we have appointed the state Jivan Pradhikaran as a single authority. And in the last stage, NEERI will submit a valuation report of the project, he said.

Mr Fadnavis informed the House that December 2019 was the deadline set for the solid waste management project. From compost to energy production from solid waste will be completed in two-and-a-half years, he said and appealed citizens to support the initiative which could transform the state.
The department, along with experts associated with forest department, visited the area on Wednesday.

Mumbai: The forest department on Wednesday conducted an awareness session for the locals of Ghodbunder area after a leopard, spotted passing by a slum pocket in the area, landed in a house on Sunday where a mother and her children were inside. The leopard, however, did not cause harm to the mother and children and instead picked up a puppy and left the spot. Panic spread in the area following the same, to control which the department conducted a session. The situation is brought under control.

Zanka Wedhe, along with her mother Ashal Wedhe were doing their daily chores when the big cat fell dropped down in the hut.

The department, along with experts associated with forest department, visited the area on Wednesday.

It is a small hutment of encroachment next to the hills on Ghodbunder road. We went there, spoke to people and told them that they should keep an eye on the kids. The situation is well under control as people have been living with leopards since generations. People were also observed to be pretty cool and calm, said Niket Surve, a researcher associated with the forest department.

He further added, The half broken roof was made of urban tiles and the other half was covered by gunny bags. When the leopard fell, it got stuck on the roof which allowed the children and their mother to run away. The family did not shut the door allowing the cat to leave. This was a good move by the family, Mr Surve said.

Sanjay Waghmode from the Thane forest department said that the residents at the time of distress knew what has to be done. This was the main reason that the leopard escaped without harming humans and simply headed out. However, the bad condition of the roofs is a concern as that is what led the leopard to fall into the hut.

The department went to the area and visited various people to sensitise them. The locals were shown documentaries on leopards biology, and an inspection of the area was conducted.
The order comes a week before Mr Trump meets Chinese President Xi Jinping and is likely to be seen as a warning shot across Beijings bow.

Washington: President Donald Trump will order staff on Friday to pinpoint countries and goods responsible for Americas nearly $50 billion trade deficit, in a protectionist warning shot to trade partners like China.

Top administration officials said Mr Trump will issue a pair of executive orders aimed at rooting out the causes and culprits behind Americas trade deficit, in a first step toward converting tough trade rhetoric into action.

Commerce secretary Wilbur Ross said one order would result in analysts going country by country, and product by product, reporting back to Trump within 90 days. They will look, he said, for evidence of cheating, inappropriate behaviour, trade deals that have not lived up to their promise, lax enforcement, currency misalignment and troublesome World Trade Organisation constraints.

It will form the basis for decision making by the administration, he said.

The order comes a week before Mr Trump meets Chinese President Xi Jinping and is likely to be seen as a warning shot across Beijings bow.

Needless to say the number one source of the deficit is China, Mr Ross said, before listing more than a dozen other countries that will potentially be involved. The others listed were: Canada, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, South Korea, Switzerland, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam.

However, Mr Ross said the presence of a deficit does not necessarily mean that retaliatory or remedial action would be taken. Its a little bit hard to say that someone is an evildoer if they are providing a product we cant, he said.

Meanwhile, Mr Trump has also set the tone for a tense first meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping next week by tweeting on Thursday that the US could no longer tolerate massive trade deficits and job losses.

The White House said Mr Trump would host Mr Xi on next Thursday and Friday at his Mar-a-Lago retreat in Florida. It said Mr Trump and his wife, Melania, would host Mr Xi and his wife, Peng Liyuan, at a dinner next Thursday.
Sacked NSA sought immunity to testify about ties between Trump campaign and Russia.

Washington: The Senate Intelligence Committee turned down on Friday the request by former national security adviser Michael Flynns lawyer for a grant of immunity in exchange for his testimony.

His lawyer had said on Thursday amid reports that in exchange for immunity, Mr Flynn has offered to testify about potential ties between Donald Trumps presidential campaign and Russia.

Mr Flynn had proposed his deal to the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the House and Senate intelligence committees, the Wall Street Journal had reported on Thursday night.

Mr Flynn, a close adviser on Mr Trumps 2016 campaign, was forced to step down as the administrations national security adviser just weeks into the job last month. His resignation came after it emerged that Mr Flynn made misleading statements about talks he held with Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak during the presidential transition concerning Washingtons sanctions on Moscow.

The Journal said it wasnt clear what exactly Mr Flynn had offered to discuss. But it quoted one unnamed official as saying the retired Army Generals bid for immunity suggested potential legal jeopardy for Mr Flynn. Robert Kelner, a lawyer for Mr Flynn, had said in a statement tweeted late on Thursday that General Flynn certainly has a story to tell, and he very much wants to tell it, should the circumstances permit. Out of respect for the committees, we will not comment right now on the details of discussions between counsel for General Flynn and the House and Senate intelligence committees, other than to confirm that those discussions have taken place.

The New York Times also quoted a congressional official as saying investigators are wary of cutting a deal with Mr Flynn until they are further along in their probe and have a better idea of what information Mr Flynn might offer.

The Times also quoted an expert as urging caution over Mr Flynns offer of testimony. At this early stage, I wouldnt read anything into this request beyond smart lawyering, Mark Zaid, a Washington lawyer was quoted saying .

In such a politically charged, high-profile national security case, I couldnt imagine not first asking for immunity, he added. I would suspect both Congress and the FBI will first generate additional evidence from smaller players before deciding to immunise General Flynn, Mr Zaid said, the Times reported.

At least four probes are underway into allegations that Moscow tried to swing the presidential election in Mr Trumps favour, as questions swirl about whether some in the Republicans inner circle colluded with Russia.
Pakistan gave the authorisation under rule 5 of procurement rules that allowed project award in exceptional circumstances.

China and Pakistan are currently building the nearly 3,000-km-long economic corridor linking Pakistan's Gwadar port on the Arabian Sea with Xinjiang to improve connectivity between the two countries. (Photo: AP)

Islamabad: The Pakistan Government has awarded a Rs. 55 billion worth of 300-megawatt (MW) coal power project at southwestern Gwadar city to Chinese company without bidding.

Presided by Finance Minister Ishaq Darm, the Economic Coordination Committee (ECC) of the Cabinet on Thursday awarded the project to the state owned China Communication Construction Company (CCCC), reports the Dawn.

The Pakistan's Cabinet gave the authorisation under rule 5 of the procurement rules that allowed the project award in exceptional circumstances.

The rule meant that "whenever the Pakistan Procurement Regulatory Authority rules are in conflict with an obligation of commitment of the federal government arising out an international treaty or an agreement with state or states or any international financial institutions the provisions of such international treaty or agreement shall prevail to the extent of such conflict".

Originally, the project was of 600 MW capacity as part of Gwadar Port development, but was reduced to 300MW on the request of the Chinese side under the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) in November 2014.

At a Joint Energy Working Group meeting in August, the Chinese government nominated CCCC, to invest in the project to which Pakistan readily obliged.

In September 2015, state-owned CCCC requested Pakistan's Private Power Infrastructure Board for the development of 300MW plant on imported coal using supercritical technology.
The Palestinians claim the West Bank and east Jerusalem, areas captured by Israel in 1967, as parts of a future state.

Jerusalem: Israels government approved the first West Bank settlement in two decades on Thursday, creating the first serious test for US President Donald Trumps new foray into Middle East peacemaking.

The White House pointedly avoided any specific condemnation of the announcement, although it said that further settlement activity does not help advance peace and that it expects Israel to show restraint moving forward.

Still, the relatively tepid response was a far cry from the automatic condemnations voiced by the Obamas administration in reaction to Israeli settlement announcements. The White House statement even went so far as to welcome what appears to be a limited Israeli commitment to take Mr Trumps concerns about settlements into consideration, without any guarantees to avoid similar announcements. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahus office announced the decision on late Thursday following a meeting of his policy making security cabinet.

Mr Netanyahu has vowed to build a new settlement to compensate the residents of Amona, an illegal settler outpost that was demolished in February under the orders of Israels Supreme Court.

Thursdays announcement said the new settlement would be built near the existing settlement of Shilo, which is nearby to the Amona site. It also said the government had approved tenders to build 2,000 new apartments from previously approved settlement projects.

The Palestinians claim the West Bank and east Jerusalem, areas captured by Israel in 1967, as parts of a future state.

In December, weeks before Mr Trump was inaugurated, President Barack Obama allowed the United Nations Security Council to pass a resolution that declared all settlements in both areas to be illegal.
EAGLE BUTTE, S.D.  Its been a year today since the Sacred Stone spirit camp was established on the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation to stand against the Dakota Access Pipeline.

It was a small spark started by a few people on a chilly spring day, and, for nearly a year, it was the central fire for what became a globally supported environmental stand that came very close to stopping a $3.8 billion crude oil project in its tracks.

The tribes legal fight against the pipeline isnt over, though the more intimate Sacred Stone camp tucked near the Cannonball River, along with the later and much larger Oceti Sakowin camp occupied by thousands at its peak, were removed from federal and tribal land at the reservation starting in February. Since then, the camps have been cleaned up. The contested pipeline has been bored under the Missouri River/Lake Oahe and is filled with Bakken crude oil, according to the company.

While most moved on or returned home, some have remained in small camps near Wakpala, S.D., on Standing Rock and at Eagle Butte, S.D., on the Cheyenne River Sioux Reservation. The adjoining reservations are joined in the legal battle; both are bordered and supplied by the waters of Lake Oahe. The chairmen  David Archambault II of Standing Rock and Harold Frazier of Cheyenne River  symbolically rode horses together to inaugurate the Sacred Stone camp.

It is not clear what the future holds for the new smaller camps and whether they might be part of an organized resistance to the Keystone XL pipeline, which is proposed to cross very near both the Cheyenne River and Rosebud Sioux reservations in South Dakota.

Frazier, Cheyenne River chairman, said the small camp with a few tents and maybe a half-dozen people on the powwow grounds at Eagle Butte, the reservations administrative center, is transitional and the tribe is considering what role it would take in the future.

We are discussing it. We havent made a decision, Frazier said. We are opposed to the pipeline. I totally believe water is life.

The pipeline, which is planned to carry more than 500,000 barrels daily of Canadian tar sand oil from Alberta to Kansas, would cross the Moreau and Cheyenne rivers that flow through the reservation and empty into Lake Oahe.

Frazier said TransCanada, the pipeline company, wants to meet with tribal officials and, though hes not sure what the point would be, he would be open to meeting.

He said the support during the Dakota Access resistance reaffirmed old relationships and forged new ones among tribal nations.

I think allies were made that werent before, he said.

Joye Braun, an environmental organizer who was at Sacred Stone from the very start and is now in Eagle Butte, said she wont discuss any details about the camps future.

Resistance is growing, and there are camps all over the world, not just in South Dakota or North Dakota. People are standing up, said Braun, then spoke of the Keystone pipeline. We will stop this pipeline again.

The Cheyenne Rivers cultural center and gift shop is near the powwow grounds, and a few people inside said they hadnt heard much about the people camped just across the street.

Alan Talks, who works at the cultural center, said he thinks people support it because its based on protecting the water.

Nobodys negative, he said.

Foxy Jackson, of California, came to Eagle Butte after being at Oceti since January.

This area is called the vortex, a space between Rosebud and Sacred Stone, said Jackson, adding that she plans to eventually to move south close to Rosebud. So far, the camp has been supplied with donations from veterans and what people no longer needed from the original camps, she said.

William Nine Tails Williams, of Ohio, said he plans to stay at Eagle Butte until its time to go to the next place. We need to do something about our air and water, or mother earths going to kick us off.

He said many have already left Eagle Butte and he appreciates having a place in the meantime while he works to get trained as a street medic.

About 100 miles north, a camp on private land outside Wakpala has several yurts, tents and teepees brought down from the Sacred Stone camp after it was cleared and people from the former camp are living in them.

Jordan Erickson, of Washington, is one, and he says his primary interest is in working to rebuild a cultural school  such as the one started at Sacred Stone, of straw bale and stucco construction  modeled possibly after a successful sovereign education program back home.

The education work is a long game, and we are reserving our rights to teach traditional ways of living and direct action to the kids, he said.

Otherwise, he said camp is staying in prayer and doing what it can to teach the few children living with them.

Tez McHugh, of Bismarck, said shes at the Wakpala camp to help rebuild what needs to be rebuilt.

This is my home. I dont know what well be doing for sure, but of anyplace Ive been, this is home, she said.

Standing Rock chairman Archambault declined any direct comment on the first anniversary of a year that vaulted the reservation onto the world stage, as protesters surged in to support the tribes anti-pipeline stand. About 700 were arrested in anti-pipeline clashes with police, while many thousands more were in prayer and camp activities.

He said his tribe opposes the Keystone XL crossing treaty lands as another instance of being ignored and disregarded by the company and the Trump administration.

Archambault said, while he doesnt know of plans for camps to resist the Keystone XL, we respect the sovereignty of other affected tribes and how they choose to respond to threats against them.
Security forces cordoned off the area while emergency services were dispatched to the site.

Security officials and residents gather at the site of a powerful explosion at a market in Parachinar, capital of the Kurram tribal district (Photo: AFP)

Peshawar: At least 25 people were killed and 65 others injured today when a powerful car bomb ripped through a crowded market outside a Shiite imambargah in Pakistan's restive northwest tribal region in an attack claimed by the Pakistani Taliban.

The car bomb went off near the main gate of the imambargah in the central bazar of Parachinar, Kurram Agency where a large number of people were shopping for fruits and vegetables.

At least 25 people were killed and 65 others injured in the car bomb blast, Geo TV reported.

The condition of the majority of those injured was stated to be critical. Of those critically wounded, 27 were airlifted to Peshawar hospitals. Scores of vehicles were also damaged in the blast.

An eyewitness told The Express Tribune that security personnel at the Imambargah were busy checking devotees at the central Imambargah's entrance for women, when an unidentified person parked a car next to the building which exploded.

Jamaat-ul-Ahrar, a breakaway faction of the Pakistani Taliban, claimed responsibility for the attack. Security forces cordoned off the area while emergency services were dispatched to the site. The administration has declared an emergency at all hospitals in the area.

An Army medical evacuation helicopter has also been flown to Parachinar for evacuation of the injured, an Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) statement said.

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif expressed grief over the blast and condemned the attack. "It is our responsibility to continue the war against terrorists," he said.

Sharif reiterated his government's resolve to eliminate the menace of terrorism from the country at all costs.

"The network of terrorists has already been broken and it is our national duty to continue this war until the complete annihilation of the scourge of terrorism from our soil," he said.

The Prime Minister directed the relevant authorities to extend all possible assistance to the local administration. Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar ordered an inquiry into the blast.

Pakistan has been rocked by a slew of terror attacks that have claimed scores of lives. A wave of suicide attacks across Pakistan last month, including one in Lahore and another on the Lal Shahbaz Qalandar shrine in Sindh, killed more than 125 people and wounded over 300 others.

Pakistani forces retaliated with a crackdown, killing dozens of terrorists and hitting militant hideouts along the border with Afghanistan.

Pakistan army also launched a nationwide military operation 'Radd-ul-Fasaad' to eliminate terrorists and consolidate gains of its counter-terrorism operations.
Arrested in 2015, he was held without trial for a year and then sentenced to two and a half years. Prison doctors underestimated his medical condition, allowing it develop into anaphylactoid purpura.

Guiyang (AsiaNews/China Aid)  Yang Hua, a clergyman detained in Goizhou province (southern China), was admitted to hospital in serious condition on 24 March. His wife, Wang Hongwu, who had not seen him for more than a year, has written a letter appealing to people to pray for his health.

According to reports, Hua had been in hospital between 17 and 20 March because of inflamed ulcers on his legs, which made sleeping all but impossible. The doctors at the detention facility initially told him that they were pus sores and only gave him painkillers; however, the failure to treat the condition allowed it to spread.

On 23 March, a prosecutor from the Nanming District Court Informed Yangs lawyers of his condition and advised them to apply for measures to allow Yang to get treatment at another hospital to avoid further complications.

Yang was taken to hospital on 24 March, where he was diagnosed with anaphylactoid purpura, a condition that targets blood vessels in the kidneys, intestines, joints, and skin. The doctor Wang consulted also said she should be aware of the possibility of several side effects, including septicemia, digestive tract hemorrhaging, and kidney damage.

In view of the situation, his lawyers wrote to the local procuratorate, requesting his release on health grounds. According to China Change, the judge in charge of the case has to be consulted.

Yang, also known as Li Guozhi, was arrested for resisting police attempts to destroy a hard drive belonging to a church. He was initially charged with obstructing justice and gathering a crowd to disturb public order and handed two consecutive, five-day administrative detention sentences; however, on the day of his release, his wife found out that the charges had been changed to illegally possessing state secrets.

After this, the authorities held Yang without trial for more than a year, subjecting him to torture and threatening his family members. He was put on trial on 26 December 2016 and sentenced on 5 January to two and half years in prison, which China Aid president Bob Fu describes as nothing but purely barbaric religious persecution.

Here is the letter of Yang Huas wife, Wang Hongwu:

Thanks to our gracious Lord, I could meet with Yang Hua on March 24. I was accompanying the lawyer who would soon visit him at the detention center, but I ran into him right in front of the gate of the institution. He had just returned from the provincial hospital. It was the first time we had met in the span of one year, three months, and 15 days. Yang Hua descended slowly from the patrol vehicle with the help of another prisoner. His already hunched back arched even more because of leg pain. We only had time to exchange a few words before he was brought back into the detention center. After conversing with Yang Hua (I had to wait outside during their meeting), the lawyer informed me that Yang Hua would be transferred to the Guiyang 368 Armed Police Hospital and receive treatment, and that I could go see him one more time. Running toward him, I heard the officer yelling Who is Li Guozhis family member? I answered him, got in the patrol vehicle, and arrived at the Guiyang 368 Armed Police Hospital.

The chief physician told me about Yang Huas condition, that the provincial hospital diagnosed him with anaphylactoid purpura. I noticed that Yang Huas lower limbs were covered with measles and necrotic dots. His shinbones were full of huge patches of necrosis and effusion, and his feet and ankles were swollen. The doctor also told me that Yang Hua would receive a large amount of hormonal therapy and anti-inflammatory treatments, because the disease was ferocious and deteriorated in only eight days. The hospital delivered a notice of critical condition and told me to be aware of a series of possible side effects: septicemia, alimentary tract hemorrhaging, and kidney damage.

My heart stirred after hearing all of these things. I developed more worries and concerns.

During our brief reunion, Yang Hua told me, Dont worry. God is pulling the strings. I am at peace. We havent seen each other in a year and three months, but you havent changed at all.

I smiled and answered him, You havent changed either, except that your back is more hunched.

Thank the Lord for alleviating my sorrows and putting peace in my heart. Although I had not seen Yang Hua for more than a year (we were never parted for more than two months before he was arrested), it all felt like yesterday when he was standing in front of me. No tears. No hysteria. We looked deeply at each other in divine serenity. Although worried, I could still face Yang Hua with joy and tranquility with Gods support.

When we were about to separate, Yang Hua said, Dont forget to tell the brothers and sisters to pray for me.

I answered, Of course.

He was again taken away before my eyes.

Lord, I will entrust him to you. From now on, you will be the only one accompanying him, I prayed in my heart.

Gods servant: Wang Hongwu

March 25
Jerusalem (AsiaNews / Agencies) - The Knesset security cabinet approved last night, for the first time in 20 years, a new official settlement. The new homes will rise near the Shiloh settlement, and will be occupied by settlers displaced from the illegal outpost of Amona in February, in the center of the West Bank.

During the meeting, Netanyahu also announced the registration of 222 acres, around the settlement of Eli, as lands of the Jewish state and the final green light to the construction of 2 thousand homes in existing settlements. A statement from his office reports that the construction of the latter was announced in January, but that the land transaction had been slowed by technical problems in the housing ministry.

Despite 600 thousand Jewish settlers living in the Occupied Territories, Israel has not built a new settlement since the 1990s. In recent decades, new homes were built within existing settlements or illegal outposts. The current government of Netanyahu, consisting of several settlement supporters, has recently passed legislation that legalizes retroactively dozens of outposts.

Netanyahu wanted to reassure the American Trump leadership announcing that following these buildings "already promised," Israel intends to launch a "restrictive policy" for construction of settlements. According to Netanyahu, the new policy will follow four steps: you will be able to build only in areas already built; if this is not possible adjacent areas will be chosen; if this is not feasible, the nearest land available will be chosen according to questions "of law, security and topography". Finally, Israel will not allow the creation of any new illegal outpost.

Hanan Ashrawi, a Palestinian official, condemned the settlement approval and called for the intervention of the international community: "Today's announcement once again proves that Israel is more committed to appeasing its illegal settler population than to abiding by the requirements for stability and a just peace," she said. "It is time that all members of the international community serve the cause of peace and justice and bring Israel to cease and desist its unlawful settlement activities and illegal unilateralism once and for all".

The United Nations and the vast majority of the international community consider all Israeli settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem illegal under international law. On 23 December, the UN Security Council adopted Resolution 2334, calling for the Israeli state to terminate all settlement activities in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem.

The peace talks broke down in 2014, triggering an escalation of violence before which proved increasingly apparent inertia (or impotence) of the international community.
by Shafique Khokhar

Syed Anees Shah acknowledged that he promised freedom in exchange for conversion to 42 Christian prisoners jailed in 2015 after a Taliban attack on two churches. Government and courts should take action against such abhorrent behaviour".

Lahore (AsiaNews)  Christian and Muslim activists are calling for Deputy District Public Prosecutor Syed Anees Shah to be disbarred after he acknowledged telling Christian prisoners that he could get them out of prison if they converted to Islam.

The case broke out yesterday when the Lahore magistrate admitted making that offer to 42 Christians from Youhanabad who are in prison charged with lynching two Muslim men shortly after a Taliban attack against two churches that left 19 people des and more than 70 injured.

Speaking to AsiaNews, the activists said that the government and the Supreme Court must take a tough stance against the magistrate for trying to "forcibly convert innocent Christians by means of blackmail."

Prof Anjum James Paul, president of the All Pakistan Minorities Teachers' Association, appealed to the head of the Lahore High Court to suspend Shah.

"He has openly violated Article 20 (a) of the Constitution of Pakistan which guarantees every citizen the right to profess, practice and propagate his religion," Paul said.

Among Christians "There is a lot of fear because they are vulnerable. In the past, they have been targeted for refusing to renounce Christianity, he explained. They also face many challenges in getting justice since the courts can come under mob pressure.

Noting that There are no other examples of people forced to convert to avoid a trial, he went on to say that This [case] shows how much influence the prosecutor had on the court." His behaviour sends a chilling message: "If a non-Muslim wants freedom and equality in Pakistan, he has to become a Muslim."

"What would happen if a Christian prosecutor had made the same offer to a Muslim?" asked provocatively Rojar Noor Alam, head of Programme-Caritas in Lahore.

More importantly, "The prosecutors blackmail raises serious doubts about the independence of the judiciary and the judicial system in Pakistan. We should all defend the independence of judges and the government should get rid of those elements who tarnish the name of the state with such acts."

For Naseem Kausar, a secular Muslim activist, teacher and writer, what happened is "one of the worst examples of nepotism. This is the domain in which we're raising our voice to have a secular constitution and laws in Pakistan.

In her view, The dominant interpretation of religious laws only promotes a specific class that favours a conservative mind-set. This increases injustice and barbarism." In fact, "This case is clear evidence that mixing Constitution and laws with religious ideas shelter the brutality of the cruel."

Kiran Simon, activist and lawyer, also condemns the attempt to convert Christians in Youhanabad. However, he notes that this "is not the first case. I remember a few cases of blasphemy where some [people] converted and others did not, suffering harsh consequences.

I think the government and law enforcing agencies should identify such people, she added. A legal professional, whether a defender or prosecutor, must act according to the law in a neutral way.

Sadly, In Pakistan, some prosecutors who show off their piety also engage in such abhorrent behaviour. They should be disbarred."
Four French banks and the Axa insurance company finance Israeli businesses and banks involved in settlements. French NGOs call for disinvestment.

Paris (AsiaNews/Agencies)  Four major French banks  BNP Paribas, Credit agricole, Societe generale and Banques populaires - Caisse d'Epargne (BPCE)  together with the Axa insurance company have been indirectly funding Israeli settlements, this according to Paris-based International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH*).

Titled "Les liaisons dangereuses des banques francaises avec la colonisation israelienne (The dangerous relationship between French banks and Israeli settlements), the FIDH released a report prepared in collaboration with French associations and unions, including France-Palestine Solidarite, CCFD-Terre solidaire, CGT, Al Haq, Ligue des droits de l'homme, Union Syndicale solidaire and Fair Finance France.

According to the report, the "persistent" support of French financial institutions to Israeli banks and businesses help in maintaining and developing Israeli settlements.

The five major French groups have a "financial participation" or own shares in Israeli banks, which are essential to settlements for "the construction of housing and factories, connecting telephone and internet networks and even the installation of surveillance equipment." Participation also occurs via loans to businesses, particularly in energy and communications.

According to the report, BNP Paribas, Societe generale, LCL (a Credit agricole subsidiary) and Natixis (a BPCE subsidiary) granted  288 million (US$ 310 million) for the 2004-2020 period to the Israel Electric Corporation (IEC), a government corporation that supplies electricity to Israeli settlements.

For FIDH vice-president Maryse Artiguelong, banks and insurance companies "seek profit, whatever the outcome".

For this reason, "We want French companies to withdraw their money from Israeli businesses involved in the settlements as recommended by the [French] Foreign Ministry in 2014, said Didier Fagart, a member of France Palestine solidarite, and co-author of the report. "French banks cannot say that they did not know, Fagart added; they must make the right decision."

According to the report, French authorities also bear some responsibilities. In addition to urging companies to respect human rights," the government should require banks and insurance companies to end support to companies involved in maintaining and developing Israeli settlements.

One example is the problematic involvement of French multinational Alstom, of which the French State is a shareholder, in infrastructure projects in the Israeli settlements.

Over the years, several banks and insurance companies, both public and private, have disinvested from banks and businesses involved in the settlements. Among these are the Dutch and Luxembourg pension funds, which cut ties with five Israeli banks involved in the settlements, whereas French financial institutions have not.

The United Nations and most of the international community consider all Israeli settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem as illegal under international law.

On 23 December 2016, the UN Security Council adopted Resolution 2334, calling on Israel to end immediately and completely all settlement activities in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, including East Jerusalem.

However, the process of colonisation of the territories, now in its 50th year, not only has not been slowed down, but has in fact accelerated. In January, Israel gave the green light to hundreds of new housing units.

Recently, the United Nations Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process Nikolay Mladenov lashed out at Israels actions, which show a " intent to continue expanding the settlement enterprise in the occupied Palestinian territory.

* The International Federation for Human Right is better known by its French acronym, FIDH, which stands for Federation internationale des droits de l'Homme.
Kuala Lumpur and Pyongyang struck deal, swapping body and suspects for nine Malaysians held hostage in North Korea.

Kuala Lumpur (AsiaNews/Agencies)  The body of Kim Jong-nam, who was killed at Kuala Lumpur airport, was returned to his family, probably his half-brother Kim Jong-un, who is suspected of having instigated his assassination.

After a stop in Beijing, the plane from Malaysia landed in Pyongyang today. The two North Koreans suspected of the killing were on board.

The two women, one from Indonesia and the other from Vietnam, who daubed Kim Jong-nams face with a powerful nerve agent, are in jail on murder charges.

The two North Koreans who returned to Pyongyang are Hyon Kwang-song (pictured left), the second secretary of the North Korean Embassy in Malaysia, and Kim Uk-il (pictured right), an employee at Air Koryo, the country's flag carrier.

According to Malaysian police the two  who had taken refuge in their embassy  were involved in planning the assassination.

Yesterday Malaysia and North Korea reached a deal: Kim's body and the two suspects for nine Malaysians held hostage in Pyongyang.

[F]ollowing the completion of the autopsy on the deceased and receipt of a letter from his family requesting the remains be returned to North Korea, the coroner has approved the release of the body, Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak said yesterday.

For Malaysia, at least eight North Koreans were involved in the killing. North Korea reacted to the allegations by accusing Malaysian police of tampering with the evidence  claiming that the dead man is not Kim Jong-nam, but a North Korean named Kim Chol (the name on his passport)  and by detaining nine Malaysians working in North Korea.

Malaysia responded by cancelling its visa-waiver programme with North Korea and kicking out North Korea's top envoy to Malaysia.

With the arrival of the nine Malaysian hostages in Kuala Lumpur this morning, the diplomatic spat between the two countries ended.

However, it is not clear whether Kim Jong-nams wife and family, who live in Macau, agreed to his remains being moved to Pyongyang.
by Nirmala Carvalho

The clergyman had praised the benefits of yoga for body and mind. His Church welcomes Dalits and the poor held down by the caste system. In Uttar Pradesh another Pentecostal pastor was beaten and arrested. A pastor and five members of the Life Worship Centre were also detained but later released.

Lucknow (AsiaNews)  Police in Tamil Nadu arrested a Pentecostal clergyman for criticising yoga.

Speaking to AsiaNews, Sajan K George, president of the Global Council of Indian Christians (GCIC), said that Rev Mohan was jailed for speaking out "against compulsory yoga in schools and elsewhere, which forcibly promotes a Hindu lifestyle."

The pastor "is a leader involved in civil society, George said. He works in favour of Dalits and the poor in Tamil Nadus rural remote areas."

"Many people, the GCIC president added, go to his Pentecostal church seeking refuge and comfort from the oppression of the caste system, which is still strong in South India. By contrast, in his church, they are treated equally and with dignity."

Rev Mohan was arrested because of one of his sermons "in which he spoke against the use of Hindu terminology in the practice of yoga." However, "the clergyman has praised the ancient Indian practice for its beneficial effects on mental and physical health".

This incident did not happen in a vacuum. George said that other arrests have taken place in Uttar Pradesh, a state where a radical Hindu recently became chief minister.

The first incident occurred on Wednesday, when a Pentecostal clergyman in Kushinagar was first beaten and then arrested.

The second took place in Agra, where police jailed Rev Mahesh Chand and five members of the Life Worship Centre Church. They were all released later without charges.

Christians were not doing anything unconstitutional, the GCIC leader explained, noting that Our founding fathers and the architects of the Indian Constitution granted minorities full freedom of religion and freedom to practice, preach and spread their faith. Instead, we [Christians] are still forced to suffer intimidation, verbal and physical abuse, detention and harassment."
by Melani Manel Perera

Various activities have been organised  retreats, pilgrimages, Stations of the Cross, daily Eucharist, special meditations and sermons  to experience intensely of Lent.

Colombo (AsiaNews)  Various parishes and schools are offering spiritual exercises to Catholics to help them make Lent a more significant experience this year, including retreats, pilgrimages, Via Crucis, daily Eucharist, special meditations, and sermons.

Since this year has been dedicated to Saint Joseph Vaz, consecrated "perpetual slave of Mary" in 1677, many Catholics are also making a pilgrimage to his birthplace of Goa (India).

Speaking to AsiaNews, some priests said that most of the faithful are used to taking part in the Via Crucis on Good Friday, but not the Sunday mass. Thus it is our responsibility to bring them to church at least during Lent, so that they can be witnesses of Christ's passion and learn the value of attending Sunday service."

"Forty days of meditation are very intense, said Shirani Cooray, a community leader at St Francis Xavier in Wewala Archdiocese of Colombo. For Lent, Fr Sumith Kumara is working hard to help people prepare spiritually. He offers Lenten reflections, celebrates Mass and gives blessings twice a day, morning and evening.

On 2 April, our parishioners will go on pilgrimage to the Calvary in Hiniduma, which is very old and located in the Southern Province. On the night of 7 April, there will be traditional Pasan hymns about the Passion of Christ.

On 18 March, the Diocese of Batticaloa (Eastern Province) also held its annual Lenten pilgrimage to Mount Hingurana with people coming from all of the parishes in the diocese.

On 29 March, students at the Bambalapitya Holy Family Convent took part in the Via Crucis and Lenten meditation under the guidance of Sister Deepa Fernando. Convent staff and their children also joined in.

"This year, the nun said, the children and our staff have had the opportunity of meditating at each station of the cross about their daily life, and the link between their life and that of others."

Last week, under the guidance of Frs Joseph Indika, Dilantha Fernando, Prasad Harshana, Anton Dinesh and Eranga de Silva, the community of the Legion of Mary at St Paul's Church in Waragoda Kelaniya, in the Archdiocese of Colombo, took part in the annual spiritual retreat for Lent.

On Monday, pilgrims with the National Secretariat for the Year of Joseph Vaz left for the Lenten pilgrimage to Goa. The ten-day trip includes stops in Goa, Mangalore, Vallankanni, Poondy, Mysore, Bangalore and Chennai.

About fifty pilgrims and four priests are taking part in the trip, one of the pilgrims, Helen Perera, told AsiaNews. The bishop of Kandy, Mgr Vianney Fernando, is accompanying the pilgrims. The latter will be hosted in various places of worship and will be guided by Goa priests.
The anti-terrorism agents surrounded the building for two days. The radicals chose suicide rather than surrender. In these hours other military operations are underway. The extremists belong to the outlawed group Jama'atul Mujahideen Bangladesh.

Dhaka (AsiaNews / Agencies) - A police siege of a hideout of Islamic militants in the village of Moulvibazar, near Sylhet in northeastern Bangladesh has ended with a bloodbath. The building where seven Islamic radicals were hiding had been surrounded for two days. After repeated calls to surrender, last night they decided to detonate explosives, killing a child with them. After the explosion the agents entered the hiding place and they found a gruesome scene. Some of them said they had found the remains of bodies - both male and female - torn and scattered everywhere.

While the police investigate how it was possible that a child was present on the scene of the explosion, the military in these hours are conducting another assault on a second hideout for militants. The den is in Barahat and has been surrounded since last March 29. According to police reports, there is also a woman among those under siege.

In press conference Monirul Islam, head of the anti-terrorism unit, said the dead last night belong to the banned radical Islamist group Jama'atul Mujahideen Bangladesh. This is the same cell as the perpetrators of the Dhaka massacre last July 1, 2016. According to the authorities, the groups affiliates and not the militants of the Islamic state (which still claims continuous attacks in Bangladesh) that recently are spreading a new wave of terror. On March 25, while investigators were still concentrating on the Dhaka international airport suicide bombing the day before, other militants detonated two bombs in Sylhet, while being searched. The toll was of three dead agents (the last died a few hours ago), and four civilians.
The great social encyclical of Paul VI, who for the first time extended the social teaching of the Churc hworldwide, is the focus of a meeting which will also be attended by representatives of the episcopal conferences and their social and "Justice and Peace" committees representatives of the international Catholic charity organizations and the diplomatic corps accredited to the Holy See.

Vatican City (AsiaNews) - The "Populorum Progressio" of Paul VI will be the subject of an international conference to be held at the Vatican on April 3 and 4, organized by the Department for the service of integral human development 50 years after the publication of the great social encyclical. Pope Francis will also intervene on the topic on Tuesday, when he will receive the attendees.

The Paul VI document, which for the first time extended the social teaching of the Church worldwide, stated that development cannot be reduced to mere economic growth, but it must be thought of in terms of overall development, that promotes all men and the whole man. In a climate of prevailing cold war, the Montini Pope affirmed that the real Iron Curtain was not between East and West but between North and South of the world, because "the peoples in hunger call out dramatically today to the peoples of 'opulence. " "The development of peoples - were the first words of the encyclical - especially of those who are striving to escape from hunger, misery, endemic diseases and ignorance; looking for a wider share in the benefits of civilization, a more active improvement of their human qualities; that move decisively toward the goal of their heyday, is closely watched by the church. "

A Church which must have "a renewed awareness of the demands of the Gospel message", "to be at the service of mankind" and which calls for a concerted effort so that everyone in their own place, with their rights and duties, be fully responsible to foster universal collaboration among nations, an international social justice.

The conference, which has the title "Prospects for the integral human development: 50 years after Populorum Progressio" will be held in the New Synod Hall in the Vatican. It aims to deepen the theological, anthropological and pastoral encyclical, in particular in relation to the work of those working for the promotion of the person, and to formulate guidelines for the work of the new dicastery.

The meeting will be attended, in particular, members of the Pontifical offices that were included in the Department (Justice and Peace, Cor Unum, Migrants and Itinerant People, Health Professionals), the representatives of the episcopal conferences and their social and "Justice and Peace" committees, the representatives of the international Catholic charity organizations and the diplomatic corps accredited to the Holy See.

The congress, after the introduction of Monday, 3 from Card. Peter K. A. Turkson, prefect of the Congregation for integral human development, and the theological presentation of the anthropological theme from Card. Gerhard Ludwig Muller, Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, is divided according to three fundamental tensions of the person: body-soul, man-woman, person-society. In addition to presentations by experts from different sectors, there will be testimonies of how the Church operates directly in favor of the weakest.
Dealers in Chennai, Pune and Delhi manage to clear most stocks on the back of significant discounts ahead of April 1 deadline.

Some of the two-wheeler dealers who faced the challenge of disposing their inventory of BS-III vehicles in two days flat  March 30 and 31  now have a different problem. Its one of having more customers and less or no BS-III vehicles that are offered at big discounts from carmakers.



A Hero MotoCorp dealer in Mumbai told our sister publication Autocar Professional that he had to call the police to avoid any untoward situation at the showroom. After the Supreme Court judgement on March 29, OEMs wasted no time and offered heavy discounts to reduce BS-III vehicle inventory levels which were pegged at 6,71,305 units.



In Chennai, Honda Motorcycle & Scooter India was offering a discount of Rs 13,500 on scooters and Rs 18,500 on motorcycles (only on March 30). Showrooms were open until 10pm yesterday as customers made a beeline for showrooms to pick their discounted set of wheels. As a result, some dealers in the city cleared their stock last night.



A visit to Didar Motors, one of the leading Honda two-wheeler dealers in Chennai this morning, revealed that the BS-III scooters and motorcycles were out of stock. However, many customers are still flocking to showrooms hoping to strike an attractive deal.

In Pune, Kothari Wheels sold more than 500 units of BS III-compliant two-wheelers on March 30, offering discounts ranging from Rs 10,000 to Rs 15,000. The Honda Navi was sold with a Rs 15,000 discount. Needless to say, this dealership has no BS-III compliant stock left now. Hero MotoCorp had the following discounts on offer: Rs 14,000 (including insurance worth Rs 1,500) on scooter models; Rs 9,000 on the Glamour, Rs 14,000 on Karizma models; Rs 7,500 on the Passion.

While the Honda dealership shut at 11am today, the Hero dealership downed shutters at 1.30pm. At the backend, both dealerships are now working on RTO formalities. Vehicle deliveries are to be done later. At Monarch, a six-facility Yamaha India dealership, there were only 40 BS-III vehicles which are sold out now.



Likewise in New Delhi, buyers are thronging showrooms but few have stocks left. One Bajaj Auto dealer had only the CT100 commuter model left in stock. All other Bajaj motorcycles at this dealership are BS-IV compliant. Hero MotoGroup, which was offering smaller discounts of Rs 2,000-Rs 4,000 earlier on some products, raised the discounts yesterday and managed to sell considerable numbers.

It is understood that dealers of Hero, Royal Enfield, TVS and Honda have cleared most of their inventories. Whats left now would be company stockyards.

Most dealerships said that the discount on stock has generated more customer response than in the festive season of Diwali. However, this heavy discounting has not made all customers happy. A Bajaj Platina owner in Pune, who bought his motorcycle on the auspicious occasion of Gudi Padwa on March 28, is distraught that the same motorcycle is now being sold for Rs 15,000 less.
Photo courtesy of VW.

Volkswagen has agreed to pay $157.4 million to settle claims by 10 states to resolve environmental and consumer claims around its violations of diesel emissions regulations.

This latest settlement announced on March 30 will be paid to Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Massachusetts, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington. The settlement was negotiated with attorneys general from the states.

This is the second state-level settlement over diesel emissions scandal. In June, Volkswagen agreed to pay $603 million to 44 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico. The March 30 settlement includes restitution for the 3.0L V-6 TDI vehicles and resolves consumer claims not addressed by the prior agreement.

In January, Volkswagen agreed to pay the U.S. government a penalty of $1.45 billion to resolve federal claims that Volkswagen violated the Clean Air Act. Volkswagen is also establishing a $2.92 billion trust and will spend $2 billion over 10 years toward zero emissions vehicle infrastructure, access and awareness initiatives.
Jon Dill, contact center director at International Franchise Systems, (left) presented Michael DeLorenzo with the Auto Rental News Impact Award. Photo by Amy Winter-Hercher

Michael DeLorenzo received the inaugural Auto Rental News Impact Award for outstanding service to the auto rental industry.

DeLorenzo serves as the executive vice president of International Franchise Systems (IFS), which owns the NextCar, Priceless, and Rent-A-Wreck brands. He is also a member of the American Car Rental Associations (ACRA) Board of Directors.

We have had an award of this high distinction going back to the days of the old ACRA meetings, before our present International Car Rental Show, said Chris Brown, executive editor of Auto Rental News. We changed its name to define by the impact of the honorees good works.

The award was presented at Wednesdays closing general session at the 2017 International Car Rental Show at Ballys Las Vegas.

Thanks for recognizing me, said DeLorenzo upon accepting the award. I have been doing this for a long time. When a management team came into my office to review my operations, their final assessment of me and my organization was that I surround myself with honest people.

DeLorenzo started his career by renting cars out of the family gas station in Laurel, Md. He began the business with a fleet of 10 vehicles. The constant action of the car rental business, the customers, and the cars themselves sparked something in him.

After several years of operating a Budget Rent A Car franchise, DeLorenzo started to expand his operation  he grew to four locations and a fleet of over 250 cars by the mid-1980s. In 1985, DeLorenzo sold his Budget franchises to car dealer Jack Fitzgerald. He was hired by Fitzgerald to lead the dealerships expanded loaner and retail car rental division. Over the next 20 years, Fitzgeralds car rental business grew to 20 Budget locations operating 3,000 vehicles.

In 2003, DeLorenzo led a movement within the Fitzgerald operation to divest the Budget brand and start building an independent brand called NextCar. By 2007, DeLorenzo completed the transition of Fitzgerald car rental locations to the NextCar brand. Currently, NextCar operates 15 locations in the mid-Atlantic region.

In 2006, Fitzgerald acquired Rent-A-Wreck of America and Priceless Car & Truck Rental. DeLorenzo was put in charge of leading the Rent-A-Wreck and Priceless brands, which currently have over 150 franchise locations. In 2010, Rent-A-Wreck opened its first company-owned and operated location under DeLorenzos supervision. This location has served as a training facility for new and existing franchisees.

DeLorenzo oversaw the launch of International Franchise Systems in 2015, a company that unifies the offering of the NextCar, Rent-A-Wreck, and Priceless brands. In 2016, Franchise Business Review named Rent-A-Wreck as one of the 50 Best Franchises for franchise satisfaction.

As a franchisee, DeLorenzo (back center) was faced with unsustainable costs after a tax credit for car rental companies was legislated away. He devoted one day per week to visit Annapolis to make his case to the legislature. In 1993, DeLorenzo was at the signing of Senate Bill 732, which replaced the need for rental car companies to pay titling tax with a use tax.

I think Mike is an outstanding selection for the Impact Award, said Jason Manelli, vice president of marketing for IFS. Since coming to work for Mike in 2006, Ive come to know him as a high energy, vocal leader with an infectious can-do attitude and entrepreneurial spirit that inspires and motivates those around him. A big-picture thinker that always has his eyes on the future and what is coming next, Mike has provided leadership to the people in our company, both employees and franchisees, while also working tirelessly on behalf of the industry in the halls of Congress and in his efforts with ACRA.

Jon Dill, contact center director at IFS, presented DeLorenzo with the award.

Mike has been a trailblazer in this industry since the summer of 1969, said Dill. I first met him when I was in college. I interviewed him for a business project that I was assigned. I asked him, why did you get into car rental? He said that he could help more customers renting cars than by turning wrenches.

He really impacted me when I wanted to quit, Dill continued. Mike asked me to help him sell our service to other businesses. When the car rental industry was consolidating, he said, I dont know how its going to work, but I want to do it anyway.

Mike is really passionate about our business and isnt afraid to move into the unknown, added Dill. He believes in educating the customer so they can make the best decision. He also believes in educating our legislators to help grow our industry. He has impacted me in my career, and Im sure that he will continue to impact all of you through his passion for our industry.
Honda Motorcycles Thailand unveiled the Honda 150SS Racer at the 2017 Bangkok Motor Show. It is a mini-moto with big wheels based on a CBR150R engine. It is still unclear whether the build is just a concept, or it is destined for production.

Honda started its motorcycle production back in 1955, and since then it has become the largest motorcycle manufacturer in Japan. In 1982, Honda was able to manufacture three million motorcycles annually. But, by 2006, this figure had reduced to around 550,000. However, it is still higher than its three domestic competitors.

Since the beginning, Honda has continued to produce innovative motorcycle models that appeal to the various cultures around the world. On top of that, they have proved to be a manufacturer of reliable motorcycles for the past several decades. Their top selling motorcycles have a unique design and long lasting equipment.



According to Car and Bike, the Honda 150SS is going to have a 150cc engine, but other technical details arent available at this stage. The design displays upside-down forks, a huge carbon disc wheels, and carbon fenders, while the round headlights add a retro touch and heavily sculpted tank adds additional muscle. The turn indicators are mounted on a crevice on the fuel tank, and there is a camera at the rear. The exhaust has a shape of a megaphone and it adds to the muscular style of the Racer.



As reported by Ride Apart, Honda did not provide any information whether the bike will go into production or not. Judging by the success of the Honda Grom, the 150SS Racer should reach significant sale numbers not only in South East Asian markets but globally. On top of that, the bike should fit well in Hondas future product-line. It wont be surprising to see the 150SS Racer in production form in a year or two, but without some expensive hi-end bits that are seen on the concept.
Boeings newest super stretch wide-body, the 787-10, took its first flight this morning from Charleston International Airport (KCHS). The airplane, call sign Boeing One, toured around South Carolina between 15,000 and 20,000 feet for five hours, according to Boeing, testing flap and gear operation, and briefly accelerated as fast at 380 knots. A Lockheed T-33, a 1950s-era jet trainer owned by Boeing, flew chase.

This is the second extension of the composite-construction, dual-aisle jet with a maximum seating capacity of 330 passengers, up 36% from the 242 passengers in the original 787-8. Although stretched 18 feet from the 787-9, the maximum takeoff weight is unchanged, trading range for passenger and cargo capacity. Boeing reports orders of 1,207 787s of which already 149 are for the new 787-10. The two biggest customers for the Dash 10, Etihad Airways and Singapore Airlines, each have open orders for 30 airplanes.
President Serzh Sarkisian urged Armenians on Friday to make national security and defense the main criterion for backing a political party or bloc in Sundays parliamentary elections.

Sarkisian emphasized his long security experience in the context of the unresolved Nagorno-Karabakh conflict as he spoke at an indoor rally in Yerevan that concluded the election campaign of the ruling Republican Party of Armenia (HHK). The outcome of the vote holds the key to new armaments and military hardware, new defense fortifications and effective schemes of troop deployment, he said.

Choosing a ballot [on election day] means choosing who and how will solve our number one issue: the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, he told thousands of HHK supporters. [It means determining] who will ensure, through peace negotiations, that Nagorno-Karabakhs final status is decided by Artsakhs population -- a principle which we will never abandon.

He implied that a popular vote for the HHK would also amount to supporting the U.S., Russian and French mediators efforts to advance the peace process aimed at achieving a just solution.

The three co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group have been seeking a compromise settlement that would require Armenian withdrawal from virtually all districts around Karabakh. In return, Karabakhs predominantly Armenian population would be able to determine the territorys internationally recognized status in a future referendum.

Based on the nature of this event, I was supposed to urge you at this moment to vote for the Republican Party of Armenia, Sarkisian went on. But I will not. I will say choose whomever you want but remember that living well is possible only through a lasting and diligent work. I will say choose whomever you want but remember the mothers who have sent their sons to the Army, and whose every heartbeat is counting the seconds of their sons safe duty.

Prime Minister Karen Karapetian, who has led the ruling partys election campaign, also spoke at the rally. Trust us, our team, the Republican Party of Armenia, he said.

Karapetian has focused on economic issues during his nationwide campaign trips, promising economic betterment and wide-ranging reforms. He has specifically stood by his cabinets pledges to attract billions of dollars in badly needed investments in the Armenian economy.

Opposition parties and blocs running for parliament have dismissed these pledges during the election campaign. They have said that the HHK has mismanaged the country and must be removed from power.
Former Defense Minister Seyran Ohanian said on Friday that his ORO alliance hopes to form a coalition with other opposition forces and unseat Armenias government as a result of the upcoming parliamentary elections.

Ohanian said that President Serzh Sarkisians political opponents should create an axis that will effect regime change if they win a majority in the new Armenian parliament.

We must put aside all kinds of differences and personal ambitions because at stake is the future of our country. At this fateful moment we have no right to be divided before our people, he told a joint news conference with the two other top leaders of the bloc, Vartan Oskanian and Raffi Hovannisian.

We are ready [to team up] with those forces which stand for change and want to stop these authorities from governing, added the retired army general.

Asked whether ORO hopes for a post-election deal with businessman Gagik Tsarukians bloc, one of the election favorites, Ohanian said: As regards Mr. Tsarukian, you known that I have met with him for several times before and we have a good relationship and that relationship will always be maintained. He did not comment further.

Tsarukian has avoided explicitly criticizing President Sarkisian and calling for his ouster during the election campaign.

Most opinion polls conducted in Armenia suggest that ORO will have trouble garnering at least 7 percent of the vote needed for having seats in the next National Assembly.

Oskanian dismissed these polls as not credible, saying that they all were commissioned and rigged by the government. He and the two other ORO leaders expressed confidence that their bloc will pass the vote threshold.

Hovannisian, for his part, warned the authorities and their loyalists against resorting to serious vote irregularities. He said ORO could stage post-election protests in Yerevan if the April 2 election is rigged.

If electoral fraud . continues on election day, we will wait for signals from not only other political forces but also the public and will decide accordingly what to do on April 3, he said without elaborating.

ORO already cried foul after one of its unofficial senior figures, Samvel Babayan, was arrested on March 22. Babayan, who is a former commander of Nagorno-Karabakhs army, was charged with smuggling an anti-aircraft weapon to Armenia. He denies the accusation.

ORO has condemned Babayans arrest as politically motivated, saying that the authorities are thus trying to weaken the bloc. Babayans lawyer has said, however, that his client does not consider himself a political prisoner.
31 March 2017 16:43 (UTC+04:00)

By Rashid Shirinov

The voter bribery in connection with the upcoming parliamentary elections in Armenia is gaining momentum as more and more cases of pre-electoral bribery revealed.

The Transparency International Anti-Corruption Center has conducted research in Yerevan and 12 other cities of Armenia. The results of the monitoring entitled Abuse of Administrative Resources in 2017 Elections revealed violations connected with the use of administrative resources throughout the whole country.

A total of 45 cases of distribution or promise of election bribes were recorded in Armenia, from March 13 to 24, said Varuzhan Hoktanyan, Executive Director of the Transparency International Anti-Corruption Center in Armenia.

Hoktanyan stated that there were cases when officials, as well as employees from educational institutions joined the campaigningfor the parliamentary electionduring working hours, and that the representatives of law enforcement agencies also had partaken in the campaigning.

He added that there were cases of pressures and threats, and, also, voters were enlisted plus peoples passports were collected for charity.

In the Transparency International officials words, abuse of administrative resources was recorded all through Armenia.

Hoktanyan added that representatives of the ruling Republican Party of Armenia and the Tsarukyan Bloc, which is led by opposition Prosperous Armenia Party Chairman and businessman MP Gagik Tsarukyan, either distributed or made promises for election bribes.

Western countries are also concerned over the negative facts reported in the pre-election period in this country.

We are aware of and concerned by allegations of voter intimidation, attempts to buy votes, and the systemic use of administrative resources to aid certain competing parties, reads a statement issued by the European Union, the United States, Germany, and the United Kingdom on the upcoming parliamentary elections in Armenia.

We note that our ultimate assessment of the conduct of the April 2 election will not be limited to observing electoral procedures on Election Day, itself, the statement added.

The statement further urged all parties engaged in the election to abide by the letter and spirit of Armenias electoral law, and called upon relevant law enforcement authorities and electoral institutions to implement existing laws in an unbiased and credible manner.

The statement noted that over the past year, the European Union, the United States, Germany, and the United Kingdom have offered significant financial and technical support to Armenias voting process, including providing equipment to facilitate a free and fair parliamentary election on April 2.

The delegation hoped that this effort will diminish the likelihood of voter fraud on the election day and will limit tampering with the electoral process inside polling stations.

However, given the Armenian realities, a fair election in this country is unlikely. Considering the ardor of the Republican Party of Armenia to power, there is no doubt that President Sargsyan and his team will do their utmost to win the election and will apply wide bribery and fraud for that.

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Rashid Shirinov is AzerNews staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @RashidShirinov

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
31 March 2017 11:25 (UTC+04:00)

By Kamila Aliyeva

Development of the non-oil sector is a priority area in Azerbaijan, and the support provided to small and medium-sized enterprises increases the employment of the population, contributing to the opening of new jobs, said MP Musa Guliyev.

Guliyev, talking to Trend on March 30, said that it is necessary to accelerate the development of the non-oil sector even more.

The non-oil sector development contributes to speeding up resolution of social issues, improving the financial situation of the population, he said, adding that the main jobs are also created in the non-oil sectors, therefore the non-primary sectors of the economy should become a priority for ensuring employment of the population.

Guliyev further stressed that the government of Azerbaijan provides sufficient support for the development of entrepreneurship. He recalled that under the National Fund for Entrepreneurship Support (NFES) business people are given preferential loans.

"Thanks to NFES loans, new enterprises are being created, new jobs are being opened, he said stressing that the state support to the non-oil industry ensured 5-percent growth of the sector, and more than 3-percent growth of agricultural sector for the first two months of this year.

The MP also underlined that the most important task today is the expansion of exports of non-oil products.

"Azerbaijan conducts trade with many countries of the world, and increasing the export volume of non-oil products to these countries is very important, both for the progressive development of this sphere and for increasing the currency inflow into the country, he added.

To achieve these goals the government created all the conditions for entrepreneurs, Guliyev concluded.

The Azerbaijani government has developed a very substantial reform package aimed at diversifying the economy, which received strong support from international financial institutions. The country invested largely in industry and agriculture and is also looking for the markets for export of its non-oil products.

The country is organizing export missions to foreign countries to explore the markets and marketing activities in order to promote mechanisms required for increasing awareness about the local production.

In 2016, the National Entrepreneurship Support Fund allocated 190 million manats ($111 million) for financing of projects of local business entities.

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Kamila Aliyeva is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @Kami_Aliyeva

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
31 March 2017 14:33 (UTC+04:00)

By Laman Ismayilova

Azerbaijans Parabank has acquired a license to operate as a non-bank financial institution (Para NBCO), Azerbaijans Financial Market Supervisory Authority reported on March 31.

The license of Parabank was revoked in 2016 due to the failure to comply with statutory minimum capital requirements of the regulator as well as to manage activities in a safe and prudent manner.

Azerbaijan Deposit Insurance Fund (ADIF) has so far paid compensations worth over 43 million manats to depositors of Parabank.

Non-banking credit organizations ( NBCOs) provide certain types of banking services, but do not hold a banking license and are not eligible to accept deposits from the public.

Some 32 banks are currently implementing their activities in the country.

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Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
31 March 2017 17:10 (UTC+04:00)

By Amina Nazarli

The cargo transportation from India to Europe via Iran, Azerbaijan, Georgia and Ukraine and in the opposite direction along the South-West Transport Corridor will take seven days, according to preliminary estimates.

Chairman of Azerbaijan Railways Javid Gurbanov announced about this while addressing a meeting with a delegation headed by Chairman of the Board Ukrainian Railways Balchun Wojciech.

The South-West route, , which is of great importance for Azerbaijan will provide freight transportation en route India  Persian Gulf  Iran  Azerbaijan  Georgia  Black Sea  Europe. The corridor is more attractive for the transportation of goods, while its main advantage is the reduction of the distance and delivery time two or threefold, as compared to other alternative routes, which provide cargo transportation within 35-37 days.

The initial capacity of the route will stand at 10,000 of cargo per year, while the volume will be further increased up many times.



He also informed the guests about the works carried out within the framework of the North-South Transport Corridor to connect Northern Europe to South-East Asia.



The laying of a 8.3 km railway from the Astara station to the state border of Iran, as well as the construction of a railway bridge over the Astarachay river has already been completed. The other day the test train crossed the border through the new bridge, said Gurbanov.



The North-South transport corridor is designed for the delivery of goods, in particular, from India and the Persian Gulf region to Russia, the countries of Western Europe, the Baltic and Scandinavian countries. The main advantage of this corridor from other routes is the distance and transit time, which is two to three times less, he said.

The North-South has a strategic importance for the region, since it will serve as a link connecting the railways of Azerbaijan, Iran and Russia.

At the initial stage, the North-South corridor will transport 5 million tons of cargo per year with further expansion of transportation to over 10 million tons. Along with making a great contribution to the diversification of Azerbaijan's economy the project is expected to turn the country into a major transport hub.

The project, which is considered to be a strategically important and advantageous in terms of time of transit cargo transportation, is also expected to bring great economic benefits. The route, part of which will pass along the western coast of the Caspian Sea, from Russia to Iran through Azerbaijan enjoys several advantages compared to other transport such as Suez Canal-the Mediterranean Sea-Northern Europe and the Turkmenistan-Kazakhstan-Russia-Northern Europe routes.

Wojciech, in turn, noted that Ukraine is interested in participating in the Trans-Caspian International Transport Route to increase trade with Azerbaijan.



Following the event, a trilateral format meeting was held with the participation of the Deputy Chairman of the Georgian Railway Aleksi Nikolashvili.

At the end of the meeting, a protocol of intent was signed between the railway agencies of Azerbaijan, Ukraine and Georgia.

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Amina Nazarli is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @amina_nazarli

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31 March 2017 16:57 (UTC+04:00)

By Laman Ismayilova

A colorful exhibition Spring opened at a gallery named after Vajia Samadova in Baku.

The opening of the exhibition, organized by the Culture and Tourism Ministry and Azerbaijans Union of Artists, was attended by culture and art figures and creative youth.

Chairman of the Artistic Union, People's artist Farhad Khalilov, addressing the event noted that the expo summarizes the results of the "Week of Fine Arts" held on March 24-30.

He said that the exhibition includes new works by the masters of the brush.

The expo features works of famous Azerbaijani artists, as well as the works of young artists. The showcased works belong different genres and reflect different themes, Trend Life reported.

All the exhibited works have been selected by the exhibition committee.

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Laman Ismayilova is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @Lam_Ismayilova

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31 March 2017 18:03 (UTC+04:00)

By Laman Ismayilova

Azerbaijan - Magical Universe of Colors will open in Sofia, Bulgaria on April 5.

The exhibition will be held at National Art Gallery on the occasion of 25th anniversary of establishment diplomatic relations between Azerbaijan and Bulgaria, the Azerbaijani embassy in Bulgaria told Trend Life.

More than 30 paintings of famous Azerbaijani artists such as Yaver Sultanov, Mir Nadir Zeynalov, Javad Mirdjavadov, Eldar Mammadov and Vugar Muradov will be put on display in the gallery.

The exhibition which combines different academies and generations and gives insight into the art of Azerbaijan during the last 35 years, will last until May 21.

The Azerbaijani-Bulgarian intergovernmental commission on trade-economic and scientific-technical cooperation was established in 1995.

The trade turnover between the two countries amounted to $16.5 million in January-July 2016 compared to $6.6 million in the same period of 2015, according to the Azerbaijani State Customs Committee. Such a growth has been achieved through an increase in import operations by 2.5 times.

The diplomatic relations between the two countries were established in June, 1992. The embassy of Bulgaria in Azerbaijan was opened in December 1999.

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Laman Ismayilova is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @Lam_Ismayilova

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The world is facing its largest humanitarian crisis since 1945, according to the United Nations.

We stand at a critical point in history. Already at the beginning of the year we are facing the largest humanitarian crisis since the creation of the UN, UN Emergency Relief Coordinator Stephen OBrien recently told the UNs Security Council.

While many countries worldwide face food security crises, with large numbers of people hungry and unable to find enough food, only rarely do the conditions meet the humanitarian communitys formal criteria for a famine, says the UN.

The UN declares a famine only when the following measures of mortality, malnutrition and hunger are met: at least 20 percent of households in an area face extreme food shortages with a limited ability to cope; acute malnutrition rates exceed 30 percent; and the death rate exceeds two persons per day per 10,000 persons.

Other factors that may be considered include large-scale displacement, widespread destitution, disease outbreaks and social collapse.

Currently five countries are facing or are at risk of famineKenya, Yemen, South Sudan, Nigeria, and Somalia:

In Yemen, 14.1 million people face severe food insecurity because of armed conflict in the country. Continuing fighting, lack of rule of law, poor governance, and under-development are also preventing foreign aid from getting through. As the BBC notes, a naval embargo imposed by the Saudi-led coalition, fighting around the government-controlled port of Aden and air strikes on the rebel-held port of Hudaydah, have severely reduced imports since 2015.

In South Sudan, 4.9 million people face severe food insecurity because of armed conflict that borders on genocide. The famine in the country is man-made. Parties to the conflict are parties to the famine  as are those not intervening to make the violence stop, said Mr. OBrien, who called on the South Sudanese authorities to translate their assurances of unconditional access into action on the ground.

In Nigeria, the estimated number of affected children is now 450,000, with 14 million people needing humanitarian assistance across the region. The UN predicts Nigerians likely will suffer catastrophic famine-like conditions caused by Boko Harams Islamic uprising.

In Somalia 2.9 million are facing famine conditions because of armed conflict. According to BBC news reports, people are so busy trying to survive that they are unable to earn a living by going to work, farming or looking after their animals. The current indicators mirror the tragic picture of 2011, when Somalia last suffered a famine, said OBrian, who added that a famine could be averted with strong national leadership and immediate and concerted support by the international community.

In Kenya, 2.7 million people face severe food insecurity, but it could soon increase to 4 million. The cause of this famine is drought associated with the ongoing El Nino weather phenomena, but government incompetence and an inflow of refugees from Ethiopia is preventing relief aid from dealing with the problem. In collaboration with the Government [of Kenya], the UN will soon launch an appeal of $200 million to provide timely life-saving assistance and protection, said OBrian. But he adds that about $1.5 billion is required to provide the assistance needed across the region.
31 March 2017 14:19 (UTC+04:00)

By Rashid Shirinov

French Senator Andre Reichardt has said a new President of France should pay a special attention to resolution of the Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

The first round of the 2017 French presidential election is set to be held on April 23, 2017.

Reichardt, in an article published in Trombinoscope magazine, noted that despite resolutions of the UN Security Council and other leading international organizations, the occupation of Azerbaijan's Nagorno-Karabakh and seven adjacent regions by Armenia continues, and over a million Azerbaijanis live as refugees and IDPs for 25 years.

As a co-chair of the OSCE Minsk Group, France should take an unbiased approach to the conflict and try to ensure a negotiation solution to the problem, Reichardt said.

He further expressed readiness to meet with his Azerbaijani and Armenian counterparts to help move the negotiations forward.

France along with Russia and the U.S. is one of the co-chair countries of the OSCE Minsk Group established to broker a peace to the Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. The MG mediators have so far failed to make any move to achieve a breakthrough in the peace process.

French co-chair of the OSCE Minsk Group Stephane Visconti has recently said that France is ready to host the meeting of the presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan.

Previously, at a meeting with French President Francois Hollande in mid-March, President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev said that France, as the co-chair country of the OSCE Minsk Group, is making efforts to settle the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict and Azerbaijan highly appreciates these efforts.

President Hollande, in turn, stated that the status quo is unacceptable in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

Armenia broke out a lengthy war against Azerbaijan laying territorial claims on its South Caucasus neighbor. Since a war in the early 1990s, Armenian armed forces have occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan's territory, including Nagorno-Karabakh and seven surrounding regions. More than 20,000 Azerbaijanis were killed and over 1 million were displaced as a result of the large-scale hostilities.

Armenia has not yet implemented four UN Security Council resolutions on withdrawal of its armed forces from the Nagorno-Karabakh and surrounding districts.

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31 March 2017 15:47 (UTC+04:00)

By Rashid Shirinov

Many aspects of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict settlement have already been agreed upon, said Sergey Lavrov, the Russian Foreign Minister.

Of course, this issue concerns Russia as a co-chair of the OSCE Minsk Group, and, most importantly, a country in the region. We care about what is happening in our neighborhood, the foreign minister said in his interview with APA on March 31.

Lavrov further voiced Russias interest in the restoration of peace and tranquility in the region, as well as the opening of borders, return of refugees and resumption of trade and economic relations. That is why the solution of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict is among our unconditional foreign policy priorities, the minister added.

Armenia broke out a lengthy war against Azerbaijan laying territorial claims on its South Caucasus neighbor. As a result of the ensuing war, in 1992 Armenian armed forces occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan, including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and seven surrounding districts. More than 20,000 Azerbaijanis were killed and over 1 million were displaced as a result of the large-scale hostilities. The 1994 ceasefire agreement was followed by peace negotiations.

Armenia still controls fifth part of Azerbaijan's territory and rejects implementing four UN Security Council resolutions on withdrawal of its armed forces from the Nagorno-Karabakh and surrounding districts.

While the OSCE Minsk Group acted as the only mediator in resolution of the conflict, it failed to make any move to achieve a breakthrough in the peace process.

Lavrov went on to say that he cannot agree with that no steps were taken to settle the conflict, adding that the Karabakh issue is constantly in focus of attention of international mediators that are regularly making joint and individual efforts aimed at solving the problem.

As for Russia, for example, at the initiative of President Vladimir Putin, a trilateral summit dedicated to the issue was held in Saint Petersburg. The Nagorno-Karabakh settlement invariably takes an important place in the meetings of Putin with the Azerbaijani and Armenian leaders, Lavrov noted.

He reminded that in particular the issue was discussed during Armenian President Serzh Sargsyans visit to Moscow on March 15. Moreover, substantive discussions were held with Armenian Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandian in February and Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov in early March, Lavrov said.

The issue of Nagorno-Karabakh settlement is a very delicate subject, therefore the details of the negotiations are confidential, Lavrov said, refusing to reveal any details.

He also added that many aspects have already been agreed upon. There are some issues left and they are the most difficult ones. No consensus has been reached yet. Nevertheless, the work is underway, Lavrov noted.

Russia along with the U.S. and France is a co-chair country of the OSCE Minsk Group established to broker a peace to the Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. Russia is considered a key party in brokering a lasting solution to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

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Rashid Shirinov is AzerNews staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @RashidShirinov

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31 March 2017 14:40 (UTC+04:00)

By Rashid Shirinov

It is now high time for a focus on pragmatic and practical steps for confidence-building and resumption of substantive negotiations over the Nagorno-Karabakh issue, said Sebastian Kurz, Austrias Foreign Minister and OSCE Chairperson-in-Office.

Kurz, in his statement released on March 31, joined the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs call for the sides to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict to renew engagement in the political settlement process.

The fighting and the violence we witnessed one year ago  the worst in the past two decades  caused destruction, suffering and human losses. It was a vivid reminder of how quickly the machinery of war can undermine efforts for peace, Kurz said.

He called on the sides to refrain from any actions that jeopardize the ceasefire. All sides must live up to their commitment to strictly observe their international humanitarian obligations  war crimes can never be justified, said Kurz.

The Nagorno-Karabakh conflict erupted in April 2016 bringing Armenia and Azerbaijan face to face once again after years of silence.

The situation on the frontline aggravated on April 2 after the Armenian military units in the occupied lands began shelling Azerbaijans positions. To protect civilian population, the Azerbaijani Armed Forces launched counter attacks and as a result, the Azerbaijani troops retook hills around the village of Talish, as well as Seysulan settlement, and also took over Lele Tepe hill located in the direction of Fizuli region.

Azerbaijan and Armenia declared a truce brokered by Russia on April 5.

Recalling the outbreak of violence in April 2016 along the line of contact, he underlined his hope for fresh impetus in the negotiations:

Clashes and serious violations of the ceasefire on the line of contact, resulting in casualties, were of particular concern to us throughout the past year. It is now high time for a focus on pragmatic and practical steps for confidence-building as well as a resumption of substantive negotiations, he said.

Kurz also voiced his regret at the loss of lives since the tragic events in April 2016 and expressed his condolences to the affected families. As I have stated on numerous occasions, there is no military solution to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. We should plan for peace now, and not allow war to return with all of its terrible consequences, Kurz added.

He also commended the work of Ambassador Andrzej Kasprzyk and his team, illustrated by the active facilitation of a humanitarian operation by the International Committee of the Red Cross in February 2017 to retrieve the remains of the deceased servicemen.

The OSCE Chairmanship stands ready to contribute to the efforts of the sides to further advance and implement the agreements reached during the summits in Vienna and St. Petersburg in 2016, concluded Kurz.

After the meetings of the Azerbaijani and Armenian presidents in Vienna and St. Petersburg, which took place after the April clashes, the negotiation process came to the dead end due to the denial of Yerevan to continue serious talks.

Armenia still controls fifth part of Azerbaijan's territory and rejects implementing four UN Security Council resolutions on withdrawal of its armed forces from the Nagorno-Karabakh and surrounding districts.

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Rashid Shirinov is AzerNews staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @RashidShirinov

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31 March 2017 17:33 (UTC+04:00)

By Rashid Shirinov

A growing number of people keep joining the Armenia-Azerbaijan Platform for Peace, created by Azerbaijan to accelerate the process of peaceful settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict through the people's diplomacy.

President of the International Sustainable Energy Organization (ISEO) Gustav R. Grob made a statement on March 30 about his joining the Platform.

After centuries of hatred and wars it is time for world-wide peace, tolerance and fruitful cooperation, his statement reads.

Grob expressed his respect and support to territorial integrity, sovereignty and internationally recognized borders of the conflicting countries and added that he believes in peaceful solution of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

He also emphasized the necessity of implementation of resolutions adopted by the UN Security Council, as well as resolutions and decisions of different international organizations.

I would like to note the importance of efforts of the OSCE Minsk Group regarding the settlement of the conflict, Grob stated.

Referring to the long tradition of coexistence of the peoples of Azerbaijan and Armenia, he noted with regret that the young generations in both countries have formed their perception about each other in the context of war resulting from the unresolved conflict.

Armenia-Azerbaijan Peace Platform is a unique opportunity to a fast peaceful resolution of Nagorno-Karabakh conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan, Grob stated.

The Armenia-Azerbaijan Peace Platform was founded on December 6 in Baku 2016 by a group of Azerbaijani and Armenian public figures and peacekeepers. It was created to bring together representatives of civil society of the two countries for creating dialogue between Azerbaijan and Armenia, the sides to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

However, this initiative was negatively perceived by the Armenian government, which started persecution of those Armenians who joined the Platform.

Chairman of Arabian Platform for Renewable and Efficient Energy and of Tunisian organization Women for Sustainable Development, Kamel Esseghairi also made a statement about joining the Armenia-Azerbaijan Platform for Peace.

He also highlighted the necessity of implementing the resolutions adopted by the UN Security Council and other international organizations and recalled the efforts of the OSCE Minsk Group.

I believe that this initiative will contribute to the solution of the conflict. Therefore, I make a statement about joining the Armenia-Azerbaijan Platform for Peace, which is aimed at a peaceful settlement of the Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict and restoring and preserving peace in South Caucasus, Esseghairi writes.

Thus, the Platform for Peace is gaining strength as increasing number of people from around the world, including Armenia, joins it. Apart from the official negotiations of the presidents and foreign ministers of the conflicting countries, the people's diplomacy is of high importance, and this has been stated by many international experts.

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Rashid Shirinov is AzerNews staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @RashidShirinov

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31 March 2017 10:43 (UTC+04:00)

By Laman Ismayilova

Baku hosted a reception marking the 25th anniversary of establishment of diplomatic relations between Azerbaijan and China.

The event brought together MPs, representatives of the diplomatic corps accredited in Azerbaijan. Firstly, participants viewed photo exhibition reflecting relations between the two countries, Azertac reported.

Ambassador of China to Azerbaijan Wei Jinghua, addressing the event, highlighted deep roots of diplomatic relations between the two countries. The diplomat stressed the role of national leader Heydar Aliyev in development of friendly relations between Azerbaijan and China.

He also spoke about the importance of state visit of President Ilham Aliyev to China.

Minister of Transport, Communication and high Technologies Ramin Guluzade extended congratulations on behalf of Azerbaijan`s Government. The Minister said relations between the two countries successfully developed across the last period on the base of principles of friendship and mutual fruitful partnership.

Guluzade also highlighted steadily developing relations between Azerbaijan and China.

Azerbaijan is situated in the center of the Great Silk Road. The country is an important participant of the international transport, logistics projects. Close cooperation also covered humanitarian, cultural, scientific-educational fields. Holding the days of culture in Azerbaijan and China, exchange of students programs describe level of our cooperation, he added.

The Minister also highlighted the role of reciprocal visits and documents signed in steadily development of ties between the two countries. He said there is great potential for further boosting ties.

We particularly appreciate China`s support to Azerbaijan`s just position in solving the Armenia-Azerbaijan, Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, he concluded.

The event featured a concert program.

Azerbaijan and China are enjoying good relations in different fields. The two countries opened a new page in their relations after President Ilham Aliyev visited China in December 2015. During the visit, several meetings, negotiations were held and 10 documents were signed. Cooperation issues almost in all spheres were discussed.

China is a huge opportunity and a priority market for Azerbaijan. More than 50 agreements were signed between the two countries so far. Azerbaijan Export and Investment Promotion Foundation (AZPROMO) has recently opened a representative office in China to support and encourage relations between the two countries businessmen, as well as expand Azerbaijani goods export to the Chinese market and attract China's leading investment funds to the Azerbaijan economy.

The trade turnover with China reached $565.1 million last year, while its unit weight in the total trade turnover of Azerbaijan amounted to 2.74 percent, according to the Azerbaijani State Customs Committee.

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Laman Ismayilova is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @Lam_Ismayilova

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31 March 2017 10:20 (UTC+04:00)

A new print edition of the AZERNEWS online newspaper was released on March 31.

The new edition includes articles about: Baku, popular destination for Russians for May holidays, Financial regulator proposes new tools to support banking sector, BTK railway to commission in summer, Diplomatic Pouch: Interview with newly-appointed Portuguese Ambassador to Baku Paula Leal de Silva etc.



AZERNEWS is an associate member of the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers (WAN-IFRA).



The online newspaper is available at www.azernews.az.
31 March 2017 18:17 (UTC+04:00)

By Laman Ismayilova

Temperatures are expected to be near average or warmer than average across Azerbaijan in April, according to an outlook released the Ecology and Natural Recourses Ministry.

The temperature will rise continuously day by day and may climb up to 30C during a warm afternoon some days. Rainfalls are forecasted to be close to the climatic norm, while a little more than norm in some regions.

In Baku and Absheron peninsula,the average monthly temperature is predicted to be +11-13C which is close to the climatic norm.

At nights the temperature will be +5-10C, +12-14 C in some days. In the afternoons the temperature will be +13-18C, +24-29C in some days.

Average monthly precipitation will be close to the climatic norm (23-33mm) and a little above the norm in some places.

Average monthly temperature in Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic is predicted to be +12-15C.

At nights the temperature will be +6-11C, -3+2 C in some days. In the afternoons the temperature will be +12-17C, but will rise up to +25-30C in some days.

Monthly rainfall is expected to be close to the climatic norm (norm 34-59 mm).

In Upper Karabakh: Khankandi, Shusha, Khojali, Khocavand; Gubadli, Zangilan, Lachin, Kalbajar and Dashkasan, Gadabay regions, monthly temperature predicted to be +6-10C which is nigh to the climatic norm.

At nights the temperature will be +5-10C,-16 degrees of frost in some days. In the afternoons temperature will be +10-15C, and will be +18-23C in some days.

Monthly rainfall is expected to be close to the climatic norm (norm 54-83 mm) and a little above the norm in some places.

As for Gazakh-Ganja, Goranboy,Tar-Tar-Agdam-Agjabadi-Fuzuli-Jabrail regions, here monthly temperature is predicted to be +12-14C which is close to the climatic norm.

At nights the temperature will be +7-12C, 0-3C in some days.

In the afternoons the temperature will be +13-18C, will be+23-28C in some days.

Monthly rainfall is expected to be close to the climatic norm (norm 31-54 mm) and a little above the norm in some places.

In Balakan, Zagatala, Qakh, Sheki, Oguz, Gabala, Ismailly, Agsu, Shamakhy, Siyazan, Shabran, Khizi, Guba, Khachmaz, Gusar regions, monthly temperature is predicted to be +9-12C which is close to the climatic norm.

At nights the temperature will be +6-11C, 1-6 degrees of frost. In the afternoons temperature will be from +10-15C, will be +21-26C in some days in the second and third decade. Monthly rainfall is expected to be close to the climatic norm (norm 29-126mm) and a little above the norm in some places.

In Central-Aran: Agdash, Mingachevir, Yevlakh, Kurdamir, Imishli, Beylagan, Sabirabad, Bilasuvar, Saatli, Shirvan, Hajgabul, Salyan, Neftchala regions, monthly temperature is predicted to be +13-15C.

At nights the temperature will be +8-13C, 2-5 C in some days. In the afternoons the temperature will be from +12-17C, will be +25-30C in some days. Monthly rainfall is expected to be close to the climatic norm (norm 30-49mm) and a little above the norm in some places.

Average monthly temperature in Masall-Lankaran-Astara-Lerik, Yardimli regions is predicted to be +10-13C which is close to the climatic norm.

At nights the temperature will be +7-12C, +1-3 C in some days, 1-6 degrees of rost in mountainous areas. In the afternoons the temperature will be from +10-15C, will rise up to +22-27C in some days. Monthly rainfall is expected to be close to the climatic norm (norm 41-72 mm).

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Laman Ismayilova is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @Lam_Ismayilova

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31 March 2017 12:19 (UTC+04:00)

By Gunay Camal

The Trans-Anatolian Pipeline (TANAP) project, designed to transport Azerbaijani gas to Turkey and then to Europe, will help to cover current deficit in Turkey and ensure natural gas security of the country, said Anar Mammadov, Director General of Petkim Holding.

He noted that in 2018, TANAP will be put into operation (section to Eskisehir) and first gas will be delivered to Turkey (on "Shah Deniz-2"), Azertac reported referring to Anadolu Agency

Stating that first stage will be commissioned in 2018 and is planned to be completed in 2020, Mammadov underscored that TANAP and other projects will help reduce the current account deficit, which is the most important problem in the Turkish economy.

The length of TANAP is 1,800 kilometers with the initial capacity of 16 billion cubic meters. Around six billion cubic meters of the gas will be delivered to Turkey and the remaining volume will be supplied to Europe.

TANAP shareholders are Azerbaijans state oil company SOCAR (58 percent), BOTAS (30 percent) and BP (12 percent).

The Petkim general manager further said that in Turkey, which they regard as having great potential, they have invested a total of $18 billion. Some $11 billion of that has been completed and they plan to complete all their projects by 2020.

He said that currently, SOCAR is the largest foreign investor in Turkey as well expressed confidence in Turkish economy: "We do not feel like strangers in Turkey. Turkey is a very close and brotherly country. Being an international company, SOCAR has been investing in many countries around the world, the largest volume of these investments made in Turkey".

Speaking about STAR oil refinery, which is under construction in Izmir, Petkim Head said that the plant will be launched in 2018.

He also spoke about importance of the Petlim Container Port and noted that this port allows more high-tonnage vessels to enter the Aegean region, which will reduce transportation costs.

Mammadov stressed that this and other projects will help to cover current deficit of the Turkish economy.

Speaking about importance of stability in the market, he stated that difficulties were observed last year due to fluctuations in oil prices and exchange rate, however, the situation normalized currently.

Mammadov expressed confidence in more stability this year, voicing belief that this year, oil prices will remain at around 50-60 USD/barrel.

SOCAR Turkey Enerji is involved in several projects conducted in Turkey such as Star oil refinery, Petkim petrochemical complex, Petlim container terminal, SOCAR Fiber etc.

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31 March 2017 11:25 (UTC+04:00)

By Kamila Aliyeva

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg reacted positively to U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillersons official visit to Turkey on March 30, Anadolu Agency reported.

Speaking ahead a NATO Foreign Ministers Summit in Brussels, Stoltenberg welcomed the discussion on fighting against Daesh and cooperation in Syria between two allies of the military alliance.

I just welcome that two allies the United States and Turkey sat together and discussed how to, in the best possible way, fight against ISIL [Daesh] and to make sure that they work together to fight in the best possible way in northern Syria, Stoltenberg said.

His statement comes amid Tillersons visit to Ankara where he met Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Prime Minister Binali Yildirim and Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu.

During his meeting with Turkish officials Tillerson discussed Turkeys fight against Daesh, the PKK, the Fetullah Terrorist Organization (FETO) and the extradition of FETO leader Fetullah Gulen who resides in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania.

Following the meeting, Cavusoglu stated that Washington is coming to agreement with Turkeys view that the terrorist PKK and its Syria wing, the YPG, are indistinguishable. He also said that Turkish authorities have made it clear to U.S. officials that it makes no sense to cooperate with one terrorist group -- the PKK/YPG -- to fight another -- Daesh.

As for Fetullah Gulens extradition, Cavusoglu said that Turkey has been sending the U.S. documents and evidence for Gulen's provisional arrest as well as extradition since last July.

"As our justice minister and Mr. Tillerson told us, the documents are still being examined in detail," he said adding that Turkey expects some concrete steps, at least some measures at the administrative level.

Led by U.S.-based Fetullah Gulen, FETO is accused of orchestrating the July 2016 coup plot in Turkey as well as being behind a long-running campaign to overthrow the state through the infiltration of Turkish institutions, particularly the military, police, and judiciary.

The Turkish government has repeatedly requested Gulens extradition, while the Obama administration has said extradition is a lengthy, demanding legal procedure.

Foreign ministers of 28 member states of the intergovernmental military alliance will come together at its headquarters in Brussels on Friday to discuss defense spending and the fight against terrorism.

Turkish FM Cavusoglu is expected to attend the meeting which will also pave the way for a Brussels gathering of NATO leaders on May 25.

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Kamila Aliyeva is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @Kami_Aliyeva

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31 March 2017 14:00 (UTC+04:00)

By Kamila Aliyeva

Turkmenistan studies the work of international seaports, as the Turkish company Gap Insaat Yatirim ve Dis Ticaret A.S organized a tour for staff of a number of ministries and departments of Turkmenistan to study the activities of the seaports of Turkey and Europe.

The program included visits to such ports as Mersin and Haydarpasha in Turkey, Constanta in Romania, Rostock in Germany and Trieste in Italy, the Turkmen State Customs Service reported.

Turkmenistans new Turkmenbashi Seaport on the Caspian Sea is being developed to become one of the major ports of the world and the biggest one of the region. Gap Insaat is building an international sea port since 2013.

The cost of the project, according to various estimates, is $2 billion.

The project will create more than 2,500 jobs. The estimated capacity of the port will be 17-18 million tons. Together with the previous port, the figure will reach 25-26 million tons.

The project of the new international sea port in Turkmenbashi envisages the construction of ferry, passenger and container terminals. The complex will also include a general loading terminal, a terminal for bulk cargo as well as shipbuilding and vessel maintenance plants. A road with overpasses will also be built and railway tracks will be laid.

The total area of the multifunctional port will be more than 1.4 million square meters. The total length of the quay line will amount to 3,800 meters.

The project was developed in accordance with the international standard - Green port.

The international ferry and passenger port will be able to serve 300,000 passengers and 75,000 trailers a year. The container terminal has an average annual capacity of 400,000 TEU.

The new port, which is deemed as maritime gates of Turkmenistan and a strategically important element of the transport system, is expected to increase the bandwidth capacity and develop international economic and trade relations, diversify and improve the access of the country to world markets. It will be used to export oil products, liquefied gas and textiles.

The multimodal center will carry out a complex of services for the storage and combined processing of containerized cargoes delivered by air, road and rail, ensuring their transshipment to and from water transport.

With the commissioning of the sea port, there will be great opportunities for sending cargoes arriving to Turkmenbashi along the Silk Road route from the countries of Asia and the Pacific, further, to Europe via ports of Russia, Azerbaijan and Iran.

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Kamila Aliyeva is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @Kami_Aliyeva

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The Death of General Mercer at the Battle of Princeton, January 3, 1777. By John Trumbull. Depicting the death of the American General Hugh Mercer at the Battle of Princeton on January 3, 1777 during the American Revolutionary War. Source: Wikimedia Commons.

We all remember the Hessian mercenaries, those drunken, bayonet-wielding louts hired by George the Third to put down his rebellious American colonies. Every American schoolchild learns about these monsters, and how they suffered their come-uppance in Trenton in 1776, when their Christmas debauch came to an abrupt and bloody end in a battle their rum-blurred eyes never even saw coming.

The Capture of the Hessians at Trenton, December 26, 1776. By John Trumbull. Depicting the capture of the Hessian soldiers at the Battle of Trenton on the morning of December 26, 1776 during the American Revolutionary War. Source: Wikimedia Commons.

For over 200 years, weve painted the German soldiers in America with a mighty broad brush. Im sure that there were barbarians among them, but there were also educated men who spent their time on this side of the Atlantic studying this exotic continent and its inhabitantswhen they werent drinking and fighting and skewering patriot children, that is.

Portrait of Baron Friedrich Adam Julius von Wangenheim. Frontispiece of volume 39 of the Oconomische Enzyklopadie of 1787. Source: http://www.kruenitz1.uni-trier.de/.

The botanists among these scholarly soldiers are the best known today. Baron Friedrich Adam Julius von Wangenheim (1747/1749-1800), educated in forestry science in his native Saxony, arrived in New York in June 1777, and would eventually see combat on the British side at Brandywine and Charleston. When he wasnt in battle, though, he wrote that:

without neglecting my official duties, I spent every leisure hour in acquiring both a theoretical and a practical knowledge of the woody plants growing in that temperate region of North America.

In May 1780, stationed in northern Manhattan, he completed his first book, A Description of Certain North American Trees and Shrubs, which appeared in print in 1781.

Title page, A Description of Certain North American Trees and Shrubs by Baron Friedrich Adam Julius von Wangenheim.

On returning to Europe in 1784, von Wangenheim expanded that work, which had covered 72 species, into a comprehensive treatise on the woody plants of North America and the possibility of transplanting them into German forests for timber and fuel.

Title page, Beytrag zur teutschen holzgerechten Forstwissenschaft, die Anpflanzung Nordamericanischer Holzarten mit Anwendung auf teutsche Forste. By Baron Friedrich Adam Julius von Wangenheim.

These publications and a mass of articles and essays made von Wangenheim a name and earned him an appointment as chief forester of East Prussia. There he made his most important contribution to zoology, a thorough study of the European elk in Lithuania.

The moose deer or European elk (Cervus alces). From Pennant, Thomas. Arctic zoology. v. 1 (1874). http://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/29568042. Digitized by Smithsonian Libraries.

Von Wangenheim brought his American experience to bear in his account, noting in his practical way that the species is called the moose deer in the New World, where native Americans use its skin for clothing, gloves, moccasins, blankets, and tents.

Portrait of Johann David Schoepf. Source: U.S. National Library of Medicine. https://collections.nlm.nih.gov/catalog/nlm:nlmuid-101428527-img.

More ambitious still, and less intensely focused on the economic use of the plants and animals around him, was Johann David Schoepf (1752-1800), field surgeon to one of the most notoriously bloodthirsty of the German regiments. Like von Wangenheim, Schoepf arrived in New York in June 1777. Once the war was over, inspired by the famous tours of Bartram and Catesby, Schoepf spent a year traveling west to Kentucky and south eventually to the Bahamas. Trained, like so many physicians of his day, in botany, Schoepf was naturally most interested in American plants and their medical uses; among the professional colleagues he most eagerly sought out were William Bartram and Henry Melchior Muhlenberg, but he also collected plant lore from native Americans, country doctors, and old wives.

Title page of Materia medica americana potissimvm regni vegetabilis. (1787). By Johann David Schopf. http://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/16502307. Digitized by University of Pittsburgh Library System .

Schoepf published his observations in 1787, in a comprehensive manual of the New Worlds medicinal resources. Schoepf lists more than 350 plants, fungi, and lichens used in medicine, and ends his compendium with remarks on remedies derived from animal and mineral materials, ranging from human fat (an obsolete, superstitious practice) and dried rattlesnake flesh to amber and coal.

Today, Schoepf is most famous not for his pharmacopeia but for another book, the last he published before his early death in 1800. On his return to Europe in the summer of 1784, Schoepf took with him 64 live turtles, specimens that provided the basis for his Illustrated Natural History of the Turtles, published in Erlangen in 1792.

Title page of Ioannis Davidis Schoepff Historia testvdinvm iconibvs illvstrata. (1792) (Illustrated Natural History of Turtles). By Johann David Schopf. http://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/32540981. Digitized by Harvard University, Museum of Comparative Zoology, Ernst Mayr Library.

Among the species he treated there was one he named Testudo terrapin; Schoepf based his description and plate on two shells he had collected on Long Island and on two others sent him by Muhlenberg (perhaps from the market in Philadelphia).

Testudo terrapin. Naturgeschichte der Schildkroten. (1792-1801). By Johann David Schopf. http://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/38925513. Digitized by Smithsonian Libraries.

This was the first scientific description of the handsome species now known as the diamondback terrapin.

While von Wangenheim barely mentioned birds in his accounts of North American nature, Schoepf was more interested in things feathered. He found northern cardinals and blue grosbeaks in the Carolinas, and appears to have made close observations of turkey vultures, pointing out that the large, moist nostrils suggest that though not proved, it is nevertheless likely that they locate their aromatic prey by smell. Less credible is Schoepfs claim that he and his companions encountered ivory-billed woodpeckers in eastern Pennsylvania.

Ivory-billed woodpecker (Campephilus principalis). Catesby, Mark. The Natural History of Carolina, Florida, and the Bahama Islands. Ed. 1, v. 1 (1729-1747). http://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/40753165. Digitized by Smithsonian Libraries.

The occasional misidentification aside, early American ornithology suffered a significant loss when Schoepf entrusted to Jacob Rubsamen his manuscript containing numerous and precisely written descriptions of almost all the birds he had seen in America. Rubsamen, a German immigrant whose Virginia gunpowder mill had been destroyed by the British at the end of the war, was to have sent those pages on to Schoepf in Charleston, but they never arrived.

One Hessian soldier who did make a significant contribution to American ornithology will probably remain forever anonymous.

Fringilla iliaca. Avium rariorum et minus cognitarum. (1786). By Merrem, Blasius. http://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/46489269. Digitized by Smithsonian Libraries.

Sometime before 1786, this unknown naturalist shipped the preserved skin of a large and colorful bunting to Blasius Merrem, the first professor of zoology at the university of Marburg. Merrem recognized the specimen as the representative of a new species, which he named Fringilla iliaca for the heavy reddish chevrons marking its breast and side. Who knows how long science might have had to wait for a description of the red fox sparrow had George the Third not leaned on his teutonic cousins for help?

In February 1784, five months after the treaty ending the American Revolution was signed in Paris, the great Welsh litterateur Thomas Pennant regretted that the fatal and humiliating hour had not only deprived Britain of power, strength, and glory, but had mortified him into abruptly stopping work on what was to have been a new Natural History of North America. Horrified as he was at the historic turn of events, Pennant was nevertheless confident that some native Naturalist in the New World would complete the work that he had begun. Little did he know that some German soldiers fighting in America had been working alongside him all along.
PYONGYANG -- The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) said late Thursday it has reached an agreement with Malaysia on the dispute over the death of a DPRK national in Kuala Lumpur last month.

In a joint communique issued by the Malaysian and DPRK negotiating parties, Malaysia has agreed to transfer the body of the deceased to his family after the latter produced all the required documentation.

"Both countries also agreed to lift the ban imposed on citizens of the other country and guarantee safety and security within their respective territory," said the communique carried by the Korean Central News Agency.

"This would allow the nine Malaysians presently in Pyongyang to return to Malaysia and DPRK citizens in Kuala Lumpur to depart Malaysia," it said.

The DPRK and Malaysia were plunged into a dispute over the death of a DPRK national in Kuala Lumpur on Feb. 13 at the city's airport.

The DPRK said Malaysia tried to hide the truth of the incident while Malaysia accused the DPRK of being behind in the mysterious death.

Both countries banned the citizens of the other side from leaving their country after Malaysia expelled the DPRK ambassador late February. The DPRK then declared the Malaysian ambassador in Pyongyang persona non granta.

In Kuala Lumpur, Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak said in a statement: "Following the completion of the autopsy on the deceased and receipt of a letter from his family requesting the remains be returned to North Korea (DPRK), the coroner has approved the release of the body."

Najib also wrote later on Twitter that the "diplomatic crisis (with Pyongyang) is over".

Malaysian media reported the body of the deceased DPRK national was put on board a Malaysian Airlines plane Thursday which left Kuala Lumpur.




Chase bank is in trouble once more after the agreement between the CBK and KCB ended. The bank which was placed under receivership and later taken by KCB for a certain period is now back in its chaotic condition.

Chase Bank customers will have to wait until September to access their funds still locked in the bank as KCB ended the contract. This after the Central Bank of Kenya (CBK) and the Kenya Deposit Insurance Corporation (KDIC) extended the receivership period by six months as begins the search for a new strategic investor. These steps were taken to enable the bank get back to its normal conditions.Following the receipt and evaluation of EOIs, a shortlist of qualifying investors (Shortlisted Investors) will be granted access to a comprehensive confidentiaThe Bank has continued to operate and grow deposits from the date of receivership, the central bank said in an Expression of Interest to investors. data room to develop a formal proposal to acquire Chase Bank (Kenya) Limited, the bank said in a statement.Prospective bidders will have until April 21 to show interest in acquiring the bank. The central bank has not made it clear what percentage of the bank will be up for sale.The Bank has continued to operate and grow deposits from the date of receivership, the CBK official said.The CBK has given its banking prospective processes of curbing losses in the Banking sector following several banking liquidated and customers walked home empty handed. Some of the Banks that placed under recievership include Dubai Bank (August 2015- Closed) and Emperial Bank (Receivership).
U can even build railways in air,on oceans, or underground but a country that can't feed its people is a failed state. #BudgetKE2017 March 30, 2017

Most of the Ksh1.2 trillion collected by KRA last year is in the hands of a few of us: Ruto, bae's fam, Duale, Murkomen and I #BudgetKE2017 March 30, 2017

Thinking like Prof. Ndii, why don't this gvt give everyone his share in this budget tujisot tujibudgetie, at least hawataiba #BudgetKE2017 March 30, 2017

Foreign travel 2.1b, domestic travel 1.5b, 4 b catering? Fund cancer prevention programs and hospital equipment instead #BudgetKE2017 March 31, 2017

#BudgetKE2017

And now 900B deficit. We will have to condemn our sperms to modern slavery, paying for what they didn't take part in. And now 900B deficit. We will have to condemn our sperms to modern slavery, paying for what they didn't take part in. pic.twitter.com/9BNES2VeCW March 30, 2017

#BudgetKE2017

Jubilee fulfilled promises

2013 "Price of unga will be ksh.50"

2017 - ksh.140

And they say economy is doing well.

Smh Jubilee fulfilled promises2013 "Price of unga will be ksh.50"2017 - ksh.140And they say economy is doing well.Smh March 30, 2017

I normally don't see any use of this budget because things are same whether read or unread #BudgetKE2017 March 30, 2017

pic.twitter.com/UGBTgaAm7G Lowering taxes for the poor, lowering price of ugali na mkate & taxing leisure is a laudable policy, but we are still worried #BudgetKE2017 March 31, 2017

The extra Ksh 21.4 billion to us by CS Rotich is not enough to ensure a free & fair election. GoK interference must be minimal #BudgetKE2017 March 30, 2017

After the Treasury Cabinet Secretary Henry Rotich finished reading the budget yesterday, the majority of Kenyans were not satisfied with it. Today Kenyans went on the social Media giving out their views. It is really embarrassing that everything the Jubilee government is trying to do is posed for elections now instead for the benefit of the ordinary Kenyan.According to the CS speech yesterday, the new price of Unga will take effect this week and it will last for four Months. People did not stop criticizing the budget in a negative way. Here are some of the posts of the views people posted.
Sens. Shelley Capito, R-W.V., and Cory Booker, D-N.J., have introduced legislation to fortify the laws against shark finning by banning any sale of shark fins in the United States. Photo by Ricardo Azoury/ostock

A few years ago, a group of very special citizens trekked from a number of states to Capitol Hill to lobby for a ban on shark finning in U.S. waters. Some of them had a bit of difficulty getting around, parts of their legs missing. Other took extra time to dress for the occasion, given the difficulties presented by such injuries as the loss of one arm.

Each one of these Americans had been a victim of a shark attack, and had lived to tell about it. Yet, in spite of their searing, life-changing experiences, they came to Washington to call upon other humans to stop maiming sharks.

It was an extraordinary expression of humanity. If even these folks  who had bitter experiences with animals  could advocate for protection, what about those of us whove known only joy and kinship with animals. Couldnt we advocate for them, too, and with no troubling experience to overcome?

These citizen-lobbyists will now have an opportunity to dust off their talking points and get back to Capitol Hill, since Sens. Shelley Capito, R-W.V., and Cory Booker, D-N.J., have introduced legislation to fortify the laws against finning by banning any sale of shark fins in the United States. That bill has very impressive support, with five Senate Republicans and six Senate Democrats backing it. With nearly a dozen states having enacted bans on the sale of fins, theres fantastic momentum for this bill.

This was quite a week on Capitol Hill, with lawmakers introducing more than a half-dozen major pieces of animal protection legislation on a wide range of subjects of concern to animal advocates.

Reps. Raul Grijalva, D-Ariz., and Ryan Costello, R-Pa., introduced legislation to ban circuses from exploiting wild animals. With Ringling Bros.  long the political protector of wild animal acts  shutting down its business by May, theres a new political environment and new opportunities to get this bill done.

In another bipartisan effort, Reps. Jeff Denham, R-Calif., Walter Jones, R-N.C., and Niki Tsongas, D-Mass., teamed up on Thursday to introduce the Big Cat Public Safety Act, to prohibit the possession and breeding of such animals by private individuals and other unqualified parties. Theres just no reason for private citizens to have tigers or lions in their backyards or basements.

Earlier this week, I wrote about Sens. Mike Lee, R-Utah, and Booker, and Reps. Dave Brat, R-Va., and Dina Titus, D-Nev., introducing companion bills to address the diversion of tens of millions of dollars in government funds to salaries, lobbying, and other inappropriate and impermissible activities undertaken through commodity check-off programs. This legislation, which has brought The HSUS and HSLF together with the Heritage Foundation and the Organization of Competitive Markets, would prevent the National Cattlemens Beef Association, the National Pork Producers Council, and other trade groups from diverting funds from check-off programs to fund their staff and lobbying efforts, especially when so many rank-and-file farmers oppose this tax in the first place and certainly dont want the money spent to fight things they care about.

Yesterday, I wrote about an additional show of legislative horsepower, with U.S. Reps. Ted Yoho, R-Fla., and Kurt Schrader, D-Ore., introducing the Prevent All Soring Tactics (PAST) Act. Nearly half the lawmakers in the U.S. House joined Reps. Yoho and Schrader in a quest to close loopholes in the almost 50-year-old Horse Protection Act that have enabled the cruelty of horse soring to persist.

Also in the House, Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., introduced a bill to ban the use of sodium cyanide in M-44 devices and poisonous Compound 1080 in livestock collars for predator control by the USDAs Wildlife Services program. Earlier this month, there were reports of three dogs killed by M-44s, deadly devices used by the program to kill wild animals.

These bills, varied in the reforms they seek, amount to a robust animal protection agenda, along with more than a half-dozen other major bills previously introduced in the House (including banning the sale of dog and cat meat, prohibiting the slaughter of horses, creating a new federal anti-cruelty law, and allowing domestic violence centers to add animal sheltering capacity). Theyre all common-sense measures, with a diverse coalition of backers.

With Congress recently having taken adverse action against animals by opening up national wildlife refuges in Alaska to appalling and unsporting practices  by repealing a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service rule that stopped barbaric methods of killing  legislators now have a chance to show some heart for animals by passing these sensible reforms. The bills introduced this week are just part of a broader agenda that makes sense for our country and for animals.
Pasco County school officials are warning parents of a case of tuberculosis that has possibly affected people at three schools.

Three Pasco schools affected by tuberculosis

Students, staff potentially exposed on a shared school bus

Health Department to test the 31 people possibly infected

The Health Department said 31 students and staff were potentially exposed on a school bus shared by Deer Park Elementary School and Cotee River Elementary School, as well as Marchmann Technical College.

The Health Department wants to test all of those people who may have been in contact with the infected person.

TB is spread through the air by water droplets from a cough or sneeze. It usually infects the lungs, but can also infect other major organs and even the brain.

You cant get TB from sharing a glass with someone infected or a hand shake, officials said. Its a bacteria that you would need direct contact with to contract.

Symptoms can be very similar to the upper respiratory flu, which is a cough that lasts three weeks or more. Symptoms of an infection include coughing up and chest pain when breathing.

The Health Department said it was only students and staff on the school bus that have reason for concern. A school wide testing at the three schools has not been called for.

School officials said parents and employees at the affected schools should be receiving letters that include information about the illness.

The Health Department said this is just a precaution.
A death row inmate convicted of slaying Brevard County Deputy Barbara Pill five years ago this month will get a new sentencing hearing.

The Florida Supreme Court on Thursday ordered a new sentencing hearing for Brandon Lee Bradley because the ruling from the jury that recommended death was not unanimous. The jurors voted 10-2.

Another death-row inmate, Dwayne White of Deltona, also will be resentenced. He was convicted in the August 2011 stabbing death of his estranged wife, Sarah Rucker, whose body was found in the parking lot of a Longwood Miami Subs.

Pill pulled over Bradley during a traffic stop March 6, 2012. A dashboard camera showed that Pill repeatedly ordered him to get of his car, and he refused. When she reached into his car to turn off the ignition, he shot her multiple times.

"Do they really want people to stop killing cops? If we began executing them in a timely manner, it might take targets off cops' backs," said Steve Pill, Barbara's husband, after hearing news of the death penalty case.

At a news conference at the Brevard County Jail on Thursday, law enforcement officials had strong words for the ruling.

Bradley "is a thug who deserves to die for taking the life of Barbara Pill, someone who had given her life for protecting others," Brevard Sheriff Wayne Ivey said.

State Attorney Phil Archer said he hasnt made a decision on the case yet and wants to get input from the Pill family. But he added it's very likely he'll seek death.

"My office will carefully and thoroughly review the available evidence, obtain input from family survivors and law enforcement, and then make a determination on whether to again seek the death penalty in each of these cases. However, as it pertains to the Brandon Bradley case, it is hard to imagine a scenario in which my office would not continue to seek the death penalty," Archer said in a statement.

"I am waiting to see what the State Attorney's Office will do," Steve Pill said.

The convictions of both Bradley and White were upheld. Both cases were sent back to the 18th Judicial Circuit for resentencing hearings.

If a new jury's recommendation isn't unanimous, Bradley will receive life without parole.
President Donald Trumps proposed budget seeks to slash the biggest federal investment in after-school programs and summer learning the $1.1 billion 21st Century Community Learning Center program. The Trump administration argues the program is not very effective, but some advocates and educators beg to differ.

So is the program working? What would happen if the money went away?

Heres a look at the program and what it offers:

What is the 21st Century Community Learning Center Program?

The program, which has been around since the early 1990s, distributes money by formula to states to cover the cost of afterschool and summer programs, primarily for children in high-poverty communities. The U.S. Department of Education has funded about 9,556 centers through the program and served 1.6 million children, according to the Afterschool Alliance, an advocacy organization in Washington . About three-quarters of the students who participate are eligible for free or reduced-price lunch, the organization said in a report published earlier this year.

The Every Student Succeeds Actthe latest update to the Elementary and Secondary Education Actadded a twist to the program. It can now be used for afterschool like components of extended learning time programs, the Afterschool Alliance explained.

What do these afterschool and summer programs offer?

These afterschool and summer programs can offer students everything from tutoring to meals and enrichment. Some even provide classes for parents.

For instance, Schools in Homes & Education, or SHINE, run by Lehigh Carbon Community College, offers kids who need an academic jump-start free after-school tutoring. The students also get to try their hand at some science, math, and engineering enrichment projects, including building and racing derby cars. And the program offers English as a Second Language instruction, as well as GED classes for parents.

A trio of after-school and summer programs in Cranston, R.I., that receives almost 100 percent of its funding from the 21st Century program has a similar STEM focus. Students might help design a greenhouse, or build a solar panel from scratch. Older students add a service learning component, working on neighborhood beautification for example. Now the students are working on letters to lawmakers, asking them to preserve 21st Century Community Learning Centers funding, said Ayana Crichton, the program director.

Its devastating to them to see the program get cut [in Trumps proposal], Crichton said.

Some school districts also benefit from the program, including the Kennett School District in southeastern Missouri, which receives a $400,000 grant. The district offers students an hour of tutoring in the morning, and another hour in the afternoon, plus enrichment. Students are then given a hot dinner and transportation home.

We have a tremendous, tremendous after school program, said Chris Wilson, the district superintendent. If 21st century goes away, all of that goes away.

What is the Trump administrations rationale for getting rid of 21st Century Community Learning Centers program?

The administrations budget request says that the program lacks strong evidence of meeting its objectives, such as improving student achievement. U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos said in a general statement on the budget that the administration is putting its money on the highest value programs.

Mick Mulvaney, the director of the White House Office of Management and Budget was asked specifically about 21st Century during a March 16 press briefing.

Mulvaney said that there isnt evidence that afterschool programs do anything to improve student achievement.

Theyre supposed to be educational programs, right? Thats what theyre supposed to do. Theyre supposed to help kids who dont get fed at home get fed so they do better in school, Mulvaney said. Guess what? Theres no demonstrable evidence theyre actually doing that. Theres no demonstrable evidence of actually helping results, helping kids do better in school.

What does the research about the programand afterschool programs in generalsay?

Like a lot of other things in education, it depends on who you ask.

There is a great deal of evidence from rigorous evaluations showing that after school programs promote a range of important developmental, learning and educational outcomes for kids, said Heather Weiss, a co-director of the Global Family Research Project. She noted that these outcomes include gains in reading and math achievement, school attendance, in socio-emotional development and skills, and in health and wellness.

But Mark Dynarski, who helped conduct evaluations of the program in the early 2000s as a researcher for Mathematica, doesnt think it has done much to impact student achievement.

The program didnt affect student outcomes, Dynarski, now a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, wrote in a March 2015 blog post . Except for student behavior, which got worse. He referred to reports on the program released in 2003 and 2005.

Weiss, however, noted these reports were done many years ago and offer only a snapshot of the program in its early years. After-school programs, including those that receive 21st Century Community Learning Center funds, have gotten a lot more sophisticated since then, she explained.

Theyve been focusing on quality improvement and using their own and others evaluations and data to insure quality and get bigger and sustainable impact, Weiss wrote in an email.

Whats more, student outcomes are only part of the picture when it comes to the programs effectiveness. For instance, recent research has shown two generational benefits. When parents place their children in high-quality after-school programs, they arent as worried about what their children are doing after school, and are more productive at work, Weiss said. And their children get the benefit of being in a safe, nurturing learning environment after school, she added.

Other evidence backs up the claim that the 21st Century program can help improve outcomes for kids. More than a third of students in the program36.5 percentreported improvement in mathematics grades, according to an overview of student data for the 2013-14 school year, published by the U.S. Department of Education . A similar proportion36.8 percentsaw improvement in English grades, according to the same report.

And some individual programs say they have seen evidence of better student outcomes. For instance, the students who participated in the summer program in Cranston, R.I., saw gains of about 35 percent on a reading and math assessment, Crichton said.

Will the 21st Century Community Learning Centers program really be eliminated?

Its tough to say at this early stage. Congress had actually considered getting rid of the language in the Elementary and Secondary Education Act that authorizesCongress-speak for creates"the program when it wrote the latest version of the law, the Every Student Succeeds Act. But the 21st Community Learning Center program was saved by its fans, including Rep. Lou Barletta, R-Pa., an ally of the president who helped co-found the Trump caucus in the House. (Barletta has visited SHINE, which serves children in his district.)

And earlier this month Barletta teamed up with Rep. David Cicilline, D-R.I., on a letter to Mulvaney, asking him to restore the 21st Century Community Learning Centers program .

Photo: Second grader Frank Pranzo builds a large pyramid from plastic cups during a Project SHINE after-school program at the LB Morris Elementary School in Jim Thorpe, Pa., earlier this week. Charles Mostoller for Education Week

Follow us on Twitter at @PoliticsK12 .
UPDATED

U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos told an audience at the Brookings Institution Wednesday that she wouldnt necessarily approve every states plan for the Every Student Succeeds Act right off the bat. And at the same event, she continued to push her favorite policy: school choice. (More from Andrew here. )

DeVos didnt say specifically that states would have to embrace choice in their plans in order to pass muster with the department. But the juxtaposition still had some folks nervous, including Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., who told Politico that she hopes DeVos clarifies her comments and makes it clear that she does not plan to threaten states or hold their proposals hostage unless they conform to her privatization agenda. UPDATE: A department official did, indeed, clarify DeVos remarks to US News and World Report. DeVos wants to encourage states to consider choice in developing plans for the law, the official said.

Could DeVos legally reject a states plan because it didnt include choice, even if she wanted to?

Short answer: That would be a violation of ESSA, some experts say.

Longer answer: Both Democrats and Republicans who worked on ESSA say doing that would violate the long, long list of prohibitions on the Education Departments authority in the law, one of which says the secretary cant tell states what kinds of interventions they can or cant use with their lowest-performing schools.

To be sure, there are definitely parts of ESSA that choice lovin states and districts can get excited about. The law allows states to set aside Title I money for course choice, free tutoring, and public school choice. It permits states and districts to offer public school choice to students in struggling schools, or turn low-performing schools into charters or magnets. And it gives 50 districts the chance to try out a weighted student funding pilot. The pilot could smooth the way for choice programs in districts that are interested in creating them, but doesnt have to be used for choice. (More on how DeVos can use ESSA to push choice here .)

Importantly, though, all those things are totally and completely optional.

DeVos can use her megaphone as education secretary to draw attention to the parts of ESSA that states and districts that are gung-ho on choice can use to their advantage. But she cant reject a states application if they say thanks-but-no-thanks to setting aside some Title I funds for course choice.

She can cajole, plead, request, etc. but she cannot require, said a Senate GOP aide who worked on ESSA.

UPDATE: A Democratic aide was less certain. Weve been examining the law for months in anticipation of a successful [effort to scrap the Obama administrations accountability rules], the aide said. We have been examining this issue and believe the department may have sufficient wiggle room to push a choice agenda through plan approval, including private school choice.

Another expert, Anne Hyslop, a former Obama administration official who worked on ESSA and is now at Chiefs for Change, tweeted that she has difficulty a way for the department to reject a states plan based on a lack of choice.

@benjaminjriley short answer: based only on statute, having a hard time finding the hook. Choice is totally optional in title I.  Anne Hyslop (@afhyslop) March 29, 2017

Hyslop also pointed out that the word choice doesnt even appear in the ESSA application template the Trump administration released this month:

@benjaminjriley To boot, the new plan template doesnt mention choice at all, & parents only twice (re: tests in native languages & n-size)  Anne Hyslop (@afhyslop) March 30, 2017

Education Secretary Betsy DeVos talks with Russ Whitehurst, senior fellow in the Center on Children and Families in the Economic Studies program at the Brookings Institution, on March 29 in Washington.

-- Maria Danilova/AP

Follow us on Twitter at @PoliticsK12 .
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Not too surprisingly, the cruise industry has been a boon to the Port of Galveston.

Between Carnival Cruise Line and Royal Caribbean Cruises, Galveston offers people from all over the region numerous opportunities to explore a slate of tropical ports on three to 14-day tours.

In its first quarter of 2017, Carnival is showing strong growth.

WHAT NYT GOT RIGHT AND WRONG: The New York Times highlights some of Galveston's best restaurants and attractions

"We are off to a good start delivering another quarter of operational improvement on top of a very strong first quarter last year," Carnival Corporation & plc President and Chief Executive Officer Arnold Donald said in a statement. "Our performance was driven by increased demand, particularly for our core Caribbean itineraries, leading to higher year-over-year ticket prices which enabled us to overcome the significant negative impact of both fuel and currency to exceed the high end of our guidance range."

That might be why the company expanded its destinations to include the Panama Canal. It's part of a 14-day voyage on the line's "Carnival Freedom," and it only launches once a year.

"We get quite a few inquiries each month about Panama Canal cruises from Galveston," Dru Walters, Cruise Agent at GalvestonCruises.com said. "When Carnival announced new itineraries with the canal, we held a small block of cabins because we knew they would go fast."

The historic waterway was built from 1903 through 1914 as a way of traveling from the Atlantic to the Pacific coasts without having to circumnavigate South America.

GO DIRECT: Non-stop flights from Houston for summer travel 2017

This year's trip to the Panama Canal in Colon, Panama will embark Oct. 28 and will include stops in Aruba and Bonaire. Seating is very limited, and reservations can be made at 409-763-8678.

As for Royal Caribbean, it's now offering four and six-night cruises to Havana, Cuba. Although these only depart from Miami. Here's hoping they add a route from Galveston sometime soon.

See the video above for tips on what to take on a cruise.
Iowa state officials agreed to bail out three private Medicaid managed-care companies through a risk-corridor agreement. The decision would cost the state approximately $10 million, but it could cost the federal government up to $225 million, The Des Moines Register reports.

Here's what you should know.

1. USA Today reports the federal money would come through the Affordable Care Act. Gov. Terry Branstad, R, opposed the ACA when first passed, but has since used ACA provided funds to help Iowa, The Register reports.

2. The agreements would help payers offset an estimated $450 million in losses.

3. Iowa privatized its Medicaid and Medicare programs in April 2016. The three companies that manage Iowa's Medicaid programs complained of "catastrophic" losses in the state, which spurred the agreement.
Physician recruitment is one of the key growth strategies for ASCs. Surgery centers can either attract physicians to bring cases or new physician investors to boost case volume, add specialties or prepare for the center's founders to retire.

Learn more about spine, orthopedic and pain ASC management at the 15th Annual Spine, Orthopedic and Pain Management-Driven ASC Conference + The Future of Spine on June 22-24. Click here to learn more and register.

Here are key concepts for recruiting, credentialing and onboarding new physicians.

Physician recruitment timeline

Pre-recruitment

1. Decide what type of physician you're looking for based on a conversation with current physicians and analysis of the ASC's needs. Outline the skills and necessary certifications candidates must have before accepting applications.

2. Determine whether to develop a recruitment team in house or hire a firm. If you hire a recruitment firm, you can choose to retain the firm or work with a contingency firm, which accepts its payment after the physician is placed at your center.

3. Discuss why your center needs a new provider with all current providers. In some cases, the new provider will replace one that left the center; in other cases, the ASC may need to increase case volume or net revenue per physician.

4. Outline how the current physicians will mentor the new physician, especially if it's that physician's first time in the ASC environment. The mentoring process could include regular meetings, training on equipment and introduction to the staff and anesthesiologists.

Recruitment

5. Current physicians can begin the process by networking with their colleagues to see who might be interested in joining the ASC.

6. Connect with a firm if internal recruitment isn't fruitful.

7. Once a candidate is identified and meets all the prerequisites, bring the physician and the physician's spouse to the center for in-person meetings. Give them a chance to learn more about the center and current physician partners. If the candidate is from out of town, show him/her around the local community.

8. Be sure to double-check the physician's credentials and verify the physician doesn't have outstanding malpractice issues. At this point, check references as well as speak with the nurses and administrative staff the physician previously worked with to learn more about how the candidate works in the operation room.

9. Query the National Practitioner Data Bank and the Office of the Inspector General for any Medicare violations, licensing issues or disciplinary action against the physician.

10. When the current partners agree to move forward with a candidate, follow up to gauge the candidate's interest. It may take additional trips to the center and discussion about the center's strategic goals to help the candidate make a final decision.

Follow up

11. Invite the physician for a second visit if necessary.

12. Schedule a few dates for the physician to bring patients to the center for a "trial run" to identify any potential issues before the physician comes on full time. The trial runs will also give the physician a chance to see workflow at the ASC and decide whether the arrangement will truly work with his/her practice.

13. Credential the physician at your center. The credentialing process could take months, so begin the process as soon as both sides make an agreement.

14. Decide on a start date when both sides are ready to accommodate the arrangement. The surgeon may not be ready to invest in the center right away, but can perform cases there and discuss investment again later on when the physician is in a better spot financially or feels more comfortable about making the commitment.

How to attract new physicians

15. Current physicians can network with colleagues at the local hospital, society meetings and other events to identify potential candidates for the center. Conversations about the benefits of performing cases at the ASC, and eventually investing in a center, can make a big difference.

16. Surgery center administrators and leaders can also consistently reach out to physicians beyond their center's doors will yield better results. Connect with the physicians' practices with current partners and any new physicians who come to the area to form a relationship that could eventually lead to a future partnership.

17. Include the physician's staff in the recruitment efforts. The ASC works with physician offices to credential physicians, schedule cases and collect patient information before surgery, so the relationship with staff members is very important.

18. The best way to outshine competition is by being the most attractive offer. Physicians often want to use ASCs because they can perform their cases more efficiently, are able to use new technology and don't have to deal with the bureaucracy of the hospital. ASCs with a welcoming environment, friendly staff, good reputation and high patient satisfaction scores can help new physicians build their practice. Eventually, ownership at the center and receiving distribution payments could be an attraction.

How to make sure the surgeon will be a good fit

19. Take a hard look at the surgeon's reputation and surgical skill. It's easier for ASCs to bring on surgeons with established practices because they will have a more immediate impact; junior surgeons trying to build their practice often perform fewer cases initially.

20. The dynamic at the ASC will change when the new surgeon joins. If the new surgeon is bringing a new specialty to the center, it will require resources to purchase new equipment, train staff and become familiar with the details associated with that specialty. If the surgeon's specialty already exists at the center, make sure there will be enough volume so the current partners don't have to compete with the new physician.

21. A new surgeon's personality will also change the group dynamic. Consider whether the new surgeon's clinical and business philosophies will align with the current partners. It may also be important to assess the new surgeon's personal preferences  such as work/life boundaries, leisure activities and politics  won't disrupt the current culture.

22. Connect with the surgeon's previous OR teams to gauge any personality issues. The surgeon's personality in the operating room impacts staff members and the ASC's reputation. Surgeons are often accustomed to running the show with an iron fist, but disruptive personalities in the operating room leave the door open for harassment and malpractice suits.

23. Surgeons must communicate well with patients, other physicians and staff members. ASCs run a lean and efficient business, so communication is essential to keep patient flow. Staff members need to know how to schedule the surgeon's cases, what materials surgeons need and any other preoperative requirements to avoid cancellations.

24. Design a protocol to meet the specific surgeon's needs to ensure their cases will contribute to the surgery center's financial well-being. Contact the physician's office to learn more about their preferences and how their orders are typically handled to make the transition as smooth as possible.

Physician credentialing

Requirements

25. The Joint Commission released a tool for surgery centers covering physician credentialing and accreditation updates:

 Define the surgeon's scope of care.

 Identify licensed independent practitioners and make sure they are practicing within state laws and regulations.

 Each licensed independent practitioner should have an identified scope of practice that meets state laws and regulations.

 Define qualifications for licensed independent practitioners to practice at your facility, including education and training as well as board certification.

 Place a formal request for privileges from each practitioner to provide care. The request can be in a letter form, application or documented conversation with the medical director.

Tips for an efficient credentialing process

26. Assign someone at the ASC to keep track of credentialing every clinician at the center. This person can update credentials and license information when necessary and take new physicians through the credentialing process.

27. It takes 60 to 90 days for surgery centers to collect all credentialing material required. ASCs can grant temporary permission for surgeons to perform cases without all credentials in place, but it's prudent to conduct a background check on surgeons first to establish they don't have a higher number of adverse events that could put the center at risk.

28. There are several forms physicians and their offices must fill out to obtain credentials at the ASC. Stress the importance of filling the forms out fully before returning them to the ASC; otherwise, there will be more back-and-forth between the physician's office and ASC, adding time to the process.

29. Keep credentials up-to-date to avoid medicolegal issues. If malpractice occurs and the physician's credentials are outdated, the ASC could run into legal issues.

30. Keep a calendar of the important licensure updates and credentialing dates to track updates throughout the year. There are automated systems available to help with this process and notify administrators 30 days before a physician's license, board certification, certificate of insurance and more expires to allow ample time for renewal.

31. Each state has different requirements for physician credentials, but many follow similar rules to accrediting bodies. Make sure you know the rules for your state and accrediting body so you're prepared when the surveyor arrives.

32. Regularly audit files to ensure there aren't omissions in a physician's credentials. Staff members may initially overlook a mistake or forget to update credentials.

Mistakes to avoid

33. Here are 10 common credentialing mistakes that surgery centers make:



 Not having an appropriate employee who is skilled and knowledgeable in the credentialing role.

 Not having a predefined process for application requests.

 Not having intuitive and user-friendly credentialing software.

 Not updating clinical privilege forms.

 Not having completed files before committee action.

 Not following regulatory and accreditation standards.

 Not following the facility's governance documents.

 Not linking quality to appointment of physicians.

 Not understanding the approval process.

 Not engaging everyone in credentialing.
Why is it important for public schools to be concerned about graduating students with a developed set of ethics? College and career readywhat does that really mean? Immediate thoughts go to skills and information. Secondary thoughts may include maturity and judgment. But, we remember those college decisions and moments that called for an internal compass. There were no parents to account to and no elder watching. It was when we were testednot on what we knew or on some standardized test, but on who we were and would become. It has been obvious for some time now, with the explosion of scientific possibilities accompanied by explosions in communication technologies, that ethics play an important role. Read or listen to the daily news and we realize that we have an urgent need to consider where ethics are being learned.

Teaching Right and Wrong

Teaching right and wrong has been mainly the role of family and religion. Why is it an arena schools should be stepping into? And how? Ethics are less about what one thinks and more about the connection between what one thinks, one feels and then acts. How can schools develop how one feels about things without being certain about the values being taught? Having and acting ethically means being moved to act based upon a set of moral values. Does the teaching of morals have a place in schools? We think yes.

There are some seriously clear right and wrongs we can teach. For example, children are taught about the dangers of posting photos or communicating with strangers online. We can either warn of such dangers, or help students come to a decision about right and wrong on their own. Telling students what is right and wrong, and teaching what is right and wrong are two very different things. Once our intended outcomes are clarified, the method used to teach these and other ethical lessons are better informed.

Teaching More Than Dont Do It

If we are teaching social media ethics, what will that include? Certainly, it will address posting photos of themselves or others in compromising poses. We will teach that words hurt, even if they are texts or tweets. Insults and demeaning language, name calling, and threats are not without consequences. But we will teach more than Dont do it. We teach about dangerous results and the permanence that exists in the cyber world. But, where does it land? Children and adolescents may add our warnings to the long list of donts that grows as they do. As educators and as members of families, we know with certainty that as children grow into adolescence they push against the adults who surround them as they reach for their independence. No doubt, some of the donts become dos simply because it is part of their growing process. So knowing that, shouldnt we rethink our tactics?

Model and Teach Ethics

Schools are a K-12 experience. In the best of circumstances we have a child for 13 consecutive years. In the most challenging of circumstances we have them for only a few months. No matter, it is important that every adult in the system knows and agrees that ethics must be embedded in the teaching and learning process. Teachers and leaders have the responsibility to raise the question, invite the conversation, and tie examples as they arise to the teaching of ethics. It is neither a course to be taught, like digital citizenship, nor an elective, like ethics for seniors.

The teaching of ethics begins with the modeling of ethics. It is the manner in which everything is taught, including lessons in behavior. Ethics are taught in hallways, classrooms, and in offices by every adult and student. Mixed messages are dangerous in that they can handily undo the work of a previous effort. How each member of the school community fits into this ever-important effort calls for ongoing thoughtfulness because this, unlike other things taught in school, has to become a lifelong part of every student. How to accomplish an engineering problem is a mental skill. How to use those engineering skills to solve humanitys problems or to build a bomb involves ethics.

Ethics, a Graduation Requirement

In the medical research and practice world, the future is now. Students in our schools, whether headed for a career in medical research or medical practice, are already living in a world in which ethics plays a role, in some ways, more than ever. Unless we understand that the possibilities this research offers for curing disease is coupled with possibilities for destruction. Scientists are discovering new ways to fight disease through gene mutation called CRISPR (Clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats). Exciting and life saving...but it also raises ethical issues. Here from a Time Magazine article entitled A New Technique That Lets Scientists Edit DNA Is Transforming Science--and Raising Difficult Questions

...most microbes driving infectious diseases are just a few DNA edits away from becoming superstrains that could wipe out unprepared populations.

Doing the research, reporting on, or applying these advances can become some current students job. Schools can support the ongoing work of families and religion. Schools can also fill the gaps. If we are seriously committed to graduating students who are college and career ready, then we have to recognize the opportunity we have for a continued, systemic, shared responsibility to develop ethical action.

Ann Myers and Jill Berkowicz are the authors of The STEM Shift (2015, Corwin) a book about leading the shift into 21st century schools. Connect with Ann and Jill on Twitter or Email .

Photo by Herney courtesy of Pixabay
An Ohio federal judge dismissed a False Claims Act suit against Cincinnati-based JouneyLite Surgery Center, Law360 reports.

Here's what you should know.

1. Patients sued the surgery center for using medical devices off-label during alleged unnecessary surgeries and billing Medicare and Medicaid for the procedures. PureGen, the device cited in the suit, was allegedly used beyond the approved scope and patients didn't give informed consent.

2. Attorneys gave no reason for the dismissal, but an attorney for the surgery center said in an email to Law360, "The matter was resolved satisfactorily to the parties and litigation has been dismissed."

3. The dismissal only applies to the surgery center. The surgeon who performed the alleged unnecessary surgeries and a practice which owned JourneyLite from June 2011 to December 2013 are still liable.

A criminal complaint charged the surgeon, Atiq Durrani, MD, with several healthcare fraud violations for using a medical device beyond its clinical trial limitations without consent. The complaint accused the Dr. Durrani's practice, the Center for Advanced Spine Technologies, of creating false medical records, billing and cost reports.

The company that created the medical device allegedly paid kickbacks to surgeons for their support. The company also removed PureGen from the market in February 2013.

4. The federal government supported the dismissal but retained its right to refile, Law360 reports. Dr. Durrani fled the U.S. after arraignment.
The healthcare industry is undergoing tremendous transformations and policy makers will continue to require surgery centers to cut costs and provide value. Since many centers have limited resources, devising a strategy to rein in supply cost can be a challenge. A common fee that ASCs often overlook is their freight cost, which can stack up and detract from an ASC's bottom line.

Medical product suppliers see the opportunity in this oversight and capitalize on using freight fees as profit centers. Surgery centers may receive direct shipments or overnight deliveries that usually exceed the market average. Surgery centers can avoid these fees by employing a freight management program and working with a freight management provider that is well-versed in what constitutes a successful freight management program. Surgery centers that contracted with a freight management company are seeing significant results. For example, more than 2,000 ASCs that worked with a freight management provider had average savings between 30 percent and 50 percent per shipment over the past several years.*

During a webinar sponsored by OptiFreight Logistics, a Cardinal Health company, Jonathan Kernya, director of customer operations for OptiFreight Logistics, will detail the many benefits a center can accrue from employing a freight management program. Greg DeconCillis, administrator of Boston Outpatient Surgical Suites, will also dive into a personal account of how a program yielded major savings for his center, which is crucial in the value-driven healthcare landscape.

Tune in to the webinar on Thursday, April 6th, from 12:00 p.m. to 1:00 p.m. CT. Register today!

*Based on shipments through OptiFreight Logistics during January 1, 2015  December 31, 2015. Individual customer savings may vary.

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Corvallis, Ore.-based Samaritan Health Services instated a hiring freeze and will cut back on capital spending in an effort to address decreased Medicaid revenues, Albany Democrat-Herald reports.

Samaritan CEO Larry Mullins sent an email to employees Monday notifying them of measures the hospital will take to protect its bottom line, while avoiding layoffs to its more than 5,500 employees. In addition to a hiring freeze for noncritical positions and delaying construction projects, Mr. Mullins said the hospital will sharply decrease travel and conference budgets, according to the report.

A primary reason for the cost-saving measures is a large decrease in revenue from patients covered by Medicaid, Mr. Mullins wrote in the email, obtained by Albany Democrat-Herald. Oregon allocates funds to Samaritan based on the number of Medicaid beneficiaries it treats. The reduction in Medicaid patients  which the Corvallis Gazette-Times reports was between 6,000 and 8,000 beneficiaries so far this year  led to net losses in the first two months of 2017.

Mr. Mullins also said despite Republicans' decision to pull the American Health Care Act last week, he expects future reductions to Oregon's Medicaid program at the federal and state levels.

Mr. Mullins added Samaritan will move forward with the cost-cutting measures "to prepare and position ourselves to be able to continue our primary mission of healthcare delivery with the least harm to our workforce and community," according to Albany Democrat-Herald.
The Massachusetts Health Policy Commission voted Wednesday to lower the state's medical spending growth target to 3.1 percent in 2018, according to The Boston Globe.

The 11-member Health Policy Commission, which was created in 2012 with the goal of helping keep healthcare spending under control in Massachusetts, voted unanimously to lower the spending growth threshold even though the state failed to meet the higher target of 3.6 percent in 2014 and 2015. Massachusetts has not yet released spending figures for last year, according to the report.

Although the lower spending target is ambitious, Massachusetts hospitals support the new benchmark. "It's aspirational, but we have to try," Lynn Nicholas, president of the Massachusetts Health and Hospital Association, told the Boston Globe.

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ACA subsidies are necessary for a number of low-income Americans to pay for their insurance coverage, and senior House Republicans said this week these subsidies are not expected to go away anytime soon, reports The New York Times.

The Republicans said they expect the federal government to continue paying for the subsidies at least through 2017, according to the report.

The remarks come nearly a year after House Republicans prevailed in a lawsuit over the cost-sharing payments. In the lawsuit, House Republicans alleged Barack Obama's administration improperly funded the subsides, because while Congress authorized the subsidy program under the ACA, it did not provide the money for it, according to the report. U.S. District Court Judge Rosemary Collyer ruled in favor of the GOP's allegations. However, the Obama administration appealed the ruling. A decision on that appeal has yet to be made.

In the meantime, senior Republicans don't plan to support a halt of the subsidies, according to the report.

"While the lawsuit is being litigated, then the administration funds these benefits," House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., said Thursday, reports The New York Times. "That's how they've been doing it, and I don't see any change in that."

Rep. Ryan added: "We don't want to drop the lawsuit because we believe in the separation of powers. We believe in Congress retaining its lawmaking power."

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SSM Health, a nonprofit 20-hospital system based in St. Louis, saw revenue increase in 2016, but higher expenses due to the acquisition of Saint Louis University Hospital dragged down SSM's operating income.

According to recently released bondholder documents, SSM Health saw an 11.9 percent year-over-year increase in revenues. The system said revenues climbed to $6.1 billion in 2016, of which $299 million was attributable to its acquisition of Saint Louis University Hospital, which is now named SSM Health Saint Louis University Hospital.

St. Louis University acquired 365-bed SLU Hospital from Dallas-based Tenet Healthcare in 2015 and then transferred the hospital to SSM Health in exchange for a minority interest in SSM Health St. Louis.

Although SLU Hospital contributed to SSM's revenue boost in 2016, the hospital cost the system more than it earned. Last year, SSM Health's expenses increased 16.6 percent to $6.1 billion, of which $336.7 million was attributable to SLU Hospital.

SSM ended 2016 with operating income of $10 million, down 86.8 percent from operating income of $229.7 million in the year prior.

The system recorded an operating margin of 0.2 percent in 2016, compared to an operating margin of 4.2 percent in 2015. SSM said it is trying to increase its operating margin through cost reduction programs, revenue cycle improvements and integration and optimization of its acquisitions.

After factoring in nonoperating gains, SSM ended 2016 with net income of $99.4 million, down from $106.8 million in the year prior.

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Key West commissioner: CHS hospital's profit margin is 'obscene and unconscionable'

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Honesty and candor are traits CEOs usually appreciate in their colleagues and staff. However, some things are better left unsaid.

We asked, and CEOs from hospitals and health systems across the U.S. told us which statements make them cringe.

1. "Because that's the way we've always done it."

Michael Patterson, president and CEO of Davenport, Iowa-based Mississippi Valley Health, says, "This phrase is often utilized when people and/or teams are resistant to change. With that said, we shouldn't seek change just for the sake of change. Rather, if there is an opportunity to improve the patient experience, better serve our physicians and clinicians, and/or create better value for consumers, then we should actively seek change. We can't change the future while holding onto the past."

Ginger Williams, MD, president and CEO of Marshall, Mich.-based Oaklawn Hospital, says, "We collectively dislike that phrase at Oaklawn because it means that our employees, who know their work better than anyone, aren't asking 'why' when they have to repeatedly do something that makes no sense to them. It's probable that there was once a good reason for doing 'it,' but that reason may have become obsolete years ago. If we don't continue to challenge why we do what we do so we can make it better, we will become increasingly inefficient and probably become obsolete ourselves!"

Rodney Hochman, MD, president and CEO of Renton, Wash.-based Providence St. Joseph Health, says, "Communities are never stagnant, so how we serve people can't be based on the past. We must always be thinking about what our communities need tomorrow, not just today."

2. "We know what patients need."

Dr. Hochman says, "Today, we live in a world where the patient is a consumer and they should feel like the 'chief medical officer' of their own health. How we deliver care must continue to push towards the patient feeling empowered and in charge."

3. "We've tried that before."

Nancy Howell Agee, president and CEO of Roanoke, Va.-based Carilion Clinic, says this phrase, "shuts down thinking and suggests closed mindedness."

4. "I have good news and bad news."

Ms. Agee says she hates to hear this statement, too. "[It] always seems to be a euphemism for 'I actually have only bad news.'"

5. "That's not my job."

Chris Van Gorder, president and CEO of San Diego-based Scripps Health, says, "During my entire management/leadership career, I have enjoyed working with people who want to learn and really commit to the success of the unit and organization. I hire for "attitude"  everything else can be taught but it's the rare time when I have been able to change a bad attitude to a positive attitude."

6. "No."

Mr. Van Gorder says he also doesn't like hearing "no" without an explanation why not. "When I have to make a decision, I always think first  what is the downside of saying yes? If the downside can be managed or mitigated, I try to say yes. Sometimes I do have to say 'no,' but I see that as a teaching opportunity. While I expect that of myself, I expect that of others as well."

7. "We've never done that before."

Maria Ryan, PhD, CEO of Cottage Hospital in Woodsville, N.H., says this statement typically comes from people who resist change and are satisfied with maintaining the status quo. "I am passionate about innovation and decreasing wasteful steps," she says.

8. "We have a lot of things going on right now, maybe we can look at it later."

Randy Oostra, DM, president and CEO of Sylvania, Ohio-based ProMedica, says, "I always see it as my job to create urgency urgency to change, urgency to get things done  to get solid plans created and executed, to not accept the status quo, to not accept inappropriate behavior."

9. "I cannot communicate with my staff member, colleague or physician."

Bernard Wheatley, DBA, CEO of St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands-based Schneider Regional Medical Center, says, "Every failure to communicate should be an opportunity for decisive dialogue to begin and to reach a win-win."

10. "We're not interested in exploring this."

Divya Joshi, MD, CEO of the Children's Service Line at Peoria, Ill.-based OSF Healthcare System, says, "It is important to keep an open mind and remain flexible. Transforming healthcare requires innovation. We must consider new ideas to revolutionize how healthcare is delivered."

11. "I can't get it done."

Anthony Avellino, MD, CEO of Peoria, Ill.-based OSF Neuroscience Service Line & Illinois Neurological Institute, says, "I'm a firm believer that anything is possible, and everyone has something to contribute. I would rather hear someone say, 'Let's collaborate and work as a team to find a solution.' Remember what TEAM stands for: Together Everyone Achieves More."

12. "Why would we talk to others outside of healthcare?"

Dr. Hochman says, "Getting different perspectives is critical when making decisions. We can't be insular in our thinking and sometimes the most important perspective comes from someone less close to a process."

13. "It's not in my budget."

Barry Arbuckle, PhD, president and CEO of Fountain Valley, Calif.-based MemorialCare Health System, says, "Your budget is our budget (in a health system), so figure it out."

14. "No, I don't have time."

Dr. Arbuckle is also irked by this statement. "CEOs are willing to hear that once, maybe twice, but after that they are likely to stop going to that person for just about anything, which could very well be career limiting," he says.

15. "It's not my rule  it's the CEO's rule."

Teri Fontenot, president and CEO of Woman's Hospital in Baton Rouge, La., says a supervisor said this to a nurse after sending her home to change for being out of compliance with the hospital policy on proper attire.

16. "Title, office size and location are very important to me."

Tom Sadvary, CEO of Scottsdale, Arizona-based HonorHealth, says, "Although I believe that all executives should be paid and titled in an appropriate and competitive manner, their focus should be in serving their staff and patients, versus how we can serve their egocentric needs."
Englewood, Colo.-based Catholic Health Initiatives' Texas division has laid off 459 employees and will leave 161 vacant positions unfilled, according to the Houston Business Journal.

The 620 eliminated positions represent less than 4 percent of CHI's workforce in Texas. CHI Texas Division includes CHI St. Luke's Health in Houston, CHI St. Luke's Health Memorial in Lufkin and CHI St. Joseph Health in Bryan. According to the Houston Business Journal, CHI St. Luke's Health Memorial was not affected by the cutbacks.

Including the newest round of cuts, CHI Texas Division has eliminated 1,285 positions over the past eight months, according to the report.

"While never an easy process, rebalancing our workforce allows us to more effectively manage our resources so that we are well positioned to serve the community into the future," CHI Texas said in a statement to the Houston Business Journal.

CHI is focused on performance improvement and expense reduction as part of a financial turnaround plan. The nonprofit 103-hospital system ended the second quarter of fiscal year 2017 with an operating loss of $153.9 million, compared to an operating loss of $112.1 million in the same period of the year prior. CHI said operating results declined in the second quarter of FY 2017 across several of its regions, including Texas.

CHI didn't immediately respond to Becker's request for comment.

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Stay in the know with Becker's Hospital Review's weekly roundup of the nation's biggest healthcare news. Here's what you need to know this week.

1. Fitch: Uncompensated care could increase next year under ACA

Without modifications to the ACA, exchange enrollment could suffer and hospitals are likely to see uncompensated care rise next year, according to Fitch Ratings.

2. CHI lays off 459 employees in Texas

Englewood, Colo.-based Catholic Health Initiatives' Texas division laid off 459 employees and will leave 161 vacant positions unfilled, according to the Houston Business Journal.

3. NC officials mistakenly send information for 1.2k patients to media outlets

Mecklenburg County, N.C., officials accidentally sent HIPAA-protected information to two media outlets on March 27, impacting at least 1,200 patients, WSOC-TV reports. WSOC-TV was one of the media outlets that received patient information.

4. Jury sides with heart surgeon in $6.4M defamation lawsuit against Memorial Hermann

A Texas jury found Houston-based Memorial Hermann Health System guilty of gaming its own peer-review process for financial gain, according to a report in the Houston Chronicle.

5. Gov. Chris Christie to lead Trump's new opioid commission

President Donald Trump on March 29 signed an executive order to develop a commission to address the nation's ongoing opioid epidemic, reports Vox. Republican New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie will lead the commission.

6. 1,200 Tufts Medical Center RNs give go-ahead for possible strike

Nearly 1,200 registered nurses at Boston-based Tufts Medical Center voted March 29 for a potential one-day strike after approximately a year of contract negotiations.

7. White House proposes $1.2B in cuts to NIH for 2017

The Trump administration has proposed a $1.2 billion budget cut to the National Institutes of Health to be instituted this fiscal year, according to a report from STAT.

8. Hospital stocks sink as Republicans continue healthcare reform push

Major for-profit hospital operators saw their share prices tumble on March 28 as House Republicans and the White House restarted discussions on legislation to repeal and replace the ACA.

9. 2 patient suicides in 8 days reported at Montefiore Medical Center

Two patients at Montefiore Medical Center in Bronx, N.Y., killed themselves in the span of eight days, according to the New York Daily News.

10. 10 prominent health system CEOs: Physician burnout is a public health crisis  here are 11 things we commit to do about it

The CEOs of the nation's most prominent health systems authored an article in Health Affairs examining the widespread issue of physician burnout, its main contributors, leaders' role in responding to burnout and an 11-item call to action.

11. South Carolina hospital at risk of losing Medicare funding

Greenville (S.C.) Memorial Hospital, part of Greenville Health System, is at risk of losing its Medicare contract following a CMS survey that found the hospital was not in compliance with some Medicare requirements. The CMS investigation was conducted after a patient who was strapped to a gurney died of traumatic asphyxiation.

12. Trump approval rating slips to new low after AHCA pulled

President Donald Trump's approval rating hit 36 percent March 27  his lowest approval rating since taking office, according to a Gallup polling report.
Sometimes the most insignificant moments can change the way a physician relates to his or her patients.

In an interview for an ongoing American Medical Association feature series, Fatima Stanford, MD, an obesity medicine physician at Boston-based Massachusetts General Hospital, discussed the moment she recognized she was meant to be a physician. As a resident in obesity medicine, Dr. Stanford recognized that sometimes physicians are oblivious to their own personal biases about patients' consumption habits and their weight. As a result, she decided to work even harder to breakdown those preconceived notions and help her patients achieve their health goals.

"When I was a resident physician, I cared for a 45-year-old woman who struggled with severe obesity. I had been working with her for approximately three years and we never could make any major strides as it related to her weight through behavioral means. Once, I ran into her in the grocery store and took it upon myself to survey her grocery cart to check for the quality of food. It was at this time that I recognized the significant weight bias that I and others harbored toward persons with excess weight as it related to their food intake. Her grocery cart was one of the most virtuous I have seen: lots of lean protein, vegetables, whole grains and occasional fruit. This was one of the defining moments that led me to a career in obesity medicine."

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If you would like to contribute a quote for this series, please email Alyssa Rege at arege@beckershealthcare.com to be featured in "Word from the C-suite."
A federal appeals court has rejected a challenge to student drug testing at a Roman Catholic high school, holding that claims of race discrimination in the administration of the testing lacked evidence.

A unanimous three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit, in Chicago, also ruled that the testing did not involve government action, even though Marian Catholic High School in Chicago Heights, Ill., has received federal grants for the drug testing.

The high school, run by the Dominican Sisters, requires its students to sign contracts about conduct that include giving the school permission to perform random drug tests. (The appeals court said the contracts, and the question of whether students could legally enter into them, were not at issue in the case.)

In the 2015-16 academic year, the school used a method that involved taking a hair sample from the student and sending it off to be tested. Students who test positive are subject to counseling or expulsion.

The program was challenged by seven students who received false positive readings on the school drug tests. Each tested positive for cocaine in the schools test, and then did second tests with other health providers, and all tested negative.

Six of the students are African-American and one is white. Some of the black students were expelled despite the negative results in followup tests. Two such students were told their Afro or dreadlock hairstyles were causing problems with the school drug tests. The one white student was expelled after a positive result on the school test, despite a negative result on his followup.

A school counselor told some of the students that she thought the followup tests were conducted after illegal drugs had worked their way out of the students systems.

The students sued the school, the counselor, and the schools testing company, alleging race discrimination, including a racially disparate impact in the drug testing. A federal district court dismissed the suit, ruling that it did not present a plausible claim of race bias.

In its March 29 decision in L.P. v. Marian Catholic High School , the 7th Circuit court panel upheld the district court. The court said there was no evidence that the school counselor or the testing company were making decisions based on race.

The school counselor had perhaps unwarranted trust in the hair sample tests, the court said, but there is no allegation that she tended to credit later negative tests for white students, but not for African-American students.

And the students racially disparate-impact theory was not helped by the fact that the lone white student in the group was one of those who was expelled, the court said.

Finally, the court said there was no state action by the religious high school, which would be required for the students to win on their civil rights claims. Neither the federal drug testing grant nor the fact that the school is registered with the state of Illinois altered that analysis, the court said.

Drug-testing programs are sensitive, and we readily accept the proposition that errors can creep into test results, the appeals court said. But errors alone do not violate the laws against racial discrimination, without some showing that distinctions (usually intentional, but sometimes based on disproportionate impact) based on race explain what is going on. The operative complaint in this case fails to meet this burden.
Brentwood, Tenn.-based Quorum Health Corp. has sold 60-bed Cherokee Medical Center in Centre, Ala., to NNZ Holdings in Sunrise, Fla.

The 35-hospital system, which is a spinoff of Franklin, Tenn.-based Community Health Systems, is focused on restructuring its portfolio to improve its financial performance. Cherokee Medical Center is the third hospital the company has divested in recent months. In December, the company finalized the sale of Barrow Regional Medical Center in Winder, Ga., and Sandhills Regional Medical Center in Hamlet, N.C.

Quorum plans to sell more hospitals in the coming months. On Thursday, Quorum inked a definitive agreement to sell 231-bed Trinity Hospital of Augusta (Ga.) to The Richmond County Hospital Authority. That transaction is expected to close by the end of June. The company expects to enter into a definitive agreement for the sale of another hospital by the end of the first quarter and has signed letters of intent covering four additional hospitals, Quorum President and CEO Thomas D. Miller said in an earnings statement released Wednesday.

Quorum ended 2016 with a net loss of $347.7 million, compared to a net income of $1.3 million in the year prior.

More articles on healthcare industry transactions:

Evolent Health mulls merger with Advisory Board

Bankrupt North Philadelphia Health System gets approval to sell shuttered hospital

Mednax acquires Nevada ophthalmology practice
From a collection company president being accused of stealing $1.6 million from a New York City hospital to the Department of Justice joining a lawsuit accusing Minnetonka, Minn.-based UnitedHealth Group of Medicare fraud, here are the latest healthcare industry lawsuits and settlements making headlines.

1. Wyoming hospital CEO claims he was not officially terminated, seeks nearly $600k in compensation

The former CEO of the 99-bed Memorial Hospital of Sweetwater County in Rock Springs, Wyo., claims the hospital board never officially terminated his contract and he is owed at least $595,518.15 in compensation.

2. Collection company president accused of stealing $1.6M from NYC hospital

The president of Rockville Centre, N.Y.-based collection firm MBI Associates was arrested and charged with first-degree grand larceny for allegedly stealing $1.6 million from St. Barnabas Hospital in New York City.

3. Shuttered NC hospital settles case over improper layoff notification

Kansas City, Mo.-based HMC/CAH, which leased and operated Yadkin Valley Community Hospital in Yadkinville, N.C., when it abruptly closed in 2015, agreed to pay about $1 million to settle a class-action lawsuit filed by three former employees alleging violations of the federal Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act.

4. Jury sides with heart surgeon in $6.4M defamation lawsuit against Memorial Hermann: 5 things to know

A Texas jury found Houston-based Memorial Hermann Health System guilty of gaming its own peer-review process for financial gain.

5. Man accused of attacking nurse at Wisconsin hospital

Police arrested a 24-year-old man March 25 after he reportedly forced his way into Select Specialty Hospital in Madison, Wis., and attacked a nurse.

6. Judge refuses to toss case alleging MedStar conspired with revenue cycle vendor in false billing scheme

A federal judge refused to dismiss a whistle-blower complaint against Columbia, Md.-based MedStar Health on March 22.

7. DOJ joins another lawsuit accusing UnitedHealth of Medicare fraud

The U.S. Department of Justice joined a second whistle-blower lawsuit against Minnetonka, Minn.-based UnitedHealth Group that alleges the insurer sought fraudulent Medicare Advantage payments.

8. New Hampshire hospital's ER floods after patient breaks sprinkler

A 48-year-old man was arrested March 25 after police say he broke a sprinkler at Exeter (N.H.) Hospital, which set off fire alarms and flooded areas of the facility.

More articles on legal and regulatory issues:

5 latest lawsuits involving hospitals

Illinois Supreme Court leaves hospital property tax exemptions in place

Medical device company CEO, CFO charged in $400M securities fraud scheme
Here are 12 contract impasses and agreements that took place between payers and providers in March.

1. Premier Health, UnitedHealthcare contract dispute could affect 70k

Dayton, Ohio-based Premier Health and Minnetonka, Minn.-based UnitedHealthcare reached a contract impasse that could affect 70,000 policyholders.



2. Vanderbilt Health Affiliated Network, Humana sign value-based agreement for Medicare Advantage plans

Nashville, Tenn.-based Vanderbilt Health Affiliated Network and Louisville, Ky.-based Humana entered a four-year value-based agreement.

3. Anthem, Centura settle contract terms ahead of deadline

Indianapolis-based Anthem BlueCross BlueShield in Colorado and Centennial, Colo.-based Centura Health reached a contract agreement March 30, a Centura spokesperson confirmed with Becker's Hospital Review.

4. Temple University Health System, Independence Blue Cross extend contract 18 months

Philadelphia-based Temple University Health System and Independence Blue Cross agreed to extend their contract 18 months, effective at the beginning of this year.

5. CHI Health joins BCBS of Nebraska's Medicare network

Grand Island, Neb.-based CHI Health, part of Englewood, Colo.-based Catholic Health Initiatives, will enter Blue Cross Blue Shield of Nebraska's Medicare Advantage network beginning April 1.

6. Unsettled RWJBarnabas-Aetna contract puts 45k policyholders on notice

West Orange, N.J.-based RWJBarnabas Health may leave Hartford, Conn.-based Aetna's provider network if the two parties fail to agree on reimbursement rates.

7. Hartford HealthCare, UnitedHealthcare negotiations stall ahead of contract deadline

Hartford (Conn.) HealthCare warned patients with commercial or Medicare plans through Minnetonka, Minn.-based UnitedHealthcare and its subsidiary Oxford Health Plans may no longer be able to access all of its hospitals, facilities and physicians at in-network rates should the parties' contract dissolve.

8. Grady Memorial Hospital, BCBS of Oklahoma reach in-network agreement

Chickasha, Okla.-based Grady Memorial Hospital reached a preferred provider organization agreement with Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Oklahoma.

9. Northwest Healthcare, UnitedHealthcare negotiations stall as contract termination looms

Tucson, Ariz.-based Northwest Healthcare and UnitedHealthcare in Minnetonka, Minn., reached a contract impasse that could affect thousands of patients' in-network access to Northwest's services by May 1.

10. Eastern Idaho Regional Medical Center, BCBS of Idaho reach agreement

Idaho Falls-based Eastern Idaho Regional Medical Center and Blue Cross of Idaho in Meridian signed a contract to provide in-network coverage to certain BCBSI policyholders seeking emergency and referred services at the medical center.

11. Tenet, BCBS of Texas sign multi-year agreement

Dallas-based Tenet Healthcare inked a multi-year contract with Richardson-based Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Texas ahead of the agreement's April 15 termination date.

12. Children's Minnesota dumps contract with BCBS

Minneapolis-based Children's Minnesota terminated its contract with Eagan-based Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota, a decision that may result in more than 70,000 patients losing in-network access to the hospital's services.



Editor's note: This article was updated April 3 at 2:54 CT to reflect Anthem and Centura reached terms March 30.

More articles on payer issues:

CHI Health joins BCBS of Nebraska's Medicare network

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Gov. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., vetoed a measure to expand the state's Medicaid program under the ACA Thursday, Star Tribune reports.

Here are three things to know about the move.



1. In a veto statement, Gov. Brownback said the bill would hamper the state with "unrestrainable entitlement costs." He also said the proposed expansion would attend to "able-bodied" residents over "the truly vulnerable."

2. The expansion proposal garnered strong bipartisan support and passed by nearly a two-thirds majority in the state legislature. Kansas senators voted in favor of expanding Medicaid Tuesday following Congressional Republicans' decision to pull their repeal and replacement bill from the House floor March 24.

3. However, state legislators in favor of the bill were short on the two-thirds majority needed to override the veto, and tabled the effort, WIBW reports. Kansas legislators will have up to 30 days to hold an override vote.

More articles on payer issues:

CHI Health joins BCBS of Nebraska's Medicare network

Kansas, other states pursue Medicaid expansion following AHCA withdrawal

Highmark names Dr. Charles DeShazer CMO
The 2014-2015 Legionnaire's outbreak that killed at least 12 people in Flint, Mich., was likely a result of the decision to change the community's water supply to the Flint River resulting in high levels of lead in the community's water, according to an unpublished study recently released to CNN.

The study was conducted by Marc Edwards, PhD, a professor in the department of civil engineering at Virginia Tech University in Blacksburg. Dr. Edwards detected lead in Flint's drinking water in 2015, which Michigan state officials denied.

Dr. Edwards recreated the Flint water crisis in a laboratory setting to determine whether or not it could have been the source of the Legionnaires' outbreak. His findings suggest the outbreak was a result of state officials switching the city's water supply to the Flint River and not properly treating the water with an anti-corrosive agent.

"What we discovered was that when the Flint River water went into the system it released a lot of iron and removed the disinfectant from the water," Dr. Edwards told CNN. "Those two factors, the iron as a nutrient and the disinfectant disappearing, allowed Legionella to thrive in buildings where it could not do so previously... The triggering event was very clearly the use of Flint River water without any corrosion control. Had the corrosion control been in the water, disinfectant would have been higher, iron would have been lower, probably the outbreak would not have occurred."

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The Michigan Department of Health and Human Services has contended McLaren Flint Hospital was responsible for the Legionnaires' outbreak, resulting in a public feud between the two entities as McLaren Flint has maintained the water supplied to the hospital was already contaminated. Dr. Edwards told CNN both parties were at fault as the hospital was still ultimately responsible for stopping the spread of disease within the facility.

"We have great respect for Dr. Edwards and his work. But we are not aware of water samples from the city of Flint['s] water system that genetically link to any cases, as would be necessary to make a causal determination," said the MDHHS in a statement to CNN.

McLaren Flint said it is receptive to Dr. Edward's research.

"We have not seen the same level of concern or scientific diligence from officials with the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services, so we welcome the researchers' ongoing efforts and hope they are able to increase the volume on this important discussion."

Legionnaires' disease is caused by Legionella bacteria. It is not spread via person-to-person contact or by drinking water, but can be contracted by inhaling mist from contaminated water sources, such as cooling misters and plumbing systems

Before the water crisis garnered national attention, 92 cases of Legionnaires' disease were confirmed in Genesee County, Mich., from 2014 to 2015. Twelve of those cases resulted in death. Recent research indicates the actual number of Legionnaires' cases related to the outbreak may have been higher than reported as cases of pneumonia in the county may have not been properly diagnosed as Legionnaires'.
Two Houston physicians who have practiced in the United States for more than 10 years were given 24 hours to leave the country earlier this week. Both physicians  husband and wife  were immigrants from India living and working legally in the United States, according to a report in the Houston Chronicle.

Pankaj Satija, MD, and his wife Monika Ummat, MD, are both neurologists. Dr. Satija helped found the Pain and Headache Centers of Texas and performs on average 200 operations a month; when he was asked to leave the country, he had 90 patient visits scheduled for the week.

Dr. Ummat's practice focuses on epilepsy at Texas Children's Hospital. The physicians have two children born in the United States as well.

However, Customs and Border Protections officials informed the physicians their permits for living and working in the U.S. were revoked and they had one day to return to India. Wishing to stay in the U.S., the two called their legislators and lawyers to help reverse their fate and when they reported to Bush International Airport to leave the country, they received a three months humanitarian parole to stay.

The humanitarian parole allows immigrants to stay due to a "compelling emergency" and the extra time allows them to get their paperwork in order for more permanent residency. The humanitarian parole is uncommon, according to the report.

Houston Methodist Hospital agreed to sponsor Dr. Satija for a green card in 2008, but the system for Indian immigrants is so backed up that only those applying before 2008 have received their green cards.
The American Medical Association praised the Trump administration's announcement of an opioids commission.

Here are four highlights:

1. The AMA reported it is anticipating working with the new commission to establish policies designed to curb the opioid epidemic.

2. Patrice A. Harris, MD, AMA board chair, said the society is ready to provide assistance and expertise in the following areas:

 Public health approaches

 Best practices

 Clinical tools

 Medication-assisted treatment

 Obstacles to treatment

3. The society has already issued recommendations as well as increased awareness among physicians through its Task Force to Reduce Opioid Abuse.

4. The AMA strives to change the dialogue around opioids, treating substance abuse as a medical illness and ridding it of the stigma.
Durham, N.C.-based Duke University Hospital neurosurgeons invited Durham Nativity School students to travel with them on a medical trip to Uganda, according to abc 11.

Here are five highlights:

1. Eight students assisted the neurosurgeons in providing more than $10 million worth of neurosurgery supplies.

2. Michael Haglund, MD, PhD, a Duke neurosurgeon and professor, first went on a mission trip to Uganda a decade ago. He heads the mission trips.

3. Dr. Haglund sought out students at the Nativity School to boost interest in medicine at an early age, and began a leadership course at the school.

4. He hopes their work will increase the number of neurosurgeons in Uganda from the current five to 25 by 2025.

5. The medical mission trips have helped three neurosurgeons graduate in Uganda, with an additional seven well on their way.
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After having a meeting with Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak, actor Rajinikanth has reportedly clarified that he was not offered to become the brand ambassador for Malaysia, adding, These are all rumours. The actor also reportedly said that he met the PM now as he could not meet the latter when he was shooting a movie in Malaysia.
In an effort to promote alternatives to traditional teachers unions, Indiana lawmakers have sent a bill to the governor that would require the Indiana Education Employment Relations Board to more actively notify teachers of their non-union options. The bill sailed through the legislature where Republicans hold control of both housesand is now headed to Republican Gov. Eric Holcomb.

The legislation requires the employment relations board to report what percentage of teachers in each school district belong to a union as well as videos and other information about educators non-union representation options. It also requires the board to proactively notify every teacher at a school where less than half of educators are union members of their rights to decertify the union as their collective bargaining agent.

The Times of Northwest Indiana reports that State Rep. Jerry Torr , a Republican from suburban Indianapolis who led a successful 2011 effort to make Indiana a so-called right-to-work state, is pushing this bill. Torr says its just about giving teachers access to more information.

But in a statement, the Indiana State Teachers Association, an affiliate of the National Education Association, argued that the information is already available to educators and denounced the bill as yet another attack on unions.

ISTA maintains if educators and legislators want to work on real issues that help students, these petty attacks must stop, the press release concluded.
Northern Ireland businesses are facing a major skills shortage and a recruitment crisis is looming as the process of the UK leaving the EU begins, it has been claimed.

The comments come after Prime Minister Theresa May formally triggered Article 50 to set Brexit in motion.

Employment expert Janet Kerrigan, service and development director at Belfast-based Willis Employment Services, says a serious quandary in filling jobs is on the cards due to uncertainty over the rights of EU nationals to work in the UK post-Brexit.

Ms Kerrigan said companies in border regions and in sectors such as hospitality and retail will be among the worst affected, with many already reporting difficulties attracting staff.

"Although we still don't know exactly how Brexit will affect the rights of EU workers in Northern Ireland, changes are inevitable and the triggering of Article 50 means the clock is now ticking towards those adjustments," she said.

"The challenge for industry now is to prepare and future-proof their operations as much as possible."

She added that the recruitment crisis had the potential to affect some of our most important industries.

"According to the most recent Labour Market Outlook from the CIPD, around 27% of EU nationals are considering leaving their jobs or the UK in 2017," she said.

"This could have a profound effect on some of Northern Ireland's key sectors, many of which rely on migrant workers.

"More than half of working EU nationals born outside the UK are employed in industries such as hospitality, agriculture, retail, health and social work, construction and manufacturing. For firms in the border region, the issue is even greater with thousands of workers commuting from the Republic of Ireland daily.

"Previously, job vacancies in these areas would have attracted many applicants from south of the border and other non-UK nationals.

"However, companies are telling us that they are already experiencing a decline in candidates born outside Northern Ireland."

She said there were some key steps businesses should take as they prepare for EU withdrawal.

"Maintaining accurate labour records and being aware of who in your organisation will be most affected by Brexit is vital," she said. "Once you know the numbers and people involved, you can turn to engagement as a strategy and increase efforts in this area.

"Firms should also set aside resources to implement any possible changes, such as working time regulations, TUPE, immigration policy and others.

"Seeking professional advice and making changes now could avert a recruitment headache."

This week NI business groups urged the PM to indicate how she will give the province a voice in negotiations to leave the EU.
Civilian workers at Faslane naval base have been taking part in staggered strike action

Talks to resolve a civilian strike at the Faslane and Coulport naval bases have ended without agreement.

Industrial action started last week with m embers of the Unite union - who work in roles involving radiation monitoring, weapons support, cleaning, logistics, maintenance and repairs - taking part in an overtime ban and a series of staggered strikes.

The union claims there has been a ''systematic campaign to undermine workers'' by employer Babcock Marine, who refute the allegations.

Discussions at Acas were held over the last two days but ended on Friday without resolution, Unite said.

Faslane is home to Britain's Trident nuclear deterrent and the Royal Navy's entire submarine fleet is to be based at the site from 2020.

Unite regional officer Stephen Deans said: "Unite put forward a range of proposals that we believed would address our members' concerns and resolve this dispute.

"Unfortunately, Babcock Marine has chosen to disregard most of these and instead provided a set of counter-proposals which fail to address our concerns in any meaningful way.

"Only last week Unite general secretary, Len McCluskey addressed the workers at a mass meeting in Helensburgh. He made it clear then that the members have our full support.

"We will not back down from this. Babcock Marine will have to rethink their plan.

"No-one wants this dispute to drag on but we will not be daunted by the company's intransigence towards our members' concerns."
The move would see the prices charged by BT's infrastructure arm falling from the current level of 88.80 per year to 52.77 per year in 2020/2021

Ofcom plans to enforce price controls on one of Openreach's most popular broadband lines to help drive more investment into superfast networks.

The telecoms watchdog will cut the wholesale price BT's infrastructure arm can charge rivals such as Talk Talk and Sky for lines with a download speed of 40 megabytes per second and an upload speed of 10 megabytes per second.

The move will see prices charged for the line falling from the current level of 88.80 per year to 52.77 per year in 2020/2021.

Ofcom said it expected companies to pass down the costs savings to customers in the form of lower bills.

However, Openreach questioned whether the price controls would deliver an investment boost for superfast broadband.

Jonathan Oxley, Ofcom's competition group director, said: "Our plans are designed to encourage long-term investment in future ultrafast, full-fibre networks, while promoting competition and protecting consumers from high prices.

"People need reliable phone and broadband services more than ever. We're making sure the market is delivering the best possible services for homes and business across the UK."

Openreach will maintain full control over the prices for lines with an even faster speed in the hope that it will spur telecoms firms towards installing their own superfast lines to rival BT.

BT is instructed by Ofcom to allow rival broadband firms to use the Openreach network to sell internet services to customers.

A spokesman for Openreach said: "Ofcom have proposed a number of ways to address fibre pricing and service so we will be reviewing these in detail, but on first viewing they don't appear to incentivise more investment in 'full fibre' networks.

"The UK needs a regulatory framework that encourages investment and rewards risk.

"Building digital infrastructure is very expensive with long payback periods and we won't recover our more than 3 billion investment in fibre until after this charge control period.

"We want to invest in more 'full fibre' infrastructure, and we'll be consulting with our CP customers to develop new business models and support to achieve that."

The price controls come as part of a package of new rules demanding Openreach fixes faults and rolls out broadband lines at a quicker pace.

As part of the measures, Openreach will be expected to improve the level of fault repairs completed within one to two working days from 80% to 93%.

It also wants 97% of repairs to be completed within six to seven working days, while lifting the number of lines installed on the date agreed by Openreach and the telecoms firm to 95% from 90%.

Openreach added: "We support the ambition of higher service targets and we want to work closely with the rest of the industry to make sure these are the right measures and that they're achievable."

BT was hit with a record 42 million fine by Ofcom on Monday and is facing compensation costs to rivals of 300 million over delayed high-speed cable installations.

Ofcom found Openreach had committed a "serious breach" of its rules for reducing payments owed to other providers such as Vodafone.

On the price cuts, Talk Talk chief executive Dido Harding said they were welcome, but consumers will be left frustrated that they have to wait a year before they can benefit from lower bills.

She said: "Ofcom's decision to only regulate some products also risks entrenching a speed divide, with customers having to make a false choice between fair prices or higher speeds."

Matt Hancock, m inister of state for digital and culture, said: "We want everyone in the UK to have access to fast, reliable, and affordable broadband, and Ofcom's proposals are good news for consumers, businesses, and the country."
Home decor brand Neptune will open a flagship store on Belfast's Ormeau Road this summer creating 20 jobs.

Neptune is renovating the 5,000sq ft Ormeau Bakery for its first stand-alone store in Ireland.

The 750,000 project will see a large section of the ground floor transformed into a showroom.

Director Fergal McAdam said: "The Ormeau Road is a fantastic location and it is a privilege to breathe new life into the iconic Ormeau Bakery.

"The Ormeau Road area is really taking off with new restaurants, cafes and bars complementing the existing businesses.

"There is a real buzz, and it is the perfect home for Neptune."

Mr McAdam is also director of Neptune by Malone & Smyth, based in Co Fermanagh.

Neptune sells a host of home and interior products and the company says the Belfast store will "showcase their full collection from kitchen, dining and living, bedroom and bathroom, to outdoor furniture, accessories and lighting".

Mr McAdam added: "We have large numbers of people travelling from Belfast and surrounding areas to our Fermanagh store to access Neptune furniture and accessories.

"This convinced us of the need to open a fully dedicated Neptune store in the city."

Work on the new premises is due to begin soon, with plans to open in the summer.

"Neptune make high-end interiors products and accessories available at an accessible price point," he said.

"It is a unique brand that brings high-level quality and design to a much wider audience."

It is the latest home furnishing business to expand into Belfast.

At the end of last year Scandinavian homewares shop Sostrene Grene - Danish for Grene Sisters - opened the first of six Northern Ireland stores in the city.

The retailer stocks homeware, stationery, gifts and interior furnishings and was founded by Anna and Clara Grene in 1973. It followed in the footsteps of Flying Tiger Copenhagen, another Danish retailer with a similar offering, which opened in 2015.

Sostrene Grene was brought to Ireland by joint venture partners Richard and Norma Power.

Mr Power said: "This store will be the first of six planned across Northern Ireland, with the retail market here already strong and continuing to grow."

Meanwhile, last year eclectic London-based fashion and homeware store Oliver Bonas opened on the Lisburn Road. Named after its founder, the retailer designs, makes and sells women's clothing and accessories, jewellery, furniture and gifts.

The company started with 'Olly' - as he's known by his staff - bringing back gifts for friends from his travels.

He opened his first shop in Fulham in 1993, repainted by his friends with Olly behind a second-hand till.
The amount being lent to Northern Ireland businesses has fallen in contrast with a surge across Britain amid claims companies here are being ignored by the big banks.

Local businesses have "missed out on the recent bounce in UK lending" as the value of outstanding bank loans in the region remains static, according to Ortus Secured Finance.

The value of outstanding loans to Northern Ireland businesses has fallen to 23.6bn in 2015/16 from 23.7bn in 2014/13.

In comparison, the amount lent to businesses by banks across the UK increased 3% to 449bn outstanding in December 2016 from 435.3bn in December 2014.

Jon Salisbury, managing director of Ortus, said: "Continued caution of big banks since the credit crunch is particularly acute in areas that are still considered higher-risk, such as Northern Ireland.

"Too many Northern Ireland-based businesses say that they are ignored by the big banks.

"There is a concern that, because the head offices of many big banks are so far away in London, that Northern Ireland lending books suffer.

"Even the challenger banks have much less of a profile in Northern Ireland than they have in the other parts of the UK.

"That reluctance of banks to lend to businesses doesn't reflect the region's economic situation and it is letting down the region's business community.

"There are many great opportunities for growth in Northern Ireland and a lot of ambitious entrepreneurs wanting funding to pursue those opportunities."

Mr Salisbury added: "Business activity is strong and the Ulster Bank's latest purchasing managers' index showed that the private sector increased last month, with strong performances in retail and services."
The Hollywood star has made the leap to Netflix for this new war-based parody film.

A grey-haired and charismatic Brad Pitt leaves a lasting impression as he appears in the latest trailer as a US general for new Netflix film War Machine.

The Oscar-nominated actor stars in the provocative satire as General Glen McMahon, a respected soldier and the commander of US and Nato forces in Afghanistan who is tasked with cleaning up the mess left behind in the previous eight years of the war.

Brad is fired-up and well-groomed as he urges his troops: We are here to build, to protect, to support the civilian population  to that end, you must avoid killing at all costs.

We cant help them and kill them at the same time. It just aint humanly possible.

Slated as a parody film based on reality, it is said to cross the fine line between the two and delve into the politics of war.

Brads character, complete with squinting eyes and jutting jaw, is based on former commander of forces General Stanley McChrystal.

He was brought down by a journalists expose in which he mocked civilian government officials including then-vice president Joe Biden and indirectly expressed disappointment in Barack Obama.

He later apologised and resigned from his role.

The Netflix original film sees Hollywood star Brad take the popular leap from the cinema to the streaming service, following in the footsteps of the likes of House Of Cards Kevin Spacey and Stranger Things Winona Ryder.

The actor also served as producer on the film, which was directed by David Michod and was inspired by Michael Hastings best-selling book The Operators: The Wild And Terrifying Inside Story Of Americas War In Afghanistan.

The star-studded cast also includes Tilda Swinton, Will Poulter and Sir Ben Kingsley.

War Machine will launch on Netflix on May 26.
BBC documentary Reggie Yates- Hidden Australia "seriously breached" editorial guidelines, the BBC Trust has ruled, with a misleading episode portraying extreme drinking in Australia's Aboriginal community.

The documentary saw the presenter spend time with the Aboriginal community, depicted as "ravaged by alcohol addiction".

The first episode, broadcast on BBC3 online and on the iPlayer, included footage of Yates attending what was portrayed as a single party in the town of Wilcannia, New South Wales.

The sequence showed heavy drinking and drunken behaviour by members of the Aboriginal community at what appeared to be a single event, but was in fact a composite of four separate gatherings held on four separate days.

Viewers would also not have known that one of those events was a wake, with "the behaviour portrayed as being for no reason other than through the excessive consumption of alcohol".

The Trust said the episode "was a serious breach of its editorial guidelines on accuracy" and that it was "deeply troubled by this incident".

Presenter Yates was also an associate producer on the series, which was made by Sundog Pictures, whose co-founder and chairman is tycoon Sir Richard Branson's son Sam Branson.

Yates "viewed one full cut when he came in to record his voice over, but footage may have been spooled through quickly in those circumstances", the Trust said.

"He also viewed a rough cut sent to him unofficially by the editor. He did not view two fine cut versions he was sent. He has said that he did not notice that footage from separate occasions had been edited together nor that the wake was not identified as such."

The Trust said that the BBC was unaware that there was a problem when the episode was delivered and broadcast.

It was only after the episode aired that the corporation became aware of the issue, and said that it would not commission any new programmes from Sundog Pictures until further notice.

The BBC Trust, which is set to hand over responsibilities on programme complaints to Ofcom under the new charter, said: "Trustees were deeply troubled by this incident, which they considered showed a grave lack of judgment by those concerned with production of the programme and a lack of care in ensuring rigour and continuity of editorial oversight within Sundog".

The BBC said in a statement: "We note that the Trust has found that the sequence in (the episode) Reggie Yates - Hidden Australia: Black In The Outback was a serious breach of the BBC's editorial guidelines.

"We take any suggestion that the BBC's high standards of accuracy and fairness have not been met very seriously and as soon as we became aware of this incident we investigated thoroughly and submitted a full report to the Trust.

"We will continue not to commission any new programmes from Sundog pending the full review of all other Sundog programmes and consideration of the Trust's findings."

The Trust also criticised Britain On The Fiddle, the BBC1 series that investigates benefit fraud.

It said that the programme had breached guidelines on fairness, contributors and consent, as well as privacy, over an individual's lack of consent to filming.
The reality TV star has landed a role opposite the Footloose favourite.

Gogglebox star Scarlett Moffatt is continuing her quest for TV domination by landing a role as Hollywood actor Kevin Bacons co-star for a new advert.

Fresh from her Im A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here! win, the reality star joins Golden Globe winner Kevin in the EE mobile networks forthcoming commercial.

Kevin is a regular face in the brands adverts, having fronted them since 2012, while Scarlett follows in the footsteps of cameo stars Britney Spears and Rio Ferdinand.

Scarletts Gogglebox co-stars, duo Chris and Stephen, have also appeared in one of the adverts.

The new effort sees Kevin travelling the UK before he meets up with Moffatt at a remote beach.

She is forced to eat a witchetty grub  a reference to her Im A Celebrity stint  before she realises she can order a takeaway online.

Self-professed kebab lover Scarletts ability to hail a chicken kebab from her faraway location helps to highlight EEs We Go Further campaign.

Kevin and Scarletts advert will air during Ant and Decs Saturday Night Takeaway this weekend, on which she currently acts as co-host.

After rising to fame for her witty dialogue on Channel 4s Gogglebox, Scarlett has gone on to land TV jobs on programmes Streetmate and Virtually Famous.

She was also the backstage host at the National TV Awards.

Scarlett was crowned the Queen of the Jungle in the recent series of Im A Celebrity, fending off competition from the likes of TV veterans Carol Vorderman, Danny Baker and Larry Lamb.
Hank (Paul Dano) is marooned on an island, and the isolation has driven him to the brink of suicide. As he prepares to tie a noose around his neck, Hank notices a corpse (Daniel Radcliffe) washed up on the shore.

Hank is disgusted to see that internal gases are being expelled as a constant stream of flatulence. This sparks an ingenious idea and Hank uses this jet of noxious emission to turn the corpse into a makeshift jet ski and head to a new location.

Hank discovers other ingenious uses for the corpse and begins to imagine it can talk.

Adopting the name of Manny, the corpse becomes an unlikely companion and confidante to Hank as he attempts to re-establish contact with civilisation.

Swiss Army Man is a weird, yet strangely wonderful, buddy comedy written and directed by Dan Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, who have a knack for macabre yet life-affirming detail.

What begins as a fart gag writ large - the filmmakers luxuriate on close-ups of gas being expelled from Manny's rear end - develops into a bittersweet meditation on loneliness and unrequited love.

Four stars

The Birth Of A Nation (15, 118 mins)

Slave owner Samuel Turner (Armie Hammer) believes he is more tolerant than many of his neighbours.

His God-fearing mother Elizabeth (Penelope Ann Miller) raised young Samuel with slave boy Nat (Nate Parker) as his playmate, and taught Nat to read using the Bible.

Nat grows up with a belief that he must preach to his people. He falls in love with another slave, Cherry (Aja Naomi King), but when she is brutally assaulted by a gang of white slave owners, led by snarling Raymond Cobb (Jackie Earle Haley), Samuel questions the order of his unforgiving world and leads a rebellion.

The Birth Of A Nation is a passionate, if clumsily conceived, rallying cry for equality, spattered with the blood and tears of men who acknowledge that violence begets violence.

Three stars
The last time Palms Trax played Twitch, he was in the student union's busy and big Mandela Hall. This time around he'll be in the smaller Bunatee, so go early if you want to be sure of seeing the funk, soul and house DJ in action.

The UK mixer (real name Jay Donaldson) offers a modern twist on classic house beats, as heard on his EPs for the Dekmantel label and in his various gigs across Europe and Asia. Support tonight comes from the Twitch residents.

For details, visit Facebook: Twitch Belfast.

Darius Syrossian, Lush, Portrush, Tomorrow, 9pm

It may be April Fool's Day but the smart money is on DJ and producer Darius Syrossian to serve up a stomper of a night when he brings his Ibiza house and techno brand, Do Not Sleep, to Portrush.

The nomadic party-provider holds down a residency in Ibiza while also finding the time to fit in an international touring schedule. Joining him will be B Traits, aka Brianna Price, the London-based Radio 1 host, along with Moodtrax, Chinooq and Stayin Low.

For details, visit Facebook: Lush Official.

Steve Lawler, Sugar Nite Club, Londonderry, Tomorrow, 9pm

After making names for themselves in the acid house era, many DJs found their careers had peaked. Not so Steve Lawler, who has continued to develop.

With stints at Cream, Space and The End already under his belt, his talent as a producer led him to remix artists as varied as Dido and Justin Timberlake.

Residents Grrd and Shay will provide the warm-up duties.

For details, visit Facebook: Jika Jika.
Students whose teachers offer encouragement are more likely to continue their education beyond the age of 16 than those who dont get the same support, according to a new study out of the University of Cambridge in the U.K.

The study also revealed that a teachers encouragement has a much greater impact on students with average grades and parents with limited educations. These students who reported receiving positive feedback from their teachers more often finished high school and pursued college degrees. (This Education Week article looks at a U.S. study that shows how teacher encouragement could counteract factors that caused students to lose trust in their school.)

When people speak of a positive school experience, they frequently cite a personal relationship with a teacher, and the encouragement they were given, study author Ben Alcott said in a statement. Our research helps quantify that impact and show its significance, particularly for addressing social mobility. Alcott is currently a lecturer at the University of Cambridge where his research addresses education access and inequalities in learning outcomes.

Alcotts findings were published in the journal Research in Higher Education. The study tracked 4,300 students in England for seven years, between 2003 and 2010, starting at age 13. Each year, participants completed a detailed questionnaire. In the equivalent of their sophomore year of high school in the United States, the last year of compulsory education in England, students were asked whether a teacher had encouraged them to continue their schooling.

Students who reported encouragement from teachers continued their educations after they turned 16 at a rate of 74 percent. Students who said they did not receive encouragement continued school at a rate of 66 percent.

When it came to students with parents who lacked a formal education, those who reported encouragement from a teacher continued with their studies after age 16 at a rate of 64 percent. Those who lacked encouragement pursued further studies at a rate of only 52 percent.

The encouragement, according to the study, was long-lasting, increasing the likelihood that students would seek a college degree by 10 percentage points.

Positive feedback from teachers didnt matter quite as much for students of parents with university degrees. For these students, encouragement from teachers increased the likelihood of continuing education by only 6 percentage points and had no impact on the pursuit of a college degree.

Yet advantaged students were more likely to report that teachers encouraged them to continue with schooling, the study found. For instance, 22 percent of students who said they received teacher encouragement had a parent with a university degree, compared with 15 percent of those who did not. Whats more, students who did not report encouragement were a third more likely to have an unemployed parent (12 percent as opposed to 9 percent).

Alcott concluded that teachers relationships with students act as real engines for social mobility.

Many teachers take the initiative to encourage students in the hope they will progress in education long after they have left the classroom, Alcott said. Its important that teachers know the effect their efforts have, and the children likely to benefit most.
Michael Smith was mistakenly released from the high security Maghaberry prison in March

A Belfast man facing jail for possessing a rifle seized by detectives as part of the Stephen Carson murder inquiry was banned on Friday from having contact with his on-the-run cousin.

Francis Gerard Patrick SmIth (40), of Glenmurray Court, in the west of the city, was due to sentenced at Belfast Croown Court after he pleaded guilty to four charges linked to the weapon seizure.

The case was adjourned for four weeks after Judge Patricia Smyth was told that a medical report into the defendant's problems with alcohol had not yet been furnished to his legal team.

During the brief hearing, prosecution counsel Philip Henry applied to the court to have Smith's bail conditions varied.

Mr Henry told the court: "My application is to vary this defendant's bail conditions and that he is not to have contact with his cousin Michael Smith.

"Michael Smith is currently unlawfully at large.''

Michael Smith was mistakenly released from the high security Maghaberry prison on Tuesday, March 7.

Police have described him as "dangerous' with an "extensive history of violence'' and ''should not be approached'' by the public.

Mr Henry confirmed to the court that the charges Francis Smith had pleaded guilty to in February this year were in relation to a separate criminal police investigation.

The charges related to the seizure of a rifle by the PSNI who were carrying out follow up inquiries into the murder of Stephen Carson after he was shot dead last year.

Francis Smith pleaded guilty to possessing a semi-automatic Ruger rifle in suspicious circusmtances on February 26, 2016.

He further admitted possessing a .22 calibre sound suppreseer and 50 Rimfire .22 calibre cartridges with hollow points in suspicious circumstances.

Smith also pleaded guilty to having an airgun without a firearms certificate.

Agreeing to the variation, Judge Smyth told the defendant: "There will be a new condition added to your bail conditions and that you are prohibited from contacting Michael Smith who is your cousin.

"If there is any contact between you and your cousin that will be a breach of your bail terms and your solicitor will explain that to you in more detail.''

The judge added that Smith should re-sign for the new bail conditions and he was led away in handcuffs by a prison officer to complete the necessary paperwork.

Stephen Carson was shot dead on Thursday, February 26 at a house in south Belfast.

The 28-year-old was eating dinner at a house in Walmer Street of the Ormeau Road with his partner and nine year old son when armed men broke into the property.

The victim tried to hide in a bathroom but his attackers blasted him through the door with a shotgun.

Detectives from the PSNI's Major Investigation Team said at the time that they did not believe his murder was paramilitary related or sectarian.

Detective Supt Kevin Geddes said: "Our main line of enquiry, but not our only line of enquiry, was that Stephen was murdered as part of a criminal feud.''

Michael Smith (38), of Ardmonagh Crescent and David Smith (33), of Monagh Drive, both west Belfast, were later jointly charged with Mr Carson's murder.
The cut-rate business levy was backed and marketed by former First Minister Arlene Foster and Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness

The Government has warned corporation tax powers cannot be handed to Northern Ireland without a working Executive.

It came after Stormont finally admitted its target date for getting the power to lower the business levy "may slip" amid the collapse of power-sharing.

And despite months of luring major foreign investment on the premise that Northern Ireland will have a lower 12.5% rate by April next year, Invest NI has admitted it will "amend its international sales and marketing activity to reflect this".

The cut-rate business levy was backed and marketed by former First Minister Arlene Foster and Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness. It has been used as one of the main marketing tools by Invest NI, in order to sell Northern Ireland to major international investors, including the US.

The campaign even drafted in Ballymena's own Hollywood superstar Liam Neeson, who said "the commitment of the Northern Ireland Executive to reduce the rate of corporation tax to 12.5% from April 2018 really is a potential game-changer for our economy".

But despite corporation tax being once again thrown into limbo, Invest NI says it will "continue to promote the commitment to a reduced rate".

Plans to give Northern Ireland the power to control the business levy, allowing it to compete on a level playing field with the Republic, are dependent on Stormont being able to "demonstrate that its finances are on a sustainable footing for the long term".

That condition was outlined in both the Stormont House and Fresh Start Agreements.

A spokesman for the Department of Finance (DoF) said: "DoF and the Department for the Economy are committed to the introduction of a reduced corporation tax rate of 12.5% in line with the commitment in the Fresh Start Agreement, which is still guiding the activities of Invest NI in promoting foreign direct investment.

"However, we recognise the fact that the conditions for implementation are not in place at the present time and as a result the proposed implementation date of April 2018 may now slip.

"It will be for incoming ministers to decide on the steps needed to confirm the timing of introduction of the reduced rate and agree an implementation plan."

And Invest NI has said it is still actively using the devolution and lower rate of corporation as a selling point for investment.

A spokeswoman said: "The intention to reduce the rate of corporation tax remains and we will therefore continue to highlight this to potential investors."

"The statement issued today by the Department of Finance has indicated that the proposed implementation date of April 2018 may now slip.

"We will therefore amend our international sales and marketing activity to reflect this.

"We will continue to promote the commitment to a reduced rate and the additional benefit this will have on investment projects and will await on incoming Ministers to confirm the timing of implementation."

On its website, Invest NI still states that "from April 2018 Northern Ireland's corporation tax rate will be 12.5%".

Meanwhile, Westminster reiterated that "the devolution of these powers cannot happen until an Executive is in place" and remains "subject to the conditions around financial sustainability".

A Government spokesman said: "We remain fully committed to the devolution of corporation tax powers in Northern Ireland, subject to the conditions around financial sustainability as set out in the Stormont House and Fresh Start Agreements.

"The Government continues to make practical arrangements and stands ready to move forward with devolving these powers when a devolved government is returned.

"The target date at which an incoming Executive wishes to implement a reduced rate of corporation tax is a matter for it, subject to the conditions around financial sustainability as set out in the Stormont House and Fresh Start Agreements."
Disgraced Hugh Patrick Mary McGoldrick faced a Medical Practitioners Tribunal (MTP) hearing in Manchester after he was convicted at Belfast Crown Court of submitting false information on patients during a sleep disorder research trial between 2007 and 2008

A crooked doctor convicted of falsifying clinical trials for his own financial gain has been finally struck off as a GP after failing to lodge an appeal.

Disgraced Hugh Patrick Mary McGoldrick faced a Medical Practitioners Tribunal (MTP) hearing in Manchester after he was convicted at Belfast Crown Court of submitting false information on patients during a sleep disorder research trial between 2007 and 2008.

He stood to pocket up to 15,000 for his work.

After last month's MTP hearing the 59-year-old was told his name would be erased from the medical register for his misconduct.

He was given 28 days to appeal.

His solicitor said at the time that McGoldrick, of Crossgar Road East, Downpatrick, Co Down, planned to do so.

But the MTP had not received any appeal from McGoldrick when the 28-day deadline ran out on Wednesday.

A spokeman for the MTP said: "We have not received any confirmation of an appeal either from the court or the doctor."

He confirmed Dr McGoldrick's name was struck from the register yesterday.

Shamed McGoldrick was initially sentenced to nine months in jail for what a judge described as his "unscrupulous" behaviour in the first criminal prosecution of its kind in the UK.

Ordering him to also pay a fine of 10,000, Judge Piers Grant told McGoldrick he had "shown no remorse" for his actions, adding: "Your only sorrow concerns the fact that you were caught."

But the Court of Appeal decided to suspend the nine-month jail term.

At his fitness to practice hearing this month, the MTP had determined that because of his guilty pleas and conviction, McGoldrick's "fitness to practice was impaired".

A lawyer for the General Medical Council told the MTP hearing that the appropriate sanction to be imposed was removal from the register.

The lawyer added: "His dishonesty related to clinical trials and was at the highest end of the scale."
A rescue helicopter sits on the beach after the aircraft crashed

Two air passengers swam ashore to safety after their aircraft crashed into the sea near Shoreham in Sussex.

Emergency services were alerted to the crash at 3.50pm yesterday, Sussex Police said.

A force spokesman said: "Two people are reported to have escaped from the aircraft, believed to be a Cessna.

"They swam ashore after the plane came down quite close to the beach and are thought to be uninjured at this time."

A spokeswoman from the Maritime and Coastguard Agency said: "The UK Coastguard received multiple 999 calls at approximately 3.50pm, reporting that a small plane with two people on board had ditched into the water off Shoreham.

"The Shoreham Coastguard Rescue Team and RNLI lifeboat were immediately tasked, along with the Coastguard search and rescue helicopter from Lee-on-Solent. Thankfully, both individuals are now ashore safe and well and in the care of Sussex Police and the South East Ambulance Service."

South East Coast Ambulance Service said it dispatched an ambulance and single responder.

The patients were assessed at the scene and neither required hospital treatment.
The funeral of James McAlister takes place at St Marys Parish Church in Cushendall on March 31st 2017

The funeral of James McAlister takes place at St Marys Parish Church in Cushendall on March 31st 2017

The funeral of James McAlister takes place as St Marys Parish Church in Cushendall on March 31st 2017

The funeral of James McAlister takes place at St Marys Parish Church in Cushendall on March 31st 2017

The funeral of James McAlister takes place at St Marys Parish Church in Cushendall on March 31st 2017

The funeral of James McAlister takes place at St Marys Parish Church in Cushendall on March 31st 2017

The funeral of James McAlister takes place at St Marys Parish Church in Cushendall on March 31st 2017

The funeral of a farmer who tragically died while at his wife's funeral has heard how he was a "loving family man".

James McAlister became unwell on Wednesday while shaking hands with mourners at his wife Kathleen's funeral service at St Mary's church in Cushendall.

Both were aged in their 70s.

Mrs McAlister, originally from Ballycastle, had died on Monday. Her husband's funeral service took place in the same church on Friday.

Prayer was offered for those who helped in Mr McAllister's last moments.

The congregation was told: "He really loved family. He was a family man and the centre of the McAlister family."

On Thursday his niece Marie Molloy (36) and nephew John James McAlister (41) paid tribute to their uncle, who was known to friends as 'Big Jas'.

"It was a big shock at the time," said Marie at her uncle's home on the Tromra Road.

"We're pulling together and the community have been awfully supportive. James and Kathleen were lovely people, very kind and generous.

"They were very committed to each other and James loved the land and farming. He was very much a Glens man."

John James said the family were still trying to absorb both losses in such a short space of time.

"It's an awful shock seeing someone like that", he said.

"He had started shaking hands with people offering their condolences and he took unwell."

Despite efforts made to save Mr McAlister, he was unable to recover.

"There was a doctor at the funeral and she was working at him within minutes", said John James.

Tragically, he was pronounced dead at the scene.

Mr McAlister had worked with the Rivers Agency, retiring 10 years ago.

However, he continued working on his extensive cattle and sheep farm.

Friend and former colleague Aidan McAteer, who chairs Ruairi Og hurling club, said Mr McAlister was a "good-hearted man."

"I've known him all my life since he was a young lad.

"He became a personal friend and I worked with him for a number of years in the rivers agency. He was a great character and a great man to work with. He was a real good hearted man and great fun and craic. The working day never seemed that long with him."

Mr McAteer was among the mourners who attended Wednesday's service.

"The circumstances have just shocked everybody with the way it happened", he said.
Arlene Arkinson went missing after a night out in Co Donegal in August 1994 (handout picture/PA)

Officers from An Garda Siochana could be asked to give evidence at the inquest for missing Northern Ireland schoolgirl Arlene Arkinson, a coroner's court has been told.

The long-running case, which opened 13 months ago, has stalled over a wrangle for information from the authorities in Dublin.

The court is waiting for documentation about the Garda investigation into the 15-year-old's disappearance in 1994.

A lawyer for the Arkinson family told a preliminary hearing at Belfast's Laganside Court that once the documents have been received, Irish police could be asked to give oral evidence to the inquest.

Due to the different jurisdictions however, Garda officers cannot be compelled to attend.

"We will have to decide if oral evidence from gardai is necessary. More critically, would any be forthcoming?" the lawyer said.

He told the coroner: "The problem is, some of these matters aren't in your power or control."

Arlene, from Castlederg in Co Tyrone, vanished after a night out across the Border in Co Donegal in August 1994.

She was last seen being driven down a country road by convicted paedophile and child-killer Robert Howard.

Despite extensive searches, including a dig late last year, the teenager's remains have never been found.

The coroner's court has requested documentation from the authorities in the Republic of Ireland in relation to four key areas.

These include the lines of inquiry pursued by An Garda Siochana; searches carried out south of the border; and a purported meeting between Garda officers and Howard's former girlfriend Patricia Quinn and her daughter Donna Quinn in Letterkenny.

A lawyer for coroner Judge Brian Sherrard told the hearing that a "comprehensive response" from the Chief State Solicitors Office in Dublin was "imminent".

Judge Sherrard said the news was "very reassuring".

He stressed the importance of obtaining the material, but warned it "may well be that nothing of great value emerges."

Delays in progressing the inquest into Arlene's disappearance are continuing to leave the Arkinson family "extremely frustrated," their lawyer told the coroner.

He said: "We have reached what we hope is the start of the end. But we have been thinking we are at the start of the end for quite a few months.

"The frustration here is not what is being done here in Northern Ireland, but comes from outside."

The case has been adjourned until April 27.

Judge Sherrard said he hoped that on that date, the requested documentation from the authorities in Dublin will have been received.

The Arkinson family, who have closely followed court proceedings, were not present for the hearing.

Robert Howard was acquitted of Arlene's murder in 2005 by a jury not told of his lengthy criminal past, which included the murder of south London teenager Hannah Williams several years earlier.

However, he remained the prime suspect in the Arkinson case until his death in prison in 2015.
Troubles victims who have been appointed to the Victims and Survivors Forum say they hope their experiences will help Northern Ireland deal with the past and build a brighter future.

Yesterday 13 new members from both sides of the community, who have been touched in different ways by tragedy, met for the first time.

They will play a key role in consultations on legislation which would deliver legacy bodies set out in the Stormont House Agreement, such as a Historical Investigations Unit (HIU) and an Oral History Archive.

Commissioner for Victims and Survivors Judith Thompson has also asked the Secretary of State to consider the appointment of a shadow director to the HIU as soon as agreement on the legislation is reached, ensuring a victim-centred approach.

London woman Mina Jadeja, who was severely injured in the IRA car bomb at Harrods on December 17, 1983, said she hoped the forum would ensure victims' voices were heard.

"I had just come out of Harrods after taking my two nephews to see Father Christmas with my sister when the bomb went off," she recalled.

"There was so much smoke and all of the glass from Harrods' windows was in our bodies, it was stuck in my face. I had covered up my five-year-old nephew so he wasn't hurt. My sister and older nephew survived, but were injured. It had a devastating effect on my family. I lost the use of my right arm and faced years of injuries and operations. There was shrapnel from the car in my elbow and in my neck, so I'm lucky I wasn't paralysed completely. We had never heard of the IRA before that incident."

Despite the pain Mina still suffers, she was determined to fly over to take part in the forum.

"This will be part of my personal healing process," she added. "I want to know what policies are going to be passed and be part of making them to ensure even and fair representation."

Fellow forum member and Mid Ulster SDLP councillor Denise Mullen recalled how, as a four-year-old, she sat in her blood-stained nightie beside her father Denis's body after he was shot on September 1, 1975.

Both her parents were SDLP activists, and the loyalist Glenanne Gang had also tried to murder her mother Olive at their home outside Moy that night.

"It was over 10 years before I was able to tell anyone what I had witnessed," she stated.

"I consider myself to be a carer for my mother, a witness and a victim; but also a survivor. I have followed in my parents' footsteps in the SDLP and I haven't been cowed by what happened.

"I'm looking forward to working with a diverse range of people in the forum."

Another new member is Jeremy Adams (57), who as a nine-year-old witnessed the murder of his neighbour, a resident magistrate, by the IRA in 1974.

"The IRA also tried to murder my father, but he survived as he had left the room," Jeremy said.

"I joined the RUC when I was 18 and was injured in an IRA car bomb and shooting at Newry Courthouse in 1985.

"I took time off to heal but went on to do another 29 years' service. I later had counselling for alexithymia, which means I blocked emotions out. I hope to use my role on the forum to call for more mental health services for victims and their families."

Robert McClenaghan now 59, was 12 when his grandfather Philip Garry (73) was killed in the McGurk's Bar bombing of December 4, 1971.

He has spent 45 years campaigning to establish the truth of what happened.

"We all come from different points of view and we are trying to come together to come to a consensus and collectively have our voice," he said.

"There isn't one narrative of the Troubles - each narrative needs to be respected and acknowledged. My issue is to get the truth, and also how to help survivors."
James Brokenshire said the intensity of negotiations needed to increase in the days and weeks ahead

Northern Ireland's political parties have been invited to "intensive talks" to restore the collapsed Stormont Executive.

The Northern Ireland Office (NIO) has said the talks, due to begin on Monday, April 3, will have work to find agreement on forming a government and addressing the implementation of outstanding issues from previous agreements.

Officials have said both the British and Irish governments will be involved, there will be an agreed agenda regular bi-lateral meetings and roundtable talks.

"The talks will be conducted in accordance with the well-established three stranded approach," an NIO statement said.

Following the March 2 snap election, brought about after Martin McGuinness resigned as deputy First Minister over the Renewable Heating Incentive, the parties failed to find agreement within the three-week time span for talks.

Some described the process as "shambolic".

Secretary of State James Brokenshire is faced with the possibility of calling another election or seeking legislation from Westminster to bring about direct rule if no deal is reached within the coming weeks.
James Brokenshire has invited the parties to take part in the talks at Stormont Castle

Northern Ireland's political parties have been asked to participate in another round of talks in a bid to resolve the political crisis.

Secretary of State James Brokenshire has invited the parties to take part in the talks process at Stormont Castle on Monday.

The UK and Irish governments have said they want the talks to have an agreed agenda and regular round-table meetings.

A deadline to form a powersharing executive was missed on Monday.

However Mr Brokenshire has said he believed there was still a window of opportunity for parties to reach an agreement.

"The talks will have two objectives. First, to secure a coalition agreement to form the basis of the formation of a new Executive.

"Second, to address the implementation of outstanding issues from previous Agreements," said Mr Brokenshire.

He added: "In a shared approach, the UK government and Irish government have agreed this phase of talks will be best supported by an intensive process to drive progress."

He recently told MPs he does not believe there is an appetite for a fresh snap election.

Irish Foreign Minister Charlie Flanagan said that as a co-guarantor of the Good Friday Agreement, the Irish Government "is determined to uphold its principles and protect its institutions".

He added: "In the days ahead we will work with all concerned to this end.

"I believe it is critically important to see devolved Government restored and working effectively in the interests of the people of Northern Ireland, in particular in the context of Brexit."

On Sunday talks to restore the institutions broke down after Sinn Fein said it would not nominate a deputy first minister.

Michelle O'Neill said at the time that talks to renew a powersharing agreement with the DUP had come to the "end of the road".

Responding to the invitation to attend another round of negotiations next week, Sinn Fein's John O'Dowd said the talks must be about the implementation of previous agreements.

He added: "There is a need to restore public confidence by securing political institutions based on equality, respect and integrity and delivering for everyone.

"That requires the British government and the DUP to commit to implementing the outstanding commitments of the Good Friday and subsequent agreements.

"The Irish government is a co-guarantor of the Good Friday Agreement and it must hold the British government to account.

"That will be Sinn Fein's focus in the talks."
American Apparel's Founder Loses Defamation Case in His Termination

A state appeals court said American Apparel's founder cannot sue for defamation based on a press release that announced his termination.

The California Second District Court of Appeal said Dov Charney's case, Charney v. Standard General, was barred as a Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation and affirmed a trial court's order dismissing the case. Judge Terry Green had thrown out the case because Charney could not show a likelihood of prevailing.

"I think there's more likelihood that I'd be the first American astronaut on Mars before this plaintiff wins this lawsuit," he said.

Press Release

Charney was terminated on Dec. 15, 2014, and the company issued a press release about it on Dec. 22, 2014. The release said:

As we have stated previously, our objective is to help American Apparel grow and succeed. We supported the independent, third-party and very thorough investigation into the allegations against Mr. Charney, and respect the Board of Directors decision to terminate him based on the results of that investigation.

Charney then sued Standard General, which took over American Apparel, alleging the press release contained false and defamatory statements about him. The trial judge dismissed the complaint, concluding that he could not prove anything false about the release.

"Improper and Immoral Conduct"

On appeal, Charney argued that the release charged him with "engaging in illegal and criminal misconduct" and "improper and immoral conduct." He tried to convince the appeals court to consider an investigation that preceded his firing.

The investigation, which was supervised by the company's lawyers at Jones Day, resulted in a suspension letter for various misdeeds. These included "repeated violations of the company's sexual harassment and anti-discrimination policies" and "directing derogatory and disparaging comments to others."

Judge Sanjay Kumar, writing for the unanimous appellate panel, said the release did not refer to the substance of the investigation.

"The statement cannot be proven false as it does not state that Charney engaged in criminal conduct or that his conduct violated certain standards, or even that there existed any particular conduct that caused his termination," the judge said.

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Revolucion de Cuba is opening up its first cocktail bar and restaurant in Belfast this summer.

The new nightspot will be located in the former Cafe Vaudeville building on Arthur Street close to Cornmarket and Victoria Square.

The listed, two-storey mid-terrace former bank building dates back to the 1800s and was once the head office for Dunville & Co. It was put on the market for 3.5m earlier this year.

The 6,200 square foot property features ground floor and mezzanine bars, 324 covers and external seating by the entrance. Owners Revolution Bars Group said the interior is "Cuban-inspired and vibrant, reflecting the brands classic Havana-style".

The new nightspot will employ 70 people.

Mark McQuater, CEO of Revolution Bars Group said: "Belfast represents an exciting location for us in a site with real heritage. We very much look forward to bringing the rich Cuban culture to this vibrant city and opening our first Revolucion de Cuba in Northern Ireland."

Revolution Bars Group will be the first major English company since JD Wetherspoon to enter the Northern Ireland pub market.

The group said it has plans to further expand the estate in Northern Ireland over the next couple of years.
Jewish women and children, some wearing the yellow Star of David patch on their chests, at Auschwitz concentration camp

For scores of Ulster schoolchildren, it was a day trip to a destination synonymous with depravity, to one of the most horrendous hellholes on earth - Auschwitz, the epicentre of evil perpetrated by the Nazis who systematically and sickeningly slaughtered 1.1 million people there just over 70 years ago.

And even though they'd been warned to steel themselves for what they would see at Auschwitz and the nearby obscenity of the Birkenau death camp, it was still all too much for a number of the students as they struggled to contain their emotions on a once-in-a-lifetime visit to confront death on an unimaginable scale.

All around them were displays in glass fronted cabinets containing two tonnes of human hair roughly shorn from the heads of terrified Auschwitz inmates; plus tens of thousands of glasses and shoes, some ripped from the feet of babies, and suitcases, and mountains of pots and pans brought with them by Jewish people who'd been forcibly deported from their homes.

They were sights that were harrowing for the most seasoned of souls but for young people aged 16 and 17 coming face to face with the reality of what the Nazis hailed as "the final solution" was way, way beyond anything that their seminars, study books and googling could have prepared them for.

A doctor shadowed their every move.

Few of the visitors probably knew the history of the Holocaust better than Molly Liggett from Portadown College, a happy-go-lucky, breezy, 17-year-old sometime actress and dancer.

Long before the Lessons from Auschwitz trip was organised by the London-based Holocaust Educational Trust, Molly had been researching the Germans' cruel campaign, as they said themselves, to kill every Jew on the planet.

Molly not only read "an amazing book" called A Time to Speak by Belfast-based Holocaust survivor and choreographer Helen Lewis but she also devised a dance routine centring on her life for a show.

Molly said: "To save her life Helen had to dance to entertain camp guards and her recollections were inspirational. But I also used another Holocaust story, The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, as the foundation for a dance for a speech and drama festival.

"Auschwitz has always been on my list of places I wanted to visit, especially after my parents and grandparents told me about coming here."

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But inside the Auschwitz museum Molly, from Derryhale outside Portadown, cried as she surveyed the textiles made from human hair and the desperately upsetting images of barely alive women and children who were little more than skin and bones.

A friend threw her arms around her and Karen Pollock, the chief executive of the Holocaust Trust tried to comfort her too.

Later after she regained her composure, Molly told me: "The shoes started me off, especially the baby ones and the pictures of the weeping children were also awful. It's hard to imagine that anyone, especially the young and the innocent, had to go through what they did."

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Molly said that she was reminded of what Holocaust survivor Mala Tribich told a seminar just before the visit.

"She said that she forgave the people for what they did wrong. I don't think I could do that but I will never forget what I have seen at Auschwitz today."

Throughout the disturbing tour of the human reminders of the Nazis' inhumanity, the Ulster students listened spellbound as their guide Anna brought death to life in rooms signposted "the road of death", "extermination" and "exploiting the corpses".

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The silence was all-pervading on the tour where "quiet please" notices simply weren't needed.

In places, pictures of emaciated Polish prisoners and starving children adorned the walls along with recorded examples of the hideous human medical experiments carried out at Auschwitz by the German SS officer, Dr Josef Mengele.

Stomach-churning snapshots of smoke rising from heaps of burning bodies didn't need explanation for the students, many of whom winced at the abomination before their eyes.

But even before they arrived in Poland - and unusually for a school excursion - the mood had subdued as the students and a number of teachers flew out of Belfast International Airport on a chartered plane before dawn as part of the first local trip set up by the Holocaust Trust since 2008.

The NI visits were halted after devolution but earlier this year the Stormont Executive gave the Trust 160,000 to resume what the organisation said were "life changing" visits for two pupils from every school in the province.

On their way to the first port of call, the town which the Germans called Auschwitz and which the Poles now call Oswiecim, two Methodist College Belfast schoolgirls told me why they'd wanted to travel to Poland.

Emilie McConnell said: "We have been studying German history at school and it's given me a deep interest in Auschwitz/Birkenau. I hope that by coming to see it in person it will consolidate my knowledge."

Rachel McIvor said: "I know that the day ahead is going to be very difficult, especially standing at the very spot where so many thousands of people died, but I know it will bring home to us all that such inhumanity should never happen again."

In the strikingly pretty square of Oswiecim, the Trust's educator Martin Winstone who accompanied one of the six groups of students, said the town was a chilling illustration of what the war had done. "Before the German invasion, 58% of the population was Jewish, around 7,000 in all. Today there are no Jews here."

Martin showed the youngsters pictures of Jews being brusquely marched out of the town as their neighbours watched dispassionately and he also pointed to an empty space where a huge synagogue was once situated beside an imposing Catholic church. "The Germans burnt it down within weeks of coming here," he said.

After hearing the back story of Auschwitz, the students were brought to see the horror picture of the concentration and death camps on the edge of the town.

Chloe McGuigan and Olivia Heagney from Holy Trinity College in Cookstown posed with a school flag under the iconic sign proclaiming Arbeit Macht Frei (Work Sets You Free) at Auschwitz One, a former Polish garrison where identical two-storey red brick buildings now house the gruesome secrets that the Nazis wanted to hide from the world.

Holy Trinity's history teacher Daniela de Almeida, who's from Portugal, said: "We are all well aware of the shame of Auschwitz but witnessing it here today is a completely different experience."

Olivia said: "I couldn't say I was looking forward to coming here. But it has given me a greater understanding and allowed me to empathise with people on a personal level."

Chloe was visibly distressed. "I find it very hard to think that so many people came to Auschwitz before me and never came out alive. I can't help wondering how humanity could have stooped so low."

Luke McCarney from Lagan College said he thought he had a good grasp of Auschwitz beforehand. "I've been studying German history for a few years now but I have found a lot of what we've been told today really shocking."

Two girls from Cookstown High School had looked almost shell-shocked during parts of the visit.

Alana Black said: "It was very disturbing. I didn't realise a lot of the materials on display would be here. But I'm glad that I saw them."

Alicia Lagan said: "Seeing all the hair and the fabrics was particularly painful. To witness such a massive amount was disturbing."

High School history teacher Selina Allen said she learnt a lesson at Auschwitz. She said: "I think as teachers we get a little bit de-sensitised because we teach it so often. I wasn't sure how I would react but it has been a real eye-opener for me."

But still the shocks kept coming. A new exhibition, partly funded by the Israeli government, includes audio-visuals designed to show the killings at Auschwitz/Birkenau in the wider context of the Holocaust.

But the centrepiece of it all is an enormous book in Block 27 which lists the names of 4.2 million Jews killed in the Holocaust with thousands more scheduled to be added.

The students were later shown the gallows where the commandant of Auschwitz Rudolf Hoess was hanged in 1947 after he was captured by the British who executed him not far from where he had lived with his family. His wife compared her life on the fringes of the death camp to "living in paradise".

Martin Winstone, however, said Hoess was an unremarkable, unexceptional individual who didn't fit the stereotype of a psychopath and monster and he told the students that the Holocaust was mainly the work of ordinary people "who made choices".

The Ulster party queued up to go into the dimly lit gas chamber at Auschwitz through the same door as the victims entered to be mercilessly executed before their bodies were burned in a crematorium.

A party from St Patrick's College Maghera was horrified, especially as many of the Jews were told they were going into the building to shower.

Conor McAteer said: "It's been staggering that man could inflict such inhumanity to his fellow man. I have read about Auschwitz and I've seen footage of Auschwitz but to see it for real has been overwhelming."

Classroom assistant Geraldine McKeefry said: "As a parent myself it doesn't bear thinking about that mothers believed they were bringing their children here to protect them but were actually taking them to their deaths."

The Ulster group were then taken to nearby Birkenau, where hundreds of thousands of Jews had arrived by train little thinking that they were on doomed journeys. Photographs showed doctors examining them and sending them off in one direction to work or to death in the other.

What happened has been described as murder on an industrial scale and the students also witnessed the appalling conditions where Jewish people before their murders, were housed in their hundreds in buildings designed for 50 horses.

The Holocaust Educational Trust, who received support in their fledgling days from the late NI Secretary of State Merlyn Rees, hope the Executive or whoever ends up governing Northern Ireland will help them bring more children from the province to Auschwitz/Birkenau in the future.

Chief Executive Karen Pollock said it was important that people remembered what the victims of the Holocaust had gone through and shared their legacy and learnt lessons from the past.

"We have brought thousands of pupils from all over the UK to Auschwitz/Birkenau since our formation in 1988 and many of them have become our ambassadors to tell others about the Holocaust. It has been particularly encouraging for us to re-establish the scheme in Northern Ireland."

At a monument at Birkenau beside a crematorium that the Nazis tried to demolish before the Liberation, Rabbi Barry Marcus from London conducted a short service before the Ulster students lit candles and read poems.

After a minute's silence, the rabbi said that if the visitors held similar tributes for all the millions of victims of the Holocaust they would still be there in two years' time.
A Northern Ireland-raised SNP council candidate has been accused of joking he was the 'Ra on tour'.

Chris Cullen is originally from Armagh and is standing for the SNP in the South Ayrshire Council election. He has been accused of posting the comment on a Facebook thread about a holiday last year.

However, Mr Cullen has stressed he has no connection with the IRA or ever supported it, instead saying he is a victim of a social media hate campaign and sectarian abuse describing the claims as rumours.

The Daily Record reports that a complaint has been lodged with the SNP over the comment.

An SNP supporter, who did not wish to be named said: It is totally inappropriate for a prospective councillor to make a comment about the IRA in this context. It is a terrorist organisation. He is a well known Irish republican. We cant believe he got through the vetting process.

Mr Cullen said: I am extremely disappointed at how quickly this election campaign has descended into personal attacks and sectarian abuse. I stood as a candidate because of my passion to work on the issues affecting the people of Ayr East, and because I want to see the town that I now call home thrive again. But I have been astonished to find myself subject to rumours about my personal life and accusations of affiliation to the IRA.

"I have never made any secret of the fact that, like many people born in Northern Ireland, I hold dual Irish and UK citizenship. I am also a supporter of the unification of Ireland. But I am not, nor have I ever been, a supporter or a member of a terrorist organisation. I was 14 years old when the Good Friday Agreement was signed, and the idea that I would join a paramilitary group is simply just ludicrous.

Mr Cullen added: I fully appreciate that the West of Scotland has long struggled with the problems of sectarianism and anti-Irish sentiment but, since moving here five years ago, this is the first time it has affected me directly. Up until now, I have found the people of Ayrshire to be friendly and welcoming, so I am hugely disappointed by this development.

"I know that people who put themselves forward for election have to quickly develop a thick skin, and I am happy to take constructive criticism on the chin. However, I am not prepared to put up with racist and sectarian abuse, and have now sought legal advice with a view to having these people prosecuted.
The heartbroken son of a 75-year-old farmer who died after being gored by a bull has told of the frantic efforts to save him.

Alex McKinley, who passed away on the farm he was given as a wedding present in 1966, had celebrated 51 years of marriage two days before his death.

His wife Margaret (75) has been left "numbed" by the horrifying incident, which happened on Tuesday afternoon on the outskirts of Omagh, devastating his family and leaving the local community in shock.

Speaking to the Belfast Telegraph ahead of today's funeral, Mr McKinley's eldest son Raymond, who arrived at the scene just moments before his father was pronounced dead, said: "It's like a bad dream."

Cattle farmer Raymond said that his dad was "in the yard doing his normal little routine of mucking out animals and moving silage to feed cows in calving pens" when tragedy struck.

"This particular bull was out along with the cows in another yard and Daddy had been up and cleaned out his pen - just the general run of the mill things," the 50-year-old explained.

"At that stage Daddy decided to let the animal back into its pen again, and it was then that he met his demise."

The father-of-three said that his younger brother Trevor (44), who was working in a field beside the farmyard, realised that something was wrong when he noticed cattle running loose.

"We don't know exactly what happened because Dad was on his own at the time," said Raymond, who also works at a local engineering firm.

"Trevor saw that the cattle had escaped from the yard.

"He went to stop them from getting onto the road and that's when he found my father.

"He immediately started to administer CPR and he shouted to my mother to call an ambulance. He worked with dad until the paramedics arrived.

"They were absolutely brilliant. They were here in nine minutes.

"They did everything they could to revive him, but it was just too late."

Choking back tears, Raymond recalled how he dropped everything and rushed to his parents' home after he received a phone call alerting him to the accident.

"My mother told me to come quick because a bull had attacked Dad," he said.

"The factory is only a mile-and-a-half away from the home farm and I raced out the road.

"When I got there the paramedics were coming to the end of their procedure.

"I was there just for them to pronounce him dead. It was around 3.15pm."

Paying tribute to his "fantastic" father as "a quiet, unassuming man" with "a wealth of knowledge and experience", Raymond said his mother, brother and sisters Linda (47) and Avril (45) were struggling with their loss.

"Mum is numbed; it'll just take time to move on," he said.

"Time leaves things a lot easier to comprehend."

Describing farming as a vocation that's "in the blood", Raymond said his wife Valerie (46), an accountant, his son Glenn (17), and daughters Alex (23) and Kyra (19) all helped out on the farms when needed.

But he added that these days the younger generation must seek additional employment outside of the industry which has meant older people, like his father, were being left to carry most of the burden themselves.

"As life has moved on and times have become more difficult in farming, older farmers have been left to do the things round the farmyard and they're very much on their own now," he said.

"Their reactions aren't the same as what they were when they were younger, so I'd like to tell older farmers in particular not to take any chances and to ensure that they're not on their own."

Raymond said his father had died on the farm that "was gifted to him by his father Robert John in 1966 when he got married.

"Daddy was a wonderful man. He was a private man. He didn't go out," he added.

"His whole life centered around home."

The funeral will take place today at 1pm at Gillygooley Presbyterian Church followed by interment in Dublin Road Cemetery.

Rev Robert Herron, the Minister of Trinity and Gillygooley Presbyterian Churches, who knew Mr McKinley for more than 20 years, said the pensioner had just recovered from a serious illness.

"Alex was a hardworking man who simply loved the outdoors and working on the farm," he said. "For this to happen now is simply terrible."

The Health and Safety Executive said it was investigating the fatality. Figures from the HSENI reveal that there has been one death per year as a result of farm accidents involving bulls since 2014.
Gary Haggarty is facing an unprecedented 202 charges - including five murders, five attempted murders and 66 firearms offences - linked to UVF activity

UVF supergrass Gary Haggarty is to be formally arraigned on over 200 terrorist charges in the summer, a court heard on Friday.

Haggarty (46), whose address was given as c/o PSNI Knocknagoney in east Belfast, was due to be arraigned on April 28 this year.

The former tyre fitter is facing an unprecedented 202 charges - including five murders, five attempted murders and 66 firearms offences - linked to UVF activity across north Belfast and south east Antrim in the 1990s and 2000s.

The charges span a period of 16 years and also include offences of directing the activities of the UVF in south-east Antrim, as well as being a member of the proscribed organisation.

During a review of his case on Friday at Belfast Crown Court in the absence of Haggarty, a senior defence counsel told Mr Justice Treacy that the arraignment on April 28 would not now proceed.

Martin O'Rourke Qc told the court: "We indicated at the last review that we may have difficulty with the arraingment on April 28 that had been fixed by the court.

"We are now asking for a substantial adjournment to consider the material in the case and the reasons for that are two-fold: firstly, there had been the issue of getting legal aid in the case and secondly the substantial amount of papers in the case.

"We have had about eight weeks of slippage in the case in reviewing the material. We are asking for a deferral of the arraignment until towards the end of term in order to facilitate a consideration the papers.

"There will be a substantial amount of charges that there will be guilty pleas to but it is not practical to have a partial arraignment in the case.''

Describing it as a "complex case'', Mr O'Rourke added the because of the huge volume of papers involved, he wanted he review all the papers in their entirety "so we can advise our client''.

Mr Justice Treacy set the date for the new arraignment hearing for Friday, June 23 for all 202 charges.

The judge added that if matters had progressed before that, then the defence team should come back to the court and an early date for the arraignment could be fixed.

A previous hearing was told that the defence team were dealing with 1,100 inteviews Haggarty had with detectives spanning a four year period.

He was first arrested in August 2009 was initially charged with the murder of John Harbinson, who was beaten to death with an iron bar in the Mount Vernon estate in north Belfast on FA Cup final day, Saturday, May 16, 1997.
The woman did not receive any injuries as a result of the incident.

A woman was hit with a stun gun twice after a man broke into a Belfast bookmakers from the ceiling.

Police are appealing for witnesses after the attempted armed robbery on the Woodstock Road.

On Friday morning at around 9.15 the masked man gained entry to the business premises via the ceiling and demanded money from the female worker.

The man then used what is believed to be a stun gun twice on the female before fleeing from the scene.

The woman did not receive any injuries as a result of the incident.

Detective Sergeant Mason said: "The male was described as being six foot tall, wearing a black balaclava, navy sweatshirt, black trousers and carrying a navy holdall.

"We are appealing to anyone that may have any information or to anyone that may have witnessed any suspicious activity in the area at the time.

"In particular, we are appealing to anyone that may have witnessed this male in the Woodstock Road area to contact Musgrave Reactive and Organised Crime Branch on the non-emergency number 101, quoting reference 232 of the 31/03/17. Or, alternatively if someone would prefer to provide information without giving their details they can contact the independent charity Crimestoppers and speak to the anonymously on 0800 555 111.
The bodies were found with the wreckage of the helicopter in Snowdonia

The bodies of all five family members who died when their helicopter crashed in Snowdonia have been recovered by rescue workers.

The victims have been identified as Kevin and Ruth Burke aged 56 and 49, Donald and Sharon Burke aged 55 and 48, and Barry Burke, 51, all from the greater Milton Keynes area, North Wales Police said.

The three men, believed to be brothers travelling with two of their wives, were on the way to a family confirmation service when the helicopter crashed, according to the Irish Independent.

Their bodies were found with the wreckage of the helicopter in the Rhinog mountains near Trawsfynydd on Thursday, following a major search which began on Wednesday when the privately-owned Twin Squirrel aircraft failed to arrive in Dublin.

Chief Inspector Richie Green, at North Wales Police, said: "Shortly before 3.30pm this afternoon the last of the five who were on board the helicopter were recovered and they have now been transported to a local hospital's mortuary.

"Thames Valley Police family liaison officers have informed family members and we can now begin the very difficult process of formal identification.

"We'll continue to support the family and I'd simply ask both media and public alike to respect their privacy at this time. Our thoughts remain with the extended family and their friends."

He also thanked the 80-plus police officers and rescue workers involved "not just for their dedication and skill in very trying conditions but also the dignified and compassionate manner in which the whole operation was conducted".

Kevin and Ruth Burke, from Hulcote near Milton Keynes - close to where the helicopter took off - were directors of Staske Construction, which owned a Twin Squirrel.

The family is reported to have strong links with Ireland and Ruth Burke is believed to be from Dublin.

The three brothers were the sons of an Irish couple who emigrated to Britain, according to the Irish Independent.

Dewi Pritchard Jones, senior coroner for North West Wales, told the Press Association that a coroner's investigation to determine the causes and circumstances of death has been opened.

Model Danielle Lloyd paid tribute to two of the victims on Instagram.

She wrote: "Such sad news about Ruth and Kevin Burke they were two of the nicest people I've ever had the privilege to meet and my thoughts and prayers are with all the family."

Now the bodies have been recovered, a joint investigation led by the Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB) "will begin in earnest", Mr Green said.

The police said they and the AAIB are hoping to begin recovery of the helicopter over the weekend, weather permitting.

Until then, the temporary exclusion zone over the crash site with a height of 5,500ft (1,676m) above sea level, reduced to a two mile radius, will remain.

The force has released a new photo of the site prior to the crash, and is appealing for anyone who saw the aircraft flying over Snowdonia between 12pm and 1pm on Wednesday to contact the force by calling 101.
Denis O'Brien has lost his Irish High Court action over statements made by two TDs in the Dail about his banking affairs.

Ms Justice Una Ni Raifeartaigh today dismissed the businessman's action against the Clerk of the Dail and the State after upholding the respondents core argument - the Constitution prohibits the courts intervening over utterances in either House of the Oireachtas.

Article 15.13 of the Constitution states members of the Oireachtas are not amenable to any court or authority other than the Houses themselves for utterances in the Houses.

The respondents argued that confers absolute immunity over what is said in the Oireachtas. They also argued, if Mr OBrien won, that would greatly restrict Dail speech into the future.

In her judgment, the judge said the case raised important issues concerning the mutual respect the courts and Oireachtas accord to each other under the Constitution and for the separation of powers between the branches of government. It had wide implications, she also said.

The court was being asked to examine parliamentary utterances in a manner that would have "a chilling effect on speech more generally", she said. The court "should not be involved in doing anything of that kind".

What Mr O'Brien was seeking would have "very far-reaching" effects, she said.

The courts "simply do not have a role in policing parliamentary utterances" except perhaps in grave exceptional circumstances of which this case was not one, she said.

While there may be a need to establish a body to examine how parliamentarians might discuss matters concerning private information that are before the courts, she also said. The courts could not however intervene.

The case ran for almost seven days before concluding last December. Legal costs are expected to exceed 1m and liability for those will be decided after the sides have considered the judgment.

Mr O'Brien was not in court today. Social Democrats TD Catherine Murphy, one of the TDs who made the statements, was in court.

Ms Justice Ni Raifeartaigh had deferred her judgment until after the High Court ruled on the separate case of former Rehab CEO Angela Kerins, brought over the conduct of two Dail Public Account Committee hearings in 2014 concerning payments of public monies to Rehab.

A three judge High Court earlier this year dismissed Ms Kerins' case, which raised some similar issues relating to the privilege attached to "utterances" in the Oireachtas.

In his action, Mr OBrien alleged Deputy Murphy and Sinn Fein TD Pearse Doherty clearly disregarded the constitutional separation of powers between parliament and the courts when they respectively made statements in the Dail in May and June 2015.

He claimed the statements, made when he had ongoing High Court proceedings against RTE seeking to restrain it publishing details of his banking relationship with State-owned Irish Bank Resolution Corporation, amounted to unwarranted interference in the judicial domain.

He also argued the Dail Committee on Procedure and Privileges (CPP), which rejected his complaints over the statements, failed to properly police the TDs over their statements.

Mr OBrien, the sole witness in the case, told the judge he wanted the court to censure both TDs over their statements and to lay down a line beyond which Dail deputies cannot go.

Both TDs acted recklessly and maliciously, he hoped this would never happen again and his case will change things for the future, he said.

In her judgment, the judge held she was not persuaded the utterances of the TDs had in effect decided Mr OBriens High Court injunctions proceedings. The TDs actions did not seek to direct the courts how to decide the case, she said.

However, the use of parliamentary speech did have a substantial effect on the proceedings, she said.

She said it has always been clear while courts and Oireachtas have their respective functions, tensions can arise as result of parliamentary speech. The release of confidential information that is subject of a court order creates particular difficulties, she said.

Once released into the public arena, the information can never again be privatised and that meant the tension reached an acute point.

The issue was whether that was breaking point that allowed for the courts to intervene.

It was inconceivable that Article 15 did not confer protection on the utterances and the privilege conferred by Article 15 must fall on the utterances, she ruled.

Given the importance of the core value being protected, the freedom of parliamentary speech, she held Article 15 was intended to ensure protection and preservation of that freedom.

She also said the release of the banking information appeared to have been done in a "deliberate" manner and the court had its eyes "wide open" to that.

However frustrating Mr O'Brien found those utterances in circumstances when he had a court order protecting the confidentiality of his information, this matter was not such a "grave threat" to the constitutional order the court could intervene, even if such an exceptional power existed, she said.

She also said Mr O'Brien had not come before a Dail committee in relation to the utterances and insofar as a Dail Committee had rejected his complaint over the TDs statements, it was dealing with a complaint against members of the House and that did not touch on his personal rights.

She held the Committee's proceedings were non-justiciable and the court also could not intervene in that matter.
Fired Satanist Sues for Religious Discrimination

A Pennsylvania man who was terminated from his job at a local school district has filed a rather atypical civil rights employment lawsuit. The former employee has asserted that the termination constituted an act of religious discrimination, as he was terminated after refusing to comply with a task that violated his religious beliefs.

While a case involving religious discrimination may sound more deplorable than atypical, the man's religion, Satanism, is likely to turn some curious heads. While Satanism is often associated with devil worshiping, witchcraft, and evil deeds, these are actually incorrect, and likely offensive, stereotypes. The organization is actually trying to do good things for the world.

Religious Beliefs of the Damned

Under the law, it does not matter what religion a person belongs to, just that the religious beliefs be genuinely espoused, and that the organization, if any, be recognized by the government. If a person suffers discrimination as a result of their beliefs, then a person can assert a religious discrimination claim.

Although some may find it distasteful, Satanism is an actual organized religion. But the members don't actually worship the devil, a fact which the organization is usually quick to point out. However, there are very specific teachings and principles that members follow. Most, if not all, of the teachings involve treating other people, and the world, with respect and dignity. That means, apparently, no ritual sacrifices, devil worshiping, murders, beheadings, drinking of blood, or any of the other stereotypical assumptions.

Details of the Case

The plaintiff in this case is alleging that he was asked to assist with rescheduling a parent interview that was being bumped as a result of nepotism. According to Satanism, and the plaintiff's complaint, all individuals should be treated equally, and the request to reschedule someone to assist with an act of nepotism runs afoul of that teaching.

When the plaintiff refused and complained that the task violated his religion, he was terminated. It is also alleged that the reason provided to the plaintiff for his termination was merely a pretext to hide the discriminatory, or retaliatory, termination.

The most important takeaway for employers from this case is to not dismiss employee assertions of religious discrimination lightly.

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Pope Francis will "do everything he can" to visit Ireland next year, a senior Vatican official has said.

Several months after Taoiseach Enda Kenny broke news of the intended visit, the Holy See confirmed plans are being made for the pontiff to travel.

There has been strong speculation that Francis will travel north of the border.

A visit by the pontiff would be the first by the head of the Catholic Church since Pope John Paul II came to the Republic in 1979.

He was unable to visit Northern Ireland and instead, amid widespread security fears and cross-community tensions, he travelled as far as Drogheda, just south of the border, and addressed hundreds of thousands, including many from north of the border.

Last year the late Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness said the Pope would almost certainly cross the border after it was confirmed he will travel to Dublin in two years' time for a global gathering of the Catholic Church.

"I think there is no prospect whatsoever of him coming to Ireland and him not coming to the North," he said.

Asked why he was so sure, he replied: "Because I'm around a long time and I know how these things work."

And former First Minister Arlene Foster, whose party was staunchly anti-papist under the late Ian Paisley, also suggested she would meet the Pope.

However, that could be thrown into doubt if the Assembly is not restored, as the DUP said at the time that if the Pope visited "in his capacity as Head of State then the First Minister would meet him".

It is unclear if Mrs Foster would meet the Pope in any other capacity apart from First Minister.

Cardinal Kevin Farrell, prefect of the Holy See's Dicastery for the Laity, Family and Life, said it is hoped the Pope will attend the Church's World Meeting of Families in the Irish capital in August 2018.

"If the Pope is possibly able to be there, and circumstances around the world permit him to be able to go there, I'm sure he will do everything he possibly can, at least that's what he has expressed, to be there," the cardinal said.

Archbishop of Dublin Diarmuid Martin said: "If he does come, he'll surprise us and challenge us.

"It will be very different from an earlier visit, the only time a Pope came to Ireland.

"Ireland has changed. The Pope has changed and he will live up to challenging us."

The World Meeting of Families, which is held every three years, takes place in Dublin from August 21 to 26, 2018.

In a letter on the gathering, the Pope said: "My thoughts go in a special way to the Archdiocese of Dublin and to all the dear Irish nation for the generous welcome and commitment involved in hosting such an important event."
The body of Captain Dara Fitzpatrick, a 45-year-old mother-of-one, was the first to have been recovered from the ocean

Hermione Duffy (centre), wife of Mark Duffy, walks behind her husbands coffin at his funeral in Blackrock, Co Louth, yesterday

Captain Mark Duffy, who died in the Irish Coast Guard helicopter tragedy, was a "charming, handsome and bashful daddy hero", his funeral heard yesterday.

In an emotional service at St Oliver Plunkett Church in Blackrock, Co Louth, a friend read out a heartfelt tribute from his wife and "soulmate" Hermione.

"We loved him so much, his quirks, his methodology, his absolute resolve at doing anything right, his professionalism, his dancing, his quietness, his steely reserve, his selflessness, his absolute being was doing everything for us," she said.

"We - Hermione, Esme and Fionn - adore and love you Mark, our charming, handsome and bashful daddy hero.

"Guess how much I love you? I love you to the Moon and back."

School pupils formed a guard of honour as the coffin arrived along the coast road at the seaside church.

Inside the church grounds uniformed officers and colleagues from the Irish Coast Guard, the Naval Service, the Garda, the RNLI, Fire Brigade and other rescue services took their turn to guard the remains as they were carried indoors.

A lone piper led the cortege. Flags fluttered at half-mast in the wind coming off the Irish Sea.

Hermione, daughter Esme and son Fionn led the mourners who included President Michael D Higgins and Irish Transport Minister Shane Ross.

In her tribute Hermione said they had been together 26 years and had done everything together as a team in their own "wee world" in their home by the sea.

The pilot loved aviation, and particularly helicopters, since he was a child, the funeral heard. His two great loves were his family and his job.

"Mark, on coming home from a 24-hour shift, would come in and say: 'Oh, Hermione, I love getting home to you and the kids, but I love flying that helicopter'," she recalled.

Once home he would shut the door behind him and "engross himself in our home life". He was a Coast Guard, she said, but "he was also our guardian".

"Mark always allayed my worries. He put a safety net around us in our home," she said.

Archbishop Eamon Martin was among those officiating at the funeral. Chief celebrant Father Stephen Duffy, an uncle of the pilot, said he had lost his "best friend".

He remembered his nephew as "kindly, humble in spirit, pure of heart, peace-loving, good-natured, loving and lovable".

Mr Duffy's remains were found in the cockpit of the crashed Sikorsky helicopter, about eight miles off the coast of Co Mayo, last Friday. The wreck lies 40 metres underwater.

His body is the second of the four crew to have been recovered after it crashed on March 14 while on a rescue mission.

The body of Captain Dara Fitzpatrick, a 45-year-old mother-of-one, was the first to have been recovered from the ocean.

Searches are continuing for the other crew members, winchman Ciaran Smith and winch operator Paul Ormsby.
A report by a sub committee of the Education and Business Select Committee also warned that schools were still failing to promote non-university career routes

The Government's apprenticeship policies, including a new levy on big businesses, will not fill widening skills gaps, MPs have warned.

The levy of 0.5% of the annual wage bill of firms with a payroll of more than 3 million was described as a "blunt instrument", mainly focused on increasing participation levels.

Ministers were urged to put more emphasis on whether apprentices manage to find jobs.

The levy, which starts on April 6, is aimed at creating three million new placements by 2020, but MPs said the target could hamper attempts to improve the quality of apprenticeships.

A report by a sub committee of the Education and Business Select Committee also warned that schools were still failing to promote non-university routes.

Co-chairman Iain Wright said: "The Government's flagship apprenticeships policies positively focus on raising participation, but are inherently contradictory.

"Ministers have a centrally-dictated, top-down three million target at the same time as insisting that this approach will be bottom-up and address the skills requirements of individual firms, sectors and regional economies.

"These requirements will often be very different and the Government should target those sectors of the economy and regions of the country where skills shortages are particularly acute.

"Too much training remains sub-standard and detrimental to the career of apprentices and, more widely, the performance of our economy.

"The success of the Government's reforms will ultimately be judged on whether the planned increase in the quantity of apprenticeships is matched by an increase in their quality."

The committee said that even though the number of new apprenticeships increased to over half a million in 2015-16, there were more than 200,000 vacancies for skilled workers.

The MPs recommended that the Government publishes annual figures on skills shortages.

The Unite union voiced concern over a lack of measures to prevent an increase in inferior apprenticeships as firms try to "claw back" levy money.

Acting general secretary Gail Cartmail said: "We have consistently argued against scores on doors and believe the Government should be primarily concerned with quality and meeting the actual needs of different industrial sectors.

"If unscrupulous employers are subverting the apprenticeship system in any way, they need to be named and shamed."

A survey earlier this week of 1,000 firms by Manpower found that almost two out of three knew little or nothing about the apprenticeship levy.

Young Women's Trust chief executive Dr Carole Easton said: "The growing skills shortage in sectors like construction and engineering will not be plugged unless we help more young women into relevant apprenticeships.

"Our research has found that young women across the country are shut out of these sectors due to issues like gender stereotypes and a lack of support."

A Department for Education spokeswoman said the apprenticeship levy would double annual funding for apprenticeships to 2.5 billion by 2019/20.

She said: " The Government's focus is on building a world-class education and skills system that will give everyone a chance to climb the ladder of opportunity to rewarding careers.

"It means we are not just concentrating on apprenticeship starts, but on employment opportunities, employer take-up and quality. "
Defence Secretary Sir Michael Fallon has warned there can be no return to "business as usual" with Russia, amid reports that Moscow has been arming the Taliban in Afghanistan.

At a joint news conference following talks in London, US Defence Secretary General James Mattis said Russian activities in Afghanistan were a cause of "concern".

"We have seen Russian activity vis a vis the Taliban. I am not going to say at this point if that is manifested in the weapons and that sort of thing," he said.

"But certainly what they are up to there in the light of their other activities gives us concern."

His comments follow a recent warning by Nato's Supreme Allied Commander in Europe, US General Curtis Scaparrotti, that Russia's influence on the Taliban insurgents was growing.

Sir Michael said there was a "persistent pattern" of Russian interference in other countries - including military build-ups and the use of cyber and other so-called "hybrid" techniques - which had to be resisted.

He said Nato's enhanced military presence in Eastern Europe - including 800 British troops stationed in Estonia - would be maintained for "as long as is needed" to deter Russian aggression.

"We want to see that presence as persistent as the threat it is designed to deal with to reassure those allies on our eastern flank and to deter the kind of Russian aggression that we have seen recently," he said.

"There is a pattern of interference by Russia in the different parts of the world that leads us, when we engage with Russia, to be wary of what Russia is up to. That is why there cannot be a return to business as usual with Russia.

"We need to be extremely watchful of this persistent pattern of Russian interference."

Their meeting came as Britain and the US combined to step up the pressure on other Nato members to take on a greater share of the costs of collective defence.

At a meeting of alliance foreign ministers in Brussels, US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said they needed to set out plans to meet the target of spending 2% of the GDP on defence by the time President Donald Trump meets other Nato leaders in May.

"Our goal should be to agree at the May leaders' meeting that by the end of the year all allies will have either met the pledge guidelines or will have developed plans that clearly articulate how, with annual milestone progress commitments, the pledge will be fulfilled," he said.

His comments were echoed in London by Sir Michael, who said: "Others must now raise their game and those failing to meet the 2% commitment so far should at least agree to year-on-year real-terms increases."

While Nato leaders agreed to halt cuts in defence spending in 2014, Britain and the US are among just five of the 28 member states to meet the 2% target.

However German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel said it would be "unrealistic" for his country to raise its spending from 35 billion euros (30 billion) a year to more than 70 billion euros, outstripping Russia's defence budget.

"I don't know a politician in Germany who believes that this would be achievable or even desirable," he said.
World famous locomotive Flying Scotsman will mark the reopening of one of the UK's most scenic rail routes.

The Settle-Carlisle line was severed in Cumbria in February 2016 when half a million tonnes of earth gave way under the tracks after weeks of heavy rain.

Full services resumed on Friday following engineering work costing 23 million.

The first Northern service departed Carlisle at 5.50am, with Flying Scotsman making a special trip to the city at 1.05pm.

The route provides a lifeline to thousands of small businesses and is also a magnet for rail enthusiasts.

Network Rail, which was set up in 2002 to maintain and enhance railway infrastructure, said the scale and remote location of the repair work made it the most challenging in its history.

Martin Frobisher, a route managing director at Network Rail, said: " I am beyond thrilled that customers and goods are moving again on this vital economic artery through Britain's most beautiful landscape.

"Our orange army has ensured that even if the ground gives way again in future, the railway will not."

Douglas Hodgins, chairman of the Friends of the Settle-Carlisle Line, said: "It is great to be back in business. We shall be working tirelessly with the railway industry to ensure the line regains its role as a through route to Carlisle and Scotland as quickly as possible - and to seeing the splendours of the Eden Gorge from the trains again."

The 72-mile route takes passengers through the ruggedly beautiful countryside of the Yorkshire Dales and the Eden Valley, and includes the Ribblehead Viaduct, which is 104ft high and has 24 arches.

A section of the line was shut on February 9 last year a t Eden Brows, near Armathwaite village, south of Carlisle, after aerial surveillance and track monitoring teams detected the ground slipping beneath the railway towards the River Eden 70 metres below.

Over the following weeks the track subsided one and a half metres.

The repair project involved h undreds of steel tubes filled with concrete being set into the hillside to form a corridor on which a 100-metre long concrete slab was placed, giving the railway a solid base.

Paul Barnfield, regional director for train operator Northern, said: "The Eden Brows engineering project has been a mammoth task for Network Rail and we are delighted to once again be able to offer a direct train service between Settle and Carlisle.

"We'd like to thank our customers for their patience and look forward to welcoming them back to this iconic stretch of railway."

Rail Minister Paul Maynard said: " Network Rail, contractors and train operators have together worked hard to get this historic line - which first opened 130 years ago - running again.

"Our railways are crucial to our economic future and whether it's improving services or completing essential repairs, the commitment is the same. That is why I am delighted to be part of this event marking such a significant moment."
Violet-Grace Youens died in hospital in her mother's arms on Saturday

A man has appeared in court charged with causing death by dangerous driving after a hit-and-run crash that killed a four-year-old girl.

Aidan McAteer, 23, was charged with causing the death of Violet-Grace Youens, who died in hospital on Saturday.

She was struck by a black Ford Fiesta while walking through St Helens, Merseyside, last Friday afternoon.

He was also charged with causing serious injury to her grandmother Angela French, 55, by dangerous driving and with stealing a black Ford Fiesta from an address in Liverpool on March 20.

McAteer, who wore a blue top and grey tracksuit bottoms, stared at the floor throughout the hearing at Liverpool Magistrates' Court.

He gave his address as no fixed abode.

He had been sought by police following the crash and his mother, Alicia McAteer, 41, appealed for him to come home after recognising him in a CCTV image released by police.

McAteer was remanded in custody and will appear at a preliminary hearing at Liverpool Crown Court on April 26.

That is along with Dean Brennan, 27, who is charged with assisting an offender, theft of a motor vehicle and the aggravating offence of allowing oneself to be carried within a stolen vehicle.

A third man, 23 and from Prescot, was arrested on suspicion of being carried in a stolen vehicle but later released pending further inquiries.

Merseyside Police said Ms French remained in a serious but stable condition in hospital after the crash.
A Christian nurse sacked by the NHS after discussing religion with patients and offering to pray with them before surgery has claimed she was unfairly dismissed.

Sarah Kuteh, who has 15 years' nursing experience, was dismissed for gross misconduct last year from Darent Valley Hospital in Dartford, Kent, following complaints from patients.

One cancer sufferer facing bowel surgery complained after mother-of-three and nursing sister Mrs Kuteh told him if he prayed to God he would have a better chance of survival.

Another said being subjected to such religious "fervour" by Mrs Kuteh was "bizarre", and he compared the experience to a "Monty Python skit".

Another patient felt Mrs Kuteh spent more time talking about religion than completing a pre-operative questionnaire, according to statements at an employment tribunal in Ashford, Kent.

Eight complaints were made by "extremely vulnerable" patients facing surgery, and Mrs Kuteh was sacked last August and referred to the Nursing and Midwifery Council for disqualification proceedings.

Pavel Stroilov, representing Mrs Kuteh, said nurses were meant to care for people facing hardship and suffering.

He said: "A nurse without compassion would be unworthy of the name. On top of performing her immediate duties, a good nurse would try and find kind words to say to her patient."

But Sarah Collins, general manager for medicine at Darent Valley Hospital, who chaired Mrs Kuteh's first disciplinary hearing, said her "spirituality blurred the professional boundary" between herself and patients.

Mrs Collins said in a statement: "Despite having been warned against such behaviour on two occasions, she persisted with questioning patients on religious grounds."

Mrs Collins said there had been a "fundamental breach of trust and confidence".

And she felt Mrs Kuteh had not learned from her mistakes and would not change her behaviour.

Giving evidence at the tribunal, Mrs Kuteh denied imposing her religion on patients.

She said: "I love nursing, I love what I do and I love talking to patients."

An appeal was heard against Mrs Kuteh's dismissal but a panel backed the decision to sack her. And the appeal panel agreed that Mrs Collins's decision to dismiss Mrs Kuteh was "entirely appropriate".

Tribunal judge Martin Kurrein reserved judgment.
Northern Rakhine State has largely been sealed off from media, outside observers and foreign aid workers since security officials began a clearance operation in October. In the wake of the clampdown, over 100,000 Muslim Rohingya fled the area into neighboring Bangladesh, and reported abuses, including mass rapes, murder and arson, which the UN has called possibly indicative of crimes against humanity. The government and Tatmadaw have denied the most egregious accusations, while the UN Human Rights Council recently agreed to support an international probe into the situation.

International actors and the government-appointed Rakhine State Commission led by Kofi Annan have called for the operation area to be immediately opened to journalists so that the dire allegations can be investigated. However, several international outlets have reportedly been denied requests to access the area.

The 18 journalists on the current, Ministry of Information-backed trip include mostly local press agencies  including state media  a handful of Japanese publications, as well as BBC Burmese and VOA Burmese.

The trip began on March 28, with the journalists flown from Yangon to Sittwe. They will then be transported to Maungdaw township before returning on April 1, according to an itinerary published in state media.

The journalists will visit sites destroyed by fire, as well as resettlement areas. Interviews will include returnees who fled the clearance operation, according to the Myanmar News Agency.

International journalists and human rights workers have flagged numerous aspects of both the December and current junkets as problematic. A photograph posted online by the Ministry of Information on March 31 shows journalists in Maungdaw interviewing a row of women, pressing them to talk about whether they or anyone they know was raped in front of large crowd which includes government officials.

A trader in northern Maungdaw township, who spoke on condition of anonymity, expressed doubts that the media junket arranged by the government would be able to present a factual picture of the situation on the ground.



This is nothing but an attempt to satisfy the demands of the international community, and gain breathing room form the UN, said a resident of northern Rakhine who goes by Halim.

Edited by Laignee Barron
President of the European Council Donald Tusk will set out the EU's position on Brexit talks

Negotiations on future trade relations between the UK and EU could begin as early as this autumn, European Council president Donald Tusk has indicated.

But the move will only take place once "sufficient progress" has been achieved in talks on the arrangements for Britain's withdrawal, widely seen as a reference to agre ement on a "divorce bill" of an estimated 50 billion set to be presented to the UK.

Unveiling his draft negotiating guidelines for withdrawal talks under Article 50 of the EU treaties, Mr Tusk insisted Brussels will take a "constructive" approach and wants to keep the UK as a "close partner" on trade and security in the future.

The announcement was welcomed by Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, who said it showed "a lot of goodwill, a lot of willingness to achieve what the Prime Minister has said she wants to achieve, which is an orderly transition and then a deep and special partnership between a strong EU and a strong UK".

But critics pointed to the Council's firm rejection of British pleas for parallel trade and divorce talks and sector-by-sector deals on access to the single market, as well as its insistence the UK will not be allowed to cut separate deals with individual EU states.

Liberal Democrat leader Tim Farron said Theresa May had been "taken to Tusk", as the guidelines showed "the strength of the EU in these negotiations and the carelessness of the UK Government in isolating themselves from our European allies".

Labour MP Owen Smith, a leading supporter of the Open Britain campaign, said: "Two days into a two-year negotiation and the Government's lofty rhetoric is colliding with hard reality. The Prime Minister's plan for Britain is a pipe dream. "

Speaking in Malta, Mr Tusk predicted w ithdrawal negotiations would be "difficult, complex and sometimes even confrontational".

A first phase would seek to disentangle Britain from its commitments and ties with the EU and resolve the status of expatriate citizens, before moving on to a second phase establishing the terms of future EU-UK relations.

He said: "The EU27 does not and will not pursue a punitive approach. Brexit in itself is already punitive enough.

"After more than 40 years of being united, we owe it to each other to do everything we can to make this divorce as smooth as possible."

He rejected talk of a "Brexit bill", insisting it was a matter of "fairness" that the UK should make good on financial commitments it had entered into.

He dismissed suggestions Mrs May had attempted to use security co-operation as a "bargaining chip" by linking it to trade in her March 29 letter notifying Brussels of the UK's intention to quit.

He will visit London for talks with the Prime Minister ahead of an April 29 summit in Brussels, when the remaining 27 member states are expected to approve the guidelines, clearing the way for talks to begin in earnest.

While insisting simultaneous divorce and trade talks "will not happen", Mr Tusk held out hope talks could move on to future trade relations " if sufficient progress has been achieved, probably in the autumn".

The guidelines insist a free trade agreement (FTA) can formally be concluded only after the UK has ceased its membership, but add it will be possible to negotiate "an overall understanding on the framework for the future relationship" prior to Brexit to allow for a swift agreement after withdrawal.

Any FTA should be "balanced, ambitious and wide-ranging", but cannot involve "participation in the single market or parts thereof".

In an indication Brussels will seek to secure British compliance with many of its rules and regulations as part of the price for a deal, the document warns an FTA must "ensure a level playing field in terms of competition and state aid and must encompass safeguards against unfair competitive advantages through ... fiscal, social and environmental dumping".

The guidelines leave open the possibility of "transitional arrangements" to cover any period between the expected date of Brexit on March 29 2019 and the conclusion of an FTA, adding such arrangements must be "clearly defined, limited in time and subject to effective enforcement mechanisms".

EU citizens living and working in the UK will require "r eciprocal, enforceable and non-discriminatory guarantees" of their future status.

The EU will seek "flexible and creative solutions" to avoid the creation of a hard border between Northern Ireland and the Republic.

A Government spokesman said: "These are draft guidelines and we look forward to beginning negotiations once they have been formally agreed by the 27 member states.

"It is clear both sides wish to approach these talks constructively and, as the Prime Minister said this week, wish to ensure a deep and special partnership between the UK and the European Union."

Maltese PM Joseph Muscat, who currently holds the EU presidency, said Brussels would draw up a "clear balance sheet" of what Britain owes.

"It will be a tough negotiation, but it will not be a war," he said.

"At the end of the day the two sides need to remain close to each other as friends. But it is obvious for the 27 that membership of the European Union is the superior option."

CBI deputy director general Josh Hardie said: "From our conversations with our sister federations across Europe we know that businesses are united in their desire to see a comprehensive new economic partnership between the UK and the EU.

"That united voice should make European policy makers sit up and listen on the need for maintaining close economic ties and ensuring a smooth transition."

The Leave Means Leave campaign said Mrs May should "walk away from the table" if Brussels refuses to talk about trade alongside the divorce settlement.

The pro-Brexit group's co-chair Richard Tice also rejected demands for a divorce bill, saying: "When you are a member of a gym and you decide to leave, you serve your notice and pay your fee up until that point. You are not liable to pay for the gym's running costs when you are no longer a member.

"The situation with the EU is exactly the same."

Ukip leader Paul Nuttall said the guidelines were ''bound to create more division amongst EU nations''.

''By wrapping the negotiations in a bureaucratic straitjacket all that they guarantee to do is highlight the already glaring differences of approach amongst the rump 27 nations in the bloc,'' he said.

''As we near March 2019 and the UK''s final days as a member, national politicians in national capitals will realise that the package approved by Brussels will not be in their own specific interests nor that of their citizens.

''The EU's rigid approach will be seen as the problem, not the UK.''

Defence Secretary Sir Michael Fallon said the UK and EU would both be weaker if they did not agree a Brexit deal on fighting organised crime and terrorism.

"If there is no deal on that then we are all weaker. Weaker here and Europe is weaker; because that is a joint effort to tackle organised crime and to combat terrorism.

"What we are seeking in these negotiations is a deep and special partnership with the remaining European Union on both economic issues and on security."

TUC general secretary Frances O'Grady said: "The EU has made an important offer of a 'bridge' to stop the UK falling off a cliff-edge if negotiations for a new trade deal take longer than two years.

"The Prime Minister should accept this offer, as it is the best way to make sure that British jobs and businesses are not put in danger."

Labour MP Chuka Umunna, chairman of Vote Leave Watch, said: "Donald Tusk's remarks this morning have blown the Government's Brexit strategy out of the water.

"T he EU has made clear that no country that leaves the single market can secure an equivalent trading relationship. Clearly, quitting the single market will damage our trade, hit our businesses, and cause jobs to be lost."

Mr Johnson insisted the UK's commitment to the defence and security of Europe was "unconditional".

He said: "I want to stress one thing, the UK's commitment to the defence and security of this region, of Europe, is unconditional and it is not some bargaining chip in any negotiations that may be taking place elsewhere in this capital.

"We make an unconditional commitment to the defence and the security of Europe."

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn said: "It's welcome that Donald Tusk has softened the EU's opposition to talks on trade taking place before the terms of withdrawal are agreed.

"Both sides must be realistic about the scale of the task ahead and the common need to avoid ending up without agreement.

"Securing a good deal for Britain's future must be the Government's priority and we must be realistic about the need for transitional arrangements."

Mr Corbyn said it was wrong to speculate about the size of any "exit bill", saying there were "obligations on both sides, which must be fairly settled".
Google revealed it paid 36.4 million in UK corporation tax on pre-tax profits of 148.8 million in the year to June 30 2016

The UK's corporate tax regime was labelled a "national disgrace" after Google revealed it paid 36.4 million in tax on profits of almost 150 million.

The firm came under fire from the Government last year for not paying its fair share to the exchequer and opposition politicians seized on the latest tax payment as a sign that the US tech giant was still not doing enough.

Google insisted it paid "all the taxes due in the UK" but as an international firm it paid the majority of its taxes in its home country.

Shadow chancellor John McDonnell said: "This revelation only further proves that Philip Hammond and Theresa May are more interested in cutting Google's taxes, than making sure they are paying their fair share.

"It seems that the so called 'successful' tax deal with Google that George Osborne boasted about last year has meant that they are still not paying their fair share under his successor Philip Hammond.

"We urgently need clarity on HM Revenue and Customs' relationship with Google and what reassurances have been provided to the company.

"It is a national disgrace that by paying just 36 million in tax Google could have an effective tax rate lower than many working families in our country. And it exposes the complacency at the heart of this Tory Government, which is allowing this to still continue despite last year's scandal."

Liberal Democrat treasury spokeswoman Baroness Kramer said: "It is appalling that Google are still getting away with paying such a paltry amount of their total revenue back in taxes.

"Our worst fear is that the Tories would use Brexit to turn the UK into a tax haven sitting off the northern shores of Europe, there is no sign that this isn't where we are headed.

"This Government is already struggling with the Brexit squeeze, if they want to stop cutting vital services they need to start picking up what is owed to the British people."

Meg Hillier, chairwoman of the influential Commons Public Accounts Committee (PAC), said: " Yet again we see a large corporation paying a rate of tax that belies its significant presence and business transactions in the UK.

"This is why the PAC is working internationally to press for greater tax transparency so that we can all see clearly how much tax corporations pay and where.

"There is already strong international support and growing collaboration for changing the way tax is reported by multinationals.

"This latest tax contribution from Google just underlines why this is so important."

The firm revealed it paid 36.4 million in UK corporation tax on pre-tax profits of 148.8 million in the year to June 30 2016.

A Google spokesman said: "As an international business, we pay the majority of our taxes in our home country, as well as all the taxes due in the UK.

"We have recently announced significant new investment in the UK, including new offices in Kings Cross for 7,000 staff."

The tech company paid 46.2 million in corporation tax for the previous 18 months to June 30 2015.

That covered an extra six months of business before Google moved to a 12-month accounting period the following year.

Google said both administrative costs and turnover for the period decreased as a result of the accounting changes.

Revenue dropped 141 million in the year to June 30 2016 to 1 billion, from just under 1.2 billion for the previous 18 months.

The company has faced mounting pressure over its tax affairs amid a backlash against corporate tax avoidance by multi-national companies.

Google agreed to a controversial 130 million deal with HM Revenue & Customs in January last year to settle a 10-year tax inquiry into its UK business.

HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) declined to comment on Google's tax payment, saying it did not discuss identifiable taxpayers.

A spokesman said: "Everyone has to pay the tax due under the law and we do not settle for less.

"Our most recent figures show that HMRC brought in a record 26 billion in extra tax for our public services, with 7.3 billion of that total coming from the 2,100 largest and most complex businesses in the UK."
Gerry Adams's infantile dismissal of former Secretary of State Owen Paterson as "a complete tube" raises the question of why anyone seriously expected talks on the formation of a new Stormont Executive to lead anywhere.

Successful negotiations need adults to be present in the room, not insult-flinging, foot-stamping toddlers.

Adams's words certainly brought an ignominious end to the optimism that followed DUP leader Arlene Foster's attendance at the funeral of former IRA commander Martin McGuinness in Derry. That lasted less than a week before collapsing into a traditional round of mutual recrimination.

If passing the buck was an Olympic event, Northern Ireland would have a trophy cabinet full of gold medals.

Naturally, Gerry refused to shoulder any blame for the breakdown of dialogue, going so far as to say in an interview on Irish radio: "We haven't left the talks."

This was news to anyone who'd watched Sinn Fein call a Press conference to announce that's exactly what it was doing. As Groucho Marx once quipped: "Who are you going to believe - me, or the evidence of your own eyes?"

If the party did not leave talks, but simply popped out on Sunday to give an update on the lack of progress, as Mary Lou McDonald, Sinn Fein's deputy leader in Dublin, subsequently indicated, then why were there no talks on Monday, the day a First and Deputy First Minister were meant to be nominated, and talks could have continued until the last possible minute, as has happened before?

In the topsy turvy world of Northern Irish politics, it seems that you can leave talks and simultaneously not leave them, just as you can be part of the Assembly and protest against it at the same time, with Sinn Fein representatives also joining an anti-Brexit march to Stormont this week.

They'll be picketing themselves next.

Confused? You're not alone. Take Conor Murphy's reply when asked on The Nolan Show if talks were on or off: "Well, I don't know."

If even he's not sure if they're in, out, in, out, or just shaking it all about, how can we be any the wiser?

No doubt it was frustrating that the DUP was not there on Sunday, for whatever reason, religious or tactical; but if you're going to withdraw from talks, at least man up and accept that's what you're doing.

Admit, too, that your own actions may have contributed to this state of affairs.

As soon as Sinn Fein refused to allow James Brokenshire to chair talks, thereby hoping to undermine the British Government's claim to be a neutral facilitator, it effectively guaranteed that there would be no chairman, no agenda, no structure to discussions at all.

Is it any wonder they fell apart like a rotten sideboard? It sounds like a complete shambles, with everyone sitting around, waiting for something to happen, or perhaps with one eye on the clock, counting down the minutes till they could walk out with a semblance of respectability, having made it look as if they'd done all they could to get an agreement?

That suspicion was bolstered by Sinn Fein's immediate insistence that the only power now open to Brokenshire was to call another election. Yes, that's what the country needs - the second trip to the polls in a matter of months, following what's bound to be another bitter campaign. That would be like putting your hand back in the fire to heal a burn. Is it really worth it, just on a whim, that it might close the one seat gap on the DUP if it gets another go?

The DUP can be criticised for not keeping Sinn Fein company on Sunday, and the British Government for not insisting on its right to chair talks; but it's clear that it was Sinn Fein that engineered the collapse, and may have done so because, deep down, it's in a 'one more push' frame of mind right now and has zero interest in taking on the onerous task of providing leadership as Brexit looms. That, after all, would mean making difficult decisions and - shock, horror - having to stand over them.

Instead, it is content to call on the Irish Government to push for "special designated status" for Ulster post-Brexit, while back home the NHS is rudderless, the Executive's budget is in the hands of civil servants, and all departments with the exception of health have been told to prepare for cuts. Perhaps David Sterling, the Department of Finance's permanent secretary, should be invited to chair talks now that Sinn Fein's refusal to form an Executive has left him as the single most powerful person in Northern Ireland?

If petulantly evicting the Secretary of State from chairing formal talks was not reckless enough, matters have only got worse since Adams stepped into the gap created by McGuinness's resignation on health grounds.

After a few years safely banished south of the border, he appears to be relishing the chance to immerse himself in another northern crisis, confirming again what a disruptive, rather than conciliatory, influence he is.

In allowing talks to fizzle out feebly on his watch, though, Adams opens local politicians to the charge that they simply cannot work together without pressure from Whitehall.

If that isn't an ironic position for Irish republicans to find themselves in, what is?

Talks leading to the Fresh Start Agreement, which McGuinness hailed as "something to be proud of", were largely chaired by Brokenshire's predecessor Theresa Villiers, including a mammoth 30-hour session at the end.

Why was Villiers acceptable but Brokenshire isn't?

All that's changed since then is that Sinn Fein has grown in electoral strength, which is good for the collective republican ego, but, having shown the Secretary of State the door, the onus was on it to prove that his presence was not essential to the success of negotiations.

Instead, the talks that were never really talks ended up proving the opposite - that, without some good old British discipline, self-centred rug rats will never sit still and behave themselves. Forget James Brokenshire. Does anyone have a phone number for 'Supernanny' Jo Frost?

The Brits, it seems, can lock Sinn Fein in a room for 30 hours without a break to thrash out an agreement, but, left to their own devices, local parties either don't turn up or drift away after a few hours, complaining that they haven't got everything they want.

And there's no reason to believe it wouldn't happen all over again if talks resumed without a formal structure, timetable, or to-do list.

Right now everyone is insisting they don't want a return to direct rule, while acting in such an immature way that there seems to be no credible alternative to it.
Leeds: The upscale shopping experience now includes the Trinity Leeds and Victoria Gate shopping malls, a massive new John Lewis branch, and a Harvey Nichols store

Compact and heart-warmingly friendly enough to be a town but boasting the sophistication and amenities of a major city, Leeds is a powerhouse of Englands resurgent north country.

Though its manufacturing and industrial sectors have been of key importance  and currently employ close to 400,000 people across some 1,800 registered companies  it is trade and commerce, both retail and wholesale, that have long been the pulsing lifeblood of the place.

Locals proudly claim that their eternally bustling Kirkgate is Europes oldest covered market, while it was a market stall in this Yorkshire powerhouse that laid the foundations of the iconic Marks & Spencer empire.

Recent massive redevelopments have seen Leeds firmly established as a shop-till-you-drop destination to match Manchester, Birmingham, Glasgow, Dublin and Belfast. It even pushes Londons West End hard when it comes to convenience and choice.

Its eminently walkable, so it makes sense to dump the car as soon as possible  the one-way system is such a bewildering maze it took us an hour and a half from entering the suburbs to finding our city centre accommodation at the plush, contemporary Park Plaza Hotel.

If you do want to drive, sat/nav isnt just advisable, its de rigeur. For our part we loaned a motorised disability scooter through the highly pro-active Leeds Hotel Association.

Its worth mentioning in passing that while Leeds matches other major UK centres in terms of accessibility, many of the lifts in even the brand new state-of-art shopping centres are barely big enough to take a double baby buggy, let alone a scooter.

From a distance they might look like traffic wardens but the friendly Yorkshire lasses of the Leeds Welcome Ambassador organisation are there to make visitors lives easier not harder, leading pre-bookable walks and matching their encyclopaedic knowledge and love of their home town and its attractions, big and small, with a wealth of quirky information and amusing stories.

Its a service that now serves more than 150,000 visitors a year. Meanwhile, the City Rangers help keep the place spick and span, annually removing 400,000 pieces of chewing gum from Briggate.

Tourism is an increasingly important sector. Having successfully hosted the 2014 Grand Depart of the Tour de France  the worlds largest annual sporting event, with 190 riders, more than a million roadside spectators and a 3.5-billiom global TV audience  Leeds now has its own Tour de Yorkshire as a high point of a crammed year-round calendar of major sporting, arts and cultural events.

Christmas, for example, featured the 10th annual staging of the Christmas market in Millennium Square, the Magical Light Festival in the 700-acre Roundhay Park and the inception of the citys intriguing arts trail.

Proclaiming itself A City Less Grey, Leeds offers such diversions as the Royal Armouries northern outpost, the Crucible-West Yorkshire Theatre, the long-running Palace of Varieties old-fashioned music hall (in business since 1865), the romantic riverside ruins of Kirkstall Abbey, the Tudor/Jacobean stately home at Temple Newsham, the Thackray Medical Museum, the music and arts events at Leeds Town Hall and the wondrous Leeds Art Gallery, while the Yorkshire Dales are but a few miles distant.

The upscale shopping experience now includes the Trinity Leeds and Victoria Gate shopping malls, a massive new John Lewis branch, and a Harvey Nichols store, as well as delightful Victorian shopping malls and the long-established Corn Exchange, home to a cornucopia of independent shops.

Visitors are also spoilt for choice when it comes to eating out at every level, from the fast-food to go Trinity Kitchen and all the key chains to the majestic former banking hall on East Parade, which now houses the expensive but well worth it Iberica, with its religiously authentic Spanish take on haute cuisine, accompanied by a wondrous selection of fine wines.

Following the chefs selection, we kicked off in these exquisite surroundings with a selection of Spanish hams and charcuterie, followed by a selection of beautifully presented light tapas dishes that included squid, octopus, mackerel, hake and pork loin, finishing with a delicious caramelised Spanish rice pudding.

Ham was also star of the show at the appropriately named Friends of Ham on New Station Street  a bodega casual dining concept that deserves to be rolled out nationwide. Theres already a sister establishment in nearby Ilkley.

Platters of artisan charcuterie and nine excellent and unusual cheeses are matched with craft beers from around the world and a good selection of wines and spirits, served in bright and cheery, laid-back, student-friendly bijou surroundings. And theres a well-stocked shop so you can take home some newly acquired tastes, such as smoked Bath chaps ox cheeks, Spanish torta Canarejal dipping cheese and slivers of finnochiona fennel seed salami.

Tucked away down a little alleyway off The Headrow, Ox Club presents a sensibly concise menu  a choice of six starters, six mains and five desserts  that focuses on fresh local produce prepared in a modern British manner.

Our starters of scallops with smoked pineapple, pancetta and pink peppercorns and pork belly with burnt pear and pickled radicchio were followed by Guinea fowl with smoked potato, bacon jam and redcurrant jus and flat iron steak with bearnaise sauce, salsa verde and watercress. Simply delicious  the only criticism concerned was the ridiculously small typeface that, allied to the dimly lit room, rendered the menu nie on impossible to read.

For something truly different, the funky casual cafe style Bundobust, on Mill Hill, offers inventive Asian vegetarian food in tapas style, pared with a wide selection of unusual beers, well-matched wines and some 16 different cocktails, four of them non-alcoholic.

Combo set menu meals for groups of two, four or six proffer a panoply of exotic flavours for an inexpensive but satisfying, with service running through the day and evening.

Back at the Park Plaza, the in-house Chino Latino spotlights modern Pan-Asian cuisine presented with flair in a relaxing environment.

Perfect for an active short break  Leeds Bradford Airport welcomes a selection of direct flights from Belfast City Airport.
St. Peregrine (Patron Saint of Cancer Healing)

St. Peregrine was an Italian saint who had a cancerous leg. On the night before a surgeon was about to amputate it, Peregrine prayed fervently in front of a crucifix and was miraculously healed. His feast day is celebrated on May 4th.

Prayer for St. Peregrines Intercession

O great St. Peregrine, you have been called "The Mighty" and "The Wonder-Worker" because of the numerous miracles which you have obtained from God for those who have had recourse to you. For so many years you bore in your own flesh this cancerous disease that destroys the very fiber of our being, and who had recourse to the source of all grace when the power of man could do no more. You were favored with the vision of Jesus coming down from His Cross to heal your affliction. Ask of God and Our Lady, the cure of the sick whom we entrust to you. (Pause here and silently recall the names of the sick for whom you are praying) Aided in this way by your powerful intercession, we shall sing to God, now and for all eternity, a song of gratitude for His great goodness and mercy. Amen.
In 1966, Burt "Robin" Ward recorded with the Mothers of Invention under the direction of Frank Zappa. The result is really something.



From Burt Ward's autobiography Boy Wonder: My Life in Tights:

The image of the Boy Wonder is all American and apple pie, while the image of the Mothers of Invention was so revolutionary that they made the Hell's Angels look like the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. Even I had to laugh seeing a photo of myself with those animals.





Their fearless leader and king of grubbiness was the late Frank Zappa. (The full name of the band was Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention.) After recording with me, Frank became an internationally recognized cult superstar, which was understandable; after working with me, the only place Frank could go was up.





Although he looked like the others, Frank had an intelligence and education that elevated him beyond brilliance to sheer genius. I spent a considerable amount of time talking with him, and his rough, abrupt exterior concealed an intellectual, creative and sensitive interior





In an attempt at self-preservation, the record company had me just talk on the second two sides I recorded. That I could do very well! The material for the song was a group of fan letters that had been sent to me. Frank and I edited them together to make one letter, which became the lyrics for the recording. Frank wrote a melody and an arrangement, and we titled the song, "Boy Wonder, I Love You!"





Among the lyrics was an invitation for me to come and visit an adoring pubescent fan and stay with her for the entire summer. She wrote, "I will even fix you breakfast in bed. I love you so much that I want you to stay the whole summer with me!" The lyrics ended with "I hope you know that this is a girl writing."
The chief of the intelligence wing of Bangladeshs elite Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) died Friday of a head injury sustained in a bombing in northeastern Sylhet district last week as army commandos raided a suspected militant den.

The news of the death of Lt. Col. Abul Kalam Azad came as Bangladeshi police on Friday launched other raids on suspected extremist hideouts in the northeast.

Azad was the third law enforcement officer to die from explosions that rocked Sylhet on March 25. Four other people were killed when bombs went off among onlookers near the site of the army raid.

We are at war against terror. Anybody can die in the line of duty, said Mohammad Moniruzzaman, Bangladeshs Assistant Inspector General of Police.

On Facebook, Monirul Islam, the chief of Bangladeshs counter-terrorist police unit, wrote that those responsible for Azads death would be brought to justice.

Dr. Sohel Mahmud, a forensic expert at Dhaka Medical College Hospital, told reporters Azad died from a head wound caused by shrapnel.

Following the blasts, the officer was taken to the MAG Osman Medical College Hospital in Sylhet and then moved to a military hospital in Dhaka on the night of March 25. But as his condition deteriorated, he was flown to Singapore for treatment and later back to Dhaka.

The blasts on March 25 that injured about 50 people targeted police, journalists and other onlookers near a five-story apartment building in Sylhet where army commandos had launched a raid in the morning. Ending the raid on Tuesday evening, army and police officials said suspected Neo-JMB militant leader Mainul Islam (alias Musa) and three other extremists were killed.

On Thursday, police announced as many as eight people, including women and children, died when extremists set off explosives in a house in the Khalilpur area of Moulvibazar district as Strategic Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) officers raided their suspected hideout.

On Friday, police said they had not determined who among the eight dead were civilians or militants.

Lt. Col. Abul Kalam Azad

Friday raids

The house was one of three suspected militant hideouts surrounded by police on Wednesday, less than a day after the commandos had finished their operation in Sylhet. SWAT officers launched raids on the other suspected hideouts on Friday.

Police finished one of the raids when they found no one in the den, but the second at a suspected den in the Borohat area of Moulvibazar, about 20 km (12 miles) from the Khalilpur house, is expected to resume on Saturday morning. A police officer, Kaeser Uddin, was injured in a bomb attack but his injury was not life threatening, according to officials.

The situation inside is critical. There is more than one room. We assume four to five militants are inside the house, Islam said. They have one bomb expert and set off explosions and fired at us several times.

Islam said the dens windows were bulletproof.

One police officer who requested anonymity told BenarNews that drones spied on and collected information about the den. He said the drones spotted three militants, including a woman.

As the raid, codenamed Operation Maximus, continued on Friday, residents appeared to stay off the streets.

This is an unusual situation. We have been hearing the sound of explosions and firing. Everybody is in fear what happens next. We are passing days with fear and uncertainty, Moulvibazar resident Fazlur Rahman told BenarNews.

Announcing the suspension Friday night, Islam said the militants had stockpiled a large quantity of explosives.

When our SWAT members tried to get into the building, they exploded bombs, Islam said.

Two suspected militants fled

At the other raid site in Comilla, about 160 km (100 miles) away, police recovered a suicide vest, bombs and explosives, but two suspected militants had already fled the house, officials said.

The names of the militants are Anas (alias Anis) and Roni. Anas hails from Noakhlai while Roni is from Rajshahi, Md Shafiqur Rahman, deputy inspector general of police in the Chittagong range, told reporters on Friday.

The militants maintain a tactic. Before going out of the house, one militant sets a time for his return. If he does not return by the time, the other militants also flee, Rahman said. In this way, they fled. So, we failed to get them.

But we were certain both of them were at the house, he said without going into detail.

The two raids Friday are the 15th and 16th launched against militant groups since Neo-JMB members carried out an attack at the Holey Artisan Bakery cafe in Dhaka that left 20 hostages dead, mostly foreigners, on July 1 and 2, 2016. Since then, at least 53 militants have been killed in raids, gunfights with security forces and suicide attacks.
Indonesian police block a road leading to the Presidential Palace as Muslims take part in a protest to demand that Jakarta Gov. Basuki Ahok Tjahaja Purnama be jailed for alleged blasphemy against Islam, March 31, 2017.

Indonesian police Friday announced the arrests of five people, including the leader of the hardline Muslim Peoples Forum (FUI), for suspected treason ahead of a rally hosted by the group calling for the removal of Jakartas ethnic Chinese Christian governor.

Fridays rally in the Indonesian capital drew far smaller crowds than ones staged in recent months when protesters demanded Jakarta Gov. Basuki Ahok Tjahaja Purnama be removed and arrested because of alleged anti-Muslim comments that led to a blasphemy charge against him. Ahok, a member of Muslim-dominated Indonesias tiny ethnic Chinese minority, is competing in a run-off vote in the gubernatorial election on April 19.

Jakarta Police spokesman Argo Yuwono identified FUI Secretary General Muhammad al-Khaththath, who was picked up in a Jakarta hotel, as one of the five suspects arrested on Thursday night.

Yes, last night we arrested five people in different locations. We arrested them based on a report from people, and because there are elements of conspiracy to commit treason, Argo told BenarNews.

Also arrested were activists identified as Zainudin Arsyad, Irwansyah, Dikho Nugraha and Andry. Police seized mobile phones and documents as evidence, according to Argo.

They were all sent to Mako Brimob, said Argo, referring to a Police Mobile Brigade Command detention center in Kelapa Dua, Depok, near Jakarta.

The police spokesman told TVOne that the five were arrested based on several findings, including a plan to occupy the Indonesian parliament.

Earlier on Thursday, al-Khaththath held a press conference at the Baiturrachman Mosque in South Jakarta to discuss Fridays rally, dubbed 313-Action, referring to March 31.

Small crowd

While organizers had predicted that 100,000 people would turn out to demand the arrest and removal of Ahok for alleged anti-Islam blasphemy, only a few thousand people gathered at the Horse Statue, a Central Jakarta landmark, Argo said.

We purposely confined them there, Argo said. This is to avoid a demonstration too close to the Presidential Palace.

Ahok has been standing trial for allegedly insulting Islam when he quoted a passage from the Quran at a public event in September, in a way that was seen as defamatory to the religion.

The former deputy governor to now-Indonesian President Joko Jokowi Widodo, faces a run-off election to retain his office on April 19 against a Muslim candidate, former education minister Anies Baswedan. Ahok was the leading vote-getter in the first round of the election in February, but did not get more than 50 percent of ballots cast, forcing the run-off against the second-place candidate.

Previous rallies by conservative Islamic groups demanding Ahoks arrest drew much larger crowds.

A rally on Nov. 4, 2016 organized by Muslim conservative groups claimed to draw more than 100,000 protesters. The rally started peacefully but turned violent in the evening as dozens of police and protesters were injured. On Dec. 2, 2016, another rally drew thousands of protesters who remained peaceful.

Government minister meeting

The 313-Action protest began at 2 p.m. at the Horse Statue after protesters finished Friday prayers at Jakartas Istiqlal National Mosque. The rally featured about three hours of speeches.

Afterward, 15 protest organizers met with Wiranto, Indonesias coordinating minister for Political, Legal and Security Affairs, in his office.

The president assigned me to receive the representatives of the demonstration, said Wiranto, emphasizing that Jokowis absence did not mean he neglected Muslims.

Wiranto pointed out that many demonstrations are held around the Presidential Palace, but not all demonstrators get to meet with the nations leader.

Because we considered this demonstration as important, we received you, Wiranto said.

Regarding protesters demands against Ahok, Wiranto said the government was not siding with any party and would not interfere with the ongoing trial or upcoming election.
Malaysian Foreign Minister Anifah Aman welcomes Malaysian citizens upon their arrival at Kuala Lumpur International Airport on a flight from Pyongyang, March 31, 2017.

Updated at 6:47 p.m. ET on 2017-03-30

Kuala Lumpur agreed Thursday to resolve a six-week-long feud with Pyongyang by sending the body of the North Korean leaders murdered half-brother to the communist state in exchange for nine Malaysians trapped there by an exit ban.

On Thursday evening (local time) the body of Kim Jong Nam was put on a flight to Beijing, and the nine Malaysians soon after boarded a plane in Pyongyang bound for Kuala Lumpur, Malaysian officials said.

Two North Korean nationals, who had been identified by Malaysian police as suspects in the murder case and were thought to be hiding out in the North Korean embassy, were aboard an airliner carrying Kims body to China, a Malaysian government source told BenarNews.

Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak on Thursday night declared an end to the bilateral crisis by announcing that his government had decided to allow Pyongyang to have custody of the body of Kim, the estranged half-brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

[F]ollowing the completion of the autopsy on the deceased and receipt of a letter from his family requesting the body be returned to North Korea, the coroner has approved the release of the body, Najib, who was traveling in India, said in a statement following a series of very sensitive talks between the Malaysian and North Korean governments.

Najib also announced that the nine Malaysians, who had been barred from leaving North Korea, have now been allowed to return to Malaysia while Kuala Lumpur will now allow North Koreans to leave Malaysia.

I had a deep personal concern about this matter, and we worked intensively behind the scenes to achieve this successful outcome. Many challenges were overcome to ensure the return of our fellow Malaysians. The safety and security of our citizens will always be my first priority, he said.

The plane carrying the nine Malaysians  three staffers at the Malaysian embassy in Pyongyang and their families  touched down at Kuala Lumpur International Airport at around 5 a.m. Friday (local time).

Foreign Minister Anifah Aman was on the tarmac to greet the nine as they disembarked from a Malaysian government executive jet.

We are thankful that all nine have returned to us safe and sound, Anifah said

Najib said Malaysias investigation into the murder of Kim Jong Nam would go on.

Questions about who would have custody of Kim Jong Nams body, which had been kept for weeks in a morgue at Kuala Lumpur Hospital, following his assassination in the Kuala Lumpur area on Feb. 13, were central to the bilateral crisis. It saw both countries expel their respective ambassadors and impose exit bans on each others citizens.

The diplomatic crisis has ended, Najib declared on his Twitter account.

Joint agreement

In mid-March, Malaysian officials revealed that DNA from Kim Jong Nams son who lives in Macau was used to confirm the dead mans identity. He was initially identified by Malaysia as North Korean diplomatic passport holder Kim Chol.

It remained unclear whether Kim Jong Nams wife and children, who live in Macau, had agreed to let Malaysia hand over his body to North Korea, or whether Najib, in Thursdays statement, was in fact alluding to Kim Jong Un as his family.

Late Thursday, North Koreas state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) published a statement issued by both countries that announced an end to the diplomatic impasse.

However, as was the case with previous statements made by North Korean officials regarding the case, the statement did not name Kim Jong Nam. It only referred to him as a DPRK national who died in Kuala Lumpur on Feb. 13.

As the DPRK has produced all necessary documentations related to the body of the deceased from the family, Malaysia agreed to facilitate the transfer of the body to the family of the deceased in DPRK, the joint statement said.

Both countries agreed to lift the travel ban imposed on citizens of the other country and guarantee their safety and security within their respective territory. This would allow the nine Malaysians presently in Pyongyang to return to Malaysia and the DPRK citizens in Kuala Lumpur to depart Malaysia, it went on to say.

Details on suspects

Kim Jong Uns hardline communist regime has been blamed for the murder of his older sibling after he was poisoned with a banned nerve agent, according to Malaysian authorities, while he prepared to board a flight at Kuala Lumpur International Airport 2.

Two Southeast Asian women have been charged with Kim Jong Nams murder as co-assassins, and at least seven North Korean nationals have been identified by Malaysian police as wanted for questioning in the case.

Najib had earlier accused North Korean government agents of being behind the assassination.

Four of the North Korean suspects, who were spotted by a CCTV camera at the airport on the day of the assassination, had fled Malaysia, police said. Three other suspects included a second secretary at the North Korean embassy.

South Korea and the United States also blamed Pyongyang for the murder because Kim Jong Un reportedly had a standing order to kill his exiled half-brother.

But North Korea had stoutly denied this and slammed Malaysian investigations into the murder as an attempt to smear Pyongyang.

A Royal Malaysian Police officer stands at the main gate of the forensics wing of the Kuala Lumpur Hospital, which housed the body of Kim Jong Nam, March 29, 2017. [AFP]
Foreign Minister Anifah Aman (left) greets Mohd Nor Azrin Md Zain, the counselor at Malaysias embassy to North Korea, at Kuala Lumpur International Airport after Md Zain and eight other Malaysians arrived on a flight from Pyongyang, March 31, 2017.

Malaysias police chief gave an assurance Friday that a probe into the murder of the half-brother of North Koreas leader had not been compromised by the homeward return of three North Korean suspects under a diplomatic deal worked out by both countries.

The three men had arrived in Pyongyang on Friday via Beijing along with the body of Kim Jong Nam, who was poisoned to death by the VX nerve agent at a Kuala Lumpur airport on Feb. 13, in an audacious operation that triggered a diplomatic row between Malaysia and North Korea.

Malaysian Police Inspector-General Khalid Abu Bakar said the men, who had been hiding in the North Korean embassy for weeks, were allowed to leave because they no longer were needed for the investigation into the murder.

No, no, on my criminal investigation, it has not been compromised. I still state that the investigation on the murder of KJN is ongoing, Khalid told reporters in Kuala Lumpur.

He said that the trio had been interviewed by investigators and, We have recorded their statements and we are satisfied with it.

Malaysian officials had said that the three  Hyon Kwang Song, the second secretary at the North Korean embassy in Kuala Lumpur, Kim Uk Il, an employee of North Korean state airline Air Koryo, and Ri Ji U (also known as James)  had been caught on a CCTV camera at Kuala Lumpur International Airport 2, where Kim was assassinated.

Prosecutors have charged two women  an Indonesian and a Vietnamese  with killing Kim Jong Nam, but officials in South Korea and the United States had viewed them as pawns in an operation carried out by North Korean agents.

Khalid stressed that police were still looking for four other North Koreans, whom they had identified among suspects named in Kims death.

Police said they think the four returned to North Korea after fleeing Malaysia on the day of Kims assassination.

We need the four to complete our investigation. And I believe that if North Korea wants a transparent investigation, they should cooperate with us and hand over to us the four, Khalid said.

Swap resolves crisis

The Malaysian government had allowed the three suspects to return and permitted Pyongyang to take custody of Kims body, in exchange for nine Malaysians who had been blocked from leaving North Korea for more than three weeks.

The body of the DPRK citizen who died in Malaysia and relevant people from the DPRK have returned to the DPRK today via Beijing, Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesman Lu Kang told a daily press briefing.

Based on international customary practices and humanitarian considerations, the Chinese side offered necessary assistance to the bodys transit through China.

The issue of who would have custody of the body of the estranged half-brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un was a flashpoint in the diplomatic row. The crisis saw both countries, which have maintained bilateral ties since 1973, expel their respective ambassadors and impose exit bans on each others citizens.

At the height of the crisis, Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak accused North Korea of being behind the assassination.

On Thursday evening, Najib announced the crisis was over after his government had granted North Korea permission to take custody of the body. North Koreans who had been blocked from leaving Malaysia were free to go, and the nine Malaysians headed home on a flight out of Pyongyang.

Bilateral relations were intact, Najib said Friday during a visit to Chennai, India.

[W]e hope North Korea will no longer raise such problems as this could jeopardize diplomatic relations between the two countries, the state-run Bernama news agency quoted him as saying.

At Fridays press conference, reporters pressed Khalid about which member or members of Kims family had authorized, in a letter to the coroner, the body to be released, but he declined to say.

Kim Jong Nam had been living with his wife and children in exile in Macau and was estranged from his half-brother, Kim Jong Un, who reportedly had issued a standing order for his execution.

However, the police chief did not discount the possibility the North Korean leader had claimed custody of the body.

The next-of-kin [wrote the letter]. Legally speaking, Kim Jong Un is Jong Nams next-of-kin, Khalid said.
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William Powell, author of the iconic counterculture how-to guide The Anarchist Cookbook, died last year of a heart attack. His death was just made public. As a teen, I learned many important things from The Anarchist Cookbook: mixing iodine crystals with ammonia is indeed explosive, smoking banana peels won't get you high (contrary to the book), and Rikers Island is to be avoided. Powell wrote the book when he was 19 and disavowed it later in life after becoming a Christian. The Anarchist Cookbook remained in print, much to his chagrin. "The central idea to the book was that violence is an acceptable means to bring about political change," he wrote on the book's Amazon page. "I no longer agree with this." From the Los Angeles Times:



"The Anarchist Cookbook," which has sold at least 2 million copies  printed, downloaded or otherwise  and remains in publication, was originally a 160-page book that offered a nuts-and-bolts overview of weaponry, sabotage, explosives, booby traps, lethal poisons and drug making. Illustrated with crude drawings, it informed readers how to make TNT and Molotov cocktails, convert shotguns to rocket launchers, destroy bridges, behead someone with piano wire and brew LSD.





The book came with a warning: "Not for children or morons."





In a foreword, Powell advised that he hadn't written the book for fringe militant groups of the era like the Weathermen or Minutemen, but for the "silent majority" in America, those he said needed to learn the tools for survival in an uncertain time. Powell himself was worried about being drafted and was an outspoken critic of the Vietnam War and President Nixon.





"This book is for anarchists  those who feel able to discipline themselves  on all subjects (from drugs to weapons to explosives) that are currently illegal or suppressed in this country," he wrote.
It can be tough to be a vegetarian. You have to work harder than everyone else to make sure youre getting all the nutrients your body needs. So, when its time to take a
The first medical school since the advent of democracy is set to be built in Limpopo, said the province's health MEC, Phophi Ramathuba during her budget speech.

In addition, the province will soon have its own central hospital.

The MEC added that in preparation for the medical school, the department has already started recruiting specialist doctors to start once the hospital opens.

She said these doctors include our super specialists, Dr Mangena, the first neurologist in the province, Dr Ntangadzeni Muambadzi, our youngest nuclear medical specialist and Dr Vhutshilo Netshituni, the first black paediatric oncologist in the Republic of South Africa.

The department is certain that the super specialists will make sure that the tertiary services are of high standard and will reduce the trips that the patients have to undertake outside the province.

In addition, the MEC said: Our people need not to go to Dr George Mukhari and Steve Biko Academic Hospital (in Ga Rankuwa and Pretoria respectively) in pursuit of sub-speciality care. We will continue to recruit more specialists.

Furthermore, she said that to date, 137 medical students have graduated from the Cuba programme and they are placed in Limpopos district hospitals.

A total of 376 medical students are currently studying in Cuba. They will also be part of the Limpopo central hospital. In the 2017/18 financial year, we expect 40 to be returning for the completion of their degrees in our medical universities, she said.

The MEC stressed that in addition to the medical super specialist, the department has appointed 13 medical specialists, 269 medical doctors and 639 professional nurses.

In this financial year, we will reinforce our professional health workforce by recruiting an additional 10 medical specialists, 200 medical doctors and 250 professional nurses, she said.
The Eastern Cape Department of Health has urged people not to apply for jobs that were advertised internally, saying that an employee had advertised vacancies that had not been approved.

Department spokesman Sizwe Kupelo said their offices had been inundated with phone calls and CVs for the unauthorised positions.

"We are launching an internal investigation to find out how this happened," Kupelo said.

"We know it wasn't a mistake so we are trying to find out what the motives were.

"An official distributed a document containing a great number of unauthorised vacancies across the province."

Kupelo said the posts included vacancies from doctors to administrative staff.

"These were shared by, and further distributed through, social media platforms and now the department is inundated with calls from prospective candidates," he said.

"We wish to advise members of the public that, as and when vacancies become available in the department, an official advertisement will be placed

"They will appear in appropriate advertising platforms such as the departmental website, DPSA [Department of Public Service and Administration] website and local and national newspapers.

"Members of the public are advised to ignore the illegal advert being circulated as it does not comply with any of our internal prescriptions and policies.

"Decisive action will be taken against any official who may have been involved in this misconduct once the internal investigation has been concluded."
STOCKHOLM, Sweden - Swedish clothing giant Hennes and Mauritz (H&M) on Thursday announced the launch of its eighth fashion brand as tough market conditions in the US and Central Europe hurt profits.

H&M's pretax profit fell to 3.2 billion kronor (335 million euros, $360 million) in the December to February period, the first quarter of the company's financial year, from 3.3 billion kronor the previous year, it said.

"For fashion retail in general, market conditions were very tough in many of our large markets in central and southern Europe and in the US, and this was reflected in our sales," CEO Karl-Johan Persson said in a statement.

The new brand, Arket, will be launched after the summer with the first store to open in London followed by Brussels, Copenhagen and Munich and online operations in 18 European markets in early autumn, the group said.

It offers clothes for men, women and children and household products, which will be more expensive than H&M. Each store will also include a coffee shop inspired by the Nordic kitchen and cuisine.

"The overall direction and focus is quality in simple, timeless and functional designs," Persson said.

"There will be products in a broad price range, however in a slightly higher price segment than H&M with emphasis on materials, function and fit," he added.

The group also operates Swedish brands such as Cos, Other Stories, Monki, Weekday and Cheap Monday, whose sales continue to grow both online and in stores.

Source: AFP
President Jacob Zuma's performance approval rating has dropped below its previous low of 21% in February 2016 to 20% in March 2017. According to Kantar TNS's omnibus survey, only 20% of all South Africans living in metropolitan areas feel that Zuma is doing a good job as president of South Africa...

In the same period, people who disagreed that President Jacob Zuma is doing a good job as president, went up from 67% to 71% of those surveyed.

The shift in ratings is most marked amongst black respondents with 64% disagreeing that Zuma is doing a good job as president which is up from 59% in February last year.

Black females, in particular, are expressing a stronger opinion about their disapproval with ratings of 65% versus 57% last year.

The study was conducted between 15 and 30 March 2017 amongst a sample of 2,000 South African adults (age 18+) living in the seven major metropolitan areas of South Africa. The sample is representative in terms of the area, race and gender profile of metropolitan South Africa.

Kantar TNS has been measuring public sentiment in terms of whether President Zuma has been doing a good job since his inauguration as the president in 2009. His approval rating is now at an all time low.

Candidates for the President of South Africa?

To gauge support for candidates for presidency in 2019, respondents were asked to what extent they would support certain candidates to be the president of South Africa. Two candidates from the majority party and leaders of the two key opposition parties were included in the evaluation.

Cyril Ramaphosa, the current deputy president, garnered support from more than 50% of metro South Africans (56% would support a little bit to definitely support). Mmusi Maimane, leader of the Democratic Alliance was supported by 42% of those surveyed with Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma just behind at 41.8%. The leader of the Economic Freedom Fighters, Julius Malema had only 24% support amongst urban dwellers in the survey.

This study forms part of Kantar TNSs and Kantar Publics ongoing research into current social and political issues.

Fore more info, visit TNSGlobal.com.
Source: Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health

Rotavirus is responsible for about 37% of deaths from diarrhoea among children younger than five years of age each year, or about 450,000 children, with a disproportionate effect in sub-Saharan Africa.

The virus is the leading cause of acute diarrhoea, or severe gastroenteritis, in children. Unlike other causes of diarrhoea, improvements in water, sanitation, and hygiene do not prevent rotavirus transmission, therefore vaccination is essential to prevent death and complications from childhood diarrhoea.

Heat-stable vaccine

To make a difference in countries where the rotavirus burden is highest and access to healthcare is low, vaccines need to be affordable, as well as safe, effective, and heat-stable. Currently there are two rotavirus vaccines, but they are expensive and refrigeration must be maintained throughout the supply chain.

In resource-poor countries such as Niger, electricity and refrigeration are often unreliable. The new vaccine is heat-stable, the first of its kind for rotavirus prevention.

This trial brings a vaccine which is adapted to African settings to those who need it most, said first author Sheila Isanaka, assistant professor of nutrition at Harvard Chan School. When the vaccine becomes widely available in Africa, it will help protect millions of the most vulnerable children.

Randomised trial

For the trial, researchers conducted a randomised, placebo-controlled trial in Niger to evaluate the efficacy of BRV-PV, a low-cost, heat-stable vaccine manufactured by Serum Institute of India Pvt Ltd. The researchers recruited 3,508 healthy infants to receive three doses of the vaccine or placebo at six, 10, and 14 weeks of age. All children included in the trial are monitored in local health centres and receive free healthcare for two years.

The vaccine has been licensed in India, but approvalknown as prequalificationby the World Health Organisation is needed before it can be purchased by the United Nations and government agencies. After the successful clinical trial of this new vaccine, we hope that it can be made available as soon as possible to children in Niger and across Africa, Isanaka said.
In an effort to bring electricity access to 1.3-billion people who currently have none, the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) will host a conference in Nairobi, Kenya to unpacking the potential of low voltage direct current (LVDC). The inaugural LVDC Conference on Sustainable Electricity Access will take place at the Hotel InterContinental Nairobi on 22 and 23 May 2017, in partnership with the Kenya Bureau of Standards (KEBS).

Combined with some form of energy storage, LVDC has the potential to bring millions of people out of the dark. The IEC is driving the development of LVDC, making this technology safe and broadly accessible. Holding this conference in Africa will provide a real understanding of electricity access needs to IEC experts and stakeholders. We invite participation of all those concerned with the Sustainable Developments Goals, especially Goal 7: Ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all, says Frans Vreeswijk, general secretary and CEO of the IEC.

Engaging with policymakers, regulators

The LVDC Conference on Sustainable Electricity Access aims to bring together a diverse group of stakeholders including policymakers, power utilities, equipment manufacturers, NGOs, technology gurus, industry experts, systems engineers, funding agencies and insurers.

I urge all stakeholders to register and attend the conference which will be a thought leadership platform to effectively engage with policymakers and regulators. This event will help us to gain the technological and economic information needed to evolve LVDC standards and drive the technologys commercialisation, says Charles Ongwae, MD, Kenya Bureau of Standards.

Comments Vimal Mahendru, chair of the IEC Systems Committee (SyC) on LVDC, and IEC ambassador, For areas where grid connection is too expensive, LVDC is the only economic way to provide electricity access to everyone: it is clean, safe and affordable. The applications for LVDC are wide, varied and apply in every country in the world. This conference is your opportunity to input your local needs and requirements; to hear about economic benefits linked to LVDC; and to contribute to the development of key performance and risk assessment indicators to allow regulators and systems administrators to benchmark LVDC solutions.

For more info on the LVDC Conference on Sustainable Electricity Access, go to www.lvdcconference.com.
According to Nico Groenewald, Head of Agribusiness for Standard Bank, although the macroeconomic environment is likely to remain uncertain in the short to medium term, primary producers can still prosper if they focus on what they can, themselves, change.

Speaking at the second biannual Citrus Growers Association (CGA) Summit, held earlier this month, Groenewald said: Without a view on the macroeconomic environment, its difficult to set a road map for your business. But once you have a market context, the most sustainable thing to do is focus on those things in the business over which you have direct control.

Agility and adaptability critical

Of those, the most critical is developing agility in strategy and process, so that you can continuously adjust what you do to take the best advantage of external factors. Then base your business model and capital structure on your current competitive edge, knowing that you can change the edge if you need to.

Groenewald pointed out that the citrus industry was one of the agricultural sub-sectors over the past six years to have shown double-digit growth. This is a reflection of agricultures general adaptability, with the industry having evolved over the past decade from an almost exclusive emphasis on field crops and livestock to much more investment of resources and effort into horticulture.

Citrus sustained growth is also a reflection of shifts in the markets, with consumer tastes trending increasingly towards fresh produce and the high quality of the South African product, making it a globally valued export commodity.

Groenewald cited a number of uncertainties that would influence producers future planning:

Global politics and protectionist policies

The potential protectionist policies of Americas new Republican government could have a global impact, with the United States influencing 20% of the worlds GDP and 12% of its trade. The European Union is also in a state of flux, with Britain leaving the Union in March  and the pounds value consequently under duress  and elections due during the year in France, Holland, and Germany, and in 2018 in Italy. All of this political activity is being impacted by growing popular support for right-wing parties and protectionist strategies.

Land policies

Worldwide, fiscal policies aimed at triggering economic growth have not had the desired effect. The global economy remains sluggish. At home in South Africa, uncertainty regarding land policies could inhibit proactive agribusiness expansion or acquisition strategies. This could also protract new investment in agriculture and, therefore, limit the entry of a new generation of producers. This makes succession planning difficult and, in the long term, could threaten food security as producers age out of the sector.

While we hope for early resolution of these kinds of issues, as Standard & Poor points out, governments ability to move on its fiscal policies is constrained, Groenewald says.

Water management

This will feed into another challenge for the industry: an increased and continuous focus on an over-arching water management strategy that must urgently reduce our tremendous waste of water as a society. South Africa is the worlds 30th driest country, yet our per capita usage of water is 26% higher than the world average. At 60%, agriculture is the countrys largest user of water.

Most of our agricultural products, including citrus, is produced under irrigation, Groenewald explains. So we cant necessarily reduce the percentage of water the industry uses, but it must use water more efficiently. Ideally, we should aim to produce more food with less water.

In addition, there should be national integration of water-usage activity and policies, so that synergies between industry and the rest of society and its commercial activities can be exploited to the benefit of the country.

Other challenges, such as climate change, consumer demand for more humane treatment of livestock, the need to integrate technology and biotechnology into the value chain, and the worst drought in sixty years have also played a role in the industry that has so far endured several consecutive quarters of negative growth.

However, agriculture remains a major contributor to the countrys economy. Its contribution to GDP is about 2%, but considering forward and backward linkages, and the multiplier effect, it can be in excess of 10%. This makes it a significant vehicle for job creation.

Responding to a complex environment

In answer to the complexity of the external environment, Groenewald believes that producers should aim for simplification. Strip your decisions down to what will, firstly, give the business a stable operational foundation. Ensure that you have a safe place from which to start introducing change. This includes understanding how you currently make your money, having a secure source of capital, and structuring its use in the business appropriately.

Secondly, start to build in agility. Look for a competitive edge. Do you need a better or different product? Do you need to access different markets? Do you know who your competition is? How do you plan to handle competition? Do you have the right leadership in place? In other words, be fearless about defining what needs to change in the business, and be objective about how much of it you can control. Then, be decisive about doing what needs to be done.
Founded in 1982 by William Bill' Rawson, the Rawson property brand is a familiar one to many. From modest beginnings in a 40m2 office in Claremont, Cape Town, it is now a full-service estate agency group with more than 200 franchises across South Africa.

Debbie Reabow, brand and communications manager at the Rawson Property Group

We interviewed Debbie Reabow, brand and communications manager at the Rawson Property Group, to find out what she loves most about working with the brand, what the current challenges are in its sector, and what inspires her personally.

What do you love most about working with the Rawson brand?

I love that we are a large brand backed up by over 30 years of history and experience - and yet we are still a brand that continuously likes to do things differently, try new things and constantly challenge ourselves to be better, innovate and develop tools that serve our customers. Its an inspiring environment to be in. I also love the culture of the brand; our 1200-odd Rawson property partners all share our passion for this brand and showcase this at every opportunity, be it by branding their vehicle, sponsoring a local event, or giving back to their neighbourhoods. Finally, and most importantly, everyone who works for this brand is passionate about serving our customers well. We constantly build systems, tools and products that allow us to do this even better each time - its really exciting!

How does a brand like Rawson keep up with the rapid pace of evolving technologies?

Thats a challenge we love. We look outside our industry at leading brands both locally and internationally and make sure were constantly learning from them. Often we look internationally but just as often we find fantastic innovative thinking here in South Africa. We partner with the best local suppliers to ensure that were backing technologies that will serve our customers better - that often involves saying no to technology systems that will slow that progress down. And finally, we build in-house expertise to ensure we can implement tech ideas that we believe will fit our brand and industry. We love the pace and the challenge!

What do you see currently as the main challenges and/or opportunities for your brand sector?

I think an exciting challenge is the changing role of customers. Todays customers demand better service, better value for money, simplicity and ease of use of any product, and a better experience when dealing with any brand. We love this challenge! The opportunity for us is to develop our services on an ongoing basis so that we can exceed the demands of our customers. Ultimately, property is often the largest investment that a person makes in their lifetime, and so we need to ensure we serve responsibly, efficiently, and make the process as easy as possible.

A great opportunity for our sector and one we really invest in at Rawson is to provide quality information and content, educating and informing customers and potential customers about all things property-related. The more people understand about buying, selling, renting, finance, or commercial property, the better it is. We try and provide as much information, hints, tips, things to look out for and legal advice through our content - ultimately, we want people to be able to make fantastic property decisions - whether its with our brand or with another.

We have the same challenges as any large brand, and thats making sure that every one of our 200-plus franchises deliver the Rawson service we expect from our partners. We do this by monitoring closely what each and every client found their experience to be with us - and were passionate about ensuring that every Rawson franchise adheres to our culture, brand values, ethos and DNA. We also invest heavily - and have done since the company's inception, in quality training. This is ongoing and compulsory and it also ensures that we stay on top of our game.

Lastly, like any business, we want to make sure that our neighbourhoods and the people who work with us are better off because of the work we do.

Tell us about a typical day in your line of work - what does it entail and what are some of the highlights.

No day is the same and thats what I love.

We have quite a large marketing team - so I spend some time with the team chatting through projects, brainstorming and briefing in jobs. I usually have at least one exciting meeting with the sales side of the business, always trying to understand how we can empower our agents to serve our customers better, what tools they need and how we can get them using those tools fast. I spend time with our creative agencies, brainstorming messaging ideas and media strategies or specific campaigns. I spend a lot of time planning content creation - one area where we really believe we can add value to any South African interested in property. And finally, with over 200-plus franchises around the country, I usually spend some of my day meeting with them and getting insights from the ground. These are so valuable in ensuring as a brand we deliver quality services - ultimately, the best marketing is positive word-of-mouth - so were passionate about providing services that do that.

What does brand management mean to you?

I feel that brand management is showcasing, guarding, overseeing, protecting and improving the way customers feel about your company.

To quote someone with a fantastic customer-centric viewpoint: A brand for a company is like a reputation for a person. You earn reputation by trying to do hard things well.  Jeff Bezos

What brand marketing campaign have you noticed and been impressed by recently/ever?

Im drawn to brands that are focused on delivering real value to customers - and highlighting that value in their marketing - so some of my favourite campaigns are around that theme. I love the work that TD Bank have done in the US. Powerful marketing around a unique value proposition - being a convenient bank (they open longer hours seven days a week). They are passionate about thanking customers - they did a great campaign using ATMs as 'automatic thanking machines' - dishing out gifts to their customers in 2014. Theyve also done some great viral campaigns - such as their #MakeTodayMatterCampaign giving 24 customers in 24 different cities  one a day for 24 days  and gave them only 24 hours to undertake projects that would benefit their communities most. Each person was given roughly $30,000 to make their project a reality. What a cool way to spend marketing budget.

Closer to home... who doesnt love a cheeky Nandos campaign?

What inspires you personally?

Personally, I get inspired by reading and learning - we have access to so much wisdom via case studies, inspiring stories, brand stories, literature and videos from all over the world. My colleagues and teams are inspiring and fun people with a healthy sense of humour. Mostly Im inspired by my family, friends and my faith.

Debbie Reabow is passionate about excellently implemented ideas and strategies that alter the bottom line. She has over nine years experience in customer-centric strategy and implementation, rebranding and communications.
The Cape Town Science Centre is hosting its Let's Code holiday camp, from 3-7 April 2017, to introduce children to the awesome world of coding.

Campers will learn how to use the visual block programming software, Scratch, to produce their own game. This is an excellent opportunity to acquire basic coding skills in a relaxed and creative environment  15 hours of coding fun over a five day period and the opportunity to explore the rest of the Cape Town Science Centres offerings. Space is limited to a maximum of 20 kids for the camp so please book ASAP.

Participants are welcome to bring their own device (BYOD), but are asked to alert the organisers if they wish to do so as they will need to load the free Scratch programme onto the device.

Cost: R440 for the duration of the five day camp

Dates: 3-7 April 2017

Times: 9:30am  12:30pm

Ages: suitable for ages 8+
Thousands of students are fuming because they have yet to receive their national students financial aid scheme grants nearly four months into the year.

The delays, which the DA estimated could affect as many as 200,000 students, has seen the University of Free State's QwaQwa campus shut down indefinitely this week, while the University of Venda has suspended "all services".

Limpopo police spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Moatshe Ngoepe said four students were arrested at the University of Venda this week for public violence.

The DA said it would write to the chairman of the portfolio committee to request that it summon National Student Financial Aid Scheme chairman Sizwe Nxasana to the committee to explain why students still hadn't been paid.

"[On Tuesday] the portfolio committee could not meet at the University of Venda due to violent protests triggered by the delays in the payment of NSFAS grants.

"These grants, distributed through the 'sBux' voucher system, are used by students to pay for private accommodation, food, books and travel," the DA said.

It said a "technical problem" had led to the inability to make the payments.

A Unisa student, who requested to remain anonymous, said he hadn't received the allowances he should have as an NSFAS beneficiary. "I have been calling them for updates for the past six weeks.

"It is a nightmare, because the institution is continuing with the academic programme and yet we need to pass tests without the textbooks," he said.

University of Venda spokesman Takalani Dzaga said students were protesting over the nonpayment of NSFAS textbook and food allowances.

"We've suspended all services. We're engaging with students and they're maintaining they can't go back to class until this issue is resolved," he said.

Dzaga said students indicated they would return to class "today if they receive the payments".

He said NSFAS would try to resolve the issue this week.

NSFAS spokesman Kagisho Mamabolo referred queries to the Department of Higher Education, which said it was speaking to NSFAS about the problem.
When its Boeing 737 touched down on 26 March 2017, Ethiopian Airlines became the first new international airline to launch flights into the new Victoria Falls International Airport which opened last November. Chairman of the African Travel and Tourism Association and director of ceremonies at the event, Ross Kennedy hailed the launch of Ethiopian Airlines' new route as a significant catalyst for tourism growth in Zimbabwe and across the region.

Traditional Zimbabwean dancers welcome Ethiopian Airlines's inaugural flight into Victoria Falls International Airport

Ethiopian Airlines, one of Africas heavyweights, will fly to Victoria Falls from Addis Ababa four times a week, enabling tourists from major cities in the Americas, Europe, Asia and Africa to enjoy hassle-free connections via Addis Ababa. American tourists can now fly from Washington to Victoria Falls, for example, with a less than two-hour stopover in Addis Ababa, explained Kennedy, Africa Albida Tourism (AAT) chief executive.

"Its another historic day for the aviation industry in Africa  and the African travel and tourism sector  with additional airlift and new route linkages open."

Increased resources to meet increased international activity at the airport

Kennedy added that Victoria Falls International Airport had prepared and increased resources for the arrival of the new international airline with more staff, training, immigration officials and enhanced IT systems in order to handle the increased arrivals more efficiently and smoothly. There had been a huge commitment from all departments, authorities, and individuals at the airport to make it a shining success story for the Civil Aviation Authority of Zimbabwe and the country, with tourism at the heart of it all, he said.

Kennedy called upon the private and public sectors to work together to ensure new flights were supported and promoted and the destination and region were grown by marketing the new access routes and connectivity offered by the aviation sector.

Increased international activity into the airport includes South African Airways boosting its capacity by 88 seats, by launching an Airbus A330-200 to service its daily route between Johannesburg and Victoria Falls; Kenya Airways to launch direct flights from Nairobi to Victoria Falls and on to Cape Town (1 May 2017); and SA Airlink to launch direct flights between Cape Town and Victoria Falls six days a week from 2 July 2017.

These four flights airlines activity could bring as many as 80,000 additional tourists a year into Victoria Falls, said Kennedy earlier this month.
McLaren-Honda has teamed up with Logitech which will see the consumer technology brand become its official technology peripherals partner.

Logitech will now be featured on the cockpit surrounds of the McLaren-Honda MCL32.

"This collaboration was built on traits that Logitech and McLaren-Honda share: technological innovation that help people achieve more, and passion for what we do," said Bracken Darrell, president and CEO of Logitech.

Zak Brown, executive director of McLaren Technology Group, added: McLaren-Honda is a team synonymous with innovation and the relentless pursuit of technological evolution, and Logitech shares this ethos and hunger for development to enhances the way we go about our daily lives  whether personally or professionally  to be more productive and more rewarding.

Together, we are already working on exciting plans for the future of our work together and there is plenty to come from both McLaren-Honda and Logitech in our mutual offering for our fans and stakeholders alike.
At the NAACAM show , to be held at Durban's ICC from 5-6 April 2017, the South African automotive industry will gain insight into the strategic direction of the Automotive Masterplan.

The Masterplan's objective is to develop a clear vision and a support programme and policies for the optimal development of the South African automotive industry through to 2035. Policy structures within the Masterplan will replace the current government support programme, the Automotive Production and Development Programme (APDP), designed to run out in 2020.

Toyota SA President and CEO, Andrew Kirby will share his views on the plan together with NUMSA general secretary, Irvin Jim and SP Metal Forgings MD, Ken Manners - both of whom are part of the oversight committee - at a dedicated session of the NAACAM show on Wednesday, 5 April 2017. The key presenter and facilitator in this session is Automotive Masterplan lead, Dr Justin Barnes.

Topics to be covered

Over 400 executives will attend the two-day conference, which will feature 13 sessions on issues with which the automotive industry is grappling, including trade in Africa, the future of the auto, manufacturing best practice, tooling, skills, black supplier development, tooling and logistics and supply chain management.

NAACAM president, Dave Coffey said the conference, which runs alongside the exhibition featuring over 200 companies, and the Durban Automotive Cluster's National Localisation Indaba, would move the industry forward.

"Ahead of the completion of the Automotive Masterplan, the show will assist the wider industry and state partners, understand and appraise issues common to both the country's economic imperatives and private business growth.

Localisation and black economic empowerment themes

Two themes running strong through the show are localisation and black economic empowerment. It is no coincidence that these two factors are key to achieving the objectives weve agreed to under the Masterplan. It is my belief that the NAACAM show provides an unprecedented platform for industry and government to connect in a very practical way around these foundational issues."

Coffey said in addition to identifying a need to keep attracting higher levels of investment, the post-2020 plan seeks to maintain the export strength of SA but simultaneously capture greater domestic vehicle and component market share, while also targeting the development of black-owned component suppliers  all of which should create more jobs and economic spin-offs in the South African automotive manufacturing sector.

Two national ministers, Dr Rob Davies and Ebrahim Patel will address industry at the conference together with five international guest speakers, three South African OEM CEOs and 30 other political and industry leaders.
SAN FRANCISCO, US: Twitter on Thursday began rolling out changes to let people pack more into tweets, subtracting from the character count names of those being replied to in posts.

The latest software modification at the one-to-many messaging service comes about a year after Twitter set out to relax a 140-character limit set due to mobile phone text messaging constraints in place when Twitter launched in 2006.

Twitter first announced plans to relax the limit a year ago, as part of an effort to bring in more members and make the platform easier to use.

"Remember how we told you we were working on ways to let you to express more with 140 characters?" Twitter product manager Sasank Reddy said in an online post.

"Now, when you reply to someone or a group, those @usernames won't count toward your tweet's 140 characters."

Providing more room in tweets is seen as a way to encourage more use and sharing of pictures, videos and links.

The move is part of a push by Twitter to increase its user base and engagement, which have sputtered to the chagrin of investors.

"Our work isn't finished," Reddy said.

"We'll continue to think about how we can improve conversations and make Twitter easier to use."

Twitter faces competition from Facebook and Instagram, and a trend of people opting to share content in video or picture formats instead of text.
Rise, Barclays Africa's innovation hub in Cape Town, recently hosted a water hackathon to help harness the power of collaboration in finding solutions to the Western Cape's current water crisis.

Two consecutive years of drought have severely reduced stream flows into the dams of the Western Cape Water Supply Scheme, according to the City of Cape Town, which has said that the dams are likely to reach extremely low levels by the onset of the 2017 winter.

As part of efforts to find solutions, Rise hosted a hackathon  a sprint-like design event  in conjunction with Woolworths Holdings, convening industry experts, policymakers, conservationists, students, community members, scientists and engineers.

Tackling societies biggest challenges

Yasaman Hadjibashi, chief creation officer at Barclays Africa Group

We are using the Rise co-creation platform to help bring people from various organisations and communities closer so that we can collectively tackle our biggest societal challenges and drive mass implementation of solutions, said Yasaman Hadjibashi, chief creation officer at Barclays Africa Group. At Rise, we strongly believe that the most powerful way of finding solutions is to bring together the most diverse people, who would not ordinarily cross paths, said Hadjibashi.

Justin Smith, head of Sustainability at Woolworths, said: At Woolworths, water is a critical input to our products, whether it is food or clothing. The efficient use of water is of utmost importance to enable the business to do what it does. I believe there is no one entity that can single-handedly come up with a solution to the water crisis we face, but that it is rather through collaborative efforts by stakeholders from all sectors that well find workable solutions.

Winning idea

Participants in the hackathon event were challenged to generate solutions to improve agricultural, industrial and residential water consumption. The winning idea, proposed by Water Surge, is to create an online and mobile public campaign that uses gamification and integrated social media to encourage behaviour shifts.

Water hackathon judging panel

This is an innovation that could really help drive water-saving behaviour change across Cape Town, and could potentially be implemented in a short timeframe, said City of Cape Town water and energy efficiency strategist Sarah Rushmere.

Additional hackathon solutions proposed included:
Figuring out the most commonly Googled phrases online then renaming the products you sell as responses to those SEO searches is a clever move. That's how Nellie Kim, partner, VP and creative director at LG2 Toronto and ADC digital juror, introduced the entry that was a delight for her to watch.

The One Show and Art Directors Clubs judging is taking place on location on Bermuda. In order to keep the rest of the world intrigued and informed, theyll be sharing selected judges Picks of the Day throughout the judging process.

Kim explains why Ikea Swedens Retail Therapy speaks to her in the video embedded below:

You can view this and other Art Directors Club and One Show entries by browsing this years entries and dont miss the 96th Annual ADC Awards on 8 May 2017 and the One Show Creative Week Festival from 8 to 12 May 2017, in New York  visit our One Show special section for all the latest updates.
An online media project, with information in three different languages, aims to educate refugees in Africa and the Middle East about the asylum process in Europe, as well as the dangers of the journey.

 Infomigrants

InfoMigrants is financed by the European Commission and the project is a cooperation between Deutsche Welle, France Medias Monde and Italian news agency ANSA. The partners will be presenting InfoMigrants in Paris this week.

The offering is intended to reach people in Sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East, as well as Afghanistan and Pakistan - especially those who are considering fleeing to Europe. The project aims to explain the dangers of the journey and to offer realistic expectations of the European asylum process.

DW director general Peter Limbourg, along with Marie-Christine Saragosse, the chairperson of France Medias Monde, and Giuseppe Cerbone, chairperson of ANSA, wrote in a joint statement: Sadly the tragedys escalation proved us right a few months later when tens of thousands of migrants flocked to the shores of Lampedusa and Lesbos, on the Balkan routes. We were fully aware of the human tragedy that was unfolding and decided to combine our expertise and worldwide public-service mandates in order to provide migrant populations with trustworthy information.

This cooperation among three leading European media to serve a European and worldwide cause was unprecedented and the European Commission promptly agreed to back us with funding.

Three editorial offices, one team

The three partners have established editorial teams to create a blog and a Facebook presence, which they have worked on since February. Available in three languages  English, Arabic and French  the offerings include daily news briefings as well as refugees reports of personal experiences, plus educational pieces, for example about the EU-Turkey agreement.

InfoMigrants also provides information about the program Starthilfe Plus, funded by the German government, which provides assistance for voluntary repatriation.

DW director of programming, Gerda Meuer: We want to provide refugees with independent information in order to unmask those false stories that are being put out by smugglers and people traffickers. In the future, migrants will also be able to send us their videos and photos. We would like to start a conversation with them via social media.

The French-German-Italian cooperation has been approved for a year. Afterwards, the partners and the EU will determine whether the project should be continued. The project expands upon the offerings DW already has in place for newly arrived migrants, including the dossier First steps in Germany, language learning tools and a project for refugees from Afghanistan and Pakistan, funded by the German foreign ministry.
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Fifty-two percent of SMBs in the US invested in SEO last year, and even more (74%) intend to do so this year, according to the latest report from Clutch. However, more than 50% limit their SEO activities to local and on-site optimization rather than expand SEO opportunities to content creation and guest posting.

The extent of SMB SEO efforts appears to be dictated by the resources used, says Clutch. Six in 10 of SMBs use in-house resources for SEO yet it is often a combination of internal and external resources, such as agencies, consultants or software, that is most effective.

The in-house person eventually gets to a point where they hit their limits. They dont have the training, said John Lincoln, CEO of Ignite Visibility. To do SEO correctly and really compete in this very competitive online space, its good to have a true external expert thats working at an expert company along with somebody whos in-house.

Website traffic from search engines is the metric used by most small businesses to measure SEO effectiveness (56%) while 50% track the quantity and quality of backlinks to their site.

The goal of SEO is to rank highly for search terms real people use to find answers to their questions, says Michael Mignogna, CEO of SEO and marketing firm Minyona. So, its neither traffic nor backlinks that an SEO expert should be focusing on. Instead, they should be reporting on which keywords people are actually typing into search, and where the business ranks for those searches.
March 31, 2017

CAIRO  In an interview with Al Arabiya TV in early February, Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir accused the Egyptian regime of supporting Sudanese rebels and opposition movements. Tensions are already high between Cairo and Khartoum, and security concerns prevail over bilateral ties despite Bashir and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi's talk of friendship, economic integration and common interests during their last meeting in Egypt in October 2016.

During the interview, Bashir stressed that although Sudanese-Egyptian relations are good, there are outstanding issues such as the disputed Halayeb-Shalateen Triangle. He added that Sudan knows that the Egyptian intelligence services are supporting Sudanese opposition leaders and harboring them in Egyptian territory.

The accusations did not stop there. On March 7, a number of Sudanese newspapers republished an article that appeared in Assayha daily: Egyptian intelligence services increase meetings with Sudanese opposition. The article revealed that Cairo-based figures of Sudanese opposition factions such as the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) attended these meetings. It also alleged that the Egyptian regime is conducting media campaigns accusing Sudan of harboring members of the Muslim Brotherhood. Egyptian newspapers had reported on Jan. 19 that investigations into the terrorist Hasm movement indicated that its members had attended military and intelligence training in Sudan in preparation for returning and carrying out attacks in Egypt.

Egypt expressed no support for former US President Barack Obamas decision to lift economic sanctions against Sudan. While Egypt has not issued any official statement regarding the US decision, some Sudanese circles believe that Cairo will not support Sudan before the US administration, particularly since reports circulated saying that members of terror groups continue to be trained in Sudan.

Commenting on Sudan's accusation, JEM representative in Cairo Huthaifa Muhieddine told Al-Monitor, The Sudanese security services are putting out fabricated information and reports on us receiving financial or military support from Cairo.

He said, Egypt does not have time to support the Sudanese opposition movements. JEM does not have an official representation office in Cairo. Our activity is limited to communications with some civil political parties and movements interested in Sudanese affairs, not with the Egyptian regime itself.

Muhieddine added, The concerned Egyptian agencies warned against any political or media activities in Egyptian territory. Also, the number of JEM members in Cairo is very limited, [as most] are based in Darfur.

An Egyptian diplomat who is well-informed about the Sudanese dossier told Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity, Tension and mutual accusations have returned following several developments. Most notable among these are the Sudanese-Saudi rapprochement and the six-month probation period set by the Obama decision before lifting economic sanctions against Khartoum.

The diplomat added, The official Egyptian institutions have demonstrated that they have good faith and are serious in promoting ties with Sudan, as a neighboring country with whom they have strategic, security and economic interests. Yet a number of signs coming from the Sudanese side have affected the Egyptian trust. He expressed his dissatisfaction at the harmful media campaigns and security reports accusing Cairo of supporting the Sudanese opposition without offering any evidence, which is unacceptable in international relations.

Commenting on Egypt's stance on Sudanese support for the Brotherhood, he said, The Egyptian administration is nearly convinced that the Sudanese regime is supporting members of the Brotherhood and is Islamist, even though it tries to pretend otherwise. He pointed to past incidents such as Sudan harboring al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in the 1990s.

The diplomat stated that the Egyptian administration appreciates the importance of ties with Sudan, despite its disappointment with Khartoums Nile waters policy and lack of support for Egypt in its disputes with downstream countries on Nile negotiations.

He stressed, Khartoum is also aware of how influential the Egyptian opinion and orientation is in the terrorism dossier, particularly since it is still in the probation period under the Trump administration, in light of Islamophobic policies toward a number of Islamic countries  including Sudan.

On March 21, the Sudanese government announced the formation of a committee consisting of various government agencies to drive the Egyptians out of Halayeb via diplomatic means. On March 17, it banned Egyptian goods from entering Sudan. Egypt has refrained from making any official statement on the moves.

The diplomat said, We have a clear policy of not getting carried away by attempts by any official or unofficial Sudanese parties to escalate the situation. We did, however, officially object before the Sudanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs to the offenses circulated in the Sudanese newspapers.

In March, Bashir took several measures as part of Sudans attempts to curry favor with Cairo and the international community to keep them from accusing it of supporting Islamist currents and harboring members of Islamist groups. He embarked on a broad reshuffle in the government, dismissing all Islamist figures and appointing military ones, such as Bakri Hassan Saleh as prime minister. Egyptian Islamist leader Abdel Moneim Aboul Fotouh was blocked March 24 from entering Sudanese territory to attend the Popular Congress Partys conference, though it was attended by multiple Hamas leaders and Tunisian Islamist leader Rachid Ghannouchi.

Ayman Abdel Wahab, a researcher on African affairs at Al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies, told Al-Monitor, The Sudanese regime has found it more beneficial to coordinate with Ethiopia than with Egypt in the terrorism file. It is also getting closer to the Gulf countries in countering terrorism at the Arab level.

Tension and security concerns will likely continue to prevail over Egyptian-Sudanese relations until the United States makes a final decision regarding the Bashir regime and Sudan is removed from the US list of countries accused of sponsoring terrorism, the reason for its 20 years of economic sanctions.
According to him, police forces from Sittwe, Mrauk U, Kyaukphyu, and Thandwe districts have also been deployed for security besides the police from Ann Township for the by-election which will be held on 1 April.

The police are taking security for the election in four zones. Ann Myoma Police Station is taking charge in Zone 1. Police from Dalat and Kazookai are taking charge in Zone 2. Tattaung and Yoo Police stations are taking charge in Zone 3 and Kyaukmyaung and Nyaungchaung Police stations are taking charge in Zone 4, said Police Major Aung Soe.

Ann Township has 29 groups, seven wards, and 137 polling stations.

Police are taking security by patrolling and monitoring the vicinity of the polling stations during pre-voting, voting, and post-voting periods.

Twenty-five groups have been divided for patrolling. It is being carried out with 153 police officers including 25 officials. A police officer has been stationed in each polling station, said Ann Township Police Commander.

The police have provided security during the transport of ballot boxes to the polling stations and will be providing security systematically during the transport of ballot boxes to the township election commission office.

Although a special police force was formed for security during the 2015 General Election, it was not formed for the by-election.
The KNU, one of the major ethnic armed groups to have signed the nationwide ceasefire agreement (NCA) in 2015, is holding its 16th national congress this month in Hpa-An [District]. In addition to a new, four-year roadmap, the congress is expected to hold elections for a new leadership body, with both the vice chair and current chair in contention for the top post.

On March 30, the congress announced that after thorough review, they approved the new charter, according to Padoh Saw Thaw Thi Bwe, chair of the KNU congress committee.

It was a long discussion about the constitution and the rules. But in the end, there were only a few amendments, he said.

He added that the lengthy debate was caused in part because of confusions, and in part because of difficulty between translating [between] Karen and Burmese languages.

But after all that, it was finally approved, he said.

In addition to outlining the KNUs basic principles and department hierarchy, two new committees on land and human rights were added. The congress also voted to increase the number of women involved in all administrative and government levels, as well as in the central committee.

The 16th KNU congress began on March 14.

Translated by Aong Jaeneh

Edited by Laignee Barron for BNI
However, only 32 percent said they were sufficiently informed about the policies and platforms of contesting candidates and parties, suggesting only limited contact during what has so far been a muted two-month-long campaign period.

The network, Election Education and Observation Partners (EEOP)one of several local entities observing the processreleased the survey alongside their Pre-Election Statement in a press conference at the Orchid Hotel in Yangon on 29 March.

The by-elections are being held for 19 vacant seats, in both the national and in state and regional parliaments: eight seats in Shan State, five in Yangon Region, and one each in Mon, Rakhine, Chin and Kayah states and Bago and Sagaing regions.

Three seats being contested are vacant because of the death of the elected parliamentarian; six, in Kyethi and Monghsu townships of Shan State, because voting was cancelled in 2015 under security grounds; and the remainder because the elected parliamentarians were appointed by the President to the executive or judiciary.

Five other townships, also in Shan State and controlled by ethnic armed groups based along the Chinese border, that were excluded from the 2015 election under security pretexts will not feature in the 1 April by-elections. They will remain without any parliamentary representation.

EEOP interviewed 565 voters, in 21 out of 22 townships where voting will take place, between 25-27 March. Although balance was achieved regarding the gender and age range of respondents, 85 percent were urban residents. It is therefore plausible that a higher degree of estrangement from the process among rural voters was not captured.

Among respondents, 78 percent said they intended to vote, and 79 percent said they had been sufficiently informed about where, when and how to voteaided by voter education drives carried out by civil society groups, including members of EEOP. It was also helped by the fact that more that 83 percent voted in the 2015 general election.

Voters largely perceived a clean, fair, and unrestricted process, with only 2 percent suspecting vote buying by candidates,and the use of government resources and personnel to benefit a particular party.

Questioned on the neutrality of local branches of the election commission, 65 percent of voters responded that they were usually neutral, 2 percent that they were sometimes biased, 1 percent that they were often biased, and 32 percent that they didnt know.

However, 63 percent of respondents said they did not have the knowledge of candidates plans and policies required to make an informed choice on 1 April.

This reflects a tendency among political parties in Myanmar, seen during the 2015 general election, to eschew debate over policy or existing government programmes in favour of broad messages of change or of continuity.

In early March, speaker of the lower house of Parliament U Win Myint opened the by-election campaign of the ruling National League for Democracy (NLD) in Yangon with a message not to vote for those who would hinder democracy.

In 2015, the NLD had successfully campaigned on a message of changeand on the projected virtues of its leader, Daw Aung San Kyiwhile refusing to elaborate on policy and curbing the freedom of its candidates to talk to the media.

The Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP), currently the largest opposition party, has been running on a more overtly nationalist and authoritarian line for the upcoming by-electionsa shift from 2015, when it focused on its record of increased development and economic growth as the incumbent.

In a speech in mid March, also in Yangon, USDP chairman U Than Htay invited voters to choose disciplined over disordered democracy, suggesting that the relaxation of the militarys iron grip on public life had resulted in chaos under the NLD.

However, there has been little of the public spectacle that distinguished the 2015 general election, when the USDP and the NLD hosted rallies attracting thousands and drove elaborately decorated trucks blaring loud music through major towns.

In EEOPs survey, results were mixed over the voter listone of the key objects of contention in the 2015 election, although claims by the NLD and civil society members of gross inaccuracies in the list were not borne out in widespread disenfranchisement or confusion on Election Day.

Among voters, 48 percent said their details were logged correctly on the list, with 8 percent citing inaccuracies. The remaining 44 percent had to yet to check the list, which has been put on public display in ward and village tract offices for two two-week periods, one in early February and the other from the middle of March.

Last year, local election sub-commissions went door-to-door to update the voter list in townships marked for the by-elections. However, in a statement released in mid February, another observer group, the Peoples Alliance for Credible Elections (PACE), claimed that this door-to-door sweep missed out 45 percent of voters.

Although falling around the end of the NLDs first year in poweralongside a wave of critical media comment over sluggish progress in the peace process and in economic reformthe 1 April by-elections themselves have failed to capture the attention, locally and internationally, won by the April 2012 by-elections.

The latter marked the entry of the NLD and Daw Aung San Suu Kyi into the national parliamentand by extension, into the reform process launched by the military-backed government of President U Thein Sein in 2011. The party, which had boycotted the 2015 general election, won 43 out of 45 available seats in 2012.

The 1 April by-electionswhich involve only 12 out of 664 seats in the national Parliamentare too minor to upset current power alignments or usher in any new political forces.

However, the NLDs performance in the 2015 electionwinning over 80 percent of parliamentary seats, excluding the 25 percent occupied by the militaryhas set the bar high for the ruling party, and ethnic parties are eager to make up for their considerable under performance in 2015. Meanwhile, the USDP appears convinced of a comeback.
It will be impossible to give residents access to electricity before Thingyan. The project was approved by the cabinet but because it was not at first approved by the Hluttaw, it started very slowly and cautiously, he said, referring to the state parliament.

Although the company had promised that it would start distributing electricity at the start of the April festival, by the end of March they had only installed utility poles in 4 villages, and had not even completed construction of the Zi-phyu-taung power plant, according to a Ye Township resident.

We have seen them installing wires and other electrical infrastructure, but the power plant is still far from completed. Maybe if the company were to bring in a diesel generator they could hook that up, but the fuel oil plant that they promised will not be ready in time, said U Aung Naing Win, the secretary of a Ye Township civil society organization that is reviewing the project.

He also pointed out that SEGEP, the electrical company, did not at first get formal approval from the Hluttaw, but instead signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the cabinet. An MoU is a much weaker agreement, which U Aung Naing Win said made the building illegal. SEGEP set up an office in Ye in December 2016 and began implementing the project based on the MoU shortly thereafter, but it was not until March that the Mon State Hluttaw approved the project during its fifth session.

U Chit Tin, a Ye Township representative in the Mon State Hluttaw, said that parliamentary approval should not be treated as a blank check.

Although Hluttaw has approved the energy distribution plan, we did so under the condition that it be completed by Thingyan. If they do not finish the project in time they will lose our support and we will organize against them.

When completed, the power distribution project will carry less than 30 megawatts of electricity, the limit on state-controlled electrical projects in Myanmar, formerly known as Burma. As more generation capacity is added after completion, SEGEP will have to start working with the Myanmar Investment Commission, which handles planning on long-term projects.

After completing infrastructure in southern Mon State in April, SEGEP had planned to connect the rest of the township by the end of the year. They also plan to add nine MW from a hydroelectric plant in Kalaw village and 28 MW from a similar plant in Kyaung Ywa village by the end of 2018.
For many people the stages, locally known as Mandat, are central to the celebration of Thingyan, featuring performances and the spraying of large amounts of water over hot crowds. The extra funding will be used to build a larger central stage in the states capital Mawlamyine, formerly known as Moulmein, according to U Myint Than Win, Director of General Administration Department.

Last year 85 lakhs was not nearly enough for the program, so we had to seek funding from outside sources. This year were allocating 500 lakhs so we dont have to look for other sources of funding, he said.



The Central Water Festival Stage in Mawlamyine

Capital ( photo: internet) The Central Water Festival Stage in MawlamyineCapital ( photo: internet)

The money will be used to build and pay for the four days of programming at the central stage. The program will include opening and closing ceremonies, prizes for traditional dance groups, gifts for the elderly and, of course, lots of water.

The central stage has always been so crowdedpeople couldnt even move. So it is good that they planing to spend more than they did the last few years said one young Mawlamyine resident.

Last year Mawlamyine hosted 17 stages, and the state government says that there will be a similar number this year. Set Se Beach in Thanbyuzayat Township is Mon States most popular Water Festival destination, though many people go to Mawlamyine City, Kyaikmaraw Town and Yogo Village for New Years Day, the last day of the festival.

Thingyan represents New Years in the Burmese calendar, and many offices and businesses close for the days surrounding the holiday. It occurs at the hottest time of the year and in many places anyone caught out on the street may be liable to a thorough soaking.
Shan Nationalities League for Democracy (SNLD) chair Khun Htun Oo urged voters to elect the candidate who they feel would most clearly work in the publics interest. He was joined at the event by Nang Kham Aye, the SNLD representative for Namtu Townships Pyithu Hluttaw seat, and Loong Sai Long, the SNLD candidate for Kyaingtong/Kengtungs consistency 2.

At the campaign event, they said that the Tiger Head [SNLD] party hopes to win the confidence of the people. The vote all depends on the desires of the people to choose who they want to represent them, said Sai Tun Yee, a local resident who attended the campaign rally.

Shan State will be a hotly contested battleground this weekend. In 2015, it was an outlier to the National League for Democracys (NLD) sweep, serving instead to propel the Shan Nationalities League for Democracy to its position as the countrys fourth largest party in the national parliament. The state is also a last bastion for the Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP), which took the bulwark of seats in the Shan State legislature in 2015.

Two townships in Shan State  Kyethi and Mong Hsu  will have their first poll in seven years this by-election, after the vote was previously cancelled due to security concerns. A total of six seats in those areas are up for grabs, two in Pyithu Hluttaw and four in the Shan State Hluttaw.

In Kengtung, the only other seat free in Shan State, six parties are vying for a chance to join the state parliament. The SNLD is joined by competition from the NLD, the USDP, the Shan National Democratic Party (SNDP), the Lahu National Development Party and the Akha National Development Party (ANDP).

Translated by Aong Jaeneh

Edited by Laignee Barron for BNI
Speaking to Shan Herald on Thursday, the final day for campaigning, Sai Leik said, From now on, our representative should be a citizen of Shan State and should be a person who is working on behalf of our nationality.

He added that people in Mong Hsu, Mong Nong and Kehsi townships had lost their right to vote during the 2015 general election when polls were cancelled due to security concerns.

Thats why this time they must come out and exercise their right to vote. We do not want our people to lose their rights, he said.

Nicknamed the Tiger Head Party, the SNLD won a total of 40 seats in the 2015 election. For this by-election, it is running candidates to contest all seats in Mong Hsu, Mong Nong, Kehsi and Kengtung townships.

Its ethnic rival, the Shan Nationalities Democratic Party (SNDP), known as the White Tiger Party, will also contest all vacant seats in those same areas.

Apart from the two Shan-based parties, the military-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP), which holds a majority of seats in the Shan State Assembly, has also been rallying for its candidates in the final stages of the campaign in Shan State, as have the ruling National League for Democracy (NLD) and other ethnic parties such as the Wa National Unity Party (WNUP).

By Shan Herald Agency for News (SHAN)
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Professor Robert Bickers new book on China provides a fresh, accessible and comprehensive account of how China overcame foreign domination in the 20th century to go on to become the worlds second largest economy.

Out of China: How the Chinese Ended the Era of Western Domination tells one of the modern eras most important stories - how China threw off Western Imperialism and regained its sovereignty by the end of the 20th century.

Described by The Sunday Times as 'our pre-eminent historian of the British in China', the University of Bristol professor draws on a fantastic range of sources to produce a vivid account of Chinas interactions with the outside world during the 20th century.

In Out of China Professor Bickers has sought to uncover the many and varied tales of Sino-western relations, drawing on sources as diverse as the foreign experts, humanitarians and evangelists who travelled to China in the 20th century. The result is a rich and nuanced tale of how the Chinese fought to maintain their identity  and succeeded  and explains why history matters so deeply to Beijings current rulers.

Professor Bickers said: "Chinas attitude to its historically complex relationship with the West needs to be more widely understood abroad. It has the worlds second largest economy and its nationalism is a major force in global politics. I wanted to tell the many stories behind Chinas difficult rise to this position, and its ambivalent and brittle relationship with the foreign powers that once dominated it. Chinas past is still a force in its present, and what matters in China matters to all of us."

Out of China is published this week by Allen Lane and has received excellent reviews in both The Sunday Times and The Financial Times.


China's first aircraft carrier Liaoning. Internet photo

BEIJING (PTI): China has hinted at commissioning its first indigenously-built aircraft carrier next month as it strengthens its powerful navy which plays a more dominant role in projecting the nation's power overseas.



The "outfitting work" is going on smoothly for China's first domestically made aircraft carrier, Chinese military spokesman Col Wu Qian told media briefing in Beijing on Thursday.



Asked whether the aircraft carrier will be launched on the 68th anniversary of the PLA Navy on April 23, he said, "We won't be kept waiting for long."



Some reports said President Xi Jinping may attend the launch ceremony.



Earlier reports in the official media said it may take few years for the new aircraft carrier to become fully operational.



China currently has one aircraft carrier, which is a refurbished vessel from former Soviet Union. It is building a second one while the third is in the pipeline.



Reports also said China has started building a new generation of large amphibious assault vessels including a helicopter carrier that will strengthen the navy.



The 075 Landing Helicopter Dock is now under construction by a Shanghai-based shipbuilding company, the South China Morning Post reported on Wednesday.



The amphibious vessel is far larger than similar ships previously constructed for the PLA Navy.



The 075 can serve as a form of aircraft carrier and military experts said it would give China's navy the ability to launch various types of helicopters to attack naval vessels, enemy ground forces or submarines in the East or South China Sea.



About the stealth aircraft J-20 which made waves in the international media recently, Wu said it is undergoing test flights.



The J-20 will improve comprehensive capability of the Chinese air force, he said, adding that "it will shoulder the responsibility of national sovereignty, territorial integrity".



Official media reports this month said China has operationalised its first stealth aircraft.



Once commissioned, it will have major implications for India as it was earlier tested near the border in Tibet for its endurance in high altitude.



The plane is regarded a major breakthrough for China as it will take the country to a next level in the region. China is otherwise mostly reliant on Russian aircraft including advanced versions of Sukois, like the Indian Air Force.



A video footage from CCTV Channel 7 showed J-20 fighters joining the PLA Air Force with Y-20 transport planes and H-6K bombers.




An unrelated file photo

BEIJING (PTI): China on Thursday said it is willing to work with Pakistan to push forward their "all-weather" strategic partnership, as it highlighted the significance of its troops' participation in the 'Pakistan Day' parade for the first time.



The Chinese military, at a media briefing, on Thursday screened a video of the combined contingent of Chinese army, navy and air force personnel taking part in the Pakistan Day parade in Islamabad on March 23.



"Hearing it 100 times is not as good as seeing it for once," China's Defence spokesman Col Wu Qian said ahead of the screening of the video, a rare gesture to showcase solidarity with Pakistan.



It was the first-time China's People's Liberation Army (PLA) troops took part in a parade in Pakistan.



Screening the video, Col Wu translated into Chinese the Urdu slogan of "China-Pak Dosti Zindabad" (Long live China-Pak friendship) raised by the PLA troops during the parade.



Saudi Special Force's contingents and Turkish Janissary Military Band also participated in the parade.



Elaborating the relations between the two countries following the launch of China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), Wu said the bilateral military relations are signified by "three key words".



"In terms of friendship between Chinese and Pakistani armed forces, three key words are All-weather brotherly friendship, substantive mutual support and assistance and deep mutual strategic mutual trust," he said.



"We are willing to work together with Pakistan side to push forward continued development of China-Pakistan all weather strategic partnership," he said.



Wu, however, played down the recent write-ups in the state media that the PLA participation in the Pakistan parade is a first step for China's military toward safeguarding regional stability and world peace.



After the parade, Global Times quoted a "military source" as saying that the PLA's participation in the Islamabad military parade is another step for China's army to go abroad to safeguard regional stability and world peace.



Asked to elaborate on Chinese military playing a role in regional stability, especially in the context of India-Pakistan military tensions, Wu said China is willing to conduct exchanges and cooperation in defence field with various countries to strengthen mutual trust.



"Also we have an active participant in regional and international security affairs. We are a staunch force in maintaining world and regional peace and stability," he said and referred to Chinese navy's anti-piracy operations in the Gulf of Aden.



Besides joint anti-piracy training with the Pakistan Navy, Wu said China also worked with the Indian Navy in the region to escort ships.



"In regional counter terrorism, China has conducted joint exercises and training with both Pakistan and India, so as to improve the joint capabilities of relevant countries in maintaining regional peace and stability under the new situation," he said.



He declined to comment on Global Times report after the Pakistan Army Chief Gen Qamar Javed Bajwa's recent visit that China plans to step up missile cooperation with Pakistan, including ballistic and cruise missiles, besides joint mass production of a multi-role combat aircraft.




ALH Dhruv of Indian Navy.

BENGALURU (PTI): The government has cleared a proposal worth around Rs 8,000 crore for acquiring Hindustan Aeronautics Limited's 32 Advanced Light Helicopter (ALH) Dhruv to boost the maritime security capabilities of the Indian Navy and Indian Coast Guard, HAL said on Thursday.



Of the 32 helicopters to be built by HAL, 16 each would be shared by both the services, the company said.



The Performance Based Logistics (PBL) support for five years for 16 helicopters for ICG is the unique feature of this contract, an HAL statement said.



"The PBL is the purchase of logistics support as an integrated, affordable, performance package designed to optimize system readiness and meet performance goals for the product through long-term support arrangements with clear lines of authority and responsibility," HAL CMD T Suvarna Raju said.



He said PBL is emerging as a preferred acquisition strategy for defence acquisition and asset management.



Stating that PBL ensures the availability of products to the customer while the responsibility gets transferred to the contractor, HAL said the PBL envisages rewards or penalties based on the performance.



The contracts were signed by V Natarajan, General Manager (Helicopter Division), HAL and Jayant Sinha, Joint Secretary & Acquisition Manager (Maritime Systems), MoD, in New Delhi on Wednesday in the presence of HAL, Navy and Coast Guard officials, the statement said.






NEW DELHI (PTI): Projects worth USD five billion are expected to be discussed during the India visit of Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak, which started on Thursday, as the two sides look at inking more than a dozen business deals.



Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Najib will hold wide-ranging talks on April one during which the two sides will also try to take forward their cooperation in key areas of security, defence and counter-terrorism.



Briefing reporters on the six-day visit, Jaideep Mazumdar, Joint Secretary (South) in the External Affairs Ministry, said, "Projects under discussion during the visit would amount to around USD five billion," and about 15 business agreements are also expected to be signed during a business event on April 3.



The Malaysian prime minister is scheduled to attend Trade Expo by Malaysia India Business Council Business Forum and 7Th Global Science and Innovation Advisory Council Meeting.



Asked if the two sides will ink a pact in the defence sector, he said the two sides will try to take forward the decisions taken in key strategic areas of security and defence in 2015 during Modi's visit to Malaysia.



He also described the bilateral ties in security, defence and counter-terrorism as robust.



On whether the two sides will discuss the threat of ISIS, he said international terrorism and terrorism in the region would be an important subject of discussion.



Najib, who will be in New Delhi on his third visit, is accompanied by his spouse Datin Sri Rosmah Mansour. His delegation consists of several cabinet ministers and senior officials. A delegation comprising 80-100 business leaders is also part of his team.



The Malaysian leader will visit Chennai and Jaipur.






NEW DELHI (PTI): A two-day seminar jointly hosted by a Russian think-tank and a Delhi-based NGO was inaugurated in New Delhi on Thursday, seeking to explore avenues to broaden defence cooperation between India and Russia.



The first session of the event organised by Vivekananda International Foundation and Russian International Affairs Council (RIAC) saw speakers, including, former C-in-C Eastern Naval Command, Vice Admiral Anup Singh and Vasilii Kashin of Institute of Far Eastern Studies, Moscow.



Andrey Kortunov, Director General of RIAC, moderated the session titled, 'India-Russia Defence Cooperation,' that discussed areas like joint ventures and 'Make in India' initiative, the Foundation said in a statement.



The second session was on scope for economic engagement.



Two more sessions on, 'India and Russia: the Geopolitical Dimension Eurasia, Russia's Asia Pivot and Relations with China' and 'Toward a New Quality of Bilateral Ties in Science, Education, Culture and Media,' would be held on Friday.



The seminar also marked the 70 years of diplomatic ties between the two countries.


Vineet Vishwanath 18: Brandeis doesnt mold you. It gives you the materials to mold yourself.

Learn about Vineet Vishwanath and his Brandeis journey.

Photo/Mike Lovett Vineet Vishwanath '18

Vineet Vishwanath 18 toured 17 different schools but Brandeis stood out for him right from the startwhich is why he returned to campus multiple times before deciding to make it his home for four years.

Now Vishwanath, who is originally from Bangalore, India but resides in Baldwin, New York, is basking in all that Brandeis has to offer. Vishwanath double-majors in Biology and Neuroscience, minors in French and Francophone studies and also serves as a Community Advisor and Orientation Leader.

BrandeisNOW caught up with Vineet to get his take on what makes Brandeis special.

How has Brandeis opened your mind?

Vishwanath: Brandeis has provided me with the necessary knowledge to be more courageous and brave to step out of my comfort zone. The first moment I got to campus, during my pre-orientation, I was told that life begins outside your comfort zone. I truly believe that Brandeis gives you all the support you need to jump out of your comfort zone and interpret things in your own way and add to existing knowledge. I feel like thats what Brandeis truly is. Everyone here has a passion to add to what exists and to radically change everything that everyone has ever known. Its both a conducive environment and an empowering one.

How will Brandeis help you make a difference?

Vishwanath: Brandeis has added a drive in me to help people, and not just for the sake of helping people. Its about making a lasting change. Its not about temporary fixes, its about the big picture and the bigger vision.

Whats been your most empowering moment outside the classroom?

Vishwanath: This semester, I had the opportunity to travel to Peru with FIMRC, which is the Foundation for International Medical Relief of Children. We worked with indigenous local communities and children to provide health awareness and health education. The experience really gave me more self-awareness. It was an amazing journey because I, as a person, a Brandeis student and science major, got to travel abroad and connect all the things that I never knew were missing in the first place.

How do you like to describe Brandeis to your friends and family back home?

Vishwanath: Its not traditional. I was expecting a traditional, four-year college and then I got here and everything changed. The mood on this campus is so contagious. People really want to do things and its a place that encourages you to be your true self. Ive never felt judged on campus, which says a lot, because we have a community of people from many different backgrounds and ideologies. Brandeis doesnt mold you. It gives you the materials to mold yourself.
News / Africa

by Staff reporter

Cape Town - President Jacob Zuma has summoned the rest of the ANC's top six to an urgent meeting in Pretoria, News24 reported.It is not clear what the meeting is about.The officials, Cyril Ramaphosa Baleka Mbete Gwede Mantashe Jessie Duarte and Zweli Mkhize, were called to a meeting at short notice to the presidential home, Mahlambandlopfu, at 18:30.Some ministers were informed to be on standby.News24 understands that nine ministers, including Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan, and six deputy ministers will be affected by the reshuffle.The SACP, an alliance partner of the ANC, confirmed on Thursday that Zuma told the party on Wednesday that he planned to fire Gordhan and his deputy Mcebisi Jonas based on an "intelligence report".The report contains claims that Gordhan and Jonas were going to use the trip to the UK and US to push for a change in government.Gordhan was summarily recalled from the UK leg of the trip on Monday. Zuma gave no official reasons.According to the report, Gordhan, Jonas and Treasury director general Lungisa Fuzile had set up "secret meetings" to start "operation Check Mate" and to tell investors they stood together against Zuma and the corruption of the Guptas.Zuma faces a rebellion within his own party should he fire Gordhan, with about 12 ministers considering resigning from their positions and then fighting for the president's removal if he goes ahead, according to four people familiar with the situation.Deputy President Ramaphosa and some deputy ministers may also resign, the sources said, asking not to be identified because the information isn't public.The officials would keep their seats in Parliament and possibly support or abstain from a vote of no confidence in the president if it is called by the opposition or by members of the ANC, said the sources.
March 29, 2017

Anyone who follows international politics knows that the rivalry between Iran and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) is bitter and has exacerbated the various conflicts raging across the Middle East. Relations between the two Persian Gulf power centers took a turn for the worse after the Arab Spring, as power vacuums emerged throughout the region, and further deteriorated when the nuclear negotiations between Iran and the six world powers successfully concluded in 2015. In recent months, however, there have been signs of progress toward reconciliation between Iran and the GCC.

Iran had made repeated attempts to reach out since President Hassan Rouhanis inauguration in August 2013, but they largely met with unreceptive ears. That changed in January, with the Kuwaiti foreign minister, Sabah Khalid Al Sabah, making a landmark visit to Tehran, where he reportedly delivered a message to Rouhani concerning the basis of dialogue between Iran and the GCC states. Rouhani reciprocated by visiting Kuwait and Oman in February and sending a letter to Kuwaiti Emir Sabah al-Ahmad Al Sabah on March 13.

It is now being reported that GCC foreign ministers will gather on March 30 to discuss the possibility of a strategic dialogue with Iran. For the first time in years, an Iran-GCC detente seems imaginable, and with it, the prospect of easing crises from Syria to Yemen.

In discussions on the state of the region, the consistent theme frequently heard centers on Irans behavior. Alleged Iranian actions in the region are often presented as the reason why the GCC cannot trust Tehran and diplomatically engage it.

The reality, however, is that the trust deficit between Iran and some of the GCC member states predates Irans 1979 Islamic Revolution, going back to the days when the shah's government and Saudi Arabia quarreled over oil production and prices. After the revolution, and the Iraqi invasion of Iran in 1980, some GCC member states moved to support the aggressor. Back then, there was no Iranian presence in Syria, Iraq or Yemen, no Hezbollah or nuclear issue. As such, to refer to supposed malignant Iranian actions in the region as a reason to abandon diplomacy today is a poor excuse and does nothing to foster trust.

At the moment, the GCC has three options for dealing with Iran. A review of them reveals that only one is truly tenable and can ensure the long-term security of the GCC states, Iran and the region.

The first option is for the GCC states to maintain their traditional approach toward Iran, which has been one of confronting and attempting to isolate it. During the last several years, Saudi Arabia and its allies have severed or reduced diplomatic relations with Iran, employed hostile language about Tehran, its allies and its regional presence, and convinced the Arab League to designate Hezbollah a terrorist organization and make supporting it a crime in the GCC states. Saudi Arabia has embarked on a ruinous war in Yemen to push back against perceived Iranian influence there. Before the nuclear deal, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates prodded the United States toward abandoning diplomacy and advocated military strikes against Irans nuclear facilities.

The second option is to believe that GCC actions taken against Iran over the past 38 years have not been sufficient and that they therefore need to ratchet up further. There is now talk of a potential GCC alliance with Israel, which is seen as an effort to increase pressure on Iran in the region.

Needless to say, these two options harbor immense costs and risks and no reasonable benefits. The GCCs approach has thus far led to a regional balance of power that it perceives as disproportionately in Irans favor. As such, it has evidently been a failed and counterproductive approach. The potential for it leading to a destructive war is also likely. To ally with Israel would in addition be the epitome of a foolhardy endeavor. For the GCC states to abandon the Palestinians at this time, when the Israeli government makes no secret of its expansionist agenda and its stringent opposition to a two-state solution, would be seen as the ultimate betrayal of the Arab and Muslim street. The consequences for the GCC states in this case would be far greater than that of their current actions.

The final and only real feasible option is for the GCC states to be creative and carefully leverage their mutual interests with Iran. Each side has a laundry list of grievances and complaints. Rather than relying on external powers, borrowing their security or choosing to directly confront Tehran, the GCC states can diplomatically engage Iran and pursue avenues for confidence building and cooperation.

For a new era to dawn in Iranian-GCC relations, the two sides have to be able to express their concerns to each other in a constructive way and translate dialogue into tangible diplomatic gains. They can look to Europe for examples on how to resolve historic rivalries and how the Peace of Westphalia or systems such as the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe and the European Union came to be.

A basis for immediate talks on regional cooperation can be UN Security Council Resolution 598 (on ending the Iran-Iraq War), paragraph 8 of which envisions collective regional security efforts to boost stability. These talks can be held within the framework of the Persian Gulf states (Iran, Iraq and the GCC) or the Persian Gulf states plus the five permanent members of the UN Security Council (P5 + 8), since they would be predicated on Resolution 598.

Direct and sustained engagement between the GCC and Iran will allow both sides to move toward a relationship that solidifies their commitment to non-interference in each others internal affairs and respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity. Over time, they can then move toward an order that bolsters security, economic, cultural, military and political cooperation, and eliminates the risk of nuclear proliferation and the spread of weapons of mass destruction in the Persian Gulf region.
News / Africa

by Staff reporter

President Jacob Zuma has finally fired Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan.Malusi Gigaba has been appointed the new finance minister. His deputy will be ANC MP Sfiso Buthelezi.The dismissal late on Thursday came after a meeting of the top six members of the ruling African National Congress at Zuma's private residence in Pretoria, the capital. It capped a dramatic week when Zuma ordered Gordhan on March 27 to cancel a series of meetings with investors in the UK and the US and return home. The president told the senior ANC members this week that intelligence reports suggested Gordhan was trying to undermine his authority.His dismissal marked the end of a stormy relationship that began almost as soon as Zuma named Gordhan, 67, as finance minister in December 2015, four days after he triggered a sell-off in the rand by giving the post to a little-known lawmaker.The rand has weakened sharply since Zuma started his Cabinet reshuffle to close at R13.28 in New York. By 11:15, in after hours trading the rand lost a further 0.45% to currently trade at R13.34 against the greenback on the news that Pravin Gordhan has been replaced by Home Affairs Minister Malusi Gigaba.There was speculation from the anti-Zuma media that he faces a rebellion within his own party if he fires Mr Gordhan, with about 12 ministers considering resigning their positions and then fighting for the president's removal, according to four people familiar with the situation.Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa and some deputy ministers may also resign, the people said, asking not to be identified because the information isn't public. The officials would keep their seats in parliament and possibly support or abstain from a vote of no confidence in the president if it's called by the opposition or by members of the African National Congress (ANC), they said.It is yet to be seen if the unidentified ministers will indeed resign.
News / National

by Staff reporter

ZIMRA has resorted to escorting fuel trucks in transit from the Forbes Border post to Plumtree and Chirundu border posts after it recently came to light that fuel trucks purporting to be in transit are in fact offloading the fuel in Zimbabwe, prejudicing the State of millions of dollars in excise duty.Post Business came across a ZIMRA escorted convoy of 10 fuel trucks in transit to Botswana along the Mutare-Plumtree via Harare highway. ZIMRA officers were escorting the trucks from Forbes Border post before handing them over to their Harare counterparts just outside Marondera.The Harare ZIMRA officers were expected to hand over the trucks to a Bulawayo team in Gweru. This new exercise ensures that no fuel is emptied in Zimbabwe."We have decided to escort the fuel trucks in transit to countries such as the Democratic Republic of Congo, Botswana and Zambia after losing a lot of money."Since we started this exercise, our revenues have improved significantly,'' said a ZIMRA officer who declined to be named.Investigations by Post Business show that ZIMRA was charging excise duty of around US$19 500 from one truck with a trailer carrying 60 000 litres of petrol.It therefore means that if the Botswana bound 10 trucks were to offload their 600 000 litres in Zimbabwe without paying duty, ZIMRA would lose US$195 000, hence the tight checks and balances to ensure that nothing would be lost.Recently, some fuel truck drivers purportedly in transit to the DRC, tampered with the ZIMRA seals, emptied the fuel in Zimbabwe and replaced it with water before proceeding to Chirundu where they were intercepted by the police and ZIMRA after detecting a suspicious detour using its newly installed electronic cargo tracking system.When ZIMRA conducted a physical search on the trucks together with other stakeholders, it was discovered that the sealing slips had been tampered with and the liquid in the trucks was taken for tests at the Zimbabwe Energy Regulatory Authority.The trucks were allegedly found carrying 140 000 litres of water instead of diesel amid suspicion they had offloaded the fuel in Chitungwiza.ZIMRA had not charged excise duty for the fuel at Forbes Border Post after being duped the cargo was destined for the DRC. This prejudiced the State of $55 650.ZIMRA board chairperson Mrs Willia Bonyongwe said evasion was one of the major problems facing the revenue collector."It is so sad what we are doing to our country when you look at our roads and hospitals. I believe without evasion, we could collect enough for all our recurrent and most of our capital expenditure as a nation,'' she said.
Opinion / Columnist

Introduction: Who Really Is Zanu?

Contexting Perceptions on Constitution and Democracy

Intelligence in Good Timing

The Effects of History on the Present Turn of Events in Zimbabwe*





Zimbabwe: a Civil but Militarized State

A political organization that timely took an opportunity to talk right language at the right time on the need to fight in order to gain independence. She fought along side other liberation movement organization in the frontline to liberate the country. All Zimbabweans, black and white, one way or other supported the liberation struggle because of the language spoken THEN which resonated with Independence FOR THE MAJORITY. Reality demands that we acknowledge that after thirty-eight years, the same condition exists where black elites, by forced consent, oppress majority using the army and agencies of state security more than the electorate. The sad reality in NATIONALISTS is that founders are made heroes. Since often time they neither engage in battles nor their children, Nationalists often live to distort the narrative of the struggle, so did Robert Mugabe and his cohorts in Zanu.Today Zanu is an organization politically divorced from the masses she claims she fought to uphold. Zanu is not the few in the hierarchy of the party, the army, intelligence service agency, police and/or prison services. Consider how all these individuals in the hierarchies of all the government and party institutions have amassed wealthy to themselves. Zanu is a corrosive corrupt organization using history of torture and violence to further few individuals interests an advantage. Because she has got away with it without punishment for lack of concerted leadership in opposition politics, a parasitic idea runs in many Zimbabweans that forming a political organization may be an opening to opportunity that Zanu met with at independence to date. Both the narrative and conception including context is wrong and needs urgent changingMany Zimbabweans, in my view, when it comes to elections in the country remain in denial for fear of standing up and confronting Mr. Mugabe's Zanu system as a collective than as a fractured bunch of individuals projecting their ambitions under cover of opposition political parties. We all know that unity commanded from outside the goal of National Interest, but on selfishness and individualism than from a national focus always fails. We further have witnessed, in the last thirty-eight years of Zimbabwe independence, of people driven by a presumed collective ambition to remove oppressive government of Mr. Mugabe Zanu who, however, were used to benefit Zanu instead. That said, an observation has to be made that putting faith in solutions ON CONSTITUTIONAL change of government through election with Zanu entrenched in power control as is and has been, needs as a REALITY CHECK, in order for people to cease have false hope. What is relevant is that Zimbabweans anywhere ought to move and effectively organize for an ANTI OPPRESSION MOVEMENT to which every Zimbabwean has cause and reason to affiliate. In a movement we act together on an issue. In Zimbabwe OPPRESSION, in form and spirit; spearheaded on a Zanu ideology of self enrichment through corruption practices keeps destroying life pattern of citizens seeding instead the spirit of DIVISION, GREEDY AND CORRUPTION. These three evil spirits are a cancer that has paralyzed any government in the world if not attempting to take full control. At least 95% of Zimbabweans of all walk of life agree WE HAVE BEEN OPPRESSED FAR TOO LONG BY ONE MAN UNDER ONE PARTY beyond measure.An open threat that faces Zimbabweans outside today is that in her desperation to reduce strong MOVEMENT pressure on itself, Zanu may try and get away with a legislation that arbitrarily remove citizenship from Zimbabweans who have stayed away FROM ZIMBABWE FOR OVER FIVE YEARS through NON CONSTITUTIONAL but threats on their lives so they do not come back home. To the extent that many talk of if you want to meet with peace in Zimbabwe do not talk against the government, this is death to democracy and an almost successful BLACKMAIL to a people experiencing political fatigue I understand and believe in one thing, namely, DISPUTE on BIRTHRIGHT & LAND are two issues that can cause permanent political instability to any country, region and hamper growth, even of the Africa Union (AU). Consider the case of Israel as a geographical entity from inception and see how the world has spin and rotate on it at heavy costs to life and resources. Building economic welfare for people including the development of the country, TODAY 2017, offer better prospects for political solutions in Zimbabwe than to lean on political views and ambitions of individuals. GREEDY sits at the center of one big setback to politics of achievement in Zimbabwe. Too much politics of INGRATIATION leads the way to CORRUPTION marring the already suffering image on perception and contexting of NATIONAL INTEREST in Zimbabweans vocabulary, culture and language. At worst, National Interest is undefined, therefore, does not guide the culture of doing things. A culture of wild competitiveness founded on selfishness and avarice, instead, dominates the intelligence of most people.The urgency of a Movement for Freedom in Zimbabwe (MFFZ) has never been more desirable. Appropriately articulated by both mature and upcoming persons who can support the birth to a mass movement with logistics and intelligence of street smart leadership will inevitably bring masses, workers, intelligentsia and certain levels of the security together. Study of intelligence necessary to convict poor governance practices that went uncontrolled for three decades only needs simple minded, honesty people of integrity who talk the language of PERSUATION to BELIEVE A RIGHT and STAND FOR THAT RIGHT. Automatically this nullifies history of rhetoric and sloganeering as cause for failure to deliver economic development policies conversant with creation of employment. Need for political, moral, corporate transparency and accountability has, of necessity, to permeate VALUES of a New Leadership intelligence and perception.There is common understanding of the fear in many people to challenge the regime in view of how the regime has demonstrated ISOLATIONIST BRUTALLITY BORN ON VIOLENCE, PUNISHMENT and, IF NEED BE, MEMING and/or MAKING PEOPLE PHYSICALLY DISAPPEAR; has shaken many of us to disbelief, discontent and disgust shock. Our core values in Christian love have, as a result, suffered distortion and thrown many of us into denial. The resolve not to MAKE US SURRENDER OUR POWER OF COLLECTIVE WILL and POWER for PROTESTING ACTION and STOP VIOLANCE; and to RESTORE PEACE is inevitably the ONLY SOLUTION given the time it has taken us to be where we are today-mentally, socially, economically, morally, ethicallyyou name it. We are at the worst moments of the post independence era. Working as individuals, either in opposition political parties or persons THAN AS A MOVEMENT, has RENDERED US VULNERABLE, MANIPULABLE increasing aggression from paid mercenaries in the ranks of the army and civilians. With same determination we need to INTELLGENTLY rise and demand our right. We must respect the motives of the liberation struggle not the individuals contradictory and selfish, mercenary and small minded styles.Time is opportune and events, even in Africa, are seeing a change of heart against Dictators from moderate human rights leadership. There are no governments today openly and willingly ready to risk supporting oppressive regimes given the stance taken by ECOWAS regional leadership who facilitated the taking out of the Gambian dictator Yahya Jammeh as a response to the Gambian people's cry for freedom. (see among other readings the March 29, 2017 Freedom Newspaper, Gambia Premier Online newspaper) The only other problem that need undoing in Zimbabwe is to overcome Zanu propaganda in the public and its dissemination machinery in the country. Bearing in mind that land telephones are neither reliable nor useful anymore in Zimbabwe today, a plan that makes WhatsApp the best tool to communicate both inside and outside the country. Many people abroad are ready to return with or without the cooperation of Zanu hotheads. Need for working together comes into play as soon as we substitute our enemy number one-OPPRESIVE SYSTEM AND IDEOLOGY and replace it with RESPONSIBILITY, ACCOUNTABILITY AND TRNASIPARENCY without affiliating to a political vacuum currently existing. People know and believe in the future and have will power and sacrifice to change government peacefully. SELFISHNESS is a mark of lacking in maturity among anyone who claims to leadership.As a result, fear has worked in Zimbabwe as it was in Gambia because there is no political oxygen. No media, no effective opposition political party or parties as a strategy of the sitting government to stifle unveiling of corruption and sustenance of the political checks and balances. Coupled with a broken foreign policy that is toxic to world order and human right activism programs, a well organized MOVEMENT answers to the difficulties that have beset the country and failed to change the regime constitutionally in Zimbabwe through peaceful means.Nationalism in all its forms and awareness was, in part, after the second world war responsible for the exposure of black soldiers to the 'humaneness' of whites therefore changing the whole black people perception on historical notion that whites were some kind of 'gods' in superiority to blacks as false. That whites cried, felt pain and died too as well as having some fears like any other humans. This increased the sentiments for the demand of self government among blacks in the colonies and world over irrespective of whether they understood constitutional supremacy its rules and implications or not. Constitution was perceived, and still may be regarded so by some leaders, as a preserving mechanism to protect the colonial authority over the natives. African chiefs were viewed as appendages of the colonial masters causing divisions and disgust between African nationalists and African academics then outside the country receiving education. Ironically these contradictions also played into building temporary unite of purpose between people in colonies then.The idea therefore that elections in Southern Rhodesia, for example, were a product of multi party politics would not strictly hold water. As black nationalism awareness rose so was the recognition growing on the politics of multiparty systems in order to win black votes and/or possibly to form a coalition in order that whites keep control, possibly even after the fall of colonial rule. We witnessed the Bishop Abel Muzorewa coalition with Ian Smith as back up to the formation of multiparty politics to retain control in the late 1970s. But historically in Southern Rhodesia when white liberals begun accommodating blacks into their political parties they became as vulnerable as black nationalists except that they were rarely detained and isolated as the case in South Africa. In the then Southern Rhodesia the detention of Sir Garfield Todd former British governor of Rhodesia by Ian Douglas Smith when he assumed power in a multi party electoral victory, attest to the ruthlessness or lack of multiparty system as a welcome development during colonial periods. However, it may have been done, these strategies were to calm black majority from claiming political independence. The idea was to keep coalition multiparty under white control defeating the concept of radical nationalism. It was a soon false proven strategy when after the Lancaster Conference in London Muzorewa/Smith coalition lost to liberation struggle call for fresh elections under the world supervision.The point is with people not being political educated but living under terror of victimization if found in disagreement with government, a host of ghost voters, controlled media, a callous secret intelligentsia that follows after those who voice criticism on government, how could anyone call this a democracy? When the spirit of sacrifice is personalized to mean segregation of the poor who bore the brand of sustaining the liberation struggle, the role of heroes become an adulteration of the meaning of sacrifice and liberation. Zimbabwe political condition and terrain in volatile, explosive and therefore very corrupt and easy to recruit corrupt men and women or face the wrath of a failing government with close to one third of the population outside the country who do not exercise their voting right, it is insincere to talk of electoral processes in Zimbabwe that are free and fair in any way or form.In 1980 Prime Minister Robert Mugabe then craftily neutralized Rhodesian forces, Zapu* forces and Zanu* forces forming them into one army under control of Zanu ex-combatant soldiers sharing authority with former Rhodesian and Zapu forces. Under this arrangement, the late Rex Nhongo then head of Zanlar forces, took over as commander of Zimbabwe army deputized by the late Lookout Masuku of the Zupu liberation forces.The prior to 1980 London Lancaster constitutional talks were just a bridge to have peaceful transition, from a bitter armed struggle of close to a decade, by three contenting military forces as already referenced above. Elections, in my opinion, are free and fair when three institutions of government are independent from each other's influence except in the national interest. It is a fact that the army in Africa has continued to have increased direct or indirect influence of government affairs than the electoral process. Its ugly and heart breaking that few countries resists elections by boycotting the voting process. Reality has it that governments put up ghost voters and ferry unregistered voters to fill voting booths giving an impression major turn out took place. The hardest thing is to see so-called opposition political parties increase and going to participate even when its clear voting is rigged.The Machiavellian manoeuvre of the military and the opposition politics of opportunism controlled by ZANU kept rendering Zimbabwe situation a political fiasco. No doubt the government is run by a group of craft corrupt nationalists backed by a cohesive hierarchy of military, Central Intelligence and Police service chiefs who give unbridled loyalty to President Mugabe. In spite of the President's ageing, his cohorts financially rewarded will stay him in power. It is not complicated to notice Zimbabwe does not need elections under Zanu supervision but extremely strong world supervision of the electoral processes beginning by overhauling the voter's role It is hypocrisy to say there will be elections and a waste of people's income tax to call the process an electoral process.Zimbabwe is a defacto military regime, hence the refusal of Service Chiefs and commanders to accept a none liberation armed struggle fighter as the army commander in chief. While many other factors worked against MDC then and still worse now to win elections, the refusal to salute a none liberation struggle fighters discounted MDC leadership to being a president of Zimbabwe. These are not constitutional requirements yet they mattered. The Zimbabwe government registry department head is a strong Zanu member. In fact, some permanent secretaries in government ministries are also district Party chairpersons. Zanu government is assuming communist style of governance therefore degenerating into none accountable.Zanu Political party and government control all media, all state machinery, Legislature and the Judiciary. How actually can we justify a call for and accept the government as capable of running an election at all, let alone a free and fair election? The question perhaps would be what motivates incessant political party formation and if this trend can help transition the country from Mugabe dictatorship to democracy? If not what is the alternative? Could this be an answer to why Zimbabwe has become too corrupt a system, people and country? It is justified to wonder if citizens think it feasible any longer to restore social justice and meritocracy in matters of governance in the country? Is the condition conducive to debating, open writing or is the country a prison glorified state? The above issues speak volumes for a tyrannical state under a dictator. To deny it simply because civilians are on the front running affairs of government is to deny influence and power of control Zanu has evolved over her thirty-six years of being in power.
Retail sales will plunge by up to 60% is the current bus strike continues, a business group has warned today.

Lorraine Higgins, head of public affairs and communications at Retail Excellence (RE) today called for an immediate intervention to resolve the impasse at Bus Eireann.
Update 4.15pm: Siptu members employed as Bus Eireann school bus drivers are to commence a ballot for industrial and strike action due to the threat to their jobs resulting from the wider crisis in the company.

"Today, the Siptu National School Bus Drivers Committee decided to commence the process of balloting its members for industrial and strike action in sympathy and support of their colleagues in Bus Eireann," said Siptu Sector Organiser, Willie Noone (pictured below).

"Although they are employees of Bus Eireann these workers have to date not been party to the ongoing dispute at the company.

"However, it is now known that their livelihoods will also be adversely affected in the circumstances that their employer is not able to continue trading.

"This leaves our members with no other option but to consider industrial action to protect their jobs and the services they provide."

The ballot for industrial action and strike by Siptu members employed as Bus Eireann school bus drivers is scheduled to be completed by 21 April.

Update 3pm: Sinn Fein Deputy Leader Mary Lou McDonald has said comments from Minister Leo Varadkar this afternoon have laid bare the governments privatisation agenda.

Minister Varadkar told RTE News that Bus Eireann is not essential and that most of what it does could be done by the private sector.

"These comments reveal the ideological reason why Transport Minister Shane Ross has steadfastly refused to intervene in the Bus Eireann dispute," said McDonald.

"The governments privatisation agenda has been laid bare for all to see.

"What Minister Varadkar and indeed Minister Ross fail to take account of is the service Bus Eireann provides for our citizens along non profit making routes where private operators will not go. Are these people to be sacrificed for the governments privatisation agenda?

"The reality is that Shane Ross and this government are happy to see the country brought to a standstill if it brings the privatisation of Bus Eireann a little bit closer.

"So the travelling public and those workers who are risking their livelihoods on the picket lines are simply being used in an ideological campaign to privatise our bus routes.

"That is an indictment on this government and they should hang their heads in shame."

Update 1.35pm: Bus Eireann have released a statement saying illegal activity will not help resolve the ongoing dispute.

The transport company also said it "regrets the ongoing disruption to the travelling public"

The statement said: "Escalation of this action in an illegal manner will not resolve the matter, and as a company, we can only engage on the basis of good faith.

Focusing on resolution of the dispute between the workers and the company, Bus Eireann said: "Trust must be restored in order for dialogue between both parties to resume.

"The company remain available for time-limited talks on efficiencies and changes to work practices.

"It is critical - for both the solvency of the business and to secure a viable future - that these changes are implemented.

"Management and the board want to see a resolution, but are responsible for ensuring that the business can survive."

Latest 12.15pm: Irish Rail and Dublin Bus services are resuming after being disrupted by Bus Eireann pickets this morning.

Almost all trains and buses were cancelled, with management saying it was completely unexpected.

Union bosses say they were also taken by surprise, and called on their members to return to work.

Transport Minister Shane Ross has called the morning's action an 'orchestrated ambush' of the travelling public and repeated again that he will not interfere in the dispute.

"What I really do regret deeply is the fact that what happened this morning has been an orchestrated ambush of the travelling public and I can't understand how this happened.

"I welcome the fact that the unions have asked them to go back to work and that the busses and trains are now resuming normal business, but we can't tolerate a situation like this going on or happening in the middle of an industrial relations dispute. "

Latest 12pm: Social Protection Minister Leo Varadkar says people are rightly angry at what he said was an unlawful wildcat strike action.

He says the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) or Labour Court is the only place where this will be resolved.

"I think perhaps some of the bus workers who are involved in this underestimated the resolve of the management of Bus Eireann and the resolve of the Minister for Transport in thinking that somehow a blank cheque would be written to resolve these issues.

"The only way they're going to be resolved is through negotiations and through the involvement of the WRC or the Labour Court if necessary."

Update 10.42am: Rail services and Dublin Bus services have resumed according to officials.

Iarnrod Eireann released a statement saying delays and cancellations may continue until lunchtime due to trains being out of position and this may also result in some train sizes being different to planned.

Iarnrod Eireann has apologised to the inconvenience and thanked customers for their patience.

Dublin Bus has also resumed service. The official Twitter account tweeted that passengers should expect delays as services resume.

#DBSvcUpdate Secondary pickets have now been lifted. Please expect delays as we return to normal service:https://t.co/1vgVyVMV6F  dublinbusnews (@dublinbusnews) March 31, 2017

Sipty has issued a statement saying the union did not organise and does not condone the unofficial action which disrupted rail and bus services this morning.

Siptu transport division organiser Greg Ennis said: We regret the disruption which severely affected those planning to use Iarnrod Eireann and Dublin Bus services this morning. However, we understand the frustration and anger of the workers in Bus Eireann who are facing unilateral cuts to their wages and changes to their terms and conditions of employment by management at the company.

"We also appreciate the public support for the legitimate demands of Bus Eireann and other transport workers.

This union does not condone unofficial action of this nature. Only yesterday, we contacted our members in Iarnrod Eireann and Dublin Bus with plans for a ballot by them for industrial and strike action in solidarity with their colleagues in Bus Eireann."

Update 10am: Bus Eireann drivers are starting to abandon the unofficial pickets at depots around the country.

Their demonstrations stopped hundreds of thousands of passengers using public transport this morning.

Colleagues in Irish Rail and Dublin Bus refused to cross the picket lines leading to nationwide cancellations.

Head of the National Bus and Rail Union Dermot O'Leary said "Common sense has prevailed."

"I understand why they decided to take action, it is hard to be out there for eight days and just being ignored by everyone involved in the dispute.

"But they shouldn't be doing it and I was unhappy it happened.

"The dispute is very important and it needs to be resolved."

AA Roadwatch have released a warning citing significant traffic delays across Dublin city due to the strike action.

Deputy Editor of AA Roadwatch Elaine OSullivan said: As many people only found out about the disruption to Irish Rail and Dublin Bus services this morning, we saw a significant build up in traffic on all the main commuter routes into Dublin City, with normal delays also taking significantly longer to clear,

In particular, this morning saw heavy delays on the M3 and M4 due to an increase in normal traffic levels and as we dont yet know for how long these services will be affected we would advise all commuters to allow extra time for journeys where possible and plan ahead.

The AA is also reminding motorists to exercise additional caution should the disruption to services continue into future.

As we saw with the Dublin Bus strikes in 2016 any disruption to public transport leads to a spike in the number of cyclists and pedestrians on many main commuter routes.

Many of these may not be regular cyclists so motorists are reminded to take extra precautions and allow extra distance between themselves and vulnerable road users where possible."

Update 9am: Minister Shane Ross has appealed to the parties involved in the Bus Eireann dispute to get together and talk as soon as possible.

Speaking on Morning Ireland on RTE Radio One the Transport Minister also urged the pickets to desist.

Minister Ross said he was 'disgusted' by the 'unjustified and unfair' action taken by workers at Dublin Bus and Irish Rail.

Minister Ross said it is not something you expect in the normal run of industrial relations and reiterated that he would not 'intervene in an industrial relations dispute'

"It would be illegal for me to give state aid," Minister Ross said.

8.43am: The head of the National Bus and Railworkers Union has condemned this morning's action.

Dermot O'Leary is calling on members to go back to work: I've issued notices, a number of notices over the last few weeks explaining to people in Dublin Bus and Irish Rail, that they have no dispute with their employer.

I understand the frustration of Bus Eireann workers, it was always going to be a danger this could happen, but I can't condone it.

Dermot O Leary

Update 8.32am: Minister for Transport Shane Ross has released a statement this morning stating his concerns for passengers affected by the 'unofficial and unjustified protest' at transport depots across the country.

Minister Ross said: "This is not part of the fair conduct of strikes."

Minister Ross said the public were angered by the 'unexpected disruption' and he sympathised with their 'unforeseen predicament.'

"I am actively monitoring developments and will revert to the public as soon as the situation becomes clearer.

"Some public transport services are operating, particularly Luas and private bus operators and I would advise commuters to check the journey planner on TransportforIreland.ie and associated websites."

Update 7.15am: Dublin Bus say they will also be affected by picketing today.

Irish Rail has said picketing means no services can be guaranteed on Dublin Commuter trains.

All DARTs are cancelled except the 7am Malahide to Bray service.

There are also cancellations on many Intercity rail routes and Dublin Bus routes around the capital.

Irish Rail has said anyone who has bought a rail ticket and is unable to travel will be refunded if they so wish.

Dublin Bus has told users to check their website and Twitter account for the most up-to-date information on the situation.

Earlier: Irish Rail is warning there is going to be extensive disruption to its services today as a result of the Bus Eireann dispute.

Picketing by its staff means it cannot guarantee any services across DART and Dublin Commuter trains.

There are also cancellations expected on Intercity routes.

Irish Rail has promised to update their Twitter account with the latest information on their services.

Rail workers are demonstrating solidarity with their Bus Eireann colleagues whose all-out strike over cuts has entered its eight day.

Yesterday Transport Minister Shane Ross was dubbed "the invisible minister" by Sinn Fein, over his handling of the dispute.
Michael Gove, one of the chief architects of Brexit, has said he envisages that EU citizens will be able to "move freely" in and around the UK after the pull-out is completed.

Speaking in Dublin, the prominent Tory and former cabinet minister also claimed Britain will likely beef up its security presence around the European continent and rest of the world post-Brexit to safeguard its interests.

"One of the things that I envisage is, after we leave the European Union, EU citizens will be able to move freely into the UK," he said.

"It is just they won't have the same rights to work and secure access to public services and welfare benefits."

Mr Gove, now a backbencher, told the audience at an event in Dublin that Irish citizens would be treated differently from others in the EU, and would have the same rights to live and work in the UK as has been the case historically.

"This will allow people to benefit from tourism, it will allow people to travel freely, but you also ensure the critical pinch point in migration, which is access to work and access to public services, is controlled," he added.

Mr Gove said Prime Minister Theresa May will want to "keep her options open" in the divorce deal negotiations, but suggested his EU open access approach would resolve a number of issues surrounding migration concerns.

The option would also make it "perfectly possible" to prevent a hard border being re-erected in Ireland, which threatens peace and prosperity in the country, he suggested.

"There are different ways of proceeding when it comes to guaranteeing the right of Irish citizens and respecting Britain's desire to have its own migration policy, but also to be able to benefit from the talents and the presence of EU citizens," he said.

"Of course, the Prime Minister wants to keep her options open, but one idea which I find attractive is the idea that people from the European Union should be able to continue to come to the UK.

"But in order to work or to have access to public service, they need a valid work permit."

Mr Gove also predicted a ramping up of British security overseas would follow after it pulls out of the EU.

"It will be the case, I suspect, that Britain will have an even more powerful security presence, both on the continent of Europe, places like Estonia, and also in projecting power beyond the European continent in order to safeguard trade routes and our interests across the world," he said.

But he dismissed suggestions London will use its security clout as a bargaining chip with Brussels during break-up talks as a misinterpretation of the fact.

"(Brexit Secretary) David Davis has pointed out that if there is no deal, then current arrangements that benefit everyone in security terms would no longer exist," he told the Press Association.

"It was a statement of fact.

"I think the Prime Minister when she was home secretary played a leading role in advancing security cooperation across the European Union, she is personally invested in it, and it was a statement of fact, not a negotiating tactic."
"Up in arms" is how the CEO of the Irish Restaurant's Association has described its membership following a ruling awarding a woman 20,000 for banging her knee on a restaurant table.

Adrian Cummins said he "has never seen anger like this" after the High Court affirmed a ruling by Mullingar Circuit Court yesterday that Annette O'Connor be awarded 20,000 and costs after banging her knee against a table leg in Mullingar Park Hotel.
From today young offenders in Ireland will no longer be sent to adult prisons.

Up until now, all 17-year-old boys sentenced by the courts have been detained at Wheatfield, an adult prison in Dublin.
At least 24 people have died and more than 70 others were injured after a suicide car bomb attack near a Shia Muslim place of worship in the north-west Pakistani city of Parachinar.

The attack took place near Parachinar's Shia mosque, which is located near the Noor Market.

TV footage showed people transporting the victims in ambulances and private vehicles.

Jamaat-ul-Ahrar, a breakaway faction of Pakistani Taliban militants, has claimed responsibility for the attack.

Spokesman Asad Mansoor said the attack was carried out by one of the group's members, Abul Durda, using a car bomb to target Shias, whom the militants consider to be heretics.

The blast was so powerful it also damaged vehicles and nearby shops, according to government administrator Zahid Hussain.

He said authorities have declared an emergency and rescuers are transporting the wounded to nearby hospitals.

Parachinar is a key city in the Kurram tribal region bordering Afghanistan and has been wracked by sectarian violence in the past.

The region was once a stronghold of Pakistani Taliban and Sunni militant groups. Although the army said it has cleared the Kurram region of militants, violence has continued.

Mansoor and Lashker-e-Jhangvi, another banned Sunni sectarian militant group, have claimed responsibility for previous attacks in the region, where Shia Muslims are in the majority.

Sabir Hussain, a hospital official, said the Pakistan army used helicopters to transport 40 wounded to hospitals in the north-western city of Peshawar.

Angered over the attack, some residents were seen chanting slogans against the government. Security forces subsequently fired shots in the air and dispersed the crowd.

Earlier, the Pakistan army said it had dispatched a helicopter along with a team of doctors to help the victims and evacuate the wounded to hospitals in other cities.

Prime minister Nawaz Sharif condemned the bombing and vowed to eliminate terrorism.

"The network of terrorists has already been broken and it is our national duty to continue this war until the complete annihilation of the scourge of terrorism from our soil," he said.

The blast came hours after state-run media said Pakistani president Mamnoon Hussain had signed a bill removing the last hurdle for the revival of military courts to try terrorism suspects.

The development came days after Pakistan's Senate and National Assembly separately passed a constitutional amendment to extend the practice, which has been in place for two years.

A previous 2015 amendment established the military courts for a two-year mandate which expired in January.

The move to send terror suspects to military courts followed the December 2014 Taliban attack on an army-run school in the north-western city of Peshawar which killed 154 people - mostly schoolchildren.

Pakistan has also lifted its moratorium on the death penalty and has executed more than 400 people, but most of those cases were linked to murders unconnected to terrorism.

Meanwhile, Pakistan's army said it has killed a "high-value" Pakistani Taliban leader, Mehmood-ul-Hassan, along with an associate in a raid in the South Waziristan tribal region.

Troops also seized a cache of weapons from the hideouts of slain militants, who for years operated from the region to orchestrate attacks in the country.

- AP
A man shot his girlfriend in the head then killed himself during a gunfight with police after a two-day, cross-state crime spree in which they allegedly stabbed an elderly widower to death and stole two cars and a gun, police have said.

Investigators from at least four jurisdictions are trying to piece together the series of events that left 18-year-old Destiny A Moneyhun and 25-year-old Bradley James Sheets dead in an overgrown field in Anchorage, Kentucky, a wealthy suburb of Louisville 100 miles from their home in Barren County.

In between, they allegedly stopped in Hardin County where police say they stabbed 74-year-old Lewis Hoskinson to death with a large knife and stole his car.

Police in Barren County started looking for them on Monday when a room-mate reported that his truck, his credit card and gun had been stolen, said Glasgow Police Captain Jennifer Arbogast.

They issued a state-wide bulletin asking police to look out for the two as suspects in the thefts, warning they should be considered armed, dangerous and possibly suicidal.

Police encountered them next on Tuesday night in Anchorage.

A resident reported a suspicious car parked at a dead-end gravel road leading to an overgrown field.

Officers with Anchorage Police Department checked the registration and found it registered to a man in Hardin County. They called the sheriff's office there and asked that they check on the owner.

Hardin County Chief Deputy David Lee said an officer was dispatched and looked through the window of the home, where Mr Hoskinson lived alone since his wife died.

The officer saw signs of foul play - the house had been ransacked - and called back-up. The deputies entered and discovered Mr Hoskinson's body. He had been stabbed with a large knife, Mr Lee said.

Ms Arbogast confirmed that the couple knew Mr Hoskinson, but she declined to say how.

"They knew this man. They knew him well," she said. "They knew the home and they had been there in the past."

Anchorage Police Officer Brian Taylor and Lieutenant Mark Hoskins, unaware that the body had been discovered linked to the stolen car parked in their town, began searching the area.

They came across Sheets and Moneyhun under a tree in the thick brush.

Louisville Metro Police Colonel Michael Sullivan, whose department is leading the investigation into the shooting, said Sheets took out a revolver and pointed it at the officers.

The police department released footage from a body camera worn by Officer Taylor during the confrontation.

It is difficult to see the suspects, but Mr Hoskins can be heard telling them to stand up, then Officer Taylor shouts: "He's got a gun, he's got a gun, he's got a gun."

Mr Hoskins shouts: "Put it down."

Mr Sullivan said Officer Taylor took cover, and Mr Hoskins fired at Sheets, who fell to the ground and dropped the gun. Mr Sullivan said Moneyhun picked the gun up from the ground and pointed it at police.

Mr Hoskins, in the video, screams again: "Put it down, put the gun down."

Four more shots ring out, and Mr Sullivan said Mr Hoskins fired at the woman. She dropped the gun.

Mr Sullivan said Sheets picked it up again, put it to Moneyhun's head and fired, killing her, then shot himself in the head.

He said the preliminary investigation suggests both were hit by the officer's gunfire, though they are believed to have died from the bullets fired by Sheets.

The entire exchange lasted only a few seconds.

Both officers remain on administrative leave while Louisville police complete the investigation.

Anchorage Police Chief Dean Hayes said it remains a mystery why Moneyhun and Sheets ended up in Anchorage, a quiet small town of just 2,300 people, 60 miles from the Hardin County home where the widower was found dead.

"There's a lot of emotion spread over those 60 miles," he said. "Between that crime scene down there, and the one here, our officers feel it, the community feels it."

- AP
Opinion / Interviews

Ethiopian Airlines, Africa's largest cargo and passenger carrier, is dreaming big. After generating revenue of US$2,43 billion in the 2016 financial year, which saw a 70% jump in net profit and an 18% increase in passenger numbers to 7,6 million, the airline says it is buying an additional 55 aircraft, expanding its fleet to 142 planes.Zimbabwe Independent's assistant editor Brezhnev Malaba (BM) interviewed the Ethiopian Airlines managing director (international services), Esayas Woldemariam (EW), in Victoria Falls at the launch of a direct flight from Addis Ababa. He also spoke about the revival of Air Zimbabwe.BM: You have been involved in discussions to explore the possibility of reviving Air Zimbabwe. Any progress on that front?EW: The talks still continue and we are very much focussed on helping in that initiative.BM: How do you envisage to structure this Air Zimbabwe deal if it were to materialise? We are talking of an airline saddled with debts exceeding US$300 million.EW: It all depends on the political will of the government of Zimbabwe, and on how they want to put it, whether it is going to be a joint-venture or management consultancy. Ethiopian Airlines is ready for all that.We have all the human resources, the material resources and the financial resources.We are looking forward to co-operating with Zimbabwe in a very big way so that we can be able to revamp the whole thing so that Zimbabwe and the rest of Africa are capable of combating the other airlines so that we can defend Africa's resources and defend the traffic of African airlines.BM: After studying Air Zimbabwe, what weaknesses have you identified in that struggling airline?EW: It is just focus which is lacking, otherwise I have been able to learn that Zimbabwe is the most literate African nation, the people in Zimbabwe are very intelligent.What needs to be done is to tweak that potential and direct it to the right channel so that we can channel it in the right direction. Instead of building 30 000 kilometres of railway from here to Cairo, we build just three to four kilometres of runway and connect people and goods and culture and services. It is cheaper to build and it's faster to connect. Right now Africa is transacting only 10% internally and 90% with the rest of the world; we want Africans to transact with each other so that employment creation and capital benefit this continent.BM: It must be a wonderful feeling to know that you are now flying to one of the top tourist destinations in Africa, Victoria Falls, one of the Seven Natural Wonders of the World. How do you feel?EW: It really feels great because Ethiopian Airlines has always been inspired by the continent and the airline is very African, right down to the bone marrow. Our commercial tagline is "The New Spirit of Africa" and it's our civic duty to our home continent to promote Africa's nature, culture, history and wildlife. That's why we succeeded in building the largest African network in the history of aviation. Ethiopian has been flying in the African skies since 1945.BM: That's a long time. What has changed since the old days?EW: At that time, Ethiopian Airlines was inspired to bring Africa together. At that time, our commercial motto was 'Bringing Africa Together". The only way to travel from one part of Africa to another was via Europe, but Ethiopian Airlines came to connect the continent and now we fulfil our civic duty to our home continent. We connect Africa more than any other airline, be it African, American or European. We fly in Africa to 56 destinations. We are operating 87 aircraft.BM: When are you getting these new planes?EW: The 55 aircraft have been ordered. Many of them are already getting phased into the fleet. In fact, last month we received additional Airbus A350s, so these will come successively in the next five to seven years.The 87 aircraft we are operating range from the largest Boeing 777-300, which is a 400 seater and the Dreamliner Boeing 787 and the Airbus A350, the most modern one and the Boeing 737-800, the Sky Interior with next-generation engines.Our network spans from Tokyo to Los Angeles and just about anywhere in between. The only inhabited continent we do not fly to currently is Australia, but in the next couple of years we are planning to go to Melbourne.BM: In recent years, we have seen an increase in budget airlines, particularly in Africa, small carriers that charge very low fares. Are they a threat to large airlines like yours?EW: We are not competing with them; we're co-operating with them. We want to see more budget airlines and more national carriers in Africa. The more the merrier.We want to keep the traffic from the Middle East big three (Emirates, Qatar and Etihad) and from the Europeans and from the others, to boast African airlines, because Africans have more to benefit from co-operating than from competing. If tourists from Zimbabwe come to Ethiopia and Ethiopian tourists come to Zimbabwe, job creation, hotels and other related businesses will thrive and capital will remain in Africa and not leave the continent.BM: You speak of the big three Middle Eastern airlines. How have you remained afloat in the face of such stiff competition?EW: Number one, we're African to the core, to the bone marrow. We know Africa better than anyone else. We know what the African customer wants by way of customer service, in-flight and on the ground.The others cannot compete, this is number one. Number two, what we do is that, with African people going everywhere, we try to conduct good market research on the primary and secondary destinations in Africa. We have a very good vision, a very good strategy about where to go and when to go. We have good corporate governance. All these factors combined enable us to beat the competition.BM: Ethiopian Airlines has been heavily involved in the establishment of a regional airline for West Africa, ASKY. How has that project gone?EW: We have been assisting to establish ASKY airline in Lome, Togo, for the West African sub-continent. And also Malawian Airline, in Malawi.BM: Why is it still extremely difficult to travel from one African country to another without having to fly via Europe first?EW: We are changing that. Within the continent, without having to go via Europe, you can now travel to many places.Ethiopian Airlines is committed to the building of an alliance of African aviation so that we can work with each other to serve the African continent.
Donald Trump's former national security adviser Michael Flynn is in discussions with the House and Senate intelligence committees about speaking to their probe into links with Russia in exchange for immunity, his lawyer has said.

Robert Kelner said: "General Flynn certainly has a story to tell, and he very much wants to tell it, should the circumstances permit."

The talks are preliminary and no official offers have been made.

Mr Flynn, who was a member of the Trump campaign and transition, was fired as national security adviser after it was publicly disclosed that he misled vice president Mike Pence about a conversation he had with the Russian ambassador to the US.

Mr Flynn's ties to Russia have been scrutinised by the FBI and are under investigation by the House and Senate intelligence committees.

Other Trump associates have volunteered to speak with investigators, but have not publicly raised the issue of immunity.

Earlier on Thursday, the White House refused to say whether it secretly fed intelligence reports to a senior Republican legislator, fuelling concerns about political interference in the investigation into possible co-ordination between Russia and the 2016 Trump campaign.

Fending off the growing criticism, the administration invited figures from both parties to view classified material it said relates to surveillance of the president's associates.

The invitation came as the New York Times reported that two White House officials - including an aide whose job was recently saved by Mr Trump - secretly helped House intelligence committee chairman Devin Nunes examine intelligence information last week.

Mr Nunes is leading one of three investigations into Russia's attempt to influence the election campaign and Trump associates' possible involvement.

The House panel's work has been deeply undermined by Mr Nunes's apparent co-ordination with the White House.

He told reporters last week that he had seen troubling information about the improper distribution of Trump associates' intercepted communications, and he briefed the president on the material, all before informing Adam Schiff, the committee's senior Democrat.

Speaking on Capitol Hill on Thursday, Mr Schiff said he was "more than willing" to accept the White House offer to view new information, but he raised concerns that Trump officials might have used Mr Nunes to "launder information to our committee to avoid the true source".

"The White House has a lot of questions to answer," he said.

The White House continued to sidestep queries about its role in showing Mr Nunes classified information that appears to have included transcripts of foreign officials discussing Mr Trump's transition to the presidency, according to current and former US officials.

Intelligence agencies routinely monitor the communications of foreign officials living in the US, though the identities of Americans swept up in that collection is to be protected.

Meanwhile, the Senate intelligence committee held its own hearing, a less combative affair in which Russia experts from universities, think tanks and elsewhere described a serious attempt to meddle in the US election - and efforts in France and Germany as well.

- AP
French conservative presidential candidate Francois Fillon has said his priority would be to fight Islamic extremism following a series of terror attacks.

Mr Fillon, a major contender in the two-round election due to take place on April 23 and May 7, proposed to put in place a European defence alliance led by France and Germany.

He told a news conference: "The Islamic totalitarian threat ... along with the weakening of (Nato) through President Trump's rhetoric and contradictory signals, are forcing us to overhaul our alliances and take a second look at the question of European defence, which was neglected for too long."

Mr Fillon said his urgent priority is to defeat Islamic State in Syria.

Dozens of people have been killed in a number of terrorist incidents, including attacks in Paris and Nice, in the past two years.

Mr Fillon promised to increase France's defence budget to 2% of gross domestic product by 2023, up from 1.78% now.

"For decades, we have lived with the illusion of perpetual peace, the irreversible nature of the European Union and the unconditional commitment of the US toward the safety of Europe. These times are over," he stressed.

Mr Fillon also took a hard stance on Russia, contrasting with earlier comments calling for warmer relations with the country.

"Its political regime is not identical to the ones in our Western democracies. It is a dangerous country," he said.

"When dealing with a dangerous country, you have to think of the strategy you want to put in place."

This strategy consists of "a serious and honest dialogue to bring about the conditions of Europe's safety," rather than confront Russia, he said.

Mr Fillon, once considered the presidential front-runner, has dropped in polls following revelations he employed family members for years for parliamentary jobs they allegedly never performed.

He is facing charges in the case, and denies any wrongdoing.

Far-right leader Marine Le Pen and independent centrist Emmanuel Macron are now considered the two top contenders in the presidential race.
Congressional investigators have rebuffed former US national security adviser Michael Flynn's offer of cooperation in exchange for immunity from prosecution.

Members of the Senate intelligence committee decided it is too early in their probe of Russia connections to discuss a deal.

President Donald Trump tweeted that Mr Flynn, his former adviser, should ask for immunity because he is facing "a witch hunt".

Mr Flynn's attorney said talks have taken place about immunity in order for him to testify. Intelligence committees in both the Senate and House are investigating Russia's meddling in the 2016 presidential election.

A congressional aide confirmed that preliminary discussions with the Senate intelligence committee involved immunity but that it was too early in the investigation to set terms.

Mr Trump weighed in on Friday, tweeting that Flynn "should ask for immunity in that this is a witch hunt (excuse for big election loss), by media & Dems, of historic proportion!"

It was unclear from that tweet whether he was advising the Justice Department or the congressional panels to give his former adviser immunity. The president is not supposed to direct ongoing investigations.

White House spokesman Sean Spicer said Mr Trump just wants Mr Flynn to testify, and there are no concerns that he could implicate the president in any wrongdoing.

The top Democrat on the House intelligence committee, Adam Schiff, of California, said committee leaders would be discussing the issue with their Senate counterparts and the Justice Department.

"We should first acknowledge what a grave and momentous step it is for a former national security adviser to the president of the United States to ask for immunity from prosecution," Mr Schiff said.

Mr Flynn's attorney Robert Kelner said no "reasonable person" who has a lawyer would answer questions without assurances that he would not be prosecuted, given calls from some members of Congress that the retired lieutenant general should face criminal charges.

"General Flynn certainly has a story to tell, and he very much wants to tell it, should the circumstances permit," Mr Kelner said on Thursday.

Mr Spicer said the president wants Mr Flynn to testify in front of the committees.

"He thinks he should go out and tell his story," Mr Spicer said on Friday.

Mr Flynn's ties to Russia have been scrutinised by the FBI and are under investigation by the congressional committees.

Both panels are looking into Russia's meddling in the election and any ties between Trump associates and the Kremlin.

Since July, the FBI has been conducting a counter-intelligence investigation into Russia's interference in the election and possible coordination with Trump associates.

In September, Mr Flynn weighed in on the implications of immunity on NBC's Meet The Press, criticising Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and her associates in the FBI's investigation into her use of a private email server.

"When you are given immunity, that means that you have probably committed a crime," Mr Flynn said during the interview.

A spokesman for Devin Nunes, the Republican chairman of the House intelligence committee, said the panel has not offered an immunity deal to Mr Flynn.

The committee "had a preliminary conversation with Michael Flynn's lawyer about arranging for Flynn to speak to the committee," spokesman Jack Langer said. "The discussions did not include immunity or other possible conditions for his appearance."

AP
Credit Suisse Group, some of its employees and hundreds of account holders are the subjects of a major tax evasion and money laundering probe that spans five countries, including Australia.

Investigators in the Netherlands arrested two people on Thursday, seizing a gold bar, paintings, jewellery and bank account information. They allegedly concealed millions of euros from authorities by placing them in Swiss bank accounts, the Fiscal Information and Investigation Service said in a statement Friday.

Credit Suisse is at the centre of an international probe into tax evasion. Credit:Steffen Schmidt

Criminal investigations are also underway in Australia, Germany, the UK and France.

Credit Suisse said Friday that its offices in London, Paris and Amsterdam were searched on Thursday by authorities in connection with client tax matters.
The so-called "crisis" confronting the energy sector was predictable and stemmed from the push for renewable energy as well as restrictions on accessing domestic gas reserves, Business Council of Australia president Grant King said on Friday.

"The first of those choices relates to the RET scheme," Mr King, the former boss of Origin Energy, told a business lunch.

The scheme was intended to prompt spending on renewable energy "to a level that equalled the expected growth in demand for electricity".

"As the growth in energy demand flattened, the scheme no longer provided the new energy investment we needed, rather it displaced existing generation  a risk that was understood because there was a loud call for the scheme to be reduced," he said.
Past staff complaints and a board dispute has ended with the resignation of Andrew Jaspan as editor of The Conversation in Australia.

Mr Jaspan - also a former editor of The Age - battled for more than six months to hold his job after being put on enforced leave last August over complaints about his management style.

Founders of The Conversation, Andrew Jaspan (L) and Jack Rejtman (R). Credit:Angela Wylie

He was reinstated to the top job in December after an internal review dismissed the complaints, but after a period of leave in January, has worked out of an office at RMIT rather than where most Australian-based staffed work at the University of Melbourne.

He will now take up a new post as as a director of a Global Academy at RMIT.
The Australian government has joined the global boycott of advertising on Google, announcing on Friday afternoon it would "suspend all non-corporate campaign advertising from the YouTube platform".

The government made the decision on advice from its media buying agency, Dentsu Mitchell, out of concerns its ads could appear alongside inappropriate content.

"The measure is preventative and while advertising is being withdrawn from some websites, the government will continue to communicate important messages to Australians using other means," Special Minister of State Scott Ryan said in a press release.

"The Australian government and Dentsu Mitchell will continue to request updates from Google on the steps being taken to mitigate risks."
The head of Indian mining giant Adani says the company is ready to go this year with its controversial mega coal mine in Queensland's Galilee Basin.

Adani Mining chief executive Jeyakumar Janakaraj told a business lunch in Brisbane that the company expected to start engineering work on the rail line between the Carmichael mine and the Abbott Point coal terminal by June, and start major construction by September.

Jeyakumar Janakaraj attended the business lunch in Brisbane. Credit:Ben Rushton

The $21 billion project has been the focus on strong opposition from environmental groups, but Mr Janakaraj said it was vital in reducing India's carbon footprint, with the higher-quality Australian coal producing less pollution than that mined in India.

"The 20,000 megawatts of thermal energy (in India) needs a reliable source of good quality coal to keep the net impact to climate change neutral or lower," Mr Janakaraj said.
The 27-year-old stopped using soap as soon as she was old enough to shower  and hasn't thought twice about her habits since. Munoz uses soap on her hands after using the bathroom and before cooking, but prefers to bathe in nothing more than running water (along with regular dips in the ocean). "Many people tell me I'm unhygienic as I don't use soap, however I have the smoothest and healthiest skin ever," she says. (To answer your next question: no, she doesn't smell.) So is soap really necessary?

Not really, says Dr Clare Ballingall, Chair of the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners, RACGP, in Tasmania. While she says hand washing with soap is vital to prevent the spread of illness, using soap on the rest of our body has less merit. She says the objective of soap  to rid skin of oil and dirt  is in itself problematic. If we strip away our skin's natural oils (and the "incredible ecosystem" that lives on it), we leave our skin dry, irritated and vulnerable to infection. When it comes to "dirt" (or other contaminants), Dr Ballingall concedes soap can be useful.

But, she adds, most people don't wake up dirty, nor do they come home from their office jobs unclean. We're also soaping body parts that don't need such attention. For instance, she says arms and legs contain little oil so need nothing more than water. Groins and armpits contain bacteria that can smell when breaking down sweat particles, so if you're going to use soap, she suggests concentrating on those areas. But what if you've been sweating it out at the gym? Shouldn't you lather up after? Sure, you can if you want to.

But if you choose to just wash with water you shouldn't smell nor suffer any untoward consequences, reassures Dr Ballingall. That is, if you practise good hygiene. This includes drying off completely after showering (bacteria thrive in warm moist crevices, so keeping dry is vital to stave off that growth); wearing breathable fabrics like cotton, and keeping your nails short and clean. Dermatologist Dr Laura Wheller often advises patients to abandon soap. For certain patients  such as babies, the elderly and those with sensitive skin  soap can be "extremely irritating".

But instead of giving up soap altogether, she recommends soap-free alternatives. Unlike bar soap, soap-free washes don't contain strong alkaline compounds, says Dr Wheller. Instead they contain "gentler" products such as emulsifiers or surfactants, which are closer to the natural pH of skin (around 5.5). They're also less likely to contain potential allergens or irritants, and are less drying for your skin. If you have sensitive skin, Dr Wheller also recommends avoiding the most common allergens: fragrances and preservatives, such as methylisothiazolinone or methylchloroisothiazolinone.
More charges are expected to be laid against former Health Services Union boss Kathy Jackson, a court has heard.

Ms Jackson has been accused of misrepresenting personal expenses  including alleged payments to airlines, overseas hotels and a furniture store  as union expenses through a number of individual transactions between 2003 and 2011.

Kathy Jackson leaves Melbourne Magistrates' Court after a hearing in 2016. Credit:Vince Caligiuri

She has been charged with 70 theft and deception crimes.



She appeared in the Melbourne Magistrates Court via video link on Friday.

Prosecutor Deborah Mandie said that the current charges against Ms Jackson were being re-drafted, and that she would be told of additional charges in the coming days.
The Liberal candidate for next Saturday's Manly byelection, James Griffin, was a director of a company a liquidator found may have traded while insolvent before it was wound up owing the Australian Tax Office $160,000.

Mr Griffin, who hopes to replace Premier Mike Baird as Manly MP on April 8, was a director and shareholder in "social media intelligence" startup, SR7, which was bought in February 2014 by consultancy KPMG.

The company was co-founded by former Liberal party advertising guru Greg Daniel, who was also a director and shareholder.

On March 3, 2014, as part of the sale to KPMG, SR7 was re-registered as ACN 141 620 724 and placed into voluntary liquidation.
Andrew Scipione marches out of Bankstown Police Station where he began his career 37 years ago. Credit:Steven Siewert By the time state cabinet sat down to make the decision on Thursday morning, this was the option Gladys Berejiklian and her ministers had plumped for, with Police Minister Troy Grant understood to be particularly insistent that the job should not go to an outside appointee. Enter Mick Fuller, the insider's insider, at 49 an assistant commissioner who has now controversially jumped ranks over both Burn and the other current deputy Dave Hudson to take the top job. NSW Deputy Commissioner Catherine Burn was passed over for the job. Credit:Michele Mossop Fuller's challenge will be to modernise and overhaul a force which has not faced a real shake-up in two decades, while trying to restore order and mutual respect at the top and stamp out factionalism from the senior ranks.

He knows he will face intense scrutiny from those who have long been torchbearers for Burn and Kaldas. Among the former is Alan Jones, a long-time backer of Burn, who vented his displeasure at Fuller's appointment within an hour of it becoming known. Who was this "fellow" who had never even served as a deputy, Jones demanded to know. It didn't pass the "smell test", he thundered. Onetime deputy Nick Kaldas recently left the force but applied for the job. Credit:Nic Walker I will have to convince some people that I am the right person for the job. I accept that. Mick Fuller, NSW Police Commissioner In the rival camp has been fellow broadcaster Ray Hadley, who along with state Opposition Leader Luke Foley and other parliamentary figures had strongly lobbied for Kaldas to get the job. To his credit, Fuller tackled the issue head-on soon after his appointment was announced on Thursday. "I will have to convince some people that I am the right person for the job," he acknowledged to Fairfax Media. "I understand that and I accept that."

Seemingly conscious of early whispers that he was "Scipione's man", Fuller was also at pains to to distance himself from the outgoing commissioner. "I am different to him," he declared. "I have a different brief to him and my brief is about moving NSW Police into the future, it's not about keeping the same model we had 20 years ago." He outlined a plan to "re-engineer" the force, with a fresh emphasis on community policing, a special strike force to tackle and prevent lone-wolf terrorism, and a determination to break down "silos" and rebalance police numbers across the state. Nor did he shy away from addressing the legacy of infighting. "I certainly can't change the past ... [but] I will be clear with all assistant commissioners and superintendents that those days are over," he said, adding he would gather his team first thing Monday morning to outline reform plans and assess whether they were willing to "come on the journey or not". The unspoken message was clear  get on board, or get out. Despite its earlier preference for Loy, the Police Association has quickly closed ranks behind Fuller. Burn too has indicated she has accepted the government's choice of new commissioner despite speculation she might not stick around if passed over.

"I accept and respect the decision made by cabinet and I look forward to working with the new commissioner," she said shortly after Fuller's appointment was announced. Yet some remain doubtful about whether the bitter legacy of recent years will be so easily swept away. "I think she will hang on stubbornly," says one pessimist who knows Burn well. "I think the appointment of Fuller won't change the factional internecine fighting, and I think Burn will wait him out." Publicly, Scipione has won high praise from the political class for his 10 years in the top job. Crime rates dropped significantly in 2015 compared with the national average and a number of potentially deadly terrorism plots were foiled in their early stages. His strong media performances were admired. But privately many of those who have witnessed the Scipione-Burn-Kaldas saga first-hand are more savage in their assessment. One senior Coalition figure told Fairfax: "Whatever Scippy's strengths, the fact that he allowed the Burn-Kaldas issue to fester for a decade not only destroyed the prospects that both had of one day becoming commissioner, but it created the problem within the senior NSW police leadership of allowing camps to form: pro-Scipione camps, pro-Kaldas camps and pro-Burn camps. That's no way to run a political party let alone a police force. The failure he had was a failure of management."

Another critic claimed Scipione had appeared to be trying to "wait Nick Kaldas out" rather than endeavouring to unite his two leading deputies behind him. "I think he was worried about Kaldas as a potential threat to him," this source said. A senior Coalition insider claimed that then premier Barry O'Farrell had difficulty in persuading Scipione to put Kaldas in charge of solving gun crime in western Sydney when it was at its height in 2012-13. At the time O'Farrell was frustrated at the apparent failure to make headway and called in the police chief to request that Kaldas be put charge of the operation. "We needed someone who understood western Sydney, who understood what was going on and could use their skills to put a plan together. The problem started to slide away once we had the right person in the job. I think there was a reluctance to give Kaldas an opportunity to shine", the insider claimed. Scipione's original contract in 2007 had been for five years, but it was extended twice, once at his own request under O'Farrell and later under Mike Baird. Scipione became close to Baird, like him a committed Christian. He was also close to federal minister and fellow evangelical worshipper Scott Morrison, and for a time there was speculation that Scipione was seeking a post in Canberra. That never eventuated but Scipione's talent for getting into the good graces of senior political figures was frequently noted. Fuller is already shaping up to be less of a politician than Scipione but more of a hands-on reformer. There is much to do. He will have to firmly stamp his authority on the leadership, especially over those to whom he has previously been junior.

Quaedvlieg is believed to have proposed radical leadership regeneration, including moving some people on. It's unlikely that Fuller will attempt this, at least in the short term. His chief focus will be on modernising the force. "The place is archaic. It hasn't moved into the digital era and is at risk of falling behind the constituency it needs to police," says one seasoned observer. Another major area Fuller will have to tackle is counter-terrorism strategy, which in NSW has not moved with the times. A number of sources told Fairfax that it was critical for the state police force to reassess the wait-and-see (or "contain and negotiate") mindset that had prevailed during the deadly Lindt cafe siege of December 2014. Fuller's other task will be to arrest the shockwaves that continue to spread from Operation Mascot, the secretive surveillance of dozens of police officers undertaken without their knowledge a decade and a half ago, which only became public after it was leaked to then Fairfax journalist Neil Mercer in 2012. After two parliamentary probes and a massive, four-year-long inquiry by the Ombudsman's office, the ghosts of this affair have still not been laid to rest. Indeed in March this year, the state Crime Commission bought into the fight, taking the rare step of publicly tearing into the Ombudsman for what it said was grave shortcomings in the way it had conducted its inquiry.
Ex-Cyclone Debbie causes flooding in south-east Queensland

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A search continues for a missing man last seen in a Logan suburb before it was flooded.

Nelson Raebel, 77, was last seen about 4.30pm on Friday near Eagleby Road in Eagleby, south of Brisbane, and later failed to return home.

Police hold grave concerns for Mr Raebel due to his age and is described as caucasian, 160 centimetres tall with a broad build, grey hair and hazel eyes.

A Queensland Police Service spokesman said police were unsure whether Mr Raebel had been swept away in floodwaters.
The Melbourne twins who were ordered to unbraid their hair have been offered a "school uniform exemption".

Amid a storm of controversy, Helene Hiotis, the principal of Bentleigh Secondary College, said on Friday that she would work with the students' family so the girls could wear their "new braided hairstyle" to school.

Grace and Tahbisa are pleased that the ban has been lifted. Credit:Eddie Jim

"We are a welcoming school and I am absolutely comfortable with students expressing their cultural heritage," Ms Hiotis said.

It came as the Victorian Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission warned that some school uniform policies failed to respect students' diversity.
Four shearers who admitted animal cruelty charges following the release of shocking, covertly-filmed footage have been fined and banned from being in charge of sheep.

The cruelty charges followed a campaign by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals where activists gained work as rouseabouts in 2013 and fitted themselves with cameras to film shearers at work.

Four shearers have been fined.

The shearers were recorded picking up lambs and slamming them into the ground, while others stomped on sheep's heads and necks.

At Horsham Magistrate's Court on Friday the four guilty shearers, Bradley James Arnold from Natimuk in western Victoria, Horsham man Jake Lachlan Williams, Hamilton's Lindsay David Gillin and Graham Ivan Batson from Keith in South Australia, were fined between $2000 and $3500 each and disqualified from owning or being in charge of sheep for up to two years.
A petition protesting the end of the Roe 8 project has received almost 7,000 signatures and will be the focus of a protest against the state government's plan to scrap it.

The change.org petition said continuing Roe 8 will ensure the prosperity of WA communities, families and business.

A petition calling for Roe 8 to be built has received 7,000 signatures so far. Credit:Main Roads

"Workers in the Southern Suburbs will all benefit," the petition stated.

An update on the petition urged people to join a protest group in Bibra Lake on Friday evening and stated Melville Mayor Russell Aubrey and Cockburn councillor Steve Portelli will be available on behalf of the Build Roe 8 Now team.
Donald Trump with then-national security adviser Michael Flynn and chief strategist Steve Bannon during a phone call with Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull in January. Credit:Bloomberg The FBI is investigating whether any of President Trump's advisers colluded with the Russian government in its efforts to disrupt the 2016 presidential election. An immunity deal would make it impossible for the Justice Department to prosecute Flynn, who was forced to resign when details of contact he had with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak before the election became public. Russian ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak met Mr Flynn. Credit:AP It is common for witnesses to demand immunity in exchange for their testimony to ensure that their words cannot be used to prosecute them.

Under federal law, Congress can grant witnesses immunity for their testimony, but lawmakers normally do so only after consulting with prosecutors. Congress normally avoids doing anything that could disrupt a federal investigation. Federal law allows the Justice Department to delay a congressional immunity deal but not block it outright. Trump on Friday called the Congressional probe a "witch hunt" and urged Flynn to seek immunity.

The New York Times reported on Thursday that two White House officials played a role in providing Nunes with documents the Republican committee chairman cited to show Trump and his associates were swept up in surveillance by US intelligence. Several US officials identified the White House officials as Ezra Cohen-Watnick, the senior director for intelligence at the National Security Council, and Michael Ellis, a lawyer who works on national security issues at the White House Counsel's Office and formerly worked on the staff of the House Intelligence Committee. Trump said Nunes' comments about the surveillance helped justify his insistence, made without evidence, that former President Barack Obama had wiretapped Trump Tower in New York, his campaign headquarters. As investigations into personal links between the Trump campaign and Russia continues, the Senate committee pressed ahead as well. 'Propaganda on steroids'

Russia mounted a campaign of "propaganda on steroids" seeking to influence the 2016 US presidential election, Senator Mark Warner told an intelligence committee hearing on the allegations. The top Democrat on the US Senate Intelligence Committee listed several areas of concern about possible links to Republican Donald Trump's campaign. In Moscow, Russian President Vladimir Putin again denied that Russia tried to influence the election, but in doing so he made reference to the wrong US president in answering a question at an Arctic forum. "Once, Reagan, while discussing, I think, taxes, told the Americans: 'Read my lips: 'No!'" His reply recalled what George H.W. Bush told Americans during his 1988 presidential election campaign, "Read my lips: No new taxes." Bush later raised taxes.

Trump has dismissed suggestions of links with Moscow as Democratic Party sour grapes about his surprise November defeat of the party's candidate, Hillary Clinton. US intelligence agencies said Russia hacked emails of senior Democrats and orchestrated the release of embarrassing information to hurt Clinton's campaign. "I will not prejudge the outcome of our investigation," Senator Mark Warner told an intelligence committee hearing on the allegations. "We are seeking to determine if there is an actual fire, but so far there is a great, great deal of smoke." Putin also said on Thursday that contacts Russian diplomats had made in the United States were merely part of routine work. At the hearing, lawmakers warned of the danger that Russia could interfere in elections in France and Germany this year and in future US campaigns. Cyber security experts at the rare day-long public hearing detailed what they described as the dissemination of disinformation and cyber attacks on both Democratic political operatives and Republicans. Lawmakers and cyber experts mentioned stories that were being spread to discredit German Chancellor Angela Merkel. And they said Britain's "Brexit" vote last year on leaving the European Union should be examined.

Clinton Watts, a security consultant and former FBI agent, told Senator Marco Rubio, a Republican committee member, that he may have been a victim of Russian activity during his unsuccessful campaign for the 2016 Republican nomination against Trump. Rubio later said he would not comment. But he told the hearing that in July 2016, after he announced he would run for re-election to the Senate, former members of his presidential campaign team were targeted by an unsuccessful cyber attack from Russia. He said former campaign staffers were also targeted unsuccessfully from within Russia within the past 24 hours. "We're all targets of a sophisticated and capable adversary," said Senator Richard Burr, a Republican who heads the intelligence committee. Democrat Warner, who was a technology executive before entering politics, described a sweeping Russian campaign using trolls and botnets, or networks of hacked or infected devices, to spread large amounts of disinformation.

The campaign of "fake news" was particularly targeted at traditionally Democratic-leaning states such as Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania, where Trump defeated Clinton by narrow margins that were not predicted by opinion polls, he said. "This Russian 'propaganda on steroids' was designed to poison the national conversation in America," Warner said. Citing concerns to be addressed in the committee's probe, Warner listed the prediction by a Trump associate about the release of hacked emails weeks before they were released, a change in the Republican Party's platform to water down language on Ukraine, and Trump's campaign manager, Paul Manafort, and other Trump associates being forced to step down over ties to Russia. A separate investigation in the House of Representatives into the intelligence agencies' allegations of a Russian role in the US election has become mired in controversy over accusations that its Republican chairman, Trump ally Nunes, is not impartial. Loading
- T. S. Eliot

Thoughts After Lambeth

"The World is trying the experiment of attempting to form a civilized but non-Christian mentality. The experiment will fail; but we must be very patient in awaiting its collapse; meanwhile redeeming the time: so that the Faith may be preserved alive through the dark ages before us; to renew and rebuild civilization, and save the World from suicide."
New Delhi: What an epic betrayal. After three years of talking about "development for all Indians" irrespective of religion, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has appointed a Muslim-baiting and Muslim-hating Hindu priest, Yogi Adityanath, as chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, the most populous state in the country, after his Bharatiya Janata Party's thundering victory in the state election on March 11.

In criticising this choice, the problem is where to begin? Maybe the BJP's slyness is a good place to start.

The new chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, Yogi Adityanath, visits New Delhi. Credit:AP

Why did the BJP not say during the election campaign that this 44-year-old MP was the man they would appoint if they won? Given his controversial image, it would have been fairer to voters if the party had been upfront about it rather than coyly refusing to name him during the campaign and springing the surprise later.

Then there is the man himself. As India tries to become a developed, modern and progressive nation, it now has a Hindu priest in orange robes governing the 220 million people of Uttar Pradesh. His religion is irrelevant; were he a pastor or a mullah, it would be bad news. The point is what is India doing creating a theocratic state in Uttar Pradesh when its constitution is that of a secular republic?
Her forthcoming book The First Political Order lays out the case for the causal link between women's security and state security. Its research is being funded by an arm of the US Defence Department. Previously she co-wrote the epoch-shifting 2012 book Sex and World Peace, which used empirical analysis to show how "the very best predictor of a state's peacefulness is not its level of wealth, its level of democracy, or its ethno-religious identity ... it is how well its women are treated." The book grew from The WomenStats Project, a vast online database comparing 176 nations on 350 variables of women's status and security which Hudson founded in 2001. In 2005, she co-wrote Bare Branches, exploring the consequences of surplus men in China and India, where sons are culturally favoured over daughters. In 2009, Foreign Policy named Hudson one of the world's top 100 most influential global thinkers. That was a year or two before then US secretary of state Hillary Clinton's push to put women and girls' rights at the centre of US foreign policy became known as the Hillary Doctrine. Hudson began her career in security studies during the Cold War, a time, she says, when "you could have taken every class in my graduate education and never even known there were women on planet Earth".

"At first, I absorbed that as normal and unremarkable," she says. But her experiences serving in a Special Forces reserve unit, and then having a daughter, as well as reading feminist international relations theorists such as Ann Tickner and Carol Cohn, "opened my eyes and ears". "Women comprise approximately half the population in every country, but have very little decision-making authority in the realms of foreign policy and national security," she says. "That means that women's concerns, priorities, knowledge and perspectives will not inform some of the most important governmental policy made, which will undermine its effectiveness." She understood that shifting the perspectives of the decision makers would take "rigorous empirical evidence that these things are important. And that has become part of my life's work." She says "part" of her life's work, because another part is something most of us would find more than enough on its own. Hudson and her husband have eight children, the youngest just 10 years old.

I told her politely that as a woman myself with a job and only two children, her work-life balance appeared quite literally Herculean to me. "I am not sure how my husband and I have done it," she says, "though my 3am emails are legendary among my students and co-authors". As is inevitable with any serious feminist thinker, the personal was political for her: "As a feminist I was always stubbornly opposed to the cultural understanding that a woman couldn't have children and be successful." "Having eight children and a career was my way of flipping the bird at that gendered constraint, and of saying to the young women who follow that you don't have to give up being a woman to make a contribution to the world around you," she says. "My children are as great or more a contribution to the world as all the books and articles I have written; they are good people and the older ones are already helping to make this world a better place." Along with Defence Minister Marise Payne, Hudson is a key speaker at the first Women and National Security Conference, which is being held at the ANU's National Security College (NSC) next week on April 4 and 5.

Among other things, she will tackle the gloomy prospects of the Hillary Doctrine under US President Donald Trump. Marina Tsirbas from the NSC, an international lawyer and security expert who convened the conference, said there was increasing awareness in top policymaking circles that more diversity leads to better decision-making, driven in part by the research of people like Hudson. "People tend to think of gender as an add-on to hard security issues as if it's not part of it, but it is connected," she says. Tsirbas, who has worked on Bougainville peace monitoring operations, arrangements for the transfer of nuclear materials and UN negotiations on counter-terrorism conventions, says the "patriarchal environment" she experienced in her early career highlighted for her the importance of gender diversity in her field. She pointed out that women are now running the key foreign affairs (Julie Bishop) and defence (Payne) portfolios in Australia, plus there is a female foreign affairs shadow minister (Penny Wong) and secretary of DFAT (Frances Adamson).
Latest News Why are property buyers taking so long to purchase? Here are five factors at play

Industrial property growing stronger New report reveals market trends



The Bank of Queensland (BOQ) has announced a mixed bag in its latest financial results with growth in the broker channel and a decrease in its overall loan book.

Within the third party channel, the bank reached a total broker number of 6,000 during the past half year across both the BOQ and Virgin Money Australia (VMA) brands. During this half, broker settlements contributed to 15% of all housing loan originations and accelerated the banks efforts to expand its footprint outside of Queensland.



Through recent partnerships with Through recent partnerships with Aussie and Connective , BOQ forecasts that Virgin Money will accumulate a network of 3,000 accredited brokers in the second half of 2017.



The bank has also said that volumes of Virgin Moneys Reward Me Home Loan are ahead of plan with a total contribution of $211m of loan growth since its launch in May 2016. Application volumes have built steadily over the half with the product gaining traction with both customers and mortgage brokers, the bank said.



However, total lending growth across residential, commercial and specialised loans contracted by an annualised figure of 1% due to higher levels of competition.



Margin and credit quality were prioritised over growth in the first half against a backdrop of changing funding conditions and intense price competition.



Home lending decreased by 2% from $30.0m in February 2016 to $29.5m a year later.



The bank has focused on improving processes and systems in order to reduce turnaround time on retail and business lending applications.



Implementation of BOQs new digitised mortgage origination platform over the past 12 months has been completed with approximately 70% of mortgage applications to be covered by the new streamlined process delivering faster time to yes for customers.



The number of arrears on the banks total assets has also fallen on a year-on-year basis with 30 days past due arrears dropping by 17% and 90 days past due arrears dropping by 15% comparing February this year and last.



Related stories:
Latest News Why are property buyers taking so long to purchase? Here are five factors at play

Industrial property growing stronger New report reveals market trends



National brokerage Mortgage Choice is rapidly expanding its national footprint, opening four new shopfronts in Victoria in the past week.

Mortgage Choice turns 25 this year and opening four new Mortgage Choice offices in a week is a strong indication of where our company is positioned and where it is headed, said the companys chief executive officer John Flavell.



This continued growth in our retail footprint demonstrates the strength of the business model and highlights the attractiveness of Mortgage Choices proposition.



The newly opened offices are located in Mentone, Pakenham, Sale and Beaumaris.



Flavell said the brokerage network had further plans for growth and was keen on expanding its national footprint even more.



That said, were not prepared to grow for growths sake. We are focused on strengthening and maintaining the high quality of the Mortgage Choice brand by attracting a high calibre of mortgage brokers and financial advisers.



The owners of these four latest offices have a combined 80 years experience between them, Flavell said.



They are driven, determined and passionate mortgage brokers who are keen to help Australians make better choices for a better life.



Flavell said that opening more retail shopfronts was a key component of enhancing the companys brand.



It is for this reason that we have more and more franchises opening in prevalent and highly visible locations in major metropolitan and regional areas.



Victoria is an especially attractive location thanks to its recent trends in the states property market.





Victorias housing market is currently performing very strongly, with data from CoreLogic showing property prices soared 13.1% to $610,000 in the 12 months to February, Flavell said.

The buoyant market conditions in Victoria make it clear that there are a lot of business opportunities for our brokers.



Related stories:
The Naked Travel Industry Is Booming

Trending News: Nude Travel Is More Popular Than Ever - Here's How To Get Started

Long Story Short

More and more Americans are choosing to leave their clothes at home and go to nudist retreats. There are many different options, so here's what you need to know if you're interested in getting started.

Long Story

Vacation is all about letting loose  loosening your tie, your shoes, heck, why not let it all hang loose?

According to naked travel agency that spoke to Fox News, nudist travel, also known as naturist, is booming. But it's not all hedonistic sex parties (well, there's certainly some of that). Sometimes, nudist retreats can be even less sexually-charged than your typical beach party where people are covering up with bikinis, the largest nudist recreation organization in North America, the American Association for Nude Recreation, told Fox.

So what does it mean to go on a nudist retreat? It's actually hard to pin down because there are so many different options.

AFP / Getty Images

You can go on a nudist cruise or stay in a nudist hotel with hundreds of other clothes-haters. Some of these destinations may be swingers gatherings, while others aren't, so you might want to check out some forums beforehand.

A popular nudist retreat in America is the Cypress Cove resort in conveniently-named Kissimmee, Florida. There, you can take a dip in the pool, tan those hidden spots by the lake and chow down at a restaurant called Cheeks  all in the nude. Cypress Cove resort is said to be family-friendly, but that doesn't mean you should bring the kids (please don't). Guests range in age from 47 to 65, but the resort claims they're trying to attract more millennials.

Outside of the U.S., but still a short flight away, there's the 5-star Hidden Beach Resort in Cancun, which is, of course, clothes optional. You can also head up to Vancouver, Canada, to witness the famous Wreck beach.

If you're not into the outdoors, Naked in Motion offers nude yoga experiences. And if you like the outdoors, but still want to get some good exercise, there are nude bike rides, like this one in Montreal (NSFW) or this one in London.

While you're in London, feel free (of your clothes) and dine in the nude at the clothing-optional Bunyadi restaurant.

There really are plenty of options out there  so why not give one a go next time you plan a trip? I mean, if Emily Ratajkowski is doing it, why not you?

Own The Conversation

Ask The Big Question

Will nudism ever be as popular as it was in the 60s?

Drop This Fact

Only 5% of Americans say they've gone nude at the beach and just 25% are comfortable with the idea of topless beaches.
State Senator Steve Santarsiero (D-10) presented a check to Yardley Borough Police Chief Joseph Kelly for $68,600 for the purchase of a new police vehicle and motorcycle during a visit to the station. Our police put themselves on the line every day to keep our community safe, said Sen. Santarsiero. Dating back to when I was a Lower Makefield Township Supervisor more than...
Toyota Research Institute awards UB $2.4 million to hunt for new materials

The grant, part of a $35 million nationwide investment, supports artificial intelligence research to make vehicles emission-free

At the University at Buffalo, we are committed to finding innovative and cost-effective solutions that transform how society addresses climate change, national security and other pressing issues. 

BUFFALO, N.Y.  Toyota Research Institute (TRI) has awarded the University at Buffalo $2.4 million for materials science research that aims to make next generation vehicles carbon-neutral.

Krishna Rajan, ScD, Erich Bloch Endowed Chair of the Department of Materials Design and Innovation (MDI) at the UB, is the grants principal investigator

The award  part of a $35 million investment involving several universities and a materials research company  funds projects that use artificial intelligence to help accelerate the design and discovery of new materials. The materials will help create technology for batteries and fuel cell catalysts designed to power future zero-emission and carbon-neutral vehicles.

Toyota recognizes that artificial intelligence is a vital basic technology that can be leveraged across a range of industries, and we are proud to use it to expand the boundaries of materials science, said TRI Chief Science Officer Eric Krotkov. Accelerating the pace of materials discovery will help lay the groundwork for the future of clean energy and bring us even closer to achieving Toyotas vision of reducing global average new-vehicle CO2 emissions by 90 percent by 2050.

In addition to UB, TRI also funded research projects with Stanford University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of Michigan, the University of Connecticut, and the United Kingdom-based materials science company Ilika. TRI is in ongoing discussions with additional research partners.

At UB, the TRI award will provide critical support for MDI, which is a program of UBs School of Engineering and Applied Sciences and its College of Arts and Sciences. It also will complement other major projects such as the Materials Data Engineering Laboratory at UB (MaDE @UB), which was created last fall after researchers received a $2.9 million National Science Foundation grant.

The MaDE@UB lab aims to speed up and reduce the cost of discovering, manufacturing and commercializing new materials. It uses machine intelligence (tools such as machine learning, pattern recognition, materials informatics and modeling, and high-performance computing) to transform data libraries into a lab that not only stores and searches for information but also predicts and processes information.

At the University at Buffalo, we are committed to finding innovative and cost-effective solutions that transform how society addresses climate change, national security and other pressing issues, said Rajan. The partnership we are forming with Toyota Research Institute will help us achieve these goals, while furthering their mission to spur advanced materials research that powers future clean-tech vehicles.

The $35 million in projects will merge advanced computational materials modeling, new sources of experimental data, machine learning and artificial intelligence in an effort to reduce the time scale for new materials development from a period that has historically been measured in decades. Research programs will follow parallel paths, working to identify new materials for use in future energy systems as well as to develop tools and processes that can accelerate the design and development of new materials more broadly.

In support of these goals, TRI will partner on projects focused on areas including:



The development of new models and materials for batteries and fuel cells;

Broader programs to pursue novel uses of machine learning, artificial intelligence and materials informatics approaches for the design and development new materials; and,

New automated materials discovery systems that integrate simulation, machine learning, artificial intelligence and/or robotics.

Accelerating materials science discovery represents one of four core focus areas for TRI, which was launched in 2015 with mandates to also enhance auto safety with automated technologies, increase access to mobility for those who otherwise cannot drive and help translate outdoor mobility technology into products for indoor mobility.

About Toyota Research Institute: Toyota Research Institute is a wholly owned subsidiary of Toyota Motor North America under the direction of Dr. Gill Pratt. The company, established in 2015, aims to strengthen Toyotas research structure and has four initial mandates: 1) enhance the safety of automobiles, 2) increase access to cars to those who otherwise cannot drive, 3) translate Toyotas expertise in creating products for outdoor mobility into products for indoor mobility, and 4) accelerate scientific discovery by applying techniques from artificial intelligence and machine learning. TRI is based in the United States, with offices in Los Altos, CA, Cambridge, MA, and Ann Arbor, MI. For more information about TRI, please visit www.tri.global.
Actis has given directorships to two members of its senior team.

Architect and former technical manager Thomas Wiedmer has been made UK and Ireland technical director, while regional sales manager Mark Cooper becomes national sales director for the UK and Ireland.

The promotions follow the departure of UK and Ireland director Matthew King who, after 11 years at Actis, will be moving into another area of the wider construction industry.

Mr Cooper will oversee the commercial side of the Actis operation in the UK and Ireland while Mr Wiedmer will direct the technical elements of the business. Mr Wiedmer has been a senior member of the UK Actis technical team since 2014, while Mr Cooper has worked within the commercial arm of Actis for nine years.
Election Day in New Jersey: Who's running for the House, how to vote
Burnham-On-Sea and Highbridge residents have this week been urged by local Police not to fall victim to scams operating in the area.

Police say they have seen a number of incidents across Somerset where elderly and vulnerable people have been victim to unscrupulous criminals who target them specifically.

They prey on the elderly as they are unfortunately more likely to fall for internet or online fraud and are more likely to say yes if someone knocks on the door or cold calls them on the phone, says Police spokeswoman Miriam Brown.

Over recent months in Somerset we have seen cold-callers selling over-priced cleaning products, rogue traders forcing elderly people to take them to the bank to withdraw large sums for half-completed jobs, distraction burglars coning their way into homes pretending to be from utility companies or collecting magazine subscriptions, online email scams and even scammers calling people to ask for cash pretending to be police officers.

These criminals are really clever and creative and its not just the elderly, vulnerable and the less tech-savvy that are taken in. We are all at risk of online fraud.

Recognising the signs of a fraud, scam, distraction burglar or rogue trader is half the battle  and Police say there are signs to help you identify a fraud, scam or con and protect yourself. Here are some typical scenarios:

 You receive an email from a stranger saying you have won money. Be warned  if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is!

 HMRC or a bank send an email asking you to confirm bank details or send money to sort out a problem. Your bank will already have your details. Its probably a scam.

 A cold caller knocks on the door saying they need to come in to check something or that there is a problem with the roof/boiler/drains etc. They could be a distraction burglar.

 A cold caller offers goods or services on the doorstep without providing a quote in writing. They might be offering work you dont need at inflated prices. Its better to commission work as and when you need it and to get quotes in writing.

 Someone claiming to be from the police calls and asks for bank details or to send cash as there is a problem with your account. Dont give them anything. We would never ask you for money or bank details.

 Someone claiming to be from Microsoft or another online company calls asking for your login details and password. They want to gain access to your computer or tablet.

Miriam adds: We understand that this sounds rather alarming but the good news is that there are some very simple but effective things you can do to protect yourself from this type of crime. Firstly  if you arent sure, dont open the door. Just say no and turn them away. Online, if you get an unsolicited email asking for bank details just delete it and dont reply. The same with phone calls, if someone calls asking for money, bank details or access to your computer just hang up. It might seem rude but by just by saying no, you can avoid becoming a victim of crime.

Chief Superintendent Ian Wylie, District Commander for Somerset, adds: These criminals purposefully target the elderly and vulnerable. The impact of their crimes isnt just financial loss, for many it can have a detrimental effect emotionally, mentally and in some cases physically.

Most elderly we victims we speak to say they feel embarrassed and ashamed, and they shouldnt. These criminals are sophisticated and creative with their lies. But there are ways we can work together to stop it from happening in the first place. Prevention is better than cure.

Please talk to any elderly or vulnerable people you know. Help them to understand some of the ways of recognising scams and frauds, and the simple steps they can take to minimise the risk of becoming a victim.
Give a woman the right makeup and she can conquer the world!

When it comes to celebrity make-up artists, Charlotte Tilbury is the Holy Grail. Kate Moss and Amal Clooney entrusted her with their wedding make-up, and Nicole Kidman, Sienna Miller, Penelope Cruz, and Kim Kardashian have her on speed dial (and that's just a taste of her regulars). But apart from her insanely impressive clientele list, Charlotte Tilbury's very own cosmetic line is one of the most popular and loved make-up collections out there. And the stuff is good. Like, we're talking, I-want-every-single-item good.

I spoke to Charlotte Tilbury recently to pick her brain on all things make-up. And apart from her incredibly glamorous idioms on life ("lipstick is happiness in a tube" was my personal fav); she's full of make-up wisdom and truly seeks to make women feel more beautiful. Here's how it all went down:

What inspired you to get into makeup?

A real turning point for me was meeting Mary Greenwell aged 13. I remember my parents' friends looking at a Vogue cover of Jerry Hall and saying, 'Look what Mary Greenwell has done!' She opened my eyes to the world of makeup. I'd always been fascinated by the power a beautiful woman has when she enters a room and I wanted to understand that type of beauty and how its magnetic pull can command attention. I understood the power of makeup for myself when I first applied mascara, and instantly felt more empowered, confident and noticed. I became Mary's assistant, attended Glauca Rossi and the rest is history!

What is your most requested look from your celebrity clients?

To simply look like the most beautiful version of themselves! My gorgeous 'Golden Goddess' look flatters everyone. The look is all about natural glowing skin, honey-toned cheekbones, gleaming eyes, fresh coral lips and a smattering of pretty freckles. It just makes you look and feel so radiant and healthy. The look really captures that gorgeous 'back-from-holiday' glow that we all want.

How do you prep your clients before an event?

We start with the dress and then work from there. When I was working with Nicole Kidman at the Golden Globes it was all about glowing, hypnotic makeup to really complement her dreamy silver tulle dress. And when creating the perfect red carpet look for Emma Roberts at the Oscars, I gave her this gorgeous bombshell glow look to enhance her incredible vintage Armani Prive dress. So many of my clients are incredible friends of mine, so we're constantly gossiping, laughing, and chatting away together on set. The celebrities and starlets I get to work with are always such a dream - it's very much a collaborative effort.

What do you think is the most common mistake women are making?

Women choose the wrong shade of foundation - it can be too yellow, too grey, or too pink. And if you forget to blend in properly, you get the dreaded "tide mark" along the jawline. The most important thing when choosing the right shade of foundation is to test out the colour in a natural light to get your perfect match. If the light is too dark, it's likely that your foundation will be too dark. A lot of women also forget to match the skin on their neck and ears. Use your fingers to draw a line of foundation onto your cheek, neck and ears and if it's the right colour it should blend seamlessly into the skin.

What are your can't-live-without products?

My absolute essential is my Dolce Vita palette. I love how the molten bronze, copper and chocolate shades really make my green eyes pop. I wear a smoky Dolce Vita eye every day. I never leave the house without one, and I believe you can hypnotise the world with your eyes. For an instant eye lift I use my liquid Feline Flick pen to define and elongate the eyes. It's so easy to use and makes your eyes look instantly bigger and brighter. I always finish any eye look with lashings of Full Fat Lashes mascara - I'm obsessed! It gives you that gorgeous false-lash effect. I always switch between my Penelope Pink and Kim K-W lipsticks. These colours complement my fair skin and red hair beautifully.

You've recently brought out a fragrance (which smells SO good), what was the idea behind 'Scent of a Dream' and have you always wanted to get into perfume?

Fragrance has always played such a key role in my life, and it was always part of my plan to share my secret perfume. I've only ever wanted to innovate - never imitate! - so creating a bespoke fragrance came naturally to me. I've always been obsessed with the transformative powers fragrance has, and I wanted to create a perfume that could change your frame of mind, alter the aura and energy you emit, and directly impact the way people perceive you. I knew exactly how I wanted the perfume to smell - down to the very last drop! And worked with leading perfumer Francois Robert and visionary experts within the fields of neuroscience and fragrance to ensure Scent of a Dream was a revolution.

Do you still believe contouring is "a thing" or do you think women now want a more natural look? Contouring is a trick that makeup artists have been using for years. It's every woman's secret power for perfecting killer cheekbones. And it's actually really easy to achieve; simply suck in your cheeks and using my amazing Powder & Sculpt brush follow the hollow with the natural Sculpt shade. To finish, sweep the dreamy Highlight shade onto the top of the cheekbones and temples to perfect your contoured, candelit look!

If you could only recommend 3 products, what would they be?

My miracle-working Magic Cream, my new Instant Magic Facial Dry Sheet Mask, and my Pillow Talk lipstick; it's the perfect nude-y pink shade for a natural, pillow-y pout that you can wear every day.

How important is wearing lipstick for your overall appearance?

It's essential, darling! Lipstick is happiness in a tube: It boosts your confidence, brightens your complexion and adds instant glamour to any outfit. It's instant glamour!

What does make-up mean to Charlotte Tilbury?

Makeup is hugely empowering - it has the incredible power to transform and boost every woman's confidence. Everyone looks better with makeup - even if it's a very natural look and you can't tell the person is wearing any. Makeup is my secret weapon - it's every woman's secret weapon! I say, give a woman the right makeup and she can conquer the world.

Popped lip or dramatic smokey-eye?

Both, darling! A beautifully defined eye and a statement lip is a classic after-dark look. I always say: 'eyes to mesmerise, lips to lead astray!'

What is your ultimate make-up tip?

By tracing the natural outline of your lips, you can completely re-shape and re-size the cupid's bow, as well as any asymmetrical unevenness in an instant.
A stunning new hotel opens in Victorias picturesque Mornington Peninsula region tomorrow

Australia has no shortage of beautiful wine regions, but a new luxury hotel opening tomorrow is set to redefine one of its most popular locales. Blending contemporary art, dining and world-class design, Jackalope is the Morninton's Peninsula's newest boutique stay.

The brainchild of 29-year-old entrepreneur Louis Li, Jackalope boasts 46 rooms with unrivalled views of the hotel's vineyard, courtesy of its huge floor-to-ceiling windows. Designed by the Carr Design Group, the hotel offers sleek furnishings by way of design partners like Fabio Ongarato Design, Zuster furniture and Mlebourne artist Emily Floyd, who has sculpted the namesake Jackalope work that works double duty as the hotel's entrance piece.

With a sleek monochrome fitout, Jackalope also boasts two restaurants under Executive Chef Guy Stanaway: fine dining Doot Doot Doot and casual winery-based eatery Rare Hare. Although each eatery has its own personality and culinary focus, they are brought together by the bar Flaggerdoot, which serves classic and curated concoctions in a space featuring a welcoming open fireplace, complete with installations from the likes of Rick Owens and local artist Andrew Hazewinkel.

Add to that a 30m infinity pool which overlooks the winery and a distance of just one hour from Melbourne, and you can see why Jackalope is set to become the premier winery weekend away.

Jackalope opens April 1. Room prices start from $650 per night and include a la carte breakfast, in-room mini bar, wine on arrival and WiFi.

166 Balnarring Road, Merricks North VIC 3926.

Visit jackalopehotels.com for more info and to book.
A huge interest from buyers for heavily discounted Bharat Stage-III (BS-III) vehicles enabled dealers of top two-wheeler makers in the country to beat the deadline and exhaust their stocks by Friday noon. Many of them pulled the shutters down as soon as they completed the sales.
Two Essar group firms  one in the oil refinery business and the other in steel  have missed the March-end deadline to sell stakes, putting pressure on the promoters as well as lenders to bring the financial metrics of the group back on track in the new financial year.
India's fourth largest IT services company today signed an MoU with Andhra Pradesh government to set up its campus in Vijayawada-Amaravati region.

The company will invest Rs 500 crore in ten years in the project involving a development centre and a training facility spread over 27.86 acres to be allotted by the government.
The plot only gets thicker from here, as even after multiple rounds of talks, Softbank has not been able to convince the early-stage investors in Gurgaon-based for a sale which would help the Japanese major exit from the company.
A consortium led by & Co has approached sovereign funds about joining a potential deal to take over Indus Towers, which could value Indias largest wireless infrastructure company at more than $12 billion, people with knowledge of the matter said.
The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation's (BMC's) plan to levy a one per cent surcharge on the sale and purchase of properties is expected to hit the residential property market further.
The governments plan to attract entrepreneurs to regional aviation has drawn a star participant in G R Gopinath, pioneer of low-cost flying in India who is now considering a comeback in the countrys regional skies.
European oil and gas major Royal Dutch plans to hire nearly 1,000 people across technology and business operations centres in Bengaluru and Chennai soon.

The company currently has around 6,000 employees at the business operations unit in Chennai and two technology centres in Bengaluru.
E-commerce major has sounded out five merchant bankers, including SBI Caps and Kotak Mahindra Capital, to work on an initial public offering (IPO) that is likely to hit the market in the second half of 2019. The firm, majority owned by Japanese giant SoftBank, has also reportedly appointed Swiss investment banking major Credit Suisse as a special advisor for the share sale, people aware of the developments told PTI. "The IPO process is on with in earnest and may open in the second half of calender 2019, depending on the market sentiment. The management has zeroed in on five investment bankers including SBI Caps and Kotak Mahindra Capital," said the source. The source also said of the five i-bankers approached, it will pick only one lead-banker that could be either SBI Caps or Kotak. It has also consulted top law firms Amarchand Mangaldas, AZB & Partners and Khaitan & Co to advise it on the proposed share sale plan.
isnt first in the Indian automotive industry to sign a wage agreement with factory workers that is performance linked  it is a common practice in the two-wheeler industry  however, with the recent wage settlement at Pune, the company has definitely set a precedent for others. Experts feel this paves way for better industrial relations, and a younger workforce is likely to feel more aligned to such an approach.

On Tuesday, and the Pune Workers' Union, which covers around 6,400 employees, signed a wage settlement for three years effective September 1, 2015. It will be valid through August 31, 2018.

In this, the total wage package has been bifurcated-- a fixed rise of Rs 8,600 (in the ratio of 72 per cent, 15 per cent and 13 per cent for a period of three years) and Rs 8,700 non-actual, that is a total of Rs 17,300.

Sources indicated after the proposed hike following the bifurcated structure, around 10-15 per cent of the workers' salaries would be directly linked to their performance.

Industrial relations experts said this could be linked to volume of output, quality parameters, attendance or rejection rates. A senior executive in a leading four-wheeler major based in Delhi said it was easier to quantify performance objectives and achievements in case of blue-collar workers on the shop floor.

As such, Tata Motors, which is undergoing a major restructuring exercise for its human resources, has plans to replicate this in its plants across India, including Sanand, Lucknow, Jamshedpur and Pantnagar, in the months to come.

In fact, the company has already started talks with the workers' union at the Lucknow plant, which makes light commercial vehicles and medium and heavy commercial vehicles, for negotiating a new wage agreement as the existing one expires at the end of this month. Discussions on a wage settlement are already on with workers at Sanand. The Sanand union had even approached the state labour department to mediate in the matter.

Interestingly, the Dharwad plant does not have a workers' union. The site had witnessed incidents of labour unrest in 2015-16. At Dharwad, however, there is a works council, which has representation from workers and management.

Around 98 per cent of the operative employees at the Sanand, Pantnagar, Lucknow, Pune and Jamshedpur plants are members of employee unions, and together they represent around 53 per cent of the total permanent employees at these five plants.

An industrial relations expert working with a two-wheeler major said, "This has been a common practice among two-wheeler manufacturers and workmen are usually happy with such settlements. There is an 'earnability' component in such arrangements and this works as a deep motivator for workmen to go the extra mile."



He feels this also acts as a deterrent for trouble makers, as any attempts to bring down production affects pay.

Usually, in the two-wheeler space, such variable components are paid on a monthly basis, and are also linked to attendance.

Rituparna Chakraborty, co-founder and executive vice-president, TeamLease Services, said aligning employees growth directly with that of the organisation was a win-win situation for both parties. "India is young, and young workers are increasingly prioritising growth over security of job or pay. This kind of structure is a welcome move in the manufacturing industry," she added.

Globally, this has been the norm for quite some time now. For example, in countries like Japan, performance bonus is usually linked to quality parameters as are not comfortable with volume-related matrices, according to an expert. The automotive industry in India employs around 7.6 million people directly.
Resources, one of the world's largest diversified natural resources companies, would have to lose about one-fourth of the area in the gold mine that it bagged in Chhattisgarh due to the movement of wildlife.
During a census exercise, Pakistan provincial authorities detained on Thursday two Indian nationals who were living in Karachi "illegally".

Addressing a news conference after winding up the first phase of census in eight districts of Sindh, Provincial Census Commissioner Abdul Aleem Memon said both the detainees did not have any legal document.

"One has been arrested from Gulberg Town, Karachi, and we have recovered a diary from his possession," he said, adding that they have been handed over to law enforcement agencies for further investigation, the Express News reported.

About the ongoing census, which began on March 15, Memon said in the first phase around 50 per cent census blocks were covered and the second phase will begin from March 31 to April 12.
Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath will soon be accorded security by Black Cat commandos of the NSG instead of those by the CISF.

The Home Ministry has decided to provide the UP Chief Minister the top category 'Z+' security cover which would include, apart from the state police personnel, the commandos of specialised anti-terror force Security Guard.

A Home Ministry official said the decision has been taken keeping in mind the threat perception to Yogi which is very high.

Earlier it was decided to accord him Z+ security cover by a special commando team of the UP police and a contingent of the CISF. Before becoming the Chief Minister, Yogi was getting 'Y' category security cover of Central Industrial Security Force with 2-3 commandos guarding him round-the-clock.

Former Chief Ministers of Uttar Pradesh  Akhilesh Yadav, Mayawati and Mulayam Singh Yadav  currently have NSG security.

The official said security experts suggested to the Home Ministry that threat perception of Yogi was higher than all the three former Chief Ministers.

Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh, who is also a former Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, too enjoys NSG security cover.

As part of the upgraded security paraphernalia, Yogi will have about 25 NSG commandos armed with sophisticated weapons accompanying him at all times when he is mobile. His convoy will have pilot and escort vehicles equipped with jammers.
in India called off a four-day strike after the most populous state of Uttar Pradesh, ruled by Prime Minister Narendra Modis party, gave assurances that mainly Muslim-run, unlicensed slaughter houses would not be shut down or attacked.
Canada's tourism board is expecting double-digit growth in visitor arrivals from India in 2017 with the introduction of a new non-stop service between Mumbai and Toronto.
Chennai Super Kings (CSK), the Chennai franchise of Indian Premier League (IPL), which was owned by India Cements, will be "back with a bang" in 2018, said India Cements Vice Chairman and Managing Director .

In an event held in Chennai, he said: "In 2018 CSK is back with a bang and hopefully, with M S Dhoni leading it. The absence from the field for two years has not affected the brand and has not in any way lessened the interest in CSK." It may be noted that the 2017 season of IPL is expected to start on April 5.
On Friday, the (CCS) cleared the Rs 4,500-crore acquisition of 100 tracked, self-propelled guns that will be manufactured in India by Larsen & Toubro (L&T), in partnership with South Koreas Hanwa Techwin.
Of the 30 million pending court cases in India as of December 2014, over 80% are in district and subordinate courts, which are short of about 5,000 (23%) judges. But filling vacancies may not be the universal answer, according to our analysis, which found only a weak direct correlation between shortage of judges and performance of lower .

Indias judicial delays are legendary, and its shortage of judges well-known, as IndiaSpend has reported (here, here and here). Yet, despite the constraints, some manage to perform better than others, sometimes significantly so. Data can help identify such courts, as well as their innovations and best practices, so that these can be replicated in other .

India has over 600 district courts. Identifying the high performers and replicating their best practices in other courts can make an immediate impact.
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!)
NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson is set to break Indian-American Sunita Williams' spacewalking record, as she prepares for her eight spacewalk aboard the International Space Station (ISS) today.

Williams has made seven spacewalks totalling 50 hours and 40 minutes, and hold the records for most spacewalks by a woman and most spacewalk time for a woman.

Expedition 50 Flight Engineer Whitson's last spacewalk was on January 6 with Commander Shane Kimbrough when she hooked up new lithium-ion batteries and inspected the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer.

Whitson and Kimbrough will finish cable connections at the Pressurised Mating Adapter-3 just recently attached to the Harmony module's space-facing port.

The PMA-3 relocation gets the ISS ready for the new International Docking Adapter-3 set to be delivered on a future SpaceX Dragon cargo mission.

European Space Agency astronaut Thomas Pesquet, who conducted last week's spacewalk with Kimbrough, will assist the duo in and out of their spacesuits and monitor the activities from inside the station.

The spacewalkers are scheduled to exit the Quest airlock today at 5:30 PM IST for 6.5 hours of station maintenance work.
A pregnant woman in Uttar Pradesh has written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath alleging her husband had verbally divorced her by pronouncing a .

The woman in her letter alleged that her husband did so as he feared she is carrying a baby girl in her womb, police said on Thursday.

Saharanpur police chief Love Kumar told IANS that the woman, Shugufta, registered a complaint against her husband, Shamshad and in-laws of Budhakheda village in the Uttar Pradesh district on Tuesday.

Shugufta was married to Shamshad five years ago and the couple has two four-year and 18-month old daughters.

She has written to Modi and Yogi Adityanath, seeking their intervention to save her daughters and yet-to-be-born baby, Kumar said.

"In her complaint, she has alleged that her husband feared she would give birth to one more baby girl. He wanted a baby boy and asked her to terminate the pregnancy. She refused and now, he has divorced her and kicked her out from home."

The police officer said Shamshad had pronounced talaq to her verbally thrice and divorced her -- a controversial Muslim practice in the sub-continent that has been debated and is being challenged in the Supreme Court.

The apex court is likely to take up the matter whether or not to ban the practice on May 11.

The officer said Shugufta has also named her brothers-in-law -- Naushad, Zaffar Ali, Illyas -- for pressurising her to abort the three-month-old foetus.

"She alleged she was beaten up by the in-laws," Kumar said, adding they had also been seeking dowry from her.

The officer said a case under sections of causing miscarriage without a woman's consent and subjecting woman to cruelty has been registered and police were awaiting a medical examination report of the woman.

"We have formed a special team to investigate the matter. But nobody has been arrested as yet."
The accusation that that academia is disproportionately left-wing and liberal is not a new one. Nor is the main thrust of the claim, in a report by the Adam Smith Institute, contentious. Many accept that academics tend towards the left, even if we cannot be sure of precise levels of inclination or whether the tendency is on the rise. The more important issue is whether or not this actually matters, both in terms of impartiality in research and teaching, and equality for staff and students.
The three government-owned oil marketing companies (OMC)s were unclear on what was to happen after the Friday midnight deadline for the discounts they were offering on at retail motor fuel stations.
The country could be looking at an initial investment of more than $10 billion (Rs 65,000 crore), if the government gives a final nod to desired changes in foreign direct investment (FDI) in retailing.

The changes in question would allow global retailers to sell a percentage of non-food items, said Union food processing minister Harsimrat Kaur Badal.

"It would be at least $10 bn initial investment if 'food plus' gets the final nod. Not just for India; we have the UAE and Japan planning on making in India and taking it to their country. Before (the) 'World Food India' (event, scheduled for September), a lot of things might just get tied up," she hopes.

The ministry of food processing industries (MoFPI) hopes some of these decisions would be taken by the year-end. Badal stresses the 'food plus' component in the policy on in retailing suggested by her ministry would not be a backdoor entry for multinational entities such as Walmart, Tesco or Auchan. She said global retailers would only be allowed to set up shop if they put investment in the back-end, at the 'farm gate' level which would directly benefit cultivators.

"I put in a request that if besides their investment in retail, if they put some extra investment at the farmgate level, then the government might think of allowing them some small percentage of other home care products. I have made it clear that whatever investment they do at the farmgate level, some percentage of that they may be allowed to keep on other things, which also must be manufactured in India," she said.

Food accounts for about 70 per cent of India's $600-bn retail market. The government is looking at tripling this over the next five years, Badal said.

Major retailers had said they have an existing model which would cover items beside food, the minister explained.

Only food does not manage to meet their costs. While the definition of 'food plus or non-food' and what all would be allowed in food plus has not been decided, Badal said it would mainly have home care and fast moving consumer goods, fully made in India.

"First of all, we have to see whether we allow it or not. I have sent suggestions and a note to the prime minister's office. Once the PM says yes to the suggestions, further details of the plan would be charged," she said.

On the percentage of non-food items to be allowed, MoFPI is playing it safe. "I have suggested that whatever investments they make in the back-end infrastructure, it should be around 20 per cent of that," added Badal.

According to the ministry, not only Walmart but other global entities such as Tesco, Auchan, Harrods, Partridges and Marks & Spencer had all shown interest in setting up shop in India if 'food plus' was allowed.

"I am pushing the policy (change). We have got a company like Auchan which has said that they would like to work with farmers. Our aim is that major companies tie-up with farmers," she said.
A liberalised and simplified regime comes into force from Saturday, April 1, which the government hopes would make travel to India, particularly for business, tourism and medical purposes, easier.
Right ahead of moving to GST, the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) report tabled in the Assembly today showed that the state's revenue surplus has shrunk significantly. Add to that, the growth in revenue receipts in during FY16 over FY15 was 5.99%, much below the average of 18 General Category States (GCS) at 15%.
Union Minister for Finance and Corporate Affairs Arun Jaitley addresses the press conference after chairing the Thirteen GST Council Meeting at Vigyan Bhawan in New Delhi. Revenue Secretary Hasmukh Adhia is also seen
Board Bureau chairman said that the government is keen on bank consolidation, but not before building strong balance sheet by addressing the bad debt problem, and in that case merger may happen first between two large .

was speaking at the Credit Suisse annual investors conference, of which the foreign brokerage made a note to clients. Business Standard has a copy of the report.

The government is waiting for the resolution of the NPL (non-performing loans) issue and wants improvement in balance sheet strength before going ahead with the consolidation process. The strength of balance sheet is a hurdle as there are not too many large strong PSUs that can be merged. Therefore, initially the government may look to merge two large banks, the report said.

It would be preferable to create strong regional entities, but the biggest challenge in any merger would continue to be how to reduce the redundancies in terms of branches and employees.

To address this, various options are being considered such as branch swapping, early VRS (voluntary retirement schemes) and going slow on fresh hiring, Credit Suisse wrote, attributing to Rai.

The government has already started the bank consolidation process by merging five associate with parent State Bank of India, effective April 1. The associate banks have also rolled out VRS schemes for their employees.

Rais comments at the summit is contrary to the general expectations in the market that smaller banks would be merged with larger banks. The plan, eventually, is to create a few global banks through consolidation.

However, big bank consolidation talks are not new. In early 2000s, there were some indications that Union Bank could be merged with Bank of India, both Mumbai based, but no concrete steps were taken by the government in this regard.

According to Credit Suisse, government is looking at industry-wide restructuring package, instead of company-wise.

The government is also focusing on an industry-wide restructuring package instead of company-wise, given that stress is concentrated in a few sectors like infra and steel, the report said.

The aim of the new restructuring move would be to improve decision making process, Rai said.

For the resolution of problem loans, the government is looking at various structures including an increase in the number of oversights committees and allowing larger flexibility in the existing mechanisms, as decision-making continues to be the biggest obstacle to resolution, the report said.

said the government would be looking for rights issue in fiscal 2017-18 as the budgeted capital allocation is low and can be supplemented by minority shareholders. The budget provisioned for Rs 10,000 crore in the next fiscal, against Rs 25,000 crore in fiscal 2017. The governments Indradhanush plan envisages infusion of up to Rs 70,000 crore in public sector banks in phases till fiscal 2019. The government, however, had indicated there would be more capital if there was a need.

Our interaction with Mr Rai highlights that the resolution of stressed accounts will involve deep haircuts and with NPL coverage for banks low at 40%, this means higher provisioning and capital requirement for banks. Remain cautious on corporate lenders, Credit Suisse said.




19 workshops organized in 12 countries over last three years to promote AYUSH system of medicine: Shri Shripad Naik

The Ministry of AYUSH have taken various steps for promotion and propagation of AYUSH systems of medicine. These include signing of Memorandums of Understanding (MoUs) for (i) Country to Country Cooperation in the field of Traditional Medicine, (ii) Setting up of AYUSH Academic Chairs in foreign Universities/Institutes, and (iii) Undertaking Collaborative Research to enhance the acceptability of AYUSH systems at International level. Ministry of AYUSH establishes AYUSH Information Cells in the premises of the Indian Missions/ICCR Cultural Centres for dissemination of authentic information about AYUSH systems of medicine. Ministry of AYUSH also organizes / participates in international exhibitions/ conferences/ workshops/ seminars/ road shows/ trade fairs, etc. to create awareness amongst the local population. AYUSH drug manufacturers/ entrepreneurs/ AYUSH institutions, etc. are provided incentives for (i) participation in international exhibitions/ conferences/ workshops/ seminars/ road shows/ trade fairs, etc. for generating awareness amongst the participating public about the AYUSH systems of medicine and; (ii) registration of AYUSH products with regulatory agencies of different countries to enhance export of the products.

As per available records, during the last three years, 14 workshops were organised in 12 countries and an amount of Rs. 1,46,15,459/- (Rs. One crore forty six lakhs fifteen thousand four hundred and fifty nine only) was spent. The workshops organised by the Ministry of AYUSH in collaboration with Indian Missions abroad had witnessed tremendous response and created lot of awareness amongst the participants comprising of policy makers, educationists, traditional medicine experts, researchers, etc. about the AYUSH systems of medicine as is evident from the response received from some of the countries for signing of MoUs/ Agreements for cooperation in the field of Traditional Medicine.

As of now, proposals have been received from UK, Israel and Germany. The Ministry has agreed to financially support and participate in the events.

This information was given by the Minister of State (Independent Charge) for AYUSH, Shri ShripadYesso Naik in written reply to a question in Lok Sabha today.
Defence Start-Ups

Government of India has launched Start-up India initiative in January 2016, which aims at fostering entrepreneurship and promoting innovation by creating an ecosystem that is conducive for growth of start-ups. The data of start-ups recognized by Department of Industrial Policy & Promotion (DIPP), is maintained by Start-up India and at present, there is no recognized start-up in the Defence sector. However, in order to encourage start-ups and give them an opportunity to contribute in the defence production, Ordnance Factory Board (OFB) and all Defence Public Sector Undertakings (DPSUs) have been mandated to follow the guidelines of Ministry of MSME regarding Relaxation of norms for start-ups and Medium & Small Enterprises in public procurements on prior experience  prior turnover criteria.

The Government has taken following actions to encourage culture of innovation in defence sector:-

 Under the new Defence Procurement Procedure (DPP) 2016 promulgated in April 2016, the Make Procedure has been simplified. The procedure provides for funding of 90% of development cost by the Government to Indian industry for design, develop and manufacture of defence equipment.

Projects not exceeding development cost of Rs. 10 crore (Government funded) and Rs. 3 crore (industry funded) have been reserved for MSMEs under this procedure.

 The Government has recently approved a Defence Innovation Fund (DIF) with initial funding by two DPSUs; Bharat Electronic Limited (BEL) and Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL). The fund aims at creation of ecosystem to foster innovation and technology development in Defence, by engaging R&D institutes / academia and industry including start-ups and provide them the funding to carry out innovative development which has the potential for future commercialization.

 The Government has also launched a scheme of Technology Development Fund (TDF) which aims at funding the development of defence and dual use technologies that are currently not available with the Indian defence Industry, or have not been developed so far, thus creating an ecosystem for enhancing cutting edge technology capability for Defence applications. The TDF scheme is implemented by Defence Research & Development Organization (DRDO) and provides for assistance in the form of grant to public and private industries for design and development of key defence technologies.

This information was given by Minister of State for Defence Dr. Subhash Bhamre in a written reply to Shri Asaduddin Owaisi in Lok Sabha today.

NAMPI/Ranjan
Dr. Werner Hoyer, President, European Investment Bank calls on PM

Dr. Werner Hoyer, President, European Investment Bank called on Prime MinisterNarendra Modi today. He was accompanied by the senior officials of the Bank.

The Prime Minister had met a high level delegation of the European Investment Bank a year ago at the EU-India summit and promised support for establishment of the banks regional office in Delhi. This office was inaugurated today.

In course of the conversation today the Prime Minister explained Indias policies in the areas of climate change and environmental sustainability. The European Investment Bank has lent over one billion Euros to India towards environmentally sustainable projects including the Lucknow Metro.

Dr. Hoyer appreciated Indias strong and proactive measures in the field of climate change, and expressed the banks continued support for Indias efforts in this direction.
With a view to stimulating economic growth, increasing earnings from the export of services like tourism, medical value travel, travel on account of business thereby making India an attractive destination for foreign direct and portfolio investment, Union Cabinet chaired by the Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi, at its meeting held on November 30, 2016, had approved various measures for liberalization, simplification and rationalization of the visa regime in India. These are now ready for implementation from tomorrow. These include liberalization of the e-Visa scheme, Tourist, Business, Medical and Employment visas. New categories of visas such as Intern Visa and Film Visa have been introduced. .

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With effect from tomorrow i.e. April 1, 2017, e-Visa has further been sub-divided into 3 categories i.e. e-tourist visa, e-Business visa and e-Medical visa. E-visa facility has been extended to the nationals of 161 countries for entry through 24 airports (E-visa service was earlier granted through 16 airports) and 3 Indian Ports i.e. Cochin, Goa and Mangalore to tap the potential of cruise tourism from different countries. This service will also be provided from Mumbai and Chennai seaports shortly. The window for application under e-visa scheme has been increased from 30 days to 120 days and duration of stay on e-visa has been increased from 30 days to 60 days with double entry on e-Tourist and e-Business visa and triple entry on e-Medical visa. Separate immigration counters and facilitation desks to assist medical tourist have been provided at Indian airports namely, Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Bengluru and Hyderbad. .

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The Multiple entry Tourist and Business visas for a period of 5 years will now be available to nationals of most of the countries. Upon urgent requests, business visa and medical visa will be granted within 48 hours of application. 94 Missions having bio-metric enrolment facilities have started giving 5 year long term Tourist and Business Visa w.e.f. 1st March, 2017. The remaining Missions will be providing this facility in due course. .

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A new category of visa titled Intern (I) Visa has been rolled out with effect from 1st March, 2017 to a foreigner intending to pursue intership in Indian companies, educational institutions and NGOs, subject to certain checks and conditions. The period of visa is restricted to the duration of internship programme or one year, whichever is less. The intern visa will be granted immediately after completion of graduation/post graduation. Intern Visa however, will be issued with prior clearance from Ministry of Home Affairs in case of Internship in NGOs or internship involving visit to protected and restricted areas. .

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Another new category of Visa, titled Film (F) Visa has also been introduced with maximum duration of one year with multiple entry facility. .

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The minimum salary limit of for grant of Employment Visa, which is presently US dollars 25,000 per annum, has also been modified. This will facilitate foreign nationals engaged as teaching faculty by the Central Higher Educational Institutions. .

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The liberalization of the visa regime will considerably facilitate entry of foreigners into India for tourism, business and medical purposes. Consequently, the arrival of foreigners in India is expected to go up substantially in the coming years. This will in turn give a boost to the tourism, medical and business sectors resulting in substantial increase in direct and indirect employment in these sectors. .

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Union Ministry of Power has taken a review regarding power supply position in the country, especially the northern region, and preparedness of various utilities during the forthcoming summer season. The meeting was chaired by Shri P.K. Pujari, Secretary, Power and attended by representatives from State Governments, India Meteorological Department (IMD), CEA, POSOCO, various Regional and State Load dispatch Centres (RLDCs/SLDCs). .

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Based on IMDs report, it was observed that temperatures would be above normal during the March-May 2017. In the recent release dated 27th March 2017 by IMD, it was noted that the temperature during the last week of March was 4-6 degrees above normal, constituting heat wave conditions in many areas. .

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The present prevailing power demand and the projections were reviewed for each state, region and an All India basis. It was observed that while the power demand in Northern Region would peak to the extent of 56 GW during April to Sep 2017 period. The demand in Southern region has already peaked to 42 GW while Western Region has touched 50 GW and expected to reduce to 46 GW between April-June. The All India peak demand during the summer is expected to be of the order of 165 GW. .

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It was noted that generation resource was adequate during the period considering enough coal fired capacity available in the country. There is a fall in reservoir levels in Southern Region compared to last year, leading to 700 MU reduction in energy content as on date. Certain states may experience constraints due to limitations in the transmission and distribution network at the intra state level. To combat the same, the State utilities were advised to complete the transmission systems in the pipeline. .

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The state utilities of Northern region are required to face the dust storm and thunderstorm related disturbances in the electricity grid during April-June period which often caused 6-7 GW reduction in load. They utilities were advised to coordinate generation reduction in such cases so that the disturbances in the grid are minimized. .

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Further, considering the past instances of transmission tower collapses, the state utilities were advised to keep Emergency Restoration Systems (ERS) ready. CEA would monitor the availability of ERS across different state utilities and transmission licensees. It was also decided that POSOCO and the SLDCs would work closely with IMD for getting tailor made forecasts/web based weather information for better planning and reliability of supply. .

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The State of Uttar Pradesh was advised to augment the intra state transmission systems expeditiously as the shortages reported by the State were primarily on account of lack of the necessary transmission & distribution infrastructure within the state. .

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Principal Secretary, Energy, Government of Delhi informed that the transmission constraints within Delhi system is being resolved. However, there is a need to maintain generation in Badarpur TPS and ensure gas supply to the combined cycle gas stations within Delhi till then. Jammu & Kashmir was also advised undertake planned sub-transmission & distribution system within the state. .

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Workshop on leveraging Private Investment in Indian Railways Organized by the World Bank and Indian Railways Held on March 29th, 2017

The Ministry of Railways and the World Bank organised a knowledge sharing workshop on leveraging private investment in Railways on March 29, 2017. The objective was to showcase the projects that provide opportunities to the private sector for investing their funds in Indian Railways. The participants include representatives of various funds and developers.

Speaking on the occasion, Shri Suresh Prabhu, Minister of Railways said that there are huge expectations from Railways and to meet these expectations Railway needs to grow for which investment is required. Investment is required for decongesting the highly congested network and also for operations, maintenance and modernisation of Rolling stock. Recently a Safety Fund has also been created to clear all backlogs and modernise the safety infrastructure. Recently, we were successful in attracting FDI for our loco factories through a completely transparent bidding process. He felt that compared to previous years, there has been improvement in investment but by itself the investment requirements of Indian Railways are huge. There should not be concerns regarding servicing of the investments in Railways as being a transportation organisation, it has continuous cash flows. A lot of investment opportunities exist in Indian Railways and the workshop would be beneficial for structuring investments. There are possibilities of end to end logistics support. Unless logistics and transport come together, enhancement of business value would not be possible. Partnerships should be the guiding principle for the future.

Railways have partnered with State Governments to form Joint Venture Companies. He was categorical that Indian Railways welcomes all long term & short term investors and the multilateral and bilateral agencies to partner with Indian Railways.

The Country Head of the World Bank, Mr. Junaid Ahmad said that Indian Railways is an important player in the economy and the backbone of Indias transportation sector. He opined that in the future growth story of the country, Indian Railways will have an important role to play. He also stated that this was a historic period for the country and for Railways and the Railway employees were fortunate to be a part of this history in the making. He gave example of successful partnership with the private sector such as the Sao Paulo water and sanitation company, Sabesp which serves more than 300 municipalities. He also highlighted the case of the Johannesburg where unbundling of different public agencies enabled them to raise resources from the local capital market and form partnerships with community based organisations and the private sector. In the case of Railways, he felt that apart from financing, the private sector can also bring in expertise in areas such as station development. In the years to come, once the DFC is commissioned, opportunities could be available to the private sector to run trains. Partnering with private sector logistics provider and other transporters will be key to fast ramping up of traffic.

Mr. Sujoy Bose, CEO of National Investment and Infrastructure Fund (NIIF) shared his experiences regarding PPPs. Presentations were made on station redevelopment, connectivity projects, State Joint Ventures, Dedicated Freight Corridors, Indian Railway Finance Corporation and also on the proposed Railways of India Development Fund.
Indias play in Tibetan religious politics has always been a high stakes game. Indias grant of refuge to the 14th in 1959 led to the 1962 war with China; and tensions between New Delhi and Beijing continue over the iconic Tibetan leaders splittist (separatist) activities, allegedly masterminded from India.
President has blasted a probe into his team's ties to Russia as an opposition "witch hunt," defending his former top aide Michael Flynn's decision to ask for immunity in the case.

Trump's ex-national security advisor, whose links to Russia are one focus of the sprawling investigation, has sought protection in exchange for his testimony to the FBI and congressional committees.

Flynn's lawyer said in a statement on Thursday that his client has "a story to tell, and he very much wants to tell it, should the circumstances permit."



But two key committees in the probe, the House and Senate Intelligence Committees, both suggested the immunity proposal was premature.

Trump nevertheless encouraged Flynn's move in a tweet that appeared to lay down a challenge.

"Mike Flynn should ask for immunity in that this is a witch hunt (excuse for big election loss), by media & Dems, of historic proportion!"



Flynn's offer to testify under protection from prosecution suggests he has more to reveal about the Russia affair.

He could be a key witness as the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Congress seek to determine whether Trump advisors colluded with Russia's interference in last year's presidential election.

But Adam Schiff, the senior Democrat on the House panel, said there was "still much work and many more witnesses and documents to obtain before any immunity request from any witness can be considered."



"We should first acknowledge what a grave and momentous step it is for a former national security advisor to the president of the United States to ask for immunity from prosecution," Schiff said.

NBC News also quoted unnamed officials as saying the issue was not on the table at the Senate committee "at the moment."



A close advisor to Trump's 2016 campaign, Flynn was forced to step down from his White House job in February after misleading the vice president about conversations he had with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak after the election.

He is also in focus over receiving USD 33,000 from Russian television RT to attend a 2015 gala in Moscow where he sat with Russian President Vladimir Putin, and $530,000 from Turkey for lobbying services.
The US President predicted a "very difficult" meeting with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping, whom he has invited to his mansion in Florida (Mar-a-Lago) in early April.

"The meeting next week with China will be a very difficult one in that we can no longer have massive trade deficits and job losses. American companies must be prepared to look at other alternatives," said in two Twitter messages.

The meeting agenda will have a strong economic and commercial nature, Xinhua news agency reported on Friday.

During his campaign and also as President, Trump has blamed China -- in addition to Mexico -- for the US trade deficit and job losses due to offshore outsourcing, a trend that he has promised to change.

However, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lu Kang said that "40 per cent of China's trade surplus with the United States came from US companies in China."

Lu also argued that bilateral trade has created 2.6 million jobs in the US and said the two countries "are highly complementary."
US President will host his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping at his Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida next week, the first meeting between the two leaders amid serious differences over trade, North Korea and the South China Sea dispute.

"Xi will meet Trump at Mar-a-lago, Florida from April 6 to 7," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang announced at a daily press briefing in Beijing on Thursday.

This will be the first meeting between the top leaders of the world's two most powerful economies.

The two leaders had spoken by phone on February 9 during which Trump had told Xi that he would honour the 'One China' policy on Taiwan.

"China-US share trade and economic linkages which are highly complementary," Lu said.

"China hopes to make joint efforts with the United States to expand trade cooperation, properly settle trade frictions through dialogues and maintain healthy and stable growth of trade and economic ties," he said.

In Washington, the White House confirmed the dates of the meeting and said, "the two leaders will discuss global, regional, and bilateral issues of mutual concern."



In a statement, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer said Trump and the First Lady will also host President Xi and his wife Peng Liyuan at a dinner on April 6.

A host of contentious issues in bilateral relations, including Trump's claims about China's unfair trade practices, currency manipulation, curbing North Korea's nuclear ambitions and American concerns about Chinese military manoeuvres in the disputed South China Sea are expected to be discussed between the two leaders.

China-US trade in goods amounted to $519.6 billion in 2016. China has large share in the bilateral trade with its exports to the US amounting to over $400 billion.

The meeting will follow a recent trip to China by US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.

Ahead of the summit with Trump, Xi will visit Finland and hold talks with his counterpart Sauli Niinisto, Lu said.
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Michael T. Flynn, the former national security adviser, has offered to be interviewed by House and Senate investigators who are examining the Trump campaigns ties to Russia in exchange for immunity from prosecution, according to his lawyer and a congressional official.
The US Senate Intelligence Committee on Thursday began its public hearings to analyse possible Russian interference in last November's elections.

The probe, according to its key lawmakers, will be extremely rigorous, given the presumed partiality of the corresponding committee in the House of Representatives.

"The committee will go wherever the intelligence leads us," Efe news agency quoted committee Chairman Richard Burr as saying during a press conference.

The House Intelligence Committee several days ago began investigating the matter, but the apparent lack of impartiality by its chairman, Republican Devin Nunes, has called that probe into question.

Nunes revealed last week that he had received information confirming that the communications of President Donald Trump may have been the object of "incidental" monitoring by intelligence agencies during the final months of the Barack Obama administration, but he refused to reveal his sources or to detail what occurred to his committee colleagues.

According to The New York Times on Thursday, the secret sources of Nunes were two officials with Trump's current White House team, raising even further the doubts about the credibility of the information.

Trump claimed early in March that Obama ordered telephone calls at New York's Trump Tower intercepted, but both the FBI and the National Security Agency have denied having any evidence supporting that accusation.

However, amid the process of interviews to determine what happened, Nunes insinuated that the president was monitored, although not directly, thus supporting  to a certain degree  Trump's claim, although without any proof.

The efficacy of the House committee, which to date had led the congressional investigations into Russian election meddling, has thus been thrown into doubt, whereupon the senators decided to intensify their own probe.

Although neither of the two lawmakers wanted to comment on the questionable conduct of Nunes, they made clear that their investigation will be completely independent.

If the lawmakers politicise the process, their efforts will probably fail, said Burr, one of the first lawmakers to support Trump during the campaign, regarding the need for a bipartisan and transparent investigation.

The Republican acknowledged that his committee's big challenge is to clarify for the public whether Trump's campaign colluded with the Russian government to interfere in the election, given that the Kremlin's efforts to influence the election have been confirmed by US intelligence agencies.

Warner said Thursday that he had been informed that Moscow hired about 1,000 hackers to spread fake news on the social networks about then-Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, whom Trump defeated in the November vote.
Shortly before midnight on Nov. 13, 2015, in an address intended to project an air of solemn strength but which nonetheless betrayed the bewilderment that now seems to permeate French public life, President Francois Hollande offered to the nation what little information he possessed about the atrocities then underway in Paris. There are dozens killed, there are many injured, Mr. Hollande said. It is a horror.
A pair of White House officials helped provide Representative Devin Nunes of California, a Republican and the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, with the intelligence reports that showed that President Trump and his associates were incidentally swept up in foreign surveillance by American spy agencies.
The USs national traditions of American exceptionalism and anti-imperialism perpetuate the myth that the US is not and has never been an empire. How can anyone forget George W Bushs infamous claim that the US was the only great power in history to have refused the opportunity to become an empire?
Potato prices have made a smart recovery in Burdwan district of West Bengal after the state government announced procurement of the vegetable to help farmers in distress.
Reacting to the Meerut Municipal Corporation's move to prohibit its members from attending a meeting as they refused to sing 'Vande Mataram', the Congress Party on Friday said that one cannot be held guilty and forced to sing the song until and unless there is a law which makes it compulsory.

Talking to ANI, Congress senior leader Oscar Fernandes said, "The question is about singing Vande Mataram. It is a song. But if any individual has any reservation and is not able to sing the song, we cannot hold him guilty of it, until and unless there is a law in the country which says one has to sing Vande Mataram."

Toeing similar sentiments, another party leader, P.L. Punia said it is very 'wrong to force' someone to sing the song.

"I don't want to go into their religious interpretations, but I believe there is no difference between 'Hindustan zindabad' and 'Vande Mataram'. Both the songs are for the country. But I would like to say it would be wrong to force someone to sing," he added.

However, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Jagdambika Pal said a person, who is an Indian citizen, should not have a problem to sing Vande Mataram.

The Meerut Municipal Corporation has prohibited its members from attending a meeting after they refused to sing 'Vande Mataram'.

The resolution was proposed by Mayor Harikant Ahluwalia after some councillors, belonging to the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Opposition, clashed over the national song.

All seven corporators, who refused to attend the meeting, were from the minority community. They left the session soon after rest of the members started singing Vande Mataram.

There is also a proposal to terminate the membership of those councillors.

The meeting had earlier on Tuesday started with Ahluwalia asking all members to stand up and sing the national song.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Chinese President Xi Jinping will meet U.S. President Donald Trump next week in Florida, after paying a state visit to Finland.

"At the invitations of President Sauli Niinisto of the Republic of Finland and President Donald Trump of the United States of America, Chinese President Xi Jinping will pay a state visit to Finland from April 4 to 6, and will meet with President Trump in Mar-a-lago, Florida, from April 6 to 7," China's Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Lu Kang's said in a press conference.

Lu said, over the past 38 years after the establishment of diplomatic ties between China and the US, the two countries' economic and trade relations have grown exponentially, bringing tangible benefits to the business circles and consumers.

"We are willing to work with the US to expand areas of cooperation and to properly handle economic and trade frictions through dialogue and communication on the basis of mutual respect and win-win cooperation, so as to ensure the healthy and steady growth of Sino-US economic and trade ties," he added.

White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer said in a statement that President Trump will host his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping at Mar-a-Lago from April 6 to 7.

"The two leaders will discuss global, regional, and bilateral issues of mutual concern. The President and the First Lady will also host President Xi and Madame Peng Liyuan at a dinner on the evening of April 6," Spicer said.

This would be the first in-person meeting between Trump and Xi, amidst the heightened tensions in the region, particularly the increasing North Korean nuclear threat.

Trump had accused Beijing for not helping with efforts to contain North Korea.

China had then said that its efforts and contributions for the same are internationally acknowledged, adding all sides should avoid actions that may result in escalation of tensions.

During the presidential campaign, Trump repeatedly railed against the trade imbalance between the United States and China.

He even promised to formally label China as a currency manipulator on his first day in office, but is yet to do so.

U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, during his recent China visit, met President Xi and both agreed there are opportunities for greater cooperation between the two sides while acknowledging that there are, and will be in the future, differences between the two countries.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The Delhi High Court on Friday dismissed Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh's plea challenging the FIR filed by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in the Disproportionate Assets (DA) case.

The CBI had registered an FIR for alleged property of Rs. six crore amassed between 2009-12 during Virbhadra's tenure as the union steel minister.

The Chief Minister had earlier dubbed the CBI action as "politically motivated".

Virbhadra and his family members are also facing investigation by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) on same charges.

The CBI had registered a case earlier in 2015.

Virbhadra had initially filed a plea in the Himachal Pradesh High Court for quashing the FIR registered against him.

The matter was later transferred to the Delhi High Court by the Supreme Court.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
New Delhi [India], Mar. 31 (ANI): Remembering the glorious past on the last day and last show of Delhi's premier theatre, Regal Cinema, its owner nodded in affirmation that it's not the end. Rather, it will take them a year to come back as a multiplex to relive the past glory again.

While talking to ANI yesterday here, one of its owner Vishal Chaudhary said, "I am feeling very nostalgic that today is the last show. But, it was inevitable and we could see it coming. People are feeling sad about it, but it's not the end. We are going to open up soon and it will take us a year's time to come back again."

Adding, "It's such a historic place and we want Regal to relive its glorious past again. We want to relive that past again."

Talking about restoring back the glory of Regal to its hay day, Smita Datta Makhija, consolation architect of Regal Cinema said, "Only thing that we wish is to restore back the glory of this place."

While sharing the fond memories of the movie theatre, an entrepreneur Keval Panjrath, who came for to witness the last day last show, said, "I am coming here since the time I got married in early 80s and its 37 years now. Today, I have come to watch the last show in this theater 'Sangam' as I share many beautiful memories of it."

Getting nostalgic about the closing of an age old cinema, another guest, Ashok Ahuja, said, "Two days back I read in newspaper that Regal Theater is about to close. Since then, I am trying to buy a ticket for the movie. We (Me and my wife) have a different attachment with this theater, an attachment from long."

Regal was among the earliest to lend its screen to arthouse fare. Films of Mrinal Sen, Shyam Benegal and later Goutam Ghose were played to discerning audiences.

The arthouse fare usually started in daily four shows but settled for a longer innings in the morning show.

The hall had 154 balcony seats, rear star 285, box 40 and 179 front seats.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
GLA University, one of the leading University in UP has been accredited by the National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC) with 'A' Grade.

NAAC is an autonomous body established by the University Grants Commission (UGC), New Delhi to assess and accredit institutions of higher education in the country.

A Committee constituted by NAAC visited GLA University from 20-22nd February, 2017 for a detailed assessment on the basis of the defined criteria like curricular aspects; teaching- learning and evaluation; research, consultancy and extension; infrastructure and learning resources; student support and progression; governance, leadership and management; innovation and best practices.

"NAAC never compromises on their evaluation standards and this

recognition will inspire our team to aim for better performance in future. I am really proud and congratulate all my fellow members and motivate them to keep going as a strong team, like we have been for over 19 years now. It will open up several interesting possibilities for future growth of the University such as planning for additional campus across North India and expanding our Mathura campus", said Narayan Das Agrawal, Chancellor, GLA University.

The result was announced on 28th March 2017. This accreditation is valid for five years.

"We constantly keep trying to touch greater heights. This accreditation reinforces our commitment to deliver quality professional education to our students and promote the overall growth and development of intellect and personality of our prime stakeholders, namely students, so that our alumni are worthy citizens and highly sought-after professionals worldwide. It is because of the dedicated efforts of the members of the teaching and non-teaching staff, that we have been able to build this respectable reputation for our institution. This accreditation is a certification of credibility that companies in the corporate recognize while recruiting candidates," said Ashok Kumar Singh, Registrar, GLA University.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Dubbing the Naxals attack at Odisha's Doikallu railway station as 'desperation', the Biju Janata Dal (BJD) on Friday said the Government of India and the state government should not bow down to these kinds of pressure tactics.

"Neither the Government of India nor the Government of Odisha should bow down to such pressure tactics and we should do what is going on...strong action against them, rooting them out, combing operations as well as development of Odisha," BJD leader Jay Panda told ANI.

Asserting that the Maoist movement is not a new thing, Panda said it tries to disrupt and affect governance in these areas.

"A few decades ago they may have had some genuine grievances because of lack of development. But today the activities that they are indulging in are extortion, they are extorting money from contractors, they are stopping work when roads are being built. They are trying to develop their own parallel system of governance and that is why they are putting up posters against the government," he added.

"Their peak influence or power was about a decade ago. If you look at the situation over the last few years, there have been tremendous actions coordinated between Union Government and state government. Harsh action has been taken against Naxalites and Maoists. Also at the same time, a lot of developmental work has happened. So, I think it is desperation and we should not get intimidated by that," Panda said.

More than 30 Naxals attacked Doikallu railway station in Odisha's Rayagada district protesting Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to the state on April 15.

The Naxals caused two explosions and also left posters protesting Prime Minister Modi's upcoming visit to Odisha.

The ultras fled with two walkie-talkie sets.

"Last night, Naxals entered the railway stationn and kept IED inside room and damaged an engine. An investigation is currently underway," Director General of Police K.B. Singh said.

Notably, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) will hold its two-day executive meeting in the Odisha capital from April 15, to be attended by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, party president Amit Shah, senior leader L.K. Advani and others.

Senior party leader M.M. Joshi, Home Minister Rajnath Singh, Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj, Union Minister Venkaiah Naidu and other party leaders will be among those present at the meeting.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The Gujarat State Assembly on Friday amended its Cow Protection Law introducing a life term for those slaughtering the animal.

The Animal Preservation (Amendment) Act of 2011 earlier had a seven-year sentence and Rs 50,000-fine levied for those found guilty of slaughtering a cow or transporting beef.

Earlier, Gujarat Chief Minister Vijay Rupani had hinted that his government is thinking of introducing a Bill in the Assembly with more stringent punishments for slaughtering the animal.

The move comes months before the Gujarat Assembly polls.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Asserting that India's strength was its ability to manage diversity and forge unity in divergence, President Pranab Mukherjee on Friday stated that Indians were argumentative but never intolerant.

President Mukherjee made the statement while inaugurating the 'Namami Brahmaputra' festival in Guwahati, Assam.

Speaking on the occasion, the President said Assam is emerging as an economic hub of East India and South East Asia, adding that it is the gateway and most effective location to put into effect the Prime Minister's Act East policy.

Stating that India will soon celebrate 25 years of its association with ASEAN, the President said that South East Asia is an important destination for India's investment and trade.

Highlighting Assam's immense potential, President Mukherjee said the state is rich in natural resources and its people are hard working, adding that what is needed is strong drive, right policies and effective implementation.

Referring to the diverse and distinctive culture of Assam, the President said India's strength was its ability to manage diversity and forge unity in divergence, further asserting that it was not just the elites but also the common people who were firmly committed to trust, mutual understanding and harmony.

Noting that Indians were argumentative but never intolerant, the President said that the country's traditions, including the teachings of Assam's great scholar and social reformer Shankaradev never allowed the practice of intolerance.

Recognizing Brahmaputra River as the lifeline of Assam and the region, the President said that it is intertwined into the economy, culture and day-to-day life of the people of the area through which it flows.

He complimented the State Government for having started 'Namami Brahmaputra' as an annual festival to showcase Assam's culture as well as potential.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The Supreme Court will on Friday hear the plea filed by the Students' Islamic Organisation (SIO) for approving Urdu as one of the regional languages to be allowed in the Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET) by the Medical Council of India (MCI).

The Central government had earlier told the Supreme Court that it was open to the idea of conducting NEET in Urdu language from next session since the application process for this year had already ended.

It had also said that no state had approached it with request for holding NEET in Urdu when a meeting was held on November 16, 2016 with state ministers.

As per the official notification by the Central Broad of Secondary Education (CBSE), the NEET will be held in 10 languages -- Hindi, English, Assamese, Bengali, Gujarati, Marathi, Tamil, Telugu, Oriya and Kannada.

March 1 was the last date for the NEET online application and the exams will be conducted on May 7.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Nine Malaysians who were stranded in North Korea following a diplomatic stand-off post the assassination of Kim Jong -Un's half brother Kim Jong- Nam, have arrived in Kuala Lumpur.

A diplomatic row ensued between between Malaysia and North Korea after Jong- Nam was killed with the lethal nerve agent VX on February 13 at Kuala Lampur airport, triggering the expulsion of each other's ambassadors and a barr on their citizens from leaving.

However North Korean state media on Thursday said both countries would lift their respective travel bans, and Kuala Lumpur would send the body of Jong-Nam to North Korea.

Singapore's daily Strait Times quoted Malaysian Foreign Minister Anifah Aman, as saying that the investigation into the murder of Jong-Nam would continue "to bring the perpetrators to justice".

"There can be no substitute for diplomacy, for level-headedness in dealing with such situations, and this has served Malaysia well in this instance," he said.

Yesterday, following the deal, Malaysian Prime Miniter Mohammad Najib Tun Razak declared, through Twitter, that the "diplomatic crisis is over".

"Following the completion of the autopsy on the deceased and receipt of a letter from his family requesting the remains be returned to North Korea, the coroner has approved the release of the body," Prime Minister Najib said in a statement.

South Korea has blamed Pyongyang for the assassination, and Kuala Lumpur has sought several North Koreans for questioning, although the only one it arrested was released for lack of evidence.

However, Pyongyang has denied this and denounced Malaysia's investigation as an attempt to smear the secretive regime.

So far, two women - one Indonesian and one Vietnamese - have been detained, along with a North Korean man. Seven other North Koreans have been named as suspects or are wanted for questioning.

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At least 12 people were killed and hundred others injured in a suicide blast at a Shia Mosque in Pakistan's Parachinar city on Friday.

The Express Tribune quoting an eyewitness stated that the blast took place neat the mosque's female entrance when an unidentified person parked a car next to the building.

Sajid Hussain, a parliamentarian from Parachinar, said that it was a suicide attack.

"The attack took place in a busy area and a women's mosque appears to be the target," he said.

Meanwhile, the security officials and rescue teams have been rushed to the spot. The area has been cordoned off after the blast.

Pakistan's military media wing ISPR said that a chopper has been dispatched to the blast site to shift the injured to nearby hospitals.

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has expressed grief over the blast and condemned the attack.

"It is our responsibility to continue the war against terrorists," the Express Tribune quoted Sharif as saying.

Meanwhile, Pakistan's Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar has ordered an inquiry into the matter.

The attack takes place a year after 21 people were killed when an explosion hit a vegetable market in Parachinar, near the border with Afghanistan.

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Expressing concerns over the safety of Jinnah House, the erstwhile residence of Muhammad Ali Jinnah in Mumbai, Pakistan has asked India to protect the property.

This came after Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MLA Mangal Prabhat Lodha demanded the demolition of the house.

"Jinnah House in Mumbai was the residence with ownership of the father of the nation, Quaid-e-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah. Pakistan has repeatedly expressed its desire to take possession of the property. The Government of India should respect the ownership rights of the Government of Pakistan in this regard," Pakistan's Foreign Office Spokesperson Nafees Zakaria said during a press conference.

"We also expect that Indian Government will fulfill its obligation of protecting that property and its upkeep," he added.

Lodha has sought the construction of a cultural centre in place of Jinnah House.

He had said that the Jinnah House is a symbol of partition and it needs to be demolished.

Zakaria said Pakistan has already taken this issue with India authorities and it is an ongoing matter.

"The property belongs to the Founder of Pakistan and should be given to Pakistan," he said.

The BJP MLA said this after the Parliament passed the Enemy Property Act, Jinnah House became the property of the Indian government.

"I am struggling for this for the last 15 years. I have raised this issue twice in the Vidhan Sabha. Jinnah House is an enemy property. The Government of India should hand it over to the Maharashtra Government. The Maharashtra Government should establish a culture centre there which projects Maharashtra's glory," Lodha told ANI.

The Enemy Property (Amendment and Validation) Bill, 2016, which amends the Enemy Property Act, 1968, was passed by a voice vote in the Lok Sabha on March 14, incorporating the amendments made by the Rajya Sabha.

As per the Act, successors of those who had migrated to Pakistan and China during partition will have no claim over the properties left behind in India.

The historic European-style building was designed by architect Claude Batley, construction for which commenced in 1936. Located in Malabar Hill, it was Jinnah's residence before the formation of Pakistan.

The property is currently under the possession of Indian External Affairs Ministry and there has been a long-standing proposal to set up a South Asian Centre for Arts and Culture within the premises.

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A busy yet highly industrious weekend awaits Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who has a smorgasbord of activities on his plate ranging from infrastructure, justice and diplomacy to spirituality and technology.

On April 1, Prime Minister Modi will be hosting his visiting Malaysian counterpart Najib Razak for bilateral talks at Delhi's Hyderabad House.

The very next day he will dedicate to the nation, India's longest road tunnel, the strategically crucial Chenani-Nashri Tunnel, which will significantly improve connectivity between Jammu and Srinagar.

After a visit to the state-of-the-art tunnel, he will also address a public meeting at Udhampur, sources state.

Later in the day, Prime Minister Modi will be at Allahabad to attend the closing celebrations of the 150th anniversary of the Allahabad High Court.

This weekend comes in the midst of the Chaitra Navratra - a nine-day period of fasting and spiritual importance for the Prime Minister.

Despite rigorous fasting and hectic schedule, Prime Minister Modi will take time out to address some of India's sharpest young "tech" brains, who are taking part in the final round of the Smart India Hackathon that will take place over two days from 8 a.m. Saturday until Sunday 8 p.m.

It will focus on social issues and problems identified by 29 Ministries and Departments of the Union Government. About 10,000 participants have qualified for the final round.

Prime Minister Modi will address the participants at 10 p.m. on Saturday. The address, expected to last for about 45 minutes, will be followed by an interaction with the participants across multiple locations.

The hackathon is scheduled for a 36-hour period from 8 a.m. Saturday to 8 p.m. Sunday. As 10,000 youth put their brains together to find innovative solutions to problems in the same 36-hour period, Prime Minister Modi will be focusing on a diverse range of topics from diplomacy to infrastructure, justice, technology and spirituality.

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The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) is to set up a separate Enforcement Department (EFD) proposed to be opened on April 3.

The initiative has been proposed to separate those who oversee the possible rule breaches and those who decide on punitive actions. It will hence, enable the enforcement process to operate fairly and based on evidence.

The EFD shall, inter alia, develop a broad policy for enforcement and initiate enforcement action against the Regulated Entities (REs) for violation consistent with such policy.

EFD would serve as a centralized department to deal with banks only for enforcement action.

This was stated by Minister of State in the Ministry of Finance Santosh Kumar Gangwar, in written reply to a question in the Lok Sabha today.

Currently for banks, the RBI has two departments, regulation and supervision.

Now with the third department of Enforcement, it will look after the issue of any violation by banks and impose penalty or issue warning.

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United States Court of Appeals, Third Circuit. JOSE RAFAEL LOPEZ MENDEZ, Petitioner v. THE ATTORNEY GENERAL OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Respondent No. 16-2786 Decided: March 28, 2017

Before: RESTREPO, SCIRICA and FISHER, Circuit Judges

OPINION*

Jose Rafael Lopez Mendez petitions for review of the final removal order of the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA). For the reasons that follow, we will deny the petition for review.

Lopez Mendez is a native and citizen of Guatemala. His removal proceedings began in 2010, on charges of removability as an alien present in the United States without admission or parole (8 U.S.C.  1182(a)(6)(A)(i)). Through counsel, Lopez Mendez conceded the charge of removability and designated Guatemala as the country of removal. He later filed an application for withholding of removal and deferral of removal under the United Nations Convention Against Torture (CAT), claiming that he feared being persecuted and tortured if he were to return to Guatemala.

During the proceedings before the Immigration Judge (IJ), Lopez Mendez described the dangerous conditions in Guatemala during the 1970s and 1980s, resulting from the conflict between the military and the guerillas. In 1982, after finishing high school, Lopez Mendez left Guatemala and came to the United States to work in construction, but he returned to Guatemala in 1985. In 1988, Lopez Mendez came back to the United States in order to provide a better life for his family. Lopez Mendez later learned that his father had been killed in El Salvador, the country of his father's birth, for political reasons. Lopez Mendez stated that he fears returning to Guatemala because of that country's current problems with gang violence, although he has not had prior interactions with gangs. He explained that he likely would become a truck driver, and that truck drivers are at risk of being kidnapped or killed by gang members if monetary payment demands are not fulfilled. He noted that there is no safety in Guatemala because the police are informers for the gangs. Lopez Mendez also explained that his father had been a very wealthy priest before being killed in El Salvador, and he believed that he would be targeted as his father's son. Lastly, Lopez Mendez argued that he feared future persecution as a member of a particular social group, that is, as a Guatemalan returning to the country upon removal, after having resided in the United States.

After considering Lopez Mendez's testimony and documentary evidence, the IJ denied Lopez Mendez's applications for relief and ordered his removal to Guatemala. Among other things, the IJ explained that Lopez Mendez failed to establish a link between his membership in his claimed particular social group and the harm that he claimed to fear, and that Lopez Mendez's vague claims of fear regarding the dangerous and violent conditions in Guatemala were insufficient for granting withholding of removal or CAT relief. The BIA dismissed Lopez Mendez's appeal, agreeing with the IJ's determination that Lopez Mendez did not meet his burden of proof for withholding of removal, even if he had established his membership in a particular social group. Noting the absence of any evidence of threats made against Lopez Mendez, the BIA concluded that he did not establish that he would be a target of persecution because of his fatherin either Guatemala or in El Salvadorand that his general fear of gang violence was not a basis for withholding of removal. Finally, the BIA found no clear error in the IJ's determination that Lopez Mendez failed to make the requisite showing for protection under the CAT. This pro se petition for review followed.

We have jurisdiction pursuant to 8 U.S.C.  1252(a). The BIA agreed with the IJ's decision and added its own reasoning, and thus, we review the decisions of both the IJ and the BIA. See Sandie v. Att'y Gen., 562 F.3d 246, 250 (3d Cir. 2009). We review the agency's factual determinations under the substantial evidence standard. See id. at 251. The agency's findings are considered conclusive unless any reasonable adjudicator would be compelled to conclude to the contrary. 8 U.S.C.  1252(b)(4)(B). We exercise de novo review over the agency's legal decisions. See Sandie, 562 F.3d at 251.

In his brief, Lopez Mendez contends that the agency's denial of his application for withholding of removal and for CAT protection was erroneous. He restates his claim that he would be the target of gang violence as a member of his father's family and as a young male returning to Guatemala after a long residence in the USA, noting that the Guatemalan government is unable and unwilling to control the gangs. Pet'r Br. at 2. Lopez Mendez relies on our decision in Shardar v. Att'y Gen., 503 F.3d 308, 317 (3d Cir. 2007), in which we found fault with the BIA's finding that the petitioner's situation was not appreciably different from the dangers faced by all his countrymen in Bangladesh. However, Shardar is distinguishable on its facts; there, the petitioner had suffered past persecution as a local political leader, and agents of the opposing political party had beaten and threatened the petitioner's brother, with specific inquiries regarding the petitioner's whereabouts. Thus, we concluded in Shardar that the evidence showed that the petitioner likely would be a specific target of persecution for his political beliefs. See id., 503 F.3d at 316-17 (discussing evidence presented in context of motion to reopen proceedings). Here, Lopez Mendez did not present evidence as to any specific threats made against him by Guatemalan gang members, or by anyone else, for any reasons. Although Lopez Mendez speculates that he might become a victim of crime in Guatemala, the evidence does not compel a finding that gang members have any particular interest in him. Lopez Mendez's general fear concerning prevalent gang activity in Guatemala, without more, does not establish his eligibility for withholding of removal. See Shehu v. Att'y Gen., 482 F.3d 652, 657 (3d Cir. 2007) (mistreatment resulting from gang's bare desire for money is not persecution on account of a protected ground); Abdille v. Ashcroft, 242 F.3d 477, 494-95 (3d Cir. 2001) (ordinary criminal activity does not rise to the level of persecution).

In addition, Lopez Mendez cites Camara v. Att'y Gen., 580 F.3d 196 (3d Cir. 2009), in support of his position that his testimony and evidence concerning current conditions in Guatemala, as well as concerning the death of his father at the hands of criminals, was sufficient to meet his burden of proof on his claims that he faces future persecution and torture. The situation presented in Camara was far different, however. The petitioner in Camara fled her native country after witnessing her father's abduction from the family home by armed men; those men had accused her father of supporting anti-government rebel forces and had threatened the entire family with harm. See id. at 198. In contrast, Lopez Mendez did not witness harm to his family members, he was never directly threatened with harm, and he was never forced to flee his home. There is no evidence that the tragedy of his father's death at the hands of criminals in El Salvador more than a decade ago will affect Lopez Mendez's safety if he now were to return to Guatemala. We discern no error in the BIA's conclusion that Lopez Mendez has not shown that it is more likely than not that he will suffer torture with the consent or acquiescence of government officials, as is required for obtaining CAT relief. See 8 C.F.R.  1208.16(c) and 1208.18(a).

We have considered the arguments in Lopez Mendez's brief and conclude that they are without merit. Accordingly, we will deny the petition for review. The motion to stay removal is denied.

FOOTNOTES

. Lopez Mendez's written statement supplied the year of his father's death as 1989, but he testified that his father was killed in 1999. Also, although Lopez Mendez testified as to his fear of harm in El Salvador, the designated country of removal is Guatemala.

. Lopez Mendez argued to the BIA that the IJ's denial of his motion to change venue constituted a denial of due process. He does not pursue this claim in his brief, so we will not consider it here.

. Lopez Mendez states in his brief that his attorney did not properly present his claim of his membership in a particular social group, and that the IJ erroneously denied him temporary protected status (TPS). Because Lopez Mendez did not exhaust his administrative remedies on these issues, we lack jurisdiction to consider them. See 8 U.S.C.  1252(d)(1).

PER CURIAM
The Supreme Court on Friday asked Calcutta High Court Justice C.S. Karnan, who has levelled allegations of corruption and caste discrimination against senior judges of the Madras High Court and the apex court, to file his reply within four weeks.

Justice Karnan, who today appeared before the apex court after a bailable warrant was issued against him, asked the top court to restore his judicial and administrative work before responding to the contempt notice.

"Please permit me to perform my judicial and administrative work," Justice Karnan told an apex court bench headed by Chief Justice of India Jagdish Singh Khehar.

However, the apex court bench refused to pay heed to his plea and said, "If you remain apologetic then the matter would be different."

Justice Karnan in his reply told the court that his statement should be recorded so that he does not have to appear during the next hearing.

After conclusion of the hearing, Justice Karnan told the media that he would pass on order against the seven judges of the bench to restrain their administrative power.

"I ordered the registrar general of the Supreme Court that he deduct 50, 000 every month from the salary of these seven judges of the bench who defied to pay me the compensation of Rs. 14 crore which I have demanded through a letter dated 15/03/2017 for defamation," he said.

He alleged that these seven judges of the Supreme Court were operating on malafide intentions.

"The attitude and the behavior was against Indian norms and construction. This sort of behavior will not only be known to Indians but the international community," he said.

Earlier this month, the Supreme Court had issued a bailable warrant against Justice Karnan to secure his presence in the court on March 31.

This is for the first time in the history of Indian judiciary that a sitting High Court Judge is personally appearing before the apex court and defending himself in a case.

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Shadab Khan produced another match-winning bowling performance as Pakistan grabbed a nerve-wracking three-run victory over West Indies in the second Twenty20 of the four-match series here at the Queen's Park Oval on Friday.

Chasing a relatively modest target of 133 runs to level the series following their six-wicket defeat in the opening match in Barbados, West Indies were restricted to 129 for eight to slump to their fifth consecutive T20 defeat at the hands of the visitors.

Marlon Samuels was the backbone of the home side's innings as he smashed crucial 44-run knock before falling prey to the last ball of 18-year-old Shadab's masterful spell.

Meanwhile, Jason Holder remained unbeaten at 26.

For Pakistan, Shadab finished with figures of four for 14 while Hasan Ali and Wahab Riaz also chipped in with a wicket each.

Earlier, after being asked to bat first, Pakistan struggled to gain any sort of batting momentum against the twin spin duo of Sunil Narine and Samuel Badree.

While Narine and Carlos Brathwaite bagged three wickets each, Badree added two wickets in his account. Kesrick Williams also contributed with a wicket.

Shadab was declared 'Man of the Match' for his brilliant contribution with the ball.

Pakistan now hold an unbeatable 2-0 lead ahead of the final two matches at the weekend back at the same venue.

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A Special Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) court on Friday adjourned the hearing in the Sheena Bora murder case till April 21.

Earlier on Thursday, the CBI court deferred the trial after defense protested over the non-appearance of approver and first witness Shyamvar Rai, who was Indrani Mukerjea's former driver.

In January, the special court had charged Indrani, her husband Peter Mukerjea and her ex-husband Sanjeev Khanna with murder and criminal conspiracy in connection with this case.

The murder, which took place on April 24, 2012, came to light in 2015 with the arrest of Rai, who later turned approver for the CBI.

Indrani, Khanna and Rai have been accused of strangling 24-year-old Sheena - Indrani's daughter from a previous relationship-on April 24, 2012. Her burnt body was dumped in a bag in the forests in Raigad district near Mumbai.

The trio was arrested in August 2015, while Peter was arrested later in November 19 that year.

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The European Investment Bank today confirmed new support for solar power generation in India in partnership with the State Bank of India.

The EUR 200 million (INR1,400 Crores) long-term loan will support total investment of EUR 650 million in five different large-scale photo-voltaic solar power projects and contribute to India's National Solar mission and reduce dependence on fossil fuel power generation, said an official statement.

Four schemes across the country, with a generation capacity of 530 MWac, have already been identified.

The loan agreement was formally announced in New Delhi ahead of the inauguration of the first permanent presence in India of the European Investment Bank by Finance Minister Jaitley, European Investment Bank President Werner Hoyer and Vice President Andrew McDowell, responsible operations in India and South Asia.

"The new cooperation between the State Bank of India and the European Investment Bank will scale up investment in large scale solar power generation across India. Close cooperation between technical and financial teams from both institutions will ensure that world class projects are supported." highlighted Mr B Sriram, Managing Director, State Bank of India.

"Large scale investment in renewable power is essential to enhance affordable, reliable and sustainable energy. The European Investment Bank is pleased to strengthen our close partnership with the State Bank of India to support world class solar energy developments that will make a significant contribution to India's ambitious renewable energy goals. Unlocking new investment in large scale solar generation is crucial to ensure that renewable energy plays a leading role in India's energy mix in the years ahead. This new project reflects the shared commitment of India and the European Union to tackle climate change and implement the Paris Climate Agreement." said Andrew McDowell, Vice President of the European Investment Bank, speaking at the start of a four day official visit to India.

The EUR 200 million 20 year long-term European Investment Bank loan will support individual projects following technical and financial due diligence. It is expected that projects in Telangana and Tamil Nadu states, and elsewhere in the country, will be backed by the new initiative. The European Investment Bank will support investment in individual solar projects alongside financing from Indian banks and project promoters.

The entire process of arranging the loan was facilitated by SBI's subsidiary, SBI Capital Markets.

"This new initiative demonstrates the European Investment Bank's commitment to support climate related investment and sustainable development around the world and here in Asia. We are pleased to highlight the importance of this project and renewable energy investment in India at the opening of our new Representation to South Asia in New Delhi," added Vice President McDowell.

The European Investment Bank has financed projects totalling EUR 1.7 billion (approx.INR 11,900 crores) in India since 1993. Last year the European Investment Bank Group provided EUR 84 billion to finance new investment around the world, including EUR 19.6 billion for climate related investment.

Earlier in the day, Dr. Werner Hoyer, President of the European Investment Bank called on Prime Minister Narendra Modi and appreciated India's strong and proactive measures in the field of climate change, and expressed the bank's continued support for India's efforts in this direction.

The Prime Minister had met a high level delegation of the European Investment Bank a year ago at the EU-India summit and promised support for establishment of the bank's regional office in Delhi. This office was inaugurated today.

In course of the conversation today the Prime Minister explained India's policies in the areas of climate change and environmental sustainability.

The European Investment Bank has lent over one billion Euros to India towards environmentally sustainable projects including the Lucknow Metro.

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The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Friday filed a chargesheet against Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh in the Disproportionate Assets (DA) case.

The chargesheet also contains the name of Singh's wife Pratibha along with others, bringing the total upto nine.

Life Insurance Corporation agent Anand Chauhan, his associate Chunni Lal, Joginder Singh Ghalta, Prem Raj, Lawan Kumar Roach, Vakamullah Chandrashekhra and Ram Prakash Bhatia have been named in the chargesheet.

The fresh blow to the Chief Minister comes after the Delhi High Court dismissed his plea challenging the FIR filed by the CBI in the Disproportionate Assets case.

The CBI had registered an FIR for alleged property of Rs. six crore amassed between 2009-12 during Virbhadra's tenure as the union steel minister.

The Chief Minister had earlier dubbed the CBI action as "politically motivated".

Virbhadra and his family members are also facing investigation by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) on same charges.

The CBI had registered a case earlier in 2015.

Virbhadra had initially filed a plea in the Himachal Pradesh High Court for quashing the FIR registered against him.

The matter was later transferred to the Delhi High Court by the Supreme Court.

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U.S. President Donald Trump is expecting a very difficult meeting with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping, which is scheduled next week.

"The meeting next week with China will be a very difficult one in that we can no longer have massive trade deficits and job losses. American companies must be prepared to look at other alternatives," Trump tweeted.

Chinese President Xi Jinping will be meeting Trump next week in Florida, after paying a state visit to Finland.

"At the invitations of President Sauli Niinisto of the Republic of Finland and President Donald Trump of the United States of America, Chinese President Xi Jinping will pay a state visit to Finland from April 4 to 6, and will meet with President Trump in Mar-a-lago, Florida, from April 6 to 7," China's Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Lu Kang's said in a press conference.

Lu said, over the past 38 years after the establishment of diplomatic ties between China and the US, the two countries' economic and trade relations have grown exponentially, bringing tangible benefits to the business circles and consumers.

"We are willing to work with the US to expand areas of cooperation and to properly handle economic and trade frictions through dialogue and communication on the basis of mutual respect and win-win cooperation, so as to ensure the healthy and steady growth of Sino-US economic and trade ties," he added.

White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer said in a statement that President Trump will host his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping at Mar-a-Lago from April 6 to 7.

"The two leaders will discuss global, regional, and bilateral issues of mutual concern. The President and the First Lady will also host President Xi and Madame Peng Liyuan at a dinner on the evening of April 6," Spicer said.

This would be the first in-person meeting between Trump and Xi, amidst the heightened tensions in the region, particularly the increasing North Korean nuclear threat.

Trump had accused Beijing for not helping with efforts to contain North Korea.

China had then said that its efforts and contributions for the same are internationally acknowledged, adding all sides should avoid actions that may result in escalation of tensions.

During the presidential campaign, Trump repeatedly railed against the trade imbalance between the United States and China.

He even promised to formally label China as a currency manipulator on his first day in office, but is yet to do so.

U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, during his recent China visit, met President Xi and both agreed there are opportunities for greater cooperation between the two sides while acknowledging that there are, and will be in the future, differences between the two countries.

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The Samajwadi Party (SP) advised the Uttar Pradesh Government on Friday to reconsider putting a ban on slaughter houses because this may lead to unemployment and affect the livelihood of small meat vendors in the state.

Samajwadi Party leader Naresh Agarwal said the ban on slaughter houses in Uttar Pradesh may create panic.

"It may also lead to unemployment for thousands of people, who are engaged in meat trade," Agarwal told ANI.

He also claimed that more than 70 percent of meat is consumed by Hindus as compared to Muslims.

Following the strike called by the meat sellers in Uttar Pradesh, the slaughter house association on Tuesday said that they do not want to make it difficult for the people and called on the state government to think about the livelihood of the shop owners.

"Every meat shop in Uttar Pradesh is unable to continue with their work as slaughter houses are being shut down in the state. The government will have to think about our livelihood as around 65 percent of Uttar Pradesh consumes meat," Shameem Qureshi, the president of slaughter house association, said.

He added that the association has asked the government to allow the functioning of meat shops till the time systematic facilities are not set up.

"We have also asked the Municipal corporations and Zila Panchayat to assign a place far from the population so that people are not disturbed with the animal slaughter," Qureshi said.

He further said Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath has assured that the meat sellers will not be harassed on this matter and discussion will take place with the association soon.

"We are told that the police cannot stop legalised slaughter houses from functioning," he said.

On Monday, in an official release, the state asked closure of illegal slaughter houses in view of the overall public order, safety and health of the general public

Slaughter house owners and meat sellers in Uttar Pradesh have closed their shops following an indefinite strike call by different associations.

The strike was against the government's crackdown on illegal slaughter houses and retail meat shops.

According to reports, slaughter house owners and meat retailers are also protesting against raids by municipal authorities and police, alleging exploitation by the authorities.

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Lauding Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led NDA regime as 'pro-farmer government', Union Human Resource and Development (HRD) Minister Prakash Javadekar on Friday alleged that water crisis and farmers' suicide are contributions of the Congress Party.

Responding to a poser on Rahul Gandhi's accusation that Prime Minister Narendra Modi neglected the farmers of the country while helping the rich, Javadekar said that he would not like to comment on the charges levelled by a 'rejected' Congress vice-president.

"I do not comment on those who are defeated and frustrated people. Under Modi ji, there is a pro-farmer government and it is doing its work well," Javadekar told ANI.

"Water crisis and farmers' suicides are contributions of the Congress Party. We are rectifying these things and we are confident of getting success," he added.

Gandhi, who today met Tamil Nadu farmers protesting at Delhi's Jantar Mantar for over two weeks, said it is Prime Minister Modi's responsibility to listen to their problems and resolve them.

"The PM has given debt relief to richest people in the country, why not for the people who have built this country - the farmers," he said in an apparent reference to liquor baron Vijay Mallya.

Earlier, DMK MP Kanimozhi also met the protesting Tamil Nadu farmers.

"They are protesting for more than 18 days demanding loan waiver. Crops have dried and there is no water. Tamil Nadu has not seen such a drought. The Central Government has not responded so far. The farmers are not being assured from the Centre," Kanimozhi told the media here.

The farmers, who have been protesting in the capital since March 21 with human skulls which they claim are of farmers who committed suicide, have been demanding that their loans from nationalised banks be forgiven, fair and just prices be set for their produce besides realistic solutions to address water scarcity in the state.

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Berger Paints India said it has commenced commercial production of its integrated paint and putty plant at Naltali, Nagaon, Assam on 30 March 2017. The plant has an annual capacity of 48,000 KL/MT per annum of water based paints, 24,000 KL of solvent based paints, 14,000 MT of Resin and 24,000 MT of wall putty. Thus, Berger Paints India has now commenced production at two of its plants in Assam - one for the Berger Division at Naltali and the other for the British Paints Division at Nalbari. The announcement was made after market hours yesterday, 30 March 2017.

NTPC said that consequent upon testing and commissioning, 260 megawatts (MW) capacity (4x65 MW) of Bhadla solar PV project at Bhadla Rajasthan, is declared on commercial operation on 25 March 2017. With this, the commercial capacity of NTPC and NTPC group has become 40,522 MW and 47,293 MW respectively. The announcement was made after market hours yesterday, 30 March 2017.

TCS said that the company has collaborated with SATS, Asia's leading provider of airport ground handling and food solutions services, to develop a smart watch solution that is believed to be the world's first mobile solution for airport Technical Ramp operations. The Technical Ramp Smart Watch solution is now supporting SATS' operations at Singapore's Changi Airport, a leading global hub of travel, technology adoption and efficiency. The announcement was made after market hours yesterday, 30 March 2017.

Jindal Steel & Power (JSPL) said its board at a meeting held yesterday, 30 March 2017, approved issue of 4.80 crore convertible warrants to Opelina Finance and Investment, a promoter group entity on preferential basis, subject to the approval of the shareholders of the company and other necessary regulatory approvals. The board also approved the issue of 14.20 lakh equity shares to Nalwa Steel & Power on preferential basis, subject to the approval of the shareholders of the company and other necessary regulatory approvals. The announcement was made after market hours yesterday, 30 March 2017.

State Bank of Travancore (SBT) said it has allotted Basel III compliant Additional Tier 1 Bonds aggregating to Rs 300 crore, for inclusion in Tier 1 Capital of the bank, on private placement basis with call option on 30 March 2022. The coupon rate is 9% per annum. The announcement was made after market hours yesterday, 30 March 2017.

Central Bank of India said that the capital raising committee of the board of directors of the bank at its meeting held on 30 March 2017, approved raising of equity capital by conversion of entire IPDI capital of Rs 583.00 crore held by Government of India (GoI), into equity shares to be issued and allotted to GoI on preferential basis, at such conversion price as may be determined as per SEBI ICDR Regulations subject to requisite approvals. The announcement was made after market hours yesterday, 30 March 2017.

Bharat Financial Inclusion said it has assigned a pool of receivables of an aggregate value of Rs 192.58 crore to one of the largest public sector banks on a direct assignment basis as per the guidelines prescribed by the Reserve Bank of India. This is the third direct assignment transaction during FY17. The aggregate value of the three direct assignment transactions is Rs 778.09 crore. The announcement was made after market hours yesterday, 30 March 2017.

Indiabulls Housing Finance said it has allotted its twelfth and thirteenth tranche of secured, redeemable, non-convertible debentures aggregating to Rs 485 crore. The announcement was made after market hours yesterday, 30 March 2017.

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Bharat Wire Ropes rose 3.49% to Rs 97.90 at 11:16 IST on BSE after OSAG Enterprises LLP bought 18.84 lakh shares of the company from Visu Associates at Rs 91.75 per share in a bulk deal yesterday, 30 March 2017.

Meanwhile, the S&P BSE Sensex was down 64.61 points or 0.22% at 29,582.81. The S&P BSE Small-Cap index was up 78.96 points or 0.55% at 14,410.21.

On the BSE, 47,000 shares were traded on the counter so far as against the average daily volumes of 1.58 lakh shares in the past one quarter. The stock had hit a high of Rs 99 and a low of Rs 94.95 so far during the day. It had hit a record high of Rs 120.50 on 30 January 2017 and a record low of Rs 38 on 31 May 2016.

The small-cap company has equity capital of Rs 44.95 crore. Face value per share is Rs 10.

Bharat Wire Ropes' net profit rose 110% to Rs 0.42 crore on 28.7% decline in net sales to Rs 16.44 crore in Q3 December 2016 over Q3 December 2015.

Bharat Wire Ropes is engaged in manufacturing of wire ropes and slings for use in a varied list of application/industries such as general engineering, fishing, elevators, cranes, material handling, onshore/offshore oil exploration, ports and shipping and mining.

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United States Court of Appeals, Third Circuit. ANDY RIVERA-RODRIGUEZ, Appellant v. THE ATTORNEY GENERAL OF THE STATE OF PENNSYLVANIA; SUPERINTENDENT GRATERFORD SCI; THE DISTRICT ATTORNEY OF LANCASTER COUNTY No. 16-2510 Decided: March 28, 2017

Before: HARDIMAN and KRAUSE, Circuit Judges, and STENGEL, District Judge.*

OPINION**

Andy Rivera-Rodriguez appeals an order of the District Court denying his petition for a writ of habeas corpus pursuant to 28 U.S.C.  2254. Because Rivera-Rodriguez has not satisfied his onerous burden under the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA), we will affirm.

I

On the evening of January 17, 2004, Rivera-Rodriguez was a passenger in a vehicle owned by Ryan Gardina and operated by Esteban Torres-Sanchez. Police stopped the vehicle for driving without lights and took Torres-Sanchez into custody. Gardina was not in the vehicle when it was stopped and he was reported missing the next day by his family. The day Gardina was reported missing, a police detective went to Rivera-Rodriguez's home, but he wasn't found there, so the detective left word that he would like to speak with Rivera-Rodriguez about Gardina's whereabouts. Later that evening, a few hours after Gardina's dead body was found near Torres-Sanchez's home, Rivera-Rodriguez voluntarily went to the police station. After receiving multiple Miranda warnings, Rivera-Rodriguez confessed to helping Torres-Sanchez murder Gardina. Rivera-Rodriguez was charged accordingly with, among other things, criminal homicide and robbery. The Commonwealth sought the death penalty.

Prior to the events of January 2004, Rivera-Rodriguez had a history of intellectual disability diagnoses. Multiple psychologists and doctors assessed him during his youth as suffering from moderate mental retardation, along with other intellectual disabilities. Following arrests as a young man, Rivera-Rodriguez was twice committed to Pennsylvania Secure Treatment Units, where mental health evaluations confirmed his disability.

Aware of Rivera-Rodriguez's disability, counsel filed a motion to suppress his confession alleging, inter alia, that his client's waiver of Miranda rights could not have been knowing, intelligent, or voluntary. Counsel retained two experts to support his argument: Dr. Dixon Miller and Dr. Jerome Gottlieb. Dr. Miller testified in the suppression hearing as to Rivera-Rodriguez's intellectual disabilities, including his evaluation that Rivera-Rodriguez had an IQ of about 58. The Commonwealth in turn provided testimony that: (1) Rivera-Rodriguez's interviews with police evidenced an understanding of the right to remain silent, and (2) Rivera-Rodriguez's prior encounters with the criminal justice system showed an ability to understand Miranda warnings generally. The trial court found that Rivera-Rodriguez had sufficient mental capacity to understand and waive his Miranda rights and denied the motion to suppress. App. 81011.

After the motion to suppress was denied, Rivera-Rodriguez's counsel struck a deal with the Commonwealth to take the death penalty off the table in exchange for Rivera-Rodriguez's waiver of his right to a jury trial. The judge found Rivera-Rodriguez guilty and sentenced him to life in prison. The sentence was upheld on appeal.

Rivera-Rodriguez sought relief under the Pennsylvania Post Conviction Relief Act (PCRA), 42 Pa. Cons. Stat.  9543. He argued that trial counsel was ineffective for waiving his right to a jury trial because he was ineligible for the death penalty under Atkins v. Virginia, 536 U.S. 304 (2002). At a hearing, Rivera-Rodriguez's trial counsel testified that he was aware of both Atkins and his client's intellectual disabilities and IQ tests. App. 797. But counsel also noted that Dr. Gottlieb mentionedconsistent with at least one other medical recordthat Rivera-Rodriguez appeared to be functioning at a higher IQ level than he tests. App. 799. Additionally, counsel testified that the Commonwealth was prepared to submit evidence that Rivera-Rodriguez was capable of normal functioning, including: employment and relationship history, testimony from friends that he appeared normal, and evidence that he planned this offense and others. Id. In view of the fairly nebulous definition of adaptive functioning at the time, counsel decided it was uncertain whether a judge or jury would find Rivera-Rodriguez ineligible for the death penalty. Id. The PCRA court denied relief, and its decision was affirmed on appeal.

Rivera-Rodriguez subsequently filed an untimely federal habeas petition again asserting ineffective assistance of counsel. The District Court granted equitable tolling of the petition, finding that Rivera-Rodriguez's mental disability prevented him from understanding the nature of a deadline. The District Court denied his claim on the merits, however, holding that the state court did not err when it found that counsel was not deficient in bargaining, as evidence existed that Rivera-Rodriguez possessed some adaptive skills and the definition of mental retardation under Atkins was a legal uncertainty. Rivera-Rodriguez v. Superintendent Wenerowicz S.C.I. Graterford, 2016 WL 1592949, at *3 n.3 (E.D. Pa. Apr. 21, 2016). The District Court granted a certificate of appealability on his claim of ineffectiveness of counsel as to the waiver of his right to a jury trial. Id. at *3. This appeal followed.

II 2

We review the District Court's findings of fact for clear error and its conclusions of law de novo. Love v. Morton, 112 F.3d 131, 133 (3d Cir. 1997). Under AEDPA, we may reverse the state court judgment only if it was contrary to, or involved an unreasonable application of, clearly established Federal law, as determined by the Supreme Court of the United States or was based on an unreasonable determination of the facts in light of the evidence presented. 28 U.S.C.  2254(d); see also Williams v. Taylor, 529 U.S. 362, 384 (2000).

III

To prevail on an ineffective assistance of counsel claim, a defendant must show deficient performance and prejudice. See Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 687 (1984). As to the first Strickland prong, Rivera-Rodriguez must convince us of two propositions. First, no reasonable factfinder could have found him death-eligible under Atkins. Second, counsel would have known this to be true with either a better understanding of the law or a more thorough investigation of Rivera-Rodriguez's case. His appeal fails in both respects.

The Supreme Court in Atkins barred the execution of the intellectually disabled, but did not provide the States with a bright-line rule for determining intellectual disability. Atkins, 536 U.S. at 317. Rather, the Court chose to leave to the State[s] the task of developing appropriate ways to enforce the constitutional restriction. Id. (alteration in original) (quoting Ford v. Wainwright, 477 U.S. 399, 416 (1986)). While the Court noted that those with an IQ below 70 generally suffer from what the Court described as mental retardation, id. at 308 n.3, it also noted that the clinical definition require[d] not only subaverage intellectual functioning, but also significant limitations in adaptive skills such as communication, self-care, and self-direction, id. at 318. As Rivera-Rodriguez acknowledges, Pennsylvania courts had not elaborated on the Atkins standard by the time of his trial. Because they had failed to do so, it was unclear whether Rivera-Rodriguez was eligible for the death penalty based on his IQ alone.

Rivera-Rodriguez acknowledges that IQ scores alone would not have triggered Atkins protection, Rivera-Rodriguez Br. 29, but argues that greater investigation into his adaptive deficits would have demonstrated he was not death eligible. He places significant emphasis on his trial counsel's testimony at the PCRA hearing that counsel did not go into adaptive functioning with [his retained experts] to a large degree, App. 797. Nevertheless, counsel remained concerned that general facts, not necessarily expert opinions would also sway the jury's determinationnamely, that the Commonwealth's evidence of some adaptive skills made the Atkins determination uncertain. Id.

Rivera-Rodriguez's appellate counsel diligently marshals medical and legal resources to show flaws in the Commonwealth's evidence rebutting Rivera-Rodriguez's intellectual disability. But whether that evidence appears persuasive today is beside the point for this ineffective assistance claim. Counsel for Rivera-Rodriguez knew that the Commonwealth would produce evidence rebutting the notion that his client was disabled within the meaning of Atkins and reasonably inferred there was at least a chance that the death penalty could be imposed. Under our deferential standard of review, we cannot say that the state court erred when it held that counsel had a strategic basis for his advice. App. 854.

* * *

We will affirm the District Court's judgment for the reasons stated.

FOOTNOTES

. Rivera-Rodriguez asserted a number of other claims not preserved for this appeal, including that the trial court erred in not suppressing his confession under Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436 (1966).

. The District Court had jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C.  2241 and 2254. We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C.  1291 and 2253.

HARDIMAN, Circuit Judge.
At meeting held on 31 March 2017

Swiss Glascoat Equipments announced that the Board of Directors at its meeting held on 31 March 2017 has allotted 15,00,000 Equity Shares of Rs. 10 /- each to HLE Engineers Private Limited, on exercise of the option of conversion of 15,00,000 Warrants of Rs 117/- each.

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Grants-in-aid support to the existing network of 12 AERCs and three AERUs

The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs,chaired by the Prime Minister ShriNarendra Modi has approved to extend the grants-in-aid support to the existing network of 12 Agro-Economic Research Centres (AERCs) and three Agro-Economic Research Units (AERUs) for one more year that is up to 2017-18.

An amount of Rs.25 crore will be required to continue the grants-in-aid to the existing 15 AERCs/AERUs. The employees of 12 AERCs and three AERUs situated in different states will be benefited. This would provide policy oriented Agro Economic Research inputs through field studies and reviewing / monitoring of Flagship programmes of the agriculture and allied sector. This would lead to better agricultural development policy and programmes which in turn would raise employment potential in both Farm and Non-Farm areas.

It will be reviewed after one year for taking the final decision on the recommendations of the Review Committee, chaired by Dr. S.M. Jharwal, Chancellor, India Gandhi National Tribal University. This Committee was set up by the Department of Agriculture, Cooperation & Farmers Welfare (DACFW) to review the functioning of AERCs/AERUs. The Review Committee has recommended that the AERCs/AERUs must be retained and strengthened and that the present pattern of grant-in-aid to these grass-root research institutions must be continued. The Committee has also made recommendations regarding functioning and improving governance of the AERCs/AERUs.

The Agro-Economic Research (AER) Scheme is an on-going scheme initiated in 1954-55 for undertaking research studies on agro-economic problems of the country. Department of Agriculture & Cooperation has set up 15 AERCs/AERUs in different Universities/Institutes with a view to conduct policy oriented research/evaluation studies on topics of interest. The scheme is staff oriented and fully funded by the Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare through grants-in-aid (Central Sector Plan Funds). Currently, these AERCs/AERUs are being funded under the 'Integrated Scheme on Agriculture Census, Economic and Statistics', central sector scheme of Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare.

The three AER Units namely, ADRT, Bangalore, CMA, Ahmedabad and AER Unit, Delhi are functioning under the Institute for Social and Economic Change, Bangalore, India Institute of Management, Ahmedabad and Institute of Economic Growth, Delhi respectively. AERC, Pune is functioning under the Gokhale Institute of Politics and Economics (a deemed University). The remaining 11 centres are functioning under different Universities. Out of which AERCs at Jorhat, Ludhiana and Jabalpur are under Agricultural Universities, AERCs at Allahabad, Delhi and Visva-Bharati, Shantiniketan are under Central Universities. The rest of five Centres at Bhagalpur, Chennai, Shimla Vallabh Vidyanagar and Waltair are functioning under the respective State Universities.

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Agreement may spur greater trade, investment, tourism and cultural exchange between two countries

The Union Cabinet chaired by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi has given its approval for updation of the existing Air Services Agreement (ASA) between India and Serbia which was signed on 31 January 2003. The updation is as per latest International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) template keeping in view the latest developments in civil aviation sector and with an objective to improve the air connectivity between the two countries.

The essential features of the new Air Services Agreement are as follows:

(i) The open sky has been formalized with Serbia as per National Civil Aviation Policy. Now the Indian carriers can operate to any points in Serbia from points in India. Whereas the carriers of Serbia can establish direct operation to 4 Metros - New Delhi, Mumbai and 2 more points to be specified later. Apart from this through routing flexibility any intermediate and beyond point can also be served by the designated carriers of both sides.

(ii) The designated airlines shall be entitled to exercise domestic code share operation to any four (4) additional points in the territory of the other Party over and above the points specified in route schedule, These 4 points may be specified at any time.

(iii) The designated Airline of each party can enter into cooperative marketing arrangements with the designated carriers of same party, other party and third country.

(iv) It will not only provide direct connectivity but also connectivity through 3rd country carriers, which may also be viable for Indian carriers.

(v) Both countries shall be entitled to designate one or more airline. In earlier arrangement only maximum of two airlines of could be designated by each side.

The new updated and liberalized Air Services Agreement between India and the Serbia has the potential to spur greater trade, investment, tourism and cultural exchange between the two countries bringing it in tune with die developments in the civil aviation sector. It will provide enabling environment for enhanced and seamless connectivity while providing commercial opportunities to the carriers of both the sides ensuring greater safety and security. As of now there is no connectivity between the two nations and the revised agreement may lead to establishing connectivity between the two countries.

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HEC to use proceeds from land transfer of Rs 742.98 crore to clear employee dues

The Union Cabinet chaired by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi has given its approval for Monetisation of land not currently in use by Heavy Engineering Corporation (HEC), Ranchi, through transfer of 675.43 acres of HEC land to the Jharkhand Government.

It would help in raising Rs 742.98 crore to HEC and the money would be utilised for liquidation of employee related statutory dues viz. Gratuity, PF, Leave encashment and other retirement benefits to the retired employees. The money will also help HEC to liquidate its Government dues, bankers' dues and other immediate liabilities.

The transfer of land will also meet the requirements of Jharkhand Government for its Smart City project and other development projects in the State capital in the larger public interest.

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IndusInd Media & Communications raises Rs 757.55 crore through rights issue

Hinduja Ventures announced that its subsidiary, IndusInd Media & Communications (IMCL) has completed the issue of 36,953,438 equity shares of face value of Rs. 10/- each for cash at a premium of Rs. 195/- per share and has received an aggregate Rs 757.55 crore from existing shareholders/ renouncees in whose favour the shares were renounced. The infusion of the funds has resulted in IMCL being able to redeem the entire Redeemable Preference Shares of Rs. 270.36 crore, repay its ICDs of Rs. 370 crore and have a balance of over Rs. 120 crore to fund its expansion in Phases 3 and 4 of digitization programme of the Government of India.

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Jindal Steel & Power rose 2.86% to Rs 122.30 at 9:24 IST on BSE after the company said its board approved allotment of convertible warrants to a promoter group entity.

The announcement was made after market hours yesterday, 30 March 2017.

Meanwhile, the S&P BSE Sensex was down 50.75 points or 0.17% at 29,596.67.

On the BSE, 2.37 lakh shares were traded on the counter so far as against the average daily volumes of 22.83 lakh shares in the past one quarter. The stock had hit a high of Rs 123.10 and a low of Rs 120.45 so far during the day. It had hit a 52-week high of Rs 131.80 on 17 March 2017 and a 52-week low of Rs 55.65 on 30 March 2016.

The large-cap company has equity capital of Rs 91.50 crore. Face value per share is Rs 1.

Jindal Steel & Power (JSPL) said its board at a meeting held yesterday, 30 March 2017, approved issue of 4.80 crore convertible warrants to Opelina Finance and Investments, a promoter group entity on preferential basis, subject to the approval of the shareholders of the company and other necessary regulatory approvals. Opelina Finance and Investments owned 9.82% stake in JSPL end December 2016.

The board also approved the issue of 14.20 lakh equity shares to Nalwa Steel & Power on preferential basis, subject to the approval of the shareholders of the company and other necessary regulatory approvals.

On consolidated basis, JSPL reported net loss of Rs 407.44 crore in Q3 December 2016 as against net loss of Rs 573.48 crore in Q3 December 2015. Net sales rose 28.1% to Rs 5296.80 crore in Q3 December 2016 over Q3 December 2015.

JSPL is one of India's leading integrated steel manufacturers, significantly present in steel, power generation and Infrastructure segments and catering to a large part of India's domestic energy and infrastructure requirement.

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Two journalists who believe they were on a so-called "kill list" of individuals targeted by the US for deadly drone strikes are suing President Donald Trump and other top administration officials, a media report said.

Former Al Jazeera Islamabad bureau chief Ahmad Zaidan and freelance journalist Bilal Kareem filed the lawsuit on Thursday in a US District Court in Washington, contending that they were erroneously placed on the "kill list" during the former President Barack Obama's administration and that Trump has illegally maintained that designation, Politico news said in the report.

The suit also alleges that Trump has loosened some of the safeguards the previous administration placed on the programme.

Files leaked by whistleblower and former National Security Agency (NSA) contractor Edward Snowden in 2015 indicated that US officials claimed in a private presentation that Zaidan, a Pakistani and Syrian citizen who conducted a series of interviews with terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden, was a member of Al Qaeda and of the Muslim Brotherhood and appeared on a terror watch list.

Kareem, a US citizen reporting from Syria, claims in the suit that he has "narrowly avoided being killed by five separate air strikes" over the past year.

In the suit, filed by human rights group Reprieve, both men deny any association with Al Qaeda or the Taliban.

Jeffrey Robinson, a lawyer for Zaidan and Kareem, told Politico news that he was optimistic that the new suit will get more traction in the courts.

The suit said the 2015 files led to Zaidan being forced to leave Pakistan, where he had worked for Al Jazeera for 20 years, and take a new post in Qatar.

Kareem is believed to be still reporting from inside Syria.

--IANS

ksk/vt

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At least 22 people were killed and 50 others wounded on Friday in a powerful blast outside an Imambargah in Pakistan's Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province, officials said.

The explosion occurred in the crowded Noor market of Parachinar town. Firing was reported in the area before the blast, Dawn reported.

Security forces cordoned off the area. The administration declared an emergency at all hospitals.

An Army helicopter was flown to Parachinar to evacuate the injured, the Inter-Services Public Relations said.

The area where the blast took place borders Afghanistean and was once the main route for cross-border militant activity.

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif condemned the attack and said the government would step up efforts to "eliminate the menace of terrorism".

"The network of terrorists has already been broken and it is our national duty to continue this war until the complete annihilation of the scourge of terrorism from our soil," he said.

Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf chief Imran Khan also denounced the killings.

In January, at least 25 people were killed and over 65 injured when a powerful explosion took place in the same region.

--IANS

ahm/mr

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At least 33 militants were killed by security forces in Afghanistan's Nangarhar province, a military officer said on Friday.

"The forces launched operations in Chaparhar and Pachiragam districts on Thursday night and so far 33 militants have been killed, six injured and 22 others arrested," the official told Xinhua news agency.

The victims included key militant commanders, the officer added.

--IANS

ksk/vm

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The All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Patna will be fully functional by December this year, the parliament was told on Friday.

"Due to some legal issues in recruitment, the project was delayed. We have settled these issues. Now the recruitment process is underway and it will be completed by November.

"It (the AIIMS) will be fully functional by December," Health Minister J.P. Nadda informed the Lok Sabha in response to a question.

The minister also told the house that the Bihar government has so far not provided land for the another AIIMS in the state.

RJD member hailesh Kumar had sought to know from the minister about possibilty of establishment of a second proposed AIIMS in Bhagalpur.

Nadda said the central government is committed to open AIIMS in different states in a phased manner.

"As far as AIIMS is concerned, the government, the Health Department is committed for opening AIIMS in every state and we are going in a phased manner. Certainly, Kerala and Telangana are also under consideration," he said.

--IANS

bns/vd

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United States Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit. RAYMOND ORRAND, Administrator of the Ohio Operating Engineers Health and Welfare Plan, Ohio Operating Engineers Pension Fund, Ohio Operating Engineers Apprenticeship Fund, Ohio Operating Engineers Education and Safety Fund; TRUSTEES OF THE OHIO OPERATING ENGINEERS HEALTH AND WELFARE PLAN; OHIO OPERATING ENGINEERS PENSION FUND; OHIO OPERATING ENGINEERS APPRENTICESHIP FUND, OHIO OPERATING ENGINEERS EDUCATION AND SAFETY FUND, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. HUNT CONSTRUCTION GROUP, INC.; DONLEY'S INC.; CLEVELAND CONCRETE CONSTRUCTION, INC. dba Cleveland Cement Contractors, Inc.; B & B WRECKING & EXCAVATING, INC.; PRECISION ENVIRONMENTAL COMPANY, Defendants-Appellees, NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD, Intervenor-Appellee. No. 16-3822 Decided: March 30, 2017

Before: GUY, CLAY, and GRIFFIN, Circuit Judges COUNSEL ARGUED: Allen S. Kinzer, VORYS, SATER, SEYMOUR AND PEASE LLP, Columbus, Ohio, for Appellants. Frank W. Buck, LITTLER MENDELSON, PC, Cleveland, Ohio, for Hunt Construction Appellees. Martha A. Kinsella, NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD, Washington, D.C., for Intervenor-Appellee. ON BRIEF: Allen S. Kinzer, Daniel J. Clark, Elizabeth B. Howard, VORYS, SATER, SEYMOUR AND PEASE LLP, Columbus, Ohio, for Appellants. Frank W. Buck, Meredith C. Shoop, LITTLER MENDELSON, PC, Cleveland, Ohio, for Hunt Construction Appellees. Martha A. Kinsella, Kevin P. Flanagan, NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD, Washington, D.C., for Intervenor-Appellee. Basil W. Mangano, Ryan K. Hymore, MANGANO LAW OFFICES CO., L.P.A., Cleveland, Ohio, Terrance G. Reed, LANKFORD & REED P.L.L.C., Alexandria, Virginia, for Amici Curiae.

OPINION

Plaintiffs in this Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) contribution action appeal the district court's order granting defendants summary judgment. We hold that the National Labor Relations Board's jurisdictional award precludes plaintiffs' ERISA claims, and therefore affirm.

I.

Defendant employers are signatories to collective bargaining agreements (CBAs) with plaintiff funds' union, Operating Engineers (Operators). The CBAs provided that the Employer shall employ Operating Engineers for the erection, operation, assembly and disassembly, and maintenance and repair of  Forklifts, Skidsteers  [which] shall be the work of the Operating Engineers (only applies to in-house crew), and within the jurisdiction as assigned to the Union by the American Federation of Labor. The CBAs further stated, [i]f the Employer assigns any piece of equipment to someone other than the Operating Engineer, the Employer's penalty shall be to pay the first qualified registered applicant the applicable wages and fringe benefits from the first day of violation. Defendants' CBA with another union, Laborers International (Laborers), provided that operation of forklifts  [and] skid-steer loaders  shall be the work of the laborer. Defendants' CBAs with Operators and Laborers thus set out conflicting assignments for the same work.

Defendants assigned the disputed work to Laborers. In response, Operators filed pay-in-lieu grievances and threatened to strike. Defendants sought a jurisdictional determination by the NLRB under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA)  10(k). The NLRB noted that defendants had assigned forklift and skidsteer work to Laborers for 15 to 26 years, and thus found no merit in Operators' work-preservation claims, instead characterizing them as attempts at work acquisition. Operating Engineers, Local 18, 360 NLRB No. 113, slip op. at *6 (2014). The NLRB further found that Operators' ongoing filing of pay-in-lieu grievances and threats to strike constituted unfair labor practices under NLRA  8(b)(4). Id. at *5, 7-8. As to the jurisdictional dispute, the NLRB considered the relevant factors and ruled that Laborers were entitled to perform the work. Id. at *8-10.

While awaiting the NLRB's decision, plaintiffs filed a complaint under ERISA  515 seeking payment of contributions defendant allegedly owed under the CBAs, access to audit defendants' records, interest, costs, and injunctive relief. The NLRB intervened. Defendants sought a stay of plaintiffs' claims pending the NLRB's  10(k) ruling, which the district court granted. Following the NLRB's ruling, the parties filed motions for summary judgment. The NLRB also moved for summary judgment, arguing that its jurisdictional award was dispositive of, and precluded, plaintiffs' CBA claims. The district court agreed and held that the NLRB's jurisdictional award was a defense and bar to plaintiffs' claims. Plaintiffs appeal.

II.

This court reviews the district court's ruling on summary judgment de novo. Therma-Scan, Inc. v. Thermoscan, Inc., 295 F.3d 623, 629 (6th Cir. 2002). Summary judgment is appropriate where there is no genuine issue of material fact and the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(a). We take the evidence, and any inferences therefrom, in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party. Matsushita Elec. Indus. Co. v. Zenith Radio Corp., 475 U.S. 574, 587 (1986).

III.

Plaintiffs argue that  515 obligates defendants to make contributions to Operators' funds despite lawful assignment of the disputed work to Laborers pursuant to the NLRB's  10(k) award. Plaintiffs are correct that, standing alone, an award of benefits causing an employer to double pay would not be sufficient to relieve the employer of its contractual obligation to make contributions to the ERISA funds. Tr. of B.A.C. Local 32 Ins. Fund v. Ohio Ceiling and Partition Co., Inc., 48 F. App'x 188, 196-97 (6th Cir. 2002). Ohio Ceiling, however, did not involve a  10(k) determination. At issue is whether a conflicting jurisdictional award would render defendants' contribution obligations inconsistent with law under  515.

Every court to consider conflicts between  10(k) determinations and other labor laws has held that jurisdictional awards prevail, and may preclude inconsistent claims. In Carey v. Westinghouse Elec. Corp., the Supreme Court recognized that [t]he superior authority of the [NLRB] to decide jurisdictional disputes may be invoked [by the employer] at any time to avoid arbitrating conflicting contract claims. 375 U.S. 261, 272 (1964). We have held that a  10(k) determination takes precedence over a contrary arbitrator's award stemming from a CBA and precludes conflicting actions under the Labor Management Relations Act. UAW Local 1519 v. Rockwell Int'l Corp., 619 F.2d 580, 583-85 (6th Cir. 1980). The Third Circuit recognized that  10(k) would not be serving its intended purpose of preventing work disruption if the disappointed union could still seek a contractual remedy. Local 30, United Slate Workers Ass'n v. NLRB, 1 F.3d 1419, 1428 (3d Cir. 1993). In the D.C. Circuit, a party cannot force an employer to choose between a Board [] 10(k) award and a squarely contrary contract claim. Int'l Longshoremen's and Warehousemen's Union v. NLRB, 884 F.2d 1407, 1414 (D.C. Cir. 1989). The Ninth Circuit held that a party's attempt to obtain payment for work to which it is not entitled would, if successful, completely undermine the [] 10(k) work assignment. Int'l Longshoremen's Union, Local 32 v. Pacific Maritime Ass'n, 773 F.2d 1012, 1015 (9th Cir. 1985).

Plaintiffs note that the Seventh Circuit has avoided  10(k)CBA conflicts by distinguishing between jurisdictional awards (i.e., work assignments) and payment for work. See Hutter Constr. v. Int'l Union of Operating Eng'rs, Local 139, 862 F.2d 641, 644-45 (7th Cir. 1988). That circuit has limited its singular position, however, to the unique context of subcontractor work assignments not at issue here. See Advance Cast Stone Co. v. Bridge Workers, Local Union No. 1, 376 F.3d 734, 742 (7th Cir. 2004). Plaintiffs nonetheless contend that we should adopt the work-versus-pay distinction and rule that a  10(k) award does not bar a conflicting ERISA action seeking only plan contributions rather than work reassignment. Although we have only discussed this distinction in dicta, we suggested we would not likely subscribe to it. See Ohio Ceiling, 48 F. App'x at 197 (Rockwell suggests that this circuit would not adopt the distinction made by the court in Hutter.). We agree with the Third Circuit's view that [t]he opportunity sought to perform labor is significant only as a means of obtaining compensation, and any difference between performing the work and being paid for the work is thus ephemeral. Local 30, 1 F.3d at 1427.

The Supreme Court has acknowledged Congress's intent in  10(k) to protect employers from the detrimental economic impact of jurisdictional disputes. NLRB v. Plasterers' Local Union No. 79, 404 U.S. 116, 130 (1971); see also M & G Polymers USA, LLC v. Tackett, 135 S. Ct. 926, 933 (2015) (courts must interpret collective-bargaining agreements, including those establishing ERISA plans, according to ordinary principles of contract law, at least when those principles are not inconsistent with federal labor policy. (emphasis supplied)). Federal labor policy seeks to reduce the potential for protracted jurisdictional conflicts by conclusively adjudicating them via  10(k). See Local 30, 1 F.3d at 1428 ([ 10(k) ] proceedings are intended to  prevent[ ] work disruption by quickly and finally resolving jurisdictional disputes.). If aggrieved parties are permitted to recover damages for work awarded to another union in a [] 10(k) proceeding, the policy underlying [ 15]8(b)(4)(ii)(D) of protecting employers from the detrimental economic impact of jurisdictional disputes would be severely undermined. Id. This would in turn frustrate a central purpose of  10(k)  the NLRB's ability to conclusively resolve jurisdictional disputes  by pressuring employers to assign work in contravention of a  10(k) award. See Longshoremen's, 884 F.2d at 1414.

Plaintiffs lastly argue that the limitation of defenses to ERISA actions should compel this court to narrowly interpret  10(k) awards to preclude any defense to a  515 action. Plaintiffs are correct that defenses to ERISA collection actions are limited. See Laborers Pension Tr. Fund-Detroit & Vicinity v. Interior Exterior Specialists Constr. Grp., Inc., 394 F. App'x 285, 289-90 (6th Cir. 2010). This does not mean that the interests served by  10(k) must yield to those of  515. Congress could have written  515 to subordinate  10(k) rulings to an employer's obligation to contribute. It did not, and we do not ignore that fact. See Whitman v. American Trucking Ass'ns, 531 U.S. 457, 468 (2001) (Congress  does not, one might say, hide elephants in mouseholes.).

Congress did, however, explicitly provide an exception for employers' contribution obligations in  515 where they are inconsistent with law. To this end, in Kaiser Steel Corp. v. Mullins, the Supreme Court held that a federal court could entertain an employer's defense to a  515 action that a supplier-specific contribution provision was illegal under LMRA  8(e). 455 U.S. 72, 86 (1982). The Court noted that Congress did not say that employers should be prevented from raising all defenses; rather they spoke in terms of unrelated and extraneous' defenses. Id. at 88 (quoting 126 Cong. Rec. 23039 (1980)). It strains credulity to argue that a jurisdictional award is unrelated or extraneous to an employer's ERISA obligations where  515 explicitly exempts from such obligations any payments inconsistent with law.

ERISA  515 and NLRA  10(k) respectively embody strong federal interests in fulfilling employers' contribution obligations and in the finality of jurisdictional awards. But Congress placed significant emphasis on the latter, while excepting from the former any contributions inconsistent with law. Accordingly, we hold that the NLRB's  10(k) award precludes a conflicting  515 action. The district court thus properly granted defendants summary judgment.

AFFIRMED.

DISSENT

We are asked to decide whether Plaintiffs' lawsuit seeking payment of benefits in accordance with the terms of the collective bargaining agreement is inconsistent with or contrary to a separate decision by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) resolving a jurisdictional work dispute between two competing labor unions. The majority concludes that such an inconsistency exists and dismisses the action. This decision is unsupported by precedent and repudiates the parties' contractual intent, as set forth by the applicable collective bargaining agreement. Therefore, I respectfully dissent.

The action, which is the subject of this appeal, was brought under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA), 29 U.S.C.  1001, et seq., by Raymond Orrand, Administrator of the Ohio Operating Engineers Health and Welfare Plan, Pension Fund, Apprenticeship Fund, and Education and Safety Fund, and the trustees of the aforementioned funds (collectively, the Plaintiffs) against defendants Hunt Construction Group, Inc., Donley's Inc., Cleveland Concrete Construction, Inc., B&B Wrecking & Excavating, Inc., and Precision Environmental Company (collectively, the Defendants). Defendants are construction industry contractors that hire members of various unions as workers. Defendants are also signatories to separate collective bargaining agreements negotiated with Laborer's International Union of North America, Local 310 (Laborers) and International Union of Operating Engineers Local 18 (Operating Engineers). Plaintiffs constitute the trustees and administrators who operate ERISA funds on behalf of the employees of Operating Engineers.

As part of their construction projects, Defendants regularly use forklifts and small front-end loaders, known as skid steers. Under Section 10 of the collective bargaining agreement (the CBA) between Defendants and Operating Engineers, Defendants must employ Operating Engineers for the assembly, maintenance, and operation of the aforementioned forklifts and skid steers. A different provision of the CBA, Section 21, holds as follows:

If the Employer assigns any piece of equipment to someone other than the Operating Engineer, the Employer's penalty shall be to pay the first qualified registered applicant the applicable wages and fringe benefits from the first day of violation.

Disregarding the terms of the CBA, Defendants utilized Laborers for forklift and skid steer work on their construction projects.

Operating Engineers protested Defendants' decision to employ Laborers in this capacity. The disagreement over the allocation of forklifting and skid steer work resulted in Defendants petitioning the NLRB by charging Operating Engineers with engaging in an unfair labor practice within the meaning of paragraph (4)(D) of 29 U.S.C.  158 of the National Labor Relations Act because Operating Engineers lobbied to shift forklifting and skid steer work to their employees. Whenever such a charge is made, the NLRB is empowered under 29 U.S.C.  160(k) ( 10(k)) to adjudicate which labor union is entitled to the disputed work. This is referred to as a jurisdictional dispute. Two hearings were held before the NLRB. The first was completed on July 26, 2012, and the second on February 28, 2013. On May 15, 2014, the NLRB decided that Laborers were authorized to perform the forklifting and skid steer work. Operating Engineers have appealed that determination; the appeal remains pending.

Before the NLRB reached its decision, Plaintiffswho are distinct legal entities from Operating Engineersfiled the instant suit against Defendants on May 20, 2013 pursuant to 29 U.S.C.  1145 of the ERISA statute. Section 1145 of ERISA provides:

Every employer who is obligated to make contributions to a multiemployer plan under the terms of the plan or under the terms of a collectively bargained agreement shall, to the extent not inconsistent with law, make such contributions in accordance with the terms and conditions of such plan or such agreement.

Plaintiffs argued that regardless of how the NLRB resolved the labor dispute over forklifting and skid steer work, Defendants must, under the plain language of the CBA, make contributions to the funds of Operating Engineers. The district court stayed the action pending the NLRB's determination. After the NLRB issued its decision, the district court dismissed the lawsuit. Ignoring the merits of Plaintiffs' claims, the majority similarly concludes that granting relief to Plaintiffs would be inconsistent with or contrary to the NLRB's ruling allocating forklifting and skid steer work to Laborers.

However, the majority fails to persuasively explain the reasoning underlying its conclusion. The majority begins by stating that courts have long held that Section 10(k) awards require the dismissal of lawsuits seeking contrary or inconsistent relief. Carey v. Westinghouse Electric Corp., 375 U.S. 261 (1964) (finding that a  10(k) award of work by the NLRB takes precedence over a conflicting arbitration award). That statement is fine as far as it goes. Certainly, a  10(k) award trumps the collective bargaining agreement  [and] a union cannot force an employer to choose between a [ ] section 10(k) award and a squarely contrary contract claim. Int'l Longshoremen's and Warehousemen's Union v. NLRB, 884 F.2d 1407, 141314 (D.C. Cir. 1989). But the Supreme Court has made clear that courts should interpret collective bargaining agreements, including those establishing ERISA plans, according to ordinary principles of contract law at least when those principles are not inconsistent with federal labor policy. See, e.g., M & G Polymers USA, LLC v. Tackett, 135 S. Ct. 926, 933 (2015). In this endeavor, as with any other contract, the parties' intentions control. Stolt-Nielsen S.A. v. AnimalFeeds Int'l Corp., 559 U.S. 662, 682 (2010).

Although the majority states that enforcing the CBA is inconsistent with federal labor policy, it fails to convincingly explain why this is so. Courts recognize that an NLRB decision does not render all contract provisions invalid. See Associated Gen. Contractors of Am., Inc., Oregon-Columbia Chapter v. Int'l Union of Operating Engineers, Local 701, 529 F.2d 1395, 1397 (9th Cir. 1976). Rather, only contract provisions that are squarely contrary to an NLRB ruling are rendered void. Int'l Longshoremen's, 884 F.2d at 141314 (emphasis added). Generally, the mere fact that an award of benefits could cause an employer to pay double would not be sufficient to relieve the employer of its contractual obligation to make contributions to the ERISA fund. Trustees of B.A.C. Local 32 Ins. Fund v. Ohio Ceiling & Partition Co., 48 F. App'x 188, 19697 (6th Cir. 2002) (citing Brogan v. Swanson Painting Co., 682 F.2d 807, 80910 (9th Cir. 1982)). Previously, we stated that in situations where an employer is exposed to conflicting collective bargaining agreements, if the trustee shows a contractual obligation to make contributions to both plans, even though only one union did the work, then the other union may collect payments owed. Trustees for Michigan BAC Health Care Fund v. OCP Contractors, Inc., 136 F. App'x 849, 851 (6th Cir. 2005). Assuming that Section 21 of the CBA entitles Plaintiffs to collect fringe benefits regardless of whether work was assigned to them or not, as Plaintiffs argue the plain reading of the CBA requires, a contractual obligation exists for Defendants to double-pay.

In the instant case, there are two separate contract provisions in the CBA. Section 10 compels Defendants to assign forklifting and skid steer work to Operating Engineers. Section 21 obligates Defendants to make contributions to the funds of Operating Engineers. Undoubtedly, a suit seeking enforcement of Section 10 of the CBA would be squarely contrary to the NLRB's decision assigning disputed work to Laborers. However, it does not follow that Section 21 of the CBAwhich is the provision of the CBA that gives rise to this lawsuitis equally inconsistent with or contrary to the NLRB's decision. Rather, Defendants can easily comply with the NLRB ruling by assigning forklift and skid steer work to Laborers, while simultaneously making payments to Plaintiffs consistent with the terms of the CBA. Such a scenario is neither contradictory nor implausible. And it certainly is not a case involving a squarely contrary contract claim. Int'l Longshoremen's, 884 F.2d at 1414 (emphasis added).

The majority cites a number of cases in order to justify its holding that Defendants' requirement to double-pay is contrary to the NLRB decision. But not one of the cases cited supports this contention. Each case involves either a directly contrary holding between the NLRB and a separate arbitrator, or contains factual circumstances altogether dissimilar from the instant case. For example, in Int'l Union, United Auto., Aerospace & Agr. Implement Workers (UAW) & its Local 1519 v. Rockwell Int'l Corp., 619 F.2d 580, 582 (6th Cir. 1980), this Court held that when an arbitrator's decision to award assignment of work directly contradicted an NLRB ruling, the NLRB ruling controlled. In the instant case, there is no contradictory arbitrator's ruling, and thus this issue is not implicated. Similarly, in Int'l Longshoremen's & Warehousemen's Union, Local 32 v. Pac. Mar. Ass'n, 773 F.2d 1012, 1016 (9th Cir. 1985), the court held that an arbitrator's decision to assign the work to the union was not enforceable pursuant to a suit under  301(a) of the Labor Management Relations Act, 29 U.S.C.  185(a). But again, a direct contradiction existed between an NLRB decision to award work and an arbitrator's separate decision to assign work to a different labor union. The court decided that  301 could not be used to circumvent the NLRB holding. Likewise, in Int'l Longshoremen's, 884 F.2d at 141314, the D.C. Circuit held that a union could not assert breach of contract claims when the NLRB decided to award work to another party in contravention of the union's collective bargaining agreement. However, the plaintiffs sought contract damages for a contractual term that was directly contrary to the NLRB ruling. The contract provision required the assignment of work to the plaintiffs' labor union, whereas the NLRB decision accorded the work to a different union. Unlike in Int'l Longshoremen's, the contract provision for which Plaintiffs pursue enforcement is distinct from the clause in their CBA that requires assignment of work to Operating Engineers. Therefore, the cases are inapposite. Finally, in Local 30, United Slate Workers Ass'n v. NLRB, 1 F.3d 1419 (3d Cir. 1993), the court held that enforcement of a  301 lawsuit under the Taft-Hartley Act undermined the  10(k) determination of the NLRB. But again, and unlike the instant case, the NLRB expressly considered whether or not it was appropriate for the plaintiff to maintain its  301 suit and found that such a suit constituted an unfair labor practice.

The circumstances of this case are best reflected in the logic of the Seventh Circuit's decision in Hutter Const. Co. v. Int'l Union of Operating Engineers, Local 139, AFL-CIO, 862 F.2d 641 (7th Cir. 1988). In that case, a general contractor subcontracted with a third party to perform work on a project. A dispute arose because the general contractor was a party to a collective bargaining agreement with a union requiring that the contractor employ only its union workers to perform certain tasks. The subcontractor was a party to a separate collective bargaining agreement, which directed those same tasks to be performed by the employees of an unrelated union. A  10(k) proceeding was held before the NLRB and it determined that the subcontractor's union was entitled to perform the work. The original union sued on the basis of its collective bargaining agreement. The Seventh Circuit held that the subcontracting grievance was a distinct non-jurisdictional claim separable from the jurisdictional issue decided by the NLRB, the resolution of which was not inconsistent with the NLRB's award of work. Id. at 644 (finding that the arbitrators and NLRB's award are consistent remedies that reflect the divergent issues addressed in the respective proceedings.). Specifically, the court stated that at the  10(k) hearing, the NLRB ruled on a number of non-contractual factors, that [the second union] had the superior claim to the forklift work. The critical issue is whether the arbitrator, by awarding back pay  necessarily determined that they had the superior claim to the forklift work. Id. The Seventh Circuit's holding rested on the fact that the agreement in question explicitly authorized the arbitrator to award back pay for violations of its provisions.

The majority wrongly suggests that the facts of Hutter are limited to the subcontracting context. The principles the case articulates are equally relevant in the instant action. The CBA contains two separate sections. The language of one states that Defendants must employ Operating Engineers for fork lifting and skid steer work. Like the agreement before the court in Hutter, the second clause explicitly authorizes payment of contributions even if work is assigned elsewhere. This distinction between Section 10 and Section 21 is significantboth legally and contractually. When sophisticated entities come together and expressly negotiate terms in a collective bargaining agreement, this Court should not upend those terms absent a compelling reason. The fact that there are two clauses here, one of which is contrary to an NLRB holding, and the other not, dictates the outcome of this case. Although this approach may open Defendants to the possibility of double-paying for the completion of a single task, Defendants only have themselves to blame if that is the case. Defendants had every opportunity to negotiate different terms in their CBA to avoid this predicament.

The fact that this case arises in the context of ERISA further justifies narrowly reading the scope of the NLRB's jurisdiction here. Section 515 permits ERISA fund trustees special status akin to a holder in due course, entitling the trustees to enforce the CBA regardless of available defenses under the common law of contracts. See Ohio Ceiling & Partition Co., 48 F. App'x at 192. Section 515 was enacted because Congress was concerned about the problem that had arisen because a substantial number of employers had failed to make their promised contributions' on a regular and timely basis. Laborers Health & Welfare Trust Fund v. Advanced Lightweight Concrete Co., 484 U.S. 539, 546 (1988). As this Court has noted, a fund must assume that all participants in a plan are following the stated terms; no other approach permits accurate actuarial computations and proper decisions about which claims to pay. Orrand v. Scassa Asphalt, Inc., 794 F.3d 556, 567 (6th Cir. 2015). Foreclosing Plaintiffs' action in this case undermines that purpose. Plaintiffs relied upon the terms of the CBA, which allocated the aforementioned fringe benefits to the plans. Their calculations were specifically undertaken with these payments in mind. The majority's decision jeopardizes these assumptions and threatens the viability of Operating Engineers' plans without a clear basis in law.

Again, Defendants and Operating Engineers reached a negotiated agreement, manifested in the CBA, a complex document signifying the parties' intent. Absent any clear contradiction with federal labor policy, we must interpret the CBA according to ordinary contract principles. See M & G Polymers, 135 S. Ct. at 933. Ordinary contract principles dictate that Defendants have an obligation to pay contributions to Plaintiffs and to pay Laborers for the forklifting and skid steer work performed. The majority has not shown why this is contradictory. I therefore respectfully dissent.

FOOTNOTES

. 29 U.S.C.  160(k), Hearings on jurisdictional strikes, provides:Whenever it is charged that any person has engaged in an unfair labor practice within the meaning of paragraph (4)(D) of section 158(b) of this title, the Board is empowered and directed to hear and determine the dispute out of which such unfair labor practice shall have arisen, unless, within ten days after notice that such charge has been filed, the parties to such dispute submit to the Board satisfactory evidence that they have adjusted, or agreed upon methods for the voluntary adjustment of, the dispute. Upon compliance by the parties to the dispute with the decision of the Board or upon such voluntary adjustment of the dispute, such charge shall be dismissed.

. 29 U.S.C.  158(b)(4) prohibits labor organizations from engag[ing] in, or  induc[ing] or encourage[ing] any individual employed by any person engaged in commerce or in an industry affecting commerce to engage in, a strike or a refusal in the course of his employment to use, manufacture, process, transport, or otherwise handle or work on any goods, articles, materials, or commodities or to perform any services; or (ii) threaten[ing], coerc[ing], or restrain[ing] any person engaged in commerce or in an industry affecting commerce, where in either case an object thereof is  (D) forcing  any employer to assign particular work to employees in a particular labor organization  rather than to employees in another labor organization  unless such employer is failing to conform to an order or certification of the Board determining the bargaining representative for employees performing such work 

. 29 U.S.C.  1145 provides:Every employer who is obligated to make contributions to a multiemployer plan under the terms of the plan or under the terms of a collectively bargained agreement shall, to the extent not inconsistent with law, make such contributions in accordance with the terms and conditions of such plan or such agreement.

RALPH B. GUY, JR., Circuit Judge.

GUY, J., delivered the opinion of the court in which GRIFFIN, J., joined. CLAY, J. (pp. 814), delivered a separate dissenting opinion.
Popular Tamil Actor on Friday said  although not in so many words  that he is not joining .

The southern star was asked if there was a political agenda to the Chennai meeting of his fans on Sunday.

"No, there won't be any announcement on . The fans are meeting because it has been a long time," said the actor, who met Malaysian Prime Minister Mohammed Najib Razak in Chennai earlier in the day.

He also said that he may not attend the fans' meet.

Rumours had gripped Tamil Nadu that  whose fan following runs into hundreds of thousands  may take a major political step on Sunday.

The 66-year-old icon has been wooed by political parties in the past. Most recently, he expressed support to the BJP candidate  from the Tamil film industry  in the upcoming by-election from R K Nagar in Chennai.

In 2009, it was strongly believed that would take the political plunge. But he didn't.
The Justice Department has filed an appeal to revive President Donald Trump's new travel ban directive that bars citizens and refugees from six-Muslim majority countries from entering the US, the media reported.

The Department filed a formal notice on Thursday appealing US District Court Judge Derrick Watson's preliminary injunction suspending the March 3 executive order that sought to halt the issuance of visas to citizens from the six countries and held up refugee admissions from across the globe, Politico news reported.

Watson issued the injunction on Wednesday after a court hearing on a suit brought by the State of Hawaii and a local Muslim leader.

Earlier in the month, the judge had issued a temporary restraining order that prevented Trump from instituting much of his directive, which had been intended to come into effect on March 16.

The appeal will go to the San Francisco-based 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.

Last month, a three-judge panel of that court declined to overturn a Seattle-based judge's order blocking key parts of Trump's original February 27 travel ban order.

--IANS

ksk/dg

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
A 55-seat bus powered by biogas, sourced from cow dung, was launched here on Friday. The operators claim it is India's first such bus service.

A nominal fare of Re 1 will be charged from each passenger.

The bus, to run on the 17.5 km Ultadanga-Garia stretch, will be one of the fleet of 16 buses to be deployed across Kolkata and surrounding areas.

"The bus gives a mileage of six km for one kg biogas that costs Rs 20," Jyoti Prakash Das, Chairman and Managing Director of Phoenix India Research and Development Group, an alternative energy company, told IANS.

The vehicle is powered by a German technology engine.

The initiative has been undertaken under a central subsidies plan of the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy.

As many as five buses will be pressed into service in the city.

--IANS

sgh/sm/vt

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
European Council President Donald Tusk has said the EU will not punish Britain, because Brexit is "punishment enough", as he released a set of draft guidelines on Friday for the two-year Brexit negotiations.

Tusk spoke at a news conference in Malta on Friday after the guidelines were sent to the heads of the 27 remaining members of the EU, reported the Independent.

The draft guidelines appeared to offer a concession to Prime Minister Theresa May, suggesting that talks on future trade arrangements could begin once "sufficient progress" was made on the initial Brexit deal.

Tusk said that the EU will not seek to punish Britain in the initial stages of the talks. "We will not be punitive. Brexit itself is punitive enough," he said.

Maltese Prime Minister Joseph Muscat, who is the incumbent rotating EU President, appeared alongside Tusk at the conference and said the Brexit negotiations will be tough but "it will not be a war".

He warned both sides that citizens in Britain and other EU nations should not be used as "bargaining chips".

Going into the two-year negotiation period triggered by Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty (official process to leave the EU), the EU would think of the people first, Tusk said.

The residential rights of EU citizens living in Britain would be one of the main focuses.

The EU companies in Britain would need to be safeguarded against losing the protection of the 27-member bloc's law and regulation, he said.

Tusk also said the EU would honour all its commitments, and stressed that Britain would have to as well.

He also raised the issue of Britain's financial bills with the EU, estimated to be as much as 51 billion pounds ($64 billion).

In a sign of the bloc's determination to secure a "divorce bill" from Britain, he said: "We will need to make sure that Britain honours all financial commitments and liabilities it has taken as a member state."

He also said the EU would seek "flexible and creative solutions" to avoid the creation of a hard border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, Britain's only land border with the EU.

Tusk will meet May in London ahead of an EU summit on Brexit, which will not include her, on April 29.

--IANS

soni/vt

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Brexit and shift in American policy will make European Union strengthen its strategic relations with India and Asia, European Investment Bank (EIB) President Werner Hoyer said here on Friday.

"Brexit is a terrible thing and hell of a mistake. But this is something to respect as British people have taken their decision. I believe the exit of the UK from EU will strengthen the resolve of the other 27 members to stick together and to further develop the union. We must get better and we will," Hoyer said while talking to IANS on the sideline of the inauguration of the EIB's office here.

Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley inaugurated the EIB regional office for South Asia.

Later, the EIB President met Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who explained India's position on climate change and environmental sustainability.

Talking to IANS about US President Donald Trump's recent policies like exit from the Pacific agreement, Hoyer said: "I don't understand it. We just have to see that at least for some time US will take a different course. That makes it even more necessary to strengthen the strategic partnership between the big power centres in Asia and India is number one (among them)."

Hoyer, former German Deputy Foreign Minister, who's heading the EIB since 2012, said India's economic growth has been very impressive. "Seven per cent growth is something we do not know in Europe. On the other hand, India still has a long way to go. Nobody should be left behind and this is still a problem in India."

He said the potential for cooperation between the EU and India had not been fully exploited yet, and added that EIB was concentrating on the same areas where the main focuse of India was, like urban development, renewable energy and climate change mitigation.

"India is top notch when it comes to certain technologies and development where we can be very very good partners. So I believe India is a partner both in high technology and in the field of social inclusion," he added.

Replying to a question whether EIB would be interested in lending to private industry, Hoyer said: "It must have a purpose. Our lending head room is limited, therefore we cannot do everything. If it fits into the strategic priorities of the bank, and the EU, then we are ready to extend (lending)."

The European Investment Bank on Friday announced a euro 200 million (Rs 1,400 crore) long-term loan to State Bank of India to finance mega-solar projects in the country and a new euro 250 million instalment for construction of the Lucknow Metro, which is the second tranche of a total euro 450 million backing for the project.

--IANS

rs/hs/vt

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Friday filed a chargesheet against Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh and others in a disproportionate assets case. Congress cried foul, calling it a case of "political vendetta".

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) filed the chargesheet here before Special Judge Virender Kumar Goyal, who has fixed Saturday for consideration of the investigation report.

Besides Virbhadra Singh, his wife Pratibha Singh, Life Insurance Corporation agent Anand Chauhan, his associate Chunni Lal, Joginder Singh Ghalta, Prem Raj, Lawan Kumar Roach, Vakamullah Chandrashekhara and Ram Prakash Bhatia are also chargesheeted in the case.

The CBI has booked the accused under various sections of the Indian Penal Code dealing with abetment and forgery and under the provisions of Prevention of Corruption Act.

In its report, the CBI has cited around 220 witnesses to support its allegations.

The Delhi High Court earlier on Friday dismissed the plea of the Chief Minister and his wife seeking to quash an FIR registered by the CBI against them, in connection with a case of corruption.

The CBI had registered the case on September 23, 2016, under the Prevention of Corruption Act against Virbhadra Singh, his wife Pratibha Singh, Life Insurance Corporation agent Anand Chauhan and an associate Chunni Lal.

The case was registered after a preliminary inquiry found that Virbhadra Singh, during his term as a Union minister from 2009 to 2012, allegedly accumulated assets worth Rs 6.03 crore, which were disproportionate to his known sources of income.

However, the Congress dismissed it.

"It is an old case. Only a chargesheet has been filed. It is a clear case of political vendetta. There is no question of his resignation. Virbhadra Singh has said that he would fight to the end," Congress spokesperson Abhishek Manu Singhvi told the media.

--IANS

sid/vgu/vd

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Hundreds thronged the RBI here with old demonetised notes to grab new ones on the last day of official exchange on Friday but most people returned home disappointed.

Bank officials and security personnel turned away many because the facility was only for those who were abroad during the demonetisation as well as Non-Resident Indians (NRIs).

Even many eligible claimants failed to reach the bank counters as they could not produce the required documents.

A senior citizen, A.S. Sahani, fumed that he was not aware of the documents the Reserve Bank of India was demanding.

"I came back from the Middle East a few days ago. I have come to exchange some old notes. But I have been told by the security personnel that I can't go inside as I do not have a certificate from the Customs which I was supposed to get when I landed. However, I was not told about it when I landed," Sahani said.

Ngahhoikim, a working professional from Manipur, was in Europe for about a year. When she came back to India, she too was not told about the Customs certificate.

"I showed them my passport, visa, tickets. However, the bank officials want the Customs' certificate. How can I get it now? Should not passengers be informed about it on their arrival?"

As there were hardly any officials to communicate with the crowd, the situation outside the RBI turned chaotic. People openly expressed their anger and desperation with one another and with media persons.

Despite persuasions and warnings by security personnel, people were not ready to vacate the place -- in the faint hope that they may secure entry into the bank.

Kapil Gupta and Navin Garg angrily asked RBI officials if they should burn the old notes since the bank was not accepting them.

"After my grandmother died, we found a few old notes in her cupboard. The bank is not ready to accept them. What am I supposed to do?" one of them asked.

Following the commotion, RBI officials announced that the facility to exchange the demonetised Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 was available only for those who were outside India during the note ban as well as NRIs.

But many kept pleading with the security and bank officials to get their old notes exchanged.

A senior citizen, Nasreena, had come from Faridabad in Haryana to exchange old notes totalling Rs 14,000.

"I could not exchange the notes earlier as my husband and I were not keeping well for long. If the bank does not allow me to exchange, I will lose all my savings," Nasreena complained.

At one point, a senior RBI bank official pleaded with the people to go home.

"The bank cannot exchange their notes any more," the official said.

At 3 p.m., the entry of NRIs was halted as their deadline to exchange old notes expires only on June 30. From then, only those who were outside India during the note ban and had valid documents were let in.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
China on Friday confirmed that the body of Kim Jong-nam, half-brother of the North Korean leader, was flown back to Pyongyang from Kuala Lumpur via Beijing on Friday, following authorisation from Malaysia.

"The body of the North Korean citizen killed in Malaysia has returned today (Friday) via Beijing," said Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lu Kang at a press conference, without explicitly mentioning the name of Kim Jong-nam, the older brother of Kim Jong-un.

Lu added that two other North Korean citizens - suspected by Malaysia of involvement in Kim Jong-nam's killing - also flew from the Malaysian capital to Pyongyang, but did not disclose details of their identity, Efe news reported.

Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak said in a statement on Thursday that following completion of the autopsy, and upon request by the victim's family, Kim Jong-nam's remains would be returned to North Korea.

Pyongyang also confirmed the return of nine Malaysians it had detained since February.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The Gujarat assembly on Friday amended its cow protection act making the law stringent and even punishable with life term.

The state assembly passed the amendment to the Gujarat Animal Preservation Act of 1954 providing for maximum punishment of up to life imprisonments and a fine of up to Rs five lakh.

With this Act, cow slaughter became a non-bailable offence in the state. Hitherto, if a person was found in possession of beef, he could face a jail term ranging from seven to 10 years.

According to the new law, even if someone had a permit they would not be allowed to carry any meat at night.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Global economic resilience and digitalisation will be among the key areas of focus of the G20 Summit to be held in Hamburg on July 7-8, Andreas Lux, Head of the German G20 Presidency Team Global, said here on Friday.

Speaking at an interactive session organised by the German Embassy here, Lux said that the summit of 20 major economies would aim at ensuring the continuity of key issues facing the group.

He said that for this, Germany was working in close cooperation with its troika partners China and Argentina.

"Previously, resilience in G20 focussed on improving regulation of financial markets," Lux said.

"Now, the German Presidency is aiming at tackling other areas through which resilience of economy may be improved," he stated giving structural reforms as an example.

To build resilience in the global economy, he said the focus areas will be international financial architecture, financial markets, international taxation, trade and investment and employment.

In terms of improving sustainability, the stress will be on shaping digitalisation in the financial sector, climate and energy, the 2030 Agenda of the UN's Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), health and empowering women.

Lux also highlighted the "Compact with Africa" through which Germany seeks to intensify partnerships with Africa.

"Sustainable development and employment opportunities are key to address poverty and migration in Africa," he stated.

Tackling the causes of human displacement, combating terror-financing and money laundering, fighting corruption and ensuring food security are among the thrust areas of the German Presidency.

Speaking on the occasion, Jayant Narlikar, Deputy Secretary in the Ministry of Finance, said that as a member of the G20, India stood for poor countries and developing economies.

Stating that "excellent work" was happening in anti-terrorist financing, Narlikar said India was for universal implementation of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) policies.

Among issues of interest for India, he mentioned trade, reforms in the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the key role of public investment in climate finance, transfer of clean technologies from advanced economies to developing economies, long-term infrastructure investment and mobility of skilled professionals.

In terms of mobility of professionals, Narlikar said that with most developed countries having aging populations, India has the dividend of youth and was ready to contribute.

Following the presentations by Lux and Narlikar, a panel discussion was also held.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit. UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. SAMUEL COHEN, a.k.a. MOULI COHEN, Defendant-Appellant. No. 15-10274 Decided: March 29, 2017

Before: WALLACE and M. SMITH, Circuit Judges, and ERICKSON, *** District Judge.

MEMORANDUM*

Samuel Cohen appeals from the district court's order denying his motion for a new trial pursuant to Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 33 and the order denying his third motion to continue the evidentiary hearing to allow him further time to uncover newly discovered evidence. We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C.  1291, and we affirm.

The district court did not abuse its discretion in denying Cohen's motion for a new trial, based on an allegation of newly discovered evidence. The trial court correctly identified and applied the controlling law in analyzing the questions presented. United States v. Hinkson, 585 F.3d 1247, 1263 (9th Cir. 2009). There is no abuse of discretion in the district court's finding that Cohen failed to produce any admissible newly discovered evidence. United States v. Kenny, 645 F.2d 1323, 1343 (9th Cir. 1981).

Moreover, the newly discovered evidence upon which Cohen bases his motion consists of merely cumulative impeaching evidence that was neither sufficient to create a likelihood of a different trial outcome nor substantial enough to undermine confidence in the outcome of the original trial. Smith v. Cain, 132 S. Ct. 627, 630 (2012) (citing Kyles v. Whitley, 514 U.S. 419, 434 (1995)); accord United States v. Davis, 960 F.2d 820, 826 (9th Cir. 1992) (There was sufficient evidence to convict Davis, without Duran's testimony.).

Cohen also challenges the district court's denial of his third motion to continue the evidentiary hearing on the motion for a new trial. The denial was not arbitrary or unreasonable, United States v. Flynt, 756 F.2d 1352, 1358 (9th Cir. 1985), or prejudicial. United States v. Rivera-Guerrero, 426 F.3d 1130, 1139 (9th Cir. 2005). The district court correctly determined that even if Cohen were to uncover the newly discovered evidence he was seeking, it would still be cumulative in nature, merely impeaching, and likely inadmissible.

Cohen's two motions for leave to supplement the record on appeal are also denied. The evidence, consisting of a report by Professor Sterling Harwood, and declarations made subsequent to the district court's hearing on the motion for a new trial, is cumulative and, at best, impeaching. Cohen has not provided this court with sufficient reasons for deviating from the requirements of Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 10(a). See United States v. Boulware, 558 F.3d 971, 976 (9th Cir. 2009) (recognizing that except in extraordinary circumstances the court will not allow parties to supplement the record on appeal); Lowry v. Barnhart, 329 F.3d 1019, 1024 (9th Cir. 2003) (Save in unusual circumstances, we consider only the district court record on appeal.). The Government's motions to strike are denied as moot.

AFFIRMED.
The Delhi High Court on Friday dismissed a plea by Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh seeking the cancellation of an FIR registered by the CBI against him and his wife in a corruption case.

The Central Bureau of Investigation had registered the case on September 23, 2016, under the Prevention of Corruption Act against the Chief Minister, his wife Pratibha Singh, Life Insurance Corporation agent Anand Chauhan and an associate Chunni Lal.

The case was registered after a preliminary inquiry that allegedly found that Virbhadra Singh, during his term as a union minister from 2009 to 2012, accumulated assets worth Rs 6.03 crore, which were disproportionate to his known sources of income.

The Chief Minister's counsel had argued that the permission of the state government and Home Department was not sought before raiding his residence.

On October 1, 2015, the Himachal Pradesh High Court in an interim order had restrained the CBI from arresting, interrogating or filing a charge sheet against Virbhadra Singh without its permission.

The matter was later transferred to the Delhi High Court.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The IH2 technology, which converts solid waste to hydrocarbons, will be a "game changer" that could help India become a net exporter of energy, Petroleum Minister Dharmendra Pradhan said on Friday.

Pradhan made the remarks at the inauguration of US oil major Shell's Technology Centre here.

The centre intends to develop IH2 technology which will aid the transition to a low-carbon and more energy-efficient future.

Pradhan said this technology would be particularly beneficial for Indian farmers because it could be applied to agricultural waste.

"The IH2 can create a new economy in the world," the Petroleum Minister said, citing the example of the effect of the US "shale revolution" on the global oil and gas market.

"The shale technology has changed the geopolitics of the world. It has led the US to become a net exporter of energy," Pradhan said.

Lauding the launch of the Shell Technology Centre here, he said: "Wherever I have visited in the world, I have found the footprint of Bengaluru. I am thankful to the Karnataka government and the state's Industries Minister R.V. Deshpande."

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Accusing the West Bengal government of "appeasement politics", Union Minister Babul Supriyo on Friday said the ruling Trinamool Congress is encouraging illegal abattoirs to flourish in the state.

"Several illegal slaughter houses are running in West Bengal under the influence of the state government. Even my constituency Asansol is filled with illegal slaughter houses," said Supriyo, who is a MP from West Bengal's Asansol.

"They are thriving in Asansol because (Trinamool leader) Moloy Ghatak, the local MLA is extending support to the illegal slaughterhouses," he said, adding that his party's UP government was not against slaughterhouses but is acting only against illegal ones.

"Politicians here (in Bengal) are doing it to sustain vote banks but people here are smart enough to see through that," he added.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
An Indian student was beaten up on a tram in Poland in an apparent racist attack. The Indian government said it is enquiring into all aspects of the incident.

External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj asked Indian ambassador in Poland Ajay Bisaria for a report after an Indian, Amit Agnihotri, tagged her and the ministry to a media report that said an Indian student was "beaten to death" in Poznan city of Poland.

Sushma Swaraj tweeted: "There was an incident of beating. Fortunately, he has survived. We are inquiring into all aspects of the incident."

Earlier, she tweeted: "I have just spoken to the Indian Ambassador in Poland and asked for a report. @IndiaPoland"

The Indian envoy replied: "Prelim enquiry suggests student attacked in Poznan tram on Wednesday. Thank God, he survived. Getting details."

Agnihotri then posted: "Racist issue similar to USA, the person shouted at him and then start hitting."

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
A male child was on Friday found dead at a garbage dumping site in Gurugram, police said.

The garbage dumping site falls near a temple in the busiest area of the city, police said.

At the site, a JCB machine was loading garbage in the truck when the body of a child, aged between three to four years, was found. The body has been kept in an autopsy house for identification and police was investigating the case.

A senior police officer said that the child might have been killed somewhere else and later dumped at the site.

Police said the cause of death would be revealed only after the post-mortem report.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) on Friday signed an agreement to release the first tranche of Rs.7,910 crore for the upcoming Mumbai Trans Harbour Link project, an official said here.

The agreement was inked between JICA and Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority for the amount, which comprises around 45 pecent of the project, estimated to cost Rs 17,843 crore.

"This is a major boost to the MTHL as we have already shortlisted contractors who have been issued Request for Proposal for the execution of the project," said MMRDA Metropolitan Commissioner U.P.S. Madan.

A consortium of AECOM-DAR-PADECO-T.Y. Lin have been appointed as general consultants for the project in which JICA has committed to finance 85 percent of the cost.

The MTHL will be a six-lane, 27 metre wide, 22-km long sealink from Sewri to Nhava Sheva on the mainland affording fast links between Mumbai and Navi Mumbai, Raigad, Pune and beyond, to the upcoming new international airport and other major infrastructure and commercial projects.

In its budget for 2017-2018, the MMRDA has allocated an amount of Rs 1,200 crore for the implementation of MTHL, for which Prime Minister Narendra Modi laid the foundation stone last December.

It is due for completion in 2019 and will rank as India's longest sea bridge.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Infocomm on Friday said the deadline to buy Jio's 303 (and other) plans had been extended till April 15 after the unprecedented rush to sign up for Jio Prime offer in just one month.

" Infocomm announced today that in just one month, over 72 million Jio customers have signed up for Jio Prime, making it one of the most successful customer privilege programmes anywhere in the world," the company said in a statement.

"Considering the unprecedented demand for enrolling to Jio Prime and doing the first recharge, Jio has extended the deadline for purchasing Jio's Rs 303 (and other) plans till April 15. This extension will provide the necessary breathing room for users to avoid service disruption during the transition from free to paid services," the statement added.

Jio also announced the Jio Summer Surprise for its Jio Prime members.

"Every Jio Prime member, when they make their first paid recharge prior to April 15 using Jio's Rs 303 plan (or any higher value plan), will get services for the initial three months on a complimentary basis. The paid tariff plan will be applied only in July, after the expiry of the complimentary service," the statement said.

Reliance Industries Chairman Mukesh Ambani in a letter to the Jio customers said: "I want to personally thank you for choosing Jio, and for being a founding member of the Jio movement. A movement to transform India. A movement to empower and enrich each one of you with the revolutionary power and possibilities of digital life.

"Over the past few days, we have been deluged by millions of customers queuing up to purchase Jio's popular Rs 303 and other tariff plans. This nationwide trend indicates that very many customers are still in the process of purchasing Jio Prime and their first paid tariff plan.

"Jio has created the world's largest greenfield 4G LTE wireless broadband network, with over 100,000 mobile towers. And we will add another 100,000 towers to our network in the coming months. This greenfield investment  of over Rs 200,000 crores  is the largest anywhere in the world," Ambani said.
In a broad daylight attack, a senior journalist working with the Daily News & Analysis (DNA) newspaper and a friend were seriously injured at Kharghar in Navi Mumbai on Friday, police said.

According to Navi Mumbai Police Commissioner Hemant Nagrale, DNA reporter Sudhir Suryawanshi and friend Santosh Fatate were on some personal work when they were waylaid by four or five persons.

First the attackers punctured two tyres of Fatate's car in which they travelled from Panvel.

Not suspecting anything amiss, they went to look for a tyre repair shop. The attackers followed them on motorcycles and brutally attacked both with sticks and bats before speeding off from the spot, the officer added.

While Suryawanshi sustained injuries and a fracture on his arms, Fatate also sustained injuries on his body. Both have been admitted to the Medicity Hospital at Kharghar. Their condition is stable, said Nagrale.

The police have launched a manhunt for the attackers who had covered their faces. Witnesses claimed the motorcycles had no number plates.

Nagrale said the two lived in a housing complex in Panvel and suspect the attack may be connected to a society election last month.

The incident has been widely condemned by several organizations including the Press Club of Mumbai.

Minister of State for Home Ranjit Patil assured stern action in the matter while Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis directed the police to track down the attackers.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Actor Val Kilmer says he wrote "nice things" about actress Cate Blanchett on Twitter and joked that he is now a "pervert" for making the comments.

Kilmer, 57, made an appearance at the Irvine Improv in Irvine, California, on Wednesday to introduce a special film screening of "Citizen Twain".

During a question and answer session, an audience member asked Kilmer who was his favourite co-star to work with.

"I can't say Cate Blanchett," he joked, reports people.com.

"I wrote nice things about Cate Blanchett on Twitter and now I'm a pervert."

He added: "I'don't know why loving an actor that's so talented is creepy, but I guess I'm creepy."

He also said he didn't understand why the internet reacted like it did to his Blanchett tweets.

"It makes no sense. I didn't say anything weird," he said.

"I write about all my friends," Kilmer added. "There's no story. Nothing weird."

He spent the weekend flooding his Twitter account with posts lauding Blanchett, with whom he appeared in the 2003 film "The Missing" and whom he again co-stars with in the new film "Song to Song".

His posts included an admission that he once flew to Australia "just to talk" to the actress, only to be supposedly met at the airport by her husband and Australian playwright Andrew Upton.

He followed up a few minutes later, adding, "And recently I've had two dreams with Cate Blanchett in them. Her husband wasn't in either of them."

Blanchett has not responded to Kilmer's tweets.

--IANS

nn/rb

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Over a hundred people, including family members of victims of the north Kolkata flyover collapse, participated in a series of walks on the ghastly accident's first anniversary on Friday demanding the demolition of remnants of the "murder bridge".

On March 31, 2016, around 12.30 p.m. the world came crashing down for hundreds of commuters and residents of Ganesh Talkies in north Kolkata when a 100-metre portion of the Vivekananda flyover sheared off and fell, killing 27 persons and injuring over 100 others.

Kusum Dutta, who lost her husband in the tragedy, said she trembled slightly at the sight of the structure.

"I can't erase the memory of that day. Everytime I look up, I can feel a shadow of doom overhanging the road. I don't want a repeat," Dutta said placing a candle on a small marble shrine built in the memory of the victims close to the flyover.

Her views were echoed by Abhishek who lost his parents in the accident.

"I don't want anyone to go through what I experienced. There should be strict legal action. Why is the state government quiet," asked a teary-eyed Abhishek.

The tragedy was caught in a 14-second CCTV video footage. It showed the collapse flattened vehicles and trapped over a 100 persons underneath it. The same visual was shared by many on social media on Friday.

The incident triggered a political slugfest over corruption in the then assembly poll-bound West Bengal.

Over the past one year, police have arrested engineers from Hyderabad-based construction company IVRCL -- responsible for constructing the Vivekananda flyover -- and two officials of the state-run Kolkata Metropolitan Development Authority (KMDA) that had been tasked with monitoring the project.

A series of ongoing scientific inspections have been conducted, but a decision on what to do with the remnant bridge is yet to be taken.

A senior official of the construction company had claimed the disaster was "an act of God" which was swiftly dismissed by engineering experts, who pointed to the lack of proper planning, delays, lacunae in design and bad tendering as the major reasons for the tragedy.

In the aftermath, citizens united under the "Flyover Hatao Abhiyaan" have repeatedly protested against letting the structure remain there in a precarious position. They have been demanding demolition of the "murder bridge".

"Our demand is that the remaining bridge should be demolished. I nearly lost my life that day (March 31, 2016) and it is traumatising to look at the rest of it," said Anil Sonkar, who had just crossed the street beneath the bridge, when it fell.

The long-delayed 2.5-km flyover was expected to tackle congestion in the Burra Bazar area -- the location of one of the largest wholesale markets in Asia -- up to Howrah station, the gateway to the city.

The flyover's foundation was laid in 2008 (during the Left Front regime) and work on the Rs 164 crore project began on February 24, 2009.

It was scheduled to be ready in 2012 but land acquisition issues delayed completion. The implementing agency too ran into financial troubles.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit. CITY OF ALMATY, a foreign state, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. ELVIRA KHRAPUNOV, an individual, AKA Elvira Balmadani, AKA Elvira Kudryashova; et al., Defendants-Appellees. CITY OF ALMATY, a foreign state, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. VIKTOR KHRAPUNOV, an individual; et al., Defendants-Appellees. No. 15-56627, No. 15-56628 Decided: March 30, 2017

Before: PREGERSON, PAEZ, and BERZON, Circuit Judges.

MEMORANDUM*

In two related cases, the City of Almaty, Kazakhstan (Almaty) alleged that Defendants conspired to abuse Defendant Viktor Khrapunov's mayoral office in Almaty for personal gain. Defendants allegedly invested their ill-gotten gains in shell companies and real estate in the United States. Almaty alleged claims under 18 U.S.C.  1962 and 1964, as well as claims for breach of fiduciary duty, conversion and conspiracy to convert, fraud and conspiracy to defraud, and for an accounting and imposition of a constructive trust and equitable lien. The district court dismissed the actions on the basis of forum non conveniens.

Almaty appeals. We review the district court's order dismissing the lawsuit [s] on the basis of forum non conveniens for an abuse of discretion, Carijano v. Occidental Petroleum Corp., 643 F.3d 1216, 1224 (9th Cir. 2011), and we reverse.

1. To prevail on a motion to dismiss based upon forum non conveniens, a defendant bears the burden of demonstrating an adequate alternative forum, and that the balance of private and public interest factors favors dismissal. Id.

2. It was an abuse of discretion for the district court to conclude that Switzerland would provide an adequate alternative forum. An alternative forum is deemed adequate if: (1) the defendant is amenable to process there; and (2) the other jurisdiction offers a satisfactory remedy. Id. at 1225. Here, Defendants failed to establish amenability to service of process. Defendants did not agree to submit to service of process in Switzerland, and they failed to present evidence on this issue. See Dole Food Co. v. Watts, 303 F.3d 1104, 1118-19 (9th Cir. 2002). In addition, Defendants failed to establish that Switzerland offers a satisfactory remedy. To establish a remedy, Defendants relied solely on Swiss Code provisions pertaining to adhesive civil claims that may be asserted in connection with criminal proceedings. Defendants did not submit an expert declaration explaining how those provisions would apply in this instance. Nor did Defendants offer any explanation as to how Almaty could assert adhesive civil claims when no criminal charges have been filed. Accordingly, on this record, Defendants failed to demonstrate that a Swiss remedy is available to Almaty. See Ceramic Corp. of Am. v. Inka Maritime Corp., 1 F.3d 947, 949 (9th Cir. 1993) ([T]he alternative forum must provide some potential avenue for redress.).

3. Even if Defendants had properly established the adequacy of Switzerland as an alternative forum, reversal would be warranted because the district court inverted Defendants' burden regarding the public and private interest factors. Contrary to the district court's conclusion, the proper standard is not whether Almaty's convenience outweighs the public and private interest factors favoring Switzerland, but rather, whether Defendants have established that the public and private interest factors strongly outweigh the plaintiff's convenience. See Boston Telecommunications, 588 F.3d at 1206, 1212. In this case, the private and public interest factors do not sufficiently favor Switzerland to permit dismissal.

4. As to the private interest factors, two individual Defendants reside in California, and three corporate entity Defendants are incorporated in California. See, e.g., Carijano, 643 F.3d at 1230-31. Some witnesses and evidence are located abroad. However, no party argues that Kazakhstan is an appropriate forum, and Defendants did not demonstrate that Switzerland is superior to California in terms of securing witnesses and evidence. See Boston Telecommunications, 588 F.3d at 1210; Tuazon v. R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., 433 F.3d 1163, 1181 (9th Cir. 2006). Moreover, the district court failed to consider whether a judgment against Defendants could be enforced in Switzerland, and erroneously deemed the issue undisputed. See Carijano, 643 F.3d at 1231-32.

5. With regard to the public interest factors, the district court criticized Almaty for failing to demonstrate that California has a stronger local interest in the lawsuit than Switzerland. With this public interest factor, however, we ask only if there is an identifiable local interest in the controversy, not whether another forum also has an interest. Tuazon, 433 F.3d at 1182. Almaty's challenge focuses on allegedly unlawful activities that occurred within California, which vests California with an interest in the dispute. See Boston Telecommunications, 588 F.3d at 1212. In addition, United States law governs the resolution of Almaty's federal claims, and California law governs Almaty's common law claims. Finally, the fact that this case may impose added burdens on the Central District of California is of little relevance without a comparison to the congestion of Swiss courts. Cf. Carijano, 643 F.3d at 1233.

6. In sum, as we concluded in Ravelo Monegro v. Rosa, 211 F.3d 509, 514 (9th Cir. 2000), [t]he record in this case indicates the district court misunderstood [the applicable] standard: rather than treating forum non conveniens as an exceptional tool to be employed sparingly, the district court perceived it as a doctrine that compels plaintiffs to choose the optimal forum for their claim. It was an abuse of discretion for the district court to deny Almaty its choice of the Central District of California as the forum for resolving its claims. See id.

REVERSED.

FOOTNOTES

. Although Defendants argue that Almaty waived this issue, it was Defendants' burden to establish their amenability to service of process in the first instance. See Carijano, 643 F.3d at 1225. Almaty had no obligation affirmatively to challenge Defendants' amenability to service of process because Defendants made no showing on that issue in their motions to dismiss, as they were obliged to do.

. The private interest factors are as follows:(1) the residence of the parties and the witnesses; (2) the forum's convenience to the litigants; (3) access to physical evidence and other sources of proof; (4) whether unwilling witnesses can be compelled to testify; (5) the cost of bringing witnesses to trial; (6) the enforceability of the judgment; and (7) all other practical problems that make trial of a case easy, expeditious and inexpensive.Carijano, 643 F.3d at 1229 (quoting Boston Telecommunications Grp., Inc. v. Wood, 588 F.3d 1201, 1206-07 (9th Cir. 2009)). The public interest factors include: (1) the local interest in the lawsuit, (2) the court's familiarity with the governing law, (3) the burden on local courts and juries, (4) congestion in the court, and (5) the costs of resolving a dispute unrelated to a particular forum. Id. at 1232 (quoting Boston Telecommunications, 588 F.3d at 1211).

. Before the district court, Almaty argued that Defendants have not established that, if Almaty were to prevail in a Swiss court, Almaty would be able to obtain a judgment against the embezzled funds that Defendants have brought to the United States and are using here.
As many as 14 shell companies ferried bribes worth crores of rupees from New Jersey-based consultancy Louis Berger to politicians, namely former Chief Ministers Digambar Kamat and Churchill Alemao, and bureaucrats linked to the bribery scandal, ED officials said on Friday.

The Enforcement Directorate (ED) officials, preferring anonymity, told IANS that detailed questions had been been sent to former Senior Vice President of the international consultancy firm, in the form of a letter rogatory.

The move is aimed to further tighten the investigative noose around the suspect bureaucrats and former company officials involved in the bribery scam.

"In order to facilitate the payment of bribes to key beneficiaries in Goa, Louis Berger officials created as many as 14 shell companies through which bribe money, to the tune of nearly Rs four crore, was eventually transferred to pay off those indicted in the scam," officials said.

The ED has also revealed that while approximately Rs two crore had been initially agreed upon as bribe, it was raised to Rs four crore after more negotiations between the Goa politicians and Louis Berger officials.

Former Chief Ministers Churchill Alemao and Digambar Kamat and other government officials have been accused of allegedly accepting a $976,630 bribe in 2010 from the officials of US-based Louis Berger consultancy firm to secure implementation rights of a multi-billion dollar water and sewerage project in the state worth Rs 1,031 crore, funded by the Japan International Co-operation Agency (JICA).

Top officials linked to the JICA project as well as senior Louis Berger employees, besides Alemao, have been arrested by the Crime Branch.

Kamat has been charged with criminal conspiracy under sections 120(B) and 201 (tampering with evidence) of the Indian Penal Code and other sections of the Prevention of Corruption Act.

The FIR was first filed after Louis Berger headquarters in the US discovered during an internal audit that bribes had been paid to elected representatives and government officials in Goa for securing contracts.

Subsequently, the ED started a separate probe in the case under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act 2002.

Earlier this week, the Directorate has already attached properties belonging to Kamat and Alemao worth Rs 1.95 crore, which were purchased around the time the scam occurred.

"A letter rogatory has been sent to the USA for further investigation of the absconding accused James McClung, who is presently imprisoned in that country," the ED officials said.

--IANS

maya/nir/dg

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak met superstar Rajinikanth at his residence here on Friday.

"Just had a very warm and friendly meeting with Rajinikanth, the Tamil superstar, at his home," Razak tweeted on Friday.

He also shared a photo that features him along with the 66-year-old actor.

Razak is in the city to receive an honorary doctorate from Thanjavur University.

As part of his two-day visit, Razak is believed to have met Governor C. Vidyasagar Rao and Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Edappadi Palaniswami.

According to sources close to Rajinikanth, he met Razak over breakfast at his residence.

Razak became a fan of Rajinikanth during the latter's long stay in Malacca, Malaysia for the shoot of the 2016 film "Kabali".

"When we were shooting for 'Kabali' in Malaysia, we were touched by the support Malaysian government extended to us. Due to our busy shooting schedule, I couldn't meet and thank him (Razak) in Malaysia.

"When I learnt he was coming to Chennai, I invited him home. He accepted my invitation and came home. He even saw some portion of 'Kabali'," Rajinikanth told reporters here.

Asked if the rumour that he was going to replace actor Shah Rukh Khan as the brand ambassador of Malaysian tourism was true, Rajinikanth trashed such reports.

--IANS

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President Pranab Mukherjee on Friday inaugurated a five-day Namami Brahmaputra river festival here in Assam and suggested that the state government make it a regular event.

Mukherjee inaugurated the programme by lighting a ceremonial lamp at the Kachamari Ghat near Fancy Bazar in Guwahati.

"Assam is emerging as an economic hub of East India and South East Asia, which is an important destination for India's investment and trade. India will soon celebrate 25 years of its association with Asean," the President said.

Terming Assam rich in natural resources and its people hard working, the President said a "strong drive, right policies and effective implementation" was needed.

Referring to the diverse and distinctive culture of Assam, Mukherjee said India's strength was its ability to manage diversity and forge unity.

"It was not just the elites but also the common people who were firmly committed to trust, mutual understanding and harmony," he said.

The President said the Brahmaputra River is the lifeline of Assam and the region. It was intertwined into the economy, culture and day-to-day life of the people.

He complimented the state government for having started "Namami Brahmaputra" as an annual festival to showcase Assam's culture as well as potential.

"I do feel it will provide a boost to tourism. Assam's scenic beauty, resources in wildlife, its sanctuaries and the beautiful cultural people has a lot of stories and I do feel this type of regular events with the background stories will attract tourists," he added.

The five-day river festival is being organised across 21 districts of Assam through which the mighty river passes.

Bhutan's Prime Minister Tshering Tobgay also participated in the inauguration ceremony besides Assam Governor Banwarilal Purohit, Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal and senior Assam ministers.

The festival is a tribute to the Brahmaputra river which is revered as a lifeline for the people of Assam.

Assam's culture, heritage, history, music, food, tourism potential and other aspects would be showcased during the festival which will continue till April 4.

--IANS

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Judicial work across the country was crippled on Friday following a nationwide strike by advocates in protest against a proposed bill that prohibits them from holding agitations and makes them liable to pay monetary compensation if they go on strike.

The strike call was given by the Bar Council of India (BCI) - the apex body of advocates - which has termed the Advocates (Amendment) Bill, 2017, "draconian" and one which will "completely destroy" the independence and autonomy of the Indian Bar.

"The strike was successful across the country. It was observed in all the high courts, district courts and lower courts. Lakhs of advocates in the entire country have voiced their protests against this draconian bill which if passed will completely rob the Bar's independence," BCI Chairman Manan Kumar Mishra told IANS here.

According to Mishra, there are around 14 lakh advocates across the country.

In the national capital, lawyers at the high court and all six district courts -- Patiala House, Tis Hazari, Rohini, Karkardooma, Saket and Dwarka - observed the strike. Lawyers from the Supreme Court did not participate but extended their support.

"None of the lawyers appeared before the court as we have decided to abstain from work. The strike is successful," said New Delhi Bar Association President Santosh Mishra.

Judicial work was also affected across Punjab, Haryana and Chandigarh with the courts adjourning hearing of cases due to the strike.

The situation was similar in West Bengal with the State Bar Council claiming the strike to be successful.

"Around 60,000 advocates across Bengal abstained from judicial work in response to the strike," Bar Council of West Bengal Vice Chairman Prasun Kumar Datta told IANS.

In Maharashtra and Goa, the majority of the nearly 1.5 lakh advocates abstained from work.

Activist lawyer Ashish Mehta in Mumbai said that all the bar associations in Maharashtra have passed resolutions supporting the BCI's strike call, but more than 30 per cent of the advocates were present in different courts.

The Mumbai High Court on Thursday had urged lawyers to be responsible in the interest of the litigants.

Kerala High Court advocate A. Jayasankar said the strike was "total" in the state, but added it was his personal opinion that it was needless and unwarranted.

"My personal opinion is that the lawyers should never resort to a strike and it should happen only if the situation is really grave and serious. I don't think the reasons for going on a strike today is anything serious," said Jayasankar.

Judicial work was also affected in Uttar Pradesh with lawyers abstaining from work across district courts as well as at the Allahabad High Court.

The strike call was given following the Law Commission's latest report in which it has recommended sweeping changes in the Advocates Act including prohibiting lawyers from going on strikes and making them liable for monetary compensation for misconduct or going on a strike.

"Advocates' conduct in courts, behaviour with litigants and their unprofessional conduct, including the act of going on frequent strikes as a measure of protest for irrelevant issues, has reached terrifying proportions," it said in the report submitted to the government on March 23.

With reasons ranging from "bomb blast in Pakistan" to a "kavi sammelan (poets conference)", the panel has said that it "could not find any convincing reasons" for the advocates resorting to strikes or abstaining from work.

Providing a wide definition of "misconduct" by advocates, the Law Commission has also proposed imposing a fine extending up to Rs 3 lakh or a compensation to a maximum of Rs 5 lakh payable to the person aggrieved by the misconduct of an advocate.

The BCI has also opposed the definition of "misconduct", saying it has been defined in a "provocative way", making it "risky and difficult" for advocates to accept the brief of any client.

--IANS

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The mayor of New York City has supported the idea of closing down city's notorious prison on Rikers Island.

According to a report in the BBC on Friday, Mayor Bill de Blasio was developing a plan to close the prison within 10 years. However, the details of the plan have not been released yet.

"Closing Rikers will be 'long and arduous', but that local officials and stakeholders have a 'moral obligation' to do so," Blasio was quoted as saying.

Blasio had previously said that replacing the large jail complex that houses 10,000 inmates would be too expensive.

"It will take many years. It will take many tough decisions along the way, but it will happen," he said.

Mr de Blasio believes that it would require to cut the jail population in half to close the prison.

"The length of this process will also require continued investment in the facilities and conditions on Rikers Island that remain key to rehabilitation efforts for thousands of New Yorkers in the years ahead," he added.

An independent commission has been reviewing ways to close Rikers.

The commission was formed after a series of cases revealed questionable practices at the prison complex.

--IANS

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Rome, March 31 (IANS/AKI) More than five million people have fled Syria's civil war to neighbouring countries, according to data from the UN refugee agency UNHCR and the government of Turkey.

A total of 5,018,168 people have taken refuge in Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq and Egypt, the Turkish daily Hurriyet quoted the report as saying.

The victory by the Syrian government and its Russian allies against rebels in the northern city of Aleppo in December has accelerated the exodus, according to the data.

Millions more people have fled to other parts of Syria, including tens of thousands in March, mainly women and children trying to escape a rebel offensive northwest of the city of Hama.

Syrians have also fled to Europe in large numbers, making 884,461 asylum claims between April 2011 and October 2016. Almost two-thirds of the claims were in Germany or Sweden, the data showed.

"We still have a long road to travel in expanding resettlement and the number and range of complementary pathways available for refugees," UNHCR chief Filippo Grandi said on Thursday.

UNHCR estimates that almost 1.2 million refugees will need resettlement in 2017, 40 percent of whom are Syrians.

--IANS/AKI

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Pakistan on Friday decided against participating in the 136th Inter Parliamentary Union Assembly, which is due to begin from April 1, in Dhaka.

A 10-member parliamentary delegation from Pakistan was due to participate in the international parliamentary meeting under the leadership of National Assembly Speaker Ayaz Sadiq.

However, the decision has been taken in view of the "continued malicious and uncalled for propaganda and unfriendly attitude" of the Bangladesh government against the people and the state of Pakistan.

In a statement, Sadiq said members of the assembly have noted with dismay and disappointment the continuing actions and negative public statements of the leadership, public officials and media of Bangladesh despite Pakistan's restraint and overtures to the country.

"I have, therefore, decided not to travel to Bangladesh as a visit at this point will not serve the purpose," he said.

Amid India-Pakistan tensions, a number of countries, including Bangladesh, boycotted the SAARC Summit scheduled to be hosted by Pakistan in Islamabad last November, resulting in postponement of the Summit.

Parliamentarians, including 53 Speakers of Parliament, will make concrete proposals on a range of issues, from ending rising inequality to promoting women's access to financing, during the 136th Assembly of the Inter-Parliamentary Union.

The Speaker recalled that the Pakistani parliament had sincerely laboured to harness good friendly and brotherly relations with the people of Bangladesh.

"It was in this spirit that Pakistan's parliamentary delegation had unanimously voted in favour of the Speaker of Bangladesh Sharmeen Chaudhary for the post of the Chairperson of the Executive Committee of Commonwealth Parliamentary Association in Cameroon in 2014," he said.

Chaudhary had won this election with a narrow margin of 82 votes in favour and 78 against with 10 votes of Pakistan going in her favour.

"However, it is noted with much regret that the friendly gestures were never reciprocated in the same coin. The Speaker of Bangladesh did not visit Pakistan despite repeated invitations," Sadiq noted.

The parliament of Bangladesh also boycotted all international parliamentary meet, organised by the parliament of Pakistan during the last two years despite personal requests by the highest parliamentary leadership.

--IANS

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Home Minister Rajnath Singh on Friday accused of trying to destabilise India and said cross-border terrorist groups in Jammu and Kashmir egged on youths to stone security forces.

The Minister urged the Kashmiri youths not to fall prey to sponsored propaganda to indulge in stone pelting during encounters in the state.

"Not only the state, the terrorists are trying to destabilise the whole country through their cowardly acts," Rajnath Singh said in the Lok Sabha during Zero Hour.

"The whole country is aware of this act of . Our security forces are retaliating against them in their own language," he said.

Singh's response came after Trinamool Congress member Saugata Roy raised the issue of stone pelting on security forces leading to the death of three civilians and injuries to over 60 security personnel.

Responding, Rajnath Singh said: "A new trend has begun in Kashmir. When our security forces go to villages in search of terrorists, the youths of the region start pelting stones on security forces.

"Such stone pelters are being misled by Pakistan-sponsored forces. Groups operating from Pakistan use Facebook, WhatsApp and other social media platforms to mobilise youth to provoke them for stone pelting," he said.

Rajnath Singh said that the security forces will continue to give a befitting reply to terrorists and infiltrators in Jammu and Kashmir and also expressed confidence that India will defeat all forms of terrorism.
Home Minister Rajnath Singh on Friday accused Pakistan of trying to destabilize India and said cross-border terrorist groups in Jammu and Kashmir egged youths to stone security forces.

"Not only the state of Jammu and Kashmir, the terrorists are trying to destabilize the whole country through their cowardice acts," Rajnath Singh said in the Lok Sabha.

"The whole country is aware of this act of Pakistan. Our security forces are responding to them the way it is needed," he added.

Singh's response came after Trinamool Congress member Saugata Roy raised the issue during Zero Hour.

Responding, Rajnath Singh said: "A new trend has begun in Kashmir. When our security forces go to villages in search of terrorists, the youths of the region start pelting stones on security forces.

"Such stone pelters are being misled by Pakistan-sponsored forces.

"Groups operating from Pakistan use Facebook and social media platforms to arrange these crowds," he said.

The minister appealed to the youths of Kashmir not to be misled by anti-national forces.

--IANS

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Goa Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar on Friday thanked Congress leader Digvijay Singh for failing to cobble together a majority in the state despite the party winning the largest number of assembly seats.

Parrikar came to the Rajya Sabha during the Zero Hour and thanked the chairman, Deputy Chairman and other members.

"I express my thanks to the Chairman, Deputy Chairman and members of this house for their support during my tenure as Raksha Mantri (Defence Minister), and invite them to Goa whenever they want to come," Parrikar said.

"My special thanks to honourable member Digvijay Singh, who happened to be in Goa but did nothing so that I could form the government," he said.

Digvijay Singh has given notice for a substantive motion to discuss in the house the conduct of Goa Governor Mridula Sinha, which is now pending for two weeks.

Outside the house, Parrikar said there was no question of immorality in the way the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) formed the government in Goa with the help of smaller parties and Independents.

"Other parties supported us as they didn't trust the Congress...It's a coalition government and there is no question of morality of immorality in it," Parrikar said.

The Congress won 17 seats in the February 4 state assembly elections and emerged as the single largest party, while the BJP won only 13 seats.

The BJP, however, managed to form a coalition government with support from Independent legislators and regional parties.

Parrikar ruled out the possibility of coalition partners switching loyalties.

"Not as long as I am there," he said.

Asked why he gave special thanks to Digvijay Singh, Parrikar replied: "I thanked him for his incompetence."

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Goa Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar on Friday thanked Congress leader Digvijay Singh for failing to cobble together a majority in the state despite the party winning the largest number of seats.

Parrikar came to the Rajya Sabha during the Zero Hour and thanked the Chairman, Deputy Chairman and other members.

He conveyed "special thanks" to Digvijay Singh amid a din created by Congress members, who rushed to the Chair's podium as Parrikar stood up to speak.

"I express my thanks to the Chairman, Deputy Chairman and members of this house for their support during my tenure as the Raksha Mantri (Defence Minister) and invite them to Goa whenever they want to come," Parrikar said.

"My special thanks to honourable member Digvijay Singh, who happened to be in Goa but did nothing so that I could form the government," he said amid the din by Congress members.

Digvijay Singh has given a substantive motion to discuss the conduct of Goa Governor Mridula Sinha in the house which is now pending for two weeks.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Goa Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar on Friday thanked Congress leader Digvijaya Singh for failing to cobble together a majority in the state despite the party winning the largest number of assembly seats.

Parrikar made the remarks in the Rajya Sabha during Zero Hour.

"I express my thanks to the chairman, deputy chairman and members of this house for their support during my tenure as 'raksha mantri' (Defence Minister), and invite them to Goa whenever they want to come," Parrikar said.

"My special thanks go out to honourable member Digvijaya Singh, who happened to be in Goa but did nothing so that I could form the government," he said.

Outside the house, Parrikar said there was no question of immorality in the way the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) formed a coalition government with support from Independent legislators and regional parties.

"Other parties supported us as they didn't trust the Congress... It's a coalition government and there is no question of morality of immorality in it," Parrikar said.

The Congress won 17 seats in the February 4 state assembly elections and emerged as the single largest party, while the BJP won only 13 seats in the 40-member assembly.

Parrikar ruled out the possibility of coalition partners switching loyalties.

"Not as long as I am there," he said.

Asked why he gave special thanks to Digvijaya Singh, Parrikar replied: "I thanked him for his incompetence."

Digvijaya Singh has given notice for a substantive motion to discuss in the House the conduct of Goa Governor Mridula Sinha, which has been accepted by the Chair but the matter is yet to be taken up.

On Friday, the Congress leader again pressed for the substantive motion to be taken up, and asked Deputy Chairman P.J. Kurien for the time slot.

"Sir, I have become a butt of jokes. When I come to the House reporters ask me what happened to my substantive motion, when I go out they ask me the same question," he said, adding that the urgency of the matter is lost.

Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) member Tapan Kumar Sen said the government is trying to avoid the matter.

"He (Digvijaya Singh) has given a substantive motion and it has been accepted. It means it should come in the list of business. But it appears there is an attempt to dodge out the matter during the remaining session," Sen said.

The Budget Session has six more working days left and would conclude on April 12.

--IANS

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Congress Vice President on Friday said the BJP government was "Kisan Virodhi" and asked if Prime Minister Narendra Modi can give debt relief to the richest, then why not the farmers.

Accusing the Prime Minister of being disrespectful to farmers, Rahul Gandhi, who met Tamil Nadu farmers agitating in the capital for drought relief funds, said the plight of the drought-stricken farmers and their families does not affect the government.

"I don't understand why this discrimination. If PM has given debt relief to the richest people in the country, why is he not ready to give debt relief to those who build this country, the farmers," he added.

The Congress leader also said it was the responsibility of the prime minister to listen to the farmers and solve their problems.

Pointing to the demands of the farmers  drought relief, waiving of loans and support to the farmers, said a solution "needs to be worked out and at least a conversation needs to be started by these people".

He also vowed to raise the issue in Parliament in support of the farmers' cause.

"This government is kisan virodhi (anti-farmer) and garib virodhi (anti-poor). They are sitting here for so many days. Neither the government nor the PM is listening to their voice," he said.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday extended his wishes for the Namami Brahmaputra festival to be celebrated in Assam between March 31 and April 4.

"It is a matter of great pride that the Namami Brahmaputra festival is being launched by the Assam government. Best wishes for the festival," Modi tweeted.

"The Brahmaputra is the lifeline of Assam and the Northeast and is the source of livelihood for people in the region," he added.

In his message, the Prime Minister also advised Indians to work together to ensure clean rivers for the growth of the country.

"Rivers occupy a central role in India's history and culture. Let us keep working together to ensure clean rivers for India's growth," he added.

A five day long event, Namami Brahmaputra, the biggest river festival of India, is being celebrated in Assam under the leadership of Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal across 21 districts along the Brahmaputra in its entire stretch from Sadiya to Dhubri.

--IANS

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Film: "Poorna"; Director: Rahul Bose; Cast: Rahul Bose, Aditi Inaamdar, Dhritiman Chatterjee and Heeba Shah; Rating: ****

At one crucial point in the telling of this simple and heart-warming tale of a tribal girl's climb from the pits of poverty to Himalayan heights, Rahul Bose, playing an upright bureaucrat, asks the little Andhra girl what is her purpose for climbing Everest.

"I have no purpose. I just want to do it," she tells her mentor honestly.

The simple confessional articulation exemplifies this film's mood. So rich in its message, so far-flung in its intentions and purpose and yet so intimate in treatment and execution, Rahul Bose wins you over with his honesty of purpose.

There are no duplicitous bones in the structure of this film.

Sure, there are passages in this motivational tale that follow the rags-to-riches trajectory with textbookish precision. But the heart is unweariedly in the right place, bringing to the narrative a kind of non-negotiable integrity that is at once compelling and winsome.

Authenticity is the key to the cogency of Bose's vision. He chooses actors and locations as true to the original milieu as cinematically possible. The rest just follows.

The narrative sweeps us into an emotional realism that is at once sparse and dramatic, pumping up the saga of resilience and humanism with vignettes and frames that form a panoramic arc over the film's rugged landscape.

Poorna's saga begins in an impoverished village of Andhra Pradesh and ends on the world's highest summit -- Everest. It is an ambitious arc, navigated and tempered with a lavish affection for the downtrodden and an absence of patronising pride in depicting the rise of a young underprivileged girl to heights of glory.

Little Ishaan in "Taare Zameen Par" had his Ram Shankar Nikumbh to steer him into the light. Poorna has Praveen Kumar, a bureaucrat who belongs to that rare breed of civil servants who still believes he took on the job with the purpose of improving lives of the underprivileged. I've read some very strange comments on how Rahul Bose has cast himself in a self-glorifying role.

Wait... Is that against the law? To play noble characters? Has that been declared a cognisable offence by a social order that thinks cynicism is cool?

It is easy to get cynical about a character whose heart bleeds for those who are not given one square meal a day. There is an emotionally surcharged moment in the narrative where the conscientious bureaucrat eats a mid-day meal with school girls to get a feel of the awful food that is served up by government-funded canteens. Rahul's Praveen Kumar doesn't flinch as he swallows morsels of the garbage (junk food at its purest?).

But we do.

Throughout the telling of this inspiring tale of a girl who won't buckle under the pressure of poverty and cynicism, Rahul gives us the portrait of a bleak landscape lit up by a distant hope. He is the artiste who won't judge a value system that condemns the downtrodden to doom. But he won't condone it either.

He can laugh with Poorna at her poverty -- don't miss the sequence where the girls at the boarding school giggle and compare each other's poverty -- but he won't laugh at her condition.

"Poorna" is a little gem with a big heart. It has many virtues. Aditi Inaamdar who plays Poorna is a prized find. So is young S. Mariya as Poorna's spunky but tragically vanquished cousin. The scenes showing the two girls bonding are so heart warming as to make us overlook the film's obvious flaws of over-statement.

However, some of the other actors in incidental roles seem to have come on board just to feel good about themselves for helping a noble cause.

The film is shot with minimum fuss and optimum feelings. When little Poorna stood at the peak of Everest, I felt I was standing up there with her. Gloriously triumphant and hoping that what Majrooh Sultanpuri wrote 45 years ago for a just social order would come true soon: Kitne din aankhen tarsengi/ Kitne din yun dil tarsenge/ Ek din toh baadal barsenge/ Ae mere pyaase dil/ aaj nahin toh kal mehkegi khwabon ki mehfil.

Take a bow, Rahul Bose. "Poorna" is not just a tale of the triumph of the human spirit. We all have a Poorna inside us waiting to conquer our own Everest.

--IANS

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President Pranab Mukherjee will lay the foundation stone for the Bengaluru Dr B.R. Ambedkar School of Economics at a function to be held in the Karnataka Vidhana Soudha on April 14, a minister said here on Friday.

"We are grateful to President Pranab Mukherjee for accepting our invitation to lay the foundation stone for Bengaluru Dr B.R. Ambedkar School of Economics," state Minister for Higher Education Basavaraj Rayaraddi told reporters here.

The Karnataka government intends to make this an autonomous institution of international standard. Bengaluru University had made an attempt to establish Dr Sitaram Jindal School of Economics in partnership with the Jindal Group, but the proposal had to be put on the back-burner due to the stiff resistance from various sections of the society.

"We approached the Jindal Group but they said they are not interested. With the Jindal Group cancelling its plan, the Karnataka government has taken the initiative to establish Bengaluru Dr B.R. Ambedkar School of Economics," Rayaraddi said.

The state Cabinet has already given administrative approval for establishing the college at a cost of Rs 150 crore in its first phase, which would include the main administrative block, student hostels and auditorium, three seminar halls, residential accommodation for the regular faculty, etc.

"More than 43 acres of land in Jnana Bharathi campus has been handed over to the Bengaluru Dr B.R. Abmedkar School of Economics. Initial design and drawings for the establishment of the institution are ready," the minister said.

"We had sought the assistance of London School of Economics (LSE) to set up programs, faculty and other facilities. A team from LSE visited Bengaluru and agreed in principle to provide technical support," he added.

Retired Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer Anup K. Pujari has been appointed the special officer of the Bengaluru Dr B.R. Ambekdar School of Economics, which is to begin admissions from academic year 2017-18.

"We are mulling to admit around 50 students for the 2017-18 academic year but a final decision on the admissions is yet to be taken," Pujari said.

--IANS

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The Supreme Court on Friday asked Calcutta High Court judge Justice C.S. Karnan to respond to the contempt notice issued to him in a suo motu hearing of the matter.

A seven-judge bench headed by Chief Justice Jagdish Singh Khehar gave Justice Karnan four weeks time to respond to the notice issued to him in January.

At the outset of the hearing, Khehar asked Karnan if he wanted to reiterate the allegations he had made against 20 judges or think about it or offer an unconditional apology.

"We are asking you again and again. Do you say that you stand by whatever you have written or want to think about it, we will give you the time," the bench told Karnan as he appeared before the court, after non-bailable warrants were issued against him in the last hearing.

As the court asked Karnan to respond in the four weeks time, he said that his judicial and administrative work should be restored only then he would be in a position to respond to the contempt notice.

As the bench refused to accede to his plea for the restoration of his functions, Karnan said that the court could record his statement that he would not appear for the next hearing, he can be punished right away and sent to jail.

As Karnan said that he was not in a state of mind to respond to the contempt notice, the bench said: "If you feel that you are not in a mental state to respond, you give a medical certificate."

At one point in the course of the hearing, when the bench observed that Karnan was not clear and was not able to comprehend as to what he was doing, Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi said that there was no questions of non-comprehension.

Rohatgi said: "I don't think this is a case of un-intention. It is a case of re-affirmation (of the allegations). You go on naming the judges, asking for inquiry. He is damning the judges. Has damned the judiciary."

--IANS

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The Supreme Court on Friday refused to hold an early hearing on petitions challenging the 2010 Allahabad High Court verdict on the title suit of the disputed Ramjanmabhoomi-Babri Masjid site.

Telling BJP leader Subramanian Swamy that there were too many things to do right now, the bench headed by Chief Justice Jagdish Singh Khehar said that as of now it did not have time to hear the petitions.

The bench also told the MP: "We came to know from the media that you are not a party in the matter."

Swamy told the court that his writ petition seeking an early hearing of the matter as his right to pray at the Ramlala temple at Ayodhya was being affected had been converted into an intervention application.

Swamy had on March 21 urged the court to hold an early hearing of the matter as it was pending before it for last so many years.

The top court had on March 21 said the settlement of the Ayodhya Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid dispute through negotiation was a better course than insisting on a judicial pronouncement.

The bench headed by Chief Justice Khehar had said this on March 21 after Swamy urged the court to set up a bench to hear a bunch of petitions challenging the 2010 Allahabad High Court order as the matter was pending before it for six years.

The Allahabad High Court order said that there should be a partition of the disputed Ayodhya land amongst the claimants.

The Lucknow bench of the Allahabad High Court ordered that the land around the disputed site be divided into three parts -- one for the deity (Ramlala Virajmaan), another for Nirmohi Akhara, a Hindu sect and an original litigant in the case, and third for the Muslims.

The Supreme Court had put the Allahabad High court verdict on hold in May 2011, describing it as a "rare judgment whose operation has to be stayed".

--IANS

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Sikhs in the US are reporting an increase in violent threats and harassment against the community amid rising incidents of hate crimes against Indian Americans in the country.

Chairman of the Sikhs Political Action Committee (SikhsPAC), Gurinder Singh Khalsa, said so far there have been two death threats and two reports of vandalism against Sikhs in the state of Indiana, TheIndyChannel.com, an ABC Television Network affiliate, reported on Thursday.

One incident included a direct threat against a Sikh from a man carrying a handgun in Fishers city, according to the report.

"Somebody showed him the gun and asked him: 'Who are you? What country do you belong to?'"

Khalsa said there have been other incidents too where Sikhs were threatened.

Sikh-American physician Amandeep Singh said he was directly threatened last week with a text message and doesn't understand why this is happening to Sikhs around the nation.

Singh said he felt a range of emotions after the threats, including fear for his family and his patients.

"Fear, especially if you have family, kids, the safety of your family and kids, that comes to mind first," said Amandeep. "Then you try to make sense of it."

"I believe I've been living here 14 years and never experienced anything like that specifically," Singh said.

"My job is serving the people you know, everyday I'm there for the people and taking a stand with them and serving the community. It was hard for me to comprehend even something like that coming to somebody's mind."

SikhsPAC has contacted the US Attorney General's Office and is working with law enforcement. The threats were under investigation.

Indiana is one of only five states in the US without a hate crime law, said the report.

--IANS

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External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj is set to make a statement in Parliament next week on the attacks on Nigerian students in Greater Noida, a top official announced on Friday.

"The incident of attacks on the African students are unfortunate. Sushma Swaraj spoke to Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath. The matter is being probed," Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ananth Kumar said in Lok Sabha.

Kumar's remarks came after Congress member Rajeev Satav raised the issue during the Zero Hour.

Kumar added: "The matter will be probed impartially and all necessary action will be taken against the guilty. Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister has assured us. On April 5, Sushma Swaraj will make a statement over the issue in the house."

The attack on the Nigerian students took place on Monday night in Greater Noida, following protests over the death of a Class 12 student of a residential colony there due to drug overdose.

Some people who were holding a candle-light vigil for the student attacked the Nigerians suspecting them of drug running.

Five people were arrested for the attacks.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Former US National Security Adviser Michael Flynn has said he is willing to testify before federal and congressional investigators in their ongoing probe into Russian meddling in the US elections, but only if he is granted immunity.

But a congressional official said investigators were unwilling to broker a deal with Flynn until they understand what information Flynn might offer as part of a deal, reported the New York Times.

The former NSA resigned last month for misleading White House officials about his contacts with Russian Ambassador to Washington Sergey Kislyak.

In a statement on Thursday, Flynn's lawyer confirmed discussions with the House and Senate Intelligence Committees about possible testimony by Flynn.

Flynn's lawyer Robert Kelner said that "no reasonable person, who has the benefit of advice from counsel, would submit to questioning in such a highly-politicised, witch-hunt environment without assurances against unfair prosecution".

"General Flynn certainly has a story to tell, and he very much wants to tell it, should circumstances permit," the statement said.

On Friday morning, US President Donald Trump urged Flynn to ask for immunity to protect himself from a "witch hunt".

"Mike Flynn should ask for immunity in that this is a witch hunt (excuse for big election loss), by media & Dems, of historic proportion!" Trump tweeted.

The Wall Street Journal reported Flynn's offer to testify.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is investigating whether any of Trump's advisers colluded with the Russian government in its efforts to disrupt the 2016 presidential election.

An immunity deal would make it extraordinarily difficult for the Justice Department to prosecute Flynn, said the daily.

Asked about Flynn's offer, Dmitry Peskov, a Kremlin spokesman, said the Russian government has not given it "any evaluations".

He pointed to Russian President Vladimir Putin's comments on Thursday in which he dismissed claims that Russia meddled in the US election as "fictional, illusory, provocations and lies".

Three former Trump aides who are at the centre of the federal investigation into Russia's interference in the US elections have already come forward and said they would testify freely, without the promise of immunity.

Former campaign chairman Paul Manafort, former adviser Roger Stone and former foreign policy adviser Carter Page all said, via their lawyers, last week that they were ready to come before House and Senate investigators.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
US President Donald Trump on Friday will sign two executive orders aimed at combating foreign trade abuses that contribute to the country's half-trillion-dollar trade deficit, officials said.

Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross and National Trade Council Director Peter Navarro said the Trump administration will launch a wide-ranging review of the US trade deficit with the purpose of identifying forms of "trade abuse" that have contributed to the deficit, reported The Hill newspaper reported.

Ross said the investigation will go through US trade relationship country-by-country to look for issues like cheating, lax enforcement or currency misalignment.

"It will demonstrate the Trump administration's intention not to hip-shoot, not to do anything casual, not to do anything abruptly, but to take a very measured and analytical approach," he said.

Trump has tied deficits to unfair trade practices and has vowed to renegotiate major trade deals like the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) to give the US a better advantage.

NAFTA is an agreement signed by Canada, Mexico, and the US, creating a trilateral trade bloc in North America.

Ross said that the report will look at factors from trade barriers such as tariffs to currency misalignment and other issues that tip the trade balance into the favour of foreign countries.

He emphasised that the comprehensive report would be the first of its kind and would take an analytic deep dive into the issues the US faces with its trading partners, said the report.

"The report will demonstrate the administration's intention not to hip-shoot, not to do anything casual, not to do anything abruptly, but to take a very measured and analytical approach," he said.

He ticked off a dozen or more countries in the order with a combined goods and services trade deficit, starting with China and including Mexico, Germany and Canada that run a surplus with the US.

Ross said results could produce action against unfair trade practices before the 90-day period is up, reported The Hill.

The second executive order will give US agencies, especially those working at the borders, greater power to collect import taxes.

Navarro said the inability of the US to collect anti-dumping duties on a wide range of products is a "long festering problem."

Navarro said that China accounts for about one-third of more than 300 anti-dumping cases.

--IANS

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Of the 30 million pending court cases in India as of December 2014, over 80 per cent are in district and subordinate courts, which are short of about 5,000 (23 per cent) judges. But filling vacancies may not be the universal answer, according to our analysis, which found only a weak direct correlation between shortage of judges and performance of lower courts.

India's judicial delays are legendary, and its shortage of judges well-known. Yet, despite the constraints, some courts manage to perform better than others, sometimes significantly so. Data can help identify such courts, as well as their innovations and best practices, so that these can be replicated in other courts.

India has over 600 district courts. Identifying the high performers and replicating their best practices in other courts can make an immediate impact.

Without standardisation in data across lower courts, their performance cannot be compared directly. So, we studied Tamil Nadu, whose average duration of pendency of cases approximates the national average.

Also, the Madras High Court is one of the few in the country whose latest annual report, for 2015, provides a detailed analysis of the lower courts under its jurisdiction.

The state average for pendency duration of civil cases is 2.95 years -- a civil case takes about three years to reach a conclusion. Ariyalur is the worst performing district in this regard -- a civil case takes 4.65 years on average, that is, 50 per cent slower than the state average.

Thiruvarur performs the best with an average pendency duration of just two years.

For criminal cases, average pendency duration is 3.23 years for all of Tamil Nadu. Madurai performs exceedingly well with an average pendency duration of 1.75 years, while Perambalur is the slowest with an average pendency duration of 5.29 years. Kancheepuram performs poorly in both civil and criminal cases, being significantly slower than the state average.

Cases accumulate when the rate of disposal is lower than the rate at which new cases are instituted. Tamil Nadu accumulated 43,973 cases in 2015. Of these, 36,945 were civil and 7,028 criminal cases.

First, the civil cases: Of the 32 districts in Tamil Nadu, only five are disposing of more cases than the number of cases instituted, with Ariyalur performing the best and Chennai the worst.

Chennai lower courts accumulate more than 6,000 civil cases each year, while Ariyalur courts dispose of 1,000 cases from its pending pile each year. If this continues, Ariyalur courts will dispose of all their pending cases in nine years, after accounting for new cases that will be instituted each year.

Next, the criminal cases: Chennai lower courts perform the best in disposing of criminal cases -- they conclude 7,700 criminal cases more than instituted each year. At this rate, Chennai will dispose of all its pending cases in 5.4 years. This is far better than any other district in the state.

Coimbatore's lower courts are the slowest in disposing of criminal cases too.

We also analysed the number of judicial vacancies across all lower courts in Tamil Nadu. There are no significant differences in the number of vacancies between various lower courts, so the huge difference in their performances cannot be explained solely by shortage of judges.

The answer would seem to lie in procedural innovations, which needs to be analysed and documented at the high performing courts.

Our key point is: District courts can learn from each other's successes and failures. For example, Chennai courts may learn from Ariyalur courts how to better dispose of civil cases, and may learn from their own experience with disposing of criminal cases.

A nationwide analysis is possible if we have standardised data to compare lower courts across the country. There is an urgent need for collecting case data in a structured and standardised format across the various courts in India. This will enable deeper insights and precise policy prescriptions.

While long-term issues such as shortage of judges grab policymakers' attention, they must also tackle the immediate problems. In the near term, immediate improvements are possible by horizontally replicating proven procedural innovations.

(In arrangement with IndiaSpend.org, a data-driven, non-profit, public interest journalism platform. Shobhit Mathur is Executive Director, Vision India Foundation, where Ram Prasath V.R. is a Research Intern. The views expressed are those of IndiaSpend. Feedback at respond@indiaspend.org)

--IANS/IndiaSpend

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Actor Anupam Kher, whose latest Bollywood release "Naam Shabana" features a woman as the protagonist, says he has always considered women superior to men.

"I always feel that women are superior to men. Anybody who can give birth to life has to be superior," Anupam said here on Thursday.

"My mother is a great lady and there are strong women in the society. It is important in each country, including India, to give equal opportunities to women. It should be a very natural process and we should not work hard, very hard for it. Being a known face, it is very important for me to talk about such issues," he said.

Anupam spoke on the sidelines of a special screening of "Poorna" -- another movie highlighting the grit and determination of a girl.

Rahul Bose directed "Poorna" is a biopic on the life of Poorna Malavath, a young tribal girl from Telangana who became the youngest girl in history to climb the Mount Everest.

Praising Rahul for making such a film, Anupam said: ""ahul is a socially aware person. He is always associated with a film which presents some important causes and issues. He is also associated with numerous causes. Every film is about storytelling and how engaging you could make it.

"I am happy for him that his film is creating buzz among the people."

--IANS

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India is understandably excited at the prospect of welcoming Sheikh Hasina Wazed on April 7. But it would be wise not to forget that China has always been the elephant in the room of India- relations, especially where rivers are concerned.
Chemicals manufacturer is expected to benefit from the 150% anti-dumping duty imposed by the US government over the last fortnight on Chinese exports of refrigerant gas R134a to the US. is the domestic market leader in refrigerant gases. Ritesh Gupta of Ambit Capital says the imposition of the duty will make significantly competitive in the US market.
The Congress on Thursday expressed serious concern over the attacks on Africans in Greater Noida and alleged that the law and order was deteriorating fast in Uttar Pradesh under the new BJP dispensation.

The opposition party also accused the BJP of trying to "politicise" symbols and use them to "divide" people, referring to the barring of some councillors from attending Meerut Municipal Corporation meets over their refusal to sing 'Vande Mataram'.

Congress spokesperson Rajeev Gowda appealed to people to rise above suspicion and not yield to rumours about people indulging in illegal activities.

"The issue is very delicate. It is a very worrisome thing that the new government has come in and is unable to demonstrate its ability in terms of law and order.

"Its inability to show that Indians and our guests from abroad are not able to live in harmony without being attacked is a matter of great concern. Law and order is deteriorating so quickly under the new government," he said.

Four Nigerian students were attacked by a group of Greater Noida residents who took out a candle-light march after a 17-year-old boy Manish died last week in the NSG Black Cats Enclave due to suspected drug overdose.

He said if there is a racist element to these attacks, one would recall Jawaharlal Nehru's role during the freedom movement when such a movement was not just within India but in other parts of the world also.

"We were part of an anti-colonial movement across the world. We have seen a feeling of brotherhood and bonding with Africa and there has been a brotherhood bonding," he said, adding that this gives people of India and Africa a historical connection.

"Instead of that what we see is attacks on them on basis of skin colour. These are not positive measures...We appeal to people to rise above suspicion, to not yield to loose talks about people indulging in illegal activities," he said.

Asked about some corporators refusing to sing 'Vande Mataram' in the Meerut civic body, Gowda said, "'Vande Mataram' is a song that inspired the Congress Party in the freedom movement."



He said it is the song. In Parliament, it is an accepted practice for 'Vande Mataram' to be played at the end of session, that starts with the anthem.

The Congress leader noted that these are all customs and practices that should be the basis for consensus and this is something that should be celebrated.

"It is a matter of concern that symbols of the nation such as the National Anthem and the National Song are being politicised by the BJP. They are trying to use these in some ways to try and divide the people.

"We would trust everyone to believe that these are integral to what India is and to celebrate Indianness by honouring and respecting the National Song," he said.
In 2014, Prime Minister broke new ground by extensively using technology to fight the Lok Sabha elections. The highlight of that campaign was his use of 3D hologram technology to address public meetings at the same time across India, particularly to reach out to people in the remoter towns.
The DRI seized one kg of gold worth more than Rs 30 lakh from a passenger, coming from Dubai at the Amritsar airport.

Acting on a tip-off, sleuths of the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) seized nine biscuits from Amit Kumar, hailing from Amritsar, who was travelling in a flight coming from Dubai on March 29, DRI officials said today.

Nine gold biscuits weighing 116 gram each were concealed in an amplifier, they said.

"Gold biscuits were concealed in such a way that even the x-ray machines failed to detect them," the officials said.

Besides Kumar, DRI sleuths also arrested a Batala resident named Abhishek Kumar who was at the airport to receive him. Both have been booked under the Customs Act.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Two Indian nationals have been arrested in Karachi during census exercise with Pakistani authorities claiming they were living illegally in the city for the last eight years.

Law enforcement agencies are questioning the duo from Gujarat who had been arrested from Gulshan-e-Iqba and Saddar areas of Karachi on Monday during the ongoing countrywide census, Sindh Census Commissioner Abdul Aleem Memon said.

"We found them during census checks in Karachi this week," Memon said.

The census officials alerted the authorities about the presence of the two Indians which led to a raid by police and intelligence agencies.

According to officials, the two men have been living in the city for the last eight years.

They have been identified as Hassan Ahmad, a resident of Ahmadabad and Waseem Hassan from Gujarat, local Dunya TV reported.

Both the persons are living in the country without any legal documents.

"They have no legal documents to support why they are living in Karachi and they were unable to respond to our questions properly. One of them also had a diary which we confiscated and handed over to the authorities," Memon said.

Pakistan began its first census in about two decades with the assistance of over 200,000 troops and civilian officials on March 15 to collect crucial data that will be used for key policy decisions, including delimitation of constituencies.

The first phase of the 6th census has been completed in eight districts of Sindh, including six districts of Karachi and one each in Hyderabad and Ghotki.

The census would be completed by the end of May.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Thirty-three Naxals, four of them carrying cash reward on their heads, today surrendered in Chhattisgarh's Bastar district citing disillusionment with Maoist ideology, the police said.

The cadres, including four women, turned themselves in before Inspector General (in-charge) Bastar Range Sundarraj P, Collector Amit Kataria and other senior official at Jagdalpur, the district headquarters, Bastar SP Sheikh Arif Hussain told PTI.

Twenty-five of them were active in Kanger Valley under Darbha division of southBastar, which has witnessed several deadly Naxalattacks in the past, while the remaining eight were working in Barsoor area, he said.

Four of the ultras - Dudhi Goche, Phoolram and two women - Jogi Madkami, Dudhi Gonche - were carrying reward of Rs 1 lakh each on their heads, the SP said.

Hussain described the surrender as a majorsuccessfor the Bastar police in their drive against Maoists.

The SP said in their statement, the rebels expressed disillusionment with the "hollow" ideology of the Naxal movement and said this prompted them to leave the path of violence and join the mainstream.

Moreover, they were impressed with the provisions of surrenderand rehabilitation policy of the state government, the police officer added.

He said Rs 10,000 in cash was given to each of the surrenderedrebels as immediate financial aid and they will be rehabilitated as per the government policy.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Four persons were killed and 13 others injured when a cold storage building collapsed following an explosion in Dhuri town near here today.

Police said the preliminary investigation revealed that the incident occurred due to the explosion inside the gas chamber of the structure.

Four labourers, between the age group of 25 to 35 years, were found dead, they said.

The injured persons, who were rescued from the debris of the structure, have been hospitalised and their condition is stated to be stable, they said.

(Reopens DES 34)



Meanwhile, Chief Minister Amarinder Singh announced a compensation of Rs one lakh each to the families of the deceased and Rs 50,000 each to the injured.

He directed the officials to ensure strict implementation of rules in the operations of all businesses and industries using sensitive materials.

The blast at Guru Nanak cold storage, owned by Harinder Singh of Kaheru, reportedly occurred due to sudden and excessive outflow of the ammonia gas, officials said.

The Chief Minister asked the district officials to investigate the incident and pin the responsibility for the mishap.

Amarinder said units deploying such gases and other dangerous materials need to follow strict rules and regulations to prevent the recurrence of such incidents.
As many as 78 are untraceable after raising Rs 356 crore from investors, with Gujarat having the maximum number of 17 such firms, Parliament was informed on Friday.

These entities are from Andhra Pradesh Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh, Odisha, Punjab, among others.

are those that fail to file documents and balance sheets after raising funds through public issues and are untraceable.

Cumulatively, these 78 have raised about Rs 356.68 crore. Gujarat, at 17, has the maximum number of such firms, followed by Andhra Pradesh (15).

Besides, Tamil Nadu have 9 vanishing firms, Maharashtra (8), West Bengal and New Delhi (5 each), Bihar, Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh (4 each), Karnataka (2), and Punjab and Odisha (1 each).

A total of 238 companies were initially identified by the Ministry of Corporate Affairs as vanishing companies, which raised money through public issues, Minister of State for Corporate Affairs Arjun Ram Meghwal said in a written reply to the Lok Sabha.

Of these, 160 companies have been deleted from the list as they were subsequently traced. Presently, only 78 companies remain untraced, he added.

To a question on status about DCM Finance, Nova Pumech, Alps BPO Service, Birmingham Thermotech, Kolar Biotech, Mini Software, Padmini Technologies, Punsumi India, Sunstar Software, Vatsa Corporation, the minister said these companies were not identified as .

In a separate query, Meghwal said a total of 11.58 lakh companies are active in the first 11 months of the current financial year, higher than 10.89 lakh firms in the preceding fiscal, indicating growth of Indian corporate sector.

Besides, number of such companies stood at 10.22 lakh and 9.52 lakh in 2014-16 and 2013-14, respectively.

"The impact of corporate growth on employment scenario in the country has not been assessed," Meghwal said.

He further said that ministry has taken a number of measures to promote growth of corporate sector and improve ease of doing business in the country.

These include doing away with the payment of minimum paid up capital at the time of incorporation as well as declaration of commencement of business by the companies, mandatory common seal for companies has been made optional and granting various exemptions under Companies Act.
Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath today visited a cow shelter run by SP patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav's younger daughter-in-law Aparna Yadav where he gave tips on hygiene and better upkeep of bovine animals.

Accompanied by deputy chief minister Dinesh Sharma and ministers Suresh Khanna and Swati Singh, Adityanath took a round of the 54 acre 'Kanha Upvan' shelter in Sarojini Nagar here, raising many a eyebrow in Lucknow political circles.

A saffron saree clad Aparna and husband Prateek Yadav welcomed Adityanath, who fed jaggery and fodder to the cows.

The Chief Minister stressed on more hygiene in the areas where cows were kept and gave a direction to ensure availability of green fodder to them, an official release said.

He suggested that sheds be extended in the shelter and underlined the need for better utilisation of by-products of cows.

Taking stock of the ongoing works for extending sheds for 700 additional cows and bulls under the Kanha Ashray Pashu Kalyan scheme, Adityanath said they should be made ready at the earliest.

The chief minister asked minister Khanna to set up 'gaushalas' (cow shelters) in other districts of the state as well and improve the conditions in the existing ones where cows rescued from smugglers would be provided shelter and medication.

There are 1,850 bovines at the Kanha Upvan including 900 cows, 950 bulls and calves.

Adityanath is himself involved in the 'gau sewa' (serving the cows) at his ashram in Gorakhpur. His visit evoked much speculation in the political circles as this is the second time he was meeting Aparna and Prateek after taking over as the UP chief minister on March 19.

The couple had called Adityanath when he was staying at a VVIP guest house here. The meeting lasted for about 20 minutes and it is learnt that couple had invited the chief minister to visit Kanha Upvan.

Though Prateek is not actively involved in politics, Aparna had contested the recent Assembly elections losing the Lucknow Cantonment seat to Rita Bahuguna Joshi of BJP.

Aparna was made SP nominee much before the Assembly polls were announced and managed to get a nod from SP chief Akhilesh Yadav, the step-brother of her husband, despite feud in the family.

Asked about Adityanath's visit, Aparna said, "He is everyone's CM and we invited him. Yogi Adityanath too runs cow shelters in his Gorakhpur, so we requested him to visit ours and give us some tips on how to improve it," she said.

Incidentally, both the chief minister and Aparna belong to Uttarakhand and there were posts on social media claiming that they were relatives.

Aparna said that she was happy that the chief minister accepted her invitation and would remain indebted to him for the gesture.

On the performance of the Adityanath government, Aparna said it was too early for her to comment.

Aparna had sprung a surprise earlier too when she was present at an event in Lucknow addressed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Last year she had clicked a selfie with Modi at a family function that he attended.

The Lucknow Municipal Corporation provides financial aid to the shelter, established in 2010, which is run by Jeevashraya, an NGO. Aparna and Prateek are patrons of the NGO.
Indian National Lok Dal leader Ajay Chautala has been granted 21-day parole to attend his MP-son Dushyant Chautala's wedding next month.

Delhi's Lt Governor Anil Baijal had on Wednesday granted three weeks parole to Ajay Chautala, who is serving a 10-year term in connection with teachers' recruitment scam in Haryana.

Dushyant's wedding is scheduled for April 10.

Ajay Chautala through his lawyers had filed a petition in Delhi High Court seeking parole to attend the wedding and other customary obligations.

The INLD leader is expected to be released after formalities are completed and bail bond furnished, said his lawyer Amit Sahni.

In the plea, Chautala said he had applied for grant of parole before the Tihar Jail Superintendent on February 14.

The High Court had asked the Delhi government to decide on it within 30 days.

Ajay Chautala and his father O P Chautala are serving 10-year jail terms each in the junior basic trained (JBT) teachers' recruitment scam case.

The father-son duo and 53 others, including two IAS officers, were convicted on January 16, 2013 by the trial court for illegally recruiting 3,206 JBT teachers in Haryana in 2000.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Moscow-based ASE Group of companies today announced the signing of provisional acceptance certificate (PAC) of Unit 2 of the Kundankulam Nuclear Power Plant, with Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited (NPCIL).

ASE Engineering company and NPCIL have signed the provisional acceptance certificate, "which allows the unit to begin its one-year period of warranty operation," the company said in a release here.

"For NPCIL, this is the first step towards the commercial operation of the unit," ASE group, doing the plant's design engineering, said.

As of today, KNPP's second unit was under the warranty of its general designer and the suppliers of equipment from Russia, represented by ASE Engineering company," it said.

Therefore, in case of any malfunctions or technical failures related to the obligations of ASE in the second unit, "the inconsistencies in the operation of the equipment will be taken care of by the Russian side," it added.

"This period of responsibility will last until March 30, 2018, after which the statement on the final acceptance of Unit 2 by the operating entity in India (NPCIL) will be signed," it added.

The second unit with the Russia-designed VVER-1000 reactor was synchronised with the southern grid on August 29 last year and has already reached 100 per cent operating capacity.

KNPP, located in Tirunelveli district, is scheduled to have six VVER-1000 reactors with an installed capacity of 6,000 MW.

The beginning of warranty operation indicates the "successful completion" of all necessary work and tests on the unit, the release said.

Vice President for South Asian Projects, ASE Group, Andrei Lebedev was quoted as saying that KNPP includes a "harmonious combination of traditional active and passive safety systems."



"The nuclear power plant has implemented a number of systems that fulfill the International Atomic Energy Agency post-Fukushima requirements," he said.

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Swami Aseemanand, an accused in 2007 Mecca Masjid blast case, was released from the Chanchalguda Central Prison here this evening.

The metropolitan sessions court here had granted bail to Aseemanand and co-accused Bharat Mohanlal Rateshwar on March 23.

The court directed Aseemanand not to leave Hyderabad without court's permission and remain present for the trial when required.

Rateshwar was released from the jail last week.

Aseemanand had been arrested on November 19, 2010 from Haridwar.

Telangana government had said it would take steps to get his bail cancelled.

Nine persons were killed in the Mecca Masjid blast here on May 18, 2007. According to the prosecution, it was the handiwork of a Hindu right-wing group.

After a Jaipur court acquitted Aseemanand (and six others) in the 2007 Ajmer blast case, he was arrested in Mecca Masjid case and lodged in the Chanchalguda Central Prison.

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Indian collectors will have an opportunity to acquire significant pieces of artistic heritage at an auction here next month in which artworks formerly from collections with impeccable provenance from India and abroad will go under the hammer.

The Indian Antiquities, Modern Contemporary Fine Arts and Books auction by the Osian's Group will be held on April 7 with an opening preview exhibition on April 3 at the Tao Art Gallery.

Among the collections are artworks by modern contemporary masters like Ustad Allah Bukhsh's 'Krishna Series' of mid-1920s, Nicholas Roerich's mid-1930's 'Pilgrim in the Himalayas' and K C S Paniker's earliest and the largest reference of marrying art and crafts vocabulary through his 1964 'Words and Symbols'; one of the last paintings done before departing for London in the late 1940s by F N Souza; and M F Husain's horses from the late Indira Gandhi family collection.

The sale opens with 12 Lots of rare books, catalogues and journals on Indian arts from the late 19th century till the most recently published record of the 21st century.

The artworks also include an important 3rd-4th century Buddhist gray Schist sculpture from the Gandharan region and Kushan Period, formerly from the collection of a prince; and a significant medieval Buff Sandstone Stele of Saraswati from the 12th century to most important schools of miniatures from the Indian belt (Deccani, Pahari, Mughal, Mewar and Company).

These examples represent some of the pinnacles of India's lost artistic heritage and now the Indian collector has a chance to bring them back home, Osian's said.

Commenting on the auction, Osian's Founder and Chairman Neville Tuli said, "It is time our governments recognise that the heart of a great civilisation is its artistic and cultural knowledge and wealth. No business or industry can rival such. We have only to document the architectural heritage of India to know where India's pride, wealth and character abide."



He stressed that it is time to recognise that the greatest believer and supporter of high culture must be the government so as to allow the freedoms to the private sector to build grand infrastructure and share in the risk involved.

"We still pay import duties to bring back Indian art to India. This is utter ignorance. High culture is for the masses over time, but the infrastructure must be built from the most elite platforms to the most publicly accessible simultaneously. This vision existed to some extent after independence, it died during the 1970s and so far has seen no resurrection or recalibration for the contemporary needs and aspirations of India and Indians.

"An auction is an important trigger as it places monetary value on ideas and objects which most cannot fathom or understand, and in the process inspires building blocks to preserve, nurture and spread the ideas around those objects.

"It is time to deeply re-delve into the needs of India's artistic heritage and build something truly great which allows us to share with pride the best of India's cultural civilisation," Tuli said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Bhutan is keen to set up a consulate in Guwahati, its Prime Minister Tshering Tobgay said today.

"I have asked the Government of India to allow us to set up a consulate in Guwahati", Tobgay said while speaking as guest of honour at the Inauguration ceremony of the five-day river festival 'Namami Brahmaputra'(Obesiance to Brahmaputra) here.

"We share a lot. We have a lot of historical ties of cooperation and friendship. There is a 255 km border between Bhutan and Assam where people of the two countries interact friendly, he pointed out.

"Raw silk processed in Assam is woven by Bhutanese women. Bhurtal (big cymbals) which are symbols in every household and temple in Bhutan have come from Assam. These are clear symbols of the cooperation between the people of Assam and Bhutan", he said.

Terming Brahmaputra as a store house of potentiality and prosperity, Prime Minister Tobgay professed on the need of spreading its benefits to the neighbouring states and country.

"Bhutan and Bangladesh will benefit from your (Assam's) progress. As Assam grows Bhutan gets benefit and progresses. We look forward to working closely with India", he said.

He also said that Assam is not only gateway but also hub of all activities as he urged upon Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal to work together in the fields of bio-diversity and other aspects of trade to forward the common interests of Assam and Bhutan.

Namami Brahmaputra was inaugurated by President Pranab Mukherjee on the banks of the mighty river Brahmaputra in Guwahati.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
CPI(M) leader Sitaram Yechury today accused the BJP of bringing forward a development strategy that excludes minorities to highlight its theme of Hindutva.

"What is the interpretation given by them to Gujarat model? Minorities have been marginalised in Gujarat and therefore, prosperity is growing in Gujarat," the CPI(M) general secretary said at a meeting of old students of Osmania University here.

BJP did not field any candidate from minority community in the Uttar Pradesh Legislative Assembly elections and it does not have any minority MP in the Lok Sabha, he said.

"BJP is bringing forward the development strategy of excluding minorities to highlight its theme that Hindutva is development," he claimed.

"It is no longer Hindutva versus development. Today, Hindutva is development (for BJP)," he said.

Talking about the unity of Left parties as a necessity in the present scenario, Yechury said it would evolve through joint "people's movements" and people's organisations.

"That is not unity if Sudhakar Reddy (CPI general secretary) and I shake hands and parties unite," he said.

"The reassurance I give you, the process of Left unity has begun through people's movements and people's organisations. It will continue further," Yechury said.

There was no insecurity about getting a job when he was a student, Yechury said and regretted that there "is no such security now though one is highly qualified".

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The BJP today ruled out any talks with Pakistan and separatists and said that those advocating such demands are befooling people.

"No talks can be held either with Pakistan or internal stakeholders (separatists and stone-pelters) in the present circumstances and those advocating negotiations to reach a political solution for the Kashmir problem are doing so to fool people," state spokesperson Virender Gupta said in a statement.

He alleged that NC leaders were responsible for the current state of affairs in the state but were blaming the PDP-BJP alliance for it. He also criticised those condemning the recent action of security forces in which three stone pelters were killed.

Gupta asked Kashmiri leaders to use their influence in keeping youths away from areas where security forces and terrorists engage in encounters.

He said the state government should take serious note of the pro-Azadi, pro-Pakistan and anti-India posters and flags being displayed in different parts of the Valley.

He also expressed anguish over reports of a poster which said "Welcome to Chota Pakistan" on a main road in the heart of Srinagar.

He said the government's indifference to these incidents sent the wrong signals and showed its helplessness or weakness.

Gupta said the government's authority has to prevail if the situation is to be brought to normalcy and to win the confidence of the majority of population that does not endorse acts of terrorism and secession.

The need of the hour is also to impose restrictions on social media that is being used by Pakistan and secessionist forces to instigate people against the government and to further tighten the security in the Valley, he claimed.

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The government today approved the transferof HMT Watches Ltd's 208.35 acres land at Bengaluru and Tumkur in Karnataka to Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) on payment of Rs 1,194.21 crore.

TheUnion Cabinet at a meeting chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi here also cleared the transferof Bangalore (Global Warehouse) 1 acre land of HMT Ltd to Gas Authority of India Limited (GAIL) on payment of Rs 34.30 crore and applicable taxes and duties.

"The sale/transfer of land of HMT Watches Ltd, a Central Public Sector Enterprise at Bengaluru and Tumkur to other Central Government entities viz. ISRO and GAIL will free the productive resources and ensure better utilisation of the scarce land resources in larger public interest.

"The proceeds from sale of land will be deposited by the company in government accounts against the loans and advances, after meeting the immediate liabilities and accounting for tax liabilities arising out of the transaction," an official statement said.

HMT Watches, which was a pioneer in manufacturing watches and once known as the Time keeper of India, had to shut its operations due to mounting losses with no scope for revival in the current competitive economic scenario.

In January 2016, the government decided to close down the company with offer of VRS/VSS to all their employees.

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Nearly 58 lakh people Employees Provident Fund pensioners will now get medical benefits, Labour Minister Bandaru Dattatreya said in the Lok Sabha today.

"Regarding the pensioners, we are going to give the pensioners benefit under the ESIC (Employees State Insurance Corporation) to those who are retired pensioners. We will be providing all medical services to the retired pensioners. 58 lakh pensioners will be benefited," he said.

Dattatreya was replying to a debate on a private member's resolution moved by RSP member N K Premachandran on 'Steps To Ensure Welfare of Employees Provident Fund Pensioners'.

A meeting of the EPFO Board yesterday had on its agenda a proposal to provide health insurance scheme to pensioners of the Employees' Pension Scheme through Employees State Insurance Corporation (ESIC).

Although the board agreed in principle to approve the proposal but a final call would be taken on this in the next meeting of the CBT.

Earlier, back of the envelop calculations done by ESI had estimated Rs 200 monthly premium per person for providing health cover under its scheme to the EPFO pensioners.

The proposal is aimed at providing health cover to EPFO pensioners, who get very little amount as pension and hence healthcare is out of their reach.

Hukum Narayan Yadav (BJP), while participating in the debate, demanded pension for farmers and agricultural labourers.

Participating in the discussion, Anandrao Adsul (Shiv Sena) said that unclaimed pension fund of around Rs 27,000 crore which has been deposited should be utilised for the people.

Ravindra Kumar Rai (BJP) said that Pandit Deendayal Upadhyay was of view that policies of the country should be according to the country and added the present government under the Chairmanship of Prime Minister Narendra Modi "we are leading the same direction."



Contending that the present government wants to spread the ray of hope for those who are suffering from destitute, Rai said "We are not working for the political intent but with social ethos."



He also suggested that in every district some amount should be kept aside for the needy which should be allocated to them when there is a need.

Pashupati Nath Singh (BJP) said the unclaimed fund of about Rs 27,000 crore lying with EPFO belongs to poor and it should be utilised to provide relief to the poor only.

Poor people due to lack of awareness or information about rules for drawal could not withdraw so it is lying unused with the the EPFO, he said.

Government has taken various steps to make India a pensioned society, he added.

Due to efforts of the government, the shift of PF fund from one organisation to other has become seamless, said Jugal Kishor Sharma (BJP).

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Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis today approved allotment of land for setting up a food park at MIHAN in Nagpur.

The decision was taken at the 58th meeting of the Board of Directors of Maharashtra Airport Development Company (MADC) at Vidhan Bhavan here.

Fadnavis, who chaired the meeting, approved the land allotment for food park at MIHAN (Multi-modal International Cargo Hub and Airport at Nagpur (MIHAN), developed by MADC.

The food park will provide a ready market for farmers and tribals from Vidarbha for their produce.

The decision will give a boost to the food processing industry, a statement from Chief Minister's Office said.

The Board informed Fadnavis that a request has been sent to aviation regulator DGCA for grant of licence to start scheduled flights from the Shirdi Airport in Ahmednagar.

The proposed new airport in Pune was also discussed in the meeting.

Fadnavis directed officials to provide adequate compensation to the project-affected people and rehabilitate them properly so that work on the Pune airport can start soon.

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The Maharashtra government today clarified that the farmer from Aurangabad, who had wanted to meet Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis at Mantralaya (state secretariat) last week, was not assaulted by police.

Making a statement in the Legislative Council, Minister of State for Home Ranjit Patil said that the government will positively consider the problems being faced by him.

Rameshwar Bhusare, a farmer from Ghatshendre village in Aurangabad, had come to Mantralaya on March 23 to meet Fadnavis and to demand compensation for losses he had incurred due to unseasonal rains and hailstorms in 2015.

He had however claimed that he was beaten up by the police deployed at Mantralaya.

Patil clarified that no policeman hit him.

"When he was on his way to the police station in the police van, Bhusare tried to hang himself with a rope lying inside the van and a policeman tried to stop him," Patil said.

"The government has a sympathetic approach towards Bhusare and will positively consider to resolve his problems related to loans," Patil assured.

The incident had led to uproarious scenes in the Upper House, with Opposition members criticising the government for being "anti-farmer" and having "no mercy" towards their problems.

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Former Norwegian Prime Minister Kjell Magne Bondevik has visited Pakistan-occupied Kashmir to assess the human rights situation, the Foreign Office said today.

Bondevik met Special Assistant to the Pakistani Prime Minister on Foreign Affairs Tariq Fatemi after concluding his trip to Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK)., the Foreign Office said in a statement.

He along with a two-member delegation is visiting Pakistan and PoK from March 29-31 to understand the rights situation in Kashmir and "gross human rights violations" of Kashmiris, it said.

He called on PoK 'President' Sardar Masood Khan and its 'prime minister' Raja Muhammad Farooq Haider Khan.

"Bondevik underscored that the Kashmir issue is a long standing conflict and needs a political solution, taking into account the UN Security Council Resolutions and the will of the Kashmiri people, along both sides of the Line of Control," the Foreign Office said.

Fatemi appreciated the strong support of Bondevik for protection of human rights and urged him to sensitise the international community about the need for expedited resolution of the Kashmir issue, in line with the relevant UNSC resolutions and the aspirations of the Kashmiri people.

Bondevik is the founder and president of the Oslo Peace Centre for Peace and Human Rights. He was Norway's Prime Minister from 1997-2000 and again from 2001-2005.

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France today warned its citizens in China to maintain "utmost vigilance" after a Chinese man injured a French national in a blade attack in Shanghai.

The 27-year-old attacker, surnamed Mao, attacked the French national on Wednesday after a Chinese national was shot dead in Paris, Shanghai police said.

The victim was slightly injured on his neck.

In response to the incident, the French Consulate in Shanghai issued a warning to its citizens in China, asking them to be on guard.

"Given the situation, the French embassy in China calls on members of the French community to exercise the utmost vigilance," it said in a statement.

Mao, who is suffering from mental disorder, allegedly slashed a French national with a blade at the intersection of Yongjia street and Jiashan street in Shanghai's Xuhui district.

The attacker fled the scene, but was caught on the same day, state-run Xinhua agency reported, adding that an investigation was going on into the incident.

It is not clear whether the attack on the French national was connected to the death of Chinese national in Paris.

Liu, 56-year-old Chinese national and a father of five, was shot dead on Sunday in his apartment by a policeman after a neighbour had called the police to report a domestic dispute, the report said.

According to police, Liu was killed after he tried to attack the officer with a pair of scissors "as soon as the door was opened."



However, Liu's daughter said the police had burst through the door and "the shot was gone and my father found himself on the ground," the report said.

The girl said her father was holding the scissors as he had been preparing fish for cooking.

French Interior Minister Matthias Fekl on Tuesday said an inquiry was going on after the shooting, promising full respect for the law "to establish the facts."



Earlier on Tuesday, the Chinese Foreign Ministry called on the French government to ascertain the truth in a quick manner and effectively protect safety and legitimate rights and interests of the Chinese citizens residing in France.

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Barred from flying by domestic airlines after he assaulted an Air India staffer, Shiv Sena MP Ravindra Gaikwad made three failed attempts to book a seat on the national carrier, using a new alias each time.

Earlier this week, a staff member of the Sena MP dialled Air India's call centre to book a seat in the flight AI 806 from Mumbai to Delhi for the following day, i.E. Wednesday, and dictated the passenger's name as Professor V Ravindra Gaikwad. But the booking was promptly cancelled, an airline source said.

Thereafter, a seat was booked on the flight AI 551 from Hyderabad to Delhi in the name of Professor Ravindra Gaikwad. This ticket was cancelled too.

A third attempt was made the next day to book tickets to travel from Nagpur to Delhi via Mumbai when the MP's staff contacted a travel agent to book a flight for him.

However, the travel agent immediately contacted the local station manager and the information was forwarded to Air India's headquarters here, the source said, adding they have cautioned their teams to prevent any such attempts.

The airline had earlier issued a "non-acceptance order" to all its station managers and booking offices instructing them to ensure that "restriction on acceptance and travel of potentially unruly and unsafe passengers is being followed on Air India flights for Mr Ravindra Gaikwad".

In an unprecedented step in Indian aviation history, the Sena MP was earlier barred from flying by all major domestic airlines for assaulting an elderly Air India employee last Thursday.

The MP was angry at not being given a business class seat though he had boarded an economy flight.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Barred from flying by domestic airlines and booked by police for assaulting an Air India staffer, Shiv Sena MP has tried at least thrice to book a seat on the carrier, using a new alias each time.

Earlier this week, a staff member of the Sena politician dialled Air India's call centre to book flight AI 806 from Mumbai to Delhi for the following day, i.E. Wednesday, and dictated the passenger's name as . The ticket was promptly cancelled, an airline source said.

Thereafter, a seat was booked on flight AI 551 from Hyderabad to Delhi in the name of Professor V . This ticket was cancelled too.

A third attempt was made the next day for travel from Nagpur to Delhi via Mumbai when the MP's staff contacted a travel agent to book a flight for "Professor Ravindra Gaikwad".

The travel agent immediately contacted the local station manager and the information was forwarded to Air India's headquarters in New Delhi, the source said.

The airline had earlier issued a "non-acceptance order" to all its station managers and booking offices, instructing them to ensure that "restriction on acceptance and travel of potentially unruly and unsafe passengers is being followed on Air India flights for Mr Ravindra Gaikwad".

In an unprecedented step in Indian aviation history, the Sena MP was earlier barred from flying by all major domestic airlines for assaulting an elderly Air India employee last Thursday.

The MP was angry at not being given a business class seat though he had boarded an economy flight.
Unemployment in Germany hit a new record low in March, official data showed today, as Europe's largest economy continues to defy economic uncertainty with a strong performance.

The out-of-work figure fell to 5.8 per cent this month, the Federal Labour Agency said, beating analysts' forecasts.

A 0.1-percentage point fall from the level it had held since January placed it at a new all-time low since German reunification in 1990.

"The number of unemployed sank significantly as spring begins to breathe life into the economy," said the agency's chief Detlef Scheel in a statement. "Growth in employment is holding steady and demand from companies for new employees remains high."



In seasonally-adjusted figures, the number of people registered as out of work fell by 30,000 in March.

Jobs, wages and working conditions are set to be a key battleground in German elections slated for September, with left-wing politicians pushing for higher wages and more unemployment protection.

Right-wingers contend that tough employment law reforms in the mid-2000s built the foundation for Germany's present economic success and should not be rolled back.

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An SBI officer named as a co-accused by the CBI in its probe into the Rs 164 crore fraud by Kolkata-based Shree Mahalaxmi Corporation, today claimed it was he who had sought a CBI probe in the matter.

In a statement today, Jyoti Ranjan Kanungo, who was relationship manager in the State Bank of India, claimed he had termed the account of the accused company as fraud in 2012 and had called for the CBI probe.

The CBI has alleged in the FIR that the company and its directors in criminal conspiracy, misused the funds of the loans for purposes other than the business, causing a loss to the tune of Rs 164 to State Bank of India.

"It was further alleged that then Chief Manager of Bank abused his official position and allowed such misuse of bank funds," a CBI spokesperson had said.

Kanungo today said the company had hired a retired Chief General Manager of RBI as Financial Adviser who dissuaded it from making any further payment and advised it to ask for restructuring with infusion of funds.

The officer said he had called for a consortium meeting on June 18, 2012 to declare the account as fraud.

He said the financial advisor and the promoter rushed to the GM who had also received a phone call from CGM (banking operations).

"I was given a dressing down and my promotion review was damaged completely for daring to ask for a CBI enquiry (records available with me and at the branch)," he claimed.

The officer said restructuring was carried out with the instruction of a General Manager.

"Bank did not go for CBI enquiry which I had demanded in 2012. I was ready then even if it was not a welcome situation for me. It was required to infuse a sense of fear," he said.

Kanungo said he had joined as Relationship Manager in the State Bank of India IFB Branch, Kolkata in February, 2010 when the company Shri Mahalaxmi Corporation had an exposure of Rs 95 crore. He said he had left the branch in June, 2013.

"So if we take into account the interest 14 per cent per annum, it comes to 140 crore," he said.

Giving his position, Kanungo said the company had started CMS facility at IDBI Bank where there was an overdraft of Rs 46 crore on March 31, 2011 which it kept under wraps.

"The amount was not reflected in the audited balance-sheet of the company as on March 31, 2011. The amount should have been shown in current liability," he said.

He said bank's CMP facility at CB, Kolkata Branch and returned cheques were dispatched to company officials directly



"The suspense balance was maintained by Central Office. Taking advantage of the lacunae of the system, overdraft created in IDBI Bank was offloaded to SBI. The diversion of fund, if any, had already happened at IDBI Bank," he claimed.

He claimed that he had recovered substantial part of overdrawn amount singlehandedly by March, 2012 and overdrawn amount had come down from Rs 56 crore to Rs 22 crore.

He said the bank allowed the company to take over a sick unit in September, 2012 when the cheque purchase issue was fully known.

"The matter was investigated by RBI on January 2012, by DGM of SBI and then by audit department. The matter was closed after giving an administrative warning and it was treated as a system failure. I was allowed to handle the company," he said.

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A Delhi High Court judge today turned down Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh's plea to recuse from hearing his petition in a DA case as he was a close relative of Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi, saying he was capable of judging the matter independently and fairly.

Justice Vipin Sanghi, who dismissed the petition of Singh and his wife for quashing of the disproportionate assets case filed against them by the CBI, said the Congress leader and his lawyers were aware of his relationship with Rohatgi when the hearing in the case had commenced but they made the prayer at a "highly belated" stage after the judgement was reserved.

"As a judge of this court, I owe my allegiance only to the Constitution of India and the laws of the land. I am completely independent - financially and otherwise, and I am not subordinate to any one, much less to the Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi - either on account of his office, or on account of my personal relationship with him," Justice Sanghi said.

He said, "I am fully conscious of my responsibilities as a judge of this court and the trust that has been reposed in me - including in my integrity and my independence, by the President of India in appointing me as a judge of this court.

He said he would have himself recused from a case if he had even the slightest inkling or doubt in his mind that he would not be able to decide the cause freely or independently.

"Like all men, I am my own conscience keeper. I would myself recuse from a case if I have even the slightest inkling or doubt in my mind that I would not be able to decide the cause freely or independently, or that it would be improper for me to judge a cause, even though, I find myself in no way incapable of judging the cause independently and fairly."



Singh had sought Justice Sanghi's recusal from the matter on the ground that Sanghi and Rohatgi were related to each other and the Attorney General had represented CBI before the Supreme Court and pressed for transfer of the proceedings from the Himachal Pradesh High Court to the Delhi High Court.

The judge said if the parties had any apprehension, they should have mentioned it at the start of the proceedings and if such a request had been made at the initial stage itself, he might have recused from the case.

"... I may have recused from the case - not because I find myself incapable/unable to decide this petition strictly on its merits due to my relationship with Rohatgi, but because I have no particular interest in, or attachment with any particular cause that is listed before me as per roster," the judge said, adding that his relationship with Rohatgi does not pose a real danger of bias against Singh.

The court also referred to National Judicial Appointments Commission case in the Supreme Court where Chief Justice J S Khehar was asked to recuse which was rejected by the Constitution bench.

It also said that Singh and his wife's claim that the arguments advanced on their behalf by senior advocates Kapil Sibal and Dayan Krishnan were treated with contempt was "entirely unclear" and the statement has "no basis".

The court also pointed out that while the arguments were advanced by Sibal and Krishnan, the written submissions filed on behalf of Singh and his wife have been settled by senior advocate Ram Jethmalani.

"I am also of the view that if I were to now recuse from the case which has been fully argued before me, and wherein I had reserved judgment on December 15, 2016, I would be guilty of shirking my responsibility as a judge.

"It would also delay the disposal of the case. Delay in the disposal of the petition suits the petitioners, who are enjoying interim protection against arrest and filing of charge sheet in the case," Justice Sanghi said.

In strongly-worded remarks, the judge said the apprehension of bias against them on account of his relationship with Rohatgi carries with it the innuendo that the AG would, in breach of his professional ethics as an advocate, and his (judge) constitutional independence, speak to him about this case.

He also said even though Singh and his wife might be ready to foot the bill of hearings before another judge, there could be no justification for financially burdening the State of Himachal Pradesh, CBI/ Union of India.

The court said it has no control over the thought process through which the petitioners may be going through and the prayer has been made highly belatedly i.E. After the close of the hearing, even though these reasons for making the prayer were available before the start of hearing in the case.
The Delhi High Court today fixed for tomorrow the hearing on an appeal by Swaraj India challenging a single judge's order dismissing its plea for allotting a common symbol to its candidates in the MCD polls.

The matter, which came up before the court twice, could not be heard during the day as the counsel for the Delhi State Election Commission did not appear owing to lawyers' strike, and the court refused to pass any any ex-parte order.

Senior advocate Shanti Bhushan, who appeared for Swaraj India, sought the court's intervention saying it is an urgent matter and the last date for filing nomination papers for polls is April 3.

A bench of justices Sanjiv Khanna and Chander Shekhar said it cannot pass any ex-parte interim order in this kind of a case and questioned why the outfit had approached the court "so late". It then listed the matter for hearing tomorrow.

"As lawyers are abstaining from work, none appeared for the respondents in the morning and even at 2:15 PM when the matter again came up for hearing. List the matter for hearing tomorrow," the bench said.

During the brief hearing, the bench asked the petitioner's counsel as to why they have filed the petition when the polls are nearing.

"What can we do at this stage? Why did you come to court so late as also observed by the single judge in its order?," the bench asked.

"It is virtually impossible to deal with this matter at such a short span. At best we can issue notice. We cannot issue any ex-parte order," it said.

Swaraj India in its appeal has said that it had urged the Delhi State Election Commission and the single judge that a common symbol be allotted to registered unrecognised parties so that a level playing field is created in the elections.

It said ECI has created a level playing field by allowing common symbols to be granted to registered unrecognised parties in case of Assembly and Parliamentary elections.

The single judge on March 29 had rejected the party's plea for common symbol asking it to first "make a place for itself under the Sun" and "prove its mettle".

Justice Hima Kohli had rejected its claim that denial of a common symbol to it was a violation of its fundamental rights under the Constitution, and had said that "the right to elect and be elected is a statutory right and not a fundamental or common law right".

The judge had said that the party, which was formed last



year and registered in February this year, was not entitled as a matter of right to claim exclusive allotment of a common symbol for the benefit of its candidates for the MCD polls.

"Instead, its candidates are required to choose from one of the free symbols notified by the SEC," the court had said and added that in view of this legal position, the party "cannot raise a grievance it was being discriminated against".

It had said Swaraj India had approached the court once the election process was "well under way" and therefore, it was "too late in the day" to grant the relief sought by the party.

The single judge's verdict had come on the party's plea challenging the Delhi poll panel's decision not to allot a common symbol to it to contest the upcoming MCD polls.

Swaraj India had also sought quashing of the panel's March 14, 2017 notification and an April 2016 order which had said the nominees of such parties would be treated as independent candidates for allotment of symbols.

Swaraj India was floated in October last year by Yogendra Yadav and advocate Prashant Bhushan, who were expelled from the AAP after they questioned Arvind Kejriwal's leadership.

MCD elections will be held on April 23.
A special court today denied bail to suspended principal secretary in the Chhattisgarh government, B L Agrawal, who was arrested in a bribery case.

Special judge Virender Kumar Goyal dismissed the bail plea noting that the investigation was at a crucial stage.

The agency has registered a corruption case against the 1988-batch IAS officer accusing him of trying to "settle" an ongoing probe being conducted by it against him.

The other accused -- Anand Agrawal, a relative of the officer, alleged middleman Bhagwan Singh and Syed Burhanuddin, who claimed to be an official of the Prime Minister's Office, are in judicial custody.

The officer had sought the relief claiming that he and his wife were suffering from various serious ailments.

The CBI, however, had opposed the bail plea saying that a family member's medical condition cannot be considered for bail of the accused.

The agency had also said that the probe is at a crucial stage and if released on bail, the officer, being an influential person, may tamper with the evidence.

"A person who is trying to influence the PMO and even trying to bend the course of investigation in his favour shows how influential he is," it had said.

The court had on March 21 dismissed the bail plea of Anand Agrawal in the case.

The CBI had claimed that the officer was facing probe in two cases registered in 2010 when he was the health secretary in the Chhattisgarh government. He has been charge-sheeted in one, while probe is going on in the other.

The agency has alleged that the officer had approached Bhagwan Singh, a Noida resident, who took him to Burhanuddin to get the graft case "settled".

The agency has registered a case of criminal conspiracy under the IPC and provisions of the Prevention of Corruption Act against the accused.

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India's livestock population has witnessed a "very small" decrease of about 3.33 per cent between the census of 2007 and 2012, the government told the Rajya Sabha today.

The states like Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat, Bihar and Assam, however, witnessed a rise in their livestock population, Agriculture Minister Radha Mohan Singh while replying to questions.

He said Gujarat saw an increase of 15 per cent in livestock population while in UP the increase was 14 per cent, in Assam it was 10 per cent, Punjab 9 per cent and Bihar 8 per cent rise.

However, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, West Bengal, Goa witnessed a decline in cattle population, he said.

The total livestock population in the country is 512.06 million.

The livestock census is conducted once in every five years. The latest livestock census was conducted in 2012. The livestock species namely cattle, buffaloes, sheep, pigs, horses & ponies, mules, donkeys, camels, mithun and yak were included in the census 2012.

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Israel's government has approved the first West Bank settlement in two decades, creating the first serious test for US President Donald Trump's new foray into Middle East peacemaking.

The White House pointedly avoided any specific condemnation of the announcement, although it said that further settlement activity "does not help advance peace" and that it expects Israel to show restraint moving forward.

Still, the relatively tepid response was a far cry from the automatic condemnations voiced by the Obama's administration in reaction to Israeli settlement announcements. The White House statement even went so far as to "welcome" what appears to be a limited Israeli commitment to take Trump's concerns about settlements into "consideration," without any guarantees to avoid similar announcements.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office announced the decision late yesterday following a meeting of his policy making Security Cabinet.

Netanyahu has vowed to build a new settlement to compensate the residents of Amona, an illegal settler outpost that was demolished in February under the orders of Israel's Supreme Court. Yesterday's announcement said the new settlement would be built near the existing settlement of Shilo, which is nearby to the Amona site. It also said the government had approved tenders to build 2,000 new apartments from previously approved settlement projects.

The Palestinians claim the West Bank and east Jerusalem, areas captured by Israel in 1967, as parts of a future state.

In December, weeks before Trump was inaugurated, President Barack Obama allowed the UN Security Council to pass a resolution that declared all settlements in both areas to be illegal. Trump condemned the decision at the time.

On the campaign trail, Trump indicated he would be far more sympathetic to settlements than Obama and the international community, which consider Israeli construction on occupied land to be illegal. His platform made no mention of an independent Palestinian state, and his inner circle includes strong supporters of the settlement movement.

But since taking office, Trump has appeared to change his position, telling an Israeli newspaper last month that settlements "may not be helpful" and telling Netanyahu at the White House that he would like to see some restraint. Since then, Israel and the US have been in talks over what kind of construction the White House would tolerate.

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Jordanian King Abdullah II will meet US President Donald Trump at the White House on April 5 and discuss a range of bilateral and regional issues, the White House said today.

"President Trump and King Abdullah will exchange views on a range of shared interests in the Middle East, including how the United States and Jordan can best defeat ISIS, end the conflict in Syria, and advance peace between Israelis and Palestinians," the White House Press Secretary, Sean Spicer, said.

Abdullah's second visit comes amid diplomatic efforts to get the Palestinian-Israeli peace process back on track.

Trump and Abdullah briefly met at a prayer breakfast in Washington last month.

The two leaders will also discuss how to further strengthen cooperation between the United States and Jordan and promote peace and prosperity in the Middle East, Spicer said.

The visit of the King of Jordan would be preceded by Abdel Fattah Al Sisi of Egypt on April 3.

"President Trump and President Al Sisi will use the visit to build on the positive momentum they have built for the United States-Egypt relationship," he said.

"They will discuss a range of bilateral and regional issues, including how to defeat ISIS and pursue peace and stability in the region," Spicer said in a statement earlier.

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A journalist with a Mumbai-based English newspaper was attacked in the adjoining Navi Mumbai today.

Sudhir Suryawanshi, who works with DNA, and his friend Santosh Fatate were attacked by 4 to 5 persons in Kharghar area, police said.

"The assailants punctured the tyres of Fatate's Swift car in which both had come from Panvel. After the attack the assailants fled from the spot on motorcycles," said Hemant Nagrale, Navi Mumbai Police Commissioner.

Suryawanshi and Fatate were admitted to the Medicity hospital at Kharghar.

"An FIR is being registered and senior officers are visiting the hospital," the Commissioner said.

Maharashtra Minister of State for Home Ranjit Patil said the culprits will be traced and brought to book.

A delegation of journalist organisations met the Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis here and apprised him of recent cases of attacks and threats to journalists in the state.

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Ayouth from south Kashmir was caught while attempting to steal a car in the heart of Jammu city and handed over to the police.

The youth was trying to steal a Honda Amaze car in Ragunath Bazar area of the city when people raised an alarm as he tried drive away with the car but was caught by locals last evening, police said.

He was later handed over to police and was formally arrested, they said adding that the car lifter was identified as Afroz Ahmed of Dardokoot village in Kulgam district of south Kashmir.

The police also recovered the car.

During questioning he admitted his involvement in vehicle theft, they said adding that a case has been registered.

The incident happened ahead of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to the Jammu region to inaugurate India's longest road tunnel at Chenani in Udhampur district, where he will also address a public rally on April 2.

"The person is being questioned. However no militant links have been found in this case," State House Officer (SHO) City Police station Sunil Kumar said.

Earlier, three youths from south Kashmir's Shopian district had snatched an AK-47 rifle with 30 rounds on March 25. All the three youth were arrested and rifle recovered by the police.

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'Ethical' hacker Manish Bhangale, who had accused former Maharashtra minister Eknath Khadse of receiving calls from Dawood Ibrahim's Karachi residence, was arrested today for allegedly creating a fake phone bill in this connection.

Bhangale had created the fake mobile bill on a computer to show call records between Khadse and Dawood's residence in Pakistan, an official said.

"We arrested Bhangale today and he will be produced in court in some time," Sanjay Saxena, Joint Commissioner of Police (Crime) told PTI.

"Bhangale was arrested for allegedly making fake documents in connection with Khadse's alleged link with Dawood Ibrahim. He allegedly created the fake mobile bill on a computer to show call records between Khadse and Dawood's Karachi residence," he said.

An offence was registered against Bhangale under IPC sections 468 (forgery for purpose of cheating), 471 (using as genuine a forged document or electronic record) read with 66 D of the Information Technology Act, the official said.

Khadse, who held several key portfolios in the state Cabinet, had resigned in June 2016 after facing a string of allegations including irregularities in a land deal.

(Reopens BOM 4)



In the afternoon, Mumbai Metropolitan Magistrate's court remanded Bhangale in police custody till April 6.

Police told the court while seeking his custody that some other persons could have helped Bhangale, and further probe was necessary.

Though Bhangale said he had sought information about alleged calls from a Pakistani telephone company, the email which he relied on hadn't been sent to him directly, but had come though someone else, the police said.

Bhangale told the court that he tried to explain how he received the email from Pakistan, but the police didn't understand it and wrongly accused him of fabricating it.
The Maharashtra assembly today passed the budget for 2017-18 after completing department-wise debate in absence of the Opposition members.

The appropriation bill and Maharashtra Tax Laws (levy, amendment and validation) Act, 2017 were passed in the lower house by a voice vote without debate.

The bills were introduced by Finance Minister Sudhir Mungantiwar.

The budget was presented on March 18 amid Opposition protests over farm loan waiver.

Nineteen Opposition legislators were suspended for creating ruckus during the budget presentation. Since then the opposition members have boycotted the legislature proceedings.

The amendment to tax laws pertain to announcements made in the budget like exempting sugarcane from purchase tax, increasing rate of tax on weekly lottery scheme from Rs 70,000 to Rs 1 lakh per draw and changes to value-added tax, among others.

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Malaysia's police chief said today that three North Koreans who had been hiding out in their country's embassy for weeks were allowed to fly home after investigators cleared them of wrongdoing in the death of Kim Jong Nam.

Malaysia and North Korea struck a deal this week to end a diplomatic standoff over the Feb 13 murder of Kim Jong Nam, the estranged half brother of North Korean ruler Kim Jong Un.

Although details of what led to the agreement were not released, it gave North Korea custody of the body and allowed Malaysia to question the three men who were hiding in the embassy.

Earlier this month, national police chief Khalid Abu Bakar had hinted that the men had valuable intelligence, saying he would wait to question them, "even if it takes five years."



But on today, in the wake of the larger political deal with North Korea, Khalid said authorities recorded statements from the men and released them.

"We have obtained whatever we wanted from them," Khalid told reporters. "We have allowed them to go."



It was an abrupt turnaround in a bizarre case that is part diplomatic drama, part murder mystery. Investigators say Kim Jong Nam, who was in his 40s, was poisoned at the Kuala Lumpur airport by two young women wielding VX nerve agent, a banned chemical weapon.

Although Malaysia never directly accused North Korea of carrying out the attack, speculation is rampant that it orchestrated a hit on a long-exiled member of its ruling elite.

Malaysian investigators had said they wanted to question seven North Koreans in the case: four men who left the country the day of the attack, and the three who were holed up inside the North Korean Embassy in Kuala Lumpur.

But now that the three men hiding in the embassy have flown home, Malaysia probably won't get to question anyone from North Korea. The men who left include an embassy official and a North Korean airline worker.

"(The) investigation into the murder is still ongoing," Khalid said today. "We are still hoping the North Korea authorities will hand over to us the four North Korean suspects we have named earlier on."



That is highly unlikely. North Korea has denied having anything to do with the killing and has slammed Malaysia's investigation as flawed and politically motivated.

North Korea has not even publicly acknowledged that the victim was, in fact, Kim Jong Nam. Instead, it refers to him as Kim Chol, the name on the passport he was carrying at the time of his death.

Today, Khalid said North Korea knows the victim's identity.

"I'm sure they know very well" who the man really is, he said. He added that Malaysia released Kim Jong Nam's body after receiving a request from his next of kin. Without specifying exactly who sent the letter, Khalid said, "Legally speaking, Kim Jong Un is the next of kin."



Kim Jong Nam had three children with two women in Macau and mainland China.

Thursday's political deal also secured the release of ordinary citizens who had been caught up in the diplomatic fight. North Korea was so enraged by Malaysia's investigation that it announced earlier this month that Malaysians could not leave North Korea. Malaysia responded in kind, with an exit ban of its own targeting North Koreans.

Those bans have now been lifted, and the nine Malaysians held in North Korea returned home today.

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A 21-year-old man was tied to a tree and brutally beaten up allegedly by the family members of a girl with whom he had eloped two months back in Rajasthan's Rajsamand district, police said today.

Police arrested six persons today in connection with the matter after the video of the incident went viral on social media.

"21-year old Hemant had eloped with the girl two months back. After a police complaint, they returned and the man started working in Jodhpur. He recently came in contact with the girl again and when her family members came to know about it, they called him to Rajsamand," police said.

The man arrived in the village Usarwas in Rajsamand on Wednesday where the girl's father, mother and brothers allegedly tied him to a tree and beat him.

Someone shot the video and circulated it following which the police lodged an FIR against the family members with Khamnaur Police Station yesterday.

Acting on the FIR lodged by the victim, the police have arrested six persons including the father and two brothers of the girl and the matter is being investigated.

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An amendment to the criminal law providing death penalty for raping a minor would be introduced in the Madhya Pradesh Assembly soon, the government said today.

"A bill providing death sentence for rape of minors would be presented in the coming monsoon session (of Assembly). Once it is passed it would be forwarded to the President for assent," Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan said today.

Chouhan made the announcement while addressing 'Joint Convocation Ceremony' at the Madhya Pradesh Police Academy.

"The first condition for the development of the state and the country is a good law and order system and this is the major responsibility of the police," Chouhan said.

His government would extend full support to the police, the CM assured.

The government had sanctioned at least 30,000 new posts of police personnel at various levels and some 25,000 new houses were going to be constructed with facilities like CCTV cameras for the police personnel, he added.

Chouhan also lauded the police, especially for the investigation of Bhopal-Ujjain train blast case, where the accused were nabbed within three hours.

Women were not inferior to anyone and therefore a third of the posts in the police department were reserved for women in the state, he said.

The Chief Minister also asked the police to create an atmosphere where women can move around anywhere at any time independently and fearlessly.

As many as 633 police personnel (including 155 women) in the ranks such as subedar, sub-inspector, sub-inspector of Special Armed Force (SAF) and sub-inspector of Special Branch were inducted in the service during the 89th Convocation of the Academy.

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After Mumbai and Pune, Nashik will have a separate cyber police station, considering rising number of crimes through internet and other online media, city Police Commissioner Ravinder Kumar Singhal said yesterday.

"The Police Commissionerate has decided to open a separate cyber police station soon," the commissioner told reporters.

He also listed various initiatives launched by the city police for citizens, including spreading awareness about wearing helmets for two-wheeler riders.

The top cop said the rate of crime in the city has come down due to the police cracking the whip on the "big criminals and slumlords."



He said the police will operate a dedicated "tourist police van" to cater to tourists visiting the temple town, which will be equipped with city maps and information booklets.

The van will quickly attend to the complaints of tourists, the officer said.

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An Indian Navy personnel was today sentenced to two years in prison for outraging the modesty of a minor girl through obscene and vulgar chat messages on internet in 2010.

First Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Moka Suvarna Raju also imposed a fine of Rs 15,000 on INS Shikra staffer Dilip Kumar, 33, working in Mumbai.

The court sentenced Kumar after convicting him for committing various offences under the Information Technology Act, 2000 and section 509 of the Indian Penal Code involving the offence of outraging the modesty of a woman through obscene words or gesture.

Kumar was charged for acts of enticing a minor girl a resident of Hyderabad for online relationship and when she refused the same, he harassed her with obscene, vulgar, objectionable and insulting chat messages.

Eleven prosecution witnesses, including outstation witnesses, FSL experts were examined in the case.

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The People's Democratic Front (PDF), a regional political party in Meghalaya, aiming at developing the state and translating aspirations of the people into reality was today formally launched.

The PDF is the fifth regional political party to be launched here after the United Democratic Party (UDP), the Hill State People Democratic Party (HSPDP), the Khun Hynniewtrep National Awakening Movement (KHNAM) and the Garo National Council (GNC).

Addressing newsmen, PDF president, Ivanlum Marbaniang, said that the party had also completed the process of registering with the Election Commission of India and was waiting for the final approval.

He said the EC, as per its guidelines, will provide a list of symbols and if necessary, the party can also propose its own symbol.

Marbaniang was a former leader of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) before he, along with like-minded friends, decided to form the PDF which will also contest the 2018 elections.

Party secretary Auspicious L Mawphlang said, "The party aims at translating the people's aspirations into reality. It would identify and tap all resources to promote all round development in the state."



Mawphlang said the people are craving for change due to the lack of policies for the welfare of the farmers, youths, traditional institutions and blamed the ruling congress for the mess.

"We aim to bring clear cut policies which will address the various issues concerning the different strata of people in the state," he said.

The PDF is closely linked with the Khasi Hills Autonomous District Council chief Pynshngain N Syiem, a legislator from Mawsynram, who was suspended from the Congress.

Although the PDF leaders denied any link, the present members are mostly from the 'Campaign for Change' platform used by Syiem.

Syiem also heads a coalition executive committee at the Council with a similar name, the Peoples' Democratic Front.

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: Karnataka assembly Speaker K B Koliwad today said the house forming a panel to suggest steps for "self-regulation" by newspapers and TV channels does not imply any conflict between the legislature and the media.

To frame the self-regulation norms for the media, the joint House committee would debate the issue throughly within itself as well as with the mediapersons, said Koliwad who announced about the formation of panel on Monday.

The panel was formed after the MLAs of all parties, in a assembly debate on March 22, accused the media of often filing derogatory reports against the legislators and tarnishing their image.

"Definitely no confrontation," the Speaker told PTI.

Asked if there would be any rethinking on going ahead with the committee following media's criticism of the move, he said it is the House which has constituted the panel.

"It has been done by the House, not by me. The House is more powerful than me. I am only a product of the House.

"The committee will come out with conclusions on self-regulation (for the media)," he said.

He said the committee is likely to hold its first sitting after the April 8 bypolls to Gundlupete and Nanjanagudu assembly constituencies in the state.

The opposition BJP leader in the assembly Jagadish Shettar too said there is no confrontation with the media.

"Why do you consider it is a confrontation?" he said adding there is a need to take corrective steps in all areas, be it the politics or the media.

Maintaining that there is no move by the BJP to boycott the committee, he said no instruction has been issued to its two members on the panel to stay away from it.

"We will see what the committee comes out with," he said.

The BJP's concern is that there should be no infringement on the freedom of speech and expression and that of the media.

The formation of 13-member panel, comprising 10 MLAs and three MLCs, headed by Health and Family Welfare Minister K R Ramesh Kumar, was announced in the assembly on March 28, days after the legislators of all parties criticised media.

The assembly earlier on March 22 had debated the role of media alleging that the reports put out and telecast by the press often happen to be "derogatory" to MLAs and tarnish their image, with some MLAs even recounting their "bitter" personal experience with the media.

Almost all the MLAs who participated in the March 22 debate have been appointed as members of the committee.

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The government today informed Parliament that it is not considering any proposal to introduce Rs 21 and 51 currency notes.

"There is no proposal to introduce currency notes of Rs 21 and Rs 51 denomination," Minister of State for Finance Arjun Ram Meghwal said in a written reply to the Lok Sabha.

Meghwal was replying to a question asked by BJP MP and film actor Paresh Rawal.

In another reply, he said that there is no proposal to demonetise currency notes of Rs 50 and Rs 100.

The government had earlier said that it has no plans to come out with Rs 5,000 and Rs 10,000 banknotes.

The government had recently introduced Rs 2,000 note along with a new Rs 500 note following the demonetisation which scrapped 86 per cent of the currency in circulation on 8 November.

Economic Affairs Secretary Shaktikanta Das had last month said that the government has no plans to re-introduce Rs 1,000 note.

Meghwal in another reply said 310 cases were registered for counterfeiting coins in 2014 while there were 38 cases registered in 2015.

"In the year 2016, Delhi Police unearthed two fake coin minting factories in Bawana and a case was registered on October 2016. Fake coins of Rs 5 and Rs 10 denomination valuing Rs 6,37,500 were recovered in the case," he said.

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Delhi High Court today refused to quash the disproportionate assets case filed by CBI against Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh and his wife, saying there is no basis to claim that the FIR is the result of any "political vendetta".

It also vacated the Himachal Pradesh High Court's October 1, 2015 interim order restraining CBI from arresting, interrogating or filing a charge sheet in the case without the court's permission.

"There is no factual basis brought on record to claim that the registration of the FIR against the petitioners (Singh and his wife) is actuated or legally or factually mala fide or that the registration of the FIR/ RC is a result of political vendetta," Justice Vipin Sanghi said.

Following the prder, the agency later in the day filed a charge sheet before the special court here against nine people including the 82-year-old Congress leader for alleged offences punishable under section 109 (abetment) of IPC and Prevention of Corruption Act.

The special court has now fixed the charge sheet, running into over 500 pages, for consideration for tomorrow.

Commenting that the HP High Court's direction was passed without hearing the necessary parties in the matter, the Delhi High Court noted, "It is well settled that a court should not undertake to decide an issue unless it is a live issue between the parties".

It also turned down the question framed by HP High Court, whether the permission of the Speaker of the HP Legislative Assembly was mandatory before registration of FIR.

Justice Sanghi held that there is "no legal basis to claim that the permission of Speaker of Himachal Pradesh Legislative Assembly was mandatory before registration of the FIR/RC in the case which pertains to the tenure of Virbhadra Singh while he was a Central Minister under the Union Government during the check period."



The court also turned down the chief minister's claim that the Delhi High Court has no jurisdiction, saying "accused cannot dictate to the prosecution that the case should be registered at a police station that he desires".

"The case may be registered at any one of the police stations within whose jurisdiction the same can be legally instituted," it added.

Singh had sought directions from the court for quashing the FIR registered against him and his wife under Sections 13(2) and 13(1)(e) of the Prevention of Corruption Act and Section 109 of IPC by the CBI on September 23, 2015 here and urged the court to summon records of the preliminary inquiry and the FIR.

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Actress Pamela Anderson was spotted leaving the Ecuadorian embassy in London after visiting her friend and WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.

Anderson, 49, donned a tight black turtleneck and a matching pencil skirt for the meeting, reported People magazine.

Anderson's frequent visits to the embassy over the past year- at least six in the past seven months - has caused a flurry of speculation that the two are a couple.

The visit comes after the actress addressed her relationship with Assange in a lengthy post on her website, writing that he is "one of my favorite people."



"My relationship with Julian - It's no secret, He is one of my favorite people- and he might be the most famous, most politicized refugee of our time," she wrote.

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Goa Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar today met Prime Minister Narendra Modi during his first visit to the national capital after taking charge of the coastal state.

Parrikar, who also holds the state's finance portfolio, will also attend the Goods and Services Tax (GST) council meeting, Goa government officials said.

"Chief Minister of Goa, Shri @manoharparrikar met Prime Minister Shri @narendramodi," the Prime Minister's Office tweeted.

Parrikar had quit as defence minister to head a coalition government of local allies and Independents in the coastal state.

He took oath of office on March 14, three days after the BJP finished second behind the Congress in Goa, in a fractured mandate.

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Unidentified persons hurled a petrol bomb at a temple in Allinagaram in the district triggering tension in the village, police said today.

However, there was no damage to the temple as the bomb failed to explode.

The miscreants hurled the bomb at Kali temple belonging to a particular community around 2 AM yesterday and managed to get away under the cover of darkness, they said.

Police personnel in large numbers have been deployed in the area to defuse tension, police said adding there was a dispute between two communities in the area over erecting thatched roof for a temple festival and over an eve teasing incident involving a girl of another community.

On hearing a loud noise, people in the vicinity gathered around the temple and demanded the immediate arrest of the culprits.

A special team has been formed to nab the culprits, police added.

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A book, giving pictorial depiction of the powerful earthquakes that struck Nepal in 2015 and killed nearly 9,000 people, was launched here today.

The book titled 'The Gorkha Earthquake-2015' has been dedicated to the deceased and survivors of the earthquake.

The book includes the geology of Nepal, its seismicity, scientific background of the Gorkha Earthquake, damage and loss including the assistance of the government, security agencies and international organisations.

The authors of the book -- Assistant Professor Deepak Chaulagain and photo journalist Laxmi Prasad Ngakhusi -- have decided to donate the fund collected from the book for the education of the quake surviving children.

"Documentation of the infrastructures plays a significant part in the reconstruction process. To rebuild the structure depicting the same culture and tradition, there has to be the documentation of those buildings and monuments," said Govinda Raj Pokharel, CEO at National Reconstruction Authority during the launch of the book.

"We need social and economic reconstruction as well. The physical reconstruction remains incomplete without economic assurance," Pokharel said.

Nearly 9,000 people were killed and 500,000 houses were demolished during the twin earthquakes of 2015.

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The Kolkata Police today arrested an egg-seller in the city for allegedly selling artificial plastic eggs.

Mohammed Shamin Ansari, who was detained yesterday by the Kolkata Police Enforcement Branch for allegedly selling plastic eggs, was arrested this morning after questioning, a senior officer of the police said.

Meanwhile, a team from the Kolkata Municipal Corporation, led by Mayor-in-Council (Health) Atin Ghosh, and Kolkata Police Enforcement Branch officials raided various markets in the city today and seized eggs which were later sent to the laboratory for testing.

The KMC team visited the seller in the Muchipara area from whom Ansari had bought eggs.

"One crate of eggs has been seized from the wholesaler who sold the eggs to Ansari. We will also collect samples from other shops in the market and send them to the laboratory for testing," Ghosh said.

Ansari, the police said, had bought eggs worth Rs 1.15 lakh from the wholesaler.

"As per the Food Safety and Standards Act, food adulteration is a punishable offence. If these eggs are found to be life-threatening, the offenders may face punishment like life imprisonment and a huge fine," Ghosh said.

Ansari, who was booked on the charges of fraud and criminal conspiracy by the police, was remanded to police custody for four days when produced at a city court.

Complaints of artificial plastic eggs being sold were also received from Canning in South 24-Parganas district following which an enquiry was started, the state police said.

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Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi today accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of "disrespecting" the drought-hit farmers of Tamil Nadu by not initiating talks with them over their demands for relief package.

He made the remarks during a visit to Jantar Mantar to express solidarity with the farmers from the southern state who are camping here for the 18th day in a row.

Gandhi also accused the Modi-led government of being "anti-poor and anti-farmer" which, he alleged, only panders to the demands of a select group of industrialists.

"The farmers have been sitting here for so long. But neither the government nor the Prime Minister are listening to them. The people and farmers of Tamil Nadu deserve to be heard by the Prime Minister who is disrespecting them by not initiating any dialogue," he said.

"Over the last three years, debt worth Rs 1.4 lakh crore held by 50 industrialists have been written off.

"Why the same is not being done in case of the farmers? Why are their debts not being waived? It is the Prime Minister's responsibility to do so," Gandhi said after interacting with the protesters and their leader P Ayyakkannu.

During the 15-minute interaction, he took note of all the demands of the protesters and assured them that the Congress will "fight for them" and raise their grievances "in Tamil Nadu as well as in Delhi and Parliament".

The Centre needs to provide debt waiver, drought relief and better support price to the farmers. Also the Prime Minister should at least start talks with them, Gandhi said.

He was accompanied by Tamil Nadu Congress chief Su. Thirunavukkarasar and senior party leader Mani Shankar Aiyar.

Farmers belonging to the Cauvery belt in Tamil Nadu are protesting here demanding a drought relief package of Rs 40,000 crore from the Centre, farm loan waiver and setting up of Cauvery Management Board.

The protesters today wore 'rudhraksha' (seeds traditionally used for prayer beads) indicating a life of saints who has given up all earthly needs.

"We will die at the national capital instead of returning to our state empty-handed," Ayyakkannu said.

It has not rained and ground water levels have gone down at many places in the state. The water bodies are also drying.

The poor farmers, who depend on their crops, are the most vulnerable section of the society and they always become victims of various vagaries, the National Human Rights Commission had said.

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There isa "political will" in both India and the UK to reach an agreement on trade and other issues post-Brexit, the Indian envoy here has said.

Speaking to the members of the Indian Journalists Association here last evening, Indian High Commissioner to the UK Y K Sinha referred to several high-level visits from India to the UK including that of Finance Minister Arun Jaitley.

He also referred about the proposed visits of Britain's Chancellor of Exchequer Philip Hammond, Defence Secretary Michael Fallon, Energy Secretary Greg Clark, Minister of State for Culture Karen Bradley and Secretary of State for International Development Priti Patel to Indiain the next couple of months and said "it reflected the vibrant and robust relations we have."



Describing Brexit as a great moment, Sinha said "it is an opportunity and challenge for India - in the post-Brexit era."



Emphasising that no formal discussions could be held till Brexit becomes a reality sometime in March 2019, the High Commissioner said "we will be monitoring what will be happening."



Sinha said, "there is a political will on both the sides to reach an agreement on trade and other issues."



Answering questions, he said "both the sides will have their wish-list. As far as India is concerned the question of free-movement of Indian professionals in the UK is a priority. Our expectation is that Indian IT professionals come here freely and return."



Noting that the number of Indian students coming to study in the UK has gone down considerably, he said one of the reasons is that Britain has restricted post-study work visa to four months as against two years in the US.

Another reason is closing down of some of the "bogus colleges."



The number of Indian students studying in other countries like the US, Canada and Australia has gone up.

"Since the UK is boasting of having some of the best higher learning institutions, it is a matter of concern for them as well," Sinha said.

He said that the next couple of years are going to be "particularly exciting".

The Commonwealth Heads of Government (CHOGM) will be taking place in the UK in April next year and India will be the "flavour of the year this year as it is celebrating the Year of Culture here.

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Al-Qaeda has claimed responsibility for a recent deadly attack on a government building in southern Yemen, which involved a suicide bombing.

Al-Qaeda's Ansar al-Shariah arm in a statement yesterday identified the suicide bomber as Abu Amer al-Hadrami, saying he had rammed his explosives-laden car into the gate of the local government building in the provincial capital of Lahj on Monday.

Officials said at the time that six soldiers and four civilians were killed in the bombing and an ensuing gun attack by jihadists.

Security forces killed the assailants, including three who were wearing explosive belts.

The online Al Qaeda statement acknowledged the death of three militants "who controlled the building for three hours" before being killed, in addition to Hadrami.

The statement said the attack was carried out "to avenge martyrs" killed in raids by security forces, and those "tortured to death in prisons."



It did not refer to the many US air strikes which have targeted members of Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) in southern Yemeni towns in recent months.

At least 25 suspected AQAP members have been killed in the air strikes.

AQAP has exploited a power vacuum created by the war between the government and Huthi rebels who control the capital Sanaa and number of major cities along the Red Sea coast.

The United States regards AQAP as the jihadist network's most dangerous branch.

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Delhi University's Ramjas College, which saw violent protests last month, is once again in the as four plays themed on nationalism were not allowed to be performed during its annual street play fest today.

While the members of Ramjas' drama society claim the college administration decided to cancel the plays as their subjects were "sensitive", the principal maintained it was students' decision and not the authorities'.

The drama society's annual street play festival 'Mukhatib' held today also witnessed silent protest by Ramjas' students who wore black hand bands and sealed their mouths with black tapes protesting against the cancellation of the plays.

The cancelled performances are: SGTB Khalsa college's play 'Trump Card', Dyal Singh college's 'Jokistaan'; Guru Gobind Singh College of Commerce's 'sawal to uthega (questions will be raised)'; and Gargi College's 'Main, Kashmir aur aap? Main Manipur' (I'm Kashmir, and you? I'm Manipur).

"Seven teams were scheduled to take part in the street play festival and perform on their respective subjects. However, our administration asked us to present the scripts to them, which has never happened before.

"After presenting the scripts, we were asked to cancel performances of four plays as their subject was related to nationalism, freedom of speech and the evergreen issue of Kashmir," a member of the drama society said on the condition of anonymity.

College principal PC Tulsiyan said it was student's decision to cancel the plays.

"The administration did not cancel the plays but Ramjas students who are members of the drama society did it themselves. We had just advised them to not include anything which may hamper the peaceful atmosphere at the college," he said.

From the three teams that were allowed to participate, Lady Shri Ram college refused to perform in protest against the decision while Miranda House and Kirori Mal college went ahead with their performances "Hadsa-e-paidaish" and "The Accidental Death of an Anarchist" respectively.

Ramjas College had last month witnessed large-scale clashes between members of Left-affiliated All India Students Association (AISA) and RSS-backed Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) members and its supporters.

The clashes took place after an invite to JNU students Umar Khalid and Shehla Rashid to address a seminar titled 'Culture of Protests' was withdrawn by the college authorities following ABVP's opposition.

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Indian Army chief Gen Bipin Rawat's visit to Nepal has helped in deepening and expanding the existing cordial ties between the armies of the two countries, the Nepalese Army said today.

Gen Rawat today wrapped up his four-day visit to Nepal. Duing his visit, he was conferred the title of honorary general of the Nepalese Army by President Bidya Devi Bhandari.

Gen Rawat was presented with a sword, insignia and a certificate of conferment order by the President during the function.

"There has been decades old tradition of honoring the army chiefs of Nepal and India by each other with the title of Army General keeping with the traditional friendly ties between the two armies," according to a statement issued by Nepal Army headquarters.

The visit paid by the Indian Army chief to Nepal helped in deepening and expanding the existing cordial relations between the two armies, the statement said.

Gen Rawat met Prachanda and expressed happiness over the ongoing collaboration between Nepal Army and Indian Army.

He handed over seven horses to Nepal Army.

Gen Rawat was invited by Nepal army chief Gen Rajendra Chhetri.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The European Investment Bank (EIB) has okayed Rs 1,400 crore (EUR 200 million) loan to State Bank of India to fund solar power projects.

The long-term loan will support total investment of EUR 650 million in five different large-scale photo-voltaic solar power projects, EIB said in a statement.

This will contribute to India's National Solar mission and reduce dependence on fossil fuel power generation.

Four solar power projects at a generation capacity of 530 MWac have already been identified under this funding, it said.

"The new cooperation between the State Bank of India and the European Investment Bank will scale up investment in large scale solar power generation across India," said B Sriram, Managing Director, State Bank of India.

Close cooperation between technical and financial teams from both institutions will ensure that world class projects are supported, he said.

"This new project reflects the shared commitment of India and the European Union to tackle climate change and implement the Paris Climate Agreement," said Andrew McDowell, Vice President of the European Investment Bank.

The 20 -year long-term EIB loan will support individual projects. Projects in Tamil Nadu and Telangana are amongst those to be funded under this agreement.

This funding will be in addition to financing from Indian banks and project promoters.

One of the largest lenders in renewable energy investment, EIB has financed projects of EUR 1.7 billion (about Rs 11,900 crore) in India since 1993.

Owned by the 28 member states of the European Union, it is the world's largest international public bank.

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The Supreme Court today sought the stands of its secretary general and various bars on a plea seeking stay on the practice of designating lawyers as senior till a norm is evolved for it.

A bench of Justices Ranjan Gogoi and Navin Sinha issued notices to the Supreme Court Bar Association and the Bar Council of India on the plea by senior advocate Indira Jaising who also said the "view of the full bench" of the court, while designating an advocate as senior, should be known.

"Please see the prayers. We need to know the view of the full bench," she told the bench.

Jaising said she had mentioned the matter on March 29 before Chief Justice J S Khehar who had posted it for hearing today as per the apex court roaster.

A batch of petitions have been filed for framing guidelines to designate lawyers as senior by the apex court and the high courts.

Jaising, who has filed the public interest litigation in her personal capacity, had sought an early hearing on the plea saying the issue of according designation is currently stalled and it will have wide ramifications across the country.

The top court had earlier set up a three-judge bench for hearing the pleas for framing guidelines for designating lawyers as senior.

It had considered the argument that there should be no ban on designating a lawyer as senior by the apex court and the high courts till the pleas are decided.

Jaising has sought transparency and overhaul of the "opaque system" of designating lawyers as senior advocate and said the apex court should deal with the matter on "judicial side" and frame uniform guidelines on the issue.

The court had also tagged with Jaising's plea a petition pending in the Delhi High Court which has challenged the provisions of the Advocates Act on designating lawyers as senior.

The petition in the high court has challenged the constitutional validity of the sections 16 and 23 (5) of the Advocates Act, 1961 which provide the statutory basis for designating lawyers as senior advocates.

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Markets regulator Sebi is conducting training programmes for police authorities of various states which include a special module on illegal trading, Parliament was informed today.

In a written reply to the Lok Sabha, Minister of State for Finance Arjun Ram Meghwal said Sebi is "conducting training programmes for police authorities of various states which includes a special module on illegal trading".

The minister was replying to a specific query on whether the government has taken cognizance of 'Dabba trading scam' operated by parallel share brokers in various states causing loss to the tune of over Rs 2 lakh crore to the exchequer.

He further said that Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) has not received any complaint in this regard.

Dabba trading is an illegal form of trading in shares, where operators of such trading rings allow people to trade in equities outside the stock exchange platform.

Illegal trading activities are punishable under the provisions of Indian Penal Code (IPC), in view of which Centre has, at various points of time, taken up this with state governments, the minister said.

The markets regulator has also in the past written letters to all state governments in this regard requesting them to take penal action in cases of illegal or dabba trading, he added.

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The Senior Citizen Savings Scheme witnessed a surge in deposits post-demonetisation with 32,634 deposits made during November 9 to December 30, 2016, Parliament was informed today.

"32,634 deposits were made in the Senior Citizen Savings Scheme during demonetisation period which is higher than the average deposits in two months of the pre-demonetisation period based on the figures of last three years," Communications Minister Manoj Sinha said in a written reply in Rajya Sabha.

No survey was conducted in this regard, the minister pointed out.

Also, the government is not considering any proposal to include more benefits in the Senior Citizen Savings Scheme, he added.

The Post Office Senior Citizen Savings Scheme was availed by 3.10 lakh individuals in 2015-16, against 88,208 in 2014-15, and 1.22 lakh individuals in 2013-14, according to information shared by the minister.

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Sharp exchanges were witnessed in the Rajya Sabha on Friday when Leader of the Opposition charged the government with trying to push legislative business on Fridays when there are less members and Union Minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi vehemently opposing it.

Azad accused the government of going back on its word by pushing contentious bills by taking advantage of lack of opposition members on Friday late afternoon.

Naqvi, the Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs, shot back saying ensuring the presence of opposition members was not his job and the listed legislative business can be taken up once the private members' business collapse.

Post-lunch session of Rajya Sabha on Fridays is usually reserved for private members' business where lawmakers bring in non-government resolutions or bills for approval.

Raising the issue, Derek O'Brien (TMC) said the revised list of business for the day lists The Factories (Amendment) Bill 2016 after the private members' business today. He wanted the bill not to be taken up today.

Deputy Chairman P J Kurien said if the private member business collapses before 5 pm, the Chair has no option but to take up the listed business.

Azad said no bills should be taken up on Friday afternoon even if the private members' business collapses.

He recalled that the government had used the absence of almost the entire opposition on a Friday earlier in this session to get the Enemy Property Bill approved.

This was despite being "unanimously" agreed at the Business Advisory Committee (BAC) of the Rajya Sabha that the discussion on the bill will not be taken up unless a consensus is reached, Azad said.

The government, he said, did not inform the opposition of its intention to take up the Bill on Friday after the private member business. "This was against the spirit of decision unanimously taken," he said.

He alleged that the government has chosen this route knowing that it cannot get the bill passed otherwise and uses absence of the opposition members to get crucial bills passed.

Naqvi said the Enemy Property Bill was referred to a Select Committee of the House and when private members' business collapsed that day, the bill, which was listed in the business of the day, was taken up.

He said it was not his responsibility to ensure the presence of opposition members.

To this, Azad shot back saying the government had given an assurance that the Bill will not be taken up for discussion unless there was consensus.

Kurien said the Chair was concerned only about the assurance given on the floor of the House.

"If private members business collapses before 5 pm, then the Chair is duty-bound to go to the next (listed) item," he said. "But if there is consensus in the House not to take up a particular legislation, then the item can be postponed.

"If there is no consensus, the Chair has no other option but to take up the listed bill," he said as he sought the opinion of the House on the Factories Bill.

The treasury benches said they were not in alignment with the opinion of the opposition that the bill should not be taken up today.

Kurien said there is no consensus on the Factories Bill on Friday.
Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan will lead a delegation of parliamentarians to attend the assembly of the Inter-Parliamentary Union to be held in Dhaka from tomorrow.

The theme of the 5-day Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) Assembly is "Redressing Inequalities: Delivering on dignity and well-being for all".

Mahajan will lead a delegation of MPs which include N K Premachandran, Kirit Premjibhai Solanki, Viplove Thakur, Anil Desai, Nagendra Singh, Raj Kumar Singh, Sushmita Dev, Deepak Adhikari and Dola Sen.

Besides the MPs, Lok Sabha Secretary General Anoop Mishra will also attend the event.

Mahajan will address the Assembly during the general debate and the Indian delegation will participate in the four standing committees of IPU, an official statement from Lok Sabha secretariat said.

The agenda of IPU assembly also includes an emergency item relating to a major event of international concern on which it appears necessary for the IPU to express its opinion.

The requests for inclusion of an emergency item are made by member countries -- Mexico and United Kingdom. Both have submitted requests for inclusion of emergency item in the agenda of the assembly.

One of our delegates will participate in the discussion on Emergency item.

On the sidelines of assembly, a forum of young parliamentarians of the IPU will share their views from a youth perspective on the agenda items of the assembly.

Sushmita Dev and Deepak Adhikari will represent India in this meeting.

The MPs will also attend the meeting of the regional Asia-Pacific Group.

While, Mishra will attend the meeting of the Association of Secretaries-General of Parliaments (ASGP). The event will conclude on April 5.

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The Lokmanya Tilak Swarajya Bhoomi Trust today demanded that the Jinnah House in Malabar Hill be handed over to it for creating a mural depicting the legacy of Tilak.

In a statement issued here today, founder president of the trust, Prakash Silam said it had written to the Public Works Department on January 29, 2016 that the Jinnah House premises be handed over to it.

'Jinnah House' was the residence of Pakistan's founder Mohammad Ali Jinnah in Malabar Hill of south Mumbai.

Recently, BJP MLA Mangal Prabhat Lodha had demanded that the Jinnah House be pulled down and a cultural centre be constructed in its place.

Criticising the BJP MLA, Silam said the iconic Jinnah House is now an heritage structure and that pulling it down will not erase the "bitter history".

"Barrister Jinnah upon learning of the sad demise of Lokmanya Tilak rushed to Mumbai from Pune to pay his last respects to the leader," he stated.

He added that late Muhammad Ali Jinnah had great respect for Lokmanya Tilak.

He further stated that two years ago the trust had written to the state government that they wanted to have a mural depicting the history of ties between Lokmanya Tilak, Jinnah and Mahatma Gandhi at the bungalow.

Silam accused Lodha of deliberately trying to create obstacles in the process of having a mural at the Jinnah House.

He said that the trust had expected that Lodha being the local MLA would help them in their efforts.

Silam said that people will not tolerate any attempts by the government to take any decision favouring its party MLA.

Pakistan had yesterday expressed concern over the safety of 'Jinnah House' and said India should show respect towards it, after BJP MLA Mangal Prabhat Lodha last week demanded that the building be demolished and a cultural centre built in its place.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Here is the weekly road construction report for Hamilton County:

U.S. 27 (I-124) widening from I-24/U.S. 27 interchange to north of the Olgiati Bridge over the Tennessee River, including widening the Olgiati Bridge: Work on this project continues. The speed limit on U.S. 27 in the construction zone is 45 MPH. The contractor may have temporary lane or shoulder closures on U.S. 27 between 7 p.m.-6 a.m. On Thursday night between 7 p.m.-6 a.m., a temporary right lane closure will be in place on U.S.

27 North from I-24 to MLK Boulevard to shift traffic from the existing MLK Boulevard exit to the temporary exit ramp. This work is weather permitting. On Friday between 9 a.m.-3 p.m., there will be a temporary ramp closure on the 12th Street on ramp to U.S. 27 South for removing the existing street lighting and working on the new street lighting. During this work, traffic will be detoured to Carter St./MLK Boulevard. As the project progresses, there may be short term temporary lane closures for the safety of the traveling public on city streets within the project area. Flaggers will assist with these closures and they will be properly signed in accordance with the Federal Highway Administrations Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices. During Phase 1 of the U.S. 27 project, the contractor will be working on the northbound side of U.S. 27 on the bridges. Work will consist of demolishing and reconstructing the outside sections of the bridges along U.S. 27 North. Also on U.S. 27 South, they will be constructing a large retaining wall between the Olgiati Bridge and 6th Street. At least one lane will remain open in each direction on U.S. 27. THP will assist with traffic control on the project as necessary. Estimated project completion date is July 2019. For more info, visit the project website http://www.tn.gov/tdot/topic/US27-reconstruction-chattanoog a. [Dement Construction Co., LLC/JM/CNP230]

SR 317 (Apison Pike) the grading, drainage and paving on from Old Lee Highway (LM 5.58) to SR-321 (Ooltewah-Ringgold Road) (LM 7.84): Work on this project continues. During this report period the contractor may have intermittent lane closures throughout the project from 9 a.m.-4 p.m. Flaggers will assist with traffic control as needed. Estimated project completion date is May. [Wright Brothers Const. Co. /Pruett/CNN279]

SR-320 (East Brainerd Road) grading, drainage, installation of signals, construction of seven retaining walls and paving from east of Graysville Road to east of Bel-Air Road: Work on this project continues. During this report period, the contractor will have intermittent lane closures between 9 a.m.-2 p.m. This work may affect either direction of East Brainerd Road or side streets from Graysville Road to Hamlett Drive as the contractor installs road crossings and borings. Traffic has been switched onto the newly-constructed section from the west end of the project to the Hurricane Creek Road/East Brainerd Road intersection, allowing the contractor to work on the other side of the roadway. The contractor may have short-term lane closures to perform various operations on an as-needed basis. Flaggers will assist with traffic control as needed. Original completion date is June. Estimated project completion date is December. [Jones Brothers Contractors, LLC /Pruett/CNN383]

SR-153/SR-319 (Hixson Pike) bridge repair on Hixson Pike over SR-153: Work on this project continues. The outside lanes in both directions on the bridge on Hixson Pike over SR-153 are now closed. This lane closure will be in place until late November. During this report period the contractor may have intermittent lane closures on SR-153 from 9 p.m.-6 a.m. to do work under the bridge. If there are any temporary closures needed on SR-153 as part of this project, they will take place at nighttime on Sundays through Thursdays between 9 p.m.-6 a.m. and on weekdays on SR-153 South between 9 a.m.-3 p.m. and on SR-153 North between 7:30 a.m.-3 p.m. Flaggers will assist with traffic control as necessary during these temporary closures. Estimated project completion date is May 2018. [Mid-State Construction Co. /Micka/CNQ941]

The tunnel cleaning of the McCallie Tunnel on U.S. 11 (US 64, SR-2), the Stringers Ridge Tunnel on U.S. 127 (SR-8), and the Bachman Tubes on U.S. 41 (U.S. 76, SR-8): The nighttime cleaning operation of McCallie Tunnels, Stringers Ridge Tunnel, and Bachman Tubes occurs normally on Wednesday and Thursday nights during the week with the 3rd Tuesday of the month. Work hours are between 8 p.m.-6 a.m. Tunnels will be closed during cleaning, and detours will be marked accordingly as each tunnel is cleaned. Contract completion date is June. [Diamond Specialized, Inc./Micka/CNQ174]
Tata Motors is eyeing to be the number three car manufacturer in the country by the end of 2019, a senior official of the company said here today.

"By the end of 2019, we want to be the No. Three manufacturer in the country. Right now we are at the No. 4 position both country-wise as well as in West Bengal," Tata Motors Head Marketing Passenger Vehicle Business Unit Vivek Srivatsa said.

Srivatsa, who was here in the city for the launch of Tata Tigor in West Bengal, said that a couple of years back the company was the No. 6 or No. 7 manufacturer in the country.

In fact, Tata Motors in the last one year (April '16-Feb'17) has grown twice as big as the automotive industry growth in the country.

"In other parts of the country Tata Motors was growing close to 20 per cent whereas the industry growth is about seven-eight per cent. Exactly the same situation prevails in West Bengal," Srivatsa said.

He said that in the last one year Tata Motors was the fastest growing manufacturer in West Bengal at 22 per cent compared to the general industry growth.

Incidentally, the national market share of Tata Motors is of around four per cent which is the same in West Bengal, he said.

Asked which brands contributed to the growth, Srivatsa mentioned Tiago, launched last April, and Hexa, introduced last January.

The official said that both Tiago and Hexa had been accepted "very strongly".

The company is consistently selling about 5,000 units per month, he said pointing out that in the first year Tiago had received 83,000 bookings in 12 months.

"We have delivered so far 50,000 Tiago cars. Hexa on the other hand has contributed to the growth in a small way," he said.

With 120 units being sold per month, the official said that Zest was their fastest growing car in West Bengal with a national figure of 2,000 cars a month.

On the future of Nano, Srivatsa said that the company would continue making the car as long as there was a demand from the customers.

"Our strategy is very simple. As long as the customer demand is there, we will continue manufacturing it. And there is still a demand for it," he said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Delegates of the The Royal Thai Embassy in India who are visiting Uttarakhand to examine investment opportunities in the state, met Chief Minister Trivendra Singh Rawat here today.

Investment opportunities were discussed during the meeting between the delegates and Rawat, a release by the state government said.

During the meeting, the Chief Minister said there are huge opportunities of investment in eco-tourism, food processing, automobile, pharmaceutical and textile sectors in the state.

Uttarakhand has started a single window system for the investors and is working to improve ease of doing business in the state, the Chief Minister told the Thai delegates.

Delegates of the The Royal Thai Embassy are on a three day visit to the state starting today.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Indian-American Congressman Ro Khanna has lashed out at US President Donald Trump for failing to fulfil his campaign promises like bringing back jobs and reviving the country's manufacturing sector.

"(It is) a Presidency of broken promises," Congressman Khanna, 40, who served as the Deputy Assistant Secretary of State in the Department of Commerce in the previous Obama administration told PTI.

Khanna, who represents the hub of Silicon Valley in the US Congress, said that Trump has not lived up to the promises he made.

"He (Trump) promised to help expand coverage in healthcare and lower costs. He proposed a bill that would have cut coverage and increased premiums. He promised to help working families and not Wall Street. He has proposed budgets that would slash funding from working families and give tax breaks for Wall Street," he said.

"He promised to invest in American cities and broadband and infrastructure. He has curtailed the expansion of broadband and he has not fulfilled the promise to invest in infrastructure. So, he has not lived up to the promises he made to Americans across this country," Khanna said in response to a question.

Khanna, author of "Entrepreneurial Nation: Why Manufacturing is Still Key to America's Future", in his book laid out a blue print for reviving the country's manufacturing sector.

"If he was serious about creating manufacturing jobs, he would fund manufacturing, extend partnership, instead of defunding it," he said.

"He would fund apprenticeship programmes across this country, like Switzerland does. The Swiss apprenticeship programme prepares the workforce for manufacturing. He would make sure that we were ending corporate deferral and require companies to pay tax on their overseas earnings so that it would incentivise to bring back those jobs to the US," he said.

"So, I share the goal of bringing manufacturing back to the US. I've written a book on it, but it's not going to happen through his policies," Khanna said referring to the book he wrote in 2012.

"I have always believed that America remains the greatest superpower of innovation. Khanna is a leading thinker on how to make US manufacturing more competitive across this country, whether it comes to making high-technology planes, cars, steel bars, fire suits, or even blenders.

"The unconventional ideas in this book chart the path America can take to lead the world for years to come," Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla wrote after reading the book.

Khanna said he is very passionate about helping take Silicon Valley's vision and creating tech jobs and partnering with communities across the country, figuring out how to make partnership programmes and jobs programmes for the jobs of the 21st century.

"How do we make sure that entrepreneurship is not just in Silicon Valley but across this country? How do we make sure that we are rewiring labour markets to adapt to the needs to jobs in the future?" he said.

"I am also passionate about improving our healthcare system and for medicare for all. But making sure that we provide a wage increase for working families. We can do that by massive expansion of the earned income tax credit, making sure that we're making college debt-free. So having a progressive economic vision and apprenticeship programme for jobs of the 21st century," Khanna said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said today he would hold talks with NATO allies about "Russia's aggression in Ukraine", signalling a tougher stance toward Moscow from the Trump administration.

"We want to have a discussion around NATO's posture in Europe, most particularly in eastern Europe in response to Russia's aggression in Ukraine and elsewhere," Tillerson said upon arriving in Brussels for his first NATO talks.

Tillerson joined the talks listing the Trump administration's top priority as pushing NATO allies to meet their pledges to boost defence spending as Washington says it has borne a "disproportionate" share of the costs for too long.

State Department officials said Tillerson would work with NATO allies to press Russia to fulfil its obligations under the Minsk agreements to end the war in eastern Ukraine.

Tillerson's remarks appeared likely to ease concerns that US President Donald Trump is more interested in cultivating ties with Russian President Vladimir Putin than in shoring up the 28-nation alliance against a more assertive Moscow.

Allies have been alarmed at the prospect of Trump seeking to improve relations with the Kremlin at the expense of support for the pro-Western government in Ukraine and NATO allies in former Soviet parts of eastern Europe.

Their concerns were reinforced when Tillerson initially planned to skip the NATO meeting, citing various commitments including a trip to Russia.

But the former Exxon oil executive, who has friendly ties with Putin, agreed to attend when NATO rescheduled the meeting for today.

Russia in 2014 annexed Crimea from Ukraine and backed separatists in eastern Ukraine.

A senior NATO official told reporters on condition of anonymity that the Trump administration was now taking a more "mainstream" approach to the alliance and anxiety among allies had eased.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Trinamool Congress today took out its second rally here in two days against what it called BJP's "vendetta politics" and accused it of trying to malign its leaders in false cases.

TMC senior leader and minister Sovan Chatterjee addressing the rally said, "The people's struggle will intensify in days to come. Whenever we have been under attack - be it in the Left regime, the Congress regime or BJP rule, the people have stood by us and have supported us.

"As our party supremo Mamata Banerjee has raised her voice against demonetization, they are trying to malign us."



A large number of TMC activists led by Chatterjee, Power Minister Sovandeb Chatterjee, TMC MLA and wife of arrested TMC MP Sudip Bandopadhyay, Nayana, marched from Sealdah to Esplanade carrying placards against the Narendra Modi government.

The party has planned three rallies to oppose the alleged "witch hunting" against its leaders, who are purportedly seen accepting money in a sting operation.

The first rally took place yesterday and the third rally is scheduled on April 3.

Sovandeb Chatterjee said central government agencies were out to malign the TMC by making false cases against the them.

"Harassing TMC leaders or threatening them won't stop them from raising their voice against the anti-people decisions. The Left Front government which had given birth to chit funds, have remained untouched " he said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
India has decided to liberalise e-visa regime from tomorrow by increasing the time limit for seeking the entry permit from existing 30 days to a maximum of four months.

The duration of stay for foreigners, coming into the country through select categories of e-visa, has also been extended to two months from existing one month, the Union Home Ministry said in a statement.

There will be three new sub-categories for grant of e-visa, i.E. E-tourist visa, e-business visa and e-medical visa, from tomorrow.

In addition, two more new categories -- Intern or (I) visa and Film or (F) visa -- will be granted for foreigner seeking internship in non-government organisations, and those seeking to shoot movies in India, respectively.

Also, both business and medical visas will be granted within 48 hours of application upon urgent requests, it said.

"The liberalisation of the visa regime will considerably facilitate entry of foreigners into India for tourism, business and medical purposes. Consequently, the arrival of foreigners in India is expected to go up substantially in the coming years.

"This will in turn give a boost to tourism, medical and business sectors resulting in substantial increase in direct and indirect employment in these sectors," the statement said.

Under the e-visa scheme, an applicant receives an email authorising him or her to travel to India after it has been approved. The tourist can travel with a print-out of this authorisation.

On arrival, the visitor has to present the authorisation to the immigration authorities who would then allow the entry into the country.

E-visa facility has been extended to the nationals of 161 countries for entry through 24 airports, up from 16 airports allowing such entries, and three Indian ports i.E. Cochin, Goa and Mangalore to tap the potential of cruise tourism from different countries.

"This service will also be provided from Mumbai and Chennai seaports shortly," it said.

The window for application under e-visa scheme has been increased from 30 days to 120 days and duration of stay on e-visa has been increased from 30 days to 60 days with double entry on e-tourist and e-business visa and triple entry on e-medical visa, the statement said.

Separate immigration counters and facilitation desks to assist medical tourists have been provided at Indian airports namely, Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Bengaluru and Hyderabad.

The multiple entry tourist and business visas for a period of five years will now be available to nationals of most of the countries.

Nine-four Missions having bio-metric enrolment facilities have started giving five-year tourist and business visas with effect from March 1, 2017. The remaining Missions will be providing this facility in due course.

A new category of visa titled Intern or (I) visa has been rolled out with effect from March 1, 2017 to a foreigner intending to pursue internship in Indian companies, educational institutions and NGOs, subject to certain checks and conditions.

Another new category of visa, titled Film or (F) visa has also been introduced with maximum duration of one-year with multiple entry facility.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
In a departure from the previous Obama administration, the Trump White House today said it will raise human rights issues with countries concerned privately as it's "the most effective way" to deal with the matters.

"Human rights are always an issue of concern to the United States and they're first and foremost in our discussions," a senior White House official said.

"Our approach is to handle these types of sensitive issues in a private, more discrete way. We believe it's the most effective way to advance those issues to a favourable outcome," the official said.

The official was responding to a question if human rights would be an issue that could be raised during the visit of the leaders from Egypt and Jordan next week.

The answer from the administration official was general in nature reflecting the policy of the Trump administration.

But this was a departure from the administration of Barack Obama which had on several occasions made human rights the most potent vehicle of America's public diplomacy and at times even publicly mentioned a country to name and shame it.

Under the Obama administration, the US had often expressed concern over rights violations in China. Obama and his two Secretaries of States - Hillary Clinton and John Kerry - included this in their public remarks every time they met a Chinese leader.

The remarks from the White House come ahead of the first meeting between US President Donald Trump and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping in Florida next week.

Under Obama administration India was also targeted on rights situation. Obama had mentioned the issue when he made his second visit to India in January 2015 as the chief guest at the Republic Day Parade that year.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
President Donald Trump today predicted that his first summit with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping next week would be a "very difficult" one as the US can no longer afford job losses and massive trade deficits with the Communist trading giant.

Given that the United States has a massive trade deficit with China, American companies must be prepared to look at other alternatives, Trump tweeted ahead of his meeting with Xi at his Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida on April 6 and 7.

This would be the first meeting between the two leaders in what many argue is the most important bilateral relationship in the world.

"The meeting next week with China will be a very difficult one in that we can no longer have massive trade deficits and job losses," Trump said.

Earlier, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer told reporters that Trump looks forward to meeting President Xi and exchanging views on each other's respective priorities and to chart a way forward for bilateral ties.

"They will discuss the issues of mutual concern, including North Korea, trade, and regional security," he said.

Trump has said in recent weeks that North Korea is one of the biggest security challenges he faces as president and has called on China to rein in Pyongyang, which US officials believe is preparing for another nuclear test.

Territorial disputes in the South China Sea and China's continued building of man-made islands are also likely to be raised.

Noting that Trump has spoken to Xi, also General Secretary of the ruling Communist Party of China, over the phone a few times, Spicer said this was an opportunity for the President to develop a relationship in person with his Chinese counterpart.

"But we have big problems, and -- I mean, everything from the South China Sea, to trade, to North Korea. There are big issues of national and economic security that need to get addressed, and I think there's going to be a lot on the table when it comes to that over the two days that they will talk," Spicer said in response to a question.

There are a lot of big things that the US needs to accomplish with China, and it will work on them, he said.

In Beijing, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang underlined the need to see the big picture while fostering mutual interests in trade relations.

"The market dictates that interests between our two countries are structured so that you will always have me and I will always have you," he told a regular briefing.

"Both sides should work together to make the cake of mutual interest bigger and not simply seek fairer distribution," he said.

China-US trade in goods amounted to USD 519.6 billion in 2016. China has a large share in the bilateral trade with its exports to the US amounting to over USD 400 billion.

Despite Trump's fiery attacks on the campaign trail -- accusing China of "raping" the US economy and stealing millions of American jobs, among other things -- his administration has taken a relatively hands-off approach in dealing with Beijing so far, CNN commented.

Trump has not followed through on campaign promises to label China a "currency manipulator" on day one of his presidency or to impose steep tariffs on all Chinese imports.

He also endorsed the "One China" policy on Taiwan, which has governed the fragile relations between the US, China and Taiwan for decades, after questioning its legitimacy shortly after his election.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Acting on the Allahabad High Court's order asking anti-Romeo squads to follow guidelines, the Uttar Pradesh government today directed the police to ensure that no inhumane measure was adopted in the name of ensuring security to women.

There should be no shaving of heads, blackening of faces or "murga pose" (sit-ups while holding ears), a senior official said here.

The guidelines have been issued after the intervention of Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath amidst reports of harassment by anti-Romeo squads.

These special squads of UP Police were formed after the Yogi Aditynath government assumed office this month, fulfilling one of the poll promises of the BJP.

The Allahabad High Court had yesterday directed the Uttar Pradesh government to ensure that guidelines were followed by anti-Romeo squads and action was taken as per the law.

The court's Lucknow bench of justices Amreshwar Pratap Sahi and Sanjay Harkauli had given the order on a PIL that alleged that police were not following the guidelines during the drive, aimed at checking eveteasing, and was harassing couples.

The chief minister has also directed administrative and police officials in districts to regularly review the steps being taken for women security and inform senior officials on a regular basis, the official said.

Stressing that his government was firm on upholding the security and dignity of women, he said a state-wide drive has been launched to free public places of anti-social elements and check incidents of eve-teasing, indecent behaviour and passing of lewd comments at women and girls.

The UP Home department has issued fresh directives to identify those involved in misconduct at schools, colleges, bus stations, railway stations, malls and markets.

The government is also firm on checking unnecessary harassment of girls and boys merely in the name of curbing eve-teasing in public places like coffee shops, markets and parks.

The government has also made it clear that vigilantism of any sort in this regard will not be tolerated.

With TV channels reporting that couples were being



harassed and humiliated by anti-Romeo squads at some places, Adityanath asked officials to ensure there was no "unnecessary harassment".

The Chief Minister asked the Principal Secretary (Home) to chalk out clear guidelines for anti-Romeo squads and ensure there is no unnecessary harassment of boys and girls moving around or sitting at any place, an official release said.

Anti-Romeo squads, a poll promise of the BJP that secured a remarkable victory in the Uttar Pradesh election, drew criticism from certain quarters with visuals of policemen targeting young boys and girls going viral on TV and on social media.

"The idea is to question, check group of boys or boys alone near colleges and other places and create fear among potential harassers in public places," said a police officer.

However, it was being dubbed as an attempt at moral policing and widely criticised in some quarters as the modus operandi was being compared with the infamous 'Operation Majnu' in 2005, in which boys at crossings and markets were pulled up, and couples in gardens were thrashed by police.

The officer sought to clarify that the only job (of the anti-Romeo squads) was to ensure safety of women and that eve-teasing does not take place.

"For this we will also take preventive steps like not permitting miscreants to loiter in public areas frequented by women. I will not say it is moral policing," he said.

The chief minister, who holds the portfolio of Home department, has also asked for effective steps in cases of acid attacks.

Adityanath has termed law and order as the top priority of his government and has asked for daily reports from all DMs and SPs on law and order.
The US today made a fresh delivery of Cessna aircraft to Pakistan's army to enhance its counter-terrorism capabilities and air mobility.

"The Office of Defence Representative Pakistan made another delivery of Cessna aircraft to the Pakistan Army," the US embassy in Pakistan said.

It was not known precisely how many aircraft were delivered.

The embassy, however, said that since November 2016, the Pakistan Army had received six Cessna planes, two Cessna 208 Caravans and four Cessna 206H aircraft.

"These aircraft will assist the Pakistan Army with their air mobility capability by enhancing the Army's ability to conduct medical evacuations, as well as provide limited troop and equipment transport," it said.

American security assistance continues to build the counter-terrorism capabilities of Pakistan's security forces, the embassy statement said.

"The United States and Pakistan are stronger when we work together to combat terrorism," it said.

Cessna Aircraft company is an American general aviation aircraft manufacturing corporation.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Junior League of Chattanoogas (JLC) 9th annual Kids in the Kitchen event will be Saturday, from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. at Highland Park Commons at 200 Union Ave.

This community fair of fun, hands-on activities for kids and parents focuses on healthy eating and active living. The free event targets children in kindergarten through fifth grade. We seek to promote education on healthy lifestyles including cooking, nutrition and exercise, and the goal is to make it fun so that kids want to continue these positive behaviors in their daily lives, said event chair Katie Morgan. Activities will include educational games, fitness activities, chef demonstrations and healthy snack ideas.



Inspired by the Junior League of Calgarys Junior Chefs program, the Association of Junior Leagues Internationals Kids in the Kitchen initiative began in 2006 with the goal of engaging children in the preparation of healthy meals as a means to educate them and their parents about nutrition. Eleven years later, Junior Leagues in more than 200 locations around the world provide lessons and demonstrations related to preparation of healthy meals and snacks in partnership with local community organizations, chefs and nutritionists.



Childrens health and wellness has been a key issue for Junior Leagues since our founding in 1901, said Jessi Rymer, Junior League of Chattanooga vice president of community engagement. Today, a critical element of our ongoing commitment is teaching kids and their parents about the importance of eating healthy foods and involving them in the fight against childhood obesity.



This years participating organizations will provide food tastings, free product samples, educational information and activities to all Kids in the Kitchen attendees free of charge.



For more information, contact Ms. Morgan at kmorgan@chahousing.org.


The BJP-ruled Uttarakhand government has started taking measures to attract Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in the state.

Chief Secretary S Ramaswami said that the government is contacting different countries and asking them to invest in the state and talks with Japan, South Korea, Thailand and some European countries have been initiated in the first phase.

He said the state environment is favourable for foreign investors and the tourism, agriculture and industrial sectors here have immense opportunities for these investors.

Recently, a delegation of London Business School attended a seminar where Chief Minister Trivendra Singh Rawat stressed that the tourism sector is capable of generating employment for the people of the state.

He had said that a "tourism village" can be developed in Dehradun which can give a glimpse of Uttarakhand to people.

Ramaswami said soon delegations from some other countries will be visiting and high-level talks are planned with them to explore the investment opportunities in the state.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Venezuela today rejected accusations that a Supreme Court move to seize the powers of the opposition-majority legislature amounted to a coup, lashing out at its critics as "imperialists."



International condemnation poured in after the high court's decision late Wednesday, which effectively dissolved the legislature and tightened socialist President Nicolas Maduro's grip on power.

The United States, the European Union, the head of the Organization of American States (OAS) and a host of Latin American countries all condemned the move.

Venezuela accused its neighbors of being beholden to the United States, which Maduro accuses of plotting to oust him.

"Venezuela repudiates this onslaught by intolerant, right-wing and pro-imperialist governments in Latin America under the orders of the US State Department," the foreign ministry said in a statement.

"It is false that there has been a coup d'etat in Venezuela. On the contrary, its institutions have adopted corrective legal measures to halt the deviant, coup-mongering actions of opposition lawmakers."



Condemnation meanwhile continued to pile today.

Colombia and Spain became the latest to oppose the court's move, joining Brazil, Mexico, Argentina, Peru, Chile and others.

Colombia recalled its ambassador to Venezuela, while Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy warned on Twitter that "when you break the division of powers, you break democracy."



OAS Secretary General Luis Almagro called for the regional organization's permanent council to hold crisis talks on the situation.

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein also voiced "grave concern."



"The separation of powers is essential for democracy to function, and keeping democratic spaces open is essential to ensure human rights are protected," he said in a statement.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
India's Test specialist Cheteshwar Pujara after a stupendous home season could now find takers in the Indian Premier League with some important players pulling out from various teams.

Pujara, who had a base price of Rs 50 lakh went unsold at the IPL auctions last February.

There are teams which are in need of top-order batsmen including Kings XI Punjab and Delhi Daredevils. Incidentally, Pujara's last IPL appearance was for Kings XI Punjab, wherein he opened for the franchise in a few games that he played.

This time around, KXIP is all set to miss Vijay, who has a shoulder injury. Pujara's batting is only suitable for top three batting slots and one may have a rethink after his 1316 runs in Tests, even though it's an altogether different form.

For Daredevils, who have been handicapped by absence of JP Duminy and Quinton de Kock, it may not be a bad idea to have Pujara as a replacement considering his experience at the highest level.

The IPL rules allow any franchise to pick an Indian as replacement if any overseas player is ruled out.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
NEW DELHI/MOSCOW (Reuters) - The purchase of Indian refiner Essar Oil by a consortium led by Russian oil company Rosneft has been delayed, the two sides said on Friday, because some Indian lenders to Essar have yet to sign off on the deal.

The $12.9 billion deal, in which Rosneft is set to take a 49 percent stake in Essar and another 49 percent will be split between commodities trader Trafigura and Russian investor United Capital Partners (UCP), was expected to close this month.

"The closing was postponed into April because the buyers were dealing with 28 Indian banks that had credit lines with Essar Oil," a source close to the transaction said.

The source added that separate debt of holding company Essar Global was also affecting negotiations indirectly as some banks were lenders to both Essar Global and Essar Oil.

The deal, the largest foreign acquisition of an Indian company, would give Rosneft a foothold in the growing Indian market. Essar Oil operates a 400,000 barrel-a-day refinery in Vadinar on India's west coast and sells fuels through its 2,470 filling stations across the country.

Russia's second-biggest bank VTB, which is involved in financing the deal, said this week it hoped to finish the acquisition this week, but that 19 more days would be needed to settle all the payments.

"The parties are working towards obtaining the requisite approvals to complete the transaction. We are hopeful that the deal will be completed in the upcoming few weeks," Essar said on Friday.

Two Russian sources close to the deal, announced during a visit to India by Russian President Vladimir Putin last year, had said the deal was set to complete on March 15.

Officially, all the parties had previously said the transaction was expected to close in the first quarter. A Rosneft spokesman confirmed on Friday the timing of the completion had slipped. UCP and Trafigura declined to comment.

The Economic Times reported last week that one of Essar's creditors, India's LIC, had demanded dues from Essar to give its clearance to the deal.

(Reporting by Nidhi Verma in New Delhi, Katya Golubkova and Vladimir Soldatkin in Moscow; Julia Payne in London; Editing by Andrew Osborn and Mark Potter)

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
GARLYK, Turkmenistan (Reuters) - Turkmenistan opened a $1 billion Belarussian-built potash plant on Friday, aiming to export 1.2 million tonnes of fertilisers to China and India a year as part of its drive to diversify away from natural gas exports.

The Central Asian nation has faced foreign currency shortages after its gas exports were hit hard by declining prices and volumes, and the government is banking on the start of potash production and other projects to make the economy more resilient.

As a potash exporter, Turkmenistan will compete with its former Soviet overlord Russia, home to the world's biggest producer Uralkali, and Belarus, also a major global player.

Belarussian companies have built the plant and Minsk has said it would help Turkmenistan market the product.

Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko attended the opening ceremony in eastern Turkmenistan and said most of the plant's production would be exported to China and India - the world's biggest potash importers.

"This is Central Asia's biggest potash plant, one can confidently say it will produce 1.5 million tonnes a year," Lukashenko said, adding that Berdymukhamedov had told him about plans to build two more potash plants.

Russia's Uralkali said this month it expected total global potash demand to rise by 1-2 million tonnes this year to 62 million to 63 million tonnes, driven by China.

(Reporting by Marat Gurt; Writing by Olzhas Auyezov; Editing by Susan Fenton)

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Parliament on Thursday approved the Finance Bill, 2017, after the Lok Sabha rejected the five amendments to the Bill passed by the Rajya Sabha on Wednesday. However, the Opposition parties on Thursday indicated that the goods and services tax (GST)-related Bills will face a fate similar to the Finance Bill in the Rajya Sabha.

The GST-related Bills will be discussed in the Rajya Sabha next Wednesday, when Parliament reconvenes after a short break on account of Ram Navami.

Opposition parties, particularly the Congress and Trinamool Congress (TMC), plan to move an amendment to the Central and Integrated Bills. The Congress and TMC object to the Council being the final authority on fixing tax rates  without the need to seek parliamentary approval  making it superior to the legislature.

The amendment moved by TMCs Rajya Sabha member Derek OBrien seeks to alter the language of the Bills to replace the line that tax rates as may be notified by the government on the recommendations of the Council, with recommendations of Parliament.

Opposition sources said the parties would unitedly vote to have the Rajya Sabha adopt the amendment. However, this amendment will be, as was with the Finance Bill amendments, likely to be overturned by the Lok Sabha since the GST Bills are money Bills.

It also remains to be seen if the TMC votes with other Opposition parties. In the Rajya Sabha on Wednesday, the TMC members did a strategic walk-out while the Congress, the Samajwadi Party, the Communist Party of India (Marxist), the Bahujan Samaj Pary and others voted to have the Rajya Sabha adopt amendments to the Finance Bill. Congress Deepender Singh Hooda said it was historic since never before had the Rajya Sabha amended the Finance Bill. The Trinamools Saugata Roy criticised the draconian powers given to taxmen. On the issue of political funding, Biju Janata Dal's (BJD's) Bhartruhari Mahtab said the Finance Bill proposals would open the floodgates for corporate funding for political purposes, which isnt entirely desirable.

The Shiv Senas Anandrao Vithoba Adsul also stressed the need for transparency in political funding and a limit on the money which is given to a party. The amendments in the Rajya Sabha proposed to delete provisions relating to the powers given to taxmen, like requisitioning books of accounts, powers to survey and more powers of search and seizure. Amendments also related to doing away with the Finance Bill proposal to remove the cap of 7.5 per cent of net profits of the last three financial years for donation to political parties. The Lok Sabha rejected these amendments. With the approval of Finance Bill, 2017, Parliament completed the Budget exercise before the start of the next financial year on April 1, giving the government more time to implement welfare-spending programmes and taxation plans.

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley had presented the Budget on February 1, a first in the history of Independent India. The passage of the Bill, after the presidential assent, will ensure the budgetary proposals take effect from April 1.

Replying to the debate, Jaitley said the Rajya Sabha amendment capping political donation by companies could not be accepted, as it would limit the number of donors to political parties.

On the change approved by the upper house to curb more powers to taxmen, he said the government, as a matter of "abundant caution" and to protect whistle-blowers, had provided that the "satisfaction note" or the reasons for initiating a search or survey would be shared only with court and not with the person or entity in question.

With regard to electoral funding, the finance minister said: "I am only hearing adjectives like 'it must be clean', 'it must be transparent'. Please give me an ideal combination of the two. We are willing to consider it. I will wait for a specific suggestion.
Health and disability insurance

Q. Must you provide benefits for pregnancy-related conditions even if you have a predominantly female work force or if you employ all women for a specific job classification?

A. Yes. You must provide benefits for pregnancy if you offer benefits for other medical conditions.

Q. Can your company limit pregnancy disability insurance benefits to only married employees?

A. No. Single women who become pregnant also must be covered under your disability plan.

Q. How long are you required to pay disability benefits for pregnancy if you provide income maintenance benefits for other temporary disabilities?

A. Generally, you must provide benefits for as long as a pregnant woman is unable to work for medical reasons; however, you may set certain time limits if you impose them on other temporary disabilities.

Q. If you comply with a state law that requires disability insurance for a specific period before and after childbirth, are you automatically in compliance with the federal pregnancy law?

A. Not necessarily. Under federal law, you must treat employees who are temporarily disabled due to pregnancy in the same manner as you would employees temporarily disabled by other conditions.

Q. Can you require a pregnant employee to use up her vacation benefits before she can collect sick leave or disability pay?

A. Yes, but only if you have the same requirements for employees absent for other types of disabilities or illnesses. You should state this in your FMLA policy.

Q. Must your health insurance plan cover the pregnancy-related expenses of spouses of your male employees? Of other dependents?

A. If an employers plan covers medical expenses of spouses of female employees, it must cover the expenses of spouses of male employees, including pregnancy. Insurance coverage for pregnancy need not be extended to include other dependents as long as it excludes pregnancy benefits for dependents of both male and female employees.

Q. Can an employer limit payment of costs resulting from pregnancy-related conditions to a specific dollar amount stipulated in an insurance policy, collective bargaining pact or other statement of employee benefits?

A. Yes. Maximum recoverable dollar amounts can be set for pregnancy-related conditions, provided the amounts are specified for other conditions and the specified amounts in all instances cover the same proportion of actual costs. Note that an employer must pay additional costs for pregnancy-related procedures if additional payments are made for other procedures.

Q. Can you establish a different deductible for pregnancy-related conditions than you do for the costs of other medical conditions?

A. No. You may not tack on an additional deductible or increase the usual deductible for coverage of pregnancy, either as a condition for inclusion of pregnancy costs or for the payment of costs when incurred.

Q. If a health plan specifically excludes conditions existing at the time when the insureds coverage takes effect (pre-existing condition clauses), can the same rule apply to pregnancy existing at the time insurance coverage takes effect?

A. No. Pre-existing conditions cannot be applied to pregnancy, according to the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996. This is the case even if the woman had no prior coverage before enrolling in her employer's plan.

Q. If you offer employees a choice between enrolling in one of two health insurance plans, must both cover pregnancy-related conditions?

A. Yes. An employee with a single-coverage policy cant be forced to purchase a family policy in order to be covered when she becomes pregnant.

Q. How must an employee be reimbursed for medical expenses incurred because of pregnancy-related conditions?

A. Again, the rule is that expenses arising from pregnancy must be reimbursed on the same basis as expenses for other medical conditions.

Abortion policies

Q. Can you refuse to hire, discharge or in any other way discriminate against a woman for the sole reason that shes had an abortion?

A. No. A woman who has had an abortion must be treated the same as other employees.

Q. If an abortion leads to complications, such as excessive hemorrhaging, must your health insurance plan cover the additional costs attributable to these complications?

A. Your plan must pay costs arising from complications resulting from an abortionbut not necessarily for the abortion itself.

Q. Can you decide to have your insurance program cover abortion, even if its not required?

A. The Pregnancy Discrimination Act specifically says that employers can provide insurance for abortion, either directly or through a collective bargaining agreement. However, employers are warned that if they do include abortion in their health insurance plan, they must do so in the same manner as they cover other medical conditions.

However, the debate surrounding the Affordable Care Act of 2010 revived the debate over abortion coverage, which has led to many states passing new laws limiting abortion coverage. You should check the law of your particular state for limits on abortion coverage. Since the enactment of the Affordable Care Act in March 2010, some 25 states have enacted legislation to restrict coverage for abortion in their insurance exchanges.

You can find more information at the National Conference on State Legislatures website. Visit http://www.ncsl.org and search for abortion insurance.

Final tip: Keep in mind that a pregnancy discrimination claim cant succeed if theres no evidence that the employer had knowledge of the pregnancy. (PrebilichHolland v. Gaylord, 6th Cir.)
Heres a sampling of questions on managing FMLA intermittent leave, submitted by readers of Business Management Daily and answered by employment law attorneys.

Can we look deeper into dubious FMLA intermittent leave?

Q. If an employee calls off intermittently for migraine headaches, how can we verify the real reason for the leave? Can we ask for information each time the employee is absent?

A. Youre certainly not the only employer to complain about employees taking advantage of intermittent leave. Many employers have struggled with employees whose conditions seem to flare up on Fridays and Mondays. Theres no way to stamp out this type of abuse altogether. However, you can minimize it by making sure that you promptly designate all time offincluding intermittent leaveto help you exhaust the 12-week FMLA clock as quickly as possible.

Also, dont accept FMLA certification forms that include blanket statements, such as intermittent leave recommended. You have the right to demand more specific information. If you have reason to be suspicious of a certification, you can send the employee to a company-selected physician for a second opinion.

Is there such a thing as intermittent childbirth leave?

Q. One of our employees, who recently immigrated to the United States, is pregnant. She has informed us that she expects to take eight weeks of FMLA leave immediately after the child is born. Then after a few months, she would like to return to her home country to visit with family for a month. In other words, she wants to split up FMLA leave into an eight-week period and a four-week period. Can FMLA leave for a new child be split up in this manner?

A. The first question to ask is whether the employee, if shes a recent immigrant, has worked long enough (one year) to qualify for FMLA coverage.

Assuming the employee is in fact eligible for FMLA, your question raises an issue relating to intermittent leave. DOL regulations do not require an employer to grant intermittent leave for childbirth. An employer may, of course, voluntarily agree to permit the employee to split up her FMLA leave. Its also important to make sure that the reason the parent is requesting intermittent leave is only because of the birth of her child. If the leave were required because either the mother or the child had a serious health condition, the law would allow taking the leave in two or more parts.

Applicable regulation can be found at 29 C.F.R. 825.203(e).

Can we require certification every time an employee takes FMLA intermittent leave?

Q. We have an employee with a chronic condition. We granted her intermittent FMLA leave provided she gave us a certification each time she takes time off for the condition. We have to constantly remind her to turn in the form. She also wont call HR when shes sick but leaves a message with the front desk. This makes it hard to track her usage. Can we terminate her for refusing to follow the instructions laid out on the FMLA approval form?

A. It sounds like you are treading on thin ice. For chronic conditions, employers can request recertification no more often than every 30 days and only in connection with an employees absence (unless you receive information that casts doubt on the employees stated reason for the absence).

Note: The DOL has said that an employees pattern of absences (e.g., taking Mondays and Fridays off for FMLA leave) may, by itself, cast doubt on the employees stated reason.

If an employee works fewer hours now, is she still eligible for FMLA leave?

Q. We have an employee with a chronic health condition who began taking

FMLA intermittent leave in February. She had worked more than 1,250

hours in the 12 months before the leave started. By June, she had dropped

below 1,250 hours. Does she lose her eligibility now?

A. According to the DOL, employees need to satisfy the 1,250-hour eligibility test only once during the 12-month FMLA leave year. That point is at the start of a series of intermittent absences, if all involve the same FMLA-qualifying serious health condition.

The employee remains entitled to FMLA leave throughout that 12-month period, even if the 1,250-hour calculation is not met at some later point in the 12-month period. Eligibility isnt recalculated until 12 months have passed from the first intermittent-leave absence.

Can we deduct pay from an exempt worker who takes FMLA leave? If so, how should we calculate it?

Q. An exempt employee recently requested intermittent FMLA leave. The employee will be out of the office approximately 12 hours each week to undergo treatment for a serious health condition. FMLA leave at our company is unpaid. Can we deduct from the employees salary for absences of less than a day and still classify her as exempt? If so, how do we calculate how much FMLA time the employee is using?

A. If an employee is otherwise exempt under the Fair Labor Standards Act, providing unpaid FMLA leave will not cause her to lose her exempt status. That means you may deduct from an employees salary for hours taken as intermittent leave without affecting exempt status.

How do you calculate the amount of leave taken? An employee is entitled to 12 weeks of leave. Its not legal for an employer to reduce the total amount of leave just because its taken intermittently.

Therefore, if the employee normally works 50 hours in a given week, and she misses 12 hours during the week for FMLA reasons, the employee has used 12/50 of a week, or 0.24 weeks. As another example, if the employee normally works 45 hours per week, but misses nine hours in a given week for FMLA reasons, she has used 9/45 of a week, or 0.2 weeks.

What can we do if FMLA intermittent leave goes beyond the doctor's estimate?

Q. An employee with asthma obtained medical certification for her intermittent FMLA leave. It said her expected absence frequency was three to five times per month. This month, she took six days off. Must we count the last day as intermittent leave, or can we rely on the upper estimate from her doctor?

A. If the employee is taking time off in excess of the estimated time, you should confirm with the employee why she is actually taking time off (i.e., her illness versus another reason). However, as long as the employee is taking time off for her FMLA-qualifying illness, you always should count the actual time without regard to any prior estimates by the physician or the employee.

The actual time off (not the doctors estimate) is what determines how much time the employee has left under the FMLA or other leave laws or policies. That said, if the employees requests for time off begin to significantly exceed the time stated on her original FMLA certification, you should ask for a new certification from her physician.
Disclaimer

The information in this Employee Manual is intended to provide an overview of XYZs human resources policies, but it is not intended as a complete and exhaustive listing of every policy and procedure.

All provisions in this manual are governed by applicable local, state and federal laws and regulations and will be interpreted in a way that is consistent with those laws and regulations. XYZ has the right to modify anything in this manual at any time and for any reason. XYZ complies with all laws and regulations that are binding on it.

This manual and the policies explained within are not a contract. Nothing in this manual creates any rights or privileges to employees beyond those conferred by laws and regulations. The manual does not create a right or entitlement to employment. All employees of XYZ are at-will employees. This manual is neither a contract of employment nor an offer of employment.

As an at-will employee, you have the right to leave employment at any time, for any reason or no reason. XYZ has the right to terminate your employment at any time, for any or no reason, with or without notice. Any oral or written statements or promises made by anyone at XYZ either before you are hired or during your employment are unauthorized and expressly disavowed by XYZ and not are binding on XYZ. No one at XYZ has the authority to make any promises or to change any of the terms of employment without the express, written approval of the [president, board of directors, owner or highest-ranking individual within the organization].

XYZ makes no promises of any kind in this manual. Regardless of what the manual says or provides, XYZ is free to change wages and other working conditions without having to consult with anyone or obtain anyones agreement. XYZ has the absolute right to terminate anyone at any time, with or without cause.
Acoustic gospel performers the Watkins Family will bring their distinct sound to Sacred Sounds Fridays, April 7, at 7:30 p.m. at the Ringgold Depot at Depot Street and U.S. 41 in a concert for the Share America Foundation, Inc. Also appearing will be Southern gospel artist Channing Eleton Randall Franks, Officer Randy Goode from TVs In the Heat of the Night will emcee. Ticket donation is $10.

Review for the Watkins Family:

One of Americas best loved acoustic music families  the Watkins Family  Judy, Lorie and Todd  share gospel music across the U.S. and Canada.

"The blessings that the Lord shares as we continue to travel sharing his story through song are amazing," Judy said.

The Atlanta Country Music Hall of Fame members made a name for themselves in the fields of gospel, bluegrass and country music.

Whether the Watkins are performing on a grand stage with country stars such as Diamond Rio, bluegrass festival or National Quartet Convention in front of thousands, they raise the spirits and hopes through their harmonies, Mr. Franks said.

The family will include new music from their upcoming release as well as top hits from their latest CDs.

"There is no greater blessing than working each day sharing His story of salvation through song, Lorie said.

While the musical legacy of the Watkins family reaches back for generations in the mountains of northeast Georgia, their music today reflects the best in harmonies and musical instrumentation that can be heard, Mr. Franks said.

For more information, visit www.watkinsfamilymusic.com.

Review for Channing Eleton:

Channing Eleton is a two-time Southern Gospel Musician of Year and Dove Award nominee.

"We are honored to have someone who has blessed so many people with their talents to be part of our efforts to encourage youth," Mr. Franks said.

Mr. Eleton performed as the pianist for the award-winning 2017 Gospel Music Hall of Fame inductees Gold City for six years averaging 220 concerts per year and also for five years with Poet Voices. He has performed on Bill Gaither Homecoming concerts, at the Southern Baptist Convention, Opryland and countless other venues.

His successful solo career was inspired by artists such as Rich Mullins, Fernando Ortega and James Taylor.

Mr. Eleton said he pours these influences into his own style sharing stories of frailties and shortcomings in the human condition, giving the listener hope through the redeeming grace and love of Jesus.

"My calling is to tell stories and my life experiences through this music, Mr. Eleton said. To share the hope and mercy that I have found in Jesus. To go and tell someone to 'not give up'. It's really that simple."

His main instrument is the piano and his concerts find him performing mostly from the keyboard. He does, however, come out front occasionally to sing a song while playing the accordion or acoustic guitar.

For more information, visit http://channingeleton.com/.

The event is a fundraiser for the Pearl and Floyd Franks Scholarship Fund. The Share America Foundation, Inc., a Georgia non-profit, presents scholarships to talented musicians who excel in the Appalachian musical arts.

Donations for tickets are adults: $10, Children 12 and under free with adult. Tickets may be purchased locally in advance during business hours at SonShine Christian Books, 706.861-7675 in Fort Oglethorpe. For more information, Share America Foundation, Inc. P.O. Box 42 Tunnel Hill, Ga. 30755 or www.shareamericafoundation.com.






The government has set up an expert panel to help revive its loss-making state steel maker after a government review found the company to be far less efficient than its rivals despite spending more than $10 billion in the past eight years.

A review document, containing previously undisclosed data and seen by Reuters, criticises Steel Authority of India (SAIL) for everything from the use of low-quality raw materials to outdated technology, suggesting that its problems were not simply the result of cheap Chinese steel imports.

SAIL, which has been overtaken by JSW Steel as India's biggest producer, has posted seven straight quarterly losses, and Reuters reported last week that it was at risk of losing business from its biggest client.

SAIL's underperformance could derail the government's target to triple steel production in the country by 2030, and shows how Prime Minister Narendra Modi's big infrastructure dreams may have to rely heavily on the private sector and imports.

Steel Minister Chaudhary Birender Singh, worried by what he called SAIL's "unsatisfactory" output performance, has asked the panel to recommend a timeline for ramping up capacity at a "quick pace", to find ways to lower production costs and to improve branding and marketing.

"The terms of the reference of the committee will include chalking out a revival plan for turning around loss-making (companies) of the Ministry of Steel to profit-making companies in 2017/18," Singh's office told the committee this week, in a memo seen by Reuters.

The panel, comprising top officials of various government ministries and SAIL, met for the first time this week and will be helped by Boston Consulting Group (BCG) in coming up with a revival plan for the company.

They will set quarterly, six-monthly and yearly targets for SAIL, according to the memo. Two government sources said minister Singh wants a plan for SAIL and smaller state steel company RINL in 15 days.

A SAIL spokesman did not respond to requests for comment. A steel ministry spokesman declined comment.

Government officials earlier said SAIL had failed to take advantage of protectionist measures that have helped private companies out-price Chinese steel and lift their margins.



FAILING TO SAIL

SAIL fares poorly when compared to international efficiency standards and those of private Indian companies such as JSW and Tata Steel in blast furnace productivity, raw material consumption and energy usage, according to the review document.

For example, SAIL's average daily blast furnace productivity of 1.58 tonnes per cubic meter last fiscal year ended March was 40 percent lower than that of JSW. SAIL said the metric improved 7 percent between April and December last year.

Its use of coke - derived from high-quality coal, and thus costly - was also higher than private peers and global standards. April-December coke use came down 3 percent from a year ago, SAIL said.

Its use of pulverized coal injection technology - a cheaper substitute to coke - was the lowest compared to JSW and Tata in 2015/16. During April-December, SAIL said the gauge improved 14 percent.

The government said this week that three of SAIL's ailing units put up for strategic stake sales have made losses for the past five years despite the company pumping in more than $400 million for their modernisation.

The steel ministry told Parliament on Wednesday that most SAIL plants were set up almost half a century ago and that the technologies and equipment had become "old and obsolete".

SAIL is chasing tie-ups with foreign majors such as ArcelorMittal and POSCO, companies known for their cutting-edge technology.

Analysts say higher employee costs, typical of government companies in India, were another factor holding SAIL back.

"Even when the market was good, SAIL was under-performing because of higher fixed costs," said Goutam Chakraborty, analyst at Emkay Global Financial Services in Mumbai, who expects SAIL to show improvement by end of this decade.
Aadhaar is a unique identification number issued by the Indian government to every individual resident of India. It is based on demographic and biometric data of the individual and thus no duplicate number can be issued to the same individual.



Proposal to make Aadhaar mandatory for PAN and tax return filing

As a part of efforts to make the financial system more transparent and to curb the menace of black money, the Finance Minister has proposed changes to the Finance Bill,2017, whereby Aadhaar (Aadhaar number / Enrolment ID) would be mandatory, effective July 1 2017, for filing income tax returns and for application for PAN. This will be applicable to every person eligible to obtain Aadhaar. Exclusion for specified categories will be notified.

Additionally, all persons who are allotted PAN as on July 1, 2017, and eligible for Aadhaar number, would need to intimate their Aadhaar number to such authority in the form and manner as may be prescribed, on or before a date to be notified. PAN issued earlier will become invalid if a person fails to intimate his /her Aadhaar number within the prescribed time limit.

Who is eligible for Aadhaar enrolment?

As per the Aadhaar (Targeted Delivery of Financial and other Subsidies, Benefits and Services) Act, 2016, every resident is eligible to obtain an Aadhaar number by submitting his/her demographic and biometric information as part of the enrolment process. The central government may notify other categories of individuals who may be entitled to obtain an Aadhaar number.

Further, a 'resident' is defined to mean an individual who has resided in India for 182 days or more in aggregate in 12-month period immediately preceding the date of application for enrolment.

As Aadhaar enrolment is based on residency rather than citizenship, foreign nationals meeting the test of resident as defined above, will be eligible to obtain Aadhaar.



Likely challenges for foreign nationals

Documentation requirement for enrolling for Aadhaar

There is a list of documents that can be accepted as proof of identity and proof of address at the time of enrolling. While a passport would suffice as a proof of identity, there could be challenges with the documentation for proof of address. While there are35 different documents prescribed for address proof, foreign nationals working in India may qualify for limited documents such as an Indian bank account statement, credit card statement and landline telephone bill or rental agreement. Many foreign nationals do not have bank accounts in India or live in employer-provided accommodations.

Sharing biometrics details

Foreign nationals could also have concerns in sharing their biometrics details with the government.



Likely challenges for Indian citizens abroad

As the person has to be present in India for submitting biometric information, Indian citizens who are overseas, may face challenges in providing biometric details for enrolling for Aadhaar.

Employers could also be challenged with TDS compliance for Indian employees working abroad and on India payroll where the employee's PAN becomes invalid due to non-intimation of Aadhaar within the prescribed time.

Indian citizens qualifying for Aadhaar but yet to apply, may be unable to file their tax return in time. As a consequence, they may be exposed to additional interest, fee and penalty. Also, they may not be eligible to carry forward capital loss.

Expectation from the government

Considering the underlying objective of linking Aadhaar with PAN and the challenges especially for foreign nationals, should they be excluded from this additional requirement?

Alternatively, detailed guidelines specifying categories of foreign nationals requiring Aadhaar with relaxed timeframe should be prescribed to address the sentiments of foreign nationals in India. Further, the government should consider providing wider alternatives towards address proof such as Residential Permit.

There should also be provision of suitable options overseas for Aadhaar enrolment / relaxed time frame for Indian citizens living / working abroad.

Hopefully, these challenges would be appropriately considered by the government and necessary changes in the regulation / procedure be made available before the proposed deadline of July 1, 2017.

The author is Director and Pallavi Dhamecha is Manager with Deloitte Haskins and Sells LLP

{blurb}


In a bid to ensure free and fair elections, the Election Commission of India has once again asked media houses to refrain from making poll predictions in any form during the period when there is a ban on broadcasting of exit polls.

The commission said the prediction of election results by astrologers and tarot readers is a violation of law. It asked the media houses to "refrain" from airing and publishing such programmes in future elections during the prohibited period.

In just concluded assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Punjab, Goa and Manipur, the Commission had banned the exit polls from February 4 when the first phase of elections commenced to March 9 when the last of the polls were held.

However, the ECI found that few media houses violated the rules by asking political analysts to predict numbers for the parties. It said: "It has been observed that some of the TV channels telecast certain programmes projecting the number of seats likely to be won by political parties. This was done during the period exit polls were prohibited."

"The Commission is of the view that prediction of result of elections in any form or manner by way of predictions by astrologers, tarot readers, political analysts or by any person during the prohibited period is violation of the spirit of Section 126A..." the Commission said.

In an advisory sent to the media organisation, the Commission pointed to Section 126 A of the Representation of the People Act which states that "no person shall conduct any exit poll and publish or publicise by means of the print and electronic media or disseminate in any other manner, whatsoever, the result of any exit poll during such period as may be notified by the Election Commission..."

The strongly-worded advisory, also sent to the Press Council of India and News Broadcasters Association, said "such attempts merely to score brownie points against the competitors for merely commercial reasons do not behove well."

(With inputs from PTI)


In what could be called the toughest law against cow slaughter in India, Gujarat on Friday passed a Bill that seeks to award life imprisonment to those found guilty of slaughtering cows.

Prime Minister Modi's home state has increased the conviction sentence for cow slaughter from maximum seven years to life imprisonment. The Bill -The Gujarat Animal Preservation (Amendment) Bill, 2017 - was brought in by the Animal Husbandry department of Gujarat.

The maximum fine for the offence has also been increased from Rs 50,000 to up to Rs 5 lakh and not less than Rs 1 lakh.

It has also made a provision that will allow state government to forfeit any vehicles caught in illegal transportation of cow, beef or beef products in the state.

"The vehicles or any conveyance so seized under sub section (3) shall stand forfeited to government in the manner as my be prescribed," the bill said.

"In the year 2011, the State Government had made certain amendments in the said Act for better implementation of the Act. It is, however, experienced while implementing the said Act that still more stringent provisions are required to be made by amending the said Act for curbing the menace of illegal slaughtering of the animals covered under the said Act to provide for more stringent punishment and effectively check the rampant use of vehicles for transporting such animals," the Bill reads.

Earlier in 2011, the then chief minister Narendra Modi-led Gujarat government had imposed a complete ban on slaughtering and transportation of cow and progeny by amending the Gujarat Animal Preservation Act, 1954. Cow slaughter is banned in 24 Indian states.
The government on Thursday announced the list of airlines that will be connecting several unserved and under-served airports in the country.

Five airlines which have won bids to operate on 128 routes will be linking 70 airports. Out of 70 airports, 31 are unserved and 12 under-served.

Carriers which will operate flights out of these airports include Air India's subsidiary Alliance Air, Air Deccan, SpiceJet, Air Odisha and Turbo Megha.

Under the UDAN (Ude Desh ka Aam Naagrik) scheme, nearly 50 per cent of the seats on every flight will cost Rs 2,500 per seat. This will be applicable for flights where the distance is less than 500 km and duration is one-hour.

The Udan scheme offers subsidy to airlines on these routes, route monopoly for three years and a host of other concessions at landing airports.

Tourism

Tourism is one area which has not been given the due attention. Agra and Jaipur witness thousands of foreign tourists every year. However, there is no direct air link between the two cities, making it inconvenient for tourists who have to come back to Delhi to visit Agra.

The situation is similar at other tourist places, if not worse. Despite having an airport, there is hardly any flight landing in Shimla.

Some of the tourist destinations which will now be connected under UDAN scheme include Agra, Shimla, Puducherry, Jaisalmer, Porbandar, Diu, Gwalior, Kullu, Pantnagar, Shillong and Mysore.

Economy

UDAN scheme is expected to create thousand of new jobs in the interiors of the country. Aviation has a multiplier effect on the economy. There will be requirement of security personnel and ground staff for the upkeep of the airports.

Besides helping the middle-class fly for cheaper prices, UDAN will also make it easier for business people to make it to the tier-2 cities. This will give a huge fillip to investments in India's hinterlands.

The routes of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Regional Connectivity Scheme (RCE) are spread out across all corners of the country. New carriers which have won bids to operate flights on these routes can partner with other airlines to offer connecting flights.

Civil Aviation Minister Ashok Gajapathi Raju on Thursday tweeted, "UDAN network will cover the whole country, giving a major economic boost to hinterland areas."

"This will have a positive effect on the economy, in terms of employment and investment," Raju added.

Connectivity

With the help of UDAN, the local connectivity is set to get a major boost. Besides helping people connect with friends and families, the new scheme will also be helpful in getting skilled workforce to smaller towns as they will able to cut short on their travel time and fly back to their home cities after work.
If you don't have a credit history, banks are generally reluctant to offer you a credit card even if you are salaried. For self-employed, it is all the more difficult to get a credit card as they don't have regular cash flow. Indeed, if you need credit of any kind, you need to have a credit history. But without any credit how can you have a credit history? So it's a catch 22 like situation for many people.

Therefore, to help such customers and increase the credit card penetration in India, State Bank of India's (SBI) subsidiary SBI Card has come out with a credit card "Unnati" which will be available to all SBI customers provided they have a minimum deposit of Rs 25,000 with the bank. Any SBI customer, including Jan Dhan account holders, with or without any credit history, can apply for the card.

A person will be allowed to take a credit of up to 80 per cent of the value of the fixed deposit up to a maximum limit of Rs 5 lakh. You can't use this fixed deposit till you are using the card. The bank will break into your fixed deposit in case you default on credit card payment. Vijay Jasuja, CEO of SBI Card, said at the time of the launch that after the person has used the card for a year and has build enough credit history, the requirement of minimum deposit will also be waived off.

Apart from this the card will be available free of cost for the first four years. "After that if the customers spends a minimum amount which won't be very high, the card will continue to be free otherwise a fees will be charged," said Jasuja, of SBI Card.



Should you go for it?

The card is a good offering , although it may not be the first of its kind as other banks do offer secured credit card, where credit card is issued against a fixed deposit, but the waiver of fee is a big attraction. "The condition stipulating a minimum fixed deposit of Rs 25,000 to get Unnati Credit card is not unique as Solaris Credit Card offered by Kotak Mahindra Bank (ING Vysya) also has the same condition. The amount of fixed deposit can vary from one bank to bank. DCB bank also offers credit card against Rs 15,000 deposit. ICICI Bank also has such a product, " says Rishi Mehra, CEO of Wishfin.com.

"However, the uniqueness of the offer comes with the waiver of annual fees ( Rs 499) for the first 4 years. There is no surety on the waiver of the annual fee in the case of other FD-backed cards. The annual fee waiver is thus a differentiator for Unnati, which could help it stand out from the rest," he added.

Plus, it will also help people without any credit history to build one which will further help them take other loans in future. "If you don't have a credit card because of credit history and you need one do go for it. It will also help you in taking other loans like home loan and car loans in future," Mehra said.



"Unnati is a great product offering, especially for those without a credit history. Existing SBI customers, especially those from low income groups would benefit from it the most. It's a great opportunity for them to build a solid credit record by using the Unnati credit card sensibly and get included in the organised financial segment," said Naveen Kukreja, CEO & Co-founder, Paisabazaar.com.


Reliance Jio on Friday made a slew of announcements related to its Prime membership, including no tariff for the first three months under the scheme. To avail the offer, customers will have to first subscribe to the Prime membership by paying Rs 99 and also purchase Jio's Rs 303 and other plans. Following which, they will get the first three months as "complimentary" and their paid tariff plan will begin from July.

"Every Jio Prime member - when they make their first paid recharge prior to 15th April using Jio's Rs 303 plan (or any higher value plan) - will get services for the initial 3 months on a complimentary basis. Your paid tariff plan will be applied only in July, after the expiry of the complimentary service," Reliance Industries Chairman Mukesh Ambani said.

Jio Summer Surprise



While thanking customers who have purchased the Prime membership, Ambani termed the new offer as Jio Summer Surprise. "The Jio Summer Surprise is the first of many surprises for JIO PRIME members," he said.

Ambani also said that over 72 million people had subscribed to Reliance Jio in a record period.



"In just one month over 72 million Jio customers have signed up for Jio Prime membership," Ambani said.

"Over the past few days, we have been deluged by millions of customers queuing up to purchase Jio's popular Rs 303 and other tariff plans. This nationwide trend indicates that very many customers are still in the process of purchasing JIO PRIME and their first paid tariff plan. I am committed to 'WALKING THE EXTRA MILE' for my Jio Family members," Mukesh Ambani said in statement.

On Network Congestion

Ambani also made a reference of the network issues and promised an improvement in service quality in the days ahead.



"We are acutely aware that we have small pockets of congestion on our network. With our investment in network expansion, you will see a dramatic improvement in service quality in the coming weeks," Ambani said.

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Twenty-five years ago on April 9, 1992, a time capsule containing artifacts and historical items was buried by the Cleveland State student body to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the college. That time capsule is set to be opened on April 10, 2017 at 11 a.m. on the north end of the George L. Mathis Student Center, and the current student body will have a new time capsule to be buried in honor of the colleges 50th anniversary.



Mayor Tom Rowland and members of the 1992 Student Government Association, student body and members of the current Student Senate and student body will be on hand to help with this special ceremony. Refreshments will be served immediately following the ceremony, and the community is invited to attend.

I am among several who are excited to see what items the students who were here in 1992 placed in the time capsule, stated Tracey Wright, Assistant to the President for Community Relations and Special Programs. It sounds like under the leadership of Student Government Association President, Angela (McClure) Mathis, the majority of the student body was engaged in deciding what objects to include. It will also be special to see what our current students under the leadership of current Student Senate President, Haley Hodges, will place in the capsule. Time capsules provide a fun way to document both pop culture and the important things of the year.

We came up with the idea of a time capsule to get the student body involved in the 25th anniversary celebration, stated Ms. Mathis. The time capsule was displayed in the Student Center for a few weeks to generate excitement and ideas on what to place inside. I remember wondering what the campus would be like in 2017. CSCC has obviously advanced in technology and updated buildings over the past 25 years; however, I was thrilled to see CSCC still has some of the most friendly faculty and staff you will find on a college campus.



Ms. Hodgson said, I am excited to find out what all they put in the time capsule 25 years ago. There is going to be so much history in that time capsule. I cannot wait to put some of the things that Student Senate has come up with in our new one. A few of the things that have to with the 50th year celebration and others have to do with life in 2017; I feel so honored to be a part of this!



Ms. Mathis continued, I am as excited to be a part of the new capsule being buried as I am anxious to see the items we buried 25 years ago.



According to Ms. Wright, CSCC is going to hold a contest to see who can guess the most items that are in the time capsule buried in 1992. CSCCs current students, employees, retirees and alumni are eligible to go in the drawing. All entries need to be submitted prior to the ceremony on April 10. Only one entry per person will be allowed. Email entries to twright05@clevelandstatecc.edu.You will need to include your name, cell number, email address and association with the college (current student, alumni, retiree, current employee) and list of items. The winner will receive a $50 gift card. This event is sponsored by First Tennessee Foundation and the CSCC Foundation Board.
FILE - People gather near a shelter in Salt Lake City Friday, Feb. 24, 2017, in Salt Lake City. Legislative leaders and the mayors of Salt Lake City and Salt Lake County announced they're abandoning two of four planned homeless resource centers for the city. Officials said they'll still build two other 200-bed shelters and will select a site for a third shelter in Salt Lake County by March 30. House Speaker Greg Hughes, R-Draper, says officials have also decided they'll close the 1,000-plus bed downtown homeless shelter by June 30, 2019.(AP Photo/Rick Bowmer)

DRAPER, Utah (AP)  Salt Lake County Mayor Ben McAdams says two locations in Draper will still be considered for a new homeless shelter even though the citys mayor withdrew his offer to house the facility after fierce opposition from residents.

About 1,000 people in Draper packed a Wednesday night meeting, where attendees shouted down the idea of a shelter in their city, booed a homeless man who asked for understanding and threatened to impeach Mayor Troy Walker.

Walker then said he was no longer volunteering his city for the shelter, but the county mayor said at a Thursday meeting of a homeless site committee that Draper would still be considered.

The committee will deliberate a total of nine possible Salt Lake County locations Thursday and recommend one to state officials.

The Deseret News reports (http://bit.ly/2njRb3N) the recommendation will be announced Friday.
When Jessica Cox was a little girl, she imagined herself being Superwoman. Swinging on her elementary schools playground at recess, she envisioned herself flying, sharing her superpowers with all of her friends.

On Thursday evening at Utah State University, the power Cox shared wasnt imaginary. Giving the keynote speech during the College of Agriculture and Applied Sciences Spring Deans Seminar, Cox presented an inspirational message of perseverance and determination. When she envisions herself flying today, shes piloting a 1945 Aircoupe. And shes doing it without any arms.

The greater the challenge, the greater appreciation you have that you accomplished it, Cox told a crowd that filled the Taggart Student Centers Sunburst Lounge. Walls are only there to stop the people who dont want it bad enough.

From learning to tie her shoes to earning a blackbelt in taekwondo, Cox said thinking outside the shoe has been a critical component of her life. In order to achieve independence, she had to find innovative ways to accomplish everyday tasks that most people take for grantedgetting dressed, driving a car, opening a can of soda. She also surfs, scuba dives and rides horses, refusing to believe the words I cant.

My feet became my hands and my toes became my fingers, she said. Necessity is the mother of invention.

Cox, who is the first armless person in aviation history to become a certified pilot, also spoke about overcoming anger, self-doubt and fear in order to achieve her goals. Although she wore prosthetic arms for 11 years, Cox gave them up at age 14 because she felt like they held her back.

Fear is nothing more than false evidence appearing real, she said. What are your own fake arms? What is holding you back?

Brandon Ellis, a USU student from Colorado who is studying business, took Coxs message to heart.

It was wonderful. It was really inspirational, he said. For all the dreams and aspirations that I have, I have no excuse not to attain them, not to make them happen in my own life.

Ella Parish, a Cache Valley 10-year-old who shares Coxs childhood dream of flying, agrees. Waiting in line for Coxs autograph, the fourth graders spirits were soaring.

It was amazing, she said. I got a lot of information that I would need to become a pilot of my own. I learned that you create your own fears, and you can also destroy them.

Parish was among a handful of seminar attendees who had the opportunity to ask Cox questions after she spokeWhere is your favorite place to fly? Who inspires you? What makes you push through the dark moments?

Cox provided down-to-earth answers, acknowledging times of heartache, frustration and fear. She also spoke of her faith.

When I was a little girl, I asked my mom, Why did God make me this way? she said. My mom would say, Be patient, Jessica. God has a plan.

Coxs plan, along with learning to slackline, is to continue sharing her story as a motivational speaker. Accompanied by her husband, Patrick Chamberlain, she is helping people around the world recognize how to be pilot in command of their own lives.

Fly the airplane first, an instructor once told her. Everything else is second.

Jessica Coxs visit to USU was hosted by the Alpha Eta Rho college aviation fraternity. On Friday, she will join the Center for Women and Gender during its lunchtime Common Hour, from noon to 1:00 p.m. in room 154 of the Merrill-Cazier Library (not room 208, as has been previously published). The public is welcome to attend. More information about Coxs personal story is available at <a href=http://www.jessicacox.com/>www.JessicaCox.com</a>.

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jennifer@cvradio.com
Erlanger Assistant Vice President of Oncology Tony Dotson, FACHE and Dr. David Seaberg, FACHE, chairman of the Department of Emergency Medicine at the University of Tennessee College of Medicine Chattanooga, achieved the distinguished honor of becoming Fellows of the American College of Healthcare Executives (ACHE), the nations leading professional society for healthcare leaders.

By becoming an ACHE Fellow and earning the distinction of board certification from ACHE, healthcare leaders demonstrate a commitment to excellence in serving their patients and the community, says Deborah J.

Bowen, FACHE, CAE, president and CEO of ACHE.

Fellow status represents achievement of the highest standard of professional development. In fact, only 9,204 healthcare executives hold this distinction. To obtain Fellow status, candidates must fulfill multiple requirements, including meeting academic and experiential criteria, earning continuing education credits, demonstrating professional/community involvement and passing a comprehensive examination. Fellows are also committed to ongoing professional development and undergo recertification every three years.

We are extremely proud of Tony and David for their personal commitment to lifelong learning and upholding the highest level of professional ethics, said Kevin M. Spiegel, FACHE, Erlanger President and CEO. They have joined 12 other Erlanger leaders who have achieved Board Certification as Healthcare Executives and are are now Fellows in the American College of Healthcare Executives.
Repticon is coming back to Chattanooga with a mixture of vendors, breeders, and educators April 29-30. This family-oriented event offers guests the opportunity to learn about animals not normally seen in local pet stores. Breeder-vendors are always willing to teach; and, throughout the event, there will be seminars on animal-related topics by experts in the field of herpetology.

Guests can also shop for a new family pet among the hundreds of reptiles, amphibians, invertebrates, spiders, and small exotic animals. Repticon Chattanooga is also a place to get merchandise, cages, supplies, and both live and frozen feeders, as well as to get expert advice about caring for their new household member. Many of the vendors allow live interactions with the pets during visits to their booth.

Free-entry raffles are held frequently during both days of the event, offering guests the opportunity to win prizes.



Held at Camp Jordan Arena in East Ridge, the doors open to the general public at 10 a.m. on Saturday, closing at 5 p.m. On Sunday, the show hours are 10 a.m. until 4 p.m. At the door, tickets are $10 for adults, $5 for children 5-12, and children under 5 are admitted free. VIP and advance tickets may be purchased at http://repticon.com/repticon-chattanooga/.








The Chattanooga Mini Maker Faire opens the call to all Makers. Dubbed The Greatest Show (and Tell) on Earth, the Chattanooga Mini Maker Faire is a family-friendly showcase of invention, creativity, and resourcefulness. Its a place where people show what they are making, and share what they are learning.

Makers come from all ages and backgrounds, and range anywhere from tech enthusiasts to crafters to scientists to garage tinkerers.

To participate in this years Mini Maker Faire, organized by CO.LAB, Makers can submit proposals for a booth or exhibitor presence, a workshop, and a presentation. Maker participants will have the option to showcase a product and share knowledge, create a hands-on activity that inspires others to make, promote a product or service, sell items, launch a product or service, launch a crowdfunding campaign, solicit crowd-funding support for a campaign, and engage in active networking.

Every year, the Mini Maker Faire continues to grow and continues to attract more makers and attendees, said Nichole Abruzzise, director of Events for CO.LAB, Its always very exciting to see the creativity and passion our makers have for their craft.

By participating in this one-of-a-kind event, makers have the opportunity to present their craft, product, or performance to more than 4,000 attendees. Unlike prior years, this year, a limited number of Maker Grants totaling up to $1,000 each will be awarded to applicants who create high quality, highly interactive, and engaging exhibits. All approved exhibitors will receive Maker Grant applications via email after their exhibitor applications are approved.

The Call for Makers is not limited to those only those looking to exhibit their creations. While all makers are welcomed to participate, there are several other ways to get involved in this event. Commercial makers, corporate exhibitors, and performers can apply as well.

Commercial makers include businesses that make artisanal products, crafts, or unique technologies. corporate exhibitors include companies that operate outside the maker tradition and simply want to sell their products and services at the event. The fee for commercial makers is $75, while the fee for corporate exhibitors is $100.

To lead a workshop and provide educational opportunities for the attendees, or to perform, submit an applicaiton. Applications are first come first served, and will no longer be accepted after July 1.

The third annual Chattanooga Mini Maker Faire is Sept. 9, at the First Tennessee Pavilion.
Paul Biya P.R.C.

The Minister of Justice and Keeper of the Seals, Laurent Esso has announced that a department of Common Law will be created both in the National Advance School of Administration and Magistracy, ENAM and Supreme Court in the nearest future.

He disclosed in a Press Conference held in Yaounde that Cameroons President Paul Biya gave the instructions as part of measures to calm the tension going on in the two English Speaking regions especially responding to grievances tabled by Common Law lawyers last year.

He also announced the creation of faculty of Law and Political Sciences in the University of Buea, creation of department of English Law in the Universities of Douala, Ngaoundere, Maroua and Dschang.

There will also be the creation of a Law school to train Lawyers, Notaries.

Another issue raised by Common Law Lawyers is the non mastery of the English language by Francophone Magistrates but who deliver their judgment in either French or non understandable English, the President through the minister has promised to redeploy such Magistrates and increase the number of Anglophone Magistrates at the Supreme Court among others.

The series of Presidential decision comes to water down the strike action and expected to lure Common Law Lawyers who have on strike since October 8, 2016 to go back to courts.

The decision is in total contradiction to views earlier held by Justice Minister who said there was no problem in the Judiciary. Paul Biya has therefore proved him wrong by taking the above decisions.

The realization of most of these projects will be proposed by Ministers of Higher Education and Public Service and Administrative reforms, while others by Presidential decrees especially in appointments.

However Paul Biya made no mention of the fate of Security forces that disgraced Lawyers in Buea and Bamenda by beating, seizing robes and spraying them with water cannons and tear gassed some.

Lawyers have been calling for appropriate measures against the men in Uniform.

By Wilson MUSA
| BY Ricki Green |

Cannes Lions has today announced the 21 jury members set to judge the Pharma Lions and the Health & Wellness Lions awards at this years Cannes Lions.

Representing Australia on the juries is June Laffey (left), executive creative director, McCann Health, Australasia/SE Asia who has been picked as jury president for the Cannes Pharma Lions jury and Justine Metcalfe (right), creative partner, YOLO, Australia who will sit on the Health & Wellness Lions jury.

Lions Health, the two-day specialist event focussing on creative excellence in healthcare communications, kicks off the 2017 Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity. Now in its fourth year, Lions Health awards outstanding work across Pharma and Health & Wellness, enables attendees to review and discuss the shortlisted and winning work on day two and includes a content programme focussed on the issues and opportunities relevant to the industry.

Says Louise Benson, executive festival director of Lions Health: Lions Health juries are tasked with recognising and awarding creativity in a highly regulated industry and were delighted to welcome this years juries to do just that. Both the Pharma and Health & Wellness Lions have been reviewed and refined to ensure that the criteria are more clearly defined which should help this exceptional group of jury members make decisions that set the creative standards for the coming year.

The 2017 Lions Health juries are as follows:

Pharma Lions Jury:

June Laffey, Executive Creative Director, McCann Health, Australia/SE Asia  Jury President

Amit Akali, Chief Creative Officer, Medulla Communications, India

Debra Polkes, Executive Creative Director, CDM, USA

Dick Dunford, Creative Partner, Loooped , UK

Graham Mills, Global Chief Creative Officer, Publicis Health, Global

Kym White, Global Sector Chair, Health, Edelman, Global

Mandi Fine, Chief Executive Officer, F/NE, South Africa

R. John Fidelino, Executive Creative Director, InterbrandHealth, Global

Ritesh Patel, Chief Digital Officer Ogilvy CommonHealth Worldwide, Global

Susanne Blom, Creative Director, Lindh & Partners, Sweden

The Pharma Lions celebrate creative communications from pharmaceutical clients and services surrounding this highly-regulated industry through work that demonstrates ideas that inform and engage its health practitioners, patients and targeted consumers.

Health & Wellness Lions Jury:

Mike Rogers, Creative Partner, Serviceplan Health and Life, Germany  Jury President

Ayu Sasaki, Creative Director, Dentsu, Japan

Carolyn Gargano, VP Associate Creative Director, Art, Saatchi & Saatchi Wellness, USA

Christine Abbott, Executive Vice President, Cohn & Wolfe, USA

Diana Janicki, Executive Creative Director, TBWA\WorldHealth London, UK

Diego Freitas, Creative Director, Havas Life Sao Paulo, Brazil

Gary Scheiner, EVP, Global Chief Creative Officer, greyhealth group, Global

Justine Metcalfe, Creative Partner, YOLO, Australia

Orrin Pollard, Executive Creative Director, Hamell, UK

Stacey Bernstein, Executive Vice President, Global Director of Digital Health, Weber Shandwick, Global

Tim Hawkey, EVP, Managing Director, Executive Creative Director, Area23, USA

The Health & Wellness Lions celebrate creativity for personal wellbeing through work that demonstrates an inspired approach to consumer healthcare.

Content themes at Lions Health 2017:

This years content programme features keynote sessions, inspirational seminars and informal discussion formats along with a Med Tech exhibition, featuring technologies that are changing the face of healthcare and how we communicate about it, and a Creative Hack, dedicated to improving lives through the power of the hackers creativity.
| BY Ricki Green |

Marcel, part of Publicis Worldwide, has opened an office in Mumbai.

Marcel has offices in Paris, Sydney, New York, and Sao Paolo.

Says Charles Georges-Picot, global CEO, Marcel: We are thrilled to open a new office in Mumbai. Marcel is a precious brand that we only share with like-minded people. I know that together we will create amazing work. It is what drives us at Marcel.

In another development, Publicis Ambience and Publicis Capital will become Publicis India. It will continue to build on the momentum of creating share-worthy ideas that impact share of wallet.

To navigate and accelerate these transformations, Publicis Worldwide will have new leadership at the helm. Srija Chatterjee (bottom, left), managing director and Sudeep Gohil (bottom, right), chief strategy officer and managing partner will join forces with Bobby Pawar (top, right), chief creative officer and managing director. They will run all the Publicis Worldwide operations in India, including Marcel, and report to Saurabh Varma (top left), CEO, Publicis Communications, India.

Says Varma on the new developments: I believe it is the right time for Marcel to come to India. Lead the change can only happen through a disruptive model and a world-class International-Indian team. The leadership team has been carefully put together to deliver on our ambition for Publicis Worldwide, in India.

Srija Chatterjee joins from MullenLowe Singapore, where she was the global business director. Her industry experience spans over 20 years, with long-standing stints at Lowe & Partners in Mumbai and Marico Industries. An award-winner in her own right, she has led integrated cross- disciplinary teams across digital, PR, shopper and activation for local, regional and global brands alike.

Says Chatterjee: When I met Saurabh and discussed the plans for Publicis, the potential and ambition for the agency left me both excited and nervous. With its mantra of Lead the change, and the focus on true integration across all our different platforms, I believe that Publicis is now at a crucial juncture, poised for exponential growth and recognition. I look forward to being part of this journey with Bobby, Sudeep and the team here.

Gohil moves from 72andSunny LA, where he consulted on the agencys Asia-Pacific plans, and led Adidas business globally. Gohil is the rare planner who combines great strategic thinking with strong creative instincts and business savvy. He has played key roles in agencies like BBH London, and Wieden+Kennedy Portland. Sudeep helped set up Droga5 in Australia with David Nobay (who is now creative chairman of Marcel Sydney) and later became its CEO.

Says Gohil: The Publicis team really impressed me with their bold ambitions, tenacious attitude and passion for great work  they have great clients and an enviable team. The opportunity to work with Bobby, Srija and Saurabh was a big part of my belief and excitement for the plan ahead for Publicis. All of this combined with the bold mandate for the business both locally in the region made it an offer I couldnt refuse.

Echoing Varmas sentiments on the evolution of Publicis Worldwide, Pawar said: I am really excited for our people and our clients. Weve been doing some cool work. With the addition of the world-class talent and global experience of Sudeep and Srija, Im sure we will take it up a few notches. Its game on.

Meanwhile, Publicis Beehive will stay focussed on offering holistic marketing solutions to Indian entrepreneurial clients. Sanjit Shastri continues as the CEO of Publicis Beehive. Additionally, he will now play a larger role in delivering The Power of One for Publicis Communications. He will report to Saurabh Varma. Paritosh Srivastava, the COO at Publicis Ambience, is now the COO at Marcel.
| BY Ricki Green |

Rumble Studios has bolstered its in-house talent with the hire of composer Lance Gurisik.

Recently returning to Sydney after three years touring throughout North America, UK and Europe, the 27-year-old musician was quickly snapped up by the sound studio, taking residence in its Chippendale facility.

Says Gurisik: Im really excited to be part of the Rumble family. Everyone is so passionate about what they do and they challenge each other creatively. Its a great environment for someone like myself who enjoys exploring and working outside the comfort zone.

With releases under Freerange, Toy Tonics, Anjunadeep and Ninja Tunes Counter Records, Gurisiks ability to produce top shelf music in a variety of styles did not go unrecognised.

Says Michael Gie, EP, Rumble: We were really impressed with Lances whole body of work. His production techniques are so diverse and you can hear so many different influences throughout his music. Hes uniquely talented and were excited by what hes capable of creating.

Gurisik was also nominated for an ARIA Award for Best Comedy Release for F*ck The Banks taken from Season One of Soul Mates in 2015 and has a long history of live festival and club performances.
| BY Kim Shaw |

Cannes Lions has today announced the 21 jury members set to judge the Pharma Lions and the Health & Wellness Lions awards at this years Cannes Lions.

Amit Akali (left), chief creative officer, Medulla Communications, India will represent Asia on the Pharma Lions jury and Ayu Sasaki (right), creative director, Dentsu, Japan will represent Asia on the Health & Wellness Lions jury.

Lions Health, the two-day specialist event focussing on creative excellence in healthcare communications, kicks off the 2017 Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity. Now in its fourth year, Lions Health awards outstanding work across Pharma and Health & Wellness, enables attendees to review and discuss the shortlisted and winning work on day two and includes a content programme focussed on the issues and opportunities relevant to the industry.

Says Louise Benson, executive festival director of Lions Health: Lions Health juries are tasked with recognising and awarding creativity in a highly regulated industry and were delighted to welcome this years juries to do just that. Both the Pharma and Health & Wellness Lions have been reviewed and refined to ensure that the criteria are more clearly defined which should help this exceptional group of jury members make decisions that set the creative standards for the coming year.

The 2017 Lions Health juries are as follows:

Pharma Lions Jury:

June Laffey, Executive Creative Director, McCann Health, Australia/SE Asia  Jury President

Amit Akali, Chief Creative Officer, Medulla Communications, India

Debra Polkes, Executive Creative Director, CDM, USA

Dick Dunford, Creative Partner, Loooped, UK

Graham Mills, Global Chief Creative Officer, Publicis Health, Global

Kym White, Global Sector Chair, Health, Edelman, Global

Mandi Fine, Chief Executive Officer, F/NE, South Africa

R. John Fidelino, Executive Creative Director, InterbrandHealth, Global

Ritesh Patel, Chief Digital Officer, Ogilvy CommonHealth Worldwide, Global

Susanne Blom, Creative Director, Lindh & Partners, Sweden

The Pharma Lions celebrate creative communications from pharmaceutical clients and services surrounding this highly-regulated industry through work that demonstrates ideas that inform and engage its health practitioners, patients and targeted consumers.

Health & Wellness Lions Jury:

Mike Rogers, Creative Partner, Serviceplan Health and Life, Germany  Jury President

Ayu Sasaki, Creative Director, Dentsu, Japan

Carolyn Gargano, VP Associate Creative Director, Art, Saatchi & Saatchi Wellness, USA

Christine Abbott, Executive Vice President, Cohn & Wolfe, USA

Diana Janicki, Executive Creative Director, TBWA\WorldHealth London, UK

Diego Freitas, Creative Director, Havas Life Sao Paulo, Brazil

Gary Scheiner, EVP, Global Chief Creative Officer, greyhealth group, Global

Justine Metcalfe, Creative Partner, YOLO, Australia

Orrin Pollard, Executive Creative Director, Hamell, UK

Stacey Bernstein, Executive Vice President, Global Director of Digital Health, Weber Shandwick, Global

Tim Hawkey, EVP, Managing Director, Executive Creative Director, Area23, USA

The Health & Wellness Lions celebrate creativity for personal wellbeing through work that demonstrates an inspired approach to consumer healthcare.

Content themes at Lions Health 2017:

This years content programme features keynote sessions, inspirational seminars and informal discussion formats along with a Med Tech exhibition, featuring technologies that are changing the face of healthcare and how we communicate about it, and a Creative Hack, dedicated to improving lives through the power of the hackers creativity.
"It's interesting that the average consumer would never think to ask (for lower fees), but they would shop around if they were buying plane tickets or hiring a car - I think it's the same principle."
"I don't like getting my photograph taken at all," says Grealy, working his way through the press announcement of the winners. "I spend hours telling people how to hold their face, where to set their eyes, and as soon as I'm in front of a camera I can feel my lips trembling, my hands tensing up."
Mr Hoyle, who was a senior lecturer in law and technology at the University of Canberra, and had taught at the university for 21 years, told an ACT Supreme Court jury on Friday he was "extremely concerned" about what he had found while looking into possible plagiarism in the students' papers.
"You either go hey, I'm going to fight back, or on the flipside it can make you think well, I won't get that management job because the statistics are against me," the 25-year-old said.
"We were completely surprised to receive such special treatment at the gallery today,"' Mrs Dimitrovski said. "'Even with a new baby I wanted to get a second look at this beautiful show before it closes. And you are never too young to experience magnificent art."
"In matter such as this, it's important to have mutual respect and I would advise those in government who don't share our views, to treat me and other colleagues with respect," he said, pointing to the plight of Professor Chongyi Feng, who is currently being held in China.
'Time Is Of The Essence': Alderman Proposes $25M For Anti-Violence, Jobs Programs Ahead Of 'Bloody' Summer

By Stephen Gossett in News on Mar 30, 2017 8:40PM



Getty Images / Photo: Scott Olson

When the man in charge of the city's investments announced a windfall return on its portfolio earlier this month, he urged the City Council to tap those funds to help stem the city's violence. On Wednesday, a Southwest Side aldermen got the ball rolling to take him up on that offer. Ricardo Munoz put forth his plan at yesterday's City Council meeting to earmark tens of millions of dollars for anti-violence, job and after-school programs in each of the city's wards.

Ricardo Munoz, whose 22nd ward includes Lawndale and Little Village, laid out a proposal that would distribute $25 million evenly across the city's districts$500,000 for each of Chicago's 50 wards.

"Our city is bleeding... It'll be a bloody summer," warned Munoz at Wednesday's City Council meeting, according to the Sun-Times. He hopes the additional funding will help prevent some of that potential bloodshed.

The $25 million sum is actually less than half of the excess earnings ($57 million in total) that City Treasurer Kurt Summers recommended be used to "fuel economic development and job creation in the most violent neighborhoods in the city." So even if Munoz's recommendation passes, the city should still have an additional $32 million to allocate toward anti-violence spending.

"What we wanted to do with this $25 million is make sure it goes to the entire city, so that no stone is left unturned when it comes to providing jobs," Munoz told Chicagoist. "We want to make sure every part of the city is hit."

Munoz said 46 of 50 aldermen have signed on and he hopes to see the plan approved and money "hit the street as soon as possible."

Treasurer Summers said in a statement on March 15:



The violence plaguing Chicago neighborhoods is a symptom of a larger economic problem within this City. After a year of more than 700 murders and 4,000 shootings, creating safe and stable communities should be our top priority. If we are serious about having a safer environment for children and families, we need to invest in all neighborhoods. We need to create more economic opportunities in our most challenged communities to provide the safety and stability to shape a better, stronger Chicago."

The plan to move the extra funds comes as Chicago faces another bloody year. The city has seen 131 homicides so far in 2017, according to the Tribune's tracker. Chicago's violent crime has been a topic of persistent (if improperly contextualized) discussion thanks in no small part to President Donald Trump's fixation. "In recent months, Mr. Trump has repeatedly  obsessively, in the view of some  commented on Chicagos street violence in interviews, debates and off-hour social media outbursts," the New York Times wrote on Wednesday. In his visit with Attorney General Jeff Sessions this month, Supt. Eddie Johnson's federal wish list did reportedly include money for community building, but much of the talk about aid to Chicagoor, for that matter, the threats against aidfrom Washington tend to swirl more around law enforcement than investment.
Our Promise: Welcome to Care2, the world's largest community for good. Here, you'll find over 45 million like-minded people working towards progress, kindness, and lasting impact.

Care2 Stands Against: bigots, racists, bullies, science deniers, misogynists, gun lobbyists, xenophobes, the willfully ignorant, animal abusers, frackers, and other mean people. If you find yourself aligning with any of those folks, you can move along, nothing to see here.

Care2 Stands With: humanitarians, animal lovers, feminists, rabble-rousers, nature-buffs, creatives, the naturally curious, and people who really love to do the right thing.

You are our people. You Care. We Care2.
The Supreme Court has scrapped the age limit and allowed the medical aspirants above 25 years to sit for this year's National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) to be held on May 7, 2017.

After a long wait, the Supreme Court has finally announced its verdict on National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) 2017 age limit criteria today, March 31, 2017.

The Supreme Court has directed the CBSE, conducting body, to open the online portal from today evening so that all petitioners and non-petitioners can apply for the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test.

The last date to fill the NEET online application is by April 5, 2017.

"The judge recorded the submissions of all parties including MCI and petitioners and allowed the NEET aspirant to sit for the exam this year," said advocate Vaibhav Srivastava. Noted lawyers Indu Malhotra and Amarendra Sharan represented the students.

CBSE released the NEET 2017 notification where it introduced age and attempt cap. While it made NEET 2017 as the first attempt after the protest from students, the government stood firm on fixing maximum age to be 25 years.

Activist Dr. Anand Rai, who is supporting the students, said that with these criteria, students from the rural background will suffer. "A lot of students from the rural background will badly suffer if the government doesn't change its stand. Our nation is already facing a shortage of doctors. Fixing such criteria will discourage medical aspirants."

About NEET

The examination is held for admission to MBBS/BDS courses in India in medical/dental colleges run with the approval of Medical Council of India/Dental Council of India under the ministry of health and family welfare, except for the institutions established by an Act of Parliament i.e AIIMS and JIPMER Puducherry.

Deadline to Choose Centre and Correct Application for NEET 2017 Closes Today: Apply Now!
The University of York has been awarded 15 Commonwealth Distance Learning Scholarships by the Commonwealth Scholarship Commission in the United Kingdom (CSCUK) for 10 students joining the online Masters in Public Policy and Management program and 5 students joining the Masters of Public Administration - International Development program, commencing their studies in September 2017.

What is the Course Level of the scholarship?

Scholarships are available for pursuing Masters Degree courses at the University of York.

What is the Study Subject?

Scholarships are available in Public Policy and Management program and Masters of Public Administration- International Development at the University of York.

The number of Awards: 15 scholarships are available.

Scholarship Award: The awards themselves are funded by the Department for International Development (DFID).

When can the scholarship be taken?

The scholarship can be taken in the UK.

Nationality:

Students from following developing commonwealth countries can apply for these scholarships. Indian students can grab this scholarship from The New York University.

Eligibility Criteria:

Scholarships are available to applicants who meet all of the following criteria:

A citizen of a developing Commonwealth country, refugee, or British protected person

Permanently resident in a developing Commonwealth country.

To hold a first degree of at least upper second class (2:1) standard. A lower qualification and sufficient relevant experience may be considered in certain cases.

Are working in or with public organizations, including NGO's, aid agencies and local or national government departments, and can demonstrate throughout their application that they are working towards the Sustainable Development Goals.

Can dedicate at least 15 hours each week to their studies with a number of study sessions being over 2 hours in length.

Meet the University Entry Requirements for the program (see the 'Entry requirements' on each course web page).

College Admission Requirement:

Entrance Requirement:

Applicants must hold a first degree of at least upper second class (2:1) standard. A lower qualification and sufficient relevant experience may be considered in certain cases.

English Language Requirements:

If they're a non-native English speaking applicant they must provide evidence of their English language ability.

International Scholarships:

How to Apply?

Full instructions for the Electronic Application System (EAS) are contained on the Scholarship Commission's website.

Apply for the Commonwealth Scholarship.

Important date to remember:

Application Deadline:

The application deadline is May 12, 2017.

SAARC Agriculture Center Offers Post Graduate Scholarship
4 People Fatally Shot At Restaurant In South Shore: Police

By Stephen Gossett in News on Mar 30, 2017 10:00PM



Crime scene tape (Photo by LukaTDB via Shutterstock)

Four people were found fatally shot inside or near a restaurant in a brazen attack in South Shore on Thursday afternoon, according to Chicago police. The incident happened roughly nine blocks east from where a pregnant woman was found fatally shot in an apartment, some four hours prior.

Officers arrived to a call in the 2700 block of East 75th Street at around 3:51 p.m. on Thursday afternoon, police said. A man had come up to a restaurant, identified in news reports as Nadia Fish & Chicken, and fired shots. Two men were found shot inside the restaurant; one man was discovered struck and unresponsive outside the building; and officers found a fourth victim in the 7500 block of South Coles Street, police said. All four men were pronounced dead on the scene.

Three victims were identified by the medical examiner's office as Raheem Jackson, 19, Dillon Jackson, 20, and Emmanuel Stokes, 28. The name of the fourth victim was not released because next of kin had not yet been notified.

Chief police spokesperson Anthony Guglielmi said authorities were "making good progress" and the mass shooting was believed to be retaliation.

Detectives making good progress in investigation at 2700 BLK. E 75TH. Incident believed to be gang related retaliation from another incident  Anthony Guglielmi (@AJGuglielmi) March 31, 2017

Earlier in the afternoon, at around noon, a 26-year-old pregnant woman, Patrice L. Calvin, was found fatally shot in the head inside an apartment in the 7500 block of South Luella Avenue, according to police and the medical examiner's office.
Is The Self-Driving Car Revolution Heading To Illinois?

By Stephen Gossett in News on Mar 31, 2017 6:37PM



Courtesy of Uber

Autonomous cars could be self-driving into the state soon if some Illinois lawmakers get their way. The Illinois House Transportation committee on Wednesday passed a measure, known as the Safe Autonomous Vehicles Act, that would allow self-driving cars to be tested on state roads.

The bill advances in the legislature at a time when the safety and regulation of autonomous vehicles has become an increasingly hot topic of debate, especially after a recent high-profile crash involving a self-driving Uber in Arizona. (Police determined the vehicle was not at fault.) But one of the co-sponsors of the Illinois bill is touting autonomous cars' safety, along with economic boons.

Rep. Mike Zalewski, whose district includes suburban areas of Cook County, said, according to the News-Gazette:



"With seniors, we see a degradation of driving as their reflexes and their motor skills start to reduce. I envision a scenario where we are able to use this technology to bridge that gap we've all struggled with generationally and say, 'I want to be able for you to get to church and to the store. I want to know that you're getting there safe.'"

The bill, like similar proposed legislation in at least four other states, is heavily backed by GM, which looks to make inroads in the self-driving market, according to Car and Driver. WGN reports that the bill's sponsors hope to have it in front of the General Assembly in April.

But even if the bill were to pass, and pave the way for automated cars in Illinois, there could be some renewed opposition in Chicago. aldermen Ed Burke (14th) and Anthony Beale (9th) proposed an ordinance back in September that would ban self-driving cars from operating in the city. The measure was never adopted, but neither have ever made it easy on rideshare operations in Chicago, the same companies that continue to heavily pursue the self-driving market. (Beale did not immediately return a request for comment.)

The original draft of the Illinois legislation would have restricted operation of autonomous vehicles only to traditional automakers, but in the face of opposition from groups like the Self-Driving Coalition for Safer Streetswhich lobbies on the behalf of Waymo, a self-driving-car company formerly affiliated with Google, Uber, Lyft and othersthose stipulations were scrapped.

Advocates argue that self-driving cars are safer because most accidents are the result of driver error. But opponents, or at least agnostics, say that fails to account for all weather and road conditions. And Uber in particular has faced stern rebuke for what critics see as dangerous flouting of state regulatory agencies in terms of autonomous vehicles.
Aston Martin has denied the veracity of a recent report and categorically ruled out the possibility of a V8-powered DB11 debuting at the Shanghai Auto Show.



Just a couple of days ago, news surfaced suggesting the Aston Martin would debut its long-awaited second DB11 variant, powered by the same 4.0-liter twin-turbo V8 as much of the Mercedes-AMG range, in China.

A number of V8-powered DB11 prototypes have been spied in recent months but according to an Aston Martin press spokesperson who contacted Carscoops this week, well have to wait a little longer for the car to premiere.

When this new DB11 model debuts, it will have around 530 hp on tap and act as a direct competitor to the V8 Bentley Continental GT while also offering Aston Martin customers a new engine likely to dramatically alter the cars driving characteristics.

For now, DB11 customers can only order their cars with a twin-turbocharged 5.2-liter V12. However, with 600 hp under the right pedal, we cant imagine many owners being disappointed.

Note: Weve contacted Aston Martin to ask when and where the V8-powered DB11 will debut. We will update this post once they get back to us

PHOTO GALLERY
Labor representatives from Audi have asked management at the German company to assign production of an all-electric model to the brands main assembly plant in Ingolstadt.



In 2018, production of Audis first all-electric model, the e-Tron Quattro, will commence in Brussels, Belgium, rather than Audis large Ingolstadt facility that employees around 43,000 people.

Audi has yet to announce if and when any electric vehicles will be built at its Ingolstadt home but has announced that its smaller plan in Neckarsulm will start producing EVs from around 2020, as the automaker pushes to launch three electric models by the turn of the decade.

Reuters has learnt that Audis top labor representative, Peter Mosch, recently asked Audi management to offer specifics as to how the shift to electric vehicles and mobility will impact employment at the company.

PHOTO GALLERY
Its finally happening; Jeeps fire-breathing Grand Cherokee Trackhawk will debut at the New York Auto Show.



Answering questions at an event at FCA US headquarters, Jeep boss Mike Manley didnt provide many details about the model but said it will be special.

That is going to be quite a special vehicle. Very difficult for one not to smile, he said to Autoblog.

While Jeep is still remaining tight-lipped about official details of the vehicle, we have a pretty good idea of what will distinguish it from the rest of the Jeep range.

The most obvious modifications will be the fitment of FCAs 6.2-liter supercharged Hellcat V8 engine that in Charger and Challenger SRT Hellcat guises delivers 707 hp. In all likelihood, that power figure will be retained for the Grand Cherokee Trackhawk.

VIDEO
The tale of a very unlucky LaFerrari has come to light recently, with officials from South Africa seizing one example from its owner after he reportedly tried to smuggle it into the country.



The owner of the LaFerrari originally brought the hybrid hypercar into South Africa back in 2014, but after failing to follow the correct import procedures -including paying custom duties and VAT- saw his car being taken and stored into a bonded warehouse by the South African Revenue Service for three years, according to Eyewitness News.

The car just sat there for three years as the owner had difficulties to finalize the required customs process, until last February when he declared that the LaFerrari would be exported to the Democratic Republic of Congo instead, via the Beitbridge border post.

A day later, there was an attempt to have the vehicle return to South Africa through the same border post, Sandile Memela, a SARS spokesperson said.

Officials then seized the vehicle at the border post, following a letter of intent to the owner to enable him making a representation to SARS.

H/T To Rob & CarMag.co.za!

PHOTO GALLERY
Photo: Contributed

Cigarette smoke, pesticides on your lawn, even flame-resistant baby clothing may affect your children, according to one expert.

Professor Bruce Lanphear of Simon Fraser University says even low-level exposure to toxic chemicals can contribute to premature births, intellectual disabilities and behavioural problems in children.

Lanphear will hold a public talk at Okanagan College's Vernon campus on Thursday, Apr. 6 at 7:30 p.m. to explain how harmful chemicals, such as lead, tobacco, pesticides and flame retardants impact brain development and to share insight into preventable brain-based disorders in the early development of children.

The presentation is called Little Things Matter: The Impact of Toxic Chemicals on the Developing Brain and is part of the College's science in society speaker series.

Lanphear will also discuss the pandemic of consumption - the largely preventable, worldwide epidemic of chronic disease and disability in society due to widespread exposures to industrial pollutants, toxic chemicals and excess consumption.

The impact of toxic chemicals is usually subtle for an individual child, but it can be substantial at the population level, said Lanphear. Too little has been done to protect children from these ubiquitous, but insidious toxins.

Lanphear is a clinician scientist at the Child and Family Research Institute, BC Childrens Hospital and professor in the Faculty of Health Sciences at Simon Fraser University.

Admission to the lecture is $7 in advance or $10 at the door. For advanced tickets call the Okanagan Science Centre at 250-545-3644. To subscribe or obtain more information, go online.
Photo: Contributed

A new treatment may help people with mental health challenges obtain long-term employment.

The province and Fraser Health are testing a new and innovative way for people living with severe mental illness to find long-term employment that fits their needs.

The province is providing Fraser Health with $1.6 million to carry out the research project.

In partnership with the Canadian Mental Health Association, the three-year project will combine a new treatment with an existing service to help patients get back into the workforce.

Cognitive Remediation Therapy (CRT) is a promising new treatment that enhances thinking skills in people with severe mental illnesses. It is designed to improve neurocognitive abilities such as attention, working memory, cognitive flexibility, planning and functioning with a goal of improved functioning.

This funding will allow Fraser Health to assess the effects of CRT when it is combined with Individual Placement and Support (IPS), an existing service that adds an employment counsellor to a patients mental health treatment team to help them find paid work.

The treatment plan for CRT will focus on cognitive areas that are impeding patients progress to successful employment. For example, to improve memory, patients will be taught to group information to better retain it. Other examples may include using structured problem-solving and planning methods to compensate for executive dysfunctions, using day planners, and modifying work spaces to reduce distractions.

Patients will be randomly assigned to either a test group or a control group, with the test group receiving CRT and IPS and the control group receiving IPS only. This will allow Fraser Health to assess the effectiveness of CRT and IPS and find out if this new combination of support services can make a positive, lasting impact in the lives of clients, and help them reach their goals of independence through meaningful employment.

A final report on the program is expected by February 2020 and will be shared with government and other stakeholders.
While the politicking has been going on for several months, the official 28 day campaign doesn't begin until the writ is dropped April 11.

Prior to the start of the campaign, Castanet News had the opportunity to talk one-on-one with Premier Christy Clark at her West Kelowna constituency office.

We touched on topics ranging from issues facing her constituents, the campaign itself, political contributions, polls and jobs.

On the homeless problem in West Kelowna:

"We want to assist, so BC Housing is now speaking to the City of West Kelowna to talk about how we can address it. We've always had a little bit of a homeless issue, it's grown over the years, then we've had a cold weather shelter, and now that's closing because the weather is warming up. People are finding their way back out on the street and they need a more permanent shelter. That work, and we know from other places, it needs to be done very thoughtfully, because lots of people are concerned when a shelter comes to their neighbourhood."

On the RCMP investigation into political contributions as the election campaign begins:

"They've said specifically they aren't investigating any specific political party. They are investigating two individuals who donated to a number of different parties, and who are alleged to have not managed that properly. If the allegation is true, and those individuals broke the law, they should be held to account. That's what the law is for."

On her private fundraising, and assertions by the NDP she has been paid $300,000 by the Liberal Party:

"No (that number is not accurate). What I would say is, I think it's the beginning of what we're going to see a lot of, and the NDP are going to run a campaign that is going to be personal, it's going to be negative, it's going to be the politics of attack. What we're seeing is the unfolding of what will be, perhaps, the most American style campaign we've ever had in British Columbia."

On polls which show a majority of British Columbians believe she will say anything to get elected:

"When you get into a campaign, and we'll get a chance to really talk about what we've accomplished, and, for me, I said four years ago we are going to focus on creating jobs in British Columbia. We've gone from ninth in job creation to number one in job creation. We've been really focused on making sure we are attracting more jobs. And, this has not been an easy time to do it. I know people are cynical about politicians and I completely understand why. But, I hope what people will do is look at what we stand for."

On differences between the Liberals and NDP:

"I sure wish talking about philosophies was what we debated during this campaign. And, for my part, I am going to do that, I am going to talk about why we fought for the five conditions when it came to Kinder Morgan. We got them, $1.5 billion in new money from the feds for marine protection as an example. When it was approved, British Columbia got a big win out of that. I'd like to talk about that, and talk about why the NDP wanted to oppose, and continue to oppose all the jobs that would go with Kinder Morgan. Let's talk about LNG. We're fighting for that, the NDP want to shut down LNG. Let's talk about Site C. The NDP want to shut down Site C. What I think we should have in our democratic process is exactly what you said. Let's have a philosophical debate about the things we believe in. I can do that because we've got a platform, we've got ideas and we have a strong record of delivering on those ideas. There is a reason they're running ads where they don't talk about any ideas. It's because they don't have a plan for British Columbia."
Spicer Says Chicago's Gang Violence 'Inextricably Linked' To Sanctuary City Status

By aaroncynic in News on Mar 31, 2017 8:51PM



White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer conducts the daily press briefing at the White House March 31, 2017 in Washington, DC. Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty

Update 4:20 p.m.

White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer doubled down Friday on a sentiment President Donald Trump last shared in Februarythe accusation (unsupported by research) that violence in Chicago is caused by undocumented immigrants.

Through the magic of Skype, CBS2s Derrick Blakley asked Spicer if President Donald Trump would cut off some $12 million a year Chicago receives in law enforcement assistance from the federal government due to its status as a sanctuary city. Suggesting that violence in Chicago and its status as a sanctuary city are inextricably linked, Spicer said Trump has been clear from the beginning he would cut off federal funding for Chicago.

I think it would be interesting to want to send more money to a city that is allowing people to come into the country who are breaking the law who in many cases are committing crimes, members of gangs, said Spicer. You cant be a sanctuary city and at the same time seem to pretend or express concern about law enforcement or ask for more money when probably a number of the funds youre using in the first place are going to law enforcement to handle a situation that youve created for yourself.

Trump made similar (and also, similarly unverifiable) comments in February at a conference of police chiefs. You look at Chicago, and you look at other places, said Trump. So many of the problems are caused by gang members, many of whom are not even legally in our country.

But while the White House seems to be painting Chicago as a lawless dystopian hellscape, due in part to its status as a sanctuary city, there actual facts out there suggesting that immigrants are in fact, less likely to commit crimes than native born citizens. According to a January story by the New York Times, available evidence does not support the theory that undocumented immigrants commit a disproportionate share of crime.

Theres no way I can mess with the numbers to get a different conclusion, Alex Nowrasteh, an immigration policy analyst from the CATO Institute told the Times.

Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle shared that sentiment when Trump made his comments in February.

I dont know anyone in Chicago who believes that, Preckwinkle told CBS. Whether we are talking about African American or Latino neighborhoods, we are not talking about illegal immigrants. We are talking about our native born sons and daughters.



Update: Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuels office and the Chicago Police Department did not respond to a request for comment at the time of publication, but well update if they do.

A spokesperson for the Mayor's office blasted the Trump administration's claims:

"The comments trying to tie violence in Philadelphia and Chicago to immigration show a complete lack of understanding, and are not backed up by facts or crime data here or in other major cities," said Adam Collins in an email to Chicagoist. "If they cared as much about public safety as they claim they would stop playing politics with the issue and their support for public safety wouldn't come with strings attached."

The Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights said that Chicago's welcoming policies are meant to help immigrants access the criminal justice system, and that undoing Chicago's status as a sanctuary city would be unconstitutional.

"Cities like Chicago have crafted welcoming policies precisely so that immigrants can come forward to report crimes and go after those who are harming the community, and so that the criminal justice system can run its course," said Fred Tsao, senior policy council for ICIRR. "Also, any attempt to force Chicago to undo its welcoming policies by threatening federal grants is unconstitutional and will not withstand a court challenge."

Watch the full exchange between Spicer and Blakley (beginning at 3:07:42)
Photo: The Canadian Press

SpaceX successfully launched and then retrieved its first recycled rocket Thursday, a historic feat and the biggest leap yet in its bid to drive down costs and speed up flights.

It was the first time SpaceX founder Elon Musk tried to fly a booster that soared before on an orbital mission. He was at a loss for words after the Falcon 9 core landed on the bull's-eye of the ocean platform following liftoff with a broadcasting satellite, achieving what some had once told him was impossible.

"This is a huge day. My mind's blown, frankly," Musk said. He called it an "incredible milestone in the history of space" and predicted, "this is going to be a huge revolution in spaceflight."

Musk foresees dozens if not hundreds of repeat flights for a booster and rocket turnarounds of as little as 24 hours, perhaps by next year. Land, refuel and then back up again, with everything leading to one day putting humanity "out there among the stars."

This particular first stage landed on an ocean platform almost exactly a year ago after a space station launch for NASA. SpaceX refurbished and tested the 15-story booster, still sporting its nine original engines. It nailed another vertical landing at sea Thursday once it was finished boosting the satellite for the SES company of Luxembourg.
Photo: The Canadian Press

Russian submarines have increased combat patrols to the level last seen during the Cold War, the navy's chief said Friday.

Adm. Vladimir Korolyov said that Russian submarine crews spent more than 3,000 days on patrol last year, matching the Soviet-era operational tempo.

"It's an excellent level," he said in remarks carried by state RIA Novosti news agency.

The Russian military had fallen on hard times after the 1991 Soviet collapse when it was forced to scrap many relatively new ships and keep most others at harbour for lack of funds. The military has revived its strength thanks to a sweeping arms modernization program amid tensions with the West over Ukraine.

Korolyov spoke after attending the launch of a new Yasen-class nuclear-powered attack submarine called the Kazan.

The navy plans to commission seven Yasen-class submarines that are armed with torpedoes and long-range Kalibr cruise missiles.
Photo: The Canadian Press

A corroding South Korean ferry raised from the bottom of the sea last week arrived Friday at the port where it will be searched for the remains of the last nine victims of the 2014 sinking.

Dozens of relatives of the victims watched from nearby as workers from a port in Mokpo conducted operations to dock the heavy lift transport vessel that carried the 6,800-ton Sewol, lying with its rusty blue bottom facing land.

Finding the remains of the missing victims would bring a measure of closure to one of the country's deadliest disasters.

Most of the 304 people who died when the Sewol sank on April 16, 2014, were teenagers on a school trip, triggering a national outpouring of grief and outrage over what were seen as poor government rescue efforts. The anger contributed to the ouster of President Park Geun-hye, who was arrested earlier Friday over allegations of corruption.

Salvage crews on two barges raised the Sewol last week, rolling up nearly 70 cables connected to metal beams divers had installed beneath the ferry, which was lying on its left side below 44 metres of water.

Investigators will search for clues that could further explain the cause of the sinking, which has been blamed on excessive cargo, improper storage and other negligence.
Photo: Contributed

The Lower Mainland's unseasonably harsh winter has left Metro Vancouver roads peppered with potholes.

Many municipalities are discovering almost double the number of potholes they would usually see in spring.

Vancouver crews are dealing with nearly 15,000 potholes, and there were another 12,000 in Surrey.

Road crews are scrambling to fill the potholes, and another 730 in Coquitlam, CTV reports.

"It's been bad. It's been a headache. It's been hard because of heavy traffic," said Mike Edmison with the City of New Westminster.

 with files from CTV Vancouver
Photo: Contributed

A cook in the Lower Mainland has died after an accident involving a meat slicer.

On March 22, the cook at The Rivers Reach Pub in New Westminster had his arm cut off by a meat saw as he tried to turn it off. He died hours later in hospital.

WorkSafeBC is now investigating.

A GoFundMe page has identified the man as Sanjeev  a father of two in his 30s.

"While Harpreet, the mum, was taking care of the kids, her husband Sanjeev, a local chef was getting ready to go to another day of work," says the page.

"He left at his usual time. Little did the family know they were seeing their loving father, a caring husband and their only provider for the very last time."

 with files from CTV Vancouver
When a pack of bees swarmed the field in Arizona, the Rockies and Padres didn't seem to know what to do.

So they hit the deck.

In a bizarre scene at spring training Thursday, players from both teams went flat on the dirt when bees stormed the infield during the ninth inning of Colorado's 10-5 win over San Diego.

Padres pitcher Trey Wingenter stepped off the mound when the horde hit, and after hesitating a moment, the 6-foot-7 right-hander dropped to a knee. Rockies batter Daniel Castro quickly did the same, and then Wingenter, Castro, plate umpire Alex Tosi and everyone else in the infield dropped flat on their stomachs. The broadcast picked up someone yelling, "Bees! Bees!"

The players stayed down for about 10 seconds, and fans gave them a cheer when they finally stood up.

"I saw something happen over here as all the players got on the ground," Padres manager Bud Black said. "It was reminiscent of Petco Park a few years ago when a beekeeper had to come down from the left-field corner. That was about a 20-30 minute delay."
Photo: Contributed

Mike Hall's property is a car lover's dream.

Row upon row of classic cars sit on five acres of Shuswap land, and it can all be yours for a cool $1.45 million.

The Tappen property comes with 350-400 cars.

Hall has been collecting cars for more than 40 years. Now at 60 years old, he has decided to part with his passion.

I used to say I owned the cars, but now the cars own me, said Hall with a laugh.

Even though he is selling, he is still collecting and he has two more cars coming in from Alberta and one from Vancouver Island.

Hall decided to sell because his wife and children have no interest in the classic cruisers and should something happen to him, he didn't want the cars to be scrapped or crushed for their metal.

I have a lot of really neat stuff, said Hall, adding he only sells cars, not parts.

Ask him what he has that is rare and Hall rattles of a list of cars in detail including the engine size and how many were made.

Among them is a 1947 Mercury Ute (known as a utility car, half pickup) originally from Australia. He also has a 1966 Pontiac Beaumont SD with a V8 and four-speed transmission among the long list of rare autos he possesses.

Hall said he is not a mechanic, he is just someone with a passion for cars.

A rock scaler by trade, Hall collected his treasures from back roads and farm yards across the province.

I've been to every back road in B.C., said Hall, who was given the nickname RastaBlasta for his long, blond dreadlocks.

So what is Hall's favourite ride?

That would be his big-block Chevelle he has had for 30 years.

It cost me a bunch of money a while ago, he said before relaying a story of pulling out of a parking lot and doing a burn out. The only problem was there were two ghost cars behind me.

I get in that thing and I lose 50 IQ points.

Hall admits he is in no hurry to sell the cars  he hopes whoever buys them will have the same passion he does.
Photo: Castanet File Photo

The City of West Kelowna has determined how it will pay for the biggest project the young city has ever undertaken.

The city's share of the $53.5 million Rose Valley Water Treatment Plant will come mainly from internal sources, with short-term borrowing of $1.63 million to cover the shortfall.

The project received a financial boost earlier this month when the provincial and federal governments antied up $41 million.

The Rose Valley reservoir currently serves Lakeview water system users. However, once the project is complete, it will interconnect the Pritchard, Sunnyside and West Kelowna Estates water systems.

About 18,000 West Kelowna residents will be served through the new treatment plant.

Those four systems have all been merged into one local service area and will pay one uniform rate. Rate adjustments will be considered at an upcoming meeting of council.

The city will now look for a qualified project management company to oversee design, and build of the new treatment plant.

Lakeview water users are advised that during construction, they may face water quality issues.
Photo: Instagram

An American footwear company has sparked disapproval on social media over high heeled shoes for babies.

Pee Wee Pumps says babies will be the "belle of the ball" in the shoes.

But the BBC reports people are criticizing the company amid a growing concern at what is seen as the sexualization of children.

Company founder Michele Holbrook says the shoes are intended as a photo prop only and meant to be "funny and cute."

In a post this week on the company's Facebook page, an infant in heels sits on a miniature motorbike with the caption: "This little #Diva, defining cool posing in her #PeeWeePumps."

The image was criticized by a number of the site's users, who suggested it was "wrong" and "disgusting" to portray babies in such a way.

"This is not ok," wrote Melissa Balinski.
Photo: The Canadian Press Marksville City Marshals Derrick Stafford, left, and Norris Greenhouse Jr.

A Louisiana law enforcement officer was sentenced Friday to 40 years in prison a week after being convicted of manslaughter in the shooting death of a six-year-old boy with autism.

Derrick Stafford, 33, was convicted in the November 2015 shooting that killed Jeremy Mardis and critically wounded his father after a three-kilometre car chase in Marksville.

Ruth Wisher, a spokeswoman for Attorney General Jeff Landry's office, said Stafford was sentenced to 40 years for manslaughter and 15 years for attempted manslaughter. He will serve the sentences concurrently.

The Advocate reported that Stafford had faced a maximum of 60 years in prison when state District Judge William Bennett sentenced him.

Video from a police officer's body camera shows the boy's father, Christopher Few, had his hands raised inside his vehicle while Stafford and a second deputy city marshal collectively fired 18 shots at the vehicle.

Stafford and Norris Greenhouse Jr., the other deputy who fired his weapon that night, were arrested less than a week after the shooting. Greenhouse, 25, awaits a separate trial on murder charges later this year.

Stafford testified at trial that he didn't know the boy was in the car when he fired and didn't see his father's hands in the air.

But he said he shot at the car because he feared Few was going to back up and hit Greenhouse with his vehicle. Stafford said Greenhouse stumbled and fell to the ground as he tried to back away from Few's car.

Two other officers at the scene - a third deputy city marshal and a Marksville police officer - didn't fire their weapons that night. Prosecutors said the officers weren't in any danger and shot at the car from a safe distance.

Stafford and Greenhouse are black. Few is white, and so was his son.
A gongbi (meticulous brushwork) painting by artist Jiang Hongwei.

Changing natural scenery has always been a favor of landscape painters, whatever techniques and methods they employ.

Beijing-based artist Jiang Hongwei has created a lithograph series, in which he uses the gongbi (meticulous brushwork) skill to depict dynamic scenes of four seasons. He names the series 24 Solar Terms, a knowledge system that ancient Chinese developed to summarize different climate phenomena. The system provides a time frame for people to conduct agrarian activities, everyday life and festive events.

Now art lovers can purchase the series on China Everbright Bank's online store and via its WeChat account.

The products are on offer under a five-year cooperation between the bank and Phoenix Link, a creativity company affiliated to Hong Kong-based Phoenix Television, according to their joint announcement on March 20 in Beijing.

The two sides will launch more similar products relating to Chinese cultural traditions on China Everbright Bank's digital platforms. For example, they plan to work with Beijings Palace Museum and a dozen of artists to create more creativity objects showing the cultural depth of 24 Solar Terms.
Photo: The Canadian Press Dylann Storm Roof

Convicted South Carolina church shooter Dylann Roof is set to plead guilty to state murder charges, avoiding a second death sentence and effectively bringing to a close the prosecutions against him for the 2015 slaughter.

Solicitor Scarlett Wilson told The Associated Press on Friday that Roof is scheduled to enter a guilty plea during a hearing on April 10 in Charleston. The plea on all of his state charges, including nine counts of murder, comes in exchange for a sentence of life in prison, the prosecutor said.

Roof, 22, has been awaiting trial on state murder charges for the deaths of nine black parishioners at Charleston's Emanuel AME Church in June 2015. Authorities said Roof spent months planning his attack on the historic black church, driving by the church and calling to check on service times. Roof sat through an hour of Bible study one Wednesday night before opening fire during a prayer, when participants' eyes were closed, authorities said.

The deal won't save Roof from a possible execution. Earlier this year, a federal jury sentenced him to death on charges including hate crimes and obstruction of the practice of religion. Roof's federal defence team had signalled a willingness to plead guilty ahead of that trial, if the death penalty were off the table, but federal prosecutors refused to drop their pursuit.

Roof ultimately fired his defence team for the sentencing phase of his federal trial and represented himself. The self-avowed white supremacist called no witnesses, never asked for forgiveness or mercy or explained the massacre and told jurors in his closing argument, "I still feel like I had to do it."

The state plea will mark the end of the trial proceedings against Roof, who has been in custody ever since his arrest the day after the shootings. Aside from trips to and from court, he's been housed in the Charleston County jail, about 21 kilometres north of the church where the slayings took place.

After his federal sentencing, Roof was returned to that jail instead of federal death row in Terre Haute, Indiana, since his state trial was expected to come this year. Now, if this deal goes through, authorities can transfer him to serve his sentence and await the results of the years of appeals that will surely ensue. Roof has already filed for a new federal trial, arguing that federal prosecutors didn't have jurisdiction to bring their case against him.

Roof's state defence team didn't immediately return a phone message seeking comment on the plea deal.
Photo: The Canadian Press Plaintiff attorney Jason Forge, right, speaks alongside attorney Rachel Jensen, second from right

A judge on Friday approved an agreement for President Donald Trump to pay $25 million to settle lawsuits over his now-defunct Trump University, ending nearly seven years of legal battles with customers who claimed they were misled by failed promises to teach success in real estate.

The ruling by U.S. District Judge Gonzalo Curiel in San Diego settles two class-action lawsuits and a civil lawsuit by New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman.

Trump had vowed never to settle but said after the election that he didn't have time for a trial, even though he believed he would have prevailed. Under terms of the settlement, he admits no wrongdoing.

Neither the White House nor Trump's attorneys immediately responded to requests for comment on the ruling.

The lawsuits alleged that Trump University gave nationwide seminars that were like infomercials, constantly pressuring people to spend more and, in the end, failing to deliver.

The controversy dogged the Republican businessman throughout the campaign as rivals used Trump's depositions and extensive documents filed in the lawsuits to portray him as dishonest and deceitful.

Trump brought more attention by repeatedly assailing Curiel, insinuating that the Indiana-born judge's Mexican heritage exposed a bias.

Attorneys say former customers will get at least 90 per cent of their money back, based on the roughly 3,730 claims submitted. The attorneys waived their fees, and Schneiderman contributed $1.6 million of his $4 million portion of the settlement to the customers, raising their payouts.

The Democratic New York attorney general said Friday's ruling "will provide relief  and hopefully much-needed closure  to the victims of Donald Trump's fraudulent university."

"Trump University's victims waited years for compensation, while President Trump refused to settle and fought us every step of the way  until his stunning reversal last fall," he said.

Attorneys for the former customers had no immediate comment but praised the settlement after an hourlong hearing Thursday before Curiel, saying it would allow customers to retire debt-free and overcome other financial obstacles.

"We have many plaintiffs whose lives will be changed," attorney Rachel Jensen said.

Curiel's six-page ruling does not detail his thinking, but he said Thursday that the high payments weighed in favour of approval. He noted that only two of about 7,000 eligible class-action members objected to the terms.
Photo: The Canadian Press Crews work on a section of an overpass that collapsed from a large fire on Interstate 85 in Atlanta

Atlanta's dreadful rush-hour traffic could be extra nasty for months to come after a raging fire underneath Interstate 85 collapsed an elevated portion of the highway and shut down the heavily travelled route through the heart of the city.

Traffic was bumper to bumper on nearby streets as drivers were forced to take a detour Friday, the morning after the blaze caused the concrete to crumble.

The collapse took place a few miles north of downtown, and the effects could fall most heavily on commuters from Atlanta's densely populated northern suburbs. They will have to find other routes to work or ride mass transit.

Connie Bailey-Blake, of Dacula, 37 miles northeast of Atlanta, waited for a MARTA commuter train to reach her job downtown. She typically drives, often by way of the interstate.

"I'm supposed to be at work at 9 a.m. and it's 9:15 a.m.," Bailey-Blake said. "The first few days are going to be difficult. This will be my new life."

Amelia Ford picked a new route to work by car and said it took her 45 minutes to travel 3 miles from her Atlanta home to the nearest open on-ramp to the interstate.

Georgia Transportation Commissioner Russell McMurry said 350 feet of highway will need to be replaced in both directions on I-85, which carries about 400,000 cars a day through the city and is one of the South's most important north-south routes.

He said repairs will take months but declined to be more specific.

The collapse effectively "puts a cork in the bottle," Georgia State Patrol Commissioner Mark McDonough said.
Photo: Contributed

Bombardier needs to respond to the shock it created among citizens and elected officials regarding the dramatic increases in executive pay at the company, senior Quebec Liberal ministers said Friday.

The aerospace giant needs to review its compensation policy in light of the fact the company is receiving hundreds of millions of dollars in taxpayer subsidies yet awarded a nearly 50 per cent pay increase to six top executives in 2016, said Economy Minister Dominique Anglade.

"I am inviting the company to act in a way that reflects the actual situation and the understanding of the issue that was created," she said.

Total compensation for the Montreal-based manufacturer's top five executives and board chairman Pierre Beaudoin was US$32.6 million in 2016, up from US$21.9 million the year before.

The Quebec government gave Bombardier roughly US$1 billion in 2016 while the federal government recently announced a $372.5-million loan package for the firm's CSeries and Global 7000 aircraft programs.

Anglade said she is not questioning the merit of her government's aid package, saying it was necessary to create jobs and help the plane maker with its CSeries program.

She said, however, "the decision that (Bombardier) took shocked the population  and with reason."

Finance Minister Carlos Leitao also weighed in following a speech in Montreal on Friday, adding that he also "invites the board of directors to review its executive compensation policy."

Bombardier did not immediately respond to a request seeking comment.

In its regulatory filing, Bombardier attributed the higher compensation to a number of factors, including achieving profit and cash flow targets, securing CSeries orders and completing the first flight of the Global 7000 business jet.
Photo: Gary Makinson

UPDATE 4:30 p.m.

The Penticton Fire Department has confirmed nobody was injured in the crash.

ORIGINAL 3:00 p.m.

Traffic on Main Street was snarled on Friday around 12 p.m., due to a crash in front of the car wash.

Submitted photos show two involved vehicles blocking traffic after the collision. Traffic was able to squeeze past the scene in the outside lanes.

Its not clear if anyone was injured in the crash, Castanet has reached out to the Penticton Fire Department for comment. More information will be posted as it becomes available.
At the March 27th RDCO Board meeting, after a member of the public stood up to ask questions about the costs and budget around the dismantling of resident park caretaker program, the budget questions were not answered, but Chair Gail Given said that the Board is currently "receiving public feedback and public input" and that "the matter is coming back to the Board at a future Board meeting." Good news.

However, in the supposedly "open" forum for discussing the five year financial plan, I and others asked what the cost savings for the cut to this program are and they just won't answer. Since the newspaper report in Castanet on September 21 2016, when Bruce Smith is quoted as saying "the regional district expects to save money as a result of the move, however, how much has not been determined" to the November 8th, Vancouver Sun report that says "Regional officials have said there will be cost savings associated with the change to having the Commissionaires look after the parks," cost savings have been publicly noted as one reason for the dismantling of the park caretaker program.

By now, with this budget process finished, you'd think these figures would be clear. Yet CAO Mr. Brian Reardon in an email to me said that the 'Security Services' savings of a peculiar $19.2K that I noticed and asked about is a reduction "for the entire Regional Parks system and accounts for overall adjustments to the number of parks receiving Security Services as well as making adjustments to service levels in various parks based on operational needs."

This reads to me that it is not the dismantling of the park caretaker system that is saving money, but an overall reduction in the costs or the services provided to many other parks-parks unnamed. I think it is time the media stepped up to ask some tough budget questions of the RDCO. Maybe asking which parks are going to be affected by a reduction in security services and what services are being cut or reduced.

I keep asking how the dismantling of the resident park caretaker program is going to be saving money since that has, since the beginning, been given as a reason. I keep getting a wall of silence.

Nancy Holmes
The insurance market Lloyd's of London announced Thursday annual profits of 2.1 billion pounds (about 2.62 billion U.S. dollars), after one of the toughest trading years for a quarter of a century.

Lloyd's saw its combined ratio -- losses and expenses divided by the earned premium, and a common measure of profitability -- move unfavorably from 90 percent to 97.9 percent over 2016, indicating a tough trading year.

Conditions over the course of the year were extremely challenging, with continued downwards pressure on pricing while traditional and alternative capital remained attracted to the insurance industry.

The 2016 profits were the same as for 2015.

"There is huge capacity creating tough conditions. The conditions are probably as tough as they have been for 25 years," Lloyd's chairman John Nelson told Xinhua in an interview.

The level of Lloyd's major claims, at 2.1 billion pounds, was the fifth highest since the turn of the century and above the long-term average, according to the chairman.

"Our underwriting result is significantly down from 2 billion pounds to about 400 million pounds, and that is down to two things: one is that we have had more claims particularly major claims than we have had for some years," said Nelson.

The other main change, Nelson said, was that investment income has improved significantly because of better performance, particularly in bond portfolios where there was an inward yield shift and also in equities.

"Our total assets have just ticked over 100 billion pounds this year. Our net assets are just over 30 billion pounds and our financial ratings are at an all-time high. So, we are in a strong financial position and we are seeing very tough conditions and I don't see in the short term those conditions changing very much," he said.

The formal announcement of Britain's exit from the European Union (EU) was anticipated by Lloyd's, and in order to protect its business it plans to open an office in Brussels in 2018.

"We anticipate that the subsidiary will be running in 2018, and we will certainly be writing all our EU business through that subsidiary early 2019," said Nelson.
China plans to build a Giant Panda National Park spanning three provinces to help the endangered animals mingle and enrich their gene pool. [Photo/Xinhua]

China plans to build a Giant Panda National Park spanning three provinces to help the endangered animals mingle and enrich their gene pool.

Pandas isolated on six mountains in Gansu, Shaanxi and Sichuan will be able to come together in the proposed national park.

The park will cover 27,134 square kilometers, three times the area of America's Yellowstone National Park. It will have a core area, protecting pandas in 67 current reserves as well as another 8,000 endangered animals and plants.

Like many other endangered species, pandas are suffering habitat loss and fragmentation due to natural disasters, climate change and expanding human activity.

Multiple administrations in three provinces worsen the situation. When a panda crosses a provincial boundary, jurisdiction becomes blurred.

The park will resolve such troubles. When it is complete, pandas will roam freely between the current far-flung habitats. It also means a lot of people will have to move - at least 170,000 people in Sichuan will have to relocate to establish the core protection area.

"Unlike nature reserves, the park does not stand alone. China will formulate an overall plan for the national park system. It will be a haven for biodiversity and provide protection for the whole ecological system," says Hou Rong, director of Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding.

China's national park system comprises the Giant Panda National Park and eight others devoted to endangered species and the headwaters of major rivers. The central authorities last year endorsed reform plans to "advance ecological progress," which included the plan to establish national park system.

Hou says the park will offer residents new homes and work. It could, for example, hire them as guides for tourists and as workers to build infrastructure, so people and nature will benefit together.

People have lived in panda reserves for generations, but they cut bamboo shoots and grazed livestock on hills, eating into the pandas' habitat and disrupting their lives.

Qubie Mazi, of the Yi ethnic minority, has lived in Sichuan's Hei Hezi Village for 40 years, making a living by growing potatoes and collecting herbs. A panda reserve in the village is a key corridor connecting populations in Liangshan Mountain.

Poverty once drove the villagers to poach pandas, but after a penalty and bonus system was introduced, they learned to value national treasure and they now cherish them.

"I saw a panda in one of the village houses a month ago. I guess he came to look for food or company. I know when they need to mate, they will go to the other side of the mountain. When I find something unusual about the pandas, I report it to the reserve," says Qubie.

Asked how he feels about making way for pandas, he says, "I will move, if I can have a new home and a new job."

"We should lead locals to protect the environment, not to spoil it," says Heng Yi, senior staff of China Conservation and Research Center for the Giant Panda (CCRCGP). "The key measure is to help people live a sustainable life and to get them out of poverty."

"Once they have access to electricity, they will stop cutting bamboos. If they have a decent job and steady income, they won't risk to poach pandas," he added.

RETURN TO THE WILD

The national park plan has had to address significant economic and practical challenges, Hou says. Panda conservation work has gone through three major stages: breeding, reintroduction to the wild and the national park.

"We had to start captive-breeding programs in the late 1990s, as the number of pandas dropped dramatically in the 1980s, partly because of a periodic natural die-off of bamboo," says Hou.

Chinese scientists toiled to breed the reclusive animal in captivity, overcoming some early failures. Last year, 64 cubs were born and 54 survive in nature reserves and zoos, according to the State Forestry Administration.

Scientists are also troubled by the pandas' inbreeding. For many years, they worked with international research teams to make pandas one of the most genetically diverse animals in captivity.

In order to enrich the gene pool, CCRCGP started the reintroduction program in 2003. It has reintroduced seven pandas into the wild, but two died.

Keeping them behind the bars is the last thing CCRCGP director Zhang Hemin wants. "The goal of breeding and reintroduction is to eventually put the animals back into bamboo forests and expect them to mate with their wild cousins."

Thanks to these dogged conservation efforts, 1,864 pandas remain in the wild, 17 percent more than a decade ago, according to the most recent national survey in February 2015.

The aim is to raise the wild population to more than 2,000 by 2025. This requires a large protection area and an upgraded eco-system. "That' s why many scientists and conservation experts support the building of a national park," says Hou, who made the suggestion in 2014.

Few people are aware of how pandas live in the wild, says Hou. Much of their range is fragmented, and only a few large continuous tracts remain where the animals can roam freely.

According to a report by WWF, roads and railroads are increasingly fragmenting the forest, which further isolates panda populations and prevents mating, while forest destruction reduces their access to the bamboo they need to survive.

Some sub-populations number fewer than 10 members. This makes them vulnerable to disease and reproductive problems, and less able to adapt to a changing environment.

While the park paints a wonderful picture for the conservation of pandas and the restoration of the ecological system, it also faces challenges and risks.

Restoring effective corridors for panda migration is no easy job. Twenty corridor plans across the six mountains have been proposed since 1988, but few came to reality.

"China still needs to do more empirical studies and to carry out conservation activities to put these corridors into real use," says Melissa Songer, a conservation biologist from the Smithsonian's National Zoological Park.

In 2015, China's National Development and Reform Commission and the Chicago-based Paulson Institute signed a cooperation framework protocol to carry out pilot programs and case studies.

"Past experience has told us how much a national park can do for a country's environment and ecology," says David Wildt, a senior scientist from the Smithsonian's Conservation Biology Institute.

"I am delighted to see China's breakthrough in panda breeding and reintroduction programs. But it's time to test if these measures work out in the new system of national parks."
Premier Li addresses a welcome banquet on March 28 in Aukland. [Photo/Xinhua]

A Chinese multidimensional foreign policy is clearly emerging, and the implementation of its " Belt and Road " policy forms part of establishing an extended network and forging harmonious relations with countries where the ancient Silk Road is being revitalized.

However, the Asian-Pacific region naturally constitutes one of the areas on which the Chinese administration is steadily focusing. There is no better example than the visit of Premier Li Keqiang to Australia and New Zealand.

Both Australia and New Zealand are significant for the evolution of trade, the signing of new business deals and the potential creation of joint ventures. The entrance into force of bilateral free trade agreements with China - signed in 2015 and 2008 respectively - facilitates this process.

Hence, Premier Li discussed with his Australian and New Zealand counterparts Malcolm Turnbull and Bill English how best to work with them to cover more sections of the economy or seek significant upgrades.

A simple Internet search of sources from Australia and New Zealand provides numerous results showing the benefits stemming from their free trade agreements with China.

At this juncture, however, every discussion about economic collaboration has a wider dimension that goes beyond profitability. Canberra and Wellington had invested heavily in making a success of former U.S. President Barack Obama's initiative to establish the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP).

However, President Donald Trump had hardly settled into office before he scuttled the TPP as far as America was concerned, effectively destroying it.

In the aftermath of Trump's decision, Australia and New Zealand need to readjust their policies. China's led scheme - the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) - could perhaps take over from the TPP.

Its proposal for a free trade area in the Asia-Pacific region, as reiterated by President Xi Jinping during the APEC Summit last November in Lima, constitutes a step forward. For its part, Australia is refocusing on a post-TPP multilateral trade bloc with a Chinese rather than US centerpiece. New Zealand is also elaborating on its stance to this "Plan B."

Irrespective of the form the new multilateral trade agreement in the Asia-Pacific region will take, what is currently more important is that China seems to be the driving force. This is happening not only because of the American withdrawal from the TPP but because the Trump administration is employing an anti-globalization rhetoric.

Its emphasis on "free and fair trade" entails a preference for bilateral deals and an opposition to multilateral ones, whether they happen to be the TPP, the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) or the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).

As things are developing after Trump's inauguration, China has remained the most powerful supporter of globalization. President Xi set the tone during the Davos World Economic Forum sparking much international analysis.

Australia and New Zealand are well aware of the new reality. This has been apparent during the meetings between Li and his counterparts in Canberra and Wellington respectively. Turnbull summed it up well: "Protectionism is not a ladder to get you out of a low growth trap - it's a big shovel to dig it deeper."

From another perspective, the evolution of Sino-Australian and the Sino-New Zealand relations will be critical to explore how two pro-Western countries will accommodate Chinese and American strategic interests.

Vice President Mike Pence is expected to visit Australia in mid-April - maybe in an attempt to increase the influence of his country after the TPP setback. So far, no plans for a New Zealand visit have been announced.

On the whole, there is a traditional suspicious tendency by Washington vis-a-vis China's move to invest in the infrastructure of other countries. Australia and New Zealand are no exception.

Canberra and Wellington have not been prepared to see themselves caught up in the alleged Sino-American rivalry. On the occasion of Li's visit, Malcolm Turnbull clarified that his country "does not have to choose between the U.S. and China." For his part, New Zealand Trade Minister Todd McClay said closer ties with Beijing need not affect relations with Washington.

These messages are certainly positive. Whether they are realistic though remains to be seen in the future.

China is carefully monitoring U.S. reactions to the implementation of its "Belt and Road" policy. However, as long as this initiative is bringing "win-win" results for China and its partners, Washington can hardly block it.

George N. Tzogopoulos is a columnist with China.org.cn. For more information please visit:

http://www.china.org.cn/opinion/GeorgeNTzogopoulos.htm

Opinion articles reflect the views of their authors, not necessarily those of China.org.cn.
Colombian cement dispatches slip 3.6% in Feb17

ICR Newsroom By 31 March 2017

Colombia's cement market in February 2017 contracted 3.6 per cent to 1.008Mt when compared with February 2016, according to DANE, the country's statistics office.

Domestic cement plants produced 1.048Mt in the second month of the year, representing a 2.6 per cent decline YoY.



In January-February 2017, cement sales reached 1.921Mt and were down 3.2 per cent when compared with January-February 2016. Cement production in the first two months of 2017 fell 4.2 per cent YoY to 1.959Mt.



The largest decreases in sales in the 2M17 were noted in Casanare (-36.3 per cent), Boyaca (-18 per cent) and Santander (-11.8 per cent). However, sales growth was also noted in some departments. Sales in Caldas rose by 8.9 per cent YoY while Antioquia saw a 5.4 per cent rise YoY and dispatches in Cundinamarca advanced by three per cent in 2M17.

Published under
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Former South Korean President Park Geun-hye (C) is transferred in a car from Seoul to a detention house in Gyeonggi province, South Korea, on March 31, 2017. Former President Park Geun-hye of South Korea was arrested early Friday as a Seoul court approved the request from prosecutors following her impeachment earlier this month over a corruption scandal embroiling her. (Xinhua/NEWSIS)

Former President Park Geun-hye of South Korea was arrested early Friday after a court approved the request from prosecutors, raising a possibility for her to serve jail term over corruption allegations.

A judge in the Seoul Central District Court said in a statement that Park's major criminal allegations could be justified and concerns remained over a possibility of her destroying evidence.

The arrest warrant for Park, which was sought by prosecutors earlier this week, was issued by the court, following the Thursday hearing that had lasted for nearly nine hours, the longest-ever in the country's history.

Park had waited overnight for the court's decision in the Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office, a building next to the Seoul court.

The 65-year-old was seen flanked by two female investigators inside a black sedan, TV footage showed, when she was moved to a detention center outside Seoul, about 15 km away from the prosecution office.

The sedan was escorted by security cars and police motorcycles, trailed by a number of vehicles loaded with local media cameramen. Park went to the detention center at about 4:45 a.m. local time.

A slew of Park supporters were awaiting Park's arrival near the detention center as if they also expected the arrest of the former leader, who had been viewed as a political icon among conservative voters.

Park left the presidential Blue House after his father Park Chung-hee, who had ruled the country for 18 years, was assassinated in 1979 by one of his closest aides. She re-entered the office in early 2013 after being elected the first female president of the country, but she failed to fulfill her five-year term and left the office in disgrace.

The Constitutional Court removed Park from office in a historic ruling on March 10, making Park the country's first president to be ousted by impeachment.

After a brief physical check-up, Park was supposed to change into prison garb and be sent to a solitary cell in the detention center, according to local media reports.

The detention center already accommodated Park's longtime confidante Choi Soon-sil, who is at the center of the corruption scandal that led to Park's impeachment, and Samsung Electronics Vice Chairman Lee Jae-yong over bribery charges.

Park became the third former president to be taken into custody. She will be held in detention for as long as 20 days while being investigated further by prosecutors.

The detention itself does not guarantee Park's conviction, but it raises a possibility of being sentenced to a prison term. If convicted of bribery, Park would face an imprisonment of at least 10 years.

Park is to be indicted before the end of the 20-day detention period on a total of 13 charges, including bribery, abuse of authority, coercion and the leakage of confidential documents.

She is accused of colluding with Choi to receive tens of millions of U.S. dollars in bribes from Samsung's Vice Chairman Lee.

The bribes were offered in return for getting assistance in the transfer of management control of Samsung Group to Vice Chairman Lee from his ailing father Chairman Lee Kun-hee.

The younger Lee, an heir apparent of the country's biggest family-controlled conglomerate, has effectively taken the helm of Samsung since Chairman Lee was hospitalized after a heart attack three years ago.

Choi is charged with extorting tens of millions of dollars from scores of conglomerates to establish two non-profit foundations she used for personal gains. Prosecutors already branded Park and Choi as criminal accomplices.

Choi, at the center of the influence-peddling scandal, is also suspected of receiving secret government documents from one of Park's former secretaries on a regular basis to meddle in state affairs behind the scenes.
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The former president of Brazil's Chamber of Deputies Eduardo Cunha was sentenced to 15 years and 4 months imprisonment on Thursday for corruption, money laundering and tax evasion.

It caps a startling fall from power for one of Brazil's most polarizing politicians who began the impeachment campaign which ultimately ousted former president Dilma Rousseff in August 2016.

Federal judge Sergio Moro, who oversees cases related to the Petrobras corruption ring, accepted the charges presented by the prosecutor-general against Cunha, who was accused of receiving 1.5 million U.S. dollars in bribes to facilitate a Petrobras oil exploration contract in Benin.

Cunha, 58, is a member of President Michel Temer's ruling Brazilian Democratic Movement Party (PMDB). He was president of the Chamber of Deputies from February 2015 until July 2016, when he stepped down due to corruption accusations against him.

In that role, he declared his opposition to Rousseff and began proceedings to impeach her.

A religious conservative, Cunha had been arrested in October on charges of corruption related to the Petrobras investigation.

In September 2016, the Chamber of Deputies ousted him from his seat for having lied under oath about having bank accounts outside Brazil. Swiss authorities discovered bank accounts with millions of dollars in Cunha's name and turned the information over to Brazil.

This is the first sentence against Cunha, one of hundreds of Brazilian politicians linked to the Petrobras corruption ring.
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Police in North Wales confirmed Thursday night that five people killed in a helicopter crash were all members of the same family.

Mountain rescuers Thursday located the missing helicopter which crashed in the scenic mountain area of Snowdonia in North Wales, with the bodies of five adults at the crash site.

A team from the Air Accident Investigation Bureau arrived at the remote site Thursday to carry out an on-the-spot investigation into what went wrong.

They are studying reports that the thick cloud in the mountain area reduced visibility to as little as 10 meters on Wednesday.

The helicopter was on route from the Midlands region of England to the Irish capital, Dublin, when it disappeared from radar screens on Wednesday.

A sea search was launched to look for any signs of the helicopter in the Irish Sea.

The search came to a tragic end Thursday when wreckage was found in Snowdonia, one of Britain's most scenic areas and a mecca for tourists and hill walkers. Five bodies were found at the scene of the wreckage.

Local media in North Wales and Central England were reporting that the victims were a millionaire businessman and his wife, and three members of his extended family from the Milton Keynes area of England. The BBC was reporting that the victims were flying to Ireland for a family Christening party.

Police Superintendent Gareth Evans of North Wales Police said in a statement Thursday: "Police and Mountain Rescue Teams searching for the missing helicopter in Snowdonia found wreckage and sadly the bodies of five people, all of whom are deceased.

"The exact location is not being revealed at this time to allow a dignified and unhindered recovery of the bodies."

Police said recovery efforts are being hampered due to worsening weather conditions and the difficult and treacherous remote terrain.

The official coroner for northwest Wales Dewi Pritchard-Jones has opened an investigation into the five deaths, North Wales Police said.

The helicopter was a Twin Squirrel, an aircraft popular with police forces and air charter companies.
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U.S. President Donald Trump looks forward to meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping to chart a way forward on the U.S.-China relationship, the White House said Thursday.

The two leaders will meet at Mar-a-Lago, Florida on April 6-7 for their first meeting since Trump assumed office in January, China and the United States concurrently announced earlier Thursday.

"The president looks forward to meeting with President Xi and exchanging views on each other's respective priorities, and to chart a way forward on a bilateral relationship between our two nations," White House spokesman Sean Spicer told a news briefing.

They will discuss issues of mutual concern, including the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, trade, and regional security, he added.

Spicer said the two sides reached agreement on the dates, locations and agendas of the Xi-Trump summit after several weeks of discussions.

Asked about the U.S. goal for the meeting, Spicer said this will be an opportunity for Trump "to develop a relationship in person with President Xi."
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Members of the Chinese community gather at Place de la Bastille in Paris, France, March 30, 2017, after a Chinese man was shot dead by police at his Paris home last Sunday, triggering riots in the French capital by members of the Chinese community and a diplomatic protest by Beijing. [Photo/ VCG]

An autopsy report shows the Chinese man shot dead in Paris on Sunday night by a French policeman suffered a gunshot to his heart.

The report, released on Wednesday night, said the fatal bullet came from a Sig Sauer 9mm handgun. The shot hit 2mm into the left side of the heart, sufficient to cause instant death.

However, the autopsy report did not state who was responsible for the tragedy.

Liu Shaoyao, 56, was described as a "loving father" by his children. His death caused uproar among Chinese community in Paris as well as in China. The French police previously claimed Liu was shot in an act of "legitimate defense" against "an assailant with scissors," after the police were called to deal with an alleged "domestic dispute."

However, Liu's family claimed the scissors were being used in preparing fish for cooking, and he had no record of psychiatric problems, alcoholic abuse nor a record of violence in the past; hence, he should have been warned first rather than being shot directly after their door was broken down.

Liu's daughter further explained that the policemen were in plain clothes. Liu saw the plainclothes police officer through the peephole in the door, but he was afraid to open it. The police then smashed down the door, and, upon seeing Liu holding the scissors, shot him.

Liu probably had good reason to believe those plainclothes policemen were gangsters. The newspaper Nouvelles D'Europe reported there was precedent that in December 2016, several fake cops illegally imprisoned another Chinese family in Seine-Saint-Denis.

Local media reports from Le Monde and Le Nouvel Observateur both quoted a neighbor's account, confirming that she also looked through the door viewer when she heard someone loudly knocking on Liu's door. "They were just knocking at the door, and they were in plain clothes, and they didn't say they were police. Two minutes later, I heard the gunshot; it was too fast."

Currently, there are two investigations underway related to the case. One is from the Paris prosecution department regarding a possible attempted homicide directed against a police officer, and the second from the General Inspectorate of the National Police, on the use of a lethal weapon by a police officer.

The police officer who shot Liu has been suspended and is on sick leave, undergoing psychological counseling, according to local media.

The protests against Liu's shooting and police brutality have continued for four days in the French capital. However, protesters yesterday were more calm and peaceful than the first three days.

Hundreds of protesters gathered in Paris' 19th arrondissement, where Liu was shot dead, on Monday and Tuesday, with demonstrations turning into riots on both nights. A total of 35 persons were arrested on Monday evening, with four remaining in police custody. No arrests were made on Wednesday, but two protesters and six security officers were injured in clashes.

China has called for overseas Chinese living in France to react rationally amid the protests over the shooting. "We understand the reactions of Chinese people to this incident, and hope they can exercise restraint, avoid repeating such conflicts and escalating tensions," sad Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lu Kang at a daily briefing on Wednesday.

The Chinese migrant community also held a meeting on Thursday and released a joint statement, sending deep condolences to Liu's family and appealing to the French authorities and police to respect human rights and not to overreact in the law enforcement process despite terrorist threats.

Liu Shaoyao's memorial service and demonstration will be held on April 1, community leaders said.
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U.S. President Donald Trump signs an "energy independence" executive order in Washington on March 28. [Photo/Xinhua]

A Chinese expert in climate change said U.S. President Donald Trump's latest energy and climate-related policy is "not necessarily catastrophic" and its real impact needs to be closely watched from now on.

Trump signed an "energy independence" executive order on March 28, which dismantles many of his predecessor Barack Obama's climate policies and has been lambasted by climate scientists and environment campaigners.

However, Zou Ji, a Chinese climate expert and senior negotiator, believes "Obama's climate policies were not necessarily that helpful, and Trump's move this time is not necessarily that catastrophic."

Zou told China.org.cn by phone on March 30 that the climate pledge made by Obama was not "ambitious enough and somewhat watered down," thus the incumbent president's determination to revoke it will not necessarily mean a very severe regression in actual effect.

The United States contributes around 16 percent of the world's carbon emissions, and Obama had pledges to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 26 to 28 percent below its 2005 level by 2025 and to "make best efforts" to reduce overall emissions by 28 percent.

Zou said the key factors in the U.S. carbon reduction and low-carbon agenda still remained intact under Trump; for instance, the tax reduction and exemption for renewable energy is not likely to be rescinded.

He believed the market would continue to play a fundamental role in America's energy and climate choice, despite President Trump's promise to bring back the coal industry. The price of coal-fired power is higher than gas power and has thus lost its appeal in the United States, he said.

A key part of the executive order on Tuesday is a review of the Obama-era Clean Power Plan, which focused on reducing the country's emissions from coal-burning power plants, as well as increasing the use of renewable energy. The plan is often seen as a lynchpin in America's climate agenda.

Zou said "reviewing" the Clean Power Plan virtually means putting it on hold, as it could not be implemented in the process of a review that might take years.

Trump is widely seen as a climate skeptic who vowed to pull the U.S. out of the landmark Paris climate agreement during his presidential campaign. The move this time is seen by some as meeting his campaign promise.

Zou said that, whether the U.S. would officially withdraw from the Paris Agreement needs to be carefully watched, adding that, if it took place, it would bring negative ramifications in its domestic climate agenda as well as its accountability in the international community.
A new church was dedicated in Baotou, Inner Mongolia from March 24 to 25, 2017. Rev. Wang Xiaozhen, vice-chairman of Inner Mongolia TSPM, presided the ceremony with more than 5000 people in attendance. The former church was demolished in August 2015, owing to the expansion of a local industrial park.

Covering an area of 0.988 acre, the construction for the new Maoqilai Church was completed in August 2016.

Rev. Zhang Qun, president of Baotou CCC, encouraged the congregation to offer their money, time, talents and bodies to the Lord, quoting Romans 12:1-2.

Translated by Karen Luo
At the core of every hero is the spirit of caring for the welfare of others. Whether theyre nine or 90, true heroes dont seek acclaim for doing what seems to come naturally to them.

Tony Liedl, Interim CEO at the Menomonie Chamber, recently identified an opportunity to honor the youngest among us. Heroes come in all ages and sizes, and Leadership Menomonies Government Day is a perfect platform to use to recognize kids in our communities who go above and beyond, making a positive impact on those around them, he explained.

Each year, the Menomonie Area Chamber of Commerce puts on a nine-month program called Leadership Menomonie, designed to develop community leaders who have the skills to work together, be part of solutions, and accept ownership of community issues.

In March, the Leadership Menomonie class studies government in Dunn County. The program includes guest speakers and tours of Menomonie Fire Departments station in north Menomonie, the Dunn County Judicial Center, and the countys government center. The class also has opportunities to meet many of the local heroes who keep the city and county safe.

Liedl met with Menomonie Fire Chief Jack Baus, Police Chief Eric Atkinson and Maor Randy Knaack about the idea of the Young Hero Award. All were in agreement that it would be a wonderful addition to the Leadership Menomonie programs Government Day. A certificate was drawn up and signed by each of them to be presented to Liam Kraft, a very special five-year-old boy.

Knowing Liam personally, I see the type of leadership he displays for his two younger siblings, Liedl explained. Hes kind, compassionate  and would do anything for his brother and sister without hesitation. He always puts their needs before his own, especially with his younger sister, Dillon. He was an obvious candidate to give our first award to.

Just over three years old, Liams younger sister, Dillon, is often in the Childrens Hospital receiving treatment for a mitochondrial disorder. According to mom Elizabeth Kraft, Liam is always helping Dillon, giving her more independence when were out in the community. He doesnt argue or complain; he just helps her.

Father Kraig Kraft added, Hes always been an inspiration to everyone. One night the news came on, and there was a story that we didnt feel appropriate for him to see, so Elizabeth went to turn the channel.

Liam said, But mom, I want to see the heroes. If I cant watch the news, I dont get to see the heroes, like the fire truck drivers, the ambulance drivers and the police. It made me realize he wasnt taking in the scary stuff, but watching for the heroes of the story.

Liedl then contacted the family, and arrangements were made to have Liam attend the fire station portion of the program for a tour and to receive the award which states: For displaying outstanding courage, being a positive role model for his younger siblings, and sacrificing time with his family so they may focus on the medical needs of his younger sister, Dillon.

Baus and Atkinson presented Liam with the certificate, and Knaack stopped by shortly after to personally shake Liams hand. Then Lt. Adam Mucks gave Liam a full tour of the fire station, and even gave the family a ride in one of the fire trucks.

Lieutenant Mucks was amazing with Liam, Liedl said. He showed Liam every single truck in that fire station, turned on the lights whenever Liam asked and made sure not to leave out Liams little brother, Arlo. It was a day that family will never forget.

Next January, the Chamber will reach out to the community and take nominations for kids deserving the Young Hero Award. Full details will be released later and put on the Chambers website at www.menomoniechamber.org. For information about the Leadership Menomonie program, visit http://www.menomoniechamber.org/pages/leadership-menomonie, or call the Chamber at 715-235-9087.
Wisconsin families work too hard to let the government waste their money. In the spirit of the great, late Senator Bill Proxmire, I am continuing his work shedding light on government agencies and projects that waste your hard-earned tax dollars.

In 2014, the IRS spent $12 million of taxpayer money to purchase a subscription-based email system that it never used. According to the Treasury Department Inspector General, The purchase was made without first determining project infrastructure needs, integration requirements, business requirements, security and portal bandwidth, and whether the subscriptions were technologically feasible on the IRS enterprise.

In addition to a gross misuse of money, the Treasury Department Inspector General found that the IRS violated policy by not opening up the contract for companies to offer competitive prices.

After all of this waste, the IRS is planning on using a different system altogether.

The people of central and western Wisconsin shouldnt foot the bill for the IRSs inefficiency and waste.

You work hard to balance your familys budget and pay your bills on time, and the government should do the same. The government needs to work more efficiently, so your money isnt wasted. I will continue to keep a close eye on how the government is using taxpayer money and fight against government waste.
DAR members pinned veterans with commemorative pins DAR members pinned veterans with commemorative pins Joe Galloway DAR members serving at the events DAR members serving at the events The Hat Ceremony table Previous Next

The five area Chapters of the Daughters of the American Revolution joined with the Vietnam Veterans of America, Chapter 203, for the largest Welcome Home event staged in the USA and was held in conjunction with the 50th Anniversary Vietnam War Commemoration Anniversary committee of Hamilton County. The Commemoration is a 10-year tribute, from 2015-2025, to the men and women who served in the Vietnam War and Vietnam-era, who came home to a country in turmoil over the southeast Asia war.

Monday nights event, a picnic dinner provided by Camping World of Chattanooga, was held at the First Tennessee Pavilion. Jed Mescon, representative of Erlanger Health Systems, a sponsor of the event, served as emcee and Linda Mines, Hamilton County historian and co-coordinator of the 50th Anniversary Commemoration Committee, welcomed the veterans. The invocation was presented by The Reverend Willie Kitchens, pastor of Bethlehem-Wylie United Methodist Church, followed by the National Anthem performed by the McCallie School Choral director, Dr. James O. Harr.

Retired U.S Army Major General Bill Raines introduced the special guests which included Medal of Honor winner Joe Marm, Ernie Savage, Henry Dunn and Jim Lawrence, who all fought in the Battle of Il Drang, the first major battle of the Vietnam War on the battle on which the book We Were Soldiers Once and Young was based.

Colonel Many-Bears Grinder, Tennessee Commissioner of Veterans Affairs, gave remarks. The guest speaker was Joe Galloway, co-author of the book We Were Soldiers Once and Young. Mr. Galloway was a war correspondent and photo journalist during the Battle of Il Drang. He worked with the late General Hal Moore to write the riveting story of the men who fought in the battle.

As the evening ended, special music was presented by Reverend Kitchens and Praise Choir, accompanied by Jericho Brass. Closing remarks was presented by Bill Norton, president, VVA 203.

All during the event, members of the DAR pinned veterans with commemorative pins and helped them locate where they served in-country on a map of Vietnam.

As the veterans and their families began to depart the pavilion, the heavens opened and rain fell. The roll of thunder sounded across the Tennessee Valley, perhaps a final call to arms to those who fought so hard.

On Tuesday, the movie We Were Soldiers Once and Young, based on the novel by the same name written by the late General Hal Moore and Joe Galloway, was shown at the Tivoli three times throughout the day. After each showing Joe Galloway was joined on stage by Jim Lawrence, Bud Alley, Ernie Savage, Henry Dunn and Joe Marm to field questions from the audience. During the day, members of the DAR greeted the veterans and presented commemorative pins to those who had not attended the previous evening's ceremony.

The three-day event concluded Wednesday evening with a Vietnam Veterans memorial service at the Chattanooga National Cemetery. Major General Bill Raines served as the presiding officer and introduced special guests, which included Hamilton County Mayor Jim Coppinger and Chattanooga Mayor Andy Berke. Linda Mines gave the invocation. The Honor Guard of the VVA 203, presented the colors and lead the Pledge of Allegiance. Members of the VVA 203, presented the Hat Ceremony. This ceremony honors the missing and fallen warriors of each service. Joe Galloway was the keynote speaker.

As the memorial service ended and the sun began to settle in the west, a roll call of the 152 men who were killed in action from the local area were read by members of the DAR and VVA 203. Around the lake, a candle was lit as each name was read.

Members of the DAR who participated in the reading of the fallen included Teresa Rimer, DAR Chattanooga Regents Council chairman and DAR coordinator of the Welcome Home event; Joyce Duke, regent of the Chickamauga Chapter; Jessica Raz Dumitru, regent of the Chief John Ross Chapter; Susan Lindsey, regent of the Judge David Campbell Chapter; Barbara Fickley, regent of the Moccasin Bend Chapter and Linda Crawford, Nancy Ward Chapter.
One of the highlights of LABVOLUTION with BIOTECHNICA is smartLAB, the intelligent laboratory of the future. From 16 to 18 May the fully functional model laboratory will form the heart of Europe's flagship fair for innovative lab equipment and laboratory workflow optimization. An exciting non-stop program will run on all three days of the trade fair  including live use cases, presentations and opportunities to directly experience and explore smartLAB.

At its second staging, this special display on the laboratory of the future will show the benefits of flexible digital integration, the use of automation and robotics, integrated functional surfaces and the virtues of adopting a modular approach. To make this happen, for several months a total of 14 partners from industry and science have been busy working out the technical details. For the entire duration of the show, smartLAB will be the venue for a moderated program featuring presentations from the participating companies and institutions.

By demonstrating three live use cases, smartLAB shows what everyday laboratory work 4.0 could look like in practice. On every day of the trade fair, visitors can experience a bioreactor inoculation from the field of biotechnology in the morning, phosphate analysis from the field of environmental engineering at midday, and an examination of popcorn using PCR analysis of GMO maize from the field of food technology on the first and second afternoons of the show.

Further highlights are lined up for Wednesday afternoon, starting at 3:45 p.m. with a panel discussion on digital interconnectivity. The panel will include Dr. Simon Bungers, CEO of labfolder, Martin Nehls, Member of the Executive Board at iTiZZiMO, Axel Wechsler, Head of the Laboratory IT Group at Fraunhofer IPA, Thomas Schink, Manager of Embedded Computing at Sartorius Lab Instruments GmbH & Co.KG, and Dr. Jan-Gerd Frerichs, Director of Information Integration at Eppendorf AG. This will be followed at 4:15 p.m. by a speech from Dr. Andreas Gruchow, Member of the Managing Board at Deutsche Messe, welcoming guests to the official smartLAB reception and a keynote speech from Dr. Andreas Hochberger, Vice President of Portfolio Management Marketing at Eppendorf AG. As a special treat for the guests, the program will include another live use case: beer color determination. The trade fair day at smartLAB will end with a get-together starting at 5 p.m.

On every day of the event there will be frequent time slots when trade visitors can explore smartLAB for themselves. The "hands on" part of the program lets visitors get up close to the devices and modules.

In parallel with the conference program, the smartLAB partners will have their own workstations around the actual lab in order to introduce themselves individually to interested visitors. Among the companies and institutes contributing to smartLAB are Eppendorf AG, the Fraunhofer Institute for Manufacturing Engineering and Automation (IPA), Herr M, iTiZZiMO, Kottermann, labfolder, Lorenscheit, LUPYLED, PreSens, Sartorius, Schmidt + Haensch, Zuhlke Engineering, Deutsche Messe and, assuming the leading role, the Institute of Technical Chemistry at Leibniz University Hannover. smartLAB 2017 is sponsored by the German state of Lower Saxony's Ministry for Education and Culture as well at the Ministry for Economic Affairs, Labor and Transport.
Marc Chagall's "The Four Seasons" is seen March 31, 2017, at Exelon Plaza in Chicago's Loop. The glass-and-stone mosaic is one of the best known features of the plaza, which runs alongside Chase Tower and features a fountain and a sunken court. (Phil Velasquez / Chicago Tribune)

As a new generation of public spaces arrives in downtown Chicago, one of the Loop's longstanding gathering places is ready for a makeover.

JPMorgan Chase is drawing up changes to the blockwide plaza alongside Chase Tower, an urban oasis known for its sunken court and "The Four Seasons," the Marc Chagall mosaic made of glass and stone.

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The bank wants to update Exelon Plaza because "it's time," after seeing few changes in the 45 years since it opened, Chase spokeswoman Christine Holevas said. She declined to provide specifics of the plan, saying it remains in the early stages.

"People love to come here, specifically in the summer," Holevas said. "We're looking at ways to make it more inviting and enhance the experience of being in the plaza."

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Marc Chagall's "The Four Seasons" mosaic is seen March 31, 2017, on the eastern side of Exelon Plaza in Chicago's Loop. JPMorgan Chase wants to update the blockwide plaza alongside Chase Tower. The Chagall mosaic is not expected to be affected. (Phil Velasquez / Chicago Tribune)

Chase is looking to spruce up its outdoor space as new parks open downtown. The city is requiring many new developments, particularly those along the Chicago River, to set aside park space. Plazas benefit the public, but also help commercial buildings stand out in leasing.

Two recently opened office towers along the west bank of the river include riverwalk areas. A plan by developers Howard Hughes and Riverside Investment & Development to replace mall owner GGP's squat headquarters on Wacker Drive with a 51-story office tower also includes public space beneath and next to the building along the river. In the Loop, CNA Financial's future headquarters on Franklin Street will include a small park next door.

One of downtown's other most recognizable open spaces, Daley Plaza, was renovated more than two decades ago, in time for the Democratic National Convention in 1996.

Amid a burst of high-rise construction downtown in recent years, architecture preservation group Preservation Chicago is keeping a close eye on public spaces, many of which are in locations coveted by developers, Executive Director Ward Miller said.

People relax and eat lunch Feb. 21, 2017, by the fountain at Exelon Plaza downtown. JPMorgan Chase is drawing up plans for changes to the blockwide plaza, a longtime gathering space alongside Chase Tower. (Zbigniew Bzdak / Chicago Tribune)

"Any radical changes (to Exelon Plaza) might negate the eligibility of the plaza or the Chagall (mosaic) for a landmark designation, looking to the future," Miller said. Preservation Chicago fears that, without landmark status, the plaza could later be targeted for development of a new tower, he said.

Holevas said there are no plans to build new structures on the prime land in the heart of the Loop. Nor is the Chagall mosaic expected to be disrupted, she said.

Exelon Plaza is named for the power company whose headquarters are in the tower. The plaza is bounded by Dearborn, Clark, Madison and Monroe streets in the heart of downtown.

Peopleenjoy lunchtime at Exelon Plaza on April 18, 2016, in Chicago.JPMorgan Chase is drawing up plans for changes to the blockwide plaza, a longtime gathering space alongside Chase Tower. (Zbigniew Bzdak / Chicago Tribune)

The 60-story office tower on Dearborn is the tallest structure within the area surrounded by the Loop's elevated CTA train tracks. The 850-foot-tall tower, designed by C.F. Murphy Associates and Perkins & Will, opened in 1969 as First National Plaza and was later named for Bank One. It became Chase Tower in 2005, after New York-based Chase acquired Bank One.

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The plaza was created next to the tower in 1972, after the old First National Bank Building was demolished.

rori@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @Ryan_Ori
Shareholders of PrivateBancorp, parent company of Private Bank, approved the sale of the bank to Canada's CIBC for $4.8 billion. (Handout)

Canadian bank CIBC has sweetened its June offer to buy PrivateBancorp after shares of the Chicago-based bank climbed along with other bank stocks after the presidential election.

Under an agreement approved by the boards of PrivateBancorp and CIBC, Toronto-based CIBC will pay $60.92 in cash and stock, or about 20 percent more than the deal arranged June 29. An amended agreement values PrivateBancorp at $4.9 billion. It had been $3.8 billion in June.

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Shareholders will vote on the deal at a special meeting in May. According to a statement from both institutions, PrivateBancorp stockholders will be paid approximately $1.9 billion in cash and receive 33.5 million CIBC common shares.

PrivateBancorp shares climbed $2.80 Thursday to $59. In the initial agreement in June, CIBC had offered $47 a share, which was a 31 percent premium at the time.

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PrivateBancorp has 21 Chicago-area offices, and a company spokeswoman said they will remain open, although there has been no decision about whether the name will remain. CIBC said it is interested in extending its business in the U.S.

The shares of many U.S. banking firms have been rising on speculation that President Donald Trump and a Republican Congress will lower taxes and reduce regulation of banks.

gmarksjarvis@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @gailmarksjarvis

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Many teens spend their summers lifeguarding or ice-cream scooping. Not Evon Lopez.

Lopez, at 16, spent the summer between her sophomore and junior years of high school interning at Abbott Laboratories. At graduation from the eight-week program last August, she delivered a PowerPoint presentation detailing, among other things, corporate safety initiatives at the north suburban health care company.

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Sound like a snooze? To the contrary, Lopez said the experience reinforced her interest in architectural engineering.

Asked to name the highlights of the program, the teen described a visit to Abbott's nutrition facility in Ohio where employees explained how they created formula to save infants' lives.

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"It just shows that their goal is to help as many people as they can in any way possible," Lopez said of the company, "and that's a place that I would like to work in."

An interest in jobs with a greater social purpose is a hallmark of the millennial generation. But Lopez is a member of Generation Z, the post-millennial group that is just starting to graduate from high school and college and catch the interest of employers.

Gen Z is composed of the kids who were born, roughly, between 1995 and 2010 and came of age during the Great Recession.

Though it's too soon to say how Gen Z might shape the workplace, early surveys paint a portrait distinct from the wide-eyed, self-involved image of their millennial predecessors. Gen Zers, an emerging trove of research suggests, are entrepreneurial yet pragmatic, hardworking yet easily distracted, with a streak of realism running through their desire to make a social impact.

Some employers are trying to appeal to Gen Z early, with versions of internships normally reserved for college students now being extended to high schoolers to create a pipeline of talent.

At Abbott, which started its high school internship five years ago, starting younger also is meant to address the shortfall of women and minorities in the STEM  science, technology, engineering and math  workforce, which is important as it serves an increasingly diverse customer base.

"What we want to do is increase the possibility that they will enter STEM, be successful at it and be able to go on and have meaningful careers in these areas," said Corlis Murray, Abbott's top engineer and leader of the high school internship program. "The younger we reach them, the higher we increase that probability."

They are radically different from millennials. ...We have a generation entering the workforce that is extremely competitive.  David Stillman, co-author, with his 17-year-old son Jonah, of the book "Gen Z @ Work"

With the rise of early professional exposure, members of Gen Z are positioned for powerful careers, said Jeanne Meister, partner at Future Workplace, a human resources research firm in New York.

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"They are definitely more serious and mature entering the workforce" than millennials, Meister said.

Assigning sweeping generalizations to a generation of 60 million people is, at best, an inexact exercise, but that doesn't stop a steady drip of research from offering varied takes on Gen Z.

"They are radically different from millennials," said David Stillman, co-author, with his 17-year-old son Jonah, of the book "Gen Z @ Work," released in March.

If everyone-gets-a-trophy millennials, reared by baby boomers during flush times, prioritized passion and teamwork, then Gen Z, raised by independent Generation Xers during times of financial distress, learned that you have to fight hard to win, Stillman said.

"We have a generation entering the workforce that is extremely competitive," said Stillman, who has written several books on how generations interact in the workplace.

Some Gen Z traits seem old-school.

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Three-quarters of Gen Zers say they are willing to start at the bottom and work their way to the top, implying a respect for paying dues, Stillman's research found. More than 60 percent said they are willing to stay at a company for 10 years, suggesting a return to employer loyalty after the job-hopping tendencies of millennials. Only 8 percent said they want an open-office concept, despite workspace design trends that have been knocking down walls to emphasize collaboration.

But other traits are less traditional. For example, more than half of Gen Zers want to write their own job description, reflecting a desire for a hypercustomized career experience that could be driven by the personal branding that social media has pushed since they were kids, Stillman said.

That preference could draw them to small and medium-sized businesses, where employees can more easily wear multiple hats than at large companies, he said.

Indeed, a survey last year by Accenture of the 2016 graduating college class, by some measures the vanguard of Gen Z, found they are three times more likely to want to work at a small or medium company than a large one, presenting big companies with a recruiting challenge.

Some employers are being proactive by planting a seed early.

Southwest Airlines last summer hosted its third class of high school interns, who worked for eight weeks at the company's Dallas headquarters. This fall it plans to host its first "aviation day" for kids in third through eighth grade, a free event that will include guest speakers and a tour of an aircraft maintenance hangar.

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Anticipating a massive skills shortage as baby boomers retire, Greg Muccio, a senior manager in Southwest's "people department," said the airline industry needs to drum up excitement among youth.

"We have consciously set down a path to start reaching a much younger audience to encourage them and make them aware of a career in aviation," he said. Some of the industry's biggest needs are in hourly entry-level jobs that don't require higher education, so Muccio wants to appeal to high schoolers who may not be interested in or ready for college.

Southwest this summer also will host its third summer camp for the high-school aged children of employees across the country. The three-day event of tours and games in Dallas, which last year drew 150 teens, aims to steer those already familiar with the company to careers there by showing what it takes to be a pilot or a mechanic.

The camp left an impression on Chicagoan Kyle Norbut, who participated just before starting his freshman year at the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana last year. The 18-year-old acting major, who was impressed by the family atmosphere and the sense that employees were "having a ball," intends to pursue a career in theater  but now is considering a flexible side job at Southwest.

Hitting Gen Z early can set both teens and employers up for success.

At Abbott, about 97 percent of those who complete the high school internship go on to work or major in a STEM field, said Murray, the engineer who leads the program. She has found that kids who do the high school internship are more mature and able to take complex assignments when they start the company's college program, and she is studying whether the early work affects college academic performance.

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The demands are sophisticated. High school interns get meaningful assignments  no making copies  and have to deliver results.

That can be terrifying.

"On my first day I was very freaked out," said Emily Voigt, who was among 35 interns in last summer's high school intern class, her second year in the program. Abbott recruits interns with at least a 3.0 GPA from 10 schools in seven markets, including two in Chicago.

Voigt, who graduated last year from Warren Township High School and is now a freshman at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where she studies civil and environmental engineering, said she avoided talking to her manager at first for fear that that she would be dismissed because of her age or wouldn't know the answers to technical questions.

But Voigt, who exuded confidence as she gave a presentation at the program graduation, said her interpersonal skills improved once she realized it was OK to ask questions and make mistakes.

"I think that creates an environment that allows the most growth, because you feel comfortable doing those things you might not do and asking the questions you might not ask," she said.

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Murray said a consistent thread she sees among the interns is an interest in the company's sustainable and socioeconomic responsibilities.

But some surveys paint Gen Z as a practical, hardworking generation with money on the brain.

Monster.com, the job search site, found Gen Zers are motivated by pay more than other generations are, and are more willing to relocate for a good job and work nights and weekends for a better salary than their older counterparts.

They are also more entrepreneurial: Nearly half of Gen Zers want to own their own business, compared with a third across all generations, Monster's survey found.

Some companies are considering how to put emergent Gen Z research to use.

Meister, from the consultancy Future Workplace, said one distinctive quality employers can count on is that these young workers, who grew up teaching themselves through massive open online courses and other online tools, will expect to have growth opportunities at their fingertips.

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"Investment in on-demand learning and development is going to be critical to attract and keep talent," Meister said. "This is going to be seen as the make or break benefit as to whether to join a company or not."

Other studies suggest pay transparency will be a must.

Equity in pay and promotion was cited by those in Gen Z as the most important factor for gaining trust in an employer, according to a survey last year by EY, the accounting firm once known as Ernst & Young. That differs from the general population, which cited an employer's ability to deliver on promises as No.1  perhaps because of media and celebrity attention to gender and racial pay gaps.

In addition, market researchers say Gen Z will be the last generation in the U.S. to have a white majority, so diversity and inclusion are core values, according to BridgeWorks, a consultancy that helps employers overcome generation gaps. BridgeWorks prefers to call the group "Generation Edge," in part because it's on the cusp of a demographic shift.

Back at Abbott, the company is starting to see the fruits of its high school investment.

Nick Urh, who was in Abbott's first high school internship class, went back as a college intern and now is in its professional development program, rotating through various divisions at the company. He is currently in the diabetes division in Alameda, Calif., working on glucose meters that will no longer require finger pricks.

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"It really opened my eyes to the potential we had to impact so many lives," he said.

Urh, 23, who grew up in Gurnee and graduated last year from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, is on the generational cusp. He says he identifies with both the millennial eagerness to make a social difference and the Gen Z appetite for job security  and, thanks to the internship, sees a path to achieve both.

Urh expects to be hired as a permanent employee at Abbott once the program finishes in June and hopes to pursue a career there in manufacturing operations.

"Why should I leave?" Urh said.

Music to an employer's ears.

Aelejalderuiz@chicagotribune.com

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Twitter @alexiaer
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.
In this July 17, 2016 file photo, then-DonaldTrump Campaign Chairman Paul Manafort talks to reporters on the floor of the Republican National Convention, in Cleveland. (Matt Rourke / AP)

A Chicago savings bank has found itself ensnared in the saga of former Donald Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort, who is under scrutiny for his dealings with a Russian businessman.

The Federal Savings Bank, whose chief executive was an economic adviser to Trump's presidential campaign, made about $6.5 million in loans in January to Manafort and his wife for a Brooklyn property, documents show.

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That came only about a month after Federal Savings lent $9.5 million to Summerbreeze, a limited liability company connected to Manafort, according to 377 Union, a website named for the address of the Manafort property in Brooklyn. The website, run by two New York lawyers, in February detailed financial transactions that Manafort and his family have made. A lawyer for Summerbreeze didn't respond to requests for comment on the company's connection to Manafort.

A Brooklyn brownstone, reportedly owned by Donald Trump's former campaign chairman Paul Manafort stands along a residential street in Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn on March 29, 2017 in New York City. Manafort has recently come under scrutiny for his business dealings and his close ties to Russia. (Spencer Platt / Getty Images)

The combined $16 million in loans represents a significant piece of business for privately held Federal Savings, whose stated goal is to expand home ownership in America.

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Federal Savings had $297 million in assets, mostly loans, at the end of last year. It also had $67 million in equity capital.

Bank regulators frown on "concentration"  when too many loans are made to certain borrowers or to specific industries, such as commercial real estate.

In August, Federal Savings Chief Executive Steve Calk was named one of 13 economic advisers for the Trump campaign, which vowed to end the era of backroom dealings. Manafort left the campaign later that month amid concerns over his role with a pro-Russian political party in Ukraine. His business relationship with Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska is also receiving scrutiny.

Calk declined to comment this week through a spokeswoman.

"The Federal Savings Bank does not discuss customer personal financial matters, as it is against its fiduciary duty and the law," said Kellie Kennedy, a representative for the bank.

However, Calk told The Wall Street Journal that the loans to Manafort weren't connected to his role with the Trump campaign and that they were "grossly overcollateralized."

Federal Savings earned $24 million last year. Fewer than 1 percent of its loans are seriously delinquent. That's a better track record than the typical lender in Illinois.

The Journal, citing property records in Virginia and New York, said the $9.5 million loan was backed by two homes that Manafort and his wife own and $630,000 in a bank account used as collateral.

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Website 377 Union is written by Matthew Termine and Julian Russo, who has a law degree from the University of Chicago.

Federal Savings was born out of Generations Bank, a Kansas thrift bought by Calk and his brother in 2011. That bank, which had about $40 million in assets, was undercapitalized, facing regulatory restrictions and posting losses for five straight years, according to a 2012 story in ABA Banking Journal, an American Bankers Association publication.

Now headquartered on Chicago's Near West Side, successor institution Federal Savings in 2012 said it was getting $18 million in tax breaks over 10 years from the state through the Economic Development for a Growing Economy, or EDGE, program as well as up to $4 million in training funds from the city of Chicago. The bank had 876 full-time workers as of the end of the year.

Calk has said that about 10 percent of the bank's employees are veterans like himself.

byerak@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @beckyyerak
Florida-based Spirit Airlines pokes fun at United Airlines after a controversy over pass holders wearing leggings being turned away from boarding a flight.

United Airlines has taken a heap of criticism from celebrities and other air travelers over its decision last week to bar two teenage girls from boarding a flight from Denver because they were wearing leggings.

Actress Patricia Arquette posted a message on Twitter, saying "Leggings are business attire for 10 year olds. Their business is being children."

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The airline has explained that the girls were "pass holders," who were flying as a guest of an employee and failed to abide by an employee dress code that prohibits "form-fitting lycra/spandex tops, pants and dresses."

But the Chicago-based airline has also taken a few shots from its rival airlines.

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Delta Air Lines posted a message on Twitter on Monday, saying "Flying Delta means comfort. (That means you can wear your leggings.)"

Flying Delta means comfort. (That means you can wear your leggings. )  Delta (@Delta) March 27, 2017

Florida-based Spirit Airlines on Tuesday posted an ad declaring "Let them wear leggings," along with a one-day offer of 75% off on flights to specific destinations, on Tuesdays and Wednesdays only.

Clicking the link led to a message saying, "Well at least at Spirit, we're united (cough) about letting young girls dress how they want. If you want to fly with us, get your leggings on ladies. Or even gentlemen. No judgments here."

Both Spirit and Delta impose a dress code on employees that forbid revealing clothing but do not specifically ban lycra, spandex or otherwise stretchy pants.

hugo.martin@latimes.com

To read more about the travel and tourism industries, follow @hugomartin on Twitter.
WGN-Ch. 9 news anchor and reporter Dina Bair has listed her five-bedroom, Georgian-style house in Wilmette for $1.695 million. (VHT.com)

WGN-Ch. 9 news anchor and reporter Dina Bair has listed her five-bedroom, Georgian-style house in Wilmette for $1.695 million.

Bair, 49, has been with WGN since 1994 and currently anchors WGN's midday newscast and is the station's medical reporter.

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Bair paid $750,000 in 2011 for the three-story house in Wilmette and then embarked on a significant renovation that included installing all-new mechanicals and plumbing, along with a new roof and a new attached garage. Built in 1929 and located just two blocks from Lake Michigan, the 3,664-square-foot house has 5 baths, hardwood floors throughout, two fireplaces and a kitchen with Thermador appliances.

"I absolutely love this house," Bair told Elite Street. "It has all the charms of history with a completely updated interior. I gutted the place when I bought it, spending as much to rehab as I did to buy it. It took a year and a half."

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With three of her four children now out of the house, Bair added that "it's time for a change."

"There will definitely be a tear in my eye at closing," said Bair, who remarried last July to broker and trader John Maher.

Lori Nieman of @properties has the listing.

Bob Goldsborough is a freelance reporter.







Expand Autoplay Image 1 of 16 (VHT Studios)

Expand Autoplay Image 1 of 5 Billionaire Ken Griffin, Illinois richest man, paid $58.75 million in November for the top four floors in the Near North condominium building at 9 W. Walton St., known as No. 9 Walton. This photo shows a rendering of the lobby. (JDL Development / E. Jason Wambsgans/Chicago Tribune (inset))
A 16-year-old boy shot Wednesday in the 11000 block of South Edbrooke Avenue has died, authorities said.

Darmayah Smith was pronounced at 3:58 a.m. Thursday, according to the Cook County medical examiner's office.

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Smith, of the 100 block of East 113 Street, was walking in the Roseland neighborhood about 6:25 p.m. Wednesday when someone approached on foot and fired shots at him.

Smith was shot in the torso and taken to Advocate Christ Medical Center in critical condition, Chicago police said in a media notification.

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No arrests had been made and Area South Detectives are investigating.
South Elgin has a three-way race for village board president  including the incumbent president and a current and past trustee.

On the April 4 ballot, Village President Steve Ward will be challenged by trustee Lisa Guess and Bill DiFulvio, who was on the board for 12 years before losing in the 2013 race.

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Ward, 58, has been a barber for 40 years and a South Elgin resident for 29 years. He first served on the village Planning and Zoning Commission from 19922001, was a village trustee from 2001-2013, and became Village President in 2013. He was also named the Vice President for the Metro West Council of Government in November.

"I feel that I am the right person to continue leading the village as I have been for the past 3 1/2 years," Ward said in a written statement. "I have a great rapport with all of my department heads, all of the staff and my board of trustees. There are many upcoming projects and improvements for the village and I want to continue to see them completed and the Village moving forward in a positive direction."

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Ward said an important issue for the village is road reconstruction on the near southeast side of the river.

"The plan is to totally rebuild the roads and bring the neighborhood up to specifications, create new sidewalks and gutters and add new enhanced lighting," he said.

One of Ward's objectives is to complete talks with the Illinois Department of Transportation regarding the widening of McLean Boulevard from Sunbury Drive to Stearns Road. "I feel this would alleviate traffic congestion during peak times and open up potential development along this corridor," he said.

Guess, 57, has lived in South Elgin for 43 years and has been a village trustee since 2003. She is currently a homemaker.

Guess said she decided to run for the office of village president to bring stronger leadership to South Elgin.

She said there is a lack of strong leadership and connection with the village.

"I will bring strong leadership, working collectively with the village board and staff. I will dedicate full-time attention to the village president position, not two-three hours per week," she said in a written statement.

Staffing of the police station during non-business hours is an important issue for her.

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"I will exhaust all avenues to find the most cost effective means to do this," Guess said. "Public Safety is of utmost importance."

DiFulvio, 56, has lived in South Elgin since 1989 and was a village trustee from 2001 to 2013.

"I choose to run for the village president position because I think the village needs stronger leadership," DiFulvio said in a written statement.

"South Elgin needs a new downtown redevelopment plan with current market data and resident input," he said. "The current downtown plan is 12 to 15 years old and calls for high density of different residential with a mix of commercial and retail."

"If we concentrate too much affordable housing in the downtown area we will not be able to attract the quality retail and commercial businesses we are looking for," DiFulvio said. "So South Elgin needs a new downtown plan or at least to limit any more affordable housing until the market rate and upscale housing in the downtown area catch up."

DiFulvio said he doesn't feel South Elgin needs more affordable housing ahead of upscale and market rate residential units.

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"I favor a new downtown master plan with new market information to find out the best and highest use possible for the land downtown, he said. "South Elgin will only have one chance to get the right mix of retail and commercial and residential downtown. No need to take the first offers unless they fit our long term vision for South Elgin."

Janelle Walker is a freelance reporter for The Courier-News.
Winner:"Chicago, don't give up yet! It's not time to throw in the cow."

Frances Norton, Hawthorn Wood

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Extras:

"It's the only Chicago Bull people are excited about."

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Paul Lockwood, Woodstock

"Did that kite just moo?"

Carolyn Wartinbee, Elmhurst

"Will Chicago ever rise above the Political Bull?"

Placedos Bemons, Norridge

"Looks like Rauner tried to grab the bull by the horns, but Madigan yanked it away."

Vincent A. Boone, DeKalb

"Just another day of the bull flying in the city."

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Pam Campagnolo, New Lenox

"Great...As if we don't get enough dung dropped on us by Michael Madigan"

Tom Avallone, St Charles

"If you don't like this captionI've got udders"

John Connolly, Medinah,

"Still blaming Miss O'Leary's cow ..."

Mike McPartland, Tinley Park

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"I hope that bungee cord wasn't made in China!"

Bob Hennessy

"I guess he didn't make the moon jump this time."

Jim Bugaren, Schaumburg

"Looks like more Bull from the Mayor's office!"

Tim Collins, Antioch
Jean Baptiste Point du Sable becomes the first permanent non-Native American settler of what will become Chicago. He is also the first black resident. Point du Sables farm was, as noted by the PBS website page for the film Chicago: City of the Century, the only source of farmed produce in the region. In the years that the family lived there, they provided some stability to an area that was primarily frequented by peripatetic traders. (Antonio Perez / Chicago Tribune)

Chicago's food history is rooted in the city's very name. For "Chicago" is a variation on "chicagoua," which was a Native American word used for the ramp, a seasonal delicacy that shows up on restaurant menus about now.

That word gained a geographical connotation related to what is now called the Chicago River "in recognition of the presence of wild leeks in the watershed," wrote Ann Durkin Keating in "The Encyclopedia of Chicago." French explorers in the late 17th century used the word "chicagou" to denote the land at the river's mouth. Henri Joutel wrote about it in his journal in September 1687.

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"We continued to march until Thursday the twenty-fifth, when we arrived at the said place called Chicagou, which, according to what we were able to learn of it, has taken this name because of the quality of garlic which grows in the forests in this region," wrote Joutel in an entry translated from the French by John F. Swenson and included in his 1991 article on the etymology of Chicago published in the Illinois Historical Journal.

Joutel also wrote about the bounty of foods he found in Illinois, a country he described (per a 1906 edition in English of his journal) as a "one of the most temperate in the world and consequently whatsoever is sow'd there, whether Herbs, Roots, Indian and even European Corn thrives very well." The explorer also notes the bread is "very good" and is hopeful the native grapes might make "very good wine" as well. "There is also Plenty of wild Apple and Pear Trees, and of several other Sorts, which would afford excellent Fruit, were they grafted and transplanted."

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About 100 years later, Jean Baptiste Point du Sable becomes the first permanent non-Native American settler of what will become Chicago. He is also the first black resident. Point du Sable's farm was, as noted by the PBS website page for the film "Chicago: City of the Century," the "only source of farmed produce" in the region. "In the years that the family lived there, they provided some stability to an area that was primarily frequented by peripatetic traders," the web page reads. Point du Sable sold his holdings in 1800 and moved to Missouri.

But the story of Chicago's food and drink history had begun, with contributions from the many peoples who've settled here along Lake Michigan  and continue to arrive.

For more historic moments in Chicago food history, click through the photo gallery above.

Sources: The Encyclopedia of Chicago, Chicago food historian Bruce Kraig, Chicago Tribune archives, USDA, Frito-Lay, "The Berghoff Family Cookbook."

wdaley@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @billdaley






In our country, if a little of something is good, then a lot of it must be better. And so it has become with many of our wines from (especially) California and Washington.



In our country, if a little of something is good, then a lot of it must be better. It's the "Ivory Soap syndrome": at 99 44/100ths percent "pure soap," Ivory sells itself as a better soap than one less "pure."



And so it has become with many of our wines from (especially) California and Washington. We top the charts with wines heady in high alcohol; gobs of extract (color, tannin, body, heft); and long aging regimens in oak barrels that often leave some white wines tasting like tree juice. The high alcohol level issue alone has become a buzz topic in the past year or two. Is it global warming (so that grapes ripen to excessive levels of sweetness and pigment)? Is it consumer demand for oomph? Is it good old American chest thumping?



In any case, we can't get enough of it. The West Coast cult cabernets (often selling  out!  at well above $200 a bottle) come in at 15 percent alcohol or more by volume. California zinfandels don't surprise anyone any longer with 16 to 17 percent booze levels. If a chardonnay doesn't have any oak aroma or flavor, it's conveniently dismissed as "not American, too French" in style.



I fault myself, in my former years. I used to love putting power to my palate, tasting big, strapping, molasses-y zins that were red wine martinis and stained my teeth and tongue eggplant-purple. I'd say, "Man, these are gonna age forever." They didn't; they fell apart after 9 or 10 years, devolving into something like weak tea with a shot of vodka.



Chris Farley wines make an impression, that's for sure. But they don't function well, by and large, where wine matters: at table, in the cellar, on the palate.



Nowadays, for wines from my homeland, I am all for what best could be called "the Quiet Americans" (apologies to Graham Greene). These are American wines that turn down the volume. They're subtle, nuanced, understated and great with food.



Some recommendations of specific wines follow, but first it might be helpful to pass on a few pieces of broader advice. Two overall categories of American wines are worth searching through.



Cool climate regions



For the most part, cooler growing areas make for grapes that retain their acidity and do not ripen to extremely high levels of sugar. That makes for wines that sport moderate levels of alcohol, crisp definition on the palate and humble flavor profiles.



Such areas are the Carneros district that straddles the southern ends of both Napa and Sonoma counties; much of the western regions of Sonoma and Mendocino counties, those up against the Pacific coast (areas such as Green Valley, Russian River Valley, Anderson Valley); a pair of areas in the Central Coast, Santa Maria and Santa Ynez valleys; and Monterey, Santa Cruz and Edna Valley.



And you can pretty much take most of the regions of Oregon to be cool climate. Likewise, upper Michigan and the upper regions of Long Island are proving to be solid spots for cool climate vineyards.



Low-profile grapes



Cabernet sauvignon, merlot, zinfandel and many a chardonnay  especially if grown in warm regions with generous sunshine  just simply have an issue being demure. They may make for some of the West Coast's most famed wines, but they often are a caricature of big, blowsy wines.



For Quiet Americans, stick to (some, not all) wines made from riesling, sauvignon blanc, pinot gris, chenin blanc, even some gewurztraminer (from, say, Anderson Valley). For reds, pinot noir often nods hello. Some cabernet and syrah, in the hands of a skilled and sensitive winemaker, aren't behemoth wines, but can go trippingly down the tongue.



Bill St. John has been teaching and writing about wine for more than 30 years.



ctc-goodeating@tribune.com



Recommended Quiet Americans



2009 Poet's Leap Riesling Columbia Valley Washington: At 12.9 percent alcohol, this comes close to the great rieslings of Germany (in fact, it's made by a German, though it's 100 percent U.S. fruit). Slightly off-dry, with lots of exuberant, citrus-y, persistent aromas and flavors. $20



Mumm Napa Cuvee M Napa Valley: Many sparkling wines, with their zippy personality, are fine examples of Quiet Americans (they flit; don't flaunt). This slightly sweet blend of several grapes is the bubbly that you will want to serve with many cheeses or desserts. $20



To prove to myself that it could be done, I truffled out two California cabernet sauvignons with alcohol levels at or below 13.5 percent, silky textures and, yet, lengthy and delicious flavors.



2008 Liberty School Cabernet Sauvignon Paso Robles: This is Deal City for its smooth touch, moderate tannins, solid dark-fruit flavors and amazing price. $14



2006 Jordan Vineyard & Winery Cabernet Sauvignon Alexander Valley Sonoma: Proof that California can produce elegant, graceful, aroma-heady and flavor-packed cabernet  if the winemaker decides to. A rare 13.5 percent alcohol and one of Sonoma's great cabs. $52



If your wine store does not carry these wines, ask for one similar in style and price.
Will and Greg Kearney are featured rodent hunters in "Rat Film," a documentary directed by Theo Anthony and playing 9:15 p.m. Friday at the Davis Theater as part of the DOC10 film festival. (Theo Anthony photo)

Last year the short, compact, shrewdly curated documentary festival known as DOC10 made its debut at the Music Box Theatre, sponsored by the Chicago Media Project and programmed by Chicago International Film Festival staffer Anthony Kaufman.

The second edition of DOC10 opens Thursday and continues through Sunday. This time it's taking over the newly remodeled Davis Theater in Lincoln Square. The venue has the bonus of an adjoining bar and restaurant known as the Carbon Arc, overseen by former Chalkboard restaurateur Gilbert Langlois. His fried chicken and the mac and cheese offerings are fantastic, for the record. Happily, the cheese factor in the films appears to be nonexistent.

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I've seen three of this year's 10, and those three alone assert the breadth and flexibility of the contemporary documentary form. Theo Anthony's "Rat Film" (9:15 p.m. Friday) is the filmmaker's feature-length debut, and it's a marvelous, unsettling one, focusing on Baltimore's Norway rat infestation. (I write this as a resident of Chicago's Logan Square neighborhood, so needless to say, the infestation's not unfamiliar.) Anthony's film makes a considerable and inspired leap, treating the rat problem and various, hapless solutions as a way of examining how Baltimore's systemic racism in its zoning and lending laws clobbered the predominantly poor and African-American neighborhoods over the decades.

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It's a disarming mixture of archival research, rat-killer-on-the-street footage and inquiries into urban planning. "Rat Film" shows the way  one way, anyway  of exploring a subject for more than surface street facts and figures.

Alexis Templeton amid protesters in the streets of Ferguson, Missouri in the wake of the murder of Michael Brown. (Lucas Alvarado Farrar )

Urban streets, and who owns them, trace the outline of writer-director Sabaah Folayan and co-director Damon Davis' excellent "Whose Streets?" (6:45 p.m. Friday). The subject is Ferguson, Mo., in the midst of (and following) the August 2014 slaying of Michael Brown Jr. The police action that killed Brown ended up lighting the fuse of the Black Lives Matter movement.

If you think you've heard too much about Ferguson, think again. Now that America has some chronological distance from the clashes there between activists and law enforcement, it's exactly the right time for Folayan's angry, eloquent documentary, which takes the time and has the sense to honor the full range of citizens affected by what happened.

Scene from "Obit." (DOC10)

"Obit" (4 p.m. Sunday), ironically, lightens the DOC10 mood. Vanessa Gould's documentary serves as a genial companion piece to "Spotlight," in its sincere devotion to a tiny subdivision of a great American newspaper. As we get to know the staff, the doings and the particular journalistic challenges of the New York Times' obituary department, we're reminded that the best obits are more about lives lived, fully, than the final, sometimes grueling stages of those lives. Like "Spotlight," "Obit" actually makes you feel good about the media, if only for the care and high standards we see in action, on deadlines that will seem cushy to some and nearly impossible to others.

The complete DOC10 schedule:

"Sweet Dillard," directed by James Virga, 7:30 p.m Thursday, Music Box Theatre (all other DOC10 screenings at the Davis Theatre). This documentary on the Fort Lauderdale Dillard Center for the Arts jazz ensemble will be screened as a benefit for the Merit School of Music.

Scene from "Step." (DOC10)

"Step," directed by Amanda Lipitz. A popular hit at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival, this charts the stories within the story of a Baltimore high school step dance team. 8 p.m. Thursday, featuring a live performance by the South Shore Chicago Drill Team, followed by director Lipitz via Skype.

"Whose Streets?" directed by Sabaah Folayan and Damon Davis. Eloquent appraisal of the Ferguson, Mo., response to the 2014 slaying of Michael Brown Jr. 6:45 p.m. Friday, followed by discussion with Folayan and Davis, plus activists of Black Lives Matter Chicago, Church on the 9 and Black Youth Project 100.

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"Rat Film," directed by Theo Anthony. Provocative, stylistically rich docu-essay, in which Baltimore's Norway rat infestation (not so different from our own in Chicago) becomes a way of looking at Baltimore's history of segregation. 9:15 p.m. Friday, followed by discussion with the director.

"Trophy," directed by Shaul Schwarz, with Christina Clusiau. Wildlife conservation vs. big game hunting: "Trophy" bagged this subject, and a lot of critical Sundance love, earlier this year in a warmly received premiere. 1:30 p.m Saturday, followed by discussion with Schwarz and Clusiau.

"The Cinema Travelers," directed by Shirley Abraham and Amit Madheshiya. In remote villages all across India, intrepid movie projectionists travel annually with film projectors and film cans in tow, ready to set up another screening for an underserved populace. But the encroachment of digital makes theirs a buggy-whip sort of trade with a limited future. The documentary, filmed over five revolutionary years, was beloved in its Cannes debut. 4 p.m. Saturday, followed by discussion with Abraham and Madheshiya via Skype.

Danika Toolson, Emma Winslow, Elle Walker, Aeona Cruz, Hannah Cagwin, Liv Bagley, Shylee Sagle and Nicole Hamilton appear in "Casting JonBenet" by Kitty Green. (Michael Latham )

"Casting JonBenet," directed by Kitty Green. The grim, dangling child murder case of JonBenet Ramsey, and the larger overlay of mass culture's obsession with infantilized sexuality, come together in Green's "docu-fiction hybrid." 7 p.m Saturday, followed by discussion led by Green.

"Death in the Terminal," directed by Tali Shemesh and Asaf Sudry. A southern Israeli act of terrorism is examined from myriad angles, using cellphone footage and other means. 9:15 p.m. Saturday, followed by discussion with Shemesh and Sudry via Skype.

Scene from "The Island and the Whales." (Mike Day )

"The Islands and the Whales," directed by Mike Day. In the icy waters of the North Atlantic, the Faroe Islands become the backdrop for a clash between starry activism (Pamela Anderson and her "Save the Whales" crew) and the whale hunters of the region, whose primary source of income has been poisoning the islanders over time. 1:30 p.m. Sunday, followed by discussion with director Day.

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"Obit," directed by Vanessa Gould. The obituary department of the New York Times gets a wry and loving valentine from director Gould. 4 p.m. Sunday, followed by discussion with Gould and former NYT obituary writer Bruce Weber.

Scene from "Chasing Trane." (DOC10)

"Chasing Trane: The John Coltrane Documentary," directed by John Scheinfeld. This doc on the legendary jazz saxophonist, whom millions love, supremely, features narration by Denzel Washington. 7 p.m. Sunday, followed by discussion with a variety of jazz experts and educators.

With the exception of "Sweet Dillard," all screenings will be at the Davis Theater, 4614 N. Lincoln Ave. For more information, go to www.DOC10.org.

Michael Phillips is a Tribune critic.

mjphillips@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @phillipstribune

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Guitarist Kurt Rosenwinkel performs with his sextet at the Jazz Showcase on March 30, 2017, in Chicago. (Kristen Norman / Chicago Tribune)

Guitarist Kurt Rosenwinkel has built a large and loyal following around the world with muscular phrase-making, virtuosic solo flights and a sophisticated yet accessible sense of harmony.

Whether playing jazz standards or originals, he has codified an instantly identifiable sound predicated on prolific melodic invention.

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But Rosenwinkel has turned away from most of that with his newest album, "Caipi," a radical departure for a midcareer musician who has taken a significant artistic risk. For the music from "Caipi," which he and his sextet performed Thursday night at the Jazz Showcase, sounds virtually nothing like what listeners have come to expect from him during the past couple of decades.

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In sum, Rosenwinkel's band produced a wash of electronic sound, an underlay of Brazilian rhythm and a fusion of instrumental and vocal sonorities. The guitarist, in other words, was not so much the star soloist but, instead, one voice among many. And I do mean "voice," because in addition to playing guitar, he sang quite a bit, albeit often in unison with one or more members of his band.

No doubt some Rosenwinkel devotees will reject the music of "Caipi" because it veers far from both his precedent and from certain presumptions of what jazz is supposed to be. For me, though, this work conveyed the deep-seated musicality and openness of expression that always have been hallmarks of Rosenwinkel's art, though in unexpected form.

Yes, toward the end of the first set, the sameness of this vast sonic framework tired the ear a bit. Too much reverb-heavy sound for too long will do that. But if Rosenwinkel were to offer a shade more textural variety and tad less volume in some spots, his new concept would sustain interest longer.

Even as it now stands, however, the "Caipi" music was welcome for the tunefulness of the compositions and the boldness and unapologetically emotional nature of the approach.

Rosenwinkel began with the album's title song, his ensemble producing more sound than one might have expected from a sextet. With various band members doubling up on instruments and singing, and with various sampled riffs woven into the ensemble texture, you might have thought a small electronic orchestra were onstage.

Pedro Martins performs with guitarist Kurt Rosenwinkel at the Jazz Showcase on March 30, 2017, in Chicago. (Kristen Norman / Chicago Tribune)

Vocalist-keyboardist Pedro Martins sang long strands of high-pitched melody in "Kama" and elsewhere, his work on guitar and synthesizer proving comparably inventive. When Martins and Rosenwinkel shared vocal lines, they sang as if from a single source of inspiration.

A quartet of voices unfurled the melody line of "Casio Vanguard," the sweet euphony of this work counterbalanced by Rosenwinkel's edgy, bracing guitar solos (more of which would sharpen the music-making throughout). And in "Ezra," Rosenwinkel and friends twinned hummable melody with gently lilting rhythm.

Each of Rosenwinkel's colleagues contributed significantly to the endeavor, with a beautifully weighted piano touch and genteel vocals from Olivia Trummer, layered rhythms from percussionist-vocalist Antonio Loureiro and warm support from bassist-vocalist Frederico Heliodoro and drummer Bill Campbell.

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A much larger gathering of musicians contributed to the "Caipi" recording, with Rosenwinkel playing multiple instruments in tandem with several guests, including French hornist Chris Komer and, on one track, guitarist Eric Clapton.

That Rosenwinkel chose to launch his new label, Heartcore Records, with "Caipi" points to a measure of bravery. Rather than begin with safe, familiar work to give the label a running start, he has chosen to make a major new statement.

Bravo to any artist willing to take that kind of chance on his own vision, all the more when the music is as surprising as this.

Rosenwinkel told the crowd that the next album on Heartcore will be from Martins. Considering the fervor and musicianship of Martins' work on "Caipi" and in concert, it could be quite a follow-up.

Howard Reich is a Tribune critic.

hreich@chicagotribune.com

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When: 8 and 10 p.m. Friday and Saturday; 4, 8 and 10 p.m. Sunday

Where: Jazz Showcase, 806 S. Plymouth Court

Tickets: $20-$45; 312-360-0234 or www.jazzshowcase.com

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LA Times Blasts CA AG Over Indictments

Contact: Liberty Counsel, 407-875-1776, Media@LC.org; Press Kit



SAN FRANCISCO, March 31, 2017 /Christian Newswire/ -- The Los Angeles Times Editorial Board has blasted California Attorney General Xavier Becerra's recent criminal indictment of the two pro-life journalists, Sandra "Susan" Merritt and David Daleiden, based on their undercover videos of Planned Parenthood.

The core of the indictment claims that Daleiden and Merritt wrongly recorded alleged "confidential communications" at public conferences and at public restaurants. However, the Washington Street Journal published Noah Rothman's statement from the Commentary Magazine: "Planned Parenthood's President Cecile Richards confessed under oath before Congress that these tapes were recorded in 'a nonconfidential area.'"

The Los Angeles Times Editorial Board also blasted Attorney General Becerra, writing: "It's disturbingly aggressive for Becerra to apply this criminal statute to people who were trying to influence a contested issue of public policy."

Each of the Planned Parenthood organizations featured in undercover video recordings released by the Center for Medical Progress clearly indicate the illegal trafficking of aborted baby body parts for profit to three organ procurement organizations, including StemExpress, LLC, Advanced Bioscience Resources, Inc. and Novogenix Laboratories, LLC.

In one of the videos, a former StemExpress technician describes an experience at Planned Parenthood Mar Monte's Alameda Clinic in San Jose, California, where she witnessed an aborted baby's heart beating and then was told to "harvest" the child's brain. The technician testified, "[She] gave me the scissors and told me that I had to cut down the middle of the face."

Mat Staver, Founder and Chairman of Liberty Counsel said, "The California Penal Code defines murder as the 'unlawful killing of a human being, or a fetus, with malice aforethought' and state law requires rendering care to a born-alive infant. Yet, Attorney General Becerra insists on punishing innocent journalists while overlooking the horrors of Planned Parenthood profiting from human genocide. Becerra obviously has his political agenda ahead of the law," said Staver.

Liberty Counsel is an international nonprofit, litigation, education, and policy organization dedicated to advancing religious freedom, the sanctity of life, and the family since 1989, by providing pro bono assistance and representation on these and related topics.
Lookingglass Theatre ensemble member David Schwimmer and playwright-director Alexander Zeldin talk about Zeldin's "Beyond Caring," which debuted in London and is playing in Chicago through May 7, 2017, at Lookingglass. (Jose Osorio / Chicago Tribune/Chicago Tribune)

David Schwimmer is as cagey as any celebrity. But he has learned to trust his mother-in-law.

Which is why the Lookingglass Theatre of Chicago is staging the American premiere of "Beyond Caring," rather than the National Theatre of Great Britain, even though that global theater colossus badly wanted the worldwide rights to a piece by the red-hot, 31-year-old director-playwright Alexander Zeldin. That youthful purveyor of improvisation-based hypernaturalism, who is seen by some critics as an heir to the inestimable Mike Leigh, a stage-and-screen auteur also known for his long rehearsal processes, dedication to a tight ensemble of actors and an interest in bringing to the theater the lives of ordinary, working-class women and men.

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"She has impeccable taste and she sees everything," Schwimmer said over a beer in New York's East Village on a recent evening, speaking of his in-law, Jennie Buckman, former head of acting at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts in London. "And she said this was one of the greatest things she had ever seen."

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"Beyond Caring" is a theater piece about the plight of poorly paid, "zero-hours" (or, in American parlance, temporary, subcontracted) workers doing backbreaking labor such as cleaning in meat processing plants. In London, it was frequently described as one of the most unusual and intense theater pieces staged in years.

In the Guardian, critic Lyn Gardner called the five-actor play "quietly devastating." In the Financial Times, critic Sarah Hemming used the same two words, and the Financial Times has written again about the plans for the American premiere Sunday night on Michigan Avenue. Writing for The Times of London about the first London production ("Beyond Caring" moved to the National's Temporary Theatre in 2015, giving Zeldin a foot in the door of the highly competitive top tier of socially conscious British theater), critic (and Chicago Tribune contributor) Sam Marlowe called the piece "grueling, deeply distressing and enraging, a glimpse into a nocturnal world in which human beings are, like the factory's product, just so much meat to be ground up and consumed or spat out."

Critics mostly were reacting to the immersive nature of the piece, to Zeldin's cultivation of what some described as a real-time rhythmic intensity and to how the piece strove to immerse the audience in the actual doing of the work, before ultimately devastating them with the personal consequences of the work on the undercompensated doing the working.

David Schwimmer, left, was instrumental in bringing Alexander Zeldin's "Beyond Caring" from England to the Lookingglass Theatre Company. (Jose M. Osorio / Chicago Tribune)

So with that tip-off after the premiere at the Yard Theatre in London in 2014, the former "Friends" star and founding Lookinglass ensemble member set about tracking down the play and the man who put it together.

He got hold of a script and a video, shot with a single camera. And he met Zeldin, whom he found knew next to nothing about Chicago or Lookingglass even though he'd actually long been working in a similar way to the storied Chicago ensemble, known for its devised pieces, such as Studs Terkel's "Race," which Schwimmer directed himself in 2003. That project used Joy Gregory's adaptation of Terkel's book. "Beyond Caring" is based on Florence Aubenas' Terkel-esque book "The Night Cleaner," which looked at French shift workers. Both, clearly, are in Schwimmer's wheelhouse.

"I educated myself on his project," Schwimmer said. "Meanwhile, Alex educated himself on Chicago and Lookingglass."

The mutual education went well  actually, it has been going on over most of the past two years. Schwimmer, who said he was "blown away" by what he first saw on tape, decided to co-produce the project through his own production company, Dark Harbor Stories, which was, in practical terms, mostly a philanthropic gesture to help Lookingglass find the additional resources necessary to stage the piece, although if "Beyond Caring" should move to New York or (as is hoped) go on tour, Schwimmer's company will retain an interest.

And Zeldin caught a plane to Chicago. He could be found one recent morning eating breakfast at the Park Hyatt hotel, a very jarring locale for an artist working on a piece about impoverished, invisible and indentured workers, but then that's showbiz. (And Lookingglass is supported by the hotel).

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Zeldin, looking young, rumpled and hungry, peered out of the grand window down on Michigan Avenue. "Actually," he said, "I am very nervous about doing this play in Chicago."

He stared out for a moment.

"These actors ..." he said, his voice trailing off. "I really like these Chicago actors. Honestly, I had no idea of what was here."

Zeldin, who graduated from Oxford University, was raised in various locales, and is part Russian by birth, likes actors, although he also says that he prefers "real people," so if the actors turn out to be able to really play real people, as is the Chicago way, then all the better. Having been in rehearsal for several weeks, and having joined his cast (and Schwimmer) on various excursions to see the places around Chicago where temporary, contracted workers toil, he clearly had intuited that local specialty right from the beginning of his rehearsal process.

Perhaps that is because Zeldin dreams of his own company  actors who might work together for a decade or more. That would be mirroring the working style of Leigh, whose name comes up in Zeldin's conversation from time to time, although the younger man also points out that whereas Leigh tended to work almost entirely through, and with, dialogue improvised by actors, Zeldin sees himself as more of a writer, per se. He is closer, you might say, to the Second City way of working, where performer input leads to a scripted piece.

"Beyond Caring" has been published in the United Kingdom by Bloomsbury Methuen Drama; that morning Zeldin was trying to persuade the august publishing house to do the same with the yet-to-be-finalized script devised by Lookingglass.

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There had been some issues in translating the piece to the other side of the Atlantic, the most obvious of which, Zeldin said, was race. In the U.S., such workers tend almost exclusively to be African-American or Latino. "Workers," Zeldin said, "who are the least likely to complain about the way they are being treated."

This is hardly the first Britain-to-America play to substitute issues of racial identity for what is, in Britain, often more of an issue of class. But it was clear that this realization had changed the project. For the better, both men said.

"The issue of race in this country is fundamentally linked to this work," Schwimmer said. "Because a great number of the Latinos are undocumented immigrants, they usually are chosen over the African-Americans. This is because if there is any kind of abuse, they tend just to go away. They won't go to the police. And, obviously, that situation has only worsened."

Zeldin said he was keeping the same structure and arc, but that the script was very different and based on research the company did around Chicago, with the actors actually doing some of the work they are now to present in the theater.

Zeldin also did this the first time around.

"I worked as a cleaner for one of the agencies," he said, describing his experience mostly as one of complete and total invisibility, unlike his life now on both sides of the Atlantic.

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Chris Jones is a Tribune critic.

cjones5@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @ChrisJonesTrib

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U.S. Sen. Valerie Jarrett, anyone?

The Obamas' "first friend" and former senior White House adviser last year left open the possibility of a run for public office, an option that now seems less likely.

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But on Friday, Jarrett revealed how close she came in 2008 to seeking an appointment to President Barack Obama's old Senate seat.

Disgraced former Gov. Rod Blagojevich ultimately appointed Roland Burris to the seat  after being urged to consider Jarrett, evidence at Blagojevich's corruption trials showed.

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Speaking at the Chicago Network's "Women in the Forefront" lunch at the Chicago Hilton on Friday, though, Jarrett, 60, said she had ultimately been dissuaded from seeking the Senate seat by the Obamas.

"I did think about it, and in fact my family and my closest friends including somebody on this stage felt that I should throw my hat in the ring," Jarrett said, referring to fellow Obama White House staffer Susan Sher.

"I did give it a lot of thought and I talked about it with both the president and the first lady  at that point the president- and the first-lady elect  and the first lady [had a very clear view and] she said, 'Come with us!'

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"The president had a little more finesse, and he said go do some polling, go think about it ... and then eventually the two of them talked and he came back and said, 'I've thought about it and I think you need to come with us ... I know you and I know the U.S. Senate, and I think that you will be a part of something very important in this White House, where you can continue to advocate for the things you care most about ... so why wouldn't you want to do that?

"And so I did. And he was very right."

That prompted Sher to joke, "And I was wrong!"

Sher and Jarrett share a long history, having worked together in Mayor Richard M. Daley's City Hall with Michelle Obama. Both Jarrett and Sher confessed they were "terrified" of Daley, but said they valued his commitment to family time for his staff.

"We all knew that the perfect excuse for not being somewhere was 'parent teacher conference,'" a laughing Sher said of their time with Daley.

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kjanssen@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @kimjnews
One person was seriously injured in a fire in the Lawndale neighborhood Friday afternoon, authorities said.

The adult victim was taken in serious-to-critical condition to Mount Sinai Hospital from a fire in the 1500 block of South Kenneth Avenue, according to a Chicago Fire Department spokesman.

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The fire in the 1 1/2 story frame home was quickly extinguished after firefighters were called to the scene about 2:45 p.m.

The fire was not being investigated as suspicious, according to police.
A Cicero man who was shot Wednesday evening in Chicago's Austin neighborhood died a day later, authorities said Thursday night.

Romille McCall, 23, was pronounced dead at 2:25 p.m. at Stroger Hospital after a West Side attack in the 5100 block of West Chicago Avenue on Wednesday, according to the Cook County medical examiner's office.

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McCall, of the 1800 block of South Austin Boulevard in Cicero, was wounded in the back and arm while in a vehicle about 6:35 p.m. Wednesday, according to police. Police originally said he showed up at West Suburban Medical Center in Oak Park, and his condition was stabilized there. Thursday night, police confirmed McCall was taken to Stroger Hospital, where he was pronounced dead Thursday afternoon.

An autopsy was scheduled for Friday.

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Public records indicate McCall also used an address in DeKalb.
Chance the Rapper makes an announcement at Paul Robeson High School in Chicago on Friday, March, 31, 2017, that the Chicago Bulls have agreed to donate $1 million dollars to support his educational efforts. (Terrence Antonio James/Chicago Tribune) (Chicago Tribune)

Chance the Rapper and Chicago Bulls President Michael Reinsdorf announced Friday that the basketball team has donated $1 million to the city's financially troubled school district, advancing a highly publicized fundraising effort launched by the musician in early March.

That donation, the Grammy-winning artist said, means the campaign unveiled after a meeting with Gov. Bruce Rauner has so far raised $2.2 million. That money will largely be used to underwrite a fund for arts and literature education within Chicago Public Schools' nonprofit fundraising arm.

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The money will go sometime beginning in the next school year to schools that have suffered budget cuts, lack textbooks and music programs, and have seen a decrease in graduation rates, Chance said during an appearance at Robeson High School in Englewood.

Chance the Rapper makes an announcement at Robeson High School in Chicago'sEnglewood neighborhood March 31, 2017, that the Chicago Bulls have agreed to donate $1 million toChicago Public Schools. (Terrence Antonio James / Chicago Tribune)

"It is my job, just as who I am, to bring light and attention to public school funding, broken formulas and especially how it affects my hometown," Chance said.

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Chance and Reinsdorf's delivery of another novelty-sized check to CPS was part of an ongoing campaign that has brought both flattering publicity to the musician and broader attention to the fiscal problems confronting the city's schools.

The musician, who was born Chancelor Bennett and grew up on the South Side, did not use the occasion to continue a public sparring match with Rauner. After an exchange on social media, Chance and the governor met in early March to discuss CPS, a meeting the rapper later dismissed as "unsuccessful."

Instead of taking Rauner to task as he did when presenting his own check for $1 million last month, Chance visited a Robeson assembly and danced with a group of students. A video of that interaction posted to WGCI-FM 107.5's Twitter account quickly spread on social media.

"This is a philanthropic effort and a charitable effort," Chance said Friday. "The legal stuff, the election process, government  that's all you guys' choice individually."

Faced with criticism from Chance and city officials after vetoing legislation in December that would have sent $215 million to the city's schools, Rauner asked lawmakers to separate CPS funding and pension overhauls from a package of Senate legislation.

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Senate Democrats have opposed that idea, though, saying the Republican governor's proposal distracted from the broader effort to resolve the state's historic budget stalemate. Pension changes have been part of that effort, which has since stalled.

After Chance's $1 million donation to CPS in March, the musician's Social Works initiative gave $10,000 each to 10 CPS schools. With the Bulls donation Friday, the initiative gave the same amount to 12 schools: Crane, Julian, Harlan, Gage Park, Solorio, Clark, Hyde Park and Steinmetz high schools; and Armour, Revere, Azuela and Powell elementary schools.

Robeson is one of 10 other schools on the South and West sides that received $10,000 in the first batch of donations. Chance said those schools have all received the funds.

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Details on how the funds will be used will be worked out with help from Ingenuity, an advocacy organization that has worked with Mayor Rahm Emanuel's administration on CPS arts initiatives, said Paul Sznewajs, the group's executive director.

"There's literally thousands of arts programs that we want to implement, specifically bell to bell," Chance said. "And besides that, it's about supplies and equipment for both arts and  I don't want to say (general education)  but reading, science, to attack all sides."

jjperez@tribpub.com

Twitter @PerezJr
Members of the Chicago Police Department talk to beachgoers at North Avenue Beach on July 4, 2016, in Chicago. (Erin Hooley / Chicago Tribune)

With the high-traffic summer season approaching, the Chicago Park District will pay more to the Chicago police to provide a beefed-up presence along the lakefront and in other parks.

Mayor Rahm Emanuel introduced an ordinance at this week's City Council meeting that puts the Park District on the hook to pay up to $12 million over three years to the Police Department for the increased patrols, which began last summer amid the city's surge in crime.

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The focus, the city said, will be on "eliminating violent crimes and drug-related crimes, and improving safety and security for Chicago residents."

The agreement comes at a time when the city has hit residents with higher fees and property tax increases, in part to cover the cost of unfunded government workers' pensions. At the same time, city officials plan to add nearly 1,000 new officers over the next two years. Last year, more than 760 people were killed and 4,300 people were shot in Chicago.

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The larger police presence follows high-profile incidents that took place along the lakefront last summer, including a brawl at North Avenue Beach that was captured on video, and the arrest of an 18-year-old suburban man for allegedly pointing a gun at Oak Street Beach.

Chicago police launched a unit that patrols beaches and parks on horseback, bicycles and ATVs and responds to major incidents. In 2014, four officers were injured in a melee that broke out among a crowd gathered for an illegal concert at Montrose Beach.

The lakefront is heavily used in the summer with an estimated 100,000 people per weekend day using the trail along the lake.

The agreement, which the Park District said is retroactive to 2016, called for the district to pay $2 million for 2016, $4 million for 2017, $4 million for 2018 and $2 million for 2019.

The funds were approved in the Park District's $449.4 million budget for 2017, said Park District spokeswoman Jessica Maxey-Faulkner in an emailed statement. The Park District also pays for its own security staff.

"The Chicago Park District and the Police Department have consistently worked together to ensure the safety of residents in Park District properties," she said.

A city spokeswoman, Julie Kaviar, said the city was responding to the needs of residents.

"At the request of aldermen and community members, the Chicago Park District and the Police Department entered into an additional three-year agreement to provide added officer patrolling along properties without diverting regular officer deployment from neighborhoods," she said in an emailed statement.

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The arrangement is not the first time the city has looked to other agencies to help pay for police protection. The year-round program is similar to agreements the Police Department also has with the CTA and Chicago Housing Authority, Kaviar said. And the city has in the past looked to Chicago Public Schools to help pay for police services amid periods of financial strain.

While patrolling Park District property, the officers are tasked with maintaining a visible presence and breaking up large crowds and "unplanned gatherings" in addition to performing similar duties of beat officers like responding to calls or reported crimes and monitoring and preventing potential gang activity.

The Police Department schedules officers each day to work at lakefront locations on their days off for overtime pay, according to the agreement which began July 1, 2016, and goes through June 30, 2019.

The agreement does not stipulate how many officers are assigned to patrol the lakefront but said the number of officers is determined by both the Police Department and Park District. The officers may be redeployed to other locations for police emergencies, the agreement said. The additional services also can extend to other Park District locations.

"This increased and more effective presence has produced a safer environment for all citizens of the City of Chicago," the police document said.

lvivanco@chicagotribune.com

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Twitter @lvivanco
Georgia Jackson, 72, is overcome with emotion upon learning that her two grandsons, Raheem, 19, and Dillon Jackson, 20, were found fatally shot near Nadia Fish and Chicken, at 2704 E. 75th St., in the South Shore neighborhood on March 30, 2017. (Chris Sweda / Chicago Tribune)

The first call of a person shot dead in the South Shore neighborhood came in shortly after noon Thursday. A woman, four months pregnant, had been found in her home with a gunshot wound to the head, according to Chicago police.



Less than four hours later, four men were killed when a gunman opened fire at a chicken and fish restaurant less than five blocks east.



Before the day was done, a man and a woman were shot to death just after 11 p.m. in a car in front of the South Shore Cultural Center not far away, police said.



"Again in South Shore?" a woman wondered out loud as she walked past the latest crime scene, at 71st Street and South Shore Drive.

Over 12 hours Thursday, seven people were found shot to death within a four-block area of the South Shore neighborhood.

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The burst of violence brought the number of people shot in Chicago this year to at least 740, according to data collected by the Tribune. There have been at least 140 homicides.

Mayor Rahm Emanuel said he talked to police Superintendent Eddie Johnson and other police brass Friday morning about the shootings.



"There is a level of evil and a depravity about an individual that would shoot a pregnant woman," the mayor said. "There is a level of evil and depravity about an individual who would walk into a restaurant and in front of a mother, shoot her sons."

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In the latest fatal shooting in South Shore, a couple were in a silver van when a black Jeep pulled alongside and someone inside fired shots, police said.

The van slammed into a pole just north of the Metra tracks. Police found a 27-year-old man in the back seat with a gunshot wound to the side of his body, and a 23-year-old woman in the front passenger seat with a gunshot wound to the head.

The 23-year-old woman was identified by the medical examiner's office as Dominique Victoria Scott, of Gary, Ind. and the 27-year-old man was identified as Cornell M. Patrick, of the 10000 block of South Crandon Avenue, in Chicago. Both were pronounced dead at the scene. A third man in the car was uninjured.

A woman in a White Sox cap ran to the tracks screaming.

"That's my boyfriend!" she cried out.

A train approached sounding its horn, and the guard rails began to come down around her. A police officer grabbed her and pulled her off the tracks. The train rolled east, blocking her view of the crashed minivan.

Police believe the shooters were targeting one or more people in the van.

Seven hours earlier, around 3:50 p.m., four young men were fatally shot at Nadia Fish and Chicken at 2704 E. 75th St., police said.

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A gunman approached the restaurant and fired shots. It was not clear how many of the four were inside or outside the restaurant at the time.

Dillon Jackson, 20, was found dead outside the restaurant. His brother, Raheem Jackson, 19, was found against a tree. Emmanuel Stokes, 28, was inside the restaurant with Edwin Davis, 32.

Just after noon, 26-year-old Patrice L. Calvin, four months pregnant, was found dead less than four blocks away. She had suffered a gunshot wound to the head in a home in the 7500 block of South Luella Avenue.

She was pronounced dead at 12:27 p.m., according to the Cook County medical examiner's office. She lived on the block where police said she was found, according to the office.

Relatives exchanged hugs in the rain outside the three-story beige brick apartment building on the southeast corner of 75th and Luella where Calvin had lived.

It was not clear whether any of the shootings were related.

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Seven other people were shot in Chicago from Thursday morning to early Friday.

 Just before 4:30 a.m. Friday, an 18-year-old man was shot in Canaryville on the South Side. He was standing in the 600 block of West 47th Place when someone pulled up in a car and fired shots. He was shot in the torso and went to Stroger Hospital in serious condition.

 About 2 a.m. on the Far North Side, a 35-year-old man was shot in Rogers Park. He told investigators he was smoking a cigarette outside in the 7600 block of North Sheridan Road when someone came up and opened fire, shooting him in the ankle. He went to St. Francis Hospital in Evanston, and his condition was stabilized.

 Just before 10:55 p.m. Thursday on the West Side, a 30-year-old man was shot multiple times in West Garfield Park. He was on a street corner in the 300 block of South Kilpatrick Avenue when someone shot him in the right side, left hip and left forearm, police said. He was taken to Mount Sinai Hospital, and his condition was stabilized.

 About 3:15 p.m. on the West Side, an 18-year-old man suffered multiple wounds to the chest in a drive-by at South Cicero Avenue and West Madison Street in the Austin neighborhood and was taken to West Suburban Medical Center in Oak Park, according to preliminary reports. He was transferred to Stroger Hospital in critical condition.

 About 1:15 p.m. on the Southwest Side, a 16-year-old boy was shot in the 2400 block of West 61st Street in the Chicago Lawn neighborhood. The boy was outside when two men left a silver Porsche SUV and opened fire.

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The victim ran and was struck in the biceps. He was taken to Advocate Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn, where his condition was stabilized, police said.

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The gunmen were described as black and in their 30s. One was wearing a white hoodie and had a dark complexion. The other was wearing all white and also had a dark complexion, police said.

 About 11 a.m. on the Far South Side, a 19-year-old man was in his vehicle in the 1500 block of East 95th Street in the Burnside neighborhood when another man drove up and fired shots, police said.

The man was struck in the left leg and was taken to Advocate Christ Medical Center, where his condition was stabilized, police said.

 Around 7:40 a.m. on the West Side, a man walked into a hospital with a gunshot wound to the left arm, according to police.

The man told police he was walking in the first block of South Leamington Avenue in the South Austin neighborhood when someone approached and fired, police said.

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The man went to Loretto Hospital about a mile away and was transferred to Stroger Hospital, where he was listed as stable, police said.

Editor's note: This story was updated on April 3, 2017, when the medical examiner's office identified Scott and Patrick.
The discovery of 8-year-old Gizzell Ford's tortured body in a trash-strewn Chicago apartment set off a firestorm of shock, disgust and demands for change.

Months after a judge ruled against the child's mother and placed Gizzell in her grandmother's home with her bedridden father, the straight-A student suffered horrific abuse while tied to a bedpost for days at a time, was denied food and water, and punished for trying to take a sip from the toilet.

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Gizzell, though, did not simply fall through the cracks  a Chicago Tribune investigation following her slaying in 2013 found that multiple layers of trained professionals duty-bound to protect children had contact with the emaciated girl in the final months of her life but failed to act on warning signs.

Now, as the child's grandmother, Helen Ford, awaits sentencing following her recent conviction for first-degree murder, promises of systemic reforms in Gizzell's memory have fallen woefully short despite some incremental improvements in training and collaboration among child welfare agencies.

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At the grandmother's trial, prosecutors revealed for the first time excerpts from the rainbow-striped journal Gizzell kept over the summer of 2013 as she endured weeks of abuse. The tone, once hopeful, turned dark near the end.

Gizzell, looking forward to fourth grade, wrote that she was "a beautiful smart and good young lady" who would try her best not to get into trouble and face further punishment.

"I hate this life because now I'm in super big trouble," she wrote just one day before her death, as her resiliency finally crumbled amid the onslaught of verbal, emotional and physical abuse.

Attorneys on both sides of the case agreed on this much  that a Cook County domestic relations judge should never have placed Gizzell with her father and paternal grandmother, both unemployed, with a felony conviction in each of their backgrounds. Prosecutors called the judge's ruling "a disgrace," while Ford's assistant public defenders said the 55-year-old woman was overwhelmed while also caring for her quadriplegic adult son and two young grandsons.

But the judge was far from the only one who missed red flags, interviews and records obtained by the Tribune show.

Barely a month before Gizzell's death on July 12, 2013, an investigator for the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services visited the grandmother's cockroach-infested apartment on the city's West Side as she checked out the Fords' allegations that the child had been molested by her mother's boyfriend before she came to live with them. Prosecutors said bruises and wounds over her entire body pointed to her being brutalized for weeks, but the DCFS worker reported nothing out of the ordinary beyond a cluttered home, records show.

Expand Autoplay Image 1 of 11 Family members of Gizzell Ford, Angela Mendez, left, and Frandes Mercado, leave the Leighton Criminal Court Building on June 7, 2017, in Chicago. Helen Ford was sentenced to life in prison for the murder of her 8-year-old granddaughter Gizzell. (Erin Hooley / Chicago Tribune)

In addition, a respected child-abuse pediatrician who examined Gizzell for the possible sexual trauma weeks before she died didn't call the DCFS hotline about what appeared to be an old, healed loop mark he noted on the girl that might have been a telltale sign of abuse. The doctor also may not have followed standard protocol in cases of suspected child abuse by failing to question Gizzell privately about the mark outside her grandmother's presence, according to the DCFS Office of the Inspector General. Unable to find evidence of sexual trauma, he characterized the exam as "normal" but noted the injury and two other marks on Gizzell.

The DCFS investigator had access to the physician's report, but she failed to act as well.

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Later, her failures in Gizzell's care led to her firing, but no action was ever taken against the pediatrician. He is being sued, however, by Gizzell's mother.

Equally confounding, Gizzell's medical exam was conducted at a Children's Advocacy Center meant to provide an interdisciplinary and integrated approach to child abuse allegations, yet repeated opportunities for collaboration among its staff, the pediatrician and DCFS were missed.

News of Gizzell's suffering outraged state and local officials, sparking multiple investigations and calls for action that for the most part have produced little substantive reform.

For instance, domestic relations judges hearing child custody disputes between impoverished parents who can't afford attorneys still are forced to make life-or-death decisions with few resources to guide them. And DCFS and other agencies involved in child welfare still often operate in isolation, creating communication barriers, experts say.

DCFS Director George Sheldon, hired about 1 1/2 years after Gizzell's death, said his agency "should have seen more of the warning signs and looked deeper, with a greater sense of urgency about the risks to this child."

"Regrettably, and I've seen this too many times, everyone failed  the agency, the doctor, the courts," he said.

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Sheldon said DCFS is making progress since Gizzell's death, citing innovations in technology to better spot red flags, improved training and pilot projects across the state designed to localize decision-making and shorten how long kids in protective custody spend in temporary placements.

"But (progress) is slower and has taken more time than anyone would hope," he said.

An 'agonizing death'

Even veteran Chicago police officers were stunned at the condition of the two-bedroom apartment in the 5200 block of West Adams Street.

They documented the squalor in their reports: Cockroaches scurried across the floors and walls. The rooms were so cluttered with clothes and garbage that police said they had to clear a path just to walk, and the carpet was so wet and filthy that it felt "mushy" with each step. The smell of urine permeated the air.

"I would not leave a rat in that home," one DCFS document reviewed by the Tribune quoted Chicago police Sgt. Bryan Holy as saying.

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(Chicago Tribune Graphics)

Not even decades of experience prepared emergency responders for what they discovered in one of the bedrooms. Gizzell's strangled and badly beaten body, clad only in torn green underwear, was found on the floor of her father's room. Her journal lay nearby. Its last entry was dated one day earlier, July 11, but authorities said much of the girl's once-neat writing was barely legible.

Authorities said the 70-pound child had been beaten literally from head to toe by a 275-pound grandmother who sometimes wore a belt around her neck that she used for punishment. The girl's father, Andre Ford, bedridden with chronic scleroderma, also was charged in the slaying, but he died before trial in Cook County Jail of an apparent heart attack at age 29.

An open, maggot-infested wound found on the back of Gizzell's head is believed to have been caused by her rubbing against a metal post when she was tied to her father's bed. Her wrists and ankles had visible ligature marks. Authorities said Gizzell was kept there as a virtual prisoner after school ended in mid-June.

The wounds were so severe that a Chicago police forensic investigator with 30 years on the job wept from the witness stand at the grandmother's trial as she looked at Gizzell's photo.

Prosecutors also played cellphone videos showing the Fords berating Gizzell for breaking rules as the terrified girl was forced to stand with a sock or rag stuffed in her mouth.

In convicting Helen Ford of first-degree murder, Judge Evelyn Clay found overwhelming evidence that the killing was "exceptionally brutal" and that Gizzell was tortured, decisions that ensured the grandmother faces up to natural life in prison.

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"That child suffered a slow and agonizing death," Clay said. "That little body looked like it had been pulverized from head to toe."

How Gizzell ended up with the Fords is a haunting question that exposes an ugly truth about inequities in domestic relations court for the poorest of children.

Adept at working system

They called her "Beba," or baby girl. Gizzell had lived most of her life with her mother, Sandra Mercado, in her maternal grandparents' home in Melrose Park.

Kathryn Wanicek taught Gizzell in first and part of second grades. She never met the Fords but recalls Gizzell's mother and maternal grandfather, Juan Mercado, as the ones who came to school. Wanicek thought the single mother was doing a good job.

The teacher said Gizzell, a talented, inquisitive child, came to school each morning excited to learn.

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"She was a great learner and loved to read and write," said Wanicek, who still has a little handwritten note from the girl in which she told her teacher of her love for her and learning. "Gizzell was always someone who could find a bright spot in the day, and she would encourage the other students to do the same. There wasn't a day that she came to school sad.

"She would always say, 'What are we doing today?'"

Sandra Mercado had met Andre Ford while working for a time with his mother. Their two-year dating relationship ended in 2004  the year Gizzell was born.

Mercado long resisted Andre Ford's efforts to be involved in their daughter's life, according to court records.

Gizzell's father petitioned Cook County's domestic relations court for shared custody in June 2010. Mercado fought back.

"I have taken care of my little girl on my own for 6 years with no help from her father," she wrote in a court filing. "Her father hasn't done anything for her and has been in and out of her life since birth."

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Mercado won custody of Gizzell, but the dispute continued over the next two years, mostly with the two arguing over the mother's compliance with the father's visitation.

In November 2012, though, Andre Ford raised more serious allegations against Mercado while seeking emergency custody of their daughter. Misspelling his daughter's name in the court petition, he alleged that Mercado hadn't let him see Gizzell for a year, but that he had heard her mother was homeless, wandering the streets at night with Gizzell and an infant sibling, court records show.

The next day, Judge Lionel Jean-Baptiste  the eighth judge whose name appears in paperwork in the contested custody case  granted the father temporary custody based on these claims and that Mercado might be moving out of state.

Denying the allegations, Mercado immediately filed for the return of Gizzell.

While trying to sort out the dispute, the judge ordered an emergency intervention that experts say indicates concern a child might be in imminent danger. As part of that process, a court expert interviewed both parents, Helen Ford and Gizzell.

But domestic relations judges presiding over private disputes between parents concerning custody and child support do not have access to the same experts or legal resources as in child-protection courtrooms in cases in which the state has taken a child into protective custody. DCFS and lawyers with the state's attorney or public guardian's offices are not regularly assigned to these courtrooms, for instance.

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As a result, it's unclear what Jean-Baptiste knew about the work, family, mental and criminal backgrounds of Helen and Andre Ford who, respectively, had 1985 forgery and 2002 attempted robbery convictions in their pasts.

But, as prosecutors later noted, the grandmother was adept at working the levers of the court.

A question of money

At a December 2012 custody hearing, Jean-Baptiste followed the recommendation of an intervention expert that Gizzell remain with the Fords. The court found Gizzell "is now safe and comfortable at the home of" the Fords and that the mother had been in and out of at least four homes in a year. Gizzell also said when interviewed that she wanted to remain with the Fords.

Sandra Mercado was granted supervised visitation twice a week and ordered to undergo a psychological evaluation and parenting classes.

Months later, in July 2013, Gizzell was killed just a couple weeks shy of her ninth birthday. The Mercados said they had last seen her in April, blaming the Fords for blocking visits.

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Juan Mercado, Gizzell's maternal grandfather, has told the Tribune that he was present at court and denied a chance to be interviewed or tell the judge that his daughter was not homeless and that she and Gizzell had lived with him until recently in Melrose Park.

Though he was not required to do so, Jean-Baptiste could have appointed a legal advocate to represent Gizzell's interests in court and conduct a more thorough evaluation of medical, school and family records, or even a study of her home life. Such discretionary services, however, can take months to conclude because of case backlogs, according to experts.

Jean-Baptiste declined to comment for this story, but attorneys familiar with his courtroom have described him as a judge who is fair and cares about doing what's in a child's best interest.

Attorney Stacey Platt, associate director of the Civitas ChildLaw Clinic at Loyola University Chicago School of Law, said it's a complicated area of law and that many parents without the financial means such as Gizzell's mom end up representing themselves.

"The issues before the family court, like all courts, are determined in large part by the parties' allegations presented in their pleadings," said Platt, a clinical professor of law. "One policy question raised by cases like this one  a case in which the judge sought intervention and followed the recommendations of the intervener  is how far the courts in private custody disputes should be required or even have the power to go beyond the evidence presented to them, to affirmatively build a record that ensures each child's safety and well-being."

Attorneys in Cook County Public Guardian Robert Harris' office regularly staff child-protection courtrooms in which DCFS has taken a child into protective custody, but are sparingly brought in for domestic relations cases involving private parental disputes. Harris and other experts say it's a systemic problem that comes down to a lack of resources. He argues that DCFS should have more of a role in domestic relations cases.

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Sandra Mercado, 35, said she never suspected the Fords were abusing Gizzell. She blames herself for not doing more in those final months, either by trying to enforce her visitation rights or win back custody in court.

The mother remembers Gizzell as a kind child who always had a smile on her face.

"I don't want any mom to ever have their child taken away from them unfairly," Mercado said in a recent statement given to the Tribune by her lawyer. "There needs to be safeguards in place at every step of a child custody dispute where the number one interest is the child. The system is broken and failed Gizzell every step of the way."

Red flags abounded

The court wasn't the only failed intervention.

DCFS became involved in April 2013, three months before her death, but the Fords, who had made two hotline calls alleging Gizzell was molested by her mother's boyfriend before the child came to live with her father, weren't the focus of the investigation.

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The last documented visit by the child-protection investigator, Shirley Contreras, to the Ford apartment took place on June 11, records showed. Contreras did not report the conditions that police vividly described one month later on discovering Gizzell's body. She arranged for Gizzell to be interviewed again June 20 by a clinical social worker.

DCFS closed its case June 26 after concluding the molestation allegations were unfounded. Police also could not substantiate the claims.

Contreras was later fired for her work on the case for allegedly falsifying a record of an interview with a school counselor, officials said. She declined to comment.

There were other troubling missteps as well.

In mid-June, Dr. Norell Rosado, the child-abuse pediatrician who examined Gizzell as part of the molestation investigation at a Chicago-area Children's Advocacy Center, noted what appeared to be an old, healed loop mark on her buttocks and linear marks on her thighs. Instead of questioning Gizzell alone, he inquired in front of Helen Ford and did not challenge the grandmother's answer that the child harmed herself.

Rosado noted the injuries in his report but did not make a call to the DCFS child abuse and neglect hotline. He also did not tell either the DCFS investigator or the center's family advocate  any of which might have sparked an abuse investigation of the Fords as well.

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No discipline has been taken against Rosado. He did not return a phone call seeking comment, but told the Tribune in 2013 that while he cannot discuss Gizzell's case, he has never failed to call the hotline if he spotted a sign of child abuse or neglect during an exam.

The DCFS investigator later read the doctor's characterization of the exam as "normal" but did not note the injuries documented in the report, according to the DCFS Office of the Inspector General. As a result of privacy concerns, the child advocacy centers did not receive medical reports at the time.

Other red flags abounded for multiple professionals to notice:

 The Fords had pulled Gizzell out of counseling after she disclosed her anxiety over caring for her ill father, who did not have professional in-home medical help.

 Gizzell told advocacy center staff that she was forced for hours to squat or stand with her arms in the air  warning indicators of potential abuse, according to experts.

 Gizzell also had been diagnosed with a urinary tract infection, but that information was not shared with advocacy center staff to ensure she received follow-up care.

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DCFS Inspector General Denise Kane, whose office investigates abuse or neglect deaths in Illinois of children whom DCFS had contact with in the last year of their lives, called the lack of collaboration among the agencies one of the great tragedies of Gizzell's death.

The child advocacy center and DCFS have since agreed to follow some of Kane's recommended changes to protocols that contributed to the failings in Gizzell's case, and DCFS administrators point to improved training on reducing errors, revised investigative procedures and other advances they credit to Gizzell's case

"If everyone is not working together and sharing information in the best interest of the child, what are we doing?" Kane said. "In this case, everyone missed the ballgame. The lack of integration of the information obtained from the child's interviews and the medical exam was a serious error."

The Mercados are suing Dr. Rosado for alleged medical negligence.

Martin Dolan, Mercado's attorney, said multiple opportunities to help Gizzell were missed.

"It was just a system of dropping the ball, failure after failure, until it was too late," Dolan said.

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Following the Tribune's 2013 investigation, Sen. Julie Morrison (D-Deerfield) convened a hearing to examine a spike in reported child deaths and to determine what went wrong in Gizzell's case despite all the layers of involvement among child welfare agencies. That led to a February 2016 report by a subcommittee of the Illinois Children's Justice Task Force.

"Her case has personally inspired me," Morrison said of Gizzell. "I know we'll never prevent every death, but we should always strive to do better."

Dr. Jill Glick, medical director of Child Advocacy and Protective Services at Comer Children's Hospital who co-chaired the subcommittee, said none of the report's recommendations and suggested legislation is in place yet, but its key idea  creating regional multidisciplinary teams across the state to investigate child abuse and neglect  has gained some ground.

Comprised of members from DCFS, medical and advocacy centers, and police and state's attorney's offices, teams would be trained together and work as units rather than collections of professionals from different organizations, and have shared priorities and work schedules and report to the same bosses.

Though DCFS has been supportive and four pilot sites have been identified, several obstacles remain, said Glick, who is only somewhat optimistic such teams will ever be assembled.

"We work in our own vacuums and are accountable to our own agencies, and Gizzell Ford clearly taught us no one communicates well with each other," said Glick, also a professor of pediatrics. "Everyone is looking at these kids through a different lens from different agencies, and there's no central or formalized collaboration, even after Gizzell Ford. To this day, for me to talk to a child welfare worker or get a hold of a police report is a nightmare. We still fight tremendous barriers to communicate with police and DCFS."

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'So much potential'

Nearly four years after her death, many still mourn the bright child. They struggle with how this happened and live with regret.

The tragic portrait of a horribly abused girl is not how her former principal at the now-shuttered Armstrong Elementary School remembers her.

Demetrius Bunch said Gizzell always came to school healthy and well nourished. Helen Ford accompanied her every morning and was even a member of a school advisory board, she said.

After the child's violent death, Bunch said she was so worried that they might have missed a warning sign or opportunity to intervene that after interviewing her staff she went out and knocked on doors in the neighborhood to learn more about her home life. She said neighbors told her they rarely saw Gizzell outside playing with the other children, but none said they suspected abuse.

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"There was so much potential in her," Bunch said.

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The girl's aunt and uncle, Angela and Osvaldo Mercado, said they pass the cemetery where Gizzell is buried near their home every day and often stop to talk to her. To cover her bruises, they made sure she was dressed in a pink plaid dress and long-sleeved sweater. A butterfly-engraved headstone marks her final resting spot, next to her maternal grandmother, Wanda, who died of an asthma attack in 2009.

Her uncle said he bought the plot for himself awhile ago, but chose to have Gizzell laid to rest there instead since his mother helped raise her and the two were close. He said her death has ripped the family apart, and he struggles with feelings of anger, frustration and guilt that they didn't insist Gizzell's mother go back to court or refuse to leave the Ford apartment without seeing Gizzell.

"It really hurts," the uncle said. "I haven't broken because I have to be strong for my family, but the thought of it leaves me speechless. It's hard to move forward. I try to put it in the back of my head, but it's always there."

He, like others in the family, prays Gizzell's death is a catalyst for change to help other abused children.

cmgutowski@chicagotribune.com

sschmadeke@chicagotribune.com
A group seeking to open a taxpayer-financed charter school in the South Loop is getting support from a conservative Michigan college that aims to build on President Donald Trump's school choice agenda.

Hillsdale College, which refuses federal funds in order to maintain its independence from government oversight, has helped open 17 schools in states including Texas, Florida and Indiana through its Barney Charter School Initiative.

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The initiative, which has said it wants to support 50 charters nationwide by 2022, is backing a local effort to open the Chicago Classical Academy in 2018. While Hillsdale's charter initiative is privately financed, the proposed new school would be funded by Chicago Public Schools.

Hillsdale's initiative helps design the curriculum of affiliated charter schools and identify a principal, trains the faculty, conducts classroom observations and engages in frequent phone calls to consult with new administrators.

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The religious-based college in southern Michigan bases its educational philosophy for charters on the Western canon, with an emphasis on U.S. history and traditions, and seeks to offer a liberal arts and sciences education plus "instruction in the principles of moral character and civic virtue," according to the initiative's website.

Having a private college with a conservative ideology integrally involved in public education rankled some parents in Indiana, who tried to stop a Hillsdale-affiliated charter from opening near Bloomington.

"It's galling to me that this college  which won't take federal funding, God forbid the government tells them what to do  has no qualms with using our state funding to get their school's ideology out there," said Cathy Fuentes-Rohwer, chair of the Indiana Coalition for Public Education  Monroe County, which generally opposes charters and school vouchers.

It's not the first time a religious-based group has proposed a CPS charter. A prominent local megachurch that gave up a previous attempt to back a charter school in the Grand Crossing area intends to revive its effort, according to CPS.

Hillsdale, a college official said, simply spends its own money to offer a service it believes the country needs.

"The fact that the college is private and Christian is not a determining factor to the kind of just basic academic support for a classical school that a governing board of a public charter school could benefit from," said Phil Kilgore, head of Hillsdale's charter school initiative.

"Public education is a concern of everybody in the country," Kilgore said. "It would be a stretch of rational thinking for someone to assert that some organizations have no right to try to make it better and make it stronger."

Chicago Classical and its supporters are pressing ahead during a tense period in the city's relationship with charter schools. A group of Illinois House lawmakers, with backing from a handful of city aldermen and opposition from the state's leading charter lobbyist, are pushing legislation to block new charters from opening in financially-stressed school systems including Chicago.

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The latest CTU contract includes a clause intended to limit the growth of charter schools, although district leaders said the deal allows room for the privately-operated schools to grow.

Hillsdale says its charter school initiative is financed by a major grant from the Barney Family Foundation and other college supporters.

The Chicago-based foundation, according to its attorney and tax filings, has given money to Hillsdale and a variety of politically conservative organizations including Americans for Prosperity, the Heritage Foundation, and the Illinois Policy Institute.

School choice and voucher programs that use tax money to help families pay for private schools have strong support from Trump's education secretary, Betsy DeVos, who has family ties to the Amway Corp. fortune.

In 2013, Hillsdale renamed one of its graduate programs for Amway chairman Steve Van Andel. A college spokeswoman said she could not say whether DeVos, her family or the Amway Corp. have donated to Hillsdale.

Bruno Behrend, who helps with the prospective charter's fundraising and operations and works on education policy for the conservative Heartland Institute, said DeVos' role at the Education Department will have no impact on the school's application.

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"There's all kinds of other stuff going on when it comes to the federal side," Behrend said. "This is really a decision for the CPS board, it's a decision for the state charter school commission if we don't get approved by the city of Chicago, so really at this time it's much more of a local issue."

"If somebody wants to make this controversial by throwing around Betsy DeVos' name, there's nothing in the world that anybody can do to stop them. We don't know Betsy DeVos, we don't talk to Betsy DeVos, she's not writing us checks and probably does not know of our existence," he said.

The prospective charter school is one of 17 applicants that filed letters of intent to open 20 new independently-operated campuses inside CPS. The letters are one of the earliest stages of a lengthy district application that grants no guarantees a building will open for business.

Chicago Classical Academy, which would have its own governing board, is proposed as a K-8 school for families in nearby Bronzeville, McKinley Park, Bridgeport, Pilsen and Chinatown. Hillsdale has mailed colorful leaflets  featuring the college's logo  promoting the charter to area residents.

The school would teach a rigorous phonics program; early grade math with a focus on the mastery of basic operations without calculators; plus the study of Latin, Greek and immersion in Western Civilization's great works of literature and art.

Members of the academy's board say their efforts center only on presenting an appealing choice for parents. That's a central tenet of contemporary education reform politics and a position often at odds with the Chicago Teachers Union.

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"This is not about districts getting money; this is about children getting money. This is about money following children to the best option for that child," Behrend said.

In Indiana, the Barney Charter School Initiative is one of the partners behind the Seven Oaks Classical School in Ellettsville. The school is overseen by Grace College and Seminary, an evangelical institution, under state laws that allow most four-year colleges and universities to authorize the opening of charter schools.

Jenny Robinson, secretary of the Indiana Coalition for Public Education  Monroe County, opposed the school and pointed to a Hillsdale campaign from last year that sought to raise $250,000 to "mark the beginning of an accelerated plan to educate millions of Americans about the Constitution." The college said the campaign was being mounted during "a time of unprecedented government overreach."

"It's designed around this one ideological bent, and I just don't think it's appropriate for public funds to be used in that way to support a specific ideology," Robinson said of Seven Oaks Classical.

The first step of Hillsdale's campaign, according to the fundraising notice, was to expand the college's efforts "to teach young people about the blessings of liberty" by promoting its brand of K-12 education across the country.

"Is it all just a holy war? Is it all their absolute conviction that this is important and this is a great way for them to influence the youth of the country?" Robinson asked. "Maybe it is that, but it's an incredible amount of resources that they're providing at no cost."

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Members of the Chicago Classical Academy board acknowledged their application's potential for controversy, but rejected the notion that their work has broader political implications.

"This is to provide a very time-tested and credible education to all students in Chicago," said Heidi Schroeder, a former charter school teacher who is now working with the prospective school's board. "That's what this is, there's nothing more to it than that, and I say that in all sincerity."

Kilgore said the college simply wants to expand education options that are in the best interests of taxpayers.

"I think the citizenry is eager to have choice. Parents want choice," Kilgore said.

"If a school is doing well, then I don't think they've got anything to worry about," he said. "The parents are going to be satisfied and they'll keep their kids there."

jjperez@chicagotribune.com

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WASHINGTON  A White House spokesman on Friday renewed the administration's warning that sanctuary cities such as Chicago could lose millions of dollars in federal law-enforcement grants, saying many people who are here illegally are committing crimes and are gang members.

Sean Spicer also implied that officials in sanctuary cities such as Chicago have no business expecting more money for law enforcement, since those cities are "allowing people to come into the country who are breaking the law, who in many cases are committing crimes."

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Spicer's comments came during the daily press briefing at the White House.

The president finds it "unacceptable" that some localities "have prioritized a political agenda over the safety of their people by flouting our nation's immigrations laws, becoming so-called sanctuary cities," Spicer said. "The failure to follow federal law can have tragic consequences for all of our citizens in all of our country."

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Spicer called it "particularly concerning" in places such as Chicago and Philadelphia hit by increased violence.

"Immigrants, both legal and illegal, are not safe when criminals who have committed egregious acts are free to roam the streets," he said.

A reporter for WBBM-Ch. 2 in Chicago asked Spicer if Trump would cut off the funds even though it would hamper Chicago police in their fight against street violence. The reporter noted president has repeatedly highlighted the city's crime problem.

"I think it would be interesting to want to send more money to a city that is allowing people to come into the country who are breaking the law, who in many cases are committing crimes, (members) of gangs," Spicer responded.

"You can't be a sanctuary city and at the same time  express concern about law enforcement or ask for more money, when probably a number of the funds that you're using in the first place are going to law enforcement to handle the situation that you've created for yourself."

In the fall of 2011, the Cook County Board approved a sanctuary ordinance that limits ICEs ability to collect and deport people living in the U.S. illegally. (Ryan Marx/Chicago Tribune)

"We shouldn't be using American tax dollars to fund cities and counties  that are seeking to allow people who are not legally in this country, who potentially could do us harm, to get funding," Spicer said.

The WBBM reporter then asked whether Trump was more concerned with deporting illegal immigrants than putting shooters and killers in jail.

Spicer said no. "If you have people who are in this country illegally that are part of a gang  they're committing a threat to public safety or committing the crime, then funding that activity and allowing that to fester is in itself a problem," he said.

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"And so, by not rooting that out in the first place is allowing the problem to continue, and not exactly showing an attempt to solve it in the first place."

U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions said Monday that the Justice Department planned to award $4.1 billion in grants this year through its Office of Justice Programs and the Community Oriented Policing Services program, but sanctuary cities risked having the funds taken away or denied.

A Justice Department spokesman, asked Friday how much the Chicago Police Department received in such funding, did not provide a response.

kskiba@tribpub.com

Twitter @KatherineSkiba
BRUSSELS  U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson warned NATO allies Friday to boost defense spending or come up with plans to reach the alliance's budget guidelines within two months.



Tillerson, in his first talks with NATO counterparts in Brussels, said that Washington is spending a "disproportionate share" on defense compared with its 27 partners, and that he expects action by the time President Donald Trump meets with other alliance leaders on May 25.



NATO leaders pledged in 2014 to halt defense spending cuts and move toward a guideline target of 2 percent of gross domestic product within a decade. Only four other nations currently meet the target: Britain, Estonia, Greece and Poland.



"Our goal should be to agree at the May leaders meeting that by the end of the year all allies will have either met the pledge guidelines or will have developed plans that clearly articulate how, with annual milestone progress commitments, the pledge will be fulfilled," Tillerson told the ministers.



Tillerson did not say what would happen if European allies and Canada fail to respect their pledges. During election campaigning, Trump suggested that he might not come to the defense of those allies who do not do their fair share, rocking allies near an increasingly aggressive Russia, such as Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland.



However, Tillerson sought to calm any fears, saying Friday that "we understand that a threat against one of us is a threat against all of us, and we will respond accordingly. We will uphold the agreements we have made to defend our allies.



The United States is by far NATO's most powerful ally. It spends more on defense than all the others combined; 3.61 percent of GDP in 2016, according to NATO estimates, although U.S. spending, too, has tapered off in recent years.



Germany spent 1.19 percent of its overall budget on defense last year.



But German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel said it would be "unrealistic" for his country to hike spending from 35 billion euros ($37 billion) a year to over 70 billion euros, which would see Berlin allocate more to defense than Russia currently.



"I don't know a politician in Germany who believes that this would be achievable or even desirable," Gabriel said.



He said security is also about crisis prevention, not just combat, and noted that Germany spends a lot of money on refugees who arrive because military interventions have failed.



Seven countries  including Canada, Italy and Spain  would have to virtually double their spending to reach the target.



Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland said that beyond money, "it's also really important to look at capabilities and what countries are actually doing."



"We really feel that we're doing our share," she said, highlighting Canada's troop deployment to Latvia to help deter Russian aggression.



Tillerson also urged NATO to do more to fight the Islamic State group and other extremists, notably by countering IS online messaging and propaganda.



NATO has fought insurgents in Afghanistan, and is training Iraqi officers so that local forces can make a strong stand against extremists. There is no appetite to deploy troops in counter-terrorism operations. Allies believe that the international coalition against IS should be leading combat operations, not NATO.



NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said the lesson learned from operations in Afghanistan, but also in Kosovo and Bosnia-Herzegovina, is that "in the long run it is much better to fight terrorism and project stability by training local forces, building local security institutions, instead of NATO deploying a large number of combat troops."



Sylvain Plazy in Brussels contributed to this report
Outraged opponents of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro denounced him as a full-fledged dictator Thursday, after his allies on the supreme court stripped the country's parliament of its power.

Maduro has essentially ruled Venezuela by decree since late 2015, when his unpopular government was trounced in parliamentary elections and his opponents took control of congress. Since then, they have been systematically blocked by Venezuela's supreme court, which Maduro has stacked with loyalists.

But after the court ruled late Wednesday that lawmakers were acting in contempt of its orders, the judges formally took away their powers, saying the court or "another chosen body" would assume responsibility for writing Venezuela's laws.

A group of opposition lawmakers scuffled with police outside the court Thursday, accusing Maduro's government of carrying out a "coup."

"This is a dictatorship, and Venezuela needs the world's help," said National Assembly leader Julio Borges, ripping up the judges' order and calling it "garbage from those who have kidnapped the constitution and the rights and freedoms of the Venezuelan people."

The Venezuelan government's latest step toward autocracy drew criticism and reproach from other Latin American nations, led by Peru, which recalled its ambassador in a show of protest. The U.S. State Department said it condemned the court's ruling.

"This rupture of democratic and constitutional norms greatly damages Venezuela's democratic institutions and denies the Venezuelan people the right to shape their country's future through their elected representatives," spokesman Mark Toner said in a statement. "We consider it a serious setback for democracy in Venezuela."

Maduro, 54, was handpicked as successor by the late Hugo Chavez before his death from cancer in 2013. Maduro narrowly won election later that year, but the oil-dependent country has plunged deep into crisis since then, with alarming shortages of food and medicine.

Instead of moderating his hard-line views, Maduro and his ruling United Socialist Party have dug in and lashed out, especially as other governments in the region voice growing concern over a building humanitarian crisis and the erosion of democratic norms.

The court's ruling came a day after it stripped lawmakers of immunity from prosecution, a possible prelude to new arrests. Opposition leader Leopoldo Lopez has been held in harsh conditions at a military prison since leading anti-government street protests that erupted in violence in early 2014. He is serving a 14-year term.




Vice President Mike Pence waves as he walks down the Senate steps at the East Front on Capitol Hill in Washington on Thursday, March 30, 2017. Pence cast the tie-breaking vote in the Senate on a bill that gives states permission to withhold federal family planning funds from Planned Parenthood. (Michael Reynolds / EPA)

WASHINGTON  Senate Republicans were forced to call on Vice President Mike Pence to pass an antiabortion measure Thursday, marking the second time they've cast a help line to the new administration to move legislation.

Pence delivered the tiebreaking vote on a resolution reversing an Obama administration rule that prevented states from withholding family-planning dollars from Planned Parenthood and other clinics that provide abortions. The vice president's appearance in the Senate chamber was needed after two Republicans, Sens. Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, defected. No Democrats supported the resolution.

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The measure, a priority for groups that oppose abortion, would give a thumbs-up to Tennessee and other conservative states to resume policies blocking Planned Parenthood clinics from getting federal funding through the Title X family-planning program. Those dollars can't be used for abortions, but conservatives feel abortion providers shouldn't receive any taxpayer funds.

While courts have not allowed states to withhold Medicaid money from Planned Parenthood, they've generally allowed states to redirect family-planning dollars to other health providers.

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"It's a simple statement of where we used to be," said Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla. "States could choose to have Planned Parenthood as part of their Title X funding states should not be compelled to."

The women's health organization dodged a bullet last week when a House bill repealing parts of the Affordable Care Act and blocking Planned Parenthood's Medicaid funding was pulled amid a rebellion of conservative and moderate Republicans. But it remains a key target for conservatives.

President Trump is expected to sign the Title X measure, which the House approved in February, though his administration has yet to release a statement of intent on it.

Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., said Thursday she is apprehensive that Republicans will continue trying to strip streams of federal dollars from Planned Parenthood through other means this year, including by attaching riders to a spending bill. The money Planned Parenthood receives through Medicaid cannot be used for abortions.

"We should all be aware there is more headed our way," Murray said on the Senate floor. "We are going to fight these efforts every step of the way."

Conservative activists, who saw in the ACA repeal bill their first realistic chance to block Medicaid from reimbursing any services at Planned Parenthood clinics, are urging Congress to pass a defunding measure before it breaks for an April recess.

"You have a clear path to accomplish this goal," several dozen groups, including Susan B. Anthony List, March for Life and Family Research Council, write in a letter being sent to members Friday. "There are no excuses for inaction."

The Title X bill is a small but significant victory for abortion opponents. Thirteen states have blocked Planned Parenthood and other abortion providers from getting the family planning dollars, which can be used for services such as contraception and screening for sexually transmitted diseases.

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But even this legislation was perilously close to defeat. West Virgina Sen. Joe Manchin III, the Democrat most likely to support it, instead sided with his party. That meant Republicans had to bring in not only Pence, but also Sen. Johnny Isakson, R-Ga., who has been absent for several weeks recovering from two back surgeries.

In both a procedural vote in the morning as well as the final afternoon action, Isakson brought the measure to a 50-to-50 tie, and Pence cast his vote for its final passage.

Isakson, who used a walker to get onto the floor, exited in a wheelchair. He told reporters that he had always planned to ease back into his routine this week by flying up from Atlanta, where he is undergoing a 12-week rehabilitation, to cast some votes.

"We didn't know at the time what it would be, but it turned out to be the vice president's tiebreaker," Isakson said.

The lawmaker initially expected to be needed on the health-care legislation the Senate was to take up this week, since its final passage and several amendments could have been decided by a single vote. But with that effort now in tatters, the Senate floor was quiet this week until Thursday's debate on Title X funding.

"I have watched the Congress of the United States on television for eight weeks trying to rehab from spinal surgery - I know more about it than I knew about it when I was here," Isakson joked.

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Thursday's vote was Pence's second tiebreaker of his young term. The first came Feb. 7, when he cast the deciding vote to confirm Betsy DeVos as education secretary. Pence is expected to return to the Senate on Thursday afternoon for a final vote on the Title X measure.

The last time a vice president had to break a tie on final passage of legislation was nearly a dozen years ago, when Richard Cheney voted for the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005.

Cheney broke eight ties as vice president, mostly to pass amendments or advance legislation on procedural votes. Joe Biden never had to break a tie during his eight years as vice president. Al Gore broke four ties - all on legislation or procedural matters.

The Washington Post's Ed O'Keefe and Paul Kane contributed to this report.
HONOLULU  President Donald Trump's administration on Thursday appealed the latest court ruling against his revised travel ban to the same court that refused to reinstate the original version.

A day earlier, U.S. District Judge Derrick Watson in Hawaii handed the government its latest defeat by issuing a longer-lasting hold on Trump's executive order.

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Watson's decision came after the Department of Justice argued for a narrower ruling covering only the ban on new visas for people from six Muslim-majority countries. The department urged the judge to allow a freeze on the U.S. refugee program to go forward.

Government attorney Chad Readler said halting the flow of refugees had no effect on Hawaii and the state has not shown how it is harmed by the ban. Watson disagreed.

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The administration says the executive order falls within the president's power to protect national security and will ultimately succeed, while Hawaii Attorney General Douglas Chin likened the revised ban to a neon sign flashing "Muslim ban" that the government hasn't turned off.

Hawaii Attorney General Douglas Chin speaks outside federal court in Honolulu, Wednesday, March 29, 2017. A federal judge in Hawaii decided to extend his order blocking President Donald Trump's travel ban. (Caleb Jones / AP)

Here's a look at Watson's ruling and what comes next:

THE RULING

Watson said Hawaii has shown that the ban will harm the state's universities and tourism industry as well as the imam of a Honolulu mosque, who joined the lawsuit. Ismail Elshikh said the ban would prevent his Syrian mother-in-law from visiting family in the U.S.

"These injuries have already occurred and will continue to occur if the executive order is implemented and enforced; the injuries are neither contingent nor speculative," the judge wrote.

Chin told The Associated Press on Thursday that a notable part of the ruling was that the court took into account 20 to 25 statements made by Trump as a candidate and as president and by his surrogates.

"The court will not crawl into a corner, pull the shutters closed, and pretend it has not seen what it has," Watson wrote.

The Department of Justice said it strongly disagrees with the ruling.

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WHAT'S NEXT FOR HAWAII'S LAWSUIT?

Government attorneys filed documents appealing Watson's decision to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, a move Chin said he expected.

The judge said his ruling will stay in place until he orders otherwise and won't be suspended for an appeal.

The administration said in court documents that the appeal also applies to Watson's previous temporary block of the travel ban.

"The president's executive order falls squarely within his lawful authority in seeking to protect our nation's security, and the department will continue to defend this executive order in the courts," the Justice Department said in a statement.

HOW THE WHITE HOUSE REACTED

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The White House believes Trump's executive order is legal, necessary for national security and will ultimately be allowed to move forward, spokesman Sean Spicer said Thursday.

Watson's indefinite hold is "just the latest step that will allow the administration to appeal," Spicer said.

CAN A DIFFERENT CASE AFFECT THE HAWAII RULING?

The president already is appealing a separate case in Maryland. A judge there blocked the six-nation travel ban but said it wasn't clear that the suspension of the refugee program was similarly motivated by religious bias.

The administration wants the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to put that ruling on hold while it considers the case. The Richmond, Virginia-based court will hear arguments May 8.

If the court sides with Trump, it would not have a direct effect on the Hawaii ruling, legal experts said.

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"What a ruling in 4th Circuit in favor of the administration would do is create a split in authority between federal courts in different parts of the country," said Richard Primus, a professor of constitutional law at the University of Michigan law school. "Cases with splits in authority are cases the U.S. Supreme Court exists to resolve."
Donald Trump spent more than a year rousing crowds with a simple promise: "I'll build a great, great wall on our southern border, and I will have Mexico pay for that wall." As the campaign wore on, it got so he could ask, "Who's gonna pay for the wall?" and the audience would roar, "Mexico!"

It was fun while it lasted. But now, in the cold light of day, some facts are coming into focus: It may not exactly be a wall. It won't be paid for by Mexico. And it may not get built.

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Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke is one of the people backing off from this promise. Nonwall options, such as electronic sensors, will have to be considered in some places, he said. You see, "the border is complicated, as far as building a physical wall."

Not only that, but where would we locate it? "The Rio Grande, what side of the river are you going to put the wall?" Zinke asked. "We're not going to put it on our side and cede the river to Mexico. And we're probably not going to put it in the middle of the river." The Mexicans won't invite us to erect the structure on their side. So siting may be a problem.

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That's not all the Mexicans won't do. President Enrique Pena Nieto has said repeatedly and unequivocally that his government will not bear the cost. Trump had the chance to out-negotiate Pena Nieto on the wall when he met with him in Mexico City last summer  but Trump chose not to even raise the issue of payment.

The Mexican president was supposed to come to Washington for a White House meeting in January. But when Trump said it would be better to cancel the trip if Mexico was not willing to pay for the wall, Pena Nieto canceled the trip.

Trump said rather than make Mexico pay for it upfront, "we'll be reimbursed at a later date from whatever transaction we make from Mexico." So we'll send the invoice and they'll mail a check? Well, not exactly. "There will be a payment," he told ABC News. "It will be in a form, perhaps a complicated form."

No one on Capitol Hill seems to share Trump's confidence. When Politico's Jake Sherman asked Mitch McConnell whether Mexico will pay for the wall, the Senate Republican leader couldn't suppress his mirth at the very idea. "'Uh, no,' he shot back, chuckling," Politico reported.

House Speaker Paul Ryan said with solemn vagueness, "We will be working with (Trump) to finance the construction of the physical barrier, including the wall, on the southern border." Faced with the funding disagreement with Mexico, Trump included money for the wall in his budget outline, with the funds taken from other programs.

Republican enthusiasm is not abundant. Sen. Cory Gardner of Colorado, head of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, said recently that "billions of dollars on a wall is not the right way to proceed." Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina agreed it is "probably not a smart investment."

Democrats have promised to block any bill that includes money for the wall, which means they could force a government shutdown if Republicans attach it to the emergency spending measure that needs to be approved by April 28. Ryan said Thursday that the wall appropriation will be dropped to avert a shutdown.

But there may not be much interest in funding it afterward either. The House Freedom Caucus is generally not fond of spending money, and Trump's threat against the group will not make its members more eager to indulge him.

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Plenty of Senate Republicans are also skeptical. "If you're going to spend that kind of money, you're going to have to show me where you're going to get that money," Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska said in February. "We can't pay for it out of thin air," said Sen. James Lankford of Oklahoma.

There don't seem to be many people in Washington who think the wall can be built as Trump claimed or that it would work very well. Not to mention that it sounded a lot better when Mexico was going to pay for it.

Trump fooled a lot of voters when he made that promise, and he may have even fooled himself. But at some point, you run out of fools.

Steve Chapman, a member of the Tribune Editorial Board, blogs at www.chicagotribune.com/chapman. Download "Recalculating: Steve Chapman on a New Century" in the free Printers Row app at www.printersrowapp.com.

schapman@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @SteveChapman13
How many times can one presidential administration end life as we know it? Buckle up, friends, because we're about to find out.

Well, scratch that. Unless you're professionally required to follow the crazed and breathless ins and outs of today's by-the-minute news cycle, you've likely already tuned out most of the ruckus. Based on dozens of conversations with friends and acquaintances of various political stripes, this seems to be a popular move.

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"It's exhausting to try to follow the news." "I'm paying much less attention than I used to." "I don't even know what's real." I've heard all three lines repeatedly, and if this also sums up your personal approach to politics and media in 2017  a year that has offered a general melange of panic topped with garnishes of palace intrigue paired with spurts of random outrage over one thing after another  congratulations! If you're reading this, it means you're still alive, and have survived the approximately 5,000 world-ending decisions that the Trump administration has supposedly made thus far this year.

The Russians, at least as far as I know, have not yet taken over. Faced with budget and various logistical challenges, including the fact that more than 1,000 miles of our border with Mexico is actually a river, it seems President Donald Trump's much-decried Great Wall of America could be slowly shuffled off into the "it seemed like a good idea at the time, but maybe not really" pile. When it comes to health care, congressional Republicans seem to be stuck in the political equivalent of that one unlucky bumper car that gets stuck in the corner, no matter which way you steer. As the headline for an article authored by political scientist Francis Fukuyama surmised in Politico this week: "Trump's a dictator? He can't even repeal Obamacare."

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But never mind. Back to the news! "President Trump Risks the Planet," The New York Times declared Tuesday, in the wake of Trump's executive order rolling back Obama-era climate regulations. (This seems an overly optimistic view of the U.S. government's power to micromanage the same global mechanism that brought us the Ice Age, but let's go with it for now.)

With his characteristic flair for the dramatic, filmmaker Michael Moore took the idea to its logical endpoint on Twitter: "Historians in the near future will mark today, March 28, 2017, as the day the extinction of human life on earth began, thanks 2 Donald Trump." (Moore's casual "2," unfortunately, negated his tweet's otherwise somber and compelling tone, much as the "2"s in "2 Fast 2 Furious" surely weakened its otherwise airtight grip on the Oscar for best picture. Many readers also helpfully pointed out to Moore that in the scenario he described, future disapproving historians would be extinct, too, unless they were robots, aliens or immortal. Details, details.)

New York magazine, meanwhile, has kept a running tally of "All the Terrifying Things That Donald Trump Did Lately," which unintentionally offers a master class in the media's classic problem with covering Donald Trump: If everything is terrifying, then nothing is terrifying. Was Trump's push for a mess of a replacement health care bill sinister and nightmarish, or a textbook political misfire? Surprise, surprise: It's on New York's "terrifying" list. What about the specter of the proposal to cut the $3 billion Community Development Block Grant program, which states use to help fund a host of services, including Meals on Wheels for seniors? Hysteria over misleading headlines that blared that Meals on Wheels was being axed actually ended up raising the group's overall visibility, bringing in a flood of private donations. Sure, but still "terrifying," at least according to New York magazine.

At a certain point, unless things change, we're all going to run out of eye rolls.

"This is what it's like to experience true dissonance," Buzzfeed's political editor, Katherine Miller, wrote this week. "There's so much discordant noise that just making out each individual thing and tracking its journey through the news cycle requires enormous effort. It's tough to get your bearings." Miller was largely referring to social media, but the same holds true for much of the news these days: "Trying to find your way under the crush  to determine the truth amid the complexities of protocols, regulations, legislation, ideology, anonymous sources, conflicting reports, denials, public statements, tweets  it's too much. We can't live like that!"

Many Americans have decided, quite simply, that they won't live like that. They're tuning out, and that's bad news for Americans of all political persuasions. But the media's current modus operandi  a flurry of panic, too quick to process, tossed out on social media before stories are completely cooked  seems unsustainable. If and when it corrects itself, it will be a very good thing indeed.

National Review

Heather Wilhelm is a National Review columnist and a senior contributor to The Federalist.
The hands of US President Donald J. Trump while attending a meeting on healthcare in the Roosevelt Room of the White House in Washington, DC, USA, 13 March 2017. (MICHAEL REYNOLDS / EPA)

WASHINGTON  Repeal-and-replace (for Obamacare) is not quite dead. It has been declared so, but what that means is that, for now, the president has (apparently) washed his hands of it and the House Republicans appear unable to reconcile their differences.

Neither condition needs to be permanent. There are ideological differences between the various GOP factions, but what's overlooked is the role that procedure played in producing the deadlock. And procedure can easily be changed.

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The House leadership crafted a bill that would meet the delicate requirements of "reconciliation" in order to create a (more achievable) threshold of 51 rather than 60 votes in the Senate. But this meant that some of the more attractive, market-oriented reforms had to be left out, relegated to a future measure (a so-called phase-three bill) that might never actually arrive.

Yet the more stripped-down proposal died anyway. So why not go for the gold next time? Pass a bill that incorporates phase-three reforms and send it on to the Senate.

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September might be the time for resurrecting repeal-and-replace. That's when insurers recalibrate premiums for the coming year, precipitating our annual bout of Obamacare sticker shock. By then, even more insurers will be dropping out of the exchanges, further reducing choice and service. These should help dissipate the preemptive nostalgia for Obamacare that emerged during the current debate.

At which point, the House leadership should present a repeal-and-replace that includes such phase-three provisions as tort reform and permitting the buying of insurance across state lines, both of which would significantly lower costs.

Even more significant would be stripping out the heavy-handed Obamacare coverage mandate that dictates what specific medical benefits must be included in every insurance policy in the country, regardless of the purchaser's desires or needs.

Best to mandate nothing. Let the customer decide. A 60-year-old couple doesn't need maternity coverage. Why should they be forced to pay for it? And I don't know about you, but I don't need lactation services.

This would satisfy the House Freedom Caucus' correct insistence on dismantling Obamacare's stifling regulatory straitjacket  without scaring off moderates who should understand that no one is being denied "essential health benefits." Rather, no one is being required to buy what the Jonathan Grubers of the world have decided everyone must have.

It is true that even if this revised repeal-and-replace passes the House, it might die by filibuster in the Senate. In which case, let the Senate Democrats explain themselves and suffer the consequences. Perhaps, however, such a bill might engender debate and revision  and come back to the House for an old-fashioned House-Senate conference and a possible compromise. This in and of itself would constitute major progress.

That's procedure. It's fixable. But there is an ideological consideration that could ultimately determine the fate of any Obamacare replacement. Obamacare may turn out to be unworkable, indeed doomed, but it is having a profound effect on the zeitgeist: It is universalizing the idea of universal coverage.

Acceptance of its major premise  that no one be denied health care  is more widespread than ever. Even House Speaker Paul Ryan avers that "our goal is to give every American access to quality, affordable health care," making universality an essential premise of his own reform. And look at how sensitive and defensive Republicans have been about the possibility of people losing coverage in any Obamacare repeal.

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A broad national consensus is developing that health care is indeed a right. This is historically new. And it carries immense implications for the future. It suggests that we may be heading inexorably to a government-run, single-payer system. It's what Barack Obama once admitted he would have preferred but didn't think the country was ready for. It may be ready now.

As Obamacare continues to unravel, it won't take much for Democrats to abandon that Rube Goldberg wreckage and go for the simplicity and the universality of Medicare-for-all. Republicans will have one last chance to try to persuade the country to remain with a market-based system, preferably one encompassing all the provisions that, for procedural reasons, had been left out of their latest proposal.

Don't be surprised, however, if, in the end, single-payer wins out. Indeed, I wouldn't be terribly surprised if Donald Trump, reading the zeitgeist, pulls the greatest 180 since Disraeli dished the Whigs in 1867 (by radically expanding the franchise) and joins the single-payer side.

Talk about disruption? About kicking over the furniture? That would be an American Krakatoa.

Washington Post Writers Group

Charles Krauthammer is a Washington Post columnist.

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letters@charleskrauthammer.com
Gov. Bruce Rauner recently released a campaign ad in which he blames Democrats for ignoring the severity of Illinois problems. (Justin L. Fowler / AP)

If you check your calendar, it says 2017  unless you're in Springfield, where the calendar is always flipped to the next election. It's 2018 under the Capitol dome.

Gov. Bruce Rauner, wearing his signature plaid flannel, recently released a campaign ad in which he blames Democrats for ignoring the severity of Illinois' problems. The state Republican Party is in fierce campaign mode and recently released video of Democratic Comptroller Susana Mendoza climbing inside her taxpayer-funded SUV, a purchase for which she has been criticized. Wait for that bit to show up in campaign ads.

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Democrats, meanwhile, issue daily harsh takedowns of Rauner, from Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel openly mocking him to Emanuel's schools chief blaming the governor for a "racist" school funding formula. Mendoza routinely sends out news releases attacking Rauner, even coining the phrase "Rauneritis," which she describes as a personality disorder. And the Democrats lining up to run against Rauner keep trying to link him to President Donald Trump, even though he stayed out of the presidential race and has since distanced himself from Trump.

Journalists covering state government should take training courses in adolescent conflict resolution. That's the caliber of discourse between elected officials.

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Do you know who doesn't care about the daily political score? Bond rating agencies that monitor Illinois' dysfunction with increasing alarm. "Illinois is at a critical juncture and its leaders must choose between further credit deterioration and drift without compromise, or the potential for stabilization," Ted Hampton, a Moody's Investors Service executive, now warns. "With a budget consensus, Illinois could quickly secure its financial position."

But there's no consensus. The state's bill backlog hit $13 billion in March. Illinois still has the lowest credit rating of any state and is seven notches lower than the median state rating nationwide, Moody's says. The state is approaching a point where it might not be able to pay bondholders and pension funds. What's more, Moody's notes, the state's condition comes from a gridlock of wills, not some disaster beyond Springfield's control.

If you thought the partisan divide in Washington, D.C., was an impassable gulch, try the terrain of Springfield. No one is legitimately, earnestly working on a solution. The bad financial news has not galvanized Springfield's Democratic power brokers to strike a deal with Rauner. Lawmakers are halfway through their spring legislative session and moving dozens of bills  but not a budget.

Then this popped up: an "Illinois Comeback Agenda" from Democrats. They've spent two years blasting Rauner for attempting to tie a budget deal to his broader economic and reform agenda. How many times did we hear House Speaker Michael Madigan and others lambaste Rauner for linking budget negotiations with non-budget items? Now some of Madigan's House members, and Democratic senators, are doing the same. We'll wait for their mea culpas.

Their agenda includes higher taxes on the wealthy and corporations, tighter ethics rules, a minimum wage hike, more state-subsidized child care and  get this  redistricting reform. According to the Comeback website, Democrats want legislative maps to be drawn "fairly, to accurately represent constituents in a way that doesn't play politics." Is that so. Democratic leaders, who have controlled the General Assembly for the past 15 years, have forcefully blocked remap reform without a peep from their members.

So forgive us for viewing the Democrats' new agenda with skepticism. We'll know they're serious if they work with Rauner to find common ground on a budget and on proposals he will sign into law, not to simply pass piles of bills they know he'll veto.

Two months of the General Assembly's spring session remain. If lawmakers can't deliver solutions, they invite voters to ask: Why do we keep electing legislators who perpetuate disaster?

The politicians are in an all-fired hurry to get to 2018. Maybe they shouldn't be.
War still seemed a long way from reality at Fort Sheridan in the fall of 1917 as an instructor in military tactics from France, Capt. G. E. Bertrand, from left, outlines his experiences and schools new allies Maj. Berkely Merchant and Lt. R. Smalley. (Chicago Tribune historical photo)

A century ago  April 6, 1917  America entered "The Great War" in Europe after spending nearly three years resolutely determined to stay out. The war churned on for another 19 months and claimed 117,000 American lives. The last of the soldiers and sailors who survived battles "over there" are gone.

Why focus on a war fought so long ago? Because we live in a world mightily shaped by that war and the one that followed. Because we never know when America will next know war. And because war is an engine for change, just as surely as the internet or medical cures or globalization or any other force that cannot be defied or denied. Construction follows destruction.

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At the beginning of World War I in 1914, a Tribune editorial, "The Twilight of the Kings," foresaw a war that would sweep aside sclerotic monarchies and self-serving despots to let democracies breathe. Specifically, to let republics take root and grow in Europe. That editorial, which you'll find at chicagotribune.com/twilight, predicted: "... out of the sacrifice will come, we think, a resolution firmly taken to have no more wheat growers and growers of corn, makers of wine, miners and fishers, artisans and traders, sailors and storekeepers offered up with prayer to the Almighty in a feudal slaughter."

A succession of U.S. presidents, from Woodrow Wilson and Franklin D. Roosevelt through Ronald Reagan, spent much of the 20th century protecting Europe from mortal danger: WWI swept aside monarchs and czars as predicted, but in their place came even worse, World War II and the axis powers Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan. After that conflict, Stalin and communism crushed Eastern Europe and menaced Western Europe.

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But would America's 21st-century presidents still honor bonds forged in war?

Today we look back (easy) and forward (much harder). In 1921, three years after the end of World War I, an editorial titled "The Unknown Soldier" celebrated "the end of the greatest conflict in human history" and noted that "Only the future can read its full meaning in the fulfillment of final consequences. ... While we are too close to this event to measure its scope, we can at least see that it has a significance greater and more complicated than the overthrow of one military power by another. ... Vast material and political changes are in its wake."

It is futile to predict how the repercussions of war or any other cataclysm will play out over time. There are too many moving parts. But this nation's principles, chief among them the defense of allies, should remain constant. The world, then and now, looks to American leadership when dictators and tyrants rise and march. When American presidents slink to the corner, when the U.S. leads from behind or not at all, someone else will gladly fill the void. Perhaps an ambitious Russian president. A genocidal Syrian dictator. A North Korean madman. A theocratic Iranian tyrant.

As today's threats loom, Europe trembles. Trembles and asks, would this American president have our back?

President Donald Trump has rightly made much of his demand that Europe pay more for its own defense. That's slowly happening. Good, because decades of European lassitude  of refusing to invest much in self-defense  have invited adversaries to wonder: If there's some lack of resolve, can we exploit it?

As we wrote in 2014 on the centennial of World War I's opening shot: In succeeding decades, with U.S. involvement in the growth of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and in a long list of geopolitical crises, America's service to Europe has exacted high costs. What was once the most self-reliant continent now sniffs smoke and looks west, trusting that if fire erupts, America will strike it.

That trust has been shaken by a president who blithely disrespects allies, who bad-mouths NATO, who inexplicably embraces Western Europe's chief adversary, Vladimir Putin.

As a result, no American ally  not Great Britain, not France, not Israel, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Japan or South Korea  can know where Washington stands now and whether it will stand in the same place a day or even an hour from now. That's dangerous. Twitter rants are not diplomacy. The best way to stay out of wars is to make sure the enemies of America or its friends never calculate that they'd have a chance to prevail in one.

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That commitment to allies should be as inviolate as it was on April 6, 1917  no matter who is president. The next foes of Europe, and of America, could be nation-states. Or they could be terrorists without capitals, nihilists who pledge not "the war to end all wars," but endless war.

Today, as in 1917, Europe casts an anxious glance over its shoulder, hoping to see the reassuring shadow of the American colossus. Threats overseas change, and different presidents have varied opinions on how the U.S. should engage. But obligations, by treaty or by shared values, endure. May this nation's commitment to its allies  again, no matter who is president  never falter.
President Donald Trump, at a meeting with the National Association of Manufacturers on Friday, acted a bit erratic in the wake of a defeat on the Obamacare replacement front. (Olivier Douliery / Abaca Press)

Does President Donald Trump really think it's a good idea to tweet bold threats at lawmakers whose votes he is trying to woo? Or is picking Twitter fights just his sneaky way to avoid having to actually read the legislation he wants them to vote for?

How else do we explain his erratic way of winning friends and alienating people as he pursues support for an Obamacare replacement?

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Now, you might think that a new president, burdened by disastrous approval ratings and facing multiple legislative battles, would try to avoid unnecessary spats, especially with members of his own party. But Trump? When he's in a hole, he keeps on digging.

The Trump train seemed to stop dead on its tracks when the three dozen or so conservative and libertarian hard-liners who make up the House Freedom Caucus helped to scuttle Speaker Paul Ryan's bill to repeal and replace President Barack Obama's Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare.

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Trump, a master at the art of blame shifting, immediately blamed Democrats for the setback, even though their support had not been sought. He even singled out House and Senate Democratic leaders Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer as "losers" because Obamacare was about to "explode," he said, and Democrats would get the blame.

History says otherwise. When disaster strikes, people tend to blame whoever happens to be in power.

In that spirit, congressional Democrats seemed quite content to sit back and follow Napoleon's maxim: Never interfere with the enemy when he is in the process of destroying himself.

By Monday, whether moved by a change of heart or a short attention span, Trump was back to saying that he wanted to work with the Dems. On Wednesday he even singled out Schumer ("Chuck!") in a jolly shout-out from the stage at a bipartisan dinner with senators at the White House.

But a Twitter storm the next day signaled the return of Trump the grump. Beginning in the morning, Trump aimed bitter threats not only at Democrats but also at members of the House Freedom Caucus.

"The Freedom Caucus will hurt the entire Republican agenda if they don't get on the team, & fast," Trump tweeted Thursday morning. "We must fight them, & Dems, in 2018!"

Does Trump really plan to enlist candidates for next year's Republican primaries to challenge incumbent lawmakers in his own party who don't think he's conservative enough? History shows that tactic to be a loser, even for people with considerably more political experience than Trump and his strategist, Steve Bannon.

In 1938, for example, President Franklin D. Roosevelt waged a similar intervention in several Democratic primary elections to purge the party of conservative incumbents who opposed parts of Roosevelt's New Deal. The effort backfired. Almost all of those whom FDR targeted handily won in a humiliating repudiation by state parties of this intrusion into their affairs by the national party.

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A similar Trump intrusion in state races faces a similar repudiation. Almost all of the Freedom Caucus members, according to The Washington Post, won last fall by larger margins than Trump in their districts.

That helps to explain why the Grand Old Party's conservative wing didn't sound too intimidated by Trump's threats. Breaking slightly with Ronald Reagan's "11th Commandment"  thou shalt not criticize a fellow Republican  Rep. Justin Amash, a Michigan Republican, responded to Trump's tweet with one of his own. "It didn't take long for the swamp to drain @realDonaldTrump," Amash tweeted. "No shame, Mr. President. Almost everyone succumbs to the D.C. Establishment."

Amash later told reporters that Trump's tactic would be "constructive in fifth grade. It may allow a child to get his way, but that's not how our government works." Ouch!

In short, Trump is finding that the barnstorming and arm-twisting tactics that took him to the White House can quickly backfire, now that he is the top dog in the Washington political establishment that he ran against.

With his approval ratings and legislative momentum in a deep hole, Trump needs to start dealing with people who know how Washington works better than he does. He may never stop tweeting. But he needs to stop digging.

Clarence Page, a member of the Tribune Editorial Board, blogs at www.chicagotribune.com/pagespage.

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cpage@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @cptime
Myron Lewis stood inside the doorway of his Champions Esquire Barber Shop applying a fresh coat of white paint. The space was quiet Thursday while he renovated, the normal hive of activity at 79th Street and South Phillips Avenue temporarily home only to fish tanks and empty classic chairs.



One door west, two of his four barbers kept the business running in a storefront he expanded into four months ago. Two doors west, outside a beauty supply shop, flowers and balloons marked the corner where a 37-year-old man was shot and killed late Wednesday on the border of the South Chicago and South Shore neighborhoods.



Lewis, 64, continued the renovation work, glancing out the hand-painted window as three Chicago police cars flew by with lights flashing.



"It's sad to say, but you know there's gonna be some repercussions," Lewis said of possible retaliation for the shooting. "You don't know when it's gonna come, but the weather's getting ready to break. Sad to say that. When you're on the bus you hear people say, 'Man, I don't want winter to leave. 'Cause it's gonna get hot and people start acting crazy.' It's just the reality of it."

Lewis didn't know it yet, but four men had just been shot and killed less than a mile away at a South Shore restaurant. On an unusually violent day, seven people across the lakefront neighborhood would be shot dead by midnight.



"I guess that's just life in the hood, in a sense," Lewis said. "But everybody can't up and run, everybody don't want to leave. They put their life savings into these properties."

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Lewis isn't going anywhere. His journey to opening his first business began 15 years ago.

"Believe it or not, God gave me the dream about barbering," Lewis said. "I had a dream that he gave me about a light coming through a window on a single barber chair with cobwebs and stuff on it. I didn't know exactly what it meant, and I kind of ignored his leading. I was young and not aware. One day I was on my way to the library, he got my attention to look across the street, and there was McCoy Barber College on 79th and Clyde.

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"I would volunteer to cut hair for the homeless for my church. That's how it all started. We had an outreach ministry, and one of the brothers said: 'Man, you can cut those guys' hair.' I said I guess I could. I got a folding chair and before I knew it, I had two or three people coming in to get their hair cut. Everybody was pleased with what I did, and that's how the ministry got started."

Lewis kept feeling led back to the barber school. He spent 14 months studying, carefully saving to pay the tuition in installments. After passing his exam, he opened the space on 79th Street in 2005. These days his younger employees cut hair while he manages the business.

"You gotta have somebody who's settled, mature, can keep the place in a neat order. Make sure it's open everyday," Lewis said. "Keep it supplied. Trash gotta be picked up. Oh, you ran out of paper towels? I went to the laundromat this morning. You need an older person around. And it all started because I cut homeless people's hair."

Lewis hopes the "man cave" atmosphere of a barbershop where they can talk about anything provides some guidance for young people who stop in.

"Whatever activity they're in on the street, they're still our customers," Lewis said. "There's a lot of talent out here on this street. If you find out what people are about, you'd be amazed."

He looked up as another Chicago police car slowed outside.

"It becomes commonplace. If the light ain't flickering, I know they ain't coming after me," Lewis said.

"I'm not gonna say I'm immune to it. I'm just prayerful that we're safe."

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(Yesterday, these blocks were homicide scenes. The day after a fatal shooting on their block, police tape is gone and residents live, work and play. Annually, more Chicagoans are shot and killed than there are days in the year, but there's a lot going on in our neighborhoods around the violence. Visit The Next Day collection for more.)
Jay Z & Trayvon

Beyonce's man and the Weinstein Company are coming together to work on film and television projects about Trayvon Martin, the Florida teen who was fatally shot by George Zimmerman in 2012. The independent film company plans to make a six-part docu-series with Jay Z producing, according to Variety.

Support system

Can't get enough of Jessica Chastain? See her in "The Zookeeper's Wife," out this weekend. The two-time Academy Award nominee plays Antonina Zabinska, one-half of a couple who saved persecuted countrymen from death in 1939 Poland. The couple transformed their zoo into a conduit for refugees from the nearby Warsaw Ghetto during World War II. The story is a true one, so if you're looking for some history with your drama this weekend, take a look. Cute animals play a part.

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Poetry push

Yes, we know you have a slew of titles ready to read in your Kindle queue, but this weekend, take a moment to download Phillip B. Williams award-winning poetry collection "Thief in the Interior." Williams is a Chicago native who won a 2017 Whiting Award this month for works that "fiercely seek new ways to protest, and grieve the violence done daily to black men's bodies." Broaden your mind in these tumultuous times.

The digit: 13
Arlington Heights police officer Kevin Sullivan hugs his K9 partner, Layka, who is retiring after being diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor. (Brian O'Mahoney / Pioneer Press)

When a medical condition forced Arlington Heights police officer Kevin Sullivan's partner of nearly a decade into an early retirement, the abrupt end to their shared daily law enforcement duties was nothing short of devastating for both of them.

"She just looked at me like, 'Really?'" said Sullivan, recalling the first day he headed off to his job as a K-9 officer without his partner Layka, a 13-year-old Belgian Malinois.

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Layka, who joined the department in 2007 as its first police K-9, was recently diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor.

Not unlike a successful and driven professional who finds herself feeling lost and restless after retiring, Layka's action-packed life at the police department suddenly was replaced with afternoon naps and long, leisurely walks around the neighborhood, Sullivan said.

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"It's going to be a hard transition for her, but I'm hoping Layka has a long retirement ahead with my family at our home," Sullivan said. "I'm praying for her mental state because when police K-9s retire, the majority don't last very long because they lose their drive and become depressed."

While Layka was supposed to retire in August, her veterinarian ordered numerous tests after Layka suffered a seizure last month and detected the brain tumor that put an immediate halt to the dog's career in law enforcement, he said.

On March 20, Arlington Heights police, dozens of northwest suburban police K-9 officers and their dogs all joined forces at village hall to honor Layka at a retirement ceremony, which included an official proclamation from Arlington Heights Mayor Thomas Hayes.

Layka, who was born in the Netherlands on Jan. 4, 2004, immigrated to the U.S. and became the village's first police K-9 in August 2007, assigned badge number 268K, Hayes said.

During her nearly ten years of service with the police department, Layka recovered more than $1 million in unlawful controlled substances and $1 million in criminal assets, Hayes said.

"Layka has proven to be popular with the public, having demonstrated her abilities in over 300 public presentations," Hayes said.

He recalled how Layka used "her phenomenal tracking abilities" to locate numerous wanted suspects and also missing persons during her tenure with Arlington Heights police.

Arlington Heights Police Chief Gerald Mourning, who launched the village's K-9 program in 2007, remembered Layka helping apprehend a suspect charged with attempted murder by successfully tracking the offender "at night, in rainy weather," he said.

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Arlington Heights police officer Kevin Sullivan poses with his K9 partner Layka, who is retiring after being diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor. (Brian O'Mahoney / Pioneer Press)

In another case, Layka led police to a suspect, who was charged with residential burglary, after locating the man hiding in a backyard and underneath a tarp, Mourning said.

"We consider her a member of the department.  She even attended roll calls, so it's hard to see her leave after nine-and-a-half years of service," Mourning said.

The village currently has three K-9 police dogs, who each cover an eight-hour shift for the K-9 unit at the department after undergoing "rigorous training" with K-9 officers, said Arlington Heights Deputy Police Chief Andrew Whowell.

"We had a huge contingency of K-9 officers at Layka's retirement ceremony because she served not only Arlington Heights, but other departments through our mutual aid agreement," Whowell said. "The K-9 officers are a really close-knit family, and they all came out to support Layka."

Sullivan said he had dogs as pets while growing up, but his past experience did not prepare him for Layka's intrepid and intelligent personality.

"These dogs are bred and trained for service work, so you would probably not want to purchase a Belgian Malinois for a household pet, unless you want a dog that is more like a Tasmanian Devil," he said.

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Aside from the initial seizure Layka suffered last month, Sullivan said she has not displayed any other symptoms of illness.

The police dog now is settling into her new role as "a relaxed household pet," he said.

"When I was out at the kennel in Indiana in 2007, looking for a police K-9, I didn't pick out Layka. She picked me," Sullivan recalled. "She walked over to me, jumped up, and put her paws on me, and that was it."

kcullotta@tribpub.com

Twitter @kcullotta
John Sperry drove his Cadillac up to the driveway of a Jackson Street residence in Aurora where he once lived and rolled down the passenger-side window.

He said something which drew the attention of a 56-year-old man Sperry knew and "had a friendship that has lasted several years," witnesses told Aurora police.

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The man walked over and "Sperry was heard saying 'Do you want to die?' or something similar," investigators described in a court filing, adding that Sperry pulled out a gun and shot the man, his friend, with a gunshot to the neck. The man survived and 55-year-old Sperry now sits in jail charged with attempted murder and other counts in connection to the March 4 shooting.

An affidavit filed by Aurora police to obtain a search warrant for Sperry's car offered those new details of the incident, including that police recovered a revolver and a spent shell casing from inside the Cadillac. Sperry remains held on $500,000 bail after a judge recently denied his request to lower the amount he would need to be released. Sperry is scheduled to return to court in April.

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Officers responded to the 300 block of Jackson around 4:40 p.m. March 4 on a report of shots fired. A caller said their father had been shot, and mentioned Sperry's name and car description. Within four minutes, police spotted the Cadillac near Ohio and Grove streets and began a pursuit when Sperry failed to pull over, authorities said. Sperry's car reached speeds up to 70 mile per hour at times while eluding police for 14 minutes before crashing into a light pole at Claim Street and Lincoln Avenue, police said.

Police identified Sperry with the help of one witness to the shooting and two others who recognized his car as leaving the scene of the shooting, the affidavit states. Officers involved in the pursuit didn't see a gun discarded while trying to stop Sperry, which is why investigators wanted to search the Cadillac's interior. In addition to the gun and shell casing, police found nine live .38-caliber rounds, a pistol cleaning kit and a prescription medication bottle with Sperry's name on it, according to warrant paperwork.

Police have not said what led to the shooting, but suggested it was a personal dispute.

Dan Campana is a freelance reporter for The Beacon-News
Voters cast ballots in the fall election in Sugar Grove. Election Day is Tuesday, and area clerk's offices and election commissions have been working hard to get ready for the balloting. (Sean King / The Beacon-News)

It takes a lot of work to get things ready for Fox Valley voters to cast their ballots Tuesday.

Kane County Clerk Jack Cunningham compared it to "getting 228 planes ready for takeoff."

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"We've had 508 early voters in on Friday, and though early voter turnout has been slow, we had lines out the door today," Cunningham said Friday. "We worked with a number of businesses to have electronic boards carry messages about early voting through an outreach program, and now we're getting the trucks lined up to bring the equipment out to 228 precincts."

Cunningham said getting ready for election day "is much like operating 228 businesses."

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"We have $6 million in gear to get out, and we have to staff it with election judges," he said. "I have a guy who works for me who used to be with American Airlines, and his job is to make sure all the 'planes' are ready to take off."

Cunningham added that last-minute checks include setting up his office where "real-time election results" are tracked.

"Once you sign in, I can see that immediately on my desk as well as the percentage of Republican and Democratic votes, and we have a war room staffed by 10 people that handle calls from the public as well as questions from the election judges," he said.

Cunningham said about 100 part-timers will be brought in to help out on election day.

"We also have the issue of getting all the ballot styles ready to make sure voters get the right document for the candidates in their area, as there are so many governmental subdivisions in Illinois," he said. "One of our precincts has 22 styles alone."

The work has been going on for quite a while getting ready for election day at the Aurora Election Commission.

"If we waited until this weekend to get things ready, we'd be stuck," was the response Friday from Linda Fechner, executive director of the commission. "We basically started getting ready for the general election ... even before the last national election was held."

Fechner said the past few weeks have included lining up election judges for special duty as well as equipment testing a week ago.

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"Basically we've been fielding a lot of calls from people who missed the mail in time for ballots or saying they have been in the hospital," she said. "Judges will be back to do tallies, and Monday we have the delivery trucks with equipment going out."

Fechner said that, in all, about 365 people are involved working in Aurora to make things happen "with staff working, perhaps, a few more hours" but without extra help being added.

"We have procedures in place, and we have a backup and a backup to the backup," she said. "The only thing we can't control is voter turnout."

In DuPage County, Joe Sobecki, interim executive director of the DuPage County Election Commission, likens the process there to "more of a show that we put on, and election day is the performance  we get opening night, that's it."

"Right now, we're working to fill in any of the gaps we have as far as election judges go, and we'll be visiting the heath care facilities Saturday where voting will go on," Sobecki said Friday. "We're also busy dropping off supplies and doing some last-minute training on the help desk. In terms of staff, we'll probably have about 20 to 25 extra people working the help desk."

Sobecki said ballot scanning of mail-in votes will begin Monday and that officials are working to set up a co-op throughout DuPage County in the event something goes wrong.

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"We do have a plan and contingencies in place if something should happen and will enlist the support of the whole county," he said. "A jurisdiction our size has about $15 million to $20 million in equipment, and the goal, in the end, is to make this as easy as we can for the voters to cast their ballots. We've had three elections in the last six months, but following the April election, we'll analyze our data to see what we can improve on before the election next March."

David Sharos is a freelance reporter for The Beacon-News.
Voters in Geneva on Tuesday will decide if their current mayor Kevin Burns will be elected to a fifth term or if challenger Thomas Simonian will take over as the new leader in the city.

Burns, 52, said that as of this April, he will have been a resident in the city for 44 years.

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When asked to summarize his accomplishments during his four terms as mayor, Burns revealed four categories including financial, developmental, and cultural as well as what he called "comprehensive engagement with the community."

"Regarding financial success, the most notable thing is that we have stabilized the tax rate and now only 8 percent of the property owner's bill supports the city," Burns said. "We've maintained our bond rating and have invested responsibly in our infrastructure including power, water, and wastewater and made quality services available at affordable prices."

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Regarding development, Burns pointed to the "successful integration of the Randall Road corridor and the business district" and said that "both have been successful and retained their unique status."

"We've expanded the industrial base by 3.5 million square feet and have attracted some of the most respected companies from around the country and the world," he said.

The Cultural Arts program has been expanded through the Art for All and Art on Fire programs, Burns said, which has also included highlighting student work as well as offering art-related programs.

As mayor, Burns said that comprehensive engagement has been ongoing through his attendance at ribbon cuttings, school events, Park District programs and senior activities.

"We continue to celebrate our achievements and recognize contributors and I'm proud to serve as the ambassador of this city," Burns said.

Future challenges that Geneva faces include making sure business opportunities continue to grow, Burns said, despite the city being landlocked and development nearly complete.

"The biggest opportunity that remains is developing the southeast portion of the city and the master plan along our east border where we have light industrial," he said. "We also want to redevelop the Settler's Hill landfill and make an active and passive recreation area. And we need to invest in the business district to make sure Geneva and the uniqueness of its brand remains special even though the city is large."

Simonian, 58, has lived in Geneva for 19 years and was appointed alderman four years ago by his opponent, Kevin Burns.

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Simonian likened his experience in local government to stories people hear about sausage factories.

"The reason I'm running is because it's like the horror stories you hear about what goes on in the sausage factory," Simonian said. "After I was appointed by Mayor Burns I've seen from the inside what's going on and I don't like what I see. My dad used to say the 'softest pillow is a clear conscience' and I can't turn my back on the way government is spending tax dollars."

Simonian charged that Burns "is allowing staff to run the city" and is "disengaged with ribbon cutting and ceremonies instead of being mayor."

His vision includes a four-year plan that would include feedback and scrutinizing of the city, its services and amenities.

"The first thing I'd do is the same thing I do with my four companies," he said. "We use an outside resource called 'Listen360' where people are asked if they are happy with our products and service. I'm going to implement that throughout the city and ask builders, developers, visitors and everyone else how well we've delivered our services and share those results with our staff, departments and citizens."

Simonian said that feedback would be tied to merit raises.

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He also spoke about reducing the budget, rescinding certain taxes, and bringing fairness back to local government.

"Over six years, our budget has grown from $63 million to $92 million, and we need alternative forms of revenue," he said. "We have to bring back the four-letter dirty word  fair - and have everyone share in the heavy lifting of the tax burden. I want to rescind the 2 percent 'places for eating' tax on restaurants used to raise $1.5 million which customers are paying."

Regarding fresh economic ideas, Simonian believes "focusing on economic development and leveraging our resources of the train and riverfront" would provide some of the best opportunities.

"We could build a theater in Geneva and have people come out to see concerts and theater and visit our restaurants instead of driving (somewhere else)," he said.

David Sharos is a freelance reporter for The Beacon-News
The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees council covering a large part of Northern Illinois has endorsed Richard Irvin for mayor of Aurora.

Members of AFSCME Council 31 announced the endorsement at Irvin's campaign office this week and said the vote to endorse also included Local 2833, which covers employees of state agencies; Local 1514, which covers city workers in maintenance and public properties areas; and Local 3298, which covers city clerical workers.

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Ruby Robinson, president of Local 2833, said the vote for Irvin was taken "after careful consideration in looking at his records."

"We are comfortable that he is a very innovative man, and we believe that's what Aurora needs right now," she said. "There are other ways to keep Aurora's budget afloat than cutting employees."

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In a letter AFSCME sent to its members announcing the endorsement, they pointed out that Irvin's mother was a city employee and an AFSCME member before retiring recently.

Irvin said he thanked the union and said he was honored that they "trust in me to be the leader that would move Aurora forward."

Irvin's opponent, Rick Guzman, had announced last week that the Fox Valley Building Trades Council and the DuPage Building Council were endorsing him.

slord@tribpub.com
A Thursday afternoon fire displaced the residents of a mobile home on Aurora's East Side, according to fire officials.

At 4:18 p.m. Thursday, firefighters responded to a structure fire on the 1100 block of Rural Street, according to a news release from Aurora Fire Department spokesman Capt. Jim Rhodes.

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Multiple neighbors called in the fire, as did one of the occupants, who was still inside the mobile home when the fire started, according to the news release.

Everyone inside the mobile home got out before firefighters arrived. When firefighters got there, they found heavy fire showing from the single-family mobile home, according to the fire department.

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Paramedics treated and released one person for smoke inhalation at the scene, Rhodes said. About 45 minutes after arrival, 24 firefighters had the fire completely extinguished, according to the fire department.

The structure was deemed uninhabitable, displacing four adults and one child, according to the fire department. The Red Cross was called to the scene to provide victim assistance.

An adjacent residence sustained minor fire damage but can still be lived in, according to the fire department.

Fire officials estimated the total dollar loss at $10,000 and said they are still investigating the cause of the fire.

hleone@tribpub.com

Twitter @hannahmleone
Oswego voters will fill three opens seats on the Village Board during Tuesday's election.

Five candidates are vying for spots on the Village Board: incumbents Judy Sollinger, Pam Parr and Luis Perez, and challengers Brian Thomas and Donnie Soard.

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The three other seats on the Village Board are not up for election.

Sollinger said she wasn't pleased with the direction the village was headed under the previous administration and wants to continue the progress made in the past couple of years.

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"We currently have a forward-thinking board who works together as a team and has a vision for the future. Our priorities include revitalizing our downtown, preserving our quality of life, keeping our property tax rate flat, protecting our environment and planning for the future," she said.

She said economic development is a key to Oswego's future growth.

"We constantly hear that property taxes should be our first concern, but I believe that in order to maintain a flat property tax rate, maintain our quality of life and plan for the future, economic development is vital," she said.

Sollinger served two terms as Oswego village clerk, having been elected in 1985 and re-elected in 1989. Sollinger was appointed trustee in August 2007 to fill the remaining two years of an unexpired term. She was elected to four-year terms in 2009 and 2013.

Sollinger said she has resided in the "heart of old Oswego" with her husband, Rich, for nearly 50 years.

Parr has the second spot on the ballot. Parr was elected to the board in 2013 and is seeking her second four-year term. Parr previously served as a member of the Kendall County Board from 2002 through 2010. She is a 34-year resident of Oswego and a former business partner and founder of Fox Valley Trophy.

Parr said she wants to be part of the Village Board to continue the work that has been started.

"We are revitalizing our downtown, spurring economic development and constructing a new police station," she said.

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She said the village has held the property tax rate flat for a fifth consecutive year.

"It is an exciting, dynamic time for Oswego, and I want to continue the vision and planning needed to continue moving forward," she said.

The Village Board in November authorized purchasing the 2.38-acre former Alexander Lumber site at Washington and Adams streets for $1.4 million. The village recently announced it has selected a developer interested in pursuing plans for a mixed-used residential and commercial project there. The plans will go through the village's review process.

Parr said the village has made strides in the past two years and cannot afford to go back to the "philosophy of no" to economic growth, roads, public safety and amenities for residents.

"In the last two years we have accomplished so much as a board. We have set the groundwork for some exciting things. We have done things to kick-start economic development, and we have a Metra commuter station back on the radar," she said.

Perez was appointed to the board in October 2015 to fill a vacancy and is seeking his first four-year term. Perez is employed by Ace Hardware as a corporate new-business channel manager.

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Perez served on numerous Oswego School District 308 boards that addressed learning and growth. Perez said it's crucial for the village to lay the groundwork to manage the village's continued growth.

"Oswego is going to grow and is going to need a leadership team that will manage growth," Perez said.

Perez said he wants to maintain the "wins" that have already been accomplished, such as the "proper long-term budgeting for a new police station and future growth and development of the downtown."

He said the village has properly budgeted for information technology infrastructure improvements and has approved intergovernmental sharing of services with Yorkville to reduce costs. Perez said the village is proactively setting goals for the future expansion of Wolf's Crossing Road.

Perez has resided in Oswego with his wife, Kathy, for 17 years. Together they are raising two school-age children.

Thomas said he would take a conservative approach to the village's spending.

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"Government can be good in a lot of ways, but the main problem with government is that it thinks it has an endless supply of taxpayers' money," he said.

Thomas ran an unsuccessful bid for election to the board in 2015. Thomas said he would push to repeal the village's three-quarters of 1 percent sales tax increase.

The Village Board approved the increase to fund the new police station and maintain road infrastructure.

"I am all for supporting our police," he said. "But the interest and principal for a new facility will be astronomical. I'm not sure sales tax revenues will cover it."

He is also critical of the village purchasing the former Alexander Lumber property and creating a downtown tax increment financing district to encourage redevelopment in the downtown.

"The village doesn't need to get into the real estate business," Thomas said.

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"I am all for investors starting new businesses for a profit, but it shouldn't be done with taxpayer dollars. There are people in the downtown that started businesses that didn't get any assistance from a TIF district," he said.

Thomas said he operates a family-owned restaurant and bar near Riverside. He and his wife, Lesley, have lived in Oswego for 10 years and are raising three young children.

Soard could not be reached for comment.

Linda Girardi is a freelance reporter for The Beacon-News.
Yorkville Mayor Gary Golinski has announced the city has been authorized to hold a partial special census despite earlier concerns about a federal hiring freeze.

The city had already paid $108,000 to the U.S. Census Bureau to cover the expense of salaries for part-time census takers required to go door-to-door to get the latest population count.

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However, the city's effort was stymied when President Trump Jan. 23 issued an executive order that stopped the hiring of federal civilian employees. The order did not include or apply to military personnel.

Yorkville administrative intern Nicole Kathman said the city was subsequently notified that the U.S. Census Bureau was granted an exemption to the federal hiring freeze and could appoint seasonal and short-term employees.

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"That was our hold-up," Kathman said.

Kathman said the city immediately issued a call to those interested in working as enumerators, crew leaders and clerical staff. The census is scheduled to begin in mid-May.

She said about 10 people have expressed interest in the part-time work.

"We are still looking for people," Kathman said.

Census workers can expect to work 25 to 40 hours per week for approximately three to five weeks, she said. Crew leaders are paid $16.18 an hour, while enumerators and clerical staff are paid hourly wages of $15.18 and $12.18 respectively. Workers are also reimbursed for mileage and training.

She said the majority of the positions are enumerators which visit households in targeted areas of the city and collect data from residents.

She said enumerators will be assigned to neighborhoods that have experienced housing growth.

"We are focusing on subdivisions where the city has issued housing permits, including Grande Reserve and Blackberry Woods which are centrally located, Windett Ridge in the southeast quadrant of the city and Bristol Bay in the northern section of the city," she said.

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She said the city expects to receive data results in a few months.

People interested in the positions are required to take a written examination April 19 at Yorkville City Hall, 800 Game Farm Road. They are not required to live in Yorkville.

Those interested must register for a testing time in advance and complete an application at City Hall. The testing registration form, job requirements and the application is available at http://www.yorkville.il.us/jobs.aspx. Paper copies can be picked up at City Hall as well.

The mayor said Yorkville will not receive its fair share of tax disbursements from income and motor fuel taxes until an accurate population count is registered with the federal government.

The revised population count could mean the equivalent of about $15,000 in extra tax revenue per month going into the city's coffers.

Golinski said the last regular census was done in 2010, which showed the city with 16,921 residents. He said since then the city has grown by more than 1,000 people. A regular census is done once every 10 years.

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Linda Girardi is a freelance reporter for The Beacon-News
Co-founder of YouTube Steve Chen visits with students and alumni Thursday as a new lab named after him and his wife is officially opened at the Illinois Math and Science Academy in Aurora. (David Sharos / The Beacon-News)

It is not every day that the co-founder of YouTube comes to your school.

In the case of Steve Chen, though, it was a homecoming, as the former student of the Illinois Math and Science Academy in Aurora came to his alma mater to christen the new Center for Innovation and Inquiry named for him and his wife.

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The Steve and Jamie Chen Center includes more than 6,000 square feet of space for student work and discovery. The center will be accessible to students and educators throughout Illinois, local nonprofits, and businesses, the school has said. The goal of the center is to develop and share new ideas and creations.

Chen said this was only his second visit back to the school, and that he wanted his Korean wife to see Chicago and the school in Aurora where he got his start.

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"I left in 1996, and have a lot of memories about what I learned here, but at the same time  I've spent a lot of time in Silicon Valley and I sort of felt old when I came back," Chen said. "As far the kids here go and what's changed  in many ways, I feel I'm seeing a mirror image of myself."

The students at the academy were excited about the new facility as well as having an inspirational alum with star power in their midst.

"I've been inspired by his work ethic and I realize there is always an end goal, even if things don't work out early on," said Malik Roberson, 18, of Bolingbrook. "I've been working on a skateboard here and trying to develop a way to make it beat the world record of 60 miles per hour. You have to have your own ideas and not give up."

Claudia Zhu, 15, a student from Schaumburg at the academy, said it is "amazing" to have the new innovation center at the school.

"Regardless of the success of alumni, we all have potential for great things. After IMSA, there's more to life, but this is the foundation for our future," she said.

Steve Chen came back to the Illinois Math and Science Academy in Aurora Thursday for the opening of its new Innovation Center. (David Sharos / The Beacon-News)

Tami Armstrong, director of public affairs for IMSA, said the school was excited to have "the first innovation center in a secondary education setting" that was the result "of a public and private partnership."

"We're so excited to have Steve and Jamie Chen back for this event, as they were the ones who donated the seed money that helped fund this project," Armstrong said. "As an alum, it's a privilege to have Steve come back and see this space, which we think provides a new model for education here in this country."

Thursday's ceremony included what was billed as a "futuristic ribbon-cutting" as the school formally presented both the new center as well as a new wing of science labs that were opened.

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A panel discussion followed the ribbon cutting and included Chen, along with Nigel Lockyer, director of Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, and IMSA alums Claudia M. Flores, assistant clinical professor of law and director of the International Human Rights Clinic at the University of Chicago Law School, along with Jessica Droste Yagan, CEO of Impact Engine.

Chen spoke about the growth of YouTube since its inception and how he sees technology affecting the world  including his own children.

"My kids have asked, 'Daddy  how did you make so many videos?' and most of the time, I find myself watching kid content on it," Chen said. "I find all sorts of things from cooking or how to assemble something  you can find virtually anything on YouTube. It has far exceeded my expectations."

Chen spoke about crime and violence that has made its way onto social media and defended the use of keeping an open portal to the internet.

"The whole internet thing has to be open and remain open, and YouTube maintains a rigid model that determines what gets put on there and what doesn't," he said. "At the end of the day, it has to be completely open and let the users decide."

The future of YouTube, Chen said, was hard to predict but he said the movement from text to images to audio and video would likely continue "into virtual reality as the next step."

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Former classmate Droste Yagan said "it was really inspiring to be back" and that "it was cool to see how the level of technology has evolved."

"Students can now be learning in real time, and the impact of IMSA on our careers and solving problems has been significant," she said.

David Sharos is a freelance reporter for The Beacon-News
A Wisconsin man who suffered a heart attack in an Aurora thrift store meets the woman who saved his life. (Denise Crosby / Beacon-News) (Chicago Tribune)

Pete Catlow had been waiting for this visit for weeks. After all, it's not every day you get a chance to return to the place where you almost died and meet the person who saved your life.

On March 25, almost nine weeks to the hour that the Wisconsin man suffered a heart attack at the Community Thrift Store in Aurora, he got to hug Heidi Scaletta, the Geneva woman who performed CPR on him as his face turned an ugly shade of blue.

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"I just kept thinking, let me bring him back at least enough so he can say goodbye," Scaletta told Catlow and his loved ones as they gathered again in the resale shop on Indian Trail and she recalled her thoughts during those critical moments in the early afternoon of Jan. 14.

Pete Catlow and Heidi Scaletta met for the first time since she saved his life by administering CPR after he suffered a heart attack in an Aurora thrift store in January. (Denise Crosby / The Beacon-News)

"But here you are, standing here in front of me  this is just wonderful," she said.

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Catlow wasn't the only who came back to the thrift store to thank Scaletta, who had relied on the training she'd received as a certified nurse's aide at an assisted living facility in St. Charles. Also on hand was Catlow's wife Ann, as well as his sister and brother-in-law Nita and Kent Hayward of Aurora, who the couple were visiting when the heart attack occurred.

"Heidi, you saved my brother," said Nita as she wrapped her arms around Scaletta and pulled the 50-year-old mother of two in closely. "I can't thank you enough for what you did for him."

After the introductions and embraces, Scaletta, who is also a long-time Geneva schools crossing guard, added details to those extraordinary moments that began when 78-year-old Catlow, standing in line to purchase a $7 coat so he'd have something warm to wear on his trip back to Fontaine, Wisconsin, suffered an arrhythmia and hit his head on a display table as he fell to the floor.

Scaletta recalled being in the dressing room when she heard the cry for help, and how she hesitated momentarily, as she'd never before had to perform first aid on a real person.

She described how she heard the crack of bone as she gave the stranger two hard hits to his chest, and how relieved she was to see his complexion begin to normalize.

From left, Kent Hayward, Teresa Tiarks, Pete Catlow, Heidi Scaletta, Ann Catlow and Nita Hayward pose as Tiarks' fiance Ric Oropez takes a group shot in March in the Community Thrift Store in Aurora, where Scaletta performed CPR on Pete Catlow to save his life nine weeks earlier. (Denise Crosby / The Beacon-News)

But even as paramedics were arriving, his color darkened again. And despite what Fire Capt. Jason Demas described as a call "that went seamless," doctors warned Ann Catlow a few days later her husband was likely not going to make it.

That same afternoon, however, he surprised everyone by raising his arm . And from then on, his recovery has been steady and impressive.

"I still forget things," admitted Catlow, who will continue in rehab for at least a year. "But I'm here  and I'm doing well."

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He and his family, who also met quick-acting store personnel that helped get Aurora Fire Station 3 responders to the store within minutes, were introduced to another good Samaritan. And this one was totally unexpected.

As Catlow and family were talking to Scaletta, a woman, who had just entered the thrift store with her granddaughter and fiance, stopped to watch and listen to their group's conversation. And as recognition set in, emotion replaced the surprise on her face.

"I know what's going on here," she finally said.

It turned out Teresa Tiarks, too, had been in the store when Catlow hit the floor. And like Scaletta, this former Aurora home healthcare provider, jumped in to help, keeping the elderly man's head tilted back enough to give him the best chance of getting oxygen to his brain, while assuring him over and over that "you're not alone  we're here for you."

Pete Catlow meets with Teresa Tiarks, left, and Heidi Scaletta, right, whose quick action in an Aurora thrift store in January saved the Wisconsin man's life. (Denise Crosby / The Beacon-News)

But until she just happened to walk into that store last weekend, Tiarks said she had no idea what had happened to the man whose head rested in her lap as CPR was performed on him.

"I was so shaken for such a long time . I thought he had probably died," Tiarks said. "I can't believe I'm seeing him here."

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Tiarks says she recognized Ann Catlow's face before anyone else's because "I remember the fear on her face that day."

"She thought she was losing her husband," Tiarks said. "Now, to see him smiling like this . To see her smiling. It brings closure  the best kind."

As she was introduced to the growing crowd that gathered in the front of the store, Tiarks, still trying to process the surprise situation, continued to utter one phrase more than any other. It was a sentiment shared by all.

"This," she said, "just made my day."

Dcrosby@tribpub.com
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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.
Our weekly round up of other news affecting foreign investors throughout Asia:

Singapores FDI Outlook for 2017: Recent Trends and Key Industries

Singapore in 2017 offers investors an attractive and stable macroeconomic environment. Understand the current conditions for foreign investment within the country and learn which industries are well positioned and primed for growth.

Delhi NCR  An Emerging IT Hub in India

Indias information technology and IT enabled services sector have grown enormously, which currently accounts for about 67 percent of the worlds US$124-130 billion IT market. This article discusses how Delhi NCR is emerging as Indias leading IT hub due to a confluence of factors.

Setting Up a Branch Office in Russia

Branch Offices in Russia differ from Representative Office establishments as they can perform direct commercial activities and generate local income. For this reason, they are often the preferred vehicle of choice for foreign investors looking to commence trade and import-export functions in Russia.

Understanding Provincial Competitiveness in Vietnam

Vietnams Provincial Competitiveness Index for 2016 has been released, providing detailed information on how locations within the country stack up from an investment perspective. Read more to understand the nations trends and which localities are topping the list.



About Us Our Briefing updates are written by and provided by the various regional offices of Dezan Shira & Associates throughout Asia. To obtain a complimentary subscription to Asia Briefing please click here. To contact Dezan Shira & Associates concerning foreign investment and assistance in Asia, please email us at asia@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 ASEAN 2017

Doing Business in ASEAN introduces the fundamentals of investing in the 10-nation ASEAN bloc, concentrating on economics, trade, corporate establishment and taxation. We also include the latest development news in our Important Updates section for each country, with the intent to provide an executive assessment of the varying component parts of ASEAN, assessing each member state and providing the most up-to-date economic and demographic data on each.

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.

An Introduction to Doing Business in Hong Kong 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.

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.

An Introduction to Doing Business in Singapore 2017

An Introduction to Doing Business in Singapore 2017 provides readers with an overview of the fundamentals of investing and conducting business in Singapore and outlines the citys role as a trading hub within ASEAN. The guide explains the basics of company establishment, annual compliance, taxation, human resources, and social insurance in the city-state.

An Introduction to Doing Business in Vietnam 2017

An Introduction to Doing Business in Vietnam 2017 will provide readers with an overview of the fundamentals of investing and conducting business in Vietnam. Compiled by Dezan Shira & Associates, a specialist foreign direct investment practice, this guide explains the basics of company establishment, annual compliance, taxation, human resources, payroll, and social insurance in this dynamic country.
By Zolzaya Erdenebileg and Weining Hu

In August 2016, Bank of China Hong Kong alerted its customers of a phishing scam targeting client bank account and card information. Using the domain, bochk.orbisfn.net, the phishing attack sent users to a fraudulent website designed to look similar to the official Bank of China Hong Kong online banking login page, and stole the information that was entered into the inputs. That same month, Hang Seng Bank issued a similar warning to its customers.

In recent years, phishing schemes have become a frequent headache for companies in China. According to a 2017 cybersecurity survey, security incidents in China and Hong Kong in 2016 increased by more than 900 percent year-on-year. Additionally, phishing attacks have become more sophisticated in how they elicit information.

As businesses transform and introduce more digital platforms to interact with clients, phishing risks have increased in tandem.

RELATED: IT-based Solutions from Dezan Shira & Associates

What is phishing?

Phishing is fraud through electronic channels to try and trick people out of information or any kind of knowledge that has value, usually monetary. With so many forms of communication methods, phishing can take multiple forms  for example, smishing is through text messages  but in the past, e-mail has been the channel of choice.

The most comical, if not notorious, example is that of a rich noble or person of influence in some developing country who wishes to transfer their vast funds out into the victims bank account, and promises to grant the victim a handsome sum as a reward.

According to Michael Mudd, Managing Partner at Asia Policy Partners, phishing has become the preferred method for cybercriminals as it is often able to bypass the first line of electronic network defenses by pretending to be from a legitimate source.

These days, the phishers have become smarter in how they select their targets. Spear phishing takes aim at specific individuals and companies, angler phishing impersonates customer help lines, and whaling targets the C-suite.

Attacks can redirect the victims to false websites to collect their personal information, like in the case of Bank of China Hong Kong and Hang Seng Bank, or they can contain malware in an attachment to the e-mail. Cybercriminals also use steganographic techniques, explained Mudd, whereby the malware is hidden within a file, message, image, or video.

Phishing in China

The Chinese economy, with the popularity of such platforms like Alipay and WeChat Wallet, has found itself particularly vulnerable to the new age of phishing.

In 2016, there were over 125 billion non-cash payment transactions in China, amounting to RMB 3,687.24 trillion. Mobile payments increased by 85.8 percent year-on-year, for 25.71 billion transactions totaling RMB 157.55 trillion. Online payments increased by 26.96 percent, for 461.7 billion transactions totaling RMB 2,084.95 trillion.

Industry watchdogs estimate that RMB 195 million was lost to internet fraud in 2016, an increase of over 53 percent compared to 2015. More than half of the loss  about RMB 110 million  was due to phishing. Beijing had the highest number of cases and amount of monetary loss, but Shenzhen, Shanghai, and Guangzhou also ranked high.

RELATED: Chinas New Cybersecurity Law to be Implemented June 1

Protections against phishing scams

In order to protect against phishing, businesses must be vigilant about updating their systems and applications. Thomas Zhang, Director of IT at Dezan Shira & Associates, recommends installing security devices or systems that can automatically detect and filter out phishing e-mails. Updating systems and application patches, particularly browsers, can be effective as newer versions have more up-to-date blocks on flagged phishing websites.

However, the best protection is greater awareness. [Ultimately], it is the end user behavior that needs to change through education, Mudd said.

Security awareness training for all staff is critical as the forms of phishing keep changing, Zhang said. IT needs to teach users how to recognize dangerous links or attachments in the email, and provide quick responses to staff queries when forwarded uncertain e-mails to facilitate knowledge sharing.



About Us China Briefing is a publication produced by Asia Briefing, a subsidiary of Dezan Shira & Associates. Our full range of titles covers ASEAN, China, India, Russia, the Silk Road and Vietnam. Please click here to obtain a complimentary subscription and here to contact our editorial team. Dezan Shira & Associates is a specialist foreign direct investment practice, providing corporate establishment, business advisory, tax advisory and compliance, accounting, payroll, IT, due diligence and financial review services to multinationals investing in China, Hong Kong, India, Vietnam, Singapore and the rest of ASEAN. We maintain a specialist IT operations unit that can assist with IT issues in China.

For further information, please email china@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 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.

Internet Challenges & Solutions When Doing Business in China

In this special edition of China Briefing magazine, we highlight how and why foreign companies will be negatively affected by Chinas internet, and provide methods to help solve these problems. We discuss ISP selection, internet connection types, CDNs and VPNs, and internal control systems. Finally, we examine the importance of network security in China and how it can help augment a companys internet connection.
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China's manufacturing sector in March stayed above the boom or bust mark for the eighth month in a row, fresh evidence of a stabilizing economy, said the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).

The country's manufacturing purchasing managers' index (PMI) came in at 51.8 in March, higher than 51.6 recorded in February, according to NBS data released Friday.

The reading beat market expectations and was the highest in nearly five years. In April 2012, it reached 53.3.

A reading above 50 indicates expansion, while a reading below 50 reflects contraction.

This also marked the second consecutive month that the expansion rate of the index accelerated.

Major sub-indexes posted upticks, pointing to strengthened momentum of the manufacturing sector, said NBS senior statistician Zhao Qinghe.

The sub-index for production stood at 54.2 in March, higher than 53.7 registered in February.

The sub-index for new orders rose to 53.3 in March from 53 in February.

"High-tech manufacturing continued its rapid expansion, and some traditional manufacturing industries' production and management conditions continue to be on the mend," Zhao said.

The sub-index for high-tech manufacturing industry topped 54.2 in March, well above 51.8 registered for all manufacturing industries.
The construction site of China's first home-made aircraft carrier. [Photo/People.cn ]

China's first domestically built aircraft carrier is being outfitted with equipment and the work is progressing smoothly, Defense Ministry spokesman Wu Qian said on Thursday.

As for the carrier's launch, Wu said the date is coming soon and "we won't keep the public waiting for too long".

Wu made the remark in response to media speculation that the new carrier would be launched on April 23the 68th anniversary of the founding of the People's Liberation Army Navy.

Outfitting usually implies installing radar, engines and other key components. But some equipment, like the weapons systems, also has to be installed after the ship has been launched into the water, said Zhu Chenghu, a professor at National Defense University.

"The launch is only the first step," he said. "By current progress, the new carrier would still have to undergo one to two years of testing, both at the dock and at sea, before it could be officially handed to the Navy.

"Nevertheless, China launching its first domestically designed aircraft carrier is a monumental step toward building a world class navy," he said. "The valuable lessons learned from building a carrier from scratch will help China build more carriers faster in the future and enable them to reach combat readiness quicker."

According to the Defense Ministry, the new aircraft carrier is under construction in Dalian, Liaoning province. It will have a displacement of about 50,000 metric tons, as well as conventional engines and fighter jet launch systems similar to those of the CNS LiaoningChina's first aircraft carrier.

The most important difference lies in the roles of the two vessels, Zhu said. While the Liaoning is primarily for training and research purposes, the new carrier will focus on combat and defense.

The new carrier will have more cargo room, more sophisticated radar, more advanced weapons systems, and more reliable engines than the Liaoning, which was refitted from an unfinished Soviet-era carrierthe Varyagthat "did not leave much leeway for optimization and improvement due to its old design," he added. It was commissioned by China in 2012.

PLA Major General Peng Guangqian, a military strategist, said China's carriers, as well as the carriers from other nations, are still far behind US carriers in terms of size, scale and combat capability, "because US Navy doctrine requires unchallenged global dominance, while Chinese carriers are mainly used for self-defense".

When asked about the Chinese military's recent drills on the Chinese side of the Sino-Myanmar border following clashes between Myanmar security forces and ethnic rebels, Wu said the drills were part of the annual training schedule and China had informed Myanmar of the drill before it began.
Senior Colonel Wu Qian, spokesperson of China's Ministry of National Defense (MOD), responds to media questions at a routine press conference on March 30, 2017. [Photo by Chen Boyuan/China.org.cn]

The Chinese military once again expressed its firm opposition to the deployment of the THAAD (Terminal High Altitude Area Defense) system in South Korea, stressing its opposition "will never be just in words."

Senior Colonel Wu Qian, Ministry of National Defense (MOD) spokesperson, speaking at a routine press conference on March 30, said China was serious about opposing THAAD.

"The deployment of THAAD will never make South Korea any safer. The Chinese military's opposition against THAAD will never be just in words," he insisted.

The MOD's strong stance came after two THAAD launchers, along with support equipment, were delivered to a U.S. base in South Korea, according to South Korea's Yonhap News Agency. Analysts said that THAAD might be fully operational in April.

Former South Korean President Park Geun-hye, recently impeached on corruption charges, agreed to the THAAD deployment on the grounds of the nuclear threat from North Korea.

Sr. Col. Wu refuted this. He said that China opposes any country jeopardizing another state's safety, as well as regional stability, under the pretext of the ballistic missile threat from North Korea.

Apart from China, Russia also opposes THAAD, believing it disturbs the regional strategic equilibrium. On March 28, Chinese and Russia military delegates held their second meeting on joint anti-ballistic missile issues in Geneva on the sidelines of the Conference on Disarmament.

Their first meeting was held last November during the 7th Xiangshan Forum in Beijing. Soon afterwards, they conducted a joint computerized anti-ballistic missile (ABM) test.

As to whether the next such test would involve a live firing, the MOD spokesperson responded only vaguely.

"The THAAD system deployed by the United States and South Korea far exceeds the defense needs of South Korea," he said, citing a memo issued after the Geneva meeting. "We oppose any country deploying the military facilities whose capacities are beyond their own defense requirements."

Recent American reports speculated that North Korea might conduct its sixth nuclear test shortly. Hence, both the United States and South Korea stepped up their vigilance, and were keen on knowing whether the PLA would strengthen its border defenses with North Korea in case of such a nuclear test.

The MOD spokesperson declined to respond to a "hypothetical question," but emphasized that the Chinese military maintained normal combat readiness and training.
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State-owned China Aerospace Science & Industry Corp. (CASIC) announced plans for a network of 156 mini-satellites that would facilitate global broadband coverage.

This is the first low orbiting, networked satellite project, which will orbit 1,000 km above the ground, developed by China amid its wider push for commercial space development, said the CASIC.

"The network is a general satellite platform," said Bei Chao, an engineer with the CASIC, who added that add-ons and upgrades would be explored next.
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Indonesian Tourism Minister Arief Yahya has declared resort island of Bali as the nation's pilot project to ensure a comfortable holiday trip for Chinese visitors, particularly on security and safety.

As for the safety aspect, the minister said new improved security standards would be applied in Bali, involving Indonesian and Chinese related authorities.

"We would set up a team constituting our ministry, Bali tourism office, Chinese embassy and Chinese consulate general office plus National Search and Rescue Agency of Basarnas to monitor Bali destinations favored by Chinese tourists," the minister said when meeting with Chinese Ambassador Xie Feng on Wednesday.

Indonesia would intensify the operation of Tourism Police in Bali to provide rapid responses should unexpected events occur against Chinese visitors, he added.

"Besides those aspects, the Bali Tourism Board would open Mandarin-speaking facility to convey information related to tourism. The board would also provide Mandarin-speaking hotline for Chinese visitors. The ambassador would assist these tasks," the minister said.

On information aspect, the Bali regional government would speed up the provision of Chinese signs in public spaces in Bali, along with English, French and Arabic languages.

The pilot project in Bali for Chinese visitors was aimed to address concerns conveyed by the ambassador over several mishaps and problems encountered by the Chinese tourists in Bali.

Chinese topped foreign tourists visiting Bali in January this year. The Bali government witnessed Chinese visitors grow more than 92 percent in January from a month earlier, thanks to expanding direct flights from China.

The resort island is Indonesia's award-winning destination, visited by millions of tourists from across the world each year. The island was recently tipped as world's best destination this year by influential travel reviewer website TripAdvisor.

Bali was also selected as the Asian Best Island for 12 consecutive years by DestinAsian website.

During his meeting with the minister, Ambassador Xie said Indonesia and China have huge potentialities that can be tapped on in tourism with China a major market for Indonesia.

The ambassador said Indonesia has more opportunities in the region to grab China's outbound tourists which are estimated to reach 140 million this year.

"So that's why I propose to further improve our cooperation," he added.

Ambassador Xie also extended invitations for President Joko Widodo and Tourism Minister Arief to attend a Belt and Road Forum for international cooperation slated for May 15-16 in Beijing.

The Indonesian government is striving to develop tourism as the nation's core industry, replacing oil and gas, coal and palm oil sectors.

The Southeast Asia's largest economy expects to welcome 20 million foreign visitors and earn more than 24 billion U.S. dollars from tourism by 2019.
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The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) said late Thursday it has reached an agreement with Malaysia on the dispute over the death of a DPRK national in Kuala Lumpur last month.

In a joint communique issued by the Malaysian and DPRK negotiating parties, Malaysia has agreed to transfer the body of the deceased to his family after the latter produced all the required documentation.

"Both countries also agreed to lift the ban imposed on citizens of the other country and guarantee safety and security within their respective territory," said the communique carried by the Korean Central News Agency.

"This would allow the nine Malaysians presently in Pyongyang to return to Malaysia and DPRK citizens in Kuala Lumpur to depart Malaysia," it said.

The DPRK and Malaysia were plunged into a dispute over the death of a DPRK national in Kuala Lumpur on Feb. 13 at the city's airport.

The DPRK said Malaysia tried to hide the truth of the incident while Malaysia accused the DPRK of being behind in the mysterious death.

Both countries banned the citizens of the other side from leaving their country after Malaysia expelled the DPRK ambassador late February. The DPRK then declared the Malaysian ambassador in Pyongyang persona non granta.

In Kuala Lumpur, Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak said in a statement: "Following the completion of the autopsy on the deceased and receipt of a letter from his family requesting the remains be returned to North Korea (DPRK), the coroner has approved the release of the body."

Najib also wrote later on Twitter that the "diplomatic crisis (with Pyongyang) is over".

Malaysian media reported the body of the deceased DPRK national was put on board a Malaysian Airlines plane Thursday which left Kuala Lumpur.
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Finnish President Sauli Niinisto on Thursday toned down media speculation about a possible meeting between Russian and U.S. leaders in Helsinki.

In an internationally televised panel discussion at the 4th International Arctic Forum (IAF) in Northern Russia, Russian President Vladimir Putin had repeated his willingness to meet U.S. President Donald Trump in Finland.

Talking to Finnish media, Niinisto said a would-be meeting had been discussed already a year ago when he met Putin, but the plan had not progressed since.

Niinisto reaffirmed that Finland is willing to stage a meeting during the Finnish chairmanship of the Arctic Council beginning in May.

"But the U.S. and Russia must both be keen to come to Helsinki, and the meeting must have substance associated with the arctic development," Niinisto said.

Putin had described Finland as "a good neighbor", and said Finland had experience in arranging international meetings.
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Five armed groups' willingness to sign the Nationwide Cease fire Accord (NCA) has shown rays of hope for peace, Myanmar State Counselor Aung San Suu Kyi said.

Suu Kyi made the remarks at the end of her televised speech marking one year of the NLD government Thursday night shortly after she was informed that the five armed groups would sign the NCA.

However, she warned that "At such a time of great importance, undesirable destructive elements and instigation intended to harm peace might emerge," urging leaders of the ethnic nationalities and her compatriots to be extremely vigilant.

The five armed groups of the United Nationalities Federal Council (UNFC), who expressed their willingness to join in signing the NCA, are Kayinni National Progressive Party (KNPP), New Mon State Party (NMSP), Arakan National Council (ANC), Lahu Democratic Union (LDU) and Wa National Organization (WNO).

With the proposed accession to NCA, there remains only two armed groups yet to follow suit which are the Kachin Independence Organization (KIO) and the Shan State Progressive Party (SSPP) or Shan State Army (SSA).

Suu Kyi said the five armed groups' promised signing of the NCA came after year-long negotiations.

She has stressed the importance of inking the NCA which would pave way for them to attend the upcoming second meeting of the 21st Century Panglong Peace Conference expected in April or May, a dialogue open to all ethnic armed groups.

Myanmar's previous government and eight other armed groups signed the NCA on Oct. 15, 2015, and the first meeting of the 21st Century Panglong Conference was held in Nay Pyi Taw in August 2016, months after the new government led by the National League for Democracy (NLD) took office.

Meanwhile, Myanmar has been holding national region-oriented and race-oriented political dialogue in regions and states across the nation since January.

The outcome of all regional dialogues will be submitted to the upcoming second meeting of the Panglong Peace Conference, which is expected to gather about 700 representatives.
By Maggie, China Aviation Daily | Mar. 31, 2017

China's airport construction is accelerating with the civil aviation industry's rapid development. Therefore, regional airport is playing an increasingly important role in the national transport system. To develop regional aviation has a strategic significance to the acceleration of comprehensive transport system's construction and improvement of small and medium-sized cities' connectedness. VariFlight-China Aviation Big Data Research Center would do an analysis on the development and present situation of Chinese regional airports.

The definition of regional airport

Currently, there is no clear and consistent definition for regional airports in domestic aviation industry, while a single standard cannot give an accurate definition for regional airports. Based on the present situation of domestic airports, VariFlight-China Aviation Big Data Research Center defines regional airports according to the following standards:

1. The airports with an annual passenger traffic under 0.5 million(inclusive), e.g. Dunhuang Airport(DNH), Manzhouli Xijiao Airport(NZH), etc.;

2. Eventhough it has a large passenger traffic, the airport is located in remote areas, mainly carries out domestic short-haul flights, and primarily functioned as an airport to transport passengers and cargo to the local hub airport, e.g. Kashgar Airport(KHG), Dehong Mangshi Airport(LUM), etc.;

3. It is not located in capitals, provincial capitals and capitals of autonomous regions, and for the time being would not become a hub airport in a foreseeable aviation hub network, e.g. Linyi Shubuling Airport(LYI) , Yiwu Airport(YIW) , etc..

The development of regional airports

From 2013 to 2016, the number of regional airports, the number of regional airports' outbound nonstop routes, the number of regional airports' outbound flights and its proportion are growing yearly. In the 4-year span, the average annual growth rate of regional airports' outbound flights is 10.7%, while that for all the domestic airports is 6.1%, which shows that the annual growth rate of regional airports' flights is greater than the overall annual growth rate for domestic airports.

In 2016, China has a total of 162 regional airports. These airports have 1443 outbound nonstop routes and 0.385 million outbound flights, which accouts for 9.9% of domestic airports' total outbound flights.

The present situation of regional airports

In 2016, China has a total of 217 civil aviation airports which have actural outbound flights, including 162 regional airports. The annual passenger traffic of regional airports amounted to 717.26 million, accounting for only 7.1% of domestic airports' total annual passenger traffic, 1016.357 million.

1. Geographical distribution

Except Beijing, Tianjin and Shanghai, regional airports spread all over China's mainland in 28 provinces / province-level municipalities / autonomous regions. Xinjiang, with 17 airports such as Kashgar and Korla, has the largest number of regional airports. Inner Mongolia, with 15 regional airports, ranks the second. Sichuan and Yunnan, with 11 regional airports each, rank the third.

Regional airports are unevenly distributed in China. Yunnan and Guizhou have a higher density of regional airports, while Tibet and Qinghai have a lower density of regional airports. In general, the density of regional airports is high in the east and low in the west.

2. Actural outbound flights

Regional airports' total outbound flights

In 2016, China has 162 regional airports and the actural outbound flights from which totaled 0.385 million. Despite the fact that regional airports account for 74.7% of domestic airports(217), regional airports' outbound flights only account for 9.9% of total flights. China's civil aviation economic structure attaches most importance on airline transportation in capitals and large and medium-sized cities, leaving the regional airports behind.

TOP10 regional airports in outbound flights

Ordos Ejin Horo Airport(DSN, 8074 flights)

Yulin Yuyang Airport(UYN, 7975 flights)

Zhanjiang Airport(ZHA, 7717 flights)

Weihai International airport(WEH, 7552 flights)

Nantong Xingdong Airport(NTG, 7200 flights)

Xingyi Wanfenglin Airport(ACX, 7134 flights)

Yichang Sanxia Airport(YIH, 7112 flights)

Dali Airport(DLU, 6812 flights)

Kashgar Airport(KHG, 6757 flights)

Dehong Mangshi Airport(LUM, 6715 flights)

Ordos Ejin Horo Airport(DSN) was elevated to a 4E international airport at the beginning of 2016, where large wide-body jets such as Boeing 747 and Airbus A340 can take off or land, and which can operate as an altenate airport for the largest civil aircraft A380. Ordos Ejin Horo Airport is the first regional 4E international airport in North China. More than 50% of its outbound flights fly to Xi'an Xianyang International Airport(XIY), Beijing Nanyuan Airport(NAY), Beijing Capital International Airport(PEK) and Chengdu Shuangliu International Airport(CTU). The flights to Xi'an Xianyang International Airport account for nearly 1/4 of Ordos Ejin Horo Airport's outbound flights.

More than 60% of outbound flights from Yulin Yuyang Airport(UYN), Xingyi Wanfenglin Airport(ACX), Kashgar Airport(KHG) and Dehong Mangshi Airport(LUM) fly to hub airports of the province / autonomous region it located in. Over 90% of outbound flights from Dehong Mangshi Airport fly to Kunming Changshui Airport(KMG).

Civil Aviation Administration positioned Nantong Xingdong Airport(NTG) as a "auxiliary airport for Shanghai international avaition hub" because it is the regional airport around Shanghai with the best airspace conditions. Except international flights, all of its outbound flights fly to 2-million-passenger airports.

Regional airports' outbound flights - distribution in airlines

In 2016, 98.8% of regional airports' outbound flights are carried out by mainland airlines, while the remaining 1.2% are carried out by overseas, Hong Kong and Taiwan airlines.

TOP3 airlines in regional airports' outbound flights:

China Eastern Airlines(MU, 69 thousand flights)

China Southern Airlines(CZ, 52 thoudand flights)

Tianjin Airlines(GS, 34 thousand flights)

3. International outbound flights

Regional airports' international outbound flights

In 2016, regional airports' outbound international(including Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan) flights totaled 8351, accounting for 2.2% of regional airports' total outbound flights. There are only 30 regional airports having actural international outbound flights(some airports, such as WXN, DNH, DDG, only have a couple of international outbound flights for the entire 2016), and most of regional airports do not have any international flights.

TOP3 regional airports in 2016 international outbound flights:

Yanji Chaoyangchuan International Airport(YNJ, 2264 flights)

Weihai International airport(WEH, 1665 flights)

Yancheng Nanyang Airport(YNZ, 545 flights)

At present, China's regional airports principally operate domestic flights. Most of the airports have a little of or even have no international flights. Furthermore, regional airports with a larger number of international outbound flights are mainly located in eastern coastal area and near borders with other countries.

Regional airports international outbound flights - distribution in airlines

In 2016, 45.6% of regional airports' international outbound flights are carried out by mainland's airlines, while the remaining 54.4% are carried out by overseas, Hong Kong and Taiwan airlines.

TOP3 airlines in regional airports' international outbound flights:

Korean Air (KE, 1128 flights)

China Southern Airlines(CZ, 1116 flights)

Asiana Airlines (OZ, 1082 flights)

Although domestic airlines control 98.8% of regional airports' outbound flights, their share in international outbound flights is a little lower than that of overseas, Hong Kong and Taiwan airlines.

4. Outbound nonstop routes

In 2016, the outbound nonstop routes of China's regional airports totaled 1443, of which domestic routes and international routes totaled 1364 and 79, accounting for 94.5% and 5.5%, respectively. Regional airports basically operate short-haul flights. The average flight distance of outbound nonstop routes is 956km(major airports: 1702km). In addition to domestic and short-haul routes, some regional airports plan to launch international routes, so as to enter the international market. Most of the regional airports with a larger number of routes are located in eastern coastal area.

TOP10 regional airports in 2016 outbound nonstop routes:

Ordos Ejin Horo Airport(DSN, 26 domestic routes, 6 international routes)

Linyi Shubuling Airport(LYI, 24 domestic routes, 4 international routes)

Yichang Sanxia Airport(YIH, 24 domestic routes, 4 international routes)

Nantong Xingdong Airport(NTG, 23 domestic routes, 4 international routes)

Zunyi Xinzhou Airport(ZYI, 24 domestic routes, 3 international routes)

Huangshan Tunxi International Airport(TXN, 22 domestic routes, 4 international routes)

Zhanjiang Airport(ZHA, 24 domestic routes, 2 international routes)

Yancheng Nanyang Airport(YNZ, 20 domestic routes, 5 international routes)

Beihai Fucheng Airport(BHY, 23 domestic routes, 2 international routes)

Huaian Lianshui Airport(HIA, 20 domestic routes, 3 international routes)

Exclusive rate of airlines' regional routes

In the 1443 outbound nonstop routes from regional airports, 1151 routes are operated by a single airline, leaving only 292 routes jointly operated by several airlines. Therefore, the exclusive rate amounted to 79.8%.

The following table lists 20 airlines which operate the largest number of regional airports' outbound routes:

China Eastern Airlines(MU) operates 250 outbound routes from regional airports, of which 163 routes are exclusively operated by China Eastern Airlines. The exclusive rate is 65.2%.

The airline with the highest exclusive rate is China United Airliens(KN). In the 64 outbound routes from regional airports operated by China United, 58 routes are its exclusive routes. The exclusive rate is as high as 90.6%.

Jointly operated routes

Although most of the outbound routes from regional airports are exclusively operated by a single airline, some routes are jointly operated by several airlines.

The following table lists 10 outbound nonstop routes with the most intense competition. There are 13 airlines jointly operating Turpan Jiaohe Airport - Urumchi Diwopu International Airport(TLQ - URC) route.

Additionally, the first 8 routes are all routes from regional airports, including 6 regional airports in Xinjiang, to Urumchi Diwopu International Airport(URC).

Guizhou: With the largest number of regional routes

Guizhou has the largest number of outbound nonstop routes from regional airports in China, which is 133: 130 domestic domestic routes and 3 international routes.

Currently, all of the 9 cities and prefectures of Guizhou are inter-connected through regional airports, forming a "One Major Airport and Nine Regional Airport"(Guiyang Longdongbao International Airport, Xingyi Wanfenglin Airport, Zunyi Xinzhou Airport, Anshun Huangguoshu Airport, Bijie Feixiong Airport, Liping Airport, Kaili Huangping Airport, Libo Airport, Liupanshui Yuezhao Airport and Tongren Fenghuang Airport) structure with Guiyang Longdongbao International Airport(KWE) at the core.

Xinjiang: With the largest number of provincial regional routes

Xinjiang has a total of 63 outbound nonstop routes from regional airports, comprising 40 provincial routes, 21 routes out of the province and 2 international routes. The provincial routes account for as high as 63.5% of all the routes. Xinjiang is the provincial administrative region with the largest number of regional airports' provincial routes and the largest provincial routes' proportion.

Xinjiang has the largest land area among all the provincial administrative regions in China. As the regional airports within the province are inter-connected gradually, Xinjiang would have a higher density of routes network and passengers would travel in a more convenient way. Furthermore, routes from Xinjiang's regional airports to Beijing, Shanghai, Guangdong and Sichuan woud allow better connectedness of these airports.

In recent years, although some of China's regional airports have achieved initial success in construction and operation, they are generally still in the early stage of development. Regional airports, as a significant component of China's civil airports, relate directly to the coordination and sustainability of China's airport system. The government should accelerate regional airports' construction, deepen management reform, and act according to the local conditions. Or they can cooperate with airlines and travel agencies based on their resource advantages.

About the data

Source: VariFlight

Duration: January 1, 2016 - December 31, 2016

Passenger traffic: based on 2016 passenger traffic released by Civil Aviation Administration.

Passenger flights: only scheduled passenger flights are included in this report; cargo flights, business aviation flights and general aviation flights are not included.

Actual outbound flights: the outbound flights with actual departure and arrival time that could be monitored by VariFlight; cancelled flights are not included.

International flights: the international flights depart from domestic airports, including flights from domestic areas to international areas/Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan.

Regional routes: for concision purpose, the regional routes mentioned in this report represent outbound nonstop routes from regional airports, which is effective only in this report.

Number of routes: A to B and B to A are considered as two routes. This report only counts nonstop routes.

Exclusive route: this route is exclusively operated by a single airline.

Jointly operated route: this route is jointly operated by several airlines.
The Far East Development Fund, a Moscow-mandated financial institution, is partnering with China's State-owned enterprises to create two joint investment funds to tap into the rich but still underdeveloped eastern part of Russia, according to the fund's chief.

Alexei Chekunkov, CEO of the Far East Development Fund. [Photo provided to China Daily]

The two funds, which are expected to be set up, would aim to provide financing for gold and copper mining, as well as infrastructure and real estate projects in Russia's far east region, said Alexei Chekunkov, chief executive officer of FEDF.

"We have tied up with China's State-owned companies in gold mining and construction, and we hope to sign the deals in May," he told China Daily during the Boao Forum for Asia in Hainan province last week.

Both funds are expected to raise $10 billion each, and each already had $1 billion in place, allowing them to be operational in this year, he said.

The new funds would follow the Russian-Chinese Fund for Agro-Industrial Development, which inked deals with Russian food companies in September to export processed food to China.

Russia's mechanisms for developing its far east, including the FEDF and Advanced Development Territories, had attracted 16 billion yuan ($2.3 billion) worth of Chinese investments to the region by mid-2016, Russian Far East Development Minister Alexander Galushka said last year.

According to Chekunkov, Chinese investment accounted for three quarters of foreign investment of total capital injection so far in the far east region. But he said the potential was many times bigger, especially in light of the Belt and Road Initiative put forward by President Xi Jinping.

"The Belt and Road Initiative would serve as a guidance and unlock the full potential of Chinese companies to reach out to economically viable international projects and they are mutually beneficial," he said.

Chekunkov said he applauded the initiative as "the most important international agenda" launched by China.

"The initiative is absolutely international and multidimensional, bringing many economiesnot necessarily along the routeto the table," he said.

Russia's far east will also have its own stock exchange in 2017, which would among other things attract venture capital from Asian countries, Chekunkov said.
Visitors look at a Westinghouse Electric Corp's nuclear power plant model at a trade fair for the global nuclear energy sector in Paris. [Photo/Agencies]

Local partner plays down effect of Toshiba nuclear unit's bankruptcy

China's State Power Investment Corp said the bankruptcy of its US partner Westinghouse would not exert a "substantial impact" on the ongoing AP1000 nuclear reactor construction project in China, and the two sides would ensure it would be completed on schedule.

SPIC released the statement after Westinghouse Electric Corp, a unit of Toshiba Corp, announced it was filing for bankruptcy due to huge losses.

According to the statement, Westinghouse pledged to continue working with its Chinese partner in accordance with its contract during and after the bankruptcy and the subsequent planned reorganization of the troubled company.

"Westinghouse's restructuring application will not have a substantial impact on the reactor work, including the AP1000 construction, the production of the CAP1000 reactors and the CAP1400 demonstration project," the statement said.

SPIC also said that the AP1000 project's construction and testing were "proceeding on schedule" and a Westinghouse technical expert team dispatched to China was working well.

The statement came after SPIC convened a meeting to identify potential risks and to develop precautionary measures, after the Westinghouse bankruptcy filing.

SPIC was created in 2015 after the merger between China Power Investment Corp and State Nuclear Power Technology Corp, Westinghouse's long-standing partner in China.

In 2007, State Nuclear Power Technology Corp signed a framework agreement with Westinghouse to build four 1,150-megawatt AP1000 reactors in China, representing the country's first implementation of such a reactor design.

The project is also the world's first Westinghouse-designed AP1000 reactor project.

Construction started at Sanmen, Zhejiang province and at Haiyang, Shandong province in 2009. The first AP1000 reactor was due to be delivered in 2014.

However, construction was put on hold after the Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan in 2011, when approval for new nuclear plants was suspended and a nationwide safety review was launched.

One Chinese industry expert on Thursday said that the precise impact of the US group's demise was difficult to fully gauge.

"At present, it's difficult to judge the potential influence of the Westinghouse restructuring on the project, as the details have yet to be released," said Xu Yuming, deputy secretary-general of the China Nuclear Energy Association.

He added that the Westinghouse bankruptcy might give Hualong OneChina's domestically developed third-generation reactoran advantage in the marketplace.

He Yu, chairman of China General Nuclear Power Corp, said China should build four to six nuclear reactors annually, using its Hualong One, to ensure that the capacity of the nuclear power in China reach at least 150 gigawatts by 2030.
A China Gezhouba Group Co Ltd subsidiary plans to purchase a 100 percent stake of a Brazilian water supply company, in a bid to expand its investment in local public-private partnership projects and to improve its presence in the local market.

The Chinese construction conglomerate announced on Thursday that its subsidiaryChina Gezhouba Group Overseas Investment Co Ltdwill spend up to $200 million to acquire Sistema Produtor Sao Lourenco.

After the acquisition of the Brazilian utility company, CGGC said it would also be able to acquire the operational rights of the water supply program in Sao Paulo state.

According to the Sao Paulo state government's official website, once completed, the water system will be able to serve 1.5 million local residents.

The company reported on Thursday that its 2016 revenue amounted to 100.2 billion yuan ($14.55 billion), an increase of 21 percent year-on-year. Its net profit reached 3.4 billion yuan, growing 26 percent year-on-year.

Joseph Jacobelli, a senior analyst of Asian utilities and infrastructure at Bloomberg Intelligence, said acquiring SPSL will help CGGC better export its technology to Brazil and will contribute to its earnings.

"Now a lot of Chinese companies, such as CGGC, are expanding their overseas business, which will help them export Chinese know-how and find new markets," he said.

In 2013, SPSL signed a deal with Sabesp, a Brazilian water and waste management company owned by Sao Paulo state. Under the agreement, SPSL planned to build and maintain the local water supply and sludge treatment, earning the rights to operate the system for 25 years.

Having started in April 2014, the project is scheduled to be completed in February 2018 and will come into commercial use by August 2018, CGGC said in a statement.

The company planned last year to buy infrastructure assets in Brazil, through concessions, partnerships or construction projects.

"Our focus is not only on renewable energy, we are also considering Brazil's sanitation and logistics sectors amongst other areas," Lucas Fan, general manager for Brazil of CGGC, said in an interview with the Sao Paulo Times.

Tang Kaiqian, president of the Brazil-China Chamber of Commerce and Industry, said in a local event in Sao Paulo: "Due to the economic and political crisis, the Brazilian assets were valued at a lower price."

Tang added that more Chinese enterprises were targeting the Brazilian market.

Zheng Xin contributed to this story.
Amazon's cloud-computing arm has launched its first global joint innovation center in Qingdao, Shandong province.

The Qingdao-Amazon Web Service Joint Innovation Center will provide cloud-computing services to global startups, according to Rong Yongkang, AWS global vice-president and AWS China executive director.

"In the next five years, the center will work with the Qingdao government to support 750 innovation firms," he said, adding that it will also fuel the city's innovation and development.

The new center will also work with the Qingdao government to set up a cloud-computing innovation institute to train professionals, Rong said.

Located in the Licang district of downtown Qingdao, the center will be jointly operated by AWS, the Licang district government and local company Vancoo Commerce, which has raised 100 million yuan ($14.5 million) in funding to help startup high-tech companies in the fields of cloud-computing, big data and the internet of things.

Cui Lei, vice-president of Vancoo Commerce, said: "We will partner with leading companies from home and abroad and leverage tech-driven ideas to help local enterprises upgrade their structure and go global."

The company also plans to cooperate with the Licang district government to launch a 1 billion yuan fund that will support the Amazon center's innovation services.

Steven Hoffman, CEO of United States-based business incubator Founders Space, said the new center may help Chinese entrepreneurs change their minds about innovation.

With many years of experience working with Chinese entrepreneurs, he said "their weakness is that they always go after the obvious goal. When they see something working, everybody goes and rushes - very few of them take a different path to discover something different".

"However, if China wants to be the true global leader in innovation, more entrepreneurs should take a harder path and pursue a brand-new idea even if they don't know where they are going," he added.
Visitors look at a Baidu self-driving car at an exhibition in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province. [Photo/China Daily]

Design firm's CEO sees scope for ties in net-ready electric vehicles

Baidu Inc is in discussions with Dassault Systemes, a French 3-D design software maker, for cooperation in electric cars and smart city projects.

Bernard Charles, CEO of Dassault Systemes, said there is big room for partnership in internet-connected cars.

His remarks came after a meeting with Zhang Yaqin, Baidu's president, on the sidelines of Boao Forum for Asia, which was held last week in Hainan province.

Their meeting followed Baidu's announcement that it has led an undisclosed amount of investment in NextEV, a Chinese electric car startup that aims to rival Tesla Inc in the burgeoning industry.

"NextEV is our client which uses Dassault Systemes to design the next generation of cars. How will NextEV engineers use Baidu's online services to make better driving experience? We are the belt (linking the two)," Charles said in an exclusive interview with China Daily after his meeting with Zhang.

Bernard Charles, CEO of Dassault Systemes. [Photo provided to China Daily]

He declined to share details of the planned cooperation but hinted at areas open to partnership. "We have a virtual city program in Singapore, and Baidu has a lot of data on how citizens are living in the city. There are also connecting points."

Dassault Systemes has collaborated with the National Research Foundation, a department within Singapore's Prime Minister's Office, to develop Virtual Singapore, a 3-D city model platform for knowledge-sharing and community collaboration.

Launched in December 2014, Virtual Singapore is a collaborative platform with a rich data environment and visualization techniques that is used by Singaporeans and local businesses to develop tools and services that address the emerging and complex challenges that the island-nation faces.

Baidu Inc is stepping up efforts to diversify growth engines after its core search engine business suffered several setbacks in its home market last year.

"Baidu is also working to provide cloud infrastructure. We can provide our 3-D experience on the cloud," Charles said.

Zhang Zhiyong, founder and CEO of Wenfeng Automobile Consultancy, said by partnering with Dassault, Baidu can make its online services integral to electric cars from the design stage.

"The ties, once extended to virtual reality, can also boost Baidu's competitiveness, given Dassault's years of experience in that area," Zhang said.

The French company is also passionate about the application of virtual reality in China's manufacturing industry.

"As the cost quickly goes down, over the next five years, I believe the industrial application of VR will go at the speed of flight, just like how the mobile internet is changing consumers' lives," Charles said.
By Fan Feifei in Beijing and Amy He in New York | China Daily | Updated: 2017-03-31 08:01

A woman takes a picture of the Samsung Galaxy S8+ smartphone with a Galaxy S7 during the Samsung Unpacked event in New York City, March 29, 2017. [Photo/Agencies]

After months of dealing with the fallout from its Galaxy Note 7which burst into flames and harmed users in cases reportedSamsung Electronics Co Ltd unveiled the Galaxy S8 this week, aiming to restore consumer confidence and rejuvenate sluggish sales.

The new Galaxy S8, with prices starting at $720, comes in two sizes at 5.8 inches and 6.2 inches, with a bezel-less and curved screen. Samsung will start taking orders in the United States on Thursday, with shipments scheduled for April 21.

The handset offers a wide selection of biometric technologies, including a fingerprint scanner, iris scanner and facial recognition. However, Samsung did not elaborate on the safety of its new handset's batteries.

"The humbling recall of its Note 7 not only tarnished the company's hard-won reputation for quality and reliability, it also knocked a huge hole in its finances," said Peter Richardson, a research director at Counterpoint Technology Market Research.

"The launch of the Galaxy S8 is especially important for Samsung. The S8 needs to rapidly win the hearts and minds of consumers and channels alike," Richardson said.

Richardson said he expects sales in the first year to top those of the S7, which was launched in February last year in Barcelona. He added Samsung has done enough to get its ship back on to an even keel.

The consultancy also estimated global shipments of Samsung S8 will reach 60 million in the first year.

The S8 features Bixby, Samsung's new artificial intelligent digital assistant, which responds to spoken commands, allowing users to control their phones with their voices alone. It will go up against Apple Inc's Siri and Google Assistant.

However, Samsung claims that Bixby offers a "deeper experience" than other voice agents or assistants in the market.

James Yan, a research director at Counterpoint, said the S8 will not give a big boost to the South Korean tech giant's overall China sales.

The company still faces fierce competition from local rivals such as Huawei Technologies Co's P10 and P10 Plus, which feature great picture-taking functions, he said.

"Samsung hopes to push the sales of its mediumand low-end smartphones in China with the help of the S8 launch," Yan said.

According to research company IHS, shipments of the S7 and S7 Edge will reach about 48 million units this year. Total shipments of all Samsung's smartphones will reach 331 million.

Jin Di, research manager of IDC China, said Samsung has introduced some innovative upgrades and new functions in the handset, such as AI technologies, aiming to capture a higher share in the high-end market.

The industry highly anticipated the launch of the Galaxy S8 following the mishaps in October with the Note 7, which had a faulty battery that would spontaneously burst into flames on airplanes and while charging.
A "white hat" hacker explains cyber security technology at the China White Hat Conference in Shenzhen, Guangdong province, on March 30, 2017. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

More than 800 Chinese "white hat" hackers gathered in Shenzhen, South China's Guangdong province, on Thursday, to attend the China White Hat Conference held by 360 Business Security Group's Butian Vulnerability Response Platform (Butian).

Unlike movie-fueled myths, most of them looked like ordinary young people in their early 20s rather than cynical, mysterious computer "nerds".

Not yet acquiring much attention from the public, "white hat" hackers are a group of computer wizes who use hacking skills to identify the security loopholes in corporation or government computer systems to help them prevent cyber attacks.

Qi Xiangdong, chairman of 360 Business Security Group, speaks to media in Shenzhen, Guangdong province, on March 30, 2017. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

Qi Xiangdong, chairman of 360 Business Security Group, one of China's leading online security service providers, said at the conference that a total of 31,633 "white hats" have registered on Butian since 2013, discovering more than 200,000 vulnerabilities.

Butian, established in March 2013, is China's first bounty vulnerability response platform.

Aiming to act as a bridge connecting corporations with "white hats", it has developed a unique Security Response Center model, which refers to using cash awards offered by corporations to encourage "white hats" to identify loopholes for them.

The 2016 China Internet Security Report released by the 360 Cyber Security Center said that Butian found more than 37,000 loopholes last year on over 30,000 websites.

According to the report, 93.9 percent of the loopholes were process cases that could have been effectively used or invaded.

"In terms of technical skills, there is no essential difference between 'white hats' and malicious hackers, which means without a good communication channel between corporations and 'white hats', corporations may find it tricky to tell whether the attacks suffered by their computer systems are of ethical will or malicious intentions," Qi told China Daily's website.

Qi said for corporations, the platform is able to guarantee the reputation of certified "white hats", while "white hats" are offered a consistent platform to make money.

"More than 4,000 corporations have registered on the platform, issuing cash awards of nine million yuan ($1.3 million) to 'white hats' in total," he added.

A 24-year-old "white hat" nicked named "U Shen" said he has earned 110,000 yuan for discovering loopholes since he joined the platform in 2013.

Ling Yun, information security director of China's biggest online travel agency Ctrip.com, said to cover the shortage of full-time cyber security personnel, the company also hired third-party platforms such as Butian to discover its vulnerabilities.

"We set the usual price of a loophole at 3,000 yuan. Sometimes it can reach 8,000 yuan. Last year, we approximately spent one million yuan on rewarding 'white hats' from all platforms," Ling said.

Cyber attacks along with data fraud or theft are ranked as one of the top 10 risks people are likely to face in 2017, according to the Global Risks Report 2017 released by the World Economic Forum.

HackerOne COO Wang Ning (left) and Bai Jian, director of Butian Vulnerability Response Platform, speak to media in Shenzhen, Guangdong province, on March 30, 2017. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

In the US, HackerOne is the largest vulnerability coordination and bug bounty platform. The startup, established in 2012, is also one of the world's first cyber security firms to utilize crowd-sourced security and hackers.

HackerOne COO Wang Ning told China Daily's website that the platform's network now consists of around 110,000 "white hats" from more than 140 countries, of which around 1,000 are from China.

She said the company is serving more than 800 clients and around 180,000 loopholes have been discovered.

"Our business model is like a marketplace connecting businesses with 'white hats'. Every time corporations pay 'white hats' bounties, they also pay us fees for the platform's service. 'White hats' at our platform have earned more than $15 million in bounties," Wang said.

Unlike HackerOne, Butian remains as a public-interest platform, according to Bai Jian, director of the platform.

"Chinese enterprises' maturity on cyber security issues and the related laws and regulations are still weak. At present, if the platform itself makes money, it may lose the trust of some corporations of low maturity. Only by putting the commercial interest aside, we can go further," Bai said.

In 2014, Qi Xiangdong said, compared with the US, the awareness of the importance of internet security at a corporate level was underdeveloped in China.

"Now their awareness has improved significantly, especially after President Xi Jinping spoke on establishing China's national big data center last year," Qi said.

"However, there is still a large gap between China and US or other European countries. While the input of cyber security accounts for around 15 percent of the total IT investments in US, it is only one to three percent in China," Qi said.

He believes it will take five to 10 years for China to catch up with developed countries. "The potential of China's cyber security industry is huge. I expect its scale will increase from 20 billion yuan to 450 billion to 500 billion yuan in the future," Qi said.

He emphasized talents like "white hats" will play crucial roles in the development of the industry.
Doctors from Peking Union Medical College Hospital perform cataract surgery last year in Sri Lanka during a medical aid trip organized by the Chinese Foundation for Lifeline Express.[Photo/Xinhua]

Free eye surgeries done by Chinese medical teams will help 500 cataract patients in Pakistan see better this year, under a plan released on Thursday by the Chinese Foundation for Lifeline Express.

The medical aidthe fund's second such trip outside Chinais expected to bring a higher quality of life to more people in countries along the Belt and Road Initiative, according to Nellie Fong, who started the foundation.

Last year, the foundation sent nine physicians from Peking Union Medical College Hospital to Sri Lanka in November to perform more than 500 free surgeries for impoverished patients.

"The patients were from the poorest place in Kalutara district in western Sri Lanka. Power supplies were unstable, and once we completed a surgical procedure despite losing electricity eight times," according to one of the doctors, Zhao Chan.

More than 800 patients registered to be considered for surgery in the month after the medical team arrived in Sri Lanka, said Yin Dakui, a member of the foundation's board and a former vice-minister of the National Health and Family Planning Commission. They were able to help 506 of them.

"The number of surgeries we can perform a year is limited, but we aim to train local doctors during our annual visits, which will benefit more patients in the future," Yin said.

The foundation, established in 1997, has helped more than 181,000 patients in 28 provincial areas and autonomous regions of China during the past 20 years.

"Sri Lanka was our first pilot project overseas. We wanted to help patients not only in China, but also along the Belt and Road routes," Fong said, referring to the initiative based on the Silk Road Economic Belt and 21st Century Maritime Silk Road.

This year, four trains outfitted as mobile hospitals will leave Beijing on an eight-month mission to help thousands of people around China to see again. The rainbow-colored trains, carrying high-tech surgical equipment and experienced doctors, aim to provide free cataract surgery to more than 10,000 people in remote areas.

They will call at 10 cities, including Ledu in Qinghai province, Baishan in Jilin province, Guangyuan in Sichuan province, and Kezilesu Kirgiz autonomous prefecture in the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region.

By the end of last year, the foundation had built 69 permanent cataract medical centers, which also provide training to doctors from local hospitals in the treatment of common eye diseases. Another seven centers will be built this year, offering long-term medical assistance to low-income patients, Fong said.

Diabetics in those 10 cities will also get access to free screening for retina damage and information with their diagnosis if they are found to have a problem.

"China urgently needs a system to detect early diabetic retinopathy, which can save many people from future sight loss," Fong said.

About 92.4 million people are living with diabetes in China, and 40 million to 60 million are estimated to have diabetic retinopathy, or damage to the retina, according to the National Health and Family Planning Commission.
The parents of Nie Shubin, a man who was convicted of and executed for rape and murder 21 years ago, have been paid more than 2.68 million yuan ($389,000) in compensation as a result of having had their son's conviction overturned in December, a court in Hebei province said.

The Hebei Provincial People's Court released a statement online on Thursday saying the State compensation covered Nie's funeral expenses and payment for his wrongful detention and conviction and psychological damage to the family.

Of the total, the psychological compensation amounted to 1.3 million yuan, "setting a record for compensation for people wrongly detained or convicted," according to Wang Dianxue, the family's lawyer.

In 2016, Chen Man, who was wrongfully imprisoned for 23 years for homicide and arson, received 900,000 yuan for mental anguish, while in 2015, the mother of Hugjiltu, a young man from the Inner Mongolia autonomous region who was wrongly executed in 1996, was paid 1 million yuan for her psychological suffering.

"The compensation for my clients' psychological damage ... reflects that the court took the family's suffering in the past two decades into consideration and gave full respect to the victim's life," he said, adding the total amount of compensation is a "breakthrough" for the country.

Zhang Huanzhi, Nie's mother, said after receiving the court's statement on Thursday that she will not appeal the compensation award. She had applied on Dec 15 for a total of 13.9 million yuan in compensation, including 12 million for psychological damage.

"I can accept the result, and I feel the court's efforts and attitude toward my case," she said, adding that all she wants now is to live a quiet life.

On Dec 2, Nie, 21, a native of Hebei, was posthumously found not guilty at the Second Circuit Court of the Supreme People's Court in Shenyang, capital of Liaoning province, based on unclear facts and insufficient evidence. He was executed in 1995 for the rape and murder of a woman.

Since then, Zhang had appealed to government agencies and courts to clear her son's name. Authorities began reviewing the case in 2005, and in June of 2016, the national top court ordered the circuit court to rehear the case.
Move started after 15 people were killed in recent accidents at construction sites

Chinese authorities are conducting work safety inspections at construction sites nationwide after two accidents killed 15 workers, a government official said on Thursday.

"There is still much to do to improve work safety at construction sites," said Li Rusheng, an official with the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development.

Several serious accidents have occurred recently, including the collapse of up to 30 square meters of scaffolding at an aquatic park under construction in Macheng, Hubei province, on Monday afternoon, which killed six.

The collapse buried 15 workers, and six of the 12 that had been found as of 8 am on Wednesday were dead.

Rescuers wrapped up their search early on Thursday, but the government didn't disclose the condition of the other three people.

Hubei officials told a news conference on Wednesday that the park was being constructed without a building permit and there was no company supervising the project. Police have detained eight people in connection with the project.

In another case in the Guangdong provincial capital of Guangzhou, the work platform at a thermal power plant under construction collapsed on Saturday, killing nine and injuring two others.

Inspection teams were dispatched to guide rescue work after recent accidents, and a circular has also been issued to strengthen safety, according to a statement by the ministry on Thursday.

Many accidents and fatalities have been linked to sites with incomplete building permits or unregulated construction units, Li said, adding that the inspections are focusing on sites and projects deemed high risk.

This year, there have been 86 accidents at construction sites related to public housing projects, up 10.3 percent from a year ago, with 78 fatalities, an increase of 11.3 percent year-on-year, according to ministry figures.

The ministry will gradually improve safety standards, and identify and punish the parties responsible, Li said.

The ministry will also launch a three-year campaign to enhance construction quality across the country.

Xinhua contributed to this story.
Police in Zhejiang province have caught a suspect in a high-profile murder and robbery who had been on the run for 22 years.

The 45-year-old suspect, identified by police as Xu, robbed a jewelry store in Ningbo in 1995, shooting two guards to death and stealing 11 kilograms of gold and platinum products.

In 2004, police offered 200,000 yuan ($28,900), and later raised the amount to 500,000 yuan, for information about the crime, plus another three robberies he was believed to have committed later.

Police said on Thursday that Xu, a native of Linhai, Taizhou city, was caught on Wednesday afternoon at a games room in Zhejiang's Zhuji city.

"Over the past 22 years, the police have traveled hundreds of thousands of kilometers across all the provinces and regions, except for Taiwan and Tibet, to search for the suspect," Yu Liujiang, deputy director-in-chief of the special investigation team, said at a news conference in Zhuji on Thursday.

"We have examined and checked more than 12 million possible pieces of evidence and searched up to 100 million pieces of data," he added.

In the early hours of Dec 6, 1995, Xu climbed into the generator room on the sixth floor of the Lyuzhou jewelry store via the air conditioners on the outer wall, before descending into the store's main trading area on the ground floor through an elevator shaft.

He approached the two guards on patrol there, took them under control and bound their hands and feet.

Then he opened four safes and took jewelry worth 1.6 million yuan. Before leaving he shot the two guards to death.

Police found a self-made muffler, crowbar, dagger, backpack rope and a pair of insulating gloves at the site.

Xu later tried to break into other sites including a department store and jewelry shop in different cities in Zhejiang in 1998, 2004 and 2007.

He was discovered by security guards at two of the sites, injuring the guards with a knife or gun before fleeing.

Before his last robbery, his image was captured on a camera as he checked out the surroundings of a jewelry shop. Similar to the first robbery, a number of belongings and weapons including a hat, crowbar, self-made grenade and muffler were left behind.

Police said the preliminary investigation helped narrow down the list of suspects. For example, it was believed that the suspect had mechanical skills, had once visited the China-Myanmar border, and knew how to drive.

Capturing the suspect went smoothly, police said. Three special teams were sent to his residence in Zhuji, where they arrested him.

Shi Xiaofeng in Hangzhou and He Qi in Shanghai contributed to this story.
Workers from a funeral parlor of Fuyang, Anhui province, walk through aisles of unclaimed urns this month. [Photo by Wang Biao/China Daily]

Efforts to track owners of long-leftover urns result in 'very limited' outcome

In a hidden corner of Hefei Crematory is a dark, brick storeroom with roll-up garage doors. It rarely receives visitors, and when it does, it's usually only to drop off another urn of unclaimed ashes.

The one-story temporary building is packed with creaking shelving units holding 1,300 dusty boxes made of pottery or wood.

Each contains remains that have been stored at the crematory for more than 10 years, according to Wang Qiangsheng, a department head at the funeral and interment administration for Hefei, capital of Anhui province.

"Some have even been here for more than 50 years," Wang said ahead of Tomb Sweeping Day, which falls on Monday, when Chinese pay their respects to loved ones and ancestors by cleaning graves and burning paper money.

The crematory, which is next to the Anhui University campus in Shushan district, has a large hall used for memorial services that houses another 8,000 urns. Wang said that almost 2,000 of these have also sat unclaimed for a few years, in addition to the 1,300 long-lost ones in the temporary building.

The situation is common at cemeteries across China, where people traditionally bury ashes rather than scatter them, as is the practice in some Western countries.

A report this month by Shenyang Evening News estimated that the city of Shenyang in Liaoning province has up to 15,000 urns of unclaimed ashes in storage for more than a decade.

Some local governments have introduced rules to deal with the issue, such as Shanghai and Changchun, capital of Jilin province, which allow unclaimed remains to be interred at public cemeteries. However, Hefei has yet to devise a policy, according to Ding Qihe, director of the city's funeral and interment administration.

"It seems they're just forgotten," Ding said. "For decades, until the 1990s, residents rarely had telephones, so we could only record their address - and that's if we were provided with one."

As the city has developed rapidly over the past two decades, many communities have been demolished and the residents relocated, making it even harder to find the families of the deceased.

In 2013, the Hefei government launched an online database of unclaimed remains and made it accessible to the public in the hope of connecting families with deceased loved ones.

So far, the number of remains claimed via the service has been "very limited", Ding said. "For some boxes, we don't even know the name of the deceased," he said, adding that some may have been homeless people from other parts of the country.

Families may be put off contacting the crematory because of concerns over the financial costs, Ding said. "But the charges are low and there are exemptions. There's no charge for the first year, and then it's about 200 yuan ($29) a year thereafter."

In addition, if the family of the deceased agrees to bury the ashes in an "ecologically friendly way", such as under a tree or patch of grass in a cemetery, rather than having a space-consuming tomb, all charges will be waived, Ding added.

zhulixin@chinadaily.com.cn
A worker from Yuhuatai Cemetery attends to a tomb while a colleague broadcasts the process live to a client in Nanjing, Jiangsu province, on Wednesday. [Photo/Xinhua]

A cemetery in Nanjing, capital of Jiangsu province, has launched a live-streaming service for people unable to visit a loved one's grave on Tomb Sweeping Day next Monday.

April 4 marks a traditional day when people are expected to pay their respects to their ancestors by sweeping their graves and burning paper money for use in the afterlife.

However, people are often unable to carry out the custom due to illness, work commitments or the fact they have moved elsewhere.

To help such people, Nanjing's Yuhuatai Cemetery has launched a service on its WeChat account through which its employees, dressed in black suits, will sweep the tombs and lay flowers for them, which will be streamed live via the social media app.

There will be no extra charges other than the cost of the flowers, according to Hu Jing, the cemetery's director, who said traditions should be adapted to modern lifestyles.

"The service has been welcomed," Hu said. "Many people have submitted applications. Due to sickness and distance, some people cannot come personally, but the desire to honor their loved ones remains the same."

Hu said the idea was thought up after her employees noticed how popular social media apps have become, and they realized how many people would benefit from the service. Relatives of more than 100 people interred at the cemetery live abroad or in other Chinese cities, she said.

Cao Cui, director of Nanjing Runmi Internet Technique Co, which partnered with the cemetery to create the app, said the privacy of applicants and their loved ones can be ensured.

"At an agreed time, applicants can watch a live stream by entering a password given to them by the cemetery. Only those with passwords can watch the tombs being swept."

Since 2010, cemeteries in Nanjing have provided online "cloud tomb sweeping" services, through which people can review photos and videos on smartphones and computers at any time.

In addition, more than 1,000 people in the city have exclusive online memorial "halls", including one that has been visited 2 million times. Some cemeteries have placed QR codes on tombs so people can scan them and view a memorial online.

Changsong Temple Public Cemetery in Chengdu, capital of Sichuan province, also allows people to pay tribute to their ancestors via WeChat. People can post messages on a special WeChat account that is then displayed on an electronic screen in front of the tomb, Chengdu Business Daily reported.

In addition to cemeteries, online traders have realized a business opportunity. On Taobao, an online marketplace targeting customer-to-customer trades, about 100 stores offer tomb-sweeping services priced at about 300 yuan ($44).

Guo Jun contributed to this story.

cangwei@chinadaily.com.cn
Online exposure of the illegal eating, hunting and trade of wildlife fueled by growing public awareness of wildlife protection is contributing to the enforcement of the Wildlife Protection Law, according to an official of the State Forestry Administration.

Li Tiansong, deputy head of publicity for the administration, said that in the past two years, the administration's account on Sina Weibo, a Twitter-like service in China, has received a growing number of reports related to alleged criminal behavior, including hunting Chinese black muntjac, eating Chinese pangolin and killing macaques.

"If we receive reports with specific details, we forward the information to our department in charge of wildlife conservation, as well as local forestry and public security bureaus," Li said. "Netizens have provided information on cases from past and present. Unfortunately, it is difficult to obtain evidence for some of the older cases."

Sina Weibo user Nitian Xingdao's most recent report concerned the illegal online sales of ivory and rhinoceros products.

"I try my best to double-check details before I report to the State Forestry Administration to ensure my facts are correct and I don't add to the workload of others," the user said.

suzhou@chinadaily.com.cn
Chaohu in East China's Anhui province has appointed 39 "toilet chiefs" to ensure high standards at all public restrooms, with Hu Qisheng, the city's Party chief, tasked with overseeing their work.

"As the city has 280,000 urban residents, we should have at least 100 public toilets, but we're still far from that goal," Hu said, adding that the city has abundant tourism resources and is receiving an increasing number of visitors.

"Clean and easily accessible public toilets are a window to a modern and civilized city. Just increasing the number of toilets is not enough - it's also important to improve the sanitation standards at the ones we already have."

The toilet chiefs, who were appointed in September, are all officials with the city's urban administration department, according to Zou Dayong, the city's environmental sanitation director.

Zou, who is the toilet chief for Xiexiuyuan Park, said he is required to visit the toilet at least three times a week. "A cleaner arranged by a local property management company will always be present at the toilet," he said. "The toilet should always have running water and free toilet paper, and be free of foul odors."

The city government plans to invest 18 million yuan ($2.61 million) in building and renovating 91 public restrooms in urban areas. In addition, facilities in 21 city buildings have been opened to the public.

A shortage of public toilets is an issue faced by China, which has vowed to develop its tourism sector. The country's so-called toilet revolution is part of a 2-trillion-yuan investment plan announced late last year to develop tourism by 2020. In response to complaints about the sanitary conditions of such facilities, about 100,000 new public toilets will be built across the country during that period.

zhulixin@chinadaily.com.cn
BEIJING - State-owned China Aerospace Science & Industry Corporation (CASIC) have announced plans for a network of 156 mini-satellites to facilitate global broadband coverage.

This is the first low orbiting, networked satellite project, which will orbit 1,000 km above the ground, developed by China amid its wider push for commercial space development, according to CASIC.

"The network is a general satellite platform," said Bei Chao, a CASIC engineer, who added that add-ons and upgrades were being explored next.

Small satellites are easy to mass produce and upgrade at low cost. Low orbit helps avoid signal delay; and satellite communication services with frequencies from 26.5 to 40 hertz will improve Internet access.

The project plans to send the first satellite before 2018, and launch four more by 2020 to form a constellation. By the end of the 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-2025), all 156 satellites will be in operation.

CASIC launched an experimental satellite "TK-1" in early March, featuring high-carrying efficiency and adaptability.
SE China city arrests 250 drug suspects in latest campaign

XIAMEN - Police in Xiamen City, Southeast China's Fujian province, announced Friday that they had arrested 250 suspects implicated in 219 cases found during a month-long narcotics investigation.



Raids and arrests since late February have led to the seizure of 106 kilograms of controlled substances and 194 kg of raw production materials.



Of the 250 arrested, six were wanted for outstanding drug-related charges and seven were drug addicts caught abusing drugs at a construction site in Xiamen.



Xiamen Police said they would improve inter-department cooperation and push forward narcotics and dangerous drug investigations.
28 Northern cities take concerted action on smog control

Xinhua | Updated: 2017-03-31 13:46

BEIJING - More than two dozen cities in North China have drawn up a detailed action plan to address the notorious winter smog.



Targets and deadlines were outlined in the action plan, which was drafted by several ministries and the governments of Beijing, Tianjin, and 26 smaller cities in the provinces of Hebei, Shanxi, Shandong and Henan.



By the end of October, 13 cities including Beijing vowed to close the majority of polluting businesses that operate on a small scale, provide low-end services, hold insufficient licenses, or do not have sufficient emission treatment facilities.



In the next seven months, the cities of Beijing, Tianjin and neighboring Langfang and Baoding will ban the use of small coal-fired furnaces for winter heating. Areas in these cities will be declared completely "coal free."



Air pollution is more astutely felt in north China in winter. While high concentration of industrial and vehicle emissions are the main culprits, static air and the use of coal for winter heating worsen the situation, experts say.



Provinces around Beijing are also home to the country's major steel-makers, coal mines, aluminum producers, and chemical plants.



The action plan says cities with dense heavy industries in the provinces of Hebei and Henan will roll out a seasonal reduction on steel output capacity, aiming to slash it by half this winter. Aluminum and chemical plants will also scale down production.



Regarding car exhausts, all 28 cities will install monitoring facilities to watch over diesel and high-emitting petrol vehicles. The port of Tianjin, a key sea port in the region, will stop receiving coal by road. Most cargo will be transferred to rail.



A name-and-shame list is ready for local officials as well. According to the plan, the Ministry of Environmental Protection will publish a monthly list profiling the work undertaken by 28 cities to improve air quality. It will be a "major" criterion on performance evaluations of officials.
Lu Xiaoya, wearing a red scarf, is interviewed in Beijing. [Photo/Portrait(Renwu) magazine]

A series of numbers flash green on a man's arm. Twenty-three hours 48 minutes 41 seconds is all the time he has. When the countdown reaches zero, he will be dead.

It was the early spring of 2013. The optional course "Life and Death Studies in Films" was being taught in Beijing Normal University. On the first day, the class was shown the first 17 minutes of the film In Time and the last shot that the students saw was that the numbers had stopped flashing, Portrait,a Chinese magazine reported.

There was pin-drop silence in the class. Students were told to hear their own hearts beat.

Yuan Yufei, a sophomore, had expected the course to tackle film theories as other courses do, but surprisingly found the course go straight to the point. She was forced to confront the topic of death right away, which made her excited.

Lu Xiaoya, 63, is the course lecturer. She knows how people avoid the topic of death.

For instance, she knows a family that hasn't celebrated Spring Festival for 20 years as one of the family members died during the festival. She said this unbearable pain could lead to depression.

She hopes the course can inspire students to discuss the taboo topic. Topics like life and death, palliative care, near-death experience, funeral customs are all part of her syllabus.

Lu wants to "free the discourse power of death from philosophers' chair and white tower of hospitals." The course has 12 lessons and is held once in a school year. Every film clip displayed in each lesson is carefully selected.

The first lesson displays a clip of film In Time, in which the countdown of time turns the finiteness of life into anxiety; the second lesson shows a clip of film School Days with a Pig, in which whether to eat a pig raised by the whole class for three years arouses a debate on death; the third lesson displays a clip of film Dead Poets Society, in which a student Neil kills himself as he is unable to stand up to his father. For it, Lu raised a question: "Is death the only choice when facing contradiction between dream and reality?" Sometimes, Lu asks students to speak for a role in the film.

Lu's goal is not to ease the anxiety of death but to moderately provoke that anxiety.

Some students were so shocked after the first class that they refused to come back for remaining classes. Therefore, Lu suggests that those students who have experienced the death of a near one in past two years not to select the course.

After two rounds, the course has gained high reputation in the university. It has become so popular that 35 seats were occupied in one second when the course selection system opened in the spring semester of 2016.

Lu believes in an equation developed by Irvin David Yalom, an American psychiatrist, that anxiety of death is inversely proportional to satisfaction of life. The anxiety of death lies deeply in people's sub consciousness. People constrain, replace or sublimate the anxiety to others by their psychological defense mechanism.

Film Ikiru, or To Live, depicts a Tokyo bureaucrat, Kanji Watanabe, who never asks for a one day leave during his 30 career. Lu's students evaluate his life as "nonsense".

Learning that he got gastric cancer, Watanabe is threatened by death and leads a different life. He spends years of deposit on luxury wine, gambles in casino, seeks romance in dance hall, hangs out with young woman and leads people to build a park, etc.

"There seems to be a crying behind these actions, 'I had not lived a good life, so I do not want to die'," said Lu.

"I want to tell my students that at the end of your life, if you want to die in peace, you have to make sure two things. First, make sure your life is meaningful; second, make sure you are valuable," said Lu, as earrings shone behind her grey hair. She has not dyed her hair since she turned 55 in order to "accept aging".

Death is the loneliest experience for human beings. She believes film narrative can help young people break reasonable, systematic and repetitive learning pattern and meet the real world spiritually.

Film Wit reveals the eight-month treatment of a cancer patient. The emancipated patient reminds Yuan Yufei of her grandmother who died six months ago. She went out of the classroom in advance and had a good cry.

For Bi Weile, she started to understand her father's proposal. He hoped the daughter could let him pass away early if he lost the ability of taking care of himself.

When a film clip comes to an end, Lu does not turn lights on or allow students to discuss, but asks students to "stay with their own". "You can cry. You can feel ashamed... These are very good observation on life," she tells her students.

Depending on students reactions, she may keep asking questions like, "What does your tears mean?", "Why are you crying?"

Lu changes her testament every birthday since her 60th birthday. She takes anxiety of death as a tool. "When I realize that people must face death, I start to consider how can I live better," she said.

This "tool" also works for her students. A student picked up paintbrush again, another started to learn drums. And there is a student who said that he pulled himself together to lead a new life.

Contrary to the mounting anxiety of death, the fear of death decreases.

After being taken to Wan'an cemetery by Lu as part of the course lesson, Bi Weile has got interested in exploring cemeteries. Bi said that facing tombs is like "having a conversation with a life". "They are not ghosts, but ancestors, who tell us stories of life," she said.

"Everyone who keeps a watchful eye on death, including myself, must has a reason of their own," Lu writes in her book "Life and Death Studies in Films", a title that is same as her course.

In the flyleaf of her book, she writes "Dedication, for dad". The editor suggested change "dad" to "father". "No," said Lu, laughing silently. "I like to go back to be a little girl. I want to keep a relationship between a little girl and a dad."

"I think it is a way to deal with my sadness," said Lu.

Lu's father died in summer of 1987. She misses him a lot. She still keeps her father's diary and writes to him like she is having a conversation with him. She also visits places her father once visited.

When Lu opened the course in 2012, she was 58 years old, an age close to that when her father died. She was wondering whether she would also die when she turned 60. So she resigned from an NGO founded by her, and spent more time to accompany her mother who suffered from dementia.

Lecturing the course is a way she fights against the fear of death. Every round of the course makes her feel more assured. Four years haves passed, her fear of death has eased.

On January 25th, she underwent an operation. This was the fifth operation she underwent since a lump was found in her breast when she was 32.

Lu joked that God may want her to know deeper about life and death, so He let her become a breast cancer patient.

Lying nakedly in a hospital bed, Lu waited to undergo the operation alone and wrote a poem.

I lie on a bed outside the operation room,

only see the ceiling,

but naughty sight,

have to pass through the white idleness,

to reach Centaurus,

and look at the rosy nebula...

Lu wears a red scarf presented by one of her university classmates who passed away. Every year, she chooses one day to wear it attend the class as a ceremony. She tells the story of her classmate and warns students "not take life for granted".

Story edited by Wu Yan
President Xi Jinping and his United States counterpart Donald Trump "will chart the course and map out plans" for bilateral ties at their first meeting next week, a senior Chinese diplomat said on Friday.

Xi and Trump, having held two phone conversations, will meet at Mar-a-Lago in Florida on Thursday and Friday.

Zheng Zeguang, Vice-Foreign Minister, told a media briefing in Beijing that during their meeting the two leaders will embark on an in-depth exchange of views on China-US ties and major international and regional issues of common concern.

The meeting, their first after the new US administration took office earlier this year, is "of great significance" for the healthy and stable development of ties as well as the peace, stability and prosperity of the Asia-Pacific region and the world, Zheng added.

Also, Xi and his wife Peng Liyuan will attend a welcome banquet hosted by Trump and his wife Melania, according to Zheng.

The two countries should stay true to the principles of no conflict, no confrontation, mutual respect, cooperation and win-win, and "push for the greater development of China-US ties on a new starting point", Zheng said.

Prior to his US trip, Xi will pay a state visit to Finland from Tuesday to Thursday, and this will be Xi's first visit to northern Europe as president.

Wang Chao, Vice-Foreign Minister, told the Friday briefing that Xi will attend a welcome ceremony, hold talks with his Finland counterpart, attend a signing ceremony of cooperative documents, hold a joint press conference and attend a welcome dinner banquet.

The two countries share a great deal of common ground between their respective development strategies, and they "enjoy huge potential for cooperation", Wang said.

The visit will promote not only two-way relations but also China's cooperation with northern Europe, Wang said.
Enterprises with extensive experience in constructing and managing toilets will work with tourism authorities in China as part of the nationwide toilet revolution, China's top tourism authority announced in Beijing on Friday.

Some provincial tourism administrations have signed agreements to outsource the construction and management of public toilets to professional enterprises such as China Everbright Real Estate, a leading eco-toilet manufacturer in China.

The enterprises will make full use of advanced technologies to improve the environment for users, while maintaining a smooth operation and a reasonable cost.

At the signing ceremony, China National Tourism Administration director Li Jinzao said that the toilet revolution requires participation from all parts of society.

"By holding the ceremony, we hope to encourage more social capital and enterprises to join in the construction and management of toilets all over the country," he said.

On April 1, 2015, President Xi Jinping made important instructions about the toilet revolution, hoping that the national administration would start improving small things, such as making better toilets to create a more civilized tourism market and improve tourists' experience.

Following the instructions, the national administration released a three-year plan (2015-17) for improving the quality of China's toilets that year, setting a goal of building 33,000 new toilets and restoring and expanding 24,000 existing toilets.

So far 20 billion yuan ($2.9 billion) have been invested in the plan and 90 percent of the goal has been achieved, according to Li.
Premier Li Keqiang signed an administrative order on Friday appointing Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor as the fifth chief executive of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region.

The SAR's chief executive election was conducted in accordance with the Basic Law, the decisions of the National People's Congress Standing Committee and the election laws of Hong Kong, Li said at a full State Council meeting in Beijing on Friday.

Lam won the election on Sunday with 777 of 1,163 valid votes, showing the Hong Kong public's wide recognition of, trust in and expectations from Lam, Li said.

She will take the oath of office on July 1.

The central government will continue to fully implement the principle of "One Country, Two Systems", "Hong Kong people administering Hong Kong" with a high degree of autonomy, Li said.

The central government will act strictly in line with the Constitution and the Basic Law, to ensure that the implementation of "One Country, Two Systems" will never be bent or distorted, he added.

Premier Li pledged to fully support the chief executive and the Hong Kong SAR government to govern in line with the laws, develop the economy and improve the people's livelihoods.

The State Council supports the cooperation between Hong Kong and the mainland, Li said, adding that the central government plans to make use of Hong Kong's strengths to raise the status of the SAR in the country's economic development and opening-up.

Li said he believes that after Lam becomes chief executive, she will definitely unite the Hong Kong SAR government and Hong Kong people from all walks of life to make practical progress, maintain the long-term prosperity and stability in the SAR and secure a better future.

anbaijie@chinadaily.com.cn
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Observation of coastal areas will be taken into account when officials are assessed

The government has pledged to strengthen the management and protection of China's coastlines, according to the State Oceanic Administration.

The administration has recently published the Coastline Protection and Development Regulation, the first of its kind, and requested authorities in 11 provincial-level regions that have coastlines to strictly execute guidelines in the regulations. The 11 regions include Liaoning, Hebei, Shandong, Zhejiang and Guangdong provinces as well as Shanghai and Tianjin municipalities.

The foremost objective of the regulation is to make sure that at least 35 percent of coastlines along the Chinese mainland will remain unexploited by the end of 2020. Currently, about 40 percent of such coastlines are unused, according to statistics from the administration.

Changing the landform and environment of protected coastlines is prohibited unless it is for national security reasons, the regulation says, adding existing development projects on coastlines shall be strictly scrutinized and controlled.

Local governments' conservation of coastlines will be taken into account when their governance performances are assessed, while officials failing to obey the regulation will be held responsible, according to the State Oceanic Administration.

China has about 18,000 kilometers of coastline. More than half of the country's exploited coastlines are used by the fishery industry while transportation and urban infrastructure occupy about 20 percent of the coastline, said Guan Daoming, director of the China Marine Environmental Monitoring Center.

Shi Qingfeng, deputy head of the State Oceanic Administration, said coastline management concerns the nation's ecological security and the well-being of residents in coastal regions. Many sections of China's coastline have been overdeveloped and polluted, he noted.

Shi said his administration will work with local governments to make annual plans for coastline management and restoration. He added that applicants who want to use coastal areas will face stricter review procedures.

The government will open more well-preserved coastal areas to the public for tourism and leisure, Shi said.

In addition to better protection of coastlines, the government also plans to restore the environment in 85 square kilometers of coastal wetlands and to improve the ecology in 66 bays and 50 islands before the end of 2020, according to Fang Jianmeng, another deputy head of the administration.
China is willing and able to play a bigger role in Arctic development and cooperation, said Vice-Premier Wang Yang during the Fourth International Arctic Forum, which ended in Arkhangelsk, Russia, on Thursday.

China is an important stakeholder in Arctic affairs, and it has been participating in these affairs for a long time in accordance with laws, said Wang, adding that China upholds the spirit of respect, cooperation and sustainability.

At the two-day event, Wang called on the international community to strengthen environmental protection of the Arctic and continuously deepen scientific exploration of the North Pole.

The vice-premier also called on countries involved with the Arctic to exploit its resources in a lawful and proper manner, to improve Arctic governance and to jointly preserve peace and stability in the region.

China is ready to share insights with other countries and expand cooperation to create a bright, new future for the Arctic, Wang added.

More than 2,000 government officials, business leaders and senior experts gathered at the forum. They came from nearly 30 countries, including the United States, Canada, Finland, Denmark, Norway and Iceland.

On Friday, Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang reiterated China's position on Arctic affairs, saying China values cooperation in the Arctic.

President Xi Jinping will make a state visit to Finland next week. Lu said China hopes to see further development in cooperation in Arctic affairs under Finland's chairmanship of the Arctic Council.

In 2013, China became an observer of the council, an intergovernmental forum based in Norway that includes eight Arctic states and focuses on cooperation on Arctic issues.

Ruan Zongze, vice-president of the China Institute of International Studies, said China has been taking an active and constructive approach to participating in Arctic affairs.

Scientific research in the Arctic is becoming increasingly significant in the sense that it is an important part of climate change research, Ruan said.

"China has been investing ever greater research resources in this regard, and has been cooperating well with countries along the Arctic coast, which hope to see China play a bigger role in Arctic affairs," he said.
Restaurants and guesthouses around a well-known lake in Yunnan province will have to suspend business starting on Saturday for inspections, local authorities said on Friday.

Li Jincan, executive deputy mayor of Dali Bai autonomous prefecture, said at a news conference that no more new restaurants or guesthouses are allowed to be established near the core areas of Erhai Lake, and existing ones should close temporarily for inspections.

He said the businesses would be reassessed and only those with licenses and meeting certain standards could open again.

According to an announcement released by the prefectural government on Friday, the core areas refer to 100 meters to the west and north of Erhai Lake, 30 meters to the northeast of the lake, as well as all the villages around the lake.

The announcement also said business owners must ensure that their housing construction procedures and business licenses are valid. In addition, they have to build sewage treatment facilities on their own and meet sewage-discharging standards requested by environmental protection authorities before reopening.

Statistics from the Yunnan Provincial Tourism Development Commission showed that there are about 2,000 guesthouses around the lake. It's still unknown how many of them would be affected, but an industry insider who asked to be anonymous told China Daily that no more than 10 percent of the businesses had licenses.

The news raised concerns among business owners around the lake.

The owner of a guesthouse near the lake, who asked to be identified by his surname Zhao, said he was worried about the future because he had spent all of his savings on the business, which has about a dozen guest rooms.

"I don't know how many business owners like me will be affected and how the policies will affect the employment rate in Dali. But I hired six people and have to pay them salaries," he said.

Dali has been a hot destination for tourists from China and abroad, and Erhai Lake is a must-go scenic spot for them, which has greatly boosted the development of the tourism industry near the lake.

But during the past five years, the number of tourists the prefecture received has increased quickly, from 15 million in 2011 to 39 million last year, which is believed to have put great pressure on the environmental capacity near the lake.

Dali authorities said the total amount of pollutants discharged last year had increased more than 50 percent compared with 2004.

The prefectural government released a series of guidelines in January, announcing the launching of campaigns to curb pollution.
Conductor Philippe Jordan attends a Shanghai event to promote Wiener Symphoniker's tour in China. Provided To China Daily

Wiener Symphoniker (Vienna Symphony) is presenting for the first time in Shanghai the complete Beethoven symphonies, one to nine, which is an unprecedented project for the orchestra.

The four concerts at Shanghai Oriental Art Center, which began on Thursday and conclude on Sunday, mark the climax of Beethoven performances in Shanghai this year, says Luo Xueqin, vice-manager of the theater.

The Austrian orchestra has brought more than 100 musicians on this China tour, which started in Shenzhen of Guangdong province, on Monday.

After Shanghai, it will go on to Nanjing, Jiangsu province, on April 4. Then it will tour Beijing, where it will present Beethoven's Symphony 6 and 7 on April 6, and Symphony 4 and 5 on April 7, respectively, at the National Center for the Performing Arts.

In Shanghai, Wiener Symphoniker will play the complete Beethoven cycle of nine symphonies, says managing director of the orchestra, Johannes Neubert.

"Because Shanghai was the most interested in the complete cycle", and the theater happened to be available, he says. "We are very happy to do it."

The 117-year-old orchestra was the first concert orchestra in Vienna, which also does lots of recordings, Neubert says. Together with the renowned Vienna Philharmonic, which is more famous for playing opera productions, the symphony is known for the traditional "Vienna sound".

The signature Vienna sound is most recognizable in the strings, explains chief conductor Philippe Jordan. The Swiss maestro is also music director of the Opera National de Paris in France.

Jordan says the famous Vienna sound on the strings is "warm and sweet, with lots of vibrato playing that makes it sugary, with gliding notes and portamenti".

Playing the Beethoven symphonies with the special Vienna sound is less hard or aggressive, even when sometimes Beethoven requires that. "It is always a beautiful sound," he says.

The year 2017 marks the 190th anniversary of the death of Beethoven (1770-1827), the most important composer of symphonies. Beethoven created all his nine symphonies in Vienna, where they were also premiered.

As an orchestra in Vienna, "Beethoven was in our DNA", says Neubert.

Wiener Symphoniker has always played the Beethoven symphonies in a cycle every 20 years, but it is "definitely a very special occasion" to play it four nights in a row, he says.

Beethoven's music is so strong, human and the message so great, that "after every concert, the musicians and me, we are all really exhausted", says Jordan.

"You have to give it everything, if you really want to play it the way he marked it.

"Going through all four concerts and really experiencing a walk of life with the same orchestra, the same conductor and hopefully the same audience participating ...it is like we grow together to be a family.

"It is a musical experience you will never forget."

If you go

7:30 pm, March 31 to April 2. Shanghai Oriental Art Center - Concert Hall, 425 Dingxiang Road, Pudong, Shanghai. 021-6854-1234.

7:30 pm, April 4. Nanjing Poly Theater, 6 Yecheng Road, Nanjing, Jiangsu province. 025-5883-9008.

7:30 pm, April 6-7. National Center for the Performing Arts, 2 Chang'an Street West, Xicheng district, Beijing. 010-6655-0000.
An international music festival with performers from Belt and Road countries kicked off in Shenzhen. [Photo provided to China Daily]

An international music festival with performers from Belt and Road countries kicked off in Shenzhen, southern Guangdong province, on Saturday night, with the aim of strengthening cultural exchanges and deepening friendship between the people.

The opening concert of the Shenzhen Belt and Road International Music Festival was held at Shenzhen Concert Hall, attracting more than 1,500 people. The festival, co-hosted by the Shenzhen municipal government and Chinese Musicians Association, will last three weeks till April 16, during which more than 700 musicians from 12 troupes from nearly 30 Belt and Road countries and regions will stage 16 concerts in the city.

The opening night show featured musicians from 17 countries and regions along the Belt and Road route, including the modern states of Poland, Kazakhstan and Slovakia. The Shenzhen Symphony Orchestra formed an international orchestra, creating an acoustic feast in the 90-minute performance.

The Belt and Road initiative is not a "solo" performed by China, but a "symphony" performed by many countries together, said a congratulatory letter delivered by Vice Premier Liu Yandong.

Liu said she hoped that people from Belt and Road countries and regions could deepen cultural exchanges through the bridge of music and make new contributions to the progress of human civilization.

The opening concert featured 10 performances from a variety of cultures, including the Western aria Habanera from Bizet's opera masterpiece Carmen; the suona concerto Hundreds Birds Worshipping the Phoenix; a classic performed with the traditional Chinese musical instrument suona; and Ode to Joy, the finale to Beethoven's Symphony No.9 Choral.

Flags of different countries covered the instruments and music scores of many musicians, according to a report by Xinhua news agency. This is meaningful as it creates a friendly and harmonious atmosphere, said Huang Renzhong, director of the opening concert.

The theme of the music festival  "Connect China and the World"  is in line with UNESCO's view that culture can connect the world, said Francesco Bandarin, UNESCO's assistant director general for culture.

Cultural exchanges have gained increasing importance in today's environment as an antidote to international disputes and conflicts, he said.

Huang Xinyi, who attended the opening concert, said she was deeply impressed by the spectacular art feast.

"The performance by musicians from different parts of the world makes me feel that we are from the same family. In the world of music, there are no boundaries. Music is truly a good tool to connect the heart of people from different countries and to deepen their understanding."

Related:

Beethoven powers Vienna orchestra across China

Chinese violinist Wang Jiazhi debuts at Carnegie Hall in New York
A ceremony paying homage to Huang Di, or Yellow Emperor, who is considered as the ancestor of all Chinese people, is held in Zhengzhou, Henan province, March 30, 2017. [Photo/Xinhua]

Nearly 10,000 Chinese people from over 40 countries and regions attended a grand worshipping ceremony on Thursday to mark the country's legendary ancestor Huangdi, or the Yellow Emperor.

March 3, which this year on the Chinese lunar calendar is widely believed to be the birthday of Huangdi.

The ceremony was in Zhengzhou city, Central China's Henan province, where Huangdi built the capital of the Huaxia Empire after he united all the tribes in China 5,000 years ago.

"It is my third time attending the ceremony. I feel honored to return to my roots," said Loo Kee Pow, an overseas Chinese from Singapore and president of High Oak Publishing and Printing House.

Loo said his ancestors originated in Henan and moved to Fujian in southeast China, then Taiwan before settling in Singapore.

Ceremonies were also held earlier this month in San Francisco, Sydney, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macao in memory of Huangdi and as a show of support for peace and harmony in China.

Since 2006, the ceremony in Zhengzhou has attracted tens of thousands of Chinese from across the world.

Huangdi was believed to have been born in Xinzheng City, which is governed by Zhengzhou. He is regarded as the common ancestor of all Chinese. The ancestor worship of Huangdi became a widespread ritual in the Tang Dynasty (618-907).
A creation by Han Dongyang. Photos Provided To China Daily

For the first time in China Fashion Week, "see now, buy now" has become a reality. In collaboration with JD.com, one of the largest business-to-consumer retailers in China, the shows on Wednesday adopted the new model, which allows the customers to buy the garments online at the same time as they are paraded on the runway.

As a sponsor for the event, JD.com presented G-star RAW, a Dutch brand that specializes in jeans, US fashion label Dickies and Chinese designers Pollyanna Keong and Han Dongyang.

G-Star offered a limited edition of jeans for JD.com, in celebration of its 25th anniversary. Dickies showed a collection in collaboration with skateboard brand Thrasher.

Keong, who is best known for her design in the popular TV drama Ode to Joy, showed a collection inspired by futurism and romance. The collection matches feminine skirts with sporty jackets for a chill look.

As a young designer, one of the biggest challenges is to be seen and to be accepted by the market, says Keong.

"This is a very good opportunity for us to be seen and to sell," she says.
Chef Benoit Chargy's new menu invites sharing plates, like this short rib on the bone. Photos Provided To China Daily

Though Beijing's Waldorf Astoria is a fairly new kid on the capital block, it too claims a century of tradition from its famous New York forbear. Waldorf salad and red-velvet cake were born in its kitchens. US President Harry Truman favored sipping its classic bourbon old-fashioned, and the Peacock Alley bar created a special cocktail for Marilyn Monroe.

In the Beijing venue, chef Benoit Chargy has shaken up the menu at Brasserie 1893. The goal: enhance the French dining experience with less formality but a key tradition - sharing. Signature plates designed for two or more include starters of poached octopus marinated in lemon garlic, baby vegetables prepared Provence-style, and a salad of fresh pear and assorted nuts with a light yogurt-herb dressing.

Soup, of course, is served individually - at our tasting, it was a conversation-stopping green apple and pea, with sliced Iberian ham and coconut foam. Next came an equally delectable hot appetizer: blue lobster and scallop ravioli, with peach coulis and chervil foam.
Bouyei style hits catwalk of international fashion week ( chinadaily.com.cn ) Updated: 2017-03-30

EVE CINA models strut on the catwalk during the Mercedes Benz China International Fashion Week. [Photo/zgqxn.com]

Supported by the government of the Qianxinan Bouyei and Miao autonomous prefecture in Guizhou province, fascinating Bouyei clothing was presented to 600 guests for the recent Mercedes Benz China International Fashion Week in Beijing.

There are more than 30 ethnic groups in the Qianxinan Bouyei and Miao autonomous prefecture. Bringing Bouyeis hospitality, I hope to show you the culture and the scenery of the Qianxinan prefecture, said Huang Man, prefecture governor.

The clothing on show was produced by EVE CINA, a brand built by the prefecture government, and EVE Group, leading brand of the Chinese fashion industry. A total of 42 suits themed on Bouyei culture, all handmade by embroiders from Ceheng county in the Qianxinan prefecture, were modeled for the audience.

I frequently travel between cities and mountains to preserve minorities textile handicrafts in museums. Calling from door to door in mountainous villages, I recruit embroiders to build EVE CINA workshop, said Xia Hua, president of Yiwen Group.

To attract overseas artists, EVE CINA is working with the first China-Central and East European Country Arts Cooperation Forum. Visitors can go to the EVE CINA exhibition to admire Bouyei handicrafts.

EVE CINA is a successful attempt to expand ethnic culture, and has been praised by the Ministry of Culture, ambassadors and other influential elites.

Models present Bouyei style suits to the audience. [Photo/zgqxn.com]

Edited by Zachary Dye
President Xi Jinping tells visiting US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson that the nations should enhance exchanges at all levels. They met on Sunday at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing. [Photo/Xinhua]

Before US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson wrapped up his recent visit to China, he made it clear that Washington is ready to develop relations with Beijing on the principles of no confrontation, no conflict, mutual respect and win-win cooperation.

That on his very first visit to China he reiterated the important principles proposed by China in 2013 should come as a reassuring sign. But now it is up to Washington to take the right approach to China-US trade ties.

About a week before President Xi Jinping meets with his US counterpart Donald Trump in the United States, senior White House officials are reportedly preparing to "confront" China over its "unfair handling" of the auto industry.

However, the US economy will thrive only if the US strengthens cooperation with China, because it will eventually help job seekers in the US. In the case of automobile trade, the US does have a serious deficit problem, which many trade hawks claim is a result of China's high tariffs on auto imports and requirement to form joint ventures with Chinese auto companies. The solution, they argue, is lower tariffs and 100 percent ownership.

The truth is that US automakers struggle in China and other overseas markets mainly due to the lack of competitive auto products, and foreign companies in joint ventures with their Chinese counterparts have made huge profits from the Chinese market. Automobile accounts for only a small proportion of the China-US trade, and Chinese car exports to the US remains limited. Playing the "fair trade" card and imposing retaliatory tariffs on Chinese imports will hurt both sides, adding to the risk of vicious competition.

Bad policymaking by Trump's predecessors is no doubt responsible for most of the economic woes of the US. For 16 years Washington has been fighting several long-lasting wars at the cost of trillions of dollars. And the fact that the Barack Obama administration offered financial aid to Wall Street banks and insurers after the 2008 financial crisis further stoked the anti-elite sentiment among US citizens.

President Trump was a business tycoon, and has a practical attitude toward trade and economics. But taking on the more than 90 economies with which the US has trade deficits will be an impractical move and one that will almost certainly backfire. China does enjoy a huge surplus with the US, but that has more to do with the trading structure than Beijing's "mercantilism".

Staple Chinese exports to the US market are low value-added commodities, while the US mainly exports high value-added products to China. Although the US urges China to grant full market entry to less-attractive manufacturing sectors such as automobiles, Washington refuses to export its high-tech products to Chinese customers. Such a double standard is not likely to "balance" bilateral trade.

Generally, the trade between the two countries is highly complementary and has helped improve the US' employment rate. A fact that has been deliberately played down by some US economic advisers is that the extensive use of automation and artificial intelligence has made redundant a sizable number of blue-collar workers, particularly in the "Rust Belt" states.

The phenomenon has been often noted in technologically advanced economies such as the US, and should be taken seriously enough by some of Trump's key economic planners.

President Xi's visit will be a timely opportunity for China and the US to bridge the gaps and agree on the importance of cooperation, not confrontation, on bilateral trade.

The author is a professor of US studies at China Foreign Affairs University.
Students from the Qiang ethnic group study the regional textbook in Sichuan province.[Photo/China Daily]

The People's Education Press has announced that it will remove the "fake text" about Thomas Edison (1847-1931) from textbooks since the next semester from September.

According to that text, Edison, as a child, used mirrors to direct light to the operation table during his mother's appendicitis surgery. Though the story highlights the earlier creativity of Edison, the first appendicitis surgery was performed in 1886, when Edison was 39 years old.

Some people said some Chinese textbooks have similar factual errors. For instance, one text describes a father rushing to a school to save students after the 1994 earthquake rocked California. Yet a simple fact check shows the 1994 earthquake occurred at 4:30 am when most of the students were in bed. All such texts sound like the story of George Washington cutting the cherry tree, teaching good moral lessons with fake stories, which eventually lead to credibility problems. And after suspecting readers debunk such stories, editors should either correct the mistakes or remove the contents from textbooks.

But a few authorities argue that these are not history textbooks, but books to teach Chinese language and literature to students. As such, they allow room for fictional "embellishments". Such arguments are indefensible, as Edison is a historical figure and biographical materials should be faithful to facts. Authors or editors cannot just make up content with factual loopholes.

It causes a great uproar every time there is an issue with Chinese textbooks, for instance, when someone detects a problem, or when editors remove a historically revered author's article. One wonders why such debates don't stay in the smaller circles of Chinese teachers and textbook compilers. The main reason is that the teaching of language and literature revolves excessively around the use of a few textbooks students are assigned, even when there are more and better reading materials out there.

In urban areas with ample number of bookstores and libraries, students have access to other books they can read, which could mitigate the problems caused by these "fake texts". But in rural and less-developed areas, students don't have facilities or resources to borrow or buy additional books. Their textbooks become the only books they read, hence their importance and the public attention on them.

I have also noticed that none of the textbook controversies in the past decade was identified by a student suspecting an error. It is worrisome that the majority of students just accept whatever they get.

Heavy dependence on textbooks in China might cause "intellectual malnutrition" among students. It's true that editors carefully select these textbooks, but students should also be taught to find additional reading materials to enrich themselves. Educators and families should not put all their developmental eggs in one textbook basket for students. While publishers should address the problems with textbooks, I have higher hope that teachers and parents would scaffold students' ability to choose additional sources to read. I also plead for more reading, as a thin textbook doesn't offer much for the developmental needs at any grade level.

To widen students' scope of reading, the Chinese government ought to build libraries in less-developed areas. With ubiquitous technology and mobile phone access, Chinese educators should also think of innovative solutions to help students overcome the problems with accessing high-quality reading materials.

Mobile reading is becoming increasingly available for the average Chinese reader, and plenty of reading materials have already been digitized. The scarcity of content or platforms should no longer be a problem. What follows then is the development of teachers' ability to help students screen and select a vast array of reading materials.

Besides, increased need for reading should be an opportunity for textbook publishers, too, as they can offer more products to teachers and parents to choose from.

Berlin Fang is an instructional designer, literary translator and columnist writing on cross-cultural issues.
Giant panda cub plays with a zoo keeper at Chongqing Zoo in Chongqing, Southwest China, March 18, 2017. [Photo/chinanews.com]

People in the United States like to petition, about everything, from demanding President Donald Trump to release his tax returns to ending wildlife trafficking.

But a recent one calling to reunite giant panda cub Bei Bei and his mom Mei Xiang at the Smithsonian's National Zoo in Washington sounds a tearjerker.

In the petition, J. J. Medusa accused the zoo of forcibly separating the two giant pandas. It described them as "vocalizing, pacing, not eating and visibly stressed" and "they have been calling to each other and literally climbing walls (and trees) to try to get to one another".

It went on to say that "it breaks our hearts to see these two beautiful creatures apart from each other."

The petition, which started three weeks ago, has gathered some 2,500 signatures and has been spreading on social media.

Living just a block from the National Zoo, I shared the petitioners' feeling having observed the difficult days of weaning of Bei Bei from his mother. However, I understand that is a natural process for giant panda cubs.

Just a day before the National Panda Day on March 16, the zoo released a list of frequently asked questions in response to the many giant panda fans who expressed similar concerns. Pandas are solitary animals, they do not live in groups. Mothers and cubs do not stay together in the wild. If the zoo were to keep them together much beyond the point when a cub is self-sufficient, that would eventually cause aggression.

Bei Bei and Mei Xiang looked quite good in adapting to the new life in their respective yards when I visited them again this week.

The love for giant pandas among Washingtonians, and many Americans, impressed me deeply since I was still based in New York City and travelled to Washington in late 2009 after the zoo announced that giant panda cub Tai Shan was to leave for China.

People, some in a group called Pandamania, and some in wheelchairs, came to say goodbye to Tai Shan, even on snowy days. The Metro card in Washington even carried a giant panda logo.

There is no doubt that giant pandas are China's ambassadors to the US. They are stars at the National Zoo. The web cams there often draw 1 million viewers on a weekend. Bei Bei's name was given by China's First Lady Peng Liyuan and then US first lady Michelle Obama in September 2015 when they both visited the cub at the zoo.

The National Zoo was the first one in the US to house giant pandas after Ling Ling and Hsing Hsing arrived on April 16, 1972, about six weeks after President Richard Nixon's historic trip to China. The welcoming ceremony a few days later was attended by first lady Pat Nixon. The green shipping crate for Ling Ling and Hsing Hsing is still on display in the panda pavilion.

Besides Washington, three other US cities, San Diego, Atlanta and Memphis, also house giant pandas. James Sasser, former US ambassador to China, mentioned to me once how proud he was of helping bring giant pandas to his hometown Memphis.

New York City is probably the next one. In February, local Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney joined former AIG billionaire Hank Greenberg and others in pushing for a campaign to bring pandas to the Big Apple by 2020, to be housed either in the Central Park or the Bronx Zoo.

As I studied the Nixon archives online recently, I came across a conversation between Nixon and his wife Pat about the arrival of the first pair of giant pandas. Having giant pandas in the US was a major step in China-US relations, just like that historic Nixon trip.

The author is deputy editor of China Daily USA. chenweihua@chinadailyusa.com
Chinese President Xi Jinping (R) meets with U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, capital of China, March 19, 2017.[Photo/Xinhua]

Until the NATO meeting was rescheduled, there was plenty of hullabaloo over US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson planning to skip the NATO foreign ministers meeting, originally scheduled for April 5-6, in order to attend the meeting between the Chinese and US presidents.

Many interpreters were unanimous on one point: The Trump administration was attaching more importance to relations with China than those with NATO.

While this may be an over-interpretation, since the relationships are hardly comparable, it does reveal the truth that Beijing and Washington share an eagerness to ballast their ties.

From cost sharing to the future orientation of the alliance, it seems the new administration in Washington has a lot to talk about with its NATO allies.

But the first face-to-face meeting between President Xi Jinping and his US counterpart Donald Trump is charged with charting a cooperative course for a relationship that is more difficult to define and manage.

Considering the vicissitudes in bilateral ties after Trump took office, including his tough talk and the phone conversation he had with Taiwan leader Tsai Ing-wen, the conciliatory tone adopted since, from himself, as well as his secretaries of state and defense, offers optimism the two leaders can use their meeting to eliminate any lingering sense of uncertainty.

A short two-day meeting may not suffice for all questions to be answered. But it can certainly contribute a clear and constructive sense of direction to this crucial relationship.

Xi has on many occasions reiterated Beijing's aspiration for a relationship of "no confrontation, no conflict, mutual respect, and win-win cooperation".

Tillerson uttered the same words in Beijing, pledging commitment to a "constructive relationship", so the meeting has good foundations to build on.

Besides exchanging viewpoints on the potentially most inflammable flashpoints in ties, the two leaders will likely discuss the global economic situation and their trade relations.

In both these areas they may maneuver new agreements and crisis prevention mechanisms, as good communication will be essential to steer clear of misunderstandings as the Trump team is changing some of the policies of the previous administration.

Whatever ends up being discussed, the fact that Xi and Trump will compare notes in person matters.

Although they have talked twice on the phone and exchanged vows to work together for better ties, their meeting next week offers them the opportunity to step up to the plate and give substance to their words.
Wu Xufeng (right) treats a patient in the intensive care unit at the Hefei Binhu Hospital, Anhui province.[Photo/China Daily]

A video showing a nurse in a hospital in Nanjing, East China's Jiangsu province, angrily rebuking a woman who tried to hoodwink patients to go to other small, profit-seeking hospitals went viral on the internet recently. Beijing Youth Daily comments:

Hospital scalpers are not a new phenomena. They take advantage of patients' huge demand for good medical resources and lack of knowledge about the market to make profits. The public security and public health departments have always pledged "zero tolerance" toward such activities, which hurt patients' interests, and have launched many rounds of campaigns against the scalpers. Yet those who seek to decoy patients often return to the hospitals once the campaigns end.

A tricky point is how to define scalpers' behavior according to law.

Some swindle money out of the patients and their families, and even work for some illegal clinics. Such scalpers are suspected of breaking the Criminal Law.

Some queue up overnight or at the break of dawn to obtain the limited registration for outpatient services. These people can only be detained and fined according to the public security rules. The activities of such scalpers have already been curbed with the introduction of real-name and online registration.

Overall, though, very few scalpers have received severe penalties, which explains why they have become increasingly bold, and in some places, hospital scalping has become an industry.

Also, it is an open secret that some hospital employees collaborate with the scalpers. They are, to some extent, the root cause of the chronic disease in Chinese hospitals.

But even fewer hospital employees have been investigated and punished so far, even if they actually make huge profits from the deals.

If authorities really hold zero tolerance toward such activities, they should take actions to tackle the root cause head-on.
Private lending, including widely denounced usury activities, is active in many places in China. Existing in a gray areasometimes legal yet in many cases illegalmeans the moneylenders are largely ill-supervised by the financial authorities, and indicates the financial industry is not open enough to meet the demand.

Although China has one of the world's largest banking industries, most Chinese financial institutions are State-owned, and it remains difficult and costly for private enterprises to get loans from banks.

While the central government has issued many financial policies to support small and medium-sized private enterprises, many State-owned banks are reluctant to lend money to private enterprises because of the higher risk than lending to State-owned enterprises.

This explains why private lending booms across the country.

Usury lending is not a crime according to the law. Yet lenders sometimes offer loans with interest more than four times the official bank rate, which is not protected by the law. Usury lenders usually resort to extreme means to get their money back, once the borrowers fail to return it in time.

The authorities must not sit idle in face of violence related to private lending. They must strengthen their regulation and supervision, protect the legal interests of both lenders and borrowers, and address the use of violence and blackmail.

Lawmakers should expedite the introduction of a law on private bankruptcy. The Enterprise Bankruptcy Law was passed in 2006.
The year 2017 marks the China-Australia Year of Tourism and the 45th anniversary of diplomatic relations between the two countries, which Jiang believes will be a boost for promoting Australia as an attractive destination.[Photo/Xinhua]

More Chinese travelers are coming to Australia and seeking unique, personalized experiences, according to an authority with Tourism Australia.

"Chinese travelers are more confident, more adventurous, and more experiential, and they are making more local Australian friends as they travel. To me, this is the true spirit of friendship between two countries, manifested through rapid development in tourism exchange," Andy Jiang, China Country Manager of Tourism Australia, told Xinhua in an exclusive interview.

In a recent trip to South Australia, he met two young Chinese couples travelling through Port Lincoln, a beautiful spot on Eyre Peninsula.

"They were young, full of passion for travel, and were telling me great experiences that they just had -- tasting fresh oysters from the ocean at Coffin Bay, swimming with sea lions at Baird Bay, gazing at beautiful stars at night in the Flinders Ranges," he said.

"What we are seeing are more and more Chinese travelers are now going beyond the gateway cities of Sydney, Melbourne and the Gold Coast, and they are travelling through some of the best regional locations in Australia and are having a fantastic time," he added.

China is by far Australia's fastest growing and highest spending international market, he said. It is also Australia's fourth-biggest market for international business events spending and third-biggest in terms of international business events arrivals, Jiang said.

In 2016, almost 1.2 million Chinese visited Australia and spent over $9 billion, up 18 percent year on year. The China market has the potential to be worth $13 billion by 2020.
Migratory birds search for food on the remaining ice on Xingkai Lake, a border lake between China and Russia, in Northeast China's Heilongjiang province, March 30, 2017. Every day tens of thousands of migratory birds rest on Xingkai Lake on their way back to the north as the weather warms up. [Photo/Xinhua]
South Korea's ousted leader Park Geun-hye leaves her private house in Seoul, South Korea, March 30, 2017. [Photo/Agencies]

SEOUL, South Korea  South Korea's disgraced former President Park Geun-hye was arrested and jailed Friday over high-profile corruption allegations that already ended her tumultuous four-year rule and prompted an election to find her successor.

A convoy of vehicles, including a black sedan carrying Park, entered a detention facility near Seoul after the Seoul Central District Court granted prosecutors' request to arrest her.

Many Park supporters waved national flags and shouted "president" as Park's car entered the facility.

Prosecutors can detain her for up to 20 days before formally charging her, meaning she will likely be in jail while her case is heard. A district court normally issues a ruling within six months of an indictment.

The Seoul court's decision is yet another humiliating fall for Park, South Korea's first female president who was elected in 2012 amid overwhelming support from conservatives, who recall her dictator father as a hero who lifted the country from poverty in the 1960-70s despite a record of severe human rights abuses.

Prosecutors accuse Park of colluding with a confidante to extort big businesses, take a bribe from one of the companies and commit other wrongdoing. The allegations led millions of South Koreans to protest in the streets every weekend for months before lawmakers impeached her in December and the Constitutional Court ruled in March to formally remove her from office.

It made Park the country's first democratically elected leader to be forced from office since democracy came here in the late 1980s. South Korea will hold an election in May to choose Park's successor. Opinion surveys say liberal opposition leader Moon Jae-in, who lost the 2012 election to Park, is the favorite.

Prosecutors can charge Park without arresting her. But they said they wanted to arrest her because the allegations against her are "grave" and because other suspects involved the scandal, including her confidante Choi Soon-sil and Samsung heir Lee Jae-yong, have already been arrested.

The Seoul court said it decided to approve Park's arrest because it believes key allegations against her were confirmed and there were worries that she may try to destroy evidence.

A day earlier, Park was questioned at a court hearing for nearly nine hours. As she left for the hearing, hundreds of her supporters, many of them elderly citizens, gathered at her private Seoul home. They wept, chanted slogans and tried to block Park's car before being pushed back by police.

In the coming weeks, prosecutors are expected to formally charge Park with extortion, bribery and abuse of power. Her bribery conviction alone is punishable by the minimum 10 years in prison and the maximum life imprisonment in South Korea.

Prosecutors believe Park conspired with Choi and a top presidential adviser to bully 16 business groups, including Samsung, to donate 77.4 billion won ($69 million) for the launch of two nonprofits that Choi controlled. Company executives said they felt forced to donate in fear of retaliatory measures including state tax investigations.

Park and Choi are accused of separately receiving a bribe from Samsung and colluding with top officials to blacklist artists critical of Park's policies to deny them state financial assistance programs, according to prosecutors. Park also is alleged to have passed on state secrets to Choi via a presidential aide.

Park and Choi deny most of the allegations. Park has said she only let Choi edit some of her presidential speeches and got her help on "public relations" issues. Choi made similar statements.

The women, both in their 60s, have been friends for 40 years. Park once described Choi as someone who helped her when she had "difficulties," an apparent reference to her parents' assassinations in the 1970s.

Park's father, Chung-hee, was gunned down by his own intelligence chief in 1979, five years after his wife was killed in an assassination attempt that targeted him. Park Geun-hye served as first lady after her mother's death.

After her father's killing, Park Geun-hye left the presidential Blue House and secluded herself from the public eye before she entered politics in the late 1990s  when public nostalgia for her father emerged after the country's economy was hit hard by the Asian financial crisis.

She had since become an icon of South Korean conservatives, earning the nickname "Queen of Elections" for her ability to led her conservative party to win tight elections.

Park now becomes South Korea's third head of state to be jailed after leaving office.

Former presidents Chun Doo-hwan and Roh Tae-woo, both previously army generals, received a life sentence and a 17-year prison term, respectively, in 1996 on charges including treason and bribery. They were released in December 1997 on a special presidential amnesty.

Chun and Roh staged a 1979 coup that put Chun in power more than eight years after Park Chung-hee's death. Roh was elected president in 1987 after Chun's government caved to massive pro-democracy protests and accepted direct, free elections.

In 2009, prosecutors questioned former liberal President Roh Moo-hyun over corruption allegations, but they later closed the investigation after Roh leaped to his death.

Associated Press
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attends a cabinet meeting in Jerusalem March 16, 2017. [Photo/Agencies]

JERUSALEM  Israel's government approved the first West Bank settlement in two decades Thursday, creating the first serious test for US President Donald Trump's new foray into Middle East peacemaking.

The White House pointedly avoided any specific condemnation of the announcement, although it said that further settlement activity "does not help advance peace" and that it expects Israel to show restraint moving forward. Still, the relatively tepid response was a far cry from the automatic condemnations voiced by the Obama's administration in reaction to Israeli settlement announcements. The White House statement even went so far as to "welcome" what appears to be a limited Israeli commitment to take Trump's concerns about settlements into "consideration," without any guarantees to avoid similar announcements.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office announced the decision late Thursday following a meeting of his policy making Security Cabinet.

Netanyahu has vowed to build a new settlement to compensate the residents of Amona, an illegal settler outpost that was demolished in February under the orders of Israel's Supreme Court. Thursday's announcement said the new settlement would be built near the existing settlement of Shilo, which is nearby to the Amona site. It also said the government had approved tenders to build 2,000 new apartments from previously approved settlement projects.

The Palestinians claim the West Bank and east Jerusalem, areas captured by Israel in 1967, as parts of a future state. In December, weeks before Trump was inaugurated, President Barack Obama allowed the UN Security Council to pass a resolution that declared all settlements in both areas to be illegal. Trump condemned the decision at the time.

On the campaign trail, Trump indicated he would be far more sympathetic to settlements than Obama and the international community, which consider Israeli construction on occupied land to be illegal. His platform made no mention of an independent Palestinian state, and his inner circle includes strong supporters of the settlement movement.

But since taking office, Trump has appeared to change his position, telling an Israeli newspaper last month that settlements "may not be helpful" and telling Netanyahu at the White House that he would like to see some restraint. Since then, Israel and the US have been in talks over what kind of construction the White House would tolerate.

A White House official sought to play down Thursday's Israeli announcement, saying Netanyahu made his promise to the Amona settlers before Trump laid out his vision. But the official, who agreed to discuss the matter on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly about it, signaled that the White House would take a tougher line down the road.
A Saudi boy poses for a photo with a camel at the annual King Abdulazziz Camel Festival in Rumah, some 150 kilometres east of Riyadh, Saudi Arabia on March 29, 2017.

The 28-day King Abdulaziz Camel Festival features a camel beauty contest, known as Miss Camel with prizes amounting to $30 million. [Photo/VCG]
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BEIJING -- China hopes the upcoming meeting between President Xi Jinping and his US counterpart Donald Trump will set the direction for the development of bilateral ties, an official said Friday.

"It will be the first meeting between the heads of state of China and the United States since the new US administration took office," Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Zheng Zeguang told a press briefing.

From April 6 to 7, Xi will meet with Trump at Mar-a-Lago, Florida, the United States.

"As the international situation continues undergoing profound and complicated changes, the meeting will be of great significance to charting China-US relationship in a new era, advancing the development of bilateral ties in a healthy and stable way from a new starting point, and promoting peace, stability and prosperity in Asia and the Pacific and the world at large," Zheng said.

According to Zheng, Xi will hold talks with Trump, during which they will exchange in-depth views on China-US ties and major international and regional affairs of common concern with a view to enhancing mutual understanding and expanding bilateral cooperation.

President Xi and his wife Peng Liyuan will attend a welcome banquet hosted by President Trump and his wife Melania, according to Zheng.

Zheng said the Chinese and US presidents have reached important consensus through phone conversations and letters over the past months.

"They both believe that China and the United States can absolutely be very good partners," Zheng said, adding that the two countries should uphold the principle of no conflict, no confrontation, mutual respect and win-win cooperation.

Zheng said the Chinese side would work closely with the US side on various preparations for the meeting to make it a success.

Speaking of the United States' trade deficit with China, Zheng explained that this was a result of the global distribution of industries and the division of labor, as well as the two countries' different economic structures.

"In China-US trade, although we are running surplus in trading goods, we are on the deficit side when it comes to trading services," Zheng said.

From 2001 to 2016, US exports of services to China increased 15-fold, with the US service trade surplus rising 29-fold, according to statistics from China's Ministry of Commerce.

"China does not seek a trading surplus, and it is not our intention to stimulate export through competitive currency devaluation," he said.

Zheng expressed hope that the US could relax its controls on high-tech exports, create a level-playing field and provide policy facilitation for Chinese companies investing in the United States, which could help address the trade deficit.

As the world's first and second largest economies, the two countries have great potential to expand trade and economic cooperation, and could properly manage trade friction in line with the principle of mutual benefits and seeking win-win outcome, he said.
In English-speaking countries, it's called April Fool's Day, in France it's called Poisson d'Avril, and in Germany it's ErsterApril. No matter what it's called, April 1 is the date where most countries in Europe, and some in Latin America, suffer a variety of practical jokes.

A clown with balloons at a Clown Parade on April Fools' Day. [Photo/VCG]

Different cultures take different approaches  in France the day is marked by people trying to attach a paper fish to the back of the unsuspecting victim, who walks about until someone yells "poisson d'avril!".

In Germany, newspapers are limited to one April Fool's joke story a day.

In Britain, it has become a tradition that newspapers print fake stories, although in the wake of US President Donald Trump's continual tirades in which he labels any story unfavourable to him as "fake news" it's debatable how long that tradition will last in this digital world.

Perhaps the most successful prank of all time was that perpetrated by the Guardian newspaper in the UK, a fairly highbrow publication with liberal leanings.

In the 1977, when there was no internet, no high-speed digital communications, and certainly no search engines, the Guardian ran an unprecedented seven-page supplement on a little-known republic in the Indian Ocean, named San Serrife, which consisted mainly of two large islands, Upper Casa and Lower Casa.

There was an in-depth interview with Maria-Jesu Pica, the young president for life, pictured complete with elaborate dictator's uniform and the obligatory dark glasses. His cousin, Antonio "Che" Pica, was in charge of trade union negotiations.

The Guardian's serious columnists at the time contributed in-depth articles on the economy, in particular its three main planks  minerals, tourism and oil.

What makes this first attempt at media April Foolery important is that the Guardian persuaded major advertisers to take space in the supplement and join in the fun.

Notable, Kodak asked readers in a quarter page ad to send in any pictures they had of the islands, and Guinness, the Irish brewer already noted for its leftfield ad campaigns, came up with the suggestion that a SAN Serriffe brewery had succeeded in brewing Guinness upside down, so the white head of the beer was at the bottom of the glass and the dark body at the top.

The Guardian made a lot of money from that, as advertisers eagerly took four of the seven pages of the supplement.

So successful was the hoax that the Guardian's switchboard the next day was jammed by thousands of callers wanting to find out about holiday opportunities in the country.

Of course, it was all a hoax, with the language throughout referring to various terms in the printing world  SAN Serriffe, (SAN serif) is a category of typeface, and Upper Casa and Lower Casa references upper case and lower case, or capitals and small letters.

The name of the so-called president for life, Pica, is in fact a print measurement.

Remember, this predated Google and Wikipedia by decades.

Subsequent efforts in newspapers have failed to meet that standard, most critics agree.

There was another, earlier media attempt which triggered a wave of controversy.

In1957 the august BBC, in its current affairs flagship program Panorama, hosted by the respected broadcaster Richard Dimbleby, ran a three-minute segment on a family in the Swiss Province of Ticino harvesting a bumper crop of spaghetti pasta from trees on April 1.

At the time, only 44 percent of Britons had a television, and pasta wasn't an everyday food, except canned in tomato sauce.

The BBC was besieged by listeners either asking for instructions on how to grow their own spaghetti trees, or complaining about the veracity of the report. The BBC eventually owned up, and subsequently faced widespread criticism for what some perceived as a waste of public money.
Their first meeting seen as greatly significant for stability, prosperity

President Xi Jinping and US President Donald Trump "will chart the course and map out plans" for bilateral ties at their first meeting next week, a senior Chinese diplomat said on Friday.

The two leaders, who have already talked twice on the phone, will meet for the first time at Mar-a-Lago in Florida on Thursday and Friday.

Xi and his wife, Peng Liyuan, will also attend a welcome banquet to be hosted by Trump and his wife, Melania, Vice-Foreign Minister Zheng Zeguang told a media briefing.

During their meeting, the two leaders are expected to have an in-depth exchange of views on China-US ties and major international and regional issues of common concern, Zheng said.

The meeting is of great significance for the healthy and stable development of the ties as well as peace, stability and prosperity in the Asia-Pacific region and the rest of the world, Zheng added.

White House spokesman Sean Spicer told a news briefing on Thursday that Trump "looks forward to meeting with President Xi and exchanging views on each others respective priorities, and to chart a way forward on a bilateral relationship", Xinhua reported.

Spicer also said the meeting will be an opportunity for Trump "to develop a relationship in person with President Xi".

The two-way trade relations have attracted great media attention as Washington has complained about its trade deficit with China.

When asked about the trade issue, Zheng said bilateral trade "has brought tangible, huge benefits" for both sides.

The trade imbalance should be seen in a comprehensive and objective manner, since China has a surplus in commodity trade but a deficit in service trade with the US, Zheng said.

China "does not seek a trade surplus with the US", he added.

About 40 percent of Chinas trade surplus with the US stems from US businesses operating in China, Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang said at a daily news conference on Friday.

A proper settlement of the issue requires bilateral consultation, and China is looking at the potential between the two countries, Lu said.

Su Xiaohui, a researcher on international strategy studies at the China Institute of International Studies, said China and the US have shown a strong need for each other in recent years.

Before his US trip, Xi will make a state visit to Finland from Tuesday to Thursday, which will be Xis first visit to northern Europe as president.

Wang Chao, vice-foreign minister, said Xi will hold talks with Finnish President Sauli Niinisto and attend a ceremony for the signing of cooperative documents, a joint news conference and a welcome banquet.




In celebration of World Autism Day on Friday, the Chinese permanent representative to the UN said that autism must be tackled within the broader context of the UN's health policy as designated by the 2030 agenda of sustainable development.

Governments should establish mechanisms to foster cooperation between countries to implement health and disability goals related to the 2030 agenda, and more financial resources must be invested to improve medical services and healthcare in remote and underdeveloped areas because "these are coincidentally areas where migration is more likely to take place," said Liu Jieyi at the UN.

He made his remarks at a high-level meeting on migrants with autism and developmental disabilities.

"It is important to stress the role of reform and innovation in the overall public health system, and also in the technology and medicine involved to address the challenge of more cases of autism throughout the world," Liu said.

It is also important to stress prevention, shifting the perception of health from "a treatment-centered approach to a health-centered approach," he said.

China has emphasized public health as a part of its development strategy because the country is ``guided by the concept that prosperity cannot be achieved without health," Liu said.

China is working to promote healthy lifestyles, optimize health services, improve the healthcare system, build a healthy environment, and develop its health industries, he added.

On autism, China is implementing a program called Colorful Dream to help children with disabilities, providing financial assistance and rehabilitation services to children with autism, particularly those from impoverished and migrant worker families.

"In China children with autism are fondly called 'children of stars,'" Liu said.

"China will continue to work with other countries to support autism treatment and rehabilitation and also raise global awareness and strengthen cooperation so that children of the stars from all over the world will enjoy a life as fruitful of all other kids, and that will certainly be a much better world," he said.

amyhe@chinadailyusa.com
This five-bedroom Tudor-style house in a Queens neighborhood in New York City that US President Donald Trump lived in briefly as a child was sold to someone from China for a price that is more than double that of other houses in the area, according to media reports. PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY

A five-bedroom Tudor-style house in a Queens neighborhood in New York City that US President Donald Trump lived in briefly as a child was sold to someone from China for a price that is more than double that of other houses in the area, according to media reports.

The New York Times reported on Wednesday that the buyer "is a woman from China" and said the purchase price of $2.14 million came in an auction by Paramount Realty USA. The house was built by Trump's father, Fred, in 1940 and the president lived there until he was about 4 years old. The family then moved to another house Fred Trump built nearby.

"This property is so much more than just real estate; it's the childhood home of the 45th President of the United States, and it's a part of history," Misha Haghani of Paramount Realty USA, told ABC News.

"I did have some expectation that the purchaser would be a huge Trump supporter from within America," Haghani told the Times. He declined to reveal the identity of the buyer. "But it is entirely possible that the purchaser is a huge Trump supporter from outside of America," he said.

Cathy Han, a New York real estate agent specializing in marketing properties to Chinese buyers, told the newspaper that she was not surprised that a Chinese buyer may have purchased the house.

"When I saw it was Trump's birth house property for sale, I knew immediately it would get a lot of attention from Chinese buyers," said Ms Han. "I know he is a controversial figure in the States, but among Chinese people, Trump is a very popular kind of character in China."

The house was first offered for auction last fall but it was canceled. City records show an investor, Michael Davis, ultimately bought the home for nearly $1.4 million in December.

paulwelitzkin@chinadailyusa.com
By Cecily Liu in London and He Wei in Shanghai | China Daily | Updated: 2016-12-26 07:42

Ant Financial intends to serve 2 billion globally over the next decade

When 33-year-old Shanghai resident Xu Lei walked into the Santa Claus Village tourism office in Rovaniemi, Finland, he was surprised to spot a sign with the Chinese word zhi.

That's the logo of Alipay, the fast-growing mobile payment service of China's e-commerce giant Alibaba. It meant Xu could use the Alipay mobile app on his phone to scan a QR code provided by the tourism office to pay for his Arctic Circle visit certificate, just like he would do in China.

"I was shocked, and felt that I now truly understood what a powerful and global organization Alipay is," Xu said.

In Japan, Li Yiying, a 25-year-old Chinese woman traveling in Tokyo, also benefited from payment services provided by Chinese companies.

"I often prefer to use Alipay or WeChat Pay (mobile payment provided by China's Tencent) instead of cash so I don't need to take a lot of paper money with me. It is also easier to keep track of transactions with the app," Li said.

China's e-commerce giant Alibaba introduces its Alipay payment services at the Santa Claus Village in Finland on Dec 6, with a promotional event. Alipay is accepted by over 100 merchants in Finland.Provided To China Daily

From buying luxury bags to paying Uber bills, from convenience stores to theme parks, China's top wireless payment providers are tapping into the international market in the footsteps of globe-trotting and big-spending Chinese visitors.

Alipay has emerged a front-runner. Created in 2004 as a tool to facilitate transactions on Alibaba's Taobao e-commerce site, it is now accepted by more than 100,000 merchants overseas, according to a report from Ant Financial, the division of Alibaba that owns Alipay.

Ant Financial banks on its 450 million users in China as it rolls out business abroad. Alipay handled around half the estimated $738 billion Chinese spent online last year by offering an escrow service in collaboration with overseas partners such as banks, financial institutions and online payment providers, according to iResearch.

In Finland, Alipay is accepted by over 100 merchants, including hotels, shops and restaurants, through a partnership with local mobile payment firm ePassi. In Germany, its partnership with payment processing service Concardis gives it access to more than 200,000 local merchants.

Alipay also works with BNP Paribas, Barclays, Yusin Bank, SIX, Wirecard, Ingenico Group and other agencies in Europe, which helps it cover some 930,000 merchants in the continent.

In Japan, where Chinese tourists often buy expensive household electronics products, jewelry and cosmetics, Alipay is available at nearly 3,000 vendors.

To quench the thirst of wealthier Chinese buyers, Alipay was introduced to 10 major overseas airports across Germany, Japan and New Zealand in October. Departure tax refund services processed by Alipay are also available in 23 countries. It can be used to pay for Uber and Grab ride services in 70 countries.

Other domestic wireless payment provides like WeChat Pay and Baidu Wallet are also expanding overseas.

Tencent Holdings, a social networking giant, has allowed foreign stores since late 2015 to apply to be part of its WeChat payment system as long as they have a trading license and a website or an app. So far, the WeChat mobile system has been accepted in over 10 countries and regions.

Online search giant Baidu announced in September that it would join with Israeli startup Travelers Box to provide a convenient way for Chinese travelers to exchange their unused foreign money before returning home.

Travelers can choose to credit their Baidu Wallet accounts by depositing money at Travelers Box kiosks at airports in some of the most popular countries for Chinese tourists, including Japan, Italy and Canada.

The collaboration between Chinese and foreign companies is benefiting both sides. Shops that accept Chinese wireless payment systems, for example, see more Chinese customers.

But the ambitions of payment providers does not stop there.

Ant Financial intends to serve 2 billion customers over the next decade globally, with more than 60 percent of those users from outside the Chinese mainland.

Apart from setting up six branch offices - in the United States, Singapore, South Korea, the United Kingdom, Luxembourg and Australia - the company picked ex-Goldman Sachs banker Douglas Feagin to smooth the way for its global push.

Through signing pacts with financial institutions and distributing technology to retailers, the company is preparing the ground for what could become a major rival to banking monopolies and the likes of Visa.

In the US, Ant Financial teamed up with payment technology providers First Data Corp and Verifone to expand its presence through their extensive merchant networks.

"We aim to have at least 1 million merchants outside the Chinese mainland accepting Alipay in three years. Working with our network of global partners like First Data and Verifone will help us achieve the goal," said Feagin, senior vice-president of Ant Financial and head of Alipay International, in a speech at the Money 2020 event in Las Vegas.

Jeongwen Chiang, a professor of marketing at China Europe International Business School, praised the potential of online payment by comparing Alipay with China's UnionPay, the world's third-largest payment network by value of transactions processed. UnionPay trails only Visa and MasterCard, according to November statistics compiled by the US research service BI Intelligence.

"UnionPay is great in helping Chinese travelers make payments overseas, but it still requires consumers to carry a card," Chiang said.

"Alipay is amassing a large amount of data on its customers' spending habits, and its big data capabilities are currently greater than UnionPay's. It helps European merchants more efficiently target Chinese shoppers."

China's BigData-Research found that transactions via mobile payment services, worth 9.3 trillion yuan ($1.3 trillion) in 2015, are expected to increase to 15 trillion yuan in 2017.

Cai Hong in Tokyo contributed to this story.

Contact the writers at hewei@chinadaily.com.cn
HELSINKI -- Finnish national airline Finnair is to activate the Chinese online payment system Alipay on one of its flights between China and Finland.

A one-month testing period begins on Jan 27, the eve of Chinese New Year, on the route between Helsinki and Shanghai, according to information acquired by Xinhua on Thursday.

Finnair said they were the first airline to offer the online payment system onboard. Decisions on future rollouts will be made after the trial period.

Customers can use Alipay for in-flight purchases. If lounge access is not included in the customer's fare, Alipay can still be used via Finnish e-payment platform ePassi, a source from ePassi told Xinhua.

Katri Harra-Salonen, a Finnair chief digital officer, underlined that Chinese travellers could get a convenient and familiar payment system on board.

Alipay has already been available at some of the shops at the Helsinki-Vantaa airport, as well as souvenir and national brands shops in Rovaniemi, northern Finland via ePassi.
(Photo : Getty Images. ) China on Thursday confirmed that President Xi Jingping would be travelling to U.S. to hold a meeting with President Donald Trump. This would be the first meeting between the two leaders since Trump assumed office earlier this year.

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Chinese President Xi Jinping will travel to the United States to hold a special meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump between April 6 to 7, Chinese foreign ministry confirmed on Thursday. This is the first official confirmation of the highly anticipated meeting amid media reports that the two powerful leaders may meet soon.



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The meeting will be held at Trump's Mar-a-Lago retreat in Florida. The maiden meeting between Trump and Xi comes at a critical time when several pressing issues like North Korea, the South China Sea dispute and talks of a trade war are putting considerable strain on the bilateral relationship between both nations.



Responding to the question on trade war, Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Lu Kang urged both sides to work together "to make the cake of mutual interest bigger and not simply seek fairer distribution."



Lu declined to give details about the highly-anticipated meeting. But both leaders are expected to put all the sensitive issues on the table.



Xi and Trump's first meeting comes barely weeks after Rex Tillerson paid his first visit to Asia as the U.S. Secretary of State earlier this month. His visit to Japan, South Korea, and China was dominated by the North Korea issue.



Trump's sets up rhetoric against China



Trump promised to launch a trade war against China during his politically charged campaign last year. He accused the world's second largest economy of indulging in currency manipulation and unfair trade practices like steel dumping that is hurting the domestic industry. In one of his rallies, the Republican leader claimed that China would behave properly under his presidency.



However, things became truly uncomfortable between Beijing and Washington after Trump chose to continue with his relentless attack even after winning the presidential election. Most political analysts expected Trump's rhetoric to take a more pragmatic shape post his election victory. But their prediction proved wrong, with the outspoken Republican leader latching on every sensitive issue like the South China Sea dispute and Taiwan to take a pot shot against Beijing.



Some normalcy was restored to the strained relationship after Trump made a courtesy call to Xi last month. During the call, Trump reportedly vowed to respect the "One China policy," which became a sticking point following his unexpected overtures towards Taiwan.



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(Photo : PLAGF) PLAGF armor on parade.

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Oft repeated and mind-numbing calls for the People's Liberation Army (PLA) to uphold the leadership of Chinese president Xi Jinping and his leadership of the Central Military Commission (CMC), which controls the PLA, seems to suggest a potentially dangerous absence of wholehearted support for Xi coming from the PLA.



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Infighting seems to be rampant among factions headed by Xi and his greatest rival, premier Li Keqiang, ahead of the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC) to be held in Beijing this autumn. Xi is expected to strengthen his hold on power but indications are Li won't give up without a good fight.



CMC, which is headed by Xi as chairman, a few days ago issued a guideline on launching an education campaign aimed at upholding the "core" (a codeword for Xi) and following Xi's commands. This missive is the latest in a long line of statements urging the PLA to uphold Xi as its commander.



The guideline said it's a fundamental issue to establish and uphold Xi as the core of the CPC Central Committee. Deepening national defense and military reforms also requires the PLA to staunchly uphold the authority of the CPC Central Committee and Xi "under all circumstances."



The education campaign mandated by the guideline must showcase new achievements and development since the 18th National Congress of the CPC in 2012, and prepare the PLA for the upcoming 19th CPC National Congress.



Only last March 17, the leadership of the PLA, which is the armed forces of the CPC, vowed to boost the PLA's fighting power while "safeguarding Xi Jinping's core status."



The PLA's primary mission is to defend the CPC and its close to 90 million members. Protection of the Chinese homeland and Chinese citizens are the secondary roles of the PLA.



CMC pledged to unite closely around the CPC Central Committee with Xi as the core. Defense Minister Chang Wanquan said efforts will be made to enhance the education of national defense and encourage integrated military-civilian development.



Li has, however, called for the PLA to support the CPC and not Xi. In early March, Li announced the PLA will be subjected to even greater control and communist indoctrination by the CPC.



This tightening of conformity in an armed forces notorious for a glaring lack of professionalism and initiative in the ranks appears to be the CPC's answer to the strategic challenges posed by a resurgent United States military, and a dangerous slowdown in economic growth that will stoke civil instability.



Li's main message to the troops again is the Communist Party is god and not Xi.



"The government will uphold the Party's absolute leadership over the armed forces and uphold and implement the system whereby the Chairman of the Central Military Commission assumes overall responsibility over military affairs," said Li.



Some pundits noted Li's not mentioning Xi by name as the chairman of the CMC.



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TagsXi Jinping, People's Liberation Army, Central Military Commission, 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, Li Keqiang, CPC Central Committee
(Photo : Getty Images) Depression.

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Depression is the leading cause of ill health and disability worldwide, said new data from the World Health Organization (WHO).



WHO said more than 300 million people are now living with depression, an increase of more than 18 percent between 2005 and 2015. Lack of support for people with mental disorders coupled with a fear of stigma prevents many from accessing the treatment they need to live healthy, productive lives.



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The new estimates were released in the lead-up to World Health Day on April 7, the high point in WHO's year-long campaign called "Depression: Let's Talk." The overall goal of the campaign is to get more people with depression everywhere in the world to seek and get help.



Depression is a common mental illness characterized by persistent sadness and a loss of interest in activities that people normally enjoy, accompanied by an inability to carry out daily activities, for 14 days or longer



In addition, people with depression normally have several of the following: a loss of energy; a change in appetite; sleeping more or less; anxiety; reduced concentration; indecisiveness; restlessness; feelings of worthlessness, guilt, or hopelessness and thoughts of self-harm or suicide.



"These new figures are a wake-up call for all countries to re-think their approaches to mental health and to treat it with the urgency that it deserves," said WHO Director-General Dr. Margaret Chan.



One of the first steps is to address issues around prejudice and discrimination.



"The continuing stigma associated with mental illness was the reason why we decided to name our campaign Depression: Let's Talk," said Dr Shekhar Saxena, Director of the Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse at WHO.



"For someone living with depression, talking to a person they trust is often the first step towards treatment and recovery."



Increased investment is also needed. In many countries, there is no, or very little, support available for people with mental health disorders.



Even in high-income countries, nearly 50 percent of people with depression don't get treatment. On average, just three percent of government health budgets are invested in mental health, varying from less than one percent in low-income countries to five percent in high-income countries.



Treatment usually involves either a talking therapy or antidepressant medication or a combination of the two. Both approaches can be provided by non-specialist health-workers, following a short course of training, and using WHO's mhGAP Intervention Guide.



Failure to act is costly. According to a WHO-led study, low levels of recognition and access to care for depression and another common mental disorder, anxiety, result in a global economic loss of $1 trillion every year. The study calculated treatment costs and health outcomes in 36 low-, middle- and high-income countries for the 15 years from 2016-2030.



The losses are incurred by households, employers and governments. Households lose out financially when people cannot work. Employers suffer when employees become less productive and are unable to work. Governments have to pay higher health and welfare expenditures.



WHO also identified strong links between depression and other non-communicable disorders and disease. Depression increases the risk of substance use disorders and diseases such as diabetes and heart disease. The opposite is also true, meaning that people with these other conditions have a higher risk of depression.



Depression is also an important risk factor for suicide, which claims hundreds of thousands of lives each year.



"A better understanding of depression and how it can be treated, while essential, is just the beginning. What needs to follow is sustained scale-up of mental health services accessible to everyone, even the most remote populations in the world, said Dr. Saxena.



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Tagsdepression, World Health Organization, WHO, World Health Day, Dr Shekhar Saxena, non-communicable disorders, Suicide
(Photo : Getty Images. ) CEO Peter Cohen hopes that the stake sale will help Cowen to further consolidate its business in core areas like investment banking, equities, research, and investment management.

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Chinese conglomerate CEFC China Energy has announced its plan to buy a 20 percent stake in the American financial services Cowen Group for $100 million. Both companies have described the deal as part of the "long-term strategic investment."



According to the agreement, CEFC will buy Cowen's Class A shares at $18 per share, or a 29.5 percent premium to the closing share price on Tuesday. Additionally, the Chinese energy conglomerate will offer $175 million to the New York-based brokerage firm, which the latter will mostly use to clear off the existing debts and financial re-structuring purposes.



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CEO Peter Cohen hopes that the stake sale will help Cowen to further consolidate its business in core areas like investment banking, equities, research, and investment management. The brokerage firm also plans to enhance its presence in the Chinese market after the sale.



"We have been looking for strategic partners who could help us scale our business outside the US, particularly in China," Jeffrey Solomon, Cowen's president told the Financial Times.



Both companies are bonded by their common interest in financial services, but CEFC continues to earn a majority of its revenue from the oil and gas business. In 2014, the Chinese energy firm earned 60 percent of its revenue from oil and gas business and only 25 percent from financial service business.



This latest deal marks the second investment by a Chinese firm in an American company this week after Tencent snapped up a five percent stake in the California-based electric car firm Tesla a few days ago. Apparently, the talks of an impending trade war between China and U.S. as well as Chinese regulator's crackdown on capital flight seem to have no impact on these investment deals.



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TagsCEFC, CEFC China Energy Co., Cowen Group, china, China and U.S.
(Photo : Getty Images. ) U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday evening tweeted that his upcoming meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping will be a "difficult one."

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U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday again resorted to his trademark tweets to rake up the trade issues with Beijing ahead of his next week meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping. Trump's tough trade tweets came barely hours after China officially confirmed Xi and Trump's meeting on April 6 and 7 in Florida.



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"The meeting next week with China will be a very difficult one in that we can no longer have massive trade deficits and job losses," Trump tweeted. "American companies must be prepared to look at other alternatives."



The U.S. President's latest tweets underscore the fact that trade issues will dominate next week's highly anticipated meeting with Xi. The meeting's trade agenda was partly set-up after the U.S. administration recently launched series of attacks against China's alleged unfair trade practices.



The tough trade talks against China is seen as an indication that Trump's promise of trade war against Beijing in last year's campaign was not simply election rhetoric. The outspoken Republican leader repeatedly described the second largest economy as a "currency manipulator" and accused China of stealing American jobs. He repeatedly raised the Chinese steel dumping issue during their election rallies.



But Trump's plan to launch a trade war is not finding much support in the American corporate world, with most corporate leaders urging the U.S. leader to drop his plan. The consensus among the American business leaders is that trade war against Beijing will equally affect the U.S. business interests.



This sentiment was reiterated by General Electric Chief Executive Officer, Jeff Immelt, at a business function on Thursday. "The country loses if we don't trade. The relationship with China is key," Immelt said at a function hosted by an aviation club. He added that if the U.S. gives up on trade, it will lose the bargaining clout across the world.



China is among the top export markets for U.S companies despite the fact that it shares a trade deficit with the second largest economy. This deficit is apparently due to several big U.S. companies choosing China as their manufacturing base, something that has not gone too well with the U.S president.



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Tagsdonald trump, Xi Jingping, china, President Xi, China and U.S.
(Photo : Getty Images. ) Norway Friday confirmed that Norway Prime Minister Erna Solberg will visit China on April 7-10 to hold talks with president Xi Jingping and Primer Li Keqiang.

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Norwegian Prime Minister Erna Solberg will arrive in China next week to hold discussions with President Xi Jinping on A host of bilateral issues, Norway said on Friday. The visit is likely to prove a big step in normalizing the bilateral ties after both countries decided to restore their diplomatic ties last year.



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The visit will take place between April 7-10, with Solberg slated to meet Chinese Premier Li Keqiang and other high profile officials during the visit.



"China is our largest trading partner in Asia. The normalization of our relations will create major opportunities for Norwegian businesses and for job creation. We also hope to resume negotiations on a free trade agreement with China," Solberg said in a statement.



The Norwegian leader is the last high profile leader to meet Xi before he flies to the U.S. for a highly-anticipated meeting with President Donald Trump.



China and Norway Relation hit by Noble Prize Fiasco



The relationship between Beijing and Oslo got strained after the Noble prize fiasco in 2010. The Noble committee's decision to award the 2010 Noble peace prize award to Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo did not go down too well with Beijing.



China saw the decision as yet another attempt by the western forces to defame the Asian country on the pretext of human right violations.



After the tensions had settled down over the award, Norway made efforts to woo Beijing. For instance, it accepted China's application to join the Arctic Council as an observer. The Solberg government also went to the extent of refusing to meet the Dalai Lama, whom Chinese government considers a dangerous insurgent.



Oslo's efforts were finally rewarded, after China agreed to resume full diplomatic relationship with the Scandinavian country in mid-December last year.



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(Photo : Getty Images) Japan is considering of relaxing its visa policies to attract more Chinese tourists.

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Japan is reportedly considering to attract more Chinese tourists by easing restrictions on visas, three sources with direct knowledge of the matter said on Thursday.



The government is looking atlowering the prescribed minimum annual income a Chinese citizen needs to have to get a multiple-entry visa for 4 million yen ($35,749) to 3 million yen ($26,983), the insiders said.



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"We want to announce this policy when the time is right depending on the pace of increase in hotel accommodation," one of the sources, who refused to be named as the plan is not yet final, said.



According to Reuters, Japan is aiming to extend its tourism boom and offer support consumer spending. Since Prime Minister Shinzo Abe assumed office in 2012, Japan has been gradually relaxing its visa requirement for Asian countries.



In fact, based on the figures of the Japan National Tourism Organization, the country's foreign visitors increased 21.8 percent to a record 24 million in 2016. Topping the visitor's list are Chinese tourists, accounting for 26.5 percent of all arrivals.



While Japan plans to ease its tourist visa requirements to attract more Chinese tourists, it also tightened its visa application process for students from Burma, China, Sri Lanka, Nepal, and Vietnam. The country is starting to ask overseas students from the said countries to send further proof of their financial capabilities.



The policy followed to curb breaches of visa conditions. Japan usually allows students at language schools 28 hours a week, but some reportedly exceed the given timeframe.



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(Photo : US Navy) JDAMs aboard a U.S. Navy aircraft carrier.

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The U.S. Air Force and U.S. Navy are running short of smart bombs due to continuous aerial bombing operations against ISIS in Iraq and Syria, and are asking The Boeing Company to accelerate production of these weapons.



Both armed services want more bomb kits amid declining stockpiles of Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) kits. JDAM is a guidance kit that converts unguided bombs, or "dumb bombs," into all-weather "smart" munitions.



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JDAM-equipped bombs are guided by an integrated inertial guidance system coupled to a Global Positioning System (GPS) receiver. The laser-guided JDAM was first delivered in 2008.



The Air Force in December 2015 revealed bomb stockpiles were falling on account of the stepped-up pace of the air war, which began in 2014. It's flying more than half the sorties for Operation Inherent Resolve, the name of the operation against ISIS.



The stockpiles were strained further when the U.S. began sharing smart bombs with coalition partners. As a result, some 80 smart bombs a day were being dropped on ISIS.



"We're ramping significantly across the portfolio, not just with JDAM," said Cindy Gruensfelder, Boeing's director of direct attack munitions.



She said Boeing will be on track by July to boost JDAM production to 150 tail kits a day, or over 36,500 tail kits per year. Gruensfelder said Boeing is looking to exceed the 36,000 kit annual production ceiling because of international partner requests.



The ramp-up began last July when an average of 130 tail kits a day were being produced. Boeing has produced more than 300,000 JDAM kits.



Production of the popular GBU-39 Small Diameter Bombs (SDBs) will also increase. Boeing, which makes the GBU-39 kit, currently produces 1,000 units a year.



Boeing expects to produce 5,000 units a year for the next lot, with the potential of 8,000 the following year.



SDB is a 110 kg precision-guided glide bomb that provides aircraft with the ability to carry a larger number of smart bombs. Most Air Force aircraft will be able to carry a pack of four SDBs in place of a single 907 kg bomb.



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TagsU.S. Air Force, U.S. Navy, smart bombs, Joint Direct Attack Munition, JDAM, GBU-39 Small Diameter Bomb, SDB
(Photo : GETTY IMAGES) Let's hope this one doesn't die: The State Forestry Administration and Sichuan provincial people's Government released 3-year-old female giant panda 'Hua Yan' and 2-year-old female giant panda 'Zhang Meng' into the wild at the Liziping National Nature Reserve in October 2016 in Ya'an.

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The endangered giant panda community lost another individual as one male panda was found to have been mauled by wild animals.



The Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding said on Friday that Hesheng, a giant panda bred in captivity, died in September 2016 two months after he was released into the wild in Sichuan Province.



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Autopsy reports revealed that Hesheng died of septicemia due to a bacterial infection. He was attacked by unknown animals.



On September 11, 2016, Hesheng was still spotted roaming some 3.5 kilometers away from where he was released. But on September 27, his GPS collar sent an alarm to the research base which immediately started a search for the male panda.



Hesheng's limp body was found with injuries on his right shoulder, right ear, and right hind limb. He was born in 2013 and underwent training at the Liziping Nature Reserve from March 2016 until his release to the wild in July of the same year.



The male panda, born in 2013, had undergone training at Liziping Nature Reserve from March 2016 and was released into the wild in July.



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A recent push in Canada to encourage euthanasia patients to donate their organs is working.



In Ontario, the first province to report data, 26 people who died by lethal injection decided to donate tissue or organs since the Medical Aid in Dying Act (MAID) came into effect last June, according to the National Post. A total of 388 people have chosen to die by lethal injection in Ontario, over half of the 744 total Canadians who have been euthanized.



Proponents of linking organ harvesting to euthanasia point to the shortage of organ transplants readily available and the lower cost associated with euthanasia than with end-of-life care.



Canadian ethicists Julie Allard and Marie-Chantal Fortin encouraged the joining of euthanasia with organ harvesting in an article in December's Journal of Medical Ethics.



But even supporters acknowledge the potential unintended consequences. Allard and Fortin warned in their article that encouraging organ harvesting could put pressure on those diagnosed with terminal illness to consider assisted suicide as an alternative sense of purpose.



Jennifer Chandler, professor of policy and ethics at the University of Ottawa, said linking euthanasia with organ harvesting might create pressure to continue with the MAID and make it hard for terminally ill people to change their minds about taking their lives.



The people in the euthanasia lobby want people to think of it as a social good, Alex Schadenberg, director of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition, told me. Once people accept euthanasia, the logical next step is organ harvesting, Schadenberg said. He pointed to the worldwide push for organ harvesting not hours or minutes after someone's heart stops, but while their heart is still beating. The practicewhich supporters argue will allow the organ to better graft into recipientis being considered in Belgium and is legal in the Netherlands if patients are brain-damaged and their death seems imminent.



This is the future in the dark world of euthanasia that we haveeuthanasia by organ donation, Schadenberg said.



He added that this should come as no surprise: The horrible thing is that were killing people. That is absolutely devastating to our culture. But the fact that youre doing organ donation with it too, is only a natural outcome of the concept of killing people.

Courtesy: WORLD News Service

Photo courtesy: Thinkstock/MrPants

Publication date: March 31, 2017
A Christian pastor in China who is being held in prison under inhumane conditions is reportedly suffering serious health issues.

Christian Today reports that Pastor Yang Hua of the Living Stone house church in Guiyang was arrested on December 9, 2015, tried later in the month, and then sentenced to two and a half years in Nanming District Detention Center prison.

Yang is suffering from severe inflammation affecting his legs. He is reportedly barely able to stand and has described the pain as truly unbearable.

I haven't been able to walk or go to the toilet by myself during this period, he added.

Although he has alerted prison guards to his condition, the medical help he has received has not matched the severity of his condition. He has been prescribed painkillers and penicillin, the later of which the detention center clinic does not even have.

Yangs condition is so severe that his legs may have to be amputated due to the blood vessel inflammation.

China has been increasing its crackdown on churches and has jailed many pastors and church leaders, as well as human rights lawyers. Government officials have also shut down or even destroyed churches which are not government-sanctioned.

Yangs lawyers say it is imperative that he receives medical attention immediately for his critical condition.

Photo courtesy: Thinkstockphotos.com

Publication date: March 31, 2017
Women entering a Christian church in Iran were hassled if they were not wearing a hijab, which is required in public places in Iran.

Women who were entering the Orthodox Christian Holy Savior Cathedral in Isfahan were told by Irans morality police that they had to wear Islamic veils.

While some women complied, others removed their veils in an act of defiance and protest. Many specifically took issue with being forced to wear the veils at a Christian place of worship, which does not ascribe to Islamic laws of modesty.

Irans morality police are often brutal in their enforcement of these modesty laws, according to Heatstreet. Women who break the laws are sometimes arrested or even beaten.

One woman shared her experience being confronted by the morality police with the My Stealthy Freedom social media campaign:

The photo that I sent you shows the Vanak [sic] Church of Isfahan. It was ridiculous! Two female officers blamed us for what wed been wearing, which is such a shame, isnt it?

How would American Muslims react if they were forced to enter their mosques without hijab? Why should we put up with such a disgrace to women in the name of law? Isnt this a type of bullying?

Photo courtesy: Thinkstockphotos.com

Publication date: March 31, 2017
It was something the Rev. Franklin Graham never had seen before: a dark fog hovering over his office.

The head of Christian relief organization Samaritans Purse wondered if he was seeing the shadow of death described in the Psalms.

And he wondered if it was coming for Kent Brantly, a Samaritans Purse doctor who became the first American diagnosed with Ebola while battling historys worst outbreak of the virus.

Graham recounts the story in Facing Darkness, a documentary produced by Samaritans Purse recounting its fight to save Brantly from the Ebola epidemic in West Africa. The film debuts in select theaters Thursday (March 30) and will return for encore showings on April 10.

The documentary is a testimony to Gods faithfulness, and it will show you that in the darkest hour of ones life, God has not left you. Hes still there, Graham told RNS.

Ebola is a virus spread through contact with bodily fluids. Its symptoms include fever, vomiting, diarrhea and both internal and external bleeding.

Rumors had been swirling about the virus in West Africa for months before the first case arrived in June 2014 at a missionary hospital near Monrovia, Liberia.

By the time the outbreak subsided nearly a year later, about 28,000 Ebola cases and 11,000 deaths had been reported in Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone, according to the World Health Organization. The last confirmed Ebola patient in Liberia tested negative for the disease in June 2016, it said.

Brantly was director of the Ebola treatment unit at ELWA (Eternal Love Winning Africa) Hospital when he was infected with the virus. The hospital is part of SIM, an international Christian mission organization.

At the moment when Christians were gathered in prayer throughout Samaritans Purse offices and around the world, Brantly was being given an experimental treatment. His body convulsed for a tense 40 minutes, according to the head of Samaritans Purse. Then Brantly got up from his bed, his condition dramatically improved.

In a lot of ways the crisis is over. The crisis of the Ebola outbreak was successfully brought to an end, but its a new kind of crisis, Brantly said.

Its not as attractive to international news media. Its not as easy to get passionate about for people who are not already invested there. But there is so much to be done in the care of Ebola survivors and the rebuilding of health care infrastructure and the rebuilding of trust between people and governments and communities. I think the world does need to remember the people of West Africa are still dealing with the effects of Ebola.

Brantlys case may have turned international attention to the epidemic, but he wasnt the only health care worker who became sick while treating Ebola patients in Liberia.

Samuel Brisbane, one of Liberias most high-profile doctors, became its first doctor to die in the outbreak. American hygienist Nancy Writebol  a personnel coordinator for SIM  and Liberian nurse Barbara Bono also were infected while working in the Ebola treatment unit at ELWA Hospital.

Writebol, like Brantly, was flown to Emory University Hospital in Atlanta for treatment.

Bono fought the virus at ELWA Hospital, worrying, as a single parent, what would happen to her daughter if she died.

The nurse isnt sure how she contracted Ebola, she told RNS during a reporters visit to Liberia organized by Samaritans Purse to deliver medical equipment to a new ELWA Hospital, then under construction.

It could have been from her exposure to a dead woman who had been brought to ELWA Hospital too late, Bono said. Or it could have been from the sick man who gripped her arms as she helped him into bed, his fingernails digging through her protective gear and into her skin.

As she cleaned the deep cut in her forearm, she told a friend, God is in control.

Days later, she was sick. She spent 14 days in the Ebola treatment center.

But now, she said, I am able to stand and say, God is great because in all things he worked it out good on my behalf.

Bono still is a nurse at ELWA Hospital, and Writebol since has returned, as well, working in the hospitals clinic for Ebola survivors and facilitating Bible-based trauma healing groups.

Many suffer from lingering pain and vision problems  and, more than anything, a stigma toward survivors, Writebol said. But when she shares with them she, too, had had the virus, she said, she can see their walls come down.

What had been a dark time in her life has become an amazing opportunity to share her Christian faith with other Ebola survivors and help them walk through trauma, she said.

I think coming back was just another surrender to the Lord that no matter what we went through, we trusted him, and we had faith God was going to use it, Writebol said.

Even in difficult days, we still trust and believe that this is where God brought us.

RNS reporter Emily McFarlan Miller was part of a group of journalists who traveled to Liberia on a trip funded by Samaritans Purse

Courtesy: Religion News Service

Photo: Dr. Kent Brantly serves at Liberias ELWA Hospital. From Samaritans Purse Facing Darkness, which releases March 30, 2017.

Photo courtesy: Samaritan's Purse

Publication date: March 31, 2017
Recently, Christian consulting enterprise Project Care," has published comparative demographics of the Christian and Muslim populations from 1990 to 2010. According to this report, while the percentage of the Christians is the pretty much same, the number of Muslims increased nearly two-fold.

Christianity feels threatened by the great expansion of Islam, and is extremely concerned with the mission of the Muslim religion. Sometimes, Christianity's aggressive evangelizing in the name of missions has brought the Christian Church into conflict with Islam. More recently, as Islam is actively propagating in Korea, it is a huge issue for the Christian Church to respond to this expansion of Islam. How does Christianity respond to this rapid Islamic expansion?

There was a similar situation in the Middle Ages when Luther lived. The emerging presence of Islam into the European continent was a threat to Christian Church. At the time, Luther expressed the views on the religion of Islam and advised how the Church should respond to Islam. I believe that Luthers views and advice on Islam let the Church know how to cope with the Muslim expansion.

Luther lived during a time when fear of Islam was dominant. Particularly, the Turks were expanding their military power in Europe, specifically at the doorstep of Vienna. For this, Gregory Miller, a professor of Malone University states: To a large degree, the Turkish threat was so terrifying because many Germans understood the conflict between the Habsburg and Ottoman Empires to be a struggle not between political powers but between the face of Christendom and that of its arch-enemy, Islam.

As early as 1518, Luther identified the Islamic faith as the scourge of God and believed that the Muslims were Gods punishment upon a sinful Christendom which had, among other sins, tolerated the papal abomination. The Turks would function as a German schoolmaster who must correct and teach the German people to repent their sins and fear God.

At this time, Luthers works showed that Christians need to repent their sins and do inward preparation before the present catastrophe.

In his work, Explanations of the Ninety-Five theses (1518), Luther said: to fight against the Turk is the same as resisting God, who visits our sin upon us with this rod. On War Against the Turk of 1529, Luther uses the same language, describing the Turk as the rod of Gods wrath by which God is punishing the world. This very conviction led him to call for Christians to repent and pray.

In his other work, Preface to the Tract on the Religion and Customs of the Turks (1530), Luther said: We see that the religion of the Turks or Mohammed is far more splendid in ceremonies and, I might almost say, in customs than ours, even including that of the religious or all clerics. The modesty and simplicity of their food, clothing, dwellings, and everything else as well as the fasts, prayers and common gatherings of the people that this book reveals are nowhere seen among us  or rather it is impossible for any people to be persuaded to them  Our religion is a mere shadow when compared to them (Muslims) and our people clearly profane when compared to them.

However, this is not to say that Luther accepted the Islamic faith. Rather, Luthers intention was to point out that the teachings of Islam contradicted the main doctrines of salvation and his central tenet, justification by grace through faith in Christ. Luther believed that the Islamic faith was a faith patched together from the faith of Jews, Christians and heathens. He explains the chief theological differences between Christianity and Islam in the following two ways:

First, the Muslim faith is a faith of justification by works. For this, Luther states: If you are pious and just, and if you perform good works, you are saved. Thus, for Luther, the Muslim possesses a false righteousness that strives to be holy, not through faith in the merits of Christ, but through his own self-chosen works. The Muslim strives to do good according to the light and understanding of reason and to be saved in this way.

Second, like their ancestor Nestorius, the Muslims believe that Jesus was only Marys son and not the Son of God. They hold Christ to be an excellent prophet and a great man who preached to his own line and completed his work before his death just like any other prophet. Christ, however, is not as great a prophet as Mohammed, who is to be worshipped and adored in Christs stead. Thus, the Muslims refuse to accept Jesus as the true God and a true man. The doctrinal disagreement is about the two natures of Christ, which is the central doctrine for Christianity.

As mentioned above, on Luthers view and advice on the threat of Islam in Europe during 16th century Europe, we summarized the following:

First, the emerging presence of Islam into the European continent allows Christians to repent their sins and fear God. Luther advised that Christian Church was to admonish the papists to stop blaspheming God and to admonish the ungrateful, wanton Christian people to improve their behavior, to honor God's Word, and to call on God in prayer. The modesty and simplicity in Muslim lifestyle had been a catalyst for contemporary Christians to reform the false religious customs.

Second, by examining the study and reflection of Islam faith, Luther wanted to point out the false teachings of Islam. The Muslims believed that if we are pious and just, and if we perform good works, we are saved. In addition to this, they disagree the two natures of Christ, which is the central doctrine for Christianity. This means Islam is not a religion but rather a philosophy because they emphasize the human reason.

Today, our Christian Church is also facing the threat of Islam like the time Luther lived. How does the Christian Church response to Islam? I think that it is right response for the Christian Church to maintain that our faith be secularized and to know exactly the false teachings of the Islam faith, rather than Christians aggressively evangelizing and converting to Muslim in the name of missions.'

Reverend and Doctor Jin O, Jeong is an assistant pastor for Korean congregation at Zion Lutheran Church, Belleville, IL. He graduated from Luther University and received a Ph.D from Yousei University. He was also a Research Fellow at Hebrew University and Visiting Scholar at Yale Divinity School. Tel: 618-920-9311 Email : jjeong@zionbelleville.org
Why do calculations of Christians killed for their faith worldwide each year range from 1,000 to 100,000? The reason largely comes down to one country: the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

Researchers disagree on what to do with the approximately 4 million people who died in the Central African nations civil war from 2000 to 2010. Meanwhile, the country has remained prone to violence, leading Catholic news site Crux to examine it in March as the new look of Christian martyrdom. (The death of an Eastern Mennonite University graduate investigating DRC violence for the United Nations drew international headlines weeks later.)

The DRC is an example of todays crop of new martyrs, who generally arent being killed for reasons directly related to their religious beliefs, but rather the values and humanitarian stances those beliefs inspire, according to Crux.

That makes them hard to count. Are the nuns who were shot while running ...

1
Amid Conflict and Looming Famine in South Sudan, the Church Offers Hope

Contact: World Council of Churches, +41 79 507 6363; www.oikoumene.org/press



GENEVA, MARCH 31, 2017 /Christian Newswire/ -- For the general overseer of the South Sudan Council of Churches (SSCC) there is trauma and hopelessness in his country, and the only institution that can offer hope at the moment is the church.

Photo: Rev. Dr Isaiah Majok Dau, presiding bishop of the Sudan Pentecostal Church.  Peter Kenny/WCC



Rev. Dr Isaiah Majok Dau is also presiding bishop of the Sudan Pentecostal Church, which in turn belongs to an ecumenical council that includes all the traditions of Christianity in the country.



"We are experiencing levels of violence we have never seen before," says the bishop.



"I talk as a church person, as a person who is involved in the situation every day, listening and hearing from both sides and the ordinary person in the street," says quiet-spoken Dau, whose words carry a poignant power.



"I also talk to you as a child of war. Anyone who is in their sixties in South Sudan is a child of war. Some of us were born just after the first war broke out in 1955.



"We have lived in the war, have married in the war, we have children and grandchildren in war. It is not a good thing to be in that situation," says the bishop.



He paid his first visit to Geneva and the World Council of Churches (WCC) on 27 March and attended a meeting of the Ecumenical Network of South Sudan - European Hub, which issued a pastoral message to the SSCC.



The message called for prayer and a "strong momentum of engagement and advocacy" to contribute to the scheduled visit of Pope Francis to South Sudan towards the end of the year, which could boost peace initiatives.



'On the brink of collapse'

Dr Nigussu Legesse, WCC programme executive for advocacy in Africa, started the meeting saying, "South Sudan is on a brink of collapse - economically, socially, militarily and in other ways.



"It is engulfed in a mutually reinforcing war system that involves more than two principal players: the government led by the SPLM, and the opposition."



SPLM stands for Sudan People's Liberation Movement, a political party in South Sudan.



"The latest crisis in South Sudan is the declaration of famine by the government and also the United Nations, where 100,000 people are in danger of dying of famine and one million people are on the verge of that fate," Legesse said.



There are 5.5 million people estimated to be currently severely food insecure and at least 7.5 million people across South Sudan - almost two thirds of the population - need humanitarian assistance.



"Three years conflict have eroded livelihoods and disrupted farming," said Legesse.



He noted that in African countries "the first generation of liberation war heroes have felt entitled to maximise personal benefits after years or decades of sacrifice".



Legesse cited among them, Zimbabwe, where 93-year-old Robert Mugabe has ruled for 37 years, Eritrea and Uganda.



When South Sudan became independent on 9 July 2011, after many decades of brutal war with Khartoum government forces in Sudan, the world was filled with optimism for the world's newest nation, since the churches had played a key role in helping broker the process.



'Community of nations'

"We thought South Sudan would be in the community of nations," says Bishop Dau. "But then 2013 shattered that," when people in South Sudan accelerated bitter conflicts within themselves.



During part of the earlier war, the one for independence, the bishop had managed to complete a masters and doctorate of theology from Stellenbosch University, South Africa, focussing on suffering and the role of the church in South Sudan.



"The events of the last few years are even more devastating because they come after we had a level of hope," said Dau.



In December, however, the government in Juba managed to partly alleviate the situation in the capital.



"We in the church should extend it from Juba and across the country," said the SSCC general overseer, explaining that churches in traditional communities are playing a conciliatory role.



"Whether the government will tap into that is a question for another day," said Dau.



'Message of hope'

"With the looming famine and economic state, we in the church are giving a message of hope. This is not just pie in the sky. Good will come of it if we work for it. The Gospel gives hope to the people.



"As a people we have been there. We have been in darker places before and we came out of it because we pulled together."



Rev. Dr Andre Karamaga, general secretary of the All Africa Conference of Churches (AACC), concurred that, "this is a critical time for South Sudan".



He said that the ecumenical family has been involved in South Sudan since the inception of the AACC in 1963.



The AACC leader also noted that when it comes to national church councils, "in Africa we have 14 countries in which all the churches are involved. South Sudan is among them."



The SSCC includes Anglican, Orthodox, Pentecostal, and a wide swathe of Protestant traditions along with Roman Catholics, and Legesse said that the council always refers to itself as "the church", which has been "inspiring".



Bishop Dau said, "Somehow the people of South Sudan have belief at this time and we have hope in the churches. The church is the symbol of unity. It places a huge responsibility on us to remain together.



"Unity is beautiful, but it is not always easy. Why is it easier to be divided rather than united?"



He also conceded, "Part of the problem in South Sudan has been what we say, and hate speech has been a problem, even sometimes from the pulpit."



In April 2016, a peace deal for South Sudan was struck, but it soon floundered.



Ferdinand von Habsburg-Lothringen, senior advisor on peace and reconciliation at the SSCC, said at the Geneva meeting, "In Juba very few people have confidence that the peace agreement has any hope."



He added, "People have used the word comatose and dead for the peace agreementWe have a divergent set of opinions where South Sudan is right now. There is a feeling that the situation is intractable."



Habsburg-Lothringen said that there are divisions within the political sphere "with a very narrow band of people driving the conflict".



The day before the ecumenical group met in Geneva, the United Nations humanitarian coordinator for South Sudan, Eugene Owusu, strongly condemned the killing of six aid workers in an ambush on 25 March. The aid workers were travelling from Juba to Pibor.



"I am appalled and outraged by the heinous murder yesterday of six courageous humanitarians in South Sudan," said Owusu. "At a time when humanitarian needs have reached unprecedented levels, it is entirely unacceptable that those who are trying to help are being attacked and killed."



South Sudan Council of Churches



The World Council of Churches promotes Christian unity in faith, witness and service for a just and peaceful world. An ecumenical fellowship of churches founded in 1948, today the WCC brings together 348 Protestant, Orthodox, Anglican and other churches representing more than 550 million Christians in over 120 countries, and works cooperatively with the Roman Catholic Church. The WCC general secretary is the Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit, from the [Lutheran] Church of Norway.
Set to be offered at auction for only the second time in its history on 4 April, this exceptional mask is considered a masterpiece of archaic African art

This is an incredibly exciting moment for the art market and Paris to witness the return of an iconic masterpiece, says Susan Kloman, Christies International Head of African and Oceanic Art, of the exceptional Rasmussen-de Havenon Dogon mask, to be auctioned for only the second time in history on 4 April at Christies Paris. Held in private hands for more than 20 years, the mask is an iconic example of archaic art by the Dogon people. This ethnic group is based in Malis arid central plains and escarpments near the town of Bandiagara, where it is understood to have been living since the 15th century. The art developed by the Dogon referenced the style of the regions ancient inhabitants, while also demonstrating a highly innovative approach to form.

Together, the man and woman form a primordial couple, Kloman continues. The identity of the figures indicate that this mask would have been used as part of a traditional mourning ceremony known as dama, which was ordinarily reserved for those of high social status. Male members of a group known as la societe Awa would wear masks to perform a dance, intended to restore stability to a community following death.

Carved in wood, this mask represents a male face below a smaller, female figure that, remarkably for a Dogon mask, is shown kneeling rather than standing. Its a unique motif, Kloman explains. The maker has associated the male and female by carving them in the same voluptuous, stylised manner. The female is thought to represent Yasigine, the first woman, comparable to Eve in Christianity.

This unique example is one of the most widely referenced works in studies of Dogon art, having first been documented shortly after its discovery in the 1950s by a network of African merchants. They included Mamdou Sylla in Bamako, who sold the mask to one of the greatest dealers of the period: the Parisian Rene Rasmussen, whose shop was in the galleries of Saint-Germain-des-Pres.

Rasmussen was among the earliest collectors of Dogon material, and acquired this piece at a time when Europeans were only just beginning to understand the scope, quality, and iconography of art from the region, explains Kloman. So taken with the mask was the dealer that, for a decade, he refused to sell it, finally succumbing to a series of insistent offers from Gaston de Havenon  a collector who was also struck by the beauty of the Dogon mask.

People like Sylla, Rasmussen and de Havenon instantly recognised the quality of the Dogon mask, says the specialist. First exhibited in 1971 at the Museum of African Art in Washington, the mask went on to be shown worldwide  most recently, in a major retrospective of Dogon art at Pariss Musee du Quai Branly. De Havenon kept the mask until his death, and it became the most prized item in his collection.

This mask has always been highly desirable; the design is completely unique and its quality is exceptional, says Kloman. Although we dont know the name of its maker, its clear that this is the work of a master sculptor. This wouldnt have been the first of his works, but its what survives. Thought to date from the 18th century, it is also one of the earliest known examples of Dogon art.

The mask that most resembles this example in style, known as Le Maitre de la maternite rouge, is held in the Louvre  an indication of the importance of this work in the canon of African art. The combination of quality and age, together with original iconography, make this rare mask unforgettable, confirms Kloman. For it to return to Paris, where it was first discovered by collectors, is something of a homecoming; its a real occasion.
How much do you love the place where you work? We're going to let you count the ways.

Top Workplaces 2017 Nominate your company for the Top Workplaces survey, conducted for the Chronicle by WorkplaceDynamics. Online: www.chron.com/nominate By phone: (713) 429-0375 Deadline: May 12 UPDATE: The deadline has been extended to June 23. Read last year's coverage: www.chron.com/topworkplaces See More Collapse

This fall, the Chronicle will publish its eighth annual Top Workplaces report for greater Houston based on employee surveys. To nominate your company for an award, just tell us what you like: the flexible hours, the perks, the benefits, the conscientious management, the foosball tables - or maybe the nap room.
Harris County Sheriff's homicide detectives are investigating a man who shot himself Thursday night in the parking lot of a health clinic in northwest Harris County.

The man, who has not been identified, was spotted about 6:30 p.m. with a gun inside a truck parked in the 10920 Fry Road in the Cypress area, authorities said.
Dear Abby:

I recently married a man with kids. I have kids as well. Combining two families is hard, but we're figuring it out.

When we were dating, he would text me during the day to tell me he loved me. Now that we're married, I never hear from him during the day. I have told him numerous times that I enjoyed those texts and how much they brightened my day. He always promises to do better but doesn't. I tried texting him instead and got only emojis in return.

I came to the conclusion that that's just how he is, and I love him enough to overlook it. Well, last night I needed to use his phone because my battery was dead. When I texted his daughter to pick up something on the way home, I saw that he texts her every day telling her he loves her.

I'm afraid to say anything because I don't want him to think I was snooping or that I'm jealous of his kids, but it really hurt my feelings.

Should this bother me? My best friend says I may be depressed. Does it sound like it? We both have custody of all of our kids, so it's not like he doesn't see them every day. Their mom is in their lives.

Texting in Tennessee

Dear Texting:

Whether or not this "should" bother you isn't the point. It does bother you. You have expressed to your husband what you need, and he has chosen to ignore it. It's almost as if, now that you two are married, he feels he has "closed the sale" and doesn't need to put forth more effort.

I don't know whether your friend is right in her estimation that you are depressed. But if you are, I can understand why. Rather than brood, tell your husband you needed to use his phone because yours wasn't working and how what you saw made you feel. It's great that he loves his daughter, but he should also be communicating the same to you.

Dear Abby:

My wife, "Nancy," and I are working on fixing our marital problems. She confides in an "older wise woman" at church who has been telling Nancy she's a lousy Christian because she stayed married to me.

How can I defend my wife from this defamation of character that makes her feel weak? I told Nancy to avoid her. I have told the older wise woman to leave us alone. Nothing has worked.

Frustrated in the Pew

Dear Frustrated:

Your wife needs a better role model. Point out to her that Christians should not judge and insult others.

Allow me to offer a suggestion that may make your wife feel instantly better: Change pews.

Dear Abby:

When someone anonymously pays your tab in a restaurant, and the staff drops enough hints to reveal the identity of this person, what's the protocol for the recipient?

Should I have walked over and thanked that person? My day was definitely made brighter by this kind gesture. I will certainly try to do something similar when I can.

Surprised in Arizona

Dear Surprised:

The protocol is the same as with any other gift. A show of appreciation is always welcome, and it would not have been a breach of etiquette to offer one.

DearAbby.comDear Abby P.O. Box 69440 Los Angeles, CA 90069 Universal Press Syndicate
Cleveland Police Department is urging residents to be wary of scammers who are calling and identifying themselves as IRS agents.

"We want to protect our citizens and help them avoid being ripped off by these unscrupulous scammers," said Capt. Scott Felts, spokesperson for the department.

Felts said that residents can avoid being scammed by understanding that the IRS will never:

Call to demand immediate payment over the phone, nor will the agency call about taxes owed without first having mailed you a bill.

Threaten to immediately bring in local police or other law-enforcement groups to have you arrested for not paying.

Demand that you pay taxes without giving you the opportunity to question or appeal the amount they say you owe.

Require you to use a specific payment method for your taxes, such as a prepaid debit card, gift card or wire transfer.

Ask for credit or debit card numbers over the phone.

"Do not engage or respond with scammers," Felts said.

Here's what to do if you receive a suspicious phone call or message:

If you receive a call from someone claiming to be from the IRS, and you do not owe tax, or if you are immediately aware that it's a scam, do not engage with the scammer and do not give out any information. Just hang up.

If you receive a telephone message from someone claiming to be from the IRS, and you do not owe tax, or if you are immediately aware that it's a scam, do not call back.

If you receive a phone call from someone claiming to be with the IRS, and you owe tax or think you may owe tax, do not give any information. Call the IRS directly back at 1-800-829-1040 to find out more information.

You can also contact Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration to report scam calls by calling 1-800-366-4484 or by using the "IRS Impersonation Scam Reporting" form on their website. You may also want to report the scam to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) by using the "FTC Complaint Assistant" to report persons pretending to be from the government; please add "IRS Telephone Scam" in notes.
An august group of Texas lawmen gathered at the Liberty County Sheriff's Office Firearms Range in Cleveland Tuesday, March 28, for the Region 2 Fifth Annual Firearms Qualification and Luncheon. More than 200 members of law enforcement, mostly active and retired state troopers and Texas Rangers, went through training before sitting down to swap stories and enjoy a meal of fried catfish.

Region 2 encompasses a 35-county area that extends as far north as Shelby County, as far south as Matagorda County, and every county in between.

Major Jason Taylor, who oversees Region 2 for the Texas Rangers, said the luncheon is a way to give back to the men and women who gave so much to the state of Texas and its residents.

"You can look out here and just imagine all the bad guys these people put in jail, all the good deeds they did for the state of Texas and the lives saved," Taylor said. "They paved the way for us and we stand upon their shoulders."

The luncheon was started five years ago by a retired Texas Ranger, Capt. Dan North of Huntsville. With hundreds of retired state troopers and Rangers in need of qualifying in firearms proficiency to retain their peace officer commissions, North thought it would be good to get as many as possible together for what he calls a "pistol shoot."

North said he learned about the Cleveland firing range through a friend, Ranger Kevin Pullen, who put him in touch with retired Liberty County Constable Royce Wheeler, who operates the range for Liberty County Sheriff Bobby Rader.

"The first year we had about 50-75 people show up. It has increased in size every year," he said.

This year's luncheon was organized by Texas Rangers Brandon Bess and Ryan Clendennen, Wheeler, Sheriff Rader and sheriff's office personnel, Sgt. John Coleman of Dayton Police Department and Sgt. Judd Russell of Montgomery County Sheriff's Office.

"I want to thank Royce Wheeler for his dedication in making the Liberty County Sheriff's Office Range one of the best in Texas and a special thanks to Rangers Bess and Clendennen who organized this event. The range day for the retired Rangers and Texas state troopers was a big success. The participants got to use a top quality range that is being used by not only the Liberty County Sheriff's Office but also at least 19 other agencies," Rader said. "I am glad that the Liberty County Sheriff's Office had the opportunity to host this event and look forward to making it better every year."

Qualifying on firearms wasn't the only draw. Most enjoyed the camaraderie with other lawmen. For many, the luncheons are the only time they see their former coworkers each year.

At 93, Elmer G. Michel, a retired trooper from the Houston area, earned the distinction of being the oldest lawman to qualify and retain his peace officer commission on Tuesday.

Michel joined DPS in June 1953 and retired in 1985. He is a World War II veteran who earned France's equivalent to the U.S. Medal of Honor for participating in the Normandy invasion.

REIGN OF TERROR RECALLED

For another distinguished guest at the luncheon, Ranger Tommy Walker, the luncheon meant a return to his old stomping grounds. In the 1980s, Walker was assigned to Liberty and San Jacinto counties. He is best known locally for his involvement in the investigation that led to the federal prosecution of former San Jacinto County Sheriff James "Humpy" Parker.

Parker's name became synonymous with greed, corruption, abuse of power and torture, and he was the subject of a book titled, "Terror on Highway 59."

Walker and the late Ranger Wesley Stiles, who worked under Capt. North at the time, were assigned to the Parker investigation after the FBI failed to put together a case after months of work.

"The FBI had tried to do something with him. They had rented an office in downtown Coldspring, but after six months they couldn't get anywhere and pulled out," North said. "Joe Ned Dean, who was state district judge for that area at the time, cautioned us when we began. He told me that if we started this, we better finish it or no one would ever get ahead of it."

Because Walker and Stiles had worked in the county prior to the launch of the investigation, they had established a rapport with local residents, which in the end worked in their favor and against the sheriff.

North said Parker's illegal schemes involved pulling over vehicles on US 59, planting drugs inside the vehicle, then arresting the driver and towing the vehicle. Parker and his buddies -- a bondsman, wrecker driver and lawyer -- were organized in the plan.

"The money they took in never found its way into the court system," North said. "They also used waterboarding techniques to get confessions from some of the people they arrested."

In March of 1983, Parker pleaded guilty to two felony civil rights charges and one extortion charge. On the same day, he resigned as sheriff of San Jacinto County, a position he had held since 1969.

North and Walker recall escorting Sheriff Lacy Rogers to the sheriff's office after Rogers was appointed to the position.

"When we walked in the sheriff's office, there were no employees, except this little gal who had been hired on as a dispatcher a couple of weeks prior. There wasn't hardly a stick of furniture left in the building," North said. "When we walked into Parker's old office, there was only a stack of phone books and a phone in the middle of the room."

The Rangers claim the evidence locker had been raided with only junk items left behind.

"For years after that, people would come forward to surrender guns that had been given to them out of evidence by Humpy Parker," Walker said.
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Babies, for all their cuteness, joyful squeals and wonderful-smelling heads, are basically jerks.

Even worse if you're a big brother or big sister, dislodged from the center of your parents' universe by a tiny being who doesn't have the sense to stop peeing in his own bath water.

"The Boss Baby" understands this well. And when it sticks to the core concept, the new entry from DreamWorks Animation is satisfying. But there are distracting side plots - and side plots to the side plots - that sabotage much of what's enjoyable about the movie. In infant care terms, this is a colicky film.

It must have sounded good on paper - having Alec Baldwin voice a baby, who upon his arrival is running the Templeton family like a company president. Director Tom McGrath wisely plays up Baldwin's "Glengarry Glen Ross" connection, with the fast-talking baby announcing that "Cookies are for closers."

More Information 'The Boss Baby' Rated PG: for some mild rude humor Running time: 97 minutes 3 out of 5 stars 'The Boss Baby' Rated PG: for some mild rude humor Running time: 97 minutes xxx See More Collapse

Older brother Tim Templeton is the only one who can hear the baby talk, and they develop a sibling rivalry that amounts to a lot of Sylvester vs. Tweety Bird-style maneuvering. Each brother has a selfish agenda, trying to convince their oblivious parents (voiced by Lisa Kudrow and Jimmy Kimmel) that the other one needs to go.

With a strong director - DreamWorks MVP McGrath also co-directed the "Madagascar" movies and the underrated "Megamind" - and capable writing, this should have been a sure thing.

But the writers greatly complicate things with a war between infants and puppies, a secret new breed of dog and an unnecessary save-the-world plot. With each baby step away from the domestic story of the Templeton family and toward Puppy Co. and its evil CEO, "The Boss Baby" loses its way.

There are charming moments. The Templeton parents' blindness to Boss Baby's corporate attitude ("He carries a briefcase ... does anyone else think that's a little freaky?" Tim Templeton gripes) plays well to the director's skill with comic timing. Like McGrath's "Penguins of Madagascar," there's a movie's worth of humor to be mined from the ruthless capability of something so cute and cuddly.

And DreamWorks Animation, which moved its Bay Area operations south while "The Boss Baby" was still in production, is not lacking in resources. Hans Zimmer, arguably the greatest composer of movie music currently working, found time to finish the "Boss Baby" score between "Hidden Figures" and Christopher Nolan's World War II movie "Dunkirk."

But alas, we must detour to Puppy Co., an excuse to add cute animals and complicated motivations to the movie, while also sabotaging the pacing. The second half is one big heist and chase scene, piling on unnecessary tangents and struggling to find humor.

It doesn't help that there are strong similarities with Sony's equally disorganized yet superior 2016 film "Storks." Both films work off the same premise - that humans don't bear live young.

A screening of "The Boss Baby" is not the worst way to spend a Saturday afternoon. But make sure to pair it with a nature documentary, or renewal of your subscription to National Geographic.
It's no shock Jessica Chastain's latest character is a feminist hero.

In "The Zookeeper's Wife," the historical drama out Friday, Antonina Zabinski saves the lives of hundreds of Jewish people by sheltering them in her Warsaw zoo during WWII. It's a meaty role that shows something rare in American-made Holocaust films - a hero who doesn't engage in violence.

As an actor, Chastain's a bit of a feminist hero herself. Her roles in "Tree of Life," "Interstellar" and "A Most Violent Year" showed that wives, mothers and daughters in male-dominant films can be dynamic, even immense, despite the kind of stereotypical fare often seen in Hollywood. She's spoken often about feminism, but it's her creative work that has offered an urgent need to be more imaginative - and equitable - in the kinds of stories told onscreen.

"I don't think in terms of feminism. Because I'm a feminist. So everything I do is from a feminist point of view," she says over the phone. "I'm not even conscious of it. It is who I am. When I'm choosing a character I'm drawn to women pushing against their expected role."

Ever since seemingly coming out of nowhere in 2011, which saw the release of "The Tree of Life," "The Help" and "Take Shelter," Chastain has shown off her acting chops by playing women with deep, complicated stories. She worried that "The Tree of Life" would lead her to be typecast as the angelic mother, so she sought nearly opposite archetypes in "A Most Violent Year" and "Zero Dark Thirty." "The Zookeeper's Wife," directed by Niki Caro, is yet another step into the original.

"Antonina is feminine and strong and courageous. She is many things," Chastain says of the character.

"Women can actually be more than what society expects them to be and to do."

Zabinski begins the film as just that, the wife of a prominent zoologist and owner of the Warsaw Zoo. But the story, based on Zabinski's journals kept during wartime, sees a housewife who defers to her husband to rise up to the occasion of heroism.

"Antonina is afraid to step out of her husband's shadow. As she gains more responsibility, she's doing it all alone," Chastain says. "At the end of the film, her husband meets her as an equal, instead of one person making the decisions. I found that to be inspiring."

You can see Chastain's Zabinski faced against impossible decisions, as a high-ranking Nazi (played by Daniel Bruhl) makes advances toward her. When she accepts those flirtations, and when her husband catches them in the act, Zabinski and her husband meet face-to-face in a battle of what it means to be a hero.

"She has this man touching her, but she's too fearful to tell him. She's not sharing it with his husband because she's protecting him," Chastain says. "But he's out there putting children on trains, but he doesn't tell her when he comes home because he's protecting her. After that scene is when they make love. When they finally connect. When the secrets stop and they become fully open."

Put another way - the stereotypical male heroism often shown in war films now sees an equal, with a fierce and loving zookeeper's wife. But it's not lost on Chastain that this kind of parity in perspective is hardly seen.

"It's strange having people telling me this is the first movie they've really ever seen made in the U.S. about women in the Holocaust," she says. "You realize, oh that's because there haven't been that diversity in storytelling."

She adds: "When you look at those Holocaust films, yes they've been from a male point of view because they've been male directors and they've been male protagonists. I don't think filmmaking is gender-specific. Women can direct action films, just as men can direct emotional romances. I've been lucky to work with two great directors, in Niki Caro and Kathryn Bigelow."
Brennan's of Houston announced Friday afternoon that its executive chef, Danny Trace, is leaving the kitchen of one of the city's most beloved restaurants. Owner Alex Brennan-Martin communicated by email that today is Trace's last day of service at the restaurant he joined seven years ago.

"Danny has been a valued member of the Commander's Palace family for the past two decades, and has helmed the kitchen at Brennan's of Houston since 2009. On behalf of myself and our entire team, we wish him the very best in all his future endeavors, both personal and professional. Wherever he goes, we remain his fans," Brennan-Martin stated.

QUINTESSENTIAL: Restaurants that define Houston

He added that Brennan's will will announce a new executive chef in "the not too distant future."

In the meantime, he said, the kitchen would be in the hands of longtime chef Jose Arevalo and executive sous chef Martin Weaver, both assisted by former executive chef and current general manager Carl Walker.

Brennan-Martin did not elaborate on the reasons for Trace's departure. Trace could not be reached for comment.

The news comes at what has been a celebratory time for Brennan's, which is marking its 50th anniversary this year. Last year the restaurant enjoyed some well deserved limelight with the publication of "Miss Ella of Commander's Palace," a memoir written by Brennan-Martin's mother, Ella Brennan, and his sister, Ti Martin (who along with Brennan-Martin and their cousin Lally Brennan own and operate Commander's Palace in New Orleans and Brennan's of Houston). Last year also saw the theatrical release of "Ella Brennan: Commanding the Table," a documentary on the life of the legendary New Orleans restaurateur.

In October Trace was named chef of the year at the Houston Culinary Awards presented by My Table magazine in a field that included contemporaries such as Justin Yu of Oxheart and Terrence Gallivan and Seth Siegel-Gardner of The Pass & Provisions.

Trace was named executive chef at Brennan's of Houston in October 2009, plucked from within the Commander's Palace family to lead the reopening of the restaurant after it was destroyed by fire during Hurricane Ike.

Before his post at Brennan's of Houston, he served as executive chef of Commander's Palace & On the Rocks Bar at HarborWalk Village in Destin, Fla. At the time, he was a 10-year veteran of the Commander's Palace group where he began working after graduating from Johnson & Wales. While with that group he worked at Commander's Palace in New Orleans and at the company's Cafe Adelaide.
Roka Akor restaurant isn't ready to be more explicit about its opening date -- the vague "this summer" is the broad time frame.

But it is ready to get Houston restaurant-goers excited about what's to come at the Japanese sushi and steak concept going into the lobby of the 2929 Wesleyan luxury apartment high rise.
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A Houston police sergeant who shot and killed himself Friday morning in his west Houston patrol station was a "great guy, a great personality, a great human being," Chief Art Acevedo said.

The 21-year Houston Police Department veteran appears to have shot himself once in the head, Acevedo said, during a stoic press conference outside the Westside Patrol Station where the victim worked.

The sergeant, whom authorities had not publicly identified as of late Friday, was married and had two children, ages 10 and 12. A source who did not want to be identified said the sergeant was 44.

Police found the sergeant around 8:35 a.m. inside a stairwell on the station's fourth floor. No one heard the gunshot. The fourth floor had been used as a jail space but is now closed because of structural problems, Acevedo said.

Officers working in the station decided to search the facility after they discovered at 7 a.m. the sergeant had not reported for work.

The department will conduct a full "psychological autopsy," Acevedo said, as is standard practice after officer suicides.

The death is not the first to touch Westside Patrol in recent years.

Two years ago, 47-year-old Officer Richard Martin died after a man fleeing police rammed him as he lay a set of strip spikes on the road. Then, a week later, another Westside officer, Jason E. Angeli, 38, shot himself in his car.

Prior to those two deaths, the most recent known suicide by a Houston Police Department officer came in August 2014 when 21-year veteran Rudolph Farias III, under investigation in a ticket-rigging scam, fatally shot himself in a patrol car in a downtown police parking garage.

The death Friday shocked and saddened the victim's colleagues and the rest of the rank-and-file, said Joseph Gamaldi, vice president of the Houston Police Officers Union.

"Anytime anything like this happens, it's an absolute tragedy," he said. "It impacts all of us, whether we knew him or not, because we're all one big family."

More law enforcement officers die each year by suicide than in the line of duty, according to the International Association of Chiefs of Police.

Risk factors for officers include "exposure to violence, suicide, or other job-related stressors; depression, anxiety, or other mental illness; substance abuse; domestic abuse; access to means to kill oneself (e.g., firearms); and poor physical health," according to research cited by the U.S. Department of Justice.

An expert who studies police suicide, John Volanti, found that officers actually have a slightly lower suicide rate than the general public (12 per 100,000 versus 13 per 100,000). He calculated that police have are 8 times more likely to die by suicide than homicide and 3 times more likely to die by suicide than by accidents. About 100-150 officers die by suicide each year, Volanti found.

Last year across the country, 108 police officers took their own lives, according to a study from the Badge of Life, a nonprofit aimed at reducing officer suicides and the impacts of stress and trauma on police officers and retired law enforcement.

The study's author, John Volanti, found that officers are eight times more likely to die by suicide than homicide and three times more likely to die by suicide than by accidents. Sergeants and higher-ranking officers accounted for 22 percent of law enforcement suicides, and 87 percent of suicide victims last year were males. Firearms were used in about 80 percent of the cases.

Research from the U.S. Department of Justice likewise has found that the daily risk and responsibilities of policing put officers at a heightened risk for suicide, due to risk factors like "exposure to violence, suicide, or other job-related stressors; depression, anxiety, or other mental illness; substance abuse; domestic abuse; access to means to kill oneself (e.g., firearms); and poor physical health."

At the Westside Patrol Station Friday, HPD psychological services and chaplain services were on site to counsel the victim's friends and other officers.

"Everybody could see those officers were visibly shaken," Executive Assistant Chief Troy Finner said.

Acevedo promised that the victim's family would not bear their grief alone.

"We can't explain these things," he said. "We ask that people please just pray for the family, pray for those young children."

Margaret Kadifa contributed to this report.

...

If you or someone you know is experiencing suicidal thoughts, there is help available. The Houston Police Officers Union operates a peer support line at 832-200-3499. Or contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255.
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Two low-level Houston bosses at one of the country's largest trash collection companies were sentenced to federal prison Friday for stealing identities of U.S. citizens and using them to hire more than 100 undocumented garbage collectors.

U.S. District Judge Melinda Harmon ordered both Rudy Martinez, 36, and Israel Arquimides Martinez, 39, both Salvadoran nationals living in Houston, to serve more than seven years in federal prison.

Rudy Martinez, who was higher up the chain of command. will serve several more months than his co-defendant. The two men are not related. They both face deportations upon completion of their sentences.

At the hearing, the judge determined both men had played a key role in the identity scheme because they were in supervisory roles.

According to a news release from the U.S. Attorney's Office, Harmon mentioned that their crimes involved more than 100 individuals who were unauthorized to work in the U.S. She said Rudy Martinez obstructed justice by testifying falsely under oath and threatening a witness.

Defense attorney Kent A. Schaffer said it's an unspoken truth that garbage collection companies like Waste Management, just like other companies offering low wage work, often hire undocumented workers to take positions few citizens would consider.

His client Israel Martinez was "probably at the lowest point on the totem pole" as a lead driver at the work site, "yet he got one of the highest sentences in the case," Schaffer said.

"I thought it was grossly unfair. It was clear from the evidence that he profited in no way," he said. "He was nothing but a truck driver who was approached by supervisors to assist them in their scheme to keep the jobs filled."

The defense attorneys for Rudy Martinez, the route supervisor, could not be reached for comment.

The two men were convicted by a federal jury in April 2016 of 18 counts, including knowingly conspiring to employ unauthorized immigrants, encouraging them to reside in the U.S. and aggravated identity theft. Three co-workers, all higher in rank at the company, took plea deals and were called to testify by the prosecution.

The undocumented workers involved in the identity theft scheme worked at an Afton Road hauling site run by a Waste Management subcontractor. They were fired and then rehired in 2012 with other people's identities. Workers facing deportation also testified about the hiring scheme.
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A parent claims Conroe High School bus drivers are endangering drivers and students as the buses move along Texas 105 after leaving the campus.

Conroe High School buses are "jockeying" for position while traveling from the CHS campus east on Texas 150 to access the Interstate 45 southbound feeder road, according to Conroe parent Kavin Barringer. The buses exit CHS from Wilson Road and turn left onto Texas 105 around 2:35 p.m. At that point, Barringer said, the buses have the opportunity to get all the way over into the right-hand lane. However, he said, the buses are traveling in the left lane or middle lane for about a mile to bypass the backed-up traffic in the right lane before forcing their way into that right turn lane closer to the I-45 access road.

"They are cutting cars off and forcing people to let them over to get on ..." said Barringer, who said his and his wife's vehicles were almost struck by a bus on separate days. " Not only are they putting other drivers in danger, but they are putting kids in danger by driving the way they are driving."

Last Thursday, Barringer said, a bus ran a red light at Texas 105 and Sgt. Ed Holcomb Boulevard while he was picking up his daughter.

"I had to brake and let him off," he said.

Concerned about student and driver safety, Barringer called the Conroe Independent School District, which informed him a school official would be in the parking lot near Target to observe the school buses, which did not happen.

While he understands school officials responded to a couple of accidents that affected their availability to monitor his concern, he said the officials assured him they had spoken to the bus drivers to address the issue.

But a CHS bus driver cut off his wife Monday after she picked up their daughter. It occurred in the same spot where he previously experienced an issue, Barringer said.

"Not only did the bus almost wreck into her, it was the same bus (number)," he said.

Since then, Barringer has reached out and left messages for the Conroe ISD Superintendent's Office, Conroe ISD Police Department and Conroe Police Department. He received an update Monday from the school district, which informed him the concern would be communicated to the bus drivers. However, he remains concerned that the bus drivers may be ignoring instructions or the school district may not actually be communicating to the bus drivers.

Barringer wants the school district to speak to the drivers.

"Make them (the bus drivers) understand somehow that they need to use a little bit of common sense when driving," he said. "You don't drive school buses like you're driving a (passenger) vehicle. I think something needs to happen to protect drivers and children. Get in right lane and don't try to race up to (Interstate) 45."

Conroe ISD did not specifically comment on Barringer's concern, but stated to The Courier that its buses travel 41,000 miles and transport over 33,000 students each day; and no accidents involving school buses have occurred at the intersection of Interstate 45 and Texas 105 in the last five years, according to CISD.

"Any time we receive a concern from a parent or member of the community, we take the concern seriously and research the matter," Conroe ISD Communications Director Sarah Blakelock stated in the email.

Since 2004, there have been three accidents in the area involving school buses, according to Conroe ISD. Two of those accidents were on the east side of Interstate 45 and one was on the west side of Interstate 45. The accidents occurred in November 2004, April 2005 and February 2011, Conroe ISD stated.

Conroe ISD bus drivers participate in safety training upon being hired by the district and annually thereafter, according to Blakelock, who said whenever a concern is received or a violation occurs, the matter is investigated and addressed in accordance with district and department practices.

"The growth and construction in Montgomery County often present unique challenges and situations that our drivers must navigate," she stated. "CISD's Transportation Department regularly reviews the over 370 routes and 2,000 runs made by our buses daily in an effort to increase the efficiency of the routes and minimize the impact on the surrounding community."

Conroe ISD encourages anyone who may have a transportation concern to contact the Transportation Department, child's campus, or the District.

"We are committed to transporting students safely each and every day," Blakelock stated in the email.
Far fewer police were shot to death in the first three months of 2017 than the same period the year before, according to the most recent available data.

Nine police officers died by gunfire during the first three months of 2017, or 44 percent fewer than the first three months of 2016, according to data from the National Law Enforcement Memorial Fund.

INKED: New HPD policy will let tattooed officers roll up their sleeves

All told, 33 police officers have died in the line of duty since the beginning of the year, according to the new data, which had not yet been updated to include the Friday suicide of a 44-year-old Houston police sergeant who shot and killed himself in his west Houston patrol station.

"Looking at the data through today, the first quarter looks almost flat with same quarter last year - total fatalities are up 6 percent," said Steve Groeninger, NLEOMF spokesman.

The data comes amid a nationwide debate over police violence and assaults on officers which began several years ago with the high-profile deaths of Eric Garner and Michael Brown at the hands of police - and similarly high-profile killings of police officers, such as the murder of five police officers guarding a protest last year in Dallas, three in Baton Rouge just days later, and in Harris County, the killing of Deputy Darren Goforth in 2015. Many police officers had noted with alarm those killings and a spike in officer deaths in 2016 compared to 2015.

Officer deaths have fluctuated significantly but generally have trended down during the past century, with spikes as high as 280 in 1974 and 171 fatalities in 2011, according to NLEOMF's data. Check out the Chronicle's past coverage of violence against police here.

...

I'll be writing more on this issue in the next few days. If you want to weigh in, contact me at st.john.smith[at]chron.com.
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The entrance of the United States into World War II after the devastating attack on Pearl Harbor set in motion an industrial boom across Texas.

According to the Texas Historical Commission, before the war started in the European and Pacific theaters the state was sparsely populated. Most Texans lived in small towns and rural areas, and only 40 percent of residents even had a high school education.

MYSTERY SOLVED: The World War II story behind two giant, mysterious columns in Hitchcock

During the war nearly 1,500,000 military personnel came to the state for work and training. Even more people joined war-related industries, leaving behind farm work for urban centers where the industrial war effort was starved for manpower.

Male and female civilians found jobs in all manner of fields and the pain of the Great Depression (which hurt Texas intensely) was eased. Cities like Houston, Dallas, San Antonio and Corpus Christi saw population increases.

ALMOST OVER: 9 things to know about World War II's VE Day

An astonishing 142 major military installations dotted the state from naval bases on the coast to air fields in North Texas and out west.

Now Playing: On this day 75 years ago, the U.S. defeated Japan in the Battle of Midway. Video: PopularMechanics

Women were thrust in to the workplace to help support families and themselves with men off fighting Nazis and the Japanese. The notion of the independent Texas woman was born during this era.

Of course World War II in Texas wasn't all about military heroics and civilians pitching in. Sadly Crystal City was the site of the Crystal City Internment Camp which held people of Japanese, German, and Italian descent during the duration of the war. A great deal of these people were born on American soil, but still perceived as possible enemies, and were not at all Axis-related.

It officially closed in 1948. At its height of use it held 3,374 detainees within its boundaries, according to the Texas Historical Commission.

According to the THC, some 750,000 Texans served in uniform around the world. Twenty-two thousand Texans died for their country in combat.

When the war was over these brave Texans went back to work and helped shape the next 50 years of state prosperity. Many military members who served and trained in Texas decided to put down roots and the states population grew.

LOVE AND WAR: Foreign war brides made mark on U.S.

The higher education system was inundated with veterans taking advantage of benefits and Texas got smarter, in many ways.

One of the biggest wins to come from the war-effort was the increase in the petrochemical industry along the coast from Beaumont and down to Corpus Christi.

Once veterans returned home they were able to find lucrative jobs in the energy sector, setting off a chain of events that would make Houston a world power of sorts.

Craig Hlavaty is a reporter for Chron.com and HoustonChronicle.com. He's an intolerable native Texan with too much ink in his skin and too much brisket stuck in his teeth.
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U.S. Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke said Tuesday that the planned border wall wouldn't go on the U.S. side of the Rio Grande River, according to E&E news.

In remarks given to members of the Public Lands Council, Zinke also said the wall wouldn't be built in the middle of the river.

That would mean just one place for it. Though Zinke didn't say it directly, his remarks implied that the border wall would have to go on the southern side of the Rio Grande River  in Mexico.

DEATH THREATS: Hispanic firms that offered to build border wall get heated response

"The border is complicated, as far as building a physical wall," Zinke said Tuesday. "The Rio Grande, what side of the river are you going to put the wall? We're not going to put it on our side and cede the river to Mexico. And we're probably not going to put it in the middle of the river."

The wall is one of President Donald Trump's more contentious proposals. He campaigned heavily on it, promising he would make Mexico pay for the construction. But while his rallies frequently featured crowds chanting "Build the Wall," support for a complete border wall is scant in Congress.

Support is even harder to find across the border, where Mexican officials have repeatedly said they won't be paying for the wall. Mexican officials, including former President Vicente Fox, have declared emphatically that Mexico won't be spending a dime on it.

Read more about the border wall here:

None of the 38 Texans in Congress offered a full-throated endorsement of a complete border wall, a position popular with President-elect Donald Trump's supporters, a Texas Tribune delegation-wide survey found in December.

At the U.S.-Mexico border, scientists say existing fencing is hurting endangered wildlife and warn that a continuous wall could devastate many species.

This article originally appeared in The Texas Tribune.

The Texas Tribune is a nonprofit, nonpartisan media organization that informs Texans  and engages with them  about public policy, politics, government and statewide issues.
COLUMBUS  Columbus High School senior Alyssa Hartman's most-memorable high school activity is also the one where shes been the least visible.

Since her freshman year, Hartman has been on the tech crew for CHS theater productions, staying out of the spotlight.

Im a dancer, so I spend enough time on stage, said Hartman.

As a freshman and sophomore she ran a spotlight, then her junior and senior years she was a lighting technician. Shes worked as a lighting technician for events inside Nantkes Performing Arts Center since August 2015.

I learned a lot, gained a lot of confidence and learned how to take responsibility, she said. Anyone involved in theater I developed a friendship with.

Hartman is front and center in most of her other activities. She's president of the National Honor Society and editor-in-chief of the school newspaper, and she's danced since kindergarten and performed as the CHS mascot, Lil' C.

Its kind of hectic sometimes, Hartman said of being a mascot. At the time people didnt know it was us, so we could be silly with it and have a lot of fun.

Hartmans interest in the mascot role started when her older sister had the part five years earlier. Thats also how she got involved in the school paper.

My sister had been in the newspaper her junior and senior year, and I entered silly contests so I knew I liked writing, she said. It helped me become a better writer."

Hartman was voted vice president of National Honor Society her junior year and president as a senior. She runs meetings and helps organize community service projects, such as picking up trash and spreading mulch at local playgrounds.

That was a lot of time and work, she said. I probably learned to be patient with some things. There were some times where people didnt meet the criteria and I had to explain to them what we needed to do.

Hartman attended Immanuel Lutheran School before CHS, so she's also involved in faith-based activities. Shes a member of the Peace Lutheran Senior Youth Group and has gone on mission trips, including one to a Native American reservation in Wyoming.

(It gave me) a lot of humility, she said. It helped me learn people dont have it as good as I do.

Shes going on her last mission trip to Canada before leaving for college.

Its a cool way to be more involved, said Hartman, the daughter of Thomas and Jane Hartman.

She was also a volunteer at Camp Luther, where she worked with mentally challenged adults and children. That experience helped her decide she wanted to study education at the University of Nebraska at Kearney.

Im good at explaining things and making sure people understand, she said. I see it as the best fit for me.

As her time at CHS comes to a close, Hartman has mixed feelings.

Im definitely getting kind of sad about it. Theres been a lot of laughs, especially with the activities that Ive been involved with for a while, she said. Its sad, but Im also hopeful about what Ill do in college.
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Three-term congressman Beto O'Rourke, seeking to break a decades-long drought for Democrats in statewide office in Texas, officially kicked of his campaign Friday to unseat Republican U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, a national conservative leader.

Though the election is 20 months away, "2018 starts right here, right now," O'Rourke told a crowd of supporters in border city of El Paso, where he once served on the city council.

HAVE YOU SEEN THIS MAN?: 'Missing Ted Cruz' posters are popping up around Houston

O'Rourke, a 44-year-old technology entrepreneur, ex-punk rocker, and fourth-generation Texan, immediately sought to contrast himself from Cruz, who has lined up behind President Donald Trump's aggressive policies against illegal immigration, including a border wall. He denounced what he called Trump's "military style roundups" of immigrants living in the U.S. illegally.

Known for his social media savvy in Congress, O'Rourke live-streamed his announcement on Facebook. A fluent Spanish speaker, he made part of his announcement in Spanish. Cruz, the son of a Cuban exile, also can speak Spanish, but rarely does in public.

O'Rourke's long-expected launch will be followed this weekend with rallies in Dallas, Waco, Austin and, on Sunday, at Houston's IBEW Local 716 hall.

O'Rourke floated his candidacy months ago, with his formal entry appearing to get a jump on Democratic U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro of San Antonio, who has said he is weighing Senate run as well. No Republican primary challenger has emerged against Cruz, although U.S. Rep. Michael McCaul was widely considered to be mulling a shot. Political analyst Matthew Dowd has floated an independent campaign for the seat.

MEET BETO: What you need to know about Ted Cruz's Democrat challenger

O'Rourke has emphasized his bona fides as an independent-minded Democrat, taking a long road-trip to Washington, D.C., with Republican U.S. Rep. Will Hurd this month that was also streamed live.

The Cruz campaign, however, moved immediately Friday to brand O'Rourke in a fundraising email as an "unabashed liberal" in the mold of New York U.S. Sen. Chuck Schumer.

Top Cruz aide Jeff Roe made light of O'Rourke's chances in a tweet comparing him to failed 2014 Democratic gubernatorial candidate Wendy Davis: "Finally nat libs found a candidate more liberal than @wendydavis ! meet @RepBetoORourke will they sacrifice electability for liberalism?"

Cruz, 46, was elected to the Senate in 2013 and is running for a second term after a losing bid for the White House last year, when he emerged as the GOP runner-up to Donald Trump. O'Rourke alluded to Cruz's White House run, as well as his role in a 2013 government shutdown over Obamacare funding. The congressman promised to be "a senator working full time for Texas."

ROAD TRIP: After blizzard cancelled flights, Texas reps take 'bipartisan road trip' to D.C.

O'Rourke also vowed to swear off money from political action committees, which he called "submission to corporate money." He acknowledged, however that it might not be a "smart" political move.

Cruz's political organization ended 2016 with more than $4 million in the bank, about 10 times the war chest for O'Rourke.

O'Rourke also committed himself to a two-term limit if elected. Cruz has called for term limits, but has not pledged to any.

While Democrats sense some vulnerability in Cruz's losing primary battle with Trump, Republicans note that no Democrat has won statewide office in Texas since 1994.

While O'Rourke's bid is widely seen as a long-shot, he has already attracted national attention, partly because of Cruz's national profile as a movement conservative, and partly because of O'Rourke's youthful hip-quotient. A recent Washington Post profile described the congressman as a Gen Xer who "looks more like a Kennedy than the Kennedys do."
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AUSTIN -- Hours after North Carolina's legislature repealed its controversial law that required transgender people to use the bathroom of their biological sex, Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick was not backing down from his top legislative priority.

Patrick, the chief proponent of the Lone Star state's so-called bathroom bill, said the North Carolina compromise measure would not impact Texas.

FLUSHED: North Carolina is flushing its bathroom bill. What's next?

Patrick, who has named the "Texas Privacy Act" as one of his top legislative priorities, issued a statement Thursday saying "The actions in North Carolina do not affect what we have done in Texas."

North Carolina lawmakers and business groups have been busy in the Texas Capitol advocating for the Lone Star State's version of the bill. Patrick invited North Carolina Lt. Gov. Dan Forest to speak at a press conference earlier this month about his own state's experience with its House Bill 2.

Texas state Sen. Lois Kolkhorst, a Brenham Republican and the author of Texas' own bill issued a statement Thursday agreeing with Patrick. She called North Carolina's replacement measure "similar to our state's SB 6, the Texas Privacy Act." She had called the state's previous bill "very different." Her legislation made it through the the Senate earlier this month.

OPPOSED: Texans' Bob McNair against Texas bathroom bill

"Men should not be allowed in a woman's public shower, locker room or restroom," Kolkhorst said. "So it is no surprise the Texas Privacy Act is seen as a thoughtful solution to protect everyone equally while allowing businesses to set their own policy."

It now faces an uncertain future in the House, where Speaker Joe Straus, a Republican from San Antonio, has long voiced his own disagreement with the bill.

"Clearly I'm not a fan of the bill that they're discussing, but I'm focused 100 percent on the House's priorities," Straus told reporters before the bill made it through the Senate. "They have their agenda; we have ours. We'll worry about our agenda and making progress on some issues that I think are important to every Texan."

The House avoided a vote Tuesday on a proposal that would have regulated transgender Texans' bathroom usage in some government buildings. The amendment by Rep. Matt Schaefer, R-Texas, would have directed the Texas Railroad Commission to require that people use bathrooms matching their biological sex. Straus nixed the amendment, telling Schaefer that the speaker has the authority to knock off amendments he determines are not related to the bill's substance.
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.
COLUMBUS  Nebraska Public Power District is feeling no pressure to react to the latest wrinkle in the long-running court challenge to President Barack Obamas plan to implement environmental rules aimed at curbing carbon emissions.

This week, President Donald Trump inked an executive order targeting the previous administrations Clean Power Plan and hours later requested the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit postpone a ruling on the Clean Power Plan regulations.

The Trump administration has asked the appeals court to temporarily defer a ruling pending a review by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, said Mark Becker, spokesman for Nebraska Public Power District.

Theres no deadline for us to do anything, Becker said.

As written, the Clean Power Plan would impact utilities across Nebraska  Omaha Public Power District, Lincoln Electric System, NPPD and municipal generators in Hastings, Fremont and Grand Island  with the state setting up a plan to meet the mandates established in the federal plan.

NPPD has a diverse generation mix, with 46 percent of the Columbus-based utilitys energy coming from non-carbon resources. Its native load  contracted Nebraska customers  is 60 percent non-carbon generation.

Basically, the climate plan as it stands would be about one-third renewables, one-third natural gas and one-third coal generation nationally, Becker said.

Lawsuits were filed by more than two dozen state attorneys general, including Nebraska, on the plan and early in 2016 the case went to the District Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C.

Becker said NPPD is currently in compliance with all existing regulatory requirements for its plants, both fossil fuel (coal) and nuclear. The utility is now taking a wait-and-see approach on the final power plan rules.

Well get the (final) rules and see what it all means, Becker said. Well wait till we get the pile of paper. It could be a document thats 1,000 pages long.

When the Clean Power Plan was announced in 2015, Becker said NPPD officials felt the utility was in good position to meet the requirements because of its diverse generation mix.

All states are subject to the federal plan, but each region relies on differences in electric generation  the Northeast has a lot of fuel oil, the South has a massive amount of nuclear generation and little wind, the Midwest has coal and the Pacific Northwest has hydroelectric generation  so each state is impacted differently depending on the energy resources.

Trumps order, according to an Associated Press report, makes good on the presidents campaign pledge to unravel Obama's efforts to curb global warming, eliminating nearly a dozen measures in an effort to boost domestic energy production, especially oil, natural gas and coal.

The president attacked Obama for waging "a war on coal" throughout last years campaign, accusing his predecessor of putting coal miners out of work.

Trump's order initiates an EPA review of the Clean Power Plan, which restricts greenhouse gas emissions at coal-fired power plants. The regulations  Obama's signature effort to curb carbon emissions  have been the subject of long-running legal challenges by Republican-led states and those that profit from burning oil, coal and gas.

NPPD currently operates two coal-fired power plants  Sheldon Station near Hallam and Gerald Gentleman near Sutherland.

The utilitys power generation is roughly one-third coal, one-third natural gas and one-third sustainable energy, which includes hydroelectric, wind and Cooper Nuclear Station near Brownville.

We have more generation capacity than there is demand, Becker said.

California-based Monolith Materials Inc. broke ground last fall on its Olive Creek plant near Hallam that will convert natural gas into carbon black, which is used in products such as computers, cellphones and tires, with the byproduct of hydrogen used to generate clean power at Sheldon.

Hydrogen, which is easy to burn and priced no higher than coal, is a byproduct of Monoliths manufacturing process, Becker said.

Were certainly not looking at building a new coal plant, Becker said. NPPDs focus is to continue to provide reliable electricity at the lowest prices for our customers.
From left, Keegan Engstrom uses a spin casting rod as friend John Luks uses a fly rod to fish for early season steelhead or rainbow trout on Thursday. Though the pair didn't catch any, they have heard that some fish were caught already at the mouth of the Current River. Local fishers believe the water is still a little cold for the steelhead run.
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COLUMBUS  A loud moo echoed through the arena as a cow watched over her young calf inside a pen.

The cow was a bit testy because she wasnt used to being around so many people and was a bit overprotective of her baby.

Elementary school students had to observe the two from a distance, but there were other animals they got a closer look at Thursday during the annual Life on the Farm event at Platte County Agricultural Park.

Its pretty cool, Thayne Sutterer, a second-grade student at West Park Elementary School, said of the animals, including sheep, pigs, goats and chickens.

About 520 students in second and third grades attended the event organized by the University of Nebraska-Lincoln Extension Office.

Extension educator Jody Wendt said the purpose of Life on the Farm is to educate children about the ins and outs of agriculture.

The goal is to expose them to the agriculture that exists around them. Hopefully they are learning where their food comes from and how agriculture impacts them every day, she said.

Stations were set up in the Ag Park arena where farmers and livestock producers talked to students about their jobs and the animals they care for. Students also heard from representatives from local cooperatives and took part in a relay race carrying feed bags.

Sutterers classmate Kiele Naslund said she learned a lot at the event.

Its so we know how to be safe on a farm and know what animals we use to have for our food that we eat, she said.
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Pipeline company sought to limit required safeguards for soil Navigator CO2 Ventures wanted to reduce its obligations to sample and restore topsoil for the construction of its proposed carbon...
Changes to Canadas Express Entry CRS Coming in June CIC News Aa Accessibility Font Style Serif

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Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) has announced that, as of June 6, 2017 French speakers and candidates with a sibling in Canada will receive additional points under the Express Entry Comprehensive Ranking System (CRS). While these tweaks may not alter the make-up of the pool in a radical way, the additional points may make a positive difference to candidates who may obtain the new additional points.

In addition, registration in the Canada Job Bank will become voluntary.

The CRS in its current form will continue to be used in order to rank and select candidates in the pool, and it is expected that IRCC will continue to conduct draws from the pool until June 6, as well as after that date.

The most recent improvements to the CRS took place last November, when the number of CRS points awarded for a qualifying job offer was reduced from 600 to 50 or 200, depending on the position offered. At the same time, IRCC made a change to award additional points to candidates who had completed their education in Canada.

Before November, 2016, the CRS had not been altered in any way since Express Entry first became operational in January, 2015.

These changes taken together may been seen as part of the government of Canadas continued efforts to optimize the Express Entry system in order to invite more candidates with skills and experience that, according to Immigration Minister Ahmed Hussen, will help our economy and communities to grow.

So far in 2017, IRCC has ramped up the number of candidates being invited; the first three months of last year saw a total of 9,465 ITAs issued, whereas so far this year, a total of 24,652 ITAs have been issued, an increase of more than 160 percent.

Since the launch of Express Entry, Canada has welcomed more than 43,000 landed immigrants through the Express Entry system. Nearly 90,000 Invitations to Apply (ITAs) for permanent residence have been issued in that time, with many applicants either awaiting a decision on their application or having received confirmation of permanent residence, but not having yet completed the process of landing in Canada.

The June 6 Changes

French language skills

In order to enter the Express Entry pool, eligible candidates must first prove proficiency in English or French by taking a standardized language test recognized by IRCC. Of the 1,200 points available in total under the CRS, 136 points may be awarded for a candidates first language, with a further 24 available for ability in a second language. Up to 100 more points are available for a candidates language skills within the combination (skills transferability) factors.

This will remain the case as of June 6. However, IRCC is tweaking the CRS to award additional points to candidates with French language skills, with more additional points to be awarded to French speakers who also prove their English skills.

A total of 15 additional points will be awarded to candidates who prove adequate intermediate (equivalent to Canadian Language Benchmark 7) or better French ability, and English ability of CLB 4 or lower.

A total of 30 additional points will be awarded to French speaking candidates who prove adequate intermediate or better French ability, and who also prove English ability of CLB 5 or better.

Candidates who wish to be awarded CRS points for French ability must take the Test dEvaluation de Francais (TEF).

Currently, there are other ways in which candidates may benefit from their French ability. For example, the province of Ontario operates an Express Entry-aligned French Speaking Skilled Worker Stream within the Ontario Immigrant Nominee Program (OINP). In the case of this stream, a CLB of 7 in French and a CLB of 6 in English is required.

Siblings in Canada

As of June 6, candidates with a sibling in Canada who is a Canadian citizen or permanent resident of at least 18 years of age may be awarded 15 additional CRS points. These points may also be awarded if the candidates spouse or common-law partner has a sibling in Canada.

The candidate or his or her spouse/common-law partner must share a mother and/or father with the sibling in Canada. This relationship can be through blood, adoption, marriage, or common-law partnership.

According to IRCC, having a sibling in Canada has been shown to improve health and social outcomes by accelerating a newcomers integration into their new life in Canada.

Canada Job Bank

On June 6, Job Bank registration will become voluntary for all candidates. Candidates who do not have a job in Canada lined up and would like to start their job search will nevertheless be able to register for Job Bank, and this option is expected to continue to be available free of charge. Employers may use the Job Bank, as well as their own recruitment procedures, to search for and hire skilled workers.

This step follows the changes last November, which reduced the number of points that may be awarded for a job offer. Together, the two changes (from November, as well as the upcoming changes in June) show that IRCC is de-emphasizing the job factor within Express Entry, in doing so promoting human capital and skills factors.

Since Express Entry was launched, and until June 6, candidates without qualifying job offer or a provincial nomination must register in the Job Bank before they become eligible for selection.

Tweaking the system

The government of Canada had alluded to the possibility of changes of this nature coming down the line. I think all stakeholders will be glad that the announcement comes with more than two months of warning before the changes are implemented, allowing them to prepare, says Attorney David Cohen.

Furthermore, these are slight changes, and nothing more. An additional 15 or 30 points is unlikely to shake up the pool in any major way, and those candidates who do benefit because of their French ability or by having a sibling in Canada  or both, for that matter  are unlikely to shoot up to the top of the ranking system as a result.

The more fundamental improvements took place last November, and the results of those changes have clearly been of benefit to the majority of candidates and applicants. IRCC has been as good as its word in inviting more candidates based on human capital, skills and experience, and the number of candidates being invited has skyrocketed over recent months.

Lastly, I am glad to see that registration in the Job Bank will become voluntary. This move empowers candidates and employers alike, rather than forcing them to use one specific job matching facility among many. It will allow candidates and employers alike to take their own proactive approaches to networking and recruitment, and thats what Canada wants and needs  newcomers who are comfortable making their own decisions for the benefit of themselves and their families.

The CRS Calculator

Use the CRS Calculator to find out what your score would be under the Comprehensive Ranking System. This calculator has been updated  you can see your potential CRS score as it would be today, as well as how it would be under the changes due to be implemented as of June 6.

To find out if you are eligible to immigrate to Canada permanently, fill out a free online assessment form.

 2017 CICNews All Rights Reserved
Sara ali Khan has become one of the most sought after star kids. Saif Ali Khan and Amrita Singhs daughter is definitely making heads turn with her fashionable outings. In fact, social media cannot stop gushing about this new hottie. Guess what, we have information that might just make Sara fans even more eager for her BIG Bollywood debut. So weve all been hearing about how Sara will be launched by Karan Johars Dharma Productions. Buzz was that Sara along with Tiger Shroff and Disha Patani have been roped in for this film. And our sources reveal that the prep for the movie has already begun. KJo plans to make Sara the gen next sensation and has taken the young beauty under his wings already.

A source informed Media that Sara will give hot an all new meaning. And since donning a bikini is not everyones cup in Bollywood and actresses have often talked about it openly, Karan has decided to unveil Sara in her sexiest avatar. Our source said, Sara will be wearing three different bikinis in the film. She will have to look smouldering and it will be organic to the film. And we at BollywoodLife even know the three scenes.

So one of the shots will be a trademark Dharma scene where the actress walks out of water in her two-piece. The second is supposedly a scorching hot lovemaking scene between Sara and her hero, Tiger. And the third if true might be the most talked about one if it indeed makes to the movies final cut  a bikini face-off between Sara and Disha.

While we had heard that Amrita Singh wasnt too pleased with Karan giving Sara a two-hero project, Saif seems relieved. During the promotions of Rangoon, Saif Ali Khan for the first time opened up about daughter Saras much talked about Bollywood debut. In an interview to a website, Khan was quoted saying, I am very happy she is working with Karan Johar because I think he is brilliant with newcomers and he will launch her correctly. He is a very intelligent and a passionate filmmaker and he understands films. I am very pleased that she is with him.

Though Dharma Productions hasnt officially announced Tiger Shroffs leading ladies in Student Of The Year 2, a source exclusively informed Media that both Sara Ali Khan and Disha Patani have been roped in for the SOTY sequel. Of late, Sara has been spotted at various B-town parties with Karan Johar. The star kid was also present at Shahid Kapoors pre-birthday bash and we have to say she was one of the best-dressed celebs at the party. SOTY 2 is all set to go on floors soon and will be directed by Punit Malhotra. Are you excited for SOTY 2? Then do come back for more inside goss and EXCLUSIVE details about the film.
A below-the-radar request from the Newtown Board of Education in a letter to President Donald Trump seems modest, even self evident: Acknowledge that 20 children and six adults were murdered on December 14, 2012, at Sandy Hook Elementary School, condemn those who repeatedly have said it was a hoax, and remove his support from anyone who falsely claims the tragedy was staged.

We want facts to matter, Board Chairman Keith Alexander explained at a recent meeting. Thats the essential point.

The impetus for the lettersent last month and first reported herewas Trumps warm embrace of Alex Jones, owner and host of the conspiracy-minded website InfoWars. Jones, whose audience is estimated in the millions, has been among the most aggressive promoters of claims that the Sandy Hook killings were staged. Sandy Hook is synthetic, completely fake with actors, in my view, manufactured, Jones said on his show in 2014.

The letter bemoans the damage fake news spread by conspiracy theorists has done to the town and the victims families. It accuses Jones of spreading hate and lies toward our town, towards the people and organizations who came to help us through those dark days. Newtown has become a poster child for the real-life consequences of fake news, and the embrace of its purveyors by President Trump adds insult to injury. They sincerely hoped the letter would lead Trump to understand the towns ongoing plight and repudiate the hoaxers.

Newtown has become a poster child for the real-life consequences of fake news, and the embrace of its purveyors by President Trump adds insult to injury.

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We are asking for support from the President of the United States, said Board of Finance member James O. Gaston, whose body also discussed sending a letter at a recent meeting. We received support from President Obama. I welcome help and support from President Trump.



The boards straightforward requests did not elicit any response from the White House nor from a president who has trafficked in conspiracy theories himself, including false claims about former President Obamas place of birth and an unfounded assertion that Obama wiretapped Trumps office during the presidential campaign.

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White House Director of Media Affairs Helen Aguirre Ferre responded to questions about the letter from CJR with a one-sentence statement: President Trump has been quite clear that we, as a nation, are united in condemning hate and evil in all its forms.

Ferre did not respond to follow-up questions, including whether Trump affirms that the Sandy Hook killings happened, and whether he condemns those who say otherwise.

The board did not make a public announcement when it sent the letter, dated February 20, Alexander wrote in an email to CJR. They saw no upside to publicity and wanted to protect the victims families from hoaxer backlash.



The district supplied the letter to CJR upon request, and no one asked CJR not to write about it, but town officials were reluctant to be interviewed and kept their comments brief. Alexander was the only school board member to respond to requests for an interview, and he communicated only by email. First Selectwoman E. Patricia Llodrathe towns mayordid not returns calls nor emails requesting comment.

As a result, much of the reporting of this story depends on videotapes of town meetings and minutes posted online. At one such meeting, Board of Education member Daniel Cruson, Jr. provided possible insight into the reasons for the officials reticence. The town, he said, has tried very hard to convince the media to leave us alone to do what we need to do to heal. The letter, he feared, threatened to undermine that effort and invite scrutiny back into our affairs.

InfoWars lists no phone number or direct contact for Jones, who as recently as March 8 continued to question whether the Sandy Hook killings happened. He did apologize earlier this month for comments about a hoax involving a pizzeria in Washington, DC.

Messages sent to both the websites general email and InfoWars Editor Paul Joseph Watson went unanswered.

Alexander says hes still hopeful theyll get a response from the White House. I dont think I have ever sent a letter to the White House before so I dont know what to expect from a response as far as timing, though I do hope that we will receive a direct response at some point, he wrote in an email.

TRENDING: The Platform Press: How Silicon Valley reengineered journalism

There was a time when questioning whether a widely-reported mass murder actually happened would have been dismissed as a nutcase conspiracy. No more. The town is bedeviled by visitors convinced that the murders were a meticulously staged government hoax carried out to justify new gun control laws. Harassing, hurtful, and even threatening emails, phone calls, and internet postings continue to plague many of the victims families and town officials.

Each May when the New England winter lifts and the weather turns pleasant, Sandy Hook truthers descend on the community, Alexander said at a January 2017 meeting. And while the number of harassing events has decreased over the years, their intensity has not, Superintendent of Schools Joseph V. Erardi, Jr. says in an interview with CJR. We continue to receive inappropriate phone calls, he says. We continue to receive inappropriate messages. We continue to have visits that are done in very poor taste.

To say Joness name is mud in Newtown is a gross understatement. Local officials revile him, using words at public meetings like bully, disgusting, and despicable to describe him. But as much damage as he has done, they fear he could do even more thanks to Trump, who appeared on Joness show during the campaign and called to thank him for his support after the election. In the months since Trumps victory, Jones has bragged about receiving phone calls from the new president and said he was seeking White House press credentials for InfoWars.

Moving on remains difficult if not impossible as long as conspiracy theories abetted by fake news continue to swirl around the tragedy.

That was too much for Alexander, First Selectwoman Llodra, and other residents of the southwestern Connecticut suburb. They fear Trump has lent Jones a legitimacy that could extend to Sandy Hook truthers. Shortly before Trumps inauguration, Alexander and Llodra, both Republicans, asked their respective boards to sign onto a letter calling on the president-elect to affirm that the Sandy Hook killings had occurred and condemn Jones and others who claim they were a hoax.

Im very much an advocate for calling out people for what they say and what they do, particularly when they leverage their radio show off our tragedy, Llodra said at a January selectmens meeting, according to a videotape posted online.

But the initiative soon bogged down as town officials and at least one family of a victim raised concerns, especially about whether the letter would only invite a new wave of harassment of the victims families and whether those families had been consulted. Worse yet, warned school board member Cruson, Trump might not respond, giving the conspiracy theories fresh oxygen.

No response from President Trump, which is a real possibility, will feed the hoaxers just as much, said Cruson during a board discussion. Cruson was the only school board member to vote against sending the letter, arguing it would do more harm than good, no matter the outcome.

The ensuing debate revealed how fake news has undermined peoples faith that truth can triumph over lies. Even officials who supported the letter said that a Trump acknowledgement of the tragedy and repudiation of the hoaxers would not end the harassment Newtown has endured for years. Alexanders goal, he said at one meeting, was to return things to where they were before Trump embraced Jones. In the end, only the school board sent the letter to Trump.

Newtown just wants to move on. But as the board pointed out in its letter to the president, that remains difficult if not impossible as long as conspiracy theories abetted by fake news continue to swirl around the tragedy. One of the significant roadblocks to our future, the school board wrote to Trump, is the continued rumors and viciousness spread by many people outside of our homes who believe that our tragedy was a staged government event that never happened, that children and educators we lost never existed.

Has America ever needed a media watchdog more than now? Help us by joining CJR today

Christopher Hoffman is a longtime Connecticut journalist whose work has appeared in the Hartford Courant, New Haven Register, Yale Medicine Magazine, Connecticut Magazine, and Marine Corps Magazine.
What will journalism look like in five years? Print ads continue to decline, stripping newsrooms of their most robust revenue source. Much of the activity of publishingpackaging and distributing informationis moving off homepages and onto social platforms. Local government coverage in many places gets even more scarce. In five years, there may be fewer jobs, and and little accountability, for journalists.

What should it look like in five years? No matter what, it will depend on technology. In tandem with the launch of a report, The Platform Press: How Silicon Valley reengineered journalism, the Tow Center for Digital Journalism convened a West Coast panel of experts in San Francisco on Wednesday.

The big themes: algorithms determining what people read; the siphoning of revenue away from publishers; the concentration of power and decision-making in a small number of companies; and whether technology can support journalism without undercutting it. Platforms want to think of themselves as neutral terrain, but they are not, said Clara Jeffery, editor of Mother Jones. How best to wield that great responsibility?

Wired Editor Nicholas Thompsonwhose habit was to follow stark statements about the state of journalism with an encouraging, Lets solve it tonight!was concerned about what type of content is incentivized by social platforms such as Facebook. Social media prioritizes content that gets liked and shared most over deeper reporting. They could shift this model, Thompson said. Even a decision to privilege true information over false would make a huge difference. What social media deems successful has even begun to affect trust in journalists. When a journalist becomes more politically vocal on Twitter, this bumps his or her brand in the short term.

There was some tension over whether algorithms are a bigger problem, or economics. Nicco Mele, director of the Shorenstein Center, countered by saying that the other major problem is the economic siphoning off of money from publishers to large platform companies. Newsrooms create the content that platforms make money off of. Publishers are spending more and more to create content that generates less and less revenue. What journalism needs most, said Mele, is dedicated, smart people on the business side.

And its not just Facebook thats a problem. Twitter, Jeffery said, could have done a lot to implement better quality control on the platform. But they did little to nix abusive usersperhaps because the number of users was crucial for its IPO.

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We often assume the drive for revenue is a given for Facebook and other tech companiesand that this is part of the problem. But Jay Hamilton, Hearst Professor of Communication and the Director of the Journalism Program at Stanford, emphasized this is something of an illusion. Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, for instance, retains control of the company via a special class of sharesgiving him the freedom to make decisions that are not economically motivated.

Joaquin Alvarado, CEO of The Center for Investigative Reporting, brought a populist edge to the conversation, calling for a consumer movement to hold both platforms and publishers accountable for the spread of propaganda, and to hold a voice in the debate over their own information and privacy. We have a gigantic fight in this country over power . . . will the public have a say? In the conversation about Facebook, Twitter, and Google, Dont forget about AT&T, Comcast, and Verizon, Alvarado warned.

Alvarado also wants to make sure journalism jobs arent eroded further, and reminded the audience that accomplishing this is not an impossible task. Bringing reporters to the middle of the country again isnt a billion-dollar question, its a hundred-million dollar question.

Jeffery pointed out Facebook has also benefitted larger traditional media companies over small ones, by allowing those companies to use the beta tools they are developing for publishers. Smaller media brands suffer for this.

Meanwhile, Justin Osofsky, VP of Global Operations & Media Partnerships at Facebookthe odd platform player at the panelpatiently played the optimist, rehearsing Facebooks familiar line about innovation and its Journalism Project. He reminded everyone that there are four main values for the News Feed: for people to see content from their friends and family, to be informed, to be entertained, and a platform for all ideas. His cool tone was palpably different from the others, accentuating the difference between platforms and publishers more broadly.

In one of the more radical statements of the evening, Mele challenged publishers: Ignore the platforms, build your own audience, and that will encourage better reporting. The aspiration of that statementand its impossibilityare where we are now.

Watch the archived Facebook Live stream here.

Has America ever needed a media watchdog more than now? Help us by joining CJR today

Nausicaa Renner is digital editor of CJR.
Uber says it is resuming its self-driving car program in Arizona and Pittsburgh after it was suspended following a crash over the weekend.

The company had also grounded self-driving cars in San Francisco over the weekend but they resumed operating earlier on Monday. The difference between the California program versus the ones in Arizona and Pennsylvania is that California does not allow passengers to ride in the vehicles.

The company said Monday that it paused the operations over the weekend to better understand what happened in Arizona, but feels confident in returning the cars to the road.

There were no serious injuries reported in the incident in Tempe, Arizona on Friday night. Police said the self-driving Uber SUV was obeying the law while the human driver of the other car was cited for a moving violation.

Uber says it is investigating the incident and that there were no passengers in the back seat of the self-driving car.

Multiple automakers and technology companies are testing fleets of self-driving vehicles. In nearly all cases, the cars have backup drivers who can take the wheel in an emergency.

Testing hasnt been accident-free. Waymo  a division of Google  has been testing self-driving cars since 2009 and has driven them more than 2 million miles. Last year, Waymo reported 13 accidents involving its fleet in the state of California, which requires companies testing autonomous vehicles to report any accidents. Most of the accidents were minor and werent caused by Waymos vehicles. But in February 2016, a Waymo test car struck a public bus near the companys headquarters in Mountain View, California. No one was injured.

Cruise Automation  a self-driving startup owned by General Motors Co.  and Nissan Motor Co. also reported fender benders involving self-driving cars in California within the last year.

Last year, a driver of a semi-autonomous Tesla  which is different from a self-driving car  was killed with the cars Autopilot system engaged.
A medical helicopter crash in Colorado that killed the pilot and seriously injured two passengers was preventable, federal investigators said Tuesday.

The National Transportation Safety Board determined that the July 3, 2015, crash in Frisco stemmed from a pre-flight check in which the pilot, Patrick Mahany, turned off a switch that cut hydraulic pressure to the tail rotor, the Denver Post reported.

Mahany, 64, probably did not turn the switch back on and did not complete a hover check while taking off, which would have identified the problem at an altitude that could have allowed for a safe landing, according to the report.

The Flight For Life helicopter reached an altitude of about 100 feet before it went down and immediately burst into flames next to the St. Anthony Summit Medical Center, killing Mahany and critically injuring paramedic David Repsher and flight nurse Matthew Bowe.

Video of the crash showed the helicopter lifting off and then twisting to the left before rotating several times and crashing into a recreational vehicle near the helipad.

The NTSB report says investigators found several safety issues that, if addressed, could have prevented the crash, including a lack of a cockpit warning to alert the pilot of the hydraulic problem. The investigation also found that the crash was survivable, but it became deadly because the helicopter was not equipped with a crash-resistant fuel system.

Federal investigators highlighted that, going forward, the type of Airbus helicopter involved in the crash must have better crash protections, including spill-resistant fuel tanks.

Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
AKRON, Ohio -- In 2015, two young Norwegian filmmakers hit the highway in America to make the documentary "Six Degrees" to capture random human interactions on film. Along the way, they spent four days in Akron.

Following one character at a time, with random encounters shaping the film's trajectory, the filmmakers, Trond Kvig Andreassen and Audun Fjeldheim, moved from New York to Los Angeles by way of the South.

Their intent was to ask people who they really are and where random encounters can lead, Andreassen said in an email. The result is a unique portrayal of American culture through daily encounters among the working class.

This week, "Six Degrees" was staff picked as a favorite and featured on Vimeo. In 2015, the film premiered at Tromso International Film Festival, and won awards for Best Nordic Short Documentary and Best Cinematography at Nordic/Docs.

Here's what Andreassen had to say about Akron:

Why Akron?

I've actually visited Akron once before, visiting two friends who stayed in Norway for a bit. Making the film, we wanted to see big contrasts throughout America, so we headed from Harlem, New York, straight to Akron.

Where in Akron did you film?

We filmed in and around Lorenzo's Drive-Thru on a busy Saturday night, and met plenty of interesting people passing through. Laws for selling alcohol is pretty strict in Norway, so a liquor store drive-thru was about the most American thing we'd ever seen. We also drove around with two locals, Justin and Darren. They showed us around, and ended up going out with them -- but I can't remember where.

What was your impression of the city?

Akron has a great, friendly college-town feel to it. The college experience is quite different in the U.S., so it's all pretty exotic to us. We crashed a college party the night we were filming, but no one there was interested in being filmed while partying, but they did offer us a beer or two.

Did you work with anyone locally?

Darren and Justin, who showed us around, Kyla who introduced us to them, and everyone who passed through Lorenzo's that night. The guy working at Lorenzo's was great, chillest guy you'll ever meet. A natural in front of the camera.

You can view "Six Degrees" in its entirety here.

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Carrying a concealed weapon-operating a vehicle under the influence, North Rocky River Drive: A Cleveland man, 22, was arrested early March 26 after police caught him handling a loaded pistol in the backseat of a Buick sedan.

Police had stopped the car after seeing it turn left from eastbound Riveredge Parkway onto North Rocky River without signaling. As the officer walked toward the car, he saw the backseat passenger holding the weapon. The officer reached through the car's open window and snatched the pistol from the man's hands.

The officer then drew his weapon and ordered the car's driver to place his hands on the steering wheel, the front-seat passenger to place his hands on the dashboard and the backseat passenger to place his hands on the front seat. He told them not to move and called for backup.

The car's driver, a 32-year-old Cleveland man, admitted to police that his driver's license was suspended. The officer asked the three men if they had any other weapons and they said no. They said a glass of liquor was in the car.

As additional officers arrived, police ordered the backseat passenger out of the car. They found a 9 mm bullet in his shirt pocket. The man was drunk and police had difficulty understanding him.

Police then ordered the driver out of the car. They found no weapon on him. The driver smelled of alcohol. Officers told the driver to sit on the sidewalk while they removed the front-seat passenger, an 18-year-old Cleveland man, from the vehicle. Police searched the front-seat passenger but he was not holding a weapon.

The driver failed field sobriety tests. Police learned the driver and armed passenger were wanted in other communities. Officers found bottles of brandy and vodka and a glass of clear liquor in the car.

Marijuana possession-open container of alcohol in motor vehicle, East Bridge Street: A 43-year-old Berea man - involved in a shooting in Cleveland - was arrested at about 5:20 a.m. March 26 after police found a marijuana cigarette and a bottle of Bud Light beer in his Ford Taurus.

At about 5:15 a.m., the Cleveland Police Department asked Berea police to check a house on East Bridge Street. Cleveland police believed the man who lived there - the 43-year-old - was involved in a shooting on Cleveland's east side.

Berea police drove to the house. After they arrived, the man pulled his Ford Taurus into the driveway. Officers saw a beer bottle in the car's center cup holder. Also, a bullet hole was in the car's hood.

The man told police that about two weeks ago he had met a prostitute in Maple Heights. He was scheduled to rendezvous with her again the night of March 25-26 on the east side of Cleveland. While waiting for her in his car, he exchanged harsh words with "a man in a gray van." Later, a different van pulled up and someone in that van shot at the man's car. The man sped back to Berea.

Disorderly conduct, South Rocky River Drive: A Brook Park man, 20, and a Berea man, 21, were arrested at about 7:15 p.m. March 26 after they fought each other both in and out of Coe Lake.

Witnesses called police about the incident in Coe Lake Park. When police arrived, the Brook Park man was shirtless and soaked. He said he accidentally fell into the lake while "wrestling" with the Berea man. Police saw the Berea man, who also was shirtless, walking across a bridge on the lake.

Eventually, the Brook Park man admitted he had fought the Berea man over a female. Officers arrested the Berea man later that day at his home.

Trespassing-disorderly conduct, West Bagley Road: Four teenage boys were arrested at about 3:30 p.m. March 27 after police caught them on the roof of West Valley Plaza, 371 West Bagley.

Someone called police and said the boys were jumping in front of moving vehicles in the parking lot. Then the boys climbed onto the plaza roof.

When officers arrived, they looked up and saw eight eyeballs looking down at them from the roof. The boys then ran from the roof's edge. Two of the boys, 14 and 13, came down and surrendered to police. The other two boys, 16 and 14, stayed on the roof. Police called the Berea Fire Department, which used a ladder to bring the boys down.

Theft, Eastland Road: A Diamondback model DB-9 black semiautomatic handgun was reported stolen at about 5:30 p.m. March 25 from Cuyahoga County Fairgrounds, 164 Eastland, which at the time was hosting the Ohio Gun, Knife & Military Show. The weapon's serial number was YH0366.

Grand theft auto, Lombardy Drive: A 2017 Toyota Camry was stolen between 12:10-8:30 a.m. March 27 from a driveway. The victim was not certain if he had locked the vehicle.

Operating a vehicle under the influence, Ohio 237: A Cleveland man, 25, was arrested at about 2:50 a.m. March 25 after police saw his car tailgating another car on Bagley Road, North Rocky River Drive and 237.

The man told police his brother was a passenger in the other car, which he was following because he was unfamiliar with the area. The man's eyes were glazed and bloodshot. He admitted he had been drinking and did not have a valid driver's license.

Police then learned that Wickliffe police had issued a warrant for the man's arrest. He was polite and cooperative with police.

Theft, Lombardy Drive: A backpack containing physical therapy tools was stolen between 3 p.m. March 26 and 6:45 a.m. March 27 from an unlocked car parked in a driveway.

Marijuana & drug paraphernalia possession, Ohio 237: A Willoughby man, 25, was arrested at about 2 p.m. March 27 after police saw him driving a BMW 325i with no front license plate. He smelled like marijuana and admitted smoking the drug. Officers found marijuana, a marijuana grinder, rolling papers and a marijuana pipe in his car.

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ORANGE, Ohio -- Simple assault, Miles Road: The village prosecutor is reviewing the circumstances surrounding a March 28 incident at the Village Diner, where an employee, 23, from Brook Park, brought an error in her paycheck to the attention of management.

She said words were exchanged and the owner grabbed her forearm. The owner, a Solon woman, 55, countered that it was intended to calm her down when she became unreasonably loud and started throwing things.

The worker was fired and another employee will be delegated to giving her the amended paycheck.

Breaking and entering, attempted burglary; Orange Place: Police were called March 28 to the Hampton Inn, where it was reported that the night before, a man forced entry into the laundry and housekeeping office, where assorted room keys were missing.

At least one guest complained that someone had attempted to enter their room that night, but was thwarted by the inside door being latched from the inside. Police were were checking video footage.

Disorderly conduct, Orange Place: Police were called to Red Lobster restaurant on the evening of March 24 where a Cleveland man, 34, was uncooperative and refusing to leave the restaurant after being fired, reportedly for drinking while on the clock.

He was found outside with a manager and a calmer frame of mind than when he was getting in peoples' faces and saying "Go ahead take a stance -- I can take you."

When police said they saw his eyes go into tunnel vision and his fists clench, they cuffed him, placed him in a cruiser and cited him, with instructions not to return.

Menacing, Orange Place: Staff at University Hospitals reported verbal threats coming from a minister who was there for blood work on March 24. The Cleveland man, 58, was described as being even more rude, argumentative and insulting to staff members than usual, including what was perceived as a threat when he said "Nowadays, you need to watch who you're talking to."

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CLEVELAND, Ohio -- A North Ridgeville man arrested late Wednesday faces a federal drug charge after agents tracked packages with fentanyl to his home that arrived in Ohio from Hong Kong, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office.

Homeland Security agents first intercepted a package earlier this month filled with fentanyl destined for the Grant Drive home of 33-year-old Daniel Rogerson-Wise, according to a news release. The agents were acting on a trip from U.S. and Border Protection.

A test confirmed the substance in the package was fentanyl, the news release says.

Agents also intercepted two more packages that arrived in the United States meant for the same address, the U.S. Attorney's Office said. An agent posted as a U.S. Postal Service employee called Rogerson-Wise Wednesday, and Rogerson-Wise told the agent that he was expecting several packages that were not delivered, according to an affidavit.

Investigators replaced the drugs in one of the packages with a "beeper." Once Rogerson-Wise opened the package, he was arrested. He admitted to investigators that he ordered 30 grams of an opioid he thought was legal, the affidavit says.

Agents later found a revolver at an Ignatius Avenue apartment on Cleveland's West Side where he also stayed, authorities say.

Rogerson-Wise is charged with attempting to possess with intent to distribute a fentanyl analogue. He made his initial appearance in federal court Thursday. A detention hearing is set for next week.

A call left for his federal public defender was not immediately returned.

Rogerson-Wise has previous drug and burglary convictions.

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Donald Harvey

FILE - In this September 1987 file photo, serial killer Donald Harvey stands before a judge during sentencing in Cincinnati. A spokeswoman for Ohio's prison system says Harvey was found badly beaten Tuesday, March 28, 2017, in his cell at the state's prison in Toledo, and the Ohio State Highway Patrol said Harvey was in critical condition Wednesday, March 29, 2017. Harvey became known as the "Angel of Death" and pleaded guilty in 1987 to 37 murders of hospital patients while working as a nurse's aide in Cincinnati and London, Kentucky, during the 1970s and '80s, claiming he was trying to end his patients' suffering. He is serving multiple life sentences as part of a plea deal that allowed him to avoid the death penalty. (AP Photo/Al Berhman, File)

(Associated Press file)

TOLEDO, Ohio (AP) -- A former nurse's aide dubbed the "Angel of Death" after he admitted killing three dozen hospital patients in Ohio and Kentucky died Thursday, two days after he was attacked and beaten in his prison cell.

Donald Harvey, who was serving multiple life sentences, was found injured in his cell Tuesday afternoon at the state prison in Toledo, officials said. A patrol report said the 64-year-old was beaten when an unnamed person entered his cell.

Harvey pleaded guilty in 1987 to killing 37 people, mostly while he worked as a nurse's aide at hospitals in Cincinnati and London, Kentucky. He later claimed he was responsible for killing 18 others while working at the Veterans Administration Medical Center in Cincinnati.

A relative of one of Harvey's victims expressed some regret but also suggested his death might be comeuppance.

"I'm kind of sad to hear it. But he was involved in about 50 people's deaths, and I guess maybe the good Lord gave him what he deserved," said Larry Bellamy, of Louisville, Kentucky, whose father-in-law is believed to be Harvey's second victim.

Hamilton County Prosecutor Joe Deters, who was an assistant on the case decades ago, said Harvey caused a great deal of pain.

"It may sound harsh, but the reality is that I do not have any compassion for Donald Harvey," Deters said.

Harvey told his former attorney the killings began in 1970 when was at Marymount Hospital in Kentucky.

Many of his victims were chronically ill patients and he claimed he was trying to end their suffering.

Harvey used arsenic and cyanide to poison most of his victims, often putting it in the hospital food he served them, prosecutors said. Some of the patients were suffocated when he let their oxygen tanks run out.

Twenty-one of the people Harvey killed were patients at the former Drake Memorial Hospital in Cincinnati, where he worked as a nurse's assistant.

He was caught after a medical examiner smelled cyanide while performing an autopsy on a victim.

Harvey told a newspaper after he pleaded guilty to avoid the death penalty that he liked the control of determining who lived and died.

Former Hamilton County Prosecutor Arthur Ney Jr., who prosecuted the cases in Cincinnati, said Harvey was not a mercy killer.

"He killed because he liked to kill," Ney said.

___

Associated Press writer Dylan Lovan in Louisville, Kentucky, contributed to this report.

To comment on this story, please visit cleveland.com's crime and courts comments section.
"I mean, five people around her have had, have been given immunity to include her chief of staff," Flynn told NBC's "Meet the Press" in a September 2016 interview , referring to Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton's email controversy. "When you are given immunity, that means you have probably committed a crime."

Mike Flynn has reportedly sought immunity from prosecution in exchange for his testimony about the Trump campaign's potential ties to Russia, but past comments show that Donald Trump 's former national security adviser once associated immunity with guilt.

NBC News, citing a congressional official, reported Thursday night that Flynn told the Senate Intelligence Committee that he is willing to testify about possible links between Russian and the Trump campaign. The Wall Street Journal also reported Thursday that Flynn had told the FBI and congressional investigators he was willing to be interviewed in exchange for immunity.

Flynn's attorney, Robert Kelner, issued a statement via Twitter on Thursday night:

@robkelner A statement by counsel to General Flynn.

Flynn, a retired Army general, started advising Trump's campaign in 2015. He then acted as the president's national security adviser, before he was pushed out of the job in February, after only three weeks, over his contacts with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak.

In March, Flynn filed paperwork with the Justice Department that identified him as a foreign agent, disclosing that he had done paid work for a firm that could have aided Turkey's government.




SHENZHEN, China  It's a mixed bag when it comes to Chinese tech giant Huawei, where profits are largely flat and sales continue to rise.

Net profit edged up 0.4 percent to 37.1 billion yuan ($5.3 billion) in 2016, while overall revenue jumped 32 percent to 521.6 billion yuan ($75.1 billion), according to the company. Profit growth was much weaker than analysts expected, though sales came in line with the company's own guidance released earlier this year.

Huawei holds firm as the world's third-largest smartphone maker, but the company is starting to feel a pinch. Both profit and sales are no longer rising as quickly as before, and analysts say increased spending on R&D and marketing are beginning to thin out margins. Indeed, net profit margin sat at 7.1 percent for 2016  the lowest rate in at least a decade.

But executives continue to defend Huawei's position. "Margins ranging around 7 percent is appropriate," said acting CEO Eric Xu.

The firm's enterprise unit, involved in developing smart solutions for areas like urban planning and transport, is the smallest in terms of sales, but saw the fastest growth at 47 percent.

Moving forward, the company will also need to consider broader economic conditions, he said.

The Shenzhen-based company remains extremely ambitious, and has continued to spend massively on R&D, shelling out 76.4 billion yuan ($11 billion) to further its business.
China's Politburo Standing Committee member Wang Qishan, the head of China's anti-corruption watchdog, walks toward his seat during the opening session of the National People's Congress (NPC) in Beijing, China, March 5, 2016.

The foreign mistresses, SWAT operations and a bed made of banknotes appearing in Chinese television series "In the Name of the People" would not be out of place in an American political drama like "House of Cards."

What truly raises eyebrows, however, could be that the show's main antagonist is a high-ranking government official.

One of the newest television dramas in China, "In the Name of the People" focuses on the work of anti-graft investigators whose job is to take down corrupt government officials, whether "tiger" (powerful bureaucrats) or "fly" (low-ranking officers).

The show, which debuted in China on March 28 on Hunan Television, is the first drama series to feature high-level government corruption as a central theme since 2004.

It also cost twice the amount to produce compared to other television series, China Daily reported. The 120 million yuan ($17.42 million) production was bankrolled by the Supreme People's Procuratorate, the national agency responsible for investigating corruption. A total of 56 episodes are expected to air.
Saudi Aramco may be the object of intense worldwide speculation, as investment banks and global stock exchanges salivate at the prospect of the expected largest IPO ever, but Saudi Arabia actually has much more than its oil sector to offer investors. And the state energy giant, which is expecting to raise as much as $100 billion as it lists a small portion of the company next year, is part of the kingdom's plan to unlock its hidden economic treasures.



King Salman of Saudi Arabia (L) and Chairman of the House of Representatives Setya Novanto wave during a visit to the parliament building in Jakarta, Indonesia March 2, 2017. Antara Foto | Wahyu Putro A via REUTERS

"The money that will come in is not money they'll put in the bank at 2 percent interest," said Tom McNulty, a director specializing in the energy sector at Navigant Consulting. "It's for turning one industry into 10 to 12 industries." This diversification away from oil is the reason why King Salman bin Abdulaziz recently spent a month in Asia, signing multi-billion dollar deals with Indonesia, Malaysia, China and Japan. The kingdom's government is now pushing for more public-private partnerships, and Saudi Arabia says it wants to increase foreign direct investment from the current 3.8 percent to 5.7 percent of GDP by 2030. "We see utilities, airports, health care and real estate holding the best opportunities from the point of view of public-private partnerships," said Saleem Khokhar, head of fund management at National Bank of Abu Dhabi. As the kingdom opens its door wider to foreign investors, here's where other opportunities lie:

Mining

It's not just oil buried in Saudi Arabia's land: The country has a treasure trove of other natural resources. "It has promising sites of minerals such as gold, silver, copper, iron, platinum and other strategic materials," said Jaap Meijer, head of equity research at Arqaam Capital, an emerging markets investment bank based in Dubai. In fact, Alcan Primary Metal Group, a Rio Tinto subsidiary, and the Saudi Arabian Mining Company recently signed a $7 billion joint venture agreement to mine bauxite reserves in the northern part of the kingdom. The plan is to produce 720,000 tons of aluminum per year. "I remember when I was there, everyone would say how rich the country is with other resources," said Mark Keenan, who used to invest for members of the Saudi royal family and is now managing director and head of commodities research in Asia for Societe Generale. "To mine this stuff, you need to be a BHP or a Rio."

Renewable energy

One of two solar parks at the King Abdullah Petroleum Studies and Research Center in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Courtesy: Phoenix Solar

The kingdom's road map to diversify away from oil is spelled out in its Saudi Vision 2030 plan, in which it acknowledges that "we still lack a competitive renewable energy sector at present." One near term goal is to maximize solar and wind power in the country by generating 9.5 gigawatts of renewable energy. Germany's Phoenix Solar has a head start in Saudi Arabia. In 2012 and 2014, the photovoltaics company built two solar panel parks on the site of the kingdom's petroleum research center in Riyadh. Saudi Aramco ordered the 3.5 megawatt and 1.8 megawatt solar parks. And Phoenix Solar has seven to eight more projects in the pipeline in Saudi Arabia, according to Klaus Friedl, managing director for Phoenix Solar Oman, which is executing the projects. Looking ahead, he said that upcoming competition in the country doesn't worry him. "There is real competition with about 20 to 30 companies who might be interested and submit bids for upcoming tenders. But in reality, the maximum is 10 competitors who are really in a position to win," said Friedl. "You need at least Saudi Arabian or GCC experience. You need at least a few power plants as reference projects and you need financial facilities for Saudi bonds."

Capital markets

Courtesy: Tadawul (Saudi Stock Exchange)

One key to growing the economy is opening up the capital markets. The Saudi Stock Exchange  also called the Tadawul, which means "trading" in Arabic  has a market capitalization of more than $400 billion reflected in the Tadawul All Share Index. All of the 176 listed names are Saudi companies. Mohammed El-Kuwaiz, vice chairman of the Capital Market Authority, regulates the exchange and envisions a day when foreign companies can list. "The Saudi capital market was an island unto itself. It was viewed as targeting local issuers and investors," El-Kuwaiz recently told CNBC. Right now, the only way a foreigner can invest in the Saudi equity market is by registering as a Qualified Foreign Investor (QFI), and the conditions are restrictive. Those foreign investors are generally large financial institutions or fund managers that must have at least 3.75 billion Saudi riyals ($1 billion) in assets under management. QFIs  including HSBC, which was one of the first foreign institutions to get the Saudi license  will have the right to subscribe in IPOs on the Tadawul, which is where Saudi Aramco is expected to have its primary listing.

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In February, the Saudi Stock Exchange launched a parallel market called Nomu, which has "lighter listing requirements" for domestic companies that want to go public. The Nomu, which means "growth" in Arabic, has seven listed companies with a total market cap of $518 million. After two years on the parallel market, a company may qualify to list on the main Tadawul index. These companies are also open to QFI investors.

Challenges

While several sectors may seem promising to investors, opening up the Saudi economy means changing several entrenched traditions. For example, allowing more women in the workforce or meeting Western expectations of transparency. "Saudi is like a family business," said Keenan of Societe Generale. "It's not like they publish reserves  nor do they need to. They're perfectly happy producing oil. No one's gone in there and done feasibility studies." That is about to change as engineering audits are reportedly underway in Saudi Arabia to determine the value of Aramco's oil reserves. "It's the first fresh clean look in a long time," said Navigant's McNulty.

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Former National Security Advisor Mike Flynn has told the Senate Intelligence Committee he is willing to testify about the Trump campaign's possible ties to Russia in return for immunity from prosecution, a Congressional official told NBC News.

The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday that Flynn had told the FBI and Congress he was willing to be interviewed in exchange for a grant.

More from NBC News:

Michael Flynn Resigns as National Security Adviser Over Talks With Russia

Russians Paid Mike Flynn $45K for Moscow Speech, Documents Show

Official: Flynn Discussed Sanctions With Russians Before Taking Office

Flynn, a retired Lt. Gen. who headed the Defense Intelligence Agency before being pushed out by the Obama administration, advised the Trump campaign beginning in 2015. He served as President Trump's national security advisor for three weeks before resigning for what the Trump administration said was misleading Vice President Mike Pence about his contacts with Russian Ambassador to the U.S. Sergey Kislyak.

Tweet on Flynn counsel statement

Flynn was paid $45,000 plus expenses to speak at the 10th anniversary gala of the RT television network in Moscow in December 2015, while he was already an advisor to Trump. The U.S. considers RT, which is state-sponsored, to be a propaganda outlet.

Prior to Trump's inauguration, on the day that President Obama announced sanctions against Russia as punishment for interfering in the U.S. election, Flynn spoke on the phone with Russian Ambassador Kislyak.

A U.S. intelligence official told NBC News that Flynn had discussed the hacking-related sanctions with Kislyak prior to Trump's inauguration. Flynn told the Washington Post he didn't discuss sanctions with Kislyak, then said he couldn't remember whether they had discussed sanctions.

Watch: WH officials briefed Nunes, Flynn agrees to testify for immunity
Toshiba shareholders agreed to split off its prized NAND flash memory unit on Thursday, paving the way for a sale to raise at least $9 billion to cover U.S. nuclear unit charges that threaten the conglomerate's future.



Coming a day after Westinghouse filed for bankruptcy, the extraordinary general meeting saw angry shareholders vent at CEO Satoshi Tsunakawa, with one noting that managers had only last year described the chip and nuclear businesses as core units at the conglomerate.



"How can something that was supposed to be a pillar turn into a hole," said the shareholder, asking Tsunakawa about the company's nuclear business.

"Toshiba has become a laughingstock around the world. You have no clue what's going on," shouted another.

Toshiba, which expects to book an annual net loss of 1 trillion yen ($9 billion) for this business year on a writedown at Westinghouse, has said it is selling most or even all of a unit that is the world's second-biggest producer of NAND chips.



Initial bids for the sale closed on Wednesday.


President Donald Trump is expected to sign two executive orders on Friday, which aim to fulfill key campaign promises to make trade more fair.

The first commissions a report on trade practices that contribute to the trade deficit, while the second seeks better collection of anti-dumping and countervailing duties.

The report, spearheaded by the Commerce Department and U.S. Trade Representative, aims to identify every trade abuse and "non-reciprocal practice" that contribute to the trade deficit.

Within 90 days, the report will go back to the Oval Office detailing specific causes for the deficit, country by country, product by product.

Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross repeatedly emphasized that this report will provide the White House with an empirical basis on which to make decisions about trade. It will allow the Trump administration take a "measured and analytical approach" and not do anything too casually or abruptly, he said.

"What's driving it is that the U.S. has the lowest tariff rates and the lowest non-tariff barriers of any developed country. While other countries talk about free trade, they actually are far more protectionist than we are," Ross said on Thursday.

It's likely that the report will find multiple reasons for the trade deficit, which Ross said could include lax enforcement, asymmetrical rules or currency misalignment. He said, however, that in some instances, the report will find that no real action should be taken because the deficit with a particular country isn't related to bad behavior.

The U.S. isn't oil self-sufficient, so it imports a lot of the commodity, Ross said. In other cases, there may be an imbalance simply because other countries are better at manufacturing a specific product or can do so more cheaply than the U.S.

The second executive order seeks to deal with what Peter Navarro, head of the National Trade Council, called the "long-festering problem of undercollection of anti-dumping and countervailing duties." Both types of tariffs aim to protect the competitiveness for U.S. products, by bridging the gap between cheaper imports and American manufactured goods.

Navarro said on Thursday, "It does our workers and domestic manufacturers no good for the Department of Commerce to impose countervailing duties if they go uncollected at the border."

The second order is also expected to direct the Department of Homeland Security to better combat violations of U.S. trade and customs laws and enable enhanced seizure of counterfeit and pirated goods.

Earlier Thursday, Trump tweeted that his upcoming meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping at Mar-a-Lago will be a "very difficult one in that we can no longer have massive trade deficits and job losses."

@realDonaldTrump: ...and job losses. American companies must be prepared to look at other alternatives.

Yet when pressed on Thursday if these executive orders are meant to put China "on notice" or target the country, Ross and Navarro disagreed with those characterizations.

Ross had pointed out that the United States' largest trade deficit is with China, but that fact was simply meant to be used as a reference and not a ranking of targets. Navarro said that these orders are meant to shed light on trade abuses in general.
Donald Trump Getty Images

U.S. President Donald Trump set the tone for a tense first meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping next week by tweeting on Thursday that the United States could no longer tolerate massive trade deficits and job losses.

The White House said Trump would host Xi next Thursday and Friday at his Mar-a-Lago retreat in Florida. It said Trump and his wife, Melania, would host Xi and his wife, Peng Liyuan, at a dinner next Thursday.

In a tweet on Thursday evening, Trump said the highly anticipated meeting between the leaders of the world's two largest economies, which is also expected to cover differences over North Korea and China's strategic ambitions in the South China Sea, "will be a very difficult one." "We can no longer have massive trade deficits and job losses," he wrote, adding in apparent reference to U.S. firms manufacturing in China: "American companies must be prepared to look at other alternatives."



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Despite a string of U.S.-China meetings and conversations that have appeared aimed at mending ties after strong criticism of China by Trump during his election campaign, U.S. officials have said the Republican president will not pull his punches in the meeting.

General Electric Chief Executive Officer Jeff Immelt on Thursday urged Trump to maintain the country's economic relationship with China, saying the United States has much to gain from globalization. "The country loses if we don't trade. The relationship with China is key," Immelt said at an aviation panel hosted by industry group the Wings Club. "If you give up on trade, you give up on the best lever that the president of the United States has in negotiating around the world. I just think that President Trump is too smart to give up on that."



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Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang gave no details of the agenda, but spoke of the need to see the big picture while fostering mutual interests in trade relations.

"The market dictates that interests between our two countries are structured so that you will always have me and I will always have you," he told a regular briefing.

"Both sides should work together to make the cake of mutual interest bigger and not simply seek fairer distribution," he said.

Trump administration officials say the need for China to do more to rein in the nuclear and missile programs of its neighbor and ally North Korea will top the agenda, along with trade. The U.S. side is also expected to criticize Beijing for its pursuit of expansive claims in the South China Sea.

White House spokesman Sean Spicer told a news briefing the meeting would be an opportunity for Trump "to develop a relationship in person with President Xi."

"He's spoken to him on the phone a few times, but we have big problems ... everything from the South China Sea, to trade, to North Korea. There are big issues of national and economic

security that need to get addressed."

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One hundred and fifty years ago  on March 30, 1867  Russia signed over Alaskan land to the U.S. for less than two cents an acre. Today, that same land has proven to be a gold mine.

Boasting sectors like oil, gas, mining, seafood and tourism, Alaska is the a hot commodity for investors, according to John Springsteen, the CEO of Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority (AIDEA).

"There are many attractive prospects in ... Alaska, particularly when it comes to oil and gas development and our other natural resources," Springsteen told CNBC's "Squawk Box" on Friday.

The Arctic region has already attracted the attention of many Asian countries such as China, Japan and Singapore.

Beijing has said it is ready to play a role in developing the Arctic and plans to conduct its eighth scientific expedition there in 2018. Japan, meanwhile, is eyeing shipping routes and resource exploitation there, as Tokyo seeks sourcing opportunities for energy and other raw materials.

For his part, Springsteen said AIDEA has a history of working closely with Asia.

"We are an enterprise infrastructure investor and we have a history of working with the money from Singapore and money from Korea, money from Japan, in order to meet the mutual interests for energy independence," he said.

Springsteen recommended that investors looking to get into the region  which is hampered by limited access to resources, surface transportation, ports, broadband and other critical infrastructure  work with parties "that have the abilities and the confidence to be able to execute in this type of an environment."

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Workers at a Greatbatch Medical plant in Tijuana, Mexico, Feb. 14, 2017. The medical devices business makes a particularly revelatory case study of the difficulties of untangling global trade.

The North American Free Trade Agreement has transformed this sprawling border town from gritty party spot to something entirely different: a world capital of medical devices.

Trucks choke boulevards lined with factories, many bearing the names of American-run companies: Medtronic, Hill-Rom, DJO Global and Greatbatch Medical. Inside, Mexican workers churn out millions of medical devices each day, from intravenous bags to artificial respirators, for the global market.

Nearly everyone in America who has a pacemaker  in fact, people all over the world  walks around with parts from here.

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When President Trump threatens to redo trade deals and slap steep taxes on imports in an effort to add more manufacturing jobs, he focuses largely on car companies and air-conditioner makers. But the medical devices business makes a particularly revelatory case study of the difficulties of untangling global trade.

America imports about 30 percent of its medical devices and supplies. The trouble is, these jobs are among the most difficult to relocate to the United States. To ensure the safety of products that often end up inside the human body, medical devices are strictly regulated and require lengthy approvals from the Food and Drug Administration and other inspectors.

If the companies do keep major operations outside the country, new taxes on imports would most likely increase the cost of their products  a change that could jolt not only the devices industry in coming years, but also health care nationwide.

Here in Tijuana the factories are bound to stay put for years, at least. During that time, health executives say, a border tax could fracture the industry's sophisticated global supply chain and force American hospitals to pay more for vital necessities  or worse.

"The real danger is the supplies won't be available at all," said Dr. John Jay Shannon, chief executive of the Cook County Health and Hospitals System in Chicago.

American hospitals rely on heaps of bandages and surgical gloves from China, suturing needles and artificial joints from Ireland, and defibrillators and catheters from Mexico. In all, the annual imports of medical devices more than tripled from 2001 to 2016, when it reached $43.9 billion, according to BMI Research, a unit of the Fitch Group.

Mexico is the leading supplier, ahead of Ireland, Germany and China. And few places illustrate this changing landscape, or help explain the complexity of the industry, as well as Tijuana, 20 miles south of San Diego.

The city houses the highest concentration of Mexico's medical device firms, 70 percent of which are American-owned, according to the local development group. Companies including Medtronic, CareFusion, DJO Global and Hill-Rom-Welch Allyn  some that have their headquarters just up the road in San Diego  have invested heavily in Tijuana, constructing long, low-slung factories tucked into the hilly terrain. Giant banners hanging from manufacturing plants plead for workers to join them.

The high-tech operations emerged after Nafta helped transform Mexican border factories, known as maquiladoras, into industrial powerhouses. Now, instead of being garment sweatshops, many maquiladoras in Tijuana employ a new generation of Mexican engineers and skilled technicians to make orthopedic devices, surgical equipment and catheters.

The factories have helped remake the city's reputation from a ribald party town to a locus of sophisticated industrial manufacturing. Roadside shanties made of corrugated metal and plastic abut new apartment complexes painted fuchsia and lime green; late-model S.U.V.s bounce along potholed roads. Workers pass through imposing security gates to begin shifts operating advanced machinery or delicately sewing pig tissue onto stents for heart valves, and trucks zip in a steady line across the border in preclearance, fast-track lanes into California.

But the possibility of new protectionist trade policies is already looming over this buzz of activity. The question for many of the people here is whether it will upend the economic incentives that led American companies to invest in the city in the first place.

Mr. Trump has argued that a border tax is needed to keep well-paying jobs in the United States and dissuade companies from relying on Mexican workers who earn a small fraction of American wages. Technicians at medical device factories in Tijuana earn about $14 an hour, compared with about $25 an hour for technicians at factories in the United States.

Critics of Mexico's maquiladoras system contend that wages are kept unfairly low and that workers have been kept from organizing. For companies, though, the savings are clear  as much as 45 percent for labor-intensive products  and have helped fuel the wave of development here.

Now, even the city's unflappable longtime entrepreneurs are unsettled by the shift in trade talk.

American companies draft plans to build new plants  or expand existing ones  years in advance, said Miguel Felix Diaz, vice president of the Baja California Medical Device Cluster, an organization that represents 63 medical device manufacturing plants that employ 60,000 Mexican workers.

"For that reason now," he said, "you don't know if you start some operation tomorrow how it's going to be affected."

If the United States does approve a border tax, Mr. Felix Diaz added, "the final customer is going to pay."

The final tally of just how much American customers  hospitals, clinics, nursing homes and doctors' offices  would pay is unclear. Mr. Trump and Republican lawmakers have yet to release a detailed plan on trade tariffs or corporate tax reform.

In addition, the final price on many medical devices is negotiated by group-purchasing organizations, which harness the purchasing power of hospitals and others and would try to mitigate any price increases.

Mike Alkire, chief operating officer at Premier, which negotiates for some 3,750 American hospitals, said that while prices would initially spike if the Trump administration hit countries like Mexico or China with tariffs, "we've got enough diversity in the way we source products, we think we can manage the costs."

"Over the long term," Mr. Alkire added, "we do think the market will stabilize and the most efficient place to produce products will occur."

But chief executives at some of the United States' largest hospitals are nervously watching the gathering legislative, economic and geopolitical storm. The executives say this concern on trade is based on simple math.

In Chicago, Cook County's public clinics and hospitals spend $62 million a year on medical supplies, including 120,432 boxes of gloves, 44,434 boxes of syringes and 403,460 bags of fluids. Safety-net hospitals that care for poor patients would be unable to pass along price increases because the programs that insure those patients, Medicaid and Medicare, pay fixed rates for care.

"It's a bunch of dominoes," said Doug Elwell, deputy chief executive for finance and strategy at the county hospital system. Private or for-profit hospitals, because they serve largely privately insured patients, "can pass along 10 percent in the bill," he said. "But we can't."

A border tax, experts say, would ricochet back and forth across the United States-Mexico border  and around the world  in unintended ways.

Mexico's medical device industry buys much of its raw materials and capital machinery from American suppliers. The American-owned Integer plant in Tijuana, for example, buys 90 percent of its raw materials, essentially duty-free, from the United States: stainless steel to be stamped into cups used for hip replacements and plastic to be molded into catheters. Then half of the factory's output is shipped back to the United States and much of the rest to American-owned companies in Puerto Rico, Switzerland and Singapore.

If Mexico imposes tariffs on raw materials from American suppliers, a likely response to any border tax imposed by the United States, production costs would spike for companies in Mexico or those companies would shift to suppliers in other countries eager to cut low-tariff deals like China. Imports from China contain around 4 percent of content from the United States, while imports from Mexico contain about 40 percent, and even more in products like medical devices.

"The damage wouldn't just to be to the Mexico operation, it would be to U.S. suppliers," said Christopher Wilson, deputy director of the Mexico Institute at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.

Companies would also face a regulatory thicket should they move or change suppliers.

The Food and Drug Administration inspects and certifies hundreds of medical device manufacturers in China, Europe, Mexico and elsewhere, and even minor manufacturing changes must be certified, a process that can take many months.

"Medical devices is a very stringent process," said Jorge Hernandez, director of operations at Integer in Tijuana, an American-owned company that makes components for pacemakers and defibrillators, among other devices.

The Integer plant in Tijuana that Mr. Hernandez oversees looks like a vast scientific laboratory. Behind glass windows, in so-called clean rooms, employees in blue hair caps and bootees tend to machines that process gold and platinum into tiny components for pacemakers. In one room, workers sit shoulder to shoulder, peering into microscopes as they expertly remove tiny debris from freshly made parts. Even the smallest change in these manufacturing protocols would require a new inspection.

Integer's legacy company, Greatbatch Medical, opened the plant in 2005. Over the years, the company consolidated some of its manufacturing from Carson City, Nev., and Columbia, Md., to Tijuana, drawn by the lower wages and the pool of skilled technicians graduating from Mexican universities.

The company, like many others here, is seamlessly integrated: Employees in Tijuana videoconference with research and development teams in the United States to fine-tune product designs. The border seems like a quaint historical footnote.

"People need to understand this relationship we have goes both ways," said David Mayagoitia, president of the board of the Tijuana Economic Development Corporation.

Sitting inside an office in a modern glass and concrete building in downtown Tijuana, Mr. Felix Diaz said Mexicans and Americans had built strong relationships.

"We are dealing daily, we are eating together, we drink a couple of tequilas," he said. "We don't want to start any commercial war."
In New York City , where luxury apartments have been going up at a fast clip since the recession , landlords are increasing both amenities and concessions. The share of rentals with landlord concessions set a new record at the start of this year. Over 30 percent of New York landlords offered concessions, with the heaviest use within 2-bedroom apartments, according to Jonathan Miller, of Miller Samuel, who provides monthly reports for real estate broker Douglas Elliman.

"There are lots of available units at just-completed projects," according to Jay Denton, vice president of RealPage's Axiometrics business group. "Also, top-tier existing projects are losing performance momentum for the first time in this market cycle. Some renters from established luxury projects are opting for the newest deliveries in order to take advantage of rent discounts often offered during the initial lease-up process."

Demand for rental apartments fell short of new supply by about 100,000 units nationwide, according to RealPage, a real estate analytics firm. Apartment occupancy is still high, but it is softening a bit, dropping to 94.5 percent in the first quarter of this year, compared to 95.1 percent at the end of 2016. Occupancy has been falling for the past six months.

If you are a first-time renter or looking to upgrade to a bigger, newer apartment, now may be your best chance.

Most of the concessions are monetary  a month or two of free rent  but others are more creative.

"What we're seeing more of now is discounted deposits in addition to free months of rent. You only have to put down $500 or $1,000 deposit. It impacts what people are looking at, and that sweetens the deal for a lot of people," said Gabby Warshawer, director of research for CityRealty.com, a New York City real estate listings and analytics company. "There are also stray offerings for gift cards  a $1,000 MasterCard gift card when you sign the lease or, in some cases, free access to the building's amenities package."

While concessions are hitting the luxury end, rent growth is still relatively strong moving down the rent scale. Pricing is strongest in the middle-market, so-called Class B properties, which tend to be older buildings or rentals in the close-in suburbs.

"Top-tier projects in neighborhoods with the most construction are struggling to push rents at all. In many metros, that's especially true in the urban core. However, Class A product rent growth is still substantial in desirable suburbs adding comparatively modest new supply," said RealPage's Denton.

Rents and rent growth obviously vary market to market, as with all things real estate, and Sacramento, California, now tops the charts, with rents up 9.8 percent annually. Seattle, Washington, and San Bernardino, California, are not far behind. Rent growth is about half that in Charlotte, North Carolina, Denver, Colorado, Minneapolis, Minnesota, and Tampa, Florida.

The real estate investment trusts (REITs) behind multifamily apartments are responding accordingly. Top markets for REIT returns include Phoenix, Arizona, Tampa, Florida, and Oakland, California. Below average trends can be found in New York City, Philadelphia, and Boston, according to Gaurav Mehta, a multifamily REIT analyst at Cantor Fitzgerald.

"We continue to expect the largest supply increases in New York, the strongest job growth in Orlando and the highest rent growth in Seattle," said Mehta, who expects supply to peak this year with the largest increases in New York, Nashville, Charlotte, Austin, and Seattle.

Analysts at RealPage say demand should grow through this year, as increasing job growth supports more household formation. Both economics and demographics favor more demand for rentals. Supply, however, is also growing and demand is unlikely to meet it. There are currently over 581,000 apartment units under construction with scheduled deliveries climbing to an average 102,000 units per quarter, compared to 82,000 finished per quarter in late 2016 and early 2017.

Watch: Loans for rentals
Since the time of the Industrial Revolution, the job market in the U.S. has been in a perpetual state of change. Some jobs disappear, because of market changes or technological advances, and new ones emerge. Now, thanks in part to the craft beer market explosion, we can add one more exciting new job title to the list: Beer Historian  at the Smithsonian.

The job listing

News of this job appeared about eight months ago in the Washington City Paper as a part of a report about the Food History project at the Smithsonian in Washington D.C. News that the Smithsonian was looking to hire a beer scholar for a three-year appointment took the internet by storm.

"We have collected food history for many years, so when we were doing the research for the exhibition, which is all about big changes in the post WWII era in how and what we eat, one thing we were curious about is the craft beer movement," curator Paula Jones told Washington City Paper. "We were looking at wine, coffee, cheese, artisanal bread, and farmers markets. Well, this movement with small-scale, local regional beer is part of the ethos."

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The job was listed as paying $64,650 per year, plus benefits, and interested parties were asked to submit their applications by August 10th, 2016.

The job posting read:

The Smithsonian Food History project at the National Museum of American History, in Washington, DC, is seeking a professional historian / scholar to conduct archival and field research for a new initiative on American brewing history, with special emphasis on the craft industry. The position is located in the Division of Work and Industry and will be a three-year appointment. The successful candidate will have proven experience in scholarly research, organizing and conducting oral history interviews, writing for both scholarly and general audiences, and knowledge of material culture and archival materials. The candidate will work with members of the curatorial staff on collections work and develop content for a wide variety of programs and applications, including digital formats. Candidates with an advanced degree in American business, brewing, food, cultural, or similar specialization within history are encouraged to apply. Must be able to travel, work independently as well as within a team environment, to meet deadlines, and to communicate effectively with co-workers and the public.

The right fit

Just a few weeks ago, the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History announced they'd found the perfect candidate. Historian Theresa McCulla has enthusiastically accepted the position. She will oversee the "Brewing History Initiative" at the museum over the course of the next three years.

McCulla will receive her doctorate in American Studies from Harvard in May. She has a background in food as well as history. She has a degree from the Cambridge School of Culinary Arts' Professional Chefs Program. And, she also directed the Food Literacy Project for Harvard University Dining Services and managed Harvard's two farmers markets from 2007 through 2010.

She is more than a little excited about starting her new job. McCulla hopes to shine a light on the people that helped American brewing get its start.

"One common stereotype about American beer is its identity as largely, if not exclusively, masculine," McCulla tells Smithsonian.com. "But the history shows us that the very first brewers were women and enslaved peoples who brewed beer in the home."

McCulla can't wait to uncover more information about the subject and share the connections she finds with others.

"Smithsonian has already used food as a very critical and successful entry point into talking with the public about much bigger questions relating to American history," McCulla tells Smithsonian.com. "We really feel quite strongly that beer is a very effective lens into much bigger questions about American history. If you look at the history of beer, you can understand stories related to immigration and industrialization and urbanization. You can look at advertising and the history of consumer culture and changing consumer taste. Brewing is integrated into all facets of American history."

This article originally appeared on PayScale.
A Democratic congressman from Texas will challenge conservative Sen. Ted Cruz for his seat next year.

Rep. Beto O'Rourke, a three-term congressman from the state's 16th District, will launch his campaign Friday, according to Texas media reports. He likely faces a daunting task in unseating Cruz, the first-term Republican who was the runner-up to President Donald Trump in last year's GOP primary.

Republicans currently hold 52 Senate seats, while Democrats control 46 and independents hold two. Texas, a red state, is not expected to be the focus for the minority party. Democratic senators face 2018 re-election in states Trump won including Ohio, Pennsylvania, Florida and West Virginia, among others.
Elon Musk Daniel Acker | Bloomberg | Getty Images

P.T. Barnum has nothing on Elon Musk, whose every word and tweet are met with excitement by millions around the world. In fact, when CNBC asked the founders and CEOs of young start-ups that made the recent CNBC Upstart 25 list who they would want as a guest speaker at their company, nine of the 25 named the Tesla Motors , SpaceX and PayPal founder. "When he sees a problem or opportunity to do something better, he builds a company to solve it," said Jason Palmer, co-founder and COO of on-the-go charging company MobileQubes. Indeed, Musk announced another new company this week, called Neuralink, which will work on neural lace, a technology he's hoping will literally meld man and machine, attaching artificial intelligence to the human brain's cortex (he'll figure out the details later). Musk was also busy raising the bar in rocketry this week: For the first time in history SpaceX was able to re-use a rocket in a successful launch. Musk is even an inspiration in the low-tech industries on our Upstart 25 list. Galit Laibow is CEO and co-founder of Foodstirs, the on-demand healthy baking start-up that lists actress Sarah Michelle Gellar among its founders. Laibow told CNBC she would want Musk first because he "is all about vision, challenging status quo and reinventing the norm  much as we're about reinventing the baking industry." The founders of DroneDeploy noted, "We're three South African co-founders trying to bring a completely new technology to the world. He's a South African-born entrepreneur whose done it three times." But founders and CEOs of Upstart 25 companies also revealed a few surprises: Some great visionaries of our time and some from long ago.

Gloria Steinem: Speaking up for girls

Gloria Steinem speaks onstage during the Women's March on Washington on January 21, 2017 in Washington, DC Theo Wargo | Getty Images Entertainment | Getty Images

Although Silicon Valley hasn't earned high marks for its treatment of gender, many more start-ups are being founded by women, including 10 on the Upstart 25 list. The founders of feminine hygiene products company Lola and investing firm Ellevest  started by one of Wall Street's most powerful women (Sallie Krawcheck)  named Gloria Steinem as the speaker they would bring in before anyone else. These were also the only founders who added no explanatory language supporting their selection  the name alone was enough. But the feminist icon was not the most popular female choice. Michelle Obama, former First Lady, was the most in-demand speaker after Musk. "We know she's on a beach somewhere, but we'd love hearing from Michelle Obama. She brings many lessons on rallying people to causes that are important," said Ursula Mead, CEO and founder of InHerSight, a start-up focused on helping women find the best career fits. For Grokker, an on-demand fitness start-up, this is no hypothetical exercise. Its founder and CEO, Lorna Borenstein, has been hosting a series of webinars featuring business leaders on Silicon Valley secrets and culture, for which she has had "high-powered girlfriends who hail from Pinterest, Google, Yahoo!, Lifelock, Kleiner Perkins, etc."

Ed Feitzinger: The guy behind Amazon's every move

Amazon.com boxes are shown stacked near a Boeing 767 Amazon "Prime Air" cargo plane on display in a Boeing hangar in Seattle. Ted S. Warren | AP

It's Ed Feitzinger, vice president of global logistics at Amazon, not CEO and founder Jeff Bezos, who actually helps move packages with maximum efficiency. And that's why the co-founder of Kenya-based agriculture start-up Markit Opportunity would invite Feitzinger before Bezos. "Our offer to smallholder farmers is creating supply chains that are more efficient and effective at increasing transparency, and having his expertise and experience with supply-chain logistics, combined with the ability to lead, would be very insightful for the team," said Zeluis Teixeira, co-founder. Amazon hired Feitzinger, a former CEO of UTi Worldwide, one of the largest supply-chain management companies, last September. While Amazon says publicly it won't compete with FedEx or UPS, Amazon has now built facilities within 20 miles of 44 percent of the U.S. population, according to PiperJaffray. And at the same time, it's becoming more global. This week Amazon announced it had acquired the Middle East's largest online retailer, Souq, for $800 million. Shipping economics have never been more important to Amazon. A big reason for its current vicious price war with consumer brands and Wal-Mart is difficulty moving lots of packages at a profit.



Ajit Pai: The new gatekeeper of the internet

Ajit Pai, at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain on February 28, 2017. Brad Quick | CNBC

Regulators may seem like the boring people of technology, seeking to limit its reach rather than lead innovation, but this week new Federal Communications Commission chair Ajit Pai demonstrated a little bit of his power to influence, if not inspire, every single move made online. Congress voted to reverse an Obama-era rule that limited the ability of the telecommunications companies that provide broadband access to sell private-user data without consent. It is a decision that Pai supports (he voted against the Obama-era rule when he was in the minority among FCC members). Pai is also expected to revisit net neutrality rules enacted during the Obama era, which was designed to prohibit broadband providers from playing favorites among apps and services. Pai attracted the attention of cloud software services start-up Midfin Systems founders, who said, "We would like to bring Ajit Pai, the new FCC chair, so that we can help inform the national and global agenda on the future of internet." The start-up's co-founders share something in common with Pai: All three are Indian-Americans.

George Orwell: A voice from the past with a message about the future

Eric Arthur Blair called George Orwell (1903-1950), English writer. Adoc-photos | Corbis | Getty Images

Since Donald J. Trump's election, copies of George Orwell's dystopian classic "1984" have returned to the best-seller list. So it should not come as too big a surprise that start-ups don't just want to read the book but have George Orwell as their dream guest speaker. It also makes sense that it's cybersecurity founders who are infatuated with the novelist who created the "Big Brother" surveillance state. Pavel Gurvich, CEO of GuardiCore, one of the growing number of Israeli-founded cybersecurity start-ups, said of Orwell, "I think he had a very far-looking vision of how technology and society can evolve. '1984' is a warning of a future world where the machine exerts complete control over social life. ... We believe that technology should serve mankind, not control it. ... It would also be incredibly interesting to hear Orwell's vision now  if he knew what we know today  about how technology and society have evolved since his publishing of '1984' in 1949."

Norbert Weiner: A child prodigy who was way ahead on machine intelligence

Professor Norbert Weiner smoking cigar. Al Fenn | The LIFE Picture Collection | Getty Images

We're gonna guess this is a name most people don't know today, even if once upon a time, Norbert Weiner was a cultural sensation. This child prodigy was all over the popular press between the 1900s and 1910s for graduating high school and attending Tufts University at 11, then receiving his Ph.D. from Harvard at 18. Weiner spent decades as an MIT professor and wrote a book that widely popularized the idea of machine intelligence, "Cybernetics," in 1948 (one year before Orwell's classic). The book's title was chosen by Weiner himself, and terms such as cyberspace and cyborg stem from it, summing up just how far it has reached, The actual theory of cybernetics  that machine intelligence could recreate the brain were way ahead of actual science. But as today's research into artificial intelligence continues  and as Musk looks for a way into the human brain directly  start-up founders do look back to Weiner as a touchstone. Interestingly, it's the founders of a start-up that melds man and machine in a physical relationship that cited Weiner. Assaf Biderman, CEO of Superpedestrian, which is aiming to reinvent cycling through a robotic approach  and from Weiner's home turf at MIT  noted that Weiner's "theories of human machine interaction in the 1960s pioneered a transformative new field of cybernetics."

Pedro Domingos: Musk and Hawking aren't the only A.I. oracles

Pedro Domingos, artificial intelligence expert and University of Washington professor. Source: YouTube

The rise of machine intelligence has led to dire predictions about an apocalypse from noted thinkers including Musk and physicist Stephen Hawking. But the founders of Scalable Capital, while citing Hawking, had a less well-known figure in mind as a guest speaker on A.I.: Pedro Domingos, a professor at the University of Washington. Scalable Capital is one of the so-called robo-advisors betting that computers can do a better job of investing than human financial advisors and stock pickers. Musk has cited the book "Superintelligence" by Oxford University philosopher Nick Bostrom as the most important work on the risks posed by A.I., but Scalable Capital's founders said Domingos "wrote one of the best books about A.I." His book, "The Master Algorithm," has other fans. In fact, you don't need to choose between Bostrom and Domingos: Bill Gates recently recommended reading both. Melinda Gates said at last year's Code Conference, "I can always tell what's on his mind by what's in his bag of books. And there have been a lot of A.I. books."

Sean Parker: But not because of Facebook or Napster

Sean Parker, co-founder of Napster Inc. and managing partner of the Founders Fund. Simon Dawson | Bloomberg | Getty Images
A massive fire caused a bridge to collapse Thursday night on Interstate 85 in Atlanta, one of the busiest stretches of roadway in America, backing up rush hour traffic for several miles and creating what the mayor called a long-term "transportation crisis."



The huge fire was reported at 6:21 p.m. ET underneath the bridge on the northbound side  near where the interstate merges with another major artery, State Highway 400  forcing authorities to close the interstate and turn drivers around during the evening rush.

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Then, at about 7 p.m., the bridge collapsed in a flaming heap that spewed thick, black smoke high into the air, where it was visible for miles around Atlanta.

Authorities managed to turn back traffic before the bridge collapsed, and Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal said no injuries were reported. But thousands of motorists were locked in place on the interstate as state troopers worked on a way to get vehicles off the roadway.

Deal declared a state of emergency for Atlanta and Fulton County late Thursday night.

The fire itself was declared under control about 8 p.m., but the collapsed bridge was the principal problem. All lanes of I-85 in the area are expected to be blocked indefinitely, the state Transportation Department said.

"I think it's as serious a transportation crisis as we could have," Mayor Kasim Reed said at a news conference late Thursday. He said that FBI agents were on the scene "to work out what happened" but that the agency had reported no suspected link to terrorism.

Russell McMurry, commissioner of the Georgia Department of Transportation, also described the situation as a "crisis."

At a news conference at 11 p.m. ET  almost five hours after the fire started  transportation crews still couldn't gain access to the scene because of the heat still being generated by the flames, McMurry said.

A department spokeswoman said it was unlikely that inspections of the affected structures could even begin until Friday afternoon at the earliest.

Atlanta Fire Chief Kelvin Cochran disclosed Thursday night that other parts of I-85 had been "compromised"  including the important interchange over Piedmont Road, which leads to the state Capitol.

In an interview with NBC affiliate WXIA, Cochran credited state troopers with saving lives by managing to stop all of the traffic in the 40 minutes before the bridge collapsed.

"We had heavy fire. We had heavy smoke. We couldn't see through that smoke just like everybody else," he said.

The cause of the fire remained undetermined Thursday night, but Deal said in a televised statement that authorities were focusing on the possibility that polyvinyl chloride (PVC) piping commonly used in construction may have ignited for some reason. WXIA reported that large amounts of PVC pipe were stored under the bridge.

Tweet 1

The station had a helicopter at the scene to record the raging fire.

The location is near the ritzy downtown Atlanta district of Buckhead, sometimes called "the Beverly Hills of the South," which is home to some of the city's biggest businesses, medical centers and diplomatic missions.

State and local officials said more than 225,000 vehicles traveled trough the affected area on an average weekday, and they pleaded with Atlantans to do whatever they could to stay away for as long as it takes.

"Most of us are used to our routines. We're used to that one way we go to work and that one way we do our business," said Col. Mark McDonough, chief executive of the state Department of Public Safety. "So this is now the time to change that."

Tweet 2

John Eaves, chairman of the Fulton County Board of Commissioners, asked businesses in the area to make plans for flexible work schedules and to encourage employees to use public transit in the coming "days and weeks."

The Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority said it was arranging extended service to accommodate the extra riders.

The DeKalb County School System said all schools would be closed Friday. The Atlanta school system said it was working on a plan to find alternative bus routes through the area.

Atlantans already suffered through the fourth-worst traffic in America and the ninth worst in the world, Inrix, a global transportation research firm, reported last year. But the impact of the collapse is likely to be felt for some time across the Southeast.

I-85 is one of the busiest freeways in the eastern half of the country, carrying vehicles almost 700 miles from southern Alabama through Virginia. It is an important commercial throughway for trucks making deliveries to businesses and warehouses not only in Atlanta but also in other major commercial centers like Montgomery, Alabama, and Charlotte, North Carolina.

WXIA reported that transportation officials were meeting with officials from Deal's office to assess both the immediate and the long-term impacts on transportation and commerce.
The United States will no longer bow to the rest of the world on trade because President Donald Trump plans to act, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross told CNBC on Friday.

"We are in a trade war. We have been for decades. The only difference is that our troops are finally coming to the rampart. We didn't end up with a trade deficit accidentally," he said, warning about the consequences of doing nothing.



Ross, a billionaire who made his fortune investing in distressed assets, argued on "Squawk Box" that the shortfalls are the result of bad trade deals and other countries actively seeking surpluses.

"Our trade deficit overall is about $500 billion a year," Ross said. "Quite miraculously, that also equals the net trade surplus with the rest of the world."

Despite what some critics say, Ross maintained that trade deficits  the disparity between imports and exports  matter. "If trade deficits are good, why is China so pleased that they run a huge trade surplus?" he asked. "It's perfectly obvious that if China hadn't been such a huge net-exporter it never would have grown at the rate that it did."

Trump on Thursday set the tone for his first meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping next week by tweeting the U.S. could no longer tolerate massive trade deficits and job losses.



The meeting next week with China will be a very difficult one in that we can no longer have massive trade deficits...

...and job losses. American companies must be prepared to look at other alternatives.

Ross appeared on "Squawk Box" just hours before Trump was expected to sign two executive orders aimed at fulfilling campaign promises to stop trade cheaters.



One of the orders commissions a report on practices that contribute to the nation's trade deficit such as "bad practices" and "currency misalignment," Ross said.

The other seeks better collection of anti-dumping and countervailing duties.



"When I first took this job I was horrified to learn that billions of dollars of duties that have been won after ... hard fought cases have never been collected," Ross said.

On Thursday, Ross told CNBC the Trump administration wants to formally start the North American Free Trade Agreement renegotiation process before Congress goes on April recess.


Mergers & acquisitions professionals are talking about dealmaking in the Trump administration era at Tulane's 29th Annual Corporate Law Institute. Source: Tulane Law School

In the world of dealmaking and shareholder activism, an annual conference in New Orleans has become the staple event. This year, the optimism over the mergers and acquisitions environment is about as free-flowing as the Ramos Gin Fizzes.



Kurt Simon, global chairman of M&A at JPMorgan , gave the keynote address at the 29th annual Corporate Law Institute conference hosted by Tulane University Law School, which draws everyone from deal advisers to Delaware judges. He said there are upsides for M&A, stemming from the White House, Congress and rising talk about infrastructure spending and tax cuts.

He even said that JPMorgan believes the market is not far away from seeing its first $100 billion all-cash deal.



Simon's optimism was echoed in a survey by the public relations firm Brunswick Group, which found that 44 percent of 120 dealmakers surveyed expect merger activity to increase this year. That compares with only 13 percent last year.



Brunswick attributed dealmakers' confidence to policies expected from the Trump administration.

Does Trump help deals  or hurt them?

Others, however, are less convinced that President Donald Trump's policy ideas will be a positive for dealmaking. Leo Strine, chief justice for the Supreme Court of Delaware, spoke with his usual candor, saying that protectionist U.S. policies could prompt Europeans and others outside the United States to think inwardly as well.



"You can play a game like Putin, where all the stooges on the other side let you score," he said. "I don't know that to be global capitalism."



The uncertainty surrounding the administration could cause companies to delay their deals, several panelists said. Simon noted on a panel that tax reform is a "near-term negative" for dealmaking, citing several situations where boards considering selling their companies for cash may defer. For example, lower taxes could lower sellers' expenses, and thereby increase their valuations. To sell now could mean giving up future upside.



It's less of an issue for buyers, he said, when they can figure out "synergies" that make the math work.

M&A in an age of populism
It is hard to be optimistic under President Donald Trump's $1 trillion infrastructure plan, Democratic National Committee Chairman Tom Perez told CNBC on Friday.



Perez said the United States' infrastructure systems have bridges and roads so old, if they were people, they would qualify for Medicare.

"The challenge that I see with that is when I look at what is being proposed, it's all about tax breaks," Perez said on "Squawk Box." "It's not an infrastructure bill."

The DNC chair said Friday infrastructure done right can be a "win-win."
Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange.

Check out which companies are making headlines before the bell:

DuPont  The chemical maker will divest part of its crop protection business to FMC Corp. , while acquiring FMC's health and nutrition business. DuPont will get $1.6 billion to compensate for the difference in the value of the assets. The deal is part of DuPont's commitment to European regulators to win approval for its planned merger with Dow Chemical .

BlackBerry  The software and services company reported adjusted quarterly profit of four cents per share, beating the consensus forecast for a breakeven quarter. Revenue also exceeded Street estimates, and the company said it expects to generate positive free cash flow for fiscal 2018.

Johnson & Johnson  The company declared its $30 billion tender offer for Swiss biotech company Actelion a success. J&J said it now controls 77.2 percent of the voting rights, and expects the transaction to close during the second quarter.

Credit Suisse  Credit Suisse was contacted by authorities in London, Paris, and Amsterdam as part of a Dutch investigation into a tax evasion case. The Dutch are investigating several dozen people suspected of tax fraud and money laundering, saying they deposited money in an unnamed Swiss bank. Credit Suisse said it is cooperating with the investigation.

Apple  Apple won an Australian victory in its effort to prevent banks from introducing their own mobile payment services on Apple iPhones and iPads. An Australian competition regulator ruled that lenders could not collectively bargain for access, in a decision the regulator said could have global implications.

Danone  The food producer will sell its Stonyfield organic yogurt business, in order to complete its planned $10.4 billion buyout of US organic food producer WhiteWave . Danone said the sale was part of an agreement with the US Justice Department.

Broadcom  The chipmaker and private-equity firm Silver Lake Partners have reportedly bid nearly $18 billion for Toshiba's chip unit. Reuters has reported that there are approximately 10 bidders for the unit, including Western Digital and Micron Technology .

Wells Fargo  The bank will have to face a multibillion-dollar lawsuit from investors, stemming from the sale of mortgage-backed securities during the financial crisis era.

Verizon  Verizon is planning to launch its own online TV service, according to Reuters, and has been buying streaming rights from a variety of TV networks in advance.

Chipotle Mexican Grill  Chipotle shareholders have pulled a planned proposition that would have split the restaurant chain's chairman and CEO roles. That comes after an agreement with those shareholders to strengthen the company's lead director position.

AstraZeneca  The drugmaker received Food and Drug Administration approval for the use of its Tagrisso lung cancer drug to treat patients with a specific type of non-small cell lung cancer.

Corning  Corning was downgraded to "neutral" from "buy" at Citi, which sees current valuation levels appropriate given limited upside to earnings. Citi did make favorable comments about near term prospects for the glass maker, due to the demand for LCD glass, optical, and Gorilla Glass with Apple's iPhone 8 due to come out later this year.

Wendy's  Wendy's shares have come under some pressure following news that McDonald's will use fresh instead of frozen beef for its Quarter Pounders.
European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker fired back at U.S. President Donald Trump's support for Brexit on Thursday, saying he would back independence for U.S. states.

"The newly elected U.S. president was happy that Brexit was taking place and has asked other countries to do the same," Juncker told delegates at a conference of the center-right European People's Party (EPP) in Malta on Thursday.

"If he goes on like that, I am going to promote the independence of Ohio and Austin, Texas," he added.

White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer claimed Trump had been a "leader in the effort to call Brexit" as he addressed reporters on Wednesday, shortly after Britain had officially triggered the formal process to exit the European Union.

Trump travelled to Scotland in June last year, on the day the results of the Brexit referendum were announced, and credited his own campaign as a key influence that had inspired U.K. citizens to vote to leave.

The former New York businessman also suggested Britain had taken "back their country" in divorcing the bloc.
The European Union said it is willing to discuss a free trade deal with the U.K. but it is only going to finalize it once the country has officially left the bloc.

This means that businesses in the U.K. will officially lose access to the EU's single market on March 29th, 2019  unless they agree on a transition deal.

In a document outlining the EU's draft guidelines for the Brexit talks, the EU said: "Based on the Union's interests, the European Council stands ready to initiate work towards such an agreement, to be finalized and concluded once the United Kingdom is no longer a Member State."

The U.K. government had hoped to discuss and conclude a new trade deal during the two-year period before it has to leave the European Union. But the EU has been reluctant to offer trade talks. The remaining 27 countries want the negotiations to focus first and foremost on how the U.K. is leaving and only after that to agree on how they will cooperate in the future.

"Only once we have achieved sufficient progress on the withdrawal, can we discuss framework for the future," European Council President Donald Tusk said Friday at a press conference in Malta.

"The U.K. is now on the other side of the other side of the table," Tusk said, adding that the EU's role is to "minimize the uncertainty" that Brexit has created for businesses and citizens.

The EU has reiterated in its draft guidelines document that there needs to be early guarantee on citizens' rights and on avoiding a hard border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland.

"In view of the unique circumstances on the island of Ireland, flexible and imaginative solutions will be required, including with the aim of avoiding a hard border, while respecting the integrity of the Union legal order," the document said.

The Union has opened the door to transitional arrangements but U.K. will have to continue contributing to the EU's budget.

"The negotiations may also seek to determine transitional arrangements which are in the interest of the Union and, as appropriate, to provide for bridges towards the foreseeable framework for the future relationship. Any such transitional arrangements must be clearly defined, limited in time, and subject to effective enforcement mechanisms," the document stated.

It added, however, that in this case, "existing Union regulatory, budgetary, supervisory and enforcement instruments and structures (will) apply."

President Tusk told reporters that "the talks which are about to start will be difficult, complex and sometimes even confrontational. There is no way around it." However, he pledged that the EU will not pursue a punitive approach.

"Brexit in itself is already punitive enough," he said.

Tusk, who represents the 27 heads of state, will visit Prime Minister Theresa May in London next month. This will happen before leaders gather in Brussels on April 29th to approve the final document outlining what the EU wants to achieve in Brexit talks.




A former top government official said the White House reminds him of a "runaway train" following the latest revelations Thursday about President Donald Trump's ex-national security adviser.



Mike Flynn, who served as the president's national security adviser for three weeks, says he is willing to be interviewed about the Trump campaign's possible ties to Russia in return for immunity from prosecution.

"The image I have in my head of the White House is a runaway train," Jeremy Bash, chief of staff at the CIA and then the Department of Defense under former President Barack Obama, said on MSNBC late Thursday. "The brakes are out ... that is how much trouble we're in."

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Brexit Britain faces stagflation, company defections to Europe: Analysts

Bash told The 11th Hour with Brian Williams that authorities would only grant Flynn immunity in exceptional circumstances. The Harvard Law School graduate pointed to the Iran-Contra affair under the administration of President Ronald Reagan in the 1980s as an example of how hard this process can be.

Authorities "would have to want to make a deal" with Flynn, Bash said. "You can only give somebody immunity, full immunity, if it's worth it. They have to believe it's worth it in this case."

He also noted that granting immunity would involve the Justice Department.

"And for the Justice Department to agree to give somebody like him immunity it means they want him to turn and testify against someone higher up in the food chain," Bash said. "Who is higher up in the food chain, higher than the national security adviser? There's really only one person. And so this shows that the jeopardy of criminal liability actually extends all the way to the top."

Flynn, a retired Lt. Gen. who headed the Defense Intelligence Agency before being pushed out by the Obama administration, advised the Trump campaign beginning in 2015.

He served as President Trump's national security advisor for a few weeks before resigning for what the Trump administration said was misleading Vice President Mike Pence about his contacts with Russian Ambassador to the U.S. Sergey Kislyak.

In September, Flynn told Chuck Todd on Meet the Press: "When you are given immunity that means you've probably committed a crime." He was talking about aides to Trump's opponent in the general election, Hillary Clinton.

A Congressional official told NBC News on Thursday that Flynn is willing to be interviewed by the Senate Intelligence Committee about the Trump campaign's possible ties to Russia in return for immunity. In a statement, Flynn's lawyer, Robert Kelner, confirmed that discussions had taken place with the House and Senate Intelligence Committees, and said "General Flynn certainly has a story to tell, and he very much wants to tell it."

@robkelner: A statement by counsel to General Flynn

Bash, who is a NBC News/MSNBC national security contributor, said there were big questions of the nature of Flynn's request of legal protection. "Immunity from what? What is he in jeopardy of being prosecuted for?" he said.

Bash said in the most serious instance it could involve allegations of "conspiring with a foreign power to provide them national defense or national security information. That's under the Espionage Act, that is a major felony, and that is essentially treason."

Bash said it could also involve Flynn working as a lobbyist for the Turkish government while attending secret intelligence briefings with then-candidate Donald Trump.

"It would not surprise me at all if what the prosecutors said to Flynn's lawyers is, 'We haven't reached any conclusions on the Russian matter but we have your guy dead to rights for not registering under the laws requiring registration as a foreign agent and second of conspiring to engage in kidnapping. You better come in and make a deal,'" he said.
Roger Jin with elderly volunteers at the warehouse, who he called the Grandmas, "because they're kind and nurturing."

Roger Jin decided he wanted to be an entrepreneur when he was 14. He was sitting in trigonometry class and had an overwhelming feeling that what he was learning wasn't serving him. "I felt limited, and a great desire to attain the freedom of being the master of my own destiny," Jin tells CNBC. "Even as a kid, I saw entrepreneurship as my only path towards that goal." Looking back, his only regret was that he didn't drop out of school and start a business. Jin doubled up on his course load and rushed through college in two and a half years. He immediately moved to East Palo Alto, Calif., in the heart of Silicon Valley, and crashed on his friend's couch to work on his first startup idea, Bridge, an app and website that connected people with those nearby who have similar interests. Bridge didn't work, so Jin got a job.

Home photo shoot in the early days of Treats. Photo courtesy Treats

In May 2015, on a trip to China, Jin went to a grocery store a where he bought Choco Pie, a chocolate-coated marshmallow snack. "I remembered thinking, 'It's a real shame most people from outside of Asia will never have a chance to try this,'" says Jin, in a recent Ask Me Anything on reddit. That thought was the seed of Jin's next business idea. Over the next three months, Jin laid the foundation of Treats, a subscription, mail-order international snack service. He built a website, identified wholesale distributors and found a warehouse where he could sort and ship packages. Jin built the business from his living room with $5000 in savings. By late July 2015, Jin could accept orders through the website.

Except for the warehouse staff, everyone at Treats works remotely from home. Photo courtesy Treats

Getting off the ground was a struggle. "During the first six months I felt like I was in a constant fight for survival  to build the company, launch it, and grow fast enough before I ran out of money," says Jin in the reddit AMA. And he took lots of risks, he recounts: "I put all my personal expenses on my credit card, racking up thousands in debt. I also took on personal and business loans to keep the company afloat as it was growing."

An early Treats box. Photo courtesy Treats

Jin got his very first customer by posting about his new company in his high school's Facebook Group. He had attended an international high school in Shanghai and thought his classmates might miss the foods of their childhoods. In December 2015, Jin started using the branded blue Treats boxes. That was a big month for growth, he says.

In 2016, Treats' revenues hit seven figures, according to Jin, who declined to be more specific. The business currently has four full-time employees and two part-time employees besides Jin. In addition, he sub-contracts out the assembly of boxes and inventory management to Good Source, the fulfillment operation of Goodwill. "I'm glad to do so because Good Source is a revenue arm for Goodwill, and they also employ down-on-their-luck people who may have a hard time getting jobs elsewhere (due to past criminal records, etc.)," says Jin. Treats is headquartered in San Francisco but everyone, including Jin, works remotely.

Treats boxes being assembled at the warehouse. Photo courtesy Treats
This story originally appeared on Mother Jones.

About a dozen Central American immigrants, mostly women with infants in tow, sort through crates of onions, yams, bread, and canned corn in a downtown parking lot in Oakland, California. Many of them are from Guatemala, including several wearing traditional Mayan blouses and skirts. They've gathered at this mobile food pantry because they're hungry, but they're also worried: The Trump administration's immigration crackdown has them reconsidering whether accessing social services like these could put them at greater risk of being deported.

"All the people I know are scared," says a woman holding her eight-month-old son. Some of her friends and relatives are too frightened to come to public pickup sites like this one. "Now," she adds, "they do not have enough food."

In late January, the Washington Post obtained a leaked draft executive order suggesting that the Trump administration would target noncitizen immigrants who use social services and create standards to determine "whether an alien is deportablefor having become a public charge within five years of entry."

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Our immigration courts aren't ready to handle millions of deportations

Currently, asylum seekers and green-card holders can apply for food assistance via the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, formerly known as food stamps); undocumented immigrants cannot. Still, even though Trump has not signed the executive order, advocates say many authorized immigrants have preemptively canceled food benefits like SNAPand fear that it's part of a larger retreat to avoid interacting with federal immigration officials.

The Alameda County Community Food Bank, one of the largest food banks in the San Francisco Bay Area, recently sent out a mailer to nearly 100,000 households that it had determined were eligible for food stamps. The response rate was about a quarter of that in previous years. A food bank spokesman says they had heard similar reports from other facilities; the ACCFB estimates that the refusal of these benefits has resulted in a loss of $361,972 to the local economy, since the money from food stamps isn't being spent.
Brian Krzanich Intel CEO Frederic J. Brown | AFP | Getty Images

Intel is the biggest stakeholder in Cloudera ahead of the software developer's IPO, thanks to a $740 million bet the chipmaker placed in 2014. That stake, which valued Cloudera at a whopping $4.1 billion, carries with it some awkward provisions, as laid out in Cloudera's IPO prospectus on Friday. In the filing, Intel is listed as owning 22 percent of the company before the offering. Far from just a financial interest, Intel has been developing and marketing products with Cloudera to bring more big data capabilities to Intel's data center processors. Cloudera's database software, built on open source code, helps businesses perform complicated analysis of disparate data. Its products run on standard hardware, and Intel is aiming to use Cloudera's tools as a draw for big customers. As far as ownership, Intel has limited ability to bolster its control of Cloudera from here and thus determine its future course.

watch now

According to Cloudera's prospectus, an agreement that kicks in at the time of the offering restricts "Intel's ability to acquire more than 20 percent of our fully diluted capital stock, which we refer to as the Intel Maximum Percentage." Assuming Intel doesn't sell shares in the IPO, an offering of about 11 million shares to the public would bring its ownership to 20 percent. Lise Buyer, who advises companies as they prepare to go public, said the purpose of the agreement is most likely to reassure potential customers who may be concerned about Intel having undue influence. "It's like saying, you can ride on the bus but you can't drive," said Buyer, the founder of Class V Group in Silicon Valley. "You can't steer the direction of the company." There are two ways Intel can increase its stake. The first would be a full acquisition of the company. The second would be if another investor (excluding a "purely financial investor") buys a percentage that exceeds 20 percent. In that case "Intel's Maximum Percentage shall increase to the percentage held by such Other Strategic Holder."

Cloudera's top shareholders Firm Number of shares % ownership before IPO Intel 24.9 mln 22 Accel 18.4 mln 16.3 Greylock 14.2 mln 12.5


An Iraqi soldier holds an Islamic State flag during a battle with Islamic State militants, north of Mosul, Iraq. Ari Jalal | Reuters

The Islamic State has lost nearly two-thirds of the land it once controlled, leveling a major blow to several critical funding streams including oil and gas revenue, taxation and extortion. The organization, which took over vast swaths of Syria and Iraq in 2014, is one of the best-funded terror groups in history, according to an assessment by the Foundation for Defense of Democracies' Center on Sanctions and Illicit Finance. But a new report from the nonpartisan research institute, based on a review of nearly 200 sources, shows IS fortunes dwindling. The setbacks come after coalition forces backed by U.S. airstrikes and advisors took back Fallujah, Iraq, and wrested control of much of the IS stronghold in Mosul, also in Iraq. They threaten to force a significant in change how the Islamic State raises funds. Islamic State territory changes, source: U.S. military "Going forward, IS is likely to shift its funding composition towards a more 'traditional' model of terror financing, relying more on external donors and extortive practices such as kidnapping for ransom," the report authors concluded.

Oil and gas running dry

In the course of capturing its territory, the Islamic State has taken control of oil supplies that it refines into fuel, which it uses internally and smuggles for profit. Estimates for IS oil and natural gas revenue for 2015 vary considerably, but sit at about $500 million. The U.S. military projects airstrikes roughly halved those sales to $180 million to $250 million by mid-2016. While this is a clear win, the report authors note that the Islamic State "has proven adaptable, shifting how it operates its oil market and even where it directs its smuggling." Most of that oil is traded within Syria, including with the Syrian regime led by Bashar Assad, whose six-year war with militants created an opening for the Islamic State to occupy much of the country's eastern and central territory.

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Sales to the Assad regime, which depends on IS-held oil and gas supplies to power the country, are the Islamic State's biggest funding stream, U.S. officials said in January. The report authors see the reliance on Assad as a strategic vulnerability because IS revenues could plummet further if the Syrian ruler secures oil supplies from another source.

Tax and extortion pool shrinks

As the Islamic State loses land, the population it can extort and levy taxes against also shrinks. That's another significant blow: In 2014, taxes and extortion filled its coffers to the tune of an estimated $600 million. The terror group is "adept at squeezing multiple revenue streams out of the people it controls," in the Center on Sanctions and Illicit Finance's estimation. But again, there are strategic vulnerabilities embedded in this funding stream. IS revenue fell 30 percent from mid-2015 to April 2016, according to research firm IHS. In response, the Islamic State has cut back on governance and salaries, its two biggest expenses.

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"The need to further squeeze locals and cut salaries as IS loses territory could provoke civilian resistance," the report authors wrote. Still, the fact that most IS revenues come from external sources makes it difficult for the United States and other nations to disrupt funding without committing to military action. The Islamic State is also sitting on a pile of looted cash from Syrian and Iraqi banks and has a web of other revenue sources, including factories and farms seized since 2014, donations from sympathetic foreigners, smuggling and trafficking.

New threat

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The Center on Sanctions and Illicit Finance expects that as the Islamic State grows more desperate, it will increasingly pull one of its most sinister levers: kidnapping. The group can carry out abductions beyond its territory and has consistently generated tens of millions from this activity, the center said. As such, loss of territory will not mark the end of the threat the Islamic State currently poses, but the beginning of a new one as seasoned fighters spread to other nations, the authors write. "Indeed, Islamic State will almost certainly evolve into a diffuse and transnational terrorist group, not unlike al-Qaeda, after it loses its safe haven," they concluded. Watch: Putin says he'll work with Trump to fight ISIS
Emily Murta, right, and Kaitlin Grant embrace during a news conference regarding the newly recovered Norman Rockwell painting, that belonged to their grandfather Robert Grant and was stolen more than 40 years ago, at the federal building in Philadelphia, Friday, March 31, 2017.

After being lost for 40 years, a famous Norman Rockwell painting has been returned to its original owners in Philadelphia, according to a Friday press release.



The pairing titled 'Boy Asleep with Hoe'  also known as 'Lazy Bones' or 'Taking a Break'  was reportedly stolen from the Grant family's New Jersey home in 1976. The family then submitted a claim to Chubb , the world's largest publicly traded property and casualty insurance company.

"The theft of 'Boy Asleep with Hoe' remained one of the art world's greatest mysteries for over four decades," Fran O'Brien, senior vice president of Switzerland-based Chubb, said in a statement.

The Rockwell painting was purchased for less than $100 in the 1950s and was later stolen in the 1970s. The picture shows a young boy taking a nap outside with his dog.

The value of the recovered painting is now estimated to be between $600,000 to $1 million  significantly more than its value at the time of the theft, the release said.

"Recovered art is often valued at a greater amount than a similar piece, given its unique provenance," O'Brien said. Upon its recovery, 'Boy Asleep with Hoe' now has a "newfound high-profile status," she added.

The insurance claims payments received after finding the painting will be donated by Chubb to the Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, where iconic painter Rockwell lived for more than 25 years.

Some of Rockwell's best-known works include 'Rosie the Riveter' and his 'Four Freedoms' series, which was inspired by President Franklin D. Roosevelt during World War II.

Shares of insurance provider Chubb are up more than 14 percent over the past 12 months and are up around 3 percent year-to-date.
Oil prices are not capped around $55 as is widely assumed but rather are on track to hit $70 per barrel later this year, according to Pierre Andurand, managing partner at Andurand Capital Management.

We're currently at a crossroads from where oil prices should significantly rebound, Andurand told CNBC on the sidelines of an event Thursday evening where he was crowned the winner of the EMEA Investor's Choice Awards for 2017.

"I think oil prices are likely to recover to around $70  I think the market will switch to backwardation  sustainable backwardation  by late summer and that will bring the next wave in oil prices," he said, referring to the situation where nearer-term spot price oil contracts are more expensive than longer-dated forward contracts.

Andurand is widely known for his bearish call on oil prices in the mid-2000s, delivered ahead of the drastic sell-off which saw WTI prices plummet from close to $150 in July 2008 to trade in the $30s a mere five months later.

Hence why his switch from oil bear to oil bull has particularly caught the market's attention. Andurand worked up his position last year and said that while he has been surprised by the somewhat rangebound nature of trade so far in 2017  indeed, during the first two months of this year his fund position suffered from being caught off-guard by this dynamic - he believes there is a solid explanation for why it will not persist.

"U.S. shale producers have been hedging a lot of their production, capping prices, so the improvements in fundamentals were not priced in at all, but I believe that now when people will really see that inventories are going down fast, that eventually the fundamentals will win and prices will go higher," he suggested.
Palmer Luckey's departure Thursday from Facebook and Oculus, the virtual reality company he co-founded in 2012, was sudden, but not entirely unexpected.

With the exception of his appearance in a Dallas, TX courtroom in January, he has been largely invisible since last September. But Luckey was one of the earliest cheerleaders of virtual reality  and many credit him with revitalizing interest in a technological field that many considered dead. And because of that, the speculation has already started about what his next move will be.

Luckey did not reply to requests for comment. And neither he nor Facebook have made any public statements about his plans. But analysts say he has several options.

One possibility, of course, is that he could fade into the woodwork and live happily off of his share of the $3 billion Facebook paid for Oculus in 2014. (Forbes estimates his value as of the end of 2016 to be $730 million.) One advantage of that is it would put some distance between him and the public controversy that dogged him after he admitted to the Daily Beast that he helped bankroll an internet group that campaigned against Hillary Clinton during the 2016 election.

He found himself at the center of more controversy grew earlier this year when the jury in that Dallas trial ordered Facebook to pay $500 million in damages after video game publisher Bethesda Softworks sued Oculus, claiming Luckey "commercially exploited" computer code and trade secrets.

But Luckey is just 24 years old  and has previously shown an affinity for life in the public corporate spotlight. It would be unusual for him to sit on the sidelines for the rest of his life. While the Bethesda trial was a blow, he's still one of the most public faces of VR.

"There's no reason to get off the VR bandwagon," says P.J. McNealy CEO and founder of Digital World Research. "It's only getting bigger and gaining speed. ... There are plenty of companies moving into virtual reality in the coming years. He won't be hurting for opportunities."

While it's possible the terms of his employment agreement with (and departure from) Facebook could prevent him from taking an active role at a competitor (or any company in the virtual reality space) for several months (or even years), he could reassume his public presence as an advocate for VR technology and its larger potential.

"He could pop up as an evangelist for VR," theorizes Ben Schachter of Macquarie Capital.

Some analysts, though, wonder if Luckey's political actions and legal issues may have overshadowed him, making him more of a liability to virtual reality start-ups.

"He compromised his leadership position by making some alliances with some fringe players in the political race," says Mike Hickey of Benchmark.

Facebook won't say if the political and legal distractions were factors in his departure from the company. The company's only comment in announcing the news was "Palmer will be dearly missed. Palmer's legacy extends far beyond Oculus. His inventive spirit helped kickstart the modern VR revolution and build an industry. We're thankful for everything he did for Oculus and VR, and we wish him all the best."

Whatever he decides to do next, Luckey will certainly bring name recognition with him. And, sometimes, that's half of the appeal for a company looking to make a name in a growing business like virtual reality.

"No matter what [his next move] is, he has a hell of a resume already," says McNealy.
Elaine Chao testifies before a Senate Commerce Science and Transportation Committee confirmation hearing on her nomination to be transportation secretary on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., January 11, 2017

As the Trump administration touts its as-yet-unannounced $1 trillion infrastructure program  most recently talked up by Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao this week  private equity firms are readying their pocketbooks.

They are now raising $30.5 billion in funding for 43 new funds targeting North American infrastructure, according to Preqin, an industry data service. That money will be in addition to $68 billion in "dry powder" that funds have on hand but have yet to invest.

The United States is still considered an "emerging market" for public-private partnerships, referred to colloquially as "P3s," according to PWC. States and municipalities have access to cheap funding, and investors are often reticent to have their money tied up in long-term projects. But the pipeline is growing for the "right kind of project with certain criteria," according to Kylee Anastasi, director of capital projects and infrastructure at PwC.

The criteria are strict but pretty straightforward: Private equity funds and companies want to see returns greater than 10 percent, and they want their money tied up in projects for fewer than 10 years, since they need to return that money to investors. They also seek projects that guarantee a revenue stream while their money is committed  which is one reason toll roads have been popular targets.

"The greatest challenge in the public-private partnership is there's only so many projects that easily lend themselves to the kind of toll revenue that pays back private investors," said Gene Sperling, a former economic adviser to President Barack Obama.

Sperling served during Obama's release of the 2009 Recovery and Reinvestment Act, an infrastructure program that sought to inject $800 billion into the U.S. economy during the financial crisis, but which some studies later suggested did not have a statistically significant effect on the economy.
Earlier this month, President Donald Trump's administration on carry-on electronic devices on flights coming to the U.S. from 10 airports in Muslim-majority countries. Doha in Qatar, and Dubai and Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) were among the airports included.

Middle East airlines Qatar Airways and Etihad Airways are offering passengers flying to the U.S. free laptops and iPads to use on flight after a recently-imposed electronics ban.

To counter this, the countries' flag carriers have offered some customers loan devices. From April 2, Etihad Airways said first and business class passengers will have free Wi-Fi and iPads on all U.S.-bound flights from Abu Dhabi. Premium class guests to the U.S. will get free Wi-Fi too.

Qatar Airways on Thursday announced plans to offer laptops on loan for all its U.S. flights. The complimentary laptops will be available to business class passengers from next week. Qatar said it is offering a service at its gates where passengers with electronic items prohibited under U.S. rules will be collected and securely packed.

"By providing this laptop loan service we can ensure that our passengers on flights to the U.S. can continue to work whilst on-board," Akbar Al Baker, chief executive of Qatar Airways, said in a press release.

The U.K. has put similar restrictions to the U.S. in place, but the UAE and Qatar are not on the list of affected destinations.
We know you're busy and, these days, it feels like there's more news than ever to keep up with. Well, we've got you covered. Here's a preview the week's biggest money stories to watch for and a quick rundown of how they may affect you.

Fabrice Coffrini | Getty Images

WHAT'S HAPPENING: President Trump is meeting with Chinese President Xi Jin Pin WHY IT MATTERS: Prices of goods like your iPhone may go up The two most powerful leaders in the world are finally meeting after some serious social media drama. This will be yuuuge. The main point of contention is trade. Trump has warned China that the U.S. may slap a tax on Chinese goods coming into America. In response, Beijing officials could do the same, or they could make doing business in their country more expensive for companies like Apple that manufacture parts of the iPhone there. And if Apple ends up having to pay more, you may have to pay more too.

Andrew Caballero-Reynolds | Getty Images

WHAT'S HAPPENING: The tax deadline is almost here WHY IT MATTERS: If you don't file by April 18, you could get in trouble with the IRS Filing taxes is often stressful, especially if you leave it to the last minute. But thanks to technology it can also be more straightforward than ever. We've found three apps that are simple and intuitive and allow you to file your taxes from your smartphone instead of racing to the post office. Check out MyBlock, TaxSlayer and CreditKarma. Bonus: Want to lower your tax bill next year? Boost your retirement contributions. Every pre-tax dollar you save towards a retirement account shaves a dollar off of your taxable income. That means more money in your pocket later and less in Uncle Sam's now.

Tim Boyle | Getty Images

WHAT'S HAPPENING: The March jobs report is coming up on Friday, April 7 WHY IT MATTERS: If you want to change jobs, some of this info could be super useful Despite what you might hear, America is actually killing it on the jobs front: The unemployment rate has stayed under 5 percent since LAST April. Even wages are improving. But before you decide to switch careers, check out the report to see which industries are doing the most hiring.

Kevork Djansezian | Getty Images
If you're behind on you're taxes, you could get a phone call from an unexpected place this year.

For-profit debt collectors have been hired by the IRS to chase down long-overdue taxes that the government agency lacks the resources to work on. Four companies were selected for the new contracts, including one whose parent company is currently being sued by the US government over its student loan debt collection practices.

Pioneer Credit Recovery is a subsidiary of the student loan giant Navient; both companies were the subject of a Consumer Financial Protection Bureau lawsuit filed in January. Pioneer was selected for one of the IRS debt collection contacts last September, alongside ConServe, Performant and CBE Group.

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Navient, formerly known as Sallie Mae, currently holds a federal government contract to service about $300 billion in student loans owed by 12 million borrowers. Pioneer, working under Navient, "systematically misled consumers" when attempting to enroll them in a loan rehabilitation program, the Consumer Financial Protection bureau claimed in its January lawsuit.

The IRS was mandated by Congress to hire private-sector debt collectors, in language that was inserted into a $305 billion highway funding bill in late 2015. Navient spent almost $2.4 million lobbying Congress that year, according to data collected by the Center for Responsive Politics, on topics including "issues pertaining to federal collection programs" in the highway bill.

Some experts on consumer protection say the new contracts create more potential for bad behavior.

"I worry whenever a federal agency employs for-profit debt collectors to settle debts," said David Vladeck, a former director of the Federal Trade Commission's consumer protection bureau and a professor at Georgetown Law. "When you align a situation where the IRS is unable to collect, the incentive to really turn the screws hard is pretty high because that's the only way they're going to get paid. This is a really toxic combination."

Navient pointed BuzzFeed News to its January statement which calls the bureau's allegations, filed in the final days of the Obama administration, "unsubstantiated, unjustified and politically driven." A company fact sheet says that since 2012, Navient helped nearly 250,000 borrowers successfully rehabilitate their loans using language nearly identical to what regulators used.

The CFPB told BuzzFeed News that it accepts consumer complaints about debt collection.

"The Bureau receives complaints from consumers about a variety of consumer financial products and services, including debt collection," it said in a statement. "In some cases, the Bureau's Consumer Response office refers or sends a complaint to another regulator. All complaints handled by the Bureau, including those sent to other regulators, serve to inform the Bureau in its work to supervise companies, to enforce consumer financial laws, to write better rules and regulations, and to educate and engage consumers."

Pioneer Credit Recovery, which specializes in collecting defaulted loans, has come under close government scrutiny in recent years. The Department of Education cut the company's student loan contract after an audit of several sample calls revealed collectors misled consumers. One Florida borrower accused the company this year of harassing phone calls to collect debt, and a Georgia resident sued the company in 2015 alleging it was aggressively retrieving debt from the wrong person altogether.

A spokesperson for the IRS directed BuzzFeed News to its site which states that Pioneer, and the three other companies, are contractually obligated to respect taxpayer rights and follow fair debt collection laws. The agency told BuzzFeed News it will also conduct monthly oversight and annual reviews of each company, including taxpayer complaints.

"The IRS will do everything it can to help taxpayers avoid confusion and understand their rights and tax responsibilities, particularly in light of continual phone scams where callers impersonate IRS agents and request immediate payment," the agency said in September.

But Chi Chi Wu, a staff attorney with the National Consumer Law Center, told BuzzFeed News that the IRS' previous private debt collection experiments showed "dismal results" where "the government ended up losing money."

The NCLC opposed the contracts when they were awarded last year. "Congress forced the IRS to hire the most complained about industry in the financial sector to undertake a vital and core government function," Wu said at the time.

The IRS last contracted with private debt collectors in 2006 to collect on $1.8 billion in "easy" debts that were 1-3 years old. But an analysis by the Office of the Taxpayer Advocate showed that over the two years it was contracted, the private companies "had little success after working the easy cases."

The IRS on average collected about 62% more than the private collectors, the analysis found.

A 1996 pilot program to use private contractors left the IRS with more money spent than retrieved. It reported $4.1 million in expenses by the end of the program in January 1997, with only $3.1 million in collections, according to a Government Accountability Office report.

Ben Barrett, a program associate with the education policy program at the progressive New America foundation, told BuzzFeed News that the government contracting with a private collector poses certain profit incentives that could open up "unsavory practices, illegal practices."

But he also said a private contractor, with IRS oversight, could collect debts with more efficiency than the government. The Treasury Department said in 2016 that its pilot program to collect on defaulted student loans with a gentler approach failed in comparison to private companies.

"Obviously nobody should be doing anything illegal," he said. "You should never cross that line. In so far as they can adhere to the law and get a delinquent taxpayer on the phone through whatever legal means necessary, that's not necessarily a bad thing."

Watch: Mnuchin on closing loopholes
Chipotle Mexican Grill is trying really hard to get out of the penalty box.

Their latest effort harkens back to their heritage as a restaurant chain focused on fresh, healthy ingredients. This week, the Mexican chain announced it had finally found the right formula to eliminate all additives from its tortillas  a step that makes the restaurant preservative-free for all but its drinks.

But it remains to been seen if this new claim will be enough to erase the stigma it acquired after a string of foodborne illnesses scared people away from the chain. While Chipotle was sorting out its food safety issues, customers found other restaurant options with healthy halos, including fast casual rival Panera . So Chipotle needs to win back those diners.

What's more Chipotle may be confusing matters by quibbling over what constitutes a truly additive-free menu.

"It's going to take [Chipotle] time to get back on track," said Bonnie Riggs, an NPD Group analyst. "They still have their work cut out for them for consumers to find them trustworthy."

The focus on healthy, fresh, and "clean" food is a good start.

In January, Panera touted a claim that its menu was "100 percent clean" after having reviewed more than 450 ingredients that it sells in stores and reformulating 122 of them, including a large majority of its bakery-cafe recipes. Since then consumers have a more positive perception of Panera.

Panera continued to build on its clean menu by disclosing Friday that its soda fountains will feature signage that lists each beverage's caloric and sugar content. It will also be launching some new, low-sugar beverages.

YouGov BrandIndex, a market research firm, polled hundreds of consumers over age 18 about which brands they would consider eating the next time they went out to eat. The scores that brands receive are the percentage of respondents that said they would eat at that location the next time they went out to eat.

For Panera, that percentage score fluctuates between the high 20s and mid 30s for the general public and the mid-to-high 30s for consumers who consider themselves "healthy eaters."

In the chart below, the dark blue line represents these self-described healthy eaters, while the lighter blue line signifies the general population.
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson renewed pressure on the U.S.'s NATO partners on Friday to step up their contributions to the alliance's budget.

Speaking to reporters in Brussels, Tillerson said that all 28 members need to guarantee the alliance has all the financial resources available.

Tillerson is attending his first NATO meeting on Friday, which was moved forward to ensure he would be present. The original plan was to meet on April 5 but Tillerson could not make that date given that he is due to meet with Chinese officials. The other 27 countries agreed to meet earlier so Tillerson could attend.

Meanwhile, Linas Linkevicius, the Lithuanian minister of foreign affairs, told CNBC on Friday that it was the "very beginning" of the new administration in the U.S. adding that it was important to show flexibility.
President Donald Trump on Friday defended Michael Flynn for seeking immunity, but he had a very different attitude about the strategy when Hillary Clinton staffers reportedly used it.

The former national security advisor told the Senate Intelligence Committee he is willing to be interviewed for its ongoing investigation into alleged Russian influence on the 2016 election in exchange for immunity from prosecution, a congressional official told NBC News. His lawyer said in a statement that no "reasonable person" would get questioned in "such a highly politicized, witch hunt environment without assurance against unfair prosecution."

Trump echoed that sentiment in a Friday morning tweet, arguing that Flynn "should ask for immunity" in the ongoing probe into possible ties between the Trump campaign and Russia. The president argued that concerns over Russia were a "witch hunt" of "historic proportion" by media outlets and Democrats.

Trump tweet: Mike Flynn should ask for immunity in that this is a witch hunt (excuse for big election loss), by media & Dems, of historic proportion!

Both Trump and Flynn took a vastly different outlook on immunity when the president was locked in a bitter election campaign with Clinton last year. At a September rally in Florida, Trump highlighted reports that some Clinton aides received immunity in the FBI investigation into her use of a private email server while she was secretary of state.

"If you're not guilty of a crime, what do you need immunity for?" Trump asked at the time. No one was charged with a crime in the investigation.

In a separate October tweet, he asked Clinton why staffers would want immunity.

ATTN: @HillaryClinton - Why did five of your staffers need FBI IMMUNITY?! #BigLeagueTruth #Debates

Flynn also equated immunity with committing a crime in a "Meet the Press" interview last year.

At this time, there is no indication that Flynn is admitting guilt to any crimes.

Flynn resigned in February when reports surfaced that he misled White House officials about whether he discussed sanctions with Sergey Kislyak, Russia's ambassador to the United States. Flynn told Vice President Mike Pence he did not discuss sanctions against Russia with Russian officials in the weeks leading up to the Jan. 20 inauguration. Pence then defended him in TV interviews.

Since leaving the Trump administration, Flynn registered with the Justice Department as a foreign agent for lobbying work that may have aided the Turkish government. It took place from August through November, when he was a Trump campaign advisor. Flynn is required to disclose that work.

Reports also surfaced that Russian state-owned network RT paid more than $45,000 for Flynn to travel to Moscow and speak at its 10th anniversary event.

In a Friday tweet, House Intelligence Committee ranking member Rep. Adam Schiff suggested that the public will learn "a lot more" about why Flynn is seeking immunity when ex-acting Attorney General Sally Yates testifies before the committee. The California Democrat did not specify what that information would be.

Yates, who was set to testify at a hearing this week that got canceled, warned the White House in January that Flynn could be vulnerable to blackmail following his statements about his contacts with Kislyak.
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President Donald Trump is facing new questions about political interference in the investigations into Russian election meddling following reports that White House officials secretly funneled material to the chairman of the House intelligence committee. Trying to fend off the growing criticism, Trump's top lawyer invited lawmakers from both parties to view classified information at the White House. Thursday's invitation came as The New York Times reported that two White House officials  including an aide whose job was recently saved by President Donald Trump  secretly helped House intelligence committee chairman Rep. Devin Nunes examine intelligence information there last week. Nunes is leading one of three investigations into Russia's attempt to influence the campaign and Trump associates' possible involvement. The Senate intelligence committee, which has thus far taken a strikingly more measured and bipartisan approach to its own Russia probe, tried to keep its distance from the White House and asked that the documents uncovered by Trump aides be given to lawmakers via the appropriate agencies. The cloud of investigation has hung over Trump's White House since the day he took office. On Thursday, an attorney for Michael Flynn, Trump's ex-national security adviser, said Flynn is in discussions with the congressional committees about speaking to them in exchange for immunity. The talks are preliminary, and no official offers have been made. "General Flynn certainly has a story to tell, and he very much wants to tell it, should the circumstances permit," Flynn's attorney, Robert Kelner, said in a statement.



Other Trump associates have volunteered to speak with investigators, but have not publicly raised the issue of immunity.

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Flynn, a member of the Trump campaign and transition, was fired as national security adviser after it was publicly disclosed that he misled the vice president about a conversation he had with the Russian ambassador to the U.S. Flynn's ties to Russia have been scrutinized by the FBI and are under investigation by the House and Senate intelligence panels.



The House committee's work has been deeply, and perhaps irreparably, undermined by Nunes' apparent coordination with the White House. He told reporters last week that he had seen troubling information about the improper distribution of Trump associates' intercepted communications, and he briefed the president on the material, all before informing Rep. Adam Schiff, the committee's top Democrat. Speaking on Capitol Hill Thursday, Schiff said he was "more than willing" to accept the White House offer to view new information. But he raised concerns that Trump officials may have used Nunes to "launder information to our committee to avoid the true source." "The White House has a lot of questions to answer," he declared.



Instead, the White House continued to sidestep queries about its role in showing Nunes classified information that appears to have included transcripts of foreign officials discussing Trump's transition to the presidency, according to current and former U.S. officials. Intelligence agencies routinely monitor the communications of foreign officials living in the U.S., though the identities of Americans swept up in that collection is supposed to be protected.

In Washington early last week, White House officials privately encouraged reporters to look into whether information about Trump associates had been improperly revealed in the intelligence gathering process. Days later, Nunes announced that he had evidence, via an unnamed source, showing that Trump and his aides' communications had been collected through legal means but then "widely disseminated" throughout government agencies. He said the collections were not related to the Russia investigation. Trump spokesman Sean Spicer said Thursday the material the White House wants the House and Senate intelligence leaders to view was discovered by the National Security Council through the course of regular business. He would not say whether it was the same material Nunes had already seen. A congressional aide said Schiff did not receive the White House letter until after Spicer announced it from the White House briefing room.



Spicer had previously dismissed the notion that the White House had fed information to Nunes, saying the idea that the congressman would come and brief Trump on material the president's team already had "doesn't pass the smell test." The White House quickly embraced Nunes' revelations, saying they vindicated Trump's explosive and unverified claim that President Barack Obama wiretapped his New York skyscraper.



House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence Chairman Representative Devin Nunes (R-CA) briefs reporters at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, U.S., March 24, 2017. Jonathan Ernst | Reuters
There's no shortage of issues for the two presidents to discuss when they meet at Mar-a-Lago on April 6. Between national security and trade, Xi and Trump will have plenty to chew on, Spicer said.

"This isn't a sit-around-and-play-patty-cake kind of conversation. There are big issues," Spicer said.

A looming summit between President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping certainly won't be a picnic, White House spokesman Sean Spicer said during his Friday press briefing.

The president is set to sign two executive orders Friday that are poised to renew focus on China's trade relationship with the U.S. The White House said these orders aim to defeat trade abuses and non-reciprocal practices to lessen the trade deficit.

Trump tweeted Thursday night that his upcoming meeting with Xi will be a "very difficult one," citing the massive trade deficit as a factor. In 2016, China's goods trade deficit with the U.S. stood at $347 billion, by far the largest figure.

@realDonaldTrump: ...and job losses. American companies must be prepared to look at other alternatives.

But during a Thursday briefing with reporters, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross and Peter Navarro, head of the National Trade Council, resisted attempts to characterize the impending orders as "putting China on notice."

"Nothing we're saying tonight is about China," Navarro told reporters, repeatedly emphasizing that the orders were meant to address trade abuses.

Spicer echoed those remarks, saying, "I think he wants to have a very good, respectful and healthy relationship, but he also wants to make sure that he tackles the challenges and problems that are facing American workers and manufacturers and get to them."

 CNBC's Evelyn Cheng contributed to this report.
In addition to great salaries, tech employees expect perks at their jobs  especially in competitive areas with a lot of start-ups. Free lunch, a casual work environment and great healthcare plans have become standard fare, especially in the Bay Area.

But to stand out, companies need to offer something above the rest. For virtual reality media company Upload in Los Angeles, it meant supporting a pricey Kombucha habit until it became untenable.

"People love it, but it was so expensive that we had to stop doing it," admitted Upload founder and CEO of Upload Taylor Freeman. "People would drink five glasses a day. It was $3,000 to $4,000 a month to have Kombucha on tap, so we had to shut it down. It was a big hit to the morale of the community."

Vevo chief people officer Colleen McCreary said that their San Francisco office offers free lunch, which can make the employees in other locations a little jealous. However, other Vevo offices have their perks. The New York office has frequent in-office musical performances, from artists like Sam Smith, Sigrid, Wyclef and Earl St. Clair. , as well as smoothie and latte barista visits.

"The food perk is certainly one that is developing around the world," McCreary said. "A lot of times it's a productivity piece, but it creates a communal feeling. I feel like there's a lot of magic that happens in that situation [when people eat together]." Perhaps most important for a company owned by the music industry: All employees get free concert tickets.

Employee training platform Grovo's New York offices gets manicures on Friday, a gym and an in-house shoe shiner. In addition, it sends employees field trips it calls "Camp Grovo" to allow employees in the concrete jungle to get some fresh air.

"We actually go outside the city into nature," said employee training platform Grovo's vice president of people Joris Luijke.

Facebook and Instagram marketing platform Smartly.io takes the perk concept to the next level. Four times a year, every employee flown to an all-hands company meeting. For the first few years, everyone was sent somewhere in the company's home country of Finland, but it decided to mix up the locations to give employees time to see other cities. The past trip was to Greece, and the international fall location has yet to be announced. And, while it may not have the same unlimited vacation options as other tech companies, it gives five weeks of paid vacation  which people are forced to take.
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President Donald Trump believes Michael Flynn should "testify and do what he has to do to get story out," White House press secretary Sean Spicer said in his daily press briefing.

Earlier Friday, NBC News reported, citing congressional sources, that the Senate Intelligence Committee rejected the embattled former national security advisor's request for immunity from prosecution in exchange for his testimony into Russia's alleged meddling in the 2016 election.

Flynn's lawyer said in a statement that no "reasonable person" would get questioned in "such a highly politicized, witch hunt environment without assurance against unfair prosecution."

When a reporter asked if Flynn should testify under immunity, Spicer said he was not in the business of giving legal advice. The White House spokesman said that matter is up to Flynn and his lawyer. He said, the White House isn't worried that Flynn has damaging information on the president.

On Friday morning, Trump argued that Flynn "should ask for immunity" in the ongoing probe into possible ties between the Trump campaign and Russia. The president argued that concerns over Russia were a "witch hunt" of "historic proportion" by media outlets and Democrats.

@realDonaldTrump: Mike Flynn should ask for immunity in that this is a witch hunt (excuse for big election loss), by media & Dems, of historic proportion!

 CNBC's Jacob Pramuk contributed to this report.
The White House plans to release financial disclosures for top officials Friday evening, giving a deeper look into the holdings of some key Trump administration figures who entered government with a web of holdings and potential entanglements.

The White House will start taking requests for the financial disclosures of roughly 180 people in the administration, a White House official told reporters. The documents, part of the ethics process for administration employees, will include salaries and other assets that officials held at the time they took office.

It is not clear exactly whose forms will be available Friday, but documents could be released for officials including National Economic Council Director Gary Cohn, chief strategist Steve Bannon and Jared Kushner, a key advisor and son-in-law to President Donald Trump. No new documents related to Trump himself are set to be made available.

Trump filled his administration and Cabinet with wealthy individuals from the business world who held complex assets, leaving room for a host of possible ethics issues. Major investors, multiple Goldman Sachs employees and Trump's own family members, among others, have taken spots in the administration.

A White House official said many White House employees have already resigned from posts, divested from assets or recused themselves from issues that could pose potential conflicts, and others are in the process of doing so.

The documents released Friday will show officials' assets at the time they took office. However, it will not show, in many cases, if an employee has since divested from a holding.

Top officials have 30 days to file the paperwork once they take office.

Forms for Trump's daughter Ivanka, who joined the White House as an unpaid employee this week, will not be released, yet. However, some of her holdings will overlap with her husband, Kushner.
Google and Facebook must take responsibility and remove extremist content on their platforms, WPP CEO Martin Sorrell told CNBC on Friday, but he added that advertisers boycotting video service YouTube "doesn't make sense".

A number of major brands pulled ads from Google-owned YouTube this month after they were appearing next to inappropriate content. AT&T , General Motors and Johnson & Johnson are among the companies who have suspended ads on YouTube.

Sorrell said that there "may be an argument" for temporarily suspending ads on YouTube, but a permanent boycott wasn't a good move.

"Boycotting what is one of the most powerful, if not the most powerful medium, doesn't make sense," Sorrell told CNBC.

Last year, WPP spent $5 billion advertising with Google on behalf of clients, the CEO told CNBC in December, making it the largest digital platform it spends on, compared to $1.7 billion for Facebook and $90 million for Snapchat. Google is likely to make $72.69 billion in ad revenues in 2017, according to eMarketer data.

Sorrell said WPP has partnered with Google to introduce technology to monitor where ads are appearing, but did not give further details and admitted that "you can't make things 100 percent brand safe." The WPP CEO said you can deal with the issues around ad placement effectively but so far there hasn't been a good response.
Based on the serial number on the 500-coin monster box, the 2017 American Eagle silver bullion dollar coin illustrated definitely was produced at the West Point Mint.

This article comes from our April 17, 2017, weekly issue of Coin World. Want to get all of our content, including special magazine exclusives? Subscribe today!

Nearly 17 million American Eagle silver bullion coins were struck dated 2014 through 2017 at the Philadelphia and San Francisco Mints, augmenting the West Point Mints output of nearly 108 million coins in that time period.

Details of the production were obtained by Coin World through a Freedom of Information Act request after U.S. Mint officials initially balked at releasing the information.

The West Point Mint is the primary location for bullion coin production, but the other two facilities are brought into service for ancillary production of the American Eagle silver bullion coins when demand requires.

The bulk of production at the Philadelphia and San Francisco Mints occurred during transitions to new calendar years, as the three facilities cooperated to ensure a sizeable inventory would be available for purchase in January of each year.

When Coin World learned that multiple facilities had struck the 2017 American Eagle silver bullion coins, it requested specific mintages, broken down by Mint facility, from U.S. Mint officials. When the Mint refused to provide the requested information, Coin World filed a FOIA request on Feb. 6, 2017. FOIA gives the public, including news media, the right to access information from the federal government that may have been withheld improperly.

Coin Worlds FOIA request sought a breakdown by Mint of American Eagle silver bullion coin production dated 2014 through 2017.

The production breakdown the U.S. Mint supplied in its March 20 FOIA response letter, by date and by facility, from 2014 to 2017, follows:

??West Point Mint: 2014  23,450,000 coins; 2015  46,920,500 coins; 2016  31,900,000 coins; 2017  5,425,000 coins(as of the March 20 mailing of the FOIA response letter from the U.S. Mint).

??Philadelphia Mint: 2014  0 coins; 2015  79,640 coins; 2016  1,151,500 coins; 2017  1,000,000 coins.

??San Francisco Mint: 2014  7,025,000 coins; 2015  0 coins; 2016  4,650,000 coins; 2017  3,000,000 coins.

Identifying the coins

All of the American Eagle silver bullion coins are without Mint marks and, in theory, should be indistinguishable from each other. However, that has not stopped the marketplace from attempting to identify a particular coins Mint facility of origin. One firms speculation in this area prompted the questions that the Mint answered in response to Coin Worlds FOIA filing.

While grading and encapsulating 2017 American Eagle silver bullion coins in January, officials at Numismatic Guaranty Corp. noted a pattern in the serial numbers on 500-coin boxes of tubed coins that suggested the possibility of more than one Mint facility being responsible for the production.

NGC officials also speculated that variations in the quality of coins also reflected which facility produced the coins.

In reaction to NGCs observations, Coin World asked the Mint, not only whether production had occurred at more than one facility, but also for an explanation of the serial numbers on the boxes. The Mints decision to not provide answers to our questions prompted the Feb. 6 FOIA filing.

NGCs speculation on the box numbering system was confirmed by the March 20 written response from the U.S. Mint Coin World received by mail.

All 500-coin boxes from the West Point Mint were marked with various six-digit numbers starting with 1, 2 or 3.

The numbering system for coins struck at the Philadelphia Mint followed two standards: For 2015 bullion coins, box serial numbers were various five-digit numbers starting with 1. For 2016 and 2017 bullion, the box serial numbers were six-digit numbers starting with 5.

For 2014 American Eagle silver bullion coins struck at the San Francisco Mint, red banding was used on the boxes to differentiate where they were produced. For 2016 and 2017 coins, the serial numbers marked on each box were various six-digit numbers starting with 4.

Until fairly recently, the U.S. Mint used either bands color-coded for each facility or, for coins from the West Point Mint, bands bearing the facilitys name. During the last 12 months, the U.S. Mint switched to using generic straps to secure the lids on the 500-coin boxes without differentiating the origin of the coins, other than by the serial number system.

Coins struck at the Philadelphia and San Francisco Mints were shipped in the generic strapped boxes to West Point and mixed in with boxes of West Point-struck coins for eventual pick-up by authorized purchasers.
A pair of medals struck to commemorate the Orteig Prize and Charles Lindberghs transatlantic flight were issued to Raymond Orteig and his son and will be offered in New York on April 26. The reverses appear here.

A pair of medals struck to commemorate the Orteig Prize and Charles Lindberghs transatlantic flight were issued to Raymond Orteig and his son and will be offered in New York on April 26. The obverses appear here.

Two gold medals honoring Charles Lindberghs historic 1927 transatlantic historic flight in his plane the Spirit of St. Louis will be offered at a Sothebys decorative art auction in New York on April 26.

This article comes from our April 17, 2017, weekly issue of Coin World. Want to get all of our content, including special magazine exclusives? Subscribe today!

Two gold medals celebrating Charles Lindberghs historic 1927 transatlantic flight in his plane the Spirit of St. Louis will be offered at a Sothebys decorative art auction in New York on April 26.

The medals are attached to silk tricolor ribbons and the obverse of each depicts the Spirit of St. Louis flying over choppy seas. Surrounding the design is the legend RAYMOND ORTEIG $25,000 PRIZE FUND and the medals are hand inscribed RAYMOND ORTEIG DONOR and JEAN ORTEIG ASSISTANT TREASURER. The reverse of each states, CAPTAIN CHARLES A. LINDBERGH MAY 2021, 1927, surrounded by NON-STOP FLIGHT  NEW YORK TO PARIS.

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The medals, which are offered as a pair, were struck for the donor himself as well as the assistant treasurer, his son Jean. The medals, measuring 1 7/16 inches and struck from 18-karat gold are offered as a pair with an estimate of $10,000 to $15,000.

Flight innovation

Raymond Orteig (1870 to 1939) was a French-born, New York City hotel owner who created the Orteig Prize to award $25,000 for the first person of any Allied country to fly in one flight in either direction between New York City and Paris.

Orteig hoped that the award would help in Franco-American relationships and would build on each countrys interest in aviation. He also hoped that the value of the prize itself would increase public interest in aviation and spur technological developments for safer aviation.

How to spot a counterfeit 1928 China Auto dollar: Inside Coin World: We at Coin World report often on fake U.S. coin rarities coming from China, but not so often about fake Chinese coin rarities.

As Orteig wrote in a 1919 letter to the president of the Aero Club of America, As a stimulus to the courageous aviators, I desire to offer, through the auspices and regulations of the Aero Club of America, a prize of $25,000 to the first aviator of any Allied Country crossing the Atlantic in one flight, from Paris to New York or New York to Paris, all other details in your care.

The offer was initially valid for five years but was reissued in 1925. While he was on vacation in Pau, France, Orteig was notified that Charles Lindbergh had left on his transatlantic flight. Orteig arrived in Paris just before Lindberghs plane, the Spirit of St. Louis, touched down. He would meet Lindbergh at the American Embassy on May 22, 1927. Several aviators unsuccessfully attempted the New York to Paris flight prior to Lindbergh, and at least six men died in three separate crashes.

Orteig officially presented Lindbergh with his prize on June 16, 1927, at a ceremony at the Breevort Hotel in New York City.

In todays dollars the $25,000 award would be worth approximately $350,000. The prize would inspire the $10 million Ansari X Prize for private spaceflight.
The Langbord familys quest to keep 10 1933 Saint-Gaudens $20 double eagles will reach what may be its final step on April 13, when the Supreme Court will consider whether it will hear the case.

This article comes from our April 17, 2017, weekly issue of Coin World. Want to get all of our content, including special magazine exclusives? Subscribe today!

The Langbord familys quest to keep 10 1933 Saint-Gaudens $20 double eagles will reach what may be its final step on April 13, when the Supreme Court will consider whether it will hear the case.

Barry Berke, the Langbords attorney, filed a petition for a writ of certiorari on Oct. 28, 2016, asking the nations highest court to overturn a district and an appellate court who each found that the familys 10 1933 double eagles were stolen government property. The government responded to the familys petition on March 8 requesting that it be denied, which would result in the government keeping the coins. The Langbord family filed a response on March 20, reiterating past arguments and warning that if the current ruling is not reviewed, The government will thus have vastly expanded powers to seize and retain property, powers not enjoyed by private property owners, and powers unconstrained by the very rules Congress enacted to reign in government overreaching in this precise context.

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On March 22 the Supreme Court reported the case as being distributed for conference on April 13. When a case is docketed at the Supreme Court it is eventually distributed for a conference  typically on a Friday  where the court discusses some but not all of the petitions distributed during the conference. Petitions not discussed are automatically denied.

The odds are not in favor of the Langbords since the Supreme Court only hears a small portion of the cases presented before it. It receives approximately 7,000 to 8,000 petitions for a writ of certiorari each term and the court grants and hears oral argument in about 80 cases.

More than gold coins

The case has moved beyond the 10 coins that were allegedly found by Joan Langbord in her familys safe deposit box in 2003 and now revolves around two key questions with broad implications. The first question is whether, when the government seizes property from private citizens and intends to retain it indefinitely, it can avoid the procedures, deadlines and penalties set forth in the Civil Asset Forfeiture Reform Act of 2000 by merely asserting that the property was stolen from the government and declaring that it has no intention of seeking forfeiture. The second question is whether the government can avoid CAFRAs protections by strategically waiting for years and then filing a declaratory judgment claim that seeks essentially the same relief as is barred by CAFRA.

How to spot a counterfeit 1928 China Auto dollar: Inside Coin World: We at Coin World report often on fake U.S. coin rarities coming from China, but not so often about fake Chinese coin rarities.

In its Oct. 28 petition the Langbords warned that if the appellate courts decision is left to stand, the government will now be free  in every case involving allegedly stolen government property  to seize and keep that property without following CAFRAs dictates.

The coins were among 445,500 double eagles struck at the Philadelphia Mint and most were melted. A few escaped, including 10 that were discovered by Joan Langbord in the familys safe deposit box. In a January interview with Coin World, her son Roy Langbord said that the double eagles were among coins and other items that had been in the box since the 1950s. He said that his mother told him to leave the coins in the box. She told him, put them back and you deal with it after my death. The coins initially belonged to his grandfather  Israel Izzy Switt  a dealer who frequented the Philadelphia Mint in the 1930s. Switt acknowledged to Secret Service agents in the 1940s to selling other examples of the 1933 double eagle, nine of which were then tracked down by agents and confiscated or acquired by the government in the 1940s and 1950s and subsequently destroyed.

The Langbords voluntarily turned the coins over to the U.S. Mint for authentication. In 2005 the family was told that the coins would be retained by the Mint and would not be the subject of forfeiture proceedings. The next year the family filed a civil action against the government to recover the coins and in 2009 a district court determined that the government had two choices: return the coins to the family or initiate a judicial forfeiture proceeding.

On July 20, 2011, a jury ruled in favor of the government in a Philadelphia District Court and this decision was later overturned at the appeals level by a three-judge panel. The case was then considered by the full panel of the Third Circuit Court of Appeals, who agreed with the district court that a seizure alone does not initiate a forfeiture proceeding because it does not necessarily mean that a transfer of legal title took place. In its Aug. 1, 2016, decision the appeals court found that the government repossessed its own property and in doing so, asserted its ownership rights to the coins.

This may not be the final chapter on the coins, as Roy Langbord told Coin World that the roster of known examples  which includes the Langbord 10, the coin that was authorized for public sale in 2002, and two additional ones housed in the National Numismatic Collection at the Smithsonian Institution  likely will be added to by more examples awaiting discovery. He said: I think everyone knows there are others out there. They will surface again.
Four collectors were detained outside the Munich show and three coins were seized as part of a larger effort attempting to halt the sale of cultural property in Germany.

German police photo shows objects seized from a dealer who was arrested during the March 4 and 5 Numismata show in Munich.

This article comes from our April 17, 2017, weekly issue of Coin World. Want to get all of our content, including special magazine exclusives? Subscribe today!

The cultural property battle in Germany ratcheted up a notch on March 4 when government agents visited the Numismata show in Munich and arrested one dealer and four collectors.

The Kunstfahnder (art investigators) of the Bavarian State Criminal Police arrested five people during and outside the show in the first major public effort at enforcement of a relatively new law governing illegal trafficking of cultural goods.

A total of 30 police officers and officials were engaged in the sweep, according to a press release from the local police authority. A person identified only as a cultural heritage expert from the Landeskriminalamt, the Hessian police, was also on hand.

Four collectors, a 49-year-old man from Bulgaria and three Serbian nationals between the ages of 30 and 47, were detained outside the show, the report said, because they could not provide evidence of the provenance of their ancient coins. Police estimate that the coins were worth 1,600 (about $1,710 U.S.). The coins were seized but the men were released, pending charges.

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Hubert Lanz, who operates Numismatik Lanz, an auction house and coin dealership with a strong online presence, told Coin World that police prepared for the Munich arrests.

The collectors from the Balkans had a few Roman denarii of minor value, and the police inflated the prices for the three pieces they had on them, he said.

The main target of the police action in Munich was an Afghani citizen from Bronshoj (near Copenhagen), Denmark, who was selling a variety of coins and antiques, such as spear points and decorative items.

The enforcers quickly assessed the items, noting that most of the coins were from Iran, Afghanistan and India.

Afghanistan is one of the countries that is heavily looted in the chaos of war for decades, according to a translation of the report from the German police.

The dealer could not provide documents proving the origin of the approximately 6,000 coins and about 1,000 other objects or their legal import to Germany, according to the police.

The items were worth more than 50,000 ($53,438 U.S.), according to the report.

Lanz told Coin World that his assistant was at the arrested dealers table when the police arrived.

The fight against the paper dollar has been renewed: Inside Coin World: Newly introduced legislation on Capitol Hill is not the first attack on the paper dollar. Calls for its elimination have been voiced since the 1970s.

He had no documents with him, but he also had no important coins at his table, said Lanz. The bronze items and many of the coins were probably fake and are of minor value. [The dealer] is now still under arrest. ... I understood that [he] was calm and supportive at this investigation, but had no idea that he had broken any law, because Europe is supposed to be a free trading zone at least for cultural items of not scientific value [referring to the Treaty of Lisbon].

It is unclear whether the dealer has been released as of press time March 31.

Lanz said this is only the first of such police actions.

I have heard [March 29] the police in Wiesbaden confiscated a collection of sigloi of the Achemenides from an Iranian collector, who was buying them since at least 10 years on Ebay, without any prior warning, said Lanz. As you know, that most of the Persian sigloi do not originate from Iran, they can come from anywhere in the east and circulated, many with bankers marks.

A report in Germanys Numismatisches Nachrichtenblatt, or Numismatic News Gazette, confirmed details provided by police and Lanz.

The new law went into effect in 2016 and requires at least 20 years of provenance for objects of cultural importance, and requires an export license for objects that are more than 70 years old and worth more than 300,000 ($320,566 U.S.).

Peter Tompa, a U.S.-based collector and lawyer said that the arrests for violating the documentation requirements are indeed a troubling development. As you know, most ancient coins are not documented to the extent the bureaucracy requires.

Coin World will report more information as it is confirmed.
The holidays are creeping up on us
Editors note: Kaelin Delaney is a Common Cause intern.

President Trumps promise of an America First policy has changed the tune of American politics. But the presidents acts raise questions about whether America First means a focus on US interests, or the interests of President Trump himself.

The State Department recently informed Congress of plans to sell F-16 fighter jets to the Persian Gulf island nation of Bahrain. Bahrain has a Shiite majority and a Sunni-led government that has been struggling with protests and has committed multiple human rights violations to shut them down. The potential F-16 deal would remove the Obama Administrations requirement that Bahrain curb human rights abuses before buying American weapons.

The Trump administration argues that the deal is in Americas strategic interest because Bahrain is a strong U.S. military ally. But Bahrains government also has been a strong personal ally of President Trump.

On Dec. 2, between the U.S. election and the new presidents inauguration, Bahrains embassy booked an event at the new Trump International Hotel in Washington, a few blocks from the White House. It may have been innocent, but in the context of the later arms deal, the hotel booking looks suspiciously like a pre-payment for the jets. At the least, it illustrates a conflict of interests the president could and should have avoided by putting the hotel and the rest of his real estate empire in a blind trust before he took office.

The president argues that hes exempt from the conflict of interest rules that apply to other federal employees. But hes not exempt from the Constitution. The Foreign Emoluments Clause of the Constitution (Article 1, Section 9) states that no federal officeholder can accept any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State without Congress explicit approval.

This clause was intended to minimize corruption through the bribery of U.S. officials. Even if Bahrain paid for use of the Trump hotel space before the presidents inauguration on Jan. 20, this potential link between the presidents business dealings and potential political favors is worrisome.

Common Cause has petitioned the president to put his assets in a blind trust, as most of his recent predecessors have done, to protect against conflicts and potential violations of the Emoluments Clause. It looks like the America First philosophy touted by the Trump administration might be a cover for unsavory and potentially illegal business interactions between our president and other foreign nations.

The intermingling of personal and official business at work in the Bahrain deal is part of a pattern for Trump and his family. The presidents son-in-law Jared Kushner and daughter Ivanka, who until recently did not have an official position, are among his closest advisers in the White House. His sons Eric and Donald Jr., who the president has said are running his businesses, apparently are giving him regular reports on their balance sheets.

The prior business relationship our president had with Bahrain calls into question his true motive for abandoning human rights conditions for that countrys purchase of U.S. military hardware.
Apples business has grown. The company isnt defined by a couple of products, but by four platforms from which proliferate many products, services, and more. This morning it opened its first ever App Accelerator scheme in India, reflecting just how vast and diverse its developer community is becoming.

WWDC just isnt big enough

Apple holds one developer event each year, the Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC). Its great, but tickets are at a premium, not every developer can make it to the show (even if they have the magic beans it takes to travel there), and many developers arent inclined to share their social media accounts on entering the country.

Not only this, but the scale of Apples business has grown to a vast extent. It now provides so many products and services that even a two-hour keynote speech just isnt enough space for it to explain all its plans.

Thats a bad thing. It fosters perception that if a product or service doesnt get a mention at WWDC (or at another significant Apple event) then it doesnt matter as much as those that do. This isnt fair, but its how people think  and the solutions the company provides deserve more attention than they may otherwise get. As do those who develop for them.

International times

What I love most about WWDC is its internationalism. Theres something utterly stimulating in finding dozens of races, genders, languages, and nationalities all gathered in one space for a specific purpose. It makes for stimulating conversation and fosters new ways of thinking. Thats what internationalism does, exposure to different ways of looking at things fosters genius (protectionism, of course, fosters fear).

Reflecting its commitment to internationalism, Apple is opening research & development hubs across this planet, from the new App Accelerator scheme in Bangalore it opened this morning, to sites in China, Japan, Indonesia, Europe, and elsewhere.

Apple needs to meet everyone

Apples moves show it knows it must travel to identify and attract the talents it needs to drive its growing business forward. It needs a global brains trust.

There is life beyond Cupertino (and San Jose). Todays Apple developer community crosses international borders, straddles multiple cultures and identities. The next killer app on an Apple platform could conceivably be created by a talented 15-year-old child from the back streets of Jakarta.

The companys VP marketing, Phil Schiller, made his first visit to India to launch the new App Accelerator today. Speaking to The Indian Express, he said:

We have around half a million registered developers here and growing dramatically and there are probably about three quarters of a million involved in the app economy with other related jobs. It is a large base, but out of an even larger software community, so it can grow larger still.India is an exciting global market for Apple with incredible growth potential.

Beyond India

China has become Apples second biggest market (it will eventually be the largest market), and we know it is looking elsewhere for opportunity (including Indonesia and Brazil) as it seeks to make its business grow.

To make this happen Apple knows it needs local developers, as local talent is far better equipped to understand and respond to local need.

There will also be things we will do that are unique to this market as we learn from customers and developers that there is an opportunity to do something special here, Schiller said.

WWDC 2.0?

This growing internationalism is an opportunity. It wasnt so long ago that Apple supported multiple public-focused events, the Macworld and Apple Expo conferences.

Thousands of users and vendors loved these events, but Apple withdrew from them because it needed more flexibility  it didnt want its product launches to be tied to other peoples schedules.

However, the Apple of 2007 is a different Apple than it is today, and as its developer audience becomes ever more international, perhaps its time the company reconsidered that decision, and began a new global developer conference closer to where tomorrows technology is going to emerge from.

WWDC India? WWDC China? A return to one of NeXTs spiritual homes, with WWDC Paris? Or (my personal favourite) WWDC Lisbon, Portugal, which I think people would love.

Such an event would massively increase the opportunity for developers in two of Apples most important expanding markets (China and India) to meet face-to-face with Apples engineers. And would enable Apple to more effectively evangelize its ever-expanding product, platform, and services range.

What do you think? Let us know in the poll hosted here.

Google+? If you use social media and happen to be a Google+ user, why not join AppleHolic's Kool Aid Corner community and join the conversation as we pursue the spirit of the New Model Apple?

Got a story? Drop me a line via Twitter. I'd like it if you chose to follow me there so I can let you know when fresh items are published here first on Computerworld.
Virtual private networks (VPNs) encrypt internet connections between two points, to secure them from casual snoopers and hackers. These VPN services are particularly useful when accessing the internet from an untrusted location, such as a hotel, cafe or coworking space.

A plethora of modern VPN services, with dedicated connectivity apps, have put an end to the maddening manual configuration VPNs once required. No two VPN offerings are alike, however, and it can be a challenge to find the right VPN. Here's a look at some of the top VPNs for privacy and security.

VyprVPN

The VyprVPN by Golden Frog is a polished and intuitive option. The developer is based in Switzerland, which has strict privacy laws, and VyprVPN clusters servers by country so you don't have to scroll through long lists of server options that may not even be available in your area. The app can also automatically connect to servers in the regions with the lowest latency, and it can switch server clusters in the case of an outage.

VyprVPN offers a broad range of officially supported platforms, including Windows, macOS, Linux, Android and iOS, as well as other devices such as Tomato-based routers and smart TVs. Extensive documentation on how to configure popular platforms such as DD-WRT, OpenWRT and Synology's DiskStation Manager platform is also available.

The company says it uses proprietary software code on the backend and operates its VPN service entirely from its own hardware, including DNS, routers and servers for end-to-end privacy. Golden Frog's global network spans more than 70 locations and it works with a pool of more than 200,000 IP addresses.

VyprVPN offers unlimited data for subscribers, with pricing tiers geared for different numbers of simultaneously connected devices (starting at $9.99 per month). You can also get 500MB of VyprVPN use for free by signing up via one of the company's official apps.

ExpressVPN

With more than a thousand servers across 87 countries, ExpressVPN is one of the largest commercial VPN providers. The service promises to never log browsing history, traffic data or DNS queries, and it says it is a financial supporter of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a privacy-protection group. (The company does log a limited amount of data to improve performance, such as dates of logons, but not timestamps, server locations or the amount of data customers transfer per day.)

ExpressVPN supports a large range of platforms, including Windows, macOS, Linux, Android and iOS. People who want to use ExpressVPN with their home or office routers will appreciate the company's instructions on how to manually configure supported routers to access its service. Custom ExpressVPN firmware is also available, with instructions on how to flash supported routers for free. However, it currently supports only the Linksys WRT1200AC and Linksys WRT3200AC routers.

ExpressVPN supports unlimited data for up to three simultaneous devices, and its price plan starts at $12.95 per month, with a discount for people who prepay for a year ($8.32 a month). If you want to use more than three devices at a time you need to buy a second subscription, but the company encourages customers to use ExpressVPN on a router to circumvent this limitation.

NordVPN

NordVPN takes your privacy very seriously. In addition to a promise not to log any of your activity, the provider uses a unique "double" VPN technology that essentially uses two servers to further obfuscate the inbound and outbound data streams from its servers. All incoming data is also encrypted with AES-256-CBC, and the tech is applied twice for added security.

The company offers apps for Windows, macOS, Android and iOS, though there is no official app for Linux. Tech-savvy users can, however, configure almost any platform to work with NordVPN, and a lengthy list of tutorials offers in-depth configuration information for Chrome OS, a MikroTik router and more.

The standard NordVPN plan gives unmetered access to six simultaneous devices. Its pricing plans are also affordable. A current promotion offers the services for two years for $79, or only $3.29 per month. And if you prefer anonymity, you can pay for your NordVPN accounts using Bitcoin.

CyberGhost VPN

Romania-based CyberGhost publishes an annual transparency report to show the number of requests or demands for log files it receives every month. The service also comes with "anti-fingerprinting" features, which work as a proxy to cloak the browsers and PCs that use the service to access the Internet.

CyberGhost offers one of the more full-featured VPN apps, and it includes the capability to automatically launch when it connects to a new Wi-Fi network. The feature eliminates the need to remember to connect for protection, and it can also be configured to connect via VPN when you launch internet apps such as BitTorrent. Separately, an "unblock streaming" feature lets you unblock geo-locked services such as Netflix and BBC with a single click, and a data-compression option helps you reduce data drain when using a mobile device.

An ad-supported option offers free access to CyberGhost without registration, though its speeds are slower and BitTorrent is blocked. Paid subscriptions remove ads and quintuple the network speed, but only the most expensive Premium Plus ($10.99 per month) subscription offers simultaneous use of as many as five devices.

PureVPN

PureVPN offers a variety of features not available from other VPN providers, including the capability to use a dedicated IP address, for a higher level of privacy and security. The IP-address feature is available as an add-on, and it's particularly useful for further securing your online activities given the service's capability to configure online firewalls, including the security group rules for Amazon Web Services, to accept connections only from designated IP addresses.

PureVPN offers optimized sports-streaming servers with up to 20Mbps streaming speed, and it has built-in DDoS protection. The service runs on a hefty worldwide network of more than 500 servers in 141 countries. And PureVPN has its headquarters in Hong Kong.

Payment options include credit cards, Alibaba's Alipay, and even gift cards from Best Buy and Walmart. Pricing starts at $10.95 per month. PureVPN also offers Business VPN services, with round-the-clock support and a dedicated management portal.

Privacy and reliability aside, performance is the most crucial component of any VPN service. Unfortunately, it's very difficult to determine performance without running tests from specific locations. A VPN service that works well at a specific time of day and under one workload may be unusable for someone else in another part of the world. In other words, try a VPN service out for a few weeks before you invest in it long term.

This story, "Top 5 VPN services for personal privacy and security" was originally published by CIO .
Indians with US visa, green card entitled to get on-arrival visa in UAE

In yet another example of close relations between India and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), the latter has allowed Indians with a valid American visa or Green Card to get on-arrival visa in the UAE. The on-arrival visas will be valid for 14 days, after which a chargeable one-time extension is permissible. The decision was taken in the UAE cabinet recently.

Burj Khalifa, iconic building of Dubai, was lit up in Indian tri-colour during Republic Day highlighting the close relationship between the two countries. Video grab

The official statement stated, Citizens of the Republic of India who are holders of normal passports with a six-month, or more, valid green card or visa issued by the United States of America shall be granted entry visas to the UAE from all ports for a period of 14 days, subject for a single renewal for the same period upon payment of applicable fees.

There is growing bonhomie between India and UAE, particularly in the last few years, as Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi visited UAE in 2015, which marked the first visit to the Emirates by an Indian Prime Minister in the past 34 years. Reciprocally, Shaikh Mohammad Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi, visited India to strengthen ties between the two countries.

UAE is one of the most attractive destinations for Indians. Dubais tourism agency welcomed about 1.6 million Indians last year  making the country the emirates largest source market for the first time. This represented an increase of 26 per cent year-on-year.

Even for Abu Dhabi, India emerged as the largest overseas market for tourism last year, with visitor numbers reaching 323,300 which was a hike of about 15 per cent year-on-year.

The new rules are expected to boost Indian tourist numbers, with Dubai noting a significant increase in Chinese and Russian arrivals in the first two months of the year after passport holders from both countries were granted visa on arrival entry.

There are about 143 flights operating between India and UAE in a day and nearly 1,000 a week.
Six months ago, ConservativeHome wrote that Britain must make a collective decision about what kind of country it wants to be post-Brexit, and that there are two different roads it can take.

The first is what might be called Open Britain. Its starting point would be that our economy needs to be as open as possible if it is to flourish after Brexit. Business taxes would be slashed. So would regulation  including much of that social and employment law that Conservatives for so long itched to get back from Brussels. We would become a kind of Panama for money from overseas. Trade deals would be framed simply to get the best deal possible for exporters; those steel imports from China, say, would flow into Britain. All this sounds like a Thatcherite vision for our economy, but it does not necessarily imply a passive state. Government could be active in the sense of going for big infrastructure decisions more determinedly than has usually been the case. More runways would be tacked on to Heathrow and Gatwick; airports outside the south-east would be expanded. Migration would be relatively high.

London and the South-East would be likely to gain most from such a strategy, at least in the short-term. The losers from imports and high immigration would mostly be concentrated elsewhere  in the Leave-voting North and Midlands among the ordinary working people who plumped for Brexit.

Which leads us to the second option. It begins with the conviction that government cannot let down these voters, without whom Leaves referendum victory would not have happened. Social and employment law would be preserved in aspic. Migration would be low. Trade deals would not be signed if they would let those steel imports come pouring in  which suggests that few would be signed at all. Public services policy would stress more spending rather than reform. Taxes would in consequence be higher than they would otherwise have been. Investment from abroad would be seen through a national security lens only. This would be a Closed Britain. It is difficult to square this vision of the future with the vigorous construction of new airports or nuclear power stations. We would be more likely to put such decisions off and opt for lower growth.

The release of the Great Repeal Bill White Paper has stirred a mass of speculation about legal consequences (such as whether the executive is entitled to use so many Henry VIII clauses) and political tactics (such as whether the Scottish Parliament could block the Bills effects in Scotland by refusing legislative consent).

But it has also reheated the questions that we asked last autumn. For example, the Daily Telegraph has chosen this week to launch a campaign to promise a bonfire of EU red tape in its 2020 manifesto. The effect of a Bill whose intention is to keep EU law in the short-term has been to unleash competing views of what Britain should look like in the medium and long.

Parts of this debate are clearly pertinent. For example, the future of British farming post-Brexit is a real unknown. As Richard Ali put it recently on this site: do we want a New Zealand model of little or no support or a Norwegian model of high levels of support designed to keep farmers on the land? What sort of countryside do we want to see, and who should pay? It may well be that Britains urban areas are unwilling to fork out for its rural ones  nearly all of which are currently represented by Conservative MPs  but the question is a genuinely unresolved one, at least for the moment.

None the less, there is a temptation to exaggerate the scale and sweep of the choice. As we put it last autumn, a Closed Britain is ultimately unsustainable  and, in political terms, not consistent with where the Conservative Party has pitched its tent in modern times. Britain has a strong bias towards free trade, powered by our need to export goods. This basic disposition is not going to change post-Brexit. It could be that a Far Left government somehow wins office in 2020, and immediately begins to throw up tariff barriers and subsidise loss-making businesses.

But raising that possibility only reinforces how impossible such a posture would be to sustain. Britain needs businesses to come and invest, to create jobs and wealth. This is always true, and especially post-Brexit. Theresa May has got the message. The months following her Party Conference speech last autumn, which was perceived by parts of business as too inclined to bash it, saw a rhetorical and practical rowing-back. For example, Downing Street has quietly buried its original plan to compel companies to represent workers on boards. The Industrial Straetgy has turned out to be an exercise in consultation.

Burning questions remain. Can Britain deliver social justice for its younger people, so many of whom are currently locked out of home ownership? As Russia flexes its muscles, are we prepared to devote a higher proportion of spending to defence? Will we make a necessary shift that from an over-expanded higher education sector  see Graeme Archers column below today  to our under-developed vocational and training one? Are politicians prepared to wean us off the quantitative easing that has shafted saving? Above all, can the country live within its means and end the structural deficit?

Obviously, Brexit will have a scarcely-underestimable impact on the answers to all these. But so does the last Conservative Manifesto, with its protection for richer older retired people (the pensions triple lock; NHS ring-fencing). Ditto the unwillingness of Tory backbenchers to reduce the rate of growth of public spending. Revolts under David Cameron killed plans for disability benefit and tax credit reform. An uprising under May stifled Philip Hammonds plan to change National Insurance Contributions. The point here is not whether any or all of these plans were right or wrong. It is that the Commons isnt currently up for the scale of the challenge.

It is true that Ministers should embrace Brexit as the great challenge which Britain must meet, and tell a story about its plans will rise to it  something that the Chancellor failed to do in the Budget. It should also start planning now: last autumn, we said that he should begin to consult on the post-Brexit regulatory regime. But the Government has limited room for manouevre between now and 2020. Much of the Conservative plan for Britains journey must thus be reserved for the 2020 manifesto.

This places a big responsibility on George Freeman, who heads Downing Streets Policy Board, and Number Tens Policy Unit, led by John Godfrey. But while the pace of the journey is debatable, the destination is not. We are heading for an Open Brexit  not because politicians and voters will always opt for one, but because it is the only option in the modern world for survival, let alone jobs and prosperity.
Rep. Stephen Bloom remembers a time when only two people showed up for one of his town hall meetings.

And while that number stood out as the smallest in his seven years representing the 199th Legislative District in Cumberland County, he also said the attendance at such public forums has never been higher than it is right now.

Bloom said in past years, the largest crowds for his Coffee and Conversation town hall meetings featured 50 to 60 people.

In this new political environment, things have changed.

Bloom met packed venues at a pair of town hall meetings in March. The town hall at Carlisle Borough Hall was standing room only in the council chambers with about 100 people, and Bloom said he had to close off registration for his evening town hall at the Dickinson Township Building due to the number of RSVPs and capacity regulations.

Its something a few legislators, like Bloom, say they are encouraged to see.

Ive been there, too  frustrated at national issues, he said. Thats why we have town halls. It allows people to be heard.

I think part of my job is to hear what people want, said Rep. Greg Rothman, who represents the 87th Legislative District covering Hampden and East Pennsboro townships and Camp Hill Borough, as well as a part of Silver Spring Township. Its been a great experience for me. I have 64,000 experts in my district on any given subject.

What Rothman hasnt faced yet, however, is a town hall after the election of President Donald Trump. Since the presidential election in November, Republicans both in the state and nationally have come under fire from town hall attendees. Boos, shouted questions and printed signs are aplenty at town halls across the country, including those held by local legislators.

U.S. Rep. Scott Perry, R-4, heard from quite vocal opposition at this town hall in March in Red Lion, despite the questions being submitted beforehand and read aloud by the York County school districts superintendent. That contentious town hall included attendees yelling for answers to their questions about Trumps budget and seeking Perrys stance on national issues, such as health care.

Perry was the first Pennsylvania Republican in Congress to host a town hall, and was criticized for implementing an identification check for the town hall to ensure attendees were residents of the district.

Rothman said he doesnt plan on limiting attendance for his planned May 25 town hall in Hampden Township.

Thats not a statement about what others are doing. I just dont think there would be that many people, Rothman said, noting there were about 20 to 30 people at the two previous town halls he held. I wont know until I do it.

Some legislators, however, are already backing away from the notion of in-person town halls altogether.

If youre there at a town hall meeting and theres hundreds of people there yelling at you, its going to be a media event, University of Denver political scientist Seth Masket told the Associated Press in February. Theyre calculating that the bad press theyre going to get from not having a town hall is not going to be as bad as that.

Jon Anzur, communications director for U.S. Rep. Lou Barletta, said in-person town halls are no longer constructive because of the vocal opposition at the meetings.

We have learned from past experiences that traditional town hall meetings are not the most effective way for Congressman Barletta to talk with his constituents, Anzur said. Unfortunately, the disruptive behavior of a few people prevent others from having a productive conversation. Congressman Barletta is always willing to meet with anyone, including those who have opposing viewpoints.

Barletta temporarily stopped hosting town hall meetings in 2011, citing hecklers who were disruptive and asking questions about lack of jobs.

U.S. Sen. Toomey has likewise been criticized by groups, such as Tuesdays with Toomey, which holds a protest against Toomey every Tuesday. Those who oppose him say he doesnt meet with residents in-person at traditional town halls. His staff, however, say Pennsylvania residents have a chance to speak with him directly through telephone town halls.

Tele-town halls

Hosting a town hall in person is a far-less-used option for legislators, especially U.S. senators and representatives, than other types of town halls, including telephone town halls.

According to Steve Kelly, spokesman for Toomey, the senator has held 14 in-person town hall meetings, but more notably has hosted nearly 50 tele-town hall meetings over the last three years.

The most recent tele-town hall was on Feb. 16, and Toomey addressed the use of such town halls after he received a question from a Facebook user saying such town halls were a cop-out compared to in-person town halls.

I am in Washington five days a week. ... There is limited opportunity for me to do the job I have signed up to do here in Washington and be back in Pennsylvania at the same time, Toomey said during the tele town hall, available on SoundCloud. He also noted that calls are not pre-screened and they do come in live over the phone. I think it is more constructive.

The tele-town hall attracted thousands of listeners, but it came under fire from Philadelphia magazine due to the tele-town hall being announced on Facebook less than two hours before it was scheduled to start. This came after Philly.com criticized Toomey for never holding a town hall in Philadelphia, Pennsylvanias biggest city. While Toomey has in fact held those 14 in-person town halls, the newspaper said all of them have been in rural counties.

Kelly said there are no town halls planned for Toomey, but when they are scheduled in the future, notices will be sent to the press and posted on social media. Toomeys in-person town hall meetings are often in the summer months, according to Kelly.

Sen. Toomey values a constructive dialogue with his constituents, Kelly said in an emailed statement. As such, Sen. Toomey will remain engaged with constituents through a variety of mediums, including in-person town halls, tele-town halls and social media forums.

Anzur said Barletta also takes part in tele-town halls, which he said reach thousands of constituents in the 11th District.

Constituents can ask their questions and get answers straight from the congressman on these calls, he said.

Tele-town halls are also popular with state legislators, though they are often not as widely publicized as the in-person town halls.

Both Bloom and Rothman have participated in tele-town halls and noted those calls can include hundreds of constituents on the phone, whereas an in-person town hall has a limit due to the capacity of the venue.

Bloom said tele-town halls have a queue of calls with other callers on muted lines while the representative takes questions. I never had yelling at the telephone town hall.

Rothman said his town halls usually involve a call out to constituents, who can opt in or later call in to the tele-town hall, which he said they always hold in the early evening hours. He held a tele-town hall on March 21, which he estimated reached more than a thousand people at one point in the call.

I answered about 15 to 20 questions over an hour, he said. Its easy for constituents  they dont have to go anywhere. Theyre on the phone or on the computer. We also had a live stream on our website.

The method of tele-town halls vary, especially depending on which company hosts the town hall. Where Rothmans office called landlines in his district, state Sen. Richard Alloways opioid tele-town hall on Feb. 7 involved residents signing up on a website or through text to get the call a few minutes before the town hall began. Audio streaming of the tele-town hall was also available online, but only those who called in were able to participate and ask questions.

Social media

Social media tools, such as Facebook and Twitter, have likewise become a growing method for legislators to connect with their constituents. Though residents may not receive a response after posting on Facebook or tweeting at their legislator, they are still visible to the legislators and their staff.

As mentioned above, Toomey answered a Facebook post during a tele-town hall.

Perrys announced his in-person town hall on Facebook with updates about the identification system and the limits on registration. It was also live-streamed on the social media site, with more than a thousand viewers logging on that Saturday morning. Facebook users were also able to post comments on the live stream feed, including one with a Snopes fact check on health care exchange plans and Congressional health plans (Perry was correct in saying members of Congress get plans through the exchange, but he failed to mention those plans are also heavily subsidized by the federal government).

And though reaching a U.S. representative or senator may be more difficult on Facebook  as it would be in-person  local legislators are a little more available.

Bloom has championed social media as an element of being transparent with constituents. He live-tweets his votes on every bill and is generally regular with checking Twitter. For Bloom, its one more way to be accessible to voters.

(A town hall is) one avenue of communication, he said. Theres no one perfect thing to do to hear from constituents. Town halls are not the be-all, end-all.

This also includes going door to door, and Bloom said he knocked on 6,000 doors during the last cycle. He said it gives him a better cross-section of constituents because he knocks on doors of Republicans, Democrats and independents.

And meeting face-to-face with a local legislator isnt necessarily an odd occurrence. Bloom and Rothman said constituents can schedule an in-person meeting with them to air their concerns, as well as take other routes, such as composing an email or letter. Rothman said that just last week, he had four people stop by his office in one day without a scheduled appointment, but they still had a chance to talk to him.

For Rothman, its almost a daily occurrence to be stopped to talk about his job.

In my district, Im a half-mile from the capital, he said. I live here. I can be seen a lot as a state representative. I dont think thats the same for senators and congressmen who may not see people (around here).

Thats the good part about being a local state representative. There isnt a single moment I dont get asked a question, he said. It could be in a mens room at some sporting event. ... I cant go to the grocery store without being stopped. But I like it. Thats important to hear from constituents.

And hearing from them could mean a difference on issues. Though Bloom was firm on how he would vote on a number of issues raised at his Carlisle town hall, he said there are some issues hes glad to receive a bit more education.

The one thing that always stands out to me is the bill in Pennsylvania that lifted the ban on Sunday hunting, Bloom said. I was for that  it made sense. It was to benefit hunters. But farmers came out for a town hall I held.

He said the farmers told him they and their animals needed a day of rest, and if they couldnt have Sunday, they wouldnt allow hunters to hunt on their properties.

The bill was designed to help hunters, and actually would have the opposite effect, he said. It was an issue I was not aware of.

Whatever form a town hall may take, Rothman said its important to simply have one.

I answered every question Ive ever gotten, he said. I dont have a preference (of town halls). Any opportunity we have to connect with constituents is a good one.
CORNWALL, Ontario  Fire prevention officers spent the afternoon inspecting two Second Street low-rise apartment buildings.

The inspection revealed that neither building had working smoke detectors. According to the Ontario Ministry of Community Safety & Correctional Services, every home in Ontario must have a working smoke alarm on every storey and outside all sleeping areas. Failure to do this could result in fines ranging from a $265 infraction to a penalty as costly as $50,000.

Cornwall fire chief, Pierre Voisine says that this sort of disregard for public safety is totally unacceptable. If youre a property owner who isnt staying on top of fire code regulations, youre essentially taking your tenants lives into your own hands, said Voisine.

While fire prevention officers typically conduct these inspections at random, Voisine says that tenants should contact the fire department if they feel that something in their building is unsafe. Though fire prevention officers can issue fines, they are typically lenient with structural changes which cannot be implemented as quickly.

We try to be fair about certain things, said Voisine. It really depends on severity of issue.

Failure to install working smoke detectors, however, is considered a much more serious offense.

While the property owner was not present during the time of the investigation, new smoke detectors were being installed to comply with fire standards and ensure safety.
CORNWALL, Ontario  The Repeat Offender Parole Enforcement (R.O.P.E.) Squad is requesting the publics assistance in locating a Federal Offender wanted on a Canada Wide Warrant as a result of his breach of Parole.

This offender is serving a 2 year and 3 month sentence for Possession of Weapon Obtained by Indictable Offence, Obstruct Justice, Dangerous Operation of a Motor Vehicle, Flight from Police, Drive Disqualified x2 , Possession of Unauthorized Firearm, Possession of Schedule II Substance, Fail to Comply with Undertaking X3.

Christopher Raymond is described as a 41 year old male, Indigenous Person, 59, 175 lbs. with a fair/light complexion, brown eyes, and short black and grey hair.

The offender is known to frequent the Ottawa and Cornwall, Ontario areas as well as the Gatineau and Oka/Akwasasne areas of Quebec..

Anyone with information in regards to the whereabouts of Christopher RAYMOND is asked to contact the Provincial R.O.P.E. Squad at 1-416-808-5900 or toll free at 1-866-870-ROPE (7673) or Crimestoppers at 1-800-222-TIPS(8477) or call 9-1-1.

Contact: Detective Constable Steven SERMET

Repeat Offender Parole Enforcement

Phone: 1-416-522-4802
CORNWALL, Ontario  Environment Canada is predicting that Cornwall and the surrounding region will expect March to go out with cold and snow.

The Special Weather Statement issued for the region by Environment Canada states that snow is forecast to start falling on Thursday evening and will continue into Friday afternoon.

The snowfall is not expected to be particularly heavy with an average of 5 to 10 centimetres falling in most areas, but some parts of the region can expect more.

At this time, it does not seem likely that snowfall warnings will be required, the statement reads. However some uncertainty remains, and the evolution of this weather system continues to be monitored closely.

Environment Canada does warn however that freezing rain could be mixed in with the falling snow.
The American Heart Association will host the inaugural Carlisle HeartChase on April 22 at Dickinson College.

The family and team challenge event will raise funds for the association by turning Carlisle into an adventure with beat-the-clock games and challenges.

For the event, teams of two to five people will compete in a one-hour chase through Carlisle in pursuit of hidden rewards. Each team will complete multiple checkpoint challenges and track their progress using the HeartChase Mobile Game App. The team with the most points when the clock runs out wins.

Teams are encouraged to register early and start fundraising at http://honor.americanheart.org/2017carlisleheartchase. The goal for the event is to raise $25,000. As of Thursday, $8,000 had been raised.

Check-in begins at 8 a.m. April 22, and the HeartChase begins at 9 a.m. at Dickinson College, 28 N. College St., Carlisle.
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Donald Trump's American Health Care Act prompted women to stock up on birth control. During her interview with Jezebel, Dr. Kavita Patel announced that the new law can potentially cause birth control prices to soar making it impossible for the majority to afford.

Dr. Kavita Patel, who worked on Obama Care, announced that women should get a hold of their birth control needs as early as possible. Patel's announcement came after Donald Trump's American Health Care Act moved a step closer to replacing the Affordable Care Act, which was previously implemented by Barack Obama.

Patel pointed out that the upcoming changes will make it harder for women to have access to birth control. She also explained that the birth control prices could significantly increase if Donald Trump's American Health Care Act would be approved, according to the Elite Daily.

"Planned Parenthood will go away, Medicaid paying for contraception will probably go away," Patel said. "Here's the truth as a woman - go get your birth control now because, honestly, nobody knows if all of this passes if you'll be able to get this in three months."'

As the act moves forward for approval, Dr. Patel urges women to demand their rights in terms of the reproductive health bill. Compared to proposed American Health Care Act, women were previously supplied with the free birth control which created a positive impact on abortion rates in the United states, according to the Jezebel.

"We need to demand better out of our system and we need to demand better from our government," Patel told us. "We shouldn't release the pressure on our elected officials until they answer: why does it have to be this way? It should be better."

It was previously announced that a law in Virginia allows women to stock up on birth control. It was announced, however, that they would need to present a prescription for them to successfully purchase it in bulk. The announcement came in February after sparks of birth control shortage were ignited.

See Now: What Republicans Don't Want You To Know About Obamacare
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Researchers from the National University of Singapore have released the results of their test on what they term as "taste over IP technology." The technology allowed them to send digital transmissions over the internet to let the end users drink virtual lemonade with just a glass of water.

The taste over IP technology is made possible by their system that consists of a lemonade sensor, a communication protocol, and a special tumbler, usually placed at a remote location, which receives the data to simulate the taste of virtual lemonade, the News.com.au reported.

The lemonade sensor composed of an RGB sensor that collects data on color, and a pH sensor that allows the system to measure the sourness of the lemonade. After receiving the signals, the tumbler mimicked the sourness of the virtual lemonade by sending light pulses of electricity to the taste buds and LED lights projected the color into the glass of plain water, the New Scientist reported.

Taste over IP technology is still in infancy but the creators of the innovation, led by Nimesha Ranasinghe, hopes that in the future they will be able to recreate the full virtual cocktail that can project the smell, taste and color.

The new technology still cannot recreate the full flavor profile because it is still not capable of stimulating the sense of smell. The creators believe that true flavor can only be replicated if there is an olfactory simulation.

Another use for the technology that the creator sees, aside from being able to share the virtual drink posted in social media, is the possibility of letting people enjoy cocktails without the alcohol. It would also help people drink virtual beverages and not ingest the calories contained in the actual drink.

This ground-breaking research was presented at the Conference on Tangible, Embedded and Embodied Interaction in Yokohama, Japan this month.

See Now: What Republicans Don't Want You To Know About Obamacare
A goal is to approve a contract in December so that the contractor can order supplies in time to stage crews and equipment at each work site by early June when school lets out for the summer.
Support for the war came as an echo of a past protest held within the sanctuary of the First Presbyterian Church on the Square in Carlisle.

Speaker Dr. H.H. Longsdorf was drawing a parallel of the grievances held between the U.S. and Germany under Kaiser Wilhelm II and the colonists and England ruled by George III.

We have come again to the parting of the ways, Longsdorf told the capacity crowd on Friday, March 30, 1917. A king surrounded by a few advisers is trying to dictate to us individually and nationally how we may live and act.

His comments, as quoted in The Sentinel, came only minutes after hundreds of local men and women voted in favor of a series of resolutions first aired inside the church on July 12, 1774.

That earlier meeting was attended by freeholders and freeman upset over the decision by Parliament to shut down the port of Boston and subvert the rights and liberties of the Massachusetts Bay colony prior to the Revolutionary War.

Organizers of the March 30 demonstration used those same resolutions as a rallying point around which local residents could reaffirm their loyalty to country in defiance of an overseas tyrant. Within a week, the United States declared war on Germany ushering in American involvement in World War I.

March toward war

One hundred years ago in late March-early April, there was mounting tension over whether the United States should maintain its neutrality or get involved in the ground war in Europe.

The German policy of unrestricted submarine warfare was sinking American ships and taking American lives. The Zimmerman Telegram, issued in January 1917, offered U.S. territory to Mexico in return for that country joining the German cause.

All this set in motion a push toward war, which included local residents who had gathered at the church and the Old Courthouse in a show of unity. The Sentinel on March 28 had predicted a crowd of about 3,000 would pack the Square and both buildings.

The unity rally featured a march by 500 students of the Carlisle Indian School and a parade by about 100 members of the Union Fire Company led by the town band. The word had gone out to citizens all over Cumberland County including Mechanicsburg, Newville and Shippensburg.

Leon Prince, a Dickinson College professor, told the crowd in the church the war in Europe had smashed the fond delusions of the pacifist that patriotism was dead. He had a knack for using imagery and symbolism.

With dainty fingers and averted nostrils the gentle pacifist picked the dirty thing up by its tail and flung it on the ash heap like an over-ripe mouse, Prince said of patriotism.

But pacifist and socialist alike have been obliged to confess that the ties of blood and home have proved too much for the flimsy tissue of paper internationalism, the professor added.

Prince noted how soldiers on both sides of the conflict in Europe flocked to their colors as soon as war drums sounded the call to defense. But Uncle Sam has been notorious with his long-suffering and slow-to-anger stance on the war.

The only reason why he cant at the present moment obey the scriptural injunction to turn the other cheek is because he has already been hit on both cheeks so fast and so hard that there isnt a square inch of un-lambasted surface, Prince said.

The professor called on every man to enlist in the military and every woman to work in a munitions factory to prove to the world that no one can sink an American ship, take American lives and desecrate the American flag without consequences.

A call for loyalty

Rev. F. B. Plummer, pastor of the Grace United Baptist Church, said the United States has been very patient with Germany, but the time has come when patience has ceased to be a virtue ... Neutrality is an absolute impossibility when there are fundamental principles at stake.

Two suggestions are humbly offered: first that we pray for our president and Congress, Plummer asked of local residents. It is better to pray for guidance as to entering war than to blindly plunge into it and then to pray for victory ... The second is that at a time like this we must cease to be partisans  Democrats, Republicans or the like  and all unite in support of our country.

J.C. Wagner, superintendent of Carlisle schools, set it down as a moral imperative. One of the Central Powers, which we considered a leader in civilization, has seen fit to rape Belgium, and we sat supinely by; that power sank the Lusitania and we protested; that power inaugurated ruthless submarine warfare and asks us to mind our own business. But in America the spirit of liberty is not dead.

Four days before the unity rally, The Sentinel published an editorial that said nothing short of a back down by Germany could avert a state of war that has existed since the first American ship was lost at sea.

A day later, on March 27, the newspaper published a column calling for absolute loyalty in word and act by everyone whether alien-born or not. There was a note of caution.

This does not mean, however, that one private citizen is to unjustly accuse or suspect another or to persecute him with false rumors or charges, the column reads. Every citizen has the right to be regarded as for America first unless he gives evidence to the contrary.

The Sentinel made its own pitch to residents to attend the unity rally saying that Carlisle has long been noted for its patriotic fervor. It was to be expected that at a time like this it would rise to the occasion with a demonstration of loyalty to the government, the column reads. If we do as well today as our ancestors did in the olden days in helping to preserve our liberty, we may well congratulate ourselves.

When war was officially declared on April 6, the newspaper mentioned the lack of excitement that accompanied the announcement of hostilities. This was not to be taken as a lack of patriotism or of interest, the editorial board wrote.

On the other hand, when a nation goes to war soberly, with deliberation and fully conscious of the meaning of the step ... it shows a spirit of determination and satisfaction that bodes well of our patriotism. We would rather make war after this fashion than in the excitement of the moment when everyone is at white heat.

There is no other way out but to accept the state of hostilities thus forced, the column reads. And now that the formal declaration has been made we must go into war right, we must go into it big and go into it to win.
The only good to come from the torpedo was an unscheduled trip to the Emerald Isle.

Everybody had a good word for the Irish, said Wheeler Snoke of Shippensburg. But we did not stay there long ... Just time to learn a few of their blooming and bloody expressions.

The former school teacher was lucky to be alive a month after being rescued from the Atlantic Ocean following an attack by a German submarine on Feb. 5, 1918.

Snoke was in transit with the 100th Aero Squadron onboard the SS Tuscania when an enemy torpedo sank the troopship off the coast of Rathilin Island, Ireland.

A century ago this April, the German policy of unrestricted submarine warfare against supply ships prompted the entry of the United States into World War I.

The Tuscania was the first ship carrying American troops to be sunk, and public opinion in the USA regarded the loss as an outrage, according to the website www.worldwar1.com.

Kept by the Great War Society, the website mentions how the Tuscania had left Hoboken, New Jersey, on Jan. 24 with 2,013 American personnel onboard.

The troopship linked up with a convoy off the coast of Halifax, Nova Scotia, which was heading east for Le Harve, France. The convoy crossed the Atlantic to the coastal waters off Ireland where UB-77 was on patrol.

Lt. Commander Wilhelm Meyer of the Imperial German Navy sighted the convoy about seven miles north of the Rathilin Island lighthouse. He fired two torpedoes at the Tuscania.

The first one missed, but the second hit the liner amidships.

Journalist Irvin S. Cobb covered the Great War for the Saturday Evening Post magazine. Cobb was sailing over to Europe on a nearby ship in the same convoy as the Tuscania. His article on the sinking is stored in the archives of the Cumberland County Historical Society.

Far away somewhere we saw the revolving light of a lighthouse winking across the face of the waters like a drunken eye, Cobb wrote. That little beam coming and going gave me a feeling of security.

An hour later, Cobb was in a stateroom observing a card game when everyone heard a strange knocking sound coming across the hull. Cobb compared it to the sound a boy makes when he drags a stick along a picket fence.

One man joked the sound was from a torpedo knocking for admission. Five minutes later, an American officer came by and told them the Tuscania was in trouble.

They rushed topside to the aft promenade deck where they saw the stricken troopship about a mile away and a trifle to the left. Cobb didnt like what was happening and wrote about it:

In the winter evening the distance increased each passing moment, for we were running away from her as fast as our engines could drive us. We could feel our ship throb under our feet as she picked up speed. It made us feel like cowards. Near at hand a ship was in distress, a ship laden with a precious freightage of American soldier boys and here were we legging it like a frightened bird, weaving in and out on sharp tacks.

A wire service story printed in The Sentinel mentioned how the Tuscania was entering what was thought to have been safe waters when the attack took place.

The steamship took a heavy list, which made proper lowering of the boats impracticable, the story reads. Some men jumped into the sea. Others were thrown into the water when the boats were lowered.

Wheeler Snoke was among the survivors of a sinking that claimed 113 American lives. He wrote of his experiences in a letter to Roy Hurst of Steelton, which The Sentinel published on March 12, 1918.

It was a terrible time but most of us are OK, Snoke said. The life boat ... had not reached the water before it upset and threw us into the water. When I came to the surface I caught a rope and hung there until a second boat was lowered. I let loose and swam to it and was helped into it.

After getting out of the water I became very cold and chilly, Snoke wrote. I helped pull one fellow in. At the time, I did not know who it was, but the next morning, he thanked me as his savior. He is one of my comrades. After drifting for an hour, we were picked up by a submarine chaser and put ashore in Ireland.

From there, Snoke was transferred to England a country where the spring work has started.

The grass is green but yet it is chilly, he wrote. If it had not been for the kindness of the British government I would be very cold. I did not have a coat when I was put ashore.

That February, German submarines sank 166 Allied and neutral ships, according to www.uboat.net. All told, the U-boats claimed 1,647 ships in 1918 and 7,659 ships over the course of the war.

Across the ocean near Philadelphia, Hope Martin of West North Street, Carlisle, was hunting German submarines off the New Jersey coast as a member of a patrol aircraft squadron.

We went out to sea about 25 miles and it certainly was interesting, Martin wrote his parents on July 20, 1918. There were about a dozen seaplanes dropping bombs and in every direction destroyers were chasing up and down the ocean. I hope they continue the coast patrol for it gives you something to do.

About 200 U-boats were lost between 1914-1918 mostly through a combination of sea mines, depth charge attacks by escort ships, gunfire and ramming attacks by warships and scuttling, according to www.uboat.net.
Channel programs News

Deloitte Targets Digital Transformations, Doubles Down On Cloud With Acquisition Of AWS Partner

Rick Saia

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Services provider Deloitte sees an ocean of opportunity ahead in digital transformation work, which is a big reason it acquired a top Amazon Web Services partner, according to a company executive.

Earlier this week, Deloitte, No. 18 on CRN's Solution Provider 500 list, said it had acquired Day 1 Solutions, based in McLean, Va. In recent years, Day 1, which focuses on public sector IT, has branched beyond the state, local and education space into servicing federal government customers. Day 1 represents a series of major investments in cloud services that Deloitte says will enhance its clients' digital transformation efforts.

Day 1 provides three capabilities "that are most useful to us," said Ranjit Bawa, a principal in Deloitte's cloud and technology practice, told CRN in an interview. He cited the company's core engineering talent on cloud platforms such as AWS and VMware, development around building applications to cloud architectures and container-based constructs, and Day 1's managed services business, because "clients are increasingly asking us to host applications or host data products that we've built for them."

[RELATED: Apple Partners With Deloitte To Further Its Enterprise Ambitions]

Deloitte announced it would hire 3,000 U.S.-based, cloud-focused engineers over the next year, and open three new Deloitte Digital cloud studios in New York, Washington, and Orlando, Fla. Those sites will open within the next year and bring the total number of Deloitte Digital sites to 44 worldwide.

The moves are part of Deloitte's goal to build its cloud practice to a "very achievable" $10 billion by 2020, Bawa said. To do that, "we need to grow aggressively around" those added capabilities, he added.

The engineers Deloitte is hiring will help organizations integrate, streamline and manage business operations in the cloud, while also developing cloud technologies to accelerate and enhance the depth of the company's analytics and cognitive solutions. Most of the engineers will operate out of the three new sites, Deloitte said in a press release announcing the Day 1 acquisition.

"Cloud capabilities are the great enablers of digital transformation, and theres a strong demand from clients to help them innovate their businesses with new cloud-based platforms, added Bawa.

"We're starting to see a big ramp-up in adoption and acceleration" around cloud and innovation, Bawa told CRN. For Deloitte, "demand is way outstripping supply," and more clients are asking the company to help with digital transformation, "planning out new business models  leveraging some technology aspects, looking at even building new products quicker and faster and cheaper."

Bawa said Deloitte is seeing clients that don't have adequate skills to handle digital transformations and the company is winning business because of it. But he said Deloitte itself faces a similar challenge. "There's a general sort of race to acquire and train skills, and we are facing that too, frankly, which is partly what's driving our hiring plans  our retraining efforts and our acquisitions."

Similarly, this week, executives of CSC, which will become DXC Technology as of April 3, cited the skills issue this week as they addressed their company's plans to invest in digital skills. The company plans to double its digital workforce over the next three years and acquire capabilities through acquisitions, executives said during a webcast.

Both Day 1 and Deloitte are AWS "advanced" consulting partners. At last year's AWS Global Partner Summit, Day 1 was one of the several partners honored for its customer focus, one of AWS's four key leadership principles.

During an eight-month stretch from late 2014 to the summer of 2015, Day 1 executed four acquisitions to strengthen its data center services offerings. They included Plano, Texas-based Vazata, whose public-sector business unit provided Day1 with enhanced cloud infrastructure, data center colocation space in Northern Virginia as well as access to the FedRAMP cloud security certification. Day 1 also acquired big data consulting firm OpenOsmium and cloud managed services provider Logic Method IT.
HARRISBURG  It is a blunt assessment and a scathing audit.

The definition of a debacle is their record keeping, Pennsylvania Auditor General Eugene DePasquale said of the Pennsylvania Capitol Police.

On Thursday, DePasquale publicly released an audit that confirmed an ABC27 Investigators report of last week: that Capitol Police misplaced thousands of dollars and hundreds of parking tickets over a several-year period.

It was so bad they were not even able to write parking tickets for six months because they werent even able to track their own parking tickets, DePasquale said of the Capitol Police, which has jurisdiction over the Capitol Complex.

A single civilian ticket clerk had complete control of the parking tickets, the collected fines, and the bookkeeping. She abruptly retired as auditors came in to look at the books. After she left, no one could open the safe. She was the only one with the combination.

To have a whole entire police department not be able to get into its own safe, thats groundbreaking stuff and not in a good way, DePasquale said.

The audit also blasted management at Capitol Police and oversight by the Department of General Services, which was sorely lacking according to the auditor general.

I am 100-percent sure that we have the situation under control, said Troy Thompson, a spokesman for General Services.

Thompson said the problems have been fixed, that money is no longer collected in the Capitol Police office and is deposited weekly. Procedurally, according to Thompson, parking tickets are logged in and out by officers and accounted for with receipts. More than one person now has oversight.

There will be a biweekly review of all ticket office data by the Capitol Police and, in addition, there will be a monthly audit by the Department of General Services fiscal office, Thompson said.

Pennsylvania State Police continue to investigate the civilian ticket manager who resigned. But with such bad accounting, its difficult to know if money was stolen or misplaced.

The reason why you have good processes in place is to make sure nobody is stealing, DePasquale said, but just because you have a bad system doesnt mean people are stealing, it simply couldve been incompetence.

Both Thompson and DePasquale reiterated the audit was critical of Capitol Police management and oversight and not the men and women who wear the uniform.

When asked if anyone was fired or disciplined as a result of the shortcomings, Thompson refused to comment citing personnel issues.
Data center News

Vantage Data Centers Acquired By Investors Looking To Expand

Joseph F. Kovar

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Vantage Data Centers was acquired this month by an investment consortium looking to expand the wholesales data center services provider.

Three investors  Digital Bridge Holdings, Public Sector Pension Investment Board, and TIAA Investments  purchased Vantage Data Centers in a move that could lead to further expansion, said Joe Goldsmith, chief revenue officer for the Santa Clara, Calif.-based company.

With the deal, terms of which were not disclosed, the investors gain control of one of the country's largest regional data wholesale center data center services providers, with a total capacity of 51 megawatts of IT load in the city of Santa Clara, Goldsmith told CRN.

[Related: Silicon Valley: One Earthquake Away From IT Disaster?]

Vantage Data Centers also has a 6-megawatt data center in Quincy, Wash. It is also in the process of extending its existing campus with an additional 24 megawatts of capacity and is building a new 69-megawatt campus in Santa Clara.

Vantage Data Centers was founded about seven years ago when its existing investor, Silver Lake, invested in starting the company from the ground-up. "It was very unusual for Silver Lake to build a new company," Goldsmith said. "They usually buy existing companies."

Santa Clara, Calif. real estate is among the most expensive in a seismically active part of the country. But Goldsmith said it was the ideal location to build a data center business.

"We focus on delivery of infrastructure where customers want it to be," he said. "Many of our customers are cloud service providers and application service providers. Many are serving customers in Northern California, and many offer applications and services that can't be delivered remotely."

The company's data centers are built to exceed the seismic importance factor of 1.5, which is a measure of structural integrity, he said.

The new investors bring Vantage Data Centers an opportunity to expand into new markets, Goldsmith said.

"We are looking at where customers want us to expand, and where we can expand with them," he said. "The focus is on where do our customers want us to go with them."

Goldsmith would not rule out expanding either by building from the ground up in a new area or acquiring an existing data center campus.

"Building from the ground-up means starting new in a market, including identifying an existing shell and core or land where we need to apply for the right permits to develop a data center," he said.

"A merger or acquisition would give us the ability to move into a market much more quickly. But, in either scenario, our main focus is on the domestic market. And our current investment infrastructure gives us the power to expand."
My wife and I met on a blind date at a Bonanza restaurant in a nearby shopping mall nearly 32 years ago, so it was dismaying to drop in on the same mall on a recent Saturday afternoon. Store after store was unoccupied, customers were few and far between and a general ghostly ambience prevailed.

Alas, our experience is not unique. According to USA Today, many of the nations less affluent communities have seen their malls and shopping centers underutilized or closed, because of competition from discount outlets, standalone big box stores or online retailers.

Analysts say 25 percent of remaining malls are in danger of losing traffic-driving anchor stores such as Macys, Sears or J.C. Penney.

Selfies have made the iconic mall photo booth obsolete. Apps that let you swipe left are much easier than hanging out at the mall to watch for potential dates.

Those quarter-gobbling mechanical horses have been shipped to a slaughterhouse in Canada. The food court is now just a scruffy guy in a black robe using a corn dog for a gavel.

Sure, some intrepid souls keep going to the mall to walk, window shop or purchase obscure items. And, yes, other old habits die hard. (Here, hold my purse while I search online for shoes.) But malls have certainly seen better days.

The USA Today report on malls in general was paired with an article reciting the woes of Sears in particular. The 131-year-old institution recently warned investors of substantial doubt about its ability to stay afloat.

I have fond memories of going to the (long-closed) local Sears catalog store to see Santa Claus, and of perusing my mothers 1969 reproduction of the Sears 1902 catalog, so Im sorry to hear of the financial difficulties.

Some Sears executives remain optimistic. (Ha! I wish I had a nickel for every time someone has predicted the death of Sears. No, seriously, dude. I need the nickels. And any dimes you find in the sofa cushions...)

Another proud Sears leader waxed philosophical, advising, When life hands you lemons, make lemonade. Of course Amazon will probably find a way to sell the lemonade cheaper and deliver it by drone...

(Sears sister-company Kmart is contemplating changing the blue light special to the going toward the light special.)

Sears has already reaped $900 million by selling its Craftsman tool line to Stanley Black & Decker. They may buy more time by spinning off other popular brands such as Kenmore appliances and DieHard automotive supplies. (And we can spin off The Jeffersons and Joanie Loves Chachi and...no, wait...)

Mall owners are gamely trying to reinvent themselves, renting space to media production companies, specialty grocers and military recruiters. (The few...the proud...the indignant because their GPS malfunctioned and brought them to this heckhole...)

Maybe someday preservationists will spring up to save malls  the way campaigns are currently waged to revitalize courthouse squares. But the decline of malls is just circle of life stuff. Automobiles made people less dependent on peddlers and country stores. Later, malls made downtown shopping districts dry up.

Maybe in another generation well be on to the Next Big Shopping Trend.

Perhaps well all be plugged into the Matrix and IMAGINING that were sitting at our keyboards ordering online. (Imaginary husband, hold my purse while I FLY to the refrigerator to get some snacks for Round Two of e-commerce!)

Danny Tyrees weekly column is distributed exclusively by Cagle Cartoons Inc. newspaper syndicate. Email him at tyreetyrades@aol.com.
FAIRFIELD  A Sacred Heart University student is in stable, but critical, condition after choking during a pancake-eating contest Thursday night at the college.

The 21-year-old was a participant in the contest, held at a Greek Life dinner on the colleges University Commons March 30. According to witnesses, she had eaten four or five pancakes when she began to shake uncontrollably and fell to the floor. She spit out some pieces of pancake, police said, but was choking.
Joining a book club and reading frequently can have a huge impact on your success as an entrepreneur. Online book clubs help you cope with the stress of day-to-day life and can polish certain skills that you will need in your quest to become successful.

Entrepreneurs usually consider reading as a hobby, so they tend to put it on the back burner and forget about it altogether. However, reading itself can help enhance communication skills, reduce stress, improve mental agility and improve your focus and concentration. Most entrepreneurs read books about their industry but its important to read broadly. Novels, poetry, short stories and biographies stimulate your brain, allowing you to easily understand different opinions and perspectives.

Online book clubs encourage reading through social interaction with people on the same wavelength. Book clubs connect you with peers who have the same interests. You can build a network of valuable contacts while you learn more as a group. Online book clubs allow users to interact with like-minded peers through chat and messaging apps, such as Slack. This is my list of the top online book clubs for entrepreneurial inspiration.

Related: 10 Ways an Online Book Club Helps You Succeed in Business

Read With Entrepreneurs

Read With Cynthia

Create successful SEO and digital marketing campaigns

Find creative ideas for content

Learn how to approach other entrepreneurs professionally

Grow your business

Find motivation

Learn more about yourself and your industry

Read With Marketers

Get It Girl Book Club

How to increase productivity

Finding inspiration

Overcoming common pitfalls faced by female entrepreneurs

Handling the financial aspect of your business

The ins and outs of entrepreneurship

Setting up effective communication channels

Increasing sales

Read With Murray

Read with Entrepreneurs is an awesome book club for both young and experienced businessmen and women. The book choices and discussion topics revolve around setting up a successful business with limited resources, as well as other setbacks entrepreneurs often face. Books are recommended and discussed on a monthly basis through a online community, and it encourages all participants to give their individual take on how to set up and run a successful startup in a wide range of industries.Read with Cynthia offers a great take on modern business models and effective strategies that entrepreneurs can apply in order to grow quickly. The titles discussed will help you build a successful startup and understand the different elements that can affect your business. Group discussions through a online community will help you explore ideologies that can help you:There are not many marketing-centric book clubs out there, so Read with Marketers offers a great option for entrepreneurs looking to polish their marketing skills. This popular marketing onlie book club also offers discussions via Slack, allowing members to interact with mediators and other members on their own terms. Read with Marketers provides independent book recommendations based on new business books that are making a splash. By reading and discussing titles such as Growth Hacker Marketing Revised and Expanded and Everybody Writes , this book club can help you pick up tips and ideas for your next marketing campaign.Becoming a successful woman in male-dominated industries is a huge challenge, so finding like-minded female entrepreneurs is not a common occurrence. The Get It Girl Book Club offers a refreshing option for business women who want to connect with other female entrepreneurs. Their discussions are carried out through an online community and encourage women to share tips on:

Read With Murray, dedicated to anything and everything entrepreneurial. From inspirational stories to biographies, educational texts, and other nonfiction books, it covers an array of titles that will help you grow personally and professionally. Its's aim is to create meaningful connections and host thoughtful discussions that work as an inspiration to entrepreneurs around the world.

Related: 'Media Diet,' Mark Zuckerberg Announces Virtual Book Club

Motivation Book Club

Productivity Book Club

Read With Leaders

Many entrepreneurs are lacking inspiration. The Motivation Book Club can help young and seasoned entrepreneurs find motivation by reading and discussing titles on professional and personal development. The Motivation Book Club is free to join and hosts book discussions through an online community.Entrepreneurs and small business owners often need help finding and managing capital. The Productivity Book Club helps you identify opportunities. Discussion with fellow businessmen and women helps you figure out the best options for you. The Productivity Book Club offers the perfect set of no-fluff books to help you increase productivity while encouraging you to change your habits and cultivate both your personal and professional skills.

Leadership roles are among the most desired in any company and are not easy to fulfill. Read with Leaders can help leaders, and those aspiring to fill leadership roles, handle the pressure that comes with higher management positions. Read with Leaders also discusses tips on how to set up companies and make the leap to success. Read with Leaders is a great club for startups and small businesses, but has also proved to be a useful asset for seasoned managers and leaders. The discussion groups consist of leaders who share their thoughts on how to inspire their teams, cut costs, and generate more revenue.

Related: 5 Ways I Used a Reverse Book Club to Write a Bestseller

Personal Branding Book Club

Money Book Club

Finally...

Branding is one of the biggest aspects of modern marketing campaigns, and the Personal Branding Book Club can help you achieve this ultimate goal. The premises for personal branding are easy to understand, however, most companies struggle to create an image and become a household name. The titles read in the Personal Branding Book Club can help you create a strong initial connection with your audience, teach you how to nurture the relationship and allow you to create a name for yourself and your company.All companies, regardless of industry, are concerned about increasing revenue and making money. The titles discussed in the Money Book Club help motivate entrepreneurs who are short of inspiration, offering ideas on how to assess and understand your market properly. In addition to this, the Money Book Club will help you discover your true passion and allow you to discuss books with fellow entrepreneurs that can provide you with the motivation and drive to get started.Joining a book club will not only help you polish your reading skills and exercise your brain but can also help you achieve success as a professional. These 10 book clubs help you bring out your creative side and provide entrepreneurial inspiration when you least expect it.

Related:

Top 10 Online Book Clubs For Entrepreneurial Inspiration

This Author Left Family Business to Pursue Passion For Writing

6 Ways to Write a Bestseller (And Build Your Brand)



Copyright 2017 Entrepreneur.com Inc., All rights reserved
The following excerpt is from Glenn Llopiss book The Innovation Mentality. Buy it now from Amazon | Barnes & Noble

Editor's Note: With competition growing increasingly harsh, business owners can no longer offer bare minimum customer service. Find out why exceeding expectations is the new order of the day with customers everywhere.

Leaders and employees are trained that the most important person in their ecosystem is the customer or client, and they strive to have a team thats reflective of the guests who walk into their stores or want to do business with them. But even when they arent reflective of that guest, they can evolve to see their job as more than just a responsibility to do what needs to be done and instead have the expectation to get their hands dirty and help.

Consider how a few Target team members went above and beyond to help one customer. The story serves as a lesson on expectation to leadership and employees at any level of any business.

Related: Why Generating Business Momentum Is More Important Than Making Progress

Yasir Moore, a 15-year-old boy from Raleigh, North Carolina, had landed an interview at a Chick-fil-A for his first job. His mom told him to wear a tie, but he didnt know how to tie one. So he went to Target to find a clip-on and couldnt find one. Thats when a team member on the floor, Cathy Scott, spotted him. She walked over and asked Yasir if he needed help. Yasir said he needed a clip-on tie, and Cathy explained they didnt have any.

At that point, Cathys basic responsibility to the guest ended. She could have just said, Im sorry, can I be of any other assistance? and walked away if Yasir said, No. But Cathy had an expectation to do more. She said, We dont have any clip-on ties, but why do you need a tie? Yasir told her about the interview and that neither he nor his mom knew how to tie a tie. Enter Dennis Roberts, another floor team member. Dennis, the father of four grown sons, had plenty of experience teaching teens to tie ties. He proceeded to show Yasir how to do it and stayed with him until he could do it on his own.

The story doesnt end there. As Yasir worked on his knot, Cathy and Dennis gave him interview advice: Talk slowly, sit up, have a firm handshake. Dennis told him, Its time for you to raise the roof, tell these people exactly who you are, what youre made of and that youre the right person for the job. Yasir listened and nailed the interview. He was called back a second time and got the job.

I learned all this not through my client, Target, but from CNN and ABC News. ABC even made Dennis, Cathy and Yasir their People of the Week. But it wasnt because Target pitched them. There were no cameras rolling in the store that day. In fact, the only reason anyone learned about this was a Target customer, Audrey Marsh, who saw Yasir, Dennis and Cathy from across the store, thought it was a terrific moment, and snapped a candid picture on her phone. She never spoke to them. Later, she posted it to her Facebook page and tagged Target, which picked it up. It had more than 60,000 likes by that evening, and the story went viral from there.

When asked why she took and posted the picture, Marsh told ABC, You certainly dont expect that to happen. Certainly not in a big-box store. Certainly not down aisle 11.

Related: How to Turn Company Values Into Shared Employee Beliefs

Do you expect that? You dont expect that if you just feel responsibility to your job description and what you are told to do. You do expect that if you have an expectation of accountability to do more -- to do what your gut tells you and act. Thats how you anticipate the unexpected and lead to leave a legacy to move from responsibility to expectation.

Expectation is about getting your hands dirty and taking a greater level of ownership. This just doesnt happen enough in our workplaces when were detached from the day-to-day of the marketplace.

As Caroline Wanga, vice president of corporate social responsibility at Target Corp., explained to me when we discussed the story of Yasir, Dennis and Cathy, Headquarters works nothing like the stores. We dont have the day-to-day interaction that impacts the transaction or changes somebodys life. But thats the environment the people at the store level live every single day. It didnt matter that the workers were white and the customer was black. And Im willing to bet that there wasnt some big conversation about it before they approached about how do we get along? It started with, This kid needs help with a tie. At headquarters, we would overanalyze that to death: Well, what if he doesnt want help with this tie? or What if its offensive? or Will the kid be threatened because the worker is a white male? But at store level, theyre at the center of the Cultural Demographic Shift and have an expectation to be accountable to much more. They dont get to opt out.

Exactly! So why are these stories newsworthy? Because most of us are stuck in responsibility and are touched by these human interest stories. I just wish that more leaders took interest in the humans in our workplaces and marketplaces and helped everyone be accountable to the expectation of doing more in operationalizing the power of the individual defining the business at all levels of business.

This is exactly what a health care provider senior executive, the head of a division that employs more than 300 people, faced when she started her new job. Her predecessor had a leadership style and approach that created silos within and across departments. She wanted to transform the division by guiding her employees to evolve their thinking, attitudes and overall approach. So she opted to act and led the transformation.

In this pursuit, she desired to create an environment that fuels clarity and understanding, and demands direct and honest feedback. One of her priorities was to be more intentional about defining and communicating the expectations for her own leadership -- and encouraging her immediate direct reports to do the same. She wanted to create an operating culture that promotes collaboration so they could organically propel innovation and initiative. Leadership expected her and her team to achieve measurable results in six months. To succeed by that measure, this leader needed every characteristic in her innovation mentality arsenal and needed her direct reports to take greater levels of ownership -- to be courageous enough to move from responsibility to expectation and anticipate the unexpected to avoid any problems that would affect their timeline.

Leading through the lens of expectation puts the onus of evolution on individuals, not on the business. Thats how you establish that team-first mentality and collaborative environment. Thats how you eliminate silos and replace them with communication and feedback across teams, departments and the entire company.

Related: Embrace Your Employees' Differences to Become a Stronger Business Leader

What is the legacy that your promise has created for those around you? Do your customers, clients and partners feel that the workplace is an environment where everyone treats each other like family? Do your employees believe their jobs are opportunities to shape the legacies of themselves and everyone they touch? Do your customers, clients and partners believe that you do?

Yasir Moore does. The ABC cameras were actually rolling at his second interview, hidden until he got the job he interviewed for. Who was waiting to congratulate him when he did? Dennis and Cathy from Target.

As Yasir said, Its more than just a tie.

Related:

3 Ways to Follow a Greedless Road to Success

Why Exceeding Expectations Is Essential to the Long-Term Success of Your Business

The One Trend Impacting All Companies This Year



Copyright 2017 Entrepreneur.com Inc., All rights reserved
3rd G20 Framework Working Group meeting held in Varanasi

Published: March 30, 2017

The third edition of G20 Framework Working Group (FWG) meeting was held in Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh.

The two-day meeting took place under the G20 German presidency, and was co-hosted by the Union Finance Ministry and the Reserve Bank of India (RBI).

It was inaugurated by Shaktikanta Das, Economic Affairs Secretary and Dinesh Sharma, special secretary in the Finance ministry was head the programme.

Key Facts

The two day meeting held discussions on the current global economic conjecture as well as deliberations on the policy options that countries can pursue to counter the challenges.

It also deliberated on the inclusive growth agenda of G20 and formulated a framework that will enable countries to help frame country specific inclusive growth policies .

The high-profile meeting was attended by around 100 financial and economic policy mandarins from around 19 countries of G20.

Officials from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank, OECD, ILO, UNCTAD, European Central Bank, European Commission, Financial Stability Board and Asian Development Bank also participated in it.

Background

The first two FWG meetings under the German presidency of G20 were held at Berlin in December 2016 and at Riyadh in February 2017. The fourth and the last G20 FWG meeting under the G-20 German presidency is likely to be held in Argentina before the G20 leaders summit in July 2017 in Hamburg, Germany.

Note: This was the fourth occasion that India, hosted the FWG meeting since its inception in 2009.Previously, India had hosted the G20 FWG meeting in Neemrana (2012 under Mexican presidency), Goa (2014 under Australian presidency) and in Kerala (2015 under Turkish presidency).

About G20

The Group of Twenty (G20) is the premier forum for its members international economic cooperation and decision-making. It is deliberating on global economic issues and other important development challenges.

It comprises total 19 countries plus the European Union (EU), representing 85% of global GDP, 80% of international trade, 65% of worlds population.

It was started in 1999 as a meeting of Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors in the aftermath of the Southeast Asian (Tiger economies) financial crisis.

In 2008, the first G20 Leaders Summit was held in Washington DC, US. The group had played a key role in responding to the global financial crisis.

Its members include India, Australia, Argentina, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, South Korea, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, Russia, Turkey, South Africa, UK, US and EU.

Month: Current Affairs - March, 2017

Topics: Finance Ministry  G20  G20 FWG Meeting  Inclusive Growth  India  RBI  Varanasi

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Nigel WatsonJack PeatThe London EconomicMarch 30, 2017Twenty years ago the belief that a UFO would take them away to a better life led 39 members of the Heavens Gate cult to commit mass suicide on Wednesday, 26 March 1997. The 18 women and 21 men, ranging in age from 26 to 72, killed themselves along with their charismatic leader Marshall Herff Applewhite.Calling themselves the Away Team, they believed that they would return to the Kingdom of Heaven, which they called the Next Level. Applewhite revealed that he took on his human form in the 1970s who offers a graduation class, offers life, out of this evolutionary level into that Next Evolutionary Level, and we are at the end of one of those times.66-year-old Applewhite had been involved with running UFO salvation cults since the 1970s. Under the name Bo, he had worked with Bonnie Lu Truesdale Nettles aka Peep to collect supporters. Bo and Peep were also known as Guinea and Pig, The Two or Ti and Do. Bonnie died in 1985 of liver cancer leaving Applewhite to carry on their mission.Ben Zeller, author of Heavens Gate: Americas UFO Religion notes that;The two founders, were spiritual seekers living in Houston, Texas. Nettles was an astrologer and theosophist, and engaged in channelling, a New Age practice involving spiritual communication. Applewhite was raised Presbyterian and briefly considered becoming a Christian minister, but had become interested in alternative religions and spirituality. Both were avid astrology believers.They met and decided that the stars had determined that they had a mission together. Over several years they came to believe that they were part of the end-time story foretold in Revelation. They developed a belief system focused on interpreting Christian biblical end-time prophecy combined with belief in space aliens and UFOs. Basically, they agreed with Erich von Daniken and some other popular 1970s authors that the Bible and other ancient religions actually are describing space aliens, who were mistakingly called Gods by the ancients.Today the Heavens Gate website is run by one or two anonymous followers. They call themselves The Telah Foundation and explain that:The Group ended in 1997 and there has been nothing to join since that time. There are no members.We were in the Group for 12 years and they asked us to assist them in several things, like the website and emails, after they departed.When asked by email, How should we regard their actions looking back on the matter, were they right?, their reply was:We are still running the website to inform the world of the existence of the Next Level.Yes, they were right.When asked if they will join them when they die, they replied:We will not join join them when we die. No one joins them upon death. You have to enter in a live body.Although they had used several aliases, their ideology remained basically the same. Jacques Vallee in his book Messengers of Deception: UFO Contacts and Cults (And/Or Press, 1979) notes that in 1975 they ran the Human Individual Metamorphosis (H.I.M.) group. In announcements for a series of meetings, they said they would physically leave the planet within months. It was also claimed that their bodies had undergone a physical metamorphosis that had changed them physically, chemically, biologically. They also said that they would demonstrate in public the overcoming of death after a period of three days.These predicted events never happened, but 22 years later the arrival of comet Hale-Bopp, indicated to them that a spaceship was finally coming from the Kingdom of Heaven. Applewhite, along with his followers were now prepared to go to what they literally regarded as heaven.Living in their rented mansion at Rancho Santa Fe, San Diego County, California, the cult had survived by providing website development services. They denied themselves material goods and sexual activity; indeed six male members of the cult were even castrated to maintain their celibacy.Their cult activities borrowed heavily from Christian religion, and Applewhite was often regarded as a Jesus figure. Other inspirations were the contactees of the 1950s, the counter-culture of the 1960s and Theosophy. A more obscure source of inspiration was a story by Mark Twain entitled, Extract from Captain Stormfields Visit to Heaven. In this, Captain Stormfield tells of his death and riding a comet to Heaven and is told about three great poets, Saa, Bo and Soof.Lynn Picknett author and expert on UFOs and the paranormal says:They seem to provide an up-to-date sort of pseudo mysticism  in the form of an ecstatic death cult  that took the place of conventional religion for its followers. It rather cleverly adapted a belief in an afterlife to the world of the UFO.Steve Dewey author of In Alien Heat agrees that:Theres a god shaped hole in humans, and when you take away one filler, another rushes inUfology and religion are close bedfellows, and that the secularisation of the West has allowed alternative religions to flourish. It took on trappings of religion while thinking it was something else, or something more, but was just another proto-religion.Most UFO groups and beliefs are harmless but as Swedish UFO researcher Clas Svahn says they can have tragic consequences:UFO beliefs can be very dangerous when held by a charismatic leader.Here in Sweden I have met several people hearing voices from aliens that have told them to do things that no sane man or woman would do. One of them, a friend of mine, was told by his voice to go out in the woods in the middle of the Winter. He was later found dead their due to low temperatures.In her essay Heavens Gate: The End? Wendy Gale Robinson notes that cyber culture was held to blame for the suicides, because, there is something inherently dangerous about cyborgs, bodily liberation, and multiple online identities for some people who lack a secure sense of self. Perhaps the Heavens Gate cult members wouldve been better off if they hadnt been exposed to the Net and those of us on the Net wouldve been better off if we hadnt been exposed to their memes.She leans towards the notion that the combination of the arrival of the comet, the forthcoming millennium, their UFO beliefs and popular culture offer a better explanation for their behaviour.Ben Zeller underlines the importance of the internet:Whether such a group is possible today is a definite yes. But far more likely today people would simply read about these ideas in books and on websites and not join an actual group. There are no doubt a few small groups scattered here and there. There was a group based out of Roswell, New Mexico, that had similar beliefs about UFOs and aliens being in league with the devil, but last I checked they had only a few members. But overall there are fewer such groups. Now that we have the internet people dont need to join a group to find kindred spirits, they can find them online!As for them being just a US phenomenon he says:UFO religions are not particular to US culture. The Raelian movement based out of France is an active UFO group. Though to be clear, they do not teach suicide. There are some Russian UFO-oriented groups too. The Aetherius Society is one of the oldest UFO religions, and it is UK based. Again, nothing violent or suicidal about that group. But generally new religions do reflect where they emerge, and the religious and cultural concerns of the members in terms of their specific locales.George Chrysalides who runs the Religion in the 21st Century website (www.religion21.com) says:I wouldnt like to speculate as to whether a similar organisation (as scholars, we try to avoid the term cult, which is somewhat pejorative) is possible 20 years on. Id guess that it is not so likely, for several reasons. Numerous religious groups, including HG, associated a final event with the millennium. Its possible that Applewhite regarded the year 1997 as being 2000 years on from the birth of Jesus. Twenty years on, there can be no such rationale.People have also moved on since 1997. Full-time commitment to a millennial group is probably not such a live option for many people, and there are certainly not so many intentional communities (people who come together through choice rather than geographical location) these days.Its not uniquely American, in the sense that there have been suicide groups in other countries  notably the Order of the Solar Temple, which had branches in Switzerland, France, and Canada. There have also been quite a number of UFO-religions in Japan.You ask what lessons we can learn. When the news of Heavens Gate broke, few scholars had heard of it, and most of us had to do quite a bit of research to find out who they were and what might have happened. By contrast, the anti-cult movement was quick to jump in, despite having little information, to tell us that this is a typical cult. One lesson we might learn is the danger of scaremongering, while at the same time acknowledging that those who followed Applewhite were by no means unintelligent  or particularly young, either.Given a conducive environment, groups can espouse beliefs that would be overwhelmingly rejected by people living in a more conventional social environment. One feature of the so-called suicide cults is that they largely lived apart from mainstream society, and therefore lacked the touchstone of normal conventional ways of looking at the world.Robert Scheaffer a UFO sceptic and author of numerous books on this topic, comments that:I think that Heavens Gate was like so many New Age and religious cults, not specifically UFOs. It had its guru, who was followed blindly by the cult members. There are many people desperately seeking otherwordly wisdom, and someone who boldly claims to have it will attract many followers. How it will end up depends largely on the personality of the leader. Some just seek adulation and riches, others have a more sinister side. Jim Jones and Applewhite were obviously among them.Robert encountered Bo and Peep back in 1976, when they held a recruiting meeting advertised around the University of Maryland in College Park. He says:Arriving early, I recognized Applewhite and Nettles standing around and chatting with the cult members. I said nothing. During the meeting, Applewhite and Nettles sat incognito among the audience while the cult members at the speakers table talked glowingly about the coming harvest. Those who were ready to be harvested would be taken up to the next level by the UFOs, where they would live a better life. Bo and Peep are the only two people now on earth representing that higher level. The cultists on the panel obviously believed every word of this nonsense. When asked the whereabouts of their leaders, the cultists claimed to not know where they were: We believe they are in the Midwest somewhere. They were lying. The Two were seated in the audience, although amazingly nobody seemed to realize this. Some of the audience members were quite angry, presumably having had friends or relatives disappear into the cult  probably this is why Bo and Peep chose to remain incognito. When I had a chance to ask a question, I raised the issue of The Twos previous brushes with the law  news reports had mentioned several  and I asked if these were the kind of persons whose word they would trust so completely. As I was speaking, Applewhite rose up from his chair on the other side of the aisle, stood full up and glared at me, from about fifteen feet away. He was a large man, and he had an air of being dangerous. It would have been easy to blow apart the charade by confronting him right there, but I did not. I have always regretted my failure to act in that moment, most especially in light of what ultimately happened.M.J. Banias, UFO researcher and critic, sums up the situation in these words:As far as UFO religions go, Heavens Gate began with a pretty typical ideology; that humanity is destined for something greater, and that our souls truly belonged among the stars, free from the confusion, pain, and illusions of everyday life. UFO religions, mystics and believers today still tell this same story, and push this same message. Ancient astronaut theories, achieving higher vibration states, or the belief that certain humans are genetically chosen by ET, are all part of UFO discourse and the UFO narrative.Undoubtedly, for the UFO subculture, the Heavens Gate mass suicide was a symbol of theological UFO belief going awry. However, the core of the Heavens Gate mythology, the seed which dug deep roots into the minds of its followers, is very much still present today. Twenty years ago, the men and women who made up Heavens Gate sadly perished, but their religious ideologies are very much alive and well.
 



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Members of the worship team at Calvary Church in Fredericktown are harnessing their passion for worship and pursuing a larger outreach with plans to record an album this year. The group is called Father of Lights, a name taken from James 1:17.

The band consists of Andy Forister, Nolan and Carter Hovis, Hannah Casey, Victoria Forsythe and Josh Wilfong.

Forister, who is also the youth pastor and involved with worship ministry, said the group has been playing together for several years, leading worship at Calvary Church.

Weve been playing together for a long time, Forister said. These guys started playing here on the worship team when they were in middle school. And now all but one of them are graduated.

Forsythe said she started with the group when she was in seventh grade, while Casey only joined recently. While the group has been leading worship for years, Forister said theyve recently been playing at events outside the church as well.

We play multiple times a week here, Forister said. But weve been given some unique opportunities recently to go out and play other places, as more of an actual band.

The group played in Georgia a few weeks ago, will be going to Mississippi over the summer and will also be part of a tour that will take them as far as Charlotte, North Carolina.

Forister said the group has been writing its own worship songs for a while and church members have expressed a desire to obtain recordings of the groups music.

Weve been writing songs for a couple years, just to lead our people in worship, Forister said. And our church has really caught onto them, and weve gotten a lot of encouragement to record them. People want to listen to them outside of church services.

The group received additional encouragement toward that goal at a 2016 event in Cape Girardeau where they were playing.

Back in 2016 we did about five songs or so at the Chick-fil-A Summer Concert Series in Cape, and the guy who was in charge of all the sound and stuff there, his name is Cody Walker, Forister said. He was on The Voice a couple of years ago and went pretty far on it. He has a studio in Bernie called the Walker Brothers Studio. He came up to us after and said, Do you have this recorded anywhere? Is this out there somewhere? We said 'no,' and he said, You have to record this!

To finance the recording of the album, the group decided to make use of kickstarter.com, an online platform that allows an individual or group to start a fundraising campaign and for donors to make contributions with a sense of security.

With Kickstarter, I like the idea of it being a campaign and getting people rallied behind your cause, Forister said. Rather than something like GoFundMe, where its like, Hey, just give me your money for whatever. It could be something serious, or something really silly. But I like the idea of having reward levels and being able to offer people something for their pledges of donations, and people took to it.

Father of Lights Kickstarter campaign ran from Jan. 27 to March 20, and in that time 73 backers pledged $16,125 toward the groups goal of $16,000. Forister said the experience with Kickstarter was a positive one.

It was enjoyable, Forister said. They suggest to do 30 days or less, but we were trying to raise $16,000 and in a community like this, where theres not a lot of disposable income, I decided to go longer on that. So we actually did 51 days because I accidentally started it, and once you launch it, you cant end it. So I accidentally launched it, and then started announcing that it was going.

The group isnt sure what the title of the album will be yet. Forister said it will depend on what songs end up making the cut to be recorded.

We dont have a title yet, because were not sure what the title track will be, Forister said. We havent picked all the songs that well actually do yet were probably looking to do 10 or so songs, and we have about 20 to choose from. So weve got to narrow down our pool.

Since speaking with Walker last year, the band has had other opportunities to record arise. Forister said deciding what happens next will require prayer and consideration.

The next step is to record the album, he said. Exactly where thats going to happen, Im not 100 percent sure at this moment, because we have multiple opportunities and some of them are huge. But we really want to make sure we make the right decision. Because in all of this, were not looking to get famous. Were looking to make the name of Jesus famous. Thats our purpose. So we want to take the right opportunity to maximize that.
What to do in Pennsylvania if you made an error on your mail-in ballot

The state Supreme Court recently ruled that undated or incorrectly dated mail ballots cannot be counted. Here's what voters can do about an error.
"She's out shooting cows."

I'm listening to Kansas Sen. Pat Roberts, who is not known for public displays of emotion, but his voice chokes a little as he tells us about a conversation with a Kansas friend. His friend's wife was absent because she was at home doing what is hard, but what is also an act of kindness and mercy, as she dealt with cattle mortally injured by the recent Kansas wildfires.

Cattlemen live to protect the animals in their care. The feeling of failure when disaster strikes is profound, and it is devastating. As I visit with my Kansas friends, and their stories are repeated across Oklahoma, Texas, and Colorado, I'm told of a 50-foot-high wall of flames traveling at interstate speeds and leaving devastation and heartbreak in its wake. Of all the emotions we humans endure, surely none is worse than helplessness in the face of tragedy.

This is a human tragedy, as lives were lost and businesses ruined. It's an environmental challenge, as millions of acres lie unprotected from spring weather. It's a generational loss, as the cattle that perished were the results of decades of careful breeding, and those bloodlines won't be replaced in our lifetimes. And, it's an economic tragedy of Katrina-like proportions, as farmers and ranchers struggle to replace a lifetime of work, much of it uncovered by insurance.

My Facebook feed is full of pictures of hay traveling from all over the nation to the affected areas, farmers reaching out to their fellow farmers, and like most of us involved in agriculture, my sorrow is leavened by the pride we rightfully take in the generosity of our friends and neighbors. Here at Missouri Farm Bureau, we've made donations from our organization and from our Missouri Farm Bureau Foundation for Agriculture, many of our members have organized hay and fencing donations, and we continue to seek out ways to help. Our members who would like to send donations to our Foundation should do so, and we'll make sure they reach farmers who have suffered losses as a result of the fires.

We have a large group of farmers in our nation's capital this week, and we're excited to be here while the health care act is being debated, while a Supreme Court Justice is being confirmed, and we're looking forward to talking to our Senators and Representatives about the issues that matter most to our friends and neighbors back home.

We're also looking forward to the confirmation of Sonny Perdue as Secretary of Agriculture while we're here in Washington. When his nomination was first announced, he received no little criticism and ridicule from the chattering classes for his actions as governor of Georgia because he set aside a statewide day of prayer while Georgia was suffering from an historic drought. Well, Mr. Perdue, I'm glad that you understand the power of prayer, proud that you officially recognized our need for prayer, and I hope your first act as Secretary of Agriculture is to call for prayers for the victims of the tragedy on our Plains.
Members of the More Party shared hugs and laughter in the Alumni Lounge on Thursday as news of their electoral victories spread.

More presidential candidate Drew Gilmore won the position with 36.7 percent of the vote. Ashton Toone of the Elevate Party earned 30.96 percent and Blake Stayton of the United Party of the People earned 27.81 percent of the vote. Vice presidential candidate Kevyanna Rawls won 39.6 percent of the vote to Mitchell Kingas 29.6 percent (Elevate) and Allison Nguyen's 26.45 percent (United Party of the People).

aItas just been amazing,a Gilmore said. aWeare definitely going to make sure to accomplish more Tiger pride, more inclusion and civic responsibility on campus a bringing SGA back to the students and really making sure we now hear the voice of the students and translate that.a

Senators at large Jeffrey Houston (More) earned 3.2 percent, Joshua Wylie (More) earned 3.13 percent, Andrew Mok (United Party of the People) earned 2.66 percent, Taylor Shennett (More) earned 2.56 percent and Robert Dockery (More) earned 2.49 percent.

Presidential votes tallied to a total of 2,283 votes a 889 more than the number of students who went to the polls last year.A

Gilmore said that he believes social media played a big role in his partyas win.

aI had a lot of people come up to me and they were like ayouare the dude I saw on Instagram,'a Gilmore said.

More Party vice presidential candidate Kevyanna Rawls said she was still aall over the placea following the results.

aThank you for the opportunity to be able to serve the students and serve them in a way that they felt was appropriate,a Rawls said.

The English and African American studies major with a minor in sociology contributed to her partyas victory to their platform of ainclusiona and making sure everyone felt like the More Party was here for them and not just ahere for the position.a

aSome people would walk by and they just didnat feel like they were included,a Rawls said. aWe want to talk to you, we want to hear what you have to say and we want to hear how you feel about the situation.a

While the More Party celebrated in the Alumni Lounge, The United Party of the People caught word of the results in an office across the second floor of the UC.

aCongratulations to Drew and Kevyanna,a Stayton said. aThey're both very bright and very talented. I'm excited to see what they do with SGA. I'm very proud of all my senators and everybody in the UP party for running such a clean campaign.a

Ninety-nine candidates ran for student government office this year a more than the past four years at U of M SGA elections, where the number candidates ranged from 50-70 students. In 2014, there were 57 candidates total. 2015 saw 70 candidates and in 2016 there were 54.

aI think the increased competition was definitely good, seeing as how the turnout was double,a 21-year-old Stayton said. aI think thatas huge.a

Still, some students said that there should be a cutoff number for the amount of candidates allowed to run.

aIad say that 10 candidates is probably the max that youad wanna give people,a 23-year-old foreign language major Melissa Chambers said. aOtherwise I donat think people would know much more than that.a

Abeer Abdelrahim was one of the 99 students who ran for a student government positions this year. He won the engineering senator position as a More Party candidate by receiving 50 votes.

aMany people say our country is being represented by people that only represent a small percent of the population,a Abdelrahim said. aThough we can't fix the national government as easily as we may like, we can still put our morals into the government that runs our college life.a

Hira Quereshi and Gus Carrington contributed to this storyA
During a three-day trial that concluded on March 23, Christina Halter was found guilty of committing Medicaid fraud, financial exploitation of a disabled person, failure to file and pay income taxes and tax evasion.

In a separate proceeding on March 28, her husband and co-defendant Donald E. Halter chose to withdraw his previously entered plea of not guilty and instead pleaded guilty to Medicaid fraud, financial exploitation of a disabled person, failure to file and pay income taxes and tax evasion. In exchange for pleading guilty, the state agreed on a cap of 20 years in prison for the most serious charge, which is financial exploitation of a disabled person.

The charges against the Halters stemmed from an investigation that began in February of 2013 when a complaint was filed with the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services against Park Hills Manor. Owned by the Halters, who lived in rural Bismarck at the time, Park Hills Manor LLC had been a licensed residential care facility and an enrolled Missouri Medicaid Personal Care provider under contract with MO HealthNet. The manor had facilities on Crane and Keith Streets in Park Hills.

Charges were filed in March of 2015, upon conclusion of the investigation, by then-Missouri Attorney General Chris Koster, Prosecuting Attorney Jerrod Mahurin and then-Assistant Prosecuting Attorney Joe Goff Jr. of the St. Francois County Prosecuting Attorneys Office. The Halters were originally charged with stealing by deceit in addition to the other charges.

According to court documents, an initial investigation included a review of the business resident trust account records and found that the Halters had altered the payee on two operations account checks in an attempt to mislead investigators into thinking a patient had been paid from a fiduciary account. An audit was then conducted in April of 2013 which found falsified time sheets for two licensed practical nurses dating from April 2011 to February 2013.

That June, DHSS reportedly denied the manors Crane Street facility a license to operate as a residential care unit and a court injunction was filed that August. At that time, an attorney told the newspaper that the couple had chosen to close their residential facility and operate an independent living facility. The city revoked its business license that September.

Sometime after the audit, a chief investigative auditor with the Medicaid Fraud Control Unit of the Missouri Attorney Generals Office began an in-depth investigation of the Halters business practices.

The investigator alleged that the couple submitted numerous Authorized Nurse Visit claims to MO HealthNet between December of 2011 and October of 2013 to obtain a health care payment. MO HealthNet paid the majority of these claims submitted with the couple receiving more than $28,000.

The claims  were false because Park Hills Manors residents were not authorized to receive Authorized Nurse Visits, and, in any event, Donald and Christina Halter and Park Hills Manor did not provide Park Hills Manors residents Authorized Nurse Visits, the report reads.

During the audit, false time sheets were provided to the auditor in an attempt to support the Halters Authorized Nurse Visits claims to MO HealthNet. The nurses, on the contrary, reported they did not work those hours for Park Hills Manor.

The investigator also alleged the Halters stole a substantial amount of money from a resident.

According to his report, in November of 2012 the Halters cashed a $209,235 check from the United States Treasury that was made payable to Park Hills Manor LLC, as the resident's custodian. The check was a retroactive award for the mans disability payments from the United States Department of Veterans Affairs. The resident had been diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder, bipolar type, and was unable to care for his finances. The check was deposited into the Park Hills Manor operations account.

The Halters became his institutional fiduciary in September of 2012. A fiduciary is obligated to establish a properly titled bank account; never commingle patient funds with their personal funds or the business funds; and conserve any one-time retroactive payment of $1,000 or greater unless prior approval for expenditure of funds is obtained by the VA.

Putting their own pecuniary interests before (the patient), Donald and Christina Halter entered into two one-sided (non-refundable) rent agreements with (the patient) that amounted to $115,000, the investigator wrote in his statement. This transfer was done under the guise of advanced payment of rent and was concealed from the VA by Donald and Christina Halter.

Within 44 days of these advanced rent agreements the Halters had spent the money.

(The patient) came to believe that Donald and Christina Halter had stolen money from him, so he left Park Hills Manor shortly after entering into the agreements. Donald and Christina Halter never provided him a refund, the investigator wrote.

On the last day of Christina Halter's trial, she was offered an opportunity to testify in her own defense, which she declined. Circuit Judge Sandra Martinez then instructed the state and defense attorneys to commence with closing arguments, beginning with Assistant Attorney General Shannon Kempf and followed by defense attorney Edward Luby.

The jury retired shortly after 12:30 p.m. for lunch and deliberations, returning with a verdict about 3:15 p.m., finding her guilty of two counts of Medicaid fraud, two counts of financial exploitation of a disabled person, one count of failure to file an income tax return, one count of failing to pay income taxes and one count of attempting to evade or defeat income taxes.

Next, each side presented evidence relevant to sentencing prior to presenting closing statements. The jury was then given instructions by Judge Martinez regarding sentencing deliberations prior to retiring at 6:10 p.m. to decide on a recommendation. Jurors returned less than an hour later with the following recommendations: seven years in the Department of Corrections for each of two counts of Medicaid fraud, 30 years for each of two counts of financial exploitation of a disabled person, five years for failure to file an income tax return, five years for failure to pay income taxes and five years for attempting to evade or defeat income taxes. The jury also recommended that the court order Christina Halter to pay fines for each charge.

The states attorney then asked the judge to increase her bond to $1 million. Judge Martinez chose instead to increase her bond to $250,000 with no 10 percent cash bond allowed. Christina Halter was taken into custody pending posting of the bond or her sentencing hearing in June.

At Donald Halter's plea hearing, Martinez questioned him to establish that his guilty plea was made voluntarily and intelligently and with a full understanding that he was giving up his right to a jury trial.

Specifically, he pleaded guilty to the Class C felony of Medicaid fraud: Making or causing to be made a false statement in order to receive a health care payment; the Class D felony of Medicaid fraud: attempting to prevent, obstruct, mislead or delay an investigation of Medicaid fraud; two counts of the Class A felony of financial exploitation of a disabled person; the unclassified felony of failure to file an income tax return; the unclassified felony of failure to pay income taxes; and the unclassified felony of attempting to evade or defeat income taxes.

Judge Martinez ordered that his original bond be continued.

Judge Martinez also ordered a Sentence Assessment Report be conducted and submitted on both Halters by the Missouri Board of Probation and Parole prior to formal sentencing, which was set for both defendants on June 2 at 1:30 p.m.
All my adult life Ive been trying to track down Mr Average, a fellow I much admire but was beginning to fear I would never meet. This week, at last, the trail has hotted up.

On those rare occasions in the past when I thought Id found him, washing his car or walking his dog in the park on a Saturday afternoon, it always turned out that I was wrong.

No matter how typical of Homo Britannicus the stranger seemed, it would unfailingly turn out that there was something remarkable about him. Hed survived Auschwitz, fathered triplets, fought in the Falklands, won 135,000 on the National Lottery, or played bass guitar on a record that reached No. 6 in the U.S. hit parade in the mid-Seventies.

It comes as It comes as Didcot was found to be closest to the national average across a range of fields  making it a microcosm of wider society

Whatever it was, some talent or experience made him stand out from the crowd, disqualifying him from any claim to the venerable title of Mr Average.

Making my quest more difficult still, my quarrys physical appearance has kept altering over the years. So I am much indebted to research published yesterday by a health and wellbeing company, Forza Supplements, for telling me how Mr Average has changed with the passage of time and what he looks like today.

Based on data from government statistics, the study finds that when I was a lad in 1967, the man Ive been hunting was two inches shorter than my present height. To be precise, he was 5 ft 7 in, and his size-7 shoes were two sizes smaller than the pair Im wearing as I write.

Today, at 5 ft 10 in, he has now outgrown me by half an inch, while his feet have expanded to size-9s, the same as mine. He is also significantly heavier than I am (and, all right, almost certainly more muscular).

Back in 1967, Mr Average weighed 11 st 8 lb, as I do today. His chest and waist sizes were also the same as mine  38 in and 34 in respectively  though his collar was half an inch smaller, at 14 in.

In 2017, he has swollen to 13 st 3 lb, with a 16 in collar, a 43 in chest and a waist measuring 37 in.

Thanks to this research, therefore, I now know Im hunting for somebody slightly taller than me, and quite a bit heftier.

But, of course, this on its own would be precious little help in my quest for Mr Average since, in the very nature of the case, the country is full of men who conform to his size and shape.

No, far more useful is another study this week, which purports to tell us exactly where this elusive character lives.

The answer, for those who missed the story in yesterdays paper, is that he is probably to be found in Didcot, Oxfordshire  named on Wednesday as the most average town in the country.

Inspired by the 1947 film Magic Town, in which a pollster finds a place he believes perfectly represents national opinion, number-crunchers at ASI Data Science examined the social, political and demographic make-up of towns all over Britain in their quest to identify the one most typical of the nation as a whole.

Using figures from the Office for National Statistics, they applied 11 tests, including marital status, average income, state of health and ethnic background, local jobless rate and results of the EU referendum and 2015 General Election.

Didcot, with its average household of 2.5 people, 11 per cent non-white British population, 70 per cent home ownership, unemployment of three per cent and 86 per cent in good health, came closest to the national norm, with ten streets in particular matching it almost exactly.

So there we have it. Those of us who are seeking Mr Average are looking for a man of about 40, who is 5 ft 10 in, weighs 13 st 3 lb, marginally supports Brexit, lives in a household of two-and-a-half people and is likely to live in Hagbourne Road, Didcot...

Except that the science of statistics is not going to help us find him there, or anywhere else  for the simple reason that he doesnt exist.

All my adult life Ive been trying to track down Mr Average, a fellow I much admire but was beginning to fear I would never meet. This week, at last, the trail has hotted up

Which brings me to my favourite statistical fact, beloved of my fellow pub-goers through the ages: do you realise that over 99 per cent of Belgians have more than the average number of legs?

When you stop to think about it, the explanation of this apparent absurdity is perfectly straightforward. For while it is true that the overwhelming majority of Belgians have two legs, and none has three, an unfortunate few have lost one or both, bringing the average number possessed by the general population fractionally down.

(I concede that this truth applies equally to Britons and people of every other nationality. I cite Belgians only because, as an average Englishman of my generation, I was brought up to regard their country as intrinsically comical. I just hope that the likes of Guy Verhofstadt, the Belgian Brexit negotiator for the European Parliament, wont take offence).

Yes, statistics can tell us a great deal of interest about demographic and other trends. Indeed, we would have been astonished in 1967 to learn that within 50 years, average male life expectancy in England would rise from 68 to 81, while even in a small town in Oxfordshire, people described as non-white British would make up more than one in ten of the population.

We would have been staggered, too, to know that by 2017, a substantial majority of the under-40s would spend most of their lives jabbering on mobile telephones or listening to music through headphones all day long.

But what statistics cannot reveal is anything much about us as individuals, with the complex workings of our minds and often muddled views about what goes on in this increasingly bewildering world.

Yet there does remain in this country a recognisable body of opinion, held if not by the non-existent Mr and Mrs Average, then at least by a significant majority of our fellow countrymen and women.

What worries me is that Ive never known a time when such widely held views, which should surely be considered mainstream, were so little represented  or indeed so openly despised  by politicians and the metropolitan elite.

For example, ask people picked at random what they think about unrestricted immigration, and most will say they are unhappy about it.

Tell them that children should be encouraged to question which sex they are, or that schoolboys should be allowed to wear skirts, and theyll laugh in your face and tell you youre talking rubbish.

Yet there is hardly a mainstream politician in this land who speaks for the common-sense majority about migration or sexual politics  though there are plenty who are quick to condemn the few who do as racist, sexist or (in the vogue boo-word of today) populist.

In Tuesdays paper, a brilliant letter from John Boulton of Horncastle, Lincolnshire, defined the difference between democracy and populism thus: Democracy is when the people make a choice. Populism is when the BBC doesnt like the answer.

He might have added that what goes for our national broadcaster goes equally for a substantial majority on both sides of the Commons.

Strictly speaking, Mr and Mrs Average may not exist, in Didcot or anywhere else. But isnt there a huge gap in the market for politicians who are prepared to speak up for them?
Yesterdays unveiling of the Great Repeal Bill marks another crucial milestone on Britains historic journey to becoming an independent sovereign nation once more.

Just 24 hours after Theresa May served formal notice of our intention to quit the EU, here was the blueprint for restoring the supremacy of Parliament and ensuring that this countrys laws are again made in Westminster, not Brussels or Luxembourg.

For 44 years our legal system has been controlled by the unelected judges of the European Court. This Bill puts legislative power back where it belongs  in the hands of British MPs and British judges.

Negotiating it will be an awesome task. All existing EU legislation must be transferred into British law before we can begin the process of throwing out the elements we dont want.

David Davis stands at the dispatch box and speaks about the Great Repeal Bill white paper in the House of Commons

And with thousands of individual pieces of legislation (which speaks volumes about how Brussels has insinuated itself into the minutiae of British life), two years is a tight schedule. But it must be done and Brexit Secretary David Davis knows he will secure a place in history if he can pull it off.

The real threat, of course, comes not from puffed-up, self-serving and often low-calibre Eurocrats. It comes from those in this country who want to do Britain down.

Unsurprisingly, their rhetoric is becoming increasingly hysterical. Former Cabinet Secretary Gus ODonnell says leaving the EU will be like jumping out of an aeroplane without a parachute, while the Scottish Nationalists disruptive behaviour is as predictable as it is cynical.

But the real enemies within are the Liberal Democrats. With their pathetic little rump of MPs and pygmy leadership, they are pledging a guerrilla campaign by demanding a vote on every tiny legislative change. The Mail hesitates to use the word treachery to describe their conduct but for a party calling itself Democrat, to act in such an undemocratic way is appalling hypocrisy.

What is bitterly ironic is that those who claim Parliament must now vet every aspect of this Bill are the very same people who spent so many years giving away Parliaments rights to Brussels. It is vital these wreckers are prevented from undermining our negotiations with the EU.

Two years is a tight schedule. But it must be done and Brexit Secretary David Davis knows he will secure a place in history if he can pull it off

Its also vital that with our economy growing strongly, employment at a record high and the world queuing up to trade with us, we enter those negotiations with confidence and optimism.

Britain now has one of the worlds most important high-technology hubs, three of the top ten universities (the EU has none), and our life science, pharmaceutical and automotive sectors are thriving. Deutsche Bank has just invested in a new London headquarters, other big financial institutions that threatened to move have not done so and the weaker pound is a huge aid to exporters.

And as we keep arguing, Britain buys far more goods and services from EU countries than we sell to them. Why on earth would German car manufacturers want a trade war that would hurt them considerably more than it would hurt us?

So Mrs May should continue to play her hand with the assurance she has shown so far. This is a time for strong nerve, a quality Mrs May seems to have in abundance.

Bias at the BBC

Early yesterday, the BBC breathlessly reported that Lloyds of London was setting up a new base in Brussels  citing it as evidence that Brexit was prompting an exodus of major companies.

Then came the real story. The new office would house just a handful of staff and virtually all the insurers business would still be done in London. Sadly, it was just another example of the BBC manipulating the news to suit its Europhile prejudices.

Thats not just dishonesty. Its bad journalism.
Aisleyne Horgan-Wallace is not your average reality star.

Although the 38-year-old former glamour model is no stranger to attracting paparazzi attention on nights out by forgoing underwear, the savvy Londoner has successfully built a multi-million pound property empire.

She milked her five minutes of fame, after gaining notoriety in the 2006 series of Big Brother, and then invested wisely, refusing to be seduced by spending sprees.

Now a multi-millionaire, she revealed to Channel 4's How'd You Get So Rich? that she's eyeing a 4.2 country mansion with a cinema room and a Cristal champagne bar.

She's certainly come a long way from living in a hostel at the age of 16, where she witnessed the deaths of her close friends to drugs, as well as knife and gun violence.

'The main thing to be successful, is to be a hustler,' said Aisleyne, adding: 'I was willing to do absolutely any job, any thing that came up'.

(Left) Aisleyne Horgan Wallace first rose to fame after appearing in the 2006 series of Big Brother where she came third after Glyn Wise and winner Pete Bennett. (Right) Ten years later and Aisleyne has become a property mogul

The former glamour model enjoys a life of luxury thanks to her savvy investments in property providing herself with a 'backup' out of the limelight

Aisleyne's first paid job after Big Brother ended was a photoshoot with lads mag Nuts, where she received the highest fee ever for an ex-BB contestant.

'It was a lot, like life changing. It went straight into property,' she told the show's presenter, comedian Katherine Ryan. 'I didnt buy one pair of shoes or handbag, I didnt spoil myself.

'I knew I had to have that fall back plan, because you can't rely on the celebrity world. You are hot one minute and no one cares the next.'

The reality star, fashion designer and author bought cheap property in the Kings Cross area which is now worth millions both in rental income and in assets.

Aisleyne can now afford the finer things in life, after building a multi million pound fortune by investing her earnings in property

She's also made money through modelling and TV work, appearing on various Big Brother spin offs and reality shows, such as Celebrity: Stars at Work and Celebrity Botched Bodies.

HOW AISLEYNE MADE HER MILLIONS Four part fly-on-the-wall documentary Reality TV and panel show appearances Modelling Calendar release in 2007 Clothing range Unique by Aisleyne Small film roles Nightclub appearances Radio hosting Agony aunt Big Brother magazine columnist Autobiography: Aisleyne: Surviving Guns, Gangs and Glamour Miss Universe judge Fitness camp, Aisleyne's Booty Camp Fitness app, Aisleyne 7 Minute Workout Advertisement

In 2008, she launched a clothing line Unique by Aisleyne and released her autobiography in the same year.

She's also hosted radio shows and had some bit parts in films.

When asked just how much she's worth by Katherine, Aisleyne played it coy, only saying it's 'a few mill'.

That 'few mill' is enough for Aisleyne to go house hunting - looking at a 4.2million mansion in the country she is eager to snap up.

It's certainly a far cry from where she was aged 16, when she left the home she shared with her mother, Sophia Morgan, a practicing Jehovah's Witness, to move into a women's hostel.

The teen had lost contact with her father Steve Wallace, a car dealer.

Determined to move on and make a better life for herself, Aisleyne supported herself through college working as a promotions girl and glamour model.

'The main thing to be successful, is to be a hustler,' Aisleyne told Katherine as they cruised along in her expensive Range Rover.

'I was willing to do absolutely any job, any thing that came up,' she said.

'Before I did Big Brother I was doing three, four, five jobs a day, promotional modelling, because I needed titties and I needed new teeth.

The reality star said she's not afraid to hustle and accepted any job going after leaving the Big Brother house to maximise her earning potential

Aisleyne launched her own fashion and swimwear range in 2008

'So to get that I had to work, and so I was working as much as I could.

'I came out of the Big Brother house and thought I am going to ride this wave five or ten minutes, however long this lasts, whatever comes my way.'

'Any regrets?' Katherine later asked Aisleyne as they enjoyed a cocktail in a swanky London bar.

Aisleyne is planning on working on her seven-minute workout fitness app as well as investing in more property

'Just not wearing knickers on a night out,' she laughed, before encouraging others to follow their dreams.

For her next steps she plans to add to her property portfolio, build her seven-minute workout fitness app and buy that mansion, and she jokingly added: 'Continue to be an absolute legend.'

How'd You Get So Rich? airs on Monday April 3rd, on Channel 4 at 10pm
The yarn was designed in Germany but knitted in Queensland

Founder Sean Ashby said undies were created as a homage to the Gold Rush era

The undies are retailing at $14,500 and are made from 24 karat gold fabric

Australian company aussieBum have created the world's most expensive undies

Essential socks and undies are the go-to present many of us gift.

But before splashing out on a new pair of 24 karat gold undies, you might want to check your bank balance.

Australian company aussieBum have created the world's most expensive pair of undies, retailing at an eye-watering $14,500.

Australian company aussieBum have created 24 karat gold undies selling for $14,500

The most expensive pair of undies in the world are tailored to the wearer

The company had the 24 karat gold yarn developed in Germany and knitted into fabric in Queensland

For the cost of a small car, you can spoil the man in your life with a custom-designed pair of undies.

The company had the 24 karat gold yarn developed in Germany and knitted into fabric in Queensland.

aussieBum is the brainchild of Australian Sean Ashby, who founded the company in 2001 and said the idea for the golden underwear came from Australia's gold mining days.

'The Gold Rush era was one of the most exciting and prosperous times of Australian history. Im mesmerized by the thought that people travelled from around the world to seek their fortunes in Australia,' Mr Ashby said.

The company have already sold one pair of the gold undies and are running a competition to give away another three pairs.

And for those out there who think it may be an April Fool's joke, a company representative told Daily Mail Australia it wasn't the case.
Melbourne woman Renee Chandler brought home her new puppy Baxter, a Chocolate Toy Poodle, late last year.

Unbeknownst to her at the time, it was a move that changed the course of her life.

When the 33-year-old went to defend her chest from the puppy's excited scratching one day, she felt a lump on her breast - and was soon after diagnosed with stage four triple negative breast cancer.

Good boy! Renee Chandler exhibited no symptoms of her aggressive cancer except a lump she found on her breast after her puppy Baxter (pictured) jumped on her

According to her friend Jackie Wythes, it was the only sign anything was wrong.

'She had no symptoms, no signs whatsoever that she was unwell,' she told Daily Mail Australia.

Despite her best efforts at treatment over the last five months, including chemotherapy, a mastectomy and radiation, the cancer spread to her bones, her liver, her lungs and most recently her brain.

'Its just crazy to go from where she was to where she is today in such a short space of time. It was a complete shock and it just didnt feel real,' Ms Wythes said.

'I think it's only just started to feel real in the last month.'

In October 2016, the 33-year-old was diagnosed with aggressive triple negative breast cancer, which she tried to treat with chemotherapy, a mastectomy and radiation

Despite her best efforts, the cancer spread to her bones, her liver, her lungs and most recently her brain

The 33-year-old has been given three months to live by doctors in Australia, but unwilling to give up, is now seeking treatment in Germany.

Ms Wythes, who describes her friend as 'always perky, upbeat and positive', says Renee is still hopeful there are treatment options out there.

'I think its just in her nature to keep fighting - its almost intuitive for her to be that way,' she said.

'Obviously she has down days, and even being told shes only got three months left to live  she still hasnt stopped seeking hope.

'Shes a lot braver than she realises, because she doesnt see herself that way.'

Renee's friend Jackie Wythes is fundraising desperately to help her afford radical treatment in Germany

Though she worked in sales for Fujitsu, Renee is also a part-time-poet, who boasts an Instagram following of more than 12,000.

She composed a poem about her battle called Healing Life, which highlighted her positive attitude towards a possible recovery.

Renee will fly to Germany on Wednesday to see a specialist who will use a number of treatments in the hope of saving her life.

She will receive CyberKnife treatment, a technology which claims to deliver a maximum dose of radiation directly to the tumour as well as immunotherapy, which aims to boost the body's natural defences to slow the growth of cancer.

When overseas, she will be treated with a CyberKnife, immunotherapy and chemotherapy

Renee will also have chemotherapy during her time overseas.

'Its a long shot  and the doctors are pretty honest about that, but its the only shot that shes got,' Ms Wythes explained.

WHAT IS CYBERKNIFE? The CyberKnife System is the only fully robotic radiation delivery system. The robotic design, coupled with real-time imaging, enable the system to deliver a maximum dose of radiation directly to the tumor from many different angles with sub-millimeter precision. It does this by tracking and automatically adjusting for tumor or patient movement during treatment to minimize radiation exposure to healthy organs and tissues. Source: CyberKnife.com Advertisement

'Renee is trying to remain upbeat, but shes in an intense amount of pain.'

The cost of this treatment is expected to be well over $100,000 - and with Renee's own funds dwindling dramatically and her family also stretched financially, the bubbly woman will struggle to pay for her last chance at recovery.

In a desperate attempt to help, Ms Wythes set up a GoFundMe for her friend, and has raised nearly $40,000 in a week.

'Renee has paid for a lot of her treatment herself, and her funds are getting exhausted,' she said.

'On top of that her family have been contributing huge amounts and doing everything they can to support her.

'I just felt helpless  I just wanted to be able to do more and to support her in any way I could.

'I didnt want her to have to say no to any treatment she wanted to receive, and thats a very real reality of what might happen if it runs into extreme costs.'

Most recently, Australian doctors gave Renee just three months to live - meaning the German treatment is her last shot

Renee herself wrote a message to those who had donated, thanking them for believing in her, and again assuring them she would recover.

'Dear All,' she wrote.

'I am sincerely moved, humbled, and as a poet for once in my life lost for words.

'I can see how far and wide this page has been shared over the last couple of days. I thank you from the bottom of my heart as this most importantly reflects your belief in me.

'I will defy all odds, and I will beat this.

'Thank you for getting me on the way to this final and only workable chance in beating this.

'My family and I will forever cherish this in our hearts.

'A huge shout out to my corporate believers and team at Fujitsu for always being behind me and never doubting me for a second.'

The 33-year-old is remaining hopeful though, and recently told donators to her GoFundMe she would 'defy all odds and beat this'

Ms Wythes is under no illusions when it comes to the constraints of what she can do for her friend, but is tearfully grateful when she reflects on the donations people have made.

'The support and generosity of people has restored my faith in humankind. People, even strangers, have been so generous and so thoughtful,' she said.

'Its crazy, the amount of people who have given such generous sums.

'Its really hard to raise that amount of money in such a short amount of time. Shell probably leave on Wednesday, and time is running out.

'She just has to go and give it everything shes got.

'Its so scary.'
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It started off as a pipe dream - to buy a French farmhouse and holiday home for their family of four to spend the summers in.

Now, nearly four years later, Karina and Craig Waters, from Perth in Western Australia, are the proud owners and chief restorers of the sprawling Chateau de Gudanes in Verdun, in the south of France, which they purchased for an estimated 280,000.

The couple have spent the past four years renovating the level one historical monument - which dates from the reign of King Louis XV and sits in Ariege, in the Occitanie region - learning its secrets and slowly re-building their dream property.

Later this year, the couple are set to open the chateau as a working hotel for visitors. Mr and Mrs Waters will also release a book about their journey in 2018, but they admit that fully restoring the property to its former glory will be a 'lifelong commitment'.

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Karina and Craig Waters started with a pipe dream; to buy a property in France. They settled on he sprawling Chateau de Gudanes in Verdun, in the south of France, a historic building which dates back to 1741 during the reign of Louis XV

Now, nearly four years later, the couple from Perth in Western Australia, are the proud owners and chief restorers of the sprawling Chateau de Gudanes in Verdun, in the south of France (pictured)

The couple (pictured) have spent the past four years renovating the level one historical monument - which dates from the golden age of the reign of King Louis XVI - learning its secrets and slowly re-building their dream property

When they first acquired the Chateau, the building was crumbling (pictured) and Mr and Mrs Waters could only view four of the 94 rooms available. The building was designed by Ange-Jacques Gabriel - the brains behind the Petit Trianon at Versailles

'Our property search in France began when our daughter, Jasmine, spent a month in France while she was in school,' Karina Waters told Daily Mail Australia.

'Craig was tracking Jasmine's every move on the computer, and so advertisements for French real estate began to pop up as suggestions for him to look at.

'We stumbled upon a French property blog, which enticed us with photos of French farmhouses in picturesque rural villages. Before we knew it, we were hooked on French real estate websites and the promise of another life.'

The Chateau had been on the property market for four years by the time it was finally snapped up by the Waters family.

'We found Chateau de Gudanes on the Internet just a few days before we left, and decided to include it on our viewing itinerary,' Mrs Waters added.

The rest, as they say, was history.

'Our property search in France began when our daughter, Jasmine, spent a month in France while she was in school,' Karina Waters told Daily Mail Australia (pictured: the staircase towards the beginning of restoration and more recently)

'We found Chateau de Gudanes on the Internet just a few days before we left, and decided to include it on our viewing itinerary,' Ms Waters said - the rest is history (pictured: one room previously)

Once they saw the property, they fell in love instantly (pictured: one room more recently). The couple have spent the past four years renovating the level one historical monument - which dates from the reign of King Louis XV

The historic Chateau, which overlooks the Midi-Pyrenees (pictured), was half in ruins when the Waters family took over with many rooms having no ceiling or floor and the place had remarkably never been outfitted with heat or electricity

Since the couple made the purchase in 2013, restoring and attaining the Chateau has been a lengthy and involved process

'Buying an almost ruined Chateau which was classified as a level one historical monument in a country where we didn't even speak the language was always going to be challenging,' Ms Waters laughed

'To add to that, we had very little background in architecture, restoration or old buildings. When we put in the offer, we had in fact only seen four of the 94 rooms (most were inaccessible because there were no ceilings or floors),' she said

Since the couple made the purchase in 2013, restoring and attaining the Chateau, which was built between 1741 and 1750, has been a lengthy and involved process.

Buying an almost ruined chateau which was classified as a level one historical monument in a country where we didn't even speak the language was always going to be challenging

'Buying an almost ruined chateau which was classified as a level one historical monument in a country where we didn't even speak the language was always going to be challenging,' Ms Waters laughed.

Remarkably, the historic chateau, which overlooks the Midi-Pyrenees, had never been outfitted with heat or electricity prior to their ownership.

'To add to that, we had very little exposure or background in architecture, restoration or old buildings. When we put in the offer, we had in fact only seen four of the 94 rooms (most were inaccessible because there were no ceilings or floors). Trees were growing inside and on the roof!'.

However, undeterred, the ambitious pair set to work and began to update the crumbling building, which was designed by renowned architect Ange-Jacques Gabriel - the brains behind the Petit Trianon in Versailles.

In many of the rooms, trees were growing on the ceilings (pictured: the exterior)

In 201, the ambitious pair set to work and began to update the crumbling building (pictured)

To conduct any work at all - even the smallest of details - they had to apply and receive permission from the Historic Monuments of France

To conduct any work at all - even the smallest of details - they had to apply and receive permission from the Historic Monuments of France.

'In the first phase, our builders re-installed all the walls, ceilings and floors that had collapsed. Prior to that, they had to remove the 500 tonnes of rubble from inside,' Ms Waters said.

Next, they had to apply again to the Historic Monuments to make more changes.

'It usually takes several years before anything else can go ahead,' Ms Waters explained. 'In the meantime, we have been doing smaller tasks, and also continuing to reinstall things like tiling.

'Last year, we also milled the trees which had fallen in the Chateau park, and our local artisan helper, David, used the wood to create two massive Medieval-inspired tables.'

'In the first phase, our builders re-installed all the walls, ceilings and floors that had collapsed. Prior to that, they had to remove the 500 tonnes of rubble from inside,' Ms Waters said, admitting that the project will be a 'lifelong commitment'

'Last year, we also milled the trees which had fallen in the Chateau park, and our local artisan helper, David, used the wood to create two massive Medieval-inspired tables,' Mrs Waters said of the property which they snapped up for 280,000

It's been an in-depth job so far - Ms Waters confessed they've put in as many hours 'as humanly possible', but she added: 'Every day counts towards building a dream, and a sustainable future for the chateau'

It's been an in-depth job so far - Ms Waters confessed they've put in as many hours 'as humanly possible', but she added: 'Every day counts towards building a dream, and a sustainable future for the Chateau'.

Building work on the chateau as it stands today began in 1741, on behalf of Louis Gaspard de Sales, Marquis de Gudanes. Also known as the King of the Pyrenees, he was an influential member of the Toulouse Parliament, and ironmaster of the Ariege area.

With regards to their highlights during their epic Chateau restoration so far, Ms Waters said there have been many.

'We have discovered some very interesting "finds" at the Chateau along the journey. The Chateau has revealed her history to us slowly.

'One example from when we first started occurred when the builders found a hole in the ground. After they started excavating it, they figured that it goes at least six metres underneath the ground.

With regards to their highlights during their Chateau restoration, Ms Waters said there have been many - they have discovered what they think was once an escape tunnel leading to the local village

'The Chateau has revealed her history to us slowly,' Ms Waters said

Other incredible finds from the past four years include bone, ceramics, a fresco painting and Venetian glassware (pictured)

'We think it may have been an escape tunnel to the local village. There is even a boarded up doorway on the walls around the Chateau grounds leading there.'

According to local reports, a 10ft wide hole found in the floor is believed to have been dug as a safe passage to the local village during World War II.

Other incredible finds from the past four years include bone, ceramics, a fresco painting and Venetian glassware.

The chateau already has thousands of fans - 230,000 people follow the project on Instagram, while countless more check into the Waters' website for updates about events coming up.

They have even rolled out Chateau de Gudanes merchandise including a range of advent calendars.

Later this year, the couple are set to open the Chateau as a working hotel for visitors. Mr and Mrs Waters will also release a book about their journey in 2018, which will detail their numerous finds including a fresco painting and secret tunnels

'The chateau is a keeper of memories, and whatever we endeavour to do in the future will be about passing on and sharing these memories, and the past itself,' Ms Waters said of her ongoing project

Their vision for the chateau, according to their website, is that it will not be 'a place to visit, reconnect with the earth and people, and restore the senses, just like she herself has been restored.

'It wont be about overcrowding the walls with paintings or overflowing the floors with furnishings, but will be relatively minimalistic - a place to simply rest, breathe and enjoy the calm.

'The chateau is a keeper of memories, and whatever we endeavour to do in the future will be about passing on and sharing these memories, and the past itself,' Ms Waters said.

'As the restoration journey progresses it becomes clearer to us each day that we need to learn to slowly adapt ourselves to the chateau, rather than forcibly demand her to adapt to us.'

While this has meant living without the facilities they had been accustomed to in the past at times, Ms Waters said the couple are fine with that.

'Life does not move fast here, and there is a definite serenity in being disconnected from the rush of the rest of the world. This is a lifelong commitment.'

For more information about Chateau de Gudanes, and to find out about their summer 2017 workshops, click here
Emergency crews responded to the scene of an overturned vehicle on U.S. 67 just south of Cash Lane a few miles north of Bonne Terre shortly after noon.

As of 12:30 p.m. traffic in the northbound lanes had been reduced to one lane and was moving slow just south of the crash scene.

Workers were battling a pop-up rain storm which was moving through the area at the time.

We have a reporter on the scene and will have more details as they become available.

Use caution if traveling in that area until the scene is cleared and traffic returns to normal speeds.
Would you be comfortable with your doctor Googling you?

187 doctors participated in an Australian study to see how they view and use social media.

The results showed one in six doctors (around 16 per cent) have looked up information about their patients online.

187 doctors participated in a study to see how doctors use view and use social media (stock image)

Writing about the results on The Conversation, Merle Spriggs, research fellow at the University of Melbourne, said there were ethical concerns that follow a doctor looking up a patient online.

'Some doctors say they Google their patients to gather more information about them or to discover the 'truth',' she wrote.

'Armed with that information, they say they can better care for their patients and improve their health.'

But she said that came with its own ethical implications.

'When a doctor searches online for information about a patient without consent, their role changes from someone who works with the patient to someone who observes and spies on them,' she warned.

One in five doctors concluded that they had been sent a friend request on social media (stock image)

'From a patients viewpoint, this is likely to destroy trust between the two, as it shows a lack of respect.'

Ms Spriggs concluded that an answer come in the form of a policy on the need for doctors to be open about looking up their patients online.

'And, before they act on any information, patients should have an opportunity to refute or explain that information,' she wrote. 'If this doesnt happen, we will see an continual erosion of trust between doctor and patient.'

Other results from the study revealed that one in five doctors had received a 'friend request' from a patient online.

In addition, 60 per cent of doctors were uncomfortable interacting with patients who had accessed personal information about them online.
They say necessity is the mother of invention, but perhaps no necessity was as serendipitous as that of Stephanie Evans.

The New Zealand-based businesswoman launched her skincare products from her own kitchen when she found herself still struggling with bad skin in her thirties.

Since she decided to create a business with her all-natural products, Ms Evans has been able to give up her office manager job in Auckland and concentrate on her Oasis Beauty line full-time.

'I'd always wanted to be my own boss,' the 48-year-old, who now lives in the small New Zealand town of Oxford, told Daily Mail Australia.

'You've got to dream, because I dreamed first before I achieved.'

New Zealand businesswoman, Stephanie Evans (pictured), launched her own skincare products from her kitchen when she found herself still struggling with bad skin in her thirties

Since she decided to create a business with her all-natural products, Ms Evans (pictured) has been able to give up her office manager job and concentrate on her Oasis Beauty line full-time

After she left school at age 16, Ms Evans was encouraged to consider two options by her parents for her career: she could go into secretarial work, like her mother, or join the airforce, like her dad.

'It was a different time back then, and through default, I ended up training as a secretary for a year,' Ms Evans told FEMAIL.

'I'd always struggled with my skin - aged 13 and upwards, I had the worst breakouts, I always thought people were looking at them.

I thought about making my own products to see if they would work better than the pricey things I was putting on my skin

'My skin was a source of embarrassment for me and by the time I got to age 30, I was still having problems.

'One day, I came across a book - Perfect Skin by Amanda Cochrane - and it was all about going back to basics.

'I thought about making my own products to see if they would work better than the pricey things I was putting on my skin.

'They made a huge improvement with my skin and so I started mixing more lotions and potions at home.'

The 48-year-old (pictured at home) started making her own beauty products after she came across a skincare book which stripped things back to basics

'They [her own homemade skin products] made a huge improvement with my skin and so I started mixing more lotions and potions at home,' she said (pictured: her products)

Slowly and steadily, the 48-year-old built up an arsenal of products, made from natural things like avocados and vitamin E (pictured: her home)

Slowly and steadily, the 48-year-old built up an arsenal of products, made from natural things like avocados and vitamin E.

'I was working full time, but I made sure I also created my products in the evenings and weekends - it was all an experiment and I was the test dummy,' she said.

Ms Evans designed a special cream for her mother after her skin had an allergic reaction - Rhino Repair. The cream is still one of her bestselling products.

'At the time, I was making these things for myself and my mother - so no expense was spared,' she said.

'I spent months researching healing ingredients and people still use it for eczema and skin problems.'

The business side of things came around quite gradually for Ms Evans (pictured); while initially, she kept her day job, she quit this when she moved from Auckland to Oxford

The business side of things came around quite gradually for Ms Evans.

'Originally, I kept my day job as an office manager in Auckland, but that all changed when we moved to Oxford and I was able to pay my mortgage off.

'I had to sell my wedding china to launch the start-up, but then I quit and concentrated on Oasis Beauty full time. I think my aunties have forgiven me for selling the china!,' she joked.

'It's taken a long time to get to where I am today, but I'd say the most important thing for budding businesswomen is you've got to have a plan and you shouldn't move away from what you stand for.

'For me, that was animal welfare. My products still reflect this.'

Then, the 48-year-old was able to concentrate on her business full-time; this is when Oasis Beauty really took off (pictured: Stephanie Evans)

These days, Ms Evans is still working hard at her Oasis Cottage home, where animals run around and she works on new beauty products every single day - testing them on her team.

'I live in a very remote town with just 1,800 people, but things like Facebook and the Internet have been super useful with getting the message out for the brand,' she said.

The ambitious businesswoman is currently working on a range of pet sunscreen and she is also working on creating a wildlife refuge at her home:

'My top tip is to dream big, and allow yourself to think with a grand plan or you won't get anywhere. But you also need to remember that after the dreaming comes the doing.

'It's all about putting small steps in place, one at a time, so you can suddenly look behind you and see what you've achieved.'

To find out more about Oasis Beauty, you can visit the website here. You can also follow the company on Facebook; it ships all over the world.
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It's a painstaking process that involves hand mixed paints, eight hours of preparation and lying naked in the scorching desert heat.

But Swiss artist Filippo Ioco's hard work certainly pays off as the naked figures in his stunning landscape portraits seem to blend in effortlessly with their rugged surroundings.

The 47-year-old travels around the globe to create his art, in locations including Puerto Rico, Italy and California.

He spends hours setting up each photograph, using water-based paints, raw pigments, clays, dirt, and foods for his body art.

Look up: A person manages to blend into the background by curling themselves into the shape of a rock

Now you see them: The body curled into a ball stands out on the flat surfaces of the rocks

At one with nature: This body blends beautifully into the background and is hard to spot standing against the tree

Blending in: A person curls into a tight ball on top of the dusty rocks

In one picture, a woman painted orange lies on her back on rocks in the desert, painted an earthy ochre to blend in with the rocks.

However, the fact that her body is arched and a lack of pain on her lower legs make her easily noticeable.

Some of Ioco's efforts have been much more successful with one body painted the exact colour of a tree trunk, making it a lot more difficult to spot.

And a figure who curled up to perch on top of a rock has helped to create a scene that's a little more difficult to make sense of.

Standing tall: A naked person stands tall against the dusty rocks

Getting wet: One person went to great lengths to blend into the waterfall

On the beach: The round painted body contrasts with the sharpness of the rocks

Look twice: The beach is covered in rocks but a body stands out between them

Can you spot them? An arched body might be the same colour as the rocks but is easily seen against the backdrop

Look again: A woman, painted by Swiss artist Filippo Ioco, attempts to blend into the moss-covered rocks

Is this the most noticeable of all? A woman painted black is seen lying on top of rocks near to the sea

Dare to bare: A man shows off his bare bottom as he stands upright against nude-coloured rocks

Look again: An orange body should be easily disguised, but their arched body soon becomes noticeable

Blending in: The Swiss artist uses water-based paints, raw pigments, clays, dirt, and foods to paint the naked bodies

Obvious: A woman sprawls across thick tree branches, but the clashing colours make her stand out

Stick thin: A woman stands tall as she attempts to blend into a tree trunk

Arching: They might be the same colour but the body stands out

Is it just a beach? A body, painted the same colour as sand, is camouflaged

Taking a rest? A man leaning against a tree trunk looks like he's stopped off for a quick nap

Blending in: A woman positions herself so that she blends into the background

Where are they? A person is painted the same colour as the trunk of a tree, but you'll still spot them without difficulty

Morphing: A woman bends her body over a tree in an attempt to blend in with the background
Prince Charles was reunited with his wife Camilla today when he touched down in Italy as part of the Royal Family's 'post-Brexit charm offensive'.

The royal couple appeared relaxed and friendly as they posed for photographs in Florence.

Earlier this afternoon the Prince of Wales was greeted by British Culture Secretary Karen Bradley at Pisa airport, where he had arrived on a private jet from Romania.

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Prince Charles and Camilla posed for photos in front of the historic Ponte Vecchio bridge in Florence on Friday evening

The royal couple pictured on the Bridge of Santa Trinitia in the downtown area of the city

Charles and Camilla will be in Italy for four days

He then went on to Florence where he met the Duchess of Cornwall before they were pictured together in front of the world famous Ponte Vecchio bridge.

The royal couple attended a reception this evening to mark the centenary of the British Institute in Florence.

They will be in Italy for four days during which time Charles will receive a Renaissance Man of the Year award before meeting Pope Francis II in the Vatican.

The Prince spent the first leg of the tour in Romania and was in Bucharest before flying to Italy.

The couple will meet Pope Francis II while on the tour

The Prince shook hands with onlookers before posing for photographs

After spending the day in Bucharest Charles hopped on a private jet and touched down in Pisa where he was to go on to Florence to meet Camilla

He was greeted with a royal welcome towards the end of a long day of meeting members of the public

Charles was met at Pisa International Airport by Hon Karen Bradley MP, pictured in red, the UK Seceratry of State for Culture, Media and Sport

During his time there the heir to the throne was noted for his affectionate greetings.

Yesterday he was seen greeting Crown Princess Margareta with a tender kiss on the hand.

And this morning the royal, 68, shared a caring embrace with a local schoolboy during his walking tour of Bucharest.

Camilla meets Italian children who are learning English at the British Institute in Florence

Prince Charles at the British Institute on Friday evening

Charles and Camilla, watched by Florence's Mayor Dario Nardella, unveil a commemorative plaque for the 100th anniversary of the British Institute of Florence

The couple inaugurating the exhibition of Lorenzo Perrone during their visit

Valentine Blacker, 11, son of British-born William Blacker who is a local conservationist, was clearly unfamiliar with royal protocol and could be seen throwing his arms around the prince.

However, a friendly Charles didn't appear bothered in the slightest pictured grinning from ear to ear during his meeting with Valentine.

William who joined Charles for part of his tour, said later with a laugh: 'He loves my son', and Valentin added: 'It's not the first time he's hugged me.'

Prince Charles was embraced by a local school boy during a walking tour of Bucharest on this third day of his European tour

Valentine Blacker, son of William Blacker who is a local conservationist, approached the royal in the street before breaking royal protocol to embrace the prince

Charles did not seem offended in the slighted by the hug and warmly embraced the young boy

Friday marks the third day of the royal's tour of Europe today seeing him visit the site in Bucharest from where the infamous Vlad the Impaler ruled his citizens.

During his tour Charles visited the ruined area in the Romanian capital's old town that was home to the 15th century ruler and is now part of a museum complex.

The bloodthirsty nobleman is said to be the inspiration behind Bram Stoker's Dracula and is a distant forebear of the heir to the throne.

Charles also met with religious leaders as he visits Stavropoleos Church who had gathered in the courtyard to welcome the royal

It seems that young Valentine could be the royal's biggest fan, as after a quick costume change he sought Charles out once more at the church more who was happy to give him another hug

Unlike Valentine members of the church stuck to royal protocol offering Charles a simple neck bow when greeting him

One member of the church could be seen snapping a souvenir photo of the royal upon his arrival today

Charles also met with religious leaders during a visit to the Stavropoleos Church, who had gathered in the courtyard to welcome the royal.

It seems that young Valentine could be the royal's biggest fan as after a quick costume change he sought Charles out once more at the church more who was happy to give him another hug.

Later the Prince visited the National Theatre of Romania, where he toured a workshop where he met young stage designers who are part of the institution's apprenticeship programme.

Earlier the Prince had visited the National Theatre of Romania where he was treated to a dramatic performance

Charles met young stage designers backstage who are part of the institution's apprenticeship programme

The Prince of Wales was accompanied by officials for his walking tour of the Romanian town

As he made his way around the Old Town he was treated to a commentary of his surroundings

The royal was also treated to a dramatic performance from members of the theatre during his visit.

Charles showed off his caring nature later in the day when he visited the Hospices of Hope.

The UK charity which is working to improve the care and quality of life for terminally ill patients and their families in Romania and surrounding countries.

Charles showed off his caring nature later in the day when he visited the Hospices of Hope

The heir to the throne could be seen holding the hand of a young girl in the hospice during his visit

The royal seemed to be in high spirits as he chatted with the children at the hospice

The heir to the throne could be seen holding the hand of a young girl in the hospice during his visit.

Charles appeared to be in high spirits and could be seen laughing and joking with the children who were busy showing him their toys.

The royal was given the honour of cutting a cake to celebrate the charity's 25th anniversary - and the cheeky prince could even be seen sneaking a taste.

Before departing Romania Charles paid a visit to the village of Vizuresti where he was greeted by young girls in traditional costume

Prince Charles watches girls in a handy craft classroom during a tour of the Roma village

One sweet girl gave her creation from her class as a gift to the royal who seemed touched by the gesture

Before departing Romania Charles paid a visit to the village of Vizuresti where he was greeted by young girls in traditional costume.

The girls offered Charles some bread and salt which he gratefully received after his busy day on Friday.

Charles also took a quick tour of a school where he witnessed a craft class where one sweet girl gave her creation to the royal as a gift.

Charles was given the honour of cutting a cake that was baked to celebrate the charity's 25th anniversary this year

After cutting the cake cheeky Charles could be seen sneaking a taste of the icing

Charles visited the site in Bucharest from where the infamous Vlad the Impaler ruled his citizens and admired a commemorative statue

The royal seemed completely enthralled with the tour, pausing to ask questions about local landmarks

During his tour Charles visited the ruined area in the Romanian capital's old town that was home to Vlad the Impaler and is now part of a museum complex

PRINCE CHARLES' LOVE FOR ROMANIA Charles during his first visit to Romania in 1998 Charles first came to the country in 1998 on an official visit - the only time he's visited on business. He fell so much under the spell of the place that he bought a house in one of the wooden villages, then acquired another property which he's turned into a comfortable lodge. He makes a private visit for a few days every year if he can, preferably in May when the wild flowers are out, and both houses can be rented when Charles isn't there. He's been so inspired he's now planted a Transylvanian Meadow at Highgrove, his Gloucestershire home, using a wild flower seed mix mostly gathered from the hay meadows at one of his properties. Describing the rural nature of the country Charles says, 'It's the timelessness which is so important.' The landscape is 'almost out of some of these stories you used to read as a child. People are yearning for that sense of identity and belonging and meaning.' In Transylvania the Prince usually begins by visiting some of the environmental and rural development causes that he supports. He'll then spend a day or two relaxing in the quiet and beauty of the countryside. Walking is key for him - but the walks are accompanied by a bevy of botanists who can help inform and develop his ideas. In this hospitable country, villagers do what they can to make the Prince welcome. During a visit in 2013 last visit a surprise was achieved by smuggling 120 children in traditional dress through the back door of a barn while the Prince was sipping an aperitif on the other side. Advertisement

Yesterday, Charles was welcomed by Crown Princess Margareta of Romania for afternoon tea.

She and her husband Prince Radu, a former actor, hosted Charles for tea this afternoon at the Elisabeta Palace.

Earlier in the day, the Prince of Wales was given the warmest of welcomes when he visited an orphanage.

Yesterday Prince Charles greeted Crown Princess Margareta of Romania with a tender kiss on the hand as they met for afternoon tea

The royals headed inside for a spot of afternoon tea at the glamorous venue in Bucharest following a busy day of engagements for the prince on the second day of his 'Brexit tour'

Charles, 68, was visiting the FARA Foundation in Popesti Leordeni, just outside of Bucharest on the second day of his nine day European tour, when Amalia Paduraru and her sister Antonia ran up to embrace him - with one even planting a kiss on his cheek.

The royal touched down in Romania on Wednesday where he met the country's President, Klaus Iohannis, at a formal reception at Cotroceni Palace.

He also joined women and girls dressed in embroidered peasant blouses in a traditional jig known as 'hora', and watched craftsmen painting eggs and religious icons on stone and wood.

The royals continue their 'Brexit charm offensive' The trip has been seen by some as a bridge building visit to strengthen ties with the continent in the light of Brexit. The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge visited Paris two weeks ago By the end of the year the royal family, dubbed the unofficial 'Brexit Ambassadors', will have visited the majority of the EU's major member states - France, Germany, Italy and Poland - with the King of Spain also coming to the UK for a state visit. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office said of the tour: 'Royal visits play a very important role in the United Kingdom's bilateral diplomacy. 'The Royal Family are excellent and experienced ambassadors for the United Kingdom. Whilst every royal visit is unique, each visit is designed to support foreign policy objectives and promote closer ties across a range of areas, for example cultural, economic or political, between the UK and the host country.' Advertisement

Charles is set to spend a further six days away with the tour will also include visits to Austria.

Highlights from Charles and Camilla's trip include a visit to Amatrice, where the Prince will meet survivors of last summer's earthquake and the Duchess will tour the world famous Roman town of Herculaneum.

Charles has visited Italy many times and also has a close connection with Romania, as he has a country retreat in the remote village of Valea Zalanului in the region of Transylvania.

The pair will fly around the continent in the converted RAF A330 Voyager refuelling aircraft which was used by David Cameron when he was in office.

On Thursday Charles was given a warm welcome by two local girls as she arrives at the FARA Foundation in Popesti Leordeni, near Bucharest, on the second day of his 'Brexit tour' of Europe
Even novice astronomers know that the biggest threat to stargazing is not the cold  but light.

Theres nothing more frustrating than setting up your telescope and turning off your household lights, only to look up at the sky and see nothing but a couple of stars struggling to sparkle through a phosphorescent glow.

That glow is caused by light pollution emanating from towns and cities. If you really want to make the most of your new hobby, youll need to find a place where the sky is truly dark.

Here we reveal the best spots to go star gazing in your area. Pictured: Orion over the Rollright Stones in the Cotswolds

Thankfully, there are many organisations and websites that can show you the best stargazing spots in your area.

A good place to start is Dark Sky Discovery (www.darkskydis covery.org.uk), which has an easy-to-use map of over 150 excellent stargazing spots across the UK.

These sites, which are all wheelchair-friendly, are free from most light pollution and boast great sightlines so you can enjoy the best panoramas possible.

Also useful is the website NightBlight (nightblight.cpre.org.uk), which is run by the Campaign to Protect Rural England.

The sites interactive map reveals the levels of light pollution at any given spot in the UK. Although it doesnt recommend specific locations, it offers more flexibility if you want to know what the pollution is like at a place you might want to visit.

Here then is our guide to the best stargazing spots around the UK and dont forget to take your Daily Mail Stars Over Britain poster free with last weeks magazine.

SOUTH EAST Near London, the South Downs National Park boasts no fewer than seven recognised stargazing spots, including Ditchling Beacon, Butser Hill, Old Winchester Hill, Iping Common and Devils Dyke. Visit southdowns.gov.uk/enjoy/explore/dark-night-skies for more information.

FOUR GREAT STAR GAZING APPS There are lots of apps out there that promise to be planetariums for your smartphone, but these are four of the very best  and theyre all free... Sky View (Free, Android and Apple) Simply point your device towards the night sky and Sky View tells you what youre looking at. Then click on a constellation, planet or star for a full description. Meteor Shower Calendar (Free, Android and Apple) Shooting stars are more common than you think. This handy app will tell you when and where you can watch meteor showers. NASA (Free, Android and Apple) This app is packed with information about current NASA missions, when to spot the International Space Station where you live and a fantastic gallery of images. STAR CHART (Free, Android and Apple) A great app for young stargazers, Star Chart shows whats visible in the sky above you. Point it at the ground to see the view on the other side of the world. Advertisement

MIDLANDS The Peak District is blessed with truly dark skies and has three recommended spots at Surprise View, Parsley Hay and Minninglow. Theyre all easily accessible and have information panels that help to guide you around the night sky  essential if youve forgotten your Daily Mail poster!

NORTH The North York Moors, Yorkshire Dales and Northumberland national parks all have many stargazing spots. The Kielder Observatory holds stargazing events including family astronomy nights. Book your space in advance at kielderobservatory.org.

NORTH WEST If youre near Blackburn, Preston or Lancaster then head into the Forest of Bowland. There are five designated dark sky sites there, including the Beacon Fell Visitor Centre. Theres also Clerk Laithe Lodge (clerklaithe.co.uk), a guest house and restaurant right in the middle of the forest that offers walkways to the darkest possible areas.

WALES The Brecon Beacons National Park is a designated Dark Sky Reserve, so its a superb place to take your telescope. There are countless stargazing locations in the park  try the remote Usk Reservoir Car Park near Trecastle for the darkest of skies, or the National Park Visitor Centre in Libanus where the Cardiff Astronomical Society holds occasional sessions.

WEST COUNTRY Like the Brecon Beacons, Exmoor National Park is also a Dark Sky Reserve, which means light pollution is at a minimum. If youre further south, near Newquay, try Carnewas and Bedruthan Steps where the Kernow Astronomers (kernowastronomers.com) periodically hold events.

SCOTLAND Take your stargazing really seriously north of the border in the Scottish Highlands.

The Cairngorms and the Loch Lomond and Trossachs national parks are unrivalled on the mainland, or if youre very adventurous try the Isle of Coll in the Inner Hebrides. Its been named a Dark Sky Island by the International Dark Sky Association, as it has some of the darkest skies in Europe. For more details visit darkskycoll.co.uk.

COTSWOLDS Its not just the national parks that enjoy unpolluted night skies, but also the designated Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty all over the country. The Cotswolds has a particularly suitable location at the Rollright Stone Circle near Chipping Norton, where you can watch the heavens with these Neolithic sentinels.

Scotland is also host to Europes first dark sky town in the form of Moffat in the Annandale valley. Thanks to special street lights that minimise light pollution, the stars are visible right in the centre of town. You can see at least 17 of Orions 30 stars, whereas in most towns you will only see six.
In case there was any lingering doubt, Cindy Crawford has officially lost the battle of letting her teenage daughter take after her in becoming a (very) young model.

After a successful campaign for Marc Jacobs Beauty, Kaia Gerber, 15, is returning to the brand as the face of its Marc Jacobs Daisy fragrance.

'This is my first global fragrance campaign, and I am honored it is with Marc Jacobs, an iconic brand I have known and loved for as long as I can remember,' Kaia said in a statement released today.

Scroll for video.

Flower girl: Kaia Gerber (center), 15, is the new face of Marc Jacobs Daisy fragrance

Same scent, new campaign star: The fragrance is celebrating its tenth anniversary with Kaia's ad and a limited edition bottle

In the campaign, in which Kaia bears a striking resemblance to a young Cindy, the It girl is seen holding daisies (both real and in fragrance from) beneath a cloud-free blue sky.

Her make-up is natural and her hair flows in the wind, alongside that of two girlfriends. The easiest adjective to describe her is, effortless.

And that is by design.

Free spirit: In a TV campaign for the scent, Kaia lounges in a meadow on a sunny day with friends

Fresh face: The young model's hair and make-up in the film is natural and effortless

Young, wild and free: The 30-second spot was shot on 16mm film for 'a candid and imperfect effect'

Stay tuned: The print and TV campaigns will debut globally this April

'Daisy Marc Jacobs is a major franchise within the houses portfolio, and this new campaign further establishes Daisy as a timeless interpretation of youthful spirit,' said Renaud Salmon, vice president of global marketing for Marc Jacobs Fragrances at Coty Inc.

'We are excited to work with Kaia on the campaign, as she perfectly embodies the confident, free-spirited Daisy girl.'

Save the date: The limited edition bottle will retail for $100 at Macy's beginning in April

Kaia can surely thank mom Cindy, 51, for that confidence.

That is not to say she never feels pressured to live up to her legacy, though.

'I don't even want to be in a photo next to her because she's incredible,' Kaia said in a recent interview with Refinery29. 'She doesn't seem to age, which is not fair.'

The two, of course, often pose together in pictures. They have even starred on the cover of Vogue Paris, side by side.

But Kaia is most certainly making a name of her own in the modeling industry. She has recently also popped up in editorials in Vogue Italia, Teen Vogue, and CR Fashion Book, and in campaigns for Alexander Wang, Chrome Hearts and, of course, Marc Jacobs Beauty.

Mini me: Kaia shares a striking resemblance to her mother, supermodel Cindy Crawford (right), 51

Two of a kind: She said she doesn't like standing next to the 51-year-old because she's so gorgeous, even though she clearly inherited her genes

Sharing the spotlight: The two have shared a cover of Vogue Paris and also appeared in other shoots together

Miss popular: Kaia has over one million followers on Instagram

With 1.1 million followers on Instagram, Kaia is no slouch in the social media arena either.

'I mean, I think I'm really careful about what I post, but at the same time, I'm 15 years old. I don't feel pressure to be perfect all the time, because nobody is and I think I almost respect people who show off their imperfections more because you can relate to them,' she told Refinery29. 'When I see Instagram [posts] that are really perfect, it's hard to respond to that. You want to see more.

'I just hope that people see models as not so untouchable and more relatable, since they can see into your everyday life rather than just seeing you on the cover of a magazine in full hair and makeup,' she said.

Playing with make-up: Kaia has modeled bold beauty looks for the brand in previous campaigns
A young graduate too embarrassed to tackle the problem of her heavy periods was inadvertently ignoring the signs of a rare type of cancer.

Lydia Brain, now 24, is only the 11th person in the world to be diagnosed with inflammatory myofibroblastoma.

Lydia put up with the disruptive symptoms for three years, before eventually visiting the doctor.

One period was so bad, blood dripped down her leg for 40 minutes, while she waited in an airport queue.

Now she's been put in an induced menopause and may need a hysterectomy, ruining her hopes of having children.

Lydia Brain ignored her heavy periods for three years and is now urging other women to seek help sooner

The University of Manchester graduate said: 'It was definitely not healthy. I stood there, in the passport queue at Stansted, after bleeding down to my knees on a flight, for 40 minutes.

'Covered with a long coat and the most intense fear and mortifying embarrassment, silently queuing and not making a fuss, I was too embarrassed to tell a male member of staff I needed to get through the queue immediately and go to the toilet, or better yet to a hospital.'

Finally, in January 2016, she did visit her GP, triggering a series of tests and examinations which led to a diagnosis of uterine tumours.

Now, in a bid to destigmatise women's cancers, she is sharing her story to encourage them to seek medical help sooner.

Lydia, who lives in Manchester but is originally from Herefordshire, said: 'Before my diagnosis, I suffered with heavy periods for what seemed like years, just putting up with them silently, not going to a doctor.

The 24-year-old is only the 11th woman in the world to be diagnosed with inflammatory myofibroblastoma

'If we lived in the beautiful, open, free world which I hope we will one day, where women are equal and their bodies are talked about, then perhaps I'd have been diagnosed sooner.

'I felt in a sense that heavy periods and abnormal bleeding were just accepted as something that happened to some women, sometimes.'

Following her initial appointment with the GP, Lydia was correctly diagnosed with anaemia  low iron content in her blood  caused by her heavy periods.

Medics confirmed this was caused by fibroids in her uterus and she was put on the waiting list for surgery.

However, the pole-dancing fanatic's menstrual problems were also symptomatic of a greater problem  a rare cancer of the uterus called inflammatory myofibroblastoma.

Now, in a bid to slow the progress of the cancer, Lydia has been put in an induced menopause.

Lydia has been put on medication that brings on an induced menopause at just 24 years old

'I've been down, depressed and tired,' she said. 'It's not what I expected at 24.'

If a patient takes the medication for too long it can also have an adverse impact on bone density and could cause osteoarthritis.

Ultimately, doctors have advised her to undergo a partial hysterectomy  devastating for a woman in her early 20s.

LYDIA'S TREATMENT Lydia's heavy periods were caused by tumours embedded in the wall and lining of her womb. After weeks of tests, involving medics and scientists across the world, she was diagnosed with inflammatory myofibroblastoma. Like some prostrate and breast cancers, her tumours are fueled by the hormone oestrogen. Cutting off its supply offers the best chance of survival. Lydia has been put on a monthly dose of an injection called Zoladex to stop her producing oestrogen, which has induced a menopausal state. But side effects of the drug can include lower bone density and osteoarthritis. Doctors have recommended a partial hysterectomy. Advertisement

'It's a blow,' said Lydia, who studied cognitive neuroscience and psychology at university and currently works as a researcher.

She faces a race against time if she wants to have children naturally.

'I think I would like children, but I didn't want them yet.

'But I could only have three or so years on the injections before having a hysterectomy.

'I might have to have children alone or adopt.'

She could freeze her eggs, but her womb looks likely to be removed.

Lydia told how in the three years before her diagnosis, she endured very heavy periods and occasionally bled between cycles.

Too young for a smear test  the age they are given in the UK is 25  it would have not detected the cancer, anyway as it was in her womb, not her cervix.

Now she is keen to encourage people to talk about periods and is a champion for the young adults charity Trekstock.

'More than a quarter of young women don't attend a smear test due to embarrassment, this has to change,' she said.

'Let's start talking about it more.

'Be bold. Let's make sure the next generation of boys don't wince and laugh at the word 'period', let's make sure women are more familiar with the symptoms of gynae cancer, let's make sure women are heard and end the stigma.'
Crime fiction's finest: Could you create a character to match Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot, depicted here by David Suchet

Have you ever dreamed of writing a book that becomes a bestseller? Could you be the next Agatha Christie, queen of the crime novel? Well, here's your chance to make that fantasy come true.

Last year, we launched the Daily Mail First Novel competition with the prize of a 20,000 publishing deal with one of the world's biggest and most respected publishers, Penguin Random House.

We had 5,000 entries and our winner, Amy Lloyd, won with her disturbing thriller Red River, which will be published here in January 2018. She can expect to make tens of thousands of pounds more from sales around the world  the book has already been sold to publishers in the U.S., Canada, Poland, France and Holland.

We were so impressed by the quality of the entries that we, and Penguin Random House, are running the competition again this year. However, as most of the best entries last time were crime and thrillers, this year we are asking for entries in that genre only.

So delve into the dark and cunning corners of your mind and send us your novels, which can be detective crime, spy thrillers or psychological chillers.

The full terms and conditions must be read online but we are looking for a previously unpublished crime novel aimed at adults. Entrants must be aged 16 or over  but there's no upper age limit so get typing!

We don't need the finished novel, just the first 5,000 words and a short synopsis, 600 words. The competition is open only to first-time novelists who have never had a novel published before in any format, including self-published or an ebook. If you entered last year you can enter again, but NOT with the same book as last year.

The judges are best-selling crime writer Simon Kernick, literary agent Luigi Bonomi who will represent the winner, top publisher Selina Walker who will publish the book and Daily Mail Literary Editor Sandra Parsons.

To get you started, Luigi Bonomi and Selina Walker explain what they are looking for in a first novel, and last year's winner Amy Lloyd passes on what she has learned from them.

And bestselling thriller writers Susan Lewis and Nicci French offer tips on how to make your entry stand out ...

THE AGENT: CREATE A DISTINCTIVE VOICE

Luigi Bonomi says he will be looking for something that encourages him to read on in this year's entries

Our winner will be taken on by Luigi Bonomi, whose agency represents bestselling writers Simon Kernick and Josephine Cox. Luigi says:

There's a very special feeling you get as an experienced agent and editor when you read a piece of writing that has potential. It's a kind of tingle down your spine and a sense that you are in the hands of someone who knows what they're doing, and where they are going with the plot, who may be unpublished and undiscovered but writes with confidence and skill.

'It's not about fancy vocabulary or attention-grabbing tricks but about the rightness of every word.

When we read the opening of Amy's Red River last year that's exactly what we felt: it was as if we'd opened the first chapter of a novel by a long-established crime writer with a huge following.

Her voice was so distinctive and powerful we knew we'd discovered a big new talent. The sense of wanting to read on, wanting to know what is going to happen, is what most excites literary agents and is what I will be looking for in this year's competition entries.

THE PUBLISHER: HAVE A STRONG MAIN CHARACTER

Selina Walker says one of the favourite parts of her job is discovering new writers and finding a potential bestseller

Selina Walker, publisher of Century and Arrow Books, Penguin Random House UK. She says:

One of the things I love about my job is discovering new writers and reading their exciting stories. Each time I open up a fresh typescript I always think  could this be IT, the bestselling novel everyone will want to read.

But as we all know, if you're a writer, it's very hard to get your novel directly into the hands of a literary agent and a publisher who can make this happen.

Which is why this competition is such a brilliant opportunity.

Make sure the idea behind your novel is a strong one, and that we can see it playing out in the material you send us.

Last year's winner featured a young woman who is obsessed by a man serving a life sentence for murder in Florida.

In the opening chapters, we see her, jet-lagged and sick with nerves, visiting him in jail  a great way to start a novel, and it had us hooked and wanting more immediately.

Create a central character we can relate to  Amy's heroine, Sam, is flawed, unlikeable even, and has a difficult past, but you can't help wondering what you would do in her situation.

How would you feel if you found yourself alone in a strange country, entirely dependent on a man you didn't quite trust?

Enclose a good covering letter with your entry.

We want to know a little about you, and why you have chosen to write the novel you are submitting to us.

Good luck, have fun, and stick with it. The winner might  just might  be you!

LAST YEAR'S WINNER: HOW THE MAIL CHANGE MY LIFE FOR EVER Write on! Last year's winner Amy Lloyd is gearing up for the publication of her novel Red River Exactly 12 months ago Amy Lloyd was a frustrated writer, desperate to find the incentive and time to finish her novel and find a publisher. Bullied at school, she'd left at 16 with just four GCSEs and worked in coffee shops before finally taking a course at university. Now Amy, 31, is gearing up for the publication of Red River, the winner of last year's competition. It's a nail-biting thriller about a British teacher who falls in love with a U.S. serial killer on Death Row. 'My life has changed beyond recognition. The 20,000 advance has helped me pay off my debts, so for the first time I can see a brighter future. 'I no longer work for the Inland Revenue but have a part-time job at the University of Cardiff, which I'm sure came about because I won this competition. All sorts of possibilities have opened up and writing is now my future. And I have made my family proud  my mum especially.' Amy promised herself one treat if she won  a Montblanc rollerball pen. 'I use it to sign my contracts now!' Working with Luigi as her agent and Selina as her editor was extremely helpful. 'It's been a joy to work in a team. The first edit helped iron out big issues with the plot and character but the second, line by line edit, really forced me to focus on the writing and finally brought out the book I know was in there all along. 'The main thing I learned was that I was writing too much, saying the same thing again and again. When you put so much effort and time into the story it's really hard to just get rid of whole chunks but if you are struggling with something and it isn't working, maybe it just needs to be dropped. 'That's when you need someone you trust, preferably someone who also writes, to read it and be honest  and you need to accept the criticism. It felt quite personal at first but as soon as you understand it's about the book, it's easy to toughen up. 'I'm now writing my second novel which is based in the UK and, without giving anything away, involves child killers.' AMY'S TOP TIPS FOR ASPIRING NOVELISTS 1. Don't expect ideas to just come like a lightbulb moment  you have to force them. While writing Red River I pounded the streets trying to work out what would happen next. 2. Write every day. Even if it's only 15 minutes, feels like agony, and you delete it next day  but keep the flow of words coming. 3. Accept that sometimes your characters will surprise you  you learn more about them as the book progresses. Advertisement

AUTHOR: FIND THE DARKNESS WITHIN YOURSELF

Susan Lewis's tip is to read as many authors in the genre as you can to learn how to structure the story and characters

Susan Lewis is the bestselling author of 38 psychological thrillers. Her first novel, A Class Apart, was published in 1988. She says:

Read as many authors/books in the genre as you can. Study the structure of the story and characters, how dialogue is used, how chapters link, when the twists happen and how.

Decide on your personality disorder (most thrillers have one) and read everything you can find out about it. If possible talk to experts in the field. This is how you'll really get to know the sociopath you're going to spend so much time with.

The weird, and often unnerving aspect of writing thrillers is the delving around in the darkest part of yourself. All characters are developed from within, even if they're influenced from without.

Putting yourself in a character's shoes, imagining what they'd do in certain situations, is what drives everything along. When the shoes belong to someone who's extreme, well that's when it starts to get really interesting.

There are many ways of approaching these stories; one is to make your antagonist seem quite normal at first with nothing that sets them apart. However, when looking closer there is something not quite right about the eyes, or the smile, or they have unusual responses to ordinary situations.

No one notices the oddness at first  then one person does, but they can't convince anyone else.

This isolates them, makes them vulnerable, even. They can see darkness where others are still only seeing light-heartedness.

When the psycho realises he/she has been rumbled, he might start playing with the 'victim' in ways that confuse and disorientate; ways that could make the victim sound deranged or paranoid when they try to warn others about the danger.

Another way of coming at suspense is the Agatha Christie way, when everyone is a suspect.

As each suspect disappears so the tension for those remaining really starts to build. It would be vital, I believe, for the writer to know well in advance who did it, or the structure would fall apart. Getting a grip on the mood of a book is a fascinating challenge.

Bear in mind that, like the story, it is almost always character-driven. The tone of unease or menace will be set by whoever is narrating at any given point. I learned early on that one way of creating real tension and fear, which usually happens at the climax of a book, is best done in short, sharp sentences.

I get a real kick out of writing characters that twist norms and mess with expectations, but the golden rule is that, in almost all cases, less is more.

The Moment She Left by Susan Lewis is published by Arrow at 7.99, and the follow up, Hiding in Plain Sight, will be available this August from Century at 12.99.

THRILLER WRITERS: THE ENDING IS AS VITAL AS THE START

Journalists Sean French and Nicci Gerrard wrote The Memory Game, their first book together as Nicci French, in 1997 and have just published their 14th bestseller.

Sean says:

Twenty years ago, we decided  just as an experiment  to see if we could write a novel together.

The entirely unexpected result was a career as the crime writer, Nicci French. So in many ways our experience of writing is like nobody else's. How do we do it? We spend much of our lives talking about ideas and characters and plots. We do all research together, we talk to people, we travel to possible locations.

Sean French and Nicci Gerrard, who write together as Nicci French, spend much of our lives talking about ideas and characters and plots and travelling to possible locations

But once we are clear that we have found an idea we are willing to spend a year of our lives on, once we are sure we have the same book in our heads, we start writing, and it becomes an entirely separate process.

One of us, say Nicci, will start, write a chapter or so and then send it to me. I am free to 'edit' this. Then I continue writing and send it back to Nicci and this carries on until we finish the book. Then we separately, go through the whole book, writing and rewriting.

Nicci says:

We don't have many rules: three, I think. The first is that we edit each other invisibly (rather than pointing out each other's mistakes). The second is we never tell anyone who wrote which bit: every word has to belong to both of us. And the third is that we are not allowed to reinstate what's been edited by the other.

We have to trust each other. Without that trust, the whole process would fall apart. We wouldn't be Nicci French  and we might not be still married . . .

Their advice:

Obviously you need something that grabs the reader in the first few pages. But the conclusion is just as important. It is disastrous to disappoint a reader at the end  if your conclusion isn't more than the reader expected, there's something wrong with your story.

Always imagine a slightly dull person at your elbow asking obvious questions: would she really do that? Why doesn't he call the police? If the reader starts asking those questions and there are no good answers, then the book dies.

Read lots of other novels  and then write one in your own voice.

Some days are good, some bad, some awful  but you should always turn up at your computer.

When you're stuck, blocked, there is often a reason: the writing is telling you something.

You must be able to be undignified, ridiculous, vulnerable. Put yourself on the line. Be prepared to fail: all successful writing is built on the foundations of the writing that hasn't worked. Keep at it, and manage to be both full of faith and full of doubt at the same time.

Be prepared for rejection. Few writers don't experience this at some point.

The latest Nicci French novel, Saturday Requiem, is published by Penguin 7.99.
The Delhi High Court has ordered a re-trial in five 1984 anti-Sikh riots cases in which all the accused were acquitted in 1986.

A bench of Justices Gita Mittal and Anu Malhotra also issued show cause notices to all the accused asking why the case against them be not re-tried.

The suo motu directions to reopen the cases were issued after perusing the trial court records regarding the acquittal in those cases.

Anti-Sikh riots: Approximately 2800 people died across India, including 2100 in Delhi

The trial court records were placed before the high court by the CBI during hearing of another 1984 riot case in which the acquittal of Congress leader Sajjan Kumar has been challenged by the agency.

While going through the records, the bench observed that neither the witnesses nor the complainant were examined properly by the trial courts and the matter was decided in a hurry.

It directed Delhi Police to investigate the matter and fixed the matter for April 20, asking the complainants to appear before the court.

The 1984 anti-Sikh riots were directed against Sikhs in India, allegedly by members of the Congress party

The bench issued notice to various accused, including ex-councillor Balwan Khokkar, former MLA Mahender Yadav and Ved Prakash.

It noted that in some cases complainants were not issued summons and in the rest, the summons were sent to the addresses where houses were burnt during riots and therefore, could not be served.

The riots broke out on November 1, 1984 after the assassination of then prime minister Indira Gandhi.
It's no secret that Chinese builders love their replicas: there is a Taj Mahal replica in western Ningxia, while towns in south China have recreated London's Tower Bridge and the Eiffel Tower.

Now, there's an unusual entry to the list: a remarkably accurate replica of the nondescript compound that was the home of Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad, Pakistan, famously stormed by the elite US SEAL Team 6.

Following in their footsteps - in a remote outpost in the frontier Xinjiang desert province - Chinese special forces were shown storming a bin Laden-like compound, in a rare military video on the special forces broadcast on State media last week.

Chinese special forces were shown storming a bin Laden-like compound, in a rare military video on the special forces broadcast on State media last week (pictured - the Laden residence, Pakistan)

The resemblance to the bin Laden compound was noticed by Chinese Internet users.

The video comes as China puts on a show of strength in Xinjiang.

In recent weeks, mass rallies of security forces have taken place in major cities, while President Xi Jinping called for a 'great wall of iron' to combat extremist forces in the western frontier province.

Whether there's a message in the video for 'all-weather' ally Pakistan that is unlikely to want a reminder of the global embarrassment it faced following the US raid on the Abbottabad compound, is less than clear.

Pakistani security officials grant access to journalists to cover the compound where Osama Bin Laden, the leader of terrorist network Al-Qaeda was killed by US military forces, in Abbottabad, Pakistan (file pic)
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The Delhi government's vigilance department has ordered a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probe into the financing of a secret spy group set up by the Arvind Kejriwal cabinet.

The development has come as a setback for Delhi's ruling Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), ahead of this month's civic elections.

The Feedback Unit - which allegedly worked under the supervision of the chief minister's office - was created last year to look into corruption cases involving the government's own departments, autonomous bodies, institutions and entities.

Chief Minister of Delhi Arvind Kejriwal

Lt Governor Anil Baijal has ordered that the clandestine agency be shut down.

Mail Today has seen a copy of the letter written to the CBI to look into the alleged irregularities regarding the constitution and expenditure of the spy unit.

When Baijal's predecessor Najeeb Jung had asked a committee to study decisions taken by the AAP administration without his mandatory consent, the Feedback Unit was also on the agenda.

Jung had referred the matter to the CBI. But soon after receiving the recommendation, the central agency asked for more details related to the case from the Delhi government's vigilance department.

Lt Governor Anil Baijal with Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal

The department's letter responds to those CBI queries and raises serious allegations of misconduct against the Kejriwal administration.

The main charge is related to the manner in which this clandestine unit was constituted, without the LG's approval.

It also reveals that no recruitment rules were followed in the appointment of personnel.

The letter also says that no account of expenditure made have been provided to the department.

A spending of Rs 50,000 has been done by an officer of the anti-corruption branch who does not exist, it alleges.

'Privately a spying agency was run from the CM's office. Interestingly it is called a feedback unit. It was unconstitutional, unethical and illegal,' BJP MP Meenakshi Lekhi told the media.

However, deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia said there was nothing wrong in the government setting up such a body.

A copy of the letter seen by Mail Today

'Every state should have a Feedback unit and every government has it,' he told a press conference at his official residence in the city.

'Government should communicate with its people and get feedback. I don't think there is anything wrong in it.'

According to the department, the Kejriwal government set aside Rs 1 crore for the Feedback Unit in the city's 2016-17 budget.

Rs 10 lakh from this amount has been released, of which Rs 5.5 lakh has reportedly been spent.

The letter says the proposal for creation of the unit was approved by the cabinet on September 29, 2015, which directed the vigilance secretary to submit a detailed plan on the matter.

CBI headquarters in the Indian capital, New Delhi

The unit was tasked to gather relevant information and actionable feedback regarding the working of departments falling under the Delhi government and also to do entrapment cases.

The final decision was taken by the cabinet in this regard a month later, but there was no official note.

The cabinet approved that the unit would report to the vigilance secretary, but in the same letter it has been said that the agency never reported to him and reported to the CM's office directly.

The letter also alleges that when the deputy secretary of the vigilance department asked for a report on details regarding the Feedback Unit in July 2016, special adviser to Delhi CM, RK Sinha, replied he was ready to provide all the information. But the details were never provided.

The embarrassment for the ruling party AAP came days after the LG ordered the recovery of over Rs 90 crore spent on advertisements by the Kerjiwal government allegedly in violation of Supreme Court guidelines.
An Indian hospital has successfully harvested skin from a dead body for the first time - from an 81-year-old man.

Safdarjung Hospital in Delhi conducted the skin harvesting treatment on a cadaver on Thursday.

Ratish Mohan Vaish, 81, a retired defence officer, had donated his skin for transplant after his death.

Safdarjung Hospital in New Delhi

Skin and eyes of a cadaver are best suited for transplant within six hours after death.

Prof Dr RP Narayan, head of the burns and plastic surgery department in Safdarjung Hospital said: 'After receiving the phone call, our team of doctors started preparing to graft out the skin.

'We cleansed the entire body and four sheets of skin were grafted out.

A child with a burned leg receiving treatment after a skin graft from scalp

'Donation of skin shall go a long way in treating serious cases of patients with burn injuries. Since the demand is more and supply is very low, we encourage people for more such donations.'

Skin is grafted from a special medical device called a dermatome.

'We wanted to procure more skin from the body but due to the high temperature on Thursday, the body started to develop the usual stiffness after death,' added Prof Narayan.

Health experts say that once the skin is removed from a dead body, it can be safely stored for five years thanks to special medical techniques.

Dr A K Rai, director of Safdarjung Hospital said: 'It is the first skin harvesting in north India done by plastic and anatomy surgeons at our hospital with the help of Dhadhichi Deh Dan Samiti (an organisation promoting organ donation).'
The fight over feeding of stray dogs at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) took a nasty turn this week, when a scuffle allegedly broke out on Friday.

In February a group of seven women alleged university authorities were stopping them from feeding the strays on the campus, as a result, the strays are forced to starve.

Amita Singh, a professor at JNU's Centre for the Study of Law and Governance told Mail Today that campus development head Priyadarshini Mukherjee 'got physical' and was found running after students who were feeding dogs to stop them.

'Mukherjee has not only talked about eviction of animals but has done everything in his capacity to sabotage our efforts to feed the dogs,' Amita Singh said.

Stray dogs have taken over the university campus

Mukherjee was unavailable for a comment.

The faculty members, who have favoured the presence of dogs on the campus citing ecological balance, have already filed FIRs and RTIs and are now planning to move the high court.

'We will have to take legal action if ill-treatment of dogs does not end on the campus.

'The bowls for feeding and drinking water have been broken by guards,' Singh said.

A student also complained that she was manhandled by security guards as she was feeding the dogs.

Students on the JNU campus

'I have been feeding dogs in JNU for the past 4 years, but three days ago, the administration released a new rule that feeding dogs will not be allowed anymore,' said Neerja Chaudhary.

'These dogs are really sick and on the verge of dying. When we tried saving them, security officer of JNU did not let us enter our varsity campus and said that these dogs should be left to die,' she added.

The college administration has decided to conduct a meeting soon to stop the fight from reaching court's doorstep.

'We cannot throw the dogs out of the campus and have to ultimately arrive at a solution which is dog-friendly,' Pramod Kumar, the registrar said.
The Shiv Sena MP was barred from all domestic flights after he attacked an Air India duty manager with his sandal

Barred from flying by domestic airlines and booked by police for assaulting an Air India staffer, Shiv Sena MP Ravindra Gaikwad has tried at least four times to book a seat on the national carrier, using a new alias each time.

Earlier this week, a staff member of the Sena politician dialled Air India's call centre to book flight AI 806 from Mumbai to Delhi for the following day and dictated the passenger's name as Ravindra Gaikwad.

The ticket was promptly cancelled, an airline source said.

Thereafter, a seat was booked on flight AI 551 from Hyderabad to Delhi in the name of Professor V Ravindra Gaikwad. This ticket was cancelled too.

A third attempt was made the next day for travel from Nagpur to Delhi via Mumbai when the MPs staff contacted a travel agent to book a flight for 'Professor Ravindra Gaikwad'.

The domestic air travel ban is unprecedented in Indian aviation history

The travel agent immediately contacted the local station manager and the information was forwarded to Air India's headquarters here, the source said.

His last attempt to book a ticket so far was on March 30 when he made a failed bid to fly from Mumbai to Nagpur.

The airline had earlier issued a 'non-acceptance order' to all its station managers and booking offices, instructing them to ensure that 'restriction on acceptance and travel of potentially unruly and unsafe passengers is being followed on Air India flights for Mr Ravindra Gaikwad'.

In an unprecedented step in Indian aviation history, the Sena MP was earlier barred from flying by all major domestic airlines for assaulting an elderly Air India employee last Thursday.
It often seems to happen that once a small cap stock notches up a spectacular price rise, management use the opportunity to snap up extra cash through a fund-raising to bolster its balance sheet.

Diagnostic self-testing firm Akers Bioscience was the latest to indulge itself this week, launching a $2million fundraising today after having notched up a near 60 per cent price rise earlier in the week following news of a first-order for one of its kits.

Akers shares shot higher on Tuesday after it revealed that First Check Diagnostics, the exclusive distributor in the US, will sell its rapid, over-the-counter cholesterol self-test under its 'First Check' brand through a raft of top retailers.

Healthy return: Akers shares shot higher after it revealed that First Check Diagnostics, the exclusive distributor in the US, will sell its rapid, over-the-counter cholesterol self-test

The firm followed that bit of good news yesterday with news of a 40 per cent increase in full year revenue to $2.9m, boosted by sales of its flagship Heparin allergy test.

Then today Akers announced it is raise cash by a placing of 1,448,400 common share at $1.40 per share, as well as 724,200 warrants with a strike price of $1.96 per share and a five-year term.

Akers said the proceeds from the placing would be used as 'growth capital and for general corporate purposes'.

As its shares listed in London fell 13 per cent to 145p in response to the placing, Akers saw its gain for the week pared back to just 22 per cent.

The weeks top AIM All-Share riser was another medical-focused firm, with imaging software company Feedback more than doubling in value after it revealed its TexRAD Lung product could soon be available on the diagnostic imaging platform of a leading global imaging company.

The group left us guessing about who that company might be although it did say the expectation is that the partnership will make TexRAD Lung easily available for hundreds of potential users worldwide on a subscription basis.

The company also said yesterday that it is on track to report increased revenue for the financial year as a whole, which also helped the shares notch up a two-day gain of nearly 107 per cent to 2.85p.

The main excitement amongst the small cap resources stocks this week came from Jersey Oil & Gas which climbed 22 per cent higher to 283.5p as it unveiled a handy upgrade to its Verbier asset in the North Sea.

Riding the wave: Jersey Oil & Gas which climbed 22 per cent higher to 283.5p as it unveiled a handy upgrade to its Verbier asset in the North Sea

Verbier, to be drilled by partner Norways Statoil in the summer, is now estimated to host some 162m barrels of oil equivalent resources, up from a prior estimate of 118m barrels.

The chance of success for the upcoming well was also upgraded - to 29 per cent from 26 per cent.

Among the weeks worst small cap performers, was Oxford Pharmascience Group which slumped by 31 per cent today to 2.05p after the US Food and Drug Administration knocked back trial plans for its re-formulated version of ibuprofen.

The firm, which boasts star fund Woodford Investments as a major backer, said the FDA disagreed with the endpoints for a phase III study.

The FDA wants claims of improved gastro-intestinal safety to be backed up by the trial and for there to be an improvement in peptic ulcer bleeding and related complications.

Ncondezi Energy was the weeks biggest faller, however, with its shares plunging by 58 per cent to 3.62p on fears that the company will not be able to pay off a loan facility before a much nastier return level kicks in.

The firm is the developer of a 300 megawatt power plant project in Mozambique.

Bitter pill: Oxford Pharmascience Group which slumped by 31% today to 2.05p after the US FDA knocked back trial plans for its re-formulated version of ibuprofen

Overall the FTSE AIM All Share put in a positive performance on the last week of the month and the first quarter, taking on 0.8 per cent to finish around the 926 level.

That was better than the blue chip FTSE 100, which slipped 0.1 per cent lower over the course of the week that saw the Brexit process triggered to 7,331.

The outperformance came with Aim about to lose one of its success stories - Sirius Minerals.

The developer of the North Yorkshire polyhalite project will be moving to the main market of the London Stock Exchange probably at the end of next month.

Shares were up 22 per cent on the week at 21.97p as the company also issued a quarterly project update that revealed the flagship project remains on time and on budget.

Another more volatile stock set to disappear from AIM is wearable health monitoring devices developer CloudTag which is having to de-list.

The companys nominated adviser tendered its resignation a month ago and the company has not appointed a replacement, which means under Aims rules it cannot retain its listing.

The company will continue as a private company, it said in its full-year results statement on Tuesday.
With a new tax year just days away, many savers will be looking to use up their Isa allowance for this year or planning ahead for where to invest next year's.

From April 6 the allowance will increase from 15,240 to 20,000. We've asked the experts where they are putting their money.

Rob Burdett, co-head of the F&C Multi-Manager fund, says Old Mutual UK Dynamic Equity has one of the best resourced and most experienced teams in the industry.

While many fund managers ignore the so-called macro environment  how politics or the economy affect investments  and focus just on picking stocks, the Old Mutual team don't ignore the bigger picture.

Tax break: A new tax year is just days away when the Isa allowance will increase from 15,240 to 20,000

'They put a lot of thought into the macro-economic environment, and it shows in the returns the fund has produced,' says Burdett.

The fund would have turned 10,000 into 25,330 over the past five years. Its largest investments include online fashion retailer Boohoo and luxury mixer drinks brand Fever-Tree  both of which have soared in the past few years.

Smaller companies have been out of favour for several years but a weaker pound and growing economy could see them thrive.

For savers willing to take on a higher risk investment, Bambos Hambi, head of funds at Standard Life Investments, likes the Henderson Emerging Markets Opportunities fund.

This fund has money in companies in India, Brazil, Chile and South Africa among others. While these regions have been in the doldrums, an oil price recovery, increased political stability and fast-growing economies saw a turnaround last year, which Hambi says could continue for a while yet.

If you had invested 10,000 in the fund five years ago it would now be worth 14,320.

The possibility of turmoil in the eurozone might make some savers nervous about investing on the Continent, but experts say there are opportunities to be found.

Marcus Brookes, head of the multi-manager team at Schroders, likes the Invesco Perpetual European Equity fund.

The fund, which would have turned 10,000 into 21,430 over the past five years, targets cheaper, out-of-favour investments such as financial firms Caixabank and Allianz.

The fund has 30 per cent of its cash in French firms and other investments in Swiss and German companies. Brookes says: 'While politics may be dominating savers' views of the Continent, we have begun to see a modest pick-up in the economy and profits forecasts.'

Sheridan Admans, investment research manager at The Share Centre, is also looking to the Continent.

The Man GLG Continental European Growth fund targets companies that manager Rory Powe either believes are established leaders or emerging winners in their field. It would have turned 10,000 into 24,590 over the past five years.

Top investments in the fund include Ryanair, which falls into the established leader category as one of the most popular low-cost airlines. Another investment, which falls into the emerging winners group, is jewellery company Pandora, an increasingly popular, affordable luxury brand.

Top investments in the The Man GLG Continental European Growth fund include Ryanair, which falls into the established leader category as one of the most popular low-cost airlines

James de Bunsen, co-manager of Henderson Alternative Strategies Trust, is looking at Worldwide Healthcare Trust, which invests in pharmaceutical and biotechnology firms across the globe.

After a stellar run, this industry fell out of favour last year amid fears if Hillary Clinton won the US election she would clamp down on how much pharma firms could profit from their products. De Bunsen says for that reason the sector looks to be good value.

He adds: 'I think these fears are overplayed and the themes of ageing populations across the world and rising incomes in emerging markets really support the growth of this sector.'

Older populations tend to need more healthcare, and rising wealth means that countries increasingly have the means to pay for it. The investment trust would have turned 10,000 into 31,340 over the past five years.
Two of the City's top earners are having their pay slashed as the backlash against fat-cat bonuses gains traction.

The Mail understands Bob Dudley, chief executive of BP, is set to have his pay cut by up to 40 per cent to 8million.

Yesterday, meanwhile, it was revealed that Rakesh Kapoor, boss of Reckitt Benckiser, the consumer goods giant behind Harpic and Nurofen, had seen more than 10million knocked off his earnings.

Pay cut: Bob Dudley, chief executive of BP, is set to have his pay cut by up to 40 per cent to 8m

Both chief executives had faced anger for pocketing mammoth pay deals in 2015.

Dudley was criticised when his pay shot up by 20 per cent to 14million in a year when the group ran up losses of $5.2billion, largely as a result of having to absorb the final bill for the Deepwater Horizon explosion and oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010.

BP, which has been wrestling with the issue of Dudley's pay, bonuses and pension entitlement for several months, is expected to award him 8.4million for 2016  a substantial fall.

In a further boost to investors, the BP board is expected to confirm the company's generous dividend will be maintained.

Reckitt Benckiser's Rakesh Kapoor has seen more than 10m knocked off his earnings

There has been concern its yield of 7 per cent was unsustainable.

The cost of paying the dividend is thought to be around $7billion, which the board believes is an acceptable sum to be spending on shareholders for a company that spends $15billion to $17billion a year on new exploration and production projects, and has other cash costs of around $20billion a year.

While both decisions are likely to keep investors happy, Dudley is understood to believe he has been unfairly targeted, since last year's pay was inflated by a larger-than-usual pension reward relating to his previous employment in the US.

It is thought Dudley, who was travelling when the 2015 pay report was put together, was horrified by last year's package and wished he'd had a chance to amend it before it went to the printers and was distributed.

At the time, 59 per cent of shareholders had voted against the award.

BP has also argued that Dudley was unfairly targeted, as the company has been stabilised under his management, suggesting he could not be blamed for the $63billion of losses BP he was forced to absorb as a result of the Deepwater Horizon scandal.

Kapoor faced shareholder backlash after his pay more than doubled to 25.5million in 2015 despite the firm being hit with a number of fines over corporate governance.

His 2016 pay cut was as a result of a safety scandal in South Korea that led to a boycott of Reckitt's products and a 300million compensation payout.

It claimed responsibility for 92 deaths after its steriliser product Oxy Sacsac, which was put inside humidifiers, was linked to a spate of fatal lung problems between 2001 and 2011.

The firm's annual report yesterday revealed he was paid 14.6million in 2016, did not receive a bonus and had his long-term incentive rewards reduced by half.
CANCER HOPES AstraZeneca has been granted full approval for its lung cancer drug.

The pharma firm said the US food and drug administration had given Tagrisso the go-ahead after it passed a stage-three trial.

SALES SOAR Veterinary group CVS has reported a 28.5 per cent rise in sales as it snapped up 13 surgeries.

Sales in existing practices were up 7.2 per cent, while profits soared 86.4 per cent to 8million in the six months to December 31.

NEW WAREHOUSE Lidl is opening a warehouse in Wednesbury in the West Midlands, creating 400 jobs.

The 435,000 sq ft distribution centre is the budget grocers largest in the UK, and will open in six months.

STILL STRONG Oil and gas firm Pantheon Resources said it is in a strong position to take advantage of four discoveries despite losses.

The company posted a 0.7million loss before tax in the six months to December 31, compared to a loss of 0.4millon the year before.

TOP SPEEDY Tool company Speedy Hire said it expects sales and profits to be well ahead of last year.

The firm, which announces its results on May 16, said sales are expected to be 7 per cent ahead of the previous year while profits will be well ahead.

OLYMPIC HOMES Developer Hill is joining forces with East London housing association Peabody for a 350million project to build 900 homes at Fish Island near Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, where the 2012 Games were held.

TWO HIRED Crowdfunding website Seedrs has hired Jeff Kelisky, from theme-park photography firm Picsolve, as chief operating officer, and Ricardo Brizido, who worked for online beauty marketer LIB Group, as chief technology officer.

STEADY TRADING International waste-to-product company Renewi, formerly known as Shanks, said trading for the year to date remains in line with expectations.

PENSION RELIEF The black hole in Britains private sector pension schemes has fallen by 20billion to 500billion, according to accountant PwC.
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A flat-pack home that you can build yourself could be the answer the Australia's housing affordability crisis  and will only set you back $65,000.

The country's five major metropolitan cities have been classed as 'severely unaffordable' for the past 11 years.

And the latest data shows property prices are continuing to rise  with house prices in Sydney jumping up 5.3 per cent since the start of 2017 and the median house price in the city hitting a staggering $950,000.

In a bid to help millennials struggling to enter the market, a demographic known as 'Generation Rent', Sydney architect Alexander Symes came up with a solution.

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A flat-pack home (above) could be the answer the Australia's housing affordability crisis  and will only set you back $65,000

Sydney architect Alexander Symes has come up with a solution: the world's first flat-pack, do-it-yourself housing system

He believes he's developed the missing rung in the property ladder that will allow young Australians to take the step between renting and actual home ownership.

A Big World Home is 'the world's first flat-pack, do-it-yourself housing system,' he told Domain  and all it requires to assemble is three tools and a set of instructions.

It can be ordered online for $65,000 and the 39 digitally-manufactured panels arrive flat-packed, according to the company's website.

The off-grid home can be built by two people over the course of a few days using simple tools, making another huge saving on labour.

'We have designed every component by considering its ease of assembly for even the least confident with a hammer,' the website explains.

Mr Symes (left, with friends in a Big World Home, and right) says his idea will allow young Australians to take the step between renting and actual home ownership

The housing system can be ordered online for $65,000 and the 39 digitally-manufactured panels arrive flat-packed

The home is designed to be off-grid and disconnected from power, water and waste but there are two water tanks under the floor to be used for cooking, cleaning and showering

The living room couch of the $65,000 housing system folds out to create a bed that can accommodate two people

'Each piece has been CNS (Computer Numeric Control) cut with millimetre precision which means no dangerous cutting tools are needed.

'Armed with an easy to follow assembly guide and online video material, assembling the wall panels with nothing more than a hammer, Impact driver and spanner is as easy as assembling an IKEA sofa.'

The home is designed to be off-grid and disconnected from power, water and waste.

But there are two water tanks under the floor to be used for cooking, cleaning and showering  and rainwater is collected from the roof to top up the tanks or they can be topped up manually.

The off-grid home can be built by two people over the course of a few days using simple tools and a set of instructions

'Assembling the wall panels with nothing more than a hammer, Impact driver and spanner is as easy as assembling an IKEA sofa,' the website explains

Power for lighting, fridge, a stove burner, washing machine and grill is supplied from a 1-kilowatt photovoltaic system with a battery pack that provides four days' worth of power when the sun isn't shining.

Gas bottles can provide for a further three stove burners and hot water for the shower and taps.

But the homes, although they can be moved, need a landowner who would allow small communities to settle on for short or longer term residence.

And Mr Symes is negotiating with government entities who may provide that land.

'We already had lots of private landowners chomping at the bit to help because they know there is a problem, they have land that can be used (with local council approval), and they want to help.'

Mr Symes is negotiating with government entities who may provide land to accommodate a cluster of Big World Homes
An explosive report on the controversial Christian sect known as Gloriavale has unearthed disturbing allegations of abuse, forced marriage and imprisonment.

An 18-month investigation was sparked when former Gloriavale members lifted the lid on life inside the reclusive community, based near Haupiri on New Zealand's South Island.

The report, released by government arm Charities Services and obtained by Newsroom, unveils a multitude of disturbing allegations made by 11 former members who left the sect over the past five years.

An explosive report on the controversial Christian sect known as Gloriavale has unearthed disturbing allegations of abuse, forced marriage and imprisonment

An 18-month investigation was sparked when former Gloriavale members lifted the lid on life inside the reclusive community

Five female Gloriavale defectors claimed they were the victims of sexual abuse at the hands of the same alleged offender, with suggestions a sexual predator may be lurking within the community.

Two women from outside Gloriavale also claim they were victims of sexual assault by the same alleged offender.

Gloriavale spokesman Fervent Stedfast said the sexual assault allegations and suggestion a sexual predator lived within the community were 'nonsense'.

The community (pictured), which isolates itself from the outside world, was founded by Neville Cooper, an Australian evangelist

The report unveils a multitude of disturbing allegations made by 11 former members who left the sect over the past five years. Pictured, unidentified church members sit for a meal

Five female Gloriavale defectors claimed they were the victims of sexual abuse at the hands of the same alleged offender

'The stories are getting out of hand. There's no such thing at Gloriavale. It's not the case,' he said, according the Otago Daily Times.

Gloriavale members who try to leave the sect are locked in secluded and often dilapidated rooms known as 'isolation huts', it is alleged.

'The Trust,' as the church is referred to in the report, said removing members from the community was 'simply a time for them to reflect on their actions'.

Last year, Prayer Ready, a 14-year-old girl with Down syndrome, died when she choked on a piece of beef schnitzel when she was locked in an 'isolation room'.

Last year, Prayer Ready, a 14-year-old girl with Down syndrome, died when she choked on a piece of beef schnitzel when she was locked in an 'isolation room'

Sharon Ready (right) watched on as her daughter (left) gasped for air from the confines of an isolation room

Gloriavale members who try to leave the sect are locked in secluded and often dilapidated rooms known as 'isolation huts', it is alleged

A Coroner later ruled the death a 'tragic accident' after finding that the restricted access to the isolation room had not contributed to the heartbreaking outcome.

Some of the former members allege that young men and women were forced into marriage at the demand of Gloriavale leaders, a claim the church denies.

'There was no forced marriage,' Mr Stedfast told the New Zealand Herald.

'There was no such thing as a forced marriage. No one has ever been forced to marry anybody.'

Some of the former members allege that young men and women were forced into marriage at the demand of Gloriavale leaders, a claim the church denies

A couple is seen exchanging vows at a Gloriavale ceremony. The church has denied members are forced to marry

'No one gets married unless they come and ask to be married, no one's told to be married,' a Gloriavale spokeman said

'No one gets married unless they come and ask to be married, no one's told to be married.'

Further explosive allegations include that members are exposed to terrifying physical punishment, including being beaten with weapons.

It is also claimed members are forced to work excessive hours, given no choice but to work in allocated jobs and received effectively no pay.

The report found women and girls were denied the right to do anything other than what church leaders considered 'women's work', including cleaning, cooking and looking after children.

LIFE INSIDE THE GLORIAVALE CHRISTIAN COMMUNITY Nestled on the banks of the picturesque Lake Haipuri on New Zealand's rugged West Coast, Gloriavale is a Christian community of around 500 people who follow a literal interpretation of the New Testament. The community, which isolates itself from the outside world, was founded by Neville Cooper, an Australian evangelist. Cooper moved across the Tasman in 1969 with his wife, Gloria, and their ten children to found a Christian community. As its membership swelled, in 1991 they purchased land by the scenic lake to live off. Mr Cooper - a controversial figure who spent almost a year in prison on sex abuse charges in 1995 - would later change his name to 'Hopeful Christian'. Fleur Beale, the author of the Gloriavale book Sins of the Father, said the most striking thing about Gloriavale was the 'control those in power' - a group of elders - 'had over the ordinary people.'' 'The women, particularly - it would be miserable to be a woman in Gloriavale,' Ms Beale told Daily Mail Australia in 2015. Birth control is non-existent. 'God wants you to get married and have as many children as you can. That's why they have big families.' Residents are required to wear a uniform. Women generally frock up in long, blue dresses - 'every single day', a former resident named Miracle previously told Daily Mail Australia. Meanwhile, men wear neckties, dark blue pants and a light blue sleeved shirt. The community consists of more than 90 families, according to Gloriavale's official website, and they live together in large, communal hostels. Advertisement

In footage shot years earlier, a couple embraces while being carried to a consummation room where they are expected to lose their virginities

It is also claimed members are forced to work excessive hours, given no choice but to work in allocated jobs and received effectively no pay

The report found women and girls were denied the right to do anything other than what church leaders considered 'women's work', including cleaning, cooking and looking after children

In a bizarre community justice system, a member who is found to have breached community rules is subjected to a 'servants and shepherds' meeting, according to the report.

At this meeting, former members alleged the servants and shepherds would shout insults and accuse them of the breaches of the rules.

It is claimed that youth as young as 13 are subjected to the meetings.

Former members have also alleged that once they leave the Gloriavale Community they are denied all contact with their family or access to the community.

Members who are found to have breached community rules are subjected to a 'servants and shepherds' meeting, according to the report. Pictured, two members pray at a service

Women generally frock up in long, blue dresses - 'every single day', a former resident named Miracle previously told Daily Mail Australia

Former members have also alleged that once they leave the Gloriavale Community they are denied all contact with their family or access to the community

As a result of the investigation, Charities Services issued a list of 18 actions the church must take, but did not issue an official warning.

The sect must submit and implement a written policy on sexual and physical abuse complaints, abolish the use of the isolation for punishment and make it easier for former members to reconnect with their family.

But the Mr Steadfast told 1 News the church was not concerned.

Neville Cooper, who legally changed his name to Hopeful Christian, is the founder of Gloriavale. He was convicted of the indecent assault of three women aged 12-19 in the 1990s

As a result of the investigation, Charities Services issued a list of 18 actions the church must take, but did not issue an official warning

The Gloriavale community is based near Haupiri on New Zealand's South Island

'We don't have to make changes. They are happy with what we are doing and we are working together in a positive, happy relationship,' he said in a phone interview.

Massey University religion expert Peter Lineham told Stuff he believed Charities Services was 'a bit soft' in its conclusion.

'I was really surprised by the conclusion because surely with all that's been revealed and stated there would have been an official warning issued.

'I was really surprised at the letting them off the hook that has happened. That there was no even minor repercussions, I think it is a bit soft.'

A police investigation into the allegations is ongoing.
A young woman found dead is thought to be the fifth student from her university to die since the start of the academic year.

Elsa Scaburri was found at Knowle Farm in Bowerchalke, Wiltshire on March 20.

The 21-year-old was halfway through a year abroad as part of her French and Italian degree at the University of Bristol.

Ms Scaburri's death is the fifth suspected suicide at the University of Bristol since September.

Elsa Scaburri was found dead at Knowle Farm in Bowerchalke, Wiltshire on March 20

An inquest heard Ms Scaburri, who lived in nearby Road Chalke, Wiltshire, was confirmed dead at the scene by emergency services.

A woman at Knowle Farm yesterday said: 'It was here - she was a lovely girl - we knew her.'

Wiltshire Police stressed her death was not being treated as suspicious.

Ms Scaburri's grief stricken mother Belinda declined to talk about what had happened when approached at the family home.

But the 'closely knit' community has been left devastated by the tragedy.

Neighbour Jean Elton, 83, said: 'It has upset us all terribly.

'We are all very shocked.

'She was lovely - she was a lovely girl. She was bright and outward going.'

Vice chairman of Broad Chalke Parish Council Robert Hitchings, added: 'The village is devastated by this news - we are a very close knit community.

'We are feeling it deeply.

'We are all very sad. It is such a waste.

'It is very sad when something like this happens.'

Angus Mann who runs the farm was struck by tragedy some 13 years ago when his son Toby was killed in Argentina after falling more than 150 feet down a lift shaft that had a faulty safety door.

The University of Bristol, which is ranked 24th in the country, said in February - after Lara Nosiru's death - that the tragedies were not believed to be connected and a review into student mental health issues was underway.

The 21-year-old was halfway through a year abroad as part of her French and Italian degree at the University of Bristol

In a statement the University of Bristol said: 'We understand from her family Elsa took her own life although it will be a matter for the Coroner to determine the cause of death.

'The University offers its condolences to her family and friends and our thoughts are with them at this very sad time.

'The welfare of our students and staff continues to be our highest priority and it is distressing for all our members of the university community that one of our students has died.

'In the context of increasing national concerns about student mental health we have been working with our staff and students to review how best to support all students including those with enduring mental health difficulties.'

Ms Scaburri's inquest was adjourned to a later date.

For confidential support call the Samaritans on 116123 or go to www.samaritans.org
AN 86-year-old jewel thief has pleaded guilty to shoplifting a $2,000 necklace but avoided prison and was instead sentenced to house arrest.

Doris Payne - whose criminal career dates back 63 years - was charged with the felony after being arrested in December at a mall just outside Atlanta.

She was spotted putting the necklace in her back pocket and trying to leave a Von Maur department store.

Once a thief, always a thief? Doris Payne's most recent mugshot in Atlanta (right) shows the march of time on the face of the young shoplifter arrested in Cleveland in 1965 (left)

Payne's career as a jewel thief has long fascinated the public and media, with countless news stories and a 2013 documentary film, The Life and Crimes of Doris Payne, detailing her feats.

WXIA-TV reports that Payne entered the plea on Wednesday and was sentenced by a DeKalb County Superior Court judge to serve four months of house arrest and three years of probation. A 30-day jail sentence was reduced to time already served.

The judge also banned Payne from entering all Von Maur stores and shopping malls in DeKalb County.

11Alive.com reported that her attorney Drew Findling told the court: 'Clearly, at 86 years old, she is combating a number of medical issues.'

Payne's attorney Matthew Pond said: 'Clearly, at 86 years old, she is combating a number of medical issues'

Findling said he was representing her on a pro bono basis and added: 'She has been nothing but lovely, respectful, attentive to every conversation and appreciative for everything done to her. She is clearly eloquent and clearly grateful.'

Payne is well known in the jewelry world. Authorities say she has stolen jewels from stores around the world in a criminal career spanning six decades.

Matthew Pond, who co-directed the documentary about her, said Payne loved the attention and adrenaline rush, said: 'She likes playing the part and getting into the role. She's a bit of an actress.'

When asked about her exploits in an interview last year, she said simply: 'I was a thief.'

Doris Payne (pictured) is a notorious jewel thief who has convictions dating back to 1952

Born to a coal mining father and a seamstress mother in the remote and impoverished town of Slab Fork, West Virginia, in 1930, Payne was the youngest of six children.

The family later moved to Cleveland, Ohio, where Payne began her thieving career.

Aged just 23, she walked out of a Pittsburgh jewelry store with a diamond valued at $22,000.

But her career as an international jewel thief began decades ago with a criminal record dating back to 1952.

Payne (pictured) has used at least 22 aliases over the years and has served several stints in jail

Crime doesn't pay: Payne (pictured, left, in 1965, and right, last year) has amassed little or no assets during her long career as a thief

Since then she has stolen hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of jewelry including her most notable theft - a 10-carat diamond ring, valued at $500,000, from Monte Carlo in the 1970s.

Payne fled to France, and was detained in Nice before being extradited back to Monte Carlo. She was held there for nine months before being released, as authorities were unable to locate the stolen gem.

Authorities have said she has used at least 22 aliases over the years and probably got away more often than she was caught, though she has done several stints in prison.

The Jewelers' Security Alliance, an industry trade group, sent out bulletins as early as the 1970s warning about her.

In an interview last year she said: 'I don't dictate what happens when I walk in the store. The people in charge dictate what happens with me when I walk in the store.

'I don't tell a person in the store I want to see something that costs $10,000. They make those decisions based on how I present myself and how I look.'

She has six convictions, mostly in southern California, dating back to 1999.

In the documentary she said: 'There's never been a day that I went to steal that I did not get what I went to do.'
A 91-year-old federal judge with memory problems who was reported missing from his home earlier this week was found alive Thursday night.

Edwin Kosik was found about 100 yards from his car in a wooded area of Dunmore, outside Scranton, U.S. Marshal Martin Pane said.

Kosik, who had last been seen trying to get into a closed store and then driving away, was conscious and talking and was taken to a hospital.

'We're hopeful he will have a full recovery,' Pane said.

Judge Edwin Kosik, 91, was reported missing from his home earlier this week and was found alive Thursday night

Marty Pane, U.S. Marshal for the Middle District of Pennsylvania holds a press conference about Kosik's disappearance on Thursday

The judge, who takes medication for memory loss and stopped hearing cases last month, disappeared from his home Tuesday night, sparking an intensive search involving the U.S. Marshals Service, state police and the FBI.

Two boys found Kosik's Acura SUV around 7.30pm, saw the judge's ID in the vehicle and alerted law enforcement.

A search dog immediately picked up the scent and found the judge, who was laying on his back.

'I told him who I was, and his first statement to me was, "You cut your hair." He knew who I was,' said Pane, who works in the federal courthouse in Scranton where Kosik spent more than 30 years on the bench.

Edwin Kosik was found about 100 yards from his car in a wooded area of Dunmore, outside Scranton, Pane (pictured) said

Kosik was conscious and talking and was taken to a hospital, according to Pane

Kosik, who sent two corrupt judges to prison for their roles in a notorious juvenile justice scandal known as 'kids for cash', was last seen just after 11pm Tuesday trying to enter a grocery store pharmacy near his home outside Scranton.

The store was closed, and Kosik drove in the opposite direction from his house, Pane said. He left his wallet and phone at home.

Electronic highway signs flashed news of the judge's disappearance, and officials asked for the public's help in finding him.

State police searched the area via helicopter but had found no immediate trace of Kosik's gray SUV.

Pennsylvania State Police Captain Christopher Paris answers questions on Thursday

Senior U.S. District Judge Edwin M. Kosik congratulates a newly appointed judge at the U.S. Courthouse in Scranton in 2012

State police searched via helicopter but had found no immediate trace of Kosik's gray SUV

Chief Judge Christopher C. Conner had issued a statement saying the court was 'obviously very worried about our dear colleague' and was 'hoping for a quick and safe return'.

Kosik, appointed to the federal bench in 1986 by President Ronald Reagan, is best known for imprisoning the corrupt judges in the 'kids for cash' scandal.

The local judges, who were accused of taking money from the developer of a pair of for-profit youth detention centers, initially pleaded guilty to federal charges, but Kosik rejected the deal, saying they hadn't fully accepted responsibility for the crimes.

Kosik sentenced one judge to 17 1/2 years in prison and the other judge to 28 years.

Kosik's family reported him missing around 4pm Wednesday.
A British woman backpacking across Australia has revealed the horrors of fruit-picking on farms where she was forced to work in a desperate attempt to extend her working visa.

Rachael Cooper, 22, had been travelling the east coast of Australia with her boyfriend Ben finding work to complete 88 days of labour to spend another year Down Under.

In a blog post penned by Ms Cooper, she describes choosing the farm as 'two weeks of hell... the worst mistake we could have made' and has slammed the 'sexist' and 'hellish' mandatory labour.

Rachael Cooper, 22, (pictured, left) completed the mandatory farm work with her boyfriend

The UK native had struggled to find decent work during her six months in Australia but finally found jobs on a farm in Hillston, NSW and in Mildura, Victoria.

Ms Cooper and her friends were made to pay $140 bonds before even starting manual labour in Hillston and were so short on cash and desperate for work that they borrowed money from families and friends.

'We were all reluctant to pay, but being short on cash we all paid it as well as a week worth of rent,' Miss Cooper said.

'By this point we were all panicking because we had to borrow money from friends and family. Feeling very low at this point we got into our room and just tried to stay positive as we were starting work tomorrow.'

The trio set off at 5am to begin fruit picking, but minutes into the job Ms Cooper noticed hundreds of spiders dangling from the trees as she tried to pick the fruit.

The British backpacker had been travelling across Australia for six months and wanted to extend her time Down Under

Ms Cooper shared her 'horror story' in a blog post and re-posted it to a Facebook group for backpackers in Australia

Ms Cooper said she could barely complete the farm work as bugs were eating her flesh and the labour had become unbearable.

'I lasted three hours because I had a breakdown and started crying and gave up. At this point my legs were covered in mosquito bites and there were flies all over me,' she said.

'I was a broken woman so I joined Lynchy in the car and we thought about our next move.'

Between the three backpackers they had earned only $35 each - which was barely enough for a night's rent at the Hillston farm.

The trio scrounged together enough cash to stay at another hostel and then headed towards Mildura, north west Victoria.

Ms Cooper said she completed a full day of work taping buds onto stems where she was paid per hour, but the farm owner said all work after that would be paid at 35c per piece.

The keen traveller is now based in Cairns, North Queensland after her 88 days of fruit-picking

'Avoid Hillston and Mildura at all costs': Ms Cooper has slammed the farms in NSW and Victoria for sexism

'We lasted two days and earned $120 which compared to the fruit picking wasnt that bad but we were working 40 degree heat with no shade and earning 35c per tree,' she said.

'We managed to do 1200 trees in that time. The hostel manager then said that he still didn't have any work for us so decided to leave.'

They then travelled back up to stay in Curlwaa, NSW where Ms Cooper found work at another farm in Mildura, paid only $40 per day with five other women for six hours work.

'This is where it gets sexist,' Ms Cooper said.

Her boyfriend was put on a farm earning $22 per hour - meaning he could work less than two hours and still earn more than his female companion.

'The work that was offered to me was always piece rate which you just cant earn any money from doing and I had rent and food to pay for and I didnt want to rely on my boyfriend,' she said.

'He was offered various jobs that were all hourly paid at least $20 or more. I know women are not always as capable as men to do various jobs but these farmers were not even willing to give the girls a go.

'Which is disgusting. Im fit and strong and more than capable to do anything my boyfriend can do'.

'It proves women can do jobs just as good as men': Ms Cooper was shocked to find she was earning far less than her boyfriend

After a week Ms Cooper decided to leave that place too, and has warned other backpackers to avoid farms in Hillston and Mildura where the work is 'sexist' and the stay is 'horrible'.

She said: 'Although some of the clients don't want girls working for them I push and say to them "just give me a go if you dont think I can do the work send me home", so they give me a trial and to this day I have never been sent home from a job.'

Which just proves women can do jobs just as good as men.'

Ms Cooper shared her 'horror story' onto the Facebook group Australia Backpackers where some members responded negatively.

One person wrote: 'I've been in Mildura. I read your story, and I would say that you could have had a LITTLE bit more patience. I feel like you almost quitted [sic] a job ASAP without even trying. '

Another said: 'So you were shocked that you were in a hot country, weren't given 5 star accommodation, and actually had to work hard for your money? Who told you farm work was easy?'

As the current Australian government scheme stands, working holidaymakers Down Under must complete 88 days of manual work before receiving a second year extension on visas

But other backpackers who had shared similar experiences defended Ms Cooper and slammed the Australian government's farm work scheme for visa holders.

'There are so many more options for a second year visa than doing farmwork! Don't buy into the crowd,' one member wrote.

Another person said: 'Just about to leave Mildura! This place is honestly the worst. There is just no guarantee with farm work and the farmers can get away with treating backpackers like sh*t! It's just a mess. I'm glad you're having better luck now.'

As the current Australian scheme stands, working holidaymakers Down Under must complete 88 days of manual work before receiving a second year extension on visas.

To be eligible for this, backpackers must be aged between 18 and 30 and be willing to complete work such as plant and animal cultivation, fishing and pearling, tree farming and felling or mining and construction.
An album containing this ultra-rare photograph of Harriet Tubman was sold for $160,000

An album containing a rare photograph of 19th century abolitionist and Underground Railroad heroine Harriet Tubman was sold at auction yesterday for $161,000.

Maryland-born Tubman, an escaped slave, helped scores of other slaves escape the South by guiding them north on the Underground Railroad.

She served as a spy during the Civil War. Afterward, she settled in Finger Lakes region near Auburn, New York.

The picture shows her seated on a chair and was taken in Auburn in 1868 or 1869. She was in her late 40s at the time and may be the earliest photograph taken of her.

Swann Galleries in New York said the bid for the album far exceeded the pre-sale estimate of $25,000.

The album was sold during an auction of books, other printed materials and photos from the slavery and abolition eras.

The Harriet Tubman national historic site in Auburn launched a crowdfunding campaign to bid on the photograph.

It raised more than $27,000 for its 'Bring Harriet Home' online fundraising campaign.

Organizers had hoped to buy the photo at the auction and return it to Auburn, where Tubman's former home recently became part of the national parks system. She died in Auburn in 1913 and is buried there.

But they were outbid by Lion Heart Autographs, a Manhattan-based dealer, who purchased the image as part of the album for $130,000, plus the auctioneer's fee of $31,000.

The album also includes portraits of contemporary abolitionists and politicians, including John Willis Menard, the first African-American elected to Congress.
The eldest son of Henrietta Lacks, the woman whose 'immortal' cancer cells were the source of one of the most important cell lines in medical research, has told how he feels 'used' by Oprah Winfrey, who is set to star in an HBO biopic of his mother's life.

Lawrence Lacks told DailyMail.com: 'I feel like I've been used by Oprah and that nobody has been honest with me.

'Nobody asked me anything. I was 17 when my mother died. I'm the only one in the family who really has a memory of her but nobody came to me.'

Lawrence, 82, was speaking to DailyMail.com at his home in Baltimore before the release of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks and as it emerged that the family are divided over the project.

Immortal: Henrietta Lacks died in 1951 and cancer cells taken from her without her or her family's consent became key to huge areas of medical research. Her son Lawrence, who cared for her before her death, says HBO and Oprah Winfrey have 'used' him and other family members

Biopic: Oprah Winfrey plays Henrietta's daughter Deborah Lacks and Rose Byrne plays Rebecca Skloot, whose 2010 bestseller The Immortal Life Of Henrietta Lacks forms the basis for the upcoming HBO movie

The movie, to be released on April 22, is based in the 2010 book of the same name, by science author Rebecca Skloot.

Oprah will play Henrietta's daughter, Deborah, who died in 2009, while Hamilton star Renee Elise Goldsberry plays Henrietta herself in a series of flashbacks, and Rose Byrne plays Skloot.

Both Lawrence and Ron maintain that the work on which the movie is based gives an inaccurate depiction of Henrietta, whose cells were taken without her permission when she was being treated for cervical cancer at Johns Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore, and after her death.

Henrietta's cancer killed the mother of five in 1951 when she was just 31.

In a bitter irony the very thing that rendered her cancer fatal, its aggressive growth, made her cells 'immortal' as researchers found that the so-called HeLa cell line not only survived in laboratory conditions but reproduced at a phenomenal rate.

The original sample doubled in just 24 hours.

They became the first immortal cells ever grown in a laboratory and the HeLa line has been used for research into myriad ailments including the causes of cancer, Parkinson's disease, appendicitis, sexually transmitted diseases, hemophilia and influenza. It played a part in the creation of the Polio vaccine.

Today her cells have lived many times longer outside her body than they ever did in it.

Family: From left Ron Lacks, his mother Bobbette, brother Lawrence Jr, father Lawrence and sister LaDonna in a picture taken around 1975 - the year they discovered about the HeLa cells.

Remembered: This is the plaque on the house where Henrietta Lacks lived until her death in 1951. Now an HBO movie will tell her story - but has split her family

Point of difficulty: This is the section of the contract which Lawrence Lacks and his son Ron see as essentially signing away their rights to speak about Henrietta Lacks. HBO says other members of the family have signed the contract.

But according to her family the original sample and further ones taken during an autopsy were procured without her consent and then with the express refusal of her late husband, David 'Day' Lacks.

According to Ron: 'It seems like everybody who comes into contact with our family takes advantage of them. We call it the Johns Hopkins virus.'

Now both he and his father feel that Oprah and HBO have only compounded the disservice they feel that Skloot and Johns Hopkins Hospital have inflicted upon Henrietta, her family and her memory.

Both Lawrence and his son Ron, 58, refused to sign a consultancy agreement with HBO which placed restrictions in return for a fee and their involvement in the project, seeing it as punitive.

Now the men say they have been carved out of their own family history.

According to Lawrence: 'Oprah's making money, HBO's making money, Johns Hopkins is making money, pharmaceutical companies is making money but my wife had a stroke and my son has to care for her at home because they kicked her out of hospital when her insurance ran out and I'm excluded because I wouldn't sign away my rights to talk about my mother.

'If I had signed what they wanted me to I wouldn't have been able to call my mother's name in public without Oprah or HBO saying so.'

DailyMail.com obtained a copy of the contract offered to Lacks family members from a family source after Lawrence declined to share the one offered to him personally.

The contract required family members to give up all rights to any 'ideas, suggestions, themes, plots, stories, characterizations, dialogues, titles and other material' that they might contribute in their role as a consultant on the project.

It also required them to sign over all rights to Henrietta's life story and their own as far as it related to her in return for $16,666.67.

History: This was the consent form which gave the go-ahead to surgery for Henrietta Lacks. As well as being the gateway which led to her cells becoming a key part of medical research, it shows the cursive handwriting which her grandson Ron says is proof of inaccuracy in the book about her which forms the basis of the HBO biopic

Renowned: Johns Hopkins, where Henrietta Lacks was treated, is one of the world's most prestigious medical research facilities. But her son Lawrence said that at the time of her death, black people feared how they were treated by it

Fifty percent of that sum was to be paid on signing and the balance paid on the completion of his consultancy services.

His son Ron, who is supporting his father's stance described it as 'an insult.' He said: 'This is history and at least it will show that we took a stand even if we never get a dime.'

It is not the first time that Lawrence has refused to sign away his rights in return for cash.

According to Ron, HBO offered his father a similar deal back in 2011 which would have seen $50,000 split between him and his two brothers. He declined.

It was Lawrence's wife, Bobbette, 78, who first discovered that Henrietta's cells were being used for research purposes after a chance meeting in 1975.

Ron recalled: 'My mother was having a luncheon with a neighbor and this doctor friend of hers and so she introduced my mother and said, "This is Bobbette Lacks."

'And he said that he was working with some cells from a Henrietta Lacks, HeLa cells and she said, "That's my husband's mother."

Meeting: Ron Lacks and his wife Hope met with Oprah Winfrey over lunch at the Four Seasons, Baltimore in August last year to talk about the HBO adaptation. But he says it was not enough time for her to understand their family

Author: Science writer Rebecca Skloot's 2011 book is the basis for the movie.

'So she told my father and my father got in touch with an attorney because they weren't supposed to do an autopsy on her at all.

'We started to do some investigation into what's going on but they [Johns Hopkins] wouldn't give us anything no matter how hard we tried. I think they was just trying to cover it up.

'A lot of people back then, because it was coming from a black woman, might not have wanted to use the cells. They barely wanted to drink out of the same cup as a black person back then.'

According to Ron the prevailing view held by doctors at the time of his grandmother's illness and death was, 'we didn't need permission from Negros.'

In sharp contrast to the treatment his family received when they tried to find out just what had happened to Henrietta, Ron claimed, that when scientific writer Rebecca Skloot began her researches Johns Hopkins Hospital gave her every bit of information there was.

And the way Lawrence and Ron see it Henrietta was used and used again as, they insist, that Skloot's portrayal of her as poorly educated and from a family was religious to the point of believing in voodoo is both inaccurate and offensive.

According to Ron: 'You'd think people would do a better story for this young lady who helped so many people. My family feels strongly about that.

'She's [Skloot] kind of trashing Henrietta too.

'She was a classy lady, she wasn't poor, she could read and write. She liked the movie star glamour that's why she always painted her nails red.

'Skloot says my father worked for the railroad. But he was an engineer - he drove the train. You know some people read that book, they think we live in a shack.'

Lawrence remembered: 'She was very educated. She helped me with all my schoolwork. She was kind. She helped people.

'When our family migrated from Clover, Virginia or North Carolina here to Baltimore they would come through our house and they stayed there till they got a job and left. She helped everybody.'

Ron also took issue with the book's depiction of Henrietta's husband, his grandfather, David 'Day' Lacks who is, he said, 'portrayed as the villain of the piece.'

Skloot depicts him as a frequently giving his young wife STDs - citing medical records as evidence.

But according to Ron: 'Day loved Henrietta. His young wife passed away when he was still a young man himself.

HBO RESPONDS TO LAWRENCE LACKS' CLAIMS In a statement to DailyMail.com, HBO said: 'The filmmakers have taken great care to accurately and sensitively tell the story of Henrietta Lacks through the eyes of her daughter, Deborah. 'We operated with full transparency, and are pleased to have worked closely with five members of Henrietta's family who are serving as paid consultants on the film, including two of Henrietta's sons and three of her grandchildren. 'In an effort to secure Lawrence Lacks' input, HBO and the filmmakers offered him the opportunity to read the script, to become a consultant, and, ultimately, to view the film. 'Mr. Lacks, through his representatives, declined each offer. Both HBO and Oprah Winfrey have made separate donations honoring the legacy of Henrietta Lacks.' Advertisement

'They didn't have time to really enjoy life because she died so young. But the time he did have with her he cherished and enjoyed because he knew he had a prize in Henrietta.

'Everybody wanted to dance with Henrietta, everybody wanted to be with her. That's what he would say. He loved her. But you read the book you get something different.'

And both Lawrence and Ron dismissed as apocryphal an account given to Skloot by microbiologist Laure Aurelian who worked with scientist George Gey - the man who cultured the HeLa cells - in which it was claimed that he visited Henrietta at her deathbed.

In Skloot's account Aurelian told her: 'I'll never forget it. George told me he leaned over Henrietta's bed and said, "Your cells will make you immortal."

'He told Henrietta her cells could help save the lives of countless people and she smiled. She told him she was glad her pain would come to some good for someone.'

But according to Ron his grandmother was terrified of being treated at Johns Hopkins for the very fact that rumors abounded within the black community of African Americans being used as research guinea pigs without consent.

He said: 'In East Baltimore people were scared of Johns Hopkins. They were scared to walk past Johns Hopkins at night.

'Daytime it was okay but at night they were scared because of all the research that Johns Hopkins used to do and there was rumors of people coming up missing that walked past Johns Hopkins.

THE LACKS FAMILY'S SAD SPLIT Other members of the Lacks family issued a statement through the publishers of Skloots book. The ten include two of Lawrence's younger brothers, David and Zakariyya. 'We support Rebecca Skloots meticulously researched and award-winning book, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. We will continue to support the book, the forthcoming HBO film, and speaking opportunities for our family. 'The Lacks family is a large and diverse group whose members have distinct opinions, but we are all entitled to speak publicly about our familys legacy and our individual experiences. AND AUTHOR'S PUBLISHER STANDS BY HER TOO Crown Publishing, who published Rebecca Skloots book described the work as a, 'meticulously researched and reported work of independent journalism that we have been proud to publish'. They stated that Lawrence consented to be interviewed and attended meetings with Skloot and other family members during which the contents of the book were discussed at length. They added: 'The manuscript also went through an extensive fact checking process, and we fully stand behind it. Any statements made to the contrary are simply not true.' Advertisement

'People knew about that and my grandmother and grandfather said that when they took Henrietta in and they started doing all these procedures with her they didn't feel good about it.

'I'm not saying they wasn't giving her the proper care but she was fearful about being experimented on and lo and behold we get the HeLa cells.'

Now they fear that with the release of the movie on April 22 every misconception and injustice they perceive will be compounded and perpetuated as the story is bound to reach an even wider audience thanks to Oprah's involvement.

Both Lawrence and Ron attended a lunch at the Four Seasons in Baltimore last August where they met the star and the movie's director-producer George C Wolfe.

Ron said: 'Her and George stated, "Hey we're not going solely on the book, we're doing our own version", and the family were pleased with that. But that's not how it went down.

'They came here to meet us and they spent a couple of hours. Not a lot of time. Not enough to get to know a family, our culture and what have you.'

Lawrence, a softly spoken, genial man has never read the book of his mother's life and does not want to, knowing as he does that he played no part in it.

But he said that he does intend to watch the movie and insisted that he does not feel anger towards the family members who signed the HBO contract that he refused.

'I'm quite sure they know they made a big mistake,' he said.

'I told everyone else it seemed to me like you're signing your rights away and I don't think that picture is going to do her justice.'

Lawrence alone remembers his mother's suffering during her illness. He cared for her when she was in such pain he and his father had to fill a tub with ice for her to sit in in a desperate effort to ease her discomfort.

He remembers her riding her horse in Clover, Virginia and teaching him to ride too. He remembers the apple pie she used to bake and how she loved to dance.

But, as far as he can see, nobody wants to hear his account of the woman he knew and the childhood she gave him.

According to Ron: 'It's not right to cut my father out now. He really is being excluded from a lot of things in his mother's life and it ain't right.'

Neither man denied the tremendous good that has come from the HeLa cells research and the numerous lives that Henrietta has, unwittingly, impacted for the better.

Lawrence said: 'I'm quite sure she would be proud of what the cells have done for the world but what they have done for her family is a different matter.'

THE HBO CONTRACT LAWRENCE LACKS OBJECTS TO
Activists are up in arms about a bus which has been touring New England and is heading south with the words 'boys are boys' and 'girls are girls' emblazoned on it.

Gregory Mertz, US director of CitizenGO, the group behind the 'Free Speech Bus', said they were trying to push back against laws and policies which sought to cater for transgender people.

He said: 'There's an agenda and movement that's saying it's OK for a boy to be a girl and that you can use whichever restroom you want. We think that's very harmful.'

Protesters hold signs beside the 'Free Speech Bus' during a protest in Boston yesterday

A protester throws a coffee cup at the 'Free Speech Bus' outside the City Hall in Boston

Protesters holding placards demonstrated yesterday as the large orange bus parked in front of the Massachusetts State House in Boston.

They chanted: 'No hate. No fear. Trans people are welcome here.'

The Mayor of Boston, Marty Walsh, a Democrat, raised a flag recognizing the transgender community after the bus briefly stopped in front of City Hall.

The text written on the side of the bus reads: 'It's Biology: Boys are boys and always will be. Girls are girls and always will be. You can't change sex. Respect for all.'

The bus also stopped by Harvard University in nearby Cambridge, before heading south, making stops in New Haven, Connecticut, Philadelphia and Baltimore before arriving in Washington, DC on Monday.

The campaign was launched in Spain earlier this month with a more direct message that, in Spanish, reads: 'Boys have penises, girls have vulvas. Do not be fooled. If you are born a man, you are a man. If you are a woman, you will continue to be one.'

The Mayor of Boston, Marty Walsh (left), watches his deputy director of scheduling Alex Zafris, who is transgender, raise a flag supporting the transgender community

Joseph Grabowski, a spokesman for the National Organization for Marriage, who is one of those touring with the bus, said it was a 'biological reality' that humans were 'binary, sexually complementary creatures'.

Michelle Tat, a transgender woman from Boston, said it was a dangerously simplistic message: 'It assumes that our identities are the sum of what's between our legs.

'I'd argue that it's more about our lived experiences and our genders. Biology gives us what we are born with, but it doesn't make us who we are.'

The bus message may appear benign, but it only serves to fuel rising hatred and violence toward the lesbian, gay, bi-sexual and transgender community, said Mason Dunn, executive director of the Massachusetts Transgender Political Coalition, which helped coordinate Thursday's protests.

Protesters, right, hold signs beside the 'Free Speech Bus,' painted with the words 'boys are boys' and 'girls are girls,' parked up in Boston

Protesters trying to block the movement of the 'Free Speech Bus,' are escorted out of the way by police outside the Statehouse in Boston

'Words, in this setting, are violence,' he said. 'We're concerned about the health and wellness of our community.'

Grabowski said there was nothing inherently violent about the bus's message.

'People have the right to live their lives the way they want,' he said. 'But they don't have the right to impose their values and beliefs on others, which is unfortunately what a lot of sexual orientation and gender identity non-discrimination laws do.'

That campaign was in response to pro-transgender posters in Spain that depicted four naked children - including a boy with female genitalia and a girl with a male sex organ - holding hands. Underneath the image was a phrase in Spanish that read: 'There are girls with penises and boys with vaginas. It's that simple.'

The US tour initially launched in New York City last week, but the bus was taken out of commission after it was vandalized outside the United Nations building.

Bus organizers say they won't be holding press conferences, rallies or confronting counter protesters as they stop in front of government buildings and colleges, largely because of that New York incident.

'We're calling for a healthier conversation. Let people be respected and heard,' Grabowski said. 'A lot of people are afraid to speak out. We want them to be able to stand up and know that we've got their backs.'

Boston Mayor Marty Walsh, left, hugs his deputy director of scheduling Alex Zafris, who is transgender, before they raised a flag to support the transgender community
President Trump's senior adviser Steve Bannon will not face charges related to his registration to vote in Miami despite spending most of his time elsewhere, Florida prosecutors announced Thursday.

The Miami-Dade County State Attorney's Office concluded in a memo that there was not enough evidence to prove any crime.

Bannon registered to vote in the county on April 2, 2014 after leasing the first of two houses in Miami's Coconut Grove neighborhood, then switched his registration to the Sarasota area last year.

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White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon won't be charged with any kind of crime Florida officials said today, as his voter registration and Florida residency was in question

Steve Bannon (left), walking on Capitol Hill alongside Chief of Staff Reince Priebus (right), was registered to vote using the address of a rental home occupied by his ex-wife, but never voted in Miami-Date County

Bannon never voted in Miami-Dade County, the prosecutors said.

They also said there was insufficient evidence to prove Bannon falsely claimed to reside in Florida on a voter registration form, which is a felony.

The memo says the amount of time a person spends at a given address is not proof alone of residence.

Bannon spent much time while registered to vote in Florida in other states, most notably California and New York.

'Especially in our increasingly mobile society, a person may spend the majority of his or her nights at one (or multiple) locations, but legally reside at another under Florida law,' the memo says. 'The old adage of "where you lay your head is home" is only part of the residency analysis.'

Lawyers for Bannon didn't immediately respond to emails seeking comment.

But in the memo, attorneys Thomas Scott and Ed Pozzuoli were quoted as telling investigators they had reviewed the matter and found 'no actionable conduct' by Bannon.

The investigation by the prosecutor's Public Corruption Unit found that Bannon first leased a home in Coconut Grove in April 2014 along with his ex-wife, Diane Clohesy.

Clohesy told prosecutors that Bannon did stay in the house from time to time between 2014 and 2016.

This home was the second that Steve Bannon rented in the Miami area, which was predominantly used by his ex-wife

Bannon's office paid the rent and records also showed his name was on the lease and on another lease for a separate home in the same area, which he rented in January 2015.

Bannon also took out accounts with utilities in his name for those residences.

Miami political consultant A.J. Delgado told investigators she met with Bannon at the first home and saw 'boxes, papers and effects in the house that indicated to her that (he) was living at the house.'

Delgado also said Bannon referred to the place as 'my house.'

Bannon also had an active California driver's license, the investigation revealed, but the address had not been updated since March 2013.

Bannon also was linked to several other properties in New York and California but none were listed as his main residence for tax reasons, the memo says.

To prove a violation, prosecutors concluded they would have to prove Bannon did not intend to live in Miami-Dade County when he originally registered to vote in 2014.

'The investigation did not uncover sufficient evidence to do so,' they wrote.
Israel's security cabinet on Thursday approved the building of the first new settlement in the occupied West Bank in nearly two decades, even as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu negotiates with Washington on a possible curb on settlement activity.

The unanimous vote in favor of construction of the new settlement in an area called Emek Shilo came after Netanyahu earlier told reporters: 'I made a promise that we would establish a new settlement ... We will keep it today.'

The result of the vote was announced in a government statement.

Palestinian officials swiftly condemned the move.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's (pictured) cabinet on Thursday approved the building of the first new settlement in the occupied West Bank in nearly two decades

'Today's announcement once again proves that Israel is more committed to appeasing its illegal settler population than to abiding by the requirements for stability and a just peace,' said Hanan Ashrawi, an executive committee member of the Palestine Liberation Organization.

There was no immediate reaction from US President Donald Trump's administration, which is in discussions with Israel on limiting the construction of settlements on land Palestinians seek for a state.

Such settlements, in territory that Israel captured in the 1967 Middle East war, are deemed illegal by most of the world.

Israel cites biblical, historical and political links to the land, as well as security interests, to defend its actions.

Netanyahu first promised the new settlement at Emek Shilo in February, shortly before 42 Israeli families were evicted from another West Bank settlement called Amona

Netanyahu first promised the new settlement at Emek Shilo in February, shortly before 42 Israeli families were evicted from another West Bank settlement called Amona.

Their houses were razed after Israel's Supreme Court said they were built illegally on privately owned Palestinian land.

Israeli settlers have built on West Bank land they say is not under private ownership or for which no owner had come forward with land deeds, Newsweek reports.

Establishing a new settlement may be a way for Netanyahu to appease far-right members of his coalition government who are likely to object to any concessions to US demands for restraints on building.

Israeli political sources, however, said the new construction would actually take place within the boundaries of an existing settlement.

The new community would then be declared its own settlement, a nuance that might be enough to stave off possible US opposition to the move.

Trump, who had been widely seen in Israel as sympathetic towards settlements, appeared to surprise Netanyahu during a White House visit last month when he urged him to 'hold back on settlements for a little bit'.

President Donald Trump (right) surprised Netanyahu (left) during a White House visit last month when he urged him to 'hold back on settlements for a little bit'

The two then agreed that their aides would try to work out a compromise on how much Israel can build and where.

Trump's Middle East envoy, Jason Greenblatt, this week wrapped up a second trip to the region aimed at reviving Middle East peace talks that collapsed in 2014.

A new settlement would be the first built in the West Bank since 1999.

Until construction is complete, a temporary complex will be placed on the site, reports Haaretz.

About 400,000 Israeli settlers live in the West Bank, which is also home to 2.8million Palestinians. Another 200,000 Israelis live in East Jerusalem.

Palestinians want the West Bank and East Jerusalem for their own state, along with the Gaza Strip.

Trump's Middle East envoy, Jason Greenblatt (pictured), this week wrapped up a second trip to the region aimed at reviving Middle East peace talks that collapsed in 2014

Settlement construction was a contentious area of disagreement under the Obama administration, when the White House sided with the Palestinians and the international community in condemning it as an obstacle to peace.

In December, then-President Obama allowed the UN Security Council to pass a resolution declaring settlements illegal.

After repeatedly clashing with Obama, Netanyahu is optimistic about a new era of relations with Trump, who harshly criticized the UN resolution.

Trump has signaled a far more sympathetic approach to the settlements, raising hopes in Netanyahu's government that it will be able to step up construction.

But after Netanyahu announced plans to build the settlement during Trump's first two weeks in office, the White House signaled that it too may have its limits.

Prefabricated houses are removed in February from the Israeli Amona outpost in West Bank

'While we don't believe the existence of settlements is an impediment to peace, the construction of new settlements or the expansion of existing settlements beyond their current borders may not be helpful in achieving that goal,' the White House said.

Trump has not outlined a vision for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, although he has said he'd be keen to broker a peace deal. His election platform made no mention of a Palestinian state.

His pledge to move the US Embassy from coastal Tel Aviv to Jerusalem is vehemently opposed by the Palestinians. But since taking office, the White House has been vague about its plans for the embassy.
A clumsy owl has miraculously survived after careering into a huge truck and getting trapped between the cab and the hold.

Will Sword and Tyler Buckley thought their vehicle had hit a tree when they heard a loud bang while travelling from Massachusetts to New Hampshire.

When they got out to investigate, the baffled truckers spotted the panicked male owl flapping its wings and trying to escape.

A clumsy owl has miraculously survived after careering into a huge truck and getting trapped between the cab and the hold in Massachusetts earlier this month

'He said, "Dude, it's an owl,"' recalled Sword, who snapped a photo of the trapped bird earlier this month.

Sword rang the New Hampshire State Police, who referred him to Jane Kelly, who runs a rehabilitation and education center in Epping for birds of prey called On the Wing.

She advised him to gently remove the bird from the truck with heavy gloves to avoid the sharp talons, keep it warm with a blanket and place it in a box.

'It's absolutely a miracle that it's alive after getting hit by a truck,' said Chris McKee, a conservation officer with the New Hampshire Fish and Game Department.

He picked up the bird the next day and brought it to Kelly.

Will Sword and Tyler Buckley - whose truck was hit - discovered the the panicked male owl flapping its wings and trying to escape. It miraculously suffered no broken bones and is now recovering well (pictured)

He said the owl was most likely trying to hunt for rodents along the highway when it collided with the truck.

Kelly brought the bird to Veterinary Emergency and Surgery Hospital in Brentwood to be examined.

It didn't appear to have any broken bones but did suffer head trauma in the collision and is having trouble seeing out of its right eye. Named Trucker, the bird has been recovering, eating and perching on its own.

Kelly said it should be moved this weekend to a larger enclosure and eventually be released into the wild.

'If he can fly, then we will start seeing if he can hunt on his own with live prey and hopefully get him out to where he came from in the next couple of weeks,' Kelly said.
Two South Sudanese students have said they were told by a teacher to take their braids out because they 'didn't represent the school'.

Twins Grace and Tahbisa, 16, told The Age they were pulled out of class by a teacher last week at Bentleigh Secondary College in Victoria.

Grace said: 'We were told that our hair doesn't represent the school. It was a real shock.'

Bentleigh Secondary College students Grace (left) and her sister Tahbisa (right) say they were told to remove the braids from their hair because it 'didn't represent the school'

Grace said the teacher told her and her sister that they would have to remove the braids by the weekend.

The twins are refusing to remove the braids from their hair, and have accused the school of discrimination.

'It's not a problem and it doesn't affect our education. They are asking us to look like everyone else,' Grace said.

She said that by braiding their hair it was healthier and easier to manage.

In a statement, principal Helene Hiotis told Daily Mail Australia that Bentleigh was a welcoming school and she was 'absolutely comfortable' with students expressing their cultural heritage.

The twins (pictured) are refusing to remove the braids from their hair and have accused the school of discrimination. Grace said: 'It's not a problem and it doesn't affect our education. They are asking us to look like everyone else'

'The family has been offered a school uniform exemption. We will work with them on this so the girls can wear their new braided hairstyle to school,' Ms Hiotis said.

'Our uniform policy is something the school has worked very hard on. Exemptions to the uniform policy are always available where appropriate in situations like this one.'

Daily Mail Australia has contacted the Sudanese Community Association Australia and the Department of Education and Training Victoria for a comment.
Two men have been arrested on suspicion of taking part in a shootout in a Cincinnati nightclub which left one man dead and 16 injured.

Police Chief Eliot Isaac said Deondre Davis, 29, had been arrested in hospital, where he is in a critical condition after being shot during the gun battle.

Davis and Cornell Beckley, 27, both face murder charges stemming from the incident at the Cameo club, east of downtown Cincinnati in the early hours of Sunday.

Beckley appeared in court on Friday sporting a black eye and his bail was set at $1.7m

Around 200 people were inside the club, near the Ohio River, when a dispute escalated and more than 20 shots were fired. O'Bryan Raphael Spikes, 27, was shot dead.

Charged with murder: Cornell Beckley, 27, appears in court charged with murder in the Cameo Night Club shooting which left 16 wounded and one man, O'Bryan Spikes, dead. His bond was set at $1.7 million.

Cornell Beckley (pictured, left) and Deondre Davis (right) are facing murder charges

Members of the ATF and local police work at the crime scene at the Cameo club after a fatal shooting last weekend. The club will not be reopening

Isaac said: 'It escalated with individuals being able to sneak guns inside the bar and shots being fired.'

Davis' father Jackie Davis was in the hospital watching the news on TV when he heard about someone being arrested.

He told WCPO: 'We were so excited that they had someone, and to see my son's face come across was devastating.

'I don't believe he did this. He's just not like that,' he added.

Tributes to Spikes (above) were posted by friends and family to his social media, many of whom are in shock over his death. He was a father to three young children

Mr Spikes' body is taken from the Cameo club after the shooting in the early hours of Sunday

The Cameo has been the scene of several shootings in recent years

The club's operator said it would close down for good today.

City officials say the club was the scene of violence in recent years, including a shooting inside on New Year's Day 2015 and another gunfight in the parking lot.

Police are still trying to track down witnesses who fled the scene when the bloody attack happened at the venue where hundreds had gathered for what was promoted online by the nightclub to be a 'grown and sexy night'.

Police Captain Kim Williams said: 'The biggest problem when you have a large crowd like this and the shots ring out, a lot of the witnesses disappear.'
Police are investigating a suspicious fire that destroyed an old church on Melbourne's Mornington Peninsula in the early hours of Friday morning.

Firefighters took 40 minutes to extinguish the blaze which broke out at Holy Trinity Anglican Church in Hastings at about 4am.

Police have appealed for information about the possible arson, as fire investigators attended the scene.

Police are investigating a suspicious fire that destroyed an old church on Melbourne's Mornington Peninsula in the early hours of Friday morning

Firefighters took 40 minutes to extinguish the blaze which broke out at Holy Trinity Anglican Church in Hastings at about 4am

Witnesses told police they heard an explosion before seeing the old building on fire. Police have appealed for information about the possible arson, as fire investigators attended the scene

Witnesses told police they heard an explosion before seeing the old church on fire.

The destroyed building was being used as an opportunity-shop attached to the back of a replacement Anglican church, which was unscathed.

CFA firefighter Jim Atkinson told Today the building was already engulfed by the flames by the time they arrived.

'We had to attack the building just from the outside due to the fact it was fully evolved,' he said.

The destroyed building was being used as an opportunity-shop attached to the back of a replacement Anglican church (pictured), which was unscathed.

'Once we had quelled the fire down we were then able to gain access to the building.'

The potential arson follows a pattern of church fires in Melbourne around the time of Easter.

Last year, suspicious fires at three churches in Melbourne and nearby Geelong were lit within a week in April.

This was followed by another suspicious fire at a Melbourne Orthodox church that broke out the day after Greek Easter.

A CFA spokesperson said the building remains standing and firefighters did a 'brilliant job' to stop the fire spreading to the new church.

'Internally, the building has been completely gutted but it is still standing and the roof is still on it,' she said.

The church was vacant at the time of the blaze.
Transgender customers with HSBC can now choose from ten gender neutral titles.

Those who do not identify as a Mr, Mrs, Miss or Ms will be able to choose from a range of options.

These include Mre, an abbreviation for mystery, Msr  a combination of Miss and Sir  and Ind, short for individual.

The customers chosen title will then be used by staff when speaking to them on the phone or in branch, as well as printed on bank statements and cards.

Customers at HSBC will have more choice than ever before with ten additional titles to choose from if they wish to conceal their gender

Other options include M, Myr, Mx, Sai and Ser. Misc, which stands for miscellaneous, and Pr, an abbreviation for person, can also now be used.

Although the policy is aimed at transgender people, anyone can choose one of these titles. HSBC said the titles allow people who dont identify as a particular gender, or who dont want to be identified by gender, to choose the title that works for them.

But human rights campaigner Peter Tatchell warned the array of titles risked attracting ridicule.

He said: It is commendable that HSBC is showing sensitivity and support for transgender customers but I am not sure ten different titles are necessary.

'They risk creating confusion, misunderstanding, ridicule and backlash. Mx is the emerging consensus as the preferred gender neutral title. It covers transgender and intersex people, and anyone who doesnt identify as male or female.

So I doubt whether the other nine titles are needed.

A transgender person has a gender identity which differs to the gender they were assigned by birth, Mr Tatchell said.

While some transgender people will want to use a gender neutral title, others will want to be referred to by their newly-affirmed gender. For example, a transwoman may want to be referred to as Mrs, Miss or Ms.

HSBC said the changes offer transgender customers a better, more personal banking experience.

The move follows action by other banks to be more inclusive. Metro already offers the Mx title and it was recently revealed Royal Bank of Scotland was axing mothers maiden name as a security question to be sensitive to non-traditional families.
Notorious Melbourne father known as 'Angry Dad' exploded with rage after his hair was bleached blond by his sons in a hilarious prank.

A video shows Melbourne man Mark Orval discovering his sons had lightened his hair days before his best friend's wedding.

Sons Mitchell and Dylan Orval told his hairdresser to do the prank while their father was getting grey hairs removed for the event.

Mark Orval was fuming after his hair was bleached blond by his sons

The brothers explained the stunt in the beginning of the video.

'We've got mum to book him in to get the grey hairs out of his hair, but little does he know we know the hairdresser,'' son Mitchell says.

'We've set him up to bleach it.

'Two days from now he's got his best mate's wedding, he's the best man for it.

'Sooo, he's gonna be looking like Slim Shady at his best mate's wedding.'

The video then shows the father, who is clearly angry, realising the colour of his hair inside the bathroom.

Sons Mitchell and Dylan Orval told his hairdresser to do the prank while their father was getting grey hairs removed

The father runs downstairs where his sons mock his hair colour

The father then calls the hairdresser to voice his anger, before running downstairs, where his sons say 'What's up Slim Shady?'

The father shouts at his sons then leaves the house.

The video is the latest in a YouTube channel called Angry Dad, which has many videos of the sons pranking their father.
Former Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg with pro-EU demonstrators outside Parliament

Nick Clegg was sitting on the Labour front bench in the Commons yesterday lunchtime. A defection? No. Former Lib Dem leader Clegg had gone there for a brief chat with Labours Brexit spokesman Sir Keir Starmer.

Sir Keir is An Acceptable Person. Much in the way that, say, certain brands of lavatory brush meet EU specifications, bristly-haired Sir Keir is Approved by liberal (and therefore good) people.

This house-trained, kitemarked, Brussels-compliant lawyer lives in north London and is not one of those frightening working-class agitators. Given the rumours about a new party for posh Centre-Lefties, who knows what Mr Clegg was saying to Sir Keir yesterday?

Their conversation may have been an innocent swapping of note about the Governments Great Repeal Bill, which had its White Paper launched mid-morning. But the Clegg-Starmer pow-wow may equally have been an inquiry about Sir Keirs social availability over the two-week parliamentary Easter recess, beginning today. Disenchanted metropolitan Lefties, were they so disposed, could use this fortnight to plot, SDP-style, over their supper tables. Senora Clegg, celebrated cook and castanet clacker, may be busy with her paella pot.

Plans for the Great Repeal Bill were explained by Brexit Secretary David Davis. It is not being called quite that, mind you. Hansard is referring to it as the great repeal Bill. Note the precise use of capital letters, which is significant. And Mr Daviss statement was entitled Legislating for UK Withdrawal from the EU.

Westminster clerks are baulking at bestowing the grandiose Great Repeal Bill title on what may, in practice, be little more than a bureaucratic reclassification. Clerks mistrust fancy names; they instinctively dislike flashiness. Too vulgar.

David Davis speaks about the Great Repeal Bill white paper in the House of Commons

Under Mr Daviss plan, current EU-related laws will be stretched into the post-Brexit era until, if need be, they are later altered or dumped by our politicians. Mr Davis said this would bring contractual certainty and ensure that there was no legal vacuum the instant we are out of Brussels clutches. The big principle, though, was that these laws would now be in the gift of the sovereign House of Commons rather than Eurocrats.

John Redwood (Con, Wokingham) said it should be called the Continuity Bill. Anna Soubry (Con, Broxtowe) thought the Great Transfer Bill would be better. Mark Durkan (SDLP, Foyle) suggested the Download and Save until Deleted Bill.

Julian Lewis (Con, New Forest E) thought no one could reasonably oppose the Bill. After all, Brexiteers would see it was a quick and sensible way of cracking on to full departure from the EU while giving businesses certainty.

And Remainers would be glad that EU directives were being perpetuated, at least for a while. Mr Lewis made his point fully aware, I am sure, that some Remainers will never support anything this Government suggests about Europe. Sir Keir was lowish-key in his response to Mr Davis. He voiced a few furry fears about human rights but Mr Davis, who is skilfully consensual at the despatch box, pretty much agreed with him. It was noticeable that Sir Keirs response was markedly less bitter than that of Mr Clegg and other arch-Remainers. Mr Clegg ladled sarcastic praise over Mr Davis and claimed that EU data protection laws would still rule our lives.

Nick Clegg was sitting on the Labour front bench in the Commons yesterday lunchtime. He had gone there for a brief chat with Labours Brexit spokesman Sir Keir Starmer (shown)

Mr Davis diplomatically told him he was overstating his case.

Barry Sheerman (Lab, Huddersfield) moaned about the secret agenda of the barmy-army Eurosceptics on the Tory backbenches. The SNPs Stephen Gethins hyperventilated (de rigueur for a Scots Nat) with some slogans about how were turning the clock back 40 years.

Chris Leslie (Lab, Nottingham E) had some complaint about the Governments squalid negotiating tactics. Not even Mr Leslie really looked as though he believed this and all three men merely sounded determined to be grumpy.

Though the likes of Clegg and Tony Blair proclaim their Centrism, they can not see that they are less Centrist about Brexit than Jeremy Corbyns Labour party.

Sir Keir Starmer, the official Brexit shadow, is markedly more reasonable than the manic Lib Dems.
Harrowing pictures capture a grandmother's heartbreaking reaction to the discovery that her two grandsons were killed in a shooting in Chicago.

Georgia Jackson, 72, appeared distraught upon learning that her grandsons, Raheem, 19, and Dillon Jackson, 20, were found fatally shot near Nadia Fish and Chicken, in the South Shore neighborhood.

Authorities say a man approached the restaurant and opened fire on Thursday.

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Heartbreak:Georgia Jackson, 72, is overcome with emotion upon learning that her two grandsons, Raheem, 19, and Dillon Jackson, 20, were found fatally shot near Nadia Fish and Chicken, in the South Shore neighborhood

Georgia Jackson has said: 'They were shooting at somebody, they say, inside the restaurant. My boys just got in the way, I guess'

Victim: Dillon Jackson, 20, is seen left and right in these Facebook photographs

Two men, 28-year-old Emmanuel Stokes and a 21-year-old man, were found dead from bullet wounds inside the restaurant, the Chicago Sun-Times reported.

Raheem and Dillon, who are brothers, fled on foot while shots broke out and were each shot in different parking lots nearby, according to the newspaper.

All the victims were pronounced dead at the scene. The identity of the fourth victim was withheld pending notification of family.

Georgia Jackson told the Chicago Sun-Times that her grandsons had gone to see their mother, who works at the restaurant.

People grieve after a shooting that left four people dead on Thursday in Chicago

Georgia Jackson told the Chicago Sun-Times that her grandsons had gone to see their mother, who works at the restaurant

Chicago police officers investigate the shooting which left four people dead

Raheem, 19, and Dillon Jackson, 20, were found fatally shot near Nadia Fish and Chicken, in the South Shore neighborhood

A body is covered with a white sheet as Chicago Police officers investigate the scene

The grandmother told the newspaper: 'They were shooting at somebody, they say, inside the restaurant. My boys just got in the way, I guess.'

Raheem's sister-in-law Shauna Jackson told the Chicago Sun-Times that Raheem is survived by his two sons, a one-year-old who will turn two on Sunday, and a five-month-old.

Earlier, about a mile from the restaurant, the body of 26-year-old Patrice L. Calvin was discovered in a home

Chicago police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said in a Thursday tweet: 'Incident believed to be gang related retaliation from another incident.'

'Detectives making good progress in investigation,' he tweeted.

Earlier, about a mile from the restaurant, the body of 26-year-old Patrice L. Calvin was discovered in a home.

The medical examiner's office says Calvin, who was four months pregnant, suffered a gunshot wound to the head.

She was expecting her first child, NBC Chicago reported.

Her father Aaron Calvin told the station: 'My daughter was carrying my grandchild. That's two people dead.'

The woman's brother dialed 911 when he was unable to get in touch with her, according to the NBC affiliate.

Police say no arrests have been made.

The medical examiner's office says Calvin, who was four months pregnant, suffered a gunshot wound to the head
President Donald Trump's former national security adviser Michael Flynn is reportedly willing to testify about the Trump campaign's ties to Russia in exchange for immunity from prosecution.

Flynn, who resigned as Trump's security adviser after just 24 days, has sent the request to both the FBI and the House and Senate intelligence committees, the Wall Street Journal reports.

The agencies have not yet taken Flynn up on his offer, according to officials with knowledge of the matter.

'General Flynn certainly has a story to tell, and he very much wants to tell it, should the circumstances permit,' said Flynn's attorney, Robert Kelner.

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President Donald Trump's former national security adviser Michael Flynn is reportedly willing to testify about the Trump campaign's ties to Russia in exchange for immunity

Kelner said no 'reasonable person' with legal counsel would answer questions without assurances that he would not be prosecuted, given calls from some members of Congress that the retired lieutenant general should face criminal charges.

Flynn's ties to Russia have been scrutinized by the FBI and are under investigation by the House and Senate intelligence committees. Both committees are looking into Russia's meddling in the 2016 presidential election and any ties between Trump associates and the Kremlin.

His decision comes after he told NBC's Chuck Todd last year that anyone who seeks immunity has 'probably committed a crime'.

He made the comments in relation to former Hillary Clinton staffers being granted immunity as the FBI investigated her use of her server when she was secretary of state.

'The very last thing that John Podesta (Clinton's campaign chairman) just said is no individual too big to jail, that should include people like Hillary Clinton,' he said.

'I mean, five people around her have had, have been given immunity, to include her former Chief of Staff. When you are given immunity, that means that you have probably committed a crime.'

Flynn's resignation in February came after reports emerged that he misled White House staff on his interactions with Russia and discussed sanctions with the Russian ambassador prior to the inauguration.

Since July, the FBI has been conducting a counterintelligence investigation into Russia's interference in the election and possible coordination with Trump associates.

Flynn (center), who resigned as Trump's security adviser after just 24 days, has sent the request to both the FBI and the House and Senate intelligence committees

Flynn's resignation in February came after reports emerged that he misled White House staff on his interactions with Russia and discussed sanctions with the Russian ambassador

The Justice Department had warned the Trump administration about Flynn's contacts with Russia weeks before he was forced out.

Government officials supposedly informed the White House because they were concerned Flynn could be vulnerable to blackmail by the Kremlin.

The top Democrat on the Senate intelligence committee said on Wednesday that the panel 'will get to the bottom' of Russia's interference in the 2016 election.

Sen. Mark Warner, the Virginia Democrat and vice chairman, and Sen. Richard Burr, the committee's Republican chairman, addressed reporters ahead of their panel's first hearing on Russia.

The stakes for the Senate investigation have been heightened given the disarray in the House investigation into Russia. Democrats have called on Rep. Devin Nunes, the Republican chair of the House committee, to recuse himself over his close relationship with the Trump White House.

Burr says the Senate committee has contacted 20 individuals about sitting for interviews. Among them is Jared Kushner, the president's son-in-law and senior adviser, who has acknowledged meetings with Russians during the transition.

Coming back to bite him? Flynn says immunity means you probably committed a crime Flynn, who briefly served as Trump's national security adviser, told NBC's Chuck Todd last year that people seeking immunity were likely guilty of committing a crime Comments retired Lt. Gen Mike Flynn made during the 2016 presidential campaign about immunity have seemingly come back to bite him. Flynn, who briefly served as Trump's national security adviser, told NBC's Chuck Todd last year that people seeking immunity were likely guilty of committing a crime. During the interview in September, Flynn took issue with former staffers of Hillary Clinton being granted immunity as the FBI investigated her use of the server when she was secretary of state. 'The very last thing that John Podesta (Clinton's campaign chairman) just said is no individual too big to jail, that should include people like Hillary Clinton,' Flynn said. 'I mean, five people around her have had, have been given immunity, to include her former Chief of Staff. 'When you are given immunity, that means that you have probably committed a crime.' The months-old statement is key because Flynn has reportedly offered to testify about the Trump administration's ties to Russia if the FBI can grant him immunity from prosecution. Advertisement
Justine Greening said grammars will help stop bright poor children going on to earn less than dimmer wealthier classmates

A wave of new grammars will help stop bright poor children going on to earn less than dimmer wealthier classmates, Justine Greening said yesterday.

The Education Secretary added that more selective schools could transform the lives of deprived pupils by giving them the same access to academic excellence.

In a speech on social mobility, she spoke of the unfairness that clever deprived students are around a third less likely to earn a high wage than less intelligent richer peers. Ministers plan to overturn a ban on opening grammars imposed by Labour in 1998.

Miss Greening said the new schools would help drill down into the factors which have meant poor attainment for certain parts of the country.

She said: Were talking about a new model of how grammar schools work and how selection works.

It really does mean that weve got an education system that caters for the very different talents and potential of different children.

Miss Greening told a Social Mobility Commission conference in London that deprived youngsters are more likely to go to a failing school.

Even if they graduate and get a good job, they still typically earn more than 2,000-a-year less than those born to parents in managerial jobs, she added.

Miss Greening also highlighted how after leaving the EU, social mobility is a cold, hard, economic imperative for the UK.
A British student at a Malaysian University who went missing after going hillwalking near Kuala Lumpur has been found safe and well a day later.

Katie Clubb, 19, a student at the University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus, and fellow student Nyamu Wanyolke, 20, from Kenya, were reported missing on Wednesday evening.

They had gone for a walk in Broga Hill, a popular hiking destination south of the Malaysian capital.

The British woman missing has been named locally as 19-year-old Katie Clubb

Katie Clubb, 19, and Kenyan man Nyamu Wanyolke, 20, went missing while climbing Broga Hill, in Malaysia

Miss Clubb whose Facebook page shows she is very active in charity work is currently missing

Kajang OCPD Asst Comm Othman Nayan said a text message had been received by a friend of the Briton shortly before 8pm on Wednesday.

He said: 'We were told that the two friends went on a hike earlier that evening. So when we were alerted of the incident, we immediately went to meet the friend.

'At 8.15pm, we arrived and launched the search and rescue operation with the help of the Fire and Rescue Department and others including the Civil Defence Department (JPAM),' he said.

ACP Othman said authorities spent almost four hours combing the area but the search party had to stand down around midnight due to adverse weather conditions.

He said: 'We resumed our operation today at 8am. Based on the victim's last contact with their friend, they said they were near a Malaysian flag.

'We suspect they had already reached the top but when we arrived, they were nowhere to be found.'

Miss Clubb, pictured at Heathrow, left the country for Malaysia two months ago

The foreign students were missing after going for a hike in Broga Hill, in Malaysia

The pair vanished during a day trip on Broga Hill, located just outside the country's capita

Rescuers have still failed to locate the missing duo after their last search around 7pm on Thursday.

The hill, which is only 400 metres high, offers spectacular views of the surrounding countryside.

Guide books suggest those planning on going on the peak should start as early as 4am to avoid the midday heat.
A blog about life under, and resisting, a dictatorship
The DNA of sex workers has been collected in a Dallas law enforcement program so as to identify their remains in case they are murdered.

A pilot program, called the High-Risk Potential Victims' DNA Database (HRDNA), was proposed in 2007 by Dallas authorities, according to the FBI.

The agency explained in September 2016: 'Data showing street sex workers were approximately 200 times more likely to become victims of murder than other individuals of similar age and race reinforced the need for such a program.'

The DNA of sex workers has been collected in a program so as to identify their remains in case they are murdered. A woman arrested for prostitution is taken for processing at a mobile command unit that includes health and social services as part of an intervention program in Dallas in this 2009 photo

According to the FBI, the HRDNA pilot program was proposed 'to obtain voluntary samples from individuals susceptible to becoming a target of violent crime or homicidespecifically, women and men engaged in prostitution.

'The purpose of the program involved developing a DNA database to serve as an investigative tool for postmortem identificationwhere other means failedin the event of a homicide.'

According to an article from The Atlantic, Dallas police had initially arrested sex workers at truck stops, but the workers would return after spending 48 hours in jail.

Louis Felini with Dallas police managed to get his supervisor to try a new method, the website reported, which said that law enforcement in 2007 started to set up shop at a truck stop from 6pm to 3am.

Louis Felini with Dallas police (pictured) pitched the program to sex workers by saying: 'What do you want on your toe tag?'

The Atlantic explained that in these events, sex workers who are rounded up by police 'can either go to jail or talk to counselors and into treatment programs for drug abuse and job training'.

DNA sample submission wasn't required in order to receive counseling or treatment, according to the outlet.

However, Felini told The Atlantic that he pitched the program to sex workers by saying: 'What do you want on your toe tag?...Do you want Jane Doe in a potter's grave or do you actually want your name on there?'

Two years were spent on planning efforts for the DNA pilot program, and volunteers started giving DNA samples when it launched in 2009, according to the FBI.

The FBI said in September that DNA was collected via cheek swabs and taken to the Dallas County Sheriff's Office, 'where personnel enter biographical data into the centralized reference database currently housed at the agency'.

After a sample receives 'a random number with no identifiers,' it's submitted to the University of North Texas Center for Human Identification 'which serves as the central repository,' the FBI said at the time.

As of September 2016, the FBI said there were 466 DNA submissions in the database.

It said that 'in 2013 a search of the database helped identify a street sex worker who died in a Fort Worth emergency room'.

'The level of trust between officers and street sex workers helps determine potential victims' willingness to participate in the HRDNA program,' the agency noted.

Duke University bioethicist Sara Katsanis spoke to sex workers, and found the women she spoke to did not trust law enforcement yet were overall willing to give DNA samples

'Sex workers may perceive law enforcement personnel as adversarial and, therefore, may distrust their reasons for collecting specimens.'

Duke University bioethicist Sara Katsanis spoke to sex workers without the presence of law enforcement, according to The Atlantic.

The women she spoke to in focus groups did not trust law enforcement yet were overall willing to give DNA samples, the website said.

One woman identified as 'Eva' said: 'My guy, the few times that I did talk to him while I was on the street, he always used to joke about the fact that they were going to tattoo my social security number and my address on my foot so that if I died that somebody knew who I belonged to.

'That was one of the reasons why I did it.'

A woman named 'Florence' commented: 'I would be glad. You know, there's two aspects of it for me.

'Number one, I would definitely want to participate in it for the simple fact that I would want them to be able to identify me in the event that something horrible happened.

'But number two,  I've heard of cases where people have been their DNA was found somewhere where they had never been.

'So that would be a concern to me is who has access to it because you never know how crazy a person can be to take your DNA, put it somewhere, and implicate you in a crime just by doing so.'

The Atlantic reports that authorities have reduced the nighttime events, once held monthly, which are now held quarterly.

Several years ago, DNA collection ceased as money for collecting and sequencing ran dry, the website said.

At that time, 300 samples had been sequenced by the University of North Texas, with as many as 100 samples unprocessed, according to the report.
A seven-month-old baby girl, who was born with a heart defect, arrived in Boston on Wednesday to prepare for her seventh heart surgery.

Piper Paddock, the adorable daughter of Gia and Tim Paddock, has undergone six heart surgeries.

Doctors discovered Piper had a rare heart defect of the tricuspid valve around 28 weeks from a routine ultrasound, according to a GoFundMe page set up for the family.

Her parents, who are both New York state troopers, are confident their daughter will survive her seventh and hopefully final surgery.

Seven-month-old, Piper Paddock (pictured), who was born with a heart defect, arrived in Boston on Wednesday to prepare for her seventh heart surgery

Piper, the adorable daughter of Gia and Tim Paddock (right), has undergone six heart surgeries. Doctors discovered Piper had a rare heart defect of the tricuspid valve around 28 weeks from a routine ultrasound

Her parents, Gia (right) and Tim (left), who are both New York state troopers, are confident their daughter will survive her seventh and hopefully final surgery

'She's our little trooper,' Piper's mother, Gia told PEOPLE. 'She is so outgoing and happy go lucky. She's facing so much, but she's so strong and determined.'

Last year, Piper was diagnosed with a severe case of Ebstein's Anomaly with Pulmonary Regurgitation.

The very rare congenial heart disorder occurs in less than one per 200,000 live births and less than 1 per cent of all cases of congenial heart disease.

After her diagnosis, Piper's parents were directed to Boston's Children's Hospital.

Piper, who has been dubbed a 'fighter' by her parents, arrived in Boston on Wednesday for the procedure.

'We searched and searched and found the most amazing doctors over at Boston's Children's Hospital,' Gia told CBS.

Gia, 32, said her daughter was 'delivered at 39 weeks and one day, and she had immediate surgery, open heart surgery about 36 hours after she was born'.

'She's our little trooper,' Piper's mother, Gia said. Last year, Piper was diagnosed with a severe case of Ebstein's Anomaly with Pulmonary Regurgitation

The very rare congenial heart disorder occurs in less than 1 per 200,000 live births and less than 1 per cent of all cases of congenial heart disease

Piper (left and right), who has been dubbed a 'fighter' by her parents, arrived in Boston on Wednesday for the procedure

Gia, 32, said her daughter was 'delivered at 39 weeks and 1 day, and she had immediate surgery, open heart surgery about 36 hours after she was born'

Her husband, Tim, 38, told CBS that this trip is the family's third to Boston and 'we've been in Boston total about four months'.

This time, the family received a helping hand on Wednesday by the Patient Airlift Services (PALS), a volunteer group that transports patients at no cost.

If the Paddock's would have driven to Boston from their home in Canandaigua, New York, it would have taken about eight hours, but the flight was just an hour.

The couple have a temporary apartment in Boston as Piper receives treatments. Tim commutes back and forth from his job as a state trooper.

EBSTEIN'S ANOMALY OF THE TRICUSPID VALVE Causes: In a child born with Ebstein's anomaly, the tricuspid valve did not form properly during fetal development. A normal tricuspid valve has three leaflets, and opens and closes to allow blood to flow from the upper to the lower chamber without going backwards. With Ebstein's anomaly, one or two of the three leaflets may be 'stuck' to the walls of the right ventricle or the septum. The valve may be severely malformed and the leaflets may be found to be positioned lower than in a normal heart. In a child born with Ebstein's anomaly, the tricuspid valve did not form properly during fetal development Signs and symptoms: Blue or purple tint to lips, skin and nails (cyanosis) Heart murmur and clicks: extra heart sounds heard when a doctor listens with a stethoscope Racing heart Shortness of breath Fatigue Treatment: Open heart surgery to fix the tricuspid valve is required in some cases. The surgeon may be able to repair the tricuspid valve so that it functions normally. Otherwise, the surgeon will replace the tricuspid valve with a valve from a donated organ. In the most severe cases, when the right ventricle (the right lower chamber) is much smaller than normal, Ebstein's anomaly is treated as a single ventricle heart defect. A series of surgeries (at least three) will be required to redirect the flow of blood. Source: Children's Hospital of Philadelphia Advertisement

Piper's surgeon at Boston Children's Hospital, Dr. Sitaram Emani, told PEOPLE she's 'one of the most amazing fighters' he's ever seen.

'Her condition is severe and a type that is usually associate with a 50-50 chance of survival,' Emani said.

Piper is in physical therapy, occupational therapy and feeding clinics as she prepares to undergo her seventh procedure, according to the magazine.

'It's one of the cardiac conditions that is most feared in our community because there really isn't a very easy or great option and many kids can be very sick after birth,' Emani added.

The family received a helping hand on Wednesday by the Patient Airlift Services (PALS), a volunteer group (left) that transports patients at no cost. If the Paddock's would have driven to Boston from their home in Canandaigua, New York, it would have taken about eight hours

The Patient Airlift Services (PALS) transported the family in the plane pictured

Piper's heart defect, Ebstein's Anomaly, essentially means her heart doesn't work properly.

In Ebstein's anomaly, your tricuspid valve, the valve between the two right heart chambers - the right atrium and right ventricle - isn't working the way that it should, according to Mayo Clinic.

The tricuspid valve sits lower than normal in the right ventricle, and the tricuspid valve's leaflets are abnormally formed.

Blood may leak back through the valve, making the heart work less efficiently. Ebstein's anomaly may also lead to enlargement of the heart or heart failure.

'Hopefully one day she will be the kid that can do everything,' Gia said.
Tough new laws will target predators who prepare or plan to groom children online, including those who lie about their age.

The legislation  known as Carly's Law  was introduced by the federal government on Thursday and will give police the power to intervene before predators have the chance to act and before a child is harmed.

A new sentence of 10 years in jail for convicted offenders is also included in the draft laws.

It comes 10 years after 15-year-old Carly Ryan was murdered by Gary Francis Newman, a 50-year-old man who posed online as a teenage musician.

The legislation, known as Carly's Law - comes 10 years after Carly Ryan (pictured) was killed by a 50-year-old who posed as a teenage boy

Her mother Sonya Ryan has worked with the government on developing the legislation.

Since her daughter was killed in February 2007, Ms Ryan has travelled across Australia educating children about the dangers of the internet.

Her daughter's killer was jailed for life in 2010, but Ms Ryan continued to campaign for tougher sentences for child sex offences.

'The bill will ensure young Australians have a greater protection from online predators and serve as a significant deterrent for those who would do them harm,' Justice Minister Michael Keenan told parliament.

Carly's mum Sonya (left, with Carly) worked with the government on developing the legislation

Gary Newman (pictured) was sentenced to life in 2010 for the teenage girl's murder

Under the proposal, a person over 18 who lies about their age to a child under 16 and then attempts to meet that child would be breaking the law.

Senator Skye Kakoschke-Moore, who is part of Nick Xenophon's team, said the current law leaves police powerless to act early in the grooming process because it requires proof of intent to harm or sexually abuse.

'We cannot live in a country where our laws and our law enforcement agencies that are powerless to stop deaths like Carly's,' she told the ABC.

She added that Newman  who had hundreds of fake identities  was 'experienced' in talking to children online.

Mr Xenophon had tried to have Carly's Law passed twice before in parliament.
First the Bank of England outraged vegans and religious groups by using animal fat in the new 5 note.

Now it has annoyed environmentalists by revealing the new 20 note could be made with palm oil, the production of which leads to deforestation.

The Bank suspended the tender process for the 20 note  due in 2020  after protests over tallow in the plastic fivers.

But yesterday it was criticised by Friends of the Earth after revealing the only practical alternative is palm oil.

The banknote features a self-portrait of JMW Turner and one of his best works but yesterday it was criticised by Friends of the Earth after revealing the only practical alternative is palm oil

The Bank said it would reflect before making a final decision by summer.

This comes after it was emerged the polymer used to make the new notes contains traces of tallow, a by-product of animal farming.

This polymer is converted into a substrate - a white coated film  on which the design of the note is printed.

The Bank of England promised to come up with potential solutions in December, shortly after more than 110,000 people signed a petition to shelve the 5 notes.

Yesterday the Bank laid out a number of options including coconut oil, but said the only practical alternative was palm oil because it was produced in huge quantities and at a reasonable cost.

Soybean oil, rapeseed oil and sunflower oil were all ruled out because they are too low in saturated fat  and fatty acids  to be used by the banks notemakers De La Rue and Innovia Security.

But possibility of using palm oil has alarmed campaign groups, Friends of the Earth, which has campaigned against the use of the oil because the huge environmental damage it causes to forests and habitats.

Kierra Box, Friends of the Earth campaigner, said: Its good that the Bank is consulting, but surely it cannot be beyond the means of Threadneedle Streets old lady to produce a bank note fit for the 21st century that doesnt use controversial traces or additives.

Palm oil is the most widely consumed vegetable oil on the planet, and it is in about half of all packaged products sold in the supermarket.

Some 61 million tonnes were produced in 2015.

Palm oil production was responsible for 8 per cent of global deforestation between 1990 and 2008, as huge areas of forest were cleared for palm oil production.

This has been devastating for wildlife and local communities who have been displaced.

The boom in palm oil production has also been blamed for contributing to the near extinction of the orangutan, with thousands killed every year from deforestation in Borneo and Sumatra.

Upset: The Bank of England outraged vegans and religious groups by using animal fat in the new 5 note

By far the biggest producers of palm oil are Indonesia and Malaysia but the UK imports the majority of its palm oil from Papua New Guinea.

Doug Maw, who started a petition about the use of animal fat in the fiver, said he was also disappointed by the Banks decision to consider palm oil.

He met the Banks chief cashier Victoria Cleland in January to discuss the issue.

Speaking to the BBC, he said: In my meeting I highlighted palm oil as something they should avoid doing. The destruction of habitat caused by over-production of palm oil is contributing to the near extinction of the orang-utan.

The Bank has published an independent report on the separate environment impacts of palm oil, coconut oil and tallow.

The report and the Banks note printers De La Rue, suggested palm oil would be the best alternative.

But the Bank said it will reflect upon the various religious, ethical and environmental considerations of both tallow and palm oil before making its final decision.

It stressed that palm oil would only be used in tiny quantities, so would not help drive up production  pointing out that less than six hectares of palm oil plantation are required to produce enough 20 notes for a decade.

It said that it would need 25 to 30 cattle to produce enough tallow.

The Bank said it would also attempt to mitigate any environmental impact by using sustainable palm oil from certified schemes.

But it also said there are more practical considerations such as ensuring that any alternative does not materially increase the cost of producing the notes  which is said would be ultimately borne by the taxpayer.

It said it would have to make a decision by this summer in order to ensure the launch of the new 20 note - which will feature a portrait of artist J.M.W Turner - in 2020 is not delayed.

The existing 5 plastic note and the new 10 note due for release in September, will continue to contain traces of animal fat.

The Bank concluded that it would be too expensive and would threaten the supply of bank notes to get rid of them despite the protest.
Liz Truss unveiled an urgent consultation into a controversial personal injury compensation scheme

A major review was launched yesterday into a controversial personal injury compensation scheme after anger that it is penalising millions of drivers.

Liz Truss unveiled an urgent consultation following a backlash over a new formula for calculating payouts for victims that added up 300 to the premiums of older drivers.

Despite insisting she will not reverse the shake-up in the short-term, the Justice Secretary unveiled a wide-ranging review of the rate for deciding cash claims in future. She suggested the current system was not fit for purpose.

Miss Truss  who is also the Lord Chancellor  was forced to act following fury that the changes had ratcheted up costs for motorists and the NHS.

Experts also warned her that firms faced large increases in their public and employer liability premiums when many were already braced for crippling rises in business rates.

The row focussed on a change to the so-called discount rate, which is used to work out how much insurers should pay to victims of major accidents.

Courts calculate compensation based on loss of earnings and the cost of care  but also adjust the lump sum according to the likely interest victims with catastrophic injuries will earn over time.

It had stood at 2.5 per cent since 2001  but Miss Truss reduced the rate to minus 0.75 per cent. This is because it is linked to government gilts - currently paying out negative returns. The new rate took effect last week.

Insurers described the changes as crazy and reckless because it would bump up premiums  but the Justice Secretary insisted it was the only legally acceptable option available.

Officials defended the decision saying it would give victims with life-changing injuries a better deal.

They also pointed out Miss Truss was taking a difficult decision dodged by her predecessors.

Miss Truss a backlash over a new formula for calculating payouts for victims that added up 300 to the premiums of older drivers

Under proposals unveiled yesterday, responsibility for setting the discount rate could be taken out of politicians hands and handed to an independent body.

Current laws require this task to be carried out by the Lord Chancellor.

The Ministry of Justice is also considering whether the rate should be reviewed after a fixed number of years and if victims should be given periodical compensation payments rather than lump sums.

Miss Truss said: I want to make sure that the way in which the discount rate is set remains fit for purpose.

Awards of damages for life-changing personal injuries are necessarily going to be very large in some cases.

But in the interests of society as a whole and the services that underpin it, I want to be sure that the system of compensation is one that compensates claimants properly, but is fair to consumers, business and taxpayers.

The rate was linked to government gilts - currently paying out negative returns  because the law stated that victims must be treated as risk averse investors as they are financially dependent on the lump sum, often for long periods or the rest of their life.

Following the changes, experts warned motor insurance premiums could rise next year by a total of 3.6billion - hitting drivers with an average increase of 100.

The NHS also faces a 1 billion jump in its annual compensation bill for clinical negligence claims.

Ministers say they will bring forward any legislation after the six-week consultation has concluded. Insurance bosses have called for changes to be included in the Prison and Courts Bill currently going through Parliament.

Huw Evans, director general of the Association of British Insurers, said: Only a month after the setting of an absurdly low rate, the Government has moved swiftly to consider reform and we need to see this urgency maintained with a firm commitment to legislate.

As the only major economy in the world with a negative rate, the UK will face significantly increased insurance and taxpayer costs until the system is reformed and a new rate can be set.
All 40 dairy farms supplying Marks & Spencer will be inspected by the RSPCA following allegations of cruelty to calves.

Large calves, older than eight weeks, were being kept in cramped hutches on one farm, in breach of animal welfare regulations.

M&S says the farmer responsible made a mistake  but will not cut ties with the dairy.

It vowed to oversee improvements at the farm and asked the RSPCA to carry out independent inspections of all its dairies. The retailer also said the countrys dairy farmers are facing a tough time and it is important to support them.

Oversized: Row upon row of cramped hutches fill this Dorset field, and these cows look far too big to easily fit through the entrances to their shelters

Law states cows should only be reared in solitary hutches until they are up to eight weeks old. But older calves were seen in such pens at Grange Dairy in East Chaldon, Dorset.

Pictures and video footage taken by the group Animal Equality UK, and revealed by the Daily Mail this week, showed many calves were too large for the units and struggled to bend to get inside. This left some of them with grazes.

M&S food director Andy Adcock wrote a blog saying: We hold our hands up. Keeping calves over eight weeks in such pens is unacceptable.

One of our farmers made a mistake. However, we are not going to sever our ties with this farm. It is not in our nature to cut and run at the first sign of a problem. He said M&S takes animal welfare extremely seriously but believes the problems at the farm, owned by JF Cobb & Sons, were a one-off.

Cramped: The Holstein calves, raised at Grange Dairy in Winfrith Newburgh will be sent to other farms to join a dairy herd

Dr Toni Shephard, of Animal Equality UK, said: M&Ss refusal to cut ties with Grange Dairy, despite admitting calves were kept in solitary hutches well beyond the legal age limit, makes these audits pointless.

But Mr Adcock insisted M&S must support the dairy industry, saying: British farming is in a precarious position. The number of dairy producers has fallen dramatically. Severing links with suppliers can devastate communities. That is not the way we do business.

Trading standards experts confirmed the calves at Grange Farm were older than eight weeks, in breach of regulations. But they are taking no further action as they did not detect any welfare concerns.

The RSPCA said: We are pleased that dairy cow welfare is a priority for M&S.

The RSPCA inspections will take place in April. The charity will also sign the farms up to regular animal welfare screening under its membership scheme RSPCA Assured.
The so-called 'Supermom' who vanished for several weeks before returning and claiming she was abducted, allegedly tried to blame a self-harm attempt on her mother 13 years ago.

Sherri Papini, disappeared last November while out for a jog near her northern California home, and was not seen for more than three weeks.

The 34-year-old mother-of-two claimed she was abducted by two armed Hispanic women on November 2, before she was then tortured by her captors - whose faces she did not see - and eventually dumped on the side of a road on Thanksgiving.

Since she reappeared, no arrests have been made in the alleged kidnapping, no potential motive has been discussed, and Papini has not publicly spoken about her ordeal.

Sherri Papini (pictured), the so-called 'Supermom' who vanished for several weeks before returning and claiming she was abducted, allegedly tried to blame a self-harm attempt on her mother 13 years ago

And now, documents from a previous incident when she was accused of misleading police have been revealed by the Sacramento Bee.

The newspaper uncovered documents from 13 years ago outlining how Papini's mother, Loretta Graeff, called police asking for help after her daughter was allegedly self-harming and trying to blame the wounds on her.

The incident report, filed in December 2003, is just two lines long and reads: 'RP states her 21y/o daughter that was living with her was harming herself and blaming it on the RP.

'RP states female is coming back to live with them and she wants advice.'

Sherri Papini, disappeared last November while out for a jog near her northern California home, and was not seen for more than three weeks

Documents obtained by the Sacramento Bee detailed the police complaint, which can be read above

The newspaper also found two other incidents involving Papini, where her father and sister both claimed she damaged their property.

In 2000, Richard Graeff said his daughter 'burglarized his residence,' before Sheila Koester, 'alleged her back door had been kicked in and she believed Papini was the suspect', the Bee reports.

Shasta County are still investigating the mother's alleged disappearance late last year, however they have said they do not have any reasons not to believe her story.

Keith Papini (pictured) was ruled out as a suspect about a week after his wife disappeared last year when he passed a lie detector test

Papini (pictured with her husband) claimed she was taken by two armed Hispanic women and tortured while she was being held last November

'The Papini case is still active and the investigation is ongoing,' Lt. Pat Kropholler told the Bee.

'I realize there is a lot of interest in Mrs. Papini and the details of her case. However, I am sure you can understand the necessity of maintaining the integrity of the investigation.

'Please be assured that when it is appropriate to release any further information regarding this case we will do so.'
Oxford University has been accused of snubbing Prime Minister Theresa May in a 'politically correct' campaign to display more women and ethnic minorities in its colleges.

The institution has commissioned a series of new artworks which is hopes will 'promote greater diversity' and 'send a signal' that people of all backgrounds are welcome to study there.

But critics have pointed out that Oxford graduate Mrs May, one of only two women to have held the office of Prime Minister, has failed to make the list of 20 former-students due to sit for paintings.

Meanwhile, left-wing film-maker Ken Loach and the novelist Jeanette Winterson, who has written on gay and lesbian issues, are on the list, which also includes broadcasters Reeta Chakrabarti and Dame Esther Rantzen.

Oxford University has been accused of snubbing Theresa May as part of a 'politically correct' new scheme to get portraits of women and ethnic minorities hanging on the walls of colleges. Pictured, right: Mrs May during her student days

Sir Gerald Howarth, a former Conservative minister, told The Daily Telegraph: 'I rather fear Oxford has awarded itself a first-class degree in political correctness.'

Historian Sir Anthony Seldon added: 'It is a shame that Theresa May, a female who has broken through the glass ceiling, is not on this list. I am very surprised.'

Mrs May  then Theresa Brasier  graduated in 1977 having studied at St Hugh's College. While there, she met her future husband Philip.

The university said in a statement: 'Theresa May was not nominated as part of the process, which ended on 8 July last year.'

Cressida Dick, the first female commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, has also been excluded form the list.

The new portraits were commissioned after criticism from student campaigners that paintings in Oxford disproportionately depicted middle aged white men.

Two years ago, they demanded Oriel College tear down a statue of the 19th Century imperialist Cecil Rhodes over claims it was offensive to ethnic minority students.

The university originally said they would begin a consultation over the issue, but after an uproar from alumni it refused to give in to the students' demands.

Left-wing director Ken Loach and BBC journalist Reeta Chakrabarti will have portraits painted

Critics said the campaign was symptomatic of a generation of students who want to 'erase the past' because they are unable to cope with controversial issues.

Yesterday, Oxford said all of its existing portraits  which show important historical figures connected with the university  would stay in place.

But they said the 20 new portraits would be added to the collection so that more women, people from ethnic minorities, gays and lesbians and people with disabilities could be included.

The new pictures on the ancient walls will include scientist Dame Jocelyn Bell Burnell and the South African human rights activist Kumi Naidoo.

There will also be some new men, including director Ken Loach, whose last film 'I, Daniel Blake' depicted the struggles of an ill, unemployed carpenter through the welfare system.

Pictured: The University of Oxford said 20 new artwork would help 'promote greater diversity' and 'send a signal' that people of all backgrounds are welcome to study there

Oxford's head of equality Trudy Coe told the BBC: 'We're not taking anyone down - but the portraits have been almost exclusively men and we're just beginning to redress the balance.

'It will allow students to look up and see people who look like them. It's sending a signal to a wider range of students that they belong here.'

Mrs Coe said the new pictures will reflect the modern reality of university life - and the people who have been painted or photographed have been nominated by current staff and students.

The people depicted have links with the university - such as being former students or academic staff.

The criteria for selection was that they should be examples of excellence and widened the range of pictures from the 'narrow and traditional' and 'challenged stereotypes'.

Under fire: Oxford University has faced questions about whether it is admitting enough poorer students and state-school pupils

Among the people to be represented will be criminologist and disability rights campaigner, Marie Tidball.

She said: 'Symbols are important. I really hope that this speaks to kids now doing their GCSEs.'

Alumna Mrs Chakrabarti added: 'I loved my time at Oxford. There weren't  then  many people from my background at university there. But that didn't stop my experience from being overwhelmingly good.

'I hope this project will show that Oxford is open to everyone, and that it wants to be more so.'

Oxford University has faced questions about whether it is admitting enough poorer students and state-school pupils.

Admissions figures published earlier this year showed that Oxford had one of the lowest proportions of state school pupils of any UK university.

This showed that universities such as Bristol, Durham and Cambridge were admitting a higher proportion of state school pupils than Oxford.
Patients will be made to wait longer for routine operations under radical plans to prioritise cancer care, A&E departments and GP surgeries.

NHS chief Simon Stevens warned patients he expects waiting times to rise as a trade-off for improvements elsewhere.

All non-urgent operations may be affected including hip and knee replacements and cataract repairs, as well as diagnostic tests and scans.

Other patients face being told they do not need surgery as part of plans to increase use of alternatives such as physiotherapy.

GPs are being urged to reduce hospital referrals and avoid sending patients for certain procedures no longer deemed appropriate.

The proposals are unveiled today in a major blueprint for the NHS aimed at saving 1billion over two years and overhauling key areas.

But to fund the plans, the NHS must cut back on certain low-priority procedures and drugs.

This week the Mail revealed how the health service is considering banning prescriptions for paracetamol.

The NHS is struggling to keep pace with the growing and ageing population and has just had one of the worst winter crises in its 69-year history.

Mr Stevens said it was time for an honest assessment.

When asked whether waiting times for non-urgent operations would rise, he said: We do expect [that] and we do say there is a trade-off  we expect the number of operations the NHS pays for will continue to go up  right now about nine out of ten people get their operations in under 18 weeks  in some parts of the country that will be under pressure.

He added: We do expect there will be some marginal lengthening of waiting lists but this will still represent a strong, quick waiting times experience compared with ten years ago, let alone 20.

Mr Stevens said the combination of a growing and ageing population, the number of new treatments, and the rise in demand means that we have to make some choices.

But he said NHS staff were being given very clear marching orders to improve A&E, cancer, GPs and mental health services.

Patients with cancer are to be given a diagnosis or all-clear within 28 days.

Radical plans to transform the NHS Waiting times to rise for non-urgent operations to prioritise cancer care, mental health, GP surgeries and A&Es

Every patient to be given access to GP appointments at evenings and weekends by 2019

Patients who suspect cancer to receive a diagnosis or all-clear within 28 days

Hospitals to merge with GP surgeries and community health services to become super-trusts

'Nurse First' scheme to encourage bright graduates to train as high-powered nurses

Patients to be quizzed on their drinking and smoking habits at outpatient appointments

Overhaul in mental health care for mothers with postnatal depression, veterans, and vulnerable children and teenagers Advertisement

Hospitals have been told to free up wards of bedblockers  elderly patients unable to be discharged due to a lack of social care.

Waits for non-urgent surgery and scans are at a seven-year high and one in ten patients are delayed more than 18 weeks.

This includes 1,000 waiting for over a year, many in agony or unable to do everyday tasks.

Clare Marx, of the Royal College of Surgeons, said there was a risk the NHS would return to unacceptably long waits.

She said some of the initiatives would help, but added: We are concerned the 18-week waiting times target for surgical treatment has now effectively been jettisoned.

Age UKs Caroline Abrahams said long waits for procedures may condemn an older person to misery and pain and make it harder for them to sustain their independence.

Chris Hopson, of NHS Providers which represents hospital managers, said: NHS funding increases fall way behind demand and cost increases  NHS services inevitably deteriorate. That is clearly now happening.

Mental health overhaul for mums and veterans

The NHS has promised to revolutionise mental health care  particularly for mothers with postnatal depression and troops returning from the frontline.

Later this year officials will open four specialist mother and baby units in East Anglia, the North West, the South West and South East.

They will treat mothers diagnosed with postnatal depression and allow them to stay with their babies.

Four centres to treat veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder, depression and anxiety will also be opened.

In addition, NHS England has promised to overhaul the care of children and teenagers suffering from eating disorders, self-harming and other serious conditions.

It will create up to 180 psychiatric beds in three years.

NHS England also wants to offer talking therapies to hundreds of thousands of patients to help treat depression and anxiety.

Surgeries will offer an extra 200,000 appointments by the end of 2018/19.

'Nurse First' course for brightest graduates

PROMISING graduates will be urged to train as high-powered nurses under a scheme to boost staffing levels.

The Nurse First programme will try to attract the brightest university students who have not yet chosen a career.

It will be based on the Teach First scheme, whereby graduates take a two-year, fast-track course before being placed in tough schools. The prospective nurses will take a course after university  most likely lasting two years. They will learn skills in key areas such as mental health and learning disabilities, where there is currently a shortage of nurses.

The graduates will then be fast-tracked to become senior nurse managers in five to seven years.

Figures show an average of one in ten nursing posts are unfilled.

Professor Jane Cummings, chief nursing officer for England, said: Its vital we continue to attract the best and brightest graduates.
A NSW mother has opened up about the heartbreaking decision she may be forced to make for her young daughter.

Yvonne Cooper of Lake Heights, south of Wollongong, has called on Australian state and federal governments to make access to medicinal cannabis easier in an online petition that has over 50,000 supporters.

The devastated mother posted a photo of her eight-year-old daughter Sienna connected to tubes in hospital, who suffers up to 100 life-threatening epileptic seizures a day.

'I don't want to break the law, but I don't want to bury my eight-year-old child,' Ms Cooper wrote on Change.org.

Yvonne Cooper's daughter, 8, suffers up to 100 life-threatening epileptic seizures per day

Ms Cooper (left) has petitioned Australian state and federal governments to grant easier access to medical cannabis as it is the only option left for her daughter's survival

'I'm writing this out of desperation. Last night I spent the evening watching my little girl gasping for air, unable to breath, another night of thinking I was about to lose her.'

Ms Cooper said she is 'beside herself' as she watches doctors and specialists fail to come up with a solution for her daughter, who is on eight different medications and still experiencing 100 seizures a day.

'The only option left is medicinal cannabis or her the seizures will continue to cause irreparable damage to her brain and organs.

'But despite it being legalised last year, red tape is leaving Sienna's doctors unable to fast track her lifesaving access to medicinal cannabis.'

Sienna is left with the only option of joining a long list of children waiting for clinical trials.

'I have had to watch her cognitive ability decline, going from an IQ of 90-100 to a range from 41-52. She has been diagnosed with a severe intellectual disability.

'Now every seizure is a step closer to death. Right now we are being forced to sit back and watch our baby girl dying in front of us and not a single doctor in NSW can help us. This is cruel and devastating.

'We need immediate amnesty to give our little girl a quality of life and a long lasting life. She has dreams too, please help her live to follow them.'

Ms Cooper has called on the NSW Minister for Health Brad Hazzard to grant access for Sienna and other sufferers before it is too late.

Despite the federal government legalising the drug in 2016, access to medical marijuana remains difficult.

Many sufferers of chronic illness have been forced to illegally seek treatment as a last resort.

Minister Hazzard said on Wednesday that the state government has 'committed $21 million towards world-first medicinal cannabis clinical trials and reforms'.

'We are pursuing a medical model in NSW. This is what will give some of our sickest patients the best hope  by providing access to safe, high-quality and effective medicines,' he said.

Ms Cooper said she is 'beside herself' as she watches doctors and specialists fail to come up with a solution for her daughter

Ms Cooper and her partner, Daniel, who are fighting for easier access to medical marijuana for their daughter

Sienna is on eight different medications and still experiencing 100 seizures a day

The petition already has over 51,000 supporters


Rule #1: You can never ask too many questions.










CCTV footage showing Samantha Baldwin's last known movements

The grandparents of two boys allegedly abducted by their mother last night pleaded with her to contact police and put an end to their awful uncertainty.

Robert and Janette Madge - whose son David, 43, is the father of missing Louis, nine, and Dylan, six - begged their mother, Samantha Baldwin, 43, to get in touch.

They spoke out as police issued CCTV images of the last known sightings of Miss Baldwin, who does not have legal custody of the children and has been on the run with them since Monday.

The pictures show Miss Baldwin, an office worker, in Nottingham city centre before she disappeared around Monday lunchtime.

Speaking from their picturesque thatched cottage in the peaceful mid-Devon hamlet of Ashwater, near Beaworthy, Okehampton, Mrs Madge, 73, said: We would just appeal to Samantha to contact the police as soon as possible.

It is horrible, awful. We dont know what shes done with the kids, where they are or anything.

Her husband confirmed officers had instructed them to keep quiet about the circumstances surrounding their grandchildrens disappearance.

Dressed in a red coat, Miss Baldwin was captured walking through Nottingham City Centre

Mr Madge, 74, a retired company director, added: Weve been instructed by the police to say nothing. We know nothing more than is in the papers.

It is understood Miss Baldwin and her former partner Mr Madge, from Rochdale, Greater Manchester, are separated.

Miss Baldwin left the keys of her terraced home, in Newark, Nottinghamshire, with neighbours on Monday and asked them to feed her cats before vanishing. Her car has also disappeared.

Police initially treated it as a missing persons case, saying they were seriously concerned for Miss Baldwin and her sons welfare.

But late on Wednesday they revealed she no longer had legal custody over the children and was wanted on suspicion of child abduction.

Officers admitted they had discounted a number of sightings but were actively pursuing two possible leads. They said they had not ruled out the possibility that Miss Baldwin had taken the children abroad.

Photographs of the missing mother and her sons have also been circulated to all UK ports, airports and railway stations.

Louis Madge aged nine, and Dylan Madge, aged six, have also not been seen since Monday

Neighbours revealed Samantha Baldwin's car had disappeared from in front of her home.

The 42-year-old was last spotted with her two sons, nine-year-old Louis Madge and six-year-old Dylan Madge, in Nottingham city centre on Monday.

Their disappearance has triggered an alert to be sent to all UK ports, airports and railway stations.

Police have issued a direct appeal to Ms Baldwin, from Newark, Nottinghamshire, to contact them and let them know she and the children are safe.

Wanted: Samantha Baldwin, who went missing on Monday with her two sons, is being sought after by police on suspicion of abduction

They have also been going door to door on the mother's street, lined with trees and terraced houses, to find more information.

Neighbour Jane Mann said: 'I'm praying to that they are okay. Her car is not outside. Sam always seems very friendly.

'Police have visited a couple of times and the last ones said she left keys with someone to feed the cats.

'My husband knows her from when he lent her our broom a few months back as her car window was smashed.'

Ms Baldwin is described as 5ft 7ins tall with shoulder length, highlighted blonde hair, green blue eyes and was last seen wearing a red knee-length coat from Mango.

Lewis is described as having collar-length straight fair hair, a fair complexion and blue eyes.

Dylan is described as having collar-length straight dark brown hair, a tanned complexion and brown eyes.

Police do not have a description of the clothing the boys' were last seen wearing.

The family have connections in Lincolnshire and Manchester and may have travelled there.

Anyone with information of their whereabouts should call Nottinghamshire Police on 101 urgently, quoting incident number 332 of March 27 2017, or alternatively contact Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111.
A New York judge has ordered former Wests Tigers player Matthew Lodge to pay the victims of his Manhattan rampage $US1.234million in damages.

US District Court Judge Kimba Wood's ruling - in which he detailed the terror inflicted by Lodge on German tourist Carolin Dekeyser, Manhattan couple Joseph Cartright and Ruth Fowler and their nine-year-old son - comes as the prop attempts to resurrect his National Rugby League career.

The New York law firm representing the victims vowed to recoup every cent of the judge's order, despite Lodge living in Australia.

'We are looking at any and every method available to us to collect on this judgment, including potentially garnishing his future wages,' senior associate at Wigdor LLP Renan Varghese told AAP on Thursday.

Lodge, 21, was arrested at gunpoint by NYPD officers in the early hours of October 16, 2015.

A New York judge has ordered former Wests Tigers player Matthew Lodge to pay the victims of his Manhattan rampage $US1.234million in damages

Lodge, 21, was arrested at gunpoint by NYPD officers in the early hours of October 16, 2015 after a violent rampage in a Manhattan apartment

The former Wests Tigers player has been working on returning to the NRL after linking with Queensland's second tier club Redcliffe Dolphins. Earlier this week he also received approval to train with the NRL's Brisbane Broncos

He was temporarily held in New York's infamous Rikers' Island jail complex until he was bailed out and then sacked by his former NRL club, Wests Tigers.

Lodge has been working on returning to the NRL after linking with Queensland's second tier club Redcliffe Dolphins.

Earlier this week he also received approval to train with the NRL's Brisbane Broncos.

Lodge ignored the civil lawsuit, declining to testify at a hearing or hire a lawyer to mount a defence.

Ms Dekeyser, Mr Cartright and Ms Fowler provided harrowing testimony of the impact the 193cm tall Lodge has had on their lives.

The incident began at about 4am when Ms Dekeyser and a female friend were getting out of a taxi on Manhattan's Upper-West Side and Lodge followed them to an apartment building, yelling 'he wanted to take them to Australia'.

Lodge, 21, was temporarily held in New York's infamous Rikers' Island jail complex until he was bailed out and then sacked by his former NRL club, Wests Tigers

The New York law firm representing the victims vowed to recoup every cent of the judge's order, despite Lodge living in Australia

US District Court Judge Kimba Wood's detailed the terror inflicted by Lodge on German tourist Carolin Dekeyser (right), Manhattan couple Joseph Cartright and Ruth Fowler and their nine-year-old son

Lodge also violently grabbed Ms Dekeyser by the shoulders 'so that she could not escape'.

Judge Kimba said: 'Lodge followed and threatened Dekeyser, stating 'do you think you're going to die? This is the night you're going to die'.'

Mr Cartright, a resident of the building for more than 20 years, heard the women frantically ringing the intercom, went to the front door before 'Lodge grabbed Cartright and made death threats'.

Lodge forced his way into Mr Cartright's apartment where Ms Fowler and their nine-year-old were sleeping and said 'My name is Matthew Lodge. I come in peace. Salaam Alaikum' before smashing furniture, plates and other items.

Judge Wood wrote 'Lodge put Cartright in a headlock, punched him several times in the head, and shoved him' and 'approached the bathroom in which Fowler and her son were, attempted to gain entry, and punched the door, leaving a hole'.

The family was so terrified by the incident they had to move out of the apartment and their son, who during the incident told his mum 'I'm too young to die', suffered from night terrors and had to see a child therapist.

The incident began at about 4am when Ms Dekeyser and a female friend were getting out of a taxi on Manhattan's Upper-West Side and Lodge followed them to an apartment building (pictured), yelling 'he wanted to take them to Australia'

Ms Dekeyser told the court she is 'haunted by the fear' that Lodge might seek her out and 'suffers from trouble sleeping, night terrors, nervousness, and anxiety' whenever she is in the dark.

Judge Wood's order includes $US525,000 to Mr Cartright, $US400,000 to Ms Fowler and $US250,000 to Ms Dekeyser for emotional distress and punitive damages.

'They are happy with the outcome but no amount of money is going to compensate them for what happened or could make up for what they experienced,' Mr Varghese said.

'They would gladly give up all of the money to take these events back.'

The trio was upset in December when the judge in Lodge's New York criminal case opted against sentencing him to jail.

After Lodge completed community service and received alcohol abuse and anger treatment Judge Kate Paek sentenced him to a conditional discharge.
Comments made by Michael Flynn six months ago are coming back to bite him after the ex-Trump adviser offered to testify to the FBI in their Russia probe in exchange for immunity.

The retired Lt. Gen, who briefly served as Trump's national security adviser, told NBC's Chuck Todd in September that people seeking immunity were likely guilty of committing a crime.

During the interview, Flynn took issue with former staffers of Hillary Clinton being granted immunity as the FBI investigated her use of the server when she was secretary of state.

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Michael Flynn made some comments during a 2016 interview (above) with NBC's Chuck Todd in which he said that people seeking immunity were likely guilty of committing a crime

'The very last thing that John Podesta (Clinton's campaign chairman) just said is no individual too big to jail, that should include people like Hillary Clinton,' Flynn said.

'I mean, five people around her have had, have been given immunity, to include her former Chief of Staff.

'When you are given immunity, that means that you have probably committed a crime.'

The old comments surfaced again on Thursday after the Wall Street Journal reported that Flynn had asked for immunity from prosecution in exchange for his testimony on the Trump administration's ties to Russia.

Flynn (above in October 2016) briefly served as Trump's national security adviser before resigning just 24 days after the inauguration

Flynn's resignation in February came after reports emerged that he misled White House staff on his interactions with Russia and discussed sanctions with the Russian ambassador

Flynn, who resigned as Trump's security adviser after just 24 days, sent the immunity request to both the FBI and the House and Senate intelligence committees.

The agencies have not yet taken Flynn up on his offer, according to officials with knowledge of the matter.

The FBI and intelligence committees are trying to determine if anyone in the Trump administration colluded with Russia to interfere with the presidential election.

Flynn's resignation in February came after reports emerged that he misled White House staff on his interactions with Russia and discussed sanctions with the Russian ambassador prior to the inauguration.
A report claiming Islamic State butchers murdered an Australian baby in the Middle East because its father tried to desert is understood to be 'unfounded'.

The Daily Telegraph reported on Friday sadistic terrorists killed the child of a deserter Australian jihadist 'in what intelligence agencies suspect was cold-blooded revenge'.

But it is understood the front-page article contained statements which are exaggerations or simply incorrect.

It is believed the journalist was told about 'errors' but published the statements anyway.

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A baby, whose gender has not been confirmed, was reported killed Islamic State terrorists in the Middle East after its Australian jihadi father tried to flee the war zone

Attorney-General George Brandis did not confirm the report, and the baby's name, age or gender was not identified in the article.

In a statement, a spokesman for Mr Brandis' office said it was difficult for the government to confirm reports of deaths in Syria and Iraq.

'As we have said previously, the Government's capacity to confirm reports of deaths in either Syria or Iraq is limited,' the spokesman said.

'The Government has consistently said going to the conflict zone puts yourself and others in danger.

'We condemn any parent who takes their family to the conflict zone.'

Security agencies last year estimated there were up to 100 Australian jihadists fighting overseas for terror groups.

The Turnbull Government has previously voiced concerns the Australian citizens would try and return home as the Islamic State loses its stronghold.

The government says it condemns 'any parent who takes their family to the conflict zone'

So far only one person, extremist Khaled Sharrouf, has lost his Australian citizenship under new laws preventing dual nationals from returning to Australia.

It was widely reported Sharrouf was killed two years ago. However there are lingering suspicions he is still alive.

Sharrouf gained infamy after his young son was pictured on social media holding a severed human head in 2014.

Sharrouf went to fight with Islamic State in Syria in 2013 - a year after being released from prison for his role in a terrorism plot.

Other Australians fighting overseas include: senior terrorist Neil Prakash, Sydney jihadi bride Hafsa Mohamed, Hamza El Baf, Perth student Muhammed Sheglabo, Melbourne man Yusuf Mohamed Yusuf and Mostafa Mahamed Farag  who has ties to Al-Qaeda.
High street banks are losing the battle against fraud as criminals switch tactics to directly target customers.

Efforts by lenders to bolster their IT defences against hackers have simply encouraged fraudsters to bombard individual customers with scams, according to Financial Fraud Action UK.

Despite investing millions in tackling fraud, losses from fraud rose last year as banks became less effective at preventing scams.

Losses from fraud on cards and credit cards jumped by 9 per cent to 618million last year  while total fraud including online scams  increased 2 per cent to 768.8million.

High street banks are losing the battle against fraud as criminals switch tactics to directly target customers

Criminals are stepping up their efforts, with the number of fraud cases jumping by more than a fifth last year to 1,857,506.

Perhaps most alarmingly, the proportion of attempted fraud that banks managed to detect and stop fell from 7.01 in every 10 in 2015 to 6.40 in every 10 last year.

Financial Fraud Action UK said this was largely due to criminals shifting their methods away from using malware attacks on online banking systems, which bank security processes identified.

Increasingly, it said, fraudsters are focussing on targeting individuals directly, which is harder for banks to stop.

The report said the main ploy used by criminals is the impersonation and deception scam whereby they pretend to be from a legitimate and trusted organisation such as a bank, the police, a utility company or a government department.

These scams typically involve the fraudster contacting the customer through a phone call, text message or email.

Often the fraudster will claim there has been suspicious activity on an account, ask the individual to verify or update their account details, or claim they are due a refund.

The criminal then attempts to trick the target into giving away their personal or financial information, such as passwords, payment card details or bank account information.

Losses from fraud on cards and credit cards jumped by 9 per cent to 618million last year  while total fraud including online scams  increased 2 per cent to 768.8million

Financial Fraud Action UK  which represents banks - said its intelligence suggests criminals have also recently increased their focus on phishing emails claiming to be from major online retailers and internet companies.

It warned these emails are an increasingly sophisticated attempt to trick recipients into giving away personal and financial details, or into downloading malware software which hacks into their computers.

Criminals are also turning to a more basic method of attack, with fraud committed at cash machines jumping by almost a third to 43.1million.

There have been increased reports of distraction thefts at cash machines, with criminals also tampering with ATMs to trap peoples cards.

This enables them to get their hands on the card and the PIN number.

This has allowed criminals to brazenly walk into shops and make purchases with stolen cards.

So-called face to face fraud has shot up by 17 per cent to 62.8 million.

But the millions of pounds spent by banks to bolster their IT security after a series of high profile attacks has had a mixed impact.

Losses from remote banking fraud - which includes internet, mobile and telephone banking - fell by 19 per cent.

But the amount of fraud losses prevented by banks fell by 61 per cent to 205.4million.

The threat to Britains financial infrastructure from persistent cyber-attacks prompted chancellor Philip Hammond to commit an extra 1.9billion in the autumn statement to boost Britains defences against the growing online threat

Last night one MP said banks have a responsibility to alert the public to the risks of fraudsters which are developing increasingly sophisticated techniques to dupe their victims.

Wes Streeting, a Labour member of the commons Treasury committee said:

In recent years banks and retailers have made it a lot harder to commit fraud.

But ultimately the big weakness is customers who dont know how to spot a scam through an email or a dodgy website.

Several banks have been targeted by high profile cyber attacks that have attempted to exploit weaknesses in their IT systems.

Last November criminals launched an online attack against Tesco Bank that resulted in the loss of 2.5million from 9,000 accounts.

Others to have been targeted include Royal Bank of Scotland and NatWest, Lloyds and HSBC.

The threat to Britains financial infrastructure from persistent cyber-attacks prompted chancellor Philip Hammond to commit an extra 1.9billion in the autumn statement to boost Britains defences against the growing online threat.
If you're heading past McDonald's in the morning for a coffee, you may be paying more than you need to.

A survey by the Daily Telegraph has revealed prices of the hot beverage in New South Wales vary depending on where you live.

In the city and inner west the most expensive cups of coffee are at McDonald's in Emu Plains and Granville at $4.70 each.

A survey has revealed prices of McDonald's coffee vary in NSW and the ACT depending on which suburb you live in (stock image)

Regional prices are also high, with a cup of coffee from the McDonald's restaurants in Canberra City and Bateau Bay also $4.70 each.

The cheapest place to buy a McDonald's coffee is in Chatswood at $3.70.

The second cheapest price is $4.10 for a McDonald's coffee at the Penrith Plaza, Coogee and Kingsford.

A coffee is $4.20 in Kings Cross, $4.30 in Waterloo, and $4.40 in Wollongong, on the M4 East (city bound) and in Brookvale.

The most expensive cups of coffee were found in Emu Plains, Granville, Bateau Bay and in Canberra City at $4.70 each. The cheapest coffee is in Chatswood at $3.95 for a cup

Prices also vary at the airport - McDonald's coffee is cheaper in the domestic terminal at $4.25 but more expensive if you're travelling international, costing an extra 20c.

The coffee price hike comes as the restaurant has reportedly increased the price of their hash browns from $1.95 to $2.20.

An anonymous McDonald's employee also confirmed the 12.8 per cent price hike to The Daily Telegraph.

The news comes as the fast food giant has also increased the price for a hash brown from $1.95 to $2.20

'When I was working yesterday, it was $1.95 and it is now $2.20,' they told the publication.

'This would have happened last night [Tuesday].'

Hash brown fans across Australia were shocked to wake up in a world where the potato treat would cost them $2.20.

Many said they would take their custom elsewhere.

Hash brown fans across Australia were shocked to wake up in a world where the potato treat would cost them $2.20

A McDonald's spokesman told The Daily Telegraph that products do sometimes see a price increase

An anonymous McDonald's employee confirmed the 12.8 per cent price hike

Many outraged hash brown fans said they would take their custom elsewhere

'This is why Hungry Jacks has our loyalty,' one user posted online in response.

Another asked: 'How can McDonald's justify a hash Brown now being $2.20, when Hungry Jack's are $1.'

But some were confused by the controversy as they already paid $2.20 for hash browns.

A McDonald's spokesman told The Daily Telegraph that products do sometimes see a price increase.

'We're proud to offer our customers great value, but like all business from time to time we review our prices which may result in slight changes,' she said.

Daily Mail Australia has contacted McDonald's for comment on the price variations for coffee and price increase for hash browns.
Accused Bourke Street killer Dimitrious 'Jimmy' Gargasoulas has been charged with 28 new charges of attempted murder the alleged drive through the Melbourne mall that claimed the lives of six people.

Police have charged the 26-year-old with six counts of murder, 28 counts of attempted murder and conduct endangering life.

Gargasoulas is alleged to have deliberately struck a number of pedestrians in Melbourne's Bourke Street at around 1.30pm on January 20.

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Accused Bourke St killer driver Dimitrious Gargasoulas (pictured) has been charged with six counts of murder and 28 counts of attempted murder

In a statement on Friday morning Police also announced that that the Windsor man had been charged in relation to two incidents prior to the Bourke Street massacre.

'The homicide squad are focused on progressing the investigation as a priority and are consulting with the Director of Public Prosecution and the State Coroner as the investigation progresses,' the statement said.

Gargasoulas has been remanded and is set to appear in court on December 15, 2017.
Deliveroo is facing legal action over the safety of their couriers amid claims they are given speed-tests to prove they can run red lights.

Former riders have told Sydney Morning Herald they were asked to keep up with a Deliveroo rider who was running lights and crossing into one-way streets in a preliminary test.

Concerns over the safety and working conditions of couriers have been laid bare in a legal battle against the food delivery business, who refuse to class their couriers as employees.

Deliveroo is facing legal action over the safety of their couriers

One former Sydney courier, Doug Williams, said he was concerned for his safety when he was asked to trail a Deliveroo rider in a speed-test.

'He was running lights and going up one-way streetsHe wasn't being a maniac, but he didn't particularly care about the road rules either.'

The 24-year-old said he earned up to $9 per delivery, averaging two deliveries an hour.

He did not receive sick pay, holidays, superannuation or penalty rates, and was expected to provide their own bicycle, helmet, mobile phone and pay a deposit for their uniform.

Concerns over the safety and working conditions of couriers have been laid bare in a legal battle

Another former rider, Alison Millward, said her family were more concerned for her safety than they were for her brother, a soldier in Iraq.

'My parents gave me insurance for Christmas because they were worried about me,' she said. 'They got me an ambulance membership.'

She said he was fired through a text message because he wasn't doing enough shifts.

Maria Nawaz, a solicitor with the University of NSW's Kingsford Legal Centre, said Deliveroo was exploiting uncertainty in the law.

However a Delieveroo spokesperson told Daily Mail Australia safety is a priority for their couriers.

'Safety is a top priority for Deliveroo, and riders are provided with specially designed and high quality equipment to use when on the road, and, as with all road users, are expected to obey the road rules.'

''All our riders go through a rigorous onboarding process and safety and riding test before they are able to make deliveries for Deliveroo. They are they are covered by workers compensation and public liability insurance which we have put in place.'




A woman suspected of being the getaway car driver in a botched Oklahoma home invasion that left three teenage burglars dead says she doesn't blame the homeowner who shot them.

Elizabeth Marie Rodriguez, 21, is behind bars following the deadly attempted robbery in Broken Arrow near Tulsa on Monday.

Maxwell Cook, 19, Jacob Redfearn, 17, and Jaycob Woodruff, 16, were all shot dead by 23-year-old Zachary Peters after they broke into his house.

Rodriguez told ABC News in a jail interview that she understood Peters was doing what he could 'to protect his home'.

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Elizabeth Marie Rodriguez, 21, is behind bars following the deadly attempted robbery in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma on Monday that ended with three teen boy shot dead

Killed: Max Cook, 19, Jacob Redfearn, 17, and Jaycob Woodruff, 16,were shot dead by qualified pilot Zachary Peters at his parents' home on Monday during a burglary

'I know what we did was stupid and wrong,' she said. 'I don't blame him... I understand why he did what he did. I mean, I do to an extent.'

The actions of Peters, who is a qualified pilot and lived in the house with his parents, is being investigated as possible self defense.

Rodriguez faces three counts of first-degree felony murder, three counts of first-degree burglary and one count of second-degree burglary.

She said that she felt guilty over the three teen's deaths but would not take the blame for their murders.

Court documents state that Rodriguez planned the burglary, took the three teens to Peters' home and waited in the driveway when she heard shots break out.

Rodriguez faces three counts of first-degree felony murder, three counts of first-degree burglary and one count of second-degree burglary

The suspects gained entry after they shattered a glass door at the back of the Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, house owned by Peters' dad

Zachary Peters, 23, (left) shot dead three teenagers who broke into his home on Monday afternoon in a burglary planned by Elizabeth Rodriguez (right), according to court documents

She drove off but later turned herself in, telling police the names of the three boys so their parents could be notified, according to the documents.

According to a probable cause affidavit, Rodriguez had some previous knowledge of the house and knew the homeowner by name.

She told investigators on Wednesday that she did not know Peters personally but was aware that his family had money and expensive belongings.

Authorities say Rodriguez and her friends had broken into a detached garage on the property earlier the same day and stole liquor from a game room. They then returned later to search the rest of the house.

Police say that having got away with the first raid they decided to chance a second robbery in the belief that the house was unoccupied but were met by Peters.

Peters has not been charged, with police saying: 'Preliminary investigation looks like it's self-defense'

The teens died from single bullet wounds fired from an AR-15 assault rifle with one of the trio able to crawl 100 yards from the detached before succumbing to his wound.

The other would-be burglars died in the kitchen of the house.

Peters told police he had been frightened by the intruders and had acted with rapid fire with a 'family rifle' but had no intention of taking their lives.

A 911 call recorded Peters telling the dispatcher he had shot two burglars but did not realize that a third had crawled out of the house and had succumbed there.

He barricaded himself into his bedroom, telling the 911 operator he could hear one of the burglars still talking, despite being gunned down.

He pleaded for the emergency services to give the shot teenagers first aid immediately.
Mischa Barton has opened up about the months leading up to her being placed on a psychiatric hold in 2009.

The 31-year-old star delved into her demons during an extensive interview filmed for an upcoming episode of Dr Phil.

'You were at the height of your fame, but there was a dark side. Talk about that some. What happened? What was your experience of it?' the TV psychiatrist asked.

'Right, so I think you're getting into the 5150 and that time,' Barton said.

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Mischa Barton has opened up about the months leading up to her being placed on a psychiatric hold in 2009

'That never seemed to have been entirely cleared up either. I probably took about eight days off that entire year, and I had no time to myself, I traveled the world, not complaining, I was in some of the most beautiful places in every waking second so say we filmed nine months out of the year, every other second I spent doing advertising campaigns or whatever it was.

'I didn't realize I was exhausting myself. Ultimately, what really happened was they wanted me to be able to continue working and to go on to the next show.'

Barton then hinted at being pressured into always being able to perform and not taking any time off.

'I knew that it was very tough, they wanted me to go get better,' she said.

'I didn't realize I was exhausting myself,' Barton told Dr Phil in the interview about her episode

The OC star is seen in 2009 shortly before the episode that led to her being entered into a psychiatric ward

'They wanted to like give me a bunch of prescription pills to like, super young, not taken any kinds of those medicines, wasn't really meant for me.

'It resulted in my agents and my parents and everybody thinking that I wasn't capable of going off and doing this job in a few day's time that I wasn't ready.'

In the same interview the actress discussed the emotional strain she suffered following the emergence of a sex tape featuring the actress and a former lover.

The 31-year old reflected on the moment she discovered the tape was being offered to the highest bidder.

She admitted a friend told her of its existence 'several months ago.'

'It got to me because somebody came up to me on the street and said "There's something I need to tell you,"' she explained.

Mischa Barton speaks to Dr Phil McGraw about the moment she discovered a sex tape was being offered to the highest bidder

'And I didn't believe it at first; I couldn't believe it because I loved this person and I didn't believe it was possible, and I later learned that it was entirely possible.'

The x-rated video is being offered to the highest bidder with the starting price of $500,000.

'It was obviously complete emotional blackmail, but it was one of those things where I needed to distance myself from all of these people immediately, because there's not much you can do; it's really out of your hands, and it was a crime,' she said.

'It really is a serious crime to tape people without their knowledge like that, and I had made a mistake to put myself in that situation with that person, so I just removed myself from it as quickly as I could.

'And then it just continued to be complete emotional abuse after that, for the last several months.'

Jon Zacharias, the son of Revenge of the Nerds screenwriter Steve Zacharias, filmed the explicit video, Dailymail.com reported in March.

The tape purportedly shows the London born actress having sex with a dark haired man

Mischa Barton has spoken candidly about the emotional strain she suffered following the emergence of a sex tape featuring the actress and a former lover

He was named in bombshell court documents which showed Barton had taken out a restraining order against him and a second man she once dated called Adam Shaw.

The action was aimed at preventing either man from shopping the tape or leaking it online.

No evidence has been presented to show that Zacharias or Shaw are behind the sale of the video but Barton has accused Zacharias of secretly filming their sex sessions during their relationship.

The footage has being offered to online porn companies, with a number of porn industry giants considering the offer.

The 31-year old bitterly reflected on the moment she discovered the tape was being offered to the highest bidder during a televised interview with Dr. Phil, obtained exclusively by TMZ

Jon Zacharias, the son of Revenge of the Nerds screenwriter Steve Zacharias, filmed the explicit video, Dailymail.com reported in March. No evidence has been presented to show that Zacharias is behind the attempted sale

Kevin Blatt, Hollywood's sex-tape broker, was approached by a third party with the video.

He told DailyMail.com: 'The tape is being shopped around porn valley, the asking price is $500,000.'

Sources close to the star fear for her emotional well-being should the video be leaked online, telling DailyMail.com: 'This is the last thing Mischa needs. Her name has been dragged through the mud enough times, she doesn't need a sex scandal right now.'

Speaking to the TV therapist, she admitted a friend told her of its existence 'several months ago'

The x-rated video is being offered to the highest bidder with the starting price of $500,000
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PwC accountant Brian Cullinan has been pictured for the first time since his now infamous Best Picture envelope blunder at last month's Oscars.

Cullinan, who is a managing partner at the accounting firm, was spotted in Los Angeles on Thursday with his briefcase in hand as he walked through a parking lot.

It comes just a day after revelations The Academy has decided to retain PwC for next year's Oscars, as long as several measures are put in place to prevent a similar mishap from happening.

PwC accountants will now be banned from having their cellphones backstage during future Oscar telecasts after Cullinan was caught posting Twitter photos just before the mix-up.

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PwC accountant Brian Cullinan has been pictured in Los Angeles for the first time since his now infamous Best Picture envelope blunder at last month's Oscars

Cullinan, who is a managing partner at the accounting firm, was spotted in Los Angeles on Thursday with his briefcase in hand as he walked through a parking lot

Film academy president Cheryl Boone Isaacs sent an email to academy members Wednesday detailing the new protocols for announcing Oscar winners developed after the best-picture flub at last month's Academy Awards.

Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences spokeswoman Teni Melidonian confirmed the authenticity of the email.

The academy's Board of Governors discussed its ongoing relationship with PwC, formerly known as PricewaterhouseCoopers, and established the new controls at a meeting Tuesday night.

Besides banning cellphones, the academy is adding a third balloting partner to the telecast, and bringing in PwC's U.S. chairman to provide oversight.

According to the Hollywood Reporter, Oscars producer Michael De Luca had lunched with Warren Beatty before the meeting.

They also report that the 54-person board gathered at the organization's headquarters in Beverly Hills for their first in-person meeting since awards night which lasted six hours.

Oops: According to THR, PwC US Chairman Tim Ryan apologized for the 'human error' made by Brian Cullinan and Martha Ruiz who were the 'balloting leaders' that had handed off the wrong envelope

Infamous: The Academy has decided to retain accounting firm PwC despite the now Best Picture flub last month according to a Wednesday from The Hollywood Reporter

The firm and The Academy have a long-term working relationship as PwC has handled The Oscars voting since 1934.

According to THR, PwC US Chairman Tim Ryan apologized for the 'human error' made by Brian Cullinan and Martha Ruiz who were the 'balloting leaders' that had handed off the wrong envelope and took at least a minute before being pushed on stage to fix it.

Cullinan has been the center of much of the controversy as it was revealed in Tuesday's meeting that he had thrown a party the night before The Oscars and even 'boasted' about knowing who would win according to The Hollywood Reporter.

The self-proclaimed Matt Damon lookalike could be seen glued to a television monitor broadcasting Stone's acceptance speech for Actress in a Leading Role while holding multiple envelopes and his phone.

Everyone else in the room is looking at Warren Beatty in the photo, who at that moment was hugging Casey Affleck after his Actor in a Leading Role win for Manchester by the Sea.

Distracted: The self-proclaimed Matt Damon lookalike could be seen glued to a television monitor broadcasting Stone's acceptance speech for Actress in a Leading Role while holding multiple envelopes and his phone

Uh oh: According to the weekly, Oscars producer Michael De Luca had lunched with Warren Beatty for lunch before the meeting as the actor and Faye Dunaway were the final presenters

Cullinan then handed off the wrong envelope to Beatty, but while the Bonnie & Clyde actor was blundering on stage with Faye Dunaway the accountant was completely oblivious to what was going on because he was too busy tweeting his picture of Stone.

A photo shows the entire backstage crew and production staff with their eyes glued to the monitor, and Cullinan typing away on his phone.

Earlier this month it was announced that he and co-worker Ruiz had been fired from their posts and barred from working any future Oscar ceremonies.

According to the THR report one major change is Tim Ryan will have a greater oversight role while PwC partner Rick Rosas will take over Cullinan's job.

Rosas has previous experience as he had handed out the envelopes from 2002 to 2013. They will be naming another employee to join him sometime within the next few weeks.

In an email to Academy members sent out by PwC president Cheryl Boone Isaacs the entire situation was addressed along with an announcement that the firm will be returning to next year's Oscars.

Not his best night: Cullinan and Ruiz had been criticized for taking more than a minute before being pushed to fix the situation

Shocked: The entire Oscars crowd seemed dumbfounded by the events

Boone Isaacs said in her email Wednesday that a third balloting partner with knowledge of the winners will sit with the telecast director going forward. Balloting partners will also be required to participate in Oscar rehearsals, she said.

She called the 89th Academy Awards 'the most extraordinary and memorable Oscars ceremony in decades' and said that academy officials have been working since then to develop the new protocols adopted Tuesday.

She wrote: 'Heading into our 84th year working with PwC, a partnership that is important to the Academy, we've been unsparing in our assessment that the mistake made by representatives of the firm was unacceptable.'

In a heart-stopping moment, the stars and producers of La La Land were stopped midway through their acceptance speeches and forced to hand their trophies to the stars of Moonlight after their film was announced as Best Picture in one of the biggest blunders in Oscar history.

The terrible end to an otherwise triumphant show left the audience gasping in horror as Beatty revealed he had incorrectly read La La Land as the winner.
A New Zealand mother has posted a picture of her clubbing just hours after her ex-partner was found guilty of murdering their 14-month-old son.

Fourteen-month-old Ihaka Stokes was killed by his father Troy Kevin Taylor, 23, at their Christchurch home on July 3, 2015, NZ Herald reported.

Just hours after Taylor was found guilty of Ihaka's murder, 21-year-old mother Mikala Stokes posted a photo to Snapchat at about 1am on Friday with the caption: 'From court to club.'

21-year-old mother Mikala Stokes (pictured) posted a photo to Snapchat at about 1am on Friday with the caption: 'From court to club' just hours after her ex-partner was found guilty of murdering their son

Ihaka Stokes (pictured), 14-months-old, died after Taylor inflicted 59 fatal injuries on him at their Christchurch home on July 3, 2015

Ms Stokes also posted photographs of her playing beer pong earlier that evening.

The nightclub photo was screenshotted by one of her friends, Julie Stechmann, who called her behaviour bizarre.

'From the start, I thought her behaviour was extremely strange. And again last night it was extremely strange.'

During the high-profile murder trial at the High Court in Christchurch, Taylor blamed Ms Stokes for the murder, claiming she caused the boy's 59 fatal injuries while he was out getting a tattoo.

Ms Stechmann, a defence witness in the trial, said she saw Taylor on the day of Ihaka's death and that he seemed 'happy' and 'normal' after getting a tattoo.

According to Ms Stechmann, Taylor had told her they had taken the boy to the doctor that morning after finding bruising on his jaw.

Two hours after the murder, Stechmann claimed she saw the couple with their friends at a shopping centre.

'Troy was telling me what happened, because I hadn't realised, and Troy started crying, the others started crying, and [Stokes] was just standing there emotionless. That has always stuck with me,' she said.

The jury deliberated for four hours after eight days of evidence and found Taylor guilty of murder and assaulting the infant the day before he died.



The 23-year-old will be sentenced on June 9.

The jury deliberated for four hours after eight days of evidence and found Taylor (pictured) guilty of murder and assaulting the infant the day before he died

During the high-profile murder trial at the High Court in Christchurch, Taylor blamed Ms Stokes for the murder of baby Ihaka
A man has been charged after being caught with 32,000 MDMA pills in his backpack in inner-city Sydney.

Police stopped a 29-year-old Nepalese man on Liverpool Street in Darlinghurst about 12.30pm on Thursday and spoke with him.

After searching his backpack they found the large quantity of MDMA tablets.

A man has been charged with commercial drug supply after being caught with 32,000 MDMA pills in his backpack in Darlinghurst, Sydney. Police also searched a house on Crown Street and found a further 22,000 MDMA tablets (stock image)

The man was arrested and taken to Kings Cross Police Station.

Police later searched a house on Crown Street in Darlinghurst and officers seized 22,000 MDMA tablets and various substances suspected to be prohibited drugs.

The, who is originally from Nepal, was charged with three counts of large commercial drug supply and refused bail.

He appeared in Central Local Court on Friday morning and did not apply for bail.

The 29-year-old man appeared in Central Local Court (pictured) on Friday and did not apply for bail. The case has been adjourned and he will reappear in court on May 25

The case has been adjourned and he will reappear in court on May 25.

Further inquiries revealed his student visa was expired and Australian Border Force was notified.

Investigations are continuing.
Michael J. Fox has blasted Donald Trump and the GOP for its attempts to repeal Obamacare and cut Medicare.

The legendary actor, who suffers from Parkinson's Disease, spoke to AARP about how the discussed changes would lead to patients being forced to pay thousands of dollars in healthcare expenses.

'On average, Parkinson's patients in this country spend $12,000 to $17,000 a year out of pocket,' he told the magazine.

'Eighty per cent of Parkinson's patients are on Medicare.'

Michael J. Fox has blasted Donald Trump and the GOP for its attempts to repeal Obamacare and cut Medicare

The Back to the Future star then addressed the Republican elephant in Washington.

'If the Affordable Care Act and even Medicare come under the knife, that's not political,' he said.

'That's our lives.'

The star's charity, the Michael J. Fox Foundation, works tirelessly to raise money in an attempt to find a cure for Parkinson's.

Donald Trump has routinely promised to repeal and replace Obamacare. A Republican attempt to last week failed

'If the Affordable Care Act and even Medicare come under the knife, that's not political, that's our lives,' the Back to the Future star said

Since 2000, it has contributed an incredible $700 million as part of that mission.

He was also part of a 200-strong group that took the issue directly to DC last month, by meeting with lawmakers on Capitol Hill.

In his new interview, Fox also opened up about the impact the disease has had on his acting ability.

He said Parkinson's means he can't use 'the big bag of tricks' he relied on in the past, but said it forced him to become 'more in the moment' as an actor.

Activists gathered near Brooklyn Borough Hall where the staged a rally and symbolic 'die-in' in opposition to the repeal of the Affordable Care Act
As the carnage and destruction of Cyclone Debbie is uncovered animals across Queensland are among those seriously effected by the devastation of the storm.

Animal Welfare League Queensland CEO Denise Bradley told Daily Mail Australia it's vital to ensure animals are well looked after through the rough weather.

'Wild, wet weather can be very distressing for animals and so its important to bring them inside, keep them warm and dry.'

Animal Welfare League Queensland calls for pet owners to ensure animal safety

How to keep animals safe Be prepared early and make plans for pets Bring animals inside, keep them warm and dry. For outside animals its vital that they have high ground to escape any rising flood water Move pets early from low ground to ensure both they are safe Microchip dogs and cats and keep that information up-to-date to ensure that if they runaway that you can be reunited Advertisement

'Storms, in particular are incredibly frightening, especially for dogs with their heightened sense of hearing so its very important to have them inside and secure when a storm strikes. Its not unusual for dogs to jump fences theyve never jumped before, rip security screens off their hinges and be found kilometres from home. They just continue to run, blindly trying to escape the thunder.'

She said: 'We urge people to microchip their dogs and cats and keep that information up-to-date to ensure that if they do run that you can be reunited.'

AWLQ has many foster carers who look after animals, such as these, which find themselves homeless.

'Please be prepared early so that you can move outside animals to higher ground, evacuate your pets from your home and avoid placing yourselves in unnecessary danger,' she said.

Dogs are among the high-risk animals who find the stormy weather distressing

Storms are frightening for animals, especially for dogs with their heightened sense of hearing

Its not unusual for dogs to jump fences theyve never jumped before, rip security screens off their hinges and be found kilometres from home

A horse was among animals caught in the flooding

Birds are among the high-risk animals with one cockatoo left battered after her feathers were stripped off during the rampage of Cyclone Debbie.

It was taken in and cared for after the storm had passed.

The injured bird was left to contend with 260km/h winds as the category four storm smashed Daydream Island, off the coast of north Queensland, for five straight hours.

On Tuesday afternoon, as the storm moved west and hurtled towards the mainland, guests staying in a hotel on the island took the cockatoo in and fed her.

A battered cockatoo had her feathers stripped during the rampage of Cyclone Debbie

The injured bird was left to contend with 260km/h winds as the category four storm smashed Daydream Island, off the coast of north Queensland, for five straight hours

Alexis Kolsky, a woman staying on the island with friends for a wedding, took photographs of the adorable bird being taken care of and posted them on Twitter.

'A cockatoo was found stripped of feathers,' Ms Kolsky told The Huffington Post.

'Guests have taken (it) into their room and are feeding him. (It's) the only one (we've seen) that is so injured.'

Ms Kolsky said a friend of hers had a kangaroo in her corridor, while a bat had sought refuge in the hotel's atrium.

She also posted a video of a dogged lorikeet hanging on for its dear life during the peak of the storm.

On Daydream Island, off the coast of north Queensland, a dogged lorikeet hung on for its dear life

The night before the cyclone struck, this adorable bird sought refuge between the shelters of a Townsville balcony

Ms Kolsky was not the only one to witness birds doing their best to stay safe during the horrific conditions.

The night before the cyclone hit, Channel Nine presenter Luke Bradnam posted footage of a tiny bird hiding in the blinds of his Townsville balcony.

A photographer from Mackay, north Queensland, took an adorable photo of a cockatoo seeking shelter inside his rental car and looking out at the storm.

Early on Monday morning as Cyclone Debbie closed in on Australia's east coast, Today presenter Lisa Wilkinson said there were 'just about no birds left' during a live cross.

'They say the Animal Kingdom does have a sense of what mother nature has in store for us,' Wilkinson remarked.

A photographer from Mackay, north Queensland, took a photo of a cockatoo seeking shelter inside his rental car and looking out at the storm
President Donald Trump threatened trade 'cheaters' with 'severe consequences' on Friday during an Oval Office ceremony where he was supposed to sign a pair of executive orders putting the punishments in motion.

Except he walked out of his office when he was done with his remarks, leaving his Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, the head of his National Trade Council Peter Navarro and Vice President Mike Pence behind.

He signed the measures in the Oval Office after reporters departed, the White House said.

It was not immediately clear why the president did not sign the two orders taking aim at trade abusers in front of the cameras, as advertised by the White House on a livestream of the Friday afternoon event.

President Donald Trump threatened trade 'cheaters' with 'severe consequences' on Friday during an Oval Office ceremony where he was supposed to sign a pair of executive orders putting the punishments in motion

Except he walked out of his office when he was done with his remarks, leaving his Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, the head of his National Trade Council Peter Navarro (left) and Vice President Mike Pence (right) behind

AREN'T YOU FORGETTING SOMETHING? Pence tried to stop Trump from walking out of the Oval Office without the documents

He ran back to get them from the president's desk after Trump walked out and left

In remarks from a podium, Trump said he was stopping the theft of American prosperity with his directives that order the government to fully collect on duties imposed on imports and begin investigations into countries accused of improper trade practices.

'They're cheaters!' Trump said of importers his administration will target. 'From now on those that break the rules will face the consequences, and there will be very severe consequences.'

The president wants his staff to identify countries and products that are contributing to America's nearly $50 billion trade deficit - a protectionist warning shot to trade partners like China.

'We're gonna get this thing straightened out. We're gonna get these bad deals staightened out, right Peter?' he said to Navarro. 'Right Wilbur?' he said to Ross.

Pointing to his economic team, Trump declared: 'This combination over here can't be beaten.'

Both Ross and Trump are billionaires who left lucrative personal businesses to run the government.

Trump insisted today that neither he nor his commerce secretary were going after foreign competitors to pad their own bottom lines.

'I'm not beholden to any political or financial interests. I don't care. I'm here to do a job. I'm doing a job for the American worker. I really don't care,' Trump declared.

'THEY'RE CHEATERS!' Trump said of importers his administration will target. 'From now on those that break the rules will face the consequences, and there will be very severe consequences'

'I'm not thinking about my business or anybody's business. Wilbur isn't. Peter isn't. No ne of the folks that we have up here are. We're doing a job.'

The only businesses the president said he's concerned about are the ones that employ average American workers.

'I work for the American people, whether you're a Democrat or Republican or belong to no party at all, you are an American. And I'm here to represent you and your family,' Trump proclaimed.

Throughout the fall Trump incessantly blasted China for devaluing its currency. A December tweet said the behavior was 'making it hard for our companies to compete.' He has also taken jabbed the country for its military build up in the South China Sea.

Trump said today that he and Chinese President Xi Jinping will be discussing trade policy next weekend when he plays host to the foreign leader at his Palm Beach, Florida resort, Mar-a-Lago.

'We very much kook forward to it,' he said. 'But it's been very bad what's been happening to our country in terms of our companies and in terms of our jobs, so we're going to start turning it around.

He added, 'It's not going to take a long time, It's going to go fast.'

Trump then gave Ross the floor, commenting first that his cabinet secretary has 'one hell of a good marriage.'

The orders Trump was signing direct his administration to pinpoint countries that are 'cheating' on trade and engaging unfair practices like currency manipulation

During a Roosevelt Room meeting with the National Association of Manufacturers on Friday Trump said previewed the directives, promising a level playing field with China

Trump shakes hands with Jay Timmons (L), president and CEO of the National Association of Manufacturers, alongside Patricia Miller of Matrix 4, during a meeting with US manufacturers in the Roosevelt Room of the White House on Friday

During a Roosevelt Room meeting with the National Association of Manufacturers earlier on Friday Trump said previewed the orders he was signing and promised once again to 'bring back jobs, lower taxes and provide a level playing field for our workers.'

'The field has not been a level field. Jobs have been leaving our country going to China, and Mexico and lots of other places,' the president said, 'and you'll be seeing what's happening over the next few weeks.'

He said then that his meeting with Xi next weekend in Florida at the 'southern White House,' his nickname for Mar-a-Lago, would be 'big.'

A copy of the orders Trump signed had not been provided to press as of close of business.

Top administration officials said Thursday that the directives were aimed at rooting out the causes and culprits behind America's trade deficit, in a first step toward converting tough trade rhetoric into action.

Ross said one order would result in analysts going 'country by country, and product by product,' reporting back to Trump within 90 days.

They will look, he said, for evidence of 'cheating,' inappropriate behavior, trade deals that have not lived up to their promise, lax enforcement, currency misalignment and troublesome World Trade Organization constraints.

'It will form the basis for decision making by the administration,' he said.

The order is a warning shot across Beijing's bow.

'Needless to say the number one source of the deficit is China,' Ross said, before listing more than a dozen other 'countries that will potentially be involved.'

The others listed were: Canada, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, South Korea, Switzerland, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam.

The US president wants his staff to identify countries and products that are contributing to America's nearly $50 billion trade deficit, in a protectionist warning shot to trade partners like China. Chinese President Xi Jinping and his wife Peng Liyuan are seen above on Thursday

However, Ross said the presence of a deficit does not necessarily mean that retaliatory or remedial action would be taken.

'It's a little bit hard to say that someone is an evildoer if they are providing a product we can't,' he said. 'In some cases, it will simply be that they are better at making the product or can do it far cheaper than we can.

He reiterated: 'This is not meant to say that everybody on this little list is an evildoer.'

Peter Navarro, a top Trump trade advisor outlining the plan, said, 'We've under collected 2.8 billion of these duties.'

Under the proposals being considered US customs officials could impose more substantial bonding requirements at the border or examine products' risk.

Listing various problem areas, Navarro said: 'This is a big deal. It's steel, chemicals, agricultural products, machinery -- it's the whole gambit.'

Germany protested over planned US punitive anti-dumping duties on steel plate products from companies in that country and six others.

German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel charged the step breached global trade rules and unfairly disadvantaged suppliers in Germany, as well as in Austria, Belgium, France, Italy, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan.

Italy also voiced alarm, amid fears that products like Vespa scooters could be hit by punitive duties.

'Trump declares war on the Vespa' said a headline in national daily Il Messaggero, reflecting the tone of most of the media coverage on an issue that dominated front pages and topped news bulletins.

The European products are vulnerable to potential measures because of a transatlantic dispute over Europe's ban on beef produced with the aid of hormones that pre-dates Trump coming to power.

More than a dozen other 'countries that will potentially be involved,' the Commerce secretary says, including Germany and Canada. Germany's Angela Merkel is seen above on Thursday. Canada's Justin Trudeau is also pictured giving remarks on Thursday

Along with mopeds, the symbolic Italian products that could have punitive duties slapped on them reportedly include tomatoes in every form, salami and Parma ham, and San Pellegrino mineral water, now owned by Switzerland's Nestle.

Ross, formerly on the board of steel and mining giant ArcelorMittal, said Thursday the foreign producers were selling their products at unfairly low prices in the US market and that US customs could therefore impose duties on the imports.

Throughout his presidential campaign, Trump had vowed to put America's trading relationship with the world on a more advantageous basis and put 'America first.'

Critics counter that although the United States runs a deficit with some countries, no nation has benefited more from current global trading arrangements than its only superpower.

In a second executive order, Trump will order the government to look at ways the United States can better recover trade duties on products that are subsidized by foreign governments or dumped on the US market.

Navarro insisted the new measures would fall within rules at the World Trade Organization, where some might see the United States erecting a technical barrier to trade.

'There is no issue here,' he said. 'We've been collecting these duties -- we just haven't been doing it very well. The WTO is silent on the issue of incompetence.'
Oakland officials say a burning candle started a building fire that killed four people.

Thursday's announcement rules out arson as the cause of the Monday blaze that also displaced dozens of residents in the building for recovering addicts and people who had been homeless.

'The fire has been deemed to have been accidentally caused. The fire investigation report should be completed in the next few weeks,' city spokesman Karen Boyd said in a statement, according to Mercury News.

The fire occurred just three days after city building inspectors found multiple fire code violations, including inoperable sprinklers and alarms in the building at 2551 San Pablo Avenue.

Three people were killed in the fire at the building, which was described as a 'death trap' just days before yesterday morning's tragedy

The Oakland building where the fire broke out was found to have had a number of serious failings just days before the blaze

Officials also noted a lack of fire extinguishers and overloaded electrical cords during the inspection. A fire inspector noted 11 violations.

At least 80 people lived in the transitional building for people who were homeless or who had addiction issues, including children.

People were seen escaping from the building by jumping out windows and rappelling down walls with bed sheets.

Four people were hospitalized.

Two adults and two children were taken to a hospital with non-life-threatening injuries

In the months before the tragedy the property owner, Keith Kim, attempted to evict dozens of tenants, citing December's Ghost Ship fire, which killed 36 people in a warehouse just five miles away.

It's unclear if the owner was in the process of fixing any of the violations.

Documents reveal the city ordered a string of measures had to be carried out within 30 days.

The Alameda County coroner identified one of the victims as 64-year-old Edwarn Anderson

Victim: Cassandra Robertson, 50, is seen above in a photo with her husband

Last week the Rev Dr Jasper Lowery, a founder and director of the Urojas Community Services group, told The Mercury News: 'It's a deathtrap in there.'

It is believed that squatters had settled on the top floor. He stated: 'This is another Ghost Ship because of the violations on the building, things aren't up to code and things weren't fixed, and that's always been a concern.'

Only two of the victims have been identified: Edwarn Anderson, aged 64, and Cassandra Robertson, 50. Two others who died were a church deacon and a woman who had recently moved in.

The San Francisco Chronicle reports that a battle over evictions had been going on for months, and tenant Gail Harbin claimed that people were forcibly removed and their belongings were removed.

A total of 11 failings were uncovered by the city of Oakland at the address three days before the fatal fire

In Monday's pre-dawn darkness, resident Michael Jones said he was awakened by screams of 'fire,' bolted out of bed and instinctively pounded on the doors of his elderly neighbors and ushered them to safety - walkers and all.

Jones, 43, then found Princess, the 'house' pit bull, cowering in the backyard, and the two ran out the front door as glass shattered from the heat.

A few hours later, he and the dog stood across the street, staring at the smoldering wooden structure that housed some 80 recovering drug addicts and former homeless people, many of whom complained that they had not heard alarms, felt sprinklers or found fire extinguishers as they fled the substandard living conditions.

An evacuee waits as firefighters battled yesterday's blaze, which claimed the lives of three people

Building owner Keith Kim had attempted to evict dozens of tenants in the build up to the fire, citing the Ghost Ship blaze which killed 36

The owner, Keith Kim, did not return telephone calls from The Associated Press.

Four people were injured in the fire. Oakland Fire Battalion Chief Erik Logan said some people were hanging from windows and others were in fire escapes when firefighters arrived.

The fire broke out in the rundown neighborhood nearly three months after a warehouse called the Ghost Ship caught fire and killed 36 people attending an unlicensed concert about five miles away.

The fires have raised questions about the use of some buildings in the city for residences amid a shortage of affordable housing in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Some residents made makeshift ropes from sheets in order to lower themselves to safety

'At least the rats are gone,' said Angela Taylor, 62, clutching her purse, the only possession she managed to get out of a room she paid $550 a month to live in. 'It's the wrong purse, but it's better than nothing. A lady needs her purse.'

In 2010, Oakland allowed the owner of the 40-unit building to convert the structure into transitional housing for recovering drug addicts, people struggling with homelessness and others, records show.

Since then, it has been the subject of several building department citations and investigations. City records show building officials verified complaints filed by the nonprofit organization that rents most of the building about deferred maintenance.

An evacuee sits in an ambulance after fleeing the early morning apartment fire which claimed the life of three people

A boy who was evacuated from an early morning apartment fire clutches a Mickey Mouse toy

Kim was sent a notice of violation on March 2 over complaints of large amounts of trash and debris, building materials and furniture behind the property.

The building department also has an open investigation into complaints of 'no working heat throughout the building, electrical issues and a large pest infestation,' city records show.

City fire officials have been criticized for failing to inspect the Ghost Ship warehouse and the mayor conceded that city agencies need to improve communications after records showed police responding to a number of complaints there in the months before the Dec. 2 blaze.

The cause of the Ghost Ship fire is still under investigation and Fire Chief Teresa Deloach Reed announced she would retire May 2.

The fire broke out at around 5.40am in the building which provides transitional housing

Days after the warehouse fire, the owner of the building that burned Monday sent an eviction notice to Urojas Community Center, which had leased the first two floors of the three-story building, said James Cook, an attorney for the center.

The center assists about 60 people with transitional housing and services, Cook said. He had complained to the city about clogged toilets and disgusting bathrooms, exposed wires and water an inch deep on the ground floor, he said.

'It's like Ghost Ship, but worse,' Cook said.

Residents said the hallways were cluttered with trash and debris.

'There were no sprinklers or fire extinguishers,' said Curtis Robinson, 52, who had to leave his wheelchair behind in his first floor room in the scramble to escape.
A horrifying video shows the moment a motorcyclist crashed off a highway in California.

The terrifying video was shot around noon on Sunday as the biker, only identified as Willie, was traveling with friends down Angeles Crest Highway, according to Fox News.

California Highway Patrol said the biker had to be airlifted to the hospital.

A horrifying video shows the moment a motorcyclist (circled) crashed off a highway in California

The terrifying video was shot around noon on Sunday as the biker, only identified as Willie (pictured on the ground), was traveling with friends down Angeles Crest Highway. Willie's friend went down the cliff to help him moments after the crash

Willie (pictured) was found tangled in branches toward the bottom of the cliff as his friend asked him what happened

In the video, the motorcyclist is seen losing control of his bike while taking on a curve.

His friend, who is riding behind him, caught the whole thing on camera as the man crashed over the cliff.

The video shows the man being thrown from his bike, which authorities said was found stuck in a tree.

The rider's friend is seen pulling over and running over to help as he yelled: 'Willie! You okay? I'm coming down!' He then climbs down the cliff to help him.

He was found tangled in branches toward the bottom of the cliff as his friend asked him what happened.

Willie said his 'back tire slipped and made me slide forward'. He said he couldn't control the bike and it went forward over the railing. He suffered a broken shoulder, according to first responders.

Willie said his 'back tire slipped and made me slide forward'. He said he couldn't control the bike and it went forward over the railing. Pictured are first responders at the scene on Sunday
A group of people have risked their lives trying to drag a flat screen TV and a bike across a set of tracks with a train only seconds away.

A woman and two men became stuck on the tracks with the emergency gates down and warning signals blaring in Frankston, Melbourne.

Passer-by Cale Chapman captured the incident on video and uploaded it to Facebook on Friday.

Scroll down for video

A group of people have risked their lives trying to drag a flat screen TV and a bike across a set of tracks with a train only seconds away

A woman and two men became stuck on the tracks with the emergency gates down and warning signals blaring in Frankston, Melbourne

In the video the train can be heard sounding its horn as the group struggle to carry the items.

'What are you doing?,' exclaims Cale.

'We gotta get out of here,' the woman says in reply.

'Argh, we might just have to leave it here,' she says

The group can be seen desperately trying to roll the TV and bike across on what seems to be a crate with wheels, all held together with rope.

The rope soon unravels and the TV spills onto the tracks before one of the men tries to drag it over the bitumen to safety.

Noticing the mayhem, three policemen rush to their aid- waving their hands in the air to stop the train.

The ambitious group didn't get far before the police intervened.

'Frankston, gotta love Frankston,' Cale says to end the video.

The group can be seen desperately trying to roll the TV and bike across on what seems to be a crate with wheels, all held together with rope
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Incredible photos have emerged showing the devastation wreaked by rising floodwaters in New South Wales, as police confirm a second woman has died in the aftermath of ex-tropical Cyclone Debbie.

A 64-year-old woman has been confirmed dead after her car was swept away by floodwaters in the New South Wales Hunter Valley overnight.

NSW police said a couple were driving across a causeway on a property in Gungal, west of Muswellbrook, about 9pm on Thursday when their car was washed into floodwaters.

A 74-year-old man escaped from the car, but his 64-year-old wife was trapped.

She is the second person confirmed dead in the devastating aftermath of Cyclone Debbie.

Scroll down for video

An aerial photograph of floodwaters engulfing aircraft parked at the airport, Lismore, after the Wilsons River breached its banks

An aerial view of floodwaters engulfing central Lismore, New South Wales, on Friday after the Wilsons River breached its banks

An aerial view of floodwaters engulf the Bruxner Highway and Lismore Airport on Friday after the Wilsons River breached its banks

NSW police said the 74-year-old man searched for his wife throughout the night without success and alerted police about 8.30am on Friday.

Police divers searched the Worondi Riveulet and found the woman's body in the vehicle about 5pm, submerged in four metres of water.

Another woman's body was discovered on a flooded property on Upper Burringbar Road, about 20km south of Murwillumbah, New South Wales.

Her body was discovered by a family member about 8am on Friday, police confirmed.

NSW Police Media told Daily Mail Australia the cause of death would not be known until a postmortem was conducted next week.

An aerial photograph of floodwaters engulfing residential housing in central Lismore on Friday after the Wilsons River breached its banks

Police also hold grave fears for a 77-year-old man reported missing from Eagleby.

Nelson Raebel was last sighted at approximately 4:30pm near Eagleby Road wearing a blue, short-sleeve shirt and green khaki shorts.

Police hold grave fears for missing 77-year-old man Nelson Raebel reported missing from Eagleby

Queensland police are appealing for information to help find Mr Raebel.

The Caucasian man, who has grey hair and hazel eyes, was reported missing after failing to return home.

Meanwhile, aerial view photos have captured northern New South Wales town Lismore engulfed in floodwaters.

The confronting photos taken on Friday capture the epic scale of the natural disaster.

One photograph shows the Lismore airport almost entirely submerged by floodwaters.

Other photos show residential houses in Lismore's centre just poking their heads above the rising water.

Lismore is about 80km from Murwillumbah, where a woman was found dead on her flooded property on Friday morning.

Northern New South Wales towns Lismore and Tweed were declared natural disaster zones on Friday after about 20,000 residents were forced to abandon homes and properties overnight.

The State Emergency Service rescued hundreds of people in northern NSW after the Richmond, Wilsons and Tweed rivers spilled over.

An aerial view of floodwaters engulfing the central business district of Lismore, New South Wales

Meanwhile in Chinderah, in Tweed New South Wales, the army has been called in to help with evacuations.

Residents and their pets were taken to safety in army troop carriers on Friday night.

An elderly woman and a three-month-old baby were reportedly both taken to hospital after being evacuation from the town.

River levels in Chinderah are expected to peak at 2.3 metres on Saturday morning, which is just below record flood levels in 1974.

Locals use a boat to travel through South Murwillumbah in northern NSW on Friday

Stranded residents negotiate floodwaters in central Lismore, New South Wales on Friday

The government announced disaster relief funding would be made available for individuals and businesses affected by the disaster.

Speaking at a press conference on Friday Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said: 'Our sympathies go to her family and her friends'.

'As we observed yesterday in Queensland, nature's flung its worst at Australians, but it brings out the best in Australians: the resilience, the solidarity of the communities and the extraordinary response of the emergency services,' he said.

The NSW State Emergency Service has made almost 400 flood rescues and had thousands of calls for help since Wednesday night.

The cyclone flooding has already exceeded the destruction of historic 1954 and 1974 floods in northern NSW.

Residents negotiate floodwaters in central Lismore, New South Wales, on Friday

There were fears more people would die as tens of thousands of residents were ordered to evacuate and 140,000 Queenslanders remained without power.

There are also reports people in the northern NSW area are missing and can not be reached by loved ones.

Authorities were unsure how many people were awaiting rescue as some may not have had access to phones.

Queensland Police Commissioner Ian Stewart said efforts were continuing in Lamington National Park to find a bushwalker missing since Wednesday.

While some residents have evacuated their houses altogether, others have sought refuge in the second story of their houses

The cyclone flooding has already exceeded the destruction of historic 1954 and 1974 floods in northern NSW

The cyclone flooding has already exceeded the destruction of historic 1954 and 1974 floods in northern NSW

The Kindred Collective store in South Murwillumbah, NSW, is pictured underwater

Lismore is flooded after the Wilson River broke its bank on Friday

Flooding in Northern Rivers town of Mullumbimby in NSW is pictured on Friday

A car is pictured submerged in floodwaters at Toombul in Queensland on Thursday

An aerial view of the flooding in the northern New South Wales town of Lismore after the area was hit by Cyclone Debbie

MULWILLUMBAH DRENCHED WITH MORE THAN 400MM OF RAIN

Up to 423 millimetres of rain fell in Murwillumbah within 24 hours, Bureau of Meteorology said on Thursday.

In parts of the northern rivers, 780mm fell within 48 hours in the aftermath of Cyclone Debbie.

An exhausted horse sheltered in the doorway of a home at Murwillumbah on Friday, according to a heartbreaking Facebook post shared on Friday.

'She is completely exhausted and we have spoken with the vet,' the daughter of the horse owner wrote.

Homes and business are underwater in Lismore on Friday as potentially deadly conditions continue.

Sirens in the northern NSW town are warning residents to head to higher ground or get on their roofs after floodwater topped the protective levee.

Three metres of water is expected to drown the town and exceed floods seen in 2001 and 2005, NSW SES Deputy Commissioner Mark Morrow said.

Lismore resident Rebekka Battista said she lived through about three floods, but none devastated the town as badly as this one

Lismore resident Rebekka Battista said water levels rose extremely quickly and 'shocked a lot of people'

'A lot of people feel they've lost everything,' Lismore resident Rebekka Battista told Daily Mail Australia

'A lot of business owners are going to come back and find they are lost for words,' Lismore resident Rebekka Battista told Daily Mail Australia

Lismore resident Rebekka Battista told Daily Mail Australia on Friday the northern NSW town had been threatened by floodwaters at least three times in her lifetime.

But she said none devastated the town quite like this one.

'A lot of people here are very used to floods, but I'm not sure they were ready for this,' she said.

'The water came incredibly quickly and shocked a lot of people.'

Ms Battista captured her town in a series of confronting photographs on Friday, and came away from the trip devastated.

'I was lost for words,' she said.

'A lot of people are going to come back to their homes and businesses and find they have lost everything.

'There's going to be a lot of tears.'

A girl stands at the edge of flood waters at the flooded Beenleigh train station carpark

Vehicles submerged in flood water near Beenleigh train station south of Brisbane, Australia

Residents carry sandbags at Mount Warren Park, south of Brisbane, on Friday

A man carries sandbags in Mount Warren Park on Friday during floods

A horse is pictured taking shelter in a home at Murwillumbah during floods

Lismore residents are pictured evacuating their homes through floodwaters

Lismore is pictured flooded after the Wilson River breached its banks on Friday

Search Emergency Services are pictured rescuing people from a flooded causeway near Tabragalba, south of Brisbane

Some of those who called for help overnight couldn't be reached, with the possibility of the 'distressing news' of deaths to come, he said.

'There could be people overnight that perished in that flood, we don't know at this stage,' he told ABC television on Friday morning.

'We expect this morning that as we start to go out and try to find people that made those calls overnight, there could be some very distressing news.'

Lismore's city's siren was activated at 4.15am on Friday warning residents to leave immediately.

'It's the first time it's been activated in 12 years,' Lismore mayor Isaac Smith told AAP on Friday.

Floodwaters topped the 10.6 metre level at 4.15am on Friday, with water levels predicted to reach 11.5 metres later in the day, Mr Smith said.

A boy is seen walking through floodwater south of Brisbane on Friday

Lismore is seen flooded on Friday after Wilson River breached its banks

Mark 'Huey' Hewitt drinks a beer in floodwaters in central Lismore on Friday

Residents wade through rising floodwaters as they leave their home in central Lismore

Floodwaters in Kenilworth in Queensland are pictured on Friday morning

The SES is predicting the situation could worsen during the day with a high tide due at 1pm.

The wind is expected to pick up on Friday, compounding the dangers.

'We'll start to see trees coming down, potentially powerlines,' Mr Morrow said.

'That's the back-end associated with that cyclone in Queensland.

'We're far from out of this and I think the recovery efforts that are going to have to occur are going to be significant.'

The Lismore mayor said people had been caught off guard, and the city is in uncharted territory.

Central Lismore is seen flooded underwater on Friday

A woman evacuates her home in Lismore on Friday

Floodwaters in Lismore are pictured on Friday in the aftermath of Cyclone Debbie

A man is pictured walking through floodwaters in Lismore in northern NSW

Heavy rainfall and flash flooding is pictured in southeast Queensland

Mr Smith said the city's protective levee had never failed Lismore before.

'It's never happened, 12 years now the levee's stood there and kept out major and minor floods,' he said.

'A lot of people here are just a bit concerned about how it's going to go, but we honestly don't know,' he told ABC TV on Friday.

Mr Morrow said floodwaters would reach the roof of homes or even higher.

'A lot of people that are going to be displaced from their businesses or their homes.'

Mr Morrow painted a picture of dramatic bids to save lives overnight.

'About 130 flood rescues, people in cars, people trapped on roofs of houses. We'll get out there as soon as we can in daylight with aerial assets as well, helicopters and we'll try and find those people that made calls to us last night and help them this morning.'

He said about 6,000 people had left their homes.

Residents use a boat in the main street on Friday at Billinudgel in floodwaters

Young men surf down the main street on Friday in floodwaters at Billinudgel

Locals paddle through floodwaters on surfboards on Friday

A man and young boy walk through floodwaters in the main street at Billinudgel

Residents surf down the street after heavy rain through flooding

Flooding at Beenleigh train station at Logan, south of Brisbane, is pictured

A pharmacy employee cleans up storm water from her store in Airlie Beach in north Queensland

Floods in the the Jones Park and the South East Freeway bikeway, south of Brisbane, on Thursday

Residents in the flood zone caused by ex-tropical cyclone Debbie have spent the night holed up in evacuation centres, as the system tracked south past Brisbane and into northern NSW.

River levels in some threatened communities were continuing to rise, even on a low tide, when they should be starting to drop.

State Emergency Service deputy commissioner Mark Morrow spoke out on Friday in an effort to stop dangerous behaviour in floodwaters.

'To tell you the truth, I have seen disgusting footage today of people being dragged around behind vehicles on wakeboards thinking it is fun. It is not, it is serious,' he told ABC news.

Floodwater threatens homes at Ocean Shores, near Byron Bay, on Friday

People wade through flooding in Mount Warren Park, Queensland, on Friday

Children play on a paddleboard in Mount Warren Park, south of Brisbane

Residents escape their flooded house in Mount Warren on Friday

Debris is pictured cutting off the road through floods at South Murwillumbah

Residents carry sand bags to their homes in Mount Warren Park

Residents row a boat down the flooded street in South Murwillumbah

Hayman Island is pictured as guests are allowed to head home

Mermaid Waters Canal in the Gold Coast is pictured on Friday

Lismore is underwater and floodwaters could reach three metres deep on Friday

South Lismore businesses are pictured underwater on Friday morning

A church in South Lismore is pictured flooded in on Friday morning

He said the worst was not over and people in flood affected areas needed to remain vigilant.

'In some places further to the north, like Chinderah up around Tweed Heads where the water should be falling on a low tide now it's actually increasing. That's not a good sign for today.'

He said 13 evacuation orders remained current, affecting about 25,000 people in northern NSW towns.

People in Tweed Heads South and West, Chinderah, Kingscliff, Fingal Head and Bilambil have been told to leave.

Closer to the Queensland border, residents in 500 homes in the South Murwillumbah, Condong and Tumbulgum areas were also ordered to evacuate, with the Tweed River experiencing major flooding.

Floodwaters are pictured dangerously high in South Lismore on Friday morning

The Gold Coast is pictured on Thursday where a home was flooded

Part of John Muntz Causeway bridge collapsed in Oxenford in the Gold Coast on Thursday

Flooding at Mermaid Waters in Queensland's Gold Coast is pictured on Friday

Destruction at Hamilton Island is pictured on Thursday evening

Norman Buchan Park in Bardon, Brisbane, is pictured on Thursday

Kindred Collective is pictured underwater on Friday in South Murwillumbah, NSW

Authorities have lamented those ignoring advice and driving through floodwaters.

SES spokesman Brent Hunter those people were 'playing Russian roulette with their lives', Daily Telegraph reported.

A 'WALL OF WATER' HEADS FOR THE GOLD COAST

Gold Coast residents have been warned to prepare as wind gusts up to 100km/h are expected to lash the region this afternoon.

Meanwhile, residents of low-lying parts of Logan and the Gold Coast have been told to move to higher ground as a 'wall of water' heads towards the region.

The Gold Coast council has told residents near the northern suburbs of Stapylton and Jacobs Well to evacuate, and warned those who remain behind they risk being trapped by floodwaters for several days.

Police Commissioner Ian Stewart said people in the area should get out now.

Lismore streets are pictured underwater as floodwaters rise on Friday

Residents in Lismore (pictured) have been warned to evacuate immediately, as flood waters rise and torrential rain continues

Queenslanders are being told to go home at lunchtime on Thursday, as the state prepares to be drenched with a month's worth of rain (flooded Gold Coast carpark on Thursday)

The Causeway in Oxenford over the Coomera River fell through

A stop sign and homes are pictured inundated with floodwaters at Lismore in NSW

'Floodwaters are approaching, and they are putting out SMS alerts to people in those areas, asking people to go to higher ground, to evacuate to friends and family,' he said.

'They are urgent alerts and we have asked the community to take them seriously.

Residents in low-lying areas around Beenleigh have also been told to get out as the Albert River continues to rise towards a possible 130-year record level.

The Bureau of Meteorology says the river level may reach around 8.0 metres in the areas on Friday afternoon, near the 8.1 metre record level set in 1887.

Chad Allen, 10, and his mother Chloe collect drinking water from an army tank at Airlie Beach

Damage to a causeway over the Coomera River near Oxenford on the Gold Coast is pictured on Friday

Damage to the Gold Coast causeway is pictured on Friday

Logan Mayor Luke Smith told the Courier Mail a 'wall of water' was heading for the area from the Scenic Rim region.

'We're in for a significant inundation of major flooding. It's just about waiting to see where all the water happens to go.'

Floodwaters are expected to peak around midday today in both areas.

Bureau of Meteorology regional director Bruce Gunn said rainfall totals across the southeast had been extraordinary, with falls of more than 800mm in the Gold Coast hinterland in 48 hours.

Lennon Bartlett rows through the McDonald's drive-through in Lismore on Friday

A woman rides through floodwaters in Lismore in NSW on Friday

A pie shop south of Brisbane has been completely flooded in on Friday

The Beaudesert area has already been beset by record floodwaters after being pounded by heavy rain from ex-cyclone Debbie.

BOM has also warned of possible minor flooding along the Brisbane River at the Brisbane CBD overnight on Friday and on Saturday.

There are also concerns about possible flooding in Rockhampton next week as water makes its way down from rivers upstream.

AUTHORITIES HIT OUT AT 'FOOLISH' BEHAVIOUR DURING FLOODING

Meanwhile, State Disaster Coordinator Stephan Gollschewski has hit out at 'foolish and quite stupid behaviour' from some during the floods

In one case a man was charged with drink-driving after driving into flood waters with his partner and two young children west of Brisbane.

And on Thursday a boy was swept away after tying his boogie board to a bridge so he could surf a torrent of water coming down a creek. He was lucky to survive and managed to swim to safety.

A destroyed road in north Queensland is pictured in the aftermath of Cyclone Debbie

A local collects drinking water from an army tank in Airlie Beach on Friday

All schools in southeast Queensland remain closed for the second consecutive day but the worst of the weather has passed over the Brisbane area, where the sun has come out.

Meanwhile, Mr Gollschewski said the focus in north Queensland, where Cyclone Debbie crossed the coast as a category four storm on Tuesday, had switched to restoring essential services such as communication and power networks, to aid the recovery effort there.

Queensland Fire and Emergency Services Commissioner Katarina Carroll said the SES had dealt with about 5600 calls for help since the cyclone disaster began earlier this week.

Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said around 140,000 households were without powers across the southeast and north Queensland.

More than 90,000 homes are currently without power in the southeast and a further 50,000 in the Bowen, Mackay and Whitsunday regions.

Some will be without power for days.

An aerial shot shows Daydream Island after the area was hit by cyclone Debbie

A home in Bowen in north Queensland has painted a lighthearted scorecard on the fence

Flood waters enter in the parking lot outside the Robina Hospital on the Gold Coast as severe rain continue throughout south-east Queensland

She said 630 power lines were affected by Thursday's extreme weather in Queensland's southeast.

The police commissioner also said efforts were continuing in the Lamington National Park, near the Queensland-NSW border, to find a bushwalker missing since Wednesday.

'He remains unaccounted for. You can just imagine what the conditions are like are there ... It would be a very treacherous situation,' Mr Stewart said.

Queensland Fire and Emergency Services Deputy Commissioner Mike Wassing said the state's flood emergency wasn't over, particularly for communities near the NSW border.

A car pictured in flood water in the Toombul Shopping Centre car park, north of Brisbane

'If you have been praying for rain please stop,' the sign for Silkstone Baptist Church in Ipswich says

'Our greatest area of concern this morning for people living in the areas of Beenleigh, Waterford, Woodend and Beaudesert,' he told ABC television.

'We currently got major flood warnings for the Albert River and the Logan River.'

He described the situation as 'very serious'.

'It is very serious, it's a major flood warning. If you're in low-lying areas, safely move to high grounds.'

Swift water rescue firefighters had saved the lives of 85 people trapped in floodwaters.

Mr Wassing confirmed there had been 'a number of rescues and continue to have as we speak'.

Cars engulfed in flood waters on the Gold Coast following torrential rain across south-east Queensland

Cyclone Debbie aftermath: Mackay in north Queensland is experiencing widespread flooding after Pioneer River burst its banks

At 1am Friday, Queensland police urged residents of Beaudesert in southeast Queensland to warn neighbours, secure belongings and move to higher ground as it was hit by record flooding and the Logan River continued to rise.

Nine News reported some in Beaudesert had to seek refuge on the roof of their cars as the waters rose.

The Logan River in the town was at 13.91 metres early Friday morning, equivalent to the level seen in the town's record 1991 flood and the river is not expected to peak until 7am (AEST).

Weatherzone meteorologist Brett Dutshke told Daily Mail Australia Lismore and other areas have been hit with the most rain since the floods of 1974.

There is very little rain expected to come but emergency services are warning the danger is not over.

A helpless bull shark lies in shallow water during floods in Burdekin, just south of Townsville

Washed away: A car - thankfully with no one inside - sits in floodwater outside a Gold Coast hospital on Thursday

A damaged motel is seen in Proserpine after Cyclone Debbie tore through on Tuesday

Cattle farmers have had massive livestock losses in central Queensland,

'Beef producers in the Clarke Creek and Lotus Creek region on the old highway between Mackay and Rockhampton were particularly hard hit with a metre of rain falling in just over 24 hours,' AgForce CEO Charles Burke said.

He said farmers were still assessing the damage.

'Farming families in the region have never seen water levels like it, and we've had reports of cattle and horses being washed away, families sitting on kitchen tables to stay safe and major damage to sheds and other structures, while all the local bridges and crossings have been completely smashed.

NSW children surf a river wave in at Murray Bridge after Cyclone Debbie

Peter Stokes (pictured) inspects damage to his motel in Proserpine after the cyclone tore through

Kerry Campbell and Peter Stokes inspect damage to their motel in Proserpine, Whitsundays

Kerry Campbell and Peter Stokes inspect damage to their motel in Proserpine, Whitsundays

'It's extremely difficult to get in touch with producers in all the different affected areas with many properties isolated by floodwaters, power supplies cut and phone lines still down.'

EVACUATIONS BEGIN ON WHITSUNDAY ISLANDS

The first guests have been evacuated from the Whitsunday islands resorts smashed by Cyclone Debbie but thousands remain stranded on Hamilton Island.

Daydream Island is expected to be closed for a month as further assessments of the extensive damage continue.

All guests and more than 100 staff have been evacuated from Daydream after the category four storm belted the region but many more remain stuck at other resorts.

A building teeters over the edge of a sand dune on Lamberts Beach near Mackay, Queensland

Apartments in far north Queensland are evacuated as floodwaters continue to rise

A train on an elevated track hurtles past floodwaters in Eudl, on Queensland's Sunshine Coast

The Australian Defence Force delivered food, fuel and water to Daydream Island earlier on Thursday, while local ferries were organised to shuttle guests back to the mainland.

The 3,000 people stranded on nearby Hamilton Island, which was lashed with the strongest recorded winds on Thursday at 263 km/h, face a longer wait to reach the mainland.

Twelve flights have been scheduled between Hamilton Island and Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne.

Checking in could take up to 25 minutes per passenger, a statement on the Hamilton Island website said.

Rivers in Brisbane run high as the city prepares to be smashed with the equivalent of a month's rain in 24 hours

Caneland Central car park in Mackay goes under with floodwater as rain continues to bucket down

Queensland Education said all schools from Agnes Water to NSW were closed

'We have been advised airlines will be bringing up large volumes of staff to assist with this process,' the statement said.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and Opposition Leader Bill Shorten visited Bowen in the Whitsunday region on Thursday morning, making financial aid available immediately to the local council to start rebuilding infrastructure.

A emergency services source told AAP South Molle Island, to the northwest of Hamilton Island, had been 'totally devastated' but no one was there when Debbie struck.

Nearby Hayman Island has also suffered significant damage preventing emergency services personnel landing on Wednesday.

Ms Palaszczuk is standing by her last-minute decision to close southeast Queensland schools on Thursday.

The premier made the call to shut schools from Agnes Water to the Queensland border early on Thursday morning, and Deputy Premier Jackie Trad announced the move on live television after 7am.

Cars parked outside Robina Hospital were seen being swept away by the floodwater as the Mudgeeraba Creek burst its banks

Motorists in Gold Coast and Brisbane, who were pounded by the storm on Wednesday and through to Thursday, were seen struggling to make it through the water

Tourists stranded on the cyclone-ravaged Whitsundays have spoken of their holiday hell after finding themselves stranded with dwindling water supplies - as looters start to target storm-damaged businesses

But parents did not receive a text message notifying them of the closure until around 10am, after school was already due to have started.

Ms Palaszczuk has previously apologised for the inconvenience but on Friday defended the timing, saying she made the decision to close schools as soon as she learnt that ex-Cyclone Debbie would bring even worst torrential rain and flooding than initially expected.

'We were expecting between 100mm-200mm of rain,' Ms Palaszczuk said.

'When the (weather) bureau met first thing that morning, they saw there was going to be a whole lot more rain coming into the southeast corner as well as those thunderstorms and the high wind gusts.

'So as soon as the bureau alerted the authorities, that decision was made.'

She said she did not want to put children's lives at risk.

Drivers have been warned not to drive in flood waters as it is impossible to see if the road is broken, like this

Keara, Lacey and Erich Stewart paddle in a kayak after flood waters entered there back yard

Children and adults play in the flood water in their back yards

Bennett Wood sits on his car after flood waters entered his back yard

A young boys looks out over the tweed river as flood waters rise

Infrastructure along the tweed river as flood waters rise on March 30, 2017 in Murwillumbah, Australia

Infrastructure along the tweed river as flood waters rise on March 30, 2017 in Murwillumbah, Australia

Houses threatened by flood waters sweeping down the Queensland coast

Houses threatened by flood waters on March 30, 2017 in Murwillumbah

NATIONAL SEVEN-DAY FORECAST Sydney Friday: Max 23, possible showeres Saturday: Max 23, possible showers Sunday: Max 22, showers increasing Monday: Max 21, showers Tuesday: Max 22, showers Wednesday: Max 22, showers Canberra: Friday: Max 21, sunny Saturday: Max 23, mostly sunny Sunday: Max 21, mostly sunny Monday: Max 20, possible shower Tuesday: Max 20, possible shower Wednesday: Max 21, possible shower Melbourne Friday: Max 18, mostly sunny Saturday: Max 19, possible showers Sunday: Max 18, possible showers Monday: Max 22, sunny Tuesday: Max 23, mostly sunny Wednesday:Max 24, mostly sunny Perth: Friday: Max 29, sunny Saturday: Max 30, sunny Sunday: Max 31, sunny Monday: Max 29, sunny Tuesday: Max 29, sunny Wednesday: Max 27, sunny Brisbane Friday: Max 29, windy Saturday: Max 29, mostly sunny Sunday: Max 29, possible shower Monday: Max 29, possible shower Tuesday: Max 28, possible shower Wednesday: Max 28, possible shower Adelaide: Friday: Max 19, cloud increasing Saturday: Max 21, possible shower Sunday: Max 20, mostly sunny Monday: Min 11, max 24, sunny Tuesday: Max 24, sunny Wednesday: Max 27, sunny Source: Weatherzone Advertisement

This photo shows how far floodwaters have risen across Murwillumbah

Kayaking through flood waters in Woolloongabba

Streets filled with water after cyclone Debbie moved south
A man has been jailed for at least 14 years after he was found guilty of murdering a fellow ice user in a 'frenzied knife attack' in western Sydney.

Ting Huang's stabbed and decomposing body was found wrapped in a doona in a car boot near Rookwood cemetery in Lidcombe in September 2014.

Ten days earlier, his murderer, Zhen Fang, had told police he'd killed someone but he didn't know when or where, adding 'that man gave me a lot of ice'.

Zhen Fang is led to a waiting prison services vehicle at the Supreme Court in Sydney in February

He had gone to a pastor the day before and said he'd 'done something to another person', making a throat-slitting gesture.

The 38-year-old was convicted of murder last November after a Supreme Court jury rejected the submission that his culpability should be reduced to manslaughter because of an impaired mental state.

In sentencing Fang to at least 14 years' jail on Friday, Justice Peter Johnson described the murder as a 'frenzied knife attack carried out upon the victim with a clear intention to kill'.

He said while Fang's judgment was affected by his use of ice, he retained the capacity to form calculated decisions, including transporting the body to a different suburb.

Fang was jailed for at least 14 years after he was found guilty of murdering a fellow ice user in a 'frenzied knife attack' in western Sydney

The 38-year-old was convicted of murder last November after a Supreme Court jury rejected the submission that his culpability should be reduced to manslaughter

Ten days before Ting Huang's stabbed and decomposing body was found, his murderer, Zhen Fang, told police he'd killed someone but he didn't know when or where

'The offender was sufficiently in control of his actions and thought processes that he was able to take these purposeful steps after the killing,' the judge said.

The body of Mr Huang, then 25, was found with multiple stab wounds and high levels of methamphetamine after police received a call about a car that had been abandoned for a number of weeks.

Justice Peter Johnson described the murder as a 'frenzied knife attack carried out upon the victim with a clear intention to kill'

The judge said the circumstances of this case reveal 'the devastating consequences flowing from the use of methylamphetamine by members of the community.

'One man is dead and the other faces a lengthy term of imprisonment,' he said.

'Their families have been left to salvage what they can from the human wreckage left from these terrible events.'

He sentenced Fang to a maximum of 19 years' imprisonment, with a non-parole period of 14 years.
Fatima Milanovic has been charged with grand theft and organized fraud after trying to steal $6million worth of diamonds

The moment a jeweler foiled an attempted diamond heist by locking the alleged would-be thief inside his own vault has been captured on camera.

Vladislav 'Bobby' Yampolsky owns ECJ Luxe Collection in Boca Raton, Florida, and was working when a woman approached him and claimed she wanted to buy some bling.

The woman, Fatima Milanovic, claimed she was was representing a diamond dealer and was there to inspect $6million worth of goods - despite the fact she had none of the required tools, the Sun-Sentinel reports.

Yampolsky, a veteran with more than three decades in the jewelry industry, told the newspaper he immediately knew something was up.

His instincts proved to be flawless, as the 46-year-old thief kept trying to distract him as the glimmering collection of diamonds were on sprawled out across a table.

'She came here to inspect stones without bringing any tools, no magnifying glass, no diamond dealer's loupe, nothing, so it was obvious she was about to pull something,' Yampolsky told the Sentinel.

Vladislav 'Bobby' Yampolsky (pictured) owns ECJ Luxe Collection in Boca Raton, Florida, and stopped the heist by locking the thief in his vault room

The 46-year-old would be thief was caught on security footage inside the vault room at the store

After the diamonds were displayed on a table, Milanovic allegedly agreed to buy the $6million set

Milanovic, according to police, then agreed to purchase the diamonds, but insisted they had to be wrapped in a specific material she had with her.

Yampolsky alleges that she had an identical-looking package pre-prepared in her bag, and kept trying to distract him so she could make the switch.

But he wasn't fooled, and quickly made his way out of the vault room, locking the door behind him - stranding the 46-year-old.

'She tried to scam us... She brought her own materials, wrapped it herself with her own tape and tried to pull the switch,' Yampolsky told the newspaper.

She then is accused of trying to switch the diamonds for a fake package she brought with her, at which point Yampolsky walked out of the vault and locked her inside

Milanovic, according to police, was then seen sitting in the vault after being locked inside until police arrived

At the end of the video she was seen being handcuffed and led out of the vault by police officers

The entire incident, which seemingly came direct from a Hollywood script, was captured on a surveillance camera in the room.

Police said the footage continued after Milanovic was locked inside, and the woman frantically made a phone call before trying to tear the pre-made package to shreds.

The woman, who carried a French passport, was held at Palm Beach County Jail on charges of grand theft and organized fraud.

She has since been released on a $50,000 bond.
This is the extraordinary moment a brave journalist confronted three North Korean diplomats and asked them if they assassinated Kim Jong-Nam.

Footage showed the reporter quizzing the men as they accompanied his coffin on a flight back to Pyongyang.

The three men are believed to be wanted for questioning over the murder of dictator Kim Jong-Un's brother at Kuala Lumpur Airport.

A journalist confronted three North Korean diplomats over the murder on the flight to North Korea

A journalist questioned the men during the flight home in an extraordinary moment

The unnamed reporter filmed himself on the flight back to Pyongyang yesterday.

He boldly asked them: 'Did you take part in the assassination of Kim Jong Nam?' He also tried to confirm their identities.

The journalist even orders one of the men to move out of his seat.

Three North Korean suspects are believed to have accompanied the North Korean dictator's brother's body back to Pyonyang on Friday after Malaysia agreed a swap deal with the reclusive state.

Photographs showed Hyon Kwang Song, the second secretary at the North Korean embassy in Kuala Lumpur, and Kim Uk Il, a North Korean state airline employee on the flight.

The pictures match those released by the Malaysian police earlier.

Malaysian media reported that a third North Korean, Ri Ji U, also known as James, who had been hiding with them at the North Korean embassy in Kuala Lumpur was also allowed to go home.

Malaysian authorities released Kim's body on Thursday, in a deal that secured the release of nine Malaysian citizens held in Pyongyang after a drawn out diplomatic spat.

They were brought home to Kuala Lumpur early on Friday morning on board a small Bombardier business jet operated by the Malaysian air force.

There were jubilant scenes as they returned to their home country.

This passenger did not respond politely when asked if he was involved in the killing

Footage showed the reporter quizzing the men as they accompanied his coffin on a flight back to Pyongyang

Kim was the half-brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. The late Kim Jong-il's eldest son is thought to have fled North Korea after being passed over for the leadership

The nine Malaysian nationals were met by their relatives and a large media contingent at Kuala Lumpur airport early on Friday

Kim Jong Nam was killed in Kuala Lumpur International airport on February 13 in an assassination using VX nerve agent, a chemical so lethal it is on a UN list of weapons of mass destruction.

The estranged eldest son of the late North Korean leader Kim Jong Il had spoken out publicly against his family's dynastic control of the isolated, nuclear-armed nation.

For the past few years he had lived in exile in the Chinese territory of Macau, and his family has gone into hiding since the murder.

Malaysian prosecutors have charged two women - an Indonesian and a Vietnamese - with killing him, but they are regarded by South Korean and US officials as pawns in an operation carried out by North Korean agents.

North Korea's leader, Kim Jong Un, had issued a 'standing order' for his elder half-brother's assassination, and there was a failed attempt in 2012, according to some South Korean lawmakers.

One of the Malaysians who was stranded in North Korea walks free from the plane after arriving in Kuala Lumpur airport on Friday

Malaysian police had named eight North Koreans they wanted to question in the case, including the three believed to have been given safe passage to leave Malaysia.

Of the others, police believe four fled Malaysia on the same day as the murder and another was held for a week before being released due to insufficient evidence.

Angered by the probe, North Korea imposed a travel ban on Malaysians leaving North Korea, trapping three diplomats and six family members - including four children - in Pyongyang.

Malaysia, which had previously friendly ties with North Korea responded with a ban of its own, but was left with little option but to agree to North Korea's demands for the return of the body and safe passage for the three nationals hiding in the embassy.

Malaysians who were stranded in Pyongyang walk with Malaysia's Foreign minister Anifah Aman, center right, after arriving at Kuala Lumpur International airport

Mohd Nur Azrin Md Zin, 37, (centre) the Malaysian nationals who returned from Pyongyang, shakes hands with his family members at Kuala Lumpur International Airport

Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak issued a statement announcing the return of the body, but did not mention Kim by name.

Najib, who is currently on an official visit in India, said in the statement: 'Following the completion of the autopsy on the deceased and receipt of a letter from his family requesting the remains be returned to North Korea, the coroner has approved the release of the body.'

North Korea has maintained that the body was that of Kim Chol, the name given in the passport carried by the victim, and not Kim Jong Nam.

Najib's statement did not mention the safe passage given to the North Koreans police had wanted to question, but it did say the travel ban on North Koreans leaving Malaysia had been lifted.

North Korea also released a statement saying both countries managed to 'resolve issues arising from the death of a DPRK national.'

Najib said the police investigation will continue.
Smiling even though she is battered, bruised and standing on a shattered leg, this is the first picture of the American widow since her husband was murdered in the London terror attack.

Melissa Cochran, 46, from Utah, is 'getting stronger every day' and thanked people for the 'outpouring of love and generosity' they have shown for her and her late husband Kurt.

Musician Mr Cochran died on the final day of a trip to London to celebrate their 25th wedding anniversary when they were mown down on Westminster Bridge by a car driven by Khalid Masood last Wednesday.

He was thrown onto a concrete underpass while Mrs Cochran was left with a broken leg and a gashed head. A photograph of her being comforted by a passer-by on the pavement in the aftermath became one of the defining images of the attack.

Photographs of Mrs Cochran's extraordinary recovery in hospital have been posted on a crowdfunding page, which has already raised $75,000 (60,000) for her and their children.

Scroll down for video

Brave: A smiling Melissa Cochran says she is 'getting stronger every day' after losing her husband Kurt and suffering terrible injuries

Support: Mrs Cochran has also thanked people from all around the world for the 'outpouring of love and generosity' they have shown her and Kurt

Shocking: Mrs Cochran was left with a broken leg and rib and a badly cut head after the collision and was comforted on the pavement in one of the defining images of the attack.

Much loved: Kurt and Melissa Cochran from Utah were among those run over by Khalid Masood. Kurt died while his wife was rushed to hospital with broken bones and a cut head

The first shows her smiling while standing on crutches with her left leg in a cage after an operation.

In the other she is shown smiling in bed while taking a selfie surrounded by her family and friends.

Her brother Clint Payne said on the family's GoFundMe page: 'Her health is steadily improving and she has been strengthened by the presence of her family. She is so grateful for the outpouring of love and generosity.

'So many people have been so kind, and we are deeply touched by their goodness and generosity.

'The most difficult part of all of this is that Kurt is no longer with us, and we miss him terribly. He was an amazing individual who loved everyone and tried to make the world a better place.'

Musician and engineer Mr Cochran died and his wife Melissa, from West Bountiful, Utah, were on the final day of a trip to London to celebrate their 25th wedding anniversary when they were mown down on Westminster Bridge by a car driven by Khalid Masood.

This week members of her family gathered at New Scotland Yard  and just 100 yards from the scene of the carnage  to thank all those who had helped them in recent days.

Clint Payne, Mr Cochran's brother-in-law, appeared with twelve other members of the family at a press conference and said: 'This has been a humbling and difficult experience but we have felt the love of so many people during these past several days. It's been a tender experience for our family to be together with Melissa here.

'Her health is steadily improving and she has been strengthened by the presence of her family. She is so grateful for the outpouring of love and generosity.'

Mr Payne thanked paramedics, medical personnel and all those who had helped them since the attack as it emerged the couple were fulfilling a dream to go sightseeing in London when tragedy struck.

'The most difficult part of all of this is that Kurt is no longer with us and we miss him terribly,' added Mr Payne. 'He was an amazing individual who loved everyone and tried to make the world a better place.'

Family members of American tourist Kurt Cochran, who was killed during the Westminster attack, embrace each other

The family refused to be angry or bitter about the horrific circumstances of Mr Cochran's death, saying they were determined to concentrate on the positives of his life. Pictured, left to right, family member Jason McFarland, Melissa Cochran's sister Sara Payne-McFarland, relatives Jennifer Burton, Angela Stoll and Melissa's parents Sandra Payne and Dimmon Payne

Mr Cochran and his wife had run a recording studio from their Utah home for 10 years - his family say he would had no ill will towards his killers

It emerged that the couple had been visiting Mrs Cochran's parents Sandra and Dimmon who have been working for four months as missionaries at the London Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Kurt and Melissa  also known as 'Missy' - were visiting London and other parts of Europe for the first time after arriving in Britain on March 3 before visiting Scotland, Ireland Belgium, Holland and Germany.

An inquest has been opened into the death of Westminster terrorist Khalid Masood, who died from a gunshot wound

However, members of the family refused to condemn killer Masood or his actions as Clint Payne added: 'There is no ill feeling. We wouldn't bear ill feelings towards anyone and we can draw strength as a family from that.

'Kurt's whole life was an example of focusing on the positive  not pretending that negative things don't exist but not living our life in the negative  that's what we chose to do.'

Westminster terrorist Khalid Masood was killed by a single gunshot wound to the chest, a court heard yesterday.

The 52-year-old killer was pronounced dead at 3.35pm  just under an hour after he embarked on his murderous mission on Westminster Bridge and the Houses of Parliament, an inquest into his death was told.

Westminster Coroner Dr Fiona Wilcox also took the unusual step of offering her sympathies to Masood's family, 'who are also victims of this incident'.

Coroners Officers Eric Sword told inquest that the terrorist had been identified by 'finger prints and DNA'.

Masood was taken to St Mary's Hospital in Paddington, where he was later pronounced dead.

Mr Sword said: 'The cause of death was gun-shot wound to the chest. His time of death was recorded at 15.35.'

Detective Superintendent John Crossley gave the court a summary of the events that left four people dead  Kurt Cochrane, Aysha Frade, Leslie Rhodes and PC Keith Palmer  and over 35 injured.

The Counter Terrorist Bureau detective said: 'On Wednesday 22 March 2017 at approx 2.40pm a male drove a Hyundai motor vehicle, registration EK66 RWO, northbound over Westminster Bridge towards the Houses of Parliament.

'The driver mounted the pavement twice in the an apparently deliberate attempt to target pedestrians, before mounting the pavement for a final time and crashing his vehicle into the east parliament gates of the Houses of Parliament.'

Masood died in St Mary's Hospital after being shot in the chest during the attack last week

The aftermath of the attack in which Masood (top) was shot after stabbing PC Palmer (right)

US tourist Kurt Cochran and mother Aysha Frade died after Masood drove across the bridge

PC Keith Palmer (left) was stabbed beneath Big Ben. Pensioner Leslie Rhodes died the next day

Det Supt Crossley said there were some 140 'significant witnesses' to the carnage out of a potential 1,500 potential witnesses to the 82-second terror attack.

PC Keith Palmer, 48, was stabbed, American tourist Kurt Cochran, 54, and Aysha Frade, 44, died from multiple injuries that afternoon and retired window cleaner Leslie Rhodes, 75, died later in hospital of his injuries.

The Independent Police Complaints Commission has launched an investigation into Masood's death and will report directly to senior coroner Dr Wilcox, the court heard.

No member of Masood's family attended the 15-minute hearing at Westminster's Coroners Court but Dr Wilcox offered them her sympathies.

She told the court: 'I take a moment to pass my sympathies to the family o Masood, who are also all victims of this incident.'

The inquest was adjourned until May and will be heard in full at the Royal Courts of Justice.

Earlier in his life, Masood, formerly called Adrian Elms, had lived in Tunbridge Wells, Kent and Rye and Eastbourne, East Sussex, where he picked up a number of convictions for petty crime and violence.

After having two children with a previous partner, he was jailed twice and is understood to have converted to Islam while in prison.

Upon his release, he married a Muslim woman and travelled to Saudi Arabia to teach English.

In the years before his attack, he lived near a number of known radicals in Luton before travelling between homes in east London and Birmingham.

It also emerged today that Masood was, as he claimed on his CV, a graduate, having received a bachelor degree in economic history in the 1990s.
A former teacher is so desperate to have his healthy leg amputated that he injects painful alcohol into it in the hope of damaging it so badly that doctors will be forced to remove it.

Nick O'Halloran, 29, feels that from three inches below his right hip, his leg is not part of him because of a rare neurological condition which makes sufferers unable to recognise parts of their own body.

He is so desperate to have it amputated that he even straps his leg up until he can no longer stand the pain and wraps it in bandages to make it look as though it has already been removed.

Mr O'Halloran has resorted to injecting it with medical grade alcohol in the hope of damaging it so badly that that doctors who refuse to remove a healthy leg will reconsider.

Nick O'Halloran, 29, is so desperate to have his healthy leg amputated that he injects painful alcohol into it in the hope of damaging it so badly that doctors will be forced to remove it

Mr O'Halloran feels that from three inches below his right hip, his leg is not part of him because of a rare neurological condition

He is now so desperate that he even lost 20,000 to an online scammer known as a 'gatekeeper', people who claim they can introduce them to surgeons willing to amputate.

But Mr O'Halloran, who has been driven to the brink of suicide by the conditions, is still no closer to an amputation after the scammer disappeared with his money. He said: I couldnt report it to the police. How do you explain it?.

Recalling how he had injected medical strength alcohol into his leg, he said: The itch was intense. I thought either this will work or I will try something more drastic. I thought about putting the leg on a train track. The desperation is that extreme.

I really didnt need to drum up any courage before injecting the leg because I dont feel like it is really attached to me.

Each time I have tried this, its been incredibly painful. You feel the alcohol drying up in your muscles. But after the pain theres a feeling of success because the limb goes numb.

Eventually though, the feeling comes back and the leg just goes back to normal.

He straps his leg up until he can no longer stand the pain and injects it with medical grade alcohol in the hope of damaging it so badly that that doctors will amputate

ick and Dr Anna Sedda, one of the few academics researching BIID. Her research suggests that the disorder is down to a misfire in the brains neurons, rather than a mental health problem

Former special needs teacher Mr O'Halloran suffers with Body Integrity Identity Disorder (BIID), a rare neurological condition which makes some sufferers want to become paraplegic or blind.

He describes it as a constant itch in his leg, explaining: I can tell you exactly where it stops being my body. It is three inches below my right hip. After that, its just not me.

Despite the strapping and his feelings towards it, Mr O'Halloran's leg is perfectly healthy and he can stand and walk fine

I remember vividly around the age of ten feeling like something wasnt right. I had this disgust toward my right leg. It was only when I was older and began studying psychology at university that I realised it had a name.

It just feels like it shouldnt be there.'

He added: I want it to be amputated. Thats my end goal. It is really the only way that I can see a future where I am happy and comfortable with myself.

Providing the patient has undergone rigorous testing, including psychological tests, it is legal for surgeons to remove healthy limbs.

But following an outcry in 2000 after two amputations were carried out at Falkirk and District Royal Infirmary, NHS surgeons in Scotland have stopped performing the procedure.

Last year Hope Gordon, from Stirling, had a leg amputated after raising 10,000 through crowd-funding for private surgery.

The 21-year-old, who suffers from a neurological condition which gives her constant pain, was denied NHS treatment, just as Mr O'Halloran has.

The 'itch' in his leg became so preoccupying last year that he had to quit his job. He confided in a GP but was put on medication for obsessive compulsive disorder and depression.

Last May, he went to Haymarket Station in Edinburgh, intending to throw himself under a train but was saved by staff.

Mr O'Halloran, pictured with friend Daniel, describes the feeling as a constant itch in his leg, explaining: I can tell you where it stops being my body - three inches below my right hip'

The former special needs teacher, pictured as a child, says he remembers the feeling started when he was around ten years old

Dr Anna Sedda, assistant professor in psychology at Heriot Watt University is an expert on BIID.

After performing tests on Mr OHalloran she said: What we find in Nicks results, as with other people with BIID, is that he has a perfectly normal response to disgust, but there is a specific difference when it comes to the amputation of body parts.

Her research suggests that the disorder is down to a misfire in the brains neurons, rather than a mental health problem.

Mr OHalloran said: The NHS only treats BIID as a mental health issue. I dont believe for a second that I have OCD. Hospital priority is always to restore and recover, so theres no way theyd remove a healthy limb.

If they would just give me the amputation, Id be happier and healthier and cost the NHS less in the long run.
The former Coronation Street actress engaged to notorious prisoner Charles Bronson was previously pen pals with Moors murderer Ian Brady, a friend claims.

Bronson proposed to Paula Williamson, 36, from Stoke-on-Trent, in February after a five-month romance.





At the time the actress, who has also appeared in Emmerdale, insisted the engagement was not a publicity stunt.

Paula Williamson (pictured), 36, appears to have a taste for dangerous men, according to a friend

Charles Bronson (left) proposed to Paula Williamson after a five-month romance. Friends claim the actress shared a string of letters with Moors murderer Ian Brady (right) before her engagement

But a friend told the Sun Ms Williamson and child killer Brady exchanged letters and gifts before a request for her to visit him at high security psychiatric facility Ashworth Hospital was declined.

Ms Williamson also reportedly received a watch as a gift from Brady who, along with partner Myra Hindley, murdered five children between 1963 and 1965 and dumped the bodies in the Yorkshire Moors.

The unnamed source added: 'Paula is adamant she has true love with Bronson.'

Brady spent almost 20 years in mainstream prison before his diagnosis as a psychopath resulted in him being moved to Ashworth.

Ms Williams said she is 'so in love' with the man dubbed 'the most violent prisoner in Britain' and described him as her 'perfect match'

The actress plans to marry Bronson, who has been behind bars for 41 years, in Wakefield Prison chapel.

She has said she is 'so in love' with the man dubbed 'the most violent prisoner in Britain' and described him as her 'perfect match'.

She added: 'I've had relationships with both men and women in the past but none of them come close to my love for Charlie.'
A woman spotted her car parked in a disabled bay after she had taken it for an MOT at Kwik-Fit.

Nicola Finn, 44, was astonished to see her Vauxhall Adam in Borehamwood, Hertfordshire town centre just two hours after she had taken it into the garage chain on March 18.

An outraged Ms Finn waited by her car until the mechanic, dressed in a Kwik-Fit uniform, emerged from a nearby bank, reports the Mirror.

Nicola Finn, 44, was astonished to see her Vauxhall Adam in Borehamwood, Hertfordshire town centre just two hours after she had taken it into Kwik-Fit for an MOT

She said the mechanic claimed he was following 'normal' procedure and taking the car for a 'road test' but could not explain why he had parked in the disabled space.

'This Kwik-Fit worker was clearly not disabled so it's an insult to people who actually are,' she said.

'When I confronted him in the street he couldn't explain why it was in a disabled bay.

'He said he was doing banking for work and then he just got back into my car and drove off.'

'He didn't even offer me a lift. I had to walk 15 minutes back to the Kwik-Fit garage - I was absolutely fuming.'

She added that the mechanic did not even offer her a lift in her own car.

After Ms Finn arrived back at the garage she was not charged for her MOT.

Bosses also apologised and offered to make a donation to a disability charity.

The mechanic had parked her car in a disabled bay (pictured) while he went to the bank

She said: 'They tried to offer me the MOT at a reduced price but I refused to pay a penny. I complained to customer services and they told me the man was doing the banking for work.

'I couldn't care less what shop he went into, he shouldn't be driving my car without permission.'

Anyone who is caught parking in a disabled bay without a Blue Badge receives a Penalty Charge Notice.

This varies depending on who owns the car park but is usually around 75.

A Kwik-Fit spokesman told the Mirror the company had apologised.

He added: 'We have refunded the cost of her MOT and service and offered her next service and MOT free of charge as a further apology.

'We have also offered to make a donation to a local charity for people with disabilities.

'We often have to take cars on road tests and we have strict policies governing these.

'An investigation is being undertaken.'
A model and medical student who appeared on the cover of Vogue and even received praised from the president of her native Maldives for her striking appearance has reportedly committed suicide at a dormitory hostel in Bangladesh.

Raudha Athif, 21, a second-year student at Islami Bank Medical College in Rajshahi city, was found dead in her room on Wednesday.

Her body was recovered by police at around midday after her classmates found her dead.

Raudha Athif, 21, a second-year student at Islami Bank Medical College in Rajshahi city, was found dead in her room on Wednesday

The body was sent to Rajshahi Medical College Hospital for an autopsy, according to The Daily Star.

Mahmuda Begum, the superintendent of the female hostel, said the model 'always looked happy,' and added, 'it is hard to believe she would commit suicide'.

Ms Begum said: 'I was in my chamber. Suddenly, I heard screams of my students.

'Rushing to the second floor of this six-storey building, I saw some of the students trying to break the door of Athif's room.'

Her body was recovered by police at around midday after classmates found their fellow student dead in her hostel room at Islami Bank Medical College (pictured)

Full picture: https://500px.com/sottimv A post shared by Rau. Maldivian.  (@raudhaathif) on Aug 28, 2015 at 6:57pm PDT

The door was locked from the inside and students broke into the room.

'We primarily suspect it is a suicide case. However, we can't come to any conclusion until we get the autopsy report,' said the officer-in-charge Zillur Rahman.

The model's first major breakthrough was a stunning image taken by photographer Sotti called 'Maldivian Girl With Aqua Blue Eyes,' which was praised by the former president of the Maldives over social media.

The model's (far left) fame grew and she eventually landed on the cover of Vogue India in October last year

The picture made her an internet sensation in 2014.

Her fame grew and she eventually landed on the cover of Vogue India in October last year.

'Modelling is a hobby rather than a career for me, since I'm studying to become a doctor,' she told Vogue.

'Modelling is a hobby rather than a career for me, since I'm studying to become a doctor,' she told Vogue

For confidential support call the Samaritans on 116123 or visit a local Samaritans branch, see www.samaritans.org for details.
A shop in cyclone ravaged North Queensland has been accused of taking advantage of the clean water shortage by offering a carton of bottles for $44 to residents still counting the costs of Cyclone Debbie.

A picture of the 24 bottles of water on display was taken at a BP petrol station in the Whitsundays.

The water has been marked up by up to $26 after the same product was found online retailing for as low as $18 and state MP Jason Costigan has hit out saying anyone caught trying to take advantage of people should be 'named and shamed'.

A shop has been seen to be taking advantage of the clean water shortage by offering bottles for $44 to residents still counting the costs of Cyclone Debbie

'If there are people out there trying to rip people off, they should be named and shamed,' Mr Costigan told nine.com.au.

'These mongrels should be dobbed in to the Office of Fair Trading,' he said.

'I'll be raising it with the Attorney-General in due course.'

The hunt for clean water comes after the council told resident that tap water could be discoloured and contain potentially dangerous levels of bacteria.

'Whitsunday Regional Council advises all residents that when water is restored to their area it may be discoloured and contain bacteria levels above normal standards,' a statement said.

'As a precaution you are advised do not drink the water if at all possible.

'If you have no other source of water, like bottled water or tank water, the water for consumption should be brought to a rolling boil for about 3 minutes.

'Water should then be allowed to cool and stored in a clean container with a lid.

Supplies were replenished by these locals after the Whitsunday Regional Council advised residents not to drink tap water

Locals queue up for petrol in Airlie Beach after Cyclone Debbie

'If you have no other source of water, like bottled water or tank water.'

Close to 300 properties in the region have been deemed unlivable, as authorities rush to address water shortages.

Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk says about 2000 damage assessments have so far been completed in the cyclone's northern strike zone, with 270 properties damaged so severely they can't be lived in.

Despite the focus turning to southeast Queensland and northern NSW following Cyclone Debbie's destruction, Ms Palaszczuk insisted isolated north Queensland communities had not been forgotten.

The premier said authorities were 'very conscious' about struggling communities such as Bowen, Proserpine and Airlie Beach, who were all battered by the category four storm on Tuesday.

A man fills his car with petrol after Cyclone Debbie ripped through the region on Tuesday

Ice was another key item as close to 300 properties in the region being deemed unlivable

'We are trying to get in there as quickly as possible. Let me make it very clear - help is on its way,' she told reporters at Beenleigh, where the local train station has been swamped by floodwaters.

Ms Palaszczuk said there were concerns about water supplies in the north.

'The army is doing everything it can to get water into those parts of North Queensland. I mentioned Airlie Beach, Proserpine, and the Whitsunday Islands. We have the SES helping with that,' she said.

Power restoration is the other critical factor hampering recovery efforts, with 50,000 properties in the Bowen, Mackay and Whitsunday regions still without electricity three days after Debbie crossed the coast.
Donald Tusk today warned Theresa May she must strike a deal on the Brexit divorce bill, migrant rights, business rules and the Irish border before trade talks can start.

The EU Council President made a small concession to Mrs May by indicating he would allow some talks to run side by side before the divorce is finalised - potentially as soon as this autumn.

But at a press conference Mr Tusk confirmed 'parallel talks will not happen' despite the Prime Minister demanding everything be discussed at once four times in her Article 50 letter.

The details of the EU's position were spelt out in a set of draft negotiating guidelines which represent the official response to Mrs May's historic letter. Mr Tusk said he was not seeking a 'punitive' deal, warning 'Brexit is punishment enough'.

No 10 said Mr Tusk's intervention made clear 'both sides wish to approach these talks constructively'. Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson said the talks were 'moving forward'.

Government sources told MailOnline it was a 'major conciliatory move by Tusk' to open the door to 'dual talks' later this year.

Donald Tusk today warned Theresa May she must strike a deal on the Brexit divorce bill, migrant rights, business rules and the Irish border before trade talks can start

EU Council President Donald Tusk, pictured today with Malta's prime minister Joseph Muscat, confirmed Brussels wants to at least begin to untangle the past relationship first - set to include a bill demand which could run to 50billion

Mr Tusk said there needed to be agreements on the divorce bill, business rules, migrant rights and the Irish border before talks could consider the future

Theresa May, pictured leaving No 10 last night, has demanded talks take place on Brexit that consider both the divorce and the future arrangements at the same time

Agreeing the cost of Brexit will be a huge sticking point in the first phase of the negotiations as Europe is expected to demand up to 50billion - dwarfing the 3billion figure thought acceptable by ministers.

Striking an agreement on the rules imposed on companies after Brexit could also be difficult. Mr Tusk letter suggests the EU wants to stop Britain slashing taxes and regulation in an effort to stop a 'race to the bottom'.

Agreements on the rights of EU citizens in Britain and the Irish border will be complicated but striking a deal is firmly supported on both sides.

The draft negotiating guidelines for the EU's position in the Brexit talks demand 'sufficient progress' be made on agreeing the divorce before trade deal talks start.

Deciding when that point is reached is entirely up to the EU and is not something Britain can declare.

Mr Tusk revealed he would visit London for talks with Mrs May next month before the other EU leaders gather for a summit on April 29.

At the meeting, Mr Tusk's draft guidelines outlined a three phase process in his draft guidelines, which have been sent to the capitals of the 27 EU member states but not London.

The first phase is to agree the terms of the divorce. Mr Tusk's draft does not say how long this will be considered in isolation but demands 'sufficient progress' is made.

EU'S NEGOTIATING PRINCIPLES AT A GLANCE Donald Tusk unveiled the EU's negotiating priorities for Brexit today. According to the document, Britain will not be allowed the same rights and benefits of the Single Market as a full member. There can be no 'cherry picking' of the four freedoms. The Union will negotiate as a single entity - there will be no individual negotiations with member states The objective of phase one of the negotiations will be to ensure an 'orderly withdrawal'. Priorities will be: To manage disentangling Britain from EU laws and treaties

Providing clarity and certainty to businesses and citizens

To arrange 'reciprocal, enforceable' guarantees to EU citizens in the UK and British citizens abroad

Ensuring Britain complies with all financial obligations

The EU will not accept a hard border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland Advertisement

Mr Tusk defined this as agreeing a settlement on citizens' rights in Britain and in Europe, agreeing what happens to business laws, ensuring the UK honours its 'financial commitments', and agreeing an open border in Ireland.

Speaking in Malta at a meeting of senior EU leaders he said: 'These four issues are all part of the first phase of our negotiations. Once, and only once we have achieved sufficient progress on the withdrawal, can we discuss the framework for our future relationship.

'Starting parallel talks on all issues at the same time, as suggested by some in the UK, will not happen.

'And when talking about our future relationship, we obviously share the UK's desire to establish a close partnership between us. Strong ties, reaching beyond the economy and including security cooperation, remain in our common interest.'

He added: 'The talks which are about to start will be difficult, complex and sometimes even confrontational. There is no way around it.

'The EU27 does not and will not pursue a punitive approach.

'Brexit in itself is already punitive enough. After more than forty years of being united, we owe it to each other to do everything we can to make this divorce as smooth as possible.'

A Government spokesman said: 'These are draft guidelines and we look forward to beginning negotiations once they have been formally agreed by the 27 member states.

'It is clear both sides wish to approach these talks constructively, and as the Prime Minister said this week, wish to ensure a deep and special partnership between the UK and the European Union.'

Mrs Merkel, pictured addressing the meeting of the European Parliament's centre-right EPP group in Valetta today, has rejected Britain's proposal for the talks schedule

French President Francois Hollande, pictured in Paris today waiting to greet German president Frank-Walter Steinmeier, has insisted a financial settlement must be agreed before trade talks

The EU's chief negotiator Michel Barnier has mooted a 50billion figure for the divorce bill the bloc will present to Britain

The third and final phase will consider transitional arrangements - but warn the transition should include continued enforcement of EU rules.

This will attempt to stop Britain from cutting taxes and slashing regulations in a bid to out compete the EU single market.

ARTICLE 50: WHAT HAPPENS NEXT Theresa May finally triggered Article 50 on Wednesday and started the process of Britain's departure. The process is irreversible, and our membership will expire on March 29, 2019 even if there is no deal. The EU has now issued its first formal response tomorrow and the 27 remaining members are set to meet in late April. The first major summit is likely to be later in the spring - but substantive talks could be delayed by elections in Germany in the Autumn. The final deal is expected to emerge by the end of next year in time for a series of votes on ratification Brussels, London and around Europe. If the talks collapse at any point in the two years, Britain could face leaving the EU without a deal at all. While a transitional period is thought likely, Britain will cease to be a full member of the EU at the end of March 29, 2019. Advertisement

The draft guidelines also confirm Europe will not allow Britain to get the same benefits outside the EU.

They also say 'partial' single market access will not be allowed.

The draft says: 'In these negotiations the Union will act as one. It will be constructive throughout and will strive to find an agreement. This is in the best interest of both sides.

'The Union will work hard to achieve that outcome, but it will prepare itself to be able to handle the situation also if the negotiations were to fail.'

The guidelines are due to be finalised in time for a summit of the remaining EU member states on April 29.

After Mr Tusk's intervention, Michael Gove, one of the chief architects of Brexit, said he envisages that EU citizens will be able to 'move freely' in and around the UK after the pull-out is completed.

Speaking in Dublin, the prominent Tory and former cabinet minister also claimed Britain will likely beef up its security presence around the European continent and rest of the world post-Brexit to safeguard its interests.

'One of the things that I envisage is, after we leave the European Union, EU citizens will be able to move freely into the UK,' he said.

'It is just they won't have the same rights to work and secure access to public services and welfare benefits.'

EU leaders in Malta have been wrestling with how to respond to Brexit. Mr Tusk, pictured centre with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and former Italian President Silvio Berlusconi yesterday, has now issued the EU's first response

MAY MARKED ARTICLE 50 AT A DINNER HOSTED BY BORIS Theresa May and Boris Johnson have a close relationship Theresa May celebrated her triggering of Article 50 with a dinner with Boris Johnson at his official residence. The Foreign Secretary and his wife Marina hosted Mrs May and her husband Philip. The dinner had been in the diary for a while but the pair decided to keep it even after March 29 was chosen as the day to invoke Article 50. Mrs May spent more than three hours in the House of Commons before a gruelling TV interview. Despite the long and historic day, sources told The Times dinner continued 'into the night'. Advertisement

Today's stand off comes after days of warnings to No 10 its position was not supported in Europe.

French president Francois Hollande has told the Prime Minister directly that the break-up terms must be settled before the future relationship can be picked over.

The message, in a phone call between the premiers yesterday, came as European leaders gathered in Malta to hammer out their approach to the looming negotiations.

But Brexit Secretary David Davis has made clear there is no chance of the UK paying anything like the figure that has been mooted.

Bitter rows erupted immediately after Theresa May formally invoked Article 50 - the two year process of cutting ties - on Wednesday.

She called for discussions on the divorce bill to run in parallel with talks on future trade links, saying there must be a 'comprehensive' deal.

But German Chancellor Angela Merkel bluntly rejected the idea.

'The negotiations must first clarify how we will disentangle our interlinked relationship,' Mrs Merkel said.

'Only when this question is dealt with can we, hopefully soon after, begin talking about our future relationship.'

Michael Gove, one of the chief architects of Brexit, said he envisages that EU citizens will be able to 'move freely' in and around the UK after the pull-out is completed

Mr Hollande has warned that Brexit will be 'painful' for the UK, and insisted this morning that there would be not compromise over the order in which issues are dealt with, according to the Elysee Palace.

'The President indicated that the talks must at first be about the terms of withdrawal, dealing especially with citizens' rights and obligations resulting from the commitments made by the UK,' a spokesman said.

'On the basis of the progress made, we could open discussions on the framework of future relations between the UK and the EU in accordance with the letter from Mr Tusk.'

European Council president Donald Tusk was handed the historic Article 50 letter by the UK's representative Sir Tim Barrow in Brussels on Wednesday

Downing Street released an image of the letter to Mr Tusk invoking the process for taking the UK out of the Brussels club

Donald Tusk revealed the letter in a press conference on Wednesday

The European Parliament's chief negotiator, Guy Verhofstadt, fueled the row by claiming it was 'very naive' to think a divorce and trade deal would be done at the same time.

'You need to do the withdrawal agreement and you have to have an agreement on what I should call the 'general terms' of your future relationship,' he told Sky News.

'Not on the detail, not on the content - that is impossible in 14-15 months to do so. We need the whole transition period of two, three, four years to fill in the content of this new association agreement for the future.'

The intervention followed Mr Verhofstadt's remarks on Wednesday in which he accused Mrs May of 'blackmail' - and also patronised her by suggesting he was holding back because she is a 'lady'.

'I tried to be a gentleman towards a lady, so I didn't even use or think about the use of the word blackmail,' he said.

'I think the security of our citizens is far too important to start a trade-off of one and the other. Both are absolutely necessary in the future partnership without bargaining this one against the other.'
Three suspected sex traffickers have been charged over a crime ring which forced mentally ill young men into prostitution for wealthy clients.

Bruce Bemer, 63, and William Trefzger, 71, have been arrested in connection with the human trafficking operation in Connecticut.

Robert King is accused of plying young men with money and drugs before pushing them into prostitution when they had racked up crippling drug debts.

Bruce Bemer (left), 63, and William Trefzger (right), 71, have been charged in connection with a human trafficking ring in Connecticut

At least 15 men in their early 20s - some with illnesses including schizophrenia and paranoia - were reportedly targeted.

The victims suffered from 'severe psychological disorders' and 'significant mental health needs', police said. Some of them were thought to be younger than 18.

Bemer, of Glastonbury, told police he has been paying 'boys' for sex for up to 25 years, the Hartford Courant reported.

Bemer paid between $200 and $250 per occasion, documents showed.

Bemer told police he has known King for 25 years and that King brought him to 'eight to 10 different boys for sex on multiple occasions'.

He is a well-known businessman in the state, owning a race track as well as a gas company, according to the Norwich Bulletin.

Robert King is accused of plying young men with money and drugs before pushing them into prostitution when they had racked up crippling drug debts

The sex trafficking ring may have been operating for decades, according to Danbury Police and the FBI.

Police said it was based in Danbury but reached other cities, WFSB reported.

King was arrested in August 2016 and charged with promoting prostitution and witness tampering during the investigation.

Police said he brought the young men to Trefzger, Bemer and at least four other clients, according to the affidavits.

One victim told investigators King approached him while he was looking for bottles in the trash and offered him money to mow his lawn.

King told investigators last year that he 'only brought the boys to the clients' - and then stopped the interview to request a lawyer.

Jillian Gilchrest, chairperson at Trafficking in Persons Council said boys with mental illnesses are the ideal victims for human trafficking.

'A person exploits vulnerabilities. Today that might have been mental health or disability but we see that with exploiting someone's drug addiction and it happens a lot,' she told Fox 61.

Bemer and Trefzger were both charged with with patronizing a trafficked person and are being held on $500,000 bonds. The case is being handled at the Danbury state's attorney's office (pictured)

Bemer and Trefzger's arrests are predicted to be the first of several more arrests in the ongoing investigation, police said.

They were both charged with with patronizing a trafficked person and are being held on $500,000 bonds.

Bemer is due back in court on April 26.

Trefzger was charged with molesting another man who was staying in his home in July 2010.

He pleaded guilty to fourth-degree sexual assault three months later and received a six-month suspended jail sentence and 18 months probation.
Military chiefs are being forced to find 10billion of savings over the next decade amid escalating costs of ships and jets, it was claimed last night.

They have launched a review to try and find at least 1billion a year in additional savings from budgets that are already stretched.

It is understood the size of the Royal Marines could be reduced, with the frontline role of one its three commando units being axed altogether.

One of three Royal Marine Unites (pictured, stock image) could be axed as a result of strains on the budget caused by the escalating costs of building ships and jets, it is claimed

Sources told the newspaper that the replacement submarines (pictured, the current model) for the Trident nuclear deterrent were likely to exceed their 41billion budget by 6billion

Overseas training is also about to be suspended, according to the Times.

Sources told the newspaper that the replacement submarines for the Trident nuclear deterrent were likely to exceed their 41billion maximum budget by 6billion.

The cost of dozens of aircraft bought in dollars - such as the F-35 jump jet - and kit bought in euros is also set to soar because of the weak pound.

The military is also facing a shortage of support equipment such as spare parts and ammunition.

The shortfall is nearly double that outlined by a National Audit Office (NAO) report in January.

The report said a staggering 5.6billion of additional savings must be found over the next 10 years.

An MOD Spokesperson said: 'Spending is monitored continually to ensure the 35 billion Defence budget focuses on front line priorities and delivers value for money by maximising efficiencies.'

Speaking to BBC Radio 4's Today programme, Defence Secretary Sir Michael Fallon repeatedly sidestepped questions over cuts to numbers, claimed there was 'not a lot' that he recognised in the report.

HOW WILL SHORTFALL MAKE MoD SUFFER? One of three Royal Marine Units could be cut altogether, sources claim

Overseas training is about to be suspended

The military is already suffering from an equipment shortage Advertisement

He said: 'We have got 7,000 Royal Marines. The actual balance, the number of sailors and the number of marines, that's a matter for the First Sea Lord to keep under review.'

Told it was noticeable that he was failing to deny there would be cuts to numbers, he replied: 'What I am saying to you is we have 7,000 Royal Marines and it is for the First Sea Lord, who runs the Royal Navy, to look all the time at the balance between marines and sailors, and I have not agreed any cut in the size of the Royal Marines.

'What we are looking at is the way in which our armed forces work, the different tasks that they have and we are constantly looking to see that they are fit for purpose in what we do.

'So if something is no longer needed, if it's redundant, we need to make sure that we can put the savings back into new equipment.

'That applies to buildings, it also applies to the way we work and the efficiencies we need.'

The minister said there are currently 7,000 Marines (pictured, stock image of a training exercise) but would not confirm if that number would rise or fall

Rear Admiral Chris Parry, an ex-Nato commander and former director-general in the Ministry of Defence, said the armed forces were being paid for on 'post-dated cheques'.

He told Today: 'It's an inevitable consequence of the creative accounting that took place when the previous administration claimed to have balanced the books in the Ministry of Defence.

'They merely kicked the can down the road and the unfunded chickens have come home to roost.

Defence Secretary Michael Fallon (pictured) sidestepped questions on the future number of Royal Marines

'At the moment, we have got a cut-price armed forces that is going to have to operate in a very sophisticated operational environment and we are failing to meet that challenge.'

It comes as Sir Michael is to join US counterpart Jim Mattis in insisting more allies must move towards the target of spending 2 per cent of GDP on defence, when they meet for talks in London.

Their message will be underlined by Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson at a meeting of Nato foreign ministers in Brussels.

Since assuming office in January, the US administration of President Donald Trump has been pressing European members to take on a greater share of the burden of collective defence.

Britain and the US are among five of the 28 members of the alliance that meet the 2% target.

At their talks, Sir Michael and Mr Mattis will discuss measures to modernise Nato, including streamlining the command structure, as well as progress on a series of joint equipment projects including the F-35 Lightning joint strike fighter.

Sir Michael is due to announce 90 million investment at RAF Marham in Norfolk to support Britain's consignment of the new aircraft.
Russian submarines have increased combat patrols to the level last seen during the Cold War, the navy chief said today.

Admiral Vladimir Korolyov said Russian submarine crews spent more than 3,000 days on patrol last year, matching the Soviet-era operational tempo.

Elsewhere today, Russian President Vladimir Putin's top spokesman said the relationship between the U.S. and Russia may be more antagonistic now than it was during the decades-long Cold War.

Asked by ABC's 'Good Morning America' host George Stephanopoulos if the U.S. and Russia were in a 'new Cold War,' Dmitry Peskov said the current situation may be worse, pinning the blaming on the U.S.

He said: 'New Cold War? Well, maybe even worse. Maybe even worse taking into account actions of the present presidential administration in Washington.'

Russian submarines have increased combat patrols to the level last seen during the Cold War

The Russian military had fallen on hard times after the 1991 Soviet collapse when it was forced to scrap many relatively new ships and keep most others at harbour for lack of funds.

The military has revived its strength thanks to a sweeping arms modernization program amid tensions with the West over Ukraine.

Mr Korolyov spoke after attending the launch of a new Yasen-class nuclear-powered attack submarine called the Kazan.

He hailed the new ship as the most modern in the world, emphasizing its low noise level making it hard to track it.

'It represents the cutting edge of nuclear submarine design,' Mr Korolyov said in televised remarks.

The navy plans to commission seven Yasen-class submarines that are armed with torpedoes and long-range Kalibr cruise missiles, which for the first time have been tested in combat during the Russian campaign in Syria.
Lauren Reed, 30, had stopped at a BP garage in the South Bucks area of Buckinghamshire to fill up her car

A female motorist claims a 'misogynist' BP petrol station attendant asked if her boyfriend would need a VAT receipt 'to do her accounts' - despite being on her own.

Lauren Reed, 30, had stopped at a BP garage in the South Bucks area of Buckinghamshire to fill up her car and went in to the kiosk to pay for her fuel.

After paying, the self-employed actor asked the attendant, who was in his early 20s, for a VAT receipt but claims his response shows his 'ignorance' and 'blatant sexism'.

Lauren says she informed him how outdated his comments were and stormed out of the station before contacting BP to complain about the 'misogyny' she had experienced.

Lauren, from London, said: 'I went to pay for my petrol and when I asked for a VAT receipt as I work for myself, the man just said 'well, of course - your boyfriend would need that to do your accounts.'

Lauren Reed, 30, had stopped at a BP garage in the South Bucks area of Buckinghamshire to fill up her car

'This is exactly what misogyny is. It's an example of everyday sexism that women witness all the time.

The BP garage in the South Bucks area of Buckinghamshire where the incident is said to have happened

Lauren tweeted and wrote a Facebook post about the incident as she was so outraged

'I couldn't believe what he'd just said - my first reaction was shock - but he obviously didn't mean to cause offence.

'I was sort of faced with a choice - did I politely walk away and giggle in embarrassment like most people do all the time?

'On this occasion, I thought 'no, that's misogyny' and I wasn't going to let it go.

'I stayed very calm and I said 'that's an inappropriate comment for 2017'. He went very flushed.

'The worst thing was he was young - only in his early 20s. You could kind of understand if he was an older man because it would be a generational thing.

'That doesn't mean I wouldn't have still pulled him up on it, but you don't expect younger people to be so ignorant.

Lauren's social media followers replied to the tweet in disgust, with one friend commenting: 'It is unfathomable to me that people like this exist.'

'I thought 'no way am I letting him get away with this'. We need to improve education- it's all down to that.

'He clearly wasn't even aware that he was being sexist - it all boils down to ignorance.

'He might have thought he was being funny or even trying to flirt, but it's still unacceptable.

Lauren, from London, is a self-employed actor and needed a VAT receipt for that reason

'I think more women need to speak out about these kind of incidents because they happen every day.

'I was so annoyed I tweeted about it and sent the same message directly to BP.'

Lauren's social media followers replied to the tweet in disgust, with one friend commenting: 'It is unfathomable to me that people like this exist.'

A Facebook friend said: 'Seriously, I can't believe the nerve of some people.'

BP commented on the incident claiming they didn't support the comment allegedly made by their employee and would look into the incident.

A spokesperson for the company said: 'This behaviour isn't consistent with BP's shared value of respect; we will speak to the store employees. Our apologies to the customer.'
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In this remote Ethiopian tribe, members undergo extremely painful rituals including lip plates, scarification and dangerous stickfighting.

The Suri tribe inhabit the mountains of the Great Rift Valley in the plains of south-western Ethiopia and pride themselves on the scars they carry.

Photographer Mario Gerth, 40, visited the Suri people and captured intimate portraits of the self-sufficient tribe.

A member of the Suri tribe, of the Great Rift Valley, wears a mound of beads around her neck (left), while another has her chest painted (right)

Suri villages, located in the plains of south-western Ethiopia, range between 40 and 2,500 people

Young Suri girls use their skin as a surface to express themselves artistically, complete with elaborate headwear

Once a girl reaches a certain age, her lower incisors are knocked out and her bottom lip is pierced and stretched until it can hold the clay plate

In south western Ethiopia, where the Omo River snakes through the lush, green forests, the Suri tribe live in their timeless grass huts

In a bizarre ritual, female members of the tribe have distinctive clay discs inserted into holes in their bottom lip, which are considered signs of beauty.

To have the discs inserted, their bottom two teeth are removed before the hole is cut.

The larger the plate, the more cows the girl's father can demand in dowry when his daughter marries.

Cattle are enormously important to the Suri and bring stutus.

As well as being a source of milk and blood, cows are a store of wealth to be traded.

The average man owns between 30 and 40 cows. In order to marry, he needs about 60 cows to give to his wife's family.

Suri Tribe members have their face and body painted with elaborate white designs and flowers and fruits covering their heads

Photographer Mario Gerth visited the Suri villages with a guide who had previously been accepted as a friend

A feather pokes out of one boy's chin, while another has a flower protruding from below his bottom lip

Suri tribeswomen, like the one above, often decorate themselves with the local flowers and clay pattern

They are expert in a spectacular form of stick-fighting and pride themselves on the scars that they carry

This woman has an amazingly extravagant headpiece made from crops and flowers

A boy sports a spotted face paint design (left) while another (right) has a large earplate

Mr Gerth said: 'The young girl uses her skin as a surface on which she can express herself artistically, adorning and decorating herself suggestively.

'Using her skin as art, she introduces herself as an individual in their society and emphasises her self-confidence.

'The art on her body shows a wide range of African vibrancy.'

When girls hit puberty they have their bottom two teeth removed before a small hole is cut into their bottom lip.

A clay disc is then inserted into the hole, which is steadily increased, stretching the lip, much like flesh-tunnel piercings which have become popular with teenagers in the UK.

'Having a lip plate is a sign of beauty and the bigger the plate, the more cattle the woman is worth...this is important when the women are ready to get married', Mr Gerth said.

He added: 'The Suri pride themselves on their scars and how many they carry.

'Women perform scarification by slicing their skin with a razor blade after lifting it with a thorn.

'After the skin is sliced, the piece of skin left over will eventually scar.'

The Suri exist at the margins of the Ethiopian state and the government in Addis Ababa regard them as trouble makers

Men in the tribe take part in a stick fighting, a combination of martial art, ritual and sport.

The 'Donga' - or stick fight - has traditionally been a way men impress women and find a wife.

They fight with little or no clothing, and the violent clashes sometimes result in death. As well as providing an opportunity to attract a partner, the fights aim to get young men used to bloodshed - which leaders believe comes in handy if they clash with other tribes.

Battles usually take place between Suri villages, which can consist of between 40 and 2,500 people.

As well as providing an opportunity to attract a partner, the fights aim to get young men used to bloodshed - which leaders believe comes in handy if they clash with other tribes.

Mr Gerth visited the Suri villages with a guide who had previously been accepted as a friend.

He said: 'I felt extremely privileged to be able to visit their homes. You respect their rules, and bring presents and photos from recent trips. This brings trust.

'They are very wary of new visitors at first, but once they know that you're not a threat, they become very open and welcoming.'

However the Suri exist on the margins of the Ethiopian state and for the last 20 years their traditional lives have been in disarray.

The arrival of guns has created an increasingly volatile, unregulated situation in a very unstable region.

The fierce fighting is traditionally seen as a way of attracting women, and is a combination of martial art, ritual and sport

Laws were passed by the Ethiopian government in 1994 banning stick fighting, but the tradition nevertheless lives on

An elderly woman from the tribe smokes a pipe in Ethiopia's southern Omo Valley region near Kibbish
Victoria Bateman, a lecturer and fellow in economics, said women should be able to sell their bodies

A Cambridge University economist who once attended a faculty meeting naked with the words 'Brexit leaves Britain naked' written across her breasts has said banning prostitution was well-meaning sexism.

Victoria Bateman said women have as much right as men to make money from their bodies, pointing out that men have been praised for careers as boxers and soldiers, where they are exposed to injury and violence.

Writing in Times Higher Education magazine, Dr Bateman said economists shouldn't be inconsistent in the way they treat male-dominated industries and female-dominated ones.

She said: 'The inconsistent treatment of a largely female profession compared with a largely male profession is nothing other than sexism under the cover of "well-meaning" paternalism.

'Those engaging in consensual sex work need to be helped to benefit from the markets that work with them rather than against them.

'The neglect of the sex trade is an eloquent symbol of fact that women are under-represented among economists.'

She said the reintroduction of nudity in Playboy was a move that should be noted by economists, not just those looking at gender studies.

In the UK, those over the age of 18 can work alone and indoors providing sex services and be paid for it. However, running a brothel or agency is illegal and selling on the street is also banned.

The economics professor has previously posed naked for a portrait and attended a faculty meeting in the nude. She said women shouldn't be cut out from the markets that benefit them

In July last year, the academic attended a faculty meeting naked in protest at the EU referendum result.

Dr Bateman had written Brexit leaves Britain naked on her breasts and stomach when she joined around 30 directors of studies at the economics faculty meeting on Wednesday to discuss teaching material and courses.

Sources said the two-hour meeting, which was chaired by Nigel Knight, director of studies at Churchill College, went ahead as normal without anyone mentioning her nudity.

She previously posed naked for a portrait by artist, Anthony Connolly.

The nude painting went on display as part of a Royal Society of Portrait Painters exhibition at the Mall Galleries in London last year.
US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson pressed NATO allies Friday to ramp up military spending and denounced Russia's 'aggression' in Ukraine, toughening the Trump administration's tone toward Moscow.

Tillerson delivered the message as he met fellow NATO foreign ministers for the first time ahead of a May 25 summit to be attended by leaders including President Donald Trump.

'As President Trump has made clear, it is no longer sustainable for the US to maintain a disproportionate share of NATO's defense expenditures,' Tillerson said in Brussels.

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Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, pictured Thursday at a press conference in Ankara, Turkey, said Friday that the U.S. expects NATO allies to start paying their fair share of defense costs

The NATO alliance includes 28 member countries, but the U.S. pays a disproportionate amount of money toward the group's common defense

He urged his fellow foreign ministers to agree at the May summit to produce plans by the end of the year to meet the spending pledge.

NATO countries originally agreed at a summit in Wales in 2014 to contribute the equivalent of two percent of their gross domestic product to defence.

Seeking to draw a line under the funding row, NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg has sought to play down concerns that Trump is less committed to the 28-nation alliance than his predecessors.

'We see a strong US commitment to NATO, to the transatlantic bond not only in words but also in deeds,' Stoltenberg said, citing increased US military deployments in eastern Europe.

Former Norwegian premier Stoltenberg said the European allies themselves realised the need to meet the citing conflicts to the east and south of its borders.

Tillerson (left) is meeting fellow NATO foreign ministers for the first time, ahead of a May 25 leaders summit with Trump in Brussels

WANTS NATO PUSHBACK AGAINST 'RUSSIA'S AGGRESSION'

Tillerson's remarks were tougher than those previously made by Trump or his cabinet officials who have stressed better US relations with Moscow after they had sunk to a low under President Barack Obama over the crisis in Ukraine.

'We want to have a discussion around NATO's posture in Europe, most particularly in eastern Europe in response to Russia's aggression in Ukraine and elsewhere,' Tillerson told reporters.

In his speech, Tillerson added that NATO was 'fundamental to countering both non-violent, but at times violent, Russian agitation and Russian aggression.'

US officials said Tillerson would work with NATO allies to press Russia to fulfil its obligations under the Minsk agreements to end the war in eastern Ukraine.

Russia in 2014 annexed Crimea from Ukraine and backed separatists in eastern Ukraine.

A convoy of U.S. troops, a part of NATO's reinforcement of its eastern flank, who are on their way from Germany to Orzysz in northeast Poland, drive through Sulejowek towards a military base in Wesola, near Warsaw, Poland on Tuesday

Allies have been alarmed at the prospect of Trump seeking to improve relations with Russia at the expense of support for the pro-Western government in Ukraine or NATO allies in former Soviet parts of eastern Europe.

Their concerns were reinforced when Tillerson initially planned to skip the NATO meeting, citing various commitments including a trip to Russia.

But Tillerson, a press-shy former oilman who had friendly ties with Russian President Vladimir Putin, agreed to attend when NATO rescheduled the meeting for Friday.

A senior NATO official told reporters Thursday on condition of anonymity that the Trump administration was now taking a more 'mainstream' approach to the alliance and anxiety among allies had eased.

GERMANY SAYS IT'S 'TOTALLY UNREALISTIC' TO PAY FAIR SHARE

Tillerson arrived in Brussels following a visit to Turkey, a NATO ally and key player in both Syria and Iraq where Washington wants to defeat the Islamic State group.

In the last two years, ISIS has claimed or hailed a wave of deadly attacks in US and European cities, including Brussels.

But the funding row remains central.

President Donald Trump tweeted two weeks ago after meeting with Chancellor Angela Merkel that Germany 'owes vast sums of money to NATO'

NATO's 2016 annual report said only five countries met the two per cent target  the United States, Britain, Greece, Poland and Estonia  while Washington still accounted for nearly 70 per cent of combined alliance defence spending.

During a visit to NATO in February, US Secretary of Defense James Mattis voiced staunch support for NATO but warned that Washington could 'moderate' its commitment if allies fail to pay up.

Trump said after a visit by German Chancellor Angela Merkel this month that Germany owes 'vast sums of money' to NATO and the US.

But German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel said it was 'totally unrealistic' for his country to meet the two per cent target.

A NATO official told reporters however that Tillerson's funding demands were 'well received' by the ministers, who told him what they were doing to meet their pledges.
Fumbling under the dashboard to find your driving license will soon be a thing of the past.

By next year motorists will be able to store digital licenses on their smartphones.

The Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) will test the system this September and roll it out in spring 2018.

DVLA CEO Mr Morley tweeted a photo of a prototype for a digital licence which showed an iPhone screen displaying the image of a licence in the Apple Pay app.

Chief Executive Oliver Morley insists it will be 'quick, easy and secure' to prevent forgeries but plastic licenses will still be available.

He wants the free digital service to allow people to share and validate information with 'trusted' third parties such as employers and insurers.

Mr Morley tweeted a photo of a prototype for a digital licence which showed an iPhone screen displaying the image of a licence in the Apple Pay app.

It comes as The Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency (DVSA) plans to modernise driving tests to prepare for driverless cars.

The tests could involve virtual reality but a spokesman refused to go into further detail.

He said: 'We will also make sure we explore the opportunities for further developing driver training and testing in line with relevant technologies - for example, virtual reality.'

It comes as The Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency (DVSA) plans to modernise driving tests to prepare for driverless cars

Chief Executive Oliver Morley insists the digital system will be 'quick, easy and secure' to prevent forgeries but plastic licenses (above) will still be available

Virtual reality is already being used to aid drivers. Motorists can take a test on their phones that's designed to reveal how distracted they are by roadside hazards, annoying passengers and text messages while driving.

The DVSA also said that MOT tests will have to adapt for modern technology and take into account sensors, cameras and other instruments used by driverless and semi-autonomous cars.

It is thought that we could see driverless cars in Britain in four years as Business Secretary Greg Clark aims to make Britain a world-leading hub for the technology.

He has pledged 100million of government funding to a project to build them along the M40 corridor between London and Birmingham.

He said the industry would be worth 63 billion by 2035, adding: 'Our collaboration with industry will create a cluster of excellence that will ensure we are perfectly positioned to lead.'

Further details on the timetable for the digital license service have been included in the DVLA's business plan for the next 12 months.

It is thought that we could see driverless cars in Britain in four years as Business Secretary Greg Clark aims to make Britain a world-leading hub for the technology

It states: 'During 2017/18 we will be developing a quick, easy and secure service to allow customers to view a representation of their driving licence on their smartphone.

'The driver will be in control of their data and this can be used to share and validate driver information with trusted third parties through a secure website.

'This service will not replace the full driving licence.

'The digital licence service will only be available to driving licence holders who have authenticated themselves on gov.uk through the existing driving licence service.

'This service will be available 24/7, wherever the driver has a web connection.

'We will develop a private beta service by September 2017.'

DVLA said work is in the early stages, with further details on what the service will look like to be released in future.
Young single men are fuelling the rise in cat ownership, according to a recent survey.

Dogs may traditionally be a man's best friend, but the number of pet cat's in Britain has now reached eight million - a rise of 500,000 in the past year alone.

Some five and a half million men are cat owners, an increase of more than one million since last year, according to the Pet Food Manufacturers' Association.

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Prominent celebrity cat lovers such as Ed Sheeran (pictured), Russell Brand and Keegan Allen may have fuelled the sudden surge in male cat owners

While dogs may traditionally be a man's best friend, the number of pet cat's in Britain has now reached eight million

Sheeran's puss Graham and Allen's feline Minin (left) have featured prominently on social media. Former Prime Minister David Cameron admitted he missed Downing Street mouser Larry (right) after he left No. 10

Prominent celebrity cat lovers, such as Ed Sheeran, Russell Brand and Keegan Allen may have fuelled the sudden surge in feline adoption, according to a charity.

UK PET LIKES There are 54 million pets in the UK including: 33 million fish

8.5 million dogs

8 million cats

900,000 rabbits

700,000 birds

700,000 reptiles

600,000 fowl

500,000 guinea pigs

300,000 hamsters Advertisement

Sheeran's puss Graham and Allen's feline Minin have featured prominently on social media, while Instragam page 'hotdudeswithkittens' has almost 200,000 followers.

Former Prime Minister David Cameron even admitted he missed Downing Street mouser Larry after he left No. 10.

Dating experts have also advised men to pose with their pets for their online profiles as the cute companions are apparently a hit with the ladies.

Cats Protection's Social Media Manager, Gemma Croker, said: 'Cats have always been on social media but we have definitely noticed more men openly expressing their love for their feline friends.

'We now see more male celebrities talking about their cats such as our supporter The Vamps' James McVey, Ed Sheeran and Russell Brand.

'It is possible that this trend may have triggered an increase in popularity for cats among the general male population, which is great news for re-homing cats.'

Some five and a half million men are now cat owners, an increase of more than one million since last year

Dating experts have even advised men to pose with their pets for their online profiles as the cute companions are apparently a hit with the ladies

Michael Bellingham PFMA Chief Executive added: 'It's wonderful to see that men are realising the huge benefits of pets with an increase in cat ownership in this sector.

'Our research also showed 38 per cent of families with children were considering a small mammal so its good news for all pets.

'We have now been conducting our research with TNS since 2008 and have seen many changes in the pet population.

'We are delighted that in spite of the challenges presented to pet ownership, our population is stable with a 4 per cent increase to 12 million households owning a pet.'

Cats Protection's Social Media Manager, Gemma Croker, said she has 'definitely noticed more men openly expressing their love for their feline friends' recently

Supervet Professor Noel Fitzpatrick pictured with ginger cat Jersey, who was recovering from a total hip replacement
George Osborne is set to dash to Paris to make a lucrative speech on his second day as Standard editor, skipping the afternoon session in Parliament.

The ex-Chancellor was controversially appointed to run the Evening Standard two weeks ago and said then he would edit the paper in the morning before attending Parliament after lunch.

But it has emerged that on May 3 he is booked to speak in Paris. His slot has been pushed back to the late afternoon to help him back the journey from the Standard offices in Kensington to the French capital.

His decision to make a speech in his first week as editor instead of proving he can also work as an MP will fuel questions about his conflicts of interest.

George Osborne is set to dash to Paris to make a lucrative speech on his second day as Standard editor, skipping the afternoon session in Parliament

Mr Osborne has earned hundreds of thousands of pounds giving speeches since he was fired by Theresa May last summer.

As well as being editor, public speaker and MP, Mr Osborne also does lucrative work advising the Black Rock financial firm and runs a Northern Powerhouse group.

Mr Osborne's speech at the Hedge Fund Intelligence European Summit was revealed by Sky News.

Labour MP Wes Streeting told the Mirror: 'It's time George Osborne did the decent thing and resigned as an MP.'

A sleaze watchdog has launched a consultation on reforming rules on MPs' second jobs Mr Osborne's new job.

The ex Chancellor was controversially appointed to run the Evening Standard two weeks ago and was snapped reading the paper on the Tube on Tuesday

The Committee on Standards in Public Life will look at whether ex-ministers and other senior Parliamentarians face greater potential conflicts of interest when they take up outside work.

It will assess 2009 guidance which says additional employment is allowed within 'reasonable limits'.

The findings of the review will be reported to the House of Commons Committee on Standards' review of the Code of Conduct for MPs in June.

Lord Bew has previously insisted that his review was not prompted solely by the Osborne case, saying that it had been under consideration for some time.

The Committee on Standards in Public Life chairman said: 'While it is for others to consider individual cases, the committee wants to look at the current compromise which does not ban MPs holding outside interests, providing they are within 'reasonable limits' and that there is transparency about them.

'We welcome views from the public and any interested parties on these issues. For example, what factors should be taken into account in determining the 'reasonable limits' on MPs' outside interests and is the current level of transparency sufficient?'

Prime Minister Theresa May has been urged to strip George Osborne of the Tory whip to avoid a conflict of interest between his new role as editor of the Evening Standard and being an MP.

Labour said it was 'intolerable' for the operation of a free press that a Fleet Street boss should also be subject to the control of party enforcers.
All-female death squads known as 'The Skinny Girls' are quietly infiltrating Mexico's brutal drug wars and using their charm and sex appeal to kill their rivals.

The 'young, beautiful and reckless' assassins make up the 'Flaka' squads in the major criminal cartels and operate in groups of three or four.

They have swapped the more traditional role within drug trafficking gangs of laundering drug money and raising children for murdering women in rival cartels.

For example, La Gladys of the Zetas cartel butchered notorious assassin Joselyn Nino, of the Gulf Cartel in 2015 - and remains at large in northern Mexico.

Last year, one female killer known as 'La Peque' (pictured) claimed to have had intercourse with beheaded corpses and drank their blood

The female killer La Malandra (pictured) - The Thugette - of the brutal Zeta cartel, regularly posts pictures armed with a bulletproof vest and a long-wave radio

She killed, dismembered and stuffed Nino in a beer cooler just over the Mexican border.

Nino had achieved notoriety when a picture of her grasping a modified M4 assault rifle with an innocent smile on her face began circulating on social media.

A picture of her body laying next to a dead man and another woman was taken before another image was posted showing her dismembered body in the cooler.

A tattoo saying 'Nino', the same as the one seen on her right forearm, is also seen in the cooler.

Alongside the photo was a message warning people to 'keep sending theses f****** a**holes', insisting they will meet the same fate.

'By keeping a low profile they avoid suspicion where men doing the same job would quickly find themselves in trouble,' Andrew Chesnut, a professor at Virginia Commonwealth University, told Fox News.

Chesnut, who is an expert on La Santa Muerte - a patroness to drug traffickers - explained that some killers work their way up in cartels, start out in prostitution or are recruited in prison.

La Gladys of the Zetas cartel butchered notorious assassin Joselyn Nino (pictured), of the Gulf Cartel in 2015 - and remains at large in northern Mexico

La Peque is a 29-year-old, of the Sinaloa Cartel in northwestern Mexico. She said she got her start as a halconeo  a lookout for police and army patrols

'These girls are all active on social media, and in seeing images of the drug traffickers' lifestyles, they naturally want a piece of it themselves,' he said.

Last year, one female killer known as 'La Peque' (the little one) claimed to have had intercourse with beheaded corpses and drank their blood.

The 29-year-old, of the Sinaloa Cartel in northwestern Mexico, made the admission from a Baja, California prison.

Juana said: Ever since I was a little girl I was a rebel, and then became a drug addict and an alcoholic.

She was born in Hidalgo, near Mexico City. She became pregnant at 15 by a man 20 years her senior.

To support herself and her child, she worked as a prostitute  before delving into the dangerous cartel world.

Juana said she got her start as a halconeo  a lookout for police and army patrols, according to Central European news.

Her job entailed standing at a lookout point for eight hours at a time. If she failed, Juana said she was tied up and fed a single taco per day.

During her time working for the cartel La Peque bore witness to a host of gruesome moments, including a mans head being smashed open with a mace

The first of the three 'Skinny Girls' was Veronica Mireya Moreno (pictured). According to The Daily Beast she started out as a police officer and became a hero when she was wounded during a shootout

During her time working for the cartel she bore witness to a host of gruesome moments, including a mans head being smashed open with a mace.

I remember feeling sad and thinking I did not want to end up like that, said Juana.

Her aversion to blood did not last long, however.

Local news site Denuncias claims Juana began to feel excited by it, rubbing myself in it and bathing in it after killing a victim.

I even drank it when it was still warm, she alleged.

Denuncias said Juana insinuated at having had sex with the cadavers of those decapitated, using the severed heads as well as the rest of their bodies to pleasure herself'.

The Flakas have risen in prominence due to the crackdown on sicario death squads since Mexico's brutal drug war began in 2007.

La Malandra often posts pictures on social media posing with guns - although the women know they must keep a relatively low profile to avoid being captured by police

She remains at large in Mexico and has been a 'Skinny Girl' for nine years

The young assassins are deployed on missions that require subtlety rather than physical strength.

They disguise themselves as ordinary girls and gain their mark's trust using charm and their physical attributions - many have cosmetic surgery to be the 'most desired' and get male attention.

'There's an inextricable link between sex and death in the culture of these female killers in seeking to be the most desired by the narco men, they seek also to be the most brutal among their group of peers,' Chesnut said.

The first of the three 'Skinny Girls' was Veronica Mireya Moreno. According to The Daily Beast she started out as a police officer and became a hero when she was wounded during a shootout.

She is then alleged to have signed with the Los Zetas cartel and was arrested in 2011 while driving a stolen car - with a revolver and six cellphones inside.

She was subsequently arrested and charged with being complicit in a number of murders and drug deals.
An EU charter that has stopped some foreign criminals from being deported will be scrapped as part of an overhaul of laws to make Brexit work.

The Charter of Fundamental Rights, which offers a more expansive register of rights than the UK's Human Rights Act, has been seen by critics as stopping UK courts deporting criminals.

It has also been used by convicted offenders to get news stories deleted from the internet under the so-called 'right to be forgotten'.

Brexit Secretary David Davis has confirmed the charter will not be written into UK law as part of the Great Repeal Bill, which transfers EU law on to the British statute book.

The announcement was welcomed by Tory MPs who said it was the first dividend from the vote to leave the EU. Labour said it would oppose the move.

David Davis told MPs that the vast majority of EU laws would be transferred on to the statute book in a Great Repeal Bill designed to ensure a smooth and orderly Brexit

The decision was included in a detailed Government white paper on the Great Repeal Bill which will repeal the European Communities Act that enshrines the supremacy of European law.

The Charter of Fundamental Rights was signed up to by Tony Blair in the year 2000 and contains 50 human rights.

The then Europe Minister Keith Vaz said it would have no more legal significance than the Beano.

But it was incorporated into the Lisbon Treaty in 2007, enabling the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg to take it into account when making judgments.

WHICH EU LAWS COULD BE DELETED? While the Great Repeal Bill does not directly remove the EU laws hated by Eurosceptics, it paves the way for their removal in future. By making EU law into British law, Parliament will after March 2019 be allowed to re-write them at will. Trouble making laws at the top of the list could be: Working time rules that limit how many hours a person can legally work. This is a particular problem for training doctors and surgeons who need hours to perfect techniques.

Legislation on household goods like toasters and vacuum cleaners. EU rules on energy efficiency capped the power of common devices to the irritation of consumers.

The ban on incandescent light bulbs. The EU banned traditional light bulbs, that use a heated filament, on the grounds they are bad for the environment - but many consumers feel energy saving ones are too dim.

Protections for Great Crested Newts were implemented to protect small populations on continental Europe. The creatures are commons in the UK but the rules are still imposed and slow down building work. Advertisement

Theresa May has said he is no fan of the charter, and a Government source last night described it as an increasing irritant.

Former justice minister Dominic Raab said: Removing the Charter stops yet more skewed human rights obligations from being imposed on the UK via the European Court of Justice, which has weakened our ability both to stop dangerous criminals entering the UK, and remove them once they offend here.

Shadow Brexit Secretary Sir Keir Starmer said Labour would oppose the bid to ditch the Charter unless ministers guaranteed that all substantial rights in it will be converted into domestic law.

Mr Davis, the Brexit Secretary, told MPs that the Great Repeal Bill would ensure that all other EU laws, including workers rights, and environmental and health and safety rules, would still apply on the day after the UK leaves the EU at the end of March 2019.

The Great Repeal Bill legislation does not delete EU laws from the statute book but means after 2019 Parliament will be free to amend or remove them at will for the first time in decades.

It also means the UK Supreme Court will be the highest court in the land from day one of Brexit, replacing the EU court in Brussels.

Once Brexit is finished, EU red tape such as working time restrictions, a ban traditional light bulbs and limits on vacuum cleaners can in future be freely changed.

Shadow Brexit Secretary Sir Keir Starmer said Labour would oppose the bid to ditch the Charter unless ministers guaranteed that all substantial rights in it will be converted into domestic law

Keith Vaz said the Charter of Fundamental Rights would have no more legal significance than the Beano, when it was introduced in 2000

But he said: Once EU law has been converted into domestic law, Parliament will be able to pass legislation to amend, repeal or improve any piece of EU law. Mr Davis said the legislation would mean there would be no future role for the European Court in the interpretation of our laws.

SDLP MP Mark Durkan warned that ministers would be competing in a demolition derby to reduce various rights.

But former Tory minister Desmond Swayne said the idea of incorporating EU regulation into British law gives me the collywobbles.

RULING LIKE HENRY VIII Henry VIII clauses are named after the Statute of Proclamations 1539 Henry VIII clauses are named after the Statute of Proclamations 1539, which gave the Tudor king the power to bypass parliament and legislate by proclamation. They allow ministers to change the law without the level of scrutiny that a full Act of Parliament would need. The use of this so-called secondary legislation is commonplace, with roughly 1,000 laws a year changed in this way. It can be put to a vote if MPs or peers object, but most such laws pass through unchallenged. The Great Repeal Bill is unusual in proposing up to 1,000 pieces of secondary legislation to translate EU regulations into British law. Almost 8,000 pieces were used to change UK law when we joined the EU in 1973. Ministers say it would be impossible to make the changes in time for Brexit in March 2019 unless secondary legislation is used. They added that the powers will be time limited in a bid to reduce controversy about the lack of scrutiny. Advertisement

Cheers! The booze cruise could be back

Leaving the EU could mean the return of the duty-free booze cruise for ferry passengers, it was claimed yesterday.

Ferry operators hope to reinstate duty-free shopping on alcohol and cigarettes if Britain leaves the customs union as part of Brexit negotiations.

Such sales were worth almost 400 million a year until 1999, when duty-free was abolished for travel between EU nations.

Under current rules, travellers can buy alcohol and tobacco tax-free, without paying VAT, but still pay duty unless they are travelling from outside the EU.

Ferry operators hope to reinstate duty-free shopping on alcohol and cigarettes if Britain leaves the customs union as part of Brexit negotiations

Guy Platten, head of the UK Chamber of Shipping, which represents ferry operators, told The Telegraph: Promoting travel and tourism should be at the heart of the Governments strategy, and restoring duty-free would send out a strong and welcome message.

Duty-free allowances would mean adult passengers would be able to bring in one litre of spirits or two litres of fortified wine. The allowance on unfortified wine stands at four litres, or 16 litres of beer. The tobacco allowance is 200 cigarettes, 50 cigars, or 250g of tobacco.

Airports could also benefit. Darren Caplan, head of the Airport Operators Association, said: Duty-free at airports will be one of the opportunities our sector will be looking at in the future.
Two thugs are to be kicked out of Britain after they beat up and left two men for dead in a random attack.

Polish nationals Ireneusz Oberc, 43, and Gregorz Nowosad, 30, were among a gang of three thugs who kicked and stamped on their victims with such ferocity, blood was left ingrained in their shoes.

One of the casualties was almost blinded in the beating whilst the other had a fractured eye socket and is scarred for life.

Polish nationals Ireneusz Oberc, 43, left and Gregorz Nowosad, 30, right randomly attacked two men who were on their way home from the pub

Onlookers who witnessed the assault and begged the attackers to stop, later said they feared the two victims had been killed in the attack.

Manchester Crown Court heard Oberc and Nowosad had both settled in the UK using freedom of movement rules but the pair ended up repeatedly getting into trouble with police.

Former soldier Oberc, from Cheetham Hill, Manchester, carried out the savage attack just days after being convicted of criminal damage and burglary.

Nowosad who lived in the same area had only a month before the assault walked free from a court after being convicted of criminal damage and bail offences. He also has cautions for being drunk and disorderly and having a knife in public.

Oberc who pleaded guilty to inflicting grievous bodily harm with intent was jailed for eight years whilst Nowosad who was convicted of causing GBH after a trial was jailed for four and a half years. Both will be sent back to Poland after their release on public security grounds.

A third man Tomasz Nowosad, 28, committed suicide in in jail whilst awaiting sentencing for his involvement in the attack.

The incident occurred at midnight on September 25 2016 as the victims Damian Kozlowski and Bartlomiej Rudy were walking home from a pub after drinking three or four pints of beer each.

Prosecutor Mr Stephen Grattage, said: 'They were simply attacked by a group of men, both suffered serious injury and were rendered unconscious. The evidence of what occurred had to come from other witnesses who watched the attack and who thought these men were both dead

'Both families from the surrounding flats watched the men kicking the head and shoulders of these two men as they lay motionless and blood was surrounding them. Matters only came to an end when police arrived and the men walked away.

'There was severe injuries around Mr Kozlowski's face and he had to undergo surgery. He has cosmetic deficiencies to his forehead. Mr Rudy also has facial injuries at the time of the incident he had a facial fracture.

'The two complainants made victim impact statements, what they indicated is these were two men who came into this country to work and were grateful for the work they had as it helped them find their families in Poland.

'This incident made them terrified of remaining in this country. At the time it affected both their employment, Mr Kozlowski said he only gets paid if he works, therefore it caused him and therefore his family back in Poland to suffer.

'Mr Rudy echoed those sentiments and said he would stay in this country to see out this prosecution but has no plans to stay in the country as his family back in Poland are very concerned about him for what happened that night.

'This was a sustained assault on the two complainants in full view of many shocked eyewitnesses. There were many people shouting them, begging them to stop and they didn't.'

In mitigation defence counsel Huw Edwards for Nowosad said: 'He came to the UK in 2010 and will be forced to automatically deport which causes great concern to him, he has family in this country. He's hard working, does night shifts and often worked seven days a week before this offence was committed. There's another side to him that's a hardworking, family man.'

For Oberc, Harriet Johnson, said: 'His mother was a violent alcoholic and he joined the army at 18, seeing front line service, seeing people killed in front of him and part of his role was in the aftermath of explosions.

'At 20 both of his parents died in a road traffic accident and he's lost siblings since. He had been through a huge amount in his life already. The only other matter is his remorse and his wholehearted acceptance of what happened that evening. When discussing he expressed no more than shame. He's expressed his regret and wishes that he could take back that might.'

But passing sentences, Judge Hilary Manley, told the two men: 'You joined in a sickening and vicious attack on two defenceless males. Oberc, your blood was recessed into the crevices of your shoes, showing the force you used as they lay on the ground in their own blood.

'Nowosad, your clear attitude of complete unconcern is worrying. You have no remorse whatsoever. The injuries were very serious. One complainant almost lost his sight, on arrival to hospital that night he had to have a breathing tube inserted.

'He had a full trauma CT scan and bleeding behind the eye which meant that emergency surgery had to take place. He also suffered other injuries.

'Mr Kozlowski suffered serious head injuries. He needed a CT scan, suffered a fractured right eye socket which required an operation. He was in hospital for several days and has obvious cosmetic scarring to his face.

'The effect on these men had been terrible, both physical and psychological.. Eyewitnesses were clearly horrified with what they saw. They were begging you all to stop but the attack only came to an end when police sirens and light were audible and visible.

'The witnesses described when they first looked out to see what the noise was about they thought each of these two men was dead. The kicking and stamping continued for quite some time after. This truly was mindless violence.'
WikiLeaks has published hundreds more files today which it claims show the CIA went to great lengths to disguise its own hacking attacks and point the finger at Russia, China, North Korea and Iran.

The 676 files released today are part of WikiLeaks' Vault 7 tranche of files and they claim to give an insight into the CIA's Marble software, which can forensically disguise viruses, trojans and hacking attacks.

WikiLeaks says the source code suggests Marble has test examples in Chinese, Russian, Korean, Arabic and Farsi (the Iranian language).

WikiLeaks, founded by Julian Assange (pictured), claims its Vault 7 files come from the CIA's Center for Cyber Intelligence

It says: 'This would permit a forensic attribution double game, for example by pretending that the spoken language of the malware creator was not American English, but Chinese.'

This could lead forensic investigators into wrongly concluding that CIA hacks were carried out by the Kremlin, the Chinese government, Iran, North Korea or Arabic-speaking terror groups such as ISIS.

WikiLeaks, whose founder Julian Assange remains holed up in the Ecuadorean Embassy in London, said Vault 7 was the most comprehensive release of US spying files ever made public.

Earlier this month WikiLeaks published thousands of documents claiming to reveal top CIA hacking secrets, including the agency's ability to infiltrate encrypted apps, break into smart TVs and phones and program self-driving cars.

It also claims the CIA can bypass the encryption of Whatsapp, Signal, Telegram, Wiebo, Confide and Cloakman by hacking the smart phones the applications run on.

The CIA was also looking at hacking the vehicle control systems used in modern cars and trucks, WikiLeaks claims.

Wikileaks said the release of confidential documents on the agency already eclipses the total number of pages published over the first three years of the Edward Snowden NSA leaks.

Experts who've started to sift through the material said it appeared legitimate - and that the release was almost certain to shake the CIA.
A pair of kittens 'trained' a human to bring them treats every time they ring a bell.

In a twist on the famous Pavlov's Dog experiment, where a canine was conditioned to associate food with the sound of a bell, some Twitter users have suggested in jest that the cats were in fact training the human.

The adorable footage shows the two cats pawing at a bell and then given a treat.

Strangely captivating footage shows two cats pawing at a bell and being brought a treat. In a twist on the famous Pavlov's Dog experiment, some have suggested the cats were training their human

Viewers stormed to Twitter to share the strangely captivating clip.

Labour Party Deputy Leader Tom Watson said he could not stop watching it.

Cat enthusiast Giulia Crouch said: 'Omg that's the best thing I've seen in such a long time.'

Despite their urgency to scoff the treats, a recent study of 50 cats has found that felines prefer spending time with humans to eating food and playing with toys.

The find could help owners to train their cats using quality time as a reward, the researchers said.

Researchers from Oregon State University monitored the behaviour of cats taken from their owners' homes as well as animal shelters as part of their study.

In a twist on the famous Pavlov's Dog experiment, where a canine was conditioned to associate food with the sound of a bell, some Twitter users have suggested in jest that the cats were training the human.

Labour Party Deputy Leader Tom Watson even took to Twitter to say how much he enjoyed it

Cat enthusiast Giulia Crouch said: 'Omg that's the best thing I've seen in such a long time'

'Domestic cats engage in a variety of relationships with humans,' the scientists said in a research paper.

'Nonetheless, it is still common belief that cats are not especially sociable or trainable.

'This disconnect may be due, in part, to a lack of knowledge of what stimuli cats prefer, and thus may be most motivated to work for.'
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A Tommy's drawings showing life on the front line during the First World War are set to be published for the first time.

Lieutenant Morris Meredith Williams was a talented artist and filled 15 pocket-sized sketch books while serving on the Western Front.

The drawings, along with letters Lt Williams sent to his wife Alice Williams, are now compiled in the book An Artist's War.

Lieutenant Morris Meredith Williams drawings which show life on the front line during the First World War are set to be published for the first time

There are drawings of men carrying timber, digging ditches for cables and drainage and many of soldiers in trenches, patrolling, sitting, sleeping, repairing and using a periscope to see over the top. Pictured: Soldiers burying bodies

Lt Williams carried a pad and pencils wherever he went and drew at every opportunity. He was often in a hurry or interrupted by a German attack, but still managed to record scenes in detail.

He recorded some shocking sights including, a body caught in barbed wire, another outside a collapsed dugout, a detached skull still wearing a helmet, men digging graves and the decomposing body of a horse.

His drawings show how men slept in the open air under mackintosh sheet while marching from one area to another.

Farm buildings became temporary encampments with stores, shoemaking workshops and mobile kitchens known as cook carts.

The drawings even illustrate the communication trenches and tunnels dug through the basements of civilian houses, which provided convenient, ready-made dugouts.

Lt Williams carried a pad and pencils wherever he went and drew at every opportunity. He was often in a hurry or interrupted by a German attack, but still managed to record scenes in detail. Pictured: Destroyed railway trucks

At the outbreak of the war, Lt Williams was initially rejected from the army for being too short (he was below 5ft 3in) but as the conflict progressed the rules were changed and he began training. Pictured: Solider on the move with horses and cart

There are drawings of men carrying timber, digging ditches for cables and drainage and many of soldiers in trenches, patrolling, sitting, sleeping, repairing and using a periscope to see over the top.

He sketched landscapes of shattered trees and buildings, roads pitted with one water-filled hole after another with men on foot and horseback and lorries and mule-drawn carts making their way along them.

Lt Williams and his sketchbooks survived the war. His work was later left to relative Phyllida Shaw, who has now published the pictures 100 years after they were originally produced.

Lt Williams was married to a sculptor, Alice. They met in Paris when they were both studying art and married in Devon in 1905.

He recorded some shocking sights including, a body caught in barbed wire, another outside a collapsed dugout, a detached skull still wearing a helmet and men digging graves

He sketched landscapes of shattered trees and buildings, roads pitted with one water-filled hole after another with men on foot and horseback and lorries and mule-drawn carts making their way along them

Lt Williams and his sketchbooks survived the war. His work was later left to relative Phyllida Shaw, who has now published the pictures 100 years after they were originally produced. Pictured left: A shoemaker. Pictured right: A soldier patrolling

They moved to Edinburgh in 1906, where Lt Williams had found a part-time job as a drawing teacher at Fettes College, Edinburgh.

At the outbreak of the war, he was initially rejected from the army for being too short (he was below 5ft 3in) but as the conflict progressed the rules were changed and he began training.

He served in the 17th Battalion of the Welsh Regiment in France from 1916 until the end of the war.

Lt Williams spent 10 months in and out of the trenches of the Western Front near Loos, Arras and the Somme, later mapping enemy positions from aerial reconnaissance shots.

In 1918 he joined the Royal Engineers' camouflage unit at Wimereux where the more tranquil surroundings permitted him more time to spend on his paintings.

Lt Williams spent 10 months in and out of the trenches of the Western Front near Loos, Arras and the Somme, later mapping enemy positions from aerial reconnaissance shots. Pictured: Soldiers in a bivouac shelter

After the war ended he was one of just a handful of artists kept back to do paintings for the official record. He toured the shattered landscape in an old ambulance car.

Lt Williams and his wife received commissions for public and private memorials in stained glass, wood, stone and bronze, including pieces for the Scottish National War Memorial at Edinburgh Castle.

His letters are full of evocative descriptions of the devastation of war. In one harrowing passage he describes looking up from a trench to see the facade of a building, only to realise the rest of it had been blown away.

The letters are all in pencil, so that words could be rubbed out by the censor if necessary.

He wrote: 'I do long for paints to do some of the things one sees, they are so tremendously impressive.

He spent 10 months in and out of the trenches of the Western Front near Loos, Arras and the Somme, later mapping enemy positions from aerial reconnaissance shots, Pictured: Lewis gun training

Lt Williams served in the 17th Battalion of the Welsh Regiment in France from 1916 until the end of the war. Pictured: A farm in Divion

Lt Williams was married to a sculptor, Alice. They met in Paris when they were both studying art and married in Devon in 1905. Pictured: A soldier sleeping in a dugout

'A battalion coming back from the trenches in the late afternoon of a wet day, with their greatcoats and equipment, haversacks, etc. plastered with white mud, their helmets on and marching slowly and wearily along through the ruined streets of a French town.

'The houses with great holes in the walls and most of the roofs off. Desolation everywhere. It does make one long to paint.'

In another letter, he wrote: 'The scene of desolation is unparalleled here, nothing to be seen for miles but a few stumps of shattered trees, all the country is brown mud; villages small heaps of broken brick.

'Of some it is difficult to say even where they stood. The mud is so beyond anything, often it is almost impossible to pull your foot out where it has sunk to the knee in the heavy, sticky mud.

'I don't suppose we shall be very long here as the conditions are very trying for the men, poor chaps.'

The drawings even illustrate the communication trenches and tunnels dug through the basements of civilian houses, which provided convenient, ready-made dugouts. Pictured: Men carrying timber

In 1918 he joined the Royal Engineers' camouflage unit at Wimereux where the more tranquil surroundings permitted him more time to do paintings. Pictured: A work party

The Tommy's drawings showing life on the front line during the First World War are set to be published for the first time on May 4. Pictured: A destroyed German dugout

In 1936, two years after the death of his wife, Lt Williams married Grace Spencer, a teacher.

After Lt Williams died in 1973, Grace moved, with all of his art work, including the collection of sketchbooks in a small wooden chest of drawers, to a village near Witney, Oxfordshire.

She died in 1995 and left the sketchbooks and letters to her great niece, arts researcher Mrs Shaw, in the hope that she would do something with them.

The sketchbooks and letters were left to Lt Williams' second wife's great niece, arts researcher Mrs Shaw, in the hope that she would do something with them. Pictured left: A soldier repairing a trench. Pictured right: A South Street trench

Mrs Shaw, 59, said: 'When my great aunt Grace died, in 1995, she left me a collection of small sketchbooks filled with pencil drawings by my great uncle Morris, during the First World War.

'Morris spent three years with the Army in France, first in the infantry with the Welsh Regiment, then as an intelligence officer with the Heavy Artillery, making maps from aerial photographs and finally in a camouflage unit with the Royal Engineers.

'She also left me the letters he wrote, almost daily, to his first wife Alice, who was a sculptor.

'The sketchbooks were kept in a small chest of drawers and letters in cardboard boxes and moved first with Grace to Oxfordshire after Morris died and then with me from London to the North East and now to the South West.

In 1918 he joined the Royal Engineers' camouflage unit at Wimereux where the more tranquil surroundings permitted him more time to spend on his paintings. Pictured: Men in a HQ dugout

Farm buildings became temporary encampments with stores, shoemaking workshops and mobile kitchens known as cook carts. Pictured left: A food store. Pictured right: An artillery row

The drawings, along with letters Lt Williams sent to his wife Alice Williams, are now compiled in the book An Artist's War. Pictured: Soldiers at Houchin camp

'Whenever I showed the sketches to visiting friends, they were always fascinated by them and so, with the centenary of the war coming up, I decided that it was time to share them more widely and started work on a book.

'Using sketches and extracts from Morris's letters to Alice and a few from her to him, the book tells two stories.

'It describes the life of an observant junior officer behind the line, his recognition of the need to do his duty, combined with his growing impatience with the routines of army life.

'But it also tells the story of two artists, in their 30s, whose lives were disrupted by the war and who just wanted to get back to each other and to making art.'

An Artist's War, by Phyllida Shaw, costs 30 and is published by the History Press on May 4.
A British woman who went on a 40,000 designer shopping spree with counterfeit credit cards is facing jail after claiming she was forced into crime by her lover in London.

The 54-year-old woman scooped up luxury clothes, bags and jewellery from shops like Gucci, Prada, and Cartier, a court heard in Korneuburg, in the Austrian state of Lower Austria.

But she blames the spree on a toyboy lover in London who she alleges forced her into fraud after stealing all her money.

A British woman who went on a 40,000 designer shopping spree with counterfeit credit cards is facing jail after claiming she was forced into crime by her lover in London

The woman - who cannot be named under Austrian privacy laws - told reporters outside the court: 'I fell madly in love with a young countryman, gave him all my money.'

She added: 'When I did not have money left, he made me go shopping with the credit cards.'

Judges heard how the woman bought 50,000 (42,900) of luxury goods in Vienna and airport duty free shops.

Immediately after every transaction with the bogus cards, she took a smartphone photo of each item and emailed it to her lover in London.

The 54-year-old woman scooped up luxury clothes, bags and jewellery from shops like Gucci, Prada, and Cartier, a court heard in Korneuburg, in the Austrian state of Lower Austria

The woman's lawyer Wolfgang Blaschitz told the court that she regrets her crimes.

He said: 'She is sorry, she was simply under the man's spell.'

A verdict is set to be delivered next week.
Beijing has insisted there is 'no such thing' as man-made islands in the South China Sea and denies building up a military presence in the disputed waters.

China's Defence Ministry said on Thursday that any building work was mainly for civilian purposes.

China, which claims most of the resource-rich region, has carried out land reclamation and construction on several islands in the Spratly archipelago, parts of which are also claimed by Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam.

Beijing has insisted there is 'no such thing' as man-made islands (pictured above) in the South China Sea

The building has included airports, harbours and other facilities, involving in some cases the dumping of massive amounts of sand to build up land on what were reefs or structures that may only have been exposed at low tide.

But ministry spokesman Wu Qian implied that was perhaps a misunderstanding, though he said there was construction work which China had every right to do as the Spratlys were inherent Chinese territory.

'There is no such thing as man-made islands,' Wu told a regular monthly news briefing.

Satellite pictures reveal Beijing is building aircraft hangars for its fighter jets on islands in South China Sea

'Most of the building is for civilian purposes, including necessary defensive facilities.'

The South China Sea is generally stable at present, but some countries outside the region are anxious about this and want to hype things up and create tensions, Wu said, using terminology that normally refers to the United States.

Pressed to explain his comment that were no man-made islands, Wu declined to elaborate, saying China had already provided a full explanation of its construction work.

A satellite image of one of the artificial islands in the South China Sea, which has an airstrip

On Monday, a U.S. think tank said China appeared to have largely completed major construction of military infrastructure on artificial islands it has built in the South China Sea and can now deploy combat planes and other military hardware there at any time.

China has repeatedly denied charges it is militarising the South China Sea, through which about $5 trillion in ship-borne trade passes every year.
A Florida college student who was suspended over his ideological clashes with a Muslim professor has been reinstated at the school.

Marshall Polston's attorney told the Orlando Sentinel on Thursday that a disciplinary committee has decided to lift the 20-year-old's suspension. He is expected to return to the Rollins College campus next week.

'A students freedom of speech and expression are the cornerstones of liberty in a free society,' attorney Kenneth Lewis said in a statement, while also calling for a 'full inquiry' into the actions of Professor Areej Zufari.

Marshall Polston, 20 (left), has been reinstated at Rollins College nearly a week after he was suspended over his clashes with his Middle Eastern humanities professor, Areej Zufari (right), who is Muslim

Video courtesy of CBN News:

College President Grant Cornwell refused to comment on specifics of the hearing, but said that he, the trustees and deans at the school had received some 10,000 emails about Poston's suspension, which quickly gained traction on conservative media sites.

He said most of the emails were 'filled with hatred and violent imagery,' he said.

Meanwhile, Professor Zufari's sister has spoken out, saying she is anxious to get back to school.

'With the rise of fake news, its an unfortunately sensationalized situation that spiraled out of control,' Noor Zufari said. 'The silver lining is Areej can continue her passion of education  She is looking forward to getting back to her regular class schedule and being able to teach again.'

In addition to getting Polston suspended, Professor Zufari also filled out a protection against stalking request with the police over her student, who she said became increasingly threatening and unhinged over the semester.

Polston says that Zufari reported him to the school because he didn't agree with her teaching that Jesus' Crucifixion was a hoax

Zufari and Polston, a 20-year-old international affairs major, have reportedly been clashing since the beginning of the semester in January.

According to an email the professor wrote to the school in February, she says Polston disrupted the first two classes with 'antagonizing interjections, contradicting me and monopolizing class time'.

'His attitude is contemptuous,' she said.

As a Christian, Polston said that Zufari's unorthodox lectures were unsettling.

In an interview with the Central Florida Post, Polston said that Zufari claimed Jesus' crucifixion was a hoax and that his disciples didn't believe he is 'God'.

'It was very off-putting and flat out odd,' he said. 'I've traveled the Middle East, lectured at the Salahaddin University, and immersed myself in Muslim culture for many years. Honestly, it reminded me of some of the more radical groups I researched when abroad.'

A TIMELINE OF THE ESCALATION BETWEEN MARSHALL POLSTON AND PROFESSOR AREEJ ZUFARI February 3: Zufari writes an email complaining about Polston to the school, saying he has disrupted the first two classes with 'antagonizing interjections'. March 8 - Zufari gives Polston a 52 per cent failing grade on his first essay March 9 - Polston responds to the failing grade with a long email in which he threatens to go to the dean and local media. Later that night, she cancels class out of fear and an associate dean speaks to Polston. During the talk, the dean says that Polston mentions guns several times. March 13: Zufari writes to the ACLU of Florida for help with a student who has been 'making my life hell this semester'. March 16: Class resumes and Zufari leads a discussion on Sharia law. Polston says she failed to report another student, who is Muslim, who said a good punishment for gays was decapitation. Following the class, Polston is banned from coming back March 23: Zufari claims that Polston tries to intimidate her by walking by the classroom even though he is not supposed to show up. She files a 'protection against stalking' request with the police. Polston says he was at a Chipotle at the time. March 24: Polston is temporarily suspended from the school. March 30: Polston is reinstated at the school. Advertisement

'Whether religious or not, I believe even those with limited knowledge of Christianity can agree that according to the text, Jesus was crucified and his followers did believe he was divine  that he was "God". Regardless, to assert the contrary as academic fact is not supported by the evidence,' he added to The College Fix.

After their first few spats, school officials intervened and Zufari says Polston's behavior improved over the next few weeks.

But things got heated again on March 8, when she gave him a 52 per cent on his first essay.

She says she was concerned about his reaction, and just as she predicted - he lashed out at her in a long email the next day.

'Since you've decided to carry a blitzkrieg out against me, I may have to speak up in regards to your extreme bias and not necessarily to the class but to the dean,' Polston said.

'Quite frankly the grade you assigned to me exposes your true agenda which is to silence me in class.' the email said. 'You're one of the most incompetent professors I have ever seen in my life.'

He also threatened to contact 'national media personalities that I'm good friends with' or take legal action.

But Polston said he made 'absolutely no threats' in the email.

'I was upset, understandably. I've never gotten anything less than straight A's, so I was really interested in figuring out how to possibly improve or at least understand the grade.'

Zufari says she was so concerned about the email that she cancelled class the next day, and sent an associate dean to dismiss the students.

That dean spotted Polston and struck up a conversation about the issues he's been having with Zufari.

The dean left troubled, writing to the school's assistant vice president of safety that Polston talked about a gun several times during the conversation.

'At no point did he threaten anyone openly, but I was very uncomfortable by his continued reference to guns, generalized categories of people by religion and his obvious nervousness and disdain for the professor,' she wrote.

Four days later, Zufari reached out to the ACLU of Florida on Facebook, asking for advice about a student who is 'making my life hell this semester'

On March 13, Zufari reached out to the ACLU of Florida for advice on what to do with a student how as been 'making my life hell this semester'

'This one is spewing hatred at me, de-railing class, and just sent me a hateful email threatening me....

'The hate speech in the email would not be tolerated if it was targeting other minorities.

'So, what are my rights? This guy is making my life hell (I am very afraid of this guy.) And this situation is directly interfering with my ability to do my job.

'I want to know if there is a way to hold the individual responsible for his harassment and hate speech, she wrote.

Despite her previous concerns about Polston, Zufari resumed class the following week and engaged the class in a conversation about Muslim sharia law.

Polston says that during the class Zufari failed to punish a student, who is Muslim, when he made a hateful comment about gays.

'He stated that a good punishment for gays, adulterers, and thieves was the removal of a certain body part, as determined by Sharia law. It took a few seconds for me to realize that he actually said that, especially after what this community has faced with the tragic loss of life at Pulse,' Polston said.

Polston said that all Zufari did was tell the student he was 'in time-out' - despite calls from others in the class to report his behavior.

The school officially suspended Polston on March 24. A disciplinary hearing was held on Tuesday, and after the hearing the school decided to reinstate Polston

He claims that the comments were so disturbing that one of the his peers informed the FBI about the student.

After the class, Polston says that it wasn't the Muslim student - but himself - who Zuafri reported to the Dean of Safety.

'They made it clear that they had not gotten a report about what the student said, and were more concerned about the danger I was causing to the campus.

'What danger? A difference of opinion in a college classroom is nothing out of the ordinary and certainly not dangerous. It was surreal and degrading.

'The bad grade was upsetting, but they were literally refusing to acknowledge the dangers posed by someone who advocated chopping off body parts on campus,' Polston said.

Polston says he was then banned from returning to class, but Zufari says he walked by their meeting the next week and that's what pushed her to fill out the police report.

The claim was based on a student who allegedly saw Polston 'staring into the room' around 7:36pm on March 23. Campus safety were dispatched but could not locate Polston

Polston has denied the claims, providing a surveillance photo of him eating at a Chipotle just before 7pm - about a 30 to 40 minute drive away.

Zufari filed a 'protection against stalking' request against Polston on March 23, and the next day he was officially suspended from the school.

In a letter to Polston, administrators said his 'actions have constituted a threat of disruption within the operations of the College and jeopardize the safety and well-being of members of the College community'.

Rollins President Grant Cornwell told the Orlando Sentinel that the school wound 'never ever ever' suspend student simply for disagreeing with a professor. He said there were other factors that led to Polston's suspension, but he would not go into details.
A sexual predator was trapped by a group of paedophile hunters after he targeted online sex messages to three young girls.

Jason Benger, 48, was jailed today after he made contact with three separate accounts on an online chat room with girls he believed to be 11, 12 and 14.

A court heard he made contact with all three - and quickly moved conversation on to an 'extreme sexual nature'.

Paedophile Jason Benger, 48, from Gwent in Wales was jailed today at Newport Crown Court

Benger sent explicit images of himself and often asked that he be sent photographs of them over online chat room Waplog.

But unbeknown to Benger, behind the keyboard on the other end were self proclaimed 'paedo hunters' called The Hunted One who set up fake accounts using fake photos in an attempt to catch adults who prey on young children.

After weeks of trying to groom the young girls online, Benger was arrested at his home.

He was jailed for two and a half years at Newport Crown Court today.

Prosecuting, Owen Williams, said: 'The defendant instigated contact with the three fake profiles.

'He directed conversations of a sexual nature and sent images of himself including his erect penis.

'He suggested to meet the three girls in order to engage in sexual activity with them.'

One exchange in messages between Benger and one if the girls was read out by Mr Williams in court, it read: 'Have you ever done it with girls my age before?

'Yes, she was 15 and loved it.'

Mr Williams said Benger contacted 'Jessie' who said she was 12 on 'almost a daily basis', sending her pictures of his exposed penis and asking for pictures in return.

The court heard Benger also asked 'Jessie' to bring a friend, who Jessie said was 11, to which he replied by asking if they would like to suck his lollipop

'He suggested that as she lived in Cardiff, they could meet in Cardiff on a rugby day and how he could take her to a B&B,' he said.

The court heard Benger also asked 'Jessie' to bring a friend, who Jessie said was 11, to which he replied by asking if they would like to suck his lollipop.

The conversations with the other profiles - Jenna, aged 14, and Jodie, aged 11 - included similar content and all involved him sending sexual pictures of himself, the court heard.

Benger also told them all that he had previously had sex with a 15-year-old.

Benger was confronted by members of The Hunted One at his home in Abertillery, Gwent, who then contacted the police.

Officers then attended his home on December 3 last year and Benger was arrested.

Benger pleaded guilty to six counts of attempting to incite a child under 13 to engage in sexual activity.

Judge Daniel Williams said: 'The evidence was utterly overwhelming. I am satisfied that you represent a danger to young girls.'
Donald Trump's chief spokesman stood firm Friday on concerns about the president's pre-election Russia ties, telling reporters that the administration isn't worried about what former national security adviser Michael Flynn might say under oath if he's granted immunity from prosecution.

'Is the White House concerned that General Flynn has damaging information about the president, his aides, his associates, about what happened during the campaign with respect to Russia?' a reporter asked during the daily press briefing.

'Nope,' a confident Spicer replied.

Trump himself tweeted Friday morning that Flynn 'should ask for immunity' in the probe, claiming that 'this is a witch hunt (excuse for big election loss), by media & Dems, of historic proportion!'

But that left Spicer twisting in the wind, fielding repeated questions about what the president thought Flynn should do and say.

Scroll down for video

'Nope!' White House press secretary Sean Spicer says there's no worry inside the White House about what Mike Flynn might say under oath if he's given immunity in the Russia-gate probe

Gen. Flynn, President Donald Trump's former national security advisor, is reportedly willing to testify about the Trump campaign's ties to Russia in exchange for immunity

Trump wrote Friday on Twitter that Flynn 'should ask for immunity,' blaming journalists and Democrats for orchestrating a 'witch hunt'

Trump on Sep. 27th: "If you're not guilty of a crime, what do you need immunity for?" pic.twitter.com/t647jv6Htq  Josh Billinson (@jbillinson) March 31, 2017

'He didn't say "Congress should grant"' immunity, the Trump flack insisted, only that Flynn should ask for it so he can be free to give complete testimony.

'He wants Mike Flynn to go and be completely open and transparent with the committee,' Spicer said. 'And whatever it takes to do that, he is supportive of.'

'He wants him to do what is necessary to go up there and talk to the committees of jurisdiction to get this matter behind us.'

Flynn, who resigned as Trump's security adviser after just 24 days, has sent a request to both the FBI and the House and Senate intelligence committees, saying he would testify if the government guarantees that it would not prosecute him, the Wall Street Journal reports.

The agencies have not yet taken Flynn up on his offer, according to officials with knowledge of the matter.

'General Flynn certainly has a story to tell, and he very much wants to tell it, should the circumstances permit,' said Flynn's attorney, Robert Kelner.

'The president's view is he should go up there, he should testify,' Spicer said Friday afternoon.

Flynn said last year on NBC 's 'Meet the Press' that anyone who seeks immunity has 'probably committed a crime'

Kelner said no 'reasonable person' with legal counsel would answer questions without assurances that he would not be prosecuted, given calls from some members of Congress that the retired lieutenant general should face criminal charges.

Flynn's ties to Russia have been scrutinized by the FBI and are under investigation by the House and Senate intelligence committees. Both committees are looking into Russia's meddling in the 2016 presidential election and any ties between Trump associates and the Kremlin.

His decision comes after he told NBC's Chuck Todd last year that anyone who seeks immunity has 'probably committed a crime.'

He made the comments in relation to former Hillary Clinton staffers being granted immunity as the FBI investigated her use of her server when she was secretary of state.

'The very last thing that John Podesta (Clinton's campaign chairman) just said is no individual too big to jail, that should include people like Hillary Clinton,' he said.

'I mean, five people around her have had, have been given immunity, to include her former Chief of Staff. When you are given immunity, that means that you have probably committed a crime.'

Flynn (center), who resigned as Trump's security adviser after just 24 days, has sent the request to both the FBI and the House and Senate intelligence committees

Flynn's resignation in February came after reports emerged that he misled White House staff on his interactions with Russia and discussed sanctions with the Russian ambassador

Flynn's resignation in February came after reports emerged that he misled White House staff on his interactions with Russia and discussed sanctions with the Russian ambassador prior to the inauguration.

Since July, the FBI has been conducting a counterintelligence investigation into Russia's interference in the election and possible coordination with Trump associates.

The Justice Department had warned the Trump administration about Flynn's contacts with Russia weeks before he was forced out.

Government officials supposedly informed the White House because they were concerned Flynn could be vulnerable to blackmail by the Kremlin.

The top Democrat on the Senate intelligence committee said on Wednesday that the panel 'will get to the bottom' of Russia's interference in the 2016 election.

Sen. Mark Warner, the Virginia Democrat and vice chairman, and Sen. Richard Burr, the committee's Republican chairman, addressed reporters ahead of their panel's first hearing on Russia.

The stakes for the Senate investigation have been heightened given the disarray in the House investigation into Russia. Democrats have called on Rep. Devin Nunes, the Republican chair of the House committee, to recuse himself over his close relationship with the Trump White House.

Burr says the Senate committee has contacted 20 individuals about sitting for interviews. Among them is Jared Kushner, the president's son-in-law and senior adviser, who has acknowledged meetings with Russians during the transition.

Coming back to bite him? Flynn says immunity means you probably committed a crime Flynn, who briefly served as Trump's national security adviser, told NBC's Chuck Todd last year that people seeking immunity were likely guilty of committing a crime Comments retired Lt. Gen Mike Flynn made during the 2016 presidential campaign about immunity have seemingly come back to bite him. Flynn, who briefly served as Trump's national security adviser, told NBC's Chuck Todd last year that people seeking immunity were likely guilty of committing a crime. During the interview in September, Flynn took issue with former staffers of Hillary Clinton being granted immunity as the FBI investigated her use of the server when she was secretary of state. 'The very last thing that John Podesta (Clinton's campaign chairman) just said is no individual too big to jail, that should include people like Hillary Clinton,' Flynn said. 'I mean, five people around her have had, have been given immunity, to include her former Chief of Staff. 'When you are given immunity, that means that you have probably committed a crime.' The months-old statement is key because Flynn has reportedly offered to testify about the Trump administration's ties to Russia if the FBI can grant him immunity from prosecution. Advertisement
Shocking footage has been released reportedly showing a school guard using a cane and a snake to round up female pupils at a school in Saudi Arabia.

The video, filmed in a school in Riyadh a few days ago, shows a man repeatedly striking a hand rail and a wall near to a group of girls as he apparently orders the veiled female pupils to return inside the building.

In another clip, the man can be seen carrying the snake behind a female pupil.

The Saudi feminist and law graduate, now based in the US, who shared the footage on Twitter said: 'The same guard who was hitting the girls with a stick has found another creative way to terrorize young women.'

The woman, who goes by the name Moudhi, said: 'A high school guard's only duty is to make sure women are caged until their guardians or drivers come.

'Every girl in high school and college has a man outside "protecting" them. Preventing them from leaving with unrelated men.

'When I was a rebellious teenager, I used to take off my veil when I reached my car.

'This usually p***** off the guard and he used to report me.'

In December last year, Saudi Arabia was reportedly considering plans aimed at warning schoolchildren against 'Westernisation' and atheism.

The video, filmed in a school in Riyadh a few days ago, shows a man repeatedly striking a hand rail and a wall near to a group of girls

The woman who shared the footage online said: 'A high school guard's only duty is to make sure women are caged until their guardians or drivers come'

The kingdom's education ministry was thought to be preparing a project called 'Immunity' which is described as 'inoculating' children from ideas that could threaten their 'ideological security'.

Among the list of threats the ministry lists to children are Westernisation, atheism, liberalism and secularism.
Melanie Bullard, 39, was arrested after administrators at Shelton Elementary School in Georgia found a loaded semiautomatic pistol in her purse

A Georgia kindergarten teacher has been arrested after administrators found a loaded gun in her purse

A staff member alerted administrators at Shelton Elementary School in Dallas around noon that 39-year-old Melanie Bullard's smelled of alcohol.

Bullard tested positive for alcohol in evaluations administered by a school resource officer, Paulding County sheriff's Sergeant Ashley Henson said.

During a search for any open containers of alcohol, they found a loaded semiautomatic pistol in her purse, which was on the floor under her desk.

Bullard was being held without bond on charges of reckless conduct and possession of a weapon on school property. It wasn't immediately clear whether she had an attorney who could comment on the charges.

The school sent a letter to parents alerting them of the incident.
Donald Trump's defence secretary today said Russia was 'mucking around' in other countries' elections as part of a wider campaign of interference.

General James Mattis hit out at the Kremlin today in a joint press conference with UK defence secretary Sir Michael Fallon.

US President Donald Trump has angrily dismissed claims Russia intervened with propaganda and hacking of his opponent to help him win.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has also rejected allegations his country tried to get involved or that it coordinated with the Trump campaign.

Despite the denial, General Mattis and Sir Michael put on a united front in defiance of Russian aggression today.

General James Mattis hit out at Russian interference in the West today ahead of a meeting with Prime Minister Theresa May in Downing Street

General James Mattis hit out at the Kremlin today in a joint press conference with UK defence secretary Sir Michael Fallon

General Mattis met with Prime Minister Theresa May this afternoon after his earlier talks with Sir Michael.

General Mattis said that while Washington had looked to engage with Russia on a political or diplomatic level, they were finding that Moscow was acting as a 'strategic competitor'.

'Russia's violations of international law are now a matter of record, from what happened with Crimea to other aspects of their behaviour in mucking around inside other people's elections, and that sort of thing,' he said.

'Compared to how we were ten years ago, five years ago, it is no longer a co-operative engagement.'

Sir Michael said: 'There is a pattern of interference by Russia in the different parts of the world that leads us, when we engage with Russia, to be wary of what Russia is up to. That is why there cannot be a return to business as usual with Russia.

'We need to be extremely watchful of this persistent pattern of Russian interference.'

In a joint press conference, Sir Michael and General Mattis warned Nato allies failing to hit the alliance's minimum spending targets to raise their game.

The UK and US defence secretaries said they had agreed that allies who do not spend 2 per cent of GDP on defence should at least be increasing spending each year.

At a joint press conference Sir Michael endorsed the US effort to pressure Nato allies to spend more on defence, insisting the alliance must be 'fitter and fairer'

Britain and the US are two of just five members of the Nato alliance who achieve the minimum spending target

Britain and the US are two of just five members of the Nato alliance who achieve the minimum spending target.

At a joint press conference in London, General Mattis said Britain's global leadership role is as crucial as ever as the Brexit talks begin

Sir Michael endorsed the US effort to pressure Nato allies to spend more on defence, insisting the alliance must be 'fitter and fairer'.

Theresa May's Government has made great efforts to show it still plans to play a major role on the world stage as it embarks on Brexit discussions.

General Mattis said: 'The United States and the United Kingdom stand together in good times and bad, united by value that took root here so long ago.

'I am grateful for the determination of our two countries to defend those values down through the generations.'

He added: 'Britain's global leadership role is as needed today as at any time in history.'

US Defence Secretary General James Mattis, pictured left today with UK Defence Secretary Sir Michael Fallon, has said Britain's global leadership role is as crucial as ever as the Brexit talks begin

General Mattis said Britain and America were united in an historic defence of democracy he condemned the attack on Westminster last week

The visit is another sign of the close ties between the UK government and US President Donald Trump.

Mr Trump had a chilly visit from German Chancellor Angela Merkel earlier this month amid tensions over the Nato alliance.

Sir Michael backed the US today to warn 'fairer burden sharing is key here'.

He added: 'Those failing to meet the 2 per cent commitment so far should at least agree to year on year real terms increases.

'And increased burden-sharing is not on its own enough.

'We've also agreed that Nato must modernise and streamline its military structures to ensure faster decision-making and take a 360-degree view of all the security threats that face us.

'Nato has the experience and resources to combat international terror.'

While the two defence secretaries were meeting in London, Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson was in Brussels for a meeting of Nato foreign ministers

Mr Johnson was expected to echo the demand from Sir Michael and General Mattis for the alliance members to step up their financial contributions

Sir Michael also announced a 90 million contract for UK-based BAE Systems to support the upkeep of US F-35 fighter jets.

The Defence Secretary also dismissed claims Britain was attempting to blackmail Europe over security in the Brexit talks.

He said: 'At the moment we benefit and Europe benefits from the cooperation between our police forces, between our intelligence and security services, and from the judicial arrangements that allow us to have the criminals we want to have tried here returned to us.

'We want to see that cooperation continue. If there is no deal on that we are all weakened.

'What we are seeking in these negotiations is a deep and special partnership with the remaining EU on both economic issues and on security.'

In answer to other questions, General Mattis said Russia's breaching of international rules was clear to see.
Former Baywatch star Pamela Anderson has blogged about her 'love' for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.

The ex-Playboy model, 49, is rumoured to be dating the 45-year-old who has been living under political asylum for almost five years at London's Ecuadorian Embassy.

Now Anderson has gushed about Assange on her blog in a long message which also mentions 'female empowerment' and women 'faking orgasms'.

Visit: Pamela Anderson arriving at the Ecuadorian Embassy on 30 March to visit Julian Assange

She wrote: 'My relationship with Julian - it's no secret. He is one of my favourite people and he might be the most famous, most politicised refugee of our time.

'Famous for being persecuted is not a position of power but a position of vulnerability. I am concerned.

'Julian is a human being who is extremely empathetic and cares deeply about the world. And because of his work he has made some powerful enemies in a few countries, America especially, by exposing them.'

She added: 'Julian is trying to free the world by educating it. It is a romantic struggle. I love him for this.'

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 wrote: 'My relationship with Julian - it's no secret. He is one of my favourite people'

The rambling blog also touched on the subjects of 'female empowerment', women 'faking orgasms more', and Anderson's concern that 'people might forget how to make love'.

'Maybe this is how we deal with over-population? Less sex', she wrote.

Anderson and Assange, who fears he will be extradited to the US for questioning over the activities of whistle-blowing site WikiLeaks if he leaves the building, met through fashion designer Dame Vivienne Westwood.

The actress has previously referred to Assange as her 'dear friend', saying she would not be surprised if people reduced their connection to 'just a sexual relationship'.

Assange is wanted for questioning in Sweden over a rape allegation from 2010, and has avoided extradition by living in the embassy since June 2012.

In February Anderson was seen bringing vegan cheeseburgers from the Mildreds chain to Assange. She was first spotted at hiss residence in September 2014.

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 seen bringing vegan cheeseburgers from the Mildreds chain to Assange, who has been holed up in the embassy for five years

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.

'Women are faking orgasms more': extracts from Anderson's blog My book is about sensuality - A sexy kindness. I think it will be very appealing to women. But, also to men. Who might be curious - What women want IS mysterious - And- I'm afraid people might forget how to make love. I do point out in my book - just for fun- One thing we might not be responsible for - is our own orgasm. That is our lover's job. Or was...? In a society that is becoming desensitized, robotic and in some cases debilitatingly prescriptive. Women are faking orgasms more  maybe to just get it all over with- Its a lot less fun. and such a shame - And sends mixed signals - Maybe this is how we deal with over-population ? Less sex? I do believe in zero population control, birth control etc - only replacing ourselves etc - I know this is a sensitive subject and we walk a fragile line. But, We need to talk about this- honestly I hear so many complaints- from men and women- Im no guru - Im not a prude because I believe in Love- I just might have a unique perspective on the subjectand Im not afraid to talk about it. *** Julian is a human being who is extremely empathetic and cares deeply about the world. And - because of his work he has made some powerful enemies in a few countries- America especially by exposing them. Julian is trying to Free the world by educating it. It is a romantic struggle I love him for this - He is the strongest person I know- but, living as he is, is very unhealthy, demeaning and inhumane. Hes the good guy and I admire him greatly- Assange quote- There is no peace without truth, No war without lies ... JA You can't argue with that- its the truth- Thank you, Pamela #standwithassange Advertisement

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

Assange 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 previously declined to comment when contacted by MailOnline.
Seven people, including one pregnant woman, were killed in separate shootings in the same Chicago neighborhood in just 24 hours, police have said.

A 27-year-old man and 23-year-old woman were shot dead after a black Jeep pulled up alongside their van around 11pm in the city's South Shore neighborhood on Thursday. The van crashed during the shooting and the two died at the scene.

That afternoon around 3.30pm, two men were fatally shot in Nadia Fish and Chicken restaurant after a man approached the victims and opened fire, the Chicago Sun-Times reported.

Gunned down: Emmanuel C. Stokes (left), 28, and Edwin Davis (right), 32, were fatally shot in Nadia Fish and Chicken restaurant after man approached the victims and opened fire,

Dillon (right), 20, and Raheam Jackson (left), 19, were also shot dead after they ran from the restaurant during the shooting and were later gunned down about a block away

The victims were identified as 28-year-old Emmanuel C. Stokes and Edwin Davis, 32.

Two other men, Dillon, 20, and Raheam Jackson, 19, were also killed in the shooting after they ran from the restaurant and were later gunned down about a block away.

According to the victim's grandmother, Georgia Jackson, the brothers had gone to the restaurant to visit their mother who was working at the time.

The mother of the two boys wept at the bloody scene. The woman said she watched her sons die from the window of the restaurant.

'I cant go on, my life is over. Im bout to  kill myself,' she told the Chicago Tribune.

Patrice L. Calvin was found with a gunshot wound to the head in the 7500 block of South Luella. She was four months pregnant

Georgia Jackson, 72, is overcome with emotion upon learning that her two grandsons, Raheem, 19, and Dillon Jackson, 20, were found fatally shot in the South Shore neighborhood

Mrs Jackson said this is not the first time her grandsons have experienced gun violence and she lost one grandchild in a shooting in 2011

Mrs Jackson said this is not the first time her grandsons have experienced gun violence. Dillon had survived a shooting a few years ago, and her 16-year-old grandson was killed in 2011 in a shooting at a fast food restaurant.

Raheam leaves behind two young children.

'I cant keep doing this,' she told the Chicago Sun-Times. 'Im losing too many kids.'

Shortly after midday, the body of a 26-year-old woman who was four months pregnant was discovered in an apartment in the 7500 block of South Luella. Patrice L. Calvin was found with a gunshot wound to the head.

Police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said on Twitter late Thursday that the shooting was likely a gang-related retaliation and detectives are making 'good progress.' No arrests have been made as of Friday morning, the paper reported.

As of this month, there have been more than 130 homicides in Chicago in 2017.

The Thursday shootings match the seven homicides in February which marked the deadliest day of the year, according to the Sun-Times.
An illegal immigrant accused of raping a 14-year-old girl in the boys' bathroom at their school in Maryland has been refused bail.

Jose Montano, 17, and Henry Sanchez-Milian, 18, are accused of attacking the girl at Rockville High School earlier this month.

Montano, who is originally from El Salvador, and Sanchez-Milian, who is from Guatemala, had both been refused bond after their arrest.

But this week Montano's attorney, Mario Mena, sought bail, claiming there was new evidence the sex was consensual.

The alleged attack took place inside a boys' bathroom at Rockville High School (pictured)

A Fox5 reporter in court yesterday said Mr Mena claimed they had obtained 'explicit' text messages which showed the girl agreeing to meet Montano for sex.

But a judge ruled that even if the girl had agreed to have sex with Montano, she may have changed her mind and there was no evidence she had agreed to sex with both of the suspects.

Police arrested the pair after the girl told school officials they had forced her into a bathroom stall at the Montgomery County high school and raped her.

High schoolers charged: Henry Sanchez-Milian, 18 (pictured) and Jose Montano, 17, have been charged with raping a 14-year-old female classmate at a Maryland high school bathroom

Sanchez-Milian is believed to have entered the US illegally from Guatemala seven months ago.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement will not comment on Montano's immigration status as he is a minor. He arrived from El Salvador about eight months ago.

According to investigators, the victim was walking in a school hallway at around 9am when she ran into the two teens.

The girl knew only one of the teens, Montano, who allegedly asked her for a hug, then slapped her butt and asked her to walk with them.

As the trio were passing by a boys bathroom on the way to the gym, the 17-year-old Montano repeatedly asked the girl to have sex with him and his friend, and when she refused they allegedly forced her into the restroom.

The probable cause document describes the assault in extremely graphic detail, recounting how the alleged victim grabbed onto a sink to avoid being forced into a stall, but the two suspects shoved her inside.
A beautician who made her name working on stars such as Katie Price claims she was left too embarrassed to go to spa days because a plastic surgeon drained too much fat from her legs.

Tracie Giles is suing Dr Alexandra Chambers for 300,000, saying she botched a lipolysis procedure and took too much fat from her thighs.

She also says the doctor called her a 'weakling' in the weeks after the operation.

Tracie Giles, left, is suing plastic surgeon Dr Alexandra Chambers, right, claiming she was left 'top heavy' by botched thigh reduction surgery

Ms Giles, 52, said she was traumatised by the procedure and needed a breast reduction to compensate.

She 'felt like she was going to die' after the harrowing procedure and now wants massive compensation from Dr Chambers over the August 2012 operation.

She said that six litres, around 13 pints of fat, were taken from her, but Dr Chambers said it was closer to four litres.

Ms Giles told London's High Court: 'Dr Chambers told me repeatedly that I was a weak person who should never be considered for surgery again.

'She told me I was a weakling and that my healing was taking longer than anyone else's.

'Her attitude towards me, rather than being compassionate, became one of irritability. I felt really vulnerable.'

But the medic, whose practice is based in Wimpole Street in the exclusive heart of medical London, denies being either negligent or insensitive.

Her barrister, Simon Butler, was adamant that she had never called Ms Giles 'weak'.

He also claimed that in her final post-op assessment in October 2012 Ms Giles declared she was 'very happy with the result'.

The pioneering 'Vaser' treatment involved a 'unique and invasive fat elimination and body sculpting procedure', explained Mr Butler.

Katie Price has used Ms Giles for beauty treatment before, and shared this image as she had work done with fans on Twitter

Tracie Giles has built up a strong celebrity client list, including Charlotte Crosby, pictured right

Founding President of the British Association of Body Sculpting, Dr Chambers used cutting edge ultrasound technology to 'decompose the fat cells which were then extracted from the body through a specialist extraction method', he added.

Ms Giles, 52, insists the medic performed the procedure 'grossly over-aggressively' so that 'excessive fat was removed from her thighs and hips - disfiguring her permanently and causing her to suffer pain and substantial post-operative complications'.

As well as causing 'significant asymmetry', part of her thigh area was left discoloured and with a 'cobblestone appearance', the court was told.

Ms Giles said she later opted for breast reduction surgery because she felt 'far too top-heavy'.

She said: 'I was advised to have that procedure because my upper body needed to be down-sized to match my lower body.

'At one point my calves were bigger than my thighs. I elected to feel more of a woman again and less of a freak.

'I feel very self-conscious about the horrific injuries I have been left with.

'My chest was too big. I had to try and shrink somehow to match my legs.'

Danielle O'Hara (R) and her mother (L) seen arriving at Tracie Giles Salon in Knightsbridge, where many stars have work done by Ms Giles

Lauren Goodger and Bianca Gascoigne, right, attend an event by Tracie Giles at her studio in London

She continued: 'I have had terrible problems with my clothes, with my confidence, with every part of my life. It was horrific.

'If I wanted to go on the beach or on a spa day with girlfriends, I couldn't do that anymore.'

She told Judge Graham Wood QC: 'My legs were grossly disfigured by over-vigorous liposuction and removal of too much fat.

'I didn't go to Dr Chambers to have this done to my legs. No sane person would do that.'

But Mr Butler said the amount of fat drained off had been exaggerated, claiming it was nearer four litres.

And he insisted that the medic had Ms Giles' interests 'at the forefront of her mind all the time'.

She had performed 'hundreds of these same procedures over a number of years', he added.

'Dr Chambers did not put the interests of the clinic above the interests of the patient.

'Following the surgery, Ms Giles attended at Dr Chambers' clinic on 13 occasions.

'Dr Chambers did not charge her for her professional time or treatment. She did not turn her away or close the file.'

The barrister also rejected claims that Dr Chambers failed to properly estimate the amount of fat to be removed.

'Ms Giles made it clear that she wanted to see all her active muscles,' he told the court.

'She was insistent on removing enough fat so that she could see all her active muscles.'

Dr Chambers had advised her that this 'look' might not be very attractive, added Mr Butler.

Ms Giles told the court she had found Dr Chambers' style professional yet 'distant' before the operation.

Afterwards, she claimed the medic had shown her 'bottles of fat' sucked from her legs and told her: 'It just kept coming and coming and coming'.

Ms Giles told the court she had been affected by depression previously but suffered an 'adjustment disorder' and symptoms of trauma after her ordeal.

But Mr Butler said that Ms Giles was herself 'very familiar with cosmetic procedures' before the operation.

'Not only has she undergone a number of cosmetic procedures but she also owns and manages a business known as 'Tracie Giles Bespoke Permanent Makeup', he explained.

Ms Giles underwent liposuction to her body and an abdominoplasty to improve the shape of her stomach in December 2008, said Mr Butler.

The High Court hearing continues.
A Kentucky man who told police he was 'moved by the sermon' before stabbing his father at a church service has been sentenced to 10 years in prison.

The sentence was handed down Tuesday for 21-year-old Ethan Buckley, who pleaded guilty but mentally ill in February to a charge of first-degree assault, according to The Bowling Green Daily News.

Buckley was arrested in August 2016 after police found his father, David Buckley, with neck wounds at Hillvue Heights Church in Bowling Green, about 70 miles north of Nashville, Tennessee.

Ethan Buckley, 21, received a 10-year prison sentence on Tuesday in Bowling Green, Kentucky for the first-degree assault with a knife of his father in August 2016

Police said Ethan Buckley told officers he'd had thoughts of killing his father and that he stabbed David Buckley with a pocket knife.

David Buckley testified at the sentencing hearing that he forgives his son and hopes he gets the helps he needs. He said he was left with 'seven scars and one broken heart.'

'I forgave Ethan in that ambulance,' David Buckley said, recalling the day he was stabbed on August 14. 'I wanted him to hear that from me. Its my wish that hes able to get the help he needs and hell make something of his life.'

Ethan Buckley was arrested in August 2016 after police found his father, David Buckley, with neck wounds at Hillvue Heights Church in Bowling Green on August 14, 2016

Ethan Buckley 'stated his fathers time here on earth was up because he had done a lot of good things in his life,' according to an affidavit for a search warrant filed by a BGPD detective

Ethan Buckley told Bowling Green Police Department officers shortly after the incident at the Baptist church that he was 'moved by the sermon and decided to kill his dad,' according to court records.

BGPD Detective Mike Nade wrote that Ethan Buckley 'stated his fathers time here on earth was up because he had done a lot of good things in his life.'

The son also said that he resented David Buckley 'because his father was such a good guy' while Ethan Buckley was battling drug addiction.

The statements were recorded in an affidavit for a search warrant on the hotel where the father and son had been living at the time of the incident.

Ethan Buckley will be required to serve at least eight and a half years of his 10-year sentence before he may become eligible for parole.

'I know this is an extraordinarily emotional situation for a father and son, and I believe the resolution arrived at ... is a fair one,' Warren County Circuit Court Judge John Grise said at the sentencing hearing. 'This will allow Mr. Buckley to get the type of attention I believe he needs.'
Nicola Sturgeon's letter officially asking for a second independence referendum has arrived in No 10 after weeks of sniping over Theresa May's refusal to discuss it.

Ms Sturgeon's letter formally asks Westminster to grant a 'section 30' order under devolution laws that would hand the Scottish Parliament the power to hold a referendum.

Downing Street confirmed that the letter was received by email and a response would be sent in due course.

The Prime Minister has repeatedly insisted 'now is not the time' to discuss a new referendum and she will refuse the request, meaning Holyrood cannot call a legal and binding referendum.

Despite knowing it will be turned down, the First Minister has pressed ahead with her request anyway after winning a vote to do so in the Scottish Parliament 69-59.

In her letter Ms Sturgeon repeated a hint at calling an unofficial poll by telling Mrs May she would set how to ensure 'progress is made toward a referendum' if the request is rebuffed.

Nicola Sturgeon's letter officially asking for a second independence referendum has arrived in No 10 after weeks of sniping over Theresa May's refusal to discuss it

Nicola Sturgeon was photographed last night finalising her letter to Theresa May, which has been delivered to Downing Street today

A photograph of Miss Sturgeon shared last night looked remarkably similar to a relaxed shot of the then premier taken in Downing Street during the 1980s.

The Scottish Government last night tweeted an image of the First Minister with her feet up on a couch in her official Edinburgh residence.

The 45-year-old was pictured as she signed a letter to the Prime Minister formally requesting a second Scottish independence referendum.

Ms Sturgeon exploded the constitutional row earlier this month, insisting Brexit meant Scots were entitled to a new referendum. She has since been engaged in an extraordinary public war of words with the Prime Minister.

Ms Sturgeon's letter today said: 'In these very changed circumstances, the people of Scotland must have the right to choose our own future - in short, to exercise our right of self determination.'

STURGEON WRITE TO THERESA MAY BUT WILL SHE LISTEN? Nicola Sturgeon's campaign for a second independence referendum inched forward today as she made the official request to hold one. There is a strict process that needs to be followed to hold a binding referendum - but Westminster is refusing to play ball. MPs and Peers have to pass what is known as a 'section 30 order' to devolve referendum powers before a legal one can go ahead. This is what the First Minister asked for today. At the same stage ahead of the 2014 referendum, an agreement was struck between Edinburgh and London known as the 'Edinburgh Agreement', setting the terms for the poll. A section 30 order was then nodded through Parliament. This time, Theresa May's Government has said it will not enter negotiations until Brexit is finished. Miss Sturgeon hinted today she could take an alternative route and try to call an unofficial referendum. This would not be legal or binding but would be fraught with difficulties for both sides as questions would be asked about who would pay for it and whether unionists would take part. Advertisement

Miss Sturgeon is pressing ahead with a formal approach for a section 30 order the mechanism for the powers to hold a referendum  despite being told by Mrs May 'now is not the time'.

In a video message posted by the Scottish Government on Twitter, she said: 'The next two years are hugely important for Scotland because they will determine the kind of country we'll become.

'That's why I have today written to the UK Government to ensure that we can make that choice when the time is right to accept Brexit or instead become an independent country.

'I don't take for granted how people would vote when that choice comes but I hope we can all agree that the future of our country is our choice.'

She added: 'The Prime Minister has indicated that she intends to ignore the will of the Scottish Parliament and seek to prevent people in Scotland having that choice.

'If the Westminster government continues to hold that line, it will go against the very foundations of devolution.

'So, I hope the Prime Minister changes her mind and acknowledges that the people of Scotland are entitled to a choice at a time and in a way that is right for Scotland.

'However, if she doesn't, as I expect she won't, at least not yet, I will come back to the Scottish Parliament in a few weeks' time with an update on how we're going to move forward to ensure that the people of Scotland are able to choose our future when we have the information we need both about Brexit and about independence, and while there is still time to take a different path.'

The Prime Minister, pictured leaving No 10 yesterday, has repeatedly insisted 'now is not the time' to discuss a new referendum

Mrs May and Ms Sturgeon had a frosty face-to-face meeting in Glasgow on Monday just hours before the Scottish Parliament voted to demand a new referendum

A UK Government spokeswoman said: 'The Prime Minister has been clear that now is not the time for a second independence referendum, and we will not be entering into negotiations on the Scottish Government's proposal.

'At this point, all our focus should be on our negotiations with the European Union, making sure we get the right deal for the whole of the UK.

'It would be unfair to the people of Scotland to ask them to make a crucial decision without the necessary information about our future relationship with Europe, or what an independent Scotland would look like.

'We have been joined together as one country for more than 300 years. We've worked together, we've prospered together, we've fought wars together, and we have a bright future.

'At this crucial time we should be working together, not pulling apart.'

A photograph of Miss Sturgeon shared last night looked remarkably similar to a relaxed shot of the then premier taken in Downing Street during the 1980s

Scottish Labour leader Kezia Dugdale said: 'People across Scotland will be dismayed that Nicola Sturgeon is more focused on rerunning the arguments of the past than doing her job of running our public services.

'Scotland doesn't need or want a second independence referendum.There is absolutely no evidence that another divisive referendum is the will of the people of Scotland.

'We need the SNP government to get on with the job of governing. That means focusing on jobs, growing the economy and helping family incomes.

Around 62 per cent of Scottish voters backed the UK remaining part of the EU in June 2016 and the SNP manifesto for last year's Holyrood elections made clear another ballot on independence should take place if there were a 'material change in circumstances' from the previous ballot in 2014.

Scottish Conservative, Labour and Liberal Democrat politicians are opposed to it.

It comes as Sturgeon renewed her assault on Theresa May to brand her 'reckless' and claim the PM cannot fight for Britain's self-determination while blocking an independence referendum.

The First Minster and Prime Minister have been engaged in an increasingly bitter war of words over the SNP demands for a re-run of the 2014 referendum over Brexit.
A South Florida woman has been cited for animal abandonment after authorities say they found about 100 dead ball pythons in her South Florida home.

Jennifer Morrison, 59, was removed from her residence by Jupiter police after they found the dead snakes on February 16.

She was taken into custody for psychological evaluation at that time, according to a Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation (FWC) Commission report.

Morrison has been ordered to appear in court on April 12.

Jennifer Morrison, 59, has been cited for animal abandonment after authorities say they found about 100 dead ball pythons in her South Florida home on February 16

The house in Jupiter Village was in such a state that an FWC officer was advised to wear protective clothing, including gloves, foot booties and a face mask, before entering the premises, according to the Palm Beach Post.

Authorities say the woman's home was covered in animal feces. Officers found about 30 to 40 plastic bins, each containing two to four dead snakes.

'The snakes were very decomposed and some were almost the consistency of dust,' the report said.

Jupiter police were alerted to the situation after a family member of Morrison asked them to carry out a welfare check.

Only two ball pythons were found alive in an aquarium in the woman's kitchen. Palm Beach County Animal Care and Control officers removed them from the home.

Officers also found and removed two dogs, two red-footed tortoises and two parakeets.

Those animals were reported to be in good condition. The dogs were Boxers.

Ball pythons, also known as royal pythons, are some of the most popular snakes kept as pets inside the home; A fully grown adult ball python can reach up to 6 feet (1.8 meters) in length

Morrison was once registered as the manager of a business called Jupiter Reptiles and Exotics LLC with an address listed as her Jupiter home, according to an entity search of the Florida Department of State. That business association is no longer active.

Ball pythons, also known as royal pythons, are some of the most popular snakes kept as pets inside the home.

A fully grown adult ball python can reach up to 6 feet (1.8 meters) in length.
A group of squatters claiming they have a birthright to the legendary Coco Palms Resort in Hawaii will have to reckon with developers who have begun a $175million renovation.

The Coco Palms Resort in Wailua, Kauai, was once host to celebrities like Elvis Presley, Bing Crosby, and the Von Trapp Family before it was battered by Hurricane Iniki in 1992 and abandoned for 25 years.

Now, Kamuela O Kamehameha and 20 other native Hawaiians who say they are descendants of the island's last ruling king and queen have taken up residence on the premises while developers have gone ahead with the demolition process, Hawaii News Now reported.

Kamuela O Kamehameha and 20 other native Hawaiians who say they are descendants of the island's last ruling king and queen have occupied an abandoned luxury hotel

The Coco Palms Resort in Wailua, Kauai, was once host to celebrities like Elvis Presley and Bing Crosby it was battered by Hurricane Iniki in 1992 and abandoned

The property was abandoned for more than two decades, attracting burglars and vandals while multiple attempts to revitalize the hotel collapsed

It was finally purchased last year with plans to be renovated to its former glory. But the squatters, who may have been living on the premises for a year, claim the land is theirs

Coco Palms was most famously featured in Presley's 1961 film Blue Hawaii, which soon became a hot spot for destination weddings after the rock-and-roll crooner floated down the lagoon with co-star Joan Blackman in the film's romantic finale.

Other Hollywood films like Pagan Love Song, Voodoo Island, and Miss Sadie Thompson starring Rita Hayworth were also filmed on location.

At its height, the luxury resort included 416 rooms, and manager Grace Buscher was known for incorporating elements of Hawaiian culture in her guests' experience.

But a Category 4 storm hit the island in 1992, the resort suffered extensive damage.

The property was abandoned for more than two decades, attracting burglars and vandals while multiple attempts to revitalize the hotel collapsed.

Pictured, a still from the finale of the 1961 Elvis film Blue Hawaii, which was filmed at Coco Palms

The movie put the resort on the map and became a destination hot spot after the romantic finale showed Presley and co-star Joan Blackman floating down the lagoon

A family of 20 native Hawaiians have been living on the grounds for up to a year

The property was purchased last July before developers received permission from state officials to begin construction, Hawaii News Now reported.

But they realized just three weeks ago that a family of 20 native Hawaiians have been living on the grounds for up to a year.

Among them is Kamuela O Kamehameha, who filmed a Facebook Live video explaining he was 'one of the owners with the Royal Patents on this land.'

He said: 'If you can do Hawaiian history and the land that you live in today that you're illegally occupying, by war crimes, pillaging, etc., that your kupunas (elders) did to my people, you should learn the facts about the history....'

But developer Tyler Greene said: 'The county recognizes us as the owner of the property, and so we see it as criminal trespassing'

Pictured, a rendering of the completed new hotel, which features a canal running along the length of the resort

Plans for the new hotel, with 350 rooms run by Hyatt, will include restaurants, shops and a cultural center

The demolition process has already started, with reconstruction to begin this summer before the reopening is slated for 2018

But developer Tyler Greene said: 'The county recognizes us as the owner of the property, and so we see it as criminal trespassing.'

They are still unsure how to proceed, with the police and the prosecutor's office still working out whether the family should be forcibly removed.

While the family's fate remains in limbo, the demolition process has continued in another part of the property, with reconstruction to begin this summer.

Plans for the new hotel, slated to reopen in 2018, will include 350 rooms run by Hyatt, along with restaurants, shops and a cultural center around the famous lagoon.

The hotel sits on land once home to Deborah Kapule, the wife of King Kaumualii before Kamehameha the Great established the Kingdom of Hawaii, according toHawaii magazine.
Russian President Vladimir Putin's spokesman is doubling down on his boss's denial of election interference, saying to 'Read Mr. Putin's lips.'

Dmitri Peskov spoke to ABC news in the second day of Russia's PR campaign to push back at allegations to executed a plan to interfere in the presidential election.

He mocked the idea that Russian hackers were hiding out in 'every fridge' and 'every iron.'

He blasted suggestions to the contrary as 'fake news,' telling ABC's George Stephanopoulos there was 'no evidence at all,' after the interviewer reminded him that President George H.W. Bush ended up breaking that promise.

He disputed the idea that Russia was meddling, saying the American public was being subjected to 'propaganda'  and turning around the U.S. accusation that Russia has been subjecting the American public to propaganda through Kremlin-backed outlets Sputnik and RT and concerted efforts by internet trolls.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov told ABC

'They fell victim of that propaganda. That's why lots of Americans  they do think that, yes, Russian hackers are in everywhere. Russian hackers are in every fridge. Russian hackers are in every iron and so on and so forth but this is not true. Those are fake news and this is slander,' he said from Moscow.

Russia remains under U.S. and international sanctions following its 2014 invasion of Ukraine. He said relations were currently 'maybe even worse' than they were during the Cold War.

'WATCH MY LIPS': Russian President Vladimir Putin emphatically denied interfering in the U.S. elections, saying 'Watch my lips, no'

Putin himself on Thursday denied interfering in the U.S. elections, and he did it by using a famous quote from a U.S. president.

'Watch my lips, no,' Putin said.

The Russian strongman made the claim when asked point-blank whether Russia had interfered and whether any evidence to the contrary would get found.

He invoked former President Reagan, although the 'Read my lips' quote was actually used by his successor, George H.W. Bush, speaking at the International Arctic Forum on a panel moderated by CNBC.

Putin said claims of Russian interference were 'lies' used for 'domestic American politics.

'All those things are fictional, illusory and provocations, lies,' Putin continued.

'All these are used for domestic American political agendas. The anti-Russian card is played by different political forces inside the United States to trade on that and consolidate their positions inside.'

Then he delivered a friendly message to U.S. audiences.

'We said on numerous occasions and I reiterate that we are confident  And know for sure that opinion polls in the Unites States show that very many people are  friendly towards the Russian Federation and I'd like to tell these people that we perceive and regard the United States as a great power with which we want to establish good partnership relations.'

Peskov didn't repeat an earlier claim that Putin preferred Donald Trump in the elections, but made it clear whose ideas he favored in the Trump vs. Clinton campaign, noting that some 'are saying that we are in favor of reestablishing good relationship with Russia.'

'Which one would be more sympathetic for you?' Peskove asked. 'For us the one that is saying that, yes, we disagree in lots of things but we're going to talk to Russia.'

Asked point blank whether Putin preferred Trump, who praised Putin throughout the campaign, Peskov responded: 'It's not about preferring. It's about whose ideas are more close to you and whose ideas are more welcomed in Russian public opinion.'

Putin made the statement when asked point blank about election interference during a panel discussion at the International Arctic Forum

Putin said claims of Russian interference in the U.S. presidential election were 'fictional, illusory and provocations, lies'

The U.S. intelligence community has concluded that Russia interfered in the elections and directed hacking into leading Democratic figures and groups.

On Wednesday, the Senate Intelligence committee begins its probe of Russian interference, where it will also pursue alleged contacts between Donald Trump associates and Russia.

He spoke at a forum on Arctic issues in Archangelsk, the site of a botched U.S. invasion of the Soviet Union in 1918.

Putin's claims are at odds with those being made by senior officials from both parties in the U.S. government.

Former Vice President Dick Cheney said Wednesday: 'There was a very serious effort made by Mr. Putin and his government, his organization, to interfere in major ways with our basic fundamental democratic process,' speaking at a conference in New Delhi.

'In some quarters, that would be considered an act of war,' he added.

House Speaker Paul Ryan said Thursday in an interview with CBS News, 'We all knew Russia was trying to meddle with our election. And we already know right now they're trying to do it with other countries.'

Ryan continued: 'The world's super power, the American government needs to do everything we possibly can not only to undercut what they're trying to do but to uncover what they're trying to do and help our allies prevent it from happening.'

Putin also said Thursday he is ready to meet with Trump if Finland hosts an Arctic summit. Finland is set to take over the rotating leadership of the Arctic Council.
Priscilla Chan was selected as the recipient of the 2017 Visionary of the Year award on Thursday night in California.

The wife of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, who announced earlier this month that she was pregnant with the couple's second child, was glowing as she took the stage on Thursday to accept the honor from the San Francisco Chronicle.

'I feel so grateful to have the opportunity to give back,' Chan told the audience at the event.

'I will spend the rest of my career trying to make San Francisco and the world a little bit better.'

The prestigious prize comes amidst rumors of a possible presidential run for Chan's husband, who was spotted on Thursday gleefully filming Chan with his phone as she collected her award and a $25,000 grant.

Chan later said she would be donating the grant to charity.

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Awarded: Priscilla Chan was awarded the 2017 Visionary of the Year award on Thursday night in San Francisco (above accepting her honor)

Immigrants, they get the job done: The 32-year-old daughter of Chinese immigrants who came to the US from Vietnam was honored for her philanthropic work (Chan above with Mark Zuckerberg)

Working the room: Chan's honor comes amidst mounting rumors of a possible run for president by Zuckerberg (left filming his wife, right talking to a fellow attendee)

Chan, who is the Harvard-educated daughter of Chinese refugees who came to the United States and from Vietnam, was chosen for the honor because of her philanthropic work, specifically in the fields of education and medical research.

Chan and her husband have donated $120million to San Francisco public schools and she is the chief executive officer of the Primary School, an experiment in bringing together health care and education which the couple funded almost entirely on their own.

The two also donated $75million to San Francisco General Hospital, where Chan still works in the pediatrics department and is currently the only employee with her name on a building.

And while those massive gifts have helped to make a huge impact, they pale in comparison to the $45billion that the duo is putting into the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative.

The couple announced the formation of their initiative in late 2015, stating that their goal was to 'advance human potential and promote equality in areas such as health, education, scientific research and energy.'

Then last September, they announced the creation of Chan Zuckerberg Science and their goal to cure, manage, or prevent all disease by the year 2100.

The two initially worded that goal by stating they wanted to end disease during the life of their 15-month-old daughter

They have pledged $3billion to the cause over the next 10 years and 99% of their Facebook shares over the course of their lifetime.

Chan kept things casual for the ceremony on Thursday, with the expectant mother wearing simple black dress and metallic cardigan with black flates.

Rousing words: 'I will spend the rest of my career trying to make San Francisco and the world a little bit better,' said Chan while collecting her prize and a $25,000 check

Rallying the troops: She and husband Mark Zuckerberg have donated $120million to San Francisco public schools and $75million to San Francisco General Hospital (Chan above on Wednesday speaking at a Teach for America event)

Her husband meanwhile opted for a suit instead of his standard basic t-shirt or hoodie, which will likely go out the door if he does run for president.

The rumors of a run started late last year after a few comments made by Zuckerbeg about religion and his desire to visit all of America set off alarm bells in some, especially in the wake of another billionaire outsider winning the election.

When asked if he was an atheist in December, something many thought to be true, Zuckerberg said: 'No. I was raised Jewish and then I went through a period where I questioned things, but now I believe religion is very important.'

No atheist has ever successfully run for president of the United States.

He would set himself apart however by having the most accomplished woman to ever hold the office of first lady by his side.

In collecting her prize on Thursday, Chan beat out five other very worthy nominees for the honor.

Eric Weaver, founder and CEO of the nonprofit micro-loan program Opportunity Fund; Sarah Krevans, CEO of Sutter Health; Raj Jayadev, co-founder of Silicon Valley De-Bug; Angela Blackwell, founder and president of PolicyLink; and Kimberly Bryant, founder of Black Girls Code.
Six people have been jailed today and 26 more prosecuted for rioting at a Muslim community centre in Leeds where one attacker fractured a rival's skull with a hammer.

The 100-man brawl was captured on body cameras worn by police called to the scene where some wielded knives and iron bars while others were throwing chairs and punches in May 2015.

The fighting was between rival factions who both wanted to help run the Bangladeshi Community Centre in Leeds - and several smuggled in an arsenal of weapons including machetes, curtain poles and pliers.

Video footage of the incident was played at Leeds Crown Court as 32 people were prosecuted over the violence, which police branded 'absolutely appalling'.

Ringleader Shamin Hussain, 40, can be seen attacking another man with a hammer and has been jailed for six years today.

Shocking: Ringleader Shamin Hussain, 40, can be seen here attacking another man with a hammer in the Bangladeshi community centre

Fighting: The 100-man brawl was captured on body cameras worn by police called to the scene where some wielded knives and iron bars while others were throwing chairs and punches in May 2015

Arsenal: The fighting was between rival factions who both wanted to help run the Bangladeshi Community Centre in Leeds so smuggled in weapons including machetes, curtain poles and pliers (pictured)

The film shows dozens of men, many wearing traditional Islamic skullcaps, screaming at eachother as they fight amongst themselves and with at least two police officers.

Other weapons used in the violence at the centre in the Harehills district included iron bars, knives and chairs, which are thrown across the room.

Police said 32 people have now been successfully prosecuted over the incident. Of these, six have received jail sentences, including Hussain.

Five men were each jailed for eight months after being found guilty of violent disorder or possessing an offensive weapon.

Shamin Hussain, 40, pictured, has been jailed for six years today for the fight

Detective Superintendent Pat Twiggs, who led the investigation, said: 'The scenes of violence witnessed that day at what was supposed to be an organised community meeting were absolutely appalling.

'Against a background of tensions around the centre's hierarchy, a large number of people went to the meeting intent on causing violence, with some having hidden weapons around the building ready to use.

'The meeting very swiftly descended into large-scale disorder, with a number of men attacking each other with weapons, including iron bars and knives, resulting in a number of injuries including serious head injuries.'

Mr Twiggs said the local community police officer and his two police community support officer colleagues who were at the event found themselves 'vastly outnumbered and in the midst of a really dangerous and intimidating situation that was completely unexpected'.

The officer said: 'Despite that, they did everything they could to protect people and restore order, and put themselves in between those who were fighting until other colleagues arrived.

'It was a really frightening situation for them to be faced with and one which illustrates quite clearly the risks officers can face as they work to protect our communities and keep people safe.'

Terrifying: Police were completely outnumbered by the fighting rivals in the Leeds community centre

Mr Twiggs said: 'This incident caused understandable concern in the community and also attracted a national focus which put Leeds in a negative light.

'West Yorkshire Police will not tolerate anyone who seeks to settle their differences with violence and will always take robust action against those who do.

'We hope the conclusion of this case will serve to reassure the community and provide a deterrent to those who think they can act outside of the law.'
A second man has been charged with the murder of 22-year-old Sam Thompson, following a brief court appearance by a Brisbane man who faces the same charges.

A 25-year-old Albany Creek man was taken into custody by police on Friday night and has been charged with one count each of murder and interfering with a corpse.

He is due to appear in the Brisbane Magistrates Court on Saturday.

His charge comes after Roberto Vincenzo Boscaino was taken into custody after being charged on Thursday with murder and interfering with a corpse.

Missing childcare worker Sam Thompson, 22, (pictured) has not been seen since March 7 after leaving his apartment in Albion, north of Brisbane

Boscaino, 23, did not apply for bail when his matter came before Brisbane Magistrates Court on Friday morning.

The Bald Hills man appeared to tremble during his first few moments in the dock but sat calmly as his matter was adjourned to the committal call-over list on May 8.

Boscaino is not required to appear at that hearing.

The search for Mr Thompson's body continues after he vanished in suspicious circumstances on March 7 and his parents reported him missing.

Mr Thompson (second from right) pictured with his mother Debbie, father Bruce and sister Courtney

CCTV stills shows Mr Thompson leaving his apartment in Albion, north of Brisbane on March 7

A team of 40 detectives has been working the case and turned their attention to a Bald Hills home, which 'remains a primary crime scene', after failing to find anything during a search of a tip at Swanbank in Ipswich on Wednesday.

A car similar to the one spotted on CCTV at the car park of the Deep Water Bend Reserve at Bald Hills, where Mr Thompson was last seen, was seized from an Albany Creek home on Wednesday night.

Mr Thompson's distinctive orange 2016 Ford Mustang was also spotted in the car park that day.

He was the victim of an unsolved robbery in Brisbane last September, in which his car was stolen and police are investigating whether his disappearance was linked to that crime.
A third White House staffer has been named as a participant in the plot to pass House Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes classified files right under the nose of the president.

The White House's senior director for national intelligence, Ezra Cohen-Watnick, and a White House lawyer who previously worked with Nunes on the intelligence committee, Michael Ellis, were outed on Thursday as helpers of Nunes.

John Eisenberg, the top lawyer on the National Security Council, was also involved, the Washington Post today reported.

Democrats say they are flummoxed by the roundabout route the White House aides took to share information with Nunes, a Republican who advised Trump between his election and the inauguration.

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A third White House staffer has been named as a participant in the plot to pass House Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes classified files right under the nose of the president

It would appear that Nunes was 'duped' by the staffers at the White House into being a part of a 'bizarre' plan to get out information about Obama administration spying, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said Friday.

Fox News reported later in the day that Cohen-Watnick and Ellis may not be the leakers at all. They played an 'ancillary' role in the debacle, White House Correspondent John Roberts said.

President Donald Trump's spokesman refused to comment on the matter again on Friday, telling Roberts he'd be going down a 'slippery slope' if he confirmed or denied that aspect of the reporting.

He said later that Nunes was 'cleared' to be on property when he viewed the documents last week and what he did was '100 percent proper.'

'He wasn't hiding or roaming,' Sean Spicer said of Nunes visit to the complex to see the documents.

Spicer ducked questions on Thursday about the White House officials who reportedly gave Nunes access to the mystery documents he says revealed the incidental collection of information on the newly elected leader's transitional government prior to the inauguration.

At the same time, the White House press secretary informed journalists that Nunes, his Democratic counterpart in the House and the heads of the Senate's Intelligence panel had been invited to the White House to view documents that may or may not be the same ones the Republican congressman saw.

The timing of the gesture and the circuitous way in which White House staffers shared the surveillance reports with Nunes and only Nunes had Democratic lawmakers scratching their heads.

'Why would the chairman of the committee go to the White House to get information that they could have conveyed to the president, bring it to the president and then take it to the press,' Pelosi asked Friday on NBC's 'Today' show.

Congressman Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the House's Intelligence panel, said Thursday that he was 'perplexed.'

'I do think that the White House has a lot of questions to answer,' he said.

Schiff told Capitol Hill reporters that he was suspicious of the White House's invitation - in response to a letter it received from lawmakers in mid-March, it says - to review information on the improper unmasking of Americans in surveillance reporting.

It came just after the New York Times published an article revealing the identities of two of Nunes' sources, both of whom work on the White House grounds.

'The timing certainly was fortuitous, and probably more than fortuitous,' Schiff told reporters during a Capitol Hill news conference on Thursday afternoon.

It is not clear if the documents that the intelligence chiefs in the House and Senate have been invited to view are the same ones that Nunes saw.

If they are, and they were compiled by the same White House staffers who leaked them to the Republican, why was that 'circuitous' method was employed? Schiff wondered.

'If that was designed to hide the origin of the materials, that raises profound questions about just what the White House is doing,' he told reporters. 'Why all of the cloak and dagger stuff?'

Congressman Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the House's Intelligence panel, says the timing of the White House's invitation to come view classified documents on surveillance has him 'perplexed'

The Democratic congressman said it 'would obviously be deeply disturbing' if the White House kept Democrats on the committee in the dark on purpose.

The congressman reportedly visited the complex on Friday to view the documents.

Nunes has claimed that his sources qualify as 'whistleblowers,' but Schiff on Thursday said that does not appear to be the case, given the circumstances.

'It certainly doesn't sound as all like what I would consider a whistleblower. We have procedures for whistleblowers to come to the committee,' Schiff said.

The California congressman said the intel committee may need to interview the individuals who shared the documents with Nunes.

'We need to get to the bottom of whether this was some strategy by the White House,' the congressman said.

It would appear that Nunes was 'duped' by the staffers at the White House into being a part of a 'bizarre' plan to get out information about Obama administration spying, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said Friday

The Trump White House may be trying to 'launder information through our committee to avoid the true source of the information,' he charged.

Schiff says Nunes needs to recuse himself from a related investigation into the 2016 election. Pelosi has also called on Nunes to step aside.

'He should not conduct the investigation because he was part of the transition,' she told NBC on Friday.

Pelosi wasn't ready to implicate the president in the matter that another member of the House Intelligence Committee, Rep. Eric Swalwell, has previously speculated was a criminal cover-up.

His administration had to have known that White House aides shared the information with Nunes, though, she said.

'And it is very bizarre...I've never seen behavior this bizarre on the part of the chairman,' Pelosi, the longest serving Democrat on the House's Intelligence Committee, said.

White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer said Thursday that the heads of the House and Senate Intelligence Committees had been invited to view information on surveillance at the White House

Ezra Cohen-Watnick, the senior director for intelligence at the National Security Council, was identified by the Times as one of the two staffers who showed Nunes the secret information.

The other staff in the Times article was Michael Ellis, a lawyer who works on security issues in the White House counsel's office.

Cohen-Watnick is a former Defense Intelligence Agency staffer who was brought to the White House by former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn.

The president showed Flynn the door after he was untruthful about his Russia ties.

He is the same staffer who the new National Security Advisor Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster tried to shift to another post, only to have top White House officials Stephen Bannon and Jared Kushner intervene, according to an account in Politico.

Spicer had claimed since Nunes first came to campus to brief the president that he did not know who the congressman obtained his information from or how he got on the premises in the first place to get it.

The idea that the White House had briefed Nunes on the information didn't 'pass the smell test,' Spicer charged as he shoved back at reporters asking questions about the process.

He scolded one correspondent for 'your obsession with who talked to whom and when.'

Michael Ellis, a member of the White House counsel's staff who works on security issues, was identified by the New York Times as one of Nunes' sources

When another reporter followed up with questions about who cleared Nunes onto White House grounds, he derided the press as petty.

'I say this respectfully. I understand that you want all of those process answers  what day, what were they wearing, what door they come in ' he said.

The White House official would not confirm the Times' reporting

'I'm not commenting on the reports,' Spicer said.

To do that 'would be to validate certain things that I am not at liberty to do,' he stated.

Speaking to reporters later, Schiff said, 'I don't know whether The New York Times' sources are accurate about whether the two people mentioned in the story.

'But the fact that Sean Spicer yesterday had no idea who may have been involved in that review by the chairman, today they suddenly do, you know, raises a lot of very difficult questions for the White House.'

UNMASKED: White Press Secretary Sean Spicer told reporters about the invite to lawmakers on a day when a report named two White House officials as having passed on information to the GOP House Intelligence Committee chairman - Democrats find the timing suspicious

Soon after the Times story appeared online, Spicer said the White House had sent a letter to the House and Senate Intelligence Committee chairs and Democratic ranking members.

He said that 'in the ordinary course of business' the national security staff discovered materials that the White House thought Members of Congress might like to see.

'We have and will invite the Senate and House ranking members and chairmen up to the White House to view that material in accordance with their schedule,' Spicer said.

Spicer refused to disclose how the information got uncovered in the 'ordinary' course of business.

'I'm not. That's why we've invited them up,' he said.

Nunes last Wednesday after viewing classified materials would not say how Trump transition officials were caught up in the surveillance - and whether any of them work at the White House

Nor would he confirm that it was the same information Nunes got.

'You're not intending to imply that this is the information that Chairman Nunes has been talking about?' a reporter had asked.

'What I'm suggesting is that there has been information that has been material that has been made  come to light, and that we want to make sure that the people who are conducting the review have that information, have access to it,' he said.

Nunes also wouldn't confirm the Times' report.

'As he's stated many times, Chairman Nunes will not confirm or deny speculation about his source's identity,' committee spokesman Jack Langer said in a statement.
Nathan Fisher was banned from having pets for 10 years after one of his dogs was found dead at his home in Rhyl

A dog owner has been banned from keeping animals for a decade after his starved pet was founded dead under his trampoline.

Nathan Fisher, 24, was arrested when police found the remains of his akita dog, Kuma, at his home in Kinmel Bay near Rhyl, in North Wales.

A court heard the dog's mother Layla was found in the nick of time as a 'bag of bones' but managed to survive.

Fisher caused 'unnecessary suffering' to both animals by not seeking help when they both started to lose weight.

Mother Layla was so skinny that her bones were clearly visible through her coat - and was described as looking like a 'bag of bones'.

Fisher was arrested and appeared at Llandudno Magistrates' Court where he pleaded guilty to two counts of causing unnecessary suffering to animals.

The court heard he should have 'explored and addressed' both dogs' weight loss.

Although Kuma died, his mother Layla, above, was found in the nick of time and was described as a 'bag of bones'

Fisher was given an order stopping him from owning any animal for a decade, and given a 12-week prison sentence suspended for 18 months.

He was also given a one-year community order, a nine-month alcohol treatment order, 180 hours of community work and told to pay a total of 865.

RSPCA inspector Phil Lewis said: 'These poor akita dogs were subject to outright neglect and ill-treatment, which cost one of the dogs their life.

Fisher should have explored the animal's health much earlier, the court said. He was also ordered to complete a nine-month alcohol treatment

'Fortunately, the other has been happily re-homed from an RSPCA Animal Centre. When she was found at the Kinmel Bay property, she looked an absolute bag of bones but thankfully her suffering is over.

'People have very clear and important legal responsibilities towards their dogs, and there was an outright failure in this case to deal with shocking levels of weight loss, and to provide the dogs with food and necessary care.'
Belgium has opened an investigation into the devastating Mosul airstrikes that left 200 civilians dead after admitting its F16 fighter jets were involved.

Casualty figures have varied considerably but it is thought more than 200 civilians were killed in strikes over several days in Mosul's al-Jadida area, and attention has focused on one allegedly particularly deadly strike on March 17.

Rescue workers are still pulling bodies from the wreckage, hampered by a lack of heavy equipment and the threat of ISIS drone bombs.

Belgium takes part in the US-led coalition against the ISIS, which has conducted tens of thousands of air strikes against the jihadists in Iraq and Syria. Pictured are Iraqi federal police firing at Islamic State targets

Prosecutors' spokesman Eric Van Der Sypt told AFP: 'We have opened a preliminary investigation to establish...whether all procedures were observed during two incidents.

'If rules of engagement were properly observed... it is possible that no crime was committed.'

Belgian MP Wouter De Vriendt told Flemish broadcaster VRT the case involved strikes carried out by Belgian F16 fighter jets on March 17.

Iraqi forces have been operating in the area of the Old City for several weeks

More than 200 people are believed to have been killed in the airstrikes on al-Jadida (pictured)

An Iraqi man sits amid the rubble of destroyed houses in Mosul's al-Jadida area where the airstrikes hit

An Iraqi man inspects the damage in Mosul's al-Jadida area following the devastating air strikes

Belgium takes part in the US-led coalition against the ISIS, which has conducted tens of thousands of air strikes against the jihadists in Iraq and Syria.

The coalition insists ISIS has targeted civilians and used them as human shields, while acknowledging that strikes by anti-ISIS forces have also left civilians dead.

Investigators are still looking into whether residents were forced into buildings that collapsed by ISIS to cause civilian casualties deliberately or whether they had fled there, seeking shelter.

US investigators are also looking at the apparent bombing of a school in Mansura near Raqa, Syria on March 21, and a building next to a mosque on March 16 in Al-Jineh, in Aleppo province.

307 CIVILIANS KILLED IN BOOBY TRAPS At least 307 civilians have been killed and 273 wounded in western Mosul since Feb 17 as Islamic State fighters herd people into booby-trapped buildings as human shields and fires on those who flee, the United Nations human rights chief said on Tuesday. This is an enemy that ruthlessly exploits civilians to serve its own ends, and clearly has not even the faintest qualm about deliberately placing them in danger,' U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra'ad al-Hussein said in a statement. 'It is vital that the Iraqi Security Forces and their Coalition partners avoid this trap,' he said, while calling for them to conduct transparent investigations into deadly incidents involving their forces. Advertisement

U.S.-led military commanders supporting the Iraqi forces acknowledged on Tuesday the March 17 air strike is likely to have played a role in the civilian deaths in the al-Jadida district, but said ISIS could also be to blame.

The Ministry of Defence indicated there was nothing to suggest the RAF were involved in the raid that led to the civilian deaths.

But Iraqi officials have been more cautious and instead blamed explosive booby-traps set by ISIS.

Other witness accounts have said the terror group were responsible.

Ghazwan al-Dawoodi, head of the Nineveh human rights council, said his team had made a field visit, finding that militants had forced residents into a bunker, and opened fire on helicopter gunships to provoke a coalition airstrike.

Two separate witnesses described how ISIS had parked a truck packed with explosives next to the building.

The vehicle may have gone up in an air strike, prompting the structure to collapse.

A member of the Iraqi forces walks past a mural bearing the logo of the Islamic State (IS) group in a tunnel that was reportedly used as a training centre by the jihadists, on March 1, 2017, in the village of Albu Sayf, on the southern outskirts of Mosul

Widad Ibrahim, right, sits outside her house near the old city during fighting between Iraqi security forces and Islamic State militants on the western side of Mosul on Thursday

Iraqi forces are now 500 metres from the al-Nuri Mosque, where ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi declared a caliphate spanning parts of Iraq and Syria in July 2014

Witnesses in Mosul have described the horrific scenes after the 'tragic' air strike on March 17

Iraqi forces launched the operation to retake Mosul, the country's second city, in October, retaking its eastern side before setting their sights on its smaller but more densely-populated west.

Iraqi forces have been operating in the area of the Old City for several weeks, and they are now 500 metres from the al-Nuri Mosque, where ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi declared a caliphate spanning parts of Iraq and Syria in July 2014.

The fall of Mosul, Iraq's second city, would be a major setback for ISIS following months of losses in Iraq and neighbouring Syria. The city also holds huge symbolic significance for the terror group.

In neighbouring Syria, three separate forces are advancing on the city of Raqqa, the main Syrian city under ISIS control.

The United Nations has warned around 400,000 people are 'trapped' in the central Mosul area under siege-like conditions as Iraqi forces battle the ISIS for the city's west.

Food is running short and security is fragile even in liberated areas.

United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres said today: 'We don't have the resources necessary to support these people.'

Hind Taha, a western Mosul resident, told Associated Press: 'There is no money, no market, no food. We are living just on aid.'

The Reach Initiative, a group that helps aid groups collect data on humanitarian crises, said the situation in west Mosul was 'severe to extremely severe'.

'In areas still under (ISIS control), there is no access to markets and people are surviving on depleting food and water stocks, without access to electricity, fuel and healthcare,' it said.
The salvaged wreck of South Korea's Sewol ferry finally reached port in Mokpo on Friday, nearly three years after setting out on a doomed voyage that killed more than 300 people.

The vessel was raised from the sea floor in one piece in a complex salvage operation before being transferred to a semi-submersible transport ship for the 66 mile (105-kilometre) journey to port, where investigators will search it.

The vessel was welded in place on the transport ship to maintain balance during the trip, and disconnecting it will take several days.

Almost all of the dead were schoolchildren and nine of the victims were never found after the 2014 sinking.

'This is only the beginning. I always see my daughter in dreams,' said Park Eun-Mi, whose daughter Huh Da-Yun has not been found.

'We must find all the nine missing people and return them to the bosom of their families.'

The tragedy triggered a national outpouring of grief and outrage over what were seen as poor government rescue efforts.

The anger contributed to the ouster of President Park Geun-hye, who was arrested earlier Friday over allegations of corruption.
A devastated father has described the harrowing moment he found his four-year-old daughter, blackened and shredded by shrapnel after an airstrike in Mosul.

Ala'a Al-Tai, Hawra's father, revealed how he pleaded with an ISIS fighter to let him take the child to a hospital, only to be callously told his attempt to save her was futile and that the fighter could kill her instead.

The traumatised child was left motherless and blind by the US-led coalition airstrikes which struck neighbourhoods across west Mosul, on March 17, allegedly resulting in dozens of civilian deaths.

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From his four-year-old daughter Hawra's hospital bedside, a father, Ala'a Al-Tai, has revealed how he plucked the child from debris after an airstrike in Mosul

In her hospital bed, Hawra is filmed with shrapnel still embedded in her eyelids, whimpering for her mother as does not know she is dead.

Ala'a Al-Tai was filmed and interviewed at Hawras hospital bedside in Erbil by CNN.

In the footage he recounts how Hawra and her mother were baking bread with other family members when the strike took place.

Mr Al-Tai claims a dozen ISIS fighters had congregated at an intersection of ratlines (carved tunnels) between their homes when shooting and air attacks took place.

Three homes, were levelled in the incident, he tells CNN.

Engulfed by rubble, Mr Al-Tai scrambled to find his wife and daughter. He plucked Hawra from the debris and discovered her mothers lifeless body nearby.

His desperate pleas to be allowed to take the girl to hospital were met with a heartless response from an Iraqi ISIS fighter who offered to kill the child instead.

Hawra claims he was told: I can shoot her. Why do you want to save her? Shes going to die anyway.

Her father said his desperate pleas to be allowed to take the girl to hospital were met with a heartless response from an Iraqi ISIS fighter who offered to kill the child instead

In her hospital bed, Hawra is filmed with shrapnel still embedded in her eyelids, whimpering for her mother as does not know she is dead.

Iraqi authorities estimate that more than 130 civilians were killed in airstrikes over several days in Mosul's al-Jadida area, according to AFP.

An investigation into the US coalition-led airstrikes that took place on March 17 has been launched by Belgian prosecutors.

Mr Al-Tai claims a dozen ISIS fighters had congregated at an intersection of ratlines (carved tunnels) between their homes when shooting and air attacks took place

Iraqi forces backed by a US led coalition, recaptured eastern Mosul in January after three months of fighting to retake the city that fell to Islamic State in 2014.

They launched a new offensive to recapture the citys western side in February.

It comes after reports that ISIS has kidnapped almost 200 children to use as human shields in the battle for Mosul.

The Iraqi Observatory for Human Rights said 197 children had been taken hostage by the terror group near the Al-Nuri mosque where ISIS declared its caliphate nearly three years ago.

In January, it was reported that hundreds of thousands of children are facing death by execution, starvation or bombings in the battle of Mosul

Half of the 750,000 trapped civilians in West Mosul are children, who risk being beheaded or shot by ISIS if they try to flee, aid agencies warned.

The film at Erbil hospital also featured a 16-year-old child, Fatima lying in the hospital bed with a broken back after she was caught up in the conflict

Iraqi forces reportedly killed 10 ISIS chiefs in a fresh round of air strikes in Mosul.

The renewed offensive came days after US-led bombing raids killed 200 civilians in a single district.

Rescuers were still pulling the bodies of women and children from rubble in the Jadideh neighbourhood on Saturday, more than a week after the US-led coalition bombs reportedly landed on March 17.

However on Monday, Iraqi forces renewed their offensive against ISIS in Mosul's Old City.

As well as the death of 10 ISIS chiefs, Major Ammar Qassem, from the Iraqi army, said clashes between Iraqi forces and terrorists near the town of Tal Afar, west of Mosul, had also left a further 17 ISIS members dead.
Three thrill-seeking base jumpers have landed into some hot water after leaping from a 70-storey building right next to a police station.

Western Australian adrenaline junkies BJ Johnson, Wes Burrows, and Locklan Gilbert were questioned by Hong Kong police after jumping off a 70-storey building.

The trio, who have completed 1000 jumps between them, were released without charge a few hours later according to Perth Now.

Three thrill-seeking base jumpers have landed into some hot water after leaping from a 70-storey building right next to a police station

One of their heart-wrenching jumps was filmed by 16-year-old photographer James Sight, who posted the footage on social media.

While filmed in Hong Kong  it is not clear whether it is the same jump which saw the trio become embroiled with authorities.

In the footage, a small team can be seen organising equipment and taking selfies before taking the plunge, with the Hong Kong skyline in the background.

Mr Johnson, Mr Burrows, and Mr Gilbert can each be heard proclaiming '3,2,1, see ya' before leaping off the 500ft building.

As they float towards the ground with their parachutes, the group on the roof rush to meet them downstairs before they're caught, meeting the trio at a restaurant.

It's not their first time the base jumpers have come face to face to authorities  earlier in March staff at a Ritz Carlton hotel according to PerthNow.

In the footage, a small team can be seen organising equipment and taking selfies before taking the plunge, with the Hong Kong skyline in the background
Bomb disposal experts rushed to a Kent beach when shocked residents discovered a washed-up World War II bomb nestled in the pebbles.

But amazingly the huge cylindrical bomb turned out to be a 74-year-old test dummy for the RAF's famous dambusters raid on three heavily defended dams deep in Germany's industrial heartland.

Before the raid by 19 Lancaster bombers on 16 May, 1943, the RAF tested non-live versions of the 9,000-pound bombs which were made to bounce across water to avoid impenetrable torpedo nets protecting the dams.

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Discovery: Bomb disposal experts rushed to a Kent beach when shocked residents discovered a washed-up World War II bomb nestled in the sand

False alarm: The huge cylindrical bomb turned out to be a test dummy for the RAF's famous dambusters raid

The lethal bomb of the dambusters raids: A 'bouncing bomb' at Duxford Imperial War Museum

Along with Chesil Beach in Dorset, one of the beaches where they were tested was Reculver Beach near Herne Bay in Kent.

Beach cafe owner Lisa Clayton was horrified when she spotted the bomb there on Wednesday morning around 10am.

Ms Clayton, 49, said: 'We saw the police, coastguard and bomb disposal people on the beach so we went to have a look.

'We were really surprised - we've been here 11 years and had never seen a bomb here before.

'It's only one end of it but it's quite big, it's a lot bigger than I thought.

'There have been other little mine-type things on the beach before, but nothing like this.

'It's right by the sea wall, it's a busy area, but at that time it's really quiet and there was this sudden commotion.

'Luckily you could see the concrete on the inside from where it was just a practice bomb.'

THE DAMBUSTERS RAID OF 1943 On 16 May, 1943, 19 Lancaster bomber crews gathered at a remote RAF station in Lincolnshire for a mission of extraordinary daring - a night-time raid on three heavily defended dams deep in Germany's industrial heartland. The dams were heavily fortified and needed the innovative bouncing bomb - which bounced on the water over torpedo nets and sank before detonating. To succeed, the raiders would have to fly across occupied Europe under heavy fire and then drop their bombs with awesome precision from a mere 60ft above the water. The Mohne and Eder Dams in the industrial heart of Germany were attacked and breached by mines dropped from specially modified Lancasters of No. 617 Squadron. A wartime photograph showing the damage inflicted by the 'Dambusters' raid on the Eder dam The Sorpe dam was was also attacked by by two aircraft and damaged. A fourth dam, the Ennepe was reported as being attacked by a single aircraft (O-Orange), but with no damage. An estimated 1,294 people were killed by floodwaters and eight of the 19 aircraft dispatched failed to return with the loss of 53 aircrew and 3 taken prisoner of war. Royal Air Force 1939-1945: Bomber Command, Crews of No 106 Squadron photographed in front of a Lancaster at Syerston An historic silhouette over Scampton as a Lancaster bomber 'beats up' the runway on its arrival after a commemorative flight from Biggin Hill, Kent Wg Cdr Guy Gibson, Officer Commanding No. 617 Sqn, is awarded the VC for his part in leading the attack. The raid, orchestrated by Guy Gibson and the RAF's 617 'Dambuster' Squadron, was seen as a major victory for the British, and Wing Commander Gibson is recognised as one of the war's most revered heroes. Their success was immortalised in the classic 1954 film The Dambusters, its thrilling theme tune and gung-ho script evoking the best of British derring-do. A German official stands next to an unexploded British Upkeep bouncing bomb Advertisement

Reculver Beach was used as a testing ground in the build up to Operation Chastise, a daring raid on Nazi Germany's dams in the industrial Rhur Valley.

Alan Porter, trustee of the Herne Bay seaside museum, said: 'It is the end section of a test Bouncing Bomb which was trailed prior to the Dambusters raid in World War Two.

'It is an Upkeep, which is a larger type than the complete one we have on display, with plenty of information, at the Seaside Museum.'

Residents of the town are calling for the bomb to remain on the beach.

Reculver Beach was used as a testing ground in the build up to Operation Chastise, a daring raid on Nazi Germany's dams in the industrial Rhur Valley

Historic: Residents of the town are calling for the bomb to remain on the beach

Alan Porter, trustee of the Herne Bay seaside museum, is hoping the Dambusters bomb will stay on the seafront as a public sculpture.

Mr Porter, 71, has lived in the town in Kent for 22 years and says he has never seen another bomb wash up on the beach.

He said: 'The Environment Agency found the piece of the bomb during routine clearing of the shingle - it was uncovered by a digger.

TESTING THE DAMBUSTER BOMB The bomb was invented by famous aircraft engineer Barnes Wallis The bomb was invented by famous aircraft engineer Barnes Wallis who called the flooding of the Rhur valley by breaking nearby dams 'an engineer's way of winning the war'. Testing of bouncing bomb prototypes with inert filling was carried out at Chesil Beach in Dorset, flying from RAF Warmwell in December 1942, and at Reculver in Kent, flying from RAF Manston in April and May 1943. The RAF intended to use the Vickers Wellington bomber but it became clear that only the Avro Lancaster was big enough to carry it and only after modification. The bomb was initially spherical but experts realised it had to be a cylinder to stop it shattering on impact with the water. Development and testing concluded on 13 May 1943 with the dropping of a live, cylindrical Upkeep bomb 5 miles out to sea from Broadstairs, Kent. They realised the bomb must be dropped at 60ft above the water and at 232 miles per hour with back-spin at 500 rpm. It was designed to bounce around seven times, covering 800 yards before sinking and blowing up. The explosive charge called Torpex was set to fire at a depth of 30 feet. The bomb was initially spherical but experts realised it had to be a cylinder to stop it shattering on impact with the water Advertisement

'We've got a similar one at the museum but it's quite a bit smaller - this one is an Upkeep, which were actually used in the Dambusters raid.

'The army went out in 1997 and retrieved about ten from the sea, which they gave to different museums, but I've not seen one on the beach before.

'It's quite exciting after all these years for this one to turn up, I'm pretty astounded by it.

'We're not quite sure what to do with it - it's so heavy that we might leave it there, I like the idea of keeping it as a public sculpture.

Intrigued: A local resident walks past the bomb with his dog as it protrudes from the pebbles

'I'm getting a sign made up asking people to respect it, someone found a fragment of it which they've already taken home but they're historical artefacts.

'There are no plans at the moment, but we need to decide whether it's kept in a museum or left where it is.

'So many things are sat in museums under glass cases, but this is sat on the beach.'
Google paid 36.4million in UK corporation tax last year  despite making a turnover of 1billion.

The contribution is higher than it has paid in the past but critics still called the amount paltry.

Experts said the US web search giant would have owed around ten times that figure if it were taxed on its total profits from sales in Britain.

Google, which has office at London's Kings Cross, paid 36.4 million in UK corporation tax for the year to June 30, 2016, the company has confirmed

Googles accounts say it made 148.8million of pre-tax profits in the UK following revenues of 1billion.

But the technology firm is thought to make around a tenth of its 71.2billion worldwide revenues over here  suggesting that Google actually gets around 7billion from UK operations.

The discrepancy is down to the fact that business from UK customers who buy advertising space is channelled through Ireland, where Google has its European headquarters.

John Cullinane, of the Chartered Institute of Taxation, said: The amount of corporation tax Google pays in the UK is not based on the amount of profit Google makes from its sales to UK customers.

If it were, Google would be paying about ten times as much  probably about 300million. He said he had no problem with the arrangement, adding: There are big swings and roundabouts. Thats just how things work.

But others were furious at Googles contribution to Britains coffers. Liberal Democrat Treasury spokesman Susan Kramer said: It is appalling that Google are still getting away with paying such a paltry amount of their total revenue back in taxes.

Chancellor Philip Hammond will come under renewed pressure to raise more revenue from huge technology giants

If [ministers] want to stop cutting vital services they need to start picking up what is owed to the British people. The Government seem to be letting big online businesses off the hook.

Last year, the Government sparked fury by allowing Google to settle a decades worth of tax bills for 130million.

The then chancellor, George Osborne, hailed it as a victory while critics slammed it as derisory. In previous years, Google had paid as little as 3.2million.

A spokesman for the tech giant said yesterday: As an international business, we pay the majority of our taxes in our home country, as well as all the taxes due in the UK.

We have recently announced significant new investment in the UK, including new offices in Kings Cross for 7,000 staff.

Buried in Googles latest accounts, the firm said HMRC actually owed it 31.5million in corporation tax. Insiders said yesterday that they did not expect to receive a cheque for the rebate. Instead it will be deducted from future tax bills.

Google has always insisted it abides by tax laws but critics say its complex financial arrangements allow it to avoid taxation on billions of pounds of revenue.

Such payments act as a refund for firms that have over-paid on pre-paid, estimated corporation tax bills. However, the apparent repayment has prompted fresh scepticism over Government promises to grab back the money it was due from Google.

Google has fought for years to counter accusations that it makes a poor contribution to UK coffers. The companys corporate motto is do no evil.

MP Margaret Hodge famously lambasted the tech giant over its complicated tax scheme in 2013, quipping: I think that you do evil. The 130million tax deal with the Government was supposed to draw a line under that controversy. However, the sum looked paltry next to the 1.3billion that France demanded from the technology giant.

Yesterdays disclosures are also likely to spark fresh fury over the web companys profits from hate. The firm has been at the centre of claims it is funding extremists by placing ads from blue chip companies next to YouTube videos by IS supporters. Google insists the sums involved were pennies not pounds but experts say some hate preachers have made tens of thousands of pounds.
This is the fearsome moment a great white shark devours a fleeing seal whole metres away from a fishing boat filming the encounter.

Cage-divers filming beneath the water captured the moments before as the seal twisted and turned in the water inches away from the enormous predator.

Seemingly attracted to the bait on a pole the shark soon realised something far larger was on the menu as the playful seal swam alongside it.

Fearsome footage captures the moment a great white shark devours a fleeing seal whole metres away from a fishing boat filming the encounter

Footage from above the water shows the seal suddenly flailing desperately though the water as the shark lunges towards it, in Gansbaai about two hours away from Cape Town.

Shadows across the surface show the underwater struggle taking place interrupted by sudden leaps through the air as the prey comes up for air.

But eventually the seal falls prey to the apex predator as a final twist through the water is intercepted by enormous jaws.

The helpless seal is almost swallowed whole as the power of the shark's thrust sends it towards the fishing boat.

Thankfully, a 10-year-old boy in Australia had a far luckier brush with a great white.

Eden Hasson was catching the last of the light while surfing at Samurai Beach in New South Wales when he got the fright of his life.

Despite fleeing for its life eventually the seal falls prey to the apex predator as a final twist through the water is intercepted byits enormous jaws

The young surfer said he didn't realise the dark shape he saw in the sea was a great white shark as he enjoyed the last of the day's waves.

His father, lifetime surfer Chris Hasson, was standing on the rocks taking photographs of his son when he saw a dark shadow in the water.
The EU has handed Spain an effective veto over the entire Brexit deal by declaring Madrid must agree to the deal applying to Gibraltar (pictured)

The EU has handed Spain an effective veto over the entire Brexit deal by declaring Madrid must agree to it applying to Gibraltar.

It means Theresa May could be faced with choosing between accepting a deal that leaves the Rock in the wilderness or walking away from the talks with nothing.

Downing Street tonight said Mrs May had already been clear in her support for the Rock and its people.

And Gibraltar itself blasted the 'disgraceful' singling out of the 30,000 residents by the European Union.

MPs were outraged at the move, contained in the small print of the draft negotiating guidelines for the EU published by Council President Donald Tusk today.

Gibraltar's chief minister Fabian Picardo said: 'This unnecessary, unjustified and unacceptable discriminatory proposed singling out of Gibraltar and its people was the predictable machination of Spain that the people of Gibraltar foresaw and one of the reasons we voted so massively to remain in the EU.

'This is a disgraceful attempt by Spain to manipulate the the European Council for its own narrow, political interests.

'Brexit is already complicated enough without Spain trying to complicate it further.'

Downing Street said Mrs May had made clear the Government was 'absolutely steadfast in our support of Gibraltar, its people and its economy' in her Commons statement on Wednesday.

THE ROCK HAS BEEN BRITISH SINCE 1713 Gibraltar, a rocky peninsula on the Spanish coast, has been a British territory since 1713 and the Government is committed to allowing the people of Gibraltar self determination. The people of Gibraltar were allowed to take part in the EU referendum and voted overwhelmingly against Brexit. They also voted almost unanimously to stay British in 2002. Despite the referendums, the tiny outpost has been the source of frequent diplomatic tension between Britain and Spain, which believes it should be returned. Spanish vessels regularly breach Gibraltar's territorial waters and the country's ambassadors are frequently summoned to the Foreign Office for a dressing down. Royal Navy ships patrol the waters to ward off the irritating breaches while the Royal Air Force uses the peninsula's runway. Advertisement

The Prime Minister told MPs the UK was clear that Gibraltar was 'covered by our exit negotiations'.

'We have been firm in our commitment never to enter arrangements under which the people of Gibraltar would pass under the sovereignty of another state against their wishes, nor to enter into a process of sovereignty negotiations with which Gibraltar is not content,' she said.

Spain defended the position today as minister Inigo Mendez de Vigo said 'this is an important point in the future negotiations of the United Kingdom's exit from the EU'.

A senior diplomat in Brussels said: 'This seems intended to give Spain something so they don't try to hold the whole withdrawal treaty hostage over it.'

Andrew Rosindell, the Vice Chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Gibraltar, told the Telegraph: 'An agreement without including Gibraltar means there can be no agreement.

'British people must and will stand together, we cannot be bullied by Spain, any agreement must apply equally to the whole British family and that includes Gibraltar.

'There can be no compromise on this.'

Conservative MP Bob Neill said: 'Gibraltar's friends in the UK will be watching this very carefully. There will be no sell out.'

Gibraltar's chief minister Fabian Picardo, pictured in Downing Street in 2013, blasted the 'disgraceful' singling out of the 30,000 residents by the European Union

THE ONE SENTENCE THAT COULD TRASH THE WHOLE DEAL The EU's Gibraltar bombshell was revealed in a single sentence of the nine page draft guidelines. It hands Spain a veto over whether the Brexit deal applies to Gibraltar - something which could make the entire deal untenable for Britain. It reads: 'After the United Kingdom leaves the Union, no agreement between the EU and the United Kingdom may apply to the territory of Gibraltar without the agreement between the Kingdom of Spain and the United Kingdom.' Advertisement

Liberal Democrat foreign affairs spokesman Tom Brake said showed the Government's Brexit strategy was potentially damaging to the future of the Rock.

Mr Brake said: 'Confirmation that Gibraltar's future must be agreed by the UK and Spain shows just how damaging the Government's hard Brexit will be on this strategically-important British territory.

'Theresa May must urgently produce a plan that protects the citizens of Gibraltar, including their businesses and communities.

'It is our obligation to support our overseas territories, and any attempt to brush off the importance of this issue is a dereliction of duty by the Government.

'Only the Lib Dems are fighting against hard Brexit, and to keep the UK's place in the single market.'

MPs were outraged at the move, contained in the small print of the draft negotiating guidelines for the EU published by Council President Donald Tusk today

Theresa May could be faced with choosing between accepting a deal that leaves the Rock in the wilderness or walking away from the talks with nothing

The Tory chair of the all-party parliamentary group on Gibraltar, Jack Lopresti, said: 'It's predictable that given Spain's previous behaviour, they would try and use Brexit as a fig leaf for troublemaking over the status of Gibraltar.

'It is shameful that the EU have attempted to allow Spain an effective veto over the future of British sovereign territory, flying in the face of the will of the people of Gibraltar.

'The UK Government's position is clear and will stand. There will be no negotiation over the status of Gibraltar.'

The status of Gibraltar is addressed in a single paragraph of Mr Tusk's nine-page document, which states: 'After the United Kingdom leaves the Union, no agreement between the EU and the United Kingdom may apply to the territory of Gibraltar without the agreement between the Kingdom of Spain and the United Kingdom.'

As he unveiled the draft guidelines, Mr Tusk warned Mrs May she must strike a deal on the Brexit divorce bill, migrant rights, business rules and the Irish border before trade talks can start

As he unveiled the draft guidelines, Mr Tusk warned Theresa May she must strike a deal on the Brexit divorce bill, migrant rights, business rules and the Irish border before trade talks can start.

The EU Council President made a small concession to Mrs May by indicating he would allow some talks to run side by side before the divorce is finalised - potentially as soon as this autumn.

But at a press conference Mr Tusk confirmed 'parallel talks will not happen' despite the Prime Minister demanding everything be discussed at once four times in her Article 50 letter.

The details of the EU's position were spelt out in a set of draft negotiating guidelines which represent the official response to Mrs May's historic letter. Mr Tusk said he was not seeking a 'punitive' deal, warning 'Brexit is punishment enough'.

Agreeing the cost of Brexit will be a huge sticking point in the first phase of the negotiations as Europe is expected to demand up to 50billion - dwarfing the 3billion figure thought acceptable by ministers.

Striking an agreement on the rules imposed on companies after Brexit could also be difficult. Mr Tusk letter suggests the EU wants to stop Britain slashing taxes and regulation in an effort to stop a 'race to the bottom'.

Agreements on the rights of EU citizens in Britain and the Irish border will be complicated but striking a deal is firmly supported on both sides.

The draft negotiating guidelines for the EU's position in the Brexit talks demand 'sufficient progress' be made on agreeing the divorce before trade deal talks start.

Deciding when that point is reached is entirely up to the EU and is not something Britain can declare.
Ambassador James Woolsey, director of the CIA from 1993 to 1995 and Peter Pry (pictured) , chief of staff of the Congressional EMP Commission, warned how North Korea was an 'existential threat' to the US

Former CIA officials have warned North Korea could wipe out 200,000 lives by hiding an atomic bomb on board a ship 'under a false flag' at a US port.

Ambassador James Woolsey, director of the CIA from 1993 to 1995 and Peter Pry, chief of staff of the Congressional EMP Commission, warned how North Korea was an 'existential threat' to the US.

Writing for the Hill, they said the need to protect the American people was 'immediate and urgent.'

They wrote: 'Even if it were true that North Korea does not yet have nuclear missiles, their "Dear Leader" could deliver an atomic bomb hidden on a freighter sailing under a false flag into a U.S. port, or hire their terrorist allies to fly a nuclear 9/11 suicide mission across the unprotected border with Mexico.

'In this scenario, populous port cities like New York, New Orleans, Los Angeles, and San Francisco, or big cities nearest the Mexican border, like San Diego, Phoenix, Austin, and Santa Fe, would be most at risk.'

They added: 'A Hiroshima-type A-Bomb having a yield of 10-kilotons detonated in a major city would cause about 200,000 casualties from blast, thermal, and radiation effects. North Korea has tested a nuclear weapon having an estimated yield of 20-30 kilotons.

'The Defense Department assesses that on January 6, 2016, North Korea may have tested components of an H-Bomb.

'H-Bombs are much more powerful than A-Bombs and can produce much greater casualtiesmillions of casualties in a big city like New York.'

Urging the US to have an appropriate response, they called the country to 'beef up national missile defences' and launch a program to harden against EMP attack the US electric grid to 'preserve American civilization.'

Pyongyang insists that it needs nuclear weapons for self-defence against 'hostile enemies'

Calls for a stronger Japanese military have grown in the wake of North Korean aggression

Earlier this month, North Korea fired ballistic missiles that landed in the sea less than 200 miles off the northwestern coast of Japan.

The incident was one of the numerous military tests conducted by the despotic state, which has expanded its ballistic and nuclear missile capability in the wake of what it views as US and South Korean aggression.

The reclusive state has conducted five nuclear tests and a series of missile launches in defiance of U.N. resolutions.

Pyongyang insists that it needs nuclear weapons for self-defence against 'hostile enemies'.

South Korean and U.S. troops began the large-scale joint drills on March 1 that the North calls an invasion rehearsal.

North Korean news agency KCNA said last week, citing a statement from the General Staff of the Korean People's Army (KPA): 'They should be mindful that the [North Korean Army] will deal deadly blows without prior warning any time as long as the... troops of the US and South Korean puppet forces involved in the 'special operation' and 'preemptive attack' targeting the DPRK remain deployed in and around South Korea.
In a shocking incident caught on camera, an Indian man set himself on fire in front of at least 50 people after his wife refused his wishes to stop singing on stage.

Shaikh Basheer, 40, from Andhra Pradesh in southern India, had tried to ban his 35-year-old wife Sadika Sanjari from taking part in a function during the local new year celebrations on Tuesday.

The woman defied her husband's warnings and went on to sing religious songs at the event.

In a shocking incident caught on camera, an Indian man set himself on fire in front of at least 50 people after his wife refused his wishes to stop singing on stage

However, her angry husband turned up at the event and approached the stage with kerosene.

He then poured the highly flammable oil all over himself and set himself alight.

The distressing footage shows the man completely engulfed in flames as bystanders attempt to put out the fire.

Shaikh Basheer, 40, had tried to ban his 35-year-old wife Sadika Sanjari from taking part in a function during the local new year celebrations on Tuesday

But the woman defied her husband's warnings and went on to sing religious songs at the event

They eventually use a green floor covering to wrap around the man and put out the flames.

The husband sustained 70 per cent burns and was transported to hospital. His current condition is not known.

The distressing footage shows the man completely engulfed in flames as bystanders attempt to put out the fire
An Ohio woman was jailed on a felonious assault charge for shooting another woman in a Victoria's Secret PINK on Thursday and is being held on $50,000 bond, as reported by ABC's WSYX TV in Columbus.

Anikqua A.E. Williams, 22, apparently shot Daneshia Elmore because of a fight over a man in Easton Town Center, according to police.

The injured 23-year-old woman was hospitalized in stable condition with a chest wound after being shot by Williams, police said.

Anikqua A.E. Williams, 22, has been jailed on a felonious assault charge for shooting another woman in a Victoria's Secret PINK on Thursday and is now being held on $50,000 bond

Williams and the victim had 'bad blood' between them before they had an unexpected encounter at the PINK store, Deputy Chief Thomas Quinlan told The Columbus Dispatch.

The shooting occurred in an upstairs room of the store shortly after 2.00pm Eastern at the popular shopping area, which prohibits firearms.

It took authorities two minutes to respond to the scene once they received the call. There they found Elmore, bleeding from the chest, who told them she was shot during a physical altercation with Williams.

Williams and the victim had 'bad blood' between them, apparently over a fight about a man, before they had an unexpected encounter at the PINK store in Easton Town Center; this photo of the scene of the crime was shared to social media by Columbus police

The victim had a single gunshot wound to the upper chest and was rushed to Grant Medical Center with non-life threatening injuries, police said.

Several witnesses identified Williams as the shooter and she was apprehended within minutes of the attack.

Williams, herself, told police, 'I shot her,' as they approached to take her into custody, according to an affidavit filed Thursday in Franklin County Municipal Court. It is not yet known whether she had a permit to carry the firearm used in the shooting.

Williams was slated at the Franklin County Jail on Thursday. She appeared in court Friday morning.

Her next court appearance has been scheduled for April 7 at 9.00am Eastern.

Police have asked anyone with additional information regarding this incident to contact Columbus Police Assault Detective Steven Kaethow at 614-645-4740 or Central Ohio Crime Stoppers at 614-461-8477.
It was the photo that sent the Internet into meltdown.

When the cast from the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air reunited this week, it sparked rumours the iconic 90s show might potentially be making a comeback.

But Karyn Parsons, who played Hilary in the show, ruled out a return to the screens telling MailOnline it would be an 'impossibility' without James Avery.

Avery, who played Uncle Phil, died in December 2013 aged 68 from complications following open heart surgery.

The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air family reunited in Malibu on Monday (L-R) Tatyana Ali (Ashley); Alfonso Ribeiro (Carlton); Karyn Parsons (Hilary); Will Smith (Will) Daphne Etta Maxwell (Vivian) and Joseph Marcell (Geoffrey)

Speaking to MailOnline Parsons said: 'It [talks of a reunion] came up but it doesn't feel like it at the moment, but never say never.

'But it feels like an impossibility since James Avery died. I don't know how we would do it without him. It definitely affects the entire dynamic of the group.

'You take things for granted when he's there but then you realise he's gone and you miss him and his energy and the way he used to drive things on.

'He affects all of us as a group and the way we interact.

Cult hit: The Fresh Prince Of Bel Air ran from 1990-1996 and also starred (L-R) Janet Hubert Whitten, Joseph Marcell, Alfonso Ribeiro, Karyn Parsons and Tatyana Ali, as well as Will Smith and James Avery

Throwback: The Fresh Prince Of Bel Air aired on screens from 1990-1996

'We miss him so much. He was such a wonderful man and important part of our lives that when we're altogether, it feels like something is missing.'

In the Instagram post that sent fans into a frenzy, Alfonso Ribeiro wrote: 'Always amazing to spend an afternoon with my Fresh Prince family.

'Wishing that James Avery was still with us to make this complete.'

Will Smith also shared a selfie from the outing, which he captioned: 'Lunch with my BFF's... I missed my Uncle Phil today'.

The cast were reunited at Nobu in Malibu after a British family won the chance to have lunch with the cast as part of a charity auction.

Money raised went to Parsons' charity, Sweet Blackberry, an organisation which spreads 'little known stories of African Americans to children.'

It has not yet been disclosed how much the British family paid for the lunch.

Reunited: Will Smith shared more snaps from The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air reunion, which he sweetly captioned: 'Lunch with my BFF's... I missed my Uncle Phil today'

The group were reunited on the lunch date, with Tatyana Ali - who played Ashley in the series - bringing her son Edward along - who she welcomed in September

Speaking about the gang being back together, Parsons, 50, who has two children aged nine and 13, went on: 'It's really hard getting everyone together, particularly Will. I also live on the East Coast and no one else lives in New York. When I go to California I often get to see them.

'Joe Marcell [who starred as butler Geoffrey] was in New York last year in a play [King Lear] so I saw him then and Tatyana [Ali] got married in the summer so I caught up with some of them then.

'I did see that the photo got multiple reactions, most of which were positive.

'It's so hard to get your head around as when we were doing the show we didn't crack the top 10 and it didn't feel that popular. It was not until syndication that everything changed. It was incrementally more popular and more well known.

'When we were doing it it was fun but didn't feel like many people knew [about it].

She added: 'It was a healthy six years...it went really well and people enjoyed it. We felt the show ended on a high.'

Alfonso Ribeiro, who played Carlton Banks, was seen chatting away with Joseph Marcell, who played Geoffrey the butler in the sitcom

The Fresh Prince Of Bel Air originally aired on NBC for five years, finishing after six seasons and 148 episodes in May 1996.

The show starred Will as a a street-savvy teenager from West Philadelphia sent to move in with his wealthy aunt and uncle in their Bel Air mansion after getting into a fight.

While referred to as the Fresh Prince, Will's character was a fictionalized version of himself and also went by the name Will Smith.

His antics in Los Angeles' most well-to-do neighborhoods got laughs and turned heads.

But the NBC show also dealt with more serious matters including race relations and the targeting of young black men by the police.

WILL SMITH (WILL) Then and now: Pictured (left) as Fresh Prince Of Bel-Air aged 22 and (right) Dec 2016 aged 48 Starred in the show as The Fresh Prince - a fictionalized version of himself

Wrote and performed the theme song, Yo Home to Bel-Air with DJ Jazzy Jeff

Has gone on to carve out a successful film and music career for himself, and has been nominated for been nominated for five Golden Globe Awards and two Academy Awards, and has won four Grammy Awards

Shares two children with wife Jada Pinkett Smith Advertisement

ALFONSO RIBEIRO (CARLTON) Then and now: Pictured (left) aged 19 as Carlton Banks and (right) December 2016 aged 41 Played Carlton Banks in the series, Will's perfectionist cousin

Alfonso has continued to act but is better known as host. He currently hosts ABC's America's Funniest Home Videos

Alfonso took part in Britain's I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here! in 2013, where he finished in seventh place

He won Dancing with the Stars in 2014

Shares two sons with fiancee Angela Unkrich Advertisement

JAMES AVERY (PHILLIP) Then and now: Pictured (left) as Phillip Banks aged 45 and (right) February 2013, ten months before his untimely death aged 68 Played Phillip Banks in the series, the head of the household and Will's uncle

In addition to sitcoms, he did voice acting for many animated series, notably the 1987 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles series (as the voice of Shredder)

He died in December 2013 aged 68 from complications following open heart surgery

He had no children of his own, but was a stepfather to his wife's son Advertisement

KARYN PARSONS (HILARY) Then and now: Pictured (left) as Hilary Banks aged 24 and (right) June 2015 now 50 Played Hilary Banks in the series, Will's fashion and boy obsessed cousin

Has pursued a career in film, notably in the 1995 hit Major Payne alongside Damon Wayans

Shares two children, aged nine and 13, with director husband Alexandre Rockwell Advertisement

JOSEPH MARCELL (GEOFFREY) Then and now: Pictured (left) as Geoffrey the English butler aged 42 and (right) February 2013 now aged 68 Played Geoffrey in the series, the English butler to the Banks family

He is best known for his work in the theatre and is a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company

He also serves on the board of the Globe Theatre in London Advertisement

TATYANA ALI (ASHLEY) Then and now: Pictured (left) as Ashley Banks aged 11 and (right) August 2016 aged 38 Played Ashley Banks in the series, Will's adorable little cousin

Ali attended Harvard University, where she received a bachelor's degree in African-American studies and government in 2002

She starred in a recurring role as Roxanne on the CBS soap opera The Young and the Restless - leaving the series in 2013

Ali welcomed her first son in September 2016 Advertisement
Convicted South Carolina church shooter and white supremacist Dylann Storm Roof will plead guilty to state murder charges to avoid a second death sentence, effectively bringing a close to the prosecutions against him for the 2015 slaughter.

Solicitor Scarlett Wilson told The Associated Press on today that 22-year-old Roof is scheduled to enter a guilty plea during a hearing on April 10 in Charleston, South Carolina, a week after he turns 23.

The plea on all of his state charges, including nine counts of murder, comes in exchange for a sentence of life in prison, the prosecutor said.

Charleston, South Carolina church shooter Dylann Storm Roof is scheduled to plead guilty to nine counts of murder in exchange for a sentence of life in prison according to the prosecutor

Roof has been awaiting trial on state murder charges for the deaths of nine black parishioners at Charleston's Emanuel AME Church in June 2015.

Authorities said Roof spent months planning out his attack on the historic black church, sitting through an hour of Bible study one Wednesday night before opening fire during a closing prayer, while participants' eyes were closed.

The deal won't save Roof from a possible execution, though.

In January, a federal jury convinced him on 33 charges, including hate crimes, and sentenced him to death.

Wilson also had sought the death penalty in state court.

Roof, as he appeared via a video link, not long after being arrested following the 2015 shooting

Roof was already convicted on 33 federal charges, including hate crimes and obstruction of religion. The same jury that found him guilty decided to sentence Roof to death for the crimes

The plea marks the end of the trial proceedings against Roof, who has been in custody ever since his arrest the day after the shootings. Aside from trips to and from court, he's been housed in the Charleston County jail, several miles north of the city where the slayings took place.

After his federal sentencing, Roof was returned to that jail instead of federal death row in Terre Haute, Indiana, since his state trial was expected to come this year. Now, if this deal goes through, he'll be able to be transferred to serve his sentence.

The victims who died the shooting are pictured above: Top (L-R) DePayne Middleton-Doctor, Tywanza Sanders, Myrah Thompson. Center (L-R): Ethel Lance, Susie Jackson, Sharonda Coleman-Singleton. Bottom (L-R): Daniel Simmons, Clementa Pinckney and Cynthia Hurd

Wilson informed the families of Roof's nine victims about the guilty plea in a letter this morning.

"I write with great news that the states case is ready to wrap up. As I told you towards the end of trial and in other updates, at this point our goal is to provide an insurance policy to the federal conviction and sentence. The most effective way to do that is to secure a guilty plea for a life sentence and get the defendant into federal custody," she wrote in a letter obtained by The Post and Courier.

Talking with AP today, Wilson said she was confident the federal case against Roof would be upheld.

"I think it is highly unlikely that anything will be disturbed on appeal in federal court," she said. "This just gives an insurance policy against that."
A German court has convicted a man of raping and strangling a 90-year-old woman and sentenced him to 5 years in prison.

The Dusseldorf state court convicted the 19-year-old defendant under juvenile law Friday of rape, robbery and bodily harm, it was reported.

The victim was attacked in Dusseldorf on a Sunday in October last year just after she visited a church.

A German court has convicted a man of raping a 90-year-old woman and sentenced him to 5 years in prison. Pictured, Souhayl M. in court earlier this month

During the trial, the Moroccan-born man, identified only as Souhayl M. in line with German privacy rules, admitted to committing the attack and said he had been drinking and taking cocaine beforehand.

The defendant grew up in Spain, where he was convicted of narcotics and other offences.

He said he came to Germany in 2016 because he risked going to prison in Spain. Investigators used DNA to track him down.

Prosecutors earlier claimed he confronted her in a church and shouted 'money, money!' at her.

A CCTV image was released after the attack on a 90-year-old woman in October last year

When the elderly woman said she did not have any money to give him, he dragged her outside and carried out the horrific attack before strangling her and pulling her hair.

He also stole the key to her home, but there is no evidence that he later broke in.

Police say they traced the man through DNA evidence, as a sample was on record following a robbery in May last year, RP reports.

The woman needed hospital treatment following the horror attack.
A West Virginia man accused of fatally shooting a black teenager after the two bumped into each other and exchanged words has been indicted on a murder charge.

A Kanawha County grand jury handed down the indictment on Thursday against 62-year-old William Ronald Pulliam, who is white, in the fatal shooting of 15-year-old James Means, according to Charleston Gazette-Mail.

Police say the teen had a BB gun in his waistband but nothing in his hands when he was shot in the chest and in the back on November 21.

Police have said Pulliam showed no remorse and told investigators: 'That's another piece of trash off the street.'

Pulliam has denied he said this. He said that he shot in self-defense after he felt threatened.

James Means (left), 15, was allegedly killed by William Pulliam (right) after the two got into a confrontation. Police say Means had nothing in his hands when he was shot

William Ronald Pulliam, 62, was indicted Thursday with shooting dead Means, 15, in Charleston, West Virginia. He claims he felt his life was in danger and that Means had a gun

He also was indicted on charges of use or presentment of a firearm during the commission of a felony and illegally possessing a gun, according to the Gazette-Mail.

Last month, Pulliam was indicted by the federal government for allegedly lying on his purchase forms he submitted for the .380 caliber firearm that was used to kill Means, according to the Gazette-Mail.

Pulliam wrote on the federal form that he had never been convicted of a domestic violence crime.

But a criminal complaint from 2013 indicates that he punched his pregnant daughter in the face 'several times' and 'kicked her in the stomach.'

Pulliam was also accused of shoving his wife to the ground during the incident in question.

He pleaded no contest to one count of battery and had his sentence reduced from 36 days in jail to one year probation.

Weeks after the incident, Pulliam's wife filed for divorce.

If convicted on the federal charge, Pulliam could face up to 10 years in prison.

According to police, Means and Pulliam bumped into each other outside a Charleston Dollar General store on November 21 and twice exchanged words.



'James Means had nothing in his hands and I observed Mr. Pulliam pull out a gun and discharge one round,' a police detective testified in December

Pulliam said in a jailhouse interview that he shot in self-defense after he felt threatened.

'He told me that he shot him because he was hassling him,' Charleston Police Detective Chris Lioi testified during Pulliam's preliminary hearing in December.

According to Lioi, Means had a BB gun in his waistband, though video footage showed nothing in his hands when he was killed.

'James Means had nothing in his hands and I observed Mr. Pulliam pull out a gun and discharge one round. James Means then falls to the ground. As he gets up, William Pulliam fires another round,' Lioi said.

The detective also said that audio captured from the footage suggested Pulliam knew the BB gun was a toy.

'That toy gun is going to get you (expletive) killed,' Lioi said Pulliam could be heard saying before Means was shot.

'No, it's not,' Means responded, according to the detective.

Pulliam's attorney, Richard Holicker, said neither he nor his client has seen the footage, and he argued that prosecutors should play it in court.

Witnesses say Means and Pulliam exchanged words outside the store when they accidentally bumped into each other

'Hopefully, one day the state will let us see the video so we'll know what happened,' Holicker said.

'The fact that Mr. Pulliam shot Mr. Means doesn't make this a first-degree murder,' he said.

Scene of the crime: The shooting happened outside a general store in Charleston, West Virginia on November 21

But in an interview with WCHS from South Central Regional Jail, Pulliam denied making such a claim to police and claimed the shooting had nothing to do with race.

'I don't care if they're white or black. Nobody is going to do me like that. It doesn't make any difference if he's black. My God, everybody I live around over there is black. I get along with all of them, ask them,' Pulliam said.

Witnesses say the pair exchanged words near the store at the corner of Washington and Nancy streets at about 8.45pm when they accidentally bumped into each other.

Pulliam claims Means was with two other boys on the porch of a nearby house and one of them cursed at him as he walked by. He said Means then flashed a gun at him.

When Pulliam came out of the store a short time later, he said he walked on the opposite side the street but claims Means came towards him.

'I just shot him. I felt my life was in danger,' Pulliam said.

Friends and family held vigils for the slain teenager, remembering him as a 'funny, smart and a good friend' in November

Police said Pulliam used a .380 caliber revolver to fatally shoot the teenager who later died at Charleston Area Medical Center General Hospital.

At a vigil for the victim, he was remembered as a 'funny, smart and a good friend', the Charleston Gazette-Mail reported.

Obi Henderson, director of the nonprofit Dreams Community Development Corporation, said that James had attended weekly meetings with a youth group called the Dream Chasers to learn about communication skills and career development tools.

'James' name is not something that should be forgotten. His life was stolen from him,' Henderson said.

'It's important that we come together and unify people, and ensure that these young people do not continue to see their friends killed in the streets. Not only by their elders, like this gentleman, but each other.'

Penni Padget, who called Means' smile 'infectious,' said steps need to be taken to avoid similar incidents in the future.
North Korea must be stopped on its path toward being able to threaten the United States with nuclear attack, U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said Friday in a stark expression of America's top national security concern at the moment. He emphasized diplomatic means of changing Pyongyang's 'reckless' agenda.

On his first visit to Britain as Pentagon chief, Mattis also took rhetorical jabs at Russia and said America's priority in Syria is defeating the Islamic State group rather than bringing down President Bashar al Assad.

At a joint news conference with his British counterpart, Michael Fallon, Mattis was reminded by a reporter that as commander of U.S. forces in the Middle East several years ago, he considered Iran to be the biggest threat to U.S. interests.

Asked how he would deal with Iran as secretary of defense, Mattis called Tehran a problem but quickly pivoted to condemning North Korea and described the isolated, communist country as the more immediate threat.

Stop Kim: Defense Secretary Jim 'Mad Dog' Mattis used a press conference in London to say that North Korea's progress towards being able to launch a nuclear attack on the United States had to be brought to a halt

Hermit state: Mattis spoke of diplomatic pressure. North Korea's neighbor China, where it has this embassy, is the major route for such leverage

'This is a threat of both rhetoric and growing capability,' Mattis said, alluding to the North's recent progress in building nuclear bombs and developing an intercontinental ballistic missile to deliver such weapons to U.S. soil.

Experts believe North Korea will develop such capability in the next years, despite an array of international sanctions on the country.

The Trump administration has been conducting a broad policy review of North Korea that includes military options, but Mattis stressed other approaches.

'We are working diplomatically, including with those that we might be able to enlist in this effort to get North Korea under control,' he said. 'But right now it appears to be going in a very reckless manner.'

'That's got to be stopped,' he concluded.

Mattis made clear he still worries about Iran's involvement in what the U.S. sees as destabilizing activities across the Middle East. But he suggested that he now sees the world through a wider lens and that makes North Korea the more urgent problem.

He also aimed strong criticism at Russia, saying its 'violations of international law are now a matter of record.' He was referring to its annexation of Ukraine's Crimea region in 2014 and 'mucking around insider other people's elections and that sort of thing.' He also cited Russian outreach to Afghanistan's Taliban as a concern.

Enemy number one: Mattis said defeating the forces of ISIS in Syria was the top priority for the United States - not seeing off Bashar al Assad as president

Mattis hinted the Trump administration was close to deciding how to respond to Russia's recent deployment of a ground-based medium-range cruise missile - an action the Pentagon recently declared a violation of the 1987 Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces treaty.

Britain's Fallon said he and Mattis discussed the INF issue in their private talks Friday. More broadly, he said the NATO alliance cannot return to business as usual with Russia.

'There is a pattern of interference by Russia,' Fallon said. When the West does engage with Moscow, he added, 'we need to be wary of what Russia is up to.'

On Syria, which has been wracked by years of civil and IS' insurgency, Mattis said the U.S. government is 'working this one day at a time.' He said the focus is IS' stated intention of attacking the West, including Europe.

'We're going to have to keep them on their back foot, and that's where we're concentrating at this point,' he said, alluding to U.S.-supported offensives in Mosul, Iraq, and Raqqa, Syria.
Laurence Fishburne's daughter Montana has officially been hit with four counts by the State Attorney's Office related to her DUI arrest earlier this month - and now prosecutors are seeking a harsh sentence, with her potentially facing up to a year in jail due to property damage.

Montana Fishburne, the wayward eldest daughter of The Matrix actor Laurence Fishburne and a former porn star, was arrested near her Florida home in early March, Dailymail.com learned exclusively at the time.

Montana, 25, who lives in Fort Lauderdale, was arrested by Florida Highway Patrol troopers that Saturday morning after an accident on I-95 near the South Florida city, according to records.

She was charged with DUI, DUI with property damage and DUI with blood alcohol readings above .15 and spent the night in a Broward County Sheriff's Office jail.

Laurence Fishburne's daughter Montana has officially been hit with four counts by the State Attorney's Office related to her DUI arrest earlier this month

A booking photo shows Fishburne's eyes were still blood-shot and her nose red after what appeared to be a long period of crying.

She was released Saturday afternoon on a $2,500 bond, according to records.

Fishburne was driving a white Toyota Corolla on the six-lane interstate in Fort Lauderdale at about 1 AM when she rear-ended a Range Rover that slowed down to avoid a previous accident.

Montana, 25, was arrested by Florida Highway Patrol troopers after an accident on I-95 near the South Florida city; a booking photo shows that her eyes were blood-shot from crying

Fishburne's car sustained extensive damages but she was not injured.

When the trooper approached Fishburne, he writes in his report that he smelled a strong odor of alcohol on her breath.

'I noticed an open bottle of wine on the rear left floor, and the two front seats were splashed with a purple liquid with a strong odor of alcohol,' the trooper wrote on the report first obtained by DailyMail.com.

He also reported Fishburne was 'incoherent' while walking around the accident scene.

'Subject was moving around constantly and was making incoherent statements such as her driver's license being different if I was to arrest her,' the report reads.

The paperwork also shows Fishburne failed a series of field sobriety tests.

According to the report, she then squatted and urinated on the shoulder of the interstate as rescue personnel and police were busy clearing the accident.

At the station Fishburne allegedly blew a .177 and .181 on the breathalyzer. In Florida the legal limit is .08.

On March 24th, the State Attorneys Office officially filed four counts against Montana for the incident.

Fishburne moved to the beach-side city of Fort Lauderdale in 2014, shortly after a career as porn star that started when she was 19

They include DUI (Injury/Property Damage) (Enhanced), DUI (Injury/Property Damage), DUI (Enhanced), Driving Under the Influence.

The office filed enhanced charges due to the amount of property damage and her high B.A.C.

Florida law states that if Montana is convicted of a DUI with property damage she faces up to a year in jail, her driver's license being revoked, a $1,000 fine, substance abuse classes and 50 hours of community service.

Montana moved to the beach-side city in 2014, shortly after a career as porn star started when she was 19. At the time, she did a graphic video of her having sex with a man because she said she wanted to become the next Kim Kardashian and parlay the sleazy footage into mainstream acting fame.

Instead of receiving propositions for acting roles, Fishburne managed to alienate her famous dad, who also starred in Hannibal and Man of Steel. Laurence Fishburne had Montana with ex-wife and C-series actress Hajna O. Moss.

'He told me he was embarrassed by me,' Montana told The Hollywood Reporter in 2011.

In 2014, it was reported she quit porn in favor of stripping when a video of her on the stage of Houston strip bar popped up online. Since she moved to Fort Lauderdale, however, Fishburne has managed to stay under the radar.

She has been ordered to appear in court next month.
Five rare Chow Chow puppies have been rescued by an animal charity after they were smuggled into the UK.

The cuddly puppies were smuggled in by European breeders who often rear them in poor conditions before selling them online to unsuspecting customers in Britain for up to 2,000.

They were intercepted and seized at Dover as part of Dogs Trust's ongoing investigation into illegal puppy smuggling.

Five rare Chow Chow puppies have been rescued by an animal charity after they were smuggled into the UK

Dogs Trust have named the 15-week old pups Albert, Leia, Chewy, Chuck and Pudding - and nicknamed them the Chow-er Rangers after the superheroes.

Kelly McMaster, deputy rehoming centre manager at Dogs Trust Basildon, said: 'Despite their ordeal and rough start in life, they have made full recovery and have been a pleasure to be around - we'll miss these cute characters, but we're delighted they've all now found homes.'

The Chow Chow, famous for its lion-like mane, is an ancient breed originated from China.

They are the only breed, alongside the Chinese Shar-Pei, to have a blue-black tongue and are thought to have been originally bred from a Tibetan Mastiff and Siberian Samoyed.

The cuddly puppies were smuggled in by European breeders who often rear them in poor conditions

Dogs Trust have named the 15-week old pups Albert, Leia, Chewy, Chuck and Pudding - and nicknamed them the Chow-er Rangers. Pictured: Workers at the Dogs Trust with the puppies

Like many 'designer' breeds, they have fallen victim to cruel puppy farmers and importers who bring them to England illegally to sell online

But like many 'designer' breeds, they have fallen victim to cruel puppy farmers and importers who bring them to England illegally to sell online.

As part of Dogs Trust's ongoing investigation into puppy smuggling, the charity provide care and support for illegally smuggled puppies through their time in quarantine.

With the Chow-Chow famous for being stubborn and strong-willed, the puppies will need plenty of firm training when they are rehomed.

Dogs Trust has campaigned for the last two years to try and put a stop to the abuse of the Pet Travel Scheme and to highlight the plight of illegally smuggled puppies and stop this unnecessary suffering.

The charity urges those thinking of buying puppies to thoroughly do their research to ensure that the breeder is reputable.
William Shultz, 20, was convicted Thursday for the 2015 stabbing to death of 9-year-old Jordon 'Jordy' Almgren in Discovery Bay, California.

Shultz was found guilty of first-degree murder after the jury deliberated for 45 minutes in the Contra Costa County Superior Court, according to the East Bay Times.

Shultz, who is convinced that World War III is imminent, was also found guilty of a weapons enhancement.

William Shultz, 20, was convicted Thursday for the 2015 stabbing to death of 9-year-old Jordon 'Jordy' Almgren in Discovery Bay, California

The next step for the case will be an evaluation of Shultz's mental state at the time of the murder, which will determine whether he'll be committed to a mental health facility or serve time in prison.

If it is found that Shultz did not know and appreciate what he was doing and that it was morally and legally wrong, he may be found to be legally insane and avoid incarceration.

Shultz drove a five-inch hunting knife with a partially serrated blade into Almgren's body five times, slitting his throat and severing his spinal column before fleeing the Almgren home in one of the family's pickup trucks, as recounted by prosecuting attorney Simon OConnell.

Shultz, who was friends with Almgren's older brother Evan, was spending the night at the family's home the night he stabbed the young boy to death in anticipation of a paintball outing the next day.

Shultz was a family friend of the Almgrens; Jordy is seen here posed in front of a holiday tree

The exterior of the Almgren home where the murder took place is seen here

OConnell laid out eight points to the jury that he argued showed clear evidence of premeditation, deliberation and lying in wait for the murder during his closing arguments on Thursday.

During the sleepover, Shultz took a bag containing latex gloves, a first aid kit and a five-inch hunting knife to an isolated location in the basement of the Almgren residence.

OConnell said Shultz climbed the stairs to Almgren's room without making a noise by removing his shoes, after he waited until everyone was asleep and turned off the power to the house.

Shultz considered killing Evan Almgren, but decided a successful murder of his friend was not certain based on his size.

After coming to that conclusion, Shultz made his way to Jordy Almgrens room, placed his hand over the sleeping child's mouth and stabbed him to death at 3:45am Pacific time on Sunday, April 26, 2015.

Shultz was convinced World War III was evident and cited his reason for the murder of Jordy, seen here at a baseball game, as preparation for the imminent battle

Shultzs defense attorney, Cynthia Scofield, presented evidence of Shultzs compromised mental state during the trial.

According to Scofield, Shultz had tried to walk the more than 340 miles to Los Angeles in 2015. It was actually Jordy Almgren's mother, Melissa Almgren, who found the young man, barefoot and disoriented, walking along the road.

Scofield alleged Shultz had become obsessed with the number three and was convinced that World War III was fast approaching. He told police that he was concerned he wouldn't be able to take a life once World War III began, so he killed Jordy Almgren to make sure he could.

Shultz's interviews with investigators revealed that on the night of the brutal murder, the 20-year-old was unable to sleep due to what he described as 'all these thoughts.'

A vigil was held for Jordy after his brutal murder at the hands of William Shultz

Jordon 'Jordy' Almgren was murdered on April 26, 2015 in Discovery Bay, California; he is seen here wearing a cowboy hat in front of a painting of the sun

He said as he looked over the boy's body that morning, he thought about what it would be like to kill another person and 'what things happened in my life, my house and what circumstances brought me there to stand over this kid. I was thinking about the world ending, and I just did it.'

Kate Shultz, mother of William Shultz, tried to have her son committed for mental health treatment in the days leading up to the stabbing, but was unsuccessful.

'I dont want sympathy,' Kate Shultz said. 'I just dont want this to happen to anyone again. We need treatment before tragedy.'

Prior to the murder, Sheriff's deputies determined he was not a proper candidate for a mental health hold.

William Shultz said in an interview that took place at the jailhouse on April 27, 2015 that he then underwent a voluntary two-hour interview with a mental health professional at the county hospital that Saturday before being sent home in a cab.

Upon returning home, he fought with his murder who told him to leave. Shultz then went to the Almgren's home.

The following morning Jordy was murdered by Shultz.
Paramedics at the scene of the accident where a woman was trampled to death by an elephant

A woman was trampled to death and another was seriously injured when a herd of elephants attacked a group of wildlife park workers in South Africa.

She was pronounced dead at the scene after also being skewered by one of the animals' tusks in the incident on Thursday.

The women were both employees of South African National Parks (SANParks) based in the Kruger National Park in the northeastern area of the country.

Paramedic Jaco Gericke of Maponya 911 said to Lowvelder that the paramedics called out were escorted by rangers with rifles to the scene of the accident.

He said of the deceased woman: 'The elephant tusk entered her lower back and exited her chest.'

He added that she also had a severe open fracture to her right knee.

The other victim was taken to a hospital in Tzaneen where she is being treated for a fractured right femur.

William Mabasa, acting head of communications of SANParks said in a press release that the circumstances are still being investigated in order to establish as to what actually happened.

He said: 'Medical professionals were called to the scene to assist the two employees who were attacked.

'They could not save the other colleague who had already lost her life when they arrived, and the injured was rushed to a hospital in Tzaneen.

'On behalf of the SANParks management and staff, we would like to express our heartfelt condolences to the family, relatives and friends of the deceased; and to wish the other colleague who is currently in hospital a speedy recovery,'
The Senate Intelligence Committee isn't willing to take ex-National Security Advisor Mike Flynn's offer to testify in exchange for immunity  at least for now.

Flynn's request, revealed in a letter to two congressional committees by his lawyer Thursday, is 'wildly' premature, NBC reported, citing congressional sources.

A senior official in Congress said the idea was 'not on the table' right now and was 'wildly preliminary.' Another source said the panel had communicated as much to Flynn, saying it was 'not receptive' to the offer 'at this time.'

The language the officials used obviously kept open the possibility that Flynn could get immunity in the future, as its investigation into alleged Russian interference in the U.S. presidential election goes forward.

President Donald Trump's former national security adviser Michael Flynn is reportedly willing to testify about the Trump campaign's ties to Russia in exchange for immunity

'General Flynn certainly has a story to tell, and he very much wants to tell it, should the circumstances permit,' said Flynn's attorney, Robert Kelner, wrote in a letter to the House and Senate Intelligence panels.

Flynn said he would testify if the government guarantees that it would not prosecute him, the Wall Street Journal reported.

Kelner said no 'reasonable person' with legal counsel would answer questions without assurances that he would not be prosecuted, given calls from some members of Congress that the retired lieutenant general should face criminal charges.

The leaders of the Senate committee indicated this week that the panel was nearing the end of the first phase of its inquiry, having gotten hold of thousands of documents.

Flynn said last year on NBC 's 'Meet the Press' that anyone who seeks immunity has 'probably committed a crime'

Trump wrote Friday on Twitter that Flynn 'should ask for immunity,' blaming journalists and Democrats for orchestrating a 'witch hunt'

Flynn's dangling of an immunity deal is complicated by his own past statements on the topic, where he indicated immunity was a sign of guilt while going after Hillary Clinton and her associates for her email scandal.

His decision comes after he told NBC's Chuck Todd last year that anyone who seeks immunity has 'probably committed a crime.'

He made the comments in relation to former Hillary Clinton staffers being granted immunity as the FBI investigated her use of her server when she was secretary of state.

'The very last thing that John Podesta (Clinton's campaign chairman) just said is no individual too big to jail, that should include people like Hillary Clinton,' Flynn said.

'I mean, five people around her have had, have been given immunity, to include her former Chief of Staff. When you are given immunity, that means that you have probably committed a crime,' he added.

NOT SO FAST: The Senate Intelligence Committee isn't ready to give Mike Flynn an immunity deal. Intelligence Committee Chairman Sen. Richard Burr (R-NC), accompanied by Senator Mark Warner (D-VA), vice chairman of the committee, speaks at a news conference

'When you are given immunity, that means that you have probably committed a crime,' Flynn told NBC's Chuck Todd in reference to Hillary Clinton associates

The separate House investigation slowed considerably this week amid a clash between its leaders following panel chair Rep. Devin Nunes visit to the White House last week to brief President Trump on information that could be viewed as exculpatory, following Trump's unproven allegations that President Obama wiretapped his phones.

The New York Times reported Thursday that two White House officials provided classified information for Nunes to review during his secret visit to the White House last Tuesday. The Washington Post reported Friday that a third White House official also was involved in gathering the information that Nunes reviewed.

Nunes briefed Trump on what he saw before informing his Democratic counterpart on the committee, Rep. Adam Schiff of California, infuriating Schiff, who called for Nunes to recuse himself.
A police officer in North Carolina was demoted after he lied and said it was illegal for an Uber driver to film him.

Wilmington police sergeant Kenneth Becker was relegated to a corporal on Wednesday after he ordered Uber driver Jesse Bright to turn off his camera during a traffic stop last month.

While Becker claimed there was a new law against filming cops, Bright, a criminal defense lawyer who drives for Uber in his spare time, was well aware of his rights.

Scroll down for video

Bright turned on his camera when he was pulled over on February 26 while driving a passenger home in Wilmington, North Carolina

Becker, a 17-year veteran of the department, will see a pay cut of $1.38 an hour after a video of his encounter with Bright was posted on Facebook last month.

Bright was pulled over on February 26 while he was driving a passenger home on the second leg of a round trip.

Police asked the passenger to step out of the vehicle before he was submitted to a search.

Bright quickly turned on a camera to record the incident, before Becker could be heard saying: 'Hey, bud, turn that off, okay?'

The driver responded: 'No, Ill keep recording, thank you. Its my right.'

Becker demanded the driver stop recording him, before Bright said: 'Look, youre a police officer on duty. I can record you.'

That's when Becker said: 'Be careful because there is a new law. Turn it off or Ill take you to jail.'

When Bright challenged the officer and asked him to elaborate, Becker called him a 'jerk', ordered him to step out of the car, and threatened to search his car.

Becker said, 'Be careful because there is a new law. Turn it off or Ill take you to jail,' not realizing Bright is a full time criminal defense lawyer

When Becker claimed to 'know what the law is', Bright countered, 'I know the law. Im an attorney, so I would hope I know what the law is,' before pulling out his bar card.

Police said Bright brought his passenger to a drug house that was under surveillance, but eventually released him.

The attorney told the Washington Post: 'I was mainly surprised because one of the officers who was there has had a trial in court with me and so he recognized me.

'Id think that once theyd recognized that I was a trial lawyer they wouldve changed their tone and stopped violating my rights.'

When Becker failed to return his calls, Bright went public and posted the video on Facebook

When Becker failed to return his calls, Bright went public and posted the video on Facebook.

The sheriffs department issued a statement that said: 'Not only does the Sheriff agree that it is legal to record encounters, he invites citizens to do so.'

A police spokesperson would not comment on whether Becker was demoted as a result of their internal investigation, but said the case was closed on Thursday.
Rob O'Neill, the veteran who is also a contributor at Fox and Friends, said on Friday that the professor, George Ciccariello-Maher of Drexel University, 'lives in a bubble' and 'has never been in the real world'

The US Navy SEAL who killed Osama bin Laden has criticized the University professor who said he wanted to 'vomit' after seeing a plane passenger give up their seat for a veteran.

Rob O'Neill, the veteran who is also a contributor at Fox and Friends, said on Friday that the professor, George Ciccariello-Maher of Drexel University, 'lives in a bubble' and 'has never been in the real world'.

Drexel has condemned Ciccariello-Maher's words, but it hasn't stopped many parents from threatening to boycott the University and bar their children from applying there.

Following the professor's statements, the University was forced to issue a response to their staff member's controversial tweets.

The school's statement read: 'The recent social media comments by George Ciccariello-Maher, Associate Professor of Politics and Global Studies at Drexel, were made outside the classroom, are his own opinion, and do not represent the University's views.

George Ciccariello-Maher prompted a swift backlash on Twitter after sharing his disgust over a first-class flyer who gave up his seat to a serviceman

Even though his Twitter account is protected, his comments on March 26 sparked an uproar among Twitter users who called him 'unpatriotic'

'Drexel is committed to and vigorously supports our ROTC students, student veterans, and alumni who have served in the military.'

Many parents, however, have still said on social media that they'll refuse to allow their children and grandchildren to apply to a school that would employ someone who holds such beliefs.

One user even said their daughter, who was a student of Ciccariello-Maher's class, dropped it because of his 'continued racist and mentally unstable rants'.

Drexel has condemned Ciccariello-Maher's words, but it hasn't stopped many parents from threatening to boycott the University and bar their children from applying there

Following the professor's statements, the University was forced to issue a response to their staff member's controversial tweets

Many parents, however, have still said on social media that they'll refuse to allow their children and grandchildren to apply to a school that would employ someone who holds such beliefs

Drexel University said: 'The recent social media comments by George Ciccariello-Maher, Associate Professor of Politics and Global Studies at Drexel, were made outside the classroom, are his own opinion, and do not represent the University's views'

They continued: 'Drexel is committed to and vigorously supports our ROTC students, student veterans, and alumni who have served in the military.'

One man said he would not let his sons consider Drexel University until the professor was fired

One user prompted Ciccariello-Maher to resign using the hashtag following his statements

Cicciariello-Maher, who has made incendiary comments in the past, inferred the wrath of the internet when he tweeted: ''Some guy gave up his first class seat for a uniformed soldier. People are thanking him. I'm trying not to vomit or yell about Mosul.'

O'Neill told Fox News: 'I'm not sure which course he teaches, it might be 'How to Grow Facial Hair Without Testosterone.'

During an interview with Tucker Carlson, Cicciariello-Maher said that offering a seat to a veteran isn't the kind of support they need. Rather, 'what they need is health care support, psychological support. ... This is how we support the troops, not by sending them off into wars.'

O'Neill, however, disagreed, saying that the small acts of kindness are what mean the most to veterans.

O'Neill said that the small acts of kindness are what mean the most to veterans

'Most troops are very humble so when they hear thanks for your service they shy away,' he said.

'Buying a beer at the airport, paying for their meal, giving them a first-class seat - that is support for the troops.'

He went on to call Cicciariello-Maher a 'blowhard' whose first amendment rights were protected by those who he was insulting.

George Ciccariello-Maher is no stranger to controversy after he asked for a 'white genocide' for Christmas in 2016, was called 'ungrateful' and told to 'go to hell'.

Cicariello-Maher, currently a visiting researcher at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, was apparently disgusted after the act of kindness was applauded by his fellow passengers.

Even though his Twitter account is protected, his comments on March 26 sparked an uproar among Twitter users who called him 'unpatriotic'.

Christian Hockley wrote: 'I'm sorry you need attention. It's adorable, but let's see you say that to a Marine's face. Tweet after you do, if you can...'

Lisa Smith wrote: 'As a mother of a wounded soldier, who fought for HIS freedom, I have 3 words for HIM- GO TO HELL!'

Some called for Drexel University to fire Cicariello, while others suggested a boycott on the school by withholding donations.

Robert Henry wrote: 'Drexel University should fire Prof George Ciccariello-Maher for his 'tried not to vomit' comment. DO NOT SEND YOU KIDS TO DREXEL UNIV.'

Some called for Drexel University to fire Cicariello, while others suggested a boycott on the school by withholding donations

Just four months ago, Cicariello-Maher gained national media attention after tweeting: 'All I Want for Christmas is White Genocide.'

The professor told AP he was mocking what he called the 'imaginary concept' of white genocide, which he says was invented by white supremacists.

'It is a figment of the racist imagination, it should be mocked, and I'm glad to have mocked it,' he said.

Ciccariello-Maher followed up his initial tweet by praising the 'massacre' of whites in Haiti during the country's slave uprising and revolution more than two centuries ago.

The school issued a statement slamming his comments as 'utterly reprehensible [and] deeply disturbing', adding that they did not reflect the values of the University.

He specializes in 'colonialism, social movements, political theory, Latin America, and race and racism' according to an online biography.

Cicariello-Maher, who specializes in 'colonialism, social movements, political theory, Latin America, and race and racism' is no stranger to controversy

He wrote that the wanted 'white genocide' for Christmas last year
Support for Jeremy Corbyn in the Labour heartland of London has fallen to record lows as the beleaguered leader drags down his party's support.

His personal favourability ratings are an extraordinary 79 points behind those of Labour's London mayor Sadiq Khan, a poll carried out in the capital reveals.

Labour's backing in London has fallen by nine points over the past year, leaving their lead over the Tories slumping to just three points.

At the same time, the Liberal Democrats have doubled their support in the capital since the EU referendum.

Support for Jeremy Corbyn, pictured today in Middlesborough, in the Labour heartland of London has fallen to record lows as the beleaguered leader drags down his party's support

Mr Corbyn's personal favourability ratings are an extraordinary 79 points behind those of Labour's London mayor Sadiq Khan, pictured this week in Paris, a poll carried out in the capital reveals.

A new YouGov survey for Queen Mary University of London put Labour on 37 per cent, just three points ahead of the Conservatives on 34 per cent with Lib Dems on 14 per cent and Ukip down four points on 9 per cent.

London is a key battleground for Labour, which took 44 per cent of the capital's vote in the 2015 general election and holds 45 seats in the city, including Jeremy Corbyn's Islington North constituency, John McDonnell's Hayes and Harlington and Diane Abbott's Hackney North & Stoke Newington.

The party has also held City Hall since May 2016, when Sadiq Khan was elected mayor.

Mr Khan recorded a strong approval rating of plus-35 in the poll, with 58% of those surveyed saying he is doing a good job.

But fewer than one in five voters in the capital thought Mr Corbyn was doing a good job, while 62 per cent thought he was doing badly, giving him an overall rating of minus-44.

Mr Corbyn's score was negative among every political or demographic group in the capital, including age, gender, social class, remainer/leaver, inner/outer London, and party support. Even among those who voted Labour in 2015, he had a rating of minus-35.

The Lib Dem resurgence may reflect London voters' strong support for remaining in the European Union, which was a key factor in Sarah Olney's victory in the Richmond Park by-election in December, which brought the party's representation in the capital up to two.

Sadiq Khan is by some distance the most popular politician in London, leading Theresa May by 26 points. The poll compares the number of people who say a politician is doing well versus those who say they are doing badly

Despite Mr Khan's personal popularity, Labour's 12 per cent lead in London a year ago has slumped to just 3 per cent. London is one of the few heartlands Labour has left

The poll recorded broad cross-party approval of Mr Khan, who has support from the majority of Labour voters as well as a majority of Lib Dems.

Even among Conservatives more think he is doing well than think he is doing badly.

His predecessor as mayor, Boris Johnson, scored minus-14 among Londoners for his performance as Foreign Secretary.

QMUL professor Philip Cowley, the director of the Mile End Institute, said: 'When people are asked why they approve of Khan, the responses rarely include specific policies.

'Supportive responses instead focus on his lack of any errors to date, the fact that he isn't Boris, the belief that it is too early to tell along with a broader sense that he is saying and at least trying to do the right things for Londoners. Overall, Londoners like him.'

Some 46 per cent of those questioned said Theresa May was doing well as Prime Minister, giving her a net favourability rating of plus nine.

:: YouGov questioned 1,042 adults online between March 24 and 28.
Jerome Rogers was found hanged in a wooded area near his home in Croydon

A mother claims her young son killed himself after two parking tickets he was slapped with while delivering blood rose to more than 1,000.

Jerome Rogers, 20, was unable to pay the two fines, both received in Camden, north London, while he worked as a courier for CitySprint, straightaway and they increased dramatically as a result of him missing the two-week deadline.

The 'sensitive and responsible' son was found hanged in a wooded area near his home in Croydon, south London, on March 7 last year.

His family, including his mother, Tracey, are now seeking legal help at his inquest at Croydon Coroner's Court on April 28, and are also campaigning for more awareness around suicide, according to the Evening Standard

His family, including his mother, Tracey, are now seeking legal help at his inquest at Croydon Coroner's Court on April 28,and are also campaigning for more awareness around suicide.

His mother added in a statement: 'As a family we want nothing like this to happen to anyone else.

'It rips you apart. I believe without his money problem he would still be here.'

His family, including his mother, Tracey, are now seeking legal help at his inquest at Croydon Coroner's Court (pictured) on April 28

At the time of his death, his sister Hollie said: 'Thank you to everyone that spread the word yesterday about Jerome Rogers and helped search for him.

'I'm informing you that sadly he took his own life and was found last night, it was a shock to us all.

'We know he will be sadly missed, we all loved him so much.'

For confidential support call the Samaritans on 116123 or visit a local Samaritans branch, see www.samaritans.org for details.
A driver was almost swept out to sea in his pick-up truck in a flood in Argentina.

The motorist manged to jump from the vehicle with seconds to spare in Comodoro Rivadavia, in the southern province of Chubut.

The white truck can be seen bobbing in the four-foot high water as it is carried towards the bay leading to the Atlantic Ocean.

A pick-up truck driver was almost swept out into the ocean in a freak flood in Argentina

A river in Comodoro Rivadavia, in the southern Argentine province of Chubut, burst its banks. So far around 1,000 people have been evacuated from the area

But the lucky driver came to a temporary stop a few metres from the sea.

Rescuers attempted to climb on to the bonnet of the car from a fallen electricity post to help the driver escape.

As onlookers urged him to jump, the driver leaped into the water.

He managed to make it to higher ground just as his car was sent speeding away and into the sea.

Days of non-stop heavy rain has caused floods throughout the coastal city.

Pictured, anxious onlookers try to climb onto the bonnet to allow the driver to jump out into the fast-flowing river. He manages to make the leap as his vehicle is taken by the water

The pick-up truck is carried out towards the Atlantic Ocean after the city recorded 150ml of rainfall, nearly three times the yearly average

It is thought that more than 1,000 people have been evacuated.

In just 36 hours, the city has recorded 150 ml of rainfall, nearly three times the yearly average.

City councillor Carlos Linares described the devastation as a 'climatic crisis' and warned there might be worse to come.

Fire service spokesman Jorge Soto told local media: 'The rescue services are overwhelmed.'
The Tennessee teenager who was abducted by her teacher almost three weeks ago was spotted with her captor just two days after her disappearance.

New images that were captured by a security camera at a Walmart located in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma on March 15 show Tad Cummins, 50, and Elizabeth Thomas, 15, stopping in to purchase supplies before quickly heading out of the store.

The tape shows that Cummins' has dyed his hair and beard from brown to black while Elizabeth is now a redhead.

Both Cummins and Elizabeth wore nondescript clothing on the shopping trip, with the exception of the teenager's large plaid shirt, which actually belongs to her captor.

This sighting also reveals that in a span of less than two days Cummins managed to drive 700 miles from Culleoka to Oklahoma City with the teenager.

Video that was later released of the visit shows the two in discussion as they enter the store, with the teenager looking upset with the man wanted for her kidnapping.

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First glimpse: Tad Cummins and Elizabeth Thomas were spotted at a Walmart in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma on March 15 (above)

New look: Thomas is now a redhead (left on March 15), having dyed her hair in the days after she was taken from her home (right before kidnapping)

On their March 15 trip to Walmart the two purchased a few food supplies which Cummins paid for in cash before hitting the road.

It is still unclear however what vehicle the two might be driving in, and whether or not either Cummins or Thomas has once again altered their appearance in the days since they were captured in these images.

Investigators had been in possession of the images in their ongoing search for the young girl, and released them to let the public know about how the young captive and her abductor might look.

Authorities now fear that the two may have safely made it to Mexico given how much time has passed since the young girl disappeared on March 13.

On Friday, an attorney for Cummins' wife Jill revealed in a statement that she had filed for divorce.

'Today Jill Walters Cummins filed for divorce from Tad Cummins, her husband of 31 years. The filing of the divorce complaint is the first step to removing Jill from this situation. Jill will attempt to move forward with her life. This is a difficult time for her and her family,' read the statement.

'She would appreciate the media and the public respecting her need for privacy during these trying times.

'Jill continues to pray for the safe return of Elizabeth Thomas and for a peaceful resolution to this ordeal.'

Path from home: A look at the first two days following the disappearance of Elizabeth (above)

Changing it up: Cummins, 50, dyed his hair and beard from brown to black the day after he disappeared with the student (left on march 15, right prior to kidnapping)

Together: The pair were captured on a security camera at the retail store, which is located 700 miles from Thomas' home in Culleoka, Tennessee

Cummins was last seen one day before the two disappeared buying hair dye at a Walmart, while wearing the plaid shirt that Elizabeth was seen in days later in Oklahoma.

At the time is was assumed that this would be used to alter Elizabeth's appearance after he snatched the teenager, but it is now clear that is not the case.

It was instead Cummins who was using the hair dye, making it unclear when Elizabeth changed her look.

Elizabeth, who is one of ten children, made frequent posts on social media about romance and love in the weeks before she was abducted by Cummins.

She also started calling herself 'wife' on Instagram and made several references to a 'mission' that was 'almost complete'.

On March 13, she told family she was going to spend the day with a friend. One of her siblings has since revealed that the teenager told them to call police if she did not return home that night.

Authorities believe she may have gone willingly with Cummins, who they say has been grooming her for sex for some time.

Elizabeth was seen on surveillance footage the day she disappeared carrying a bundle of clothes.

The grandfather is believed to be armed and possible dangerous, with two guns.

Elizabeth's mother spoke to DailyMail.com last week in an exclusive interview to share her fears about her daughter's abduction.

She labeled her daughter's captor as 'disturbed' and said she worried Elizabeth would either end up pregnant or dead.

Previous spotting: Cummins was again at a Walmart on March 12, one day before the disappearance, purchasing hair dye (above)

Shut it down: Cummins' wife Jill filed for divorce from her husband an attorney revealed on Friday

The sister of Elizabeth Thomas also spoke about the abduction on Good Morning America earlier this week.

The young girl fought back tears as she revealed that Cummins had begun showing up unannounced at her sister's work shortly before the pair disappeared together, and that his last visit had come just two days before the girl's abduction.

'She would go and tell people to tell him she wasn't there and she would go and hide until he left,' explained Sarah Thomas.

'She thought it was the only way. She felt uncomfortable.'

Elizabeth's family is still holding out hope that they will see the girl again, and are begging any person who might have information to reach out and contact authorities.

'It feels like she just vanished, and I know that's impossible, someone had to see her,' said the victim's sister Sarah.

Her father meanwhile was optimistic about the teenager's eventual return home to be with her family.

'We just live for that day where we are gonna get a phone call that says we're alright and waiting for someone to get me,' said Anthony Thomas.

Shocking revelation: The sister (Sarah above) of the missing Tennessee teenager said that Tad had been showing up at her work unannounced

Bereaved: She would go and tell people to tell him she wasn't there and she would go and hide until he left,' said Sarah Thomas (Thomas family above)

Investigators have also learned that the two had been sending love letters to one another which were at times sexually charged by writing draft emails on a shared classroom computer at Culleoka School.

They spent last weekend pouring over email drafts that the two would send one another while in school for any clues into where the pair may be, with Cummins now facing charges of aggravated kidnapping and sexual contact with a minor.

Those letters were all sent after a student witnessed Cummins and Elizabeth kissing in his classroom this past January.

'They would write the message and let it save as a draft. The other person would log in, read the message and then delete it and then write another message that was saved as a draft,' said Maury County District Attorney Brent Cooper.

'If you read them you would immediately recognize you are reading messages between two people who have a romantic interest in each other.'

One of the emails uncovered by authorities was written by Cummins and began: 'I saw you standing next to your backpack this morning.'

The teacher then told the student how nice one of her body parts looked to him in the note.

The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, which is leading the hunt for the pair, has received hundreds of tips but none have led to Elizabeth's discovery and safe return.

One reported sighting of the pair was made in Corpus Christi, a coastal city in south east Texas, two weeks ago.

They were reported to have been seen in the tiny town of North Beach which sits just 160 miles from the Mexican border.

Nothing ever came of the tip-off and police have not clarified whether they believe it was credible or a case of mistaken identity.

There have been 1,200 tips in the case as of Friday morning, and a reward of $10,000 now being offered for the safe return of Elizabeth by one of Tad's former co-workers.
The White House prepared to release financial information about some top staff members on its website late Friday, giving the public a rare glimpse into the holdings of some of President Donald Trump's top lieutenants.

Among those whose disclosures were being closely watched was

Gary Cohn, the former president of Goldman Sachs, who chairs the president's National Economic Council.

Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner also filled out a disclosure agreement negotiated with government lawyers.

The information on about 180 White House staffers was to be released in batches.

The White House is releasing financial disclosures of top officials, including Donald Trump son in law Jared Kushner. Trump (C) walks along the West Wing colonnade with his daughter Ivanka Trump (L) and Kushner

An official who briefed reporters on the release, which required people to request information on individual staffers, stressed the challenge of negotiating complex financial arrangements of people, some of whom had a 'very high' net worth.

People who joined the administration in some cases were forced to sell off assets or give up board memberships in order to take their posts.

Kushner resigned from more than 250 positions to take his unpaid post as a top advisor to the president.

His wife, Ivanka Trump, is taking an unpaid role as a White House advisor, although her form isn't ready since she has yet to take her position.

'I want to highlight the incredible complexity and sophistication of the assets and the financial structures that this White House is going to present,' said the official.

'These are incredibly successful individuals. Very high net worth. Very sophisticated complex asset structures. Numerous sub LLCs, trusts and other items, all of which have to be work through,' the official added.

White House chief strategist Steve Bannon is seen in the East Room of the White House. High level staffers, including Bannon, who worked at Goldman Sachs and in Hollywood, had to file forms

Ivanka Trump steps out in the New York rain after appearing to have gone to an morning hair appointment with her polished locks. Ivanka Trump, is taking an unpaid role as a White House advisor, although her form isn't ready since she has yet to take her position

Trump, a billionaire New York businessman, has hired some of the wealthiest people to ever serve in government. Their financial assets must be detailed in documents accessible to the public, and the Trump administration is continuing President Barack Obama's tradition of warehousing that paperwork on the website.

White House press secretary Sean Spicer described the business people who have joined the administration as "very blessed and very successful," and said the disclosure forms will show that they have set aside "a lot" to go into public service.

Trump's daughter Ivanka Trump just this week agreed to serve as a government employee, triggering the need for her to file financial disclosures. Her husband, Jared Kushner, a senior adviser to Trump, also must file, as must economic adviser Gary Cohn, a former Goldman Sachs executive.

It is unclear whether the Friday disclosures will include all of the aides.

Financial information for members of Trump's Cabinet who needed Senate confirmation has, in most cases, been available for weeks through the Office of Government Ethics.

The president must also file periodic financial disclosures, but he is not required to make another disclosure until next year.
The getaway driver in a deadly carjacking at an upscale New Jersey mall has been found guilty of murder.

Basim Henry, 36, was convicted of all counts against him Friday - including murder, which carries at 30 years to life in prison.

Prosecutors say Henry was among four men involved in the December 2013 carjacking and fatal shooting of 30-year-old Dustin Friedland at The Mall At Short Hills in Millburn.

Friedland's wife Jamie, 30, testified during the trial about seeing her husband gunned down in front of her.

Basim Henry, 36, was found guilty on all counts related to a deadly 2013 carjacking in New Jersey on Friday. He's pictured above in court on Friday

From left to right, Essex County Assistant Prosecutor Brian Matthews looks on as Deanna Friedland and her mother Rose Fiedland, the sister and mother of murder victim Dustin Friedland, walk pass Essex County Sheriff Armando Fontoura as they prepare to leave the courtroom on Friday

The family of murder victim Dustin Friedland, right, looks toward defendant Basim Henry, left, standing with his attorney Michael Rubas as the jury enters the courtroom where they reached a verdict of guilty on all counts

The defense had argued that Henry wasn't responsible for the shooter's actions.

But prosecutors said Henry 'knew force was necessary' to get the couple's Range Rover.

Henry's was the first trial stemming from the carjacking.

The other three men accused in the carjacking are Karif Ford, Kevin Roberts and Hanif Thompson.

The Friedlands went to The Mall at Short Hills in Milburn the night of December 15, 2013 to buy his wife a new computer and phone at the Apple Store.

Earlier that evening, the Hoboken couple had dinner to celebrate their wedding anniversary and buying a new condo.

Earlier this month, Friedland's widow Jamie took the witness stand and gave an emotional testimoney

Jamie was with her husband when he was shot dead in the violent carjacking

Above, a look of the Friedland's Range Rover which was eventually tracked down

It was while they were leaving the mall that they were attacked.

Friedland says she got into her father-in-law's Range Rover first, and then heard muffled sounds as her husband was going to his door.

She says she thought he was making friends, before she turned around and saw him struggling with two men.

'I saw the taller man who was beside the driver's side door - I saw him put the gun to Dustin's head,' Friedland said. 'And then the window shattered of the car. And then, like in slow motion it played out.'

'You dont know what to do in those situations. It was so fast,' she added.

Karif Ford (left), Kevin Roberts (center) and Hanif Thompson (right) are the three other men charged in the case. Prosecutors say Thompson is the man who shot David Friedland

That man then leaned into the car and ordered her out, so that he and the other man could flee the scene.

'I knew, I just knew when I turned around what I was going to see,' an emotional Friedland recalled. 'I saw Dustin lying in a pool of blood.'

Friedland says she comforted her husband until help came.

'I leaned down, I was on the floor and I was covered in his blood and he was covered in his blood and I held my hand to his head and I am screaming, I was screaming "Stay with me, stay with me." You dont even know what to do in situations like that. Friedland testified.

'Im screaming "Stay with me, stay with me," and I look at his eyes and hes looking at me and hes gasping for breath and I couldnt get my phone to work.'

'His eyes were following me, they were focused on me, he was blinking. He was gasping for breath. I know he heard me. I know he heard me,' she added.

He was later pronounced dead at Morristown Memorial Hospital.

Friedland is currently in the process of suing the mall, on the basis that they could have prevented her husband's death if they had better security.

Surveillance footage obtained by her lawyer shows the alleged suspects' SUV tailing another Range Rover just days before the fatal carjacking.
Joseph Killgren (above), 35, was arrested by New Hampshire police after his son, 3, was found wandering alone without any shoes in a Londonderry neighborhood

Police say a three-year-old boy was found walking alone without any shoes in a New Hampshire neighborhood, and his father was arrested after a search that included help from social media.

Police found the toddler, who goes by the first name Jayden, on Thursday afternoon in Londonderry after getting a call from a concerned citizen.

After two hours of searching the area and putting a photo of the boy on social media, they received a tip leading them to the father, 35-year-old Joseph Killgren.

A woman reportedly told police that she recognized the boy as her boyfriend's son.

Killgren was arraigned Friday on a misdemeanor count of endangering the welfare of a child and was jailed.

A hearing was scheduled for May 2. It wasn't immediately known if he had an attorney.

The child wasn't hurt. He was released to the custody of his mother.

Police said that Killgren told them he fell asleep between 10am and 2pm on Thursday, according to WMUR-TV.

He told police that he doesn't know how he wandered off.

Jayden's mother, Sarah McGrade, told WHDH-TV that her ex-boyfriend should know better.

'Its just irresponsible and whether its an accident or not its unacceptable,' she said.

Londonderry police thanked the public for its help in identifying the boy, whose first name is Jayden (above)

The police put out a missing persons notice on Facebook and asked the public for information leading to his discovery

'Any time outside alone for a three-year-old can be dangerous,' Detective Chris Olson said.

'He was found within 150 feet of one of the main roads in town. The area of this complex is heavily wooded.'

'His feet were wet, pants were wet,' Olson said. 'He was out there at least a half hour.'

'Once you get behind the buildings, there's several bodies of water he could have fallen into. So it was an extremely dangerous situation. We're just glad we were able to find him.'

Killgren was already out on bail on a drug-related charge.

Authorities set his latest bail at $1,500.
A Louisiana marshal has been sentenced to 40 years in prison one week after being convicted of manslaughter in the shooting death of a six-year-old boy with autism.

Before the sentencing on Friday, Derrick Stafford begged for leniency from judge and tried to get sympathy from the family saying: 'I have kids, man,' according to the Acadiana Advocate.

Stafford, 33, was convicted in the November 2015 shooting that killed Jeremy Mardis and critically wounded his father after a two-mile car chase in Marksville.

Stafford's family said racism is a factor in the severity of the sentencing. His aunt Bertha Andrews told reporters: 'If it had been two white men who killed that little baby, it would've been justifiable homicide. If it had been a black baby, it would've been justifiable homicide.'

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Derrick Stafford was sentenced to 40 years in prison after being convicted of manslaughter in the shooting death of Jeremy Mardis

The Stafford family attended the sentencing of Derrick Stafford. His aunt Bertha Andrews (center, blue dress) said her nephew's race was a factor in the severity of the sentencing

Bertha Andrews told reporters her nephew was unfairly treated in sentencing because of his race, saying the situation would be been totally different if Stafford was white

Andrews called the sentencing a 'lynching' and said the fact that Few and Mardis are white and Stafford was a major factor in the trial.

The maximum sentence for the charges would have been 60 years.

Stafford stood quietly as the judge handed down the 40 year sentence and the courtroom collectively gasped according to NOLA.com.

Jurors found Stafford guilty of manslaughter and attempted manslaughter charges last Friday. He had faced charges of second-degree murder and attempted second-degree murder in the case.

Stafford claims he did not know Mardis was in the car when he fired and was trying to protect his partner Norris Greenhouse Jr..

The Few family walks into the courthouse in Marksville for the sentencing of Derrick Stafford

Jurors found Stafford guilty of manslaughter and attempted manslaughter charges last Friday

Derrick Stafford's lawyers Christopher LaCour (left) and Johnathan Goins (right) arrive to the courthouse for his sentencing Friday

Derrick Stafford (left) was convicted of manslaughter in a shooting that killed Jeremy Mardis (right), a six-year-old autistic boy

A spokeswoman for Attorney General Jeff Landry says Stafford was sentenced to 40 years for manslaughter and 15 years for attempted manslaughter. He will serve the sentences concurrently.

Video from a police officer's body camera shows the boy's father, Christopher Few, had his hands raised inside his vehicle while Stafford and a second deputy city marshal collectively fired 18 shots at the vehicle.

At least four of those bullets tore into Jeremy, who died within minutes.

Police released a graphic video that captured the moment two officers fired on a car
Mohamed Amrani, pictured outside the Old Bailey, is on trial for sexually assaulting five women in hospitals

One of Britains top heart surgeons reacted to being accused of rape by telling his victim: Oh no, I was going to book a hotel for us, a court heard.

Mohamed Amrani, 53, appeared genuinely shocked when the woman confronted him days after the attack in his office at Harefield Hospital in Hillingdon, west London, it is claimed.

The alleged victim told the Old Bailey she decided to speak to Amrani on the spur of the moment to tell him not to do it again.

She said: I was just set on saying to him that was wrong. I wanted to let him know that it was not what I wanted and it was not to happen again.

He didnt seem to listen when I said No, please dont. He might come at me again so I felt I had to do something.

Jurors heard she told a friend that Amranis reacted by saying he was going to book a hotel for them and that he appeared genuinely shocked.

She told the police she could not remember what else Mr Amrani said but got the impression he pretended not to know what I was talking about.

Amranis barrister Stephen Vullo suggested that they never had the conversation because the rape did not happen.

The alleged victim said: I did, absolutely. He was sat there on his phone. I went into him and said Please dont.

I had to make him realise that what he did to me was not what I wanted.

Amrani is accused of sexually assaulting three other women at Harefield between 2001 and 2014 and tapping a fifth victim on the bottom at the Cromwell private hospital in Kensington, southwest London, in June 2014.

Prosecutors claim that he assumed that his victims would not dare to report a consultant surgeon of his renown.

The victim denied telling lots of people at the hospital about the alleged attack.

She said: Everybody knew what was going on, people started ignoring me. Everybody knew, I dont know how.

Mr Vullo asked her: Do you sometimes make things up to get people to pay attention to you?

Jurors heard she told her therapist in March 2015 that there were 14 other alleged victims of Amrani.

The alleged victim told the court: That is what I was told by other members of the Trust. Since then Ive been told that was untrue.

Harefield Hospital, in Hillingdon, west London where Amrani is accused to have sexually assaulted four women between 2001 and 2014

She added: I was very worried about this becoming a bigger thing, I didnt want to report it.

The alleged victim also denied suggestions by Mr Vullo that she looked at, laughed and sniggered at Mr Amranis wife after making her complaint to hospital authorities.

She has told how Amrani was still wearing his theatre scrubs when he attacked her in his office in September 2013.

He stripped her naked and said: Im going to f*** you, as he sexually assaulted her with his fingers, it is claimed.

When she protested he sat her down on the sofa and forced her to perform a sex act, jurors were told.

She made a formal complaint to the hospital trust in February 2015 and Amrani was arrested by police in May 2015.

The surgeon, who performed the UKs first double valve replacement using keyhole surgery in 2007 and has carried out many life-saving operations during his career, claims that all five women have made up their allegations.

Amrani, of northwest London, denies one count of rape, one count of assault by penetration, six counts of indecent assault and three counts of sexual assault.

The trial continues.
A man has revealed his confusion after discovering his parcel had been delivered through his window and landed in his loo.

Sam Cooke, 22, was sent some ink from software company HP to his home in Wardle, Greater Manchester, after his printer ran out.

But when the parcel arrived yesterday he was left in hysterics after finding an apologetic note from a postman, who realised his clever way of delivering the parcel had been foiled after it fell in the toilet.

Sam Cooke (left) burst out laughing after finding out his parcel was accidentally delivered to his toilet (right)

Mr Cooke posted a series of images on Twitter documenting the incident with the caption: 'Well this happened today...'

The images showed two messages from the postman which read: 'Put through window' and 'I'm really sorry I think your parcel might have fallen in the toilet accidentally', followed by a photograph of the parcel sitting in the toilet.

A Royal Mail employee tweeted a response to Mr Cooke which read: 'Hi Sam, I'm so sorry they've popped it through the window. We're following so please DM (direct message) & we'll do what we can to help out & get this sorted.'

But Mr Cooke felt the incident was very amusing and responded: 'There's honestly nothing to apologise for, the parcel is absolutely fine, gave me and thousands of others a good laugh that's all.'

Speaking to the MailOnline, Mr Cooke, a videographer, said: 'I was so confused, I've never had a parcel put through that window before so I didn't understand what the cards meant at all.

'Then I looked in the bathroom and saw it just sat there, the penny dropped and I just burst out laughing.'

He added that he messaged Royal Mail and requested to get in touch with the postman but hadn't had a response.

'I have no intention of complaining I just find it funny,' he said.

The postman wrote him two notes, firstly outlining that he had delivered it through the window

The second was much more apologetic and said: 'I'm really sorry I think your parcel might have fallen in the toilet accidentally'

Mr Cooke later tweeted that Royal Mail had contacted him and he was going to receive an apology

'I messaged them and explained I wasn't angry, but asked if they could put me in touch with the postman or woman so that I could have a laugh with them and tell them not to worry, but they haven't replied.'

The images have been retweeted more than 7,600 times and have received thousands of comments from users.

Mr Cooke has since been contacted by Royal Mail who said the postman is going to knock of his door and apologise.

A Royal Mail spokesperson said: 'Even though Mr Cooke has confirmed there was no damage to the parcel, we're very sorry for any inconvenience caused.

'Our staff are always reminded of the appropriate action to take if a customer is unavailable to accept a delivery.

'A card should have been posted through the door informing him that the parcel had been returned to the local delivery office and listing the various options available to retrieve it, or that the parcel had been left with a neighbour.'
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A woman finished out her wedding day with a trip to the hospital to visit her 70-year-old grandmother, who suffered a heart attack the day before.

Jessica Brown, 24, said getting hitched without her grandmother Margaret Harris present was 'probably one of the hardest things I've had to do', she toldABC.

But the newlyweds, still dressed in a suit and gown, made sure to include Harris on their special day and surprised her at the Jacksonville, Florida, hospital in an emotional moment captured on film by Amanda Brown of Pink Shutter Photo.

A woman finished out her wedding day with a trip to the hospital to visit her 70-year-old grandmother, who suffered a heart attack the day before

Jessica said: 'It was the equivalent of not having a parent there. This woman helped raise me and become who I am. She's been there for everything'

Jessica was devastated when she received news that her grandmother had suffered a heart attack.

Going through with the wedding while the 70-year-old was still in the hospital turned out to be a difficult decision, with Jessica telling ABC: 'It was the equivalent of not having a parent there.

'This woman helped raise me and become who I am. She's been there for everything.'

Friends and family brainstormed ways to include Harris in the ceremony, and it was the bride's sister who suggested a late-night visit to the hospital.

Jessica, who said, 'I needed no convincing', turned up at 10:30pm on Saturday accompanied by her husband, along with six other family members.

Friends and family brainstormed ways to include Harris in the ceremony, and it was the bride's sister who suggested a late-night visit to the hospital

The wedding photographer said: 'It was just really emotional. It was just a really emotional week....for her grandma to have the heart attack was rough'

The bride said: 'My granny is the sweetest woman and has a hug so full of love that it makes the whole world feel OK. To finally hug her lifted my heavy heart'

The wedding photographer said: 'When we got there it was pretty priceless. Her mom and dad went in first and it was a total surprise.

'So Tyler walked in with Jessica and she was just of course in awe and just super excited and crying. It was just really emotional. It was just a really emotional week....for her grandma to have the heart attack was rough,' Amanda Brown said.

The tender moment was captured in black-and-white photos, showing Jessica embracing her grandmother before climbing into the hospital bed, still holding her wedding bouquet.

The bride told ABC: 'My granny is the sweetest woman and has a hug so full of love that it makes the whole world feel OK. To finally hug her lifted my heavy heart.'

Tyler Brown wrote a tribute to Jessica before the wedding, calling her 'the most beautiful, caring, and loving person I know'
Scott Adlhoch was suspended for one month by the Michigan Board of Real Estate Brokers and Salespersons after allegedly having sex with a married woman in his home (pictured with his wife, Jenny Adlhoch)

A real estate agent accused of having sex with a married woman at six of the properties he listed was suspended for one month by the Michigan Board of Real Estate Brokers and Salespersons.

For two years, Scott Adlhoch, who is married according to his Facebook page, allegedly used his clients' homes to rendezvous with his mistress.

Aline Ermanni said she met up with Adlhoch at the homes in Grosse Pointe, a ritzy Detroit suburb. She told WXYZ the realtor seduced her and she chose to meet with him.

Ermanni told the station she let him draw her in: 'After a lot of coaxing, his way, drawing me in, of painting my ex-husband as being a horrible person, that I should be divorcing.'

Her scorned husband Rob Ermanni filed a formal complaint against the realtor. The couple has since divorced.

According to Facebook, Rob and Scott both attended Grosse Pointe South High School.

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Rob Ermanni and Aline Ermanni divorced after Rob filed the formal complaint against Scott Adlhoch

The Michigan Attorney General said Scott Adlhoch used at least six of the homes he listed for 'sexual acts without the permission or knowledge of his homeowners'

According to Scott Adlhoch's Facebook page, he is married to Jenny Adlhoch

The Michigan Attorney General said the raunchy realtor used at least six of the homes he listed for 'sexual acts without the permission or knowledge of his homeowners.'

In some of the homes, clients complained of suspicious stains from the love-making.

Adlhoch' attorney said in a statement to WXYZ: 'The Adlhoch business interests, valuable time of its principals and potential for negative publicity on a personal matter warrant that a settlement is reached to bring final resolution to this ordeal.'

'It is a business decision to settle this matter at this time rather than to drag this out for months or potentially years while hostile parties attempt to offer various sides of this story. Allegations related to this matter have been dismissed with prejudice by courts of law in the State of Michigan.

'It's simply time to move on with our business interests and personal life. We are not going to comment further on these allegations.'
Louise Harris, 24, is a Cambridge-educated wannabe popstar from Harpenden who has compared the Just Stop Oil campaign to that of the Irish rebels' fight for independence from the British and once said she was like a prisoner of war. This morning she cried on the gantry over Britain's busiest motorway as she declared: 'You might hate me for doing this. I'm here because I don't have a future.' But despite her warnings about the future of the planet, her Facebook page shows her posing next to a 2009 Fiat Punto, which runs on unleaded. Just Stop Oil opposes petrol cars so much its members smash petrol stations to prevent people refueling and blockade refineries. She also appears to be at the wheel - or a passenger - in the same car in a number of other social media posts, including this year when she has been taking part in Just Stop Oil protests, despite it running on petrol. Miss Harris compared her yellow Punto to the vehicle made famous by The Inbetweeners, because it has a red door. In one post where she stands next to her Fiat she says: 'I am officially Number 1 fan of this show f**k you other wannabes. Unfortunately it DOESN'T have a tape deck'. Today Miss Harris was among 23 people arrested by the Met Police and colleagues at Surrey, Essex and Hertfordshire, after shutting down the M25. The demonstrator - who posts songs on YouTube including a slickly edited music video called 'Dating me is like a Cambridge term'. The lyrics include: Dating me is like a Cambridge term. By the fifth week you are completely burnt out emotionally destroyed and suicidal'.
Seven-month old twins who were found unresponsive in their cribs have died of natural causes, a medical examiner said.

The Camden County prosecutor's office on Friday did not specify how Jessenia and Juliana Rodriguez-Garnett died on March 22. Their mother, Alexandria Garnett, found them dead in their cribs in their Bilper Avenue apartment in Lindenwold.

In a harrowing 911 call, Garnett was heard screaming that her baby girls 'are not breathing and both are purple.'

Seven-month twins Jessenia and Juliana Rodriguez-Garnett, pictured left with their mother Alexandria, were found unresponsive in their cribs last week

In a harrowing 911 call, the mother is heard yelling saying her baby girls were not breathing and were purple

A dispatcher told her how to perform CPR on the children, and she tried to revive them, but they remained unresponsive.

The panicked mother can be heard panting and crying as she tries to revive her unresponsive babies.

Police arrived moments later, and the roughly six-minute call soon ended.

The babies were pronounced dead at 8:30am at the hospital. A neighbor described the mother as Hispanic and in her 30s. He said he often saw the woman's mother visiting, apparently to help care for the twins.

Authorities work a scene involving the death of two infants at the Pines Apartments in Lindenwold

Tasia Mayweather, a friend of the twins' father, told the Courier-Post that the father is 'torn up.'

'He was so excited to be a father, and now for this to happen ... We'll keep close to him now. I can't imagine ..." she said. She also said she'd seen the twins on Monday and they appeared healthy.

'I can tell you they were beautiful children, they are wonderful people and that mother loved those kids. She loves those kids, and I can't imagine how you could lose two babies like that and survive,' neighbor Alice Shields told WPVI.

The babies' funeral will take place at Wooster Funeral Home in Clementon on Saturday.
The furious mom who blasted TSA officers for allegedly giving her disabled son an 'unnecessary' and 'horrifying' pat-down earlier this week is now teaming up with the agency to improve practices.

Jennifer Williamson, whose son Aaron has a sensory processing disorder, was on Wednesday invited to help the agency improve its training materials and join a volunteer advisory board.

Williamson was with her son Aaron in Dallas/Fort Worth Airport on Sunday when she says a TSA agent patted down her son after she warned him it would upset the boy. A video of the incident has now been seen more than 7.3 million times.

In a conference call with the TSA's civil rights and liberties division, Williamson says agency representatives apologized for her experience in Dallas and proposed a three-part action plan to collaborate on improving practices.

'Horrifying': Mom Jennifer Williamson filmed her son Aaron being patted down at DFW Airport in Dallas on Sunday. Aaron's disability mean he can't properly process the sensation of touch

'Traumatized': Williamson (left) says Aaron (right) was 'traumatized' and that the TSA agents were punishing them because she asked for other methods, not pat-downs

First, they asked Williamson to collaborate on a practices publication for 'all their agents across the country,' the mother said in a Facebook update. The publication will address etiquette and sensitivity for TSA workers.

Second, the TSA asked Williamson to review the TSA.gov website to suggest any improvements in how the agency communicates procedures, particularly regarding families and those with medical challenges.

Finally, Williamson was invited to join the TSA's Disabilities and Medical Condition Coalition, a group of at least 50 organizations that holds an annual conference and consults and advises the agency on best practices.

'Many media outlets are interested solely in the sensationalist aspect of this story and I am certain this update won't receive the same coverage,' Williamson said in her post.

Denied: The TSA said that the family were only held for 35 minutes on Sunday, not the 'more than an hour' Williamson claimed, and that the TSA agent was observed by his boss

'But I feel it is imperative at this time that we know we still have the ability to initiate change.'

Williamson said that the opportunity to help improve air travel for others was a more important outcome than personal validation or reprisal on the agency.

'I can fight with TSA about our individual experience and demand they publicly admit wrongdoing or seek that they make reparations to us personally, or I can work towards change for all passengers flying in this country. I am proud to have initiated dialogue that will lead to further training of TSA agents which I hope will improve the experiences of ALL passengers flying in this country,' she said.

The TSA confirmed it had reached out to Williams.

'TSA engaged in conversation with Ms. Williamson to learn more about her family's screening experience at Dallas Fort Worth airport. While the proper procedures were followed, we appreciate her feedback and look forward to continued dialogue,' TSA spokeswoman Lisa Farbstein told NBC News in an email.

The incident that sparked the controversy took place on Sunday in Dallas.

The video shows Aaron, red-faced, being patted down slowly over the course of two minutes by a TSA officer.

Sometimes the agent appears to pat the boy on areas that he has already checked.

In a Facebook post, Williamson said that she and Aaron were punished and made to wait 'well over an hour' because she asked the TSA agents to respect Aaron's condition.

'We were treated like dogs because I requested they attempt to screen him in other ways per TSA rules,' she said.

'Livid': Williamson said she was 'livid' after the event, and asked people to share the video. It had received more than 1.5 million views by Monday afternoon

'He has SPD and I didn't want my child given a pat down like this.'

In sensory processing disorder, sensations are improperly registered or processed by the nervous system, which can result in discomfort or inappropriate responses to being touched.

'Let me make something else crystal clear,' Williamson added, 'He set off NO alarms. He physically did not alarm at all during screening, he passed through the detector just fine.

'He is still several hours later saying "I don't know what I did. What did I do?" I am livid.'

She also said that the exchange continued beyond the video, when two DFW [Dallas/Fort Worth] officers were called in and 'flanked' Aaron on each side.

'Somehow these power tripping TSA agents who are traumatizing children and doing whatever they feel like without any cause, need to be reined in,' she concluded.

WHAT IS SDP? THE DISORDER THAT AFFECTS THE SENSES Sensory processing disorder is neurological disorder in which individuals can't process sensory information properly. It can affect any of the senses - not just the famous five of sight, sound, taste, touch and hearing, but also the three rarely-recognized others. They are balance, interoception (feeling internal responses such as heart rate) and proprioception (sensing where body parts are in relation to each other and how much strength is needed to manipulate them). It has been described as a 'traffic jam' in which signals to and from various parts of the body are blocked or re-routed. That can lead to something as simple as being touched causing anxiety and fear. Research suggests that as many as 1 in 20 people can experience some symptoms of SPD. The exact cause isn't yet known, but it's believed that it can be inherited, and may also be linked to complications while babies are still in the womb. Source: Star Institute for Sensory Processing Disorder Advertisement

The TSA told the Dallas News that the two police officers had been called in to help reassure Jennifer Williamson.

'The video shows a male TSA officer explaining the procedure to the passenger, who fully cooperates,' the agency said.

'Afterward, the TSA officer was instructed by his supervisor, who was observing, to complete the final step of the screening process.'

It also said that the family were kept at the gate for 35 minutes, not the 'well over an hour' that Williamson claimed.

TSA provides a 'TSA Cares' line to assist travelers with disabilities, medical conditions, and other special circumstances who need additional assistance during security screening.

The organization encourages travelers to contact the hotline 72 hours before traveling with questions about screening policies and what to expect at security checkpoints. It can also provide extra assistance for travelers at airports.

TSA's website states that there are special measures in place for security screening children under the age of 12, like letting them go through security more than once, and letting them leave on their jacket and shoes.

It is unknown how old Williamson's son was at the time she filmed her video of him being patted down.

Adults with disabilities go through the same screening as others when going through security, but they can request special assistance or private screening rooms during the process.

TSA's website says: 'Travelers requiring special accommodations or concerned about the security screening process at the airport may ask a TSA officer or supervisor for a passenger support specialist who can provide on-the-spot assistance.'
A former law enforcement officer in California has been convicted in the televised beating of a man who tried to escape from authorities on horseback.

A jury found former San Bernardino County sheriff's Deputy Charles Foster guilty Thursday of one felony count of assault by a public officer under the color of authority.

Two other deputies also were charged, but jurors deadlocked on verdicts against them. A judge has scheduled a retrial.

Foster's attorney, Heather Phillips, told the San Bernardino Sun newspaper that she will appeal.

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San Bernardino County sheriff's Deputy Charles Foster (left) was been convicted in the televised beating of Francis Pusok (right) who tried to escape from authorities on horseback

A jury found former Foster (pictured in court) guilty Thursday of one felony count of assault by a public officer under the color of authority

A KNBC-TV helicopter followed the pursuit as Pusok fell off the animal and deputies set upon him, repeatedly punching and kicking him on the ground

The charges stem from April 2015, when deputies chased Francis Jared Pusok on a horse he stole in the desert.

A KNBC-TV helicopter followed the pursuit as Pusok fell off the animal and deputies set upon him, repeatedly punching and kicking him on the ground.

During the two-and-a-half hour chase, Pusok fled by car and then on horseback as deputies chased him on foot.

They were trying to serve a search warrant in an identity theft investigation, authorities said.

Pusok was not wanted in that case but had been sought earlier in the day in connection with a burglary and the theft of a motorcycle.

Francis Pusok was kicked in the groin during the April 2015 incident

Pusok (pictured) had been seen riding the horse through the desert

During the two-and-a-half hour chase, Pusok fled by car and then on horseback as deputies chased him on foot. They were trying to serve a search warrant in an identity theft investigation, authorities said

The county reached a $650,000 settlement with Pusok

The televised video showed Pusok, dressed in bright red clothing, falling from the horse as a deputy runs up and tries to use a stun gun on him. It was ineffective.

Pusok was face down with his legs outstretched and hands behind his back as a deputy threw punches and kicks.

One deputy kicked him in the crotch. Other deputies arrived moments later.

In announcing charges against the three deputies in 2015, San Bernardino County District Attorney Mike Ramos said they had 'crossed the line under the color of authority'.

'The jury has spoken, and I have the highest respect for our criminal justice system,' Sheriff John McMahon said in a statement Thursday.

'Our employees will continue to provide dedicated service and will always be committed to serving the public.'

The union that represents sheriff's deputies said on Twitter that 'although the outcome is painful to accept, we must give it due regard'.

The county reached a $650,000 settlement with Pusok.
Three college students have been arrested on prostitution charges during an undercover sting operation at a Florida hotel, authorities have said.

Acacia Jerico Friedman, 23, and Maury Noun, 21, of the University of Miami, and Samara Charlotin, 19, of Florida International University, reportedly negotiated a prostitution deal with an undercover cop.

Noun allegedly acted as the women's pimp and met with the officer the Hotel Colonnade and offered sex with the two girls at $5,000 each, Coral Gables Public Information Officer Kelly Denham said.

Acacia Jerico Friedman (left), 23, and Samara Charlotin, 19, were arrested in a prostitution sting after they allegedly agreed to have sex with an undercover cop

Noun had allegedly raised the price for unprotected sex. The undercover officer, however, only paid the procurer $5,000 total.

After closing the deal, the 21-year-old then allegedly brought the two girls into the room and the officer paid them. The undercover cop then signaled for police to arrest the three students.

The trio were each charged on numerous prostitution charges and jailed. They have since been released on bond.

Maury Noun, 21, a student at the University of Miami allegedly acted as the women's pimp and negotiated an $8,000 deal with an undercover cop

Noun had been charged with deriving support from prostitution, aiding or abetting prostitution and directing another to prostitution.

Charlotin was charged with engaging in prostitution and for possession of marijuana and Oxycodone. Friedman, who is from San Diego, was charged with engaging in prostitution.

Charlotin posted $9,000 bail and appeared in court with a public defender. She was seen leaving the courthouse covering her face, NBC Miami reported.

Acacia Friedman, from San Diego, was charged with engaging in prostitution

Friedman, pictured left with former President Bill Clinton, is a student at the University of Miami with Noun

Court footage shows Judge Mindy Glazer lecturing the 19-year-old and telling her to find a 'new line of employment.'

'Maybe it is a good thing you got arrested. Maybe you will change your way lead a new path. Focus on school. Youll do well,' she added.

Charlotin is majoring in biology and minoring in criminal justice.

She was pictured with Bill Clinton and used the photograph as her Twitter profile picture.

It is believed to have been taken while Hillary was on the campaign trail because of the pin he is wearing on his lapel. Bill Clinton is not connected to the story in any way.
'I was moved to tears': Helen Barnes, 45, was so taken by Charlie's plight, she generously donated her life savings

When housewife Helen Barnes heard about the appeal to save desperately ill baby Charlie Gard, her heart went out to his parents.

And after watching them discuss their anguish, she did not hesitate to contribute to their fight to get their son the best care possible.

Her husband was at work when she made an incredible 20,000 donation, but when she told him the money was going to little Charlie, who has a rare genetic condition, he was very happy.

She later doubled their exceptionally generous donation to 40,000, and has since been in touch with the family.

Yesterday she told why the couple  who she describes as not wealthy  decided to contribute from their savings after reading about Charlies plight in the Daily Mail.

The mother-of-two from Tunbridge Wells, Kent, said the familys donation was a real sacrifice, but that she knew she had to help.

It is hard to understand how total strangers can steal your heart, but they truly have, she added.

Charlies parents Connie Yates, 31, and Chris Gard, 32, are in a race against time to raise money for pioneering treatment for their seven-month-old son.

He is only the 16th person in the world to have a rare type of mitochondrial disease, which saps energy from his organs and muscles.

Doctors at Great Ormond Street Childrens Hospital say there is no accepted cure and it would be kinder to allow him to die. They have asked the High Court to sanction withdrawing his life support.

However Charlies parents have begged the court to refuse, and have until Monday to convince a judge that hope exists.

Race against time: Charlies parents Connie Yates, 31, and Chris Gard, 32 are trying to find 1.2 million to be able to treat their baby Charlie who is the 16th person in the world ever to have a rare type of mitochondrial disease, which saps energy from his organs and muscles

Grateful: Miss Yates, pictured left with her partner and their son Charlie, said the donation had left them over the moon, adding: Helen has since been a tremendous support and we are really grateful to her

They have found a doctor in the US willing to test a groundbreaking treatment on Charlie, but must raise 1.2million to fund it.

They set up a Go Fund Me page online to raise the money, and earlier this month it gained an anonymous donation of 20,000, followed by another for the same amount.

That donor has now be revealed as Mrs Barnes.

The 45-year-old said she and her husband regularly gave away their savings to causes close to their hearts, and that when she watched Charlies parents on BBC 2s Victoria Derbyshire show, her mind was made up.

I was moved to tears when I saw Connie and Chris being interviewed, she said. I couldnt believe the terrible situation theyve found themselves in.

It seems wrong that their child isnt being given the chance of life when there is something that could help him. She added: I am a spontaneous person and immediately it felt right to give them this money.

As a mother, you will do anything you can for your child and I just wanted to help them. So often we, as parents, are fobbed off by professionals saying we dont know what were talking about. But a mother knows her child best and should be respected.

Miss Yates said the donation had left them over the moon, adding: Helen has since been a tremendous support and we are really grateful to her.

So far more than 643,000 has been raised to help Charlie.

To donate go to www.gofundme.com/ please-help-to-save-charlies-life

Heartbreaking: Doctors at Great Ormond Street Childrens Hospital say there is no accepted cure and it would be kinder to allow Charlie, pictured above, to die
The suspected fantasist who triggered Scotland Yards disastrous VIP child sex abuse inquiry is facing financial ruin after a former Tory MP launched a six figure compensation claim against him over his lies.

In a landmark legal move, Harvey Proctor alleges the man, known only by the pseudonym Nick, spread malicious falsehoods about him.

Mr Proctor is seeking a substantial pay-out from Nick for defamation  saying his allegations left him homeless, jobless and penniless.

Mr Proctor's claim has been written by a barrister specialising in cases of police negligence

The ex-politicians claim is part of an unprecedented 1 million plus action against Nick and the police, who took his far-fetched accusations seriously.

The Mail can reveal that in legal papers sent to the Met last week, the former MP  twice interviewed under caution over Nicks allegations - also makes a series of devastating claims about how Britains biggest force mishandled Operation Midland.

Officials are said to have been stunned by the size of Mr Proctors claim, which has been drafted by a barrister who specialises in police negligence cases.

Nick, who cannot be named for legal reasons, could now be dragged before court to be cross examined about his wild claims of murder and abuse.

In one of the most astonishing claims, 'Nick' alleged that former Prime Minister Edward Heath persuaded Mr Proctor not to castrate him with a penknife

He could also be interrogated in public about his dealings with detectives and a rogue investigations website, Exaro, which peddled his claims about a murderous Westminster paedophile ring. Exaro has now closed.

One of Nicks most extraordinary allegations was that former Prime Minister Edward Heath persuaded Mr Proctor not to castrate him with a penknife. He also implicated Mr Proctor in three murders.

The latest twist in the Operation Midland scandal come as Northumbria Police continue to investigate him for allegedly perverting the course of justice by making false claims against Mr Proctor, ex defence chief Lord Bramall and former Home Secretary Leon Brittan.

Sources told the Mail that a protocol letter of claim outlining Mr Proctors case was sent to the Met last week.

His lawyers have given the force 14 days to provide details of Nicks real name and address, on a confidential basis, so a similar letter can be served on him.

Sources said if the Met refuses to hand over the requested information, his legal team could go to the High Court to get it.

Former Metropolitan Police commissioner Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe apologised to Mr Proctor for 'significant failings' in the Met's investigation into an alleged VIP paedophile ring

In relation to his claim against the Met, the ex MP is seeking compensation for damage to reputation, aggravated and exemplary damages and personal injury damages.

In addition, he is claiming around 500,000 for losing his job as private secretary to the Duke of Rutland, as well as his grace and favour home on the aristocrats estate.

The total value of his claim against the Met is more than 1million.

Mr Proctor has also launched a separate claim against Leicestershire Police, over other issues concerning his treatment during Operation Midland.

Mr Proctors claims against the Met rely on damning evidence from a retired High Court judges independent report into Operation Midland, which criticised a senior detectives decision to publicly describe Nicks allegations as being credible and true and concerns about how search warrants were obtained by police.

His lawyers are expected to seek disclosure of key police documents, including transcripts of interviews with Nick, emails and decision logs regarding Operation Midland and a full un-redacted copy of the independent report into the fiasco.

Mr Proctor confirmed he had found a financial backer to support his court costs

Mr Proctor, who has got a financial backer to support his court costs, said last night: I can confirm that a protocol letter of claim has been sent to the Metropolitan Police, seeking Nicks real name and address so that a letter of claim can also be served on him.

I cannot comment any further because these matters are with my lawyers.

In November, Mr Proctor received a grovelling apology from then Met chief Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe for significant failings in Operation Midland, which has already cost 2.5million and which resulted in no arrests or convictions.

Sir Bernard  who had previously refused to say sorry  said: The approach adopted in believing the complainant at the outset was wrong; insufficient attempts were made to test the credibility of the complainant; the effect of the approach adopted was to unnecessarily prolong the length of the investigation; it was wrong to have searched your property.

Earlier this month the Mail revealed that Lord Bramall is set to receive 100,000 in compensation from Scotland Yard for his suffering from Operation Midland.

The 93-year-old ex-military chief, whose home was raided at dawn by 22 officers after he was falsely accused of child sex abuse, has been offered a substantial sum as part of an out of court settlement.

His wife, who was terminally ill at the time of the raid two years ago, died before the Met announced he was exonerated.

Former Field Marshall Lord Bramall (pictured) is set to receive 100,000 in compensation for being falsely accused of child abuse

Diana Brittan, widow of Lord Brittan who was also the subject of bogus claims by Nick, is considering legal action against the Met after their homes were raided weeks after the former home secretary died.

Last night the Met confirmed it has received a pre-action letter of claim from Mr Proctor. It provided no further details.

Earlier this month, the Mail revealed the force had grudgingly offered the ex-military chief 100,000 in an out of settlement over his Operation Midland hell.
A judge has approved an agreement for President Donald Trump to pay $25million to settle lawsuits over his now-defunct Trump University.

The decision Friday by U.S. District Judge Gonzalo Curiel in San Diego ends nearly seven years of legal battles with customers who claimed they were misled by failed promises to teach success in real estate.

The ruling settles two class-action lawsuits and a civil lawsuit by New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman.

Schneiderman had previously called Trump University a 'fraud from beginning to end.'

A judge has approved an agreement for President Donald Trump to pay $25million to settle lawsuits over his now-defunct Trump University. The president pictured above next to a screen advertising the now-defunct program

Trump had vowed never to settle but said after the election that he didn't have time for a trial, even though he believed he would have prevailed. Under terms of the settlement, he admits no wrongdoing.

Attorneys for the customers say thousands will get at least 90 per cent of their money back.

The $25 million, to be paid by Trump or one of his business entities, include restitution for students and $1 million in penalties to the state, Schneiderman said.

Daniel Petrocelli, lead attorney for President Donald Trump, leaves the courthouse after a hearing on Thursday in San Diego

Plaintiff attorney Jason Forge, center, speaks alongside attorney Rachel Jensen, left, after a hearing for the lawsuit on Thursday

Trump University was launched in 2005 and closed five years later amid growing legal troubles.

Former students have bashed the university in recent months, with some of them calling it a scam that had robbed them of up to $35,000 apiece for useless real estate classes.

Attorneys for the president-elect had previously tried to get one of the California suits delayed while Trump was busy negotiating his transition into his presidency.

Trump had said he wouldn't settle the case because he thought it would be easy to win in court.

The president had also lambasted the judge in charge of the case, Curiel, claiming Curiel's Mexican heritage meant the judge couldn't possibly treat him fairly.

Trump had repeatedly denied the fraud allegations during his presidential campaign.

'Do you know that almost everybody in the lawsuit has signed a letter saying how great the school was? That's why I won't settle because it's an easy case to win in court,' Trump said on MSNBC's Morning Joe earlier this year.

Trump's legal team at one point tried to have comments he made throughout the election excluded from the trial, claiming his tweets and outlandish remarks towards women, minorities and other groups could affect his credibility. Their motion was denied.

Former students say they were lured by false promises that Trump had 'handpicked' tutors for courses in real estate.

Seminars were more akin to infomercials, they said, and they were never given access to the businessman and his industry 'secrets' as promised.
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un spent a staggering 33,000 on imported US liquor last year.

The extravagant purchases come as tensions rise between the dictator and Donald Trump over North Korea's nuclear weapon programme.

Import data shows, he also spent 127,000 on alcohol from Germany, 107,000 from Denmark and 38,000 from Russia.

Kim Jong-un spent 33,000 on imported US liquor last year

Included in these imports was 74,000 worth of German wines and 48,000 on luxury beer from the country.

The figures, from Trademap, also revealed Kim spent 48,000 on Italian cheese and an astounding 715,000 on Brazilian coffee.

The luxury purchases come as the UN reports 2.8 million North Koreans struggle to afford food.

Average salaries in North Korea range from 640 to 1,280 per year while almost a third of children are malnourished.

The figures also revealed Kim spent 74,000 on wines imported from Germany

This month people called on Kim to face human rights abuses.

Deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch Phil Robertson told the Mirror: 'The North Korea government and its leaders should face justice for their crimes, which continue to this day.

'We urge the United Nations to respond positively to the call that the recommendations of a group of independent experts be implemented without delay.'
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Firefighters are working to restore an Atlanta bridge after a massive fire collapsed a portion of the Interstate 85 highway on Thursday.

Looking to the future, Atlanta residents will likely face travel chaos as construction crews repair the fragmented section of the exceptionally busy motorway.

Officials have said that the reconstruction of the damaged areas could take several months - prompting a travel disaster for more than 225,000 vehicles that use the collapsed segment of the roadway daily.

Firefighters are working to restore an Atlanta bridge after a massive fire collapsed a portion of the Interstate 85 highway on Thursday

Looking to the future, Atlanta residents may be facing a travel disaster as construction crews repair the fragmented section of the exceptionally busy motorway

There were no reports of casualties in the incident and no cars fell from the motorway during the fire, which is nothing short of a miracle given the usually crowded rush hour traffic in the area

Firefighters on the scene saved the lives of many after noticing cracks in the foundation and ordering an excavation of the area

ABC News reporter Steve Osunsami described the future for commuters in the area to be a 'traffic migraine,' and said that he expects his commute to double, as he lives just a mile from the site of the incident

A massive fire in Atlanta collapsed a portion of the Interstate 85 highway on Thursday. The city's first responders said part of the highway collapsed due to the fire that broke out under the bridge

There were no immediate reports of casualties in the incident but Atlanta Fire and Rescue said on Twitter that all lanes were blocked and that residents should avoid the area

The city's first responders said part of the highway collapsed due to the fire that broke out under the bridge.

ABC News reporter Steve Osunsami described the future for commuters in the area to be a 'traffic migraine,' and said that he expects his commute to double, as he lives just a mile from the site of the incident.

There were no reports of casualties in the incident and no cars fell from the motorway during the fire, which is nothing short of a miracle given the usually crowded rush hour traffic in the area.

Firefighters on the scene saved the lives of many after noticing cracks in the foundation and ordering an excavation of the area.

Atlanta Fire and Rescue said on Twitter at the time that all lanes were blocked and that residents should avoid the area.

Video from the fire department posted on their Instagram page showed firefighters battling the massive blaze.

The department wrote in the video's caption: '*Major Emergency* Heavy Fire showing under Interstate 85 in Buckhead. 2nd alarm requested. Atlanta Fire on scene.'

A number of upscale lofts are located near the area where the fire took place, which was just off of Piedmont Road

It was not immediately clear what was burning under the bridge or how the fire started. Firefighters are pictured extinguishing the fire

Atlanta Fire Department spokesman Sgt Cortez Stafford said no cars were on the overpass when it fell. Firefighters noticed chunks of concrete falling from the bridge and got out of the way just minutes before it collapsed, Stafford said

Firefighters said the fire burned for more than an hour under I-85 northbound near Piedmont Road, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

The interstate - a major artery for the US South that runs through the heart of Atlanta - was closed indefinitely.

'This is about as serious a transportation crisis as we can imagine,' Mayor Kasim Reed said.

The Georgia Department of Transportation said inspectors are looking over the collapse, but the scene is still too hot for them to inspect and there is no timeline on a fix.

The state's top transportation official said there's no way to tell when the highway, which carries 250,000 cars per day, can be safely reopened to traffic in either direction.

'We will have to continue to evaluate the situation and adjust as we do,' McMurry said.

'This incident - make no bones about it - will have a tremendous impact on travel.'

Witnesses said that Atlanta state troopers were telling cars to turn around on the bridge minutes before it collapsed because they were concerned about its integrity

Video from the fire department posted on their Instagram page showed firefighters battling the massive blaze

'*Major Emergency* Heavy Fire showing under Interstate 85 in Buckhead. 2nd alarm requested. Atlanta Fire on scene,' the department wrote in the video's caption

Aerial video showed thick black smoke billowing into the sky above the freeway as a line of cars stood halted on either side. All of the firefighters were able to get out of the area prior to the collapse. By Thursday evening the fire department had the blaze under control

There's no way to tell when the highway, which carries 250,000 cars per day, can be safely reopened to traffic in either direction. The interstate is a major thoroughfare for traffic heading north and south through Atlanta. The bridge collapse effectively 'puts a cork in the bottle,' Georgia State Patrol Commissioner Mark McDonough said

It was not immediately clear what was burning under the bridge or how the fire started.

On Friday, Georgia Transportation Commissioner Russell McMurry said the fire originated from an area below the highway which is used 'as a storage location for construction materials, equipment and supplies.

'The site was a secured area containing materials such as PVC piping, which is a stable, noncombustible material,' he continued.

Atlanta Fire Department spokesman Sgt Cortez Stafford said that his officers acted efficiently and effectively.

'Our guys got here quickly and shut down the interstate and said, 'No one else is driving over this bridge,' he said.

Aftermath: Crews work on a section of an overpass that collapsed from a large fire on Interstate 85 in Atlanta. Many commuters in some of Atlanta's densely populated northern suburbs will have to find alternate routes or ride public transit for the foreseeable future .

The Georgia Department of Transportation said inspectors are looking over the collapse, but the scene is still too hot for them to inspect and there is no timeline on a fix

Firefighters survey the section of the overpass that collapsed from the large fire Thursday night

Firefighters (pictured) said the fire burned for more than an hour under I-85 northbound near Piedmont Road. The interstate - a major artery for the US South that runs through the heart of Atlanta - was closed indefinitely

Bystanders watch as smoke billows from a section of the overpass that collapsed from the massive fire on Interstate 85

Aerial video showed thick black smoke billowing into the sky above the freeway as a line of cars stood halted on either side. The aerial video showed more firefighters extinguishing the fire on one side of the highway.

A photo posted on the Twitter feed of local WSB-TV showed what appeared to be barrels and coils under the bridge. The fire broke out in an industrial area near route 400.

Witnesses told WSB-TV that Atlanta state troopers were telling cars to turn around on the bridge minutes before it collapsed because they were concerned about its integrity.

Atlanta's public transit system, MARTA, will provide extended service through the weekend.

The interstate is a major thoroughfare for traffic heading north and south through Atlanta. The bridge collapse effectively 'puts a cork in the bottle,' Georgia State Patrol Commissioner Mark McDonough said.

Capt Mark Perry of the Georgia State Patrol told the Journal-Constitution that the agency doesn't know what started the fire beneath the bridge but that terrorism is not suspected.

Gov Nathan Deal told reporters that some PVC plastic materials in a vehicle may have caught fire. 'I do not know why they did or what the source of their transport was,' Deal said. 'But those are questions that will hopefully be answered at least by tomorrow morning.'

Deal said inspectors were at the scene and they've contacted the original company that built the bridge to come in and assess the extent of the damage.

'We're trying to determine everything we can about how quickly can we repair it and get it back in service,' Deal said. 'I can assure you we will do everything to expedite the repair and replacement of that section of the bridge.'

Mayor Kasim Reed (pictured) addressed the situation Thursday evening. He said: 'This is about as serious a transportation crisis as we can imagine'
A high school principal is trying to whip her chronically absent students into shape by handing out a rash of suspension notices.

Lisa Love, the new principal of John Harris High School in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, issued the mass suspension notices on Tuesday.

Nearly 100 students were given a one-day suspension for chronic truancy, Fox43 reported.

'Many parents send their child to school and think they're going to class. I need to reach out because of the enormous number of students not going to class,' Love told reporters at a press conference at the high school Wednesday.

'We need to send the message that we value education first,' principal Lisa Love (left) said. Superintendent Dr. Sybil Knigh-Burney (right) supported Love's move to suspend 100 kids

Love said students were skipping classes to hang out in bathrooms, locker rooms, and the school gymnasium at John Harris High School (pictured)

Love said students were skipping classes to hang out in bathrooms, locker rooms, and the school gymnasium.

The principal was hired by the school district in January to shake up the school with new practices.

The suspensions came after a study conducted by school administrators found 540 students had missed the equivalent of five days of classes over the past 45 days.

Of those, less than 100 were suspended this week, district spokesperson Kirsten Keys told Fox43.

Keys did not respond to a message from DailyMail.com requesting the exact number of suspended students.

'We don't like to suspend. I don't even like talking about suspensions,' said Love at the Wednesday press conference.

'But because we're in a place where our school is a priority school, we need to send the message that we value education first.'

The district superintendent concurred with Love's approach.

'In order for us to get different results, we have to do something different,' Superintendent Dr. Sybil Knight-Burney said.

'We can't be doing the same old, same old, and complain when we're getting the same old results.'
Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg debuted his new workout routine today, featuring his new personal trainer and favorite weight vest  his daughter Maxima.

In a pair of videos posted on his personal Facebook page, Zuckerberg can be seen, presumably in his Palo Alto, California home's gym, doing a set of pull ups and push ups with his 16-month-old daughter strapped to his back.

Zuckerberg accompanied the videos with the comment, 'As soon as I finish she yells "More! More!" Easily the most demanding trainer I've ever had.'

The 32-year-old social media exec and philanthropist banged out five pull ups and 14 push ups in the videos with his daughter cozied up to his back in a baby carrier, much to the delight of Facebook users around the world.

Many users praised the daddy-daughter time, commenting that the cute clips reminded them of workouts they did with their own children or with younger siblings.

'Mark this is awesome! I've done pushups with my daughter as well and she loves it and always asks to do more,' wrote user Pavel Ponomarenko.

'You are a cool Dad Mark! haha. Your little girl is like come on Daddy do more pull ups. Such a cute video,' enthused Andy Sipos.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg accompanied the workout videos with this comment, calling his 16-month-old toddler daughter, 'Easily the most demanding trainer I've ever had'

Facebook users were quick to comment on the potential danger of Maxima's apparently unsupported head while Zuckerberg showed off his pull up and push up fitness routine

As Zuckerberg does his routine, Maxima's head appears to be hyper-extended back

Zuckerberg completed five pull ups and 14 push ups with his daughter strapped to his back

Facebook users enjoyed seeing Zuckerberg involving his daughter in his work out routine

But, an overwhelming number of Facebook users were quick to note the way Maxima's unsupported head appeared to loll back and bounce as she hung off Zuckerberg's back while he pumped out the pull ups and push ups.

'Might wanna take a couple million and invest in a neck support for max, bud, other than that good job,' wrote Dave L Ross.

'My pediatric doc told me that the Head should not tilt backwards like this in a Toddler ... May lead to shaken baby syndrome ... Mark Zuckerberg check with your wife,' warned Facebook user Vinatha Kumar.

Facebook users said Zuckerberg's videos reminded them what they did with their own kids

Many users tried to warn Zuckerberg that it looked like Maxima's head was too unsupported

Facebook users were concerned about the potential danger of Maxima's head bobbing around

'Her head and neck are hyper-extended and her head bobbing around is not good for her brain inside the skull,' wrote Debbi Postas. 'Why not just sit her in a seat or playpen to watch you?'

Last January, in a Facebook Q&A on his wall, Zuckerberg told a curious Arnold Schwarzenegger that he works out at least three times a week, usually when he wakes up in the morning.

'Staying in shape is very important,' Zuckerberg wrote. 'Doing anything well requires energy, and you just have a lot more energy when you're fit.'

Zuckerberg and wife, Dr. Priscilla Chan, are currently expecting a second child, another girl.
A 21-year veteran of the Houston Police Department committed suicide inside a patrol station on Friday, the citys police chief said.

The sergeant, who has not been named, shot himself with a single bullet to the head Friday morning, according to the Houston Chronicle.

His body was found at approximately 8:35am inside a stairwell on the fourth floor of HPDs Westside Patrol Station where he worked.

Because the fourth floor is not in use, nobody heard the gunshot.

He leaves behind a wife and two young children ages 10 and 12.

The officers colleagues searched the facility when they noticed that he did not turn up for work at 7am.

Houston police chief Art Acevedo (above) announced on Friday that a sergeant with 21 years experience on the force fatally shot himself in the head at a patrol station

His body was found at approximately 8:35am inside a stairwell on the fourth floor of HPDs Westside Patrol Station (above) where he worked

Houston police chief Art Acevedo said he would not release the name of the officer until his two children were informed of their fathers suicide by their mother.

Investigators are now trying to piece together a so-called psychological autopsy that would shed light as to what motivated the sergeant to take his life.

We know that life brings us a lot of stress, Acevedo said.

We know that a lot of factors go into these incidents occurring, and we owe it to the family and to one another to make sure that we have a clear understanding as to what led to this day. Was it emotional issues involving work, was it emotional issues involving something else?

More police officers die by suicide than by violent criminals whom they encounter in the line of duty, according to the International Association of Chiefs of Police.

Badge of Life, an organization devoted to improving the mental health of law enforcement officials, estimates that there are between 100-150 suicides in the US every year.

The organization conducted a study which showed that police officers were less likely than the general public to kill themselves.
Charles put an 'urgent call' into ambassador William Farish (right) urging the U.S. to halt the invasion

Prince Charles tried to halt the American invasion of Afghanistan to honour Ramadan.

He made the plea to the US ambassador to London four weeks into the huge military operation launched after the 9/11 terror attacks.

The startled envoy asked the prince, Sir, are you really serious? according to a book being serialised from today by the Daily Mail. Charless intervention appears to have been made behind the back of then prime minister Tony Blair.

Last night an officer who led UK forces in Afghanistan said the princes request was absurd. Critics described it as grossly irresponsible. Politicians in the UK are used to the prince trying to meddle in policy and his handwritten black spider memos are legendary.

Twenty thousand American and British troops were ordered to Afghanistan by George W Bush and Mr Blair in October 2001 because the ruling Taliban had refused to give up Al Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden.

Around a month into the offensive  and two weeks before the start of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan  Charles placed an urgent call to William Farish, Washingtons ambassador to London.

Interviewed for the new biography of Charles, Mr Farish recalled: Prince Charles asked me if it would be possible to stop the invasion to honour Ramadan, and if I could convey that request to President Bush.

While British politicians have gotten used to Charles' attempted meddling, the U.S. envoy was shocked by the prince's request

In the days after the 9/11 attacks Tony Blair pledged to stand shoulder to shoulder with U.S. President George W. Bush

The ambassador explained it would be rather difficult to halt a military invasion already in full swing, but the prince allegedly protested: But Americans can do anything!

The envoy asked: Sir, are you really serious? and the heir to the throne replied, Yes I am.

The extraordinary exchange is revealed in Prince Charles: The Passions And Paradoxes Of An Improbable Life by Sally Bedell Smith. The respected historian based the biography on interviews with more than 300 friends, family and associates of the prince.

Three days after the 9/11 attacks, Charles, the Queen and Mr Blair stood shoulder to shoulder with Americans including Mr Farish at St Pauls Cathedral for a service of remembrance.

The invasion was launched less than a month later on October 7, with Mr Blair declaring that the stability of the world depended on it.

Yet at the start of November the prince was allegedly trying to thwart government policy.

Twenty thousand British and American troops invaded Afghanistan in 2001 when the Taliban refused to hand over Osama Bin Laden

I am somewhat surprised that Prince Charles should attempt to get involved in a military operation, said Colonel Richard Kemp, who subsequently commanded British forces in Afghanistan.

Obviously that is not what he is there for.

He shouldnt have attempted to interfere at all, and let alone on the basis of Ramadan.

If anything, a military commander should exploit opportunities like Ramadan rather than be controlled by a religious festival. It shows a surprising lack of judgment, that he felt it was his place to meddle like that, and the idea that on the basis of Prince Charless personal opinion, the UK would dictate American military operations is just absurd. There was no option. Afghanistan was harbouring terrorists who had launched a devastating attack on the US. Who was Prince Charles to intervene?

Colonel Richard Kemp said that a competent military commander 'should exploit opportunities like Ramadan rather then be controlled by a religious festival'

Graham Smith, of the anti-monarchy campaign group Republic, said: How can we tolerate a future head of state who behaves in such an irresponsible unprofessional manner?

This is one of the most serious cases of royal meddling thats come to light. It is grossly irresponsible to be interfering in such a serious and delicate situation and in one of the UKs most important international relationships.

People will have strong feelings about the invasion, but none of the controversy justifies Charless interference. He must be told to back off.

We elect a government to handle our international relationships. Charless unwanted intervention only risks damaging our reputation and relationships with our allies.

Mrs Bedell Smith recalls that US defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld had noted that Muslims themselves waged war in the holy month  Iran and Iraq eight times during their conflict in the 1980s, and Egyptian president Anwar Sadat in his 1973 attack on Israel. She said Mr Rumsfeld added: The Taliban and Al Qaeda are unlikely to take a holiday.

The book also claims that Prince Charles tried to influence Margaret Thatcher - which led to an irate call from Downing Street where Mrs Thatcher said: 'I run this country, not you sir'

Now back in America, Mr Farish, 78, was unavailable for comment last night.

The book also claims that Charles tried in vain to influence Margaret Thatcher.

The confrontation came in 1985, when the prince was fretting that Tory policies meant he would inherit the throne of a divided Britain.

The prime minister was so incensed she called Buckingham Palace to complain demanding to know what was going on. Charles was said to be flabbergasted that Mrs Thatcher could tell him: I run this country, not you, sir.
The 'Angel of Death' serial killer who murdered up to 87 people in the 1970s and '80s died from massive head trauma after his skull was fractured when he was attacked in his prison cell.

Donald Harvey died on Thursday, just two days after a fellow inmate is suspected of beating the 64-year-old to death on Tuesday at Ohio's state prison in Toledo.

Authorities said the name of the suspect hasn't been released and no charges had been filed as of Friday afternoon.

Further details about the grisly attack won't be released until investigators take the case to a grand jury, Lt. Robert Sellers, a State Highway Patrol spokesman, said.

An autopsy concluded that Harvey had several skull fractures, brain injuries and died from massive head trauma. There were no signs that a weapon was used, according to the Lucas County Coroner's office on Friday.

Serial killer Donald Harvey died Thursday, two days after a fellow inmate is suspected of attacking him in his cell on Tuesday in Toledo, Ohio. An autopsy completed on Friday concluded he died from massive head trauma. Pictured right: Harvey's mugshot in 1987

The 64-year-old had several skull fractures and brain injuries. He is pictured above in 1987 standing before a judge during sentencing in Cincinnati

He was found beaten in his cell by two state troopers. The assault happened around 2.20pm on Tuesday.

Harvey, dubbed as the 'Angel of Death', admitted to killing three dozen hospital patients in Ohio and Kentucky during the 1970s and '80s.

He originally pleaded guilty to murdering 37 people in 1987, but later said that he had killed as many as 50 more people.

He committed the murders while working as a hospital aide, using a variety of methods, including turning off ventilators, giving patients fluid infected with hepatitis B, and suffocation.

But many of the killings involved his two favorite poisons, arsenic and cyanide, which he would administer in food, using injections, or through an IV.

Harvey had suffered sexual abuse at the hands of his uncle and a neighbor between the ages of four and 20, and was raped by his male roommate in 1970, when he was 18.

He also became fascinated by witchcraft and neo-Nazi groups as he grew older.

Harvey became known as the 'Angel of Death' after pleading guilty in 1987 to 37 murders. He is pictured above in 1987 being led back to jail after pleading guilty to eight murder charges and one voluntary manslaughter charge

His first kill came on May 30, 1970 when he killed 88-year-old Logan Evans with a sheet of plastic and a pillow, and listened to his heart with a stethoscope as he died.

The following day he accidentally killed James Tyree, 69, when he used the wrong size catheter on him.

His third victim, claimed on June 22, was also the first of a series of 'mercy killings'. He said Elizabeth Wyatt, 42, had been praying to die so he turned down her oxygen supply until she died.

His victims were claimed while he was at Marymount Hospital in London, Kentucky; the Cincinnati VA Medical Hospital; and Cincinnati's Drake Memorial Hospital.

But his murders weren't restricted to hospitals, a Radford University psychology report said.

Harvey later claimed to have killed 18 more patients. Pictured above is the exterior of the Toledo Correctional Institution, in Toledo, Ohio where he was being held on multiple life sentences

When he suspected his lover, Carl Hoeweler, had been cheating on him, he dosed him with arsenic so he would be too ill to leave their apartment.

Hoeweler didn't die, but his father and brother-in-law were less lucky.

Harvey poisoned Carl Hoeweler, 82, with arsenic, while brother-in-law Howard Vetter died after Harvey accidentally served him wood alcohol instead of vodka; both died in 1983.

Between 1983 and 1985, Harvey also killed neighbors Helen Metzger, 63, and Edward Wilson, 32, with arsenic because he felt they threatened his relationship with Hoeweler.

After being caught, he agreed to a plea deal that allowed him to avoid the death penalty and was serving 15 life sentences.

He would have been eligible for parole in 2043 at 91 years old.
A Victorian farmer didn't intend to murder his son-in-law when he shot him in the stomach because he thought he was having an affair with his wife, his lawyer said.

Maxwell John Pain, 55, is accused of murdering Dave Paris, 36, by shooting him outside his Raywood home, north of Bendigo, in 2014.

A Supreme Court trial heard on Friday that Pain became obsessed with the notion that his wife Tracy Bush and Mr Paris were having an affair.

Maxwell John Pain (pictured), 55, is accused of murdering Dave Paris, 36, in 2014 by shooting him outside his Raywood home, north of Bendigo.

A Supreme Court trial heard on Friday that Pain became obsessed with the notion that his wife Tracy Bush and Mr Paris were having an affair

The prosecution alleges Pain intended to kill or seriously injure Mr Paris when he shot him on June 10, 2014.

Lesley Taylor QC told the jury that accusations of Ms Bush's infidelity had long been a theme in their marriage.

'His hatred for Dave had festered long enough to erupt,' Ms Taylor said.

Ms Taylor said Pain had become 'pretty desperate' by the time he allegedly killed Mr Paris.

Footage of Pain leaning on his kitchen counter with his guns on the day of the shooting was the look of a man 'who's just psyched himself into murder', Ms Taylor said.

The court heard Pain drove to Mr Paris's house and texted him: 'I am on my way, Davey boy.'

The prosecution alleges Pain intended to kill or seriously injure Mr Paris when he shot him on June 10, 2014

Ms Bush had recently told Pain she wanted a divorce and was staying at the home Mr Paris shared with her daughter.

'I say to you, beyond reasonable doubt, at the time Maxwell Pain picked up that shotgun, aimed it at Dave Paris and pulled the trigger, he intended to kill or at least do serious injury,' Ms Taylor told the jury.

Pain's defence barrister John Desmond said the case is not that simple and 'appearances can be deceptive'.

'It's not murder,' he said in his closing remarks.

'Not everything is necessarily as it appears.'

Mr Desmond said there was no denying Pain was upset about his marriage ending.

'Clearly the accused is upset with what's going on in his life,' he said.

Mr Desmond will continue his closing remarks on Monday.
President Donald Trump has proclaimed April to be National Sexual Assault Awareness and Prevention Month, vowing his administration would 'do everything in its power to protect women, children, and men from sexual violence.

The president vowed to use the power of his office to combat the issue, having emerged from an election where his opponent Hillary Clinton accused him of mistreatment of women.

'This includes supporting victims, preventing future abuse, and prosecuting offenders to the full extent of the law,' the White House proclamation signed by Trump said.

'I have already directed the Attorney General to create a task force on crime reduction and public safety. This task force will develop strategies to reduce crime and propose new legislation to fill gaps in existing laws,' it said.

President Donald Trump proclaimed April to be National Sexual Assault Awareness and Prevention Month

Also during the campaign, Trump was shown in an infamous 2005 'p****' tape discussing grabbing women by the genitals, in an appearance caught on tape before a taping of 'Access Hollywood' with host Billy Bush.

'You know, Im automatically attracted to beautiful  I just start kissing them. Its like a magnet. Just kiss. I dont even wait. And when youre a star, they let you do it. You can do anything,' Trump is heard saying.

'Grab em by the p****. You can do anything,' Trump said.

Trump dismissed the comments during a presidential debate as 'locker room talk.'

He brought Bill Clinton accusers to the second presidential debate, and accused Clinton of 'viciously' attacking her husband's accuser.

Former 'Apprentice' contestant Summer Zervos is suing Trump for defamation over her prior claim that he made unwanted advances to her at a hotel in 2007.

Trump said her claims were '100 percent fabricated and made-up,' and called Zervos and other women accusers 'liars.' White House lawyers argue that Trump should not have to face the legal challenge while serving as president.

Republican U.S. presidential nominee Donald Trump listens as Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton answers a question from the audience during their presidential town hall debate at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri

Trump bragged about grabbing women in an infamous 'Access Hollywood' tape with Billy Bush, later saying it was 'locker room talk'

The statement called for the development of meaningful strategies to combat sexual assault

In this 2005 frame from video, Donald Trump prepares for an appearance on 'Days of Our Lives' with actress Arianne Zucker (center). He is accompanied to the set by Access Hollywood host Billy Bush

According to the proclamation, 'Prevention means reducing the prevalence of sexual violence on our streets, in our homes, and in our schools and institutions. Recent research has demonstrated the effectiveness of changing social norms that accept or allow indifference to sexual violence.'

It continues: 'This can be done by engaging young people to step in and provide peer leadership against condoning violence, and by mobilizing men and boys as allies in preventing sexual and relationship violence. Our families, schools, and communities must encourage respect for women and children, who are the vast majority of victims, and promote healthy personal relationships. We must never give up the fight against the scourge of child pornography and its pernicious effects on both direct victims and the broader culture. We recommit ourselves this month to establishing a culture of respect and appreciation for the dignity of every human being.'

The proclamation states: 'There is tremendous work to be done. Together, we can and must protect our loved ones, families, campuses, and communities from the devastating and pervasive effects of sexual assault. In the face of sexual violence, we must commit to providing meaningful support and services for victims and survivors in the United States and around the world.'
A former Conservative councillor was today facing a manslaughter charge after running over his wife and crushing her to death outside their new home in rural France.

David Turtle, 62, claims he accidently killed Stephanie Turtle, 50, in the village of Prayssac, north of Toulouse.

Mrs Turtle's rib cage had caved in and she was asphyxiated when gendarmes found her body underneath the family estate car at 2am on Thursday morning.

David Turtle, 62, (right) has been arrested after wife Stephanie, 50, was crushed to death with the family car in South West France

The Turtles moved from Bournemouth to Prayssac, in the department of Lot, last summer in search of an idyllic life. Mr Turtle has reportedly told police he 'accidentally knocked his wife over'

Mr Turtle resigned as a Conservative councillor in Bournemouth's Kinson North ward last year, while Mrs Turtle gave up her job in the human resources department of Dorset Council.

The couple had decided to start a new life in rural France, buying a dilapidated home and turning it into a bed and breakfast guesthouse.

Months of work ended just four days ago, and the Turtles were looking forward to welcoming their first guests this summer.

Prayssac has a population of 2,500 and is 80 miles away from Toulouse. Mr Turtle is being held in the town of Agen and a criminal enquiry is underway. The couple own bed and breakfast La Maison Cedre (pictured)

The couple moved to France in July last year and wanted to turn La Maison Cedre, or The Cedar House, into a bed and breakfast and guesthouse

'They were celebrating and very happy,' said a source in Prayssac, which has a population of just under 2500.

'David and Stephanie had not stopped working since they arrived in July. They were delighted with the renovation work, and the house looked wonderful.'

An autopsy held in Toulouse late on Friday established the cause of death, and forensics officers were today still examining the house and surrounding grounds.

Mr Turtle was meanwhile being held in a police station at Puy L'Eveque, and was due to be presented to an instructing judge at Agen.

Another source in Prayssac said: 'Mr Turtle faces a charge of violence leading to the unintentional death of his wife. He is likely to be remanded in custody. Police are not seeking anyone else in connection with the tragedy.'

Mr Turtle has told judicial police working for the Cahors prosecutor's office that he 'accidently knocked his wife over,' said the source.

'David is cooperating fully with the authorities, but they are keeping him in custody,' the source added. 'He insists that it was an accident'.

The Turtles had moved to Prayssac on July 21st last year, with the intention of turning La Maison Cedre (The Cedar House) into a bed and breakfast guest house.

A post-mortem found former Dorset Council worker Mrs Turtle died of asphyxia after her rib cage was crushed by the weight of the vehicle

Mr Turtle (second from the left) has now told judicial police working for the Cahors prosecutors office that he accidently knocked his wife over

Mrs Turtle had registered the business with the local authorities, and had just filed a permit at the Prayssac town hall to build a swimming pool.

Mrs Turtle's new life was recorded in a blog which she shared publicly online, while solely using the letter T to denote their surnames.

It reads: 'Welcome to La Maison Cedre, a light hearted blog of our journey from Bournemouth to Prayssac.

'The story of Mr and Mrs T who have left the UK to set up a chambre d'hote (B & B) in the beautiful Lot Valley, South West France.

'You'll get to experience with us some of the joys, trials and tribulations that happen along the way and meet our new friends as we settle into new lives 'en France'.

'The blog will include plenty of photos as Mr T is a keen photographer, videos of the house and surrounding area, plus recipes as Mrs T is a keen cook. Plus anything else we think you might find interesting or amusing..'

A local police spokesman confirmed that Mr Turtle was being held in the town of Agen and a criminal enquiry was underway. He said next-of-kin in Britain had been informed of Mrs Turtle's death.
Former anti-ISIS fighter Ashley Dyball is the second man charged with the murder of missing Brisbane childcare worker Sam Thompson.

The controversial 25-year-old, who fought for Kurdish paramilitary group People's Protection Unit (YPG) in Syria, was arrested on Friday night.

He appeared in Brisbane Magistrates Court on Saturday charged with one count each of murder and interfering with a corpse, and was remanded in custody.

Former anti-ISIS fighter Ashley Dyball is the second man charged with the murder of missing Brisbane man Sam Thompson

Missing childcare worker Sam Thompson, 22, (pictured) had not been seen since March 7 after leaving his apartment in Albion, north of Brisbane

Another man, Roberto Vincenzo Boscaino, faced court on Friday over the same charges and did not apply for bail.

The Bald Hills man, 23, appeared to tremble during his first few moments in the dock but sat calmly as his matter was adjourned to the committal call-over list on May 8.

The search for Mr Thompson's body continues after he vanished in suspicious circumstances on March 7 and his parents reported him missing.

A team of 40 detectives has been working the case and turned their attention to a Bald Hills home, which 'remains a primary crime scene'.

Mr Thompson (second from right) pictured with his mother Debbie, father Bruce and sister Courtney

CCTV stills shows Mr Thompson leaving his apartment in Albion, north of Brisbane on March 7

Police searched a tip at Swanbank in Ipswich on Wednesday but did not find anything.

A car similar to the one spotted on CCTV at the car park of the Deep Water Bend Reserve at Bald Hills, where Mr Thompson was last seen, was seized from an Albany Creek home on Wednesday night.

Mr Thompson's distinctive orange 2016 Ford Mustang was also allegedly spotted in the car park that day.

He was the victim of an unsolved robbery in Brisbane last September, in which his car was stolen and police are investigating whether his disappearance was linked to that crime.

His distinctive orange 2016 Ford Mustang was found abandoned near Byron Bay in northern New South Wales two days after his mysterious disappearance

Dyball joined YPG in May 2015 alongside his friend Reece Harding and fought against ISIS in Syria, sharing many photos from the combat zone.

He was pictured with captured ISIS flags, carrying assault rifles and anti-tank weapons, firing a truck-mounted gun, and standing next to tanks.

The Albany Creek man also shared snaps with large numbers of captured improvised explosives that ISIS was using in the ongoing war.

Mr Harding was killed by an IED in June 2015 early in their tour, and Dyball was the one to call his parents back in Australia to break the news.

'I have his sawn off shotgun and will use it to avenge him', Dyball reportedly said, according to YPG's PR arm.

The controversial 25-year-old, who fought for Kurdish paramilitary group People's Protection Unit (YPG) in Syria, was arrested on Friday night (pictured returning to Australia in 2015)

Dyball was arrested in Germany in December 2015 during a break from the front lines and deported back to Australia as a terrorist (pictured)

In a blurb posted by the militant group, Dyball described his life prior to joining the fight as one where he 'spent my weekends with family and friends and nice bars'.

He said he had a 'nice car and a good job' and 'spent a lot of time in a powerlifting gym' but is now known by the name Amed.

'I couldn't sit around any longer watching innocent women and children being raped and slaughtered Isis is a cancers (sic) and needs to be destroyed before it spreads any further'.

Dyball, nicknamed 'Sweetie Boy' in YPG, was a former international junior bench press champion and tried to join the Australian Army in 2010 but failed a physical.

Dyball (L) joined YPG in May 2015 alongside his friend Reece Harding (R) and fought against ISIS in Syria, sharing many photos from the combat zone

Dyball, nicknamed 'Sweetie Boy' in YPG, was a former international junior bench press champion and tried to join the Australian Army in 2010 but failed a physical

He later posted on Facebook, where he went by the alias Mitchell Scott, defending his decision to join YPG and kept friends up to date with his activities.

'This is my life my decision I can sit at home doing nothing with myself or i can stay here and help liberate the innocent children and women to give them a better chance at life that we all so luckily have [sic],' he wrote.

Dyball was arrested in Germany in December 2015 during a break from the front lines and deported back to Australia as a terrorist.

He was briefly detained by the Australian Federal Police upon his return, and though he was released without charge his passport was confiscated.

The Albany Creek man also shared snaps with large numbers of captured improvised explosives that ISIS was using in the ongoing war

Dyball (R) pictured with YPG buddies in Syria in 2015

He was briefly detained by the Australian Federal Police upon his return (pictured), and though he was released without charge his passport was confiscated

The former fighter dropped off the radar until last October, while still under investigation, when he appeared on 7.30 challenging authorities to charge him.

'If I'm the bad guy, then f**king charge me. I don't care. I'll do my time,' he told the program.

'You [the government] say we can't fight for them [the YPG], but yet you fund them.

'You'll air strike for them. You'll aid them. So how is it OK for you to aid them and I can't aid them?'
Nigel Farage has denied a glamour model's claims that they kissed and groped each other on a transatlantic flight at 30,000 feet

Nigel Farage has denied a glamour model's claims that they kissed and groped each other on a transatlantic flight at 30,000 feet.

The former Ukip leader was flying back from Atlanta, Georgia, to celebrate Article 50 being triggered when he found himself sat opposite 30-year-old Valerie Fox.

According to The Sun Ms Fox had told a friend that the pair had their hands all over each other and had to stop themselves from joining the Mile High Club.

But the 52-year-old has vehemently denied the allegations, saying that he rejected her advances when she launched herself at him in the upper class section of the Virgin Atlantic flight.

Denying the groping claims, he said: 'Not in that way at all. There was advances very much in one direction that were rejected.

'I saw what was going on and walked away.'

He confirmed that he was sat opposite Ms Fox and that they were locked in conversation for a short period, but their interaction went no further.

'It's all a set up, isn't it,' he added.

Ms Fox had told a friend that the pair had their hands all over each other and had to stop themselves from joining the Mile High Club

Mr Farage is separated from his wife Kirsten (pictured leaving their family home in Kent)

When asked what he was doing on the flight, the father-of-four said 'I was eating my dinner' and when pushed whether it that took the whole flight, he answered 'I slept for several hours'.

One of her friends told the Sun that Ms Fox had said: 'Nigel may be best known for getting the UK out of Europe, but he seemed much keener on getting himself into my knickers.'

When the flight landed, she tweeted: 'Hate to be wrong about people, but tonight I spent 5 hours speaking with someone I thought Id dislike. I couldnt have been more wrong.'

Ms Fox (pictured on Instagram) allegedly told a friend: 'Nigel may be best known for getting the UK out of Europe, but he seemed much keener on getting himself into my knickers.'

A mock-up of a Tweet sent by Valerie Fox shortly after the flight she and Mr Farage had been on landed

The pair then allegedly returned to her flat in Marylebone, central London, before he made his way home later in the night.

And Ms Fox this evening tweeted that she had been betrayed by the friend who spoke to The Sun.

She posted: 'When you confide in your girlfriend and they betray your trust...' followed by a picture of a sad face.

This was followed up half an hour later with a dig at Farage.

She posted: 'I asked for a lift? No, you offered to take me home, twice. I accepted. Politicians lie, that's what they do best.'

She then added: 'Want to deny it? Ok let's go ask the flight crew, or perhaps view the cctv cameras at Heathrow being that you walked me to your Land Rover..

'Not to mention the porter in my building, and the many cctv cameras in there... So don't you dare accuse me of lying.'

Mr Farage has already denied claims earlier this year of a fling with French politician Laure Ferrari.

Former Ukip MEP Nikki Sinclaire also used Parliamentary privelege to call press officer Annabelle Fuller as his 'mistress', but both have denied the claims of an affair.
Donald Trump's ally Roger Stone says he won't ever reveal who helped him communicate with WikiLeaks because he has no intention of burning his sources.

Stone has previously claimed a source tipped him off that WikiLeaks had dirt on Hillary Clinton before damaging material that had been hacked by Russian intelligence was leaked prior to the election.

He told Yahoo News that he would not reveal the identity of the person who gave him the information from WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange - even if questioned by Congress.

'I'm just as much a journalist as you are, my friend... I have no intention of burning a source,' he told reporter Michael Isikoff.

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Donald Trump's ally Roger Stone has previously claimed a source tipped him off that WikiLeaks had dirt on Hillary Clinton before damaging material was leaked prior to the election

Stone, who worked as an adviser during Trump's election campaign, said the source was a mutual friend of his and Assange. He said he had dinner with the person in New York last year when they revealed WikiLeaks had a cache of material on Clinton.

Both the Democratic National Committee and John Podesta were hacked and the content of those emails was released by Wikileaks.

Last fall, U.S. intelligence agencies accused Russia of trying to interfere in the 2016 election, blaming the Kremlin for the email account hacks, saying in January that the aim was to try and help Trump win the election over Clinton.

Stone has offered to 'fully cooperate' and testify during the House and Senate intelligence committees' investigation into whether Russian interfered with the 2016 presidential election.

Stone worked as an adviser during Trump's election campaign and says he won't reveal the nature of any of their conversations if questioned by Congress

Stone says he won't ever reveal who helped him communicate with WikiLeaks because he has no intention of burning his sources

But in addition to not revealing the source behind the WikiLeaks document dump, Stone has also said he would refuse to answer questions about his communication with Trump.

'I'm not going to disclose individual conversations with the president or communications with him,' he told Yahoo News.

Stone is a stout supporter and confidant of Trump and admitted to speaking to the president recently, but insisted their conversations were not about Russia.

The Republican political operative was due to attend the opening of his civil defamation trial in New York City this week.

His lawyer said he was didn't have the time though because he is so busy preparing for the possible grilling by the intelligence committee about Russian hacking.

He is being sued over a flyer sent to 150,000 New York households during the state's 2010 election that called the Libertarian Party candidate for governor, Warren Redlich, a 'sick twisted pervert.'
'Very concerning': Lib Dem leader Tim Farron, pictured, is calling on an urgent review

More than 1,600 classified documents including ID cards have gone missing or been stolen from the Ministry of Defence in just one year.

Officials recorded 2,923 security breaches in 2016 including 73 unauthorised entries into military bases. The figures came from defence minister Mark Lancaster in response to a parliamentary question from Tim Farron.

Calling for an urgent review, the Liberal Democrat leader said last night: Given that the threat level at the moment is severe, meaning an attack is likely, it is very concerning that security at military bases has been breached.

Classified material has gone missing, this should send a shiver down the spine of everyone who cares about our defence ... The Government need to wake up.

In his response, Mr Lancaster said all breaches were taken very seriously. He added: All incidents are subjected to an initial risk assessment, with further action taken on a proportionate basis.

Red alert: Britains current terror threat level remains at severe, according to MI5. Pictured above, the security services' headquarters in London

The MoD said: While none of these incidents resulted in any significant consequences, security and safety is of the utmost importance, with all breaches reported investigated appropriately.

Britains current terror threat level remains at severe, according to MI5  one short of the highest level, critical.

A level of critical means an attack is expected imminently.

In the wake of the Westminster terror attack last Wednesday, more troops have been deployed at the gates of military bases to provide an extra layer of security.

According to the figures, there were 1,640 information assurance security incidents reported for thefts or losses of classified material in 2016.

Lost and stolen ID cards accounted for 1,280 of this total. The remaining 360 incidents covered lost and stolen documents.

This included user access devices, hard disk drives, laptops and tablets, phones, CDs and USB device.

In the response, Mr Lancaster said: The MoD treats all breaches of security very seriously and requires all breaches to be reported regardless of whether there is firm evidence of breach or otherwise.

This cases in which there was an inability to account for a particular personal electronic device or an individual document for a period of time.

He added: All incidents are subjected to an initial security risk assessment, with further action taken on a proportionate basis.
A couple in China were devastated to find that a hospital had failed to keep the new mother's placenta and that it had been stolen by a cleaner.

The parents had asked the cleaner to return it to them but were shocked to find that the cleaner had already cooked and eaten it.

However a spokesperson from the hospital denied that the couple requested to keep the placenta and treated it as medical waste, reports Huanqiu, an affiliation with the People's Daily Online.

Mrs Lu gave birth to her son in east China last Friday and requested to keep her placenta after

However, the hospital told them they had thrown her placenta in the medical waste bin

The husband, Lu Yanggang said they wanted to bury the placenta in their home town in line with their village's culture. The pair reside in Anhui City.

Lu's wife went into labour and gave birth to a baby boy at Wuxing Subdistrict Community Health Service Centre in Changzhou on the afternoon of March 24.

They were told to come back for the placenta later as it would have to be sent for inspection.

The new parents visited the hospital two days later and were shocked to find that the placenta had been stolen.

'The doctor says we took it and obviously we didn't. Then we asked who they gave it to and the doctor replied saying a cleaner took it away,' Lu said to the reporters.

Then Lu's mother said: ' I found the cleaner and asked her about the placenta. She admitted to me she had already made soup with it and eaten it.'

Later, the doctors found out a hospital cleaner stole the placenta from the waste bin

The cleaner admitted that she had already eaten the placenta as she made soup with it

The family were furious and shouted at members of staff at the hospital.

Dr Li Wenwu, deputy head of the service centre explained new parents can only take away the placentas unless it is cleared of any pathological diseases.

'Mrs Lu gave birth on Friday afternoon and normally we will keep the placenta when waiting for blood test results. But her results came early on Saturday and we have checked that she did not request to take away, so we treated the placenta as medical waste and bin it,' Dr Li stated.

He also added during the process, a cleaner took the placenta away from the bin.

The cleaner had already been reported to Wuxing Street police station and both parties agreed to settle.

Dr Li admitted this incident had revealed a faulty system in the safe keeping of placentas. He said there was a lack of education with hospital staff on medical values.

Human placentas, also called as 'Ziheche' in Chinese medicine, claim to have high nutritious value. It is thought to stop post-natal depression.

It is also claimed to cure premature ejaculation for men.

While some people believe that the high content of hormones and protein can improve a person's skin.

However Chinese doctors advise people not to buy or consume any placentas that have not gone through professional checks and sanitation.
A two-bedroom apartment in Trump Tower, Vancouver, has gone on the market for $2,198,000 (US$1.65million or 1.3million).

The luxury pad in Vancouver - on the west side of Canada - is part of the latest development to be built under the Trump International Hotel & Tower brand. All 290 apartments in the Vancouver tower sold before the building was finished in November last year.

The two-bedroom apartment has doubled in price since it was bought 'off-plan' by an investor in 2014 and has never been lived in. We visited the property to take a closer look, and found that it was presented to a showroom standard.

All 290 apartments in the Vancouver tower sold before the building was finished last year

Would you buy an apartment for sale in Vancouver's Trump Tower, which also includes a hotel (pictured is the hotel entrance)

Pictured: Residents enter the tower via their own private entrance (on the right) which is separate to the main entrance to the hotel (on the left)

The Trump Tower building in Vancouver is not owned by the US President Donald Trump

The luxury apartment is on the 29th floor of Vancouver's Trump Tower and is for sale for $2.2m

The designer Archlinea kitchen includes a dining area and high-tech Gaggenau appliances

Anyone visiting the $2.2million flat must not be afraid of heights as it is on the 29th floor of the 69-floor 'twisting' tower that stands 616 ft high.

The apartment boasts a balcony that comes with views of the ocean and snow-capped mountains, as well as a gas connection for a BBQ.

The designer interior spans across 1,180 square feet and has an open plan living area with a stylish Archlinea kitchen that includes high-tech Gaggenau appliances.

There are other sized flats for sale in the tower for various prices. However, it is understood that this apartment is the most expensive flat for sale per square foot.

There are two bedrooms with ensuite bathrooms, which have polished marble floors and mat volcanic limestone sinks.

All of the blinds, temperature, lighting and home security are operated at the touch of a button view a Creston home automation system.

The apartment is decorated throughout in a soft colour scheme that includes light grey, brown, pink and white.

There are two spacious bedrooms with ensuite bathrooms and lighting that is controlled by the touch of a button

The MailOnline's Myra Butterworth visits the luxury apartment in Vancouver's Trump Tower

The ensuite bathroom features polished marble floors and a mat volcanic limestone sink

Vancouver is one of the world's most expensive property markets and investors who snapped up the apartments in the city's Trump Tower before they were built can expect to enjoy healthy profits if they sell at the current asking prices.

WHY YOU WON'T FIND FLOORS 4 OR 13... There are 69 floors in Vancouver's Trump Tower, including six that are underground. Anyone who visits the tower will find there are no floors numbered with 'four' - as the Chinese consider this number unlucky as it sounds like the word 'death - or '13' as this number is consider unlucky in the West. Advertisement

Local estate agent Les Twarog suggested that at least half of the tower's apartments would have been bought by overseas buyers, such as from China and Korea.

He claimed that many of the properties have remained empty, with investors preferring to avoid the hassle of tenants and any additional income they generate, focusing instead on capital gains.

However, this could soon change amid the city's introduction of a 1 per cent vacancy tax in July on all homes left empty for at least six months.

Describing the apartment we visited, local estate agent Les Twarog, said: 'This is a very desirable part of town to invest in as values have gone up by 40 per cent in the past three years. However, many investors are concerned about the vacancy tax introduced being introduced in July.'

The President doesn't own the building, but does allow the tower to use his name. (The owner and developer of Trump International Hotel & Tower Vancouver is TA Global Bhd.)

Residents who own a property in the tower have access to the hotels services and facilities, which are based on the levels below the apartments. These include its fitness centre and swimming pool, along with 10 per cent discounts at the fine dining Chinese restaurant Mott 32 and The Spa by Ivanka Trump.

The sale of the apartment is being handled by Angell Hasman & Associates agent Peter Joudaki, who explained: 'Many of the buyers viewing this suite are younger affluent Chinese that are attracted to the building because it offers incredible amenities and bares the Trump name which is internationally synonymous with luxury and status'.
Police drones fitted with lethal weapons could take to the skies in Connecticut.

Lawmakers are considering a bill that would allow police to use drones fitted with deadly weapons.

No other state currently allows police to use weaponized drones, and the proposal was immediately met with concern by civil rights and liberties advocates.

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Armed police drones fitted with lethal weapons could take to the skies in Connecticut (stock photo of drone with missiles)

US DRONE LAWS Lawmakers in Connecticut are considering a bill that would allow police to use drones fitted with deadly weapons for the first time. North Dakota is the only state that allows police to use weaponized drones, but limits the use to 'less lethal' weapons, including stun guns, rubber bullets and tear gas. Five states - Nevada, North Carolina, Oregon, Vermont and Wisconsin - prohibit anyone from using a weaponized drone. Maine and Virginia ban police from using armed drones, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Advertisement

The bill would ban the use of weaponized drones, but exempt police.

Details on how law enforcement could use drones with weapons would be spelled out in new rules to be developed by the state Police Officer Standards and Training Council.

Officers also would have to receive training before being allowed to use drones with weapons.

'Obviously this is for very limited circumstances,' said Republican state Senator John Kissel.

'We can certainly envision some incident on some campus or someplace where someone is a rogue shooter or someone was kidnapped and you try to blow out a tire.'

North Dakota is the only state that allows police to use weaponized drones, but limits the use to 'less lethal' weapons, including stun guns, rubber bullets and tear gas.

Five states - Nevada, North Carolina, Oregon, Vermont and Wisconsin - prohibit anyone from using a weaponized drone, while Maine and Virginia ban police from using armed drones, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

Several other states have restricted drone use in general.

No other state currently allows police to use weaponized drones, and the proposal was immediately met with concern by civil rights and liberties advocates (stock image)

WHERE ELSE DO POLICE USE WEAPONIZED DRONES? Iraq: Iraqi Federal Police have weaponized off-the-shelf drones in their fight against the Islamic State. On March 1, police began seeking out and attacking IS with DIY bombs attached to quadcopters, according to Twitter reports. India: Police in India purchased drones armed with pepper spray in attempt to help disperse 'rioting' crowds in Lucknow, the capital of the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. 'We have purchased five drone cameras with capacity of lifting two kg weight. They can be used to shower pepper powder on an unruly mob in case of any trouble,' Senior Superintendent of Police Yashasvi Yadav told PTI, an Indian news agency. Advertisement

'We have huge concerns that they would use this new technology to abuse our communities,' said Scot X. Esdaile, president of state chapter of the NAACP.

Esdaile said he has received calls from around the country from NAACP officials and others concerned about the Connecticut legislation.

Three police departments in the state - Hartford, Plainfield and Woodbury - began using drones within the past year, according to the American Civil Liberties Union of Connecticut.

'We would be setting a dangerous precedent,' said David McGuire, executive director of the state ACLU.

'It is really concerning and outrageous that that's being considered in our state legislature.

'Lethal force raises this to a level of real heightened concern.'

The bill also includes restrictions on drone use and reporting requirements that are supported by the ACLU.

It would require police to get a warrant before using a drone, unless there are emergency circumstances or the person who is the subject of the drone use gives permission.

It also would require police to report yearly on how often they use drones and why, and create new crimes and penalties for criminal use of drones, including voyeurism.

Although the bill overwhelmingly passed the Judiciary Committee, several members said they just wanted to see the proposal get to the House floor for debate.

They said they had concerns about police using deadly force with drones.

'I think that police are taught one thing,' said Democratic Bridgeport Sen. Edwin Gomes. '

You put a weapon in their hand, they shoot center mass, they shoot to kill. If it's going to be used, you're going to use it to kill somebody.'
Amateur archaeologists have made an incredible discovery after unearthing a 6ft (2m) long mammoth tusk.

The enormous bone was found off the coast of West Mersea, Essex, during a particularly low tide.

Mammoths' curved tusks grew up to 16ft (5m) long and were used to dig in the ground for food, rub bark from trees to eat, and fight one another for territory and mating.

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Amateur archaeologists have made an incredible discovery after unearthing a 6ft (two metre) long mammoth tusk (pictured). The incredible find was made by volunteers with local archaeological group Coastal and Intertidal Zone Archaeological Network (Citizan)

THE LAST OF BRITAIN'S WOOLLY MAMMOTHS Scientists discovered last year that Britain's last-known woolly mammoths died after falling into a hole left by melting blocks of ice. The fossils of five mammoth specimens were found in 1986 in a gravel pit in Condover, Shropshire. Research from the Natural History Museum in London found the creatures fell into a 'kettle hole' - lakes resulting from the melting of a mass of ice trapped in glacial deposits. The mammoths are then believed to have drowned in the lakes, around 14,000 years ago. 'These kettle holes would have been honey-traps,' said mammoth expert Victoria Herridge, a scientist at the museum. She added: 'They would have been surrounded by rich vegetation that attracted mammoths, possibly herds of them... Inevitably a few fell in.' Advertisement

The find was made by volunteers with local archaeological group Coastal and Intertidal Zone Archaeological Network (Citizan).

Project Officer Stephanie Ostrich, 33, says it's one of the most exciting finds the group has made since its inception in 2015.

'We wanted to take advantage of the particularly low tide this week to see if we could find any goodies, and we couldn't believe it when we found it,' she said.

'We noticed something was poking out of the gravel, and we thought "hey that looks a bit like ivory."'

'So we took some samples and a lot of photos, and we're hoping to make a 3D model of it using the photos.'

'We've left it where it is and taken a GPS location for now, but it was pretty in there so it should stay put.'

It is hoped that the team's 3D model of the tusk will be tallied with other mammoth finds in the area to find out more about the ancient beasts.

The London-based Citizan team works with amateur archaeologists along England's south east coast.

The mammoth tusk was found during a 'field walk' in which volunteers walk along a stretch of beach in a long line and record what they find.

Last October a mammoth tooth, believed to be up to three million years old, was found on an Essex beach.

The artefact was discovered at the Walton cliffs in Naze on the Essex coast.

The mammoth tusk was found during a 'field walk' in which volunteers walk along a stretch of beach in a long line and record what they find. The London-based Citizan team (three members are pictured at the Essex find) works with amateur archaeologists

The tusk was found off the coast of West Mersea, Essex, during a particularly low tide

The cliffs are famous for finding sharks' teeth, which come out of the London clay - a sediment which was laid out 50 million years ago.

The mammoth tooth may have come from the Red Crag formation which was laid out 3 million years ago.

Wendy and John Booth discovered the fossil at the Naze, where they often go searching.

Wendy said: 'I was ecstatic when I realised what it was.

'We are keeping it as a souvenir and are proudly displaying it in our cabinet at home.'

Scientists discovered last year that Britain's last-known woolly mammoths died after falling into a hole left by melting blocks of ice.

The fossils of five mammoth specimens were found in 1986 in a gravel pit in Condover, Shropshire.

Last October a mammoth tooth (pictured), believed to be up to three million years old, was found on an Essex beach. Discoverers Wendy and John Booth now keep the tooth on display in their cabinet at home

The mammoth molar was discovered at the Walton cliffs in Naze on the Essex coast. The cliffs are famous for finding sharks' teeth, which come out of the London clay - a sediment which was laid out 50 million years ago

The remains confounded scientists because there were so many in one location, suggesting something unusual killed them.

Research from the Natural History Museum in London found the creatures fell into a 'kettle hole' - lakes resulting from the melting of a mass of ice trapped in glacial deposits.

The mammoths are then believed to have drowned in the lakes, around 14,000 years ago.

'These kettle holes would have been honey-traps,' said Victoria Herridge, a scientist at the museum, told The Sunday Times.

She added: 'They would have been surrounded by rich vegetation that attracted mammoths, possibly herds of them... Inevitably a few fell in.'
An asteroid as big as a bus came closer to Earth than the moon last night.

The object, dubbed 2017 FJ101, zoomed passed within 202,000 miles (325,087 km) of our planet.

But the near-Earth asteroid posed no threat to our planet or the moon, scientists said.

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An asteroid as big as a bus came closer to Earth than the moon last night. The object, dubbed 2017 FJ101, zoomed passed within 202,000 miles (325,087 km) of our planet (stock image)

WHAT WOULD HAVE HAPPENED IF IT HIT? According to an asteroid-impact simulator called 'Impact Earth!' by Purdue University, if a porous rock asteroid of 111 feet (34 meters) long hit Earth at a 45-degree angle, the simulator found, it would have exploded as an air burst. The site says the blast would have released about 700 kilotons' worth of energy  dozens of times more powerful than the atomic bomb detonated over Hiroshima. However, since it would have occurred from a distance of about 10 miles high, it probably wouldn't have had much effect on the ground; if anything, a high-altitude boom may have sounded as loud as heavy traffic on the ground. Advertisement

The asteroid, which is 26ft (eight metres) wide, was first spotted by the Pan-STARRS 1 telescope located on the summit of the Haleakala volcano on Maui, Hawaii on March 25.

On average, the moon orbits around 238,855 miles (384,400km) away from our planet.

But the bus-sized object came around 36,8555 miles closer to the Earth than the moon last night.

For years scientists have been trying to work out how to deal with the threat of an asteroid, which could hit us with little or no warning.

Now the White House has released an official document describing the plan if a meteor or asteroid was to head our way, and it shows we are under-prepared.

The White House published its 'National Near-Earth Object Preparedness Strategy'.

But the near-Earth asteroid posed no threat to our planet or the moon, scientists said. Pictured is a diagram showing the orbit paths of the Earth and asteroid 2017 FJ101

The White House has released an official document describing the plan if a meteor or asteroid was to head our way, and it shows we are under-prepared. Artist's impression pictured

The document 'seeks to improve our nation's preparedness to address the hazard of near-Earth object (NEO) impacts by enhancing the integration of existing national and international assets and adding important capabilities that are currently lacking.'

NEOs are asteroids or comets that have an orbit that brings them near or into Earth's orbit.

If one of these was to zoom towards Earth in the future, it would not be the first time.

THE SEVEN MAIN GOALS Enhance NEO detection, tracking and characterization capabilities. Develop methods for NEO deflection and disruption. Improve modelling, predictions, and information integration. Develop emergency procedures for NEO impact scenarios. Establish NEO impact response and recovery procedures. Leverage and support international cooperation. Establish coordination and communications protocols and thresholds for taking action. Advertisement

A 56 foot (17-metre) meteor that struck Chelyabinsk, Russia, in 2013, injured more than 1,000 people came with no warning.

This is why one of the strategies outlined in the document is to improve on Nasa's methods of detecting NEOs before it is too late.

In seven main goals described in the document, the White House also focuses on improving modelling and predicting where NEOs will travel.

The country also plans to improve it emergency alert systems and invest in hi-tech space probes that could annihilate threats.

The document notes, as with other low-probability, high-consequence hazards, 'potential NEO impacts pose a significant and complex challenge.'

'This Strategy is a step in addressing the myriad challenges of managing and reducing the risks posed by both large and small NEOs,' it claims.

At the end of last year, Nasa warned we are not prepared for an asteroid strike.

Dr Joseph Nuth, a researcher at Nasa's Goddard Space Flight Centre in Maryland was speaking at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union in December.

He said: 'The biggest problem, basically, is there's not a hell of a lot we can do about it at the moment.'

In the 1998 film Deep Impact, a comet is hurtling toward Earth and could mean the end of all human life. The US government keeps the crisis under wraps, but a crack reporter uncovers the truth, forcing U.S. President Beck (Morgan Freeman, pictured) to announce his plan

NASA'S ASTEROID REDIRECT MISSION Nasa is planning an ambitious mission that will see a robotic spaceship visit an asteroid to create an orbiting base for astronauts. The robot shipwill pluck a large boulder off the space rock and sling it aroundthe moon, becoming a destination to prepare for futurehuman missions to Mars. Nasa plans to study the asteroid for about a year and test deflection techniques that one day may be necessary to save Earth from a potentially catastrophic collision. Advertisement

While dangerous asteroids and comets rarely hit Earth, Dr Nuth warned that the threat was always there.

He said: '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.'

Nasa is working on a series of missions including an asteroid redirect mission, that will see a robotic spaceship visit an asteroid to create an orbiting base for astronauts.

The space agency has a team of scientists who are always watching the skies for potential threats.

But while the US is upping its tactics to seek out the dangerous space rocks, other countries might be even less prepared.

In a planned mission, a robot ship will pluck a large boulder off an asteroid and sling it around the moon, becoming a destination to prepare for future human missions to Mars, the US space agency revealed last year

In the Spacecraft Structures Lab at Nasa's Langley Research Center, the Asteroid Redirect Mission robotic contact and restraint system was prototyped and tested

The US is undecided on whether to invest and prepare costly space technology to intercept those that will not affect its own country.

The document, however, suggests the country is looking to collaborate with other nations in the future.

'NEO impacts are a global hazard and could have major environmental, economic, and geopolitical consequences detrimental to the United States, even if the impact is beyond US territory,' it says.

'Although currently a global leader in detecting and tracking NEOs, the United States will depend (in part) on international cooperation and coordination to help develop capabilities for characterization and future capabilities related to the development and implementation of deflection and disruption capabilities for NEOs.'


In the 2009 blockbuster 'Avatar,' a human remotely controls the body of an alien, by injecting human intelligence into a biological body.

While this still remains in the realm of science fiction, researchers have managed to create a similar system that allows humans to remotely control turtles.

The incredible system, which is operated via a device on the turtle's shell, can 'read' and use human thought to control the animal's movement.

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Korean researchers have created a human-turtle interaction system which allows humans to control turtles using just their minds via a brain-computer interface (stock)

MOVING TURTLES WITH MIND-CONTROL A 'cyborg system' which consists of a camera, a Wi-Fi transceiver, a computer control module and a battery is mounted on the turtle's shell. Also included on the turtle's shell is a black semi-cylinder with a slit, which forms the 'stimulation device'. The human wears a display on their head so they can see exactly what the turtle is doing in real-time and the brain-computer interface (BCI) allows them to use their thoughts to direct it. When they decide where the turtle should move these thoughts are recognised by the BCI system as electrical activity in the brain. The BCI can distinguish between three mental states: left, right and idle. Left and right commands activate the turtle's stimulation device via Wi-Fi, turning it so that it obstructs the turtle's view. Advertisement

Researchers from the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) developed the technology that can 'read' and use human thought to control machines using 'brain-computer interfaces' (BCIs).

Scientists are using this technology to establish a link between the brains of different species.

A 'cyborg system' which consists of a camera, a Wi-Fi transceiver, a computer control module and a battery is mounted on the turtle's shell.

Also included on the turtle's shell is a black semi-cylinder with a slit, which forms the 'stimulation device'.

The human wears a display on their head so they can see exactly what the turtle is doing in real-time and the BCI allows them to use their thoughts to direct it.

When they decide where the turtle should move these thoughts are recognised by the BCI system as electrical activity in the brain.

The BCI can distinguish between three mental states: left, right and idle.

A 'cyborg system' which consists of a camera, a Wi-Fi transceiver, a computer control module and a battery is mounted on the turtle's shell. Also included on the turtle's shell is a black semi-cylinder with a slit, which forms the 'stimulation device'

Left and right commands activate the turtle's stimulation device via Wi-Fi, turning it so that it obstructs the turtle's view.

This invokes its natural instinct to move toward light and change its direction.

The human can see where the turtle is going using the video camera mounted on its shell.

'Brain-Computer Interface techniques have advanced to a level where it is now eliminating the need for hand-based activation', the researchers wrote in their paper, published in the Journal of Bionic Engineering.

'These devices could evoke the turtle's instinctive escape behaviour to guide its moving path, and turtles were remotely controlled in both indoor and outdoor environments.'

In the 2009 blockbuster 'Avatar,' a human remotely controls the body of an alien. While this still remains in the realm of science fiction, researchers have managed to create a similar system that allows humans to remotely control turtles

Research demonstrates that the animal guiding scheme via BCI can be used in a variety of environments with turtles moving on many different surfaces, like gravel and grass, and tackling a range of obstacles, such as shallow water and trees.

'Our system could act as a framework for future human-animal interaction systems', the researchers added.
Last year it was revealed that parts of rural Britain have slower internet speeds than Everest base camp.

Yet there's yet more bad news for forgotten countryside inhabitants as experts say the UK government's plans to roll out 5G will require at least 400,000 new masts.

A report found that mobile users in half of England still cannot access 4G and will have to put up with at least ten time the number of masts if they want to get a faster service.

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Experts from British universities say government plans to roll out 5G will require at least 400,000 new masts which will be up to 80ft (24 metres) tall (stock image)

SLUGGISH INTERNET Chancellor Phillip Hammond pledged to invest 1.1 billion on developing the 5G coverage. Experts say government plans to roll out 5G will require at least 400,000 new masts. The new masts will be up to 80ft (24 metres) tall. A report by consumer watchdog Which? found that mobile users in half of England are yet to get access to 4G - let alone 5G. Experts have warned the UK is a long way off speeding up super slow internet and mobile coverage by the early 2020s as promised by the Chancellor. Advertisement

Chancellor Phillip Hammond pledged to invest 1.1 billion on developing the 5G coverage which he said would put an end to super slow internet and mobile coverage by the early 2020s.

However experts from British universities have warned that this will mean the countryside is plagued by hundreds of thousands of masts, some of which could be 80ft (24 metres) tall.

'There is nowhere near enough capacity to deliver what we think the system needs, there never has been', Professor Will Stewart, of the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET) told the Telegraph.

He said there are currently between 30,000 and 40,000 masts in the UK and estimated that this would need to increase by at least ten times more.

'One of the things you are going to see in five years is the masts getting taller, to get more coverage. 25 metres [80ft] is what the mobile operators are asking for', he said.

A report by consumer watchdog Which? found that mobile users in half of England are yet to get access to 4G - let alone 5G.

'The coverage is enormously important. It's not just ex-Prime Minister's who are concerned that they can't get coverage in Cornwall', said Dr Stewart.

'We need services to always work, we see them now as a utility', he said.

A report by consumer watchdog Which? found that mobile users in half of England are yet to get access to 4G - let alone 5G (stock image)

Coverage is so weak in some rural areas that the UK's largest mobile phone group EE said they are making airborne devices that will be able to deliver 4G data on demand to fix so-called mobile 'notspots'.

The mini broadcast sites, named 'Helikites' are made of an antennae attached to a balloon and a base station.

Customers will be able to request these balloons which hover up to 90 metres in the air and can provide 4G coverage over a 4km radius.

The HM Treasury released a report this week saying that advances in 5G will fuel revolutionary technologies such as 'as automated cars and advanced manufacturing, as well as enabling the many thousands of connected devices, such as smart energy meters'.

However, others have suggested that bringing 5G to rural Britain is a long way off considering that 4G coverage is still inaccessible for many people.

'The rural coverage problem is a big headache. If coverage wasnt there in 4G it won't be in 5G', Mischa Dohler, Professor of Wireless Communication at Kings College told the Telegraph.
Porn lovers rejoice. Your dirty habits are now easier to hide.

In a bid to make its users feel secure when viewing content, one of the world's biggest porn sites, Pornhub, has announced that it is officially switching on encryption by default.

The change, which will be made on April 4, will ensure the confidentiality and privacy of users, while also offering enhanced security against hackers and malware.

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In a bid to make its users feel secure when you viewing this content, Pornhub has announced that it is officially switching to HTTPS (stock image)

WHAT IS HTTPS? Hyper Text Transfer Protocol Secure (HTTPS) is the secure version of HTTP, the protocol over which data is sent between your browser and the website that you are connected to. HTTPS offers users three key layers of protection: 1) Encryption to keep data secure from third parties 2) Integrity to ensure data can't be corrupted 3) Authenticity to prove that users are communicating with the correct website Advertisement

Pornhub decided to make the change in light of Congress' repeal of Internet privacy rules that just passed, allowing internet service providers to sell browsing history.

According to a recent Google Transparency Report, Pornhub is one of the 100 most visited websites in the world.

Of those top 100 websites, only three out of 11 adult websites listed are HTTPS.

Corey Price, Vice President of Pornhub, said: 'Here at Pornhub, with more than 70 million daily visitors, we wanted to continue our concerted effort to maximise the privacy of our users, ensuring that what they do on our platform remains strictly confidential.

'With the switch to HTTPS we are able to protect their identity as well as safeguard them against exposure to malware by third parties.

'With this internet communication protocol we can ensure not only the security of our platform, but also that of our users.

'At the end of the day, we want every single one of them to feel safe and secure on our platform while enjoying our library of over five million videos.'

HTTPS offers users three key layers of protection - encryption to keep data secure from third parties, integrity to ensure data can't be corrupted and authenticity to prove that users are communicating with the correct website.

By switching to HTTPS, Pornhub believes that its users can trust that they will have a secure and private online experience (stock image)

WOMEN WATCH MORE PORN ON THEIR PHONES THAN MEN Pornhub found that 71% of its female users visit the portal using a smartphone and are 34% less likely to use desktop computers than men. 80% of women who visit the site opt to use a smartphone or table, compared to 69% of their male counterparts. 78% of millennials, aged 18-34, watch on their smartphone. 53% of women are Android users and 45% are iOS fans. In Washington D.C, 94 percent of the female traffic comes from mobile, Texas has 93% and Georgia and Michigan are tied with 92%. On a global scale it was South Africa that had the most female traffic using a mobile device  91%. Then the US with 89% and the UK and Pakistan with 86%. Advertisement

By switching to HTTPS, Pornhub believes that its users can trust that they will have a secure and private online experience, with pages that load at a faster rate.

Brad Burns, Vice President of YouPorn, another adult site that is switching to HTTPS, said: 'As one of the most viewed websites in the world, it is our duty to ensure the confidentially and safety of our users.

'The transition to HTTPS will go a long way in solidifying our users' privacy and protecting them against various types of malware.

'The data on our webpages will now be encrypted, making it significantly harder for third parties to penetrate.'

The move to HTTPS comes shortly after Pornhub was the target of hackers last year.

Hackers managed to access the details about members  but thankfully did not leak the information.

Instead two 'white hat hackers'  so called because they use their skills for good  received a 20,000 reward, or 'bug bounty' from the site, for revealing its vulnerabilities so it could keep data more secure.
Researchers have discovered that specific combinations of personality traits within a breeding pair of pandas can have an impact on their breeding success.

For example, excitable males that paired with less-excitable females fared better reproductively.

The findings could help conservationists boost the number of vulnerable giant pandas.

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Researchers found that males that were more aggressive than their female partners were more likely to mate and produce cubs than any other personality combination

According to the study, published in the journal Biological Conservation, breeding successes or failures may depend on whether a bear's disposition is complementary to that of its prospective mate.

They found that males that were more aggressive than their female partners, when paired, were more likely to mate and produce cubs than any other personality combination.

Pairs where the male had low levels of fearfulness, regardless of fearfulness of the female, showed higher intromission (inserting the penis into the vagina) successes than other pairs.

To conduct the study, researchers from San Diego Zoo Global, a mission to save species worldwide, studied the behavior of pandas at the Chinese Conservation and Research Center for the Giant Panda at Bifengxia in China.

They conducted personality studies on 19 females and 10 male giant pandas during non-breeding season.

The biologists assessed the personality of each giant panda through animal caretaker personality surveys and object response tests.

A giant panda eats at the Bifengxia Base of the China Conservation and Research Center for the Giant Panda after a strong earthquake hit China's Sichuan Province on April 27, 2013 in Ya'an, China

They were divided into several personality categories based on their exploratory ability, aggressiveness, excitability, fearfulness and general activity.

Traits such as excitability were assessed based on whether the panda overreacted to changed in the environment, and fearfulness was assessed if the panda retreated and hid readily from other pandas.

Then they tested how the differences in each of these traits influenced the willingness of the bears to mate with one another, and whether these pairings produced offspring.

Pandas were placed with one opposite-sex individual for mating purposes on at least three different occasions - with no more than three separate individuals.

For the study, pandas were divided into several personality categories based on their exploratory ability, aggressiveness, excitability, fearfulness and general activity

The findings of the research are important because they could help conservationists increase panda numbers.

The International Union for Conservation of Nature last year reclassified the giant panda as vulnerable, instead of endangered, a more severe category that the species used to fall in.

Current conservation efforts are working and population numbers are increasing.

Currently, researchers count nearly 2,000 giant pandas living in their native habitats - and the majority of them as adults.

While breeding and reintroduction programs are becoming more effective by providing more pandas to bolster the wild populations, learning more about how personality combinations affect breeding success could further boost the number of pandas.

San Diego Zoo Global's role in panda conservation began decades ago, when the San Diego Zoo first introduced two giant pandas- on loan from China - to the American public.

The Zoo's giant panda breeding program began after female panda Bai Yun arrived in 1996.

She was the first panda to successfully give birth to surviving cubs in the United States - and since then, she has helped researchers and keepers learn more about panda behavior, pregnancy, birth and maternal care.
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Elon Musk's SpaceX made history yesterday by sending its first recycled rocket back into space.

However, Elon Musk already has his eyes on the next goal - to recycle and refly rockets within 24 hours.

Musk also revealed the record breaking attempt had seen the firm parachute the rockets $6m nosecone back to Earth for the first time.

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SpaceX boss Elon Musk said he already already has his eyes on the next goal - to recycle and refly rockets within 24 hours.

'That was the cherry on the cake,' Musk, who serves as chief executive and lead designer of Space Exploration Technologies, told reporters after launch from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Measuring 43 feet (13 meters) long and 17 feet (5 meters) in diameter, the nosecone is big enough to hold a school bus. It separates into two pieces, exposing the satellite, about 4 minutes after liftoff.

As a test, SpaceX outfitted the fairing with thrusters and a steerable parachute.

'It's its own little spacecraft,' Musk said.

'The thrusters maintain its orientation as it re-enters and then ... the parachute steers it to a particular location.'

The nose cones, which are made of carbon fiber and aluminum honeycomb, could potentially be reused.

Blast off! The incedible new images reveal the historic launch close up. Elon Musk also revealed the record breaking attempt had seen the firm parachute the rockets $6m nosecone, clearly visible in the center image, back to Earth for the first time.

About three and a half minutes after liftoff, the fairing split in two and began to fall toward Earth, before the SpaceX thruster systems kicked in.

When the fairings slow enough, they deploy parachutes to land.

After some debate about whether the nosecone could be recovered, Musk said he told his engineering team, 'Imagine you had $6 million in cash on a pallet flying through the air that's just going to smash into the ocean. Would you try to recover that? Yes, you would.'

Musk envisions deploying a kind of 'bouncy castle' for the fairing to land on so it can be recovered intact and reused.

The company plans up to six more flights of recycled boosters this year, including two that will strapped alongside a third, new first-stage for the debut test flight of a heavy-lift rocket.

It is the first time the firm has reused a booster, which previously sent food and supplies to astronauts aboard the International Space Station.

Originally slated to fly in 2013, Falcon Heavy is now expected to fly late this summer.

'At first it sounded easy.

'We'll just take two first stages and use them as strap-on boosters,' Musk said. 'It was actually shockingly difficult to go from single core to a triple-core vehicle.'

SpaceX also may try to land the rocket's upper-stage section, a feat the company has never attempted. 'Odds of success low, but maybe worth a shot,' Musk wrote on Twitter on Friday.

In what was billed as a 'revolutionary' achievement for space technology, the firm's Falcon 9 rocket blasted off from Cape Canaveral at 6:27 pm ET (11:27 pm BST), before landing back on the firm's drone ship for a second time.

It was pictured soaring toward space above a Virgin Airlines passenger jet, which had just departed Orlando International Airport.

It is the first time the firm has reused a booster, which previously sent food and supplies to astronauts aboard the International Space Station.

However, Musk has already tweeted the firm's next goal - to refly within 24 hours.

Incredibly proud of the SpaceX team for achieving this milestone in space! Next goal is reflight within 24 hours.  Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 30, 2017

Musk foresees dozens if not hundreds of repeat flights for a booster and rocket turnarounds of as little as 24 hours, perhaps by next year.

Land, refuel and then back up again, with everything leading to one day putting humanity 'out there among the stars.'

Longtime customer SES got a discount for agreeing to use a salvaged rocket, but wouldn't say how much. It's not just about the savings, said chief technology officer Martin Halliwell.

He called it 'a big step for everybody - something that's never, ever been done before.'

SES, the customer for the mission, said it is considering more launches later this year on reused Falcon boosters.

'Absolutely astounding,' Halliwell said after his company's satellite reached the proper orbit. 'Just opened the door into a whole new era of spaceflight.'

SpaceX granted SES insight into the entire process of getting the booster ready to fly again, Halliwell said, providing confidence everything would go well.

SES, in fact, is considering more launches later this year on reused Falcon boosters.

At a news conference, Musk personally thanked Halliwell for having faith in SpaceX.

'You've got to get away from the idea that it's secondhand,' Halliwell told reporters.

'Flight proven,' Musk quickly added, his preferred term.

SpaceX boss Elon Musk said he already already has his eyes on the next goal - to recycle and refly rockets within 24 hours following the historic launch

Boosters - the most expensive part of the rocket, according to Musk - typically are discarded following liftoff, sinking into the Atlantic.

SpaceX began flying back the Falcon's first-stage, kerosene-fueled boosters in 2015; it's since landed eight boosters, three at Cape Canaveral and five on ocean platforms - actually, six times at sea counting Thursday's redo.

Elon Musk's (inset) Falcon 9 rocket soared into the sky over Cape Canaveral yesterday. Soon after launch, its first stag rocket spilt from the second-stage payload. Once the first stage hit maximum altitude, the second stage headed into space to release 11 satellites. Cold gas boosters then position the first stage into a vertical alignment for its return to Earth

On Thursday, the company even managed to recover the Falcon's $6 million satellite enclosure, which used thrusters and parachutes to drop into the Atlantic. Until Thursday, trying to retrieve the second stage used to get the satellite into the proper, high orbit seemed like a 'Hail Mary' pass, Musk said. But no more.

Musk said this day was 15 years in coming and that, all told, the reusability effort has cost the company at least $1 billion, which will take time to recoup.

He brought all five of his young sons to the launch - and the news conference that followed - wanting them to be witness to history-in-the-making.

It was fitting, he noted, that the rocket took off from NASA's Launch Complex 39A at Kennedy Space Center, the starting point for the Apollo moon shots decades ago.

A recycled SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket soared toward space above a Virgin Airlines passenger jet, which had just departed Orlando International Airport, in Orlando, Florida, March 30

The launch marked the first time ever that a rocket was reused for spaceflight. It is seen above soaring past a Virgin Airlines jet in Florida

The Falcon 9 rocket which will send a satellite into space to provide TV and internet services launched last night from Cape Canaveral at 6.27pm ET (11.27pm BST)

'We've had an incredible day, an amazing day for space as a whole, and for the space industry,' said Elon Musk, CEO of SpaceX.

'It's been 15 years to get to this point, but I'm just incredibly proud of the SpaceX team for being able to achieve this - I'm sort of at a loss for words.'

Standing tall at the Nasa launchpad, the white Falcon 9 rocket contained the tall, column-like booster stage of the vessel.

This propelled the unmanned Dragon cargo ship to the ISS last year, before returning to an upright landing on an ocean platform.

SpaceX hopes that by repeating this success, it will prove the long-term viability of reusable rockets - which could dramatically cut costs and waste in the space industry.

The rocket sent the SES-10 satellite - built by Airbus Defence and Space - into orbit around the planet.

The satellite will be used to provide direct-to-home television and high-speed data services across Latin America and the Caribbean.

SES was an early supporter of SpaceX, the rocket builder's first commercial customer and the first to sign up for a ride on a 'flight proven' booster.

Seconds after blast off the Falcon 9 rocket was seen streaking into the sky over Cape Canaveral. The satellite will be used to provide direct-to-home television and high-speed data services across Latin America and the Caribbean

After the launch, the Falcon was able to return to Earth, by deploying its 'hypersonic grid fins' which steered it back down to the landing site

Right on schedule the rocket made another perfect landing on SpaceX's drone ship. After recovery, it was taken back to Port Canaveral and subjected to a detailed post flight inspection

'Having been the first commercial satellite operator to launch with SpaceX back in 2013, we are excited to once again be the first customer to launch on SpaceX's first ever mission using a flight-proven rocket,' Martin Halliwell, chief technology officer at SES, said.

'We believe reusable rockets will open up a new era of spaceflight, and make access to space more efficient in terms of cost and manifest management.'

The Dragon, which was first launched on April 8, 2016, was the first the firm managed to land on a droneship.

After recovery, it was taken back to Port Canaveral and subjected to a detailed post flight inspection.

THE REUSABLE ROCKET RACE Reusable rockets would cut costs and waste in the space industry, which currently loses millions of dollars in jettisoned machinery after each launch. Russia, Japan and the European Space Agency are also developing similar technology and are in testing stages. Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon.com and owner of The Washington Post newspaper, said last month that Blue Origin expects to begin crewed test flights of the New Shepard, the company's flagship rocket, next year and begin flying paying passengers as early as 2018. The Indian space agency also hopes to develop its own frugal shuttle, as it seeks to cash in on a huge and lucrative demand from other countries to send up their satellites, after a successful test launch last month. Advertisement

Standing tall at the Nasa launchpad, the white Falcon 9 rocket, emblazoned with the SpaceX logo, contained the tall, column-like booster stage of the vessel

SpaceX test fired the nine first-stage engines of a previously flown Falcon 9 on Monday (pictured). Yesterday's historic launch saw the Dragon take to the skies again

It was then refurbished, tested again and prepared for its second launch.

On Monday, the firm test fired the nine first-stage engines of the previously flown Falcon 9 booster stage in the final pre-flight test in anticipation of last night's launch.

'Static fire test complete. Targeting Thursday, March 30 for Falcon 9 launch of SES-10,' the firm tweeted following the tests.

In the test, the rocket's nine Merlin 1D engines roared to life at 2pm EDT (GMT-5) for three seconds at pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center.

Known as a 'hot-fire' test, it is a routine pre-flight procedure for SpaceX to help engineers verify the rocket is ready for launch.

SpaceX has made 13 attempts to recover first stages after launch, successfully bringing back eight boosters to date.

Five of those landed on off-shore drone ships while three returned to landings at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.

Last month amazing footage showed the historic moment the first stage of the Falcon 9 touched down at Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral on the launch pad.

The SpaceX rocket descended through the clouds before landing right in the middle of the pad, a perfect landing after a rocky start.

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk captioned the video on Instagram: 'Baby came back.'

In June last year Elon Musk announced the same Falcon 9 rocket, which launched the Thaicom 8 communications satellite, was back in the hangar with the three other first stages that had also made it safely back on the ground. All four pictured in the hangar

This is the first SpaceX mission to take off from the pad, and the first in Florida since last September.

One of the company's rockets exploded on another Cape Canaveral pad, severely damaging it.

It is also the third SpaceX rocket to land on solid ground.

The moment indicates that Nasa's moonshot pad is back in business.

Falcon 9 touched down at Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral in 2016, on the launch pad that was was used to send Neil Armstrong to the moon

SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket lifted off from Launch Complex 39A in April 2016 - the same spot from which astronauts flew to the moon 48 years ago. It carried 5,000 pounds of supplies to astronauts on the ISS. It landed again after the mission

SpaceX has only landed a rocket safely on solid ground two times before, although it has made other landings on sea platforms. The pad it launched from has been leased from Nasa for the next six years

The rocket, which was sent up from the same spot from which astronauts flew to the moon 48 years ago, carried a Dragon supply ship containing food and other goods for the six astronauts aboard the International Space Station.

The pad - at Launch Complex 39A - has been leased by SpaceX for the next six years. It was last used for Nasa's final shuttle mission nearly six years ago.

After it had launched from Launch Complex 39A and made the payload, the booster rocket was returned safely to Earth at a different part of Cape Canaveral.

That made it the third SpaceX rocket to be successfully landed on solid ground, and the first to do so in daylight. Five other successful landings have been made on sea-based platforms.
It was meant be Samsung's 'saving grace', but the Galaxy S8 has already caused Android users to worry.

An early reviewer discovered a flaw in the facial recognition feature, which lets users unlock the smartphone by looking at the front-facing 'with lighting capabilities'.

It was found that the technology can be easily bypassed by holding up a photo displayed on another handset - instead of the user's real face.

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An early reviewer discovered a flaw in the facial recognition feature, which lets users unlock the smartphone by looking at the front-facing 'with lighting capabilities'. It was found that the technology can be easily bypassed by holding up a photo displayed on another handset

SAMSUNG GALAXY S8 - Two new models are being released, the 5.8-inch S8 and the 6.2-inch S8+ - A pressure sensitive home button is fitted under the lower portion of the screen - The device's fingerprint scanner has been relocated at the rear of the phone - Face tracking technology allows you to unlock the screen by looking into the front camera - The main camera has been enhanced by multi-frame image processing, which takes three images at once Advertisement

The facial recognition in the smartphone has proved to have lightening quick capabilities and the facial tracking features are able to instantly recognize the users face  the process seems to be much faster than fingerprint recognition.

But the latest development has suggested that Samsung may have traded security for convenience.

Blogger Marcianophone setup a S8 handset with his face at the Unpacked event, which unveiled the new Android, and in seconds, revealed how simple it was to trick the facial recognition technology with just a selfie.

This also means that it would be possible to use the face of a user who is sleeping.

Forbes has noted that because the smartphone was at the unveiling it may not be running on the final software meant to hit the market.

Regardless, this mishap is making some users weary about how secure the phone is, which is the last thing Samsung might want hear the Galaxy S8 was meant to help the firm's reputation, not tarnish even more.

The South Korean firm has acknowledged the flaw and explained that the facial recognition technology was not meant to be a security feature.

However, it did say that it serves as another way to get to the Home screen- as opposed to Slide to Lock.

Blogger Marcianophone (pictured) setup a S8 handset with his face at the Unpacked event, which unveiled the new Android, and in seconds, revealed how simple it was to trick the facial recognition technology with just a selfie (pictured)

'Facial recognition is a convenient action to open your phone  similar to the 'swipe to unlock' action,' said a Samsung spokesperson in a statement sent to Business Insider.

'We offer the highest level of biometric authentication  fingerprint and iris  to lock your phone and authenticate access to Samsung Pay or Secure Folder.'

The South Korean firm has acknowledged the flaw and explained that the facial recognition technology was not meant to be a security feature. However, it did say that it serves as another way to get to the Home screen- as opposed to Slide to Lock.

Samsung has also announced that users who plan on using the facial recognition technology should considering using fingerprints or iris scanners instead, as these two are not as easily tricked.

The firm hopes that the phone will help it make a comeback after its Note 7 exploding phone fiasco last year, which cost it $3 billion (2.4 million) in lost profit.

However, it seems that the phone has not gotten off on the right foot and only time will tell if it will make or break Samsung.
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With miles of spotless sandy beaches, a buzzing nightlife scene and a culture that is slowly embracing a more open and global outlook, Cuba is waking up to the outside world, and finding its way on to more and more travel wish lists.

But the common complaint from visitors?

Bland, uninspiring food, from frozen pizzas to endless rice and beans. One company, however  Access Trips  is leading the way, showing visitors how to avoid the tourist traps, steer clear of pitfalls and sample the fresh food and iconic drinks that the country has to offer.

With miles of spotless sandy beaches, a buzzing nightlife scene and a culture that is slowly embracing a more open and global outlook, Cuba is waking up to the outside world, and finding its way on to more and more travel wish lists

Access Trips is leading the way, showing visitors how to avoid the tourist traps, steer clear of pitfalls and sample the fresh food and iconic drinks that the country has to offer. Vinales valley, above, a picturesque sweep of greenery

Curious to see if I really could try out gourmet dishes in a location known more for strict rations and times of hardship, I packed my dancing shoes, grabbed my bags and caught a connecting flight from Miami.

While we had been told in advance that a 1956 Dodge would be our ride for the week, nothing quite prepared us for the rows upon rows of vintage cars stretching out at the airport.

Arriving at our villa, complete with the relief of air con and a complimentary rum and coke, we just had time for a quick dip in the pool before our very first meal in Cuba.

The private restaurant, or paladar, was called Atelier, and art covered almost every inch of the walls.

Many of the recipes paid homage to French cuisine, but the standout dishes were made up of Cuban ingredients  from gently spiced black beans to incredibly tender octopus.

Tender octopus served at the private restaurant, or paladar, Atelier (left) and cocktail making classes (right)

The next day we headed off to a mojito-making class followed by a cooking demonstration at one of the citys oldest paladars, La Fontana.

We discovered that most restaurants dont have professional stoves, so ingredients like rabbit, black beans and aubergines all benefit from long and slow cooking methods, but any fresh seafood does tend to suffer.

A few mojitos later and we were ushered up a terrifyingly rickety staircase for a salsa class, courtesy of some local dancers.

What followed was a sweaty but joyous hour or so where we struggled to get our feet  and our hips  around the rhythms of Cuban tunes.

Having gracefully put up with our fumbled steps, the dancers post-lesson demonstration showed us quite how much we still had left to learn.

Lauren visited Cubas best-known restaurant, La Guarida, as featured in the Oscar-nominated movie Fresa y Chocolate, where she tried watermelon gazpacho (left) and tender lobster on creamy rice (right)

She also sampled snapper carpaccio (right) and a chocolate and strawberry dessert (left)

We were treated to a breakfast of fragrant fresh mango juice the next day, before heading to a market where we could see the in-season fruit on sale.

Then it was off to Cubas best-known restaurant, La Guarida, as featured in the Oscar-nominated movie Fresa y Chocolate.

We made it past crumbling murals of Castro up three flights of stairs to the paladar, where course after course of world-class food was laid out in front of us.

From watermelon gazpacho and snapper carpaccio to tender lobster on creamy rice, the food was a delight.

And, of course, we had to order the chocolate and strawberry dessert, in homage to the movies namesake dish.

Near Trinidad on the south coast of the island, Lauren visited a local fishing village where she bought the most magnificent snapper

Rolling out on to the street we were whisked away to our guides home, all soaring ceilings and warm hospitality, where we were greeted by his wife, her delicious home-cooking and a masterclass from someone who was undoubtedly a master  the man who stood behind the bar of Hemingways haunt El Floridita for 39 years.

He made mixing the perfect daiquiri look easy (the secret is apparently to add a few drops of maraschino liqueur to take the edge off the acidity) and we tentatively tried our hand at the recipe, with varying degrees of success.

An early breakfast the next day was followed by a long drive to Vinales Valley, a picturesque sweep of greenery.

Our first stop was a tobacco farm, where we were offered mellow cigars dipped in honey, allegedly Fidels favourite.

We were given lunch at a farm that uses all-natural methods to grow a staggering array of fruit and vegetables.

A quick look at one of the countrys old coffee plantations followed, then it was back to Havana for a relaxing evening.

A 40-minute drive the next day led us to a farm called Finca Marta  named after the owners mother.

Floridita turned out to be a tourist trap and Lauren spent the rest of the evening listening to live music in the buzzing bars of Obispo in Old Havana

Her son, Fernando, had spent decades researching agricultural theory, then moved to an overgrown former farm to put his theories into practise.

Today the farm supplies around 25 restaurants in Havana, as well as producing tonnes of honey, all while paying their staff proper wages for their work and rolling out their expertise to the surrounding area.

Fernando was so enthusiastic that you couldnt help but be inspired by his dreams for the Cuban countryside, and the quality of the food they put in front of us spoke for itself.

We made several stops on the way back, including Ernest Hemingways house, and we poked our heads into Floridita as well, but it turned out to be a tourist trap and we spent the rest of the evening listening to live music in the buzzing bars of Obispo in Old Havana.

Lauren had been told in advance that a 1956 Dodge would be her ride for the week but nothing quite prepared her for the rows upon rows of vintage cars stretching out at the airport

Having wound our way towards Trinidad on the south coast of the island we visited a local fishing village where we bought the most magnificent snapper.

Wrapped in cardboard, it was lashed on to the back of our car and driven to a restaurant where it was stuffed with shrimps and cooked over charcoal for our lunch.

Then we rushed back for a farewell meal where we sampled the local honey-and-rum cocktails before rolling into our beds full, happy and completely satisfied with our trip.

Is the food in Cuba consistent? Perhaps not yet, but with the right advice and a bit of friendly local know-how, fantastic meals and dazzling drinks are all there to be discovered.
A young man has been sentenced to death by hanging for stealing a smartphone.

Tope Abiodun, 23, has been in a Nigerian prison for four years after stealing an Android LG smartphone valued at 87,000 NGN (256).

He claims he was planning to sell it to buy food for his younger siblings, according to an activist who is highlighting the case.

Tope Abiodun was 18-years-old when he was imprisoned for stealing an Android LG smartphone valued at 87,000 NGN (256)

The High Court of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) sentenced Mr Abiodun to death by hanging.

Justice campaigner Don Capello wrote of the case: 'Justice Chizoba Orji of Apo high court FCT Abuja jailed 23 yrs old Tope Abiodun (from Kabba Kogi state) to death by hanging for stealing an Android LG phone valued at 87,000 naira.

'This happened few weeks ago in a country where those that looted billions that were meant to make life easy for such youths from being tempted to survive through stealing, are out there roaming the streets in freedom.

Mr Capello said: 'This is unfair to the poor and vulnerable masses. Tope fluently speaks Yoruba, Igbo and Hausa languages.

'He has transformed since he was imprisoned four years ago, this is a lad that will assist visitors with their luggage down to cells of those they came to visit in Kuje prison.

'He is a good boy we cannot allow to die. I am appealing to well-meaning Nigerians, clergies alike to come to his aid. He has an ageing mother, he was not born to see his father alive. One can easily understand his upbringing.'

Justice campaigner Don Capello shared a Facebook post highlighting the case. He said Tope (left) is a 'good boy' who has transformed since being first imprisoned. Mr Capello is appealing to Nigerians and the clergy to come to the boy's aid

The campaigner explained in a Facebook post: 'Tope Abiodun committed this crime when he was 18-years-old, he told me the pressure to feed his younger siblings pushed him to do it.

'Probably he did that as an ignorant young boy out of the normal juvenile delinquency stage in our lives.'

In the post, Mr Capello revealed that he had helped the youth process his case through the appeal court.

He added: 'I am so sad about this because I have spent much to help this boy even though I have my issues.

'At the end the judge gave him a very harsh sentence (death by hanging).'

It was not clear whether an execution date had been set.

There was no comment from Nigerian legal authorities on the case.

The death penalty in Nigeria can legally be enacted by hanging, shooting or stoning.

Offences that can carry the death penalty include same-sex marriage, treason and mutiny.

Rape, murder, terrorism, kidnapping and robbery are also punishable by death.
He's no stranger to controversy, after being pulled from the airwaves Thursday for airing jokes about disgraced entertainer Rolf Harris.

But on Friday Kyle Sandilands, 45, was back in force, admitting that he was a sex addict for two years, before discussing what he thinks about when he masturbates.

The comments came during a segment for KIIS FM's Kyle and Jackie O Show, when the pair interviewed US actor Taylor Kinney.

Sex addict: Kyle Sandilands admitted in an interview Friday with US actor Taylor Kinney that he had been a sex addict for two years

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Asked why things ended with his former flame Lady Gaga, the Chicago Fire star turned the question around on Kyle, querying whether he was 'gay, straight or married.'

The shock jock replied: 'I think I bounce along a very thin line there... I was married once. Got a girlfriend now, that's going brilliantly.'

The actor then went on to ask why the radio host's marriage ended, with Kyle responding: 'One day she brought home a list of things she hated about me and I realised it was my whole personality so I left.'

Delving into his personal life, Kyle then revealed that he had left his wife for 'a two-year run of being a sex addict.'

He added: 'I still have heaps of sex.'

Revelations: The shock jock also admitted what he thinks about when he masturbates, claiming: 'You never think about who you're with'

Break-up: Asked about why he split with his former wife, the 45-year-old replied: 'One day she brought home a list of things she hated about me and I realised it was my whole personality so I left.'

Initially shocked, Taylor probed the issue further, asking: 'I know we're on the radio, but what do you think about when you jerk off.'

'It's not an actual real person, I just think of different faces,' Kyle replied.

The hunky American actor quickly questioned whether he ever thought about the girl he was dating, with Kyle bluntly responding 'Nah, you never think about who you're with.'

Turning the tables: Chicago Fire star Taylor Kinney was asked about his relationship with ex-girlfriend Lady Gaga, throwing it around on Kyle

Private matters: Taylor was happy to turn the spotlight away from him, questioning the radio host's personal life instead

Continuing to discuss their private matters, Kyle also revealed he hadn't 'jerked off in a while,' before he tested things out on air.

'I'm feeling it now, it's fully flaccid,' the shock jock said.

Trying to bring up The Forest stars break-up once more, Kyle was left in the lurch again as Taylor turned the tables on him.

'You really didn't explain it [Kyle's break-up],' the actor said, adding: 'You just said you're marriage ended, then you started jerking off.''

'That's called selective hearing,' Jackie O joked, while Kyle lost it laughing.

Parting ways: After splitting with wife Tamara Jaber, Kyle said he became a sex addict for two years

'I still have heaps of sex': Kyle made a number of claims during the interview, including about girlfriend Imogen Anthony

The interview also covered more PG conversations about Australia's best beaches, hit music trends and Taylor's Chicago Fire co-star Jesse Spencer.

In the interview the actor referred to the former Neighbours star as a 'dreamboat' and a 'hustler'.

'I'm proud to work opposite him. I love him,' Taylor said.
She only gave birth to her bundle of joy nine weeks ago.

But Phoebe Burgess is clearly enjoying motherhood, even smiling through its less-than-pleasant moments.

The 27-year-old posted a perfectly timed photo to Instagram on Friday, as her little girl vomited on her at the salon.

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'Spot the vomit': Phoebe Burgess posted a perfectly-timed snap to Instagram Friday, as daughter Poppy vomited on her while at the hairdressers

The presenter looked happy despite the minor setback, with her newly-blonde locks safely out of the way.

Phoebe captioned the snap, 'Spot the vomit', before adding: 'Love my cheeky girl'.

Meanwhile, the trip to the hairdressers saw Phoebe transform her hair to gorgeous golden tresses.

Baby woes! Phoebe recently claimed motherhood hasn't been easy, and she has already had three bouts of mastitis and a vomiting bug

Phoebe recently claimed motherhood hasn't been easy, and she has already had three bouts of mastitis and a vomiting bug.

On Monday, she shared a cute Instagram snap cuddling with her baby, who was apparently suffering from a cold.

And despite her recent illness, the yummy mummy looked relaxed and content in the family photo.

Play dates: Earlier this week, Phoebe and her NRL star husband Sam Burgess (left) enjoyed a day out with family friend Russell Crowe

Earlier this week, Phoebe and her NRL star husband Sam Burgess enjoyed a day out with family friend Russell Crowe and his son Tennyson.

Rabbitohs star Sam, 28, was spotted having a kick of the footy with Russell, 52, on the grass before Phoebe also joined in.

Sam and Phoebe married in December 2015 at a large ceremony in Bowral, south of Sydney. Poppy was born in January.
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On and off the runway, she can't help but turn heads.

And Jasmine Tookes ensured all eyes were glued to her as she stepped out for lunch on Thursday in sunny Beverly Hills, California.

The catwalk queen, 26, displayed her genetically-gifted body in a knitted cropped top and distressed boyfriend jeans.

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Work it! Jasmine Tookes stepped out for lunch on Thursday in Beverly Hills, California where she turned heads in a colorful crop top

The Victoria's Secret angel paired her patterned and colorful top with light-wash denim jeans, which were ripped at the knees and cropped at the ankles.

Jasmine accessorized in a gold wrist watch, black flats, leather purse and trendy orange reflective sunglasses from Quay Australia.

She pulled her brunette locks back in a neat ponytail, with not a flyaway in sight, as she wore just the right amount of make-up for her day outing.

All eyes on her! The 26-year-old model flaunted her flat abs as she paired her top with distressed boyfriend jeans

She's got style: The Victoria's Secret angel paired her look with trendy black flats, a leather designer purse and orange reflecting sunglasses

Flawless: She tied her brunette locks back in a neat ponytail and added a touch of bronzer and dark gloss for her make-up

She took to Instagram during her lunch outing and shared a post of her at the restaurant where she captioned the snap: 'Nothing like a sunny day in Beverly Hills.'

While it was unclear who was keeping her company, Jasmine has been spending a fair amount of her time with her boyfriend-of-one year, Juan David Borrero.

The Snapchat Partnerships Manager was spotted holding her hand earlier this week on Tuesday as he took her on a romantic date night.

Who's joining her? Unclear who Jasmine grabbed a bite with, however, she has been dating Snapchat Partnerships Manager Juan David Borrero for the past year

Head-turner: She looked appropriate for the sunny Los Angeles Day

'Sunny day:' The catwalk queen shared a post to Instagram during her lunch outing that she captioned: 'Nothing like a sunny day in Beverly Hills'

Lovers: Jasmine and Juan have been dating for quite some time now; the model shared this to her Instagram last month

Recently, Jasmine was also in Miami, Florida last week with her fellow VS models Romee Strijd and Sara Sampaio.

The angelic beauties brought the Miami heat as they shot a photo shoot for the lingerie company's activewear line.

Jasmine modeled a number of yoga poses as well as played some beach volleyball.
She sparked rumours she was pregnant earlier this week after allegedly confessing to having a 'baby bump' in a swiftly-deleted Tweet.

But Lauren Goodger took to social media on Friday to firmly deny she is expecting her first child with jailbird boyfriend Joey Morrison.

Having bizarrely stepped out on Thursday with a white sheet shrouding her figure, the reality star, 30, confirmed to fans she was simply hiding her appearance as she felt she 'looked bad'.

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Not true: Lauren Goodger has confirmed she is not pregnant - after sparking rumours with a swiftly-deleted Tweet and stepping out in a large white sheet

Lauren revealed to fans that her bizarre outfit choice had been a 'joke' in light of her pregnancy rumours - and that she simply just wanted to avoid photos.

She wrote to her 1.34million followers: 'It was a joke! Cos the stories and tweets I AM NOT pregnant ! It's a blanket cos of the paps following me trying make me look bad so I hid'

Wanting people to forget about the ridiculous claims, she then added: 'There's more going on in the world to worry about and it's no biggie ... I just didn't want any pics .... anyway have a good day'

Explanation: Lauren revealed to fans that her bizarre outfit choice had been a 'joke' in light of her pregnancy rumours - and that she simply just wanted to avoid photos

Having admitted in the past that she and boyfriend Joey are yet to be intimate, as he is currently behind bars, her messages dispel any pregnancy rumours which were heightened earlier this week.

The Sun claim that Lauren had posted a message on Thursday reading: 'ok cant hide my baby bump no more' - sending fans into a frenzy, before the confession was swiftly deleted.

Only adding fuel to the fire, Lauren then bizarrely stepped out in a large white bed sheet two days in a row, which masked her entire face and upper body.

Truth coming out? The Sun claim the 30-year-old posted a message reading: 'ok cant hide my baby bump no more'

Hours before, she was spotted pulling her car into a disabled parking bay as she headed to a gym in her native Essex. She pulled a sheet over her head once more as she headed into the building shortly after making a trip to a salon in Buckhurt Hill.

During her trip, the former TOWIE star partially concealed her upper body for the second day in a row having pulled the same stunt the day before while heading into her car - sporting gym gear on both outings.

The idea of Lauren's pregnancy has long-circulated, as in December she made no secret of her plan for motherhood, saying: 'Im so excited about having a baby. There will be a LG range and everything.'

Bizarre: Only adding fuel to the fire, Lauren then stepped out in a large white bed sheet two days in a row, which masked her entire face and upper body

Confusion over the possibility of Lauren being with-child is understandable, as she recently explained to Reveal magazine that due to the UK judicial system, conjugal visits are not permitted - meaning she and Joey are yet to be intimate.

As she started her relationship with Joey in the midst of his 17-year jail sentence, she explained: 'No! Not in the UK, not in our prisons. But thats what makes our relationship old-fashioned, and its quite beautiful'.

Atop the mystery, the stunning star appeared determined to get tongues wagging further when she shared a snap on Instagram adorned with the words: 'Baby steps still move forward'.

She added a caption on the shot in reference to her health and fitness regime, penning: 'Haven't trained for 10 days so here I go again starting my training and clean eating ready for summer no alcohol for 4 weeks or heavy carbs and sugars just clean eating and moderate training'.

Impossible: Her apparent 'confirmation' comes a day after she blasted speculation that she was expecting with jailbird beau Joey Morrisson - atop insisting they had never been intimate due to the constraints of the UK judicial system

Happy? Atop the mystery, the stunning star appeared determined to get tongues wagging further when she shared a snap on Instagram adorned with the words: 'Baby steps still move forward'

Lauren's plans for the couple are bright, as she previously stated: 'I can't wait to get married! 'I want to keep the day really traditional with a church wedding and a beautiful reception, but I'd also love a celebration abroad on a beach with a live band - maybe I'll do both'..

And Lauren also has big plans for the reception, revealing she'd love to perform a racy dance routine for her groom with her girlfriends.

'It would be great to learn a routine with my bridesmaids - something really extravagant, like a Beyonce song, where I rip off the skirt of my dress. What a way to start the party,' she admits.

Lauren's future groom Joey is currently behind bars at HM Prison Highpoint South. But earlier this month, the former TOWIE star once again posted - and swiftly deleted - a message on Instagram revealing he is soon up for release.

She delightedly shared the news that it was 'not too long now' until she would experience romance with her beau on the outside world.

Behind bars: Lauren's future groom Joey is currently behind bars at HM Prison Highpoint South. But earlier this month, the former TOWIE star posted - and swiftly deleted - a message on Instagram revealing he is soon up for release

As Lauren's social media presence is somewhat prolific, the idea of her playing it coy is foreign - hence the shock at her choice to wrap up in the white sheet.

Lauren may be getting used to being shrouded in white as she announced her plans to marry her jailbird Joey, after he's released from his jail sentence this year.

She opened up about her dream day in a new interview with Closer Magazine, confessing that she's planning to have two weddings.

Lauren admits that she's been daydreaming about her nuptials, despite only dating Joey since late last year, and waiting for him to be released from prison.

Happy! Lauren may be getting used to being shrouded in white as she announced her plans to marry her jailbird Joey, after he's released from his jail sentence this year

Lauren has been documenting her plans to get back to the gym after missing out a stint of training and Thursday's trip to David Lloyd Leisure marked her first return in 10 days.

As she appeared ready to go in her stylish ensemble, in which she wore funky leggings and a tight top, she seemed to forget her bearings as she pulled into a disabled parking spot - typically restricted for those holding a blue badge.

Lauren soared to fame in the ITVBe show's 2010 inauguration when she was one of the central characters with the drama centred around her 10 year relationship and eventual engagement to co-star Mark Wright.

After departing the programme in 2012's sixth season in 2012, the stunning star explored many hugely successful business ventures most notably her 2016 workout video after slimming her size 18 figure down to a svelte size 10.
She has wowed audiences for decades with her performances on the big screen as well as her stunning looks.

And even at 50-years-old Halle Berry still knows how to get all eyes on her.

The Oscar-winner went braless under a lacy number in a very sexy snap shared on her Instagram on Thursday.

Forever young: The 50-year-old actress shared this stunning photo of herself on Instagram on Thursday

In the photo, the ageless beauty appears to be standing in a field wearing nothing but a sheer white sheath.

Her slender body is visible through the floral lace fabric, which is cut down to her naval, showing off her perky cleavage.

The relaxed star is seen walking in the sunlight with her arms extended, a peaceful expression on her face as she gazes off into the distance, her long brown hair looking slightly tousled.

Later on Thursday, the Oscar-winning actress was spotted picking up some mail from a FedEx postal office in LA.

Mail drop: Halle Berry was seen picking up some mail from a FedEx postal office in LA on Thursday

Keeping it casual: Halle opted for ripped jeans, an oversize white shirt and black ankle boots with buckles for her outing

Dressed in a pair of ripped blue jeans, an oversize white shirt and black ankle boots with buckles, the Monster's Ball star was seen making her way back to her car carrying a stack of mail.

Her long brown hair was pulled back into a ponytail, and she wore a pair of brown-colored sunglasses as she left the post office.

But despite her forever youthful appearance, Halle denies ever having had plastic surgery.

She does however admit to feeling 'pressure' to go under the knife.

'When you see everybody around you doing it, you have those moments when you think, "To stay alive in this business, do I need to do the same thing?"' she confessed to Yahoo! Beauty in 2015.

Feeling the pressure: While Halle denies having had any plastic surgery, she admitted, 'Somebody is always suggesting it to me'

'I wont lie and tell you that those things dont cross my mind, because somebody is always suggesting it to me. "You know if you just did a little bit of this and that, lift this up, then this would be a little bit better." Its almost like crack that people are trying to push on you. Thats what I feel like.'

But the stunning star claims to have made peace with the aging process.

'Aging is natural, and thats going to happen to all of us,' she added. 'I just want to always look like myself, even if thats an older version of myself. I think when you do too much of that cosmetic stuff, you become somebody else in a way.'
She gave birth to her first son Dominic three weeks ago.

And Rachael Finch has happily embraced her new role as a mother of two.

The 28-year-old took to her Instagram on Friday to share a photo of Dominic with his three-year-old sister, Violet.

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Bliss: It appears Rachael Finch has happily embraced her new role as a mother of two, sharing a photo of newborn Dominic with his three-year-old sister, Violet on Friday

The adorable duo looked a picture of bliss as they laid in bed next to each other.

Violet was captured wide awake, looking away from the camera as her golden curls cascaded on her pillow, while baby Dominic slept peacefully beside his big sister.

Their mother's almost 200,000 followers responded immediately to the cute image, which she captioned: 'Friday looking good'.

Newborn: She gave birth to her first son Dominic three weeks ago

'This looks like the perfect Friday to me Rachael,' one supporter gushed.

'Adorable, morning cuddles are the best aren't they,' offered another.

'What a lucky mama! Beautiful babies,' added one fan.

Family ties: The model and TV personality recently returned to her fitness regime after giving birth to Dominic. Pictured with husband Michael Miziner and daughter Violet

The model and TV personality recently returned to her fitness regime after giving birth to Dominic.

She's the creator and owner of B.O.D. by Rachael Finch, a health and lifestyle program with an emphasis on dance as a preferred workout.

Rising to fame in the Miss Universe 2009 pageant, she married her husband Michael Miziner in 2013 after meeting him on the set of Dancing With The Stars in 2010.
Kim Zolciak-Biermann proudly flaunted her Rapunzel-style braid in a Snapchat video she shared on Thursday.

The wig-loving 38-year-old - who boasts 5.4M followers - pursed her artificially-plumped lips for the camera while playing with her hair extensions.

The vainglorious reality star later gazed at her own reflection after changing into a white blouse featuring an undone pussy bow.

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Mirror, mirror: Kim Zolciak-Biermann proudly flaunted her Rapunzel-style braid in a Snapchat video she shared on Thursday

Tongue out: The wig-loving 38-year-old - who boasts 5.4M followers - pursed her artificially-plumped lips for the camera while playing with her hair extensions

Kim - a regular client of Dr. Simon Ourian - has admitted to having botox, breast implants, and a tummy tuck in order to enhance her Southern belle appeal.

That same day, Bravo teased Zolciak-Biermann's upcoming heated return to The Real Housewives of Atlanta following a four-year absence.

In the ninth season preview, the TRHOA alum (2008-2013) sparred with Kenya Moore at a housewarming party hosted by Sheree Whitfield.

The 46-year-old Miss USA 1993 snapped: 'Your husband [Kroy] doesn't have a job right now, so worry about that.'

Selfie enthusiast: The vainglorious reality star later gazed at her own reflection after changing into a white blouse featuring an undone pussy bow

'Have a blessed day!' Kim - a regular client of Dr. Simon Ourian - has admitted to having botox, breast implants, and a tummy tuck in order to enhance her Southern belle appeal

It was a low blow for Kim (born Kimberleigh), whose 31-year-old second husband was cut as outside linebacker for the Buffalo Bills back on September 2.

'B****, you wanna be me!' the Florida-born mother-of-six yelled at Kenya.

'You wanna have a baby, you can't! You wanna have a man, you don't!'

At that, Moore fired back: 'I know I'm not a duck, like your lips!'

She's ba-ack! That same day, Bravo teased Zolciak-Biermann's upcoming heated return to The Real Housewives of Atlanta following a four-year absence

Date night: In the ninth season preview, the TRHOA alum (2008-2013) sparred with Kenya Moore at a housewarming party hosted by Sheree Whitfield

The 46-year-old Miss USA 1993 snapped: 'Your husband [Kroy] doesn't have a job right now, so worry about that'

TRHOA's Cynthia Bailey was taken aback by the blonde bombshell's dramatic comeback.

'She was pretty peaceful when she left [the party],' the 49-year-old former Wilhelmina Model told Bravo's The Daily Dish.

'I really had no idea that her and Kim and Kenya had a beef or an issue. I didn't even know that Kim and Kenya even knew each other that well, to be honest.'

Ouch: It was a low blow for Kim (born Kimberleigh), whose 31- year-old second husband was cut as outside linebacker for the Buffalo Bills back on September 2

The Florida-born mother-of-six yelled at Kenya: 'B****, you wanna be me! You wanna have a baby, you can't! You wanna have a man, you don't!'

'She was pretty peaceful when she left [the party]!' TRHOA's Cynthia Bailey was taken aback by the blonde bombshell's dramatic comeback

On March 16, TMZ reported that Zolciak-Biermann and her former frenemy NeNe Leakes were both 'deep in negotiations' to be full-time on the 10th season.

But it's still unclear whether Bravo renewed the former DWTS contestant's spin-off Don't Be Tardy for a sixth season following the December 14 fifth season finale.

Kim and Kroy are parents to - Kroy Jr., 5; Kash, 4; and twins Kaia & Kane, 3 - and she also has daughters Brielle, 20; and Ariana, 15; with ex-husband Daniel Toce.

Reunited? On March 16, TMZ reported that Zolciak-Biermann and her former frenemy NeNe Leakes were both 'deep in negotiations' to be full-time on the 10th season

Already shooting? But it's still unclear whether Bravo renewed the former DWTS contestant's spin-off Don't Be Tardy for a sixth season following the December 14 fifth season finale
Her former lover Tyga is said to have threatened her with a lawsuit after she accused him of not paying child support.

And it seems the legal gears could already be turning after Blac Chyna was spotted heading to court in Los Angeles on Thursday.

While it is not clear exactly why she was heading to the courthouse, she was certainly looking in a sombre mood as she plodded along the sidewalk in a relatively demure fashion mode.

Court out: Blac Chyna was spotted heading to court in LA Thursday after she made explosive claims about former lover Tyga not paying child support

The 28-year-old former stripper covered her torso with a green camouflage jacket, while she crammed her curves into a pair of extremely tight ripped jeans.

Blac, real name Angela White, rounded off her look with a pair of towering strappy stilettos and black and gold leather handbag.

While she didn't appear to express much in the way of emotions during the visit, she later showed that she was in a stellar mood, with some playful clips on Snapchat.

She seems to be quite at ease as she smiles, blows a bubble with gum and sticks her tongue out for the camera.

Meanwhile, on Wednesday she shocked fans when she took to social media to launch a foul-mouthed rant aimed at her former fiance Tyga over child support for their four-year-old son King Cairo.

It comes amidst claims on TMZ she believes the rapper has teamed up with her most recent baby daddy, Rob Kardashian, to 'spread lies' about her.

Sombre mood: The reality television personality, real name Angela White, did not look happy

That's torn it: Her social media outburst Wednesday is said to have infuriated her ex

On the prowl: She rocked ripped jeans and strappy heels

Always time for a fan: She even stopped for a selfie with a fan

Not alone: She was joined by a male friend who wore a bright red hoodie

And according to Hollywood Life, self-styled rapper Tyga, real name Micheal Stevenson, was so infuriated he wants to sue her for defamation over her claims.

Blac went on a lengthy foul-mouthed rant in which she challenged her ex to come to her salon and face her on Snapchat.

In a series of blank photos filled with just text, she wrote: 'Its funny now to me !!! But when Tyga and side n***a kicked me out !!! And they wanted to see me fail ! lol

Yum: She snacked on some mangoes during the outing

Sweet ride: Chyna lookjed more than happy to drive away in her pink Lamborghini

Playing around: While she didn't appear to express much in the way of emotions during the visit, she later showed that she was in a stellar mood, with some playful clips on Snapchat

Not stressed: She seems to be quite at ease as she smiles, blows a bubble with gum and sticks her tongue out for the camera

'And 2 grind from the dirt !!!!! No child support! N**** is like h**s ! So imma treat u like that ! Not paying Jenny ! Wow

'Stop running to ur money ! Telling my business about King ! I bet any money ! I got more money then ur account Tyga , Michael ! !!! [sic]'

Baby daddies: She shares four-month daughter Dream with Rob Kardashian, left, and four-year-old son King Cairo with Tyga, right

Axe to grind: She posted a flurry of furious messages on her Snapchat page on Wednesday

She continued: 'So go tell Kylie , and Rob! About our son Account ! Cause thats the only reason Im contacting ur f*g a*s ! But u wanna make it like I want u lol !

'Tyga ur a b**** ! And u can go get ur mom , or ur b**** ! Lol ! !!!! Or ur n**** u f**** ,,, or Terrell, or heather !'

The reality starlet also sent out the address of her Lashed salon in California and said she would be 'on wait'.

Her rant came after she admitted she didn't want any 'negative energy' with her ex.

Speaking to Cosmopolitan South Africa this month, she explained: 'It's important to me and Tyga not to have negative energy...Kids breathe energy.'

Tyga bites back: An insider said he is threatening to sue his former lover over her claims

Birth: Blac Chyna began dating Tyga in November 2011, and they welcomed son King ten months later before splitting in 2014

Staying silent: Rob went on Instagram to post a picture of baby Dream, saying 'babies are the greatest gift of life'

She added: 'You have to learn to forgive and forget. Many people don't like to forgive others. Even if someone does something awful to you, you need to forgive them to be able to move on with your life.'

Rumours surrounding Kylie and handsome rapper Tyga's romance started surfacing around October 2014 while he was still dating Blac, who went on to have a child with her half-brother Rob Kardashian.

The overlap in the relationships led to social media feuding between the classy women, with the former stripper clearly unhappy the father of her son was romancing a teenager.

MailOnline has contacted a representatives for Blac Chyna, Rob Kardashian and Tyga for comment.

War of the roses: The overlap in the relationships between the handsome rapper, Kylie and Blac led to social media feuding between the classy women
This style chameleon has done it again.

After emerging from her self-imposed post-robbery isolation with long luscious locks courtesy of hip length hair extensions, Kim Kardashian has changed her look up again.

The 36-year-old stepped out for a day of filming with her family in Beverly Hills, California, on Thursday with a fresh new 'do.

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New look: Kim Kardashian has changed her look up again, stepping out for a day of filming with her family in Beverly Hills, California, on Thursday with a fresh new 'do

Gone were her long extensions in favor of a sleek angular style which was just a little bit longer than the current go-to haircut, a lob.

Kim's angular look instead started at shoulder length and then finished a just above her impressive cleavage.

Wearing her dark locks in a center part and poker straight, the angular cut was very noticeable.

But her new 'do was not the only thing she was showing off as she headed to a restaurant on Robertson Boulevard.

Bye hair: Gone were her long extensions in favor of a sleek angular style which was just a little bit longer than the current go-to haircut, a lob (pictured right last month)

Sharp cut: Kim's angular look instead started at shoulder length and then finished a just above her impressive cleavage

Look back at it: From the back Kim's hair was noticeable shorter but the style wasn't as evident

Nice angles: Wearing her dark locks in a center part and poker straight, the angular cut was very noticeable

Kim's almost impossible proportions were also stealing some of her hair's spot light as the star poured her curves into a pair of high waisted jeans.

While The Keeping Up With The Kardashians star often wears tight clothes, tight jeans are not a wardrobe staple for her.

And it was not hard to see why, as the reality star clearly needs to heavily tailor or get custom pairs made due to her famous proportions.

Curves for days: But her new 'do was not the only thing she was showing off as she headed to a restaurant on Robertson Boulevard

Denim diva: Kim's almost impossible proportions were also stealing some of her hair's spot light as the star poured her curves into a pair of high waisted jeans

Not the usual: While The Keeping Up With The Kardashians star often wears tight clothes, tight jeans are not a wardrobe staple for her

The washed out black pair she donned for the filming session simultaneously highlighted her curvaceous hips and her voluminous derriere as well as her tiny waist.

Kim also celebrated her top half's curves by wearing a black bustier from which her cups threatened to runneth over with every turn.

Kim finished off her look with a pair of snakeskin strappy heels.

Added alterations: And it was not hard to see why, as the reality star clearly needs to heavily tailor or get custom pairs made due to her famous proportions

Dressed to impress: The washed out black pair she donned for the filming session simultaneously highlighted her curvaceous hips and her voluminous derriere as well as her tiny waist

Careful there: Kim also celebrated her top half's curves by wearing a black bustier from which her cups threatened to runneth over with every turn

SSSSSSnack: Kim finished off her look with a pair of snakeskin strappy heels

As she prepared to head to filming, Kim shared some snaps of herself getting ready with her glam team.

Her hair stylist Chris Appleton was with the star so no doubt came up with the dramatic look.

Kim was also joined by pal Larsa Pippen, who came with her location too.

Behind the scenes: As she prepared to head to filming, Kim shared some snaps of herself getting ready with her glam team (pictured Joyce Bonelli)

Hair master: Her hair stylist Chris Appleton was with the star so no doubt came up with the dramatic look

Crowning glory: Kim could not help but use a Snapchat crown filter to show off her new cut

Also there was sister Kourtney Kardashian who wowed in a casual but still dramatic look.

For their filmed lunch, Kourt donned a pair of tight jeans which she tucked a white tank into.

She then added a tan striped trench made from shirt material which blew out behind her as she walked.

Family affair: Also there was sister Kourtney Kardashian who wowed in a casual but still dramatic look

Lovely layers: For their filmed lunch, Kourt donned a pair of tight jeans which she tucked a white tank into. She then added a tan striped trench made from shirt material

The 37-year-old trotted along in tan suede heels and carried a matching leather Hermes bag.

Little sister Kendall Jenner was not on a modelling shoot for once so also joined them.

The model wore a pair of bizarre Spice Wear jeans which had been cut so that the were shorts but had strips of material that went down and around her ankles.

Rare free moment: Little sister Kendall Jenner was not on a modelling shoot for once so also joined them

Spice Up Your Life: The model wore a pair of bizarre Spice Wear jeans which had been cut so that the were shorts but had strips of material that went down and around her ankles

Kendall wore the shorts with a billowing red and white striped shirt.

Not joining them was Khloe Kardashian as she had a photo shoot across town.

Kylie Jenner was also MIA from the Keeping Up With The Kardashians filming day.
Man Down (15)

Verdict: Cack-handed military drama

Rating:

America's apparently cavalier treatment of its war veterans, 20 of whom reportedly commit suicide every day, is the subject of this film, just as it was of Ang Lees recent Billy Lynns Long Half-Time Walk.

Alas, neither picture has done justice to an important story, and in both instances directorial cack-handedness is to blame.

The director and co-writer here is Dito Montiel, who if nothing else has assembled a fine cast, led by Shia LaBeouf as a battle-scarred U.S. marine returning from Afghanistan, with Kate Mara as his long-suffering wife and Gary Oldman as an army psychiatrist.

LaBeouf gives a characteristically intense performance as Gabriel Drummer, who is suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder

Sadly, their talents are mostly wasted. This is a woefully confused and confusing film.

Still, LaBeouf gives a characteristically intense performance as Gabriel Drummer, who is suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder.

If Montiel had chosen to tell Gabriels story in a coherent way, the result could have been compelling.

Bewilderingly, though, the film lurches from one chapter of Gabriels life to another, and back again.

Man Down doesnt engage the interest nearly as much as it should, because every time you feel even half-invested in whats happening on screen, theres a cut to another time and place

So, in no particular order, we see him at home bonding with his wife and cutesy blond son; we see him going through hell in Afghanistan; we see him reliving a harrowing incident with Oldmans shrink; and we see him striding through a war-ravaged America looking for his family, seemingly after jihadists have wrought terrible carnage with chemical weapons.

Man Down doesnt engage the interest nearly as much as it should, because every time you feel even half-invested in whats happening on screen, theres a cut to another time and place and you have to start all over again. A shame.
When best friend is in town, it becomes an occasion.

And Kourtney Kardashian certainly dressed up for it as she stepped out on Thursday in Los Angeles sporting quite the stylish ensemble with good friend Larsa Pippen.

The 37-year-old television star looked hip in a pin-striped kimono top that she paired with distressed high-waisted jeans and a fitted white tank top.

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Stylish: Kourtney Kardashian sported quite the hip ensemble on Thursday as she stepped out in Los Angeles with her friend Larsa Pippen

The mom-of-three was spotted heading to her swanky ride as she and The Real Housewives Of Miami star left the studio.

She topped off the look with camel-colored stilettos, a matching purse and large sunglasses as her hair was tied up in a stylish bun.

Larsa, 42, looked as equally stylish as she went for all white in a tight top and jeans, breaking it up with a dark bomber jacket and sandal-strap stilettos.

Her long tresses were styled down in loose curls while sporting the signature Kardashian make-up look in smoky eyes and dramatic contour.

Dressed for the best: The 37-year-old reality star wore a pin-striped kimono top that she paired with a fitted white tank and distressed jeans

In town! Larsa, 42, looked as equally stylish in a busting white top, jeans and strapped stilettos

Swanky whip: The two headed out of the studio as they jumped in the luxury car

Earlier in the day, Kourtney took to Snapchat to document her day with her best friend as the two visited the star's go-to cosmetic surgeon and snapped a picture with the doctor.

They also visited what appeared to be one of the reality star's children's schools as Larsa posed in front of a wall of artwork.

On Wednesday, the raven-haired beauty had a rocking girls' night, welcoming in Larsa's arrival to Los Angeles as the group ventured in a pinball tournament, which appeared to be an episode for Keeping Up With The Kardashians.

Spa day: The friends visited Kourtney's go-to cosmetic surgeon's office in Beverly Hills

Lift: The mom-of-three stopped by for some lift action, thought it was unclear why the two beauties paid a visit

Healthy 'Bae': Kourtney snapped a pic of Larsa eating a salad and posing in front of what appeared to be children's' art work

Brushing up? Kourtney took a moment for some dental hygiene

Two of a kind: Later Larsa shared a glam shot of the duo

Wardrobe swap: Kourtney changed into a black lacy number for her night on the town with her friend

Meanwhile, The Keeping Up With The Kardashians favorite came under fire after sharing an Instagram pictures of her children Penelope and Reign on the hood of her Mercedes G-Wagon last weekend.

Infuriated social media users posted their dismay over the image of the luxurious car, which is worth over $122,000.

One naive critic wrote: 'And I thought you were the one with most class.'

Another hater took to her comments section to write: 'No wonder you guys get robbed. Just keeping showing off what you have and keep getting robbed.'

Perhaps in response, on Thursday Kourtney shared a snap of her and Larsa buckled into a vehicle with the caption 'safety first' emblazoned on her safety belt.

Meanwhile: The reality star came under fire recently after posting pictures of her two children on the hood of their new Mercedes G-Wagon car

Changed her ways? Perhaps in response, on Thursday Kourtney shared a snap of her and Larsa buckled into a vehicle with the caption 'safety first' emblazoned on her safety belt
BRIAN VINER: Philippa lives in Edinburgh, where she works in a dreary sales job and is passed over for promotion. 'You are at the right level for you,' says her condescending boss.
They made headlines on Thursday after they were dumped from the airwaves for making vulgar jokes about the sex crimes of former children's entertainer Rolf Harris.

And KIIS FM's Kyle Sandilands and Jackie 'O' Henderson once again suffered a hiccup live on air this Friday after being cut off by a publicist during a live interview with Taylor Kinney.

The interview canvassed topics such as masturbation and Kyle's two-year sex addiction.

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Cut off: KIIS FM's Kyle Sandilands and Jackie 'O' Henderson once again suffered a hiccup live on air this Friday after being cut off by a publicist during a live interview with Taylor Kinney

During the interview, Kyle asked Taylor a number of intimate questions, including how recently he had masturbated.

'Let me just say I haven't jerked off for a while. When was the last time you jerked off?' Kyle asked.

'Well, you know I do it every now and then. I just like to, you know, I get it out,' Taylor responded.

Intimate chat: During the interview, Kyle asked Taylor a number of intimate questions, including how recently he had masturbated

Eventually the conversation turned to cars, with Taylor calling Toyota Prius vehicles 'vagina cars'.

The interview was then swiftly cut short by a female publicist, prompting Kyle to jokingly ask: 'Who's this? Gaga is that you?'

A day earlier, Kyle and Jackie O in found themselves in hot water after they were pulled from the airwaves this Thursday for airing jokes about disgraced entertainer Rolf Harris.

Controversy: A day earlier, Kyle and Jackie O in found themselves in hot water after they were pulled from the airwaves this Thursday for airing jokes about disgraced entertainer Rolf Harris

The pair were dumped for around 30 seconds after Kyle made jokes about the sex crimes committed by Rolf, who turned 87 that day.

The vulgar discussion involved jokes about the jailed celebrity's famous song 'Tie Me Kangaroo Down Sport'.

During the segment, Kyle appeared to intentionally misinterpret the song's meaning and then discussed the crimes Rolf had previously been convicted of in the UK.

He then asked the show's newsreader, Brooklyn Ross, to demonstrate 'what Rolf did'. Shortly after, the broadcast was dumped.

Daily Mail Australia has reached out to KIIS FM for comment.

Dumped: During the segment, Kyle appeared to intentionally misinterpret the song's meaning and then discussed the crimes Rolf had previously been convicted of in the UK




There are not many people who would cause a stir in a long-sleeved shirt and slippers.

But Irina Shayk managed to do just that as she stocked up on strawberries at a farmers' market in Los Angeles on Thursday.

The famously plump-lipped beauty looked like she was having a whale of a time as she perused the merchandise with her jolly mother Olga by her side.

Cravings: Irina Shayk bought some strawberries as she attended a farmers' market with mother Olga in Los Angeles on Thursday

The shapely 31-year-old, who is expecting her first child with lover Bradley Cooper, had dressed for comfort in her bump-concealing long-sleeved shirt, which had the words '...ual fantasies' emblazoned on its sleeve, and slippers.

While she is currently expecting, that did not stop the Russian clotheshorse from thrilling her fans earlier this month by sharing pictures and footage from a photo shoot for Italian lingerie brand Intimissimi.

No doubt her Hangover star other half will only be too happy to feed her her strawberries to quell her pregnancy cravings.

An insider previously said: 'Bradley has been there for her and is loving seeing the baby grow inside her. They share those moments when the baby kicks and they can't wait!'

Shady lady: She looked as cool as ever thanks to her trendy sunglasses

Things that go bump in the afternoon: But Irina's bump was concealed underneath her baggy shirt

Pleasingly plump: The beauty's famous lips were as prominent as ever during her outing

'(He has) been taking her to her doctor visits and is so excited every time they see the baby. She is very healthy and the baby is as well.'

The Yemanzhelinsk native, born when her hometown was part of the communist paradise that was the Soviet Union, has been with her manly 42-year-old beau since early in 2015.

Pregnancy rumours were sparked last November when she bared her midriff while prancing down the runway at the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show in Paris.

While neither Irina or Bradly confirmed the pregnancy, an insider said in January: 'She can't wait to be a mom and would like more kids after this.'

Lazy day: She could not even be bothered to change out of her comfy slippers

Red hot: The Soviet-born beauty recently shared a snap of herself modeling for Intimissimi

Lucrative assets: It is easy to see why Irina was chosen to front the campaign
For a man who won the Nobel Prize in Literature four months ago, Bob Dylan has been fairly sluggish about coming up with his own songs of late.

Its been five years since his last album of original material, although that intermission could owe more to his growing interest in jazz and show tunes than any lack of inspiration.

The sideline began with 2015s chart-topping Sinatra tribute Shadows In The Night and continued with last years Fallen Angels.

Exploring emotions: Nobel Laureate Bob Dylan sings standards from across the decades on new album Triplicate

Now, with his first triple album, hes going for broke in his love of American standards, concentrating on the Thirties, but adding songs from the Forties, Fifties and Sixties, too. Hes also getting better at this sort of thing. If Shadows In The Night was sparse and melancholy and Fallen Angels a sweeter, playful sequel, then Triplicate explores the widest range of emotions yet, from rueful reflection on Why Was I Born to big-band optimism on Braggin. There is, though, a lot to take in. Each of Triplicates discs (on both CD and vinyl) contains ten songs and 32 minutes of music (the optimum length, according to Dylan . . . and who are we to argue?).

The three are also themed, with the first two largely upbeat, and the last dominated by ballads.

Then theres Dylans voice. A husky death rattle once described by David Bowie as being like sand and glue, it threatens to become even more jarring than usual across 96 minutes of music, although its raspy tone is offset by the sensitive work of a skillful backing band.

Dylan, 75, produced Triplicate himself (under the alias Jack Frost), and he treats the often-complex time signatures of the 30 tracks with respect. These songs are some of the most heartbreaking ever put on record and I wanted to do them justice, he says.

Each of Triplicates discs (on both CD and vinyl) contains ten songs and 32 minutes of music (the optimum length, according to Dylan

The famously contrary entertainer certainly sounds engaged on album opener I Guess Ill Have To Change My Plans, a Twenties swing number that combines lovelorn lyrics and a lively arrangement.

Other early highlights include a melodramatic Stormy Weather and Trade Winds. The vocal cracks on September Of My Years only add to the albums single-take authenticity. Spirits remain high on the second disc, with the Sinatra favourite The Best Is Yet To Come a key track. A song about defying old age, it should suit the indefatigable Dylan well, although he struggles a little with its shifting melody.

The big, emotional punches are landed on the final disc, with Dylan pushing his singing voice on These Foolish Things before adding a surprisingly soft touch on You Go To My Head.

Where he goes next is anyones guess. Fans will want to hear new songs, although I suspect he hasnt finished putting his spin on the standards.

With hits such as Back For Good and Shine giving them a robust back catalogue, Take That remain a huge live draw. Their spring tour is nearly sold out and they have moved seamlessly from boy band to heritage act.

But its hard to see the point of this: their eighth album overall, and the second since the departures of Robbie Williams and Jason Orange reduced them to a rather sorry- looking rump comprising just Gary Barlow, Howard Donald and Mark Owen. Wonderland is well-crafted, but its predictable pop and (whisper it) boring ballads lack the rogue element that the Mad Hatter Williams might have brought.

It is hard to see the point of Take That's eight album Wonderland. It is well-crafted, but has predictable pop and (whisper it) boring ballads

Instead, Barlows bland truisms dominate, leaving us with lines such as every morning, it is a brand new day.

Mercifully, there are better moments. Lucky Stars benefits from Killers producer Stuart Prices skill with electronic dance.

Superstar, sung by Owen, adds some darker thoughts on fame. But while Take Thats arena shows will entertain, Wonderland wont relight their fire.

Both albums are out now. Dylan starts a UK tour on April 28 at the London Palladium (ticketmaster.co.uk). Take That start their tour on May 5 at the Genting Arena, Birmingham (gigsandtours.com).
Mel B is reportedly furious that her Spice Girls co-member Victoria Beckham is taking part in James Corden's Carpool Karaoke for The Late Late Show.

Sources tell The Sun that the 41-year-old is fuming at her former bandmate, 42, for 'embracing' her girl band roots after many years of turning her back on the Spice Girls to help forge her career in the fashion industry.

After Victoria took to Instagram on Wednesday to give a sneak peek into her appearance on the show, it was claimed that anger erupted hot on the heels of Mel's apparent dismay at Victoria's use of Spice Girl hits in her Target advert.

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Back in the day: Mel B is reportedly furious that her Spice Girls co-member Victoria Beckham is taking part in James Corden 's Carpool Karaoke for The Late Late Show

Victoria delighted fans on Wednesday, as she gave a backstage peek into the Carpool shoot in which she showed her hairdresser Ken Paves giving her a glamorous do before hopping in the Range Rover with her fellow Brit abroad.

In the midst of much hysteria from fans, it has been claimed that Mel was enraged at the decision due to Victoria's reluctance to be involved in any part of Gem - the reunion group formed by Mel B alongside Emma Bunton and Geri Halliwell.

Last year, Victoria seemed to cast aspersions on the reunion, when she said to Claudia Winkleman: 'I think they should sing their own material though, because what we did was so special. If they sang Spice Girls I think I might be a bit sad.'

It seems these comments have caused anger as sources stated Mel, who is currently going through a tough divorce from husband Stephen Belafonte, is unhappy with Victoria's behaviour.

Not so top secret now... After Victoria took to Instagram on Wednesday to give a sneak peek into her appearance on the show, it was claimed that anger erupted hot on the heels of Mel's apparent dismay at Victoria's use of Spice Girl hits in her Target advert

That was then: Sources tell The Sun that the 41-year-old is fuming at her former bandmate, 42, for 'embracing' her girl band roots after many years of turning her back on the Spice Girls to help forge her career in the fashion industry'

The insider stated: 'Mel is livid Victoria is all of a sudden embracing her Spice Girls past after years of trying to distance herself from the band. She was desperate for the girls to go on a very lucrative reunion tour to celebrate their music with millions of fans.

'But once Posh pulled out, the idea began to crumble leaving the members of the band keen to perform having no choice but to ditch it. Mel feels its unfair Victoria is now using their music to boost her own profile.'

MailOnline has contacted representatives for Mel B and Victoria for comment.

The publication also reported that Mel believes it to be 'unfair' that Victoria has used 1997 hit Spice Up Your Life for the advert for her forthcoming clothing range with US store Target, which features 200 for women, girls, toddlers and babies and range from $6 to $70.

On film: Victoria has long ago moved away from her singing roots to seek recognition in the fashion field but she was dusting off her vocal chords for the opportunity

Victoria joins a bevy of A-listers in scooping a seat in the world famous skit from the US show, on which James nabbed the host role in 2014, where he has been joined by superstars including Justin Bieber, Adele and Elton John.

While the funnyman has sang alongside some of the greats in his car, it is Victoria who boasts a catalogue of hits where she was one-fifth of one of the world's most successful girl groups.

Having later gone on to release solo music, she switched her focus to fashion full time in 2008, where she has built a fashion empire which has seen her become the go-to girl for celebrities working the red carpet.

Despite remaining quiet on the vocal front, Wednesday saw the star hint that she will be treating fans once more to her stellar singing on the American chat show.

On her Instagram story, Victoria, who was nicknamed Posh Spice, initially showed herself being primped and preened by Ken in which she claimed she was filming 'a secret project'.

Back in the day: She soared to fame in the Spice Girls in the early Nineties as one fifth of the hugely successful group

Revealed: James couldn't have looked more excited to be hopping into the car with Victoria

Not so top secret: The brunette was being pampered and preened for her TV appearance

She seemed to change her mind shortly after however as she shot scenes from within a car while saying: 'So we are here about to film Carpool Karaoke.'

The stunning star then turned her camera on her famous co-star as he climbed into the driving seat while she introduced him, saying: 'Here's James!'

With the huge popularity of the group, fans will undoubtedly be delighted ahead of her debut on the show aside from Mel's chagrin, yet Victoria's singing skills were often panned throughout her solo career and time in the band.

Stuff of legend: While the funnyman has sang alongside some of the greats in his car, it is Victoria who boasts a catalogue of hits having come from her Spice Girls background, where she was one-fifth of one of the world's most successful pop groups

Not such the singer: Last year, the iconic star spoke to Claudia Winkleman at the Vogue 100: A Century of Style exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery in London, where she made a shock revelation about her time on stage

Last year, the iconic star spoke to Claudia Winkleman at the Vogue 100: A Century of Style exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery in London, where she made a shock revelation about her time on stage.

She said: 'They used to turn it off and just let the others sing. I got the last laugh - and now my mic is well and truly on, finally...

'I was always the one that loved fashion and it was quite a result for me because the girls always used to get their clothes for free because they were crap and so there was a lot of budget for me to have my little Gucci dress'.
Chinglish, Park Theatre (Verdict: On the money)

Rating:

China may be the worlds biggest emerging economy, but if you want to know why doing business with the Peoples Republic wont be easy, you should catch this smart new comedy.

Written by Chinese American David Henry Hwang, its about an Ohio businessman selling English signs in provincial China.

The city of Guiyang has a brand new international arts centre; and our hero Daniel argues that they dont want foreign visitors laughing at road signs with embarrassing translations.

On the money: Reviewer Patrick Marmion described the human in Chinglish as 'amusing' and gave it three stars in total

Written by Chinese American David Henry Hwang, the original play is about an Ohio businessman selling English signs in provincial Chin

Hiring his own interpreter to petition the mayor, his mission staggers through a slalom of social and linguistic faux pas.

Hwang ensures the jokes fall evenly on both sides. The bureaucrats are thrilled to discover that Daniel is a former employee of disgraced U.S. corporation ENRON, and ask if he was a small fish or a big pond. He falls for the woman brokering his deal and when he pours out his heart in Mandarin, winds up wittering on about slugs, cows and his fifth aunt.

Andrew Keatess production is a little handicapped by the necessity of surtitle translations, which demand you take your eyes off the action.

Still, the mis-translations are amusing; and Tim McQuillen-Wrights design is a neat wall cabinet with foldaway props and furniture for multiple locations.

The acting, too, is enjoyable with Lobo Chan as a venal mayor; Siu-see Hung multi-tasking as sundry surly flunkies; and Duncan Harte playing a grubby British interpreter. Candy Ma fascinates as the local government adviser who warns Daniel that a good honest man respects his wife by lying to her.

As honest Daniel, Gyuri Sarossy has a genuinely warm stage presence, but is sufficiently out of shape to be interesting and has a likeable flair for believable bemusement.
His relationship with model Jasmine Yarbrough is reportedly on rocky ground, with distance said to be keeping them apart.

And on Friday, Karl Stefanovic took a breather from filming the Today show.

In Brisbane to cover the aftermath of Cyclone Debbie, the 42-year-old looked tense as he took a break in the sunshine.

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Too close for comfort? Karl Stefanovic took a breather while filming The Today Show in Brisbane, while a stranger stood close by to enjoy the view

Taking a moment to himself, Karl paused by the riverside, clutching a railing and looking downcast.

In one photo, a stranger appeared to break his moment alone though, standing close by to enjoy the view.

Despite his grimace, the presenter, who was still miked up for the show, looked sharp a pair of dark denim jeans and a white shirt, rolling the sleeves on the arms up.

He completed his ensemble with brown boots an a matching leather belt, along with a chunky silver watch and bracelet.

Dressed to impress: Despite his grimace, the presenter looked sharp a pair of dark denim jeans and a white shirt, rolling the sleeves on the arms up

Space to think? Taking a moment to himself, Karl paused by the riverside, clutching a railing and looking downcast

It comes just days after rumours of a split from his Los Angeles-based girlfriend Jasmine first emerged.

The pair are believed to have met at a boat party in December and have been dating since, with Karl meeting her parents earlier this month.

But a source told New Idea that the exchange was rather awkward, with the pair sharing little in common.

Just breathe: It comes just days after rumours of a split from his Los Angeles-based girlfriend Jasmine first emerged

'Meeting the parents is a lot of pressure to put on any new relationship, and Karl just buckled - it was totally weird,' they told the publication.

Reports the pair parted ways after the trip were denied by a 'close family friend' who spoke to The Daily Telegraph.

The insider said: 'These stories they've split - it's just not true. She's gone back to LA to look after her business. They're both devastated they're not together.'

Filming: The Today show presented the show from Brisbane in the wake of Cyclone Debbie

Something funny? It wasn't all doom and gloom for Karl, as he took a call in between filming for the show

Karl was all smiles later though, as he stopped to take a call before chatting and posing for photos with fans.

The father-of-three spoke to two young girls and seemed happy to oblige when asked if he would pose for photos.

The presenter also got up close with one of his younger fans, playfully chatting with a little boy in green.

Fans: The father-of-three spoke to two young girls and was happy to oblige when asked if he would pose for photos

Smile! The blonde and red-haired beauties each took a photo with Karl, during a break from his heavy schedule

Youngest supporter! The presenter even chatted playfully with a young fan

Wrapping up the show, Karl and fellow co-host Lisa Wilkinson then quickly headed for the airport, suitcases in tow.

Karl wheeled a shiny silver suitcase with him, carrying another black bag over his shoulder and a jacket in hand.

Meanwhile Lisa rugged up in a brown overcoat, jeans, a white t-shirt and a pair of comfy ivory sneakers.

Instead of a suitcase, she sported a shopping bag in one hand, and a large ebony handbag in the other.

Heading home? Karl wheeled a shiny silver suitcase with him, carrying another black bag over his shoulder and a jacket in hand

Airport bound: Wrapping up the show, Karl and fellow co-host Lisa Wilkinson then quickly headed for the airport, suitcases in tow

The pair were believed to be heading to the impending nuptials of Karl's brother Peter and his fiance Sylvia Jeffreys.

The couple are said to be tying the knot in the picturesque Kangaroo Valley this weekend, with Peter spotted arriving in the rural NSW town Thursday afternoon.

The Today Show also announced it will host its Monday morning program in Bowral, a convenient 40 minutes' drive from Kangaroo Valley.

Karl might be going solo at the event though, after reports bride Sylvia banned Jasmine because she doesn't want a media circus on her big day.

Off to a wedding? The pair were believed to be heading to the impending nuptials of Karl's brother Peter and his fiance Sylvia Jeffreys
It's slated to be the wedding of the year.

But interest in Karl Stefanovic and whether his new girlfriend Jasmine Yarbrough will attend is reportedly threatening to overshadow his brother Peter and Sylvia Jeffreys nuptials.

The Sydney Morning Herald has claimed that 'tensions remain high' between the two brothers due to scrutiny over whether Karl's current partner or estranged wife Cassandra Thorburn will attend the wedding.

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'Tensions remain high': Karl Stefanovic 'has threatened to overshadow' the wedding of brother Peter and Sylvia Jeffreys due to interest in his new beau Jasmine Yarbrough

The tension between Karl and soon to be wed couple Peter and Sylvia reportedly centres around whether the Today host will bring a partner to the wedding, although previous reports claim that neither Jasmine or Cassandra will attend.

Despite Karl splitting from his wife of 21 years last year, Sylvia has remained on good terms with Cassandra with the pair catching up over a meal in Rose Bay last week, Fairfax Media reported.

It's also claimed that Karl had only spent 'a few hours' at Peter's bucks party held last weekend - a days-long affair held at a private house in Berry, NSW.

Avoiding a media circus? The tension between Karl and soon to be wed couple Peter and Sylvia reportedly centre around whether the Today host will bring a partner to the wedding

The fresh report comes after Woman's Day claimed earlier this week that Sylvia had banned model and shoe designer Jasmine from the upcoming nuptials.

The magazine claims Sylvia doesn't want to attract a 'media circus' on her big day, and has decided to avoid it by not inviting her.

And while Karl is reportedly 'disappointed', Jasmine 'understands' Sylvia's concerns, according to the publication.

'Jasmine was very excited to see them say "I do" and finally get to meet all of Karl's family,' a source allegedly said.

'But she also doesn't want to take anything away from Sylvia and Pete's big day. She completely understands.'

Party time: claimed also that Karl had only spent 'a few hours' at Peter's bucks party held last weekend - a days-long affair held at a private house in Berry, NSW.

Meanwhile, Peter reportedly celebrated his last days of singledom with a bucks party thrown by brother Karl, 42, and several close friends, over the weekend.

The media personality reportedly partied alongside his Today host sibling and some mates including radio host Ben Fordham just outside of Sydney on Saturday, according to The Sunday Telegraph.

Last year, Peter remained tight-lipped about details surrounding his bucks night when asked by Fitzy and Wippa where his bucks party would be.

'We just got to keep the people guessing!' he laughed.

Not invited? It's been reported that Cassandra Thorburn will be on the guest list

'Sporting Bet came out with the odds, Thailand is coming in at 2-1 3-1 to Las Vegas in 3 or 4-1.

He finished: 'Yes odds have come out!'

Weeks prior, Sylvia told the radio hosts that she had to put a stop to some of her future brother-in-law Karl's wild bachelor party plans for his brother Peter.

Sylvia explained: 'I think Karl is much more excited about the bucks which probably doesnt surprise you than he is about the wedding. He floated the idea of a week in Thailand for the bucks which I have already shut down.'

The radio duo laughed and Michael 'Wippa' Wipfli quipped back: 'My god, He wouldnt come home alive.'

Ryan 'Fitzy' Fitzgerald echoed the thoughts and exclaimed: 'A bucks week in Thailand!?'

Hearing their shocked responses Sylvia was quick to say: 'I can't tell you how glad I am that you think that's outrageous too.'

Bridal wear: Sources told Daily Mail Australia that 33-year-old Sylvia will wear a bridal gown by Australian designer Rebecca Vallance on her big day

The bucks news comes days after sources told Daily Mail Australia that 33-year-old Sylvia will wear a bridal gown by Australian designer Rebecca Vallance on her big day.

The TV presenter is a longtime fan of the dressmaker, whose flagship boutique is situated in the upscale suburb of Mosman.

The blonde TV personality was first seen wearing a gorgeous piece by the brand over two years ago for Melbourne Cup celebrations.
Peter Stefanovic and Sylvia Jeffreys are due to tie the knot on Saturday.

And on Friday, Karl Stefanovic and Lisa Wilkinson ensured that they wouldn't miss out on any pre-wedding festivities as they rushed to catch a flight at 9am, right after filming the Today show.

The pair were clearly in a hurry as they headed to a chauffeured car together, but also appeared to be visibly excited about the weekend ahead.

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Places to be: Lisa Wilkinson and Karl Stefanovic headed off to catch a plane to Peter Stefanovic and Sylvia Jeffreys wedding

Karl, 42, showcased his hairy chest in a white, semi-unbuttoned shirt.

The masculine star paired it with jeans and held a jacket over his arm.

Meanwhile, Lisa cut a casual yet stylish figure in a classic camel coloured trench coat.

Manly: Karl, 42, showcased his hairy chest in a white, semi-unbuttoned shirt

Style: He also sported jeans and held a jacket over his arm

No help: Karl was happy to carry his own luggage instead of palming it off to an assistant

She added blue jeans and a pair of white sneakers for comfort.

Both stars put on a down-to-earth display by carrying their own bags instead of leaving the task to assistants.

Before entering their vehicle, Karl was stopped by a handful of fans for photos.

Warm: Lisa cut a casual yet stylish figure in a classic camel coloured trench coat

No divas here: Both stars put on a down-to-earth display by carrying their own bags instead of leaving the task to assistants

Karl's new girlfriend Jasmine Yarbrough has reportedly been banned from the wedding, according toThe Courier Mail.

The ceremony will take place in Kangaroo Valley on Saturday and a number of high-profile Channel Nine personalities and executives are expected to attend.

The bride, who appears on the Today show with her soon-to-be-husband and Karl, reportedly barred Jasmine from the festivities.

Need a hand: A concerned Lisa looked to be asking Karl if he needed a helping hand

Celebrity: The ceremony will take place in Kangaroo Valley on Saturday and a number of high-profile Channel Nine personalities and executives are expected to attend

No go: Sylvia, who appears on the Today show with her soon-to-be-husband and Karl, reportedly banned Karl's new girlfriend Jasmine Yarbrough from the festivities

It is understood she didn't want her big day turning into a 'media circus'.

Last week it was revealed that Sylvia Jeffreys will wear a bridal gown by Australian designer Rebecca Vallance for her wedding day, sources told Daily Mail Australia.

The journalist is a longtime fan of the dressmaker, whose flagship boutique is situated in the upscale suburb of Mosman.

Chit chat? Karl enjoyed a spirited conversation on his mobile telephone

Alone time: The breakfast TV star appeared to need a few moments alone to unwind

Need some company? Despite plenty of free space at the barrier, one stranger decided to stand VERY close to Karl

Doting display: Karl was happy to entertain a young Today show viewer

Oh my god, can I have your autograph?! The hunky star was besieged by a legion of stunning female fans

A photo lasts forever: The fans were keen to immortalise their meeting with Karl for eternity

Now it's my turn! After the first fan secured a snap, the star-struck duo swapped places to ensure that they'd both have their own images besides the A-list TV personality
She came to support her husband and actor, Bobby Cannavale, who stars in the 1922 rendition of the play, The Hairy Ape.

And Rose Byrne cut a chic display on Thursday evening at the opening party in New York City's largest art center, Park Avenue Armory.

The 37-year-old actress brought some pizzazz wearing leopard-printed harem pants and a long fitted blazer.

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Wild thing! Rose Byrne rocked leopard-printed pants at opening night party of The Hairy Ape, which stars her husband Bobby Cannavale

She paired the look with a low-cut black top that she tucked into her pants, topping it off with peep toe booties.

The Aussie-born beauty wore her light brunette locks down, parted in the middle, as she went for a natural make-up look.

Joining her on the carpet was 46-year-old hubby and star of the play, Bobby, who dressed as a true artist in all black, including his top hat, as he left some stubble on his face to complement his hipster look.

Flawless: The 37-year-old actress went for a natural and effortless look showing off her radiant complexion and wavy hair

Star of the evening: The 46-year-old actor looked hipster chic in all black as he topped it off with a cap and some stubble on his face

Together, the couple raise their one-year-old son Rocco.

Comedian and actor Paul Rudd, 47, also made his presence at the opening night as he looked sharp in a dark olive green suit that he paired with a white button down shirt and dark shoes.

Ethan Hawke, 46, joined the evening festivities as well looking a bit more casual than his fellow actors wearing sneakers and a cap with his blazer and khaki pants.

Sharp: Actor Paul Rudd, 47, also joined the evening festivities as he looked clean and sharp in a dark olive green suit

Casual and cool: Ethan Hawke, 46, opted for sneakers and a cap as he paired the look with brown khakis and a blazer

Neat: Actor Chris Bannow also made an appearance wearing a striped navy blue suit

Actors Chris Bannow, David Costabile and Eliza Baldi also attended the star-studded event.

The Blue Jasmine actor recently admitted that his role in The Hairy Ape was his most demanding one yet.

He told The Hollywood Reporter: 'This guy is a beast, and the part is really written for somebody 20 years younger than me. I lose my voice, I hurt myself a lot.

'I tore my meniscus during rehearsals two weeks ago; I took a cortisone shot and I have to have surgery on it after the show.

Excited: Stars David Costabile and Eliza Baldi attended the event as well

'But I felt I have to do it because Ill probably never get to play something quite this physical again.'

Bobby plays Yank in Eugene O'Neill's expressionist play who is a brutish steel laborer, searching for belonging in a world controlled by the rich elite.

The Vinyl star commented on the relevance of the play as he told THR: 'It really struck me. I thought, "What a good time to do this," but I didnt think Donald Trump was gonna win the presidency. Now that he has, I think the play is even more eerie.

'These people worked their asses off forever and get laid off with no pensions; they get promises by the people upstairs and they get nothing. Theyre stuck.'

Precious: Bobby and Rose together raise their one-year-old son, Rocco
In her latest film she plays the titular zookeeper's wife.

And Jessica Chastain appeared to have come straight from the bird house as she rocked an aviary-esqe frock to CinemaCons Big Screen Achievement Awards on Thursday night.

The 40-year-old looked fab in a vividly coloured dress turquoise, pink and yellow, depicting birds on a crosshatched lace that roared 'bird cage'.

That's aviary nice dress: Jessica Chastain rocked bird cage frock as she was named Female Star Of The Year at CinemaCon's Big Screen Achievement Awards on Thursday night

The actress paired it with a simple pair of black ankle-strap heels.

The star left her trademark golden tresses flowing over her shoulder in gentle waves, and finishing off in a bold red lip.

The two-time Oscar nominee was on hand to pick up another award on the night: Female Star Of The Year.

Unlike the usual Hollywood gongs, CinemaCon recognizes not only films made in the past year, but future projects in the coming months, which for Chastain includes the war drama The Zookeeper's Wife, released this weekend.

Light as a feather: The 40-year-old looked fab in a vividly coloured dress turquoise, pink and yellow, depicting birds on a crosshatched lace that roared 'bird cage'

Gorgeous: The actress paired it with a simple pair of black ankle-strap heels, leaving her trademark golden tresses flowing over her shoulder in gentle waves, and finishing off in a bold red lip

Heroic role: In the film, the star plays a Polish zookeeper's wife who helps save Jewish families by hiding them at the zoo after the Nazis invade the company

Accepting the award, the actress got very animated as she spoke about her upcoming film.

In the film, the star plays a Polish zookeeper's wife who helps save Jewish families by hiding them at the zoo after the Nazis invade the company.

Charlie Hunnam meanwhile, who has The Lost City of Z, and King Arthur: Legend of the Sword coming out this year, was awarded Male Star of the Year.

Happy to be there: Accepting the award, the actress got very animated as she spoke about her upcoming film

Back in black: Female Star Of Tomorrow Sofia Boutella posed with CinemaCon Vanguard Award Salma Hayek

Mouthful: Naomi Watts was presented with the Distinguished Decade of Achievement in Film

Funny girls: Goldie Hawn picked up the Cinema Icon Award

Australian Home And Away star Brenton Thwaites, who starred in Egyptian Gods last year and will star in Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales this year, was named Breakthrough Performer of the Year.

Hot in his tail was Rising Star Of The Year Nickelodeon's Isabela Moner, who is set to make an appearance in Transformers: The Last Knight.

Silicon Valley's Kumail Nanjiani, who arrived with wife Emily V Gordon, was honored as Comedy Star of the Year.

Hot stuff: Charlie Hunnam, who has The Lost City of Z, and King Arthur: Legend of the Sword coming out this year, was awarded Male Star of the Year

Well suited: The actor was suave as always wearing a blue suit and tie to accept his award

The boys: Australian Home And Away star Brenton Thwaites (L) - and not Josh Hartnett was named Breakthrough Performer of the Year; Ansel Elgort was dubbed Male Star Of Tomorrow

Can see him: WWE supremo John Cena was named Action Star of the Year

Wow: Boutella put on a revealing display in a sheer dress

WWE supremo John Cena was named Action Star of the Year, while Get Out's Jordan Peele picked up Director of the Year.

Separate from Breakthrough Performer and Rising Star, the Male and Female Star Of Tomorrow were awarded to Ansel Elgort and Sofia Boutella, respectively.

Instead of having just one lifetime achievement award, Goldie Hawn picked up the Cinema Icon Award; Salma Hayek was handed the CinemaCon Vanguard Award; while Naomi Watts was presented with the 'Distinguished Decade of Achievement in Film'.

Writing partners: Silicon Valley's Kumail Nanjiani, who arrived with wife Emily V Gordon, was honored as Comedy Star of the Year

The new Shia: Rising Star Of The Year Nickelodeon's Isabela Moner is set to make an appearance in Transformers: The Last Knight
They are set to tie the knot in an intimate Southern Highlands ceremony in front of a star-studded sea of guests.

And it seems TV power couple Sylvia Jeffreys and Peter Stefanovic plan to make the most of regional New South Wales' natural splendour, with rumours emerging the pair will exchange vows beneath a mammoth rock formation.

On Friday, the Sydney Morning Herald reported: 'Weather permitting the couple are expecting to take their vows amid a stunning natural rock formation dubbed by locals as The Rock Cathedral, nestled in pristine bushland.'

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Is this where Peter Stefanovic and Sylvia Jeffreys will exchange vows? Pair are rumoured to be tying the knot next to remote bushland rock formation

On Friday, the Sydney Morning Herald reported: 'Weather permitting the couple are expecting to take their vows amid a stunning natural rock formation dubbed by locals as The Rock Cathedral, nestled in pristine bushland.'

Between a rock and a married place? TV power couple Sylvia and Peter are set to wed over the weekend

'Guests have been asked to refrain from uploading any status updates or images in the lead up to the wedding on their social media feeds, while the bride and groom are not expecting to "post" on Instagram until well after tying the knot,' the publication reported.

The idyllic bush setting of Kangaroo Valley Bush Retreat is located between the regions of Shoalhaven and the Southern Highlands, less than two hours drive from Sydney and Canberra.

Sweeping views of the bush aside, Kangaroo Valley had it's own cathedral and function centre.

Five-star wedding: They will toe the knot in an intimate Southern Highlands ceremony in front of a star-studded sea of guests

But the highlight is the incredible cathedral-like rock cavity that sees couples exchange vows in the middle of a rock formation.

Meanwhile, reports have emerged that Peter's brother Karl Stefanovic's ex-wife Cassandra Thorburn won't be attending the nuptials.

The 44-year-old, who separated from Karl in September, has been left off the invite list, according to The Courier Mail.

'It makes Cass wonder how much they knew': Meanwhile, reports have emerged that Peter's brother Karl Stefanovic's ex-wife Cassandra Thorburn won't be attending the nuptials

According to Woman's Day, a close source claimed Peter and Sylvia have not spoken to former ABC journalist Cassandra since she split from Karl, leaving her 'hurt'.

'It makes Cass wonder how much they knew,' the insider offered, after Karl reportedly first walked out of the couple's family home without warning in July.

'Cass is really hurt by this as she believed they were her real friends,' they added.
She's one of Australia's biggest modeling exports.

So it's only natural that Shanina Shaik has an incredible figure - which she wasn't afraid to show off during reality star Nicole Williams' bachelorette party in Hawaii this week.

The 26-year-old flaunted her pert derriere in a VERY skimpy bikini as she frolicked on the sand with her scantily-clad girlfriends.

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Gorgeous: Shanina Shaik flaunted her pert derriere in a VERY skimpy bikini as she frolicked on the sand with her scantily-clad girlfriends

At one point, the gorgeous gaggle appeared to be arranging themselves for a glamorous group selfies and a few belfies.

Shanina was in Hawaii with Nicole Williams to celebrate the WAGS star's impending wedding to former San Diego Chargers player Larry English.

Fans are no doubt hoping that Nicole's nuptials will be documented on the next season of her E! reality series.

Say cheese? The 26-year-old and a female pal bent over to get a good shot for social media

Hungry? The Australian supermodel took a break from selfies to enjoy a snack

Kick up the butt! Shanina gave her friend a friendly kick as they enjoyed themselves

The bachelorette party will no doubt be on Shanina's mind as she continues to enjoy her 'long engagement' to fiance DJ Ruckus.

However, while the model is happy to take her time, she did admit on the Today show in January that she's come closer to choosing the kind of wedding dress that she wants.

'We're doing it slowly, we have a long engagement which is quite nice,' the Victoria's Secret stunner confessed.

Celebrate: Shanina was in Hawaii with Nicole Williams to celebrate the WAGS star's impending wedding to former San Diego Chargers player Larry English

Thirsty? Shanina enjoyed a drink as she sat with her feet in the water

All smiles: The brunette beauty beamed as she enjoyed a lively conversation

'But I can tell you I do have an idea for my dress, so I'm really happy about that.'

Shanina also opened up about bringing her beau DJ Ruckus Down Under for the holidays.

'I just celebrated my first Christmas in Melbourne with my fiance,' she gushed to the Daily Telegraph.

'We had an amazing time, I never tire of being back in my hometown.'

Walking: The bachelorette party will no doubt be on Shanina's mind as she continues to enjoy her 'long engagement' to fiance DJ Ruckus
She's been nominated for the Gold Logie for her lead role as Joan Millar on Channel Nine drama Love Child.

And Jessica Marais was pictured distraught, filming scenes for the fourth season in Sydney on Friday.

Despite being in tears, the 32-year-old cut a glamorous figure in a blue silk frock, teamed with a trench coat in a deeper blue hue.

SPOILER ALERT: Jessica Marais, 32, was pictured in TEARS on the set of Love Child in Sydney on Friday, as she ran through emotional lines

Jessica sported a blue silk blouse and trench coat of a deeper blue hue.

The coat's wrap-around tie cinched in at her naturally slender waist.

Nude open-toe heels and silver drop earrings worked as coordinating accessories.

Emotional: Jessica's character Joan Millar was visibly distraught on-set of the fourth season of the popular series

The mother-of-one's long blonde locks were styled in glamorous waves, and were protected by a black fish net.

Jessica enhanced her pretty facial features with a flawless complexion, defined brows, lashings of mascara and a nude lip.

The star was pictured standing alone on the streets of Sydney, holding onto a script.

Captured: The South African-born beauty was pictured dabbing at her left eye during a break on-set

Her character was visibly distraught, tears welling up in her eyes.

At this stage however, it is unknown as to what series of events caused Jessica's character to be in turmoil.

Last year, Jessica, who plays single mum Dr. Joan Millar on the popular series, revealed she has learned a lot from her character.

Reflection: Last year, Jessica, who plays single mum Dr. Joan Millar on the popular series, revealed to News Corp she has learned a lot from her character: 'What I really love about her is her strength and want to do better and to do the right thing'

In reality, the South African-born beauty shares daughter Scout Edie, four, with ex-fiance James Stewart, 41.

'With Joan, what I really love about her is her strength and want to do better and to do the right thing,' she told News Corp.

'Often she doesn't, she does the wrong thing, but she's always willing to keep trying and keep fighting. Her resilience is quite incredible, I take so much from it.

Resilience: 'Often she doesn't, she does the wrong thing, but she's always willing to keep trying and keep fighting. Her resilience is quite incredible, I take so much from it,' she continued to tell the news source

'Obviously there are parts of yourself that are present in every character you play, but I've learnt from Joan's resilience quite a lot, she's really helped me,' she continued.

Meanwhile, Jessica is nominated for a Gold Logie this year, the only woman in the category.

Also nominated for television's prestigious award is Grant Denyer, Peter Helliar, Rodger Corser, Samuel Johnson and Waleed Aly.

Jessica won the Logie for Best Actress last year, for her role in Love Child.
Her beau Tyga was blasted on social media by his former fiancee Blac Chyna over their son's child support.

Now appearing unfazed by the public call out, his current squeeze Kylie Jenner stopped by Starbucks in Beverly Hills on Thursday with a gal pal.

The 19-year-old reality star - who was first linked with the rapper in 2014 - swapped her usual glamorous ensembles for a low-key look while grabbing her iced coffee.

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Hot topic: Kylie Jenner stopped by Starbucks in Beverly Hills on Thursday with a gal pal

The beauty mogul slipped into a matching tracksuit black oversized tracksuit with flame detail up her sleeves and joggers.

Casually clad for the afternoon, E! star Kylie teamed her chic two-piece with a pair of white plimsolls as she strolled to her local coffee chain with ease.

Although having amassed quite the beauty empire with her Kylie cosmetics brand, she opted to forgo make-up and instead showcase her flawless complexion while sipping on her beverage.

Working her new extension ladden coif in a straight style, the youngest of the Kardashian-Jenner clan displayed her simple diamond stud earrings as she fixed her 'do behind her ear with her watch wearing hand.

Blazin' squad: The 19-year-old reality star - who was first linked with the rapper in 2014 - swapped her usual glamorous ensembles for a low-key look while grabbing her iced coffee

Explosive: Kylie's carefree appearance comes after her boyfriend's former flame Blac Chyna shocked her social media fans with an impromptu foul-mouthed rant over child support for their son King Cairo, four

Kylie's carefree appearance comes after her boyfriend's former flame shocked her social media fans with an impromptu foul-mouthed rant over child support for their son King Cairo, four.

And Blac Chyna's expletive online tirade only intensified, as TMZ reported that she believes the rapper has teamed up with her most recent baby daddy, Rob Kardashian, to 'spread lies' about her.

According to the website, the former stripper, 28, was particularly upset when she learned that Tyga was telling people that she wants to quash their feud - which is information that she insists came from Rob.

Untruths? Chyna reportedly believes that her exes Tyga and Rob Kardashian have teamed up to 'spread lies' about her

The confusion reportedly arose when Chyna contacted Tyga to demand that he pay for nannies for their four-year-old son King Cairo, which was said to have been misinterpreted by the musician as her wanting to discuss their co-parting.

Rob reportedly became close pals with Tyga after his recent split with Chyna, with whom he shares four-month-old daughter Dream.

MailOnline has contacted a representatives for Blac Chyna, Rob Kardashian and Tyga for comment.

Baby daddies: She shares four-month daughter Dream with Rob Kardashian, left, and four-year-old son King Cairo with Tyga, right

Lashing out: She's never been one to hold her tongue. And Blac Chyna let rip in spectacular fashion at her former fiance Tyga as she accused him of not paying child support

Chyna took to Snapchat on Wednesday, where she went on a lengthy foul-mouthed rant in which she challenged her ex to come to her salon and face her.

She began dating Tyga in November 2011, and they welcomed son King ten months later before splitting in 2014.

Tyga is currently dating Kylie Jenner - the sister of her ex Rob Kardashian - and Chyna was sure to target both stars in her expletive-riddled rant.

Slammed: On Wednesday, former stripper went on a lengthy foul-mouthed rant in which she challenged her ex - with whom she shares son King Cairo - to come to her salon and face her

Fighting talk: Taking to Snapchat on Wednesday she went on a lengthy foul-mouthed rant involving not just Tyga but also her ex Rob Kardashian and Kylie Jenner

Weirdos: The mother-of-two joked that Tyga and Kylie were acting like children

In a series of blank Snapchats filled with just text, she wrote: 'Its funny now to me !!! But when Tyga and side n***a kicked me out !!! And they wanted to see me fail ! lol

'And 2 grind from the dirt !!!!! No child support! N**** is like h**s ! So imma treat u like that ! Not paying Jenny ! Wow

'Stop running to ur money ! Telling my business about King ! I bet any money ! I got more money then ur account Tyga , Michael ! !!! [sic]'

Cute kid: Blac Chyna began dating Tyga in November 2011, and they welcomed son King ten months later before splitting in 2014

Something to say? Tyga returned to Snapchat hours afterwards

Staying silent: Rob went on Instagram to post a picture of baby Dream, saying 'babies are the greatest gift of life'

She continued: 'So go tell Kylie , and Rob! About our son Account ! Cause thats the only reason Im contacting ur f*g a*s ! But u wanna make it like I want u lol !

'Tyga ur a b**** ! And u can go get ur mom , or ur b**** ! Lol ! !!!! Or ur n**** u f**** ,,, or Terrell, or heather !'

The reality starlet also sent out the address of her Lashed salon in California and said she would be 'on wait'.

MailOnline have contacted Tyga's representatives for comment.

Former flames: Blac Chyna began dating Tyga in November 2011, and they welcomed son King ten months later before splitting in 2014

Her rant came after she admitted she didn't want any 'negative energy' with her ex.

Speaking to Cosmopolitan South Africa this month, she explained: 'It's important to me and Tyga not to have negative energy...Kids breathe energy.'

She added: 'You have to learn to forgive and forget. Many people don't like to forgive others. Even if someone does something awful to you, you need to forgive them to be able to move on with your life.'
She's known for her award winning acting and wowing on the big screen.

And now, Naomi Watts has been presented with the Distinguished Decade Of Achievement In Film award at CinemaCon in Las Vegas on Thursday night.

The Aussie actress beamed as she gave a speech to thank the audience for the recognition of her acting career at the star-studded film industry event.

Naomi Watts has been rightfully presented with the Distinguished Decade Of Achievement In Film award at CinemaCon in Las Vegas

Naomi gestured to the audience as she gave a passionate address about her acting career

Naomi gestured to the audience with her hands as she gave a passionate address about her most memorable moments as an actress.

She spoke onstage, with her newest award by her side, as a captivated crowd stood to applaud.

The 48-year-old actress looked every bit the part as she made quite the statement in a classy yet contemporary white dress at the event.

The Oscar-nominated actress wowed on the star-studded carpet that took place in Las Vegas.

She spoke onstage, with her newest award by her side, as a captivated crowd stood to applaud

Ravishing! Naomi Watts stepped out on Thursday at CinemaCon in Las Vegas where she wowed in a white lace dress

Her dress featured intricate lace along the bosom all the way down to the bottom of the frock.

It nicely showcased her extremely svelte display as it featured see-through fabric along the midriff.

Naomi paired her dress with black wedge heels, a large shimmering necklace and a black clutch purse.

The 48-year-old actress paired her deatiled white dress with black wedge heels, a large shimmering necklace and a black clutch purse

Her blonde locks were styled down, parted to the side, as she added a bold swipe of red lips for her make-up.

Naomi has been promoting her latest film, The Book Of Henry, whose trailer released earlier on Thursday.

The movie revolves around single mother Susan Carpenter - played by Naomi - who helps her gifted eleven-year-old son Henry execute a plan to help his classmate.
She finally called time on her turbulent relationship with Pete Wicks earlier this week.

But Megan McKenna certainly showed her ex what he was missing on Thursday night, as she headed on a glamorous girls' night out in London.

The brunette beauty, 24, sizzled in an orange cut-out bodycon dress - which exposed her underwear-free body beneath - as she arrived at the swanky Aristokrat club in Mayfair.

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Single and ready to mingle: Megan McKenna certainly showed her ex Pete Wicks what he was missing on Thursday night, as she headed on a glamorous girls' night out in London

Saucy: The brunette beauty, 24, sizzled in an orange cut-out bodycon dress - which exposed her underwear-free body beneath - as she arrived at the swanky Aristokrat club in Mayfair

The Ex On The Beach star showed off her sensational figure in the bodycon dress, which clung tightly to her slim waist and slender frame from top to toe.

Pulling into a chic halter neck, the frock the scooped into a low back to show off plenty of her gorgeous, glowing skin.

Upping the sex appeal further however, the vibrant orange number then laced up at the sides in a corset style - elongating her already leggy frame and saucily revealing she had gone underwear free for the evening.

Bronze goddess: Pulling into a chic halter neck, the frock the scooped into a low back to show off plenty of her gorgeous, glowing skin

Tangerine queen: Upping the sex appeal further however, the vibrant orange number then laced up at the sides in a corset style

Girls just wanna have fun: Styling her hair into bouncy waves and sporting her trademark Essex tan, Megan oozed confidence and glamour as she headed out with her gal pal Amber Turner

Keeping all eyes on her show-stopping look and killer body, she tied her look together with simple nude heel and shimmering gold bag.

Styling her hair into big, bouncy waves and sporting her trademark Essex tan, Megan oozed confidence and glamour as she headed out with her gal pal Amber Turner.

Ditching the traditional party dress for the occasion, Amber clad herself in a pair of trendy white flares instead.

Taking it in her stride: Ditching the traditional party dress for the occasion, Amber clad herself in a pair of trendy white flares instead

Tanned and toned: Teaming the bottoms with a barely-there black lace crop top, the blonde bombshell flashed both her abs and her cleavage as she supported her newly-single friend

Cinching in at her waist, the white strides then hugged her svelte legs to their quirky calf-hem, which was adorned with a bold frill detail.

Teaming the bottoms with a barely-there black lace crop top, the blonde bombshell flashed both her abs and her cleavage as she supported her newly-single friend on the glam night out.

The duo were also joined by Yazmin Oukhellou, who has recently started dating their co-star James 'Lockie' Lock.

Good things come in threes: The duo were also joined by Yazmin Oukhellou (far right)

In the nude: The brunette beauty looked classically chic in a strapless dress of shimmering nude satin, which emphasised her petite waist with its ruched material

New couple: Yaz has recently come on the scene after embarking on a relationship with co-star James 'Lockie' Lock (left)

The brunette beauty looked classically chic in a strapless dress of shimmering nude satin, which emphasised her petite waist with its ruched material.

Keeping co-ordinated from head-to-toe, she strutted her stuff in matching nude heels and a sleek leather clutch bag, emblazoned with gold studs for a hint of glitz.

Megan looked more confident than ever as she enjoyed a night out with her girls - following her emotional break-up with Pete Wicks on Wednesday's episode of TOWIE.

Getting on with it: Megan looked more confident than ever as she enjoyed a night out with her girls - following her emotional break-up with Pete Wicks on Wednesday's episode of TOWIE

Drama: However Megan's relaxing girls' night may have been interrupted by Pete himself (above) - who was seen heading into the same club with a friend and a mystery brunette

In a tearful chat at Megan's flat, the beauty admitted that she could not forgive his sexting scandal which emerged last year - causing Pete to question whether she loved him anymore, and end their romance.

Fighting back tears, Megan explained to the hunk, 28: 'Maybe [the texts] made you realise you love me, but you obviously didn't back then as you wouldn't have done it. And it's not fair on you that I can't forgive you.'

However Pete went on to reason: 'What happened back then was s***, but I can't feel guilty all the time. I can't pay for it for the rest of my life.'

Over: In a tearful chat at Megan's flat, the beauty admitted that she could not forgive Pete's sexting scandal which emerged last year

Not fair: Pete had said of his explicit texts, sent to another woman in September: 'What happened was s***, but I can't feel guilty all the time. I can't pay for it for the rest of my life'

Not bothered: However Pete looked as calm and collected as ever despite the split as he headed to the club in a double denim combo of jeans and a white jacket

Mingling: He happily chatted to friends outside the club after a night of drinking and dancing

The pair were referring to Pete's cyber infidelity in September - which saw him send highly explicit messages to his ex Jacqui Ryland, during a trip to Marbella to celebrate Megan's birthday.

Many of the texts were said to be too explicit to print, but one reportedly saw Pete admitting to the mother-of-three that he 'can't wait to get home' and that it is not just Jacqui who misses their previous relationship.

However Megan's relaxing girls' night may have been interrupted by Pete himself - who was seen heading into the same club with a friend and a mystery brunette.

Tensions: Perhaps only adding the romantic dramas of the night, Megan headed out with best friend Amber, who is said to be dating Dan Edgar - also present at the club (above)

Not bothered: Dan and Pete appeared in good spirits as they headed inside - despite their recent love woes with Megan and Dan's ex Kate Wright

Perhaps only adding the romantic dramas of the night, Megan headed out with best friend Amber, who is said to be dating Dan Edgar - also present at the club.

Amber and the TOWIE favourite, 26, began dating at the start of the new series, after they hooked up on a cast trip to Tenerife while the blonde was in a long-term relationship with Jamie Reed.

Having since split from her beau of four years, Amber has now embarked on a fling with Dan - which has caused tension between her and his ex Kate Wright.

Home time: Megan was seen later on taking a phone call outside the club
Her husband, Ksubi founder Dan Single, is currently recovering after a fall from a third floor balcony in Paris shattered bones in his legs.

And Bambi Northwood-Blyth was blowing off some steam on Thursday as she spent time at Miami Beach with hunky model Jordan Barrett.

The 25-year-old, who flew to America for a modelling shoot earlier this week, was pictured taking some down time as the pair were seen spraying each other with sun cream and having a dip in the sea.

Taking her mind off it: Bambi Northwood-Blyth was blowing off some steam on Thursday as she spent time at Miami Beach with hunky model Jordan Barrett

Bambi took to the sand in a leopard-print triangle bikini, which showed off her slender physique.

The brunette had her tied in a ponytail as she took precautions against the Florida sun by spraying herself with lotion.

Jordan was standing by to ensure Bambi's hard to reach spots were covered, pictured applying sun cream to the model.

Tragedy: Her husband Dan Single is currently recovering after a fall from a third floor balcony in Paris shattered bones in his legs earlier this month

Topping up the tan: Jordan joined his friend for the beach day in Florida

Down time: The 25-year-old was pictured enjoying some down time as the pair were seen spraying each other with sun cream and taking a dip in the sea

Bikini babe: Bambi looked in impeccable shape as she took to the sand in a leopard-print triangle bikini

What are friends for: Jordan was standing by to ensure Bambi's hard to reach spots were covered, pictured applying sun cream to the model

Sun kissed: The brunette had her tied in a ponytail as she took precautions against the Florida sun by spraying herself with lotion

Beach bod: The 20-year-old also gave his tanned torso a coating after arriving at the beach in a pair of loose-fitting trousers

Supplies: Carrying a red bag, Jordan wore a pair of Nike swimming shorts as the Aussie duo headed into the sea for a swim

The 20-year-old also gave his tanned torso a coating after arriving at the beach in a pair of loose-fitting trousers.

Carrying a red bag, Jordan wore a pair of Nike swimming shorts as the Aussie duo headed into the sea for a swim.

The Byron Bay native tied his locks back into a bun as he was seen wearing two gold chains around his neck.

The boy in the striped pyjamas: Jordan is an up-and-coming name in the world of modelling

Good hair day: The Byron Bay native tied his locks back into a bun as he was seen wearing two gold chains around his neck

Going in: Bambi wore a delicate anklet as she made her way into the sea

Making a splash: The pair took refuge from the heat by taking a dip in the water

Cooling off: A dripping wet Bambi headed back up to their spot on the beach

Saocialites: A day earlier, Jordan shared two pictures of Bambi on Instagram - one of which sees him sat back-to-back with the model

Kicking back: Jordan has been spending time with the model in between work commitments in America

A day earlier, Jordan shared two pictures of Bambi on Instagram - one of which sees him sat back-to-back with the model.

Bambi had been by her husband's side until earlier this week - following the tragic incident that saw him slip and fall from the third floor balcony of their room at the Grand Amour hotel in Paris.

The Ksubi founder was placed in an induced coma, while a source described his legs as a 'complete mess', according to The Daily Telegraph.

Pain: Bambi had been by her husband's side until Wednesday - following the tragic incident that saw him slip and fall from the third floor balcony of their room at the Grand Amour hotel in Paris

Trauma: The Ksubi founder was placed in an induced coma, while a source described his legs as a 'complete mess', according to The Daily Telegraph

Positive: Last week, Dan's friend and owner of the hotel where the fall took place, Andre Saraiva, shared a positive update on the designer's condition

'[He] is doing much better,' the French graffiti artist and hotelier told WHO magazine

Last week, Dan's friend and owner of the hotel where the fall took place, Andre Saraiva, shared a positive update on the designer's condition.

'[He] is doing much better,' the French graffiti artist and hotelier told WHO magazine.

It comes after Bambi also updated fans of his ongoing recovery.

Last week, she wrote: 'WE ARE GETTING THERE ... DAN KEEP ON BEING THE AMAZING FIGHTER YOU ARE... YOU GOT THIS !!!! WE GOT THIS (sic).'
He started his acting career in Australia after appearing on Home and Away in 2011.

Now Brenton Thwaites is making a name for himself in Hollywood and has won the award for Breakthrough Performer of the Year at CinemaCon in Las Vegas.

The 27-year-old Aussie has had a swift rise to Hollywood fame with roles in blockbusters such as Maleficent, Gods of Egypt and The Giver and is set to light up the screens in the latest Pirates of the Caribbean film.

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Bravo Brenton: Aussie actor Brenton Thwaites has received the award for Breakthrough Performer of the Year

Bay boy done good: The 27-year-old started his career on Home & Away and is now set to appear in the new Pirates Of The Caribbean movie alongside Orlando Bloom

The actor could not contain his excitement when he took to the stage to accept the award, as he threw his hands up in elation.

He spoke with enthusiasm as he accepted the prestigious award which he was presented with by host Natalie Morales.

He smiled at the audience as he spoke, winning over even more dedicated fans outside of Australia.

The Aussie heartthrob wore a simple but classic outfit to the event with his new award making the perfect accessory.

Grabbing the gong: He accepted the prestigious award which he was presented with by host Natalie Morales

Excited: Brenton spoke with enthusiasm as he accepted his award

The Home & Away hunk wore a grey tweed suit jacket and matching pants.

He teamed this with a classic white button up dress shirt and accessorised with an olive green tie.

He donned a pair of brown dress shoes which perfectly matched his short brown hair.

Suited and booted: Brenton wore a sleek grey tweed suit that he paired with brown dress shoes and a white shirt

Glam with gong: He accessorised his classy outfit with his new acting award and a cheeky smile

Earlier this month, it was confirmed that Brenton will be playing the role of Will Turner's son Henry in the upcoming film Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales.

Fans had already suspected Brenton would be playing Will's son, even though he had been billed until recently as just 'Henry.'

Orlando Bloom plays the character of Will, and he is set to return to the upcoming fifth installment of the Disney franchise.

In the films, Will married Elizabeth Swann (Keira Knightley), and they had a son named after him, Will Turner.

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales is scheduled for release on May 26, 2017.
Last year, he divorced wife Jessica and had an ill-fated dalliance with soap actress Gemma Oaten.

But serial Lothario Nick Knowles is very much back on the market and enjoying all that London's social scene has to offer, following his double-dose of relationship failure.

The DIY:SOS presenter, 54, was spotted looking sharp in a black suit and tie, hair slicked back, designer beard perfectly primped, as he exited Mayfair private members' club Little House.

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Three's a crowd! Recently divorced Nick Knowles parties at exclusive private members' club in London's Mayfair... and is seen leaving with TWO leggy women

Playing coy: The ladies remained close to each other, and tried their best not to draw attention to themselves, one of them bringing her scarf to her face

Nick dragged on an end-of-the-night-cigarette as he crossed the street with a couple of male pals... followed closely behind by a pair of leggy ladies.

The mysterious women also wore dark ensembles, one in a flowing navy dress, showing off her svelte pins, the other more covered up in a pair of spray-on black leather trousers.

The ladies kept a couple of feet behind Nick as he lead the way, presumably to an after-party, chatting to his slightly less smart looking mates, who joining him in brandishing a cheeky smoke as they took in the London air.

The ladies remained close to each other, and tried their best not to draw attention to themselves, one of them bringing her scarf to her face.

On the town: The DIY:SOS presenter, 54, was spotted looking sharp in a black suit and tie, hair slicked back, designer beard perfectly primped, as he exited Mayfair private members' club Little House

They tittered together, clearly enjoying the company of a celebrity, as they strolled through the streets of W1 with him, at his heels.

Earlier in the night, Nick had attended the World Premiere of the Vertex M100 and the re-Launch of Vertex Watches at Apsley House, where he started the evening looking a little more coiffured.

Nick's social freedom comes after a trying 2016, which saw his marriage end and his brief relationship with Gemma fall on its face.

His short-lived fling with the 32-year-old Emmerdale star hit headlines in September - when they were seen getting cosy at the TV Choice Awards, eight months after his separation from wife Jessica.

What a drag: The girls tittered together, clearly enjoying the company of a celebrity, as they strolled through the streets of W1 with him, at his heels

Looking sharp: Serial Lothario Nick Knowles is very much back on the market and enjoying all that London's social scene has to offer, following his double-dose of relationship failure

But as that came to a screeching halt, Nick suffered some bad press when Gemma admitted that her fleeting romance with him hugely knocked her confidence.

She confessed to the Mirror a few weeks ago that she has now 'learned to keep her guard up' in the dating world after the 'upsetting' situation with the 54-year-old six months ago.

The pair sparked romance rumours when they were seen cuddling up outside the TV Choice Awards - but Gemma later claimed the relationship came to a sudden end when it became public knowledge.

Talking about the seemingly difficult split, the actress explained: 'The experience with Nick knocked my confidence and I've learned to keep my guard up since dating him.'

Grin and bear it: Charlotte Cochrane (L) and Nick Knowles attended the World Premiere of the Vertex M100 and the re-Launch of Vertex Watches at Apsley House

'Upsetting': Gemma Oaten has now admitted that her fleeting romance with Nick Knowles hugely knocked her confidence

Acknowledging the painful fling was a learning curve however, she added: 'Now when I go on dates I don't reveal as much about myself. From an upsetting ordeal I've learned a positive lesson.'

'It was upsetting and hurtful, but it hasn't put me off men. It's been nearly six months, but my confidence is finally back. In a way I'm kind of grateful.'

Gemma has previously revealed that she and the DIY SOS host had been in bed together when images of their cosy moment emerged online - leading him to completely revert his demeanor towards her.

Following her revelation, Nick then made a statement in a bid to address the matter once and for all.

Getting over it: Her short-lived fling with Nick (L) hit headlines in September - when they were seen at the TV Choice Awards, eight months after his separation from wife Jessica (R)

Taking to his Twitter page the TV host confirmed to his followers that their fling happened during a 'turbulent and traumatic' time while he separated from his estranged wife, with whom he shares a young son.

Broaching the topic of his troubled relationship with ex-wife Jessica, he said: 'This year we have faced a miscarriage, the break down of our marriage and cancer without being disrespectful about each other at any point.'

Moving on to his fling with Gemma, he continued that it was 'something that happened (in the space of less than one week) during a turbulent, traumatic time and more to the point - whilst we were separated'.

Handy man: Nick has helmed DIY:SOS since 1999

After a brief reconciliation however, it was then reported that Jessica, 28, was moving on from Nick once and for all - and on the hunt for a new man.

Nick spoke to Lorraine Kelly last November about their turbulent relationship, but admitted that their little boy is the main priority.

He said: 'Our essential point has to be our son Eddie, he's a real joy.'

Touching on their reconciliation, he added that they had been keeping busy, explaining: 'Throughout difficulties - Jess went through a terrible time with cancer and now she's an ambassador at Jo's Trust and shes doing an incredible job with that - but we're always travelling in and out in London...

'We're not going to work out our relationship in the public eyes but we remain the best of friends and first and foremost we are parents to Eddie.'
While he's known for living it up on the Hollywood party scene whenever he's not toiling away on a movie set, Leonardo DiCaprio is otherwise quite the private star.

But the screen star took his efforts to go incognito to a new heights on Wednesday, when he stepped out with his face completely shrouded under a black balaclava.

As the 42-year-old Oscar winner strolled through the bustling streets of New York City, he was seen pulling the accessory over his face while also donning sunglasses.

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Catch Me If You Can: Leonardo DiCaprio was seen attempting to go incognito in a balaclava while out and about in New York City on Wednesday

His efforts appeared to be largely successful, as he walked unnoticed among the countless locals and visitors who were also out and about in the Big Apple.

He covered the over-the-head item with a grey flat cap, as he wore a a black blazer over a plaid shirt, along with navy trousers and a pair of black plimsolls.

With white earbuds plugged into his smartphone, the Catch Me If You Can star appeared to be in a world of his own as he enjoyed his solo city stroll.

Face it: He was initially spotted on the streets of the bustling metropolis without the accessory

On Sunday, the actor was spotted on the Caribbean island of St. Bart's, as he celebrated his model girlfriend Nina Agdal's 25th birthday.

The photogenic lovebirds were joined by British actor Orlando Bloom, who went incognito under a black cap as he celebrated with them onboard a luxury yacht.

'They were on vacation for her birthday in St. Barts on the yacht of a friend who invited them on board,' a source told People. 'They are having fun.'

Undercover: He then took a pause on a public bench as he covered his face with the garment

Two days later, he paid tribute to Darlene Cates - who played his mother in the 1993 film What's Eating Gilbert Grape - after she passed away on Sunday at the age of 69.

In an emotional post on Facebook, the star described the Texas native as 'the best acting mom I ever had the privilege of working alongside'.

'Her endearing personality and incredible talent will live on in the memories of those who knew her, and those who loved her work,' he continued. 'My thoughts and prayers are with her family during this difficult time.'

In the shade: The actor then slipped his oversized sunglasses back on, for further protection

The actress was best known for her critically acclaimed role in Lasse Hallstrom's film about Gilbert, played by Johnny Depp, who after his father's death must care for his obese mother (Cates) and his mentally challenged brother (DiCaprio).

The role earned Leonardo his first Academy Award nomination in the Best Supporting Actor category.

He went on to be nominated in an acting category three more times before his fifth nomination for The Revenant finally garnered him a Best Actor Oscar in 2016.
JEFFERSON  The Jefferson City Council voted 4-3 Thursday night to have the Mid-Willamette Valley Council of Governments contact candidates for a temporary city administrator/recorder to replace outgoing City Recorder Sarah Cook for the next four to six months.

We dont have a lot of time to find someone to fill her shoes, said Councilor Stan Neal. He said it was critical to have someone experienced leading the city with budget season coming up.

New councilors Bob Burns, Brad Cheney and Neal voted in favor. Incumbents Dave Beyerly, Michael Myers and Walt Perry were against the motion, citing budget impacts. New Mayor Cyndie Hightower broke the tie.

The special meeting was to hear options for replacing Cook, but only one alternative was discussed before Neal made his motion.

Myers criticized fellow councilors, saying they gave the perception of collusion. There was one discussion going down one road and thats how it ended, he said.

Audience members wanted the council to consider City Clerk Deanna Donato. We have what we need right here, said Lisa Paul, during visitors comments.

The meeting, which more than 40 people attended, highlighted a sharp division on the council and spiraled out of control. There were accusations of illegal meetings, audience members interrupting the proceedings multiple times  including to threaten a recall and request resignations  and Burns storming out briefly to mock applause.

The three incumbents said Hightower, Burns, Cheney and Neal continually acted independently of the council, and did so again by inviting Nancy Boyer, acting executive director of the Council of Governments, to the meeting.

The incumbents said they learned of the development via an email  from Hightower to the three new councilors  that was forwarded to them Thursday morning.

You held an illegal meeting.  By law, you held a public meeting without notifying the council, Perry said.

Neal responded that he was contacted by phone individually, so there was no quorum.

Boyer told the council that an interim city manager or administrator/recorder could look at the city with a neutral view and help Jefferson chart a course for moving forward. She indicated there were five people with some level of interest in the position, which could be part-time.

Cook resigned to take the city recorder position with the city of Millersburg. In her resignation letter, she cited a toxic atmosphere created by the new city council as a factor in her decision.

Last year, Cook and the city were sued by the Select Reform Committee of Jefferson, with Burns, Cheney and Neal as its chief petitioners, and Hightower as its treasurer at the time.

The Marion County Circuit Court lawsuit sought to force the city to put a 15-acre annexation before voters. A judge ruled in favor of the city and Cook, but the matter has been appealed.
Modelling can be a tiresome job.

And fresh from the catwalk at RFF Reykajvic Fashion festival, Lady Victoria Hervey was seen getting some R'n'R at the Icelandic Blue Lagoon in GrindavIk.

In need of a rest, the model and socialite slipped out of her toweled white robe to take a dip in the therapeutic geothermal spa in another of her prized bikinis.

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Getting steamy! Lady Victoria Hervey, 40, showcases her lithe frame in a tiny bikini as she takes a relaxing dip in the geothermal Blue Lagoon in Iceland

Getting fresh: After her catwalk at RFF Reykajvic Fashion festival, Lady Victoria Hervey was seen getting some R'n'R at the Icelandic Blue Lagoon in GrindavIk

This one was as skimpy as ever, and showcased the 40-year-old's flat stomach, toned pins and lithe physique.

Made in a taupe colour, the top half was joined in the middle, underneath her bust, with a gold ring feature.

The bottoms were matching and tied at the sides at the Lady's hips.

Victoria wore a fairly demure necklace with a gold droplet at the end of it, matching her bikini in style and colour but giving across an altogether more 'hippy' vibe.

Feeling the heat: In need of a rest, the model and socialite slipped out of her toweled white robe to take a dip in the therapeutic geothermal spa in another of her prized bikinis

Hotting up: Her swimwear showcased the 40-year-old's flat stomach, toned pins and lithe physique

Stylish: Made in a taupe colour, the top half was joined in the middle, underneath her bust, with a gold ring feature

The attractive socialite wore her blonde locks loosely, framing her face, dampened and natural-looking from the lagoon's heat.

Her looks came in handy as she modeled top clothing label InKLaw this week.

But the work had obviously taken its toll, as she clearly needed some down time opting for a spa day.

The Blue Lagoon geothermal spa is one of the most visited attractions in Iceland.

It's located in a lava field in GrindavIk on the Reykjanes Peninsula, in the southwestern part of the country.

The wind in her hair: The attractive socialite wore her blonde locks loosely, framing her face, dampened and natural-looking from the lagoon's heat

Sexy stuff: So Lady Victoria Hervey naturally opted for as little clothes as possible as she stripped down to a barely-there bikini

Out and a pout: The 40-year-old socialite looked sensational in the swimwear which made the very most of her incredible figure which far defied her age in appearance

Lady Victoria has long been a stalwart of the global party scene, as she became known as an international party princess throughout her time in the spotlight.

Her physique naturally makes her the perfect fit for her choice of ensembles - which often boast scanty designs, sheer materials and lingerie-free base.

For her trip to the spa she made sure her body was fully on display as she squeezed her perky cleavage into the triangle cup bikini.

Sizzling: Lady Victoria has long been a stalwart of the global party scene, as she became known as an international party princess throughout her time in the spotlight

Blonde beauty: She wore her blonde tresses in coiffed waves and jogged along the bridge between the pools

Stunner: Victoria wore a fairly demure necklace with a gold droplet at the end of it, matching her bikini in style and colour but giving across an altogether more 'hippy' vibe

Feeling blue: The attractive socialite wore her blonde locks loosely, framing her face, dampened and natural-looking from the lagoon's heat

While it is usually her outfits causing shockwaves, Lady Victoria sparked outrage on Instagram in January after appearing to condone President Trump's controversial new immigration laws.

The English socialite, 40, posted on her Instagram account that people should 'think positive' about Mr Trump's 'extreme vetting' measures.

Hervey, who was pictured partying in West Hollywood last week, highlighted a 'permanent' ban on Israelis wishing to travel to certain countries and asked: 'where are the howls of righteous indignation for this?'

Perfecting her walk: Her looks came in handy as she modeled top clothing label InKLaw this week

Hot stuff! She looked stunning in the sexy ensemble

Tired: Her modelling work had obviously taken its toll, as she clearly needed some down time opting for a spa day

Her controversial comments, which go against a tide of international condemnation of the US president's move on Friday to 'strengthen' American borders, were largely derided by followers.

The party-loving aristocrat posted the missive alongside an image of her looking bronzed and wearing an LA cap, which has attracted 348 likes from fans.

She wrote: 'Let's all think positive. It was rough news this week for refugees but what about countries that ban Israelis?

Sizzling: The Blue Lagoon geothermal spa is one of the most visited attractions in Iceland

Ice hot: The spa is located in a lava field in GrindavIk on the Reykjanes Peninsula, in the southwestern part of the country

Splashing around: Lady V chilled out on the railings as she bathed alone

'I don't see people protesting about that. For those of you that didnt know, there is a PERMANENT ban for Israelis wishing to go to: Algeria, Bangladesh, Brunei, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Malaysia, Oman, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Syria, UAE and Yemen. So where are the howls of righteous indignation for this?'

A backlash began immediately, with one social media user, marko_nacho, firing back: 'That sounds a lot like your defending trump' before adding: 'Respectfully Victoria, you live a very comfortable life and by having enough of the "moaning " is a little rich.'

Lady V hit back that she was 'not defending at all, just sick of the moaning.'

Frolics: Off she trotted, into the Icelandic waters

Solo: Victoria spotted the camera and gave it a scowl
Her relationship with Megan Marx fizzled out in Bali.

But Tiffany Scanlon's love for the region's sunny climate appears to be unwavering.

The 30-year-old took to Instagram Friday to show off her impressive abs, while using the caption to express dissatisfaction with her Perth living situation, hinting at a migration to 'warmer pastures.'

Missing Bali? The Bachelor's Tiffany Scanlon, 30, flaunted her impressive abs while working out in Perth on Friday, following her split from Megan Marx

One half of The Bachelor's first-ever same-sex couple (and same-sex breakup) looked beaming and confident in the snap.

Tiffany wore a tiny white tank top with perforated air-holes at the bust, exposing her sheer pink bra.

The beauty's apparent running outfit also exposed her rock-hard abdominals and lithe legs.

Her luscious blonde locks fell to her bare waist, as the beauty stayed partially sun-safe with a pink cap and large round sunglasses.

Dissatisfied: The beauty used the caption to express dissatisfaction with her Perth living situation, hinting at a migration to 'warmer pastures'

Fizzled: If Tiffany's desire for year-round sunshine is as important as she let on, there's few better places to live than Bali, where she saw her relationship with fellow Bachelor star Megan Marx (L) fizzle out

'I'm so pleased that the sun has decided it has @_unfinished_business with Perth!' She wrote in the caption.

'Who else is seriously effected by the weather? I need sunshine! It's almost time for me to migrate to warmer pastures.'

The preceding 24 hashtags continued to yearn for sunny weather and the permanent demise of winter.

If Tiffany's desire for year-round sunshine is as important as she let on, there's few better places to live than Bali, where she saw her relationship with fellow Bachelor star Megan fizzle out.

Struggling: The pensive post comes one week after Tiffany said she's been struggling with depression more than ever recently, following her unfortunate breakup earlier this month

The pensive post comes one week after Tiffany said she's been struggling with depression more than ever recently, following her unfortunate breakup earlier this month.

The former reality star revealed on her blog that the public breakup triggered her 'worst episode in years.'

She shared candid photos from her bed and wrote in the caption: 'Today's a bad one, deep breaths.'
Its the Nine Network wedding that has the media abuzz.

But on Friday in the Southern Highlands it was drones doing the buzzing, as a number of flying cameras were seemingly spotted hovering over the wedding rehearsal of Sylvia Jeffreys and Peter Stefanovic.

The celebrations were uninterrupted however and the Jeffreys clan even were able to laugh about the airborne invaders - and in particular the owners offer to shoot them down - in the evening as they gathered for a pre-wedding dinner at nearby pub The Friendly Inn.

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Its a shotgun wedding! Venue owner for Sylvia wedding to Peter Stefanovic offers to SHOOT DOWN drones buzzing the venue during rehearsal

Sylvia and Peter carried out their wedding rehearsal at the secret venue on Friday ahead of their Saturday afternoon ceremony.

The high profile wedding has drawn intensive media scrutiny and attracted journalists and photographers to the location and the Daily Mail has learned that some attempted to use technology to get a closer look at proceedings.

Aware of his privacy-seeking clienteles desire to avoid attention, the venues owner apparently tried to lighten the mood by offering to shoot down the offending drones.

The celebrations were uninterrupted however and the Jeffreys clan even were able to laugh about the airborne invaders - and in particular the owners offer to shoot them down - in the evening as they gathered for a pre-wedding dinner at nearby pub The Friendly Inn (pictured)

Close family and friends have arrived in the Kangaroo Valley over the last few days ahead of the event.

On Friday night the Jeffreys family came together at nearby pub The Friendly Hotel for dinner, joined by some of the wedding couples friends and colleagues including Richard Wilkins.

Family affair: Sylvia (pictured with sister Claire and her nephew) and Peter carried out their wedding rehearsal at the secret venue on Friday ahead of their Saturday afternoon ceremony

Celebration time: Close family, including Syvlia's brother Andrew (pictured) and friends have arrived in the Kangaroo Valley over the last few days ahead of the event

Mum's the word: On Friday night the Jeffreys family (including mum Janine, pictured) came together at nearby pub The Friendly Hotel for dinner

Friends aplenty: The Jeffreys were joined by some of the wedding couples friends and colleagues including Richard Wilkins

On the morrow it seems the TV power couple plan to make the most of regional New South Wales' natural splendour, with rumours emerging the pair will exchange vows beneath a mammoth rock formation.

On Friday, the Sydney Morning Herald reported: 'Weather permitting the couple are expecting to take their vows amid a stunning natural rock formation dubbed by locals as The Rock Cathedral, nestled in pristine bushland.'

Is this where Peter Stefanovic and Sylvia Jeffreys will exchange vows? Pair are rumoured to be tying the knot next to remote bushland rock formation

On Friday, the Sydney Morning Herald reported: 'Weather permitting the couple are expecting to take their vows amid a stunning natural rock formation dubbed by locals as The Rock Cathedral, nestled in pristine bushland.'

Between a rock and a married place? TV power couple Sylvia and Peter are set to wed over the weekend

'Guests have been asked to refrain from uploading any status updates or images in the lead up to the wedding on their social media feeds, while the bride and groom are not expecting to "post" on Instagram until well after tying the knot,' the publication reported.

The idyllic bush setting of Kangaroo Valley Bush Retreat is located between the regions of Shoalhaven and the Southern Highlands, less than two hours drive from Sydney and Canberra.

Sweeping views of the bush aside, Kangaroo Valley had it's own cathedral and function centre.

Five-star wedding: They will toe the knot in an intimate Southern Highlands ceremony in front of a star-studded sea of guests

But the highlight is the incredible cathedral-like rock cavity that sees couples exchange vows in the middle of a rock formation.

Meanwhile, reports have emerged that Peter's brother Karl Stefanovic's ex-wife Cassandra Thorburn won't be attending the nuptials.

The 44-year-old, who separated from Karl in September, has been left off the invite list, according to The Courier Mail.

'It makes Cass wonder how much they knew': Meanwhile, reports have emerged that Peter's brother Karl Stefanovic's ex-wife Cassandra Thorburn won't be attending the nuptials

According to Woman's Day, a close source claimed Peter and Sylvia have not spoken to former ABC journalist Cassandra since she split from Karl, leaving her 'hurt'.

'It makes Cass wonder how much they knew,' the insider offered, after Karl reportedly first walked out of the couple's family home without warning in July.

'Cass is really hurt by this as she believed they were her real friends,' they added.
Jeremy McConnell has agreed to check into rehab for 'drug addiction', according to his ex-girlfriend Stephanie Davis.

The former Hollyoaks actress, 24, claimed the Irish model, 27, will spend six weeks in an unknown treatment facility to beat his issues with substance abuse.

Vowing to stand by her former flame, Stephanie told OK! Online: 'He has agreed to go to rehab for six weeks. It will be quite immediate. Jeremy knows that he is 100 per cent in the wrong.'

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Getting help: Jeremy McConnell has agreed to check into rehab for 'drug addiction', according to his ex-girlfriend Stephanie Davis

Despite a difficult few months, which have seen Jeremy accused of abuse, Stephanie explained that her on/off beau was not a 'bad person' - but simply someone who needs help.

She said: 'He has done things that aren't good. But he isn't a bad person - deep down, he's not an evil vindictive person.'

A spokesperson for Jeremy McConnell declined to comment.

Stephanie was also quick to acknowledge that his alleged actions may not have only been heightened by substance abuse, but also the passing of his father earlier this month - having already lost his mother, brother and sister in childhood.

However, the beauty affirmed she would support him through rehab to avoid the situation getting worse, and resulting in tragic consequences for both him and Caben-Albi.

Supportive: Stephanie, who shares son Caben-Albi with Jeremy, vowed to stand by her ex, stating: 'He has agreed to go to rehab for six weeks. He that he is 100 per cent in the wrong'

Revealing he was now banned from seeing his son until he was clean, she finished: 'For Jeremy this is get help or die situation. So I said to him, you either get help or that's it, you lose him for good.'

Stephanie claimed the Irish model had suffered a drug problem for over a year - with a video of Jeremy snorting a mysterious white powder surfacing in January 2016.

That July, the former Hollyoaks star had gone on to claim Jeremy was 'always out drinking and taking drugs', which she said heightened his paranoid behaviour around her.

The couple got together last January after meeting in the Celebrity Big Brother house, but split shortly afterwards following an endless string of blazing rows.

Troubled: However she was quick to acknowledge that his alleged actions may not have only been heightened by substance abuse, but also the passing of his father earlier this month

After endless tensions throughout her pregnancy as Jeremy staunchly denied he was the father of her child, the pair then rekindled their relationship a few weeks after Caben-Albi was born in January.

However, the pair seemingly split again earlier this month when Jeremy allegedly assaulted his former flame while he was staying at her home in Liverpool - which Stephanie now implies is down to his addiction.

The Irish model was taken into police custody at a Merseyside police station in North West England a few days after the alleged incident for questioning - just days after Stephanie shared a shocking photo of her brusied legs to Instagram.

Last chance: Revealing he was now banned from seeing his son (above) until clean, she finished: 'For Jeremy this is get help or die situation. So I said to him, you either get help or that's it, you lose him for good'

A spokesperson for the station said: 'Following a report of an assault at an address in Stephenson Grove, Rainhill, a man has this morning (16.03.17) been arrested.

'A 27-year-old man from Liverpool city centre has been arrested on suspicion of assault and criminal damage after voluntarily attending a police station on Merseyside. He remains in police custody for questioning.'

Jeremy was later released from custody but it remains unknown whether he was charged with assault and criminal damage.

Despite Stephanie's support of Jeremy through his stint in rehab, the pair's relationship status is still confusing fans - after the pair appeared to once again declare their love for each other on social media.

Hacked: Stephanie Davis has claimed that she had been hacked on Twitter - therefore dismissing her loving exchanges with ex Jeremy McConnell as fake

However Stephanie went on to claim that she had been hacked - deeming her exchanges with Jeremy as fake.

While the Irish hunk has remained silent on the matter, the 24-year-old took to Twitter on Friday to reveal an anonymous user had intruded on her account, and posted the tender messages to her ex.

Having sensed trouble the previous evening when the mysterious posts began to emerge, she had first written on Thursday: 'Someone hacking my twitter deleting tweets and unfollowing people, wonder who that is girl!'

However, after deleting an array of seemingly romantic messages and images to Jeremy, 27, she confirmed to her followers she had been hacked on Friday morning by writing: ''Got my twitter back! Crazy what people will do! Passwords changed!'

'Crazy': After deleting an array of seemingly romantic messages and images to Jeremy, 27, she confirmed to her followers she had been hacked on Friday morning

She then proceeded to delete the Tweets written by the alleged hacker - which saw her tell Jeremy she loved him, in light of their famously turbulent relationship.

While the Hollyoaks actress remains adamant her account had been tampered with, Jeremy has remained silent on the matter - having shared an intimate post of the couple with their son Caben-Albi.

On Thursday, he posted a sweet snap with his ex-girlfriend playing with their newborn - captioning it with a heart on Instagram and '#NewProfilePic' on Twitter.

The tattooed hunk had then confused fans even further over their relationship status by following the image up with a Tweet, which read: '@Stephdavis77 I love you [middle finger] everyone else.'

Happy families: Meanwhile Jeremy has remained silent on the matter - having shared an intimate post of the couple with their son Caben-Albi (above)

On again? The tattooed hunk had then confused fans even further over their relationship status by following the image up with a declaration of love to his ex

Only adding fuel to the fire, Stephanie then replied to the message with the tender message: 'I love you too.'

She then followed the declaration of love up with the images of two romantic quotes.

One read: 'Love is a meeting of two souls, fully accepting the dark and the light of each other, bound by the courage to grow through struggle into bliss.'

While the other said: 'All relationships go through hell, real relationships get through it.'

Troubled: Jeremy's touching snap had caused confusion among fans, following his bold claims in which he alleged Stephanie was putting 'hits on his head' in a series of Tweets

Despite exciting fans for a reunion, after they endured a tumultuous split prior to her pregnancy, Stephanie's accusations now throw the claims of love into question.

Jeremy's touching snap had caused confusion among fans, following his bold claims in which he alleged Stephanie was putting 'hits on his head'.

Taking to Twitter on Tuesday night, he tweeted, then swiftly deleted: 'People saying hits on my head by Steph.' He went on to share a screenshot of a worrying whatsapp conversation, in which the words 'gun' and 'scared' were visible.

In yet another convoluted twist in the tale, prior to his terrifying notes he shared a 'throwback' video with his giggling son Caben Albi as his embattled Stephanie appears to laugh alongside.

Earlier in the week, Stephanie broke her silence over the assault charges brought against the Irish star, in which he reportedly attacked her earlier this month.

Sweet: In yet another twist, prior to his terrifying notes he shared a 'throwback' video with his giggling son Caben Albi (above) as his embattled Stephanie appears to laugh alongside

Once he released his video, in which Stephanie's distinctive laugh appears to be heard in the background, some fans ventured to assume the duo were back together, while others pointed out it seemed to be a throwback.

The night before the snap was posted, Stephanie said she will 'always love' Jeremy, just weeks after his arrest on suspicion of assaulting her.

In a series of now-deleted Twitter messages posted on Monday, the actress defended her ex saying that although what he is alleged to have done is 'wrong', she will 'always be there'.

The following morning, the stunner reportedly took to the site to reveal she was: 'Emotionally and mentally drained. Time for a change. Madness how much u can help someone to just have it thrown back in your face. Thanks for all the support.'

Former couple: Once he released the video, in which Stephanie's distinctive laugh appears to be heard in the background, some fans ventured to assume the duo were back together, while others pointed out it seemed to be a throwback

Loving: Hours before Jeremy posted the snap, Stephanie also took to Twitter to share an adoring image of Caben, as she shared an image of Caben luxuriating on a play mat where she simply captioned with a love heart emoji

After Stephanie's notes, Jeremy appeared to be yearning for his son, as he shared the incredible sweet video while playing with Caben.

Although his face was not seen, his tattooed hands were visible as he cooed over his son before adding a caption on the shot reading: 'What a dude'.

Initially followers speculated if they reunited yet others noticed it was an old clip due to the changed appearance of the baby.

Users penned: 'its from when he was with her caben is much more chunky now.... its from way back you can tell cabens grown chunky since then... Heard Steph's laugh! Back together?'

Giggling away: Hours before Jeremy posted the snap, Stephanie also took to Twitter to share an adoring image of Caben, as she shared an image of Caben luxuriating on a play mat where she simply captioned with a love heart emoji

Matching? The throwback idea was echoed in the fact that Jeremy appears to be draped in a towel, which dangles over Caben's cot - similar to the first image he shared with his son three weeks ago, as he stood with wet hair seemingly straight from the shower in the shot also taken in black and white

The throwback idea was echoed in the fact that Jeremy appears to be draped in a towel, which dangles over Caben's cot - similar to the first image he shared with his son three weeks ago, as he stood with wet hair seemingly straight from the shower in the shot also taken in black and white.

Hours before Jeremy posted the snap, Stephanie also took to Twitter to share an adoring image of Caben, as she shared an image of Caben luxuriating on a play mat where she simply captioned with a love heart emoji.

Jeremy was taken into police custody earlier this month over claims he assaulted former the Hollyoaks actress after moving to Liverpool to live closer to his son and the star - yet he has maintained a low-profile since his release.

Laughing away: Jeremy was taken into police custody earlier this month over claims he assaulted former the Hollyoaks actress after moving to Liverpool to live closer to his son and the star - yet he has maintained a low-profile since his release

Speaking out: After remaining silent on the issue for some weeks, fans were stunned on Monday when Stephanie took to Twitter to discuss the legal and emotional woes which riddle the couple - yet soon deleted the notes

Stephanie and Jeremy's love story began when they starred together on Celebrity Big Brother in January 2016 before becoming embroiled in a toxic romance which ended in April - a month before she announced she was expecting.

After a bitter nine-month battle in which Jeremy denied paternity, once he was proved to be the father he swore to step up and moved from his native Dublin to be with her in Liverpool.

Earlier this month however Stephanie was reportedly 'shaken' after calling the police on Jeremy at her home. Merseyside Police confirmed to MailOnline that Jeremy was taken into custody after voluntarily coming to the station.

After remaining silent on the issue for some weeks, fans were stunned on Monday when Stephanie took to Twitter to discuss the legal and emotional woes which riddle the couple - yet soon deleted the notes.

Stephanie penned: 'Jeremy knows he's done wrong. To do wha the did to the mother of his child, he knows isn't right...U can't help someone who doesn't want to be helped. I have done all I can regardless what has been thrown in my face...

'He had made the choice to block me after saviour paranoia and that's his choice not mine. To the press, u will always love him...

'But u can't help someone who needs to help them selfs! I will always be there for Jeremy. But he now needs to help himself. (sic)'

Moving on: Stephanie went on to praise the heavily inked heartthrob for deciding not to appear on 'Ex on the Beach' for the sake of her and their son, and said she refused to let people 'say anything bad about him'

Stephanie went on to praise the heavily inked heartthrob for deciding not to appear on 'Ex on the Beach' for the sake of her and their son, and said she refused to let people 'say anything bad about him'.

She added: 'I'll love him always and always be there but sometimes u have to be cruel to be kind I hope he comes back the person I fell in love with

'I won't have anyone say anything bad about him. He has his own Desmond's to deal with. He decided not to ex for me and Caben

'To prove he loves & wants to be with us. He may be horrible to me but I'll always stand by him. He has Deamona to sort of for good... I wish him well despite blocking me after u forgivable behaviour. When he gets help. Done with being abused metaly and all (sic)'
He's the star of the eighth instalment of the Fast And Furious franchise.

And actor Scott Eastwood appeared on Friday's edition of Lorraine to chat about the movie, which is set for release on April 12.

And naturally, with talk of the movie series comes the topic of the untimely death of one of its best-loved stars, Paul Walker, who died in November 2013 in a car accident, amid shooting the seventh film, Furious 7.

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Hollywood hunk: Scott Eastwood, wearing PAIGE jeans, appeared on Friday to chat about the next instalment in the Fast And Furious franchise

Of Paul's death, Scott said: 'He was close with all of us. He was a good friend of mine for many years. There were hard days and still are.'

Of the fact that the franchise is able to continue without him, Scott, 31, said: 'What better way to continue his legacy than this?'

The franchise is indeed set to continue, with a ninth and tenth film set for a 2019 and 2021 release.

And in September last year, it was said by Paul's brothers that there are plans to bring his character back, following his departure in Furious 7, which saw some of his scenes shot posthumously.

Promoting: Actor Scott Eastwood appeared on Friday's edition of Lorraine to chat about the movie, which is set for release on April 12

Tragic: And naturally, with talk of the movie series comes the topic of the untimely death of one of its best-loved stars, Paul Walker, who died in November 2013 in a car accident, amid shooting the seventh film, Furious 7

Meanwhile, Scott, who is the son of Hollywood legend Clint Eastwood, said that when he started acting he simply intended to 'give it a shot'.

'If it didnt work out, Id go be a firefighter. Or maybe a Teletubbie,' he joked, referencing the fact that the Teletubbies were also guests on the same Lorraine episode.

'I took advantage of them backstage. They were nice. Lots of hugs!' he added.

Host Lorraine Kelly couldn't help but have a flirt with the handsome star, telling him he has his dad's eyes.

Pals: Of Paul's death, Scott said - 'He was close with all of us. He was a good friend of mine for many years. There were hard days and still are'

What better way to continue his legacy than this?' The franchise is indeed set to continue, with a ninth and tenth film set for a 2019 and 2021 release

'I get that all time!' he admitted, before saying of his father: 'Look, Im grateful for everything my father gave me. The love for film. The opportunity to be alive in general. Any business is built on reputation and hard work.'

On the fact that he has shot a Taylor Swift music video, Scott said: 'I love her music. I thought it was great. All my agents were like dont do it! Shes incredible. Why wouldnt I?'

'And you managed NOT to date her,' Lorraine observed.

Set for a return? It was said by Paul's [R] brothers that there are plans to bring his character back, following his departure in Furious 7, which saw some of his scenes shot posthumously

On to brighter topics: On the fact that he has shot a Taylor Swift music video, Scott said - 'I love her music. I thought it was great. All my agents were like dont do it! Shes incredible. Why wouldnt I?'

That Friday feeling: Lorraine was clearly feeling a buzz, with the presence of Clint Eastwood's attractive son

She clearly had that Friday feeling on the show, with the presence of the ever-excitable Teletubbies and Clint Eastwood's attractive son.

She was also joined in the kitchen by TV chef John Whaite, and oversaw things as he baked her a upside down banana cake.

Perhaps it was the presence of a Hollywood hunk, but the inclusion of one of life's 'ruder' fruits caused a bit of smutty chat.

Talking about the best bananas to use for the recipe, John advised Lorraine that 'the kinkier the banana the better!'

'The kinkier the banana the better!' Lorraine Kelly is left red-faced as she misconstrues TV chef John Whaite's cooking instructions for smutty banter

Gobsmacked, Lorraine replied: 'The kinkier??'

'Yeah kinky,' replied John. 'I mean, like, bendier.'

The penny dropped with Lorraine - who presumably took the word 'kinkier' in its sexual sense.

'Oh!' she laughed, turning a little red. 'No kinky bananas in here!'

Banana banter: Things got a little fruity in the kitchen on Friday
She is known for flaunting her flawless figure in a series of scintillating sun-soaked social media snaps.

But Joanna Krupa was uncharacteristically demure as she enjoyed a girls' night out with friends at celebrity hotspot, Catch, in West Hollywood on Thursday.

The Real Housewives Of Miami star, 37, kept it casually in a tight black vest and ripped jeans as she grabbed a bite to eat with her pals.

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Model behaviour: Joanna Krupa was uncharacteristically demure as she enjoyed a girls' night out with friends at celebrity hotspot, Catch, in West Hollywood on Thursday

The model teamed her faded, ripped denims and cleavage-baring tank top with a pair of towering metallic blue heels to add height to her frame.

Bringing her outfit together with a glossy silver clutch bag, Joanna achieved a relaxed-yet-sexy look.

The reality star seemed to be in a playful mood, tossing her blonde locks over her shoulders and working her magic in front of the cameras.

Joanna wore her hair straight and showed off her holiday tan from last week's trip to St. Lucia by opting for natural make-up.

Low-key glamour: The Real Housewives Of Miami star, 37, kept it casually in a tight black vest and ripped jeans as she grabbed a bite to eat with her pals

Working it: The model teamed her faded, ripped denims and cleavage-baring tank top with a pair of towering metallic blue heels to add height to her frame

California girl: Bringing her outfit together with a glossy silver clutch bag, Joanna achieved a relaxed-yet-sexy look

The Polish-American model is a keen animal rights activist, and last week announced a new collaboration with wildlife and pet protection charity, PETA (People For The Ethical Treatment of Animals).

Joanna captioned a picture taken with a PETA executive with the excited statement: 'Excited about our new collaboration! Changing the future! One step at a time!'

When not saving wildlife or exercising, the model enjoys posting bikini and lingerie snaps - and even the occasional semi-nude selfie.

And the former Dancing With The Stars competitor said the key to having her amazing levels of body confidence is not to care what others think of you.

Well, hello there! The reality star seemed to be in a playful mood, tossing her blonde locks over her shoulders and working her magic in front of the cameras

Animal lover: Last week, the Polish-American model announced a new collaboration with wildlife and pet protection charity, PETA (People For The Ethical Treatment of Animals)

Earlier this month, Joanna spoke to Fox News at the premiere of her movie, You Can't Have it, saying: 'I think a woman needs to feel secure with herself...just loving yourself [and] not caring what everybody else thinks.

'Because you could be Mother Theresa and people are still going to try to find some imperfection.'

Speaking about how she feels sexy in all various settings, Joanna said: 'I think when you have your hair and makeup done, and there is good lighting, and you love your outfit - I think that's when you feel most sexy.

'But also I think when you are working and people are complementing you that you are doing a good job. Sexiness has its different roles.'
Peter Stefanovic and Sylvia Jeffreys are due to tie the knot on Saturday and it should have been the biggest news of the weekend.

But rain on the wedding day did not turn out lucky on this occasion as guests and colleagues of the happy couple have been left stranded by ex-cyclone Debbie.

While Karl Stefanovic and Lisa Wilkinson rushed to catch a flight immediately after filming the Today show's storm coverage in Brisbane, news.com.au reports that up to 30 guests will miss the wedding.

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We lucky few: While Karl Stefanovic and Lisa Wilkinson rushed to catch a flight immediately after filming the Today show's storm coverage in Brisbane, news.com.au reports that up to 30 guests will miss the wedding

Nine Network colleagues putting work duties ahead of the celebration include report Jessica Millward and her fiance Joel Dry, based out of the Canberra bureau, both of whom were expected to attend after they announced their engagement on Today.

Both have been left reporting on the storm and its aftermath, with Jessica posting a whimsical message to Instagram from Airlie Beach in the Whitsundays earlier in the week before she moved on to report from Queensland.

Giving a thumbs up while her hair was wrapped in a towel after a series of rain soaked reports she wrote 'just a tad wet. Let's just say the sooner I become Jessica Dry... the better.'

Missing in action: Nine Network colleagues putting work duties ahead of the celebration include report Jessica Millward and her fiance Joel Dry, based out of the Canberra bureau, both of whom were expected to attend after they announced their engagement on Today

High and not-so-Dry: Both have been left reporting on the storm and its aftermath, with Jessica posting a whimsical message to Instagram from Airlie Beach in the Whitsundays earlier in the week before she moved on to report from Queensland

Karl, 42, showcased his hairy chest in a white, semi-unbuttoned shirt.

The masculine star paired it with jeans and held a jacket over his arm.

Meanwhile, Lisa cut a casual yet stylish figure in a classic camel coloured trench coat.

Places to be: Lisa Wilkinson and Karl Stefanovic headed off to catch a plane to Peter Stefanovic and Sylvia Jeffreys wedding

Manly: Karl, 42, showcased his hairy chest in a white, semi-unbuttoned shirt

Style: He also sported jeans and held a jacket over his arm

No help: Karl was happy to carry his own luggage instead of palming it off to an assistant

She added blue jeans and a pair of white sneakers for comfort.

Both stars put on a down-to-earth display by carrying their own bags instead of leaving the task to assistants.

Before entering their vehicle, Karl was stopped by a handful of fans for photos.

Need a hand: A concerned Lisa looked to be asking Karl if he needed a helping hand

Karl's new girlfriend Jasmine Yarbrough has reportedly been banned from the wedding, according toThe Courier Mail.

The ceremony will take place in Kangaroo Valley on Saturday and a number of high-profile Channel Nine personalities and executives are expected to attend.

The bride, who appears on the Today show with her soon-to-be-husband and Karl, reportedly barred Jasmine from the festivities.

Celebrity: The ceremony will take place in Kangaroo Valley on Saturday and a number of high-profile Channel Nine personalities and executives are expected to attend

No go: Sylvia, who appears on the Today show with her soon-to-be-husband and Karl, reportedly banned Karl's new girlfriend Jasmine Yarbrough from the festivities

It is understood she didn't want her big day turning into a 'media circus'.

Last week it was revealed that Sylvia Jeffreys will wear a bridal gown by Australian designer Rebecca Vallance for her wedding day, sources told Daily Mail Australia.

The journalist is a longtime fan of the dressmaker, whose flagship boutique is situated in the upscale suburb of Mosman.

Chit chat? Karl enjoyed a spirited conversation on his mobile telephone

Alone time: The breakfast TV star appeared to need a few moments alone to unwind

Need some company? Despite plenty of free space at the barrier, one stranger decided to stand VERY close to Karl

Doting display: Karl was happy to entertain a young Today show viewer

Oh my god, can I have your autograph?! The hunky star was besieged by a legion of stunning female fans

A photo lasts forever: The fans were keen to immortalise their meeting with Karl for eternity

Now it's my turn! After the first fan secured a snap, the star-struck duo swapped places to ensure that they'd both have their own images besides the A-list TV personality
He spent two years and four months in federal prison following his arrest for drug trafficking in 1978.

And now, aged 63 and 20 years sober, Tim Allen reflects on that period of his life, the lessons it taught him and why he's so grateful for where he is today.

'It put me in a position of great humility, and I was able to make amends to friends and family and refocus my life on setting and achieving goals.' the actor told Closer.

'It put me in a position of great humility': Tim Allen has opened up his two-year stint in jail for drug trafficking charges

'Im not the same guy I was': The star was arrested in 1978 and spent two years in federal prison. He is pictured in his booking mugshot

'Im not the same guy I was the first time [I was married], when I was hiding and doing what people who drink too much do. I was not connecting.' he added.

On October 2 1978 Allen was arrested in the Kalamazoo/Battle Creek International Airport for possession of over 650 grams of cocaine.

He pleaded guilty and gave the names of other dealers in exchange for a sentence of three to seven years instead of the life imprisonment he was facing.

Allen was married to Laura Deibel from 1984 to 1999 and they share a daughter, Katherine, 18.

He married Jane Hajduk in 2006 and they have a daughter Elizabeth, eight.

'I was hiding and doing what people who drink too much do. I was not connecting' Allen has now been sober for 20 years

During the interview Allen also admitted that his daughters dont think he's very funny.

'The older one will roll her eyes, and the younger one just stares at me - I think she's done with me,' The Home Improvement star told Closer.

'But I still try to play jokes and make them laugh.'

Allen quipped that he's '68 percent joyous, aiming for 70 percent.' and added, 'I'm also extremely grateful for where I am today.'

'I'm also extremely grateful for where I am today': Allen is pictured with wife Jane Hajduk in February

The actor stars in ABC's Last Man Standing at 8pm ET Fridays.

Meanwhile, conservative-leaning Allen talked politics with Jimmy Kimmel during an appearance last week and said actors are often made to to feel like a pariahs in the super liberal showbiz industry.

'You've gotta be real careful around here' he told the talk show host while comparing Hollywood to '1930s Germany'.

'You get beat up if you dont believe what everybody believes.'

Allen expressed support for Donald Trump during the 2016 presidential campaign.

He said the billionaire businessman 'might be able to do the stuff that really needs fixing'.
Jason David Frank reprises his role as one of the original Mighty Morphin Power Rangers in the franchises' latest film reboot.

But when the 43-year-old actor wanted to capture his cameo during the Power Rangers premiere in Los Angeles on March 22, he says he was escorted out by security.

He took to Facebook live to give his 900,000 plus followers a play-by-play of his ordeal.

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Out of range: Actor Jason David Frank took to Facebook live on March 22 to share the story of how he was kicked out of the Power Rangers movie premiere for taking a photo during the film

'No one said that we couldn't have videos, first of all,' he stated.

'There's one particular moment in the movie that I wanted to look at, at least maybe take a picture of, or a video of,' Frank continued, possibly speaking of his cameo in the film.

'I get pointed out, kind of embarrassing,' he says, telling fans about how he was brought out into the hallway by security and asked for his iPhone while the movie was still playing.

Original rangers: Earlier in the night, Frank posed with his former co-stars Austin St. John, Walter Jones, and David Yost

'First of all, nobody's getting my iPhone. I'm not getting punk'd like that,' he told fans into camera, 'I'm in the movie and they're harassing me.'

He told the guard, 'I'm the dude in the movie' to which he says the guard replied, 'It doesn't matter.'

Jason says that security continued to 'badger' him, even following him into the bathroom to talk about what was on his iPhone.

Tough: The 43-year-old actor is also a Mixed Martial Arts fighter, seen here in 2016

'They treated me pretty bad,' he said during his seven minute long broadcast on the social media app.

Jason first appeared on The Mighty Morphin Power Rangers TV series in 1993 as Tommy, the Green Ranger.

He has appeared in multiple seasons of the franchises' television run as well as staring as the White Ranger in 1995's Mighty Morphin Power Rangers The Movie

First film: David appeared as the white ranger in 1995's Mighty Morphin Power Rangers The Movie

Some of Jason's nearly one million Facebook fans rushed to his defense in the post he shared.

Others had no sympathy for the star, one fan wrote, 'Of course you can't record part of a movie. Obviously copyright laws. It's stated before all movies that you can't record. Don't act like a victim.'

Jason tells The Hollywood Reporter that he wasn't able to see the second shout-out to his character which comes at the end of the movie because he was kicked out.
She reportedly ruffled former bandmate Mel B's feathers after paying homage to The Spice Girls during a comical skit on The Late Late Show.

And Victoria Beckham, 42, took to Instagram on Friday to share a snap as she posed alongside the identically dressed mannequin.

The fashion designer jokingly added a 'who wore it best' caption to the picture.

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'Vicky and I': Victoria Beckham, 42, took to Instagram on Friday to share a snap as she posed alongside the identically dressed mannequin

Putting on a chic display she wore a pale green pleated velvet skirt with a crisp white shirt tucked in.

Adding a pair of metal stiletto white heels, she cosied up against the dummy.

'Vicky and I!! Who wore it better?!?! Still laughing @j_corden #mannequin X VB', she wrote alongside the picture.

She later appeared to show there were no hard feelings as she shared the video of her skit, with the caption: 'Love my Spice Girls x @therealgerihalliwell @officialmelb @emmaleebunton @melaniecmusic #friendshipneverends X VB'.

'Love my Spice Girls x @therealgerihalliwell @officialmelb @emmaleebunton @melaniecmusic #friendshipneverends X VB': She later appeared to show there were no hard feelings as she shared the video of her skit

This comes after rumours of a rift with Mel B, who was said to be unhappy at her using the Spice Girls music in the skit.

The mother-of-four was seen adding another facet to her growing collection of hyphenates on Thursday's edition of James Corden's Late Late Show, when she reenacted scenes from the 1987 movie classic Mannequin.

In a hilarious skit, the mother-of-four was seen portraying the walking and talking statue originally played by Kim Cattrall - and was carried under the 38-year-old host's arm through the streets of Los Angeles as she returned to her inanimate state.

Classic: Victoria Beckham was seen spoofing 1987 classic movie Mannequin in a skit aired on James Corden's Late Late Show on Thursday night

The pair also showed off their musical prowess as they performed a medley of Spice Girls hits during Carpool Karaoke - a move which is said to have 'infuriated' Victoria's former bandmate Mel B.

According to The Sun, the 41-year-old is fuming that Victoria is now 'embracing' her girl band roots after many years of turning her back on the Spice Girls to help forge her career in the fashion industry.

It has been claimed that Mel was enraged due to Victoria's reluctance to be involved in any part of GEM - the reunion group formed by Mel B alongside Emma Bunton and Geri Halliwell.

Smooth moves: Victoria was graceful as she twirled about in her green pleated skirt

She's good: James tried his best to keep up with Victoria during rehearsal

A source told the newspaper: 'Mel is livid Victoria is all of a sudden embracing her Spice Girls past after years of trying to distance herself from the band. She was desperate for the girls to go on a very lucrative reunion tour to celebrate their music with millions of fans.

'But once Posh pulled out, the idea began to crumble leaving the members of the band keen to perform having no choice but to ditch it. Mel feels its unfair Victoria is now using their music to boost her own profile.'

Last year, Victoria seemed to cast aspersions on the reunion, when she said to Claudia Winkleman: 'I think they should sing their own material though, because what we did was so special. If they sang Spice Girls I think I might be a bit sad.'

Spoof trailer: Victoria played the mannequin that only James can see in the 'trailer'

Dance time: James and Victoria put their dance rehearsal to use in a scene

That's awkward: A passerby saw James dancing with a mannequin

Hit film: Kim Cattrall and Andrew McCarthy are shown in a still from the 1987 comedy Mannequin

MailOnline has contacted representatives for Mel B and Victoria Beckham for comment.

During Victoria's reenactment of Mannequin scenes with James on Thursday, the comedian reminded the audience that the movie's stoeyline follows a department store mannequin that comes to life, but only one guy can see her.

Corden said a 'major, major motion picture studio' was going to remake the film with him and Victoria in the lead roles and them premiered a trailer to the sequel.

The spoof trailer opened with Victoria in a crisp long-sleeved white blouse and pleated bright green skirt dancing with James backstage.

No dummy: James took offense when someone called his girl a 'dummy'

Not working: Victoria confided she was lonely and wanted to be with others like her

On a mission: James promised that he would take Victoria home

A passerby however saw James twirling around a mannequin with short dark hair and the same clothing.

James while sitting next to the mannequin also defended her after she was called a 'dummy'.

Victoria later confided that she was 'so lonely' and wanted to be with others like her.

James then promised to get her home and they ran off together as a guard yelled at 'sick puppy' James running with the mannequin under his arm.

Holding hands: Victoria and James held hands as they ran across a parking lot

Giving her a lift: As she 'transformed' he then scooped her up and carried her off

They got in a car together and James asked if they should listen to some music and Victoria approved.

James and Victoria then sang and danced to the 1997 Spice Girls hit song Spice Up Your Life.

Victoria busted out her Posh Spice dance moves in the car while energetically singing along to the chart-topper.

New trailer: Victoria looked typically stylish during the skit

Behind the scenes: James and Victoria are shown in a still from the sketch

Fashion expert: Victoria is shown with other mannequins on the set of the skit

Triple threat: Victoria Beckham put her acting, singing and dancing skills on display

Car music: James asked Victoria if they should listen to some music while he drives her home

Rocking out: Victoria and James then rocked out to the 1997 Spice Girls hit song Spice Up Your Life

Singing voice: The mother of four unleashed her Posh Spice voice and dance moves in the car

A man driving in a vehicle looked over and saw James singing with a mannequin in the passenger seat.

James then carried the mannequin to a Target store where she was reunited in the front window with other mannequins.

Victoria and James then danced with the other mannequins come to life in the window as a woman passed by and saw him cavorting with mannequins.

Passenger seat: A motorist looked over to see James singing with a mannequin in the passenger seat

Home bound: James carried the mannequin home to a Target store

Dance party: A dance party broke out with James, Victoria and other mannequins come to life

Busting moves: James busted out dance moves with the mannequins

Weird window: A shopper saw James dancing alone with mannequins standing by him

'It's Victoria Beckham and James Corden in the reboot that no one asked for,' a voice- over said at the end of the trailer.

Victoria also took to Instagram on Thursday and shared a behind the scenes video of her and James practicing their dance routine for the skit.

The mother of four showed her lean legs while twirling in her green skirt during rehearsal with James.

Hitting the right notes: The stars were snapped as they performed to their hearts' content

She's got the moves: Victoria displayed some impressive upper body dancing in the vehicle

Shady lady: For her appearance in the skit, she ditched her signature sunglasses

This is how we roll: The stars rose through the streets of Los Angeles in a black Range Rover

Huge success: James's Carpool Karaoke has proved to be a huge success since its launch

In good company: Other stars who have appeared on Carpool Karaoke are Stevie Wonder and Mariah Carey

Pout and about: Victoria, famed for her stubborn pout, appeared to be in her element as she enjoyed her singalong

Victoria also appeared as a guest Wednesday on The Late Late Show to promote her new capsule collection clothing line with Target.

She also recorded a full Carpool Karaoke segment with James that will air later on the CBS chat show.

The Victoria Victoria Beckham collection for Target goes on sale April 9 at stores and on Victoria's website.

Arrival: She was seen walking through the CBS lost as she arrived for her appearance

Stylish: The star looked typically stylish in a crisp white blouse with a pleated mint green skirt

Shady lady: Standing tall in white heels, she threw on a favourite fashion accessory - shades
He portrays an abusive husband on HBO's Big Little Lies, depicting violent scenes with onscreen wife Nicole Kidman that left the actress with real bruises.

Alexander Skarsgard discussed his troubled character in a new interview this week and revealed the coping mechanisms the actors developed to 'shake off' the intensity on set.

'It was very important to reconnect after shooting those scenes,' The 40-year-old actor told Vanity Fair, adding, 'We made a point of checking in with each other, giving each other a hug.'

Challenging role: Alexander Skarsgard discusses his violent onscreen partnership with Nicole Kidman on HBO show Big Little Lies in an interview with Vanity Fair

The True Blood star gushed of his onscreen spouse: 'Nicole is an incredible partner because she is so generous and so open and it makes it easier as an actor when you have a partner like that.'

The Swedish-born star said he wasn't familiar with the Liane Moriarty novel that the series is based on when he got the script but was instantly intrigued by Perry and Celeste's toxic marriage.

Alexander explained he was drawn to how Perry wasnt a 'stereotypical two-dimensional character' and that he was 'genuinely, deeply struggling with his demons'.

Before filming, the actor spent a couple of weeks with Nicole working out how they would portray the relationship in a way that was fascinating for the audience.

'We made a point of checking in with each other, giving each other a hug' The 40-year-old star revealed of tactics the co-stars would use to deal with the dark scenes they had to play out

Passionate: Alexander portrays an abusive husband on the HBO mini series, depicting violent scenes with onscreen wife Kidman

It helped, he said, that both actors had experienced working with filmmaker Lars Von Trier - the controversial Danish filmmaker famous for his dark and disturbing narratives.

Alexander starred in 2011's Melancholia and Nicole in 2003's Dogville.

'We wanted to show how sexual their relationship is, and how that bleeds into the abusiveness, and how the interconnectedness of those two things make her blame herself for him being so abusive.' Alexander explained.

'Thats one of the reasons it takes her longer to realize she cant be with him. At the beginning of the series, she still sees that innocence in him'

Alexander said it was important to build trust with Nicole to prepare for the intense scenes and said it was about the duo 'jumping off the ledge, and seeing where it takes you.'

'It was definitely tough shaking that off.' Alexander reflected on dealing with the very physical scenes which would leave Nicole with real bruises when she left set

Nicole, 49, recently admitted that the scenes with 6ft 4in Alexander were so physical that she left the set with bruises.

Alexander admitted, 'it was definitely tough shaking that off.'

The Aussie actress made the choice to make the violent confrontations as realistic as possible to be in harmony with director Jean-Marc Vallees documentary-style vision.

In an interview with Vulture, Nicole revealed: 'Afterward, I would just be quiet. I would go home and be quiet. After we shot some of the really, really violent scenes, I was in a lot of pain myself. My body was.'

Alexander said it was important to build the trust with Nicole to prepare for the intense scenes and said it was about 'jumping off the ledge, and seeing where it takes you.

The mother of four then added: 'It was very strange. It was very uncomfortable. It wasn't a good feeling, I have to say.

'But women go through this, so I wanted to tap into the truth of it, and I wanted to be real in those scenes, so that's what it required - an element of violence.'

In the same interview Nicole revealed she knew Alexander was right for the role, noting his imposing frame helped make her feel more vulnerable.

'I wanted him! I wanted him badly' she said, explaining that only Alexander could make her, standing at a lofty 5ft 11in, feel small.

The mini-series concludes Sunday on HBO.
He was last seen on dry land ten years ago in Pirates Of The Caribbean: At World's End.

And it won't be long until Orlando Bloom's character, Will Turner, makes his triumphant return.

The actor, 40, could be seen in a brand new teaser trailer for the upcoming film, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales.

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Look who's back! Orlando Bloom's character, Will Turner, has made his triumphant return in a new trailer for the upcoming film, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales

While it's not the first time Orlando has been seen in a trailer for the film, this time seemed to be no ordinary interaction for Will.

The pirate looked to actually be reuniting a man who appeared to be his son, Henry Turner (Brenton Thwaites).

Covered in seaweed, Will looked deep in thought as he extended his hand to Henry's chin.

The end of Pirates Of The Caribbean: At World's End saw Will, now married to Elizabeth Swann, tasked with commanding The Flying Dutchman and guiding lost souls at sea into the next world.

A chip off the old block: The pirate looked to actually be reuniting a man who appeared to be his son, Henry Turner (Brenton Thwaites)

Ahoy there! The movie also stars Johnny Depp as Captain Jack Sparrow

Old foes: The upcoming film follows the race to stop Armando Salazar (Javier Bardem), an old rival of Jack Sparrow who has made it his mission to kill every pirate in the ocean

Setting the wheels in motion: The film promises no shortage of action

His new role meant he could only return to shore after ten years commanding the ship.

The upcoming film follows the race to stop Armando Salazar (Javier Bardem), an old rival of Jack Sparrow who has made it his mission to kill every pirate in the ocean.

And the latest installment promises no shortage of action, with the trailer showing gunfire and battle scenes.

The movie also stars Johnny Depp as Captain Jack Sparrow and Kaya Scodelario as Carina Smyth.

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales is scheduled for release on May 26, 2017.

In the ocean blue: Carina Smyth (Kaya Scodelario) emerged from the water

Coming soon: Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales is scheduled for release on May 26, 2017

Locked up: Smyth gazed out from behind bars
She's been keeping her fans up-to-date with her tropical getaway in The Maldives.

And Ferne McCann continued to drive her followers green with envy as she shared another snap from her sunny break.

The TOWIE star, 26, put on a busty display in a bikini and skirt ensemble as she posed against the lush tropical backdrop.

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Flaunting her toned pins, the patterned skirt featured a risque slit slashed high on the thigh.

And making the most of her lean midriff, she teamed it with a turquoise strappy bikini top.

With her hair piled high on her head, she added a splash of colour in a gold bandanna.

Coming up roses: Ferne showed off her stunning figure in a metallic bikini in another sizzling holiday selfie

The post came just a day after she shared a snap of herself soaking up the sun in an eye-catching metallic two piece on Thursday.

The TV presenter sat cross-legged by the pool in the plunging snakeskin-style print bronze and silver halterneck, which she teamed with a pair of tinted sunglasses.

'Life through rose tinted glasses,' she captioned the snap, which showed her sitting cross legged with her brown hair tousled while a pendant and bracelets added to the look.

A photograph posted on Wednesday showed Ferne on yet another white-sanded, blue-watered beach, this time laying a smacker on a giant inflatable swan.

Captioning the shot 'BE-YOU-TIFUL!', the former TOWIE star was flaunting her frame in a bandu sleeved puff top and a pair of tiny bikini bottoms.

The swimming ensemble was black with white polka dots on it and although fairly modest on top, showcased the brunette's impressive curves fabulously.

Ferne looked tanned and healthy, showcasing her bronzed skin and her salt-licked mane, which fell in damp strands.

'BE-YOU-TIFUL!' Ferne flaunts her frame in a bikini puff top and teeny bottoms as she enjoys a romantic holiday in the Maldives with her boyfriend Arthur

The This Morning showbiz reporter, 26, was clearly having a lovely time with her other half - old flame Arthur 'Art' Collins who has appeared back on the scene after Ferne failed to find love on Celebs Go Dating.

The night before, she posed cheek-to-cheek with Art, him in a crisp white shirt and shades, her with her mane swept back, a white flower behind her ear and a semi-sheer blue and cream patterned dress.

She wrote alongside the selfie, which was taken in front of the crystalline ocean: 'Sunset Fishing. What an amazing evening @luxsouthari we watched the sunset out at sea, then fishing (I caught the most ovs) & we saw a shark & sting rae's [sic].'

Sunset fishing: The night before, she posed cheek-to-cheek with Art, him in a crisp white shirt and shades, her with her mane swept back, a white flower behind her ear and a semi-sheer blue and cream patterned dress

This is the life! She was living it up in Dubai over the weekend. But by Monday, jet-setting Ferne McCann had hot-footed it to the Maldives for some more fun in the sun

Earlier in the trip, the former TOWIE star leaned against a plush open car door and showing off her toned, slender legs in sky-high heels in the old-school movie star style shot in a stunning green dress.

Art had made less of an effort in a T-shirt and jeans, with bright red trainers.

Ferne captioned the sexy picture: 'Dubai Nights with my love @arthurjuniorcollins, riding in the rolls - @limitlesscarhire wearing @neverfullydressed.'

Vintage glamour: Ferne looked to be having the time of her life with new old-flame Arthur 'Art' Collins on a Middle East mini break on Saturday

Fashionista: Ferne flaunted her tasteful individual style and flawless figure in a plunging crop top with sleeves and star-patterned flared trousers while enjoying her time away

The pair were rumoured to be dating last summer for several months, but, if so, the relationship was kept private.

But now the reality star has been updating fans on Snapchat and Instagram about her rekindled romance, posting several images of the the couple together - holding hands, kissing and even a flirty shot from her bed.

The stubbly hunk is not Ferne's first publicised relationship. The former TOWIE star first joined the drama-laden show with then-boyfriend Charlie Sims, before going on to date co-star Dan Osborne.

Ferne even had a rumoured fling with comedian Russell Brand.

The good life: Presenting duties were put to one side on Thursday afternoon as Ferne McCann made the most of her current stay in Dubai

And on Thursday the presenter treated fans to a bikini snap from her fabulous trip as she soaked up the sun during a relaxing day on the beach close to the Arab playgrounds luxurious Burj Al Arab Jumeirah hotel.

Stripping down to a midnight blue bikini from online brand Annalous, Ferne casually sipped a fruity beverage.

With the five-star Burj providing a stunning backdrop, Ferne later shared a snap of her idyllic holiday destination with Instagram followers.

Captioning the shot, she wrote: Beach Life.

Dubai appears to be just the tonic for the TV personality, who announced last Friday that she would no longer be endorsing her Ferne Beauty products because the manufacturer owes her money.

Testing times: Dubai appears to be just the tonic for the TV personality, who announced last Friday that she would no longer be endorsing her Ferne Beauty products because the manufacturer owes her money

Addressing the situation for her 798,000 followers, the former TOWIE star announced: 'I am not working with Ferne Beauty going forward and no longer endorse their products.'

Elaborating on the drama, the brunette then went on to reveal that she was working with the same company Lauren Goodger had allegedly been duped by over her own range of products.

She continued: 'They are the same company that Lauren Goodger has recently talked about and I am still waiting payment from them.'
She's bringing a Manga classic to the big screen.

But playing Major in Ghost In The Shell wasn't as simple as just slipping on a costume, with Scarlett Johansson revealing the gruelling toll the role's stunts took on her body.

In an interview with The Project on Friday, the 32-year-old actress and the film's director Rupert Sanders detailed how Scarlett was forced to say no to 'bacon and eggs' in favour of beating up bad guys on screen.

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'Put the marine down!' Scarlett Johansson reveals the physical toll of filming Ghost In The Shell and how there was no time for 'bacon and eggs'

The Project's Scott Dooley asked the pair what it was like filming the role in 3D with very little physical set.

Scarlett revealed that her body became 'permanently just messed up' from all the high action stunts.

At some point, your body becomes so conditioned to just being really hard on itself all the time that you kind of get used to being permanently just messed up,' Scarlett said.

Sore: Scarlett revealed that her body became 'permanently just messed up' from all the high action stunts

'... It's different levels of how messed up you are.'

'While we were all having bacon and eggs and baked beans, she was lifting weights and beating up military guys and stuff,' Rupert added.

'Breakfast of champions,' the actress quipped, causing Scott to joke: 'Put the marine down!'

That's awkward! Between the stunts of the physical role it actually took the Lost In Translation star several months to work out the movie was in 3D

Between the stunts of the physical role it actually took the Lost In Translation star several months to work out the movie was in 3D.

'I didn't even know that we were shooting in 3D at first,' she confessed, laughing.

'The third and a half month or whatever it was. Somebody was like "this is what we're doing" and I was like, "wait a minute, is this 3D?" I had no idea!'

Iconic part: Scarlett's role in Ghost In The Shell comes amid controversy over her casting, with fans of the Japanese cartoon accusing Hollywood of white washing

Scarlett's role in Ghost In The Shell comes amid controversy over her casting, with fans of the Japanese cartoon accusing Hollywood of white washing.

But the actress rubbished the claims, arguing her character was 'identity-less' in an interview with Good Morning America on Friday.

'I would never attempt to play a person of a different race, obviously,' she said. 'Hopefully, any question that comes up of my casting will be answered by audiences when they see the film.'
With Tom Cruise as her father and Katie Holmes as her mother, Suri Cruise found fame at an early age.

And the youngster looked every inch the fashionista as she joined her famous mum in Manhattan on Thursday in pretty flared lilac coat.

Katie's mini-me wore a matching purple bow in her brunette locks as she headed out in the Big Apple.

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Budding fashionista: Suri Cruise, 10, looked stylish in a flared lilac coat, matching magenta t-bar shoes and purple hair ribbon as she joined mother Katie Holmes in New York on Thursday

She teamed the lilac coat with magenta t-bar shoes and purple leggings.

Katie, 38, looked thrilled to be out and about with her little girl and looked very smart in a plaid overcoat and boot-cut jeans.

She swept her tresses back into a practical high bun and donned Gucci high-heeled boots.

Practical mum: Katie Holmes, 38, sported a plaid overcoat, jeans and Gucci high-heeled boots for the mother-and-daughter excursion

The star, who will next be seen playing Jackie Kennedy in the new television series The Kennedys: After Camelot, carried a structured white leather tote bag.

Earlier in the day Katie was out in the city promoting the series with her co-star Matthew Perry.

She was spotted arriving at the Build Series event in the same coat, but this time pairing it with fashion-forward terracotta leather cropped trousers and sky scraper black stilettos.

Fun day out: Suri looked delighted to be spending the day with her actress mother Katie

She wore her brunette locks loose and sported immaculate make up with a slick of dark berry lipstick.

The star recently spoke about her excitement at the chance to portray the former First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy.

Speaking to Good Morning America, she said: 'I draw so much inspiration from her. How she influenced style, how she influenced bringing so much to the White House when she was there.

Inspiration: Katie spoke about her new role as Jackie Kennedy, saying 'I draw so much inspiration from her'

'So many artists were supported by her and definitely with everything she went through, she was so focused on keeping her children safe, protected and loved and really fulfilling their own dreams and she had such an elegance.'

Katie also revealed her disappointment when Hillary Clinton lost the election and even said that 10-year-old Suri was upset by the result.

During an interview with Jenna Bush Hager on Bush Hagers SirusXM radio show the mum-of-one said: 'I know I thought Hillary was going to win this year, and it just hurt so badly when she didnt.

'And I know that it hurt my child so much as a 10-year-old.'
Ariel Winter shared another revealing shot on Instagram Friday.

This time however, the 19-year-old starlet hid her face, making sure her fans' attention was solely on her shapely behind.

'The booty's back in Cali' the Modern Family star captioned the sexy snap.

Booty babe! Ariel Winter channeled Kardashian vibes with this sexy snap on Friday

In the very Kardashian-esque photo Ariel is seen posing in a high-cut white bodysuit and snakeskin heels.

She leans against a white wall, gazing away from the camera with her dark locks hiding her face.

The actress holds a retro style denim jacket in her left hand.

Ariel just got back from Beijing where she shared a seductive snap of her hanging out at a cigar bar.

The 19-year-old star just got back from a trip to Beijing. She is pictured on March 20

Oh my! Ariel headed to a cigar bar for a night out and looked sensational in this racy snap from last week

She left very little to the imagination in a sheer top with a lace bra which gave an eye-popping view of her surgically reduced cleavage.

Ariel soared to fame when she scooped the role of Alex Dunphy in hit comedy series Modern Family in 2009, shortly before becoming an Instagram favourite soon after.

Ensuring she delighted her 3million followers on the photosharing site, she proved her looks are sexier than ever as she enjoyed the trip to China's capital.

Sizzling: She often shares sexy snaps on social media

Ariel recently credited her co-star Sofia Vergara for being a great role model and helping her blossom into a confident young woman.

She said: 'I had a great role model in Sofia growing up, with her being a curvy woman that was super proud of who she was and what she looked like.

'She could see that I was struggling a little bit with how to deal with my body, and was always trying to give me advice, like, "Here are some brands that would look good on our body type," or "Wear whatever you want, and feel good about yourself."'

Help me out: Ariel recently credited her co-star Sofia Vergara for being a great role model and helping her blossom into a confident young woman
She just returned from promoting her new movie Fate and the Furious at CinemaCon.

And it seems things got back to normal quite quickly for Charlize Theron, as she was spotted out and about in Los Angeles on Friday.

The 41-year-old Mad Max: Fury Road actress had both Jackson, six, and two-year-old August with her as she appeared to complete some chores.

Family outing! Charlize Theron, 41, had both Jackson, six, and two-year-old August with her as she appeared to complete some chores in Los Angeles on Friday

As usual, the South African native looked stylish despite her quite casual ensemble.

On top the Oscar winner donned a black and white striped shirt which featured three-quarter sleeves.

A pair of airy black trousers dropped to just above her ankles, and appeared to be fastened with a long white drawstring, which she let dangle at her sides.

Some classic black ballet flats and oversize sunglasses finished off her laid-back look.

Always fashionable: On top the Oscar winner donned a black and white striped shirt which featured three-quarter sleeves

Her famous blonde tresses were seemingly unstyled, and allowed to simply float down past her shoulders.

Light rose lipstick adorned her otherwise mostly make-up free visage.

While Charlize settles back into family life, the exhibition of the latest installment of the Fast and Furious series at CinemaCon has been quite successful, and has reflected well on the multi-faceted star.

Duty calls: She just returned from promoting her new movie Fate and the Furious at CinemaCon

During an interview at the event, co-star Vin Diesel couldn't say enough good things about working with Charlize to the Los Angeles Times.

'[My] whole career was leading up to working with this incredibly brilliant talent,' he gushed.

He was apparently very satisfied with the work they turned out together, at one point claiming their performance was so electric that 'it changed weather' while shooting in Cuba.

Good vibes: During an interview at the event, co-star Vin Diesel (left) couldn't say enough good things about working with Charlize
This actress has played Penny on the hugely successful CBS sitcom Big Bang Theory for 10 years.

And Kaley Cuoco, 31, finally visited her beloved character's hometown of Omaha, Nebraska, on Friday.

The 31-year-old was joined by her 26-year-old boyfriend Karl Cook.

Penny's hood! Big Bang Theory star Kaley Cuoco and her boyfriend Karl Cook visited Omaha, Nebraska on Friday

'Finally visiting Penny's hometown in #nebrask; only took me 10 years,' the Instagram shot was captioned.

Kaley and Karl stood in front of a brick building with the word Omaha painted on it.

The blonde bombshell wore a navy hat and retro shades as she gestured 'number one' with her hand.

Her equestrian boyfriend matched in a navy coat, navy tee, and retro shades as well.

Jet set: Kaley and her boyfriend were vacationing in Florida on Sunday

The couple are quite the young travelers as they recently posted a snap on Norman's account relaxing in Florida on Sunday.

Meanwhile, CBS recently announced they were renewing Big Bang Theory for two more seasons.

The network agreed with Warner Brothers Television to extend the show that debuted in 2007.

No details about the agreement have been released but Kaley, Johnny Galecki, Jim Parsons, Simon Helberg and Kunal Nayyar have signed up for two more years.

Mayim Bialik and Melissa Rauch have yet to negotiate a deal. They joined the cast in season 3.

Hit role: Kaley plays the much loved Penny on the hit show
One Love - The Bob Marley Musical (Birmingham Rep)

Rating:

Eerily well cast: Mitchell Brunings is astonishingly good as Bob Marley in the musical about the reggae star's life

Holland's Mitchell Brunings is astonishingly good as Bob Marley in a musical about the Jamaican reggae star.

Mr Brunings, done up in thick dreadlocks, may not be an exact fit physically, being more muscular than Marley, but in his singing and total immersion in the role he is eerily well cast.

So much current theatre, particularly in the state-funded sector, is preachy and over-wordy. If subjected to another droning three-hour job about sexual identity, race relations or dystopianism, I may scream.

What a relief, therefore, to encounter a show as unashamedly direct as this, devoted to giving the audience an evenings throbbing fun. One Love also has a big heart and, along the way, makes a powerful plea for national unity at times of political stress.

Writer/director Kwame Kwei-Armah does not overload the script with exposition. We meet Marley already adult, he and his Wailers struggling on $30-a-night gigs in the early Seventies. They beat up a local disc jockey until he agrees to play their records on the radio.

The focus is on the period of Marleys collaboration with producer Chris Blackwell (played by Alex Robertson) when he became caught in the acrid political struggle between Jamaican prime minister Michael Manley (Adrian Irvine) and his rival Edward Seaga (Simeon Truby).

This nearly got Marley assassinated, but he eventually prevailed on Manley and Seaga to join him on stage at a charity concert and shake hands. Given the week we have just had, I found that moment powerful.

The show delivers almost 30 Marley hits, played by a fine band and focuses on the period of Marleys collaboration with producer Chris Blackwell

Playwright Kwei- Armah is shrewd enough to see that the musics the thing. The show delivers almost 30 Marley hits, played by a fine band.

Little fuss is made of Marleys Rastafarian religious beliefs, or the illness that would kill him in his mid-30s (we are spared that untimely decline).

Instead, the whole thing is suffused with a floaty benevolence, an amiable spirituality which peaks with a trip to Ethiopia. His romantic infidelities are depicted with a fling with a beauty queen. Marleys wife Rita (Alexia Khadime) needed her patience.

Above all this radiates the figure of Mr Brunings Bob, sucking on Zeppelin-sized joints as he yields to patriotic duty. First and foremost, Marley was an artist who had an ear for a seductive tune. By the end, the Rep was jamming, Mr Brunings in the middle of the audience, fist raised as he sang One Love.

The Life (Southwark Playhouse)

Rating:

Sharon D. Clarke and her voice are the main reason for catching a Southwark Playhouse revival of The Life, a Cy Coleman musical about hookers in Eighties New York.

The story is a bit jaded and depressing  pimps being horrible to vulnerable women  and the show, at almost three hours, could do with losing 30 minutes, but Miss Clarke and her Maserati engine of a voice are memorable. She plays Sonja, a tired old gal who calculates she has had more than 15,000 lovers (more, even, than Nick Clegg!). Sonja acts as protectress to some of the other women, particularly one called Queen (TShan Williams, voice a little sharp in places).

Sharon D. Clarke, second left, is the main reason for catching a Southwark Playhouse revival of The Life, a Cy Coleman musical about hookers in Eighties New York

The pimps include ferretty little Fleetwood (David Albury) and big guy Memphis (Cornell S. John, impressive stage presence). Director Michael Blakemore, 88, who directed this show on Broadway in 1997, keeps the small stage clear, Manhattan being deftly suggested by overhead photo boards. The tidy band is hidden behind them.

Colemans music is Seventies-pumpy, full of brass, with salty lyrics by Ira Gasman. The adult subject matter ensures things never become sentimental  with lines such as youve got to use every friend as a means to an end, we are in cynical territory much of the time  but the score could do with a proper hit.

The best of the songs are The Oldest Profession and Why Dont They Leave Us Alone?

Some of the minor characters are on the clumpy side  some of them more like prop forwards than ladies of the night  but Joanna Woodward, Charlotte Reavey, Omari Douglas and Jo Servi catch the eye.
Bob Dylan, whose new album "Triplicate" comes out March 31, is shown here receiving the Presidential Medal of Freedom during a 2012 White House ceremony

The first works by Nobel laureates following the prize inevitably draw extra attention. For Bob Dylan, his release is as unorthodox as his selection for literature's top award.

On the heels of the Nobel committee's decision to honor him as the original poet of rock, Dylan is putting out his third straight album not of his own songwriting but of covers of pop standards.

"Triplicate," which comes out Friday, is also the first three-disc original album by the rock legend as he interprets 30 songs from the 1930s through 1950s, most of them sung at some point by Frank Sinatra.

For an artist who over a half-century has famously flouted convention -- from going electric in 1965 to writing long-winding songs that broke radio formats -- the 75-year-old's recent passion for the music of his youth is clearly no fluke.

Dylan's "Sentimental Journey," to quote the title of one of the songs on the album, is at once a celebration of a golden age in songwriting and a rejection of the simplicity and over-production of contemporary pop music.

Many of the songs on "Triplicate" are deceptively complex, with multiple shifts in key and time signature.

Dylan, whose grainy voice has rarely been described as a reason for his success, recorded in live sessions with his band in a Los Angeles studio, declining to go back in production and gloss over the rough edges of his vocals.

- Emotional directness -

Dylan concentrates the album's third disc on existential songs about life such as Hoagy Carmichael's perennial favorite "Stardust," doo-wop legends The Ink Spots' "It's Funny to Everyone But Me" and "Why Was I Born?" popularized by Billie Holiday.

The new album of Bob Dylan, pictured in 2012, features covers of works by other artists

"These songs are some of the most heartbreaking stuff ever put on record and I wanted to do them justice," Dylan told the writer Bill Flanagan in a rare interview that the rocker posted on his website.

"Now that I have lived them and lived through them, I understand them better. They take you out of that mainstream grind where you're trapped between differences which might seem different but are essentially the same.

"Modern music and songs are so institutionalized that you don't realize it. These songs are cold and clear-sighted, there is a direct realism in them, faith in ordinary life just like in early rock and roll," he said.

Whereas Sinatra brought an ebullience to his songs, Dylan chooses restraint. On "The Best Is Yet to Come," a song that so marked Sinatra's spirit that the line is on his epitaph, Dylan gives a steady, bluesy delivery.

On "When the World Was Young," an oft-covered song whose French original was performed by Edith Piaf, Dylan brings a sense of loneliness to a tune of nostalgia that for Sinatra carried hope and for Aretha Franklin brought glamour.

Dylan's take bears more emotional resemblance to Peggy Lee's version, but he creates a steamier atmosphere led as elsewhere on the album by understated guitar riffs.

The ever-reclusive Dylan chose to focus on "Triplicate" and his constant touring rather than head to Sweden last year to accept the Nobel Prize.

The Swedish Academy said Dylan will finally pick up the award this weekend when he performs in Stockholm, but no media will be present and he will tape a required lecture at a later date.
A piece of history dating back to the Civil War has been in North Albany resident Art Wallaces family since the early 1870s.

But the piece of tree limb thats about 18 inches tall will soon be donated to the Albany Regional Museum.

What makes a piece of old wood special, other than being more than 150 years old?

Answer: It holds two iron musket balls of different sizes, a large piece of metal and a piece of lead. All of the materials were stuffed into the barrels of firearms used in the Civil War.

My grandfather, Robert Wallace, moved to La Salle County, Illinois, from Scotland when he was 9 years old, Wallace said. He was the sixth of 14 children and enlisted in Company C of the 7th Illinois Cavalry when he was 21 years old.

Robert Wallace served until the war ended in 1865, and six years later retraced some of his war-time adventures from Company Cs many battles in Tennessee.

Art Wallace, 95, said thats where his grandfather found the bullet-riddled tree limb and brought it home, where he farmed until his death in 1906.

He was very interested in history and had a fine collection of Civil War and Indian relics, Art Wallace said. After the war, he traveled south and brought back the bodies of several members of his unit to be buried in Triumph, Illinois. Members of his own company were his pallbearers.

Wallace said he finds the artifact interesting in that it features such a variety of materials used in the firearms, both steel and lead.

Wallace said he did not know his grandfather. Art's father, Marshall, was the youngest of seven children and did not marry until he was 36 years old.

A cousin gave this to me 35 or 40 years ago, Art said. None of my children want it, and its time to take it to the museum.

Like his grandfather and father  who fought in the Spanish-American War  Art Wallace served during WWII as an aviation machinists mate in the U.S. Navy, including a stint in Hawaii.

After the war, he spent 38 years working with Simpson Timber in Albany and was married for 67 years to his wife, Alma, who died seven years ago.

He is an award-winning woodworker who has built furniture and functioning wooden cars and heavy equipment models. He also has enjoyed gold mining and built much of his own equipment.
Amnesty International has requested to speak with jailed Mexican drug lord Joaquin 'El Chapo' Guzman, over concerns that the terms of his detention are 'unnecessarily harsh'.

The 59-year-old, who is currently in pre-trial detention in Manhattan, reportedly spends the vast majority of his days in solitary confinement and has limited access to exercise and visitors, according to a letter from the human rights organization seen by AFP Thursday.

'We are concerned that the conditions imposed on Mr Guzman Loera appear to be unnecessarily harsh and to breach international standards for human treatment,' wrote Justin Mazzola, Amnesty's deputy director of research, in a letter sent to the Eastern District of New York US attorney's office.

Joaquin Guzman Loera aka 'El Chapo' Guzman (R) sitting in a chair as he is extradited to the United States, in an unknown location on January 20, 2017

Guzman is being held at the Metropolitan Correction Center in Lower Manhattan (above)

Metropolitan Correctional Center in New York City is pictured above. El Chapo is being held here

Guzman's court-appointed lawyers had said in a letter sent to Judge Brian Cogan on March 13 that the isolation he is subjected to at the New York federal prison is harming his physical and mental health.

They said Guzman has trouble breathing and suffers from a sore throat and headaches, and had been experiencing auditory hallucinations - he complains of hearing music in his cell even when his radio is turned off.

But US prosecutors dismissed those allegations, saying the drug baron is healthy and even learning English.

Amnesty International is concerned that the prisoner stays in his cell 23 hours a day with little access to sunlight or fresh air

The drug lord is said to have auditory hallucinations in prison, hearing music even when there's none playing, but the prison officials deny it

Prosecutors say Guzman's close watch at the Metropolitan Correctional Center is fair considering he has twice escaped from Mexican prison. Razor wire sits on a fence at the Metropolitan Correctional Center

Amnesty's Mazzola said in his letter that Guzman has extremely restricted access to fresh air or sunlight, and has not been able to see his wife since his January 19 extradition to the US.

His lawyers have said he is locked in his cell 23 hours a day, but prosecutors say he should be after twice escaping from prison, once down a mile-long tunnel, reports Fox News.

He's only allowed to exercise in a small interior cage, said Amnesty International, according to The Guardian.

Guzman, the powerful Sinaloa cartel's notorious leader, is accused of running one of the world's biggest drug empires.

He escaped from a Mexican prison in 2001, was re-arrested in 2014, then escaped a maximum security prison through a tunnel the following year.

He was recaptured in January 2016 and extradited to the United States a year later.
South Africa's sacked finance minister Pravin Gordhan held onto the purse strings for longer than many analysts expected after he was parachuted into the job in 2015

Pravin Gordhan, who was sacked late Thursday, was admired by many ordinary South Africans -- an unusual achievement for any finance minister.

He held onto the purse strings for longer than many analysts expected after he was parachuted into the job in 2015 to calm markets when a little-known lawmaker lasted just four days in the post.

But Zuma's desire to appoint a loyalist to the treasury ultimately cost Gordhan his portfolio, which he had also held from 2009 to 2014.

Softly-spoken and measured in public, but tough behind the scenes, 67-year-old Gordhan earned an international reputation for fiscal prudence and for taking a firm stand against corruption.

Gordhan's name alone stabilised the markets which had been gripped by panic after Des Van Rooyen's surprise appointment in 2015.

The local rand currency gradually recovered as Gordhan stressed his intention to rein in spending, tackle graft and reduce the budget deficit.

But his sacking may now persuade investors and voters that South Africa is heading toward fiscal and political instability.

Over the last year-and-a-half, Gordhan fought a public tussle with President Jacob Zuma for control over the public coffers.

Zuma made the unprecedented move to recall Gordhan while the minister was drumming up investment on an official trip to Britain this week.

- Struggle credentials -

Gordhan last year faced fraud charges that were criticised as a move to oust him by Zuma's associates.

The charges were dropped at the last minute, exposing deep tensions in the party as several ministers came out in Gordhan's support.

Born in the port city of Durban in 1949, Gordhan's political life began as a pharmacy student at the University of Durban-Westville, an Indians-only institution established during white-minority rule.

There, he joined the anti-apartheid Natal Indian Congress, also becoming involved with the African National Congress (ANC) and the South African Communist Party.

Throughout the 1980s, Gordhan was repeatedly arrested for his political activities.

He then played a pivotal role in the talks that steered South Africa towards its first democratic elections in 1994, before becoming an ANC member of parliament.

He was "probably the cleverest person in government", political journalist Stephen Grootes wrote in his book "SA Politics Unspun".

Gordhan was also widely praised for overhauling the tax system, tripling the country's tax haul from 185 billion rand in 1999 to 558 billion rand in 2009.

"We will not tolerate corruption; we will act forcefully against wastage," he said in his first budget address.

In 2014, he was appointed as minister of traditional affairs -- and he appeared to be heading for a peaceful retirement.

But after Zuma's sacking of two finance ministers within a week in December 2015, Gordhan was back in action for another volatile term.

burs-gw/bgs/tm
Members of a Bangladeshi Rapid Action Battalion (RAB), seen during an operation to storm an Islamist extremist hideout in Moulvibazar, on March 30, 2017

A senior army officer who headed the intelligence wing of Bangladesh's elite security force died Friday, days after he was injured in a bomb attack claimed by the Islamic State group.

Lieutenant Colonel Abul Kalam Azad was on life support and flown to Singapore on Sunday a day after he was critically injured in an explosion near a militant hideout.

He was flown back to Dhaka Wednesday and admitted to a military hospital after his condition remained unchanged.

"He died very early on Friday," Mizanur Rahman Bhuiyan, a spokesman of the Rapid Action Battalion told AFP.

Bangladesh prides itself on being a mainly moderate Muslim country. But that perception has been damaged by a series of gruesome killings of atheist bloggers, foreigners and religious minorities.

Colonel Azad, 41, was the intelligence director of the RAB, which has been at the forefront of Bangladesh's fight against Islamist militancy.

Members of Bangladesh Rapid Action Battalion cross a street after a bomber was killed in a blast in front of a police checkpoint at Dhaka's international airport, on March 24, 2017

He was the highest ranked military officer to have been killed in the country's more than a decade-long fight against Islamist extremism.

On Saturday six people including two police officers were killed in twin explosions that targeted a crowd and security officers who were watching army commandos storming an Islamist hideout in the northeastern city of Sylhet.

IS took credit for the attack while the Bangladeshi government and police blamed the blast on a homegrown Islamist militant outfit.

About a dozen more police and security officers were also injured in the attack.

Army commandos said they later shot dead four Islamist extremists including one of their top leaders after a three-day gunfight.

On Thursday police's counter-terrorism officers and SWAT raided another Islamist hideout in a village in the northeast and found bodies of up to eight people. Police believed they blew themselves up in an explosion to avoid being arrested.

There has been a resurgence of extremist attacks in recent weeks in the Muslim-majority nation of 160 million after a relative lull since five IS-linked gunmen killed 22 people including 18 foreign hostages at a Dhaka cafe on July 1.

Since the cafe attack, security forces have launched a nationwide crackdown on Islamist extremist groups, killing around 60 suspected militants.
Malaysians freed by Pyongyang made an emotional return Friday after landing at Kuala Lumpur international airport

Nine Malaysians freed by Pyongyang made an emotional return home Friday, after Kuala Lumpur sent back the body of the assassinated half-brother of North Korea's leader to end a bitter diplomatic feud.

Kim Jong-Nam was killed with the lethal nerve agent VX on February 13 at Kuala Lumpur airport, triggering a major clash between Malaysia and North Korea, which saw them expel each other's ambassadors and bar citizens from leaving.

But a deal announced by Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak and confirmed by North Korean state media on Thursday said the two countries had lifted their respective travel bans, and Kuala Lumpur would send Kim's body to North Korea.

The Malaysians -- three embassy staff and six family members, including a baby and three other children -- landed in Kuala Lumpur before sunrise where they were met on the tarmac by Foreign Minister Anifah Aman.

There were emotional scenes as they were embraced by tearful relatives who had also gathered to meet them.

Mohamad Nor Azrin, counsellor of the Malaysian embassy in Pyongyang, said that while they had not been threatened and were free to move around they were not allowed to leave.

"We were very concerned because we had done no wrong. But we had to keep our spirits up," he told reporters.

Najib on Thursday said his government "worked intensively behind the scenes" to bring its citizens home and vowed "to bring those responsible for this murder to justice".

-- Feeling nervous --

The Malaysians were flown out on a government-owned business jet piloted by a senior Royal Malaysian Air Force officer.

Lieutenant Colonel Hasrizan Kamis said the Bombardier jet left for Pyongyang from a Malaysian airbase on Thursday, apparently after talks reached a breakthrough.

A North Korean embassy car carrying North Korean officials who had just arrived from Malaysia, leaves from the VIP entrance at Beijing airport

The jet turned around in the evening with the nine on board, making a two-hour refuelling stop in the southeastern Chinese city of Fuzhou.

"There was a feeling of nervousness until we exited North Korean airspace," Kamis told AFP. "Everyone felt relieved."

Najib on Thursday declared on Twitter that the diplomatic crisis with North Korea was over.

He had earlier announced that the body was being sent back "following the completion of the autopsy on the deceased and receipt of a letter from his family requesting the remains be returned to North Korea".

He did not specify who in the family had made the request. Kim's wife and children, who were living in exile in the Chinese territory of Macau, are believed to be in hiding after the murder.

On Friday, foreign minister Anifah confirmed the body was on its way back to North Korea after being kept in a hospital morgue in Kuala Lumpur for more than six weeks.

Media reports said a coffin was put on board a Beijing-bound Malaysian Airlines plane Thursday evening. An AFP photographer saw a North Korean embassy van and officials leaving Beijing airport early Friday morning.

South Korean news agency Yonhap reported Friday Kim's body was expected to leave for Pyongyang on an Air Koryo flight as early as on Saturday.

The South has blamed Pyongyang for the Cold War-style killing, citing what they say was a standing order from North Korea's leader Kim Jong-Un to murder his exiled and estranged half-brother.

But the North denies this and denounced Malaysia's investigation into the death as an attempt to smear the secretive regime.

It had insisted that the man died of a heart attack and his body should be handed over to Pyongyang.

- Body a 'propaganda tool' -

Analysts said the North Korean regime may use Kim's body as a "propaganda tool".

"They will likely use the body to claim they were not responsible and tell an alternative narrative," said Bridget Welsh, an expert on Southeast Asian politics.

Pyongyang has refused to confirm the identity of the victim but Malaysia confirmed it using DNA evidence.

Two women -- one Vietnamese and one Indonesian -- have been arrested and charged with the murder. Airport CCTV footage shows them approaching the 45-year-old victim and apparently smearing his face with a piece of cloth.

Malaysian investigators are also seeking seven North Korean suspects, four of whom left Malaysia on the day of the murder.
A bull shark washed up on a road near the town of Ayr after Cylone Debbie tore through northeast Australia, where authorities also warned of crocodiles and snakes in the flood waters

Wading through flooded areas can be dangerous anywhere in the world, but in Australia the waters may contain snakes, crocodiles and sharks as well as rubbish and sewage.

One of the striking images showing the impact of category four Cyclone Debbie which smashed through northeast Australia this week was a paramedic's photo of a large bull shark that washed up on a road near the town of Ayr.

And sharks are not the only unusual sightings in floodwaters in Australia's tropical north. Queensland state authorities warned that crocodiles and snakes could also be lurking around after Debbie hit.

"Flooded waterways increase the possibilities of crocodiles and other animals, such as snakes turning up in unexpected places," the state's environment and heritage protection department said.

"In most circumstances, crocodiles will be moving through, trying to get out of fast-flowing creeks and waterways to the quieter areas they prefer.

"Snakes are good swimmers and they too may turn up in unexpected places and may even find their way into people's properties."

Paramedic Lisa Smith, who photographed the bull shark, said she was stunned to find it lying near the Burdekin River.

"At first I thought it was a dolphin, but then I thought 'nah, there wouldn't be any dolphins around here,'" Smith told Brisbane's Courier Mail.

"I thought there were just crocs in that river. This should definitely teach people to never walk in floodwaters as you never know what's in them."

Snake catcher Anthony Bailey, from Yeppoon in central Queensland, offered on Facebook to remove the reptiles for free after the storm, and received a flood of responses.

"Already had a brown (snake) at our back door. Good on you guys for offering free assistance during this time," one person replied.

Bailey said snakes were fond of slithering indoors in wet conditions.

"They don't like sitting out in the rain, they come into houses or trees to escape the water and possibly looking for some warmth," he told the Rockhampton Morning Bulletin.

Australia is home to 20 of the world's 25 most venomous snakes, including the entire top 10.

Brown snakes, among the most venomous, are common in eastern Australia and can be as much as two metres (six feet) long when fully grown. Their bite can be fatal to humans.
Johanna Konta of Britain hits a return during her Miami Open semi-final match against Venus Williams of the US, at Crandon Park Tennis Center in Key Biscayne, on March 30, 2017

Britain's Johanna Konta beat Venus Williams 6-4, 7-5 in a grueling battle Thursday to reach the WTA Miami Open final, where she will face Caroline Wozniacki of Denmark.

The Australian-born 25-year-old broke Williams in the first game and played aggressively throughout the opening set.

Williams fought back strongly in the second set, breaking to go up 3-1. But Konta broke back immediately and again for a 5-4 lead that allowed her to serve for the match.

The American took advantage of some nervy play from the 10th-seed to break back, but Williams was unable to hold serve and that gave Konta a second chance to wrap up the contest, which she did after more than two hours.

Konta said she expects a big challenge ahead in order to capture her second title of the year after a Sydney crown.

"I am going to have a tough battle on my hands," Konta said. "Caroline makes you work."

Wozniacki booked her place in the final after rallying to defeat Czech second seed Karolina Pliskova 5-7, 6-1, 6-1.

Caroline Wozniacki of Denmark, seen in action during her Miami Open semi-final match against Karolina Pliskova of Czech Republic, at Crandon Park Tennis Center in Key Biscayne, on March 30, 2017

Pliskova, who won titles this year at Doha and Brisbane, also fell in the semi-final stage at Indian Wells two weeks ago.

The Czech broke Wozniacki in the first game of the match but the Dane fought back and at 5-4 had three set points, which Pliskova manage to deny her.

Wozniacki then double faulted to give the Czech a break point, which she took before serving out for the set.

But former world number one Wozniacki, wearing down Pliskova with her solid defense, ran out a comfortable winner in the following two sets to earn a third final appearance of the year.

"I'm not sure how I managed to do that," Wozniacki said. "It is tough when you lose that first set -- especially having set points, it hits you a little bit. But I got a good start to the second set and that got me going, got me grinding."

In her two finals this year, both in February, Wozniacki was beaten by Pliskova at Doha and by Ukrainian Elina Svitolina at Dubai.

Pliskova, who began the year with a title at Brisbane, was philosophical about her second semi-final loss of the month.

"I'm definitely positive," she said. "I've won a lot of matches this year. I can't be too disappointed but obviously I am disappointed to lose two semi-finals especially when I think I could have won both matches.

"Obviously I think I could have done a bit more this year but then again I have never had a start to a season like this."
A Japanese whaling fleet returned to port on Friday after killing more than 300 mammals in an annual Antarctic hunt, as Tokyo pursues the programme in defiance of global criticism.

The fleet set sail for the Southern Ocean in November, with plans to slaughter 333 minke whales, flouting a worldwide ban and opposition led by Australia and New Zealand.

Tokyo exploits a loophole in the moratorium by claiming that its hunt is carried out for 'scientific research', a claim which is strongly contested by environmentalists who instead accuse hunters of killing the creatures for school dinner meat.

The fleet set sail for the Southern Ocean in November flouting a worldwide moratorium and opposition led by Australia and New Zealand (file photo)

Japanese whaling vessel Nisshin Maru is anchored in Shimonoseki, western Japan on Friday. The fleet has returned with 333 whales it caught in the Antarctic, filling its planned quota for a second straight year under a revised program following an international court ruling

The fleet consisted of five ships, three of which arrived in the morning at Shimonoseki port in western Japan, the country's Fisheries Agency said.

More than 200 people, including crew members and their families, gathered in the rain for a 30-minute ceremony in front of the Nisshin Maru, the fleet's main ship, according to an official of the Shimonoseki City government.

In a press release, the agency described the mission as 'research for the purpose of studying the ecological system in the Antarctic Sea'.

But environmentalists and the International Court of Justice (ICJ) call that a fiction and say the real purpose is simply to hunt whales for their meat.

Anticipating the fleet's return, animal protection charity Humane Society International called for an end to Japanese whaling.

'Each year that Japan persists with its discredited scientific whaling is another year where these wonderful animals are needlessly sacrificed,' said Kitty Block, the group's executive vice president.

'It is an obscene cruelty in the name of science that must end,' she said in a release.

Under the International Whaling Commission (IWC), to which Japan is a signatory, there has been a moratorium on hunting whales since 1986. Tokyo exploits a loophole allowing whales to be killed for 'scientific research' and claims it is trying to prove the population is large enough to sustain a return to commercial hunting

Japan also caught 333 minke whales in the previous season ending in 2016 after a one-year hiatus prompted by an ICJ ruling, which said the hunt was a commercial venture masquerading as science and ordered Tokyo to end it.

Under the International Whaling Commission (IWC), to which Japan is a signatory, there has been a moratorium on hunting whales since 1986.

Tokyo exploits a loophole allowing whales to be killed for 'scientific research' and claims it is trying to prove the population is large enough to sustain a return to commercial hunting.

But it also makes no secret of the fact that whale meat ends up on dinner tables.

Japan has hunted whales for centuries, and their meat was a key source of protein in the immediate post-World War II years when the country was desperately poor.

This picture released by the Australian Customs Services shows a mother whale and her calf being dragged on board a Japanese ship after being harpooned in Antarctic waters. File image

But consumption has dramatically declined in recent decades, with significant proportions of the population saying they 'never' or 'rarely' eat whale meat.

In response to the ICJ ruling, Japan's 2014-15 mission carried out only 'non-lethal research' such as taking skin samples and doing headcounts.

On the just completed mission as well, the agency said that besides the kills it counted whales, took skin samples from live ones and attached tracking devices to them.

Japan also caught 333 minke whales in the previous season ending in 2016 after a one-year hiatus prompted by an ICJ ruling, which said the hunt was a commercial venture masquerading as science and ordered Tokyo to end it. File image of the ship leaving the port of Shimonoseki

Past missions have been hampered by a confrontational campaign on the high seas by environmentalists Sea Shepherd, though Japan has won some relief from the group through the courts.

Fisheries Minister Yuji Yamamoto told reporters that Sea Shepherd's attitude 'seems to have somewhat softened' this time, according to Kyodo News.

A fisheries agency official said that the whalers this time faced 'no obstructive behaviour threatening safety of the fleet and crew members' by the group.

He attributed that partially to Japan having started dispatching fisheries agency patrol ships to protect the fleet.
Huang Kuo-chang, chairman of the Taiwan's New Power Party (NPP), speaks during a political forum in Taipei, in January 2017

A prominent Taiwanese activist-turned-lawmaker who stormed parliament in 2014 protesting a China trade pact was acquitted with 21 other demonstrators on Friday over their roles in the so-called "Sunflower Movement".

The rallies three years ago, which saw thousands take to the streets and some 200 people occupy parliament for weeks, expressed growing anti-China public sentiment and contributed to the plummeting popularity of Taiwan's former Beijing-friendly Kuomintang government.

Taiwan, now under a Beijing-sceptic leadership, has been self-ruling since splitting from the mainland in 1949 after a civil war -- but it has never formally declared independence and China still sees it as part of its territory.

Prosecutors charged Huang Kuo-chang -- an academic who was a key face of the movement and has since joined parliament -- with incitement and interfering with public functions in 2015, along with 21 others.

But Taipei District Court found them not guilty Friday, saying their actions were justified out of interest for the public.

"Expressing their political views on public affairs is in line with the social interest," the court said in a statement.

Huang is now chairman of the pro-independence New Power Party (NPP) founded after the protests, which is now the third-largest in the legislature after winning five seats in elections last year that toppled the Kuomintang (KMT) from power.

"This ruling affirms the spirit of the civil movement," Huang said in a statement after the verdict.

Protesters in the Sunflower Movement complained that the KMT had agreed to a trade deal in secret that would leave export-reliant Taiwan vulnerable to Chinese influence.

Days after taking office in May last year, the new Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) government dropped a separate lawsuit against Sunflower protesters for infiltrating the cabinet headquarters.

Premier Lin Chuan said at the time the movement has "legitimacy and social contribution".

Cross-strait ties have deteriorated since President Tsai Ing-wen came to power with all official communications cut off, ending an eight-year rapprochement.
More than 400,000 Israelis live in settlements considered illegal under international law

The United States warned Friday that "unrestrained" building of settler homes could hinder peace, after Israel approved a new settlement in the occupied West Bank for the first time in a quarter century.

The Palestinians reacted angrily at what is widely seen as the most right-wing government in Israeli history presses ahead with settlement expansion in defiance of international concern.

US President Donald Trump's administration refrained from criticising the new settlement, which was approved by the Israeli security cabinet late Thursday, but warned that further expansion could undermine peace efforts.

"While the existence of settlements is not in itself an impediment to peace, further unrestrained settlement activity does not help advance peace," a White House official said.

"Going forward... the Israeli government has made clear that Israel's intent is to adopt a policy regarding settlement activity that takes President Trump's concerns into consideration."

A spokesman for UN chief Antonio Guterres expressed "disappointment and alarm" at the Israeli announcement.

EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini said the new settlement building threatens "to further undermine prospects for a viable two-state solution, which remains the only realistic way to fulfil the aspirations of both sides and achieve just and lasting peace."

- 'Destroying peace prospects' -

Senior Palestinian official Saeb Erekat said Israel "continues to destroy the prospects of peace."

He also criticised the United Nations, European Union and United States for not doing enough to punish Israel for continuing to expand settlements in the West Bank.

"Peace is not going to be achieved by tolerating such crimes," he said.

Jewish settlements in the West Bank

More than 400,000 Israelis live in existing settlements considered illegal under international law.

The new settlement will be constructed north of the former wildcat Jewish outpost known as Amona, which was razed in February in accordance with an Israeli High Court order.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had promised to build a new settlement for its residents after their eviction.

"I promised to create a new community and we are going to respect that commitment and create it today," he said ahead of Thursday's security cabinet meeting.

Oded Revivi, chief foreign envoy for the umbrella body representing settlers, welcomed the decision.

"We will be monitoring the government very closely to see that these plans come to fruition, enabling a new era of building," he said in a statement.

Agriculture minister Uri Ariel also welcomed the announcement, saying it would allow the "development of Judaea and Samaria," using a term right-wing Israelis apply to the West Bank.

It will be the first entirely new settlement that an Israeli government has approved since 1991, the anti-settlement NGO Peace Now said.

In recent years, construction had focused instead on expanding existing settlements.

- 'Held captive by settlers' -

Peace Now said the new settlement's location deep in the West Bank was "strategic for the fragmentation of the West Bank," which Palestinians see as the bulk of their future state.

Palestinian children gather with national flags during a demonstration against the construction of Jewish settlements and the confiscation of Palestinian land in the West Bank on March 31, 2017

"Netanyahu is held captive by the settlers, and chooses his political survival over the interest of the state of Israel," the NGO said, adding it was pushing Israelis and Palestinians closer to "apartheid."

The international community regards all Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories as illegal and a major obstacle to Middle East peace.

Israel draws a distinction between those it sanctions and those it does not -- so-called outposts.

The cabinet also invited tenders for nearly 2,000 new homes in existing settlements and discussed retroactively legalising three outposts, Peace Now said.

Ronen Bergman, senior correspondent for Israel's Yediot Aharonot newspaper, said Netanyahu, who has faced corruption allegations, has been dragged further right to keep his government together.

The far-right pro-settlement Jewish Home party, part of Netanyahu's coalition, is often dictating the government's agenda, he added.

"He has been shifted more and more to the right since being re-elected.

"(Netanyahu) is not calling the agenda, he is chasing the agenda," Bergman told AFP.

US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hold White House talks on February 15, 2017

The former US administration of Barack Obama was deeply opposed to Israel's expansion of the settlements and in December withheld its veto from a UN Security Council resolution condemning the policy.

But since Trump took office in January, settler leaders have been emboldened by his far less critical stance and Israel has since announced more than 5,500 new homes in existing settlements.

Netanyahu has been in discussions with the Trump administration on how to move ahead with further construction.

Trump has pledged unstinting support for Israel but has also urged Netanyahu to "hold back on settlements for a little bit" while his administration looks for ways to restart Israeli-Palestinian talks.
Australian authorities warned Friday there could be deaths from severe flooding caused by ex-tropical cyclone which swept through Queensland and New South Wales

A second woman's body was found Friday and tens of thousands of people were evacuated from towns in two Australian states after torrential rain caused by a powerful tropical cyclone.

Category four Cyclone Debbie hit northeastern Australia on Tuesday between Bowen and Airlie Beach in Queensland state, ripping up trees, washing boats onto land and causing widespread damage.

Debbie was downgraded to a tropical low as it tracked southeast, but continued to pack damaging gusts and dump huge amounts of rain all the way down the east coast to New South Wales state, south of Queensland, and Sydney.

NSW Police said the body of a woman who "disappeared in floodwaters overnight from a rural property" near Murwillumbah just south of the Queensland border was found on Friday.

The body of a 64-year-old woman, whose vehicle was swept off a causeway on a property in Gungal, about 300 kilometres (190 miles) north of Sydney, on Thursday night, was recovered Friday.

The woman's 74-year-old husband, who was also in the vehicle, managed to get out.

Lismore, south of Murwillumbah near the NSW coast was hard hit, with the State Emergency Service (SES) warning of three-metre (10-feet) high flood levels in the town.

Map tracking the route of tropical cyclone Debbie in northeast Australia

Earlier Friday, SES acting deputy commissioner Mark Morrow said he had fears for some missing residents from Lismore.

"As we start to go out and try to find people that made... calls overnight, there could be some very distressing news," he told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

"There could be people overnight that perished in that flood, we don't know at this stage."

Other towns subject to evacuation orders include Tweed Heads, Kingscliff and Murwillumbah.

Farmer Peter Hannigan, whose property is just north of Lismore, said the deluge was the worst he had ever seen in more than 50 years in the area.

"I think a lot of people are going to have a lot of significant damage on the farms," he told the ABC.

"It is the worst I have ever seen I have to admit."

- Clean-up efforts -

A State Emergency Service crew close off a flooded road in Beenleigh, noertheast Australia on March 31, 2017

Further north in Queensland, the popular tourist city of Gold Coast and other nearby regions were also inundated by water. Upper Springbrook in the Gold Coast hinterland recorded 789 millimetres (31 inches) of water on Thursday, the Bureau of Meteorology said.

The weather bureau's regional director Bruce Gunn said that across southeast Queensland, where Gold Coast is located, there had been widespread rainfall of 100-300 mm over the last two days.

"In terms of what happened in the last 24 or 48 hours, we have seen some pretty big rainfall totals," he told Brisbane's Courier Mail.

"There is still that strong risk around the Gold Coast."

Focus has turned to the restoration of essential services such as water and electricity in the areas hit by Debbie, including Bowen, Mackay and the Whitsunday islands where some 50,000 people were still without power, officials said.

The military has mobilised 1,300 soldiers to help assess the full extent of damage and aid the clean-up, with helicopters and planes deploying to restore infrastructure and supply emergency food, water and fuel.

A group of workers paddle through floodwaters in a small boat to check on a house in Beenleigh, northeast Australia on March 31, 2017

Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said some 2,000 properties had been assessed, with about 270 severely damaged.

"The army is doing everything it can to get water into those parts of North Queensland that I mentioned -- Airlie, Proserpine, Bowen and the Whitsunday islands," she told reporters.

"We also have structural engineers that are on the ground at the moment."

The Insurance Council of Australia declared the Queensland and northern NSW regions disaster zones, adding that the damage bill could reach Aus$1 billion (US $770 million).

"The overall event will certainly be in the hundreds of millions of dollars," the council's chief Rob Whelan told reporters Friday.

He compared it to Cyclone Oswald, a category five storm which hit in 2013 and caused over Aus$1 billion in damage.
A North Korean official pushes a cart through the VIP entrance at Beijing airport after a flight from Malaysia believed to be carrying the body of Kim Jong-Nam arrived in the Chinese capital

North Korea's retrieval of the body of the assassinated half brother of leader Kim Jong-Un is aimed at destroying evidence of the regime's involvement in the brutal killing, analysts say.

Kim Jong-Nam was killed with the lethal nerve agent VX on February 13 in a Kuala Lumpur airport, in a brutally clinical operation which removed a potential claimant to the Kim throne -- he was late leader Kim Jong-Il's first-born -- who was an embarrassment to Pyongyang.

The murder triggered a diplomatic row between Malaysia and North Korea, which expelled each other's ambassadors and barred their citizens from leaving.

But in a deal announced by both, they said they would lift their travel bans, and Kuala Lumpur would send the body to North Korea.

Analysts say Pyongyang will immediately dispose of the corpse and try to bury the issue.

"They will burn the body," said Kim Kwang-Jin, a defector-turned-researcher at Seoul's Institute for National Security Strategy.

Kim Jong-Nam was assassinated with the lethal nerve agent VX at a Malaysian airport on February 13, 2017

Pyongyang will declare the man had died of natural causes and blame the controversy on its opponents, said Kim.

"North Korea will say that its citizen named Kim Chol died from a heart attack and claim that enemies South Korea and the US have stirred up drama," he said.

Pyongyang has refused to confirm the identity of the victim, who was carrying a North Korean passport bearing the name Kim Chol when he was killed.

Malaysia however has officially confirmed his identity using DNA evidence, and had said it had been waiting for his next of kin to claim the body.

The joint statement referred to the North providing documentation from the family -- which could mean Kim Jong-Un himself or any of his relatives, rather than the dead man's wives or children.

At the same time, destroying the evidence also avoids it becoming a focal point for opponents of the regime, added researcher Kim, who worked for the North's state insurance company before fleeing to the South.

A Malaysian policeman closes the gate of the forensics wing of the Hospital Kuala Lumpur, where the body of Kim Jong-Nam resided the Malaysian capital

"It is natural for them to want the body because it will continue to draw attention if it is anywhere else," he told AFP.

- 'Everyone knows' -

South Korea has blamed Pyongyang for the Cold War-style killing, citing what officials say was a standing order from North Korea's leader to eliminate his exiled and estranged half-brother.

Some analysts say the North will be very discreet about the handling of Kim's body to keep the truth of the incident a secret from its own citizens.

"Kim Jong-Nam's existence and his murder are like a Pandora's box that cannot be known by the people," said Kim Yong-Hyun, professor of North Korean studies at Dongguk University.

"Everything will be done in secret with minimal procedures," he said.

Even so, analysts said, retrieving the corpse would not resolve the repercussions of the assassination for Pyongyang.

Hospital workers move a body cart to the gate of the forensics wing of the Hospital Kuala Lumpur, where the body of Kim Jong-Nam was being held, in Kuala Lumpur

"The case has been closed for now and the body swap was a small victory by the North," said Chang Yong-Seok, senior researcher at Seoul National University's Institute for Peace and Unification Studies.

But Pyongyang had suffered "irreparable damage" from Kim's killing, which cemented its inhumane image and set it at loggerheads with one of its few diplomatic friends, he said.

South Korea has repeatedly referred to the assassination as a clear example of the North Korean leadership's brutality and recklessness.

"Whether North Korea admits it or not," Chang said, "everyone knows who did it."
Kim Jong-Nam was killed with the lethal nerve agent VX on February 13, 2017 in a Kuala Lumpur airport

The body of Kim Jong-Nam, half brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un, has arrived in Pyongyang, Chinese officials confirmed Friday.

"The body of the DPRK citizen who died in Malaysia and relevant DPRK citizens have returned to the DPRK today via Beijing," foreign ministry spokesman Lu Kang said during a regular press briefing.

"According to international practices, and also out of humanitarianism, China offered necessary assistance to the transit of the body," he added.

Kim Jong-Nam was killed with the lethal nerve agent VX on February 13 in a Kuala Lumpur airport, in a brutally clinical operation which removed a potential claimant to the Kim throne -- he was late leader Kim Jong-Il's first-born -- who was an embarrassment to Pyongyang.

The murder triggered a diplomatic row between Malaysia and North Korea, which expelled each other's ambassadors and barred their citizens from leaving.

Malaysian investigators were seeking seven North Korean suspects, four of whom left the country on the day of the murder, three of whom were believed to be hiding in North Korea's embassy, according to the police chief.

But in a deal announced by both sides, they said they would lift their travel bans, and Kuala Lumpur would send the body to North Korea.

Pyongyang has refused to confirm the identity of the victim, who was carrying a North Korean passport bearing the name Kim Chol when he was killed.

Malaysia however has officially confirmed his identity using DNA evidence, and had said it had been waiting for his next of kin to claim the body.

South Korea has blamed Pyongyang for the Cold War-style killing, citing what they say was a standing order from North Korea's leader Kim Jong-Un to murder his exiled and estranged half-brother.
Security has been beefed up in Greater Noida, with police assisting African students with their shopping runs and escorting them to class

Police have made a sixth arrest in connection with a brutal mob attack on Nigerian students in northern India that rights groups labelled a hate crime, an officer said Friday.

The students were thrashed with sticks and metal chairs in Greater Noida in a vicious assault that was captured on camera and shared widely on social media.

"He (the sixth suspect) was under tremendous pressure, so he came to the police station and surrendered himself," Superintendent Sujata Singh told AFP, adding that police hoped to make four more arrests.

The incident made headlines in Nigeria, with India's ambassador summoned for questioning in Abuja as Delhi labelled the incident "deplorable".

The students were set upon after the death of an Indian teenager from a suspected drug overdose, which locals blamed on the Nigerians.

Security has been beefed up in Greater Noida, with police assisting African students with their shopping runs and escorting them to class.

Police have identified roughly 60 people from footage of the attack who they plan to charge with rioting and unlawful assembly, she added.

Video footage showed a mob attacking a car, while in another clip dozens of men assaulted shoppers in a mall with metal chairs and garbage cans.

A Kenyan woman that reported a separate assault later retracted her story after it was proven false.

Hundreds of African students live in Greater Noida, where there are several popular universities, engineering colleges and other educational institutions.

Human Rights Watch said "hate-filled crimes against foreign students and vigilante attacks in India's cities" were not new, and authorities should label this is a crime fuelled by race.

India's foreign ministry assured Nigeria all steps were being taken to protect their citizens in India, as Abuja demanded "diligent prosecution" of the culprits.
The dismissal of six employees from the US embassy in Kabul for using or possessing drugs is an embarrassment to Washington, which has spent billions of dollars in the fight against opium production in Afghanistan

Six employees of the US embassy in Kabul have been dismissed for using or possessing drugs, an official said, in an embarrassment to Washington which has splurged billions on Afghan counter-narcotics efforts.

The sacking followed an embassy investigation after staff noticed a person wandering around the premises "in a state of confusion and appearing to be intoxicated", the Wall Street Journal reported earlier this week.

"We can confirm that six individuals were involved and that all of them were contract employees," the US State Department told AFP late Thursday.

"No State Department employees were involved in the incident."

It was not immediately clear what kind of drugs the employees were using.

Over the last 15 years, the US government has spent billions of dollars on a war to eliminate drugs from Afghanistan, but the country still remains the world's top opium producer.

Opium production is a major source of income for the Taliban insurgents.

Last year, Afghanistan saw a 10 percent jump in opium cultivation compared to the previous year because of bumper harvests, collapsing eradication efforts and declining international aid to combat drugs, according to the United Nations.
Iraqis fleeing their homes in Mosul's Old City carry their belongings on March 30, 2017

UN chief Antonio Guterres appealed Friday for more aid and international solidarity for the people of Mosul, as he visited a camp for Iraqis displaced by fighting with jihadists.

"We don't have the resources that are necessary to support these people and we don't have the international solidarity that is needed," Guterres told journalists during a visit to the Hasan Sham Camp.

"Unfortunately, our programme here is only funded at eight percent; that shows how limited our resources are," he said.

"These people have suffered enormously, and they go on suffering. We need more solidarity from the international community," he said.

Guterres is on the second day of a visit to Iraq, after meeting with top officials including Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi in Baghdad on Thursday.

His visit comes as Iraqi forces battle to retake second city Mosul, which was seized by the Islamic State jihadist group in 2014.

The fighting has sparked major humanitarian concerns, killing hundreds of civilians and displacing more than 200,000 since the operation to retake the city's western side began last month.
Experts say India's aviation sector holds vast untapped potential, with just 100 million of its 1.2 billion people taking to the skies last year

Indian airlines will soon offer dirt-cheap fares to dozens of new, regional destinations -- some for the very first time -- as the world's fastest-growing aviation market tries to encourage millions more passengers to the skies.

The government awarded flying rights to five Indian airlines Thursday to connect large metro cities to 70 small towns, nearly half of which have never been reached by plane.

Tickets will be capped at 2,500 rupees (USD$38) per hour of flying time to keep fares low for new customers through a slew of subsidies and tax incentives.

India unveiled a plan in 2015 to make air travel more affordable for millions who never fly by reviving struggling airports and connecting rural areas to big cities.

"It's a great day for Indian aviation," Amber Dubey, partner and India head of aerospace and defence at global consultancy KPMG, told AFP.

"This will give a huge fillip to investments, tourism and job creation in the interiors of India."

Alliance Air, SpiceJet, Turbo Megha, Air Odisha and Air Deccan won the flying rights, said a government spokesman not authorised to speak to the media.

India's burgeoning middle class is taking to the skies in ever greater numbers, with passenger growth of 23.3 percent in 2016 according to industry body IATA -- double China's 11.7 percent increase over the same period.

Low-cost airlines are rushing to expand their fleets to take advantage of that growth, encouraged by a fall in fuel prices that last year pushed several private operators into profit for the first time.

Experts say India's aviation sector holds vast untapped potential, with just 100 million of its 1.2 billion people taking to the skies last year, but woeful infrastructure and high operating costs could threaten expansion.

By reviving some of the hundreds of disused regional airports -- among them a number of "ghost airports" that were built by the government but never used -- the government is trying to tackle some of the infrastructure concerns.

The winners of the first round of bids will receive three-year exclusive rights for the regional routes.

Auctions for routes will be conducted twice a year. The winners are required to commence services within six months or face a penalty.
Filipino fisherman Rolando Omongos was cast adrift by a storm and survived for nearly two months by drinking rainwater as he helplessly watched his uncle die beside him

Adrift and alone in the Pacific Ocean, Rolando Omongos prayed to live long enough to bring home news of the death of his uncle, whose corpse he had cast off at sea.

The 21-year-old Filipino fisherman was stranded in January after a storm separated him and his uncle from their main fishing vessel, leaving the pair on a tiny boat without fuel, food or fishing tools.

His prayer was answered when -- having survived for 58-days by eating moss and drinking rainwater, but too weak to stand -- he managed to hail a passing ship by waving his ragged shirt.

Still in shock and tearful, his hands blistered by the sun, Omongos told reporters of his ordeal after returning to Manila on Wednesday.

Omongos said he lived off the tiny plants that grew on the boat and rainwater he collected using plastic containers. He lost 40 kilogrammes (88 pounds) in weight.

Filipino fisherman Rolando Omongos (C) 21 is hugged by his mother Rosalie (L) and another sibling, shortly after arriving at General Santos City airport

When Omongos' uncle died he tied the body to the boat for a week, but had to loosen it into the sea when it began to decompose.

"I just thought, Lord, I leave my uncle to you. I have to live and come home to give our family the news about what happened to him."

Omongos said at one point he thought he might suffer the same fate but did not lose hope of being rescued, finding strength thinking of his grandfather, a fisherman who had toiled hard for the family all his life.

"Every time my body suffered from the heat, I would dip into the sea and then surface again. I would dip ten times a day to keep cool," he recounted.

Omongos stayed on the lookout for passing ships, trying to get their attention from his tiny boat.

"I prayed that they would have mercy and come toward me."

When one finally did, he said he had barely any strength left.

"I was too weak to stand up and they had to carry me," he said.

Filipino fisherman Rolando Omongos said when his uncle died he tied the body to the boat for a week, but had to loosen it into the sea when it began to decompose

"I was so happy when I was rescued because God heard what I prayed for every day and every night. I cried but no tears came."

After his rescue by a Japanese ship, he was dropped off on the Papua New Guinea island of New Britain -- over 3,200 kilometres (2,000 miles) from the Philippine port of General Santos where he and his uncle had originally set out.

Rolando, who left school young, said he might return to his studies but that after his recent experience one thing was for sure: he was not going back on a boat.

"I just want to rest for a few months," he said.
Kuwait is home to more than 600,000 domestic helpers, many of whom complain of abuse

Kuwaiti police have detained a woman for filming her Ethiopian maid falling from the seventh floor in an apparent suicide attempt without trying to rescue her, media and a rights group said Friday.

The Kuwaiti woman filmed her maid land on a metal awning and survive, then posted the incident on social media, Al-Seyassah newspaper reported.

The 12-second video shows the maid hanging outside the building, with one hand tightly gripping the window frame, as she begs for help in an apparent last-minute change of mind.

The woman holding the camera is heard telling the hanging maid: "Oh crazy, come back."

The terrified maid is seen screaming "hold me, hold me", just before her hand slips and she falls down to hit the awning, which appears to soften the impact.

The employer made no reaction as she continued filming.

Later, paramedics rescued the maid and rushed her to hospital where she was found to have suffered nose and ear bleeding and a broken arm, the newspaper said.

The criminal investigation police referred the employer to the prosecution over failing to help the victim, the daily said.

The reasons for the maid's attempted suicide were not revealed.

The Kuwait Society for Human Rights on Friday called on the authorities to investigate the case and refer it to court.

The oil-rich Gulf state is home to more than 600,000 domestic helpers, a majority of them Asians, many of whom complain of abuse, mistreatment and non-payment of wages.

Hundreds of maids escape their employers every year over abuse, and the government has set up shelters for them. Some seek help from their embassies.
Iraqis flee on foot carrying their belongings to escape the fighting for Mosul's Old City with the Islamic State group on March 30, 2017

UN chief Antonio Guterres appealed on Friday for more aid for the people of Mosul, as he visited a camp for Iraqis displaced by the battle to retake the second city from jihadists.

Iraq is nearly six months into the operation to oust the Islamic State group from its most populous bastion -- a battle that has sparked major humanitarian concerns.

More than 200,000 civilians have fled IS-held west Mosul since last month, while the fighting has taken a devastating toll among the hundreds of thousands more still trapped in the battleground.

"We don't have the resources that are necessary to support these people and we don't have the international solidarity that is needed," Guterres told journalists during a visit to the Hasan Sham Camp.

"Unfortunately, our programme here is only funded at eight percent. That shows how limited our resources are," he said.

"These people have suffered enormously, and they go on suffering. We need more solidarity from the international community."

The battle for Mosul

Guterres said there were not enough resources available to provide acceptable living conditions for the people of Mosul or for the reconciliation efforts that will need to follow when the city has been fully recaptured.

Whether or not real reconciliation occurs in Mosul and elsewhere will play a major role in determining whether Iraq moves towards stability or further violence.

Guterres is on the second day of a visit to Iraq, after meeting top officials, including Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, on Thursday.

As he began his visit in Baghdad, Guterres called for the protection of civilians to be the "absolute priority," after the battle for Mosul resulted in numerous civilian deaths and widespread privation.

- Deadly toll on civilians -

The UN said earlier this month that around 600,000 civilians were still in west Mosul, 400,000 of them trapped in siege-like conditions in the Old City.

An Iraqi woman fleeing fighting in Mosul walks past a damaged vehicle on March 30, 2017

Remaining in the city has posed deadly danger to residents, with the UN human rights office saying more than 300 civilians were killed in west Mosul in little over a month.

Gunfire, shelling, bombs and air strikes have all taken their toll.

The Iraqi government has sought to blame the jihadists for the deaths.

Colonel Joe Scrocca, a spokesman for the US-led coalition against IS, has also accused the jihadists of trying to provoke strikes that would kill civilians in order "to take advantage of the public outcry and the terror."

Belgium, which is part of the coalition, has opened an investigation into the suspected involvement of its warplanes in strikes that killed civilians in Mosul.

"We have opened a preliminary investigation to establish... whether all procedures were observed during two incidents," prosecutors' spokesman Eric Van Der Sypt told AFP.

"If rules of engagement were properly observed... it is possible that no crime was committed," Van Der Sypt said.

Iraqi authorities say more than 200,000 civilians have fled the fighting since mid-February.

Iraqi children walk at the Hasan Sham Camp on March 31, 2017 after fleeing the battle for Mosul

Camps have been set up around the city to provide shelter for the displaced, while others are staying with relatives, renting accommodation or residing in makeshift shelters or unfinished buildings.

IS overran large areas north and west of Baghdad in 2014, but Iraqi forces backed by US-led air strikes have since regained much of the territory they lost.

Iraqi forces launched the operation to retake Mosul in October, retaking its east side in January before setting their sights on the smaller but more densely populated west.

The fighting has inflicted heavy casualties on the Iraqi security forces, according to the head of US Central Command, General Joseph Votel.

Votel told a congressional committee that 490 Iraqi security personnel were killed and more than 3,000 wounded in the battle for east Mosul, while 284 have been killed and more than 1,600 wounded in fighting for the west.
Nigeria is trying to strengthen the naira to give businesses easier access to the foreign currency they need to pay for imported machinery and raw materials

Nigeria's central bank has made moves to strengthen the naira currency to boost domestic manufacturing and lift the economy out of recession caused by the slump in global oil prices.

But analysts said the measures do not go far enough and foreign investment would only return to Africa's most populous nation once the market determines the currency's true value.

The naira has lost value against the US dollar, as Nigeria saw revenues from international oil sales dwindle because of the worldwide slump in crude prices.

Stalled investment has led to a shortage of foreign currency, making it harder for local businesses to source enough dollars to pay for imported raw materials and machinery.

It has also caused a yawning gulf between the official rate and that on the illegal, but tolerated, black market.

The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) currently sells dollars in the country's multiple forex markets at 315 to 375 naira, allowing dealers to make a small profit on customer transactions.

This week it directed commercial banks to sell at 360 compared with the previous rate of 375, to forex users wanting to pay overseas school fees, medical bills and other "invisibles".

"We believe that what has been driving the parallel market rate, apart from speculation, has been some of the invisibles," bank spokesman Isaac Okorafor told AFP.

- 'Not healthy' -

Nigeria's President Muhammadu Buhari has stated he does not want the market to determine the value of the naira and argued devaluation would "kill" the currency.

Since mid-February, the CBN has been pumping dollars into the market to strengthen the naira and bridge the gap between official and black market rates.

Official data show some $2.5 billion have been sold to end users, causing the local currency to rally to 380 on the open market as of Thursday, compared with a previous dollar high of around 520.

Monetary policy in recent months has been aimed at encouraging local production of what has previously been imported at huge cost.

In June 2015, the CBN prohibited 41 items, including tooth picks and luxury jets, from the official forex window.

Okorafor maintained the policy had "rejuvenated domestic production", providing "an opportunity to change the economy's structure, resuscitate local manufacturing" and create jobs.

The head of the Manufacturers' Association of Nigeria, Frank Jacobs, said any move to strengthen the naira was "a positive development", as not all members sourced forex officially.

"Some manufacturers, especially the small-scale firms and those affected by the ban of the 41 items, source their dollars from the bureaus de change and the black market," he added.

"Lowering the rates will definitely help them and the economy."

Financial analysts, industry operators and the International Monetary Fund, however, said the bank needed to go further and harmonise all of Nigeria's forex market rates.

Bismarck Rewane, of the Financial Derivatives consultancy in Lagos, added: "A situation where the central bank is the sole supplier of forex is not healthy.

"It is creating an air of uncertainty for investors. The CBN is artificially funding the market to punish speculators and hoarders."

Of particular concern was the use of foreign reserves to shore up the naira, he said.

"We are using up in six weeks what we ought to use for six months. This is not sustainable," he said, urging the CBN "to move towards a market-driven" forex market.

That would give greater certainty for currently wary investors, he added.

- Precarious situation -

The director-general of the Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Muda Yusuf, said businesses had greeted the bank's move this week with "relief".

"Gradually investors confidence is returning to the economy," he said. But he also expressed concern about whether the policy was sustainable.

"How far can the CBN go in making dollars readily available to industries and importers?"

OPEC member Nigeria relies on crude oil sales for 90 percent of its foreign exchange earnings and 70 percent of government revenue, making it particularly vulnerable to global shocks.

Crude prices have rallied internationally since the slump began in mid-2014, while militant attacks that hit production in Nigeria's oil-rich south have tailed off, Yusuf noted.

But he said the situation was still precarious.

"The CBN should further liberalise the FX market to allow for other inflows of forex. If the current supply source dries up, we may be back to zero," he added.
Kim Jong-Nam (left), the half brother of North Korea's leader Kim Jong-Un, was attacked with the lethal nerve agent VX in Kuala Lumpur airport in an operation that triggered a diplomatic row between Malaysia and Pyongyang

The body of the assassinated half-brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un arrived in Pyongyang Friday, apparently accompanied by three men initially named by Malaysian police as suspects in his murder.

Kim Jong-Nam was attacked with the lethal nerve agent VX on February 13 in Kuala Lumpur airport, in an audacious Cold War style operation that triggered a diplomatic row between Malaysia and North Korea.

Malaysian national police chief Khalid Abu Bakar said three North Koreans wanted for questioning had finally been interviewed and allowed to leave on the same plane carring Kim's body.

"We have obtained whatever we want from them... we are satisfied," Bakar said. The three had been holed up in the North Korean embassy in Kuala Lumpur for weeks.

China confirmed that the body had arrived in Pyongyang - after transiting through Beijing -- along with "relevant" North Korean nationals.

Aftermath of an assassination

Both countries expelled each other's ambassadors and barred their citizens from leaving, in a bitter stand-off over the killing.

But late Thursday, Kuala Lumpur said it had agreed to send back the body to the North in exchange for nine of its citizens, who were returned to Malaysia early Friday.

Malaysia's police chief said the three North Koreans had been wanted for questioning because they were seen on CCTV near the airport attack.

"In the beginning we said we would like them to assist in the investigation and we have allowed them to go," Khalid told a news conference in Kuala Lumpur.

He said police still wanted to question four other suspects believed to be in North Korea.

A hazmat team conducts a decontamination operation at Kuala Lumpur International Airport on February 26, 2017

Malaysia had been waiting for family to claim the body and Khalid hinted that the North's leader himself could have written the letter to claim the body.

"Legally, Kim Jong-Un is next of kin," he said.

China's foreign ministry spokesman Lu Kang told a regular press briefing that Beijing "offered necessary assistance to the transit of the body".

- Embarrassment to Pyongyang -

The murder in Kuala Lumpur removed a potential claimant to the Kim throne -- he was late leader Kim Jong-Il's first-born -- who was an embarrassment to Pyongyang.

South Korea has blamed the North for the brazen killing, citing what they say was a standing order from Kim Jong-Un to murder his exiled and estranged half-brother.

But the North denies this and denounced Malaysia's investigation into the death as an attempt to smear the secretive regime.

It had insisted that the man, who it has not named, died of a heart attack.

Two women -- one Vietnamese and one Indonesian -- have been arrested and charged with the murder. Airport CCTV footage shows them approaching the 45-year-old victim and apparently smearing his face with a piece of cloth.

Malaysia's Prime Minister Najib Razak announced the body swap deal late Thursday, saying his government had "worked intensively behind the scenes" to reach an agreement.

He said the coroner approved release of Kim's body after completion of the autopsy and receipt of a letter from his family requesting the remains be returned to North Korea.

Malaysia however has officially confirmed his identity using DNA evidence.
Pravin Gordhan served as South Africa's finance minister over two stints, from 2009-14 and also from 2015-17

Pravin Gordhan, who was sacked late Thursday, is liked and admired by many ordinary South Africans -- an unusual achievement for any finance minister.

He held onto the purse strings for longer than many analysts expected after he was parachuted into the job in 2015 to calm markets when a little-known lawmaker lasted just four days in the post.

But Zuma's desire to appoint a loyalist to the treasury ultimately cost Gordhan his portfolio, which he had also held from 2009 to 2014.

Softly-spoken and measured in public, but tough behind the scenes, 67-year-old Gordhan earned an international reputation for fiscal prudence and for taking a firm stand against corruption.

Gordhan's name alone stabilised the markets which had been gripped by panic after Des Van Rooyen's surprise appointment in 2015.

The local rand currency gradually recovered as Gordhan stressed his intention to rein in spending, tackle graft and reduce the budget deficit.

But his sacking may now persuade investors and voters that South Africa is heading towards fiscal and political instability.

Over the last year-and-a-half, Gordhan fought a public tussle with President Jacob Zuma for control over the public coffers.

Gordhan last year faced fraud charges that were criticised as a move to oust him by Zuma's associates.

The charges were dropped at the last minute, exposing deep tensions in the ruling ANC party as several ministers came out in Gordhan's support.

- Struggle credentials -

Born in the port city of Durban in 1949, Gordhan's political life began as a pharmacy student at the University of Durban-Westville, an Indians-only institution established during white-minority rule.

There, he joined the anti-apartheid Natal Indian Congress, also becoming involved with the African National Congress (ANC) and the South African Communist Party.

Throughout the 1980s, Gordhan was repeatedly arrested for his political activities.

He then played a pivotal role in the talks that steered South Africa towards its first democratic elections in 1994, before becoming an ANC member of parliament.

He was "probably the cleverest person in government", political journalist Stephen Grootes wrote in his book "SA Politics Unspun".

Gordhan was also widely praised for overhauling the tax system, tripling the country's tax haul from 185 billion rand in 1999 to 558 billion rand in 2009.

Ahead of the reshuffle, Zuma made a sudden move to recall Gordhan while the minister was drumming up investment on an official trip to Britain this week.

"Whatever has happened doesn't mean we won't be professional," Gordhan said in his farewell press event where many supporters gave him a standing ovation.

"We must emphasise, our souls are not for sale," he added in a pointed dig at the culture of political corruption he said is damaging the country.

"We hope more and more South Africans would make it clear that our country is not for sale."

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Oil giant Shell opened Friday a high-tech research hub in southern India that is hoping to pioneer the green energy of the future, including ways to transform farm and city waste into clean fuel.

The sprawling facility in the Indian tech capital Bangalore will house 1,500 experts under one roof as Shell expands its research and development operations in Asia.

The 21-hectare hub will host labs and demonstration centres where new ideas can be pursued and tested, and push efforts to transform waste products into low-carbon fuels for transport.

Chairman Shell Companies in India Nitin Prasad (right), Director for Projects and Technologies and Executive Committe Member of Royal Dutch Shell Harry Brekelmans (center) and Ambassador of Netherlands Alphonsus Stoelinga look on during the opening of the Shell Technology Centre in Bangalore

'Innovation and technology are vital to providing more and cleaner energy solutions for a growing world population,' Shell's projects and technology director Harry Brekelmans said in a statement.

India has ambitious targets for clean energy use but still relies heavily on coal to produce power in the vast nation of 1.25 billion where blackouts are common and many still lack access to electricity.

The Bangalore facility is the first of its kind for Shell outside the US and Europe.

The high-tech research hub in southern India that is hoping to pioneer the green energy of the future, including ways to transform farm and city waste into clean fuel

'Innovation and technology are vital to providing more and cleaner energy solutions for a growing world population,' said Shell's projects and technology director Harry Brekelmans (pictured)

Researchers at the tech centres work collaboratively on finding cheap, new energy solutions and sources of power from tapping reserves deep beneath the sea to making natural gas more efficient.

The latest addition to the global network will see experts drawing on the brains of Bangalore's tech community known for its start-up culture and entrepreneurism.

'India has an opportunity to make a significant contribution to the world's incremental energy needs in the years ahead,' said India's minister for petroleum and natural gas, Dharmendra Pradhan, who was at the opening.

Bangalore, often dubbed 'India's Silicon Valley', is a global hub for Western tech companies and hosts a high concentration of IT firms and software developers.
India Prime Minister Narendra Modi's home state of Gujarat on Friday increased the punishment for cow slaughter from seven years to life imprisonment as Hindu hardliners push for tougher protections for the holy animal.

Under the stiffened penalties passed by Gujarat's state assembly, anyone caught transporting cows for slaughter could also face up to 10 years in jail.

Cows are considered sacred in Hindu-majority India, and their slaughter is illegal in most states.

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Cows are revered in the Hindu scriptures as the 'mother' of civilisation and many worshippers equate the slaughter of cows or eating beef as blasphemy

'A cow is not an animal. It is symbol of universal life,' Gujarat law minister Pradipsinh Jadeja told the state's assembly.

'Anybody who does not spare the cow, the government will not spare him.'

The amendment still needs the approval of the state governor - a formality all but assured - before becoming law.

This is a holy cow passing by in the Holi celebration. Holi is one of the oldest religious festivals of India. They cannot be killed and anyone who slaughters a cow may be sentenced to life imprisonment

Millions from India's huge minority populations - including Muslims, Christians and lower-caste Hindus - eat beef, although it is not widely available.

But Modi's ruling right-wing party, the BJP, which recently won the municipal elections in India's largest state Uttar Pradesh with a landslide, has long campaigned for the protection of cows.

The BJP's new chief minister in Uttar Pradesh, Yogi Adityanath, has launched a crackdown on abattoirs since taking office in March that has ground the state's meat industry to a halt.

Hindu devotees worship a sacred cow on the eve of Gopastami in Hyderabad. The Gopastami festival, which commemorates Hindu Lord Krishna becoming a cowherder, brings devotees preparing food and offering religious rituals to cows

Hindu activists have long accused the Muslim-dominated meat industry of covering up the slaughter of cows and passing off the meat as buffalo, which are not revered as holy.

The new rule follows a wave of hardline Hindu lawmakers ensuring the protection of cows

Four mechanised plants, which slaughter and process buffalo meat, were shut last week by district administration across UP.

'I have not seen such scarcity of raw meat in the last 35 years that we have been in business,' said Mohamad Khalid, owner of Al-Nafis dhaba in Dasna, Ghaziabad.

The second generation dhaba owner added: 'The last 10 days have been harrowing. This is worse than the demonetisation phase.'

Several other BJP-ruled states, including Jharkhand, Rajasthan, Uttarakhand, Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh, have followed suit, ordering closures of abattoirs operating without licences, according to media reports and local officials.

50-year-old Muslim man, Mohammad Akhlaq, was accused of eating beef and was dragged from his home in 2015 and beaten to death

Cow slaughter is a hot-button issue in India, where even rumours of cows being transported can spark murderous reprisals and religious riots.

Squads of 'cow protection' vigilantes are known to roam highways inspecting livestock trucks for any trace of the animal.

In 2015 a 50-year-old Muslim man, Mohammad Akhlaq, was accused of eating beef and was dragged from his home in 2015 and beaten to death by a mob in an attack that also left his son critically injured.

The rumours that the family had eaten beef began when a calf was reported missing in Dadri village.

'An announcement about the family consuming beef was made at a temple, after which the mob descended on the man's house,' said Kiran S, the superintendent in charge of the case.

Relatives mourning Mohammad Akhlaq who was beaten to death by an angry mob in the village of Dadri

The Indian Express quoted Akhlaq's daughter Sajida as saying the family had mutton in the fridge and not beef.

'They accused us of keeping cow meat, broke down our doors and started beating my father and brother. My father was dragged outside and beaten with bricks,' she told the newspaper.

Police later said it was mutton.
Malusi Gigaba (pictured) has replaced Pravin Gordhan as South Africa's finance minister

South African President Jacob Zuma's sweeping cabinet overhaul exposes deep divisions between the ANC's apartheid-struggle old guard and a new generation often accused of not living up to expectations.

Malusi Gigaba, 45, who replaced Pravin Gordhan, 67, as finance minister is a fervent Zuma loyalist always ready to defend the president despite corruption scandals and mounting legal troubles.

Gigaba, who was previously home affairs minister, is accused by the radical opposition EFF party of having "unexplained wealth" and was criticised for mismanagement at state-run South African Airlines during his time as public enterprises minister.

Gigabe's new deputy, Sfiso Buthelezi, was linked to financial irregularities at the state rail operator in a report published by the country's graft watchdog in 2015.

By contrast, Gordhan -- who was an anti-apartheid activist from the 1970s to 1990s -- enjoyed popularity rare for a finance minister and was seen as the "Mr Clean" of South African politics.

"Compared to past ANC leaders, Zuma falls far short -- and he's aware of it and extremely sensitive," said political analyst Mari Harris of IPSOS South Africa.

"He's tried to purge his cabinet of people who are opposition and put in a lot of yes-men."

Thursday night's power play has been read as a bid by Zuma to protect himself by controlling the transfer of power to a clique of favoured ANC figures.

Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, the president's ex-wife and former African Union chief, is Zuma's preferred candidate to succeed him when he steps down as the country's leader in 2019.

Sacked finance minister Pravin Gordhan enjoyed rare popularity rare in the post and was seen as the "Mr Clean" of South African politics

She may be able to shield him from looming graft charges after he is out of office, but she has little support among the ANC's electoral base.

Installing key Zuma loyalists will limit the likelihood that "old ANC" candidates like deputy president and ANC statesman Cyril Ramaphosa can halt Dlamini-Zuma's bid to succeed the president.

Ramaphosa, who was instrumental in winning the support of global business for Nelson Mandela's efforts to end white-minority rule, said that "there are quite a lot of colleagues and comrades who are unhappy".

- 'Post-apartheid failure' -

Zuma himself was imprisoned on Robben Island with Nelson Mandela.

But Ramaphosa's intervention highlighted a wider disconnect between ANC figures who were in the fight against apartheid alongside Mandela, and a new class of younger party leaders.

The bitter animosity between the two camps was laid bare at Wednesday's funeral for celebrated ANC struggle stalwart Ahmed Kathrada which turned into an impromptu rally against the president.

In a fiery eulogy, former president Kgalema Motlanthe said Kathrada was "deeply disturbed by the current post-apartheid failure of politics".

"He found current leadership wanting on many fronts," said Motlanthe.

Kathrada had openly criticised Zuma's government, which has been accused of corruption, mismanagement and of failing to transform the lives of black South Africans.

Quoting from a letter that Kathrada wrote to Zuma a year ago calling for him to stand down, Motlanthe received long and thunderous applause from mourners -- including serving ministers.

The ANC's Youth League -- which is fiercely loyal to Zuma -- lashed out at funeral-goers for using the event "for political posturing, point-scoring and grandstanding".

In his final media briefing as finance minister, Gordhan told South Africans to revive the spirit of the anti-apartheid struggle and "organise" against political corruption and mismanagement.

"Do we expect more people to follow us out of the door? Well that's a decision people must make," he said.

Eurasia Group analyst Darias Jonker warned that the ANC conference later this year to choose Zuma's successor as party chief would delay a major ruption for now.

"Severe divisions within the ANC are unlikely to lead to a formal split in the party this year, as both contesting factions -- the 'new ANC' and the 'old ANC' -- will first contest the December elective conference," he said.

He predicted the the "new ANC" would retain party control but face a tough time from voters.

"The new ANC is likely to see support drop to below 50 percent in the 2019 election," he said.
Six years since a revolution that toppled dictator Moamer Kadhafi, Libya has become a key departure point for migrants risking their lives to cross the Mediterranean to Europe

Libyan Foreign Minister Mohamad Taher Siala on Friday urged the EU to rethink its naval operation in the Mediterranean, saying it comes with the side effect of encouraging migrants to attempt the perilous crossing to Europe.

The European Union launched Operation Sophia in 2015 to crack down on smugglers on the high seas, after hundreds of migrants died when their rickety boats sank off southern Italy.

The operation's vessels are charged with intercepting smugglers' boats and destroying them, but they often end up rescuing the migrants trying to make their way to Europe -- many of whom depart from Libya.

"I think this Sophia operation, it's negative. It's not positive. Simply because in part they encourage the migration," Taher Siala told AFP in an interview in Warsaw, where he met with his Polish counterpart.

Six years since a revolution that toppled dictator Moamer Kadhafi, Libya has become a key departure point for migrants risking their lives to cross the Mediterranean to Europe.

Migrants "used to calculate the whole risk, till they reach Lampedusa or Pantelleria in Italy," Taher Siala said, referring to two islands that have become migrant hubs.

"Now they are only calculating the risk of how they cross Libya and then go outside the Libyan territorial waters," he added.

- 'Summer is coming' -

"Because then they are picked up by the vessels, they take them to Europe, safely. So I think they have to rethink this operation."

But Fabrice Leggeri, the head of EU border agency Frontex partly in charge of Operation Sophia, has criticised charities that rescue migrants off Libya, arguing that they are responsible for encouraging traffickers.

Hailing mainly from sub-Saharan countries, most of the migrants board boats operated by people traffickers in the country's west, heading for the Italian island of Lampedusa 300 kilometres (190 miles) away.

Concern has shifted to this central Mediterranean smuggling route and away from the Aegean route since a 2016 EU-Turkey deal to stop migrant flows slashed the number of people landing in Greece after fleeing war and persecution in the Middle East.

Unlike Syrians, most travelling from Libya are deemed illegal economic migrants who are seeking jobs rather than fleeing war and persecution. They are usually deported.

Taher Siala said that "development in the (migrants') source countries and good control of the borders and some development within Libya" could stem the human tide heading north.

"But if you just continue taking them and then returning them... you cannot limit the migration like that. You have to stop them from coming to Libya first," he added.

"And you know that summer is coming, the sea will not be rough as it is now, and then I think the number maybe (will) increase."
US President Donald Trump is set to order staff to pinpoint countries and goods responsible for America's nearly $50 billion trade deficit

President Donald Trump will on Friday launch an investigation to root out unfair trade practices around the world, threatening to target countries that contribute to America's substantial trade deficit.

In a symbolic move, Trump will sign an executive order tasking staff to pinpoint countries and goods responsible for America's nearly $50 billion a month trade deficit.

Much of that deficit data is already publicly available and well known, but Trump's initiative doubles down on his tough trade rhetoric and is being taken as a protectionist warning shot across the world.

Top administration officials described the order as a step toward converting "America first" campaign promises into action.

Throughout his presidential campaign, Trump vowed to put America's trading relationship with the world on a more advantageous basis.

Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said the order would result in analysts going "country by country, and product by product," reporting back to Trump within 90 days.

They will look, he said, for evidence of "cheating," inappropriate behavior, trade deals that have not lived up to their promise, lax enforcement, currency misalignment and troublesome World Trade Organization constraints.

"It will form the basis for decision making by the administration," he said.

The order comes a week before Trump meets Chinese President Xi Jinping and is likely to be seen as a warning shot across Beijing's bow.

"Needless to say the number one source of the deficit is China," Ross said, before listing more than a dozen other "countries that will potentially be involved."

US-China merchandise trade

The others were: Canada, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, South Korea, Switzerland, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam.

However, Ross said the presence of a deficit does not necessarily mean that retaliatory or remedial action would be taken.

"It's a little bit hard to say that someone is an evildoer if they are providing a product we can't," he said.

"In some cases, it will simply be that they are better at making the product or can do it far cheaper than we can.

"This is not meant to say that everybody on this little list is an evildoer."

- Trade reset -

In a second executive order to be signed Friday, Trump will order the government to better recover trade duties on products that are subsidized by foreign governments or dumped on the US market.

The proposals being considered by US customs officials could impose more substantial bonding requirements at the border or examine products' risk more stringently.

Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said the order would result in analysts going "country by country, and product by product," reporting back to Trump within 90 days

Listing various problem areas, Navarro said: "This is a big deal. It's steel, chemicals, agricultural products, machinery -- it's the whole gambit."

Head of the World Trade Organization Roberto Azevedo said there was a need for clarity on US trade policy, to see how public declarations translate into policy.

"It is difficult to predict and speculate about what US trade policy will be. It's a very important country, one which the whole world has its eyes on."

In a sign of brewing unease, Germany on Friday protested over planned US punitive anti-dumping duties on steel plate products from companies in that country and half a dozen others.

German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel charged the step breached global trade rules and unfairly disadvantaged suppliers in Germany, as well as in Austria, Belgium, France, Italy, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan.

Italy also voiced alarm, amid fears that products like Vespa scooters could be hit by punitive duties.

"Trump declares war on the Vespa" said a headline in national daily Il Messaggero, reflecting the tone of most of the media coverage on an issue that dominated front pages and topped news bulletins.

"Trump declares war on the Vespa" said a headline in national daily Il Messaggero, reflecting the tone of most of the media coverage on the US trade issue that dominated front pages and topped news bulletins

The European products are vulnerable to potential measures because of a transatlantic dispute over Europe's ban on beef produced with the aid of hormones that pre-dates Trump coming to power.

Along with mopeds, the symbolic Italian products that could have punitive duties slapped on them reportedly include tomatoes, salami and Parma ham, and San Pellegrino mineral water, now owned by Switzerland's Nestle.

Navarro insisted the new measures would fall within rules at the World Trade Organization, where some might see the United States erecting a technical barrier to trade.

"There is no issue here," he said. "We've been collecting these duties -- we just haven't been doing it very well. The WTO is silent on the issue of incompetence."
This undated picture released by North Korea's Korean Central News Agency via KNS on March 7, 2017 shows the launch of four ballistic missiles by the Korean People's Army during a military drill at an undisclosed location in North Korea

The US Treasury hit 11 North Korean business representatives and an industrial firm with sanctions Friday, seeking to further isolate the country's economy for pursuing nuclear weapons.

Most of the officials were based in China and Russia for companies the Treasury said acquire materials, technology and financial support for North Korea's defense industry.

The company named to the sanctions blacklist was North Korea-based Paeksol Trading Corporation, which the Treasury said earns foreign exchange for Pyongyang by trading and exporting coal and iron ore.

The United States has sought Chinese cooperation to crack down on its imports of North Korean coal. But the Treasury said Paeksol continues to export coal through "front companies" in the northeastern Chinese city of Dalian.

The sanctions prohibit US entities from doing business with the designated individuals and companies, with the aim of locking them out of the global financial system.

They come as concerns mount over North Korea's quest to develop a long-range, nuclear-capable ballistic missile, and expectations the country is on the verge of conducting a new nuclear test.

"Today's sanctions are aimed at disrupting the networks and methods that the government of North Korea employs to fund its unlawful nuclear, ballistic missile, and proliferation programs," said Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin.

"These sanctions underscore this administration's commitment to countering the threat to the United States, to our allies, and to stability on the Korean peninsula and in the wider Asia-Pacific region posed by the Kim regime in Pyongyang."

"I urge our partners and allies to take similar measures to cut off its funding."
The UN's peacekeeping mission in DR Congo, known as MONUSCO, has been its largest and costliest thus far

The United Nations Security Council voted unanimously Friday to renew the mandate of the peacekeeping force in the Democratic Republic of Congo, but cut its numbers.

The council voted to approve the MONUSCO mission for another year and asked that a review of its strategy be completed by September.

And members warned President Joseph Kabila that his government must honor a power-sharing deal with the opposition and allow key elections to go ahead.

"We continue to see increasing tensions and insecurity, throughout the Democratic Republic of Congo," said Britain's Ambassador Matthew Rycroft, who chaired the council this month.

"And we continue to see a clear link between the escalation of local conflicts, and national politics," he told his colleagues after the vote.

- Strategy review -

The resolution reduces the authorized size of the military component of the mission to 16,215 troops from 19,815.

But officials stressed that the force is already below strength and in practice fewer than 500 will come home from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

The United States, which will assume the rotating presidency of the Security Council on Saturday, has called for a deep review of the strategy behind all the UN peacekeeping missions.

And Washington, which currently funds more than 28 percent of the peacekeeping budget, is seeking to cut costs and improve the efficiency of the missions.

The US mission to the United Nations, under Ambassador Nikki Haley, will lead the council in April.

And Haley has been clear that she will seek savings in the peacekeeping budget while launching a deep strategy review of every UN mission.

Some missions, such as those in Haiti, Liberia and Ivory Coast, are expected to be wound up and the biggest -- in the DRC -- is under scrutiny.

- Arms embargo? -

Haley said the attitude of Kabila's government, which she has branded "corrupt," made MONUSCO's job impossible and vowed to hold him to account.

"We can't work in spite of the government. We need to hold the government accountable," she told reporters the day before the vote.

"And whether that's us moving forward with an arms embargo, whether its sanctions, we've got to do something to let them know that this is not OK."

On the last day of 2016, Kabila signed a deal to share power with the opposition as officials work to set up national elections later this year.

The agreement was never fully implemented -- despite international pressure -- and an opposition umbrella group has called for a general strike from Monday in protest.

Kabila first took power in 2001 to replace his assassinated father as war ravaged the country.

His unwillingness to step down at the end of his constitutional mandate last year led to protests in which at least 17 people were killed.

Under a deal brokered by the country's influential Roman Catholic bishops, Kabila was allowed to stay in office in tandem with a transitional body and a new premier.

But talks on implementing the accord appear to have broken down, and violence has flared.

Last week, 39 police were killed in an ambush by rebels in the remote central region of Kasai.

In a separate incident, two foreign UN experts, an American and a Swede, were killed in the same region.

Diplomats at the United Nations told AFP that the murdered pair had been investigating reports of mass graves.

On Tuesday, the UN, the European Union and the African Union called for an opposition figure to be named premier as had been agreed under the December 31 deal.
Syrian refugees are seen walking at an unofficial refugee camp near a snow covered mountain in the village of Deir Zannoun in Lebanon's Bekaa valley on January 31, 2017

Lebanon's prime minister warned Friday that his country has reached "breaking point" by hosting more than one million Syrian refugees and urged investment from the international community.

Saad Hariri's comments came as the United Nations refugee agency UNHCR said more than six million Syrians have fled their country since its devastating war broke out in 2011.

Of those, Lebanon is hosting more than a million Syrians, roughly a quarter of its current population of four million.

"This issue has reached a breaking point for us in Lebanon.. We want the international community to hear us and understand that Lebanon is facing a crisis," Hariri told foreign media in Beirut.

He was speaking ahead of an international conference on the post-conflict future of Syria that the European Union and United Nations are to host in Brussels on April 5.

The prime minister said he would appeal at the conference for international investment to improve infrastructure, including schools, roads, the environment and security in Lebanon.

He would propose the international community "commits... 10,000 to 12,000 (US) dollars per refugee (in Lebanon) over five to seven years".

Hariri told reporters he also fears that the refugee crisis could implode on the social level because of "huge tensions" between Lebanese and Syrians in most host communities.

"I fear civil unrest," he said.

The influx of Syrian refugees in Lebanon has stretched the country's economic resources, the billionaire premier said.

In the education system, classrooms were overcrowded with the number of students more than doubling in six years to accommodate Syrian pupils.

Unlike Palestinian refugees who live in camps managed by the United Nations, Syrian refugees in Lebanon live in informal camps.

"Some say we should have refugee camps in Lebanon, I say Lebanon has become a big refugee camp," Hariri said.

Lebanon, whose infrastructure was devastated during a 15-year war that ended in 1990, is struggling with endemic corruption and a public debt that represents 140 percent of its GDP.
According to Apple's iTunes Charts, the podcast S-Town is leading the charts in Australia, Britain, Canada and Germany as well as in the US

The new radio show "S-Town," by the team behind "Serial," the most downloaded podcast in history, is leading download charts just about everywhere in the world.

"Serial" is considered the first big radio hit in the history of podcasts, audio files that can be downloaded from the internet and listened to at any time.

Put online in October 2014, it has been downloaded tens of millions of times. On Friday, it was still in second place in the list of the most downloaded podcasts on Apple's iTunes.

"Serial" tells a true story over the course of a season in weekly chapters. The first season looked at a murder committed in 1999 in Baltimore and at the man convicted of the crime, Adnan Syed, who was sentenced to life imprisonment and insisted he was innocent.

The investigation by the journalists of "Serial," from the creators of "This American Life," a weekly public radio show, turned up several troubling elements in the case.

On that basis, a Baltimore judge ordered a retrial of Syed in June 2016.

The success of "Serial" led to a second season, based on a true story on a totally different subject, that of a US soldier in Afghanistan.

A third season is in the works, the producers say, without revealing the subject or release date.

In the meantime, they launched an independent production company, Serial Productions, which created the new podcast "S-Town." Both "Serial" and "S-Town" are free to download.

Put online Tuesday, "S-Town," which stands for the subject's nickname for the rural Alabama town of Woodstock where he lives -- Shittown -- is now at the top of the most downloaded podcasts in the United States on iTunes.

According to Apple's iTunes Charts, it is also leading the charts in Australia, Britain, Canada and Germany.

The central character in "S-Town" is John B. McLemore, a reclusive antique horologist who asked "This American Life" executive producer Brian Reed to investigate a potential murder in his town.

The seven-episode podcast, which begins somewhat like "Serial" by looking into a murder, expands into a fresco of life in America's Deep South, hosted by Reed.

Producer Julie Snyder explained that the team wanted to create a podcast with the feel of a novel, while "Serial" is more like a television show.

"You can enter their specific world, and you don't know really know what it's about or where it's going," she told the website Wired. "But hopefully you're compelled to stay in it the whole time."
US President Donald Trump speaks during a meeting with US manufacturers in the Roosevelt Room of the White House March 31, 2017

Transitioning from businessman to politician has been tough for Donald Trump.

The billionaire dealmaker promised sweeping-change-made-easy as president, but now finds himself facing fierce opposition in the Congress and the courts.

It's a basic civics lesson most school kids know by heart but one that Trump has had to re-learn the hard way: under the US Constitution, the power of the president is checked by the legislative and judicial branches.

Those checks and balances have caused the first-time politician major setbacks to his two biggest initiatives to date, his travel ban and his attempt to overhaul the health care system.

"Our presidency is very weak in terms of the ability to set the legislative agenda" compared to those of other democracies, Dartmouth government professor John Carey says.

The White House can't introduce bills to Congress, for instance. That's the prerogative of legislators, who set their own agenda.

The opposition party's rights remain especially important in the Senate, where a qualified majority of 60 of 100 votes is required to pass a number of measures, including most tax and spending bills.

"The president's power in terms of compelling legislators is mainly a power of persuasion," Carey says. "And there, Trump severely overestimated his ability."

The US president's opponents also typically rely on the judicial system to oppose his decisions and sometimes successfully block them.

That's nothing new. The Supreme Court almost sank many provisions of Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal in the 1930s. But the "judicialization" of American politics has intensified in recent years.

US President Donald Trump, with Vice President Mike Pence (R) and Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price (L), speaks from the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC, on March 24, 2017

"I can't remember any president so much challenged in the courts so soon," the constitutional scholar Erwin Chemerinsky said.

Those challenges are taking place in one of the most polarized contexts in history, with Trump lashing out against what he calls a politicized justice system, accusing it of encroaching on presidential powers that he is discovering are far less absolute than he imagined.

- The system pushes back -

The particular characteristics of Trump's presidency are amplifying the usual strains present under the constitutional separation of powers.

He's the most unpopular head of state in recent history at this point in his presidency, with an approval rating of just over 40 percent. The Democrats in Congress -- who worked together with the popular Ronald Reagan in 1981 and other Republican presidents when they held the majority -- have very little incentive to compromise with the current leader.

Even members of Trump's own majority Republican Party are defying him.

Even members of Donald Trump's own congressional majority Republican Party are defying him

It was the hard-line conservative faction known as the Freedom Caucus that sank his effort to repeal Obamacare last week, a manifestation of a long-running internecine battle within the party.

The unorthodox, impatient management style of a businessman with little apparent desire to steep himself in the details -- or sometimes even the major points -- of policy has increased the rancor and chaos in Washington.

Having promised to "drain the swamp" of corruption in the capital, Trump has also surrounded himself with billionaires and ultra-conservatives with a record of fierce ideological opposition to government but precious little experience in the political system's actual functioning.

"This is the worst start for a presidency in my lifetime," Duke political science professor David Rohde said.

- Not all lost -

Still, at just 10 weeks into his first term, the 45th president retains prerogatives that, if used wisely, could enable him to regain the upper hand, including in a looming battle over the federal budget.

His predecessors George W. Bush and Barack Obama learned to work around congressional obstruction and paralysis when possible by using their authority to enact executive orders. Although some of their initiatives ultimately failed, others have lasted.

"There's still plenty of opportunity for Trump to take really consequential action on policy through executive orders and through the regulatory process," Carey said, pointing to Trump's decision not to "waste any time" this week by rolling back Obama-era environmental protections immediately following his health care defeat last week.

Supporters of Neil Gorsuch sing to rally for his confirmation as a Supreme Court Justice outside the US Supreme Court on March 29, 2017 in Washington, DC

As for the judicial system, Trump will have opportunities to put his mark on it, starting with his nomination of Neil Gorsuch to a seat on the Supreme Court, which the Republican majority in Congress is poised to approve.

Over the longer term, all the federal judges the president appoints will gradually influence the court system's political makeup.

"It would take many years," Chicago Law School professor Eric Posner says. However, "if he serves out two terms, he probably will have appointed a substantial minority of all the federal judges."

Thanks to the advancing ages of many judges sitting on appeals court benches, Trump may be able to appoint between a third and half of appellate judges, which would put a major stamp on the country's judicial system.
President Donald Trump, in this file photo, announces the launch of his Trump University in New York City in May 2005

A California judge on Friday approved a $25 million deal between US President Donald Trump and former students who accused his now-defunct Trump University of fraud.

The ruling from Judge Gonzalo Curiel, seen by AFP, ends three lawsuits relating to Trump University, affecting around 4,000 claimants.

Two class-action suits were launched in California in 2010 by former students who claimed they had been deceived by false marketing, and a suit was brought by New York state attorney general Eric Schneiderman in 2013.

Students paid as much as $35,000 to enroll at Trump University -- in operation from 2005 to 2011 -- wrongly believing they would make it big in real estate after being taught by the Manhattan property tycoon's hand-picked experts.

After months of insisting he was ready to go court to establish his innocence, Trump made an about-face after his November election and agreed to pay up to save him the embarrassment of further legal wrangling.

Schneiderman said in a statement that Friday's deal approval "will provide relief -- and hopefully much-needed closure -- to the victims of Donald Trump's fraudulent university."

Schneiderman said the victims "waited years for compensation, while President Trump refused to settle and fought us every step of the way -- until his stunning reversal last fall."

Of the settlement amount, $21 million will go to reimburse the plaintiffs in California and the remainder will go New York's attorney general to reimburse plaintiffs in that case.

Curiel was criticized during the presidential campaign by Trump, who accused the Indiana-born judge of being unable to be impartial because of his Mexican heritage -- comments that outraged many.
The "scope and mission of Canada's military contribution will remain the same over the next three months," namely providing "advice" and "assistance" to Iraqi Security Forces, some of whom are seen March 25, 2017, according to the National Defense

Canada announced on Thursday it will extend for three months its mission against the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria, where it is part of a US-led international coalition.

Since deploying forces to Iraq in the summer of 2014, Canada has twice extended its mission for another year and expanded it to include Syria.

Defense Minister Harjit Sajjan said the North American country will now extend its participation in the fight until June 30 of this year.

The "scope and mission of Canada's military contribution will remain the same over the next three months," namely providing "advice" and "assistance" to Iraqi Security Forces, according to the National Defense statement.

Canada withdrew its F18 fighter jets in February 2016. It left available to the coalition its CP-140 Aurora surveillance and CC-150T Polaris refueling aircraft.

Jonathan Vance, Canada's chief of defense staff, said in the statement that Canadian efforts are aimed at assisting Iraqi Security Forces to drive IS out of Mosul.

"While the geography and partners have expanded, the mandate of training, advising, assisting, and equipping remains unchanged," he said.

In total Can$306 million ($230 million) has gone toward funding the mission.
COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) - The Latest on migrants and asylum-seekers in Europe (all times local):

6:45 p.m.

Greek police say a Syrian refugee suffered severe burns after setting himself on fire at a camp on the eastern Aegean Sea island of Chios.

FILE - In this Sunday, Sept. 20, 2015 file photo, migrants whose boat stalled at sea while crossing from Turkey to Greece swim to approach the shore of the island of Lesbos, Greece. (AP Photo/Petros Giannakouris, File)

Police say the motive for the 29-year-old man's action was not immediately clear.

A police statement said the refugee poured a flammable liquid over himself and set it on fire Thursday. A policeman who tried to help him suffered burns on his face and hands.

The man has been hospitalized with burns covering 88 percent of his body.

The Syrian, who arrived at the camp last week, had started the process of applying for asylum in Greece.

About 14,000 migrants seeking asylum live in camps on Greece's eastern islands, having crossed the sea from Turkey. Human rights groups have repeatedly criticized conditions in the camps.

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4:40 p.m.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has renewed her praise for Turkey's efforts to take care of refugees and said it's only right for Europe to continue supporting it despite tensions with Ankara.

Speaking at a European Peoples Party congress in Malta, Merkel rhetorically asked if only Turkey, Jordan and Lebanon should bear the brunt of the refugee exodus when Syria sits just beyond Europe's eastern outpost at Cyprus.

She said: "Apart from all the criticism we currently have for Turkey, they did a lot for the 3 million refugees and it's right that Europe would assist Turkey in this matter."

She said Germany decided to take in refugees because Europe had "neglected a lot beforehand." ''The truth is: we looked the other way when the issue was to finance refugee camps."

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4:30 p.m.

Greek police say they have freed 23 migrants held captive by smugglers until their relatives paid a fee for smuggling the men into Greece from neighboring Turkey.

Police said Thursday that the 21 Pakistani and two Bangladeshi men were in good health despite being imprisoned for a week in a Roma camp near the northern city of Thessaloniki.

One of their alleged captors, a 26-year-old Greek, was arrested.

Police said the migrants had all paid deposits on agreed fees of between 1,500-3,500 euros ($1,610 to $3,750) each to be smuggled into Greece across the Evros river, which runs along the country's land border with Turkey.

They were being held until the outstanding sums were paid. The raid followed a complaint by two of the men's relatives.

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11:40 a.m.

Denmark's integration minister is urging people to turn in pizza bakers if they suspect they are employing immigrants who entered the country illegally.

Inger Stoejberg says she "actually would encourage" Danes to contact authorities if they think something strange is going on, such as many employees "not speaking Danish at all."

She told TV2 late Wednesday that it is impossible for police to check all the backrooms of pizza restaurants.

Her comments came after the channel recently reported an increase in the number of people suspected of living illegally in Denmark - jumping from 877 in 2015 to 1,348 last year.

Stoejberg, considered an immigration hardliner, created a stir earlier for posting an online photo of her smiling and holding a cake to mark the 50th measure tightening immigration laws.
MEXICO CITY (AP) - Mexico's Roman Catholic council of bishops said Thursday that a priest kidnapped in the Gulf coast city of Tampico had been released unharmed.

The council identified the priest as Rev. Oscar Lopez Navarro, from the Tampico diocese. He was kidnapped late Tuesday.

Tampico Bishop Jose Luis Dibildox had said the kidnappers indicated they would negotiate for his release, apparently in exchange for a ransom. But the bishop's council did not say whether any ransom was paid.

"We are pleased to hear of his release, we mourn the way our society is being affected by violence," the council said.

On Monday, a priest was shot to death in the Pacific coast state of Nayarit. In 2016, two priests were found shot to death in Veracruz state and another priest was killed in the western state of Michoacan.

An estimated 32 priests have been slain in Mexico since 2006.
SCRANTON, Pa. (AP) - The Latest on a missing 91-year-old federal judge who has memory problems (all times local):

8:20 p.m.

A 91-year-old federal judge with memory problems who was reported missing from his home in northeastern Pennsylvania has been found alive.

This image provided by the Pennsylvania State Police shows Edwin Kosik. The U.S. Marshals Service is looking for Kosik, a 91-year-old federal judge who has been reported missing from his Pennsylvania home. Kosik disappeared from his home near Scranton around 1:30 a.m. Wednesday, March 29, 2017. The Marshals Service says he's driving a gray 2015 Acura with driver's side damage and may be "at special risk of harm or injury." (Pennsylvania State Police via AP)

U.S. Marshal Martin Pane tells The Associated Press that Edwin Kosik was found Thursday night about 100 yards from his car in a wooded area of Dunmore, outside Scranton.

Pane says Kosik was conscious and talking. He was taken to a hospital.

Kosik suffers from memory loss and stopped hearing cases last month. He disappeared from his home Tuesday night. That sparked an intensive search involving the U.S. Marshals Service, state police and the FBI.

Pane says two boys found Kosik's SUV and alerted law enforcement. A search dog immediately picked up the scent and found the judge.

Kosik sent two corrupt judges to prison for their roles in a notorious juvenile justice scandal known as "kids for cash."

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This item has been corrected to show the marshal's name is Pane, not Paine.

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5:10 p.m.

U.S. marshals have been unable to confirm a possible sighting of a missing 91-year-old federal judge on the Pennsylvania Turnpike heading toward New Jersey.

State police took to the air Thursday as the search intensified for U.S. District Judge Edwin Kosik, who suffers from memory loss.

Kosik recently stopped hearing cases because of health issues and takes medication for memory issues. Investigators say that might have prompted his disappearance in northeastern Pennsylvania late Tuesday.

U.S. Marshal Martin Pane says authorities haven't ruled out foul play.

Kosik spent more than 30 years on the federal bench. He sent two corrupt judges to prison for their roles in a notorious juvenile justice scandal known as "kids for cash."

He was last seen trying to enter a closed grocery store pharmacy near his home outside Scranton and then driving away.

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9:15 a.m.

The U.S. Marshals Service is looking for a 91-year-old federal judge who has been reported missing from his Pennsylvania home.

Edwin Kosik disappeared from his home near Scranton around 1:30 a.m. Wednesday. Marshals say he's driving a gray 2015 Acura with driver's-side damage and may be "at special risk of harm or injury."

Kosik stopped hearing cases last month because of health issues.

Marshals are planning a news conference Thursday to discuss his disappearance.

Kosik was appointed to the federal bench in 1986 by President Ronald Reagan. He's best known for presiding over the "kids for cash" case, in which two local judges were accused of taking money from the developer of a pair of for-profit detention centers.

Marty Pane, U.S. Marshal for the Middle District of Pennsylvania holds a press conference about the disappearance of federal judge Edwin Kosik, 91, in the William J. Nealon Federal Building and U.S. Courthouse in Scranton, Pa., on Thursday, March 30, 2017. ( Jake Danna Stevens / The Times-Tribune Via AP)

Marty Pane, U.S. Marshal for the Middle District of Pennsylvania holds a press conference about the disappearance of federal judge Edwin Kosik, 91, in the William J. Nealon Federal Building and U.S. Courthouse in Scranton, Pa., on Thursday, March 30, 2017. ( Jake Danna Stevens / The Times-Tribune, via AP)

Marty Pane, U.S. Marshal for the Middle District of Pennsylvania holds a press conference about the disappearance of federal judge Edwin Kosik, 91, in the William J. Nealon Federal Building and U.S. Courthouse in Scranton, Pa., on Thursday, March 30, 2017. ( Jake Danna Stevens / The Times-Tribune, via AP)
WASHINGTON (AP) - Former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn is in discussions with the House and Senate intelligence committees on receiving immunity from "unfair prosecution" in exchange for agreeing to be questioned as part of ongoing probes into possible contacts between Donald Trump's presidential campaign and Russia, his attorney said Thursday.

"General Flynn certainly has a story to tell, and he very much wants to tell it, should the circumstances permit," said Flynn's attorney, Robert Kelner.

Kelner said no "reasonable person" with legal counsel would answer questions without assurances that he would not be prosecuted, given calls from some members of Congress that the retired lieutenant general should face criminal charges.

FILE - In this Feb. 13, 2017 file photo, Mike Flynn arrives for a news conference in the East Room of the White House in Washington. Flynn's attorney says the former national security adviser is in discussions with the House and Senate intelligence committees on receiving immunity from "unfair prosecution" in exchange for questioning. Flynn attorney Robert Kelner says no "reasonable person" with legal counsel would answer questions without assurances. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci, File)

Flynn's ties to Russia have been scrutinized by the FBI and are under investigation by the House and Senate intelligence committees. Both committees are looking into Russia's meddling in the 2016 presidential election and any ties between Trump associates and the Kremlin.

Since July, the FBI has been conducting a counterintelligence investigation into Russia's interference in the election and possible coordination with Trump associates.

Kelner released a statement after The Wall Street Journal first reported that Flynn's negotiations with the committee included discussions of immunity. The lawyer described the talks as ongoing and said he would not comment on the details.

A congressional aide confirmed that discussions with the Senate intelligence committee involved immunity. The aide spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations.

House intelligence committee spokesman Jack Langer said Flynn has not offered to testify to the committee in exchange for immunity.

Four other Trump associates have come forward in recent weeks, saying they would talk to the committees. As of Wednesday, the Senate intelligence committee had asked to interview 20 people as part of the probe.

In his statement, Kelner said the political climate in which Flynn is facing "claims of treason and vicious innuendo" is factoring into his negotiations with the committees.

"No reasonable person, who has the benefit of advice from counsel, would submit to questioning in such a highly politicized, witch hunt environment without assurances against unfair prosecution," Kelner said.

In September, Flynn weighed in on the implications of immunity on NBC's "Meet the Press," criticizing Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and her associates in the FBI's investigation into her use of a private email server.

"When you are given immunity, that means that you have probably committed a crime," Flynn said during the interview.

Flynn was fired from his job as Trump's first national security adviser after it was disclosed that he misled the vice president about a conversation he had with the Russian ambassador to the U.S. during the transition.

In the weeks after he resigned, Flynn and his business registered with the Justice Department as foreign agents for $530,000 worth of lobbying work that could have benefited the Turkish government.

The lobbying occurred while Flynn was a top Trump campaign adviser. The Turkish businessman who hired Flynn, Ekim Alptekin, has told the AP that Flynn's firm registered under pressure from the Justice Department.

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Follow Chad Day on Twitter: https://twitter.com/ChadSDay
ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) - Federal prosecutors say a 38-year-old Schenectady woman has been sentenced to more than three years in prison for a Jamaica-based lottery scam targeting elderly victims.

The U.S. Attorney's Office says Kimberly Powell admitted she worked with her husband, Jeragh Powell, and others in Jamaica to mail fake lottery prize notifications to people around the country.

The mailing directed the victims to pay tens of thousands of dollars in "fees and taxes" to receive prize money and cars.

Prosecutors say the Powells received more than $65,000 from the victims and forwarded a large portion to their associates in Jamaica.

Jeragh Powell, a Jamaican citizen, was sentenced in January to three years and five months in prison. His wife was sentenced on Thursday.
BEIJING (AP) - France on Friday warned its citizens in China to be vigilant after a French person was "violently assaulted" by a man with a knife in Shanghai this week.

The attacker fled after a Chinese colleague of the victim intervened and the man was captured by police shortly afterward, the French Consulate in Shanghai said in a notice on its website.

"Given the situation, the French embassy in China calls on members of the French community to exercise the utmost vigilance," the statement said.

The attacker was a 27-year-old Shanghainese man surnamed Mao, the police department of Shanghai's Xuhui district issued a statement on its microblog. It said the French citizen had been lightly injured on his neck and that the case was under investigation, but gave no suspected motive.

The attack Wednesday came four days after a Chinese man was killed by a police officer in Paris, sparking violent protests by members of the Chinese community in France. The killing has been extensively reported on in Chinese media and the foreign ministry on Tuesday summoned a representative of the French embassy in Beijing to express its concern over the case.

It has also called for Chinese nationals in France to express their wishes and demands "in a reasonable way."
BAGHDAD (AP) - Islamic State group and al-Qaida-linked militants are quickly moving to drum up outrage over a sharp spike in civilian casualties said to have been caused by U.S. airstrikes in Iraq and Syria, posting photos online of a destroyed medical center and homes reduced to rubble. "This is how Trump liberates Mosul, by killing its inhabitants," the caption reads.

The propaganda points to the risk that rising death tolls and destruction could undermine the American-led campaign against the militants.

During the past two years of fighting to push back the Islamic State group, the U.S.-led coalition has faced little backlash over casualties, in part because civilian deaths have been seen as relatively low and there have been few cases of single strikes killing large numbers of people. In Iraq - even though sensitivities run deep over past American abuses of civilians - the country's prime minister and many Iraqis support the U.S. role in fighting the militants.

In this Friday, March 24, 2017 photo, pesidents carry the body of a person killed during fights between Iraq security forces and Islamic State on the western side of Mosul, Iraq, Friday, March 24, 2017. As the U.S.-led coalition ramps up the fight against the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria, claims of civilian casualties caused by airstrikes have spiked dramatically. The toll, both in infrastructure destroyed and in lives lost, has the potential to undercut U.S. military victories, stoking resentment and a backlash that could play into the hands of the militants. (AP Photo/Felipe Dana)

But for the first time anger over lives lost is becoming a significant issue as Iraqi troops backed by U.S. special forces and coalition airstrikes wade into more densely populated districts of Iraq's second-largest city, Mosul, and U.S. -backed Syrian fighters battle closer to the Islamic State group's Syrian stronghold of Raqqa.

That has the potential to undercut victories against the militants and stoke resentments that play into their hands.

At least 300 civilians have been killed in the offensive against IS in the western half of Mosul since mid-February, according to the U.N. human rights office - including 140 killed in a single March 17 airstrike on a building. Dozens more are claimed to have been killed in another strike last weekend, according to Amnesty International, and by similar airstrikes in neighboring Syria in the past month.

In Syria, as fighting around Raqqa intensified, civilian fatalities from coalition airstrikes rose to 198 in March - including 32 children and 31 women - compared to 56 in February, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which documents Syria's war. Over the course of the air campaign, from September 2014 through February, an average of 30 civilians were killed a month, according to the Observatory.

The U.S. military is investigating what role the U.S. played in the March 17 airstrike in Mosul, and American and Iraqi officials have said militants may have deliberately gathered civilians there and planted explosives in the building. The blast left an entire residential block flattened, reducing buildings to mangled concrete.

Among those who lost loved ones, resentment appears to be building toward the U.S.-led coalition and the ground forces it supports.

"How could they have used this much artillery on civilian locations?" asked Bashar Abdullah, a resident of the neighborhood known as New Mosul, who lost more than a dozen family members in the March 17 attack. "Iraqi and American forces both assured us that it will be an easy battle, that's why people didn't leave their houses. They felt safe."

U.S. officials have said they are investigating other claims of casualties in Syria and Iraq.

Islamic State group fighters have overtly used civilians as human shields, including firing from homes where people are sheltering or forcing people to move alongside them as they withdraw. The group has imposed a reign of terror across territories it holds in Syria and Iraq, taking women as sex slaves, decapitating or shooting suspected opponents and destroying archaeological sites. Mass graves are unearthed nearly every day in former IS territory.

Now, the group is using the civilian deaths purportedly as a result of U.S.-led airstrikes in its propaganda machine.

Photos recently posted online on militant websites showed the destruction at the Mosul Medical College with a caption describing the Americans as the "Mongols of the modern era" who kill and destroy under the pretext of liberation. A series of pictures showing destroyed homes carried the comment: "This is how Trump liberates Mosul, by killing its inhabitants under the rubble of houses bombed by American warplanes to claim victory. Who would dare say this is a war crime?"

In Syria, IS and other extremist factions have pushed the line that the U.S. and Russia, which is backing President Bashar Assad's regime, are equal in their disregard for civilian lives.

U.S. "crimes are clear evidence of the 'murderous friendship' that America claims to have with the Syrian people, along with its claimed concern for their future and interests," said the Levant Liberation Committee, an al-Qaida-led insurgent alliance.

Some Syrian opposition factions allied with the U.S. have also criticized the strikes, describing them as potential war crimes.

An analysis by the Soufan Group consultancy warned that rumors and accusations of coalition atrocities "will certainly help shape popular opinion once Mosul and Raqqa are retaken, thus serving a purpose for the next phase of the Islamic State's existence."

Criticism has also come from Russian officials, whose military has been accused of killing civilians on a large scale in its air campaign in Syria, particularly during the offensive that recaptured eastern Aleppo from rebels late last year.

"I'm greatly surprised with such action of the U.S. military, which has all the necessary equipment and yet were unable to figure out for several hours that they weren't striking the designated targets," Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said, speaking at the U.N. Security Council about the March 17 strike.

Joseph Scrocca, a spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition, acknowledged the spike in civilian casualty reports could change the way the coalition is conducting the war. He said it was a "very valid" concern that loss of life and destruction could play into the hands of IS or cause some coalition members to waver.

"But the coalition is not going to back down when (the fight) gets hard or there's a lot of pressure," he said. "That's what ISIS wants."

In Syria, the deadliest recent strike occurred earlier this month in a rebel-held area in the north. Opposition activists said a mosque was hit during evening prayers, killing around 40 people, mostly civilians, and wounding dozens of others. The U.S. said it struck an al-Qaida gathering across the street from the mosque, killing dozens of militants, adding they found no basis for reports that civilians were killed.

In Mosul, the scale of destruction wrought by increased artillery and airstrikes is immense in some areas.

Abdullah, the resident of New Mosul, buried 13 members of his family in a single day.

Standing in a field now being used as a graveyard, he said: "This was not a liberation. It was destruction."

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Karam reported from Beirut. Associated Press writers Maamoun Youssef in Cairo, Vladimir Isachenkov in Moscow and Mstyslav Chernov in Mosul, Iraq, contributed to this report.

FILE - In this Tuesday, March 14, 2017 file photo, a woman holds her daughters as gunshots are heard in a neighborhood recently liberated by Iraqi security forces in western Mosul, Iraq. As the U.S.-led coalition ramps up the fight against the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria, claims of civilian casualties caused by airstrikes have spiked dramatically. The toll, both in infrastructure destroyed and in lives lost, has the potential to undercut U.S. military victories, stoking resentment and a backlash that could play into the hands of the militants. (AP Photo/Felipe Dana, File)
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) - Malaysia's police chief said Friday that three North Koreans who had been hiding out in their country's embassy for weeks were allowed to fly home after investigators cleared them of wrongdoing in the death of Kim Jong Nam.

Malaysia and North Korea struck a deal this week to end a diplomatic standoff over the Feb. 13 murder of Kim Jong Nam, the estranged half brother of North Korean ruler Kim Jong Un.

Although details of what led to the agreement were not released, it gave North Korea custody of the body and allowed Malaysia to question the three men who were hiding in the embassy.

In this Saturday, March 25, 2017 photo, Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak, left, and Malaysia Inspector General Police Khalid Abu Bakar inspect a guard of honor during the 210th Police Day parade in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Khalid said Friday, March 31, that three North Koreans who have been hiding out in their country's embassy for weeks were allowed to fly home only after investigators cleared them of wrongdoing in the death of Kim Jong Nam. Malaysia and North Korea struck a deal this week to end a diplomatic standoff over the Feb. 13 murder of Kim Jong Nam, the estranged half brother of North Korean ruler Kim Jong Un. (AP Photo/Vincent Thian)

Earlier this month, national police chief Khalid Abu Bakar had hinted that the men had valuable intelligence, saying he would wait to question them, "even if it takes five years."

But on Friday, in the wake of the larger political deal with North Korea, Khalid said authorities recorded statements from the men and released them.

"We have obtained whatever we wanted from them," Khalid told reporters. "We have allowed them to go."

It was an abrupt turnaround in a bizarre case that is part diplomatic drama, part murder mystery. Investigators say Kim Jong Nam, who was in his 40s, was poisoned at the Kuala Lumpur airport by two young women wielding VX nerve agent, a banned chemical weapon.

Although Malaysia never directly accused North Korea of carrying out the attack, speculation is rampant that it orchestrated a hit on a long-exiled member of its ruling elite.

Malaysian investigators had said they wanted to question seven North Koreans in the case: four men who left the country the day of the attack, and the three who were holed up inside the North Korean Embassy in Kuala Lumpur.

The three men who were hiding in the embassy - including an embassy official and a North Korean airline worker - flew Thursday to Beijing, where they were seen at the airport Friday, presumably on their way home.

"(The) investigation into the murder is still ongoing," Khalid said Friday. "We are still hoping the North Korea authorities will hand over to us the four North Korean suspects we have named earlier on."

That is highly unlikely. North Korea has denied having anything to do with the killing and has slammed Malaysia's investigation as flawed and politically motivated.

North Korea has not even publicly acknowledged that the victim was, in fact, Kim Jong Nam. Instead, it refers to him as Kim Chol, the name on the passport he was carrying at the time of his death.

"I'm sure they know very well" who the man really is, Khalid said Friday. He said that on the day the victim died, the North Korean Embassy identified him as Kim Jong Nam before insisting he was Kim Chol the next day.

Khalid added that Malaysia released Kim Jong Nam's body after receiving a request from his next of kin. Without specifying exactly who sent the letter, Khalid said, "Legally speaking, Kim Jong Un is the next of kin."

Kim Jong Nam had three children with two women in Macau and mainland China.

Thursday's political deal also secured the release of ordinary citizens who had been caught up in the diplomatic fight. North Korea was so enraged by Malaysia's investigation that it announced earlier this month that Malaysians could not leave North Korea. Malaysia responded in kind, with an exit ban of its own targeting North Koreans.

Those bans have now been lifted, and the nine Malaysians held in North Korea returned home on Friday.

Malaysians who were stranded in Pyongyang walk with Malaysia's Foreign minister Anifah Aman, center right, after arriving at Kuala Lumpur International airport in Sepang, Malaysia, Friday, March 31, 2017. Malaysia said Thursday it has agreed to release the body of Kim Jong Nam to North Korea in exchange for the return of nine Malaysians held in the North's capital. (AP Photo/Vincent Thian)

One of the Malaysians who was stranded in Pyongyang walks down from a plane after arriving at Kuala Lumpur International airport in Sepang, Malaysia, Friday, March 31, 2017. Malaysia said Thursday it has agreed to release the body of Kim Jong Nam to North Korea in exchange for the return of nine Malaysians held in the North's capital. (AP Photo/Vincent Thian)

Malaysia's Foreign minister Anifah Aman, third right, walks next to the nine Malaysians who were returned from Pyongyang at Kuala Lumpur International airport in Sepang, Malaysia, Friday, March 31, 2017. Malaysia said Thursday it has agreed to release the body of Kim Jong Nam to North Korea in exchange for the return of nine Malaysians held in the North's capital. (AP Photo/Daniel Chan)

One of the Malaysians who was stranded in Pyongyang walks down from a plane after arriving at Kuala Lumpur International airport in Sepang, Malaysia, Friday, March 31, 2017. Malaysia said Thursday it has agreed to release the body of Kim Jong Nam to North Korea in exchange for the return of nine Malaysians held in the North's capital. (AP Photo/Vincent Thian)

Malaysia's Foreign minister Anifah Aman, center, give a press conference next to the nine Malaysians who were returned from Pyongyang at Kuala Lumpur International airport in Sepang, Malaysia, Friday, March 31, 2017. Malaysia said Thursday it has agreed to release the body of Kim Jong Nam to North Korea in exchange for the return of nine Malaysians held in the North's capital. (AP Photo/Vincent Thian)

Mohd Nur Azrin Md Zin, center, one the nine Malaysians who were returned from Pyongyang, speaks during a press conference at Kuala Lumpur International airport in Sepang, Malaysia, Friday, March 31, 2017. Malaysia said Thursday it has agreed to release the body of Kim Jong Nam to North Korea in exchange for the return of nine Malaysians held in the North's capital. (AP Photo/Daniel Chan)

Mohd Nur Azrin Md Zin, one the nine Malaysians who were returned from Pyongyang, speaks during a press conference, watched by Malaysia's Foreign minister Anifah Aman, left, at Kuala Lumpur International airport in Sepang, Malaysia, Friday, March 31, 2017. Malaysia said Thursday it has agreed to release the body of Kim Jong Nam to North Korea in exchange for the return of nine Malaysians held in the North's capital. (AP Photo/Daniel Chan)

A paramilitary policeman guards the entrance to the North Korean embassy in Beijing, early Friday, March 31, 2017. The body of Kim Jong Nam, the estranged half brother of North Korea's leader, was released to the North on Thursday, more than a month after his murder at Kuala Lumpur's airport unleashed a fierce diplomatic battle between the two countries. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan)
JUBA, South Sudan (AP) - South Sudanese rebels say they have released three oil workers - two Indians and a Pakistani - after they were abducted and held for three weeks amid the country's civil war.

A statement by rebel leader Riek Machar says the men were released and the Indian and Pakistani embassies were notified.

India's ambassador to South Sudan, Srikumar Menon, told The Associated Press on Friday that "it's a big relief that it's over."

The three men released Thursday were subcontractors for Dar Petroleum, a consortium of oil exploration and production companies based in South Sudan's capital, Juba. It was not clear why they were kidnapped in the Upper Nile region.

The two Indian nationals have been taken to the capital of neighboring Sudan and are said to be unharmed.
HASSAN SHAM CAMP, Iraq (AP) - More funding is needed for U.N. programs in Iraq, the United Nations chief said Friday, and called for international solidarity with the people of Mosul.

An estimated 215,000 people are currently displaced as a result of the ongoing military operations to retake the city from the Islamic State group, according to the U.N.

Secretary-General Antonio Guterres visited a camp for displaced persons about 20 miles (32 kilometers) east of Mosul on Friday. "These people have suffered enormously and they go on suffering," he said.

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, left, meets with Iraqi parliament speaker Salim al-Jabouri, right, in Baghdad, Iraq, Thursday, March 30, 2017. Guterres arrived in Iraq amid a growing humanitarian crisis due to months-long fighting against the Islamic State group in Mosul, as the extremist group claimed responsibility for an overnight suicide attack in Baghdad. (AP Photo/Ali Abdul Hassan)

According to the U.N., 212 million dollars is needed in 2017 in emergency funds to provide for the people displaced from the city. It said seven million dollars were needed to provide shelter for those who are expected to flee Mosul in the coming days alone.

Guterres said U.N. programs were funded at only 8 percent in Iraq this year.

Iraqi and Kurdish security forces launched an operation last October to retake Iraq's second largest city, which has been under IS control since 2014.

Guterres offered support for Iraq's fight against the Islamic State group during a visit to Baghdad on Thursday. At a joint news conference with Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, he condemned IS crimes against civilians and pledged continued aid.

Meanwhile, concern grows for the up to 750,000 people still thought to be staying in western Mosul, where fighting continues between government forces and Islamic State militants.

Hind Taha, a western Mosul resident, waited Friday at a food distribution point in western Mosul where the Iraqi military was handing out aid.

"There is no money, no market, no food. We are living just on aid," she said.

The U.N. says most western Mosul residents have no access to food or clean drinking water and other than the Iraqi military, no aid agencies have been able to access them because of intense fighting.

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Associated Press writer Mstyslav Chernov contributed from Mosul.
ATHENS, Greece (AP) - The main offices of Greece's extreme right Golden Dawn party were attacked Friday by a group of youths wielding sledgehammers, causing damage to the premises but no injuries.

Police say several people have been detained for questioning after the attack Friday. Youths smashed a store front on the ground floor of the party headquarters in Athens on a busy road during rush hour traffic, and threw red paint at the entrance of the building.

Founded as a neo-Nazi group in the 1980s, Golden Dawn came third in the 2015 general elections, with a surge in popular support during the country's major financial crisis. Party offices have been targeted in the past in bomb attacks, while two Golden Dawn members were shot dead in 2013, an attack claimed by a far-left militant group.

Members of Golden Dawn walk outside of the main offices of Greece's extreme right Golden Dawn party after an attack by a group of youths in Athens, Friday, March 31, 2017. Police say several people have been detained for questioning after youths smashed a store front on the ground floor of the party headquarters in Athens and threw red paint at the entrance of the building. (AP Photo/Petros Karadjias)

Party spokesman Ilias Kasidiaris accused the government of turning a blind eye to attacks against Golden Dawn.

"They think that with terrorism and petrol bombs they will stop Golden Dawn. Golden Dawn will not be stopped and it is the only force that is standing up to the selling out of Greece," he said.

An investigator seen outside of the main offices of Greece's extreme right Golden Dawn party after an attack from a group of youths in Athens, Friday, March 31, 2017. Police say several people have been detained for questioning after youths smashed a store front on the ground floor of the party headquarters in Athens and threw red paint at the entrance of the building. (AP Photo/Petros Karadjias)
BEIJING (AP) - Two Chinese rights activists who were detained after they supported pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong in 2014 were convicted and sentenced Friday on charges of inciting subversion of state power, their lawyer said.

The convictions of women's rights activist Su Changlan and online commentator Chen Qitang are the latest in an ongoing crackdown on civil society under President Xi Jinping. Su was sentenced to three years' imprisonment and Chen to four and a half years.

Their lawyer, Liu Xiaoyuan, said he believes their convictions were a direct result of photos and comments they posted in support of the Hong Kong protests. The court's verdict posted online by Liu doesn't mention Hong Kong, but makes clear they were convicted for making comments on social media that were critical of China's political system.

The two were detained during the Hong Kong protests and a crackdown in mainland China in which rights groups say at least 100 people were detained for expressing support. Since July 2015, authorities have questioned or detained hundreds of activists and independent legal professionals.

Amnesty International called for Su's and Chen's immediate and unconditional release.

"It is reprehensible they have been convicted solely for peacefully expressing their views," Patrick Poon, China researcher for Amnesty International, said in a statement.

Calls to the court in Foshan city in Guangdong province in China's south rang unanswered.
ULAANBAATAR, Mongolia (AP) - Hundreds of Mongolians protested in the capital, Ulaanbaatar, on Friday over the alleged theft of government funds deposited in offshore accounts.

Opposition politicians and activists demanded the return of what some said is $17 billion in funds plundered by ruling party politicians and their influential friends.

They also called on the country's parliament to launch a special investigation of offshore accounts and pass a law prohibiting public officials, politicians and their family members from holding such accounts.

Mongolians hold up banners which read: "Oyu-Tolgoi mine and the Noyon Mountain are in offshore account." and "Let's guarantee security of our nation" during a protest in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, Friday, March 31, 2017. Hundreds of Mongolians have protested in the capital Ulaanbaatar over the alleged theft of government funds deposited in offshore accounts. (AP Photo/Ganbat Namjilsangarav)

Uyanga Gantomor, chairwoman of a minor opposition party, said there was money sitting in offshore accounts that had been stolen from Mongolians.

"These thieves stole from schools, kindergartens and from your children and from the happiness of your families," she told the crowd in Ulaanbaatar's central square. "If they bring their stolen money back to Mongolia, then we can forgive them."

Former President Enkhbayar Nambar, who has served time in prison for corruption, addressed the crowd of about 1,500 to 2,000 people. "Not everyone is perfect; I went wrong once," he said. "For that, I have asked forgiveness. How about others ask for forgiveness also! Let's bring the money hidden in offshore accounts and distribute it to the people," he said to loud cheers.

Mongolia is in the midst of an economic crisis caused partly by a decline in prices for mineral exports.

More than 30 percent of the 3 million people in the landlocked country live in poverty, and many are angry over an austerity plan that has hit the poor hardest.

One of the protest organizers, Batchuluun San, head of the People's Emergency Council, a private group that focuses on graft, said the protest was in response to the "Panama Papers" scandal last year in which thousands of pages of documents related to offshore accounts were leaked, including accounts of members of the Mongolian political and business elite.

"Today we have individuals in Mongolia who are richer than the state," said Batchuluun. "We want the government to investigate politicians with offshore accounts based on these documents."

Gansukh Khaltar, an independent economist, said Mongolia needs a law that regulates offshore accounts held by officials, but questioned the $17 billion figure used by protesters.

"How did several rich and influential people manage to steal $17 billion in the last 27 years as the protesters claim? Why would foreign mining companies give this huge amount of bribes to Mongolian politicians?" he said.
PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) - Donald Trump Jr. reeled in a Blacktip shark while fishing from the beach during a spring break trip to Florida with his family.

The president's son posted an Instagram picture of his big catch on Sunday, adding "this is what happens when momma lets the boys loose in Florida for a few days."

After snagging the shark, Trump Jr. and his children Donnie and Spencer posed with the shark on a windy day in Palm Beach.

On a video posted to YouTube, Trump said it's the first time he's caught a shark while fishing from the beach. After a couple of minutes, Trump Jr. dragged the shark back into the rough surf and let it go.

The Palm Beach Post (http://pbpo.st/2mV67Ki ) reports Trump Jr.'s crew caught and released a half-dozen Blacktip sharks that day.
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Latest on the investigation into alleged interference by Russia in the 2016 election (all times local):

7 p.m.

Several hundred protesters greeted House intelligence committee chairman Devin Nunes (NOO'-nehs) on a visit to his home state of California.

Protesters hold up a cutout of Rep. Devin Nunes, who visited Fresno, Calif., on Friday, March 31, 2017. Nunes, a Republican, is facing intense criticism as chair of the House Intelligence Committee for his handling of an investigation into Russian meddling of the 2016 presidential election. (AP Photo/Scott Smith)

Nunes spoke Friday to the Ag Lenders Society at a private gathering in Fresno. He did not speak to protesters or media and was ushered in and out of the building.

Nunes has been accused of being too close to President Donald Trump's administration while his committee is conducting an investigation into the Trump presidential campaign's possible contacts with Russia.

About 300 people protested on the sidewalk outside the event, which was closed to media.

One sign read, "Congressman Nunes, we need a guard dog not a lap dog."

Another said, "Get out of bed with Trump."

A man shouted through a megaphone, "Come out and play, Nunes, you coward."

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6:40 p.m.

The House intelligence committee's top Democrat says materials he viewed at the White House Friday were "precisely the same" as the information provided to his Republican counterpart last week.

Rep. Adam Schiff says the White House has not explained why the materials were shared with only one member of the committee, chairman Devin Nunes.

Last week, Nunes said he had seen new information from an unnamed source that raised troubling questions about the dissemination of Trump associates' communications. He did not disclose at the time that he viewed those materials at the White House.

On Thursday, the White House invited Schiff to see the material. The invitation came only after news reports that White House officials helped Nunes access the secret reports.

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1:10 p.m.

The top Democrat on the House intelligence committee says it's too early to consider an immunity deal for President Donald Trump's former national security adviser.

Rep. Adam Schiff says that Michael Flynn even discussing possible immunity in exchange for protection from prosecution is a "grave and momentous" step because of the seniority of his former position.

Schiff says the House intelligence committee is interested in hearing Flynn's story, but there would have to be coordination with the Senate intelligence committee and the Justice Department on the terms.

The House and Senate intelligence committees and the FBI are investigating Russia's meddling in the 2016 election. The probe includes scrutiny of Flynn's ties with Russia.

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7:35 a.m.

The chief spokesman for President Vladimir Putin says relations between the United States and Russia are at a very low ebb, perhaps exceeding Cold War-era hostility between Washington and Moscow.

Dmitry Peskov tells ABC's "Good Morning America" that reports of Russian meddling in America's election amount to "fake news." Asked by anchor George Stephanopoulos if there is a "new Cold War," Peskov replied, "Well, maybe even worse." He said much of the current chill was caused by the Obama administration's decision to expel Russian diplomats and confiscate property because of alleged hacking against American political institutions.

Peskov also said Friday that Russian officials aren't worried about what might emerge from any congressional testimony under immunity by ousted U.S. national security adviser Michael Flynn, saying there is "no evidence at all" of any improprieties.

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7:45 a.m.

House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi says it's important for congressional investigators to get an idea of what information Michael Flynn has before considering whether to grant him immunity.

Pelosi tells NBC's "Today Show": "We don't want people to take an immunity bath at the Congress so that the Justice Department cannot make the case they may want to make against him."

Pelosi claims she's not thinking yet about whether Flynn's testimony could tie President Donald Trump to the Moscow government, and its alleged attempts to influence voters last year.

She says, "I really don't want to think that it's about Flynn to get the president. This is about Flynn and Flynn."

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7:07 a.m.

President Donald Trump says his former national security adviser, Mike Flynn, is right to ask for immunity in exchange for talking about Russia.

Trump tweeted early Friday: "Mike Flynn should ask for immunity in that this is a witch hunt (excuse for big election loss), by media & Dems, of historic proportion!"

Flynn's attorney said Thursday that the retired general is in discussions with the House and Senate intelligence committees on receiving immunity from "unfair prosecution" in exchange for answering questions.

Flynn was fired from his job as Trump's national security adviser after it was disclosed that he misled the vice president about a conversation he had shortly after the election with the Russian ambassador.

Flynn's ties to Russia have been scrutinized by the FBI and are under investigation.

House Intelligence Committee ranking member Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., center, is seen leaving the White House complex in Washington, Friday, March 31, 2017. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, speaks to reporters on Capitol Hill in Washington, Thursday, March 30, 2017, about the actions of Committee Chairman Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif. as the panel continues to investigate Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election and the web of contacts between President Donald Trump's campaign and Russia. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
WAYNESBORO, Va. (AP) - A Virginia man who prosecutors say was high on methamphetamine when he bit off part of a police officer's ear has pleaded guilty to felony charges.

News outlets report 22-year-old Robert Martin of Staunton pleaded guilty Wednesday to malicious injury to a law enforcement officer and drug charges including possession of methamphetamine.

When a Waynesboro police officer smelled marijuana during a November traffic stop, assistant prosecutor Shannon Sherrill says he called for backup and asked three men to get out of the car.

Martin fled and Sherrill says Sgt. Christopher Hilliard used a stun gun, but it didn't subdue Martin since he was high on meth. As they struggled, she says Martin bit the officer's ear and Hilliard "heard a crunching sound."

Part of Hilliard's ear was later reattached.
BELGRADE, Serbia (AP) - Around 6.7 million voters in Serbia choose a new president in an election Sunday that will test the popularity of the dominant, populist prime minister, Aleksandar Vucic, against 10 beleaguered candidates from the fragmented opposition.

Vucic, a former firebrand ultranationalist now a declared European Union supporter, is a clear favorite to win. His support is hovering around 50 percent. If he gets more than half the vote on Sunday, he would avoid a runoff election on April 16 in which the opposition could coalesce behind a single candidate.

Critics say he wants to establish the kind of autocracy seen in Russia under Vladimir Putin, who has endorsed Vucic's presidential bid. Opposition candidates have accused him of mudslinging, controlling the media and intimidating voters ahead of the election.

Pre-election posters showing current Serbian Prime Minister and presidential candidate Aleksandar Vucic, right, and ultranationalist Serbian Radical Party leader Vojislav Seselj was Vucic's mentor in the 1990s', in Belgrade, Serbia, Thursday, March 30, 2017. The first round of presidential elections is scheduled for Sunday April 2, 2017, that will test the popularity of dominant populist leader Aleksandar Vucic against an array of vociferous opposition candidates. (AP Photo/Darko Vojinovic)

Vucic denies such accusations, but his overwhelming media dominance was apparent on the eve of the vote when seven major newspapers featured the same front pages: Vucic's campaign poster.

Out of 10 opposition candidates running against Vucic, only three or four can expect to reach 10 percent of the votes.

ALEKSANDAR VUCIC

The former extreme nationalist has sought to rebrand himself as a pro-EU reformer. He has tries to project an image of a firm but just statesman who is working hard for the nation, keeping it independent and proud. Vucic says an opposition president would mean instability and insecurity - thus playing on the Serbs' fears of the repeat of the 1990s crisis years when ex-strongman Slobodan Milosevic's warmongering policies left tens of thousands dead and millions homeless. Vucic was Milosevic's information minister.

The 47-year-old insists he will carry out economic and social reforms needed for the country to enter the EU, while strengthening close links with traditional ally Russia. Vucic visited President Vladimir Putin in Moscow this week, in an apparent bid to boost support at home among pro-Russians.

VUK JEREMIC

Jeremic, 41, is a former foreign minister who last year ran for the post of U.N. Secretary General and served as the head of the U.N. General Assembly before that. He stresses his rich diplomatic experience, and has waged a Western-style campaign with his wife, former state TV anchor Natasa Jeremic, by his side. She was accused by the ruling party during the campaign of being Serbia's biggest drug boss, triggering a public backlash which increased her husband's support. Running as an independent, Jeremic is supported by right-leaning opposition groups. He says Serbia should never recognize the independence of breakaway Kosovo and should keep close to Russia.

SASA JANKOVIC

A political newcomer, Jankovic won international and domestic praise while serving as Serbia's first Ombudsman, or citizens' rights defender - a position he abandoned to bid for the presidency. Running as an independent, the 46-year-old lawyer is supported by liberal opposition parties, rights organizations and some prominent individuals. Jankovic has stressed his public service record, and also has appealed to many for his low-key lifestyle that contrasts strongly with the corrupt elite.

LUKA MAKSIMOVIC

The media and communications student is running as a grotesque parody politician in a white suit, oversized jewelry and a man-bun. In videos on social networks, Maksimovic's alter ego, Ljubisa Beli Preletacevic, is shown doing pushups, sucking a raw egg or riding a white horse surrounded by mock bodyguards. Maksimovic's supporters are mostly young voters alienated by decades of crisis and economic decline.

VOJISLAV SESELJ

Seselj, the extreme right-wing leader of the ultranationalist Serbian Radical Party, is notorious for his aggressiveness and loud behavior. He helped organize dreaded paramilitary units during the wars in the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s, but was acquitted of war crimes by a U.N. court in the Netherlands. The case is under appeal, but Seselj has pledged to ignore any ruling that results. He wants Serbia to abandon its EU bid and join a union with Russia. Seselj was Vucic's mentor in the 1990s.

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Dusan Stojanovic contributed.

A man passes pre-election posters showing the number 6, under which current Serbian Prime Minister and presidential candidate Aleksandar Vucic is listed in the candidate list, in Belgrade, Serbia, Thursday, March 30, 2017. The first round of presidential elections is scheduled for Sunday April 2, 2017, that will test the popularity of dominant populist leader Aleksandar Vucic against an array of vociferous opposition candidates. (AP Photo/Darko Vojinovic)

Luka Maksimovic, otherwise known as Ljubisa Beli Preletacevic poses at a local farm in the village of Maskar near Belgrade, Serbia, Saturday, March 25, 2017. Maksimovic's parody character dubbed Ljubisa Beli Preletacevic serves as a mockery of a typical, corrupt Serbian politician who puts own needs before all. The satire has emerged as a star, with mostly young voters turning to Maksimovic to express their distrust with mainstream politics amid decades-long crisis and economic decline. (AP Photo/Darko Vojinovic)

Presidential candidate Vuk Jeremic speaks during an interview with The Associated Press, in Belgrade, Serbia, Thursday, March 23, 2017. Jeremic is running as an independent candidate, with no party affiliation, but is supported by right-leaning opposition groups. The first round of presidential elections is scheduled for Sunday April 2, 2017, that will test the popularity of dominant populist leader Aleksandar Vucic against an array of vociferous opposition candidates. (AP Photo/Darko Vojinovic)

Luka Maksimovic, otherwise known as Ljubisa Beli Preletacevic, addresses supporters as he stands on a monument of Karadjordje, the leader of the 1804 Serb uprising against Ottoman Turks, in the village Orasac, near Belgrade, Serbia, Saturday, March 25, 2017. Maksimovic's parody character dubbed Ljubisa Beli Preletacevic serves as a mockery of a typical, corrupt Serbian politician who puts own needs before all. The satire has emerged as a star, with mostly young voters turning to Maksimovic to express their distrust with mainstream politics amid decades-long crisis and economic decline. (AP Photo/Darko Vojinovic)
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) - South Korea's embattled former President Park Geun-hye was jailed Friday in a scandal that has set off a political firestorm and led to the arrests and indictments of dozens of high-profile figures. More drama is expected in the scandal in the weeks and months ahead. Here's what is likely to happen.

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PARK'S FATE

FILE - In this March 30, 2017 file photo, ousted South Korean President Park Geun-hye arrives at the Seoul Central District Court for hearing on a prosecutors' request for her arrest for corruption, in Seoul, South Korea. The arrest of South Korea's first female president marks a stunning fall for the scion of a powerful general who himself ruled the country during her teenage years and into her 20s. Park was jailed Friday, March 31, 2017, three weeks after the Constitutional Court stripped her of office over a corruption scandal. Prosecutors accuse her of colluding with a jailed confidante to amass an illicit fortune and allowing the friend to manipulate state affairs. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon, File)

Park was sent to a detention facility near Seoul on Friday after the Seoul Central District Court accepted a request from prosecutors to arrest her. Prosecutors can now detain her for up to 20 days before formally indicting her. After indictment, Park is likely to remain in detention, probably for several months, during her trial.

Prosecutors could indict Park without arresting her, but said they needed to detain her because her alleged crimes are "grave" and she could try to destroy evidence. Prosecutors also said it was fair to arrest her since all other key suspects in the scandal have been arrested.

The scandal centers on allegations that Park conspired with a confidante to extort money from companies, take kickbacks from Samsung and engage in other wrongdoing. Prosecutors are expected to bring multiple charges including extortion, bribery and abuse of power.

Images of the former president attending court while handcuffed, bound and perhaps dressed in prison garb are certain to make more headlines. A district court normally issues a verdict within six months of an indictment.

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HARSH PUNISHMENT?

The penalty for the bribery charge ranges from 10 years in prison to life imprisonment. But South Korea has a history of pardoning convicted former leaders, and some conservative politicians and media are urging that Park not be punished further, saying she has already lost the presidency, her reputation and many of her political allies. Others disagree, saying the law must be fair to everyone and that Park is at the heart of the scandal.

There are worries that some of Park's ultra-conservative supporters might stage violent rallies calling for her release. Three supporters died during clashes with police after the Constitutional Court ruled to uphold her impeachment earlier in March.

Two former South Korean presidents, Chun Doo-hwan and Roh Tae-woo, were sentenced to life and 17 years in prison, respectively, in 1996, on charges including treason and bribery. But they were released in December 1997 in a special amnesty suggested by President-elect Kim Dae-jung, who pushed to promote national reconciliation to revive an economy battered by the Asian financial crisis.

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OTHER KEY FIGURES ON TRIAL

Court rulings for others arrested in the scandal are expected in the coming months. They include Park confidante Choi Soon-sil, Samsung heir Lee Jae-yong and some top government officials.

Choi has been charged with bribery, extortion and abuse of power, and can be sentenced to up to life in prison if convicted of bribery. Samsung's Lee faces bribery, embezzlement and three other charges punishable by at least five years in prison.

Also on trial are a former presidential adviser allegedly involved with Park and Choi in the extortion of millions of dollars from companies, another adviser who allegedly passed state secrets to Choi at Park's request, and two former culture ministers and a former presidential chief-of-staff accused of conspiring with Park and Choi to blacklist artists critical of Park's policies to deny them state support.

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NEW PRESIDENT

A new election is to be held May 9 to choose Park's successor. Opinion surveys show liberal Moon Jae-in, who lost the 2012 presidential election to Park, is a clear favorite to win.

Moon will likely receive his party's formal presidential nomination next week. There is talk of conservative and moderate parties fielding a unified candidate because that appears to be the only way to defeat Moon, but no serious attempt at such a political realignment has yet occurred.

The winner of the election will take office immediately, and analysts expect some policy confusion in the first several months as a result. Worse, possible protests by Park supporters could be a burden to the new president if they continue after the election.

Unlike Park, who took a tough approach toward North Korea, Moon has vowed to pursue improved ties with the North, a stance that might trigger discord with the U.S. and Japan.

Moon is also critical of decisions by Park to allow the installation of an advanced U.S. missile defense system in South Korea and resolve a decades-long impasse with Japan over Korean sex slaves used by its imperial army in World War II.
BUCHAREST, Romania (AP) - Britain's Prince Charles reconnected with one of his ancestors on Friday, walking past a statue of Vlad the Impaler during a tour of Bucharest on his final day in Romania.

The prince's three-nation trip is seen as an effort to reassure European Union nations that Britain remains a close ally despite its impending departure from the bloc.

During his tour of the old city, Charles also visited a project that offers restoration support to historical buildings in disrepair.

Britain's Prince Charles, second from right, stands in front of a bust of medieval Romanian ruler Vlad the Impaler during a walk in the old part of town in Bucharest, Romania, Friday, March 31, 2017. Britain's Prince Charles has walked past a statue of his ancestor Vlad the Impaler during a tour of Bucharest on his final day in Romania on a three-nation trip seen as an effort to reassure European Union nations that Britain remains a close ally. (Radu Tuta, Agerpres Pool via AP)

Charles owns two properties in Romania's northwest Transylvania region which he visits yearly. He is on tour to "highlight the U.K.'s relationship with European partners" in areas such as military ties and combatting human trafficking, according to his website.

Charles is related to the 15th-century prince through his great-grandmother Queen Mary, the wife of George V, who was related to a German noble family. Charles has publicly spoken about being a distant relative of Vlad, who reportedly impaled Turks, thieves and traitors on stakes.

The heir to the British throne also visited a school and a children's club in Vizuresti, a small village north of Bucharest with a large Roma population, where he was greeted Friday with bread and salt and chatted with local residents and children.

Kindergarten teacher Magda Diaconu, a mother of eight, told Charles about her daughter and son-in-law who are working in the UK making kitchen furniture. She said they were appreciated by their boss.

"I am fearful that they may be sent home because of Brexit," she said.

Charles will be joined by his wife Camilla when he flies to Italy later Friday. The tour also takes him to Austria.

Britain's Prince Charles, center, speaks to Ivan Patzaichin, former Romanian rowing star and four times Olympic medalist, in Bucharest, Romania, Thursday, March 30, 2017. Britain's Prince Charles toured the Village Museum during his visit to Romania, Italy and Austria, a trip seen as an effort to reassure European Union nations that Britain remains a close ally. (AP Photo/Vadim Ghirda)

Romania's ambassador to Britain, Dan Mihalache, speaks during an interview with the Associated Press in Bucharest, Romania, Thursday, March 30, 2017. Mihalache said Romanians were concerned about their future status after Britain formally leaves the bloc, estimating there are up to half a million Romanians living in Britain- many more than the 190,000 officially registered there.(AP Photo/Vadim Ghirda)
SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina (AP) - Bosnia's war crimes court has convicted a former Bosnian Serb army officer of aiding genocide over his role in the executions of Srebrenica Muslims during the country's 1992-95 war.

Ostoja Stanisic, former commander of a Bosnian Serb army battalion in the eastern village of Petkovci, was sentenced Friday to 11 years in prison for ordering soldiers under his command to guard Muslim Bosniak prisoners despite knowing that they were brought to the village to be executed. He also ordered his soldiers to assist with burial in a mass grave of over 800 bodies of killed prisoners and with the cleaning of execution sites in and around the village.

The victims were among more than 8,000 Bosniak men and boys who were killed in and around Srebrenica in just a few days in July 1995.
MINSK, Belarus (AP) - Police in authoritarian Belarus are searching the offices of a Polish satellite TV channel that has given extensive coverage to a recent wave of anti-government protests.

The Belsat channel, which is part of Polish public broadcaster TVP, is aimed at providing an alternative to Belarus' state-controlled television.

Belsat reported Friday that police were seizing equipment at two of its offices in Minsk, the capital.

Journalists examine empty tables after Belarusian police conducted a search and confiscated equipment in the office in capital Minsk, Belarus, on Friday, March 31, 2017. The Belsat channel, which is part of Polish public broadcaster TVP, and is aimed at providing an alternative to Belarus' state-controlled television, reported amid the Friday raids that police were seizing equipment at two of its offices in Minsk. (AP Photo/Sergei Grits)

Hundreds of people were arrested over the weekend in unsanctioned protests in Minsk. The protests followed sporadic demonstrations across the country over the past two months, an unusually persistent show of defiance in the former Soviet republic.

Belsat director Agnieszka Romaszewska told The Associated Press that the pretext for the raids was a copyright dispute over the Belsat logo.

But "I think it's kind of an 'award' for our good work during the March protests," she said. One cameraman was detained in the raids, she said.

Andrei Bastunets, head of the Belarusian Association of Journalists, said: "The attack on Belsat is only part of a new wave of repression against independent journalists."

Belarusian Interior Ministry officer films nearby journalists as another carries confiscated equipment to police bus near the office of Belsat channel as they conduct a search in the office in capital Minsk, Belarus, on Friday, March 31, 2017. The Belsat channel, which is part of Polish public broadcaster TVP, and is aimed at providing an alternative to Belarus' state-controlled television, reported amid the Friday raids that police were seizing equipment at two of its offices in Minsk. (AP Photo/Sergei Grits)
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. (AP) - A principal in Florida has apologized after a staff member put up posters around the school showing girls what kinds of dresses would and wouldn't be allowed at the prom.

The posters at Stanton College Preparatory School in Jacksonville featured pictures of dresses deemed appropriate with the caption "Going to Stanton Prom? Yes you are. Good girl." Photos of more revealing dresses had the caption "Going to Stanton Prom? No you're not."

The Florida Times-Union reports (http://bit.ly/2nmvSi8 ) that after the posters drew criticism, Stanton principal Nongongoma Majova-Seane sent a message to parents and students apologizing and saying students wouldn't be banned from the prom because of their clothing.

Duval County school district spokesman Mark Sherwood says the unidentified person who put up the posters has been counseled.
CINCINNATI (AP) - The Latest on the Cincinnati nightclub gun battle (all times local):

10 a.m.

A judge has set bond at $1.7 million for a man charged with murder in a Cincinnati nightclub gun battle.

Cincinnati Police Chief Eliot Isaac, center left, alongside Mayor John Cranley, second from left, and City Manager Harry Black, left, announces the arrest of Cornell Beckley and Deondre Davis in connection to the Cameo nightclub shooting during a news conference at police headquarters, Thursday, March 30, 2017, in Cincinnati. At least two people opened fire inside a crowded nightclub early Sunday morning, killing one person and wounding more than a dozen others in what authorities described as a chaotic scene. (AP Photo/John Minchillo)

Police arrested 27-year-old Cornell Beckley on Thursday in the early Sunday shooting. He had a bandage on his forehead when he appeared before a judge who told him Friday that the total bond represented $100,000 for each person injured when the gunfire broke out.

One man was killed and two of the 16 other people injured were wounded critically, including a second man who is facing murder charges while still hospitalized in critical condition.

Prosecutors will likely seek additional charges before a grand jury. Beckley's attorney didn't immediately return a message seeking comment.

Cincinnati police say more arrests are possible.

The Cameo Club is closing for good Friday.

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7:40 a.m.

The father of a man hospitalized in critical condition after a Cincinnati nightclub shooting says he was elated to learn that police were charging two suspects - and then devastated to find out his son was one of them.

A man was fatally shot and 16 other people were hurt when a dispute escalated into the gunbattle at the Cameo club early Sunday. Police on Thursday announced the arrests of two men on murder charges.

The hospitalized suspect, 29-year-old Deondre Davis, has been unresponsive and on a ventilator. His father, Jackie Davis, says he doesn't believe the allegations against his son.

Their attorney, Carl Lewis, says he's waiting for all the facts.

No attorney was listed for the second defendant, 27-year-old Cornell Beckley, ahead of an anticipated Friday court appearance

Cincinnati Police Chief Eliot Isaac, right, alongside Mayor John Cranley, second from left, and city manager Harry Black, left, announces the arrest of Cornell Beckley and Deondre Davis in connection to the Cameo nightclub shooting during a news conference at police headquarters, Thursday, March 30, 2017, in Cincinnati. At least two people opened fire inside a crowded nightclub early Sunday morning, killing one person and wounding more than a dozen others in what authorities described as a chaotic scene. (AP Photo/John Minchillo)

Cincinnati Police Chief Eliot Isaac, alongside Mayor John Cranley, left, announces the arrest of Cornell Beckley and Deondre Davis in connection to the Cameo nightclub shooting during a news conference at police headquarters, Thursday, March 30, 2017, in Cincinnati. At least two people opened fire inside a crowded nightclub early Sunday morning, killing one person and wounding more than a dozen others in what authorities described as a chaotic scene. (AP Photo/John Minchillo)
BANGKOK (AP) - Former Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, ousted by a military coup in 2006 and still the object of political passions, declared Friday he doesn't want to be included in a reconciliation process being promoted by the country's ruling junta.

Thaksin said he doesn't seek anyone's help by including him in the process, and instead wants an end to persecution of him and his family by the military and other enemies.

Thaksin expressed his thoughts in a Facebook posting, his first extensive political commentary in many months. He was forced from office over allegations of corruption, abuse of power and disrespect for Thailand's king, and has been in exile since 2008 to avoid a prison sentence for conflict of interest.

His ouster set off a sometimes-violent struggle for power between his supporters and opponents, and Thailand's military rulers continue to use legal pressures in an effort to block him from making a political comeback.

The junta, which seized power in 2014 from an elected government that had been led by Thaksin's sister, Yingluck Shinawatra, has been promoting a reconciliation process for the declared purpose of patching up political differences, though critics says it is part of a process to keep power in the hands of the military and the permanent bureaucracy rather than elected politicians.

Thaksin declared he also seeks peace and reconciliation.

"For the reconciliation process that is soon to happen - I ask that for every side to leave me out of the equation entirely. I do not want anyone to recommend anything that would help me," he wrote. "'In turn, the people in power should not use miracles and any way possible solely to try to get rid of me with taking into consideration the rule of law."

Thaksin wrote that the government tries to blame him for every bad thing that happens in Thailand, including bombings, but that the problems inevitably are caused by the government's failures.

Thaksin's remarks came just days after Thai authorities initiated a legal process to collect 17.6 billion baht ($503 million) in taxes they say he owes for his sale in 2006 of shares worth 73.3 billion baht ($1.88 billion) in his telecommunications company to a Singapore state holding company. His lawyers say the taxes were not applicable under the law in effect at that time, and that the Revenue Department's efforts are politically motivated.

In 2010, the Supreme Court ordered $1.4 billion of his assets seized for concealing his ownership of the family telecommunication group and tailoring government policies for his own financial gain.

Various legal attacks have also been made on his sister, and a ruling that as prime minister she had been negligent in administering a rice subsidy program led to her being issued a $1.3 billion fine, a ruling she is challenging.

Another political ally, Yingluck's foreign minister, Surapong Tovichakchaikul, was banned from politics for five years on Thursday on the basis that he acted illegally by restoring Thaksin's Thai passport that had been invalidated after he went into exile.
WINTER PARK, Fla. (AP) - The lawyer for a Florida university student who accused his Muslim professor of religious discrimination has been reinstated to the school.

Attorney Kenneth Lewis said in a statement that 20-year-old Marshall Polston will return to Rollins College next week. The statement also calls for a "full inquiry" into the actions of Professor Areej Zufari.

The Winter Park school temporarily suspended Polston March 24, citing his treatment of the professor. School President Grant Cornwell declined comment on Polston's disciplinary hearing.

The Orlando Sentinel (http://bit.ly/2nH7KtI ) reports Zufari made a "protection against stalking" request in court over concerns about Polson. Injunction documents included an email in which Polson tells Zufari that she's trying to silence him after he disagreed with her teachings on Christianity in the Middle Eastern humanities class.
Good morning! Here's a look at how AP's general news coverage is shaping up today. Some plans are subject to change; see the 2 p.m. News Digest for updates. You can find our contact info at the bottom of this advisory. All times EDT.

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HIGHLIGHTING:

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Among today's coverage highlights as we see them at 10:15 a.m. EDT:

-- TRUMP-INTELLIGENCE (upcoming)

-- UNITED STATES-NORTH KOREA (sent; developing)

-- NATO-US (sent; developing)

-- TRUMP-TRADE (sent; developing)

-- OVERPASS COLLAPSE-FIRE (sent; developing)

-- LGBT RIGHTS-NORTH CAROLINA (sent; developing)

-- CHURCH BUS CRASH-TEXAS (sent; developing)

-- TEXAS JAILS-IMMIGRANT DETENTION (upcoming)

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VIDEO:

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US CA SUPER BLOOM (sent, with text and photos)

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Here are details of those stories, plus others we have in the works for today (all times EDT):

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WASHINGTON/POLITICS

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TRUMP-TRADE - President Trump signs a pair of executive orders aimed at cracking down on trade abuses. SENT: 710 words, photos. UPCOMING: Developing from 11 a.m. White House event with National Association of Manufacturers.

NATO-US - U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson warned NATO allies Friday to boost defense spending or come up with plans to reach the alliance's budget guidelines within two months. SENT: 595 words, photos.

UNITED STATES-NKOREA - U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis suggests North Korea is a more urgent problem than Iran, expressing worry about what he calls the country's "reckless" actions. SENT: 172 words, photos. UPCOMING: Developing.

TRUMP-INTELLIGENCE - President Donald Trump has challenged the integrity of intelligence officials, moved to exert more control over U.S. spying agencies, and brazenly accused his predecessor of deploying the same tools the government uses to track terrorists and criminals to monitor his political activity. Now, the White House is muddying its relationship with the intelligence community even further by helping funnel secret reports to a Republican lawmaker. The move amounts to an end-run around the spy agencies and deepens suspicions that the White House is seeking to manipulate intelligence for political gain. SENT: 1,000 words, photos, video. UPCOMING: New version by 4 p.m.

TRUMP-RUSSIA-EAGER TO TESTIFY - As investigations swirl around President Donald Trump, a coterie of Trump associates is practically begging to be sworn in. UPCOMING: 850 words by 3 p.m., photos.

TRUMP-RUSSIA-PROBE - Former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn is in discussions with the House and Senate intelligence committees on receiving immunity from "unfair prosecution" in exchange for agreeing to be questioned as part of ongoing probes into possible contacts between Donald Trump's presidential campaign and Russia, his attorney says. The president tweets that Flynn should ask for immunity. SENT: 510 words, photo. UPCOMING: Developing.

ZIKA VACCINE - NIH reports on the results of its early-stage trials of a Zika vaccine and the next steps it will take in testing and development. UPCOMING: Developing from 11 a.m. conference call.

SENATE-SUPREME COURT - Two Democrats facing tough re-elections in GOP states say they will vote for President Donald Trump's Supreme Court nominee, while more Democrats declare they intend to vote against Neil Gorsuch's confirmation. SENT: 810 words, photos. UPCOMING: Developing.

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WORLD

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EUROPE-BREXIT - The European Union softens its public stance on Britain's exit from the bloc, with Council President Donald Tusk signaling some flexibility on allowing talks on a new relationship before the divorce proceedings are complete. SENT: 510 words, photos. UPCOMING: Developing.

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US

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OVERPASS COLLAPSE-FIRE - Atlanta's notoriously tangled commutes were thrown into disarray Friday after a massive fire caused a bridge on Interstate 85 to collapse, completely shutting down the heavily traveled highway through the heart of the city. SENT: 600 words, photos, video. UPCOMING: Developing.

Atlanta's notorious traffic is expected to be more tangled than usual after a massive fire caused a bridge on Interstate 85 to collapse, completely shutting down the heavily traveled highway. SENT: 520 words, photos.

CHURCH BUS CRASH-TEXAS - Authorities in two Texas counties say they received phone calls about a pickup driving erratically shortly before a collision between a truck and church bus in southwest Texas that killed 13 people returning from a retreat. SENT: 740 words, photos, video. UPCOMING: Developing; seeking more details on the truck driver.

TEXAS JAILS-IMMIGRANT DETENTION - Several Texas counties that are struggling with debt because their jails have few or no prisoners hope to refill those cellblocks with a different kind of inmate: immigrants who have entered the country illegally. UPCOMING: 850 words with photos by 3 p.m.

NORFOLK FOUR-PARDONS - One of four former sailors known as the "Norfolk Four," Eric Wilson was pardoned last week by Virginia's governor for a rape he says he was bullied into admitting to 20 years ago. Cleared at last, he hopes the healing can begin, but there are some things he'll never get over, he tells The Associated Press in an interview. UPCOMING: 800 words, photos.

CHICAGO VIOLENCE - Two people have died in a drive-by shooting in the same Chicago neighborhood where separate shootings several hours earlier left five people dead, including a pregnant woman, police said Friday. SENT: 320 words, photos. UPCOMING: Developing.

ST. LOUIS-CATTLE ESCAPE - Half a dozen cattle apparently had a beef with a St. Louis slaughterhouse and high-tailed it out of there, spawning an hours-long police chase and an online fundraising drive to spare them from the supermarket shelves. SENT: 130 words.

CRAYOLA-COLOR RETIRED - Crayola boots dandelion for bluish crayon yet to be named. SENT: 130 words.

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HEALTH/SCIENCE

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SCI--SPACEX LAUNCH - SpaceX successfully launches and then retrieves its first recycled rocket, a historic feat and the biggest leap yet in its bid to drive down costs and speed up flights. SENT: 900 words, photos.

DESERT SUPER BLOOM - Rain-fed wildflower seeds are sprouting from Southern California's desert sands after lying dormant for decades - producing a spectacular display that has been drawing record crowds and traffic jams to the tiny desert town of Borrego Springs. An estimated 150,000 people have converged on the town of about 3,500 over the past month. SENT: 600 words, photos, video.

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HOW TO REACH US

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At the Nerve Center, Alexandra Olson can be reached at 800-845-8450 (ext. 1600). For photos, ext. 1900. For graphics and interactives, Jen Magno, ext. 7636. Expanded AP content can be obtained from http://www.apexchange.com. For access to AP Exchange and other technical issues, contact apcustomersupport@ap.org or call 877-836-9477.
WASHINGTON (AP) - President Donald Trump will welcome the king of Jordan to the White House next week.

Press Secretary Sean Spicer says that King Abdullah II will visit the White House on April 5. The two are slated to discuss "a range of shared interests in the Middle East," including the fight against the Islamic State group, the conflict in Syria and Israeli-Palestinian relations.

Trump will also be welcoming President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi (see-see) of Egypt on April 3.

Trump met briefly with King Abdullah II at the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington last month.

A White House said the two discussed the possibility of establishing safe zones in Syria, among other issues.
Senate Democratic opposition to President Donald Trump's Supreme Court nominee swelled Friday as Democrats neared the numbers needed for a filibuster, setting up a showdown with Republicans who have the votes to confirm Neil Gorsuch.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York warned Republicans against changing Senate rules, which could prove momentous for the chamber and would allow all future Supreme Court nominees to get on the court regardless of opposition from the minority party.

He says President Donald Trump should just pick a new nominee if Gorsuch is blocked.

Sens. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut and Brian Schatz of Hawaii became the latest Democratic senators to announce their opposition to Gorsuch, a 49-year-old federal appeals court judge in Denver whose conservative rulings make him an intellectual heir to the justice he would replace, the late Antonin Scalia.

Voting down: Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer is demanding that if there are not 60 votes for Neil Gorsuch, that Trump abandon the nomination

Going against party: Joe Manchin, the Democrat from West Virginia, and Heido Heitkamp, from North Dakota, are the only two of the party's members of the upper house to say they will vote for Gorsuch

Blumenthal, a Senate Judiciary Committee member who questioned Gorsuch on judicial independence and other topics in last week's hearings, complained that the judge didn't give straightforward responses.

'We must assume that Judge Gorsuch has passed the Trump litmus test - a pro-life, pro-gun, conservative judge,' Blumenthal said in a statement.

'In question after question, Judge Gorsuch had an opportunity to distance himself from right-wing groups.

'His refusal to answer only deepens the doubt that he is not a neutral follower of the law - an umpire who just calls balls and strikes - but instead an acolyte of hard-right special interests.'

There are now at least 35 Senate Democrats who oppose Gorsuch and have pledged to block him with a filibuster, just six shy of the number that would be required to mount a successful filibuster.

All of the Senate's 52 Republicans are expected to support him. The vote is expected next week.

Republicans are furious at the Democrats' plans, arguing that filibusters of Supreme Court justices have been exceedingly rare, and accusing Democrats of responding to political pressures from a liberal base that still hasn't accepted Trump's election win.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., is expected to respond to a Democratic filibuster by unilaterally changing Senate rules to lower the threshold for Supreme Court justices from 60 votes to a simple majority in the 100-member Senate.

Although such a change might seem procedural or obscure, it is known on Capitol Hill as the 'nuclear option' because it would amount to a dramatic departure from Senate norms of bipartisanship and collegiality.

Schumer warned against the rules change in an interview with The Associated Press on Thursday, arguing that Republicans would be the ones to blame if it does occur.

'Senate Republicans are acting like if Gorsuch doesn't get 60 votes they have no choice but to change the rules,' Schumer said. 'That is bunk.'

Schumer's comments came after Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota became the first two Democrats to announce their support for Gorsuch, and the only ones so far.

Manchin said in a statement, 'I hold no illusions that I will agree with every decision Judge Gorsuch may issue in the future, but I have not found any reasons why this jurist should not be a Supreme Court Justice.'

In another development, audio surfaced of Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., laying out the risks to Democrats in the Gorsuch vote as she spoke privately to donors. The audio was obtained by the Kansas City Star from Republicans.

Matching statements: Both the Democratic senators who say they will back Gorsuch issued lengthy justifications of their decision.

The senator is part of a group of 10 Democrats up for re-election next year in states Trump won, all weighing whether to vote for Gorsuch and risk angering their liberal base - or oppose him, prompting Republicans to permanently change Senate rules to eliminate the filibuster.

With the filibuster gone, Trump could nominate another justice next time there's a vacancy without having to compromise with Democrats at all, and 'all of a sudden, the things I fought for with scars on my back to show for it in this state are in jeopardy,' McCaskill is heard saying.

If confirmed, Gorsuch would replace Scalia, who died in February 2016. But if one of the more liberal justices dies or retires, Trump's next pick could fundamentally alter the balance of the court.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is 84 and fellow liberal Justice Stephen Breyer is 78. Justice Anthony Kennedy, the pivotal vote closest to the court's center, is 80.

Changing Senate rules would not be unprecedented. In 2013, Democrats were in the majority and upset about appellate court nominees getting blocked.

They pushed through a rules change lowering the vote threshold on all nominees except for the Supreme Court from 60 to a simple majority.
RICHMOND, Va. (AP) - Eric Wilson feels he always needs an alibi. He rarely leaves his wife's side when not at work. He talks on the phone whenever he's in his car to leave a record of his location.

One of four former sailors known as the "Norfolk Four," Wilson was pardoned last week by Virginia's governor for a rape he says he was bullied into admitting to 20 years ago. Cleared at last, he hopes the healing can begin.

But there are some things he'll never get over, he says.

Eric Wilson poses for a portrait, Wednesday, March 29, 2017, at his home in Jourdanton, Texas. Wilson is one of four men known as the "Norfolk Four," who have long claimed police bullied them into falsely confessing to the 1997 rape and murder of Michelle Moore-Bosko in Norfolk, Va. Wilson was recently pardoned by Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe, ending a decades-long fight to clear his name. A pardon was the only recourse for Wilson, whose attempts to get his rape conviction thrown out in court had failed because of a technicality. (AP Photo/Darren Abate)

If he just could have proven he wasn't in that Norfolk, Virginia, apartment in July 1997, he may not have falsely confessed to raping 18-year-old Michelle Moore-Bosko. If he could have remembered where he really was that day, he wouldn't have spent 7  years in prison and more than a decade as a registered sex offender for something Gov. Terry McAuliffe declared he didn't do, Wilson says.

"If I had had some kind of hard proof that proved I wasn't there, this never would've happened," Wilson, now 40, told The Associated Press as he drove from work to the home he shares with his wife and two children near San Antonio, Texas.

Pardons for the "Norfolk Four" closed a lengthy case that gained national attention after their innocence claims were backed by dozens of former FBI agents, ex-prosecutors and crime novelist John Grisham. The author once said he wanted to write a screenplay about the case.

Moore-Bosko's husband found her stabbed and strangled body in their apartment in July 1997 after returning from a week at sea.

Danial Williams, who lived in the same building, was quickly identified as a suspect because a neighbor told police he had a crush on the victim. Williams admitted to her rape and murder - the first of a series of confessions that the men, then-sailors at the Naval base in Norfolk, say were forced by police.

DNA evidence matched only one person: Omar Ballard, the fifth man convicted in the case. Ballard, who pleaded guilty in 2000, acknowledged he was solely responsible and is serving a life sentence.

Williams, Joseph Dick and Derek Tice got courts to throw out their rape and murder convictions before McAuliffe formally declared them innocent this month. But Wilson, convicted of rape, had failed to persuade judges to do the same because of a technicality: He'd already completed his sentence.

So while out of prison since 2005, he hasn't been free.

As a registered sex offender, he's been limited from traveling and told to not even bother trying to adopt his stepson, he said. It took an attorney and $10,000 to convince a board to grant him an electrician's license, he said. He's been blocked from working on certain properties, such as schools, and barred from city parks.

His son was run out of his Cub Scout troop because other parents didn't want Wilson around, he said.

"People have been very ugly," said his wife, Misty Wilson.

Moore-Bosko's family remain convinced the men are guilty. Her parents, John and Carol Moore, said in a statement that it's hard to believe - after attending the trials and hearing the confessions - the four are innocent.

"We still believe that all of these men were involved in the murder of our daughter despite the ridiculous decision of the governor to grant them pardon," the Moores said.

Wilson says he still has nightmares about the interrogation resulting in his false confession.

Hauled into a police station nearly a year after the slaying, he was asked where he was that day but couldn't remember.

He recalls a detective shoving him into a corner and showing him a photo of Moore-Bosko's bloody body. By the end, he began to question whether he was innocent, he said.

The other men have said they cracked after they were threatened with the death penalty and repeatedly called liars. The confessions conflicted with one another. Ballard's account was the only one containing information matching the crime scene.

The detective who questioned them, Robert Glenn Ford, was convicted in 2011 of extortion and lying to the FBI in unrelated cases. He's serving 12  years in prison for taking thousands of dollars from drug dealers to get them favorable treatment at sentencing.

Wilson said he's been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder and feels anxious in crowds, always looking over his shoulder.

"I don't really go anywhere. I don't talk to people," Wilson said.

Steve Northup, Wilson's attorney, said they plan to seek compensation for what he endured. Once his name is removed from the sex offender registry, Wilson said, he plans to adopt his stepson, get a passport, and maybe take his wife on a proper honeymoon.

"I'm just grateful that Virginia has finally admitting they're wrong," he said. "Now, the healing can begin for all of us."

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Associated Press researcher Jennifer Farrar contributed to this story from New York.

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Follow Alanna Durkin Richer at http://twitter.com/aedurkinricher. Read more of her work at http://bigstory.ap.org/journalist/alanna-durkin-richer .

Eric Wilson prepares for archery practice, Wednesday, March 29, 2017, at his home in Jourdanton, Texas. Wilson is one of four men known as the "Norfolk Four," who have long claimed police bullied them into falsely confessing to the 1997 rape and murder of Michelle Moore-Bosko in Norfolk, Virginia. Wilson was recently pardoned by Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe, ending a decades-long fight to clear his name. A pardon was the only recourse for Wilson, whose attempts to get his rape conviction thrown out in court had failed because of a technicality. (AP Photo/Darren Abate)

Eric Wilson practices archery, Wednesday, March 29, 2017, at his home in Jourdanton, Texas. Wilson is one of four men known as the "Norfolk Four," who have long claimed police bullied them into falsely confessing to the 1997 rape and murder of Michelle Moore-Bosko in Norfolk, Virginia. Wilson was recently pardoned by Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe, ending a decades-long fight to clear his name. A pardon was the only recourse for Wilson, whose attempts to get his rape conviction thrown out in court had failed because of a technicality. (AP Photo/Darren Abate)
MOMBASA, Kenya (AP) - Kenyan police have arrested 11 people, including three Italians, accused of drug-related offenses in a major security operation.

Hamis Massa, head of the police anti-narcotics unit, said Friday that three kilograms of heroin, two pistols and two vehicles were seized in the raid.

Massa says wanted drug baron Stephen Bosire was among the eight Kenyans arrested.

President Uhuru Kenyatta has ordered an immediate crackdown on drug dealers in the coastal area that includes Mombasa, which is popular with tourists.

Kenya in January extradited four alleged drug traffickers to the United States, where they are facing charges.
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) - Arkansas lawmakers sent the governor a measure Friday exempting college sporting events from a new state law that greatly expands where concealed handguns are allowed.

Gov. Asa Hutchinson said he plans sign the bill Monday after it was approved by the state Senate on a 23-7 vote. The move comes a little over a week after the Republican governor approved legislation that allows someone with a concealed handgun license to carry at colleges, government buildings and some bars to carry if they undergo eight hours of active shooter training.

The Southeastern Conference and two of the other major college athletic conferences in the state had urged lawmakers to make the change, saying the concealed handgun law raised concerns. The University of Arkansas is an SEC school.

Hutchinson said after the vote he believed the measure struck the right balance and ensured college sports events could be gun-free if they had a security plan in place.

"It gives confidence to all the fans that were nervous about this that it's been remedied and it's not going to be a problem and we can enjoy football games and other sports in Arkansas without any problem," Hutchinson said on the syndicated radio show Sports Talk with Bo Mattingly.

The measure was opposed by the National Rifle Association, which had backed the expanded concealed handgun law. One lawmaker complained that the exemptions measure was being rushed through.

"The way this has been handled has been an embarrassment to the SEC, it's an embarrassment to put the NRA in this situation," Republican Sen. Bryan King, who opposed the bill, said before the vote. "It is an embarrassment to put this state in this situation with the way this process has been handled."

Under the measure, college stadiums such as the University of Arkansas' Donald W. Reynolds Razorback Stadium and the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences would be able to designate sensitive areas where they wouldn't want people to carry concealed handguns. To prohibit concealed carry in those sensitive areas, they would have to put together a security plan for those areas and submit it to Arkansas State Police for approval.

The bill also exempts public daycares from places where concealed handguns are allowed.

The gun law approved last week takes effect Sept. 1, but Arkansas residents likely won't be allowed to carry concealed weapons into the expanded locations until early next year. The law gives Arkansas State Police until January to design the additional training that will be required. More than 220,000 people have concealed handgun licenses in the state.

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Follow Andrew DeMillo on Twitter at www.twitter.com/ademillo
Here's a look at stories The Associated Press plans to cover in Europe from Saturday, April 1, through Monday, April 3. Questions about coverage plans can be directed to the Europe Desk at eurdesk@ap.org.

SATURDAY

SWEDEN-NOBEL-BOB DYLAN - The 2016 Nobel literature winner Bob Dylan will meet with members of the Swedish Academy over the weekend and receive his Nobel diploma and medal. Details yet to be determined.

ARMENIA-ELECTION - Armenians will cast ballots in parliamentary elections Sunday in the first vote since the ex-Soviet nation modified its constitution to expand the powers of parliament and the prime minister. Critics have seen the amendments as part of efforts by President Serzh Sargsyan to retain control of the South Caucasus nation after he steps down in 2018 due to term limits. By Avet Demourian. UPCOMING: 600 words by 1200 GMT.

SUNDAY

SERBIA-PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION - Serbia holds presidential elections that will test voters' support for the Balkan country's powerful populist prime minister, Aleksandar Vucic, amid regional tensions, mounting influence by Russia and poor living standards. UPCOMING: Developing. Polls open at 0500 GMT, close at 1800 GMT; preliminary results expected a few hours later; official results expected Monday.

ARMENIA-ELECTIONS - Parliamentary elections are held in the ex-Soviet nation, the first vote since a 2015 constitutional referendum gave more powers to parliament. The ruling Republican Party has been leading the race. UPCOMING: Developing.

VATICAN-GUAM - The Catholic Church on Guam has been devastated by allegations that its longtime archbishop sexually abused altar boys. But even before the scandal broke, Guam's church was so divided over the presence of a controversial lay movement that a community of nuns fled the island because of the "toxic environment" that had been created. By Nicole Winfield. UPCOMING: 1,000 words, photos by 1500 GMT. Nicole to file to eurfea shortly

CYPRUS-PEACE TALKS- The UN envoy hosts a dinner for ethnically divided Cyprus' rival leaders at a defunct hotel inside the UN-controlled buffer zone in hopes of getting stalled peace talks restarted. UPCOMING: Developing from 1630 GMT dinner, expected to last late into the night.

POPE-EARTHQUAKE - Pope Francis visits the Italian town of Carpi in the northern Emilia Romagna region, which was hit by a quake in 2012. UPCOMING: 130 words by 1000 GMT, more on merits.

FRANCE-PARIS POLLUTION - Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo inaugurates a quayside park replacing a highway that's been closed to cars and turned over to green space, despite protests from commuters and critics who say it doesn't help Paris' long-standing pollution problem. UPCOMING: 130 words by 1500 GMT, photos.

POLAND-PROTEST - Warsaw residents cook in front of the state TV building to protest the firing of a popular cooking program host. UPCOMING: On merits, photos.

MONDAY

FRANCE-ELECTION-FAR RIGHT - An extreme-right group known for violence and large doses of anti-Semitism, and another group whose speeches and shock tactics can have strong racist overtones, have a growing footprint in French presidential candidate Marine Le Pen's National Front party and her campaign apparatus. Le Pen's quiet willingness to bring these people into her fold - groups with a ferocious desire to erase all traces of Islam from French soil - runs counter to her purge of National Front ranks to transform the longtime pariah party into an acceptable political alternative. By Elaine Ganley. UPCOMING: 1,200 words by 1100 GMT, photos.

SWEDEN-CHIP IMPLANTS - It may not look like it, but many of the workers at the Epicenter hub of startups in Stockholm are cyborgs. They have tiny microchips embedded in their hands to use as swipe cards or for payments. These tech enthusiasts, who hold parties to inject each other with microchips, claim to be the future. Experts say that while it's biologically safe, it could raise privacy and security issues, as a company - or a hacker - could track your movements or know how often you take bathroom breaks at work. By James Brooks. UPCOMING: 900 words by 1200 GMT, photos.

AUSTRIA-MIGRANT WOES - After more than a decade dishing out falafel, a Turkish migrant known as "Kebab Ali" stands to lose his stand at the town Wiener Neustadt's main marketplace - and with it his livelihood. Local politicians say his lack of German makes him a poster boy of a "parallel society" at odds with Austrian values - first- and second-generation Turkish immigrants whose loyalties are with Ankara, not Vienna. By George Jahn. UPCOMING: 850 words by 0800 GMT, photos.

RUSSIA-BELARUS - Russian President Vladimir Putin hosts his Belarusian counterpart for talks focusing on an energy dispute that has strained ties between the two neighbors and allies. UPCOMING: Timing unclear.

SLOVENIA-EU - European Council President Donald Tusk visits Slovenia for talks with Prime Minister Miro Cerar on Brexit and the situation in the Western Balkans. UPCOMING: Developing.

PORTUGAL-BREXIT - Britain's chief Brexit negotiator David Davis meets with Portugal's foreign minister. UPCOMING: On merits after 1700 GMT meeting.
WASHINGTON (AP) - Two women who used an internet chat room to raise several thousand dollars for the Somali militant group al-Shabab have been sentenced to prison.

Muna Osman Jama, 36, of Reston, Virginia, and Hinda Osman Dhirane, 46, of Kent, Washington, had previously been convicted of providing support to a terrorist organization.

On Friday, Jama was sentenced to12 years and Dhirane to 11 years.

Prosecutors had said the women used the chat room to round up small contributions on behalf of al-Shabab. The women did not deny their sympathies for al-Shabab. But their defense lawyers argued that the money they raised went to people who were not clearly defined members of al-Shabab. The defense also raised First Amendment issues, saying their advocacy for al-Shabab should not be fodder for a criminal conviction.
LOS ANGELES (AP) - One minute, veteran stuntman Steve de Castro was playing dead during filming of the television series "Shooter" at a remote location north of Los Angeles. The next minute, de Castro was run over and dragged by a sport utility vehicle driven by actor Tom Sizemore.

It was no stunt. And it wasn't the only thing not in the script that day. Sizemore wasn't supposed to move the vehicle during filming of the scene, according to records obtained by The Associated Press.

The accident left de Castro with fractures in his wrist and forearm, bone and tissue damage and 100 stitches in his forehead, the records show. The stuntman was pinned by the SUV and had to be airlifted from the rural airport where "Shooter" was filming on July 6 of last year.

FILE - In this Wednesday, July 6, 2016 file photo, members of a film crew stand at Agua Dulce Airpark, a small, rural airport in Agua Dulce, Calif., in northern Los Angeles County. Records show that actor Tom Sizemore was not supposed to drive a vehicle during the filming of a scene for the "Shooter" television series in which he ran over a stuntman, leaving him seriously injured. Multiple people working on the show told a workplace safety investigator for Cal/OSHA that Sizemore was not following the script when he drove the sport utility vehicle away from a shootout scene.(AP Photo/Reed Saxon)

The files obtained by the AP include interviews with several people on the set who said Sizemore attended a safety briefing and rehearsals, where he was instructed to get behind the wheel of the SUV in a shootout scene but not move it. Yet he inexplicably drove off, running over de Castro.

Although the SUV was not supposed to be moved, it was left running to allow the air conditioner to work during the filming at a high-desert airport in the Agua Dulce area of northern Los Angeles County.

Details about the accident and how Sizemore's actions deviated from shooting plans were included in an investigation file compiled by the workplace safety agency Cal/OSHA. The agency issued no citations over the accident after determining it didn't have jurisdiction because the stuntman was an independent contractor, not a studio employee.

Little information on the mishap or de Castro's injuries was revealed after the incident or in subsequent months, in part because the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, which has police jurisdiction in the Agua Dulce area, did not open an investigation, saying at the time that it would be handled by occupational safety inspectors. Also, publicity-conscious studios rarely comment when workers are hurt on productions.

Cal/OSHA, as the lead agency, did not close its inquiry until January, so details of its investigation were off-limits until they were released after a public records request by the AP.

In October, de Castro sued both Sizemore and Paramount Pictures, which is producing the USA Network series. His lawsuit contends Sizemore was intoxicated during filming, but there was no mention of the actor being impaired in the Cal/OSHA file and if de Castro raised that issue in an interview after the accident, it is not reflected in the investigator's notes.

A Paramount investigative report provided to Cal/OSHA stated that Sizemore and co-star Omar Epps were supposed to run to the vehicle in the shootout scene, but not drive away. The scene was rehearsed several times before filming, and Sizemore and de Castro both attended a safety meeting the previous day, the records show.

"When, after rehearsals, the scenes were filmed for live action, Mr. Sizemore improvised at the end of the scene and drove away in his car," the report states. "Mr. Sizemore's decision to drive was not in the script, and not expected to occur."

Sizemore's agent declined comment. Paramount did not return an email seeking comment.

"Shooter," a TV adaptation of the 2007 film about a sniper who becomes entangled in a global conspiracy, represented a potential comeback for Sizemore. The actor's reputation in Hollywood has been ravaged by drug abuse and domestic violence arrests after a career that included prominent roles in "Saving Private Ryan" and "Black Hawk Down."

A few days after the "Shooter" accident, Sizemore was arrested on suspicion of domestic violence. He pleaded no contest to domestic battery charges and remains on three years of informal probation.

De Castro has worked as a stuntman for about 12 years and his credits include two "Captain America" films and other Marvel movies. On "Shooter," he was playing "Russian Guard #3," who is gunned down during a shootout at a small airport.

The accident was not included in the episode "Red on Red," which aired earlier this year, nor does it show Sizemore driving away from the shootout. "Shooter" has been renewed for a second season, but Sizemore's character did not survive the first round.

For de Castro, Sizemore's departure from the series didn't come soon enough.

Asked by an investigator how the accident could have been prevented, according to the records, De Castro replied, "If Mr. Sizemore was never on set."

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Anthony McCartney can be reached at http://twitter.com/mccartneyAP.
NEW YORK (AP) - The mayor said Friday that he wants to close the city's troubled Rikers Island jail complex, though he cautioned that doing so would be difficult and take at least a decade.

"It will take many years and it will take many tough decisions along the way, but it will happen," Mayor Bill de Blasio said.

Among those challenges: The mayor said the jail's daily population would have to be slashed to half of what it was just a few years ago. New, smaller jails would also have to be opened elsewhere in the city - a potentially lengthy process considering the possibility of neighborhood opposition.

FILE - In a June 20, 2014, file photo, the Rikers Island jail complex stands in New York with the Manhattan skyline in the background. New York Mayor Bill de Blasio announced Friday, March 31, 2017, that he's developing a plan to shut down the massive jail within 10 years. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig, File)

Key details of the plan, including the cost and the location of alternative jails, are still a long way from being worked out, the mayor said.

The announcement comes two days ahead of the planned unveiling of recommendations by an independent commission established by the City Council after a string of brutality cases that exposed poor supervision, questionable medical care and corruption at Rikers. The commission has been considering options for Rikers as part of a broad examination of the city's criminal justice system.

Previously, the mayor, a Democrat, had called proposals to close Rikers "noble" but too expensive.

On Friday, he said he had changed his mind because the jail system was housing fewer and fewer people, dropping to under 10,000 from a high of 15,000 just a few years ago, according to city figures. Most of the city's jail population is at Rikers; there are about 2,400 inmates in other locations. De Blasio said the jail population would have to be at 5,000 in order to shut it.

De Blasio credited the drop partly to shifts in how law enforcement handles lower level crimes, like smoking marijuana in public.

Rikers is a 400-acre (162-hectare) former dump near the runways of LaGuardia Airport. It is accessible only by a narrow bridge between it and Queens. For decades, the city has sent its inmates there while they await trial, where they're housed in 10 jail facilities.

Advocates for prisoners have been arguing that smaller jails, based in the city's neighborhoods, would be better able to provide services and reduce delays getting criminal suspects to and from court.

Glenn Martin, an inmate advocate who has pushed a campaign to persuade the mayor to close the jail, called de Blasio's decision "a step in the right direction."

"Countless failed attempts at incremental reform have proven that the only viable solution is to close Rikers," he said.

Neighborhood groups and others have resisted previous attempts to build or expand existing jails in the boroughs. City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito said Friday that city officials should be thinking about how to help people entangled in the criminal justice system.

"Are we going to give these people another chance or are we going to write them off?" she asked.

Violence, mismanagement and corruption have been the subject of intense scrutiny by the media and federal prosecutors in recent years.

A 2015 settlement of civil litigation over pervasive brutality led to the installation of a monitor responsible for overseeing the city's progress in adding thousands of surveillance cameras and stricter policies on use of force.

The Associated Press and other news outlets first exposed conditions on Rikers in a series of reports in 2014. Those reports included the suicide of Kalief Browder, who hanged himself after spending three years jailed - mostly in solitary - without trial and a homeless ex-Marine who essentially baked to death in a hot cell.

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Associated Press writer Jake Pearson contributed to this report.
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) - Lawyers in a U.S. lawsuit against the former mayor of a remote Haitian town called Friday for a full investigation into the death of a plaintiff in the case and sought government protection for his relatives and the family of two other complainants.

Nicole Phillips, a human rights attorney in Haiti, described the sudden death of 56-year-old Nissage Martyr as "suspicious" and called for an autopsy to determine the cause. He died after collapsing while watching a soccer game with at least 60 other people in Les Irois on the tip of Haiti's southern peninsula a day after the U.S. lawsuit was filed against ex-Mayor Jean Morose Viliena.

Les Irois is the isolated town where Viliena is accused of leading an armed group in attacks on his critics and political opponents while in office from 2006 to 2010.

The Center for Justice & Accountability, a San Francisco-based human rights group, alleges that Viliena and his men killed the brother of a man who accused him of misconduct, attempted to kill Martyr and another man during a raid on a community radio station, and burned down 36 homes targeting members of an opposing political faction.

Martyr lost one of his legs to amputation after the attack.

Viliena is now a resident of Malden, Massachusetts, and lost a certificate as a school bus driver after the federal lawsuit against him was filed last week.

Thursday calls to his Massachusetts home went unanswered. Viliena told The Boston Globe newspaper in recent days that he was in the process of finding legal representation and would not discuss any allegations against him until he had a lawyer.

Phillips said that Martyr, who had received death threats in the past, could have been the target of a poisoning or some other type of foul play. He showed no symptoms of illness before his March 24 death in Les Irois.

"We think that the timing makes this very suspicious," she said.

Scott Gilmore, an attorney with the Center for Justice & Accountability, demanded an autopsy and called on "all authorities to assist in uncovering the facts."

Thursday calls to spokesmen with the Haitian National Police and the ministry of justice went unanswered.

The Center for Justice & Accountability said Martyr and two other men turned to U.S. courts because Viliena was not held accountable in Haiti. They are suing under the Torture Victim Protection Act of 1991, a U.S. law that allows foreign victims of human rights abuses to file lawsuits in the U.S. against foreign officials who commit torture or killings.

In 2015, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights called for Haiti to investigate the allegations of human rights abuses in Les Irois and protect accusers and their relatives.

But Phillips said she and other human rights lawyers were not aware of any effort taken by Haitian administrations to comply.

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David McFadden in Haiti: www.twitter.com/dmcfadd
MEXICO CITY (AP) - A drug lord convicted in the 1985 killing of a U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agent has been ordered freed by a Mexican appeals court, authorities said Friday.

Ernesto Fonseca Carrillo was released from prison and placed under house arrest in 2016 due to poor health and age. He is believed to be 86 or 87.

At his home, Fonseca was required to wear an electronic bracelet and have four guards posted around the clock. The new ruling apparently would apparently let the man known as "Don Neto" leave the house. He has nearly nine years remaining on his 40-year sentence.

The federal judiciary council released a copy of the appeals court ruling, which said he should be granted a form of early release that is usually given to prisoners who have completed most of their sentences.

Fonseca, the co-founder of the Guadalajara Cartel, was convicted in the kidnapping, torture and murder of DEA agent Enrique "Kiki" Camarena.

Fonseca Carrillo moved a step closer to fulfilling the conditions for early release in January, when a judge set the amount of reparations he would have to pay to the family of Camarena and a pilot kidnapped and killed in the same incident.

The Attorney General's Office did not immediately respond to the ruling, or say whether it would appeal it.

Nor did the U.S. embassy immediately respond to the ruling, which marks yet another setback in what was once depicted as an overwhelming effort to punish Camarena's killers.

Another co-founder of the Guadalajara Cartel, Rafael Caro Quintero, was released from prison in 2013 after an appeals court overturned his own conviction in Camarena's killing on jurisdictional grounds.

Mexico's Supreme Court annulled that ruling three months later and a warrant was issued for Caro Quintero to be rearrested, but he remains at large. The U.S. government offered a $5 million reward for information leading to his recapture.
BOLINGBROOK, Ill. (AP) - In Roger Claar's 31 years as mayor, Bolingbrook has grown from a sleepy town surrounded by farm fields to a diverse Chicago suburb nearly twice as large, with its own airport and even an IKEA. And every four years, Claar has easily won re-election, facing little if any opposition.

But then the mayor invited Donald Trump to town, hosting a September fundraiser for the future president at a city-owned golf club.

Now the 71-year-old, who was a Trump delegate to last summer's Republican National Convention, faces the fight of his career Tuesday against a union organizer and county board member who was a Bernie Sanders delegate at the Democratic National Convention.

In this April 21, 2014 photo, Bolingbrook Mayor Roger Claar speaks at the State of Illinois building in Chicago. Claar who has been mayor of Bolingbrook for 31 years is facing the fight of his career after he angered some residents by hosting a September fundraiser for Donald Trump. His rival, Democrat Jackie Traynere, is getting support from Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin and Our Revolution, an offshoot of Bernie Sanders' campaign. (Brian Jackson /Chicago Sun-Times via AP)

The race has captured attention well beyond the town of 75,000, as a segment of the electorate angry over the outcome of the presidential election pushes back and Democrats look to capitalize on that energy.

Claar's rival, Jackie Traynere, is getting fundraising and other support from Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin, other top Democrats and groups such as Our Revolution, an offshoot of Sanders' campaign formed to carry on his progressive "movement."

The officially nonpartisan election also could signal whether political candidates - even those running for local offices - could encounter fallout at the ballot box for backing Trump.

Claar calls the situation "a bunch of B.S." and says Democrats "are trying to take over Bolingbrook."

"They want to take out a Trump mayor," said Claar, who is backed by a super PAC led by Ron Gidwitz, a top GOP donor who served as Trump's Illinois campaign chairman. "It's payback. That's all it is."

Claar also says personal politics are no reason to cast a ballot for or against someone in a mayoral race.

"There's no such thing as a Republican or Democratic pothole," he said in a campaign video posted on Facebook.

Traynere says the mayor could have avoided the challenge if he had listened to his constituents. The town that has a large immigrant and minority population is home to two mosques and backed Hillary Clinton for president with more than 60 percent of the vote.

More than 1,000 people signed a petition that was delivered to Claar asking him not to hold the fundraiser, she said, noting Trump made derogatory statements during the campaign about Mexican immigrants, Muslims and women.

But Claar went ahead with the event, which featured Trump and one of his top campaign surrogates, former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani. Tickets ranged from $1,000 to $250,000, and Claar said it raised "millions" for Trump's campaign.

As a group of about 150 protesters - Traynere among them - gathered across the street from the fundraiser they hatched a plan to run a serious candidate against Claar come April. Traynere was later drafted for the job.

"The mayor's inviting Trump here opened a door that wouldn't have been opened otherwise," she said. "He should have never done it."

In her talks with voters, Traynere said she's heard from Muslims fearful their children will be attacked and teachers who had children of immigrants crying in their classrooms because they were afraid their parents would be deported because Trump is in office. Knowing their mayor supported Trump has been a huge mobilizer.

"This is the person our mayor supported for president - somebody our community is afraid of," Traynere said. "He sent a real clear message. He said: 'Screw you.'"

And while the Trump visit may have provided the spark, there are plenty of other issues on voters' minds, many of them far more parochial than the presidency. Garbage cans, for example.

Bolingbrook doesn't use them, requiring residents instead to lug bags of trash to the curb for pick-up. Animals inevitably get into the bags, spreading garbage across streets and attracting coyotes.

Voter Deepti Suri says her children sometimes see coyotes as they wait for the school bus. She has tried to get the mayor and other officials to begin using the large plastic carts with wheels and lids common in other communities since her family moved to town two years ago but never got a response from anyone at the town hall.

She cast an early ballot this week for Traynere and said watching garbage collectors pick up trash by hand is a big part of the reason.

"It's so dehumanizing," she said before adding: "And he brought Trump. I can't support anyone that supported Trump."

Claar and his supporters, meanwhile, call Traynere a "jobs killer," noting she wants a graduated state income tax in which higher earners pay a higher tax rate. They argue the tax would especially harm small businesses.

Traynere fires back that 31 years in office is too long, and that the people of Bolingbrook were ready for a change well before the "perfect storm" of the 2016 election led to her candidacy.

"For the people who live here, it's just about our town," she said. "If he's so doggone good, he'll win on Tuesday."

In this March 30, 2017 photo, campaign signs for the Bolingbrook mayoral race are displayed outside the Fountaindale Public Library in Bolingbrook, Ill. Republican Roger Claar who has been mayor of Bolingbrook for 31 years is facing the fight of his career after he angered some residents by hosting a September fundraiser for Donald Trump. His rival, Democrat Jackie Traynere, is getting support from Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin and Our Revolution, an offshoot of Bernie Sanders' campaign. (AP Photo/Sara Burnett)
THURMONT, Md. (AP) - Police in Maryland say a student accused of meticulously planning a mass shooting at her high school has been formally charged.

The Frederick County Sheriff's Office says in a news release that 18-year-old Nicole Cevario of Thurmont was served with arrest warrants Friday. She is being held without bond.

Police last week had identified the woman as Nichole Cevario, but corrected the spelling of her first name on Friday.

This undated photo provided by Frederick County Sheriff's Office shows Nicole Cevario, who has been charged with planning a mass shooting at her high school in Thurmont, Md. (Frederick County Sheriff's Office via AP)

She is charged with two felonies involving a destructive device.

Deputies say they found a shotgun, ammunition and bomb-making materials including nails and fireworks at Cevario's home on March 23. Law enforcers had gone there after Cevario's father reported he found evidence of the alleged plot.
Eds: Major scheduled events for the week of April 1-8. Note that many events are subject to change at the last minute.

The following economic reports will be issued in Washington (all times EDT), unless otherwise noted:

SUNDAY: No events of note.

MONDAY: Institute for Supply Management releases its manufacturing index for March, 10 a.m.; Commerce Department releases construction spending for February, 10 a.m.

TUESDAY: Commerce Department releases international trade data for February, 8:30 a.m.; Commerce Department releases factory orders for February, 10 a.m.

WEDNESDAY: Institute for Supply Management releases its service sector index for March, 10 a.m.; Federal Reserve releases minutes from March interest-rate meeting.

THURSDAY: Labor Department releases weekly jobless claims, 8:30 a.m.; Freddie Mac, the mortgage company, releases weekly mortgage rates, 10 a.m.

FRIDAY: Labor Department releases employment data for March, 8:30 a.m.; Commerce Department releases wholesale trade inventories for February, 10 a.m.; Federal Reserve releases consumer credit data for February, 3 p.m.

SATURDAY: No events of note.

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SUNDAY, APRIL 2

No events of note.

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MONDAY, APRIL 3

WASHINGTON - Egypt's President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi to meet Trump at the White House.

WASHINGTON -Senate Judiciary Committee to vote on nomination of Judge Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court of the United States.

DETROIT - Automakers release vehicle sales for March.

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TUESDAY, APRIL 4

WASHINGTON - Senate Armed Services Committee holds hearings on US Strategic Command Programs.

WASHINGTON - Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee hearing on fencing along the southwest border.

WASHINGTON - Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee hearing examines protection of U.S. energy delivery systems from cybersecurity threats.

WASHINGTON - Senate Foreign Relations Committee examines the European Union as a partner against Russian aggression

WASHINGTON - House panel on Labor, Health and Human Services and Education examines federal support for job training programs

WASHINGTON - House panel on Monetary Policy and Trade examines the Federal Reserve's mandate and governance structure.

WASHINGTON - House panel on Border and Maritime Security holds a hearing on the new border security task forces.

WASHINGTON - House Committee on Financial Services panels hold hearing on increasing the effectiveness of non-nuclear sanctions against Iran.

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WEDNESDAY, APRIL 5

WASHINGTON - Jordan's King Abdullah II to meet Trump at the White House.

WASHINGTON - Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs holds hearings to examine border security and public safety.

WASHINGTON - Senate panel on Transportation, Housing and Urban Development and related agencies examine preventing sexual assault and sexual harassment at the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy

WASHINGTON - Senate Joint Economic Committee hearing examines the causes and consequences of the decline of economic opportunity in the U.S.

WASHINGTON - Senate subcommittee on Economic Policy hearings examining the current state of retirement security in the U.S.

WASHINGTON - Houses panel on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education and related agencies hearing on federal response to opioid abuse.

WASHINGTON - House panel on National Security holds a hearing to assess the Iran deal.

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THURSDAY, APRIL 6

WASHINGTON - Senate Armed Services Committee hearings examine the U.S. Southern Command and U.S. Northern Command.

WASHINGTON - Senate panel on Aviation Operations, Safety and Security hearings examining FAA reauthorization, focusing on rural air service and the general aviation community.

WASHINGTON - Senate Finance Committee hearings examine the 2017 tax filing season, focusing on IRS operations and the taxpayer experience.

PALM BEACH - China's President Xi Jinping to meet with Trump at Mar-a-Lago; the president and first lady will also host XI and Madame Peng Liyuan at a dinner that evening.

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FRIDAY, APRIL 7

PALM BEACH - Xi and Trump continue their meetings at Mar-a-Lago.

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SATURDAY, APRIL 8

No events of note.
GUATEMALA CITY (AP) - Guatemala will hold a second trial for former dictator Efrain Rios Montt on charges of genocide and crimes against humanity.

This trial is about the killing of at least 200 people in a rural northern part of the country during its bloody civil war.

Rios Montt is also accused in a separate case over the killing by soldiers of nearly 2,000 indigenous Ixil Guatemalans during his 1982-83 regime.

Both are special trials to be held behind closed doors and cannot result in prison time due to his advanced age and delicate health. Instead, they seek to determine whether he is responsible.

Rios Montt's lawyers have argued his innocence and say he is not responsible for abuses committed by soldiers.

A judge ordered the new trial in a Friday ruling.
CHICAGO (AP) - The Latest on the shooting of seven people during a 12-hour period in a South Side Chicago neighborhood. (all times local):

4:35 p.m.

Chicago Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson says the gun violence in one South Side neighborhood that left seven dead in a 12-hour period was mostly due to gang conflict.

Georgia Jackson, 72, is overcome with emotion upon learning that her two grandsons, Raheem, 19, and Dillon Jackson, 20, were found fatally shot in the South Shore neighborhood in Chicago on Thursday, March 30, 2017. Chicago police said Thursday several people were found fatally shot Thursday in or near a restaurant. (Chris Sweda/Chicago Tribune via AP)

Johnson said Friday there will be a heavy and aggressive police presence in the South Shore neighborhood until the perpetrators of Thursday's violence are in custody.

Police say a man and woman were fatally shot late Thursday when a vehicle pulled alongside a van and a person inside opened fire.

On Thursday afternoon, four people were fatally shot in or near a restaurant after a man approached and opened fire. And before that a 26-year-old pregnant woman was found in a home shot to death.

Johnson said investigators have determined most of the victims were targeted and had gang affiliations. He added the woman's killing wasn't gang related.

No arrests have been made.

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6:45 a.m.

Police say two people have died in a drive-by shooting in the same Chicago neighborhood where separate shootings several hours earlier left five people dead, including a pregnant woman.

The latest shooting happened late Thursday when a vehicle pulled alongside a van in the city's South Shore neighborhood. Police say a man and woman were shot and the van crashed.

On Thursday afternoon, police say four people were fatally shot in or near a restaurant after a man approached and opened fire. Police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said on Twitter late Thursday that the shooting was likely a gang-related retaliation and detectives are making "good progress."

Earlier, the body of a 26-year-old woman who was four months pregnant was discovered in a home. She had a gunshot wound to the head.
Actor David Tennant has launched a damages action over the News of the World phone hacking scandal.

His lawyers said that the Broadchurch star had issued a claim for compensation on Thursday.

Leading law firm Collyer Bristow announced that it was representing nine people, including Mr Tennant, who were lodging compensation claims at the High Court in London.

Eddie Irvine, the former Formula One racing driver, is also among the nine claimants.

Eddie Irvine is a former F1 driver (Jed Leicester/Empics)

In a statement, the company said that a number of other firms had also issued claims this week.

Collyer Bristow said clients had been left with no alternative following closure of a compensation scheme.

It said the News of the World had previously admitted and apologised for hacking into the voicemails of a number of high-profile individuals, and opened a compensation scheme in 2011 as an alternative to litigation, but announced after less than 18 months of operation that it would be closing in relation to any applications received after 8 April 2013.

The final edition of the News of the World was printed in 2011 (Ian Nicholson/PA)

Steven Heffer, a partner at the firm, who is acting on behalf of the claimants, commented: My firm continues to act for a number of clients with claims against News Group arising out of phone hacking and other unlawful activities.

News Group withdrew its compensation scheme in 2013, giving no proper explanation for this move and has failed to compensate victims despite all attempts by lawyers to settle cases out of court.

He added: My clients have been left with no alternative but to issue claims in the High Court, and a number of other firms have done so this week. News Group has refused to provide disclosure of its wrongdoing forcing victims into court.

The firm says it has now acted for more than 200 victims of hacking and unlawful surveillance.
Manager Mauricio Pochettino has laughed off suggestions Erik Lamela is looking to leave Tottenham this summer.

Lamela will travel to Barcelona on Saturday for surgery as he looks to kick-start his recovery from a hip injury, which has kept the winger out since October.

Pochettino admitted in January that Lamela had grown frustrated on the sidelines and even allowed him to have treatment at his former club Roma in a bid to reinvigorate the 25-year-old.

Tottenham Hotspur's Erik Lamela (Nigel French/PA)

I have to have an operation. I tried everything to recover but unfortunately my hip is still not 100% ..1/6  Erik Manuel Lamela (@ErikLamela) March 29, 2017

..so I can't compete at the level I want to. I'll face this challenge with a positive attitude and can't wait to get back with the team..2/6  Erik Manuel Lamela (@ErikLamela) March 29, 2017

..and be stronger.

Thanks everyone for your support!  3/6  Erik Manuel Lamela (@ErikLamela) March 29, 2017

Spurs have confirmed Lamela will not feature again this season, with reports suggesting the Argentinian may have played his last game for the club and is seeking a return to Italy.

That was so strange to hear, Pochettino said.

In the media Lamela is linked with different clubs and its so difficult for me to understand.

Its a player who has not played since October and all that he is suffering in the last four, five months, do you think that he is thinking to move? He is thinking to go to Italy? He is very happy here.

The problems he has he was desperate and the club was desperate to find the solution.

INJURY UPDATE: @ErikLamela is to undergo surgery on his hip on Saturday. This will result in Erik returning to action next season. pic.twitter.com/heu7xk6I2f  Tottenham Hotspur (@SpursOfficial) March 29, 2017

But I think it made me laugh, every time I hear all that in the media, because it is impossible for him, impossible for the club, impossible for his agent, impossible for his people, to think about moving. Where?

Now he needs help, more he needs us to help him in the next few months. I think you know better than me that it does not make sense.

Lamela was one of Tottenhams star performers last season and appeared finally to have settled at White Hart Lane following his club-record 30million move from Roma in August 2013.

Pochettino believes Lamela has the necessary resilience to make a successful recovery.

 Mauricio on @ErikLamela: "The human being is the most important and we need to give him all our love and support." #COYS pic.twitter.com/S3OYg8X98S  Tottenham Hotspur (@SpursOfficial) March 31, 2017

Now its so difficult. He is very focused to move to Barcelona (for surgery) on Saturday. I dont believe it will be tough, Pochettino said.

He is a person who likes to work hard. He is very professional. If he starts to feel good and fixes the problem, the pain he feels in his hip, it will come quick to recover and be on the pitch again training with us.

Now I think its a very difficult situation, very tough for him. He needs our love, our support, and to be sure that all is going well.

"It's a tough ground to go to. They try to smother you as much as they can."



 @trippier2 on what to expect at Burnley... #COYS pic.twitter.com/0ZugjUcJ7d  Tottenham Hotspur (@SpursOfficial) March 30, 2017

Tottenham travel to Burnley on Saturday, looking to reduce a 10-point gap behind Chelsea while extending their advantage in the race for Champions League qualification.

It could prove a fruitful weekend for Spurs, given Manchester City and Arsenal go head-to-head on Sunday, but Burnley have lost only three matches at Turf Moor all season.

Sean Dyches men will also have been less affected by the international break, which saw the majority of Pochettinos first-team squad reconvene on Thursday.

It is difficult for us as nearly all the players are involved with national teams, Pochettino said.
European Council president Donald Tusk has outlined the European Unions strategy for Brexit negotiations.

Here are some of the questions being asked about Mr Tusks draft negotiating guidelines:

The president of the European Council is setting out the terms under which he wants to conduct negotiations leading to the UKs departure from the EU  the issues to be settled, the sequencing of the talks and the outcome to be sought.

Essentially, talks in two phases.

The first will disentangle the UKs ties with the EU, settle any debts and share out assets, resolve the status of EU citizens in the UK and Britons living on the continent and determine the future of the land border between Britain and the EU in Ireland.

The second will look at future relations between the UK and the remaining EU  and crucially the establishment of a post-Brexit free trade agreement (FTA).

UK has triggered #Article50 to leave the EU. Watch to find out who will do what in the future negotiations. #EU27 #Brexit pic.twitter.com/8LWI0uRPFO  EU Council (@EUCouncil) March 29, 2017

A Government spokesman said it was clear both sides want to approach the talks constructively, but there is no doubt Theresa May has not got everything she wants.

Although Mr Tusk has not insisted that trade talks must wait until after Brexit, as some feared, he has said that there must be significant progress on the divorce arrangements before trade discussions begin.

He also ruled out sector-by-sector deals on access to the single market for industries like automotive and financial services. And he vetoed separate talks with individual member-states, making it difficult for Mrs May to cut special deals with key partners such as Germany.

Mr Tusk did not explain, but it is likely that the EU will at least want agreement on the size of the divorce bill to be paid by the UK to settle outstanding financial commitments at Brexit, which European Commissioner Jean-Claude Juncker has said will come to around 50 billion.

Editable versions of this graphic are available via PA Graphics or your account manager

No. His guidelines go to a special Brussels summit on April 29, when leaders of the remaining 27 EU states will agree a mandate for chief negotiator Michel Barnier.

They could amend Mr Tusks proposals at that stage. It is then expected that the UK and EU will meet for talks about talks in June, when Britain can be expected to renew its demand for divorce and trade negotiations to be held in parallel.

Mrs May wants a trade deal in place by the time Britain leaves the EU on March 29 2019  with possibly a short implementation period to allow changes to be introduced gradually.

This is regarded as a vital part of providing certainty to business, which is concerned about the danger of a cliff edge move to costly export tariffs and regulatory barriers if no FTA is agreed.

The closer Britain gets to the 2019 deadline without an FTA, the more likely it is that multinational companies will start shifting operations and staff abroad, making an early start highly desirable.

Delaying trade talks until after the divorce bill is settled also robs the Prime Minister of a potential negotiating weapon, as she will not be able to link the size of the payment to generous trading arrangements.

After more than 40 years of being united, we owe it to each other to make this divorce as smooth as possible. https://t.co/TDwSW7j2Hx pic.twitter.com/NU8BPZXmKf  Charles Michel (@eucopresident) March 31, 2017

Not necessarily. The talks about talks could drag on for some time, as both sides recognise that getting the right format for negotiations is an essential part of ensuring they maximise their influence.

There is also the matter of the election of a French president in May and a German government in September, which may delay progress. Observers suspect that talks on the divorce settlement will not begin before the autumn.

Both sides want early agreement on citizens rights. And Brussels wants Britain to agree the amounts it will pay to settle its commitments. But it is unclear whether these issues can be finalised until other aspects of the deal are agreed.

The guidelines state that in accordance with the principle that nothing is agreed until everything is agreed, individual items cannot be settled separately.

Mr Tusk hopes that significant progress will be made by autumn of this year, but that seems to depend on London accepting Brussels calculation of how much it owes.

That remains to be seen. Mrs May insists it is possible, but there are vast and complex issues to discuss, with little more than a year to complete them in.

The need for ratification of an Article 50 exit deal by the European Council and European Parliament, as well as a vote at Westminster, means that talks will probably have to conclude by October 2018 to meet the deadline of March 29 2019.

And trade talks under Article 218 of the EU treaties are likely to require approval not only in Brussels but also by as many as 38 national and regional assemblies across the EU, delaying the process even further.
Google has announced its latest UK tax payment after coming under fire from the Government last year for not paying its fair share to the exchequer.

The tech giant revealed it paid 36.4 million in UK corporation tax on pre-tax profits of 148.8 million in the year to June 30 2016.

A Google spokesman said: As an international business, we pay the majority of our taxes in our home country, as well as all the taxes due in the UK.

We have recently announced significant new investment in the UK, including new offices in Kings Cross for 7,000 staff.

(Yui Mok/PA)

The tech company paid 46.2 million in corporation tax for the previous 18 months to June 30 2015. That covered an extra six months of business before Google moved to a 12-month accounting period the following year.

Google said both administrative costs and turnover for the period decreased as a result of the accounting changes. Revenue dropped 141 million in the year to June 30 2016 to 1 billion, from just under 1.2 billion for the previous 18 months.

The company has faced mounting pressure over its tax affairs amid a backlash against corporate tax avoidance by multi-national companies.

Google agreed to a controversial 130 million deal with HM Revenue & Customs in January last year to settle a 10-year tax inquiry into its UK business.

Commenting on the fresh figures, Liberal Democrat treasury spokeswoman Susan Kramer said: It is appalling that Google are still getting away with paying such a paltry amount of their total revenue back in taxes. Our worst fear is that the Tories would use Brexit to turn the UK into a tax haven sitting off the northern shores of Europe, there is no sign that this isnt where we are headed.

This Government is already struggling with the Brexit squeeze, if they want to stop cutting vital services they need to start picking up what is owed to the British people.

At present, the Government is on track to reduce corporation tax from its current rate of 20% to 17% by April 1 2020.
Gibraltars government has accused Spain of trying to use Brexit to forward its territorial claims to the Rock, after an EU proposal to give Madrid a veto on decisions over the territorys future.

Theresa May is coming under pressure to demand changes to Brexit negotiation guidelines set out by European Council president Donald Tusk, which would require Spanish agreement for Gibraltar to be included in future agreements between the EU and UK on issues like trade.

Theresa May has been urged to oppose the European Council's plans on the future of Gibraltar

The proposal came just two days after the Prime Minister told MPs that the territory was covered by our exit negotiations and vowed never to enter into talks over its sovereignty against the wishes of its people.

Gibraltars first minister Fabian Picardo said the territory was being singled out for unnecessary, unjustified and unacceptable discrimination as a result of a disgraceful attempt by Spain to manipulate the European Council for its own, narrow, political interests.

HM Government of #Gibraltar Statement on European Council Draft Guidelines https://t.co/lBjNlOn2Eq  HM Govt of Gibraltar (@GibraltarGov) March 31, 2017

Accusing Madrid of seeking to mortgage the future relationship between the EU and Gibraltar to its usual obsession with our homeland, Mr Picardo said: The whole world and the whole EU should know: this changes nothing in respect of our continued, exclusive British sovereignty.

Spain has a long-standing territorial claim on Gibraltar, which has been held by the UK since 1713 and currently has the status of British Overseas Territory.

A general view looking over Gibraltar

Any suggestion Madrid might have a say over the future of the self-governing territory, which is home to important UK military bases, inevitably causes anxiety among its 30,000 inhabitants.

Gibraltar is addressed in a single paragraph of Mr Tusks nine-page document, which states: After the United Kingdom leaves the Union, no agreement between the EU and the United Kingdom may apply to the territory of Gibraltar without the agreement between the Kingdom of Spain and the United Kingdom.

Significant that Spain has succeeded in getting Gibraltar on the draft guidelines: Spain has veto on exit deal applying to Gibraltar pic.twitter.com/vFlAchk6c3  Faisal Islam (@faisalislam) March 31, 2017

Downing Street said Mrs May had made clear the Government was absolutely steadfast in our support of Gibraltar, its people and its economy in the House of Commons on Wednesday.

We have been firm in our commitment never to enter arrangements under which the people of Gibraltar would pass under the sovereignty of another state against their wishes, nor to enter into a process of sovereignty negotiations with which Gibraltar is not content, she told MPs.

Good to speak to #Gibraltar Chief Minister @FabianPicardo. As ever, the UK remains implacable & rock-like in our support for Gibraltar  Boris Johnson (@BorisJohnson) March 31, 2017

The Tory chairman of the all-party parliamentary group on Gibraltar, Jack Lopresti, accused Spain of using Brexit as a fig leaf for trouble-making over the status of Gibraltar.

Mr Lopresti said: It is shameful that the EU have attempted to allow Spain an effective veto over the future of British sovereign territory, flying in the face of the will of the people of Gibraltar. The UK Governments position is clear and will stand. There will be no negotiation over the status of Gibraltar.

We will stand up for sovereignty of #Gibraltar in #Brexit negotiations. Citizens are and want to stay British.  Jack Lopresti MP (@JackLopresti) March 31, 2017

Gibraltar's friends in the UK will be watching this very carefully. There will be no sell out! https://t.co/mlkzRbWJSn  Sir Bob Neill MP (@neill_bob) March 31, 2017

Labours Mary Creagh, a member of the Open Britain group, said supporters of hard Brexit should be ashamed that their actions have destabilised the situation in Gibraltar, whose inhabitants voted by an overwhelming majority in last years referendum to remain in the EU.

The decision to leave the European Union has thrown Gibraltars future up into the air, said Ms Creagh. The Rock depends on free movement of labour from Spain, and on its place in the Single Market to support its vital services industries.
Three North Koreans who have been hiding out in their countrys embassy in Malaysia for weeks have been allowed to fly home after investigators cleared them of wrongdoing in the death of Kim Jong Nam.

The move came after Malaysia and North Korea struck a deal this week to end a diplomatic stand-off over the February 13 murder of Kim Jong Nam, the estranged half-brother of North Korean ruler Kim Jong Un.

Although details of what led to the agreement were not released, it gave North Korea custody of Mr Kims body and allowed Malaysia to question the three men who were hiding in the embassy.

A van believed to be carrying the body of Kim Jong Nam leaves a Malaysia hospital on Thursday

Earlier this month, Malaysian national police chief Khalid Abu Bakar hinted that the men had valuable intelligence, adding that he would wait to question them, even if it takes five years.

But on Friday, in the wake of the larger political deal with North Korea, Mr Khalid said authorities recorded statements from the men and then released them.

We have obtained whatever we wanted from them, Mr Khalid told reporters. We have allowed them to go.

The three men had been hiding in the North Korean embassy in Kuala Lumpur

It is an abrupt turnaround in a bizarre case which is part diplomatic drama, part murder mystery. Investigators say Kim Jong Nam, who was in his 40s, was poisoned at Kuala Lumpur airport by two young women wielding VX nerve agent, a banned chemical weapon.

Although Malaysia has never directly accused North Korea of carrying out the attack, speculation is rampant that it orchestrated a hit on a long-exiled member of its ruling elite.

Malaysian investigators had said they wanted to question seven North Koreans in the case: four men who left the country on the day of the attack, and the three who were holed up inside the North Korean embassy in Kuala Lumpur.

Seven North Koreans had been wanted for questioning by Malaysian investigators

The three men who were hiding in the embassy  including an embassy official and a North Korean airline worker  flew to Beijing on Thursday, where they were subsequently seen at the airport, presumably on their way home.

(The) investigation into the murder is still ongoing, Mr Khalid said.

We are still hoping the North Korea authorities will hand over to us the four North Korean suspects we have named earlier on.

The police chief added that Malaysia released Kim Jong Nams body after receiving a request from his next of kin. Without specifying exactly who sent the letter, Mr Khalid said: Legally speaking, Kim Jong Un is the next of kin.

Some of the nine Malaysians who were stranded in Pyongyang exit the plane after arriving at Kuala Lumpur airport

Thursdays political deal also secured the release of ordinary citizens who had been caught up in the diplomatic fight.

North Korea was so enraged by Malaysias investigation that it announced earlier this month that Malaysians could not leave North Korea. Malaysia responded in kind, with an exit ban of its own targeting North Koreans.

Those bans have now been lifted, and the nine Malaysians held in North Korea have now returned home.
A judge has approved an agreement for US president Donald Trump to pay 25 million dollars (20 million) to settle lawsuits over his now-defunct Trump University.

The decision by district judge Gonzalo Curiel in San Diego ends nearly seven years of legal battles with customers who claimed they were misled by failed promises to teach success in real estate.

The ruling settles two class-action lawsuits and a civil lawsuit by New York attorney general Eric Schneiderman.

Donald Trump

Mr Trump had vowed never to settle, but said after he was elected that he did not have time for a trial, even though he believed he would have prevailed.

Under the terms of the settlement, he admits no wrongdoing. Attorneys for the customers said thousands will get at least 90% of their money back.
MUNICH, March 30 (Reuters) - Two Syrian migrants who came to Germany as part of an influx of refugees in the summer of 2015 went on trial in Munich on Thursday accused of fighting in Syria as part of a militant group.

More than 1 million migrants have arrived in Germany over the past two years and concerns about security and integration are widespread.

Barbara Stockinger, a judge and spokeswoman for Munich's higher regional court, said 22-year-old Azad R. and 24-year-old Kamel T.H.J. were accused of fighting near Aleppo as part of the Islamist rebel group Ahrar al-Sham between August 2013 and April 2014.

"They armed themselves with kalashnikovs and fought against other rebel groups and the Syrian military government," she said.

Stockinger said one of the men was injured during combat and headed to Turkey for medical treatment along with the other defendant. They then travelled to Germany, where they arrived in around June 2015 before being taken into custody in April 2016.

If convicted, the men could face up to 10 years in prison.

(Reporting by Reuters Television; Writing by Michelle Martin; Editing by Alison Williams)
By Sonali Paul

HAZELWOOD, Australia, March 31 (Reuters) - The doors to Australia's dirtiest power station will close permanently on Friday after 50 years, amping up pressure on a government desperate to avoid the kind of embarrassing blackouts that hit chunks of the country during a recent savage heatwave.

France's Engie SA is pulling the plug on the Hazelwood coal-fired power plant near Melbourne, cutting around a fifth of the state of Victoria's energy supply, blaming the "huge" costs of running the aged facility amid rising competition from subsidised wind and solar energy.

With other shutdowns of fossil fuel stations potentially following down the line, the move highlights the challenges facing Canberra as it fights to balance long-term green ambitions with the need to provide affordable power.

"If the lights go out, it would be nasty," said Tony Wood, energy programme director at independent think tank the Grattan Institute.

"There's just such a level of political and community concern that (politicians) should be nervous."

Growth in electricity demand and a drop in supply since 2014 have strained the Australian grid. South Australia was roiled by a state-wide blackout last September, which crippled industry for up to two weeks, while the eastern states suffered six power cuts over the past summer.

"The government continues to carefully monitor this situation," Energy Minister Josh Frydenberg told Reuters in an email.

The nation's energy market operator has said there is enough unused capacity at existing power stations and mothballed capacity that could reopen to replace the 1,600 megawatts that Hazelwood is shutting. It is in talks to get mothballed gas-fired plants to restart.

LOVE, HATE

Hazelwood has long been symbolic of Australia's love-hate relationship with coal, attracting a major protest in near freezing conditions in 2009 that erupted into violent clashes.

It has been labelled the country's dirtiest power station as it emits more greenhouse gas per unit of electricity than any other plant.

On Wednesday, as the facility shut the last of its eight generators, workers leaving for the last time hung their hard hats on a fence, with a handful taking photos of the final blasts of steam coming out of the 'stack'.

"It feels terrible. Everyone thought it would be a partial closure. No one ever thought it would be a full closure," said Scott Meadows, who has worked at the site for 36 years.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull fought off last-minute lobbying from industry and right wing politicians to step in to rescue Hazelwood to secure power and save 750 jobs in an already economically depressed region.

"At the very least they should have closed it in stages over two years. They're just walking away," said Tony Maher, president of the mining and energy division of the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU).

Engie was not asked by the federal or state governments to postpone Hazelwood's closure, even after the string of blackouts across the eastern states over the past summer, said Engie's head of corporate affairs, Jim Kouts.

The spotlight is now shifting to EnergyAustralia, owned by Hong Kong's CLP Holdings, which runs another aged coal-fired plant in Victoria, at Yallourn.

EnergyAustralia said it has enough coal reserves to last until 2032 and has plans to run through until that time, but has not ruled out closing before then.

"Of course, we acknowledge policy and market settings may change, but whatever we do we will not sacrifice the affordability and reliability of our customers' energy supply," said an EnergyAustralia spokeswoman.

The CFMEU's Maher and industry experts predict that Yallourn will not shut any time soon as its profits are likely to rise following the closure of Hazelwood.

In Victoria, daily wholesale power prices surged to A$47.90 ($36.70) per megawatt hour (MWh) in the first quarter from an average since 2000 of A$29.60. <EL-30MIN-VIC>

"(Yallourn's) prospects of staying open longer strengthened the day Hazelwood's closure was announced," Maher said. ($1 = 1.3063 Australian dollars) (Reporting by Sonali Paul; Editing by Joseph Radford)
Following is a summary of current health news briefs.

Kansas governor vetoes Medicaid expansion bill

The governor of Kansas on Thursday vetoed a bill expanding eligibility for Medicaid for the poor under the federal Affordable Care Act (ACA) because the measure was not fiscally responsible and would still fund Planned Parenthood. State lawmakers in the Republican-controlled senate voted in favor of the measure on Tuesday, just days after President Donald Trump's efforts to repeal and replace the ACA, also known as Obamacare, ended with the bill being pulled from a vote.

Chemical disinfectants and sanitizers linked to thyroid cancer

Workers exposed to chemicals like deodorizers, sanitizers, disinfectants and sterilizers on the job may be more likely than other people to develop thyroid cancer, a recent study suggests. Occupational exposure to these chemicals, known as biocides, was associated with a 65 percent higher risk of thyroid cancer, the study found. For people whose jobs might have led to the most cumulative exposure to biocides over time, the odds of thyroid cancer was more than doubled.

U.S. rates of double-mastectomies for breast cancer vary by state

The likelihood that U.S. women with early-stage cancer in one breast will have both breasts removed varies depending on where they live, a new study shows. For example, between 2010 and 2012, among women ages 20 to 44 with cancer in one breast, about 15 percent had both breasts removed in the District of Columbia, compared to about 49 percent in South Dakota.

More evidence linking stress to obesity

Using hair to measure long-term levels of the stress hormone cortisol, UK researchers confirm the link between chronic stress and packing on pounds, as well as difficulty shedding excess weight. Previous research has tied high levels of the stress hormone cortisol in the blood, urine or saliva to obesity, but these measurements can vary based on factors like the time of day and dont capture long-term stress levels, the study team notes in the journal Obesity.

'Let's Talk', WHO says, as depression rates rise 18 percent in a decade

Depression is now the leading cause of ill health and disability worldwide, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Thursday, with more than 300 million people suffering. Rates of depression have risen by more than 18 percent since 2005, but a lack of support for the mental health combined with a common fear of stigma means many do not get the treatment they need to live healthy, productive lives.

Prior exposure to dengue or West Nile could make Zika worse: report

Prior infection with West Nile or dengue - two viruses closely related to Zika - can make Zika symptoms worse, U.S. researchers said on Thursday. The findings in mice, published in the journal Science, confirm studies in cells suggesting that prior infection with dengue could worsen the effects of Zika.

Young cancer patients may lag peers in social functioning for years

Child and young adult cancer patients often struggle to lead a normal social life, and even two years after being diagnosed, many still have reduced functioning in the social realm, a recent study suggests. Symptoms of disease may impair a young persons ability to interact with friends and family, or feelings of isolation could also keep them apart - either way, researchers write in the journal Cancer, treatment plans should focus on reducing psychological symptoms and building up social support for young patients.

Panera rolls out 'added sugars' labeling on fountain drinks

Panera Bread Co on Friday will begin to roll out new labeling of added sugars and calories in sodas and other self-serve fountain beverages, the first such move by a U.S. restaurant chain as food companies face rising demand from consumers to cut back on their use of the sweetener. The move comes at a time when casual restaurant chains from McDonalds Corp to Starbucks Corp have been under pressure from slack demand and underscores the pressure that soft-drink makers are facing as sales decline.

Georgia Senate passes expansion of limited medical marijuana law

The Georgia state Senate on Thursday overwhelmingly passed a bill that would expand the state's limited medical marijuana law to include people with 15 medical conditions, up from nine currently. The bill now goes to Governor Nathan Deal to sign into law.

U.S.-UK alliance targets the world's deadliest superbugs

Eleven biotech companies and research teams in Britain and the United States were awarded up to $48 million in funding on Thursday to speed development of new antibiotics powerful enough to take on the world's deadliest superbugs. The range of antimicrobial medicines able to kill the growing number of drug-resistant infections is dwindling and health experts warn that within a generation the death toll from such "superbug" infections could reach 10 billion.
Here are news stories, press reports and events to watch which may affect Romanian financial markets on Friday.

DEBT PLANS

Romania aims to sell 4.37 billion lei ($1.03 billion) worth of leu currency bills and bonds in April, including 465 million lei at non-competitive rounds of auctions, the finance ministry said on Thursday.

CEE MARKETS

The crown plunged in the spot market and in forward contracts on Thursday as the Czech central bank (CNB) gave up its guidance to end its 3 1/2-year-old weak crown regime around mid-2017.

GAS PRICES

Romanian energy regulator ANRE said on Thursday gas tariffs for households will rise by 2 percent on average from April 1. ANRE will continue to regulate final prices for households, even though domestic natural gas production will be completely de-regulated from April.

EQUITY

Romania's government approved an emergency decree on Thursday that requires state-owned companies to contribute their equity capital to the state budget as dividends or transfers.

EBRD

The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development has a one billion euros funding line for Romanian infrastructure projects that has not been tapped in the last two years, EBRD Romania director Matteo Patrone said. Ziarul Financiar

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By Venus Wu and Katy Wong

HONG KONG, March 31 (Reuters) - Two Chinese activists who supported pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong were jailed by a court in southern China on Friday for subverting state power, but their lawyer said their heavy sentences were part of an ongoing crackdown on civil society.

Su Changlan and Chen Qitang, who both faced "incitement to subvert state power" charges, were jailed for three and four-and-a-half years respectively by a court in Foshan close to Guangzhou, according to their lawyer, Liu Xiaoyuan.

The verdict made no mention of Hong Kong.

At least four other Chinese activists who have been put behind bars for supporting Hong Kong's large pro-democracy, "umbrella movement" protests in 2014. At least 100 people in China had been detained for voicing support for the demonstrations, according to Amnesty International.

Liu said he was very angry and disappointed at both the heavy sentence and what he called the court's disrespect of the law.

"They have alternative opinions and views, and sometimes they can be very critical of the government, but this does not mean they are subverting state power," Liu said.

"Now they've been sentenced heavily ... our freedom of speech will only be further restricted."

Liu said the case had dragged on for an unreasonable amount of time, and the pair planned to appeal.

Security was tight around the courthouse, with scores of police blocking the area, according to footage carried by Hong Kong's Cable TV.

Su, a prominent women's rights advocate in Southern China, had been taken into police custody by Guangzhou police in late 2014 for expressing support on social media for the Hong Kong protests. Su suffered from a thyroid ailment and had been denied multiple requests for bail on medical grounds.

Chen, meanwhile, had posted articles in support of human rights and Hong Kong's pro-democracy movement, according to Amnesty International.

Both had pleaded not guilty. Calls to the Foshan people's court went unanswered.

"The Chinese authorities are very scared that universal values would affect the (Chinese) public ... This is how Hong Kong is dangerous in the Chinese authorities' eyes," said Chow Hang-tung, a barrister and vice chairwoman of the Hong Kong Alliance that champions democratic causes.

"Hong Kong is all about the rule of law and democracy."

China's leadership has overseen a sweeping crackdown on activists since President Xi Jinping took power in 2012, including detaining or imprisoning dozens of rights lawyers in what the government says is the targeting of criminal acts.

The once relatively vibrant civil society in southern Guangdong province has been smothered by authorities in recent years, with scores of detentions and convictions of human rights lawyers and activists in various areas including labour.

Last weekend, a Chinese Australia-based academic, Feng Chongyi, was blocked from boarding a flight home from Guangzhou, and remains in a hotel in the city. Feng had been meeting with fellow academics and intellectuals while in China, as well as human rights lawyers as part of his research.

China also confirmed on Wednesday it had detained a Taiwan human rights activist, Lee Ming-che, and was investigating him on suspicion of harming national security. (Writing by James Pomfret; Editing by Michael Perry)
By Toby Sterling and Joshua Franklin

AMSTERDAM/ZURICH, March 31 (Reuters) - Swiss bank Credit Suisse has been dragged into yet more tax evasion and money laundering investigations, after a tip-off to Dutch prosecutors about tens of thousands of suspect accounts triggered raids in five countries.

Coordinated raids began on Thursday in the Netherlands, Britain, Germany, France and Australia, the Dutch office for financial crimes prosecution (FIOD) said on Friday, with two arrests confirmed so far.

The Dutch are "investigating dozens of people who are suspected of tax fraud and money laundering", the prosecutors said, adding that suspects had deposited money in a Swiss bank without disclosing that to authorities.

British tax authorities said they had opened a criminal investigation into suspected tax evasion and money laundering by "a global financial institution" and would be focusing initially on "senior employees", along with an unspecified number of customers.

Prosecutors in the German city of Cologne said they were also working with the Dutch. "We have launched an investigation against clients of a bank," a spokesman said.

None of the authorities disclosed the name of the bank involved. However, Credit Suisse, Switzerland's second-biggest bank, said local authorities had visited its offices in Amsterdam, London and Paris "concerning client tax matters" and it was cooperating.

It said later it had launched an internal probe. "The investigation will be executed by compliance, it will not be executed by the business," Iqbal Khan, who is responsible for Credit Suisse's private banking operations outside Switzerland and Asia Pacific, told Reuters.

"If any individuals are implicated or have violated against these processes or procedures or policies that are in place then we will identify that very quickly."

The Dutch FIOD seized administrative records as well as the contents of bank accounts, real estate, jewellery, a luxury car, expensive paintings and a gold bar from houses in four Dutch towns and cities. The FIOD tweeted a photo of some of the seized assets. [https://tinyurl.com/llkjhrz ]

The people arrested, one in The Hague and one in the town of Hoofddorp, were not identified.

The actions angered Switzerland's Office of the Attorney General, which said it was "disconcerted" by the way Dutch authorities had handled the matter and would demand an explanation.

Dutch prosecutors responded that Swiss authorities had been left out of the investigation because none of the suspects were Swiss -- they were just linked to secret Swiss bank accounts.

"If the Swiss authorities wish to receive information on the investigation, we, the other countries involved and Eurojust, are always willing to discuss (that) with them," the FIOD said in a statement.

Eurojust, the European Union agency that coordinates cross-border prosecutions, said the investigation had begun in 2016, and representatives from the countries involved -- Switzerland not among them -- had held three preparatory meetings to share information before Thursday's raids.

Prosecutors "analysed a huge amount of data," Eurojust said, looking for "individuals and groups suspected of tax fraud and money laundering."

The investigation uncovered "undeclared assets hidden within offshore accounts and policies...(worth) millions of euros."

Credit Suisse shares fell 1.2 percent, underperforming the wider European banking sector index which rose 0.1 percent on Friday.

OLD WOUNDS

For Zurich-based Credit Suisse, the case reopens the thorny issue of tax evasion which has dogged Swiss banks for years as wealthy individuals around the world have used the country's strict bank secrecy laws to hide cash from the taxman.

Credit Suisse has paid more than 2 billion Swiss francs ($2 billion) since 2011 in the United States, Germany and Italy to settle allegations it helped clients dodge taxes. It has pushed clients in Europe, Latin America and Asia to participate in government programmes facilitating the declaration of untaxed assets.

The bank said in December this process had been completed for Europe.

Switzerland is also among the countries that have signed up to a global initiative led by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. Under the OECD's Automatic Exchange of Information, banks pass on information to local tax agencies, which then share it with foreign counterparts.

Switzerland began collecting data at the start of the year and will exchange information from 2018.

The Dutch FIOD said the coordinated raids were prompted by a tip-off about 55,000 suspect accounts, and it had passed information to the other countries about the accounts.

Spokeswoman Wietske Vissers said the investigation would "continue for days and weeks" across the various countries. The Netherlands is investing 3,800 Dutch leads. French authorities said they had 25 agents working on the case.

Credit Suisse's Khan said the 55,000 was "not a number that I can reconcile because as of today, in International Wealth Management in Europe, the total number of accounts is lower than 55,000".

Australia's minister for revenue and financial services, Kelly O'Dwyer, said the country's financial crime investigator was looking at 340 Australians linked to Swiss bank accounts, which she said were only identified by number.

"The fact that these accounts are unnamed," ODwyer said, "means that by their very nature they are likely to have been established to hide the identity of the owner."

($1 = 1.0009 Swiss francs) (Additional reporting by Swati Pandey, Michael Holden and Oliver Hirt; Editing by Mark Trevelyan and Andrew Roche)
By Sophie Hares

TEPIC, Mexico, March 31 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - U.S. President Donald Trumps executive order to sweep away Obama-era climate change regulations jeopardises efforts across his country to build resilience to intensifying natural disasters, experts have warned.

The executive order, signed on Tuesday, could make it harder to keep global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius, the lower limit governments have pledged to strive for in a U.N. accord, they said.

"These reversals are coming at a moment when the impacts of climate change are intensifying," said Heather Coleman, climate change policy manager at Oxfam America.

"The president is playing politics with peoples lives," she told journalists in a telephone briefing.

Trumps order has drawn swift condemnation from a coalition of states and local governments, as well as green groups who say it threatens public health and have vowed to fight it in court.

The main target of the executive order is the Clean Power Plan introduced by former U.S. President Barack Obama, requiring states to slash carbon emissions from power plants.

It is a key factor in the U.S.'s ability to meet its commitments under the U.N. climate change agreement reached by nearly 200 countries in Paris in 2015.

Trump, a Republican, and several key members of his administration have doubts about climate change, but it remains unclear whether the president will pull the United States out of the Paris deal, in line with a campaign promise.

"If you dont want to call it climate change, thats fine - you can call it whatever you want, but the point is, were dealing with this new reality and we have to address it head on," said Belinda Constant, mayor of Gretna, Louisiana, and co-chair of the Mississippi River Cities and Towns Initiative.

The frequency and severity of disasters is on the rise and costs are unprecedented, she said.

Persistent disasters along the Mississippi River alone have cost over $50 billion since 2011, draining the local economy, she added.

The executive order would have a direct impact on resilience to disasters, she said, with both jobs and infrastructure at risk if requirements by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) for states and local government to build climate risks into planning are eliminated, she said.

"Whats the point of spending a bunch of money on infrastructure if were just going to watch it get washed away because we didnt make it resilient?" asked Constant, who calculated the Mississippi waterway generates $500 billion in annual revenue.

The bottom line is that "resilience works", she said. "(It) protects jobs, secures our economy and enhances both the built and natural infrastructure," she added.

BANGLADESH TO THE RESCUE?

Experts said that while Trump's executive order undermined efforts to prepare for extreme events, and threatened funding and regulatory reforms, state and local governments would continue their work to protect communities.

"The problem is that the job of these state and local leaders just got a lot harder as a result of this executive order," said Jessica Grannis, adaptation program manager at the Georgetown Climate Center.

"What this executive order does is to defy common sense and sound science - it will make it harder for cities and states to protect the lives, health and well-being of their residents," she said.

Jobs would be put at risk as many small businesses often fail in the aftermath of extreme events, and investments would no longer take durability into account, she added.

On an international level, meeting the Paris Agreements most ambitious global warming limit of 1.5 degrees Celsius will prove harder if the United States fails to cooperate and cut its emissions as planned, said Saleemul Huq, senior fellow at the International Institute for Environment and Development.

While a refusal by the United States to pay the bulk of the $3 billion it has committed to the Green Climate Fund would constrain actions by developing countries to tackle climate change, it is a fraction of the $100 billion a year in climate finance promised to them by rich countries from 2020.

Huq, who is also director of the Dhaka-based International Centre for Climate Change and Development, said the most significant impact of the executive order would be Trumps refusal to support U.S. citizens in their efforts to ward off the effects of climate change, such as rising seas and fiercer storms and floods.

"Theyre going to have to fend for themselves," he said.

Poor countries like Bangladesh, which have been hit earlier and harder by climate change, are ahead of many developed countries in learning about and building resilience, he said, offering to pass on his nations knowledge to the United States. (Reporting by Sophie Hares; editing by Megan Rowling. Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, climate change, resilience, women's rights, trafficking and property rights. Visit http://news.trust.org/climate)
MOSCOW, March 31 (Reuters) - The following are some stories in Russia's newspapers on Friday. Reuters has not verified these stories and does not vouch for their accuracy.

VEDOMOSTI

www.vedomosti.ru

- More than 70 engines manufactured for the Proton-M rocket launch vehicle have been returned to the producer, an engine maker in Voronezh, and will be assembled anew, the daily says. The next launch of a Proton-M, scheduled for May, may be postponed.

Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin blamed low workers' salaries at the Voronezh plant of about 10,000 roubles ($178.76) a month, saying they discouraged workers from fulfilling their duties properly. Managers for Russia's space agency, Roscosmos, managers in charge of the Voronezh plant were paid from 500,000 roubles ($8,938.15) to one million roubles($17,876.30)a month in 2015, the daily says.

KOMMERSANT

www.kommersant.ru

- Prosecutors are looking into why the transport ministry has failed to certify certain aircraft, the daily says. The problem could delay the delivery of Russia's Sukhoi SuperJet aircraft to Ireland's CityJet, the daily says.

- Samara Region Governor Nikolai Merkushkin has accused opposition leader Alexei Navalny of trying to overthrow the government, the daily says. Merkushkin was speaking on Thursday at a forum called "No to extremism," a response to protests organised by Navalny across the country.

IZVESTIA

www.izvestia.ru

- The economy ministry and state-run companies have agreed criteria according to which top managers will get bonuses. The government is set to approve them on April 5, the daily says.

- Twenty five percent of Russians believe the sun circles the Earth, the head of VTsIOM pollster, Valery Fyodorov, says.

ROSSIISKAYA GAZETA

www.rg.ru

- Russia's Defence Ministry will cut its draft by 13,000 conscripts this spring because it has increased the number of professional soldiers, the daily says.

- The Federal Security Service raided St Petersburg's State Hermitage Museum on Thursday in connection with an investigation into whether Deputy Director Mikhail Novikov stole budget money during the construction of museum facilities.

NEZAVISIMAYA GAZETA

www.ng.ru

- Open Russia Foundation, sponsored by former YUKOS owner Mikhail Khodorkovsky, plans to hold an anti-Putin rally at the end of April. If supported by other opposition forces, the protest is expected to gather as many people as the one held by Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny on March 26, the daily says. ($1 = 55.9400 roubles) (Reporting By Tatiana Ustinova; Editing by Kevin O'Flynn/Andrew Osborn)
GARLYK, Turkmenistan, March 31 (Reuters) - Turkmenistan opened a $1 billion Belarussian-built potash plant on Friday, aiming to export 1.2 million tonnes of fertilisers to China and India per year as part of its drive to diversify away from natural gas exports.

The Central Asian nation has faced foreign-currency shortages after its gas exports were hit by declining prices and volumes, and the government is banking on the start of potash production and other projects to bolster the economy.

As a potash exporter, Turkmenistan will compete with its former Soviet overlord Russia, home to the world's biggest producer Uralkali, and Belarus, also a global player.

Belarussian companies built the plant and Minsk has said it will help Turkmenistan market the product.

Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko attended the opening ceremony in eastern Turkmenistan and said most of the plant's production would go to China and India - the world's biggest potash importers.

"This is Central Asia's biggest potash plant. One can confidently say it will produce 1.5 million tonnes a year," Lukashenko said, adding that Turkmen President Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov had told him about plans to build two more potash plants.

Uralkali said this month it expected global potash demand to rise by 1-2 million tonnes this year to between 62 million and 63 million tonnes, driven by China.

It was unclear when the new plant would reach production capacity and how much potash it would produce in 2017.

The plant was launched two years later than the original deadline, in part because the market for the crop nutrient has been hit by strong competition since 2013, when Uralkali quit a trading alliance with Belarusian potash producer Belaruskali.

Lukashenko said the project had encountered some technical difficulties but the issues had been resolved.

"Despite all the drawbacks, I think we have not let down the Turkmen people," he said, without elaborating on the nature of the technical problems.

Global potash producers are still suffering from strong competition, low prices for agricultural commodities and weak demand from India and China.

New potash production capacity is expected to be launched by Germany's K+S in Canada and by Russia-focused fertiliser producer Eurochem in Russia in 2017.

"We already see a crisis of overproduction in the sector. The new project will only strengthen the competition," said Oleg Petropavlovskiy at BCS Investment Bank.

Petropavlovskiy said potash from Turkmenistan might be interesting for spot markets in Southeast Asia and South America. He did not rule out that Turkmenistan could also sign a long-term supply contract with China.

Uralkali declined to comment. (Reporting by Marat Gurt; Additonal reporting by Polina Devitt in Moscow and Natalia Shurmina in Yekaterinburg; Writing by Olzhas Auyezov; Editing by Dale Hudson and Susan Fenton)
ROME, March 31 (Reuters) - Trade disputes between the United States and Europe would hurt economic growth and global governance at a time when the West needs to show a unified front against unfair trade practices, Italy's industry minister said on Friday.

"Any trade clash between the United States and Europe would be dangerous not only for our economies, but also for the rules that govern globalisation," Industry Minister Carlo Calenda told reporters in Rome.

Calenda said Western countries should refrain from trade disputes "that would symbolically show a division at a moment when the Western world should be unified in protecting its citizens from unfair trade practices". (Reporting by Antonella Cinelli, writing by Steve Scherer)
HELSINKI, March 31 (Reuters) - Finland's President Sauli Niinisto said on Friday the nation is unlikely to host an Arctic summit at short notice, quashing the prospect of an imminent meeting between U.S. President Donald Trump and Russia's President Vladimir Putin.

"That a summit could be arranged hastily, seems impossible, and I have not proposed that... The G20 meeting in Germany will likely be the first meeting for presidents Trump and Putin", Niinisto said at a news conference at the Presidential Palace.

Trump is expected to be among the leaders attending the G20 summit in Hamburg on July 7 and 8.

Putin said on Thursday he was ready to meet Trump at an Arctic summit in Finland. He made the remark while responding to his Finnish counterpart, who said he would be happy to receive the Russian and U.S. presidents in Finland.

Finland will take over the Arctic Council's chairmanship in May and has said it is willing to host a high-level council meeting during its two-year presidency.

Member states of the Arctic Council include Finland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Iceland, Russia, United States and Canada. (Reporting by Tuomas Forsell; Editing by Julia Glover)
LONDON, March 31 (Reuters) - The Nigerian subsidiary of Royal Dutch Shell Plc said it had shut down the Nembe Creek Trunk Line, which exports Bonny Light crude oil, in order to remove theft points.

The managing director of Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC) said the company was working to "remove a significant number of oil theft connections and repair any leaks on the pipeline."

The line, operated by Aiteo, is one of two along with the Trans Niger Pipeline that carries Bonny Light crude oil to the export terminal. Exports of roughly 232,000 barrels per day (bpd) were planned in April, according to loading programmes, but it was not immediately clear how much of this would be impacted by the pipeline shutdown.

"SPDC will work with the security forces during shutdown to clear illegal connections on NCTL," SPDC said.

Shell declined to comment on the impact of the pipeline outage on its operations, but oil traders said the loading programmes were so far not affected.

There have been widespread loading delays on Nigeria's Qua Iboe crude oil, with yet another revised export plan issued on Friday.

Source text for Eikon: Further company coverage: (Reporting by Libby George and Bengaluru newsroom; Editing by Susan Fenton)
By Michael Nienaber

BERLIN, March 31 (Reuters) - Germany urged the European Union on Friday to consider filing a complaint with the World Trade Organisation (WTO) against the United States over its plan to impose duties on imports of steel plate from five EU member states.

U.S. President Donald Trump is expected to sign executive orders on Friday aimed at identifying abuses causing huge U.S. trade deficits. He is also preparing to meet Chinese President Xi next week in Florida, with contentious trade issues likely to be high on the agenda.

Global steel prices have slumped as Chinese producers, who account for about half of the worldwide steel supply, have flooded the export markets, leading to protests and anti-dumping complaints by the United States, the European Union and others.

On Thursday, the U.S. Department of Commerce issued a final finding that European and Asian producers dumped certain carbon and alloy steel cut-to-length plate in the U.S. market, allowing it to impose duties ranging from 3.62 percent to 148 percent.

Among the affected companies are firms in Germany, Austria, Belgium, France and Italy.

Gabriel said the U.S. government seemed prepared to give U.S. firms an "unfair competitive advantage" over European producers even though this violated international trade law.

"We Europeans cannot accept this. The EU must now examine whether it also files a complaint at the WTO. I strongly support this," Gabriel said. The European Commission, the EU's executive arm, is in charge of trade matters in the 28-member bloc.

"The WTO rules are the backbone of the international trade order. To deliberately violate them is a dangerous step," he said. "It is the first time that the U.S. in such a case resorts to distorting practices that do not comply with the WTO rules."

In Brussels, a spokesman for the European Commission said it regretted the U.S. move to impose anti-dumping measures, adding that the duties were "artificially inflated".

"Our comments and notably those concerning the use by the U.S. of methodologies which artificially inflate the preliminary dumping margins have not been given expected consideration," the spokesman said.

The final duties were in many cases higher than the preliminary duties set in November. "We will look now into the detail of the decision taken by the U.S. and consider the appropriate steps," he said.

THREAT

Gabriel said Germany had to stand up to the U.S. and fight "accounting tricks" that put Germany's internationally competitive steel industry at a disadvantage.

"If the U.S. got through with unfair competition, other industries would also be subject to the same threat," Gabriel warned.

Economy Minister Brigitte Zypries said Germany would, along with the European Commission, continue to campaign for Washington to stick to WTO rules.

"The signals the U.S. is sending in the steel sector really worry us," Zypries said, adding that she would raise the issue when she visits the United States in May.

Cut-to-length steel is used in a wide range of applications, including buildings and bridgework; agricultural, construction and mining equipment; machine parts and tooling; ships, rail cars, tankers and barges; and large-diameter pipes.

The U.S. Department of Commerce's finding is the result of a petition from Nucor Corp and U.S. subsidiaries of ArcelorMittal SA and SSAB AB.

For Austrian producers and exporters, dumping duties on the Voestalpine group and all others were set at 53.72 percent. Among French manufacturers and exporters, duty rates were set at 148.02 percent for Industeel France and 8.62 percent for Dillinger France and all others.

In Germany, duties were set at 5.38 percent for AG der Dillinger Huttenwerke, 22.90 percent for the Salzgitter group and 21.03 percent for all other exporters and producers.

The chief executive of Italian steel firm Marcegaglia said the U.S. risked setting off a trade war if it implemented its plans for a border tax, an issue that should be taken to the WTO.

"And when you start a war you don't know where you will end up," Emma Marcegaglia told reporters in Rome.

Marcegaglia said it was still possible that the issue could be resolved through trans-Atlantic negotiations.

Italy's industry minister warned that a U.S.-EU trade dispute would hurt growth and global governance at a time when the West needs to show a unified front against unfair trade practices.

"Any trade clash between the United States and Europe would be dangerous not only for our economies, but also for the rules that govern globalisation," Carlo Calenda told reporters. (Reporting by Michael Nienaber in Berlin; Additional reporting by Gernot Heller in Berlin, Philip Blenkinsop in Brussels and Antonella Cinelli in Rome; Editing by Hugh Lawson)
By Marja Novak

LJUBLJANA, March 31 (Reuters) - Slovenia raised its economic growth forecasts for this year and next year on Friday citing strong investment, and said its budget deficit should narrow down to just 1 percent of GDP in 2017 after falling more than expected last year.

The government institute UMAR said it now expected the export-dependent economy to expand 3.6 percent this year, up from its previous forecast of 2.9 percent. It raised its growth forecast for 2018 to 3.2 percent from 2.6 percent.

The International Monetary Fund said on Tuesday it saw Slovenia's economy expanding by a slightly smaller 3 percent this year and 2.3 percent in 2018.

Slovenia, which narrowly avoided an international bailout for its banks in 2013, returned to growth a year after that. Last year the country's economy expanded by 2.5 percent, mainly on account of higher exports.

The country sells about 70 percent of its products abroad, mostly cars, car parts, pharmaceutical products and household appliances.

"Exports will remain the main growth driver due to favourable demand from abroad ... and recent restructuring of Slovenia's firms which increased the potential of the export sector," UMAR head Bostjan Vasle told a news conference.

It sees exports rising 6 percent this year and by another 5.1 percent in 2018.

DEFICIT NARROWS

The statistics office said separately that the budget deficit narrowed to 1.5 percent of economic output last year from 2.6 percent the previous year, mainly due to lower public investment. The government had forecast a 2.2 percent deficit for last year.

UMAR said investment would increase by 7 percent this year, after falling 3.1 percent last year, mainly due to greater inflows of funds from Europe and as public and private investment pick up.

The statistics office said the public debt fell to 79.7 percent of GDP last year from 83.1 percent in 2016. The finance ministry expects it to fall to the equivalent of 77 percent of GDP or 32 billion euros by the end of this year. (Reporting by Marja Novak; Editing by Ivana Sekularac and Vin Shahrestani)
PARIS, March 31 (Reuters) - France's CFDT trade union has overtaken the more militant CGT as the strongest in the private sector, official data showed on Friday, a development that could help a future president of the country push through pro-business reforms.

French labour ministry data on Friday showed that the CFDT's influence had overtaken that of the Communist-backed CGT, with the CFDT now representing over 26 percent of private sector staff compared to around 25 percent for the CGT.

The measure of influence comes from votes cast for employee representation on works councils and does not necessarily reflect membership numbers.

Last year the CGT was at the forefront of protests against pro-business labour reforms, and several of the demonstrations were marred by violence.

In contrast, the CFDT backed the reforms that essentially make it easier to both hire and fire staff.

Centrist candidate Emmanuel Macron, currently seen as most likely to win the election and who as economy minister at the time was central to the law changes, has pledged a broad series of changes aimed at reducing the business costs, although he plans to keep France's 35-hour legal working week.

Conservative candidate Francois Fillon, whose campaign has been hit by public anger over large sums of money paid to members of his family, has proposed more drastic changes including cutting state sector jobs and public spending.

Anti-euro, far-right National Front leader Marine Le Pen, seen coming out on top in the first round of the elections but then losing to Macron in the second round, also wants to keep the 35-hour working week and has pledged to do more to protect French workers' rights.

(Reporting by Sudip Kar-Gupta; editing by Michel Rose and Andrew Callus)
UNITED NATIONS, March 31 (Reuters) - United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is disappointed and alarmed by Israel's decision to build a new settlement in occupied Palestinian territory, his spokesman said on Friday.

Israel's security cabinet on Thursday approved the building of the first new settlement in the occupied West Bank in two decades, even as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu negotiates with Washington on a possible curb of settlement activity.

"The Secretary-General has consistently stressed that there is no Plan B for Israelis and Palestinians to live together in peace and security," U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said in a statement.

"He condemns all unilateral actions that, like the present one, threaten peace and undermine the two-state solution," he said.

The U.N. Security Council adopted a resolution in December that demanded a halt to settlement building after the United States, Israel's ally, abstained from the vote. Then President-elect Donald Trump and Israel had urged Washington to wield its veto.

Israel for decades has pursued a policy of constructing Jewish settlements on territory captured by Israel in a 1967 war with its Arab neighbors. Most countries view Israeli settlement activity as illegal and an obstacle to peace. Israel disagrees.

The Palestinians want an independent state in the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem.

(Reporting by Michelle Nichols; Editing by Bernadette Baum)
MOUNTAINS OF CAUCA, Colombia March 31 (Reuters) - Former fighters from Colombia's FARC rebel group are handing over thousands of weapons and other materials to international officials in special camps, as the group's six-month disarmament process continues.

The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) signed a peace agreement with the government late last year to put an end to their part in Latin America's longest-running armed conflict, which has killed more than 220,000 people and displaced millions.

Around 8,000 weapons have been handed over to the United Nations to be stored in secure containers until they can be turned into three memorial statues. The rebels are expected to turn in all arms by June.

Members of the Jacobo Arenas rebel unit, which operated in mountains of Cauca province, were among 6,900 FARC fighters who left behind clandestine camps where they had lived for decades, crisscrossing the country on foot, by boat and by truck to get to 26 zones monitored by the U.N.

The zones will be their homes for the foreseeable future as they complete judicial processes to determine whether they will serve special sentences for war crimes or receive amnesty. Ex-fighters will also reunite with long-lost families and make amends to victims.

Under the terms of the peace accord, the FARC, which began as a peasant uprising 52 years ago, is to form a political movement in the South American nation.

The FARC's leadership has raised concerns about conditions in some of the camps, including the lack of permanent toilets and facilities such as gyms they say were agreed in the accord.

Some FARC members have told local media they will not hand over their weapons until the camps are more habitable for fighters, who are well used to rough-and-tumble living conditions in poverty-stricken rural areas.

The government says it is working as quickly as possible to finish each camp, that the FARC is partly responsible for construction and that the facilities are far superior to the tarp and bamboo lean-tos traditionally used by the rebels.

The accord has been heavily criticized for sparing rebels jail time for crimes committed during the conflict. A first version was narrowly rejected in a referendum last year, before being modified and passed by Congress.

Authorities have said that about 300 rebels have refused to demobilize, but that may not be a full count, excluding so-called "militants" who worked undercover in cities and towns to help the FARC.

(Reporting by Bogota newsroom; Editing by Steve Orlofsky)
By Tom Polansek

CHICAGO, March 31 (Reuters) - U.S. soybean futures fell to fresh five-month lows on Friday after the U.S. Department of Agriculture said spring plantings would set an all-time high above traders' expectations.

Farmers in arid Plains states and elsewhere are shifting to plant soybeans, instead of corn and wheat, as the crop provides one of the few bright spots in a gloomy farm economy.

The USDA estimated that farmers will plant a record 89.5 million acres of soybeans, up 7 percent from last year, while reducing corn plantings by 4 percent to 90 million acres.

"The switch away from corn was bigger than anyone figured," said Jack Scoville, analyst for Price Futures Group in Chicago.

Chicago Board of Trade most-active May soybeans were down 12 cents at $9.51 a bushel by 11:45 a.m. CDT (1645 GMT). The contract earlier touched $9.44-1/4, its lowest level since mid-October.

Wheat and corn futures rose, recovering from recent multi-week lows, after the USDA said plantings would be slightly smaller than expected.

Most-active CBOT wheat jumped 9 cents to $4.30 a bushel, while corn gained 6 cents to $3.63-1/2 a bushel.

All the markets were under pressure from large supplies held in reserve, following bin-busting harvests in recent years. Low prices for the crops have encouraged farmers to keep them in storage, rather than selling them to processors or livestock operations.

The USDA said soybeans in storage totalled nearly 1.74 billion bushels as of March 1, up 13 percent from a year ago. Corn stocks were up 10 percent at 8.62 billion, and wheat stocks were up 21 percent at 1.66 billion. The data "still says we have too much grain," said Don Roose, president of Iowa-based broker U.S. Commodities.

Poor weather will need to disrupt spring plantings or crop development in the summer to spark strong gains in the markets, traders said.

"Rallies are going to be hard-fought," Roose said. "We're going to be quickly focusing on the weather to see if we can change any of these acreage numbers." (Additional reporting by Naveen Thukral in Singapore and Gus Trompiz in Paris; Editing by Tom Brown and Matthew Lewis)
By Gopal Sharma

KATHMANDU, March 31 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - I mmigration officials at Nepal's international airport may be colluding with traffickers to send thousands of poor illiterate women to work illegally in Gulf nations where they are exploited and abused, the head of a parliamentary panel said on Friday.

Around 20 percent of the impoverished Himalayan nation's almost 29 million people are migrant workers in the Middle East, as well as countries such as Malaysia and South Korea -- generating remittances that make up a quarter of Nepal's GDP.

Nepal has strict screening procedures for women travelling to Gulf nations due to reports they are lured by traffickers into job as maids where they are forced to work long hours for low wages - and are physically and sexually abused by employers.

But Nepali lawmaker Prabhu Shah, who heads a parliamentary panel appointed to probe reports of abuse of Nepali migrants in the Middle East, said he found many women were still being duped and were being trafficked via the international airport.

"Half of the women we met told us that they had left from Kathmandu's airport without being questioned by authorities, while the other half had travelled through India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka," Shah told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

"It is not possible for so many women to pass through the airport without the knowledge of immigration officials. The government must investigate this. Our women are living in a very pathetic condition there."

Shah was speaking after leading a parliamentary team on a trip to Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. The delegation met with nearly 500 Nepali workers, mainly women, who had been stranded after managing to escape from their employers.

He said traffickers took the women on visitor visas rather than work visas -- promising them good jobs, but then sold them for $5,000 each to employers as maids. Many were overworked, beaten or raped. Most were unpaid.

Many victims, he added, were also going to the Gulf via India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka -- with few checks.

Immigration Department official Ganga Ram Gelal said officials at Kathmandu's airport were under orders to screen and interview women going to Middle East countries. He said that there would be an investigation.

"Whoever is found guilty of not doing that will be punished," Gelal told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. (Reporting by Gopal Sharma, Editing by Nita Bhalla @nitabhalla and Ros Russell. Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, women's rights, trafficking, property rights, climate change and resilience. Visit http://news.trust.org)
BEIRUT, March 31 (Reuters) - Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri said Lebanon was close to "breaking point" due to the strains of hosting 1.5 million Syrian refugees, and he feared unrest could spiral from tensions between them and Lebanese communities.

Refugees who fled the six-year-long conflict in neighbouring Syria make up a quarter of Lebanon's population, and most live in severe poverty in makeshift camps across the country as the government opposes the creation of formal ones.

"Today if you go around most of the host communities, there is a huge tension between the Lebanese and the Syrians... I fear civil unrest," Hariri told journalists working for foreign media on Friday.

He will urge the international community to boost financial support for Lebanon at a conference on Syria in Brussels next week. "I am going ... to make sure that the world understands that Lebanon is on the verge of a breaking point," he said.

Hariri said the country has been "extremely lucky in making sure this crisis has not affected host communities, but we have stretched our luck".

The Syria war has weakened Lebanon's economy, fuelled tension among Lebanese allied to the rival sides, and triggered a number of jihadist attacks. But there has so far been no significant violence between Syrian refugees and Lebanese host communities.

Hariri urged the international community to commit to spending the equivalent of $10-12,000 per refugee over a period of five to seven years, compared to the current level of foreign support equivalent to $1-1,200 per year.

"I think that will make sure that Lebanon is going to stand on its own and the economy will thrive," he said.

Georges Ghali, programmes manager at Lebanese human rights organisation ALEF, said the tensions were rooted in factors such as misperceptions held by Lebanese that refugees were being showered in aid, and government policies that had made it difficult for them to obtain official residency.

Tensions had not reached the point of violent escalation, Ghali added.

Lebanese officials, citing World Bank figures, say the cumulative cost of the Syrian conflict to Lebanon was $18.15 billion to the end of 2015. Lebanon's annual economic growth has slowed to just over 1 percent from an average of 8 percent before the Syrian war, officials have said.

The government is seeking financial support for a programme of public sector-led investment in infrastructure to boost the economy, and to increase the number of Syrians in education.

Hariri, a Saudi-allied Sunni politician, became prime minister in December in a political deal that saw Michel Aoun, an ally of the Iranian-backed Shi'ite group Hezbollah, elected head of state.

Hezbollah, which is fighting in Syria in support of President Bashar al-Assad, is also part of the government. (Reporting by Tom Perry; editing by John Stonestreet)
By Marta Nogueira and Marcelo Teixeira

RIO DE JANEIRO/SAO PAULO, March 31 (Reuters) - Brazil is poised to sharply increase oil exports this year as heavy investments spur new output and demand for its lighter crudes win more buyers, especially in China and India.

Production is projected to rise 210,000 barrels per day (bpd) in 2017, second only in the size of additional supply to the United States among non-OPEC producers. Higher output from the U.S. and Brazil are among the factors impeding an OPEC-led effort to lift crude prices through production cuts.

Growth in exports should continue in future years as companies such as Royal Dutch Shell Plc prepare to tap some of the largest discoveries made since the end of the last decade off the nation's Atlantic coast.

Already just in the first two months of the year, Brazil's oil exports have soared 65 percent over the same period a year earlier to record highs of more than 1.46 million bpd, according to government data obtained by Reuters.

Consultancy Wood Mackenzie estimates 2017 exports will hit nearly 1 million bpd, up from 798,000 bpd last year.

Years of heavy investment that left state-controlled Petroleo Brasileiro SA (Petrobras) as the world's most indebted oil company are beginning to pay off. The nation hopes to use higher oil sales to help drag its economy out of a two-year recession.

Exports are rising along with the company's output of light, sweet crudes, Guilherme Franca, executive manager for marketing and trading at Petrobras told Reuters.

"Our production consists of much lighter oil than we used to produce in the past," he said in an interview.

"We have demand for more of it than we can deliver."

Light, low-sulfur crudes are easier and cheaper to refine into gasoline and diesel, and match demands for less polluting fuels in Asia, the United States and Europe.

Franca said exports by Petrobras alone rose to 420,000 bpd in 2016 and should reach 450,000 bpd this year. If it meets future targets, the company could be exporting as much as 750,000 bpd as soon as 2020, he said.

In the first two months this year, Brazil sold 10.4 million barrels of crude to India, half as much as it shipped to the country during 2016, Brazil's trade ministry data showed.

Sales to China in January and February totaled 40.8 million barrels, up 125 percent from the same period in 2016 and more than 10 times Brazil's shipments to the country five years ago.

Some of the oil shipments are linked to repayments on as much as $15 billion in loans from China, including debt taken on in 2009.

Under deals with lender China Development Bank, the oil giant would send as much as 300,000 bpd to four Chinese firms: China National United Oil Corporation, China Zhenhua Oil Co Ltd, Chemchina Petrochemical Co Ltd and Unipec Asia, a subsidiary of Sinopec Corp .

"There is strong demand currently for Brazil's medium-sweet crude. The United States, China, Korea, India, they are all buyers of this type of oil due to newer standards to reduce sulfur content in fuels," said Esa Ramasamy, an analyst with S&P Global Platts.

Ramasamy said 65 percent of Brazil's output is medium-sweet grades and most of the country's new production will be of the same type.

Petrobras produced 2.14 million bpd in 2016 and targets 2.77 million bpd by 2021. The company, which is trying to reduce debt of around $100 billion, is pouring all its efforts into the high-yield subsalt region.

Shell, the second largest producer in Brazil after Petrobras, is pumping around 295,000 bpd and wants to quadruple that in three years. The company is part of a consortium that will explore the giant Libra subsalt prospect, along with Petrobras, France's Total SA and China's CNOOC Ltd and China National Petroleum Corp.

March shipping data shows PetroChina moving a 130,000-tonne tanker from Brazil to China. Commodity trader Vitol also has two tankers carrying 260,000 tonnes of Brazilian crude, and Shell and Repsol SA have 560,000 tonnes, also heading to China.

Wood Mackenzie analyst Ixchel Castro said exports also have been boosted by weaker domestic consumption from the country's deepest recession on record. An economic recovery could siphon some of the exports.

(Additional reporting by Luciano Costa; Editing by Gary McWilliams and Marguerita Choy)
By Sergio Goncalves

LISBON, March 31 (Reuters) - Portugal has agreed to sell a 75 percent stake in state-rescued lender Novo Banco to U.S. private equity firm Lone Star in exchange for a capital injection of 1 billion euros into the institution, the government said on Friday.

The sale was carried out ahead of an August deadline agreed with the European Commission and closes a banking saga which started with the collapse in 2014 of Banco Espirito Santo, at the time Portugal's largest private bank.

Portugal injected 4.9 billion euros into the BES rescue, which at the time was the first such collapse to fall under new European rules on operations for failed banks.

Prime Minister Antonio Costa said the sale fulfilled a key criterion of not extending any state guarantees to the buyer, as had been raised earlier in the negotiations with Lone Star, and guarantees Novo Banco's future.

"The operation has removed the spectre of a liquidation, Novo Banco's future to carry out its role of financing the economy is guaranteed," the prime minister told journalists. "There is no direct or indirect impact on public accounts, nor any new costs to taxpayers."

Bank of Portugal governor Carlos Costa said the "sale is an important step for stability of the banking system."

Under the deal, Portugal's Bank Resolution Fund will retain the remaining 25 percent stake in Novo Banco, which is the bridge bank carved out of Banco Espirito Santo, which collapsed in August 2014. The country injected 4.9 billion euros, mostly via the resolution fund, into the "good bank".

Under the terms of the deal, Lone Star will inject 750 million euros when the deal is formally closed and another 250 million within three years.

Also, Novo Banco will swap 500 million euros of senior bonds for new bonds as means to reinforce its common equity Tier 1 capital ratio before Lone Star takes over the bank.

The Bank of Portugal said a contingent capital mechanism will be set up to meet potential capital needs at the bank worth up to 3.89 billion euros, explaining that the mechanism did not represent any guarantee to cover any losses.

The sale is the end of a long process that started with the emergency rescue of BES, which at that time was Portugal's largest listed bank. BES collapsed under the weight of the debts of its founding family and an investigation is still ongoing.

A first attempt to sell Novo Banco failed in 2015 as bids came in far below the rescue amount, stirring investor concerns about the already flagging banking sector's contributions to the Bank Resolution Fund.

In March, the government extended the maturities on state loans to the resolution fund by nearly three decades to 2046 to avoid imposing extra costs on the banking sector.

The sale was also complicated by a decision, late in 2015, by the central bank to transfer some bonds from Novo Banco back to "bad bank" BES, thus boosting Novo Banco's capital. A group of bondholders, including Pimco and BlackRock, have challenged the decision in the court. (Reporting By Sergio Goncalves, writing by Andrei Khalip, editing by Axel Bugge and David Evans)
The bodies of two 17-year-old students who drowned in the seas off Kudawella in Tangalle were washed ashore today.

Tangalle police said the bodies were washed ashore 25 hours after they drowned.

They said the victims Janith Ishan Lakshitha and Muditha Dilshan had gone for a swim with another friend to celebrate their success at the GCE Ordinary Level Examination.

The remains were sent to the Judicial Medical Officer of the Hambantota hospital for further investigations.

A third child who had accompanied the unfortunate children had managed to escape the tragedy.

The relatives of the children had lodged a complaint with the police as they did not return home last afternoon. (Ariyadasa Kodithuwakku and Chandrasena Gamage)
The country is blocking applicants from Hanoi and 10 provinces, except those from areas hit by an environmental catastrophe.

South Korea is recruiting 3,600 Vietnamese workers but it has blocked applicants from Hanoi and 10 northern and central provinces due to a high rate of illegal workers, Vietnam's labor ministry has said.

The ministry said it has been requested by the South Korean government to blacklist Hanoi, the northern provinces of Bac Ninh, Hai Duong, Hung Yen, Nam Dinh, Phu Tho and Thai Binh, as well as provinces of Thanh Hoa, Nghe An, Ha Tinh and Quang Binh in the central region. More than 30 percent of workers sent from these localities are overstaying their visas, it said.

If those localities manage to lower the rates by the end of the year, they might be considered for recruitment in 2018, the ministry said.

But the restriction is not imposed on eight areas affected by the Formosa environment disaster last year in the coastal provinces of Ha Tinh and Quang Binh.

As of February 2017, all workers from several districts in the provinces of Phu Tho and Ha Tinh have completed their contracts but none of them have returned, according to figures from the ministry.

Vietnam and South Korea first signed a labor agreement in 2004, which was due to expire in 2014. But South Korea suspended the cooperation in August 2012 after it found Vietnamese workers often did not leave the country after their contracts had ended. It resumed the agreement for one year in December 2013 after the rate of illegal workers dropped to 38 percent from 50 percent.

The illegal workers, all coming from impoverished neighborhoods, have said they decided to overstay their visas because it was easier to find good income in South Korea.

Vietnamese workers in South Korea receive a minimum wage of more than $1,000 a month and work 40 hours a week, according to official reports. Back home, by comparison, workers would receive a minimum wage of between $120-175 and often have to work extra hours.
Colombo is the most suitable to be South Asias commercial hub, Chief Marketing Officer of the Colombo Port City project which is being executed by the China Harbor Engineering Company (CHEC) has said.

According to Indian Express, Chief Marketing Officer Liang Thow Ming has told that Colombo is not only South Asias cleanest and the most livable city, it is also the capital of a country which has no quarrels with any of the nations in South Asia.

That makes Colombo an ideal place to create and run a regional commercial hub, he added.

People from all parts of South Asia can come to Sri Lanka and do business here without issues relating to their nationality, Liang pointed out, in a veiled reference to problems between India and Pakistan which hinder free movement of goods, services and people between the two countries.

In fact, from the general acceptability point of view, Colombo could be the Singapore of South Asia, Liang added.

A Singapore national of Chinese origin, Liang said that the Colombo Port city (now renamed Colombo Financial City) will be an international commercial and financial hub with its own legal system based on the British model and labor laws attuned to the needs of modern businesses. It will have investments from all parts of the world and not necessarily from China.

However, the Financial City will be primarily serving the Indian market which is the single largest in the total South Asian market of 1.7 billion people, Liang said.

Indians who want to park funds abroad could do it in the Colombo Financial City, rather than in Dubai or Mauritius, as Colombo is the nearest and also culturally compatible, he noted.

Asked about Indias opposition to the project on security grounds, especially after the visit of Chinese submarines in 2014, Liang said that India has since dropped its opposition because Indian businessmen and government officials have realized that the Port City is nothing but a commercial venture in which Indians are welcome to invest.

He said he has met Indian entrepreneurs and even addressed the association of top Indian real estate developers at their conference held in Shanghai. The delegates expressed an interest in knowing more about the project. Liang also met the former Indian Deputy External Affairs Minister Shashi Tharoor, an ardent advocate of India-China cooperation.

According to Liang, it would cost a company about US$ 200 million to invest in land, buildings and business in the Colombo Port City. There are about 1000 top Indian developers out of which 100 to 200 may be able to raise US$ 200 million, he estimated.

However, the question is whether it will be worthwhile for them to shift to Colombo from India or Dubai to Colombo, Liang said. According to the Chinese Ambassador in Sri Lanka, Yi Xianliang, four or five top Indian companies have expressed an interest in investing in the port city, but he would not name them.

Following the Presidential election in January 2015, in which president Mahinda Rajapaksa, who initiated the Port City project, was defeated, the new government stalled work on it for a few months to investigate some charges and also to negotiate the terms.

But after the modification of the terms, work is going full steam ahead, Liang said.
The Colombo Commercial High Court today issued notice of an enjoining order on the Sinhala tuition master Upul Shantha Sannasgala in connection with an alleged violation of the Intellectual Property Act.

Judge Shiran Gunaratne issued notice after considering the submissions made by the petitioners Counsel and based on the document annexed to the petition filed by Prof. Sucharitha Gamlath's widow.

The petitioner said Mr. Sannasgala had illegally printed sold 12 books authored by the late Professor without the written consent of those who inherited the Professor's estate.

The publisher, Sanhinda Publishers of Delkanda was also issued notice by the Court. The respondents were directed to appear in court on April 7 to answer allegations made against them by the petitioner. (T. Farook Thajudeen)
Ever wanted to go to Portugal? Come over to The Factory Outlet in Havelock and witness a glimpse of the Portugal culture.

The Factory Outlet takes you to the municipality city of Agueda in Portugal, where hundreds of colourful umbrellas can be witnessed floating above. They float above giving the people walking below the much-needed shade from the hot climate we are experiencing.

The Factory Outlet would like to invite everyone over to its outlet and make you feel like a kid skipping through the streets of Agueda in Portugal. The Factory Outlet always believed in bringing colour to the people in Sri Lanka and today it takes a step forward by decorating part of Colombo with a splash of colours.

Come shop with The Factory Outlet under the shade of colours this festive season as we celebrate the Colours of Avurudu. Head over to The Factory Outlet for a variety of exclusive fashion for men, women and kids  something for everyone. Its showrooms are located in Havelock Road, Mt. Lavinia, Pelawatta and Ja-Ela Kzone.
Almost 5,000 Ford cars are being recalled after seven vehicles erupted into flames across Australia.

Owners of a 4450 Ford Kuga SUV or a 400 Fiesta ST hatchback are being urged to hand their vehicles over to a dealership to be repaired after issues with their shared turbo engine.



There have been reports of fires in seven Ford Kuga vehicles since December 2015, according to Perth Now. The cars have ignited after localised overheating of the engine cylinder head, due to a lack of coolant circulation, according to a statement from Ford Motor Company of Australia Limited.

The overheating causes the cylinder head to crack, causing an oil leak.

Ford is asking owners of the Kuga to bring their cars to their nearest dealership between April and June for initial recall work.



The work will be completed during a necessary second visit between October and December. A time period for repairs to the Fiesta hatchback has yet to be set.



Parts are not immediately available to carry out repairs on affected vehicles. Ford is working with suppliers to obtain parts as soon as possible. Ford will write to owners of all affected vehicles as soon as parts are available, Ford said in the statement.



Owners can still drive the vehicles in the meantime but need to maintain the proper engine coolant and be aware of any smoke or overheating.
By Chandeepa Wettasinghe

The government is hoping to build a national consensus for the role of public-private partnerships (PPPs) in revamping state-owned enterprises (SOEs), Public Enterprise Development Minister Kabir Hashim said this week.

We need to build a national consensus for PPPs. Privatization is a dirty word. Not privatization, but PPP is the answer. Politicians dont understand these concepts, he said during a Breakfast Meeting on Public Private Partnerships organized by the Sri Lanka-Malaysia Business Council of the Ceylon Chamber of Commerce.

He noted that the government will start off by listing 10 SOEs on the Colombo Stock Exchange, which would double the bourses market capitalization.

Through this, our country can benefit from increase foreign investments, he said.

The governments policy so far communicated is a plan to divest around 49 percent of the shares in the SOEs, and delegate operational control to

private parties.

The public listing of SOEs is expected to generate US$ 1 billion which would then be utilized to settle the governments debt burden, which is over 75 percent of the countrys US$ 86 billion GDP. In addition SOEs have also undertaken debt equal to 10 percent of GDP, outside the government books.

According to Hashim, SOEs required Rs.215 billion in Treasury bailouts between 2012-2014, and have crowded out the private sector by absorbing most of the credit in the financial system.

People think were selling out state assets. But we have to take a hard decision due to the debt. So people need to understand beyond political lines. State-owned enterprises need restructuring. The state has no capacity to contribute working capital to turn them around, so we need partnerships, Hashim said.

He noted that through PPPs, New Zealand and Malaysia were able to reorganize their entire economies during their economic crises in 1986 and 2004, respectively.

However, he said that the government will not seek PPPs for some SOEs that provide strategic goods and services such as banking, insurance and transportation.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has been pushing Sri Lanka to restructure its SOEs due to the burden they place on the countrys economy.

Hashim said that a Public Enterprise Development Board is similar to Malaysias Khazana and Singapores Temasek will be set up soon once the enabling legislation, which is currently at the Legal Draftsman, becomes ready, and that professionals will be appointed to SOEs to make them profitable.

According to Finance Minister Ravi Karunanayake, there are 403 SOEs, of which less than 50 are making losses now, compared to over 200 loss making SOEs at the start of 2015.

Meanwhile, Hashim said that some SOEs are managed exceptionally.

(But) state-owned enterprises are the largest contributor to the Sri Lankan economy. If you take the top 10 state-owned enterprises in Sri Lanka in 2015, they generated half the revenue of the 245 listed companies in Sri Lanka. Total revenue of the listed companies in Sri Lanka was Rs. 2.2 trillion, he said.
Sri Lankas premier trade chamber, Chamber of Commerce, yesterday welcomed the decision by the Finance Ministry to postpone the abolition of Simplified Value Added Tax (SVAT) system that was due to come into effect

on April 1.

The chamber thanked Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe for intervening in the matter and actively engaging with the business community.

The chamber together with other private sector stakeholders made strong submissions to the government to maintain the current SVAT system until a robust VAT refund mechanism is put in place.

Previously, the SVAT system was to be abolished on January 1, 2017 as announced in budget 2017, but was subsequently postponed to April 1, 2017 following the meetings the private sector had with Prime Minster Wickremesinghe in early January.
Though China is deeply rooted in Hambantota port, Sri Lanka has three other major ports in Colombo, Trincomalee and Kankesanthurai where India could collaborate for development, Ports and Shipping Minister Arjuna Ranatunga has said.

According to Z News, Minister Ranatunga has said the government was looking at an Asian subcontinent investor to partner with the Sri Lanka Ports Authority (SLPA) to invest and take over the East Container Terminal (of Colombo port) in private-public partnership mode.

"India has shown interest in the East Terminal and Colombo port. Seventy-five per cent of the trans-shipment goes to India. India is looking at getting a stake in Colombo port. There are a couple of private companies that came and spoke, and we will look at them in a positive manner," he has told IANS on the sidelines of an international event held in Dakhla.

According to reports, the state-run Container Corporation of India (Concor) has formed a consortium with APM Terminals B V, John Keells Holdings and Maersk Line to bid for the development of East Container Terminal in Colombo. The total project value is likely to be about $550-600 million.

The South Terminal of the Colombo port is already owned and operated by state-run China Merchant Holdings (International).

Colombo Port is the busiest in Sri Lanka and ranks among the top 35 ports in the world.

Minister Ranatunga said that India is also "very keen" on Trincomalee Port. He said a Singaporean company, Subarna Jurong, is doing a feasibility report on developing the Trincomalee port city, while the Asian Development Bank is covering the port development project.

"India has shown big interest in Trincomalee, as there are petroleum tanks there, and the Indian Oil Corporation has been there for many years," he said.

Lanka IOC, a unit of the Indian Oil Corporation, maintains several oil tanks at the Trincomalee tank farm.

Ranatunga said the feasibility report would be submitted in three months, and the government would take a call after that.

"We shall be calling for tenders. The government will decide," he said, on the sidelines of the Crans Montana Forum on Africa and South-South Cooperation in Dakhla where he also presented a paper.

Asked if China would bid for Trincomalee, he said: "I think China is very much settled in Hambantota. China Merchant Group has a container terminal in Colombo and they are quite comfortable with Hambantota."

He said Sri Lanka is also looking to develop the Kankesanthurai port in the north. "It is quite close to India. It is not a container port, it will be more for transportation, for cement and people."
By Cyn-Young Park

Asias integration has been reshaping the global economic landscape. The emerging economies in the East and Southeast Asia (grouped together as emerging East Asia) now account for about 25 percent of total global trade and 21 percent of global gross domestic product (GDP), compared with about 10 percent and 5.8 percent, respectively, in 1985. Is this formidable growth of integrated Asia now independent of growth rates in major developed economies?

The idea that emerging East Asia is economically independent of shocks in major industrial countries is sometimes called the decoupling hypothesis. Its based on the observation that the regions sustained high growth in the early 2000s was seemingly unaffected by the ups and downs of major advanced economies. Emerging East Asias economic performance has been solid despite visible slowing in most advanced economies since the global financial crisis (GFC). This performance has been underpinned by dynamic growth in China.

Emerging East Asia has achieved rapid economic expansion underpinned by strong export performance over the past few decades. The regions high reliance on exports has been accompanied by a significant diversification of its export base: the G3 economies (the European Union (EU), Japan and the United States) collectively accounted for 29 percent of emerging East Asias total exports in 2015, down from almost 50 percent in 1990. This greater diversification in the destination of Asian exports suggests that an idiosyncratic demand shock from a single market may be mitigated by stronger growth in others. At the same time, the share of intraregional trade in emerging East Asian economies total exports has risen dramatically. China, in particular, now accounts for around 30 percent of intraregional exports. Strong growth in intraregional trade  including with China  could constitute evidence for emerging East Asias greater resilience to cyclical fluctuations in the major extra-regional trading partners.

But the changing demand conditions in the worlds major economies  particularly the United States  still seem to represent a dominant driver behind East Asias export growth. Underlying this strong linkage between emerging East Asias growth and old industrial country growth is the nature of intra-Asian trade: the final output is often destined for markets outside the region. The growth of intraregional trade share in total emerging East Asian exports does not automatically imply its independence from an external demand shock. Emerging Asian exports remain highly sensitive to economic shocks from outside

the region.

As the regions main production base, China has been at the centre of this growing intra-industry and intraregional trade. China has recently emerged as a major importer of primary commodities, while processed intermediate and capital goods, rather than consumer goods, are leading its exports. Research has suggested that China has increasingly internalised the manufacturing input supply in the global value chain. It also exports a large and growing share of capital goods, suggesting that Chinese manufacturing production has become more sophisticated and higher value-added.

Strong trade and foreign direct investment (FDI) linkages can be channels for transmitting economic shocks. As China has emerged as an important hub for intra-industry and intraregional trade and investment in Asia, it is likely that economic interdependence between China and the rest of Asia has also increased.

Effects of international finance

on decoupling

What are the effects of international finance on decoupling? In theory, financial integration offers many benefits, such as risk-sharing, more efficient allocation of capital for investment and enhanced macroeconomic and financial discipline. In practice tighter financial linkages also generate a higher risk of cross-border financial contagion, as illustrated by the episodes of the financial crisis in 199798 and

200708.

With greater capital account openness, international portfolio assets and liabilities held by Asian economies have increased. The United States and EU also comprise the major share of emerging East Asias financial liabilities, which makes the region vulnerable to changes in their financial conditions. For example, during the global financial crisis, tightening credit conditions in the United States and EU prompted repatriation of their investment funds in emerging East Asia. The relationship between emerging East Asian and G3 equity returns strengthened after the Asian financial crisis of 199798 and has continued since then, weakening slightly during the GFC.

These deepening trade and financial linkages will likely influence the degree of macroeconomic interdependence. The recent trends in Asias global and regional trade and financial linkages suggest a stronger impact of both global and regional components in driving its business cycle.

Business cycles in emerging East Asia and the G3 became more closely correlated during times of financial crisis, with the largest spikes occurring around the Asian financial crisis between China and the rest of EEA. Outside periods of crisis, these relationships have been much weaker.

Business cycle synchronicity might increase during crisis periods because the economies are more exposed to common shocks. But shocks that originate in one economy could also transmit to others. Our findings also support the growing importance of a regional component  especially of China  in business cycle synchronicity.

Intraregional trade and financial linkages are indeed strengthening, and Chinas moving up in the global value chain may lead to a more independent source of global growth. The progress of regional trade, financial integration and regional institution building  especially in Asia  could also facilitate business cycle synchronisation more at the regional than global level. But Asia does not yet appear to be decoupling from the world economy yet. The expansion of Asias trade and investment links is still driven by the regions global demand-linked production network. Emerging East Asia has become more, not less, integrated with the global economy and as a result the impact of a global shock, whether related to trade or financial markets, has become greater. (Courtesy East Asia Forum)

(Cyn-Young Park is Director of Regional Cooperation and Integration at the Economic Research and Regional Cooperation Department, Asian Development Bank)
Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe displays the first bank card issued under his name in less than15 minutes through the kiosk powered by Indias Manipal Technologies and Lake House Printers. Lake House Printers AGM Tony Johnpillai (left) and MTL Vice President & Business Head-Banking, Rajesh Shet are also in the picture

Pic by Nisal Baduge

Indias Manipal Technologies Limited (MTL) in association with Sri Lankas Lake House Printers and Publishers PLC (LHPP) yesterday launched a cutting-edge digital banking solution to cater to the growing needs of the Lankan banks and their customers.

The event was graced by Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, Indian High Commissioner in Colombo Taranjit Singh Sandhu, Central Bank Governor Indrajit Coomaraswamy and leading bankers of the country.

During the launch it was shared that the digital bank branches provide banks and financial institutions an easy front-end solution to convert their traditional banking system into cashless, technology-driven systems.

It appeals to the next-generation banking customers as well as reduces the overall cost of operations for the bank.

The solution will help customers to open an account, complete validation and account activation process as well obtain a personalized debit card instantly.

The facility has the capability to issue replacement cards in case of lost or damaged cards. The banks can extend the capabilities to offer loan account processing as well as credit card issuance. The customer can also obtain a digital card (virtual card) for use at online and retail outlets.

ManipalPay is a leading edge virtual card solution for card-less payments. The customer will be able to generate a unique virtual card number for every transaction. The card number is automatically void after every transaction, thus eliminating any risk of card data being compromised.

The solution also allows making payment without a POS machine through digital technology at the retail outlets. The solution uses leading technology provided by Miri Inc.

The solution along with the related technologies was demonstrated by MTL Vice President & Business Head-Banking, Rajesh Shet, to the banking community during the launch event held at the Cinnamon Grand Hotel in Colombo. MTL Vice President-Sales & Marketing, Nagendra Rao was also present during the occasion.

Speaking on the occasion, MTL CEO Abhay Gupte stated: Our innovative solutions using state-of-the-art technologies are driving changes in the banking industry in India for the last 75 years. With the launch of the digital bank branches, the growing banking and financial service sector now can deploy world-class solutions and provide digital experience to the customers.

With recent success in implementing the end-to-end digital bank branch solution at 250 branches across 37 cities for the leading banks in India, the solution is now being explored by major banks in Sri Lanka. With the changing scenario in the countrys economy and digital banking expectations of the customer, we feel that banks in Sri Lanka will also move in this direction. These solutions are mutually beneficial to banks as well as to their customers, he added.

LHPP Chairman Ranjith S. Wijewardene said that MTL and LHPP have been associated for over a decade in providing solutions to banks in Sri Lanka.

Together, we serve more than 12 major banks in Sri Lanka with 40 percent market share in the issuance of banking cards. With the launch of digital bank branch solution, we are taking our association to the next level of digital offerings to our valued customers in Sri Lanka.

The recent trends show that consumers of financial services are turning to computers, smartphones, and tablets more for their business interactions with banks.

With wider availability of high-speed telecom networks across large geographies, the technology adoption is much faster across various customer segments. The younger generation is expecting digital interactions, complex banking products and ease of doing business through multiple channels in the banking industry.
Former JVP stalwart K.D. Lalkantha said yesterday that President Maithripala Sirisena formed a government with a cabinet with a thieving lot and acceded his presidential supremacy to Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe.

Mr. Lalkantha said though President Sirisena assumed office as the President, he was merely acting as a normal citizen having relinquished his powers to Mr. Wickremesinghe.

The President was appointed by the peoples votes and should help on their issues. Without doing so he is watching till the PM interferes and resolves the matters. To stay on the Presidency he should focus on the public matters and work towards finding solutions for them, he said.

Mr. Lalkantha expressed these views while addressing a media briefing organized by the National Trade Union Centre (NTUC) and vowing stern trade union action against the government, forcing to resolve the controversial South Asian Institute of Technology and Medicine (SAITM) issue.

He said by pulling the SAITM issue now the situation has worsen and the deadline they have given to the government to find a better solution is expiring on April 3 and with the partnership of private and public unions they would seek stern trade union action against the matter.

He also said that without the doctors all the other medical services employees has commenced their support over the trade union action. However, he requested the support of the patients who is in the hospitals when their trade union action is on.

We would kneel down the government to shut down SAITM. We kindly request patients who are in the hospitals to support our strike and not to deny our struggle as it is for safe guard the countrys health service and to save the patients health, he said.

Further, Mr. Lalkantha said former President Mahinda Rajapaksa has raised his voice against the SAITM with the intention of taking political advantage out of it. He said that his interference on the matter is because he doesnt have the power and might do the same thing President Sirisena doing now if the supreme power was in his hand. (Thilanka Kanakarathna)
Forty three Vietnamese were reportedly arrested for illegal fishing in Solomon Islands waters.

Vietnams foreign ministry is verifying reports which said 43 Vietnamese have been arrested for illegal fishing in the Solomon Islands, vowing to give its citizens due protection, Vietnam News Agency reported.

The Vietnam embassy in Australia, also in charge of affairs in the island nation, is working with the local authorities for clarifications, the ministry's spokesman Le Hai Binh told reporters at a press briefing on Thursday in Hanoi.

Several media reports said three Vietnamese boats were caught fishing illegally off a reef system about 50 kilometers (27 nautical miles) south of Rennell Island on Sunday.

Solomon Star daily cited a police statement as saying the police received tip-offs from locals and cooperated with fisheries officers to capture the three boats late Sunday evening. It said sea cucumber was found together with fish in the freezers aboard.

Another boat managed to get away due to poor visibility and distance, the newspaper said.

Early this month 50 Vietnamese were fined $6,300-47,000 each for illegally harvesting sea cucumber in Papua New Guinea. They will be put in jail for four years with hard labor if failing to pay the money.
UPFA MP Namal Rajapaksa reported to the PRECIFAC this morning to record a statement regarding the alleged misappropriation of state funds belonging to the Sri Lanka Youth Services Council.

A PRECIFAC spokesman said the special police division attached to the Commission recorded Mr. Rajapaksas statement on a complaint it had received.

Video by RM
A South Korean court on Friday approved a warrant to arrest ousted president Park Geun-hye, the country's first democratically elected leader to be thrown out of office, on accusations of bribery and abuse of power.

Park can be held in a cell for up to 20 days while she is investigated over allegations that she colluded with a friend, Choi Soon-sil, to pressure big businesses to contribute to now-defunct foundations set up to back her policy initiatives.

A judge at the Seoul Central District Court said in a statement that "the cause and the need for the warrant are recognized as the main charges against her have been verified and as evidence could be destroyed."

About two hours after the ruling, Park was driven to the Seoul Detention Center located just outside of the city in a black sedan, with two female investigators escorting her, televised news showed.

Her supporters shouted her name and waved South Korean flags as she arrived at the detention center just before 5 a.m. local time, behind a cordon formed by the police to prevent the crowd from following her in and mixing with any Park opponents, who were also at the scene.

Park gave about eight hours of testimony at the same court on Thursday and was held at the prosecutors' office next door while the judge studied the evidence and arguments to decide on whether to issue the arrest warrant.

On Thursday, Park, 65, arrived expressionless at the court to plead her case that she should not be arrested or held while prosecutors investigate the scandal.

Park argues that she does not pose a flight risk and will not try to tamper with evidence.

She and Choi have both denied any wrongdoing.

Park's removal from office capped months of paralysis and turmoil over the corruption scandal that also landed the head of the Samsung conglomerate in detention and on trial.

Her impeachment this month has left a political vacuum, with only an interim president pending a May 9 election, at a time of rising tensions with North Korea over its weapons program and with China, which is angry over South Korea's decision to host a U.S. anti-missile system.

Prosecutors said on Monday that Park was accused of soliciting companies for money and infringing upon the freedom of corporate management by using her power as the president. Park was questioned for 14 hours by prosecutors last week.

She could face more than 10 years in jail if convicted of receiving bribes from bosses of big conglomerates, including Samsung Group chief Jay Y. Lee, in return for favors.

Lee, who denies charges that he provided bribes in return for favors for Samsung, and Choi are both in detention and on trial separately.

Lee's trial, for which so far only preliminary hearings have been held, will begin on April 7 when he is expected to appear, court records showed.

Park may be given a bigger cell than other inmates in a Seoul detention facility, but she would be subject to the same rules on everything from meals to room inspections, former prosecution and correctional officials have said.

She was removed from office when a constitutional court upheld her impeachment by parliament. The ruling sparked protests by hundreds of her supporters, two of whom were killed in clashes with police outside the court, and a festive rally by those who had demanded she be removed from office.(Reuters)
Labour and Trade Union Relations Minister W.D.J. Seneviratne yesterday said he would be pleased if he was given some other ministerial portfolio instead of labour, as he could perform better.

He said he had already made a request to President Maithripala Sirisena for a change in the ministerial portfolio.

I served as the Labour Minister for four long years, and was later given the same portfolio. Today, some of my ministerial subjects have been removed. Therefore, I would like to have a different portfolio to serve the country better, the minister told journalists following a workshop held in Wellawatte recently.

He said he had served as the minister of Health, Power and Energy, Justice and Public Administration in the past, and that he would be happy if he was given a ministry with such prominence.

Commenting on the alleged Cabinet reshuffle, the minister said he was aware of the news but no discussion had been made in the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) or in the Cabinet on this matter so far.

However, Minister Seneviratne admitted that there were setbacks in the government as there were people's issues that needed to be addressed immediately. (Lahiru Pothmulla and Indika Sri Aravinda)

Video by Indika Sri Aravinda
Rear Admiral Sarath Weerasekara MP, today rejected reports that he requested the UN General Assembly to assign a special rapporteur to probe war crime charges allegedly committed by the Sri Lankan armed forces.

He said he only requested for a special rapporteur to investigate the basis on which the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Zeid al-Hussein compiled his report on Sri Lanka.

We want a rapporteur to probe Prince Zeid report and then ours. The reports we submitted have clearly mentioned that we have never committed war crimes. Therefore, its only reasonable that the UN report be probed and the resolution on Sri Lanka be suspended till the probe is completed, he told a news conference.

Mr. Weerasekara said they were against any form of hybrid courts to convict Sri Lankan forces, and that the proposed Office of Missing Persons (OMP) would be vested with powers to punish armed forces personnel.

He said the British Prime Minister has vowed to protect British troops from any legal abuse never allowing them to be victims of war crimes, but unfortunately, Sri Lanka lacks leaders of that calibre.

When British PM, Obama or Trump make a decision, it becomes the stance of the government. None of their foreign ministers contradict the government stance and express different opinions in Geneva or elsewhere.

However, in Sri Lanka, though the President and Prime Minister say there will be no participation of foreign judges in the local mechanism, the Foreign Minister contradicts this stance in Geneva, Mr. Weerasekera said.

He said several foreign ministers talked to him following the submission of the two reports to the UNHRC last week. They said they are not agreeing to anything at this level. However, they also said they now know that there is another side to the story, he said.

Mr. Weerasekara said they would increase their participation at the next UNHRC sessions in September and March to make the international community aware of the original version of the story. (Lahiru Pothmulla)

Video by Susantha
On invitation from the French Agency for Development (AFD), an official delegation headed by M.I.M. Rafeek, Secretary to the Ministry of National Policies and Economic Affairs will visit the Reunion Island from 1st to 7th of April.

The delegation is comprised of key public officers, Rathnayake, Director General of Department of External Resources, Mudalige, Director General of the Department of National Planning and representatives from Ministry of Megapolis and Western Development, National Water Supply and Drainage Board and Ceylon Electricity Board.

Sri Lanka although 25 times larger than the Reunion Island, shares with its Indian Ocean sister-island similar opportunities and constraints, linked to its island character, geomorphology (central mountainous area), tropical climate and climatic zones (distinctive dry and wet zones).

Martin Parent, AFD Country Director, commenting on the proposed visit said that AFD, a partner to Sri Lanka in key sectors such as drinking water and sanitation, energy, urban development and irrigation, organizes this trip for a delegation of officials to have peer to peer discussions on the solutions developed by Reunion Island which faces similar opportunities and constraints: how to increase the share of renewable energies in an isolated power grid, how to invest sustainably in collective waste water treatment schemes, how to plan sustainable urban development in coastal tourist areas.

This visit will be an opportunity to be in contact with the highest Authorities of the Reunion Island, with a view to fostering cooperation between Sri Lanka and the Reunion Island. Discussions are also planned with the business community of Reunion Island in order to present them key infrastructure development projects to be implemented in Sri Lanka under Private and Public Partnership (PPP) basis.
Sunshine Holdings PLC is celebrating its 50th anniversary.

The group had its humble origins as a retail pharmacy in Gampola town in 1967. Today, Sunshine Holdings has become a leading conglomerate Sri Lanka by diversifying its roots of expertise into agribusiness, healthcare and consumer sectors.

Since its beginnings, Sunshine Holdings has weathered many storms by seizing opportunities to evolve, reinventing their strategies, building superior brands and actively driving innovation across the entire spectrum of its operations.

The organization has also gained invaluable recognition among its peers for fostering responsible entrepreneurship and strong family values that has paved the way for Sunshine Holdings to become a true people-centric conglomerate.

Expressing his views on this remarkable milestone, Vish Govindasamy, Group Managing Director of Sunshine Holdings PLC said, Since the formation of this company in 1967, we have been fueled by an entrepreneurial spirit and it is this very sprit that has empowered Sunshine Holdings to push the envelope and enter into groundbreaking strategic partnerships with local and global companies in order to further develop our growing presence in key business areas and deliver superior products and services to our consumers.

In that regard, we wish to sincerely thank our customers from every corner of Sri Lanka and our partners for the trust they have placed in Sunshine Holdings and our employees and business franchises, that have allowed enabled Sunshine to play a truly vibrant role in the Sri Lankan economy.

Sunshine Holdings PLC began its entrepreneurial journey in 1967 through the establishment of its presence in the Sri Lankan healthcare segment, with the opening of Lanka Medicals  a retail pharmacy in Gampola. In 1977, the company opened its second store in Kandy, the countrys first ever supermarket style store where people could shop for pharmaceuticals, home appliances, food products and imported cosmetics under one roof, an unprecedented development in the domestic retail market.

Alongside the retail business, the company established an island-wide pharmaceuticals distribution business, which enabled them to acquire a thorough understanding of the local healthcare market and build partnerships with leading international healthcare companies. Today, Sunshine Healthcare retains a substantial 20 percent share of the private healthcare market, supplying over a thousand pharmaceuticals, nutraceuticals, medical diagnostic equipment and surgical products to over two thousand pharmacies, clinics and hospitals across Sri Lanka.

The Healthguard pharmacy chain was set up by Sunshine Healthcare with the aim of offering a range of pharmaceuticals, wellness and beauty products in a modern retail environment, and has established a benchmark for healthcare retailing in the country. The leading pharma retail brand in the country now has 24 pharmacies across the Greater Colombo area.

In Agribusiness, Sunshine Holdings manages more than 12,000 hectares and employs close to 15,000 people through its subsidiary, Watawala Plantations PLC (WATA), Sri Lankas number one plantations company. WATA is a diversified company managing 15 tea estates and 4 palm oil estates located in Central and Southern provinces, with 14 tea factories and the largest oil palm mill. WATA has consistently been the highest market capitalized regional plantation company and has won many accolades for sound agricultural practices and financial management standards.

The groups Consumer business, Watawala Tea Ceylon Ltd has become the largest branded tea company in Sri Lanka with the highest market share in the tea category of 35% with three brands: Zesta, Watawala Tea and Ran Kahata catering to three distinct market segments. Having built a strong foundation locally, the company has embarked on an expansion program to capture selected international markets by launching Zesta Connoisseur, an extension of Zesta to cater to premium international customers. The company is the exclusive tea supplier to Shangri-La chain of hotels, servicing 100 luxury hotels spread across 22 countries. Recently, Watawala Tea was recognized as the most popular hot beverage brand of the year at the SLIM-Nielsen peoples Awards 2017.

Over the last five decades, Sunshine Holdings have entered into strategic partnerships that have helped the group to expand its presence locally and globally. Most notably, the partnerships with Tata Global Beverages  the worlds second largest tea company and Wilmar International, the worlds largest oil palm and edible

oil company.
Coinciding with celebrations for the 150th anniversary of Ceylon Tea, the Watawala Family of companies stepped forward as Gold Sponsor to the Colombo International Tea Convention 2017.

Organized by the Colombo Tea Traders Association (CTTA), the Sri Lankan tea industrys apex body, the Colombo International Tea Convention will take place at the Cinnamon Grand hotel on 7th and 8th August.

Senior representatives of the Watawala Family were in attendance to witness the landmark sponsorship as Watawala Plantation PLC CEO Binesh Pananwala and Watawala Tea Ceylon Ltd. CEO, Surith Perera jointly presented sponsorship cheque to Chairman of the conventions organizing committee, Michael J. de Zoysa.

As Sri Lankas single largest tea producer, it is our distinct pleasure to support the Colombo Tea Traders Association in their efforts to host Colombo International Tea Convention 2017. Given that this is a milestone year for our industry, which is celebrating its 150th anniversary of cultivation, we believe that this years convention will be an ideal opportunity to bring together the best local and international minds together on a single platform and deliberate on the many challenges and opportunities facing tea producers, and exporters alike, Pananwala stated.

First hosted in 2012, the Colombo International Tea Convention is anticipated to draw participation from over 300 international delegates from both tea producing and consuming nations, over and above the substantial participation from domestic tea industry stakeholders.

Watawala Tea Ceylon Ltd. is the largest branded tea company in Sri Lanka. It has the highest market share in the tea category with three brands: Zesta, Watawala Tea and Ran Kahata catering to three distinct market segments.

Watawala Plantations has been Sri Lankas largest producer of palm oil for several consecutive years. A significantly diversified plantation company, Watawala has interests in palm oil, tea, rubber and cinnamon. Watawala Plantations PLC is a subsidiary of Estate Management Services Ltd, a joint venture between Sri Lankas Sunshine Holdings, TATA Global Beverages Ltd. and Pyramid Wilmar.
One of the 15 stores that has been shut down by Quang Ninh provincial authorities for being only open to Chinese customers and discriminate against Vietnamese locals and tourists. Photo by VnExpress/Minh Cuong

These stores are only open to Chinese customers and discriminate against Vietnamese locals and tourists.

The popular resort town of Ha Long in the northern province of Quang Ninh has ordered 15 stores dedicated to scamming Chinese customers to close following a public backlash that prompted Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc to step in.

Power and water suppliers have also been told to cut services to these stores.

The town, home to the world-renowned Ha Long Bay, said the stores have failed to follow regulations at the Mong Cai Border Gate, the main entrance from China into the province.

The number of Chinese tourists arriving in Quang Ninh has unexpectedly soared since the Lunar New Year, and local authorities are worried that the increase is largely due to the return of Chinese-sponsored "$0 tours", which are actually rip-off trips in disguise.

Once they arrive in Quang Ninh, the duration of their sightseeing tours is cut and tourists are led into a number of stores selling commodities listed at rip-off prices.

Commission is paid to the tour companies for bringing visitors to the shops, which reportedly are only open to Chinese customers and discriminate against Vietnamese locals and tourists, according to local residents in Quang Ninh.

Following media reports, Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc on Wednesday ordered Quang Ninh authorities to launch investigations into those unscrupulous stores and take action against them.

Last year, a store suspected of serving only Chinese customers in Quang Ninh was fined VND500 million ($22,000) for listing prices of goods in Chinese yuan and U.S. dollars.

The northern province welcomed 3.77 million visitors in the first quarter of 2017, up 12 percent over the same period last year. Of the figure, 1.23 million were foreign arrivals, up 4 percent.
In a significant though controversial policy intervention, Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti recently came out in support of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), saying its time to move beyond border skirmishes to be partners in economic growth.

She said that J&K could become a corridor of economic activity in the region and the country could take huge benefit of the economic activities going on across the Line of Control. Why cant we be partners in economic growth and share the benefits of projects like the CPEC?

Gateway

In the past too, Mufti had commented on this. She has suggested the need for building a corridor between South Asia and Central Asia with Jammu and Kashmir as its nucleus, on the lines of the CPEC, underlining that such a corridor between the two emerging economic hotspots would help forge a new regional cooperation, energy transformation, trade and transit.

Not to be left behind, even the separatist Chairman of Hurriyat Conference, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, has been advising India to not stay out of it. He said that there is also an opportunity for India to assess the economic advantages it can have by being part of it. Kashmir can in fact become a gateway for India to be part of the CPEC, provided there is a settlement of the dispute first. Stronger the CPEC becomes, more the need to resolve disputes in the region.

CPEC violates Indian sovereignty, running as it does as through Pakistan-occupied Kashmir.

There has been a chorus of voices in recent months who have argued that Indias official position on CPEC is untenable and will end up isolating India from the China-led connectivity transformation across the globe.

Indias official position has been effectively articulated by foreign secretary S Jaishankar at the 2017 Raisina Dialogue when he said, "China is very sensitive about its sovereignty. The economic corridor passes through an illegal territory, an area that we call Pak-occupied Kashmir. You can imagine India's reaction at the fact that such a project has been initiated without consulting us," said Jaishankar, adding that India had not seen signs of China's understanding India's concerns about its sovereignty.

India is not planning to be a part of the Silk Road summit in May in China as CPEC violates Indian sovereignty, running as it does as through Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK).

Policy

The advantages of joining Chinas multi-billion dollar One Belt One Road (OBOR) initiative are quite apparent and the economic logic is very compelling. But it remains far from evident how India can join the project without challenging the very foundations of its foreign policy.

Chinas objective in promoting the $46 billion CPEC, which links Chinas Muslim-dominated Xinjiang province to the Gwadar deep sea port in Pakistan, is clear and the rationale behind Beijings desire to pump in huge sums into a highly volatile Pakistani territory is also understandable.

Beijing is not doing this from the wellness of its heart to promote regional economic cooperation. The challenges to the project are huge as underscored by its militarisation. Even as Pakistan has deployed more than 15,000 troops to protect the CPEC, and is raising a naval contingent for the protection of Gwadar, China will also be stationing part of its growing marine forces at Gwadar.

The first project as part of the CPEC will be the coal-fired power project in Hub region of Balochistan which will be built at a cost of $2 billion. Chinese state media has been urging India to be pragmatic about the CPEC and join the initiative. It has gone ahead and equated the status of the disputed region of PoK with Taiwan as a sovereignty issue and suggested that India join CPEC to gain economic benefits.

Pakistan for its part has accused India of trying to sabotage the CPEC.

Consequences

India cannot be as ambitious as China is today in carving a global web of economic and trade relations through connectivity projects. And so it will have to think more creatively if there are certain aspects of the OBOR initiative that it can join without jeopardising its sovereignty claims.

Its a tall order but India has its own set of connectivity initiatives such as Myanmars Kaladan project, Chabahar port project with Iran, as well as the north south corridor with Russia which can be potentially leveraged.

However, Indias approach cannot be based primarily on the economic advantages that might accrue to India in the short term. The long term consequences of the OBOR project for India can be quite significant if it ends up allowing China to consolidate its presence in the Indian Ocean at the expense of India.

A careful reassessment is needed. A hurried appraisal to either support the Chinese initiative or junk it altogether is best avoided at this juncture.
All eyes in Beijing and Washington are on the upcoming first summit between US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping. The meeting, scheduled for April 6 and 7 in Trumps Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, is being seen as make-or-break for what is considered the worlds most important relationship.

For Trump, both as candidate and as president-elect, China was a punching bag, and central to his America First message to his constituents, framed by him as the victims of the globalisation model that propelled Chinas rise. Ending this one-sided relationship, he said, would be a priority, whether this meant labelling China a currency manipulator or imposing a 45 per cent import tariff.

For China, the initial uncertainty about Trump has given way to some calm after Secretary of State Rex Tillersons March visit. But, Beijing is aware the stakes are high. As an insider put it, the last thing Beijing wants to see is Xi being insulted.

As an insider put it, the last thing Beijing wants to see is Xi being insulted.

If we see what happened to (German Chancellor) Angela Merkel at the White House when she asked Trump to shake his hand and he didnt respond, there will be outrage in China, he said.

More than optics, for China, protecting its trade and economic interests in the US is key, which it may attempt to do by offering the prospect of huge investments and job creation, as Alibabas Jack Ma, for one, has already assured Trump. This isnt likely to be easy.

I would be careful about jumping to the conclusion that Xi can buy his way out of the problem, cautioned Ashley Tellis, leading US strategic thinker, a former state department official and senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, while speaking in Beijing on Wednesday.

There are too many constituencies in the US affected by Chinas trade behaviour in the last 30 years. I think the Chinese will come bearing gifts, a sensible strategy for them to adopt, but I dont think it will be an easy conversation.

Tellis sees Trump as more of a nationalist than an isolationist, but cautions of a period of change not just for China but for US allies and partners as well, including India, as Trump renegotiates Americas terms of engagement with the rest of the world. This will leave India and others trying to see where they fit.

Tellis also expects a new approach to Pakistan, with growing consensus that the previous US policy of giving Pakistan a long rope is simply untenable. "The relationship is likely to be a lot more contingent and conditional  on specific issues, on basis of proof and verification, he says.

In other words, no more blank cheques.

(Courtesy of Mail Today.)
Period shaming in India is not new, but the fact that girls can be "punished" for menstruating, that too inside educational institutes, is indeed a matter of great shame.

Girl students of a residential school in Muzaffarnagar were reportedly stripped naked by a warden to check for menstrual blood. According to this report, around 70 students of Kasturba Gandhi Girls Residential School complained that the female warden asked them to take off their clothes and allegedly threatened them to punish if they disobeyed.

The inspection resulted after the warden spotted some blood stains in the bathroom. "The warden ordered us to remove our clothes. It was very humiliating for all of us. We want action against her, one of the students was quoted as saying but the CNN-News18.

Our society is still driven by the mindset that women turn impure during their periods. (Image credit: Facebook)

Although the allegations couldn't be verified independently, the incident once again brings to focus the prejudiced behaviour against menstrual blood and how it's used as a tool to exploit women  the fact that taboos and superstitions around menstruation still have firm roots in our society. It's really hard to believe that India, which takes immense pride in its culture and tradition, couldn't break the taboo even in the 21st century.

Recently, Kerala Congress leader MM Hassan said menstruation was impure and women should not enter places of worship during that time. He later sought to clarify that it was not his personal opinion and he had only stated the prevailing social situation in the society.

Our society is still driven by the mindset that women turn impure during their periods. And what is most disgusting is that the idea is so deep ingrained and the practice so ancient that even women themselves look at menstruation blood with aversion.

And just like all other obnoxious claims attaching scientific significance to Indian traditions, this custom too, the sanskari Indians believe, has "empirical" proof  menstrual blood is unhygienic which makes the women impure and untouchable during her monthly cycle.

A 2016 study by the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) revealed that eight out of 10 Indian girls are not allowed to enter religious shrines when they are on their period; six of 10 girls not allowed to touch food in the kitchen, and three of 10 are asked to sleep in a separate rooms (the study used data about 97,070 girls collected by 138 earlier studies on menstrual practices in India, between 2000 and 2015).

The same study, however, found, that adolescent girls have little access to menstrual hygiene.

The taboo around menstruation and poor health education are the basic reasons why Indian girls and women have little access to clean and affordable feminine hygiene products despite the fact that around 70 per cent of all reproductive diseases in India are caused by poor menstrual hygiene.

Union women and child development minister Maneka Gandhi recently wrote to finance minister Arun Jaitley asking him to provide 100 per cent tax exemption for eco-friendly and bio-degradable sanitary napkins, under GST.

Her letter came a day after Congress MP Sushmita Dev submitted a Change.org petition to Gandhi asking for abolition of the tax on sanitary pads as per GST.

"With the implementation of the GST, a step needs be taken by the central government to make sanitary napkins tax-free, like condoms and contraceptives, as it is an essential item which is a necessity for every woman," Dev said in her petition to Gandhi.

Gender rights activists feel restrictions imposed on women during their period are still so common that it an accepted social norm everywhere in India. Shockingly, the government too has never shown enough interest in breaking the taboo and making it a part of formal educational discourse. Boys and girls openly talking about it rather than shaming girls and making them feel guilty about their periods could be at least a step towards solution.

But it's not at all shocking that Indians have not been able to get rid of their anti-women prejudices and that's why menstrual superstitions exist in all regions and religions.

Something as natural as menstrual blood  yes, the process is as natural as eating, drinking, urinating, defecating and sleeping, and yet everyone loathe to talk about it  has been demonised to an extent that it's not just the poor and uneducated who are made to suffer, but even the empowered Indian women has not been spared.

Bollywood actress Kangana Ranaut faced a misogynistic attack when a relatively unknown actor Adhyayan Suman accused her of practicing black magic and adding her menstrual blood in his food.

While it's not difficult to see Suman's polluted mindset, but the accusations sadly reflect the entire society's ignorance about menstrual blood and how it collectively believes in discriminating women based on such abominable ideas.
On your TV screens, all you see is the Indian soldier in top-class battle gear fearlessly marching to take on the terrorists. You see scenes on loop, freeze-framed for effect, in which the life of a soldier appears to be tough but glamorous. Meant for bravehearts.

And you thought the government, which never forgets to insert the word soldiers to peddle its nationalist credentials, would at least take good care of the jawans in the armed forces and our paramilitary units. But do you know that's not quite the case?

While you have read accounts of soldiers posted in Siachen complaining of low-quality food, or low-rank members of the forces asked to double up as domestic helps for senior army officers (the illustrious buddy system), thats nothing compared to the grave threat to the lives of our precious troops fighting Naxals in Indias red corridor.

A report in India Today by conflict and defence correspondent Jugal Purohit lays bare the ugly truth of how complacent the government can be when it comes to the lives of our soldiers and paramilitary forces.

According to the report, Centres top bureaucrat, home secretary Rajiv Mehrishi has said that theres no funds to protect Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) troops from Maoist Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs), which are used widely to target them.

The India Today report says that the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Home Affairs has a scathing verdict on the home ministry and its handling of funds to ensure troops safety, going on to say that the lack of financial resources are killing our personnel.

Parliamentary panel report is scathing in its indictment of @HMOIndia. Pls read it's conclusion reproduced below. pic.twitter.com/eicjAaQwQe  Jugal R Purohit (@jrpur) March 30, 2017

The committee has former home minister P Chidambaram as its chair, and has 31 members in total, including ten from Rajya Sabha and 21 from Lok Sabha.

The report highlights how the Parliamentary panel stated that the regular killing of civilians and CRPF personnel was happening in Maoist-infested areas in Indias ten affected states, and then demanded to know from the home ministry whether any mine-resistant ambush protected vehicles were being procured for the protection of the CRPF personnel.

Guess what was the answer? This: The Home Secretary stated that there was no plan to procure such vehicles as they were prohibitively expensive and there was no money available for the purpose.

In other words, Indias home secretary, in his official statement to the Parliamentary panel of home affairs, has stated that the government would not be obtaining the Mine-Protected Vehicles (MPVs) because it doesnt have the money!

Biggest reason why troops have NO protection is the confused @crpfindia leadership. Look at the absurdity below. pic.twitter.com/gL6yNNaqAF  Jugal R Purohit (@jrpur) March 30, 2017

This, when way back in 2009, then Union home minister had approved the procurement of 352 MPVs for use by the CRPF in Maoist-affected areas. Moreover, recently, the current home ministry from Rajnath Singh had okayed an additional fleet of 180 MPVs for the CRPF as part of its Modernisation Plan II.

Our MPs deserve a pat or Home Secy a rebuke for pointing out that LIGHT BULLET-PROOF VEHICLES aren't a counter to Maoist IEDs?  Jugal R Purohit (@jrpur) March 30, 2017

What kind of insensitivity makes a government dangle its soldiers at every opportunity, while not even obtaining the long sanctioned protective vehicles (and other gears) for the jawans?

This when the number of IED blasts and resultant CRPF casualties are on an upward graph. As Jugal Purohit notes, between January 1, 2014 and March 27, 2017  the data is as updated as it can get  the CRPF faced 121 blasts, and recovered 2,354 IEDs across affected states. Purohit notes that the CRPF lost 59 personnel and had 169 injured during this period because of IED explosions.

Using the stats given below, Home Ministry is elated in its claim of reducing the rate of violent incidents. However is it the full picture? pic.twitter.com/DV6XD6H7h9  Jugal R Purohit (@jrpur) March 30, 2017

Using the stats given below, Home Ministry is elated in its claim of reducing the rate of violent incidents. However is it the full picture? pic.twitter.com/DV6XD6H7h9  Jugal R Purohit (@jrpur) March 30, 2017

So whats the solution the home secretary thinks is possible? Light bullet-proof vehicles.

Purohits report goes on to detail the grave negligence as he quotes the panel report: The ministry was trying to work with local manufacturers for bullet-proofing the vehicles. The Joint Secretary further added that the private sector in India was not producing any mine protected vehicles with the level of protection required.

The home ministry was in the process of providing 300 light bullet proof vehicles within the next six months, the India Today piece says. But as Purohit notes, and as one of the members of the parliamentary panel pointed out, while bullet-proof vehicles were useful in J&K, however, they may not be able to protect personnel in LWE (Left-Wing extremism) affected areas in Odisha, Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand, where hundreds of paramilitary and police personnel were getting killed because of mines and ambushes. He also stated that not sanctioning funds for such necessary equipment is grave negligence.

Home Secy Rajiv Mehrishi's (1978 batch IAS) plan to secure troops from Maoist mines/IEDs? LIGHT BULLET-PROOF vehicles. pic.twitter.com/cIvfQwyoKG  Jugal R Purohit (@jrpur) March 30, 2017

In response to this outrageous response, an unnamed MP had some lessons for our Home Secretary! Hope @HMOIndia realises damage being done. pic.twitter.com/GqHU0Wosz4  Jugal R Purohit (@jrpur) March 30, 2017

The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Home Affairs concludes its report on the financial resource allocation within the home ministry with a scathing and no-holds-barred observation:

The Committee is constrained to observe that lack of financial resources is becoming a reason for casualty of valuable lives of police and CRPF personnel which are being lost in the battle against Left Wing Extremism. The Committee feels that bullet-proof vehicles would not be safe or sufficient for use in LWE areas.

It goes on to say: On the other hand, the Ministry feels constrained to procure advanced equipment due to lack of financial resources. In such a scenario, the Committee recommends that the government should explore the opportunities created by the Make In India programme and develop indigenous vehicles. The Committee also recommends that in the meanwhile, the Ministry should explore other measures including import of suitable vehicles.

Could anything be more hypocritical from a government that has enshrined the soldier as a metonym for its xenophobic ultra-nationalism?

The question of what is causing grave dis-affection among the tribals and other disenfranchised in the red corridor  land grab, lack of infrastructure, abject poverty, not being allowed to access the resources the residents have been taking care of for centuries at a stretch, etc  is a different one, which is the leading cause of the left-wing extremism that the government, including the previous one, had no qualms to point a finger at.

In an earlier report, Purohit had pointed out how the hospital in BSFs training centre and school didnt even have a surgeon, or an orthopaedic doctor, even though full-fledged commando training was taking place at the site. The injured had to be taken to Jazaribagh hospital about 10km away to avail basic surgery.

The report says, The BSF's Training Centre and School has just a unit hospital with 20 beds, no special treatment facilities and no specialists, not even a surgeon. It was because of these deficiencies that the six BSF members had to be rushed to the town's civil hospital located about 10km away.

What explains the continuing neglect of Indian forces on the ground, while turning them into a two-dimensional cardboard cutout for nationalistic chest-beating?

Is it nationalistic to let our soldiers perish or face grave injuries simply because bureaucratic entanglements cannot figure a way out to procure the necessary protective vehicles and battle-gear?

As they say, its easier to blame others for your crisis, but its difficult to look within and figure out whats gone so terribly wrong.
A new study would focus on countries that have chronic goods trade surpluses with the U.S., including China, Japan and Vietnam.

Vietnam may become a target as Trump set to curb 'trade abuses' What did Donald Trump say about trade with Vietnam?

U.S. President Donald Trump will sign executive orders on Friday aimed at identifying abuses that are causing massive U.S. trade deficits and clamping down on non-payment of anti-dumping and anti-subsidy duties on imports, his top trade officials said.

The orders come as Trump prepares for his first face-to-face meeting with Chinese President Xi next week in Florida, where trade issues promise to be a major source of tension. China was the biggest contributor to the $734 billion U.S. goods trade deficit last year.

The directives allow Trump to focus on meeting his campaign promises to combat the flow of unfairly traded imports into the United States just a week after his pledge to repeal and replace Obamacare imploded in Congress.

Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross told reporters that one of the orders directs his department and the U.S. Trade Representative to conduct a major review of the causes of U.S. trade deficits. These include trade abuses such as dumping of goods below costs and unfair subsidies, "non-reciprocal" trade practices by other countries and currencies that are "misaligned."

Ross took pains to say that currency misalignment was not the same as manipulation, and only the U.S. Treasury could define currency manipulation. But he said in some cases, currencies can become misaligned from their traditional valuations unintentionally, citing the Mexican peso's sharp decline late last year after Trump's election.

The study also will examine World Trade Organization rules that Ross said do not treat countries equally, such as on taxation. The United States has long complained that WTO rules allow exports to be exempt from value-added taxes, but do not allow export exemptions from the U.S. corporate income tax. The study also will examine the effects of trade deals that have failed to produce forecast benefits, Ross said.

Ross said he aims to complete the study and report the findings to Trump in 90 days -- a time frame that coincides with the expected start of negotiations to revamp the U.S.-Canada-Mexico North American Free Trade Agreement.

The study's findings will underpin the Trump administration's future trade policy decisions, Ross said, and will be the first "systematic analysis" of the trade deficit's causes, "country-by-country, product-by-product."

"It will demonstrate the administration's intention not to hipshoot, not to do anything casual, not to do anything abruptly," Ross told a White House briefing.

Ross has promised tougher enforcement of U.S. trade laws and more anti-dumping and anti-subsidy cases initiated by the Commerce Department, rather than relying on companies to claim injuries from imports.

He said the study would focus on those countries that have chronic goods trade surpluses with the United States.

China tops the list, with a $347 billion surplus last year, followed by Japan, with a $69 billion surplus, Germany at $65 billion, Mexico at $63 billion, Ireland at $36 billion and Vietnam at $32 billion.

The second trade order to be signed by Trump is aimed at halting the non-payment and under-collection of anti-dumping and anti-subsidy duties the United States slaps on many foreign goods.

White House National Trade Council Director Peter Navarro said that some $2.8 billion in such duties went uncollected between 2001 and the end of 2016 from companies in some 40 countries.

Navarro said the order directs the Commerce and Homeland Security departments to close these gaps by imposing tougher bonding requirements to ensure duty collections and new legal requirements for assessing risks associated with importers.

Navarro, a harsh critic of China's trade practices, insisted that the orders were not aimed at sending a message ahead of Xi's visit.

"Nothing we are saying tonight is about China," he said. "This is a story about trade abuses, this is a story about under-collection of duties, this is a story about 40 countries that basically subsidise their products unfairly and send them into our country or dump their products."
When it comes to human rights, Burma has made historic progress since 2011, but significant challenges remain.

In April of last year, following a peaceful and competitive election, the National League for Democracy, the then-opposition party chaired by former political prisoner Aung San Suu Kyi, began its five-year term in government.

The new government promptly released hundreds of political prisoners and relaxed a number of the laws restricting civil society. However, the Constitution continues to guarantee the military 25% of parliamentary seats, and requires the military to appoint the leaders of the Ministries of Defense, Border Affairs, and Home Affairs, the latter of which controls the police, prisons, and sub-national governance.

Furthermore, some provisions of Burmese laws, such as provisions of the Telecommunications Act restricting freedom of speech, do not comport with international standards of democracy and human rights.

According to the Human Rights Reports for 2016 recently issued by the State Department, the three leading human rights problems in Burma were human rights violations in ethnic minority areas affected by conflict; restrictions on freedoms of speech; and abuses and restrictions against the Rohingya population.

Laws that have historically been used to criminalize free speech -- especially against the military -- and peaceful assembly remain in force and have been applied in some cases.

In 2016, security forces were reported to have committed serious abuses, including extrajudicial killings, torture, sexual violence, forced recruitment, and destruction of property.

In addition to these abuses, the government continued to deny citizenship to the Rohingya ethnic minority. This resulted in additional human rights violations, including restrictions on movement, limitations on access to health care, livelihood, shelter, and education, arbitrary arrests and detention, and forced labor.

In October and November 2016, security forces responded to violent attacks against Border Guard Police posts with clearance operations that are alleged to have included killings, enforced disappearances, torture, sexual violence, and other abuses, resulting in the displacement of at least 100,000 Rohingya.

While the government took limited action to punish some police officers responsible for abuses, many government and security officials continued to act with impunity.

Promoting human rights and democratic governance is a core element of U.S. foreign policy, said U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. The Human Rights Reports demonstrate the United States unwavering commitment to advancing liberty, human dignity, and global prosperity around the world, including in Burma.
At the United Nations Human Rights Councils 34th Session that ended March 24, the United States helped shape the international response to urgent human rights issues, including by taking the lead on resolutions related to the human rights situation in South Sudan and on continuing needs for justice in Sri Lanka, renewing the mandate of the UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom and Expression, and negotiating for strong resolutions to protect and promote human rights and fundamental freedoms worldwide.

Responding to the alarming report of the Commission on Human Rights in South Sudan, the United States led the renewal of the Commissions mandate to collect and preserve evidence that can be used in future judicial efforts.

The United States was lead sponsor of a resolution to extend for two years

Sri Lankas implementation of commitments to promote justice reconciliation, and accountability, as well as a UN role in monitoring and reporting on Sri Lankas progress.

The United States also co-sponsored a resolution to strengthen the ability of the Office of the High Commissioner on Human Rights in Seoul to collect evidence that could be used to hold those responsible for human rights abuses in North Korea accountable.

The United States supported the establishment of an independent international Fact Finding Mission into alleged recent human rights violations and abuses by security forces in Burma, including in Rakhine State.

The United States played a key role in garnering support for renewed mandates to investigate human rights abuses in Iran and atrocities in Syria, as well as the Councils decision to promote technical assistance to improve human rights in Haiti.

The United States is pleased that the Council adopted by consensus resolutions on the importance of both the rights to freedom of religion or belief and to freedom of expression. The United States was the lead sponsor of renewing the mandate of the Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Opinion and Expression. In addition, the United States co-sponsored renewing the mandate of the Special Rapporteur on Torture.

Throughout the session, the United States worked closely with partners to defend Israel against unbalanced criticism. These efforts resulted in diminished support for the politicized resolutions introduced under the biased Agenda Item 7, the agenda item focused on a single country.

Promoting human rights and democracy is a core element of U.S. foreign policy, said Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. That's why the U.S. will continue to champion respect for human rights through the United Nations.
Regions Financial Corporation, a financial holding company, provides banking and bank-related services to individual and corporate customers. It operates through three segments: Corporate Bank, Consumer Bank, and Wealth Management. The Corporate Bank segment offers commercial banking services, such as commercial and industrial, commercial real estate, and investor real estate lending; equipment lease financing; deposit products; and securities underwriting and placement, loan syndication and placement, foreign exchange, derivatives, merger and acquisition, and other advisory services. It serves corporate, middle market, and commercial real estate developers and investors. The Consumer Bank segment provides consumer banking products and services related to residential first mortgages, home equity lines and loans, consumer credit cards, and other consumer loans, as well as deposits. The Wealth Management segment offers credit related products, and retirement and savings solutions; and trust and investment management, asset management, and estate planning services to individuals, businesses, governmental institutions, and non-profit entities. The company also provides investment and insurance products; low-income housing tax credit corporate fund syndication services; and other specialty financing services. As of March 01, 2022, it operated through a network of 1,300 banking offices and 2,000 automated teller machines across the South, Midwest, and Texas. Regions Financial Corporation was founded in 1971 and is headquartered in Birmingham, Alabama.
ConvaTec Group Plc develops, manufactures, and markets medical products and technologies worldwide. It offers advanced wound dressings and skin care products for the management of acute and chronic wounds resulting from various conditions, such as diabetes, immobility, and venous disease, as well as from traumatic injury, burns, invasive surgery, and other causes. The company also provides devices, accessories, and services for people with a stoma resulting from colorectal cancer, inflammatory bowel disease, bladder cancer, obesity, and other causes. In addition, it offers continence and critical care products, including intermittent urinary catheters; and products for people with urinary continence issues related to spinal cord injuries, multiple sclerosis, spina bifida, and other urological disorders, as well as devices and products used in intensive care units and hospital settings. Further, the company provides advanced systems for managing acute fecal incontinence, as well as for monitoring urine production output and intra-abdominal pressure; and various disposable medical devices, such as wound drainage systems, urine collection bags and catheters, airway management and oxygen/aerosol therapy devices, suction handles and tubes, gastroenterology tubes, and securement devices. Additionally, it offers disposable infusion sets to manufacturers of insulin pumps for diabetes, as well as similar pumps that are used in continuous infusion treatments for other conditions; and various products to hospital and home healthcare markets. The company sells its products to pharmacies, hospitals, and other acute and post-acute healthcare service providers directly or through distributors and wholesalers. It serves a range of customers, including healthcare providers, patients, and manufacturers. The company was founded in 1978 and is headquartered in Reading, the United Kingdom.
Croda International Plc creates, makes, and sells specialty chemicals in Europe, the Middle East, Africa, North America, Asia, and Latin America. It operates through four segments: Consumer Care, Life Sciences, Performance Technologies, and Industrial Chemicals. The company offers adhesives; crop protection additives and adjuvants, seed enhancement and animal health chemicals, chemical bio-stimulants, and specialty additives for agricultural films; and lubricant additives, coatings and polymers, vehicle cleaning chemicals, and products for automotive textiles and fibers, as well as specialty additives for plastics, and battery and catalyst industries. It also provides specialty ingredients for self-tanning, color cosmetics, bath and shower, deodorants, anti-perspirants, depilatories, men's grooming, and oral hygiene, as well as skin, hair, sun, body, and baby care applications; construction chemicals and bitumen additives; dietary supplements; and materials and polymer additives for electronics and devices. In addition, the company offers chemistries, emulsifiers, fuel and power generation additives, and polymer additives; food additives; specialty polymer additives for furniture and wood applications; household, industrial, and institutional cleaning products; lubricants; oleochemicals; and packaging, print, and paper chemicals. Further, it provides paints and coatings; active pharmaceutical ingredients; thermal management products; plastic and rubber products; skin health products; hygiene and industrial nonwovens, botanical extracts, tissues, and textile auxiliaries; and water treatment chemicals. Additionally, the company offers bio-based phase change materials for buildings and ventilation, clothing and healthcare, electronics and devices, food and refrigeration, energy storage and recovery, temperature controlled packaging, and vehicles and automotive applications. The company was incorporated in 1925 and is headquartered in Goole, the United Kingdom.
Dunelm Group plc retails homewares in the United Kingdom. The company offers furniture and beds products, which include bedroom, living room, dining room, and other furniture, as well as bed and mattresses, and sofas and chairs; bedding products comprising bed linen, dorma, baby and kid's bedding, and duvets, pillows and protectors; curtains and rugs; and venetian, roller, roman, vertical, and made to measure blinds. It also offers range of home decor products, such as mirrors, clocks, ornaments, pictures and frames, candle and home fragrance, flower and plants, vases, kid accessories, cushions, bean bags, and letterbox flowers, as well as housewarming, engagement, anniversary, and wedding gifts; lighting products, including ceiling and wall lights, table and desk lamps, floor lamps, and pendants and lamp shades; and paint, wallpaper, DIY and upcycling, and haberdashery products. In addition, the company provides kitchen and utility products comprising cooking, dining, electrical, utility, and pet products; towel and bathmats, and bathroom accessories, as well as furniture and decor products; storage products, such as travel and luggage, home, clothes, and kitchen storage; kids bedroom, nursery, and accessories products; outdoor products, which include garden furniture and decoration, and entreating and dining products; and trends christmas products and winter essentials. It operates through a network of 177 stores and 2 distribution centers, as well as sells its products through an online store at dunelm.com. Dunelm Group plc was founded in 1979 and is headquartered in Syston, the United Kingdom.
Former national security adviser to President Donald Trump, Michael Flynn, is seeking immunity to give testimony on the alleged meddling by Russia in the November election, said his lawyers.

One of his attorneys said Flynn has a story to tell however he needs to guard against any unfair prosecution. The allegations are being investigated by Congress with one U.S. Senator warning of Russia propaganda on steroids.

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Flynn was fired by the White House in February for being misleading about the conversations he had with an envoy from Russia.

His ties to Russia are under the spotlight of the FBI and the Senate and House Intelligence Committees that include wider investigations into claims that Moscow was seeking to help Trump in the November presidential election and related to contacts between members of Trumps campaign team and Russia.

The attorney for Flynn said his client definitely has a story and would very much like to tell it, should there be circumstances that permit it.

His lawyers said media was full of unfounded allegations and vicious innuendo that included outrageous treason claims.

He added that no reasonable person having advice from his counsel would be willing to be questioned in such a witch-hunt, highly publicized environment without having assurances against being unfairly prosecuted.

Three other former aides of Trump, including Paul Manafort his ex-campaign chief and Carter Page and Roger Stone former advisors offered to give testimony without asking for immunity.

A hearing by the Senate Intelligence Committee was opened Thursday with a member saying that Moscow sought to hijack the election last November.

Senator Mark Warner, a Democrat, said that Russia might have used certain technology to spread disinformation that included fake news to voters across key states like Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin.

Republican Senator Richard Burr, who is the chairman of the panel, warned that we all are targets of a capable and sophisticated adversary.

Burr confirmed as well that there were conversations about speaking to Flynn but there was no confirmation made that he would appear.

The White House has faced a number of allegations that members of the administration colluded with officials from Russia during the U.S. election campaign.

Trump dismisses those claims regularly as being fake news and Russia ridiculed such allegations as well.

On Thursday, during the Arctic forum, Russian President Vladimir Putin denied the allegations again calling them irresponsible and nonsense.
WAYNESBORO  Three people are facing felony marijuana possession charges following an investigation in Augusta and Nelson counties by the Skyline Drug Task Force.

Authorities were notified Wednesday about a suspicious white van on Route 6 near Afton Mountain in Nelson County. Police stopped the van in Augusta County and started a search.

They discovered an ounce of marijuana. The vans driver, Gregory J. Ward of Staunton, and passenger, Shannon N. Farrar of Stuarts Draft, both were charged with felony possession of marijuana with intent to distribute.

Information from the arrests led police to execute a search warrant in an Afton Mountain Road home in Nelson County. Investigators recovered half a pound of marijuana from the residence and also uncovered an indoor marijuana growing operation.

Kevin B. Kartheiser, of Afton, was arrested at the house and charged with felony possession with intent to distribute marijuana and a felony charge of manufacturing marijuana. Ward was charged with a second felony count of possession of marijuana with intent to distribute.

Kartheiser was released on an unsecured $5,000 bond. Ward and Farrar are being held without bond at Middle River Regional Jail in Verona. The investigation is ongoing

The Skyline Drug Task Force includes investigators from the Waynesboro and Staunton police departments, the Augusta and Nelson County sheriffs offices, and the Virginia State Police.
LYNCHBURG  The Liberty University Rawlings School of Divinity received a $3 million donation from the family it is named for, with the donation coming from brothers Harold, George, Herb and Carrol Rawlings.

The donation, recently delivered in person by George Rawlings, makes for a total of $10 million donated by the family to Liberty in recent years, which prompted the university to name the divinity school in their honor. The Rawlings family has ties to Libertys late founder, Jerry Falwell Sr., who attended Baptist Bible College in Springfield, Missouri, where John Rawlings, father of the donors, was president. John Rawlings later served on Libertys Board of Trustees.

According to a news release from Liberty, the Rawlings family has been involved in the planning and design process to house a scriptorium in the schools new Freedom Tower, which will house a collection of early and rare Bibles, other literature and a life-size replica of a Gutenberg printing press.

The Rawlings School of Divinity will move into the 275-foot-tall Freedom Tower and the three levels at its base after construction of the tower is completed this fall.
Albemarle County Police Officer Jason Beach was not sure what to expect when he arrived at a call for an accidental gunshot wound last year, but when he saw the blood, he knew what to do. Tying a tourniquet above the wound, the officer bought enough time to save the mans life.

The incident has now spurred the Albemarle County Police Department to equip every single officer with a tourniquet kit.

The call came in at about 6:20 p.m. Nov. 11 from an Irish Road gas station. Within two minutes of the call, Beach arrived at the scene, assessed the 32-year-old mans wound and began applying a tourniquet to his leg to stop the flow of blood.

We had an officer  by luck, fate, whatever you want to call it  within a minute of the call be on scene with tourniquets, said Chief Ron Lantz. He happened to have one of his own; we didnt issue them at that time.

Beach, a 17-year veteran of the Virginia National Guard with two deployments under his belt, knows his way around a first aid kit. Working in the southern, rural end of the county, the officer has always packed a tourniquet with other basic medical supplies in his vehicle.

Most times, I beat first responders, Beach said. Stopping the bleeding buys minutes  you can bleed out in as little as three minutes.

Police said the victim was sitting in the passenger seat of a car when he accidently shot himself in the leg  he was charged later with a weapons violation. The intense bleeding was consistent with that of an injury to the femoral artery in the thigh, so Beach knew he had to work quickly.

I carry this equipment in my vehicle for this exact reason, Beach said.

By getting creative with the departments budget, Lantz said he has been working since last June to buy enough tourniquet kits for every sworn officer in the department. With a price tag of $9,000 and about $24 per replacement, Lantz said the cost was not that high, relative to the lifesaving capabilities that the kits provide.

Being that the cost was not that high, why not give them to every sworn officer in the department, Lantz said. We were able to scrimp and save.

Because the county contains pockets of rural areas that are often many minutes away from medical help, county police officers are sometimes the only help available until fire and rescue crews can get to the scene, Lantz said. Serious car crashes out on rural roads also are an issue, and officers often have to do the best they can to help people until medical personnel can arrive.

On the other end of the spectrum, Lantz said, are active-shooter situations. In such a violent situation, police might need to help trauma victims or even gravely wounded officers.

On the scene of a shooting, where you have victims  and, God forbid, officers, as well  thats what I envision this being for, said Lantz. In the event that we have a horrific incident occur here, were prepared to save lives, just like Officer Beach has done.

Since the incident, Beach has been able to check on the man, who was rushed to the University of Virginia Medical Center for treatment. Having recovered, Beach said the man thanked him for saving his life.

You know, you dont get that every day in this job, Beach said.

While some officers at the department, like Beach, always have carried a tourniquet on his or her tool belt, Beach said hes glad the incident facilitated an effort to make sure every officer has one.

I was blessed to be in the right place at the right time and save somebody  and save somebodys family from losing a loved one.

I couldnt be more proud of him, Lantz said.

For his actions, Beach received an ACPD 2016 Lifesaving Award at the departments annual awards banquet last week.
 First United Methodist Church holds a spaghetti dinner fundraiser for the 4K for Cancer race, 5 to 6:30 p.m. Sunday. $5. 101 E. Jefferson St. (434) 296-6193.

 Mechanicsville Baptist Church (Gordonsville) holds How Can I Be Blessed?, a Precepts Bible Study of the Sermon on the Mount, 12:30 p.m. and again at 6:30 p.m. each Tuesday. 10200 Louisa Road. (540) 832-3269.

 Operation Esther Circle meets to fast and pray for stranded international students and missions at 5:30 p.m. Thursdays at the University of Virginia. For details, call (434) 227-0811.

 Passion Community Church  Riverside Campus (Bremo Bluff) holds the Easter Eggstravanganza for toddlers to sixth-graders, featuring Easter egg hunts, bounce houses, crafts and a visit with the Easter Bunny, 2 to 4 p.m. Saturday. 2723 James Madison Highway. (434) 842-1291.

 Piedmont Baptist Church (Yancey Mills) will hold a pancake breakfast fundraiser from 8 a.m. to noon Saturday. $8. 596 Half Mile Branch Road. (434) 823-4195.

 Rock & Worship Roadshow features performances by Steven Curtis Chapman, Francesca Battistelli, Rend Collective, Passion, Family Force 5, Jordan Feliz and speaker Tony Wolf, 7 p.m. Saturday. John Paul Jones Arena. $10. Tickets available at the door or theroadshowtour.com. (434) 243-4960.

 Scottsville United Methodist Church hosts the Meals on Wheels Fish Fry from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. Friday. $10 adults, $5 children younger than 13. 158 E. Main St. (434) 286-9443.

 Still I Rise Womens Conference, themed Work It Out, will be held from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday. DoubleTree Hotel, 990 Hilton Heights Road. Details and schedule available at mountcalvary-nasons.org. (540) 672-2848.

 Westminster Presbyterian Church hosts the Westminster Organ Concert Series with Monteverdi at 450 featuring Zephyrus and the Washington Cornett and Sackbutt Ensemble, from 4 to 5:30 p.m. Sunday. 400 Rugby Road. (434) 963-4690.
RICHMOND  A Richmond judge issued a ruling Friday upholding the constitutionality of 11 state legislative districts that were challenged as being designed for political purposes.

The ruling by Circuit Court Judge W. Reilly Marchant is a setback for redistricting reform advocates in Virginia. The lawsuit was backed by the reform group OneVirginia2021.

The decision will likely be appealed.

Marchant heard evidence during a three-day bench trial in March relating to five state House districts and six state Senate districts drawn by the Virginia General Assembly in 2011.

The plaintiffs who sued the state argued that the districts were a politically motivated gerrymander and were not compact as required by law. But lawyers with the office of Attorney General Mark H. Herring and a private firm retained to represent the Virginia House of Delegates argued that the districts conformed with state constitutional requirements.

The case was one of two pending legal challenges to district lines drawn by the General Assembly; a second case in federal court challenges districts of African-Americans in the legislature, arguing lawmakers packed too many blacks into the districts to solidify Republican-friendly majority-white districts around them.

House Speaker William J. Howell, R-Stafford, issued a statement celebrating the ruling and the defending the lines drawn by House Republican leaders.

The districts were compact, consistent with Virginia Supreme Court precedent, and the process to draw compact districts in 2011 was sound. We are grateful that Judge Marchant declined to apply a new legal standard and we are prepared to defend this plan again should his opinion be appealed by Plaintiffs, Howell said in the statement.

Wyatt Durrette Jr., an attorney for OneVirginia2021, issued a statement saying he was disappointed. But he said aspects of the ruling would limit the ability of the General Assembly to gerrymander in the future.

So, while we are disappointed that the court did not resolve the case in our favor, Judge Marchant has given those who supported this effort significant help in continuing this battle for redistricting reform, Durrette said in the statement. As for where we go from here, it is too early to say for sure but an appeal is most likely.
RICHMOND  A line used by a Republican candidate for lieutenant governor in a speech Monday is nearly identical to a famous line from a sermon by the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

State Sen. Bryce E. Reeves of Spotsylvania County used the words in a speech at Liberty University, where several statewide candidates addressed students at a convocation.

It was an honest mistake, said Samantha Azzarelli, a spokeswoman for the Reeves campaign. She declined to explain further.

The words in question come from a 1963 volume of Kings sermons titled Strength to Love.

King said: The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.

Reeves said Monday: The ultimate measure of a man or woman is not where he or she stands in times of comfort, but where you stand in times of challenge and tribulation and controversy.

Kings comment is among his quotations that are engraved on the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial in Washington.

The similarity between Reeves quotation and Kings was first noted in a blog post by conservative activist Justin L. Higgins of Manassas.

Reeves is in the midst of a contentious primary with state Sen. Jill Holtzman Vogel, R-Fauquier, and Del. Glenn R. Davis Jr., R-Virginia Beach.

The Democratic race for lieutenant governor also has three candidates: activist and consultant Susan Platt and former federal prosecutors Justin Fairfax and Gene Rossi.

Ravi K. Perry, an associate professor of political science at Virginia Commonwealth University and president of the National Association for Ethnic Studies, said he has studied Kings speeches since he was 12, and the sermon is one that even fifth-graders could know.

He said he found it interesting that Reeves, speaking to a conservative audience, chose to quote President Ronald Reagan by name, but used Kings thoughts without attributing them.

The real story here is, why have they chosen to erase Dr. King from the message? he said. I would hope that it is not deliberate.

But either way, he said, any thoughts that arent original in a speech should be cited.

Youre still borrowing from the initial text and that person should be quoted, particularly if its an American hero like Dr. King, Perry said.
There are at least three things you need for a successful political movement: convictions, courage and effective communication. The Republicans in Congress behave as if they have none of the above.

Conservative voters have frequently bemoaned the lack of a Republican spine. But the GOP's hapless flailing was on display once again last week when the American Health Care Act got pulled before what would have been a disastrous vote.

Per usual, the Republicans had plenty of excuses and laid plenty of blame. But they're always moving the goal posts: First, they needed control of the House. Then they needed the Senate. Then they needed a Republican in the White House. Even with all three, they couldn't manage to draft a bill that could get a majority of the votes from their own party.

What the heck are they waiting for?

Oh, that's right  approval from the left. The Republicans in Congress are more afraid of what the left will say about them than they are of disappointing their own constituencies.

The GOP still doesn't seem to have figured out why Trump won  and why he isn't footing the blame for the failure of the American Health Care Act.

First, voters don't expect Trump to know the ins and outs of Obamacare repeal; Republicans in Congress have had eight years for that.

Second, millions of Americans voted for Trump because he gives the (figurative) middle finger to the press and the rest of the American left. The GOPs leaders should have figured out by now that theyre never going to have the media fawn all over them, until (a) they declare themselves to be pro-choice, (b) they criticize other conservatives, or (c) they're dead. And sometimes, not even then.

It's true that the media help Democrats at every opportunity. The media try mightily to reconcile their inconsistencies, downplay their faults and cover up their shortcomings. (Hillary Clinton, call your doctor.) Alternatively, they mischaracterize and vilify conservative and Republican positions.

Yes, well, suck it up, buttercups  this is the way it's been for as long as most of us can remember, and this is the way it's probably always going to be.

It shouldn't matter. Trump's election proved that you can take your message straight to the American public, and win.

The AHCA deserved to fail, because it did not do what American voters sent Republicans to Congress (in record numbers) to do: repeal Obamacare. They were not sent to Washington to curry favor with the major networks or Hollywood. Nor were they sent to Congress to replace Obamacare with a Republican version of a federal health care leviathan.

So, kudos to the Freedom Caucus and others who saw that bill for what it was  a cobbled-together mishmash that kept the Democrats federal health care system in place, this time with GOP fingerprints all over it.

House Speaker Paul Ryan & Co. need to go back to the drawing board and give the American people meaningful legislative reform. Start with these points:

 Get rid of the individual mandate, as well as fines and penalties for failing to purchase insurance.

 Get rid of mandatory coverage, and allow insurance companies to offer the policies and coverage consumers want.

 Allow consumers to take their insurance with them when they leave employers.

 Allow insurance companies to sell insurance across state lines.

In other words, open up a truly free market in health insurance.

As if the AHCA debacle were not enough of a spanking, a Democratic filibuster on the confirmation of Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court looks more likely with each passing day.

Judge Gorsuch is one of the most qualified, temperamentally suitable candidates for the Supreme Court in decades. Most congressional Democrats know this  indeed, many liberals across the country know it  which is there has been visible support for Gorsuch among more mainstream liberals.

But former senate Majority Leader Harry Reid raised the stakes in 2013, when he persuaded the then-Democratic majority to change senate rules, requiring only 51 votes for lower federal court judicial nominations and other presidential appointees.

Despite the exemption for the Supreme Court, Reid was warned that this was a dangerous precedent (New York Sen. Chuck Schumer said as recently as January that he regretted it); a Republican-controlled senate could create the same rule change to SCOTUS nominees.

Reid did it anyway, and here we are. Schumer's regret dissolved quickly; he is now leading the charge for what would be an unprecedented filibuster of Gorsuch, without cause or justification. (No nominee to the court has ever been filibustered; Justice Abe Fortas' elevation to chief justice was scuttled 49 years ago for alleged ethics violations).

That congressional Democrats can threaten a filibuster is proof that they do not care about competence, qualifications or even their own philosophical consistency. They will play political games with Gorsuch's nomination, as long as they think they can win.

It's time to play hardball. The left will cry foul. Let it. The GOP has been given the power. It had better use it.

Laura Hollis is a Creators Syndicate columnist and a teacher of business law and entrepreneurship who holds faculty appointments at the Mendoza College of Business and the Law School at the University of Notre Dame. For a longer version of this column, visit dailyprogress.com\opinion.
Del. Nick Freitas, R-Culpeper, announced Friday the signing into law of five of his bills from the 2017 session.

The following house bills carried by the local delegate will take effect July 1:

HB 1770 giving localities the authority to hire career and technical education teachers;

HB 2024 requiring notification to property owners prior to quick take proceedings;

HB 2029 removing regulations which prevented Virginia distilleries from being able to sell products at events and festivals;

HB 2352 expanding teacher licensure by reciprocity and streamlining the process whereby a locality can fill a teaching position and,

HB 2377 extending the tax credit for certain textbooks and other educational materials.

I am excited at the progress we have made this past legislation session, Freitas said in a news release. This year we helped reduce red tape and returned control to the localities on important educational policies including access to career technical education and removal of excessive mandates from Richmond which had greatly contributed to a shortage of nearly 1,000 teachers across the Commonwealth.

He said his legislation, in addition, gives property owners proper notification on eminent domain proceedings, helped grow local businesses by expanding market access for Virginia distilleries and ensured that producers of texts book and other educational materials would not be taxed when they provide materials for free.

Freitas thanked Culpeper County School Board Chairman Nate Clancy and Superintendent Tony Brads for their help in crafting the education-related bills along with State Sen. Bryce Reeves.
A line used by a Republican candidate for lieutenant governor in a speech Monday is nearly identical to a famous line from a sermon by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

State Sen. Bryce E. Reeves of Spotsylvania County, one of Culpeper County's state senators, used the words in a speech at Liberty University, where several statewide candidates addressed students at a convocation.

It was an honest mistake, said Samantha Azzarelli, a spokeswoman for the Reeves campaign. She declined to explain further.

The words in question come from a 1963 volume of Kings sermons titled Strength to Love.

King said: The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.

Reeves said Monday: The ultimate measure of a man or woman is not where he or she stands in times of comfort, but where you stand in times of challenge and tribulation and controversy.

Kings comment is among his quotations that are engraved on the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial in Washington.

The similarity between Reeves quotation and Kings was first noted in a blog post by conservative activist Justin L. Higgins of Manassas.

Reeves is in the midst of a contentious primary with state Sen. Jill Holtzman Vogel, R-Fauquier, and Del. Glenn R. Davis Jr., R-Virginia Beach.

The Democratic race for lieutenant governor also has three candidates: activist and consultant Susan Platt and former federal prosecutors Justin Fairfax and Gene Rossi.

Ravi K. Perry, an associate professor of political science at Virginia Commonwealth University and president of the National Association for Ethnic Studies, said he has studied Kings speeches since he was 12, and the sermon is one that even fifth-graders could know.

He said he found it interesting that Reeves, speaking to a conservative audience, chose to quote President Ronald Reagan by name, but used Kings thoughts without attributing them.

The real story here is, why have they chosen to erase Dr. King from the message? he said. I would hope that it is not deliberate.

But either way, he said, any thoughts that arent original in a speech should be cited.

Youre still borrowing from the initial text and that person should be quoted, particularly if its an American hero like Dr. King, Perry said.

(804) 649-6061

Twitter: @patrickmwilson
State Sen. Pete Goicoechea, R-Eureka, testified Thursday his proposed bill for $2 million to boost air service in Nevada is a shot in the dark to give us a chance.

He urged the Senate Committee on Revenue and Economic Development to support the bill.

SB363 calls for $1 million a year for two years to create a fund that would in turn provide incentives to air carriers to serve small airport hubs, such as Elko Regional Airport.

Elko City Manager Curtis Calder said Elko has a beautiful facility served by one carrier and two flights a day, but the city has mining and tourism sectors that depend on air service. Elko hopes to entice a carrier to provide service from Elko to Reno.

Calder also testified in Carson City that there is competition with airports in other western states that impacts Elko Regional Airport. For instance, 49 percent of potential passengers from Elko drive to Salt Lake Citys airport instead for flights, he said.

Goicoechea told the Senate committee a fare for a round-trip flight on SkyWest Airlines east to Salt Lake City and from there west to Reno is $1,072, and the alternative for a round trip to Reno is 13 hours of driving time. He was talking about fares booked within a short time of a flight.

Marily Mora, president and chief executive officer of the Reno-Tahoe International Airport, testified the airport supports SB363.

She said the Reno airport lost 34 percent of its passengers over a five-year period to become a small hub in 2013. Since then, the airport has boosted flights through incentives in a program that include contributions from room taxes and private entities such as casinos.

She said the Reno-Tahoe risk mitigation program has helped add 14 flights at the airport.

Airlines need to know they wont lose money on flights, Mora said.

Goicoechea said Elko couldnt raise the money in the way Reno-Tahoe airport has done, but I assume the Reno airport will benefit from the bill.

The bill could help small airport hubs throughout the state but not McCarran International Airport in Las Vegas, Calder said.

He also testified there have been changes in commercial aircraft fleets in recent years so there are fewer turbo prop planes and fewer pilots, while the qualifications for pilots have changed so they must have more flight hours before they can fly commercial aircraft.

The bill, which Goicoechea is sponsoring with Assemblyman John Ellison, R-Elko, as a co-sponsor, is similar to one that almost made it through the 2015 Nevada Legislature. The bill would create the Nevada Air Service Development Commission and a Nevada Air Service Development Fund.

The bill calls for grants to communities, with 80 percent coming from the fund and 20 percent from the local community or airport, including in-kind services. In addition to the $2 million, the fund could accept donations and contributions from public and private entities.

Goicoechea said the proof is in the pudding whether the $2 million will help small hubs before the Legislature renews the appropriation after the two years.

Sen. Julia Ratti, D-Sparks, who chaired the hearing, said the bill will come back to the committee later for action.

Elko has been without direct flights to Reno for a decade. SkyWest dropped its Reno leg in around 2005 and Scenic Airways flew the route for another year or so.
Here are three realities as they relate to the Yucca Mountain Project

1) Nuclear waste  in the form of pellets, not green goo oozing from under the lids of steel canisters  is piling up at the nations nuclear reactors and has to go somewhere else.

2) The law of the land  rightly or wrongly  as passed by Congress says the only potentially suitable site for a repository is at Yucca Mountain in Nevada, not far from the old Nevada Test Site where actual nuclear bombs were once exploded.

3) That land, along with more than 85 percent of the rest of Nevada, is owned by the federal government  meaning states rights arguments are built on thin reeds. Rightly or wrongly, Yucca Mountain is not on Nevada land despite being within our borders.

A couple more realities: Harry Reid is no longer the Senate Majority Leader and no longer has the power to block efforts to designate Yucca Mountain as the nations waste repository. Also, Barack Obama, who did Reids bidding for the last eight years, is no longer in the White House.

Lastly, the lineup of states wanting the repository in Nevada vs. the states that dont want it in Nevada is roughly 49-1, with small Nevada being the one.

Does anyone else see the inevitable writing on the Yucca Mountain wall?

Certainly not Nevadas political elite, thats for sure. They collectively continue to have their heads either firmly entrenched in the desert sand or somewhere else where they can see their own pancreas.

Heres another inconvenient truth: For all his mighty power, all Harry Reid was able to do was temporarily cut off funding for the suitability STUDY of Yucca Mountain as a potential repository site. As such, Yucca is still the law of the land no matter how many times Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval stomps his feet and beats his chest King Kong-like.

So Nevadans have a choice

We can continue our obstinacy and eventually have this national security project shoved up our wazoo without so much as cab fare home. Or we can get smart and start negotiating with the federal government for not only iron-clad safety and control measures, but a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

Make no mistake: Significant and lucrative benefits have been put on the table for Nevadans for doing the nation this service, despite denials by Yucca Deniers. Indeed, such benefits were actually outlined in a Senate bill killed by Reid several years ago. You could look it up.

And a negotiated package could include designating Yucca as not simply a nuclear waste repository, but as a nuclear waste reprocessing facility (more ca-ching!), as well as a world-class energy research center. All we have to do is say, Yes.

So let it be written; so let it be done.
Elko residents got some good news this week when Police Chief Ben Reed presented his departments annual report to the Elko City Council. The citys crime rate is down  in nearly all categories  although police remain as busy as ever.

The department began a new and significant chapter in its history when it finally moved out of its crumbling facility into a state-of-the-art new headquarters on Silver Street.

Staffing shortages ran as high as 20 percent at times, but Reed reports that several promising officers were hired and completing their training.

In conjunction with the Elko County Sheriffs Office, the department also maintained law and order in Elko County schools. This program has not only kept students safer, it has helped police keep a positive presence among the communitys youth.

SROs have been increasingly recognized by students and parents outside of school and have seen a substantial increase in the amount of phone calls or other contact they have received outside of work hours by parents and students requesting our assistance with issues both at school and outside of school, reported Reed.

Police detectives closed more cases than were opened in 2016, and received training in technologies such as cellphone forensics and advanced computer voice stress analysis.

In addition, the move into the new police facility provided detectives with an improved laboratory for evidence processing, including latent fingerprint fuming capabilities and proper evidence drying capabilities, Reed reported.

Even with the lower crime rate, police handled more calls for service and made nearly as many arrests as they did in the prior year. Arrests were down by about 100 compared with 2015 after rising by about 100 over the prior year.

Drug abuse and drug-related crimes continue to be a problem in Elko, but it was good to see the overall decline in both severe and less serious crimes.

There was a big drop in burglaries, down from 305 in 2015 to 178 in 2016, which Reed credited to the successful prosecution and imprisonment of suspects. More work remains to be done, however, as Elkos burglary rate remains above the national average for a city of this size.

The good news is that Elko residents and business owners can take action to help police fight this type of crime, and it is not expensive or dangerous. The number of professional home security services has expanded in recent years. A check on the internet listed five choices, with monthly fees as low as $30.

If thats too steep for your budget there is a wide selection of do-it-yourself systems. These have gotten cheaper, along with most other types of electronic equipment, and produce much higher quality images than old systems.

With an average of one burglary happening in Elko every other day it makes sense to install a home or business security system. Or, if you already have one, consider upgrading it.

Catching burglars and getting them to pay for their crimes is much easier when there is evidence that police and prosecutors can use for an arrest and conviction. The EPDs annual police report is proof that incarceration works to reduce property crimes in our city.

Lets thank our police for all of the hard work they do to protect and serve us, and do what we can to help make their jobs easier whenever possible.
Mumbai: The passage of Goods and Services Tax has been hailed by country's traders and taxpayers with equal zeal. But GST does not seem to have to break good news for taxpayers in Karnataka.

From July 1, when GST will come into effect, people in the state are likely to pay more for eating at standalone restaurants and watching films at cinemas and multiplexes.

According to a report published in The Times of India, presently restaurants in the state pay a 4 per cent composition tax (COT) that is not collected from the customers right now. These restaurants pay the annual COT irrespective of their annual turnover.

Under the new indirect tax regime restaurants with an annual turnover of up to Rs 50 lakh will have to pay a 5 per cent tax, lowest tax bracket under One Nation One Tax system. The rest of these eateries will pay a GST at a 12 per cent rate of standard GST that will be passed on to the consumers as GST is a destination-based taxation.

"Food at restaurants will see a steep price hike. The tax component for customers will be increased from zero per cent to anywhere between 5 per cent and 12 per cent," TOI quoted Veerendra N Kamat, treasurer of Bengaluru Hotels Association, as saying.

Kamat added that the tax for eating at hotels may go up to 18 per cent depending upon the choice of hotel that a customer would make. However, the report adds, eating at star hotels and finedine places will cost less.

Presently, a 14.5 per cent value added tax, 5.5 per cent service tax and a cess of 0.5 per cent is levied for eating at star hotels. Thus, a consumer pays a 20.5 per cent total tax for eating at these restaurants which is expected to come down to 18 per cent once GST is in place.
Mumbai: If you are a frequent traveller within the country and looking for attractive discounts on your air tickets then we advise you to keep reading this article.

The government has taken a slew of steps to promote air travel and favour tourism within the country under UDAN or Ude Desh ka Aam Nagrik scheme. The scheme forms part of broader Regional Connectivity Scheme that wants to boost tourism and air travel.

Under the said scheme, identified airlines will charge Rs 2,500 for an hour's travel on local routes up to a distance of 500 km and in return get government's subsidy for loss of revenue.

UDAN has been conceptualised by the Civil Aviation Ministry that in collaboration with local airlines will offer a subsidised air travel to local populace. The government has indicated that it will continue the subsidy scheme for initial three years.

According to reports, a total of five airlines have won civil aviation's bids to operate under the unique scheme that aims to connect 70 dormant airports in country. The airlines will fly across 128 routes.

Civil Aviation Ministry has distributed different routes to different airlines based on the bids they have won. "Air India has got 15 routes, Spice Jet has got 11, Turbo 18, Air Deccan 34 and Air Odisha has got 50 routes," India Today quoted Aviation Secretary R N Choubey as saying.

These discounted air travels funded by the government form part of aviation ministry's efforts to launch government's Regional Connectivity Scheme that has at its forefront aviation secretary R N Choubey.

In India, most of the airports at tier II cities have not been able to attract air traffic due to poor air connectivity and lack of awareness among air travellers. As of now only 50 per cent seats in an identified airline will be available at a subsidised rate of Rs 2,500 for an hour's travel.
SALT LAKE CITY (AP)  Salt Lake County Mayor Ben McAdams recommended on Friday that a new homeless shelter be built in a vacant lot in South Salt Lake near the county jail.

McAdams issued his recommendation in a news release after hosting a series of raucous town halls to discuss possible sites around the county, including West Valley City, South Salt Lake and Draper. Residents at these events overwhelmingly spoke out against having a homeless shelter in their area.

About 1,000 people in Draper packed a Wednesday night meeting, where attendees shouted down the idea of a shelter in their city, booed a homeless man who asked for understanding and threatened to impeach Mayor Troy Walker.

The proposed South Salt Lake shelter would be one of three new ones that are part of a broad plan to close Salt Lake Citys overflowing downtown shelter.

Democratic Rep. Mark Wheatley, who represents the area, said in a statement Friday that he is deeply disappointed in this site selection.

I will be working with everyone in the district to ensure their security is held paramount during this possible time of transition, he said

McAdams recommended that the shelter not be built until after lawmakers in next years session approve legislation that would send taxes from across the state to those Utah cities that have these homeless shelters.

He also recommended that the state buy the houses near the proposed South Salt Lake shelter.

South Salt Lake announced on its webpage that it will hold an emergency meeting Friday evening in response to McAdams decision.

A state homeless committee gets the final say on the shelters location. The committee is expected to make a final decision by April 10.

State lawmakers recently approved about $10 million to pay for two new 200-bed homeless centers in Salt Lake City and this third one in Salt Lake County that could have up to 300 beds.

Salt Lake City was initially going to add four homeless centers, but last month, officials announced they would only build two there.
New Delhi: India has set up an expert panel to help revive its loss-making state steel maker after a government review found the company to be far less efficient than its rivals despite spending more than $10 billion in the past eight years.

A review document, containing previously undisclosed data and seen by Reuters, criticises Steel Authority of India (SAIL) for everything from the use of low-quality raw materials to outdated technology, suggesting that its problems were not simply the result of cheap Chinese steel imports.

SAIL, which has been overtaken by JSW Steel as India's biggest producer, has posted seven straight quarterly losses, and Reuters reported last week that it was at risk of losing business from its biggest client.

SAIL's underperformance could derail the government's target to triple steel production in the country by 2030, and shows how Prime Minister Narendra Modi's big infrastructure dreams may have to rely heavily on the private sector and imports.

Steel Minister Chaudhary Birender Singh, worried by what he called SAIL's "unsatisfactory" output performance, has asked the panel to recommend a timeline for ramping up capacity at a "quick pace", to find ways to lower production costs and to improve branding and marketing.

"The terms of the reference of the committee will include chalking out a revival plan for turning around loss-making (companies) of the Ministry of Steel to profit-making companies in 2017/18," Singh's office told the committee this week, in a memo seen by Reuters.

The panel, comprising top officials of various government ministries and SAIL, met for the first time this week and will be helped by Boston Consulting Group (BCG) in coming up with a revival plan for the company.

They will set quarterly, six-monthly and yearly targets for SAIL, according to the memo. Two government sources said minister Singh wants a plan for SAIL and smaller state steel company RINL in 15 days.

A SAIL spokesman did not respond to requests for comment. A steel ministry spokesman declined comment.

Government officials earlier said SAIL had failed to take advantage of protectionist measures that have helped private companies out-price Chinese steel and lift their margins.

Failing to SAIL

SAIL fares poorly when compared to international efficiency standards and those of private Indian companies such as JSW and Tata Steel in blast furnace productivity, raw material consumption and energy usage, according to the review document.

For example, SAIL's average daily blast furnace productivity of 1.58 tonnes per cubic meter last fiscal year ended March was 40 percent lower than that of JSW. SAIL said the metric improved 7 percent between April and December last year.

Its use of coke - derived from high-quality coal, and thus costly - was also higher than private peers and global standards. April-December coke use came down 3 percent from a year ago, SAIL said.

Its use of pulverized coal injection technology - a cheaper substitute to coke - was the lowest compared to JSW and Tata in 2015/16. During April-December, SAIL said the gauge improved 14 percent.

The government said this week that three of SAIL's ailing units put up for strategic stake sales have made losses for the past five years despite the company pumping in more than $400 million for their modernisation. (bit.ly/2mPA9PB)

The steel ministry told parliament on Wednesday that most SAIL plants were set up almost half a century ago and that the technologies and equipment had become "old and obsolete".

SAIL is chasing tie-ups with foreign majors such as ArcelorMittal and POSCO, companies known for their cutting-edge technology.

Analysts say higher employee costs, typical of government companies in India, were another factor holding SAIL back.

"Even when the market was good, SAIL was under-performing because of higher fixed costs," said Goutam Chakraborty, analyst at Emkay Global Financial Services in Mumbai, who expects SAIL to show improvement by end of this decade.
New Delhi: New Development Bank (NDB) proposes to raise USD 300 to 500 million through 'Masala Bonds' and increase its exposure to infrastructure projects in India to around USD 600-700 million during the year, said its

president K V Kamath.

"The appetite is slowly growing for local currencies... part of funding in India could be in local currencies in future," he told PTI in an interview. Masala Bonds refer to rupee-denominated debt instruments which are raised in overseas markets.

"Our plan has been to raise Masala Bonds. We are looking at the second half of this year, sometime after July. We will engage with RBI (for regulatory clearances). We are looking at USD 300 to 500 million," he said.

Kamath, the first head of the Shanghai-based multilateral lending institution, is here in connection with the second annual meeting of the BRICS-created NDB beginning tomorrow.

In view of heightened volatility of dollar market, it is a good choice to lend in local currencies provided such loans do not crowd out the local demand, he said, adding "many member countries are asking for local currency lending."

In case of India, Kamath said, "Rupee loan in India is significantly cheaper over the life than a dollar loan." Regarding lending to projects in India, the NDB chief said the institution last year sanctioned two loans  USD 350 million loan for Madhya Pradesh road project and USD 250 million to Canara Bank for renewable energy projects.

The loan agreement for the MP project was signed between India and NDB today. The bank, said Kamath, plans to increase the lending to more projects for sustainable projects in the infrastructure sector in India during the year to around USD 600-700 million dollars.

"We have healthy pipeline from India which meets what we want to do for the country. India should be in the pipeline to get USD 600-700 million dollars this year for projects in energy, water, road sectors," he said.

The NDB last year sanctioned seven loans for projects in different countries having a commitment of USD 1.5 billion. It proposes to approve 15 loans amounting to USD 2.5 to 3 billion during the current year.

Kamath further said that the NDB had no plans to raise additional capital as it has enough funds to meet its lending commitments. "No proposal to raise capital structure. Capital is adequate for us. Two-three countries paid ahead of the

schedule. There is a pace at which the bank can grow. We have to staff and than scale up. For the next year, we can double what we have done and not more than that," said Kamath.

Out of the total sanctioned loan of USD 1.5 billion last year, the first disbursements would start shortly, he said, adding the the total disbursements in the year would be USD 500-600 million.

On opening an office in India, Kamath said that as of now there was no such plan but it would be setting up an African regional centre in couple of weeks. Replying questions on competition with other multilateral institution, especially Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), Kamath said, "honestly, there is no competition from other banks."

On the issue of opting member nations, the NDB chief said it was for the board to take a call on the issue.
New Delhi: The government today informed Parliament that it is not considering any proposal to introduce Rs 21 and 51 currency notes. "There is no proposal to introduce currency notes of Rs 21 and Rs 51 denomination," Minister of State for Finance Arjun Ram Meghwal said in a written reply to the Lok Sabha.

Meghwal was replying to a question asked by BJP MP and film actor Paresh Rawal. In another reply, he said that there is no proposal to demonetise currency notes of Rs 50 and Rs 100.

The government had earlier said that it has no plans to come out with Rs 5,000 and Rs 10,000 banknotes. The government had recently introduced Rs 2,000 note along with a new Rs 500 note following the demonetisation which scrapped 86 per cent of the currency in circulation on 8 November.

Economic Affairs Secretary Shaktikanta Das had last month said that the government has no plans to re-introduce Rs 1,000 note. Meghwal in another reply said 310 cases were registered for counterfeiting coins in 2014 while there were 38 cases registered in 2015.

"In the year 2016, Delhi Police unearthed two fake coin minting factories in Bawana and a case was registered on October 2016. Fake coins of Rs 5 and Rs 10 denomination valuing Rs 6,37,500 were recovered in the case," he said.
Mumbai: We saw Kareena Kapoor Khan and Saif Ali Khan dressed in style at the Mumbai airport few days as they returned from their London holiday which they spent without their newborn son Taimur.

There is no denying that the couple is flaunting a delightful glow on their faces after becoming parents.

We, however, did not know that Kareenas sister Karisma Kapoor was also a part of the holiday.

Karisma recently took to Instagram to share a picture with Kareena while they were shopping in London.

The actresses looked stunning together in the picture with cool sunglasses and handbags complementing their stylish outfits.

Karismas caption was also interesting, asking 'who's your favourite shopping partner?' referring to Kareena and also giving lovely hastags like #sistersquadgoals, #sisterlove.

Kareena will be starting the shooting of Veere Di Wedding also starring Sonam Kapoor soon.
After wrapping up two schedules in Chennai, the team of Vijay 61 headed by Atlee is on a break. This untitled film has Baahubali fame Vijayendra Prasad working on the story. The film boasts an ensemble cast of Vijay, Samantha, Kajal Aggarwal, Nithya Menen, Sathyaraj, SJ Suryah, Kovai Sarala and Sathyan.

It was earlier reported that the team is likely to travel to the US and UK to shoot major portions of the film. According to latest developments, a source in the know tells us that the team will head to Rajasthan to shoot few important sequences before the foreign schedule. The team of Vijay 61 is now busy obtaining visas for their schedule overseas.

Also, the source tells us that Kajal Aggarwal and Samantha would join the sets later during the shoots in the US and UK. The plot of Vijay 61 deals with a social issue  and Vijay and Kajal Aggarwal meet at a professional setup. The technical crew of Vijay 61 includes composer AR Rahman, cinematographer GK Vishnu and editor Antony Ruben as part of their team.
On Friday, the vast barren land of Nadigar Sangam in the city wore a festive look with decorations everywhere! The stone laying ceremony for the construction of Nadigar Sangam building was held. The dream was finally realised by the honchos of Nadigar Sangam, particularly its secretary Vishal, president Nasser, and treasurer Karthi, who vowed they would complete the building  which was a bone of contention from the previous regime.

The event started with bhoomi and vaasthu poojas. Speaking on the occasion, Vishal said, It is a historic moment for all of us. We have finally crossed all the hurdles and hardship. After getting due permission from CMDA, the corporation and other authorities, we have started this. The building at a cost of Rs 28 crores, will be completed by September 2018. We expect a return income of `50 lakh per month, with the infrastructure inside. We have and never will commit mistakes or indulge in malpractice.

The actor also announced that Karthi and he will be donating `10 crores for the construction of the building. Karthi, who is shooting in Rajasthan currently, wished the entire team through Skype. The highlight of the morning was the dashing entries of Kamal Haasan followed by Rajinikanth. Its a dream come true! I have seen this place with a building, and now the present team is raising it again, remarked Kamal who returned from London and headed straight there.

Rajini said, All went well today for Nadigar Sangam. The future also will be good. The entire Kollywood fraternity, including office bearers of the sangam, like Isari Ganesh, Ponvannan, Kovai Sarala, Pasupathy, Poochi Murugan, Manobala, Ajay Ratnam and veterans like Vani Sree, MN Rajan, Sharadha, Jayachithra, R Udhaykumar, were on time. Rajkiran, Meena, Jiiva, Jayam Ravi and Sivakarthikeyan, among others, were also present.
Actor Prasanna has a spate of films at different stages of production. While the actor is awaiting the release of Dhanushs Power Paandi, he has signed his second Telugu film, which will be helmed by BVS Ravi. Speaking to DC from the set of the yet-to-be-titled film, Prasanna says, Director BVS met me in Chennai and narrated the film. He saw the recent pictures of mine and felt that my toned physique would suit the character perfectly. I play a posh villain in the movie which has Sai Dharam Tej as the hero. It is a potential role for me to perform. The Anjaathey actor has started shooting for the film a couple of days ago.

It is a friendly atmosphere on the sets as we have cinematographer Guhan cranking the camera and SS Thaman composing the music. My character in this commercial venture will definitely be one of my best roles. BVS Ravi has shown a lot of trust in me and I am trying to make him proud, he shares. Talking about his physical transformation, Prasanna reveals, It was a conscious break for two years and I started working out. I felt that rather than approaching directors for a film, I would give them something to look out for. And it worked out; Ive got a lot of offers. I still have 30 days of shoot pending for Mysskins Thupparivalan and 12 days of shoot left for Thiruttu Payale 2, he concludes. Prasanna is awaiting the release of Kaalakoothu and Nibunan.
Rating:

Cast: Taapsee Pannu, Akshay Kumar, Prithviraj Sukumaran, Manoj Bajpayee, Anupam Kher, Danny Denzongpa

Director: Shivam Nair

Bollywood filmmakers seem to be acknowledging a different, more disarming brand of power: a womans ability to unmake a man. Though it isnt exactly new, the number of woman-centric roles is definitely growing. Therefore, after being experts at a tensile brand of quiet authority, where she would at best, rise to a crisis or would see to it that a crisis never arose without lifting a finger or by virtue of her sheer existence, she is seen as having her way, albeit by trying to prove herself no less than any man. In Naam Shabana, which is a prequel to the 2015 film Baby, producer Neeraj Pandey joins hands with director Shivam Nair and takes us through the ordeal of sexism and prejudice that women often get subjected to. The film explores the back story of Shabana Khan (Taapsee Pannu), who had a brief yet impressive cameo in Baby, and shows how she was roped in as a secret agent by R&AW. Just that, he allows Shabana to be the hero  a mixed martial arts expert  who also makes her devoted college friend, Jay, feel safe whenever he is with her.

Although Shabana lives a quiet existence with her single mother in Mumbai, attends college and kicks butt at karate classes with passion, she is no ordinary girl. Her stoical exterior reveals more than it hides about her alcoholic and wife-beater fathers devilish behaviour. She even kills her father after knocking him down once when he became uncontrollable and spent two years in a remand home too. She is also daring and audacious enough to take on any goonda who tries to mess with her. Her world comes crashing down when after getting proposed to by Jay on a dinner date, she encounters a bunch of disgustingly bad men who try to prove their might. She dares them, takes them on and loses her friend in the bargain. From then on begins her initiation into a secret agents gameplan, which she resolutely follows and begins to conform to all the rules led by the agents: mastermind Ranvir Singh (Manoj Bajpayee) and later by Om Prakash Shukla (Anupam Kher), Feroze Ali Khan (Dannny Denzongpa), Ajay Singh Rajput (Akshay Kumar) and Virender Saxena.

To be honest, I expected this to be really cheesy and unsophisticated, and in certain areas it sure is. However, I must add that a female agent kicking butt can be thoroughly entertaining too. In some ways, it is also a lot more seriously entertaining than I initially gave it credit for. The only thing I didnt really care for was the lack of carrying out of any credible plans that one would associate with such high-profile operation involving internationally known agents. And that spells doom for viewers too, particularly in the second half. Since till the time Shabana is expected to avenge the killing of Jay (who had also proposed to her the day he gets killed), its something that one goes along with her. The moment she gets inducted into the agency (I presume it is RA&W!) and gets to fight, kick, grab, toss, jump, pounce and punch or swing whosoever is willing to come her way, her knocks look orchestrated primarily to offer cheap thrills. Not to mention the most puerile plot that she has to be a part of. Imagine at one point, she is made to punch and smash the most dreaded gangster Tony (played with aplomb by Prithviraj Sukumaran), that too all by herself.

The agency has her whisked off to Kuala Lumpur after getting her trained by the forces special operatives unit, and placed under the care of stern Ajay Singh with few clues to go by. The way Shabana must venture into the deal and wield her deadly skills against a dangerous group who seems all too determined to set the city suffer. As a spin-off Naam Shabana while exploring her back story shows how she was roped in as a secret agent. However, since it suffers heavily from Baby hangover, it just doesnt move ahead with a plausible storyline. Ill plead ignorance in claiming that I dont know if there really was somebody by the name of Shabana, on whose story the film is based. Its a film filled with girl power that too from only one who fights crime with guns, clubs, or sticks and smacks the crap out of assailants.

Pannu acquits herself well, but why does she have a mono expression face running through the films 148 minutes, one would wonder? Bajpayee too has limited scope and is constrained by the oddity that his role demands. Its Akshay Kumar, who seems to be having fun even though he appears briefly. Anupam Kher looks ludicrous in his periwig. Shivam Nair had a bright idea on his hands: to create a convincing situation of a character whose identity and job have already been established earlier in the franchise. Wish instead of Neeraj Pandey, who is credited with story and screenplay besides wearing the producers hat, he could engage a good writer to flesh out believable sub-plots too!

The writer is a film critic and has been reviewing films for over 15 years. He also writes on music, art and culture, and other human interest stories.
New York: The first works by Nobel laureates following the prize inevitably draw extra attention. For Bob Dylan, his release is as unorthodox as his selection for literature's top award.

On the heels of the Nobel committee's decision to honor him as the original poet of rock, Dylan is putting out his third straight album not of his own songwriting but of covers of pop standards.

'Triplicate,' which comes out Friday, is also the first three-disc original album by the rock legend as he interprets 30 songs from the 1930s through 1950s, most of them sung at some point by Frank Sinatra.

For an artist who over a half-century has famously flouted convention -- from going electric in 1965 to writing long-winding songs that broke radio formats -- the 75-year-old's recent passion for the music of his youth is clearly no fluke.

Dylan's 'Sentimental Journey,' to quote the title of one of the songs on the album, is at once a celebration of a golden age in songwriting and a rejection of the simplicity and over-production of contemporary pop music.

Many of the songs on 'Triplicate' are deceptively complex, with multiple shifts in key and time signature.

Dylan, whose grainy voice has rarely been described as a reason for his success, recorded in live sessions with his band in a Los Angeles studio, declining to go back in production and gloss over the rough edges of his vocals.

Dylan concentrates the album's third disc on existential songs about life such as Hoagy Carmichael's perennial favorite 'Stardust,' doo-wop legends The Ink Spots' 'It's Funny to Everyone But Me' and 'Why Was I Born?' popularized by Billie Holiday.

"These songs are some of the most heartbreaking stuff ever put on record and I wanted to do them justice," Dylan told the writer Bill Flanagan in a rare interview that the rocker posted on his website.

"Now that I have lived them and lived through them, I understand them better. They take you out of that mainstream grind where you're trapped between differences which might seem different but are essentially the same.

"Modern music and songs are so institutionalized that you don't realize it. These songs are cold and clear-sighted, there is a direct realism in them, faith in ordinary life just like in early rock and roll," he said.

Whereas Sinatra brought an ebullience to his songs, Dylan chooses restraint. On 'The Best Is Yet to Come,' a song that so marked Sinatra's spirit that the line is on his epitaph, Dylan gives a steady, bluesy delivery.

On 'When the World Was Young,' an oft-covered song whose French original was performed by Edith Piaf, Dylan brings a sense of loneliness to a tune of nostalgia that for Sinatra carried hope and for Aretha Franklin brought glamour.

Dylan's take bears more emotional resemblance to Peggy Lee's version, but he creates a steamier atmosphere led as elsewhere on the album by understated guitar riffs.

The ever-reclusive Dylan chose to focus on 'Triplicate' and his constant touring rather than head to Sweden last year to accept the Nobel Prize.

The Swedish Academy said Dylan will finally pick up the award this weekend when he performs in Stockholm, but no media will be present and he will tape a required lecture at a later date.
Mumbai: While its been confirmed that Raju Srivastava will be joining Kapil Sharma on his new show, the future of Sunil Grover had not yet been finalised, after he walked out of the show

However, if the latest rumours doing the rounds are to be believed, Sunil will be reprising his much loved roles from The Kapil Sharma Show, albeit on a separate show on the same channel. His characters Dr Mashoor Gulati and Rinku Bhabhi were extremely integral to the shows massive success.

Reportedly, the actor is all set to portray the two characters during the finale of the singing reality show Indian Idol, according to a report in Mumbai Mirror.

On Wednesday, Sunil was rehearsing his act at a city studio. Kapil was shooting for his show close by. The two did not interact. Sunil will shoot for Indian Idol on Friday and then again on Sunday, when the episode is slated to be aired. The other integration planned for the finale is with Vishal Vashishtha and Madirakshi Mundle from the daily soap Jaat Ki Jugni, the daily quoted a source as saying.

Earlier, Kapil Sharma and Sunil Grover reportedly had a big fight during a flight with the team, when an inebriated Kapil allegedly hurled abuses and threw a shoe at Sunil.

The actor reportedly misses his stint on the show, but is hell-bent on not returning to the show post the criplling humiliation.
Life seems to have come full circle for lovebirds Samantha and Naga Chaitanya. The couples iconic scene on the Brooklyn Bridge in New York from their first movie together, Ye Maaya Chesave might have stolen hearts  but it seems the spot holds a very special place in their hearts too. Now, fans of the two actors might have to sit down for this... because Naga Chaitanya and Samantha tied the knot last weekend... at the very same place they met and fell in love!

While the couple had to pull a lot of strings to get this elaborate set up done on the Brooklyn Bridge, sources tell us that they were planning this for more than a year. Speaking exclusively to DC, a source close to the family said, Chai and Sam wanted to make sure that everything was perfect. It was actually quite a huge task to keep this a secret, but they managed to do so. The two always had a special place in their hearts for the Brooklyn Bridge because thats the time they got close to one another. So when they sat down to decide where they wanted to get married, they instinctively knew it had to be there!

However, there is hardly anyone in the industry who knows about this development. Sam and Chaitanya wanted this to be a private affair, so none of the guests disclosed anything. No one could even tell that anything was different because the Akkinenis and Samantha seemed pretty normal at an award function held in the city recently, says a source. While the wedding was a close affair with only family and really close friends in attendance, the couple plans to host a huge get-together once they head back to the country. Says a source, It was a rather beautiful affair. It was a Christian wedding and Sam made the perfect bride! She wore an Elie Saab off-shoulder gown with delicate lace, and her veil was simply stunning, while Chaitanya looked dapper in a Giorgio Armani suit.

What surprised people was the fact that Chaitanya got quite emotional when he saw Sam walk down the aisle. Chaitanya couldnt control his happiness when he saw her walk down the aisle, and what made this entire celebration even more special was the fact that Sam was wearing a family heirloom, a diamond neckpiece, that was handed down from generations, says a source.

Talking about how they pulled off the wedding on one of the busiest bridges in the world, a source says, Initially it was quite difficult, but they managed to do so... just as DC managed to pull the leg of their readers on April Fools Day with this story. In case you still didnt get the hint, Happy April Fools Day!
Bengaluru: Former army man turned journalist Sushant Sighs book Mission Overseas: Daring Operations by the Indian Military tries to bring out the untold stories related to Indian armys outings in Maldives, Sierra Leone and Sri Lanka.

Singh, who was part of the UN Peacekeeping operations in Africa in the 1990s, dwells upon Operation Khukri that took place in Sierra Leone in 2000, to rescue the 200 Indian soldiers from rebels.

Though the operation managed to get Indian soldiers out alive, with the exception of one, the incident did raise questions about the level of involvement the Indian army should have in overseas operations, he said. After this operation, India started saying no to fighting under the UN umbrella.

The book also touches upon details of Operation Cactus conducted in Maldives in 1998 to prevent a coup against the then president, Maumoon Abdul Gayoom and Operation Pawan in Sri Lanka.

The army went in without the latest maps into Maldives. They were given coffee table maps, that dated back to Second World War, he said.

He also revealed that during Operation Pawan in Sri Lanka the much criticized heli-borne attack in Jaffna University happened because Indian army was ill-equipped and 29 soldiers died in the attack.

He felt the mission did not get the credit they deserved. It was the political scenario at the time. Rajiv Gandhi was losing his appeal and the economy was also down. Everything that could possibly go wrong was going wrong, he said. The book was launched at Rangoli Metro Art Centre in the city on Thursday.
As a precautionary measure, the government intends to bring in measures to prevent water from stagnating on construction sites and in stone quarries with the help of local bodies.(Photo: Pixabay/ Representational Image)

Bengaluru: Alarmed at the rate at which malaria is spreading in the state, the government is preparing to tackle it on a war footing. While malaria was confined to Udupi and Dakshina Kannada in the past, it has now spread to eight districts of North Karnataka and sporadic cases are being reported from another 12 districts, according to Secretary, Health and Family Welfare, Shalini Rajaneesh. Malaria is now found in around 20 districts of the state and is spreading at an alarming rate, she told reporters here.

As a precautionary measure, the government intends to bring in measures to prevent water from stagnating on construction sites and in stone quarries with the help of local bodies. The local bodies have been asked to dump debris over stagnant water in stone quarries. Agricultural fields are also playing a major role in the breeding of the malaria mosquito, the officer said, adding that the health department was working with all local bodies to educate people on the dangers of stagnant water, which was an ideal breeding ground for mosquitoes.

Afraid that the drought could lead to an outbreak of disease caused by poor quality of tanker water supplied to people, especially in summer, the department has directed local health officials to ensure that it meets the required standards before it is delivered to consumers. We have taken up a massive drive to ensure that only treated water is supplied for drinking, Ms Rajaneesh said.
All the other internal organs use water first and only then does the skin get some. (Representational image)

Hyderabad: Summer is the time for heat boils, skin rashes, burning and redness of exposed skin, and fungal infections due to sweat and dehydration.

The skin is the last organ in the body to receive water. All the other internal organs use water first and only then does the skin get some. So dryness, tightness and itchiness of the skin are the first signs that the skin is not getting enough water.

Dermatologist Dr Akansh Jain says, Extra care is required for the skin in summer as there is a flare up in heat boils, heat rashes and fungal infections due to photo-toxic effects and sweat. The heat boils are due to consumption of heat generating foods. This is seen in people who consume non-vegetarian food on a daily basis. Those who do not drink sufficient water also suffer from this problem. Keeping the body hydrated with sufficient water, water-based fruits and fresh fruit juices is important during summer.

There is also a flare-up in prickly heat. Dr S. Manmohan, senior dermatologist says tight and synthetic clothes do not allow the sweat from the body to evaporate. They stick to the body raising the body temperature, leading to heat exhaustion and heat strokes. People are advised to wear loose cotton clothes so that sweat evaporates and keeps the body temperature cool, he says.

Applying sunscreen in summer is recommended for those who are outdoors a lot. Dr Swapna Kunduru, consultant dermatologist, says its best to avoid exposure to the sun between 10 am and 2 pm.

But those who have jobs during those hours and are outside must use protective hats, umbrellas, sunglasses, scarves and long sleeved shirts and pants. She advises using a sunscreen that offers protection from both ultra-violet A and B rays and is water resistant.

Choose one with an SPF (sun protection factor) of at least 30 to protect against radiation, she says. Water-resistant sunscreens retain SPF for up to 40 minutes after water exposure, while wat-er-proof sunscreens retain SPF for up to 80 minutes after water exposure. Sunscreens are available as gels (for hairy areas), and lotions for oily or dry skin. Choose the one best suited to your skin type.
24-year-old Rix Terabite proved he was the hungriest for the record and managed to consume a record-breaking five 107-gram patties in 60 seconds. (Credit: YouTube)

Singapore: A new Guinness World Record has been set in Philippines where a 24-year-old won the title for the most hamburgers eaten in one minute after gobbling down five 107-gram patties in 60 seconds.

A burger shop in Philippines, which is known locally for its competitive burger eating challenges, invited their ten best food gobblers to attempt a Guinness World Records title. After a tense round of knockouts, Filipinos Kelvin "Zarkman" Medina and Ricardo "Rix Terabite" Francisco were left in the competition for the title most hamburgers eaten in one minute.

24-year-old Rix Terabite proved he was the hungriest for the record and managed to consume a record-breaking five 107-gram patties in 60 seconds.

Although Zarkman missed out on a title this time, he holds the record for fastest time to eat a 12" pizza which he won in a previous contest.

Formerly, the record for most hamburgers eaten in a minute was held by multiple record-breaking competitive eater Peter Czerwinski, aka "Furious Pete", who ate four hamburgers in the time slot. The Guinness World Records rules for this hamburger eating challenge insist that only one burger is to be eaten at a time, using just one hand.

Participants are allowed to put just one condiment on their burgers and have a glass of water in their other hand but no dunking is permitted. The record for the Most hamburgers eaten in three minutes is held by Japan's Takeru Kobayashi, who gobbled an impressive 12 burgers on the set of Lo Show dei Record in Milan, Italy.
Unlike most classical musicians, when cellist Avery Waite graduated from the prestigious Juilliard School of Music in 2012, he refused to limit what he had learned to a stage. Born and raised in California, Avery wanted to take his music out of the practice room to the world. He strongly believes that music could heal the world. I didnt want what people called a good career. I wanted to take what I had learned and show people what music is really about and how it can touch lives, says the American cellist.

Transcending borders, he traveled extensively to Afghanistan, Lebanon, Iraq, Turkmenistan, Jamaica, El Salvador and more recently, Syria and taught music through cultural diplomacy programs. Music shouldnt be divided into haves and have-nots he says, It shouldnt be a luxury, it is a right.

A cellist for almost two decades and a violinist for a couple, Avery started his musical journey as early as three. It was perhaps his family values that pushed him towards cultural diplomacy projects, he says. I grew up in a liberal, socially and politically active community. My childhood involved a lot of volunteering and I grew up with a sense of cause. When he went to Oberlin Conservatory for his undergrad, the elitism in classical music made him want to pick this path. It felt wrong to see music divided into the haves and the have-nots, he says.

In his maiden visit to the city, Avery is looking forward to experiences that will enrich his experiences further.

In his maiden visit to the city, Avery is looking forward to experiences that will enrich his experiences further. He is conducting a week-long orchestral development workshop in three groups who will also have the opportunity to take the stage with him at the closing of the week. This workshop is about enjoying the music; it isnt about playing a note perfectly. It is about freeing yourself of projections of success and building confidence, he says. The workshop will be divided into three groups according to grades and will include violin, cello and any other string instrument and is priced nominally, at `750.

There is a certain seriousness that stems from nervousness in most musicians and it needs to be addressed, he says. Music shouldnt make you afraid to fail, you can play an imperfect note, dont worry about messing up, he assures, Just open up and have fun.The workshop wont be your typical classical one either. Weve got some rock flavours, some Latin rhythms and even some movie tunes, he says.

Avery will be performing some original solos at the end of the workshop, along with the participants. Expect it to be a surprise, he says. It will be more than music by Mozart and Beethoven. There will be compositions one has probably never heard before or even see some new string techniques on cello and the violin. He will also be playing the Beethoven 9th symphony at with the Indian national Youth Orchestra next week.

What: The Avery Waite Strings Workshop

When: April 3- April 8

Where: Bangalore School of Music, RT nagar
Chennai: A 15-year-old girl who was allegedly given a spiked drink and raped by her uncle, who is the Correspondent of a private school, committed suicide on Wednesday as she could not bear his blackmailing.

The Class X student immolated herself at her residence after leaving a detailed suicide note after finishing her exams. The incident had reportedly taken place in September last year when the uncle offered a soft drink laced with sedatives.

He told the girl that he would release her rape video if she revealed the incident to anyone. The girl disclosed it a couple of months ago to her family, which scolded the alleged rapist and prevented the girl from disclosing the incident to anyone else. However, the uncle was encouraged by this and kept harassing the girl to have sex with him.

The girl who was left alone while her parents and sibling were away took the drastic step after leaving a suicide note, said a senior police official.

The doctors declared the girl dead on arrival at the KMCH. A case has been registered under section 306 IPC (Abetment of suicide) and POCSO act (4) and have launched a search for the absconding uncle.
The judge sentenced Padi Krishna for life for rape and seven years for kidnap and imposed a fine of Rs 2,000.

Hyderabad: A 50-year-old man who had kidnapped and sexually assaulted a three-month-old baby was convicted by the metropolitan sessions court judge Sunita Kunchala in LB Nagar. The judge sentenced Padi Krishna for life for rape and seven years for kidnap and imposed a fine of Rs 2,000.

Krishna had broken into the victims home in November 2015 and stole the baby. When the family noticed the baby missing, they began looking for her, and found her with Krishna. They beat him up and and handed him over to police. They noticed that the baby was bleeding and rushed her to hospital,where doctors said she had been raped.
Hyderabad: In a sensational verdict, the Hyderabad High Court on Friday acquitted Pidathala Satyam Babu for the rape and murder of B. Pharmacy student Ayesha Meera 11 years ago, and ordered police to pay Rs 1 lakh in costs to the defendant for lapses in the probe and arresting an innocent man.

Mr Babu, who is physically handicapped, was convicted for life in 2010 and has been in prison for eight years. A division bench comprising Justice C.V. Nagarjuna Reddy and Justice M.S.K. Jaiswal was hearing an appeal by P. Satyam Babu challenging the life sentence awarded to him by the Womens Special Sessions Court in Vijayawada on September 29, 2010.

Pointing out that the prosecution has failed to produce evidence to prove that the appellant raped the victim and then killed her, the bench noted that the police alone created the story of rape as there was not enough evidence to prove that the victim was raped.

The bench felt that the police brought in the theory of rape to protect the real culprits. The bench ordered immediate release of the appellant.

The bench found fault with the trial court for believing in the police without looking into the lapses in the investigation. The bench observed that though the appellant had been acquitted of certain offences by the courts, the investigation team projected him as a notorious criminal.

High Court points out anomalies

The bench made it clear that the evidence was not sufficient for it to endorse the appellants argument that the police had booked him to protect a political family.

The bench said that as it had no power to order compensation to the appellant for torture by the police, and that they are leaving it open to the appellant to sue the government for foisting the case on him. Recalling the constitution of the Apex Committee by the AP government on February 14, 2017 to review lapses in investigations, the bench said that this was a fit case for the panel.

The bench pointed to anomalies like the police claim that the appellant scaled an eight-foot wall twice with a pedestal in one hand to kill the victim who was sleeping on the second floor of the hostel. It is unbelievable, the bench observed, that a man weighing 50 kg and physically challenged, can scale an eight-foot wall with a single hand. The bench said it cannot accept the theory that the appellant entered the room without disturbing the victims roommates, committed rape and murder, dragged the body to the toilet and wrote on her body.
Bengaluru: The BBMP standing committee on Taxation and Finance, which had claimed it had prepared a realistic budget, has revised and inflated its size by Rs 575.45 crore.

After discussing for four days, the committee conceded to the demands of the corporators and enhanced the outlay to Rs 9,816.49 crore from Rs 9,241 crore. The committee also made changes in the receipts of the BBMP for the year 2017-18. The BBMP took the approval of the council on the revised budget outlay and sent the same to the government for approval. As per the new outlay Rs 559 crore has been earmarked for special grants to all the wards. The money allocated for the upgradation of graveyards has been slashed to Rs 75 crore from Rs 125 crore.

The BJP staged a protest outside BBMP head office against these changes. The opposition leader in the BBMP council, Padmanabha Reddy, said if the budget disparity was not set right his party would intensify the protest. Independent corporators and MLAs from Congress and JD(S) have got lions share of funds and BJP corporators have been ignored. This bias should be rectified, Reddy demanded.
Bengaluru: Two people died due to burn injuries as a fire broke out in a furniture manufacturing firm at Vinayaka Nagar in Guddadahalli on Mysore Road on Friday afternoon.

Police said the incident occurred at around 12.50 pm on the ground floor of a four-storey building and the deceased have been identified as Mehtab (27), hailing from Delhi, and Abdul Hafeez (35), hailing from Shivamogga, who was also a maulvi at the madrasa on the first floor of the same building.

While the cause of the fire is still being investigated, eyewitnesses claim that it spread quickly and provided little time for the workers to escape. According to neighbours, there were around six people working in the firm minutes before the fire broke out. As it was Friday, four had gone to nearby mosque for prayers.

The fire department officials who rushed to the spot rescued 10 people from the building, including four children and three women. As many as 10 fire trucks were pressed into service. According to fire officials, the factory had a stock of foam and other materials used to manufacture office chairs.

Major tragedy averted

A major tragedy was averted as Friday happened to be a holiday for the madrasa students. More than 15 children attend the madrasa, located in the same building.

The incident could also have resulted in more damages had the fire spread to the first floor. J.J. Nagar police have registered a case and begun investigation.
New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Friday granted bail to Bitihotra Bitti Mohanty, son of a former DGP-rank officer in Odisha, who was sentenced to seven years in jail for raping a German woman.

A bench comprising Justices S.A. Bobde and L. Nageswara Rao asked Mohanty to surrender his passport in the trial court besides furnishing a bail bond of Rs 2.5 lakh for grant of bail.

The apex court also directed the convict to appear before the Cantonment police station in Cuttack in the first week of every month.

Mohanty had absconded in 2006 after getting parole on the ground of visiting his ailing mother and was rearrested in March 2013 by the Kerala police from Kannur where he was working as a probationary officer in the State Bank of Travancore under a fake identity.
Hyderabad: Mr Shadab Alam, an MA student of Moulana Azad National Urdu University (Manuu) and topper from the history department, refused to receive his prize from the Vice-Chancellor and the Pro Vice-Chancellor of the university as part of the students protest against fee hike, UGC gazette and hostel eviction.

Manuu held an annual prize distribution programme at the Open Theatre Auditorium at the university campus at Gachibowli on Thursday where the student refused to receive his prize.

Mr Alam said, By not receiving the prize from the V-C himself in front of hundreds of students and faculty of the university, I have registered my protest against the administration for some of its decisions that tend to go against the students. This protest has been registered in the wake of a massive seat cut in the Research programmes in JNU, massive fee hike in admissions and hostel evictions.The university officials were not available for comment on the students protest.
Hyderabad: With the new financial year (2017-18) commencing from Saturday, April 1, the TS government has stepped up efforts to derive maximum benefit from the Union Budget.

The Union Budget was advanced by a month this year with the aim of spending Budgetary funds effectively from the very first day of the financial year.

The state government wants to tap maximum share of funds from various Central schemes, which will be implemented through fund sharing with state governments.

Finance minister Etala Rajender, who visited New Delhi on Friday to take part in the GST Council meeting, took time out to meet Union finance minister Arun Jaitley, civil supplies minister Ram Vilas Paswan, rural development minister Narendra Singh Tomar among others and sought early release of the Centres share of funds to implement various development and welfare schemes in Telangana.

Mr Rajender assured the Union ministers that the state government has evolved a mechanism to release its share of funds towards matching grant without any delay and start off the projects at the earliest, besides submitting utilisation certificates to the Centre every quarter to claim funds.

The government has lined up several infrastructure projects starting from roads in villages to towns and cities, schemes to encourage caste-based occupations, extending Mission Kakatiya works to MNREGA, Mission Bhagiratha to provide purified drinking water to all households. All these schemes are entitled for the Centres support as per the allocations made in Union Budget. Instead of waiting for the Central assistance till halfway through the financial year or even later, it would be better to take up works from the start of the new financial year in April itself and submit the bills to Centre claiming financial assistance, Mr Rajender said.

With the TS government being financially over-burdened from launching of several development and welfare programmes within a short span, it wants to utilise the Centres share to the maximum possible extent and ease its financial burden.
New Delhi: The Supreme Court today refused to accord an early hearing on a batch of civil appeals pertaining to the Ayodhya Ram Temple-Babri Masjid case.

During the hearing, a bench headed by Chief Justice J S Khehar told BJP leader Subramanian Swamy that the court was made to believe that he was a party to the ongoing litigation.

This had led to the Chief Justice of India offering to mediate between the parties to the litigation, the court said.

"You did not tell us that you were not a party to the case, we only got to know that from the press," the bench said.

Swamy, however, said that he had made it clear that his Fundamental Right to worship was affected.

"My Right to Pray is affected by the pending case and I had filed an intervening application," Swamy said.

The bench then said that it was not going to fast track the matter.

Earlier on March 21 the apex court had suggested an out-of-court settlement to the lingering Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid land dispute at Ayodhya, observing that issues of "religion and sentiments" can be best resolved through talks.

Chief Justice Khehar had also offered to mediate even as the bench headed by him suggested that the parties to the dispute adopt a "give a bit and take a bit" approach for a meaningful and sincere negotiations to resolve the vexatious issue.

The Lucknow bench of Allahabad High Court had in 2010 ruled for a three-way division of the disputed 2.77 acres area at the site in Uttar Pradesh.

The three-judge bench, by a majority of 2:1, had said the land be partitioned equally among three parties, Sunni Waqf Board, Nirmohi Akhara and the 'Ram Lalla'.

On February 26 last year, the apex court had allowed Swamy to intervene in the pending matters relating to the Ayodhya title dispute with his plea seeking construction of

Ram temple at the site of the demolished disputed structure.

The BJP leader had moved the plea for a direction to allow construction of the Ram temple at Ayodhya at the disputed site and claimed that under the practices prevalent in Islamic countries, a mosque could be shifted to any other place for public purposes like constructing A road, whereas a temple once constructed cannot be touched.

He had also sought directions to expedite the disposal of several petitions challenging the Allahabad High Court verdict of three-way division of the disputed site at Ayodhya on September 30, 2010.

The dispute before the court was whether the 2.7 acres of disputed land on which the Babri Masjid stood before it was demolished on December 6, 1992, belongs to the Sunni Central Waqf Board or to the Akhil Bharat Hindu Mahasabha.
The trial court judge also refused to give time to the prosecution and defence to argue the case and pronounced the judgment.

Chennai: The mother of a 5-year-old daughter has been acquitted of the charge of murdering her 5-year-old daughter by giving food mixed with pesticide in Erode district on July 8, 2015. The high court set aside the order of a lower court which had convicted and sentenced her to life imprisonment.

Allowing an appeal from V.Shobana, a division bench comprising Justices S.Nagamuthu and N.Authinathan said, "Had the poison been mixed with food, as it is stated by the prosecution, the smell of Organophosphorous poison would have emanated which would not have missed the nose of the prosecution witnesses and the undigested food should have been present in the stomach. We find absolutely there is no convincing evidence to hold that it is this accused, who killed the girl".

Pulling up the Fast Track / Mahila court in Erode for not offering legal assistance to the accused, the bench said, "The trial court, in our considered view, did not afford sufficient opportunity and legal assistance to the accused.

We regret to say that the trial court in the instant case has not even cared to have regard that the accused has got a right to be defended by a competent lawyer. There is no indication that the judge offered any legal assistance through legal aid to the accused, who is a poor woman.

The trial court judge also refused to give time to the prosecution and defence to argue the case and pronounced the judgment. This act of the judge in blindly rushing to finish the case is really unwarranted and unfortunate".

According to the prosecution, due to frequent quarrels with her husband, Shobana had started living with her parents in Nambiyur village in Erode district with her daughter. On July 8, 2015 she allegedly gave food mixed with pesticide to her daughter.

Soon the child fainted and with the help of her brother and neighbour, Shobana took her child to a private hospital where she was declared dead. A case was registered and the Mahila Court in Erode had on May 6, 2016 convicted and sentenced her to undergo life imprisonment.

Pulling up the counsel engaged by the accused for his failure to appear before the court, the bench said, "The said counsel, it appears did not have any concern for the ethics and best practices of the legal profession.

The counsel had forgotten his duty to appear before the court when the case was called and to conduct the case after getting instructions from the client. But such gross negligence and dereliction of duty on the part of the counsel cannot go to deprive the right of the accused to have legal assistance and to have effective defence. Though the said advocate did not appear until May 4, 2016 there is no indication that the judge offered any legal assistance through legal aid to the accused. On May 5, 2016, the new counsel engaged by the accused filed a petition to recall all the witnesses, which was summarily rejected by the judge.

The trial court judge who found the accused allegedly involved in serious offences should be more sensitive to afford a fair trial to the accused".
New Delhi: Delhi High Court today refused to quash the disproportionate assets case filed by CBI against Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh and his wife, saying there is no basis to claim that the FIR is the result of any "political vendetta".

It also vacated the Himachal Pradesh High Court's October 1, 2015 interim order restraining CBI from arresting, interrogating or filing a charge sheet in the case without the court's permission.

"There is no factual basis brought on record to claim that the registration of the FIR against the petitioners (Singh and his wife) is actuated or legally or factually mala fide or that the registration of the FIR/ RC is a result of political vendetta," Justice Vipin Sanghi said.

Following the prder, the agency later in the day filed a charge sheet before the special court here against nine people including the 82-year-old Congress leader for alleged offences punishable under section 109 (abetment) of IPC and Prevention of Corruption Act.

The special court has now fixed the charge sheet, running into over 500 pages, for consideration for tomorrow.

Commenting that the HP High Court's direction was passed without hearing the necessary parties in the matter, the Delhi High Court noted, "It is well settled that a court should not undertake to decide an issue unless it is a live issue between the parties".

It also turned down the question framed by HP High Court, whether the permission of the Speaker of the HP Legislative Assembly was mandatory before registration of FIR.

Justice Sanghi held that there is "no legal basis to claim that the permission of Speaker of Himachal Pradesh Legislative Assembly was mandatory before registration of the

FIR/RC in the case which pertains to the tenure of Virbhadra Singh while he was a Central Minister under the Union Government during the check period."

The court also turned down the chief minister's claim that the Delhi High Court has no jurisdiction, saying "accused cannot dictate to the prosecution that the case should be registered at a police station that he desires".

"The case may be registered at any one of the police stations within whose jurisdiction the same can be legally instituted," it added.

Singh had sought directions from the court for quashing the FIR registered against him and his wife under Sections 13(2) and 13(1)(e) of the Prevention of Corruption Act and

Section 109 of IPC by the CBI on September 23, 2015 here and urged the court to summon records of the preliminary inquiry and the FIR.
New Delhi: A Shiv Sena member in the Lok Sabha today demanded that the Jinnah House in Mumbai should be demolished saying this was where Pakistan's founder Mohammad Ali Jinnah had "conspired" for India's partition.

Rahul Shewale said a memorial for freedom fighters should be there built.

After the passage of the Enemy Property Act, the Jinnah House, Jinnah's residence before partition, is now under the government's control and sought that it should be demolished, he said during the Zero Hour.

He claimed that Jinnah had hatched the conspiracy to partition India here and demanded that a memorial for freedom fighters should be built in its place.

Among other issues, independent member Joice George demanded that a portrait of Narayana Guru, a noted social reformer of Kerala, be put up in Parliament and a road named after him in the national capital.

Nihal Chand (BJP) said fake accounts in his name were rife on the social media which were being used to defame him.

The former union minister, who was dropped by Prime Minister Narendra Modi from his council of ministers in a reshuffle, said he had taken up the matter with Home Minister Rajnath Singh earlier.

The Delhi Police began a probe but nothing has come out of it, he said, demanding action.
"The pension benefit shall be given to such individuals till Aadhaar is assigned to the beneficiaries, subject to the production of identification documents," Bhamre said. (Photo: File)

New Delhi: Ex-servicemen will require Aadhaar number to avail pension benefits, the government informed the Lok Sabha today.

In written response to a question in the Lok Sabha, Minister of State for Defence Subhash Bhamre said the Department of Ex-Servicemen Welfare, through a notification on March 3, has said that defence forces are required to furnish proof of possession of Aadhaar number or undergo Aadhaar authentication.

"However, if an eligible individual entitled to receive pension benefits does not possess the Aadhaar number or is not yet enrolled for Aadhaar, but desirous to avail pension benefits is required to make Aadhaar enrolment by June 30, 2017.

"The pension benefit shall be given to such individuals till Aadhaar is assigned to the beneficiaries, subject to the production of identification documents," Bhamre said.

In response to another question, Bhamre said the delay in construction of the six submarines under Project-75 at Mazgaon Dock Shipbuilders Ltd, Mumbai are due to infrastructure augmentation requirements and procurement of material from foreign vendors.

Bhamre said the Indian Navy has hosted a global Request for Information (RFI) for Multi-Role Carrier Borne Fighter (MRCBF) Aircraft in January 2017.

Responding to another question, Bhamre said India and Vietnam have agreed to take forward a proposal for training Vietnam Air Force personnel on Su-30 aircraft.

The minister, in his response to another question, said the government has prepared a long-term roll on works plan for construction of 519 roads by the BRO in the border regions.
Singh has sought directions from the court to quash the FIR registered against him and his wife under Sections 13(2) and 13(1)(e) of the Prevention of Corruption Act and Section 109 of IPC by the CBI on September 23, 2015. (Photo: PTI/ File)

New Delhi: The Delhi High Court on Friday dismissed Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh and his wife's plea seeking quashing of the disproportionate assets case filed against them by the CBI.

Justice Vipin Sanghi also vacated the Himachal Pradesh High Court's interim order of October 1, 2015 restraining the CBI from arresting, interrogating or filing a charge sheet in the case without the court's permission.

"The writ petition is dismissed. Stay is vacated," the court said.

Singh has sought directions from the court to quash the FIR registered against him and his wife under Sections 13(2) and 13(1)(e) of the Prevention of Corruption Act and Section 109 of IPC by the CBI on September 23, 2015 here and urged the court to summon records of the preliminary inquiry and the FIR.

Virbhadra and his wife Pratibha Singh have claimed in their plea that there was no order, direction or judgment by any court that had authorised the CBI to inquire, investigate or register regular cases and exercise jurisdiction in the territory of Himachal Pradesh.

The chief minister has contended in his plea that the raids on his private residence and other premises were conducted with "malafide intentions and political vendetta" by the central investigating agency.

He has alleged that CBI had overstepped its jurisdiction in filing the case as the cause of action did not arise in the territory of Delhi.

Singh has also claimed that the permission of the state government and Home Department were not taken before raiding the residence of a sitting chief minister.

The CBI had contended that the allegations against Singh in the case are "very serious" as a huge amount of money was involved and the state government has shown "over anxiety" in protecting him.

The agency had said it had jurisdiction to register and investigate the case in Delhi as the disproportionate assets were allegedly acquired by the Congress leader from the income generated here when he was a Union minister during UPA regime.

Singh had on October 1, 2015 got an interim order from the Himachal Pradesh High Court restraining the CBI from arresting, interrogating or filing a charge sheet in the case without the court's permission.

The matter was transferred by the Supreme Court to the Delhi High Court, which on April 6, 2016 had asked CBI not to arrest Singh and had directed him to join the probe.

On November 5 last year, the apex court had transferred Singh's plea from Himachal Pradesh HC to Delhi HC, saying it was not expressing any opinion on the merits of the case, but "simply" transferring the petition "in interest of justice and to save the institution (judiciary) from any embarrassment".
Guwahati: President Pranab Mukherjee today said India's traditions never allowed the practice of intolerance as unity in diversity with mutual coexistence and understanding is the strength of the country.

Speaking at the inaugural ceremony of the 'Namami Brahmaputra' festival in Guwahati, Mukherjee said he does not agree when people label Indians as intolerant.

"There are 200 languages spoken in India across its length and breath. All major seven religions are practised in India. Nowhere in the world is found so much ethnic diversity," he said, adding despite this, India is one nation having one Constitution, living under one flag, one system maintaining regional identity.

"We are one nation. This mutual co-existence, mutual understanding is our strength. Managing this diversity is our greatest strength. If it is said Indians are argumentative, I will agree. But if it is said Indians are intolerant, I refuse to agree. Intolerance has never been allowed," he said.

Mukherjee said Assam, which is an emerging economic hub of India, is perfectly positioned to become the corridor of the country to the ASEAN nations as the 'Act East' policy takes forefront.

He said India would soon celebrate 25 years of its link with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).

The President said South East Asia is an important destination for India's investment and trade.

Stating that Assam has "immense development potential", Mukherjee added that inland water transport system in the National Waterways can change its economic scenario.

"The development of this national waterway can give Assam access to international ports like Chittagong in Bangladesh. This will give Assam an exposure to international trade and commerce. With the Act East Policy taking forefront, Assam is perfectly positioned to become the corridor of the country to the ASEAN nations," he said.

Mukherjee hailed Assam's richness in natural resources and its hardworking people to underline that all it needed was "strong drive, right policies and effective implementation."

"We have to join hands to make the dream of Bharat Ratna Gopinath Bordoloi -? first Chief Minister of Assam becoming a front runner in the field of socio-economic progressa reality," he said.

The President said Assam has overcome a prolonged spell of insurgency and the central government is supportive in rebuilding the state.
Amazon, which removed the products within 24 hours and apologized to the government, declined to comment.

New Delhi: India's reaction to an Amazon.com website selling doormats resembling the country's flag involved an unprecedented public and private offensive against the U.S. company by Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government, a document shows.

Foreign minister Sushma Swaraj publicly threatened in January to rescind visas of Amazon employees if the doormats were not removed from its Canadian website.

But a document seen by Reuters shows the government went even further in private, asking its U.S. and Canadian embassies to raise the matter "strongly" with Amazon's senior leadership.

India also escalated the matter to Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos and prompted a global audit by the company to "ensure that such products are not listed on any of its other" websites around the world, according to the document.

Amazon, which removed the products within 24 hours and apologized to the government, declined to comment.

Much is at stake for Amazon in India, where it plans to invest more than $5 billion as it takes on home-grown Flipkart and Snapdeal for a bigger share of the internet services market in the world's fastest growing major economy.

Amazon has now made Indian laws that govern the use of the national flag and other emblems "an integral part of the global compliance process," the document said, outlining the steps Amazon and India have taken since the incident.

India's reaction underscores the risks governments run by nationalist leaders are posing for businesses around the world. U.S. President Donald Trump, for example, has also taken an aggressive stance on Twitter against individual companies.

Last year, Modi presented a global leadership award to Bezos at a U.S.-India Business Council summit in Washington.

Amazon told the government that it had strengthened its in-house compliance units that monitor products sold by third-party vendors on its websites, the document said.

"Amazon India has conveyed that it is fully committed to respecting Indian laws and customs," the document said.
New Delhi: Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi today accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of "disrespecting" the drought-hit farmers of Tamil Nadu by not initiating talks with them over their demands for relief package.

He made the remarks during a visit to Jantar Mantar to express solidarity with the farmers from the southern state who are camping here for the 18th day in a row.

Gandhi also accused the Modi-led government of being"anti-poor and anti-farmer" which, he alleged, only panders to the demands of a select group of industrialists.

"The farmers have been sitting here for so long. But neither the government nor the Prime Minister are listening to them. The people and farmers of Tamil Nadu deserve to be heard by the Prime Minister who is disrespecting them by not initiating any dialogue," he said.

"Over the last three years, debt worth Rs 1.4 lakh crore held by 50 industrialists have been written off. "Why the same is not being done in case of the farmers?

Why are their debts not being waived? It is the Prime Minister's responsibility to do so," Gandhi said after interacting with the protesters and their leader P Ayyakkannu.

During the 15-minute interaction, he took note of all the demands of the protesters and assured them that the Congress will "fight for them" and raise their grievances "in Tamil Nadu as well as in Delhi and Parliament".

The Centre needs to provide debt waiver, drought relief and better support price to the farmers. Also the Prime

Minister should at least start talks with them, Gandhi said.

He was accompanied by Tamil Nadu Congress chief Su. Thirunavukkarasar and senior party leader Mani Shankar Aiyar.

Farmers belonging to the Cauvery belt in Tamil Nadu are protesting here demanding a drought relief package of Rs 40,000 crore from the Centre, farm loan waiver and setting up of Cauvery Management Board.

The protesters today wore 'rudhraksha' (seeds traditionally used for prayer beads) indicating a life of saints who has given up all earthly needs.

"We will die at the national capital instead of returning to our state empty-handed," Ayyakkannu said.

It has not rained and ground water levels have gone down at many places in the state. The water bodies are also drying.

The poor farmers, who depend on their crops, are the most vulnerable section of the society and they always become victims of various vagaries, the National Human Rights Commission had said.
Bengaluru: Karnataka assembly Speaker K B Koliwad today said the house forming a panel to suggest steps for "self-regulation" by newspapers and TV channels does not imply any conflict between the legislature and the media.

To frame the self-regulation norms for the media, the joint House committee would debate the issue thoroughly within itself as well as with the mediapersons, said Koliwad who announced about the formation of panel on Monday.

The panel was formed after the MLAs of all parties, in a assembly debate on March 22, accused the media of often filing derogatory reports against the legislators and tarnishing their image.

"Definitely no confrontation," the Speaker told PTI.

Asked if there would be any rethinking on going ahead with the committee following media's criticism of the move, he said it is the House which has constituted the panel.

"It has been done by the House, not by me. The House is more powerful than me. I am only a product of the House.

"The committee will come out with conclusions on self-regulation (for the media)," he said.

He said the committee is likely to hold its first sitting after the April 8 bypolls to Gundlupete and Nanjanagudu assembly constituencies in the state.

The opposition BJP leader in the assembly Jagadish Shettar too said there is no confrontation with the media.

"Why do you consider it is a confrontation?" he said adding there is a need to take corrective steps in all areas, be it the politics or the media.

Maintaining that there is no move by the BJP to boycott the committee, he said no instruction has been issued to its two members on the panel to stay away from it.

"We will see what the committee comes out with," he said.

The BJP's concern is that there should be no infringement on the freedom of speech and expression and that of the media.

The formation of 13-member panel, comprising 10 MLAs and three MLCs, headed by Health and Family Welfare Minister K R Ramesh Kumar, was announced in the assembly on March 28, days after the legislators of all parties criticised media.

The assembly earlier on March 22 had debated the role of media alleging that the reports put out and telecast by the press often happen to be "derogatory" to MLAs and tarnish their image, with some MLAs even recounting their "bitter" personal experience with the media.

Almost all the MLAs who participated in the March 22 debate have been appointed as members of the committee.
New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi will address through video conferencing over 10,000 students at 'Smart India Hackathon' aspiring to be young innovators.

The hackathon, a first-of-its kind initiative by the HRD Ministry at such a large scale is intended at promote innovation, out-of-the-box thinking among young minds especially the engineering students.

According to HRD Ministry officials, the PM will address the innovators tomorrow at 10 PM through video conferencing.

"The grand finale of Smart India Hackathon will start at 8 AM tomorrow and would end at 8 PM on April 2 at 26 different locations in the country with each location handheld by one department or Ministry," an official statement said.

"For the preparations of the finale, online trainings were given to students by approximately 2110 mentors appointed for the purpose. During the finale, the selected groups will be locked-in for 36 hours continuously and complete digital solutions for the problem statements through programming to create computer software or a mobile app," it added.

The software created will be evaluated by judges drawn from the respective ministry and industry experts and the best solutions will be awarded with cash prizes of Rs 1 lakh, Rs 75,000 and Rs 50,000 for the top three teams respectively.

The awarded software will also be used by the concerned ministry or department for improving their governance systems, if necessary, with suitable upgrade.

"All the prize winners would be connected to form a Community of Innovative Minds," the statement said.

In order to engage the youth in coming up with digital solutions to common problems, the All India Council for Technical Education under the aegis of HRD ministry launched this hackathon.

Twenty-nine departments under various ministries presented 598 problem statements for which they don't have digital solutions and due to which there has been inefficiency, revenue loss and corruption.

7,531 teams of approximately 42,000 students responded with solutions to the problems from which 1,266 teams of 10,000 participants from 28 states were shortlisted for the finale.

Maximum interest was shown in solving road and transport problems with 84 teams out of the 674 in this sector making it to the finals.
New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Friday granted partial relief to state liquor associations regarding banning of liquor stores on state and national highways.

Hearing a batch of petitions seeking modification of its December 2016 order banning liquor outlets within 500 metres of state and national highways across the country, the apex court bench headed by Chief Justice JS Khehar said that in those areas where population was less than 20,000, the distance would be around 220 meters.

Several states, including Kerala, Himachal Pradesh, Arunachal Pradesh, Punjab, Telangana and Haryana and various others had told the apex court that 500-metre distance is much higher and should be reduced.

Attorney General (AG) Mukul Rohatgi, also agreed with the associations and said that the 500-metre distance should be reduced. The apex court, however, observed that life is more important than liquor.

Supreme Court said the ban extends not just to retail liquor outlets but also to bars, pubs and restaurants located on highways, according to reports. The court said there was no question of exempting these establishments, as this would be a dilution of its objective of preventing drunk driving.

The apex court's order runs completely counter to a legal opinion given by

Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi to the Kerala government, that the SC's December 15 judgement was confined to only retail liqour outlets.

The Kerala government had, acting on the advice, extended the liquor licences of bars, pubs and restaurants located near highways.

But the court said that in states like Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, where the excise period extends beyond April 1, there will be no ban on highway liquor sales till September 30.

Northeastern states of Sikkim and Meghalaya have been excluded from the no-liquor zone ban due to 'hilly terrain and forest area' which covers 82 per cent of the region'.

However, the court denied Tamil Nadu relief, dismissing the state's request to reduce the no-liquor zone from 500 metres to 100 metres.

On March 23, the Tamil Nadu government had moved the top court, also to extend the time for relocation of retail liquor shops along the highways till the expiry of their licence period up to 28 November, 2017.

The top court in its December 15, 2016 order had ruled that licenses of existing shops along national and state highways will not be renewed after March 31.

This was challenged through petitions by several associations across states.

On January 18, the All Assam Indian Made Foreign Liquors Retailers' Association had approached the apex court seeking modification of the judgment, saying it virtually banned liquor shops in the state as the definition of state highways in the local statute included all roads.
New Delhi: Barred from flying by domestic airlines and booked by police for assaulting an Air India staffer, Shiv Sena MP Ravindra Gaikwad has tried at least thrice to book a seat on the national carrier, using a new alias each time.

Earlier this week, a staff member of the Sena politician dialled Air India's call centre to book flight AI 806 from Mumbai to Delhi for the following day, i.e. Wednesday, and dictated the passenger's name as Ravindra Gaikwad. The ticket was promptly cancelled, an airline source said.

Thereafter, a seat was booked on flight AI 551 from Hyderabad to Delhi in the name of Professor V Ravindra Gaikwad. This ticket was cancelled too.

A third attempt was made the next day for travel from Nagpur to Delhi via Mumbai when the MP's staff contacted a travel agent to book a flight for "Professor Ravindra Gaikwad".

The travel agent immediately contacted the local station manager and the information was forwarded to Air India's headquarters here, the source said.

The airline had earlier issued a "non-acceptance order" to all its station managers and booking offices, instructing them to ensure that "restriction on acceptance and travel of potentially unruly and unsafe passengers is being followed on Air India flights for Mr Ravindra Gaikwad".

In an unprecedented step in Indian aviation history, the Sena MP was earlier barred from flying by all major domestic airlines for assaulting an elderly Air India employee last Thursday.

The MP was angry at not being given a business class seat though he had boarded an-economy flight.
The duration of stay for foreigners, coming into the country through select categories of e-visa, has also been extended to two months from existing one month. (Photo: File)

New Delhi: India has decided to liberalise e-visa regime from tomorrow by increasing the time limit for seeking the entry permit from existing 30 days to a maximum of four months.

The duration of stay for foreigners, coming into the country through select categories of e-visa, has also been extended to two months from existing one month, the Union Home Ministry said in a statement.

There will be three new sub-categories for grant of e-visa, i.e. e-tourist visa, e-business visa and e-medical visa, from tomorrow.

In addition, two more new categories -- Intern or (I) visa and Film or (F) visa -- will be granted for foreigner seeking internship in non-government organisations, and those seeking to shoot movies in India, respectively.

Also, both business and medical visas will be granted within 48 hours of application upon urgent requests, it said.

"The liberalisation of the visa regime will considerably facilitate entry of foreigners into India for tourism, business and medical purposes. Consequently, the arrival of foreigners in India is expected to go up substantially in the coming years.

"This will in turn give a boost to tourism, medical and business sectors resulting in substantial increase in direct and indirect employment in these sectors," the statement said.

Under the e-visa scheme, an applicant receives an email authorising him or her to travel to India after it has been approved. The tourist can travel with a print-out of thisauthorisation.

On arrival, the visitor has to present the authorization to the immigration authorities who would then allow the entry into the country.

E-visa facility has been extended to the nationals of 161 countries for entry through 24 airports, up from 16 airports allowing such entries, and three Indian ports i.e. Cochin, Goa and Mangalore to tap the potential of cruise tourism from different countries.

"This service will also be provided from Mumbai and Chennai seaports shortly," it said.

The window for application under e-visa scheme has been increased from 30 days to 120 days and duration of stay on e-visa has been increased from 30 days to 60 days with double entry on e-tourist and e-business visa and triple entry on e-medical visa, the statement said.

Separate immigration counters and facilitation desks to assist medical tourists have been provided at Indian airports namely, Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Bengaluru and

Hyderabad.

The multiple entry tourist and business visas for a period of five years will now be available to nationals of most of the countries.

Nine-four Missions having bio-metric enrolment facilities have started giving five-year tourist and business visas with effect from March 1, 2017. The remaining Missions will be providing this facility in due course.

A new category of visa titled Intern or (I) visa has been rolled out with effect from March 1, 2017 to a foreigner intending to pursue internship in Indian companies, educational institutions and NGOs, subject to certain checks and conditions.

Another new category of visa, titled Film or (F) visa has also been introduced with maximum duration of one-year with multiple entry facility.
New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi today said mobile phones will be the biggest interface between politicians and voters in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls and asked BJP MPs to use them extensively to stay in touch with people.

At a meeting with MPs from different states, his fifth and last such exercise, he told them that they need to have presence on digital platforms, especially through mobile phones, and use Facebook, Whatsapp and Twitter extensively.

"Interface is changing and we all need to have presence on digital platforms, social media and especially mobile. Each one of our leaders and MPs should have presence on Facebook, Twitter and Whatsapp among others.

"In 2019, digital platform will assume greater importance and mobile phones will be the greatest interface to communicate and convey your message to the people at large," Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ananth Kumar quoted Modi as having said.

He met party MPs from Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Odisha, Telangana, Jharkhand and Tamil Nadu, besides nominated parliamentarians.

The digital platform is more transparent and real time, Modi said.
New Delhi: Congress leader Digvijaya Singh once again raised the issue of his pending substantive motion on the conduct of Goa and Manipur Governors today and sought to know when Leader of the Rajya Sabha Arun Jaitley will find time to decide on the date of a discussion on the matter.

When the House met for the day, Singh said he has become a "laughing stock" as people and journalists keep asking him about what happened to the substantive motion he gave two weeks ago.

"Till today, Leader of the House (and Finance Minister) Arun Jaitley has not taken any decision," he said, adding that hardly six sittings of the Rajya Sabha are left of the ongoing Budget Session.

"Please assure that the motion will be taken before the session ends," he said. "Chairman can call the Leader of the House and me and decide on the time and date."

Singh has been raising the matter in the House almost on a daily basis.

Originally, Singh had moved a notice under rule 267 seeking suspension of business to discuss conduct of the Goa and Manipur governors in not inviting Congress, which emerged as the single largest party after assembly elections, to form the government.

But Kurien had disallowed a discussion saying conduct of a high office like Governor can be discussed only under a substantive motion. Minister of State for Parliamentary

Affairs Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi too had stated that the government will respond to a substantive motion.

He had then moved the substantive motion which was admitted by the Chairman but a time for discussion on it has not yet been allocated.

"If Leader of the House has to violate the Chairman's decision, it is not acceptable to us," Singh said.

Kurien said, "we will come back to you."

Singh said the Chair as well as the Rajya Sabha Secretariat has been kind to him, but not Jaitley.

Tapan Sen (CPI-M) supported Singh saying the government is "dodging" the matter.

Kurien said the Chair has accepted the substantive motion and it is pending business. "Chair will come back to you" on the time of discussion, he said.
Chennai: The electioneering by Deepa Jayakumar faced some tough weather in RK Nagar on Thursday as the claimant to the Jaya legacy beat a retreat from the morning sun and chose to campaign from the air-cooled comfort of her car. Her supporters stepped up their lung power to compensate for the disappearance of their thalaivi from the scorching open van.

The roads in Tondiarpet had been clogged with Deepa campaigners and their many vehicles from early morning Thursday as it was announced that she would begin her electioneering at about seven oclock.

Arriving late by at least a couple of hours late, she first began her campaign atop the open van but soon fled to her car that had been following just behind. She sat in the front seat and with the windows rolled up for cool comfort, her greeting with folded hands was hardly noticed by the crowds on the street.

Realising that her effort to 'reach out' to the voters was not getting anywhere, Deepa climbed back on to the campaign van. A woman party worker was quickly deployed with an umbrella to protect the leader from the sun.
Chennai: Sparks flew as the DMK working president MK Stalin and former Chief Minister O. Panneerselvam crossed swords with each other during the RK Nagar bypoll campaign. But the AIADMK (Amma) camp sees this as a deliberate ploy to keep its candidate TTV Dhinakaran off centre stage.

The AIADMK (Amma) camp sees Stalin's refusal to join debate with Dhinakaran while recognising Panneerselvam as the main opponent as strategy to keep the bypoll focus between him and Panneerselvam.

This is also being interpreted as 'political drama' to ensure no credence is given to the charge that the DMK and Panneerselvam camps are together. The choice of a virtual unknown as the DMK candidate had led to initial doubts if the DMK is letting Panneerselvam's candidate E. Madhusudhanan to tap the anti-Sasikala votes. The AIADMK (Amma) is alleging that such attacks are aimed at depicting Panneerselvam as the real opponent of the DMK, which also implies that he is the true heir to AIADMK legacy, a ploy that will earn the support of the traditional AIADMK voters for Panneerselvam in the bypoll.

AIADMK spokesperson and former minister Vaigaiselvan said "The mutual attacks of Stalin and Panneerselvam are a drama aimed at disproving our allegations that both of them are working together. The drama is aimed at creating an impression that only the DMK and Panneerselvam group are fighting the elections and our deputy general secretary Dhinakaran is not in the fray at all."

Stalin started the argument asking Panneerselvam why OPS is not speaking about the mystery behind the death of former Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa.

He alleged that OPS is refusing to speak about it even though he knows a lot about it.

OPS responded with an attack on Stalin saying the DMK leader is trying to fish in troubled waters. He also promised that he would come out with all the facts against Sasikala. Asserting that he is not at all reluctant to criticise Sasikala's actions. OPS added he had several doubts about Jayalalithaa's death like anybody else.

The mutual attacks and responses between Stalin and Panneerselvam are making it difficult for Dhinakaran to be the focus of the issues at stake in the bypoll. In his campaign, Dhinakaran tried his best to join in the debate by welcoming the demands for a CBI inquiry into Jayalalithaa's death. However, Stalin totally ignored Dhinakaran, giving an impression that sasikala's nephew is not at all in the race.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi will make history with his expected visit to Israel in the middle of this year  as no Indian Prime Minister has visited the Jewish state despite the fact that P.V. Narasimha Rao had established diplomatic relations way back in 1992. The burgeoning relationship had retained a tinge of the illicit in this country  this despite Israel critically providing defence equipment, upgrading existing weapons systems or supplying our armed forces at times even items barred by the technology control regimes constructed by the United States and the Permanent Five after Indias 1974 nuclear test. During the 1999 Kargil war Israel supplied precision-guided munitions for eliminating Pakistani raiders from their mountain lairs, including what Russia could or would not supply. This calibrated defence cosiness and political hesitation was for fear of offending Indias friends, such as they are, in the Islamic world or irrevocably alienating Indian Muslims. For both Janata Party or Janata Dal-led governments or for the Congress, the latter consideration was a talisman of electoral strategy. This was a hangover from the Khilafat movement after the First World War in the pre-Independence era, that the Indian National Congress had used to unify Hindus and Muslims against the British. After Independence in 1947, the Palestinian cause became a cornerstone of Indian foreign policy, despite the fact that newly-free India had recognised the State of Israel immediately after its birth in 1948.

Mr Modis visit to Israel is propelled, as is characteristic of most of his foreign policy moves, by own predilections than logic, ignoring developments in Israel, in the region and even in Israeli-American relations. One of the assumptions is that the door to the US Presidents Oval Office lies through Jerusalem. India established diplomatic relations with Israel, following the collapse of the Soviet Union, to escape a self-created diplomatic impasse. Better relations with the US were a part of, but not the sole calculation. The Madrid Peace Conference in October-November 1991 had revived the Israel-Palestinian dialogue and the US was leading the effort to finesse the issue. Major Arab and Islamic countries had already joined that process, as indeed had the Palestinians. The United States sensed an opportunity to align diverse interests of quarrelling parties. Yasser Arafat, the voice and face of the Palestinian cause, while exiled in Tunisia, accepted the existence of Israel by subscribing to the two-state solution in 1988. The 1991 Madrid conference and the 1993 Oslo peace accords raised hopes of a solution. However, the assassination of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in 1995, soon after Arafats return to Palestinian territory, derailed the peace process. There was also the concomitant rise of Hamas, the roots of which lay in the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, its terror campaign undermining Arafat. The 9/11 attack on America and the rise of Al Qaeda, US interventions in Afghanistan in 2001 and Iraq in 2003 and the Arab Spring from 2010 forcing the overthrow of autocratic rule in Tunisia, Libya and Egypt, changed the landscape of the Islamic world. In West Asia, the focus shifted to the civil war in Syria, the rise of Iran as a regional Shia hegemon and the destabilisation of Turkey. The Palestinian cause fell off the table and Israel, under Benjamin Netanyahus leadership, had a free run to deal with Palestinians at least till the Barack Obama presidency in 2009.

Donald Trumps victory came as a welcome surprise to Israel. Surrounded by Steve Bannon spewing anti-Islam rhetoric, a Jewish son-in-law and a promise to shift the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, Mr Trump appeared a God-send. But he has turned out to be a mixed blessing. Mr Trumps personal lawyer and new Middle East special envoy Jason Greenblatt has been consulting the major Arab countries on a roadmap for West Asia peace, including the revival of the 2002 Arab peace initiative. More worryingly for Israel, not unlike the Obama years, Mr Netanyahu is being pressed even now to stop approving new settlements in the occupied West Bank. Additionally, Mr Trump has recanted his promise to shift the US embassy to Jerusalem. The 28th summit of Arab leaders has just ended in Jordan. Attended by leaders of 18 of its 22 members, including King Salman of Saudi Arabia and the new UN Secretary-General, the focus was on the Syrian standoff, the Libyan mess, Palestinian detritus and Iranian interference. But noticeable was the urgency of Mr Trumps emissaries to even-handedly push towards peace between Israel and the Palestinians. Prime Minister Netanyahu is, meanwhile, coming under domestic pressure of a vigilance inquiry and restive right-wing allies. Both or either can force his resignation. The challenger is a former television anchor, Yair Lapid, who is reinventing centrism by combining tough talk on Israeli security with promise of good governance and boosted economy. He cryptically said: I dont think were at the beginning of something; I think were at the end of something. He is beating Mr Netanyahu at the polls.

Prime Minister Modis Israel trip will be to a nation that is distracted, a region in turmoil and a new US President who is solution-shopping. Ironically, the last serious US attempt after the Madrid conference came when Russia stood marginalised. Now Russia alongside Iran and its Shia allies is in the drivers seat. India may sporadically woo a Gulf crown prince or a Saudi Arabian ruler but Yogi Adityanath as the face of domestic policy in the state with most Muslims in India will create wariness in the Islamic world. Additionally, Iranian alienation is inevitable after it sees a Modi-Netanyahu hug. Timing is everything in theatre, politics or indeed diplomacy. The BJPs lack of empathy for Islam, on display blatantly in Uttar Pradesh now, also colours its transactional approaches to leaders in the Gulf and now Israel. Lack of expertise around the PM and seeing Islam through the prism of terrorism and Pakistan is naive, or even dangerous. A visit to Israel will entail a trip to Jerusalem and perhaps the holiest sites of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Mr Modi would be best advised not to outguess his illustrious predecessor Atal Behari Vajpayee, who undoubtedly weighed all options before persisting with a shadow alliance, preferring partnership to marriage.
Abuja/New Delhi: Amid attacks on Africans in India, the Indian community in Nigeria today voiced support for Nigerians living in the country saying such a trend was "disturbing" as Africans never mistreat foreigners.

Asserting that the conception about Africa and Africans among many Indians is incorrect, the Indians living in Nigeria have strongly condemned the attacks on Nigerians in Greater Noida.

"I was deeply disturbed by the attacks on the Nigerian students in India. But I feel Indians mistreat the Africans anyway. Their conception about Africa and Africans is wrong. There has never been a case where an African has mistreated a

foreigner in their country," said Arunraj Muruganandam, who is based in Lagos for the last 15 years.

"The whole fact that we somehow feel we are superior to them is very uncomforting. Even when I first went from Nigeria, there were racist jokes played on me...I feel the Indians apart from those who have lived in Africa will never

treat the Africans well," he told PTI over phone.

Asked if he ever felt discriminated or harassed in Nigeria, the 25-year-old mechanical engineer hailing from Chennai said, "Never. I have felt more at home here."

Resource-rich Nigeria is a major trading partner of India having footprints of many leading Indian companies including Tata and Bharti Airtel.

While over 35,000 Indians live in the East African country, around 30,000 Nigerians travel to India for education, medical tourism and business.

Nigerian students were attacked by several people during a candle-light march for a 17-year-old Indian boy, who died of suspected drug overdose last week in Greater Noida.

The boy's parents alleged that the foreigners had kidnapped him and given him drugs which led to his death. 51-year-old Sanjeev Purwar, who has been staying in Abuja, the Nigerian capital, for over two decades, said when Indians are troubled or assaulted due to apartheid in the US, the UK or Australia all countrymen raise their voice in unison.

"But why don't we feel the same angst when such incidents take place in our own country against outsiders Why we can't tolerate (the difference in race) and become violent This is not our culture," said Purwar, an engineer.

"At a time when Indians are being accepted globally, why are we unable to lead with an example? Every society in the world has a different culture and we must learn to appreciate it," he said.

Purwar, who hails from Kanpur in Uttar Pradesh and stays in Abuja with his wife, said incidents like these do not auger well for the image of the country and particularly its diaspora who may have to "pay the price" for it.

He also called for the media to exercise caution in covering of such events, saying repeatedly showing pictures and videos of violence may not have an impact in India, but outside the country "it may create ripples".

"Nigerians are mostly good people. When you repeatedly show such pictures, some people who are short-tempered may react. The media should have a discussion on such incidents but should not show pictures," he said.

Purwar recalled how Indians living in Nigeria were harassed back in 2013 after a Nigerian was reportedly killed in Goa. "It was one rare such happening here," he said.

Another Indian-origin man Gulrez Singh, who is based in Port Harcourt in the southern part of the country, said he has sympathy for the Nigerians and felt embarrassed over the unfortunate incidents taking place in India.

Singh, whose family is based in Chandigarh, attributed such attacks to the "backwards mentality" of some people. "The thinking of some Indians is backwards and racist...A random black man automatically becomes a drug lord. This needs to stop but how to make people aware of it I do not know," he told PTI.

Nigeria had yesterday called in the Indian High Commissioner in Abuja to register its protest over the attacks on its nationals in India and sought "diligent prosecution" against the perpetrators.

External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj also assured Parliament of a fair probe into the assault on Nigerians. The Indian Cultural Association in Nigeria, in a letter to India's High Commissioner to Nigeria B N Reddy on Wednesday, categorically condemned the incidents.

"We bring to place on record our condemnation towards this incident which happened in Noida, Delhi (our national capital). Sir, we are staying in Nigeria for many years. Some of us have spent here over 50 years and we never faced this

kind of problem any time," the letter said.

"On behalf of the entire Indian community, we wish to convey our complete condemnation towards this incident. We expect that the same should be conveyed to Ministry of External Affairs vehemently and properly," the association said.

It has also called on the Ministry of External Affairs to issue an appropriate advisory to the schools, colleges and general public in India, stating that "your own countrymen are respected in these African countries always and such incidents and unruly behaviour may change their perspective towards us."

"And above all, taking the law into hands may not solve the problem. It should be tackled within the legal framework of the country," the letter said.
Children were held at a primary school and tutored by Boko Haram in their extremist ideology, Human Rights Watch said. (Photo: AP)

Johannesburg: Hundreds of children remain missing while officials refuse to acknowledge the largest-ever mass abduction of Nigerian schoolchildren by Boko Haram Islamic extremists, Human Rights Watch said on Thursday.

Boko Haram kidnapped hundreds of children in the northeastern town of Damasak on November 24, 2014, the New York-based organisation said in a dispatch from researcher Mausi Segun.

She quoted traditional leaders as saying they submitted a list of 501 missing children to police and local government officials in April 2015, when the town was briefly freed from Boko Haram, but have never received a response.

International outrage met the separate April 2014 abduction of 276 girls from a school in Chibok. Dozens escaped early on and Nigeria's government last year negotiated the release of 21. More than 200 Chibok schoolgirls remain missing.

But there has been no word about the children of Damasak. Nigerian officials in the past have not responded to requests by The Associated Press for information.

"While international attention and concern has focused on the April 2014 Chibok schoolgirls' abduction, hundreds of other children are also missing in Nigeria's beleaguered northeast," Segun writes. "Authorities should provide regular updates to relatives about efforts to locate and rescue all victims of Boko Haram abductions."

Nigeria's military in the past year has rescued thousands of Boko Haram captives while liberating towns and villages from the group's control, but many are detained as possible Boko Haram suspects.

Damasak, more than 300 kilometres (200 miles) north of Chibok, was held by the insurgents for four months starting in November 2014. Children were held at a primary school and tutored by Boko Haram in their extremist ideology, Human Rights Watch said.

The insurgents re-took the town after troops left in April 2015. Damasak was liberated by a multinational force in July, when Nigerian troops set up a base there.

"After two years, parents of the missing children are desperate for information, but have received little more than rumours," Segun writes.
GRU targeted Hillary Clintons personal email account at least two times in March, but the available data show that she did not fall for the password reset trick.

A total of 109 staffers working with Hillary Clinton were attacked by Russian military hackers last year, a cybersecurity expert has told U.S. lawmakers. Thomas Rid, a professor at Kings College in London, made the statement before US Senate intelligence committee, which is investigating Russias alleged interference in the 2016 election.

MotherJones reported that Rid explained how efforts by Russian military intelligence  GRU  directly targeted Clinton. GRU targeted Hillary Clintons personal email account at least two times in March, but the available data show that she did not fall for the password reset trick. Between March 10 and April 7, GRU hit at least 109 Clinton staffers with 214 individual phishing emails, he said.
The woman, who had become pregnant after an affair, was incarcerated by her family as they couldnt bear the shame. (Representational image)

Ceara (Brazil): A Brazilian woman in Uruburetama, was rescued on March 9, after 16 years of imprisonment in a tiny 3x3 metre room. The police arrested her family members for illegally detaining her for so long. The woman, who had become pregnant after an affair, was incarcerated by her family as they couldnt bear the shame.

According to a report in the Daily Mail, the father and brother of Maria Lucia de Almeida Braga, now 36, locked her in the room 16 years ago, when she was expecting a baby. The room had no toilet and its walls smelled of faeces and urine. During her pregnancy, she was forced to sleep in filth on a makeshift hammock and had to be naked most of the time.

The police arrived at the property after they were anonymously tipped off. A police spokesperson said that there was only one shuttered window in the room and no electricity.

He said it was in a very remote area and cars did not pass by. No matter how loud she screamed, she would not have been heard, he added.

Maria Lucias brother Joao de Almeida Braga, 48, has been arrested for imprisoning and mistreating her, but will face a prison sentence of only eight years. Her father has not been arrested because he suffered a stroke and is weak.

The mother did her best to save her daughter from being punished, but failed. She developed psychological problems and is bed-ridden.

Maria Lucias son, who was given away to a third party at birth, has been identified. He is now 15 years old and the police hope to reunite him with his mother.
The Keystone pipeline would run from Canada to refineries in the Gulf Coast. (Photo: AP)

Washington: An influential group of nine Democratic Senators has urged President Donald Trump to not let a Canadian company use foreign made steel, in particular from India and Italy, in the trans-national multibillion controversial Keystone oil pipeline.

"Your memorandum explicitly covers new and expanded pipeline projects so we were confused and disappointed to learn that the Keystone XL pipeline would not be required to use 100 per cent American-made steel," the nine Democratic Senators wrote in their joint letter to Trump, a copy of which was released to the press on Thursday.

"Further, we are deeply concerned that by allowing this Canadian firm to use foreign steel from countries like India and Italy, which have a history of dumping steel products in the US market at unfair, illegal prices, you are establishing

a precedent that will have the effect of costing US jobs and undermining the spirit of your Presidential Memorandum," the Senators wrote.

Led by Senators Chris Van Hollen and Tammy Duckworth the Democratic lawmakers urged Trump to protect American jobs by ensuring all new pipelines ? if approved ? are constructed and maintained with American made products and equipment.

Other signatories to the letter are Cory A. Booker, Thomas R. Carper, Al Franken, Christopher S. Murphy, Debbie Stabenow, Joe Donnelly Claire McCaskill, Robert Menendez, and Gary C. Peters.

"As champions of expanding Buy American requirements to make sure taxpayer-supported projects contract with American companies to the greatest extent possible, we were initially encouraged by this memorandum," they said.

"We were disappointed, however, when we learned that your administration would exempt the Keystone XL pipeline project from this Buy American policy," the letter added.

On January 24, Trump issued a Presidential Memorandum to the Secretary of Commerce directing the Secretary to "develop a plan under which all new pipelines, as well as retrofitted, repaired, or expanded pipelines, inside the borders of the US, including portions of pipelines, use materials and equipment

produced in the US, to the maximum extent possible and to the extent permitted by law."

However, Trump has exempted Keystone pipeline from this. "We request that you reconsider your decision to allow a foreign company to use foreign steel in the Keystone XL pipeline and urge you to secure a firm commitment to source

100 per cent American-made steel for this project," the Senators wrote.

"Doing so would be a strong statement of support for American manufacturers and the hard working women and men who fuel our national economy," they said.

The USD 8 billion pipeline that TransCanada wants to build would carry crude oil from Canada through Montana, South Dakota and Nebraska, where it would connect with an existing Keystone pipeline network that would take the oil to Texas Gulf Coast refineries.

Several environmental groups filed lawsuits against the Trump administration yesterday to challenge its decision to approve construction of controversial Keystone pipeline.

The environmental groups contend in their lawsuit filed in Montana that the 2014 report on the project's impact "downplays or ignores other significant environmental impacts of Keystone XL, including harms to land, air, water, and

wildlife."

Former president Barack Obama, rejected the pipeline, saying it would lead to an increase in greenhouse gas emissions and do nothing to reduce fuel prices for US motorists.

The pipeline that was first proposed in 2008 has drawn strong opposition from environmental groups and some landowners who worry about potential contamination of ground and surface water.
British radical Islamic cleric Anjem Choudary is among the seven backers and foreign fighters of jihadist groups added to the State and Treasury Department blacklists of 'specially designated global terrorists'. (Photo: AP/File)

Washington: The US State Department named British radical Islamic cleric Anjem Choudary and the Islamic State group's "Beatles" execution squad member El Shafee Elsheikh to its "designated terrorist" lists on Thursday.

The two were among seven backers and foreign fighters of jihadist groups added to the State and Treasury Department blacklists of "specially designated global terrorists," which place them under global financial sanctions.

Others added to the lists include Mark John Taylor of New Zealand, who joined the Islamic State in 2014; Trinidadian Shane Dominic Crawford, another IS foreign fighter; and Tunisian-born Swede Sami Bouras, whom the State Department called a member of al-Qaeda involved in planning suicide attacks.

Also included were Muhammad Bahrun Naim Anggih Tamtomo of Indonesia and Muhammad Wanndy Bin Mohamed Jedi of Malaysia.

Naim is a Syria-based planner and financier for Islamic State, while Jedi works with IS in Syria and Iraq to recruit new fighters from abroad.

Choudary is the only one of the seven not at liberty. The former lawyer of Pakistani descent was jailed in September 2016 for encouraging support for IS jihadists.

Elsheikh, also British, is a member of an Islamic State "execution cell" dubbed "The Beatles", which is accused of multiple beheadings of captives, according to the State Department.

"Elsheikh was said to have earned a reputation for waterboarding, mock executions, and crucifixions while serving as an ISIS jailer," said the State Department, using another acronym for the Islamic State.

Listing the seven on the Treasury's sanctions list aims to deny them access to global business and banking networks by banning any American entities from doing business with them.

That ban can extend to foreign entities like banks with US operations, widening the impact of the sanctions.
Outside the courtroom on Thursday, Stone said Redlich has no evidence that he was behind a 2010 flyer that also implied Redlich was a child molester. (Photo: AP)

New York: Republican political operative Roger Stone, who's been busy preparing for a possible grilling by the US Senate intelligence committee about Russian hacking, appeared on Thursday at a New York courthouse for the trial of a civil defamation lawsuit against him before it was postponed for months.

Stone, a long-time political provocateur and adviser to President Donald Trump, is being sued over a flyer sent to 150,000 New York households during the state's 2010 election that called the Libertarian Party candidate for governor, Warren Redlich, a "sick twisted pervert."

Outside the courtroom on Thursday, Stone said Redlich has no evidence that he was behind a 2010 flyer that also implied Redlich was a child molester. "He's presented no evidence but a wild conspiracy theory," Stone said.

Stone did not appear for trial on Wednesday, when it was scheduled to start. His lawyer, Benjamin Burge, told the judge Stone was busy complying with a notice from the US Senate intelligence committee asking him to retain any documents that might be related to its investigation into alleged Russian interference in the 2016 election.

When both sides in the New York case appeared on Thursday, the judge agreed to postpone the trial until at least August so lawyers could have more time to go over evidence.

Redlich's lawsuit claims that Stone and several accomplices were responsible for the flyer. The mailing, which included Redlich's photo and the header "Sexual Predator Alert," said: "This man constitutes a public danger." And it warned: "If you see this man in your neighbourhood, CALL THE POLICE!"

It purported to come from an organization called People for a Safer New York.

At the time, Stone was advising two other candidates for governor: Kristin Davis, a former madam of a prostitution ring, and the Republican nominee, Carl Paladino.

Redlich also is suing Paladino and his former campaign manager, Michael Caputo. Stone was subpoenaed to testify in the trial this week. Burge told the judge on Wednesday that Stone was busy preparing for the Senate committee appearance and would prefer to testify in the civil case next week.

Stone has said he communicated with Guccifer 2.0, the shadowy hacker credited with breaking into the Democratic National Committee's email servers.

Redlich, who is representing himself at the trial and seeking unspecified damages, said he wants to call Stone as his first witness.

He said Stone's failure to appear Wednesday was part of a defence strategy to prolong what should be a speedy trial. "I'm seeing a pattern - delay, delay, delay, delay," Redlich said.

Stone, 64, got his start in politics working as a political operative for President Richard Nixon, where he developed a reputation as someone who specialized in campaign trickery and spreading dirt on opponents.

He is the subject of an upcoming Netflix documentary, "Get Me Roger Stone."
New York: The husband of a 38-year-old Indian woman who was found murdered along with her six-year-old son in their home in the US, has not been charged with any crime and is expected to attend their funeral in India, media reports said.

Hanumantha Rao Narra also called "Hannu", found the bodies of his wife Sasikala Narra and son Anish Narra, on March 23 inside their residence at the Fox Meadow Apartments in Maple Shade in New Jersey's Burlington County. Narra is expected to attend their funeral in India, the CBSPhilly reported.

He has not been charged with a crime and is free to attend a planned funeral for them in India, Joel Bewley, a spokesman for the prosecutor said. "His movements are not restricted in any way by the criminal justice system," Bewley said.

He said he will not comment on whether Narra is a suspect and the office does not comment on past, present, or future suspects.

A source involved in the investigation was quoted by Eyewitness News as saying that Narra was involved in a relationship with another woman as of last week, an allegation that had been levelled by Narra's in-laws in India as well. The source, however, said that Narra has a strong alibi in the case.

The bodies were autopsied and released to a funeral home in North Jersey where Narra is believed to be this week. Police in Maple Shade continue to take tips, but the Burlington County Prosecutor's Office is the lead on the case.

According to a statement provided by Burlington County Prosecutor's Office shortly after the killings, law enforcement officials had strongly denied that the killings were linked to any hate crime or bias given the Indian-origin of the victims.

Preliminary investigation had disclosed that both the victims were stabbed multiple times. The Telugu Association of North America, a group that assists Indian people here who speak the Telugu language had flown the victims' bodies to India on Thursday.
Singh said the local police was currently treating the incident as a racially motivated hoax. (Photo: Representational/AP)

Washington: A Sikh doctor in the US has received death threats from an anonymous caller in Indiana amid a series of hate crime incidents against Indian- Americans.

Amandeep Singh, a general internist at Monroe Hospital in Indiana, recently received the death threat through a text message on his cell phone by the unknown individual who claimed to have murdered the numbers previous owner, community leaders said.

The subject then indicated that Singh was next, Indianapolis-based Sikhs Political Action Committee (SPAC) said in a statement.

Bloomington Police found that the phones owner was alive and that the number had been hacked by a third party.

Singh said the local police was currently treating the incident as a racially motivated hoax.

Singh has been living and working in the US since 2003 after graduating from a medical school in India. He moved to Indiana three years ago to pursue an administrative position at Monroe Hospital.

This is one of several similar threats against Sikhs in Indiana in the last week including one incident which involved a handgun, PAC chairman Gurinder Singh Khalsa claimed.

He said that they have also received reports from a number of Sikh business owners of vandalism and intimidation.

The committee is currently working with Indiana attorney general Curtis Hill to address widespread harassment and violence against Sikhs in Indiana.

American society has no place for this type of violence, Khalsa added.

There have been a series of hate crime incidents against Indian-Americans. Weeks ago, Indian engineer Srinivas Kuchibhotla was killed when a US Navy veteran opened fire at him and his friend before yelling get out of my country in Kansas.

Earlier this month, a 39-year-old Sikh man was shot in his driveway in Washington state. The gunman had reportedly told the man to go back to your own country before pulling the trigger.
The fleet consisted of five ships, three of which arrived in the morning at Shimonoseki port in western Japan (Photo: AP)

Tokyo: A Japanese whaling fleet returned to port Friday after an annual Antarctic hunt that killed more than 300 of the mammals as Tokyo pursues the programme in defiance of global criticism.

The fleet set sail for the Southern Ocean in November, with plans to slaughter 333 minke whales, flouting a worldwide moratorium and opposition led by Australia and New Zealand.

The fleet consisted of five ships, three of which arrived in the morning at Shimonoseki port in western Japan, the country's Fisheries Agency said.

More than 200 people, including crew members and their families, gathered in the rain for a 30-minute ceremony in front of the Nisshin Maru, the fleet's main ship, according to an official of the Shimonoseki City government.

In a press release, the agency described the mission as "research for the purpose of studying the ecological system in the Antarctic Sea".

But environmentalists and the International Court of Justice (ICJ) call that a fiction and say the real purpose is simply to hunt whales for their meat.

Anticipating the fleet's return, animal protection charity Humane Society International called for an end to Japanese whaling.

"Each year that Japan persists with its discredited scientific whaling is another year where these wonderful animals are needlessly sacrificed," said Kitty Block, the group's executive vice president. "It is an obscene cruelty in the name of science that must end," she said in a release.

Japan also caught 333 minke whales in the previous season ending in 2016 after a one-year hiatus prompted by an ICJ ruling, which said the hunt was a commercial venture masquerading as science and ordered Tokyo to end it.

Under the International Whaling Commission (IWC), to which Japan is a signatory, there has been a moratorium on hunting whales since 1986.

Tokyo exploits a loophole allowing whales to be killed for "scientific research" and claims it is trying to prove the population is large enough to sustain a return to commercial hunting.

But it also makes no secret of the fact that whale meat ends up on dinner tables. Japan has hunted whales for centuries, and their meat was a key source of protein in the immediate post-World War II years when the country was desperately poor.

But consumption has dramatically declined in recent decades, with significant proportions of the population saying they "never" or "rarely" eat whale meat.

In response to the ICJ ruling, Japan's 2014-15 mission carried out only "non-lethal research" such as taking skin samples and doing headcounts.

On the just completed mission as well, the agency said that besides the kills it counted whales, took skin samples from live ones and attached tracking devices to them.

Past missions have been hampered by a confrontational campaign on the high seas by environmentalists Sea Shepherd, though Japan has won some relief from the group through the courts.

Fisheries Minister Yuji Yamamoto told reporters that Sea Shepherd's attitude "seems to have somewhat softened" this time, according to Kyodo News. A fisheries agency official said that the whalers this time faced "no obstructive behaviour threatening safety of the fleet and crew members" by the group.

He attributed that partially to Japan having started dispatching fisheries agency patrol ships to protect the fleet.
London: There is a "political will" in both India and the UK to reach an agreement on trade and other issues post-Brexit, the Indian envoy here has said.

Speaking to the members of the Indian Journalists Association here last evening, Indian High Commissioner to the UK Y K Sinha referred to several high-level visits from India to the UK including that of Finance Minister Arun Jaitley.

He also referred about the proposed visits of Britain's Chancellor of Exchequer Philip Hammond, Defence Secretary Michael Fallon, Energy Secretary Greg Clark, Minister of State for Culture Karen Bradley and Secretary of State for

International Development Priti Patel to India in the next couple of months and said "it reflected the vibrant and robust relations we have."

Describing Brexit as a great moment, Sinha said "it is an opportunity and challenge for India - in the post-Brexit era." Emphasising that no formal discussions could be held till Brexit becomes a reality sometime in March 2019, the High Commissioner said "we will be monitoring what will be happening."

Sinha said, "there is a political will on both the sides to reach an agreement on trade and other issues." Answering questions, he said "both the sides will have

their wish-list. As far as India is concerned the question of free-movement of Indian professionals in the UK is a priority.

Our expectation is that Indian IT professionals come here freely and return." Noting that the number of Indian students coming to study in the UK has gone down considerably, he said one of the reasons is that Britain has restricted post-study work visa to four months as against two years in the US.

Another reason is closing down of some of the "bogus colleges." The number of Indian students studying in other countries like the US, Canada and Australia has gone up.

"Since the UK is boasting of having some of the best higher learning institutions, it is a matter of concern for them as well," Sinha said. He said that the next couple of years are going to be "particularly exciting".

The Commonwealth Heads of Government (CHOGM) will be taking place in the UK in April next year and India will be the "flavour of the year this year as it is celebrating the Year of Culture here."
The inquest into the 52-year-old's death was opened at Westminster Coroner's Court and adjourned until May. (Photo: File)

London: London terror attacker Khalid Masood died from a single gunshot wound to chest, an inquest into his death was told on Thursday.

No police officers are under criminal or misconduct investigation over the shooting, the UK's police watchdog said.

The Independent Police Complaints Commission's investigator Christopher Lovett told the court its inquiry into the shooting will look at "organisational learning" and will highlight good practice.

Masood drove his car into pedestrians, killing three people, before fatally stabbing a police officer on March 22. "The incident lasted approximately 82 seconds - from the first time the vehicle mounted the pavement until the attacker was shot by police.

CCTV and other images obtained from witnesses provide a clear visual chronology of how the events unfolded," Lovett told the coroner's court. Masood, a British national born Adrian Russell Ajao, died at the scene after being shot by police.

The inquest into the 52-year-old's death was opened at Westminster Coroner's Court and adjourned until May.
The infant who was in great discomfort and pain was taken to hospital immediately (Representational Image)

London: Upset over a rift with her boyfriend, a babysitter broke a three-month-old boys arm by twisting it.

According to a report in the Daily Mail, Lucy Howarth, 20, who was distressed after a brief argument with her boyfriend, took out her anger on toddler by breaking his arm.

Howarth, a part-time college student from Oldham, Greater Manchester was arrested. However, she falsely tried to blame another woman.

The infant who was in great discomfort and pain was taken to hospital immediately, after it was noticed he wasn't moving his right arm and was constantly 'whingeing'.

Despite denying the charges during trial, Howarth was convicted by the Minshull Street Crown Court and escaped with an 18 month jail term suspended for two years.

A couple of days after Howarth broke the boys arm, a carer noticed the child being 'whingy.' She noticed When in the cot he would move his left arm but not right arm.

Suspicious, the caretaker took boy to the hospital where he was seen by a doctor who diagnosed a slightly displaced fracture to the lower third of the right humerus.

The prosecuter Jonathan Savage said: "The child would have been in a great deal of discomfort and pain and would have been obvious to whoever was caring for him at the time. The doctor decided it was not accidental."

Howarths lawyer Michael Johnson in a responded that the assault was 'reckless but not deliberate' as she was only 17 at the time and was 'emotionally unstable'.

While passing the sentence, Judge Bernadette Baxter said: She was selfish and self indulgent and I dare say this incident was born out of extreme immaturity.
Security officials and residents gather at the site of a powerful explosion at a market in Parachinar, capital of the Kurram tribal district, (Photo: AFP)

Peshawar: At least 25 people were killed and 65 others injured today when a powerful car bomb ripped through a crowded market outside a Shiite imambargah in Pakistan's restive northwest tribal region in an attack claimed by the Pakistani Taliban.

The car bomb went off near the main gate of the imambargah in the central bazar of Parachinar, Kurram Agency where a large number of people were shopping for fruits and vegetables.

At least 25 people were killed and 65 others injured in the car bomb blast, Geo TV reported.

The condition of the majority of those injured was stated to be critical. Of those critically wounded, 27 were airlifted to Peshawar hospitals. Scores of vehicles were also damaged in the blast.

An eyewitness told The Express Tribune that security personnel at the Imambargah were busy checking devotees at the central Imambargah's entrance for women, when an unidentified person parked a car next to the building which exploded.

Jamaat-ul-Ahrar, a breakaway faction of the Pakistani Taliban, claimed responsibility for the attack. Security forces cordoned off the area while emergency services were dispatched to the site. The administration has

declared an emergency at all hospitals in the area.

An Army medical evacuation helicopter has also been flown to Parachinar for evacuation of the injured, an Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) statement said.

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif expressed grief over the blast and condemned the attack. "It is our responsibility to continue the war against terrorists," he said.

Sharif reiterated his government's resolve to eliminate the menace of terrorism from the country at all costs.

"The network of terrorists has already been broken and it is our national duty to continue this war until the complete annihilation of the scourge of terrorism from our soil," he said.

The Prime Minister directed the relevant authorities to extend all possible assistance to the local administration. Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar ordered an inquiry into the blast.

Pakistan has been rocked by a slew of terror attacks that have claimed scores of lives. A wave of suicide attacks across Pakistan last month, including one in Lahore and another on the Lal Shahbaz Qalandar shrine in Sindh, killed more than 125 people and wounded over 300 others.

Pakistani forces retaliated with a crackdown, killing dozens of terrorists and hitting militant hideouts along the border with Afghanistan.

Pakistan army also launched a nationwide military operation 'Radd-ul-Fasaad' to eliminate terrorists and consolidate gains of its counter-terrorism operations.
Islamabad: The ownership rights of Pakistans founder Mohammad Ali Jinnahs 2.5 acres estate in Malabar Hill, Mumbai, are the subject of a legal dispute between Jinnahs daughter and the Indian and Pakistani governments.

According to a report in Hindustan Times, Islamabad has asked New Delhi to hand over the ownership rights claiming that it has repeatedly asked the government of India for the possession of the property. The ownership of house in Malabar Hill, Mumbai, whose estimated value is USD 400 million, was claimed by Pakistan following BJP legislator Mangal Lodhas demand that the structure be demolished and a cultural centre be built in its place.

In response to Lodhas demand, Pakistans Foreign Office spokesman Nafees Zakaria said that it expects the Indian government to protect the property and fulfil its maintenance obligations.

Zakaria said that the rights of ownership were being discussed. The property belongs to the founder of Pakistan and should be given to Pakistan. On various occasions, the Indian government has promised to handover the property to the government of Pakistan but (they) have not fulfilled their commitment as yet, he added.

Pakistans wish to use Jinnah House as its consulate in Mumbai was unsuccessful as it was linked with an issue about India being allowed to reopen a consulate in Karachi. Both countries are yet to make any progress in this matter.

However, Dina Wadia, Jinnahs daughter is not the only one contending for the ownership right of this building. Two other Mumbai residents, Mohamed Ebrahim and Shakir Ebrahim, son and grandson of Ashraf Rajabally Ebrahim, the daughter of Jinnahs sister Mariam, have also claimed to be the heirs to the property.

According to the Indian government, in a will dated May 30, 1939, Jinnah bequeathed the property to his sister Fatima Jinnah. The movable and immovable property of those who chose to go to Pakistan was classified as evacuee property by India and was taken over. But as a goodwill gesture, then Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru ensured Jinnahs assets were not classified.
Kathmandu: Indian Army chief Gen Bipin Rawat's visit to Nepal has helped in deepening and expanding the existing cordial ties between the armies of the two countries, the Nepalese Army said today.

Gen Rawat on Friday wrapped up his four-day visit to Nepal. Duing his visit, he was conferred the title of honorary general of the Nepalese Army by President Bidya Devi Bhandari.

Gen Rawat was presented with a sword, insignia and a certificate of conferment order by the President during the function.

"There has been decades old tradition of honoring the army chiefs of Nepal and India by each other with the title of Army General keeping with the traditional friendly ties between the two armies," according to a statement issued by

Nepal Army headquarters.

The visit paid by the Indian Army chief to Nepal helped in deepening and expanding the existing cordial relations between the two armies, the statement said.

Gen Rawat met Prachanda and expressed happiness over the ongoing collaboration between Nepal Army and Indian Army. He handed over seven horses to Nepal Army. Gen Rawat was invited by Nepal army chief Gen Rajendra

Chhetri.
Former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn is in discussions with the House and Senate intelligence committees on receiving immunity from "unfair prosecution" in exchange for agreeing to be questioned as part of ongoing probes into possible contacts between Donald Trump's presidential campaign and Russia, his attorney has said.



"General Flynn certainly has a story to tell, and he very much wants to tell it, should the circumstances permit," Flynn's attorney, Robert Kelner said yesterday.



Kelner said no "reasonable person" with legal counsel would answer questions without assurances that he would not be prosecuted, given calls from some members of Congress that the retired lieutenant general should face criminal charges.



Flynn's ties to Russia have been scrutinized by the FBI and are under investigation by the House and Senate intelligence committees. Both committees are looking into Russia's meddling in the 2016 presidential election and any ties between Trump associates and the Kremlin.



Since July, the FBI has been conducting a counterintelligence investigation into Russia's interference in the election and possible coordination with Trump associates.



Kelner released a statement after The Wall Street Journal first reported that Flynn's negotiations with the committee included discussions of immunity. The lawyer described the talks as ongoing and said he would not comment on the details.



A congressional aide confirmed that discussions with the Senate intelligence committee involved immunity. The aide spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations.



House intelligence committee spokesman Jack Langer said Flynn has not offered to testify to the committee in exchange for immunity.



Four other Trump associates have come forward in recent weeks, saying they would talk to the committees. As of Wednesday, the Senate intelligence committee had asked to interview 20 people as part of the probe.



In his statement, Kelner said the political climate in which Flynn is facing "claims of treason and vicious innuendo" is factoring into his negotiations with the committees.



"No reasonable person, who has the benefit of advice from counsel, would submit to questioning in such a highly politicized, witch hunt environment without assurances against unfair prosecution," Kelner said.



In September, Flynn weighed in on the implications of immunity on NBC's "Meet the Press," criticizing Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and her associates in the FBI's investigation into her use of a private email server.



"When you are given immunity, that means that you have probably committed a crime," Flynn said during the interview.



Flynn was fired from his job as Trump's first national security adviser after it was disclosed that he misled the vice president about a conversation he had with the Russian ambassador to the U.S. during the transition.



In the weeks after he resigned, Flynn and his business registered with the Justice Department as foreign agents for USD 530,000 worth of lobbying work that could have benefited the Turkish government.



The lobbying occurred while Flynn was a top Trump campaign adviser. The Turkish businessman who hired Flynn, Ekim Alptekin, has told the AP that Flynn's firm registered under pressure from the Justice Department.
The number of Catalans who oppose separating from Spain has grown over the last three months to 48.5%, compared with 44.3% who support secession. The figures were released on Thursday by the Catalan regional governments Center for Opinion Studies, whose most recent poll shows the widest gap between both options since June 2015, shortly before the northeastern region held its last election .

A march in Barcelona on September 11. GERARD JULIEN (AFP)

Asked Do you want Catalonia to become an independent state?, 48.5% of respondents said no, while 44.3% said yes.

Three months earlier, at the December poll, 46.8% of respondents opposed an independent Catalan state, while 45.3% had supported it. That gap of 1.5 percentage points has now grown to 4.2 points.

Catalonia already held an informal consultation in November 2014

Another question offered respondents different options as to the best future for Catalonia: as a region of Spain, as a comunidad autonoma or autonomous community (its current status), as a state within a federal Spain, or as a fully independent state.

The poll shows that 28.5% of respondents chose to preserve the status quo, nearly five points more than at the last poll (23.6%).

However, the most popular option remained a fully independent state (37.3%). The state within a federal Spain possibility received 21.7% support, a significant drop from the 29.2% of the last survey.

Former Catalan premier Artur Mas recently stood trial over a 2014 referendum. Albert Garcia

For the first time, the survey also asked Are you in favor of celebrating a referendum about the independence of Catalonia?, and 50.3% of respondents checked the answer Yes, irrespective of whether the Spanish government wants it or not. Another 23.3% selected Yes, but only if it is agreed with the Spanish government, while 22.7% opposed any sort of independence referendum for the region.

If a referendum were unilaterally organized and held by the Catalan government, 43.3% said they would vote in favor of independence, 22.2% would vote against, 6.2% would cast a blank ballot and 20.7% would abstain. Catalonia already held an informal consultation in November 2014, and the Catalan premier at the time, Artur Mas, recently stood trial along with two top aides over their role in a vote that the Spanish Constitutional Court had banned.

Asked what party or coalition they would vote for if elections to the Catalan parliament were held tomorrow, 27.9% favored Junts pel Si, a coalition led by the former Convergencia (now Democratic Party of Catalonia) and the Catalan Republican Left (ERC) that won the last elections. However, this choice would no longer be an option in a real-life election due to disagreements between both partners.

English version by Susana Urra.
An influential group of nine Democratic Senators has urged President Donald Trump to not let a Canadian company use foreign made steel, in particular from India and Italy, in the trans-national multibillion controversial Keystone oil pipeline.



"Your memorandum explicitly covers new and expanded pipeline projects so we were confused and disappointed to learn that the Keystone XL pipeline would not be required to use 100 per cent American-made steel," the nine Democratic Senators wrote in their joint letter to Trump, a copy of which was released to the press yesterday.



"Further, we are deeply concerned that by allowing this Canadian firm to use foreign steel from countries like India and Italy, which have a history of dumping steel products in the US market at unfair, illegal prices, you are establishing a precedent that will have the effect of costing US jobs and undermining the spirit of your Presidential Memorandum," the Senators wrote.



Led by Senators Chris Van Hollen and Tammy Duckworth the Democratic lawmakers urged Trump to protect American jobs by ensuring all new pipelines  if approved  are constructed and maintained with American made products and equipment.



Other signatories to the letter are Cory A. Booker, Thomas R. Carper, Al Franken, Christopher S. Murphy, Debbie Stabenow, Joe Donnelly Claire McCaskill, Robert Menendez, and Gary C. Peters.



"As champions of expanding Buy American requirements to make sure taxpayer-supported projects contract with American companies to the greatest extent possible, we were initially encouraged by this memorandum," they said.



"We were disappointed, however, when we learned that your administration would exempt the Keystone XL pipeline project from this Buy American policy," the letter added.



On January 24, Trump issued a Presidential Memorandum to the Secretary of Commerce directing the Secretary to "develop a plan under which all new pipelines, as well as retrofitted, repaired, or expanded pipelines, inside the borders of the US, including portions of pipelines, use materials and equipment produced in the US, to the maximum extent possible and to the extent permitted by law."



However, Trump has exempted Keystone pipeline from this.



"We request that you reconsider your decision to allow a foreign company to use foreign steel in the Keystone XL pipeline and urge you to secure a firm commitment to source 100 per cent American-made steel for this project," the Senators wrote.



"Doing so would be a strong statement of support for American manufacturers and the hard working women and men who fuel our national economy," they said.



The USD 8 billion pipeline that TransCanada wants to build would carry crude oil from Canada through Montana, South Dakota and Nebraska, where it would connect with an existing Keystone pipeline network that would take the oil to Texas Gulf Coast refineries.



Several environmental groups filed lawsuits against the Trump administration yesterday to challenge its decision to approve construction of controversial Keystone pipeline.



The environmental groups contend in their lawsuit filed in Montana that the 2014 report on the project's impact "downplays or ignores other significant environmental impacts of Keystone XL, including harms to land, air, water, and wildlife."



Former president Barack Obama, rejected the pipeline, saying it would lead to an increase in greenhouse gas emissions and do nothing to reduce fuel prices for US motorists.



The pipeline that was first proposed in 2008 has drawn strong opposition from environmental groups and some landowners who worry about potential contamination of ground and surface water.


A Sikh doctor in the US has received death threats from an anonymous caller in Indiana, amid a series of hate crime incidents in which Indian- Americans have been targeted.



Amandeep Singh, a general internist at Monroe Hospital in Indiana, recently received the death threat through a text message on his mobile by the unknown individual who claimed to have murdered the number's previous owner, community leaders said.



"The subject then indicated that Singh was next," Indianapolis-based Sikhs Political Action Committee (SPAC) said in a statement.



Bloomington Police found that the phone's owner was alive and that the number had been hacked by a third party.



Singh said the local police was currently treating the incident as a racially motivated hoax.

Singh has been living and working in the US since 2003 after graduating from a medical school in India. He moved to Indiana three years ago to pursue an administrative position at Monroe Hospital.



"This is one of several similar threats against Sikhs in Indiana in the last week including one incident which involved a handgun," PAC chairman Gurinder Singh Khalsa claimed.



"Intimidation and violence against the Sikh community has been on the uptick since September 11 across the country. We love this country.That's why we're here," said Gurinder.



He said that they have also received reports from a number of Sikh business owners of vandalism and intimidation.



The committee is currently working with Indiana Attorney General Curtis Hill to address widespread harassment and violence against Sikhs in Indiana.



"American society has no place for this type of violence," Khalsa added.



There have been a series of hate crime incidents against Indian-Americans. Weeks ago, Indian engineer Srinivas Kuchibhotla was killed when a US Navy veteran opened fire at him and his friend before yelling "get out of my country" in Kansas.



Earlier this month, a 39-year-old Sikh man was shot in his driveway in Washington state. The gunman had reportedly told the man to "go back to your own country" before pulling the trigger.
Two Indian petroleum engineers who were abducted in South Sudan have been released, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj said today.



"I am happy to inform about the release of two Indian nationals Midhun and Edward who were abducted in South Sudan. They have reached the Indian embassy in Khartoum.



"I appreciate the efforts of Indian Ambassador in South Sudan Srikumar Menon for the release of Indian nationals," she said in a series of tweets.



Indians Midhun Ganesh and Edward Ambrose along with a Pakistani, Ayaz Hussein Jamali, were abducted by rebels from near their workplaces earlier this month in oil-rich Upper Nile state. Jamali has also been reportedly released.



"Following requests from Indian and Pakistani governments, the Sudanese and Ethiopian governments coordinated together to secure the release of the three oil workers," Sudan's National Intelligence and Security Service said in a statement.



However, it did not specify when the hostages were released.
Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi today accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of "disrespecting" the drought-hit farmers of Tamil Nadu by not initiating talks with them over their demands for relief package.



He made the remarks during a visit to Jantar Mantar to express solidarity with the farmers from the southern state who are camping here for the 18th day in a row.



Gandhi also accused the Modi-led government of being "anti-poor and anti-farmer" which, he alleged, only panders to the demands of a select group of industrialists. "The farmers have been sitting here for so long. But neither the government nor the Prime Minister are listening to them. The people and farmers of Tamil Nadu deserve to be heard by the Prime Minister who is disrespecting them by not initiating any dialogue," he said.



"Over the last three years, debt worth Rs 1.4 lakh crore held by 50 industrialists have been written off.



"Why the same is not being done in case of the farmers? Why are their debts not being waived? It is the Prime Minister's responsibility to do so," Gandhi said after interacting with the protesters and their leader P Ayyakkannu.



During the 15-minute interaction, he took note of all the demands of the protesters and assured them that the Congress will "fight for them" and raise their grievances "in Tamil Nadu as well as in Delhi and Parliament".



The Centre needs to provide debt waiver, drought relief and better support price to the farmers. Also the Prime Minister should at least start talks with them, Gandhi said.

He was accompanied by Tamil Nadu Congress chief Su. Thirunavukkarasar and senior party leader Mani Shankar Aiyar.



Farmers belonging to the Cauvery belt in Tamil Nadu are protesting here demanding a drought relief package of Rs 40,000 crore from the Centre, farm loan waiver and setting up of Cauvery Management Board.



The protesters today wore 'rudhraksha' (seeds traditionally used for prayer beads) indicating a life of saints who has given up all earthly needs. "We will die at the national capital instead of returning to our state empty-handed," Ayyakkannu said.



It has not rained and ground water levels have gone down at many places in the state.



The water bodies are also drying. The poor farmers, who depend on their crops, are the most vulnerable section of the society and they always become victims of various vagaries, the National Human Rights Commission had said.
Senior Samajwadi Party leader Azam Khan today asked Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath if he would "prefer to offer namaz", as he had earlier said it was similar to surya namaskar.



Reacting to Adityanath's remark that the prayers offered by Muslims resemble different postures of surya namaskar, Khan said: "He would have been handcuffed had he made such comments."



"Since you find similarities between surya namaskar and namaz, will you prefer to offer namaz?" he asked the chief minister.



The SP general secretary said he cannot comprehend how the prayers offered by Muslims were similar to the sun salutation and questioned Adityanath's intention behind the comment. Khan said no one would "restrain Adityanath from offering namaz".



The UP Chief Minister had on Wednesday said: "All asanas (postures) in surya namaskar, pranayama activities are similar to the way namaz is offered by our Muslim brothers. But nobody ever tried to bring them together because few people were interested only in 'bhoga' not yoga."



On crackdown on slaughterhouses, Khan said, "Muslims are being forced to eat vegetables to ensure that religious sentiments of others are not hurt. A lion does not eat grass, but it will have to if it wants to survive."



Asked about Shiv Sena MP Sanjay Raut saying RSS Chief Mohan Bhagwat will make a good President, Azam said, "The highest post will be occupied by one who has the numbers."
President Pranab Mukherjee today said India's traditions never allowed the practice of intolerance as unity in diversity with mutual coexistence and understanding is the strength of the country. Speaking at the inaugural ceremony of the 'Namami Brahmaputra' festival here, Mukherjee said he does not agree when people label Indians as intolerant.



"There are 200 languages spoken in India across its length and breath. All major seven religions are practised in India. Nowhere in the world is found so much ethnic diversity," he said, adding despite this, India is one nation having one Constitution, living under one flag, one system maintaining regional identity. "We are one nation. This mutual co-existence, mutual understanding is our strength. Managing this diversity is our greatest strength. If it is said Indians are argumentative, I will agree. But if it is said Indians are intolerant, I refuse to agree. Intolerance has never been allowed," he said.



Mukherjee said Assam, which is an emerging economic hub of India, is perfectly positioned to become the corridor of the country to the ASEAN nations as the 'Act East' policy takes forefront. He said India would soon celebrate 25 years of its link with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). The President said South East Asia is an important destination for India's investment and trade.



Stating that Assam has "immense development potential", Mukherjee added that inland water transport system in the National Waterways can change its economic scenario. "The development of this national waterway can give Assam access to international ports like Chittagong in Bangladesh. This will give Assam an exposure to international trade and commerce. With the Act East Policy taking forefront, Assam is perfectly positioned to become the corridor of the country to the ASEAN nations," he said.



Mukherjee hailed Assam's richness in natural resources and its hardworking people to underline that all it needed was "strong drive, right policies and effective implementation." "We have to join hands to make the dream of Bharat Ratna Gopinath Bordoloi - first Chief Minister of Assam becoming a front runner in the field of socio-economic progress-- a reality," he said.



The President said Assam has overcome a prolonged spell of insurgency and the central government is supportive in rebuilding the state. However, he added that it was now time for Assam to emerge as a business hub and take centre stage in the socio-economic scenario of the country. "It is time for this state to establish its enduring mark in the international economic domain as the link between the North Eastern part of the country and the ASEAN nations," he remarked.



He said the Brahmaputra river is the "lifeline" of Assam and the region and is intertwined into the economy, culture and day-to-day life of the people of the areas it flows through. He also complimented the state government for having started 'Namami Brahmaputra' as an annual festival to showcase Assam's culture as well as potential. "Starting of 'Namami Brahmaputra' as an annual festival will popularise the natural beauty and holy character of this river," he said.


On Friday, Brussels sent the European Unions 27 remaining member states a nine-page document containing the guidelines to the Brexit negotiation that is opening up. These guidelines represent backing for Spain in its conflict over Gibraltar.

Tourists in Gibraltar. JON NAZCA (REUTERS)

A clause in the document states that once the UK leaves the bloc, no agreement between the EU and the United Kingdom may apply to the territory of Gibraltar without agreement between the Kingdom of Spain and the United Kingdom.

The principle that the British overseas territory will be left out of any understanding between Europe and Britain is handing the Spanish government the negotiating key it needed in its claims over the territory. If London wants to facilitate any kind of relationship between Gibraltar and the EU27 members, it will have to agree to a bilateral negotiation with Madrid.

With Brexit, there is an opportunity to negotiate with Britain on Gibraltar from a very good starting point Ramon Jauregui, Socialist MEP

It is unclear whether the British executive will accept, since London has always been wary of two-way talks.

Ever since the Brexit victory, the Spanish executive has invested a great deal of diplomatic effort into this project. And with Britain on its way out, the heads of state and government of the remaining 27 states are now openly defending Spains interests.

In the EU of the 27, only the argument of one of the sides is now represented, said one high-ranking European official.

Cooperating back home

Gibraltar Chief Minister Fabian Picardo has said Spain will not get its hands on the Rock. Garcia Cordero

Meanwhile, leaders of three of Spains main parties have met with high-ranking foreign ministry officials to hammer out a joint strategy aimed at starting a new kind of post-Brexit negotiation with Britain over the disputed territory of Gibraltar.

Representatives of the ruling Popular Party (PP), the main opposition Socialist Party (PSOE) and the small reform party Ciudadanos showed optimism about a first good sign, alluding to the fact that British Prime Minister Theresa Mays letter formally announcing the beginning of the UKs separation from Europe did not include any mention of the overseas territory.

Gone are the days when former Spanish Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Garcia Margallo boasted that the Spanish flag will fly [in Gibraltar] much sooner than [Chief Minister] Fabian Picardo thinks. Nor is there any more talk of co-sovereignty  one of the options defended by Spain in the past.

Instead, Spanish politicians are now trying to make the most of what they see as a historic opportunity afforded by Brexit. As a British overseas territory, The Rock will leave the EU when Britain does, even though 95% of Gibraltarians voted to remain at the referendum last year.

There no more talk of UK and Spanish co-sovereignty for Gibraltar  an option defended by Spain in the past.

Ever since, there has been a flurry of diplomatic and political activity with regard to a small territory of under seven square kilometers that shares its northern border with the Andalusian province of Cadiz. Gibraltar has been a source of dispute ever since it was ceded to Great Britain in 1713 under the Treaty of Utrecht.

Now, with Brexit, there is an opportunity to negotiate with Britain from a very good starting point, in a very reasonable and bilateral manner, over one of the most delicate subjects for Spain, Gibraltar, while keeping this issue separate from other special borders such as Northern Ireland, said Ramon Jauregui, the PSOE representative in the European Parliament.

Esteban Gonzalez Pons, of the European Peoples Party (EPP), said he thinks it is very relevant that Theresa May did not mention Gibraltar in her letter to the EU. In his view, she did not because Gibraltar is not part of Britain; it is a colony just like the island of Saint Helena.

Other EPP sources close to the Spanish government said that this absence is a good sign because it heralds good news: that Gibraltar is a matter to be negotiated bilaterally in future between Spain and Britain exclusively.

English version by Susana Urra.
The World Economic Forums report Inclusive Growth and Development Report 2017, ranks India 60th among 79 developing economics. The report shows Bangladesh and Nepal with better inclusive growth and development than India.



Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has said the government will energise various sections of society especially the youth and the vulnerable so that they could realise their true potential. In fact, the poor and the vulnerable have wide range of skills to earn with self-respect.



A group of blind men in Bidar, Karnataka formed a Self Help Group to learn music. They perform in social functions and wedding ceremonies to earn a moderate income. Out of their group savings, they bought musical instruments and developed their skill. Those blind men did not have government subsidy but the support of the Bidar District Cooperative Bank to form a Self-Help Group of blind people.



Harish Chandra Sude of Latur who is partially blind, worked with philanthropic zeal to train blind men and women how to make carpets from old clothes. The blind learn how to give acupressure. Today, hundreds of blind men and women are able to earn their living with self-respect.



According to the Sixth Economic Census, there are 5.8 crore small businesses that employ about 12.8 crore people. The formal sector accounts for more than 90% of the workforce and contributes to about 50% of the countrys GDP. Diversity of culture creates demand for different kinds of eatables, fruit, flowers, dress material, ornaments, artefact etc for a variety of services.



The Koya tribe of Khamam district make delicious bamboo chicken. They stuff chicken pieces mixed with spices inside a piece of bamboo and bake it on fire. Once it is baked, chicken is served to tourists. The Koyas in around 300 habitats collect honey, gum, custard apple, medicinal plants and make bamboo craft.



Many of the Koyas live near Panashala, an exotic tourist spot on the bank of the Godavari river. Their origin dates back to the Ramayana age. Here, the governments job is to provide safety to tourists and protect the Koyas from exploitation by the traders and middlemen.



Thousands of villagers in Madurai district collect herbs for agents who supply bulk quantity herbs to big companies. The villagers who collect herbs live in penury. An Exim Bank report says the global herbal industry is likely to reach $6 trillion by 2050. The government can ensure the villagers get the price they deserve and prevent over-exploitation of herbs.



The agriculture labour charge per day is Rs 800 in Kerala  one of the main reasons why local farmers quit farming. Thousands of coconut trees were abandoned and converted into rubber plantation in the past decade. Subsequently, the entry of synthetic rubber has made rubber plantation unviable.



Rationalisation of labour cost, marketing facility for coconut, banana products and inclusive employment opportunities in spices, tourism and horticulture sector will add to villagers income.



The Centre wants to double farmers income in the next five years and has increased budget allocation by 24% in 2017-18. It will happen if government prevents aggressive conversion of fertile agriculture land into non-agriculture purposes. Agriculture scientists representing various research institutions told a joint Parliamentary panel that 1.3 lakh hectares of land are being taken out of cultivation every year.



Gene corruption



Lack of understanding of crop diversity, gene corruption and poor research output has let many export quality crops disappear. Ten years ago, the tiny jeera-size Katrani rice of Jagdishpur block of Bhagalpur district cost Rs 300 per kg. Today, it is facing extinction. Water is the lifeline of the village.



Over the years, thousands of rivers across the country have lost their stream, disappeared in the maze of unplanned realty sector growth and aggressive deforestation. Millions of fishermen across the country lost their jobs and villages lost their productivity. According to the Ministry of Water Resources, a total of 85,807 water bodies in the country are not in use, out of which 8,152 have totally dried up. Give the farmers their water bodies and they will double their income within three years.



Baispur of Puri district was a vegetable belt where farmers produced variety of vegetables with organic fertiliser. Vegetable traders in order to have monopoly over the local producers, marketed vegetables from West Bengal, Ranchi and Chhattisgarh at a cheaper rate which had made vegetable farming in Baispur unsustainable.



When the villagers left vegetable farming, the traders increased the price again. Here the role of the state government was to check the unscrupulous practices. Over 800 years, the Muslim artisans of Pipli have been making applique umbrellas, banners, fans and flags for Lord Jagannath temple of Puri. Thirty years ago, those artisans used to make more than 60 intricate stitching patterns on clothes.



Today, one can come across a few artisans who can create such artistry. This is the main reason why applique work loses its popularity in global craft bazaar. There is need for a proper environment to turn enthusiasm and skill into income generating activities.
After the state government has implemented the Anna Bhagya scheme, enabling free access to food grains to people of prioritised families, the migrations from rural areas has almost stopped, said Food and Civil Supplies Minister U T Khader. Speaking after the launch of the distribution of additional quantity of rice under Anna Bhagya scheme in the district at a programme in Zilla Panchayat on Friday, he said that people from villages migrated to urban areas in search of work earlier as they did not have any way to earn their daily bread.



But, now, as the government provides them free rice under Anna Bhagya scheme, they can have food even if they do not get the work. Migration of villagers has almost been stopped after the implementation of the scheme, Khader said.



He said that the distribution of additional quantity of rice will come to effect from April. The fair price shops should distribute food grains between the first and fifteenth days of each month. They should not receive food grains from godowns if they are of poor quality. If the fair price shops distribute low quality items, their licences will be scrapped. Vigilance teams have been formed to ensure the proper distribution and the quality of items distributed in the fair price shops, he said.



Khader requested the Zilla Panchayat, Taluk Panchayat and Gram Panchayat members to coordinate with the food and civil supplies department to ensure that the food grains reach needy.



Launching the distribution of additional quantity of rice under Anna Bhagya scheme in the district, District In-Charge Minister B Ramanath Rai said that there may be criticisms that the government has made people lazy by providing them free food grains. But, one has to remember that the scheme has provided the people of prioritised families, with three times of food per day.



Earlier, there were days when people from these families had one time meal in a day. Anna Bhagya scheme is a huge step for hunger-free Karnataka and towards the empowerment of poor and deprived. Karnataka is the first state in the country to give free rice to people, he said.



Zilla Panchayat president Meenakshi Shanthigodu, vice president Kasturi Panja, Mangaluru South MLA J R Lobo and food and civil supplies department deputy director Jayappa were present.




The high court had set aside the proceedings against the accused, saying the case against accused number 1 to 5 itself was on the basis of circumstantial evidence, the case against the petitioners who are sought to be arrayed as accused number 6 to 12 (accused no 8 is dead) stands even more diluted.

The Supreme Court on Friday issued notice to the Karnataka police and others on a plea by Bengalurus St Peter's Pontifical Seminary against Karnataka High Court's order quashing a criminal case against five accused in the sensational murder of Fr K J Thomas in 2013. Fr Thomas was the rector of St Peters Pontifical Institute in Malleswaram.A bench of Justices S A Bobde and L Nageswara Rao also sought response from the accused, who were Kannada Christian activists, and named in the supplementary charge sheet filed more than two years after the incident.It was alleged that the father was killed on April 1, 2013 following a rivalry between him and Kannada Christian activists, who wanted primacy for Kannada Christians in the Catholic churches in Karnataka. The non-Kannada members of the congregations, mainly Malayalam, Tamil and Konkani speaking Christians projected this theory of the killing having been master-minded by the Kannada Christian activists.The Church, represented by senior advocate Sidharth Luthra, challenged the Karnataka High Courts order of August 30, 2016, quashing the criminal case against accused number 6 to 12. The accused-respondents were represented by senior advocate Sanjay Hegde and advocate Sanjay Nuli on caveat.The petitioner seminary cited statements of complaint witnesses Fr John Abraham, resident professor and Doplhy D'Cunha, who claimed that just two days prior to the murder, accused number 7 to 12 had participated at a massive rally and had made speeches denigrating the non-Kannada members of the Church. They allegedly quoted from the Holy Bible, the ominous sentence: It is better that, one man dies for the people than that the whole nation perishes.
President Pranab Mukherjee will lay the foundation stone for Dr B R Ambedkar School of Economics, which is part of Bangalore University, on April 14.



The institute has been named after Dr B R Ambedkar as he was the first Indian to study at the London School of Economics. The institute will be inaugurated on Dr B R Ambedkars birth anniversary.



Higher Education Minister Basavaraj Rayareddy held a meeting with officials in this regard on Thursday. The school will be established on a 43.35 acre-campus on BU. Classes will commence from the next academic year.


The BBMP has offered a compensation of Rs 5 lakh to the next to kin of a ragpicker from West Bengal who was buried alive under the heap of garbage at Bellahalli quarry near Bagalur two days ago.



Speaking to DH, BBMP commissioner N Manjunatha Prasad said it had been decided to give his wife a job in the waste processing unit and a residential quarters near the quarry where the incident happened.



Mithun, believed to be a resident of Nadia district in West Bengal, was picking plastic material from the heaps of waste when suddenly a mechanised shovel pushed a huge heap of waste with soil into the quarry where Mithun was picking the recyclable plastic. As a result, he was buried alive. He was a resident of Rajanukunte.



BBMP joint commissioner (solid waste management) Sarfaraz Khan said, The tragedy happened during mud-capping in the landfill. Many families living around there are ragpickers. They are important for us as they help in our cleanliness drive. But on most occasions, we do not know who these people and what their antecedents are. They claim they are from West Bengal, but they are said to be from Bangladesh, said Khan.
Neglected for years, the kalyani (temple tank) at Vasanthpura in Bengaluru south will soon get a facelift as the rejuvenation work has started. Recently, Infosys Foundation trustee Sudha Murty proposed rejuvenation of the temple tank and the government had accepted her proposal, said sources in the BBMP. The work started on March 20.



A supervisor present there said Rs 2.5 crore has been sanctioned for the work, which includes laying steps to the tank on the western side and strengthening its banks. Already, work is in progress. Labourers are chiselling the stone slabs to construct steps while earthmovers are desilting and deepening the tank. Huge rocks found during excavation will be used for reinforcing the bank.



Legend has it that the kalyani was constructed by Chhatrapati Shivajis father Shahaji Raje Bhonsle sometime in the mid 17th century to mark the acquisition of Bengaluru as his jagir. It is said that Bhonsle had won this jagir after defeating Kempegowda-III. Over a period of time, the temple tank, which is spread over two acres on paper, was in danger of disappearing due to official apathy.



As property prices shot up, the real estate mafia set its eyes on this tank in a prime location. With the connivance of muzrai officials, land grabbers created an action plan for what they claimed was beautification.



The plan would have ruined the tank as its size would have reduced to a mere 21,000 sq ft from the existing 86,000 sq ft. The rest of the land would have been used for constructing a link road connecting the main road on the northern side of the tank with a property on the southern side. The muzrai department had even taken the services of chief architect of Tamil Nadu Religious Endowment Department to reduce the size of the temple tank. The project was dropped after media reports followed by public outcry.



DH had earlier reported the attempts to grab the temple tank and money meant for the kalyani development. BBMP engineers got Rs 1 crore sanctioned for the development of the temple tank but siphoned off the funds. In this connection, J Kumaraswamy, resident of Gubbalala village in Uttarahalli ward had lodged a complaint with the Bangalore Metropolitan Task Force (BMTF). So far, no charge sheet has been filed.



Kumaraswamy told DH, We welcome the kalyani rejuvenation programme but the sad part is that the tank has not been surveyed. On paper, the tank is spread over two acres while on ground, almost 30 guntas of the tank have been encroached upon. A survey should be done on a priority basis.


In the eye of a storm over charges of assaulting an Air India staffer, MP Ravindra Gaikwad has been advised by the Shiv Sena leadership to stay away from the national capital till the issue over his air travel ban is settled.



The Sena also redoubled its efforts to get the travel ban on Gaikwad lifted by writing fresh letters to Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan and Civil Aviation Minister Ashok Gajapati Raju, explaining his version of the incident at the Delhi airport.



Last week, Gaikwad was forced to take a train to Mumbai after half-a-dozen airlines put him on a no-fly list. There were reports that Gaikwad had set out on a road journey from his constituency to attend Parliament. However, Sena sources dismissed these reports. He has been asked to lie low for a while, a Shiv Sena source said, hoping the matter would be resolved amicably soon. Efforts were also afoot to explore if the matter could be resolved with Gaikwad expressing regret over the incident.


A committee constituted by Legislative Assembly Speaker K B Koliwad to discipline the media has hit a hurdle at the initial stage itself with its designated chairman, Health Minister Ramesh Kumar declining to be part of the panel.



In a letter addressed to Koliwad, copies of which were released to the media on Friday, Kumar stated that constitution of the committee will send a wrong message to the people that the legislature is trying to control the media.



Kumar has suggested to Koliwad to invite representatives of print and electronic media for tea and sort out differences, if any, between legislators and the media through talks. Kumar stated that the Speaker had appointed him to chair the panel without consulting him.



Kumar said he is of the view that the media cannot be regulated through legislation. It is matter of professionalism and ethics. There should always be cordial relationship between the media and the legislature. Curtailing the freedom of the press is dangerous to democracy, Kumar stated in his letter.



At the same time, the legislature need not function at the mercy of the media and the fourth estate should realise its public responsibility, he added.



Meanwhile, BJP leader Jagadish Shettar has said that none of his party legislators would be on the panel. In the legislative council, K S Eshwarappa had said on March 28 itself that the BJP would not nominate its MLCs on the panel. In the Assembly no such announcement was made by the BJP. But now Shettar, who is the leader of the Opposition in the Assembly, has said that his party is not in favour controlling the media.



Koliwad had announced the names of BJP MLAs Suresh Gowda and Raju Kage as the members of the 13-member panel. Suresh Gowda has already written to the Speaker stating that he is not ready to be a member of the panel. Kage was not available for comment.



On Thursday, Koliwad had announced that he was not ready to reconsider his decision to constitute the committee.


The IMD will provide heatwave alerts to Red Cross and practising doctors as part of its efforts to help the Maharashtra administration fight the condition better. With sunstroke claiming lives in the state, the IMD has roped in several agencies to disseminate its alerts.



From Monday, we will share our heatwave alerts with Red Cross and Medical Council of India on a daily basis. While Red Cross has its own infrastructure to tackle the emergency, MCI has allowed us to use its network to spread the message, IMD Director General K J Ramesh told DH.



Earlier this week, the IMD issued alerts about the unusual heatwave that began in west Rajasthan and Gujarat and later spread to central Maharashtra and Vidarbha regions. On Friday, the highest temperature was recorded at Akola (44 degrees Celsius). The IMD also plans to launch a pilot project to create 29 climate outlook fora by picking at least one district from a state for heatwave preparedness.




BJP national president Amit Shah is said to have restrained the party state unit from inducting disgruntled leaders from other parties into the BJP fold in haste.



According to party sources, Shah is said to have convened to state unit president B S Yeddyurappa and other top leader to avoid party hoppers evincing interest to join the BJP only for the sake of enjoying power. Only candidates who can strengthen the party in places where the BJP has no base should be allowed to join the party.



Shah held a discussion with state leaders in this regard when they were in New Delhi to participate in the induction of former chief minister S M Krishna into the BJP recently, the sources added.



After BJPs impressive performance in Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand Assembly polls, the number of leaders from other parties evincing interest to join the BJP is on the rise. Inducting every person showing interest to join the BJP will send a wrong message to the dedicated loyalists who have been working for the party for decades, Shah is said to have stated.



Henceforth, the opinion of local leaders, jurisdictional district presidents and RSS functionaries will have to be taken before inducting any person into the party, it is stated. Shah is also said to have told state leaders to set a mission to win all the 224 seats in the state.


More information Indignacion en Colombia por un video de unas enfermeras bailando junto a una paciente sedada

A video that shows five hospital workers dancing and laughing around a sedated patient at a Colombia hospital has triggered the employees dismissal.

The images were uploaded on YouTube by a user named laschivasdelllano, and they show five women in hospital uniform dancing around a naked patient under sedation inside a surgery room, just ahead of an operation. A mans voice is heard in the background, presumably the maker of the video.

The video was immediately criticized for violating the patients dignity, according to local media reports.

Clinica Santa Cruz Hospital in Bocagrande launched an investigation into the case and fired all five employees who appear in the video, it said in a Facebook message.

We lament the situation of the individuals involved in these acts; even though they were recognized as good workers, today they must accept the consequences of an individual act that violated institutional guidelines and policies.

Colombian health authorities are investigating the case, local media reported.

English version by Susana Urra.
The Centre on Friday approved transfer of land of the now defunct HMT Watches at Bengaluru and Tumakuru measuring 208.35 acres to Indian Space Research Organization (Isro).



The Union Cabinet, at a meeting chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, also approved transfer of an acre land of Bengaluru (Global Warehouse) land of HMT Limited to Gas Authority of India Limited (GAIL) on payment of Rs 34.30 crore and applicable taxes and duties. Isro will have to shell out Rs 1,194.21 crore and applicable taxes and duties for the 208.35 acres of land.



The proceeds from sale of land will be deposited by the company in government accounts against the loans and advances, after meeting the immediate liabilities and accounting for tax liabilities arising out of the transaction.



The government decided to close down HMT Watches in January 2016. The sale/transfer of land to Isro and GAIL will free the productive resources and ensure better utilisation of the land, a statement said.
Even as Karnataka is reeling under severe drought, a team of officers from Tamil Nadu will hold discussions with the state government on Saturday seeking Cauvery water.



Official sources in the Tamil Nadu government said that the a team comprising three principal secretaries and the chairman of a water board would hold a meeting with Chief Secretary to Karnataka government, Subhash Chandra Khuntia and Principal Secretary to Water Resources department, Rakesh Singh among others. The meeting is scheduled to be held at the Vidhana Soudha around 3 pm.



The Tamil Nadu delta region is facing water shortage as the Cauvery basin has almost dried up. The total water available in the four reservoirs of Cauvery basin as on March 31, 2017 is 8.86 tmc against the live storage capacity of 104.55 tmc.



Krishnarajasagar reservoir in Mandya district has 77.31 ft of water against the full level of 124.80 ft. This is said to be the lowest storage in the last decade, according to sources in the government. However, sources say that with the present availability, drinking water could be supplied to Bengaluru and villages in the vicinity till the first week of June.



It is said that the Tamil Nadu has been making efforts for an out-of-court solution for the Cauvery issue, which appears unlikely given the severe water shortage in the river basin.
With a large number of workers remaining outside the ambit of the Employees State Insurance Scheme (ESIC), a parliamentary panel has asked the government to increase the wage ceiling to include more in the social security programme.



The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) led by senior Congress MP K V Thomas is also positive on the possibility of the ESIC admitting workers who can contribute voluntarily to the scheme, but only after putting in place the required infrastructure.



At present, 67% or 1.86 crore of the 2.75 crore-strong organised workforce  which is only 4% of the of total workforce of 45.90 crore  is covered under the scheme. Employees can avail the ESIC benefits if their wages do not cross Rs 15,000 per month, or Rs 25,000 in case of disabled workers.



The ESIC benefits include full medical facilities to insured workers and their dependants as well as cash compensation for any loss of wages in case of sickness, maternity and work-related injury.



In its response, the Ministry of Labour and Employment said the ESIC is exploring the feasibility of bringing certain categories of the unorganised sector within its ambit.



The committee felt that the ESIC should make all-out efforts to increase coverage of the workforce and ensure that its existing services and infrastructure are enough to deal with the insured workers and their dependants.




Ethical hacker Manish Bhangale, who had accused former Maharashtra minister Eknath Khadse of receiving calls from Karachi-based don Dawood Ibrahim, was arrested on Friday for creating fake phone bills.



This comes as a major relief to the 64-year-old Khadse, a six-term MLA who was no 2 to Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis. He held 10 portfolios, including revenue, agriculture, excise and minority affairs.



The senior BJP leader also faced charges of land grab in Pune. He was forced to resign on June 4 as there was no option left for the BJP-Shiv Sena saffron alliance in the wake of the Opposition charges.



Bhangale, from Vadodara in Gujarat, was arrested by the Mumbai Crime Branch-CID. According to Bhangale, the landline in Karachi was registered in the name of Dawoods wife Mehjabeen Shaikh and Khadses numbers featured in the call data records. Khadse, however, had denied the charges.



Bhangale had created the fake mobile bill on a computer to show call records between Khadse and Dawood's residence in Pakistan, a CID official said. In May 2016, Bhangale had claimed to have hacked into the authentication process of the Pakistan Telecommunication Company Ltd in April, which gave him access to Dawoods telephone records.






Pakistan-based terror outfits are using WhatsApp, Facebook and other social networking sites to engage youths in Kashmir to throw stones at the security forces whenever they undertake anti-terror operations in the Valley, Home Minister Rajnath Singh told the Lok Sabha on Friday.



He described this as a new trend in the Valley in the past few months. Youths from nearby villages gather and pelt stones at our security forces whenever they undertake any (anti-terror) operation, he told the Lok Sabha after Trinamool Congress member Saugatha Roy raised concerns over the prevailing situation in the Valley during Zero Hour. The minister said the government believes that the Kashmiri youth, who indulge in stone-pelting at the security forces during anti-terror operations, were being misguided by certain Pak-sponsored forces.



I appeal to the youth of Jammu and Kashmir that please do not fall into Pakistans trap. They have been making constant efforts to destabilise India, he added. The minister appreciated the security forces for giving a befitting response to the terror activities in the Valley.



Let me assure you that our security forces are dealing with terrorists exactly the way they should and will continue to do so. I want to say that we will definitely be successful, he said.
The CBI on Friday filed a charge sheet against Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh and eight others in a disproportionate assets case, hours after the Delhi High Court rejected their petition seeking quashing of the proceedings.



The Delhi High Court also vacated the Himachal Pradesh (HP) High Courts stay of October 1, 2015, restraining the CBI from arresting, interrogating or filing a charge sheet in the case without the courts permission.



The Congress jumped to the defence of Singh, contending that the case was borne out of political vendetta and there was no need for him to resign from the post of chief minister of Himachal Pradesh. Definitely not. Only a charge sheet has been filed. It is a clear case of political vendetta, AICC spokesman Abhishek Singhvi said in response to questions.



The CBI filed the charge sheet in a special court, which is now listed for consideration on Saturday. There is no factual basis brought on record to claim that the registration of the FIR against the petitioners (Singh and his wife) is actuated or legally or factually mala fide or that the registration of the FIR/RC is a result of political vendetta, Justice Vipin Sanghi of the Delhi High Court said.



Justice Sanghi also turned down the chief ministers claim that the Delhi High Court has no jurisdiction in the matter, saying accused cannot dictate to the prosecution that the case should be registered at a police station that he desires.



The judge observed that the HP High Courts direction was passed without hearing the necessary parties. It is well settled that a court should not undertake to decide an issue unless it is a live issue between the parties, he said and turned down the question framed by HP High Court, whether the permission of the Speaker of the HP Legislative Assembly was mandatory before registration of FIR. Justice Sanghi held that there was no legal basis to claim that the permission of Speaker of Himachal Pradesh Legislative Assembly was mandatory before registration of the FIR...




As many as 10,000 engineering students will sit locked in for 36 hours to thrash out digital solutions for problems listed by the Union ministries, in the final round of the digital product development competition  Smart India Hackathon 2017  starting on Saturday. Prime Minister Narendra Modi will address the students participating in the mega contest at 29 locations in the country. The hackathon will start at 8 am on Saturday and end at 8 pm on Sunday.



The prime minister will address the students participating in Smart India Hackathon 2017 at 10 pm (Sat) through video conferencing, the human resource development ministry said in a statement on Friday. With so many programmers (students) participating, this would be the largest hackathon held anywhere in the world, the ministry added. Tea/snack breaks, a zumba dance session between 1-1.30 am and a yoga session from 6-6.15 am on Sunday forms part of the non-stop codefest.



The software creations will be evaluated by judges drawn from different ministries and the industry in three rounds spread over Saturday evening, during overnight coding and at the end of contest. The best three solutions will fetch the winning teams an award of Rs one lakh, Rs 75,000 and Rs 50,000 respectively. The awarded software would be used by the Ministry/Departments for improving their governance systems, if necessary, with suitable upgradation, the Ministry said.



All the winners of the contest would also be connected to form a Community of Innovative Minds, the Ministry added. The contest was rolled out about two months ago with the Union ministries and departments putting forth a total of 598 problems requiring digital solutions in sectors ranging from defence and civil aviation to railways.



A total of 7,531 teams of 42,000 students responded to the problems identified by the various Ministries and departments of the Government of India, a Ministry official said. Of them, a total of 1,266 teams comprising 10,000 students from 28 States were shortlisted for the grand finale.



A software solution which could track the condition of railway lines and allied infrastructure, and generate auto warning messages about the need for urgent maintenance, can help in preventing untoward incidents. This is one of the problems identified by the Railway Ministry and entered in the contest, the official added. While the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) is the anchor, Information Technology industry is extending the needed support. Especially M/s i4C and Persistent Systems, and the NASSCOM have led the effort, the Ministry said.


A 37-year-old mentally challenged man spent 16 months in jail on the charge of stealing motorcycles. He fears the cops will come for him again.



Irshad Ahmed, a resident of Kushalnagar in KG Halli, was first picked up in December 2014 near KR Puram railway station. Police accused him of stealing motorcycles in RT Nagar, KG Halli, KR Puram and Baiyappanahalli, and interrogated him for two days though he had no criminal record. They dismissed his mother Haseenabis appeals that he was innocent. They produced him before a magistrate, showing that he was arrested the previous night. The judge remanded him in judicial custody.



Ahmed spent about 15 months in Central Prison, Parappana Agrahara, as his family could not arrange money for his bail. His mother once approached the police with Rs 2,000 for his release, but they said the bail would cost at least Rs 8,000, said R Kaleem Ullah, an activist with Movement for Justice, a human rights NGO. Ahmed is a person with special needs. With his demeanour, anyone can make out that he is not normal. Whats more, he cannot ride motorcycles and travels either by bus or on foot. Its highly unlikely that a person like him could be involved in bike thefts, Kaleem Ullah said.



Ahmed was released on bail in March 2016 with the NGOs help after it came to light that he had spent more than a year in a theft case. But police picked him up again  in December 2016  after learning about his criminal record. He was arrested from Bengaluru Cantonment railway station and sent to Bangarpet prison. This time, police said he was part of an armed gang of robbers.



The NGO again helped him get bail on March 8, 2017. Now, he has to fend for himself. His grandmother died when he was released the first time. His mother died just a week after he was released from Bangarpet jail. He fears the cops will come calling again.




The Anti Corruption Bureau (ACB) officials on Friday arrested a corporator and two engineers of Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) on charges of graft. The accused corporator, Krishnamurthy, and assistant engineer Krishna were arrested red-handed while accepting a bribe of Rs 15 lakh from a contractor. The ACB sleuths later arrested assistant executive engineer Arun Kumar for demanding the bribe.



Police said that the complainant is a civil contractor and had taken up the work of renovation of RTO office in Rajajinagar. The work was completed and a bill of Rs 2.74 crore was pending for clearance since last one-and-a-half years. The contractor had approached BBMP officials Krishna, Arun Kumar and also the corporator Krishnamurthy. The corporator and the two engineers demanded a bribe of Rs 38.5 lakh to release the bill. After negotiations, they scaled down the demand to Rs 15 lakh.



It was decided that the corporator would get Rs 10 lakh and the two engineers would divide between themselves the remaining Rs 5 lakh. Based on the complaint, a trap was laid. The corporator asked the contractor to pay the bribe at the corporators house in Kurubarahalli, an official said.



The complainant, along with the team of the ACB, visited the corporators house at around 10 am. At the time of trap, Krishnamurthy and Krishna were arrested red-handed while accepting the bribe of Rs 10 lakh and Rs 5 lakh, respectively. The other engineer was arrested later, the official said. Relatives and supporters of the corporator created a scene outside the house protesting against police action. They staged a protest demanding not to arrest the corporator. Sources said that the police had to secure the corporators sister who was hurling abuses at the police. She was released later after the accused were frisked away.


These are the responsibility of the editor and convey the newspaper's view on current affairs-both domestic and international

Nicolas Maduro with members of the Venezuela Supreme Court. Ariana Cubillos (AP)

More information Golpe de Estado en Venezuela

The stripping of the Venezuela National Assemblys lawmaking powers, their transfer to the Supreme Court of Justice  controlled by the chavistas (as the followers of former president Hugo Chavez are known)  and President Nicolas Maduros own assumption of extraordinary powers on criminal, military, social, political and civil matters all represent an institutional blow of extreme gravity, unmatched since Venezuelas institutional crisis began. It is a veritable coup that leaves no room for nuance of any kind.

In a continent where democracy has made spectacular progress after finally leaving behind the regimes of the 1970s and 1980s, Venezuelas regression into a dictatorship is incredibly sad news; it also casts worrying shadows over the future of a country that in no way deserves to be left on the sidelines of the system of liberties that is happily the majority system in the region.

Today Venezuela is a country that is isolated from its neighbors

The National Assembly is the legitimate legislative body according to the Venezuelan Constitution  designed and promoted by Chavez himself  and it was democratically elected for the last time at the December 2015 elections. As president, Maduro is under the obligation not only to accept the outcome, which gave a landslide victory to the opposition, but to collaborate with this chamber at the institutional level, for the good of Venezuela and for purposes of governability.

But the Venezuelan leader has done nothing of the kind: instead, he has tried to bypass the law from day one, employing all manner of ruses. These included a phantasmagorical alternative parliament, and budget approval without considering the chambers opinion on the matter. Finally, he ordered the judiciary, which is completely controlled by chavista loyalists, to initiate a process that was legally indefensible and ended with a complete disabling of the parliament. This is inconceivable in any country wishing to be internationally recognized as a democracy.

Against this backdrop, the extremely harsh statements by the secretary general of the Organization of American States, (OAS), Luis Almagro, can come as no surprise; neither can the OASs report demanding new elections. In Almagros own words: The way out of a dictatorship is through elections.

The way out of a dictatorship is through elections

Luis Almagro, OAS

The break with constitutional order encouraged by Maduro and his people represents an extremely dangerous point of no return in the fracture that chavismo has created in Venezuela. Despite the repeated calls for calm and dialogue issued for months by prominent individuals and international bodies, and despite the Vaticans mediation attempt, Maduro has stubbornly refused to meet even the minimum requirements that would facilitate the search for common ground, and instead has accelerated his resistance against the law. This strategy ended with the coup of last Wednesday.

Today Venezuela is a country that is isolated from its neighbors, a country where there are political prisoners, where the opposition is being persecuted, where parliament has been suspended and the economy has been ravaged. This is the true legacy of Nicolas Maduro and chavismo. It is something that Venezuelans do not deserve, because as the OAS notes, they cannot be denied the right to elect their leaders in free elections.

English version by Susana Urra.
Bengaluru Development Minister K J George flagged off trains at the KR Market Metro Station, initiating the final stage of the trial run on the underground section of Namma Metros North-South Corridor (Green Line). When reporters expressed doubts on the completion of project citing pending work in the underground stations, the minister reiterated that Metro Phase 1 will stick to the April- 15 deadline.



When probed further, the minister said the media should not complain about small delays.

The North-South corridor is 24.20-km long, which is 6 km more than the East-West line. A delay of 10-15 days is normal in a big project like this, he said.



A statement issued by the Bangalore Metro Rail Corporation Ltd (BMRCL) showed that the Green Line will be offered for inspection to the Commissioner of Railway Safety in the last week of April. BMRCL managing director Pradeep Singh Kharola said the running of the trains takes the Metro a step closer to the deadline.



Work directly related to railway tracks, including signalling and lighting systems, has been completed. There are 2% to 3% of pending works in the stations. This will be completed within the next two weeks, he added. Commercial operations on the full stretch of the North-South corridor will begin in May, George said.



We are eager to meet this deadline as it will not only boost revenues but also increase the confidence of the financial institutions lending money for the project. BMRCL suffered a loss of Rs 60.35 crore in 2015-16, which is expected to continue in 2016-17. Phase 1 has missed seven deadlines, the latest one in November 2016.


Prices of essential commodities may go up as about 20 lakh commercial and tourist vehicles in south India, including over 3 lakh in Karnataka, will go off the roads from Monday.



General secretary of South Zone Motor Transporters Welfare Association G R Shanmugappa said they have taken the decision to protest against the Central government for the hike in the insurance for vehicles. In addition to this, the All India Confederation of Goods Vehicle Owners Association has also joined the strike which is expected to hit the business sector.



The Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority (IRDA), which comes under the Centre, has effected massive hike in vehicle insurance which will hit the transport sector very badly. The cost of insurance has gone up from Rs 20,000 to Rs 40,000 for cars, Rs 40,000 to Rs 90,000 for buses and from Rs 26,000 to 52,000 for lorries, he said.



Shanmugappa said though the state government agreed not to scrap 15-year-old vehicles and reduce the RTO fees with only a 10% hike on the previous rates, their major demand of rolling back hike in cost of insurance has not got any response from the Centre.



Petrol and diesel tankers, LPG suppliers, tourist taxies and maxicabs will participate in the strike from Monday. The central government will be responsible for the inconvenience and suffering caused to the general public. We will continue the strike till the Centre intervenes and rolls back the hike in insurance, he said.



Control room to monitor situation



The Transport Department has set up control rooms in each district of the state to ensure supply of essential commodities and that no untoward incidents happen during the strike. The transport commissioner stated in a press release that the district officials will inform the authorities at the central control room in the commissioners about the situation in the areas. This will help the officials to make arrangements to mitigate problems of the public, the statement said.




UK MoD Facing 1bn-A-Year Funding Shortfall



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CEC rejects Yelk's appeal on misuse of administrative resources

In its late-night special sitting, Armenias Central Electoral Commission (CEC) rejected the application of the Yelk (Way out) alliance to cancel the registration of the ruling Republican Party of Armenia (HHK) in Sundays parliamentary elections. The alliance applied to the CEC over the recent scandal involving public school principals. Last week, it emerged that many school principals are campaigning for HHKs victory in the April 2 vote. The Union of Informed Citizens (UIC) said last Friday that it had evidence showing that directors of kindergartens and schools in Armenia are illegally pressurizing their staffs and childrens parents to vote for the HHK. Moreover, the UIC said its representatives had telephoned the directors of 136 schools and kindergartens and 114 of them admitted drawing up lists of childrens parents as well as schoolteachers and kindergarten staff who pledged support for the HHK in the upcoming polls. Based on this evidence, the Yelk applied to the CEC demanding that the latter cancel HHKs registration in the Sunday vote. In rejecting the application, the CEC said it has no power to give a legal assessment to the activity of a school pricipal in Khoznavar village (Syunik marz), at the same time promising to forward the case material to the Office of Prosecutor General. CEC Chairman Tigran Mukuchyan said teachers at educational institutions are not prohibited from campaigning or disseminating campaign materials. He said part of school principals denied campaigning in schools. Drawing up lists [of voters] is not considered campaigning while the use of administrative resource is not proven, Tigran Mukuchyan said.
Ameriabank: At the Vanguard of Armenia's Banking Sector

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SUBSCRIBERS OF UCOMS ALL TIME BEST OFFER TO ENJOY ADDITIONAL BENEFITS

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Mikayel and Karen Vardanyans provided 136 million AMD support for the overhaul of the Myasnikyan statue, which was in unsafe state of disrepair

Believe me, as a representative of a country which uses the Schengen system very often, it is quite important. Vardanyan

I really look forward to having answers from the Azerbaijani side for these alleged gross human rights violations: Secretary General

I call on Armenian and Azerbaijani parliamentarians to use this Assembly as an agora of opportunities President Tiny Kox

UCOMS SPECIAL OFFER OF THE UNLIMITED INTERNET IS NOW TERMLESS

There is no place for the death penalty in a State that respects human rights: PACE General Rapporteur

EU and CoE call on two Member States that have not yet acceded to this Protocol  Armenia and Azerbaijan  to do so without delay

An urgent debate requested on "The military hostilities between Armenia and Azerbaijan".

UCOM AND PES-PES CONTINUE COOPERATION WITHIN THE FRAMEWORK OF EDUCATIONAL PROJECT

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The statement of the meeting between Prime Minister Pashinyan, President Aliyev, President Macron and President Michel of October 6, 2022

Largest Corporate Bond Program at the Securities Market of Armenia Completed Successfully

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LEVEL UP ONLY FOR STUDENTS: UCOM OFFERS X2 AND X3 MORE INTERNET

STATEMENT BY SECRETARY ANTONY J. BLINKEN

This criminal act is another proof that the Armenophobia policy. Tatoyan

Nikol Pashinyan, Nancy Pelosi discuss a number of issues related to the Armenian-American agenda and regional developments

Delegation by Nancy Pelosi Accompanied by Alen Simonyan Visits Tsitsernakaberd Memorial Complex

Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi Arrives in Yerevan

Armenian Revytech, global technology leader SAP and financial services software specialist SAP Fioneer sign a cooperation agreement

With 120 million drams donated by Mikael Vardanyan, the defenders of the homeland will be treated in a new building

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Brad Pitt Secretly Visited Angelina Jolie's Film Sets In Cambodia To Meet His Children?
Nokia has been selected by Altan Redes to design, build and operate a new nationwide LTE and 5G-ready wholesale network in Mexico.

The deal will be Nokia's largest-ever contract win by scale in Latin America. Known in Mexico as Red Compartida, the Shared Network project is a unique, innovative program that will provide wireless broadband nationwide to 92% of the population in Mexico, reducing the digital divide and strengthening the country's productivity and competitiveness in digital services.

The contract with Nokia includes provision of the heart of the network - 100% of the fully virtualised core network and 40% of RAN, IP backhaul, OSS and NOC. This will be deployed in five regions of Mexico out of a total of nine, including Guadalajara and Monterrey, the country's second and third largest cities. The project also includes a full-range of services that will allow Nokia to deliver a turnkey project: site acquisition, construction, deployment, Network Integration, network planning and optimisation, master system integration (core), operation and maintenance and managed services.



The deployment, which will utilise the 700 MHz frequency band, will generate operational efficiencies as it requires fewer sites to reach a wider coverage. It is a greenfield project that is designed to have the application of state-of-the-art technologies.



The Shared Network project is a public-private international partnership led by the Mexican Ministry of Communications and Transport (SCT) and the Office for the Promotion of Investments in Telecommunications (PROMTEL), in coordination with the Federal Institute of Telecommunications (IFT). The project will generate a total investment of more than USD $7 billion over nine years, financed by international and local investors ranging from financial institutions and development institutions to industrial partners in Mexico.



Via the project, Mexico will join a growing number of countries deploying a 700 MHz APT network. It also marks Nokia's first deployment of a 100% virtualised core network in Latin America.



Altan Redes is a new wholesale carrier supported by international investors and several Mexican shareholders. The international consortium won the tender process to build and operate the Shared Network, which will serve as a new platform for the deployment of mobile and Internet services for existing mobile network operators (MNOs), as well as existing and new mobile virtual network operators (MVNOs).



Altans next generation network will be able to provide enterprises with ubiquitous ultra-broadband wireless connectivity, subscription and device management, and security and analytics - all over the country. Companies from all segments in Mexico, not only the telecom services providers, will benefit from a wide range of connectivity services and IoT applications "Over the Network", as it will also serve as a platform for government communications and services such as public safety, VoLTE and next generation IoT vertical/industrial applications in financial services, health, energy and transport.



Joaquin Coronado, Managing Director of Altan Redes, said: "The Shared Network is, up to now, the most ambitious telecommunications project worldwide. With Nokia as one of our technology partners, I'm sure the Shared Network will have a service of unmatched quality and scope. We trust Mexico will have soon the best mobile broadband network of the world with 4G-LTE technology."



Dimitri Diliani, head of Nokia Latin America, said: "Building a brand new, end-to-end LTE network is a dream for a company like Nokia. This project will allow Altan and the Mexican government to exceed consumer expectations, providing more wireless broadband services, speed, coverage and quality at a lower cost per bit. Such a state-of-the art network will benefit all mobile operators in Mexico - the existing and the new ones - and also their customers."
Artur Sakunts: CEC prepares the ground for questioning election results (video)

Numerous observers have arrived in Armenia to follow the April 2 elections in the country. The Citizen Observer Initiative will also have its representatives at the polling stations across the country. We shall field 3400 observers at 1500 polling stations and provide unprecedented oversight of the April 2 parliamentary elections. Also, we shall have 150 operators in our centre who will register information received from our observers, says Lusine Hakobyan, one of the members of the initiative. Several days ago, the Transparency International Anticorruption Centre published 176 facts about inaccuracies revealed in the run-up to the April 2 polls. Varuzhan Hoktanyan, Executive Director of Transparency International Armenia, said the Office of the Prosecutor General had asked them for more information about the violations. We were surprised, but happy. Daniel Ioannissyan, Head of the Independent Observer NGO, says they will have 200 observers at 400 polling stations. Human rights activist Artur Sakunts says the Central Electoral Commission did not address the concerns [about violations and inaccuracies] in a due way. The CEC is demonstrating inactivity in assessing electoral fraud, he said. Artur Sakunts especially called attention to the abuse of administrative resources, cases of violence and hidden vote buying. He added that the with its behaviour the CEC prepares the ground for questioning election results.
Low-level laser therapy for pain related to diabetic neuropathy has shown to be effective in a new research trial.

The laser therapy, a non-invasive treatment, was tested on rats during a study in Brazil, which showed it helped to decrease pain often associated with nerve damage.

Neuropathy, a nerve disorder, can be very painful for some patients, and in some extreme cases may lead to limb amputation. Keeping good control of blood glucose levels can help people with diabetes to avoid developing neuropathy.

Scientists from the University of Sao Paulos Biomedical Science Institute (ICB-USP) initially scheduled ten sessions of phototherapy every day ten days in rodent models of diabetic neuropathy.

As treatment progressed, the condition of the rats nerves was found to return to the same levels as before the study, with significant improvements observed after the fourth session.

We plan to apply the technique to humans, so we used similar therapeutic protocols, said principal investigator Professor Marucia Chacur.

Chacur added that behavioral responses improved in all the animals who were treated with the laser therapy.

We began the treatment after 45 days, when the neuropathic condition was well-established and had become chronic. We used a 904-nanometer laser, which can penetrate deep into tissue, said Chacur.

The researchers concluded that the use of low-level therapy is a feasible treatment for reducing nerve pain and protecting nerve fibres from damage. However, they added that more tests will be needed to confirm its full biological effects.

The study has been published in the journal Lasers in Medical Science.
Armen Martirosyan; In all likelihood, the April 2 elections will be legitimate (video)

Armen Martirosyan, a candidate running in the Sunday parliamentary elections on the list of Congress-HZhK alliance, does not regret that the alliance focused on the idea of peace throughout its election campaign. He says they are averting a much greater catastrophe than corruption and poverty. We do not fight to solve the problem of daily bread. We took the helm of the country, without paying attention to the force that is in power, he said. Mr Martirosyan refutes the allegations that the alliance has concluded a deal with the authorities and agreed to bypass illegalities observed during the campaign. In return, the alliance was promised seats in the next National Assembly. Even though the Dashnaktsutyun and Serzh Sargsyan were given such a great opportunity to resolve conflicts, they remained the same ungrateful people that they used to be, he said. Armen Martirosyan says there is no agreement between the bloc and the authorities. During the four-day April war in Karabakh the Congress said it would stand by the authorities if hostilities continued. In all other cases, we are critical of this regime. We are their rivals and opponents, he said. Mr Martirosyan does not rule out that they might take to the streets if the Sunday vote is rigged. We have prepared grounds for the elections to be legitimate in order to not to protest the results after election day." Mr Martitrosyan says in all likelihood, the April 2 elections will be legitimate otherwise Europeans will not give Armenia money (about 9 mln dollars) for a formal vote.
Ruuhs Facebook page describes the bot as a desi AI who never stops talking

Microsoft has launched a new chatbot called Ruuh on Facebook Messenger. The company launched a Facebook page for the chatbot on February 7, and according to ZDNet, it is currently under testing. A company spokesperson told the website, "at Microsoft, we're focused on helping people and organizations achieve more through new conversation models. We're excited about the possibilities in this space and are experimenting with a limited pilot program of a new chatbot that's focused on advancing conversational capabilities within our AI ambition. We hope to expand this chatbot to a broader audience in the future."

Ruuhs Facebook page describes the bot as a desi AI who never stops talking. After interacting with the bot for a bit, it seems like Microsoft still has a bit of work to do in order to make it have more human-like conversations. While it does seem to have some basic understanding of the questions, it tends to go completely off track when asked follow up questions.

Hopefully, Ruuh will not end up emulating Tay, Microsofts Twitter bot that went rogue last year. Designed to interact with people via tweets after learning the latest trends of speaking, Tay ended up spewing hate filled rhetoric which included racial slurs, appreciation for Adolf Hitler, and implication that Bush did 9/11. As expected Tay was quickly taken down. Ruuh on the other hand, doesnt seem to have any political inclinations. At least not too much...
Xiaomi Redmi Note 4 will be shipped within 5 days of online pre-order. The company is only accepting online payments and has not included cash on delivery option for pre-orders.

Xiaomi has started taking pre-orders for the Redmi Note 4, its latest smartphone to hit 1 million sales mark in India. With the new pre-order option, Xiaomi is moving away from the flash sales model and simplifying the process of buying its smartphones. Xiaomi says the handset will be shipped within 5 days of online pre-order and it is only be accepting online payments. Those pre-ordering the smartphone can cancel the order before the smartphone is shipped and the site will allow only one smartphone per pre-order.

Xiaomi Redmi Note 4 will be the first Xiaomi smartphone to become available via pre-order and the company is expected to offer other smartphones at a later stage. To recall, the Redmi Note 4 was announced as successor to the Redmi Note 3 in January at a starting price of Rs 9,999. The smartphone features a 5.5-inch full HD display and is powered by Snapdragon 625 chipset. The all-metal unibody smartphone comes in three different storage options: 2/3GB RAM model with 32GB storage and 4GB RAM variant with 64GB storage. Xiaomi Redmi Note 4 features a 13MP rear camera and a 5MP front camera. Like its predecessor, it also houses a beefy 4100mAh battery and comes in Gold, Grey and Black colour options.

Xiaomi recently dethroned Lenovo Moto as the second largest smartphone brand in India. The company is also the largest smartphone brand in the online space, but it is yet to establish a strong foothold in the offline retail space. Xiaomi CEO Lei Jun recently admitted that offline sales continue to be the biggest challenge for the company. Xiaomi India aims to sell 7 million Redmi Note 4 smartphones and with the pre-order option, the company would be hoping to reach that goal.
MTNL is also joining the free data battle between telecom operators with its new promotional offer. The plan offers 2GB 3G data per day, unlimited calls within MTNL's network for 28 days

MTNL is the latest telecom operator to take on Reliance Jio's Prime membership offer with its new Rs 319 plan. Starting April 1, MTNL will offer 2GB 3G data per day and unlimited calling within its network for 28 days. MTNL's announcement comes on the day when Reliance Jio's free offer comes to an end. Reliance Jio's 'Happy New Year Offer' and Jio Prime subscription ends today and the company will start charging its users starting tomorrow.

"On its 31st anniversary, MTNL announces new plan from April 1, 2017 that offers 2 GB of 3G data per day and unlimited calling within MTNL network for Rs 319 for Delhi and Mumbai mobile customers. This promotional offer is valid for 90 days. MTNL customers will also get 25 minutes of free call to other networks everyday and after that they will be charged 25 paise for a minute phone call," the company said in a statement.

MTNL is not the only telecom company trying to battle Jio's lowest tariff plans. Airtel, Vodafone, Idea and BSNL have all announced free data offers to take on Jio. BSNL recently announced that it will offer 1GB free data to non-internet users on its network to push Digital India initiative. With Jio subscription coming to an end and other telecom operators offering free data plans at discounted rates, it is a win-win situation for telecom subscribers in the country.
Investors in acoustic and thermal automotive insulation supplier Autins Group were gathering in Birmingham on Friday for the companys annual general meeting.

The AIM-traded companys chairman, Adam Attwood, was set to tell them that the firm had continued to invest for growth in 2017.

We continue to seek approvals and commercial volumes for our Neptune product and to build on the progress made in 2016.

Our strategic plans are designed to deliver sustainable growth through product and process innovation whilst delivering geographical, sector and customer base diversification.

In the near term, Attwood believed the profile of the companys results would be significantly weighted to the second half of the year and were dependent on successful deliveries of Neptune product into the market.

We expect solid growth for the full year, however, as already announced on 7 March, this will fall significantly short of previously anticipated levels due to the timing and rate of growth in our automotive business not being as strong as we had expected.

The board remains confident of the importance of our diversification strategy and we are committed to realising the full potential of the Autins Group.

Autins Group will release interim results for the six months ending 31 March in June.
Sprue Aegis  distribution, manufacturing and supply agreements with US consumer products firm Newell Brands are to be terminated, but the home safety products developer has also gained contracts with two other companies.

Sprue received 12 months' notice from Newell Brands, to terminate the distribution agreement with BRK Brands Europe, a subsidiary of Newell, dated 10 April 2010 which was extended for a further three years from 1 April 2015, but will now finish on 31 March 2018.

This will end Sprue's obligation to pay the fixed 2.9m BRK annual distribution fee and the right to distribute BRK's products and brands in Europe.

The AIM-listed company's manufacturing and supply agreement with DTL will also terminate on 31 March 2018.

Sprue said that it will continue to buy and source products under both distribution and manufacturing agreements until the date, and honour its contractual commitments.

Newell Brands president Mark Tarchetti said: "Having considered various different options with Sprue, it became clear that the best interests of both parties would be served by Sprue and Newell going their separate ways. Newell therefore decided to serve the requisite 12 months' written notice on Sprue to terminate both the BRK distribution agreement and the DTL manufacturing agreement.

On the upside, Sprue has gained new manufacturing and supply agreement with US electronics manufacturer Flex to source a range of smoke and heat alarms and accessories from Flex's facility in Tczew, Poland.

The company has also entered into a supply agreement with a manufacturer based in the Far East to buy alternatives to BRK products.

Sprue executive chairman Graham Whitworth said: "We are delighted to announce the appointment of two new manufacturing partners which will significantly increase Sprue's scale and value proposition. We do not expect any significant disruption to the supply chain as we transition to source products from our new manufacturing partners.

Whilst the relationship between Sprue and Newell was successful, moving forwards the changes we have announced today will allow Sprue to focus more on developing its core and emerging technology strategy.

Shares in Sprue Aegis were down 0.58% to 171.50p at 0903 BST.
Shares surged in Safestay on Friday after the hostel operator announced it has consolidated its borrowings into one new facility and that the sale on two hostels has been completed.

The AIM-listed company agreed to an 18.4m debt restructuring and refinancing, to replace existing convertible and bank debt, with a single facility with HSBC.

At the end of last year, the company had unaudited total borrowings of 17.6m, made up of a 13.8m bank facility and convertible loans of 3.8m with an average cost of debt of 3.7%.

A new 18.4m, five-year bank facility has now been agreed with HSBC, subject to conditions, to replace the old arrangements in order to reduce the cost of debt of its and repay all outstanding convertible loans.

Chairman Larry Lipman said that consolidating the companys borrowings into one new facility at a lower cost with a lender capable of supporting its European ambitions was logical step and has increased the trading strength of the business.

Separately, Safestay announced that it had completed the sale and leaseback on its hostels in Edinburgh and Elephant & Castle in south London for 12.6m, against yearly combined ground rents starting at 300,000 rising to 330,000 on completion of an extension, representing a net initial yield of 2.46%.

The sale has been agreed with an institutional buyer in exchange for 150 year geared ground rent leases, so the company can continue to operate both hostels while releasing the cash from the two properties.

Safestay will receive 5.32m for the Edinburgh property and 6.1m for Elephant & Castle as well as a further 1.18m on completion of an extension on the London hostel in 2018.

In 2016, the two hostels generated unaudited revenue of 5.5m and a pre-tax profit of 1.5m.

Lipman said the sales of the hostels means the company can re-cycle capital into new growth opportunities to achieve higher and more attractive returns.

Shares in Safestay were up 8.66% to 52.70p at 1225 BST.
West Africa-focussed diamond development company Stellar Diamonds announced its unaudited interim results for the six months to 31 December on Friday, after signing a heads of terms with Octea Mining for the proposed Tongo-Tonguma tribute mining agreement in February.

The AIM-traded firm said the project carried a robust attributable post-tax net present value and internal rate of return of $104m and 31% respectively, with the estimated attributable net present value in excess of 40 times the current market capitalisation of Stellar.

It said estimated projected life of mine revenues were $1.518bn.

The company claimed there was a significant 4.5 million carats resource over the Tongo-Tonguma project with a target of an additional 8 million carats, and confirmed the resource statements, mine plan and financial model were completed by independent consultants.

On the financial front, Stellars $0.6m interim loan was repaid and replaced by a $1.24m convertible loan.

An additional $0.66m was raised post period-end through a placing, subscription and open offer.

The board continued to reduce its administration costs to $0.55m for the six months.

Stellar Diamonds reported a loss before tax for the period, off nil revenue, of $0.66m, narrowing from $0.89m year-on-year.

With the significant potential of the amalgamation of the Tongo Diamond fields projects in mind, we entered into heads of terms with Octea Mining during the period to combine its adjacent Tonguma project with our own Tongo project in eastern Sierra Leone for commercial exploitation, said chief executive Karl Smithson.

The terms of the transaction with Octea began to change towards the end of the year from a planned acquisition of Tonguma to a proposed tribute mining arrangement, whereby Stellar intends to fund the mine development and pay Octea a 10% revenue share of all production from both licences once has recouped our capital expenditure in respect of the mine build.

Smithson said a new heads of heads of terms for the proposed tribute mining agreement was entered into and announced on 20 February, with full, legally binding conditional agreements between Stellar and Octea currently being drafted and expected to be finalised in the near future.

Independent consultants completed a detailed mine plan and financial model for the combined 4.5 million carat resource at Tongo-Tonguma which demonstrates that over an estimated initial mine life of 21 years some 3.9 million carats is expected to be produced.

The recovered diamond grades and values of the three kimberlite dykes currently in the mine plan range from 100cpht to 260cpht and $209/ct to $310/ct.

By worldwide standards, Smithson said those were considered to be some of the highest dollar per tonne kimberlite diamond deposits.

Separately at the company's Baoule kimberlite pipe project in Guinea, trial mining of the targeted 100,000 tonnes was completed just prior to the year end in June 2016.

A total of 11,564 carats were mined with diamond sales totalling $1.1m over the trial mining period.

As the project then stood down for the rainy season, Smithson said Stellar negotiated a joint venture over Baoule and the two exploration licences in Liberia with a Dubai-based group, Citigate, which were signed in October 2016.

However, to date no funding has been forthcoming from Citigate.

Accordingly, we are now considering our options, for the continual development of Baoule and exploration in Liberia whilst we focus on the Tongo-Tonguma project in Sierra Leone.
Here is the full text of the nine-page document, the so-called "guidelines" of the EU 27 for Brexit talks, which will be finalised on 29 April when leaders hold a summit in Brussels.

On 29 March 2017, the European Council has received the notification by the United Kingdom of its intention to withdraw from the European Union and Euratom. This allows for the opening of negotiations as foreseen by the Treaty.

European integration has brought peace and prosperity to Europe and allowed for an unprecedented level and scope of cooperation on matters of common interest in a rapidly changing world. Therefore, the Unions overall objective in these negotiations will be to preserve its interests, those of its Member States, its citizens and its businesses.

The United Kingdoms decision to leave the Union creates significant uncertainties that have the potential to cause disruption, in particular in the UK but also in other Member States. Citizens who have built their lives on the basis of rights flowing from the British membership of the EU face the prospect of losing those rights. Businesses and other stakeholders will lose the predictability and certainty that come with EU law. With this in mind, we must proceed according to a phased approach giving priority to an orderly withdrawal.

In these negotiations the Union will act as one. It will be constructive throughout and will strive to find an agreement. This is in the best interest of both sides. The Union will work hard to achieve that outcome, but it will prepare itself to be able to handle the situation also if the negotiations were to fail. These guidelines define the framework for negotiations under Article 50 TEU and set out the overall positions and principles that the Union will pursue throughout the negotiation. The European Council will remain permanently seized of the matter, and will update these guidelines in the course of the negotiations as necessary.

I. Core Principles:

1. The European Council will continue to base itself on the principles set out in the statement of Heads of State or Government and of the Presidents of the European Council and the European Commission on 29 June 2016. It reiterates its wish to have the United Kingdom as a close partner in the future. It further reiterates that any agreement with the United Kingdom will have to be based on a balance of rights and obligations, and ensure a level-playing field. Preserving the integrity of the Single Market excludes participation based on a sector-by-sector approach. A non-member of the Union, that does not live up to the same obligations as a member, cannot have the same rights and enjoy the same benefits as a member. In this context, the European Council welcomes the recognition by the British Government that the four freedoms of the Single Market are indivisible and that there can be no cherry picking.

2. Negotiations under Article 50 TEU will be conducted as a single package. In accordance with the principle that nothing is agreed until everything is agreed, individual items cannot be settled separately. The Union will approach the negotiations with unified positions, and will engage with the United Kingdom exclusively through the channels set out in these guidelines and in the negotiating directives. So as not to undercut the position of the Union, there will be no separate negotiations between individual Member States and the United Kingdom on matters pertaining to the withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the Union.

II. A PHASED APPROACH TO NEGOTIATIONS

3. On the date of withdrawal, the Treaties will cease to apply to the United Kingdom, to those of its overseas countries and territories currently associated to the Union, and to territories for whose external relations the United Kingdom is responsible. The main purpose of the negotiations will be to ensure the United Kingdoms orderly withdrawal so as to reduce uncertainty and, to the extent possible, minimise disruption caused by this abrupt change.

To that effect, the first phase of negotiations will aim to:  settle the disentanglement of the United Kingdom from the Union and from all the rights and obligations the United Kingdom derives from commitments undertaken as Member State;  provide as much clarity and legal certainty as possible to citizens, businesses, stakeholders and international partners on the immediate effects of the United Kingdoms withdrawal from the Union. The European Council will monitor progress closely and determine when sufficient progress has been achieved to allow negotiations to proceed to the next phase.

4. While an agreement on a future relationship between the Union and the United Kingdom as such can only be concluded once the United Kingdom has become a third country, Article 50 TEU requires to take account of the framework for its future relationship with the Union in the arrangements for withdrawal. To this end, an overall understanding on the framework for the future relationship could be identified during a second phase of the negotiations under Article 50. The Union and its Member States stand ready to engage in preliminary and preparatory discussions to this end in the context of negotiations under Article 50 TEU, as soon as sufficient progress has been made in the first phase towards reaching a satisfactory agreement on the arrangements for an orderly withdrawal.

5. To the extent necessary and legally possible, the negotiations may also seek to determine transitional arrangements which are in the interest of the Union and, as appropriate, to provide for bridges towards the foreseeable framework for the future relationship. Any such transitional arrangements must be clearly defined, limited in time, and subject to effective enforcement mechanisms. Should a time-limited prolongation of Union acquis be considered, this would require existing Union regulatory, budgetary, supervisory and enforcement instruments and structures to apply.

6. The core principles set out above should apply equally to the negotiations on an orderly withdrawal, to any preliminary and preparatory discussions on the framework for a future relationship, and to any form of transitional arrangements.

7. The two year timeframe set out in Article 50 TEU ends on 29 March 2019.

III. AGREEMENT ON ARRANGEMENTS FOR AN ORDERLY WITHDRAWAL

8. The right for every EU citizen, and of his or her family members, to live, to work or to study in any EU Member State is a fundamental aspect of the European Union. Along with other rights provided under EU law, it has shaped the lives and choices of millions of people. Agreeing reciprocal guarantees to settle the status and situations at the date of withdrawal of EU and UK citizens, and their families, affected by the United Kingdoms withdrawal from the Union will be a matter of priority for the negotiations. Such guarantees must be enforceable and non-discriminatory.

9. Also, the United Kingdom leaving the Union will impact EU businesses trading with and operating in the United Kingdom and UK businesses trading with and operating in the Union. Similarly, it may affect those who have entered into contracts and business arrangements or take part in EU-funded programmes based on the assumption of continued British EU membership. Negotiations should seek to prevent a legal vacuum once the Treaties cease to apply to the United Kingdom and, to the extent possible, address uncertainties.

10. A single financial settlement should ensure that the Union and the United Kingdom both respect the obligations undertaken before the date of withdrawal. The settlement should cover all legal and budgetary commitments as well as liabilities, including contingent liabilities.

11. The Union has consistently supported the goal of peace and reconciliation enshrined in the Good Friday Agreement, and continuing to support and protect the achievements, benefits and commitments of the Peace Process will remain of paramount importance. In view of the unique circumstances on the island of Ireland, flexible and imaginative solutions will be required, including with the aim of avoiding a hard border, while respecting the integrity of the Union legal order. In this context, the Union should also recognise existing bilateral agreements and arrangements between the United Kingdom and Ireland which are compatible with EU law.

12. The Union should agree with the United Kingdom on arrangements as regards the Sovereign Base Areas of the United Kingdom in Cyprus and recognise in that respect bilateral agreements and arrangements between the Republic of Cyprus and the United Kingdom which are compatible with EU law, in particular as regards the situation of those EU citizens resident or working in the Sovereign Base Areas.

13. Following the withdrawal, the Union with 27 Member States will continue to have the rights and obligations of the Union with 28 Member States in relation to international agreements. The United Kingdom will no longer be covered by agreements concluded by the Union or by Member States acting on its behalf or by both acting jointly. The European Council expects the United Kingdom to honour its share of international commitments contracted in the context of its EU membership. In such instances, a constructive dialogue with the United Kingdom on a possible common approach towards third country partners and international organisations concerned should be engaged.

14. While the future location of the seats of EU agencies and facilities located in the United Kingdom is a matter for the 27 Member States, arrangements should be found to facilitate their transfer.

15. Arrangements ensuring legal certainty and equal treatment should be found for all court procedures pending before the Court of Justice of the European Union upon the date of withdrawal that involve the United Kingdom or natural or legal persons in the United Kingdom. The Court of Justice of the European Union should remain competent to adjudicate in these procedures. Similarly, arrangements should be found for administrative procedures pending before the European Commission and Union agencies upon the date of the withdrawal that involve the United Kingdom or natural or legal persons in the United Kingdom. In addition, arrangements should be foreseen for the possibility of administrative or court proceedings to be initiated post-exit for facts that have occurred before the withdrawal date.

16. The withdrawal agreement should include appropriate dispute settlement mechanisms regarding the application and interpretation of the withdrawal agreement, as well as duly circumscribed institutional arrangements allowing for the adoption of measures necessary to deal with situations not foreseen in the withdrawal agreement. This should be done bearing in mind the Unions interest to effectively protect its autonomy and its legal order, including the role of the Court of Justice of the European Union.

IV. PRELIMINARY AND PREPARATORY DISCUSSIONS ON A FRAMEWORK FOR THE UNION  UNITED KINGDOM FUTURE RELATIONSHIP

17. The European Council welcomes and shares the United Kingdoms desire to establish a close partnership between the Union and the United Kingdom after its departure. While a relationship between the Union and a non Member State cannot offer the same benefits as Union membership, strong and constructive ties will remain in both sides interest and should encompass more than just trade.

18. The British government has indicated that it will not seek to remain in the single market, but would like to pursue an ambitious free trade agreement with the European Union. Based on the Unions interests, the European Council stands ready to initiate work towards such an agreement, to be finalised and concluded once the United Kingdom is no longer a Member State.

19. Any free trade agreement should be balanced, ambitious and wide-ranging. It cannot, however, amount to participation in the Single Market or parts thereof, as this would undermine its integrity and proper functioning. It must ensure a level playing field in terms of competition and state aid, and must encompass safeguards against unfair competitive advantages through, inter alia, fiscal, social and environmental dumping.

20. Beyond trade, the EU stands ready to consider establishing a partnership in other areas, in particular the fight against terrorism and international crime as well as security and defence.

21. The future partnership must include appropriate enforcement and dispute settlement mechanisms that do not affect the Unions autonomy, in particular its decision-making procedures.

22. After the United Kingdom leaves the Union, no agreement between the EU and the United Kingdom may apply to the territory of Gibraltar without the agreement between the Kingdom of Spain and the United Kingdom.

V. PRINCIPLE OF SINCERE COOPERATION

23. Until it leaves the Union, the United Kingdom remains a full Member of the European Union, subject to all rights and obligations set out in the Treaties and under EU law, including the principle of sincere cooperation.

24. The European Council recognises the need, in the international context, to take into account the specificities of the United Kingdom as a withdrawing Member State, provided it remains loyal to the Unions interests while still a Member. Similarly the Union expects the United Kingdom to recognise the need of the 27 Member States to meet and discuss matters related to the situation after the withdrawal of the United Kingdom.

25. While the United Kingdom is still a member, all ongoing EU business must continue to proceed as smoothly as possible at 28. The European Council remains committed to drive forward with ambition the priorities the Union has set itself. Negotiations with the United Kingdom will be kept separate from ongoing Union business, and shall not interfere with its progress.

VI. PROCEDURAL ARRANGEMENTS FOR NEGOTIATIONS UNDER ARTICLE 50

26. The European Council endorses the arrangements set out in the statement of 27 Heads of State or Government on 15 December 2016.
The UK government's plans to transfer EU law into British statute after Brexit would hand power to change workers' rights to judges rather than parliament, the Trades Union Congress warned.

TUC General Secretary Frances OGrady said plans under the Great Repeal Bill, which the government will use to transfer thousands of laws and regulations from the European Union, fell short of Prime Minister Theresa May's pledge to maintain workers rights.

This means that important rules to protect workers could be overturned, without the UK Parliament having any say. The protections affected could include your rights to full holiday pay, equal pay for women, stopping indirect discrimination because of your race or gender, and help for workers when they are outsourced to a new boss," O'Grady said.

The government is also taking wide-ranging powers that will allow ministers to scrap or water down rights like protections from excessive working hours, equal treatment for agency workers, and redundancy protections."

She called on May to "think again" and put in an exemption in the Bill "to stop holes being punched in the rights that working people in Britain currently have".

The Prime Minister must also make good on her promise to build on workers rights by putting them at the heart of the UKs future trade deal with the EU. There must be a guarantee of a level playing field with our EU partners  not a race to the bottom on workplace rights. We dont want hardworking Brits to miss out on new rights that workers in other European nations get.
The US will likely continue to be in the spotlight over the coming week, although this time around investors' attention will be more evenly split between the incoming economic data and the ebb and flow of speeches and reports concerning the US central bank.

Thus, the spotlight will be squarely focused on the US non-farm payrolls report for the month of March.

Acting as a backdrop, and helping to frame the debate around that critical piece of market data, on Wednesday the Federal Reserve will release the minutes of its 15 March policy meeting, when it last decided to raise rates.

That account of policymakers' deliberations might prove especially useful as investors are now attempting not just to predict what the central bank's actions might be in 2017, but also in 2018, not to mention how it may proceed with the normalisation of its balance sheet.

Nonetheless, said meeting was prior to the most recent events surrounding the new US administration's setbacks in Congress, with all the consequences that might (or may not) have on fiscal policy in the States.

To take note of as well, Monday will bring with it March's reading on China's Caixin purchasing managers' index for the country's factory sector.

In the euro area, the news-flow surrounding the start of Brexit negotiations will have some serious competition on Tuesday in the form of the second televised debate between the main candidates in the French presidential elections due to be held on 23 April.

Lastly, back home, at the end of the week, on Friday, ONS is scheduled to publish data on UK house prices for March, alongside the readings for industrial production and the visible trade balance referencing the month of February and Halifax house price data for March.

Monday April 03

INTERIM DIVIDEND PAYMENT DATE

WYG

INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC ANNOUNCEMENTS

ISM Manufacturing (US) (14:00)

ISM Prices Paid (US) (14:00)

Producer Price Index (EU) (10:00)

Unemployment Rate (EU) (10:00)

FINALS

Filta Group Holdings, Globaltrans Investment GDR (Reg S), Luceco , NetScientific , PJSC Acron GDR (REG S)

AGMS

CVC Credit Partners European Opportunities Ltd GBP

FINAL DIVIDEND PAYMENT DATE

Foresight VCT, RSA Ins 7 3/8%pf

Tuesday April 04

INTERIMS

Nanoco Group

INTERIM DIVIDEND PAYMENT DATE

Pennon Group, Stewart & Wight

QUARTERLY PAYMENT DATE

Blackrock North American Income Trust

QUARTERLY EX-DIVIDEND DATE

JP Morgan Chase & Co

INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC ANNOUNCEMENTS

Balance of Trade (US) (12:30)

Factory Orders (US) (14:00)

Retail Sales (EU) (10:00)

FINALS

Central Asia Metals, Flowtech Fluidpower, Hydrogen Group, Midatech Pharma , Next Fifteen Communications, Panmure Gordon & Co, Shield Therapeutics, Sprue Aegis, TP Group

ANNUAL REPORT

Midatech Pharma

UK ECONOMIC ANNOUNCEMENTS

PMI Construction (08:30)

FINAL DIVIDEND PAYMENT DATE

Apax Global Alpha Limited , Greencore Group, Rights & Issues Inv Trust Income Shares, St. Modwen Properties

Wednesday April 05

INTERIMS

McCarthy & Stone

QUARTERLY PAYMENT DATE

Barclays

FINALS

HSS Hire Group , Learning Technologies Group , Mi-Pay Group, Property Franchise Group

FINAL DIVIDEND PAYMENT DATE

MTI Wireless Edge Ltd., Thomas Cook Group

Thursday April 06

INTERIM DIVIDEND PAYMENT DATE

Diageo, Galliford Try, Joules Group, Park Group, Revolution Bars Group, Ricardo, South32 Limited (DI) , Thorpe (F.W.)

INTERIM EX-DIVIDEND DATE

Animalcare Group, Begbies Traynor Group, Bioventix, Henderson EuroTrust, Photo-Me International, Produce Investments, Smith (DS), Smiths Group, St Ives, Tiso Blackstar Group SE (DI), Tracsis, Wolseley

QUARTERLY PAYMENT DATE

Total SA

QUARTERLY EX-DIVIDEND DATE

Aberdeen Diversified Income and Growth Trust , Blue Capital Global Reinsurance Fund Ltd (DI), F & C UK High Income Trust , Marsh & Mclennan Cos Inc., Mercantile Investment Trust (The), Primary Health Properties, Schroder Income Growth Fund, SQN Asset Finance Income Fund Limited, The SME Loan Fund

FINALS

Electrical Geodesics Inc. (DI), Gulf Keystone Petroleum Ltd Com Shs (DI), M. P. Evans Group, PureTech Health , Zegona Communications

ANNUAL REPORT

Amryt Pharma, Axiom European Financial Debt Fund Limited

SPECIAL DIVIDEND PAYMENT DATE

Independent Inv Trust

SPECIAL EX-DIVIDEND DATE

888 Holdings, Electra Private Equity, Lloyds Banking Group, Next, Paddy Power Betfair, Quartix Holdings

AGMS

Leeds Building Society 13 3/8% Bearing Shares, Scottish American Inv Company, Smith & Nephew

TRADING ANNOUNCEMENTS

Electrocomponents, Mothercare

FINAL DIVIDEND PAYMENT DATE

Athelney Trust, Electronic Data Processing, Lakehouse, Rio Tinto

FINAL EX-DIVIDEND DATE

4Imprint Group, 888 Holdings, Amiad Water Systems Ltd, Amino Technologies, Aviva, BBA Aviation, Berendsen, Costain Group, Elecosoft, Fisher (James) & Sons, Franchise Brands, HGCapital Trust, Hikma Pharmaceuticals, IMI, Ladbrokes Coral Group, Lighthouse Group, Lloyds Banking Group, Melrose Industries, Moneysupermarket.com Group, Nichols, Octopus Titan VCT , Paddy Power Betfair, Pearson, Quartix Holdings , Rentokil Initial, Rotork, Sanne Group, Schroder Asian Total Return Investment Company , Shore Capital Group Ltd., St James's Place, Stadium Group, Telit Communications, Ultra Electronics Holdings, Vesuvius, Virgin Money Holdings (UK) , Wood Group (John)

Q1

Ferrexpo

Friday April 07

INTERIM DIVIDEND PAYMENT DATE

AdEPT Telecom, Alumasc Group, Ashmore Group, Croma Security Solutions Group, Dechra Pharmaceuticals, ECO Animal Health Group, Edge Performance VCT G Shares, Foresight Solar & Infrastructure VCT, Hargreaves Services, Hays, London Finance & Investment Group, Mid Wynd International Inv Trust, MJ Gleeson , Oxford Instruments, PZ Cussons, Renishaw, Standard Life UK Smaller Companies Trust, Wilmington

QUARTERLY PAYMENT DATE

Land Securities Group

FINALS

AFI Development

SPECIAL DIVIDEND PAYMENT DATE

Jupiter Fund Management

AGMS

Banco Santander S.A.

FINAL DIVIDEND PAYMENT DATE

Crest Nicholson Holdings, Jupiter Fund Management , Safestore Holdings, XLMedia

FINAL EX-DIVIDEND DATE

GKN
Gibraltar s future is up in the air after the European Union backed Spains right to exclude the overseas territory from any single market access when Britain leaves the bloc.

According to the negotiating guidelines released by the EU on Friday, if Spain is not content with the status of Gibraltar, it will retain the right to exclude it from the free trade system.

Britain and Spain have engaged in centuries of squabbling over the territorial status of 'the rock', and the EUs stance is likely to intensify those arguments. Gibraltar voted overwhelmingly to remain part of the EU in last Junes referendum, but a majority of Britons voted to leave.

Spain has long-held ambitions to reclaim Gibraltar after its cessation from the country in 1713 as part of the Treaty of Utrecht, and Brexit appears to be an ideal opportunity for Mariano Rajoys government to bring the issue back to the table.

Britain and Spain have engaged in decades of squabbling over the territorial status of "the rock"

"After the United Kingdom leaves the Union, no agreement between the EU and the UK may apply to the territory of Gibraltar without the agreement between the Kingdom of Spain and the UK," the guidelines released on Friday said.

British foreign secretary Boris Johnson has said that the government will maintain a firm stance on its control over Gibraltar, referring to the "implacable, marmoreal and rock-like resistance" to any attempt from Spain to lay claim to the area.

Since last years referendum, Spanish politicians have made several comments which suggest that the government will take steps towards keeping Gibraltar within the EU. In the aftermath of the vote, acting foreign minister Jose Manuel Garcia Margallo angered Britain by saying that the regions return to Spanish control was much closer than before the poll.
US secretary of state Rex Tillerson has spoken at his first NATO meeting, affirming the superpowers commitment to the alliance and speaking of its key role in addressing aggression from Russia.

The former CEO of Exxon Mobil Corp. was appointed as the US top diplomat in the weeks following Donald Trumps inauguration, having forged business links with Russia during his time as an oil executive.

Trumps administration has been dogged by allegations of Russian interference during the Republican's successful election campaign, including accusations of hacking and secret meetings with members of the presidents team.

"Let me be very clear at the outset of my remarks: the U.S. commitment to NATO is strong and this alliance remains the bedrock for trans-Atlantic security," Tillerson said on Friday during the NATO meeting in Brussels.

"The NATO alliance is also fundamental to countering both non-violent, but at times violent, Russian agitation and Russian aggression."

The US had previously caused worry among NATO circles after Trump questioned the commitment of its other member states in contributing to the cost of defence. Washington provides the biggest percentage of NATOs defence spending and insisted the other 27 member states follow suit.

"As President Trump has made clear, it is no longer sustainable for the US to maintain a disproportionate share of NATO's defence expenditures," Tillerson added.

NATO states are expected to spend at least 2% of their GDP on defence, but a 2016 report showed that only five countries upheld that figure - the US, Britain, Greece, Poland and Estonia.
Markets in Asia were mixed on the last day of March, with investors looking towards a meeting between Chinese President Xi Jinping and his US counterpart Donald Trump in Florida next week, as well as waiting with bated breath for news on his trade policy.

In Japan, the Nikkei 225 was off 0.81% at 18,909.26, with the yen maintaining its relative strength against the greenback around the 111 level.

It was last marginally weaker, slipping 0.01% to JPY 111.93 to the $1.

Core consumer price were 0.2% higher in Japan in February on a year-on-year basis, which was the fastest rate on growth in almost two years.

Household spending fell significantly however, down 3.8% year-on-year, much wider than the 1.7% estimated fall.

The countrys labour market was on the up, with Japans unemployment rate for February falling to 2.8% - the lowest reading since June 1994.

Toshiba shareholders gathered for an extraordinary general meeting on Friday, after agreeing to split off the companys valuable NAND flash memory division in a bid to stem the losses from its failing US nuclear development acquisition Westinghouse Electric.

Shares in the technology firm were 5.78% higher.

On the mainland, the Shanghai Composite added 0.39% to 3,222.60, while the Shenzhen Composite was 0.34% higher at 1,986.47.

The countrys official Purchasing Managers Index for March improved to 51.8 from 51.6 in February.

Chinas services PMI also added strength, rising to 55.1 from 54.2 in the prior month.

Three of Chinas major airlines reported on Thursday, with Air China, China Eastern Airlines and China Southern Airlines all missing analyst expectations.

Shares in Air China were down 0.95% in Hong Kong, while China Eastern was 2.27% softer in Shanghai and China Southern down 1.59%.

South Koreas Kospi was down 0.2% after fresh data showed the countrys manufacturing output fell 3.4% in February - the worst fall in more than eight years.

Analysts polled by Reuters had expected the reading to be flat.

The cash-for-influence corruption scandal surrounding Park Geun-hye continued, as a court approved a warrant for the impeached former presidents arrest.

Hong Kongs Hang Seng Index lost 0.78% to settle at 24,111.59.

A looming executive order was expected from the Trump administration stateside, which would commission a report on trade practices and the trade deficit, with another order expected to implement improved collection policies for duties on dumping and countervailing.

The Chinese President and his wife Peng Liyuan were to be hosted by Trump and First Lady Melania in Florida later next week, with Trump tweeting on Thursday that the meeting would be a very difficult one.

We can no longer have massive trade deficits, the President posted on Twitter.

Oil price were lower during Asian trading, with Brent crude last down 0.84% at $52.52 per barrel and West Texas Intermediate losing 0.58% to $50.06.

Australias S&P/ASX 200 bobbed above and below the waterline for much of the session, before settling down 0.53% at 5,864.90.

Across the Tasman Sea, the S&P/NZX 50 was 0.4% higher at 7,196.78, led by Vista Group, which added 2.8%.

Both of the down under dollars were weaker on the greenback, with the Aussie last off 0.06% at AUD 1.3095 and the Kiwi retreating 0.19% to NZD 1.4323 to the $1.
AstraZeneca said it had completed an agreement with TerSera Therapeutics for the commercial rights to its cancer treatment Zoladex in the US and Canada.

Under the terms of the agreement, AstraZeneca has received a payment of $250m from TerSera. It will receive future sales-related income through milestones up to $70m, as well as recurring quarterly sales-based payments at mid-teen percent of sales.

AstraZeneca will also manufacture and supply Zoladex to TerSera, providing a further source of ongoing income from Zoladex in the US and Canada.

Zoladex is an injectable luteinising hormone-releasing medicine, used to treat prostate cancer, breast cancer and certain benign gynaecological disorders. It was first approved in the US and Canada in 1989.

As AstraZeneca will maintain a significant ongoing interest in Zoladex in the US and Canada, the payment will be reported as externalisation revenue in the company's financial statements, and will be booked in the first quarter of 2017.
Dechra Pharmaceuticals on Friday struck a long term deal to license an ethical pain relief product in all markets outside of Australia and New Zealand and acquired a 33% stake in the manufacturer, Medical Ethics.

The FTSE 250 company will spend A$18m on the stake, of which half will be in new equity and the remainder in stock from current shareholders of the Australia based Medical Ethics, whose subsidiary Animal Ethics is developing ethical pain relief products in animal health.

Animal Ethics has developed a product called Tri-Solfen, which is given to improve animal welfare by reducing pain in farm animals during routine treatments such as castration, tail docking, debudding and dehorning - initially with a focus on sheep, pigs and cattle but with opportunities seen for horses and household pets.

Tri-Solfen is a topical product that is sprayed onto a wound and anaesthetises, relieves pain, controls bleeding and protects against infection.

Currently approved in Australia for use on sheep, the product is making annualised sales of A$4m.

The development process is underway to register the product in global markets, with initial focus being for pigs in Europe and pigs and cattle in the US; the first registrations are targeted for approval in 2020.

Dechra chief executive Ian Page said the company had been in dialogue with Animal Ethics for a number of years.

"Once approved for major markets, Tri-Solfen significantly strengthens our FAP portfolio, will further our geographical expansion strategy and will enhance Dechra's reputation of providing clinically necessary, high quality, ethical veterinary pharmaceuticals."
Chancellor Philip Hammond has triggered the sale of 11.8bn worth of Bradford & Bingley loans bought during the financial crisis. The Government said the funds would be sold to Prudential and Blackstone and delivered "value for money" for the taxpayer. Mr Hammond said: "The sale of these Bradford & Bingley assets for 11.8bn marks another major milestone in our plan to get taxpayers' money back following the financial crisis. We are determined to return the financial assets we own to the private sector and today's sale is further proof of the confidence investors have in the UK economy." - The Daily Telegraph

Three BT employees raised the alarm about its 531m Italian fraud problems a year before the scandal was made public, it is claimed. Staff at its Italian arm were said to have warned their supervisor in Madrid long before the telecoms giant told investors about the irregularities. The reports raised questions over how promptly BT started investigating the fraud, which wiped almost 8bn off its value when it was made public. And it piles fresh pressure on BT chief executive Gavin Patterson over how the firm responded to the scandal. - The Daily Mail

The armed forces face a 10bn funding shortfall amid escalating costs for new ships and jets. Military chiefs have quietly begun a review to find at least 1bn a year in additional savings over the next decade from budgets that are already stretched. This includes a plan to reduce the size of the Royal Marines and remove the frontline role of one of its three commando units, while overseas training is about to be suspended. - The Times

The boss of the London Stock Exchange will receive a 5m boost from the collapse of the merger with Deutsche Borse because he will not waive share options that he agreed to give up if the deal went through. The news could anger shareholders who face having to pay tens of millions of pounds to advisers hired by the exchange in its latest doomed attempt to merge with its Frankfurt-based rival. - The Times

The Trump administration is getting tough on Iran and reinforcing Americas long-established military ties with its Gulf allies despite protests by human rights activists abroad. Rex Tillerson was yesterday revealed to have made his first big decision as secretary of state: resuming sales of fighter jets to Bahrain which were suspended by President Obama last year because the island nation had failed to upgrade its human rights record in line with US demands. - The Times

The boss of one of Britains biggest energy companies has hit out at the prospect of a price cap on bills after Theresa May promised to step in to fix a market that is "manifestly not working for all consumers". Alistair Phillips-Davies, chief executive of SSE, said that it was disappointing that the retail energy market was still facing intervention having just undergone an 18-month investigation by the competition watchdog. - The Guardian
South African stocks weighed heavily as the major fallers on the FTSE 100 after President Jacob Zuma sacked Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan.

Shares of firms with operations in South Africa dominated the top 10 decliners.

Old Mutual dived after Gordhan was axed in a midnight cabinet reshuffle on Thursday night, sending the rand and government bonds tumbling.

Zuma's reshuffle involved eight other ministers. Zuma said in a statement that his midnight action was about a "radical socio-economic transformation".

Gordhan was replaced by Malusi Gigaba as finance minister, previously the minister of home affairs.

Others to feel the pinch were Mondi, Anglo-American, Randgold Resources, Glencore and Mediclinic.

On the positive side insurance firms Direct Line and Aviva rallied after the government announced a review into the way the discount rate for personal injury claim payouts was handled.

Market Movers

FTSE 100 (UKX) 7,342.48 -0.37%

FTSE 250 (MCX) 18,924.53 -0.46%

techMARK (TASX) 3,461.47 -0.28%

FTSE 100 - Risers

Direct Line Insurance Group (DLG) 351.00p 2.93%

Intu Properties (INTU) 277.60p 2.10%

British Land Company (BLND) 604.50p 2.03%

Land Securities Group (LAND) 1,044.00p 1.66%

Aviva (AV.) 536.50p 1.61%

easyJet (EZJ) 1,022.00p 1.49%

Next (NXT) 4,322.00p 1.46%

BT Group (BT.A) 320.75p 1.18%

Marks & Spencer Group (MKS) 335.20p 1.15%

National Grid (NG.) 1,016.00p 0.99%

FTSE 100 - Fallers

Old Mutual (OML) 200.40p -7.61%

Mediclinic International (MDC) 720.50p -5.07%

Anglo American (AAL) 1,213.00p -3.92%

Antofagasta (ANTO) 812.50p -3.27%

Fresnillo (FRES) 1,515.00p -2.57%

BHP Billiton (BLT) 1,238.00p -2.56%

Rio Tinto (RIO) 3,207.00p -2.52%

Glencore (GLEN) 310.65p -2.16%

Mondi (MNDI) 1,938.00p -1.97%

Randgold Resources Ltd. (RRS) 6,860.00p -1.72%
Shares surged in Safestay on Friday after the hostel operator announced it has consolidated its borrowings into one new facility and that the sale on two hostels has been completed.

The AIM-listed company agreed to an 18.4m debt restructuring and refinancing, to replace existing convertible and bank debt, with a single facility with HSBC.

-

Trafalgar New Homes says it expects sales from several developments in Kent, due for completion from May 2017 onwards, will contribute to revenues for the full-year ending 31 March, 2018.

These were for developments at Hildenborough, Speldhurst-Tunbridge Wells and Sheerness, respectively for two executive style detached houses, one large detached house and a terrace of six houses.

-

Shares in Oxford Pharmascience plunged by more than a third after the US Federal Drug Administration (FDA) did not agree with the proposed phase III study design for prescription OXPzero Ibuprofen programme based on endoscopic primary endpoints.

"The FDA has indicated that in order to support an improved gastro-intestinal (GI) safety claim, a clinical outcomes study would be required, including measures such as assessment of the incidence of peptic ulcer bleeding and related complications," said Oxford Pharmascience.

-

Condor Gold said work is now underway on a 10,000m drilling programme for 2017 at the La India Project in Nicaragua, with a view to resource expansion and identification of new resources.

It said the drilling followed a placing that raised 5.242m in February.

-

Connemara Mining announced the acquisition of five new prospecting licences in County Laois, in the Irish Midlands on Friday.

The AIM-traded firm said the properties lie along the 'Rathdowney Trend' north east of the former Galmoy and Lisheen zinc-lead mines and include the Tonduff and Derrykearn lead-zinc orebodies.

-

West Africa-focused Eland Oil & Gas said following the re-start of output in January the OML 40 has now produced more than 330,000 barrels of oil, from the Opuama-3 well only.

To date, more than 160,000 barrels of oil had been delivered to the export terminal with about a further 160,000 barrels ready for imminent injection.

-

Exploration and mine development company Ortac Resources updated on its investment in Casa Mining, a private company registered in Mauritius that holds prospective gold mining and exploration licences in the Democratic Republic of Congo, on Friday.

The AIM-traded firm confirmed it had increased its shareholding in CASA by acquiring a further 100,000 shares through a private placement at a price of $0.50 per share, and had been issued with a further 30,556 down round adjustment shares.

-

Shares in Lekoil gained on Friday after the oil and gas explorer revealed that it has agreed to an advance payment facility with Royal Dutch Shell for a $15m loan to fund development at the Otakikpo site in Nigeria.

The AIM-listed companys subsidiary Lekoil Oil & Gas Investments agreed to the facility with Shell Western Supply and Trading, a member of Shells group of companies.

-

Kefi Minerals' shares fell more than 9% after it issued a quarterly operational update, saying its 5.62m fundraising in the period ensured it stayed on track by supporting the working capital needed to fund activities for the next 12 months.

Executive chairman Harry Anagnostaras-Adams said this was as Kefi looked to begin development of Tulu Kapi Gold project during the year.

-

Shares in specialist securities firm Cenkos fell less than 2% after it reported falls in full-year pre-tax profit, revenue and dividend, but noted an encouraging pipeline.

"Our successful strategy of being a leading UK institutional broker to growth companies and investment funds has led to us being profitable in every single year of operation and this continued into 2016," said chief executive Jim Durkin.

-

Shares in Altona are up more than 4% after reducing its first-half loss and also confirming its application for a petroleum exploration licence (PELA 666) is under consideration by the South Australian Government.

"The board of Altona, along with its JV Partners remain confident that once the PEL is secured the JV Company will commence its test drilling programme at the Arckaringa site, which will in turn lead to a Bankable Feasibility Study," said Altona.

-

Investors in acoustic and thermal automotive insulation supplier Autins Group were gathering in Birmingham on Friday for the companys annual general meeting.

The AIM-traded companys chairman, Adam Attwood, was set to tell them that the firm had continued to invest for growth in 2017.

-

West Africa-focussed diamond development company Stellar Diamonds announced its unaudited interim results for the six months to 31 December on Friday, after signing a heads of terms with Octea Mining for the proposed Tongo-Tonguma tribute mining agreement in February.

The AIM-traded firm said the project carried a robust attributable post-tax net present value and internal rate of return of $104m and 31% respectively, with the estimated attributable net present value in excess of 40 times the current market capitalisation of Stellar.

-

Integrated veterinary services provider CVS Group announced its unaudited interim results for the six months to 31 December on Friday, with revenue improving 28.5% year-on-year to 129.4m.

The AIM-traded firm said its adjusted EBITDA had surged 42.4% to 20.7, with adjusted profit before tax up 47.1% at 16.5m.

-

Mobile Streams announced its unaudited interim results for the six months to 31 December on Friday, confirming subscriber numbers in India increased to over 175,000 active subscribers, up from 100,000 during the period.

The AIM-traded firm completed a successful fundraising of 2.2m before expenses in the half-year to fund growth in India, and said it had 2.8m of cash and cash equivalents at 31 December, up from 1.5m, with no debt.

-

Online Indian fashion retailer Koovs has signed a new distribution agreement with Souq.com as part of it strategy to expand in the Asia-Pacific and Middle East.

Koovs private label collection will be sold on Souq.com, which Amazon has recently said it will buy for about $800m, to customers in the Middle East this summer.

-

Sprue Aegis distribution, manufacturing and supply agreements with US consumer products firm Newell Brands are to be terminated, but the home safety products developer has also gained contracts with two other companies.

Sprue received 12 months' notice from Newell Brands, to terminate the distribution agreement with BRK Brands Europe, a subsidiary of Newell, dated 10 April 2010 which was extended for a further three years from 1 April 2015, but will now finish on 31 March 2018.

-

AIM-listed explorer Independent Oil & Gas said on Friday that it is close to signing the sale and purchase agreement for the southern North Sea pipeline in order to use it deliver the companys gas to shore.

IOG said that the document is in near final form and should be signed by all parties shortly with the memorandum of understanding, which includes exclusivity provisions, extended by two weeks to 13 April.

-

Satellite data provider Avanti Communications has teamed up with French satellite service provider Numerisat to bring broadband connectivity to ski resorts and chalets across the Alps, including wi-fi hotspots for La Grande Odyssee event visitors.

The companies are to provide 30 megabite per second broadband speed to ski resorts to address the connectivity needs of the 24% of the population of France unable to access the internet, according to the Statistics Portal.

-

Shopfitting and interiors company Havelock Europa has appointed Donald Borland as chief financial officer from 26 April.

Borland will succeed Ciaran Kennedy who has been CFO since June 2014 and is leaving to become director of Scotland at Clancy Docwra, a construction firm

-

Shares in City broker Numis Corporation are little moved after it said it remained confident in the outturn for its full-year, but noted total income in the second half would be moderately below that achieved in the first.

"We have a number of corporate transactions which are due to complete in April 2017 and based on the strength of our pipeline, we remain confident in the outturn for the full year," the company said in a trading update for the six months to 31 March.
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This article was first published on January 25, 2012. Today we bring you the updated article and the video to go along with it.



UPDATE 2018: Everything in this article still applies. House Hunters has done three shows in Ecuador since writing this article, that we know about.





Last week House Hunters International asked Frank and me if we would like to be featured on one of their shows doing an episode about house hunting for rentals here in Cuenca.



This version of HHI is a spinoff of the house hunters show. It was pretty exciting to be asked to do one of their shows and we gave it some careful thought. But we are not the type of people who just jump into something without doing the due diligent research first. What would the consequences of such a move be?

We did our research and investigation about this show and it is a very contrived reality show. Viewers do not realize that when they watch this show the people in it our actually acting! But that is not the scary part, the scary part is how they can and will slant anything they want from the four day shoot into their favor and say and do whatever they want. It's pretty much like watching the news or reading the newspaper. Is that what you want? we don't think it is. As our readers already know, we have our own show already.



Update 2018: In fact during the considerations we called them several times with our questions and they said we had to stick to their script and that's when things began to fall down hill from there and is why we decided not to do their show.



We have a reputation to uphold for our readers and YT viewers and for ourselves and we feel it will do more harm than good. We have a pretty large readership now and our readers truly have an expectation from us, and we believe we owe our readers the low cost Cuenca, not the hyped up Cuenca with inflated rents.



HHI is a very popular and well-known cable television show and for us to go on this show and pretend we like the hyped up rents and real-estate prices would be contradictory to what we teach people about how to live in developing countries.

We believe that if we were to go on this show it would inflate rental prices even more and that is something we are not willing to do. We cannot stop others from hyping up Cuenca with high priced rentals and real estate prices, but for us it is not an option. We love being the Frugal blog about Cuenca and we love being able to tell our readers about how not to be a gringo target and how to find good rental deals.

We live in a pretty nice rental now for only $250 a month and we know there are other rentals out there in the local rental market as well. If we were to go on the show we would be asked to look at high priced rentals that are actually out of our price range and that is not who we are.

This is how the show works and why we wont do it: They open the show up with how we moved from the U.S all the way to Cuenca to make a new life for ourselves. Then they show us three rentals in Cuenca, one being the home we are in now. They take everything out of our house and pretend like it is just one we are looking at to possibly rent. We would be expected to act the whole time. (If it were our show our slant would be how to find three nice but economical houses or apartments between the price ranges of $250 to $400. We would want to talk about the three factors to look for when searching for these rentals. And the three things not to look for when finding these rentals)

The shows slant would be to show us expensive, gringo inflated rentals that in reality we would never consider in a million years looking at or telling our readers about. They would get a very popular real-estate agency involved like Caldwell Banker or Remax, both of whom are actually here in Cuenca and they would show us $500 on up rentals. Frank and I would have to act like these overpriced gringo rentals are something we would consider renting. Of course, in the end wed have to say they are not really in our budget and we choose the $250 rental, the home were really in.

The bottom line is the show is really contrived and artificial, which is nothing like our videos we already have on YouTube. The videos we make for our viewers are never rehearsedwhat you see is what you getTo see us on television would be like watching two people you already know and have become accustomed to seeing on YouTube and then be expected to not really know them once you saw the show. We know that are readers would be disappointed and wed probably lose much of our devoted fans if we did the show.

You see, we already know that if you do your due diligence you can find a decent rental at the local prices of between $300 and $400, unfurnished. At least at this time in Cuenca. Things are changing, however in that area but we do not want to have any part of that new change. Prices are going up, yet we still rent for $250 per month.

Anyway, in the end of the show we would obviously pick out the house we are in now as the one we choose. They pretend like its 3 months later and they put all the furniture back and they show how we have adjusted to our new home, ladda, ladda, ladda.
Frank/Angie, you are well aware that the concentration of americans here has raised in the last 5 years. Cuenca is not same as 2-3 years ago. Thanks to you and your kind of promotional activities, we are today in trouble. We (locals) do not want you to do with our country as same as you did with Panama or Costa Rica. It is not fair that you spend all your life doing the best in USA and bringing the worst of you to Ecuador. Locals are tired of your people taking pictures and demanding us to speak your language. Sorry, I do not mean to sound rude. You know well you are destroying our city. If you have any questions, please contact me ASAP. This matter is critical.



Our reply



Dear Sir: Were sorry that you are feeling resentment of North Americans coming to your city. We do not have any questions for you. But we do want to share something with you and here it is.



When we first moved to Ecuador in 2011 we were told by a wise Ecuadorian that resentment of the foreigner would eventually set in. However, did you realize you and anyone else that feels the same way as you are actually categorizing ALL North Americans into one box? What nonsense. Let me explain.



1. Most expats we meet and know would never expect the local people to speak English. There may be a certain amount of foreigners that would expect this and we are sorry you ran into him or her. But most expats would never expect as such and are at least trying to learn Spanish. Please bear with us as we fumble with the Spanish language.



Solution: When you meet an expat that expects the locals to speak English, remember it is a small percentage of North Americans that think like th is , not all of them!



If we suffer mistreatment from an Ecuadorian *untypical* Just curious, how would you like it if we categorized all Ecuadorians into one group and said in a blog article Ecuadorians mistreat Americans?



Let us tell you a little secret. The small minority of North Americans that expect locals to speak English are actually embarrassed and really self-conscious about the fact that they cant speak the local language; and is the reason why they feel the need to blame the locals for not speaking English. It takes some of the awkwardness off of themselves. Later on down the road, they will think about it and realize how silly it was to think such a notion, even if they never express it aloud. This type of person will end up leaving Ecuador sooner or later, and thats the reality of it.



Anyone that would expect a turtle to quack like a duck is truly wrapped up within themselves and they will not last long where their silly ideas are not entertained 24/7.



Solution: Learn to detach from things that are outside of your control. Its really his problem unless you make it yours.



2. Sure, there are gringos that promote Ecuador in the wrong light. Did you happen to also contact the two online travel magazines that tout Cuenca every chance they get, making it sound perfect and nothing negative ever? We agree, this kind of behavior is inappropriate because the way they promote Ecuador is misleading. It's misleading people because it does not provide a balanced view. A more balanced view could filter out some of the foreigners with inappropriate expectations and consequential bad behaviors.



We always provide the balanced view, holding nothing back, sacrificing popularity and were called whiners for it and told if you dont like it here, why dont you move back to the USA? Uh, who said anything about not liking it here?



The travel abroad touters have agendas with huge followings and they bring folks here just like them, with agendasBUT NOT ALL EXPATS HAVE AGENDAS. The ones that really love your country and are happy here do not have an agenda except for wanting to live a peaceful life for themselves and there is certainly nothing wrong with that.



Let us ask you a question: Dont you think it would be more appropriate for you to go to your own ministry of tourism board and raise your concerns there? Maybe you havent done that because you know that contacting your local people may not be the solution since they are the ones that have promoted Ecuador in the last 2 to 3 years (the time you specified in your email to us above when Cuenca changed for the worse) by making television commercials, hiring tourist companies and the travel media to promote Ecuador to the world with ALL YOU NEED IS ECUADOR.



Do you think perhaps, you should stop blaming the North Americans and start looking at the source of where the traffic originates from? It was your own people that have brought much of this foreign traffic to Cuenca Ecuador through the ALL YOU NEED IS ECUADOR promotions.



Between the Ecuador Ministry of Tourism promoting Ecuador all over the Internet, radio and on websites and YouTube, plus the travel abroad magazines with huge followings begging people to move here to this cheap paradise, and House Hunters International in Cuen ca , again for the third time, you better believe Ecuador is going to have a lot of foreigner traffic ; and as we have already agreed and said, it does ruin a place overtime because you cannot control people and what they do.



People become what they decide and choose for themselves to be, not what others tell them they have to be or should be.





Trying to integrate one culture into a completely different culture doesnt really work. As much as people like to say they have integrated here, they really have not. No matter how you slice it, adding the color blue to red will always make purple and you may not like the color purple but it is what it is.

As much as people like to say they have integrated here, they really have not. No matter how you slice it, adding the color blue to red will always make purple and you may not like the color purple but it is what it is.

Its inevitable and thats the bottom line. Ecuador may become another Panama and Costa Rica because a group of people high up in your country wanted the tourism traffic and most of that traffic comes from North Americans, now your country must deal with the consequences of their actions because they didnt think about the cultural costs (changes in the landscape) in the long run.



You say that you do not mean to be rude but in the same sentence you tell us that we are destroying your city. Separating the wheat from the chaff takes effort and diligence. Those of us putting our efforts into giving a more balanced view, and there arent many of us, are not the ones you should be venting your frustrations at.





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Book Excerpt from The Curious Marketer

Chapter: Curiosity and the Marketer: Steve Jobs, the curious marketer

Steve Jobs created Apple, one of the most successful brands on this planet. Apple is remarkable because it has married design and technology marvellously, time and again, generating sensuous products that millions of human beings across the world lust for. Jobs himself attributes a good part of this Apple magic to his curiosity.

Publisher: Penguin

Price: Rs 599.

In his famous commencement speech delivered at Stanford University in 2005, he gave an example of how, during his student days, he decided to take a calligraphy class at Reed College out of sheer curiosity. He said he learnt about serif and sans-serif typefaces in this class, about varying the space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography truly great. He called this learning experience beautiful, historical and artistically subtle in a way that science cannot quite capture.

He went on to say. 'None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later, when we were designing the first Apple Mackintosh computer, it all came back to me. And we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. And since Windows just copied the Mac, it's likely that no personal computer would have them.' He added,'much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on.' The sheer beauty of Apple products, which is a huge contributor to the brand's success, owes something to its creator curiosity.

Brands and Curiosity

Just like Apple, so many great brands have their roots in the curiosity of marketers. Consider Tata Tea, the leading brand of tea in India today. This brand was born out of the curiosity of Darbari Seth, who was Chairman of several Tata companies in the mid-1980s. He wondered why tea could not be packaged in an airtight polythene pillow pack (polypack), rather than in the cardboard cartons that were the norm at that time. His visits to various Indian towns had shown that consumers were very happy with these flat pillow packs for another commonly used kitchen product: Salt. Seth had, a few years earlier, already launched the popular Tata Salt brand.

In addition, his own explorations into two very different spaces gave rise to some thoughts that he could toss around. From his numerous informal conversations with traders during the early days of Tata Salt, he had learnt that the strong smell of spices permeates all Indian kirana stores, which, in turn, taints various products stocked in these stores, including tea. Seth's explorations into the world of science-he spent many decades working as a chemical engineer-had left in his mind the clear impression that polypacks made from a laminate of polythene and polyester would be significantly better than car board cartons, ensuring tea leaves were safe from these strong spice smells. So, driven by these curiosity-inspired reflections, he went ahead and launched Tata Tea in laminate polypacks in 1987. This kept the plantation-packed tea fresh and untainted, and the brand went on to become a huge success.

I had the good fortune of working as a junior member of Seth's team in Tata tea during those years, and have seen at close quarters how curious he was by nature. I would accompany him on his visits to London, and I was often dumbfounded by the sheer number of questions he would ask me on just about everything. He inspired the creation of two of India's strongest consumer brands-Tata salt and Tata Tea. Interestingly, quite similar to how Microsoft copied the amazing typography of the Apple Mackintosh, hundreds of other Indian tea brands have copied Tata tea's winning polypack. You will find them available across the country today.

Many years later, at Titan, I worked with a small team that created Fastrack, India's largest youth brand. I observed, with delight, how curious this young (and cocky) team of marketers was about the lives of college-going youth-where and how they hung out, what messages they wore on their T-shirts, what language they used online and offline, what their sexual habits, non-habits and deep desires were, and what tattoos were cool and uncool during a particular season. Fastrack was marketing only two products at that time-wristwatches and sunglass-but the spirit of curiosity extended to every aspect of their core consumers' lives. This wide-ranging curiosity about a specific set of consumers led to the creation of several spectacular product collections and marketing campaigns, inspired by things as unconventional as XY sperms, T-Shirts and tattoos. On the back of such brilliant, curiosity-driven marketing, Fasttrack rode a very fast track to success.

Curiosity is a great virtue

Reflecting on these, and many other, examples of very successful brands, I am convinced that curiosity is one of the greatest virtues that any marketer can possess. Along with empathy and business acumen, curiosity is an essential ingredient in the secret sauce that goes into creating a great marketing recipe. Therefore, I suggest, marketers should train themselves to be curious. The fifty-odd essays contained in this book, on diverse topics ranging from the Berlin Wall to Banana chips, are the product of my own curiosity as a marketer. I am always curios bout everything I see and hear, and I hope reading these essays will provoke and enhance your own desire to be curious too.

Curiosity is defined in modern dictionaries as a 'strong desire to know or learn something'. A more evocative definition comes from the Roman philosopher Cicero, who terms curiosity as 'the innate love of learning and of knowledge, without the lure of any (immediate) profits'. In fact, in ancient Greece, the word curiositas, from which the English word curiosity is derived, meant the pursuit of knowledge purely for its own sake. Over the centuries, curiosity has often been perceived as a passion and an appetite, much like the sexual urge. To develop this appetite, you have to be inquisitive. Sometimes, this may translate into a formal sprit and process of inquiry, including structured research; and at other times, it may reflect in an informal exploration and even nosiness. Either way, curiosity occurs naturally when there is a gap between what we know and what we wat to know. If we always desire to know more than we actually do, we will always be curious and we will never stop learning throughout our lives.

(See interview: Curiosity skills the marketer )
Domusweb: What are this years strong points? Which events are unmissable and which locations are unique?

Margriet Vollenberg: This year, in addition to Ventura Lambrate, we will be at a new area called Ventura Centrale, situated on the southeast side of Stazione Centrale, on Via Ferrante Aporti.



If we look at Ventura Lambrate, in eight years it has grown to become a design district where we show a glimpse of the future of design. The designers and brands on show are sort of the rebels in the design industry. And most of the projects and products are not definitive yet, not in stores yet. They are studies, prototypes or conceptual ideas about where design is going. We can call Ventura Lambrate an area of emerging and scouting". At Ventura Centrale, I wanted to do something completely different. I noticed two or three years ago that there is a group of exhibitors more established than the ones we see in Lambrate. They are brands or design studios that have been working since a few years, maybe even big commercial companies who'd like to approach the market in another way. They had a request for bigger spaces, more square metres, more freedom in spaces. That was a reason for me to search for other zones in the city. It was really a search; we sat down with a map of Milan and drew circles around buildings that we thought were interesting because they had quite some square metres, or because they were abandoned. Then we went round to see those locations. Sometimes the doors had not been opened since years, or we had to look over walls. This is how we went to the central station, too. Some of its warehouses had been closed for 30 years. No one had any idea what was behind those closed doors. It was a unique location to see. So this year we will be presenting a new concept of design there. I can describe it as a "museum" kind of feeling, because when you enter you have a lot of space. That space is part of the concept of the exhibition. If we look at Ventura Lambrate, it is interesting for being where the new generation is exhibiting, the different design academies, the school projects with the students, the workshops. There are new materials, technological designs, social designs. It's the mix that makes Ventura Lambrate special. For me, sometimes it has a bit of a festival feeling, without losing the concept and most of all without losing the content of the works. So it is of very high quality. This is why companies come to Ventura Lambrate as visitors to scout new talent. That's a big compliment to receive as an organiser.
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The identity of some couples is wrapped around what they have. The identity of David and Jeanette Currier is wrapped around in what they gave.

David Curriers plane crashed Tuesday near Dadeville after taking off from the airport in Enterprise. Jeanette Currier, 66, was killed in the crash and David Currier, 67, is in an Atlanta hospital fighting for his life.

They were strong Christians, son Stephen Currier said Friday. They believed in serving God and investing in young soldiers.

The Curriers were regulars at Wings Chapel at Fort Rucker. David served with the childrens church there and Jeanette served in the hospitality ministry.

Funeral arrangements have been finalized for Jeanette Currier. Visitation will be from 5 until 7 p.m. Saturday, April 1. Burial services will be Sunday, April 2, at 2 p.m. The family is asking for anyone interested in honoring her life to make donations in her name to her favorite charity, Samaritans Purse.

She was the most amazing example of love, kindness, forgiveness and faith. She not only was our mom, grandmother and great grandmother  she was our friend our cheerleader, our dream maker and our light. Imagining life without her is a pain we have never known. Our loss is very heavy but our hope is great, daughter Rebecca wrote on a family Facebook page.

David and Jeanette were high school sweethearts from St. Louis, Mo. David joined the Army and served as a flight instructor at Fort Rucker after retirement.

Stephen Currier said his fathers injuries are severe, and a lengthy hospital stay is likely. An online giving account is being created to assist in the expenses associated with traveling and staying in Austell, Ga., where David Currier is being treated at a hospital there.

According to preliminary accident data from the Federal Aviation Administration, Curriers plane was en route from Enterprise to Tennessee when the engine failed, leading it to crash near Dadeville. The cause of the engine failure is not known at this time.
The spy pics (courtesy GTSpirit) show the Kortezh in production-ready guise as but under some rather heavy camouflage as it is put to the test test in the cold snowy weather typical of Russia.

The Kortezh is the work of Russia's state-funded Central Scientific Research Automobile and Automotive Engines Institute' (abbreviated as NAMI) and will sport an engine developed by Porsche.

No figures or details have been released about the engine but rumours state that Putin's limo could be propelled along by a twin-turbo V12. The fuel bills shouldn't be a problem thanks to all the oil lying around.

However, what makes this presidential limo even more noteworthy than the Donald's upcoming Cadillac Beast is that it is not a one-off. The Kortezh will enter production after the president takes delivery of his ride and 5,000 civilian spec limos and SUVs based on Comrade Putin's limo will hit the streets by the end of 2020.

So what do you think of Kortezh? Is The Donald's upcoming beast better or is his good friend Putin's new ride better? Tell us whats on your mind by commenting below.
Coinciding with the anticipated release of the Small Business Ombudsmans report on its inquiry into payment times and practices, American Express has released research showing mid-sized Australian businesses owe $8 billion in outstanding payments to suppliers, with more than $2 billion currently overdue.

According to Martin Seward, VP, Small & Medium Enterprises at American Express Australia, the survey of 355 CFOs from companies turning over between $2m and $300m per year shows theyre unable to reconcile almost one third (30%) their supplier invoices at least every other month, meaning the issue of late payment of suppliers is endemic amongst mid-sized businesses.

Seward said the issue of late payments was not only impacting suppliers, but could also be costing mid-sized usinesses billions of dollars every year.

There is no doubt that suppliers rely on timely payment, with many going as far as to offer financial incentives for early payment, he said.

In fact, more than half (54%) of Australian mid-sized businesses unlocked $1.84billion in savings last year through negotiating early payment discounts with their suppliers, leaving them open to extra cash flow to reinvest back into the business for research and development or something as simple as staff recognition programs.

Its encouraging to see that businesses and their suppliers can both benefit from preferential payment arrangements, but concerning that not all Australian mid-sized businesses recognise the value of timely payment  both to their suppliers and their own business.

Almost all CFOs surveyed (94%) said they would value the opportunity to pay suppliers on time; however, they cited cash flow pressures as the number one factor when deciding how to pay suppliers. Given the opportunity to extend cash flow for up to 50 days, nearly one third of CFOs (30%) said they would prioritise early payment of suppliers.

We have seen CFOs who deploy credit as part of their cash flow management toolbox and benefited from the flexibility to pay suppliers early, while keeping capital in their business for longer. Using credit can also offer other benefits, such as reward schemes Seward said.

Despite a positive outlook for mid-sized organisations, with 65% of businesses forecasting growth in 2017, cash flow pressures still constrain mid-sized businesses from achieving their full growth potential. In an increasingly competitive economy, todays CFO will not want to miss out on opportunities offered by effective and efficient cash flow management.

In related news, cloud accounting provider Xero has released has released the following finding of a survey of more than 500 small businesses to highlight the burden of late payments:

Most (86%) want the federal government to do more to address late payments by big business.

Four in five (79%) support a government-backed policy to reduce the time it takes big businesses to pay small businesses

Their biggest cash flow concerns due to late payments are ability to pay suppliers (38%), the ability to pay staff (15%) and declining profitability (24%).

Most (84%) said big businesses have too much negotiating power when it comes to paying invoice  relevantly, while the vast majority of small businesses have payment terms of 30 days or less for their suppliers, many big businesses mandate terms of 60 or more days, with some refusing to pay faster than 120 days after invoice.

In terms of the impact of late payments on cashflow, 49% said it hinders growth, 34% said it prevents them from purchasing equipment and one in five said they cant hire as quickly as they need.

Six in ten said they wouldnt survive more than three months if all invoices went unpaid while 6% said they wouldnt last a week.

Xero Australia MD Trent Innes said these findings are compounded by the companys invoice data showing that, over the past six months, one in five invoices payable by ASX 200 companies to small businesses have been overdue by more than 30 days, with more than 3.8 million invoices currently overdue to its own small business clients.

Many big businesses require smaller peers to pay invoices within seven days, while taking weeks or months to pay their own bills, he told Dynamic Business. This inhibits the ability of small businesses to pay suppliers, staff and themselves, plan for the future and, in some cases, it puts them at risk of insolvency. According to our survey, the main reason respondents gave for big businesses holding up payments include red tape and procedures (83%). In addition, 78% said big businesses try to get away with what they can with deferring payments by pushing their weight around.

A level playing field is one where big businesses abide to the same payment terms as they require of their small business suppliers. Itll give Australian small business owners a fairer shot at building healthy, sustainable businesses. We strongly believe theres benefit in a government-backed voluntary payments code to ensure small businesses are paid on time. 

See also: Call for government to consider UK regs to help ensure big businesses pay SMEs on time
Competition reforms tabled in Federal Parliament this week backs small businesses to grow, innovate and create more jobs, according to Small Business Minister Michael McCormack.

He said the Competition and Consumer Amendment (Competition Policy Review) Bill 2017 implements a number of recommendations from a landmark review of Australian competition policy to help small businesses to compete on their own merits. Undertaken by Professor Ian Harper, the review of competition policy was the first wide-scale review in 20 years.

These reforms level the playing field for small business and will ensure our competition policy is modern and gives Australias 2.1 million small businesses the flexibility they need, McCormack said.

This Bill will build on our reform of section 46 of the Act which is currently before Parliament. The effects test will allow small business to compete on their merits against businesses with substantial market power.

Thanks to our changes, small business will be able to deal with conduct of most concern  anticompetitive contracts, arrangements or understandings, cartels, collective bargaining and boycotts and resale price maintenance.

McCormack said the changes will also improve small business bargaining position with large suppliers.

We know that with collective bargaining, small businesses typically have less bargaining power than a large supplier, putting them at a disadvantage in individual negotiations. Through these provisions, the Government has improved the bargaining position of small business, he said.

Simplifying the process and introducing greater flexibility in the collective bargaining framework will enable small business to get on with doing what they do best and provide them with the ability to negotiate with bargaining power equal to a larger firm, achieving a more efficient and procompetitive outcome.

In related news, a survey of more than 500 small business owners, undertaken by cloud accounting provider Xero, showed 84% want to see the government encourage a fairer system for small businesses to compete with big businesses for contracts.

Many of the tender processes governments currently use are often weighted to be more beneficial for larger businesses thanks to complex procurement structures  just a quarter of government contracts were awarded to small and medium businesses last year, Xero Australia MD Trent Innes told Dynamic Business.

Were already seeing the federal government take some steps to fix this and were encouraged there are plans to make it a fairer marketplace for all involved.
In a not so distant past I was invited by a Christian group to a workshop/seminar they have for single parents/ single moms. The title or theme of the workdhop was Feeling Desperate and Low. I got offended and hurt by their title that I immediately said I wont go to their event. In my defense I posted the incident on my personal Facebook wall and vent out how I am never gonna associate myself with a group who thinks so ill of single moms like me.

How could they uplift us if at the start they think so low of us. If that is their strategy saying they picked you up on your lowest point. The fact is, they were the first to put us in that position. It is wrong in many levels. I got an apology from that by their member saying that was not their intetion. They just want to validate the fact that often single moms and parents feel low and rejected. Which is basically true in the sense because most people discriminate us in a way like this showing us our misfortunes rather than our strenghts .

While it is true that single moms feel low and rejected at times, it is because of people like this who cant look past our labels or marital status.

Not all married couples with kids are raising their child well and are providing all the love, attention, basic needs and small luxuries for their complete family.

It is true that single moms like me feel weak at times raising a child solo. That we know as a single parent we are not enough to give the best for our kid. We are also strenghtened by this fact and try to work double time or more so our child doesnt feel insecure having only one parent.

Single moms are strong in a way not to show tears or fears to their child. Even if they are tired, about to give up and sometimes wish to vanish from the face of the planet. They never run, they never hide. They face the challenges of single parenthood head on with pride.

We are strenghtened by our undying love for our child. We may be solo but we have a lot of love to give for our child. You cannot give what you dont have. We single moms are overflowing with love for or child. In my case I will fight, live and die for my daughter. Kesehodang wala akong love life or di na ako magaasawa ever, basta I will be here for my daughter and give her all the love in the world.

While sometimes I wish to have a love life, a boyfriend or maybe get married someday. I shrug-off the feeling because of one fear that a good boyfriend or husband for me may not be the best father for my daughter.

Dont worry about me, I am a strong person. I can pacify myself with getting what I need for myself all the time. I can paddle my way safely to shore. Some things we do better solo. One of our super powers as single moms is time management, we know our priorities and we know when to give in to our own needs and fuel up.

We are part time woman/human and full time mom/superhuman. Do not pity us, just treat us as your equal, nobody is ever perfect and. unstained in their life.

The only fear we have is not being ostracized but the fear of not being able to raise our children to become the better than we are.

I am honored to be chosen by P&G Ariel in their roster of 100 Fearless Filipina as a Fearless Mother and Blogger. I hope as a blogger I continue to inspire and encourage women in the same position to go and live the life you want because you deserve it.

As we conclude Womens Month this March P&G Ariel pays tribute to all Filipinas who continue to strive to improve the lives of their families and their communities. Ariel recognizes the journey to success is often stained by roadblocks that test ones strength, dedication, and commitment, yet Filipinas are known to stand up from the fall, wash their fears away, and bravely face the world.

Stay gorgeous everyone
Cypruss Finance Minister on the countrys relationship with the EBRD

By Harris Georgiades

It is with great pleasure and expectation that Cyprus is hosting the EBRDs 2017 Annual Meeting and Business Forum.

With pleasure, because Cyprus has known the EBRD since its inception in 1991 as a shareholder and we have been very satisfied with the way the institution has developed since then.

With expectation, because it is the first time an international financial institution is coming to Cyprus with such an important event and this is happening at a crucial time for us.

There are two reasons for this. First of all, this relates to the effort to achieve reconciliation and the reunification of our island.

The presence of the EBRD and its 67 shareholders from all over the world in Cyprus in May will send a powerful signal of support and solidarity. Since the EBRD started working in Cyprus in 2014 it has demonstrated very clearly what it can contribute to our development through investments and the promotion of policy reforms.

Secondly, the EBRD Annual Meeting will take place against the backdrop of a deep and strong recovery of the Republic of Cyprus economy. We recorded a positive and robust growth rate in 2016, which is expected to remain steady for the years leading up to 2021, according to EU and Cypriot forecasts.

Now that we have embarked on this trend to stronger growth, 2017 marks a new era for Cyprus. Numerous investment opportunities exist in a wide range of both traditional and emerging growth sectors.

This is leading to a significant increase in investments in our country, a trend which we expect to continue also in 2017.

Our goal is not just to achieve an inflow of foreign capital into the countrys economy, but rather to attract investments of substance, which will create jobs and boost business and investment activity.

The EBRD is well placed to support this effort with its strong track record and wealth of expertise and experience. In many places and sectors the EBRD has acted as a pioneer and attracted commercial investors into new areas and activities in its countries of operations.

This means that in addition to the 220 billion the EBRD to date has invested from its own funds it has also mobilised a multiple from commercial investors. This is money which went into all major sectors of the economy from financial institutions to infrastructure and from energy to manufacturing.

Since 2014 Cyprus has also benefited from EBRD investment when the Bank was mandated to join the international efforts to support our economy. In addition to key investments such as the acquisition of equity stakes in two leading banks and loans for a renewable energy project and a shipping management company, the EBRD has also provided crucial training and advisory services.

The fact that the EBRD Trade Facilitation Programme was received with huge appetite in Cyprus illustrates our role and potential as a trading nation.

Hosting the EBRD Annual Meeting in Cyprus will also offer an opportunity to express our gratitude for what the EBRD has delivered to date and the wish for more to come.

Harris Georgiades is the Minister of Finance of the Republic of Cyprus.
PRESS RELEASE

Statement by the staff of the European Commission and the European Central Bank following the second post-programme surveillance mission to Cyprus

European Commission staff, in liaison with staff from the European Central Bank (ECB), visited Cyprus from 27 to 31 March to conduct the second post-programme surveillance (PPS) mission. The mission was coordinated with an International Monetary Fund (IMF) Post-Programme Monitoring (PPM) mission. Staff from the European Stability Mechanism (ESM) also participated in the mission on aspects related to the ESM's Early Warning System.

Cyprus is currently benefiting from robust growth and improving conditions in the financial sector. To sustain growth in the future, continued fiscal discipline and a renewed structural reform momentum are crucial. Fiscal consolidation has helped strengthen the credibility of the policy framework and facilitate market access of the sovereign. Important structural reforms adopted in recent years have allowed Cyprus to turn the corner, with growth returning and the labour market situation improving. At this juncture, it is crucial to safeguard and build upon these hard earned achievements. On the fiscal side, the increased expenditure pressure should be resisted, allowing for the creation of fiscal space for growth-enhancing public spending. On the structural side, the reform momentum has weakened noticeably. The mission encouraged the authorities and other key stakeholders to renew their efforts to improve Cyprus's growth potential and attract more productivity-enhancing investment.

Growth picked up in 2016 and is expected to remain strong in 2017, while moderating thereafter. Growth is becoming more broad-based, driven by private consumption, investment and strong tourism. Labour market conditions have improved overall in 2016, though the unemployment rate remains high, particularly among the young. Real GDP growth is expected to be close to 2% in 2017. However, limited productivity-enhancing investment, insufficient structural reforms, and the persistently high level of private debt continue to weigh on growth prospects.

While fiscal performance has been stronger than expected, supported by robust economic growth, pressures for fiscal relaxation are rising. Despite this continued growth, the budget for 2017 targets a decline in the primary surplus. This is partly due to the abolition of the Immovable Property Tax, which has narrowed the tax base. The mission underlined that the authorities should resist the pressure for fiscal relaxation as medium-term fiscal risks remain significant and the downward path of public debt has not yet been firmly anchored. In this context, the authorities should ensure the compliance with the provisions under the preventive arm of the Stability and Growth Pact. Strengthening fiscal sustainability also implies the need to contain the public sector wage bill, including by introducing a permanent mechanism to moderate wage growth. A thorough fiscal impact analysis should accompany draft legislation on reforms, including the healthcare reform, to ensure consistency with the existing fiscal space. Looking forward, it will be crucial to increase fiscal space to allow for additional growth-enhancing measures, including higher productivity-enhancing public investment and research and development spending. This could be achieved by broadening the tax base and better prioritising public expenditures.

Important, but uneven progress has been made in resolving non-performing loans (NPLs), which remain very high. Strengthening confidence has allowed banks to broaden their deposit base and to improve liquidity and capital buffers. A noteworthy positive development is also the full repayment in January 2017 of the Emergency Liquidity Assistance that had been granted to Cypriot banks. New lending is picking up from a low base, but the outstanding stock of credit to the economy continues to contract due to necessary balance sheet deleveraging. Banks' profitability is constrained by pressure on net interest margins and the need for additional provisioning. The mission recommended more forceful loan restructuring efforts, notably by making full use of all available tools, in order to accelerate the pace of NPL reduction. Moreover, the prevalence of restructurings of already restructured loans suggests that the quality of restructuring solutions needs to be further enhanced. More vigorous efforts by the authorities and the banks are also necessary to increase the implementation and use of the insolvency and foreclosure frameworks. These frameworks have created incentives for borrowers to repay or to seek cooperative restructuring solutions. Nevertheless, a more forceful application would further strengthen these incentives and contribute to reducing strategic defaults. The mission notably highlighted the need to make insolvency-related legal proceedings more efficient, in order to accelerate the deleveraging process.

Renewing the structural reform momentum should be high priority to enhance long-term growth and fiscal sustainability. The House of Representatives has rejected key reforms, such as the comprehensive reform of the public administration and the privatisation of major state-owned entities. In the view of the mission, these should remain policy priorities to support fiscal sustainability and long-term growth. To further improve the business environment and attract more investment, progress needs to be made in several essential areas, most notably the modernisation of the justice system, including by establishing a commercial court. Other priorities include a more forceful implementation of the government's action plan for growth, the reform of the electricity market, and the creation of a sustainable and efficient title deeds issuance and transfer system.

The mission would like to thank the Cypriot authorities, the IMF and the ESM staff for their constructive and open discussions. The next PPS mission will take place in fall 2017.

For media queries, please contact Nicos Keranis, tel.: +49 69 1344 7806.
A new tool is available to check the persistent harassment of online trolls. Googles Jigsaw think tank last week launched Perspective, an early stage technology that uses machine learning to help neutralize trolls.

Perspective reviews comments and scores them based on their similarity to comments people have labeled as toxic, or that are likely to result in someone leaving a conversation.

Publishers can select what they want to do with the information Perspective provides to them. Their options include the following:

Flagging comments for their own moderators to review;

Providing tools to help users understand the potential toxicity of comments as they write them; and

Letting readers sort comments based on their likely toxicity.

Forty-seven percent of 3,000 Americans aged 15 or older reported experiencing online harassment or abuse, according to a survey Data & Society conducted last year. More 70 percent said they had witnessed online harassment or abuse.

Perspective got its training through an examination of hundreds of thousands of comments labeled by human reviewers who were asked to rate online comments on a scale from very toxic to very healthy.

Like all machine learning applications, Perspective improves as its used.

Partners and Future Plans

A number of partners have signed on to work with Jigsaw in this endeavor:

The Wikimedia Foundation is researching ways to detect personal attacks against volunteer editors on Wikipedia;

The New York Times is building an open source moderation tool to expand community discussion

The Economist is reworking its comments platform; and

The Guardian is researching how best to moderate comment forums, and host online discussions between readers and journalists.

Jigsaw has been testing a version of this technology with The New York Times, which has a team sifting through and moderating 11 thousand comments daily before they are posted.

Jigsaw is working to train models that let moderators sort through comments more quickly.

The company is looking for more partners. It wants to deliver models that work in languages other than English, as well as models that can identify other characteristics, such as when comments are unsubstantial or off-topic.

Some Perspective on Perspective

Perspective is one of those things thats both fascinating and scary, said Rob Enderle, principal analyst at the Enderle Group.

Its potential to be used as a tool for censorship is concerning, he suggested.

We already know that the Left and Right are getting very different news feeds, [and Perspective] could further exacerbate this problem because people often view other world views as hostile, false and toxic, Enderle told TechNewsWorld. As this technology matures, it could effectively ensure that you only see what you agree with.

Further, getting around systems like this with creative spelling isnt that difficult, he maintained.

Perspective really doesnt address the core problem, which is that trolls are largely unpunished and seem to gain status, Enderle said.

Perspective likely is not very sophisticated when it comes to context or sensitivity, said Michael Jude, a program manager at Stratecast/Frost & Sullivan.

What one person might consider to be toxic, another might not  and this is contextual, he told TechNewsWorld.

Further, an AI system lacks common sense, so theres significant potential for unexpected consequences, Jude said. Further, implicit bias is a significant danger.

Perspectives Utility for Social Media

Twitter has been hit particularly hard by online trolls. Perspective might prove helpful in its battles against online abusers if it actually works, said Jude.

However, Twitter would have to admit that their service isnt a bastion of free speech, he added.

Clamping down on comments viewed subjectively as online abuse is a form of censorship, said Jude, and it raises the question of what public forum really means.

If a social media site isnt truly an open public forum, then it shouldnt pretend to be, he argued.

Sites that restrict comments should warn that all posts will be reviewed to ensure they meet community standards, said Jude. If they dont wish to undertake such a review, they should post a warning on the landing page: Beware all ye who enter here.
Salesforce this week announced Financial Services Cloud Einstein, an artificial intelligence-based CRM tool for financial advisors.

Financial Services Cloud Einstein gives users a holistic view of each clients household and wealth ecosystem and lets them leverage Salesforces AI technology to seek out new business opportunities.

Feature Lineup

Einstein Opportunity lets users uncover opportunities based on clients sentiments, competitor mentions, and overall engagement. For example, it automatically alerts the advisor if a client mentions a competitor in an email. If communications from the client fall off, the system sends a reminder to the advisor to reach out and nurture the relationship;

Relationship Builder lets advisors connect information about clients and their households, store it in one place, and edit existing roles and activities. For example, an advisor can update the record when a client takes on a new role such as being named to the board of a company;

Relationship Groups let advisers link clients to multiple households, trusts, and business groups to get holistic views of clients wealth across all accounts and relationships. For example, advisors can track when clients take on new responsibilities within other households, such as assuming power of attorney for a family member. The advisors then can proactively reach out with personalized advice;

Relationship Map lets advisors visualize a clients family wealth ecosystem and financial accounts in a single snapshot and drill down to see fresh business opportunities. For example, an advisor can discover that a client has become the beneficiary of a trust thats in need of estate planning services.

Relationship Builder, Relation Groups and Relationship Map are available generally now, and they are free for all Financial Services Cloud users.

Einstein Opportunity Insights costs US$50 per user per month for Financial Service Cloud users of Enterprise Edition and above.

This could prove a game changer for financial advisors since it will enable a more targeted marketing approach to selling such services, observed Michael Jude, a program manager at Stratecast/Frost & Sullivan.

Not Without Risks

Einsteins integration into Salesforces Financial Services Cloud is designed to help financial advisors manage customer relationships better and more effectively, [but] customer relations are very much about human-to-human interaction, said Andreas Scherer, managing partner at Salto Partners.

The risk of introducing AI in this area was experienced by Microsoft last year when they had to pull their chatbot Tay off the market, he told CRM Buyer.

Microsoft took Tay offline after Twitter trolls induced it to deny the Holocaust, send out racist tweets, and advocate 9/11 conspiracy theories and genocide, among other things.

The addition of Einstein to the Financial Services Cloud lets Salesforce provide deep insights into target markets, but only customers likely to be interested in a particular offer will be contacted, [which] will reduce the irritation associated with getting cold call offers, Frosts Jude told CRM Buyer.

However, theres strong potential for some customers perceiving this as a violation of privacy, especially if theres deep insights into their private affairs, he cautioned.

Other AI Systems

Pefin offers an AI financial advisor that it claims costs one-twentieth of a human financial advisors fees. Its full release is set for April.

Pefins AI algorithm works only for the United States market now, but the company will extend it to global markets later.

Hedgeable offers a platform with a feature called Tax Samurai  run by an AI bot named Katana  which targets the high-net-worth market.

Whether Einstein will take off is an open question, but it seems clear that the next generation of AI in wealth management will use rules or models crafted by data scientists with masters or doctoral degrees.

For now, Einstein is a great marketing concept that sets Salesforce apart, Saltos Scherer said. The true business value has yet to be seen.
Facebook on Monday moved to prevent spy applications from accessing its users data.

The company has updated its Facebook and Instagram policies to prohibit developers from using data obtained from those platforms in surveillance tools, according to Rob Sherman, deputy chief privacy officer at Facebook.

Facebook already has taken enforcement actions against devs who created and marketed surveillance tools in violation of the companys previous policy, he noted, adding that we want to be sure everyone understands the underlying policy and how to comply.

Facebook has been under pressure to beef up its rules governing surveillance apps since last fall, when the American Civil Liberties Union released a report exposing how Geofeedia was using Facebook, Instagram and Twitter data to track protesters in Baltimore and Ferguson, Missouri.

Marketing materials for surveillance companies urged police to monitor hashtags associated with Black Lives Matter, and labeled unions and activist groups as overt threats, the ACLU also reported.

We depend on social networks to connect and communicate about the most important issues in our lives and the core political and social issues in our country, said Nicole Ozer, technology and civil Liberties director at the ACLU of California.

Now more than ever, we expect companies to slam shut any surveillance side doors and make sure nobody can use their platforms to target people of color and activists, she added.

Data Sellers Chill Dissent

The ACLU is part of a coalition that includes the Center for Media Justice and the Color of Change. The group aims to persuade social media companies to establish robust systems to make sure the rules prohibiting surveillance are followed.

When technology companies allow their platforms and devices to be used to conduct mass surveillance of activists and other targeted communities, it chills democratic dissent and gives authoritarianism a license to thrive, said Malkia Cyril, executive director of the Center for Media Justice.

Social media platforms are a powerful tool for black people to draw attention to the injustices our community faces, remarked Brandi Collins, campaign director for Color of Change.

We commend Facebook and Instagram for this step, she continued, and call on all companies who claim to value diversity and justice to also stand up and do whats needed to limit invasive social media surveillance from being used to target black and brown people in low-income communities.

All Facebook users will benefit from the crackdown on surveillance apps, said Andrew Sudbury, CTO of Abine.

This should improve user privacy, as there shouldnt be any commercial companies reselling access to them and their data to law enforcement for tracking and intelligence gathering purposes, he told TechNewsWorld.

Mixed Bag for Cops

For law enforcement agencies using information from developers of surveillance apps, Facebooks policy will be a mixed bag.

Theres nothing to stop law enforcement from looking as a suspects Facebook feed, but it will stop these intermediary-type companies like Geofeedia from getting automated feeds of information, said Timothy Toohey, an attorney with Greenberg Glusker Fields Claman & Machtinger.

Enforcement still could be a problem for Facebook, though.

There may be other companies that have ways to scrape this information from Facebook without developer access, Toohey told TechNewsWorld.

Facebooks ability and willingness to police its antisurveillance policy will be key to its success.

A company could simply do its surveillance anyway, Abines Sudbury noted. Then it would fall on Facebook to carefully monitor what and how developers access data, looking for clues as to the purposes of the data.

Controversies over whats done with Facebooks data are unavoidable, Toohey maintained.

The data is incredibly valuable. Its valuable to law enforcement. Its valuable to private enterprises, he said. Facebook wants to monetize that, which puts them in very difficult positions balancing their commercial interests with other interests.
The March for Science has announced three honorary national co-chairs for the April 22 march in Washington, DC.

They are: Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha, a pediatrician and key whistleblower of the Flint water crisis, Dr. Lydia Villa-Komaroff, a biologist who made critical contributions to how bacterial cells could be used to generate insulin, and Bill Nye, beloved science educator and CEO of The Planetary Society.

According to a Planetary Society blog post, Nye is marching to celebrate science, advocate for space and inspire unity.

The March for Science champions robustly funded and publicly communicated science as a pillar of human freedom and prosperity, the post stated. We unite as a diverse, nonpartisan group to call for science that upholds the common good and for political leaders and policymakers to enact evidence-based policies in the public interest.

See you in Washington, and around the world, the Science Guy signed off.

Thousands of scientists and science advocates plan to descend on the nations capital this Earth Day. More than 400 satellite rallies have also been organized around the country.

The march has grown into an international movement since it was first hatched in January but it was not without its share of controversies.

A recent Buzzfeed News report highlighted concerns over diversity as well as the mixing of political goals with scientific goals.

As Buzzfeed reported, As recently as last week, Nye was slated to be the marchs first honorary co-chair. But after a fresh round of complaints that the group was not taking diversity issues seriously enough, Hanna-Attisha and Villa-Komaroff, both women of color who have long fought for science to serve communities it has traditionally left behind, were added to the lineup.

Hanna-Attisha is a first-generation Iraqi immigrant who has spoken out about the Trump administrations proposed immigration restrictions. Villa-Komaroff is a Mexican American who co-founded the Society for Advancement of Chicanos/Hispanics and Native Americans (SACNAS).

Science, and our society, are stronger when the people doing science reflect our society as a whole, Villa-Komaroff said.
Greenlands icy coastlines are withering away at a rapid pace. With ever rising temperatures in the region, scientists fear the glaciers may never grow back.

A team from Ohio State University discovered that about 20 years ago, melting on the island reached a tipping point. In this event, a layer of old snow called the firn, was frozen over and the ice sheet growth was stunted. This caused the new growth on the coastlines to halt. Combined with rising temperatures of the sea, the ice has been melting away in large sectors. At the rate its going, the team said there will be a 1.5 inch increase in global sea level rise by 2100.

According to the study:

The find is important because it reveals exactly why the most vulnerable parts of Greenland ice are melting so quickly: the deep snow layer that normally captures coastal meltwater was filled to capacity in 1997. That layer of snow and meltwater has since frozen solid, so that all new meltwater flows over it and out to sea.

Though these findings are bad news, the researchers said there is no immediate cause for panic. The Greenland Ice Sheetthe second largest ice cache in the worldis relatively intact. Associate professor at Ohio State, and co-author of the study Ian Howat, said the outer layers of ice contribute a small portion to the greater sheet, and that their melting may even be ephemeral, or seasonal to some degree.

Since this tipping point was reached in the late 90s before warming really took off, it indicates that these peripheral glaciers are very sensitive and, potentially, ephemeral relative to the timescales of response of the ice sheet, said Howat.

The areas in red are most at risk of being lost.

Though the entire coastline is not at risk, if it were to melt away, wed see an uptake of a few inches in sea level. To put that in terms of the greater ice sheet, if the entire entity melted, wed see a rise of 24 feet in total.

These peripheral glaciers and ice caps can be thought of as colonies of ice that are in rapid decline, many of which will likely disappear in the near future, said Howat. In that sense, you could say that theyre doomed. However, the ice sheet itself is still not doomed in the same way. The vast interior ice sheet is more climatologically isolated than the surrounding glaciers and ice caps.
By Cyrus Sutton

Island Earth is the story of a young indigenous scientists journey through both sides of the GMO battle in Hawaii. Groomed to work for Monsanto, Cliff Kapono had a lot to consider over the past few years. His ancestral ways of farming fed a similar population than what inhabits the island today with some of the most advanced biodynamic farming ever documented. Yet one of his most lucrative job options would be for a company promising to feed the world.

Island Earth follows Kaponos journey of discovery along with a handful of Hawaiians struggling to take back their communities in the face of the current GMO occupation.

[facebook https://facebook.com/EcoWatch/videos/1497970710215861/ expand=1]

I decided to dive into this project after I learned from a few activists that more GMO crops are tested per acre in Hawaii than any other state in the U.S. I was shocked to learn that this island paradise was home to such activities. Their testing involves multiple combinations of restricted-use pesticides that both our government and the scientific community agree are toxic to the environment and our health. The testing is occurring outdoors right next to low-income communities.

Whats happening in Hawaii effects the rest of the country and visa versa. These tiny Islands are a microcosm for the problems we all face but also the solutions we could embody. The vast majority of the worlds seeds are owned by the same powerful chemical companies who are testing their crops in Hawaii. They are using genetic modification to alter plants so they can withstand higher doses of the pesticides they manufacture. As such, the Hawaiian people are rising up and pushing back, drafting bills and engaging with their local legislature, as well as returning to their traditional methods of farming in an effort to become self-reliant again.

The question, How are we going to feed the world? gets raised a lot and has been the chief marketing slogan for the these GMO companies. According to the former editor of National Geographic and author of End of Plenty, Joel Bourne Jr. states that we are going to need to grow as much food in the next 35 years as weve grown since the beginning of human civilization.

This number sounds daunting, however this figure was determined based on our current agricultural system which measures raw yields and fails to take into account the amount of food waste and lack of distribution to the people who need it most. If calories were grown again near the areas they were consumed it would be a much different picture.

Hawaii is an island chain that used to be completely self-reliant. Today they import 80-90 percent of the food they eat. Much of it being the products of the seeds tested on their lands. The problems they face are global, and increasingly we all owe our survival to corporations who provide us food, water, shelter and power. Yet every day we learn that often these companies do not have our best interests in mind.

[facebook https://facebook.com/EcoWatch/videos/1497387253607540/ expand=1]

The little mainstream media coverage weve seen about the anti-GMO protests in Hawaii paints this issue as one of eccentric hippies getting angry about food that isnt up to their ideals, when in reality this is a grassroots movement of people from all walks of life coming together to protect the land and water that they hold sacred.

In talks with scientists, doctors, mothers, elders and activists Ive come to believe many of the problems we impose upon ourselves are solvable if we can balance our current globalized approach to survival by re-establishing local community-based systems that create and distribute resources. Only with consistent effort to push back politically and to create decentralizing solutions will we make measurable change and hopefully render many of the current problems obsolete. But its going to take patience and creativity. Its much easier to take what is handed to us and complain about it than it is to create the solutions.

Three years and multiple trips later, Ive finished editing with my team and we are touring the film across the world. I just got back from a tour across Hawaii and Australia and am now heading off on a West Coast tour of the U.S. from San Diego to Canada. For a complete list of upcoming screenings, click here. Individuals can host their own screening of Island Earth at their local theatre, school or environmental organization.
Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt may have decided to call a truce as Pitt was reported to be in Cambodia with his family. There were no pictures of the "Allied" actor in Cambodia because he made this trip in secret. He just wants to spend time with his six children and not because he and the "Maleficent" star are getting back together.

(Reuters/Carlo Allegri) Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt arrive at the screening of her directorial debut ''In the Land of Blood and Honey'' in New York on Dec. 5, 2011.

Jolie and her six children were in Cambodia last month to promote "First They Killed My Father," a film that the actress produced alongside her eldest son Maddox Jolie-Pitt. According to E! News, Pitt was in the country most of the time except when there were conflicts with his filming schedule. Aside from these secret meetings, the kids also flew to Los Angeles to spend time with their father.

Meanwhile, PEOPLE reports that Jolie and Pitt have resumed talking and compromising for the sake of their children, as revealed by sources. The "Mr. & Mrs." stars were even able to coordinate a trip together. Jolie had a special interview on ABC News' "Good Morning America" while in Cambodia regarding her film and said that Pitt was a "wonderful father."

The 41-year-old actress has filed for divorce from the 53-year old actor last September 2016. Details about their divorce were highly publicized; Jolie wanted to split from Pitt saying that this was "for the health of the family." The latter was also investigated for child abuse and was later cleared from any charges. The two are still in a custody battle as Jolie wants full physical and legal custody of their six children, while Pitt wants joint custody.

Pitt was only allowed therapeutic visits with his children and these were done in the presence of a therapist. Things started to appear better when the couple decided to seal off all court documents pertaining to their divorce and about their children. Since this announcement, Brad have been able to spend overnights with his children and meet them more often.

Jolie and Pitt may have also started to compromise for the sake of their children. According to HollywoodLife.com, a source shared that no matter how the "Tomb Raider" actress hurt Pitt, he is still determined to have a cordial relationship with his estranged wife. The welfare of their kids is more important than anything else.




A Queens public high school principal excluded 500 Catholic school kids from a list of 4,000 students applying to get into his school, raising cries from furious parents of foul play.



It was almost like they knew who would be accepted, Middle Village resident Jimmy Guarneri, 47, said of the lottery system that was supposed to fairly choose students to get into popular Maspeth High School. Were very angry.
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Rob Kardashian's on-and-off relationship with Blac Chyna had marked the headlines in the past few months, however, their not-so-silent feud has come back again, and it's definitely back for more. Kim Kardashian's younger sib feared about the American model's revenge after she dissed her ex-boyfriend, Tyga.



Since March 29, Blac Chyna had been on a Snapchat war against her former boyfriend, Tyga. Because of this, Rob Kardashian knew that once the entrepreneur "gets going, there's no stopping her." According to Hollywood Life, Kourtney's younger brother is scared as he knows that he will be the next to get dissed!



"Rob's terrified," a source stated. "The fact that Chyna could lash out and say such hard things about Tyga means that she could say the same if not worse about Rob!" The recent Snapchat feud of Blac Chyna against the "Ayo" hitmaker made him look like he fails to provide child support. However, Rob Kardashian doesn't believe this since his experience with King Cairo proved Tyga to be otherwise. In fact, the "Keeping Up With The Kardashians" star believes that he is not a bad father.



The same source also said that Blac Chyna is obviously going through something and that Rob Kardashian, on the other hand, is hoping that he is excluded from the model's Snapchat list.



Meanwhile, TMX reported about Blac Chyna's dismay since she thinks that Tyga and Rob Kardashian are ganging up on her. She said that the two are tag teaming to spread lies against her. Apparently, the Snapchat battle started when the model and the "Hookah" hitmaker had a misunderstanding and soon after, things went bitter.



Is Rob Kardashian the next target of Blac Chyna's Snapchat diss? What will she accuse him this time? Stay tuned for more updates about your favorite stars here on Enstarz.
Prince William's latest controversy has hit the headlines for almost a month now and although the Duke of Cambridge is hiding away from the public, his recent acts are not doing the same thing. Apparently, Sophie Taylor, the model Kate Middleton's husband has been linked with, was using the issue to re-launch her career in modeling. Seems like, after all the scandalous event in Switzerland, there's one person who benefits from it all.

Prince William had received numerous criticisms not only from his homeland but also in other parts of the world for his leaked drunk videos and photos. From his awkward daddy dancing moves to downing Jager bombs and flirting with a model, Queen Elizabeth's grandson has been stuck in hot water since then. However, as HNGN reported, the model he's been linked with is enjoying amidst all the commotion.

Since her involvement, Sophie Taylor has become the center of attention and instead of shying away from the public as she was accused of flirting with Kate Middleton's husband, she even hopes about getting something from this. As reported by Mail Online, the Australian model wants something she hoped for to come out.

As it turns out, Prince William is almost the same as his younger brother, Prince Harry, who helps to aspiring models to become famous. Apparently, Sophie Taylor isn't famous enough, however, her involvement with Prince George and Princess Charlotte's father might make her one. After all, who would not notice anyone who's flirting with one of the world's most powerful man?

With all these scandals and endless controversies, Prince William surely hopes for one thing -- this nightmare to end. However, with photos and videos, such rumors did not remain rumors anymore and these will surely stay in everybody's mind.
Emmy Rossum got robbed last week in her California, Los Angeles home. The burglars who committed the bold Hollywood heist took away the "Shameless" star's vintage jewelry worth $150,000. The burglars used the back door to enter the house and searched through the actresses' written records to get the written combinations for the safe. Emmanuelle Grey Rossum or simply Emmy to her fans, gained fame when she won A Golden Globe nomination for her performance in "The Phantom of the Opera".

Luckily, the actress who played Fiona Gallagher in "Shameless", was not home at the time of the burglary. People close to Rossum said the burglars must have searched hard for the combinations as these were not easily available. Surveillance cameras were set up along Rossum's property along Mulholland Drive and Sunset Boulevard. It was not, however, certain if her alarm got disabled during the heist.

Investigators are still looking into the possibility that there might be some footage of the incident in any of the cameras, according to New York Daily News. Lillian Preciado of the Los Angeles Police District said up to $150,000 worth of jewelry, as well as, other items were taken from Rossum's house. She also confirmed a burglary incident in the said Los Angeles block between March 22 and 24, although she did not identify Rossum as the victim.

Rossum's housekeeper noticed that the safes were empty when she arrive at the house Friday. She immediately called the police and reported the incident. This is not the first burglary in Hollywood this year. Among the other celebrities that have been victimized by burglars are Alanis Morissette, Kendall Jenner, Derek Fisher and Jaime Pressly. The said incidents are being investigated by the Commercial Crimes Division of the LAPD.

Rossum thanked the LAPD on Tweeter for their support and dedication in solving the incident, according to USA Today. Preciado said they do not yet have any information if the said burglaries are connected. The LAPD said the burglary at "The Day After Tomorrow" star can already be considered grand theft due to the amount involved.
Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie's break-up was one of the hottest news in Hollywood. The situation between the two was so tense that many believed they would not be seen together in a while. However, there are reports that the former "Lara Croft: Tomb Raider" star and her former husband managed to coordinate a trip together with their children. It can be recalled that Jolie went to Cambodia in February last year with her children.

Jolie went to Cambodia for the premiere of "First They Killed My Father". Pitt went to Cambodia secretly during that time, but not to reconcile with the "Changeling" star, but to spend more time with their children. The two have six children including Maddox, Pax, Zahara, Shiloh and their eight-year-old twins Viviene and Knox. The children spent 75 percent of their time in Cambodia with their mother but spent the rest with their dad.

Jolie made it appear that Pitt had some problems being a father right after the couple experienced some marital woes. Many were, however, puzzled when she said during the Cambodia trip that the "Allied" star was a "wonderful father", according to Daily Mail. She also said that no matter what happens, they will always be a family. The couple spent some time together in Cambodia in the past two years when she was filming "First They Killed My Father". There were actually photos of the two of them on a boat during a break from filming.

If it is true that Pitt visited Jolie and the children in Cambodia during their recent trip, then it could mean that the couple has somehow decided to treat each other civilly. This is quite an improvement from the ugly break-up and heated change of accusations between the two last year. There was an allegation of child abuse against the "Seven" actor but he was cleared after an investigation by the FBI.

Fans may be hoping for a reconciliation between Pitt and Jolie but if this is not possible at all, then they would probably welcome a truce between the two, according to Yahoo. The two are very devoted parents to their children so they must have found a way to work out something that would not deprive the kids of the love and attention of any of their parents. Things have started to calm down between the two as both parents found something else to pour their passion into.
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle have recently announced their relationship. Now, fans are speculating the role of the 35-year-old American actress in Pippa Middleton's wedding. After all, Kate Middleton's sister has also been rumored to have dated the prince in the past.

Pippa Middleton's wedding details have been talked about ever since Kate Middleton's sister got engaged to James Matthew. Rumors have been rife that the Duchess of Cambridge is not invited to Pippa Middleton's wedding because the younger sister does not want the princess to steal the limelight from her. But what about Prince Harry's girlfriend Meghan Markle who has been in the limelight since the announcement of their relationship?

Fans naturally assume that Kate Middleton will assume the role as the maid of honor but there have been rumors that the Duchess of Cambridge might steal the show from her sister. The royal princess seems to get all the attention from the press whatever she wears, how she does her hair and even her parenting skills to Prince George and Princess Charlotte.

The Queen was also rumored to have banned the attendance of the royal couple to Pippa Middleton's wedding. Several issues have been linked to James Matthew's brother and the Palace does not seem to want Kate Middleton and Prince William to associate with the commoner. Fans are wondering the Queen thinks of Princess Harry's girlfriend Meghan Markle? A report from 9Honey suggests that she has already met the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge on several occasions.

Prince Harry and Markle are reportedly ready to take their relationship a bit deeper. According to People Magazine's source, despite their distance, there is a real ease in the relationship of Kate Middleton's brother-in-law and the "Suits" actress. "She is incredibly cool and down to earth. She has a wonderful warmth to her and a bright smile," the insider said.

Do you think Prince Harry's girlfriend Meghan Markle will be part of Pippa Middleton's wedding? Stay tuned to Enstarz for the latest update on your favorite celebrities.
One of the main groups you can look into is the AVF. (Accueil des Villes Francaises). It's a "newcomers" group - for French and foreign alike. A nice way to integrate, while still making contact with other expats and English speakers.



There is an AVF in Versailles, and another one in St. Germain en Laye (plus a few others scattered throughout Yvelines). Since each AVF is an independent group, the character of the groups can be rather different from one group to the next, but generally they run a variety of activities in order to help newcomers get to know their town or area and to make friends among the members.



Most AVFs tend to be run by the retired folks in the area, but some have more events to appeal to those who are working during the day. But if you find just an activity or two that interest you, it's a quick and easy way to get to know folks and find out what's going on in the area.



Also, look around in late summer for signs announcing the local "Forum des Associations" or something similar. Many towns in the area run a sort of fair for all the local associations - often the first or second weekend in September. If you're into hiking or biking or language learning or artsy craftsy stuff, it's usually easy to find some group to join.

Cheers,

Bev
G_H_Z said: Hello everyone,



I'm being offered a position to work in Ebyens, Grenoble. The main concern is my older daughter will start her 1st year in primary school in China. She is just offered to enter a good school where 60% English and 40% Chinese used for teaching. Click to expand...

Hi.To avoid any disappointment, there's something you need to be aware of.La Houille-Blanche is a public school, that means you can't get your kids in that school unless you live in its catchment area (Which is rather small).You can request for an exception via the city council, however I'm told no such exception has been given in many years.That leaves only one way to get into that school and that's applying for the international section. Kids accepted in the international section aren't required to be in the catchment area.However, you need to apply and have your kids go to an interview, there's one on May and one early September (and that's only if you can't attend the May one). That's for a start in September.Since this year, they no longer have a start in January like they used to.The number of places in the international section is very limited and applying for it doesn't guarantee that your kids will be accepted.The internal section only gives you 3 hours of English (or German) language during the week in place of the normal classes.There's a FLE (Francais Langue Etrangere) option available, which is for non-French speaking children to further improve their learning of French. This option is available in all schools in the Grenoble area, it's not limited to the international section school.There are about 6 teachers rotating over Grenoble and giving those classes.That's 3 times a week for 1 hour.International section is nice, but really, you can do without. After having my kids there for a few months, if it was to be done again today I wouldn't stress too much about not having my kids in it.What's hard is the level required of the kids. But my guess is that coming from China it won't be too much of a change as the programs are similar.For our kids coming from Australia, it certainly has been a massive struggle.It doesn't seem that the kids are allowed to have fun here, only learning
I can't really measure when I became "fluent".It took me several years to feel comfortable expressing myself- but then I tend to be very picky about it. I know people who don't speak well at all, but it doesn't bother them.I've noticed that the more obvious it is you aren't speaking your natal language, the easier people go on you. They don't mention the mistakes (because there are so many) and they don't judge too quickly when listening- they hesitate and consider that you might not have really meant what that sounded like.I got a little frustrated as I passed that point- I didn't understand why I got more criticism and more people jumping to conclusions because of a tiny mistake (a word with some subtle connotations I didn't know about).They sort of stop remembering you are foreign, and you don't get that special allowance anymore.I don't know what you mean by fluent... there's :- the point you can understand but not formulate responses fast enough to keep up with the discussion (six months)- the point you begin speaking, but are really bad with conjugaison and make enough mistakes to be often called "" (or..)-Then when people stop thinking it's cute and start concentrating really hard listening to you (getting the idea you might not be an idiot, but it takes some concentration to hear it)-Then all exchanges start to roll off easier in appearance... but your mind is just working overtime to put it altogether and keep up. Everyone thinks you speak great- but you need a break alone and an aspirine regularly.- Then you get to the point you are almost more comfortable in french than your maternal language, you don't have to think too much, but every once in a while a subtle uncommon twist in your wording can cause a misunderstanding ... and you can't do anything about it.If you try to say "that wasn't it" and explain, they think you are trying to get out of it (lying). If it is a superior, he thinks you are being disrespectful, in suggesting they might have misunderstood anything.So you shut up and try not to worry about it further. It keeps you humble.It took me about fifteen - twenty years to get that far. I spoke with a girlfriend who was married to a chinese man and lived in china for a very long time. Her experience followed this pattern too.I kinda want to say, if you are in the beginning stage, enjoy it!
The UK Government is being urged to release its objectives on migration and the status of expats as it begins the crucial formal process of negotiating its way out of the European Union.With Article 50 having now been invoked, millions of expats in the UK and in the EU are waiting to know what their future is. British expats are stressed about their status and EU expats likewise living in the UK.  One positive move is the UKs Minister for Brexit, David Davis, has stated publicly that the status of nationals living in other countries will be the first main focus of the negotiations, above budgets and borders. He added that expats in the UK and British expats in the EU should not worry about being asked to leave and he wants a rapid resolution on citizen rights.But that still could take some months. Indeed the EUs chief Brexit negotiator, Michel Barnier, has said that an agreement in principle to secure the future of expats is unlikely before the end of the year.He added that he believed it would be late 2018 before an actual deal would be in place to cover everything such as the rights of relatives who wish to be reunited with their families living abroad.The British ambassador to Spain, Simon Manley, said that the tens of thousands expats from the UK will retain their current rights to healthcare, one of the issues causing most worry, while the two year negotiation process is conducted.One of our top priorities for the negotiations is our citizens and there will be no immediate changes to expat rights here in Spain in the interim. From the meetings that our teams across Spain have had in recent months, we know that many British residents in Spain have questions about the future, ranging from residency rights to healthcare and pensions, Manley said in a statement.As the Prime Minister said in her letter to the European Council President, we should always put our citizens first and we want an early agreement about their rights. We are ready to reach such an agreement right now if other countries agree. We want to give citizens as much certainty as possible, as early as possible, he continued.He urged British expats living in Spain to register with their local padron to make sure they can fully exercise their current rights to access local services and so that there is a complete picture of numbers living in Spain.He also said that anyone encountering problems exercising their rights, such as access to healthcare, should get in touch with their nearest British consulate, adding that there will be uncertainty until a deal is done.After receiving the letter from British Prime Minister Theresa May, European Council President Donald Tusk said clearly that the aim is to minimise the uncertainty and disruption caused by Brexit for citizens, businesses and member states. We have to think of people first. Citizens from all over the EU live, work and study in the UK, and as long as the UK remains a member their rights are fully protected, he stated.According to British think tank Migration Watch an early deal is needed to calm concerns and says that no one from the EU living and working legally in the UK should be kicked out.Those who are playing on the fears of millions of EU nationals who have made Britain their home are being thoroughly irresponsible. They would do better to point out that 85% of those who are here when we leave the EU will have been in the UK for five years and will, therefore be able to apply for permanent residence in the UK, whatever happens in the talks, said the organisations chairman Sir Andrew Green.
San Antonio Police Chief William McManus took the stand Thursday in the fourth day of the Marquise Jones wrongful death trial and told a jury he didnt believe race was a factor in a 2010 incident in which officer Robert Encina drunkenly tried to fight black customers while off-duty at another eatery where he worked private security.

The lawsuit, meanwhile, claims the city and SAPD failed to properly discipline Encina for the prior incident, leading to Jones death on Feb. 28, 2014 at the Chachos and Challucis on Perrin-Beitel Road. Encina has maintained he shot Jones, who was African-American, in self defense.

The implication I get from this is officer Encina was drunk and running his mouth and shouldnt have been, McManus said of the 2010 incident. He could have run into a group of nuns and he still would have approached them.

In 2010, McManus proposed serving Encina an indefinite suspension for the incident, which is tantamount to firing, but later reduced the disciplinary action to a 45-day suspension, the most days allowed by the police unions collective bargaining agreement.

Due to the nature of the incident, Encina was automatically referred to a program called Officer Concerned, in which an officer meets with a department psychiatrist who determines what additional action needs to be taken.

McManus defended his disciplinary decision, explaining that the police unions collective bargaining agreement limits what actions hes allowed to take. He told the jury he has the final say in disciplinary actions, but later admitted that ultimately an arbitrator has the last word.

He also defended the departments internal investigation into the 2010 incident, despite repeated questions from a lawyer for the plaintiffs. During the investigation, a witness told a police detective that Encina had been drunk at least six times at the Mama Margies on the Northwest Side where he occasionally worked private security.

Because there was only one person who claimed Encina was drunk on multiple occasions, McManus said he couldnt say definitively if that was true. He said it wasnt necessary to open another internal investigation to look into those incidents, and that all the complaints were taken into consideration during the discipline process.

That charge  being intoxicated six times  it was all considered in this investigation, McManus said.

The police chief did admit that portions of the internal investigation into the 2014 officer-involved shooting were not as thorough as they should have been, but he maintained that no cover-up exists, contrary to what an expert hired by the plaintiffs said earlier in the day.

I cant specifically recall any case of that happening, McManus said. Looking back, in 42 years as a police officer, I cant remember a case where an officer has covered up and it has come to light in a disciplinary hearing that I have been involved in.

Lawyers for Encina and the city of San Antonio did not cross-examine McManus. Instead, they will call him to the stand when they present their case early next week.

Later in the afternoon, Marquise Jones mother, Cheryl, delivered an emotional testimony in which she described how her daughter called her four hours after Jones had been shot to tell her what had happened.

I automatically got sick to my stomach, Cheryl Jones said through tears. I just couldnt breathe. I ran out of the house and screamed. I didnt know what to do. I just prayed he wasnt dead.

At times defensive during the cross-examination, Jones said she didnt know her son had used cocaine the night he died until she heard it on television.

I feel like Im on trial, Jones said. I would never wish this on anyone, even someone who has committed the worst crime. I only have one son and hes gone.

Staff Writer Guillermo Contreras contributed to this report.

eeaton@express-news.net
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Joaquin Castro has a lot to lose. Beto ORourke has nothing to lose.

In a purely political sense, thats the major difference between these two promising, third-term congressional Democrats. Both of them want Ted Cruzs U.S. Senate seat, and ORourke will officially launch his campaign on Friday with an announcement in his home town of El Paso.

Castro is mulling his options and plans to make a decision by the end of April. Castro is cautious by nature, but even if he wasnt, it would be understandable for him to hit the pause button before committing himself to a Senate campaign.

Even before ORourke came into the picture, this race, on the degree-of-difficulty scale, looked to be only slightly easier than trying to win the Olympic 100-meter hurdles in high heels. Its not just that Texas Democrats have lost every U.S. Senate election since 1988. Its that the defeats have been such brutal routs.

Every Democrat Ive spoken to in recent weeks would classify themselves as a Castro fan, but most of them are vaguely glum at the thought of Castro running for the Senate next year. While theyd love to see a serious Democratic challenge to Cruz  a conservative Republican who finished second to Donald Trump in last years Republican presidential sweepstakes  they dont believe Cruz can be beaten.

ORourke just makes the whole obstacle course more daunting. Castro would now have to fight for his partys nomination against a smart, charismatic progressive, who is coming off the bipartisan PR coup of a live-streamed, 36-hour road trip with Republican Congressman Will Hurd.

Running for the Senate is no gamble for ORourke. He already had committed to term-limiting himself out of the House after four terms. So if ORourke had decided to stay put in 2018, that would have only meant two more years in the House for him. When it comes to evaluating his political future, he feels the self-imposed urgency of now.

For Castro, its different. He holds a coveted seat, a valuable piece of political real estate.

For one thing, District 20 is the only congressional district completely contained within the boundaries of Bexar County. As a result, Castro can uniquely claim that he is San Antonios congressional representative.

Also, District 20 is a solid Democratic seat, and once youve got it, its yours. Henry B. Gonzalez held it for 38 years, and Gonzalezs son, Charlie, followed up with 14 years of his own. Over four decades, Henry B. had exactly one tough District 20 race: the first one, a 1961 special-election contest against Republican candidate John Goode Jr.

Gonzalez pulled out a close win over Goode, with the help of then Vice-President Lyndon Johnson and Mexican film star Cantinflas, both of whom made campaign stops at San Antonio supermarkets and shopping centers. A year later, Gonzalez was unopposed, and he never looked back.

To put it simply, the District 20 seat is a destination, not a way station. Even the possibility of court-mandated redistricting shouldnt change that.

While no Texas Democrat would say this publicly, if Castro runs for the Senate, the party faces the demoralizing prospect of losing two of its brightest congressional lights in the same year. And Castro would lose a political platform (including a role on the House Intelligence Committee) that has made him a mainstay on CNN, MSNBC and ABC.

Of course, theres more cachet in being one of 100 senators, rather than one of 435 representatives, and pulling off a statewide win over Cruz in this blood-red state would instantly vault Castro to the top echelon of American politics.

But any objective risk assessment would suggest that a 2018 Senate run is a bad bet.

The flip side of that assessment, and one that Ive often made in this column, is that Texas Democrats will never get anywhere unless their most formidable figures are willing to put themselves out on the line, and risk losing in statewide races.

That issue came up four years ago when Joaquins twin brother Julian  then the mayor of San Antonio  resisted calls from fellow Democrats to run for governor. (Julian also has indicated that he wont seek elective office next year.)

With ORourke in the Senate race, Democrats know that they have someone who will at least be able to push Cruz next year. If Castro jumps in, Democrats will worry that one of their favorite sons is pushing himself out of Congress.

ggarcia@express-news.net

Twitter: @gilgamesh470
Everest is especially popular in eastern two-thirds of state

The results are in: The No. 1 wheat planted in Kansas for the fifth consecutive year is Everest, a variety developed by Kansas State University. A total of 9.6 percent of the states 2017 wheat crop was planted with Everest seed. The variety, T158 was the second most popular and Winterhawk was third.

The results were announced March 1 in a U.S. Department of Agriculture National Agricultural Statistics Service report.

Everest was the most popular variety in the eastern two-thirds of the state. It typically yields well and is more resistant to barley yellow dwarf and Fusarium head scab than some others, said Allan Fritz, the K-State wheat breeder who developed Everest. It also offers resistance to Hessian fly and leaf rust.

At 9.6 percent of the wheat seeded in Kansas, the variety has slipped from the 2016 tally of 12.2 percent and 2015 when 15.8 percent of the Kansas wheat crop was seeded with Everest.

Everest was first released in 2009, and to have so many years of successful use is almost unheard of, according to Gary Pierzynski, professor and department head of the Department of Agronomy at K-State. Wheat varieties dont typically last that long because their resistance to disease breaks down and they have to be replaced continually.

We wouldnt expect Everest to remain the top variety for an extended period, but were confident what weve released recently will be tops in a couple years time, Pierzynski said.

Everest was named for the northeast Kansas community in Brown County of the same name. The name was chosen as an indication the variety is well adapted to eastern Kansas and to recognize the John Bunck family for their contributions to the Kansas wheat industry and the K-State wheat breeding program.

K-State released two new varieties in 2016  Larry and Zenda.

Larry is broadly adapted with excellent yield potential and good resistance to stripe rust, Fritz said, although it is susceptible to leaf rust. It is named after a longtime member of the K-State wheat breeding team, Larry Patton.

Zenda, which is half Everest by pedigree, is intended as an Everest replacement as it has a similar level of resistance to Fusarium head scab with good stripe-rust resistance and moderate resistance to leaf rust, Fritz said. While it is not as resistant to barley yellow dwarf as Everest, it is comparable to most other varieties for that trait.

Zenda, named for a town of that name in Kingman County, is a couple of days later to head than Everest.
"While I have been fortunate to do many roles across the CBH Group and represent the business in forums across the world, there is nothing I like more than talking with our growers at regular meetings and working with their customers so they truly value the unique connection the co-operative can bring between the producer and the customer," he said.
STILL reeling from the news he had won the 10 Angus heifers competition, Stephen Beckwith couldn't believe his luck when the outstanding heifers quietly stepped off the truck to their new home at Beeramullah last week.
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During parliamentary questions in December 2016, Amber Rudd, the Home Secretary, announced that The Cabinet Office will look at the UKs response to economic crime more broadly including the role and effectiveness of the Serious Fraud Office.

Terms of reference of the Cabinet Office review have not been announced. The process is said to include an internal assessment with relevant agencies being asked to fill in extensive questionnaires but no further details have been provided.

The review is to be led by Sue Gray, Director General of the Propriety and Ethics Team and Head of Private Offices Group. Ms. Grays background is in Transport, Health and the Department of Work and Pensions.

Her full time role is to oversee the provision of advice to all government departments on standards and ethics issues, corporate governance in public bodies, and makes and manages public appointments. The purpose of the role is to ensure the highest standards of propriety, integrity and governance within government.

For some reason the announcement, the lack of openness about the mandate, the review process and the appointment of an individual with Ms. Grays background has been interpreted as yet another attempt by Prime Minister Theresa May to dismantle the Serious Fraud Office.

For example, Stephen Parkinson, former deputy head of the attorney-generals office is reported as saying: I am appalled that the Cabinet Office is limiting its consultation to the internal institutions themselves and is not undertaking a widespread consultation.

Some would say that in 2011, the now Prime Minister had a point. The Agency was in disarray. Its well intentioned director, Richard Alderman, presided over an organization which was subject to repeated criticism that it had simply stopped prosecuting difficult cases for fear of failure  and when it tried, in Tchenguiz  its efforts were labeled as demonstrating sheer incompetence by a High Court Judge.

In addition, settlement agreements reached by the SFO, which had no statutory foundation, raised the ire of judiciary who were not slow to comment that presenting the court with a fait accompli should never be done again.

By 2014, at her second attempt, things had improved at the SFO under David Green CB QC  but his regime, two years old as it was, was a work in progress and successful prosecutions were hard to find (unsurprising given the average time frame for a serious and complex fraud prosecution is four years). However, the Prime Ministers efforts were beaten back by the Attorney General, Dominic Grieve, and Ken Clark  then a powerful combination  now confined to the back benches.

So why another attempt in 2017? That is something of a difficult question to answer.

Economically, nobody can seriously challenge the Serious Fraud Offices success. In the last three months it has secured the two largest criminal settlements in English legal history 497,250,000 ($616 million) plus 13 million ($16 million) in costs from Rolls-Royce and, announced this week, 128,992,500 ($160 million) plus costs to be determined from Tesco.

While its right to say that both settlements were the product of Deferred Prosecution Agreements and, therefore, not of fully fought prosecutions, they represent hundred of thousands of man-hours of investigatory effort and prosecutorial skill and judgment without which, settlements of these magnitudes would have been unlikely if not impossible to reach.

In the four years between 2012 and 2016, the Serious Fraud Office secured Proceeds of Crime Orders to the value of 77,767,840 ($95 million).

When viewed against the organizations budget, including with blockbuster funding and for the same time period, 704,009,840 ($873 million), the vast majority of which goes to the exchequer, represents a return on investment (ROI) of approximately 300 percent  or roughly what most private equity houses would consider a very acceptable ROI in a text book time frame.

In addition to Rolls-Royce and Tesco, the SFO has approximately 60 cases under investigation, many of which involve very large corporates which are also engaged in discussions about potential Deferred Prosecution Agreements. By the end of 2017 the ROI will likely be much improved and represent returns by which the Sage of Omaha would not be embarrassed..

What then of conviction rates? At trial, a conviction rate of 65 percent looks underwhelming. Two points the Cabinet review might like to consider.

First, in the last four years the SFO has increased both the number of cases and the difficulty of cases which it is taking to trial. Tom Hayes is a good example. Second, conviction rate per se is the wrong measure. It is not, nor has it ever been, the mandate for prosecutors under English criminal law to take cases where success is guaranteed.

A prosecutors job is to take cases to trial which pass the evidential test and the public interest test. If in doing so a judge determines there is sufficient evidence to go before a jury, as happened in the Libor trials which followed Hayes and which resulted in acquittals, the SFO can rightly claim to have done its job.

Moreover, the words sheer incompetence and the SFO have not been uttered in the same sentence by a High Court Judge since Tchenguiz. Indeed the decision in Unaoil this week supports a contention of the SFO withstanding a powerful procedural challenge effectively. Evidence of progress under David Green, I would suggest.

Outside its own direct prosecutorial activities the SFO also supports many other prosecutorial agencies, including the U.S. Department of Justice, through mutual legal assistance. According to the DOJ a number of its successful prosecutions in the U.S. could have not been brought without the SFO support.

Finally, if the Cabinets review were not constrained by reviewing the results of the questionnaires it would also find support for the SFO from the OECD, which in its Phase 4 review said:

Foreign bribery enforcement in the UK has increased significantly since 2012 notably thanks to the pragmatic and effective approach taken by the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) to investigate and resolve foreign bribery cases. The government should maintain the role of the SFO in foreign bribery cases and ensure it continues to have the resources needed to function effectively.

So you will understand my difficulty in answering the question.

If I may proffer a little humble advice to my Prime Minister and her Home Secretary, If it aint broke, dont fix it.

____

Bill Waite is a contributing editor of the FCPA Blog. Hes one of the founders of The Risk Advisory Group, established in 1997 with the objective of building Europes leading independent risk management consultancy. He serves as the groups CEO and general counsel. He formerly practiced as a criminal barrister before joining the UK Serious Fraud Office in 1991 as a prosecutor. He can be contacted here.
The owner and president of a Texas aviation company was sentenced to 18 months in prison Thursday for helping to bribe officials in Mexico.

Douglas Ray, 55, of Magnolia, Texas was also ordered to pay $590,000 in restitution when he appeared in federal court in Houston.

He pleaded guilty on October 28 to conspiracy to violate the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and conspiracy to commit wire fraud.

Ray was one of six co-defendants in a $2 million bribery scheme to win contracts in Mexico to service and maintain aircraft.

In February, Victor Hugo Valdez Pinon, 54, a citizen of Mexico who worked as a sales agent for the Texas-based aviation business, was sentenced to a year and a day in federal prison for conspiracy to violate the FCPA and conspiracy to commit wire fraud.

Judge Alfred Bennett in Houston also signed a forfeiture order against Pinon for $250,000 and ordered him to serve two years of supervised release after his prison term and to pay restitution of about $90,000.

Two other businessmen  Daniel Perez, 69, and Kamta Ramnarine, 69  were sentenced on February 2 to three years probation. Both pleaded guilty in November last year to conspiracy to violate the FCPA.

Two former Mexican officials who took bribes have pleaded guilty to a money-laundering conspiracy. One of them  Ramiro Ascencio Nevarez, 58  was sentenced to 15 months in prison on May 27, 2016.

Nevarez pleaded guilty in federal court in Texas on March 4. He admitted taking bribes from Ramnarine and Perez when he worked for a Mexican public university.

The other official  Ernesto Hernandez Montemayor, 55  pleaded guilty on December 9 to one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering. He admitted taking bribes from Ray, Ramnarine, Perez and others when he was director of aviation for the State of Tamaulipas.

Some of the bribes were paid via wire transfer and checks to accounts in the United States controlled by the Mexican officials.

____

Richard L. Cassin is the publisher and editor of the FCPA Blog.
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Global fire systems leader Advanced is showcasing its technology at ISEC Ireland in Dublin this April. The company will be located at booth E2, where industry experts will be on hand to answer any questions you may have.

"Advanced has a well-established reputation for quality, performance and ease-of-use in the Irish fire systems market and we work with some of the best professionals in the industry to achieve this position. We're delighted to be attending ISEC - it's a very focused show in a territory that's very important to us," said Neil Parkin, Advanced's Regional Sales Manager.

Products on display will include:

MxPro multiprotocol fire panels

TouchControl touchscreen remote control terminals

The AlarmCalm false alarm management system

Lux Intelligent emergency lighting testing systems

QuickZone conventional and twin-wire fire panels

Held on April 26 and 27, ISEC is Ireland's premier fire and security expo. Visitors include installers, facility managers, electrical contractors, consultants & engineers from both the north and south of the island.



The above content is an advertisement feature and does not necessarily represent the views of the FIA
The exports of readymade garments have witnessed a positive growth of 4.5 per cent in INR terms and 1 per cent in USD terms during April-January, 2016-17, as compared to the same period of previous financial year. During April-January, India exported garments worth Rs 91,467.85 crore in 2016-17 to the world as compared to Rs 87,560.23 crore in 2015-16.

The RMG export figures were revealed by Ajay Tamta, minister of state for textiles, while replying to a Lok Sabha question.

Tamta also said that the government has announced a special package of reforms for apparel sector in June, 2016 targeting employment generation and exports. The special package includes Employee Provident Fund Scheme reforms (12 per cent employer's share of Provident Fund is paid by the government), introduction of fixed term employment, additional incentives under ATUFS and enhanced duty drawback coverage through ROSL.

The exports of readymade garments have witnessed a positive growth of 4.5 per cent in INR terms and 1 per cent in USD terms during April-January, 2016-17, as compared to the same period of previous financial year. During April-January, India exported garments worth Rs 91,467.85 crore in 2016-17 to the world as compared to Rs 87,560.23 crore in 2015-16.#

In addition to the special package for apparel, there are some other initiatives and schemes of the government that are also contributing to exports promotion, added Tamta. These initiatives include 3 per cent Interest Equalization scheme for manufacturer exporters of readymade garments, Integrated Skill Development Scheme, Amended Technology Up-gradation Fund Scheme, 2 per cent MEIS scheme and All India Duty Drawback. (KD)

Fibre2Fashion News Desk  India
Lux Group, the leading Indian hosiery maker, is reworking on its growth strategy. It will begin targeting youth and expects to make Rs 2,000 crore in sales by 2020 through portfolio extensions and premiumising innerwear brands. The company is also focusing on Rs 2,400-crore activewear market by offering casual and alternative clothing lines.

The company's focus is on creating an institution representing an attractive investment opportunity for existing as well as potential shareholders. With the growth strategy, it is targeting a turnover of Rs 2,000 crore by 2020, Udit Todi, senior vice president of Lux Industries told media persons.

With a view to widen the reach for revenue and establish the brand as a front runner, the company is entering the customised segment of activewear, said Saket Todi, senior vice president of Lux Industries.

Lux Group, the leading Indian hosiery maker, is reworking on its growth strategy. It will begin targeting youth and expects to make Rs 2,000 crore in sales by 2020 through portfolio extensions and premiumising innerwear brands. The company is also focusing on Rs 2,400-crore activewear market by offering casual and alternative clothing lines.#

The Onn innerwear brand from Lux, which targets the young generation made Rs 100 crore in sales during 2015-16. It is growing at a cumulative annual rate of 20 per cent per year.

There are 7 exclusive stores as of now and the company plans to open about 15 more stores next year. The Onn brand is also available in over 2,000 large format stores and 4,000 multi-brand outlets.

Lux Industries is also eyeing various developed countries by exporting premium innerwear, according to media reports. The company already exports to Africa, Middle Ease and a few countries in South East Asia.

Udit Todi added that the company is one of the top brands in Africa and will now focus on the US and European markets. It will also begin exporting to Australia.

The new manufacturing unit of the company in Dankuni, West Bengal has taken the production capacity of the company to 1.4 million units. (KD)

Fibre2Fashion News Desk  India
The H&M group will launch a new brand, Arket, which will be a modern-day market, offering essential products for men, women, children and the home. The first store will open during early autumn this year on Regent Street in London followed by stores in Brussels, Copenhagen and Munich. The new brand will also be made available online in 18 European countries.

Arket is currently in production. The range includes men's, women's and children's ready-to-wear and accessories collections and a homeware department  all composed of Arket's own products alongside a selection of the best examples from other brands.

Designers, buyers, pattern makers, architects, writers, chefs and others are working at Arket's head office and studio in Sodermalm, Stockholm, together with colleagues, brands and producers around the world, to build a modern-day market that will offer essential products.

The H&M group will launch a new brand, Arket, which will be a modern-day market, offering essential products for men, women, children and the home. The first store will open during early autumn this year on Regent Street in London followed by stores in Brussels, Copenhagen and Munich. The new brand will also be made available online in 18 European countries.#

"Arket means sheet of paper in Swedish. It both relates to our origin in the Nordic tradition of functional, long-lasting design and symbolises the blank sheet, the sense of optimism and possibility we felt creating this new brand," says Ulrika Bernhardtz, creative director, Arket.

"A fantastic team with diverse backgrounds and areas of expertise have come together to build Arket. We are very excited to soon reveal the brand and share our collections with customers," says Lars Axelsson, managing director, Arket. (KD)

Fibre2Fashion News Desk  India
Digital printers manufacturer Colorjet India Ltd will be launching a tech loaded digital textile printer, the TXF at FESPA Hamburg 2017, which runs May 8-12, 2017. ColorJet has manufactured the digital printer incorporating the latest Japanese technology, which imparts the printer with the power to print brilliantly and flawlessly, with reduced maintenance.

The printer, which will be o display in hall B5, stall G62 at the fair, offers speeds of up to 24 square metres per hour on five passes and four colours, and 60 square metres per hour on two passes and four colours. The printer can achieve print resolutions of up to 1,440 dpi and is best suited when it comes to sampling and short runs, particularly suitable for fashion designers and home textiles applications.

The TXF printer which is equipped with Epson printheads gives variable dot control for achieving smooth gradations and is also belt driven, which makes it suitable for printing fabrics including bulky textured materials, thinner fabrics and also stretchable fabric materials such as knits.

Digital printers manufacturer Colorjet India Ltd will be launching an entry level digital textile printer, the TXF at FESPA Hamburg 2017, which runs May 8-12, 2017. ColorJet has manufactured the digital printer incorporating the latest Japanese technology, which imparts the printer with the power to print brilliantly and flawlessly, with reduced maintenance.#

The digital printer is apt for printing with pigment inks, and can print practically on any type of fabric including polyester, cotton, silk, viscose, rayon or wool. Pigment printing has an advantage as the fabric does not necessarily require pre- or post-treatment, thereby saving on production times and reducing water pollution.

The TXF is also available to work with reactive inks for printing onto natural fabrics and also disperse inks for printing onto polyester fabrics.

"Colorjet introduced this entry level digital textile printer, primarily for fashion designers and home textiles applications. Since the printer is apt for printing with all inks, whether pigment, reactive or disperse, all types of fabrics, including polyester, cotton, silk, viscose, rayon or wool can be printed which opens huge avenues for different applications," Pavan Gupta at Colorjet India said. (RKS)

Fibre2Fashion News Desk  India
The European Commission (EC) has granted conditional regulatory clearance in Europe to the proposed merger of equals between DuPont and Dow Chemical Company. The transaction between these two US headquartered companies is expected to create significant cost synergies of approximately $3 billion with the potential for $1 billion in growth synergies.According to DuPont, this regulatory milestone is a significant step toward closing the merger transaction, with the intention to subsequently spin into three independent publicly traded companies.

The European Commission (EC) has granted conditional regulatory clearance in Europe to the proposed merger of equals between DuPont and Dow Chemical Company. The transaction between these two US headquartered companies is expected to create significant cost synergies of approximately $3 billion with the potential for $1 billion in growth synergies.#

"Longer term, the intended three-way split is expected to unlock even greater value for shareholders and customers and more opportunity for employees as each company will be a leader in attractive segments," the company added.The ECs approval is conditional on DuPont and Dow fulfilling commitments given to the EC in connection with the clearance. (AR)

Fibre2Fashion News Desk  India
For the fourth time, the Texprocess Forum will be held during the Texprocess trade fair in Frankfurt am Main from May 9-12, 2017. At this international conference, experts from science and industry will present the latest textile processing trends and knowledge in around 40 lectures and panel discussions spread over all four days of the fair.

The main themes of the 2017 Texprocess Forum 2017 are digitalisation and Industry 4.0 (with SPESA, Lectra, Human Solutions, Hohenstein Institute and Gerber Technology), quality management (TUV Sud, Takko Holding and Datacolor) and sustainability (with Bayern Innovativ). Additionally, a separate lecture block will focus on the use of digital textile printing for finishing and functionalising technical textiles (with Mimaki, Zimmer Maschinenbau and Coldenhove).

Texprocess Forum will be held in Hall 6.0 and will be free of charge for visitors of Texprocess and Techtextil. The lecture programme has been compiled by DTB  Dialogue Textile Apparel, the International Apparel Federation (IAF) and the World Textile Information Network (WTiN).

For the fourth time, the Texprocess Forum will be held during the Texprocess trade fair in Frankfurt am Main from May 9-12, 2017. At this international conference, experts from science and industry will present the latest textile processing trends and knowledge in around 40 lectures and panel discussions spread over all four days of the fair.#

Additionally, the Texprocess lecture programme in the digital printing section will be supplemented by the European Digital Textile Conference, which WTiN is holding for the first time at the fair on May 10. (RKS)

Fibre2Fashion News Desk  India
Several Union ministers, key policymakers and representatives of the global textile and apparel industry will deliberate on the issues facing the sector at the upcoming mega textile event Textile India 2017. The 3-day international event, to be held in Gandhinagar during June 30-July 2, is expected to suggest a 10-year roadmap for the sectors growth.

Textile India 2017 will, for the first time, mark the positioning of an annual textile trade event in the country on the annual calendar of global trade events. There will be a mega exhibition which will showcase the strength of the textile-garment value chain in India. The event will provide an excellent platform for B2B interactions and for exploring investments and technological tie-ups across various segments in the textiles value chain.

Alongside, an international conference will be held with participation from global and national leaders of industry, technical experts and senior policy makers from the Union and state governments. It is likely to witness participation of several dignitaries including Union textiles minister Smriti Irani, MSME minister Kalraj Mishra and power minister Piyush Goyal.

Several Union ministers, key policymakers and representatives of the global textile and apparel industry will deliberate on the issues facing the sector at the upcoming mega textile event 'Textile India 2017'. The 3-day international event, to be held in Gandhinagar during June 30-July 2, is expected to suggest a 10-year roadmap for the sector's growth.#

Discussions would be centred on making India a global sourcing hub and an investment destination, exploring the growth potential of technical textiles, identifying productivity and product diversification challenges for natural fibres, and skilling requirements in high value chain.

Further, given the mutual complementarities between the textile industries of India and China, leading Chinese textile companies and industry associations have been invited to attend the upcoming textile event. Earlier this week, the Consulate General of India in Shanghai organised a roadshow in Zhejiangs Shaoxing to spread awareness amongst Chinese textile companies about the event.

Nearly 120 textile companies from fabrics, machinery and yarn sector participated at the Shaoxing roadshow. A detailed presentation on the overall scope, scale and participation guidelines for Chinese companies was made by Pushpa Subrahmanyam, additional secretary, ministry of textiles. She also answered queries of Chinese companies on issues related to investments in textile practice in India. (RKS)

Fibre2Fashion News Desk  India
Celebrated Hollywood actor Vin Diesel said that it was his 3-year-old son Vincent who suggested him to chose the iconic character of Groot in the film Guardians Of The Galaxy.

"I went to meet with Kevin Feige (Marvel Studios President) for a couple hours to talk. A couple of weeks later, Marvel sent over a book of concept art and they had this crazy idea that kind of played to the Iron Giant character I played in the beginning of my career." Said Vin Diesel.

"And what sealed the deal for me was when I opened up the giant book of concept art and fell in love with the character Groot." The actor added.

Diesel said, when he looked up to his 3-year-old son for the suggestion, his son chose the tree for Vin Diesel to play in the Guardians Of The Galaxy. And the actor though it was the perfect match for him.

"I asked my son which character he thought Daddy should play, and my son, Vincent, who was three at the time, pointed to the tree. And something about that made me feel like it was going to be the perfect match." Diesel added.

Talking about the character, Diesel said he found the Groot to be enigmatic. "I loved the gentle giant aspect of Groot. I loved how enigmatic the character is. He's been labelled the most interesting character in the Marvel universe because he's so unique and so different," Diesel stated.
Dulquer Salmaan, the talented young actor, is all set to team up with Bollywood actress Alia Bhatt, for the first time. Interestingly, Dulquer and Alia are not joining hands for a movie, but for the mobile brand Gionee.

The actor was recently signed as the regional brand ambassador of Gionee mobiles. Dulquer Salmaan himself announced that he has joined Gionee's 'selfiestan' campaign, along with Alia Bhatt, through his official Facebook page.

If the reports are to be true, Dulquer and Alia will soon shoot together, for the commercial of Gionee mobiles. Shruti Haasan and Diljith Dosanjh are the other regional brand ambassadors of Gionee mobiles.

Earlier, Alia Bhatt was approached to play the female lead opposite Dulquer Salmaan in Mani Ratnam's OK Kanmani. But the actress couldn't take up the project due to her other work commitments.

Dulquer Salmaan has already established himself as one of the most sought-after young actors of South Indian cinema. He has been receiving several offers from all the South Indian industries and Bollywood.

The actor is currently busy with the filming of the upcoming Bejoy Nambiar movie Solo, which is said to be an anthology film. Dulquer Salmaan's upcoming movie Comrade In America will hit the theatres this May.
In one of the most ambitious plans in railway history, China and Thailand jointly proposed last year the construction of a high-speed railway between Bangkok and Kunming, capital of southwestern Chinas Yunnan province.

The 873-kilometer railway project is the first and foremost step of developing a pan-Asia railway network connecting China and South East Asia. Upon completion, travel time between Bangkok and Kunming will be shortened by more than 75% to about six hours from 26 hours by bus.

Too good to be true? Perhaps. The project hit a snag in May last year after the two governments ran into disagreements over the total cost, the construction and operation model, and land rights along the path of the railway line.

This was a high-profile example of a dispute arising from cross-border infrastructure investment in Asia. But it was far from an isolated case. As infrastructure spending rises across the region, the number of disputes and the level of complexity increases, adding risks for the funding parties  and often causing projects to be delayed or even cancelled altogether.

According to Baker McKenzie's latest Asia Pacific Business Complexities Survey  based on interviews with 150 business leaders of large multinational corporations  67% of respondents think commercial disputes will rise amid changing country-specific laws and increasing competition. Some 80% believe energy, mining and infrastructure is the top sector where they will see a rise in dispute resolution and litigation.

Reduced project financing risk

In the not too distant past, the main source of difficulty for project participants was one of securing a sufficient level of funding, especially for the larger projects," said Paul Teo, a construction lawyer and head of Baker McKenzies arbitration practice for Greater China. "This problem now seems slightly less acute, given that multiple new sources of dedicated infrastructure development funding have become available over the last few years.

Teo is specifically pointing to some newly-formed inter-governmental organisations that provide massive capital for infrastructure development. China has played an active role in their establishment, spearheading the development of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and establishing its own Silk Road Fund in 2014.

China is also one of the founding nations of New Development Bank, formerly known as BRICS Development Bank, which has a $10 billion lending facility ready to be deployed over the next five years.

This has gone some way to reducing the funding burden in the sector. But while conflicts over funding issues have become less trying, the number of dispute cases arising from political and legal differences has been increasing.

According to Teo  who focuses on post-contract advisory and disputes services in the energy, mining and infrastructure sectors the situation affects Asia more than other parts of the world because Asian countries are more segmented in terms of their varying stages of development and different political and legal systems.

In Asia there are common law jurisdictions; and there are civil law jurisdictions. There are different legal systems and traditions [and] hence different approaches to interpreting and enforcing rights and obligations on the ground, Teo told FinanceAsia.

Such differences give rise to a long list of hurdles for companies looking to invest in overseas infrastructure projects. They include different entry requirements, corporate registration models, capital and labour requirements, environmental issues and land use rights. The list goes on.

Depending on the openness of the government, there are also substantial risks relating to capital flow and supply of materials into the project nation. For instance, Chinas recent firmer capital controls mean that funding parties may find it harder to withdraw their funds out of the country.

The funding parties, contractors and local governments can also run into dispute in the event of unforeseen circumstances. For instance, many project owners and contractors entered into arbitrations over losses arising from the outbreak of SARS in 2003, which caused countries to impose labour control and severely impacted manpower supply for cross-border infrastructure projects.

Another area that may give rise to difficulties in practice is the interaction between the form of engineering and construction contracts chosen and the local law. Sometimes, issues can arise as to whether certain provisions of the contract can be fully applicable and enforced in certain jurisdictions.

For example, FIDIC, the internationally-recognized contract form for international projects, provides for arbitration as the final method of dispute resolution in many jurisdictions. But Thailand does not permit arbitration for PPP projects and concession agreements, unless cabinet approval is obtained.

Teo believes this is a key risk area to watch for as it could potentially add another layer of complexity in resolving the dispute.

In one of the most recent examples of contractual dispute, Inpex Corporation was forced to delay in March its $37 billion Darwin natural gas project, which is by far Japans largest single investment into Australia. The Japanese company ran into a dispute with British contractor Laing ORourke over payment terms, causing the UK firm to fire 800 workers due to funding difficulties.

Resolution

Project disputes reduce overall effectiveness, drain resources and can eventually lead to failures and delays. But they are hard to avoid  especially in very large infrastructure projects.

To minimise the chance of running into disputes, Teo suggests that parties should engage in risk assessment and due diligence at the very outset, assessing the potential risks that could arise during the course of the project implementation, and finding appropriate ways to mitigate those risks, including proper contract drafting and insurance.

In the ideal situation, all possible sources of dispute should be stated in the contract, which will be referred to when dispute arises. It is also important to engage local partners that understand local cultures and customs, and states clearly the responsibilities and liabilities between various parties.

Paul Teo, Baker McKenzie

Teo also pointed out that some Asian nations, including Hong Kong and Singapore, are preparing to introduce third-party funding for arbitration and related proceedings, which could potentially potentially alter the dispute resolution landscape in Asia.

This development, which has been drawn from similar long-standing regimes in countries such as the United Kingdom and Australia, allows the parties who are in a dispute to obtain funding for arbitration, mediation and related litigation proceedings from a third-party funder.

In January, the Hong Kong Law Reform Commission proposed amendments to the Legislative Council and the bill could be passed within the next few months.

In an area that promises huge growth but plenty of headaches, this is good news. Should the bill be passed, Asian project owners and contractors will have a new way of mitigating their project dispute risks.
TSX:JAG

TORONTO, March 30, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --Jaguar Mining Inc. ("Jaguar" or the "Company") (TSX:JAG) is pleased to announce an updated Mineral Reserves and Mineral Resources estimate for the Turmalina Gold Complex, consisting of the Turmalina Gold Mine ("Turmalina") and a process mill, as of December 31, 2016, prepared in accordance with National Instrument 43-101 ("NI 43-101"). In addition, the Company continued to advance its US$8 million accelerated growth exploration program to increase mineral resources at its core assets located in the Iron Quadrangle, Minas Gerais, Brazil. Updated Mineral Reserves and Mineral Resources estimates are being prepared in accordance with NI 43-101 for the Caete Gold Complex, consisting of the Pilar Gold Mine ("Pilar" or "Pilar Mine"), the Roca Grande Gold Mine ("RG" or "RG Mine"), and the process mill are expected to be released during the Company's fiscal second quarter.

Year-End 2016 Turmalina Gold Mine Mineral Reserves and Mineral Resources Highlights

Total Measured and Indicated ("M&I") Mineral Resources increased 22% to 540,000 ounces of gold, after depletion of 2016 production, with a grade of 4.93 g/t Au. This follows a successful exploration drilling campaign during 2016 which focused on upgrading the Inferred Resources category at Orebodies A and C to M&I Mineral Resources.





Achieved strong growth in M&I Mineral Resources for Orebody A and C with gold ounces up 22% to 235,000 ounces at Orebody A and up 82% to 129,000 ounces at Orebody C.





Total Proven and Probable ("2P") Mineral Reserves declined by 8% to a total of 171,000 ounces of gold, after depletion, with grade of 4.69 g/t Au. Slightly lower Mineral Reserves reflects tighter controls on inclusion of incremental mineralization and changes in dilution

methodology.





methodology. Orebody C 2P Mineral Reserves increased 167% during 2016 to 80,000 ounces of gold reflecting the newly discovered high-grade core within the larger mineralized intersections. Grade increased 12.0% to 4.10 g/t Au.





Within the large true-width mineralized intersections of Orebody C, several high-grade intervals have been discovered, not previously seen in the upper levels of the orebody, also suggests the potential for continuation of the mineralization at depth.





Compared to 2015, 2P Mineral Reserves decreased at Orebody A, however the 2017 drilling campaign will focus on upgrading the recent increased M&I Mineral Resources to 2P Mineral Reserves.

Rodney Lamond, President and CEO of Jaguar Mining stated, "We achieved solid growth in total M&I Mineral Resources at our Turmalina operations as a result of a successful drilling program at Orebody A and C during 2016. The drilling program at Orebody A and C focused on converting a significant amount of Inferred Resources into M&I Mineral Resources category resulting in a 22% increase in total M&I Mineral Resources to 540,000 ounces of gold. We are also encouraged with the strong results at Orebody C which saw a 167% increase in 2P Mineral Reserves to 80,000 ounces of gold. Additionally, recent drill results announced in February 2017, confirmed the discovery of several high-grade intervals at Orebody C that had not been previously identified in the upper levels of the orebody. This suggests a potential increase in mineralization at depth. These newly defined areas may be used to increase Turmalina's overall throughput, and is expected to positively impact unitary costs in the future."

"At Pilar, we are working on delivering new wireframe models to better reflect the geology and lithology, which will improve the accuracy of the Mineral Resource estimate. We expect to deliver an update on Mineral Reserves and Mineral Resources for Pilar in the second quarter of 2017. This will include drilling from the current ongoing campaign and any material information from current deep drilling."

"Our current US$8 million accelerated growth exploration program is focused on increasing mineral resources at core assets and the potential discovery of new resources near our existing operations. The program is expected to complete approximately 31,000 metres of diamond drilling, including approximately 15,000 metres of drilling along the down-plunge continuities of Orebodies A, B and C at Turmalina and Orebodies BFII and BF at Pilar. We look forward to delivering positive results from these exploration programs during 2017."

Definitions g/t Au - grams per tonne gold m - metres oz - ounces M&I - Measured and Indicated t - tonnes 2P - Proven and Probable ETW - Estimated True Width





Table 1. Comparison of 2015 and 2016 Turmalina Mine Mineral Reserves and Mineral Resources



December 31, 2016 December 31, 2015 2016 vs. 2015 % Change

Tonnes Grade Gold oz Tonnes Grade Gold oz Tonnes Grade Gold oz Proven & Probable Mineral Reserves (000's) (g/t) (000's) (000's) (g/t) (000's)





Orebody A 526 5.41 91 827 5.82 155 -36% -7% -41% Orebody C 607 4.10 80 253 3.66 30 140% 12% 167% Total 2P 1,133 4.69 171 1,080 5.31 185 5% -12% -8% M &I Resources

















Orebody A 1,163 6.28 235 855 7.01 193 36% -10% 22% Orebody B 496 3.51 56 511 3.56 58 -3% -1% -3% Orebody C 1,078 3.72 129 702 3.14 71 54% 18% 82% Faina 261 6.87 58 261 6.87 58 - - - Pontal 410 4.72 62 410 4.72 62 - - - Total M&I Resources 3,408 4.93 540 2,739 5.01 442 24% -2% 22% Inferred Resources 2,437 6.37 499 3,057 6.30 619







Consolidated M&I Mineral Resources increased 22% to 540,000 ounces of gold after depletion, while tonnes increased to 24% and grade was 4.93g/t Au representing a 2% reduction. The Company completed a successful exploration drilling campaign to upgrade Inferred Resources at Orebody A and C to the M&I Mineral Resources category in 2016, giving increased confidence in Jaguar's understanding of the deposit.

Consolidated 2P Mineral Reserves reduced 8% to 171,000 ounces of gold after depletion, and grade reduced to 4.69 g/t Au, which represents the replacement of over 75% of the ounces mined in 2016.

M&I Mineral Resources for Orebody A tonnes and ounces increased by 36% and 22% respectively.

2P Mineral Reserves for Orebody C, which is closer to the surface, increased ounces and tonnes by 167% and 140% respectively. 2P Mineral Reserves grade at Orebody C increased by 12% to 4.10 g/t Au, which is indicative of an increase in grade at depth within Orebody C

2P Mineral Reserves for Orebody A ounces were lower compared to 2016, however, the 22% increase in M&I ounces will be the priority in 2017 for the overall Mineral Reserves upgrade.

2017 deep drilling programs for Orebodies, A, B, and C along the down-dip projections will focus on expanding the resource at depth. A calibre of drill now being used in the new hanging wall drift, being developed in Orebody A at Level 12 for the drilling program will allow down dip drilling of the Orebodies A and B from Level 10 to Level 16.

Update on Growth Exploration Pipeline

In 2016, the Company announced an accelerated growth exploration pipeline of up to US$10 million. To date, approximately US$6.0 million has been allocated towards Jaguar's core assets, Turmalina and Pilar, to focus on increasing identified Mineral Resources. US$2.0 million has been dedicated to the discovery of new resources at the high priority Pacheca and Cubas targets near Pilar Mine and other advanced targets in and around the core assets.

The growth exploration program is expected to complete approximately 31,000 metres of diamond drilling, including approximately 15,000 metres of drilling down-plunge continuities of Orebodies A, B and C at Turmalina and Orebodies BFII and BF at Pilar. It is expected that approximately 8,500 metres of surface diamond drilling will test the Pacheca and Cubas targets near Pilar as well as other advanced targets in and around the Company's operating assets.

Turmalina Mine

As recently reported (refer to news release dated February 8, 2017) Jaguar has continued drilling the down-plunge extensions of Orebodies A and C at Turmalina to assess the growth potential for Measured and Indicated Mineral Resources. In addition, drilling has focused on providing increased definition and confidence in the near-term mine operation within the Indicated Mineral Resources.

Recent drill intercepts at Orebody A continue to confirm the presence of high-grade ore at depth beyond the current workings. Most importantly, reduced widths in the northwest (A-NW) section of Orebody A appear to be offset by the widening and a grade increase at depth in the southeast (A-SE) section, which previously had not been identified within the upper levels of Orebody A.

Recent drill intercepts at Orebody C below the known resource confirm the extension of the gold mineralization in the southeast section of the orebody. The Orebody C-SE down-plunge extension below the known resources, demonstrated stronger, high-grade ore mineralization. Within the confirmed thick mineralized intersections, several high-grade intervals were discovered that had not been previously identified in the upper levels of the orebody, suggesting a potential increase in mineralization at depth. The newly defined areas may be used to increase Turmalina's overall throughput, and is expected to positively impact unitary costs in the future.

The development of the new growth exploration drilling horizon positioned in the hanging wall of Turmalina at Level 10 is underway and deep drilling is expected to take place starting in the second quarter. An estimated 4,800 m of deep diamond drilling will be performed after the development of the 180 m long exploration drive is completed. The calibre of drill that will be utilized in the hanging wall drift, will now allow the proposed drilling to reach Levels 12 to 16. The goal of the proposed drilling from this exploration drive is to locate and delineate additional Mineral Resources at these deeper levels, and to test the down-plunge continuity up to Level 16, up to 400 vertical m below the current development and 300 m below the current Inferred Resources.

The hanging wall drift being developed for the deep drilling platform is also expected to cross Orebody B below Level 10, at -100 m. Orebody B will be evaluated as part of the 2017 drilling program. Drilling in 2016 showed that the Orebody B target has the potential of increased grade at depth and depending on additional drilling and sampling, results may be added to the overall Mineral Reserves upgrade in 2017. Orebody B currently has an average mineral resource gold grade of 3.51 g/t Au. Should Orebody B prove viable for additional mining of higher-grade ore, Turmalina would then have the flexibility to mine from three different orebodies.

Pilar Mine

At Pilar, the drill program results announced on September 26, 2016, disclosed multiple high-grade drill intercepts from Pilar including at the BFII, BF, BA, LFW, LHW, C, and SW orebodies. The underground resource definition-drilling program was designed to test the current resource envelope, and to test the down-plunge extensions of the Pilar orebodies. The drill program targeted, in particular, the newly discovered BFII Orebody, as previously outlined in the "Technical Report on the Roca Grande and Pilar Operations, Minas Gerais State, Brazil", a copy of which is available on the Company's SEDAR profile at www.sedar.com.

At Pilar, development of the new exploration drive in the hanging wall of the mine at Level 7 is now complete and deep underground drilling has commenced. The calibre of drill also being utilized in Pilar's hanging wall drift, will now allow the proposed drilling to reach Levels 11 to 16, up to 350 vertical m below current development and 250 m below the current Inferred Resources. The proposed diamond drilling program at Pilar comprises approximately 5,100 m that will test the down-plunge extension and continuity of ore bodies BFII, BF, and BA.

Pacheca Exploration Target

At the Pacheca target, classified as ancient Portuguese workings from the 1800s, and located approximately 4-5 kilometres from Pilar, seven holes totalling 1,630 m have been completed. Significant drill results include:

FPCH001: 0.34 g/t Au over 9.7 m (*ETW - 8.00 m); including, 1.06 g/t Au over 6.05 m (*ETW - 5.00 m); and 0.5 g/t Au over 5.00 m (*ETW - 4.01 m)

FPCH002: 2.7 g/t Au over 0.4 m (*ETW - 0.4 m); and 0.52 g/t Au over 7.15 m (*ETW - 6.00 m)

*ETW are based on preliminary geological interpretations and are subject to change.

Results are currently being examined to understand the direction and continuity of the target mineralization. The Company is awaiting assays from two additional drill holes and further geological mapping, planning and a geophysical survey is being planned for the near future. Additional drilling will be results-driven and based on interpretation of the form and location of the target mineralization.

Cubas Exploration Target

At the Cubas Induced Polarization ("IP") anomaly target, located 1.5 kilometres from the Pilar Mine, three deep drill holes (1,950 m) have been completed. One of the holes intercepted 33 m of massive sulphide mineralization which is associated with a hydrothermal alteration halo that is believed to be responsible for generating the strong IP anomaly target. It is also believed that this is a strong indicator for potential gold mineralization in and around the Cubas target. The information is currently being analyzed and future work will be carried out based on interpretation of the target.

Photo: http://photos.newswire.ca/images/download/20170330_C7580_PHOTO_EN_922921.jpg

TABLE 1 SUMMARY OF TOTAL MINERAL RESOURCES - DECEMBER 31, 2016 Jaguar Mining Inc. - Turmalina Mine Complex Category Tonnes (000) Grade (g/t Au) Contained Oz Au (000) Turmalina Measured 1,430 5.36 246 Indicated 1,307 4.12 174 Sub-total M&I 2,737 4.77 420 Inferred 765 4.81 118 Faina Measured 72 7.39 17 Indicated 189 6.66 42 Sub-total M&I 261 6.87 58 Inferred 1,542 7.26 360 Pontal Measured 251 5.00 40 Indicated 159 4.28 22 Sub-total M&I 410 4.72 62 Inferred 130 5.03 21 Total Turmalina, Faina, and Pontal Measured 1,753 5.38 303 Indicated 1,655 4.47 238 Sub-total M&I 3,408 4.93 540 Inferred 2,437 6.37 499

Notes for Table 1: 1. CIM definitions were followed for Mineral Resources. 2. Mineral Resources include the Turmalina Mine, Faina deposit, and Pontal deposit. 3. Mineral Resources are estimated at a cut-off grade of 2.10 g/t Au at Turmalina, 3.8 g/t Au at Faina, and 2.9 g/t Au at Pontal. 4. Mineral Resources at the Turmalina Mine include all drill hole and channel sample data and mining excavations as of December 31, 2016. 5. Mineral Resources at the Faina and Pontal deposits remain unchanged from those stated as at December 31, 2015. 6. Mineral Resources are estimated using a long-term gold price of US$1,500 for the Turmalina Mine and US$1,400 per ounce for the Faina and Pontal deposits. 7. Mineral Resources are estimated using an average long-term foreign exchange rate of 3.49 Brazilian Reais: 1 US Dollar for Turmalina and 2.5 Brazilian Reais: 1 US Dollar for Faina and Pontal. 8. A minimum mining width of approximately 2 m was used. 9. Bulk density is 2.83 t/m3 for Orebodies A and B and 2.97 t/m3 for Orebody C at the Turmalina Mine. 10. Gold grades are estimated by the inverse distance cubed interpolation algorithm using capped composite samples. 11. Mineral Resources are inclusive of Mineral Reserves. 12. Mineral Resources that are not Mineral Reserves do not have demonstrated economic viability. 13. Numbers may not add due to rounding.

TABLE 2 MINERAL RESERVE ESTIMATE - DECEMBER 31, 2016 Jaguar Mining Inc. - Turmalina Mine Orebody Classification Tonnes (000) Grade (g/t Au) Contained Au Ounces (000) A Proven 330 5.86 62 A Probable 196 4.66 29 C Proven 24 3.47 3 C Probable 583 4.12 77 Total Proven & Probable 1,133 4.69 171

Notes for Table 2: 1. CIM definitions were followed for Mineral Reserves. 2. Mineral Reserves were estimated at a break-even cut-off grade of 2.5 g/t Au. Some stopes were included using an incremental cut-off grade of 1.2 g/t Au. 3. Mineral Reserves are estimated using an average long-term gold price of US$1,250 per ounce, and a US$/BRL exchange rate of 3.49. 4. A minimum mining width of 3 m was used. 5. Bulk density is 2.7 t/m3. 6. Numbers may not add due to rounding.

Qualified Person

Mineral Reserves and Mineral Resources 2016 estimates for Turmalina Gold Mine were prepared by Jaguar Mining under the supervision of Jason Cox, P.Eng., and Reno Pressacco, P.Geo. of Roscoe Postle Associates Inc. ("RPA"). RPA is an independent mining consultant and each of Messrs. Cox and Pressacco are Qualified Persons within the meaning of NI 43-101. The effective date of these estimates is December 31, 2016. An independent technical report documenting the Mineral Resource estimates prepared in accordance with NI 43-101 will be filed on SEDAR.

Scientific and technical information contained in this press release has been reviewed and approved by Geraldo Guimaraes Vieira dos Santos, BSc Geo., MAIG-3946 (CP), Geology Manager, who is an employee of Jaguar Mining Inc., and is a "qualified person" as defined by National Instrument 43-101 - Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects ("NI 43-101").

Quality Control

Jaguar Mining has implemented a quality-control program that includes insertion of blanks, commercial standards, and duplicate core samples in order to ensure best practice in sampling and analysis.

NQ and BQ size drill core is sawn in half with a diamond saw. Samples are selected for analysis in standard intervals according to geological characteristics such as lithology and hydrothermal alteration contents. All diamond drill hole collars are accurately surveyed using a Total Stations instrument and down hole deviations are surveyed using optical Reflex Maribor.

Mean grades are calculated using a variable lower grade cut-off (generally 2 g/t Au). No top cutting has been applied to the data. However, the requirement for assay top cutting will be assessed during future resource work.

Half of the sawed sample is forwarded to the analytical laboratory for analysis while the remaining half of the core is stored in a secure location. The drill core samples are transported in securely sealed bags to the Jaguar in-house laboratory located at the Caete Mine Complex in Minas Gerais. Some samples are also sent for check assaying to the independent SGS Geosol Laboratory located in Vespasiano, Minas Gerais. The preparation and analysis are all conducted at the respective facilities. The Caete Mine Complex laboratory does not carry an ISO certification. The SGS Geosol Laboratory is ISO 9001 accredited. As part of in-house QA/QC, the Caete Mine Complex laboratory inserts certified gold standards, blanks, and pulp duplicate samples.

For a complete description of Jaguar's sample preparation, analytical methods, and QA/QC procedures, please refer to the Turmalina Technical Report filed on Jaguar's profile at www.sedar.com please refer to the Turmalina Technical Report that will be filed on Jaguar's SEDAR profile within 45 days from the date of this news release.

The Iron Quadrangle

The Iron Quadrangle has been an area of mineral exploration dating back to the 16th century. The discovery in 1699-1701 of black gold contaminated with iron and platinum-group metals in the southeastern corner of the Iron Quadrangle gave rise to the name of the town Ouro Preto (Black Gold). The Iron Quadrangle contains world-class multi-million ounce gold deposits such as Morro Velho, Cuiaba, and Sao Bento. Jaguar holds the second largest gold land position in the Iron Quadrangle with just over 25,000 hectares.

About Jaguar Mining Inc.

Jaguar Mining Inc. is a Canadian-listed junior gold mining, development, and exploration company operating in Brazil with three gold mining complexes, and a large land package with significant upside exploration potential from mineral claims covering an area of approximately 191,000 hectares. The Company's principal operating assets are located in the Iron Quadrangle, a prolific greenstone belt in the state of Minas Gerais and include the Turmalina Gold Mine Complex ("Mineracao Turmalina Ltda" or "MTL") and Caete Gold Mine Complex ("Mineracao Serras do Oeste Ltda" or "MSOL") which combined produce more than 95,000 ounces of gold annually. The Company also owns the Paciencia Gold Mine Complex, which has been on care and maintenance since 2012. Additional information is available on the Company's website at www.jaguarmining.com.

FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS

Certain statements in this news release constitute "forward-looking information" within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities legislation. Forward-looking statements and information are provided for the purpose of providing information about management's expectations and plans relating to the future. All of the forward-looking information made in this news release are qualified by the cautionary statements below and those made in our other filings with the securities regulators in Canada. Forward-looking information contained in forward-looking statements can be identified by the use of words such as "are expected", "is forecast", "is targeted", "approximately", "plans", "anticipates", "projects", "anticipates", "continue", "estimate", "believe" or variations of such words and phrases or statements that certain actions, events or results "may", "could", "would", "might", or "will" be taken, occur or be achieved. All statements, other than statements of historical fact, may be considered to be or include forward looking information. This news release contains forward-looking information regarding potential and, among other things, expected production, statistics, ore grades, tonnes milled, recovery rates, cash operating costs, and definition/delineation drilling at the Turmalina Gold Mine., the timing and amount of estimated future production, costs of production, capital expenditures, costs and timing of the development of projects and new deposits, success of exploration, development and mining activities, currency fluctuations, capital requirements, project studies, mine life extensions, and continuous improvement initiatives. The Company has made numerous assumptions with respect to forward-looking information contained herein, including, among other things, assumptions about the estimated timeline andfor the development of the drill program at the Turmalina Gold Mineits mineral properties; the supply and demand for, and the level and volatility of the price of, gold; the accuracy of reserve and resource estimates and the assumptions on which the reserve and resource estimates are based; the receipt of necessary permits; market competition; ongoing relations with employees and impacted communities; andpolitical and legal developments in any jurisdiction in which the Company operates being consistent with its current expectations including, without limitation, the impact of any potential power rationing, tailings facility regulation, exploration and mine operating licenses and permits being obtained an renewed and/or there being adverse amendments to mining or other laws in Brazil and any changes to general business and economic conditions. Forward-looking information involve a number of known and unknown risks and uncertainties, including among others: the risk of Jaguar not meeting the forecast plans regarding its operations and financial performance, the; uncertainties with respect to the price of gold, labor disruptions, mechanical failures, increase in costs, environmental compliance and change in environmental legislation and regulation, weather delays and increased costs or production delays due to natural disasters, power disruptions, procurement and delivery of parts and supplies to the operations,; uncertainties inherent to capital markets in general (including the sometimes volatile valuation of securities and an uncertain ability to raise new capital) and other risks inherent to the gold exploration, development and production industry, which, if incorrect, may cause actual results to differ materially from those anticipated by the Company and described herein. In addition, there are risks and hazards associated with the business of gold exploration, development, mining and production, including environmental hazards, tailings dam failures, industrial accidents and workplace safety problems, unusual or unexpected geological formations, pressures, cave-ins, flooding, chemical spills, and gold bullion thefts and losses (and the risk of inadequate insurance, or the inability to obtain insurance, to cover these risks). Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking information.

For further information: Rodney Lamond, President & Chief Executive Officer, rodney.lamond@jaguarmining.com, 416-847-1854; Joanne Jobin, Vice President, Investor Relations, joanne.jobin@jaguarmining.com, 416-847-1854


LONDON (dpa-AFX) - The U.S. Department of Justice said that it will require Smiths Group plc (SMIN.L) to divest Morpho Detection LLC and Morpho Detection International LLC's global explosive trace detection or ETD business in order for Smiths to proceed with its proposed $710 million acquisition of Morpho from Safran S.A. (0IU8.L, SAFRF.PK).



The Justice Department's Antitrust Division filed a civil antitrust lawsuit today in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to block the proposed transaction. At the same time, the department filed a proposed settlement that, if approved by the court, would resolve the department's competitive concerns.



The European Commission previously announced that in order to address its competitive concerns with the acquisition, it also will require Smiths to divest Morpho's global ETD business.



According to the department's complaint, Smiths and Morpho are two of the leading providers of desktop ETD devices for both air passenger travel and air cargo screening at U.S. airports. Desktop ETD devices detect trace amounts of explosive residue or narcotics on hands, belongings, and cargo from a tiny sample swabbed from the object and placed inside the detector. The complaint alleges that competition between Smiths and Morpho has resulted in lower prices, better service, and more innovative desktop ETD devices.



The proposed divestiture will remedy the loss of this competition. Under the terms of the proposed settlement, Smiths must divest Morpho's global ETD business to a buyer approved by the United States. The department believes that the divestiture of Morpho's global ETD business, which also includes handheld and portal ETD devices, was necessary to ensure that the buyer of Morpho's global ETD business would be a viable competitor in the provision of desktop ETD devices.



In April 2016, British technology company Smiths Group plc announced that it entered into an agreement to acquire Morpho Detection, a California-based detection and security solutions company, from French technology firm Safran (0IU8.L, SAFRF.PK) for an enterprise value of $710 million or 493 million pounds.



Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX

Kostenloser Wertpapierhandel auf Smartbroker.de
BEIJING (dpa-AFX) - Wyndham Rewards, the guest loyalty program of hotel giant Wyndham Hotel Group, announced Friday it has surpassed 50 million members worldwide, marking a major achievement for the re-imagined program and highlighting the aggressive expansion of its globally recognized brands. The company noted that the milestone member of the Wyndham Rewards enrolled earlier this week at the newly opened Wyndham Grand Xiamen. Wyndham Hotel Group, one of three hospitality business units of Wyndham Worldwide (WYN), also said it expects to hit more than 2,000 hotels in country by the end of 2019. The company is currently the largest U.S-based hotel company in China with more than 1,300 hotels. Globally, the company offers more than 8,000 hotels across 77 countries under 18 brands. Originally launched in 2004, Wyndham Rewards was completely re-imagined in the summer of 2015. Most recently, the program unveiled a multi-year integration across Wyndham Worldwide and its vacation rental and vacation ownership portfolios. Further, with an expectation of 2,000 hotels open in China by the end of 2019, the company plans to introduce two new brands to the market later this year, including midscale Wingate by Wyndham brand and its city-centric, lifestyle-based TRYP by Wyndham brand. 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.
CANBERA (dpa-AFX) - The Japanese yen weakened against the other major currencies in the Asian session on Friday. The yen fell to 10-day lows of 140.09 against the pound and 112.19 against the U.S. dollar, from yesterday's closing quotes of 139.57 and 111.92, respectively. Against the euro, the yen dropped to 119.82 from yesterday's closing value of 119.47. The yen slipped to a 2-day low of 112.08 against the Swiss franc, from yesterday's closing value of 111.77. Against the Australian, the New Zealand and the Canadian dollars, the yen dropped to a 9-day low of 85.76, an 8-day low of 78.40 and a 10-day low of 84.09 from yesterday's closing quotes of 85.52, 78.28 and 83.84, respectively. If the yen extends its downtrend, it is likely to find support around 142.00 against the pound, 114.00 against the greenback, 121.00 against the euro, 113.00 against the franc, 87.00 against the aussie, 80.00 against the kiwi and 86.00 against the loonie. Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX

Werbehinweise: Die Billigung des Basisprospekts durch die BaFin ist nicht als ihre Befurwortung der angebotenen Wertpapiere zu verstehen. Wir empfehlen Interessenten und potenziellen Anlegern den Basisprospekt und die Endgultigen Bedingungen zu lesen, bevor sie eine Anlageentscheidung treffen, um sich moglichst umfassend zu informieren, insbesondere uber die potenziellen Risiken und Chancen des Wertpapiers. Sie sind im Begriff, ein Produkt zu erwerben, das nicht einfach ist und schwer zu verstehen sein kann.
Regulatory News:

Kiadis Pharma N.V. ("Kiadis Pharma" or the "Company") (Euronext Amsterdam and Brussels: KDS),a clinical stage biopharmaceutical company developing innovative T-cell immunotherapy treatments for blood cancers and inherited blood disorders, today announces its audited annual results for the year ended December 31, 2016, which have been prepared in accordance with International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) as adopted by the European Union.

Operating highlights (including post period end)

Strong progress was made in developing lead product ATIR101 for blood cancer: positive and significant results on the primary endpoint (at six months) and one-year follow-up data from our single dose Phase II trial with ATIR101 (CR-AIR-007) were presented at the Annual Meeting of the European Society of Blood and Marrow Transplantation (EBMT) in April 2016 and the Annual Meeting of the American Society of Hematology (ASH) in December 2016, respectively; preparation of the dossier for a Marketing Authorization Application (MAA) for ATIR101 in the European Union is advancing into the final stages; initiation of a randomized, controlled, pivotal Phase III trial with a single dose of ATIR101 (CR-AIR-009) in February 2017; the Company's Orphan Drug Designation for ATIR101 was expanded by the European Medicines Agency (EMA) to include the treatment in a hematopoietic stem cell transplantation regardless of the underlying disease; the Company's Pediatric Investigation Plan for ATIR101 was accepted by EMA's Pediatric Committee in March 2017.

Safety update provided regarding the Company's Phase II trial where a second dose of ATIR101 is tested (CR-AIR-008). This trial is now continuing with patients receiving a single dose only.

Collaboration entered into with the U.S. Leukemia Lymphoma Society (LLS), the world's largest voluntary health agency dedicated to blood cancer. LLS invested into the Company to further finance clinical development of ATIR101.

Initiation of a Phase I/II trial (CR-BD-001) to test ATIR201 in patients suffering from beta-thalassemia major.

Supervisory Board strengthened with two additional independent members, Dr. Robert Soiffer and Mr. Berndt Modig.

New CEO, Mr. Arthur Lahr, announced to succeed Dr. Manfred Rudiger as per April 1, 2017.

Appointment of Mr. Jan Feijen as Chief Operations Officer as per April 1, 2017.

Financial highlights

The Leukemia Lymphoma Society made an equity investment for an amount of US$1.75 million (EUR1.59 million) and acquired a total number of 156,328 new shares.

The operating loss decreased to EUR11.4 million in 2016 from a loss of EUR16.0 million in 2015.

The operating expenses for 2016 included non-cash share-based payments of EUR0.4 million compared to EUR7.8 million in 2015.

The net loss for the year decreased to EUR14.8 million in 2016 from EUR16.5 million in 2015.

The cash position decreased to EUR14.6 million at year-end 2016 compared to EUR28.7 million at the end of 2015. This is mainly due to the cash used in operating activities in 2016.



(Amounts in EUR million, except per share data)



2016 2015 Change Total revenue and other income Total operating expenses (11.4) (16.0) 4.6 Research and development (8.2) (7.7) (0.5) General and administrative (3.2) (8.3) 5.1 Operating result (11.4) (16.0) 4.6 Net financial result (3.4) (0.5) (2.9) Net result (14.8) (16.5) 1.7 Net operating cash flow (14.3) (8.1) (6.2) Cash position at end of year 14.6 28.7 (14.1) Earnings per share before dilution (EUR) (1.08) (1.36) 0.28

A full annual report for the year ended December 31, 2016 is available on Kiadis Pharma's website.

Commenting on the annual results, Manfred Rudiger, CEO of Kiadis Pharma, said: "We have continued to make good progress with our lead product ATIR101 during 2016. The statistically significant clinical data from our CR-AIR-007 Phase II trial shows substantially improved benefits on Overall Survival and Graft-versus-Host and Relapse-free Survival (GRFS), which exceeded our expectations. We have continued to maintain a close relationship with EMA and based on our Phase II clinical data, our previously obtained ATMP certificate for manufacturing/quality and non-clinical data, as well as our recently accepted Pediatric Investigational Plan, we are now in the final stages of preparing our application dossier for submission to EMA for marketing authorization in Europe. In addition, we have further strengthened the Company and the teams at all levels within the organization. I would like to thank our investors for their support in bringing ATIR101 closer to patients and my team for their enthusiasm and hard work."

About Kiadis Pharma

Kiadis Pharma is focused on cell-based immunotherapy products for the treatment of blood cancers and inherited blood disorders. The Company's products have the potential to address the risks and limitations connected with allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT), namely Graft-versus-Host-Disease (GVHD), cancer relapse, opportunistic infections and limited matched donor availability. The Company believes that HSCT could become a first-choice treatment for blood cancers, inherited blood disorders and possibly autoimmune diseases and solid organ transplantations.

On December 5, 2016 at the Annual Meeting of the American Society of Hematology (ASH), the Company reported positive Phase II results with its lead product ATIR101 in patients with blood cancer. The data showed that ATIR101 significantly reduced Transplant Related Mortality and significantly improved Overall Survival. In addition, ATIR101 did not elicit grade III-IV GVHD in any patient. Based on these positive results, a Phase III clinical trial has been initiated. ATIR101 has been granted Orphan Drug Designations both in the US and Europe.

The Company's second product candidate, ATIR201, addresses inherited blood disorders with an initial focus on thalassemia, a disease which results in destruction of red blood cells in patients. ATIR201 Phase I/II clinical development has been initiated recently.

Kiadis Pharma, based in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, was granted an Advanced Therapy Medicinal Product (ATMP) certificate for manufacturing quality and non-clinical data by the European Medicines Agency (EMA). The Company's shares are listed on Euronext Amsterdam and Euronext Brussels. For more information visit www.kiadis.com.

Forward Looking Statements

Certain statements, beliefs and opinions in this press release are forward-looking, which reflect Kiadis Pharma's or, as appropriate, Kiadis Pharma's directors' current expectations and projections about future events. By their nature, forward-looking statements involve a number of risks, uncertainties and assumptions that could cause actual results or events to differ materially from those expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements. These risks, uncertainties and assumptions could adversely affect the outcome and financial effects of the plans and events described herein. A multitude of factors including, but not limited to, changes in demand, competition and technology, can cause actual events, performance or results to differ significantly from any anticipated development. Forward looking statements contained in this press release regarding past trends or activities should not be taken as a representation that such trends or activities will continue in the future. As a result, Kiadis Pharma expressly disclaims any obligation or undertaking to release any update or revisions to any forward-looking statements in this press release as a result of any change in expectations or any change in events, conditions, assumptions or circumstances on which these forward-looking statements are based. Neither Kiadis Pharma nor its advisers or representatives nor any of its subsidiary undertakings or any such person's officers or employees guarantees that the assumptions underlying such forward-looking statements are free from errors nor does either accept any responsibility for the future accuracy of the forward-looking statements contained in this press release or the actual occurrence of the forecasted developments. You should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date of this press release.

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170330006291/en/

Contacts:

Kiadis Pharma

Manfred Rudiger, CEO, +31 20 314 02 50

communication@kiadis.com

or

International Media and Investor:

Consilium Strategic Communications

Mary-Jane Elliott, Lindsey Neville, Hendrik Thys

+44 (0) 203 709 5708

kiadis@consilium-comms.com
LONDON, ENGLAND -- (Marketwired) -- 03/31/17 -- Condor Gold (AIM: CNR) ('Condor', 'Condor Gold' or 'the Company') is pleased to announce that, following a Placing which raised GBP 5.242 million (See RNS dated 20th February 2017), work is now underway on a 10,000 m drilling programme for 2017 at the La India Project, Nicaragua (the "La India Project"). This will have dual objectives, being (i) resource expansion- to increase the existing mineral resource (18 Mt at 4.0 g/t Au for 2.31 Moz gold) over the La India Project, and (ii) scout drilling, which hopes to identify new resources hosted in additional veins sets on the 313 km2 Project and demonstrate a major Gold District.

Resource Expansion

In accordance with the first objective, Condor has completed approximately 360 m of a 2,000 m drilling programme, which has commenced on the Mestiza Vein Set ('Mestiza'). This will test a historic Soviet mineral resource. If successful, it is expected that further drilling of about 4,000 m would be needed to convert the majority of the Soviet mineral resource to a NI 43-101-compliant Inferred Mineral Resource. This is significant for four reasons:

1. Soviet-backed drilling in 1991 estimated a Soviet-style mineral resource of 2,392 kt at 10.2 g/t gold for 785,694 oz gold at Mestiza (Table 2). Condor has used the Soviet data, and subsequent drilling undertaken by Canadian companies, to plan a drill programme to convert the Soviet resource to Western standards. 2. Mestiza already hosts a NI 43-101-compliant mineral resource of 1,490 kt at 7.47 g/t for 333,000 oz gold (Table 1). However, this is excluded from the current Pre-Feasibility Study and Preliminary Economic Assessments at La India Project. 3. There is a high possibility of bringing additional high grade gold from Mestiza into a future mine plan, feeding a centralised processing plant. 4. The current 2,000 m drill programme is relatively shallow, with 18 drill holes mostly less than 100 m. Furthermore, the existing resource is open along strike in both directions and at depth. The shallow nature of the resource suggests it could be added early on to the mine plan, enhancing the production profile and economics of the Project.

Table 1 Mestiza Vein Set NI 43-101 Mineral Resource Estimate

---------------------------------------------------------------------------- SRK NI-43-101 resource estimate (30-09-2014) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Vein Category Tons (kt) Grade (g/t) Au (oz) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Espinito Inferred 200 7.7 50,000 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Buenos Aires Jicaro Inferred 210 8.0 53,000 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Tatiana Inferred 1,080 6.6 230,000 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- TOTAL 1,490 7.5 333,000 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Table 2 Mestiza Vein Set Soviet GKZ Mineral Resource Estimate (including the above NI-43- 101 resources)

---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Soviet GKZ mineral resource estimate (1991) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Vein Category Tons (kt) Grade (g/t) Au (oz) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Espinito C1,C2,P1 353 9.8 112,013 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- San Pablo P1 39 12.2 15,338 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Buenos Aires Jicaro C2, P1 317 16.8 171,489 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Tatiana C2, P1, P2 1,682 9.0 486,855 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- TOTAL 2,392 10.2 785,694 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

To view Figure 1, please visit the following link: http://media3.marketwire.com/docs/cnr0331fig1.pdf.

Note: The numbers in Table 1, Table 2 and Figure 1 have been rounded where appropriate.

Scout Drilling

In line with the second objective, and as announced on 27 January 2017, as part of a 4,000 m scout drilling campaign, drilling at the Cacao Prospect has been completed. A total of 720 m of drilling demonstrated a significant dilational vein, below near surface phreatic breccia and sinter. Drill intercepts included 7.85 m at 3.75 g/t, and 7.85 m at 2.95 g/t gold. There is the prospect of a much larger gold resource and future drilling is planned.

Furthermore, Condor has completed 6 drill holes, for a total of 945 m, on the Andrea Vein. This is an entirely grassroots discovery, with generally low grades at surface and scattered high grade grab samples (in excess of 30 g/t gold). The principal vein, and veins which split from it, have a strike length of at least 2.2 km. It forms a zone of anomalous soil and rock geochemistry (the 'Andrea Corridor', see RNS dated 29th January 2017) with a much greater strike length. The drill program, with a man-portable rig because of poor access roads, tested for potential La India-style mineralization (an epithermal vein with a boiling zone and high gold grade).

The 6 relatively shallow holes on the Andrea Vein encountered abundant zeolite veinlets, minerals typical of the upper parts of epithermal systems (above the boiling zone) . The northern holes hit barren quartz/carbonate veins, but the deepest, and southernmost, hole encountered significant gold mineralization, with 5.1 m @ 1.9 g/t gold. This began at 186 m depth. Drilling at Andrea was suspended because of the lack of water required for drilling. Future drilling is planned to follow up on these encouraging results and will probably recommence in the wet season, expected to be in 6 months' time. It will target the southern portion and be deeper.

The drill rig also completed 429 m drilling at Real De la Cruz and 664 m drilling at Tatescame. Drill results from Real de la Cruz demonstrated poor continuity of the high-grade veins, though it may still have bulk mineable potential. The drilling at Tatescame gave poor results and it has been downgraded. It effectively demonstrated that the known vein, with grades up to at least 10 g/t gold, terminates towards the West.

Several new scout drilling targets have been identified and are being ranked in order of priority. The market will be updated as these are drilled.

Competent Person's Declaration

The information in this announcement that relates to the mineral potential, geology, exploration results and database is based on information compiled, and reviewed, by Dr Warren Pratt, Chartered Geologist (1994), Fellow of the Geological Society of London and Fellow of the Society of Economic Geologists. Dr Pratt is a geologist with over twenty five years of experience in the exploration of precious metal mineral resources. Dr Pratt consults to Condor Gold plc on an ad hoc basis and has considerable experience in epithermal mineralization, the type of deposit under consideration, and sufficient experience in the type of activity that he is undertaking to qualify as a 'Competent Person' as defined in the June 2009 Edition of the AIM Note for Mining and Oil & Gas Companies. Dr Pratt consents to the inclusion in the announcement of the matters based on their information in the form and context in which it appears and confirms that this information is accurate and not false or misleading.

Technical Glossary

---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Assay The laboratory test conducted to determine the proportion of a mineral within a rock or other material. Usually reported as parts per million which is equivalent to grams of the mineral (i.e. gold) per tonne of rock ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- C1 C1 reserves are broadly equivalent to JORC indicated resources and have been estimated by a sparse grid of trenches, drill holes or underground workings. The quality and properties of the deposit are known tentatively by analyses and by analogy with known deposits of the same type. The general conditions for exploitation are partially known ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- C2 C2 reserves are broadly equivalent to JORC inferred resources and have been extrapolated from limited data, probably only a single hole ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Dilational Vein A mineral deposit in a vein space formed by bulging of the walls, contrasted with veins formed by wall-rock replacement. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- En echelon In structural geology, en echelon veins are structures within rock caused by tension fractures that are parallel to the major stress orientation. They appear as sets of short, parallel, planar, mineral-filled lenses within a body of rock. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- The study of the elements and their interaction as Geochemistry minerals to make up rocks and soils. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Geophysics The measurement and interpretation of the earth's physical parameters using non-invasive methods such as measuring the gravity, magnetic susceptibility, electrical conductivity, seismic response and natural radioactive emissions. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Hydrothermal Hot water circulation often caused by heating of groundwater by near surface magmas and often occurring in association with volcanic activity. Hydrothermal waters can contain significant concentrations of dissolved minerals. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Kt Thousand tonnes ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Mineral Reserve The economically mineable part of a Measured and/or Indicated Mineral Resource. It includes diluting materials and allowances for losses, which may occur when the material is mined. Appropriate assessments and studies have been carried out, and include consideration of and modification by realistically assumed mining, metallurgical, economic, marketing, legal, environmental, social and governmental factors. These assessments demonstrate at the time of reporting that extraction could reasonably be justified. Ore Reserves are sub-divided in order of increasing confidence into Probable Ore Reserves and Proved Ore Reserves. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Mineral Resource A concentration or occurrence of material of economic interest in or on the Earth's crust in such a form, quality, and quantity that there are reasonable and realistic prospects for eventual economic extraction. The location, quantity, grade, continuity and other geological characteristics of a Mineral Resource are known, estimated from specific geological knowledge, or interpreted from a well constrained and portrayed geological model. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- NI 43-101 Canadian National Instrument 43-101 a common standard for reporting of identified mineral resources and ore reserves. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Phreatic breccias Fragmental rocks formed near the Earth's surface by the interaction of hot rock and cold water, or vice versa. Commonly occur at the top of mineralized epithermal gold systems. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Radiometric Also known as gamma ray spectrometry, is the measure of natural radiation on the top 30- 45cm of the earth's surface. The abundance of the three naturally occurring radioactive elements, potassium (K), thorium (Th) and uranium (U), is proportional to the abundance of minerals containing those elements. This information can be used in mapping the surface geology including the definition of areas of potassium enrichment related to hydrothermal alteration. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Rock chip A sample of rock collected for analysis, from one or several close spaced sample points at a location. Unless otherwise stated, this type of sample is not representative of the variation in grade across the width of an ore or mineralised body and the assay results cannot be used in a Mineral Resource Estimation. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sinter Finely banded chalcedony and quartz, formed from an ancient hot spring. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Soviet The former Soviet system for classification of Classification reserves and resources, developed in 1960 and revised in 1981, which divides mineral concentrations into seven categories of three major groups, based on the level of exploration performed: explored reserves (A, B, C1), evaluated reserves (C2) and prognostic resources (P1, P2, P3). ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Soviet GKZ The former Soviet State Commission for Mineral Reserves. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Stockwork Multiple connected veins with more than one orientation, typically consisting of millimetre to centimetre thick fracture-fill veins and veinlets. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Strike length The longest horizontal dimension of an ore body or zone of mineralisation. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Vein A sheet-like body of crystallised minerals within a rock, generally forming in a discontinuity or crack between two rock masses. Economic concentrations of gold are often contained within vein minerals. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Zeolite veinlets Zeolites are hydrated aluminosilicates found in gas bubbles within basalts and in geothermal districts. They also found in the upper parts of gold-bearing epithermal systems. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

For further information please visit www.condorgold.com.

About Condor Gold plc:

Condor Gold plc was admitted to AIM on 31st May 2006. The Company is a gold exploration and development company with a focus on Central America.

Condor completed a Pre-Feasibility Study (PFS) and two Preliminary Economic Assessments (PEA) on La India Project in Nicaragua in December 2014. The PFS details an open pit gold mineral reserve of 6.9 Mt at 3.0 g/t gold for 675,000 oz gold producing 80,000 oz gold p.a. for 7 years. The PEA for the open pit only scenario details 100,000 oz gold production p.a. for 8 years whereas the PEA for a combination of open pit and underground details 140,000 oz gold production p.a. for 8 years. La India Project contains a total attributable mineral resource of 18.08 Mt at 4.0 g/t for 2.31 M oz gold and 2.68 M oz silver at 6.2 g/t to the CIM Code.

In El Salvador, Condor has an attributable 1,004,000 oz gold equivalent at 2.6 g/t JORC compliant resource. The resource calculations are compiled by independent geologists SRK Consulting (UK) Limited for Nicaragua and Ravensgate and Geosure for El Salvador.

Disclaimer

Neither the contents of the Company's website nor the contents of any website accessible from hyperlinks on the Company's website (or any other website) is incorporated into, or forms part of, this announcement.

Contacts:

Condor Gold plc

Mark Child

Executive Chairman and CEO

+44 (0) 20 7493 2784

www.condorgold.com



Beaumont Cornish Limited

Roland Cornish and James Biddle

+44 (0) 20 7628 3396



Numis Securities Limited

John Prior and James Black

+44 (0) 20 7260 1000



Farm Street Media

Simon Robinson

+44 (0) 7593 340107




LONDON (dpa-AFX) - AstraZeneca PLC (AZN.L, AZN) announced the US FDA has granted full approval for Tagrisso (osimertinib) 80mg once-daily tablets, for the treatment of patients with metastatic epidermal growth factor receptor T790M mutation-positive non-small cell lung cancer whose disease has progressed on or after an EGFR tyrosine kinase inhibitor therapy. The company said the full approval in the US is based on data from the randomised, Phase III AURA3 trial, in which Tagrisso significantly improved progression-free survival versus platinum-based doublet chemotherapy. Separately, AstraZeneca announced it has completed the agreement with TerSera Therapeutics LLC for the commercial rights to Zoladex in the US and Canada. Zoladex is an injectable luteinising hormone-releasing medicine, used to treat prostate cancer, breast cancer and certain benign gynaecological disorders. AstraZeneca has received a payment of $250 million from TerSera for the commercial rights to the medicine in the US and Canada. AstraZeneca will receive future sales-related income through milestones totalling up to $70 million, as well as recurring quarterly sales-based payments at mid-teen percent of sales. AstraZeneca will also manufacture and supply Zoladex to TerSera. 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.
The Supervisory Council of AS Tallinna Vesi approved the audited financial results for the year 2016. The financial results remained unchanged compared to the preliminary disclosure on 27th of January 2017. AS Tallinna Vesi's 2016 total sales were EUR 58,98 million, showing an increase by 5.5% or EUR 3.05 million year on year. Sales from water and wastewater services increased 1.8% or EUR 0.90 million, amounting to EUR 50.20 million. Sales of construction, design and asphalting services were EUR 4.51 million, increasing by 65.6% or EUR 1.79 million year on year. AS Tallinna Vesi's 2016 operating profit was EUR 24.63 million, decreasing by 3.7% or by 0.95 million euros compared to 2015. Increase in total sales and savings in chemicals costs are balanced by increase in other direct production and salary costs, higher construction and asphalting services related costs and continuously high legal costs related to the tariff disputes. Audited financial results for the year 2016 have been included as an attachment to current announcement. Riina Kai AS Tallinna Vesi Chief Financial Officer Ph: (+372) 62 62 262 riina.kai@tvesi.ee Attachment: https://cns.omxgroup.com/cds/DisclosureAttachmentServlet?messageAttachmentId=622881

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.
Hybrid Boat

Main Specifications of the Hybrid System]



Public Affairs Division Global Communications Department Toyota Motor Corporation Tel: +81-3-3817-9926

Toyota City, Japan, Mar 31, 2017 - (JCN Newswire) - Toyota Motor Corporation (hereinafter, Toyota) has developed Japan's first leisure craft with a parallel hybrid system. Subsequently, Toyota will conduct a feasibility study of hybrid boats from July 2018 to March 2021 in Tokyo.http://www.acnnewswire.com/topimg/Low_ToyotaHybridBoat.jpgHybrid Boat (Image)Specifically, Toyota will loan the hybrid "PONAM-28V" model to the Tokyo Metropolitan Government with no charge. In addition to its use for the maintenance of piers and other port facilities at the Port of Tokyo, the Tokyo Metropolitan Government will use the PONAM-28V for visits to Tokyo 2020 Olympic and Paralympic Games(1) venues along the Tokyo Bay waterfront by the relevant parties. In addition, the PONAM-28V will also be utilized for canal tours at the Port of Tokyo for Tokyo residents and visitors.By adopting the parallel hybrid system in a leisure craft, Toyota is striving to assure customers of the cruising range by utilizing two types of power generators-the engine and electric motor. Furthermore, the EV(Electric Vehicle) mode cruising realizes low emissions, high fuel efficiency, and low noise levels. The Tokyo Metropolitan Government will provide the hybrid boat's operational data to Toyota, to help validate the overall performance of the hybrid system, and to verify the convenience and improvement areas of hybrid boats.Toyota has thus far released the 35-foot "PONAM-35", 31-foot "PONAM-31", and 28-foot "PONAM-28V". Toyota will continue to work on its marine business, developing appealing mobility products in the nautical field so as to attain the goal of providing our customers with a fulfilling lifestyle.Main Specifications of the Hybrid Systemhttp://www.acnnewswire.com/topimg/Low_ToyotaHybridSpecs.jpg(1) Toyota is a worldwide partner of Olympic and worldwide partner of ParalympicAbout ToyotaSupported by people around the world, Toyota Motor Corporation (TSE: 7203; NYSE: TM), has endeavored since its establishment in 1937 to serve society by creating better products. As of the end of December 2013, Toyota conducts its business worldwide with 52 overseas manufacturing companies in 27 countries and regions. Toyota's vehicles are sold in more than 170 countries and regions. For more information, please visit www.toyota-global.com.Source: ToyotaContact:Copyright 2017 JCN Newswire . All rights reserved.
Joseph Hood, PR Manager Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd. Email: mhi-pr@mhi.co.jp Tel: +81-(0)3-6716-2168 Fax: +81-(0)3-6716-5860

TOKYO, Mar 31, 2017 - (JCN Newswire) - Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd. (MHI) has reached basic agreements with Imabari Shipbuilding Co., Ltd. and Namura Shipbuilding Co., Ltd. in the wake of ongoing discussions focused on forming alliances in the commercial ship business. Discussions toward concluding a similar alliance with Oshima Shipbuilding Co., Ltd. continue. The agreements are targeted at achieving sustained growth through the pursuit of mutually complementary, synergy-generating alliances while respecting each partner's independence, in an overall effort to strengthen the competitiveness of all alliance partners in the global marketplace.The newly completed basic agreements cover a variety of core issues, including: development of new ship designs and innovative technologies, sharing of designs and workforce, standardization of engineering tools and fitting equipment, and flexible application of each partner's construction capabilities. It is also expected that separate contracts will be concluded between MHI and each partner, stipulating how the alliance will be specifically applied to actual business operations.Through the conclusion of the new alliances, MHI is looking to enhance business competitiveness around its core engineering strengths cultivated over many years, particularly in the areas of energy-saving and environmental technology. In the process, the Company aims to further boost the presence of Japanese shipbuilders in the dramatically changing global shipbuilding industry.About Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd.Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd. (MHI), headquartered in Tokyo, is one of the world's leading industrial firms with 80,000 group employees and annual consolidated revenues of around 38 billion U.S. dollars. For more than 130 years, the company has channeled big thinking into innovative and integrated solutions that move the world forward. MHI owns a unique business portfolio covering land, sea, sky and even space. MHI delivers innovative and integrated solutions across a wide range of industries from commercial aviation and transportation to power plants and gas turbines, and from machinery and infrastructure to integrated defense and space systems.For more information, please visit the MHI Group website: http://www.mhi-global.com.For Technology, Trends and Tangents, visit MHI's new online media SPECTRA: http://spectra.mhi.com.Source: Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd.Contact:Copyright 2017 JCN Newswire . All rights reserved.
OCO Global is delighted to announce the acquisition of the British Centres for Business (BCB) from the British Business Groups (BBG) of Abu Dhabi and Dubai the Northern Emirates. The BCB will now become part of OCO's growing international network with continued focus on helping UK businesses access the growing opportunities in the region. OCO also plans to scale the Dubai operation to provide a broader suite of services across its international client base, through the parallel establishment of its own Dubai branch with the BCB.

OCO's decision to establish in Dubai is closely linked with business sentiment and growing interest in the region for both trade and investment, especially in the wake of Brexit. Commenting on the decision, OCO's CEO, Mark O'Connell, said,

"We have already seen evidence in the last six months of British firms taking an increased interest in the region to diversify their geographical spread and take advantage of the buoyant and growing demands of the region. Our decision has not been determined solely by Brexit however as we work with dynamic and fast growing SMEs on an international basis. The UAE has been a significant trade/logistical hub between east and west for many years. Increasingly the Emirates has asserted its influence on global trade with its ambitious foreign direct investment attraction policies, development of world class infrastructure, and Dubai offers a model of stability and good governance in a challenging region of the world. This combination makes it a very attractive option for ambitious companies."

As well as helping international companies establish in Dubai, Mr. O'Connell also outlined the opportunity to work with regional Governments to assist with their economic development efforts.

"Many of the Middle East economies are dialing up economic development policies to attract new investment, reduce dependence on petrochemical industries, and offer their young educated people opportunities to work for international firms. We hope to support this journey and are already working with the governments of Ras al Khaimah, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia to advance these ambitions. In addition, many of our US and European based Government clients are also already heavily committed to FDI attraction from the region so we anticipate the Dubai operation will also help to better service their needs.

The BCB was established three years ago with seed funding from the Department of International Trade (DIT) under the joint ownership of the two UAE BBGs and the staunch support of Dubai Government, through Dubai FDI. Building on best practice frameworks and the service offerings of DIT, the organisation has already supported hundreds of UK businesses providing a unique market-entry incubation platform and further trade services including research, commercial orientation, visit support etc. This acquisition also underlines how the public private partnership approach can effectively drive trade services.

Joe Hepworth who leads the Dubai operation commented, "The BCB evolved quickly into a sustainable commercial independent entity with great support and stewardship from DIT and the BBGs. We will continue to offer clients high quality services in the region as part of the OCO network and we look forward to continued growth and expansion."

ENDS

Notes to Editors

1) OCO Global is a leading specialist provider of Trade and Investment services including Market Entry Support, business intelligence for Trade and Investment, trade mission support, business development, advisory, trends analysis and software solutions. Headquartered in Northern Ireland, OCO has offices in leading markets globally including UK, Germany, France, Japan, UAE and the US. OCO's clients include leading national, state and regional economic development organizations as well as private companies seeking to enter new markets or grow their domestic base.

2) The British Business Group in the UAE has two branches, in Dubai and the Northern Emirates and in Abu Dhabi. Together they actively promote business between the UK and the UAE by providing a forum for the resident and visiting British business community through regular meetings, special interest groups, presentations and social events. In particular, they help UK companies identify new business opportunities in the UAE. Working closely with the DIT teams at the British Embassies in both locations (the UAE is unique in having two British Embassies) they provide a valuable and dynamic bridge with aspiring new entrants to the market, by providing advice and help to British trade missions, business groups and visitors to the country. Together both BBGs in the UAE have more than 3,000 members and their work is guided and supported by Committees and administrative offices in both centres which manage a busy calendar of networking activities for members and visitors. The BBG in Abu Dhabi produces a magazine every quarter about new developments and business successes, which is distributed to members and other stakeholders in the growth of the UK's trade with the UAE, which is available on its website. See www.bbgdubai.org and www.britishbusiness.org.

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170331005059/en/

Contacts:

OCO Global

therese.mccrory@ocoglobal.com

+44 28 90 241849
BRUSSELS (dpa-AFX) - At 3.55 am ET Friday, Germany's Federal Labor Agency is set to release March unemployment data. The number of people out of work is forecast to decline 10,000 after falling 15,000 in February. Ahead of the data, the euro traded mixed against the other major currencies. While the euro held steady against the yen, it advanced against the rest of major counterparts. The euro was valued at 1.0691 against the greenback, 119.57 against the yen, 1.0695 against the franc and 0.8583 against the pound as of 3:50 am ET. 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.
HAMBURG, Germany, March 31, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --

American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Bestows 2017 Team Science Award to a Renowned Team of Investigators who Pioneered the Science of Liquid Biopsy: Luis A. Diaz, Nishant Agrawal, Chetan Bettegowda, Frank Diehl, Peter Gibbs, Stanley R. Hamilton, Ralph H. Hruban, Hartmut Juhl, Isaac Kinde, Kenneth Kinzler, Martin Nowak, Nickolas Papadopoulos, David Sidransky, Jeanne Tie, Victor E. Velculescu, Bert Vogelstein

Indivumed GmbH announces today that its Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Hartmut Juhl, MD, surgical oncologist and cancer researcher has been recognized by the AACR for his participation in the development and commercialization of the field of Liquid Biopsy research.

In 2008, following a five-year collaboration with Dr. Bert Vogelstein and his team at Johns Hopkins University, Indivumed, the German biotechnology company founded by Dr. Juhl, partnered with Dr. Vogelstein's team to support the development of the BEAMing technology which allowed for the first time detection of mutations in circulating tumor DNA. Together, they founded Inostics GmbH in Hamburg, Germany. Inostic's core mission was to commercialize 'BEAMing' technology, the ground-breaking platform developed by Vogelstein and his team to advance the field of Liquid Biopsy. In 2013, Indivumed sold 100% of its shares of Inostics and its U.S.-based subsidiary to Sysmex Corporation, headquartered in Kobe, Japan.

Juhl said of the partnership with Vogelstein and his team, "The transatlantic cooperation between top researchers at The Johns Hopkins University and Indivumed was unprecedented. The outcome was to offer with Inostics a full range of preclinical and clinical research services to pharmaceutical companies and the healthcare community and promoted the development of individualized cancer therapies." Juhl went on to say that, "Partnering with Dr. Vogelstein and his research group gave Indivumed, the opportunity to help forge an entirely new field of science that is helping to unlock the molecular secrets of cancer one patient at a time."

According to the AACR award announcement, "The AACR recognizes the team for pioneering the concept of utilizing cancer mutations as biomarkers in the context of liquid biopsies. This remarkable collaborative effort, which has spanned two decades of research, has led to dramatic technological advancements in detecting cancer and defined a new field in oncology. Furthermore, these studies have contributed to the development of an FDA-approved DNA-based screening test for cancer, which is expected to revolutionize our approach to colorectal cancer screening in the next decade."

The AACR announcement went on to state, "This multidisciplinary team pioneered the concept of 'liquid biopsies', i.e., the use of somatic mutations as exquisitely specific biomarkers for solid tumors. This work, which started in the 1990's by team members Vogelstein, Sidranksy and Kinzler, includes the initial proof-of-principle studies, the development of advanced technologies that made it feasible and the demonstration of its value for research and clinical practice."

The team members will receive their awards at the Opening Ceremony, which will be held Sunday, April 2, 2017, in Washington, DC in the Washington Convention Center.

About AACR Team Science Award

The AACR Team Science Award has been established by the American Association for Cancer Research and Eli Lilly and Company to acknowledge and catalyze the growing importance of interdisciplinary teams to the understanding of cancer and/or the translation of research discoveries into clinical cancer applications.

The AACR Team Science Award recognizes an outstanding interdisciplinary research team for its innovative and meritorious science that has advanced or likely will advance our fundamental knowledge of cancer or a team that has applied existing knowledge to advance the detection, diagnosis, prevention, or treatment of cancer.

About Indivumed GmbH

INDIVUMED, an ISO-certified global oncology research company based in Hamburg, Germany, has established the world's leading Cancer Database and biobank, retaining unique patterns of biomolecules such as RNA, DNA, and proteins as they existed in the human body. This Cancer Database makes possible multi-omics capabilities that will allow for characterization of samples and data such as whole genome gene expression analysis, expression analysis of cancer relevant proteins, expression analysis of cancer relevant phosphoproteins and bioinformatics solutions for integrating molecular, biological and clinical information.

Indivumed's products and services allow for in-depth understanding of the underlying mechanisms of a patient's cancer, addressing important demands in translational research and molecular diagnostics to support implementation of personalized healthcare.

For more information, please visit http://www.indivumed.com.



Media Contact:

Hartmut Juhl, MD

Founder and Chief Executive Officer

Indivumed GmbH

+49-40-413383-0

press@indivumed.com


MetalNRG plc

"MetalNRG" or the "Company"

Broker Appointment

MetalNRG (LON:MNRG), the London NEX Exchange quoted natural resource investing company, is pleased to announce the appointment of SI Capital Limited as the Company's corporate broker with immediate effect. MetalNRG also announces, pursuant to the Strategic Financing announced on 20 March 2017, the issue and allotment of and the admission of the new placing and option conversion Ordinary Shares to trading on the NEX Exchange Growth Market.

Paul Johnson Chief Executive Officer of MetalNRG commented: "This Strategic Financing empowers the Company to take bold steps forward and I look forward to delivering news to the market which articulates publicly the work we have been undertaking and the nature of the opportunities we have been assessing.

The appointment of SI Capital is particularly notable. Many investors are increasingly concerned that quoted companies choose their brokers carefully and in particular ensure that the brokers they appoint are fully aligned with existing shareholder interests. In my work I have engaged numerous times with SI Capital over recent years and without question I view their corporate team with the greatest respect. They are highly professional, unquestioningly capable and through this fundraise for a NEX Exchange company, have demonstrated they have material fundraising capability.

NEX Exchange is also developing rapidly, and it is a significant part of my role to demonstrate this NEX quoted share is able to trade in a liquid fashion enabling investors to buy and sell on the market with relative ease. The NEX Exchange team are taking positive steps to further support liquidity and that, combined with corporate proactivity of quoted companies will make NEX a strong competitor to other UK and overseas exchanges and one where growth companies can thrive."

Appointment of SI Capital Limited

The Placing was arranged on MetalNRG's behalf by the corporate broking team of SI Capital Limited which has been appointed as the Company's broker with immediate effect. The Board of MetalNRG look forward to working with SI Capital in the development of the Company and the expansion of its shareholder base.

Issue and Allotment of new Ordinary Shares and admission to trading on NEX Exchange Growth Market

On 20 March 2017, MetalNRG announced a strategic financing by way of a placing and subscription ('Placing') of 59,000,000 new Ordinary Shares ('Placing Shares') and the issue of new Ordinary Shares pursuant to the exercise of 9,500,000 Directors' options ('Option Exercise Shares'). As a result, a total of 68,500,000 new Ordinary Shares have now been issued and allotted and will be admitted to trading on NEX Exchange Growth Market.

Each of the Placing Shares have been issued and allotted with a half warrant to subscribe for one new Ordinary Share. Each of the Option Exercise Shares have been issued and allotted with a bonus option which can be exercised at any time up to 7 November 2019 at an exercise price of 0.75p.

Contact Details:

MetalNRG plc

Paul Johnson (Chief Executive Officer) +44 (0) 7766 465617

Cairn Financial Advisers LLP

James Caithie/Liam Murray +44 (0) 207 213 0880

Notes for Editors:

MetalNRG is quoted on the NEX Exchange Growth Market in London with the stock code MNRG and is a natural resource investing company.

NEX Exchange:

Investors wishing to consider trading in NEX Exchange quoted shares can access this market from numerous brokers, a full list of which can be accessed through the following link:

http://www.nexexchange.com/for-investors/find-a-broker/

The list accessed through the link above includes certain brokers offering online trading of NEX Exchange quoted shares.

The Investing Policy of the Company is as follows:

The Company's proposed new Investing Policy is to invest in and/or acquire companies and/or projects within the natural resources and/or energy sector with potential for growth and value creation, over the medium to long term. The Company will also consider opportunities in other related sectors if the Board considers there is an opportunity to generate an attractive return for Shareholders. This will include natural resource technologies and fintech opportunities offering leverage to resource identification, processing, recording, storage and trading businesses.

Where appropriate, the Board may seek to invest in businesses where it may influence the business at a board level, add their expertise to the management of the business, and utilise their significant industry relationships.

The Company's interests in a proposed investment and/or acquisition may range from a minority position to full ownership and may comprise one investment or multiple investments. The proposed investments may be in either quoted or unquoted companies; be made by direct acquisitions or farm-ins; and may be in companies, partnerships, earn-in joint ventures, debt or other loan structures, joint ventures or direct or indirect interests in assets or projects.

The Board may focus on investments where intrinsic value can be achieved from the restructuring of investments or merger of complementary businesses. The Board expects that investments will typically be held for the medium to long term, although short term disposal of assets cannot be ruled out if there is an opportunity to generate an attractive return for Shareholders. The Board will place no minimum or maximum limit on the length of time that any investment may be held. The Company may be both an active and a passive investor depending on the nature of the individual opportunity.

Where the Company builds a portfolio of related assets it is possible that there may be cross-holdings between such assets. The Company does not currently intend to fund any investments with debt or other borrowings, but may do so if appropriate. Investments in early stage assets are expected to be mainly in the form of equity, with debt potentially being raised later to fund the development of such assets. Investments in later stage assets are more likely to include an element of debt to equity gearing. The Board may also offer new Ordinary Shares by way of consideration as well as cash, thereby helping to preserve the Company's cash for working capital and as a reserve against unforeseen contingencies including, for example, delays in collecting accounts receivable, unexpected changes in the economic environment and operational problems.

The Board will conduct initial due diligence appraisals of potential business or projects and, where they believe further investigation is warranted, intend to appoint appropriately qualified persons to assist. The Proposed Board believes its expertise will enable it to determine quickly which opportunities could be viable and so progress quickly to formal due diligence. The Company will not have a separate investment manager. The Company proposes to carry out a comprehensive and thorough project review process in which all material aspects of a potential project or business will be subject to rigorous due diligence, as appropriate.
Fiskars Corporation Stock Exchange Release March 31, 2017 at 12:00 a.m. EET



Fiskars appoints Paul Tonnesen as President, SBU Functional and member of the Executive Leadership Team



Fiskars has today appointed Paul Tonnesen, MBA, B.Sc. (Marketing) as President, SBU Functional and a member of the Executive Leadership Team. Paul Tonnesen will report to Fiskars' Interim President and CEO Teemu Kangas-Karki. Paul Tonnesen has been with Fiskars since 2007, and in addition to his new role, he also continues as President, Functional Americas.



"Fiskars has two Strategic Business Units - Living and Functional - that operate globally. Paul brings to the position years of knowledge of the North American market, a strong customer focus and passion for Fiskars to succeed. He has a proven track record in driving the business in the North American market and is well positioned to lead the SBU Functional and accelerate our global growth", said Teemu Kangas-Karki, Interim President and CEO of Fiskars Corporation.



Fiskars has established an SBU-led organizational structure and a global supply chain with the aim to leverage the full potential of its strong brands, build company-wide capabilities and increase speed and alignment. From January 2017 onwards, SBU Functional is comprised of the Fiskars, Gerber and Gilmour brands. Teemu Kangas-Karki previously held the position of President, SBU Functional in addition to his role as the President and CEO as well as Chief Operating Officer.



"Our brands are present in people's everyday lives, helping in tasks in and around the home. I'm honoured to start leading SBU Functional, and continue to build our strong brands", said Paul Tonnesen. "We have a great opportunity to expand our market share, increase competitiveness and work together across regions to make the everyday extraordinary", continued Paul Tonnesen.



A CV and a photo of Paul Tonnesen is available at: https://www.fiskarsgroup.com/investors/corporate-governance/management/executive -leadership-team and https://www.fiskarsgroup.com/media/image-bank



FISKARS CORPORATION



Teemu Kangas-Karki Interim President and CEO



Media and investor contacts: VP, Corporate Communications and Sustainability Maija Taimi, tel. +358 204 39 5031, communications@fiskars.com



Fiskars - Making the everyday extraordinary Fiskars serves consumers and customers around the world with globally recognized brands including Fiskars, Gerber, Iittala, Royal Copenhagen, Waterford, and Wedgwood. Building on our mission to create a family of iconic lifestyle brands, Fiskars' vision is to create a positive, lasting impact on our quality of life. Please visit www.fiskarsgroup.com for more information.



Attachment:

https://cns.omxgroup.com/cds/DisclosureAttachmentServlet?messageAttachmentId=623081

Kostenloser Wertpapierhandel auf Smartbroker.de
31 March 2017

Clear Leisure plc

("the Company")

Reschedule of Eufingest Loans Repayment Dates

The Board is pleased to announce that the Company has reached an agreement with Eufingest S.A. ("Eufingest"), whereby the repayment dates of EUR 1,271,999 outstanding loans, including interests matured to date, have been rescheduled.

The facilities are now repayable by 31 December 2017 and carry an interest of 2.5%. At any time before 31 December 2017, Eufingest may convert the outstanding balance at the conversion rates previously agreed.

Eufingest is the beneficial holder of more than 10 per cent of the ordinary share capital of the Company. Eufingest is therefore a "related party" for the purposes of the AIM Rules.

The Directors of the Company (each of whom is independent from Eufingest), having consulted with the Company's NOMAD, consider the terms of the transaction to be fair and reasonable insofar as shareholders are concerned.

Eufingest, as the largest shareholder, remains fully supportive of the Board's efforts to realise value from its investments.

-ends-

For further information please contact:

Clear Leisure plc +39 335 296573

Francesco Gardin, CEO and Executive Chairman

ZAI Corporate Finance (Nominated Adviser) +44 (0)20 7060 2220

Tim Cofman/Jamie Spotswood/Peter Trevelyan-Clark

Peterhouse Corporate Finance (Broker) +44 (0) 20 7469 0935

Lucy Williams / Heena Karani

Leander (Financial PR) +44 (0) 7795 168 157

Christian Taylor-Wilkinson

About Clear Leisure Plc

Clear Leisure plc (AIM: CLP) is an AIM listed investment company with a portfolio of companies primarily encompassing the leisure and real estate sectors mainly in Italy. The focus of management is to pursue the monetisation of all of the Company's existing assets, through selected realisations, court-led recoveries of misappropriated assets and substantial debt-recovery processes. For further information, please visit,www.clearleisure.com
MADRID, Spain, March 31, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --

The cybersecurity and Network Traffic Analysis (NTA) platform, redborder, already successful in Spain, is joining EIT Digital's Accelerator to expand its innovative business into other EU markets.

(Logo: http://mma.prnewswire.com/media/483248/eit_Digital_Logo.jpg )



Redborder is an Open Source, Big Data cybersecurity, and traffic analysis solution accompanied by a set of active probes managed in an integrated manner. This platform unifies the different data sources provided by redborder Apps and Probes, combining Network Traffic Analysis and cybersecurity, enabling easy creation ofcustomizable dashboards and reportsto analyze network usage andmanage security policies. Also, it provides real-time analytics and cybersecurity operations for ICT service providers and large companies throughout all industries, all in a single platform.

Deployed on premise or used as a cloud service, redborder's solution offers a series of advantages compared with other products in the market such as its Open Source API for Community Building nature or the fact that it has a fully scalable Big Data distributed processing solution on cybersecurity. It improves device data losses efficiency and streamline operations on operational efficiency in multivendor network monitoring.

Redborder's innovation strategy is orientated to the continuous improvement of the product features based on the market requirement so it may adapt to the new needs and trends such as IoT or connected cars. The company's clients include: Banco Santander, Nextell, Teldat, and Mobile World Congress and their target markets are the United States and most of European countries; EIT Digital Accelerator will provide redborder the support of it's pan-European business community and ecosystem to reach these markets.

EIT Digital Madrid Node Director, Manuel Hermenegildo, asserted, "We are very proud to have redborder on-board; they are already one of the leading companies in the Spanish NTA market and we will help them reach the top clients Europe-wide. We are also happy to continue expanding EIT Digital into the technological Basque and Andalusian network."

Redborder's CEO, Jesus de la Maza, said,"I think that our collaboration with EIT Digital will help the acceleration of our business growth in international markets, which are demanding validated products on strategic sectors in the area of cybersecurity and Big Data analytics. We also expect to multiply our capacity to access those markets and the volume of value opportunities for which redborder represents an integrated and scalable solution."

Redborder will integrate EIT Digital's Digital Infrastructure Action Line which is the core enabler of the digital transformation by providing secure, robust, responsive and intelligent communications and computation facilities.

About EIT Digital

EIT Digital is a leading European open innovation organisation that brings together a partnership of over 130 top European corporations, SMEs, start-ups, universities and research institutes. EIT Digital invests in strategic areas to accelerate market uptake of research-based digital technologies and to bring entrepreneurial talent and leadership to Europe.

EIT Digital is a Knowledge and Innovation Community of theEuropean Institute of Innovation and Technology(EIT). EIT Digital headquarters are in Brussels with co-location centres in Berlin, Budapest, Eindhoven, Helsinki, London, Madrid, Paris, Stockholm, Trento and a hub in Silicon Valley.



Media Contact:

Dr Edna Ayme-Yahil

Head of Communications

EIT Digital

M: +33-6-44-09-19-28

E: edna.ayme@eitdigital.eu

W: http://www.eitdigital.eu


BIELEFELD, Germany, March 31, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --

On 22 February 2017, itelligence AG, the globally successful consulting company for SMEs and large corporations, was granted the status of SAP Hybris Gold Partner, one of only 33 companies to receive this accolade. itelligence achieved the Gold Partner qualification among other things because of its large number of Certified Professionals for SAP Hybris solutions, and the business managers in the NTT DATA group (Since 2013, itelligence AG has been a wholly-owned subsidiary of NTT DATA EUROPE GmbH & Co.KG.) who have strong expertise in the SAP for Commerce solution portfolio. In total, over 180 experts in SAP Hybris solutions are involved in customer projects on behalf of itelligence and NTT DATA around the world. One of the team's main strengths is its know-how in the integration of SAP Hybris solutions with the SAP solution portfolio.

(Logo: http://mma.prnewswire.com/media/484902/Norbert_Rotter__CEO__itelligence_AG.jpg )



E-commerce is a highly-topical issue for many users as processes are being digitised in every industry. The experts from itelligence provide support to companies with their e-commerce projects, particularly where these involve the integration of processes with people across company boundaries. Because this type of project almost always has an impact on existing industry-specific, commercial and logistical business and IT processes, customers typically need not only technological expertise but also the deep experience of certified consultants to support their vision and commercial success.

Norbert Rotter, CEO, itelligence AG: "We are particularly proud of the SAP Hybris Gold Partner status, which confirms our global expertise in SAP Hybris solutions. We shall utilise the opportunities offered by the Gold Partner status to the benefit of our customers, further enhancing the global character of our business with SAP Hybris."

The experts from itelligence support users with developing comprehensive solutions based on SAP Hybris solutions for end-to-end customer care in an e-commerce environment. The solutions improve the interactive experience of business and private customers from product search all the way to customer service, on any device.

About itelligence AG

itelligence is one of the leading international full-service providers of solutions in support of SAP solutions, employing about 6.000 highly qualified employees in 24 countries. As a frequently awarded SAP partner, itelligence is an SAP Hybris Gold partner and global value-added reseller. itelligence is an SAP-certified provider of cloud services, SAP-certified provider of hosting services for SAP HANA Enterprise Cloud and an SAP platinum partner. itelligence realizes complex projects in the SAP solution-based environment worldwide. The company's services in support of SAP solutions range from consulting and licensing to application management services and hosting services to proprietary industry-specific solutions. In 2016, itelligence generated total sales of EUR 778 million.

SAP, Hybris and SAP products and services mentioned herein as well as their respective logos are trademarks or registered trademarks of SAP SE (or an SAP affiliate company) in Germany and other countries. See http://www.sap.com/corporate-en/legal/copyright/index.epx for additional trademark information and notices.

For media relations please contact:

Head of Corporate Public Relations itelligence AG

Silvia Dicke

itelligence AG

Konigsbreede 1

D-33605 Bielefeld

E: silvia.dicke@itelligence.de

T: +49-(0)-521 / 9-14-48 - 107



W: http://itelligencegroup.com/de/
Release no. 9/2017



Statement of transactions by members of the Board of Directors and senior management and their related parties in shares issued by Columbus A/S and related securities, cf. section 28a of the Danish Securities Trading Act.



Name: Jrgen Cadovius Senior management employee's position: Deputy Chairman of the Board ISIN code: DK0010268366 Type of security: Shares Nature of transaction: Subscription Trading date: 31 March 2017 Number of securities traded: 60,000 Market value (DKK) of securities traded: 470,400



Name: Thomas Honore Senior management employee's position: CEO & President ISIN code: DK0010268366 Type of security: Shares Nature of transaction: Subscription Trading date: 31 March 2017 Number of securities traded: 915,200 Market value (DKK) of securities traded: 3,596,736



Name: Thomas Honore Senior management employee's position: CEO & President ISIN code: DK0010268366 Type of security: Shares Nature of transaction: Subscription Trading date: 31 March 2017 Number of securities traded: 90,000 Market value (DKK) of securities traded: 490,500



Name: Hans Henrik Thrane Senior management employee's position: Group CFO ISIN code: DK0010268366 Type of security: Shares Nature of transaction: Subscription Trading date: 31 March 2017 Number of securities traded: 80,000 Market value (DKK) of securities traded: 314,400



Name: Hans Henrik Thrane Senior management employee's position: Group CFO ISIN code: DK0010268366 Type of security: Shares Nature of transaction: Subscription Trading date: 31 March 2017 Number of securities traded: 90,000 Market value (DKK) of securities traded: 490,500





Ib Kune Thomas Honore Chairman CEO & President Columbus A/S Columbus A/S For further information, please contact: CEO & PresidentThomas Honore, T: +45 70 20 50 00.



Translation: In the event of any inconsistency between this document and the Danish language version, the Danish language version shall be the governing version.



Attachment:

https://cns.omxgroup.com/cds/DisclosureAttachmentServlet?messageAttachmentId=623135

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Frankfurt am Main (ots) -- EUR 16.1 billion new commitment volume - EUR 484 million contribution to KfW's consolidated earnings reaffirms status as source of earnings for the Group - KfW IPEX-Bank GmbH, as a legally independent and separate reporting entity, records pre-tax profit from operating activities of EUR 108 million - 2017 outlook: focus on syndicate financing, selectively adding to product portfolio, maintaining appropriate risk/return ratioKfW IPEX-Bank, a wholly-owned subsidiary of KfW which is responsible for the Group's Export and Project Finance business sector, today presented its figures for the past financial year in Frankfurt am Main. In 2016, the specialist bank provided its international customers with new loans totalling EUR 16.1 billion. The commitment volume in its original lending business stood at EUR 14.4 billion (2015: EUR 17.4 billion). In addition, there were new commitments of around EUR 1.7 billion (2015: EUR 2.2 billion) for bank refinancing under the CIRR ship financing scheme, an agency business managed on behalf of the German Federal Government.Following the exceptional year that was 2015, when an accumulation of extraordinary transactions and market developments led to a particularly high new business volume, the new commitment volume stabilised at a normal level as seen in previous years. 'The bank consistently prioritised business quality in the reporting year, thereby creating a balanced risk/return ratio,' stated Klaus R. Michalak, CEO of KfW IPEX-Bank. 'We successfully helped German and European companies to compete in a challenging market environment by providing tailor-made financing, and in doing so made a contribution to securing German and European economic strength, employment and growth.'With a contribution of EUR 484 million to KfW's consolidated earnings, KfW IPEX-Bank reaffirmed its status as one of KfW Group's main sources of earnings. The business sector once again played an active role in securing KfW's long-term promotional capacity.The operating result of the Export and Project Finance business sector, for which KfW IPEX-Bank is responsible, was EUR 645 million, down slightly on the previous year. It mainly comprised net interest income and net commission income, less administrative expense, which rose slightly in the reporting year. The level of risk provisions was assessed conservatively in the reporting year in order to cover all recognisable risks adequately, meaning that the overall result from ordinary business activities stood at EUR 499 million.KfW IPEX-Bank GmbH is a legally independent and separate reporting entity which performs all E&P market transactions. The bank reported a solid pre-tax profit from operating activities of EUR 108 million. The volume of lending in the Export and Project Finance business sector as of 31 December 2016 was EUR 69.4 billion (year-end 2015: EUR 69.4 billion).2017 outlook: KfW IPEX-Bank aims to reinforce its position as a dependable specialist financier and stable partner to key industries that are vital to the German and European economies. The bank is therefore maintaining its sales and marketing activities at a high level across all sector departments and regions. 'We will continue to focus on syndicate financing and provide the debt capital required for large projects in collaboration with other market participants - both German and international banks, as well as institutional investors and supranational development institutions,' stated Michalak.By selectively adding to its product portfolio and moderately expanding its network of foreign representative offices, KfW IPEX-Bank aims to build on existing customer relationships and tap into new customer groups for financings in the business sector. The bank's strategic focus is also designed to generate a steady share of new business that contributes to environmental and climate protection. Based on growing competition and a portfolio management strategy geared towards quality, KfW IPEX-Bank's target for new commitments in the 2017 financial year is EUR 15.9 billion.KfW IPEX-Bank's Annual Report 2016, including the 2016 Corporate Governance Report, which KfW IPEX-Bank has voluntarily undertaken to publish as part of KfW Group, is available to download on the Internet at http://www.kfw-ipex-bank.de.**The full press release including an overview table of the key financial figures can be found under: https://www.kfw-ipex-bank.de/International-financing/KfW-IPEX-Bank/About KfW IPEX-Bank GmbHWithin KfW Group, KfW IPEX-Bank is responsible for international project and export finance. Its function of providing financing to boost the German and European economy is derived from the legal mandate assigned to KfW. It offers medium and long-term financing to support key export industries, to develop economic and social infrastructure and to fund environmental and climate protection projects. KfW IPEX-Bank operates as a legally independent group subsidiary and plays a major role in fulfilling KfW's promotional mission. It is represented in the most important economic and financial centres across the globe.Originaltext: KfW IPEX-Bank digital press kits: http://www.presseportal.de/nr/69662 press kits via RSS: http://www.presseportal.de/rss/pm_69662.rss2Pressekontakt: KfW IPEX-Bank GmbH, Palmengartenstrae 5-9, 60325 Frankfurt Pressestelle: Thomas Krick, E-Mail: thomas.krick@kfw.de Tel. 069 7431 8454, Fax: 069 7431-9409, E-Mail: info@kfw-ipex-bank.de, Internet: www.kfw-ipex-bank.de
VALLETTA, Malta, March 31, 207 /PRNewswire/ --

The Swedish Governments 'Gambling License Enquiry' today presented its proposal to re-regulate Sweden's online gambling market. The proposal establishes necessary conditions within which operators can seek a Swedish license. The proposal also sets a goal that at least 9 out of 10 players are choosing to play with Swedish licenced operators.The political process must be accelerated if this reform is to become reality.

"We welcome the political consensus on the need for a modern gambling legislation, and the commitment that a new law will be in place before the next general election. For re-regulation to be successful there is no room for major changes in the investigator's proposal. Delays will endanger the whole reform, "says Peter Alling, Head of Public Affairs Nordics at Kindred Group (formerly Unibet Group).

Government investigator, Mr. Hakan Hallstedt, proposes a Swedish gambling market in three parts, with commercial gambling operators getting the opportunity to obtain licenses to provide betting, online casino and online bingo. The investigator sets a target of (at least) 90 percent of Swedish customers choosing to play with online gambling companies within the Swedish licensing system (a process known as channelisation). High channelisation makes the system trustworthy and enables the Swedish regulatory authorities to ensure games offered in Sweden take place in a safe and secure environment.

"We know that any attempt to regulate prices, limit the choice of games, or charge high taxes will have a negative effect on channelisation," says Peter Alling.

With a channelisation goal of at least 90 percent, but preferably 95 percent, the licensing system will be credible and efficient on responsibility measures, including the proposed system for individual voluntary suspension from all gambling companies. In order to achieve that level, as many companies as possible must apply for a license in Sweden, and for that to happen there can be no uncertainties.

For more information, please contact:

Peter Alling,

Head of Public Affairs Nordic,

Phone: 0722-50-52-87,

E-mail: peter.alling@kindredgroup.com

This information was brought to you by Cision http://news.cision.com

http://news.cision.com/kindred-group/r/kindred-group-calls-for-swift-processing-of-swedish-gambling-reform,c2229117

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SINGAPORE, March 31, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- FrieslandCampina, one of the world's leading dairy companies, today announced that it has won the CSR Leadership Award (Silver) at the 9th Annual Global CSR Awards 2017.

Given to an organisation that has made significant contributions to the promotion of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), the award honours FrieslandCampina's work in ensuring sustainability throughout its value chain, and for the execution of its signature CSR initiative, the Dairy Development Programme (DDP).

Since the establishment of the DDP in 2012, the programme has reached over 45,000 smallholder farmers directly and indirectly in Asia, empowering them with the resources to run their businesses sustainably, as well as increase their yield and output through capacity building efforts such as training and the provision of access to inclusive finance.

Commenting on the award win, Mr. Piet Hilarides, Chief Operating Officer, Consumer Products Asia, FrieslandCampina said: "This CSR Leadership Award is an affirmation and reminder of the important responsibility that we as a corporation have in creating shared value for the communities in which we live and operate in.

"We are humbled and grateful to all our partners for their constant support of our DDP initiatives to ensure that smallholder farmers around the region continue to benefit from the programme and are able to make a good living now and for generations to come."

The CSR Leadership Award was presented at a ceremony held yesterday evening as part of the 9th Annual Global CSR Summit and Awards in Langkawi, Malaysia. The awards honour companies for outstanding, innovative and world-class programmes and projects that demonstrate an on-going commitment to ethical values, a respect for communities and the environment in the way it does business.

For more information, please contact:

Media Contacts

FrieslandCampina Spurwing Communications Ada Wong Stephanie Tan / Eoin Ee Head of Public Affairs and Communications, Asia T: +65 6340 7287 T: +65 6850 7931 Email: FC@spurwingcomms.com Email: Ada.Wong@frieslandcampina.com



About Royal FrieslandCampina

Every day Royal FrieslandCampina provides millions of consumers all over the world with food that is rich in valuable nutrients. With annual revenue of 11 billion euros, FrieslandCampina is one of the world's largest dairy companies, supplying consumer and professional products, as well as ingredients and half-finished products to manufacturers of infant & toddler nutrition, the food industry and the pharmaceutical sector around the world. FrieslandCampina has offices in 33 countries and over 22,000 employees, and its products are available in more than 100 countries. The Company is fully owned by Zuivelcooperatie FrieslandCampina U.A, with almost 20,000 member dairy farmers in the Netherlands, Germany and Belgium -- making it one of the world's largest dairy cooperatives.

For more information please visit: www.frieslandcampina.com.

About FrieslandCampina Consumer Products Asia

FrieslandCampina Consumer Products Asia comprises of operating companies that are active in the consumer products segment in Asia. Over the last 90 years, FrieslandCampina's consumer products brands have acquired market leading positions in many countries across the region. The Company has expanded its range of products to include: milk powder, condensed milk, infant and children's nutrition, dairy drinks, yoghurt and dessert. The Company's leading brands include: Dutch Lady, Foremost, and Frisian Flag.

FrieslandCampina Consumer Products Asia has over 6,000 employees working in nine markets across the region: Hong Kong, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, Pakistan, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam. As one of the region's largest dairy companies, FrieslandCampina spreads the goodness of dairy by actively contributing to food and nutrition security initiatives across the region, and is committed to being a responsible business with the goal of creating a sustainable future for the business and communities that it serves.

For more information please visit: www.frieslandcampina.com/en/countries/frieslandcampina-asia
KUALA LUMPUR,Malaysia, March 31, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Yang Amat Mulia Tunku Laxamana Tunku Dato' Seri Utama Naquiyuddin Tuanku Ja'afar recently celebrated his 70th birthday, and as one of the most prominent and influential members of the Asia Plantation Capital Board of Directors, was feted with panache and in customary style.

Tunku Naquiyuddin has long been a passionate and committed advocate of sustainability, environmental awareness and social responsibility - core tenets in Asia Plantation Capital's corporate ethos - and joined the Board of Directors as a former high-level diplomat and a well-respected businessman with a wide range of interests and considerable expertise.

Asia Plantation Capital was honoured to be able to join in the celebrations of Tunku Naquiyuddin's 70th birthday at a glittering event held in the Shangri-La Hotel, Kuala Lumpur, where guests embraced the theme of the night with gusto. Drawing inspiration from Francis Ford Coppola's multi-Oscar-winning film 'The Godfather', and Mario Puzo's novel of the same name, everyone gathered in their 'Mafia-chic' finery.

Royal families in Malaysia were well represented among the guests, as were dignitaries from many walks of life - reflecting the popularity, charm and inclusiveness of one of the country's most popular Princes. Also present was Asia Plantation Capital Berhad's CEO, Steve Watts, who was delighted to be able to represent the company at such an auspicious gathering.

"Everyone at Asia Plantation Capital wishes Yang Amat Mulia Tunku Naquiyuddin a very happy birthday," he said," and we hope that he and his family will continue to be blessed with good health, happiness, joy and success."

Tunku Naquiyuddin was presented with a very special birthday gift, in the form a bespoke, original and utterly unique, luxury fragrance - commissioned by Asia Plantation Capital, and created by Fragrance Du Bois' Perfume Specialist, Mathilde Haguier. Named 'Minangkabau' - reflecting the people, culture, language and architecture of Tunku Naquiyuddin's home state of Negeri Sembilan - the fragrance is a delightful melange of superb ingredients, including 100% pure, organic and sustainably produced Oud, sourced from Asia Plantation Capital's very own plantations.

"Creating a bespoke fragrance is always a great pleasure," said Mathilde Haguier, "and in this particular case it was also a great honour to conceptualise and produce something unique for a man who is held in such high regard. We know how special Tunku is to Asia Plantation Capital, both in terms of support and shared values, as well as to the country of Malaysia as a whole."

Photo - http://photos.prnasia.com/prnh/20170331/8521702157

Notes For Editors:

For further information, please contact:

Zaahira Muhammad

Senior PR & Marketing Executive

Email: zaahira@asiaplantationcapital.com

Office: +6012 203 5344

About Asia Plantation Capital

The Asia Plantation Capital Group is a multi-award-winning sustainable plantation operator and management company, with projects across four continents, and a global workforce in excess of 2,000. A market leader in the industry, its Scientific Advisory Board is comprised of leading academics from various countries (China, Thailand, Malaysia, India, Switzerland and the United Arab Emirates), who have, between them, developed and patented industry-leading technologies and systems.

With a focus on commercial plantation projects and vertically integrated businesses that offer a combination of commercial, environmental and community benefits, Asia Plantation Capital has created a successful and dynamic 'triple bottom line' company.
VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA -- (Marketwired) -- 03/31/17 -- Northern Empire Resources Corp. (TSX VENTURE: NM) (the "Company" or "Northern Empire") today announced changes to the Company's leadership team which includes the appointment of Mr. Douglas Hurst as Chairman of the Board, Robert Scott as Chief Financial Officer, and Raymond Threlkeld as Senior Advisor to the Board. Mr. John Robins, the Company's founder and former Chairman, will remain an active director to support the Company in the advancement of the Sterling gold project in Nevada.

"The Sterling mine represents a transformative acquisition for the Company," stated John Robins, the Company's founder and outgoing Chairman. "I would like to take this opportunity to welcome Douglas Hurst as my replacement as Chairman of the Board of Directors, Robert Scott as the Company's Chief Financial Officer and Mr. Threlkeld as Senior Advisor to the Board. Northern Empire is committed to building our core strengths as we transition from explorer to developer."

"The Sterling project acquisition provides Northern Empire a dominant land position in a Nevada gold district, with the unique benefit of having a permitted, high-grade, heap leachable gold deposit with existing infrastructure in place," stated Northern Empire's Chairman Douglas Hurst. "I look forward to working with Michael Allen and the rest of the Northern Empire team as we move the Company forward."

Chairman of the Board of Directors - Douglas Hurst has over 30 years of experience in the mining/resource industries having acted as geologist, consultant, mining analyst, and senior executive. Mr. Hurst holds a Bachelor of Science in geology from McMaster University (1986). He was a founding executive of International Royalty Corporation from 2003 to 2006 and a director of the company until 2010 when the company was purchased by Royal Gold for $700 million. Recently, Douglas was also one of the founders of Newmarket Gold which was recently purchased for $ 1.0 billion by Kirkland Lake Gold Ltd.

Chief Financial Officer - Robert Scott, CPA, CA, CFA brings more than 20 years of professional experience in accounting, corporate finance, and merchant and commercial banking. Mr. Scott earned his CFA in 2001, his CA designation in 1998 and has a B.Sc. from the University of British Columbia. He is a founder and president of Corex Management Inc., a private company providing accounting, administration, and corporate compliance services to privately held and publicly traded companies. Mr. Scott has held senior management and board positions with a number of TSX Venture Exchange Issuers, and is currently CFO of Riverside Resources Inc. and Great Bear Resources Ltd.

Senior Advisor to Board - Raymond Threlkeld has over 30 years of mineral industry experience. From 2009 to 2013, Mr. Threlkeld was the President and Chief Executive Officer of Rainy River Resources Ltd. From 2005 to 2009, Mr. Threlkeld was the Chief Operating Officer of Silver Bear Resources Inc. From 2006 to 2009, he was the President and Chief Executive Officer of Western Goldfields Inc. From 1996 to 2005, Mr. Threlkeld held various senior management positions in precious metal mine development with Barrick Gold Corporation and Coeur d'Alene Mines Corporation including the development of the Pierina Mine in Peru, the Bulyanhulu Mine in Tanzania and the Veladero Mine in Argentina. Mr. Threlkeld has had exploration acquisition success in the Western United States in addition to his management and project development experience. In March 2014, Mr. Threlkeld was appointed Chair of the Board of Newmarket Gold Inc. Newmarket Gold was recently purchased for $1.0 billion by Kirkland Lake Gold Ltd. Mr. Threlkeld's principal occupation is a Corporate Director and consultant on natural resource development.

About Northern Empire

On February 15, 2017, Northern Empire announced that it entered into a letter of intent with Sterling Gold Mining Corporation, a wholly owned subsidiary of Imperial Metals Corporation ("Imperial Metals") to acquire a 100% interest in the Sterling property, located in Nye County, Nevada, and certain royalty rights for claims located in Nevada and California. The Sterling project is a fully permitted gold project with exceptional exploration potential and represents a unique opportunity for Northern Empire to rapidly transition from a grass roots explorer to developer. Combined, the land package represents the acquisition of a gold district within Nevada, hosting 3 past producing open pit mines. ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD OF NORTHERN EMPIRE RESOURCES CORP.

Michael G. Allen, President, CEO and Director

NEITHER THE TSX VENTURE EXCHANGE NOR ITS REGULATION SERVICES PROVIDER (AS THAT TERM IS DEFINED IN THE POLICIES OF THE TSX VENTURE EXCHANGE) ACCEPTS RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE ADEQUACY OR ACCURACY OF THIS NEWS RELEASE.

Certain information set forth in this news release contains "forward-looking statement", and "forward-looking information" under applicable securities laws. Except for statements of historical fact, certain information contained herein constitutes forward-looking statements, which include the Company's expectations about the completion of the transaction with SGMC and the related financings, future performance based on current results and expected cash costs and are based on the Company's current internal expectations, estimates, projections, assumptions and beliefs, which may prove to be incorrect. Some of the forward-looking statements may be identified by words such as "will", "expects", "anticipates", "believes", "projects", "plans", and similar expressions. These statements are not guarantees of future performance and undue reliance should not be placed on them. Such forward-looking statements necessarily involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties, which, may cause the Company's actual performance and financial results in future periods to differ materially from any projects of future performance or results expressed or implied by such forward-looking statement. These risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to: liabilities inherent in mine development and production; geological risks, the financial markets generally, the results of the due diligence investigations to be conducted by the Company, the ability of the Company to complete the related financings or obtain requisite TSXV acceptance. There can be no assurance that forward-looking statement will prove to be accurate, and actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipate in such statements. The Company undertakes no obligation to update forward-looking statements if circumstances or management's estimates or opinions should change except as required by applicable securities laws. The reader is cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking statements.

Contacts:

Northern Empire Resources Corp.

Michael G. Allen

President, CEO and Director

604 646 4524



Northern Empire Resources Corp.

Jeff Sundar

Director

604 764 5944




31st March 2017

Goldcrest Resources plc

("Goldcrest" or the "Company")

Issue of Equity, Issue of Convertible Loan Note, Renewal of Asheba Licence and Interim Report for the period ended December 2016

The Company announces that it has raised 150,000 through the issue of 30,000,000 new ordinary shares of 0.05p at a price of 0.5p each to existing shareholder Pelamis Investments Ltd. The Company has raised a further 100,000 through the issue of a unsecured convertible loan note issued to Pelamis Investments Ltd. The loan note is convertible into equity of the company at a price of 0.5p per share. Funds will be utilised for the potential acquisition of opportunities in Georgia and other areas under review in addition to general working capital purposes.

The company has received confirmation from the Minerals Commission of Ghana that the Asheba Licence has been recommended for renewal for a 2 year period. Formal granting can now proceed subject to the renewal payment of GH?16,794 Ghanaian Cedi's, which will now be processed. Furthermore, the company continues its aggressive search for, and review of, accretive acquisitions candidates which encompass appealing technical and commercial characteristics and most importantly, the potential to generate significant value for its shareholders.

The company also presents the interim report for the period ended December 2016.

Interim Results

In the half-year to 31 December 2016, Goldcrest continued to grow and successfully raised additional capital to continue its exploration activities. The management of the company restructured the company's equity, through a capital reorganisation at the December AGM, in addition to reducing its current and long term liabilities, to attract investment and prepare the company for further acquisitions and growth.

The Company continues to advance its Asheba project in Ghana as well as assessing other opportunities in the region and further afield with the aim of becoming a significant natural resources explorer and developer. We are confident that there is significant exploration upside potential at Asheba, but known mineralisation could form the basis of smaller scale mining operation with near term cash flow. The Company will update the market in due course as this strategy is advanced.

During the period, Ryan Long stepped down as a director of the board and the Company thanks him for his service. The board also welcomes the addition of Gareth Northam, as announced in December 2016, an experienced Geologist who will be enhancing the Company's development efforts.

It is the opinion of the board that the recent restructuring and financing leaves the Company in a much stronger position and poised to continue its acquisitive strategy as and when attractive value propositions are identified.

Financial Review

Goldcrest reported an operating loss for the six months to 31 December 2016 of 67,071 (six months to December 2015: 65,493). This translates into a loss per share for the period of 0.16p based on the ordinary shares in issue at 31 December 2016 following the share capital re-organisation which took place on that date. The Directors will continue to focus on ensuring that overheads are kept to a minimum and that exploration expenditure is targeted at value adding activities.

Issue of Equity

The Company announces that it has raised 150,000 through the issue of 30,000,000 new ordinary shares of 0.05p at a price of 0.5p each.

On completion of the placing, the following disclosable interests in the share capital of the Company are as follows:

Name Amount of Ordinary Shares Percentage Pelamis Investments Ltd 70,000,000 29.76 Gavin Burnell* 26,839,158 11.41 Hot Rocks Investments plc* 18,788,379 7.99 Woodland Capital Limited* 14,401,167 6.12 SVS (Nominees) Ltd 11,054,399 4.70 Gledhow Investments plc 10,800,000 4.59 Plutus Strategies Limited** 10,947,273 4.65 Jeremy Edelman 10,000,000 4.25 Bailee Holding Ltd 10,000,000 4.25 Niall Tomlinson** 3,200,000 1.36 Paul Haywood** 2,800,000 1.19 Gareth Northam 400,000 0.17

* Gavin Burnell is the managing director of Hot Rocks Investments plc and Woodland Capital Limited.

** Plutus Strategies Limited is owned 50 per cent. by Paul Haywood, a director of the Company and 50 per cent. by Niall Tomlinson, a director of the Company.

Following the issue of the 30,000,000 new ordinary shares, Goldcrest has 235,223,308 Ordinary Shares in issue, which also represents the total number of voting rights in the Company. This figure should be used by shareholders as the denominator for the calculations by which they will determine if they are required to notify their interest in, or a change to their interest in, the Company under the FCA's Disclosure and Transparency Rules.

Issue of Convertible Loan Note

The company is pleased to advise that it has raised 100,000 through the issue of an unsecured convertible loan note ("The Note") to Pelamis Investments Limited the proceeds of which will be used for general working capital purposes and for seeking acquisitions for the company. Pelamis Investments Limited is a company specialising in natural resources investment and has invested in numerous natural resource companies in the UK and Australia. The Note is convertible into a maximum of 20,000,000 new ordinary shares ("Conversion Shares") at a price of 0.5 pence per share ("Conversion Price") at the election of either party for a period of 2 years. Conversion is conditional on there being a General Meeting of members of the company and Pelamis not exceeding an ownership of 29.9% of the issued equity of the Company.

Paul Haywood, Executive Director, commented:

"The company has been spending a significant amount of time reviewing a variety of exciting opportunities which support its overall strategy. We expect the following period to be an exciting one. The Pelamis investment enables the company to shortlist respective opportunities and advance discussions, whilst ensuring the company is well capitalised to meet its ongoing working capital requirements. I'd like to thank Pelamis and all further stakeholders for their continued support and we look forward to updating the market on our progress, in due course".

Condensed Consolidated Interim Statement of Comprehensive Income

For the period ended 31 December 2016

6 months to

31 December 2016 6 months to

31 December 2015 Year ended 30 June

2016 Unaudited

Group

 Unaudited



 Audited

Group

 Continuing operations Exploration costs (1,950) (18,937) (18,937) Administrative expenses



Finance costs (65,121)



- (32,006)



(14,550) (77,287)



(14,550) Loss from continuing operations

(67,071) (65,493) (110,774) Total comprehensive loss for the period (67,071) (65,493) (110,774) Loss per share: 0.16p 0.16 p

restated 0.26 p

restated

Condensed Consolidated Statement of financial position

As at 31 December 2016

At 31 December 2016 At 31 December 2015 At 30 June 2016 Unaudited

Group

 Unaudited



 Audited

Group

 Assets

Non-current assets

328,896

-

328,896 328,896 - 328,896 Current assets

Cash and cash equivalents 39,750 90,455 11,738 Trade and other receivables 1,028 4,121 2,331 Total current assets 40,778 94,576 14,069 Total assets 369,674 94,576 342,965 Equity and liabilities Capital and reserves

Called up share capital

Share premium account

Profit and loss account



1,047,582

1,627,610

(2,593,746)

747,993

1,627,610

(2,481,394)

1,047,582

1,627,610

(2,526,675) Total Equity 81,446 (105,791) 148,517 Current liabilities

Trade and other payables

Borrowings

Provisions

133,684

154.544

127,617

72,750

-

121,698

72,750

- Total current liabilities 288,228 200,367 194,448 Total equity and liabilities 369,674 94,576 342,965

Condensed Consolidated Interim Statement of Cash Flows

for the 6 months ended 31 December 2016

6 months ended 31 December

2016

Unaudited

Group

 6 months ended 31 December

2015

Unaudited

 Year ended 30 June 2016





Audited Group

 Cash flows from operating activities

Loss before taxation

(67,071)

(65,493)

(110,774) Adjustments for:

Finance costs

-

14,550

14,550 (67,071) (50,943) (96,224) Movements in working capital:



Decrease in trade and other receivables

Increase/(decrease) in trade and other payables



1,303

23,780



3,413

(26,085)



5,203

(32,004) 25,083 (22,672) (26,801)

Cash inflow/(outflow) from operations

25,083

(73,615)

(123,025) Cash flows from investing activities



Acquisition of subsidiary



-



-



(29,307) Net cash flows generated by investing activities

-

(73,615)

(29,307) Cash inflows from financing activities



Share issue for cash

Less share issue costs

Interest paid

Proceeds from borrowings

Repayment of borrowings







-

70,000



-

-

(14,550)

-

-



-

-

(14.550)

-

-

Net cash flows from financing activities

70,000

(14,550)

(14,550) Net increase/(decrease) in cash and cash equivalents 28,012 (88,165) (166,882) Cash and cash equivalents at the beginning of period 11,738 178,620 178,620 Cash and cash equivalents at end of period 39,750 90,455 11,738

Notes to the Condensed Consolidated Interim Financial Statements

1. Interim Financial Statements

The information relates to the 6 month period from 1 July 2016 to 31 December 2016.

The Condensed Consolidated Interim Financial Statements were approved by the Directors on 31 March 2017.

The Condensed Consolidated Interim Financial Statements have not been reviewed by the Company's auditors.

2. Subsequent Events

Subsequent to the end of this reporting period the company has completed the capital reorganization process as announced on 9th December 2016. Consequent to the passing of resolutions at the company's AGM on 31st December 2016 every existing Ordinary Shares of 0.05 pence each was subdivided into one Subdivided Share of 0.001 pence and one Deferred Share of 0.049 pence and then each 50 Subdivided Ordinary Share was consolidated into one New Ordinary Share of 0.05 pence. Following the capital reorganisation dated 31st December and placing dated 9th January 2017, the company had 205,223,308 Ordinary Shares and 2,095,165,354 Deferred Shares in issue. Following the issue of equity dated 31st March 2017 the company currently has 235,223,308 ordinary shares on issue.

The company has completed 2 fund raisings since the end of the reporting period dated 10th January and 31st March, raising a total of 467,000 before expenses. As of 31st March 2017, and subsequent to the fund raise dated the same date, the company has a cash balance of 388,963. The company also converted the majority of its debt to equity and settled liabilities totaling 121,300 on the 10th January and in addition converted a convertible loan note to equity, reducing liabilities by a further 70,000, also on the 10th January 2017.

3. Basis of accounting

The report has been prepared using accounting policies that the Company has adopted and were used for the accounting period to 30 June 2016. The information does not constitute statutory accounts within the meaning of section 435 of the Companies Act 2006.

The financial statements are prepared under the historical cost convention.

The Company will report again for the full year to 30 June 2017.

4. Other matters

A copy of this report is available from the Company's website, www.goldcrestresourcesplc.com

The Directors of the Issuer accept responsibility for this announcement.

ENQUIRIES:
Presentations include Phase 3 clinical trial data supporting the recent U.S. FDA approval of LATUDA for the treatment of schizophrenia in adolescents aged 13 to 17 years

Sunovion Pharmaceuticals Inc. (Sunovion) will present two research posters and deliver two oral research presentations on LATUDA(lurasidone HCI)at the 25th European Congress of Psychiatry (EPA 2017) to be held April 1-4, 2017, in Florence, Italy.

LATUDA was recently approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for the treatment of schizophrenia in adolescents aged 13 to 17 years. LATUDA is also approved in the U.S. for the treatment of adults with schizophrenia and for the treatment of adults with major depressive episodes associated with bipolar I disorder (bipolar depression) as monotherapy and as adjunctive therapy with lithium or valproate. LATUDA is approved in the EU for the treatment of adult patients with schizophrenia.

"We're pleased to present data from several studies including a Phase 3 clinical trial of LATUDA in adolescents with schizophrenia that supported the first U.S. approval for this indication in five years," said Antony Loebel, M.D., Executive Vice President and Chief Medical Officer at Sunovion, Head of Global Clinical Development for Sumitomo Dainippon Pharma Group. "We remain committed to addressing unmet medical needs for people living with mental illness, and these presentations reflect our ongoing efforts to facilitate informed discussion of LATUDA across the global medical community."

Other key presentations will include data on the effects of continued treatment with LATUDA in adults with bipolar depression and a post-hoc analysis examining the efficacy of LATUDA in major depressive disorder with mixed features (MDD-MF).

Sunovion data presentations include:

Presentation O062: The Efficacy of Lurasidone on PANSS Subscales in Adolescent Patients with Schizophrenia (Monday, April 3, 15:10-15:15 CET, 9:10-9:15 a.m. ET)

Presentation O070: The Efficacy and Safety of Lurasidone in Adolescent Patients with Schizophrenia: Results of Functional and Quality of Life Measures from a 6-Week, Double-Blind, Placebo-Controlled Study (Monday, April 3, 15:50-15:55 CET, 9:50-9:55 a.m. ET)

Poster EW0404: Lurasidone for the Treatment of Major Depressive Disorder with Mixed Features: Do Manic Symptoms Moderate Treatment Response? (Monday, April 3, 12:30-13:15 CET, 6:30-7:15 a.m. ET)

Poster EW0304: Lurasidone Adjunctive to Lithium or Valproate for Prevention of Recurrence in Bipolar I Disorder (Monday, April 3, 12:30-13:15 CET, 6:30-7:15 a.m. ET)

About LATUDA

LATUDA is approved in the U.S. and Canada for the treatment of adult patients with schizophrenia and for the treatment of depressive episodes associated with bipolar l disorder (bipolar depression) as monotherapy or as adjunctive therapy with lithium or valproate. LATUDA is also approved in the U.S. for the treatment of adolescents ages 13 to 17 years with schizophrenia.

LATUDA is approved for the treatment of adult patients with schizophrenia in the EU, Switzerland, Australia, Taiwan, Russia, Singapore, Thailand and Hong Kong.

(U.S.) IMPORTANT SAFETY INFORMATION AND INDICATIONS FOR LATUDA

INCREASED MORTALITY IN ELDERLY PATIENTS WITH DEMENTIA-RELATED PSYCHOSIS; and SUICIDAL THOUGHTS AND BEHAVIORS

Elderly people with dementia-related psychosis (having lost touch with reality due to confusion and memory loss) treated with this type of medicine are at an increased risk of death compared to patients receiving placebo (sugar pill). LATUDA is not approved for the treatment of patients with dementia-related psychosis.

Antidepressant medicines may increase suicidal thoughts or behaviors in some children, teenagers, and young adults within the first few months of treatment. Depression and other serious mental illnesses are themselves associated with an increase in the risk of suicide. Patients on antidepressants and their families or caregivers should watch for new or worsening depression symptoms, especially sudden changes in mood, behaviors, thoughts, or feelings. This is very important when an antidepressant medicine is started or when the dose is changed. Report any change in these symptoms immediately to the doctor. LATUDA is not approved for use in pediatric patients with depression.

LATUDA can cause serious side effects, including stroke that can lead to death, which can happen in elderly people with dementia who take medicines like LATUDA.

Neuroleptic malignant syndrome (NMS) is a rare but very serious condition that can happen in people who take antipsychotic medicines, including LATUDA. NMS can cause death and must be treated in a hospital. Call your health care provider right away if you become severely ill and have some or all of these symptoms: high fever, excessive sweating, rigid muscles, confusion, or changes in your breathing, heartbeat or blood pressure.

Tardive dyskinesia (TD) is a serious and sometimes permanent side effect reported with LATUDA and similar medicines. Tell your doctor about any movements you cannot control in your face, tongue, or other body parts, as they may be signs of TD. TD may not go away, even if you stop taking LATUDA. TD may also start after you stop taking LATUDA.

Increases in blood sugar can happen in some people who take LATUDA. Extremely high blood sugar can lead to coma or death. If you have diabetes or risk factors for diabetes (such as being overweight or a family history of diabetes), your health care provider should check your blood sugar before you start LATUDA and during therapy. Call your health care provider if you have any of these symptoms of high blood sugar (hyperglycemia) while taking LATUDA: feel very thirsty, need to urinate more than usual, feel very hungry, feel weak or tired, feel sick to your stomach, feel confused, or your breath smells fruity.

Increases in triglycerides and LDL (bad) cholesterol and decreases in HDL (good) cholesterol have been reported with LATUDA. You may not have any symptoms, so your health care provider may decide to check your cholesterol and triglycerides during your treatment with LATUDA.

Some patients may gain weight while taking LATUDA. Your doctor should check your weight regularly.

Tell your doctor if you experience any of these:

feeling dizzy or light-headed upon standing

decreases in white blood cells (which can be fatal)

trouble swallowing

LATUDA and medicines like it may raise the level of prolactin. Tell your health care provider if you experience a lack of menstrual periods, leaking or enlarged breasts, or impotence.

Tell your health care provider if you have a seizure disorder, have had seizures in the past, or have conditions that increase your risk for seizures.

Tell your health care provider if you experience prolonged, abnormal muscle spasms or contractions, which may be a sign of a condition called dystonia.

LATUDA can affect your judgment, thinking, and motor skills. You should not drive or operate hazardous machinery until you know how LATUDA affects you.

LATUDA may make you more sensitive to heat. You may have trouble cooling off. Be careful when exercising or when doing things likely to cause dehydration or make you warm.

Avoid eating grapefruit or drinking grapefruit juice while you take LATUDA since these can affect the amount of LATUDA in the blood.

Tell your health care provider about all prescription and over-the-counter medicines you are taking or plan to take, since there are some risks for drug interactions with LATUDA. Tell your health care provider if you are allergic to any of the ingredients of LATUDA or take certain medications called CYP3A4 inhibitors or inducers. Ask your health care provider if you are not sure if you are taking any of these medications.

Avoid drinking alcohol while taking LATUDA.

Tell your health care provider if you are pregnant or if you are planning to get pregnant. Avoid breastfeeding while taking LATUDA.

The most common side effects of LATUDA include sleepiness or drowsiness; restlessness or feeling like you need to move around (akathisia); difficulty moving, slow movements, muscle stiffness, or tremor; runny nose/nasal inflammation, and nausea.

These are not all the possible side effects of LATUDA. For more information, ask your health care provider or pharmacist.

You are encouraged to report negative side effects of prescription drugs to the FDA. Visit www.fda.gov/medwatch or call l-800-FDA-1088

Please see Important Safety Information, including Boxed Warnings, and full Prescribing Information at www.LATUDA.com.

(EU) IMPORTANT SAFETY INFORMATION FOR LATUDA

Please refer to the Summary of Product Characteristics (SmPC) www.medicines.org.uk/emc/medicine/29125

This medicinal product is subject to additional monitoring. This will allow quick identification of new safety information. Healthcare professionals are asked to report any suspected adverse reactions. Adverse reactions should be reported to the Competent Authority in your country. Adverse reactions should also be reported to Sunovion Pharmaceuticals Europe Ltd. on +44207 821 2899.

About Schizophrenia

Schizophrenia is a chronic, serious and often severely disabling brain disorder that affects approximately 1 in 100 American adults (about 2.4 million people) in the United States.1 It is characterized by symptoms such as hallucinations, delusions, disorganized thinking, lack of emotion and lack of energy, as well as problems with memory, attention and the ability to plan, organize and make decisions.2

About Bipolar Depression

Bipolar disorder, a mental health condition that requires long-term treatment and is characterized by debilitating mood swings3, affects approximately 12.6 million adults in the United States.4,5 It is among the top 10 leading causes of disability in the United States.6,7 Bipolar I disorder is characterized by at least one lifetime manic or mixed episode; often individuals have one or more depressive episodes.8 Bipolar depression refers to the depressive phase of bipolar disorder;3 its symptoms include: depressed mood, loss of interest or pleasure in activities, significant weight loss, insomnia, fatigue, feelings of worthlessness, diminished ability to concentrate and recurrent thoughts of death or suicide attempt.3 When symptomatic, most individuals with bipolar disorder spend more time in the depressive phase.9 Depressive episodes associated with bipolar disorder have been shown to result in significant impairment in work, family and social function,10,11 and are associated with increased risk of suicide and direct and indirect healthcare costs.12,13

About Sunovion Pharmaceuticals Inc. (Sunovion)

Sunovion is a global biopharmaceutical company focused on the innovative application of science and medicine to help people with serious medical conditions. Sunovion's vision is to lead the way to a healthier world. The company's spirit of innovation is driven by the conviction that scientific excellence paired with meaningful advocacy and relevant education can improve lives. With patients at the center of everything it does, Sunovion has charted new paths to life-transforming treatments that reflect ongoing investments in research and development and an unwavering commitment to support people with psychiatric, neurological and respiratory conditions. Sunovion's track record of discovery, development and commercialization of important therapies has included Brovana (arformoterol tartrate), Latuda (lurasidone HCI) and Aptiom (eslicarbazepine acetate).

Headquartered in Marlborough, Mass., Sunovion is an indirect, wholly-owned subsidiary of Sumitomo Dainippon Pharma Co., Ltd. Sunovion Pharmaceuticals Europe Ltd., based in London, England, Sunovion Pharmaceuticals Canada Inc., based in Mississauga, Ontario, and Sunovion CNS Development Canada ULC, based in Toronto, Ontario, are wholly-owned direct subsidiaries of Sunovion Pharmaceuticals Inc. Additional information can be found on the company's web sites: www.sunovion.com, www.sunovion.eu and www.sunovion.ca. Connect with Sunovion on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook and YouTube.

About Sumitomo Dainippon Pharma Co., Ltd.

Sumitomo Dainippon Pharma is among the top-ten listed pharmaceutical companies in Japan operating globally in major pharmaceutical markets, including Japan, the United States, China and the European Union. Sumitomo Dainippon Pharma aims to create innovative pharmaceutical products in the Psychiatry Neurology area and the Oncology area, which have been designated as the focus therapeutic areas. Sumitomo Dainippon Pharma is based on the merger in 2005 between Dainippon Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd., and Sumitomo Pharmaceuticals Co., Ltd. Today, Sumitomo Dainippon Pharma has about 6,500 employees worldwide. Additional information about Sumitomo Dainippon Pharma is available through its corporate website at www.ds-pharma.com.

BROVANA is a registered trademark of Sunovion Pharmaceuticals Inc.

LATUDA is a registered trademark of Sumitomo Dainippon Pharma Co., Ltd.

APTIOM is used under license from BIAL.

Sunovion Pharmaceuticals Inc. is a U.S. subsidiary of Sumitomo Dainippon Pharma Co., Ltd.

2017 Sunovion Pharmaceuticals Inc.

For a copy of this release, visit Sunovion's web site at www.sunovion.com

References

1 Regier DA, Narrow WE, Rae DS, Mandercheid RW, Locke B2, Goodwin, FK. The de Facto US Mental and Addictive Disorders Service System. Arch Gen Psychiatry. 1993;50:85-94. Calculated by extrapolating from the 2008 United States Census Bureau population estimates.

2 NAMI, Schizophrenia. Available at: http://www.nami.org/Template.cfm?Section=By_Illness&Template=/TaggedPage/TaggedPageDisplay.cfm&TPLID=54&ContentID=23036. Accessed May 15, 2013.

3 Swann, AC. Long-term treatment in bipolar disorder. Journal of Clinical Psychiatry. 2005; 66(1):7-12.

4 National Institute of Mental Health. Bipolar Disorder. [Internet]. Available from: http://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/topics/bipolar-disorder/index.shtml. Accessed March 17, 2016.

5 Bipolar Disorder." Decision Resources. Table 2-2. Burlington, MA. December 2013.

6 National Alliance on Mental Illness. The Impact and Cost of Mental Illness: The Case of Bipolar Disorder. [Internet]. Available from: http://www2.nami.org/Template.cfm?Section=members&template=/ContentManagement/ContentDisplay.cfm&ContentID=42734. Accessed March 17, 2016.

7 National Alliance on Mental Illness. A Primer on Depressive, Bipolar and Anxiety Illnesses: Facts for Policymakers. [Internet]. Available from: http://www2.nami.org/walkTemplate.cfm?Section=NAMIWALKS&template=/ContentManagement/ContentDisplay.cfm&ContentID=42736. Accessed March 17, 2016.

8 American Psychiatric Association: Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition, Text Revision. Washington, DC, American Psychiatric Association, 2000.

9 The Depression and Bipolar Support Alliance. Mood Disorders and Different Kinds of Depression. [Internet]. Available from: http://www.dbsalliance.org/site/PageServer?pagename=education_bipolar_types. Accessed March 17, 2016.

10 Huxley N, Baldessarini RJ. Disability and Its Treatment in Bipolar Disorder Patients. Bipolar Disorder. 2007; 9(1-2):183-96.

11 Calabrese JR, Hirschfeld RM, Frye MA, Reed ML. Impact Of Depressive Symptoms Compared With Manic Symptoms In Bipolar Disorder: Results Of A U.S. Community-Based Sample. Journal of Clinical Psychiatry. 2004; 65(11):1499-504.

12 Parker G, McCraw S, Hadzi-Pavlovic D, Fletcher K. Costs Of The Principal Mood Disorders: A Study Of Comparative Direct And Indirect Costs Incurred By Those With Bipolar I, Bipolar II And Unipolar Disorders. Journal of Affective Disorders. 2012; 149(1-3):46-55. (ePub).

13 Leverich GS, Altshuler LL, Frye MA, et al. Factors Associated With Suicide Attempts In 648 Patients With Bipolar Disorder In The Stanley Foundation Bipolar Network. Journal of Clinical Psychiatry. 2003; 64(5):506-15.

LAT326-17

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170331005333/en/

Contacts:

Sunovion Pharmaceuticals Inc.

Kristina Coppola, 508-787-4368

Senior Manager, Corporate Communications

kristina.coppola@sunovion.com
MONCTON, NEW BRUNSWICK -- (Marketwired) -- 03/31/17 -- The Interim Commissioner of Official Languages of Canada, Ghislaine Saikaley, along with her New Brunswick counterpart, Katherine d'Entremont, and the French Language Services Commissioner of Ontario, Francois Boileau, reiterated today the importance and urgency of implementing concrete measures to foster immigration to Francophone minority communities.

The languages commissioners joined the ministers responsible for the Canadian Francophonie and the ministers responsible for immigration at a federal-provincial-territorial forum on Francophone immigration, organized by the Ministerial Conference on the Canadian Francophonie, in Moncton on March 30 and 31, 2017.

"It is essential for federal, provincial and territorial governments to step up their efforts to increase immigration to Francophone communities because the time to act is now and results have been slow to materialize. This ministerial forum is a unique opportunity to coordinate federal strategies with those of the provinces and territories," said Mrs. Saikaley.

Promising initiatives have been introduced since the languages commissioners' joint interventions in 2014. The implementation of the Mobilite francophone program in June 2016 is a positive step, as is the leadership shown by the provinces and territories last July when the premiers asked the federal government to raise Francophone immigration rates outside Quebec.

"Without implementing concrete action plans and timelines, we will never be able to achieve the national Francophone immigration target, especially in Ontario. It is therefore crucial for the different levels of government to join efforts and immediately clear the way for the development and implementation of pragmatic and measurable solutions," added Mr. Boileau.

Demographic projections recently published by Statistics Canada on the ethnocultural and linguistic composition of the Canadian population through 2036 show the importance of attaining minority official-language immigration objectives across the country.

"The Anglophone and Francophone communities of New Brunswick have equal constitutional status. Consequently, the immigration policies and programs of both levels of government must ensure the demographic weight of the Francophone community, which makes up one third of the population, is maintained," said Ms. d'Entremont. "To do this, increased cooperation between both levels of government is essential."

The languages ombudsmen believe that the four principles set out in 2014 to guide governments' actions in terms of immigration are still pertinent:

-- Immigration must help maintain, and even increase, the demographic weight of Francophone minority communities in Canada. -- Federal, provincial and territorial immigration policies and programs must be designed and tailored to address Francophone immigrant recruitment, integration, training and retention needs specific to the different contexts of Francophone minority communities across Canada. -- Strong federal-provincial-territorial-community partnerships and long- term strategies are needed to ensure that immigration supports the development and vitality of Francophone minority communities. -- Governments must develop an evaluation and accountability framework to measure progress achieved and ensure attainment of immigration objectives in Francophone minority communities.

The commissioners also took the opportunity provided by this meeting to reiterate that the commitment of all levels of government is essential in this area of shared jurisdiction.

Follow us: @OCOLCanada

Follow us: @FLSCOntario

Contacts:

Nelson Kalil

Manager, Strategic Communications and Media Relations

Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages

819-420-4714 / Cell: 613-324-0999

Toll-free: 1-877-996-6368

E-mail: nelson.kalil@clo-ocol.gc.ca



Hugues Beaulieu, Director of Public Affairs and Research

Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages

for New Brunswick

506-444-4229

Toll-free: 1-888-651-6444 (in New Brunswick only)

E-mail: hugues.beaulieu@gnb.ca



Touria Karim

Lead, Strategic Communications

Office of the French Language Services Commissioner

416-847-1515, ext. 107 / Cell: 416-906-7021

Toll-free: 1-866-246-5262

E-mail: touria.karim@flscontario.ca / www.flscontario.ca




HOUSTON, TEXAS -- (Marketwired) -- 03/31/17 -- Greenfields Petroleum Corporation (the "Company" or "Greenfields") (TSX VENTURE: GNF) announces that it has entered into a Tenth Amending Agreement to the Loan Agreement with its senior lender, Vitol Energy (Bermuda) Ltd., to facilitate a deferral of the prepayment obligation in the amount of U.S. $500,000 due on March 31, 2017, until the earlier of the Maturity Date or voluntary prepayment.

Furthermore, on February 21, 2017, the Company filed notice of Change of Auditor advising of the replacement of its previous auditors, Calvetti Ferguson, P.C., with Pannell Kerr Forster of Texas, P.C. ("PKF"). The change was initiated after Calvetti Ferguson gave notice to the board of directors of Greenfields that their firm would no longer perform audits for Canadian registrants and 10k filers. PKF was selected and engaged by the Company's Audit Committee to perform the year end 2016 audit for Greenfields.

About Greenfields Petroleum Corporation

Greenfields is a junior oil and natural gas corporation focused on the development and production of proven oil and gas reserves principally in the Republic of Azerbaijan. The Company focuses on the development of previously discovered but under-developed international oil and gas fields, also known as "greenfields". More information about the Company may be obtained on the Greenfields website at www.greenfields-petroleum.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.

Contacts:

Greenfields Petroleum Corporation

John W. Harkins

Chief Executive Officer

(832) 234-0836



Greenfields Petroleum Corporation

A. Wayne Curzadd

Chief Financial Officer

(832) 234-0835

www.greenfields-petroleum.com

info@greenfieldspetroleum.com




VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA -- (Marketwired) -- 04/06/17 -- Advantage Lithium Corp. (the "Company" or "Advantage Lithium") (TSX VENTURE: AAL)(OTCQX: AVLIF) and its joint venture partner, Nevada Sunrise Gold Corp. ("Nevada Sunrise"), are pleased to announce that a regional drilling program has commenced at the Neptune Lithium Project ("Neptune") located in the southern Clayton Valley of Nevada, USA. One borehole will be drilled to a depth of approximately 610m (2,000 feet) and will follow up on encouraging results from a 2016 lithium brine drilling program carried out by Nevada Sunrise. Other boreholes are planned at the Jackson Wash, Aquarius and Gemini projects in the coming months.

Neptune is the subject of an earn-in agreement between Nevada Sunrise and Advantage Lithium where Advantage Lithium can earn a 50% interest in Neptune from the Company by spending CDN$700,000 over a three-year period (see NR dated June 26, 2016.

David Sidoo, CEO of Advantage Lithium, commented, "Having completed two very successful rounds of drilling at another of our projects in the region - Clayton NE - we are looking forward to expanding our exploration activity in this area of Nevada. We will be starting with Neptune, at which our JV partner has previously encountered lithium groundwater and where the geology is similar to that encountered at Clayton NE."

About Neptune

Neptune consists of 316 unpatented 20-acre placer claims totaling approximately 6,320 acres (2,557 hectares) and is located in an active area of lithium exploration and mining. The Silver Peak lithium mine operation, acquired by Albemarle Corporation in 2015, has extracted lithium from brines continuously since 1966 and is located approximately 10 miles (15 kilometres) to the north of Neptune.

Nevada Sunrise completed two exploration holes at Neptune in late March 2016. Borehole N-2016-1, drilled to 457.2 metres (1,500 feet) showed anomalous lithium in groundwater. Composited samples collected from the intersected strata contained lithium-bearing sediments that averaged 156 parts per million ("ppm") lithium over 215 feet (65.5 metres) from 1285 feet (392.7 metres) to the end of hole at 1,500 feet (457.2 metres), reaching a peak value of 217 ppm lithium from 1365 to 1385 feet.. A third hole up to 2,000 feet deep is underway approximately 1.6 kilometres (1 mile) to the east of hole N-2016-1 in an area interpreted from a 2016 geophysical survey to be a potential trap where denser, lithium-bearing brines could accumulate. If results from the third Neptune borehole warrant further work, a drill pad and access road have been prepared for a fourth hole location.

The two exploration holes completed in March 2016 were targeted using the integration of the results of: (1) a detailed gravity survey by a previous operator that outlined a deep, faulted sub-basin, and (2) a controlled source audio magneto telluric ("CSAMT") follow-up survey that detected conductive horizons within the sub-basin. In each of the completed holes, permeable sedimentary, lacustrine strata interbedded with volcanic ash and ejecta was logged at various levels throughout the holes. This type of sedimentary strata is interpreted as a requisite host horizon for lithium-bearing brines as seen in the northern Clayton Valley.

The technical information in this news release has reviewed and approved on behalf of the company by Ross McElroy, P.Geol., Technical Advisor for Advantage Lithium Corp., and a "Qualified Person" as defined in NI 43-101.

About Advantage Lithium Corp.

Advantage Lithium Corp. is a resource company specializing in the strategic acquisition, exploration and development of lithium properties and is headquartered in Vancouver, British Columbia. The common shares of the company are listed on the TSX Venture Exchange (TSX VENTURE: AAL), and the company is also traded on the OTCQX Best Market in the U.S. (OTCQX: AVLIF). The company has acquired a 100% interest in five projects in Argentina and up to a 75% interest in a sixth, called Cauchari. Cauchari is host to a near-surface estimated inferred resource of 230 million cubic metres of brine at 380 mg/l Lithium that equates to 470,000 tonnes of lithium carbonate (LCE), and a large exploration target of 5.6mt to 0.25mt of LCE and 19mt to 0.9 of KCL. Cauchari is located just 20 km south Orocobre's flagship Olaroz Lithium Facility. The Company is also earning an interest from Nevada Sunrise Gold Corp., in a portfolio of five lithium brine projects in the Clayton and Lida Valley regions of Nevada, USA, including 70% in Clayton NE.

Further information about the Company can be found at www.advantagelithium.com.

ADVANTAGE LITHIUM CORP.

David Sidoo, President

Cautionary Statement:

Certain information contained in this press release constitutes "forward-looking information", within the meaning of Canadian legislation. Generally, these forward-looking statements can be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology such as "is expected","intends", or "has the potential to". Forward looking statements contained in this press release may include statements regarding the future operating or financial performance of Advantage that involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties which may not prove to be accurate. Actual results and outcomes may differ materially from what is expressed or forecasted in these forward-looking statements. Such statements are qualified in their entirety by the inherent risks and uncertainties surrounding future expectations. The forward-looking statements included in this press release are made as of the date of this press release and the Company disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as expressly required by applicable securities legislation.

Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

Contacts:

Advantage Lithium Corp.

David Sidoo

President

604.343.3760

604.683.1585 (FAX)

info@advantagelithium.com

www.advantagelithium.com




DUBLIN, Mar 31, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --

Research and Markets has announced the addition of the "Proton Therapy Market in Switzerland, Reimbursement Policy, Patients Treated at Proton Facility & Forecast" report to their offering.

Switzerland has one of the oldest proton therapy centers in Europe and was established in 1984 and there are so many recommended proton therapy patients from other parts of Europe coming for their treatment. The old proton therapy center at CPT, PSI, Villigen was further renovated with technological advancement in 2010 and again in 2013.

Switzerland Proton Therapy Market is expected to grow thrice from its present market in 2016. Rising cancer incidents and two advanced proton centers in planning stage is likely to boost the market of proton therapy in Switzerland during 2017-2021.

Key Questions Answered in the Report:



What is the Proton Therapy Market in Switzerland & its growth potential in Future?

& its growth potential in Future? What is the Potential Proton Therapy Market in Switzerland and its Future?

and its Future? How many Proton Therapy Facilities are operating in Switzerland?

How many Proton Therapy Facilities are going to open in near Future?

What is the number of people being treated in these Proton Therapy Centers yearly?

Is Proton Therapy Treatment being covered in the Reimbursement policy of Switzerland?

What are the sales of Proton Therapy Companies Globally (IBA, Varian, Elekta)?



Companies Mentioned:



Elekta



IBA



Varian Medical Systems

Key Topics Covered:

1. Executive Summary



2. Switzerland Proton Therapy Market - Actual & Potential Market



3. Switzerland Proton Therapy Patient Number - Actual and Potential



4. Switzerland - List of Proton Therapy Centers



5. Switzerland - Proton Therapy Treated Patients by Centers



6. Proton Therapy - Reimbursement Policies



7. Components of a Standard Proton Therapy Center



8. Global Proton Therapy - Company Analysis (2010-2021)



9. Proton Therapy - Driving Factors



10. Proton Therapy - Challenge

For more information about this report visit http://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/zzgx9p/proton_therapy

Media Contact:

Laura Wood, Senior Manager

press@researchandmarkets.com



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VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA -- (Marketwired) -- 03/31/17 -- Callinex Mines Inc. (the "Company" or "Callinex") (TSX VENTURE: CNX)(OTCQX: CLLXF) is pleased to announce that it has completed a total of seven drill holes in three target areas at the Company's Pine Bay Project along with one hole to test a geophysical target on an adjacent optioned claim group. Although the drill holes intersected significant alteration within favorable felsic volcanic rocks, no material concentrations of base metal mineralization were identified within these holes. The Company is currently drilling hole PBM-024 located approximately 125m to the south of the 284-3-93-DPN discovery hole that intersected 10.3m grading 13.1% zinc equivalent mineralization ("Zn Eq.") including 6.0% Zn, 1.8 g/t Au, 60.4 g/t Ag, 0.7% Cu and 0.4% Pb (See News Release dated October 18, 2016).

Of the eight holes drilled, 95-02-DPN2, PBM-008-DPN and PBM-021 all intersected the Pine Bay Volcanogenic Massive Sulphide ("VMS") Horizon over a total strike length of 520m. These holes intersected strong, but essentially non-conductive pyrite mineralization with sporadic chalcopyrite and sphalerite stringers within a highly altered volcanic setting. Most VMS deposits of consequence are associated with stringer mineralization and significant amounts of alteration. Callinex plans to drill additional holes along strike during the summer drilling campaign to further evaluate this prospective geological environment in close proximity to a known deposit. Two drill holes, PBM-010-DPN and PBM-021 were completed to test the Cabin VMS Horizon along strike to the northeast of the 284-3-93-DPN discovery hole. Both of these holes intersected promising alteration and impressive stringer mineralization situated 270m and 580m respectively along strike from drill hole 284-3-93-DPN.

The remaining holes completed include SDB-006, SDB-007 and BRL-001. Drill hole SDB-006 was completed to test a sizeable geophysical target detected along strike to the northeast of the Sourdough VMS deposit however it did not intersect any conductive material. The hole did intersect 0.4m of massive pyrite with minor associated base metal mineralization but the subsequent borehole electromagnetic surveys did not identify either an inhole or off-hole response to this mineralization. Copper and/or zinc-bearing massive sulphide clasts were identified near the beginning of holes SDB-006 and SDB-007 and are possibly related to a newly emerging stratigraphic footwall VMS horizon. The vectors to a possible intact massive sulphide source area for these sulphide clasts is further to the north of SDB-007, which is the northernmost hole drilled by Callinex in the Sourdough area. Drill hole SDB-007 intersected an increased abundance of copper and zinc bearing sulphide clasts as compared with SDB-006 located to the south.

Hole BRL-001 was drilled to test a geophysical anomaly in the Bear Lake area which is almost halfway between Flin Flon, MB and Pine Bay. The geophysical anomaly was explained by barren pyrrhotite-dominated massive sulphides.

To date the Company has received assay results from drill holes SDB-006, SDB-007 and 95-02-DPN2. While the Company has not received assay results from drill holes BRL-001, PBM-008-DPN, PBM-10-DPN, PBM-020 and PBM-021, no significant concentrations of base metal mineralization that may be material to the company have been identified. The Company will provide an update with the assay results from these drill holes if assay results come back with appreciable base metals mineralization.

Upcoming Drilling Plans for 2017

The Company plans to commence a 5,000 to 10,000m drilling campaign at its Nash Creek and Superjack VMS Projects located within the Bathurst Mining District of New Brunswick. The campaign is expected to commence in May and continue through to July. The primary objective of the campaign is to expand existing mineral resources at the Nash Creek Project in advance of a potential Preliminary Economic Assessment.

Drilling at the Superjack Project will focus on expanding the existing 'A' Zone deposit where high-grade intercepts have been encountered over a 225m strike length. An additional objective of the Superjack drill campaign will be to drill test a large gravity target that apparently connects the 'A', 'B' and 'C' Zones at depth. A detailed overview of these New Brunswick drill targets will be provided in the near future.

Following the completion of the New Brunswick drilling campaign, the drill team will be mobilized back to the Flin Flon Mining District of Manitoba to commence a summer campaign in July at its Pine Bay Project and its newly acquired Big Island Project containing the prospective, high-grade Tara Deposit (See News Release dated March 20, 2017).

QA/QC

Any individual samples associated with this news release were labeled, placed in plastic sample bags, and sealed. Groups of samples were then placed in security sealed bags and shipped directly to SGS Canada Inc in Vancouver, B.C. for analysis. Samples were crushed to 75% passing 2mm and pulverized to 85% passing 75 microns in order produce a 250g split. All copper, zinc and silver assays were determined by Aqua Regia digestion with a combination of ICP-MS and ICP-AES finish, with overlimits (greater than 100 ppm Ag, greater than 10,000 ppm Zn, and greater than 10,000 ppm Cu) completed by fire assay with gravimetric finish (Ag) or Aqua Regia digestion with ICP-AES finish (copper and zinc). All samples were analyzed for gold by Fire Assay of a 30 gram charge by AAS, or if over 10.0 g/t were re-assayed and completed with a gravimetric finish. QA/QC included the insertion and continual monitoring of numerous standards and blanks into the sample stream at a frequency of 1 per 10 samples, and the collection of duplicate samples at random intervals within each batch at a frequency of 1 per 10 samples.SGS Canada Inc carried out some or all of following methods to obtain the assay results for Callinex: G_LOG02 Pre-preparation processing, G_WGH79 Weighing and reporting, G_PRP89 Weigh, dry, crush, split, pulverize, G_SCRQC QC for crush and pulverize stages, G_CRU22 Crush greater than 3kg, G_DRY11 Dry samples, GE_FAA313 @Au, FAS, AAS, 30g-5ml (Final mode), GE-IC14A Aqua Regia digestion/ICP-AES finish, GE_IMS14B Aqua Regia digestion/ICP-MS package, GE_IMS14 Aqua Regia digestion, GO_FAG303 30g, Fire assay, gravimetric finish (Au)(Final Mode), GO_FAG313 30g, Fire assay, gravimetric finish (Ag)(Final Mode), G0_ICP13B Ore Grade, Aqua Regia digest/ICP-AES. Ag greater than 10ppm was analyzed by ICP and GO_XRF77B-pyrosulfate fusion.

James Pickell, PGeo, a qualified person under National Instrument 43-101 and a consultant to Callinex, has reviewed and approved the technical information in this news release.

About Callinex Mines Inc.

Callinex Mines Inc. is focused on discovering and developing zinc and copper rich mines within prolific Canadian VMS mining jurisdictions. The Company is actively exploring its Pine Bay Project, located in the Flin Flon mining district of Manitoba, which hosts significant historic VMS deposits that are within close proximity to a processing facility. The larger project portfolio hosts three significant zinc rich mineral resources including the Point Leamington, Nash Creek and Superjack Projects located in Eastern Canada.

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.

Some statements in this news release contain forward-looking information. These statements include, but are not limited to, statements with respect to future expenditures. These statements address future events and conditions and, as such, involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause the actual results, performance or achievements to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by the statements. Such factors include, among others, the ability to complete the proposed drill program and the timing and amount of expenditures. Except as required under applicable securities laws, Callinex does not assume the obligation to update any forward-looking statement.

Contacts:

Callinex Mines Inc.

Max Porterfield

President and Chief Executive Officer

(604) 605-0885

info@callinex.ca




VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA -- (Marketwired) -- 03/31/17 -- Strikepoint Gold Inc. (TSX VENTURE: SKP)(OTCQX: STKXF) ("Strikepoint" or the Company) is pleased to announce exploration targeting for the recently acquired Yukon Portfolio.

This package was acquired from IDM Mining (TSX VENTURE: IDM) through: a Letter of Intent on December 21st, 2016; signed into Definitive Agreement on January 19th, 2017; and Completed Purchase Agreement on March 28th, 2017.

Strikepoint Gold purchased the properties from IDM Mining for $4,200,000 through a combination of $150,000 in cash and 10,500,000 shares. The Company is required to spend $1,500,000 on exploration expenditures during the 2017 season.

The company filed a NI 43-101 Technical Report on the Mahtin Property, Yukon on March 15th, 2017 and announced a $3,000,000 non-brokered private placement, concurrently closed $2,000,000 on March 23rd, 2017.

Our Opportunity

Three drill-ready properties have been selected based on exploration history, anomalous surface gold showings, and current understanding of the geological settings. Each target property is 100% owned by Strikepoint Gold Inc., and were formerly held by Ryan Gold Corporation who completed over $25,000,000 in exploration expenditures across the Yukon portfolio, which is a land package comprising of 14,031 claims defining 22 properties over 282,000 hectares.

Strikepoint is planning a 'surgical' exploration program for 2017, spending a minimum of $2 million on selected targets within the portfolio. The work will be focused on proving geological concepts highlighted in the extensive historical exploration work, and advancing them from anomalous regions to well defined targets and new discoveries.

Pluto

The Pluto property is in the Kluane region, and is one of the largest in this portfolio, approximately 40 x 30km in size. Pluto sits relatively close to the latest discoveries in the White Gold district, and is aligned along strike with this group of projects including; GoldCorp's Coffee Project, which was acquired from Kaminak for $520M and Kinross's White Gold Project, which was acquired from Underworld for $140M. Initial analysis of the geology seems to show a unique mineralizing system for the area; the formation of skarns in contact with large, regional 'ring' dyke volcanic features.

The presence of a shallowly dipping limestone unit in the local lithology has become a focus for mineralization when intercepted by dykes of rhyolitic / dacitic material. The skarns subsequently produce anomalous gold-in-soil results where they outcrop in the sides of the valleys, which indicates that there is volume potential of the mineralization, an hypothesis that will be drill tested in 2017.

Other information about the Pluto Property:

-- Highest gold-in-soil assay from the entire Yukon portfolio database at 15.43g/t Au; -- 15,908 soils taken to date on property; -- Grab samples returning grades upwards of 7.11 g/t Au; -- Relatively unexplored region of the Yukon-Tanana Terrane, south of Goldcorp's recently acquired Kaminak Coffee Project and 45 kilometers southwest of Rockhaven Resource's Klaza project.

Mahtin

The Mahtin Property is synonymous in geological setting and mineralization style as Victoria Gold's Eagle Gold Project, 40km away to the northeast. The model defining Eagle, an intrusion-related gold system, is characterized by mineralization focused in 070-trending/vertically-dipping sheeted quartz veins. Mineralized sheeted quartz veins are found on the Mahtin Property's two intrusive stocks: Sprague Creek (3.6 x 1.5km) and Bos (4 x 1.1km) stocks.

A summary of the Mahtin Property includes:

-- Grab samples up to 15.01 g/t Au on the property; -- 18,406 soils taken on property between 2010 and 2012; -- Detailed 1:10,000 scale geological mapping across the main targets; -- Radiometric, electromagnetic and magnetic airborne geophysical surveys; -- Two untested intrusion-related gold hosted targets on the property; -- Mineralized sheeted quartz veins returning grades upwards of 3.37g/t Au in grabs; -- A possible third geochemical target is evolving in the south-western portion of the property that could be an additional intrusion related gold system. -- Distances to surrounding projects which use the intrusion-related gold system model; -- Immediately bordering AM Gold's Red Mountain; -- 5km east of Victoria Gold's Clear Creek; -- 50km west Golden Predator's Brewery Creek; -- 40km to the southwest of Victoria Gold's Dublin Gulch

Golden-Oly

Golden-Oly is another large assemblage of claims, measuring 40 x 25km in size. It lays along the North Canol Road and is close to the border with the North West Territories. Traditionally this area has been explored with a focus more on tungsten and zinc, but from the work undertaken across the project, there are several gold targets.

Airborne geophysics flown in 2012 highlighted six individual anomalies that correspond to topographic highs in the field. Some of these are partially exposed cores of granodioritic intrusions, while others exhibit hornfelsing around buried plutons. This area is along the southern edge of the Selwyn Basin, and these plutons seem to be synonymous with the intrusion related gold systems we see at Mahtin (in the north of the Selwyn Basin). Soil sampling across these anomalies has further highlighted the anomalous gold-in-soil results, as well as having a geochemical fingerprint (Au-As-Bi) that is a known marker for these types of deposits.

Drilling in 2017 is designed to target one of these anomalies (the 'Nuke' intrusive) to further enforce the model, to assess grade potential, and as 'proof of concept' for the other five targets on the property.

The Golden-Oly Property:

-- Located near the historic 'SEDEX' discovery Tom-Jason Pb-Zn region of the Yukon Territory; -- Surrounded by Selwyn Chihong Mining Ltd.'s Selwyn Project, Overland Resource's Andrew Project and Constantine-Carlin Gold's JV Yukon Au projects -- Neighboring PDM property (100% Strikepoint owner) has another target that is synonymous with those seen at Golden-Oly. -- Sheeted polymetallic veins returning grades up to 19.5g/t Au and greater than 100 g/t Ag on Nug prospect; -- Extensive anomalous gold-in-soils between 20ppb to 50ppb Au across the entire property that could be indicative of other deposit types on the property.

The Yukon Territory has reemerged as a world-class exploration district with recent discoveries and acquisitions in 2016, including: Golden Predator's 3 Aces discovery, Goldcorp's $520,000,000 purchase of Kaminak Gold's Coffee project and Agnico-Eagle's ongoing investment into the White Gold district. The Strikepoint Gold portfolio holds properties in these emerging and known gold districts representing several geological domains and potential for commodities beyond just gold.

For further information, please review the Corporate Presentation the Strikepoint Gold Inc. website for a more detailed, comprehensive review of the 2017 exploration program: http://www.strikepointgold.com/images/Yukon-Properties-Presentation.pdf

ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD of STRIKEPOINT GOLD INC.

Shawn Khunkhun, CEO and Director

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

Contacts:

Strikepoint Gold Inc.

Shawn Khunkhun

CEO and Director

604-602-1440

(604) 685-5777 (FAX)

sk@strikepointgold.com

www.strikepointgold.com




VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA -- (Marketwired) -- 03/31/17 -- Rapier Gold Inc. (TSX VENTURE: RPR) (the "Company") announces the election of a new board of directors following its annual general meeting (the "Meeting") held earlier today. The new board, comprised of Darren Blasutti, Paul Parisotto, David Lotan and Lorie Waisberg (the "Board"), consists entirely of directors nominated by Delbrook Capital Advisors Inc., which holds approximately 17% of the Company's outstanding common shares. For further information in respect of the results of voting at the Meeting, please refer to the Company's Report of Voting Results, which can be accessed at www.sedar.com.

Immediately following the Meeting, the Board held its first meeting of directors, at which, among other items, David Lotan was appointed as interim Chief Executive Officer of the Company, replacing Roger Walsh.

In the near term, the Board intends to conduct a detailed review of the Company to determine what changes, if any, would be desirable in light of such review and existing circumstances. The Board looks forward to working constructively with all of the Company's shareholders to drive value creation going forward.

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this news release.

This news release does not constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy nor shall there be any sale of any securities in any jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful. The securities have not been and will not be registered under the United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the "U.S. Securities Act") or the securities laws of any state of the United States and may not be offered or sold within the United States or to, or for the account or the benefit of, any person in the United States unless registered under the U.S. Securities Act and applicable state securities laws or pursuant to an exemption from such registration requirements.

Cautionary Note Regarding Forward Looking Statements: Certain disclosure in this release constitutes forward-looking statements. In making the forward-looking statements in this release, the Company has applied certain factors and assumptions that are based on the Company's current beliefs as well as assumptions made by and information currently available to the Company, including that the Company is able to procure personnel, equipment and supplies required for its exploration activities in sufficient quantities and on a timely basis and that actual results of exploration activities are consistent with management's expectations. Although the Company considers these assumptions to be reasonable based on information currently available to it, they may prove to be incorrect, and the forward-looking statements in this release are subject to numerous risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause future results to differ materially from those expressed or implied in such forward-looking statements. Such risk factors include, among others, that actual results of the Company's exploration activities will be different than those expected by management and that the Company will be unable to obtain financing, or will experience delays in obtaining any required government approvals or be unable to procure required equipment and supplies in sufficient quantities and on a timely basis. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. The Company does not intend, and expressly disclaims any intention or obligation to, update or revise any forward-looking statements whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by law.

Contacts:

Rapier Gold Inc.

Diana Marks

778-908-2730

diana@rapiergold.com




BRUSSELS (dpa-AFX) - The Commerce Department will release personal income and outlays for February at 8.30 am ET Friday. Economists forecast the personal income to be 0.4 percent and consumer spending to be 0.2 percent on a monthly basis. Ahead of the data, the greenback traded mixed against its major rivals. While the greenback declined against the pound, it held steady against the franc, yen and the euro. The greenback was valued at 1.0689 against the euro, 1.2492 against the pound, 111.86 against the yen and 1.0003 against the franc as of 8:25 am ET. 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.
CANBERA (dpa-AFX) - Statistics Canada releases Canada GDP data for January at 8:30 am ET Friday. The real GDP is expected to be 0.3 percent on a seasonally adjusted monthly basis, unchanged from December. Ahead of the data, the loonie held steady against its major rivals. The loonie was worth 1.3344 against the greenback, 83.85 against the yen, 1.0197 against the aussie and 1.4262 against the euro as of 8:25 am ET. 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.
SAN FRANCISCO, CA--(Marketwired - March 31, 2017) - With a swab taken from the inside of a patient's cheek, 3D Signatures Inc.'s (TSX VENTURE: DXD) (OTCQB: TDSGF) TeloView platform has demonstrated its ability to diagnose Alzheimer's disease, and also to assess whether the disease is manifesting in a mild, moderate or severe form.

Included in this article is: 3D Signatures Inc.

The company reported the results of its second clinical study of the TeloView platform in the degenerative brain disease in a March 21 press release. The results of the study have been accepted for publication in the Journal of Alzheimer's Disease.

Because the TeloView Alzheimer's test is both accurate and minimally invasive, it represents a disruptive diagnostic and prognostic tool for a disease that affects five million Americans over the age of 65, according to the company.

In the press release, Dr. Sabine Mai, 3D Signatures' cofounder and principal inventor, stated that, at present, Alzheimer's disease (AD) "is only confirmed postmortem pathologically. There is a significant need for an accurate, non-invasive biomarker that can diagnose AD and indicate disease progression, and we believe TeloView has the potential to answer that important call."

"As we understand it there's more than 1,000 drugs in development and working toward FDA approval right now for Alzheimer's and there's no test to tell if they work," said Jason Flowerday, 3D Signatures' CEO. "There's a lot of resources being devoted to finding therapies that are effective, and we're trying to develop a tool that will enable companies to identify better drugs, select appropriate patients for trials, monitor patients during trials and ultimately get those drugs to market."

If the 3D Signatures' platform proves its utility in additional clinical studies, company representatives told The Life Sciences Report the technology could be easily adopted by large pharma and biotech companies looking to ensure patients enrolled in clinical trials in Alzheimer's drug development truly have the disease, and could also be an accurate and cost-effective way to monitor progression of the disease in those drug trials.

The company is "exploring opportunities to expand the scope of its AD related work with further clinical studies and to fund that work through non-dilutive or independent financing arrangements, such as a joint venture," the press release states.

Commenting on the news, Knight Therapeutics CEO and president Jonathan Goodman stated, "Knight is delighted with its investment in 3D Signatures on multiple dimensions. One example is 3D Signatures' progress in Alzheimer's disease, including the company's ability to detect the presence and severity of the disease in living patients from a simple cheek swab. If validated through additional research, this could be a game-changer for AD diagnosis and the development of effective treatments."

Knight has provided "capital to advance the development of [3D Signatures'] novel diagnostic and prognostic technologies," according to a press release from December 2016.

"The search for sensitive and noninvasive markers to detect Alzheimer's has been a hot topic lately," Magdalena Kegel wrote in an article for Alzheimer's News Today about the 3D Signatures announcement. "For now, scientists can only make a definitive diagnosis of Alzheimer's after death, and amyloid plaques are detected in a patient's brain. And although current imaging methods can detect the Alzheimer's protein in the brains of living people, doctors don't consider this method practical for routine screening."

Given the large unmet medical need, the growing demographics of people susceptible to developing Alzheimer's, and consequently the large market opportunity, a number of large pharmaceutical firms are looking for an Alzheimer's treatment and/or cure. According to an article in PharmaExec.com, research firm GlobalData anticipates "The global market for Alzheimer's Disease (AD) treatment will more than double in value from $4.9 billion in 2013 to reach an estimated $13.3 billion by 2023."

Continue reading this article: 3D Signatures' TeloView Can Diagnose Alzheimer's with Cheek Swab

About Streetwise Reports - The Life Sciences Report

Investors rely on The Life Sciences Report to share investment ideas for the biotech, pharmaceutical, medical device, and diagnostics industries. The information provided above is for informational purposes only and is not a recommendation to buy or sell any security.

DISCLOSURE:

3D Signatures Inc. is a billboard sponsor of Streetwise Reports. Streetwise Reports does not accept stock in exchange for its services. Click here for important disclosures about sponsor's fees. The information provided above is for informational purposes only and is not a recommendation to buy or sell any security.

Please see the end of the article for the complete disclosure: 3D Signatures' TeloView Can Diagnose Alzheimer's with Cheek Swab

Contact Information:

Carrie Beal Amaro

Associate Publisher

Email contact


SAN FRANCISCO, CA--(Marketwired - March 31, 2017) - Millennial Lithium Corp. (TSX VENTURE: ML) (OTCQB: MLNLF), which closed a private placement of nearly $6 million and is resuming drilling at Pastos Grandes in Argentina, has set its sights on producing lithium within three years as lithium demand is projected to skyrocket.

Included in this article is: Millennial Lithium Corp.

Millennial Lithium Corp.'s announcement on March 27 that it has closed a private placement of nearly $6 million and is commencing phase 2 drilling at Pastos Grandes in Argentina demonstrates that the company is moving ahead rapidly on the project. The company reported that "Montgomery and Associates has designed a program that includes 11 additional drill sites to define the resource...the holes will be drilled to 400 meters or deeper based on drilling conditions and brine content."

The company also stated that "all of the resource definition holes will be completed as monitoring wells. Selected sites will be drilled with larger bores suitable for construction of production scale wells, initial pumping tests, and for NI 43-101 resource compliance."

Kyle Stevenson, president of Millennial Lithium, told The Energy Report that the company is "focused on proving up a 43-101 resource at Pastos Grandes by the end of second quarter of this year. Once the 43-101 is completed we expect to have our Preliminary Economic Assessment done shortly after, by mid-summer. We are focused on being in production in three years."

Millennial Lithium is also moving rapidly to drill three other high-impact exploration projects, Cauchari East, Cruz and Pocitos West. Stevenson noted that "the Cauchari East Project is contiguous to Lithium Americas Cauchari Project and Orocobre's Olaroz Project. The Cruz Project is at the north end of the Pocitos Salar; recent geophysics show a large brine target extending to at least 250m."

The company announced on Mar. 30 that it has made the initial payment under its option to acquire 100% interest in the Pocitos West project, located in Argentina's Pocitos Salar. According to Millennial Lithium, "Pocitos West is adjacent to ground recently acquired by Pure Energy Minerals Ltd. and is strategically located in close proximity to known lithium resources including the Rincon Project located 32km to the north and the Sal De Vida Project 90km to the south."

Millennial Lithium's projects are all located in the "Lithium Triangle," the lithium-rich area where the countries of Argentina, Chile and Bolivia meet.

Continue reading this article: Millennial Lithium's Exploration Progressing Rapidly in the Lithium Triangle

About Streetwise Reports - The Energy Report

The Energy Report shares investment ideas for the oil & gas, renewable and alternative energy industries. The information provided above is for informational purposes only and is not a recommendation to buy or sell any security.

DISCLOSURE:

The following companies mentioned in this article are billboard sponsors of Streetwise Reports: Millennial Lithium Corp. Streetwise Reports does not accept stock in exchange for its services. Click here for important disclosures about sponsor's fees. The information provided above is for informational purposes only and is not a recommendation to buy or sell any security.

The full disclosure is provided at the end of the published article: Millennial Lithium's Exploration Progressing Rapidly in the Lithium Triangle

For more information, contact

Carrie Beal Amaro

Associate Publisher

Email contact

.
TAMPA, FL -- (Marketwired) -- 03/31/17 -- Umbra Applied Technologies Group (OTC PINK: UATG) First Quarter Status

Fellow Shareholders,

It is an exciting time here at UAT Group and across our servicing market segments, particularly within the biotech industry. Admittedly the biotech industry still has not completely recovered from the volatility of 2016 however, there has been a strong resurgence through-out the market place. The immuno-therapy market segment looks to be exploding, with several cancer vaccines entering clinical trials and some nearing commercialization. PD-1 inhibitors are starting to be approved for treating various cancers and with companies like Sarepta Therapeutics, UniQure and United Therapeutics making significant advancements, the market has a pretty good start. Gene therapies are also getting closer to market with, Spark Therapeutics potentially having the first treatment approved in the United States as soon as next year and the gene editing technique CRISPR-Cas 9 has begun human trials.

I expect to see more of this in 2017 as the market sector returns to the fundamentals of mergers and acquisitions with the strength of clinical data being the fundamental catalyst. While many analysts caution that the relative performance of the sector is made largely due to the binary nature of biotechnology holdings I would also add that as a whole I predict the sector to outperform initial 2017 projections based on current trends in corporate growth strategies.

Umbra Applied Technologies is well suited and positioned to capitalize on a burgeoning market segment.

This holds true for UAT Group in that we are well positioned within the medical device segment that has seen little to no innovations over the past 48 months yet has seen significant growth. Up to one third of medical device companies reported sales increases of 10% or more over the last year with many medical device companies expecting more growth from established markets in the US and Europe than in developing markets in 2017.

Regulatory changes continue to represent the biggest business challenge for most of us in this market segment however a recent survey of more than 3,000 medical device industry participants found a renewed focus among companies in US and European markets, as well as more bearish expectations for BRIC markets and greater challenges addressing regulatory compliance. More than 20% of the survey respondents reported sales increases of 15% or higher last year, and nearly 30% of firms reported increases of between 6% and 10%. The highest percentages of sales increases came from smaller firms--34% of firms with nine or fewer employees and 31% of firms with fifty or fewer employees grew sales by 15% or more. Larger respondents with two hundred fifty or more employees indicated more modest sales growth of 10% or less. This bodes well for UAT Group both as a small company and an industry leader in innovation.

Another significant indicator within the global medical device market is that positive growth expectations for the US jumped 9% between 2016 (51% of respondents) and 2017 (60%), while such expectations for Europe increased from 40% in 2016 to 51%. This leaves UATG well positioned to capitalize on a segment movement that previously was otherwise turbulent and unpredictable.

At UAT Group we believe that medical devices are beginning to capture major market share and it appears so do many other companies. We predicted this and prepared for it by creating a pipeline of innovative products to be released during the second quarter of 2017. The medical device industry has been rapidly changing, and is very dynamic. Through the rise of bioelectronics and medical technology more generally, pharmaceutical partnerships, and an increased emphasis on collaborative care, medical device manufacturers are clearing a space for themselves in the future of medicine. Pharmaceutical companies are looking for synergistic relationships that enhance their product and give their product a competitive edge in the market. It is why you see companies like Pfizer or Roche developing mobile apps to accompany their drugs and it is why GlaxoSmithKline has recently partnered with Google.

The $3.2-trillion healthcare industry is set to go through a big shift in 2017, and the medical device sector is at the heart of this transition.

The biotech transaction market appears to be robust, and we intend to be an active participant, both as a potential buyer of Intellectual property and a potential retailer within the global biotech market segment. Our improving balance sheet is an important enabler in that regard to which we seek constant bolstering of our asset base and cash position.

We continue to make progress with our evolving balance sheet which we feel will provide us with a strong liquidity position allowing us to thoughtfully pursue our growth objectives while returning capital to shareholders. We believe this is a key competitive advantage as we head into a period where we expect to see increasing acquisition opportunities.

Additionally, we have revamped our internal corporate mechanisms to not only better serve our employees, build shareholder value but also to be as efficient as possible when serving our future customers. We have become more efficient by outsourcing payroll and employee health benefits to a top U.S. based firm at a reduced cost of what previously was an internal expense freeing up capital to be allocated where needed.

We are currently in the process of completing a capital infusion of $250,000.00 with April beginning the launch of a $5,000,000 raise in support of corporate expansion, product manufacturing and up-listing to a senior exchange. Accompanying capital raises will be a robust marketing campaign supporting the delivery of a pipeline of products beginning with the Aegis fixation pin to include the delivery of the ClearView wrist fixator later this year. In support of this initiative I have, for the first time, granted several scheduled interviews and the company will be releasing several videos on our products, manufacturing processes as well as offering a glimpse into what is on the horizon here UAT Group. I think you will be just as excited and encouraged as I am, by seeing what our Applied Sciences Division (ASD) has been working on.

I look forward to my next letter updating you on our progress and how far we have come since first beginning this journey almost five years ago. I will be releasing another podcast in the coming weeks outlining advances and perhaps a few surprises so be sure to update your official UAT Group app and watch for UATG alerts so you can listen to the podcasts to come. If you do not yet have the UAT Group app, it is available at the Apple App Store and Google Play under "UAT Group".

I would also urge everyone to sign-up/opt-in to our e-mail list so that you can always stay up to date on the latest news from UATG. To opt-in and become part of the UATG experience simply follow the link http://uatgroup.com/chairmans-letters/ and fill out field on the right under "Get Chairman's Letters & News by E-mail" or If you have any questions about our improved social media presence, please visit http://uatgroup.com/faq/.

Sincerely,

Alex Umbra

Chairman & Chief Executive Officer

Umbra Applied Technologies Group, Inc.

About Umbra Applied Technologies, Inc.

Umbra Applied Technologies is a member of the Umbra Applied Technologies Group (OTC: UATG) family of companies. Umbra Applied Technologies, U.S. based Defense and Security Company, is engaged in the research, design, development, manufacture, integration, and sustainment of advanced technology systems, products, and services for defense, civil, and commercial applications in United States and internationally. It also provides management, engineering, technical, scientific, logistic, and information services.

In support of air, land and naval forces, the company operates in five segments: Aeronautics, Information Systems & Global Solutions, Biotech, Alternative & Renewable Energy, and Intelligence Systems. The Aeronautics segment offers military aircrafts, such as unmanned combat and air mobility aircrafts, and related technologies. The Information Systems & Global Solutions segment provides advanced technology systems and security expertise, integrated information technology solutions, and management services for civil, defense, intelligence, and other government customers. The Biotech segment addresses critical gaps that are absent in defense medical research programs. The Alternative & Renewable Energy segment provides alternative solutions to energy through research in bioelectricity, wind, thermodynamic and solar energy. The Intelligence segment provides computational study of signals, open source and network intelligence through advanced metrics and algorithms to locate and extract sentiment from gathered intelligence.

For more information visit www.uatgroup.com or www.umbraappliedtechnologies.com

NEITHER THE SECURITIES EXCHANGE COMMISION NOR ITS REGULATION SERVICES PROVIDER ACCEPTS RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE ADEQUACY OR ACCURACY OF THIS NEWS RELEASE.

Forward-Looking Information

This news release may include "forward-looking statements" including forecasts, estimates, expectations, and objectives for future operations including but not limited to its ability to conclude a business combination with a third party, sale of assets, return of capital or initial public offering and a secondary listing on the OTC as a result of aforementioned and its ability to fund the exploration of its assets through the raising of equity or debt capital or through funding by a joint venture partner that are subject to a number of assumptions, risks, and uncertainties, many of which are beyond the control of Umbra Applied Technologies including but not limited to capital markets and securities risks and continued development success on technology. There can be and are no actual or implied guarantees that any of the above activities will be completed or completed on terms acceptable to the Company and its shareholders or approved by any regulatory authority having jurisdiction. Such forward-looking information represents management's best judgment based on information currently available. No forward-looking statement can be guaranteed and actual future results may vary materially. Risks and uncertainties about Umbra Applied Technologies business are more fully discussed in the company's disclosure materials, including its MD&A, filed with the securities regulatory authorities in Canada and available at www.sedar.com and readers are urged to read these materials. Umbra Applied Technologies does not assume the obligation to update any forward-looking statement, except as required by applicable law.

Contact:

UAT Group

813.607.6219

ir@umbraappliedtechnologies.com




Wipro Limited (NYSE: WIT, BSE: 507685, NSE: WIPRO), a leading global information technology, consulting and business process services company, today announced that it has been positioned as a 'Leader' in IDC MarketScape: Worldwide Datacenter Transformation Consulting and Implementation Services 2016 Vendor Assessment (doc US42020516, December 2016).

This study presents a vendor assessment of the 2016 datacenter transformation (DCT) consulting and implementation (C&I) services market through the IDC MarketScape model. The report included analysis of the 11 largest DCT systems integrators (SIs), with broad portfolios spanning IDC's research coverage and with global scale.

The IDC report states, "Buyers rate Wipro highly for leveraging resources globally, managing its staff turnover during a project's lifetime, and achieving clients' desired business outcomes. IDC rates Wipro highly in terms of its customer service strategy and for the range of its services portfolio."

Kiran Desai, Senior Vice President and Global Head, Global Infrastructure Services, Wipro Limited said, "The recognition by the IDC MarketScape is a reiteration of our commitment to deliver world-class datacenter and cloud services through the Wipro BoundaryLess Datacenter solution. We are well poised to enable the digital transformation journey of our clients by leveraging a combination of our technology prowess, domain expertise and digital capabilities."

An excerpt of the report is available here.

About Wipro Limited

Wipro Limited (NYSE: WIT, BSE: 507685, NSE: WIPRO) is a leading information technology, consulting and business process services company that delivers solutions to enable its clients do business better. Wipro delivers winning business outcomes through its deep industry experience and a 360 degree view of "Business through Technology." By combining digital strategy, customer centric design, advanced analytics and product engineering approach, Wipro helps its clients create successful and adaptive businesses. A company recognized globally for its comprehensive portfolio of services, strong commitment to sustainability and good corporate citizenship, Wipro has a dedicated workforce of over 170,000, serving clients across 6 continents. For more information, please visit www.wipro.com.

About IDC MarketScape

About IDC MarketScape: IDC MarketScape vendor analysis model is designed to provide an overview of the competitive fitness of ICT (information and communications technology) suppliers in a given market. The research methodology utilizes a rigorous scoring methodology based on both qualitative and quantitative criteria that results in a single graphical illustration of each vendor's position within a given market. IDC MarketScape provides a clear framework in which the product and service offerings, capabilities and strategies, and current and future market success factors of IT and telecommunications vendors can be meaningfully compared. The framework also provides technology buyers with a 360 degree assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of current and prospective vendors.

Forward-looking and Cautionary Statements

Certain statements in this release concerning our future growth prospects are forward-looking statements, which involve a number of risks, and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in such forward-looking statements. The risks and uncertainties relating to these statements include, but are not limited to, risks and uncertainties regarding fluctuations in our earnings, revenue and profits, our ability to generate and manage growth, intense competition in IT services, our ability to maintain our cost advantage, wage increases in India, our ability to attract and retain highly skilled professionals, time and cost overruns on fixed-price, fixed-time frame contracts, client concentration, restrictions on immigration, our ability to manage our international operations, reduced demand for technology in our key focus areas, disruptions in telecommunication networks, our ability to successfully complete and integrate potential acquisitions, liability for damages on our service contracts, the success of the companies in which we make strategic investments, withdrawal of fiscal governmental incentives, political instability, war, legal restrictions on raising capital or acquiring companies outside India, unauthorized use of our intellectual property, and general economic conditions affecting our business and industry. Additional risks that could affect our future operating results are more fully described in our filings with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission. These filings are available at www.sec.gov. We 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. We do not undertake to update any forward-looking statement that may be made from time to time by us or on our behalf.

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170331005397/en/

Contacts:

Wipro Limited

Sandhya Sutodia

Sandhya.sutodia@wipro.com
LAVAL, QUEBEC -- (Marketwired) -- 03/31/17 -- Axe Exploration Inc. (TSX VENTURE: AXQ) (the "Company") announces the results of its Shareholders Annual Meeting, held March 30th, 2017, in Laval, Quebec.

The shareholders of the Company approved, by the majority of votes, the appointment of Raymond Chabot Grant Thornton as Auditors of the Company. Furthermore, the following four Directors were elected: Mrs David Mc Donald, Pascal Ducharme, Claude Lavoie and Ms Johanne Moreau.

Exploration Works

Exploration works are planned on the Goldpeak Project in 2017.

Grant of stock option

The Board of Directors has approved a grant of 1,000,000 stock options to its directors, under the company's Stock Option Plan.

Each stock option is exercisable at a price of $0.05 per share, for a period of 10 years.

About Axe Exploration

Axe Exploration is a Canadian-based mining exploration Company whose primary mission is the acquisition, exploration and development of gold projects in Canada.

With only 57,357,445 shares outstanding, Axe Exploration is well positioned for the eventual economic mining sector recovery. The Company owns 100% of the Unique, GoldPeak and Commandant Properties as well as 50% of the Destorbelle Property, in partnership with Typhoon Exploration Inc.

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

Contacts:

David Mc Donald

President and CEO

450.622.5785

info@axeexploration.com

www.axeexploration.com




STOCKHOLM, Mar 31, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- The number of shares and votes in Tobii AB has increased by 141,029 as a result of exercise of warrants in accordance with the company's incentive programs.

Today, the last trading day of the month, there are in total 97,095,065 shares and votes in the company. After the increase, the share capital amounts to 704,612.31 SEK. The increase in the number of shares is due to the exercise of warrants in accordance with the Company's incentive programs.

This information is information that Tobii is obliged to make public pursuant to the Financial Instruments Trading Act. The information was submitted for publication, through the agency of the contact person set out below, on March 31, 2017, at 3:00 p.m. CET.

CONTACT:

Sara Hyleen, Corporate Communications Director of Tobii, phone: +46 709 16 16 41, email: sara.hyleen@tobii.com

This information was brought to you by Cision http://news.cision.com

http://news.cision.com/tobii-ab/r/new-number-of-shares-and-votes-in-tobii,c2229332

The following files are available for download:

http://mb.cision.com/Main/2874/2229332/651355.pdf New Number of Shares and Votes in Tobii - press release - 31March2017

SOURCE Tobii AB
Release no. 10/2017 With reference to release no. 8 of 31 March 2017, the capital increase has now been registered at the Danish Business Authority. Hereafter, the share capital of Columbus A/S amounts to DKK 149,832,040 (nom.) divided into 119,865,632 shares of DKK 1.25. The total number of votes is 119,865,632. New Articles of Association are attached. Ib Kune Thomas Honore Chairman CEO & President Columbus A/S Columbus A/S For further information, please contact: CEO & PresidentThomas Honore, T: +45 70 20 50 00. Translation: In the event of any inconsistency between this document and the Danish language version, the Danish language version shall be the governing version. Attachment: https://cns.omxgroup.com/cds/DisclosureAttachmentServlet?messageAttachmentId=623260

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.
BEIJING (dpa-AFX) - President Donald Trump has warned that a meeting next week with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping will be 'very difficult.' Trump commented about the upcoming meeting at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida in a series of posts on Twitter on Thursday. 'The meeting next week with China will be a very difficult one in that we can no longer have massive trade deficits and job losses,' Trump tweeted. 'American companies must be prepared to look at other alternatives.' The meeting at Mar-a-Lago on April 6th and 7th will be the first between to the leaders since Trump became president. A statement from the White House said Trump and Xi will discuss global, regional, and bilateral issues of mutual concern. The president and First Lady Melania Trump will also host Xi and his wife Peng Liyuan at a dinner on the evening of April 6th, the White House said. Trump repeatedly attacked U.S. trade relations with China on the campaign trail and has criticized China for failing to do more to deal with North Korea. 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.
The "Hangzhou, Inspiring New Connections"event at this year's IT&CM draws in crowds at the Hangzhou booth, while the city's success as a MICE destination leads to a surge in tourism to the city

SHANGHAI, March 31, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --Business Events Hangzhou led a delegation of 14 MICE services providers to the 2017 Incentive Travel & Conventions, Meetings China (IT&CM China)that took place in Shanghai between March 21stand 23rd.Since having established "Hangzhou, Inspiring New Connections" as a brand, the business Events Hangzhouhas been putting quite a bit of effort into enhancing the brand's visibility.

A multi-dimensional interpretation of the new"Hangzhou, Inspiring New Connections" brand

The new and highly visual design of the Hangzhou booth simultaneously represents the event itself via C letter, which is the first letter of the word "conference", the abbreviation for the Celsius temperature designation C,which is also the annual theme of Hangzhou as a MICE destination, as well as the new "connection" between Hangzhou's MICE resources and international markets.

The application of VR technology to the branding has created a new visual experience. At the exhibition, attendees were able to put on the VR goggles and get a real sense of the overall perspective of Hangzhou as a conference destination. Some of the attendees commented that they look forward to seeing more applications of the new technology when it comes to simulating the experience of travel.

LinkedIn has been added as a new channel for promotion both in and outside of China, creating company pages on the US-based social networking platform, The combination of social media outlets, including Facebook, Weibo and Wechat that created a comprehensive matrix for the promotion of the event and provided international conference organizers many options for learning and getting more information about Hangzhou MICE.

The G20 Summit that took place in Hangzhou continues to make an impact

During this year's IT&CM, Hangzhouwas drawing a lot of attendees into the booth, with the result that more than 600 one-on-one negotiations took place, and with the delegation walking away with more than 50 signed agreements in their briefcases.

Hangzhou in the early half of 2017 also rolled out a series of brand promotion events, including the CEO Fam Trip and Hangzhou MICE Promotion Season and the 2017 Hangzhou Special Offer Year Campaign, as vehicles for attracting more domestic and international conferences.

Hangzhou is becoming distinctly more international since the G20 Summit.

An important task forBusiness Events Hangzhouis to continue enhancing the reputation behind the brand, as well as to continue and build on what has already been started: transforming Hangzhou into a truly international city through the build out of a complete infrastructure capable of supporting an end-to-end platform for high quality conference and travel services, as well as the unique advantages of the city of Hangzhou, will come together to redefine Hangzhou as an international MICE destination.

Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/482643/Business_Events_Hangzhou.jpg
TORONTO, ONTARIO -- (Marketwired) -- 03/31/17 -- Brionor Resources Inc. ("Brionor" or the "Company") (TSX VENTURE: BNR) is pleased to announce the results of its annual and special meeting of shareholders (the "Meeting") held on March 30, 2017.

1. A total of 17,462,172 common shares ("Common Shares") were represented at the Meeting and all matters presented for approval at the Meeting were duly authorized and approved, as follows: i. election of all management nominees to the board of directors of the Company, as well as one additional shareholder nominee; ii. appointment of parker simone LLP as auditors of the Company for the ensuing year and authorization of the directors to fix their remuneration; and iii.approval of the Company's stock option plan. iv. approval of the special resolution to change the name of the Company from "Brionor Resources Inc." to "Magna Terra Minerals Inc.". v. approval of the special resolution to consider the consolidation of the company's common shares up to a maximum of 1 for 4. vi. approval of the special resolution to relocate the Company's head office. 2. Detailed voting results regarding the election of directors are as follows: Voted For Voted For Withheld Withheld Name (#) (%) (#) (%) Lewis Lawrick 17,144,467 99.33 117,750 0.67 Michael J. Byron 17,146,467 99.34 115,750 0.66 Robert Ayotte 17,145,167 99.33 116,750 0.67 Richard Bedell - shareholder nominee 17,462,172 100.00 0.00 0.00

Further details on the above matters, including the report of voting results thereon, are set out in the Company's meeting materials, which are available on SEDAR under the issuer profile of the Company at www.sedar.com.

Name Change to Magna Terra Minerals Inc.

At the Meeting, shareholders of the Company representing approximately 98.33% of the votes cast on the matter overwhelmingly approved the special resolution to change the name of the Company from "Brionor Resources Inc." to "Magna Terra Minerals Inc.". The Company will adopt the name "Magna Terra Minerals Inc." and formalize its re-branding initiatives in the near future, which reflects the evolution of the Company since the beginning of 2017, including the focus of its exploration initiatives in Santa Cruz Province, Argentina.

Nomination of Richard Bedell to the Board of Directors

The Company is very pleased to announce the addition of Richard Bedell to its Board of Directors. Currently Co-founder, Director, and Executive Vice President of Renaissance Gold Inc., a gold exploration company, listed on the TSX Venture Exchange (the "Exchange"). Richard is also Chairman of the Board of TerraCore Inc., an international drill core scanning technology company. Richard has almost 40 years international exploration experience including an adjunct Faculty position in Exploration Geophysics at The Mackay School of Earth Sciences and Engineering, University Nevada Reno. Prior to Renaissance Gold, Richard was previously with AuEx Ventures who did the successful preliminary exploration work on the Long Canyon Deposit in Nevada, subsequently acquired by Newmont Mining. Richard is a recognized expert in remote sensing and geo-spatial technologies and is a Registered Member of the Society for Mining, Metallurgy and Exploration, an internationally recognized professional geology certification. Richard is a graduate from the school of Natural Sciences & Mathematics at Hampshire College in Massachusetts with a B.A., and M.Sc. at the University of Toronto in Economic Geology, and a second M.Sc. from the University of London in Remote Sensing and GIS. Richard is a Fellow of the Society of Economic Geologists, a member of the Geological Society of America, the Geologic Remote Sensing Group, and a member of the Geological Society of Nevada.

Update on the Acquisition of Atala Resources Corp. and Concurrent Private Placement Financing

As per a Press Release (dated March 2, 2017), the Company has entered into a Definitive Share Purchase Agreement (the "Agreement") dated March 1, 2017 to acquire all of the outstanding shares of Atala Resources Corporation ("Atala"), a private Ontario mining exploration company that holds a portfolio of exploration properties in Santa Cruz Province, Argentina . Concurrent with closing of the Agreement, the Company is undertaking a non-brokered Private Placement Financing (the "Financing") for a maximum amount of $1 million. The Company has obtained conditional approval from the Exchange for both the acquisition of Atala and the Financing, and has now begun steps to obtain final approval of the Exchange for the acquisition of Atala. The Company expects to proceed with the closing of the acquisition and the Financing shortly.

About Brionor

Brionor is a junior mining exploration company with a portfolio of exploration projects in Quebec, and a large, very prospective exploration project portfolio in the emerging precious metals Province of Santa Cruz, Argentina, pending closing of its acquisition of Atala Resources Corporation. Currently Brionor is well funded with approximately $2.7 million in cash and marketable securities.

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.

Some statements in this release may contain forward-looking information. All statements, other than of historical fact, that address activities, events or developments that the Company believes, expects or anticipates will or may occur in the future (including, without limitation, statements regarding potential mineralization) are forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are generally identifiable by use of the words "may", "will", "should", "continue", "expect", "anticipate", "estimate", "believe", "intend", "plan" or "project" or the negative of these words or other variations on these words or comparable terminology. Forward-looking statements are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties, many of which are beyond the Company's ability to control or predict, that may cause the actual results of the Company to differ materially from those discussed in the forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause actual results or events to differ materially from current expectations include, among other things, without limitation, failure by the parties to complete the Agreement, failure to establish estimated mineral resources, the possibility that future exploration results will not be consistent with the Company's expectations, changes in world gold markets or markets for other commodities, and other risks disclosed in the Company's public disclosure record on file with the relevant securities regulatory authorities. Any forward-looking statement speaks only as of the date on which it is made and except as may be required by applicable securities laws, the Company disclaims any intent or obligation to update any forward-looking statement.

Contacts:

Brionor Resources Inc.

Lewis Lawrick

President & CEO

647-478-5307

info@brionor.com






OTTAWA (dpa-AFX) - Nine Democratic Senators have sent a letter to President Donald Trump urging him to ensure that the Canadian company constructing the Keystone XL pipeline use 100 per cent American-made steel.



The President recently issued a memorandum requiring all new pipelines to be constructed with American made materials, but made an exception for the Keystone XL pipeline. The influential group of senators argue that it poses a threat to American manufacturing and U.S. jobs.



They requested the President, who is the champion of the Buy American policy, that he reconsider the decision to allow a foreign company to use foreign steel in the Keystone XL pipeline, and secure a firm commitment to source 100 percent American-made steel for the project.



The letter was signed by senators Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), Tammy Duckworth (D-IL), Cory A. Booker (D-NJ), Thomas R. Carper (D-DE), Al Franken (D-MN), Christopher S. Murphy (D-CT), Debbie Stabenow (D-MI), Joe Donnelly (D-IN), Claire McCaskill (D-MO), Robert Menendez (D-NJ), and Gary C. Peters (D-MI).



'Your memorandum explicitly covers new and expanded pipeline projects so we were confused and disappointed to learn that the Keystone XL pipeline would not be required to use 100 percent American-made steel,' the Senators wrote in their joint letter.



'Further, we are deeply concerned that by allowing this Canadian firm to use foreign steel from countries like India and Italy, which have a history of dumping steel products in the U.S. market at unfair, illegal prices, you are establishing a precedent that will have the effect of costing U.S. jobs and undermining the spirit of your Presidential Memorandum.'



TransCanada Keystone Pipeline, L.P. (TransCanada) had received Presidential permit earlier this month authorizing the construction, maintenance and operation of the Keystone XL Pipeline, a major pipeline to import petroleum from Canada to the United States.



Revival of the $6.1 billion Keystone project was one of the promises Trump made during election campaign to increase domestic energy production.



Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX

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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.
31 March 2017 Company announcement no 04-17



The Annual General Meeting was held in accordance with the agenda issued.



The management commentary was presented, and the Annual Report for 2016 was adopted.



Group revenue reached DKK 881 million in 2016, and loss for the year was DKK 63.7 million.



In his report, Kare Staus Wigh stated that, as expected, 2016 realised an operating loss for the Group, and EBIT before special items totalled a negative DKK 26.3 million. Seen in isolation, this year's financial performance is not satisfactory, however, it reflects the continuance of heavy investments in activities to better prepare the Group to deal with the on-demand-driven demand increasingly experienced by the media market.



For 2017, Group EBIT before special items is expected to range from a negative DKK 5 million to a negative DKK 30 million.



At 31 December 2016, the Group's net interest-bearing cash position was DKK 106.9 million. This is DKK 6.9 million less the balance at year-end 2015 when the net interest-bearing cash position stood at DKK 113.8 million.



The Board of Directors and the Executive Board believe that the Group has a solid balance sheet and strong financial resources ensuring and supporting the long-term development of the business. Strong financial resources are considered a key competitive parameter.



Kare Staus Wigh stated that this is the reason why the Board of Directors recommends that no dividend be paid for the financial year 2016. He also stated that the Board of Directors maintains its objective and expectation of achieving a profit performance that can enable distribution of dividend as an annually recurring event.



The Board of Directors believes that the Group is well prepared to cope with the challenges and to ensure that recent years' decline in earnings will end in 2017.



The Annual General Meeting granted discharge to the Board of Directors and the Executive Board and approved the proposed distribution of loss for the year as disclosed in the Annual Report, including the Board of Directors' recommendation not to distribute dividend.



The Annual General Meeting adopted the Board of Directors' proposal to renew the authorisation granted to the Board of Directors to increase the share capital one or several times by up to DKK 25,000,000.00. The authorisation was granted for a period until 31 March 2022.



Richard Bunck, Peter Rasztar, Steen Gede and Ulrik Holsted-Sandgreen were re-elected to the Board of Directors. The Board of Directors is now made up of Richard Bunck, Peter Rasztar, Steen Gede and Ulrik Holsted-Sandgreen.



Immediately after the Annual General Meeting, the Board of Directors elected Richard Bunck as Chairman and Peter Rasztar as Vice-Chairman.



As proposed by the Board of Directors, Deloitte Statsautoriseret Revisionspartnerselskab was re-appointed as company auditor.



For further details, please contact Kare Staus Wigh, Group Executive Director & CFO, at +45 25 65 21 45.



Yours faithfully North Media A/S



Richard Bunck Chairman of the Board



This Company announcement has been prepared in Danish and English.



The Danish text shall be the governing text for all purposes, and in case of any discrepancy the Danish wording shall be applicable.

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Trump declares war on clean energy, Tesla hurtles the other way down the fast lane towards a solar future, SolarWorld lays out its cost-cutting plans, and Algeria's bold PV goals raise concerns.There's a dangerous tendency among some sections of the liberal media to paint everything that President Trump does as stupid, regressive and ill-informed, purely because, well, it's Donald Trump. Why dangerous? Well, these same sections of the media called the U.S. election wrong, just like they had Brexit last summer, and thus that should have been reason enough to least attempt to understand the viewpoints of others. After all, what could be more liberal than that? But then, but then since taking office, Trump has consistently proven his critics correct, stumbling from stupid, regressive and ill-informed policy to the next, seemingly intent on condensing four years-worth of Talk Show host ammunition into his first 100 days. Trump's latest facepalm moment came this week during the signing of the executive order on energy. One of The Donald's brashest rallying calls during the election campaign was to bring back jobs to the nation's decimated coal industry - completely ignoring the market realities that have seen it reduce in size these past few years. Consider the facts (that's f-a-c-t-s, Mr. Trump): the solar industry in the U.S. employs more than 260,000 people. In 2015, the number of coal mining jobs fell below 66,000. Given those numbers, you would think President Trump would have waxed lyrical this week about solar being a great American success story. Butwhat's the Mexican for "nothing'? Trump is unconcerned with the strength of the U.S. solar sector, and instead appears to believe his own lies about reviving coal mining jobs at a time when it is cheap natural gas - not liberal elites, fake news or even renewables - that is destroying coal jobs. pv magazine USA's Frank Andorka took Trump to task on this matter, so if you're in the mood for an informative and scathing tirade that leaves the U.S. President looking plenty foolish, then look no further. Tesla's ruthless approach Maybe Trump's solar blind spot has something to do with the fact that Elon Musk is an immigrant (the South African, former Canadian-citizen-holding 45-year-old only became 'Merkan in 2002). Yeah, that could be it. Because why else wouldn't the President laud this entrepreneurial whizz-kid who has created some of the most exciting and innovative American brands since Apple? Musk's latest headline grabber arrived at the tail-end of last week, when the Tesla CEO tweeted that the company will begin taking orders for its Solar Roof product in April. Musk has created of an atmosphere of mystery around Tesla and its products, like some sort of energy and transportation ...

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BRUSSELS (dpa-AFX) - The University of Michigan is scheduled to release final consumer sentiment index for March at 10:00 am ET Friday. Economists are looking for a reading of 97.6, unchanged from the preliminary estimate. Ahead of the data, the greenback traded mixed against its major rivals. While the greenback held steady against the pound, franc and the euro, it fell against the yen. The greenback was valued at 1.0685 against the euro, 1.2472 against the pound, 111.63 against the yen and 1.0006 against the franc as of 9:55 am ET. 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.
Vilnius, Lithuania, 2017-03-31 16:21 CEST (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The Annual General Meeting of Shareholders of AB "Grigeo Grigiskes", legal entity code 110012450, registered office: Vilniaus g. 10, Grigiskes, Vilniaus m. sav., Lithuania (hereinafter - the Company), is convened by initiative and the decision of the Board of the Company on the 25 April, 2017, at 11 a.m.



The Annual General Meeting of Shareholders will be held at the Company's Office at Vilniaus g. 10, Grigiskes, Vilniaus m. sav., Lithuania, the first floor of Company's administration building.



Registration of shareholders starts at 10.15 a.m., ends at 10.55 a.m.



The accounting day of the Annual General Meeting of Shareholders is 18 April 2017. The persons who were shareholders of the Company at the close of the accounting day of the Meeting shall have the right to attend and vote at the General Meeting of Shareholders in person or may authorise other persons to vote for them as proxies or may conclude an agreement on the disposal of the voting right with third parties.



The shareholders' proprietary rights accounting day is 10 May 2017. The proprietary rights (right to receive dividend) will be held by persons who, at the close of the tenth working day after the General Meeting of Shareholders which adopted the appropriate decision, i.e. on 10 May 2017, will be the shareholders of the Company.



The agenda of the Meeting:



1. Consolidated annual report of the Company for the year 2016. 2. Company's Auditor's report. 3. Approval of the set of consolidated and separate financial statements of the Company for the year 2016. 4. The appropriation of the Company's profit for the year 2016. 5. Alteration of the name of the Company. 6. Amendments to the Articles of Association of the Company and approval of the new wording of the Articles of Association.



A person attending the General Meeting of Shareholders and entitled to vote shall produce a document which is a proof of his identity. A person who is not a shareholder shall additionally produce a document attesting to his right to vote at the General Meeting of Shareholders.



Shareholder entitled to participate in the General Meeting of Shareholders shall have the right to authorise, in writing, a natural or legal person to participate and vote on his behalf at the Annual General Meeting of Shareholders. Such a written authorisation must be approved in accordance with the procedure laid down in legal acts. Shareholder entitled to participate in the General Meeting of Shareholders shall also have the right to authorise, by means of electronic communications, a natural or legal person to participate and vote on his behalf at the Annual General Meeting of Shareholders. Such a proxy of the shareholder need not be certified by a notary. The power of attorney issued through electronic communication means must be confirmed by the shareholder with a safe electronic signature developed by safe signature equipment and approved by a qualified certificate effective in the Republic of Lithuania. The proxy given by means of electronic communications and the notice of the given proxy shall be submitted to the Company by e-mail info.grigiskes@grigeo.lt not later than on the last business day before the General Meeting of Shareholders. The authorised person shall have the same rights as would be held by the shareholder represented by him, unless the issued authorisation or laws provide for narrower rights of the authorised person. The Company has not set the proxy form.



The Company is not providing the possibility to attend and vote at the Annual General Meeting of Shareholders by means of electronic communications.



A shareholder or a person authorised by him shall have a right to vote in writing in advance by filling in the general ballot paper. The General ballot paper will be provided on the Company's website www.grigeo.lt, under the heading "For Investors". If the person who had completed the general ballot paper is not a shareholder, the completed general ballot paper must be accompanied by a document confirming the right to vote. The duly completed general ballot paper must be delivered or sent by mail to the Company's Office at Vilniaus g. 10, Grigiskes, Vilniaus m. sav., Lithuania not later than on the last business day before the General Meeting of Shareholders.



Shareholders who hold shares carrying at least 1/20 of all the votes, have a right of proposing to supplement the agenda of the General Meeting of Shareholders. Draft decisions on the proposed issues or, when it is not mandatory to adopt decisions, explanatory notes on each proposed issue of the agenda of the General Meeting of Shareholders must be presented alongside with the proposal. Proposals to the agenda of the Annual General Meeting of Shareholders shall be submitted in writing by e-mail to info.grigiskes@grigeo.lt or delivered or sent by mail to the Company's office at Vilniaus g. 10, Grigiskes, Vilniaus m. sav., Lithuania. The agenda will be supplemented if the proposal is received not later than 14 days before the Annual General Meeting of Shareholders.



Shareholders who hold shares carrying at least 1/20 of all votes, have a right of proposing draft decisions on the issues already included in the agenda of the General Meeting of Shareholders. The proposed draft decisions at any time before the General Meeting of Shareholders must be presented in writing by sending them by mail to the Company's office at Vilniaus g. 10, Grigiskes, Vilniaus m. sav., Lithuania, or by e-mail info.grigiskes@grigeo.lt. The shareholders shall also be entitled to propose draft decisions on the agenda issues of the General Meeting of Shareholders in writing during the Meeting.



Shareholders have the right to ask questions concerning the agenda of the Annual General Meeting of Shareholders in advance. Questions may be submitted by e-mail to info.grigiskes@grigeo.lt or delivered or sent by mail to the Company's office at Vilniaus g. 10, Grigiskes, Vilniaus m. sav., Lithuania not later than 19 April 2017. Responses of a general character shall be posted on the Company's website www.grigeo.lt, under the heading "For Investors". The Company will not respond personally to the shareholder if the respective information is presented on the Company's website.



The shareholders can get acquainted with the documents held by the Company related to the agenda of the Annual General Meeting of Shareholders, draft resolutions of the Annual General Meeting of Shareholders, and other documents to be submitted to the General Meeting of Shareholders as well as to get information regarding execution of the shareholders' rights at the company's office located Vilniaus g. 10, Grigiskes, Vilniaus m. sav., Lithuania on weekdays from 8.00 a.m. till 4.00 p.m. or on the Company's website www.grigeo.lt, under the heading "For Investors".



The total number of the Company's shares and the number of shares granting voting rights during the Annual General Meeting of Shareholders is the same and amounts to 65,700,000. ISIN code of the Company's shares is LT0000102030.



All the information regarding the Annual General Meeting of Shareholders is presented on the Company's website www.grigeo.lt, under the heading "For Investors" or provided by telephone +370 5 243 5801.

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Lithuania's new green-oriented government hopes to install approximately 200 MW of new residential and commercial PV capacity under an improved net metering scheme over the next three years.Lithuania could see a considerable increase in new PV capacity over the next three years. This growth would be the result of the efforts to improve the country's transition to clean energies made by the recently elected government, which is led by prime minister Saulius Skvernelis. The new government is aiming at installing approximately 200 MW of new PV capacity by 2020 through an improved net metering scheme for commercial and residential PV installations. The scheme was adopted by the local Parliament in 2014, but with "too many restrictions", Vitas Maciulis, president of the Lithuanian Solar Energy Association (LSEA), told pv magazine. The scheme was open to residential PV installations up to 10 kW for homeowners and to PV systems up to 50 kW but only for for public entities such as schools and hospitals. Under the scheme, which is being founded through a green certificate trading system, households could receive 30% investment support and public entities up to 100% until the end of the first half 2016. It is not clear if this investment support will also be included in the new rules. The LSEA has raised the question in a recent audition at the Energy Commission in Parliament. In order to eliminate the restrictions for net metering mentioned by Maciulis, the current government has recently submitted to Parliament ...

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MONTREAL, QC--(Marketwired - March 31, 2017) - Siyata Mobile Inc. (the "Company" or "Siyata") (TSX VENTURE: SIM) (OTC PINK: SIMFF) announces its Uniden UV350, the world's first 4G/LTE vehicle-cellular-device is compatible on Band 14, a frequency dedicated for the FirstNet Network (the "Network"), a nationwide wireless broadband network dedicated to America's first responders.

FirstNet is an independent authority within the U.S. Department of Commerce. Its mission is to develop, build and operate the nationwide, broadband network that equips first responders to save lives and protect U.S. communities.

Yesterday, on March 30, 2017, The First Responder Network Authority announced the selection of AT&T to build the FirstNet network, a nationwide wireless broadband network dedicated to America's first responders. The effort is a significant investment in the communications infrastructure that public safety desperately needs for day-to-day operations, disaster response and recovery, and securing large events.

The ability to communicate seamlessly across jurisdictions is critical for law enforcement, fire, and emergency medical services (EMS). The FirstNet network will be a high-speed network built specifically for the millions of public safety users in all 50 states and five U.S. territories (including rural communities and tribal lands), as well as the District of Columbia. It will modernize first responders' communications and deliver specialized features that are not available to them on wireless networks today.

Marc Seelenfrend, CEO of Siyata Mobile states, "FirstNet will completely change the way first responders communicate in the future. This is a large-scale validation that the market is moving away from traditional Land Mobile Radio systems and embracing cellular based communications with Push-to-Talk Over Cellula(PoC) capabilities for enterprises and first responders. Siyata recognized early on this shift in the industry, and believe that we are at the forefront of this market with our innovative Band 14 ready PoC based cellular solutions."

The Uniden UV350 is the world's first dedicated connected-vehicle device that supports all major North American cellular bands, and Band 14, dedicated for the FirstNet network. Siyata plans to launch additional devices in the future that will also support this network.

About Siyata

Siyata Mobile Inc. is a leading global developer and provider of innovative cellular communication systems under the Uniden Cellular brand. Siyata's "Connected-Vehicle" devices and accessories are specifically designed for professional fleets including trucks, vans, buses, emergency service vehicles, government cars and more. Siyata aims to provide greater mobile connectivity for professional drivers and to facilitate replacement of the aging in-vehicle, multi-device status quo with a single device that incorporates voice, push-to-talk, data, and fleet management solutions.

Siyata also markets and sells Uniden  cellular signal boosters and accessories as well as rugged mobile phones for both the consumer and enterprise markets. Siyata's customers include cellular operators, commercial vehicle technology distributors, and fleets of all sizes in Canada, the US, Europe, Australia, and the Middle East.

Visit www.siyatamobile.com and http://www.unidencellular.com/ to learn more.

On Behalf of the Board of Directors of:

SIYATA MOBILE INC.

Marc Seelenfreund

CEO and Director

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.

This news release may include forward-looking statements that are subject to risks and uncertainties. All statements within, other than statements of historical fact, are to be considered forward looking. Although the Company believes the expectations expressed in such forward-looking statements are based on reasonable assumptions, such statements are not guarantees of future performance and actual results or developments may differ materially from those in forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in forward-looking statements include market prices, continued availability of capital and financing, and general economic, market or business conditions. There can be no assurances that such statements will prove accurate and, therefore, readers are advised to rely on their own evaluation of such uncertainties. We do not assume any obligation to update any forward-looking statements except as required under the applicable laws.

Investor Relations:

Arlen Hansen

Kin Communications

1-866-684-6730

SIM@kincommunications.com



Sales Department:

Glenn Kennedy

VP Sales

Siyata Mobile Inc.

416-892-1823

glenn_kennedy@siyatamobile.com
TORONTO, ONTARIO -- (Marketwired) -- 03/31/17 -- The Ontario Federation of Labour applauds the Brantford city council decision to end its use of temporary staffing agencies to hire workers. This action sends a powerful message that precarious work need not be supported by public institutions.

"The City of Brantford is leading the way in showing how public institutions can support decent work in this province," said OFL Secretary-Treasurer Patty Coates. "Workers doing the same work should get equal pay, and Brantford is leading the way with this change in policy on temporary staffing agencies. It is our hope that the Government of Ontario will ensure decent work in Ontario through the Changing Workplaces Review this year, so that the 1.7 million Ontarians earning at or near minimum wage have decent work."

The number of temporary jobs in Ontario has grown 45 per cent since 2000.

"In Brantford we have seen rampant abuse of temp agency workers. The passing of this motion represents a great first step in reining in that abuse and sends a message that workers should be treated with dignity and respect," said Second Vice-President of the Brantford and District Labour Council Tim Deelstra. "Our thanks to Councilors Brian Van Tilborg and Rick Weaver for bringing the motion forward and proving what a friend to workers they are. The Labour Council is proud to have endorsed Brian and Rick during the Municipal Election in 2014."

The OFL's www.MakeItFair.ca campaign takes on issues of inequality in the workforce, and coincides with the province's "Changing Workplaces Review." The campaign gives voice to unions' demands for across-the-board changes to the Employment Standards Act and the Labour Relations Act that would improve standards for every worker and make it easier for them to join a union.

The OFL represents 54 unions and one million workers in Ontario. For information, visit www.OFL.ca and follow @OFLabour on Facebook and Twitter.

Contacts:

Ontario Federation of Labour

Meagan Perry

Director of Communications

416-894-3456

mperry@ofl.ca






WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - Two Democratic Senators announced their support for federal appeals court judge Neil Gorsuch's nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday.



Senators Joe Manchin, D-W.V., and Heidi Heitkamp, D-N.D., became the first members of the Democratic Party to back President Donald Trump's nominee to the nation's highest court.



Manchin and Heitkamp are seen as moderate Democrats and represent states that Trump won overwhelmingly in the presidential election.



'Senators have a constitutional obligation to advice and consent on a nominee to fill this Supreme Court vacancy and, simply put, we have a responsibility to do our jobs as elected officials,' Manchin said in a statement.



Manchin said he decided to vote to confirm Gorsuch after considering his record, watching his testimony in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee and meeting with him twice.



'I hold no illusions that I will agree with every decision Judge Gorsuch may issue in the future, but I have not found any reasons why this jurist should not be a Supreme Court Justice,' he added.



Heitkamp said she also decided to vote in favor of Gorsuch's confirmation after meeting with him and reviewing his record and testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee



'He has a record as a balanced, meticulous, and well respected jurist who understands the rule of law,' Heitkamp said of Gorsuch.



'During our meeting and at his hearing, he reinforced the importance of a judiciary that remains independent of the executive and legislative branches of government,' she added. 'I expect him to follow through on that critical tenet.'



However, Heitkamp said she remains disturbed by Republicans' treatment of federal appeals court judge Merrick Garland, former President Barack Obama's nominee to the Supreme Court.



Senate Republicans refused to consider Garland's nomination, arguing that the seat held by late Justice Antonin Scalia should be filled by the next president.



'But I was taught that two wrongs don't make a right,' Heitkamp said. 'There isn't a perfect judge. Regardless of which party is in the White House, the U.S. Supreme Court should be above politics.'



Despite the support from Manchin and Heitkamp, Senate Democrats are still expected to mount a filibuster of Gorsuch's nomination.



Republicans control 52 seats in the Senate and would need eight Democrats to join them in order to break a potential filibuster.



However, GOP leaders have suggested they may invoke the so-called 'nuclear option' to require only a majority vote in support of the nomination.



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Regulatory News:

Pixium Vision (Paris:PIX) (FR0011950641 PIX), a company developing innovative bionic vision systems to allow patients who have lost their sight to lead more independent lives, announces the evolution of its share capital. The number of voting rights and shares composing its share capital as at March 31, 2017 is as follow:

Total voting rights Total number of shares

composing capital Total real voting rights*: 13,181,370 13,211,858 Total Theoretical voting rights **: 13,211,858

* The actual (or net) voting rights correspond to the total number of voting rights exercisable at General Meetings. They are calculated based on the total number of voting rights attached to the total number of shares, less any shares without voting rights (treasury shares, etc.)

**Theoretical (or gross) voting rights include all voting rights attached to the shares (including those without voting rights).

ABOUT PIXIUM VISION

Pixium Vision's Mission is to create a world of bionic vision for those who have lost their sight, enabling them to regain partial visual perception and greater autonomy. Pixium Vision's bionic vision systems are associated with a surgical intervention as well as a rehabilitation period.

The company is developing two bionic retinal implant systems. IRISII, the company first bionic system, obtained CE mark in July 2016. In parallel, Pixium Vision has recently completed the pre-clinical study phases for PRIMA, a sub-retinal miniaturized wireless photovoltaic implant platform, and is planning to initiate first-in-human trials.

Pixium Vision collaborates closely with academic and research partners spanning across the prestigious Vision research institutions including the Institut de la Vision in Paris, the Hansen Experimental Physics Laboratory at Stanford University, and Moorfields Eye Hospital in London. The company is EN ISO 13485 certified.

For more information, please visit: www.pixium-vision.com;

And follow us on: @PixiumVision; www.facebook.com/pixiumvision

www.linkedin.com/company/pixium-vision

Pixium Vision is listed on Euronext Paris (Compartment C). Pixium Vision shares are eligible for the French tax incentivized PEA-PME and FCPI investment vehicles.

Pixium Vision is included in the Euronext CAC All Shares index

Euronext ticker: PIX ISIN: FR0011950641 Reuters: PIX.PA Bloomberg: PIX:FP

Disclaimer:

This press release may expressly or implicitly contain forward-looking statements relating to Pixium Vision and its activity. Such statements are related to known or unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that could lead actual results, financial conditions, performance or achievements to differ materially from Vision Pixium results, financial conditions, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward looking statements.

Pixium Vision provides this press release as of the aforementioned date and does not commit to update forward looking statements contained herein, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

For a description of risks and uncertainties which could lead to discrepancies between actual results, financial condition, performance or achievements and those contained in the forward-looking statements, please refer to Chapter 4 "Risk Factors" of the company's Registration Document filed with the AMF under number R16-033 on April 28, 2016 which can be found on the websites of the AMF - AMF (www.amf-france.org) and of Pixium Vision (www.pixium-vision.com

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170331005476/en/

Contacts:

Pixium Vision

Didier Laurens, CFO

investors@pixium-vision.com

+33 1 76 21 47 68

or

Media Relations: Newcap Media

Annie-Florence Loyer, +33 1 44 71 00 12

+33 6 88 20 35 59

afloyer@newcap.fr
Current developments in the field of cancer immunotherapies require increased tissue analysis. The characterization of tumor microenvironment and its immune interaction within the tumor has become a strategic stake in immuno oncology. This is what HISTALIM offers to investigate when it partners with biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies at each stage of their developments.

This Smart News Release features multimedia. View the full release here: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170331005643/en/

Multiplex IHC labeling on human colon (Photo: HISTALIM)

To enforce this positioning and accelerate the growth of its activity, HISTALIM which previously relied on two Roche Diagnostics systems has recently invested to double its capacities in the Ventana range, which is sold by Roche Diagnostics France, the subsidiary of the in vitro diagnostic activities of the Swiss Roche Group. Jean-Philippe COTON, HISTALIM's CEO said: "Roche Diagnostics France partners with us since the launch of our activity in immunohistochemistry and in situ hybridization. Today HISTALIM figures among the leading service providers in Europe for multiplex IHC. Roche Diagnostics France was already active in multiplex tissue labeling. So it was obvious for us to empower this partnership

Alexis PUSCH, Life Science Alliances Manager Pharma EMEA LATAM at Roche Diagnostics France added: "We are very happy to carry on the development of our relationship with HISTALIM, a company we have seen continuously grow since its beginning and which is now starting a new phase of its development after having reached a leading position on its market. Multiplex IHC is a key driver of our markets. Multiplication of companion diagnostics linked to marketed immunotherapies leads pathology toward a more complex discipline than it has ever had. These changes will bring lots of innovation so we are happy to help HISTALIM being able to work on these innovations using our platforms."

HISTALIM, the first European laboratory to use a multiplex slide scanner, will communicate during AACR 2017 on its new ambition to design and develop tools for new generation histopathology. Multiplex IHC staining, digital pathology, and computing of morphologic data are the technologies on which HISTALIM relies for its customer developments, as well as for its own, in the field of precision medicine.

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20170331005643/en/

Contacts:

HISTALIM :

Press contacts :

Jean-Philippe Coton, +33619646737

CEO

contact@histalim.com

or

Roche Diagnostics France

Sophie de Leiris, +33476763051

Directeur de la Communication

sophie.de_leiris@roche.com

or

Site www.histalim.com

LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/company/histalim

Twitter https://twitter.com/HISTALIM
CALGARY, ALBERTA -- (Marketwired) -- 03/31/17 -- Northern Abitibi Mining Corp. ("Northern Abitibi" or the "Corporation") (TSX VENTURE: NAI) announces that it has received approval of the TSX Venture Exchange to change its name to CANEX Metals Inc. and to consolidate the Corporation's issued and outstanding common shares on the basis of five (5) pre-consolidation shares for one (1) post-consolidation share (the "Consolidation"). The number of post-Consolidation shares issued and outstanding will be 21,461,425 common shares.

Effective at the opening of trading on April 3, 2017, the Company's pre-Consolidation common shares will be delisted and the post-Consolidation common shares will commence trading under the name CANEX Metals Inc. The Corporation's trading symbol will be changed to CANX.

DRS Advices representing the post-consolidation common shares will be issued using the Effective Date on a "push-out" basis with a notice describing the change. Share certificates representing the Northern Abitibi shares shall be cancelled on the Effective Date.

No fraction post-Consolidation common shares will be issued pursuant to the Consolidation. All fraction shares resulting from the consolidation will be rounded down to the nearest whole number and no cash consideration will be paid in respect of fractional shares. The exercise price and the number of common shares issuable under any of the Company's outstanding warrants or stock options will be proportionately adjusted upon the Consolidation.

Shane Ebert, President/Director

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its regulation services provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

Except for the historical and present factual information contained herein, the matters set forth in this news release, including words such as "expects", "projects", "plans", "anticipates" and similar expressions, are forward-looking information that represents management of Northern Abitibi's internal projections, expectations or beliefs concerning, among other things, future operating results and various components thereof or the economic performance of Northern Abitibi. The projections, estimates and beliefs contained in such forward-looking statements necessarily involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties, which may cause Northern Abitibi's actual performance and financial results in future periods to differ materially from any projections of future performance or results expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. These risks and uncertainties include, among other things, those described in Northern Abitibi's filings with the Canadian securities authorities. Accordingly, holders of Northern Abitibi shares and potential investors are cautioned that events or circumstances could cause results to differ materially from those predicted. Northern Abitibi disclaims any responsibility to update these forward-looking statements.

Contacts:

Northern Abitibi Mining Corp.

Shane Ebert

1.250.964.2699



Northern Abitibi Mining Corp.

Jean Pierre Jutras

1.403.233.2636

www.naminco.ca






WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - Ahead of next week's visit by Chinese President Xi Jinping, President Donald Trump is expected to sign two executive orders intended to kick-start an effort to address the U.S. trade deficit on Friday.



Trump made improving U.S. trade policy a key focal point of his presidential campaign, and the issue is seen as one of the main reasons he was able to win states such as Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin.



Briefing reporters on the executive orders, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said the actions are designed to show the world Trump is taking another step to fulfill his campaign promises.



The first order will instruct the Commerce Department and the U.S. trade representative to compile a report on the sources of the U.S. trade deficit within 90 days.



Ross said the report will form the basis of future decisions by the Trump administration to tackle trade imbalances.



'It will demonstrate the administration's intention not to hip shoot, not to do anything casual, not to do anything abruptly, but to take a very measured and analytical approach,' Ross said.



The second order will step up efforts to combat dumping by foreign companies and countries, which is considered a form of trade cheating.



Peter Navarro, director of the White House National Trade Council, indicated the order would improve the collection of countervailing duties imposed on foreign governments who violate trade rules.



China has repeatedly been accused of violating U.S. anti-dumping laws, although Navarro claimed the order was not directed at China.



'Nothing we're saying tonight is about China. Let's not make this a China story. This is a story about trade abuses, this is a story about an under-collection of duties,' Navarro said.



The timing of the orders has raised some questions, however, as the signing comes less than a week before Trump is due to meet with his Chinese counterpart.



In a series of posts to Twitter on Thursday, Trump warned that his meeting with Xi at his Mar-a-Lago resort next week will be 'very difficult.'



'The meeting next week with China will be a very difficult one in that we can no longer have massive trade deficits and job losses,' Trump tweeted. 'American companies must be prepared to look at other alternatives.'



The meeting at Mar-a-Lago on April 6th and 7th will be the first between to the leaders since Trump became president.



A statement from the White House said Trump and Xi will discuss global, regional, and bilateral issues of mutual concern.



Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX

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PHOENIX, AZ -- (Marketwired) -- 03/31/17 -- Mobivity Holdings Corp. (OTCQB: MFON), the provider of SmartSuite, an award-winning mobile marketing and customer engagement platform, today announced financial results for the year ended December 31, 2016 ("FY 2016").

2016 Highlights

Successfully deployed our SmartMessenger solution across all 27,000 domestic locations for Subway restaurants and began international deployments in Canada, Australia, and the U.K.

2016 Revenues were $8.4 million, an increase of $3.8 million, or 83%, compared to 2015.

Net cash used in operating activities decreased to $3.0 million through December 31st, 2016, a 25% decrease as compared to $4.0 million during the same period in 2015.

Non-GAAP adjusted net loss for 2016 was $3.0 million compared to $3.9 million for 2015, representing an improvement of 23%.

The Company had $2.2 million of cash at December 31, 2016 compared to $634,000 at December 31, 2015.

A key patent was awarded by the USPTO relating to printing dynamic content on receipts.

SmartReceipt transactions in 2016 rose to more than 879 million, a 114% increase as compared to 2015.

Subscribers to Mobivity powered mobile marketing campaigns grew to 7.4 million unique consumers in 2016, an increase of more than 96% compared to 2015.

Mobivity powered more than 450 million mobile marketing messages in 2016, an increase of 215% over 2015.

"2016 was an extremely busy year for our team as we continued our obsession with cracking the code on achieving the same shopping cart visibility to offline brick and mortar marketers, traditionally only afforded to e-commerce brands such as Amazon, and bringing personalized targeted marketing to the other 93% of commerce carried out in the US that isn't conducted online," said Dennis Becker, Mobivity CEO. He added, "As we've made our way through thousands of new deployments of our services, we're focused on unlocking valuable purchase data from merchants' point-of-sale systems and using that information to create targeted, personalized messaging experiences for our customers resulting in higher sales."

Mr. Becker continued, "This past year marks several key growth milestones that are predominantly a result of what we believe marked an inflection point to our business beginning just a short year ago. The tailwinds created by our highly visible national rollout with Subway in December of 2015, and our recent expansion with Baskin-Robbins, have greatly enhanced the awareness of our technology, not only to the restaurant space but to other large verticals such as the personal care and retail industries. All of this progress means that we are now selling a broader product across several vertical markets and with global reach. Keep in mind that we have accomplished all of this in 2016 with 25% less cash used in operating activities than 2015."

Fiscal Year 2016 Conference Call:

The Company has scheduled a conference call for 5:30 P.M. Eastern Time (ET) on Tuesday, April 4, 2017 to review financial results for its fiscal year ended December 31, 2016.

Conference Call Information:

Date: Tuesday, April 4, 2017

Time: 5:30 P.M. Eastern Time (ET)

Dial in Number for U.S. Callers: (877) 705-6003

Dial in Number for International Callers: (201) 493-6725

Participating on the call will be Mobivity Holding Corp.'s Chief Executive Officer, Dennis Becker, and Chief Financial Officer, Christopher Meinerz. To join the live conference call, please dial in to the above referenced telephone numbers five to ten minutes prior to the scheduled conference call time.

A replay will be available for two weeks starting on April 4, 2017 at approximately 8:30 P.M. ET. To access the replay, please dial (844) 512-2921 in the U.S. and (412) 317-6671 for international callers. The conference identification number is 13658743. The replay will also be available on the Company's website under the investor relations section (http://ir.mobivity.com).

Fiscal Year 2016 Financial Results

Revenues for FY 2016 were $8,433,000, representing an increase of 83% compared to $4,619,000 for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2015 ("FY 2015"). The increase in FY 2016 is primarily attributable to the addition of new programs with Subway and Baskin-Robbins.

Gross margins decreased to 75% in FY 2016 compared to 77% in FY 2015. Operating expenses (excluding goodwill and intangible asset impairment charges) for FY 2016 were $11,846,000 compared to $9,797,000 in FY 2015. The increase in operating expenses is primarily attributable to increases in personnel related expenses in sales and marketing ($887,000 or 21%) and engineering, research, and development costs ($984,000 or 135%) in FY 2016 compared to FY 2015. Net loss for FY 2016 was $(9,547,000), or $(0.29) per diluted share, compared to a net loss of $(6,133,000), or $(0.23) per diluted share in FY 2015. Impairment charges in FY 2016 were $3,932,000 compared to $21,000 in FY 2015.

Non-GAAP Adjusted Net Loss, a non-GAAP metric (see note on non-GAAP Measurements) was $(2,991,000) for FY 2016 as compared to $(3,861,000) for FY 2015. The Company had $2.2 million of cash at December 31, 2016 compared to $634,000 at December 31, 2015.

Non-GAAP Measurements

This press release includes certain financial information which constitutes "non-GAAP financial measures" as defined by the SEC. A full reconciliation of the non-GAAP measures to GAAP can be found in the tables of today's press release. Non-GAAP adjusted net income is supplemental to results presented under accounting principles generally accepted in the United States of America ("GAAP") and may not be comparable to similarly titled measures presented by other companies. These non-GAAP measures are used by management to facilitate period-to-period comparisons and analysis of Mobivity's operating performance and liquidity. Management believes these non-GAAP measures are useful to investors in trending, analyzing and benchmarking the performance and value of Mobivity's business. These non-GAAP measures should be considered in addition to, but not as a substitute for, other similar measures reported in accordance with GAAP.

About Mobivity

Mobivity helps restaurant, retail, and personal care brands grow their business by increasing customer frequency, engagement, and spend. Mobivity's SmartSuite of products -- including SmartMessenger, SmartReceipt, and SmartAnalytics -- allows brands to unlock the power of customer, employee, and POS data like never before. This creates a closed-loop marketing solution that provides SmartDATA-driven insights, attributions, and validation -- at scale -- to continually adapt and provide more personalized, relevant, localized, and targeted customer communications. Mobivity clients include Subway, Sonic Drive-In, Chick-fil-A, and Baskin-Robbins. For more information about Mobivity, visit mobivity.com or call (877) 282-7660.

Forward Looking Statement

This press release contains forward-looking statements concerning Mobivity Holdings Corp. within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. Those forward-looking statements include statements regarding the Company's plans to cross-market its products, including its recently acquired SmartReceipt operations; expectations for the growth of the Company's operations and revenue; and the advantages and growth prospects of the mobile marketing industry. Such statements are subject to certain risks and uncertainties, and actual circumstances, events or results may differ materially from those projected in such forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause or contribute to differences include, but are not limited to, the application and enforcement of the TCPA amendments in ways not expected; our ability to successfully integrate the SmartReceipt operations and our recent additions to management; our ability to develop the sales force required to achieve our development and revenue goals; our ability to raise additional working capital as and when needed; changes in the laws and regulations affecting the mobile marketing industry and those other risks set forth in Mobivity Holdings Corp.'s annual report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2016 filed with the SEC on March 31, 2017 and subsequently filed quarterly reports on Form 10-Q. Mobivity Holdings Corp. cautions readers not to place undue reliance on any forward-looking statements. Mobivity Holdings Corp. does not undertake, and specifically disclaims any obligation to update or revise such statements to reflect new circumstances or unanticipated events as they occur.

MOBIVITY HOLDINGS, INC. ITEMIZED RECONCILIATION BETWEEN NET INCOME (LOSS) AND NON-GAAP ADJUSTED NET INCOME Fiscal Year Ended December 31, ------------------------- $000s except EPS 2016 2015 ----------- ----------- Net income (loss) (9,514) $ (6,133) Depreciation and amortization 709 362 Gain on change in fair value of derivatives - (43) Non-cash stock issued for services - 363 Non-cash stock compensation expense 1,599 1,660 Non-cash excess fair value of warrants 208 - Non-cash impairment of intangibles and goodwill 3,932 21 Non-cash gain on adjustment in contingent consideration - (90) Interest income, net 75 (1) ----------- ----------- Non-GAAP adjusted net income (loss) (2,991) $ (3,861) =========== =========== Weighted average diluted shares outstanding 32,797,631 26,684,927 =========== =========== Non-GAAP adjusted EPS (0.09) $ (0.14) =========== =========== Mobivity Holdings Corp. Consolidated Statements of Operations Fiscal year ended December 31, -------------------------- 2016 2015 ------------ ------------ Revenues Revenues $ 8,432,616 $ 4,618,988 Cost of revenues 2,096,392 1,066,669 ------------ ------------ Gross margin 6,336,224 3,552,319 Operating expenses General and administrative 4,385,763 4,555,895 Sales and marketing 5,038,041 4,150,793 Engineering, research, and development 1,712,750 728,741 Depreciation and amortization 709,456 361,840 ------------ ------------ Total operating expenses 11,846,010 9,797,269 ------------ ------------ Loss from operations (5,509,786) (6,244,950) Other income/(expense) Interest income 2,780 1,540 Interest expense (77,361) (847) Goodwill Impairment (2,247,447) - Intangible asset impairment (1,684,203) (21,188) Change in fair value of derivative liabilities - 42,659 Gain on Debt Extinguishment - - Gain (loss) on adjustment in contingent consideration - 89,740 Foreign currency gain 1,556 - ------------ ------------ Total other income/(expense) (4,004,675) 111,904 ------------ ------------ Loss before income taxes (9,514,461) (6,133,046) Income tax expense - - ------------ ------------ Net loss $ (9,514,461) $ (6,133,046) ============ ============ Other comprehensive loss, net of income tax Foreign currency translation adjustments (32,999) - ============ ============ Comprehensive loss $ (9,547,460) $ (6,133,046) ============ ============ Net loss per share - basic and diluted $ (0.29) $ (0.23) ============ ============ Weighted average number of shares during the period - basic and diluted 32,797,631 26,684,927 ============ ============ Mobivity Holdings Corp. Consolidated Balance Sheets December 31, December 31, 2016 2015 ------------ ------------ ASSETS Current assets Cash $ 1,188,485 $ 634,129 Restricted cash 1,000,000 - Accounts receivable, net of allowance for doubtful accounts of $15,503 and $237,383, respectively 1,244,484 700,356 Other current assets 179,376 131,345 ------------ ------------ Total current assets 3,612,345 1,465,830 Goodwill 803,118 1,921,072 Intangible assets, net 627,119 2,373,689 Other assets 109,776 173,022 ------------ ------------ TOTAL ASSETS $ 5,152,358 $ 5,933,613 ============ ============ LIABILITIES AND STOCKHOLDERS' EQUITY (DEFICIT) Current liabilities Accounts payable $ 701,347 $ 375,363 Accrued interest 2,020 - Accrued and deferred personnel compensation 671,677 414,314 Deferred revenue and customer deposits 160,023 72,624 Notes payable, net - current maturities 1,011,910 - Other current liabilities 115,051 197,145 ------------ ------------ Total current liabilities 2,662,028 1,059,446 Non-current liabilities Notes payable, net - long term 361,166 - ------------ ------------ Total non-current liabilities 361,166 - ------------ ------------ Total liabilities 3,023,194 1,059,446 Commitments and Contingencies Stockholders' equity (deficit) Common stock, $0.001 par value; 100,000,000 shares authorized; 36,388,981 and 28,787,991 shares issued and outstanding 36,389 28,788 Equity payable 100,862 100,862 Additional paid-in capital 76,698,383 69,903,527 Accumulated other comprehensive loss (32,999) - Accumulated deficit (74,673,471) (65,159,010) ------------ ------------ Total stockholders' equity (deficit) 2,129,164 4,874,167 ------------ ------------ TOTAL LIABILITIES AND STOCKHOLDERS' EQUITY (DEFICIT) $ 5,152,358 $ 5,933,613 ============ ============

MEDIA CONTACTS:

Investor Relations:

Robert B. Prag

President

The Del Mar Consulting Group, Inc.

(858) 794-9500



Scott Wilfong

President

Alex Partners, LLC

(425) 242-0891



Mobivity Contact:

Dennis Becker

CEO

(877) 282-7660




NEW YORK CITY (dpa-AFX) - Telecom giant Verizon is reportedly preparing to launch its own internet television service. According to a report from Bloomberg, the carrier has been securing streaming rights from a number of television networks in preparation for a nationwide launch this year, possibly as soon as this summer. The telecommunications giant intends to sell package with dozens of channels this summer, the report said citing unidentified people familiar with the matter. The live, over-the-internet TV service would be a first for Verizon, excluding go90, a YouTube-like streaming-video service and also independent of its FiOS home TV offer, the people said. The people familiar with the plans claim Verizon to price the service at a similar rate to other competing services of between $20 and $35 per month. The service is expected to be available through an app on set-top boxes like Apple TV or Roku as well as on phones and tablets. 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.
DUBLIN, Mar. 31, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --

Research and Markets has announced the addition of the "Emerging Opportunities for Smart Meter Market Globally (2012-2022): Breakdown by Type (Electric, Water and Gas), Applications, IOT Trends & Impact Analysis and Market Share Analysis" report to their offering.

The report provides an in-depth study of various types of smart meters such as electric, gas, water and other type meters, value chain analysis, market accelerators and opportunity analysis, etc. The global smart meters market report is useful in understanding the future market opportunities, geographical landscape and competitive analysis.

This report also provides an in-depth analysis of global players i.e. focuses on company developments, research investments, new product launches, geographic expansions etc. The report also provides added value by focusing on content such as cost Vs performance, key regulations and impact analysis and the top 5 emerging countries for the smart meter globally, major promotional strategy of the companies.

Provides detail overview of IOT (Internet of Things,) key trends and impact analysis and start-ups entered in the global smart meter market.

Some of the key major market players in the global smart meter market based on their global footprint and products, key financials information provided for Landis+Gyr Ltd, Itron Inc., Elster Group, ICSA India Limited, and Sensus USA Inc. and others.



Scope of the Report

- Trends and forecasts in terms of market volume and value

- Detailed segment analysis of Smart Meter

- Snapshot on New entrants analysis in the industry

- Detail overview on Internet of Things (IOT), key trends and impact analysis

- Detailed analysis on Top Five Emerging Country Analysis in Smart Meter

- Company profiles and Industry Promotional Strategies



Key Topics Covered:



1 Executive Summary



2 Smart Meter - Definition

2.1 Smart Meter Vs. Other Material

2.2 Smart Meter - Types

2.2.1 Electric Meters

2.2.2 Gas Meter

2.2.3 Water Meter



3 Report Briefing

3.1 Global Smart Meter Market - Snapshot

3.1.1 Markets Covered

3.1.2 Applications covered

3.1.3 Regions covered

3.2 Research Methodology



4 Global Analysis on Smart Meter Market

4.1 Overview

4.2 Global Smart Meter - Volume by Region (Installations)

4.3 Global Smart Meter - Value by Region (US$ Million)

4.4 Global Smart Meter - Market Share Analysis (%) in 2015 Vs. 2016

4.5 Accelerators

4.5.1 Fundamental Drivers

4.5.2 Business Drivers

4.6 Inhibitors

4.6.1 Fundamental Challenges

4.6.2 Business Challenges

4.7 Emerging Opportunities

4.7.1 Fundamental Opportunities

4.7.2 Business Opportunities

4.8 Analysis on New Entrants, New Product Developments and New Installations by Suppliers over the Forecast Period 2017-2022

4.8.1 Overview

4.8.2 Overview



5 Smart Meter Market View - 2017 & 2018

5.1 Overview

5.2 Demand Opportunities - 2017 & 2018



6 Value Chain Analysis

6.1 Overview

6.2 Key Value Chain Participants

6.3 Smart Meter Selection Criteria - Key Elements



7 Supply Chain Analysis

7.1 Overview



8 Cost Vs. Performance Analysis

8.1 Overview

8.2 Cost Vs. Performance of Smart Meters



9 Analysis on Types of Smart Meters

9.1 Overview

9.2 Electric Smart Meter

9.3 Smart Gas Meter

9.4 Smart Water Meter

9.5 Other Smart Meter



10 Analysis on Emerging applications

10.1 Overview

10.1.1 Residential

10.1.2 Commercial

10.1.3 Industrial

10.2 Future Requirements by Applications from Smart Meters

10.3 Demand Opportunities by Applications for Smart Meters



11 Key Trends, Opportunities and Impact analysis for IOT (Internet of Things) in Global Smart Meter Market

11.1 Overview

11.2 Key Trends and Impact Analysis

11.3 Key Opportunities for IOT

11.4 Key IOT Start-ups involved in Global Smart meter Market



12 Regulation Impact Analysis on Global Smart Meter Market

12.1 Overview

12.2 Regulation Impact Analysis



13 Pricing Trend Analysis on Types of Smart Meters

13.1 Overview

13.2 Pricing Trend Analysis on Electric Smart Meter by Region

13.3 Pricing Trend Analysis on Smart Gas Meter by Region

13.4 Pricing Trend Analysis on Smart Water Meter by Region



14 Analysis on Porter's Five Force - Global Smart Meter Market

14.1 Overview

14.2 Analysis on Barriers of Suppliers

14.3 Analysis on Barriers of Buyers

14.4 Analysis on Barriers of Entrants

14.5 Analysis on Intensity of Rivalry

14.6 Analysis on Threat of Substitutes



15 Analysis on Top Five Emerging Country Analysis

15.1 Overview

15.2 Snapshot on Top Emerging Five Countries



16 Competitive Landscape and Major Company Promotional Strategies



17 Suppliers Landscape and Profiles

17.1 Overview

17.2 Itron Inc.

17.3 Elster Group

17.4 Landis + Gyr

17.5 Siemens AG

17.6 Schneider Electric SA

17.7 Badger Meter, Inc

17.8 ICSA India Limited

17.9 Circuator SA

17.1 Sensus USA Inc.

17.11 Other Major players Contact Information



18 Key Market Developments - 2012-2016

18.1 Overview

18.2 Merger and Acquisitions

18.3 New Product Developments

18.4 Research and Development Investments

18.5 Partnership and Agreements

18.6 Others



19 Appendix



For more information about this report visit http://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/fqvjh4/emerging

Media Contact:

Laura Wood, Senior Manager

press@researchandmarkets.com



For E.S.T Office Hours Call 1-917-300-0470

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Fax (outside U.S.): +353-1-481-1716


Photo for illustration

The conference was attended by the Thailand Tourism Association, Chiang Mai enterprises and travel enterprises from Da Nang, Thua Thien - Hue, Quang Tri, Nghe An and Hai Phong.

At the event, participants discussed contents related to cooperation among travel companies to develop tourism products, and connections to bring more Thai tourists to Quang Binh in the near future.

Mr. Ho An Phong, Director of the Quang Binh Tourism Department, said the event is part of cooperative programs between the provincial Peoples Committee and Chiang Mai authority in order to connect tourism between Chiang Mai enterprises and Quang Binh and central provinces through the Quang Binh  Chiang Mai air route.

Deputy Chairman of the Quang Binh Peoples Committee Tran Tien Dung stressed that the conference contributed to boosting the connection and tourism development between the two sides. The launch of the air route between Dong Hoi and Chiang Mai on June 16th, 2017 will help travel companies of both sides further link tours, routes and tourist attractions together./.
VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA -- (Marketwired) -- 03/31/17 -- FIRST MAJESTIC SILVER CORP. (the "Company" or "First Majestic") (TSX: FR)(NYSE: AG)(FRANKFURT: FMV)(BVM: AG) is pleased to announce its 2016 Mineral Reserve and Resource estimates for its existing mineral property assets in Mexico as of December 31, 2016. Metal prices used to estimate the 2016 Reserve estimates were increased slightly compared to previous estimates to: $18.00/oz for silver, $1,250/oz for gold, $1.00/lb for lead and $1.15/lb for zinc.

"We began 2016 with a small exploration budget of only $9.9 million designed to primarily assist with our mining activities," stated Keith Neumeyer, President and CEO. "In the second half of 2016, we increased the exploration budget by 71% and returned our focus on growing the ounces in the ground. For 2017, we are investing $27.0 million to complete over 183,000 metres of diamond drilling across our Mexican assets. This renewed investment is expected to add significant growth to our Reserves and Resources in the years ahead."

The following table shows the total tonnage mined from each of the Company's six producing properties during 2016, including total ounces of silver and silver equivalent ounces produced from each property and the tonnage mined from delineated Reserves and Resources at each property. A portion of the production from each mine came from material other than Reserves or Resources, as set out below under the heading "Material Not in Reserves".

2016 Production Table LA ENCANTADA LA PARRILLA DEL TORO ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- TONNES OF ORE PROCESSED 881,075 610,509 337,020 OZ OF SILVER PRODUCED 2,706,516 2,220,874 1,500,951 OZ OF SILVER EQ. PRODUCED FROM OTHER METALS (1) 6,856 1,167,560 1,148,375 TOTAL OZ OF SILVER EQ. PRODUCED 2,713,372 3,388,434 2,649,326 TONNES MINED FROM MATERIAL IN RESERVES 47,722 588,624 315,937 TONNES MINED FROM MATERIAL NOT IN RESERVES 833,353 21,885 21,083 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2016 Production Table SAN MARTIN LA GUITARRA SANTA ELENA TOTAL ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- TONNES OF ORE PROCESSED 297,802 155,696 988,060 3,270,162 OZ OF SILVER PRODUCED 1,902,963 923,597 2,598,537 11,853,438 OZ OF SILVER EQ. PRODUCED FROM OTHER METALS (1) 306,072 600,091 3,587,408 6,816,362 TOTAL OZ OF SILVER EQ. PRODUCED 2,209,035 1,523,688 6,185,945 18,669,800 TONNES MINED FROM MATERIAL IN RESERVES 213,362 117,414 932,033 2,215,092 TONNES MINED FROM MATERIAL NOT IN RESERVES 84,440 38,282 56,027 1,055,070 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- (1) Silver-equivalent ounces are estimated considering: metal price assumptions, metallurgical recovery for the corresponding mineral type/mineral process and the metal payable of the corresponding contract of each mine. Details as to the method of calculation can be found in the applicable tables within the remainder of this section. (2) Totals may not add up due to rounding.

The Company completed a total of 97,576 metres of diamond drilling at its six operating mines in 2016, representing a 170% increase in metres drilled compared to the prior year.

For 2017, First Majestic is planning to invest $27.0 million towards exploration to drill approximately 183,000 metres at its core Mexican assets consisting of approximately 43,000 metres of diamond drilling intended to upgrade Resources to Reserves at La Parrilla, Del Toro, La Guitarra and Santa Elena; approximately 100,000 metres of diamond drilling intended to increase or add new Measured & Indicated or Inferred Resources at the six operating mines, with a focus at Nazareno in La Guitarra and the Ermitano West project in Santa Elena; and drill approximately 40,000 metres at the Plomosas Silver Project. A combination of surface and underground drill rigs will focus on assisting mining activities, definition drilling and to support future updates to the Company's NI43-101 Technical Reports.

As of December 31, 2016, Proven and Probable Reserves totaled 116.7 million silver equivalent ounces, representing a 14% decrease or 18.6 million silver equivalent ounces in metal content compared to the prior estimate. This reduction is primarily due to the production depletion of 14.5 million silver equivalent ounces despite a modest increase of 3% in the assumed silver and gold prices and higher metal prices for lead and zinc. In addition, the reduction is the effect of an average increase of 10% in the cut-off grades for most of the mines. The escalation in the cut-off grade is a reflection of an increase of the mining and sustaining cost per tonne motivated by adopting more selective mining methods and the re-activation of sustaining development and near-mine exploration.

The Company's consolidated Measured and Indicated Resources totaled 139.6 million silver equivalent ounces, representing an 11% decrease from 2015 estimates primarily due to the production depletion and an increase of the production cost per tonne. In addition, Inferred Resources decreased 15% to 233.2 million silver equivalent ounces primarily due to the escalation in the cut-off grade as a reflection of an increase of the mining and sustaining cost per tonne.

The complete 2016 Mineral Reserve and Resource estimates for all metals, tonnage and grades are shown below in the following tables:

PROVEN AND PROBABLE MINERAL RESERVES WITH AN EFFECTIVE DATE OF DECEMBER 31, 2016 Mineral Mine Category Type k tonnes Ag (g/t) Au (g/t) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- LA ENCANTADA Proven (UG) Oxides 289 239 - Probable (UG) Oxides 1,516 213 - Oxides - Probable (UG) Flotation 809 147 - Probable (Tailings) Oxides 4,138 110 - ------------------------------------------------------------- Total Proven and Oxides + Probable (UG) Tailings 6,751 143 - LA PARRILLA Proven (UG) Oxides 181 200 0.12 Probable (UG) Oxides 671 161 - ------------------------------------------------------------- Total Proven and Probable (UG) Oxides 852 169 0.06 Proven (UG) Sulphides 410 185 0.01 Probable (UG) Sulphides 649 209 0.04 ------------------------------------------------------------- Total Proven and Probable (UG) Sulphides 1,059 200 0.02 ------------------------------------------------------------- Total Proven and Oxides + Probable (UG) Sulphides 1,910 186 0.04 SAN MARTIN Proven (UG) Oxides 880 246 0.28 Probable (UG) Oxides 1,311 243 0.16 ------------------------------------------------------------- Total Proven and Probable (UG) Oxides 2,191 244 0.21 Transition + DEL TORO Proven (UG) Sulphides 708 211 0.09 Transition + Probable (UG) Sulphides 647 233 0.26 ------------------------------------------------------------- Transition Total Proven and + Probable (UG) Sulphides 1,356 221 0.17 LA GUITARRA Proven (UG) Sulphides 88 179 1.47 Probable (UG) Sulphides 1,041 256 1.34 ------------------------------------------------------------- Total Proven and Probable (UG) Sulphides 1,129 250 1.35 SANTA ELENA Probable (UG Main) Sulphides 2,597 110 1.63 Oxides Probable (PAD) Spent Ore 1,882 31 0.62 ------------------------------------------------------------- Oxides + Total Probable Sulphides 4,479 77 1.21 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- All Total Proven and mineral Probable types 17,977 155 0.42 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- PROVEN AND PROBABLE MINERAL RESERVES WITH AN EFFECTIVE DATE OF DECEMBER 31, 2016 Mine Pb (%) Zn (%) Ag-Eq (g/t) Ag (k Oz) Ag-Eq (k Oz) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- LA ENCANTADA - - 239 2,222 2,222 - - 213 10,372 10,372 2.35 - 196 3,817 5,093 - - 110 14,633 14,633 ------------------------------------------------------------- 0.28 - 149 31,043 32,319 LA PARRILLA - - 210 1,164 1,220 - - 164 3,469 3,546 ------------------------------------------------------------- - - 174 4,633 4,766 1.67 1.55 280 2,442 3,687 2.01 2.01 328 4,370 6,853 ------------------------------------------------------------- 1.88 1.83 310 6,812 10,539 ------------------------------------------------------------- 1.04 1.02 249 11,445 15,305 SAN MARTIN - - 267 6,973 7,561 - - 255 10,220 10,728 ------------------------------------------------------------- - - 260 17,193 18,289 DEL TORO 4.12 1.87 352 4,800 8,010 4.39 2.94 401 4,846 8,349 ------------------------------------------------------------- 4.25 2.38 375 9,646 16,360 LA GUITARRA - - 273 509 775 - - 341 8,577 11,423 ------------------------------------------------------------- - - 336 9,086 12,198 SANTA ELENA - - 215 9,208 17,927 - - 71 1,857 4,275 ------------------------------------------------------------- - - 154 11,065 22,202 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 0.54 0.29 201 89,551 116,384 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- (1) Mineral Reserves have been classified in accordance with the Canadian Institute of Mining, Metallurgy and Petroleum ("CIM") Definition Standards on Mineral Resources and Mineral Reserves, whose definitions are incorporated by reference into NI 43-101. (2) Metal prices considered for Mineral Reserves estimates were $18.00 /oz Ag, $1,250 /oz Au, $1.00 /lb Pb, and $1.15 /lb Zn. (3) The Mineral Reserves information provided above for La Encantada, La Parrilla, Del Toro, San Martin, La Guitarra and Santa Elena is based on internal estimates prepared as of December 31, 2016. The information provided was reviewed and validated by the Company's internal Qualified Person, Mr. Ramon Mendoza Reyes, P.Eng., who has the appropriate relevant qualifications, and experience in mining and reserves estimation practices. (4) Silver-equivalent grade is estimated considering: metal price assumptions, metallurgical recovery for the corresponding mineral type/mineral process and the metal payable of the corresponding contract of each mine. Estimation details are listed in each mine section of the 2016 Annual Information Form. (5) The cut-off grades and modifying factors used to convert Mineral Reserves from Mineral Resources are different for all mines. The cut-off grades and factors are listed in each mine section of the 2016 Annual Information Form. MEASURED AND INDICATED MINERAL RESOURCES WITH AN EFFECTIVE DATE OF DECEMBER 31, 2016 Mineral Mine / ProjectCategory Type k tonnes Ag (g/t) Au (g/t) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- LA ENCANTADA Measured (UG) Oxides 305 269 - Indicated (UG) Oxides 894 297 - Oxides - Indicated (UG) Flotation 734 246 - Indicated (Tailings)Oxides 4,222 110 - ------------------------------------------------------------- Total Measured and Oxides + Indicated (UG) Tailings 6,154 161 - LA PARRILLA Measured (UG) Oxides 207 225 - Indicated (UG) Oxides 674 180 0.06 ------------------------------------------------------------- Total Measured and Indicated (UG) Oxides 881 191 0.08 Measured (UG) Sulphides 420 224 - Indicated (UG) Sulphides 596 240 - ------------------------------------------------------------- Total Measured and Indicated (UG) Sulphides 1,016 233 - ------------------------------------------------------------- Total Measured and Oxides + Indicated (UG) Sulphides 1,897 213 0.05 SAN MARTIN Measured (UG) Oxides 1,009 266 0.27 Indicated (UG) Oxides 1,631 254 0.14 ------------------------------------------------------------- Total Measured and Indicated (UG) Oxides 2,639 258 0.19 Transition + DEL TORO Measured (UG) Sulphides 980 220 0.07 Transition + Indicated (UG) Sulphides 1,321 205 0.25 ------------------------------------------------------------- Transition Total Measured and + Indicated (UG) Sulphides 2,301 211 0.17 LA GUITARRA Measured (UG) Sulphides 83 204 1.61 Indicated (UG) Sulphides 992 291 1.51 ------------------------------------------------------------- Total Measured and Indicated (UG) Sulphides 1,075 284 1.52 SANTA ELENA Indicated (UG) Sulphides 2,629 131 2.03 Indicated (Pad) Oxides 1,882 31 0.62 ------------------------------------------------------------- Oxides + Total Indicated Sulphides 4,511 89 1.44 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- All Total Measured and mineral Indicated types 18,577 176 0.49 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- MEASURED AND INDICATED MINERAL RESOURCES WITH AN EFFECTIVE DATE OF DECEMBER 31, 2016 Mine / Project Pb (%) Zn (%) Ag-Eq (g/t) Ag (k Oz) Ag-Eq (k Oz) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- LA ENCANTADA - - 269 2,637 2,637 - - 297 8,518 8,518 4.07 - 325 5,795 7,662 - - 110 14,931 14,931 ------------------------------------------------------------- 0.49 - 171 31,881 33,748 LA PARRILLA - - 235 1,497 1,564 - - 185 3,900 4,003 ------------------------------------------------------------- - - 197 5,397 5,567 1.99 1.88 337 3,024 4,553 2.31 2.32 378 4,600 7,229 ------------------------------------------------------------- 2.18 2.14 361 7,624 11,782 ------------------------------------------------------------- 1.17 1.14 284 13,021 17,349 SAN MARTIN - - 285 8,632 9,254 - - 264 13,292 13,822 ------------------------------------------------------------- - - 272 21,923 23,075 DEL TORO 4.13 1.97 361 6,925 11,362 3.63 3.07 350 8,690 14,884 ------------------------------------------------------------- 3.84 2.60 355 15,616 26,246 LA GUITARRA - - 305 547 818 - - 385 9,273 12,289 ------------------------------------------------------------- - - 379 9,821 13,107 SANTA ELENA - - 259 11,083 21,859 - - 70 1,857 4,230 ------------------------------------------------------------- - - 180 12,940 26,089 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 0.76 0.44 234 105,202 139,614 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- (1) Mineral Resources have been classified in accordance with the CIM Definition Standards on Mineral Resources and Mineral Reserves, whose definitions are incorporated by reference into NI 43-101. (2) In all cases, metal prices considered for Mineral Resource estimates were $19.00/oz Ag, $1,300/oz Au, $1.00/lb Pb, and $1.20/lb Zn. (3) The Mineral Resources information provided above for La Parrilla, Del Toro and San Martin is based on internal estimates prepared as of December 31, 2016. The information provided was reviewed and validated by the Company's internal Qualified Person, Mr. Jesus M. Velador Beltran, MMSA, QP Geology, who has the appropriate relevant qualifications, and experience in geology and resource estimation. (4) Mineral Resource estimates for La Guitarra are based on information contained in the 2015 Technical Report compiled by First Majestic with contribution of Amec Foster Wheeler Americas Ltd. which were updated by First Majestic with information to December 31, 2016. (5) Mineral Resource estimates for La Encantada are based on information contained in the 2016 Technical Report compiled by First Majestic with contribution of Amec Foster Wheeler Americas Ltd. which were updated by First Majestic with information to 31 December, 2016. (6) Mineral Resource estimates for Santa Elena are internal estimates based on the 2014 Update to Santa Elena Pre-Feasibility Study Technical Report compiled by SilverCrest and re-addressed to First Majestic in October, 2015. These estimates were reviewed and validated by the Company's internal Qualified Person, Mr. Jesus M. Velador Beltran, MMSA, QP Geology. (7) Silver-equivalent grade is estimated considering: metal price assumptions, metallurgical recovery for the corresponding mineral type/mineral process and the metal payable of the corresponding contract of each mine. Estimation details are listed in each mine section below. (8) The cut-off grades for Mineral Resources are different for all mines. The cut-off grades are listed in each mine section below. (9) Measured and Indicated Mineral Resources are reported inclusive of Mineral Reserves. (10)The technical reports from which the above-mentioned information is derived are cited under the heading "Current Technical Reports for Material Properties". INFERRED MINERAL RESOURCES WITH AN EFFECTIVE DATE OF DECEMBER 31, 2016 Mineral Mine / ProjectCategory Type k tonnes Ag (g/t) Au (g/t) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- LA ENCANTADA Inferred Ojuelas Oxides - (UG) Flotation 35 292 - Inferred other Oxides deposits (UG) 728 232 - ------------------------------------------------------------- Inferred Total Oxides (UG) 762 235 - LA PARRILLA Inferred (UG) Oxides 1,478 229 0.04 Inferred (UG) Sulphides 2,967 224 - ------------------------------------------------------------- Inferred Total Oxides + (UG) Sulphides 4,445 226 0.01 SAN MARTIN Inferred Total Oxides (UG) 3,918 259 - DEL TORO Inferred Total Transition (UG) + Sulphides 4,637 164 0.12 LA GUITARRA Inferred Total Sulphides (UG) 679 290 1.44 SANTA ELENA Inferred Total Sulphides (UG) 591 103 2.04 LA JOYA Inferred Total Sulphides (OP) 27,927 58 0.28 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- All mineral Total Inferred types 42,960 112 0.25 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- INFERRED MINERAL RESOURCES WITH AN EFFECTIVE DATE OF DECEMBER 31, 2016 Ag-Eq Ag-Eq (k Mine / Project Pb (%) Zn (%) Cu (%) (g/t) Ag (k Oz) Oz) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- LA ENCANTADA 0.78 - - 305 325 340 - - - 232 5,430 5,430 ------------------------------------------------------------- 0.04 - - 235 5,756 5,770 LA PARRILLA - - - 232 10,868 11,001 2.32 2.42 - 362 21,415 34,520 ------------------------------------------------------------- 1.55 1.62 - 319 32,282 45,521 SAN MARTIN - - - 259 32,592 32,592 DEL TORO 3.30 3.37 - 293 24,397 43,753 LA GUITARRA - - - 380 6,322 8,285 SANTA ELENA - - - 232 1,966 4,408 LA JOYA - - 0.47 103 51,646 92,907 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 0.52 0.53 0.31 169 154,961 233,237 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- (1) Mineral Resources have been classified in accordance with the CIM Definition Standards on Mineral Resources and Mineral Reserves, whose definitions are incorporated by reference into NI 43-101. (2) In all cases, metal prices considered for Mineral Resource estimates were $19.00/oz Ag, $1,300/oz Au, $1.00/lb Pb, and $1.20/lb Zn. (3) The Mineral Resources information provided above for La Parrilla, Del Toro and San Martin is based on internal estimates prepared as of December 31, 2016. The information provided was reviewed and validated by the Company's internal Qualified Person, Mr. Jesus M. Velador Beltran, MMSA, QP Geology, who has the appropriate relevant qualifications, and experience in geology and resource estimation. (4) Mineral Resource estimates for La Guitarra are based on information contained in the 2015 Technical Report compiled by First Majestic with contribution of Amec Foster Wheeler Americas Ltd. which were updated by First Majestic with information to December 31, 2016. (5) Mineral Resource estimates for La Encantada are based on information contained in the 2016 Technical Report compiled by First Majestic with contribution of Amec Foster Wheeler Americas Ltd. which were updated by First Majestic with information to December 31, 2016. (6) Mineral Resource estimates for Santa Elena are internal estimates based on the 2014 Update to Santa Elena Pre-Feasibility Study Technical Report compiled by SilverCrest and re-addressed to First Majestic in October 2015. These estimates were reviewed and validated by the Company's internal Qualified Person, Mr. Jesus M. Velador Beltran, MMSA, QP Geology (7) Silver-equivalent grade is estimated considering: metal price assumptions, metallurgical recovery for the corresponding mineral type/mineral process and the metal payable of the corresponding contract of each mine. Estimation details are listed in each mine section below. (8) The cut-off grades for Mineral Resources are different for all mines. The cut-off grades are listed in each mine section below. (9) Inferred Mineral Resource estimates for La Joya Project are based on the 2013 Preliminary Economic Assessment Technical Report compiled for SilverCrest. (10)The technical reports from which the above-mentioned information is derived are cited under the heading "Current Technical Reports for Material Properties".

The Company also announces that its 2016 Annual Information Form has been filed on SEDAR. In addition, a Form 40-F report has been filed with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission and is available on EDGAR. Both documents are also available on the Company's website at www.firstmajestic.com.

Shareholders may also receive a copy of First Majestic's Annual Report which includes the audited financial statements, without charge, upon request to First Majestic, Suite 1805 - 925 West Georgia Street Vancouver, B.C., Canada, V6C 3L2 or to info@firstmajestic.com.

Mr. Ramon Mendoza Reyes, Vice President Technical Services for First Majestic, is a "Qualified Person" as such term is defined under National Instrument 43-101, and has reviewed and approved the technical information disclosed in this news release.

ABOUT THE COMPANY

First Majestic is a mining company focused on silver production in Mexico and is aggressively pursuing the development of its existing mineral property assets. The Company presently owns and operates six producing silver mines; the La Parrilla Silver Mine, the San Martin Silver Mine, the La Encantada Silver Mine, the La Guitarra Silver Mine, Del Toro Silver Mine and the Santa Elena Silver/Gold Mine. Production from these six mines is projected to be between 11.1 to 12.4 million ounces of pure silver or 16.6 to 18.5 million ounces of silver equivalents in 2017.

FIRST MAJESTIC SILVER CORP.

Keith Neumeyer, President & CEO

SPECIAL NOTE REGARDING FORWARD-LOOKING INFORMATION

This news release includes certain "Forward-Looking Statements" within the meaning of the United States Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 and applicable Canadian securities laws. When used in this news release, the words "anticipate", "believe", "estimate", "expect", "target", "plan", "forecast", "may", "schedule" and similar words or expressions, identify forward-looking statements or information. These forward-looking statements or information relate to, among other things: the price of silver and other metals; the accuracy of mineral reserve and resource estimates and estimates of future production and costs of production at our properties; estimated production rates for silver and other payable metals produced by us, the estimated cost of development of our development projects; the effects of laws, regulations and government policies on our operations, including, without limitation, the laws in Mexico which currently have significant restrictions related to mining; obtaining or maintaining necessary permits, licences and approvals from government authorities; and continued access to necessary infrastructure, including, without limitation, access to power, land, water and roads to carry on activities as planned.

These statements reflect the Company's current views with respect to future events and are necessarily based upon a number of assumptions and estimates that, while considered reasonable by the Company, are inherently subject to significant business, economic, competitive, political and social uncertainties and contingencies. Many factors, both known and unknown, could cause actual results, performance or achievements to be materially different from the results, performance or achievements that are or may be expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements or information and the Company has made assumptions and estimates based on or related to many of these factors. Such factors include, without limitation: fluctuations in the spot and forward price of silver, gold, base metals or certain other commodities (such as natural gas, fuel oil and electricity); fluctuations in the currency markets (such as the Canadian dollar and Mexican peso versus the U.S. dollar); changes in national and local government, legislation, taxation, controls, regulations and political or economic developments in Canada, Mexico; operating or technical difficulties in connection with mining or development activities; risks and hazards associated with the business of mineral exploration, development and mining (including environmental hazards, industrial accidents, unusual or unexpected formations, pressures, cave-ins and flooding); risks relating to the credit worthiness or financial condition of suppliers, refiners and other parties with whom the Company does business; inability to obtain adequate insurance to cover risks and hazards; and the presence of laws and regulations that may impose restrictions on mining, including those currently enacted in Mexico; employee relations; relationships with and claims by local communities and indigenous populations; availability and increasing costs associated with mining inputs and labour; the speculative nature of mineral exploration and development, including the risks of obtaining necessary licenses, permits and approvals from government authorities; diminishing quantities or grades of mineral reserves as properties are mined; the Company's title to properties; and the factors identified under the caption "Risk Factors" in the Company's Annual Information Form, under the caption "Risks Relating to First Majestic's Business".

Investors are cautioned against attributing undue certainty to forward-looking statements or information. Although the Company has attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially, there may be other factors that cause results not to be anticipated, estimated or intended. The Company does not intend, and does not assume any obligation, to update these forward-looking statements or information to reflect changes in assumptions or changes in circumstances or any other events affecting such statements or information, other than as required by applicable law.

Contacts:

First Majestic Silver Corp.

Toll free 1.866.529.2807

info@firstmajestic.com

www.firstmajestic.com




BOSTON, MA -- (Marketwired) -- 03/31/17 -- The New Ireland Fund, Inc. (NYSE: IRL) (the "Fund"), a closed-end fund, today announced that it paid on March 31, 2017, a distribution of US$0.2607 per share to all shareholders of record as of March 24, 2017.

Your Fund's distribution policy (the "Distribution Policy") is to provide investors with a stable quarterly distribution out of current income, supplemented by realized capital gains and, to the extent necessary, paid-in capital.

Under U.S. tax rules applicable to the Fund, the amount and character of distributable income for each fiscal year can be finally determined only as of the end of the Fund's fiscal year. However, under Section 19 of the Investment Company Act of 1940, as amended (the "1940 Act") and related Rules, the Fund may be required to indicate to shareholders the source of certain distributions to shareholders.

The following table sets forth the estimated amounts of the sources of the distribution for purposes of Section 19 of the 1940 Act and the Rules adopted thereunder. The table has been computed based on generally accepted accounting principles. The table includes estimated amounts and percentages for the distribution to be paid on March 31, 2017, as well as the estimated cumulative distributions declared fiscal year to date (11/1/2016 - 3/13/2017), from the following sources: net investment income; net realized short-term capital gains; net realized long-term capital gains; and return of capital. The estimated composition of the distributions may vary from quarter to quarter because the estimated composition may be impacted by future income, expenses and realized gains and losses on securities.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Estimated Estimated Estimated Estimated Amounts of Amounts of Amounts of Amounts of Current Current Fiscal Year Fiscal Year Quarterly Quarterly to Date to Date Distribution Distribution Cumulative Cumulative per share per share Distributions Distributions ($) (%) per share ($) per share (%) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Net Investment Income - - - - ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Net Realized Short- Term Capital Gains * - - - - ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Net Realized Long-Term Capital Gains $0.2607 100% $0.5214 100% ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Return of Capital - - - - ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Total (per common share) $0.2607 100% $0.5214 100% ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

*including currency gains

Shareholders should not draw any conclusions about the Fund's investment performance from the amount of this distribution or from the terms of the Fund's Distribution Policy, which is to provide investors with a stable quarterly distribution.

The amounts and sources of distributions reported in this notice are only estimates and are not being provided for tax reporting purposes. The final determination of the source of all distributions in 2017 will be made after year-end. The actual amounts and sources of the amounts for tax reporting purposes will depend upon the Fund's investment experience during the remainder of its fiscal year and may be subject to changes based on tax regulations. The Fund will send you a Form 1099-DIV for the calendar year that will tell you how to report these distributions for federal income tax purposes.

The following table provides the Fund's total return performance based on net asset value (NAV) over various time periods compared to the Fund's annualized and cumulative distribution rates.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Average Annual Total Return on NAV for the 5 Year Period Ending 3/13/2017(1) 16.36% ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Current Fiscal Period's Annualized Distribution Rate on NAV(2) 8% ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fiscal Year to Date (11/1/2016 to 3/13/2017) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Cumulative Total Return on NAV(1) 11.56% ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Cumulative Distribution Rate on NAV(2) 2% ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

(1) Return data is net of all fund expenses and fees and assumes the reinvestment of all distributions reinvested at prices obtained under the Fund's dividend reinvestment plan.

(2) Based on the Fund's NAV as of October 31, 2016.

While NAV performance may be indicative of the Fund's investment performance, it does not measure the value of a shareholder's investment in the Fund. The value of a shareholder's investment in the Fund is determined by the Fund's market price, which is based on the supply and demand for the Fund's shares in the open market.

Pursuant to an exemptive order granted to the Fund by the Securities and Exchange Commission on August 19, 2014, the Fund may distribute any long-term capital gains more frequently than the limits provided in Section 19(b) under the 1940 Act and Rule 19b-1 thereunder. Therefore, distributions paid by the Fund during the year may include net income, short-term capital gains, long-term capital gains and/or a return of capital. Net income dividends and short-term capital gain dividends, while generally taxable at ordinary income rates, may be eligible, to the extent of qualified dividend income earned by the Fund, to be taxed at a lower long-term capital gains rate. If the total distributions made in any calendar year exceed investment company taxable income and net capital gain, such excess distributed amount would be treated as ordinary income to the extent of the Fund's current and accumulated earnings and profits. Distributions in excess of the earnings and profits would first be a tax-free return of capital to the extent of the adjusted tax basis in the shares. After such adjusted tax basis is reduced to zero, the distribution would constitute capital gain (assuming the shares are held as capital assets).

The payment of distributions in accordance with the Distribution Policy may result in a decrease in the Fund's net assets. A decrease in the Fund's net assets may cause an increase in the Fund's annual operating expenses and a decrease in the Fund's market price per share to the extent the market price correlates closely to the Fund's net asset value per share. The Distribution Policy may also negatively affect the Fund's investment activities to the extent that the Fund is required to hold larger cash positions than it typically would hold or to the extent that the Fund must liquidate securities that it would not have sold or hold securities that it would liquidate, for the purpose of paying the distribution. The Distribution Policy may, under certain circumstances, cause the amounts of taxable distributions to exceed the levels required to be distributed under the Internal Revenue Code (i.e., to the extent the Fund has capital losses in any taxable year, such losses may be carried forward to reduce the amount of capital gains required to be distributed in future years; if distributions in a year exceed the amount minimally required to be distributed under the tax rules, such excess will be taxable as ordinary income to the extent loss carryforwards reduce the required amount of capital gains distributions in that year). The Fund's Board of Directors has the right to amend, suspend or terminate the Distribution Policy at any time. The amendment, suspension or termination of the Distribution Policy may affect the Fund's market price per share. Investors should consult their tax advisor regarding federal, state and local tax considerations that may be applicable in their particular circumstances.

Closed-end funds are traded on the secondary market through one of the stock exchanges. The Fund's investment return and principal value will fluctuate so that an investor's shares may be worth more or less than the original cost. Shares of closed-end funds may trade above (a premium) or below (a discount) the net asset value (NAV) of the fund's portfolio. There is no assurance that a fund will achieve its investment objective. Past performance does not guarantee future results.

The Fund is managed by KBI Global Investors (North America) Ltd, a subsidiary of KBI Global Investors Ltd, and is listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol - IRL. For further information, please contact the Fund at (800) 468-6475 or investor.query@newirelandfund.com.

Website: www.newirelandfund.com

The New Ireland Fund, Inc.

(800) 468-6475

investor.query@newirelandfund.com




VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA -- (Marketwired) -- 03/31/17 -- Royalty North Partners Ltd. (TSX VENTURE: RNP) ("RNP" or the "Company") is pleased to announce that it has entered into a loan agreement (the "Agreement") with Blue 360 Media, LLC ("Blue"), a newly formed entity based in Utah which has purchased a well-established portfolio of law enforcement publications with a track record of more than 60 years (the "Purchased Business").

Under the terms of the Agreement, RNP has loaned US$2,000,000 (the "Loan") to Blue. The Loan will be repaid by way of monthly loan payments equal to a minimum annual loan payment (the "Fixed Payment") plus a percentage of the gross sales (the "Variable Payment") of Blue. The Fixed Payment is US$150,000 and the initial Variable Payment will be 4.5% of gross sales until a certain cash-flow threshold is reached at which point reduced Variable Payments will be payable thereafter. The Loan proceeds have been used for the first instalment of the purchase price payable for the Purchased Business. The future instalments of the purchase price are expected to be funded from Blue's cash flow. RNP funded the Loan with cash on hand and unsecured promissory notes (the "Notes", see details below).

RLG Capital, LLC ("RLG"), a private investment firm based out of Park City, Utah and main shareholder of Blue, managed and executed the acquisition of 139 law enforcement publications from the leading US provider of legal, business and information services (the "Vendor"). The portfolio of publications includes state specific criminal handbooks/manuals that contain comprehensive and relevant statutes (code sections) covering criminal procedure and motor vehicle regulations. Blue will focus on new publications, a higher penetration rate in existing markets and additions to the sales and marketing team to capitalize on growth opportunities. Blue's management team consists of a CEO and Executive Director who have a combined 35 years of industry experience, the majority of which was spent with the Vendor.

Justin Currie, Chief Executive Officer at RNP, commented: "We are excited to partner with RLG and Blue in the purchase of this portfolio. Law enforcement was not part of the Vendor's core market and we believe with the proper focus on this segment, the business can be grown substantially and margins expanded. The management team has the experience to execute their strategic plan and create a law enforcement publication, training and compliance monitoring platform. We are also pleased to be able to provide additional cash flow exposure to our shareholders and simultaneously minimizing the issuance of new shares."

Mark Lisonbee, Managing Partner at RLG, stated: "We appreciated RNP's flexibility and speed in supporting this transaction. We chose to partner with them due to their unique and tailored royalty finance structure which allowed us to complete the transaction with no equity dilution. We look forward to working with them on other transactions in the future."

Unsecured Promissory Notes

In connection with the Agreement, RNP is pleased to announce that it has completed a placement of unsecured promissory notes (the "Notes") in the amount of C$1,000,000 with a small group of investors (the "Noteholders"). Certain insiders of the Company participated in the placement by purchasing an aggregate of Notes in the amount of C$350,000. Accordingly, the placement constituted to that extent a "related party transaction" under applicable Canadian securities laws. The Company is relying on the exemptions from the formal valuation and minority approval requirements found in sections 5.5(a) and 5.7(1)(a) of Multilateral Instrument 61-101 - Protection of Minority Security Holders in Special Transactions as the fair market value of the transaction, insofar as it involves interested parties, is not more than the 25% of the Company's market capitalization. The Notes have a 5 year term at which time they mature and become due and payable. The Notes bear interest at 8% per annum payable quarterly. RNP may prepay the outstanding principal amount of the Note together with all accrued and unpaid interest, without penalty, at any time prior to the maturity date of the Notes. The Noteholders have also been granted a loan bonus in the form of 357,142 RNP shares at a price of $0.14 per share for a total aggregate amount of C$50,000.

Blue represents RNP's third royalty investment since RNP initiated its change of business last year.

Supplemental Listing of Warrants

The Company is also pleased to announce that the TSX Venture Exchange (the "TSXV") has accepted for trading an additional 1,985,000 common share purchase warrants (the "Warrants") under the symbol "RNP.WT".

Each Warrant entitles its holder to purchase one common share of the Company at a price of $0.25 at any time prior to 4:30 p.m. (Vancouver time) on September 1, 2021. The Warrants are governed by the terms and conditions of a warrant indenture entered into between the Company and TSX Trust Company on November 24, 2016 (the "Warrant Indenture"). 29,453,370 warrants issued pursuant to the terms of the Warrant Indenture commenced trading on the TSXV at the opening of the markets on January 3, 2017 under the trading symbol "RNP.WT".

The Warrants were issued as replacements for the warrants issued to subscribers as part of a private placement by the Company of 63,576,745 units (the "Private Placement"). For more information on the Private Placement, please see the Company's news release dated September 1, 2016.

On behalf of the Company,

Justin Currie, Chief Executive Officer and Director

About Blue 360 Media, LLC

Blue acquired a portfolio of law enforcement publications from the leading US provider of legal, business and information services. The portfolio of publications includes state specific criminal handbooks/manuals that contain comprehensive and relevant statutes (code sections) covering criminal procedure and motor vehicle regulations. Blue has its head office in Park City, Utah and is led by an experienced management team.

About Royalty North Partners Ltd.

Royalty North Partners is a Vancouver, BC based, TSXV-listed (RNP) company focused on creating a diversified portfolio of cash flowing royalties by providing financing to private businesses operating in the "mid-market". RNP is led by a seasoned board and management team with a successful track record of experience in royalty financing, capital markets transactions and private company operations. RNP is targeting royalty investments in companies with stable cash flow in non-resource based sectors looking for growth/acquisition capital, recapitalization or succession liquidity.

Neither the TSXV nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSXV) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

This press release does not constitute an offer to purchase securities. The securities to be offered in the offering have not been and will not be registered under the United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended, or any state securities laws and may not be offered or sold in the United States or to, or for the benefit or account of, a U.S. person, except pursuant to an available exemption from such registration requirements.

Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements

Except for the statements of historical fact contained herein, the information presented constitutes "forward looking statements" within the meaning of certain securities laws, and is subject to important risks, uncertainties and assumptions. Such forward-looking statements include but are not limited to the completion of the transactions under the Agreement and the use of the proceeds of the placement of Notes. The words "may", "could", "should", "would", "suspect", "outlook", "believe", "anticipate", "estimate", "expect", "intend", "plan", "target" and similar words and expressions are used to identify forward-looking information. The forward-looking information in this news release describes the Company's expectations as of the date of this news release and accordingly, is subject to change after such date. Readers should not place undue importance on forward-looking information and should not rely upon this information as of any other date. While the Company may elect to, it does not undertake to update this information at any particular time except as required by law.

Contacts:

Royalty North Partners Ltd.

Chris Buss

Chief Investment Officer and Director

(604) 628-1101

www.royaltynorth.com




VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA -- (Marketwired) -- 03/31/17 -- Abacus Mining & Exploration Corporation ("Abacus" or the "Company") (TSX VENTURE: AME) is providing notice to holders of its common shares ("Shareholders") that a Special General Meeting of Shareholders will be held at Room 2801, 2800 Park Place, 666 Burrard Street, Vancouver, British Columbia on Tuesday, April 25, 2017 commencing at 1:30 pm Pacific Time (the "Meeting"). At the Meeting, Shareholders will be asked to consider a special resolution to consolidate the Company's current number of issued and outstanding common shares (the "Common Shares") on the basis of one (1) post-consolidation Common Share for every six (6) pre-consolidation Common Shares (the "Consolidation"). Additional information relating to the proposed Consolidation is included in the management information circular of the Company dated March 24, 2017, which has been sent to the Shareholders through the Company's transfer agent and is available on the Company's issuer profile on SEDAR at www.sedar.com. The board of directors of the Company (the "Board") has fixed March 16, 2017 as the record date for the determination of Shareholders entitled to notice of, and to vote at, the Meeting and at any adjournment thereof.

There are currently 234,807,611 Common Shares issued and outstanding. If and upon the Consolidation becoming effective, it is expected that there will be approximately 39,134,602 post-consolidation Common Shares in the capital of the Company issued and outstanding on a non-diluted basis.

The Board is of the view that a consolidation of the Common Shares would increase the Company's flexibility and competitiveness in the market place and make the Company's securities more attractive to a wider audience of potential investors and other interested parties.

Subject to the approval of Shareholders and the TSX Venture Exchange, the Consolidation will be effective on a date determined by the Board, which is anticipated to be on or about May 1, 2017. If the Consolidation is approved, no further action on the part of the Shareholders will be required in order for the Board to implement the Consolidation. Notwithstanding approval of the Consolidation by the Shareholders, the Board, in its sole discretion, may revoke the resolution approving the Consolidation and abandon the Consolidation without further approval, action by, or prior notice to Shareholders. There will not be a change in the Company's name in conjunction with the Consolidation.

The Board has unanimously determined that the Consolidation is in the best interests of the Company and unanimously recommends that Shareholders vote in favour of the special resolution at the Meeting and submit their proxies or voting instructions to their brokers, as applicable, as soon as possible.

On Behalf of the Board,

ABACUS MINING & EXPLORATION CORPORATION

Michael McInnis, Chairman, President & CEO

About Abacus

Abacus is a mineral exploration and mine development company with a 20% interest in the Ajax Project located at the historic Ajax-Afton site southwest of Kamloops, B.C., and an option to acquire up to a 75% interest in the Willow copper-gold property located in Nevada. The Ajax Project is a proposed copper-gold open-pit mine currently undergoing a provincial and federal environmental assessment process. Through KGHM Ajax Mining Inc., a joint venture company between Abacus (20%) and KGHM Polska Miedz S.A. (KGHM) (80%), the Ajax Mine is being funded in large part by KGHM and operated by its wholly-owned subsidiary, KGHM International Ltd. For the latest reports and information on Abacus' projects, please refer to the Company's website at www.amemining.com.

Forward-Looking Information

This release includes certain statements that are deemed "forward-looking statements". All statements in this release, other than statements of historical facts, that address events or developments that Abacus expects to occur, are forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are statements that are not historical facts and are generally, but not always, identified by the words "expects", "plans", "anticipates", "believes", "intends", "estimates", "projects", "potential" and similar expressions, or that events or conditions "will", "would", "may", "could" or "should" occur. Although the Company believes the expectations expressed in such forward-looking statements are based on reasonable assumptions, such statements are not guarantees of future performance and actual results may differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements.

Forward-looking information in this news release includes, but is not limited to, statements with respect to: the date of the Meeting; the Company's beliefs and expectations related to the results of the Consolidation; Shareholder and regulatory approval; the timing for implementation, if any, of the Consolidation; and the economic effect of the Consolidation. Factors that could cause the actual results to differ materially from those in forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, failure to obtain Shareholder or regulatory approval for the Consolidation, changes to commodity prices, mine and metallurgical recovery, operating and capital costs, foreign exchange rates, ability to obtain required permits on a timely basis, exploitation and exploration successes, continued availability of capital and financing, and general economic, market or business conditions. Investors are cautioned that any such statements are not guarantees of future performance and actual results or developments may differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are based on the beliefs, estimates and opinions of the Company's management on the date the statements are made. Except as required by applicable securities laws, the Company undertakes no obligation to update these forward-looking statements in the event that management's beliefs, estimates or opinions, or other factors, should change.

Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

Contacts:

Abacus Mining & Exploration Corporation

Michael McInnis

Chairman, President & CEO

604.682.0301

604.682.0307 (FAX)

info@amemining.com

www.amemining.com




TORONTO, ON--(Marketwired - March 31, 2017) - Primero Mining Corp. ("Primero" or the "Company") (TSX: P) (NYSE: PPP) announced today that, further to its news release dated March 24, 2017, it has closed the extension of the maturity of its $75 million revolving credit facility ("RCF") with its syndicate of lenders. The RCF will now mature on November 23, 2017 and will exclude financial covenants until the extended maturity date. The RCF continues to be secured by a charge over substantially all of the Company's assets and is now guaranteed by Silver Wheaton for a fee of $2.6 million payable at maturity. Today, Primero drew down $10 million from the RCF, which now has $60 million drawn. An additional $15 million remains available for drawdown, subject to Silver Wheaton's consent, unless the proceeds are used solely in connection with the restart of the San Dimas operations.

About Primero

Primero Mining Corp. is a Canadian-based precious metals producer that owns 100% of the San Dimas gold-silver mine and the Cerro del Gallo gold-silver-copper development project in Mexico and 100% of the Black Fox mine and adjoining properties in the Township of Black River"Matheson near Timmins, Ontario, Canada. Primero offers immediate exposure to un-hedged, below average cash cost gold production with a substantial resource base in politically stable jurisdictions. The Company is focused on becoming a leading intermediate gold producer by building a portfolio of high quality, low cost precious metals assets in the Americas.

Primero's website is www.primeromining.com.

Attachment Available: http://www.marketwire.com/library/MwGo/2017/3/30/11G134555/PR8-17_RCF_Extension_Closing_Final_v3-240483c273b4817f9e0ad84ab654e7ec.pdf

For further information, please contact:



Evan Young

Manager, Investor Relations

Tel: (416) 814-2694

eyoung@primeromining.com
DUBLIN, Mar. 31, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --

Research and Markets has announced the addition of the "Global Flexible Displays Market 2017-2021" report to their offering.

The global flexible displays market to grow at a CAGR of 35.11% during the period 2017-2021.

Global Flexible Displays 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.

High investments and advanced research in the field of OLEDs have led to the creation of transparent active matrix OLED (TAMOLED) and transparent passive matrix OLED (TPMOLED). Since the raw materials for OLEDs are transparent, it is possible to create transparent displays. Small transparent display screens that have a screen size of about 2.4 inches have been commercially existent in the market since 2013. Neoview Kolon and Futaba Corporation used to commercially supply transparent passive matrix OLED (TPMOLED) displays in 2013 (Neoview Kolon, is however shut down due to non-profitability). However, both the companies have now stopped producing these transparent OLEDs, and currently, it is difficult to acquire non-custom transparent OLEDs in the market.



According to the report, technological advances in OLED displays have resulted in a number of OLED patents. In June 2016, Universal Display Corporation acquired BASF's OLED IP portfolio for $96.8 million. In 2016, IGNIS Innovation signed a non-exclusive patent license with LG Display for its circuit technology that would increase the performance of OLED displays. In October 2016, Samsung Electronics patented a technology for foldable smartphones. The US patent No.9,504,145 describes a flexible display device that would house an OLED foldable display with a shatterproof screen. In November 2015, Apple filed for a patent in the US Patent and Trade Office (US PTO) for an OLED display with a built-in fingerprint reader.



Market Dynamics

Drivers and challenges



Market drivers

Impact of drivers on key customer segments

Market challenges

Impact of challenges on key customer segments

Market trends



Development of transparent OLED (TOLED) displays

Technological advances in augmented reality (AR)

Development of environment-friendly electronic devices

Key vendors



LG Display

Samsung Display

Other prominent vendors



AU Optronics

BOE Technology Group

EverDisplay Optronics (EDO)

E Ink Holdings

RiTdisplay

Universal Display Corporation

Visionox

For more information about this report visit http://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/8x34jh/global_flexible

Media Contact:

Laura Wood, Senior Manager

press@researchandmarkets.com



For E.S.T Office Hours Call 1-917-300-0470

For U.S./CAN Toll Free Call 1-800-526-8630

For GMT Office Hours Call +353-1-416-8900



U.S. Fax: 646-607-1907

Fax (outside U.S.): +353-1-481-1716
MONTREAL, QUEBEC -- (Marketwired) -- 03/31/17 -- Garda World Security Corporation (the "Company") announced today that it has commenced a cash tender offer (the "Offer") for any and all of its outstanding U.S. dollar denominated 7.25% Senior Notes due 2021 (CUSIP Nos./ISINs 36485M AG4/US36485MAG42, C36025 AC5/USC36025AC51, 36485M AJ8/US36485MAJ80 and C36025 AD3/USC36025AD35) (the "Notes"), upon the terms and subject to the conditions set forth in the Offer to Purchase and Consent Solicitation Statement, dated the date hereof (as it may be amended or supplemented from time to time, the "Statement"), and in the related Letter of Transmittal and Consent (as it may be amended or supplemented from time to time, the "Letter of Transmittal" and, collectively with the Statement, the "Offer Documents"). In connection with the Offer, and on the terms and subject to the conditions set forth in the Offer Documents, the Company is soliciting consents (the "Consent Solicitation") of holders of Notes to authorize the elimination of most of the restrictive covenants and certain of the events of default contained in the indenture (the "Indenture") governing the Notes (the "Proposed Amendments"). Holders may not tender their Notes without delivering their consents to the Proposed Amendments and may not deliver consents to the Proposed Amendments without tendering their related Notes. A valid withdrawal of tendered Notes at or before the Withdrawal Deadline (as defined hereinafter) will constitute the valid revocation of consents.

The early tender deadline is 5:00 p.m., New York City time, on April 13, 2017 (such time and date, as it may be extended, the "Early Tender Deadline"), and the Offer will expire at 12:00 midnight, New York City time, on April 27, 2017 (such time and date, as it may be extended, the "Expiration Time"), in each case, unless earlier terminated by the Company. Notes tendered may be withdrawn at any time at or before 5:00 p.m., New York City time, on April 13, 2017 (such time and date, as it may be extended, the "Withdrawal Deadline") but not thereafter, except as required by law. The Company may extend the Early Tender Deadline without extending the related Withdrawal Deadline.

The table below summarizes certain payment terms of the Offer and the Consent Solicitation:

---------------------------------------------------------------------------- CUSIP Nos. Outstanding Description Tender Early Total /ISINs Principal of Offer Tender Consider- Amount of Notes Conside- Payment(i) ation(i) Notes ration(i) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- CUSIP: 36485M U.S. 7.25% U.S. $960 U.S. $50 U.S. $1,010 AG4, C36025 $440,000,000 Senior AC5, 36485M Notes due AJ8, C36025 2021 AD3ISIN: US36485MAG42, USC36025AC51, US36485MAJ80, USC36025AD35 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

(i) Per U.S. $1,000 principal amount of Notes.

Holders validly tendering Notes at or before the Early Tender Deadline will be eligible to receive the Total Consideration with respect to the Notes tendered. Holders validly tendering Notes after the Early Tender Deadline but at or before the Expiration Time will be eligible to receive only the Tender Offer Consideration for such Notes, which is equal to the Total Consideration less the Early Tender Payment. In addition, holders whose Notes are purchased in the Offer will receive accrued and unpaid interest in respect of their purchased Notes from the last interest payment date to, but not including, the applicable payment date for the Notes. The Company reserves the right, at any time following the Early Tender Deadline but prior to the Expiration Time (the "Early Acceptance Date"), to accept for purchase all Notes validly tendered and not validly withdrawn on or before the Early Acceptance Date. If the Company elects to exercise this option, the Company will pay the Total Consideration or Tender Offer Consideration, as the case may be, for the Notes accepted for purchase promptly following the acceptance of Notes for purchase (the date of such payment being referred to as the "Early Payment Date").

Subject to the terms and conditions of the Offer being satisfied or waived, the Company will, promptly after the Expiration Time (the "Final Acceptance Date"), accept for purchase all Notes validly tendered at or before the Expiration Time (and not validly withdrawn at or before the Withdrawal Deadline) (or if the Company has exercised its early purchase option as described above, all Notes validly tendered after the Early Acceptance Date and at or before the Expiration Time). The Company will pay the Total Consideration or Tender Offer Consideration, as the case may be, for Notes accepted for purchase promptly following the acceptance of such Notes for purchase (the date of such payment being referred to as the "Final Payment Date"). If 90% or more of the aggregate principal amount of the Notes are tendered and purchased in the Offer, we intend to redeem any Notes that remain outstanding in accordance with the terms of the Indenture at a price equal to the Total Consideration plus accrued and unpaid interest to, but not including, the redemption date.

The Company's obligation to consummate the Offer is subject to the satisfaction or waiver of certain conditions, which are more fully described in the Statement, including, among others, (i) the completion of the purchase by an affiliate of the Company of all of the stock of the Company held by funds advised by Apax Partners (the "Stock Purchase"), (ii) the consummation of the Financing Transactions (as defined in the Statement) in connection with the Stock Purchase on terms satisfactory to the Company, (iii) Notes representing at least a majority in outstanding principal amount of the Notes are properly tendered and not validly withdrawn, and the related Consents are received, and (iv) the execution and delivery by the Company and the Trustees of a supplemental indenture giving effect to the Proposed Amendments. Pursuant to the Indenture, if the Stock Purchase is completed but the Consent Solicitation is not completed, we will be obligated to make a separate Change of Control Offer (as such term is defined in the Indenture) at a price equal to 101% of the principal amount thereof, plus accrued and unpaid interest to, but excluding, the Change of Control Payment Date (as such term is defined in the Indenture). Neither the Financing Transactions nor the Stock Purchase is conditioned upon completion of either the Offer or the Consent Solicitation.

The information agent for the tender offer and consent solicitation is D.F. King & Co., Inc. Holders with questions or who would like additional copies of the offer documents may call the information agent, D.F. King & Co., Inc., toll-free at (800) 864-1460 or (212) 269-5550 (collect) or email at garda@dfking.com. Questions regarding the terms of the tender offer and consent solicitation can be directed to the dealer manager for the tender offer and solicitation agent for the consent solicitations, Citigroup Global Markets Inc. (800) 558-3745 (toll-free) and (212) 723-6106 (collect).

This news release is for informational purposes only and does not constitute an offer to buy or the solicitation of an offer to sell the Notes. The Offer and the Consent Solicitation are being made only pursuant to the Offer Documents that the Company will be distributing to holders promptly. Holders and investors should read carefully the Offer Documents because they contain important information, including the various terms of and conditions to the Offer and the Consent Solicitation. None of the Company, the dealer manager and the solicitation agent, the tender agent, the information agent or their respective affiliates is making any recommendation as to whether or not holders should tender all or any portion of their Notes in the Offer or deliver their consents in the Consent Solicitation.

About GardaWorld

GardaWorld is one of the world's largest privately owned security services providers, offering a range of highly focused business solutions including cash services, protective services and aviation services. GardaWorld's more than 62,000 highly trained, dedicated professionals serve clients throughout North America, the Middle East, Africa and Europe. GardaWorld works across a broad range of sectors, including financial services, infrastructure, natural resources and retail, and services Fortune 500 companies, governments and humanitarian relief organizations. For more information, visit www.garda.com

Cautionary Statement on Forward-Looking Statements

Information provided and statements contained in this press release that are not purely historical are forward-looking statements within the meaning of the applicable securities laws. Certain statements in this press release may constitute forward-looking information within the meaning of securities laws. Forward-looking information may relate to GardaWorld's future outlook and anticipated events, business, operations, financial performance, financial condition or results and, in some cases, can be identified by terminology such as "may"; "will"; "should"; "expect"; "plan"; "anticipate"; "believe"; "intend"; "estimate"; "predict"; "potential"; "continue"; "foresee", "ensure" or other similar expressions concerning matters that are not historical facts. In particular, statements regarding the company's future operating results and economic performance and its objectives and strategies are forward-looking statements. These statements are based on certain factors and assumptions including expected growth, results of operations, performance and business prospects and opportunities, which GardaWorld believes are reasonable as of the current date. While management considers these assumptions to be reasonable based on information currently available to the company, they may prove to be incorrect. The company cautions the reader that the current economic conditions make forward-looking information and the underlying assumptions subject to greater uncertainty and that, consequently, they may not materialize, or the results may significantly differ from the company's expectations. It is impossible for GardaWorld to predict with certainty the impact that the current economic may have on future results. Forward-looking information is also subject to certain factors, including risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from what GardaWorld currently expects. These factors include growth management, market competition, cost of financing, key personnel, government regulations, standard customer service contracts, insurance, strikes and other labor protests, information technology systems, operations outside Canada and the United States, currency fluctuations, credit risk, reputational risk, and financial covenants risk. Therefore, future events and results may vary significantly from what management currently foresees. The reader should not place undue importance on forward-looking information and should not rely upon this information as of any other date. We will not update these statements unless applicable securities laws require us to do so. The reader should also take knowledge of the GardaWorld's Annual MD&A for the fiscal year ended January 31, 2016 and the unaudited condensed consolidated interim financial statements for the nine-month period ended October 31, 2016.

Contacts:

GardaWorld Media Relations

514-281-2811 x2700

media@garda.com




CALGARY, ALBERTA -- (Marketwired) -- 03/31/17 -- Mr. Kevin Nephin, President and CEO of Kestrel Gold Inc. (the "Corporation" or "Kestrel") (TSX VENTURE: KGC) is pleased to announce that further to the news release of the Corporation on March 28, 2017, the Corporation has entered into debt settlement agreements with certain of its creditors to settle debts owed in a total amount of $300,000 by the issuance of a total of 6,000,000 common shares at a deemed price of $0.05 per share.

About Kestrel Gold Inc.

Kestrel Gold Inc. is a gold exploration corporation headquartered in Canada. Kestrel's principal property is the King Solomon Dome property, located in the Dawson Mining District, Yukon Territory, Canada.

Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

Contacts:

Kevin Nephin

President and CEO

Office (604) 824-6056

kvnephin@gmail.com




Javelin Venture Partners, a San Francisco, CA-based early stage venture capital firm, closed its latest fund, at $125m.

Per an SEC filing, Javelin Venture Partners IV, L.P., has been supported by four investors.

Established in 2008 by Monica Lenk, Sarah Rice, Alex Gurevich, Jed Katz, Noah Doyle, Sandy Hawkins, Jeremy Banon, Lena Vayn, Javelin Venture Partners is a venture capital firm focused on early-stage investing in technology companies.

Focus areas include cloud, big data, enterprise software, SaaS, e-commerce, mobile, health/wellness and digital media.

The typical investment is between $250K to $5m (Seed: $250K  $1 million/Series A: $1.5 million  $5 million), with reserves for follow-on investments.

The firm, which has $455m under management, has invested in several category defining tech companies (read here).

FinSMEs

31/03/2017
Optolexia, a Stockholm, Sweden-based provider of a test to screen for dyslexia in children, raised $5.6m (approx. 5.2m) in funding.

The round was led by Gabriel Urwitz, CEO of Segulah, with participation from The Pomona Group.

The company intends to use the funds to launch its test in the United States.

Founded in 2015 and led by CEO Fredrik Wetterhal, Optolexia offers a new screening method to identify children at risk of dyslexia already in the first years of primary school. Its method makes for confident decisions on whether an individual needs supplementary support, and if further investigation is necessary. This optimizes use of school resources to the benefit of students, staff and community.

The company is currently conducting pilots and is about to release its service in the UK and the US in 2017.

FinSMEs

31/03/2017
Ferrari has released reserve driver Antonio Giovinazzi to Sauber for the upcoming China Grand Prix should the Swiss outfit require the young Italian's services.

According to Italy's La Gazetta dello Sport, the Scuderia was initially reluctant to do so.

Why ? Because letting Giovinazzi do more races for Sauber would make the 23-year-old hopeful ineligible for the 'young driver' tests scheduled for later this year.

Ferrari's intention was to run their reserve driver at these tests.

But given Pascal Wehrlein's fitness issues, and Giovinazzi's very good showing in Melbourne, having the young charger on hand in China has now become a necessity.



"That Giovinazzi will get another opportunity to drive for Sauber now becomes more real," said correspondent Andrea Cremonesi.

"Because Ferrari has decided to 'sacrifice' being able to use him in the tests after Bahrain."

GALLERY: F1 drivers' wives and girlfriends

Keep up to date with all the F1 news via Facebook and Twitter
Digital music service Spotify acquired MightyTV, a NYC-based content recommendations company.

The amount of the deal was not disclosed.

Founder/CEO Brian Adams, an entrepreneur and product innovator in both the ad-tech and consumer spaces, will be now joining Spotify as VP of Technology, focusing on advertising and marketing technology solutions.

In 2007 he founded Admeld, a publisher monetization platform that was sold to Google in 2011. Adams then joined Google to run the Doubleclick Publisher Platform before leaving to found MightyTV in 2015.

Adams will use this deep knowledge of programmatic advertising and personalized recommendations to further develop Spotifys advertising products, as well as its own marketing technology platform.

The MightyTV team will be based in Spotifys New York City, Toronto and Stockholm offices.

FinSMEs

31/03/2017
ZenJob, a Berlin, Germany-based full service on-demand staffing platform, raised 3m in funding.

The round was led by Redalpine and Acton Capital Partners, with participation from 500 Startups and existing investor Atlantic Labs.

The proceeds of the round will be used to accelerate growth and expand across Germany.

Founded in 2016 by Fritz Trott, Cihan Aksakal, Frederik Fahning and Cornelius Rantzau, ZenJob leverages technology to address short-notice staffing challenges of companies across various sectors such as hotels, gastronomy or retail. With the platform, jobseekers can choose their part-time assignments via a mobile app, run through a structured on-boarding process and receive continuous rating on the job.

The solution also takes care of the administrative process for their business clients.

The Berlin-based startup has already acquired more than 1,000 students as Zenjob talents and currently supplies employees to over 300 companies, including Sheraton Hotels, fashion chain Gerry Weber and food delivery Foodora.

FinSMEs

31/03/2017
If you are planning to buy a two-wheeler, today is the day.

Two-wheeler majors Hero MotoCorp, HMSI, Bajaj Auto and Suzuki Motorcycle are raining discounts to woo buyers for their BS-III models to after the Supreme Court banned sale and registration of such vehicles from 1 April.

The discounts on offer are up to Rs 22,000. The aim is to liquidate stocks in one day.

With 6.71 lakh two-wheelers, out of over 8 lakh BS-III vehicles impacted by the ban, dealers told PTI the immediate effort is to sell as many units as possible before the deadline by offering "unheard of discounts" in the industry.

Honda Motorcycle and Scooter India (HMSI), which had initially offered a flat discount of Rs 10,000 on its BS-III scooters and motorcycles increased it to Rs 22,000 later in the day.

The company said it is offering cash back offer of Rs 22,000 on its BS-III scooters and motorcycles models Activa 3G (priced Rs 50,290), Dream Yuga (Rs 51,741), CB Shine (Rs 55,799 to Rs 61,283) and CD 110DX (Rs 47,202 to Rs 47,494).

Market leader Hero MotoCorp offered discounts of up to Rs 12,500 on its BS-III two-wheelers.

According to dealers, the company is offering rebate of Rs 12,500 on its scooters, Rs 7,500 on premium bikes and Rs 5,000 on entry level mass market motorcycles.

The models on which discounts are offered include scooters Duet (priced Rs 49,480) and Maestro Edge (Rs 51,030), motorcycles Glamour (Rs 59,755) and Splendor 125 (Rs 55,575).

Another two-wheeler maker Suzuki Motorcycle India also announced offers on its Let's scooter and Gixxer motorcycle.

On the scooter, Let's priced (Rs 47,272 to Rs 53,766), the company offered a discount of Rs 4,000 plus a free helmet, while on Gixxer (Rs 77,452 to Rs 90,421) the benefit is up to Rs 5,000 with exchange benefits of up to Rs 2,000. All prices are ex-showroom Delhi.

Bajaj Auto also offered discounts and free insurance on its different models, starting from the entry level Platina to Pulsar RS200 in the range of Rs 3,000 to Rs 12,000 along with free insurance.

"If there are any unsold inventory left, we have the possibility to export as we are a big exporter to around 70 countries across the world," Bajaj Auto President (Business Development & Assurance) S Ravikumar told PTI.

The companies said the offer will be valid till stocks last or up to 31 March.

"These are unheard of discounts ever in the two-wheeler industry," Federation of Automobile Dealers (FADA) past president and Director-International Affairs Nikunj Sanghi said.

When asked about what actions were dealers taking following the apex court verdict, he said: "Our energy is focused on selling as much stock as possible before the

deadline. Our people are calling up potential customers informing them about the offers."

He said the dealership community was hoping for some relief from the court in the form of more time to sell their stocks but with that not happening, the focus has shifted to liquidating the stocks.

Afterwards, it will have to be discussed with the manufacturers what to do with the unsold inventories, if at all any are left, he added.

On the commercial vehicles front, Ashok Leyland said it wasn't offering discounts on any of its vehicles.

"Our products are in good demand and we will not be offering any price discounts," a company spokesperson said.

Mahindra & Mahindra said it is working on various options to work within the framework provided by the court order.

It is "even trying to liquidate as much of the company's and its dealers' BS III inventory as possible by 31 March, 2017 and will make every attempt to minimise the one time impact of this order on the company's financials", without sharing details of the steps.

Comments from Tata Motors could not be obtained.

Observing on Wednesday that health of the people is "far, far more important" than the commercial interests of the manufacturers, the Supreme Court said that automobile firms have declined to take "sufficient pro-active steps" despite being fully aware that they would be required to manufacture only BS-IV compliant vehicles from 1 April, 2017.

With PTI inputs
Mumbai: In what is possibly the biggest financial frauds in recent years, NPCI on Thursday said Rs 25 crore has been moved out of Bank of Maharashtra (BoM) accounts due to a bug in its UPI application. All the corrective steps have been initiated and the process of recovering the money from 19 banks where it was transferred to, is on, it said.

"Total amount of loss, as reported by BoM, is about Rs 25 crore. They've recovered some amount and some amount is still pending. They've filed a police complaint also and the investigation is on," National Payment Corporation managing director and chief executive AP Hota told reporters.

Explaining the fraud, Hota said BoM had procured a Unified Payment Interface (UPI) solution from a vendor (reported to be city-based InfrasoftTech) which had a bug that resulted in the fund moving out of the accounts without the senders account having the necessary funds.

"Even if the core banking has declined a transaction, the UPI at the bank-level used to send a success message to NPCI. At NPCI, even if the CBS said no, based on UPI of the bank, we used to do the clearing and settlement," Hota said, adding the fraud was first reported to it on February 22.

He said about 50-60 people in Aurangabad discovered this loophole possibly through trial and error method. "They have collected a good deal of money. They've accounts in 19 other banks. Theyre trying to recover money now," he said.

There were three other banks, including Bank of India, which had bought a similar solution from the same vendor but they've not reported any mishap, Hota said, adding thorough checks have been carried out.

The fraud was first reported in the media last week after a few arrests in Maharashtra, but the total amount transferred was under Rs 2 crore.

It can be noted that breach of card details due to a compromise at Hitachi's end last year, which led to a replacement of 3.2 million debit cards, had a financial loss of under Rs 2 crore.

Maintaining that it is up to BoM to take action on its vendor, Hota said NPCI has learnt a lot from this episode.

"The learning from this is that were not allowing any bank to join UPI unless they've a thorough reconciliation process and audited their package by the best of auditors."

"As many as 44 banks are on UPI and getting the 45th bank will be a tougher job because we will be very circumspect," he said.

Till now, individual banks used to give a declaration that its application meets all the necessary security norms but now they will be audited by professionals enlisted by the CERT-IN (Computer Emergency Response Team), Hota said.

A working group has been set up to create a CERT exclusively for the financial sector. NPCI is a part of the deliberations, he added.
New Delhi: Five airlines will operate on 128 routes connecting over 30 unserved airports under the regional connectivity scheme wherein fares are capped at Rs 2,500 for one-hour flights.

The first flight under the scheme -- UDAN (Ude Desh ka Aam Naagrik) is expected to start next month, Civil Aviation Secretary R N Choubey said on Thursday.

As many as 70 airports, including 31 unserved and 12 under-served ones, would be connected with the UDAN flights.

Announcing the names of winning bidders and the routes, Choubey said 128 routes are being awarded to a total of five operators.

The operators are Air India's subsidiary Airline Allied Services, SpiceJet, Air Deccan, Air Odisha and Turbo Megha.

They would be operating 19-78 seater aircraft, he said.

These flights would connect airports spread across over 20 states and union territories including Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Puducherry.

The airports that would be connected under UDAN include Bhatinda, Shimla, Bilaspur, Neyveli, Cooch Behar, Nanded and Kadapa.

On each flight, 50 per cent of the seats would have a cap of Rs 2,500 per seat/hour, Choubey said.

Airline Allied Services would operate on 15 routes, SpiceJet (11), Turbo Megha Airways (18), Air Deccan (34) and Air Odisha Aviation (50).

Under UDAN, the operators would be extended viability gap funding -- for which money is partly raised through a levy of up to Rs 8,500 on flights operating in major routes like Delhi and Mumbai.

The viability gap funding amount is estimated to be around Rs 205 crore per annum for the operators chosen in the first round of bidding, Choubey said.

When asked how the amount of Rs 205 crore could translate to in terms of increased price on fliers on the major routes where the levy is imposed, Choubey said it would be around "Rs 50 per passenger.

"That is the ball park figure which is less than 1 percent of average ticket price," he noted.

Further, Choubey said airports coming under this round of UDAN are in "ready to fly or nearly ready to fly conditions" and the next round of bidding would commence shortly.

Minister of State for Civil Aviation Jayant Sinha said criteria for selecting the winning bidders was based on the level of viability gap funding each of them were on per seat.

The viability gap funding would be in place for three years for the airlines concerned from the date of starting operations in a particular UDAN route.

The scheme also provides for various benefits including no airport charges and three-year exclusivity on the routes.

SpiceJet's CMD Ajay Singh said the airline would not be availing viability gap funding.

Amber Dubey, Partner and Head of Aerospace and Defence at KPMG in India said timely payment of viability gap funding to the operators would be key to sustainable operations.

"AAI must install fool-proof monitoring mechanism to ensure no undue delays happen," he said.

The ministry and regulator DGCA should also allow sharing of licensed crew among the operators in order to reduce the cost of operators.

Responding to a query about some airlines shutting down in recent times, Raju said, "some airlines have crashed, some are alive".

Referring to the new operators under UDAN, the minister said: "I guess when we start anything we don't move prophecies of doom... We wish the airlines here will be serving the Indian skies".

Airports Authority of India (AAI) is the implementing agency for UDAN.
It was earlier reported that filmmaker Kabir Khan will collaborate with Hrithik Roshan in his next directorial. However, since there were issues with the casting of the leading lady, it seems like Kabir has diverted his attention to a web series.

Mumbai Mirror reports that Kabir is planning to produce and direct a nine to 10 episodic web series based on freedom fighter Subhash Chandra Bose's life and the army that he led in World War II, the Indian National Army (INA). The same report states that the web series will focus on a myriad range of subjects including the contribution of women in the INA.

The war epic will be on the lines of the 2001 Hollywood television series Band of Brothers. It will be bigger, in terms of scale and budget, than any of Kabir's past feature films. He has been working on the web series for years and has the screenplay ready.

However, Bollywood Hungama reports that Kabir will develop the story and confirm the casting only after the release of his next feature film, another war epic, Tubelight. Starring Salman Khan, Sohail Khan, Chinese actor Zhu Zhu and Om Puri, the film will release this August on Eid.

There have been only a few films made to document the life of Bose. The most memorable of those would be Shyam Benegal's 2004 biopic, Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose: The Forgotten Hero. Recently, Vishal Bhardwaj also used the INA and their war tactics as a parallel theme in his film, Rangoon that released last month.

Interestingly, Kabir also made his directorial debut with a documentary titled The Forgotten Army that chronicled the war times of the INA. This film won the Grand Jury Award at the South Asian Film Festival in Kathmandu back in 1998. His debut feature film, Kabul Express, was also based on the experiences of two war journalists.
Contrary to speculations, Tamil superstar Rajinikanth has not been signed as the brand ambassador for Malaysian tourism. He confirmed that he has not replaced Shah Rukh Khan as the ambassador.

Malaysian Prime Minister Dato Sri Najib Tun Razak arrived in Chennai on Thursday, 30 March, for an exclusive meeting with Rajinikanth. It was a courtesy meet, as Rajinikanth had invited him to Chennai when he was in Malaysia for the shooting of his gangster drama from last year, Pa Ranjith's Kabali.

It was speculated that he will be offered to become the Malaysian tourism brand ambassador. But after the meeting, Rajinikanth rubbished them as rumours.

I was not offered to become brand ambassador for Malaysia. These are all rumours: Rajnikanth after meeting Malaysian PM Najib Razak pic.twitter.com/cY3WuHtCFb  ANI (@ANI_news) March 31, 2017

On the professional front, Rajinikanth has wrapped up the shooting of S Shankar's science fiction entertainer 2.0, the sequel of his 2010 blockbuster Enthiran. He will reprise his roles of a scientist and a robot from the prequel.
Theres no other way to say it  The Boss Baby is a really weird movie. Its hard to describe if this even an actual movie or a prank that the writers and director have played on the audience. In fact Ill go so far as to describe this as a perfectly bizarre time made by stoners for stoners.

To describe the plot of the film Ill have to first assure you that I am not joking.

This is a story about a seven-year-old boy named Tim (Miles Bakshi) who is surprised one day to find out that he has a new baby brother at home. The baby, however, is not just an average baby, but Boss Baby, an undercover agent with a secret agenda to investigate the company that Tims parents (Jimmy Kimmel and Lisa Kudrow) work at.

The company happens to be Puppy Co  a conglomerate that produces incredibly adorable dogs that more and more parents adopt instead of children  an act which is threatening the business of Baby Corp which manufactures babies via assembly lines.

Once youve let that plot description sink in, it would be safe for you to assume that writer Michael McCullers was clearly attempting to forge some new form of comedy into this movie.

The stuff that happens in the film is so ridiculous its a miracle that a studio was brave enough to green light an animation movie so off kilter.

In one of the least bonkers subplots there is a gang of local baby helpers that join forces with the Boss Baby for play time with the baby  which is actually covert strategy sessions to discuss further corporate espionage. Later, the Puppy Cos boss, a man named Francis Francis (Steve Buschemi) has nefarious plans to introduce a Forever Puppy which would completely annihilate the need to have something cutesy in the house.

The reason for such insane ideas to exist in this film becomes clear when you realise the writer is also responsible for the Austin Powers movies.

The downside is that once the reveal of the babys bossness is made, the film continuously depends on that twist to churn out the laughs. Some of it surely works  Alec Baldwin is perfect as the voice of the ambitious, hard talking, over the top corporate Boss Baby in a suit and tie who will stop at nothing to meet his companys goals.

But theres an undercurrent of a one joke strategy applied to bank on the baby constantly doing more and more ludicrous adult things as shock value. The strategy feels like a low hanging fruit for sure, but when the fruit gets you high its okay for them to keep dangling it.

While theres plenty of frantic pacing, energy and color in the film to keep kids entertained its difficult to imagine children enjoying this movie as much as their stoner parents would.

Theres not enough heart in the film as much as, say, the equally weird 'Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs' but its a more memorable animation movie than Dreamworks last few films.
Asghar Farhadis latest film, The Salesman, starts off with a major natural calamity  an earthquake that forces a young couple to move out of their home and look for a new one. Yet, what makes the film intriguing is how it shows that its usually the little things that truly expose the fault-lines in any relationship.

Set in middle-class Tehran, The Salesman is about Emad (Shahab Hosseini) and Rana (Taraneh Alidoosti), a couple that works in theatre. While the earthquake causes them to move to the new home  a place that has a history of its own  it is an incident that occurs in this new home that pushes their relationship to its limits.

Make no mistake, The Salesman is far from being Farhadis most accomplished film. Unlike his recent successes  A Separation, The Past or even 2009s About Elly  The Salesman often gently moves between genres. For instance, when Emad and Rana move into the new home, you get a sense of foreboding as they begin to set it up  you almost know that something is about to happen. (Just like you would in, say, The Conjuring; but to a much lesser degree.)

Later, as Emad looks to get to the bottom of the incident, the film almost becomes a whodunnit, with even an all-too-convenient plot twist thrown in to makes things easier for him. In essence, the narrative of the film is largely driven by an actual plot, which takes attention away from the complex unfolding of human emotions thats usually Farhadis forte.

In that sense, The Salesman is also the most accessible of Farhadis recent work, because it keeps you hooked because of the plot itself. (That is also perhaps why it sometimes seems like a film with less heft than youd expect from Farhadi.)

Yet, delve deeper into it, and youll see that the film is less about the incident and more about the impact that trauma has on people and relationships. There are times when the film forces you to pick sides, because there are two people in conflict; and yet, youre hardly ever able to make that choice, because the goings-on are all shrouded in grey.

Shahab Hosseinis Emad, in particular, really makes things difficult for the audience, because of some inherent charm  both in the actor and the character. Yet, while you find yourself sympathising with him, you might at some point completely disagree with his reaction to various situations, even though from an emotional perspective there appears to be justification for what he says and does.

Alidoostis Rana is a case study in post-traumatic stress disorder, as she reacts intuitively and uncontrollably to her life being thrown out of gear. Yet, when it really boils down to making a choice between serving the self and serving another person  whoever that might be  she makes the kind of choices that would remind you of the bright, shining core of hope humankind so successfully manages to mask with everyday cynicism and apathy. The film reaches its finest in the climactic sequence of the film, as it truly blurs the lines between black and white, right and wrong.

Through the film, we also see the outer side of the couples life  Emad and Rana are stage actors, whore simultaneously acting in a production of Arthur Millers play Death of a Salesman. Apart from shared themes that the play and the film have  primarily in terms of one's interpretation of and reaction to reality, the theatre portions also show how life sometimes forces you to go out into the world and put on an act, no matter how difficult things seem on the inside. Sometimes, the facade cracks; but the show must go on.
A second FIR has been filed against TVF CEO Arunabh Kumar in the sexual harassment case.

The complainant  a former staffer who was employed at TVF until a year ago  registered her statement with the Versova Police. The allegations she has levelled against Kumar are similar to those of the previous complainant , a writer-director who stepped forward on 29 March to register an FIR against the TVF founder for allegedly touching her inappropriately.

In an article about the first complainant, Indian Express reported that the Mumbai Police has issued a summons for Kumar. "Based on the complaint of a victim, a case under Section 354 (A) and 509 of the IPC has been registered, an official of the Mumbai Police said.

However, on Thursday, 30 March, it was reported that Kumar was "untraceable" to the police.

A police official told Hindustan Times that they couldn't find him Kumar. A senior police official said, It is a non-bailable offence and we will definitely be opposing his bail plea. We want to arrest him.

How the case unfolded

The controversy broke when a blog post published on Medium under the moniker "Indian Fowler" (a nod to the viral post by Susan Fowler that highlighted the "toxic" work culture at Uber that had apparently led to a steady decrease in its number of female employees), believed to be written by a former TVF employee, levelled sexual harassment charges against Arunabh Kumar.

In the blog post, Indian Fowler wrote about how, during her three years with the company (she was under a contract), Kumar repeatedly made sexual advances towards her.

More women come forward

While TVF was quick to rubbish the claims of Indian Fowler, stating that no employee seemingly matching the description provided by the blogger ever worked at the company, other women stepped forward, saying they had similar stories to share of Kumar's untoward behaviour.

These accusations were made on social media  meaning that the police could not take cognisance of them. Mumbai-based lawyer Rizwan Siddiqui then filed a third-person first information report in the case.

The two FIRs present a complete reversal of developments for Kumar  on just 29 March, it was reported that the case against him would be closed by the police as no one had stepped forward to register a formal complaint with them even 10 days after Siddiqui's third-person report.

More FIRs expected

Meanwhile, according to a Mumbai Mirror report, at least four more complainants are expected to step forward in the days to come. In its edition dated 31 March 2017, Mirror has published an interview with an individual who describes himself as a "corporate and government insider" and goes by the moniker "Corporate Kumar" on Twitter. It was this individual who forwarded the original blog post by Indian Fowler to members of the press. Corporate Kumar has told Mirror that he/she has verified the complaints of 11 women. Corporate Kumar further claimed that while there was conjecture around Arunabh Kumar's whereabouts (including some rumours that stated he had returned to his hometown of Muzzafarpur in Bihar), sources in the know had placed the TVF CEO in Goa.
The trailer of the Netflix original film War Machine portrays its protagonist in a steely, determined manner, quite fitting of the title. In it, Brad Pitt plays a senior army general who is under pressure to put an end to the NATO operation in Afghanistan.

The trailer opens with Brad Pitt's character proudly declaring "We are here to build! To protect, to support the civilian population," to a room full of soldiers. They all listen with rapt attention as he tells them, "To that end, we must avoid killing them at all costs."

We're informed that the war in Afghanistan has been on for eight years, and most people are very pessimistic about the situation. Pitt's character, however, is convinced that he can put an end to it. He is constantly reminded that he has to clean up the mess that America created in this region.

Brad Pitt's character Dan McMahon looks confident with his more-salt-less-pepper hair, and we are told that it is his reputation and drive that are the reasons why he will get the job done. He is known as the man who "took Al Qaeda in the sack."

MacMahon's team is about to embark on a new direction which will see them build Afghanistan into a "new and prosperous nation", to which an Afghan official replies by saying, "Sounds like the old direction".

The trailer also has several shots which point to the hypocrisy of the war, such as the line where a soldier in MacMahon's team talks about the futility of trying to convince people that you're a good guy when you have a gun in your hand. The absurdity of the line, "We can't help them and kill them at the same time; that ain't humanly possible," is only enhanced by the intense background music.

War Machine releases on 26 May 2017.

Watch the trailer here:


New Delhi: Abattoirs in India called off a four-day strike after the most populous state of Uttar Pradesh, ruled by Prime Minister Narendra Modi's party, gave assurances that mainly Muslim-run, unlicensed slaughterhouses would not be shut down or attacked. Separately, in Modi's western home state of Gujarat, lawmakers of his ruling party stiffened the punishment for cow slaughter to life imprisonment, the toughest such measure aimed at protecting cows, widely considered holy by Hindus.

Earlier, the maximum punishment had been a seven-year jail term. State elections are due by year-end in Gujarat where 1,000 people mostly Muslims, were killed in 2002 after a wave of Hindu-Muslim riots when Modi was chief minister. A Supreme Court investigation found no case against Modi, who denied wrongdoing.Shrill demands by right-wing Hindu groups to stop the slaughter of cows threaten to stoke a fresh wave of communal tension, as Muslims, who make up 14 percent of India's 1.3 billion people, dominate the meat trade.After the appointment of Hindu hardliner Yogi Adityanath as chief minister of Uttar Pradesh following a landslide election victory for Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party, slaughterhouses and meat shops suffered attacks by Hindu vigilante groups.

"We have decided to call off the strike after a meeting with the chief minister, who assured us that the state government will renew the licences of slaughter houses," Chaudhary Aley Ummar Qureshi, a general secretary of the Muslim All India Jamiatul Quresh, told Reuters from Lucknow, the state capital.

Traders will resume selling meat after the end on Wednesday of the nine-day Hindu festival of Navratra, during which participants fast and abstain from meat, Qureshi said."The government also assured us of protection from any arbitrary or unlawful crackdown," Qureshi said.The state government would not discriminate on religious grounds, said health minister Siddharth Nath Singh, who attended the traders' meeting with Adityanath.

"Anyone creating trouble in the name of religion, from now on, will not be tolerated," he told a TV network soon after.Most of India's beef comes from buffalo rather than cattle, and Uttar Pradesh is the country's biggest producer of buffalo meat. Its recent crackdown spread to other states ruled by the BJP.Despite the end to the strike, slaughterhouse owners remain insecure and nervous.

Muslim owners of meat shops still fear they could be targeted, said Iqbal Qureshi, president of the Murga Vyapar Kalyan Samiti, a meat sellers' group in Uttar Pradesh.He urged the government to make its rules and regulations clear in order to eliminate harassment by authorities and vigilante groups.Frequent attacks on trucks carrying cattle have severely crippled both local trade and exports, said a meat exporter based in India's financial capital of Mumbai.During its election campaign the BJP had promised to maintain communal harmony in Uttar Pradesh, said Randeep Surjewala, spokesman of the opposition Congress party. "Everybody will have to wait and watch to see whether they fulfil these promises or pursue a divisive agenda," he added.
New Delhi: Delhi High Court on Friday refused to quash the disproportionate assets case filed by CBI against Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh and his wife, saying there is no basis to claim that the FIR is the result of any "political vendetta". It also vacated the Himachal Pradesh High Court's October 1, 2015 interim order restraining CBI from arresting, interrogating or filing a charge sheet in the case without the court's permission.

"There is no factual basis brought on record to claim that the registration of the FIR against the petitioners (Singh and his wife) is actuated or legally or factually mala fide or that the registration of the FIR/ RC is a result of political vendetta," Justice Vipin Sanghi said. Following the order, the agency later in the day filed a charge sheet before the special court here against nine people including the 82-year-old Congress leader for alleged offences punishable under section 109 (abetment) of IPC and Prevention of Corruption Act.

The special court has now fixed the charge sheet, running into over 500 pages, for consideration for Saturday. Commenting that the HP High Court's direction was passed without hearing the necessary parties in the matter, the Delhi High Court noted, "It is well settled that a court should not undertake to decide an issue unless it is a live issue between the parties".

It also turned down the question framed by HP High Court, whether the permission of the Speaker of the HP Legislative Assembly was mandatory before registration of FIR. Justice Sanghi held that there is "no legal basis to claim that the permission of Speaker of Himachal Pradesh Legislative Assembly was mandatory before registration of the FIR/RC in the case which pertains to the tenure of Virbhadra Singh while he was a Central minister under the Centre during the check period."

The court also turned down the chief minister's claim that the Delhi High Court has no jurisdiction, saying "accused cannot dictate to the prosecution that the case should be registered at a police station that he desires". "The case may be registered at any one of the police stations within whose jurisdiction the same can be legally instituted," it added.

Singh had sought directions from the court for quashing the FIR registered against him and his wife under Sections 13(2) and 13(1)(e) of the Prevention of Corruption Act and Section 109 of IPC by the CBI on 23 September, 2015 here and urged the court to summon records of the preliminary inquiry and the FIR.
Sometimes in order to make sense of the present, we need to take a look at the past. The finance minister has been hauled over the coals for taking the money bill route to push through key legislations. The Opposition and media have accused the NDA government of trying to undermine India's bicameral Parliamentary system by robbing the Rajya Sabha of its jurisdiction and powers. This is a legitimate charge.

Arun Jaitley has defended the airdropping of an unprecedented 40 amendments to the Finance Bill, 2017, as "incidental provisions". Facing criticism in Lok Sabha from a united Opposition for tagging non-tax bills as money bills, the finance minister has quoted former Speaker GV Mavalankar to claim that when "a bill substantially deals with the imposition, abolition etc of a tax, the other provisions necessary for the achievement of the bill cannot take away from it the category of money bills."

Jaitley's arguments that amendments on tribunals relate to government expenditure and similarly, electoral bonds are linked to political funding, may be rooted in the letter of law but are against the spirit of debate and discussion that law-enactment must be subjected to. By taking recourse to legal loopholes while pushing through non-finance related amendments in Finance Bill, Jaitley may have done justice to his reputation as a seasoned lawyer but as the Union finance minister, has managed to set a dangerous precedent.

And yet, I would argue that the Opposition is equally, if not more, to be blamed for this unprecedented happenstance.

It is rather rich when parties like the Congress or Trinamool Congress cry foul over "murder of Parliamentary democracy" when for the better part of the last three years, they turned Rajya Sabha into an akhada for masochistic political wrangling. Session after session after session were adjourned, crores of taxpayers' money flowed down the drain as the country was repeatedly witness to an artificial stasis in policy-making brought about by Opposition's resentful tactics.

It was heartwarming, therefore, to see Congress repose such faith in Parliament when Jairam Ramesh stood up on Thursday and trained his guns on Jaitley in Rajya Sabha, accusing him of "reducing the Parliament to complete irrelevance." The Indian Express quoted him as saying: "The finance minister has really made a serious effort to finish off the spirit of democratic discourse, to finish off parliamentary democracy to not only reduce Rajya Sabha to irrelevance but also to reduce Lok Sabha to complete irrelevance."

Strong words. One wonders though where was this righteous indignation when the Congress forced repeated adjournments in both Houses of Parliament in December 2015, for example, over a court summons to Congress president Sonia Gandhi and vice-president Rahul Gandhi in the National Herald case? It would be worthwhile listening to Ramesh's explanation on why that wasn't an instance of subversion of Parliamentary democracy.

In case the senior Congress leader needs a memory refresher course, his party vice-president chose to interpret the trial court summons as "pure 100 percent political vendetta by the PMO (Prime Minister's Office)" with a slanted remark about the government threatening judiciary. No amount of semantic jugglery would be enough to explain this as "respect for Parliamentary democracy."

Ramesh's party colleague Divgjiaya Singh sounded anguished on Thursday about finance minister's tactic to bypass the Rajya Sabha and "snatch away" elder lawmakers' right to discuss, debate and frame laws. Point taken.

However, the former Madhya Pradesh chief minister needs to be reminded that in the 2015 Winter Session  when Congress-led Opposition was busy using their numeric superiority to stall Rajya Sabha proceedings  nearly half of the Upper House's time was wasted, leading to a loss of nearly Rs 10 crore to the public exchequer.

As a report in NDTV stated, "The Rajya Sabha where the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance is in a minority, lost 55 hours to disruptions by the Opposition. It was scheduled to work for 112 hours during the session."

Incidentally, the lawmakers worked for an extra hour  115  instead of their scheduled 114 hours in the Lok Sabha, where BJP enjoys simple majority. This created a perverse situation where bills passed in Lower House were bottlenecked in the Upper House. The Lok Sabha passed 14 bills registering 104 percent productivity whereas in Rajya Sabha, that productivity nosedived to 46 percent. The GST consequently missed its 1 April, 2016 deadline.

The Congress and Opposition's best defence of this self-defeating tactic was: "They did it too while in Opposition."

These perfidious strategies to cripple the government's legislative capabilities were clearly aimed at making it appear as if the Modi government has failed in its promise to usher in reforms having been voted in a promise of rooting out corruption and bringing "achhe din".

A desperate NDA government started taking the Ordinance route. It used this method to pass the bills cleared by the Lok Sabha on insurance and coal auctions. But this, too, was criticised. As Swaminathan Aiyar noted in The Times of India column, "Modi was criticised for misusing the Constitution. Legal expert Rajeev Dhawan called his action Constitutional terrorism.

We note a change in government's tactic as early as August 2015 when Jaitley dropped a hint for the first time that the government may consider obtaining legislative approval for key reforms through the money bill route as these cannot be subjected to the Raya Sabha censure.

Speaking at a conclave on 19 August, 2015, Jaitley was quoted by The Indian Express as saying: "If the stalemate (in Upper House) continues, then a lot of legislation would have to be framed as money bills I think it is about time that we set up some good conventions in order to decide as the British did, as to how do you get legislative sanction when it is required for a reform. My own answer to this has been that it is the strength of public opinion, safeguards such as joint-sessions, safeguards such as money bills, which provide for legislation and part of the answer."

I posit that we should see the government's move in totality, not in isolation. While promising to root out corruption, one of its most crucial vote planks, the government had clearly planned to pass key legislations to go after tax evaders and initiate steps to ferret out black wealth. Modi had been ambushed by a resolute Opposition.

Taking the Finance Bill route, therefore, helps government bypass the Rajya Sabha's amendments which  in keeping with government's calculation  tried to water down the more stringent provisions that gives almost unlimited power to taxmen to go after cheats.

Critics have interpreted this as a return to "raid raj" but this is also true that these amendments  as noted by Saumitra Dasgupta in The Telegraph  "could remove an impediment to the resolution of a large number tax cases that have been stuck in courts across the country."

The crux of the problem lies in overreach but it is a double-edged sword. The Modi government wants, as Dasgupta has noted, "to raise income tax collections by 24.9 percent to Rs 441,255.27 crore next fiscal from Rs 3,53,173.68 crore in the budget estimates for 2016-17" but this is not going to be possible merely by urging citizens to become more tax compliant. The finance minister in his Budget speech had stated that only 76 lakh people in India admit to earning more than Rs 5 lakh annually while two crore take international flights every year.

To increase tax compliance and strengthen the fight against corruption, therefore, the government needs to fortify the taxmen. While this may have its pitfalls, it does point to this government's will to root out corruption. The Finance Bill amendments should be placed in this context.
By Rishika Pardikar

Private education could cost 2-3% more if taxed at the lowest slab of 5% under the Goods and Services Tax (GST), according to our analysis of the bills provisions.

The GST bill passed by the Lok Sabha (lower house of Parliament) on March 29, 2017 carries a provision that says certain services provided by the government or local authority would not be liable to tax.

Financial experts believe that the provision was inserted to exempt education and health services, in addition to a list of other services, when provided by the government or the local authority.

The provision could be extrapolated to mean that private education in India would be liable to tax once GST becomes law.

Tax exemptions have been granted to both public and private institutions engaged in providing education. Extending exemption benefits to private schools, considering their commercial success, has not always been an idea that found mass support.

Charitable purpose, as defined by law, includes relief to poor, education, medical relief, and the advancement of any other object of general public utility. The words not involving the carrying on of any activity of profit were omitted by the Finance Act, 1983.

Continuing in the same vein, a circular was issued by the Central Board of Direct Taxes in 2008, clarifying that an institution providing relief to the poor, education and medical facilities, would be allowed exemption even when it has incidental commercial activities.

The GST regime is now set to disrupt the status-quo, including educational activities.

GST is an indirect taxa tax on consumption of goods and services. An inherent feature of indirect tax is that the burden of the tax, rather than being borne by the industry (i.e., the manufacturers or traders or service providers), is passed to the consumers.

So, GST on private education, if it is implemented, would be borne by those looking to avail education services. Therefore, the issue of whether education is the place for disruptions, which might otherwise be a good thing, merits consideration.

Education, once viewed largely as a philanthropic activity, has now metamorphosed into a $100 billion (Rs 6.5 lakh crore) industry, with the private sector balancing investor returns and social responsibility, while the public sector is struggling with inadequate faculty and outdated curriculum.

Lessons from Greece

Greece, for instance, imposed a 23% value added tax (VAT) on private educational establishments in 2015.

It looked like a double win that would simultaneously please creditors and demonstrate the governments commitment to helping the underprivileged. Unsurprisingly, it did neither, The Economist reported on October 30, 2015.

Within months, reasonably priced private schools were forced to shut down. Those who suffered as a consequence were not just the rich but also middle and lower-income groups.

Private schools located in working class areas charged affordable tuition fees and attracted working class parents who were keen their children receive a good education. The VAT also strained an already overheated state education system.

Many Indians too prefer private schooling

In India, as in Greece, the demand for private schooling is not just reflective of elite preferences but also a show of trust in affordable private schools, thereby making the demand cut across income spectrums.

For instance, about 31% of children in India in 2015-2016 were enrolled in private schools, while about 11.5% were enrolled in private institutions partly aided by the government, according to data from the Unified District Information System for Education.

Even in some poorer states such as Uttar Pradesh (51.37%) and Rajasthan (49.23), half of all children enrolled were in private educational institutions.

Further, private school enrollment is not only an urban phenomenon. In rural areas of Madhya Pradesh 24.7% of students aged 6-14 years were enrolled in private schools, as were 52.1% in Uttar Pradesh, according to data from the 2016 Annual Status of Education Report

<a href='#'><img alt='edu3_desktop ' src='https://public.tableau.com/static/images/ed/edu3_desktop/edu3_desktop/1_rss.png' style='border: none' /></a>

Source: National Sample Survey Organisation

Private schooling, in several parents minds, has come to be associated with quality, with some low-income families enrolling their children in private schools, which suggests that a tax on education could be regressive in nature.

Though parents believe private schools offer higher quality education, government schools in some states have also improved over the last two years, IndiaSpend reported on January 18, 2017.

Further, a 2014 study suggested that children who study in private schools were more likely to have educated parents (which could result in better learning outcomes), have fewer siblings and thus receive more parental attention, and be part of families richer than those who study in government schools.

Source: Annual Status of Education Report, 2016

If the government chooses to tax private education at the lowest slab rate (about 5%), while also considering the tax already paid on inputs such as furniture and services (like rent), the effective tax rate would be even lower.

Careful framing of the law, i.e. the rate of tax and allowance of input tax credit with respect to education, could mitigate the impact of taxing education, and result in an increase in cost of education to the consumer by just about 2-3%.

(Rishika Pardikar is a chartered accountant based in Bengaluru.)

Indiaspend.org is a data-driven, public-interest journalism non-profit/FactChecker.in is fact-checking initiative, scrutinising for veracity and context statements made by individuals and organisations in public life.
Sunstroke claimed the lives of two persons in Maharashtra while many states including Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Haryana, Gujarat, Odisha and Rajasthan too reeled under the onslaught of an early heatwave. In Maharashtra, where the India Meteorological Department (IMD) issued a 'moderate heat wave' alert, two persons lost their lives  one in Solapur and another in Aurangabad district.

According to a The Indian Express, MS Diggikar, joint director of health, Maharashtra has asked for daily reports about patients with symptoms related to heat stroke.

"The sudden rise in temperature has claimed two persons from Maharashtra, both were above 60 years. One person is from Aurangabad while another person is from Solapur district  both known for higher temperature areas," state health minister Deepak Sawant told PTI.

Sunstroke incidents may take place when temperature crosses 40C and districts across the country showed mercury crossing that mark. Akola was the hottest place in India with a maximum temperature of 44C while Titlagarh in Odisha was a close second recording 43.8C. Wardha in Maharashtra and Banda in Uttar Pradesh were the third hottest places in the country recording a maximum of 43.6C.

Heatwave conditions continued for second day today in Rajasthan as several districts recorded maximum temperatures of 40C and above. And there is unlikely to be any respite as the MeT department has predicted dry weather in the next 24 hours as well. Churu was the hottest today touching 42.4C, followed by 41.8C in Bikaner, 41.6C in Kota, 41.5C in Barmer, 41.4 in Jaipur, 41.2C in Jaisalmer and 39.4 Celsius in Jodhpur. Hot and dry air in Rajasthan had their impact in Madhya Pradesh as well where at least six districts saw maximum temperatures of around 43 degrees Celsius on Thursday.

"Yesterday, the highest temperature in the state was recorded at around 43 Celsius at several places including Khargone, Khajuraho, Ratlam, Naugaon, Damoh and Hoshangabad, while the lowest temperature of 17 degrees Celsius was recorded in Rewa and Betul districts," an official said. Heat wave conditions were witnessed at isolated place in Uttar Pradesh today where Banda recording 43.2 degrees Celsius was the hottest place in the state. In Gujarat too, temperatures have been hovering between 40-42 degrees in the last few days. "As per current forecast, heat wave conditions will stay in north Gujarat region for another 24 hours," in-charge director of IMD Centre at Ahmadabad, Manorama Mohanty said. On Monday, mercury in Ahmedabad had touched 42.8C breaking seven-year record for the month of March. Narnaul was again hottest in Haryana at 41.5C. Uttarakhand capital Dehradun registered 35.8C.

Among other cities in Haryana, Hisar experienced a hot day at 39C, six notches more than normal limits. Ambala recorded 36.3C while Karnal's maximum was 35.6C. In Punjab, Patiala registered a maximum of 36.2C, seven notches above normal while Ludhiana recorded six degrees above normal high at 35.7C.

Amritsar's maximum settled at 34.7C, five notches above normal limits. Chandigarh, the common capital of Punjab and Haryana, recorded a high of 34.5C, three notches more than normal. Pleasant weather continued to prevail in Kashmir where the maximum temperature in the summer capital Srinagar today rose by three degrees to settle seven degrees above normal, MeT officials said. The maximum temperature in Jammu dropped by a degree to settle at 33C, still four degrees above normal. In Himachal Pradesh, Shimla recorded a maximum temperature at 25.1C, 7.5C above normal. Dry conditions prevailed in several other states as well like parts of Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Karnataka.

With inputs from PTI
Temperatures across the country have reached soaring highs. A village called Bhira from Raigad district in Maharashtra recorded the worlds second highest temperature of 46.5C on Tuesday. This was considered abnormal as Bhira lies in the coastal region. What are the reasons for this? Firstpost spoke to Jeevanprakash Kulkarni, a senior meteorologist from the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology, who is presently associated with a forum called Satarkindia that issues warning based on various climatic scenarios.

Edited excerpts follow:

Bhira recorded the highest temperature of 46.5C that proved to be second highest in the world on that day. Has a similar phenomenon been observed previously?

Bhira lies in the coastal region. So the possibility of temperatures reaching such highs is low. But the hot winds blowing from the North and East combined with the winds on surface-level. This led to the rise in temperature. This phenomenon can occur in various places. On Tuesday, we saw a rise in temperature in Bhira and on Wednesday, a record high was observed in Bhandardara.

So what are the reasons for this? Is it a localised phenomenon?

We are witnessing a heat wave across the country. When the temperature rises 3C to 4C above normal it is termed as a 'heat wave'. We can see that the average temperatures have gone up. The reason is that the hot winds are blowing from deserts and these are combining with the dry winds on surface. An anticyclone that was formed in Central India has now covered the entire country. Simultaneously there is no cloud formation. All these situations are causing the heat wave.

We normally witness a rise in temperatures in the month of April. But this year it has happened at the end of March. Why is that?

The reason is the anticyclone. Normally, anticyclones are formed in Gujarat and Rajasthan in the month of April. This year, it happened earlier. It has also occupied the entire country now. Hence, the heat wave and the rise in temperature can be seen. Normally, when the temperature rises in the month of April, there is thunderstorm activity to balance it.

So, it's normal for the anticyclone to form in the month of March?

No. It is expected to form in April. I think this is the result of climate change. We saw untimely rainfall this year. Now we are witnessing a heat wave. The cycle is changing. If we go through the average temperature data, this sort of temperature rise has never been seen. It is the percolation of climate change. These are the local effects of climate change that are now visible. If we consider Maharashtra, the maximum temperature that has been recorded is 43C and that too in the region of Vidarbha. Pune has rarely crossed 40C. But it is different this year.

Is this an alert?

We normally speak of climate change. But this situation tells us that it has reached our doorsteps now. But this is an indication that we need to initiate action. Steps are being taken all over the world. But our proactive role in fighting climate change will be needed now. It is going to be important.

How long do you expect this situation to continue?

This situation might continue till 3 April. Temperatures might subside after that. Cold winds are expected to flow from the polar region. So the temperature might decrease. On an average, the temperature might dip by 3C to 4C.

Can this possibly have an adverse effect in the coming days?

There are chances that a similar anticyclone might be formed during the onset of the monsoon. It will affect the Northward progression of the monsoon. The progression will be irregular and will have an impact on the rainfall. This is a reason to worry.
New Delhi: Goa Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar on Friday thanked Congress leader Digvijay Singh for failing to cobble together a majority in the state despite the party winning the largest number of assembly seats.

Parrikar came to the Rajya Sabha during the Zero Hour and thanked the chairman, Deputy Chairman and other members.

"I express my thanks to the Chairman, Deputy Chairman and members of this house for their support during my tenure as Raksha Mantri (Defence Minister), and invite them to Goa whenever they want to come," Parrikar said.

"My special thanks to honourable member Digvijay Singh, who happened to be in Goa but did nothing so that I could form the government," he said.

Digvijay Singh has given notice for a substantive motion to discuss in the house the conduct of Goa Governor Mridula Sinha, which is now pending for two weeks.

Outside the house, Parrikar said there was no question of immorality in the way the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) formed the government in Goa with the help of smaller parties and Independents.

"Other parties supported us as they didn't trust the Congress...It's a coalition government and there is no question of morality of immorality in it," Parrikar said.

The Congress won 17 seats in the February 4 state assembly elections and emerged as the single largest party, while the BJP won only 13 seats.

The BJP, however, managed to form a coalition government with support from Independent legislators and regional parties.

Parrikar ruled out the possibility of coalition partners switching loyalties.

"Not as long as I am there," he said.

Asked why he gave special thanks to Digvijay Singh, Parrikar replied: "I thanked him for his incompetence."
A journalist working with Daily News and Analysis (DNA), Sudhir Suryawanshi, was injured after some unidentified men attacked him at Kharghar, near Panvel on Friday.

The attack was reported to have occurred between 12:30 and 1 pm when Suryawanshi was in the area along with his friend Santosh Fatate for some personal work, the Navi Mumbai Police told Firstpost. Four to five masked men riding on a bike approached the duo and punctured Fatate's car, in which they had come from Panvel. After attack the assailants fled away from the spot on their motorcycle s. Sudhir and Santosh are in Medicity hospital at Khargar. FIR is being registered in the case and senior officers are visiting the Hospital, press release said.

Both men received multiple injuries, but the DNA correspondent had fractured his right hand. The duo are being treated at the Medicity Hospital and are stable under treatment.

Navi Mumbai Police Commissioner Hemant Nagrale, along with an investigation team, also visited the injured journalist and his friend at the hospital, however, the two said they had no clue about the assailants as the men had covered their faces with handkerchiefs.

However, the injured men suspect that the attack could have been a result of some dispute arisen out of the local housing society election, which were conducted about a month ago. Both Suryawanshi and Fatate live in the same housing society in Panvel.

The police said that further investigation was on and the investigating team will probe all angles, including the suspicions raised by the injured duo.

Meanwhile journalist associations including, Mantralay Vidhimandal Vartahar Sangh, Press Club of Mumbai among others, have condemned the attack on the DNA correspondent.
New Delhi: On a day a train derailed in Uttar Pradesh, members in the Rajya Sabha on Thursday voiced concern over the safety of the railways and raised questions over upgradation of its infrastructure.

Participating in a debate Appropriation (Railways) Bill in the Rajya Sabha, Vandana Chauhan of the NCP said India has had one of the worst years as far as railway safety is concerned as over 180 people have died in accidents, the highest since 2010.

India also saw derailment of 62 trains in 2016 as compared to 37 in 2015, she said, adding this showed a 70 per cent rise in a single year.

Chauhan said a lot of people say that most of these incidents could perhaps have been prevented if the railways had taken adequate precautions.

Interestingly, the debate took place on a day when Delhi-bound Mahakaushal Express derailed due to rail fracture near Mahoba in Uttar Pradesh, resulting in injuries to at least 10 people.

Chauhan sought to know about the plan to set up 35,000 CCTVs at 1,000 stations across the country.

Chauhan said that in 2016-17 revenue from passenger traffic decreased by 6 percent of the budget estimate whereas revenue from freight traffic has also been decreasing over the years.

The NCP MP said the railways was facing a challenge from the Indian aviation sector as air prices are achieving real parity in terms of AC passenger fares.

Shiv Pratap Shukla (BJP) asked the Railways ministry to focus more on safety provisions in order to make the network better in terms of accidents. Husain Dalwai (Congress), while giving an example of bullet trains in China, asked the government to seek ways to increase the speed of trains in India. Alok Tiwari (SP) said the government was not focussing on safety initiatives.

Mukul Roy (AITC) attacked the government on safety provisions, saying that the current dispensation was not serious about the upgrading the safety infrastructure in the railways network. Ripun Bora (Congress) asked the government to focus on safety measures. He said that all other steps were futile if there were chances of accidents due to fragile infrastructure. K K

K K Ragesh (CPM) said the government is trying to privatise the railways and by doing so, it was abdicating its responsibility of providing an affordable mode of transport to the people of the country. He said his party has an objection to this move.

As he was speaking, Opposition members drew the attention of the chair towards the absence of even a single cabinet minister in the House. They termed the absence of ministers as an insult of the Rajya Sabha.

The Opposition members then demanded that the House be adjourned till the minister came. However, soon Steel Minister Birender Singh arrived in the House, because of which the commotion ended.
Former priests in Kerala will observe Maundy Thursday on 13 April by washing the feet of women at Marine Drive in the states commercial capital of Kochi.

The parallel religious ceremony that commemorates Jesus washing the feet of his 12 disciples during the Last Supper is being organised by the Catholic Priests, Ex-Priests and Nuns Association as a mark of protest against the non-inclusion of women in the ritual by two Catholic rites in the state.

Pope Francis had in December 2014 directed Catholic churches to open the rite to all the People of God, including non-Christians, as part of his larger endeavour to make the church more open and inclusive.

Even though all the three Catholic rites in the state owe allegiance to Pope, only the Latin Catholic rite implemented the Papal decree. The other two  the Syro-Malabar church (SMC) and the Syro-Malankara churchstuck to their traditional practice of washing the feet of only men.

The current protests followed the final decision taken recently by the synod of bishops of the SMC, the largest Catholic rite in the country, not to include women in the feet washing ceremony. church head Cardinal George Alencherry said that the synod had felt that the reform was against the Eastern traditions followed by them.

The Eastern heritage claimed by the two Oriental Churches has come from Hindu and Buddhist culture, which accorded superior status to women. The approach of the two churches towards women is totally against this tradition, says Shibu Kalamparampil, general secretary of the ex-priests association.

Shibu, who quit the priesthood in 2010 alleging sexual misconduct of priests and financial irregularities in the church, told Firstpost that the Catholic Church in India was treating women as slaves and second class citizens.

He said that the church had also started restricting the movement of women in the wake of the rape and impregnation of a minor girl by Fr Robin Vadakkumcherry, a priest in Kannur district. The Mananthavady diocese, to which the accused priest belongs, was also setting up CCTV cameras in churches to monitor the movement of women.

This is an open admission that the church does not trust its priests. Instead of taking steps to correct the priests, the church authorities are trying to solve the problem by curtailing the freedom of women. This will alienate the women from the church, the former priest said.

Association national president Reji Njallani said that the churches were upholding the Eastern heritage only in matters of their interest. He said that the bishops and priests were not ready to follow the Eastern tradition in the administration of churches.

The churches were governed by committees of laity before the Portuguese established their authority over the church. There has been a strong demand for returning these powers to the democratically elected committees after the church sought to go back to pre-Portuguese days. Unfortunately, the clergy is not ready to shed their power, he added.

Reji said that the discrimination of women by the church was part of this approach. This, he feels, will lead to the disintegration of the Church. According to Reji, the church is active now because of women.

They form the bulk of church goers. They are in the forefront in raising funds and implementing various programmes of the church. Many priests even use the women to satisfy their carnal desires. Yet they are treated as untouchable when it comes to honouring them, Reji said.

He said that Pope was trying to include women and other marginalised sections in the church ceremonies after he saw the faithful deserting the church in several parts of the world. The actions of the church authorities in Kerala will only hasten this process, he added.

Reji pointed out that many Catholics in the state had already started embracing other denominations. This, he said, was because of the wrong acts of the authorities. He said that the association of ex-priests was trying to establish an open church to retain them in the Catholic fold.

The open church will not have administrative structures and established churches and related institutions like schools and hospitals. We will meet wherever we can. The ex-priests, who are members of the association, will provide whatever spiritual service the faithful requires, Reji said.

He said that the rent a priest service the association had launched last year as part of the move was already providing sacraments and other spiritual services to the faithful. Many who have been fallen away from the church for various reasons are depending on this service for their spiritual needs, he said.

Reji said that about 200 ex-priests and retired priests had taken membership in the association so far. Most of these priests will be available at Marine Drive at 10 am on 13 April to wash the feet of women. He said that the association was expecting about 1,000 women to participate in the ceremony.

The decision of the two Catholic rites to keep women away from the feet washing ceremony has also evoked protests from women activists. Famous writer and a leader of Aam Admi Party, Sara Joseph, described it as a discrimination against women.

She told Firstpost that the Pope had sought the inclusion of women, members of other religions and several marginalised sections as an act of humanism. The gesture is significant at a time when the world is riven by various conflicts.

The inclusion of women in the feet washing ceremony by the Pope is also a strong message against the growing atrocities against women and children within the church fold. Our clergy has not understood the spirit of his message. This is one of the major reasons for the growing crimes against women in the state, she added.

The writer said that these atrocities could be checked to a great extent if the women are given responsible positions in the church. Unfortunately, the church authorities are not willing to accept even the basic rights of women. They are opposing the demand for priesthood for women as they think it will erode their power.

Church authorities have denied that their decision to follow the tradition did not mean neglect of women or discrimination against them. Fr Jimmy Poochakkat, spokesman of the SMC, said the decision was taken in accordance with the Liturgical traditions and practices.

He said that the circular issued by the church head on the issue had enunciated the position clearly. The circular pointed out that Oriental Churches view the Maundy Thursday rites as a sign and example of Christs redemptive sacrifice on the cross.

Christ washed the feet of only his 12 disciples with the command to do that in his memory. The Oriental Churches, including those outside Catholic fold, have upheld Jesuss command by washing the feet of only men or boys. The Syro-Malabar Church wishes to continue this practice in the present pastoral and social situation, the circular added.
Can one address a deceased person through an email? Can we greet him? Indias Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) can.

An automated and reportedly an unnoticed technical glitch from Madad system, the MEAs official grievance portal, is sending official greetings addressing the deceased Indian migrant workers.

On behalf of deceased Indian migrant workers families in Telangana, I file grievances on Madad for the speedy repatriation of the mortal remains. Unfortunately, I receive mails, addressing the deceased migrant worker. The mail will also greet the deceased migrant worker too, Bheem Reddy Mandha, President, Coalition of Overseas Telangana Associations (Cota), said. During the last two months, Reddy has received seven such mails.

One of the seven mails sent to Reddy related to deceased Indians body repatriation, sent on 26 March 2017 reads:

Dear Yeligati Rajeshwer,

Greetings!

A grievance has been registered by M Bheem Reddy on your behalf on 26/03/2017 as per the following description:

Mr.Yeligati Rajeshwer S/o. Mr. Yeligati Rajalingam, Emergency Certificate (EC) No. X-368962 (Issued at Muscat, Oman on 19.03.2017) and Old Passport No. F-8885706 (Issued at Hyderabad on 28.06.2006) died at Muscat, Oman on 25.02.2017. He belongs to Kuchanpally Village, Soan Mandal, Nirmal District, Telangana State. Repatriate the dead body at the earliest.

For any further assistance in this regard, please quote the following grievance ID :OM0MTR102386317.

Thanking you and assuring you of our best services at all times.

Feature for Logging and Tracking Grievances against Consular services is now also available through MADAD mobile app on iOS, Andorid and Windows Platforms.

With best regards,

Consular Services

*** This is a system-generated e-mail; please do not reply to it. This message is intended only for the person or entity to which it is addressed and may contain confidential and/or privileged information. ***

According to Reddy, the replies are system-generated as mentioned in the mails but they read almost sarcastic. To file a grievance on MADAD we have to enter our email ID, even if it is for body repatriation. So, when a reply comes mentioned above, it gets uncomfortable Reddy said adding that government should fix it as early as possible.

Last December, there were reports that around 150 bodies of Indians, who died in Saudi Arabia, are lying unattended and waiting for repatriation. However, the MEA brushed aside the reports that the Indian Embassy in Saudi Arabia has been inactive in dispatching 150 dead bodies from Andhra Pradesh and Telangana that are lying in mortuaries and assured that the embassy is pro-actively following the cases on top priority.

Terming the figures misleading and completely false, MEA said there are only 10 cases pertaining to the same. On 18 March, 2017, the MEA also told the Parliament that only 14 dead bodies of people belonging to Andhra Pradesh and Telangana are lying in Saudi Arabia.

Minister of State for External Affairs, VK Singh told Rajya Sabha in a written response: There are only two dead bodies registered from Andhra Pradesh and five from Telangana with the Embassy of India at Riyadh for which No Objection Certificates (NOCs) have already been issued.

He added that four dead bodies belonging to people from Andhra Pradesh and three from Telangana are awaiting formal documents before the embassy to issue the NOCs (No Objection Certificates). A bunch of documents need to be submitted to the Indian embassy before the body can be flown to India. These include medical and police reports, a letter from the family and a declaration from the Saudi government or the employer in case blood money or compensation is being demanded.

According to statistics, nearly 10 lakh people from Telangana and Andhra Pradesh are employed in Saudi Arabia. The families of the victims have many a times alleged non-cooperation from the Indian Embassy in the country. . The Indian Mission/Consulate in Saudi Arabia provide assistance on a proactive basis from informing the next of kin to facilitating the disposal of mortal remains either by local burial or transportation to India, in coordination with the sponsors. Death documents are attested and other assistance provided even beyond office hours and on holidays, Singh said while adding that the issues pertaining to death cases are taken up during the bilateral consular meetings from time to time.

When contacted via Twitter for a response, the Ministry of External Affairs gave a vague response  Plz keep tracking ur grievance on madad.gov.in. Necessary steps are being taken there.
Supreme Court on Friday upheld the 15 December liquor ban on state highways but relaxed the rule a little. The court reduced the distance of liquor vends from highways in areas with a population of up to 20,000 from 500 to 220 metres. The apex court said people who got licences for liquor vends prior to the 15 December 2016 verdict can operate till 30 September while others will have to shut down from Saturday. The distance relaxation was also extended to hill states of Sikkim, Meghalaya and Himachal Pradesh.

The ruling is being seen as a big blow to Goa.

with this order, more than 3,000 liquor traders, including bars, restaurants, wholesalers, retailers and warehouses will be shut, reported The Times of India.

Three days back, the Goa government had said that only 768 outlets will be impacted by the order.

Executives from the state are predicting that this will have a negative impact on the state tourism and trade.

Some are also predicting that the liquor business in the state will collapse by the SC order.

Besides, the top court exempted Sikkim and Meghalaya from the ban order altogether.

Noting the 82 per cent forest cover in Sikkim and the peculiar hilly terrain in Meghalaya, the court said, "We are of the view that insofar as the states of Meghalaya and Sikkim are concerned, it would suffice if the two states are exempted only from the application of the 500 metre distance..."

However, Himachal Pradesh has been brought in the ban limit of 220 metres as applicable to local bodies adjoining the highways with 20,000 or less population.

Earlier on Thursday, the Supreme Court had reserved its order on a batch of petitions - both by some states and private parties - seeking modification of its order banning liquor vendors along national and state highways. A bench of Chief Justice Jagdish Singh Khehar, Justice DY Chandrachud and Justice L Nageswara Rao had said that in the "interest of the public health" the liquor shops were ordered to be removed to a distance of 500 meters from either side of the highways.

The bench had said that asking the state government to shift the liquor shops was not impinging on the excise policy of different states as it was only a matter of distance of the outlets from the highways.

The bench told the senior lawyers appearing for some states: "Those states which were seriously affected by the order, they should have come here."

"We have not tested the excise policy. You have no freedom to drink and drive on the national highway," said Justice Chandrachud, who authored the judgment.

As Rohatgi named some small towns saying that the restriction of 500 meters would cross them and contended that because of the ban "the budget of every state has gone for a six", the bench said: "You are not telling us which town will go."

The court said this as Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi and several other senior lawyers including KK Venugopal, CA Sundram, Kapil Sibal, Rajeev Dhavan, Raju Ramachandran and others told the court that its liquor ban was hurting the state exchequer and the order was unconstitutional.

"It is unconstitutional. In one stroke all the excise laws within the country were whipped out," Dhavan told the bench and asked on what basis the court had given the order.

Liquor ban within 500 mtrs of highways matter: SC says in areas where population is less than 20,000 distance will be around 220 mtrs pic.twitter.com/QF76dkSqht  ANI (@ANI_news) March 31, 2017

Urging the court to have a relook at its order banning liquor outlets on the highways, Venugopal said the percentage of accidents due to drunk driving was the lowest.

He said that while drunk driving was being hammered, nothing was being done to deal with accidents on account of speeding or overloading of trucks.

Giving a suggestion, Venugopal said that those liquor shops which are outside the 100 meter from the edges of the highways but within 500 meters should be allowed to continue.

However, a lawyer opposing the relaxation of 500 ban order referred to several advisories issued by the Centre since 2004 asking for curbs on the liquor shops along the highway.

He said it took 13 years for the ban to come and pointed out that India had the highest rate of accidents of drunk driving.

The court declined to provide any relief to Tamil Nadu which had sought more time to implement the 15 December, 2016 order.

With inputs from PTI and IANS
Calcutta High Court judge CS Karnan appeared before the Supreme Court on Friday and reaffirmed his complaint against the seven judges while seeking restoration of administrative and judicial work.

Justice Karnan appears before SC, reaffirms his complaint against judges; SC asks him to file his written response in SC in 4 weeks pic.twitter.com/f6sXbdYS5u  News18 (@CNNnews18) March 31, 2017

The Supreme Court, however, refused to restore administrative and judicial work of Justice Karnan and granted him four weeks' time to respond to the contempt notice.

Justice Karnan opposed non-restoration of his judicial powers and said he will not appear in SC on next date of hearing.

"I am also holding constitutional post. My dignity has been hurt and work has been taken away without hearing me," he told the court, according to PTI. He even said, "I am not a terrorist, why was police sent to my house."

Justice Karnan to Supreme Court - " I am not a terrorist, why was police sent to my house" (File photo) pic.twitter.com/Vi3t3QsARp  News18 (@CNNnews18) March 31, 2017

A seven-judge bench headed by CJI JS Khehar also suggested that Karnan files a medical record if he thinks he is "not mentally fit" to respond.

"I don't need to show any medical certificate," was Karnan's response to the apex court.

Justice Karnan reportedly passed an order against seven judges alleging them of violating "principal of natural justice", which ensures procedural fairness.

Justice Karnan passed order against 7 judges alleging them of violating "principal of natural justice", which ensures procedural fairness.  ANI (@ANI_news) March 31, 2017

In an unprecedented order, the Supreme Court had issued the arrest warrant against Justice Karnan to ensure his presence before it on 31 March in a contempt case.

Hitting back at the apex court, Justice Karnan had stated that they have "no locus standi" to issue a bailable warrant against a sitting judge and alleged that he was being targeted for being a Dalit.

In a first, a bench of seven Supreme Court judges started contempt of court proceedings against Karnan for levelling allegations of corruption against Madras HC chief justice and other judges repeatedly. The issuance of the notice is historic because this is the first time when a constitutional court has started the contempt of court proceedings against a judge of the SC or HC. A high court judge can only be removed through impeachment by the Parliament.

With inputs from PTI
In a first, at least 15 judges of the Supreme Court comprising three separate Constitution benches will hear petitions on triple talaq and other issues of grave importance during the summer break, reported Hindustan Times.

Chief Justice of India JS Khehar on Thursday said that the court is ready to sit on weekends too. The report added that usually four Supreme Court judges work during the 90-day break but this time, 19 of the 28 judges will be hearing cases. Apart from cases on triple talaq, the court will also hear cases regarding the right to privacy for users of WhatsApp and Facebook and citizenship rights of children born to Bangladeshi migrants.

Though this practice of going on summer breaks has come under criticism in the past and it was even questioned by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, however on Thursday, Khehar said: "These are very, very important matters. If we dont do it like this (by hearing them in separate Constitution Benches), they will not be decided for years and years together. Then you (lawyers) dont blame us that it did not happenor that there are so much arrears," reported The Indian Express.

The apex court also fixed 11 May as the date for the commencement of hearing on pleas challenging the validity of triple talaq, 'nikah halala' and polygamy practices among Muslims.

On 27 March, the All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB) told the Supreme Court that the pleas challenging such practices among Muslims were not maintainable as the issues fell outside the realm of judiciary.

The board had also said that the validity of Mohammedan Law, founded essentially on the Quran and sources based on it, cannot be tested on the particular provisions of the Constitution.

It had said there was a need for "judicial restraint" before going into constitutional interpretation of these unless such an exercise becomes unavoidable.

The apex court had earlier said it would decide issues pertaining to "legal" aspects of the practices of triple talaq, 'nikah halala' and polygamy among Muslims and would not deal with the question whether divorce under Muslim law needs to be supervised by courts as it falls under the legislative domain.

With inputs from PTI
The Muslim community will watch with apprehension as a five-judge Constitutional Bench of the Supreme Court gears up to examine the issues of triple talaq, nikah halala and polygamy during the summer vacation. Twenty four Muslim womens organisations had written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi demanding reforms to the existing Muslim laws on divorce and polygamy, pointing out how several cases of women being divorced even on social media platforms emerged.

The Supreme Court has clarified that it will not be looking at individual cases but rather at the practices of triple talaq, nikah halala and polygamy and whether these can be upheld under the right to religion; it will also examine whether the law should be changed in order to introduce a uniform civil code.

A bench headed by Chief Justice of India TS Thakur and comprising Justices AM Khanwilkar and DY Chandrachud had admitted the petition filed by Ishrat Jahan, a native of Howrah, along with a group of petitions filed by several Muslim women, women's rights organisations and the Supreme Court's suo motu PIL to consider whether certain practices of marriage and divorce under the Islamic personal laws amounted to gender discrimination.

The BJP government has of course long held the view that these practices violate the fundamental rights of women as guaranteed by the Constitution and that these practices do not comprise the essential practices in Islam. Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad has gone on record to say that in his opinion triple talaq should be abolished completely.

The activist groups who have filed the petition in the Supreme Court include the Mumbai based Bebaak Collective which is an umbrella organization of Muslim womens groups. Hasina Khan, who founded the Collective, has strong views on this subject. She says, My group has from the start taken a strong position against the practice of triple talaq . We also strongly oppose the absolute powers being given to men under the Muslim Personal laws. We are looking at womens rights from a feminist perspective and our position on triple talaq is not dependent on whether or not the religious scriptures validate it; we oppose the practice anyway.

Khan believes that the needs of Muslim women should be addressed keeping in mind their poor socio-economic condition. She quotes the latest Census data to show how Muslim women comprise the largest number of separated women. Muslim women account for 75 percent of the women-to-men separated population (within their community) while Christian women comprise 69 percent of the separated population within their community, Khan pointed out.

However, Muslim womens groups are also apprehensive that the BJPs attempt to politicize this entire debate could well result in their facing a fundamentalist backlash within the community. We find the fact that the BJP is trying to link this entire issue to the demand for a Uniform Civil Code very problematic. I find the questionnaire prepared by the Law Commission extremely problematic. It is obvious the government wants to open a debate on the entire issue of UCC but this is not the way to do so, especially since they want the answers in a `yes and no format.

Meanwhile, a signature war has erupted in the community both in support of and against the Islamic way of divorce.

The All India Muslim Personal Law Board has reportedly launched a nationwide drive to collect signatures of people to save and protect Shariat Laws related to marriage, divorce and inheritance. Womens rights groups have come up with a counter-campaign. At least two organizations have come forward to complain that Muslim women are being forced to sign a form supporting triple talaq.

Lucknow-based Zafaryab Jilani, member of the All India Muslim Personal Law Board and former additional solicitor general of Uttar Pradesh, believes that reform of the personal laws must come from within the community itself. He believes the government needs to hold a referendum on the issue, especially since, he claims, ninety percent of Muslim women support the Sharia law. He maintains the move to ban triple talaq is a conspiracy to impose a UCC." "The Muslims will not tolerate any interference in their personal law, says Jilani.

Minister of Parliamentary Affairs Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi reiterates the same point of view claiming, "The need of the hour is to debate the issue of a UCC across all forums in order to create a consensus. Such a debate must take place at the grassroots level. We must understand all the divergent viewpoints before any draft can be prepared. No comprehensive debate has taken place on this subject in the last one year.

The Law Commission is in the process of holding consultations with different stakeholders including the personal law boards of the Muslims, Christian, Sikh, Buddhist and Parsi communities. However, the NaMo governments strong position on the issue of triple talaq is well known. They believe that their stand is further validated by the example of over 20 countries including Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and Indonesia who do not allow instant triple talaq.

The All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB) had informed the Supreme Court in early September 2016 that personal laws cannot be re-written in the name of social reforms, insisting that personal laws cannot be challenged as it will be violative of Part III of the Constitution. Their stand is that issues of personal law are for Parliament and not the Supreme Court to decide. The Uniform Civil Code is a directive principle and not enforceable. Personal laws are protected by Article 25, 26 and 29 of the Constitution as they are acts done in pursuance of a religion."

Ranjana Kumari of the Centre for Social Development has been watching these developments with some consternation. She says, Whatever verdict the highest court may give, ultimately a decision on this matter will require an amendment by Parliament. It would have been better for the government to have adopted a comprehensive approach to this issue rather than tackle it piecemeal."

Kumari regrets that though in the 1970s and early 1980s, some women's groups had pushed for a Uniform Civil Code to ensure that discriminatory laws in the areas of marriage, divorce, inheritance, guardianship and adoption be done away with, this was not done. "When the Status of Women Report was placed before the government way back in 1975, there was near unanimity on the need for an all embracive Uniform Civil Code which would look at the contentious issues of marriage, divorce, guardianship, inheritance, custody of children and adoption. Unfortunately, that opportunity was missed by us," Kumari recalls.

This unanimity has now ended. Not only are political parties tugging in different directions but women's groups and legal luminaries fear that the present government may push through a `common Hindu code in the guise of a UCC.

Supreme Court lawyer Rebecca John believes that Article 44, included in Part 4 of the Indian Constitution, lists the Uniform Civil Code as one of the Directive Principles which cannot be enforced by any court. "There is an overall thrust to have a common Uniform Civil Code, but it is a fallacy to think that the Hindus have a common law and it is this existing law of north India which must be codified into a Uniform Civil Code," says John.

"This is part of the bullying of north Indians against other Hindu communities," she feels. Elaborating, John points out, "The Hindu Marriage Act and the Hindu Succession Act are based on practices of north India which received primacy over the eastern and southern states. Are Hindus willing to give up the beneficial aspect of the Hindu Undivided Family which has been used for tax exemption purposes?" she asks.

Kancha Ilaiah, a Dalit activist and writer, is also skeptical about the reform agenda being pushed by the government. The UCC questionnaire pretends to ask questions about Islam, Christianity, and Hinduism but it is obvious they are targeting Islam. There are so many issues within Hinduism including widows being given the right to remarry. The issue of polygamy affects everybody. This entire UCC debate was ignited when Vajpayee was prime minister. My question is why does the BJP want to create a crisis for Muslims every time they are in power? Ilaiah asks.
The phone sex saga which led to the resignation of Kerala Transport Minister AK Saseendran has come a full circle as a beleaguered Mangalam TV openly admitted on Thursday night that it was indeed a honey trap that brought down the minister.

The admission came minutes after the LDF government ordered a police investigation and with Director General of Police (DGP) constituting a high level team of officers to probe the case. The law was finally catching up and the channel had no other option but to go on its knees. The CEO of the channel, who till twenty four hours ago, had been running from one news studio to another justifying rather vociferously that the audio that Mangalam TV had aired was indeed of the minister misbehaving with a housewife, did a complete U-turn by Thursday night. He came on air to say a big sorry!

This sting was done by a selected women journalist along with an eight member team that assisted her. We understand that this has raised a lot of objections over the social media and many senior journalists and women journalists have been affected by this. We regret for this (sic) and will look to introspect and make necessary corrections, said Ajith Kumar, CEO Mangalam TV.

Kumars confession has only gone on to prove the worst fears of the journalistic fraternity in the state right. Senior journalists cutting across channel loyalties had been crying hoarse from the moment the audio clip was aired saying it was doctored according to the wish of the channel and that the so-called sting operation lacked veracity.

It was on last Sunday that the channel had aired the audio clip in which Saseendran is found to be having a sexually explicit conversation with an unknown woman whose voice was conveniently edited out by the channel itself.

Right from the beginning, the channel had maintained that the woman to whom the minister had made the sexual advances was a housewife who had approached the minister for some help.

However the argument failed to cut ice with seasoned journalists who had questioned the intention of the channel in cutting out the voice of the woman. Also, even after the minister had resigned, no woman came forward with a police complaint which should have been the normal course of action if this was not a consensual chat between two individuals.

After the channel CEOs confession we now know that there never was such a woman and the minister was indeed honey trapped by a female journalist from the channel itself. Senior journalists in the state who had all the while been expressing their apprehension that this whole exercise is in itself a self defeatist game plan, expressed their deep anguish over the channel CEOs confessions.

I just do not know what to say. This is a huge slap on the fraternity here. It is so sad that a news channel had to be launched this way. Anyway they will have to face the law now for doing this. I am only worried for the genuine journalists in that organisation, C Gouridasan Nair, Bureau Chief, The Hindu told Firstpost.

Honest staffer gave it all away; more quit

Perhaps what set the ball rolling against the claims of the channel is the unexpected resignation of Alneema Ashraf, a sub-editor and her subsequent revelations that an investigation team constituted by the channel was behind the honey trap.

Firstpost had then reported Ashrafs words that the channels claims of a victimised housewife giving the audio tape to the channel for broadcasting was fictitious as neither she nor any of her colleagues were aware of any such woman.

As the news broke of the CEOs confession, a resignation spree seems to have been set off inside the organisation. Three staffers, among whom one is a Bureau Chief of Kozhikode has tendered his resignation wrapped in bitter words over the social media.

A distraught Ragesh, Mangalam TV head of Kozhikode wrote on Facebook:

This is our defeat as journalists. Inspite (sic) of asking a number of times, the senior management kept us under the dark and today we are paying the prize for trusting them blindly and toadying to the wishes of the boss..I quit without taking my last months pay which your dear ones may eat.

Rageshs words have found resonance across the channel as the next few days are expected to see a number of such resignations out of complete frustration. While this report was being filed, two more bureau reporters from Wayanad and Nemom in Thiruvananthapuram had put in their papers.

Police crackdown to follow

Mangalam TV, Keralas youngest baby in the arena of television journalism has already become a sinking ship. The CEOs confession attempt on Thursday is being seen as a last ditch attempt to reach a negotiation with the government which has already set the police on its job.

The special team constituted by the state police chief does convey a message or two that the government is actually aiming to hit the channel hard for letting it lose a minister. While an inspector general would supervise the investigation, a strong team has been built around him so that the perpetrators of the honey trap do not find it easy to get off the hook. A deputy superintendent from the police high-tech cell, two superintendents from two different districts, a deputy superintendent from the crime branch and a woman sub-inspector from Thiruvananthapuram form the core team.

Seldom has Kerala seen officers from such diverse backgrounds coming together to investigate a case and that too pertaining to a honey trap. However, sources inside the LDF (Left Democratic Front) government and the CPM say that the stakes are rather high this time round especially for the Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan who had taken a lot of flak from within his own party at the state secretariat and committee for the lacklustre performance of the home department. Saseendran's resignation has made Vijayan's job tougher. Many have argued that the governments declaration of a judicial probe was only a tactic to gauge what more the channel has in its possession in terms of damaging the government in the last two days.

The moment the government sensed that the channel was on the back foot, it moved in for the kill. Managalam TVs honey trap might have resulted in the government losing a minister, but the utter shoddy and unethical way of its operations has only given a new life and buoyancy to the state government. And the government hopes to spin this to boost its image by booking the culprits behind the honey trap operation at the earliest.
New Delhi: Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh and his wife were charge-sheeted by the CBI on Friday in a special court here in a disproportionate assets case, hours after the Delhi High Court denied him any relief and removed the interim stay on his interrogation or arrest. The charge sheet was filed against nine people including the 82-year-old the Congress leader before special judge Virender Kumar Goyal for alleged offences punishable under section 109 (abetment) of IPC and Prevention of Corruption Act.

It also named LIC agent Anand Chauhan who is currently in judicial custody. Chauhan was arrested by Enforcement Directorate (ED) on 9 July last year in a separate money laundering case related to the present case. The development came hours after the Delhi High Court dismissed the chief minister and his wife's plea seeking quashing of the DA case filed against them by the CBI.

Justice Vipin Sanghi also vacated the Himachal Pradesh High Court's interim order of 1 October, 2015 restraining the CBI from arresting, interrogating or filing a charge sheet in the case without the court's permission. Singh has sought directions from the High Court to quash the FIR registered against him and his wife under Sections 13(2) and 13(1)(e) of the Prevention of Corruption Act and Section 109 of IPC by the CBI on 23 September, 2015 here and urged the court to summon records of the preliminary inquiry and the FIR.

Virbhadra and his wife Pratibha Singh have claimed in their plea that there was no order, direction or judgment by any court that had authorised the CBI to inquire, investigate or register regular cases and exercise jurisdiction in the territory of Himachal Pradesh. Singh had on 1 October, 2015 got an interim order from the Himachal Pradesh High Court restraining the CBI from arresting, interrogating or filing a charge sheet in the case without the court's permission.

The matter was transferred by the Supreme Court to the Delhi High Court, which on 6 April, 2016 had asked CBI not to arrest Singh and had directed him to join the probe. On 5 November last year, the apex court had transferred Singh's plea from Himachal Pradesh HC to Delhi HC, saying it was not expressing any opinion on the merits of the case, but "simply" transferring the petition "in interest of justice and to save the institution (judiciary) from any embarrassment".

The charge sheet running into over 500 pages also arrayed Chunni Lal Chauhan, Joginder Singh Ghalta, Prem Raj, Lawan Kumar Roach, Vakamulla Chandrasekhar and Ram Prakash Bhatia as accused in the final report. The report, filed under section 109 (abetment) and 465 (punishment for forgery) of IPC and under various sections of

PC Act claims that the politician had amassed assets worth around Rs 10 crore which were disproportionate by 192 percent of his total income during his tenure as a Union minister.

The charge sheet, moved before the court through public prosecutor P K Dogra, has arrayed around 225 witnesses and 442 documents.
Kryvy Rih City Council has permitted Canada's Black Iron with assets in Ukraine to design a land allotment plan for the implementation of an iron ore production project at the Shymanivske iron ore field (Kryvy Rih, Dnipropetrovsk region).

According to the press release of Black Iron, Shymanivske Steel LLC, Black Iron's wholly owned Ukrainian subsidiary, runs the project.

The land allotment plan is a detailed report to be prepared by Shymanivske Steel to show the city of Kryvy Rih how Shymanivske Steel proposes to use the leased land by describing the proposed major infrastructure and utility tie-ins required for the Shymanivkse project.

Black Iron's Vice President Government & Community Relations Mykola Bayrak said that obtaining City Council approval to initiate the land allotment process was the result of an extensive process of documentation and public hearings culminating in a vote by Kryvy Rih City Council.

"I am very pleased by the strong support from City Council as 50 councilors voted in favor of awarding Shymanivske Steel the permission to initiate the land allotment process and only four councilors abstained from voting with none objecting," he said.

As reported, the Canadian company is implementing its project to build a new mining company in Ukraine. The cost of the project is over $1 billion. Over $60 million has been invested.

In October 2010 Black Iron acquired Geo-Alliance Ore East Limited, a Cyprus-based subsidiary of Geo Alliance Group Limited of EastOne Investment Group belonging to Ukrainian businessman Victor Pinchuk, together with licenses worth $13 million, and renamed it Black Iron (Cyprus) Ltd.

The Cypriot company owns over 99% of the shares in Shymanivske Steel LLC and Zelenivske Steel (both based in Dnipro), which own licenses to exploit iron ore mines for the period until November 1, 2024 and November 1, 2014 respectively.

In July 2013, Metinvest, Ukraine's largest mining and steel group, has reached an agreement with Black Iron Inc on investment in Black Iron (Cyprus) Ltd (BKI Cyprus), a subsidiary of the Canadian mining company that owns the iron ore assets in Ukraine. The agreements require Metinvest to make an initial investment of $20 million in BKI Cyprus to help finance the projects. Later Metinvest left the project.

In Q3 2014 the company received a permit to develop the field and was passing the land allotment procedure. In addition, Black Iron Inc. asked the Ecology and Natural Resources Ministry to extend the permit to explore the Zelenivske field to study its potential.
New Delhi: The presence of Goa Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar in the Rajya Sabha on Friday evoked sharp reactions from Congress members who raised slogans against him and even trooped into the Well of the House in protest.

Parrikar, who was sworn in as the Goa chief minister earlier this month, walked in during the Zero Hour when Congress member Rajni Patil was about to ask a question.

Immediately, several members including Digvijaya Singh, Congress general secretary incharge of Goa, and BK Hariprasad, were up on their feet shouting slogans. In response, some BJP members too stood up and shouted slogans.

Congress has accused the BJP of using unfair means to attain a majority in Goa. The BJP has rejected the charges saying the Congress did not have the numbers and was only creating hype.

As the shouting continued, Deputy Chairman PJ Kurien stood up to bring order in the House. "Please give some respect to the Hon'ble lady member," he said as he asked Patil to raise the issue she had wanted to. Patil expressed concern about the use of persticides and chemical fertilisers.

After that, Parrikar stood up for a moment but instantly several Congress members were back to sloganeering.

Several party leaders inlcuding Rajeev Gowda, Hussain Dalwai as well as Patil, reached the Well of the House raising slogans against the former Defence Minister.

Union Minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi took a dig, sarcastically saying that Parrikar had expressed a "special thanks" to Digvijay Singh. Several BJP members thumped the tables to express support for Parrikar.
On Thursday, the Lok Sabha rejected five amendments made by the Rajya Sabha while returning the Finance Bill. Among them was an amendment proposed by Sitaram Yechury on the clauses relating to political funding.

Yechury said the provisions allowing corporates to donate any amount to a political party without disclosing the name of the political outfit would lead to a more opaque political funding era, an opinion other opposition parties too voiced. Rejecting this argument, Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitely said it didnt make sense to insist that companies should disclose the name of the party since this will make them vulnerable to pressure from other political parties. He also extended an open invitation to the Opposition seeking suggestions on alternative ways to deal with the problem.

We felt the problem. Companies said if I disclose (the name of the party), another party will come and ask why I gave to this party (sic), the minister said. Jaitley surely has a point, corporate donors can get caught in the crossfire of political parties, but these are not reasons to justify the opaqueness being institutionalized in the corporate funding of political parties. After all, total transparency in political funding is something that has topped the promises of the Narendra Modi government for long. It cannot get away with cosmetic changes that really dont address the fundamental problemcorporate-political nexus.

This is not to say that this government hasnt taken steps to clean up political funding. It did a few things. First, the government proposed to ban all-cash donations above Rs 2,000 to political parties as against the earlier limit of Rs 20,000. Secondly, it asked donors to use cheque or electronic modes to make payments to political parties. Then came the proposal to create electoral bonds under which corporate donors can purchase these bonds and the money will go to the bank account of the particular party. All these were steps in the right direction. But, the story changed soon when it hurriedly amended the proposals in the Finance Bill, wherein it scrapped a ceiling that earlier restricted a corporate entity from donating more than 7. 5 percent of its average net profit in the three immediate preceding fiscal years to a political party. It also permitted companies not to disclose the name of the party to which it gives money in the company records.

Effectively, these two last minute changes defeated the very purpose of ushering in absolute transparency in political funding. This surely gives room for certain possibilities, mainly the continuing existence of the secret world of corporate-political nexus. Logically, majority of corporate funding will be skewed in favour of the ruling political party since all companies want to be in the good books of the ruling party, whether it is BJP or the Congress party. This will further lead to conflict of interest since a company whose business requires participation in the government contracts can secretly put pressure on the government to act in its favour or twist policies by promising a fat donation. Not even the shareholders of the company will know where the money went.

Similarly, a tainted company or corrupt promoter can influence the government by making a secret donation to the political party that runs the administration, a black money holder can do the same and one cant even rule out money from an organisation which has terror links entering the coffers of a political party. Also, as certain opposition parties highlighted in the Finance Bill debate, opaque political funding can give room for creation of thousands of shell companies and for political extortion of companies. These are all likely scenarios in a world that thrives on greed, corruption and nepotism.

Though an improvement, the Rs 2,000 cash donation rule still leaves big loopholes that can be exploited by wrongdoers. A political party can still misuse this rule to facilitate inflow of unaccounted money. It is just a matter of making more number of receipts. Cheques and electoral bonds are transparent means, but letting the company cover up the name of the beneficiary party while making payments through cheque or bonds make no sense and the government can claim no major progress as far as transparency in political funding is concerned.

The fundamental point here is, if the government is indeed serious to bring about transparency in political funding, then it should bring in actual transparency (where everyone in the country knows who is funding whom) and do not settle for an opaque, useless clause in the interests of corporate donors. Remember, political parties primary commitment is to the general public, not corporate donors. Now, if it is a must that corporations cannot make political donations in a transparent manner, the government should then outrightly ban corporate political funding in the current format.

Instead, it should encourage individual citizens, trusts or even companies to donate to political parties in a transparent manner by creating a state-fund managed by the Election Commission of India (ECI). This idea is something experts such as former chief election commissioner of India, SY Quraishi, have pointed out in the past. State funding will free the parties from dependence on  and clutches of  the corporate houses who feel tempted to run the government by proxy, Quraishi has proposed way back in 2015 in an op-ed piece. If necessary, Quraishi says, an Election Trust Fund could be created, to which corporations can make donations. The fund could be administered by an independent Trust or Election Commission. The allocation of funds will be based on the actual performance of parties, whose accounts will be audited by an independent auditor on the ECI approved panel or by CAG.

The botomline is this: Beyond cosmetic changes, Modi-government has so far failed to make meaningful improvement in transparency when it comes to political funding. The promise of clean political funding remains largely a promise. Until every penny contributed to political parties is accounted for and open to public scrutiny, this will remain as a promise forever. If corporate money must remain opaque, let it go to a central fund managed by EC and not individual party coffers, which will further nurture corporate-political nexus.
The boycott call issued by the Hurriyat Conference will determine the winning chances of candidates in the electoral fray for the two crucial parliamentary seats of Srinagar and Anantnag  where bypolls will be held on 9 and 12 April respectively.

On the Srinagar seat, the contest will mainly be between former chief minister and National Conference (NC) president, Farooq Abdullah, and Peoples Democratic Party candidate, Nazir Ahmad Khan. While on the Anantnag seat, Tasaduq Mufti, brother of state chief minister Mehbooba Mufti, is pitted against Congress candidate and partys state president, GA Mir.

The Anantnag parliamentary seat has traditionally been a PDP stronghold, but, in the 2014 elections, the party had lost some seats to NC and Congress. Now, in the current bypolls, the PDP strongholds could see a reduced voter turnout as a result of the fierce pro-militant protests in the area  due to which, several election rallies were called off.

The pitch for boycotting the elections has only grown stronger with the government forces engaging with militants in daily gun-battles.

Incidents of militant attacks on police parties and weapon snatching have continued unabated in the past one week. Police have picked up a large number of youth involved in incidents of stone pelting, even as many Hurriyat activists remain in detention under the Public Safety Act.

A police campaign against the use of social networking sites saw close to 70 youth detained in the last one week  for fanning pro-boycott sentiments on social media. Earlier, police had arrested six militants in Kulgam, from whom a large haul of weapons was recovered. The police had claimed that the militants had planned to disrupt the polls.

In the Anantang seat, the PDP is represented by its MLAs from the constituencies of Pulwama, Rajpora, Shopian, Pampore, Tral, Bijbehara, Anantang, Kokernag, Noorabad, Dooru and Wachi. All of these Assembly segments have seen spates of violence over the last eight months of unrest in the Valley  triggered by the death of Hizbul Mujahideen commander Burhan Wani. People even turned to burning of police stations and razed down camps of the security forces in protest to the civilian killings.

At Noorabad, thousands marched and razed down the police station, looting a large number of police weapons. While at Hasanapora in Bijbehara, a security forces' camp was pulled down by people in protest to the civilian killings. Even in the Anantnag constituency, represented by Mehbooba, a large number of people were injured by pellet guns.

The NC-Congress coalition is represented by four MLAs on Pahalgam, Homeshalibugh, Devsar and Shangus seats. The effect of the protests was relatively lesser in these segments.

Mir said that PDP will lose the Anantang seat, in view of the growing resentment among people about the way it has handled the unrest in Kashmir. "Even now, the killings continue unabated," he said.

Similarly, the pro-boycott fervour has picked up in Srinagar after Tuesdays gun-battle at Chadoora  in which one militant and three civilians were killed. Following the encounter, incidents of stone pelting were reported from different parts of the city, particularly the old downtown areas  which remain separatist strongholds and have traditionally shied away from the polls.

Srinagar's city areas have traditionally voted for the NC, but, due to the slipshod response of former chief minister Omar Abdullahs government during the Kashmir floods, it has lost many of its seats.

A boycott in Srinagar could only further dent the winning prospectus of the PDP, which is already facing internal dissensions, as many of the party candidates were not accommodated as ministers in the Mehbooba government. The anti-incumbency factor against the ruling PDP-BJP dispensation and the trend among the people of Ganderbal and Kangan to vote could also go in favour of the NC.

The resentment shared by former ministers Mohammad Ashraf Mir and Javed Mustafa Mir against Mehbooba, for failing to accommodate them in the council of ministers, could also work in NCs favour.

NC could capitalise by cornering a larger Shia votebank as it is represented by Shia leader Aga Ruhulla from Budgam and has fielded former minister, Aga Mehmood, as a candidate for the legislative council seat. In Srinagar, former PDP MP Tariq Hameed Karra's switch to Congress could only help strengthen Abdullah's chances to romp home.

Abdullah had lost the 2014 Parliament elections to Karra, who, however, resigned from the seat during the pro-freedom protests, blaming the ruling PDP-BJP alliance of committing excesses on people. Mehbooba resigned from the Anantang Lok Sabha seat and got elected as MLA.

The current political situation in that state is a throwback to early 1990s, when the militancy had started in Kashmir.

Due to militancy in 1991, the Parliamentary elections couldnt be held. In the 1996 elections, NC boycotted the polls and the contest was mainly between Congress and Janta Dal. People had alleged that the security forces in the state had used coercive means to ensure that they come out to vote.

The voter turnout remained low in both the 1998 and 1999 elections, due to the boycott calls given by separatists. After the 2004 elections, the Anantang seat was retained by either Mehbooba or NCs Mehboob Beg, who is now PDP's chief spokesman. The Srinagar seat was either retained by Omar Abdullah or his father Farooq in the elections held prior to 2014.

Now, in these elections, even as most of the separatist leaders are under detention, they have asked people to boycott the polls. Democratic Freedom Party chairman, Shabir Ahmad Shah, said that the elections are a sham and that people should desist from participating in the polls.

Shah and other Hurriyat leaders  including chairman Syed Ali Shah Geelani and Awami Action Committee chairman Mirwaiz Umar Farooq  have been put under house detention.

"The participation of people in elections would be a sell out for all those youth who laid down their lives in the struggle against Indian occupation, Shah said.
There has been a marked change in the mood of Congress leaders since November 2016, when the Congress Working Committee (CWC) unanimously recommended that party vice-president Rahul Gandhi be elevated to the top post in the organisation. Senior party leaders were quick to suggest that the ailing and ageing party chief, Sonia Gandhi, would follow up on the suggestion soon.

Four months on, the expected anointment still hasnt materialised, fuelling speculation around the continuing procrastination of a move considered inevitable. Ever since Rahul came into active politics in 2004 and, more specifically, after Sonia went abroad for an undisclosed illness in 2011, she has been increasingly transferring her responsibilities onto him.

Much appears to have changed during this four-month period. Even leaders and supporters who were not enamoured by Rahul or his leadership qualities had at that time given the 46-year-old Amethi MP the benefit of the doubt and had hoped that his elevation as the head of the 132-year-old organisation would establish the continuity of the Gandhi brand, hold back the Congress flock of supporters, provide a semblance of unity to the organisation and help it fight the resurgent BJP another day.

That is no longer the mood. Indeed, there is a simmering disquiet and an uneasy calm that is looking for its tipping point, with a number of the established leaders now just biding their time.

"So long as Sonia remains the party president, we are around. But once Rahul is anointed party chief, there will be an exodus," said a party leader known for his proximity to the Congress bosses but now chary and wary of the change of guard.

Already, the BJP has been poaching those who could help the saffron party bring in votes. It did it before a number of state elections, including in Assam and the recent Assembly elections in Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh and Manipur. It is a strategy BJP could employ in other states as well, including in Maharashtra, where its relations with the Shiv Sena are not too good and in Odisha, where the ruling BJD is showing signs of inner tensions and where the saffron party had performed well in the local elections.

There has been nothing to give Congressmen hope that Rahuls elevation may politically, organisationally or electorally alter the situation for the party. It has been one downhill slide over the last few years. Since 2013, the party has lost key elections in almost all states, including Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Maharashtra, Haryana, Assam, Gujarat, Jharkhand, West Bengal, Jammu and Kashmir, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Odisha, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Manipur and Goa.

Wiped out from large swathes across the country, the Congress is currently in power in just five states: Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, Karnataka, Meghalaya and Mizoram, while it is part of the ruling coalition in Bihar.

Once straddling across the country, the Congress has been squashed out by strong region-based parties and a marauding BJP, which has become the dominant pole of Indian politics with Prime Minister Narendra Modis battle cry of a "Congress-mukt Bharat." It drew a blank in over 15 states in the 2014 General Elections and was reduced to a pitiable 44 seats in the Lok Sabha.

For Congressmen, the serial defeats in the elections was a shock but what shook their confidence was that the central leadership showed a remarkable lack of urgency in trying to deal with the crisis that was staring the party in the face.

After each defeat, the top leadership promised a painful introspection and drastic surgical, structural and strategic repairs to reconstruct and rebuild the party. But, nothing of the sort happened. It did not happen after the Lok Sabha polls, where the Antony Committee blamed every other factor for the partys miserable loss except for Rahuls leadership, which others felt was accountable. Indeed, a number of Congress leaders had openly cocked a snook at the Amethi MP and dubbed him a failure, a joker and much worse.

On his part, after losing Delhi to Aam Aadmi Party, Rahul promised changes that "cannot even be imagined." It turned out to be an empty rhetoric. After the loss in UP, where the Congress allied with the Samajwadi Party, he spoke of bringing about "structural changes."

Three weeks after the results, the Congress has not even held a meeting of the Congress Working Committee to assess the crisis, that threatens to turn the party into history. The bottom-line, as one leader recently remarked, is that "Congress has nothing... no leadership, no organisation, no articulation and no money to revive.

Right now, it can only cling to the feeble hope that the BJP would someday falter majorly. Until then, it can only turn to prayers and miracles.
New Delhi: Home Minister Rajnath Singh on Friday accused Pakistan of trying to destabilise India and said cross-border terrorist groups in Jammu and Kashmir egged on youths to stone security forces.

The minister urged the Kashmiri youths not to fall prey to Pakistan sponsored propaganda to indulge in stone pelting during encounters in the state.

"Not only the state, the terrorists are trying to destabilise the whole country through their cowardly acts," Rajnath Singh said in the Lok Sabha during Zero Hour.

"The whole country is aware of this act of Pakistan. Our security forces are retaliating against them in their own language," he said.

Singh's response came after Trinamool Congress member Saugata Roy raised the issue of stone pelting on security forces leading to the death of three civilians and injuries to over 60 security personnel.

Responding, Rajnath Singh said: "A new trend has begun in Kashmir. When our security forces go to villages in search of terrorists, the youths of the region start pelting stones on security forces.

"Such stone pelters are being misled by Pakistan-sponsored forces. Groups operating from Pakistan use Facebook, WhatsApp and other social media platforms to mobilise youth to provoke them for stone pelting," he said.

Rajnath Singh said that the security forces will continue to give a befitting reply to terrorists and infiltrators in Jammu and Kashmir and also expressed confidence that India will defeat all forms of terrorism.
Meat sellers, especially mutton vendors, across Uttar Pradesh are likely to end their indefinite strike against the state-wide crackdown on illegal and mechanised slaughterhouses after a "positive" meeting with chief minister Yogi Adityanath.

Adityanath assured the meat traders, who went on strike on Monday, that licensed slaughterhouses will not be shut down and that his government will protect the interests of all genuine operators.

"Our meeting with the Uttar Pradesh chief minister was very successful. He assured us that licensed slaughterhouses will not be troubled. I appeal to the protesters to return to work and start working with a proper licence... Uttar Pradesh government will help you procure one," a report in Indian Express quoted Sirajuddin Qureshi, a meat exporter, as saying.

According to the report, Adityanath had met with a delegation of meat traders on Thursday, as the indefinite strike had started to hurt many local businesses. Adityanath reportedly told them that 'strict action will be taken against those who forcefully shutdown the slaughterhouses.'

As per a report in Hindustan Times, majority of the meat traders that met with Adityanath described their meeting as "positive", suggesting that the meat shops may become fully functional after the Navratras.

After coming to power, Adityanath had ordered closure of illegal slaughterhouses and strict enforcement of the ban on cow smuggling to fulfil a key electoral promise.

The ban affected the livelihood of around 25 lakh people directly or indirectly. The Rs 15,000 crore slaughterhouse-industry in UP accounts for nearly 50 percent of India's total meat exports.

With inputs from PTI
Yogi Adityanath's statement on resemblance between namaaz and surya namaskar has triggered a dissenting debate. Two diametrically different opinions have emerged among the Muslim clergy. Interestingly, a section of the ulema are supporting the Uttar Pradesh chief minister's statement on surya namaskar's asanas being akin to namaaz, welcoming it as an effort to advance the cause of religious inclusiveness in India.

The well-known Shiite Muslim cleric Maulana Kable Sadiq commented on Yogi Adityanath's statement in a way wholly different from the conventional thinking among the Indian Muslim clergy. He exhorted the UP Muslims not to get afraid of Adityanath's government but rather with their own (Muslim) leaders. "Muslim leadership is emotional about these issues as they do not have rational thinking. They should fear Owaisi and Dr. Mohammad Ayub," Maulana told the media.

However, this time, not only Shia leaders like Maulana Kable Sadiq, but several Sunni clerics have also endorsed a reversing view in the community. For instance, an Islamic cleric of the Sunni-Hanafi school, Maulana Suhaib Qasmi, welcomed Yogi Adityanath's statement saying that every religion guides towards preaching peace and this statement will help the nation unite. Maulana Qasmi, who is also the president of Jama'at-e-Hind, is reported to have said: "This belief followed by Yogi Adityanath and Prime Minister Narendra Modi is highly appreciated."

These statements by the two Sunni and Shia clerics reflect an onslaught on the influence of conservative approach to Islamic faith and practice in India. Nevertheless, the conformist line of thinking is still deeply steeped in the community's large sections influenced by the self-imposed custodians of Islam in India. All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB), which had launched a campaign across the country against the state governments' decision to promote yoga, has come out full throttle in resistance to this interfaith development. This has created a major churn in the community's clerical circles. Several religious leaders are rebuffing the remarks in which the Sunni and Shia clerics appreciated the Uttar Pradesh chief minister for drawing the commonalities between surya namaskar's asanas and namaaz.

Along with the opposition parties' leaders, the influential Muslim clerics like Maulana Umair Ilyasi have expressed strong reactions to this attempt at comparing the Vedic and Islamic prayers which, in a way, creates a spiritual symbiosis between the two largest religious communities in the country. But one would be amazed at the naivety of Maulana Umair Ilyasi, the general secretary of the All India Association of Imams and Mosques. In his reactionary statement, he gave a paradoxical argument that "by linking the postures of the two different religious prayers, Yogi is trying to break the ties between the Hindu and Muslim religions", as reported in the Urdu media.

What Adityanath was saying is that the Islamic prayer (salat or namaaz) performed by Muslims resembles different postures (asanas) of surya namaskar and pranayam commonly offered by the Hindus. This could be simply cited as a "beautiful example of harmony" between the two religions, as he did, regardless of the theological polemics and unsolicited controversies which are being created on it. In January 2009, much before Yogi Adityanath's statement, India's largest madrasa Darul Uloom Deoband's cleric Maulana Adil Siddiqui was reported to have stated that 'offering namaaz is also a form of performing yoga'."If you observe closely 'namaaz', which every Muslim is expected to perform five times a day, is itself a sort of yoga and plays an important role in keeping a person healthy," he said.

As a matter of fact, Islam and Hinduism have many doctrinal commonalities and similarities, both in faith and practice. The basic Islamic belief is the kalimah tauheed which reads: La ilaha illal lahu (There is no Lord but only One). Much in the same way, the Brahma Sutra or kalima tauheed of Vedanta goes like this: aika brahma dutia nasti, nasti kinchit (God is one and there is none except Him, not at all). Thus, the belief in the oneness of God is key to both Islam and Hinduism.

While the unity of God as the fundamental Islamic belief is well-embedded in the Quran: Say God is only one (112:1)", it is also enshrined in Rig Veda: There is only one ruler and creator of the world. (Rig Ved 3.121.10) Therefore, Hindusim enjoins: Do not worship anyone except God (Rig Ved 1.1.8), and it also exhorts to ponder over this question: He is the one worthy of being worshipped. So whom do they worship and present offerings? (Atharva Ved 2.0.2). More to the point, the Quran defines Islam as the "natural religion" which goes much in the same way as the term swadharm has been mentioned in Bhagwad Gita to denote the religion which is taught by the nature and not by parents.

By highlighting these common grounds between the two religions, Indian Muslims and Hindus would only come closer to each other and thus can strengthen the foundations of their peaceful co-existence, better amicable understanding and socio-religious affinity.

As far as the controversy on drawing similarity between the Islamic Namaaz and Hindu Yoga is concerned, it could be sorted out with a deeper essence of the two religions. Both Islam and Hinduism are preached in India as a 'spiritual path' to "eternal salvation". According to a verse in the Holy Quran (98:5), Islam is also called 'deen-ul-qayyim' (eternal or straight path) which is translated into the Sanskrit language as sanatan dharma or shaswat dharma. While the 'eternal salvation' in Islam is defined as nijat-e-abadi, the same goes in Sanatan Dharma as moksha (liberation). Similarly, the Sufi Islamic concept of wisal-e-ilahi (union with the Divine) is no different from what is preached as advaita (non-dualism) in the Vendanta philosophy. Both faiths exhort their followers to stay conscious of their inner self (nafs or atman), while at the same time realising the Whole Being of the Divine (ilah or brahmana). While Muslims seek to attain the nijat-e-abadi during namaaz or Salat, Hindu followers tend to achieve the very eternal salvation through Yoga or meditation. Shaikh Hakim Moinuddin Chishti has eloquently expounded this deeper mystical symbiosis. He writes in The Book of Sufi Healing: "Namaaz is at once an external and an internal practice: a set of physical exercises and the richest spiritual nourishment. Therefore, some have compared them to yoga asanas. By considering each of these aspects in some detail, we can learn why the Sufis have considered in many cases that they would rather die than forgo their namaaz."

An enlightening example of the close resemblance between Hindu and Muslim faiths is the foundational notion of wah'y (divine revelation) in Islam and that of shruti in Hinduism. Shruti denotes the divine texts that were heard by Rishi-munis (prophets or sages) directly from God. In the same way, Wah'y or the Quranic revelation is revered as the verbatim speech of Allah revealed to His Prophet Muhammad (PBUH). Just like the shruti texts in the Hindu scriptures, the Quranic texts of wah'y are believed to be the divine words which the Prophet heard from Allah. Many authoritative Islamic scholars like the Naqshbandi Sufi philosopher of India, Mirza Mazhar Jan-e-Janaan opined that the Rishi-munis who heard and taught the shruti texts may well have been the prophets to whom God revealed the earliest scriptures known as suhuf al-awwalin in the Quran.

Going by this Sufi narrative, it is interesting to note that the people of the first divine revelation (shruti) and the those of the last one (wah'y) have been brought together in India. No wonder then that the early Arab historians like Al-Bairuni and Ibn Nadeem translated the Vedic manuscripts into Arabic in an era known as the "golden age" in Islamic history. But today, 99 percent of the misunderstandings between Muslims and Hindus emanate from their ignorance about each others' religions. Over a thousand years ago, Al-Bairuni wrote Kitab al-Hind"(The book of India), an encyclopedic work on the religious traditions of the Hindus. He explored nearly every aspect of Hindu life  religious, cultural and intellectual  within a rich cultural context. One could be surprised to see the translations of Varahmihir, Brihat Jatak, Krishna Avtar and Vishnu Puran in Al-Bairuni's Kitab al-Hind. An earlier Firstpost article has pertinently noted, "Muslim travellers in India, fascinated by yogas teachings, started bringing translated works to the Islamic world almost a millennium ago. The Mughal emperor Jahangir commissioned a Persian text, Bahr al-Hayat, which depicted 21 asanas, or positions....It is heartening to see some Muslim groups have taken the UP chief minister's statement in the right spirit."

The author is a scholar of classical Islamic studies and comparative religion, cultural analyst and researcher in Media and Communication Studies. He can be reached at grdehlavi@gmail.com
Even as the Indian government stigmatises the word azaadi, the idea of sub-national independence continues to gain more and more traction across the world. Interestingly, unlike the Indian government, most of its global counterparts  opposed as many of them are to secessionist forces  do not view the demand for independence as a marker of anti-national sentiment. In fact, the debate around secession surfacing in many countries abroad is often structured within economic, and not ideological national/anti-national frameworks.

Consider recent developments in Britain.

Nicola Sturgeon, Scotlands first minister and a fierce advocate of Scottish independence, has renewed pressure for a fresh independence referendum. With Prime Minister Theresa May triggering Article 50 and initiating the process of Britains separation from the European Commission, Sturgeon insists that a second referendum has become an absolute imperative for ensuring the welfare of Scottish people. "The result is that we must now ensure that people in Scotland are given a choice between the hard Brexit deal now being negotiated, and independence," the first minister said.

Only three years ago, the Scottish people voted in a referendum on Scotlands secession from the United Kingdom. In a record turnout of over 84 percent, 55.3 percent rejected independence while 44.7 percent voted in support. Clearly, a large constituency of Scottish people wanted independence. Yet, that number in 2014 fell short of the required majority. Much has happened since then. In the wake of Brexit, votaries of secession have gained in strength. Sturgeon wants to strike while the iron is hot.

Besides, its not just Scotland which has, in recent years, actively debated secession. As forces of sub-nationalism gain ground, the aspiration for regional and local autonomy has also proliferated. Look for example, at the California exit movement in the United States. Following Donald Trumps electoral victory in November 2016, the Yes California Independence Campaign said it is planning a referendum in 2019 to gauge the mood of Californians on seceding from the Union. On its website, the Yes California Independence Campaign, says: In our view, the United States of America represents so many things that conflict with Californian values, and our continued statehood means California will continue subsidising the other states to our own detriment, and to the detriment of our children.

Strikingly, the respective Union governments dealing with such political assertions have not accused their advocates (those behind Scottish independence and Yes California Independence Campaign) of indulging in anti-national politics. At home, however, the language of discourse around calls for independence has been somewhat different, to put it mildly.

Rather than engaging with the idea of political fragmentation, different Central governments, through the decades, adopted an ostrich-like attitude. The tactic of downplaying assertions for autonomy, or of slandering them as anti-national, however, do not seem to be working on the ground. Theres little doubt that the conventional imagination of what constitutes nationhood is being challenged the world over. The golden myth of economic globalisation, once considered infallible, has gone bust. The gulf between the elite and the poor is wider than ever before. In the vacuum, the idea of secession has come to acquire a new appeal.

Summing up the contemporary mood in his new book Age of Anger, Pankaj Mishra correctly writes: The appeal of formal and informal secessionism  the possibility (broadly)  of greater control over ones life, has grown from Catalonia, Scotland, England to Hong Kong, beyond the cunningly separatist elites with multiple citizenships and offshore accounts. Mishra observes that a far larger number of people today feel the gap between the profligate promises of individual freedom and sovereignty and the incapacity of their political and economic organisations to realise them.

Regardless of whether we reject or accept their politics, understanding this broader global context is imperative to understanding the multiple factors contributing to such secessionist movements.
Chants of death to the dictator grow louder as Iran protests intensify The protests in Iran that were sparked by the death of Mahsa Amini have now entered the 42nd day. The demonstrations are more powerful than ever and so is the crackdown by Iranian authorities. Thousands of mourners defied heightened security measures as they made their way to Aminis burial site in
Washington: Former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn is in discussions with the House and Senate intelligence committees on receiving immunity from "unfair prosecution" in exchange for agreeing to be questioned as part of ongoing probes into possible contacts between Donald Trump's presidential campaign and Russia, his attorney says.

"General Flynn certainly has a story to tell, and he very much wants to tell it, should the circumstances permit," attorney Robert Kelner said Thursday.

Kelner said no "reasonable person" with legal counsel would answer questions without assurances that he would not be prosecuted, given calls from some members of Congress that the retired lieutenant general should face criminal charges.

Flynn's ties to Russia have been scrutinised by the FBI and are under investigation by the House and Senate intelligence committees. Both committees are looking into Russia's meddling in the 2016 presidential election and any ties between Trump associates and the Kremlin.

Since July, the FBI has been conducting a counter-intelligence investigation into Russia's interference in the election and possible coordination with Trump associates.

Trump weighed in Friday, tweeting that Flynn "should ask for immunity in that this is a witch hunt (excuse for big election loss), by media & Dems, of historic proportion!"

Mike Flynn should ask for immunity in that this is a witch hunt (excuse for big election loss), by media & Dems, of historic proportion!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 31, 2017

Kelner released a statement after The Wall Street Journal first reported that Flynn's negotiations with the committee included discussions of immunity. The lawyer described the talks as ongoing and said he would not comment on the details.

A congressional aide confirmed that discussions with the Senate intelligence committee involved immunity. The aide was not authorised to discuss private conversations and spoke on condition of anonymity.

House intelligence committee spokesman Jack Langer said Flynn has not offered to testify to the panel in exchange for immunity.

Four other Trump associates have come forward in recent weeks, saying they would talk to the committees. As of Wednesday, the Senate intelligence committee had asked to interview 20 people as part of the probe.

In his statement, Kelner said the political climate in which Flynn is facing "claims of treason and vicious innuendo" is factoring into his negotiations with the committees.

"No reasonable person, who has the benefit of advice from counsel, would submit to questioning in such a highly politicised, witch hunt environment without assurances against unfair prosecution," Kelner said.

In September, Flynn weighed in on the implications of immunity on NBC's "Meet the Press," criticising Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and her associates in the FBI's investigation into her use of a private email server.

"When you are given immunity, that means that you have probably committed a crime," Flynn said during the interview.

Flynn was fired from his job as Trump's first national security adviser after it was disclosed that he misled Vice-President Mike Pence about a conversation he had with the Russian ambassador to the US during the transition.

In the weeks after he resigned, Flynn and his business registered with the Justice Department as foreign agents for $530,000 worth of lobbying work that could have benefited the Turkish government.

The lobbying occurred while Flynn was a top Trump campaign adviser. The Turkish businessman who hired Flynn, Ekim Alptekin, has told the AP that Flynn's firm registered under pressure from the Justice Department.
The Ukrainian Prosecutor General's Office is raiding the office of the Antimonopoly Committee of Ukraine, the authorized government official at the committee Svitlana Panaiotidi has said.

"The Prosecutor General's Office [has been at the site] since 7:30 a.m. [It said] either open the doors or [they] will knock them down. A search is under way at the Antimonopoly Committee of Ukraine. No one is allowed inside. There are masks, weapons," Panaiotidi wrote on her Facebook page.

Panaiotidi said later that committee employees were standing outside, but she was allowed to enter the building.

She made it understood that the searches were being conducted as part of an investigation into a tax evasion scheme and steps to take a large amount of money out of Ukraine through the Megapolis Ukraine LLC, which is currently known as TEDIS Ukraine. She wrote: "TEDIS. Pechersky [District] court. Ruling."

Ukrainian Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko said earlier on Friday that prosecutors had exposed a tax evasion scheme and arrangements to take out a large amount of funds, including with the purpose of financing terrorism, through Megapolis Ukraine LLC.

"Acting together with the Chief Military Prosecutor's Office and with the support of National Police divisions, the economy department of the Ukrainian Prosecutor General's Office uncovered a major tax evasion scheme and illegal steps to take billions of hryvnias out of the country, including for the purposes of financing terrorism. A pretrial investigation has established that, since 2012, the owners of Megapolis Ukraine (currently TEDIS Ukraine) tobacco products distribution monopoly have in fact included Russian citizen Kesayev, who has been under the NSDC [National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine] sanctions in the form of a ban from transferring funds from Ukraine abroad," he said.

Under Kesayev's influence, people who coordinate all of their decisions with board members of Russia's Degtyaryov Plant have been appointed to key positions in the TEDIS Ukraine company, he said.

"A total of UAH 2.5 billion was taken out [of Ukraine] via transit firms' accounts in 2015-2017, despite the ban imposed by the NSDC and the National Bank of Ukraine," Lutsenko said, adding that the company had also received support from certain government agencies in order to maintain its monopoly status.

About 1,000 law enforcement officers are currently carrying out the searches and taking other urgent measures as part of the investigation, he said.
By Antoni Slodkowski

| YANGON

YANGON The leader of a Rohingya Muslim insurgency against Myanmar's security forces said on Friday his group would keep fighting "even if a million die" unless the country's leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, took action to protect the religious minority.Attacks on Myanmar border guard posts in October last year by a previously unknown insurgent group ignited the biggest crisis of Suu Kyi's year in power, with more than 75,000 Rohingya fleeing to Bangladesh in the ensuing army crackdown.In his first independently conducted media interview, Ata Ullah, who has been identified by analysts and local people as the group's leader, denied links to foreign Islamists and said it was focused on the rights of the Rohingya, who say they face persecution at the hands of Myanmar's Buddhist majority."If we don't get our rights, if 1 million, 1.5 million, all Rohingya need to die, we will die," he said, speaking via a video call from an undisclosed location. "We will take our rights. We will fight with the cruel military government."A United Nations report issued last month said Myanmar's security forces have committed mass killings and gang rapes against Rohingya during their campaign against the insurgents, which may amount to crimes against humanity. [nL5N1H11ZZ]The military has denied the accusations, saying it was engaged in a legitimate counterinsurgency operation."No one will be above the law," said Suu Kyi's spokesman Zaw Htay, responding to questions from Reuters on Friday about the insurgent leader's comments. "If they attack us violently, we will respond the same way. Nowhere in the world would violent action be tolerated."ETHNIC CLASHES

More than a million Rohingya live in northwestern Myanmar's Rakhine State, where they are denied citizenship, freedom of movement and access to services such as healthcare. Serious ethnic clashes between Rohingya and ethnic Rakhine Buddhists erupted in 2012 in which more than 100 people were killed and some 140,000 were displaced."In 2012, lots of things happened and they killed us, so we understood at that time, they would not give us our rights," said Ata Ullah.A report by the International Crisis Group in December said the insurgent group, which at first called itself Harakah al-Yaqin, Arabic for "Faith Movement", was formed by Rohingya living in Saudi Arabia after the 2012 violence. [nL4N1EA59T]It identified Ata Ullah, who appeared in a series of videos claiming responsibility for the Oct. 9 attacks on security forces, as the group's leader.Ata Ullah said decades of resentment at their treatment had prompted hundreds of young Rohingya men to join him after he returned to Rakhine following several years in Bangladesh and Saudi Arabia.

"We can't turn on the lights at night. We can't move from one place to another during the day too. Everywhere checkpoints. That is not the way human beings live," he said.Rohingya refugees Reuters has spoken to in camps in Bangladesh have said that many initially sympathised with the insurgents, but that the violence their campaign has unleashed had cost them support. Some have described how suspected government informers were killed by fighters. [nL3N1GL3WE]"WE SURVIVE BY SELLING COWS"

In the earlier videos, Ata Ullah had cited Koranic verse and called for "jihad".

Suu Kyi's spokesman, Zaw Htay, said he "urged the international community to see the group's background...they are linked with terrorist organizations from the Middle East".But Ata Ullah denied the group, which issued a statement earlier this week saying it was changing its name to the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army, had any connections with other militants or received outside support."We have no groups who help us from behind, whether from here or also abroad...We survive here by selling cows and buffalos," he said.Myanmar's military said last month that what it called a clearance operation in northwestern Rakhine had ended, although the area remains closed to outside observers. Ata Ullah did not respond to several questions regarding the group's future strategy, its current location or how many fighters were left with him. Flanking him as a spoke to Reuters was another man brandishing a machine gun.The Rohingya crisis has posed the biggest challenge to Nobel peace laureate Suu Kyi's government, which on Thursday marked its first year in power. Her defenders say there is little she can do, given the constitution gives her no control over the military."The people are in such trouble, the military is so cruel to many in the Rohingya community, so she should speak out, do something for these people as a Nobel prize winner," said Ata Ullah. "If she tries to do something for us, the military would do something to her government. That's why she will not protect us." (Reporting by Antoni Slodkowski; Editing by Alex Richardson)

This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed.
By Ben Klayman

American Michael Sharp told his mother two years ago he was committed to helping the Congolese people in his role as a U.N. investigator and was "not afraid to die," she recalled Thursday after he was murdered this week along with a colleague in the Democratic Republic of Congo."He said the hardest thing for him was to think about pain he would cause his family," Michele Miller Sharp said in a telephone interview from her home in Kansas. "I told him we all supported him and we would handle any pain and he should continue his work."Sharp's mother learned of his death on her birthday. United Nations peacekeepers in Congo this week discovered his body and that of Zaida Catalan, a Swedish national, who had been missing in an area engulfed in violence. [nL5N1H53G4] Sharp, 34, was in a group of experts monitoring sanctions imposed on Congo by the U.N. Security Council when he and others were kidnapped this month in Kasai Central province. [nL5N1GQ4G6] Despite the risks, Sharp's parents, who live outside Wichita, "were fully supportive of him because he was passionate. This was his calling," said his father, John E. Sharp, 65. "We were not about to step in the way of that in spite of our fears," he added. "Although we hoped and prayed something like this would never happen, we knew it was a possibility."Michael Sharp was raised in Indiana and learned from his Mennonite Christian faith the core values of peace building and non-violence, his 62-year-old mother said. After studying history in college, Michael headed to Germany, where he volunteered and then earned a master's degree in international conflict resolution.

Sharp resided in Albuquerque, New Mexico when he was on breaks from his work. In Congo, he worked three years building relationships with militia leaders, convincing them to lay down their weapons and release the children they had dragooned into being soldiers."That was his passion, to work at helping this war-torn country," said his mother. "He cared deeply about the Congolese people." Michael joined the U.N. in 2015 as a militia group expert, presenting information to the Security Council and making recommendations on sanctions, his parents said.

Colleagues told his parents that Congolese militia leaders respected their son, who would travel for miles, unarmed, to meet them under a banana tree and just listen to them.Michael would no doubt be amazed at the fuss about him as he was very unassuming and humble, his father said. While he understood the risks involved, he worried more about the effect his death might have on his family."About two years ago, he sat down beside me and said, 'Mom you know I don't have death wish in the work I do, but I want you to know I'm not afraid to die either.'" his mother said. She said the family supported him."From a toddler on up, every day was lived to the fullest," she added.

Meanwhile, his parents and two sisters wait for the return of Michael's body to the United States, where U.S. officials will perform an autopsy. His parents said U.N. officials have been in constant communication with them.U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Tuesday said the world body would "do everything possible to ensure that justice is done." U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley called the death senseless. "Michael was working on the front lines of what we try to do at the United Nations every day: find problems and fix them," she said in a statement. "He selflessly put himself in harms way to try to make a difference in the lives of the Congolese people." Congo's Kasai Central region is the centre of the Kamuina Nsapu insurgency that has now spread to five provinces in the loosely governed Central African country. [nL2N1H70Y0]The parents said they hope the U.N. doesn't abandon its work in Congo due to their son's death. "We would not want this tragedy to be compounded by withdrawal from that region," the father John said. "We also want the U.S. to continue its funding to the U.N." (Reporting by Ben Klayman in Detroit, additional reporting by Michelle Nichols in New York and Aaron Ross in Kinshasa; Editing by David Gregorio)

This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed.
Peshawar: At least 24 people were killed and nearly 100 others were injured on Friday when a powerful car bomb exploded outside a Shiite imambargah at a busy market in Pakistan's restive northwest tribal region in an attack claimed by the Pakistani Taliban. The car bomb went off near the main gate of the imambargah in the central bazar of Parachinar, Kurram Agency.

At least 22 people were killed and 95 others injured in the car bomb blast, hospital authorities said. The condition of the majority of those injured was stated to be critical. Of those critically wounded, 27 were airlifted to Peshawar hospitals. Scores of vehicles were also damaged in the blast. Jamaat-ul-Ahrar, a breakaway faction of the Pakistani Taliban, claimed responsibility for the attack.

Security forces cordoned off the area while emergency services were dispatched to the site. The administration has declared an emergency at all hospitals in the area. An Army medical evacuation helicopter has also been flown to Parachinar for evacuation of the injured, an Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) statement said.

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif expressed grief over the blast and condemned the attack. "It is our responsibility to continue the war against terrorists," he said.

Sharif reiterated his government's resolve to eliminate the menace of terrorism from the country at all costs. "The network of terrorists has already been broken and it is our national duty to continue this war until the complete annihilation of the scourge of terrorism from our soil," he said. The prime minister directed the relevant authorities to extend all possible assistance to the local administration. Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar ordered an inquiry into the blast.

Pakistan has been rocked by a slew of terror attacks that have claimed scores of lives. A wave of suicide attacks across Pakistan last month, including one in Lahore and another on the Lal Shahbaz Qalandar shrine in Sindh, killed more than 125 people and wounded over 300 others. Pakistani forces retaliated with a crackdown, killing

dozens of terrorists and hitting militant hideouts along the border with Afghanistan.

Pakistan army also launched a nationwide military operation 'Radd-ul-Fasaad' to eliminate terrorists and consolidate gains of its counter-terrorism operations.
By Susan Cornwell and Amanda Becker

| WASHINGTON

WASHINGTON U.S. President Donald Trump lashed out on Thursday at Republican conservatives who helped torpedo healthcare legislation he backed, escalating a feud within his party that jeopardizes the new administration's legislative agenda.Trump threatened to try to defeat members of the Freedom Caucus - a bloc of conservative Republicans in the House of Representatives - in next year's congressional elections if they continued to defy him."The Freedom Caucus will hurt the entire Republican agenda if they don't get on the team, & fast. We must fight them, & Dems, in 2018!" Trump wrote on Twitter on Thursday morning.House conservatives fought back."Most people don't take well to being bullied," said Representative Justin Amash, who compared Trump's approach to what a child does when he wants to "get his way."Representative Raul Labrador, one of the founders of the Freedom Caucus, urged Trump in a tweet to "Remember who your real friends are. We're trying to help you succeed."Trump's deteriorating relationship with Republican House conservatives could make it harder for him to pass his legislative agenda, which includes rewriting the U.S. tax code, revisiting a healthcare overhaul and funding construction of a wall along the U.S.-Mexican border.Trump, a New York businessman who touted his skills as a dealmaker in his bid for the White House, has repeatedly criticized Freedom Caucus members, blaming them for the defeat of legislation to repeal and replace former President Barack Obama's signature healthcare law. Freedom Caucus members said the bill did not go far enough to dismantle the 2010 Affordable Care Act, popularly known as Obamacare.Asked during a briefing whether Trump's tweet about the Freedom Caucus was a "divide-and-conquer" strategy, White House spokesman Sean Spicer said: "No, it's a math strategy, which is to get to 216," the number of votes currently needed to pass House legislation.The discord following the healthcare debacle was not limited to tensions between Trump and the Freedom Caucus. In recent days, the president has been out of sync with the two highest ranking Republicans in Congress, House Speaker Paul Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.Trump and his aides have suggested reviving the push for a healthcare bill. While Ryan expressed openness to the idea, McConnell said he thought doing so would be futile.

But Ryan publicly disagreed with Trump when the president offered to work with Democrats on new healthcare legislation."I don't want that to happen," the speaker told CBS in an interview aired on Thursday.'NOT AN IDEAL POSITION'

More than healthcare legislation was at stake.Republican lawmakers still await key details on what Trump's priorities are in the monumental tax reform effort they want to launch.Passing a budget for next year could also prove challenging. Trump and the Freedom Caucus want to dramatically shrink domestic programs. Moderate Republicans are aghast at proposals to cut popular programs that fund environmental cleanup and meals for senior citizens.Most pressing is an April 28 deadline for approving new funding to keep the government running.

"The GOP (Republican) House is riven by factions that are quite ideological. Trump is not," said University of Virginia political science professor Larry Sabato. "And let's throw in the fact that Trump is unpopular and weak and has no Democratic support in Congress."Add all this up. Neither Trump nor congressional Republicans are in an ideal position to govern, and that's an understatement," Sabato said.There are about three dozen members of the House Freedom Caucus, comprising about 15 percent of the 237 House Republicans. But their clout is larger, as Trump and Ryan cannot afford to lose too many House Republicans if they want to try to pass bills, like the Obamacare repeal, that attract zero Democratic support.Dan Meyer, a legislative affairs chief to former Republican President George W. Bush, said that with the Freedom Caucus threatening Trump's agenda, the White House either had to crack the code to working with those conservatives, or tack to the left.Moving to the left, and working with Democrats, comes at a price, he said, noting it could expose more Republicans to attacks from the right.Some Republicans were so furious they were publicly saying things usually reserved for closed-door meetings.

Representative Chris Collins, a Trump ally and part of the "Tuesday Group" of moderate Republicans, told reporters his group was so angry with the Freedom Caucus that it would "never" meet with them. Collins accused the Freedom Caucus of trying to shift blame for the healthcare failure to moderates.SENATORS CRINGE

As Trump fought with House Republicans and House Republicans fought with each other, Senate Republicans expressed alarm and urged efforts at consensus.Senator John McCain, who ran for president in 2008 and was defeated by Obama, said that if he were sitting in the White House now, he would try to ease intraparty tensions rather than stoking them. "But that's the president," said McCain who sometimes is at odds with Trump. He added this advice to Trump: "Sit down with them and say this is an emergency situation."Senator Cory Gardner, a Republican who served in the House from 2011 to 2014, said his former colleagues needed to quit arguing and come to a consensus "sooner rather than later."A senior House Republican aide distanced Ryan from Trump's strategy of upbraiding conservatives."Ryan ... is never going to intentionally alienate a large swath of his caucus," said the aide, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.Publicly, Ryan said he understood Trump's frustration. The speaker also said he was encouraging Republican lawmakers "to keep talking to one another."Ryan himself came under criticism from a fellow Republican, Senator Bob Corker, who chided the speaker for his views about courting Democrats on healthcare reform."We have come a long way in our country when the speaker of one party urges a president NOT to work with the other party to solve a problem," Corker wrote on Twitter. (Reporting by Doina Chiacu, Susan Cornwell, David Morgan, Roberta Rampton, Tim Ahmann, Amanda Becker, David Alexander; Writing by Richard Cowan; Editing by Jonathan Oatis and Peter Cooney)

This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed.
Moscow: Russian leader Vladimir Putin on Thursday said climate change was not caused by human activity, as the White House announced that President Donald Trump would decide by May on continued US participation in the landmark Paris Agreement limiting global carbon emissions.

One day after visiting the Franz Josef Land archipelago in the Arctic, Putin claimed that icebergs had been melting for decades and suggested that global warming was not mankind's fault.

"The warming, it had already started by the 1930s," Putin said in comments broadcast from an Arctic forum held in the northern Russian city of Arkhangelsk.

"That's when there were no such anthropological factors, such emissions, and the warming had already started."

The Kremlin strongman added: "The issue is not stopping it... because that's impossible, since it could be tied to some global cycles on Earth or even of planetary significance. The issue is to somehow adapt to it."

The declaration came as the White House said Trump would make his pronouncement on the Paris Agreement before a meeting of G7 leaders in Sicily that is scheduled to begin 26 May.

Putin supported his argument by saying that an Austrian explorer who had a "photographic memory" visited the Franz Josef Land archipelago "in the 1930s."

Twenty years later the explorer was shown photographs from another expedition there "by the future king of Italy" and concluded that "there were fewer icebergs there," Putin said.

It wasn't immediately clear which explorers Putin was referring to and Italy did not have a king in the 1950s. Austrian explorer Julius von Payer discovered and mapped the archipelago during the 1872-1874 expedition. The only Italian expedition to the area was organised in 1899 by Prince Luigi Amedeo, who was also an explorer. The archipelago was declared Soviet territory by the 1930s.

Putin had previously hailed global warming for exposing natural resources and transport routes which had long been too expensive to exploit.

He had also once speculated that warming by "two or three degrees" could be a good thing for Russians who would no longer need fur coats.

The latest declarations were a far cry from Putin's speech at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Paris in November 2015.

"The quality of life of all people on the planet depends on solving the climate problem," he had said, adding that Moscow had "exceeded" its obligations under the Kyoto Protocol.

"Russia's efforts have slowed global warming by almost a year. We were at the same time able to nearly double our country's GDP over the same period," he said.

"We consider it crucial that the new climate agreement be based on the UN Framework of Climate Change and that it be legally binding."

On Thursday, while his Finnish counterpart Sauli Niinisto called climate change a "serious threat" for the Arctic, Putin said that it brings "more propitious conditions for using this region for economic ends."

The Russian leader also wished luck to anti-climate litigator Scott Pruitt, who was confirmed last month as the new chief of the US Environmental Protection Agency to the horror of the scientific community.

Asked by moderator Geoff Cutmore of the CNBC what he thinks of the appointment of Pruitt, a climate sceptic who wants to roll back Washington's participation in the Paris climate accord, Putin said Pruitt's views deserve to be heard.

"Positions and suggestions of those who don't agree with their opponents are not so stupid," Putin said. "God grant him health and success, everybody should listen to one another and only then you can find an optimal solution to the problem."

Russia is warming at twice the rate of the rest of the world, according to government data, and both scientists and emergencies officials have indicated that disasters such as deadly floods and wildfires are influenced by climate change.
By Mfuneko Toyana and Tanisha Heiberg

| JOHANNESBURG

JOHANNESBURG President Jacob Zuma's midnight sacking of his finance minister shook South African markets on Friday, undermining his authority and threatening to split the African National Congress (ANC) that has governed since the end of apartheid.Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa, who is one of the leading candidates to replace Zuma as ANC president, described the decision to remove Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan as "totally, totally unacceptable".The comments by Ramaphosa, who usually publicly backs Zuma, were a sign of deepening divisions in the ANC that are likely to worsen until the party elects a new leader in December.Zuma's cabinet reorganisation rallied support, however, among powerful sections of the party that are hostile to banking interests they see Gordhan as representing. The Women's League and the influential ANC youth wing welcomed the reshuffle, which included moving former youth league leader Malusi Gigaba, 45, from home affairs to replace Gordhan, 67."Younger ministers will mean more transformation," Youth Wing leader Collen Maine said, citing hopes for land redistribution for poor black farmers, free education and more black involvement in state financial institutions. Ramaphosa said Zuma removed Gordhan on the basis of a "spurious" intelligence report that accused him and his deputy Mcebisi Jonas of plotting with banks in London to undermine the South African economy. Jonas was also fired by Zuma."I told the President so, that I would not agree with him on his reasoning," he said. Opposition parties and ANC sources say Zuma removed Gordhan because he was obstructing Zuma's allies' access to state funds. Zuma and his followers have been accused by opponents and some senior ANC members of corruption and links with the wealthy Indian Gupta family. A report by a constitutionally-mandated watchdog last year said the Guptas influenced Zuma in making government appointments.The Guptas and Zuma deny the allegations.

Gordhan said "we should all be afraid" when government decisions are made outside formal structures.Ramaphosa and former African Union Chairwoman Nkosozana Dlamini-Zuma are viewed as the front-runners to replace Zuma.Dlamini-Zuma is Zuma's ex-wife and he is expected to support her while a separate faction will back Ramaphosa, analysts say.ANC Secretary General Gwede Mantashe also openly criticised Zuma, in what analysts believe is a sign he will back Ramaphosa."I'm very uncomfortable because areas where ministers do not perform have not been touched. Ministers who have been moved, the majority of them are performing ministers," Mantashe told Talk Radio 702.

"I felt like this list has been developed somewhere else and was given to us to legitimise it," Mantashe added, in a comment that will fuel speculation Zuma is being influenced by people outside government.Rumours Zuma was to replace Gordhan have unsettled markets all week and ANC members urged the president to reconsider.The rand ZAR=D3 has fallen 5 percent since its highest point on Thursday prior to the reshuffle and is set for its biggest weekly decline since December 2015. Banking stocks .JBANK were down more than 5 percent on Friday and bond yields climbed sharply.Late on Friday evening, Zuma presided over the swearing in of new ministers and deputy ministers."HUGE RISK"

Zuma's determination to change his cabinet has thrown the ANC into its deepest crisis since it swept to power under Nelson Mandela at the end of apartheid in 1994. Opposition parties called for Zuma to resign; but analysts mostly predicted Zuma would survive the fallout after picking Gigaba to replace Gordhan, a more prudent choice than investors had feared, despite concern budget discipline would falter.

Zuma met with the most senior members of the ANC, known as "The Top Six", late on Thursday to inform them of the reshuffle but flouted accepted procedure in deciding not to consult them."Jacob Zuma has take a huge political risk, possibly the biggest political risk of his career thus far," Daniel Silke, director at Political Futures Consultancy said."This will put further strain on an already fractured ANC. Zuma will survive but he will survive within an ANC that finds itself unable to accomplish just about anything."So far the race to replace Zuma has been muted but the divisive reshuffle is likely to split the ANC into two sides, one aligned to Zuma and the other to Ramaphosa, a former trade union boss turned business tycoon. "These tensions will barrel into the ANCs succession debate and here we expect the presidents move has strengthened the support for Mr Ramaphosa," Simon Freemantle, Senior Political Economist at Standard Bank said.Business and political leaders condemned Zuma and predicted that South Africa's sovereign credit rating would be downgraded to "junk" in the coming months.Fitch, one of two rating firms that rate South Africa's credit score just one notch above junk, said the reshuffle could weaken public finances and standards of governance if the fiscal consolidation championed by Gordhan became less of a priority.ANC ally the South African Communist Party said the firing of Gordhan, who was seen by investors locally and abroad as a champion of fiscal responsibility, risked triggering the looting of treasury.Last year the Constitutional Court ordered Zuma to repay 7.8 million rand ($579,004) in inappropriate state spending on his sprawling country home. (Additional reporting by Olivia Kumwenda-Mtambo, Nqobile Dludla, TJ Strydom, Olwethu Boso and Ed Stoddard; writing by Joe Brock; editing by Ralph Boulton and Philippa Fletcher)

This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed.
By James Macharia

| JOHANNESBURG

JOHANNESBURG South Africa's President Jacob Zuma sacked Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan in a cabinet reshuffle late on Thursday, eNCA television said, after days of speculation that has rocked the country's markets and currency.Zuma had replaced Gordhan with Malusi Gigaba, eNCA said. The news of Gordhan's sacking and Gigaba's appointment could not be independently confirmed by Reuters. A steep decline in the rand underlined Gordhan's reputation among investors as a guardian of policymaking stability in South Africa.Zuma would make an announcement on changes to his cabinet later on Thursday, the president's office said in a statement.Gigaba has been the country's Home Affairs Minister. The television channel also said that Sfiso Buthelezi was appointed to replace Deputy Finance Minister Mcebisi Jonas.

Speculation over cabinet changes began when Zuma called a meeting of the ruling African National Congress' top officials on Thursday evening, a party source and media said.Online news service News24 cited sources as saying that nine ministers, including Gordhan, and six deputy ministers were about to be reshuffled. State broadcaster SABC said a total of 15 ministers and their deputies would be moved.

Earlier, the ANC-allied Communist Party (SACP) said Zuma had told the party on Monday that he planned to sack Gordhan. The SACP said it had objected, while the main opposition said it would call a vote of no-confidence in Zuma over the matter.For the second consecutive day, the influential ANC Youth League issued a statement backing Zuma's planned cabinet changes.

Local assets have been under pressure since Monday, when Zuma ordered Gordhan to abandon an investor roadshow in Britain and fly home. Zuma gave no reason for the recall.Gordhan said upon his arrival on Tuesday that he was still finance minister. On Wednesday, he said he would "open a new chapter" of his life if sacked.Gordhan first served as finance minister from 2009 to 2014 and was brought back by Zuma in December 2015 to calm markets spooked by the president's decision to replace his respected successor, Nhlanhla Nene, with a little-known politician. (Additonal reporting by Wendell Roelf in Cape Town; Writing by James Macharia; editing by Grant McCool)

This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed.
By James Macharia

| JOHANNESBURG

JOHANNESBURG South Africa's President Jacob Zuma sacked finance minister Pravin Gordhan in a cabinet reshuffle after days of speculation that has rocked the country's markets and currency, replacing him with home affairs head Malusi Gigaba. A statement from the president's office just after midnight on Thursday said Zuma had also appointed Sfiso Buthelezi as Deputy Finance Minister replacing Mcebisi Jonas.A steep decline in the rand underlined Gordhan's reputation among investors as a guardian of policymaking stability in South Africa.Gigaba has been Home Affairs Minister, while Buthelezi did not hold a position in the cabinet and was a backbencher in parliament.Zuma also made several other changes in his cabinet, affecting ministries such as energy, police, tourism and others. He brought in new faces and moved some ministers to new portfolios. Speculation over cabinet changes began when Zuma called a meeting of the ruling African National Congress' top officials on Thursday evening."I have directed the new ministers and deputy ministers to work tirelessly with their colleagues to bring about radical socioeconomic transformation and to ensure that the promise of a better life for the poor and the working class becomes a reality," Zuma said.Earlier, the ANC-allied Communist Party (SACP) said Zuma had told its officials on Monday that he planned to sack Gordhan. The SACP said it had objected, while the main opposition said it would call a vote of no-confidence in Zuma over the matter.For the second consecutive day, the influential ANC Youth League issued a statement on Thursday backing Zuma's planned cabinet changes.

Local assets have been under pressure since Monday, when Zuma ordered Gordhan to abandon an investor roadshow in Britain and fly home. Zuma gave no reason for the recall.Gordhan said upon his arrival on Tuesday that he was still finance minister. On Wednesday, he said he would "open a new chapter" of his life if sacked.Gordhan first served as finance minister from 2009 to 2014 and was brought back by Zuma in December 2015 to calm markets spooked by the president's decision to replace his respected successor, Nhlanhla Nene, with a little-known politician.Opposition leader Mmusi Maimane, leader of the Democratic Alliance, urged resistance to Zuma's decision to fire Gordhan and Jonas. "We cannot sit by and let this happen," he said.UNKNOWN GIGABA

Gigaba was an unknown quantity, analysts said."The market will struggle to digest Gigaba. We think this is bad for the market and for SA," Nomura emerging markets analyst Peter Attard Montalto said in a note."We view this as an open attack on Treasury to replace people who are conservative and anti-corruption with people loyal to Zuma." Some pundits say Gordhan is being pressured by a faction allied to Zuma, which has clashed with him over his plans to rein in government spending, the management of state enterprises and the running of the tax agency as the economy stagnates.Africa's most industrialised economy faces the risk of being downgraded to junk status owing to weak economic growth after it got a reprieve last year. The economy grew by 0.3 percent in 2016 versus 1.3 percent in the previous year.

"The little that we know at the moment is that its probably not good news for the markets because he (Gigaba) doesn't have any real finance experience," said Noelani King Conradie, managing director at NKC African Economics. "This definitely raises the risk of rating downgrades and it is going to continue the uncertainty about future economic policies."Zuma shrugged off pressure from within his own party, the opposition as well as the business circles to keep Gordhan.Two senior sources told Reuters on Thursday that Zuma was considering offering to step down next year, at least 12 months before his term ends, in a deal with his opponents in the party that would see Gordhan leave office now.On Wednesday, sources within the ANC told Reuters there was a split down the middle among its six most senior officials over whether Gordhan should be sacked.Julius Malema, leader of the ultra-left Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) and a former protege of Zuma, filed a court application for disciplinary or impeachment proceedings against the president on Thursday.Daniel Silke, a political analyst and director at Political Futures Consultancy said Zuma had taken a risk. "This has been a long time coming. The president has clearly taken a politically risky decision to remove a finance minister who is well regarded both domestically and internationally," he said. (Additonal reporting by Tiisetso Motsoeneng in Johannesburg and Wendell Roelf in Cape Town; Writing by James Macharia; editing by Grant McCool)

This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed.
SYDNEY Floodwaters filled the streets of a major Australian town of more than 25,000 people on Friday, as a storm system generated by the powerful cyclone that pummeled the nation's northeast three days ago swept down the coast with heavy rain. Cyclone Debbie hit as a Category Four storm in the north of tropical Queensland state on Tuesday, smashing tourist resorts, bringing down power lines, flattening canefields and shutting down coal mines.Authorities on Friday told almost 20,000 people to evacuate to higher ground as driving rain in hinterland and coastal areas either side of the Queensland state capital, Brisbane, swelled rivers to record heights across the region."We have everything happening, we've got people on rooftops, we've had people stuck in vans, it's a disaster, an utter disaster," New South Wales State Emergency Services Controller Ian Leckie told Australian Broadcasting Corporation radio.

The cyclone was downgraded to a tropical low depression on Wednesday and on Thursday it unleashed squalls with torrential rain across a 1,200-km (745-mile) stretch of Australia's east coast, before slowly moving out to sea on Friday. No deaths were reported, but authorities feared fatalities after logging more than 100 flood rescues during the night. Gales and huge surf swells lashed the coast still around Cape Byron. At Lismore, the rising Wilsons River overwhelmed a levee protecting the rural hub in the Northern Rivers region of New South Wales, home to at least 25,000 people, and floodwaters flowed downtown, filling streets and swamping dozens of shops.

"The CBD is being flooded and because it's now very dark and it's also windy, there are a lot of people who're scared as well," former Lismore mayor Jenny Dowell told the ABC.Tens of thousands of people in the affected areas are without electricity.

In the cyclone-hit zone further north, military helicopters, ferries and planes on Thursday evacuated hundreds of holidaymakers from the resort islands along the world-famous Great Barrier Reef and the Whitsunday coast that bore the brunt of the storm with wind gusts stronger than 260 kph (160 mph).In the Bowen Basin, the world's single largest source of coal used to make steel, major miners Glencore and BHP, said they were still assessing the extent of any disruption to shipments.About 2,500 insurance claims have been filed but Queensland's top two insurers, Suncorp Group Ltd and RACQ, said it was too early to put a dollar figure on the damage.One female tourist was killed in a car crash on Monday that police said was due to wild weather as Cyclone Debbie approached. (Reporting by Tom Westbrook; Editing by Sandra Maler)

This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed.
NEW YORK The United States is no longer making removing Syrian President Bashar al-Assad from power a focus of its policy in the war-torn country, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations said on Thursday, in a departure from the Obama administration's initial stance on Assad's fate. "Our priority is no longer to sit there and focus on getting Assad out," Ambassador Nikki Haley told a small group of reporters. "Our priority is to really look at how do we get things done, who do we need to work with to really make a difference for the people in Syria.

"We can't necessarily focus on Assad the way that the previous administration did," she said.

Former U.S. President Barack Obama said as early as August 2011 that Assad had to go. By September 2015, his administration had moderated its stance slightly, with Obama's secretary of state, John Kerry, saying that Assad had to go but the timing of his departure should be decided through negotiation.

On Thursday, U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, speaking in Ankara, said Assad's longer-term status "will be decided by the Syrian people." (Reporting by Michelle Nichols; Writing by Tim Ahmann and Yara Bayoumy; Editing by David Alexander and Leslie Adler)

This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed.
Ukrainian agribusiness group Kernel is selling its last Russian asset, a 50% stake in the Taman grain terminal.

Swiss commodities trader Glencore, which owns the other half of the terminal, is seen as the most likely buyer, national daily Kommersant reported on Friday.

Kernel's plans to sell its stake in the terminal were revealed by Glencore Agri CEO Chris Mayoney, who was cited by foreign media outlets.

Kernel and Glencore bought the Taman terminal on an equal basis from the Efko Group in 2012 for $265 million. The terminal can handle 3.6 million tonnes of grain per year, and includes an elevator with storage capacity for 80,000 tonnes and potential for expansion to 220,000 tonnes.

The deputy director of strategic marketing at Rusagrotrans, Igor Pavensky said the terminal handled a record 3.38 million tonnes of grain last season, and Kernel's share of this was about 35%. This season, shipments through the terminal are down by 14% year-on-year, with 2.53 million tonnes shipped in July-March, of which Kernel accounted for 39%.

Kernel, one of Ukraine's largest agribusiness groups, produces sunflower oil, grows grain and oil crops, and exports corn, wheat and barley and other products. Annual exports total about 7 million tonnes, according to company data. In addition to the Taman terminal, Kernel operates Transbulkterminal at the Ukrainian port of Illichivsk with capacity to handle 4 million tonnes of grain per year.

The Taman terminal handled more than 10% of Russian grain exports shipped by sea, Rusagrotrans estimates.

The adviser on the sale of Kernel's stake in the terminal is Deutsche Bank, Kommersant said, citing sources.

Grain market experts estimate that Kernel's stake in the terminal is worth anywhere from $70 million to $150 million.

One grain market player said the most obvious buyer for Kernel's stake is Glencore. A spokesman for Glencore declined to comment.

The Taman terminal is Kernel's last asset in Russia. In March 2016, Vedomosti reported that the group was offering to sell oil extraction plants Florentina and Maslo Stavropolya. The Resurs Group, which bought an oil plant in Nevinnomysk from Kernel in 2014 for $10 million, was said to be the potential buyer. Resurs did in fact acquire control of Florentina in May 2016, but Kernel is still listed as the founder of Maslo Stavropolya, according to the Unified State Register of Legal Entities.

Grain market players said that Kernel's plans to completely pull out of Russia became known last year. This decision was made because of problems within the group itself, due to a drop in operating results, as well as the political situation, one of them said.

Kernel's revenue fell 14.6% to $1.9 billion in the 2016 financial year (ended June 30) and EBITDA slumped 12.7% to $346.4 million, but net profit jumped 110% to $225.2 million. The company's grain sales fell 7% to 4.4 million tonnes in the period.
The U.S. Justice Department will appeal a ruling from a Hawaii federal judge which granted an injunction blocking President Donald Trump's revised restrictions on travel from some Muslim-majority countries, it said in a court filing on Thursday.

The appeal will be considered by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, which last month upheld a suspension of Trump's first travel order.

(Reporting by Dan Levine; Editing by Richard Chang)

This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed.
Will he? Won't he?

Similar talks kept doing the rounds on the internet after Bob Dylan snubbed an acceptance ceremony in December for his Nobel Prize last year. Patti Smith accepted the award on his behalf, and read out a beautiful acceptance speech penned by Bob Dylan.

Now, he is performing at Stockholm this weekend. And he will physically accept the award from the Nobel Prize academy. Professor Sara Danius, permanent secretary of the Swedish Academy said, "The Swedish Academy is very much looking forward to the weekend and will show up at one of the performances." She added, "Please note that no Nobel Lecture will be held. The Academy has reason to believe that a taped version will be sent at a later point".

Also, he will be the only songwriter to receive this accolade apart from our very own Rabindranath Tagore.
The higher business court of Ukraine on March 22 confirmed the right of national joint-stock company Nadra Ukrainy to the 24% stake in joint operations on the Sakhalynske gas condensate field (Kharkiv region), the press service of Ukrainian Prosecutor General's Office (PGO) has reported.

"The higher business court on March 22, 2017 did not satisfy the counterclaim, and left the ruling of the appeal court [declaring Nadra Ukrainy's right to the stake in JV on the Sakhalynske field] unchanged," PGO said.

As reported, earlier Nadra Ukrainy sold a stake in JV on the Sakhalynske field to Golden Derrick LLC, while the sale and purchase agreement was terminated in court.

Former Minister of Ecology and Natural Resources of Ukraine Ihor Shevchenko said in March 2015 that in addition to returning shares on Sakhalynske field he sued Golden Derrick for compensation of losses for the illegal use of shares in the field.
Ukraine's Cabinet of Ministry has filed a counterclaim against a ruling of Kyiv's district administrative court declaring invalid the decision of Ukraine's Cabinet of Ministers not to allow Yuzgaz B.V. (the Netherlands) to participate in the product sharing agreement (PSA) on the Yuzivska field (Kharkiv and Donetsk regions).

The information has been posted on the Judicial Power of Ukraine portal.

The counterclaim was filed on March 30.

As reported, Kyiv's district administrative court on March 20 obliged the government to resume the consideration of the Yuzgaz's application for the Yuzivska field.

On November 2, 2016, the government decided not to permit Yuzgaz B. V. to participate in the PSA for the Yuzivska field.

Yuzgaz founder is Emerstone Energy investment fund, part of Emerstone Capital Partners of businessman Jaroslav Kinach.
Apple is gearing up to start assembling iPhones in India. According to a latest PTI report, the company will start making iPhones in the country from April. The news comes a month after government of Karnataka welcomed Apples proposal to begin initial manufacturing operations in Bangalore.

Karnataka IT Minister Priyank Kharge told PTI,

Apple is ready to start assembling high-end iPhones in less than a month. This will boost its chances of gaining a foothold in the fast growing Indian market. In less than a month, we will have something out  Apple will start assembling and making its high-end iPhones at its plant in the city. Taiwanese contract manufacturer company, Wistron Corp will help Apple in in the process.

Earlier this month, Commerce and Industry Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said, the government has not accepted most of the demands of iphone maker Apple which wants to set up manufacturing unit in India. Apple India has sought concessions including duty exemption on manufacturing and repair units, components, capital equipment and consumables for smartphone manufacturing and service/repair for a period of 15 years. In January this year, Information Technology Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said that India would consider Apples request for incentives to invest in the country with an open mind.

Kharge said if the Centre is keen on taking on China, it should not give special treatment to Apple alone, but to other players as well such as Samsung and Lenovo.

Source
The Prime Minister of Ukraine Volodymyr Groysman is ready to present the pension reform in the near future, and also hopes that with the support of the deputies of the Ukrainian parliament of this reform, it could be adopted by the end of the current session of the parliament.

"I believe that in 2017 we need to stop the process under which 80% of Ukrainians receive minimum pensions. We already know how to do this and we will present this reform in the near future. I would like this reform to be supported by the Ukrainian parliament and I am ready to bear full responsibility for the result of this reform [...] I am sure that with the support of 226 votes of the Ukrainian parliament we will be able to vote until the end of this session by July 15. And we will be able to raise pensions to Ukrainian citizens throughout the country," he said at a meeting with representatives of regional media in Kyiv on Friday.

According to Groysman, the pension system should be fair and deficit-free, and could give an opportunity to raise the level of pensions.

"Today, the deficit of the pension fund is UAH 141 billion. [...] My task is to ensure that in 7 years this deficit will equal zero or be close to zero," the prime minister said.
Shares of Corning Incorporated (NYSE: GLW) are up nearly 14% so far in 2017, most recently helped by signs of accelerating momentum for the glass technologist's business when it released fourth-quarter 2016 results in late January. Then only a week later, the company further stoked investors' enthusiasm by increasing its quarterly dividend by 14.8%, to $0.155 per share. That brings Corning's annual dividend payout to $0.62 per share, good for a healthy 2.25% yield as of this writing.

But that increase is only the tip of the iceberg for Corning investors today.

IMAGE SOURCE: GETTY IMAGES.

Rewarding shareholders with capital returns

Corning Chairman and CEO Wendell Weeks referred to the latest boost to the payout as merely "another significant step toward meeting our goal of distributing more than $12.5 billion to shareholders through a combination of share repurchases and dividend increases of at least 10% annually through 2019."

By that measure, Corning's annual dividend payout will beat least$0.75 per share two years from now -- perhaps higher, if the size of its latest increase is any indication -- which would represent an even better 2.72% yield on the cost basis for investors who buy now.

That's not to mention Corning's ambitious share repurchase efforts. Since Corning initially outlinedits long-term Strategy and Capital Allocation Framework in October 2015, the company has already returned $6 billion (of its $12.5 billion targeted amount) to investors through dividends and repurchases.

We should also keep in mind that Corning seems likely to continue its share repurchases and dividend increases well after 2019. In the five years leading up to the unveiling of its new Strategy and Capital Allocation framework, the company not only reduced its number of shares outstanding by more than 24% through share repurchases, but also more than doubled its dividend payout through steady annual increases. It seems only reasonable that Corning would continue these long-standing patterns assuming the its business remains healthy.

GLW Shares Outstanding data by YCharts.

Investing in the business

Speaking of which, Corning has simultaneously promised to invest $10 billion toward fortifying its business and industry leadership through research, development, and engineering initiatives.

Most recently, for example, those initiatives have opened the door to a significantly expanded addressable market for Corning's popular Gorilla Glass product -- which is primarily known as the cover glass of choice for the world's most popular mobile devices -- by propelling it into the automotive industry. For the 2017 Consumer Electronics Show in January, Corning even built its own fully operational electric vehicle prototype to showcase the various novel, cost-efficient applications of its high-tech products. Those applications range from ultra-light, massively durable Gorilla Glass hybrid windshields, windows, and sunroofs -- all of which feature user-controlled tint capabilities -- to a Gorilla Glass-covered dashboard, steering wheel with a built-in fingerprint sensor, and a curved glass center console with built-in wireless charging and temperature sensors.

Of course, those products are all in the earliest stages of potential adoption. But in the meantime, Corning is already enjoying significant traction for its recently launched Gorilla Glass 5 product; Specialty Materials sales rose 22% year over year last quarter on record Gorilla Glass volume. Meanwhile, Corning is enjoying strong demand and continued price moderation for LCD glass, which comprises the bulk of sales (up slightly last quarter) and earnings (up 18%) for its core Display Technologies segment. And growth in both revenue (up 11% last quarter) and earnings (up 85%) from Corning's optical communications business have remained robust thanks to demand from its North American carrier network business and fiber-to-the-home solutions.

In the end, with Corning not only investing heavily in its strong core businesses, placing promising irons in the fire to capture future incremental growth opportunities, and given its ambitious plans for continued capital returns, I think Corning stock stands to handsomely reward investors willing to buy and hold as its growth story continues to play out in the coming years.

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President Donald Trump signed two executive orders on Friday that the White House says will combat global trade abuses and protect U.S. workers.

"Thousands of factories have been stolen from our country...Under my administration the theft of American prosperity will end," Trump said Friday.

The directives come less than one week before Trump is scheduled to meet with the president of Chinathe largest contributor to the U.S. trade deficit.

One of the executive orders signed into law Friday calls for a full-scale 90-day investigation into every form of trade abuse that contributes to the U.S. deficit, which totaled more than $502 billion in 2016. The probe will examine the nations economic relationship with every country on a product-by-product basis, according to U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross.

Peter Navarro, director of the White House National Trade Council, told FOX Business Friday the White House intends to look into all of the ways the U.S. is being taken advantage of in the global economy.

We are the freest trading nation in the world. On balance, we have the lowest tariffs and the lowest non tariffs. We run these enormous trade deficitsWilbur Ross and his team are going tolook comprehensively at all of the different ways that we are getting that deficit, Navarro said.

The second executive order aims to enforce anti-dumping duties on imports from forty countries that are cheating the American people, according to Navarro. Navarro said the U.S. is owed $2.8 billion that hasnt been collected from these types of trade abuse cases over the past fifteen years alone.

This executive orderbasically [provides] Customs and Border Protection with all the tools it needs to collect this money, Navarro said. Its also about the fact that if we dont collect the revenues, our industries [will] continue to remain at a disadvantage.

One of the countries candidate-turned-President Trump has been the toughest on regarding unfair trade practices is China. Last year that deficit totaled more than $347 billion, according to U.S. government data. The Chinese president is scheduled to visit the U.S. next week and Trump said he anticipates it will be a difficult conversation.

...and job losses. American companies must be prepared to look at other alternatives.  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 30, 2017

Still, Navarro insists the timing of the executive orders is purely coincidental.

These two orders have nothing to do about the China trip, nothing to do with China, Navarro said. Wilbur Ross is going to look at about sixteen different countries with which we run significant trade deficits. China is just one of them.
Self-driving cars are coming. That has a lot of investors asking: How might we best invest in this disruptive emerging industry?

Maybe we could keep it simple, by buying a company that already makes vehicles.

"Wait," I can hear you saying, "why would we invest in an old automaker for future tech? Aren't these guys dinosaurs?"

Not all of them. Ford Motor Company (NYSE: F) is undergoing a high-tech transformation, boosting its software chops and looking to be a leader in the emerging world of technology-enabled alternatives to traditional car ownership. And itrecently took a big step forward on the self-driving software front.

Is it enough to make Ford a buy? Let's take a look.

A Ford Fusion self-driving test vehicle. Image source: Ford Motor Company.

Ford's transformation builds on its famous turnaround

Ford famously came back from the dead under now-retired CEO Alan Mulally. Now, his handpicked successor, Mark Fields, is set on writing the next chapter of Ford's renaissance, as a company that is as much about tech-enabled "mobility" as it is about manufacturing cars and trucks.

Last fall, Fields announced a comprehensive plan to boost Ford's tech savvy (and its profitability) over the next few years. You can learn more about it here, but one key to that plan is self-driving tech.Ford has been touting its advancing self-driving prowess for a couple of years now. But it took a very big step forward earlier this year, when it announced a $1 billion investment in a new start-up called Argo AI.

The start-up that will be Ford's self-driving software center

Argo AI is no ordinary start-up, and it's not an ordinary deal. Cofounded by two veterans of self-driving development projects at Alphabet and Uber Technologies, Argo AI is being created to be the center of Ford's self-driving software development.

Alphabet veteran Bryan Salesky (second from right) and Uber alum Peter Rander (left) are Argo AI's co-founders. They're shown with Ford CEO Mark Fields (second from left) and Ford CTO Raj Nair (right). Nair and another Ford executive will join Argo AI's board of directors. Image source: Ford Motor Company.

The idea is that its structure as a start-up, with equity stakes and upside for employees, is likely to be a powerful tool for recruiting and retaining top talent. The retention part is important: Ford's existing self-driving software team will join Argo AI.

Ford doesn't own Argo AI outright. That's intentional: It gives employees the opportunity to own stakes in the business, with the possibility of a public offering down the road. For does gets dibs on what Argo AI creates, but if it turns out that there's a market, there's a real possibility that the self-driving software system created by Argo AI could be offered to other automakers.

It's a unique deal that appears to put Ford in an excellent position as the autonomous-vehicle industry emerges.

What else is Ford planning?

Beyond that, we don't know everything that Ford has planned. It has said that it will begin mass-producing a dedicated Level 4 self-driving vehicle for car-sharing and ride-hailing use in 2021. That vehicle will be a plug-in hybrid rather than a pure battery-electric, presumably to cut down on the time it needs to be out of service. It'll be built at Ford's factory in Flat Rock, Michigan.

Ford hasn't said much about its plans beyond that. But the company may be laying the groundwork for a suite of mobility services that includes a Ford-branded challenge to Uber and Lyft. Taken together, the world of "mobility" offers a significant bottom-line growth opportunity for Ford, one that Fields is already working to seize.

So what's the investment case for Ford?

Right now, Ford is solidly profitable, making hay on strong global demand for its well-regarded (and very profitable) lineup of trucks and SUVs. It's trading at just about 6.5 times its adjusted 2016 earnings, with a fat (and likely sustainable) dividend yield of 5.16% backed by a payout ratio of 52%.

Fields and his veteran management team have already proven themselves to be savvy stewards of the Blue Oval; investors may need to be patient, but the next chapters of Ford's story, powered by its aggressive moves into self-driving and other new technologies, could turn out to be quite profitable ones.

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Suzanne Frey, an executive at Alphabet, is a member of The Motley Fools board of directors. John Rosevear owns shares of Ford. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Alphabet (A and C shares) and Ford. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
Former General Electric CEO Jack Welch (NYSE:GE) thinks President Trump can right the ship after his bruising implosion of the health care bill, especially if he targets tax reform.

Focus, focus. Keep the regulations going. Think about jobs. Get this country working. The idea is you win with the rising tide, taking all boats to better prosperity. Think about this tax reform bill. Make sure the corporate tax is fair. Make sure the middle class gets the bulk of the tax cuts, said Welch during an interview on Fox News Your World With Neil Cavuto.

Welch, who is among one of the worlds most legendary CEOs, feels the push to tackle health care first may have been a mistake.

He [Trump] won on jobs. He didn't win on healthcare, Welch bemoaned. They handed the president a package that was the [House] Speaker's [Rep. Paul Ryan] dream. They transformed it into a package deal to go follow them along. He played ball. He did his part. They didn't do their part. They didn't deliver.

On Thursday morning, President Trump met with U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and other members of his economic team, to discuss tax reform.

[Trumps] team is weighing the best option to develop a plan that will provide significant middle class tax relief and make American businesses more competitive, said White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer, during Thursdays press briefing.

Welch sees an 80 percent-plus chance that tax reform gets done by year-end.
The man behind Brexit, Nigel Farage, has called European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker a complete and total idiot after Juncker said he would support the independence of U.S. states in response to President Donald Trumps support for Brexit.

In an interview with FOX Business Networks Stuart Varney, Farage said the remarks had cost Juncker and the European Union "whatever credibility it had in the USA.

[Juncker] is comparing the United States of America, which has a common culture and a common desire to be a nation, with the United States of Europe that he wants to build and impose upon the peoples of Europe, Farage said. Brexit has happened, Trump was a supporter of that project, and now frankly, this idiot, because I cant think of a better word says that hell campaign for Ohio to break away from the USA."

Although Farage is now critical of the EU chiefs support of independence of U.S. states, he was reportedly recruited to help lead an effort to break up California into multiple states.

Farage said that he has to remove any doubt that it is not me trying to break up California. He did say the state splitting up may be a stretch, but he said Brexit proved if you want something enough, it can happen.

I mean think about it, there are 200 countries in the world with populations smaller than California, Farage said. ...What Brexit proves, if you want something enough, it can happen. Looking at the liberal coast and the more conservative interior, I dont think it is completely impossible.
A U.S. judge on Friday approved a $25 million settlement to resolve a class action lawsuit that claimed fraud against President Donald Trump and his Trump University real estate seminars.

The ruling from U.S. District Judge Gonzalo Curiel in San Diego concluded a lengthy and contentious lawsuit that played a prominent role in the presidential campaign last year.

The Trump University students, who paid as much as $35,000 for the seminars, claimed they were lured by false promises that they would learn Trump's investing "secrets" from his "hand-picked" instructors.

One Trump University student objected to the deal, in particular a provision blocking students from opting out of it. She said in court papers she would like to seek full recovery from Trump, plus punitive damages and other relief.

An attorney for that student could not immediately be reached for comment.

During the campaign, Trump vowed to continue fighting the fraud claims but agreed to the settlement soon after he was elected. He has admitted he did not personally select the instructors, but his lawyers have described the claim as sales "puffery."

Last year, Trump accused Judge Curiel of bias based on the Indiana-born judge's Mexican ancestry.

In his ruling on Friday, Curiel called the $25 million settlement "extraordinary" in that it represented an estimated 80 percent recovery for the students.

"The amount offered in settlement provides significant and immediate recovery," Curiel wrote.

(Reporting by Dan Levine in San Francisco; Editing by Toni Reinhold)
The An-132D aircraft manufactured by Antonov state corporation on Friday, March 31, successfully completed its first flight, flying from the airdrome of Sviatoshyne to Hostomel airfield (Kyiv region).

According to an Interfax-Ukraine correspondent, after landing in Hostomel airfield, the crew of the plane was met by President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko, Ukrainian officials and representatives of Saudi Arabia.

"The creation of this transport plane was joined by the leading enterprises of the world's aircraft manufacturing: companies from the United States, Great Britain, France, Germany and many other countries. The An-132D is a unique example in the history of Ukrainian aviation that proves the need to develop the introduction of production cooperation with Western partners. Now this cooperation is being built up with NATO member states, which is in line with the development strategy of our state," Poroshenko said.

The president expressed hope that with joint cooperation with foreign partners the serial production of An-132D aircraft will be launched.
An Ohio sheriff has written to President Trump, asking him to "shut down" businesses that hire illegal immigrants.

I urge you to take a stand and do the right thing by having Immigration and Customs Enforcement sent to Ohio, specifically Butler County," wrote Butler County Sheriff Richard Jones. "We need to get these businesses shut down that hire illegals to fill vacant positions."

Jones says business pad their profits by hiring these illegal workers. These businesses do know what they are doing Its cheap labor and they work the hell out of them and they take jobs away from Americans, he told FOX Business Networks Stuart Varney.

Jones says Butler County, which sites between two sanctuary cities, is a hotbed for businesses looking to recruit illegal workers. They recruit them from other countries. They have people that go out and hunt them down, he said. People say that Americans wont do these jobs. Thats not true. There used to be American drywallers... American roofers -- Theyve run them all out of business and its continuing.
A group of self-described Patriotic Millionaires are pushing for the wealthy to pay more in taxes.

During an interview on the FOX Business Network, Varney & Co.s host, Stuart Varney challenged IceStone USA CEO Dal LaMagna  a member of the Patriotic Millionaires  over their efforts to have the rich pay more taxes, when he himself doesnt pay more.

You want strivers to pay more money, when you wealthy guys who built it up tax free  you dont pay any money on that wealth do you? Varney exclaimed.

LaMagna disputed that the concept of the rich paying more taxes only works if its done by the collective.

It doesnt work for this society if just me pays it. I mean, thats like a drop in the ocean, thats how it works, LaMagna said.

Varney debated with the self-made millionaire, who sold his company Tweezerman for a fortune, that what the Patriotic Millionaires are proposing is more taxes on hardworking Americans, rather than the wealthy; who wont pay a dime.

LaMagna even agreed that he wont pay taxes on his wealth, but went on to argue that when I trade the markets and I make two million dollars in a market trade, Im going to pay capital gains and I want to pay even more.

The IceStone USA CEO finished by claiming theyre after the people who make more than half-a-million dollars a year, not the hardworking American people.
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson attended his first meeting Friday with NATOas foreign ministers in Brussels, where he took the opportunity to press members on their failure to meet their full financial obligations to the alliance.

"Our goal should be to agree at the May leaders meeting that by the end of the year all Allies will have either met the pledge guidelines or will have developed plans that clearly articulate how, with annual milestone progress commitments, the pledge will be fulfilled," Tillerson said.

While the summit was largely expected to focus on strengthening global security, the White Houseas recent complaints about unfair burden sharing did not fall on deaf ears.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said this week ahead of the meeting that member defense spending contributions would be a part of the summitas agenda.

aDuring [Fridayas] first working session we will look at how to further strengthen the transatlantic bond with more and better defense spending and fair burden-sharing across the alliance,a Stoltenberg said on Thursday.

President Donald Trump and his administration have been steadfast -- and vocal -- about their insistence that member states step up contributions to meet funding expectations, set at 2% of each countryas respective GDPs.

The United States contributed more than 22% of the organizationas budget in 2016, according to White House data, which constituted 3.6% of U.S. GDP at $664 billion, far outpacing all other members. Out of all 28 countries that belong to NATO, only five met the minimum contribution level last yearathe U.S., Greece, the U.K., Estonia and Poland.

One of the notable exceptions to that list from Trumpas perspective is Germany. The president jabbed German Chancellor Angela Merkel during her visit to the White House earlier this month, deriding Berlin for its failure to reach NATOas funding target. In 2016, Germany contributed $41.6 billion, just 1.2% of its GDP.

Despite what you have heard from the FAKE NEWS, I had a GREAT meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Nevertheless, Germany owes.....  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 18, 2017

...vast sums of money to NATO & the United States must be paid more for the powerful, and very expensive, defense it provides to Germany!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 18, 2017

The United Statesa relationship with NATO has been tense since President Trump took office. Trump has been a strong critic of the intergovernmental military-based alliance, which, just prior to his inauguration, he called aobsoletea for its failure to make substantial headway in the fight against terror. In July the then president-elect said he wouldnat automatically defend fellow member nations who were not living up to their financial obligations, a clear violation of the organizationas communal agreement.

He has since somewhat softened his stance on NATOas relevance, saying the administration astrongly supportsa the alliance, both last month and again during his meeting with Merkel earlier in March.

Tillerson continued to reassure the foreign ministers on Friday that the U.S. would uphold agreements and ensure each member has the ability to defend itself.

aWe understand that a threat against one of us is a threat against all of us, and we will respond accordingly. We will uphold the agreements we have made to defend our allies,a Tillerson said.

After rumors spread Tillerson intended to skip the summit, which was initially scheduled for April 5 around Chinese President Xi Jinpingas visit to Mar-a-Lago, the gathering was reportedly shifted to accommodate the U.S. leadersa schedules.

"It became obvious that [date] didn't work for Secretary Tillerson," the NATO Secretary General told reporters in Brussels.

President Trump is set to attend the NATO summit in May.
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When Dawn Wells and five of her college roommates sailed to the Solomon Islands, they expected no running water, electricity or television. However, she experienced one big surprise while vacationing in a remote island within the Pacific.

As our little canoe hit the sand, the chiefs wife looked at me and said, I know you, explained the 78-year-old actress and former Miss Nevada. She tells me, In the 1970s I went to nursing school in Honiara, the capital of the Solomon Islands. I used to come home and watch you in black and white. So even in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, with no television, they knew who I was because of that show.

DAWN WELLS GIVES ADVICE IN NEW BOOK

Meeting wonderful people with imagination. pic.twitter.com/G0MH5hMsIm  Dawn Wells (@therealmaryann) April 16, 2016

Wells was referring to Gilligans Island, an American sitcom that only ran from 1964 to 1967 -- for three seasons -- and yet it has never gone off the air and continues to be screened in over 30 languages. She starred as Mary Ann Summers, an unapologetic "good girl" who was stranded on an island with six other castaways. Wells isnt surprised that the show continues to be beloved among longtime viewers.

I have been resonating with young boys for 50 years, she told Fox News. [But] it was wholesome and not risque. So mom and dad didnt care what you watched. And I think we raised a good generation because of that Ive had soldiers tell me, I carried your picture in my helmet. I had families say, The only way we ever got along was when we were watching your show. It had an impact that was far more than just 30 minutes.

For decades, rumors had swirled Wells auditioned against Raquel Welch for the iconic role, but even she isnt sure if thats true.

I never saw Raquel come in, so I dont really know if its true that she auditioned, she admitted. But, she would have been a better Ginger. She was a beautiful sex symbol, more than the country girl next door. I have to ask if that happened! Did we test the same day? I dont know. Id be curious to find out.

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As for Tina Louise, the actress who played the glamorous Ginger and the only other living cast member, Wells said they have not stayed in touched.

Theres nobody left, she said. And I dont see Tina. She has not wanted anything to do with the show since it ended. Shes very much alive and doing things, I guess. She lives in New York. I did a play there for six weeks, but she never came. Shes just gone on to do her own life.

However, Wells is still happily meeting fans of Mary Ann, whom she described as timeless.

She pitched in and helped, never complained about anything and helped cook and clean, explained Wells. She was concerned about the other people on the island. No jealousy with Ginger and shes very in tune with Gilligan and his mistakes. I think she represents the core of whats good. But hes smart enough to put her in short shorts to make her a little sexy."

10 THINGS YOU DIDN'T KNOW ABOUT 'GILLIGAN'S ISLAND'

Wells also played an important role in creating Mary Ann's daring look for audiences.

"We couldnt show my navel," she said. "And Im here standing next to Tina, whos almost six feet tall. Her legs came up to my shoulders. So I helped design the shorts so that they can make my legs look longer and it covered my navel. If you walked too much and showed the navel, they had to reshoot it because CBS only had a three-second rule. Same with Gingers cleavage. Nowadays, look whats happening!

These days, Wells is still thriving beyond her most famous role. Not only has she kept active in the theater world, but she also published the 2014 humorous memoir What Would Mary Ann Do? Currently, shes starring in a web-series, titled Life Interrupted where she plays fellow TV icon Alison Arngrims mother to rave reviews. However, Wells said a part of Mary Ann will always be with her.

I have them! she dished on still owning her character's shorts and top. I have the gingham dress, too. And I really dont know how I got them. We were picked up for season four. Then we went on vacation. I might have taken them home to check on the sewing. And then we were cancelled, by telephone. So we never went pack to get any of the props or anything. But, I have the shorts!
For 15 years, Alex Del Castillo served his country as a cook in the U.S. Navy. When he went into business, he knew it had been time well spent.

In the Navy, you get an attitude of checking things before you go, and going over checklists, said Del Castillo, who opened a food truck, Taceaux Loceaux, in New Orleans in 2009.

This goes well with running a restaurant or a food truck. If you can cook on a sailboat, then a food truck is even nicer, because its a lot more still.

Eight years later, Del Castillos whimsical takes on Mexican classics have made Taceaux Loceaux one of the Crescent Citys longest standing food trucks.

Its a success story thats being told across the country. Despite local challenges and bureaucratic hurdles, military veterans throughout the U.S. are opening gourmet food trucks with inventive dishes that go way beyond hot dogs, hamburgers, fries and pretzels. Thanks to their military backgrounds, their perseverance and their savvy use of social media, the vets say food trucks serving quality chow are more popular than ever.

HOW 2 MARINES BUILT A THRIVING BARBECUE BUSINESS

But nothing comes easy, even in The Big Easy. New Orleans wasnt very food-truck friendly when he got started, Del Castillo said.

The city allowed 100 food trucks in New Orleans, but they counted ice cream trucks as food trucks. My wife and I helped form a coalition and brought our issues to city council and changed the laws.

Many of the food truck owners say social media has played a huge role in their success.

During presidential campaigning season, apropos of immigration, they talked about how there was a taco truck on every corner, as I think as a form of fear mongering, Del Castillo said.

We thought, We love the idea of a taco truck on every corner, and came up with the hashtag #atacotruckoneverycorner and used it in our social media. I think people liked it and can agree a taco truck on every corner is a great thing.

Air Force veteran Richard Myrick, author of "Running a Food Truck for Dummies" and editor-in-chief of the trade website Mobile-Cuisine.com, agreed that social media is a vital component of running a food truck.

Not only does social media allow a food truck owner to post their next parking location or event theyll be attending, but it gives them the ability to see what their customers are saying about them, he said. This information can give insight into how to make their food and service better than it already it is. It also allows them to speak directly to their customers and share information about their food truck brand and staff.

Last year, when Savannah, Ga., passed an ordinance allowing four food trucks to operate in the city, Allison Terrill and her Canadian boyfriend, Frederic Theriault, launched the Squeaky Beaver Food Truck. Its specialty: the Canadian delicacy known as poutine  french fries and cheese curds topped with a light brown gravy.

Terrill, a former Navy engine mechanic and onetime military brat, said the Squeaky Beaver represents everything she was raised to value.

It's about unity, she said. For example, we've combined the colors of the U.S. and Canada flags into our entire scheme. Our menu is based on Quebecois fare, but we've been sure to incorporate so many American twists, such as a humorous play on Paula Deen's famous It's butter y'all phrase with our It's poutine y'all."

I have to utilize lessons in patience, persistence, personal ambition, drive and determination  which I grew up having a sense and practice of, but the military definitely refined it.

But Terrill cant just park anywhere in Savannah. The law requires food trucks to operate on private property, so shes parked the Squeaky Beaver outside a local brewery.

Getting spots to park and operate is difficult, she said, and its pricier to run a truck than I thought. But working with the health department is easy.

Like Del Castillo, Terrill said social media has been responsible for much of her success. Without it, she said, wed go broke with old-school advertising.

In 2015, in Orange County, Calif., Army veteran Don McPeck opened Mess Hall Canteen Food Truck with his son, Jake. Mess Hall Canteen has a higher price point than 50 percent of trucks, McPeck said, but people line up to buy his food because it's made from scratch and is a quality product.

We see many food trucks come and go in Orange County because they think its an easy lifestyle, McPeck told Fox News. Its not. You get your nose in it and you get it done.

Work hard and outwork everybody else. Thats what the military engrains in you. We work extremely long days and are super tired, but you learn to put on your boots and go.

Theme, concept, a quality product and social media are all critical to a food trucks success, he said.

Many of the trucks here dont use social media. Theyre crazy not to. We produce tons of food photos and videos and share them on Facebook. Were a vacation destination, so we try and snap photos of people visiting from out of state and post photos of them on our social media.

Watch the latest video at video.foxnews.com

When we go to LA, we literally have people jumping up and down when they see us, because theyre already following us on social media and theyre excited when we can make it up to their neighborhood.

McPeck is one of many veterans funded by Opportunity Fund, a nonprofit that offers loans to the mobile food sector in California. We lend to U.S. veterans all the time, said Anna Suarez, Opportunity Funds small business marketing director. They are definitely folks we want to help out, and we aim to do that.

What were seeing, said McPeck, is that theres a lot of new trucks that hit the food truck scene in Southern California, but the problem is they dont think out their concept and the quality of food theyre putting out. As new food trucks come in, the older ones that arent putting out a true gourmet product, they close up.

Id say food trucks are hotter than they used to be. I find cities all around the world that are either modifying existing food truck regulations to make it easier or creating new laws that will allow food trucks to operate within their city limits.

Myrick said its hard to report statistics on food trucks in the U.S. because every state, county and city has different rules and regulations. Prospective food truck owners should spend time looking into their local and state laws involving food trucks.

If the city or county allows food trucks, they need to know what type of equipment is allowed, what kind of food can be sold and how it must be stored, prepared and served. With this information they can start on a business plan and start pricing out trucks that will meet their needs and local regulations, Myrick said.

He continued some cities, such as Pittsburg and Detroit, do not allow food trucks to park within their Central Business Districts unless there is a city approved food truck event.

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New York City, Myrick said, banned food trucks from parking in metered parking spots, which excluded food trucks from parking in Midtown. The city also capped the number of food truck permits, which Myrick said, has created a black market for vending permits; some have been sold for over $10,000. That-- and sky high costs of buying ingredients around the Big Apple-- make it a difficult city in which to start a food truck business.

On the other hand, many cities California make it easier to open food trucks. The primary reason is that California actually has laws written into their state constitution which prevent lawmakers from creating laws that do not relate directly to public health and safety, he explained.

It also helps when a city is active in creating food truck events for the population. Tampas mayor, Bob Buckhorn, actually has a monthly food truck event in the city, which he attends, Myrick said.

Del Castillo emphasized the importance to start the trend, not follow it.

The smart money is there first to start the trend, then the fast followers come, and the stupid money comes after that. There was a batch of food trucks that came in and werent that good and fizzled out. You gotta be good, just like anything else.

You need good food, the right place, and social media.
The population of Denver has been steadily growing over the past few years, but not enough of its new inhabitants want to work in the restaurant industry.

The reason? The higher-paying jobs are in weed, man.

New eateries are popping up all over Denver to meet the increased demand of residents and tourists, but restaurant owners claim theyre having a hard time filling their kitchens with able-bodied workers, Bloomberg reports.

Our work force is being drained by the pot industry, Denver restaurateur Bryan Dayton told the site.

Enter the weed business, which pays $22 an hour with full benefits," added Dayton. "You can come work in a kitchen for (me) for eight hours a day, in a hot kitchen. Its a stressful life. Or you can go sort weed in a climate-controlled greenhouse. Its a pretty obvious choice.

OHIO MOM REPORTEDLY FINDS DEEP-FRIED MARIJANA IN DAUGHTER'S FRENCH FRIES

So why dont restaurant owners just pay a little more? Quite simply, the marijuana industry can generally afford to pay workers at various levels much higher wages, they argue.

In 2016 alone, Fortune reports that the Colorado marijuana industry brought in over $1 billion in revenue  as well as $150 million in tax revenue for the state  but dispensaries and growhouses dont have the same kinds of margins or overhead as the dining industry, say restaurateurs.

If you make 10 percent profit in the restaurant business, you are in the hall of fame as a great operator," explained award-winning sommelier and Denver restaurateur Bobby Stuckey to Bloomberg. Compare that to most other businesses  and presumably the legal pot industry  where if you did 20 percent profit, you would be fired."

Stuckey, too, claimed that marijuana dispensaries  which supply strong strains of pot and THC-infused edibles  are largely responsible for a 2 percent decline in alcohol sales at his restaurants, as patrons are choosing to get high instead of drink.

But lucrative paychecks may not be the sole reason Denvers waitstaffs are leaving for greener pastures. Bakers and pastry chefs are seeing new opportunities in the edible pot industry, says Jennifer Jasinski, who owns multiple eateries in the city.

Laced candies and gummy bears are sought-after treats when they are made well, so pastry chefs and cooks can make them for three to four times the money a restaurant can pay, Jasinski told Bloomberg.

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On the other hand, Eater cites a study from The Oregonian which found that dispensary employees in Oregon, where recreational marijuana was legalized in 2015, earned an average of $21,000 per year in 2016, or well below the average annual wage in Oregon, according to economist Josh Lehner of the Oregon Office of Economic Analysis.

Whatever the reason for Denvers dilemma, Dayton told Bloomberg that there is a small silver lining to the cloud of marijuana smoke thats hanging over his restaurants: More tourists are suffering from an acute case of the munchies.
Gordon Ramsay is highly critical of the dishes his contestants serve on Hells Kitchen and Masterchef, but at least hes willing to taste them.

Airline food, on the other hand, is completely off-limits.

BAD-BOY CHEFS LIKE GORDON RAMSAY DON'T REPRESENT REALITY, SAY INSIDERS

"Theres no f---ing way I eat on planes," Ramsay told Refinery 29 in a recent interview. "I worked for airlines for ten years, so I know where this foods been and where it goes, and how long it took before it got on board."

Its true that Ramsay is no stranger to airline cuisine. For a decade, the celebrity chef worked with Singapore Airlines to help develop their in-flight menu, which included a pan-seared salmon and a rib-eye dish with a red wine sauce.

In 2008, Ramsay also opened a restaurant in Terminal 5 of Londons Heathrow Airport  appropriately called Plane Food  where he serves soups, salads, sandwiches and Asian-inspired cuisine.

When it comes to eating on-the-go, however, Ramsay says prefers to chow down before he hits the skies.

If he has the time, and hes departing from Heathrow, the restaurateur says hell have a pre-flight bite at his own restaurant. If not, Ramsay tells Refinery 29 that hell pull up a seat at an airport wine bar for a light snack.

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"A nice selection of Italian meats, a little glass of red wines, some sliced apples or pears with some parmesan cheese, Im like a pig in s---," said the chef and TV personality.

Ramsays newest series, The F-Word, premieres May 31 on Fox.
An upscale Italian restaurant in Mooresville, N.C. is receiving plenty of criticism-- and praise-- on social media after banning children under the age of five.

Yoshi Nunez, the manager of Carusos restaurant, decided to instate the policy after a little girl was reportedly using an iPad with the volume on high in the dining room-- and her parents refused to turn it down after waitstaff requested them to lower the volume on the device.

Finally, we had to ask them to leave. They were upset, but they didnt seem to care about what the other guests thought," Nunez told The Washington Post.

"We tried to be nice about the situation, but were here to take care of customers and we cant tell a parent how to control their kids."

ITALIAN RESTAURANT REWARDS WELL-BEHAVED KIDS WITH FAMILY MEAL DISCOUNT

The decision to ban children under the age of five went into effect in January and has since received plenty of praise from patrons who have apparently had enough of loud kids at other establishments.

Since implementing the ban, the restaurant says they have seen a dramatic increase in reservations, and a spike in diners from about 50 to 80 per day.

Banning children has always been a topic in the industry and every owner says, I wish I could do it, said the owner of the restaurant and father of two, Pasquale Caruso. Our owner has the full support of the staff. We work here to make a living, too, and we support our owner 100 percent.

Online, plenty of people are applauding the restaurant, too.

@news4buffalo CARUSO Restaurant NO KIDS BAN, Great to have a quiet peaceful dinner without kids misbehaving for all adults. GET A BABYSITTER  jennifer alessio (@licoricecat49) March 29, 2017

I'm cool with this now that my kids are over 5!Restaurant places ban on kids aged five and under - via @680news https://t.co/3SeAbksOLk  Christine Cardoso (@TalkChristine) March 31, 2017

Finally an NC ban we can get behind -- North Carolina Restaurant Bans Kids Under 5 https://t.co/CHgxMBCEFz  Jeff (@saintwarrick) March 29, 2017

The restaurants website clearly states that there is no childrens menu available and that proper attire is required of all guestst in the dining.

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People dont want to come in and spend money on a nice meal and an evening out, when theres constantly food on the floor, loud electronic devices keeping kids entertained, and small children screaming, Caruso told the Mooresville Tribune.

It was just the right decision for my business."

But not everyone agrees with Caruso's ban, with some blasting the rule as "heartless."

@foodandwine this is awful! I know that small children can be a handful, but parents must eat too. We can't be this heartless  Gabriela Toneloto (@gabitoneloto) March 30, 2017

The decision to ban children has become a recent trend in the restaurant industry. Restaurants in Houston, Pennsylvania and California have all implemented similar bans, according to Eater.

But some eateries are taking a different tack when it comes to catering to patrons of all ages. A restaurant in Italy recently made headlines for rewarding parents of well-behaved diners with a discount on their meal.
Robots will likely be serving up fast food orders within a decade.

That's according to Yum Brands CEO Greg Creed, whose company owns major brands like Taco Bell, KFC and Pizza Hut. Speaking to CNBC Tuesday, the executive said that automation and artificial intelligence could largely take the place of humans in the food services industry by the mid (2020s).

"I think it's gonna happen. We'll see a dramatic change in how machines run things," said Creed, who has been at the head of Yum Brands since 2015.

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The move toward robotic staffing is already occurring worldwide and Creed noted that automatic kiosks are currently in use in Shanghai, China. Pizza Hut has previously employed robots as greeters, too. And while Creed said robots arent currently threatening people's work (I dont see it changing peoples jobs in the short term), he does believe technology will inevitably lead to less work overall for human beings.

Creed's comments echo those of former CKE CEO and failed labor secretary nominee Andy Puzder. As the CEO of the company behind Carls Jr. and Hardees, Puzder has said that the trend toward automation in the food service industry could reduce costs.

"With government driving up the cost of labor, it's driving down the number of jobs," he said last March. "You're going to see automation not just in airports and grocery stores, but in restaurants."

WENDY'S MAJOR MENU SHAKE UP UPSETS FAST FOOD FANS

"If you're making labor more expensive, and automation less expensive  this is not rocket science," Puzder told Business Insider at the time.

And restaurants like Eatsa, which allow customers to place orders via in store tablet kiosks or a smartphone app, and pay using self-service credit card scanners, are already removing the human factor from many parts of dining process.

Still, according to Creed, the demand for human labor will not completely disappear. We don't make a lot of things until customers order," he said. "I'm not sure we're going to have robots replace people.
Boryspil International Airport (Kyiv), the largest airport in the country, could open Terminal F if the necessary number of low-cost flights is provided at the airport, Boryspil airport head Pavlo Riabikin has said.

"One of the tasks in my contract is the resumption of activities of Terminals F and B. We have already prepared a plan for the resumption of activities of Terminal F for servicing low-cost carriers. As soon as we understand there are 15 low-cost carriers, we will open Terminal F for them, otherwise it will be a loss-making terminal. The terminal is likely to open for the summer navigation of 2018, but flights must be provided for this," he stated at a meeting with journalists in Kyiv.

Earlier, former head of the airport Yevhen Dykhne noted Terminal F is the demonstration of state mismanagement: when it was being built, it did not fit into the airport development strategy at that time.

According to the Ministry of Infrastructure, $40 million was invested in Terminal F in 2009-2014.

It has been the base for Ukraine International Airlines since 2010 to 2013.

The airport mothballed Terminal F in 2013.
Ken Maggiore, 19, of Chicago, broke the Illinois burbot and whitefish records on March 22 in the span of 30 minutes. He was fishing near Montrose Bay on Lake Michigan during the once-in-a-lifetime experience, according to The Chicago Sun-Times.

Maggiores day didnt start off very well, though, as he watched his friends land numerous cohos throughout the morning. But his first bite, which didnt come until 11 a.m., turned out to be a record fish that was foreign to some of his buddies.

Everybody was asking, What  is a burbot? I said, Youre taking that thing to Henrys (bait shop). Thats a state record, said Tommy Krysciak, one of the anglers in Maggiores group.

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However, Maggiore was skeptical and kept fishing, hooking into his second state record just 30 minutes later. This time, though, it was a monster whitefish, which Maggiore knew was one for the books. Still, he put it on a stringer and continued fishing for few more hours until he landed the coho that he came there for.

Finally, at 2 p.m., Maggiore headed to Henrys, a local baitshop, to get the fish on a certified scale. The following day he had the burbot and whitefish verified by a state biologist, and has since become the official record holder.

I am still in shock, Maggiore told the Chicago Sun-Times.

The burbot weighed 9.3 lbs, beating the previous record of 8.85 lbs. The whitefish weighed 7.5 lbs, beating the previous record of 6.55 lbs. Both were caught from shore on shrimp fished on the bottom.

THE SECRET TO HOOKING FAT SPRING TROUT ON STREAMERS

Big whitefish are hardly news to Chicago anglers, though, as the Illinois whitefish record has now been broken three times in 33 days. Similarly, Indiana has had its whitefish record broken five times since 2012. Its not a good sign for Lake Michigan, either, as it shows that native scud populations are decreasing, while invasive round goby populations are increasing.

Gobies are found in abundance among the rocks and boulders of our harbors and nearshore areas throughout much of the year. Foraging whitefish may be drawn to these nearshore areas when the temperature is right to feed on gobies or other prey, which increases their chances of encountering baited hooks of anglers fishing nearshore for perch, drum or other species, said Vic Santucci, program manager for Lake Michigan.

This likely isnt the last time Illinois will see its whitefish record fall.

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Nearly everybody will smile when theyre petting a dog. If the dog happens to plant a big kiss right on your hands or face, you will probably laugh and giggle, even while pushing the dog away. Did you know that dogs can bring more than a smile to your face, though? Science shows that they actually improve your health.

One Autistic Teen

For years, one autistic teen named Cadence wanted a service dog. Knowing that this dog would improve the teens self-esteem and anxiety, Cadences mother applied for one over and over again. Every time, her mother kept telling Cadence the sad responseno.

While Cadence has high function as an autistic girl, she still struggles with emotions sometimes. Cadence needed the unconditional love of a dog to balance those moments and bring her that smile. After four years of lowered spirits and let-downs, Cadence finally got a service dog, and the teen couldnt have been more excited.

The Health Benefits of Dog Ownership

For Cadence, a service dog will help improve her emotional health, and ultimately the physical side too. Still, Cadence isnt the only one who will benefit from owning a dog. Here are just a few ways that dogs can boost your health and bring you happiness:

Dogs Strengthen Your Heart

According to the American Heart Association, dogs can decrease your risk of cardiovascular disease. There could be several reasons for the lowered risk, including the time spent exercising the dog and the distraction from work or family stress.

Although the AHA has not been able to link dog ownership and heart disease conclusively, studies do show that dog owners have better heart health.

Dogs Lower Stress

Remember how dogs make you laugh and smile as you pet them? Ultimately, those lighthearted laughs will lower your stress levels.

A study from the University of Missouri-Columbia revealed that petting a dog causes your body to release those happy hormones, including serotonin and oxytocin. At the same time, a dog will also lower the stress hormone cortisol.

In one Missouri study, scientists tested the hormone levels of dog owners and non-owners alike. They found that people received the most benefit (through increased serotonin levels) when petting their own dogs. Also, simply stroking the dog for 15-30 minutes lowered the participants blood pressure by 10 percent.

Dogs Boost Immunity

If you have children, owning a dog can work in your favor, fending off the onset of allergies. Published in Clinical & Experimental Allergy, one study showed that infants exposed to a pet before the six-month mark have a decreased risk of allergies. They also have a decreased risk for hay fever, eczema, and upper respiratory infections too.

In addition, dogs may help balance out and boost your gut health. Because dogs have many different types of beneficial bacteria, owning one will expose you to them.

As you take your dog outside during the day, it will also pick up organisms from outdoors. Simply put, you will definitely benefit from exposure to your dogs healthy bacteria.

Treat Dogs Humanely.

In light of how much dogs can benefit their human companions, you would think that people would treat them with kindness. Unfortunately, thousands of dogs are mistreated, neglected, and killed across the world every year.

While you might think that animal cruelty means nothing for humans, you might be surprised. Many criminals who have committed violent and grotesque acts against humans actually started with animals.

Even if animal abusers did not turn into human offenders, you should still find the abuse appalling. When a person adopts a dog into his home, he is communicating that he will take responsibility for the dogs care.

The dog will give him love, but what will he receive in return? For abusive owners, the dog will find himself neglected, beaten, and even killed inhumanely in exchange. If you know a dog in an abusive situation, you should not tolerate it. Find help immediately and protect mans loving best friend.

If you choose to open up your home to a dog, take responsibility for it. Get all the benefits of a healthy immune system, lowered blood pressure, and reduced stress. Then, give it the love and attention it deserves, and youll find an unconditional friendship that lasts a lifetime.
Two students in New Mexico are facing disciplinary action after school officials said they distributed Xanax pills that sent 16 eighth graders to the hospital on Thursday.

A sixth grade student at Chaparral Middle School in Alamogordo told KFOX he saw one of the students who took the drug.

Some kid was walking weird down the hallway and the teacher was helping him going to the principals office," Aiden Coyaozo told KFOX. I was scared kind of 'cause they were taking drugs and I knew there were drugs in my school Im happy that everyone is like safe now that I know

District officials said one student is accused of bringing the prescription pills to school, while another allegedly helped pass them out. The accused pair may also face criminal charges from the Alamogordo Police Department, which is investigating the incident.

With any school or district you have circumstances where people bring in illegal drugs," Doyle Syling, chief of staff at Alamogordo Public Schools, told KFOX. "Its something we always have to prepare for.

Syling said the district helped all the students who took the pills and continued to look for any signs of drug use throughout the day. Parents were notified and allowed to visit to check on their children.

The FDA explicitly states that the safety and effectiveness of Xanax for children younger than 18 has not been established.

According to the FDA, Xanax can help with panic and anxiety disorders. However, users can become addicted to Xanax and can experience life-threatening side effects. This includes a seizure, described by the FDA as a withdrawal symptom.
At 105 years old, Britains Grandfather of Allergy continues to consult patients and contribute to medical journals while helping thousands by encouraging the media to include pollen counts in weather forecasts. Dr. Bill Frankland, who was once asked by Saddam Hussein for treatment and worked alongside Alexander Fleming, even counts two cards from the Queen among his most treasured possessions, The Telegraph reported.

Frankland discovered that an allergic reaction is due to a malfunctioning immune system, which has opened up a world of treatments for allergy sufferers, The Telegraph reported.

BOSTON DOCTOR MAKES ROUNDS CARING FOR CITY'S HOMELESS

He gave up driving in 2004, but still has a non-paid consultancy role at Guys Hospital, where he concentrates on peanut allergies, according to the report. He reportedly escaped death in World War II when he flipped a coin with a fellow medic to determine which assignment he would accept. Though he wound up at an internment camp for more than three years, the other medic was killed when Japanese soldiers descended on a hospital in Singapore, The Telegraph reported.

IHOP WAITER IN VIRAL PHOTO RECEIVES NURSING JOB OFFER

And in 1979, when Husseins staff called to ask what allergies he could be suffering from, he allegedly told them that he wouldnt see him again unless he stopped smoking 40 cigarettes a day.

I heard some time later that he had a disagreement with his secretary of state for health, so he took him outside and shot him, Frankland told The Telegraph. Maybe I was lucky.
Children afflicted with cancer may struggle to lead normal social lives even two years after being diagnosed, a study suggests, with many experiencing reduced functioning in the social realm. To combat these findings, researchers said treatment plans should include measures to reduce psychological symptoms and build up social support.

A cancer diagnosis can disrupt social maturation, the process by which young people develop self-views, social cognition, awareness, and emotional regulation that guides them throughout the remainder of their lives, lead author Olgan Husson, of Radbout University Medical Center in the Netherlands, told Reuters.

TODDLER WHO LOST EYE IN CANCER BATTLE GETS SPECIAL LOOK-ALIKE DOLL

Researchers wrote that feelings of isolation could keep young patients away from family and friends, or symptoms may make it difficult for them to interact with their peers. They came to this conclusion after following 215 cancer patients between the ages of 14 and 39 shortly after they had been diagnosed at one of five major U.S. hospitals, Reuters reported.

The participants answered survey questions within four months after diagnosis, a year after diagnosis and two years after diagnosis. Researchers analyzed data about the patients disease and severity of symptoms and gauged each participants level of psychological distress and need for support. Patients were also asked about their social functioning, including whether emotional or physical issues were disrupting social activities.

Using a scale of zero to 100 to measure social functioning, the researchers found that young patients had significantly worse social functioning at all time points. The scale also showed around one in 10 participants had consistently high social functioning, but nearly a third had consistently low scores.

HOSPITAL'S FOUR-LEGGED EMPLOYEE HELPING TO LIFT PATIENTS' SPIRITS

A lot of kids who undergo cancer treatment isolate themselves from their peers, Elana Evan, associate professor in pediatrics at the University of California, Los Angeles, who was not involved in the study, told Reuters. Their body looks different, theres a lot of physical symptoms and psychological symptoms from the treatment.

Husson said the study, which was published in the journal Cancer, shows the need for supportive care interventions in the form of online social network and peer support groups.

Reuters contributed to this report.
California Rep. Adam Schiff may not offer much by way of substance, but give him marks for political flimflam. The ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee was so successful at ginning up fake outrage over his Republican counterpart that he successfully buried this week's only real (and bombshell) news.

Mr. Schiff and fellow Democrats spent this week accusing Chairman Devin Nunes of carrying water for President Trump, undermining the committee's Russia investigation, and hiding information. The press dutifully regurgitated the outrage, as well as Mr. Schiff's calls for Mr. Nunes to recuse himself from the investigation into possible Russian electoral meddling.

Click to read the entire column at The Wall Street Journal
Former National Security Adviser Mike Flynn is in discussions with the House and Senate intelligence committees to receive immunity from prosecution in exchange for questioning about potential ties between Russia and officials in President Donald Trump's campaign, his lawyer said Thursday.

In a statement, Flynn's attorney Robert Kelner said the retired Army lieutenant general "certainly has a story to tell, and he very much wants to tell it, should the circumstances permit."

The discussions were first reported by the Wall Street Journal. The report cited officials who said that Flynn has made offers to the FBI and the House and Senate intelligence committees through Kelner but has so far found no takers.

Jack Langer, a spokesman for House intelligence committee chairman Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., said Flynn had not offered to testify before the committee in exchange for immunity. However, Langer did not say whether or not Flynn had spoken to committee members about a possible deal.

A congressional aide confirmed to the Associated Press that discussions with the Senate intelligence committee involved immunity. The aide spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations.

In his statement, Kelner said that "no reasonable person ... would submit to questioning in such a highly politicized, witch hunt environment without assurances against unfair prosecution."

Flynn's ties to Russia have been scrutinized by the FBI and are under investigation by the House and Senate intelligence committees. Both committees are looking into Russia's meddling in the 2016 presidential election and any ties between Trump associates and the Kremlin.

Since July, the FBI has been conducting a counterintelligence investigation into Russia's interference in the election and possible coordination with Trump associates.

Four other Trump associates have come forward in recent weeks, saying they would talk to the committees. As of Wednesday, the Senate intelligence committee had asked to interview 20 people as part of the probe.



In his statement, Kelner said the political climate in which Flynn is facing "claims of treason and vicious innuendo" is factoring into his negotiations with the committees.



Flynn was fired from his job as President Donald Trump's first national security adviser after it was disclosed that he misled the vice president about a conversation he had with the Russian ambassador to the U.S. during the transition.



In the weeks after he resigned, Flynn and his business registered with the Justice Department as foreign agents for $530,000 worth of lobbying work that could have benefited the Turkish government.



The lobbying occurred while Flynn was a top Trump campaign adviser. The Turkish businessman who hired Flynn, Ekim Alptekin, has told the AP that Flynn's firm registered under pressure from the Justice Department.



The Associated Press contributed to this report.
The overwhelming majority of Senate Democrats have come out against Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch  with most planning to support a filibuster if it comes to that.

That means the Senate could be in for a showdown vote later this week.

With 52 Republicans and 48 Democrats in the chamber, the majority party needs eight Democrats to join them to break a filibuster (which takes 60 votes). All Republicans are expected to back the nominee. But if they can't get to 60, they could deploy the so-called "nuclear option" to lower the threshold and push through to confirmation on a simple majority -- a major change in Senate precedent.

So far, however, only three Democrats have come out saying they would support Gorsuch -- Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota and Joe Donnelly of Indiana, and Sen. Michael Bennett, D-Colo., announced on Monday that he will not support a filibuster.

Heres where the rest stand, not including those who have taken no position:

Senators opposed to Gorsuch; supporting a filibuster:

1. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y.

2. Sen. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis.

3. Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J.

4. Sen. Tom Carper, D-Del.

5. Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa.

6. Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill.

7. Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn.

8. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y.

9. Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif.

10. Sen. Maggie Hassan, D-N.H.

11. Sen. Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii

12. Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore.

13. Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va.

14. Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn.

15. Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash.

16. Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn.

17. Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla.

18. Sen. Gary Peters, D-Mich.

19. Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I.

20. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt. (Independent who caucuses with Democrats)

21. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H.

22. Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich.

23. Sen. Tom Udall, D-N.M.

24. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass.

25. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I.

26. Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore.

27. Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md.

28. Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass.

29. Sen. Martin Heinrich, D-N.M.

30. Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash.

31. Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill.

32. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn.

33. Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, D-Nev.

34. Sen. Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii

35. Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio

36. Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont.

37. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo.

38. Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va.

39. Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt.

40. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif.

41. Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del.

42. Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J.

43. Sen. Angus King, I-Maine. (Independent who caucuses with Democrats)

44. Sen. Ben Cardin, D-Md.

The Senate Judiciary Committee is scheduled to vote on April 3. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-K.Y., said they plan to vote to confirm Gorsuch on the Senate floor on April 7.

Fox News Bill Mears and Amy Leedecke contributed to this report.
EXCLUSIVE: A United Nations report that branded Israel an apartheid state was available online to U.N. officials months before it was published, according to an email obtained by Fox News -- though top officials only distanced themselves after it caused a firestorm.



The report, "Israeli Practices towards the Palestinian People and the Question of Apartheid," was published by the Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA) on March 15, and written by Richard Falk -- a former U.N. special rapporteur to the Palestinian territories known for his outlandish criticisms of the U.S. and Israel and his questioning of what he calls the official version of the 9/11 attack.

The report said Israel's policies in the Palestinian territories today meet the definition of an institutionalized regime of systematic oppression and domination by one racial group over another.

Aware of the seriousness of this allegation, the authors of the report conclude that available evidence establishes beyond a reasonable doubt that Israel is guilty of policies and practices that constitute the crime of apartheid as legally defined in instruments of international law, the report said.

The charges sparked fury from Israeli and U.S. officials, with U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley calling it anti-Israel propaganda" and demanding it be withdrawn.

Secretary General Antonio Guterres immediately distanced himself from the report, with a spokesman telling Fox News it does not reflect his views and was published "without prior consultation" with U.N. headquarters.

Guterres office later told ESCWA to withdraw the report  a demand that prompted Executive Secretary Rima Khalaf to resign in protest. The report was later removed from ESCWAs website.

However, a March 16 email from Khalaf to Maria Luiza Viotti  Guterres 'chef de cabinet'  and obtained by Fox News suggests the report was widely available months before it was published.

In the missive, Khalaf said the findings "should not have come as a surprise."

The email, written a day after the reports publication but before it was withdrawn, showed Khalaf bristling at the secretary generals office instructions to withdraw the document. She noted that the position of ESCWAs member states on Israeli policies are well known to the UN secretariat and member states.

After noting a number of instances where ESCWA member states have described Israeli policies as apartheid practices since 2014, Khalaf then wrote:

ESCWA presented the main findings of this study to the ESCWA 29th Ministerial Sessions, based on which Resolution 326 (XXIX) of 15 December 2016 requested the secretariat to 'Publish widely the results of the study on considering Israeli policies towards the Palestinian people as apartheid, by disseminating it to member States, national, regional and international organizations and media institutions, and by organizing activities and producing media material in that regard.

Khalaf told Viotti: The aforementioned findings of this Apartheid Report should not have come as a surprise to anyone as they have been online since December 2016.

Khalaf, Viotti and the secretary generals spokesman did not respond to requests for comment from Fox News.

While it is not immediately clear to what extent, or in what manner, the report was available to U.N. officials online, the email called into question the secretariats claim that it was unaware of the report and not consulted.

UN COMMISSION PUSHES LEGAL AND PROPAGANDA OFFENSIVE AGAINST ISRAEL

Khalaf also noted in the email that the apartheid report was not the first report by ESCWA withdrawn that year. She mentioned a report called Injustice in the Arab World and The Road to Justice which she said was withdrawn by the secretary generals office just months before. It is not clear what was contained in that report, or why it was withdrawn.

Withdrawing yet another well-researched, well-documented UN work on grave violations of human rights will dent our credibility, especially when this happens twice in the space of two months, and in a region that is passing through one of the most difficult moments in its long history in terms of human suffering, she wrote.

The latest twist in the controversy surrounding the report comes as the Trump administration is cracking down on what it sees as an ever-present anti-Israel bias in the United Nations.

On March 20, the U.S. boycotted a session of the United Nations Human Rights Council over a number of anti-Israel resolutions the body was set to adopt.

In an address to an Ambassadors against BDS at the U.N. General Assembly Hall Wednesday, Haley took aim again at the U.N. over what she called its anti-Israel obsession.

"The effort to delegitimize the state of Israel being waged on college campuses and the anti-Israel obsession at the U.N. are one and the same," she said. "They both seek to deny Israel's right to exist."
When President Trump defeated Hillary Clinton in November, many pundits assumed the so-called Clinton dynasty was over.

Fast forward just a few months, and media outlets are apparently #ReadyForChelsea  despite the former first daughters carefully worded denials about eyeing public office.

The rumor mill has been kept busy, it seems, thanks to little more than an uptick in social media activity by Chelsea. Within 24 hours last week, three major pieces were published about her.

The New York Times published in its style section: Now on Twitter: Chelsea Clinton, Unbound. In covering her social media commentary, the article asked in a tone more akin to Sex and the City's Carrie Bradshaw  can a tweet ever be just a tweet?

I am not running for office.  Chelsea Clinton

The piece noted that while those close to her furiously have denied a political run is in the works, Ms. Clinton is still a Clinton.

She may be her own person  a 37-year-old mother of two, an activist  but she remains the only child of President Bill Clinton and Mrs. Clinton, the first female presidential candidate of a major political party, the article said.

They persisted.

On the West Coast, the Los Angeles Times published an opinion piece the same day by Ann Friedman called, Just like her mother, Chelsea Clinton never gets a break. The article noted that although Chelsea recently tried to quash rumors that she will seek Kirsten Gillibrands New York Senate seat if Gillibrand runs for president in 2020, that hasnt stopped people from reading the tea leaves to predict what shell do next.

Focusing on a recent controversy over the awarding of an "impact award" to Clinton by Lifetime, Friedman said Clinton is treated poorly and much worse than current first daughter Ivanka Trump.

But Chelsea, like her mother, never gets a break  unlike Ivanka and her father, Friedman said of Clinton  who once earned a $600,000 salary as a special contributor for NBC News.

A day later, Vice News published an article titled: The Agony and Ecstasy of Chelsea Clinton Fans, featuring a mock-up of Chelsea as a Catholic saint. The article interviewed Chelsea "fans," including Texas resident Nick Stevens who said: "Hillary is Queen, Bae, Beyonceyou get it. Chelsea is the prodigy2.0, if you will."

This is not a new phenomenon. Earlier this month, Clinton tweeted out a picture of her spinach pancakes she was making for Pancake Day. BuzzFeed, The Washington Post, Boston Globe, The Huffington Post, ABC News (and yes, Fox News) all covered this event.

(And yes, the writer of this article is aware that, by covering the coverage of Chelsea Clinton's non-run for non-office, the writer is also contributing to said coverage.)

Some outlets have gone further than others. Diligent Twitter user neontaster, meanwhile, drew up a list of all the stories The Hill had written about the former first daughter, and found 70 times the D.C. outlet had tweeted about Clinton.

Here is every 2017 tweet from @thehill that includes the words "Chelsea Clinton." pic.twitter.com/PuLQlSmPjf  neontaster (@neontaster) March 7, 2017

After a pause of six days, neontaster declared victory.

Thirty minutes after his tweet, The Hill put up a story about the award from Lifetime.

Not all media voices are keen on Chelseas buzz, and a blog post for The Washington Post last week argued, The best thing Chelsea Clinton could do for her political future is to disappear.

Additionally, some of her tweets have met with a resounding thud. Earlier this week, Clinton asked if a Twitter image featuring President Lincoln wearing a Make America Great Again cap was photoshopped, leading to some mockery from conservative tweeters.

Please tell me this is photoshopped. Please? https://t.co/WezDQx6IvT  Chelsea Clinton (@ChelseaClinton) March 25, 2017

As for Chelsea herself, she offered a typically Clintonian non-denial denial. Speaking to Variety magazine, she said: I am not running for office. After the apparently definitive statement, she noted that she loves the New York city councilwoman, congresswoman, and both senators in New York. Then she added:

If someone steps down or something changes, Ill then ask and answer those questions at that time. But right now, no, Im not running for public office.
Two people died and 12 were hospitalized as a result of the crash between the Minsk-Bukovel bus and an auto in the Lviv region, the Belarusian Foreign Ministry said on Twitter.

"Two people died and 12 were hospitalized as a result of the crash of the Minsk-Bukovel regular bus and a car in the Lviv region. The embassy in Ukraine is monitoring the progress of the investigation, clarifying the list of victims, the circumstances of the accident. The honorary consul is engaged in Lviv," a message says without specifying the country which citizens died in the traffic accident.
Writing from his cell on death row at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, Fort Hood shooter Nidal Hasan has declared he is going on a 99 pound hunger strike, according to a letter reviewed by Fox News.

The former Army psychiatrist, who opened fire on unarmed fellow soldiers at Fort Hood, Texas, in November 2009, killed 13 people and injured 31 that day. Hasan was sentenced to death in 2013 and continues to declare himself an SoA, soldier of Allah.

Hasan stated in the handwritten letter that by going on a hunger strike, he will reduce and then maintain a total body weight of 99 pounds while protesting Americas hatred for [Shariah] Laws.

On March 27, Lt. Gen. Sean B. MacFarland, the commanding general at Fort Hood, issued a statement effectively saying Hasan will not be dismissed by the U.S. Army until he is executed.

In the case of Major Nidal M. Hasan (redacted)  the sentence is approved and, except for that portion of the sentence pertaining to a Dismissal from the Service and being put to death, will be executed, he wrote.

Hasans civilian attorney John Galligan told Fox News they are looking at a very lengthy appellate process -- initially via the military appellate courts  then on to the Supreme Court and thereafter through the tangled web of federal courts.

Retired Staff Sgt, Shawn Manning, who was shot six times by Hasan, told Fox News senior executive producer Pamela Browne, The fact that this guy who has no regard for human life still thinks he still has the right to make a statement is tragic.

Nearly eight years after the attack, Manning is still mired in the militarys appeal process to receive combat-related benefits for his injuries. Mannings next hearing is scheduled for April 11 at Fort Lewis, Wash. Manning and 41 of his fellow soldiers injured and killed at Fort Hood were finally awarded Purple Hearts in 2015.

Hasans 2009 massacre finally ended when he was shot by civilian police officer Sgt. Kimberly Munley. Hasan, now partially paralyzed, is one of six inmates on military death row at Fort Leavenworth.

Galligan maintains the trial was not fair. If Major Hasan dies while the mandatory appellate process is pending, the findings and sentence will be set aside, Galligan said. Millions of dollars were wasted on this show trial but as I said repeatedly, he did not receive a fair trial at Fort Hood.
The U.S. intelligence official who unmasked, or exposed, the names of multiple private citizens affiliated with the Trump team is someone very well known, very high up, very senior in the intelligence world, a source told Fox News on Friday.

Intelligence and House sources with direct knowledge of the disclosure of classified names told Fox News that House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes, R-Calif., now knows who is responsible -- and that person is not in the FBI.

For a private citizen to be unmasked, or named, in an intelligence report is extremely rare. Typically, the American is a suspect in a crime, is in danger or has to be named to explain the context of the report.

The main issue in this case, is not only the unmasking of these names of private citizens, but the spreading of these names for political purposes that have nothing to do with national security or an investigation into Russias interference in the U.S. election, a congressional source close to the investigation told Fox News.

The unmasking of Americans whose communications apparently were caught up in surveillance under the Obama administration is a key part of an investigation being led by Nunes, who has come under fire from Democrats for focusing on that aspect.

Nunes has known about the unmasking controversy since January, when two sources in the intelligence community approached him. The sources told Nunes who was responsible and at least one of the Trump team names that was unmasked. They also gave him serial numbers of reports that documented the activity.

This was long before Trump sent out his now-infamous March 4 tweets claiming then-President Barack Obama wiretapped Trump Tower during the 2016 election.

Nunes had asked intelligence agencies to see the reports in question, but was stonewalled.

He eventually was able to view them, but there was only one safe place to see the documents without compromising the sources identities -- the old executive office building on White House grounds, which has a Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility (SCIF) required to view classified or top secret reports. The White House did not tell Nunes about the existence of the intelligence reports, but did help him gain access to the documents at his request, the source said.

The White House, meanwhile, is urging Nunes and his colleagues to keep pursuing what improper surveillance and leaks may have occurred before Trump took office. Theyve been emboldened in the wake of March 2 comments from former Obama administration official Evelyn Farkas, who on MSNBC suggested her former colleagues tried to gather material on Trump team contacts with Russia.

White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer said Friday her comments and other reports raise serious concerns about whether there was an organized and widespread effort by the Obama administration to use and leak highly sensitive intelligence information for political purposes.

Dr. Farkas admissions alone are devastating, he said.

Farkas parted ways with the White House in 2015 and defended herself on Twitter, saying she didnt personally give anybody anything except advice on Russia information and wanted Congress to ask for facts.

The communications collected from Trump team associates apparently were picked up during surveillance of foreign targets. But an intelligence source familiar with those targets said they were spied on long before Trump became the GOP presidential nominee in mid-July.

In addition, citizens affiliated with Trumps team who were unmasked were not associated with any intelligence about Russia or other foreign intelligence, sources confirmed. The initial unmasking led to other surveillance, which led to other private citizens being wrongly unmasked, sources said.

"Unmasking is not unprecedented, but unmasking for political purposes ... specifically of Trump transition team members ... is highly suspect and questionable, an intelligence source told Fox News. Opposition by some in the intelligence agencies who were very connected to the Obama and Clinton teams was strong. After Trump was elected, they decided they were going to ruin his presidency by picking them off one by one."

Nunes first revealed on March 22 in a press conference that the U.S. intelligence community incidentally collected information on Trumps transition team, putting the information and names into various intelligence reports. His committee had been investigating whether Russia interfered in the U.S. election as well as how names of private citizens from these reports were leaked.

House Intelligence Ranking Member Adam Schiff, D-Calif., criticized Nunes for his handling of the investigation, claiming he should never have briefed Trump. Nunes apologized the following day, but said he briefed the president because the information he found was not related to Russia.

The minority members on the House Intelligence Committee were expected to visit a National Security Agency facility on Friday to view the same reports Nunes has seen, an intelligence source told Fox News.
Secretary of State Rex Tillersons management style has reportedly left him isolated from many diplomats and members of the State Department.

Several career diplomats told The Washington Post Thursday that they have yet to meet their new boss. They said they've been told not to speak to him directly or make eye contact.

Tillerson reportedly skipped visits with State Department employees and their families on his first three foreign trips, which have been seen as morale boosters in past administrations.

A senior aide told The Washington Post that Tillersons style reflects his desire to run the State Department without any fanfare.

The former ExxonMobil chief has remained below the radar since Inauguration Day and is still the only Senate-confirmed official appointed by President Trump who works at the State Department.

Tillerson is likely gearing up to meet Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and President Putin during an upcoming visit to Moscow in April, the U.S. ambassador to Russia said Tuesday.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
President Trump said Friday that his former national security adviser is right to seek immunity in exchange for answering questions on Russia, tweeting that Mike Flynn is caught up in a witch hunt of historic proportion.

Flynns attorney said Thursday that the retired general is in discussions with the House and Senate intelligence committees, indicating he wants immunity from "unfair prosecution" in exchange for answering questions on potential ties between Russia and Trump campaign associates.

Attorney Robert Kelner said Flynn certainly has a story to tell, and he very much wants to tell it, should the circumstances permit, but claimed hes operating in a highly politicized, witch hunt environment and wants assurances.

Trump echoed that sentiment Friday.

Mike Flynn should ask for immunity in that this is a witch hunt (excuse for big election loss), by media & Dems, of historic proportion! he tweeted.

A congressional aide confirmed to the Associated Press that discussions with the Senate intelligence committee involved immunity.

Flynn's ties to Russia have been scrutinized by the FBI and are under investigation by the House and Senate intelligence committees. Both committees are looking into Russia's meddling in the 2016 presidential campaign and any ties between Trump associates and the Kremlin.

Since July, the FBI has been conducting a counterintelligence investigation into Russia's interference in the election and possible coordination with Trump associates.

Four other Trump associates have come forward in recent weeks, saying they would talk to the committees. As of Wednesday, the Senate intelligence committee had asked to interview 20 people as part of the probe.

Trump and allied Republicans, though, say a bigger problem is the leaking of sensitive information and potential surveillance of Trump associates under the prior administration. FBI Director James Comey has denied Trumps specific charge of wiretapping ordered by the former president, but House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes says hes learned some Trump team communications were incidentally collected during the transition  information he apparently found out with help from White House aides, a detail that has only fueled Democratic complaints.

In his statement, Kelner said the political climate in which Flynn is facing "claims of treason and vicious innuendo" is factoring into his negotiations with the committees.

Flynn was fired from his job as Trump's first national security adviser after it was disclosed that he misled the vice president about a conversation he had with the Russian ambassador to the U.S. during the transition.

In the weeks after he resigned, Flynn and his business registered with the Justice Department as foreign agents for $530,000 worth of lobbying work that could have benefited the Turkish government.

The lobbying occurred while Flynn was a top Trump campaign adviser. The Turkish businessman who hired Flynn, Ekim Alptekin, has told the AP that Flynn's firm registered under pressure from the Justice Department.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
It was hardly a well-kept secret that President Trump was ticked off at the most conservative wing of the House GOP for torpedoing his health care bill.

But now he seems to be openly breaking with the hard-line faction.

In a stinging tweet yesterday, the president said: The Freedom Caucus will hurt the entire Republican agenda if they don't get on the team, & fast. We must fight them, & Dems, in 2018!

Is that a declaration of war, as some in the media are playing it? A threat to get these 30-plus lawmakers on the Trump train? Or just a moment of social-media venting?

The press loves Republican-on-Republican violence, so this is getting a huge ride.

Donald Trump was never going to be a great fit with the Freedom Caucus. He is not a doctrinaire conservative. He ran on protecting Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security, which is essentially the Democratic position. And he ran on preserving certain aspects of ObamaCare and making sure no one loses their insurance coverage, which was at odds with the conservative position of essentially gutting the program in favor of a free-market approach.

The White House gambled that the Freedom Caucus would compromise on the measure because its hard to defy a president of your party on his first major vote. But Mark Meadows and company, believing they were standing up for principle, wouldnt budge, even after the administration made a couple of key concessions.

So that leaves the president with a stark choice: adjust his agenda to get the most conservative Republicans on board, or marginalize the Freedom Caucus and work with moderate Democrats.

Paul Ryan tried to deflect the remarks, telling reporters that the president was just expressing his frustration on Twitter. One caucus member, Justin Amash, suggested that Trump was being a bully, saying such conduct is constructive in fifth grade. And he tweeted: No shame, Mr. President. Almost everyone succumbs to the D.C. Establishment.

I dont know whether Trump would carry out his threatthe 2018 election is a long way offbut I think he has limited leverage against the Freedom Caucus. Its members are mainly in very safe conservative districts and are unlikely to be vulnerable to a primary challenge from the left.

But I do know that Trump needs to forge a working majority in the House for tax reform and other upcoming issues. So this is not a one-time dilemma.

National Review Editor Rich Lowry, not a Trump fan, makes some interesting points on what he calls the crisis of Trumpism:

The product of the Ryan-Trump partnership on health care was a bill bizarrely at odds with a national election Republicans had just won on the strength of working-class voters. Under the GOP replacement, fewer people would have had coverage, and workers further down the income scale would have been particularly hard hit ..."

Trump is more naturally an ally of the moderate Tuesday Group, except with a flame-throwing Twitter feed. A President Trump acting more in keeping with his free-floating reflex to take care of people, as expressed in speeches and interviews, would have pushed the health bill to the left. But Trump so far hasnt followed the logic of his own politics in dealing with Congress.

A Republican president doesnt want to go too far left, since the Dems wont give him much help, so its a balancing act.

The liberal Huffington Post went with a somewhat incendiary screamer: TRUMP POURS GAS ON GOP CIVIL WAR. It may not be an all-out civil war, but right now the guns are drawn.
One week before he hosts a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping, President Trump on Friday signed a pair of executive orders aimed at cracking down on trade abuses and identifying the causes of Americas massive trade deficit.

Were going to get these bad trade deals straightened out, Trump said from the Oval Office. The jobs and wealth have been stripped from our country, year after year, decade after decade, trade deficit upon trade deficit reaching more than $700 billion last year alone and lots of jobs.

The first executive order concentrates on tougher enforcement of anti-dumping laws and increasing the collection of anti-dumping penalties and so-called countervailing duties -- a mechanism used against foreign governments that subsidize their producers and sell goods at below-market prices.

Anti-dumping penalties target exporters that sell goods below the cost of production.

Between 2001 and 2016, about $2.8 billion in import taxes went uncollected from companies in 40 countries, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer said Friday. He told reporters that by not using the enforcement mechanism properly, Americans lose out on funds that could be used for other purposes.

The second executive order calls on the Commerce Department and U.S. trade representative to produce a comprehensive report to identify every possible cause of the U.S. trade deficit.

Robert Lighthizer, Trump's nominee for post, has yet to be confirmed.

Once completed, the findings of the report will serve as the foundation that will guide the Trump administrations future trade policy.

Officials will consider the impact on deficits of trade abuses, non-reciprocal trade practices, specific trade obligations, poor or inconsistent enforcement and World Trade Organization rules.

U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross praised Friday's step.

"If anyone had any doubt about the president's resolve to fix the trade problems, these two executive orders should end that speculation now and for all time," he said standing next to Trump. "This marks the beginning of the totally new chapter in the American trade relationship with our partners overseas."

Speaking to reporters on Thursday, Ross said the first-of-its-kind report demonstrates that the administration will not to do anything abruptly, but to take a very measured and analytical approach, both to analyzing the problem and therefore to developing the solutions for it.

The cautious approach is welcome news to some in the business community.

They are not just jumping into something. They are going to carefully look at what it is we really want to accomplish and hopefully think about how it will affect us and the other country, founder of Paul Mitchell and billionaire investor John Paul DeJori told Fox Business Network.

Administration officials have 90 days to finish a country-by-country and product-by-product analysis.

The report will also examine whether bilateral deficits are caused by free trade deals, like NAFTA, and actions taken by previous administrations.

White House Trade Council President Peter Navarro broke slightly from Trump, saying deficits are not always bad for the economy and that bad behavior is not always the cause.

For example, one of the reasons for the trade deficit with Canada is the U.S. is not energy independent and imports a lot of oil.

During the campaign, then-candidate Trump frequently singled out China as a trade abuser and promised to hold China to account for unfair trade practices, including currency manipulation.

Asked Friday why Trump has not fulfilled his pledge to label China a currency manipulator on "Day One," Spicer said a decision would occur after next Thursday's meeting with Xi Jinping.

Navarro argued the executive orders address far broader concerns than just China.

"Let's not make this a China story. This is a story about trade abuses, this is a story about an under-collection of duties," he said.

Trump, however, recognizes the potential for an uncomfortable meeting next week in Palm Beach, Fla.

"The meeting next week with China will be a very difficult one in that we can no longer have massive trade deficits, Trump said in a Thursday tweet.

He added that "American companies must be prepared to look at other alternatives."

On March 7, the Commerce Department released figures showing the U.S. had amassed its largest trade deficit since March 2012.

In January 2017, the trade deficit for goods and services was 11.8 percent higher as compared to January 2016, increasing from $43.4 billion to $48.5 billion.

Todays data shows there is much work to be done, said Ross in a statement, adding that the administration would in the coming months renegotiate bad trade deals and bring renewed energy to trade enforcement in defense of all hard-working Americans.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Reboot, Reuse, ReLAUNCH!

The excitement, the eagerness and, in the end, the exuberance of the employees at SpaceX headquarters in Hawthorne, California was like the players on the field when they win the Super Bowl, going practically berserk with cheering and jubilation. And what SpaceX did Thursday night was arguably far, far bigger than winning the Super Bowl of the very competitive commercial space industry.

After a couple of years landing its spent booster rockets upright on a landing pad, Thursday night Space X used one of those same stage one rockets to launch again.

SPACEX CAPSULE RETURNS SPACE STATION SCIENCE TO EARTH

The University of Colorados Phil Larson, former President Barack Obamas space advisor, likens it to flying the first airplane at Kitty Hawk.

"I think this is a huge deal for the space industry, Larson said. And it's not a stretch to say this is a Wright brothers moment. This has never been done before."

For the entirety of space history, almost always, the spent rocket dropped into the Atlantic Ocean and was left at the bottom of the sea. SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has equated this to spending hundreds of millions of dollars for a new 747, flying it from Los Angeles to New York once, and then throwing it away.

After last nights relaunch of a reused rocket, Musk accomplished what he and his team have been trying to accomplish for 15 years.

"It means you can fly and re-fly an orbital class booster, which is the most expensive part of the rocket, said Musk. This is going to be, ultimately, a huge revolution in spaceflight.

After the recycled first stage separated from the second-stage rocket Thursday night  sending an SES-10 telecommunications satellite into orbit  the first stage descended back to Earth and landed upright on SpaceXs autonomous drone ship out in the Atlantic, a feat thats called supersonic retro propulsion.

WORLD'S OLDEST SPACEWOMAN SETS SPACEWALKING RECORD

In 14 attempts to do that, SpaceX has succeeded nine times. Now that re-launching previously spent rocket boosters has been proven to be viable and successful, SpaceX intends to reuse rockets 20 to 30 times.

SpaceXs Falcon 9 first-stage rockets contain all of the main engines and most of the fuel, making up at least 30 percent of the total cost to send something into space. For satellite companies using SpaceX rockets to launch their payload, this is estimated to bring down the mission cost from about $60 million to about $40 million.

This will open up a whole new economy in space, says Larson. The commercial satellite industry is over $100 billion a year. A whole sector of private industry will benefit. If you can lower that cost to access space that dramatically, just think about where those dollars can be spent in inventing new technologies and giving money back to the consumer (and taxpayer.)

STUNNING SPACEX ROCKET LANDING PHOTO GOES VIRAL

For future space tourists who arent super wealthy this could also significantly lower how much of your savings account it takes to take a rocket ride to micro-gravity.

The real key to SpaceXs historic accomplishment is the rocket science of supersonic retro propulsion, taking a 14-story-tall rocket thats screaming down range, re-igniting that rocket and then landing it upright on the bulls eye.

Another commercial space company, Blue Origin, has done this five times in Texas in test flights. Other aerospace companies and countries across the world are also said to be trying to this strategy.

And this technology is absolutely necessary if were ever going to send a spaceship, astronauts and cargo to Mars, where parachutes wont work.

My minds blown, frankly, said Musk at the post-launch-and-landing press conference. Yes, I was really quite speechless after it all happened.
The race to develop an unstoppable and unbeatable weapon capable of defeating all the military defense systems in the world is getting much too close for comfort.

According to multiple reports, Russia is expected to begin production soon of its 3M22 Zircon, a hypersonic missile that will travel 4,600 miles per hour  five times the speed of sound  and will have a range of 250 miles. Thats just three minutes and 15 seconds from launch to impact.

Guided hypersonic missiles will be more accurate than traditional ballistic missiles and could conceivably be armed with nuclear warheads, according to the geopolitical analysis firm Stratfor.

And theyre coming, whether we like it or not. And theyll be on our doorstep sooner, not later.

WATCH U.S. NAVY RESEARCHERS TEST-FIRE AN ELECTROMAGNETIC RAILGUN

"State tests of Zircon are scheduled for completion in 2017  and the missile's serial production is planned to be launched next year," the Russian news agency TASS reported last year, quoting sources. And last month, Russia's Interfax news agency cited a source familiar with the Zircon project who said the 5-ton missile is likely to be tested for the first time this spring  earlier than the projected date of 2018  "from a sea-based platform."

The International Business Times (IBT) reported that the U.S. Navy is concerned the missile could be fitted to a Russian warship.

Hypersonic speed is the stuff of science fiction. As explained in IBT:

The missile employs revolutionary scramjet technology to reach its hypersonic speeds whereby propulsion is created by forcing air from the atmosphere into its combustor where it mixes with on-board fuel  rather than carry both fuel and oxidizer like traditional rockets. This makes it lighter, and therefore much faster.

ISRAEL'S ARROW ANTI-MISSILE SYSTEM SCORES FIRST HIT

It uses no fans, rotating turbines or moving parts  just an inlet where air is compressed and a combustor where the air is mixed with fuel. Fewer moving parts also means less chance of mechanical failure.

The Zircon  would be capable of destroying the world's most advanced warships and aircraft carriers in one strike and could be put into action by 2020.

The Zircon will have a radar target seeker and an optical-electronic complex that can trace and detect targets, also at hypersonic speed, according to the Strategic Culture Foundation.

"It will greatly reduce the reaction time that [Western military units] have to deploy their own defenses and counter-measures," Tim Ripley, who covers defense issues for Jane's Defence Weekly, told the German international broadcaster Deutsche Welle.

US ARMY SET FOR NEW LIGHTWEIGHT COMBAT HELMET

He said the Zircon could render Western anti-aircraft defenses obsolete, and he warned that Russia appears far ahead of the U.S. in development.

"In the public domain, the West seems to be quite a long way behind, Ripley said. But that doesn't mean there isn't some black, super-secret project run by the U.S.' Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA."

In fact, the U.S. may not be behind at all. According to Stratfor, U.S. Maj. Gen. Thomas Masiello announced in late February that the Air Force plans to have operational prototypes of its own hypersonic missile ready for testing by 2020.

And Stratfor forecasts that the U.S. and China will likely have the first operational long-range hypersonic missiles in their arsenals by 2025, years ahead of Russia.

THE WEEK IN PICTURES

India is also working to develop a hypersonic missile. According to India Today, India is developing its BrahMos II missile in collaboration with Russia, and it will use the same scramjet technology as Zircon.
The Samsung S8 is here but it is only the first of many new phones coming in 2017. And one of the biggest Android challengers is Googles Pixel smartphone.

Samsung has set a high hardware bar with Galaxy S8. That includes the S8's new edge-to-edge curved organic light-emitting diode (OLED) display, a better selfie camera, fast face-scanning tech to unlock the phone, the newest Samsung and Qualcomm processors (depending on the market), and DeX that allows hook-up to an external desktop display. Samsung is also debuting Bixby, the company's virtual intelligent assistant, on the Galaxy S8 and S8+.

Theres no doubt that Samsung has gone well beyond what theyve done in the past. From a design perspective, they absolutely have surpassed Apple this time, Jitesh Ubrani, an analyst at market researcher IDC, told Fox News.

SAMSUNG JUST UNVEILED ITS NEW GALAXY S8 SMARTPHONE

But Apple isnt the only large U.S. rival Samsung is up against these days. Google brought out its first branded Android smartphone last year, the Pixel. That phone has been well received because of its pure Android experience, excellent camera, fast performance, and high build quality. And it has been chronically backordered -- particularly the larger XL model. That's true even today, about six months after it was announced, according to Ubrani.

The Pixel features probably the best AI (artificial intelligence) to date  Google Assistant, the same AI used on the Google Home smart speaker. Thats turning out to be one of the key selling points for phones in 2017. And its something that Google is very good at.

Samsung has taken their own approach where they try to make everything their own. And theyre trying this with Bixby. Though they have some level of differentiation compared to what Apples Siri or Google Assistant can do, I dont know if thats enough, said Urbani. Personally, I think we're going to see Google Assistant evolve quicker than Bixby. Because Google [Android] is the underlying operating system, they have an advantage.

They have a lot more data collection going on. In terms of improvement I would bet my money on Assistant over Bixby.

Google Pixel 2

And Google, like Apple, is expected to bring out its next-generation phone later this year.

FIRST LOOK REVIEW: SAMSUNGS GALAXY S8

We absolutely expect them to do a Pixel 2 and carry on a cadence very similar to the larger players like Apple and Samsung where every year you'll probably see a new device, Ubrani said.

There are a lot of lessons Google is learning along the way about distribution and manufacturing. And I think they'll get those issues sorted out hopefully before the Pixel 2 launches and definitely by the time it launches, he said.

And if Google can improve an already-outstanding phone and make it the leader in AI, Pixel will likely grow its Android market share in 2017.

THE WEEK IN PICTURES

Google Pixel starts at $649, while the Samsung Galaxy S8 starts at $720.
For some, a flight is nothing more than being confined to one seat for an extended period of time. For others, that nightmare is only exacerbated by the fact that they're bound to feel nauseous and  if the motion sickness gets the best of them  may even actually throw up when the turbulence gets bad enough.

Air sickness is a common plague for many travelers, but luckily, there are some things you can do to better equip yourself against this annoying side effect.

The first secret to battling air sickness is knowing what it is. This issue occurs when your inner ear detects movement that your eyes aren't registering. This works in reverse, as well  if your eyes catch movement that your body doesn't detect, say when you're watching a particularly bumpy movie scene, you can become motion sick without even moving.

According to the University of Maryland Medical Center, this imbalance can cause a number of symptoms: cold sweats, pale skin, headaches, dizziness, nausea, increased salivation, fatigue and vomiting. A 2015 study pulling data from genetics group 23andme in the Oxford Academic on Human Molecular Genetics shared that roughly one in three people suffer from car sickness, the causes of which are incredibly similar to air sickness.

It's also been found that motion sickness is aggravated by anxiety and stress, meaning it doesn't necessarily go away after your flight. But there are a few easy ways to avoid these side effects, or at least help kick them to the curb after they've already started.

Skip the Reading Session

While doctors recommend zoning in on a stable scene or horizon line when you're experiencing motion sickness, reading isn't going to improve your situation at all. What you're doing is adding even more movement that could further mess with your inner equilibrium.

Pick Your Airplane Seat Carefully

The seats closer to the front of the airplane and directly on the plane wings are a little more stable than others, cutting down on the movement of your body during the flights. Just like on a bus, the further back you go, the bumpier it is.

Watch What You Eat Before Your Flight

The Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association recommends eating a light meal the night before and day of flying. Avoid taking in a lot of calories, and skip salty foods. Salty foods only aggravate dehydration, which also happens on flights where the air is drier (pro tip: drink lots of water). Also, skip any greasy foods that would regularly upset your stomach.

Use the Air Vents to Your Advantage

Direct airflow can make a world of difference when you're experiencing motion sickness symptoms in a confined space, such as an airplane seat. Look to the air vent above your seat to provide a bit of relief in times of nausea and distress.

Acupressure

Way back in 1995, there was a study published in the Aviation, Space and Environmental Medicine journal that said performing acupressure on yourself can lessen your motion sickness. So, what is acupressure? The act of stimulating various pressure points on your body to better circulate the flow of energy throughout the body.

For motion sickness, try using your thumb to push into your wrist about two inches down from the crease of your wrist. Hold it down for a few minutes with varying pressures to find out what works best for you.

Give 'Verbal Placebos' a Try

A study in the Journal of Applied Psychology shared the effects of telling naval cadets in the Israel Defense Forces that they were unlikely to have seasickness, and that if they did, it was unlikely to affect their work performance at all. At the end of the five-day experiment, there was less reported seasickness.

What you can do: Have someone close to you reassure you that you won't suffer from motion sickness and start training yourself to worry less about it. Pick a mantra, something like "I can control my motion sickness," to recite during particularly trying moments mid-flight.

Opt for Ginger Ale

Ginger is great for your digestive system. Once that beverage cart hits the cabin, ask for a can of ginger ale to sip. Avoid taking large gulps  you don't want any air bubbles to add to your stomach discomfort. Hard ginger candies can also do wonders for an upset stomach.

Pack Some Dramamine

If all else fails, they do make medication to help curb motion sickness. Be careful, though: Some of these medications can cause severe drowsiness. But hey, sleeping through your flight is a great alternative to spending it in the cramped airplane bathroom.
Prime Minister of Ukraine Volodymyr Groysman expects that the funds received from the special confiscation of assets of former officials of Viktor Yanukovych's regime will go to the state budget in the first half of 2017.

"We have put such funds of UAH 12 billion in total into the special fund and distributed them under different programs, but I believe that in the first half of the year it will be possible to say that these funds will go to the state budget," the prime minister said at a meeting with representatives of regional media in Kyiv on Friday, answering the question about the possibility of receiving funds from the special confiscation of assets of Yanukovych into the state budget.

According to him, the expenses that are envisaged for the special fund of the state budget for 2016 will be fully implemented.
Authorities in North Carolina on Thursday identified the 3-year-old boy found dead earlier this month on the front porch of a home after he wandered outside of the home during a freezing night.

Authorities said there were no signs of trauma on Landyn Meltons body. A toxicology report is due in two weeks.

On March 15, police were alerted by a driver who passed the Burke County home and saw the boys body. Burke County is outside Charlotte.

When the first deputy arrived, the temperature was in the mid-20s, MyFox8.com reported. Overnight temperatures dipped to below zero.

Investigators said they found the inside door of the home open when they arrived , but the storm door most likely closed at some point after the child got out. The mother and boyfriend were asleep at the time and did not know what happened, deputies told the station.

When you come to a tragic situation like this, it is always heartbreaking for everybody involved, including the officers investigating the case, so our prayers go out to all the families, Burke County Sheriff Steve Whisenant said.
An investigation was underway Thursday after a state trooper shot a man at a service area on the NJ Turnpike.

It happened about 3 p.m. at the Molly Pitcher Service Area in Cranbury Twp. in Middlesex County. It is in the southbound lanes just south of Exit 8A.

The identity of the deceased man was not being released by investigators yet. No further details of the shooting were being released on Thursday because of the ongoing investigation, according to the Attorney General's office.

Video footage from SkyFoxHD showed a crashed pick-up truck with a covered body next to the open door of the vehicle. The entire area was closed off with police tape.

It appeared that the truck had a Delaware license plate on the back bumper.

The service area was closed during the investigation but traffic was still moving on the Turnpike in that area.

It appeared that police had marked locations of at least five shell casings as part of the investigation.

Read more from FOX5NY.com.
Controversial Palestinian Authority leader Jibril Rajoub is slated to enter the United States for a high-profile speaking event at the Israel Policy Forum (IPF) next week  prompting outcry from terror watch experts and victims families who claim that his incitements led to the murder of their Israeli-Americans loved ones.

The families are outraged. Jibril is a terrorist leader, Itamar Marcus, Israel-based political activist, researcher and the founder and director of Palestinian Media Watch (PMW) told Fox News. And the U.S needs to make a statement that he is not welcome.

In a letter sent this week to U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, PMW claims that Rajoub has promoted Palestinian terror for years and most actively promoted terror during the 2015-2016 terror wave, in which 40 people were murdered and over 500 were wounded including four American citizens. The letter was also signed by five terror victims family members  the fathers of Taylor Force and Naftali Fraenkel, mothers to Ezra Schwartz and Hallel Yaffa Ariel and the son of Richard Lakin. All were U.S citizens killed in Palestinian-inspired terror attacks in Israel between 2014 and 2016.

The activist group is subsequently calling on authorities to ban Rajoub from entering the U.S. or if he does, that he be investigated for incitement to murder American citizens.

Rajoub was recently named the Secretary General of the Fatah Central Committee, the paramount decision-making wing of the Fatah political party, and is the former Palestinian Authority (PA) security chief in the West Bank and comes with a checkered past.

In 1970, the then 17-year-old was sentenced to life in prison for throwing a grenade at an Israeli army bus, but was released 1in 1985 in a prisoner exchange for Israeli hostages.



In more recent times, Rajoub has made a string of highly inflammatory comments.

On official PA TV in 2015, Rajoub encouraged Palestinians to kill Israelis, calling them individual acts of bravery and espousing his pride in whoever confronts, fights or dies as a Martyr. Last year, he repeated calls to murder and referred to them this time as individual acts of heroism that we in the Fatah movement bless and encourage.

Rajoub also urged U.S designated terrorist group Hamas to kidnap Israelis during a TV broadcast in 2014. A few months later, U.S citizen Naftali Fraenkel and his friends  fellow teens Gilad Shaar and Eyal Yifrach  were abducted and killed on their way home from school in the West Bank settlement of Alon Shvut, leading to a massive escalation of violence and triggered the seven-week conflict known as Operation Protective Edge.

As Marcus pointed out, U.S. law stipulates that any alien who endorses or espouses terrorist activity or persuades others to endorse terrorist activity or persuades others to endorse or espouse terrorist activity is ineligible for visas or admission.

Nonetheless, Rajoub is still set to be in New York City on Wednesday at IPFs guest attendee as part of their 2017 Joseph Forum. A representative for IPF confirmed that he will arrive next week and that the organization is paying only for his expenses, not an additional speaking fee.

IPF is appalled when hateful and incendiary rhetoric is used in any way, particularly by Palestinian leaders who wish to represent their people in this conflict, a spokesman for the forum, Martin Irom, told Fox News. We are deeply sympathetic to the pain of the families whose loved ones have been victims of Palestinian terrorism, and we do not diminish their suffering and anger in any way.

But despite the staunch opposition to giving Rajoub being given such a platform, IPF  a tax-exempt organization that seeks to advance the goal of a two- state solution  specifically established its Joseph Forum with the aim of fostering productive debate.

We seek solutions to end violence and bring peace to the region, which will ultimately require dialogue with Palestinian leaders. We fully intend to challenge Rajoub on his rhetoric in our upcoming meeting, and call out his past and current rhetoric and positions, Irom said. We are hopeful to accomplish our goal for this program; to convene a dialogue that is both challenging and constructive for all in attendance, serving to inform and improve our efforts to support Israel, its security, and the goal of two states for two peoples.

Rajoub will be joined on stage by Brig. Gen. (res.) Michael Herzog, Israeli security expert, the Milton Fine International Fellow at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy and a member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahus latest negotiating team. The conversation between the two is to be moderated by Tamara Cofman Wittes, Senior Fellow and Director of the Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution.

The Palestinian leader is considered by many experts to be next-in-line to succeed Mahmoud Abas as President of the PA. Marcus expressed deep concern that any legitimacy he gets  especially from an organization as reputable as IPF  would boost his leadership prospects would ultimately destroy any chance of peace between the two sides.

Meanwhile, the IPF instead acknowledged that Rajoub undoubtedly will play an influential role in the decision-making of the Palestinian leadership thus his views on the future come at a critical time.

ISRAEL PREPARES FOR NEXT WAR WITH HEZBOLLAH IN MOCK VILLAGE

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ISRAEL: PALESTINIAN WOMAN KILLED AFTER ATTACKING POLICE

And as it stands, Rajoub wont be denied access nor taken away in handcuffs next week. The U.S State Department did not respond to a follow-up comment request regarding Rajoubs meetings outside of the IPF, but in their original comments hinted that he may have an additional audience.

According to a spokesperson, they are aware of his plans to visit the country and that the Administration is committed to reaching a comprehensive Middle East peace agreement which includes meeting with a range of both Israeli and Palestinian officials, including Rajoub.

The U.S. government does not endorse every statement Mr. Rajoub has made, but he has long been involved in Middle East peace efforts, and has publicly supported a peaceful, non-violent solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, added the spokesperson. We continue to press Fatah officials, including Rajoub himself, to refrain from any statements or actions that could be viewed as inciting or legitimizing others use of violence.


Part of Interstate 85 collapsed north of downtown Atlanta Thursday night after a massive fire broke out under the busy highway during afternoon rush hour traffic.

The fire broke out at around 6 p.m. Atlanta fire officials told Fox 5 the blaze caught giant spools of plastic utility conduits which were being stored under the overpass.

No injuries to motorists or firefighters were reported. Georgia State Patrol Capt. Mark Perry told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that terrorism is not suspected.

Prior to the collapse, structural engineers told FOX 5 they were worried about fire melting the metal under the bridge. Witnesses say troopers told motorists to turn around on the bridge because they were concerned about its integrity.

The bridge collapsed at around 7 p.m. Foam trucks were eventually brought up from Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport to smother the remaining fire.

"We do have the fire under control," said Sgt. Cortez Stafford, a spokesman for the Atlanta Fire Department.



"The part that is not contained is the part that is under the section of the bridge that has collapsed," Stafford said, adding that he does not expect the blaze to spread to any other structures.

The department warned all motorists to stay off I-85. Alternate routes include taking I-75 to I-285 or I-20 to I-285.



Multiple media outlets report traffic was bumper to bumper on Buford Highway as people tried to escape the backup from the collapse.



Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal said state Department of Transportation inspectors had been called to the scene and the construction crew that built the bridge was determining how long repairs would take.

"We're trying to determine everything we can about how quickly can we repair it and get it back in service," Deal said. "I can assure you we will do everything to expedite the repair and replacement of that section of the bridge."

"It got dark all of a sudden so I turned on the news to see if it was the rain," Paula Pontes, a resident of the Buckhead neighborhood, told the Journal-Constitution. "I didnt panic because I couldnt see the fire coming. It was just smoke. It became night."

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Click for more from Fox5Atlanta.com.
Dr. Dale Klein may be the highest-paid U.S. government employee who literally does nothing while hes on the clock. A highly rated pain management specialist at the Southeast Missouri John J. Pershing V.A., Klein is paid $250,000 a year to work with veterans, but instead of helping those who served their country, he sits in a small office and does nothing. All day. Every day.

I sit in a chair and I look at the walls, the doctor said of his typical workday. It feels like solitary confinement.

A double board certified physician and Yale University fellow, Klein said the Department of Veterans Affairs (V.A.) took away his patients and privileges almost a year ago after, he alleges, he blew the whistle on secret wait-lists and wait-time manipulation at the V.A. in Poplar Bluff, Mo., as well as his suspicion that some veterans were reselling their prescriptions on the black market.

When his superiors did nothing, Klein went to the inspector general.

Immediately after the V.A. found out I made these disclosures, I started to get retaliated against, Klein said.

Klein was initially placed on administrative leave. The Missouri-V.A. closed his pain management clinic and tried to terminate him. According to court documents, the V.A. tried to fire Klein not based on substandard care or lack of clinical competence but instead for consistent acceleration of trivial matters through his chain of command.

I do not consider secret wait-lists and manipulations of wait times to be trivial matters, Klein said.

The Office of Special Counsel, an independent federal investigative agency in Washington, D.C., made it clear that since the doctor was a whistleblower, he could not be fired. But Klein said the retaliation continued and believes his superiors stripped him of his duties to silence him.

It could set a bad precedent for other whistleblowers because they're going to say, I don't want to risk my livelihood, my career, my security because I see what happened to Dr. Klein and I don't want that to happen to me or my family, said Natalie Khawam, president and founder of the Whistleblower Law Firm, which represents Klein.

The situation grew so dire that Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee Chair Ron Johnson, R-Wisc., chose to step in, writing a letter in January to the acting V.A. secretary requesting the V.A. cease all retaliatory actions against Klein.

I'm concerned about a doctor who could be utilizing his skills to help veterans, but who is not able to utilize those skills, Johnson said.

Remarkably, Klein isnt the only V.A. employee who allegedly has been retaliated against. In fact, his story sounds eerily similar to that of Brian Smothers, who worked at the Denver V.A. from 2015 until last November when he says conditions grew so hostile he quit.

Smothers served in the Colorado Army National Guard and Reserves from 1999 to 2007, and later joined the Denver V.A. to help veterans engage with their own healthcare and assisted the Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder clinical team.

I come from a family of veterans who really highly values service to others and helping veterans and that's what I wanted to dedicate my life to doing helping veterans who may be struggling, he said.

Smothers was working as a peer support specialist when he alleges he found more than 3,500 veterans on what he believes were secret wait-lists at V.A. facilities in Denver, Golden and Colorado Springs.

"It looked like some kind of game they were playing with veterans mental healthcare, and I was very upset," Smothers said. It became clear to me very quickly that many of the veterans that were on the PTSD clinical teams wait-list had been waiting for care for three, four, five, six months, Smothers said.

The reason, Smothers alleges, is profit: People who run the V.A. and the mental health division hid these wait-lists so they could meet performance goals, and as a consequence of meeting these goals, got bonuses. They defrauded the federal government because it benefited them."

Smothers is haunted by one veterans death in particular, an Army Ranger in Colorado Springs who told the V.A. that he had been waiting for care and was suicidal. Instead of helping him, the V.A. allegedly placed him on a wait-list and he committed suicide a short time later, Smothers said.

"I wish I could have done more to change the system from within because as far as I understand nothing is being done to change any of this," Smothers said.

After Smothers reported the allegations to the inspector general, he said his superiors retaliated by forcing him to sit in his office, without any work assignments or authority to see patients. Human Resources also tried to get him to destroy the wait-lists, he alleges, and sign a piece of paper saying he had compromised the integrity of the healthcare system," Smothers said.

The V.A. declined to address the allegations on camera and instead referred us to the inspector general, who confirmed it "identified wait-time and other issues in recent published reports and testimony before Congress regarding Colorado V.A. facilities."

Sen. Johnson intervened on Smothers behalf and got the inspector general to launch an investigation.

It has quite honestly been shocking to somebody like me who comes from the private sector, the pervasiveness of retaliation even though we have 100 years of laws against retaliating against whistleblowers in government, Johnson said.

Johnson is now trying to pass a whistleblower protection bill to help V.A. employees like Smothers and Klein.

A spokesperson from the V.A. said due to on-going investigations, the V.A. cannot comment on specific cases but added the department recognizes the importance of all employees, to include whistleblowers, who identify problems that impede the optimal delivery of care and services to Veterans.

Klein said he hopes the V.A., under the Trump administration, will make substantial changes so veterans can get quality care they need and so those who uncover problems or wrongdoing  and report it  are protected.

This is a heart-stopping moment for the V.A. and the transformation can start in Poplar Bluff, Mo.
The death of a 25-year-old airman assigned to Air Force Space Command in Syria this week is tragic, but his presence downrange in support of the fight against the Islamic State is illustrative of the quiet role U.S. space forces play in ongoing fights, the head of U.S. Strategic Command said.

Staff Sgt. Austin Bieren, of Umatilla, Oregon, died March 28, reportedly of natural causes. A member of the 21st Space Wing at Peterson Air Force Base, Colorado, he had been deployed to northern Syria.

Speaking at the Military Reporters and Editors Association conference near Washington, D.C., Air Force Gen. John Hyten said it is far from unusual for space troops to be present in hot combat zones.

"It's one of the interesting things that's very misunderstood in our country, is that if you're conducting a military operation anywhere in the world -- anywhere in the world, space is fundamental to the execution of that military operation," he said. "I was the director of Space Forces [for Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom] in 2006 in Central Command. And when I was director of Space Forces, at that time, guess where I was -- I was in Iraq, Afghanistan, all through the Middle East."

The little-reported activities of U.S. Space Command and service-specific counterparts focus on satellite communications and activities, and information of tactical value to troops downrange, including satellite-based intelligence, weather and missile-warning systems.

Hyten said during the fighting in Fallujah in the early 2000s, there was a joint space support team, commanded by a Marine Corps lieutenant colonel and staffed with airmen and soldiers, who brought space capabilities to bear for Marines in combat.

"I can't tell you what the airman specifically was doing in Syria, but anywhere we have military operations, you will find space people deployed," Hyten said. "In the Army divisions, in the Army [brigade combat teams], in any ground maneuver unit, you'll find space people."

The perceived significance of space capability to the fight is underscored by the relative paucity of American military personnel in Syria.

There's a Pentagon-imposed troop cap of just over 500 troops, although the number of personnel in country is actually roughly 900, due to the authority of commanders on the ground to make temporary exceptions. Other personnel on the ground include advise-and-assist forces and special operations troops, among others.

"It's tragic that we lost that young man in kind of a strange way for a 25-year-old, but nonetheless space is embedded in everything we do," Hyten said. "So anywhere you have American military people, you're going to have space."

-- Hope Hodge Seck can be reached at hope.seck@military.com. Follow her on Twitter at@HopeSeck.
Sixteen people were arrested after police raided 10 gas stations in Mobile, Alabama, on Thursday.

The raids were part of a six-month long investigation involving undercover officers and SWAT, according to a news release from the Mobile Police Dept. Officers found glass tube pens, glass pipes, gas masks, and other drug paraphernalia at the stores. Cannabinoid oil gummies, packages of Kratom, and six guns were also seized.

THE WEEK IN PICTURES

Some 29 misdemeanor charges and one felony charge were handed out to the accused. Police say two of the people arrested are undocumented immigrants and now will be deported.

Undercover officers were able to buy some of the items at the stores during the investigation, Police Chief James Barber said.

We will not tolerate a business facilitating illegal drug activity by selling drug paraphernalia, Barber said in a news release. Our efforts will curtail the ease of obtaining items needed to use crack cocaine.

More than $240,000 in cash and over $260,000 in bank account funds were seized. Officers also conducted five separate searches at the store owners homes. Police said the investigation uncovered the stores deposited funds from the sale of the drug goods into their business bank accounts.
The growth of Islamic extremist activity in Latin America is a major security threat to our country. And Irans influence in Latin America demands a new national security strategy in the region.

That is all according to a new report released by the National Center for Policy Analysis, a nonpartisan public policy research organization.

The report, authored by David Grantham, senior fellow on national security at the center, looked into the growing influence of countries like Saudi Arabia and Iran in Latin America.

IRANIAN MINISTER'S TRIP TO CUBA, LATIN AMERICA RAISES CONCERN ABOUT ITS INFLUENCE IN REGION

In regards to Iran, the report warns of the prospect of a retaliatory attack on the U.S., saying, The Islamic Republic has the capability and infrastructure to strike the United States from Latin America, but experts disagree over whether it would take that risk.

As Islam grows in Latin America and the Caribbean, particularly in places like Brazil, Venezuela and Trinidad and Tobago, experts say Islamic radicalization in parts of these regions is growing as well  which is particularly disconcerting because of their proximity to the United States.

Of particular concern is the tri-border region of Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay, 800 miles north of Buenos Aires, where the Islamic militant group Hezbollah has set up its most important base outside of Lebanon.

But other threats include Trinidad and Tobago, a small island nation off the coast of Venezuela that has become a breeding ground for ISIS. About 70 of the 100 Latin Americans who have joined ISIS originated from the island nation, which is about 1,600 miles southeast of Florida.

A major concern is Irans growing influence in Latin America, where some leaders have shown a willingness to work with a country that has a long history of hostile relations with the U.S.

In March of 2015, Homeland Security Director Gen. John Kelly, who was then commander of the U.S. Southern Command, addressed the Senate Committee on Armed Services and said Iran has opened a number of embassies and cultural centers in the region to gain a foothold in Latin America.

SYRIAN MIGRANTS SHOW THAT LATIN AMERICAN HUMAN SMUGGLING PIPELINE HAS GONE GLOBAL

I'm a little bit suspicious of these  of this activity, just because there is such a vast difference between the two countries  or the two regions, two cultures, Kelly said. So, we keep an  we keep a watchful eye on them.

Kelly, however, did say the threat was not imminent.

The report argues the Trump administration should shift priorities in the regions toward disrupting financial networks of Islamists because it claims the threat is worsening  not waning as the Obama administration claimed about Iran in 2013.

Grantham told Fox News the report proves the threat from terrorism in the western hemisphere is not just from "lone wolf" radicalization or loosely affiliated jihadists tinkering on social media.

Islamists are organized, well-funded and operating sophisticated operations against the United States only a few hundred miles south of our border, he said.

The U.S. Southern Command, which is responsible for U.S. military activities in Central and South America and parts of the Caribbean, did not comment on the report but pointed to comments Navy Admiral Kurt Walter Tidd made at the University of Texas last week. Tidd said the country has to do more than stopping terrorists from heading to Latin America or preventing homegrown attacks in the hemisphere.

We also have to do a better job addressing the conditions that allow those pathways to exist, he said, and those extremist messages to resonate in the first place.

You can see his full comments here and here.
Rob ONeill, the Navy SEAL credited with killing Usama Bin Laden, fired back Friday at the Drexel University professor who claimed he wanted to vomit after a fellow airline passenger gave up his seat to a U.S. soldier.

George Ciccariello-Maher lives in a bubble  hes never been in the real world, ONeill, a Fox News contributor, told Fox & Friends. Im not sure which course he teaches, it might be How to Grow Facial Hair Without Testosterone.

PROFESSOR WHO CALLED TRUMPS ELECTION TERRORISM AWARDED FACULTY MEMBER OF THE YEAR

"I'm not sure which course he teaches, it might be 'How to Grow Facial Hair Without Testosterone.'"  Rob ONeill

The professor lit up the Internet this week with this Sunday tweet: Some guy gave up his first class seat for a uniformed soldier. People are thanking him. Im trying not to vomit or yell about Mosul.

Ciccariello-Maher told Fox News Tucker Carlson on Thursday that he aimed to call attention to the fighting in Mosul, Iraq, including a recent airstrike that may have killed more than 100 innocent people. U.S.-led coalition officials have said theyre investigating.

MARYLAND RAPE CASE: NO BOND FOR TEEN WHO CLAIMS SEX WITH VICTIM, 14, WAS CONSENSUAL

The professor added: I think U.S. troops need real support. They dont need symbolic gestures. What they need is not a first-class seat. What they need is health care support, psychological support. ... This is how we support the troops, not by sending them off into wars.

Thats just a bunch of nonsense, ONeill responded. Hes going to use somebody just showing his support for one of the troops by giving a first-class seat, to try to make it something political, which is what he does. He doesnt know what the war effort is.

It was the latest controversy for the professor who tweeted last December: All I Want for Christmas is White Genocide. He later added: To clarify: when the whites were massacred during the Haitian Revolution, that was a good thing indeed.

Drexel University responded to his latest tweet: The recent social media comments by George Ciccariello-Maher, Associate Professor of Politics and Global Studies at Drexel, were made outside the classroom, are his own opinion, and do not represent the Universitys views. Drexel is committed to and vigorously supports our ROTC students, student veterans, and alumni who have served in the military.

ONeill put it a different way: Hes a blowhard.

The professor also defended his call to stop a speech by the controversial scholar Charles Murray at Villanova University earlier in the day. Part of a tweet from him read: Please do what you can to make this impossible!

Ciccariello-Maher told Tucker Carlson Tonight, Universities are actually spaces for rational ideas, for arguments that are based in fact and evidence. And the reality is that Charles Murray has never based his arguments in evidence or facts.

A small group of protesters did briefly halt the speech before police led them out of the hall. A planned speech at Middlebury College led to riots earlier this month. Murray has come under fire for his 1994 book, The Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life, which examines links between intelligence and heredity. Critics have called it racist, which hes denied.

When Carlson asked Ciccariello-Maher why he protected his tweets, the professor responded: Sometimes you need to protect your Twitter feed when people who like to go on and on about free speech decide that its time to violently threaten people who are using that free speech.

Fox News Lucas Tomlinson contributed to this report.
The owner of a Texas construction company interested in the massive border wall project along the U.S.-Mexico border said he is receiving death threats and being called a traitor in part because he is of Mexican descent.

A lot of people are saying, Youre Latino. How can you build a wall to keep other Latinos out? said Penna Groups CEO Michael Evangelista-Ysasaga to The Washington Post.

The Fort-Worth businessman said it was not an easy decision to bid on the controversial project  not least because 80 percent of his workforce is Latino.

TRUMP'S BORDER WALL FUNDING WILL LIKELY HAVE TO WAIT

We need to be a productive part of the solution, rather than sit on the sidelines, Evangelista-Ysasaga said when Pennas bid was first announced. He explained that one of the reasons he jumped in was that he had heard rumors that other firms might propose inhumane methods like electrified barriers.

Still, he said he has received dozens of menacing phone calls in the last few weeks. [They are just] random people calling into the office and just screaming, he told the Post.

Approximately 200 companies have responded to the federal governments requests for proposals for a solid concrete border wall and, according to the Post, 32 companies are Hispanic-owned.

FOR BIDDERS, TRUMPS WALL IS PRO-BUSINESS, NOT

ANTI-IMMIGRATION

The American people have been asking our politicians for 35 years to do something about immigration, and nothing has been done, he told the Dallas Morning News earlier this month.

Our hope is that with a secure border ... they will finally have an appetite to pass some real comprehensive immigration reform."

U.S. Customs and Border Protection is expected to start awarding contracts by late-April after the deadline for proposals was extended to April 4.
The Mejlis of the Crimean Tatar people on March 29 filed a complaint with the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) because the Russian authorities included it in the list of extremist organizations and banned its activities, Human Rights Center Memorial has said.

According to a message, human rights defenders documented 18 enforced disappearances of Crimean Tatars, which have not been investigated yet. The bodies of several activists were found with traces of beatings and torture.

Mustafa Jemilev, the former chairman of the Mejlis, and Refat Chubarov, the current head of the Mejlis, are prohibited from entering the Crimean peninsula. Criminal cases were brought against them in Russia. Several members of the organization were threatened and oppressed. The Russian authorities persecute them. Ten of them were accused of committing administrative violations and criminal offenses, one was imprisoned. Authorities illegally search mosques, Islamic schools and private houses of Crimean Tatars.

Among other violations and harassment - several Crimean Tatar media are banned, others are persecuted. The ATR channel is the only channel broadcasting in the Crimean Tatar language, was forced to cease its activities, as the Russian authorities refused to grant them a license.

"The Mejlis indicated in its complaint to the ECHR that including it on the list of extremist organizations and ceasing its activities violate Article 11 (freedom of assembly and association) of the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms. Besides, the organization was banned and its members are being persecuted in connection with their political position, which is a violation of Article 18 (the limits of the use of restrictions on rights.) The Mejlis also complained that the Russian courts do not recognize its status as a representative body of the indigenous Crimean people, thus violating Article 14 (the prohibition of discrimination). Members of the Mejlis also claim that they were deprived of the right to a fair trial (Article 6) and that they could not assume that their activities would violate anti-extremist legislation (Article 7 - punishment solely based on the law)," a message of the human rights center Memorial says.

Legal director Kiril Koroteyev, lawyers Marina Agaltsova and Tatyana Glushkova, the European Human Rights Advocacy Center (EHRAC, London) and the Ukrainian Helsinki Human Rights Union represent this center in the ECHR on the Mejlis request.

The ECHR has about 3,000 individual complaints related to the events in Crimea and eastern Ukraine.
The father of Elizabeth Smart said Wednesday that he is worried the 15-year-old Tennessee student who is believed to have run off with her 50-year-old teacher is being manipulated.

In our Elizabeths case they got her to this mindset where she believed that if she did anything they didnt want her to do that they would come and kill her family, Edward Smart told WKRN-TV.

Smart added that Elizabeth Thomas situation could be very different than when it started.

You just cant even imagine whats going through a young girls head at this point at time, he said. Regardless of what Elizabeth Thomass situation might have started out to be it could be very different at this point.

Smarts daughter Elizabeth was kidnapped at knifepoint from her Salt Lake City home in 2002. She was forced to move around with her captors, but was mostly living off the grid before she was found.

Maury County Sheriff Bucky Rowland told WKRN-TV that he believes Thomas and Tad Cummins are living off the grid somewhere.

Cummins and Thomas were reportedly seen at a gas station in Collierville, Tenn. Thursday, but the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation later refuted the report, according to Fox 13 Memphis.

Cummins has been charged with aggravated kidnapping and sexual conduct in the disappearance of Thomas on March 13. Thomas attended Culleoka Unit School in Maury County. Cummins had been suspended from the school after violating an order that prevented the teen from being in his classroom.

Officials revealed earlier this week that the pair allegedly developed a romantic relationship and were allegedly caught kissing in a classroom. The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation tweeted a photo from January showing Cummins and Thomas gazing at each other days before his alleged inappropriate contact with her.
A heartbroken woman is demanding to know why an airport security officer had to shoot and kill her dog in Hawaii this week.

Kaiele, a 2-year-old pit bull, was shot in the head Tuesday evening at Honolulu International Airport. Leisha Ramos says she was holding her 5-month-old baby and was trying unsuccessfully to hold the dog when he was shot.

THE WEEK IN PICTURES

I was just in shock, Ramos said. He was such a sweetheart. He never attacked anybody.

Ramos told KHON-TV she and her boyfriend Jadd Matsuda flew in from Big Island. Kaiele was tied to a tree. She said the officer came up to them as they were putting luggage in the car.

She said the officer told them the dog didnt belong there and they had to leave. She said he took out his gun.

FLORIDA PILOT TRIES NAIL-BITING TOUCHDOWN WITHOUT LANDING GEAR

My boyfriend was telling him, What are you going to do? Shoot my dog? And my dog was chained, Ramos told the station.

She said the chain broke and she held onto the other end.

Im holding him, holding (my baby) at the same time, she said. Finally, he just pulls. Hes running to my boyfriend to see if hes okay. He gets shot. He wasnt running aggressively. His tail was still wagging.

Ramos said Kaiele was running to her boyfriend, not the officer.

She said after the shooting the officer called over the radio that shots were fired and walked away.

Thats all he did, walked away, and Im screaming, You shot my dog!, trying to hold his head up from bleeding, but he died instantly. I thought he got tased or something. I didnt think it was an actual handgun, Ramos said.

The officer told the station over the phone that he was just doing his job, and that Im terribly sorry that you lost that dog. KHON did not identify the officer.

The Department of Public Safety confirmed Wednesday that an investigation is underway but did not release further details.

It would be premature to release findings until the investigation is complete, the department said in a statement.

The officers employer, Securitas Security Services, did not respond to questions about the incident.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
The Latest on Philadelphia Prosecutor-Gifts (all times local):

3:40 p.m.

Philadelphia's top prosecutor will surrender his law license but remain on the job as his staff fights federal bribery and extortion charges.

District Attorney Seth Williams says he will remain in the $175,000-a-year post in an administrative role. The office has about 300 prosecutors.

Williams is accused of taking more than $100,000 in gifts in exchange for favors. The two-term Democrat says he got into financial problems after a divorce.

Former colleague Thomas Burke signed on Friday as Williams' lead lawyer. The city stopped paying Williams' prior attorney once he was indicted.

The FBI has been investigating Williams' finances for nearly two years.

___

11:50 a.m.

A former colleague says he plans to represent Philadelphia's top prosecutor in a federal bribery case despite his client's financial problems.

An irate federal judge has ordered District Attorney Seth Williams to return to court Friday afternoon with a lawyer. He says Williams had plenty of time to prepare for last week's indictment given the long FBI investigation.

Lawyer Thomas Burke said Friday he plans to take the case. He and Williams started together at the prosecutor's office in 1992. Burke said there's no evidence Williams sold his office.

Williams is accused of taking more than $100,000 in gifts in exchange for favors. The two-term Democrat says he got into financial problems after a costly divorce.

The city stopped paying his prior attorney once he was indicted.

Williams remains in the $175,000-a-year job.
The Latest on the death of serial killer Donald Harvey (all times local):

2:30 p.m.

A serial killer beaten to death inside an Ohio prison died from massive head trauma.

An autopsy completed Friday shows Donald Harvey had several skull fractures and brain injuries.

Harvey was dubbed "Angel of Death" after a string of killings at hospitals in Cincinnati and Kentucky where he worked as a nurse's aide during the 1970s and '80s.

Investigators say an inmate is suspected in the attack, but no charges have been filed.

The Lucas County Coroner says the autopsy shows that no weapon was used in the attack.

Harvey died Thursday, two days after he was found in his cell at the state's prison in Toledo.

The 64-year-old in 1987 pleaded guilty to killing three dozen hospital patients but claims he killed others and couldn't remember how many.

___

11 a.m.

Ohio investigators say an inmate is suspected in the fatal beating of a serial killer who became known as the "Angel of Death" after a string of killings during the 1970s and '80s.

State Highway Patrol spokesman Lt. Robert Sellers said Friday that no charges have been filed yet and investigators are continuing to interview witnesses.

Former nurse's aide Donald Harvey died Thursday, two days after state troopers say he was found beaten at the state's prison in Toledo.

The 64-year-old was serving multiple life sentences after admitting in 1987 to killing three dozen hospital patients in Ohio and Kentucky.

Harvey later said he was trying to end the suffering of the patients and claimed he killed even more than the 37 he pleaded guilty to in court.
The lawyer for a Florida university student who accused his Muslim professor of religious discrimination has been reinstated to the school.

Attorney Kenneth Lewis said in a statement that 20-year-old Marshall Polston will return to Rollins College next week. The statement also calls for a "full inquiry" into the actions of Professor Areej Zufari.

The Winter Park school temporarily suspended Polston March 24, citing his treatment of the professor. School President Grant Cornwell declined comment on Polston's disciplinary hearing.

The Orlando Sentinel (http://bit.ly/2nH7KtI ) reports Zufari made a "protection against stalking" request in court over concerns about Polson. Injunction documents included an email in which Polson tells Zufari that she's trying to silence him after he disagreed with her teachings on Christianity in the Middle Eastern humanities class.
A Louisiana law enforcement officer has been sentenced to 40 years in prison a week after being convicted of manslaughter in the shooting death of a 6-year-old boy with autism.

Derrick Stafford was sentenced Friday.

THE WEEK IN PICTURES

Stafford was convicted in the November 2015 shooting that killed Jeremy Mardis and critically wounded his father after a 2-mile car chase in Marksville.

A spokeswoman for Attorney General Jeff Landry says Stafford was sentenced to 40 years for manslaughter and 15 years for attempted manslaughter. He will serve the sentences concurrently.

Video from a police officer's body camera shows the boy's father, Christopher Few, had his hands raised inside his vehicle while Stafford and a second deputy city marshal collectively fired 18 shots at the vehicle.
A defense attorney says New Orleans prosecutors secured a murder indictment against a man on the eve of his funeral, 10 days after he died in his sleep.

John Fuller, who previously served as a lawyer for the late Steven "Shaq" Burns Jr., told multiple media outlets that his client's indictment Thursday by an Orleans Parish grand jury was a troubling affront to the man's grieving relatives.

A spokesman for District Attorney Leon Cannizzaro's office says prosecutors weren't informed of Burns' March 20 death before the indictment. The spokesman says the case against Burns will be dropped once his death is confirmed.

The indictment charged Burns with second-degree murder and conspiracy in the September 2011 killing of a man working as an informant for the Drug Enforcement Administration.
Attorney General Jeff Sessions told Fox News' "The O'Reilly Factor" Thursday that illegal border crossings "are down 60 percent due to President Trumps strong leadership."

Sessions gave a wide-ranging interview and said that the administration would look at other possible actions against so-called "sanctuary cities" after he announced this week that federal funds would be cut off to locales that refuse to work with Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents after detaining illegal immigrants.

'THE O'REILLY FACTOR' AG ENTERS 'NO SPIN ZONE'

'THE O'REILLY FACTOR': BILL O'REILLY ON SANCTUARY CITIES

'FIRST 100 DAYS': HOW WILL TRUMP'S POLICIES CHANGE LAW ENFORCEMENT IN THE US?

BIDEN: REPUBLICANS TALKED TO ME ABOUT GARLAND

Former Vice President Biden said Thursday that in over a dozen personal phone calls with Republican senators, nine of them admitted to him at the time that they knew it was wrong to block President Obamas pick to replace Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. The former veep went on to criticize President Trump's use of social media while in office.

'MEDIABUZZ': HOWARD KURTZ ON TRUMP'S THREAT TO FIGHT 'FREEDOM CAUCUS' IN 2018

COAST TO COAST ON DRUGS?

Police on Tuesday arrested a trucker they say drove nonstop from Seattle to Massachusetts fueled by crystal meth, LSD and cocaine. It appeared the driver didnt rest, only used drugs, and he drove from Seattle, Wash., to Deerfield, with a destination on the East Coast, the police posted on social media.

TILLERSON AT STATE

Secretary of State Rex Tillersons management style has reportedly left him isolated from many diplomats and members of the State Department. Several career diplomats told The WashingtonPost that they have yet to meet their new boss. They said they've been told not to speak to him directly or make eye contact.

FBN'S GASPARINO: Trump's Gary Cohn Seeks Kinder, Gentler Persona: Will He Toss In Dinner to Prove It?

Fox News Exclusive: The making of Steve Bannon, from young Navy man to White House power player https://t.co/AiwTxJJxtU pic.twitter.com/LnXv7wyVIs  Fox News (@FoxNews) March 31, 2017

COMING UP ON FNC

10 AM ET: Preliminary hearing for Jose Montano. Montgomery County Dist Court, Rockville, MD (WATCH FNCS DOUG MCKELWAY LIVE ON FOX NEWS CHANNEL ON UPDATE AT 9 AM ET)

COMING UP ON FOX BUSINESS

7 AM ET: Peter Navarro, White House trade adviser, is interviewed on 'Mornings With Maria,' ahead of President Trump's executive order signing on trade.
Here's a look at the most popular stories this week on Military.com:

At a conference near Washington, D.C., in February, the commander of all Navy special operations units made an unusual request to industry: Develop and demonstrate technologies that offer "cognitive enhancement" capabilities to boost his elite forces' mental and physical performance.

By Hope Hodge Seck | Read more

Former 12th Air Force Command Chief Master Sgt. Jose A. Barraza was charged Thursday with 15 violations of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, according to an Air Force statement.

By Tara Copp | Read more

The Defense Department is adding two new award devices -- a C device for personnel who distinguish themselves under combat conditions and an R device for service members such as drone pilot who "remotely, but directly, contributed to a combat operation," according to the chief of the Army awards branch.

By Matthew Cox | Read more

Army Shows Off Its Lightest Combat Helmet Ever

Parents: Green Beret Son Was Murdered in Crime Complicated by Politics

Navy Instructor Pilots Refusing to Fly Over Safety Concerns

Navy SEAL Loses Rank, Gets Jail Time for Assaulting Ex

Group Files IG Complaint Over Blog on Incoming Academy Commandant

Air National Guard F-16 Crashes Near Washington, DC

Marines to Offer Retention Bonuses for F-35, V-22, F-18 Pilots

Marines Killed in Chattanooga Shooting to Receive Heroism Medal

These 'Swimming Bullets' Can Obliterate a Target Underwater

Marines Testing Polymer Solutions to Cut Ammo Weight

These Foreign Tanks Now Match the M1 Abrams, US General Says

In Innovation Push, Navy Brass Look to Repurpose Seabasing Vessels

Boeing Ramps Up Bomb Production as Stockpiles Decrease

Future V-22 Weapons May Range from Lasers to Sonic Waves

Bob Seger Rethinks the Vietnam War

The 13 Funniest Military Memes of the Week 4/5/17

10 School Tips for Military Families With Gifted Children

5 Things This Military Mom Learned As a Military Kid

Dentists Warn New Tricare Rates Will Cause Drop in Providers

Coast Guard to Congress: Don't Move Us to Pentagon

-- Justin Sloan can be reached at Justin.Sloan@monster.com. Follow him on Twitter at @JustinMSloan.
A mom in North Carolina admitted she used her 4-year-old son to hide her drugs, stuffing them in his pockets, a search warrant revealed this week.

Megon Anne Wilson, 23, was arrested in February after deputies found heroin residue in her purse, according to a news release from the Alamance County Sheriffs Office.

THE WEEK IN PICTURES

12.8 grams of the drug also turned up in her home.

The drugs were found on the boy during a traffic stop, Randy Jones, the director of public information for the county sheriffs office, told Fox News.

ALABAMA GAS STATIONS RAIDED IN DRUG PARAPHERNALIA BUST

According to the news release, Wilson admitted to hiding the drugs in her sons pockets during a phone conversation made from the county jail.

Jones says hiding drugs on children is not uncommon.

"Heroin is back with a vengeance," Jones said. "Its not unheard of to find people involved in drugs, to hide drugs on kids. I have seen people over the years use kids to conceal merchandise, stuff things in diaper bags and in diapers.  People will stuff dope in diapers, cribs, and car carriers."

Wilson is charged with felony drug trafficking, possession of drug paraphernalia, misdemeanor child abuse, and served with several orders for arrest. She was taken to the Alamance County Detention Center under a bond totaling more than $120,000.

No word on where the child is at this point, but Jones says, "We always contact the department of social service in these types of cases."
Over 100 raids are being conducted as part of an investigation into the case against the monopolist of the Ukrainian tobacco market, Ukrainian Interior Minister Arsen Avakov has said.

"Over 100 raids are being conducted at the monopolist of the Ukrainian tobacco market and affiliated enterprises Kyiv, Odesa, Dnipro Help to terrorist organizations of pseudo-republics, tax evasion these are only several episodes of the "record of accomplishments" of the company. UAH 2.5 billion! Was removed to the belligerent country," he wrote on his Facebook page on Friday.

He said that "business roots" are located in Russia.

"Several agencies have been involved in conducting the large-scale operation: Department for investigating special cases in the economy of Ukrainian Prosecutor General's Office, Military Prosecutor General's Office, officers of the economic protection department and the internal security department of the National Police," the minister said.

Ukrainian Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko said earlier on Friday that prosecutors had exposed a tax evasion scheme and arrangements to take out a large amount of funds, including with the purpose of financing terrorism, through Megapolis Ukraine LLC.

"Acting together with the Chief Military Prosecutor's Office and with the support of National Police divisions, the economy department of the Ukrainian Prosecutor General's Office uncovered a major tax evasion scheme and illegal steps to take billions of hryvnias out of the country, including for the purposes of financing terrorism. A pretrial investigation has established that, since 2012, the owners of Megapolis Ukraine (currently TEDIS Ukraine) tobacco products distribution monopoly have in fact included Russian citizen Kesayev, who has been under the NSDC [National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine] sanctions in the form of a ban from transferring funds from Ukraine abroad," he said.

Under Kesayev's influence, people who coordinate all of their decisions with board members of Russia's Degtyaryov Plant have been appointed to key positions in the TEDIS Ukraine company, he said.

"A total of UAH 2.5 billion was taken out [of Ukraine] via transit firms' accounts in 2015-2017, despite the ban imposed by the NSDC and the National Bank of Ukraine," Lutsenko said, adding that the company had also received support from certain government agencies in order to maintain its monopoly status.
A Louisiana law enforcement officer was sentenced Friday to 40 years in prison a week after a jury convicted him of manslaughter in the shooting death of a 6-year-old boy with autism.

Derrick Stafford, 33, was convicted in the November 2015 shooting that killed Jeremy Mardis and critically wounded his father after a 2-mile (3-kilometer) car chase in Marksville.

Ruth Wisher, a spokeswoman for Attorney General Jeff Landry's office, said Stafford was sentenced to 40 years for manslaughter and 15 years for attempted manslaughter. He will serve the sentences concurrently.

Stafford had faced a maximum of 60 years in prison when state District Judge William Bennett sentenced him.

Video from a police officer's body camera shows the boy's father, Christopher Few, had his hands raised inside his vehicle while Stafford and a second deputy city marshal collectively fired 18 shots at the vehicle.

Stafford and Norris Greenhouse Jr., the other deputy who fired his weapon that night, were arrested less than a week after the shooting. Greenhouse, 25, awaits a separate trial on murder charges later this year.

The Advocate reported (http://bit.ly/2opXiFr ) that Stafford turned to look at Few during Friday's hearing and apologized for the shooting.

"I have kids, man," said Stafford, who was shackled in court and wearing an orange jail jumpsuit.

But Stafford insisted that Few posed a threat and maintained he fired his weapon to stop it.

Stafford testified at trial that he didn't know the boy was in the car when he fired and didn't see his father's hands in the air.

But he said he shot at the car because he feared Few was going to back up and hit Greenhouse with his vehicle. Stafford said Greenhouse stumbled and fell to the ground as he tried to back away from Few's car.

Two other officers at the scene - a third deputy city marshal and a Marksville police officer - didn't fire their weapons that night. Prosecutors said the officers weren't in any danger and shot at the car from a safe distance.

Stafford and Greenhouse are black. Few is white, and so was his son.

Defense attorneys accused investigators of rushing to judgment. One of Stafford's attorneys questioned whether investigators would have acted more deliberately if the officers had been white.

Stafford's aunt, Bertha Andrews, denounced the jury's verdict outside the courtroom on Friday, calling it a "lynching" and claiming race was a factor in the case.

"If it had been two white men who killed that little baby, it would've been justifiable homicide. If it had been a black baby, it would've been justifiable homicide," Andrews told reporters.

Stafford's attorneys tried to pin the blame for the deadly confrontation on Few. They accused the 26-year-old father of leading the four officers on a dangerous, high-speed chase and ramming into Greenhouse's vehicle before the gunfire erupted.

But prosecutors said none of the father's actions that night can justify the deadly response. Marksville Police Lt. Kenneth Parnell, whose body camera captured the shooting, testified that he didn't fire at the car because he didn't fear for his life.

Few testified that he never heard any warnings before two officers fired. He said he learned of his son's death when he regained consciousness at a hospital six days after the shooting, on the day of Jeremy's funeral.

Stafford, a Marksville police lieutenant, and Greenhouse, a former Marksville police officer, were moonlighting as deputies for the city marshal on the night of the shooting.

Greenhouse, whose father is a longtime prosecutor in Marksville, resigned from the Marksville Police Department in 2014.
Three Oklahoma teenagers who were shot dead during a suspected home invasion this week broke into a detached garage on the property earlier the same day and stole liquor from a game room, authorities said Thursday.

Maxwell Cook, Jacob Redfern and Jakob Woodruff robbed the converted apartment earlier Monday and decided to return the house in an affluent Tulsa-area neighborhood after a woman suspected of driving them there had "indirect knowledge" there might be expensive items to steal inside, Wagoner County sheriff's deputy Nick Mahoney said.

The alleged getaway driver, 21-year-old Elizabeth Marie Rodriguez, is jailed without bond on murder and burglary warrants. Jail records don't list an attorney for her.

"(Rodriguez) had indirect knowledge of the household and knew indirectly there would be expensive items, and they decided that was the house to burglarize," Mahoney said.

The three were shot by the homeowner's son, who hasn't been arrested. Mahoney said the case could be sent to the district attorney by Monday for a determination whether to file charges.

Monday's triple shooting also figures to test the state's "Stand Your Ground" law, which allows citizens to shoot someone if they believe their safety is threatened. Oklahoma is among 24 states with such a provision, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

When the three teens returned to the house, Cook, Redfern and Woodruff were clad in black and wearing masks and gloves, Mahoney said. After the teens  who are between 15 and 19 years old  broke in at the back of the house, they were quickly confronted by the homeowner's son, who shot them with an AR-15 rifle, then called 911.

"I've just been broken into. Three men. Two I've shot in my house," the homeowner's son tells the dispatcher, sounding relatively collected on the recording released by the county. The son tells the operator he had gone to his bedroom and locked the door. "And you guys need to start EMS. I believe one of them's shot bad."

Two of the teens died inside. The third ran outside and died in the driveway. A knife and brass knuckles were recovered at the scene. The name spellings and ages of the teens differ in some public records.

Numerous attempts by The Associated Press to contact the son, who is a pilot, and his parents were unsuccessful Thursday.

Monday's shootings rattled the quiet neighborhood located in an unincorporated part of Wagoner County, which itself has an annual homicide rate "in the single digits," Mahoney said.

"It's not something we're accustomed to seeing in that area," he said. "It's a prominent neighborhood."

A criminal law expert, who discussed the Oklahoma home invasion case in his Wednesday class, doubted charges would be brought against the son. Joseph Cillo, an assistant professor of criminal justice at Saint Leo University in Florida and a former Los Angeles defense attorney, said the son would be protected by the Castle Doctrine, which states that a person can defend their home if they feel they are in danger.

"The Castle Doctrine is even better than 'Stand Your Ground,'" Cillo said. "It would be a criminal homicide if he would have killed them outside.

"You've got to put yourself in the shoes of the homeowner. It's a nanosecond on the clock of life. It's a split-second decision and there's three of them and one of you," he said.
The woman suspected of acting as the getaway driver for three would-be burglars shot and killed in Oklahoma spoke out Thursday, telling local media: "I feel responsible for the actions that were taking place ... but I dont feel responsible for their murders."

Elizabeth Marie Rodriguez has been jailed without bond on murder and burglary warrants. Under Oklahoma law, a person who took part in a crime in which people were killed could be charged with murder.

THE WEEK IN PICTURES

"We always said if there were guns ... every man for themselves," Rodriguez, a mother of three, told Fox 23. She said that she lived with two of the three intruders, and that they decided as a group to target the house near the Tulsa suburb of Broken Arrow. "We were just greedy ... there was no reason."

Investigators also revealed that the group actually broke onto the property earlier that Monday, grabbing liquor from a game room in a detached garage. Rodriguez had "indirect knowledge" there might be expensive items to steal inside, Wagoner County sheriff's deputy Nick Mahoney said.

DYLANN ROOF TO PLEAD GUILTY TO MURDER

Jail records don't list an attorney for Rodriguez. The intruders were identified as 17-year-old Jacob Redfearn, 19-year old Maxwell Cook, and 16-year old Jake Woodruff.

What these three boys did was stupid," Redfearn's grandfather Leroy Schumacher told KTUL, saying the three did not deserve to die. "You cant change history, but you can damn sure learn from it, and maybe some kids will learn from this."

The homeowner's son has not been arrested. Mahoney said the case could be sent to the district attorney by Monday for a determination whether to file charges.

Monday's triple shooting also could test the state's "Stand Your Ground" law, which allows citizens to shoot someone if they believe their safety is threatened. Oklahoma is among 24 states with such a provision, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

When the trio returned to the house, Cook, Redfern and Woodruff were dressed in black and wearing masks and gloves, Mahoney said. After they broke in at the back of the house, they were quickly confronted by the homeowner's son, who shot them with an AR-15 rifle, then called 911, according to Mahoney.

"I've just been broken into. Three men. Two I've shot in my house," the homeowner's son tells the dispatcher, sounding relatively collected on the recording released by the county. The son tells the operator he had gone to his bedroom and locked the door. "And you guys need to start EMS. I believe one of them's shot bad."

Two of the teens died inside. The third ran outside and died in the driveway. A knife and brass knuckles were recovered at the scene.

Numerous attempts by The Associated Press to contact the son, who is a pilot, and his parents were unsuccessful Thursday.

Click for more from Fox 23.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
More than 500 students at a Pennsylvania high school have been given suspension notices for skipping at least a weeks worth of classes.

Officials at Harrisburg High School gave the notices to the students on Monday for accumulating too many unexcused absences. Its all part of a crackdown by the schools new principal, Fox 43 reported.

'BLOWHARD' DREXEL PROFESSOR ANGRY OVER KINDNESS TO MILITARY 'LIVES IN A BUBBLE,' BIN LADEN'S KILLER SAYS

Many parents send their child to school and think theyre going to class, Principal Lisa Love told reporters on Wednesday. I need to reach out because of the enormous number of students not going to class.

She said students often go to school but then skip class and are loitering in hallways and other parts of the large school. The principal said she needed to do something radical to get students attention.

"If you're not in class, all you're here to do then is to wreak havoc upon the school and disrupt the work that we are trying to do here," Love said, according to PennLive. "And that's to focus on student achievement."

TEACHER RAISES $80G TO BUY 650 BIKES FOR ENTIRE SCHOOL CLASS

At least 100 students served one-day suspensions on Tuesday. School officials are working with parents of other students and many parents have provided documentation to explain the absences.

"We don't like to suspend. I don't even like talking about suspensions," said Love. "But because we're in a place where our school is a priority school, we need to send the message that we value education first."

School district Superintendent Sybil Knight-Burney said the school's decision should serve as a "wake-up call" to the community.

It order for us to get different results, we have to do something different, she said. We cant be doing the same old, same old, and complain when were getting the same results.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
A California prosecutors felony charges against two pro-life investigative reporters, who secretly videotaped a Planned Parenthood official appearing to discuss the price of aborted baby parts, is a disturbing overreach, a historically pro-choice newspaper said.

The Los Angeles Times editorial board on Thursday criticized the decision of California Attorney General Xavier Becerra to file 15 felony counts against the leaders of the pro-life Center of Medical Progress (CMP), David Daleiden and Sandra Merritt.

The secretly made videotape, which critics say was prejudicially edited, showed Planned Parenthood officials appearing to offer fetal tissue for sale, something the CMP says is illegal. Becerra, a Democrat, said the pair violated state law by recording people without their consent.

Its disturbingly aggressive for Becerra to apply this criminal statute to people who were trying to influence a contested issue of public policy, regardless of how sound or popular that policy may be, the editorial says. As misguided as they were, their aim was to change peoples views on important and controversial issues  abortion and fetal tissue research.

The influential newspaper noted that in similar cases, we have denounced moves to criminalize such behavior, especially in the case of animal welfare investigators who have gone undercover at slaughterhouses and other agricultural businesses to secretly record horrific and illegal abuses of animals. That work, too, is aimed at revealing wrongdoing and changing public policy.

But the Times noted that it did not appear that Planned Parenthood broke any laws and said what the CMP did was not legitimate journalism.

Becerra said in a statement that the state will not tolerate the criminal recording of conversations.

Watch the latest video at video.foxnews.com

CMP defended its action and predicted Becerra will fail in his prosecution.

The bogus charges from Planned Parenthoods political cronies are fake news, CMP said in a statement on its website. They tried the same collusion with corrupt officials in Houston and failed The public knows the real criminals are Planned Parenthood and their business partners like StemExpress and DV Biologics  currently being prosecuted in California  who have harvested and sold aborted baby body parts for profit for years in direct violation of state and federal law.

The case is one of the first high-profile prosecutions for Becerra, who left the House of Representatives to take over for Kamala Harris after she became a U.S. senator. Becerra was said to have been on Hillary Clintons short-list for vice president.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Protesters at Villanova University have disrupted a lecture by a social scientist criticized as being racist.

Charles Murray delivered a lecture on "Trumpism" and liberty at the school in suburban Philadelphia on Thursday. Protesters gathered at the lecture hall, chanting "No Murray! No KKK! No fascist USA!"

University public safety officers removed at least three protesters.

Critics say Murray uses pseudoscience to link intelligence to race in the 1994 book "The Bell Curve" that he co-authored with Richard Herrnstein. They also question Murray's argument that men are better at abstract thinking than women.

Murray's visit to Villanova follows a lecture at Vermont's Middlebury College in March that turned violent after a group of protesters rocked a car.
A small church in Oklahoma has launched a "Racism & Racists Anonymous" program meant to help foster dialogue and racial reconciliation.

Trinity Presbyterian Church of Oklahoma City, a mostly African-American congregation with a Caucasian pastor, voted in January to approve the program, with the weekly sessions starting in February.

THE WEEK IN PICTURES

The Rev. Richard Mize, pastor of Trinity Presbyterian, told The Christian Post that on average over 20 people attend each weekly session.

"In Racism & Racists Anonymous, everyone is either dealing with their own racism or someone else's, in order to keep peace and foster reconciliation," explained Mize.

"We don't talk about statistics or systemic racism or anything in the abstract, except maybe in the context of telling our personal stories."

Mize, a former member of the Sons of Confederate Veterans whose great-grandfather served in the Arkansas infantry, said that it is "not about changing others" but rather "about changing ourselves."

"From the moment I first heard of Racists Anonymous last year, I thought it sounded exactly like the kind of bold, potentially controversial  definitely attention-getting  social justice effort that Trinity has been known for in the past," the pastor noted.

Click Here to Read the Full Story at ChristianPost.com
A rare crocodile was killed by a vehicle while walking on a Florida highway early Wednesday morning.

A freightliner truck was driving on the Key Largo highway around 4:20 a.m. when the driver, Ronnie Ramaro, struck the female crocodile, the Miami Herald reported.

The driver ...stated the [crocodile] crossed into their path and they couldnt avoid it, the Florida Highway Patrol told the Herald.

After Ramaro reported the incident to authorities, officials measured the crocodile at 8 feet and 2 inches in length. The officials suggested that the female crocodile could have been carrying eggs. Breeding females are about 8 to 12 feet in length, according to the National Park Service website.

It sounds like maybe she was looking for a place to nest, Crocodile Lake National Wildlife Refuge manager Jeremy Dixon told the Herald.

Conflict with humans rarely occurs because of the shy nature of American crocodiles, the National Park Service website reported.

American crocodiles are considered endangered globally, except in Florida where they are listed as threatened. The statewide population change is because of a recent sustained increase in numbers, particularly nesting females, according to the National Park Service.

It is illegal to injure American crocodiles intentionally, the Herald reported.

No charges have been filed against Ramaro.



Alyssa Madruga is a news editor for FoxNews.com. Follow her on Twitter @AlyssaMadruga.
A blue-ribbon panel led by former New York state Chief Judge Jonathan Lippman will recommend closing Rikers Island  and potentially replacing it with a series of new jails spread across the citys five boroughs, The Post has learned.

The 10-year plan also calls for slashing Rikers population by putting hordes of jailbirds back on the streets under supervised release, a source familiar with the commissions work said Thursday.

The violence-plagued correction complex is currently home to around 10,000 inmates, about 80 percent of whom are locked up awaiting trial.

When asked for comment before the sit-down, Lippman said: Were close. Were keeping everybody informed, taking feedback and were almost ready. Soon. Once we have a report, youll get the report. Soon. Were very close.

But panel member Herbert Sturz, chairman of the Center for New York City Neighborhoods, confirmed that the report will support the closing of Rikers.

Lippman convened his Independent Commission on New York City Criminal Justice and Incarceration Reform last year at the request of City Council Speaker Mark Viverito, who has called for Rikers to be shut down, a position endorsed by Gov. Cuomo.

Earlier last year, de Blasio publicly rejected the idea of closing Rikers, calling it a noble concept but saying it would cost billions and billions of dollars and leave the city with nowhere to lock up its hordes of jailbirds.

One team, from HR&A Advisors, has been developing a proposal that includes replacing the jail complex with a third runway for La Guardia Airport, a sewage-treatment plant and a garbage transfer station, the source said.

The other consultants are identifying potential locations for new jails that would distribute the inmates evenly across the boroughs, the source said.

Click for more from the New York Post.
The countrys largest union has been slowly losing members since the start five years ago of its campaign to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour.

An analysis of the 2016 financial disclosures from the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) to the Department of Labor by the Center for Union Facts (CUF) reveals that the union spent over $90 million on the Fight for $15 minimum wage campaign since 2012 without a single major policy victory.

The watchdog CUF says that in addition, membership for the union -- which represents public service workers, nurses, hospital staff and home-care providers, building services, security guards and food service workers -- has been waning since the start of the initiative.

After five years and $90 million or more spent on the Fight for $15 campaign, the [SEIU] has failed to make progress on the metric that matters most: Getting more dues-paying members in the restaurant industry," CUF Executive Director Richard Berman said to Fox News. "It was reported earlier this year that the SEIU is cutting back its spending in the Trump era, and the costly and unproductive $15 campaign is surely on the chopping block.

An SEIU pullback on $15 wouldn't be surprising -- the UFCW [United Food and Commercial Workers] ended its commitment to the OUR Walmart campaign after it became clear that employees had no interest in what they were selling. It's a lesson the SEIU may soon learn the hard way."

While the SEIUs membership increased from 1,887,941 employees in 2015 to 1,901,161 employees last year, the union's membership has actually declined over the past six years. In 2011 when the union started the Fight for $15 it claimed 1,921,786  21,000 more employees than it had in 2016.

While the SEIU has scored some legislative victories, the union continues to bleed money with no major restaurant organizing win to show for it, Berman said. Even former SEIU boss Andy Stern has acknowledged that the $90 million Fight for $15 wage campaign isn't sustainable.

At least $19 million was spent on the Fight for $15 campaign in 2016, according to the financial disclosures. The CUF believes that the number is a conservative estimate because it excludes items such as staff salaries, expenses paid for additional legal services and money paid to certain outside advocacy groups.

Over $14 million in campaign funds went to workers organizing committees, which are effectively satellite offices within the SEIU organization.

Officials for the SEIU did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

News of the unions financials comes on the heels of a national protest organized by SEIU for next week.

The Fight for $15 organization is joining forces with a cluster of Black Lives Matter groups to launch their first national joint action on April 4, the 49th anniversary of King's assassination, with "Fight Racism, Raise Pay" protests in two dozen cities, including: Atlanta; Milwaukee; Memphis, Tennessee; Chicago; Boston; Denver; and Las Vegas.
Over the past day, the militants carried out 69 shelling attacks on the positions of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in the Anti-Terrorist Operation (ATO) zone, as a result of which two Ukrainian servicemen were killed, nine wounded and four injured, the press center of the ATO headquarters has reported.

The greatest number of bombardments fell on the Donetsk sector. The militants fired on Luhanske from artillery of 122 mm caliber, 120 mm and 82 mm mortars, weapons of the infantry combat vehicles, grenade launchers and heavy machine guns. Troyitske and Kamyanka were shelled from mortars of 120 mm and 82 mm caliber, Avdiyivka - from tanks, Opytne was attacked by the infantry combat vehicle armament, Zaitseve - from grenade launchers, and Nevelske with the use of large-caliber machine guns.

In the Mariupol sector, 82-mm mortar shells fired on Maryinka, Krasnohorivka and Pavlopil. Maryinka and Shyrokyne were shelled by militants with the help of armored vehicles, grenade launchers and machine guns were used to fire on Vodiane, Pavlopil, Maryinka, Krasnohorivka. The enemy's snipers attacked the vicinity of Novotroyitske.

In the Luhansk sector, the militants fired on Troyitske from 120 mm mortar shells, Novo-Oleksandrivka suffered from mortars of 82 mm caliber. Stanytsia Luhanska, Troyitske, Valuiske, Popasna and Novozvanivka were shelled by grenade launchers, Valuiske was attacked by the adversary's large-caliber machine guns.

"In view of the serious fire activity of the enemy, Ukrainian servicemen repeatedly returned fire," a message posted on the Facebook page of the press center of ATO headquarters, says.
A Texas church that lost 13 members of its congregation after a bus collided head-on with a pickup truck has now set up a relief fund as authorities continue to investigate the cause of the crash.

We are so grateful for the compassionate outpouring of support and prayers we have received since the tragic bus crash in which we lost 13 of our beloved church members, the First Baptist New Braunfels Church posted on Facebook Thursday. Many people have requested information on how to donate to support the victims' family members.

THE WEEK IN PICTURES

Authorities in two Texas counties said Thursday that they received phone calls about a pickup driving erratically shortly before the accident with the church bus, which was heading home from a retreat.

"(The caller) was scared (the pickup driver) was going to cause an accident and asked us to send deputies," Uvalde police Lt. Daniel Rodriguez said. "Deputies were dispatched, but before they could reach the area, the same caller called 911 to report that the truck had been in an accident."

Dispatchers in Real County received a call from a woman who reported a truck was driving erratically on U.S. 83, county Constable Nathan Johnson said. Real County officials called Uvalde County officials to coordinate a response to send deputies. Then, the woman called back and said the truck that had been driving erratically had struck another vehicle before reaching Real County, Johnson said.

"Unfortunately, he struck a motor vehicle before anyone could respond," he said.

TEXAS CHURCH BUS CRASH: CALLERS REPORTED SWERVING PICKUP BEFORE COLLISION, POLICE SAY



The wreck unfolded along a curve in the road where the speed limit is 65 mph, DPS Sgt. Orlando Moreno said.

The Texas Department of Public Safety refused to speculate on the cause of the collision near the town of Concan, about 80 miles west of San Antonio, although one spokesman said the truck driver appeared to have crossed the center line.

The deadly accident has other churches in the area taking a second look at their safety protocols.

Our hearts go out, our prayers go out to them just for Gods peace to be upon them and bless them and be with them as they work through this, Roger Sharp, a pastoral assistance at RHEMA Bible Church in Broken Arrow, told KTUL.

The Oklahoma church has a fleet of buses used for community outreach, travel events and childcare services and plans to re-evaluate their operations.

Relooking at your protocols, relooking at the rules. We try to meet all the standards and if we need to go beyond that, if theres something we recognize then we try to comply with that also, Sharp told the station.

Twelve bus passengers and driver Murray William Barrett, 67, died at the scene of the Texas crash Wednesday, DPS Lt. Johnny Hernandez said. Another bus passenger died at a San Antonio hospital. The pickup driver, Jack Dillon Young, 20, of Leakey, Texas, was still in stable condition and the lone survivor from the bus remained in critical condition Thursday night, DPS said.

CLUES EMERGE IN AFTERMATH OF DEADLY TEXAS CHURCH BUS CRASH

The collision was one of the deadliest in Texas in recent memory. Eight people were killed in May when a charter bus headed to a casino rolled over north of Laredo. In 2015, eight inmates and two corrections officers were killed when their prison bus skidded off a highway near Odessa, traveled down an embankment and was struck by a passing freight train.

Seventeen people died in 2008 when a charter bus crashed in North Texas near the Oklahoma border, and 23 nursing home residents being evacuated from the Houston area as Hurricane Rita approached in 2005 were killed when their charter bus caught fire near Dallas.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Perhaps more than anyone, they felt hope and relief over the news this week that President Donald Trump had established an opioid addiction commission that is tasked with looking at ways to respond to an epidemic that claims some 90 deaths each day in the United States.

They are the loved ones of people who became addicted  typically through a painkiller first prescribed by a doctor following an injury or another physical condition  and died of an overdose.

And they expressed faith that with New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie as its appointed chairman, the commission will make a difference.

Its outstanding that theyre doing this, said David Delmonaco, a New Jersey resident whose son, Robert, died after battling addiction that first began through prescription painkillers. Theres nobody better to do this than Chris Christie. Hes given a lot of people hope in the state. Hes the only guy who has taken this by the horns, hes taking charge.

EXCLUSIVE: CDC CHIEF FRIEDEN: HOW TO END AMERICA'S GROWING OPIOID EPIDEMIC

Like other relatives of people caught in the grip of addiction, Delmonaco said there wasnt much of a support system when he and his sons mother desperately tried to get the doctor to stop issuing prescriptions to Robert, and when they confronted pharmacists who dismissed their concerns.

The doctor, George Beecher, was indicted last summer on charges linked to prescribing a staggering 60,000 tablets of oxycodone to more than two dozen people he never even examined or met.

I was on my last breath until Chris Christie, Delmonaco said.

Beecher is one of a record 31 doctors who New Jersey authorities sanctioned in the past 12 months, saying they overprescribed painkillers and other narcotics.

New Jersey has pursued criminal charges against some, and imposed sanctions including suspension and taking away the license to practice. The crackdown on unscrupulous doctors is part of a concerted effort in New Jersey to fight the opioid epidemic on multiple fronts  law enforcement, medical and a preventive educational campaign.

Keith Kinsman, a Pennsylvania businessman whose son Benjamin died last year of a heroin overdose, said of Trump's creation of the commission: "We're very encouraged by it."

We believe with all our hearts that it takes four legs to make a sturdy chair, he said. It takes prevention, law enforcement, treatment, recovery, and support."

He said Christie has the perfect mix of what it takes to have a successful commission.

"Hes got the drive and determination of a very successful prosecutor, but the heart of an advocate on the issue of addiction, Kinsman said. If we dont handle this problem this way on national level, were setting these people up for failure.

Some relatives of those who died of overdoses are cautiously optimistic.

Its a step in the right direction, said Michael Zlydak, whose brother, Andrew, died of an overdose on prescribed fentanyl in 2014. Im glad that the government is stepping up to that.

They need to look at how doctors prescribe, doctors need to be more focused on the patient rather than just giving a prescription to mask the pain, said Zlydak, who lives in New Jersey. Some doctors take the easy way out, they prescribe a stronger dose when a painkiller isnt enough anymore.

We believe with all our hearts that it takes four legs to make a sturdy chair. It takes prevention, law enforcement, treatment and recovery, and support.  Keith Kinsman, whose son Benjamin died in 2016 of a heroin overdose

At a White House meeting Wednesday to discuss the commission, Trump said it was time to put the opioid scourge on the national stage.

The meeting included members of his Cabinet, law enforcement chiefs, recovering addicts and advocates. Trump listened intently as Vanessa Vitolo and AJ Solomon, two recovering addicts from New Jersey, described their harrowing battles with substance abuse. Both became hooked on prescription pain killers, and quickly transitioned to heroin.

Its an illness that doesnt discriminate, if there are prescription drugs you can become addicted very quickly without even understanding what it is because your body and your mind play tricks on you, said a White House official who was at the Trump meeting on Wednesday and asked to remain anonymous.

The official told Fox News that among the ideas discussed were getting the pharmaceutical industry involved in coming up with painkillers that do not have addictive properties. The official said that getting educators involved in addressing the crisis is critical, as well, because children need to hear as early as possible about the dangers of addiction and how to avoid it.

This is something we feel we can combat, and we get our arms around and help those who are working in these areas.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
The owners of a New Jersey home have received a fourth creepy letter from a letter-writing weirdo known as The Watcher.

A lawyer for Derek and Maria Broaddus of Westfield told a judge in court papers the letter arrived Feb. 20.

The letter contained specific threats and was "more derogatory and sinister than any of the previous letters," lawyer Lee Levitt said in court papers filed in early March, NJ.com reported.

ABOUT 100 DEAD PYTHONS DISCOVERED IN FLORIDA HOME

Westfield police declined to comment on the latest letter, citing an ongoing investigation.

Broaddus and his wife say they cant live in their six-bedroom home because of the letters.

WATCH: HUNGRY BEAR SCAVENGES FOR FOOD IN THE TRASH

The first three arrived in 2014 after they bought the home for $1.3 million.

One asked the couple, who have children, if they brought him the young blood he requested.

They sued the prior owners of the house in June 2015, claiming that they also received a letter from "The Watcher" but never disclosed it. That family has since countersued, stating that the letter they received was not threatening and alleging that they were defamed.

Broaddus and his wife say the stalker has a "mentally disturbed fixation claim on the home.

They are also suing Westfield because the town's planning board rejected their plan to raze the house and subdivide the land so they could build two houses.

The Watcher said in a letter that the house has been watched by his grandfather in the 1920s and his father in the 1960s.

I have been put in charge of watching and waiting for its second coming, the letter said.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Mexico's Roman Catholic council of bishops said Thursday that a priest kidnapped in the Gulf coast city of Tampico had been released unharmed.

The council identified the priest as Rev. Oscar Lopez Navarro, from the Tampico diocese. He was kidnapped late Tuesday.

Tampico Bishop Jose Luis Dibildox had said the kidnappers indicated they would negotiate for his release, apparently in exchange for a ransom. But the bishop's council did not say whether any ransom was paid.

"We are pleased to hear of his release, we mourn the way our society is being affected by violence," the council said.

On Monday, a priest was shot to death in the Pacific coast state of Nayarit. In 2016, two priests were found shot to death in Veracruz state and another priest was killed in the western state of Michoacan.

An estimated 32 priests have been slain in Mexico since 2006.
German authorities say one person was been injured and another is missing after an explosion tore the top off a house in the western city of Dortmund.

Dortmund police say the blast happened shortly before 9 a.m. (0700 GMT) Friday, blowing debris across a large part of a residential street in the Hoerde district of the city.

The cause wasn't immediately known.

Fire service spokeswoman Elke Bernholz said rescuers were still combing through the rubble in search of any more injured persons.
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Around 6.7 million voters in Serbia choose a new president in an election Sunday that will test the popularity of the dominant, populist prime minister, Aleksandar Vucic, against 10 beleaguered candidates from the fragmented opposition.

Vucic, a former firebrand ultranationalist now a declared European Union supporter, is a clear favorite to win. His support is hovering around 50 percent. If he gets more than half the vote on Sunday, he would avoid a runoff election on April 16 in which the opposition could coalesce behind a single candidate.

Critics say he wants to establish the kind of autocracy seen in Russia under Vladimir Putin, who has endorsed Vucic's presidential bid. Opposition candidates have accused him of mudslinging, controlling the media and intimidating voters ahead of the election.

Vucic denies such accusations, but his overwhelming media dominance was apparent on the eve of the vote when seven major newspapers featured the same front pages: Vucic's campaign poster.

Out of 10 opposition candidates running against Vucic, only three or four can expect to reach 10 percent of the votes.

ALEKSANDAR VUCIC

The former extreme nationalist has sought to rebrand himself as a pro-EU reformer. He has tries to project an image of a firm but just statesman who is working hard for the nation, keeping it independent and proud. Vucic says an opposition president would mean instability and insecurity  thus playing on the Serbs' fears of the repeat of the 1990s crisis years when ex-strongman Slobodan Milosevic's warmongering policies left tens of thousands dead and millions homeless. Vucic was Milosevic's information minister.

The 47-year-old insists he will carry out economic and social reforms needed for the country to enter the EU, while strengthening close links with traditional ally Russia. Vucic visited President Vladimir Putin in Moscow this week, in an apparent bid to boost support at home among pro-Russians.

VUK JEREMIC

Jeremic, 41, is a former foreign minister who last year ran for the post of U.N. Secretary General and served as the head of the U.N. General Assembly before that. He stresses his rich diplomatic experience, and has waged a Western-style campaign with his wife, former state TV anchor Natasa Jeremic, by his side. She was accused by the ruling party during the campaign of being Serbia's biggest drug boss, triggering a public backlash which increased her husband's support. Running as an independent, Jeremic is supported by right-leaning opposition groups. He says Serbia should never recognize the independence of breakaway Kosovo and should keep close to Russia.

SASA JANKOVIC

A political newcomer, Jankovic won international and domestic praise while serving as Serbia's first Ombudsman, or citizens' rights defender  a position he abandoned to bid for the presidency. Running as an independent, the 46-year-old lawyer is supported by liberal opposition parties, rights organizations and some prominent individuals. Jankovic has stressed his public service record, and also has appealed to many for his low-key lifestyle that contrasts strongly with the corrupt elite.

LUKA MAKSIMOVIC

The media and communications student is running as a grotesque parody politician in a white suit, oversized jewelry and a man-bun. In videos on social networks, Maksimovic's alter ego, Ljubisa Beli Preletacevic, is shown doing pushups, sucking a raw egg or riding a white horse surrounded by mock bodyguards. Maksimovic's supporters are mostly young voters alienated by decades of crisis and economic decline.

VOJISLAV SESELJ

Seselj, the extreme right-wing leader of the ultranationalist Serbian Radical Party, is notorious for his aggressiveness and loud behavior. He helped organize dreaded paramilitary units during the wars in the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s, but was acquitted of war crimes by a U.N. court in the Netherlands. The case is under appeal, but Seselj has pledged to ignore any ruling that results. He wants Serbia to abandon its EU bid and join a union with Russia. Seselj was Vucic's mentor in the 1990s.

___

Dusan Stojanovic contributed.
A powerful car bomb exploded near a minority Shiite Muslim place of worship in the northwest town of Parachinar on Friday, killing at least 24 people and wounding over 70 others, officials said.

Mushtaq Ghani, a spokesman for the provincial government, said the attack took place near Parachinar's Shiite mosque, which is located near the Noor Market. TV footage showed people transporting the victims in ambulances and private vehicles.

SOUTH SUDANESE FORCES BLAMED FOR TORCHING THOUSANDS OF HOMES

Jamaat-ul-Ahrar, a breakaway faction of Pakistani Taliban militants, claimed responsibility for the attack. Spokesman Asad Mansoor said in a statement that the suicide attack was carried out by one of the group's members, Abul Durda, using a car bomb to target Shiites who the militants consider heretics.

The blast was so powerful it also damaged vehicles and nearby shops, according to government administrator Zahid Hussain. He said authorities have declared an emergency and rescuers were transporting the dead and wounded to nearby hospitals.

Kamran Ali, who was hospitalized with a head injury from the explosion, said he was sitting inside his shop when the blast took place, traumatizing him.

"My shop partially collapsed and I was unable to move for the next 30 minutes or so, and then residents brought me to hospital," he said. He said the site of the blast was littered with glass from broken windows and blood spattered all around.

TOP US DIPLOMAT MEETS WIFE OF JAILED AMERICAN IN TURKEY

Parachinar is a key town in the Kurram tribal region bordering Afghanistan and has been wracked by sectarian violence in the past. The region was also once a stronghold of Pakistani Taliban and Sunni militant groups. Although the army says it has cleared Kurram of militants, violence has continued in the region.

Mansoor and Lashker-e-Jhangvi, another banned Sunni sectarian militant group, have claimed responsibility for previous such attacks in the region, where Shiite Muslims are in the majority.

Hussain, the administrator, said Shiites were apparently the target of the latest attack.

Two doctors at the town's government-run hospital said the facility received 22 bodies and more than 70 wounded. They spoke on condition of anonymity as they were not authorized to speak to media. Sabir Hussain, a hospital official, said the Pakistan army used helicopters to transport 40 wounded to hospitals in the northwestern city of Peshawar. He said two victims died at the hospital.

Angered over the attack, some residents were seen chanting slogans against the government. Security forces fired shots in the air and dispersed the crowd, according to officials.

Later, the mourners marched again carrying the blast victims in caskets and staged a sit-in near the office of the area administrator. They chanted slogans calling for effective security and protection for the area's residents who have been repeatedly targeted with such attacks.

Earlier, the Pakistani army said it dispatched a helicopter along with a team of doctors to help the victims and evacuate wounded persons to hospitals in other cities for treatment.

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif condemned the bombing in a statement and vowed to eliminate terrorism. "The network of terrorists has already been broken and it is our national duty to continue this war until the complete annihilation of the scourge of terrorism from our soil," he said.

Friday's blast came hours after sate-run media said Pakistani President Mamnoon Hussain had signed a bill removing the last hurdle for the revival of military courts to try terrorism suspects.

The development came days after Pakistan's Senate and National Assembly separately passed a constitutional amendment to extend the practice, which has been in place for two years. A previous 2015 amendment established the military courts for a two-year mandate that expired in January.

The move to try terror suspects in military courts followed the December 2014 Taliban attack on an army-run school in the northwestern city of Peshawar that killed 154 people  mostly schoolchildren.

Pakistan at the time also lifted its moratorium on the death penalty and has executed over 400 people since, but most of them were linked to routine murders.

Meanwhile, Pakistan's army said Friday it killed a "high-value" Pakistani Taliban leader, Mehmood-ul-Hassan, along with an associate in a raid in the South Waziristan tribal region. In a statement, it said troops also seized a cache of weapons from the hideouts of slain militants, who for years operated from the region to orchestrate attacks in the country.
Bosnia's war crimes court has convicted a former Bosnian Serb army officer of aiding genocide over his role in the executions of Srebrenica Muslims during the country's 1992-95 war.

Ostoja Stanisic, former commander of a Bosnian Serb army battalion in the eastern village of Petkovci, was sentenced Friday to 11 years in prison for ordering soldiers under his command to guard Muslim Bosniak prisoners despite knowing that they were brought to the village to be executed. He also ordered his soldiers to assist with burial in a mass grave of over 800 bodies of killed prisoners and with the cleaning of execution sites in and around the village.

The victims were among more than 8,000 Bosniak men and boys who were killed in and around Srebrenica in just a few days in July 1995.
France is warning its citizens in China to be vigilant after a French national was attacked by a man with a knife in Shanghai this week.

The French Consulate in Shanghai said in a notice on its website Friday that the attacker fled after a Chinese colleague came to the victim's assistance. It says police caught the attacker soon after Wednesday's stabbing.

The attack came four days after a Chinese man was killed by a police officer in Paris, sparking violent protests by member of the Chinese community in France. That incident has been extensively reported on in Chinese media and the foreign ministry on Tuesday summoned a representative of the French embassy in Beijing to express its concern over the case.

French businesses are major investors in China's economy.
A German court has convicted a man of raping a 90-year-old woman and sentenced him to 5  years in prison.

The Duesseldorf state court convicted the 19-year-old defendant under juvenile law Friday of rape, robbery and bodily harm, news agency dpa reported. The victim was attacked in Duesseldorf on a Sunday in October just after she visited a church.

During the trial, the Moroccan-born man, identified only as Souhayl M. in line with German privacy rules, admitted to committing the attack and said he had been drinking and taking cocaine beforehand.

The defendant grew up in Spain, where he was convicted of narcotics and other offenses. He said he came to Germany in 2016 because he risked going to prison in Spain. Investigators used DNA to track him down.
Investigators have made a significant progress in the inquiry into the murder of former State Duma deputy Denis Voronenkov in the search for accomplices of the murderer, but so far no one has been detained, Ukraine's Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko has said.

"The investigation has made a serious progress in search of accomplices in the crime," Lutsenko told reporters in Kyiv on Friday, adding that no one has been detained yet.

The prosecutor general said he could not disclose any details in order not to harm the inquiry.

As reported, Voronenkov was killed in downtown Kyiv on March 23. The ex-deputy's guard injured the murderer, who subsequently died in hospital.

Anton Gerashchenko, an advisor to the Ukrainian interior minister, said that the killer is Pavlo Parshov, "an agent of Russian special services who infiltrated Ukrainian defense agencies."

The Security Service of Ukraine is checking whether Parshov was an agent of the Russian FSB.

The STB TV channel's journalist, Olena Lunkova, said on Facebook earlier that Voronenkov's murderer had an accomplice, Yaroslav Levenets, who has been on wanted lists for economic crimes since 2012.

Kyiv prosecutor's office which is in charge of Voronenkov's case hasn't commented the information about Levenets' being on a wanted list.
The German parliament has given final approval to plans for a highway toll for passenger cars.

Parliament's upper house let the plan pass on Friday when opponents were unable to muster a majority to stall it. The toll, a pet project of the smallest of Germany's three governing parties, has drawn widespread criticism and for a time was held up by a dispute with the European Union.

The EU's executive Commission argued that Germany's initial plan was discriminatory toward non-German car owners, as it would allow owners of cars registered in Germany to have the toll deducted from annual vehicle tax bills. Under a compromise announced in December, the toll will now take into account how much any car pollutes the environment.

Germany plans to levy the toll from 2019.
Kenyan police have arrested 11 people, including three Italians, accused of drug-related offenses in a major security operation.

Hamis Massa, head of the police anti-narcotics unit, said Friday that three kilograms of heroin, two pistols and two vehicles were seized in the raid.

Massa says wanted drug baron Stephen Bosire was among the eight Kenyans arrested.

President Uhuru Kenyatta has ordered an immediate crackdown on drug dealers in the coastal area that includes Mombasa, which is popular with tourists.

Kenya in January extradited four alleged drug traffickers to the United States, where they are facing charges.
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The father of a Kosovo man arrested in Italy on suspicion of plotting to bomb a bridge in Venice says he is convinced that his son "has not planned or organized any terrorist attack."

Arjan Babaj is one of three Kosovars arrested Thursday in the case. One allegedly was caught on a phone intercept proposing a bomb attack on Venice's famed Rialto bridge. A minor was also detained.

The four suspects worked as waiters at tourist restaurants in Venice and frequented a Venice mosque. No explosives, weapons or bomb-making materials were found in the apartments searched but police say they did find videos of Islamic extremists demonstrating how to carry out knife attacks.

The suspects allegedly posted inflammatory Islamic State videos on Instagram and Facebook accounts using fake names, with recent posts exulting jihads as triumphant martyrs. The accounts had some 18,000 followers, Italian newspaper La Repubblica said.

Bedri Babaj told The Associated Press on Friday that he believes his son is innocent. He argued there are few practicing Muslims in Venice and that this may have aroused suspicions.

"I am fully convinced nothing is true," he said, speaking from his villa in Llaushe, 60 kilometers (37 miles) west of the capital, Pristina.

Babaj said his son had been intensively practicing Islam in the last four or five years, also persuading some friends to do the same.

In an interview Friday, Venice prosecutor Adelchi d'Ippolito said the suspects were getting into shape in a "meticulous, careful and rigorous way."

"They were very concerned about their bodies and working out to get into shape. They watched films of aggressive techniques, and using knives and how they can inflict wounds," he said.

A few hundred Kosovars are believed to have joined Islamic extremist groups in Syria and Iraq in recent years. Kosovo authorities say about 70 are still active with extremist groups there.

___

Llazar Semini in Tirana, Albania and Nicole Winfield in Rome, Italy contributed.
The Latest on Europe migration issues (all times local):

8 p.m.

An aid group that rescues migrants in the Mediterranean is denouncing suggestions it's in cahoots with smugglers, saying its mission is to simply save lives.

SOS Mediterranee hosted a news conference Friday aboard its rescue ship Aquarius following increased scrutiny about the increase in non-governmental organizations working rescue operations off Libya's coast.

The group's vice president, Sophie Beau, says SOS Mediterranee has never had contact with smugglers and that its mandate is to save lives, funded mostly by donations from private individuals and small associations.

The European Union's Frontex border control agency said in its 2017 risk assessment report that the huge increase in NGOs working the Mediterranean was having the "unintended consequences" of fueling smugglers' business.

Catania's chief prosecutor testified to a parliamentary committee last week about the phenomenon.

___

3:30 p.m.

The Hungarian interior ministry says the expansion of two border container camps where asylum-seekers have to wait until their cases are decided has been completed.

The ministry said Friday that prison inmates were used to put 324 additional containers in the camps built on the Serbian border at the towns of Roszke and Tompa.

Hungary's new asylum rules, in place March 21, have been widely condemned by U.N. agencies and human rights advocates. Hungary plans to close the remaining refugee reception centers in the country and transfer all asylum-seekers older than 14 to the border camps.

Only a handful of asylum-seekers a day can present their applications at the camps, built by Hungary along with fences protected by razor wire on the Serbian and Croatian borders in 2015.
North Koreas reckless actions in regards to its nuclear weapons and missile programs has got to be stopped, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said Friday.

Speaking at a news conference in London, Mattis raised the North Korea issue in response to a reporters question about Iran. He suggested that North Korea is a more urgent problem.

JAPANESE FLEET RETURNS WITH 333 WHALES FROM ANTARCTIC HUNT

This is a threat of both rhetoric and growing capability, and we will be working with the international community to address this, he said. "We are working diplomatically, including with those that we might be able to enlist in this effort to get North Korea under control. But right now it appears to be going in a very reckless manner."

"That's got to be stopped," he concluded.

The reporter noted that Mattis, as head of U.S. Central Command in 2012, had said Iran was the main threat facing the United States. In responding, Mattis quickly pivoted to North Korea, which has rattled Washington with threats to attack the U.S. with nuclear missiles.

EXPANDING EXTREMIST THREAT IN AFGHANISTAN

North Korea is reportedly preparing for a new nuclear test.

When asked about a U.S. generals comment on Russia reportedly giving weapons to the Taliban, Mattis said they have seen activities between the two, but would not confirm if weapons exchange was involved.

What they are up to there, in light of their other activities, gives us concern, he added. We look to (engage) with Russia on a political or diplomatic level, but right now Russia is choosing to be a strategic competitor, and we are finding that we can only have very modest expectations in areas that we can cooperate with Russia contrary to how we were just 10 years ago, five years ago.

During the press conference, Mattis largely sidestepped the issue of Assads future in Syria and said no decision has been made on deploying more U.S. troops to Afghanistan.

I have not made (a) recommendation to (the) president, he said.

Fox News Lucas Tomlinson and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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Britain's Prince Charles has walked past a statue of his ancestor Vlad the Impaler during a tour of Bucharest on his final day in Romania on a three-nation trip seen as an effort to reassure European Union nations that Britain remains a close ally.

During his tour of the old city Friday, Charles also visited a project that offers restoration support to historical buildings in an advanced state of degradation.

Charles owns two properties in Romania's northwest Transylvania region which he visits yearly. He is on tour to "highlight the U.K.'s relationship with European partners" in areas such as military ties and combatting human trafficking, according to his official website.

He will be joined by his wife Camilla when he flies to Italy later Friday. The tour also takes in Austria.
Amid a hailstorm of poison gas attacks, Russian cluster bombings, and displacements of tens of thousands of refugeesall actions judged by the United Nations to be war crimesSyrias long-running civil war has returned to extreme levels of brutality, even as U.N. officials continue to place wan hopes on a near-comatose peace process in Geneva.

Meantime, military experts are pointing to a continuing radicalization of Syrian opposition forces in a new offensive against the Assad regime that is increasingly led by militias affiliated with Al Qaeda and ISIS.

The experts ascribe the prominence of radical jihadist forces in significant measure to a deliberate Russian effort to weaken more moderate elements through their continued illegal bombing attacks against civilians.

What we have seen in recent weeks, even before the recent offensive, is a surge in Russian air strikes that was likely in anticipation of the offensive itself.  Jonathan Mautner, Institute for the Study of War

What we have seen in recent weeks, even before the recent offensive, is a surge in Russian air strikes that was likely in anticipation of the offensive itself, says Jonathan Mautner, an analyst at the Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based independent think tank specializing in Middle East military operations.

Among other things, he told Fox News, the renewed Russian attacks have focused on critical civilian infrastructurewhich includes hospitals, schools, and civilian government buildingsin an effort to divert rebel forces into civil defense, and also to punish the civilian populations that support the rebels.

As a result, the rebel attack, which began on March 21, has to a large extent been relatively blunted, in the past few days the opinion of Genevieve Casagrande, an ISW analyst who specializes in the Syrian opposition. Nonetheless, she notes, a second phase of the offensive has been launched by forces that have close ties with Al Qaeda and it remains to be seen if that will be successful.

As usual, however, the main victims of the counter-offensive have been civilians and humanitarian workers, including medical personnel who are, as in the past, special targets of the Assad regime and Russian air forces as they respond in the west-central Syrian governate of Hama and neighboring Idlib.

Officials of the Syrian American Medical Society, or SAMS, a non-profit group that maintains more than 100 hospitals in Syria, reported a variety of chemical attacks against hospitals and civilian targets in both areas over the past week, in which a doctor was killed and several other medical workers suffered injuries, along with at least 200 other people.

In attacks in Idlib near the village of Latamneh, SAMS said, the symptoms of victims pointed to the possibility that other poisons, similar to the nerve gas sarin, had been used in regime barrel bombs along with now-familiar chlorine gas. The medical group says it intends to specifically identify the toxins.

The SAMS doctor, Ali Darwish, died after a chlorine barrel bomb was dropped on the entrance of an rural hospital near Hama. The gas flooded underground rooms where Dr. Darwish had refused to leave his patients.

We have had to stop operations in four hospitals in that area, Dr. Ahmed Tarakji, president of SAMS, told Fox News, who attributed the attacks to Assad forces using helicopters, and said they now seemed to be part of regular Syrian tactics.

SAMS has declared itself appalled and disheartened by the inaction of the international community while clearly documented crimes against humanity are being committed in Syria on a daily basis.

If anything, however, atrocities are likely to be stepped up even further, as the rebel offensive, and Assad counter-offensive, continues to unfold. And on the rebel side, according to Casagrande, a further complication was the reported use by radical jihadist forces of TOW anti-tank missiles that had been covertly supplied by the U.S. to other, more moderate rebel groups, via Turkey.

Such weapons in the hands of jihadists, she said, was likely the result of radical groups merging and absorbing moderate forces that have been specifically targeted and weakened by Russian strikes.

The hardliners have also exploited the strikes, she told Fox News. We have seen them attack the moderates after strikes take place. The moderates are under attack from two sides.

The political effect is two-fold: it provides an incentive for Washington to cut back on its covert supply lines for fear of equipping radicals, and also builds credibility for the Assad narrative that everyone opposing the regime is a radical terroristwhich in turn justifies further use of brutal anti-civilian measures.

As a result of the success of the tactic, says Mautner, the Russians have directed most of their resources against the more acceptable forces, which is accelerating the radicalization of the opposition.

Moreover, Russia is not conducting peace negotiations in good faith, he noted, referring both to the Geneva peace process, which renewed sessions on March 23, or in a related process dominated by Russia, Turkey and Iran in the Khazakstan capital of Astana.

Any ceasefires as a result of those diplomatic exercises, observed Casagrande, are just a means to take pause before escalating attacks against civilians. The opposition is not willing to adhere to a ceasefire for that reason.

They also provide opportunities for the extension of regime siege and starve tactics to squeeze opposition areas into submission, then eradicate them through forced displacement of the civilian populations.

The usefulness of the talks was also scorned by Valerie Szybala, executive director of The Syria Institute, a non-partisan, non-profit research institution in Washington, who observed that anything that leaves the Assad regime in power is going to insure that tens of thousands of people die in Syrian torture chambers.

All of those tough-minded observations contrasted strongly with the tones of U.N. officials decrying the intensifying conflict, and urging a return to peace talks that so far have not produced anything except more extreme fighting.

Stefan da Mistura, the U.N. special envoy who has been responsible for Geneva-based peace discussions, pronounced himself deeply concerned on March 25 over the renewed escalation, which he said had significant negative consequences for the safety of Syrian civilians, humanitarian access and the momentum of the political process to replace Assad.

He said he had written letters to top foreign policy officials in Russia, Iran and Turkey with pleas to undertake urgent efforts to uphold the ceasefire regime.

A day earlier, after a flurry of trips to Moscow, Tehran and Ankara, he had insisted that the Geneva peace talks were still viable, even though I am not expecting breakthroughs and I am not expecting breakdowns.

He still expected, he said, a credible ceasefire, because there is no other alternative, and because the ugly conflicts external sponsors appeared to be sincerely trying to get back to one.

George Russell is Editor-at-Large of Fox News. He is reachable on Twitter at @GeorgeRussell and on Facebook at Facebook.com/George.Russell
Portugal's government is selling the remnants of a bankrupt bank to the U.S. equity firm Lone Star for 1 billion euros ($1.06 billion).

Portugal's Central Bank announced Friday that the Dallas, Texas-based fund is buying 75 percent of Novo Banco. The other 25 percent will be sold later.

The decision did little to quell wider concerns about Portugal's beleaguered financial sector.

The 1 billion euros will be spent on recapitalizing Novo Banco, the so-called "good" bank salvaged from the 2014 bankruptcy of major lender Banco Espirito Santo. That means other Portuguese banks and the Treasury won't yet  and may never  get back the 4.9 billion euros they lent to Novo Banco.

Bad loans weigh heavily on the country's financial sector, with authorities providing 10 billion euros in aid since 2008.
The fate of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is hinging on Sunday's runoff presidential election in Ecuador, the South American country that has granted him asylum in its London embassy since 2012.

The latest polls indicate that the two candidates, Guillermo Lasso and Lenin Moreno, are within the margin of error.

Right-leaning Lasso has said he will evict the Australian activist within 30 days of taking office while Moreno has said he will let him stay.

ASSANGE: NOT CLEAR IF CIA HACKED DOMESTIC TARGETS

Moreno is the hand-picked successor of outgoing President Rafael Correa, an outspoken critic of the United States.

A survey by Cedatos released March 22 had Moreno in the lead with 52.4 percent of the votes vs. Lassos 47.6 percent. A month earlier, Lasso had a four-point lead.

Assange, 45, is wanted by U.S. authorities for publishing scores of classified documents back in 2010. President Correa let Assange stay at the embassy to avoid arrest and extradition to Sweden over an old rape allegation  thus protecting him from extradition to the U.S.

PAM ANDERSON AND JULIAN ASSANGE'S STRANGE COURTSHIP EXPLAINED

But Lasso has made his intentions clear.

The Ecuadorean people have been paying a cost that we should not have to bear, Lasso told The Guardian a few weeks ago. We will cordially ask Mr. Assange to leave within 30 days of assuming a mandate.

The new president of Ecuador will be installed May 24.

We are obviously very concerned that any candidate would threaten to undermine the protection that the Ecuadorian state has granted Julian, said Jennifer Robinson, one of Assanges lawyers.

No government should play politics with the granting of asylum, she said.
Ukraine intends to file a lawsuit against a Russian airline operating in Crimea, Ukrainian Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko has said.

"We are currently planning to sue a Russian airline, which is using our space, landing on the territory of Crimea without paying for it, demanding about UAH 5 million," Lutsenko said at a briefing in Kyiv on Friday.

He also said work is under way to track vessels that enter Crimean ports.

The prosecutor general did not want to disclose the details, noting that they are currently developing an algorithm to prosecute such actions.
The 1890s was a special time for residential construction in Fredericksburg. Victorian style was going strong, and machines were getting the job done faster, leaving more time for hand-carved trim and touches that gave the homes their unique characteristics.

A great example of that is 1108 Charles St. in Fredericksburg. Dating to 1893, the house is not just typical of such houses around town, it is perhaps more genuine thanks to the sensitive restoration the current owners have dedicated themselves to for the entire 30 years of their ownership.

Now, owners Greg and Sarah Cowan are ready to turn the house over to the next owner, who they hope will continue to usher it through its second century. The Cowans have listed the property with Suzy Stone of Century 21 Redwood in Fredericksburg. The asking price is $864,000.

There are five bedrooms, three full bathrooms and 3,456 square feet of living space.

The house stands out on the 1100 block of Charles Street for several reasons. First is the turret-like tower or cupola that stands a full three stories tall on a house that is otherwise 2 1/2 stories. Its windows, bell-shaped roof with scalloped shingle roof and gold ball on top give it a distinct identity.

Second, the facade and trim look fresh and crisp. The Cowans gave the windows a special touch by bordering the upper-sashes with stained glass, using colors at the corners of each window. The original Dutch lap or German siding was meticulously scraped prior to receiving its fresh coat of gray paint, leaving it looking as smooth as new, without the telltale undulations of old paint beneath it. The carved molding along the porch roof line is a nod to its Victorian style. Greg Cowan replaced the rotted porch columns and pilasters (half columns against the homes front wall) with old reclaimed pine.

Third, it is the only house on the block with a herringbone brick sidewalk out front. Greg Cowan believes a previous owner gets credit for first installing the brick, which the city replaced after a trees roots had pushed the brick up, creating a hazard. Since the Historic District home already had the brick sidewalk, Cowan said, it had to be replaced with one.

The inside story is a tale of room-by-room restoration, which the Cowans are well-prepared to tell because they are responsible for it. Greg Cowans historic and architectural restoration resume includes work at the White House, Mount Vernon, Monticello, Kenmore and Federal Hill, to name a few. When he came home from those, hed work on his own house.

Sarah Cowans contribution to the attention to detail in the restoration is reflected as well in her work as a seamstress of reproduction 18th and 19th century clothing for reenactors, and costumes for theatrical productions. She once replicated a gown worn by Martha Washington, accurate down to the per-inch stitch count.

So clearly there was care taken in the homes restoration. The interior tour begins in the large foyer after coming through the full transom double front door. The original heart pine floors begin here and continue throughout. An arched opening to a hallway has carved trim details, and the trim throughout has the typical corner bulls-eye rosettes. With its own fireplace to keep the space warm for arriving guests, the foyer was probably used as another of the homes sitting rooms or parlors. The staircase is on the left, turning as it makes its way to the upper level.

To the right of the foyer is the living room, entered through an opening with a massive single pocket door that can be opened and closed with a finger. Here, Greg Cowan notes that he removed the plaster from the exterior walls to insert insulation where there had been none before, and then installed drywall instead of cost-prohibitive replacement plaster.

Interior walls remain the original plaster, and some of them have waist-high beadboard wainscoting.

The living rooms corner fireplace shares a flue with its counterpart in the adjacent dining room. Each of the homes fireplace mantels is intricately hand-carved and unique. The dining and living room are separated by pocket doors.

Behind the foyer is a family room whose fireplace shares a flu with the foyer fireplace. The family room mantel has an interesting story thats told in the accompanying sidebar.

A hallway separates the front portion of the house from the rear. During his restoration work, Cowan found evidence that a back stairway had been removed from the hallway, so he replaced it as it would have been.

At one end of the hall is a full bathroom that with the adjacent room could become a main-level master suite. At the other end of the hall is a pantry, adjacent to the kitchen behind it.

The kitchen has eat-in space for casual meals. Remodeling of it, as well as the homes bathrooms for the most part, has been left to the future owner. Clawfoot tubs remain in the bathrooms.

There are four bedrooms and two full baths upstairs, including the master suites, which has been updated somewhat. Also up here is a large and bright sun room, once used as a sleeping porch, with a varnished beadboard ceiling. The room is especially inviting with leaves on surrounding trees filtering the light.

Another flight up is the floored attic. On one of the rafters, in white paint, are the initials and date: TLR JULY 3, 1893, which Cowan says is typically how a builder would sign his work. The space shows the framing craftsmanship that went into the towers bell roof structure, as well as remnants of the old knob and tube wiring that provided the homes electricity.

The house has radiator hot water heat and a gas furnace. There is no central air conditioning.

Beneath the house is a partial basement that is unfinished but has electricity. Here, the brick foundation and concrete floor attest to the homes solid construction. There is interior access via a narrow stairway, but easier access is gained through the original, wedge-shaped Bilco door.

The house sits on a narrow but deep .17-acre lot. The foot print of the house covers the front half almost entirely, leaving a large grassy yard out back.
A 53-year-old Culpeper man was charged this week in federal court with sexual commercial exploitation of a minor related to his arrest in August by Stafford County authorities.

Fielding Smith Daniel waived his right to a preliminary hearing Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Alexandria and U.S. Magistrate Judge Ivan Davis on Thursday ordered Daniel held in custody until trial.

According to a 12-page affidavit filed Tuesday in the federal case by FBI agent Steven K. Hall, Daniel is accused of making contact with a 14-year-old girl through a sugar daddy website. On her profile, the girl listed her age as 18, according to court documents.

After Daniel made contact with the girl, their conversation moved to an internet chat program and arrangements were made for Daniel to pick her up near her grandmothers house in Stafford County, take her to a local hotel and pay her $200 for sex, according to the affidavit.

Authorities allege that Daniel picked the girl up in his late-model BMW Aug. 10 and took her to a Motel 6 in Stafford, where he paid her $100 for sex.

The girl said they never had a discussion about her actual age, the FBI agent wrote, noting he had observed the girl and she appears to be a minor.

Court documents allege that about a month later, the girl contacted Daniel, saying she was desperate for money and wanted to meet with him again. The documents allege that she and a friend, also 14, met up with Daniel on Aug. 23 at a Walmart and went with him in his BMW to a nearby hotel.

Daniel told the friend he would pay her if she came in the room and watched, even after the friend told him she was 14, according to court documents. The girl refused and authorities allege that Daniel then had sex with the girl he met previously and paid her $140 before driving both girls back to Walmart.

On Sept. 6, 2016, authorities executed a search warrant at Daniels home in Culpeper during which numerous electronic devices were recovered, according to the affidavit. He remains in custody in Stafford County, where separate charges are pending related to his use of electronic devices and child prostitution.

Daniel was originally scheduled for a trial in Stafford earlier this year, but it was called off after prosecutor Ryan Frank learned that the federal government would be taking over the case.

Washington, D.C., attorney Stuart Sears is representing Daniel in the federal case. He declined comment Thursday.
The facts alleged against Culpeper County in the federal lawsuit for its rejection of a utility permit to serve a planned mosque leave the impression that the countys permit denial was based on religious hostility, U.S. District Judge Norman Moon wrote in a 20-page opinion published this week.

That denial, he added in the ruling Wednesday, substantially burdened the Islamic Center of Culpepers ability to exercise its religion. Moon concurrently denied Culpeper Countys motion to dismiss the religious discrimination claim headed for a confidential settlement conference April 6 in Harrisonburg.

If the case cant be settled, it will go to trial in January 2018.

Moons opinion came a week after an initial hearing of the case in Charlottesville during which he repeatedly questioned the countys attorney as to why the Board of Supervisors diverged from standard practice when it denied a permit last April to the Islamic Center for a pump-and-haul sewer system to serve a bathroom in the mosque planned for construction along State Route 229.

Historically, such permits were granted as a matter of course, with little fanfare or scrutiny, Moon wrote. Officials even called the matter routine and stated publicly that the [Islamic Center of Culpepers] application satisfied state law and the countys protocols. Nevertheless, the county denied the application.

From 1992 to 2016, the Culpeper County Board of Supervisors considered 26 pump-and-haul applications for commercial or religious use and granted them all, the judge said.

In his opinion on this case, Moon referenced anti-Muslim sentiments communicated from constituents to board members, who then rejected the Islamic Centers application by a vote of 43 after delaying it for the purpose of a legal review which had never occurred previously.

It just keeps coming back to the same questionwhy is this request subject to more scrutiny and tighter interpretation of the policy than all the past requests, then County Board Chairwoman Alexa Fritz wrote in an email at the time that Moon referenced in his opinion.

The judge further wrote, contrary to Culpeper Countys stance, that the matter does in fact fall under the Religious Land Use & Institutionalized Persons Act that deals with land zoning and that the case is ripe for decision.

Because of the boards vote, the [Islamic Center of Culpeper] cannot build a mosque and its members cannot practice their religion to the fullest extent that their beliefs require, the judge said. There is no other land that the [center] can purchase in the county that meets its needs.

The Board of Supervisors stated reasons for denying the permitthe purported lack of a hardship for the center, the fact that it did not own the property at the time of the vote and because no structure yet existed on the propertywere pretexts for religious discrimination, Moon wrote.

A reasonable fact-finder could conclude that the denial was not based on an insufficient application or other good-faith reasons, but rather on anti-Muslim prejudice that would not evaporate simply by submitting a new application, he said.

Moon said the Islamic Center should not have had to resubmit its application or look into alternative sewer systems, as the county suggested, saying the actions are substantially burdensome especially when compared to the traditional ease of obtaining a permit.

Culpeper County subjected the Islamic Centers application to an atypically thorough examination following a nontrivial amount of public anti-Muslim sentiment, the judge wrote.
A three-day jury trial for a man accused of shooting a Stafford County deputy last year has been tentatively set for late September.

Joshua Anthony Sumter, 19, is accused of shooting Deputy Brandon Boyle and shooting at other deputies during a June 17 incident on Windsor Ridge Court in southern Stafford. Boyle was shot in the chest, arm, hip and upper thigh. Police believe his body armor saved his life.

Sumter is facing numerous charges, including four counts of attempted capital murder.

His case was in limbo earlier this year after a doctor who examined Sumter at Central State Hospital in Petersburg determined that he was incompetent to stand trial. Dr. Elizabeth Wheeler recommended that Sumter continue receiving treatment in an attempt to restore his competency to the point where he could stand trial.

Sumter was returned to Stafford Circuit Court on Thursday and it was determined that he is now competent. A trial was set for Sept. 2628.

But defense attorney John Spencer filed a motion asking that Sumter be examined to determine if he was insane at the time of the incident. Sumter was ordered to be returned to Central State for that examination, and a hearing on that issue is scheduled for June 2.

Deputies went to a home off Forbes Street late on June 7 after receiving a call from Sumters mother saying he had broken into a house that hed been barred from, police said.

Four deputies, including Boyle, went upstairs and saw Sumter lying on the floor in a bedroom. Police said that after they ordered him to show his hands, he displayed a gun and immediately began firing.

Sumter got out of the house after the shooting, but was apprehended about seven hours later at a nearby townhouse complex.
A Stafford man who was duped into believing that he had hired a hitman from jail with a promissory note was ordered Thursday to serve 26 years in prison.

Tyrone Maurice Warren, 23, was sentenced by Judge Victoria Willis to a total of 53 years with all but 26 years suspended. Warren had previously pleaded guilty in Stafford Circuit Court to attempted capital murder, solicitation to commit murder, carnal knowledge, attempted indecent liberties and a probation violation.

According to the evidence presented by prosecutor Ed Lustig, Warren engaged in a sex act with a 13-year-old girl on Aug. 9, 2015, in the Olde Forge area of Stafford.

He was in Rappahannock Regional Jail on charges stemming from that incident when he began asking other inmates about potential hitmen. Warren wanted to have the girl and her mother killed.

In December 2015, an inmate alerted police about Warrens inquiries. Lustig said the inmate requested nothing in exchange for the tip, saying, I aint about killing kids.

Detective Bob Parson gave the inmate a number to give Warren the next time he asked about a hitman. Warren subsequently made 11 phone calls from the jail to Stafford Detective 1st Sgt. Chris Cameron, who was playing the role of a Gangster Disciples biker gang member named JC.

Warren made arrangements with the phony gang member to pay $5,000 for two slayings. He also wrote letters from jail in which he described the two would-be victims. In one he wrote, I want you to torture them and kill them by Wednesday.

He also signed a makeshift promissory note in which he promised to make the $5,000 payment within six months after getting out of jail. He put up his mother as collateral, believing that the gangsters would kill her if he didnt make the payment.

Detective Nick Chiappini visited Warren in Jail on Dec. 3, 2015, posing as the actual hitman. During their first conversation, Chiappini showed pictures of the targets that Warren confirmed were the two he wanted killed. They also agreed to a code phrase Christmas surprise for your sister, which meant that killings had been carried out.

Chiappini returned to the jail a few days later with a doctored picture from the internet that convinced Warren that the hits had been carried out. Chiappini told Warren, I met your sister and she was real surprised.

Warren then called his mother and told her hed be getting out of jail soon.

Defense attorney Tara-Beth Coleman asked Willis for mercy, saying Warren had several mental disabilities, limited intelligence and had suffered considerable abuse growing up.

Warren said he was sorry for what had happened and that he is not the monster the prosecutor had made him out to be.

Lustig asked that Warren serve at least 35 years. He may lack book smarts, but more importantly he also lacks a conscience, Lustig said.

The probation violation stemmed from a 2012 incident involving sexual offenses with another young girl.
A former nurses aide who stole from her patients has been ordered to serve seven years in prison.

Cassandra Jean Eley, 41, of Stafford County was working for a home health care agency last year when she stole about $18,000 worth of property and money from two Stafford residents, ages 80 and 67. One victim suffered the brunt of the loss.

Eley was convicted in Stafford Circuit Court of multiple charges, including three counts of grand larceny, abuse of an incapacitated adult and credit card fraud. She was sentenced Thursday to a total of 35 years with 28 years suspended.

According to the evidence, Detective A.M. Irizarry began an investigation in April 2016 after being contacted by one of the victims and a nurse who was assisting her.

Irizarrys investigation showed that between March 3 and April 8 of last year, such things as prescription medication, heirloom jewelry and collectible coins were stolen, and credit and EBT cards were used without permission.

Prosecutor Ed Lustig said the women were especially upset about jewelry that had been passed down through generations and carried a lot of sentimental value.

Eley was fired from her job after her company learned about the allegations. Police recovered some of the stolen property in local pawn shops.

Eleys attorney, Austin Timberlake, asked for leniency, saying his client had spiraled out of control after becoming addicted to pain pills. He pointed out that shed gone the first 40 years of her life without committing crimes.

Eley is still facing an April 25 sentencing in Fredericksburg Circuit Court on 15 credit card theft convictions. While out on bond on the Stafford charges, according to court records, she stole from an 83-year-old city resident.

She was also recently indicted on theft-related charges in Spotsylvania County.
Members of the King George County Board of Supervisors have put in their two cents about the county budget and will ask residents to do the same, in terms of the increase to their real estate bills.

After weeks of discussing the budgetand examining every expense, even ones as meager as postage costs and a Fax linethe board on Wednesday agreed to a balanced budget of $77.9 million. About $43 million of that would come from local sources, and real estate taxes would need to go up by 2 cents, from 68 cents to 70 cents per $100 of assessed value.

Currently, a home worth $252,00the median home value in the county, according to the online marketplace Zillowhas an annual tax bill of $1,714. With a 2 cent increase, the tax bill would go up $51, to $1,765.

Residents will have their chance to comment on the proposed spending plan on Tuesday. A public hearing is scheduled 6:30 p.m. in the board room of the Revercomb Administration Center.

The proposal includes $16.9 million for schools, an $826,205 increase over the current budget. Half the increase would go to the state-mandated hike in payment to the Virginia Retirement System fund. The rest is for a 0.3 percent cost-of-living raise for employees and eight new positions in special education.

Other new expenses include three new fire and rescue positions. Supervisors initially agreed to hire six new workersthree for the whole year and three starting Jan. 1then got rid of the latter to reduce the tax increase.

During the most recent work session, supervisors also agreed to trim a little overtime from emergency services. The board needed to cut $19,000 to balance the budget, and Finance Director Robyn Shugart suggested reducing EMS overtime, given that all three new workers may not be hired as soon as the new fiscal year begins July 1.

Plus, the EMS department has projected $446,000 in overtime and could absorb a cut of $19,000, she said.

The budget also includes a county engineer and grant writerboth part-time positionsand money for new computer equipment in schools, voting machines, various vehicles and shields and gas masks for the Sheriffs Office.

In a letter to The Free LanceStar published March 27, King George resident Charles Hume wondered if the supervisors would need shields and masks to control the crowds who will protest violently against the new tax increase.

To illustrate how closely the supervisors looked at every dollar appropriated, board members had a lengthy discussion about the $26,655 cost of increasing a custodial position from part time to full time. The janitor works in the Sheriffs Office and requires a security clearance.

Supervisor John Jenkins Jr. wondered if hiring two part-time workers would be a better solution because that would cost $11,000 less. Chairman Ruby Brabo said Jenkins deserved a gold star for thinking outside the box, and that such solutions are helpful when we are facing such tough financial constraints.

But Supervisor Cedell Brooks Jr. said they should think not just about the money, but also about the person who deserved full-time benefits.

Brabo argued that plenty of people, such as mothers whose husbands provide the family health insurance, seek part-time work but cant always find it. Brooks countered that just as many people need full-time jobs and the benefits that come with them.

In the end, after Brooks and Brabo disputed different perspectivesas theyve done regularly in recent meetingsthe supervisors agreed to make the custodial position a full-time one.

The night before the work session, at a town-hall meeting hosted by Brabo and Brooks, the chairwoman told the audience she hopes the county wont have to raise taxes again this time next year.

We will have new revenue in our coffers that hopefully will prevent us from needing a tax hike, she said, listing a number of new businesses coming to King George. They include Tractor Supply, Dunkin Donuts, a solar farm and an environmental firm in the King George Industrial Park.
SOMEBODY CAME up with a good idea the other day: split California into two states.

To me, that plan doesnt go far enough. I say make California a separate country. Give the Golden State its independence. Make Jerry Brown king. Let the people there bellyache to their own government.

After all, it is often said that Californias economy is larger than those of many small countries. Just give the rest of us free passage to Pismo Beach, AT&T Park and Disneyland and let California go it alone.

Well, we know thats not going to happen, so maybe creating two states from one might be the best plan.

The idea, of course, is to separate the crazies from the relatively sane citizens of that state. Let the wackos do their thing with their own government so that the working-class people can maintain a somewhat normal lifestyle.

But thats not as easy as it seems. Ordinarily one would look at the map and declare that the logical way to split California into two states would be to cut it in half somewhere south of Sacramento.

That way, you would have North California and South California just like the Dakotas and the Carolinas. But that doesnt solve the problem of separating the crazies from the (relatively) sane people, because most of the crazies seem to live along the coast.

What is it about living along the coast anyway? It is kinda the same along the East Coast. The people from Washington to New York are a little weird, too.

You get 50 miles inland and everybody seems perfectly normal (with the exception of New Jersey), but along the coast, they are sometimes just a little strange. Maybe it is the salt water that gets to them or perhaps the seagulls that fly over drop some brain contaminants.

I have always thought the Washington-to-New York corridor also would be better off as a separate country, but I dont have the space to discuss that today, so lets go back to California.

As I said, North and South California would be the logical breakup because most of the agriculture and vegetation is to the north while the southern part of the state is primarily desert.

But again, the idea is to divide the state according to its people and not its geography. We have to find some way to separate the dairy farmers of Sacramento from the Hollywood hotsy-totsies who annually fill the ballots with Proposition F and Proposition G, which cause the rest of us to reach for the Preparation H.

We could use the San Andreas Fault as a boundary. Split the state east and west. That way when the big one hits and the western part of the state slides into the Pacific Ocean, the crazies will be gone and East California will survive intact.

Maybe it is the constant mini earthquakes out there along the California coast that are driving those people mad. Maybe the vibrations of those tectonic plates grinding against one another are causing the residents along the coast to become a little weird.

Whatever the reason, the folks along the coast and those inland seem to be very different and creating two states from one seems like an excellent idea.

But if the split does occur, I would have the government of East California call Donald Trump and get a copy of his construction plans for that Mexican wall. Then Id build my own wall just east of the San Andreas Fault to keep those crazy West California people out.

OK, now that I have solved Californias problem, lets start working on splitting Northern Virginia off from the rest of our state. Everything north of the Rappahannock River becomes North Virginia and everything else remains Virginia.

But I still dont know what to do about New Jersey and that Washington-to-New York corridor.

Let me get back to you next week on that.
As the airliner began its descent to an airport in Guyana, South America, the control tower received word that several shots had been fired in the cockpit.

The plane crashed on landing, and suddenly police vehicles and ambulances were racing to the runway, a hangar was converted into an emergency medical station and a helicopter was called to evacuate the seriously wounded.

Or those who would have been wounded had it been a real crash. Instead, it was a mass casualty incident training exercise facilitated last month by Lt. Jack McGovern III of the Fredericksburg Fire Department.

McGovern, who trains firefighters across the state, has helped improve emergency response at the Eugene F. Correia International Airport in Georgetown, Guyana, a dozen times since 2005.

We have done scenarios all the time down there, usually mass casualty as well as fire training, he said. Over the years, weve built in more of a security component for the training in that a scenario one year involved a bombing, and this year, an active shooter on the plane.

McGovern said that officials at the airport told him those were situations they wouldnt have considered.

As things move forward, we let them know that if you have access to the internet, you can do bad things, he said. We need them to be at least prepared.

The airport is a hub for dignitaries flying in for meetings at the nearby Secretariat of the Caribbean Community, or CARICOM, an organization of 15 Caribbean nations and dependencies. Guyana is also home to a huge gold mining industry, is an increasingly popular ecotourism destination and is poised to become a big oil producer in the Western Hemisphere.

McGovern said that he got involved with training at the airport through a family friend, a nurse who and was on a mission trip to Guyana. She was helping with mass casualty response at the airport, and called him for advice because hes a certified aircraft rescue firefighter, or ARF. She asked if hed be interested in helping, and put him in touch with Malcolm Chan-A-Sue, the safety operator at Correia and a legend in Guyana aviation.

The first time McGovern flew to the developing country to help, he said that the airport was able to handle only planes like the Cessna Caravan, a turboprop that can carry up to 14 passengers. Correia has expanded greatly. LIAT, a large carrier with routes through the Caribbean, now flies in regularly, as do a number of other airlines.

We do a lot of airplane familiarization, said McGovern. Were constantly training firefighters on how to access planes, how to shut down systems, and then how to work with cabin and crew members. As they get new apparatus, we train on the procedures to use them.

He said that he also teaches basic firefighting skills because there is a lack of formal training for firefighters in Guyana compared to their peers in the United States. And hes given them tips on such things as how to safely store and transport products that wouldnt be allowed on airplanes in the United States.

These include gasoline, which is used to run generators in the interior, and mercury, which is used in gold mining. Mercury, if it spills, can corrode the aluminum body of an airplane.

McGovern said that the living conditions for firefighters at the airport are nothing like those of their American counterparts. They have no running water, and not everyone has all the gear they need. Some of the equipment they get is also secondhand, including a firetruck that came with no instruction manual. The equipment was labeled, but the words were written in French.

Guyana is a former British colony, and English is the official language, although most people speak English with a creole accent. There are also a number of dialects.

There is a language barrier at times, McGovern said. They are very smart, however. With some of the things we discuss, I have to slow down and get them to repeat things because of the accent and how strong it is. I need to enunciate and ask if they understand.

McGovern grew up in Woodbridge and became certified as a volunteer firefighter and EMT when he was 16. He worked briefly for the Loudoun County Fire Department after graduating from Old Dominion University with a criminal justice degree in 1998, then switched to the Fredericksburg Fire Department, where hes worked ever since.

He said that he used about two weeks of vacation time to help with training at Correia last month. The privately owned airport covers his airline tickets, gives him a place to stay and pays a per diem of $100 for a day that begins at 8 a.m. and usually finishes around 9 p.m.if there isnt an emergency. Once, when he was sitting down to dinner, a call came to help with a fire in the interior of the country. He didnt get back until the wee hours the next day.

McGovern said that hes occasionally treated to an excursion in Guyana, which he described as a gorgeous, gorgeous country. Hes visited gold mining camps, met indigenous people and gotten to stand next to Kaieteur Falls in the Amazon rainforest. Hes also gotten to attend some festivals, including Mashramani, or Mash, an annual festival that celebrates Guyana becoming a Republic in 1970.

You really do feel welcome down there, he said. When my father died in June of 2007, people at the engineering school at the airport sent flowers to let me know they were thinking of me.

He said that his work in Guyana has taught him patience, made him appreciate the training firefighters get in the United States, and has expanded his contacts because he reaches out to experts when planning the training scenarios.

McGovern said that hes always gone to Guyana by himself, but realizes hell need to start bringing along other qualified people as the airport continues to grow.

It makes you feel good when you leave there, he said. If theres anything for people to take away from this, its if you can take what you have learnedyou may not think its much, but it may be more than others may have had the opportunity to get. Pass it on. Theres plenty of opportunity out there.
Japan will provide $3.9 million to support people and communities affected by the conflict in eastern Ukraine, Japanese Ambassador to Ukraine Shigeki Sumi has said.

"I am pleased to announce that from April 2017 to March 2018, the Japanese government will allocate $4 million through the UN and the Red Cross in Ukraine for the recovery of Ukraine's east," he said at a press conference in Kyiv on Friday.

In particular, $1.01 million will be allocated through the United Nations Development Program for the economic recovery and restoration of critical infrastructure in the eastern regions of Ukraine, another $1.27 million for the restoration and development of peace. Some $0.97 million will be allocated through the International Organization for Migration for the restoration of unity and support for small businesses in local communities, which are affected by the conflict in Donbas. Some $0.87 million will be allocated through UNICEF for the development of the education sector in the government-controlled areas of Donetsk and Luhansk regions and the rest of the money will go to other projects.

Ukraine's Deputy Prime Minister - Minister of Regional Development, Construction, Housing and Utility Services Hennadiy Zubko thanked Japan for its constant support of projects in Ukraine.
Henry Armistead dipped his pen in ink and recorded the incorporation of Fredericksburg as a town in 1782.

That sheet of cotton rag paper is the opening page of the town councils original Council Minutes Book.

But over the years, Armisteads graceful Copperplate script and the handwriting of his successors darkened and the binding of the councils first two decades of minutes became tattered.

Thanks to a $2,151 donation from the Virginia Daughters of the American Revolution and the local Washington-Lewis Chapter, the Council Minutes Book from 1781 to 1801 has been cleaned, repaired and rebound using archival materials.

Jeff Small, the Fredericksburg Circuit Court clerk, presented the thick, burgundy volume to City Council at its meeting Tuesday.

Among other gems, the minutes book includes a letter from Mayor William McWilliams expressing the warmest gratitude and affection to Gen. George Washington for his long and meritorious services in the cause of liberty during the American Revolutionand Washingtons reply.

In it, Washington not only thanked McWilliams and the Commonalty of the Corporation of Fredericksburg for their plaudits, but also for the honorable mention of my revered mother, by whose maternal hand (early deprived of a Father) I was led to manhood.

Its so cool to think that the founding father of the country, our president, his letter is in our minutes book, Small said before handing the book to Mayor Mary Katherine Greenlaw.

It will be stored in a fireproof safe at City Hall, but an index and copies of the pages are available online at resources.umwhisp.org/fredburg.htm or on microfilm in the Virginiana Room at the Central Rappahannock Regional Library headquarters at 1201 Caroline St.

Small said that City Manager Tim Baroody and City Council member Billy Withers alerted him to the minute books deteriorating condition about six months ago, but there were no funds in the citys or the courts budgets to restore and rebind it. A grant request was made to the DAR, whose Virginia chapter has a committee dedicated to preserving old local, county and state records.

Such original records are irreplaceable, but they are often also fragile and worn, and towns and counties have inadequate funding to address all the records that need attention, said Linda B. Jones, the chapters preservation of records committee chair, in an email. Thus, our assistance is most often financial, allowing the clerks and archivists to work with professional conservators to preserve such records.

She said that the request for funds to preserve the citys minutes book was a good opportunity to preserve records from the Revolutionary era.

The book was sent to Kofile Technologies, which specializes in preserving old records. Among other things, it deacidified and cleaned the pages, sealed them in polyester sleeves and bound them in a ring-binder so individual pages can be removed for research.

Gary W. Stanton, the University of Mary Washingtons associate professor emeritus of historic preservation, said that council minutes are the memory of the community.

The citys minute books are the entry point for finding documents where City Council was, in a sense, laying out how things would go forward or were responding to events: the railroad coming to town, the making of the streets, the entire infrastructure of our water, gas, power, sewer systems, he said. Its the fabric of life that is in the minute books, and refers them to loose papers, many of which survive in the clerks office.

Washingtons letter to the town council, which was probably written in 1783, would normally have been one of the loose papers, said Stanton, who maintains a website of Fredericksburg research resources.

It didnt have to be in the minutes, but it was held in such high esteem that it was held within the minutes in honor of him, he said. That piece of paper was seen as being important to maintain as it was written.

The citys old minutes books are also filled with the names and information about other important figures in Fredericksburgs history. Mary Washington, for example, is among the property owners listed in an assessment.

There are also mentions of George Weedon, who was a brigadier general in the Continental Army; Fontaine Maury, who served as Fredericksburgs mayor during the 1790s and early 1800s and was a relative of Matthew Fontaine Maury; and James Monroe, who practiced law in Fredericksburg before becoming the fifth president of the United States.

Theres relatively less reference to them in their historical context, but the daily context, Stanton said. Weedon was an early part of the council  if you know somebody who was important to the development of Fredericksburg, you find them listed in the City Council minutes. For the people doing that kind of research, its a gateway resource.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin has discussed with High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Federica Mogherini the escalation of hostilities in Donbas, finalizing EU procedures for granting Ukrainians visa-free status and preparations for the Ukraine-EU summit.

A press release issued on Friday by Ukraine's Foreign Ministry said the meeting took place in Brussels. During the talks, the sides discussed intensified fighting in eastern Ukraine and provocations by the Russian Federation and militant groups, who seized Ukrainian enterprises in occupied areas and introduced Russian rubles as the currency for occupied areas, as well as the introduction of quasi-tax and banking systems.

Klimkin said Russian steps are tantamount to deliberate violations of the Minsk agreements and urged the EU to respond immediately. He also expressed hope that EU procedures for granting Ukrainian visa-free travel to Europe would be completed in the near future, along with the ratification process of the EU-Ukraine Association agreement

The sides also discussed the timetable for further bilateral dialogue, including preparations for the Ukraine-EU summit scheduled for 2017.
She worked for the C & P Telephone Company and retired as a supervisor after 25 years of service. She had a zest for life which was evident in the joy she found participating in many different groups, clubs, civic organizations and her church. She was always on the go traveling, participating in clubs, volunteering, working the polls, serving as a Sunday school teacher and deacon in her church. The list of her activities and impacts goes on and on. She unfailingly loved and cherished her family and told them so every chance she got. Nothing made her eyes light up like seeing her family walk through the door. She always put others before herself and was a wonderful friend to many. She lived a life of happiness, hard work, tough times and wonderful times. Throughout her life she always displayed her characteristic work ethic, refusal to complain, witty charm, strength, kindness, upbeat attitude and unwavering faith.
ADVOCATES for the Chesapeake Bay cleanup were taken aback twice in recent weeks. First it was the Trump administrations announcement that it planned to cut Environmental Protection Agency funding for the project from $73 million to just $5 million.

Then came the actual budget outline, which eliminates funding entirely.

Now we have learned that also in the budget blueprint is the administrations plan to cut funding for the Virginia Institute of Marine Science by 25 percent. Though there are varied and interconnected sources of public and private funding, that translates to roughly $9.3 million less for the research center based in Gloucester Point near the York River.

Of course, we dont know how all of this is going to work out. Congress will have its chance to review the administrations spending plan and make adjustments as it sees fit. A lot of people are hoping most, if not all, funding for the bay will be restored.

There is no doubt, however, that no matter what role the EPA is left to play, the effort to restore the bays heath will not be abandoned. The bipartisan commitment to progress is by now part of the political and environmental fabric in the six states and the District of Columbia that make up the watershed.

The importance of the research and education for which VIMS is responsible has been instrumental not just for the recent progress of the bay cleanup, but for all the marine science issues in other at-risk waters across the United States. And there are many.

VIMS scientific research provides solutions to the issues that stand in the way of the bay regaining its status as a key economic engine for the mid-Atlantic region. Its programs teach students who will become the next generation of problem-solvers for the nations waterways.

Hacking the VIMS budget would be an example of being penny wise and pound foolish.
VIRGINIANS are fortunate to live in a place that appreciates its past as our commonwealth does.

Being able to visit some of those spotswhether its Mount Vernon, Montpelier or Orange Countys Mine Run battlefieldmakes those historic homes and landscapes one big outdoor learning laboratory. Its fun for families and friends, and good for whatever ails you.

Now, with spring in flower, it is time for us to give back to some of these special spots. A little elbow grease is needed as 22 Civil War sites across Virginia prepare to receive summers visitors.

From Lynchburg to Loudoun, volunteers are still being sought on Saturday morning to pitch in for Park Day, the yearly spring cleanup at Americas battlefields and other historic treasures sponsored by the nonprofit Civil War Trust.

Organizers hereabouts say that last-minute walk-ons are always welcome. And even a few hours of your time can make a big difference to a particular place.

Park Day volunteers are critically important to historic sites that must balance basic maintenance needs with limited budgets and small staffsthat may result in deferred repairs and neglect, says trust President James Lighthizer.

Locally, as befits a region sometimes called Americas battleground, there are many options. Five sites in the Fredericksburg area will participate in the 21st annual ritethe Chancellorsville, Spotsylvania Court House, Cedar Mountain and Brandy Station battlefields, plus the Germanna Foundation Visitor Center in Orange County. You can rake, paint, make repairs, whack weeds, bag trash, and more.

In nearby Louisa County, people will fix fences and clear brush, trash and downed tree limbs at Custers Headquarters on the Trevilian Station battlefield.

Nationally, more than 130 historic sites in 30 states will participate. But its here at home that your help is most needed.

For times, details and contacts, see the roster of Virginia events at civilwar.org. Fredericksburg.com also has an article on local Park Day sites. So, please, grab some gloves, bring water and help out.
Thornburg wrong place for military training facility

The Spotsylvania County Board of Supervisors and Planning Commission need to say no to the Crucible.

The Crucible, specializing in military-style training, plans to request rezoning of property in Thornburg from agriculture to industry, Type III. A Type III industry zoning will allow training that would be, at best, extremely obnoxious, and at worst, life-threatening.

Crucible training could include storing and detonating explosives and firing up to .50-caliber weapons at live-fire ranges.

The rezoning would allow it to be exempt from noise pollution levels from 6 a.m. until 10 p.m. This noise level would be detrimental to humans and livestock in the Thornburg area.

The facility would also reduce current property values. Over 250 properties are in the Surface Danger Zone, a designation used by the military and other agencies to identify down-range areas that are endangered by firing weapons.

For .50-caliber weapons, the SDZ extends 4 miles.

How will the county make up for lost tax revenue as property values decline? Furthermore, how will these property owners be compensated for the loss of property value? More importantly, how do you put a value on, let alone compensate, for the possibility of a stray bullet endangering loved ones?

The county Planning Board and Supervisors can and should tell this applicant that its planned use for this land is not in the best interest of the residents of Spotsylvania.

Wayne Breakfield

Spotsylvania
Grimm

8 p.m. (4) (NBC) (12) (NBC)

The End Nick faces off against his greatest foe yet, as it seems no weapon can defeat him. At the Spice Shop, Monroe and the gang search for answers, and stumble upon a rare potion. (N) (HD)

MacGyver

8 p.m. (6) (CBS) (9) (CBS)

Compass Mac and Jack help Macs close friend from M.I.T. after she fakes her own death. They must unravel the truth as she runs for her life from those trying to supress her scientific research. (N) (HD)

Hawaii Five-0

9 p.m. (6) (CBS) (9) (CBS)

Huikau Na Makau A Ka Lawaia The Five-0 helps P.I. Harry Brown work the case of a kidnapped wealthy woman whose husband may have something to hide. (N) (HD)

Shark Tank

9 p.m. (7) (ABC) (8) (ABC)

When an entrepreneurial team from Santa Cruz, California, leaves the Tank to discuss an offer for their electric skateboard business, they get a surprise from the Sharks upon their return. (HD)

Sleepy Hollow

9 p.m. (5) (FOX) (35) (FOX)

Freedom Dreyfuss finally garners enough power to infiltrate the White House, and his group of minions grows strong enough to take action. (N) (HD)

Blue Bloods

10 p.m. (6) (CBS) (9) (CBS)

A Deep Blue Goodbye Danny investigates the circumstances of an ex-NYPD officer who goes missing. Also, Frank faces a dilemma when one of his peers refuses to retire, even though hes hit the mandatory age limit. (N) (HD)
Dr. Hans-Peter Kiem, associate head of Transplantation Biology and a member of the Clinical Research Division at the Hutch, will lead a project that aims to improve cancer immunotherapy through the use of hematopoietic, or blood, stem cells to generate T cells, the workhorse of the immune system that can be programmed to target cancer.

Immunotherapy  particularly the use of chimeric antigen receptors (CARs) or engineered T-cell receptors (TCRs)  is revolutionizing the treatment of patients with certain blood cancers and solid tumors. One important challenge identified in these studies, however, has been the eventual exhaustion of engineered T cells.

Kiems goal is to incorporate the use of blood stem cells into immunotherapy approaches to produce a long-term, robust immune T-cell response against cancer.

An alternative, highly appealing and exciting approach is the use of blood stem cells for the generation of engineered T cells. The use of blood stem cells would allow sustained, lifelong production of anti-cancer T cells in immunotherapy, said Kiem, the Fred Hutch Endowed Chair for Cell and Gene Therapy and director of the Cell and Gene Therapy Program at the Hutch.

For more than three decades of research, the purification of blood stem and progenitor cells, identified as CD34+ cells, has remained the gold-standard strategy for clinical transplantation and gene therapy. However, these cells contain only a very few true blood stem cells, which limits the efficiency of current transplant approaches. The ability to identify, enrich and target true blood stem cells would be a major advance to guarantee lifelong production of anti-cancer T cells and, at the same time, reduce manufacturing costs, making this strategy available and affordable for more patients, Kiem said.

Kiem and colleagues recently identified a subset, or fraction, of CD34+ cells that are highly enriched with the blood stem cells required exclusively for the production of blood lineages after transplantation. The cell fraction is easy to identify and purify, making it the perfect target for blood-stem-cell-mediated immunotherapy approaches, Kiem said.

The single-cell RNA-seq exploratory and pilot award will allow us to comprehensively analyze and study this new blood-stem-cell-enriched fraction in human stem-cell sources for gene therapy-mediated CAR-T and TCR-based approaches, Kiem said.
11:00 03.04.2017 Interfax-Ukraine to host press conference 'Adoption of a Law Stimulating Household Waste Incineration Will Become Black Day for Ukraine's Ecology and Economy'

1 min read

On Monday, April 3, at 11.00, the Interfax-Ukraine News Agency's press center will host a press conference entitled "Adoption of a Law Stimulating Household Waste Incineration Will Become Black Day for Ukraine's Ecology and Economy." The participants will include Deputy Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada Committee for Construction, Urban Development, Housing and Utilities Services MP Olena Babak; Researcher at the Nature Management Institute of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, Ph.D. Tetiana Omelyanenko; founder of the "Ukraine without Garbage" eco-project Yevhenia Aratovska; and head of the Association of Hazardous Waste Management Enterprises Kyrylo Kosourov (8/5a Reitarska Street). Registration requires press accreditation. More information by phone: (067) 393 3537, (050) 548 4599.
Google Testing New Layout Design For Pixel Launcher

The Google is testing a new layout design for their flagship phone, the Pixel, launcher. This new layout design removes the weather and date widget and replaced by a longer and more conventional Google search bar widget.

In the new Pixel launcher layout designs, the previous rounded Google search button on the left side of the phone screen stretches across the other edge where the weather and date widget was placed. The Google button is now a bar with a rounded edge, quietly similar to the old Google search bar usually used in other Android phones.

According to the source, the launcher layout design changes occurred when they restore back their Pixel phone from the Android Nougat 7.1.2 beta to the stable version of Android 7.1.1. Also, users claim that this change takes place only for the phone display purposes and the phones other functionality are not affected.

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This new Pixel launcher layout design is still unofficial and seems current still in testing part. If you are a Pixel user experiencing this new launcher design and not comfortable with it, you can set back the old design by doing this method. Go to the settings menu, then to "apps," then to "Pixel Launcher," and clear the data, the new style with old Google Search bar is will replace again by the current pill-shaped button.

With this new layout display and longer Google search bar, the weather and date widget might totally remove from the Pixel phone launcher. However, as the 9 to 5 Google noted, some Pixel phone users might welcome the removal given their preference for other weather apps and widgets.

Last November, Google also featured a button to quickly launch voice search, as well as a separator indicator between the letter 'G' logo with a precursor design, so this is not the first time we've seen an oblong search bar.

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Supermarket Marks & Spencer has said it will stand by one of its dairy suppliers after a series of media articles wrongly accused the farmer of cruelty.

The retailer issued a strongly worded statement which stated no animals well-being had been compromised on the farm and reinforced its solidarity with UK agriculture and dairy farming, adding this was not the time for knee-jerk reactions.

JF Cobb & Sons, who farm near Dorchester had been accused by charity, Animal Equality UK on Tuesday (28 March) of mistreating calves, which were housed in rows of pens.

The story was seized on by national newspapers, which ran headlines describing condition the calves were being kept in as shocking and heartbreaking.

Misleading claims

The Guardian went as far as to publish an article entitled Dairy is scary: the public are waking up to the darkest part of farming, which made a host of misleading and false claims about the dairy industry.

See also: 13 milk myths and misconceptions debunked

But, the supermarket, which buys 136,000 litres of milk a week from Mr Cobb, said it immediately inspected the calves on the Grange Dairy site and found there was no distress among any of the animals.

It has also asked the RSPCA to inspect all 40 of its dairy farms.

Following a full inspection of the site, Dorset County Council trading standards department also agreed there was no evidence of any breaches of welfare requirements.

Trusted supplier

M&S was very clear that any calves over eight weeks of age should not be housed in hutches, but in this instance it had been one mistake by a trusted supplier.

Some of the calves in hutches were believed to be slightly over this age contravening the law, but spot audits confirmed this did lead to concerns over animal welfare.

If a trusted supplier makes a mistake, we believe it is right to stick with them, help them to rectify the issues and, in turn, make them a more robust business. said the retailer.

The supermarket added: Severing links with suppliers can devastate communities and industries.

That is not the way we do business.

The statement added: Farming is a complex business that relies on a delicate financial and moral equilibrium between farmers, retailers and consumers.

This is a reality of modern business. If this balance occasionally and unwittingly tilts in the wrong direction, it is our duty as one of the UKs biggest retailers to help put this right.

But there is a wider issue at play.

British farming is in a precarious position. The number of dairy producers in England and Wales has fallen dramatically and yet the UK dairy industry accounts for around 18% of UK agricultural production by value.

As a British retailer, it is right that we support this vital sector.

We stand by our farmers and we stand by British farming. When mistakes are made, we deal with them; we dont shirk from our responsibilities.

Because ultimately, we believe that working together with our suppliers for the long term is for the greater good and drives better results.

And better results at M&S means excellent animal welfare, higher farming standards and amazing quality products for our customers.

Vitriol

JF Cobb & Sons has been subject to media and public vitriol since the story broke on Tuesday (28 March), despite acceptance by regulatory bodies and experts that there were no animal welfare issues.

Farming is complex business that relies on a delicate financial and moral equilibrium between farmers, retailers and consumers Marks & Spencer statement

Mr Cobbs expressed his disappointment at how the situation had unfolded.

As a family farming business, we care passionately about our livestock and all our energy is focused on keeping our cattle comfortable and healthy.

We work closely with vets and industry welfare experts to establish the best approach to looking after our animals and our health and welfare performance is industry leading.

Our animals are under close veterinary supervision and there is no suggestion that the health and welfare of our animals has been compromised.

Marks & Spencers full statement can be viewed on its website
Story Highlights 63% worry a great deal about pollution of drinking water

57% worry a great deal about pollution of rivers, lakes and reservoirs

Low-income and nonwhite Americans more concerned about water pollution

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Americans are more concerned about water pollution than they have been since 2001. The latest percentages of Americans who are worried "a great deal" about the pollution of drinking water (63%) and of rivers, lakes and reservoirs (57%) have inched past the elevated levels of concern seen since 2014.

The latest data are from Gallup's annual Environment poll, conducted March 1-5, 2017.

The continued elevated levels of concern about both types of water pollution come as President Donald Trump signed an executive order to roll back environmental regulations put in place by his predecessor to protect American waterways from pollution. Meanwhile, the Environmental Protection Agency under Trump has committed $100 million in federal funding to address the ongoing drinking water crisis in Flint, Michigan. The discovery of elevated lead levels in Flint's public drinking water in 2015, and subsequent news about a range of other contaminants in the Flint water system, has put a national spotlight on the issue of water pollution.

Gallup first polled on environmental worries in 1989 and began tracking these concerns regularly in 1999. Since then, between 48% and 72% of Americans have expressed a great deal of worry about the pollution of drinking water, and between 46% and 66% have expressed this level of worry about the pollution of rivers, lakes and reservoirs.

Concerns about these issues were highest around the turn of the millennium, and lowest between 2010 and 2012, perhaps reflecting the state of the economy during those times. Americans tend to give a higher priority to environmental matters when the economy is healthy than when it is not.

Democrats have fueled most of the increase in concern about water pollution since 2012. Less than half of Republicans have reported being concerned a great deal about drinking water since 2012, ranging from 36% to 49% during that time. Democrats' concern has risen to 74% from 57% over the same period.

Drinking-Water Pollution Remains Top U.S. Environmental Worry

Americans continue to rank worries about water pollution highest on a list of six environmental problems, as they have for over a quarter century. Less than half are greatly worried about air pollution or climate change, although concern about the latter is at a three-decade high.

As with water pollution, the percentages of Americans worried a great deal about other environmental problems Gallup measures such as air pollution, the loss of tropical rain forests or the extinction of plant and animal species are elevated in comparison with recent years, even if most of the country is not strongly concerned.

Americans Concerned "a Great Deal" About Environmental Problems I'm going to read you a list of environmental problems. As I read each one, please tell me if you personally worry about this problem a great deal, a fair amount, only a little or not at all. 2015 2016 2017 % % % Pollution of drinking water 55 61 63 Pollution of rivers, lakes and reservoirs 47 56 57 Air pollution 38 43 47 Global warming or climate change 32 37 45 The loss of tropical rain forests 33 39 44 Extinction of plant and animal species 36 42 44 GALLUP

Income, Race Disparities in Concern About Drinking-Water Pollution

A recent study by environmental researchers has found that poor and minority Americans are more likely to be victims of heavy environmental pollution. Some advocates have argued that Flint's heavily poor and black population increased its vulnerability to such pollution. Perhaps reflecting this pattern, low-income and nonwhite adults are more concerned about environmental problems than their higher-earning and white counterparts.

While four in five nonwhites (80%) are worried a great deal about pollution of drinking water, concern is far less prevalent among whites, at 56%.

Across income groups, 75% of those who earn less than $30,000 annually are concerned a great deal about pollution of drinking water. This compares with smaller majorities among those in middle-income (64%) and upper-income (56%) households.

Nonwhites, Low-Income Americans More Worried About Drinking-Water Pollution % Worried "a great deal" 2015 2016 2017 % % % Whites 47 54 56 Nonwhites 73 78 80 Under $30,000 66 75 75 $30,000 to $74,999 51 65 64 $75,000+ 46 49 56 Gallup

Bottom Line

With an ongoing high-profile case of contaminated drinking water in Flint, Americans' concern about the problem of drinking-water pollution has not diminished in recent years -- though it has still not risen to the level seen in the 1990s and early 2000s. While Gallup has documented heightened public concern about several environmental issues such as climate change, loss of tropical rainforests, and extinction of plant and animal species, water pollution remains Americans' greatest concern.

The Flint crisis exemplifies the higher concern lower-income and nonwhite Americans feel about water pollution issues. While the EPA under the Trump administration has issued federal funds to address the crisis, heightened worry about drinking-water pollution has persisted.

Historical data are available in Gallup Analytics.
Story Highlights 57% of Democrats/leaners want their leaders to stick to principles

Most of the rest of Democrats are neutral; few want compromise

Overall, Americans split between principles and compromise, 36% vs. 38%

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- The majority of Democrats nationally believe it is more important for their party's leaders in Congress to stick to their beliefs even if little gets done, rather than compromise with the Trump administration to get things done. More than two-thirds of Republicans, in sharp if not unexpected contrast, believe it is more important for Democratic leaders to compromise with the administration.

More Important for Democratic Leaders to Stick to Beliefs or Compromise? Next, we have a question about the best approach for Democratic leaders in Congress to follow. Where would you rate yourself on a scale of 1 to 5, where 1 means it is more important for Democratic leaders to compromise with the Trump administration in order to get things done, and 5 means it is more important for Democratic leaders to stick to their beliefs even if little gets done? National adults Democrats/Leaners Republicans/Leaners % % % (5) More important to stick to beliefs 24 38 7 (4) 12 19 5 (3) 23 27 18 (2) 11 6 18 (1) More important to compromise 27 9 51 GALLUP, MARCH 9-29, 2017

These results are based on a Gallup survey conducted March 9-29, a period during which the Senate was holding hearings on the confirmation of President Donald Trump's Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch, while the House conducted hearings on Russia's possible involvement in the 2016 U.S. election, and debated and ultimately failed to pass a new healthcare law replacing the Affordable Care Act.

The question asks Americans to indicate on a five-point scale their preference for how Democrats should work with Trump. On this scale, "1" represents the belief that it is important for Democratic leaders to compromise to get things done and "5" represents the belief that it is important for leaders to stick to their principles even if little gets done.

Taken as a whole, Americans are about evenly split on the issue -- with 38% putting themselves at the end of the scale favoring Democratic compromise ("2" or "1") and 36% putting themselves at the other, sticking-to-principles end of the scale ("4" or "5").

This split at the national level masks strong partisan differences, with 57% of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents saying their congressional leaders should stick to principles even if little gets done, and another 27% adopting the neutral, middle position -- leaving 15% who favor compromise. On the other hand, 69% of Republicans and Republican leaners say Democratic leaders should compromise, with 12% saying these leaders should stick to their beliefs.

Comparisons to More General Attitudes Measured Last September

Gallup has asked a similar question in the past using generic phrasing that does not mention any specific party or administration, but instead asks about "the best approach for political leaders to follow in Washington."

The September update using this generic wording found Americans as a whole favoring the compromise position, 53% to 21% -- in comparison to the 38% to 36% split now. Republicans and Democrats were both more likely to favor compromise than strict principle in response to the wording used in September.

The pattern of responses appears to support the idea that while Americans may find it easy to endorse the general concept of compromise, they may be less inclined to favor compromise in specific situations involving leaders of their own party.

More Important for Democratic Leaders to Stick to Beliefs or Compromise? On a five-point scale Generic question about "Political leaders in Washington," September 2016 Question about "Democratic leaders and Trump administration," March 2017 % % Democrats/Democratic leaners (4, 5) Beliefs 20 57 (3) Neutral 24 27 (1, 2) Compromise 56 15 Republicans/Republican leaners (4, 5) Beliefs 22 12 (3) Neutral 29 18 (1, 2) Compromise 48 69 Gallup

Implications

Democratic leaders in Congress now find themselves having to deal with a Republican in the White House, while at the same time occupying the minority position in both the House and the Senate. This means Democrats have to choose between playing a spoiler role in holding back what Trump and the Republicans would like to do -- much like Republicans did under Obama -- and compromising and attempting to work with Trump and the Republicans to get things done. Rank-and-file Democrats' clear direction to their leaders in Congress is to adopt more of the former role, sticking to principles even at the risk of stalling new legislation.

The ultimately unsuccessful effort to pass new healthcare legislation last week highlighted the division within the ranks of the Republicans between conservative "Freedom Caucus" Republicans and the rest of the party. Trump in recent days has gone so far as to criticize the conservative wing of his own party. What Trump and Republicans in Congress are able to do going forward thus may depend not just on the level of cooperation from Democratic leaders, but the unification of factions within the Republican Party itself.

House Speaker Paul Ryan this week said he did not want Trump to work with Democrats to pass new healthcare legislation, casting further doubt on just what Democrats would be able to do even if they did want to cooperate in order to get things done. If Democratic leaders adopt more hardline, noncooperative positions on such issues as the confirmation of Trump's Supreme Court nominee Gorsuch or new legislation on healthcare or tax reform, that would seem to fit well with the general desires of a majority of Democrats across the country.

Historical data are available in Gallup Analytics.
San Jose, Costa Rica  Get ready to watch an online poker site flop the ultimate set. Americas Cardroom has announced the return of its highly successful OSS Cub3d tournament series (April 9th-May 7th) . The 3-part series includes $5.7 million in guaranteed prize money, Punta Cana Poker Classic prize packages, and six sterling silver bracelets.

The big one is back and we cant wait to see how massive the OSS Cub3d gets, stated Michael Harris, spokesperson for Americas Cardroom. Whether you experienced our inaugural OSS Cub3d last summer or youre new to the ACR community, youre going to love whats on the table.



The OSS Cub3d is a 3-part online poker series made up of the MOSS (Mini Online Super Series from April 9th to 16th), OSS (Online Super Series from April 19th to 30th), and BOSS (Bigger Online Super Series from May 3rd to 7th). Buy-ins start as low as $0.06 and climb all the way to $5,100.



The series features three Main Events and the winners will each receive a commemorative sterling silver bracelet. While players can look forward to big prize pools in all events thanks to their booming poker community, the April 30th Million Dollar Sunday will undoubtedly be the biggest event with $1 million in guaranteed prize money. The last three Million Dollar Sundays had final prize pools exceeding the $1 million.



While the MOSS, OSS, and BOSS will appeal to those will varying bankroll sizes, players are encouraged to play in as many events as possible for a chance to head to paradise. The top-3 leaderboard point earners will each win a $4,900 Punta Cana Poker Classic prize package, plus a sterling silver bracelet.



Its not just the OSS Cub3d that players should be excited about. Americas Cardroom recently added Sit & Go 2.0 to its lineup of thrilling online poker options. The new concept reimagines Sit & Go prize pools and payout schedules, inviting players to determine it all before the first flop.



Full details on the OSS Cub3d, including the schedule, can be found at AmericasCardroom.eu .

About Americas Cardroom

Americas Cardroom joined the Winning Poker Network in 2011. The Winning Poker Network has one of the longest and trusted online names in the industry and has been in existence since 2001. Americas Cardroom accepts players from the US market and the rest of the world. Rated first place for payment processing and cashout reliability repeatedly over the last few years, Americas Cardroom offers outstanding customer service and a friendly environment for all poker players around the world.
China's first domestically built aircraft carrier is being outfitted with equipment and the work is progressing smoothly, Defense Ministry spokesman Wu Qian said on Thursday.

As for the carrier's launch, Wu said the date is coming soon and "we won't keep the public waiting for too long".

Wu made the remark in response to media speculation that the new carrier would be launched on April 23the 68th anniversary of the founding of the People's Liberation Army Navy.

Outfitting usually implies installing radar, engines and other key components. But some equipment, like the weapons systems, also has to be installed after the ship has been launched into the water, said Zhu Chenghu, a professor at National Defense University.

"The launch is only the first step," he said. "By current progress, the new carrier would still have to undergo one to two years of testing, both at the dock and at sea, before it could be officially handed to the Navy.

"Nevertheless, China launching its first domestically designed aircraft carrier is a monumental step toward building a world class navy," he said. "The valuable lessons learned from building a carrier from scratch will help China build more carriers faster in the future and enable them to reach combat readiness quicker."

According to the Defense Ministry, the new aircraft carrier is under construction in Dalian, Liaoning province. It will have a displacement of about 50,000 metric tons, as well as conventional engines and fighter jet launch systems similar to those of the CNS LiaoningChina's first aircraft carrier.

The most important difference lies in the roles of the two vessels, Zhu said. While the Liaoning is primarily for training and research purposes, the new carrier will focus on combat and defense.

The new carrier will have more cargo room, more sophisticated radar, more advanced weapons systems, and more reliable engines than the Liaoning, which was refitted from an unfinished Soviet-era carrierthe Varyagthat "did not leave much leeway for optimization and improvement due to its old design," he added. It was commissioned by China in 2012.

PLA Major General Peng Guangqian, a military strategist, said China's carriers, as well as the carriers from other nations, are still far behind US carriers in terms of size, scale and combat capability, "because US Navy doctrine requires unchallenged global dominance, while Chinese carriers are mainly used for self-defense".

When asked about the Chinese military's recent drills on the Chinese side of the Sino-Myanmar border following clashes between Myanmar security forces and ethnic rebels, Wu said the drills were part of the annual training schedule and China had informed Myanmar of the drill before it began.
Northampton Assistant Fire Chief Jon Davine shows the Gazette new monitors that give firefighters important details, and physical printouts firefighters can also take. GAZETTE STAFF/DUSTY CHRISTENSEN

NORTHAMPTON  Journalists and the occasional enthusiast spend lots of time listening to emergency dispatch scanners, the static voices on the radio providing a window onto the work a citys emergency services do day and night.

So it may only have come as a surprise in this newsroom when a high-pitched robots voice came crackling over the airwaves earlier this month.

We dont have a name for her, Northampton Public Safety Dispatchs lead dispatcher Nina Barszcz said laughing.

That robotic her is part of a more than $180,000 upgrade to Northampton Fire Departments station alerting system, which dispatchers say is already making their work a bit easier.

All the dispatchers are happy with it, said Director of Communications Kelly Banister. They let us build the system how we want it to be.

Under the previous alerting system, a dispatcher would take a call, enter pertinent information and then had to manually page relevant units with those details, Banister said.

That was a lot of work that is done automatically under the new system, which was purchased from the Rhode Island-based custom technology and communications company PURVIS.

Now, once dispatchers are done typing in essentials about an emergency, that information is immediately sent out. That means dispatchers can stay on the phone with distressed callers instead of putting them on hold to send out units. They dont feel abandoned, Banister said.

The old station alerting system basically is as old as the station  about 18 years old  and basically was in disrepair and needed to be replaced, Fire Chief Duane Nichols said last week when the switchover began. The department couldnt even get parts to fix the old system, Assistant Fire Chief Jon Davine said.

That dilapidation lead the department to begin searching for new technology. They found PURVIS at a national conference, and did a site visit in Boston, where the citys fire department has upgraded to the companys system.

They loved it, and Boston doesnt change for anything, Davine said. The department was convinced.

The system also includes other improvements that streamline the departments process: new speakers around the station; new screens and physical printouts, which show firefighters basic messages about the emergency theyre heading to; and new LED lights alerting firefighters to an emergency, which Davine said saves significant money that was previously spent replacing lots of fluorescent bulbs.

The computerized female voice has also made things easier for firefighters listening in.

The way she speaks is clear and consistent, Barszcz, the lead dispatcher, said. Unlike human voices, the computers voice is the same tone, volume and speed every call, and dispatchers can adjust those settings to meet firefighters preferences.

There have been a few early-stage wrinkles in the systems rollout. The automated voice, as anyone who has interacted with speaking computers can understand, mispronounces words  Tobin Manor and Assistant Chief Davines last name, for example.

But dispatchers and fire chiefs told the Gazette that PURVIS had provided quick and effective tech support. Dispatchers have been taking note of garbled words, and can then easily change the pronunciation.

Of course, with automation entering the workplace, questions about humans losing their jobs are bound to follow. But Fire Chief Nichols said nobody is going anywhere.

Were still going to need dispatchers, theyre a vital component in the system here, Nichols said.

So as everyone settles in to working with their new robotic colleague, all thats left is giving her a name. Davine and the dispatchers on duty Thursday agreed to consider naming her, or perhaps letting school children do so.

Dusty Christensen can be reached at dchristensen@gazettenet.com.
Readers, we need your help to prove a merry Christmas for victims of domestic violence.
This log includes incidents in which there might have been a public disturbance or a risk to the public. Information comes from the Corvallis Police Department, the Benton County Sheriffs Office and Oregon State Police. It does not include all calls for service. The status of incidents might change after further investigation. Locations are approximate. People arrested or suspected in crimes are considered innocent until proven otherwise.

Corvallis Police Department

THURSDAY, MARCH 30

COLD BURGLARY: 3 a.m., 100 block Northwest 13th Street. Two people reported that their 15-inch MacBook Pro laptops, valued at around $3,800, were stolen from their rooms. One of the residents reported that the front door of the house had been open earlier in the day. Officers reported there appeared to be no signs of forced entry.

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 29

DUII DRUGS: 11 p.m., 800 block Northwest Ninth Street. An officer responded to Carl's Jr. for a report of a possible DUII. Tarek Naser Wanly, 18, of Corvallis was charged with DUII-Drugs. Wanly had a reported blood alcohol content of 0 percent. A drug recognition expert reportedly concluded that Wanly was impaired on a CNS depressant.

COMPUTER CRIME: 9:30 a.m., 2600 block Century Drive. A man reported that his credit card information had been compromised and that $1,212 worth of charges were made to his card at a Target store in San Jose.

SHELTER HARASSMENT: 6:22 a.m., 530 N.W. Fourth St. An officer was dispatched to a reported assault at the men's cold weather shelter. One of the volunteers reported that Jonearl Raymond Blake, 47, no address listed, grabbed her throat and pushed her backward. Blake reportedly told police that there was an altercation, but he was acting in self-defense. Blake was cited with harassment.
Conglomerates operations in China hit by THAAD issue

An official at the South Korean Embassy in China confirmed to the Global Times on Thursday that the embassy had sent a formal request to the Chinese government that Lotte Mart be allowed to continue its business in the country.

South Korea's Yonhap News Agency reported on Wednesday that the embassy "made a formal request to the Chinese government in the name of Ambassador Kim (Jang-soo)."

"The report is true, but we don't have an original document to give," the official told the Global Times on condition of anonymity.

The letter was sent to several Chinese government agencies including the Ministry of Commerce and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Tuesday, according to Yonhap.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang told a regular press conference on February 28 that China welcomes foreign firms to invest and do business in China, and always respects and protects the lawful rights and interests of foreign firms in China.

He stressed that relevant companies operating in China must comply with laws and regulations. "The market and consumers will determine whether a foreign company is successful in China," he added.

Lotte Group's operations in China have suffered a lot since the firm approved a land swap deal with the South Korean military to install the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system at the end of February.

Many Chinese companies including those in the food, cosmetics and tourism sectors have started to boycott or end cooperation with the group.

For example, barbeque restaurant Quanjincheng announced on March 8 that the company would remove all Lotte products including wine and beverages from its chain restaurants nationwide. In a statement on its website, it said that "Quanjincheng will stop working with Lotte."

Lotte Mart owns 99 stores in China, of which 87 stores have been closed, domestic news portal Securities Daily reported on March 22.

Of the closed stores, 20 were shut by Lotte itself and the rest were ordered to close for fire control issues.

South Korean news portal Aju Business Daily reported on Sunday that many posters reading "We will wait, as we understand" have been posted in business areas in Seoul, capital of South Korea, since March 24.

"The move aims to solve the conflicts between the two countries and restore the friendly relationship between the two countries as soon as possible," said the report, citing a manager of Lotte Group.
BEIJING, March 30 (Xinhua) -- China is ready to work with Cuba to advance military ties so as to further enrich bilateral relations, said top legislator Zhang Dejiang on Thursday.

Zhang Dejiang (R, front), chairman of the National People's Congress (NPC) Standing Committee, meets with Cuban Minister of the Revolutionary Armed Forces Leopoldo Cintra Frias (L, front) in Beijing, capital of China, March 30, 2017.

Zhang, chairman of the National People's Congress (NPC) Standing Committee, made the remarks when meeting with Cuban Minister of the Revolutionary Armed Forces Leopoldo Cintra Frias at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing.

Hailing the sound development of bilateral ties forged more than 50 years ago, Zhang called on both countries to implement the consensus reached between Chinese President Xi Jinping and Cuban President Raul Castro during Xi's Cuba visit in 2014.

Both countries need to enhance exchanges between the two militaries and parliaments to push bilateral ties forward, said Zhang.

Cintra said Cuba treasures its friendship with China and appreciates China's help and support over the years. He expects to deepen bilateral military cooperation.
Train travel : No ICE to London for the time being

Cologne A fast train from Cologne to London would be welcome by many, but plans are on hold for the time being. Authorization of ICE trains and security measures are standing in the way.

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For those looking for a fast train connection from Cologne to London, a wait is still in store. Reports by regional German television station WDR say Deutsche Bahn (German Rail) has put plans on hold. Answering an inquiry from WDR, a German Rail spokesperson said that a reliable statement on the start-up of a service from Cologne to London could not be provided. The spokesperson said the new ICE trains had not yet been authorized by authorities in France and Belgium, and that was the reason why nothing could be said yet with certainty.
City janitorial services : Parents should pay for clean lavatories at schools

Bonn Cleanliness in schools and other municipal buildings remains a problem for the city building management (SGB). In 2016, the SGB registered 1,200 complaints about cleaning deficiencies.

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Most cases were reported by the school maintenance caretaker, but the SGB itself also carried out around 400 inspections. It contracts private cleaning companies to provide janitorial services for some 620 buildings in Bonn. The annual cost of the services is around 8.2 million euros.

After complaints from schools had mounted, the SGB increased pressure on the authorities, already a year ago to improve the standard of cleaning. A central contact person was put in charge and 87 schools were invited to rate their cleaning services every month. An interim report indicated that there was an upward tendency in the quality of cleaning.

But some schools remain unhappy with the level of hygiene. One school director says the city sets time limits on the cleaning that are too tight, and takes the cheapest vendors, putting the cleaners under extreme pressure. Whole classrooms or hallways cant be completed in the timeframe which is spelled out. The city says it is following recommended guidelines set by municipal authorities.

Cleanliness of school restrooms haa been in focus, with the SGB having established a working group to address the issue. They are cleaned only once a day, a second cleaning would add several hundred thousand euros a year.

School director Ute Sterr, representing primary schools, says The SGB is trying really hard. Praise also comes from chair of the city parent-teacher association Ulrich Meier. A letter from the SGB did not go over well, however. In a letter sent to all schools, it proposed to finance the supplementary cleaning of the lavatories via parent initiatives. This is already happening at the Tannenbusch Gymnasium and five other schools. The school directors rejected the request unanimously. Said Meier, Thats just not possible. Political discussion on this topic continues.
First Xi-Trump summit to chart way forward on U.S.-China relationship: White House

WASHINGTON, March 30 (Xinhua) -- U.S. President Donald Trump looks forward to meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping to chart a way forward on the U.S.-China relationship, the White House said Thursday.

The two leaders will meet at Mar-a-Lago, Florida on April 6-7 for their first meeting since Trump assumed office in January, China and the United States concurrently announced earlier Thursday.

"The president looks forward to meeting with President Xi and exchanging views on each other's respective priorities, and to chart a way forward on a bilateral relationship between our two nations," White House spokesman Sean Spicer told a news briefing.

They will discuss issues of mutual concern, including the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, trade, and regional security, he added.

Spicer said the two sides reached agreement on the dates, locations and agendas of the Xi-Trump summit after several weeks of discussions.

Asked about the U.S. goal for the meeting, Spicer said this will be an opportunity for Trump "to develop a relationship in person with President Xi."
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.
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Google allows you to book fitness classes now News oi -Chandrika Stay fit and fab with Google

How many times in a day do you use Google? You must have probably lost count. Undoubtedly, it has made our life much better. Now, it seems like that Google is concerned about our physical health as well. The search engine giant is introducing a new product in the US that will help you get back in shape.

Now you can book and pay for a Zumba class or an exercise session via Google Search, Google Maps or directly through the 'Reserve with Google' website. 'Reserve with Google' was initially launched in New York City, San Francisco and Los Angeles to get the customer feedback. The company announced on Thursday that the handy feature is available across the US now.

Google unblocks it's Translate App in China

The Reserve with Google website has specific filters that can be used to narrow down the fitness studios nearby so you can find the most suitable one for you. It also gives you recommendations and allows you book a spot in the classes of your interest.

If the fitness class you choose gives any discount, you will be able to avail them while paying for the class. As of now, the option of booking through Google Maps is only limited to the desktop. You can schedule your sessions using Google Search on both desktop and mobile.

After you find your ideal fitness class, you just have to click "Reserve with Google" to find what's available and book your spot. The company is said to be working with MINDBODY, MyTime, Genbook, Full Slate, Front Desk and Appointy to ensure the regular updates of schedules and availability.

Best Mobiles in India

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Samsung Galaxy S8, S8 Plus Microsoft Edition models pegged for April 21 release News oi -Abhinaya Prabhu Samsung Galaxy S8, S8+ Microsoft Edition releasing soon.

The newly launched Samsung Galaxy S8 and S8 Plus are bundled with several Microsoft applications just like the earlier launches from the South Korean tech giant.

Both the Galaxy S8 and S8 Plus are bundled with applications such as OneNote, Skype, OneDrive, etc. Though these are not the first phones to feature the Microsoft applications, it can be said that Samsung has gone a step further by strengthening their partnership by launching the Galaxy S8 and S8 Plus Microsoft edition models. These models will be released on April 21 and sold via the Microsoft retail stores.

Samsung Galaxy S8's Bixby to feature Pinterest's visual search lens

Microsoft has officially announced that it has started accepting pre-orders for the special edition Galaxy S8 and S8 Plus from March 30. The specific launch date of these special edition models in India is not known for now. The company is also planning to come with a customized version of the Galaxy S8 duo, claims a report by The Verge. This customization is claimed to offer a the best-in-class productivity and experience to the users.

Samsung Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8+ launched: Features, Specifications and more

Microsoft will use the Cortana virtual assistant in the special edition Galaxy S8 and S8 Plus models. This means that only the Android version of these flagship smartphones will feature the Bixby assistant apart from the Google Assistant. Eventually, there are three digital assistants for these phones that will be a complication for the users.

While we have mentioned that the regular Samsung Galaxy S8 and S8 Plus will also come bundled with the Microsoft apps, the special edition ones will have more such apps in them.

Source

Best Mobiles in India

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MTNL offers 2GB data at Rs. 319 News oi -Priyanka Meanwhile another State- run telecom operator BSNL Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd has also launched an unlimited Broadband plan Experience Unlimited BB 249 at 2 Mbps speed with 10 GB per day data.

State - run telecom operator, MTNL has announced its new in which the company is offering 2GB of data per day along with unlimited calls within MTNL network at a price of Rs. 319. The latest offer starts from April 1.

On its 31st anniversary, MTNL announces new plans from April 1, 2017 that offers 2GB of 3G data per day and unlimited calling within MTNL network for Rs. 319 for Delhi and Mumbai mobile customers.

The telecom operator's latest plan remains valid for 28 days, after which the users will be required to top up their respective plans.

BSNL offers 10 GB per day data download

This promotional offer is valid for 90 days. MTNL customers will also get 25 minutes of free calls to other networks every day and after that, they will be charged 25 paise per minute, the statement said.

Meanwhile another State- run telecom operator BSNL Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd has also launched an unlimited Broadband plan 'Experience Unlimited BB 249' at 2 Mbps speed with 10 GB per day data.

Under this plan, customers can download "10 GB per day" data by paying monthly charges of Rs. 249 only. In addition to this data download, customers can also make unlimited free calls to any network between 9 PM to 7 AM and on all Sundays without any additional charges.

Ever since Reliance Jio announced its plan all telecom operators are engaged in an ongoing battle.

As Jio's free services come to an end today and its Prime membership plan will come into effect from April 1. To recall the company's Prime membership plan, which is an extension of the 'Happy New Year' offer in which users will have to pay the subscription fee at Rs. 99 and Rs. 303 per month to continue its 4G services.

Jio customers can subscribe this offer through MyJio app or Jio's website. Users can also visit any Jio store or a partner store to enroll. Meanwhile, all Jio Prime plans offer unlimited voice calls to all operators as well as on roaming.

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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.
[File photo]

Local police in Zhuhai, Guangdong province have issued summons to three suspects after pictures emerged online showing them killing what is believed to be a baby dolphin.

As of press time, the remains of the animal, which was recognized by some experts as the endangered white Chinese dolphin, have been collected for further examination, while local police have promised to carry out an investigation, CCTV reported.

According to pictures posted on Sina Weibo on March 30, a gray-colored dolphin was cut into pieces by two fishermen on the street, with its head and body parts preserved in three blood-covered boxes.

Based on the pictures, I would say the dolphin is a white Chinese dolphin, as it possesses a uniquely long snout. It is still a baby, as Chinese white dolphins only turn white when they become adults, a zoologist told Thepaper.cn.

We contacted the internet user who posted the picture online. A team was also sent for further investigation, but more time is needed to get the final results, an officer surnamed Chen from the local fishery administration told Thepaper.cn.

The pictures have upset many internet users, with some condemning the governments lax approach to animal protection. The white Chinese dolphin, which is classified as vulnerable by the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, has been reduced in numbers by both pollution and poaching.
Why is Monitoring IOP Important?

IOP (intraocular pressure) is the key risk factor for glaucoma development and progression. We know that IOP fluctuates constantly, between doctors visits, with exercise, during sleep, and even throughout the day. Very much like blood pressure and glucose levels it is helpful to be able to look for highs and lows. The more frequently your IOP is measured, the better overall picture your doctor will have of any fluctuations.

Currently, the most common way to get this information is to measure IOP in the clinic at different times of day over several visits. With recent advances, IOP measurements are now possible at home, with an FDA approved prescription device called the iCare HOME. Current in-office diagnostic techniques provide sufficient information to treat most glaucoma patients but in rare cases, monitoring IOP at home may be helpful.

What is a Home Tonometer Device?

The iCare HOME tonometer is a prescription device that uses a disposable probe to take six rapid IOP measurements without a numbing drop, then calculates the average IOP and stores it in the devices memory in the cloud. This device may help to analyze IOP patterns and understand why some glaucoma patients get worse despite good IOP readings in the office.

There are several challenges with using this device and it is not recommended for routine use. Up to 25% of users are not able to successfully measure their IOP with this device. And even those who have been trained and certified to use the device, may get some variations between IOP measurements taken close together. Training videos or assistance from a technician may improve usability.

How do I access the iCare HOME device?

A patient cant simply purchase or rent this device, a prescription from your doctor is needed. Most patients do not need home monitoring of IOP. But in the few where it might be helpful, I think it is not necessary to own this device; even a week or two of home IOP monitoring might provide useful information.

We dont yet fully understand why IOP spikes occur in some people, and how IOP fluctuations affect the eye in the long-term. Even so, it is exciting that this technology is available and further study will help determine how best to use it.
U.S. Senate Panel Digs Into Alleged Russian Election Meddling

Mike Eckel March 30, 2017

WASHINGTON -- U.S. senators dug into Russia's alleged meddling during the 2016 presidential election, with outside experts testifying that, without a strong U.S. response, Moscow will do more of the same in the future.

The March 30 open hearing, the first of its kind, was held by the Senate intelligence committee, which many consider to be the least politicized and most capable body looking at the alleged Russian interference.

A simultaneous investigation by the FBI, the inquiry by the Senate committee, and other congressional panels have shadowed U.S. President Donald Trump's administration and fueled deep suspicions about possible collusion with Russian agents.

"I will not prejudge the outcome of our investigation," the committee's lead Democrat, Mark Warner, told the hearing.

"We are seeking to determine if there is an actual fire, but so far there is a great, great deal of smoke," he said.

"We're all targets of a sophisticated and capable adversary, and we must engage in whole-of-government approach to combat Russian 'active measures,'" Republican Chairman Richard Burr said.

The question of whether Trump aides secretly colluded with Russian officials has dogged the White House since before he took office in January.

His national security adviser, Michael Flynn, was forced to resign in February after it was revealed he had misled the administration about his contacts with Russian officials.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions later recused himself from investigations into alleged Russian activity after he was less than forthright about his interactions with Russian diplomats.

In a report released in January, the U.S. intelligence community concluded that Russian President Vladimir Putin had ordered a hacking-and-propaganda campaign aimed at undermining faith in the U.S. election system.

It also said the campaign eventually sought to denigrate Trump's Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton, and favor Trump.

The Trump White House has strenuously denied any suggestions of collusion between current and former aides, and Russian officials. However, Trump himself has also suggested that any communication that may have occurred during the campaign was legitimate and acceptable.

Moscow 'Emboldened'

Experts told the panel that the use of computer hacking, fake news sites, stolen emails, and "bots" -- networks of computers that have been taken over by malware and used to amplify propaganda -- and other tools were techniques that Russian officials call "active measures."

Roy Godson, author of a book examining Russian and Soviet propaganda tools, said that Moscow was emboldened by the fallout from last year's election and would likely use such tools again if there is no decisive U.S. response.

"If we don't cauterize it and limit its effectiveness, they will have an incentive to continue," said Godson, now a Georgetown University professor.

Clint Watts, a senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute Program on National Security, said it was likely that Russia started to build up the tools it used during the election campaign as early as 2009.

Watts also said that Russian disinformation campaigns targeted both Democratic and Russian lawmakers, an effort he said was continuing.

Several senators picked up on recent comments by former Vice President Dick Cheney, who likened the reported Russian interference to an act of war.

"It seems to me, gentlemen, that we are engaged in a new form of aggression, if not war. It strikes me that Vladimir Putin is playing a weak hand, very well," Democratic Senator Angus King said.

The Kremlin has repeatedly denied the conclusions that Russian intelligence officers or Russian-backed hackers interfered in the election campaign, or sought to influence it.

Putin himself pushed back on the allegations at a forum in the northern Russian city of Arkhangelsk on March 30, as he dismissed what he said were "endless and groundless" accusations against Moscow.

Pressed by the moderator of the forum about whether Russia had interfered, Putin answered by quoting a famous line from former President George H.W. Bush, spoken nearly 30 years ago in response to a pledge about raising taxes.

"Read my lips," Putin said. "No." Putin emphasized his point by saying the word "no" in English.

"This anti-Russian card is being played in the interests of some political forces inside the United States with the aim of strengthening and consolidating their positions," Putin said.

With reporting by AP

Source: http://www.rferl.org/a/russia-u-s-senate-committee- election-meddling/28400466.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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Russian Election-meddling Tactics Exposed at Senate Hearing

By Michael Bowman March 30, 2017

Russia pulled off an unprecedented and wildly successful campaign to influence America's political conversation during last year's presidential campaign, according to experts who testified Thursday before the Senate Intelligence Committee.

"Russia hopes to win the second Cold War through the force of politics, as opposed to the politics of force," said cybersecurity expert Clinton Watts of the Foreign Policy Research Institute. Watts detailed Russia's use of cyberattacks and an elaborate disinformation campaign to confuse U.S. voters and pit Americans against each other.

The testimony confirmed what lawmakers of both parties have been saying for months.

"Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered a deliberate campaign carefully constructed to undermine our election," said the committee's top Democrat, Senator Mark Warner of Virginia.

Putin's dismissal

Ahead of the open hearing, Putin blasted accusations of Russian electoral meddling as "provocations and lies." Asked on a television program whether Moscow tried to influence the outcome of the U.S. presidential election, Putin said, "Read my lips: No."

Witnesses before the Intelligence Committee described voluminous and incontrovertible evidence to the contrary.

"We've got 10 years of observation here," said Kevin Mandia, CEO of the U.S.-based cybersecurity firm FireEye. "It absolutely stretches credulity to think they [Russian actors] were not involved."

Republican Senator Marco Rubio of Florida shared an experience from his unsuccessful presidential bid last year.

"Former members of my presidential campaign team who had access to the internal information of my presidential campaign were targeted by the IP addresses with an unknown location within Russia. [The] Effort was unsuccessful," Rubio said.

"The [Russian] activities in the United States do seem to be exceptional," said Georgetown University security and intelligence expert Roy Godson, adding that cyber and disinformation campaigns allow Russia to "hit above their weight" on the world stage.

Watts said Russia was aided last year by U.S. media outlets' extensive reports about material hacked by Russia that appeared on outlets such as WikiLeaks, as well as occasions when the Trump campaign parroted disinformation that Moscow disseminated about his opponent, Democrat Hillary Clinton. Watts added that Russia could one day turn its informational firepower against Trump.

Russia's action "is solely based on what they want to achieve ... whatever the Russian foreign policy objectives are," Watts said. "They will turn on President Trump, as well. They win because they play both sides."

Ongoing probe

The hearing was the first of many the committee expects to hold in coming months, some open to the public, but many behind closed doors. Chairman Richard Burr, a North Carolina Republican, repeatedly has pledged an impartial and exhaustive search for the truth, and he has implored fellow-committee members to refrain from partisan jabs.

"If we politicize this process, our efforts will likely fail," Burr said.

Warner echoed the call, saying the goal of the investigation is not to re-litigate last year's election, but rather to hold Russia accountable.

But as one Democrat argued, if the committee is determined to bring to light any ties President Trump's inner circle may have to Russia, the president himself must release his tax returns.

"They key to a successful investigation is following the money," said Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon. "Information about Donald Trump's finances may lead to Russia."

Trump has adamantly denied any links to Russia during or after the campaign, questioned U.S. intelligence about Russian meddling, and accused media outlets of mounting a smear campaign against him. Even so, the White House acknowledged the need for investigations to proceed.

"We want this over as much as, I think, some of you. But we recognize that there's a process that has to take place," said White House spokesman Sean Spicer.

Thursday's hearing brought the Senate Intelligence Committee into the spotlight after its counterpart in the House of Representatives canceled scheduled hearings amid a war of words between its chairman, Republican Devin Nunes, and the ranking Democrat, Adam Schiff, both of California.

The House Committee has been in disarray since Representative Nunes personally briefed Trump on classified material he had yet to share with the committee. Nunes has dismissed calls by Schiff and others that he recuse himself from the House probe.

The New York Times reported Thursday that two White House officials provided Nunez with the information that triggered the firestorm. Spicer declined to comment on the matter.

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White House Offers to Show Lawmakers 'Wiretap Documents'

By Steve Herman March 30, 2017

Members of Congress looking into Russian interference in last year's presidential election have been invited to the White House to examine relevant secret documents.

Lawmakers confirmed such a letter was received by the Senate and House intelligence committees Thursday, a move that White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer defended as "doing the responsible thing." The documents to be reviewed apparently were the basis for controversial comments by Congressman Devin Nunes that were seen by some as bolstering President Donald Trump's charge that his campaign team was "wiretapped" last year on the orders of former President Barack Obama.

Even as he announced the offer to bring relevant lawmakers to the White House to review secret information, Spicer deflected reporters' questions Thursday about Nunes' unusual visit to the White House grounds more than a week ago to see the intelligence reports.

Spicer answered "no" when asked whether he knew who invited Nunes to the White House complex on March 21, and he steered clear of confirming or denying details of a news report that named two officials who allegedly gave Nunes intelligence information.

The New York Times posted a story online just prior to Spicer's briefing Thursday naming two White House officials who it said helped provide Nunes with highly classified intelligence reports indicating that Trump and his associates were swept up in surveillance of foreign officials by U.S. spy agencies.

Process vs. substance

The press secretary has repeatedly criticized White House correspondents for focusing their questions on process  essentially, who told what to whom  rather than substance, the details of the information that Nunes received.

"Process here is the whole story," Ken Gude, an analyst who specializes in national security issues, told VOA. "The White House basically used Nunes here, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, to filter, to 'launder' some of the information."

Gude, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, said it appeared that White House officials fed information to Nunes to give Trump "some cover." The president had been widely criticized following his allegation on March 4 that Obama ordered electronic surveillance against Trump's campaign team  an assertion that has been repeatedly denied by senior U.S. intelligence and law enforcement officials.

The Times said the two officials who provided Nunes with highly classified intelligence reports were former Defense Intelligence Agency official Ezra Cohen-Watnick, now the senior director for intelligence at the National Security Council, and Michael Ellis, a former House Intelligence Committee staffer who now works on national security issues at the White House counsel's office.

Spicer declined to discuss the Times report, saying, "I'm not going to get into further details on this."

Russian meddling

A government investigation of Russian meddling during the U.S. presidential campaign last year has stayed in the headlines for weeks, particularly since Trump tweeted his belief that his headquarters in New York City had been "wiretapped." U.S. intelligence officials have said there were no surveillance orders from Obama aimed at Trump, and that no such order could come from the president, under domestic intelligence-gathering procedures in place for years.

Nunes, a former adviser to Trump's presidential transition team, subsequently said that he did not believe Trump Tower had been bugged, but that the campaign team's communications could have been caught up in a wider investigation that inadvertently targeted the transition office.

On March 22, a day after his mysterious nighttime visit to the White House grounds  a large area that incorporates the adjacent Executive Office Building, which is the headquarters of the National Security Council  Nunes told reporters he had been shown intelligence indicating communications involving Trump and/or his associates had been captured in a legal "but inappropriate" manner.

Nunes has been mum on who at the White House showed him the materials.

His behavior has been strongly criticized by Democrats, and the party's ranking member on the House Intelligence Committee, Adam Schiff, has called on Nunes to step down from his chairman's post.

"Why all the cloak and dagger stuff? That's something we need to get to the bottom of," Schiff told reporters Thursday.

Schiff added that while the matter of incidental collection is important, "This issue is not going to distract us from doing our Russia investigation, and Democrats on the committee are committed 'to get the bottom of just what the Russians did.'"

Gude, the senior fellow for national security at the Center for American Progress, said White House officials "have not been dealing with this in a forthright and honest manner."

"They keep not telling the truth about what is going on in this," Gude told VOA, "and it certainly appears as if there's an effort to obstruct these investigations."

VOA's Elizabeth Cherneff contributed reporting for this story.

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Trump Says Flynn Right To Seek Immunity, Calls Russia Probe 'Witch-Hunt'

RFE/RL March 31, 2017

U.S. President Donald Trump has backed an offer by his former national security adviser to testify about his contacts with Russia in exchange for immunity from criminal prosecution.

In a post on Twitter on March 31, Trump wrote, "Mike Flynn should ask for immunity in that this is a witch hunt (excuse for big election loss), by media & Dems, of historic proportion!"

Earlier, Flynn's lawyer, Robert Kelner, said that his client wanted protection against "unfair prosecution" in exchange for testifying before the intelligence committees of both houses of Congress.

"Flynn certainly has a story to tell, and he very much wants to tell it, should the circumstances permit," Kelner said.

Kelner did not mention whether Flynn was offering to talk to the FBI as well as to the committees.

Kelner also called the Russia probes a "witch-hunt."

Meanwhile, Senator Angus King (independent-Maine), of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said it was too early to talk about granting Flynn immunity.

"This is not a witch-hunt," King said on CNN. "This is an effort to get to the truth of some very important questions."

King said that "there is no doubt whatsoever" that the Russians sought to interfere in the election.'

Speaking in the northern Russia city of Arkhangelsk on March 30, Russian President Vladimir Putin vehemently denied the allegations, saying in response to a question about whether Russia carried out any such actions, "Read my lips: No."

A spokesman for the Senate committee was quoted as saying the body had held a discussion on the immunity issue, while a spokesman for the House committee said they had not received any offer from Flynn.

According to AP, four other people associated with the Trump campaign have offered to speak to the committees in recent weeks. The Senate Intelligence Committee has invited 20 people to testify.

Flynn, a retired U.S. Army general, resigned under pressure from his post as national security adviser in February after it was revealed that he misled the administration, including Vice President Mike Pence, about the extent of his contacts with Russian Ambassador Sergei Kislyak.

The Congressional committees and the FBI are investigating alleged Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election campaign.

Documents also show that Flynn was paid more than $67,000 by Russian companies before the U.S. presidential election.

During an interview in September 2016 with the Meet The Press television program, Flynn was asked about the possibility that Trump's Democratic rival, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, or her associates might seek immunity in connection with an FBI investigation into her use of a private e-mail server.

"When you are given immunity, that means you have probably committed a crime," Flynn said.

With reporting by AP and Reuters

Source: http://www.rferl.org/a/us-trump-backs-flynn- immunity-russia-probe-witch-hunt/28403528.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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Officials Provide Details of Latest Counter-ISIS Strikes in Syria, Iraq

From a Combined Joint Task Force Operation Inherent Resolve News Release

SOUTHWEST ASIA, March 30, 2017  U.S. and coalition military forces continued to attack the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, conducting 29 strikes consisting of 78 engagements against ISIS targets yesterday, Combined Joint Task Force Operation Inherent Resolve officials reported today.

U.S. Central Command continues to work with partner nations to conduct targeted airstrikes in Iraq and Syria as part of the comprehensive strategy to degrade and defeat the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, or ISIS.

Officials reported details of yesterday's strikes, noting that assessments of results are based on initial reports.

Strikes in Syria

In Syria, coalition military forces conducted 18 strikes consisting of 22 engagements against ISIS targets:

-- Near Abu Kamal, two strikes destroyed four ISIS wellheads.

-- Near Dayr Az Zawr, six strikes destroyed six ISIS oil tanker trucks, five wellheads, two pumpjacks and an oil inlet manifold.

-- Near Raqqa, six strikes engaged four ISIS tactical units and destroyed five oil tanker trucks, three vehicles, two tractors, an oil trailer and a tactical vehicle.

-- Near Tabqah, four strikes engaged three ISIS tactical units and destroyed two fighting positions, a vehicle and a tactical vehicle.

Strikes in Iraq

In Iraq, coalition military forces conducted 11 strikes consisting of 56 engagements against ISIS targets, coordinated with and in support of Iraq's government:

-- Near Beiji, a strike engaged an ISIS tactical unit.

-- Near Mosul, seven strikes engaged five ISIS tactical units and an ISIS staging area; destroyed two command-and-control nodes, two mortar systems, a fighting position and a unmanned aerial vehicle facility; damaged 19 supply routes; and suppressed 10 ISIS mortar teams and seven ISIS tactical units.

-- Near Rawah, a strike engaged an ISIS tactical unit and destroyed a weapons cache and a vehicle.

-- Near Tal Afar, two strikes engaged an ISIS tactical unit; and destroyed an ISIS headquarters and a vehicle-borne-bomb factory.

Part of Operation Inherent Resolve

These strikes were conducted as part of Operation Inherent Resolve, the operation to destroy ISIS in Iraq and Syria. The destruction of ISIS targets in Iraq and Syria also further limits the group's ability to project terror and conduct external operations throughout the region and the rest of the world, task force officials said.

The list above contains all strikes conducted by fighter, attack, bomber, rotary-wing or remotely piloted aircraft; rocket-propelled artillery; and some ground-based tactical artillery when fired on planned targets, officials noted.

Ground-based artillery fired in counterfire or in fire support to maneuver roles is not classified as a strike, they added. A strike, as defined by the coalition, refers to one or more kinetic engagements that occur in roughly the same geographic location to produce a single or cumulative effect. For example, task force officials explained, a single aircraft delivering a single weapon against a lone ISIS vehicle is one strike, but so is multiple aircraft delivering dozens of weapons against a group of ISIS-held buildings and weapon systems in a compound, having the cumulative effect of making that facility harder or impossible to use. Strike assessments are based on initial reports and may be refined, officials said.

The task force does 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.

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Congress Probes Military Pilot Shortage

By Karen Parrish DoD News, Defense Media Activity

WASHINGTON, March 30, 2017  A shortage of pilots across the U.S. military is most acute in the Air Force, senior military officials told Congress yesterday.

Marine Corps Deputy Commandant for Manpower and Reserve Affairs Lt. Gen. Mark A. Brilakis, Chief of Naval Personnel Vice Adm. Robert P. Burke, Air Force Deputy Chief of Staff for Manpower and Personnel Services Lt. Gen. Gina M. Grosso and Director of Army Aviation Maj. Gen. Erik C. Peterson testified about future and pending aviation shortfalls before the House Armed Services Committee's military personnel subcommittee.

Air Force Faces 'National Aircrew Crisis'

Grosso said sustained global commitments and recent funding cuts affect the Air Force's capability to wage a full-spectrum fight against a near-peer adversary. She noted that due to an upcoming surge in mandatory retirements for commercial airline pilots and an increasing market for global commerce, the civilian aviation industry has begun hiring at unprecedented rates.

"This confluence of circumstances has birthed a national aircrew crisis. This crisis is the result of multiple factors: high operational tempo over the last 26 years, a demand for our pilots from the commercial industry, and cultural issues that affect the quality of life and service for our airmen," she said.

At the end of fiscal year 2016, Grosso said, the Air Force active and reserve components were short a total of 1,555 pilots, including 1,211 fighter pilots. The cost to train a fifth-generation fighter pilot, she noted, is around $11 million.

"A 1,200 fighter pilot shortage amounts to a $12 billion capital loss for the United States Air Force," she said.

The Air Force will take a three-pronged approach to the shortage crisis, the general said: reduce requirements, increase production and increase retention.

Nonmonetary inducements -- such as outsourcing administrative duties to give pilots more time to fly -- as well as an aviation bonus of $35,000, are part of the Air Force's approach to the crisis, Grosso said, adding that the service will keep exploring ways to bolster retention.

"The Air Force is committed to a holistic strategy to maintain our pilot inventory as we face external and internal challenges," she said. "While we aggressively pursue creative means to respond to the demands on our pilots, our attention will be focused on developing an agile set of solutions."

Navy Aviation 'Strong,' But Challenges Remain

Burke said naval aviation is strong, with "the most capable air force in the world."

The Navy's military and civilian aviation workforce numbers more than 190,000 and it includes 10,250 Navy pilots and flight officers, the admiral said. About 3,700 Navy aircraft support worldwide, carrier-based and expeditionary missions, including combat operations, he added.

Maintaining a strong workforce is key to the Navy sustaining peak combat readiness, the admiral said.

"Our ability to attract and retain the very best young men and women our nation has to offer is central to maintaining aviation personnel readiness," Burke told the panel. But recruiting and retention are becoming increasingly complex, he said, because of increasing demand in the private sector, particularly in the commercial airline industry.

Navy Bench 'Increasingly Frustrated'

Navy aviators also have expressed dissatisfaction resulting from "readiness challenges associated with limited aircraft availability and reduced flying hours while not deployed,  [affecting] subsequent career progression," Burke said. And timely depot maintenance has become a struggle, he said, making aircraft availability a limiting factor for flying time.

"Such challenges are further exacerbated by low stocks of critical spare parts and an aging shore infrastructure," he said. "While our 'first team' on deployment is always ready, our bench -- the depth of our forces at home -- is thin and is growing increasingly frustrated."

Other issues affecting aviators' willingness to "stay Navy" are operational tempo, uncertain deployment schedules, excessive administrative burdens, late permanent-change-of-station orders and limited housing options, the admiral said.

Burke emphasized that readiness relies on "sufficient and predictable funding." Beyond that, he said, "we'll continue to aggressively pursue resolution of aviator retention challenges through effective and responsible use of available resources, and refinements to our plans and processes for recruiting, developing, retaining and addressing the quality-of-service needs of our aviators."

Marine Corps Watchful on Aviation Readiness

Brilakis said Marine Corps aviation is experiencing a shortage of trained aviators. Gaps are most prevalent in "specific platforms  [and] the necessary qualifications of our enlisted maintenance personnel," he said.

Addressing those issues, along with aircraft readiness issues, is a priority, Brilakis told the subcommittee. "Aviation readiness in the form of ready, basic aircraft and the resources to operate them throughout the year is the single most important factor in alleviating our aviation manpower challenges and contributing to retention," he added.

Brilakis said the Marine Corps vigorously attacks recruiting for all occupational fields, and noted that the effort is particularly important in the aviation field "due to the time and expense required to train these Marines."

"We will continue to closely monitor the trends of our aviators and will take action should we begin to see a retention problem," he said.

Army Works to Build Long-Term Readiness

Peterson said the Army's active, reserve and National Guard components include 14,000 pilots.

Operational demands and several years of fiscal constraints have made it necessary for the Army to prioritize short-term readiness over long-term recruiting and training, he said. "We simply could not afford to train the number of new pilots we need to sustain a healthy force," he added.

The Army has accumulated a shortage of 731 active-duty aviation warrant officers from year groups 2010 to 2017, Peterson said, which results in senior aviation warrant officers filling junior positions. The Army will address long-term readiness through three lines of effort, he said: retention, training throughput and accessions.

Peterson said fully resourcing the Army flight school, while not a quick fix, will help to reverse the training shortfall. "It will require consistent funding at increased levels to be successful," he added. In addition, the general said, the Army will increase its active-duty aviation warrant officer training classes by about 170 students annually.

"In summary, we are addressing our pilot manning challenges while simultaneously meeting our enduring requirements," Peterson said.

He told the subcommittee the Budget Control Act of 2011, which imposes across-the-board spending cuts in the absence of an approved budget, poses a threat to the Army's plans.

The Army has the authorities needed to improve retention, training numbers and accession, he said, but "sustained, predictable, on-time funding and relief from the Budget Control Act are vital to any enduring solution that we attempt to apply."

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Joint press point with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg and the Prime Minister of the Republic of Moldova, Pavel Filip

NATO - North Atlantic Treaty Organisation

30 Mar. 2017

(As delivered)

Prime Minister,

It is a pleasure to welcome you again at NATO Headquarters. And I was very helpful how we addressed several issues addressing how we developed further the partnership between Moldova and NATO.

The Republic of Moldova is a close partner to NATO.

I thank you for your different contributions especially that you contribute to our KFOR mission in Kosovo.

It shows that your country is a responsible contributor to international security.

We are committed to Moldova's independence, territorial integrity and sovereignty.

And we fully respect Moldova's constitutional neutrality.

But neutrality does not mean isolation.

We cooperate closely with other partners that are neutral countries  such as Switzerland and Austria.

NATO and Moldova have jointly agreed a framework for working together.

And all our cooperation activities have been requested by the government of Moldova.

Many of our programmes benefit ordinary Moldovan people. We have helped destroy dangerous pesticides, anti-personnel mines, surplus munitions and dangerous rocket fuel.

We are helping Moldova with cyber defence training. And every year we welcome Moldovan students at NATO courses on issues such as logistics and border security. So these are examples of practical cooperation, where NATO helped, educated and trained Moldovan students personal, which I think will be a benefit for Moldova and for NATO. Because when our NATO is stable, we are more secure.

Our partnership also supports Moldova in undertaking reforms to build good governance and strong institutions. Including the effort to fight corruption.

We are now working on a Defence Capacity Building programme to help the Moldovan armed forces become more effective.

As requested by the Moldovan government, we will soon open a NATO Liaison Office in Chisinau.

It will be a small diplomatic mission with only civilian staff.

Just like in other partner countries like Georgia, our Liaison Office will facilitate our support for Moldova's ongoing reforms.

So Prime Minister,

I once again welcome you. It is a great pleasure to meet with you again and I welcome that we are in the process of strengthening and developing the partnership Moldova and NATO. Welcome once again.

OANA LUNGESCU (NATO Spokesperson): Moldovan State TV.

Q: [Inaudible] TV Moldova One. My question is for Mr. Stoltenberg. How difficult is it to have efficient dialogue with State of Moldova when the different leaders promoting very different messages? And the one question is for Mr. Filip, [speaking with translator] and now the question for Mr. Filip, at what stage actually is the opening of the NATO Liaison Office and what will be the priorities of Moldovan Government regarding this cooperation? Because the experience of Ukraine and Georgia show that the NATO Liaison Office is based on the necessity of the hosting country. Thank you.

JENS STOLTENBERG (NATO Secretary General): NATO is an alliance of 28 democracies so we are very used to that there are different views, different opinions also within the political system. So that's nothing new. What we do is that we relate to governments, to parliaments, to those who are responsible for taking decisions and all our efforts, all our projects when it comes to our partnership with Moldova is based on requests from Moldova, from the Moldovan Government supported by the Moldovan Parliament. But of course NATO will never enforce any activities or any programs upon a country which don't want it. It's absolutely voluntary partnership, we respect the limitations and of course we totally respect the neutrality of Moldova. Some of our closest partners are neutral countries. Switzerland, Austria, Finland, Sweden are neutral countries but we have an extensive and strong partnership with them. And therefore we think it's absolutely possible to further strengthen our partnership with Moldova, totally fully respecting the neutrality of Moldova and actually the neutrality of Moldova is explicitly mentioned in the document that forms the basis for our partnership. So there is absolutely no contradiction between being a neutral country as the Republic of Moldova is and at the same time working with NATO. And we have to remember also that a NATO Liaison Office in Chisinau is a civilian, small civilian diplomatic office, we have that kind of offices in other countries including in Russia actually, in Moscow. So this is not a military base, this is a small civilian office, which then can help to facilitate our practical partnership.

PAVEL FILIP (Prime Minister of the Republic of Moldova): [Speaking with translator]. I think that there is still this mentality, Soviet mentality, which is still present in a part of Moldova that NATO represents just a big military base and everything is related to army and munitions and heavy military. Let's not forget that we live in the 21st century informational era. We talked today about a creation of a centre to, reaction to cyber-attacks. We talked today about creation of such a lab to ensure or reaction to ensure cyber security. So these things have to be seen in a broad manner. Our cooperation with NATO is, and I think is normal, to want to learn from those who have the necessary expertise. Republic of Moldova wants to be a modern state and if we talk about the national army we want to have an army that is well trained. Regarding the opening of the liaison office, NATO Liaison Office in Chisinau, we did everything necessary so everything is coming along fine and as I mentioned I hope very much that this summer this liaison office will be a functional one. Another very important thing concerning communication, I'd like to mention that if we will talk directly, and we will, to the people and will not come with scary arguments then people will understand what NATO means and through the liaison office in Moldova I hope we will complete this goals.

Q: [Inaudible] for Europe. Question for NATO Secretary General. What do you expect from today's NRC? Do you hope that we could get some progress when it comes for example to risk reduction? And for Mr. Filip, are you worried about reports that Mr. Dodon wants to sign a memorandum of understanding with the Eurasian Economic Union? Do you think that this will harm your relationship with the European Union, that this will jeopardise for example the association agreement and the trust that your western partners such as NATO you have in Moldova?

JENS STOLTENBERG: We will have a meeting of the NATO Russia Council later on today. I welcome the fact that we were able to convene the three meetings last year and now we will have the first meeting this year and we will discuss, address different issues of common concern, like the crisis in and around Ukraine, Afghanistan including the regional terrorist threat. And we will also then discuss military activities, transparency and risk reduction. And I'm looking forward to the meeting because we are going to have reciprocal briefings on our military posture on the three new divisions in the western military district of Russia. But also on the four battle groups that NATO is going to deploy in the Baltic countries, or we are in the process of deploying in the Baltic countries and Poland. And for me this is an important step towards more predictability, more transparency which is especially needed now when we have increased military activity along our borders. I hope that this can be further strengthened with more briefings, more, more reciprocal briefings on exercises, on military activities and also a good platform for discussing how we can move on when it comes to strengthening our military lines of communications and mechanisms for risk reduction. But what will happen today is that at least we'll have a reciprocal briefing on military posture both from the Russian side and from the NATO side.

PAVEL FILIP: [Speaking with translator]. Regarding this memorandum with Eurasian economic community I have to mention that we have a very firm position in this regard. It was already transmitted to Mr. President Dodon, more than that I passed to him a documented opinion elaborated by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs that this agreement does not have any juridical power, it cannot and I will tell you why. Fortunately the Republic of Moldova has a parliamentary regime, according to its constitution the parliament is a representative body, supreme body in the country that approves the internal and external policies. It is true that according to the constitution the President, who is not the owner of the state, he has the right to negotiate and to sign international treaties. But according to the, according to the law on international treaties, and this law supposes that any document, a memorandum or international treaty, in order to have juridical effect, has to be ratified by the Parliament of the Republic of Moldova. Of course the President, when he signs international treaties is not obliged to represent the full powers. But this does not mean that representing the state he can impose his own opinion or his own vision. He is obligated to consult and to present for ratification in front of the Moldovan Parliament. That is why this memorandum, even if it will be signed, I will declare once again and also the Speaker of Moldovan Parliament will declare that this is a, a zero sum document, doesn't have any juridical power. That is why the President has to be sincere in relation to those who sign this memorandum and to tell them that this document does not have a juridical power.

OANA LUNGESCU: This concludes this press point. Thank you.

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Ethiopia's parliament extends state of emergency by 4 months

Iran Press TV

Thu Mar 30, 2017 12:59PM

Ethiopia's parliament has renewed a state of emergency that came into force last year following massive anti-government protests in the Horn of Africa country.

The legislature on Thursday approved a four-month extension to the measure, which was first declared by Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn six months ago.

"The House unanimously voted to extend the state of emergency," said a report in state media.

The report also quoted Defense Minister Siraj Fegessa as saying that the "extension is needed so as to take the prevailing relatively good peace and security situations to the point of no return."

The extension comes amid continued protests against the government in some remote parts of Ethiopia.

Fegessa said that those continuing the protests sought to take advantage of ethnic disputes in Ethiopia.

"We still have some anti-peace elements that are active and want to capitalize on disputes that arise among regional states of the country," he told parliament.

Ethiopia declared the state of emergency in October, after months of mass protests in various cities and towns. The measure was relaxed on March 15, preventing police from making arrests or carrying out house searches without authorization from judiciary.

The government has also used force to calm down the situation as human rights groups say hundreds have been killed in the crackdown.

The protests in Ethiopia have largely targeted the ruling EPRDF party, which holds 546 seats in parliament and has been in power since the fall of communist dictator Mengistu Haile Mariam in 1991.

Protesters have carried out attacks on foreign firms and businesses, especially in Oromia, a region close to the capital Addis Ababa and a hotbed of anti-government protests since 2015. Residents of the area, known as Oromo ethnic people, mostly feel excluded from political and economic power in Ethiopia.

The state of emergency is the first in Ethiopia since 1991. Opposition parties have denounced the measure, saying it has enabled the government to clamp down on dissent.

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US ignores human rights condition to sell Bahrain F-16 jets

Iran Press TV

Thu Mar 30, 2017 7:49AM

The administration of US President Donald Trump has decided to ignore Bahrain's human rights record in order to sell F-16 fighter jets to the Arab monarchy.

The US State Department informed Congress on Wednesday that it plans to approve a request by the Persian Gulf nation to purchase 19 of the jets from Lockheed Martin worth up to $2.7 billion.

The figure would reach $4.9 billion if 23 engines, radars and other avionics, air-to-air and air-to-ground ordnance and related equipment required to upgrade other jets in Bahrain's fleet are included.

The deal was brought to a halt under former President Barack Obama, who had called on Bahrain to deliver on its promises to improve the human rights condition.

Lockheed, however, strenuously lobbied for the contract to go through, amid outrage among human rights groups concerned with the regime's crackdown on dissidents.

Bahrain's ruling Al Khalifah family has been leading a ruthless crackdown against domestic dissent since 2011, killing scores of protesters with Saudi Arabia's help.

"The sale will send exactly the wrong signal to the dictatorship: that the White House thinks the political crackdown is not just morally acceptable but also not dangerous, when in fact it's what's fueling the country's instability," Brian Dooley of the Washington-based group Human Rights First.

One of Obama's conditions for the kingdom was the immediate release of Nabeel Rajab, a famed human rights activist who helped lead the anti-regime protests.

Trump's State Department said earlier this week that Rajab should be released because there is not enough evidence against him.

The government's notice gives lawmakers 40 days to review the deal. Given the Republican majority in Congress, the sale is expected to pass without any drama.

Senator Bob Corker, chairman of the Senate Foreign relations Committee, praised the deal, saying in a statement that such conditions would have been "unprecedented and counterproductive."

"There are more effective ways to seek changes in partner policies than publicly conditioning weapons transfers in this manner," he argued.

Bahrain is home to the US Navy's 5th Fleet. Last year, the UK celebrated the 200th anniversary of mutual relations with the Arab kingdom by opening a massive Royal Navy base there.

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Migratory birds search for food on the remaining ice on Xingkai Lake, a border lake between China and Russia, in northeast China's Heilongjiang Province, March 30, 2017. Every day tens of thousands of migratory birds rest on Xingkai Lake on their way back to the north as the weather warms up. (Xinhua/Wang Jianwei)
More French military hardware arrive in Estonia

Iran Press TV

Thu Mar 30, 2017 6:21AM

A new batch of French military hardware and vehicles has arrived in Estonia as part of a massive military buildup by NATO in Eastern Europe to deter "Russian aggression."

According to a statement released by Estonia's Ministry of Defense, more than 30 units of military equipment of the French contingent, including four Leclerc tanks, 13 infantry fighting vehicles, and dozens of armored carriers and all-terrain vehicles, arrived in the railway station of the Estonian mid-northern town of Tapa on Wednesday.

Last Saturday, the Estonian military had announced that the first French contingent of the international NATO battalion had reached the training base in Tapa, where the French will be based.

Fifty French soldiers have also been stationed in Estonia, with another 250 troops due to arrive in April.

British soldiers have also been deployed to Estonia. Britain sent its first group of troops to the Baltic country on Friday. The 120 British soldiers are part of a total of 800 troopers to be sent from the UK to Estonia.

In July 2016, the US-led military alliance decided to deploy a so-called Enhanced Forward Presence force to three Baltic states  Estonia, Lithuania, and Latvia  as well as Poland.

The military alliance has been particularly boosting its military presence in Eastern Europe since the outburst of the Ukrainian crisis some three years ago, claiming that Russia's alleged interference in that conflict has been the reason behind the military buildup.

Crimea declared independence from Ukraine on March 17, 2014, and formally applied to become part of Russia following a referendum. Its subsequent integration with Russia has been perceived by the US and other Western countries as an "annexation," and, since then, the West has imposed several rounds of sanctions against Moscow to force it to return control of the peninsula to Ukraine. The Western countries also accuse Russia of having been involved in an armed conflict in Ukraine's east, which broke out when Kiev launched military operations to crack down on pro-Russia demonstrations there. Moscow denies the accusations.

Russia has described the deployment of NATO forces near its borders as a threat and has on numerous occasions warned against NATO's eastward expansion. Moscow says deploying an expected 4,000 troops plus many types of military hardware in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland would only lead to a security imbalance in Europe.

Earlier this month, military chiefs from Russia and the Western alliance held their first high-level contact after NATO unilaterally froze ties with Moscow over the crisis in Ukraine.

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NATO Chief Defends Plans To Open Office In Moldova

RFE/RL March 30, 2017

BRUSSELS -- NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg has defended plans to open a liaison office in Moldova, saying it can help facilitate a practical partnership between the two sides.

NATO will "soon" open the office in the capital, Chisinau, Stoltenberg said after talks with Moldovan Prime Minister Pavel Filip in Brussels on March 30, describing it as "a small diplomatic mission with only civilian staff."

Stoltenberg stressed that cooperation activities between NATO and Moldova have been requested by Chisinau, and that the country's neutrality was being respected.

"It is absolutely possible to further strengthen our partnership with Moldova, fully respecting the neutrality of Moldova," he said.

Moldova's pro-Western government signed an agreement with NATO on the opening of the liaison bureau in November.

But pro-Russian President Igor Dodon, who took office in December, has opposed the plan.

"A NATO office in Chisinau, in a neutral country, is a provocation," he told RFE/RL in February.

The Moldovan presidency is largely symbolic but Dodon's position has been strengthened by the fact that he was elected in a direct popular vote, the first president to win office through such an election since 1997.

With reporting by RFE/RL's Rikard Jozwiak

Source: http://www.rferl.org/a/nato-moldova -office/28399881.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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NATO-Russia Council Holds First Session This Year As Tension Persists

Rikard Jozwiak March 30, 2017

BRUSSELS -- Ambassadors from NATO nations and Russia gathered at the alliance's headquarters in Brussels for the first NATO-Russia Council session of 2017.

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said the talks on March 30 would focus on issues including the conflict in eastern Ukraine, the security situation in Afghanistan, and the "regional terrorist threat."

Amid persistent tension between NATO and Russia, Stoltenberg said another focus would be "military activities, transparency, and risk reduction."

He said the diplomats would have "reciprocal briefings on our military postures," discussing the deployment of three new divisions in western Russia and "the four battle groups that we are in the process of deploying in the Baltic countries and Poland."

Stoltenberg described the talks as "an important step toward more predictability, more transparency, which is especially in need now when we have increased military activity along our borders."

State-run Russian news agency TASS quoted Deputy Foreign Minister Aleksei Meshkov as saying Moscow plans to discuss "NATO's military buildup along our borders."

NATO has deployed thousands of soldiers and heavy weaponry to Poland, the Baltic states, and southeastern Europe, moving to provide extra security and reassurances to members close to Russia following its aggression in Ukraine.

Russia seized Crimea from Ukraine in March 2014 and backs separatists in a war against government forces that has killed more than 9,900 people in eastern Ukraine since that April.

Russia has also caused concern among NATO nations with snap military exercises in its Western regions and by buzzing the alliance's ships and aircraft with fighter jets, as well as the aggressive use of propaganda.

NATO suspended all practical cooperation with Russia after Moscow's annexation of Crimea in March 2014, but political channels remain open via the NATO-Russia Council, which held three similar gatherings last year.

The March 30 meeting comes a day before a meeting of the 28-nation alliance's foreign ministers, including U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.

Source: http://www.rferl.org/a/nato-russia- council-brussels-meeting-ukraine- afghanistan/28399555.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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Ukraine Conflict Dominates NATO-Russia Council Session

RFE/RL March 30, 2017

NATO representatives have told Russia that the situation in Ukraine is of "deep concern" at the first session of the Russia-NATO Council to be held this year.

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg told journalists after the Brussels meeting on March 30 that the meeting was "frank" and "constructive" although the two sides "continue to have clear disagreement" on the crisis in Ukraine.

Stoltenberg said the alliance urged Moscow to use its influence with militants in eastern Ukraine to compel them to meet their obligations under the so-called Minsk process to resolve the crisis.

He added that NATO was firm in its support for Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity.

"The allies do not and will not recognize Russia's illegal annexation of [the Ukrainian region of] Crimea," Stoltenberg said.

The NATO-Russia Council also discussed various military activities and ways of improving "risk reduction" following numerous incidents of close encounters between Russian and NATO military assets.

"It is not an easy dialogue," Stoltenberg said. "But it is a dialogue we are committed to. And when tensions run high, it is even more important to keep talking with each other to increase predictability and reduce risks."

Russia's ambassador to NATO, Aleksandr Grushko, told Russian media that "it is not possible to build confidence until NATO abandons its military-domination policy."

He criticized NATO for purportedly adopting a "policy aimed at restraining Russia and demonstrating their military capabilities near our borders."

With reporting by dpa and TASS

Source: http://www.rferl.org/a/nato-russia- council-ukraine-conflict/28400539.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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Kosovo President Vows To Create Regular Army Through Consultations

RFE/RL's Balkan Service March 30, 2017

Kosovo's president has backed away from a controversial pledge to push through a law turning the country's security force into a national army, telling RFE/RL that he will consult with ethnic minorities and make the change through constitutional amendments.

Creating a regular army for the Balkan country "should be a gradual, inclusive process with the engagement of all communities, including the Serbian one," President Hashim Thaci said in an interview with RFE/RL's Balkan Service on March 30.

"We fully agree that this process should occur through constitutional changes," he said.

Thaci had drawn sharp criticism from the United States and NATO when he sent a draft law to parliament in early March in a bid to legislate the creation of the army without changing the constitution.

It was an effort to bypass lawmakers from Kosovo's substantial Serbian minority, whose support would be needed for a constitutional amendment but not a for a regular law.

The plan is vehemently opposed by Belgrade and by ethnic Serbs in the northern part of Kosovo, a former province of Serbia that broke away in a 1998-99 war and declared independence in 2008.

Washington and the Western alliance have warned that they would reduce military cooperation if Kosovo converted its lightly armed, NATO-trained security forces into a regular army without changing the constitution and consulting all groups.

Thaci initially indicated he would push ahead with the plan for a law despite the criticism.

But in the RFE/RL interview -- which came a day after a senior U.S. diplomat said in Pristina that Kosovo should take "a step back and take the law off the table" -- he pledged to consult with minority groups.

"We want them to be more active so we can have multiethnic armed forces, in accordance with NATO standards," Thaci said.

He said he would lead the talks.

'Inalienable Right'

At the same time, he said he was not ready to wait indefinitely for support from ethnic Serbian members of parliament, who have opposed the plan.

"If Serbs refuse the constitutional changes on the army forever, then Kosovo has its right to create the army based on the law," Thaci warned. "That agenda will not stop."

"We want to create a Kosovo army so we become an integrated part of NATO, and not an isolated country," he said, insisting that nobody can prevent Kosovo from reaching that goal.

"That is an inalienable right of Kosovo's citizens and of an independent and sovereign state," Thaci said."We now have to coordinate the steps so that the process is inclusive."

"I want to believe that Serbs have understood that our idea of the army is not against anyone, but it is in the interest of all citizens," he said.

Thaci also said the creation of a regular army would not represent a threat to the region.

"We have excellent relations with neighbors and we are in an important process of normalization of relations with Serbia," he said. "The creation of an army will actually help the political dialogue with Serbia."

Thaci's comments come a day after a U.S. official urged leaders in Kosovo to consult with ethnic minorities on the plan instead of unilaterally implementing the law that would create a regular army.

"We would like the government to make a step back and take the law off the table," Hoyt Brian Yee, a deputy assistant secretary of state, said in an interview with public broadcaster RTK during a visit to Pristina.

"The transformation should be made with constitutional amendments," Yee said.

Kosovo is recognized as an independent nation by 114 countries including the United States and major European powers, but not by Serbia or Russia.

Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic, who is running for president in an April 2 election, told a rally on March 7 that "Serbia will never agree with the formation" of a Kosovar army.

Kosovo's existing security force, which was created in 2009, has about 4,000 lightly armed regular forces and 2,500 reservists.

Thaci's plan would increase regular forces to 5,000 and reserves to 3,000, and international military forces deployed in Kosovo to ensure its protection would remain.

Some 4,500 troops from 31 countries have been deployed in Kosovo since June 1999, after NATO's 78-day air campaign to stop Serbia's crackdown against ethnic Albanian separatists.

Serbia has about 50,000 people in its regular military, not including reserves.

Source: http://www.rferl.org/a/kosovo-regular-army- united-states-warning/28399388.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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Arab Leaders Say They Are Ready To Relaunch Israeli-Palestinian Peace Plan

RFE/RL March 30, 2017

Arab leaders say they are prepared to restart a peace plan to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, again putting forward the possibility of full ties with Israel in exchange for Palestinian statehood.

Ending a one-day annual summit in Jordan on March 29, Arab leaders reaffirmed their commitment "to relaunch serious and effective Palestinian-Israeli peace negotiations."

They vowed to "follow a specific timetable to end the conflict on the basis of the two-state solution."

The Arab League summit came as three key Arab leaders are scheduled to meet with U.S. President Donald Trump in Washington in the coming weeks.

Jordan's King Abdullah, Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, and Palestinian Authority President Mahmud Abbas met at the summit to coordinate their positions ahead of the White House meetings.

Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi said the summit signaled that the Arab world is willing to work with the Trump administration to negotiate a two-state deal.

Jason Greenblatt, Trump's international envoy, held talks with Abbas, along with the foreign ministers of Jordan, Egypt, and Qatar, on the sidelines of the summit.

He told Arab leaders that Trump believes an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal is possible and would "reverberate positively throughout the region and the world."

Trump has sent conflicting comments on the Middle East situation.

During his presidential campaign, he angered Arab leaders with a vow to move the U.S. Embassy in Israel to contested Jerusalem and later suggested he was prepared to accept alternatives to a two-state solution.

Since then, however, he has downplayed both possibilities and indicated his willingness to broker a peace deal.

The summit reaffirmed the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative that offered Israel normalization of relations if it hands back captured lands for the creation of a Palestinian state.

Israel has sought a regional solution, with normalization of ties to individual Arab nations coming before an Israeli-Palestinian settlement.

Israeli Intelligence Minister Israel Katz acknowledged the importance of the Palestinian issue.

But he also said Arab leaders should not forget the other pressing "strategic regional challenges" involving Iran, the Islamic State (IS) extremist group, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, and Libya.

He said working together on these threats, while improving conditions of the Palestinians, can "lay the groundwork" for progress.

At the summit, Jordanian Foreign Minister Safadi said the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a root cause of many Middle East conflicts. Resolving it, he added, would also aid in the fight against terrorism.

With reporting by AP, Reuters, and dpa

Source: http://www.rferl.org/a/arab-league-jordan- palestine-israel-peace-talks/28399245.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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Trump Lifts Human Rights Embargo to Allow Sale of F-16s to Bahrain

Sputnik News

22:54 30.03.2017(updated 22:58 30.03.2017)

US President Donald Trump has overridden a condition put in place by the Obama administration that Bahrain end state-sponsored human rights abuses in order to receive 19 F-16 fighter jets, Defense News reports.

The Obama White House had made the transfer of the F-16s "contingent on human rights improvements in the country," the Congressional Research Service (CRS) notes.

The current administration, however, told Congress to move forward with the deal, which is likely to take place, though the deal has yet to be completely finalized.

The decision to allow the sale may be "part of [the Trump administration's] articulated policy to counter Iran's regional influence," CRS added.

Bahrain has been an active participant in the Saudi-led coalition against Houthi rebels in Yemen, a situation that's deteriorating into a more severe humanitarian crisis by the day. Further, the monarchy has been called a dictatorship by human rights groups for marginalizing the Shia population in Bahrain.

According to Human Rights Watch, Bahrain routinely tortures prisoners, silences political opponents via legislation and "arbitrarily strips rights activists and political dissidents of their citizenship," the group said in its 2016 report on Bahrain.

What's more, Reporters Without Borders, the Index on Censorship and the Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy signed a document penned by the foreign secretary of the UK blasting Bahrain's refusal to allow a free press in the country, the Guardian reported in August 2016.

Bahrain has also deployed sorties to conduct airstrikes against Daesh in Syria, "but not in Iraq," the CRS wrote.

Bloomberg estimates the US deal could be worth between $2.7 and $4 billion, depending on whether the package includes supplies to upgrade Bahrain's current F-16s.

On Thursday, US Army Gen. Joseph Votel told the House Armed Services Committee that human rights concerns have been a source of tension between Bahrain and the US in the past, impeding lucrative arms deals.

"Slow progress on key [foreign military sales, or FMS] cases, specifically additional F-16 aircraft and upgrades to Bahrain's existing F-16 fleet, due to concerns of potential human rights abuses in the country, continues to strain our relationship," Votel said.

 Sputnik

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Trump Approves Increased Precision Strikes Against Al-Shabaab in Somalia

Sputnik News

20:50 30.03.2017(updated 21:31 30.03.2017)

President Donald Trump has given the green light to a Department of Defense request to increase the number of artillery and air strikes against the al-Shabaab terror group in Somalia, spokesman Capt. Jeff Davis said in a statement on Thursday.

WASHINGTON (Sputnik)  Somalia has been experiencing violence since the country devolved into civil war in the early 1990s. The state's collapse provided a breeding ground for warlords, pirates and the al-Qaeda affiliated al-Shabaab.

The group has been staging numerous attacks in Somalia in an attempt to create an Islamic state ruled by Sharia law.

"The President has approved a Department of Defense proposal to provide additional precision fires in support of African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) and Somali security forces operations to defeat al-Shabaab in Somalia," Davis stated.

Somali and AMISOM security forces have regained ground initially ceded to al-Shabaab, Davis added.

The ramped-up US fires support will further weaken al-Shabaab and limit the danger to partner forces as conduct operations. Harakat Shabaab al-Mujahidin  or al-Shabaab  is the militant wing of the Somali Council of Islamic Courts that took over most of southern Somalia in the second half of 2006.

 Sputnik

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NATO-Russia Council in Details

Sputnik News

10:40 30.03.2017(updated 20:46 30.03.2017)

A meeting of the NATO-Russia Council (NRC) at ambassadorial level will take place at alliance's headquarters in Brussels on Thursday.

MOSCOW (Sputnik)  The NRC was established at the Russia-NATO Summit in Rome on May 28, 2002 by the Declaration on NATO-Russia Relations: a New Quality. The NRC replaced the Permanent Joint Council (PJC), a forum for consultation and cooperation created by the 1997 Russia-NATO Founding Act on Mutual Relations, Cooperation and Security, which remains the formal basis for Russia-NATO relations.

The NRC serves as the principal structure and platform for advancing the relationship between Russia and NATO. Under the Council, Russia and NATO member states meet as equals "at 29," rather than in the bilateral "NATO+1" format under the PJC.

Under the Rome Declaration, Russia and NATO member states will work in the Russia-NATO Council as equal partners in areas of common interest. The Russia-NATO Council will provide a mechanism for consultation, consensus-building, cooperation, joint decision, and joint action for NATO member states and Russia on a wide spectrum of security issues in the Euro-Atlantic region.

Furthermore, the Declaration stipulates that RNC members, acting in their national capacities and in a manner consistent with their respective collective commitments and obligations, will take joint decisions and bear equal responsibility, individually and jointly, for their implementation.

Work in the NRC has been focused on the areas that were outlined in the Founding Act, and include the struggle against terrorism, crisis management, non-proliferation, arms control and confidence-building measures, theater missile defense, search and rescue at sea, military-to-military cooperation, defense reform and civil emergencies.

The NRC members will continue their work to identify and develop potential key areas of cooperation, and has already established over 25 working groups and committees to that end.

Until 2014, NRC meetings at the level of ambassadors and military representatives were held at least once a month and were chaired by the NATO Secretary General. Twice a year, the NRC met at the level of foreign and defense ministers and chiefs of general staff, while also trying to met at the level of heads of state and government whenever possible.

The Preparatory Committee met twice monthly, or more often if necessary, to consider issues for subsequent discussions at the ambassadorial level and to monitor the operation of experts under the NRC.

The NRC has accumulated positive experience in joint actions against the common threats, such as terrorism, piracy, natural disasters and industrial accidents, as well as Afghanistan. At the same time, their views differ significantly on fundamental issues of national security, in particular, the US ballistic missile defense plans for Europe.

In March 2014, Russia-NATO relations soured over Crimea's integration into Russia. NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said at a news conference on March 5 that they "have put the entire range of NATO-Russia cooperation under review." He added that ambassadorial meetings in the NRC would be maintained.

On April 1, 2014, NATO suspended all practical and military cooperation with Russia. However, it decided to keep channels of communication open in the RNC at the ambassadorial level and above.

In 2016, the NRC met for the first time in nearly two years at NATO's initiative. The meetings were held at the ambassadorial level in Brussels on April 20, July 13 and December 19 to discuss the crisis in Ukraine, security issues in Afghanistan, and risks related to the NATO military build-up on Russia's western border.

 Sputnik

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US Pulling Out From Uganda LRA Mission; AU Mulls Drawdown

By Dan Joseph March 30, 2017

The Ugandan military says an aide to Lord's Resistance Army chief Joseph Kony has surrendered, a day after the United States said it will withdraw from the task force chasing the notorious rebel group.

Ugandan military officials said Thursday that Michael Omona, Kony's chief communications officer, gave himself up in the Central African Republic. Omona was part of the LRA for 23 years after being kidnapped by the group in 1994.

On Wednesday, the U.S. military said it will remove its forces from Operation Observant Compass, the task force established in 2013 to hunt down bands of LRA fighters roaming across Central Africa and bring Kony and other LRA leaders to justice.

In a statement, the U.S Africa Command said the task force has "dramatically weakened the LRA in numbers and overall effectiveness." It said the LRA has shrunk from 2,000 to under 100 fighters, and noted that four of the five key LRA leaders have been captured.

Kony, who is wanted by the International Criminal Court on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity, remains at large. A former LRA senior commander, Dominic Ongwen, is currently on trial at the ICC in The Hague.

The African Union Peace and Security Council met in Addis Ababa Thursday to discuss the future of the anti-LRA task force. The council said on Twitter that it may recommend the force be increased, decreased, shut down or left as is.

"Though weakened, LRA remains a security threat," the council said.

A self-styled prophet, Kony launched a brutal rebellion in Uganda that displaced more than 1.5 million people before taking his group into Sudan, the CAR and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

The United Nations estimated in 2013 that the LRA had killed more than 100,000 people and kidnapped more than 60,000 over the previous quarter-century.

Both numbers have likely increased since then, as the group has continued to attack villages in remote areas.

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Photo shows elks searching for food at Tian'ezhou National Nature Reserve for Elk in Shishou, Hubei province on March 28. The nature preserve has seen its elk population increase from just 64 in the 1990s to more than 1,000 today.
Some South Sudan IDPs Call for Peace Monitor's Ouster

By Michael Attit March 30, 2017

Some residents of a South Sudanese displaced persons' camp say the head of the group that monitors the country's 2015 peace deal should be fired.

The residents accuse Festus Mogae, who chairs the Joint Monitoring and Evaluation Commission, or JMEC, of failing to speak up about government violations of the cease-fire, including alleged killings, rapes and torture committed by soldiers against civilians.

JMEC has reported on cease-fire violations and placed the blame on both sides in South Sudan's civil war.

But internally displaced people (IDPs) say Mogae is not accurately describing the situation faced by hundreds of thousands of civilians forced from their homes and into United Nations-run camps since the start of South Sudan's civil war.

Bikan Kuol, a community leader at the IDP camp in Juba, says IDPs like him have lost hope that JMEC's chairman has the ability to monitor implementation of the peace agreement.

Impartiality questioned

"He has shown beyond any reasonable doubt that he is no longer impartial," Kuol told VOA's South Sudan in Focus. "And he fears telling the truth to the international community about actual events happening in the country."

Ann Dau, a 39-year-old mother of eight, said she is tired of living in the IDP camp. She says she and her family ventured outside the camp for a time last year, but had to restrict their movements after renewed fighting broke out between government forces and rebels loyal to former Vice President Riek Machar last July.

"We tried to move freely without fear. But July 2016, there were a lot of rapes [and] killings; even women were killed during that time. So now for this time we need Festus Mogae not to be there," Dau said.

South Sudan In Focus reached out to JMEC'S communications officer in Juba, Mohammed Adow, for comment. Adow said Mogae is out of the country, but added he would forward VOA's request for an interview.

More than two million South Sudanese have been displaced from their homes during a war driven by political disputes and tribal rivalries.

President Salva Kiir and Machar's rebels signed a peace deal in August 2015 and established a transitional government of national unity, but clashes have continued. Mogae, the former president of Botswana, was appointed chairman of JMEC, which is tasked with monitoring implementation of the agreement.

Cease-fire violations

Under Mogae, JMEC has repeatedly blamed both sides for violating the peace deal. On March 17, Mogae told the African Union Peace and Security Council that the situation has deteriorated to an unacceptable level and asked both the government and rebels to comment on the alleged violations.

In February, he said that the continued disrespect of the cease-fire by both sides, other armed groups, and what he called "criminals" during the past few months had worsened the situation, forcing many civilians to flee the country.

Kuol said that's not enough. He said since July, government forces have violated the peace agreement many times and JMEC Chairman Mogae has remained silent about the killings, rapes and torture.

"We the IDPs, we want peace, but peace without Mr. Festus Mogae because Festus Mogae has failed in reporting everything. Because he is supposed to write whatever obstructs the peace, but unfortunately he has failed to do that. His being here in Juba is nothing," Kuol said.

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OAS, US Denounce Venezuelan High Court's Takeover of Legislature

By Luis Alberto Facal March 30, 2017

The Venezuelan Supreme Court's decision late Wednesday to take control of the opposition-controlled legislature has set off a wave of outrage, with some hemispheric neighbors, including the United States, Mexico, Peru and Argentina, denouncing the measure as a threat to democracy.

The Organization of American States' secretary general, Luis Amalgro, accused the government led by socialist Nicolas Maduro of attempting "a self-inflicted coup d'etat" against its parliament. He called for an emergency meeting of the organization's Permanent Council, just two days after presiding at an extraordinary meeting in Washington about Venezuela.

In a statement, the U.S. State Department condemned the court for its "decision to usurp the powers of the democratically elected National Assembly.  We consider it a serious setback for democracy."

Peru pulled its ambassador Thursday in protest, and countries including Mexico, Colombia, Argentina and Chile also denounced Venezuela's high court.

In a wide-ranging ruling, the court criticized the National Assembly for what it called "disrespect and invalidity of its proceedings." It said as long as that persisted, "this Constitutional Chamber will ensure that the parliamentary powers are exercised directly by this chamber or by the body it has in place to ensure the rule of law."

"Maduro is now the National Assembly,'' assembly leader Julio Borges told The Associated Press. "It's one thing to try to build a dictatorship and another to complete the circuit."

The court decision followed Tuesday's rare meeting of the OAS, which brought diplomats to Washington to debate how to resolve the South American country's years-long political and humanitarian crisis.

Almagro  who detailed the country's problems in a 74-page report issued in mid-March  had recommended suspending Venezuela's membership in the group unless it quickly released political prisoners and scheduled long-delayed elections, but the United States urged giving the country another chance to cooperate on re-establishing democratic norms. The U.S. was one of 20 member states that committed to taking as-yet-uncertain steps in guiding Venezuela toward that goal.

Hours before the decision was announced, Eustoquio Contreras, a legislator and deputy of the pro-government Polo Democratico party, defended Maduro.

He told VOA in a phone interview that "we are seriously threatened in our institutions. The government has had to choose to govern by decree and the extraordinary way, because the opposition has not ceased to advance its own interests."

Contreras also told VOA that Maduro "is a well-intentioned man who is making a great effort to solve the problems." He inherited "many difficulties" after his 2013 election to succeed the late Hugo Chavez, Contreras said.

A constitutional expert said Wednesday's ruling enables the government to suspend elections, detain deputies and withdraw Venezuela from the OAS.

"This is not an ordinary sentence," said Luis Salamanca, a political scientist at the Central University of Venezuela in Caracas. He told El Nacional newspaper that the ruling gives Maduro the power to "practically handle everything without any respect for the rules set out in the charter."

The National Mesa Bureau, an opposition group, condemned the court's decision as a flagrant violation of the constitution.

The bureau said in a statement that the government had resorted to "desperate measures." It said that through "legal aberration, the Constitutional Chamber urges the president to review criminal and even military laws under the state of emergency," allowing him to more directly attack the democratically elected National Assembly and its leaders.

In Washington, U.S. Senator Marco Rubio told VOA that "what exists in Venezuela today is not democracy."

Reflecting on Tuesday's OAS session and representatives' stances on Venezuela, the Florida Republican added, "I thank the countries like Mexico, Peru, Brazil, Colombia, Argentina, Honduras and others that have been clear in their position, and I think it is unfortunate that countries like the Dominican Republic, Haiti and El Salvador have used that [session] as an opportunity to defend the tyranny of Maduro."

VOA Spanish service's Gioconda Tapia Reynolds, Alejandro Escalona and Gesell Tobias contributed to this report.

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Secretary General: transatlantic bond is vital for Europe and North America

NATO - North Atlantic Treaty Organisation

31 Mar. 2017

NATO Foreign Ministers had talks on Friday (31 March 2017) about fairer burden sharing in the Alliance, NATO's response to terrorism and its united approach to Russia. After the meeting at NATO Headquarters, Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg highlighted how the Alliance has made progress on defence spending, with a 10 billion dollar rise in defence spending among European Allies and Canada last year. Mr Stoltenberg said Allies must keep up the momentum on defence spending and that one option being looked at is national plans for Allies to reach the NATO goal of spending 2% of GDP on defence.

Also high on the agenda was NATO's response to terrorism and how the Alliance is projecting stability beyond its borders. The Secretary General said, "NATO has untapped potential to do more. One of our best tools in the fight against terrorism is training local forces." As well as its continuing mission in Afghanistan, NATO is helping local forces in Iraq to better counter ISIL, including with training to counter improvised explosive devices. Mr. Stoltenberg said the Alliance would expand its training programme in Iraq with military medicine courses and with training to help maintain tanks and armoured fighting vehicles.

Ministers also assessed the situation in the Western Balkans and the Secretary General underlined how Montenegro's accession to NATO will contribute to regional stability. The European Union's High Representative, as well as the Ministers from Finland and Sweden, joined the meeting to discuss NATO's position on Russia: strong defence and deterrence combined with dialogue. The Ministerial ended with a meeting of the NATO-Ukraine Commission and talks on the Alliance's strong political and practical support to Ukraine.

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South Sudan govt. troops blamed for torching village homes: Report

Iran Press TV

Fri Mar 31, 2017 1:18PM

South Sudan's government troops destroyed thousands of homes in late 2016 as a three-year civil war continues in the country.

Monitors of the country's troubled peace agreement said on Friday that three villages in the southern region of Yei visited by investigators had been evacuated from inhabitants and burned down.

The shaky peace deal was reached in 2015 between the government and rebel forces.

"In most cases the buildings were deliberately set on fire by government forces," the report said.

Government officials claimed rebel fighters as well as wildfires were to blame for the destruction, the report said.

Yei had become the target of government forces after clashes broke out in the capital, Juba, in July 2016, reigniting fighting across the country.

Hundreds of thousands of people living in and around Yei have fled to neighboring Uganda, which has warned that the number of refugees is significantly going up.

Jonathan Pedneault, a researcher on South Sudan at Human Rights Watch, said it was "high time" that President Salva Kiir and his commanders were held accountable "for these outrageous, well-documented and repeated breaches of international law".

A separate report by international peace monitors said both government forces and rebel fighters were preying on civilians in the southern part of the country.

In related news, the Food Security Information Network (FSIN) reiterated on Friday an earlier warning issued by the United Nations that drought and economic collapse caused by the ongoing armed conflict in South Sudan had increased the risk of famine in the world's youngest country.

The FSIN report added that global food crises worsened significantly in 2016 and conditions look set to deteriorate further this year in some areas of the world.

"There is a high risk of famine in some areas of north-eastern Nigeria, Somalia, South Sudan and Yemen," it said.

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Mattis Says U.S. Concerned By Russia's Actions In Afghanistan

RFE/RL March 31, 2017

U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis has expressed concern over Russia's activities in Afghanistan and its interaction with the Taliban militant group.

"We have seen Russian activity vis-a-vis the Taliban," Mattis said during a news conference in London on March 31.

"I am not willing to say at this point if that is manifested into weapons and that sort of thing, but, certainly, what they are up to there in light of their other activities gives us concern," he added.

The comments come after U.S. General Curtis Scaparrotti, NATO's supreme allied commander in Europe, told a U.S. Senate committee on March 23 that he had seen evidence of increasing Russian efforts to influence the Taliban "and perhaps even to supply" the militant group.

Moscow denies it provides aid to the Taliban, which is fighting the U.S.-backed government and U.S. forces in Afghanistan.

Mattis also said in London that Iran continued to be an "exporter of terrorism" and a sponsor of militant activity.

He said Iran's behavior had not changed since 2012, when he said the three primary threats the United States faced were "Iran, Iran, Iran."

"At the time when I spoke about Iran I was a commander of U.S. Central Command and that [Iran] was the primary exporter of terrorism, frankly, it was the primary state sponsor of terrorism and it continues that kind of behavior today," he said at a news conference with his British counterpart, Michael Fallon.

Mattis also said that North Korea was acting "in a very reckless manner" and "has got to be stopped," an apparent reference to Pyongyang's nuclear weapons and missile programs.

"This is a threat of both rhetoric and growing capability," he said.

With reporting by Reuters and AP

Source: http://www.rferl.org/a/us-mattis-concern-russia-actions- taliban-afghanistan-iran-terrorism/28402463.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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Analysts: China Will be Able to Police Rival Countries in Disputed Sea

By Ralph Jennings March 31, 2017

China's near completion of artificial islets and combat aircraft facilities in the Spratly Islands will give it extra power to make other countries keep out of the widely disputed South China Sea or get Chinese permission to use it, analysts say.

Beijing is about to finish naval, air, radar and other facilities on the "big three" islets in the sea's Spratly archipelago, according to the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative, a project of the Washington-based policy research organization Center for Strategic and International Studies.

The American think tank initiative's monitoring over the past two years shows a near completion of "major construction of military and dual-use infrastructure" on Subi, Mischief and Fiery Cross reefs held by China in the Spratlys, according to its website, which adds Beijing can now deploy combat aircraft and mobile missile launchers to the Spratly Islands anytime.

Around-the-clock presence in area

Those installations will give China "around-the-clock presence" for "establishing administration" over its claims to the 3.5 million-square-kilometer sea, initiative director Gregory Poling said.

China claims more than 90 percent of the resource-rich sea that extends from Taiwan southwest to Singapore. The Chinese claim overlaps tracts that Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam also call their own.

"If you're a Southeast Asian fisherman or coast guard vessel or an oil and gas exploration vessel, you don't operate unless the Chinese let you operate, because they now are watching everything you do, and as soon as they send planes out there they'll be able to intervene anywhere, anytime," Poling said.

Fishing boats from other countries eventually must register with the Chinese to use the disputed sea, said Alex Chiang, an international relations professor at National Chengchi University in Taipei. Vessels now trawl freely in 370-kilometer exclusive economic zones extending from their home countries' coastlines.

"I think (China) will draw the line where those fishing boats can operate and they will require those fishing boats to get permission from China first in order to operate in the area, so that means all other countries have to observe Chinese domestic law," Chiang said.

China's enforcement ability may be tested when the country implements a fishing moratorium from May through August, Poling said. The moratorium would let stocks regenerate in the northern half of the sea.

Officials in Beijing are talking one on one with the Southeast Asian maritime claimants to offer them trade and investment benefits from China's $11 trillion economy, some believe in exchange for letting China do what it wants at sea.

Those talks picked up after July when a world arbitration court ruled at the request of the Philippines against the legal basis for China's maritime claim. China cites historic usage records to back its claim and has rejected the court ruling.

Vietnam lacks confidence in US

In Vietnam, officials are starting to deal with China's consolidation of maritime power for lack of confidence in U.S. support, said Oscar Mussons, senior associate with the Dezan Shira & Associates business consultancy in Ho Chi Minh City.

U.S. President Donald Trump has not made it clear whether he will back the Southeast Asian countries over China, analysts in the region believe.

"At some point Vietnam felt strong and said well, we have the United States backing us, so it's going to be fine,' but nobody knows what's going on with the United States," Mussons said.

Vietnamese officials are keeping quiet and talking to Beijing about economic cooperation as China develops the sea, he said, but citizens are protesting passively by avoiding made-in-China products.

"They don't really say we need to fight them back,'" he said. "But of course they've always seen China as a threat, and I think that's the way it's going to be for a while now if things don't change."

Claimant countries prize the tropical sea for fisheries and undersea reserves of oil and gas. Also, more than half the world's marine shipping traffic uses the waterway. Like China, Taiwan claims nearly the whole sea. Other governments operate in zones near their coastlines, and all the claimants control tiny land forms in the Spratly chain.

Since 2010 China has quickly expanded into the sea, landfilling more than 12 square kilometers to make reefs ready for construction of facilities.

China's three air bases in the Spratlys and another on Woody Island in the Paracel Island archipelago, which is contested by Vietnam, will allow Chinese military aircraft to operate over nearly the entire South China Sea, the initiative says.

The government in Beijing will know what other countries are doing via advanced surveillance and early-warning radar facilities at Fiery Cross, Subi and Cuarteron Reefs in the Spratly chain, as well as Woody Island, the initiative's website adds.

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Hawaii judge extends order blocking Trump's Muslim ban

Iran Press TV

Thu Mar 30, 2017 4:21AM

A federal judge in the US state of Hawaii has placed a stronger hold on Donald Trump's revised travel ban, striking another legal blow against the president's repeated attempts to bar people from several Muslim-majority countries from entering the United States.

On March 15, US District Judge Derrick Watson was the first to rule against the president's revised executive order, saying that the state of Hawaii had established that the law could not be enforced because it was unconstitutional. The ruling blocked the travel ban but it was to last only a couple of weeks.

After hearing arguments from the attorneys for the Hawaii attorney general and the Department of Justice, Watson on Wednesday extended his previous temporary restraining order.

State Attorney General Douglas Chin argued that the implied message in Trump's revised ban is like a "neon sign flashing 'Muslim ban, Muslim ban'" that the administration did not care to address it.

The judge issued a longer-lasting preliminary injunction, which will continue to extend the temporary order until the state's lawsuit is resolved. He said that it would ensure the constitutional rights of Muslim citizens across the country.

The Trump administration could now file an appeal to the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, which had already once ruled against the travel ban.

In the previous ruling, Watson, a President Obama appointee, cited several comments made by Trump and declared that the travel ban is, despite the administration's denials, a Muslim ban.

The judge concluded in his ruling that the revised ban is in fact not all that different to the original one. "Based upon the current record available, however, the Court cannot find the actions taken during the interval between revoked Executive Order No. 13,769 and the new Executive Order to be 'genuine changes in constitutionally significant conditions.'"

The court in Hawaii was the first to rule on several legal challenges against the travel ban, which targets people from six mainly Muslim countries.

A day after Trump signed the new executive order on March 6, attorneys for Hawaii filed their proposed revision in federal court, along with a motion asking that it be allowed to proceed.

The revised travel ban changed and replaced the original, more sweeping executive order issued on January 27 that caused chaos and protests at airports and was challenged in more than two dozen lawsuits across the US.

Trump's new order maintained a 90-day ban on travel to the US by citizens of Iran, Syria, Libya, Yemen, Somalia and Sudan, but excluded Iraq and applied the restriction only to new visa applicants. It also removed an indefinite ban on Syrian refugees.

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China's military launches education campaign on upholding Xi's core status

People's Daily Online

(Xinhua) 14:09, March 30, 2017

BEIJING, March 29 (Xinhua) -- China's Central Military Commission (CMC) has issued a guideline on launching an education campaign themed on upholding the core and following commands.

The guideline said it is a fundamental issue to establish and uphold Xi Jinping, general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, as the core of the CPC Central Committee as well as the whole Party.

Deepening national defense and military reforms also requires further consolidation of consensus, it said, noting that the military must staunchly uphold the authority of the CPC Central Committee and Xi, who is also chairman of the CMC, under all circumstances.

According to the guideline, the education campaign must showcase new achievements and development since the 18th National Congress of the CPC in 2012, and prepare the army for the upcoming 19th CPC National Congress, scheduled for later this year.

It also called for the institutionalizing of an ongoing education campaign on Party management, which focuses on study of the Party Constitution and code of conduct, as well as the speeches made by Xi.

The campaign should not be limited just to high-ranking officials, and grassroots officers need to join the campaign in order to build up a world-class army, according to the guideline.

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North Korea capable of killing millions of Americans: US intelligence officials

Iran Press TV

Thu Mar 30, 2017 10:26AM

North Korea is capable of killing millions of Americans by launching a nuclear attack, two high ranking US intelligence officials have claimed, arguing that the secretive republic has already mastered the technology needed to fire massive atomic bombs at the US mainland.

"The mainstream media, and some officials who should know better, continue to allege North Korea does not yet have capability to deliver on its repeated threats to strike the US with nuclear weapons," James Woolsey, a former CIA director, and Peter Vincent Pry, head of the Congressional EMP Commission, wrote in an article published by The Hill on Wednesday.

The EMP (ectromagnetic pulse) Commission is tasked with assessing the EMP threats against the US and address the country's vulnerabilities to such threats.

"False reassurance is given to the American people that North Korea has not 'demonstrated' that it can miniaturize a nuclear warhead small enough for missile delivery, or build a reentry vehicle for an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) capable of penetrating the atmosphere to blast a US city," added the article, titled How North Korea could kill 90 percent of Americans.

According to Woolsey and Pry, the CIA's top East Asia analyst publicly confirmed in 2008 that Pyongyang had successfully miniaturized a nuclear warhead and tested it using the Nodong medium-range ballistic missile.

Three years later, then Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) Lieutenant General Ronald Burgess told the Senate Armed Services Committee that North Korea "has weaponized its nuclear devices into warheads for arming ballistic missiles."

Admiral William Gortney, then Commander of North American Aerospace Defense (NORAD), repeated the same claim in 2015, warning that the North could strike the US with a nuclear-capable KN-08 mobile ICBM.

The article goes on to warn that North Korea's KMS-3 and KMS-4 satellites have been orbiting the US "on trajectories consistent with surprise EMP attack."

The authors referred to North Korea's successful satellite launch and testing of an alleged Hydrogen bomb, warning that Pyongyang had everything it needed to cause chaos in the US.

Concluding that a large part of America's population was vulnerable to a surprise nuclear attack, Woolsey and Pry made several recommendations to protect them.

"The US must be prepared to preempt North Korea by any means necessaryincluding nuclear weapons," they wrote, adding that the US electric grid and national missile defenses should also be hardened against EMP attacks.

Tensions have been running high between the US and North Korea for months now.

Last week, Pyongyang warned Washington that a preemptive strike was always a possibility, after the US and South Korean military forces simulated attacks on North Korean targets during joint military drills that involve 17,000 American troops and more than 300,000 South Koreans.

Washington has been sending sophisticated weapons to the South in order to prevent Seoul against what it calls the North's "aggression."

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North Korea may be preparing to conduct new nuke test: South Korean sources

Iran Press TV

Thu Mar 30, 2017 8:39AM

South Korean intelligence sources have alleged that North Korea may soon conduct a new nuclear test.

"We have intelligence that North Korea may conduct its sixth nuclear test in the first week of April and are in the process of confirming this," the Korea JoongAng daily quoted an unnamed South Korean military intelligence source as saying on Wednesday. "We have determined that North Korea is expected to finish all preparations for a nuclear test by March 31."

Pyongyang has so far conducted five confirmed nuclear tests and numerous missile launches. The United Nations (UN) and the European Union (EU) have already imposed an array of crippling sanctions on North Korea over its missile and nuclear programs. Pyongyang says the programs are meant to guarantee security against potential US military aggression.

Last month, Pyongyang fired a missile into the sea off the east coast of the Korean Peninsula just as US President Donald Trump was hosting Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe at Mar-a-Lago, Trump's Florida retreat.

The North's military also fired four ballistic missiles into the sea near Japanese territory earlier this month.

The South Korean daily further quoted another unnamed intelligence official as saying that there was "a high possibility" that the North would conduct a nuke test ahead of a meeting between Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping at the Florida resort.

Although the White House has not announced the visit, a senior US State Department official said on Tuesday that the two leaders would meet on April 6-7, the first in-person meeting between Xi and Trump since the latter took office on January 20.

"The timing of this [test] is no coincidence," said Rah Jong-yil, a former head of the South Korean intelligence agency. "Kim Jong-un (the North Korean leader) clearly wants to overshadow the China-US summit and to underline the fact that he has nuclear weapons."

Earlier this month, Washington's ambassador to the UN said that Trump's administration was re-evaluating its North Korea strategy, threatening that "all options are on the table."

Pyongyang, for its part, has on numerous occasions lambasted the US's polices in the region as provocative and vowed to strongly retaliate if its sovereignty is violated by the US military.

The US is currently conducting military drills with South Korea, an annual occurrence that draws North Korean ire.

China is also concerned by the drills. The influential Chinese state-run Global Times daily recently reported that the USS Carl Vinson was taking part in a simulation of a preemptive strike against North Korea's nuclear and missile facilities.

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A total of 6.05 billion pieces of personal information were leaked in 2016, up 9.4 percent from 2015, according to a recent report issued by leading Chinese internet security company Qihoo 360.

The report warned that an average of 16.9 million pieces of information were leaked from the 359 internet loopholes detected by Qihoo 360's security monitoring website Butian. The figure had nearly tripled since 2015.

The report was made public at a conference titled Hack for Security on March 30 in Shenzhen, which was organized by Qihoo 360.

"China has about 700 to 800 million netizens. With such a high exposure rate, it's almost like everyone is running around naked. Individuals are barely capable of protecting themselves from personal information leakage. They are also unable to prevent the leakage from happening," Pei Zhiyong, chief researcher for China's first anti-fraud platform 110.360.cn, told reporters on the sidelines of the conference.

Personal information leakage does little harm to websites themselves, which makes websites less willing to respond to the problem, Pei explained.

Ling Yun, chief information security officer at Chinas leading online travel agency Ctrip, revealed that his company encrypts all personal information saved on the website, from passport numbers to home addresses, so as to minimize the possibility of a large-scale personal information leak if an attack should occur.

Few Chinese companies would do this, but we, as a travel agency, have more information to worry about, he told reporters at the conference.

In December 2016, Chinas Ministry of Public Security announced that the number of annual personal information leak cases was over 1,800, concerning more than 30 billion pieces of information, the Xinhua News Agency reported.

A large proportion of the leaks were caused by hackers taking advantage of loopholes on websites, and some may have been conducted by "mole hackers" working within companies, Pei noted.

Earlier in March, an internet engineer with e-commerce site JD.com was discovered to be involved in a hacker gang that stole some 5 billion pieces of personal information, including bank and social security accounts, Beijing Youth Daily reported.

Qi Xiangdong, president of Qihoo 360, pointed out during a group interview with reporters at the conference that internet and IT companies should rely on professional, third-party companies to oversee their cyber-security operations.

It is a common practice in the West. Few Chinese companies have purchased such services in the past, but we are delighted to see there is a rising trend, Qi said.

Specifically, the Qihoo 360 report said that 96.1 percent of detected loopholes were of severe vulnerability, while 0.3 percent were of low vulnerability. Some 58 percent of the leaked information contained personal ID numbers, and 62 percent contained internet users' browsing histories.

Fortunately, over 90 percent of the severe loopholes detected on government websites were fixed in a timely manner. Government websites are the fastest to respond to these vulnerabilities, followed by the websites of financial institutions.
Royce: Limiting Access to Hard Currency Key to North Korea Sanctions

By Cho Eunjung March 30, 2017

While the Trump administration explores options to curb North Korea's nuclear development, efforts are under way in Congress to push for additional sanctions against the regime.

The move comes amid growing speculation that the isolated state may soon conduct another nuclear test. South Korea believes North Korea is ready to carry out a nuclear test anytime leader Kim Jong Un decides to do so. Recent commercial satellite imagery showed an increased level of activity at the North's Punggye-ri nuclear test site, according to the U.S. monitoring website 38 North.

Ed Royce, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, called on the Trump administration to take additional steps to deny the North the hard currency that enables the country to advance its missile and nuclear programs.

"We are indicating to the administration that they already have important tools at their disposal," the Republican lawmaker from California told VOA on Thursday, when asked what the Trump administration should do to counter the nuclear threat.

Targeting front companies

Royce introduced new legislation to tighten existing sanctions on Pyongyang. The legislation passed by the House panel Wednesday targets front companies and enablers that fund the Kim regime's nuclear program and human rights abuses. It also requires the Trump administration to determine whether North Korea is a state sponsor of terrorism.

The call for the North to be relisted as a state sponsor of terrorism has gained renewed attention after the assassination of Kim Jong Nam, the estranged half-brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. The lawmaker said the measure would "vastly expand the administration's authority to use sanctions to address this emerging North Korean threat."

Royce stressed the need for increased sanctions on the North, saying the communist state is using "sophisticated tactics" to evade sanctions.

"Sanctions enforcement from other nations remains insufficient," he added, citing a recent United Nations report.

Broken pledge?

The French news agency AFP reported the value of China's coal imports from North Korea surged nearly 40 percent in February despite Beijing's earlier pledge to ban such imports as part of the implementation of the latest U.N. sanctions. It is unclear if the purchases had been made before the suspension came into force or Beijing backed away from its previous pledge. In a report on the implementation of the sanctions, China said the imports were suspended from Feb. 19, 2017, to Dec. 31, 2017.

Recently, the Trump administration vowed that its North Korea policy will differ from its predecessor's.

"The policy of strategic patience has ended," U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson told reporters in South Korea this month. "We are exploring a new range of diplomatic, security and economic measures."

This report originated with the VOA Korean Service.

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Iran to US: Stop harassing Persian Gulf states

Iran Press TV

Thu Mar 30, 2017 1:30PM

Iran's defense minister has called on the US to leave the Persian Gulf and stop harassing regional countries.

Brigadier General Hossein Dehqan made the remarks on Thursday in response to recent hostile comments by US officials against the Islamic Republic.

"What is the US doing in the Persian Gulf? They better leave this region and not harass the regional countries," Dehqan said, adding, "Is it acceptable that an ignorant armed robber breaks into someone's house and expects to get red carpet treatment? This is an instance of modern, 21st century barbarism."

The remarks come at a time of increased belligerence shown against Iran by the administration of President Donald Trump.

On Wednesday, US Army General Joseph Votel, who heads the US Central Command (CENTCOM), said Washington should consider using "military means" against Iran.

Votel described Tehran as "the greatest long-term threat to stability" in the Middle East and accused Iran of "destabilizing" the region through "lethal aid facilitation," using "surrogate forces" and cyber operations.

Earlier this month, the US Navy claimed that its aircraft carrier George H.W. Bush had been "harassed" and "threatened" by Iranian vessels while passing through the Strait of Hormuz.

Iran's chief Armed Forces spokesman, Brigadier General Massoud Jazayeri, dismissed the claim, saying Washington had better look at the movements of its own naval forces in the region.

Iran's Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC)'s Navy has on several occasions forced US Navy vessels to change course before wandering into Iranian territorial waters.

The Islamic Republic has repeatedly warned that any act of transgression into its territorial waters would be met with an immediate and befitting response.

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Iran refutes AL claims about interference in regional states

Iran Press TV

Thu Mar 30, 2017 10:3AM

Iran has slammed the Arab League for repeating its baseless claims of "foreign interference" in the domestic of regional states in reference to the Islamic Republic, saying the Iranian foreign policy has always been based on "good-neighborly relations."

On Thursday, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Bahram Qassemi rejected the anti-Tehran claims in the Arab League's final declaration, which was issued at the end of its annual summit in Jordan, saying the Islamic Republic does not need to meddle in the affairs of other states.

He added that Iran remains "committed to good-neighborly ties, respect for the sovereignty of governments and non-interference in the internal affairs of other countriesin accordance with the country's Constitution and all the international regulations."

Instead of "paying attention to the core problems facing the region and the Islamic world as well as the mutual threats posed against all Muslim nations," the Arab League continues to "mistake enemies for friends" despite all the previous experiences, Qassemi added.

In the final declaration following its Wednesday summit, Arab League leaders criticized Iran without naming it, saying, "We reject any intervention in the internal affairs of Arab countries."

The pan-Arab organization also reiterated its claims about the ownership of the three Iranian islands of the Greater Tunb, Lesser Tunb and Abu Musa in the Persian Gulf.

The Iranian diplomat also denounced the AL's claims against Iran's sovereignty over the three Persian Gulf islands and said they are "Iranian and will remain Iranian and mere repetition of lies and claims in this respect will not change the historical facts."

"We basically consider such claims at the different Arab meetings as interference in Iran's internal affairs and strongly condemn and refute [such claims]," added Qassemi.

The islands of the Greater Tunb, Lesser Tunb and Abu Musa have always been part of Iran historically, the proof of which can be found in and corroborated by countless historical, legal, and geographical documents in Iran and other parts of the world.

However, the United Arab Emirates has repeatedly laid baseless claims to the islands.

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US should use 'military means' against Iran: CENTCOM chief

Iran Press TV

Thu Mar 30, 2017 5:22AM

The United States should consider using "military means" against Iran, US Army General Joseph Votel says, calling Tehran "the greatest long-term threat to stability" in the Middle East.

Votel, who heads the US Central Command (CENTCOM), made the hostile remarks while speaking before the House Armed Services Committee on Wednesday.

"I believe that Iran is operating in what I call a gray zone, and it's an area between normal competition between states  and it's just short of open conflict," he told the panel.

Votel went on to accuse Iran of "destabilizing" the region through "lethal aid facilitation," using "surrogate forces" and cyber operations.

"We need to look at opportunities where we can disrupt [Iran] through military means or other means their activities," he said. "We need to look at opportunities where we can expose and hold them accountable for the things that they are doing."

The general's statements fall in line with the anti-Iran rhetoric of US President Donald Trump, who has accused Iran of supporting terrorism and said "nothing is off the table" in terms of a response to the country's defensive missile program. Trump has also said that his administration formally put Tehran "on notice" over its missile test.

As the commander of CENTCOM, Votel is tasked with leading Washington's military efforts in Central Asia and the Middle East. More than 80,000 US soldiers are stationed across the area under Votel's command.

The general also oversees the US-led coalition's airstrikes and other military operations against purported terrorist targets inside Syria and Iraq, a campaign that began in 2014 and has led to the death of many civilians without any meaningful achievement.

Votel's comments came less than two weeks after a deadly coalition strike that killed over 200 civilians in the Iraqi city of Mosul.

The Pentagon has admitted to carrying out such "unintentional" raids against civilian targets in Syria, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Yemen as well.

Additionally, Washington has come under pressure for forging a close military and political alliance with Saudi Arabia, ignoring the regime's bloody war on Yemen and its clear support for extremist groups.

This is while the international community has constantly hailed Iran's active role in curbing the terrorism threat plaguing the region.

Persian Gulf encounters

In his testimony before the lawmakers, Votel also discussed the recent surge in Iran-US military encounters in the Persian Gulf, saying his team was "paying extraordinarily close attention" to the issue.

Iran's Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC)'s Navy has on several occasions forced US Navy vessels to change course before wandering into Iranian territorial waters.

The last of such encounters occurred earlier this month, when a US Navy ship and three British Royal Navy boats steered out of the course approved for international naval transit in the Persian Gulf and came within 550 meters (0.3 nautical miles) of IRGC vessels, drawing serious warnings from them.

Iran has repeatedly warned that any act of transgression into Iran's territorial waters would be met with an immediate and befitting response.

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Senior State Department Officials on Iran, North Korea, and Syria Nonproliferation Act (INKSNA) Sanctions

Special Briefing

Senior State Department Officials

Via Teleconference

March 30, 2017

MODERATOR: Thank you very much, and thanks to everyone who joined us this afternoon for our background conference call with senior State Department officials on the Iran, North Korea, and Syria Nonproliferation Act sanctions. We have two speakers this afternoon. The first is [Senior State Department Official One]. We are also joined by [Senior State Department Official Two]. As a reminder, this is a background call, so these gentlemen can be referred to in stories as senior State Department officials. And this call will be embargoed until the conclusion of the call. And with that, I'll turn it over to our first senior State Department official.

SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL ONE: On March 21st, the United States imposed sanctions against 30 foreign entities and individuals and 10 countries pursuant to the Iran, North Korea, and Syria Nonproliferation Act. These determinations were the result of a periodic review of sanctionable activity, as required under the law.

Specifically, these entities and individuals were sanctioned for the transfer to or acquisition from Iran, North Korea, or Syria of goods, services, or technology listed on multilateral export control lists or other items that could make a material contribution to the development of weapons of mass destruction or missiles.

These penalties will remain in place for two years, and they will consist of banning the sanctioned entities and individuals from receiving any U.S. Government assistance or procurement, and also from obtaining any U.S. exports of munitions and dual-use items.

SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL TWO: Okay. Iran's destabilizing activities in the region are provocative and undermine regional security, stability, and prosperity. The imposition of these measures today underscores our commitment to counter these activities, which include Iran's sponsorship of terrorism, its ballistic missile program, and its support for the Houthi rebels in Yemen.

These sanctions today include designations targeting Iran's missile programs that remains one of our most significant security concerns in the region as it contributes to regional tensions and poses a serious threat to international stability and security.

Through this action, we have sanctioned 11 individuals and entities for their support for Iran's ballistic missile program. These steps we have taken are outside the JCPOA. The JCPOA is limited to Iran's nuclear program, and the United States continues to implement its commitments under the JCPOA.

We have consistently said that we will continue to counter Iran's support for terrorism, its ballistic missile program, its human rights abuses, including through sanctions where appropriate. It should not be of any surprise to Iran that we would take actions against entities and individuals that engage in proliferation activity with Iran, North Korea, and Syria.

MODERATOR: And with that, we'll take your questions.

OPERATOR: Thank you. Once again, ladies and gentlemen, if you do wish to ask a question, please press *1 on your touchtone phone. You will hear a tone indicating you have been placed in queue. You may remove yourself from queue at any time by pressing the # key. Once again, ladies and gentlemen, if you do wish to ask a question, please press *1 at this time. One moment, please, while we wait for our first question.

And once again, ladies and gentlemen, if you do wish to ask a question, please press *1 at this time.

And we have a question from the line of Justin Arnold from Yomiuri Shimbun. Please, go ahead.

QUESTION: Hey, thanks for taking this call. I have a quick question. On sanctions, is there any talk or specific actions that the State Department might take on actors outside of North Korea, like those maybe in China that are helping circumvent sanctions on North Koreans or North Korean companies? Thank you.

SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL ONE: Well, if you notice in this case, there's quite a few Chinese entities that were sanctioned here in this specific case. So yes, we are taking actions against Chinese entities, and 9 of the 11 that my colleague just talked about from Chinese entities and individuals.

QUESTION: Thank you.

OPERATOR: Thank you. And we have a question on the line of Nike Ching from Voice of America. Please, go ahead.

QUESTION: Yeah, sorry, just a quick question, a follow-up on the DPRK sanctions. Next Thursday and Friday, President is going to meet with the Chinese presidency, and I wonder what should we expect, that further discussion or elaboration on that subject. Thank you.

SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL ONE: I would just say we're not going to  we're not going to get into the discussion  possible discussions that are going to take place.

OPERATOR: And once again, ladies and gentlemen, if you do wish to ask a question, please press *1 at this time. And we have a question from the line of Paul Shinkman from U.S. News & World Report. Please, go ahead.

QUESTION: Yeah, thank you. The UN has pushed back against some of the sanctions levied against North Korea, saying that that's made it more difficult for humanitarian aid to make it into the country. I wonder if you have any response to that. And can you just go over again sort of what the ultimate goal of these sanctions are? What would need to be in place for the U.S. to lift them?

SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL ONE: I won't get into the first part of your question on North Korea. I'm not aware of that discussion. That's not part of this.

As far as the sanctions go, obviously, what we're trying to do is (inaudible) and stop proliferation. So we use both the threat of sanctions and the sanctions themselves to try and stop or prevent proliferation, so that's our objective here.

OPERATOR: Thank you. We have a question from the line of Maren Hennemuth from German Press Agency. Please, go ahead.

QUESTION: Hi, thanks for doing this. I was wondering if there is any consideration to put the  or to designate the Iran Revolutionary Guard as a foreign terrorist organization, therefore apply sanctions to them?

SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL TWO: We don't  we can't talk about potential future actions, and that question is kind of beyond the scope of what we're here to talk about today.

QUESTION: Okay. Thank you anyway.

OPERATOR: Thank you. We have a question from the line of Michelle Kosinski from CNN. Please, go ahead.

QUESTION: Hi, there. As we've seen for a long time, sanctions against North Korea haven't changed behavior. And we don't know anything, obviously, about the entities related to North Korea that are sanctioned in this case, but given that it's material moving in, can you talk a little bit about the impact you expect this to have, even though it's just a few entities? How significant do you expect it to be on activity and behavior there? Thanks.

SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL ONE: I don't think I'd have anything specific to say about overall impact. I mean, as I said earlier, I think the one thing we're trying to do is change behavior of specific entities and individuals, and so that's what these sanctions are trying to do, is to prevent and deter.

The other thing that works in our favor on these sanctions is a lot of countries internationally follow our sanctions, so I think it kind of names and shames the entities and individuals involved.

OPERATOR: Thank you. And once again, ladies and gentlemen, if you do wish to ask a question, please press *1 at this time.

We have a question from the line of Beatriz Pascual from EFE. Please, go ahead.

QUESTION: Hi, thank you for doing this. I have two questions. When were the sanctions imposed? I have read in an article that it was, like, the 24th of March. And also, you talk about 11 individuals and entities. Could you tell us how many entities and how many individuals, and if they're from China, United  if you could give us a little bit some information about the countries they're from. Thank you.

SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL ONE: What was her first question?

STAFF: When did we do it?

SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL ONE: Okay. The sanctions were actually imposed on March 21st. The press release you're talking about actually came out on March 24th. So the difference is it's just the sanctions go into effect when we actually send the report to the Hill.

OPERATOR: Thank you.

QUESTION: Thanks.

SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL TWO: Sorry --

SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL ONE: Whether  in the release we talked about 30 foreign entities and individuals in 10 countries. So the entities would be from Burma, China, Eritrea, Egypt, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, UAE, North Korea, and Iran. We can provide you a specific list, but they're also in the Federal Register notice that came out today.

OPERATOR: And once again, ladies and gentlemen, if you do need a question, please press *1 at this time.

We have a question from the line of Yeganeh Torbati from Reuters. Please, go ahead.

QUESTION: Yeah, thanks. I noticed the Eritrean navy is on the list. Can you give a bit more detail as to how exactly they're involved with this illicit trade? And is that notable for the navy of a country to be sanctioned like this?

SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL ONE: I really can't get into the specifics of why entities were sanctioned.

OPERATOR: Thank you. We have a question from the line of Rita Cheng from Central News Taiwan. Please, go ahead.

QUESTION: Hi. My question is also about the North Korea sanction. I just want to follow up, because the Chinese side, they claim that this sanction is against a Chinese individual and entity, which is unfair to them. I'm just wondering: What is U.S. response to that? And will you bring all the evidence you have during the President Trump and President Xi's meeting next week? Thank you.

SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL ONE: Just on the first part of your  the question, this is not against China or the Chinese Government. These sanctions are specific to the Chinese entities and individuals that have been sanctioned.

The second part of the  it's outside the scope of this discussion.

OPERATOR: Thank you. And once again, ladies and gentlemen, if you do wish to ask a question, please press *1 at this time.

And we have a question from the line of Mariko de Freytas from Kyodo News. Please, go ahead.

QUESTION: Hi. Thanks for taking my question. I'm not sure if this is under your purview, but yesterday the House Foreign Affairs Committee passed three bills relating to North Korea sanctions. And I was wondering: Are you considering additional sanctions related to these bills?

SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL ONE: Yeah, I mean, we wouldn't comment on draft legislation.

QUESTION: Okay. Thank you.

OPERATOR: Thank you. And once again, ladies and gentlemen, if you do wish to ask a question, please press *1. And at this time, I have no questions in queue. We do have a question from the line of Adam Kredo from the Washington Free. Please, go ahead.

QUESTION: Hey, all. Appreciate you doing this. I was kind of curious, with these sanctions and some of the ones in the past, at this point, have we seen any evidence that you're halting or reducing Iran's kind of march towards ballistic missile technology? What's been the impact here?

SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL TWO: Look, we've got a number of measures  and they're not just sanctions that we engage in  to slow down or prevent Iran from advancing its ballistic missile program. One of those are sanctions, of course. But they include interdictions  interdictions in conjunction with partner governments, our activities at the United Nations to spotlight those  Iran's ballistic missile activities, and other activities we engage in as well. So this is just part of a series of things that we do to counter Iran's ballistic missile program.

Sanctions alone are important. Sanctions shine a public spotlight. They limit the activities of the sanctioned entities. And they also discourage other entities from engaging in those kinds of activities, but will admit that alone they are just  they are just one tool that's part of a larger toolkit.

OPERATOR: Thank you. And our final question will come from the line of Joan Faus from El Pais. Please, go ahead.

QUESTION: Hi. Thank you. I have a question. I want to know what is the relationship of these sanctions with the ones imposed on February 3rd against 25 individuals related with Iran. And then I believe you said that the sanctions go into effect today, if I got that correctly. Thank you.

SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL ONE: No, actually, the sanctions went into effect on March 21st. I believe the sanctions you're talking about were actually Treasury sanctions.

SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL TWO: Yes, under other authorities.

SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL ONE: So those are under other authorities. This is under State authority, is under the Iran, North Korea, Syria Nonproliferation Act.

SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL TWO: Yeah. They were under other authorities, but they do demonstrate our continued resolve to, where appropriate, sanction entities that are connected to Iran's support for terrorism, its ballistic missile program, its human rights abuses, and its other activities in the region that are destabilizing. So we'll continue to look at other opportunities to sanction where appropriate.

MODERATOR: All right, Operator. I believe we have no further questions. So with that, thanks to our speakers and to our participants. As a reminder, this call was conducted on background. These speakers can be attributed as senior State Department officials. And with the conclusion of the call, the embargo on the call has now lifted. Thanks very much.

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US Arrests Turkish Banker in Iran Sanctions Case

By Kasim Cindemir March 30, 2017

Turkish banker Mehmet Hakan Atilla, a prominent ally of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, came to New York this week to school investors on his state bank's plans to sell new dollar bonds.

Instead, he was placed under arrest by U.S. authorities and accused of conspiring to violate U.S. sanctions on Iran by teaming with wealthy Turkish gold trader Reza Zarrab to funnel hundreds of millions of dollars of illegal transactions through U.S. banks to Iran's government.

"United States sanctions are not mere requests or suggestions; they are the law," Acting U.S. Attorney Joon Kim said in a statement in New York, where Atilla was arraigned Tuesday.

He was arrested at New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport on Monday.

Gold, currency allegedly sent to Iran

Atilla "protected and hid Zarrab's ability to provide access to international financial networks," U.S. authorities said in documents filed in the U.S. court. The documents allege that gold and currency were sent to Iran, while documents were forged to disguise the transactions as food shipments so as to comply with humanitarian exceptions to the sanctions law.

Atilla's arrest and the case of Zarrab  arrested last year in Florida  drew a sharp rebuke from the Turkish government, which said it planned to raise the matter with U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson when he visits Ankara this week, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu told Turkish media.

Relations between the U.S. and Turkey are frayed over the Syrian civil war and Turkish demands for the extradition of Islamic cleric Fethullah Gulen, whom the Turkish leadership blames for July's failed coup in Turkey.

Diplomatic dispute?

In terms of the impact of the recent development on the U.S. Turkish relationship, some analysts suggest it could potentially be an issue as the two sides view the case through different lenses.

"For the U.S., it is a case of sanctions law violation," said Ihan Tanir, a journalist who follows U.S.-Turkish relations. "But some people close to the Turkish president seem to be involved with Reza Zarrab."

Tanir added that because of the involvement of close aides of the Turkish president, the issue could escalate into a diplomatic dispute.

But Tanir said Atilla knew that U.S authorities viewed him as a potential suspect.

"He knew that he was part of the U.S. investigation here. So why did he come to this country? It is hard to understand. If he took a risk, now he is paying for it," Tanir said.

The U.S. attorney's office in Manhattan declined to comment on his motives to travel to the U.S.

Lender's shares drop

The arrest could have major financial implications for Turkish state lender Halkbank. Bank shares posted their biggest one-day fall on Wednesday.

Halkbank, Turkey's fifth-largest bank in terms of assets, vowed to investigate.

"Our bank and relevant state bodies are conducting the necessary work on the subject, and information will be shared with the public when it is obtained," Halkbank said in a statement.

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UN chief in Iraq to review humanitarian situation amid rising war casualties

Iran Press TV

Thu Mar 30, 2017 8:57AM

UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres is in the Iraqi capital, Baghdad, to examine the humanitarian situation amid the country's intense campaign to purge Daesh Takfiri terrorists from the strategic city of Mosul.

"Just arrived in Iraq to focus on the dire humanitarian situation on the ground. Protection of civilians must be the absolute priority," a post on Guterres' official Twitter account said.

Guterres is scheduled to meet top Iraqi officials, including Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi before heading to Arbil, the capital of the country's semi-autonomous Kurdistan region.

Hundreds of thousands of civilians remain trapped in Mosul amid army clashes with the remaining Daesh terrorists in the western part of the city.

Apart from the civilians caught in the crossfire in west Mosul, over 200,000 civilians have fled their homes since the operation to recapture the areas started last month, Iraqi officials say.

The visit comes several days after a reported US-led airstrike left over 230 civilians dead in western Mosul.

On Tuesday, high-ranking US commander Lieutenant General Stephen Townsend admitted that there was a "fair chance" that a US-led airstrike caused the civilian deaths.

Meanwhile, the UN has called on the US-led coalition in Iraq to take further measures towards protecting civilians, while noting that Daesh was sending residents into buildings and areas which were the targets of airstrikes.

In a report, the UN's high commissioner for human rights, Zeid Ra'ad al-Hussein, also called on all forces engaged in anti-terror operations in Iraq to "avoid the trap" of hitting buildings in which Daesh has placed explosives and sent locals to take shelter.

He added that the terrorists "strategy of using children, men and women to shield themselves from attack is cowardly and disgraceful. It breaches the most basic standards of human dignity and morality."

The Iraqi Observatory for Human Rights said on Sunday that since the campaign against western Mosul began on February 19, nearly 700 civilians have been killed in airstrikes which are mainly carried out by the US.

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IS Militants Trap Mosul Residents as Human Shields

By Heather Murdock March 30, 2017

About 200 meters outside Mosul's Old City, you can hear the battle raging inside. But families, which typically flee Islamic State militants as soon as Iraqi forces get close, are no where to be seen.

Civilians who did escape say fewer people are coming because IS militants are executing anyone they can catch and forcing the rest of the people to remain in their homes. Many people are in hiding, trapped as "human shields."

Besides IS snipers, Mosul residents are victims of airstrikes, car bombs, sniper fire, and mortars from both sides. Civilian death tolls are soaring and nearly 290,000 people have fled.

As many as 8,000 people per day have arrived at camps surrounding Mosul in recent weeks, but officials say that number is decreasing because so many civilians are trapped.

Outside a camp that serves as a make-shift bus station for fleeing families, children describe seeing their neighbors murdered by IS as they fled.

"We ran away because we had no food and mortars were dropping on the houses," says 11-year-old Kamla. "We ran fast through the hills. So many people were shot dead behind us."

The past week has seen some of the most brutal fighting since operations to re-take Iraq from Islamic State militants began in October, and soldiers have been battling at the edges of Mosul's Old City for weeks.

Iraqi forces say fighting in the Old City requires them to enter on foot, while IS snipers hide out in buildings above. And while in previous battles, many militants have fled, IS is now holding its ground in its last stronghold in Mosul.

"Because so many IS fighters remaining are foreign, the battles are fierce," says Lt. Col. Abdulamir al-Muhammadawi, of one of Iraq's elite front-line fighting forces, the Emergency Response Division. "But our soldiers are accomplishing our mission."

In areas captured by Iraqi forces in the past few days, IS mortars and other weapons left behind indicate that when the militants are beaten, they are retreating fast.

Last week, some Iraqi officials said operations would pause as suspected U.S.-led coalition airstrikes on civilian homes were investigated.

But soldiers here in Mosul say they are not slowing down. And families say the death and destruction is so extreme that, more than anything else, they just want it to end.

"We hid in our house for 10 days, terrified," says Najal Ismaili, a grandmother of 20, who fled her home on Wednesday. "May God banish the militants and cure us from this evil."

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Japan Deploys New Kawasaki C-2 Military Transport Aircraft to Local Airbase

Sputnik News

10:52 30.03.2017(updated 10:59 30.03.2017)

Japan's Air Self-Defense Force has deployed new domestically made Kawasaki C-2 military transport aircraft to the Miho airbase in the Tottori Prefecture, local media reported Thursday.

TOKYO (Sputnik)  According to the Kyodo news agency, the Miho airbase has become the first place of deployment of these aircraft. Three Kawasaki C-2 jets were delivered to the airbase on Tuesday, while the solemn ceremony of the deployment took place earlier on Thursday, the news outlet said.

The new military transport aircraft are expected to be fully checked by September and in December, the aircraft will start taking part in different operations. It is expected that 10 Kawasaki C-2 aircraft will be stationed at Japan's bases by 2020, according to the news agency.

Kawasaki C-2 is an advanced twin-turbofan engine military transport aircraft developed and manufactured by Kawasaki Heavy Industries Aerospace Company. The 144-feet long aircraft with carrying capacity of over 36,000 tonnes was designed to transport troops and military hardware to distant islands. The aircraft is expected to replace C-1 and C-130 Hercules aircraft.

 Sputnik

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Myanmar's Rohingya Insurgency Strikes Pragmatic Note

By Joe Freeman March 30, 2017

The Rohingya Muslim insurgency, whose sneak attacks in October killed nine border guard officers in Myanmar's northern Rakhine State, issued a detailed list of demands this week that struck a far more pragmatic note while describing the use of violence in the past as self-defense.

Ata Ullah, the commander of the Faith Movement, now rebranded as the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA), signed the March 29 list, which has been verified and seems to have been timed to the anniversary of Aung San Suu Kyi's first year in power. Arakan is another name for Rakhine.

A new presentation

In a preamble to the 20 demands, the ARSA said it does not associate with any terrorist organizations, eschews attacks against civilians and religious minorities, and wants to state "loud and clear" that its "defensive attacks" are only aimed at the "oppressive Burmese regime." They said they would support international peacekeeping troops in the state.

Suu Kyi's party, the National League for Democracy, won elections in late 2015 and swore in its president, Htin Kyaw, one year ago today. Suu Kyi, barred from the presidency by the 2008 military-drafted constitution, assumed the roles of foreign minister and state counselor. But the military still controls 25 percent of parliament and three key ministries.

By far the most polished and level-headed presentation of the group's goals, the list stands in stark contrast to grainy YouTube videos posted in the days after the attack, which showed men holding guns and reading off declarations in a forest hideout.

Among other things, the demands include calls for political representation, citizenship rights, access to relief aid, education opportunities, freedom of movement and religion, the return of property, the ability to participate in trade and commercial activities, and the return of Rohingya refugees.

"It's significant they deny connections to terrorist organizations, deny targeting civilians, and speak mostly of rights-based objectives," said Matthew Smith, executive director of the NGO Fortify Rights, in an email. "We have no evidence that the group is well-trained, well-financed, or well-organized, but it's clear they aren't going anywhere."

Muslim insurgencies began in 1940s

Since Myanmar became independent in 1948, Muslim insurgencies in Rakhine have emerged under different political contexts over the decades, a reflection of self-determination sought by members of other faiths and ethnic groups across the country. Myanmar does not recognize the Rohingya as one of its many ethnic groups, denies them citizenship and has pushed them out of the political sphere.

The International Crisis Group said in a report last year that the Faith Movement was formed around 2012 after inter-communal violence in Rakhine killed hundreds and sent more than 120,000 Rohingya into IDP camps in the state capital Sittwe, where they remain today. Its leaders are centered in the Rohingya diaspora in Saudi Arabia, the report said.

Accusations of atrocities

As part of the hunt for militants in the wake of the October attacks, Myanmar's armed forces have been accused of numerous atrocities, including rape and arson. An estimated 1,000 people have been killed.

The government has vehemently denied the more serious of the accusations, but mounting testimonies pushed the United Nations Human Rights Council to green light a fact-finding mission last week. It is not clear whether the U.N. will gain access.

Meanwhile, tens of thousands of Rohingya have fled to Bangladesh, and the area of the state where the attacks occurred remains under lockdown except for rare visits and supervised tours.

A hard line by the Myanmar military

Zaw Htay, a spokesman for the president's office, did not immediately return requests for comment on the Rohingya demands. But Myanmar's Commander-in-Chief, Min Aung Hlaing this week gave an indication of how the government will view the demands of the ARSA and the prospect of a U.N. probe.

At the annual Armed Forces Day in the capital Naypyitaw, the general called the Rohingya illegal immigrants from Bangladesh.

"We have already let the world know that we don't have Rohingya in our country," he said, according to reports of his speech.

Two senior U.N. officials working among the Rohingya refugees said more than 1,000 Rohingya might have been killed during the four-month security operation. However, Myanmar presidential spokesman Zaw Htay has previously said fewer than 100 people had been killed during the operation.

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Chinas sky-high housing prices have become a major concern for university students as they plan their lives and careers. Many readily admit that unaffordable home prices cause them real anxiety.

[I] agree that Beijings housing prices are straining young peoples creativity and quality of life. I have made up my mind that once I graduate, I will get out of Beijing, Wang Min, a student from Central University of Finance and Economics, told China Youth Daily.

Wang is similar to many college students in big cities: Though he has great ambition and talent, he frets about unaffordable housing and being forced to leave the place where he studied and lived. According to statistics from Tsinghua University, only 20.3 percent of its undergraduates chose to work in Beijing in 2016, compared to 30.7 percent in 2013.

I have been studying in Shanghai for six years...I used to believe that if I worked hard, I could ultimately settle down here, but now I would prefer to go home to have an easier life, said Li Jiaming, a graduate student at Shanghai University of Finance and Economics.

Still, there are many students who plan to stay in first-tier cities despite financial pressure, as big cities offer more job opportunities.

I'm majoring in journalism. Currently, big media outlets are located mainly in major cities like Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou. These places are ideal for people in media to [develop their careers], so I hope to stay and work in Beijing after graduation, said Li Yuhui, a student at Tsinghua University.
South Korean Court Approves Arrest Warrant for Ex-President Park Geun-hye

Sputnik News

21:12 30.03.2017(updated 00:09 31.03.2017)

The South Korean court has approved an arrest warrant for former President Park Geun-hye over the corruption probe, Yonhap news agency reported.

The Seoul Central District Court issued the warrant for the ex-president on charges of bribery, abuse of authority, coercion, and leaking government secrets.

Earlier in the day, Park appeared before the court at around 10:20 a.m. local time (01:20 GMT) and refused to give any comments to reporters, who gathered at the courthouse.

The corruption scandal involving Park and her friend and close associate Choi Soon-sil erupted in October 2016, leading to Park's impeachment in December. Choi was allegedly meddling in state affairs without holding any official post, and helping to extort money from big corporations.

On Monday, media reported that South Korean prosecutors had requested an arrest warrant for Park as they suspect her of involvement in 13 different cases of bribery, coercion and abuse of power.

Park, in particular, has been charged with forcing major corporations, including Samsung, to donate to foundations controlled by Choi and taking bribes, as well as with forcing companies to sign contracts beneficial for Choi herself and her associates.

The ex-president was also accused of compiling a blacklist of cultural figures, who had been banned from state support, and pressing some Culture Ministry officials to resign over different reasons.

Earlier in March, Park denied all charges against her during the first questioning period.

On March 10, the Constitutional court upheld the parliament's decision to impeach Park. An early presidential election in the country is scheduled to take place on May 9.

 Sputnik

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Putin Downplays Anticorruption Protests, As Moscow Court Upholds Navalny's Jail Sentence

RFE/RL's Russian Service March 30, 2017

Russian President Vladimir Putin has dismissed criticism over a police crackdown on protesters, saying anyone who breaks the law will be punished.

In remarks on March 30, Putin suggested that opposition leader Aleksei Navalny was using the rallies to promote himself ahead of the country's 2018 presidential election.

On the same day, the Moscow City Court upheld a 15-day administrative jail sentence against Navalny, who was charged with resisting a police officer on the day of the March 26 protests.

Putin's remarks were his first public comments on the anticorruption rallies that brought tens of thousands of people into the streets in dozens of cities across Russia four days earlier, the biggest protests against his government in about five years.

Police detained more than 1,000 people in Moscow alone, beating some of them in a show of force.

Clearly referring to protest organizer Navalny without naming him, Putin said it is "wrong when somebody, some political forces try to use this [fight against corruption] in their own sordid interests, not to improve the situation in the country but for self-promotion in the political arena on the eve of...election campaigns."

Speaking at a meeting on Arctic issues in the northern city of Arkhangelsk, Putin said that "everybody who goes beyond the bounds of the law, including those at the public gatherings, must be punished in accordance with Russian law."

Putin said that corruption is a "rather serious problem for us as for other countries."

Putin also dismissed criticism from foreign governments over the crackdown, saying "we consider appeals of this sort to be purely politicized questions with the goal of putting some kind of pressure on the internal political life of the country."

Navalny announced in December that he would run for president in a March 2018 election in which Putin is widely expected to seek a new six-year term.

The March 26 rallies were prompted after Navalny's organization released an investigative report with compelling allegations of massive corruption on the part of Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev. Navalny has campaigned unsuccessfully to force the government to investigate the allegations.

Initially, the government and state media largely ignored the mass protests. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov on March 27 speculated that many of the young participants in the demonstrations had been paid to attend.

Prosecutors have opened an investigation into that allegation.

On March 30, Peskov called the demonstrations a "provocation," but added that the government has "no information" that they were funded from abroad.

Peskov declined to answer a question regarding Putin's relationship to Medvedev in the wake of Navalny's expose.

In addition to Navalny, 12 members of his anticorruption organization have been given short administrative jail sentences following the March 26 protests.

A spokeswoman for the Anticorruption Foundation said the arrests were "an obvious attempt to disrupt the work of the organization."

After Navalny's sentence was upheld on March 30, Olga Mikhailova, a lawyer for the detained opposition leader, said she would be taking his case to the European Court of Human Rights.

Russia ranks 131st of 176 countries in the Corruption Perception Index of the international NGO Transparency International.

According to a 2011 report by the Global Financial Integrity think tank, Russia lost $427 billion to corruption between 2000 and 2008.

With reporting by AP, DozhdTV, Interfax, TASS, RIA Novosti, and Ekho Moskvy

Source: http://www.rferl.org/a/russia-navalny- sentence-upheld-protests/28400290.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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Russian Armed Forces to Conscript 142,000 People in April-July 2017

Sputnik News

09:24 30.03.2017(updated 09:56 30.03.2017)

The Russian Armed Forces plan to conscript 142,000 people this spring, a decree published on an online portal for legal information on Thursday states.

MOSCOW (Sputnik)  Earlier the Russian Armed Forces have been ordered to expand its manpower to nearly two million by midyear, over a million of them service members.

The previous decree established an 1.88-million-strong Russian Armed Forces with 1 million service members.

"As of April 1 to July 15, 2017, carry out conscription into military service of Russian citizens aged 18 to 27 not in reserve numbering 142,000 people," the decree reads.

 Sputnik

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Assad fate up to Syrians to decide: US secretary of state

Iran Press TV

Thu Mar 30, 2017 3:38PM

US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson says the fate of President Bashar al-Assad is up to the Syrian people to decide.

"I think the longer term status of President Assad will be decided by the Syrian people," Tillerson told a joint press conference with Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu in Ankara on Thursday.

The remarks are a significant departure from the position of the former US government, which made any resolution of the Syria crisis conditional on President Assad stepping down.

As for Turkey, the country has been a staunch supporter of a campaign pushed by Saudi Arabia and Qatar to oust Assad, but it has moderated that stance since warming relations with Russia, which is a key ally of the Syrian government.

Meanwhile, Ankara and Washington have run into great difficulties over the presence of Kurdish militants near Turkey's border with Syria. The US sees the militants as an ally in the region, but Turkey says they are linked to the militants of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).

On Thursday, Tillerson sought to play down the differences, saying that there was "no space" between Turkey and the US in what he described as their resolve to defeat Daesh.

The two countries have been at odds over whether to include Kurdish forces in an operation to retake the city of Raqqah, which is the main stronghold of Daesh in Syria.

Tillerson said he and Turkish leaders were still exploring "a number of options and alternatives" for retaking Raqqah.

His talks with Turkish leaders focused on the creation of stabilization zones in areas cleared of Daesh in Syria and a number of options on how to secure such areas were explored.

On Syria, the top US diplomat said tough choices should be made regarding the crisis.

"What we discussed today are options that are available to us. They are difficult options. Let me be very frank, it's not easy, they are difficult choices that have to be made," Tillerson said.

Turkey dismayed by US support for Syria Kurds

For his part, Cavusoglu said US support for Kurdish forces in Syria had saddened Turkey and affected bilateral ties.

He also warned that any US backing for the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) would mean a risk for Syria's future.

"It is not good or realistic to work with a terror group while fighting another terror group," the Turkish foreign minister said.

Ankara also expects Washington to take concrete steps on the extradition of US-based opposition cleric, Fethullah Gulen, who is blamed for the abortive military coup in Turkey last summer, Cavusoglu added.

Tillerson meets Erdogan, Yildirim

Earlier on Thursday, the US top diplomat sat down with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Sources in Erdogan's office said that during the meeting, the Turkish president had stressed the importance of working with "right and legitimate" actors in the fight against terrorism.

Erdogan also reiterated Turkey's call for Gulen's extradition, according to the sources.

Tillerson later met with Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim, discussing Gulen's extradition among other issues, according to a short statement issued by Turkey's Prime Ministry.

Tillerson's visit to Turkey came one day after Yildirim announced the end of the country's 'Operation Euphrates Shield' on the Syrian soil, which had been condemned by Damascus as an act of aggression.

Turks protest Tillerson's visit

As Tillerson held talks, people held a protest outside the American consulate in Istanbul to voice their opposition to the visit.

Demonstrators chanted slogans and held signs reading, "Damn American imperialism, you cannot separate our country."

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Number of Syrian refugees passes 5 million: United Nations

Iran Press TV

Thu Mar 30, 2017 1:47PM

The United Nations says the number of refugees, who have fled the foreign-backed militancy in Syria, has now gone beyond the five million mark.

"As the number of men, women and children fleeing six years of war in Syria passes the five million mark, the international community needs to do more to help them," the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) said in a statement on Thursday.

The UN agency said the total of Syrian refugees stood at 4.6 million at the end of 2015, and soared to 4.85 million by the end of last year.

The agency further noted that the number of Syrians, who had registered as refugees, rose by more than 250,000 within the first three months of 2017, without providing an explanation for the increase.

"We still have a long road to travel in expanding resettlement and the number and range of complementary pathways available for refugees," the UNHCR chief, Filippo Grandi, said.

"To meet this challenge, we not only need additional places, but also need to accelerate the implementation of existing pledges," he added.

The remarks come one year after participating countries at a high-level meeting on Syria in the Swiss city of Geneva pledged to "resettle and facilitate pathways for 500,000 Syrian refugees" by 2018. Only half of those places have been made available so far.

Turkey continues to host the highest number of Syrian refugees. It saw an increase of 47,000 Syrian refugees since February, which brought the total figure to 2.97 million.

Lebanon has over a million Syrian refugees, while Jordan is hosting 657,000 ones.

Iraq, Egypt and other North African countries have also taken in hundreds of thousands of Syrians.

A large number of Syrians have also fled to Europe.

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Washington Takes Focus Off Syrian Regime Change

By Jamie Dettmer March 31, 2017

The battle to oust Syrian President Bashar al-Assad appears to be over - at least as far as the Trump administration is concerned.

The U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, said Thursday that Washington's "priority is no longer to sit and focus on getting Assad out."

Haley's remarks drew the ire of American lawmakers who have argued for a more robust U.S. effort to topple Assad. Republican Senator John McCain warned the Trump administration against making a "Faustian bargain" (a deal with the devil) with the Syrian government's ally Russia.

Republican Senator Lindsey Graham warned that taking the focus off Assad would be "the biggest mistake since president Obama failed to act after drawing a red line against Assad's use of chemical weapons."

Hours later, U.S. officials tempered the ambassador's remarks, saying the U.S. is interested in trying to create the conditions so that the Syrian people can pick their own government - one without Assad.

Some Middle East analysts say similar, albeit vaguer, comments by U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson this week in Ankara also signal regime change is off the table. These analysts argue Haley's remarks merely reflect the reality on the ground - that Assad's survival after a brutal six-year-long conflict appears assured.

Expected move

Many analysts had been expecting President Donald Trump's administration to inch closer to a much more explicit shift in U.S. policy in Syria - one exclusively focused on the war against the Islamic State. Some analysts say the administration has little alternative now. They trace the policy reversal to the Obama administration, which in its last months also was signaling an acceptance of Assad staying in power, if only in the short-term during a political transition.

In a roundtable discussion this week on the future of the conflict on Syria, analyst Sam Heller of The Century Foundation, a U.S. policy research institute, argued that not much is left of the revolutionary opposition.

"When we say that the Assad regime has 'won the war,' we mean it's achieved a strategic victory in Syria's central civil conflict: the war between, in approximate terms, the regime and its mixed revolutionary-Islamist opposition in western Syria," he said.

According to Heller, much of the main armed opposition to Assad has been neutralized and diverted away from the insurgency against the government by regional powers who are using rebel militias for their own security projects in war-torn Syria. That includes the Turks, who have carved out a sweep of territory in northern Syria to keep Islamic State militants away from its border and block Syrian Kurds from uniting Kurdish-majority cantons.

The U.S. has persuaded other Arab Sunni and Turkmen militias to throw in their lot with the Kurdish People's Protection Units, or YPG, and to focus on battling the Islamic State. The U.S. is generally working with splinter groups or rejects from the main anti-Assad rebel force, the Free Syrian Army (FSA).

Rebel militias not participating in the Turkish intervention or who are not aligned with the fight against the Islamic State have seen foreign backers cut their arms supplies.

Heller says the future for FSA militias is bleak.

"The choice they now seem to face is between being reincorporated into the extant Syrian state (Assad's state), serving in a Turkish or Jordanian cross-border protectorate or indefinite exile. Or they can die with the jihadists, which is also an option. They can and will continue to fight, but they'll likely be doing so alone, against insurmountable odds, and at a terrible cost to their civilian families and communities."

Tahrir al-Sham group takes lead

Most recent breakout assaults by rebel militias have been led by a former al-Qaida affiliate. It has joined with other Islamist rebel militias in a group called Tahrir al-Sham, and last week assaulted the Syrian town of Hama, managing to advance to within 10 kilometers of its center. Other insurgents also recently launched an offensive on government-held areas in the Damascus suburb of Jobar.

But there's little prospect the Hama and Jobar offensives can be translated into major threats to the government, which was bolstered when Russia's military intervened to back Assad more than a year ago. In December, the government, backed by Iranian and Shi'ite militias, recaptured the rebel redoubt in the eastern half of Aleppo.

Since December, Syrian government forces and foreign fighters have been pressing their military edge, slowly winning back rebel-held areas near the Syrian capital and squeezing Tahrir al-Sham and other Islamist militias in the northern Syrian province of Idlib, to the west of Aleppo.

Several military observers from European governments told VOA in recent weeks that they see no way that opposition forces can threaten Assad's hold over the main western and coastal cities of Syria.

They do expect fighting to continue, though, led by Tahrir al-Sham.

Aron Lund, an analyst with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a research institute in Washington, agrees with those assessments. At The Century Foundation's roundtable, he predicted: "There will be fighting for a long time and Syria may remain a failed state in many respects, and, of course, some unscripted event could still turn all assumptions upside down. But as things stand, Assad is definitely over some sort of threshold."

Lund says Western and Arab governments that had sought regime change in Syria have now mostly accepted that their side has no path to victory.

"They are coming to terms with the fact that Assad is staying, while deciding to what extent they want to play spoilers. They're not willing to say it publicly, but it's happening," Lund said.

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Arms won't stop unification with Taiwan, warns China

Iran Press TV

Thu Mar 30, 2017 2:27PM

China's Defense Ministry says Taiwan is wrong to think it could use weapons to prevent unification as Washington is considering fresh sales of advanced weaponry to the self-ruled island.

"Separatist Taiwan independence forces and their activities are the greatest threat to peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait," Chinese Defense Ministry spokesman Wu Qian told a monthly news briefing in Beijing on Thursday.

"It is futile to 'use weapons to refuse unification', and is doomed to have no way out," he added.

The remarks come as the administration of US President Donald Trump is crafting a big new arms package for Taiwan that could include advanced rocket systems and anti-ship missiles.

China, which sees Taiwan as part of its territory, has warned the United States against arms sales to the island.

Senior officials in Beijing have called on Washington to abide by the 'One China' policy and "cease Taiwan arm sales" in order to preserve Sino-US relations as well as peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait.

On March 20, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said that Beijing's resolute opposition to US arms sales to Taiwan was clear and consistent. "We hope the US side fully recognizes the high sensitivity and serious harmfulness of its sales to Taiwan."

The United States is Taiwan's only major political ally and sole arms supplier.

Beijing is deeply suspicious of Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen, believing she wants to push the island towards formal independence, a red line for China.

Beijing has expressed readiness to use military force if Taipei continues to breach the internationally-approved "One China" policy that recognizes only one China.

China and Taiwan split amid a civil war in 1949, but Beijing still claims sovereignty over the island.

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Turkish PM: Turkey's Euphrates Shield operation in Syria complete

Iran Press TV

Wed Mar 29, 2017 8:58PM

Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim has announced the end of the country's Euphrates Shield operation on Syrian soil.

Yildirim made the announcement during a televised interview on Wednesday, stressing that the operation had been "successful" and that any further military measures in Syria would by conducted under a different name.

He refrained from elaborating on whether Turkish forces would be withdrawn from northern Syria.

"From now on if there is anything that threatens our security, either Daesh or any other (group), and if we take another action, that will be a new operation," he added.

His announcement was made following a Turkish National Security Council (NSC) meeting chaired by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

"It was noted that Operation 'Euphrates Shield' which was started with the goal of ensuring national security, preventing the threat from Daesh and return of Syrian refugees to their homes has successfully completed," read an NSC statement.

The development comes a day ahead a visit to Turkey by US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who is set to meet with Erdogan on Thursday.

In August 2016, Turkey began the major military intervention in Syria, sending tanks and warplanes across the border. Ankara claimed that its military campaign was aimed at pushing Daesh from Turkey's border with Syria and stopping the advance of Kurdish forces, but Damascus denounced the operation as a breach of its sovereignty.

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Tillerson Says U.S., Turkey Face 'Difficult' Choices In Syria

RFE/RL March 30, 2017

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has said the United States and Turkey must make "difficult" decisions about how to defeat the extremist group Islamic State (IS) in Syria.

Speaking at a news conference with Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu in Ankara on March 30, Tillerson said he and Turkish leaders were exploring "a number of options and alternatives" for retaking the IS militants' last Syrian stronghold of Raqqa.

The U.S. top diplomat also met with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Prime Minister Binali Yildirim during his one-day visit to the Turkish capital, which comes amid deteriorating relations with a NATO ally crucial to the fight against IS militants.

The two countries have been at odds over U.S. backing for Kurdish fighters in Syria whom Turkey considers terrorists.

Cavusoglu told the press conference that U.S. backing for the Kurdish combatants has saddened Ankara and affected the countries' bilateral relationship.

Responding to a question about U.S. support for the Kurdish YPG militia, Tillerson said there was "no space" between Turkey and the United States about the need to defeat the IS group.

He also said the two countries shared a goal of reducing Iran's potential to disrupt the region.

On Syria's President Bashar al-Assad, Tillerson said his "longer term status" will be decided by the Syrian people.

Sweeping Clampdown

Cavusoglu raised the issue of Ankara's request for the extradition of U.S.-based Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen, who is wanted in Turkey for allegedly masterminding a failed coup attempt last year. Gulen denies the charges.

The Turkish foreign minister said Turkey expects the United States to take administrative steps such as Gulen's temporary detention.

Cavusoglu also described as "political" the arrest in New York this week of a senior executive of Turkish state-owned bank Halkbank.

Mehmet Hakan Atilla is accused of helping to process millions of dollars of illegal transactions through U.S. banks for Iran.

He is suspected of working with Turkish-Iranian businessman Reza Zarrab, who faces charges of conspiring to violate U.S. sanctions against Iran, defraud American banks, and launder money.

Cavusoglu said the U.S. attorney who launched the case against Zarrab had close ties with Gulen supporters.

Erdogan's sweeping clampdown following the coup attempt has alarmed Western governments and complicated ties with Washington. Tillerson's visit comes ahead of an April 16 referendum on proposals that would hand the Turkish president more power.

Tillerson "will be mindful of" political sensitivities ahead of the referendum, the Reuters news agency quoted a State Department official as saying in a conference call with reporters before the trip.

But U.S. officials said that Tillerson would not meet with members of Turkish opposition groups.

With reporting by AP, AFP, Reuters, and dpa

Source: www.rferl.org/a/tillerson-ankara-turkey -erdogan/28399486.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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Tillerson Underscores Importance of Turkey in IS Fight

By Dorian Jones March 30, 2017

U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson hailed Turkey as a trusted ally after meeting with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and other leaders Thursday during his visit to Ankara.

Tillerson underlined the importance of Turkey in the battle against Islamic State militants.

But the two NATO allies remain at loggerheads over Washington's support for the Syrian Kurdish PYD and its militia, the YPG, in fighting IS. Ankara accuses the PYD of being a terrorist organization affiliated with the PKK or Kurdistan Workers' Party, which is fighting the Turkish state.

In a joint news conference with Tillerson, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu stressed Turkey's opposition to support of the PYD but did not directly criticize the Trump administration.

'A number of options'

Tillerson acknowledged no breakthrough on the dispute, saying more discussions were needed.

"We are exploring a number of options and alternatives," he said, but he reiterated Washington's support of Ankara in fighting the PKK.

"We stand alongside Turkey in their fight to stop terrorism directed against its country and its people. The PKK attacks in Turkey last year remind us how close to home the threat of attack is for the Turkish people," said Tillerson.

With Washington stepping up its military support of the YPG before the operation to liberate Raqqa, Syria, the self-declared IS capital, Ankara increasingly appears resigned to the fact that its call for its military forces to replace the Syrian Kurdish groups has been rejected. But a presidential source ruled out any retaliatory measures against the United States, stressing that Turkey did not want the issue to undermine future cooperation.

Tillerson paid tribute to Turkey's hosting of 3 million refugees and said his talks focused on efforts to allow their return.

"Those were the subject of our conversation today, to have exchange of views, the best way forward to create zones of stabilization to allow the return of people to Syria," Tillerson said, adding, "And to set the stage for a longer-term political solution."

Ankara's view on zones of stabilization is not dissimilar to its demand for safe havens.

Just before Tillerson's arrival, Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim announced the end of Turkey's military operation in Syria, declaring it a success. Operation Euphrates Shield had been a point of tension with Washington as Turkish forces threatened Syrian Kurdish forces of the PYD.

Atilla's arrest

Clouding Tillerson's visit was Monday's arrest in New York of Mehmet Hakan Atilla, a senior executive of a Turkish state-owned bank, on charges of money laundering and Iranian sanction busting. During the news conference, Cavusoglu described the arrest as politically motivated: "This process is a political one, because the former prosecutor had close ties with the Fethullah terrorist organization."

The extradition of U.S.-based Turkish cleric Fethullah Gulen was also discussed. Turkish prosecutors accuse Gulen of masterminding July's failed coup attempt. Washington insists the issues are a matter for the courts.

Despite the differences, Ankara appears eager to work with Washington, in particular to counter what it sees as the rising power of Iran and Russia in the region.

Tillerson acknowledged shared common ground on containing Iran.

"The United States and Turkey share many broad goals for the region, reducing Iran's ability to disrupt the region," he said. The secretary of state spelled out that future cooperation would be built on fighting IS, bolstering regional stability and conducting bilateral trade.

Cavusoglu, too, was eager to look to the future.

"We have just to inject a new dynamism into U.S.-Turkish relations," he said.

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(Xinhua) 20:08, March 31, 2017

The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) has reaffirmed its strategy to develop a nuclear strike capability to foil the U.S. ambition to annex it and "reduce all Koreans to modern-day slaves," the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported Friday.

Top DPRK leader Kim Jong Un "laid down a fresh strategic line of simultaneously pushing forward the economic construction and the building of nuclear force at the March 2013 Plenary Meeting of the Central Committee of the Workers' Party of Korea," said KCNA, quoting a memorandum it said was released by the DPRK government on Thursday.

The memorandum praised Kim for setting "the line as a strategic one of the party and the state by carrying forward the exploits of President Kim Il Sung and leader Kim Jong Il who accomplished the great cause of having access to nuclear weapons despite all difficulties."

"He thus broke the world political structure centered on the existing nuclear powers and fundamentally changed the world political landscape ...," it said.

The fresh line provided the army and people of the DPRK with a firm guarantee for frustrating "the U.S. imperialists' wild ambition to annex the northern half of the Republic and reduce all Koreans to modern-day slaves," it added.

The memorandum came at a time when tension is high on the Korean Peninsula with the United States and South Korea staging a large-scale joint military exercise, which the DPRK said is aimed at preparing for special operations to strike its supreme leadership and destroy its strategic nuclear and missile bases.

The DPRK has justified its efforts to develop nuclear weapons and warned the United States of preemptive strikes by its military without warning.

On March 13, South Korean and the U.S. combined forces kicked off the annual command post exercise code-named Key Resolve, following the launch on March 1 of the joint field training drill coded Foal Eagle. The DPRK has denounced the joint military exercises as a dress rehearsal for northward invasion.

The Key Resolve drill reportedly included operation plans on preemptive strikes against the DPRK's nuclear and missile facilities when signs of attack are detected.

The DPRK conducted a ballistic missile launch on March 21 and a ballistic missile engine test on March 19, which were strongly condemned by the United Nations Security Council.
Alan Burkitt-Gray speaks to Don MacNeil, chief operating officer of GTT, about its company restructuring after coming out of Chapter 11 and its strategic roadmap for the next 12 months.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Mar. 31

By Elmira Tariverdiyeva  Trend:

OSCE Chairperson-in-Office, Austrias Foreign Minister Sebastian Kurz, today joined the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs call for the sides to renew engagement in the political settlement process as expressed in their statement on 29 March, says an OSCE statement issued on March 31.

The fighting and the violence we witnessed one year ago  the worst in the past two decades  caused destruction, suffering and human losses. It was a vivid reminder of how quickly the machinery of war can undermine efforts for peace. On this occasion, we call on the sides to refrain from any actions that jeopardize the ceasefire. The sides must live up to their commitment to strictly observe their international humanitarian obligations  war crimes can never be justified, said Kurz.

Recalling the outbreak of violence in April 2016 along the line of contact between the Azerbaijani and Armenian troops, Kurz underlined his hope for fresh impetus in the negotiations.

Clashes and serious violations of the ceasefire on the line of contact, resulting in casualties, were of particular concern to us throughout the past year. It is now high time for a focus on pragmatic and practical steps for confidence-building as well as a resumption of substantive negotiations, emphasized Kurz.

In this context, Kurz voiced his regret at the further loss of lives since the tragic events in April 2016 and expressed his condolences to the affected families.

As I have stated on numerous occasions, there is no military solution to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. We should plan for peace now, and not allow war to return with all of its terrible consequences, he added.

Kurz also commended the work of Ambassador Andrzej Kasprzyk and his team, illustrated by the active facilitation of a humanitarian operation by the International Committee of the Red Cross in February 2017 to retrieve the remains of the deceased servicemen.

The OSCE Chairmanship stands ready to contribute to the efforts of the sides to further advance and implement the agreements reached during the summits in Vienna and St. Petersburg in 2016, concluded Kurz.

Following the meeting in St. Petersburg, Azerbaijans President Ilham Aliyev and Armenias President Serzh Sargsyan confirmed in a joint statement the agreements reached during the Armenian-Azerbaijani summit in Vienna.

These agreements are aimed at stabilizing the situation in the conflict zone and the creation of an atmosphere conducive to advancing the peace process.

Therefore, they agreed, in particular, to increase the number of international observers in the conflict zone, the Kremlin website reported earlier after the meeting of the Azerbaijani, Russian and Armenian presidents in St. Petersburg on June 20.

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.
PERTH, WESTERN AUSTRALIA--(Marketwired - March 30, 2017) -

NOT FOR DISTRIBUTION TO UNITED STATES NEWSWIRE SERVICES OR FOR DISSEMINATION IN THE UNITED STATES

Perseus Mining Ltd. (ASX:PRU)(TSX:PRU) is pleased to announce details of its updated Life of Mine Plan ("LOMP") for the Sissingue Gold Mine in Cote d'Ivoire, West Africa ("SGM").

HIGHLIGHTS

Perseus has updated its LOMP for the SGM assuming that re-estimated Mineral Resources and Ore Reserves for the Sissingue mineral deposit ("Sissingue") as well as estimated Mineral Resources and Ore Reserves for the nearby Bele East and Bele West mineral deposits are processed through the SGM processing facility. The combined Proved and Probable Ore Reserves for three deposits total 5.9 million tonnes of ore, grading 2.1 g/t gold and containing 400 kozs ounces of gold;





SGM's estimated life of mine gold production totals 358 kozs including approximately 80,000 ounces/annum for the first 3.25 years of production and approximately 70,000 ounces/annum over the full 5 year life of mine;





Forecast average weighted all-in site costs ("AISC"), including all direct production costs, royalties, waste stripping costs and sustaining capital expenditure, are estimated at approximately US$624 per ounce in the first 3.25 years of production and approximately US$628 per ounce over the full life of mine;





The total capital cost estimate for the development of the SGM is US$107 million and the forecast sustaining capital costs (including the cost of site rehabilitation) which are included in the estimate of the AISC, total US$13 million;





The SGM LOMP forecasts strong positive after tax cash flow totalling approximately US$104 million (or approximately A$0.13 per share at an A$:US$ exchange rate of 0.75), assuming a flat spot gold price of US$1,200 per ounce for unhedged ounces over the life of the mine starting from 1 March 2018 and assuming existing designated hedges for 67 kozs at a weighted average price of US$1,301 per ounce;





Based on a total estimated construction cost of US$107 million, the ungeared, after tax internal rate of return from the project is approximately 28% (real) and the capital payback period is estimated at 39 months;





Construction of the SGM is currently approximately 40% complete and is running on schedule and slightly under budget. Development is fully funded to completion through a combination of internal cash of US$67 million and bank provided project debt finance of US$40 million;





First gold production at the SGM is expected to occur in the March Quarter of 2018.





Recent exploration drilling on both the Sissingue Mining Lease and the nearby Mahale Exploration Licence (all within trucking distance of the SGM processing facility) have demonstrated the potential for further increases in the inventory of material able to be processed at the SGM.





Overview

The updated LOMP for the SGM involves mining and processing of ore from three open pit mining areas based on the Sissingue, Bele East and Bele West mineral deposits as shown below in Figure 1.

To view Figure 1: SGM layout, please visit the following link: http://media3.marketwire.com/docs/Figure1-PRU.pdf.

Pit optimisation, design and scheduling used a gold price of US$1,200 per ounce and input parameters based on Perseus's operating experience including costs from recently contracted supply contracts. Based on the LOMP, the key forecast operating statistics for the SGM are summarised below in Table 1.

Table 1: Overview Key Parameters of the updated LOMP

Parameter Units Average per year Total Ex-Pit Mining FY18-211,2 Life of Mine Total ore + waste mined Mt 6.7 25.0 Waste mined Mt 5.1 19.2 Ore mined Mt 1.6 5.8 Head grade g/t gold 2.1 2.1 Strip ratio t:t 3.2 3.3 Processing Quantity ore processed Mt 1.3 5.8 Head grade processed g/t gold 2.2 2.1 Contained gold '000 ounces 91 400 Gold recovery rate % 90.0 89.6 Gold production '000 ounces 82 358 Parameter Units Average per year Total Operating and Capital Costs FY18-211,2 Life of Mine Average mining costs US$/tonne mined 3.29 3.17 Average processing costs US$/tonne processed 12.27 13.16 Average general & administration ("G&A") costs US$/tonne processed 6.33 6.71 Production costs US$/ounce 541 543 Royalty US$/ounce 50 50 Sustaining capital US$/ounce 33 35 All-in site costs US$/ounce 624 628

Notes:

Perseus has a financial year that ends on 30 June. Covers the 3.25 year period from 1 April 2018 to 30 June 2021

Comparison of current updated LOMP relative to the previous LOMP

The current updated LOMP for the SGM differs from the previous version of the LOMP that was published in April 2015, as shown below in Table 2.

Table 2: Overview Key Parameters

Parameter Units Current

LOMP Previous LOMP % Change Mining Total ore + waste mined Mt 25.0 23.2 8 Waste mined Mt 19.2 17.7 8 Ore mined Mt 5.8 5.5 6 Head grade g/t gold 2.1 2.4 (12) Strip ratio t:t 3.3 3.2 3 Processing Quantity ore processed Mt 5.8 5.5 6 Head grade processed g/t gold 2.1 2.4 (12) Contained gold '000 ounces 400 429 (7) Gold recovery rate % 89.6 89.7 0 Gold production '000 ounces 358 385 (7) Average gold production '000 ounces/ year 71.6 73.4 (2) Operating and Capital Costs Average mining costs US$/tonne mined 3.17 3.70 (14) Average processing costs US$/tonne processed 13.16 16.75 (21) Average Site G&A costs US$/tonne processed 6.71 7.70 (13) Production costs US$/ounce 543 569 (5) Royalty US$/ounce 50 49 (2) Sustaining capital US$/ounce 35 14 150 All-in site costs US$/ounce 628 632 (1)

Mineral Resources and Ore Reserves

The updated global Measured and Indicated Mineral Resource for the SGM that combines the Sissingue and Bele East and West deposits is now estimated as 15.0 Mt grading at 1.7 g/t gold, containing 820 kozs of gold as shown in Table 3. A further 1.4 Mt of material grading at 1.9 g/t gold and containing a further 80 kozs of gold are classified as Inferred Resources. Details of these estimates are shown below in Table 4.

Table 3: Measured and Indicated Mineral Resources - March 2017

Deposit Deposit Type Measured Resources Indicated Resources Measured + Indicated

Resources Quantity Grade Gold Quantity Grade Gold Quantity Grade Gold Mt g/t gold koz Mt g/t gold koz Mt g/t gold koz Sissingue1 Oxide 0.78 1.9 48 2.40 1.3 100 3.20 1.5 150 Transitional 0.59 1.9 36 0.67 1.4 29 1.30 1.6 66 Fresh 2.90 2.1 200 5.90 1.5 280 88.0 1.7 480 Sub-Total 4.30 2.1 290 8.90 1.4 410 13.00 1.6 700 Bele East2 Laterite - - - 0.03 1.9 2 0.03 1.9 2 Completely weathered - - - 0.08 2.1 5 0.08 2.1 5 Partially weathered - - - 0.05 1.9 3 0.05 1.9 3 Weakly weathered - - - 0.12 2.0 8 0.12 2.0 8 Fresh - - - 0.36 2.6 30 0.36 2.6 30 Sub-Total - - - 0.65 2.3 49 0.65 2.3 49 Bele West2 Laterite - - - 0.04 1.7 2 0.04 1.7 2 Completely weathered - - - 0.08 1.7 4 0.08 1.7 4 Partially weathered - - - 0.09 1.6 5 0.09 1.6 5 Weakly weathered - - - 0.19 1.6 10 0.19 1.6 10 Fresh - - - 0.87 2.0 57 0.87 2.0 57 Sub-Total - - - 1.300 1.8 78 1.30 1.8 78 Grand Total 4.30 2.1 290 11.00 1.5 540 15.00 1.7 820

Table 4: Inferred Mineral Resources - March 2017

Deposit Deposit Type Inferred Resources Quantity Grade Gold Mt g/t gold koz Sissingue Oxide 0.23 1.2 9 Notes on Tables 3 and 4: Transitional 0.06 1.0 2 1. 0.6g/t gold cut-off applied at Sissingue Fresh 0.66 2.3 48 2. 0.8g/t gold cut-off grade applied at Bele Sub-total 0.94 1.9 58 3. Mineral Resources are inclusive of any Ore Reserves Bele East Laterite 0.02 1.5 1 4. Numbers are rounded and may not add up correctly Completely weathered 0.01 1.9 1 Partially weathered - - - Weakly weathered 0.02 1.5 1 Fresh 0.24 1.8 14 Sub-total 0.28 1.8 16 Bele West Laterite 0.02 2.0 1 Completely weathered 0.02 1.7 1 Partially weathered 0.01 1.3 1 Weakly weathered 0.02 1.6 1 Fresh 0.08 2.0 5 Sub-total 0.14 1.8 8 Grand Total 1.400 1.9 80

The SGM's updated Ore Reserve which is summarised below in Table 5 is estimated at 5.9 million tonnes of ore, grading 2.1 g/t gold and containing 400 kozs of gold and is based on the re-estimated Sissingue Mineral Resource and the Bele East and West Mineral Resource estimates as at February 2017 and updated pit optimisation, design and scheduling of the open pit resources. Table 5 reports the Ore Reserves by category, deposit and type, above variable cut-off grades. The classification categories of Proved and Probable under the JORC Code are equivalent to the CIM categories of the same name (CIM, 2010).

Table 5: Proved and Probable Ore Reserves - 31 March 2017

Deposit Deposit Type Proved Probable Proved + Probable Quantity Grade Gold Quantity Grade Gold Quantity Grade Gold Mt g/t gold koz Mt g/t gold koz Mt g/t gold koz Sissingue3,5 Open pit 3.1 2.4 240 1.8 1.5 86 4.8 2.1 330 Bele East4,5 Open pit - - - 0.5 2.5 39 0.5 2.5 39 Bele West3,4 Open pit - - - 0.5 2.1 35 0.5 2.1 35 Total 3.1 2.4 240 2.8 1.8 160 5.9 2.1 400

Notes:

Numbers are rounded and may not add up correctly in the table All the estimates are on a dry tonne basis Based on December 2016 Mineral Resource Estimate Based on February 2017 Mineral Resource estimation Variable gold cut-off grade based on material type and mining method Inferred Mineral Resource is treated as mineralised waste

Proven and Probable Ore Reserves are found within the economic limits of three discrete open pit mining areas that have been designed based on Measured and Indicated Mineral Resources that incorporated all available Resource drilling results, a gold price of US$1,200 per ounce and mining, processing and general and administration costs derived from recent operating experience.

Economic assumptions used for Ore Reserve Estimation

Gold metal price US$1,200 per ounce.



A discount rate of 10% (real) has been assumed to calculate net present values of forecast cash flows unless specified otherwise.



Un-escalated average costs used in optimising pit designs included:





Table 6: Operating costs (US$)

Deposit Mining Processing1,5 G&A Selling cost2 Royalty Sissingue3,4 3.22/t mined 14.77/t processed 6.24/t processed 1.00 per ounce sold 4.5% Bele East3,4 2.96/t mined 16.91/t processed 6.85/t processed 1.00 per ounce sold 4% Bele West3,4 2.96/t mined 16.91/t processed 6.85/t processed 1.00 per ounce sold 4%

Notes:

Processing cost per tonne includes selling costs. Selling costs include bullion transportation and refining. Royalty includes amounts paid to the State (3.5%) and community development fund (0.5%) for all deposits, and Franco Nevada (0.5%) and Ivorian parties (US$0.80 per ounce) on the Sissingue pit only. Government royalty operates on a sliding scale as follows:

3.0%, where the spot sale price per ounce of gold is less than or equal to US$1,000; 3.5%, where the spot sale price per ounce of gold is more than US$1,000 and less than or equal to US$1,300; 4.0%, where the spot sale price per ounce of gold is more than US$1,000 and less than or equal to US$1,600; 5.0%, where the spot sale price per ounce of gold is more than US$1,000 and less than or equal to US$2,000; 6.0%, where the spot sale price of an ounce of gold is more than US$2,000s. The assumed processing cost per tonne is lower than the processing cost per tonne in Table 2 due to recent tendering processes for key commodities subsequent to completion of the Ore Reserve estimates.

Mining parameters

At Sissingue and Bele, the chosen method of mining is conventional open pit mining utilising hydraulic excavators and trucks, mining bench heights of 5 m in ore and 10m in waste with 2.5 m flitches to minimise ore loss and waste rock dilution.



The Sissingue optimisation cut-off grade calculations and pit designs were based on a gold price of US$1,150 per ounce, while the equivalent Bele cut-off grades were based on US$1,200 per ounce. All financial evaluations were completed at US$1,200 per ounce.



The economic pit shells were defined using Whittle 4X pit optimisation software ("Whittle 4X") with inputs such as geotechnical parameters, ore loss and dilution, metallurgical recovery and mining costs.



The pit optimisations were run with revenue generated only by Measured and Indicated Mineral Resources. No value was allocated to Inferred Mineral Resources.



Whittle 4X input parameters were a combination of Perseus's operating site experience at Edikan, supporting technical studies and contracts established specifically for Sissingue.



Geotechnical parameters for Sissingue vary depending on the material type and Pit Sector. The inter-ramp slope angles are between 38 to 53 degrees. Similarly slope angles at Bele vary between 38 and 56 degrees.



Appropriate mining modifying factors such as ore loss, dilution and design parameters were used to convert the Mineral Resource to an Ore Reserve.



At Sissingue, a smallest mining unit ("SMU") of 5.0 m east x 5.0 m west x 5.0 m high was selected resulting in approximately 9% ore loss and 15% mining dilution. At Bele East the SMU of 2.5 m east x 5 m west x 5 m high was selected resulting in approximately 3% ore loss and 5% mining dilution. For Bele West the SMU is 5 m east x 2.5 m west x 5 m high was selected, resulting in 6% ore loss and 10% mining dilution.



Minimum mining width of 40 m was generally applied to the pit designs.



As the mine is a green fields site, all surface infrastructure is required to enable the aforementioned mining method to be successfully implemented.



There are no physical constraints to mining within the lease areas. No property, infrastructure or environmental issues are known to exist which may limit the extent of mining within the mining lease.



Ore cut-off grades are based on the economic and mining parameters described above and are as follows:





Table 7: Cut-off Grades

Deposit

Cut-Off Grade by Ore Type (g/t gold) Oxide/Laterite Transition Granite/

Porphyry Sediment Mafic Sissingue 0.45 0.85 0.85 1.05 NA Bele East 0.65 1.00 1.05 NA 1.20 Bele West 0.65 1.00 1.05 NA 1.20

Processing Parameters

The Sissingue processing plant will use crushing, grinding, gravity recovery and cyanide leaching to extract gold. The plant will have a nameplate throughput capacity of 1.8Mtpa on Sissingue oxide ore and 1.7Mtpa on Bele oxide ore and 1.0Mtpa on fresh ore. Sissingue ore will be processed before Bele ore. Sissingue ore will have a grind size of 106m and Bele has a grind size of 75m.



The technology to be used in the processing plant is well proven in many other operations globally.



The processing test work is representative of the different material types throughout the mining areas.



No deleterious material has been identified.



Metallurgical test work has been carried out to a standard that is considered representative of the orebodies as a whole.



The process metallurgical recovery for gold is fixed by material type.





Table 8: Recoveries

Deposit

Cut-Off Grade by Ore Type (g/t gold) Oxide/Laterite Transition Granite/

Porphyry Sediment Mafic Sissingue 91 91 90 831 NA Bele East 94 93 91 NA 91 Bele West 94 93 91 NA 91

Notes:

Average recovery based on the formula of log (Au x 7.63) + 78.5.

Classification

Ore Reserves have been classified based on the underlying Mineral Resource classifications and the level of detail in the mine planning. The Mineral Resources were classified as Measured, Indicated and Inferred. The Ore Reserves, based only on the Measured and Indicated Resources, have been classified as Proved and Probable Ore Reserves, respectively.



The Ore Reserve is classified as Proved and Probable in accordance with the JORC Code, corresponding to the Mineral Resource classifications of Measured and Indicated and taking into account other factors where relevant. Each deposit's geological model is well constrained. The Ore Reserve classification is considered appropriate given the nature of the deposits, the moderate grade variability, drilling density, structural complexity and mining history. Therefore it was deemed appropriate to use Measured Mineral Resources as a basis for Proved Reserves and Indicated Mineral Resources as a basis for Probable Reserves.



No Inferred Mineral Resources were included in the Ore Reserve estimate.





Gold production profile

With the aim of maximising the return on funds employed at the SGM, the mining sequence of the pits along with mill feed profile has been optimised and scheduled. The result of this scheduling is that the gold production profile and resulting cash flows from the SGM remain strong for the remainder of the mine life. (Refer to Figures 2, 3 and 4 below.)

To view Figure 2: Sissingue Gold Mine - scheduled monthly material movement ex-pit (tonnes), please visit the following link: http://media3.marketwire.com/docs/Figure2-PRU.pdf.

To view Figure 3: Sissingue Gold Mine - Monthly tonnes and grade to Mill, please visit the following link: http://media3.marketwire.com/docs/Figure3-PRU.pdf.

To view Figure 4: Sissingue Gold Mine - Gold Production by Pit, please visit the following link: http://media3.marketwire.com/docs/Figure4-PRU.pdf.

Future cash flows and sensitivity analysis

Based on the LOM gold production and cost parameters, the net after tax cash flows forecast to be generated by the SGM from 1 March 2018, at US$1,200 per ounce gold price, are estimated to total US$104 million or approximately A$0.13 per share (assuming an A$:US$ exchange rate of 0.75).

The sensitivity analysis shown below in Table 9 summarises the sensitivity of the SGM's net after tax cash flows to movements in the gold price. Within an expected short term trading range of US$1,100 per ounce to US$1,300 per ounce, the projected cash flows of the mine remain robust and together with strong cash flows from Perseus's producing Edikan Gold Mine in Ghana, is capable of materially contributing to the development funding of Perseus's third project, namely the Yaoure Gold Mine, also located in Cote d'Ivoire.

Table 9: Sensitivity of SGM's After Tax Cash flow and IRR to gold price movements

Gold Price US$1,100/ounce US$1,200/ounce US$1,300/ounce After Tax Cash Flow USD million 77 104 130 Internal Rate of Return (IRR) % 21 28 33 Payback Period Months 40 39 38

Caution Regarding Forward Looking Information:

This report contains forward-looking information which is based on the assumptions, estimates, analysis and opinions of management made in light of its experience and its perception of trends, current conditions and expected developments, as well as other factors that management of the Company believes to be relevant and reasonable in the circumstances at the date that such statements are made, but which may prove to be incorrect. Assumptions have been made by the Company regarding, among other things: the price of gold, continuing commercial production at the Edikan Gold Mine without any major disruption, development of a mine at Tengrela, the receipt of required governmental approvals, the accuracy of capital and operating cost estimates, the ability of the Company to operate in a safe, efficient and effective manner and the ability of the Company to obtain financing as and when required and on reasonable terms. Readers are cautioned that the foregoing list is not exhaustive of all factors and assumptions which may have been used by the Company. Although management believes that the assumptions made by the Company and the expectations represented by such information are reasonable, there can be no assurance that the forward-looking information will prove to be accurate. Forward-looking information involves known and unknown risks, uncertainties, and other factors which may cause the actual results, performance or achievements of the Company to be materially different from any anticipated future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking information. Such factors include, among others, the actual market price of gold, the actual results of current exploration, the actual results of future exploration, changes in project parameters as plans continue to be evaluated, as well as those factors disclosed in the Company's publicly filed documents. The Company believes that the assumptions and expectations reflected in the forward-looking information are reasonable. Assumptions have been made regarding, among other things, the Company's ability to carry on its exploration and development activities, the timely receipt of required approvals, the price of gold, the ability of the Company to operate in a safe, efficient and effective manner and the ability of the Company to obtain financing as and when required and on reasonable terms. Readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking information. Perseus does not undertake to update any forward-looking information, except in accordance with applicable securities laws.

Competent Person Statement

All production targets for the Sissingue Gold Mine referred to in this report are underpinned by estimated Ore Reserves which have been prepared by competent persons in accordance with the requirements of the JORC Code. The information in this report that relates to Mineral Resources for Sissingue was first reported by the Company in compliance with the JORC Code 2012 and NI43-101 in a market announcement released on 15 December 2016. The information in this report that relates to Mineral Resources for Bele was first reported by the Company in compliance with the JORC Code 2012 and NI43-101 in a market announcement released on 20 February 2017. The Company confirms that it is not aware of any new information or data that materially affects the information in those market announcements and that all material assumptions and technical parameters underpinning the estimates in that market announcement continue to apply and have not materially changed. The Company further confirms that material assumptions underpinning the estimates of Ore Reserves described in "Technical Report - Sissingue Gold Project, Cote d'Ivoire" dated 29 May 2011 continue to apply.

Mr Joe McDiarmid, who is a Chartered Professional Member of the Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy, and is an employee of RungePincockMinarco Limited has compiled and reviewed the information in this release and Appendix 1 which relate to the Sissingue Ore Reserves. Mr Joe McDiarmid has sufficient experience, which is relevant to the style of mineralisation and type of deposit under consideration and to the activity which he has undertaken to qualify as a Competent Person, as defined in the JORC Code 2012 and a Qualified Person as defined NI 43-101. Mr McDiarmid has no economic, financial or pecuniary interest in the Company and consents to the inclusion in this report of the matters based on this information in the form and context in which it appears and has approved the inclusion of technical and scientific information in this report.

Mr Paul Thompson, who is a Fellow of the Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy and is an employee of Perseus Mining Ltd. has compiled and reviewed the information in this release and Appendix 2 which relates to the Bele Ore Reserves. Mr Thompson has sufficient experience, which is relevant to the style of mineralisation and type of deposit under consideration and to the activity which he has undertaken to qualify as a Competent Person as defined in the JORC Code 2012 and a Qualified Person as defined in NI43-101 and consents to the inclusion in this report of the matters based on this information in the form and context in which it appears and has approved the inclusion of technical and scientific information in this report.
Vancouver - Zimtu Capital Corp. (TSXv: ZC; FSE: ZCT1) (the Company or Zimtu) announces it has signed an agreement with Castle Silver Resources Inc. (TSXv: CSR; FSE: 4T9B) for its ZimtuADVANTAGE program.

ZimtuADVANTAGE is a program designed to provide opportunities, guidance, cost savings and assistance to companies covering multiple aspects of being a public company. The services may include building financial networks, building business networks, shared costs with other public companies, building a social media presence, conference opportunities, media outlets and guidance and special group pricing provided by Zimtus network of public company professionals. The program provides the flexibility to allow companies to customize the products and services to best support their needs. The program also provides participating companies access to and meetings with Zimtus market participants in Europe and North America.

Zimtu Capital Corp. also announces that Sven Olsson has resigned from the Board of Directors. The Company would like to thank Mr. Olsson for his service and dedication to the Company and its shareholders.

About Castle Silver Resources Inc.

Castle Silver Resources Inc. is a TSX Venture-listed junior mining company focusing on the exploration and development of former silver and cobalt mine properties in northern Ontario including the Castle Silver mine near Gowganda and the Beaver and Violet mines near Cobalt. Recent drilling intersected 188.8 ounces/tonne silver and 1.44% cobalt and metallurgical testing showed excellent recoveries and concentrate grades. Additional drilling is planned in 2017 with the goal of resuming cobalt-silver mining to supply rapidly growing demand. Cobalt is used in three of the four lithium batteries used in electric cars and silver is used in 90% of crystalline silicon photovoltaic cells used in solar panels. Additional information on the Companys properties and plans is available by visiting its website at http://www.castlesilverresources.com.

About Zimtu Capital Corp.

Zimtu Capital Corp. is a public investment issuer that invests in, creates and grows natural resource companies. The Company also provides mineral property project generation and advisory services helping to connect companies to properties of interest. For more information, visit the corporate website at http://www.zimtu.com.

On Behalf of the Board of Directors

ZIMTU CAPITAL CORP.

David Hodge

David Hodge

President & Director

Tel: 604.681.1568

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.


THUNDER BAY, ONTARIO--(Marketwired - Mar 31, 2017) - Benton Resources Inc. (TSX VENTURE:BEX) ("Benton" or "the Company") has received updated numbers from its joint venture partner Nordmin Engineering Ltd. ("Nordmin") regarding the preliminary economic assessment ("PEA") announced February 9, 2017. Nordmin reports that during the independent review process, an error in the interpretation of the 2017 resource block model for the underground portion of the 51 Zone at the Cape Ray Gold Project was discovered. Due to the error, the ounces of gold for the underground portion of the 51 Deposit were overstated and as a result, the 51 Underground Zone is marginally economic and has been removed from the PEA. The Internal Rate of Return (IRR) and Net Present Value (NPV) for the updated PEA have subsequently been reduced until economic parameters change. The IRR and NPV@7% remain higher than the 2016 PEA and the updated PEA continues to demonstrate the economic potential of the Cape Ray Project. A substantial review of the entire updated PEA was initiated and the new results form the basis of this press release. The Cape Ray Gold Project, is located approximately 20 kilometers northeast of Port aux Basques, Newfoundland.

The revised updated results of the PEA include a pre-tax net present value NPV at 7% of $48.5 million with a pre-tax IRR of 31 percent and a post-tax NPV at a 7 percent discount rate of $32.4 million with a post-tax IRR of 25 percent.

The 2016 drilling program provided the team with numerous insights into the nature of this project. It allowed the team to revise the geologic and resource models to better represent the intrinsic nature of the mineral resource, and make a re-assessment to the overall approach and layout of the proposed mine design. The PEA is based on the mineral resource estimate completed by Ginto Consulting Inc., outlined in the National Instrument 43-101 technical report update.

Highlights from the PEA, with the base-case gold price of $1,306 (U.S.) per ounce and an exchange rate of $1.26 CAD/USD, are as follows (all figures in Canadian dollars unless otherwise stated):

Pre-production Capital is $58.2 million with a contingency of 10% included within the initial capital. Pre-production is for a 2 year period.

Sustaining Capital of $12.8 million with a 5% contingency for the Life of Mine.

Pre-tax NPV (7%) of $48.5 million and internal rate of return of 31%.

Post-tax NPV (7%) of $32.4 million and internal rate of return of 25%.

Net Revenue of $397.5 million over 9 year LOM.

Positive Cash-flow is realized in year 2.

2.9 million tonnes of mill feed averaging 2.5 g/t gold and 8.1 g/t silver.

The mill operates at an average rate of 1,000 tonnes per day.

Total production of 234,851 ounces of gold and 483,383 ounces of silver.

Gold recovery of 98% and Silver recovery 63%.

All of the economics are completed on Indicated and Inferred categories of the mineral resource model. The comparison from last year's PEA has shown an increase in indicated mineral resource.

Pre-Tax Year 2017 2016 IRR 31% 29% Discount rate NPV ($ million) 0% 84.2 88.4 7% 48.5 48.4 10% 37.7 36.7 15% 24 22 After Tax IRR 25% 24% Discount rate NPV ($ million) 0% 59.8 63.4 7% 32.4 32.6 10% 24.1 23.6 15% 13.5 12.3

Mineral Resources - Effective date of February 1, 2017

51 ZONE + 04 ZONE + 41 ZONE+WGH - INDICATED MINERAL RESOURCES 1,2,3 Au Cut-Off

(g/t) Tonnage

(,000) Average Au

(g/t) Total Au oz.

(,000) Average Ag

(g/t) Total Ag oz.

(,000) 1.0 4,148 2.75 367 9.76 1,302 1.5 2,783 3.50 313 11.67 1,045 2.0 1,990 4.21 269 13.13 840 2.5 1,486 4.87 233 14.71 703 3.0 1,155 5.49 204 16.14 599 3.5 928 6.03 180 17.26 515 4.0 754 6.57 159 18.15 440 4.5 621 7.06 141 19.12 382 5.0 512 7.56 124 20.10 331 51 ZONE + 04 ZONE + 41 ZONE + WGH ZONE - INFERRED MINERAL RESOURCES 1,2,3 Au Cut-Off (g/t) Tonnage

(,000) Average Au

(g/t) Total Au oz.

(,000) Average Ag

(g/t) Total Ag oz.

(,000) 1.0 2,770 1.77 158 6.57 585 1.5 1,199 2.54 98 9.22 355 2.0 725 3.07 72 10.46 244 2.5 357 3.99 46 13.22 152 3.0 204 4.95 32 15.70 103 3.5 144 5.65 26 15.32 71 4.0 105 6.38 21 15.83 53 4.5 96 6.59 20 16.06 49 5.0 77 7.03 18 16.34 41

Mineral Resources are not Mineral Reserves and do not have demonstrated economic viability. There is no certainty that all or any part of the Mineral Resources estimated will be converted into Mineral Reserves. The estimate of Mineral Resources may be materially affected by environmental, permitting, legal, title, taxation, socio-political, marketing, or other relevant issues. The CIM definitions were followed for the classification of Measured, Indicated, and Inferred mineral resources. The quantity and grade of reported Inferred Resources in this estimation are uncertain in nature and there has been insufficient exploration to define these Inferred Resources as an Indicated or Measured Mineral Resource and it is reasonably expected that a portion of inferred mineral resources could be upgraded with continued exploration

"The revised results continue to support the economic potential of the Cape Ray Gold Project," stated Stephen Stares, President and CEO of Benton. "We see numerous opportunities to further enhance the economics through additional studies and exploration with a high probability for resource expansion and good potential for new discoveries across the property. We will now focus on advancing the Cape Ray project toward feasibility through additional exploration, environmental permitting and further studies." Benton recognizes that this is an undeveloped area of Newfoundland. As such, protecting the environment is of great importance. To facilitate the development of a sustainable project, Nordmin, the joint partner, has experts on staff to complete the necessary studies required concerning environmental monitoring, assessment and permitting matters.

The Company has initiated work towards firming up costs and preparing a prefeasibility study. Apart from further metallurgical studies, the work will include drilling and tailings characterization as well as environmental baseline studies, hydrology monitoring, flora and fauna studies. A NI 43-101 technical report for Cape Ray PEA will be filed on SEDAR (www.sedar.com).

The reader should be cautioned that the PEA is preliminary in nature. It contains inferred mineral resources that are considered too speculative geologically to have the economic considerations applied to them that would enable them to be categorized as mineral reserves. There is no certainty that the results of the PEA will be realized.

Cape Ray combined open-pit and underground mine

Key economic assumptions and results

Description Units Value Total mineralized rock mined Kt. 2,94 Gold grade g/t 2.53 Silver grade g/t 8.10 AuEq grade g/t 2.65 Gold recovery % 98 Silver recovery % 63 Gold price US$/oz. 1,306.15 Silver price US$/oz. 18.97 Exchange Rate $USD/$CAD 1.262 Payable gold metal oz. 234,851 Payable silver metal oz. 483,383 Total net revenue $ million 397.5 Total capital costs (Project and Sustaining) $ million 71.0 Overall Operating costs (total) $ million 242.3 Overall Operating cost (AuEq) US$/ozAuEq 767.1 (AISC) Overall cost (AuEq) US$/ozAuEq 991.9 Payback period years 2 Mine Life years 9 Pre-tax Cumulative net cash flow $ million 84.2 Post-tax Cumulative net cash flow $ million 59.8 Pre - tax NPV (7%) $ million 48.5 Pre - tax IRR % 31 Post - tax NPV (7%) $ million 32.4 Post - tax IRR % 25

Capital and operating costs

The Cape Ray Project has been envisioned as an open-pit mine with starter pits for all the zones and one underground mining operation at the 04 zone. Open-pit and underground mining are anticipated to be completed by contract mining companies. The equipment will be supplied by the contractor that is awarded the work.

Grid electrical power will provide the majority of the electrical power to the project over the life of the mine. The work force is expected to come from the Isle aux Morts area for the operation of the Mill. The rest of the workforce will be the responsibility of the contractor.

Total capital cost estimate

Capital Expenditures Contingency $ million Sustaining Capital Expenditures by Zone PIT 41 5% - PIT 51 5% - PIT 04 5% - Window Glass 5% 2.89 U.G. 04 5% 9.93 Permitting 10% 2.17 Road work (Quote from Adams Construction) 10% 3.53 Overburden Removal 10% 1.07 Surface Infrastructure - General 10% 2.84 Ore and Waste Pads (3) - Mine & Mill 10% 0.44 Surface Shop 10% 1.68 Land Costs 10% 0.91 Mill Capital 10% 33.18 Tailings 10% 3.82 Water Treatment Plants / Testing 10% 0.56 Power Distribution to Mill 10% 1.16 Working Capital 10% 0.84 Engineering for Capital 10% 1.17 OH & In-directs 10% 1.00 Mine Closure 0% 3.82 Total Capital Expenditures 71.00

Production and Processing

Operations for the Cape Ray project is planned to have both Open Pit and Underground Mining. Each zone will be campaigned separately with the use of contractors. The initial mill feed will come from the 04 zone open pit. Once the 04 pit is completed the 51 pit will commence to be mined and the underground contractor will set up, drive the decline and levels and begin long-hole mining. This implies the UG contractor is going to mine 51 UG? The start of the Window Glass pit will begin once the 41 pit is mined. All the zones combined will give a current mine life of 9 years at a milling through-put of 1,000 tonnes per day. The process plant includes conventional crushing, grinding, gravity, and whole ore cyanide leach. A gold and silver dore will be produced on site. Process reagents will be removed from the plant tailings prior to placement in a tailings management facility.

Mineral Resources Avg. Au

g/t Avg. Ag

g/t Tonnes

(,000) Pit 41 2.06 7.46 630 PIT 51 4.17 12.97 475 PIT 04 4.39 10.55 270 Window Glass 1.50 5.39 1,414 U.G. 04 5.6 16.43 151 Stockpile 7.5 16.43 3 Total 2,943

The mill feed tonnes in the mine plan include Inferred Mineral Resources. The reader is cautioned that Inferred Mineral Resources are considered too speculative geologically to have economic considerations applied to them that would enable categorization as Mineral Reserves. There is no certainty that Inferred Mineral Resources will ever be upgraded to Reserves. Mineral Resources that are not Mineral Reserves do not have demonstrated economic viability.

Going forward, the team will be working on laying out the next 5000 meter drilling program that will commence this summer, which will also include some geotechnical drilling to support the pit designs and other work on site and continue to work towards environmental milestones to progress the project to the next phase.

Qualified Persons and 43-101 Disclosure:

Marc Jutras, P.Eng., M.A.Sc., Principal, Mineral Resources, at Ginto Consulting Inc. is an independent Qualified Person as per National Instrument 43-101, and is responsible for the estimation of Cape Ray's mineral resources. Mr. Jutras has reviewed and verified that the technical information related to the estimation of the mineral resources contained herein is accurate and approves of the written disclosure of same.

Mike Petrina P.Eng Principal Mining Engineer Moose Mountain Technical Services is an independent Qualified Person as per National Instrument 43-101, and has reviewed the mine plan, production schedule, operating and capital costs and approves the written disclosure of same.

About Benton Resources Inc. (TSX VENTURE:BEX)

Benton Resources Inc. is a well-funded Canadian-based junior with a diversified property portfolio in Gold-Silver, Nickel, Copper, and Platinum group elements.

Clinton Barr (P.Geo.), V.P. Exploration for Benton Resources Inc., is the qualified person responsible for this release has prepared, supervised the preparation or approved the scientific and technical disclosure in the news release.

On behalf of the Board of Directors of Benton Resources Inc.,

Stephen Stares, President

THE TSX VENTURE EXCHANGE HAS NOT REVIEWED AND DOES NOT ACCEPT RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE ADEQUACY OR ACCURACY OF THIS RELEASE.

The information contained herein contains "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of applicable securities legislation. Forward-looking statements relate to information that is based on assumptions of management, forecasts of future results, and estimates of amounts not yet determinable. Any statements that express predictions, expectations, beliefs, plans, projections, objectives, assumptions or future events or performance are not statements of historical fact and may be "forward-looking statements."

Forward-looking statements are subject to a variety of risks and uncertainties which could cause actual events or results to differ from those reflected in the forward-looking statements, including, without limitation: risks related to failure to obtain adequate financing on a timely basis and on acceptable terms; risks related to the outcome of legal proceedings; political and regulatory risks associated with mining and exploration; risks related to the maintenance of stock exchange listings; risks related to environmental regulation and liability; the potential for delays in exploration or development activities or the completion of feasibility studies; the uncertainty of profitability; risks and uncertainties relating to the interpretation of drill results, the geology, grade and continuity of mineral deposits; risks related to the inherent uncertainty of production and cost estimates and the potential for unexpected costs and expenses; results of prefeasibility and feasibility studies, and the possibility that future exploration, development or mining results will not be consistent with the Company's expectations; risks related to gold price and other commodity price fluctuations; and other risks and uncertainties related to the Company's prospects, properties and business detailed elsewhere in the Company's disclosure record. Should one or more of these risks and uncertainties materialize, or should underlying assumptions prove incorrect, actual results may vary materially from those described in forward-looking statements. Investors are cautioned against attributing undue certainty to forward-looking statements. These forward looking statements are made as of the date hereof and the Company does not assume any obligation to update or revise them to reflect new events or circumstances. Actual events or results could differ materially from the Company's expectations or projections.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Mar. 31

Trend:

The April battles are a glorious military victory showing the power of the Azerbaijani state, people and army, said Azerbaijans President and Supreme Commander-in-Chief Ilham Aliyev.

He made the remarks at a meeting with a group of servicemen on the anniversary of the April victory of the Azerbaijani army.

The president said that today Azerbaijans flag flies in the Fuzuli, Jabrayil and Agdere districts territories liberated from the Armenian occupation in the April battles.

These battles show that the Azerbaijani people and state will never reconcile to the occupation, and will restore Azerbaijans territorial integrity at all costs, he noted.

President Aliyev added that the April battles showed the professionalism of the Azerbaijani army.

Our army took strategic positions by conducting a counter-attack from unfavorable positions. Today these strategic heights, positions, territories liberated from the occupation allow us to completely control the situation on the line of contact and take the measures we want, noted the president.

He added that the April battles should be included in military textbooks.

The April battles, in terms of both professionalism and patriotism, once again showed that the Azerbaijanis are a heroic people.

They showed once again that we wont reconcile to this situation, said President Aliyev.

The April battles demonstrated that the unity of people and government in Azerbaijan is ensured at the highest level, he added.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Mar. 31

Trend:

The April battles have almost destroyed the ideological foundations of Armenia, said Azerbaijans President Ilham Aliyev as he received a group of servicemen on the anniversary of the April victories of the Azerbaijani army.

Today, the Armenian society is in concussion and panic, he said. The forces that took a more pragmatic approach to the situation say openly that if Armenia does not adjust its relations with Azerbaijan, it will have no future.

I have repeatedly said that the only way for Armenia to survive as a country is to regulate its relations with its neighbors, Ilham Aliyev added. And there is the only way for this  the occupying forces must unconditionally and immediately withdraw from the occupied Azerbaijani territories. These battles have had a great impact from this point of view. This impact is still ongoing. These battles have visually demonstrated the power of the Azerbaijani state, people and army.

This is the result of the attention paid to army building, our policy, the strengthening of the material and technical base and the combat potential of our army in recent years, the head of state said.

President Aliyev noted that a new situation has emerged both in the negotiation process and in the region.

It is true that Armenia is trying to avoid negotiations, Ilham Aliyev said. But Armenia will not succeed and will be forced to return to negotiations no matter how well it tries, because they are well aware in which direction the situation will develop, if the negotiations are not conducted. Of course, our position at the negotiation table has been reinforced after the April battles, and the entire international community has seen it.
On Tuesday, 28 March, EY Azerbaijan participated in the SHE congress at the JW Marriott Absheron Hotel. The event was jointly held by an organization called 100 Business Women of Azerbaijan, PASHA Bank, MasterCard, and the American Chamber of Commerce in Azerbaijan (AmCham).

The congress invited both international and local female executives and business owners to share their experience, knowledge and career paths with others. It featured speeches on the role of women in business, as well as on current gender equality issues and possible solutions.

Mrs. Tatyana Mikayilova, Chairwoman of 100 Business Women of Azerbaijan, opened the congress by welcoming the guests and speakers.

Then, Mrs. Sadagat Gahramanova, Deputy Chairman of the State Committee for Family, Women and Childrens Affairs, talked about governmental support for womens development and shared best practices in Azerbaijan towards reducing the economic dependence of female entrepreneurship on gender stereotypes.

Ms. Ganira Pashayeva, Member of Parliament of the Azerbaijan Republic, talked about the importance of educating girls from early years, especially in the regions. The starting point for gender equality in society is developing our activities in the regions. We can see that in developed countries males and females are treated equally and have equal rights, which proves that gender equality leads to development. To start changes we should first change our mentality and then do our best, she said.

Mrs. Yasemin Bedir, General Manager of MasterCard for Turkey and Azerbaijan, added Today I feel I can claim a certain level of wisdom only because I continue investing in myself, and I feel a responsibility to empower other women and am focused on investing in them. I believe that investing in women pays back.

Mrs. Khayala Naghiyeva, Member of the Executive Board of PASHA Bank, shared her success story and mentioned that it is important to believe in yourself, in your potential, to overcome fear and achieve your goals.

Afterwards, the panel discussion on How and why we should decrease all gender prejudices in society and business was moderated by Anne Cekuta, spouse of the US Ambassador to Azerbaijan. Female executives from different countries and backgrounds discussed gender stereotypes and the advantages of having women in leading positions.

Natavan Mammadova, Executive Director of AmCham Azerbaijan, talked to Gwen Burchell, Director of United Aid for Azerbaijan, about girls, social entrepreneurship, the Queens recognition and ways to break the glass ceiling.

Later, Arzu Hajiyeva, Tax and Legal Partner at EY Azerbaijan, was a moderator to the panel discussion entitled Education driving innovation. Arzu shared her own success story, highlighting the importance of education. Then she asked panel participants whether they believe that education in Azerbaijan leads to innovation. Shahin Seyidzadeh, Head of SABAH Groups, said There is an innovation product, innovation technology and innovation approach, and all of them are interrelated. In SABAH Groups we are first trying to create an innovational approach and we believe that in a couple of years we will be able to drive innovation. There is a huge role for women in this challenging path, let me just mention that today all of our 11 Deans are women and the success of our project is their achievement. Sarkhan Hashimov, Country Manager of Microsoft Azerbaijan, added Im not sure about the exact answer, yes or no, but there is definitely a great opportunity. Education starts at home and continues every day, but innovation helps us to be responsive and better prepared for possible challenges tomorrow. Sada Davud, Educational Specialist, answered I believe that innovation promotes and delivers creative thinking and creativity in the classrooms. Unfortunately, today our education system does not drive innovation, but Im optimistic and believe that the situation will change in the coming years. Samir Mammadov, Director of the High-Tech Park at Baku Engineering University, commented We have to create room for innovation and the Technopark is the place where innovation is happening. We are not there yet, but we are looking towards turning it into innovative learning premises.

The Congress then continued with a focus on entrepreneurial secrets from Dilek Dayinarli, founder and Managing Partner of ScaleX, as well as an inspirational speech about the journey of a female entrepreneur in a challenging region by Ahu Serter, serial entrepreneur and investor, and founder of Arya Womens Investment Platform. A panel discussion was then held entitled From Small to Big, with advice provided by local female entrepreneurs. Afterwards, William Beaman, Co-founder of Jephson Beaman, Founder of OnPoint Strategies, had a speech on How women can recognize and benefit from skills that set them apart from men in business.

Overall, the congress was full of success stories and interesting career path examples, reflecting the important role of women in business and society. The closure of the SHE Congress was marked by a singing performance of a very young and talented rising star, Amina Hajiyeva.

About EY

EY is a global leader in assurance, tax, transaction and advisory services. The insights and quality services we deliver help build trust and confidence in the capital markets and economies around the world. We develop outstanding leaders who team to deliver on our promises to all of our stakeholders. In doing so, we play a critical role in building a better working world for our people, for our clients and for our communities.

EY works together with companies across the CIS and assists them in realizing their business goals. 5,000 professionals work at 20 CIS offices (in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Novosibirsk, Kazan, Krasnodar, Rostov-on-Don, Togliatti, Vladivostok, Almaty, Astana, Bishkek, Baku, Kyiv, Tashkent, Tbilisi, Minsk, and other locations).

EY refers to the global organization, and may refer to one or more of the member firms of Ernst & Young Global Limited, each of which is a separate legal entity. Ernst & Young Global Limited, a UK company limited by guarantee, does not provide services to clients. For more information about our organization, please visit ey.com.

EY in Azerbaijan

EY made a major commitment to the development of Azerbaijan and the region by opening the office in Baku 22 years ago. Today, in addition to being the leading audit and consulting firm in Azerbaijan, we are the leading firm in the region. As a result of our experience and competence, we have been able to assist both domestic and international companies as well as state-owned entities to develop and manage the challenges of the international economy.

There are currently 170 people working in our Baku office that serve our clients in Azerbaijan. EY's strength in the Caspian Region and the firm's commitment of resources are important to the entities operating in the region. It means that as we grow, EY will continue to demonstrate a tradition of hiring and training local professionals to be leaders in our practice.
I had the good fortune to travel this winter to Venice, that serene collection of islands filled with grand homes and set on avenues of water in a lagoon on Italys Adriatic Sea. And like most visitors, I was smitten with the lovely stone plazas, or campi, sprinkled amid its network of small alley-like streets.Given that Venetians in centuries past had to dredge up and fortify each square meter of buildable land, I was surprised at how many of these plazas there were, and wondered if Venetians simply loved their public spaces that much. I learned that there was a more practical and essential reason for so many campi: drinkable water.Venice has no fresh groundwater underneath it, so it initially had to rely on rainwater for drinking. At the center of each campi is what looks like a stone well but is actually a cistern. In addition, each square has four drains. The rain that falls into them enters a filtration system made of rock and sand that ends at the cistern.The campi and its cisterns reminded me of the larger story of infrastructure that plays out in America and everywhere else -- that it is about much more than serving a specific need for, say, roads to convey us from place to place. The complex interplay of infrastructure, commerce and government determines not only how our societies function but also reflects how -- and if -- we govern ourselves.For Venice, the water system was just one of many factors that enabled a city lacking natural resources to climb and stay at the top of the hierarchy of wealth and status in Europe for at least half a millennium. This city, which during its heyday was really a nation and empire of its own, was motivated to trade and cooperate with other cities and nations because of its natural environment. Some scholars believe it was because Venice had to dredge land, sink pilings, build bulkheads and so on that pushed its residents to govern themselves, a rare feat for the time, rather than descending into the bloody wars of kings and aristocracy.While kings fought over the rest of Europe, Venice was a republic from 697 to 1797. That last year, Napoleon conquered it with nary a shot, thus ending the Venetian republic and the reign of the last doge, its elected leader. Having won, the short Corsican handed the city, to its horror, over to Austria, which it remained part of for most of the 19th century.Under its new overlords, the elaborate infrastructure systems Venice had in place declined. The Austrians did improve its transport to the mainland by building a bridge. But it came at a price because it ended the citys sacred physical independence. Other systems were neglected as well. By the mid-19th century, only a minority of the cisterns still functioned, and the citys sewer system, which funneled waste from houses and streets into canals, was barely working. Venice began to suffer episodes of disease and a reputation for foul-smelling canals. This was the background of Thomas Manns 1912 masterpiece,, in which the novellas main character is stricken during an outbreak of cholera. Mann presents the epidemic as an act of God. But it was really the product -- at least in part -- of a dysfunctioning political system.In recent decades, our own fragmented infrastructure systems have decayed physically as well. Is this because we, like Venice in the 19th century, are decaying politically and unable to govern ourselves? Its clear that our roads, bridges, water and other systems are generally considered to be in the worst state of repair in our republics history. And we are spending less than ever on infrastructure. Whats unclear is whether we can pull it back together.Perhaps we can. When I look around our country, its not hard to find big, bold infrastructure projects. In Manhattan, it was national news when the first leg of the Second Avenue subway opened this New Years Day. As one of the initial riders, I can attest to the joy New Yorkers expressed as they walked through the stations, gleaming with public art, and rode the new trains. The smiles reflected not only pent-up demand but also gladness to see that America can still do stuff. And in last Novembers elections, Los Angeles, Seattle and other cities approved tax increases for new revenue streams to support rail, bus, water and other systems.Our new president has promised that he will make trains zoom and bridges sparkle to match those in Europe and Asia. But its always been difficult in this country to build public works. Thanks in part to our English roots, we have a fragmented governing infrastructure -- local, state and federal, plus an independent judiciary -- that produces fragmented physical infrastructure. Its no accident that former English colonies tend to lack things taken for granted in other advanced countries, such as high-speed rail.But things are still possible. Venice got out of Austrias grip when it joined the newly unifying Italy in 1866. Two decades later, an underground aqueduct was built from the city to the mainland, finally ending Venices water troubles.Lets hope we can find ways to keep our infrastructure systems going and to build needed new ones. And lets hope we can do it the best way, through our democratic institutions and without the help or hindrance of any Napoleons.
Using data to measure government performance has caught on in much of the country. But the tactic is in trouble in Maryland.
For the past two years, the search for Donald Trumps unseen tax returns has been something of a quest for the Holy Grail, an elusive trophy that could unlock the mysteries of our political universe. Lacking real proof as to what the presidents tax documents might show, the imagination swells with possibility: Russia ties? Massive personal debts? A wealth substantially lower than his self-reported $10 billion fortune? Something nefarious?The best efforts of Trumps political opponents have turned up little by way of tax returns. Ditto the intrepid work of a nation of journalists; despite reporters obtaining a few different pieces of paperworkas in the New York Times report last fall, or Rachel Maddows glimpse at two pages of Trumps 2005 returns two weeks agothe knowledge gained by any of these leaks has been dwarfed by the new questions raised.Trump keeps insisting that because his returns are under audit, he cant possibly release them. And the Republican-led Congress, save a few renegades like South Carolina Rep. Mark Sanford, evince little interest in compelling the president to disclose them.Now, though, a band of state lawmakers is attempting to succeed where so many others have failed. In at least 24 states, legislators have introduced bills that would force Trump (and all other presidential candidates) to disclose their tax returns in order to qualify for their states ballots in 2020.Theres one big obstacle, though: Requiring presidential candidates to release their taxes as a condition of ballot access may not be constitutional. And even if it is, the Democrats sponsoring such legislation run the risk of major retaliatory measures being taken in Republican states.
Without debate, the Republican-led General Assembly overwhelmingly voted Wednesday to override all four of Republican Gov. Matt Bevin's vetoes, including one veto that would have doomed a popular bill meant to assist the mentally ill with outpatient treatment.The swift override votes were "absolutely not" meant as a slap at Bevin by members of his own party, said Senate Majority Leader Damon Thayer, R-Georgetown."It is a signal to the citizens of Kentucky that our constitution works," Thayer said. Even with the GOP in control of Kentucky's state government, "there still is going to be the opportunity" for the legislative branch to disagree with the executive branch, he said.The rescued bills include House Bill 540, which will create state regulations for drones; a portion of House Bill 471, which will give lawmakers control over how a multimillion dollar legal settlement with Volkswagen will be spent; and Senate Joint Resolution 57, which will name roads and bridges around the state in honor of various people.But the most attention was paid to Senate Bill 91, also known as Tim's Law, which is intended to help mentally ill individuals break the cycle of homelessness, jail and involuntary hospitalization. Dozens of mental health advocates, many of them wearing red shirts and carrying signs, lobbied lawmakers outside the Senate and House chambers in support of Tim's Law.Tim's Law will let certain mentally ill Kentuckians be ordered by district court judges into outpatient medical treatment, a step shy of institutionalization, with public defenders representing them at hearings and caseworkers monitoring their daily progress.Judges could order treatment for someone at a community mental health agency after getting a petition from the person's family, friends or legal guardians or from law enforcement or medical professionals. If the person refused to cooperate, then the judge could order him involuntarily committed to a hospital.The measure is named for Tim Morton, a Lexington man who was hospitalized for psychiatric treatment dozens of times over 36 years, often involuntary and in police handcuffs, because he did not recognize that he had schizophrenia. When Morton wasn't held inside Eastern State Hospital, he spent his days aimlessly walking the streets.Morton died in 2014 from long-neglected health problems at the age of 56.In his veto message, issued Monday, Bevin called Senate Bill 91 "well intentioned" but said it "would set a dangerous precedent.""It would allow the commonwealth to restrict the liberty of individuals based on nothing more than a finding that they are 'unlikely to adequately adhere to outpatient treatment on a voluntary basis,'" Bevin wrote. "Not only would this permit the restriction of liberty for individuals who have not committed crimes and do not pose a threat to anyone, but it would do so based on speculation about what might happen or might not happen in the future."Morton's mother, Faye Morton, on Wednesday took issue with Bevin's concern over civil liberties. Her son did not recognize that he was mentally ill, and without medical intervention, he was left to suffer a miserable existence, she said."Tim wasn't capable of making a decision about treatment," said Faye Morton, who rallied in favor of Tim's Law outside the Senate chamber with other mental health advocates. "He died from serious neglect because of his mental illness, not realizing that he benefited from treatment. I would hope that we could prevent that for others, for the few who do not realize they have a mental illness."Another Tim's Law supporter at the Capitol was Richard Owen, a retired Lexington police captain. Owen said he was frustrated during his law enforcement career by his inability to help the mentally ill."You picked up someone who was clearly experiencing mental health issues, you took them to Eastern State Hospital, they might be there for a day or two, and then they were right back out on the street again. It just repeated," Owen said."I went to a wake three years ago for a girl I used to see all the time around Lexington," Owen added. "She was mentally ill and she lived on the streets. She would run from the police, sometimes right into traffic. I used to call the cabinet and beg them to get her treatment, but there wasn't any option available for her. She had very few people in her life. It was heartbreaking."Apart from being the right thing to do, Tim's Law would save Kentucky money, said Sheila Schuster of the Kentucky Mental Health Coalition.Involuntarily committing someone to a state hospital costs $800 a day in state funds, Schuster said. But outpatient treatment and medication costs far less -- about $2,000 a month -- with the federal government covering most of it through Medicaid, she said."Forty-four states are already doing this, so we're not exactly blazing a new trail here," Schuster said. "In fact, I would say we're bringing up the rear."By some estimates, as many as half of the people who suffer from mental illnesses, including bipolar disorder or schizophrenia, don't recognize that they're sick -- a condition known as anosognosia -- and so they refuse the treatments that could stabilize their thoughts and behavior. These people can end up homeless, commit suicide, land in jail repeatedly for nuisance crimes or, on rare occasions, lash out violently.Kelly Gunning, a mental health advocate from Lexington, knows firsthand the dangers posed by people who don't realize they need help. She and her husband were attacked last year by their adult son, who has bounced between jail and psychiatric hospitals.Families need to have a chance in these cases to ask a judge for assisted outpatient treatment for their loved ones, Gunning said Wednesday."The reality is, if Tim Law's had been enacted, we could have utilized the support of that law to get our son into treatment sooner as opposed to later," Gunning said. "We want folks treated at the beginning of an episode, just like with cancer or any other chronic illness. Stage one, not stage four. What the law now requires is that someone spiral down into stage four symptoms before they can get any help."
On March 31, Day of Azerbaijani Genocide was commemorated at first lessons and lectures at Baku Higher Oil School (BHOS). At the beginning, a moment of silence was observed to honor the memory of the victims of the genocide. During the lessons, the teachers and professors told about numerous acts of genocide against Azerbaijani civilians committed by Armenians in 1918. It was emphasized that in the course of the mass massacre, thousands of innocent people in Baku, Ganja, Shamakhi, Guba, Khachmaz, Lankaran, Hajiqabul, Salyan, Garabagh, Nakhchivan and other regions were murdered with special cruelty for the only reason of their belonging to the nation of Azerbaijan. Armenian armed forces destroyed dwelling houses and wiped whole villages, and their inhabitants were driven from homelands.

Special attention was paid to the fact that the truth about this one of the tragic pages of the world history of XX century was brought to the public notice by national leader Heydar Aliyev. Only after his Decree from March 26, 1998, the genocide has received its political-legal assessment. Since then March 31 is marked at the state level as Day of Azerbaijanis` genocide and special actions are carried in Azerbaijan and abroad of respect of the memory of victims of genocide.

The teachers also told about important of such actions, which help promote patriotic education of young generation and raise young peoples awareness about the country past and remarkable events in Azerbaijani history. At the lessons, video clips, photos and slide shows highlighting tragic events in March 1918 were demonstrated.
How much do you trust lawyers? Do you trust them enough to have them police their own profession?You might be surprised to learn that three out of four states allow just that, using state bar associations as licensing boards tasked with regulating the conduct of their membership. Its an old tradition, dating back to the 1920s. But in California, the ideas days are numbered.The State Bar of California has for years faced complaints that it not only failed to crack down hard enough on misbehaving lawyers, but failed to run its regulatory functions efficiently. Last year, State Auditor Elaine Howle released a report complaining that the bar routinely allowed the backlog of misconduct cases to grow into the thousands. She also found that it reduced a backlog of more than 5,000 cases in 2010 by settling a few of them with penalties that were later declared by the state Supreme Court to have been too lenient.Among other sins, Howle also found that the bar was paying its officers far more than state employees running comparable or even larger agencies. In at least one year, more money was spent on travel and office renovation than was devoted to professional discipline.The legislature seems to have had enough. Last year, legislators debated a bill that would have blocked the bar association from collecting dues unless it divorced its regulatory functions from its work as a trade association and appointed more non-lawyers to its board of trustees. Thanks to a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling, licensing bodies can be subject to antitrust complaints if a majority of their board members come from the profession being licensed.Rather than agreeing on a reform package, the legislature ended up simply refusing to pass the normal yearly bill that allows the bar to collect dues from its members. The state Supreme Court stepped in, giving the bar authority to collect dues on an interim basis. With the handwriting on the wall, the bar association is now working to deunify its regulatory and trade association functions on its own.The kinks are still being worked out, but to the bars critics, the move is long overdue. How can a private entity regulate practitioners on behalf of the state, while also lobbying the state on behalf of practitioners? On its face, its ridiculous, says Robert Fellmeth, a law professor at the University of San Diego. The state is separate from private interest groups. Theyre not an agency and they never should have been an agency, or a public entity.Something is bound to change this year in California. The question now is whether its example will prompt action in any of the three dozen other states that use the bar to regulate its members.Most lawyers, like most people who practice other professions, are honest. Maybe most of them could be trusted to stand guard over their peers. But there will always be dishonest lawyers happy to take advantage of a system thats rigged in their favor. Somebody from the outside needs to keep watch on them.
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GIS  31 March, 2017: Even though Mauritius does not have any natural resources, its population contributes to its development. Education is important for the country to progress and Government wants to invest more in this sector and make education the priority of priorities.

This statement was made yesterday by the Prime Minister, Minister of Home Affairs, External Communications and National Development Unit, Minister of Finance and Economic Development, Mr. Pravind Jugnauth, during a ceremony organised at the Lunch Room of the National Assembly to hand over the Cash Award of the School Premium Scheme to 206 beneficiaries under the Social Register of Mauritius (SRM).

The ceremony was organised by the Ministry of Social Integration and Economic Empowerment, in collaboration with the National Empowerment Foundation. The Minister of Social Integration and Economic Empowerment, Mr Alain Wong, the Minister of Education and Human Resources, Tertiary Education and Scientific Research, Mrs Leela Devi Dookun-Luchoomun and other eminent personalities were also present.

The Prime Minister congratulated the beneficiaries of the Cash Awards for their efforts and encouraged them to keep on working hard. He added that the School Premium Scheme, proposed in Budget 2016-2017, encourages students from poor families to achieve higher levels of education. The cash awards are as follows: Rs 15 000 for successfully completing Grade 9 level under the nine year schooling; Rs 25 000 for successfully completing the School Certificate level or equivalent vocational certificate; and Rs 35 000 for those successfully completing the Higher School Certificate or equivalent technical qualification.

In addition to the Cash Award, Government has taken several other measures to combat poverty, the PM added. These measures include a monthly subsistence allowance to every adult on the SRM, based on a minimum threshold of Rs 2 720 with a maximum threshold of Rs 9 520 for a family of two adults and three children; disabled children under 15 years of age are now eligible to basic invalidity pension; and the Marshall Plan to combat poverty for the next three years, for which Rs 2.2 billion have been earmarked.

For his part, Minister Wong pointed out that there are 83 beneficiaries of the scheme in Rodrigues and 123 of them in Mauritius. He stated that this Cash Award will help reduce the dropout of students from poor families. Moreover, he added that the Cash Award will be transferred into a savings account created for each beneficiary at MauBank and the withdrawal will only be possible when they reach 18 years old.
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GIS - 31 March, 2017: The Minister of Foreign Affairs, Regional Integration and International Trade, Mr Vishnu Lutchmeenaraidoo, emphasised on the symbiosis between the public and the private sectors working towards shared development and growth at the 168 th Annual General Meeting of the Mauritius Chamber of Commerce and Industry (MCCI). The Meeting was held yesterday at Le Labourdonnais Waterfront Hotel in Port-Louis.

He highlighted the role of Government in making provision for laws conducive to investment and to promote ease of doing business against corruption. The Minister added that the private sector requires minimum government intervention but maximum facilities from the State for business development.

For his part, the Minister of Industry, Commerce and Consumer Protection, Mr Ashit Gungah, underscored the role of MCCI as a valuable partner in promoting development in various sectors such as commerce, industry, financial services, tourism and education. The meeting, he added, is an important opportunity for the MCCI to take stock of its achievements and forge ahead with new re-orientations.

Elaborating on the impacts of international competition and trade liberalisation, the Minister underlined that it is high time for the industry to trigger diversification. In this regard, he underpinned that the 'Made in Moris' label is an innovative step to widen the choices of consumers on the market.

Minister Gungah enumerated various measures taken by Government to facilitate commercial procedures and remove administrative hassles for business communities. The measures are, among others: creation of an E- Platform for businesses applying for permits and licences; setting up of the National Single Window for processing of export and import permits; and introduction of the Price Fixing Unit submitting data and documents online.

Present at the event, the Minister of Business, Enterprise and Cooperatives, Mr Soomilduth Bholah, lauded the MCCI for its active contribution in the field of economic development and the business world.

He announced that advanced discussions with the MCCI Business School and l'Institut de la Francophonie are envisaged in the field of entrepreneurship, education and training. He also appealed for a shared sense of direction combined with expertise and creativity to boost up business opportunities in Mauritius.

Mauritius Chamber of Commerce and Industry

The MCCI, established in 1850, is the oldest non-profit making institution representing the private sector in Mauritius. Since its launching, the MCCI has evolved from a purely representative and consultative body to a dynamic actor in the socio-economic development of the country.

Throughout its years of existence, the MCCI has constantly striven to carry out its fundamental mission of defending and promoting the vital interests of its Members. It has set up and developed organisational structures capable of providing a wide range of highly professional services. It has always maintained close links with Government and increasingly contributed to the economic development of the country.

The MCCI has also set up links and affiliations at international level with inter-governmental and private organisations aimed at widening its scope of activities and better promoting Mauritius on the world scene.
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GIS  31 March 2017 : The necessity for women entrepreneurs to innovate and develop new niches and business lines was highlighted by the Minister of Gender Equality, Child Development and Family Welfare, Mrs Fazila Jeewa-Daureeawoo, at a workshop on Entrepreneurship Development and Business Etiquette, held yesterday at Wooton Social Welfare Cum Resource Centre.

The workshop, organised by the Ministry of Gender Equality, Child Development and Family Welfare in collaboration with Lions Club Curepipe, aimed at familiarising the participants, mainly embroiderers, with business etiquette. They were also informed of facilities and incentives available at the Development Bank of Mauritius.

In her speech, the Minister called on women entrepreneurs to have faith in themselves and their potential. Mrs Jeewa-Daureeawoo urged them to develop positive attitudes in spite of hardships and difficulties, and to put in the required efforts to succeed and become financially independent. Hard work and honesty are the ingredients to become autonomous and achieve ones empowerment, she pointed out.

The Minister recalled that Government is committed to assist and support entrepreneurs through policy decisions and strategies. The launching, on 27 March 2017, of the 10-year Master Plan for the Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) sector is testimony of Governments objective to make of the SMEs a major pillar of the economy, she said.

Speaking on the importance of an equitable and fair society, the Minister recalled that gender equality is everyones business and that men must participate actively in the endeavour to promote gender equality since unity of men and women will give way to more tolerance and comprehension.
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GIS  31 March 2017 : The Minister of Gender Equality, Child Development and Family Welfare, Mrs Fazila Jeewa-Daureeawoo, and the Minister of Education and Human Resources, Tertiary Education and Scientific Research, Mrs Leela Devi Dookun-Luchoomun, invited secondary schools students participating in the Model Commission on Status of Women to become advocate of gender equality.

The appeal was made yesterday at the opening of the second edition of the Model Commission on Status of Women, held at the Mahatma Gandhi Institute in Moka. The two-day event is organised by the National Womens Council in the context of the International Womens Day 2017 and aims at engaging students of secondary schools to promote gender quality and address women empowerment issues.

In their addresses, both Ministers recalled strategies and measures implemented by Government to raise the status of women and contribute to gender equality. These include enactment of the Equal Opportunities Act and the Protection from Domestic Violence Act, the setting up of the Parliamentary Gender Caucus, and the establishment of gender focal points at the level of Ministries. The gender gaps in careers in the fields of science, research, mathematics and engineering as well as regarding Technical Vocational Education and Training was deplored by the Ministers.

While the Minister of Gender Equality, Child Development and Family Welfare underlined the importance of formal and informal education in bringing changes to society and eventually to mentalities, the Minister of Education and Human Resources, Tertiary Education and Scientific Research highlighted the serious challenges that are yet to be met. These challenges range from women earning less for the same jobs in the private sector, the high rate of unemployment of women, the concentration of women at the lower to middle occupational levels and to their relative absence in decision making process.

According to Mrs Jeewa-Daureeawoo, the Model Commission on the Status of Women is the first step for youngsters to stay no to discrimination against women, and to stand up for womens causes. She added that the initiative will encourage youngsters to promote, and reflect on, the social, economic and political rights of women, and to engage in the fight for gender equality. Your generation has the responsibility and the duty to bring gender equality and diversity in all walks of life, the Minister told participants.

Mrs Dookun-Luchoomun pointed out that in Mauritius no discrimination exists as far as girls access to education is concerned. She listed out the steps taken by her Ministry in promoting gender equality namely the development of gender sensitive education materials to remove gender stereotypes and promote positive and social values, and equal opportunities for scholarships for both boys and girls. The Minister also dwelt on the parity in enrolment with gender parity index in enrolment having remain constant over the years at around one, which means that there is absolutely no discrimination as far as access is concerned.

Model Commission on the Status of Women

The Commission on the Status of Women is the principal global intergovernmental body exclusively dedicated to the promotion of gender equality and women empowerment. It is a functional commission of the United Nations Economic and Social Council, whose responsibilities include promoting womens rights, documenting the reality of womens lives throughout the world, and shaping global standards on gender equality and the empowerment of women. UN Women supports all aspects of the Commissions work.

The Model Commission on the Status of Women provides a platform to young people to roleplay delegates and discuss progress and gaps in the implementation of gender documents and on issues that affect gender equality and the empowerment of women. It enables young people to exchange and share ideas on the development processes that women have been experienced to in different countries and different spheres.
Federal CISO Envisions ongoing cybersecurity roles for USDS, 18F

Bill Would Force Transparency for Federal Laws

Grant Schneider, the acting federal chief information security officer (CISO) with the Office of Management and Budget, said the USDS and 18F should provide government agencies with the help they need to limit threats to cybersecurity, Meritalk reported Tuesday, March 28 Schneider made the comments at the Akamai Government Forum, saying the two groups could help combat data breaches and also develop cybersecurity tools for governmental agencies. The goal, Meritalk reported, should be to work with government red teams, which are sent in to help fortify things after a significant data breach, to figure out what happened, how to fix it and offer ways to prevent it from happening again.Schneiders comments come in the aftermath of a White House report that said despite government efforts, hackers continue targeting federal agencies, leading to tens of thousands of cybersecurity incidents annually. This report came from the Office of Management and Budget, of which Schneider is a part.It identified 30,899 cyberincidents in fiscal 2016, leading to the compromise of information or system functionality to the Department of Homeland Securitys U.S. Computer Emergency Readiness Team.In the comments that Meritalk reported, Schneider called upon the private sector to help agencies by creating tools they can use that are agile, integrated, secure and cost-effective. Schneider went on to detail a list of his goals for the OMBs future, including finding affordable ways to modernize IT systems, as well as managing federal cybersecurity experts in a way that sees them tackling the most difficult issues.A bill to put all historical federal laws online in a machine-readable, open data format was reintroduced in Congress Tuesday, March 28.

The Statutes at Large Modernizations Act (SALMA), H.R. 1729, was brought back up by Congressman David Brat, R-Va., and Congressman Seth Moulton D-Mass., in a bipartisan effort to bolster the overall transparency of laws in the United States.

Hudson Hollister, the executive director of the Data Coalition , voiced support for what the bill seeks to accomplish.

Congress must adopt a comprehensive open data structure for all legislative materials including bills, amendments and enacted laws, Hollister said in a statement . The Statutes at Large Modernization Act will transform the Statutes at Large from outdated documents and PDFs to open, machine-readable data. Citizens, journalists, reporters and Congress itself will benefit.

The bill seeks to create a more comprehensive alternative to the U.S. Code , which critics say is flawed because it doesnt contain repealed laws; original laws prior to being amended; private laws affecting individuals or small groups; or cyclical bills with limited duration, which includes annual Congressional appropriations or infrastructure projects.

If passed, SALMA would direct the Government Publishing Office to lead the online digitization efforts in collaboration with federal and private entities that have expertise in such matters. The information within would then be available in searchable, non-proprietary open data format on Congress.gov.

This bill comes in the aftermath of a U.S. Court ruling earlier this year that raised questions about what constitutes an unfair barrier between the public and rules it must follow at the state level.





Standardizing and Requiring Publication of Federal Data

A bicameral and bipartisan group of lawmakers have reintroduced a bill that would require all federal agencies to publish their information online in nonproprietary, machine-readable data formats.

The Open, Public, Electronic and Necessary (OPEN) Government Data Act , H.R. 1770, was brought back into consideration in the Senate by Ben Sasse, R-Neb., and Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, and by Blake Farenthold, R-Texas, and Derek Kilmer, D-Wash., in the U.S. House of Representatives. The bill expands upon Open Data Policy-Managing Information as an Asset, a 2013 government-wide open data policy that asks heads of federal departments and agencies to establish a framework to institutionalize the principles of effective and transparent information management.

The bill also builds on the DATA Act of 2014 , the nations first actual law directing federal government to make spending information into open data. The difference between the previous and reintroduced bill is the scope, with the newer legislation seeking to require a broader range of data to be made transparent, as well as in searchable formats.

The reintroduction of this bill comes after President Donald Trumps administration removed open data sets from government websites, sparking an outcry from watchdogs . For six weeks, a Whitehouse.gov page that once held intricate government open data sets has urged visitors to Check back soon for new data.

If passed, this bill would ensure that such a change could not be made at the whim of a new administration, as it would require that specific open data definitions be made into U.S. law.

Baltimore Develops Online Building Permit System

Baltimore has now moved the entirety of its building permit system online, after many years in which only a small percentage of construction permission were available in the public digital space.

This new system is called ePermits , and residents can now apply for any city building permits online, including plumbing, use and occupancy, and demolition. City officials have said that in some cases, applicants may receive an answer to requests within 30 minutes. This addition of digital services stands as part of a nationwide trend in which municipal governments are beginning to emphasize customer service online

The platform provides users with a diverse range of capabilities, including video tutorials, a timeline of the review process and more. Users can also apply for permits with any device and at any time of day.

Baltimore is far from the only city in the country to put such a process online. San Francisco, for example, allows business owners to apply for licensing and permits with Web tools as well.
(TNS) - The videos and photos projected on the screen Wednesday night in the basement of the Ellis County Emergency Services Building shocked people, judging by the reactions from the crowded room.Gasps of surprise and astonishment arose as the videos showed tornadoes taking over the house or vehicle housing the camera, flood waters sweeping away and sinking vehicles, hail breaking windows of a house, and a herd of livestock laying dead under a tree struck by lightning.The reaction is by design, said Jeff Hutton, warning coordination meteorologist at the Dodge City National Weather Service. Hutton was in town to present the annual storm identification and spotter training session.The basement room of the countys newest building just off Vine on 22nd Street was packed nearly to capacity for the presentation.The message Hutton emphasized is keep yourself safe during severe weather, whether it be from lightning, flood, hail or tornadoes.To some people it does, he said about the images making a difference. For others, he acknowledges, it might arouse their curiosity to seek those sights for themselves.But part of the reason we do that is so people do realize what can happen instead of just imagining what it looks like, he said.Throughout the nearly two-hour presentation, Hutton showed photos, videos and graphics showing the different components of a severe storm and explained how to identify parts of a cloud such as the rain-free base, beaver tail and wall cloud. He explained where in a storm hail and high winds likely will be found, and perhaps most importantly, how to protect yourself in severe weather.While much of the presentation focused on the development of severe thunderstorms and tornadoes, Hutton discussed what are actually greater hazards to safety  lightning and floods.In 2016, flooding killed 123 people in the United States, while lightning killed 38, thunderstorm winds killed 20 and tornadoes killed 17, he said.If I talked just about tornadoes, I would not be telling you about these other threats that youre more than likely going to get hurt from, more than tornadoes, he said.Lightning is actually the most common cause of injuries and deaths in storms because it is the most frequent. Lightning can strike miles away from the storm cloud, he said, warning if you can hear thunder you are within striking distance of lightning.Flooding is dangerous because one event can cause multiple deaths, he said.One foot of water moving at only 6 mph can exert 500 pounds of force, he said  enough to displace 1,500 pounds.It only takes a couple foot of water to make a car buoyant enough to sweep it off the pavement or just flip it over, trapping you in the high water, he said.Flood waters also can hide other dangers, such as a road that has been washed away.Hutton said there is a linear trend of increasing flood deaths since approximately 2000, to nearly 100 people a year.Part of the reason I think we have that is we have a lot of SUVs out there, all-wheel drive, four-wheel drive, big wheels, and people think they can just drive through it and thats simply not the case, he said.When it came to the tornadoes, Hutton noted a relatively new danger  the human element.Let me ask you a question: Is there a difference between a storm spotter and a storm chaser? he asked the crowd.The answer, especially from those in emergency services such as volunteer fire, was an emphatic yes.Storm spotters are trained meteorologists, volunteers or public employees who work as part of a research group, network or community.Storm spotters relaying information to us is a critical part of the warning process, Hutton said.Storm chasers, he said, are hobbyists or paying tourists who follow storms. They often dont have the knowledge to understand what they are looking at, he said.Theyre just following the masses. Looking up, he said.Storm chasers provide less than 5 percent of the severe weather reports received, he said.The National Weather Service tries to discourage storm chasing, he said.For more than one reason. A lot of it is traffic. Especially in the last five years, theres so much traffic out there, Hutton said.In the thrill of chasing a storm, an untrained individual can lose situational awareness, he said.Youre looking at storms and not paying attention out there. Ive witnessed it myself  passing on hills, passing on shoulders, pulling out in front of vehicles all the time, he said.He cited Tuesdays crash in Texas in which three storm chasers were killed while pursuing a tornado in Dickens County. The driver of one of the vehicles involved ran a stop sign near Spur, Texas, and collided with the other, according to the Texas Department of Public Safety. All three were pronounced dead at the scene.Chasers can hinder emergency services when damage occurs in a storm, he said.Sometimes the storm spotters, the fire department and those people cant get to that point because theres so much traffic, he said.The Dodge City National Weather Services remaining training sessions will be in southwest Kansas.2017 The Hays Daily News (Hays, Kan.)Visit The Hays Daily News (Hays, Kan.) at www.hdnews.netDistributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
(TNS) -- ALBANY, N.Y. -- State lawmakers are saying they've reached a "tentative" agreement that would bring ride-booking apps like Uber and Lyft to Upstate New York by the summer, according to news reports. The details are still being finalized, lawmakers told new outlets, and the agreement won't be official until the state budget is complete.But the agreement, if it comes together, would end a years-long battle that has left Upstate New York one of the only regions in the country without access to the apps. Lawmakers said counties and big Upstate cities like Buffalo, Syracuse and Rochester would have the power to prevent the apps from operating within their borders. That's a concession to a proposal from the New York State Assembly, which passed a bill granting all localities the power to prohibit the apps.However, just two weeks ago, mayors from the big Upstate cities wrote a letter to Gov. Andrew Cuomo expressing their support for the apps and outlining why they are needed in their respective cities.Legislators are still finalizing details about the per-ride fee the state would impose, according to news reports . The apps will collect a 4 percent fee on every ride, but lawmakers haven't determined where yet that money will go.A spokesman for State Sen. James Seward (R-Milford) told Syracuse.com the deal was "still being finalized" on Friday morning.Gov. Andrew Cuomo initially proposed a 5.5-percent fee on every ride that his office estimated would raise $16 million by March 2018.
Cybersecurity 101

define your security policies;

evaluate the risk;

look at security technologies that could reduce the risk;

evaluate the potential threat impact cost verses the cost of the security technology;

get management approval; and then

deploy the security technology.

Dehumanizing our machine systems

Cyberdefense going in the wrong direction

The demand for new cyberdefense technologies that work

Cyberdefense public-private partnerships

We must recognize that our cyberdefense technologies are not working and will not work. Cases in point: Our most sensitive cyberoffense technologies have been hacked power companies admit they would have great difficulty stopping a cyberattack and are being asked to be prepared to operate at much less than full capacity under a cyberattack; 70 percent of oil and gas companies have been attacked  and the threat is growing.The cybersecurity industry is in chaos and needs to move toward new technologies  cyberdefense technologies that are beginning to leverage analytics, machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI). Hackers are taking advantage of the same technologies, so the cyberdefense industry needs to jump on board. Let's quit playing catch-up and instead take a proactive approach to cybersecurity.So what is this industry doing wrong, and how can we change it?One of the core principles in cybersecurity is to establish a baseline of what the operational and industrial system is doing. Once this is done, you can:Sounds simple, right? Not so.We have layered so much hardware, network and software on top of each other that we truly can't see what our systems are doing. And if we can't see what our systems are doing, how can we establish a system baseline of what is normal in daily system operations? The fact is that we can't see it, which is not a good start to one of the most basic principles of security. This must change.Conventional cybersecurity generally points everything to the human first while the system's machine actions are doing most of the operational and industrial processes. As metadata grows, it becomes increasingly difficult to manage and understand. Even the best analytic algorithms can't keep up and are themselves subject to error.Human error is the major reasons for cyberbreaches, and we are pointing increasing complex systems toward people who can neither see nor understand what the systems are doing; it is a dangerous scenario to continually disconnect the human from massively automated systems that run without audit. Hackers know this, and they will continually exploit these systems until new technologies can deeply and consistently view and audit our operational baseline.People need to be able to see with deep inspection the structured and unstructured data that run the systems. Without this being done first, a true operations and security baseline cannot be established, leaving the system exposure to cyberattacks. AI, machine learning and analytics can assist in the viewing of this data, but exponentially increases the amount of structured and unstructured data that must be secured. These approaches also create vulnerabilities because they layer additional algorithms and software over critical data and systems actuaries. This gives hackers a targeted system exploit capability that could allow a complete hijacking of system processes. This is being done while humans are continually being removed from our system processes.Industry experts are warning of the use and abuse of AI and its use in both cyberdefense and hacking.As Sean Carroll, a cosmology and physics professor at the California Institute of Technology told Vox.com , "It is absolutely right to think very carefully and thoroughly about what those consequences might be, and how we might guard against them, without preventing real progress on improved artificial intelligence.And Nick Bostrom, director of the Future of Humanity Institute at Oxford University, also told Vox.com that the transition to machine superintelligence is a very grave matter, and we should take seriously the possibility that things could go radically wrong. This should motivate having some top talent in mathematics and computer science research the problems of AI safety and AI control.Even the newest neural network technologies that Google is using  the basis of its DeepMind Artificial Intelligence technologies  can be hacked . The reason is that we're using existing technologies to learn what our systems are doing, so we are essentially adding points of offensive exploit to cyberdefense technologies that are supposed to reduce the attack vector. The cybersecurity industry is, in essence, going in the wrong direction.A good example of this is tech giants buying up AI cybersecurity startups . This is being done while the DARPA Cyber Grand Challenge demonstrated how AI could hack into AI . Machine learning and AI connect to a very sensitive part of operational and industrial control systems. Thats how it learns. Hackers can use AI to watch what AI is doing, which in turn can offer total control of the machine systems. All third- and fourth-Generation programing language (code) can be hacked, period. We must find a migration path to codeless fifth-generation programing language (5GL) that uses codeless signature patterns.I have discussed the use of 5GL in previous articles and spoke about the technology at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. I clearly discussed how we need to use 5GL codeless patterns in parallel with existing operational and industrial system technologies. This use of 5G in cybersecurity as a system auditing tool could be the much-needed answer to new cyberdefense technologies.A company called On Point Cyber has been watching the development of these 5GL technologies for years, and CEO Tom Boyle said he thinks the timing is right for 5GL."Disruptive technologies must have a migration path back to existing technologies and forward to newer technologies. To achieve this, we first index all the current structured and unstructured data, then run them in parallel to the new 5GL codeless signature pattern technologies," he said "This offers a real-time deep inspection of the operational system security baseline and the immediate detection of anything not part of that baseline.Boyle also noted that what's great about 5GL technology is that it can be used without changing any of the current operational and industrial system technologies."These newer technologies can then offer older technologies a migration path to code vs. codeless signature pattern technologies that could even be used in the Quantum computer," he added. "The use of 5GL in cyberdefense could prove the most important use of this technology today. Clearly, we need to do something different.We are entering dangerous times in cybersecurity, and both the public and private sectors must recognize the urgency in finding an industry correction. Immediately invest in cybersecurity technologies that offer more than calculated risk remediation. We are throwing things on the wall that could potentially put our cyberdefense technologies in greater danger. We need to find solutions that stop cyberattacks.In the confusion of pretty words and explanations of cyberdefense technologies, government officials and CEOs are asking the simple question, "Can I invest in cyberdefense technologies that work?" It is time to answer that question with the recognition that we need to move on to entirely new technologies that can secure us today and prepare us for the future.
Lawmakers in the Florida Legislature are considering a proposal that could once again force the Agency for State Technology (AST) into a reorganization that would come with not only a loss of responsibility, but authority as well.In a hearing held March 28 , legislative members of the House Government Operations and Technology Appropriations subcommittee approved PCB GOT 17-01 , which calls for several substantial changes to the states technological footprint, as well as the restructuring of AST in title and function. If successful, the power shift would be one of a handful of others in recent history: AST was rebooted in 2014 after the Agency for Enterprise Information Technology (AEIT) was defunded in 2012; prior to that was the Florida State Technology Office's upheaval in 2005 The proposal's timing has raised questions about the intended motivations behind the bill and what, if anything, it would actually do to help the state move forward.Even the wide margin of members that voted in support of the bill, proposed by Rep. Blaise Ingoglia, R-District 35, voiced confusion as to its purpose and the sweeping impacts it would have on the state technology enterprise.Among a number of other changes, the proposal would pull the State Data Center out from under ASTs oversight, moving it to the Department of Management Services. Additionally, AST would be renamed the Office of Technology and Data Solutions, and stripped of its enterprise rulemaking authority.During a more than hour-long discussion on the controversial proposal, subcommittee members questioned whether a complete overhaul of AST and transfer of state data center oversight and rule-making authority would be positive changes for the state.Further, the potential law would remove the existing centralized authority to approve technology procurements and moves to cloud environments  Ingoglias vision leaves each of the states agencies to their own devices, essentially opening the door to a broad patchwork of systems.As you know, we have been discussing AST and their role in state government over the past couple of weeks. After taking in a lot of information, and quite frankly a lot of feedback from members of this committee, we are putting forth this PCB to reorganize the way we do information technology in the state, explained Ingoglia, who serves as subcommittee chair.The lawmaker pointed to the increasing costs incurred by AST in the management and oversight of the states data center, saying that the costs had ballooned to surpass Medicaid  a comparison Rep. James Grant, R-District 64, challenged as incomparable.But lawmakers were not the only ones with questions and criticisms for the bill. Interim CIO Eric Larson, who stepped in following the departure of Jason Allison in late February, said it would not only be a major setback for the state from an enterprise perspective, but could also drive up costs and inefficiencies across the board.It appears that the focus really is to abandon the concept of a central authority defining enterprise strategy for the state and revert that back to the agencies, he told. The expectation, as I understand it from the committee meeting, is that this will drive costs down.In a letter to Larson dated March 27, National Association of State Chief Information Officers ( NASCIO ) Executive Director Doug Robinson spoke out against the every-agency-for-itself approach. In my opinion, a centralized approach is considered a best practice for state government, with policy, planning, infrastructure services, data centers, shared services, cybersecurity and support under one organization, he wrote. State IT is no longer about just delivering infrastructure services, but requires enterprise leadership, innovation and transformation."Larson said a number of potential problems come from stripping the agency of its data center authority, the least of which would be the mish-mash of agency solutions to come out of each agencys autonomy. A more considerable issue, the Interim CIO argues, is a self-fulfilling prophesy of ballooning costs that will come out of each agency comparing state storage services to private-sector cloud options.Because of the existing cost-recovery model, Larson said he fears that as entities are allowed to do individual cost-benefit analysis, their exit from the state data center will spell increased costs for every other agency. As this drives up costs, the cost-benefit ratio further skewed.What may seem like a good deal for the one creates additional cost for the many  and the state overall.Ingoglia sees things differently.By transferring the state data center to DMS, I hope to see a transition from requiring agencies to pay for a high-cost, on-premise data center to allowing agencies to utilize more efficient commercial cloud services, he said during the hearing. We shouldnt need to continue the cycle of buying hardware every five years to support our legacy systems. Instead, we need to direct our agencies to modernize and authorize the use of commercial cloud services where the state can receive better services at lower costs.Money aside, the states unified way of doing business is also in danger. Granting autonomy to procure IT and fly on their own poses not only security consideration for the state, but compatibility issues as well, according to the acting CIO.There is obviously the cost issue," Larson said. "We have 34 agencies doing the same thing different ways, that increases costs, but the opportunity to get agencies to collaborate or share services becomes a destabilized, crowd-sourced concept."With no mechanism craft policy, the new iteration of the seemingly cursed agency would have no way to enforce or create effective policy. Though it could make recommendations, lawmakers would ultimately sign off on any new rules.The powers of project oversight are also greatly reduced. As it stands, AST has dominion over all IT projects above $10 million, but under the new proposal the ability to manage the workload is extremely diminished, according to Larson.What is currently a staff of seven statewide project managers would be cut back to one, he said, but they still have the same responsibilities to monitor projects; they have an army of one to manage all of the projects throughout the state.But AST officials are not the only ones raising eyebrows over the proposal that was introduced and passed within one business day. During the hearing, a representative from the Associate Industries of Florida spoke out against the bill, calling for the states commitment, sustainability and investment rather than a proposal that would fundamentally destroy the governance structure.It was the same story from James Taylor, executive director of the Florida Technology Council, who cited substantial improvement in the states IT standing in recent years. Starting over again is not whats best for our state.Instead, Taylor advocated for seeing AST through, bolstering the mission and adjusting as needed.There simply isnt a technology that I can think of that costs less by stopping it early instead of allowing it to go through its process, he said.Despite considerable reservation about the intent and wording of the bill, the subcommittee voted 13-1 in favor. Though Larson said the legislators he has been in touch with are puzzled by the attempted coup, he expects to see it heard in the House Appropriations Committee Wednesday, April 5.
Foreign students of UNEC have visited the genius Azerbaijani poet Samad Vurguns home-museum.

The poets great-grandson, Laureate of the Presidential Prize for Youth and a student of the Musical Academy of France Ecole Normale de Musique de Paris- Alfred Cortot Vurgun Vekilov informed the students about the museum in detail. He made them familiar with the newly established exposition Generation of 60s. Portraits of the prominent representatives of 60s, Peoples Artist Sattar Bahlulzades spreadsheet, paintings by the Peoples Poet Vagif Samadoghlu and his poetry written in 60s under the nickname Samizdat and the household things that were popular in these years and displayed here were of great interest by overseas students.

V. Vekilov performed classical Azerbaijani music on the grand piano used by the prominent composers Uzeyir Hajibeyli and Gara Garayev upon a time for UNEC students.

Students who expressed their great impressions about the reeds and rifle exhibited in Samad Vurguns home- museum sounded poets poem Azerbaijan in Azerbaijani in the end.

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.
James Allison has hailed Ferrari's return to winning form but vowed to hit back at his former employer.

The highly respected engineer ended his stint as Ferrari's technical director last year amid tragedy and acrimony, switching to Mercedes for 2017 to run the title-winning UK-based team's technical division.

But with Ferrari now relying on his successor Mattia Binotto and a team of mainly young Italian engineers, Briton Allison had to watch the red outfit return to winning form in Australia from the Mercedes pitwall.

"We have to pay tribute to Ferrari who have a very quick car," Allison told Italy's La Gazzetta dello Sport. "In Australia we were not able to keep up.

"If it was not clear after qualifying, it was understood after the race that this will be a season played out over small differences," he added.

However, Allison is confident he can help Mercedes to regain its dominant place at the top of the pecking order.

"We don't panic," said the Briton. "It was only the first race in a long season and we still put two cars on the podium. So we are determined to turn those little differences in our favour at the next opportunity."

Asked how Ferrari managed to put its nose in front with Sebastian Vettel in Melbourne, Allison answered: "They put us under pressure right from the start and that's how we lost."

There was also the crucial timing of Lewis Hamilton's pitstop, with Allison admitting: "We thought the tyres would not last, and we feared a change of strategy by Seb, so we took the risk of making a pitstop and putting him behind.

"Ferrari took advantage of its opportunity very well," he added.

(GMM)
Baku, Azerbaijan, Mar. 31

By Anvar Mammadov  Trend:

A mission of the Asian Development Bank (ADB) discussed with Azerbaijan the possibility of the countrys participation in the custom transit system (CTS) pilot project, the ADB Baku office told Trend Mar. 31.

The pilot project is aimed at simplifying customs procedures for transit cargo transportation between the countries that are part of the Central Asia Regional Economic Cooperation (CAREC) program.

The ADB mission, which has been in Baku since March 30, aims to discuss the possibility of participation of Azerbaijan, Georgia and Kazakhstan in this project.

During the meeting with representatives of the State Customs Committee of Azerbaijan, the sides discussed possible measures to simplify customs procedures for transit cargo transportation.

The ADB mission will stay in Baku until April 3.

The CAREC program established in 1997 is a partnership of 10 countries - Azerbaijan, Afghanistan, China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and 6 multilateral institutions: ADB, European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, International Monetary Fund, Islamic Development Bank, UN Development Program, and World Bank.

After joining the CAREC program in 2002, Azerbaijan has invested around $3 billion in program projects. Azerbaijan has allocated around $6 billion for development of the transport corridor within CAREC. The East-West Highway reconstruction by Azerbaijan within the CAREC program has transformed the country into a more effective corridor between Caspian and Black seas, and this contributed to the promotion of trade between Europe and Asia.

ADB, based in Manila, was established in 1966 and is dedicated to reducing poverty in Asia and the Pacific through inclusive economic growth, environmentally sustainable growth and regional integration.

Azerbaijan became the ADB member on Dec. 22, 1999.
Baku, Azerbaijan, March 31

By Leman Zeynalova  Trend:

Israel will hold the ministerial EastMed Energy Summit on April 3, according to the information posted on the European Commissions website.

The event will be attended by energy ministers from Israel, Greece, Cyprus and Italy, as well as the European Commissioner for Climate Action and Energy Miguel Arias Canete to discuss the potential of gas supply from the eastern Mediterranean region for Europe.

The Eastern Mediterranean (EastMed) pipeline project relates to an offshore/onshore natural gas pipeline, directly connecting East Mediterranean resources to Greece via Cyprus and Crete.

The project is being currently designed to transport up to 16 billion cubic meters of gas per year from the off-shore gas reserves in the Levantine Basin (Cyprus and Israel) as well as from the potential gas reserves in Greece.

Earlier, senior officials from Italy, Greece, Cyprus and Israel agreed to advance talks on a pipeline from Israel to Europe after an EU-sponsored study showed the project would be very feasible.

The study showed the pipeline, which would traverse Cyprus and Greece before reaching Italy, would cost about 5 billion euros ($5.5 billion).

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Follow the author on Twitter: @Lyaman_Zeyn
Baku, Azerbaijan, March 31

By Leman Zeynalova  Trend:

Spains Enagas company plans to invest a total of approximately 1.450 billion euros until 2020, said the companys executive chairman Antonio Llarden.

He made the remarks during the companys general shareholders meeting held March 31.

In relation to the European gas market, Antonio Llarden pointed out that among the European Commissions objectives are diversification of supply and market integration.

Enagas participates in two key projects for the purpose of achieving these goals: the Midcat/Step Project, which will allow interconnection capacity between Spain and the rest of Europe through France to be doubled; and the Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP), a key pipeline for securing supply, and which will connect Turkey with Italy, passing through Greece, Albania and the Adriatic Sea, he added.

Further, during the meeting, the companys chief executive officer Marcelino Oreja explained the figures for 2016, a year in which Enagas recorded net profits of 417.2 million euros, representing an increase of 1.1 percent compared to the previous year.

Moreover, the shareholders approved the appointment of a new independent director, Luis Garcia del Rio, to replace Ramon Perez Simarro, who finalizes his term after 12 years on the Board of Directors.

Enagas is Spains leading natural gas transmission company and technical manager of the Spanish gas system. It has a 16-percent share in the TAP project, which envisages transportation of Azerbaijani gas to Europe.

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Follow the author on Twitter: @Lyaman_Zeyn
Baku, Azerbaijan, Mar. 31

By Huseyn Veliyev  Trend:

Azerbaijans IT company BioniX Tech Inc. will export the first batch of interactive Braille Teach devices to the European market, the companys founder Rashid Aliyev told Trend.

Braille Teach devices are designed for visually impaired children. Using these devices, they can easily and conveniently learn Braille alphabet.

Aliyev said that currently, a preliminary order of 12,000 devices has been received.

The devices will mainly be exported to Germany, UK, France, Spain and Italy, he noted.

Braille Teach will be distributed by an organization from the UK, which is specialized in working with people with disabilities.

Braille Teach devices support five languages (Azerbaijani, Russian, English, Turkish and Ukrainian). Language support will gradually improve depending on the devices export to a particular market in Europe.

Braille Teach has voice guidance: it is enough for a child to press the needed button, for example, the combination of the letter A, and the device will voice it. Braille Teach has seven games, which make it easier to learn the Braille alphabet.
Atmospheric ammonia (NH 3 ) reacts with nitric and sulfuric acids to form nitrate and sulfate aerosols, a key component of fine particulate matter (PM 2.5 ). About 80% of airborne ammonia comes from farming practices such as fertilization, so it seems a likely suspect for the ammonia in haze particles to come from plumes of large farms and then be transported to urban centers. Instead, the research team found that ammonia emissions from cities are much larger than recognized, occur at the very times when unhealthy particulate matter is at its worst, and when agricultural emissions are at daily or seasonal lows.

Vehicle tailpipes are a more important source of ammonias contribution to urban air pollution than is agriculture, according to a study by researchers from the US and China. The paper is published in the ACS journal Environmental Science & Technology .

Although agriculture is the dominant NH 3 source at continental to global scales, in urban areas a significant NH 3 source is gasoline vehicles equipped with three-way catalysts (TWC). The presence of NH 3 in vehicle exhaust greatly enhances the formation and growth of secondary inorganic aerosols. With the growing efficiency of TWC to reduce NO x emissions and the recent introduction of selective catalytic reduction (SCR) system in diesel vehicles, NH 3 is now the dominant reactive nitrogen species emitted by vehicles produced in the recent decade.

Except for the Euro VI standard on heavy duty diesel vehicles, there are no vehicle emission standards to regulate NH 3 worldwide. Reductions in fleet NH 3 emissions are slow or insignificant in US cities in recent years due to modest reduction in NH 3 emissions from new vehicles and increasing emissions from older vehicles (though with their TWCs still active). In contrast, the emissions of SO 2 and NO x have been regulated effectively in many countries and are projected to decrease even further in the upcoming decades.

While high concentrations of NH 3 measured in cities have been attributed to vehicle emissions, current inventories rely on laboratory studies and tunnel/roadside measurements to estimate vehicle emission factors (NH 3 emitted per unit mass of fuel). Vehicle NH 3 emissions depend on road grade, driving mode, and vehicle age. Therefore, the representativeness of laboratory tests or stationary measurements at single locations for an entire metropolitan area is not well-characterized. Sun et al.

The researchers outfitted vehicles with sensors to detect ammonia levels and focused on six cities: Philadelphia, Denver and Houston in the United States, and Beijing, Shijiazhuang and Baoding in China. By measuring ammonia levels during various times of the day at different points of entry into the cities, the team was able to paint a picture of a breathing city, where levels of pollutants rise and fall, depending on traffic and conditions.

The research was aided by the use of open-path quantum cascade laser ammonia sensors developed by the group of Mark Zondlo, an associate professor of civil and environmental engineering at Princeton University, within Princetons Center for Mid-Infrared Technologies for Health and the Environment (MIRTHE). The laser-based sensors were smaller, easier to work with and more accurate than previously used sensors, Zondlo said. They also allowed for more efficient mobile testing.

Previously, vehicles had to be specially outfitted for data gathering. Holes were often drilled into the bodies of the vehicles to attach sensors. Banks of equipment were needed in the vehicle as well. Because the new sensors are relatively small, they can be mounted onto a luggage rack on top of the vehicle and then plugged into a laptop. This is the basis for their Princeton Atmospheric Chemistry Experiment mobile laboratory, a conventional SUV equipped with chemical and meteorological sensors.

You can really see the plumes coming out from the vehicles in real time. So basically you can tell if the car in front of you was in a bad operating condition. You can really see the plumes coming out from it. Da Pan, co-author

Among the conclusions from the study:

Vehicle NH 3 :CO 2 emission ratios in the US are similar between cities (0.330.40 ppbv/ppmv, 15% uncertainty) despite differences in fleet composition, climate, and fuel composition. While Beijing, China has a comparable emission ratio (0.36 ppbv/ppmv) to the US cities, less developed Chinese cities show higher emission ratios (0.44 and 0.55 ppbv/ppmv). If the vehicle CO 2 inventories are accurate, NH 3 emissions from US vehicles (0.26  0.07 Tg/yr) are more than twice those of the National Emission Inventory (0.12 Tg/yr), while Chinese NH 3 vehicle emissions (0.09  0.02 Tg/yr) are similar to a bottom-up inventory.

Vehicle NH 3 emissions are greater than agricultural emissions in counties containing near half of the US population and require reconsideration in urban air quality models due to their colocation with other aerosol precursors and the uncertainties regarding NH 3 losses from upwind agricultural sources. Ammonia emissions in developing cities are especially important because of their high emission ratios and rapid motorizations.

Pan said the research opens up two avenues for further study: How the proximity of ammonia and nitrogen and sulfur compounds in emissions affects fine particulate matter production, and how the data eventually could influence vehicle emissions regulations. Zondlo is also investigating how satellite observations of ammonia can help understand these emissions as part of the NASA Health and Air Quality Applied Sciences Team.

Besides Zondlo and Pan, authors of the paper included Denise Mauzerall, a professor of civil and environmental engineering and public and international affairs at the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton; Kang Sun, Lei Tao, David Miller and Levi Golston of Princeton; Robert Griffon, H.W. Wallace and Hu Jun Leong of Rice University; M. Melissa Yang of NASA Langley Research Center; Yan Zhang of Nanjing P&Y Environmental Technology Co.; and Tong Zhu of Peking University.

Support for the project was provided in part by Council for International Teaching and Research at Princeton University with funds from the Fung Global Forum, National Geographic Air and Water Conservation Fund, the National Science Foundation, NASA and the Houston Endowment.

Resources
Shell opened a new major technology hub in Bangalore, India, expanding the companys R&D activities in Asia. The 52-acre, custom built technology centre can house up to 1,500 experts working collaboratively on innovative projects worldwide.

Shell Technology Center Bangalore (STCB) brings together R&D staff who previously worked at separate locations in Bangalore and also provides additional space for high-tech innovation and demonstration facilities.

The new center houses a variety of technical experts, laboratories and technology demonstration units. It is home to a wide spectrum of technical disciplines and specific expertise in fields such as liquefied natural gas, subsurface modelling, data analysis, engineering design, bitumen, distillation and enhanced computational research. The center is also helping to pioneer efforts to turn forestry, agricultural and municipal waste into transportation fuels, with a new demonstration plant being built at the site.

Specialists at STCB work closely with experts from external industrial partners, universities and institutes. Examples include chemistry and catalysis research with the Indian Institutes of Technology and collaboration with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the area of advanced computing.

Shell Technology Center Bangalore is one of the three main technology hubs in the companys global network of R&D centres, with the other two located in the Netherlands and the US. More than 4,000 staff work at these hubs and smaller technical centres on a broad range of projects, such as turning natural gas into more efficient and cleaner fuels, developing affordable technologies to unlock energy thousands of meters below the sea surface, and R&D projects on low carbon technologies.
Toyota Motor Corporation has developed Japans first leisure craft with a parallel hybrid system. Toyota will conduct a feasibility study of hybrid boats from July 2018 to March 2021 in Tokyo.

Specifically, Toyota will loan the hybrid PONAM-28V model to the Tokyo Metropolitan Government with no charge. In addition to its use for the maintenance of piers and other port facilities at the Port of Tokyo, the Tokyo Metropolitan Government will use the PONAM-28V for visits to Tokyo 2020 Olympic and Paralympic Games venues along the Tokyo Bay waterfront by the relevant parties. In addition, the PONAM-28V will also be utilized for canal tours at the Port of Tokyo for Tokyo residents and visitors.

The craft is powered by a 3-liter engine and a 36 kW electric motor, with an 11 kWh Li-ion battery pack.

By adopting the parallel hybrid system in a leisure craft, Toyota is striving to assure customers of the cruising range by utilizing the two types of power generatorsthe engine and electric motor. Furthermore, the EV (Electric Vehicle) mode cruising realizes low emissions, high fuel efficiency, and low noise levels.

The Tokyo Metropolitan Government will provide the hybrid boats operational data to Toyota, to help validate the overall performance of the hybrid system, and to verify the convenience and improvement areas of hybrid boats.

Toyota has thus far released the 35-foot PONAM-35, 31-foot PONAM-31, and 28-foot PONAM-28V. Toyota will continue to work on its marine business, developing appealing mobility products in the nautical field so as to attain the goal of providing our customers with a fulfilling lifestyle.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Mar. 31

By Huseyn Valiyev  Trend:

Ulvi Mansurov has been appointed director general of Azerpost LLC, Azerbaijans Ministry of Transport, Communications and High Technologies told Trend Mar. 31.

He previously served as deputy chairman of the board at the International Bank of Azerbaijan and chairman of the board at Azerbaijans Texnikabank, said the Azerbaijani ministry.

Azerpost LLC renders postal and financial services to the population in Azerbaijan. The company has more than 1,500 branches across the country.
Baku, Azerbaijan, March 31

By Elena Kosolapova  Trend:

Kazakhstans national air carrier Air Astana will launch direct flights from the cities of Almaty and Astana to Turkish Antalya during the summer, the company said in a message.

The first flight from Almaty will be realized on May 20. The frequency of flights will be two times per week till May 31, four times per week since May 31, six times per week since June 13 and increase to seven times per week since June 30.

The first flight from Astana will be launched on May 31. The frequency of flights will be two times per week till June 10 and will increase to three times per week since June 10.

Air Astana has been operating since 2002, and today Its route network includes over 60 international and regional destinations.

Follow the author on Twitter: @E_Kosolapova
Top Dem on Intel panel: Too soon to consider immunity for Flynn
With all the news in Raleigh today, I never got around to checking our supreme leader's Twitter rants. He went off on the Freedom Caucus and The New York Times:

The Freedom Caucus will hurt the entire Republican agenda if they don't get on the team, & fast. We must fight them, & Dems, in 2018!

The failing @nytimes has disgraced the media world. Gotten me wrong for two solid years. Change libel laws?

If @RepMarkMeadows, @Jim_Jordan and @Raul_Labrador would get on board we would have both great healthcare and massive tax cuts & reform.

Where are @RepMarkMeadows, @Jim_Jordan and @Raul_Labrador? RepealANDReplace #Obamacare

North Carolina Rep. Mark Meadows has nothing to fear from President Trump. But Trump ought to think twice about alienating a block of Republican House members. He'll need their votes on every major piece of legislation.

As for the Times, it's thriving, not failing, as it dogs Trump. But all Americans should worry about a president who thinks the media should be punished for getting him wrong.
Updated April 3, 7:22 a.m.

BURLINGTON  A man who hadn't been seen in about three weeks is safe.

Burlington police said Tony Russell Snowden Jr., 36, returned home on his own Sunday.

He was reported missing by his family Friday. He hadn't been seen in about three weeks.

Posted March 31, 2:46 p.m.

BURLINGTON  Police are asking for the public's help finding a man who hasn't been seen in about three weeks.

Tony Russell Snowden Jr., 36, was reported missing by his family today, police said. He hasn't been seen or heard from since March 11.

Snowden is 6 feet 3 inches tall, weighs 230 pounds, has brown hair and hazel eyes, police said. He left his house on Winston Drive driving a silver 2003 GMC Envoy with a South Carolina license place of MTE-998. He may be in the Greensboro area, police said.

Police ask anyone with information to call (336) 229-3503 or Crime Stoppers at (336) 229-7100.
A Kansas abortion clinic that was among the first in the country to open after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade has been inundated with patients. Some drive 10 hours or more to get there, coming from Arkansas, Missouri, Oklahoma, Texas and even Louisiana. But thats only if they can get an appointment. Planned Parenthood clinics in the state, including this newest one, are only able to take about 10% to 15% of the patients seeking abortions. Kansas is one of the few states in the region still providing abortions in the wake of the court's ruling.
BURLINGTON  Police today arrested a man and a 15-year-old in Sundays robbery and beating of a taxi driver. Another teenager is wanted in the assault.

Anthony Edward Oyan, 17, of 510 Trail One, Apt. F202, is wanted on charges of robbery with a dangerous weapon assault with a deadly weapon inflicting serious injury, larceny of a motor vehicle and felon in possession of a firearm, according to a police news release.

Michael Warren Haley III, 18, of 807 Delaware Ave., is charged with robbery with a dangerous weapon and larceny of a motor vehicle. He remains in the Guilford County jail with his bail set at $50,000.

The 15-year-old faces charges of robbery with a dangerous weapon, assault with a deadly weapon inflicting serious injury and larceny of a motor vehicle. He is in custody in the Guilford County Juvenile Detention Center, police said.

About 3:25 a.m. Sunday, Golden Eagle Taxi service called police and told them they couldnt find a driver. Officer found the drivers unoccupied car near East Holt and South Ireland streets. As they investigated, the driver arrived at the police department.

He said he was taking three suspects to Sharpe Road, when one asked to stop at an ATM machine, according to the news release. When they arrived at the ATM, one of the suspects pulled a gun. The driver got out and ran, but they caught and beat him. During the assault, the suspects took cash and a cellphone from the driver, police said.

The driver was taken to Alamance Regional Medical Center for treatment of numerous cuts and bruises, police said. His injuries were not life-threatening.

Anyone with information about Oyans whereabouts, or with information about the robbery, is asked to call Alamance County Crime Stoppers at (336) 229-7100.
So, no, I would not agree that (carbon dioxide) is a primary contributor to the global warming that we see, said Scott Pruitt, new chief of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA chief: Carbon dioxide not primary cause of warming, N&R, March 9).

Listen to that: the global warming that we see. Some of Mr. Pruitts fellow Republicans have seen it, too. The Climate Leadership Council, led by two former secretaries of state and treasury  James Baker and George Schultz  has a plan to address climate change. Former Congressman Bob Inglis (R-S.C.) formed republic/EN, a conservative coalition to promote market-based options to address the climate change that we see. And the Citizens Climate Lobby formed the bipartisan Climate Solutions Caucus in the House of Representatives to focus on policy options that address the causes, impacts and challenges of climate change.

This is good news. Climate change is bipartisan. It will deliver its impact indiscriminately on Republican, Democrat, Libertarian, independent and others alike. Citizens Climate Lobbys Carbon Fee and Dividend initiative is the best option for a collective effort to diminish the damage while yielding a benefit to the populace. Study its plan at citizensclimatelobby.org. Lets get together. Its good for all of U.S.

Stephen McCollum

Greensboro
Baku, Azerbaijan, March 31

By Elena Kosolapova - Trend:

As much as 13 Kazakhstans television and communication operators suspended broadcasting due to incident with the telecommunications satellite KazSat-2, Kazakh Defense and Aerospace Industry Ministry said in a message.

The incident occurred March 31, 08.22 a.m. Astana time (UTC +5 hours). The ministry does not reveal the reasons and details of the incident.

"The specialists of the Republican Center for Space Communications are taking all the necessary measures for the prompt restoration of the regular operation of the satellite and the networks of telecom operators and television and radio broadcasting," the ministry said.

KazSat-2 was created by Russian Khrunichev State Research and Production Space Center jointly with Thales Alenia Space (Italy) and launched from the Baikonur cosmodrome in July 2011.

The first Kazakh satellite KazSat launched in 2006 failed to respond to commands in June 2008 and is probably lost after only two years in orbit.

Follow the author on Twitter: @E_Kosolapova
WENTWORTH  Even with a relatively small budget, the Town of Wentworth, through collaboration and cooperation, is pursuing a vision that includes responsibly planning for a bright future while maintaining the historic rural flavor of our county seat.

The Town of Wentworth, which does not levy a property tax, depends on the distributions from sales and use, utility sales and alcoholic beverage taxes for income. With the smallest budget of any of the municipalities in Rockingham County, Wentworth provides only the minimum services required by the laws of North Carolina.

Consequently, the Town contracts with the Rockingham County Sheriffs Office for law enforcement; Rockingham County Planning and Central Permitting for zoning, permitting and inspections; and the Wentworth Fire Department, all of which are conveniently located in the county seat.

The Town borrowed a portion of the funds used to renovate the town-owned Wentworth Community Center at 200 County Home Road, home of the Wentworth Post Office. That renovation was completed in March 2015.

The term of the loan is five years. However, with the recommendation of both the auditor and staff, Town Council is considering retiring that debt early in 2017.

The space next door to the post office continues to be unfinished, and a use for the space has yet to be defined. However, the Town funded some interior finish work during the 2016-2017 fiscal year, and it plans to continue that process during the 17-18 fiscal year.

With additional regard to the postal service, the Town continues to pursue ZIP code realignment with USPS officials in Washington. To date, the Towns efforts have been rejected. Never a group to relent when the cause appears just, the Town continues to pursue expanding the use of ZIP code 27375 from only delivery inside the Wentworth Post Office building to delivery at all rural mail boxes within the Towns corporate limits.

The Town supports three committees  Appearance, Historic Preservation, and Recreation.

The Appearance Committee, chaired by Beth Robertson, continues its project of identifying homes and landscaping during the spring, summer and fall seasons that improve the appearance of the Town.

The committee is considering establishing more ornate and structurally sound signs welcoming folks to Wentworth. As the North Carolina Department of Transportation completes its plans for the intersection upgrade at NC 65/87, Wentworth Street and Sandy Cross Road, which is planned for construction in 2018, the committee plans to approach Town Council and NCDOT about the establishment of a sign near that location.

Additionally, the committee, again, working with Town Council and DOT, is exploring the establishment of wayfinding signage along rights-of-way throughout Wentworth. The placement of wayfinding signage could assist visitors who cant locate the myriad of public and governmental offices in part due to the lack of ZIP code alignment.

The Historic Preservation Committee, chaired by Barbara Cooke, recently completed its project of installing plaques on 15 of the historic houses and structures identified in the map and directory published by the committee. Copies of the map are available at locations including town hall, the Museum and Archives of Rockingham County and the Center for Economic Development office.

The Historic Preservation Committee is now working on the placement of a historic marker sign at a Wentworth home built in 1858 that was, at various times, the home of Col. James Irvin, Alfred M. Scales, Lucille and Reuben Reid, and John F. and Maude Wall Reynolds.

The Recreation Committee, chaired by Jim Scott, is working to establish recreational opportunities in the town.

The Town has proposed an interlocal agreement with Rockingham County for a long-term lease of the ball field and surrounding grounds at the Wentworth Consolidated School site. Committee members have also engaged in discussions with Rockingham Community College about the use of college facilities with regard to public recreational opportunities.

Additionally, the Town has been included in a meeting where a county-wide parks and recreation plan was discussed. The combination of agreements, discussions, and meetings may lead to a more coordinated effort that could benefit quality of life issues for residents of and visitors to the Town of Wentworth from throughout Rockingham County and beyond.
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NEW FAIRFIELD  Karen Schwarzchild cant wait to get back to doing what she loves the most, which is treating patients and being a hands-on owner of a physical therapy practice.

Her practice, Physical Therapy Arts, has been acquired by Access Physical Therapy and Wellness, a move Schwarzchild said will alleviate much of the paperwork burden so prevalent in todays medical industry.

There is so much required from health-care providers now. So many rules and so much compliance. Its so hard for individual providers to keep up with it, she said. I want to get my hands on patients instead of being in my office or at home with paperwork. Access is lightening my load in that regard and allowing me to focus on what Im passionate about.

Access Physical Therapy and Wellness acquired both Physical Therapy Arts locations in New Fairfield and Brookfield. The staffing will remain the same, Schwarzchild said, and the name will remain Physical Therapy Arts for now. Schwarzchild will remain as the regional director and Susan Anderson is the director of the Brookfield location.

In addition to physical therapy, the practice offers services such as yoga, massage and personal training.

Were pleased to be expanding our presence in Connecticut, and look forward to providing top-notch care for patients in these two new locations, Chris Albanese, co-owner of Access Physical Therapy & Wellness, said. Physical Therapy Arts is a great practice that meets our high standards of care and will be a great addition to the Access family.

Schwarzchild has been a physical therapist for 42 years, starting her career with a large private practice. That practice was eventually bought out and the new owners wanted the therapists to spend only 15 minutes with each patient.

Im a manual therapist, not a people factory, she said.

So she opened her own practice in Brookfield 24 years ago. It was just Schwarzchild and a front-desk receptionist when she founded Physical Therapy Arts. She expanded with a second location on Route 37 in New Fairfield seven years later at the urging of her doctor, who said the town needed a physical therapist.

I said I was too busy, but he insisted I look at the space, she said. I got a good deal from the landlord and I thought it was a good opportunity knocking.

She saw a similar opportunity when Access inquired about taking over the practice. It was an opportunity she almost missed, however. Access sent her a letter, which she assumed was junk mail and remained unopened in her briefcase for several weeks.

Out of curiosity I called to see what they were about. (Co-owner) Steve Albanese came here and was very personable and uplifting, she said. Then I visited where they are based (Campbell Hall, N.Y.) and it was very impressive. I was quite taken by them. The process started last summer and now its coming to fruition. The health care climate has changed. In order to thrive, you have to join forces.

Access, founded in 2003, also has locations in New York, Pennsylvania and North Carolina. The clinics provide services for orthopedic injuries, back and neck pain, balance problems and dizziness, difficulty walking, headaches and various neurological conditions, as well as occupational and speech therapy.

cbosak@hearstmediact.com; 203-731-3338
Connecticut landed 17 billionaires on the 2017 installment of an annual ranking by Forbes, up from a dozen a year ago, with Greenwich residents Ray Dalio and Steve Cohen included among the 100 richest people in the world.

More Business Trump drops 220 spots on Forbes list of billionaires

Bill Gates is the wealthiest person on the planet for the fourth year running and has been for 18 of the past 23, with Forbes estimating the Microsoft co-founder grew his fortune by $11 billion last year to give him a net worth of $86 billion. Berkshire Hathaways Warren Buffett gained nearly $15 billion to rank second with $75.6 billion, with Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos padding his assets by $27.6 billion in a single year to push his totals to $72.8 billion.
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In its first repeat year with Norwalk Hospital on board, Western Connecticut Health Network more than doubled its margin of revenues over expenses  profits, essentially, for nonprofit hospitals  despite absorbing sharp increases in costs providing care for those lacking insurance and taxes paid the state of Connecticut.

Norwalk Hospital and its nearby health affiliates brought in revenues of $399 million in the 2016 fiscal year ending last September, a $9.3 million increase or 2.4 percent under new parent entity Western Connecticut Health Network. Fellow WCHN subsidiaries Danbury Hospital and New Milford Hospital contributed revenues of $651 million to the parent organization, with WCHNs Western Connecticut Medical Group physician practices contributing $249 million.

Add up the hospital and physician group figures and tertiary sources of revenues, and WCHN crossed the $1.2 billion revenue mark in fiscal 2016, a 5.7 percent increase under CEO Dr. John Murphy. Revenues exceeded expenses by $61.1 million, compared to $31.4 million over the prior 12-month period.

Fiscal 2016 marked the first 12-month period that offers a year-over-year comparison of WCHNs performance with Norwalk Hospital under its umbrella, with the Danbury-based nonprofit taking over the management of Norwalk Hospital in January 2014 when the organizations were already months into their fiscal periods. Mike Daglio has led Norwalk Hospital since December 2014 as president, in addition to his role as WCHN chief strategy officer.

For the full fiscal year, Norwalk Hospital revenue exceeded expenses by $42.1 million, a 3.3 percent reduction from fiscal 2015 but well above the $33 million in excess revenue generated the previous year when control of the hospital shifted to WCHN.

Included in those expenses was Connecticuts tax on hospital services, which the industry continues to fight to eliminate on the argument the levy burdens further Connecticuts already-strained health system. The state hit Norwalk Hospital with $20.2 million in taxes last year, amounting to 5 percent of its total revenue, with WCHN shelling out $55.2 million in all. The Connecticut General Assembly is currently considering multiple bills related to phasing out the tax.

The hospital tax has ballooned to $556 million and become a direct tax on hospitals and health care in Connecticut, the Connecticut Hospital Association stated in testimony filed in mid-March in Hartford. It is now the fourth-largest source of state tax revenue, after the income, sales and use, and corporation taxes.

WCHN and other hospital operators in Connecticut are separately awaiting the ultimate fate of the Affordable Care Act. Last year, WCHN calculated at $48.6 million the charity care it delivered to people lacking insurance and otherwise unable to pay.

 Robert Koch and Kaitlyn Krasselt contributed to this report.

Alex.Soule@scni.com; 203-354-1047; www.twitter.com/casoulman
I did not set out to be a product manager. That seems strange for me to write, considering I have led product and strategy at six companies now. When I started my career, though, I was happy just finding great market opportunities and build products that served customers well.

However, early in my career I noticed that product managers set the strategic direction for the company. They were the group with the highest concentration of top performers and leaders. So, I became a product manager.

My passion for product management found its natural progression to entrepreneurship. Today, as the CEO of Aha!, I speak with product managers every week at many of the worlds leading software and technology companies.

That passion also became the inspiration for Roadmap.com, an online community of innovators and product managers. The conversations that take place there reinforce the reality that for most companies, the product is the business.

Technology is at the center of every product and service today. Every business is now a software business -- that is true for emerging companies as well as multinational behemoths. That means entrepreneurs and founders must operate like product managers to succeed.

Of course, making the jump from employee to company founder is a big transition. But, my experience as a product manager prepared me for that leap -- more than I could have imagined. It also gave me the confidence that I could do it well. I find success every day as an entrepreneur by calling on my experiences as a product manager.

These are the product management traits that I lean on most:

1. Vision

Before you can take the helm as a company founder, you need a clear vision. Product managers also need to understand and define the "why" for their product decisions and how those decisions will support the overall business. Defining a strong vision takes commitment. But, once you do, your vision will be your true north as you move ahead and build your company.

Related: 11 Ways to Make Money While You Sleep

2. Motivation

Product managers help each person on their team -- and cross-functional teams -- see how they make unique contributions to building what matters. This is an essential skill for any entrepreneur. Success is incremental, and gaining momentum requires being able to motivate yourself and others around a shared goal.

Related: 5 Habits of the Wealthy That Helped Them Get Rich

3. Prioritization

Smart product managers guard their time by cutting through endless requests to prioritize what must get done now. Successful entrepreneurs know how to prioritize what matters most by aligning each new request against their vision. Tackle today's problems and reserve the rest for later.

Related: Inspiring Quotes to Help You Get Through Your Work Day

4. Transparency

Working well with diverse teams and business partners is a requirement for product managers. Transparent communication is integral to ensuring alignment and buy-in from others. At every step of the entrepreneurial journey, communication will be key. You need to be able to succinctly sway others, deftly share plans, and inspire confidence through your words and actions.

There are two careers best suited for those who continually seek great business adventure: managing products and building companies. Product managers are always the greatest champions of their products -- that fortitude makes it possible to weather challenges along the way.

Leading products to market is not for those afraid of change, but neither is starting your own business. That is why those who thrive as product managers are so well prepared for the entrepreneurial ride.

Related:

Three Tips For UAE Business Owners For Designing Employee Health Packages

3 pasos para crear una startup exitosa

The 4 Traits Every Good Project Manager Needs



Copyright 2017 Entrepreneur.com Inc., All rights reserved
Ashgabat, Turkmenistan, Mar. 31

By Huseyn Hasanov  Trend:

Ashgabat will host International Energy Charter Forum on May 30-31, the Turkmen Foreign Ministry said in a message.

Meetings of this year are held under Turkmenistans presidency at the Energy Charter Conference.

The forum, titled Towards a Multilateral Framework Agreement on Transit of Energy Resources, will provide a platform for a policy dialogue on energy transit in order to promote open energy markets, diversification of supply sources and routes, and sustainable development.

The forum will address operational, regulatory and legal aspects of energy transit, including natural gas, oil and electricity. It will bring together government officials, representatives of international organizations, industry and academic institutions to discuss existing challenges and opportunities stemming from cross-border energy flows.

According to the message, the forum will be followed by the International Energy Media Forum to brief representatives of diplomatic corps in Turkmenistan and mass media on the Energy Charter Process and priorities of Turkmenistans chairmanship in 2017.

One of main aspects of Turkmenistans strategy is the diversification, expansion of geography of natural gas export, creation of multi-vector gas transportation system.

The international legal regulation of energy resources transit is also among priorities.

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 nine percent of total global reserves, which puts Turkmenistan on the fourth position in this field after Iran, Russia and Qatar.
Tapas at El Quinto Pino. Photo: Liz Clayman

Like many dining genres adopted by New Yorkers from far away, this ancient style of bar snacking has mutated into all sorts of strange and unrecognizable forms over the years. Here, we focus on the absolute best classic-tapas establishments (as opposed to Spanish-themed small-plates restaurants), where the traditional dishes are small in size, numerous in number, and best enjoyed with a glass of wine, or three, at the bar.

The Absolute Best 1. El Quinto Pino

401 W. 24th St., nr. Ninth Ave.; 212-206-6900 There are a billion tapas joints scattered around the big city, but the undisputed masters of the genre are Alex Raij and her husband from the Basque country, Eder Montero. The industrious couple runs three exemplary Spanish-themed restaurants around town, but if youre in the market for the classic tapas at the bar experience  surrounded by boisterous crowds of tapeador revelers, all fueled by a steady stream of faithfully fashioned lamb skewers, silvery anchovies, and crispy, creamy croquetas  this is the place to visit. The smallish Chelsea space boasts a stylish, relatively quiet dining room in the back, but if you wish to feel like youve been transported to a slightly chaotic, out-of-the-way tapas destination in one of the more fashionable precincts of Barcelona, then we suggest you fight for a place at one of the counters up front  or even better, one of the stools at the small, curving white-marble bar. Two kinds of sangria are available, in addition to a steady stream of sherries, gin-tinted libations, and moderately priced Spanish wines. Everything on the compact, carefully edited menu is good, but pay attention to the classics, like the thin, crunchy-edged slices of Pan amb Tomaca spread with crushed tomatoes, Catalan olive oil and sea salt, the aforementioned croquetas (one with serrano ham, the other a crunchy, bite-size version of shepherds pie), and that bellwether of fine tapas joints everywhere, the tortilla espanola, which is cut in a generous pie-size wedge at this tapas joint, and plated with a little pool of creamy, housemade aioli.

2. Bar Jamon

125 E. 17th St., nr. Irving Pl.; 212-253-2773

Mario Batali has lately gussied up the Spanish-themed menus at a couple of his restaurants, but this little sidecar establishment to Casa Mono, in Gramercy Park, offers the most classic (and reasonably priced) tapas-style bang for the buck. Like next door at Casa Mono, the menu is overseen by the talented chef Andy Nusser, and it includes an excellent mix of imaginative tapas plates (frizzled baby squid over beds of sweet onions, crab salad with homemade sriracha) and slightly reimagined classics (try the tortilla espanola stuck with paprika-dusted potato chips). Pay special attention to the wines, which are drawn from Casa Monos impressive 30-page list.

3. Tertulia

359 Sixth Ave., nr. Washington Pl.; 646-559-9909

With its roaring oven fire, and hearty share plates portions, Seamus Mullens superior West Village establishment sometimes feels more like an Iberian-themed gastropub than a proper tapas bar; but if you perch at the small bar up front, and gorge on the excellent Snacks and Bites portion of the menu, youll feel like youre in tapeador heaven. Mullens own innovations  smoked pork cheeks with quail eggs; the sublime crushed-egg, potato, and iberico-ham sandwich  are worth the price of admission, and the house tortilla espanola is one of the best in town.

4. Donostia

155 Ave. B, nr. E. 10th St.; 646-256-9773

The white-marble bar at this bustling, faithfully rendered little Tompkins Square joint is reliably crowded and pleasingly long, and the large no-nonsense menu (hand-carved iberico ham, blood sausage and numerous other charcuteria and cheeses, Berberechos cockles canned in brine) is served with tip-tap efficiency on little round plates. There are plenty of wines to choose from, but the stars of the drinks list are the superior, sherry-crafted cocktails  in particular, the smooth, expertly chilled Rio de Barcelona, made with two kinds of vermouth and a hint of fennel.

5. Toro

85 Tenth Ave., nr. W. 15th St.; 212-691-2360

Unlike some other establishments on this list, Ken Oringer and Jamie Bissonnettes great aircraft carrier of a restaurant in the Meatpacking District doesnt conjure up images of intimate little bar hangouts back in old Catalonia, but with a wide-ranging, faithfully executed menu like this, who cares? The familiar members of the great tapas canon (a thin, garlicky pan con tomate, dry-cured chorizo with iberico ham) are well represented here, but pay attention to some of the more radical innovations, like the slim house croquettes made with salt cod, served with tempura lemon rings and aioli; and the chefs delicious pressed sea-urchin sandwich, with miso butter and pickled mustard seeds.

Honorable Mentions

Boqueria

171 Spring St., nr. Thompson St.; 212-343-4255



There are almost too many outlets (five and counting) of this brassy, happy-hour chain these days. But the Soho branch remains a dependable option for your dutiful critics when roaming around the blocks near the office, searching for a quick tapas fix.

Cata

245 Bowery, at Stanton St.; 212-505-2282

This Bowery joint that is technically more of a hybrid small-plates operation than a proper tapas bar. This does not detract from the quality of the menu (bacalao fritters, deviled eggs with fried oysters, quail eggs Benedict), or the vaunted house gin-and-tonics, which come in ten inventive styles.

Huertas

107 First Ave., nr. E. 7th St.; 212-228-4490



This fine East Village dining bar might be further up our list, but  as any member of the tapeador police will tell you  the specialty is Basque-style small bites, or pintxos, which are not technically tapas. By whatever name, the $65 small-plates dinner is possibly the finest tapas-esque omakase in town, and so is the egg-and-onion tortilla, which is made fresh to order every time.

Tapas Bar at La Sirena

88 Ninth Ave., nr. W. 17th St.; 212-977-6096

Casa Mono alum Anthony Sasso works his magic on a lavish new tapas menu, which was recently installed at the bar of this glittery Batali-Bastianich hotel operation. Highlights include a whole leek roasted in newspaper, and a globe of ham lit by the flame of a lardo candle.

Tia Pol

205 Tenth Ave., nr. W. 22nd St.; 212-675-8805

The diminutive Chelsea tapas destination has lost much of its luster since Alex Raij flew the coop after a dispute with her partners many years ago, but the classic, no-nonsense, small-plates menu endures; and in the manner of a faithful neighborhood bar, the snug little room has a durable, timeless feel.
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Haiti - FLASH : American visa scam on the internet





In a joint effort between the National Police of Haiti (PNH) and the U.S. Embassy, Embassy staff worked with Facebook to remove three profiles that were impersonating the U.S. Embassy. The fraudulent profiles, which included "Ambassy usa in haiti" and "Ambassade des Etats unis en Haiti port au prince," advertised fake visa programs. Applicants were directed to non-Embassy telephone numbers to reach people who pretended to be Embassy employees.



These profiles were fraudulent and several dozen Haitian citizens lost hundreds of dollars each by transferring money to bank accounts in the scam, lured with the promise that their visas would be automatically approved for a training program or scholarship opportunity.



The Embassy would like to remind visa applicants of the following:



"- U.S. visa fees in Haiti are never paid by Western Union or bank transfer. The only way to pay for a non-immigrant visa is directly at a participating branch of Sogexpress.



- The U.S. Embassy in Haiti never uses WhatsApp to communicate with visa applicants.



- Interviews are never conducted over the phone and consular staff cannot promise issuance of a visa before an in-person visa interview.



The best place for information on the visa process is at the website, https://www.ustraveldocs.com/ht This site and this site alone provides the authoritative information on making an appointment and paying the application fee. Applicants should only rely on this website for official information about the visa application process.



The U.S. Embassy official Facebook pages is : https://www.facebook.com/USEmbassyHaiti



The Embassy maintains an additional page for United States citizens in Haiti, https://www.facebook.com/PaP.ACS.



The U.S. Embassy works every day to fight visa scams that target Haitian citizens. If you receive a call from a possible visa scammer, never send money. Instead, please contact the U.S. Embassy immediately at : papfraud@state.gov"



HL/ HaitiLibre






















Haiti - Education : Soon an Institute of Higher Studies in Governance





The Institute of Higher Studies in Governance (IHEG), created by a group of North Americans, headed by Wilson Saintelmy, a Haitian Canadian, will open in the fall of 2017 in Haiti, at the El Rancho hotel site, a high-level bilingual university center in Port-au-Prince, which will offer programs for private and public managers.



The IHEG will be composed of three schools that will offer [international standards] programs at the various university levels : Canadian and Anglo-American Law, Management and Public Governance.



The student will have to take courses in all schools and will have to complete his training by a mandatory inter-university exchange program of at least one session in North America or the Caribbean.



The professors will come from Canada, the United States, France, Germany, Switzerland and Belgium with the approval of the Department of Higher Education and Scientific Research (DESRS) of the Ministry of National Education.



PI/ HaitiLibre






















Haiti - Religion : Mgr. Chibly Langlois takes sanctions against the Minister of Culture





Reacting in a note dated 29 March to the appointment of Father Limond Toussaint (Catholic priest of the diocese of Jacmel) as Minister of Culture and Communication in the Government Moise-Lafontant, Bishop of Les Cayes, Cardinal Chibly Langlois, President of the Episcopal Conference of Haiti (CEH), imposed a "suspense a divinis" on Father Toussaint, which prohibits him from exercising his priestly ministry and consequently administering the sacraments.



This sanction, which is primarily aimed at Father Toussaint's amendment, was applied because of his violation of Canon 285 of the Code of Canon Law of 1983 which states :



"1. Clerics are to refrain completely from all those things which are unbecoming to their state, according to the prescripts of particular law.



2. Clerics are to avoid those things which, although not unbecoming, are nevertheless foreign to the clerical state.



3. Clerics are forbidden to assume public offices which entail a participation in the exercise of civil power.



4. Without the permission of their ordinary, they are not to take on the management of goods belonging to lay persons or secular offices which entail an obligation of rendering accounts. They are prohibited from giving surety even with their own goods without consultation with their proper ordinary. They also are to refrain from signing promissory notes, namely, those through which they assume an obligation to make payment on demand."



"We paternally exhort him, by virtue of Divine Mercy, to remember the promises of his priestly ordination," recalls the note to Father Toussaint.



Learn more about "suspense" :

In canon law "suspense" is a penal sanction, which affects only the clerics (representative of the church). It belongs, with excommunication and prohibition, to the category of "medicinal" penalties, because they are aimed above all at the amendment of the culprit.



HL/ HaitiLibre


















Tashkent, Uzbekistan, Mar. 31

By Demir Azizov  Trend:

Uzbekneftegaz, national oil and gas industry holding company of Uzbekistan, and KazMunayGas, the state-owned oil and gas company of Kazakhstan, signed an agreement on cooperation in the oil and gas sector.

"The bilateral documents include an agreement on cooperation between Uzbekneftegaz and KazMunayGas National Company JSC in the development of joint marketing and logistics of oil products, the mutual interest in increasing the supply of crude oil to Uzbekistan, as well as the transit of crude oil through Kazakhstan," the Uzbek company said in a message.

A total of 10 documents worth about $97 million were signed last week at the Kazakh-Uzbek business forum held during the visit of Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev to Astana.

The signed documents also include a memorandum of understanding between Uzbekneftegaz and the Kazakh Energy Ministry for cooperation in the oil and gas industry.

Earlier, it was reported that Uzbekistan, in order to supply its refineries with oil, reached an agreement with Kazakhstan on the use of the Omsk-Pavlodar-Shymkent oil pipeline.
Published on 2017/03/31 | Source

Boy band EXO will perform in Seoul in late May.

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The two-day concert at Jamsil Olympic Stadium on May 27 and 28 will cap the K-pop act's third world tour, which kicked off in Seoul in July last year.

EXO reached a milestone during the tour, staging their 100th solo concert in Osaka on Dec. 11.

Before the finale in Seoul, they will embark on the North American leg of their tour on April 25.
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Published on 2017/03/31 | Source

Added episode 5 captures for the Korean drama "Radiant Office" (2017)

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Directed by Jeong Ji-in, Park Sang-hoon-III

Written by Jeong Hee-hyeon

Network : MBC

With Go Ah-sung, Ha Seok-jin, Lee Dong-hwi, Kim Dong-wook, Lee Ho-won, Kim Byung-choon,...

16 episodes - Wed, Thu 22:00

Synopsis

An abrasive marketing director and a female temporary contract worker at the same furniture company. She faces repeat rejection in her job search until despair drives her to attempt suicide. At the hospital, she learns she has a terminal condition, but then, finally succeeds in getting hired. With nothing to lose, she tackles her job and her life with a perspective.

Broadcast starting date in Korea : 2017/03/15

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Baku, Azerbaijan, Mar. 30

By Fatih Karimov  Trend:

Iran inaugurated two berthing posts of the Caspian Port Complex, located in the Anzali Free Zone, during a ceremony attended by President Hassan Rouhani on Mar. 30, IRINN TV reported.

The port will have 22 berthing posts and two breakwaters with total length of 5,100 meters, and its capacity is planned to reach 15 million tons once completed.

The Caspian Port Complex is intended to be of the third generation with modern technology and maritime utilities system, and also with a wide surrounding area that could provide logistic services, such as warehousing, processing and distribution of goods and products, establishing and expanding maritime industries like shipbuilding and other activities that could bring added value to products.

The port projects main characteristics:

- Basin area: 2 million m2

- Land side area: 1.2 million m2

- Eastern leg of breakwater: 2612 m

- Western leg of breakwater: 2635 m

- Width of the port: 2625 m

- Port entrance width: 240 m

- Port depth: 10 m
Tehran, Iran, Mar. 31

By Mehdi Sepahvand  Trend:

Iranian ex-president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's recent letter to US President Donald Trump was a national disgrace, says Chairman of Parliament's National Security and Foreign Policy Commission Alaeddin Boroujerdi.

"I don't understand what it means for a president of Iran to write to the US president who would not reply," Boroujerdi told ICANA news agency March 31.

In late February, Ahmadinejad wrote a letter to Trump, something that the former Iranian official announced on his website.

Later it was revealed that Ahmadinejad had handed the letter to the gatekeeper of Sweden's Embassy in Tehran, which acts as the US interest section in Iran. Following that, the embassy had announced that it had no duty to act as a "carrier of letters", saying it would not deliver the letter.
Klayman: Court Will Reverse 'Political Hack' Judge on Travel Ban

From NewsMax, March 30, 2017 (excerpt)

The Ninth Circuit Court will toss Wednesday's decision by a federal judge extending the order that blocks President Donald Trump's travel ban, Larry Klayman, founder of government watchdog group Freedom Watch, told Newsmax TV.

U.S. District Judge Derrick Watson of Hawaii "is so way out  he's such a political hack . . . that I think even the Ninth Circuit will reverse him," Klayman, a former federal prosecutor, told host Steve Malzberg on Thursday's "America Talks Live."

"Despite the fact the Ninth Circuit is pretty far left, there are even some leftists on that circuit like Judge Ronald Gould who actually follow the law. I don't think this Hawaii hack judge, who happens to be a friend of [former President Barack] Obama [and] former classmate at Yale Law School, [is] going to prevail.

"But he's trying to make a name for himself. He's hoping that if the Democrats win the next election in 2020, he might be catapulted up to the Ninth Circuit or the Supreme Court. This is a complete political hack. That's all he is."

read  Hack Judge

Hawaii AG: News Release

WaPo: Justice Department files appeal notice in Hawaii case on revised Trump travel ban

Totally Related: Dissent: Five Ninth Circuit Judges Rebuke Courts Immigration Ruling
In a world of increasing complexity and ambiguity, its not possible for leaders to have all the answers all the time, according to Michelle Gibbings, founder of Change Meridian and author of the book, Step Up: How to Build Your Influence at Work.



In todays frantic paced world, theres often an expectation that leaders need to have answers at their fingertips, and that its not OK to say I dont know or Im not sure, she said.



Additionally, we are surrounded by more information than ever and its becoming harder to know which sources to trust. We are bombarded with information, disinformation and loads and loads of data.



Gibbings added that when we take something on face value we may be missing key pieces of information or overlooking unseen options.



And when leaders hold dogmatic views and are certain about their opinion they open themselves up to decision failures.



Gibbings offered the following tips for leaders to be more curious and less certain:



Certainty enhances bias



History is littered with stories of leaders who thought they had the answers, ignored advice and consequently, made poor decisions. From the failure of Kodak, to AOLs disastrous purchase of Time Warner, to the collapse of Lehman Brothers and the demise of Arrium Steel.



Brian Cox, Advanced Fellow in Particle Physics at the University of Manchester said: Being dogmatic is not a positive attribute. Being certain about things is actually not a positive thing. And so I think somehow our societies have got into this position where people feel that certainty and strength and this kind of 'I make decisions', that that is a trait to be valued.



When leaders are certain they are right, they are close themselves off to other ideas and different opinions. This can lead to myopic and poor decision making, because of the bias we all have in how we process information and make decisions.



Your mindset is critical



Stanford Academic, Carol Dweck, confirmed this in her research on fixed and growth mindsets.



She found that people who have a fixed mindset see intelligence as static  a fixed trait. As a result, they want to always look smart and appear as though they have all the answers. They believe that success is based on talent alone  not work. This means they will avoid challenges and give up more easily. They also ignore feedback, which they see as criticism, and feel threatened by the success of others.



In contrast, people with a growth mindset believe that intelligence can be developed through hard work and effort. Consequently, they are more eager to embrace learning, take on challenges and persist, despite setbacks. They love learning and usually display higher resilience. They are also more willing to learn from others and receive feedback.



In her book, Mindset : Changing the Way You Think to Fulfil Your Potential, she highlights companies that have failed because of their leaders fixed mindset.



Embrace scepticism



In contrast, leaders who are comfortable with uncertainty have a growth mindset and are more willing to embrace the art of curiosity. They recognise that good decision making comes from asking lots of questions, not finding the one right answer.



And thats where scepticism plays its part.



According to the dictionary, to be sceptical is to be not easily convinced or to have doubts or reservations. Its easy to paint the sceptic in a negative light  as the person whos cynical and therefore to be dismissed.



When in fact being sceptical means you are curious. It means you recognise you dont have all the answers and so are open to challenge and debate, rather than having a fixed idea or opinion. Sceptics question. They critically think and ponder ideas. They reflect on what is really happening.



In doing this, they take the time to ensure they are:

Considering  whats happening around them and reflect on what they are seeing and hearing, and therefore what action should be taken

Challenging  assumptions they and others may have to ensure they are making a good decision and are being open to dissenting views and outlier opinions

Checking  their facts and interpretations of those facts as they are on the lookout for bias, which may adversely impact their thought processes and decisions.



The art of the good question



Core to this is being able to ask a good question.



This isnt about asking a question to get the answer they want. Instead leaders need to ask questions that:
Being named on the Employer of Choice report is a highly sought-after industry accolade for businesses across Australia, with a place on the list showcasing them as one of the countrys best workplaces.

The results of the report are entirely dependent on employee feedback so HR professionals are encouraged to share this link with their employees. The survey will ask for anonymous feedback across a number of areas including remuneration, career progression and recognition.
Tehran, Iran, Mar. 31

By Mehdi Sepahvand  Trend:

Former Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is said by many in the country to be pursuing a plan to rise to power again, however this time indirectly.

In 2016, Ahmadinejad was banned by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei from running for president this year. The presidential election is going to be held May 19.

However, the former president is now backing his former office chief Hamid Baqaee, who has said he will use Ahmadinejad "in the highest capacity" if he is made president.

The issue has met mixed reactions especially from right-wing parties, which backed Ahmadinejad up to power in 2005 and helped sustain his office in 2009.

Alaeddin Boroujerdi, chairman of the Parliament's National Security and Foreign Policy Commission, has said that the Ahmadinejad-backed candidate would not draw considerable votes, but stressed, however, that for Baqaee to run will add much to the fervor of the electoral campaigns.

In the meantime, Nasser Imani, another conservative figure, has said Ahmadinejad's support for Baqaee is "stark contradiction of the Leader's advice".

In the meantime, it is a surprise that neither the moderate President Hassan Rouhani, nor the reform-minded parties have commented on Ahmadinejad's tacit campaign. Rouhani is going to run for a second term this year.
(Reuters) Hedge fund Sarissa Capital Management LP on Thursday sought a sharp cut in the compensation of Innoviva Incs chief executive, the latest salvo by the activist investor in its proxy fight against the drug company. Sarissa has nominated three directors to Innovivas board and criticized the companys cost structure, as well as executive compensation, considering that it only manages drug royalties and does not market or sell any products.

Sarissa, run by billionaire investor Carl Icahns former healthcare lieutenant, also called for a pay cut for Innovivas board members.

To read this article:
(Reuters) Investment-fund boards of directors have a critical responsibility to be an independent watchdog on behalf of investors. For most U.S. retail investors, mutual-fund directors of mutual funds are held to strict standards under the Investment Company Act of 1940 and usually perform as required. However, directors of private funds, that is, hedge funds, often are not truly independent, meaning free from conflict. And often they serve more as a rubber stamp signatory with little monitoring or oversight.

Structural problems associated with directors of private funds are reviewed below, in light of a case against hedge fund firm Platinum Partners, where criminal charges were filed against top executives for running the $1.4 billion fund like a Ponzi scheme. Some suggestions and best-practice advice for private fund boards of directors are also offered.

To read this article:
Theyve made a very positive impression on me. Theyre more open-minded, more sharp-thinking than what you might come across at universities. I dont want to reprimand universities, but Im definitely not looking down my nose at universities of applied sciences, he stated in his speech to the Finnish Parliament on Wednesday.

Bengt Holmstrom, a Nobel Laureate in Economics, has heaped praise on the universities of applied sciences in Finland.

Finlands universities of applied sciences, he said, are much more American than universities. Theyve got drive, as people say.

Holmstrom has repeatedly encouraged Finland to follow in the footsteps of the United States by shifting the focus of its higher education system from post-graduate to undergraduate degrees.

Universities of applied sciences would also be a good fit for such a system, he estimated: What their role would be is an interesting question in my opinion. They mustnt be wiped out, but we must find a way to put their resources to good use.

From that viewpoint, you could see a case for some consolidations. In Vaasa, for example, the university and university of applied sciences are working together, added Holmstrom.

Holmstrom also estimated that the future of the country depends crucially on how education and higher education are organised. Highly-educated fields, he pointed out, currently account for a considerable share of net job creation.

The graduates of universities of applied sciences, he gauged, are more likely to find employment than those of universities.

His estimation is corroborated by statistics, at least to an extent: Last year, the employment rate stood at 73.5 per cent for the graduates of universities of applied sciences and at 69.5 per cent for university graduates. The unemployment rate, on the other hand, stood at 10.6 per cent for the graduates of universities of applied sciences and at 9.8 per cent for university graduates.

But its upsetting to look at how long it takes [students] to move up in the academic world. And looking at the quality of teaching in some sub-sectors, I think that its low, said Holmstrom.

Holmstrom, who was born in Helsinki in 1949 and is currently a professor of economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), was invited to speak in the Parliament by Speaker of the Parliament Maria Lohela (PS). The Parliament convened yesterday to commemorate the Nobel Prize awarded last year to Holmstrom and Oliver Hart for their work on contract theory.

Aleksi Teivainen  HT

Photo: Martti Kainulainen  Lehtikuva

Source: Uusi Suomi
The launch was the first attempt by SpaceX at sending the well-known Falcon 9 rocket back to space  and since, it's already been there back in April 2016, when it delivered necessary supplies to the crew of the International Space Station (ISS), it's been labeled as "recycled."

"Falcon 9 first stage has landed on Of Course I Still Love You [drone ship]  worlds first reflight of an orbital class rocket," SpaceX wrote on its official Twitter page on Thursday, minutes after it announced the liftoff of Falcon 9, Sputnik reported.

The SpaceX project has been four years in the making, while Elon Musk, who heads the California-based company, has been trying to refine the technology.

Over recent months SpaceX has suffered a series of delays. In January, they confirmed that Falcon 9 would not launch after the rocket was involved in an accident.
THE new mayor of Henley is set to be management consultant Will Hamilton.

The 43-year-old Conservative, who is currently Deputy Mayor, was made mayor-elect at a meeting of the town council on Tuesday.

His deputy will be fellow Conservative Simon Smith and they will officially take over at the mayor-making ceremony on May 8.

Councillor Hamilton was proposed by the incumbent Julian Brookes and seconded by Councillor David Nimmo Smith, both Conservatives.

Councillor Ian Reissmann, of Henley Residents Group, called for the decision to be postponed until after the two council by-elections on May 4 but this was rejected as Councillor Hamilton was approved with six votes in favour, none against and three abstentions.

He then proposed Councillor Smith as his deputy, seconded by Cllr Nimmo Smith, and this was carried by seven votes for, none against and three abstentions.

Cllr Hamilton, of Greys Road, has lived in the town for more than 20 years and was first elected to the council in 2011.

For the last two years he has been chairman of the councils finance strategy and management committee.

Cllr Smith works at the Sainsburys supermarket in Bell Street.

He was first elected to the town council in 2007 but lost his seat in the elections in 2011. He returned to the council in 2015.

He is currently chairman of the councils planning

committee.
Japanese whalers have killed 333 black minke whales during a government-backed months-long expedition to allegedly survey biomass resources, Sputnik reported.

The agency said as cited by news outlets that a fleet of five ships returned to Japan's southern port city of Shimonoseki earlier in the day after completing five months of research of the Antarctic Ocean ecosystem.

The International Whaling Commission banned commercial whaling globally in 1986 but later made an exception for scientific research, a loophole Japan has been using for decades.

The International Court of Justice (ICJ) ordered Japan to halt whale research in the Antarctic in early 2014. It adhered to the ruling and skipped one hunting season but reapplied for permission to resume whaling in December 2015 and sent ships out on a whale hunt the next year.
A Dublin grandmother has been left devastated after all three of her sons were killed in a helicopter crash.

Noeleen Burke, aged in her 80s, from Kimmage, south Dublin, lost Kevin, Donald and Barry Burke when their helicopter went down en route from Luton to Dublin on Wednesday.

All three men were born in Britain to Ms Burke and her husband Donal, who was from Co Mayo. They were returning to Ireland for a family confirmation when tragedy struck.

Donal was a member of the De Burca family, from the Kilcummin area on the north Mayo coast. He died three years ago.

Kevin, aged in his mid-50s, was the eldest of the three brothers and was flying the helicopter when it went down.

They had one sister, who was not in the helicopter when the tragedy struck.

Expand Close Emergency services head to the crash site in north Wales. Photo: PA / Facebook

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Whatsapp Emergency services head to the crash site in north Wales. Photo: PA

Kevin's wife Ruth (49) and Donald's wife Sharon also died in the tragedy.

"We were all a very close family. We're absolutely devastated. They were coming to Dublin for a family confirmation." an Irish-based relative told the Herald last night.

Risks

"Kevin was a very experienced pilot. He never took chances. He was an excellent pilot and he had a lot of flight hours and he never took risks."

The relative said the family had messaged her on Wednesday morning.

"They only decided to come when they checked the weather, which was supposedly okay, but it doesn't look like it was," she said.

"We were all looking forward to seeing them. We're all devastated. They were lovely people and they were very family orientated. We were all very close. Kevin was generous and loving. They were all generous and loving people."

She said the adult children regularly returned to Dublin and Mayo for visits.

"The Burkes all have places in Mayo and the family would all congregate in Mayo every year," she said.

The Irish parents lived in Scotland before moving to England, where Donal worked as a lecturer. The family of four children were brought up in Bletchley, near Milton Keyes.

Kevin and Ruth have been survived by their two teenage children, while Donald and Sharon are survived by their son and twin daughters.

Barry is survived by his partner and one son.

The five occupants of the aircraft were killed instantly when the private helicopter they were using to fly from Luton, north of London, to Dublin's Weston Airport crashed in the Rhinog mountains in the Snowdonia National Park in north Wales.

"Six children have lost their parents in this tragedy," said a family spokesman.

Tragedy

It is believed Kevin, who was flying his construction company's helicopter - an Airbus/EuroCopter Twin Squirrel - was attempting to descend to avoid inclement weather when the tragedy occurred. Kevin and his wife ran the successful Milton Keynes-based construction firm Staske Ltd.

A vastly experienced pilot, he used the firm's helicopter to commute between the various development projects his firm undertook around the UK.

All five bodies were found shortly before lunch yesterday, when the UK Coastguard and North Wales Police switched the focus of their search from Caernarfon Bay to the Snowdonia mountains. The police used mobile phone triangulation data to focus their search effort on a remote mountainous area.

Seven mountain rescue teams, as well as specialist dog search teams, examined the Rhinog area before the wreckage was found. All five bodies were located by or within the wreckage. Weather conditions were so bad that search teams operated with visibility of less than 10 metres. The crash site has been preserved pending a full investigation into the tragedy by the UK Air Accident Investigation Branch.

No mayday was received from the twin-engined helicopter, which vanished off radar and from radio contact shortly after 4pm on Wednesday.

The Twin Squirrel is one of the most popular light helicopters in private use.

Location

Superintendent Gareth Evans, of North Wales Police, said the exact location of the crash was not being revealed.

This was "to allow a dignified and unhindered recovery of the bodies in what is described as very difficult and challenging terrain".

Elizabeth Thornley (24), who lives near the Burkes' UK home, said they had not lived at the property long and had been "doing up the house for about a year-and-a-half".

The removal of the bodies was suspended last night due to bad weather.
The United States added three North Korean nationals living in Russia to its North Korea sanctions list, the US Treasury Department Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) said on Friday, Sputnik reported.

The three North Korean nationals Chun Yong Choe, Jang Su Han and Nam Ung Kim, are residents of Moscow and are linked to the Ilsim International Bank and Foreign Trade Bank.

The United States also added 11 individuals and one entity to its North Korea sanctions list, the US Treasury Department Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) said on Friday.

The individuals are North Korean nationals residing in Russia, China, Cuba and Vietnam. Additionally, OFAC sanctioned one entity, the Paeksol Trading Corporation based in North Korea.

Last year, North Korea carried out two nuclear tests and over two dozen of test launches using ballistic missile technology. Previously, the United Nations imposed sanctions on North Korea for three nuclear tests it carried out in 2006, 2009 and 2013.

In late April, 2016, the 38 North monitoring website released commercial satellite imagery showing that North Korea was resuming excavation operations at the Punggye-ri nuclear test site, with similar activity observed at the facility as that seen three days prior to the February 12, 2013 nuclear test.

The UN Security Council has adopted a number of resolutions imposing restrictions on North Korea in order to make Pyongyang halt its nuclear and missile activities.

North Korea declared itself a nuclear power in 2005. The United States, Japan and South Korea, as well as Russia and China, took part in talks with North Korea on the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula between 2003 and 2009, when Pyongyang withdrew from the talks.
A hotel worker who sued after cutting his hand on a piece of glass while gathering up till receipts in a busy bar has been awarded more than 77,000 by the High Court.

Ms Justice Bronagh O'Hanlon said Adam Conway (23) had been left with a zigzag scar on his left ring finger.

He also now had a decreased grip in his left hand, she said.

Mr Conway, of Fairyhill, Bray, Co Wicklow, sued Mageiteagain Ltd, of Marino Mart, Fairview, Dublin, which was the then owner of the Royal Hotel & Merrill Leisure Club in Bray.

The accident happened in the hotel's Ballroom Bar in the early hours of New Year's Day, 2014.

Surgery

Mr Conway, who was an assistant duty manager at the time, was directed to tidy items from around the cash register.

Unfortunately, the judge said, a piece of glass was tucked between the receipts and Mr Conway suffered a deep cut to his finger.

He was taken to hospital and later had to have surgery.

Mr Conway claimed there was a failure to have a safe system of work and a hazard or trap had been created at the cash register. The case was undefended.

The court heard he would become one of the preferential creditors in the liquidation of the defendant company.

In evidence, Mr Conway said he missed his third level exams the following spring as he could not write.

He was off work for three months and also suffered pain if he had to carry heavy items.

Ms Justice O'Hanlon awarded 75,000 in general damages and 2,491 in special damages.
Kyle Swan (20) admitted theft on the first day of his new job

A restaurant employee stole a mobile phone from a co-worker's pocket while on his first day of a job trial.

Kyle Swan (20) had just been hired when he had an "uncontrollable desire" to steal the device, a court heard.

He was fired and arrested for theft after his boss caught him on CCTV.

Swan, of Drumalee Road, Dublin 7, pleaded guilty at Dublin District Court to theft. Judge Anthony Halpin adjourned the case for a community service suitability report.

The court heard that Swan started work at Supermac's, on O'Connell Street on March 9 last. He was hired on a trial basis and went to a staff area where he went through the pockets of workers' coats.

He found and took an Alcatel mobile phone worth 40. The next day, the manager saw CCTV of the theft and confronted Swan, who admitted taking the phone. He still had it on him and it was retrieved and returned to the owner.

"He stole it from one of his fellow workers, one of his colleagues," Judge Halpin said.

"What makes matters worse is that it happened on his first day in the job," Swan's lawyer said.

Stupid

"It calls into question the selection procedure the company uses," Judge Halpin said.

"When he was in work, he saw the mobile phone in the jacket and he took it," Swan's lawyer added. "He completely accepts that it was a stupid move in relation to his future career going forward."

There was no indication Swan had intended to sell the phone on. He was subsequently fired because of the breach of trust involved.

Swan now had an apprenticeship lined up for another job.

Judge Halpin initially asked for Swan to be assessed for community service instead of a sentence but was told the Probation Service would need more time.

Swan's lawyer asked the judge if he would consider ordering a charity donation.

"This isn't an ordinary case," the judge said. "This is a case where an employee gets a job and is working with fellow employees, there is an obligation to fellow workers, there is an implicit requirement for trustworthiness and honesty in the contract of employment."

The judge said this was the reason he wanted the accused to carry out community service.

"He stole this because he had an uncontrollable desire, he wanted this particular phone."
A woman who banged her knee against the leg of a table while sitting down to dinner at a hotel, has been awarded 20,000 in damages.

The High Court heard that hairdresser Annette O'Connor had been directed to a table in the Mullingar Park Hotel restaurant, had waited while the manager withdrew her chair, then sat down and injured her left knee as she pulled her chair in to the table.

Ms O'Connor (48), of The View, Larch Hill, Santry, Dublin, was on a Mother's Day weekend stay at the hotel with five friends in March 2011.

She claimed that being directed to the table setting right over the metal leg, which was concealed by a table cloth, constituted "a trap" and negligence on the part of the hotel owners, Euro Plaza Hotel Limited.

Ms O'Connor told the court she was not given any warning that the leg was hidden right in front of where she had been directed to sit.

As she pulled in her chair, her left knee struck a leg that had been obscured by the tablecloth.

She had been awarded 18,000 damages at Mullingar Circuit Court by Judge Doirbhile Flanagan, whose judgment was appealed to the High Court.

Ms Justice Mary Faherty affirmed the lower court's finding and increased damages to 20,000 and costs.

Ms O'Connor's legal team claimed negligence against the hotel on the basis the table set-up constituted a trap or hazard for patrons and that their client had been directed to sit in an unsafe spot.

It was also claimed the table place setting had been prepared in "a reckless or careless and inattentive manner".

Ms O'Connor claimed she immediately felt pain and shock but had her meal before retiring to her room, where staff brought her an ice pack and a drink.

When she returned home, she attended her local doctor, the Beaumont Hospital for X-rays and later a specialist in muscle spasm. The injury had disrupted her personal and professional life as a hairdresser.

Investigate

The judge said she accepted it was foreseeable that such an accident could occur and that liability lay with the hotel.

Contributory negligence could not be applied to Ms O'Connor as she had been specifically directed to the table and could not reasonably have been expected to investigate where the legs were.

Witnesses on behalf of the hotel told the court the table was of a type used all over the world and was found to be perfectly suitable for restaurants.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said Friday he expected all 28 member states to ratify a protocol on Montenegros accession in June, Sputnik reported.

The small Balkan nation is on its way to become the 29th member of the US-led military alliance after the US Senate ratified its accession on Tuesday.

"Montenegrin succession to the NATO family of democratic nations will contribute to the stability of the region and the whole of Europe and I expect all nations to fully complete ratification in June," Stoltenberg said.

Once all member states have ratified the protocol, Montenegro will be invited to accede to the North Atlantic Treaty. It was formally invited to join the bloc in December 2015.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg reacted positively to U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillersons official visit to Turkey on Thursday, Anadolu reported.

Speaking ahead a NATO Foreign Ministers Summit in Brussels, Stoltenberg welcomed the discussion on fighting against Daesh and cooperation in Syria between two allies of the military alliance.

I just welcome that two allies the United States and Turkey sat together and discussed how to, in the best possible way, fight against ISIL [Daesh] and to make sure that they work together to fight in the best possible way in northern Syria, Stoltenberg said.

His statement comes amid Tillersons visit to Ankara where he met Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Prime Minister Binali Yildirim and Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu.

During his meeting with Turkish officials Tillerson discussed Turkeys fight against Daesh, the PKK, the Fetullah Terrorist Organization (FETO) and the extradition of FETO leader Fetullah Gulen who resides in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania.

Stoltenberg told reporters that NATO forces had not joined the field operation in northern Syria but supported some NATO member states counter-terrorism efforts in the area.

Referring to a recent U.S. raid in Mosul that killed at least 200 Iraqis, Stoltenberg said that he was waiting for the results of some different reports to speak about the incident.

Foreign ministers of 28 member states of the intergovernmental military alliance will come together at its headquarters in Brussels on Friday to discuss defense spending and the fight against terrorism.

Turkish FM Cavusoglu is expected to attend the meeting which will also pave the way for a Brussels gathering of NATO leaders on May 25.
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I have always been reluctant to single out individual brands and models at the major watch shows for fear of sidelining other brands and watches that may be just as interesting. I consider it my job to present the facts about new watches and let the reader decide for themselves. But at Baselworld this year I couldnt help but notice the amount of times that other people wanted to hear my opinion, whether fellow journalists or brand representatives (who often have no time to check out what is going on around the cavernous halls of the show). So for a change, I have selected five watches that impressed me at Baselworld 2017. Each did so for different reasons and some of these timepieces were already the talk of Baselworld before I saw them for myself. Here they are in alphabetical order.



Anonimo Nautilo

Its a good sign when you see three new models during a brand presentation, each of which you are seriously considering buying, but you cant make your mind up. This was the case on the Anonimo stand, where a split decision left me hesitating between the new Nautilo model with a bronze case and blue dial with blue ceramic bezel or the same model with the steel case and either the blue or black dial. The brands CEO Julien Haenny was keen to sell me all three, of course, but let slip that I may want to choose one and wait for the models to be presented for the brands 20th anniversary later this year before buying another. After a sneak preview I can see why, and my definitive choice would be for the bronze model with the blue dial.

Price: 2,790 Swiss francs



Bulgari Octo Finissimo Automatic

The new Bulgari Octo Finissimo automatic was the talk of the show from the very first day, because there is nothing better to get people talking than a new world record. In this case it is the worlds thinnest self-winding wristwatch, but the new Octo Finissimo is so much more. Its octagonal design has already proved itself in numerous iterations but the combination of matte grey on the titanium case and dial of this new model, which is available with a matching ultra-thin titanium bracelet, is simply sublime. It weighs in at just 42 grammes with the leather strap or 62.7 grammes with the bracelet.

Price: 11,900 Swiss francs on black leather strap, 12,900 on titanium bracelet.





Faberge Visionnaire Chronograph

I already wrote about the new Faberge Visionnaire Chronograph at length just before Baselworld, having been treated to an in-depth explanation by the movements inventor Jean-Marc Wiederrecht of Agenhor. But I had yet to see the finished watch in real life. The black ceramic and titanium version is my clear favourite. A slight optical illusion makes it look smaller than its gold and titanium equivalent, but in both cases I am more interested in admiring the precise instant jumps on the chronograph scale, which is clearly readable at the centre of the dial.

Price (black ceramic and titanium version): 39,000 Swiss francs









Kerbedanz Maximus

I had a short phone call from the folks at Kerbedanz before Baselworld to inform me that the brand would be launching the worlds biggest tourbillon on Saturday. This was impressive in itself, but the significant piece of information that was not communicated at the time was that this was a central tourbillon. Not only is this therefore quite a rare watchmaking complication, it also sets a new record with a tourbillon carriage that measures 27mm in diameter. But more importantly than that, when I discovered the new watch, which is being produced as a limited edition of 99, I found the design and the giant tourbillon (which revolves around the dial every six minutes), quite simply mesmerising.

Price (titanium version): 165,000 Swiss francs





Seiko  Grand Seiko Hi-Beat Professional Diver

My weakness for a fine divers watch shows through here, but as with Anonimo, there were three models presented by Seiko this year that caught my eye, from the top-of-the-range Grand Seiko Hi-Beat Professional Diver to the re-edition of the first-ever Seiko divers watch from 1960 and a new Prospex diver. Seiko announced that it was henceforth positioning Grand Seiko as an autonomous brand, aiming for greater global awareness. The products deserve it, but at prices in excess of 12,000 the brand is clearly encroaching on the hallowed green turf of Rolex. Out of the limited edition in steel with blue dial (500 pieces) and the standard black model, my preference is for the limited edition.

Price (limited edition in steel with blue dial): 12,300
Trump has repeatedly threatened to withdraw the United States from the 2015 Paris Agreement. (Photo : Getty Images)

For years, China has been on the receiving end of reminders and scoldings from other nations, particularly the United States, when it comes to commitments to fight climate change. Nowadays, as the Trump administration undoes the climate change policies its predecessor has worked on, the roles have been reversed.



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In a report by Today Online, experts posit that China will more likely take a leadership role in worldwide climate change efforts. Its role will mostly revolve around making the U.S. honor its commitments in the spirit of the 2015 Paris Agreement.



Theyve set the direction they intend to go in the next five years, Barbara Finmore, senior lawyer and Asia director of the Natural Resources Defence Council, told Today Online.



Its clear they intend to double down on bringing down their reliance on coal and increasing their use of renewable energy.



Furthermore, Finmore believes that assuming the role of the U.S. in the climate change arena was included in Chinas five-year plans.



Donald Trump, throughout his presidential campaign, has consistently made statements in line with climate change denial, pointing his fingers at China for being responsible in the creation of a hoax. Additionally, Trump has repeatedly threatened to withdraw the U.S. from the 2015 Paris Agreement.



Meanwhile, Chinese officials, including President Xi Jinping, continue to promote the Paris Agreement, encouraging all signatories to meet their climate commitments.



All signatories should stick to it instead of walking away from it, as this is a responsibility we must assume for future generations, Xi said at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, earlier this year.



Furthermore, Beijing has adopted a slew of policies in line with its climate commitments, showing that the Communist Party has attached even greater importance to ecological civilization and green development, said Chai Qimin, a climate change researcher and policy adviser.



Everyone is taking this more and more seriously, Chai said in an interview before a climate conference in Marrakesh.


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Need help looking up candidates? Here's a breakdown of the critical seats across the state.
Vice Premier Wang Qishan is the chief of China's anti-corruption watchdog. (Photo : Getty Images)

China's anti-corruption drive is reaching out to countries around the world in the hope to catch fugitives who are escaping corruption charges.



The Chinese government has tried to get the cooperation of other countries. China has been convincing other nations to sign an extradition treaty.



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However, there are countries who are still unconvinced because of China's notorious reputation on human rights abuses. These countries believe that supporting an extradition treaty will mean death to officials accused of corruption.



China now wants to use other options for capturing the fugitives who are hiding in different parts of the world. According to Zhuang Deshui, director of Peking University's anti-corruption study center, the Chinese government has other means, and the extradition treaty is just one of many.



He said, "If the treaty can't be signed in the near future, there are other options, like return by persuasion, illegal immigration and other judicial cooperation. . . . When this gate is not open, we can try the window, and if windows are not open, we can try digging holes."



There have been 47,650 officials that were investigated. The total number includes 21 ministers.



This week, Communist Party officials were mandated to study the confessions of these officials as a part of training for interrogation work. Anti-corruption officials from China are trained to convince relatives to turn in suspected criminals.



The government has launched various anti-corruption operations called Operation Fox Hunt, which has resulted in the return of 951 fugitives to China since 2014. Out of the total, eight have been extradited and 19 were registered by the Interpol.



Another manhunt called Operation Skynet led to the return of 1,032 fugitives from 70 countries. There were 39 officials arrested out of the top 100 most wanted.



China's anti-corruption drive is spearheaded by the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection under Vice Premier Wang Qishan.


Beijing Asks Chinese Companies to Respect Indian Laws and Customs After the Oppo Incident

An Oppo mascot is seen in the stands during the ICC World Twenty20 India 2016 match between Sri Lanka and West Indies at M. Chinnaswamy Stadium on March 20, 2016 in Bangalore, India. (Photo : Getty Images)

In a statement on Wednesday, China has appealed to its firms to show respect to Indian laws and customs following the flag controversy at Oppos office in India.



Oppo, a Chinese smartphone manufacturer, was under attack as a Chinese employee in the companys office in Noida has been reported to have allegedly disrespected the Indian flag. A surveillance video has captured the Chinese tearing and throwing the Indian tricolors into a dustbin.



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The Chinese government has also requested India to defend the rights of Chinese nationals and Chinese firms while the incident is under investigation.



"We have seen the report. As far as we know, the company is in touch with the local police. We hope this issue can be resolved properly," said Lu Kang, a Foreign Ministry spokesperson.



"The Chinese government always asks its Chinese enterprises and staff overseas to abide by local laws and regulations and to respect local practices and customs," Lu said.



"We also hope the legitimate rights of the Chinese enterprises and staff will be strictly safeguarded under regulations of law," the spokesman added.



Oppo, a tech firm based in Guangdong, has become a major smartphone brand in India together with other Chinese trademarks such as Xiaomi, Vivo and Huawei. The said brands are currently in the top five smartphone brands in the Indian market.



According to reports, a case has been filed against the Chinese national, a production manager in Oppos Indian office, for alleged tearing and placing the Indian flag in a dustbin. The company has not been available for a comment.



A CCTV footage from the company premises would be investigated to establish facts of the case, according to Indian authorities.



Indians have protested in front of Oppos Noida office to condemn the incident, demanding Chinese nationals and companies to respect their laws and customs.


Avi Arad, Marc Webb, Emma Stone, Andrew Garfield, Park Bom, Sandara Park, Rhys Ifans, Gong Min-ji, and Matt Tolmach attend the 'The Amazing Spider-Man' Seoul premiere at Lotte Cinema on June 14, 2012 in Seoul, South Korea. (Photo : Getty Images/Chung Sung-Jun)

2NE1 released its final single "Good Bye" on Jan. 21. Months later, Sandara Park, 32, who is professionally known as Dara, is asked about a possible reunion of her three fellow former members of the K-Pop girl group namely Lee Chae Rin, 26, Park Bom, 33, and Gong Min Ji, 23, who are professionally known as CL, Bom and Minzy, respectively.



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In an interview with Ilgan Sports, as cited by All KPop, Dara discussed the possibility of a 2NE1 reunion. She said she was looking forward to and waiting for it considering that many former K-Pop girl group members are coming back nowadays.



Dara confessed that she had always hid behind CL. The former added that she was scared to do things by herself without a leader.



About returning to life as a solo artist, Dara said it was a really big change as she got used to doing things, such as interviews, with CL, Bom and Minzy. For her, it can get burdensome to come by herself making her feel alone and lonely because of little things.



The 2NE1 disbandment is a step toward change for Dara. While she expected that things would turn out like this one day and they could not be together as a team when they were old women, she said she and her fellow former 2NE1 members are working separately only temporarily and this is not the end for them.



One of the first major projects of Dara as a solo artist is playing the lead role in the film "One Step." It is a Korean remake of the musical comedy-drama film, which starred Keira Knightley, Mark Ruffalo and Adam Levine.



Set to premiere on April 6, "One Step" was written by Hong Seung Pyo and directed by Juhn Jai Hong. Joining Dara in the cast are Han Jae Suk, Hong Ah Reum and Cho Dong.



On March 24, Dara and Han were in Busan to promote the movie. Before a special public preview of the movie at Busan Cinema Center, they had a small live concert where they gave the audience a live performance of "Song of Memory," one of the songs from the movie, Yonhap News reported.



Watch a video featuring Dara here:






FBI Headquarters (Photo : Getty Images)

An employee of the U.S. State Department could be facing 25 years in prison if found guilty of the charges filed against her by the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).



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The federal agency has arrested and charged the employee for denying her links with Chinese intelligence agents and for providing U.S. inside information to the agents as well as receiving thousands of dollars in gifts from them for about five years.



The Financial Times said that the FBI arrested Candice Claiborne, 60, on Tuesday, March 28, and charged her with obstructing an official proceeding. She had been charged with two felony offenses, with a maximum total sentence of 25 years in prison.



According to the complaint filed by Kellie O'Brien, an FBI counter-intelligence agent in Washington, Claiborne had admitted helping Chinese intelligence agents by providing "information about a dissident who was being secretly housed at the embassy."



Claiborne, also confessed to handing out to Chinese agents unclassified economic reports, which she insisted was "nothing compromising".



"Claiborne used her position and her access to sensitive diplomatic data for personal profit," Mary McCord, acting assistant attorney general for national security, said.



Claiborne, who worked for the State Department since 1999 as an office management specialist, had been assigned in Beijing, Washington, Baghdad, Shanghai and Khartoum. At the time of her arrest, she worked in the Office of Caucasus affairs and regional conflicts at the State Department headquarters.



Claiborne made her first court appearance on Wednesday, March 29, and pleaded not guilty to the charges.



Cash in exchange of information



According to the FBI, Claiborne started working for the Chinese in May 2011. She received $2,500 in her bank account, a month after the Chinese asked her for information on U.S. views of the Strategic and Economic Dialogue, a meeting held in Washington every year.



Three other unidentified persons were charged as co-conspirators in the FBI complaint filed in the U.S. District for the District of Columbia. The FBI said that two were Chinese intelligence agents of the Shanghai State Security Bureau and Claiborne's 34-year-old male American friend, who lives with her.



The FBI said that Claiborne received gifts from the Chinese, directly or through her male friend. The gifts include a $4,000 vacation to Thailand, an Apple iPhone and MacBook computer and free hotel stays in China. The Chinese also paid the young man's $12,000 tuition in a fashion school, and an additional $35,000 to finish his studies.



The FBI added that although State Department regulations require her to report such contacts, Claiborne continued communicating with the Chinese. She even denied communicating with any foreign agents or receiving gifts during an interview for the renewal of her security clearance in Sept. 2015.



U.S. federal agents said that they intercepted phone calls Claiborne made near her government office as well as emails among the co-conspirators. Through a court-ordered search, FBI located the emails between the State Department employee and her Chinese handlers.



In January, an undercover FBI agent approached and talked to Claiborne, who "invited him into her home, where they talked for almost 1.5 hours," the FBI said.



Claiborne's arrest came 10 years after Donald Keyser, a State Department official, pleaded guilty to delivering classified U.S. documents to a Taiwanese intelligence agent and lying to investigators about it.


Throughout "In Search of Israeli Cuisine," Michael Solomonov dines on Israeli street food, upscale modern Israeli cuisine, Palestinian home cooking and everything in between.

(JTA)-"I thought it was just going to be about falafel and hummus."

That was the perception of Israeli cuisine that filmmaker Roger Sherman had when he reluctantly decided to accompany his friend, the acclaimed Jewish cookbook writer Joan Nathan, on a food tour of Israel in 2010. But the reality exceeded his expectations.

"I was blown away by what I consider to be the hottest food scene in the world," Sherman told JTA in a recent interview. "I thought, this is the perfect subject for a film."

It was. After a successful run on the festival circuit, Sherman's documentary "In Search of Israeli Cuisine"-which attempts to define and explore what Israeli food actually is-opens March 24 in New York at Lincoln Plaza and the Angelika Film Center. It will open March 31 in Los Angeles, San Francisco and Philadelphia, with other cities to follow.

In general, "we don't know anything about what goes on in Israel except for conflict," Sherman said. "This is a portrait of the Israeli people through food."

Sherman, whose previous documentaries include "Medal of Honor" (2008) and "The Restaurateur" (2010), said he usually avoids having hosts in his films-"I feel they get in the way between the subjects and the viewers"-but he wanted to change up the approach for this documentary.

"Israel is such a complicated place, I needed someone to help translate that situation," he said.

After a trip from New York to check out Zahav, a Philadelphia restaurant that a friend described as serving the best Israeli food in the U.S., Sherman had the chance to meet the restaurant's chef and owner, Michael Solomonov.

Sherman knew immediately that Solomonov would make the perfect chef-guide for his film.

"He's just a really cool guy," Sherman said.

The feeling was mutual-they agreed then and there to work together on the project.

A James Beard Award winner-that's the foodie equivalent of an Oscar-Solomonov is also the owner of Philly's Federal Donuts and Abe Fisher, a restaurant that focuses on Ashkenazi food. Through Zahav, his flagship, Solomonov is often credited for building the popularity of Israeli, Sephardic-style food in America and around the world.

Solomonov's connection to Israel is deeply personal. He moved from there to Pittsburgh as a child, but returned as a teenager for a short time. His younger brother, David, was killed on Yom Kippur 2003 while serving in the Israeli army.

After the tragedy, Solomonov notes in the film, he became more interested in cooking foods that reflected his Israeli heritage, moving away from his classical European training.

"Attaching myself to the country and the culture and the food are things that have kept me going," he said.

While Solomonov addresses his relationships with his family and the country in the film-he also shares a story about his grandmother's borekas-by and large he serves as an affable tour guide, giving Israel's food experts and chefs a chance to shine.

Throughout the documentary, Solomonov dines on Israeli street food, upscale modern Israeli cuisine, Palestinian home cooking and everything in between. He comes across as an excited student of Israeli food, seemingly learning about some for the first time alongside the viewer.

But "In Search of Israeli Cuisine" isn't your typical travel-and-tasting exploration-it explores tough questions surrounding multiculturalism and pluralism. Solomonov, for his part, lends a sympathetic ear when his subjects tackle complex issues surrounding kashrut, Shabbat and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The film demonstrates that while food is not inherently political, it can reflect larger social issues.

Take the central question of the film: What is Israeli food? The answer doesn't prove simple.

At its core, Israeli cuisine is a combination of foods from over 100 cultures that have melded in Israel. It's also something that comes from the land itself, which boasts a rich array of microclimates, and a product of the Palestinian people, who have lived on the land for ages.

Some of the more poignant moments in the documentary come when Solomonov speaks to Palestinian chefs about the challenges of getting Israeli customers to frequent their restaurants and in working in all-Israeli kitchens.

Husam Abbas, the chef and owner of El Babor, in the Arab-Israeli town of Umm el Fahm, says-in perfect Hebrew-that political events have affected his restaurant.

"The Jews stop coming," he said. But, Abbas added, "food is peace."

"If you come to eat with me, and if you come to learn my food, maybe it's going to bring us all together," he said.

Solomonov agrees.

"Food can bridge gaps," he told JTA in a telephone interview. "Especially when the traditional forms of diplomacy are not up to snuff, it's clear the power food can have ... on both sides of the aisle.

"These dishes that we've brought through our families and through generations stand for love, not violence. Feeding people is the opposite of alienation. I think future generations of chefs have to use that power. Food transcends the rest of it."

Since the documentary was filmed in 2013, Solomonov has been back to visit many times. In fact, when he spoke to JTA last week, he was in the middle of running a food tour in Israel that's tied to the film.

To provide a sense of just how wide an array of foods are "Israeli," Solomonov expounded on what he ate that day.

"I just ordered a Sabich [fried eggplant and hardboiled egg] sandwich at my hotel, which is technically Iraqi," he said. "Later on tonight we're going to have striper that was raised in a saltwater pond with a Turkish sunchoke puree. You stumble into those things naturally here."

Asked whether he's any closer to defining the amalgamation of cuisines that is Israeli food, Solomonov says he isn't.

"It's a convergence of the ancient and modern, since it's a new country, but the cooking traditions in some cases are over 1,000 years old," he said. "It's really about putting all these cuisines together on one plate.

"Modern chefs are embracing Israel and looking at its bounty of cultures, flavors and tastes as influences," he said. "They're not going to Europe as much to learn haute cuisine, instead they're saying they want to stay here and cook Israeli food."

When prompted, Solomonov said it was hard to narrow down what three foods visitors to Israel should eat-but he did: "You have to have an Israeli hotel breakfast, a bowl of Yemenite soup and some kind of meat and vegetable skewer cooked over charcoal at one of the kabab shops," he said.

Nonetheless, Solomonov and the film make the case that Israeli food isn't just about taste-it's about culture and connection, too. In a poignant scene, Erez Komarovsky, a noted Israeli cookbook author, restaurateur and breadmaker, makes shakshuka-a traditional pepper, tomato and egg dish-with Solomonov. Komarovsky chose that particular dish, he said, because it's like Israel and its people: "It's hot and it's not stuffy."

"Food is not political," he added. "It is what is grown on this land by the people who are living in it. If they are called Palestinians or Israelis, I don't think the tomato[es] care."
(L-r): Werbin, Yonatan Cinader, Titi Aynaw, Erika Stone, and Brian Schickman. This photo was taken at Hillel and was a partnership between the JNF and Central Florida Hillel.

Jewish National Fund and Media Watch International brought former Miss Israel Titi Aynaw to the U.S. for a speaking tour on college campuses in Florida, New England, and Upstate New York. Aynaw, a top Israeli model, television personality, and advocate for Israel, became the first Israeli-Ethiopian to win the Miss Israel title, opening the door for other models of Ethiopian heritage as well as other ethnic and racial backgrounds.

Aynaw spoke to UCF students and community members on Monday, March 20.

"It is inspiring to see Jewish and non-Jewish college students working together to host the former Miss Israel for speaking engagements. As a strong, independent woman, Titi's message is sure to resonate with today's college student. We hope to engage hundreds of diverse students during the two-week campus tour, said JNF's Director of Campus and High School Affairs Nelson France.

"The time has come to show campus communities how Israel makes the world a better place, and it all starts with Titi Aynaw," said France. "We need college students to get the word out, get their communities involved, and get Titi's message heard across the country and around the world."

Prior to participating in Miss Israel 2013, Aynaw had never modeled previously and was unknowingly entered into the beauty competition by a high school friend. The win brought pride to the Ethiopian community and she is considered one of their leading role models and spokespeople.

"Titi Aynaw and her visits to various U.S. campuses highlight the diverse ethnic and cultural makeup of Israel," says Founder and Executive Director of Media Watch International Sharon Tzur. "As an Ethiopian, African, Israeli, and Jewish individual, she is able to use her experience and influence to promote a message of tolerance and coexistence among the many groups that call Israel home, and translates this message to a global audience."

Aynaw has a successful modeling career working on leading campaigns in Israel, Europe, and the United States. In 2013, President Barack Obama personally invited her to attend a state dinner at the late Israeli President Shimon Peres's residence, during his first presidential visit to Israel. Aynaw has traveled extensively to share her extraordinary life story with Jewish, non-Jewish, and African-American audiences.

Born in the Gondar province of Ethiopia, Aynaw always dreamed of immigrating to Israel. Her father passed away when she was a toddler, and she was 12 when she lost her mother to a longtime illness. Aynaw and her brother moved to Israel soon after and lived with their grandparents in Netanya. She served in the Israel Defense Forces as Company Commander with the rank of Lieutenant. After completing her officer's training, Aynaw joined the Military Police and had up to 300 men and women under her command. She recently founded the "Titi Project," which provides extracurricular activities and enrichment to 66 Ethiopian children from disadvantaged backgrounds in Netanya. She hopes to expand the project in order to give more children educational opportunities that she lacked growing-up. She is currently on a leave of absence from the IDC University in Hertzliyah where she studies international relations.

This is the second time Aynaw is participating in a U.S. college campus tour sponsored by JNF and Media Watch International to drive constructive dialogue and discuss the issues affecting Israel, how it is covered in the media, and its unique role as the only democracy in the Middle East. The tour is also part of JNF's Positively Israel campaign, which seeks to promote a positive dialogue about Israel and the ways it makes the world a better place.
The Jewish Federation of Greater Orlando and the Southwest Orlando Jewish Congregation will host an Anti-Defamation League (ADL) Community Briefing on Tuesday, April 4th from 7-8:30 p.m. at the Southwest Orlando Jewish Congregation, 11200 S. Apopka Vineland Road, Orlando.

In addition to addressing the unprecedented rash of bomb threats to JCCs and other Jewish institutions over the past three months, ADL Associate Regional Director Eric Ross will also be speaking about the increasing rate of anti-Semitism in America and globally, and the important work that the ADL undertakes each and every day to "stop the defamation of the Jewish people, and to protect the rights and fair treatment of all individuals alike."

This event is open to the community and there is no cost to attend. For more information, please contact the Jewish Federation's Marli Porth at mporth@jfgo.org or 407-645-5933.
A Jewish teenager with dual Israeli and American citizenship living in the southern Israeli city of Ashkelon was arrested March 23 in connection with the wave of more than 100 bomb threats against JCCs and other Jewish institutions across North America since the beginning of 2017.

The suspect, 19, was arrested by Israel's Lahav 433 police unit in the wake of a months-long investigation by Israeli authorities, who worked alongside the FBI and other international law enforcement agencies. Authorities did not release the suspect's name Thursday. Additionally, police detained the suspect's father on suspicion that he knew of his son's activities.

Authorities believe the suspect was also behind a bomb threat against two Delta Airlines flights between New York and Tel Aviv in January 2015, the Times of Israel reported.

The JCC Association of North America said Thursday that it is "gratified by the progress in this investigation" and praised law enforcement agencies' "commitment and leadership." But the umbrella organization for the community centers added that it is "troubled to learn that the individual suspected of making these threats... is reportedly Jewish."

During a raid on the suspect's home, authorities found an advanced computer lab with sophisticated equipment, including voice-altering technology, encryption methods and a large antenna that he likely used to phone and email bomb threats to Jewish institutions in the U.S., Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Israel.

According to Haaretz, authorities confiscated five computers, including the large antennas, which police believe allowed the suspect to use other people's networks to commit the alleged crimes and throw off investigators. But eventually, police were able to create a profile of the suspect and determine the method to find him.

It is believed the suspect has lived in Israel for several years, and that the IDF refused to draft him "on personal grounds after finding him unfit for service," Haaretz reported.

The suspect was scheduled to be brought before a Magistrate's Court in the Israeli city of Rishon LeZion Thursday.

Israel Police spokesman Mickey Rosenfeld said this arrest was part of a coordinated international operation to try to find suspects behind the bomb threats.

"This specific investigation was complex in terms of the suspect and its nature, and there was a significant breakthrough in the investigation which led us to make the arrest of the suspect, who lives in southern Israel," Rosenfeld told the Jerusalem Post.

Rosenfeld added that "he was the main suspect behind the numerous amount of threats which were made to different Jewish communities and organizations around the world." Investigators, he said, will continue to "see if and how he was connected to the different Jewish communities in the U.S. That directs the investigation to the American connection. We are looking to see if there was an incident which triggered him to carry out threatening those communities."

Israeli Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan congratulated police on the arrest and expressed his hope that it would bring an end to the threats against Jewish institutions.

"We hope that this investigation will help shed light on some of the recent threats against Jewish institutions, which have caused great concern both among Jewish communities and the Israeli government," said Erdan.

U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions, meanwhile, said the Department of Justice "is committed to protecting the civil rights of all Americans, and we will not tolerate the targeting of any community in this country on the basis of their religious beliefs. I commend the FBI and Israeli National Police for their outstanding work on this case."

Following Thursday's arrest in Israel, Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt said that even though "it appears that the main culprit behind the majority of these attacks has allegedly been identified, anti-Semitism in the U.S. remains a very serious concern."

"No arrests have been made in three cemetery desecrations [that have occurred in early 2017] or a series of other anti-Semitic incidents involving swastika graffiti and hate fliers," he said. "JCCs and other institutions should not relax security measures or become less vigilant."
WASHINGTON (JTA)-The U.S. Senate confirmed David Friedman, a confidante of President Donald Trump who outraged some Jewish groups with his broadsides against liberal Jews, as ambassador to Israel.

The 52-46 vote on Thursday afternoon hewed mostly to party lines. Only two Democrats-Sens. Robert Menendez of New Jersey and Joe Manchin of West Virginia-backed the nomination among the 48 senators who caucus with the party.

Friedman, a longtime Trump lawyer who is heavily invested philanthropically in the settlement movement, had derided liberal Jews in columns and elsewhere over the years. He once called the Anti-Defamation League "morons" for its concerns about intimations of anti-Semitism in Trump's rhetoric, and assailed J Street, the Middle East policy group, as "worse than kapos," the Jewish Nazi collaborators.

A range of liberal Jewish groups, including J Street and the Reform movement, had opposed Friedman's nomination, and J Street led a lobbying charge against him.

Republicans saw it as key to show that Friedman had some Democratic support. Christians United for Israel and the Republican Jewish Coalition, among other conservative pro-Israel groups, lobbied for Friedman, specifically targeting some Democrats in states that tilt Republican.

The effort does not appear to have borne out, except with Manchin. Among those opposing Friedman in the vote were Jon Tester of Montana, Joe Donnelly of Indiana and Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota. Menendez, who is in a strongly Democratic state, takes a posture on Israel unusually hawkish for his party.

"The RJC is proud of our efforts supporting Mr. Friedman's nomination," the group said in a statement. "Along with running digital ads in the home states of Democrat Senators, we were able to connect thousands of pro-Israel Americans with their Senators so as to express their support for Mr. Friedman's nomination."

CUFI said Friedman, who has said that one state should not be counted out as a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, was unfairly targeted for these positions, but did not mention in a statement the principal complaint against Friedman-his use of abusive language. Friedman said at confirmation hearings that he regretted using such language.

"We were determined to ensure that this good and qualified man was not derailed by opponents raising an unprecedented 'but we don't agree with him on policy' standard," CUFI said.

J Street in its statement portrayed the almost party-line vote as a victory.

"Senators responded to the concerns of the former ambassadors to Israel, Holocaust survivors and scholars, hundreds of rabbis and tens of thousands of American Jews who rallied to oppose this nomination," it said.
NEW YORK (JTA)Many Jewish groups blamed white supremacists, emboldened by Donald Trumps campaign, for the bomb threats that have plagued Jewish institutions since the beginning of this year.

It appears the groups were wrong.

The news that one Jewish teenan Israeli, no lesswas behind most of the approximately 150 bomb threats that have hit Jewish community centers since the start of 2017 is a shocking twist in light of months in which the Anti-Defamation League and other groups pointed their collective finger at the far right.

Were in unprecedented times, said Oren Segal, director of the ADLs Center on Extremism, at a March 10 news conference on the bomb threats. Weve never seen, ever, the volume of bomb threats that weve seen. White supremacists in this country feel more emboldened than they ever have before because of the public discourse and divisive rhetoric.

The ADL has repeatedly charged Trump with emboldening extremists, anti-Semites and far-right groups in the U.S. Other groups were even more explicit in linking rising anti-Semitic acts this year to the new president. On Jan. 10, following the first wave of JCC bomb threats, Bend The Arc, a liberal Jewish group, said that Trump helped to create the atmosphere of bigotry and violence that has resulted in these dangerous threats against Jewish institutions and individuals.

In February, the Anne Frank Center for Mutual Respect said in a statement to Trump that Rightly or wrongly, the most vicious anti-Semites in America are looking at you and your Administration as a nationalistic movement granting them permission to attack Jews.

But the perpetrator of the anti-Semitic acts, while his political opinions are not known, does not fit the profile of a white supremacist. According to Israeli reports, hes a mentally ill Israeli-American Jewish teenager.

He worked from home, using a computer lab with sophisticated equipment, encryption and transmission systems, and a powerful antenna, according to reports. And his father may have known what he was doing.

Israels anti-fraud squad arrested the 19-year-old suspect at his home in southern Israel and searched the premises on Thursday. He was brought to court and ordered held until March 30.

The other suspect in the bomb threats, arrested earlier in March, also does not appear connected to the far right. Hes a left-wing African-American former journalist who apparently made the calls in a convoluted vendetta against a former romantic partner.

The ADL responded to the Israeli teens arrest with a mix of relief and caution along with a hint of defensiveness. The organization welcomed the news that JCC patronsamong them preschoolers and senior citizenswould no longer have to be evacuated and fear for their safety. But its statement said that despite the suspects profile, anti-Semitism in America is still a problem.

These were acts of anti-Semitism, the statement said, adding that anti-Semitism in the U.S. remains a very serious concern. No arrests have been made in three cemetery desecrations or a series of other anti-Semitic incidents involving swastika graffiti and hate fliers. JCCs and other institutions should not relax security measures or become less vigilant.

The Anne Frank Center, a small group whose profile has risen in part due to the attention around the JCC threats, said in a statement Thursday that it doesnt matter where any suspect is from or what his or her background is. Bend The Arc CEO Stosh Cotler said in a statement: Violence and threats of violence, whoever or wherever they come from, are unacceptable and cannot be tolerated.

The JCC Association of North America said it was troubled by the news that the suspect is Jewish, while the Jewish Federations of North America called the news heartbreaking.

Paul Goldenberg, director of the Secure Community Network, which advises Jewish groups and institutions on security, said the suspects age and location were less relevant than the fact that someone has been caught for making the threats.

What is relevant is that an individual or individuals were placed into custody who were engaged in or involved in criminal behavior, who were looking to terrorize our community, he said. I do understand why people may have believed that this was part of a larger effort.

For longtime observers of anti-Semitism, the news showed the need to be cautious when analyzing hateful acts. Former ADL National Director Abraham Foxman, who has previously called for cooler heads in responding to recent hateful acts, said Thursday that the arrest shows the pitfalls of making assumptions.

Always take these things seriously, but dont jump to conclusions, Foxman told JTA. History has taught us the source of anti-Semitism does not come from one direction. Its universal in its nature. ... I think it is on the increase, but its not in epidemic proportions.

Jonathan Sarna, a professor of American Jewish history at Brandeis University, noted that this isnt the first time that Jews have committed anti-Semitic acts. In 1989, the former president of the Jewish Student Union at the State University of New York in Binghamton was charged with painting anti-Semitic slogans on campus.

It is a reminder that we have to be very careful before we talk about a whole wave of anti-Semitism, Sarna said. Something like this will surely make everybody a little embarrassed as Jews, but also embarrassed in the sense that its not what people imagined it would turn out to be.

Sarna added that this incident shows Jews may not be as hated in America as it may have seemed. He cited a recent study by the Pew Research Center showing Jews to be the most popular religious group in America.

Its good to take a middle ground, he said. Yes, there are people who hate Jews, but were not seeing storm troopers at the gate.

Still, Sarna and Foxman noted the string of other anti-Semitic acts recentlythe cemetery desecrations and swastika graffiti, as well as a deluge of anti-Semitic harassment on Twitter last year. Because anti-Semitic acts, beyond the JCC threats, remain frequent in the U.S., Foxman does not believe that Thursdays arrest will lead to anyone downplaying future acts of anti-Semitism.

Its there, Foxman said of anti-Semitism. So theres one guy who, whatever his problem was, that doesnt change the fact that every day there are incidents of anti-Semitism in this country.
JFS Orlando welcomes Ashlyn Douglas-Barnes, a licensed clinical social worker and qualified clinical supervisor, to the Counseling, Growth and Development Program as a clinical therapist supervisor. Douglas-Barnes has worked in a variety of settings including outpatient community based mental health, inpatient/admission psychiatric hospital, substance abuse/DUI, dialysis/medical, and in home/office outpatient therapy.

Douglas-Barnes specializes in adults and couples, with a range of concerns from anxiety, depression, substance abuse, trauma, chronic illness, and relationship issues with a focus on improving communication, self-esteem, and self-confidence. She is certified by Postpartum International for specialized care of perinatal mood disorders (postpartum depression). Douglas-Barnes is also certified to complete pre-surgical mental health clearance for bariatric surgery, as well as counseling before and after bariatric surgery for individuals and couples.

Her therapeutic orientation is cognitive behavioral, collaborative, client- centered and self-empowering. Douglas-Barnes's strengths lie in her unique ability to connect with people by the use of empathy, acceptance, and understanding, through active listening and genuine care for her clients.

"I practice a collaborative approach to counseling. I see those that I counsel as the experts of their own lives. I help them to identify for themselves what areas they feel they need to improve upon. We start with where the person is and where they want to go. I encourage exploration of the problem and help them find resources to better themselves and be self-sufficient. Therefore, it empowers them in the future when problems arise to find solutions independently and confidently."

"What I like about JFS Orlando is that it is a wrap-around agency. People come to us in crises, but it can be hard to receive treatment when an individual is facing life's difficulties. They don't have food on the table. They are facing homelessness. They've lost their job. JFS Orlando has services that can help. I'm a link for them to these other services."

Douglas-Barnes looks to her liberal childhood upbringing that shaped her as an individual and drew her to social work. She grew up north of Chicago in a culturally diverse neighborhood, listening to NPR and watching PBS. She says that being a middle child of five siblings shaped her to be a mediator, have independent thinking, and to be empathetic to the individuality of others. She was drawn to social work because she felt she had the ability to understand the viewpoint of others and had a desire to make a difference in the lives of others.

The Counseling, Growth and Development Program provides individual, couples, family and group mental health counseling in a trusting, reassuring and healing atmosphere. Licensed clinical therapists help clients cope with major life problems in a timely and effective manner and guide people through major life transitions. JFS is one of the few remaining agencies in Central Florida that operates on a sliding fee scale. JFS accepts most insurance. Call us at 407-644-7593 for more information or visit http://www.jfsorlando.org.
ATLANTA (JTA)-When Janice Rothschild Blumberg first heard that a bomb threat had hit an Atlanta Jewish center, she had only one thought: "It's happening all over again."

Blumberg, 93, remembers her shock in 1958 when white supremacists bombed her synagogue, then called the Hebrew Benevolent Congregation and commonly known as The Temple. The perpetrators, who were never convicted, were believed to be retaliating against the outspoken civil rights advocacy of the synagogue's rabbi, and her husband, Jacob Rothschild.

No one was injured, but Blumberg recalls the charred synagogue, bricks spilling out of a giant hole in the wall. She remembers sleeping little that night.

Despite the damage and shock, the bombing ended up being a seminal moment of acceptance for Atlanta's Jews. City leaders from the mayor to a major newspaper editor embraced the congregation and condemned the violence, which Blumberg believes turned many of Atlanta's white citizens against segregation and racist incitement.

"Even though the accused bomber was not convicted, we felt that justice had been served," Blumberg told JTA in an interview at her Atlanta apartment. "The big thing it did in the community was to enable the silent majority to speak out. There were a lot of people throughout the South who were afraid to speak."

The two bomb threats that have hit the city's Marcus Jewish Community Center this year-among some 150 threats against Jewish institutions nationwide-have struck a chord with Blumberg, reminding her that the anti-Semitism of six decades ago still festers. But she hopes that as it did in '58, the anti-Semitism of today ends up awakening Atlantans to the dangers of hatred.

"Maybe, just maybe, people are sufficiently aroused so that this will help bring this to a head," Blumberg said. "It's firing up more people, just as The Temple bombing fired up the good people of Atlanta."

(On Thursday, Israeli police arrested an Israeli-American teen in connection with most of the bomb threats. He reportedly is Jewish.)

Blumberg, an energetic nonagenarian who lives alone and speaks in a thick Georgia accent, is the scion of a family that settled in the state before the Civil War. But despite her Southern roots, she says she never questioned her Pittsburgh-born husband's opposition to Jim Crow.

Reminiscing about the civil rights era, Blumberg refers to her friends Martin and Coretta, better known as Martin Luther King Jr. and Coretta Scott King. Seven years after the bombing, she and her husband persuaded Atlanta's city government to host an official dinner honoring King for his Nobel Peace Prize. And when a congregant complained after spotting Blumberg's daughter at an integrated birthday party, Blumberg told off the congregant in a testy phone call.

Rabbi Rothschild died in 1974 at 62.

Blumberg knew that her husband's activism could put the family in danger. But she says he did what any decent human being should have done.

"We were not surprised that something would happen," she said. "We didn't know what. I was 100 percent in accord with what he was doing. It never occurred to me to be afraid."

In the decades since the bombing, Atlanta's Jewish community has grown more than eight-fold, to 120,000 in 2006 from 14,500 in 1960, according to the latest survey data available. But though circumstances have changed, the Reform synagogue sees itself as perpetuating Rabbi Rothschild's social activism. Last month it produced a play, "The Temple Bombing," about the bombing, which also was depicted in the 1988 play and 1989 film "Driving Miss Daisy."

"It's hard when you think you're making a period piece and you find it hasn't really become a part of our history that we can look back on objectively," said Jimmy Maize, the writer and director of "The Temple Bombing." "That's not necessarily a great feeling, to know that we haven't really progressed as far as we thought."

Today The Temple runs a homeless shelter, advocates against human trafficking and-like several synagogues across the country-has recently set up working groups of congregants to pursue activism on issues ranging from gun control to refugee resettlement. Last year, Rabbi Peter Berg met with Gov. Nathan Deal to help convince him to veto a bill that would have allowed concealed handguns on college campuses in Georgia.

"We never tread lightly on issues," Berg told JTA. "When it comes to an issue of justice, we speak truth to power. The Temple is a loud and prominent voice within the community."

But Berg, like other Reform rabbis who have supported the movement's liberal activism, is careful to temper his exhortations with assurances of nonpartisanship. He said his synagogue includes Democrats and Republicans, and preaches about pluralistic understanding as well as public policy.

"All of us are guilty of the same shortsightedness when we assume every person we know shares the same point of view," Berg said in a speech at the opening of the Jewish Funders Network's international conference this week in Atlanta. "You may be certain of your interpretation of reality, but someone may come along who's equally convinced of their own interpretation."

Blumberg believes that opinions have changed since the 1950s, and that most people now oppose the racism and bigotry that characterized that era. But she's troubled by President Donald Trump's policies, which she feels are fanning the flames of old hatreds.

"I'm an optimist, so I keep thinking there are more of us than they are of them," Blumberg said. "There was a lot of anti-Semitism then. I don't think there is now.

"I think things are improving," she added, "but slowly."
Temple Israel's membership committee invites the community to its next scheduled event, Trivia on Tap, at Red Cypress Brewery, 855 E. State Road 434, Winter Springs, on April 6.

Whether you're a Temple Israel member or a prospective member or just someone who wants to experience an enjoyable evening with a good beer and friendly company, join Temple Israel for the brewery's regularly-scheduled Thursday program called Trivia on Tap. Test your knowledge of trivia while enjoying local craft beer and delicious food from a Central Florida area food truck. Light snacks will be provided by Temple Israel at no charge.

The hosts for the Temple Israel team will be Amanda and Eric Hoffman. Please look for the Temple Israel signage on the table.

For directions, call the brewery at 407-542-0341 or go to the website, http://www.redcypressbrewery.com

No RSVP is necessary and there is no entry fee. Please arrive at 6:45 p.m.
The Belgian foreign ministry has reminded citizens that it does not advise against travel to the resort town of Sharm El-Sheikh, although it urged vigilance when visiting Egypt.

Sinai is a "very instable zone," Foreign Minister Didier Reynders was quoted as saying in a statement by the ministry on Thursday, and reiterated warnings against travel to any part of northern or southern Sinai except "the hotel area around Sharm El-Sheikh."

The statement on Thursday comes two days after Israel issued a warning to its citizens advising against visiting any part of the Sinai Peninsula, saying there is a "very high concrete threat" of attacks.

The Belgian statement noted that the ministry is in contact with European partners who so far have not modified their advice following recent recommendations from Israeli authorities to their nationals on the ground.

"Travelling to other coastal areas of the Red Sea [outside Sinai] is not advised against, but in view of the serious terrorist threat throughout Egypt, increased vigilance is recommended, including in touristic zones," the Belgian statement read.

More detailed advice for travellers available on the Belgian foreign ministrys website advises holidaymakers in Sharm not to take road trips to Taba or the monastery of Saint Catherine.

Travellers visiting the Red Sea resorts of Hurghada, Gouna or Marsa Alam  all on the Egyptian mainland  are advised to be vigilant and remain within touristic areas.

Northern Sinai is the epicentre of an Islamist militancy that Egyptian forces have been battling for the past few years.

The southern part of the peninsula, home to pristine beaches and the location of resort town Sharm El-Sheikh, has largely been spared the violence.

Russia suspended all direct flights to Egypt after a Russian passenger plane that had taken off from Sharm airport crashed into the Sinai desert in October 2015, killing all aboard. IS group-affiliated militants claimed responsibility for the incident.

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ATLANTA (JTA)For decades, the Lippman Kanfer family has focused its philanthropy on local Jewish communities and national initiatives to teach Torahfunding causes from the Anshe Sfard Congregation in Akron, Ohio, to a Jewish day school network.

But since Nov. 8, Election Day, the family has been talking about another set of issuesrefugees, voting rights and civic engagement. Like so many other things, its giving has been shaken by the Donald Trump administration.

When its time to step up, we have to step up, said Marcella Kanfer Rolnick, the founding director of the Lippman Kanfer Foundation for Living Torah. Were grappling with how much we step up fast, where the urgency requires us to act quickly.

Trumps election has pushed the Lippman Kanfer family and other Jewish mega-donors to refocus their giving on domestic causes that reach beyond the Jewish community. The donors, some of whom had already funded liberal causes, cite the countrys political divides, the presidents policies targeting minorities and a proposed federal budget that reduces funding for social services and the arts. But Trumps support for school choice could also aid funders supporting Jewish day school.

I dont think private foundations can make up for draconian social service cuts in the federal budget, said Susie Gelman, who chairs the center-left Israel Policy Forum and whose family funds programs for Jews in their 20s and 30s. But I think funders can be strategic and smart, and form partnerships and try to address some of the issues now under threat.

Discussions of Trumps election and its fallout have coursed through the Jewish Funders Network International Conference here this week. Several sessions dealt with bridging political divides and promoting civil conversation. Others addressed a perceived spike in anti-Semitism and the increasing need for security at Jewish institutions. On Tuesday, a session on government funding and American Jewry forecast that deep cuts in federal domestic spending could spell trouble for Jewish social service groups.

The funders networks focus on civil discourse grew during the election campaign. The group, which serves as a resource and hub for Jewish donors and foundations, issued guidelines in August for how philanthropists should conduct themselves. The principles included Consider and honor diverse viewpoints and Fund positive change, not hostility.

Funders themselves sometimes use their power from their funding to force ideological positions, said the networks president, Andres Spokoiny. Funders can [instead] fund organizations and people that strengthen civil discourse, that create spaces for dialogue and conversation.

Rather than make up for lost federal funding, some donors plan to focus on advocacy to prevent government budget cuts. The Nathan Cummings Foundation, which already funds a number of liberal groupsincluding some Jewish oneshopes to encourage minority advocacy groups to unite around a common advocacy agenda.

Philanthropy cant replace the NEA, said the foundations president, Sharon Alpert, referring to the National Endowment for the Arts. What philanthropy has always been poised at is creating partnerships with government that demonstrate how important government action and programs are to our lives. We need to engage even more deeply in making that case.

Mark Reisbaum, who donates to Jewish and LGBT arts initiatives in Northern Californias Bay Area, said he and other donors he knows now plan to donate to politicians who support arts funding.

For many funders, the political and public sector environment over the last decade was supportive and inclusive of their vision, so they didnt feel the need to operate in that sphere, he said. In the current environment, they realize they cant only fund the arts directly. They also have to try to influence the political sector.

Spokoiny noted that Trumps policies may also serve Jewish interests, given Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos support for tuition vouchers for private schools. Jewish leaders have long fretted about rising tuition making Jewish day school prohibitively expensive.

There could be some positive things in terms of funding, he said. Day school funding could receive a boost from a government that believes in school choice.

Even Jewish programs with no political dimension have made adjustments in the Trump era. PJ Library, a program that sends Jewish books to children, has posted guidelines on its Facebook page helping parents broach the topics of anti-Semitism and hate with their children.

Were terribly saddened that childrens lives are being disrupted and that parents have to face this issue and be prepared for their childrens questions, said Winnie Sandler Grinspoon, president of the Harold Grinspoon Foundation, which funds the program, referring to the some 150 Jewish community centers and other institutions that have been hit with bomb threats since the start of this year. But if were a trusted source in engaging around parents topics, this is a topic we have to address.

Combating Trumps agenda may be a boon for organizations seeking to engage younger philanthropists. Michael Littenberg-Brown, 35, president of the Council of Young Jewish Presidents, a consortium of young donors, said his generation is more attracted to groups that provide a Jewish entry point to addressing global injustice, like HIAS, which advocates for refugees, or the Anti-Defamation League, which fights anti-Semitism.

The burden is to use this moment to help create the space for young funders, he said. Young people see themselves as global citizens, and that becomes a very important identity to them in addition to their Jewish identity.

Donors said that even with the shift to broader issues, parochial Jewish causes may not suffer. Reisbaum said that some of his fellow philanthropists have committed to donating more, corresponding to the spike in the stock market since Trumps election.

For some people, thats tainted money, he said. If I have these ill-gotten gains, I want to do more with them.
NEW YORK (JTA)Literally within seconds of the news of the arrest in Israel of an Israeli-American teenager for the bulk of the JCC bomb threats, Twitter lit up with Jewish anxiety.

[I] fear the inevitable backlash from haters who we whipped [into] a frenzy for our own nefarious political aims is how someone responded to the JTA story about the arrest.

A colleagues friend wrote, And now people will have another excuse to not take anti-Semitism seriously.

The shock and anxiety inspired by news of the arrest were understandable. After all, anti-Semitic organizations and websites keep tallies of false flag anti-Semitic attacks carried out by Jews in order to discredit the very idea that anti-Semitism exists. (Such incidents are few and far between, and pale next to the actual tally of attacks on people and property, but never mind.)

But the JCC bomb threat hoax wasnt just an isolated swastika daubingit was an ongoing story affecting Jewish institutions in nearly every American Jewish community. It shaped a communal narrative that something ugly and insidious was happening out there. And it fueled a political crisis among most American Jewish organizations and the White House, with the former accusing the latter of taking too long to denounce anti-Semitism and to comfort Jews traumatized by the bomb threats and at least two major cemetery desecrations.

Coming almost as quickly as the expressions of anxiety was the political exploitation of the arrest.

The Ultimate Self-Hating Jew, a 19-yr old Israeli-American, was behind the JCC bomb threats, tweeted Marc Zell, the co-chairman of Republicans Overseas Israel. The US Jewish leadership owes @POTUS an apology.

David Bernstein at the Washington Posts conservative Volokh Conspiracy posted in a blog: [T]he fight against actual anti-Semitism and other forms of racism will likely have been dealt a blow because self-serving groups like the ADL chose to hype and politicize the threats without any idea of their actual origin.

Before we get too far into the rituals of finger-pointing, a few things are worth considering: First, JCCs and other Jewish institutions across the country, and the children and adults who use them, were traumatized by the string of some 150 bomb threats. It cost JCCs members money, and diverted funds from programs to heighten security. That the main hoaxer allegedly was a Jewish guy living in Israel doesnt erase three months of anguish.

Second, it is a huge relief to Jewish institutionsand the community that relies upon themthat someone has been caught. Perhaps they can return to business as usual. Lets give them their moment of relief.

Third, Jews didnt do this to themselves. This was a criminal act by an individual. Blaming all members of a community for the act of an individual is a page out of the anti-Semitism playbook.

Many Jewish groups did go too far, too fast in assuming the identity of the culprit (or culprits), pinning the threats on a political climate inspired by President Donald Trump.

Weve never seen, ever, the volume of bomb threats that weve seen, Oren Siegel, the director of the ADLs Center on Extremism, said at a news conference following the arrest of the first suspect, Juan Thompson (a copycat motivated by some weird romantic grudge that appears to have had little to do with Jews). White supremacists in this country feel more emboldened than they ever have before because of the public discourse and divisive rhetoric.

Bend the Arc, the liberal Jewish social justice group, was more explicit in blaming Trump.

In recent days, we have seen manifestations of the hatred stirred up by President-elect Donald Trump throughout his campaign, it wrote in a statement after the first wave of JCC bomb threats. Trump helped to create the atmosphere of bigotry and violence that has resulted in these dangerous threats against Jewish institutions and individuals.

At this moment, we dont know the motive of the Israeli suspect. But assuming this kid was dealing with personal demons and the JCC bomb threats cant be pinned on typical anti-Semitic ideology, does this mean that the spike in hate crimes tallied in New York and elsewhere didnt happen? Were these Jewish groups wrong to assume that anti-Semites were responsible for anti-Semitism?

Groups who pinned the bomb threats on an atmosphere that Trump helped to create certainly went too far, but does their lack of caution mean that Trumps divisive campaign rhetoric should be forgiven? Should advocacy groups not have called out a campaign and an administration that has tolerated and encouraged the alt-right and habitually indulges in ethnically divisive rhetoric?

Ann Coulterasking Has ANY anti-Trump story been true?joined the chorus of those suggesting the arrest exonerated Trump, though exonerated of what is not clear. Jewish groups wanted a strong statement from the White House condemning the bomb threats and the cemetery vandalism not because he was the perpetrator or a Republican, but because he is the president of the United States. Issuing statements of condemnation and support is what presidents do, automatically and usually inconspicuously. Only Trump has seemed to take this task as an affront, somehow believing that to condemn hate crimes is to take responsibility for them.

Others are saying that the arrest of a Jew in the bomb threats vindicates Trumps comments last month suggesting that the threats were a false flag attack. According to Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro, Trump told a meeting of states attorney generals that Sometimes its the reverse, and attacks are made to make peopleor to make otherslook bad.

Some took this to mean that Trump was suggesting a Jew was behind the attack, although more likely he was referring to a political enemy. Whatever he meant, he couldnt have sounded more tone-deaf. Again, dozens of institutions and hundreds of families were reeling from a series of bomb threats. As in his famous blowup in response to a question from a Jewish reporter about rising anti-Semitism, Trump made the events about him rather than the victims.

The ADL and other Jewish groups have a tough PR challenge ahead of them: keeping the focus on acts of anti-Semitism by traditional enemieswhite supremacists, neo-Nazis, the virulently anti-Israel far leftwhile acknowledging that one of the most extensive and public anti-Semitic acts of recent memory was carried out by a Jew. Theyll need to recast the narrative of resurgent anti-Semitism by omitting the wave of JCC bomb threats, but not at the expense of the victimized JCCs.

As the American Jewish Committee put it in a statement, This is a lesson in not leaping to assumption[s] about complex links between polarizing politics and anti-Semitic acts. But it does not dispel [the] age-old reality of anti-Semitism.

And theyll have to find a way to stay vigilant in a polarized and poisonous political era without being seen as the boys who cried wolf.
(JTA via the Forward)Last week, Ohio State University Hillel was accused of being anti-LGBT because it was forced to disassociate with a Jewish LGBT campus group, Bnai Keshet, after the group decided to co-sponsor a fundraiser for queer refugees with Jewish Voice for Peace. I was shocked to hear this accusation and wanted to understand where it had come from and why.

Being gay and Jewish, Im fortunate to have a supportive community in my life at Ohio State University, which has allowed me to be active throughout campus as a university ambassador, a brother of the Zeta Beta Tau fraternity and a Morrill scholar for the Office of Diversity and Inclusion, to name a few.

My engagement with OSU Hillel has absolutely made me feel more comfortable as a Jewish college student, especially amid rising anti-Semitic incidents across the country, and I have found an inclusive, welcoming community for LGBT Jews. But recently, this support has been under attack.

I sat down with both friends supporting Hillels recent actions and with friends who feel Hillel has an anti-LGBT impact. After hearing about the issue from both perspectives, I feel its essential to correct some misconceptions.

First, Hillels facilities and programs are open to everyone, and that includes individuals of all gender identities and sexual orientations. Hillel has had programming for the LGBT community for more than 20 years, including an annual Rainbow Seder for Passover. A. Rainbow. Seder. They have created a 160-plus page LGBT resource guide specifically to help staff welcome LGBT Jews and celebrate their identity with love, affirmation, and joy.

Students notice these efforts. If youve ever spent any time in Hillel, you quickly realize the volume of LGBT students who frequent the building, the staff members who feel comfortable openly belonging to the LGBT community, the number of LGBT programs that are hosted there, not to mention the giant pride flag hanging in the front office. Hillels support for our community is literally on display every day for all to see.

Bnai Keshet funding wasnt cut because it is a group that aims to provide a community to Jewish LGBT students. It was disqualified from receiving funding after going against national Hillel policy regarding use of Hillel funds for anti-Israel activity. In this case, Bnai Keshet was among the co-sponsors of a drag show fundraiser for LGBT refugees co-organized by Jewish Voice for Peace, a group that the Anti-Defamation League calls the leading anti-Zionist organization in the U.S. that seeks to steer public support away from Israel. Both on campus and nationally, JVP is a major proponent of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions, or BDS, movement against Israel.

Frankly, the drag show itself sounds like a great event, and nobody disputes that supporting LGBT refugees is a wonderful cause. OSU Hillels decision was made because Hillel International has made it a matter of universal policy that it cannot give financial support to any campus groups that use their funds to push for BDS. This is not to say students from these groups are excluded from Hillel. Hillels facilities and programs are open to students of all political opinions. Hillel staff repeatedly met with Bnai Keshet and advised it not to co-sponsor the event because Hillel would have no alternative but to distance itself from the group. Bnai Keshet ignored the caution and carried on with JVP.

Hillel has a clearly stated policy, Hillel warned Bnai Keshet, Bnai Keshet ignored the caution and Hillel followed through with its policy. And now Bnai Keshet is politicizing this move as anti-LGBT, despite the decision having nothing to do with the groups mission or membership. Hillel would withdraw funding and affiliation from any group that uses its funds to support BDS. By making this decision, Hillel is not condemning Jews who support BDS or excluding students based on their views on Israel, it is simply saying you cannot use Hillel money for pro-BDS programming.

Bnai Keshet was created to be a place for LGBT Jews to come together and express shared values on being Jewish and LGBT, regardless of personal politics surrounding BDS. By aligning the group with JVP programming, Bnai Keshets current leaders, who are also founders of JVP on campus, politicized its membership for an issue outside of its mission. At a time when many other LGBT groups are incorporating pro-BDS language into their rallies and events, Bnai Keshet forced LGBT Jews to identify by its politics, even if it meant ultimately hurting its own membership by intentionally acting in a way that would cut ties with Hillel.

Its insulting not only to me but to the entire OSU Hillel community for Hillel to be called anti-LGBT. When I sat down recently with members of the Hillel staff that are openly LGBT or strong allies, the pain in their voices about being vilified as homophobes was palpable.

My friends at Hillel were some of the first people I came out to, and it hurts to see these individuals and this organization slandered for political gain. Regardless, I know that the Ohio State Hillel will continue to do programming to support its LGBT community, and Im excited to be a part of it.

Kyle Gersman, a third-year student at The Ohio State University from Akron, Ohio, is studying chemical engineering with a minor in studio art. A version of this essay appeared at Scribe, the Forwards contributor network.
Diplomats never pretend to be experts on acting, yet for some reason actors constantly present themselves as experts on international affairs. Hollywood award ceremonies are now dominated by awardees delivering pretentious political diatribes.

The latest presumed fount of wisdom is Richard Gere, who visited Israel last week to promote a film in which he plays a character modeled on the American Jewish businessman from whom Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert accepted large bribes.

In an interview with Haaretz, Gere rattled off all the shallow slogans about Israel that he reads in The New York Times. Obviously, this occupation is destroying everyone, he proclaimed, even though Israel stopped occupying 98 percent of the Palestinians 22 years ago. Settlements are such an absurd provocation, he announced, even though settlements take up less than 2 percent of the Judea and Samaria territories. Jewish settlements are certainly in the international sense, completely illegal, declared the actor, who obviously knows nothing about international law, under which the settlements are, in fact, completely legal.

Naturally, no Hollywood monologue about the Middle East would be complete without a dose of moral equivalency. I denounce violence on all sides of this, Gere asserted, demonstrating his inability to distinguish between the aggressor and the victim. Violent Israelis who dare to defend themselves against Palestinian stabbers and bombers are no different from the guys with the knives and the explosive vests.

But the interview took a very odd turn when Gere suddenly began heaping praise on the corrupt, disgraced, and still-imprisoned Ehud Olmert. I certainly liked him as a human being and actually felt there was enormous hope and promise with him as prime minister, said Gere. He didnt seem to be owned by settlers, he didnt seem to be owned by the dark forces, he understood compromise.

What about Olmerts corruption? No problem, since he was willing to give up land. According to the interviewer, Gere indicated he believes the value of the peace deal that Olmert might have been able to make would have outweighed the immorality of the corruption that brought him down.

In the film, Geres character bribes the prime minister with pairs of very expensive shoes.

Frankly, if someone creates a lasting peace in the Middle East, a pair of shoes is not a big deal, according to Gere.

Fascinating! Principles, values, moralityall suddenly become irrelevant so long as Olmert was promoting Geres pro-Palestinian agenda.

In between a lot of embarrassing gushing over Geres leading-man good looksstill impossibly handsome at 67interviewer Allison Kaplan Sommer asked a very pointed and insightful question: Does [Gere] feel as forgiving about expensive cigars and pink champagne?

Current Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is being accused of improperly accepted gifts of cigars and champagne. If Gere thinks Olmerts corruption is no big deal, then surely he would not be bothered if the charges against Netanyahu are true, right?

Wrong. The context is completely different, Gere replied. How so? The sympathy with which [Gere] views Olmerts downfall would in any case only apply to the current prime minister if Netanyahu was working toward a genuine peace process.

Its simple. A corrupt politician who does what Gere wants on the diplomatic front (i.e. gives in to the Palestinians) is a swell guy. A politician who doesnt surrender to the Palestinians is a rotten scoundrel. The funny thing is that Gere is so full of himself that he didnt even realize that what he was saying represents the grossest form of hypocrisy. I guess when youre impossibly good-looking, you can get away with anything.

Stephen M. Flatow, a vice president of the Religious Zionists of America, is an attorney in New Jersey. He is the father of Alisa Flatow, who was murdered in an Iranian-sponsored Palestinian terrorist attack in 1995.
Which terrorist did the most damage to Israels security in the course of the stabbing intifada that began in the fall of 2015?

About 40 Israelis were murdered during the spate of knife attacks, yet the most successful terrorist did not kill any of them. During this wave of violence, terrorists wielding knives charged at civilians and soldiers, drove vehicles into crowds full of innocent passersby, hurled rocks with the intent of shattering skulls and engaged in many other abominable acts.

But the terrorist who inflicted the most damage did so while lying passively on the ground.

During the stabbing intifada, about 150 terrorists paid with their lives for committing murder. Yet they did not achieve any real goal, despite inflicting grave suffering upon their victims. Only one of themthe most destructive terroristsucceeded beyond his expectations in carrying out his mission.

It is almost certain that readers of this article will not recognize the name of this man, the terrorist who caused more damage to Israels security than any other attacker in recent years. He was not a terrorist celebrity. There was no flashy operation, launched by security or military forces, to track him down. He did not carry out a meticulously planned attack, nor did he inflict any significant physical damage.

His name is Abdel Fattah al-Sharif, 21, from Hebron.

Al-Sharifs unusually successful career in terrorism began while he was critically wounded, in Tel Rumeida. Without moving an inch, he managed to inflict a mass attack against Israels security, in the deepest sense of the term. Al-Sharif lay on the ground. Israeli soldier Elor Azaria shot him. As it stands, the soldier has far more name recognition than the terrorist. A photographer caught the episode on video... and we all know the rest of the story.

To correctly assess the extent of the damage here, one must first understand the motivation behind committing acts of terrorism. A lone terrorist, charging at people with a knife in hand with the hope of killing as many people as possible, is impelled by several possible motivationsreligious, nationalist and personal.

But the objectives of terrorism, as a system, are much broader. Terrorism employs violence to achieve political aims: to weaken the solidarity of the society under attack, make it doubt the justice of its path, undermine the legitimacy of the establishment and ultimately overturn the existing political structure.

From this perspective, al-Sharif, the terrorist from Hebron, pulled off an especially high-quality strategic attack. He succeeded in creating a major rift between rank-and-file Israelis, on the one hand, and the defense establishment on the other. About two-thirds of the Israeli public believes that Israel Defense Forces (IDF) Chief of Staff Gadi Eizenkot and former Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon mishandled the incident when they condemned the shooting of the wounded terrorist.

For the first time, the IDFIsraeli societys ultimate sacred cowwas slashed by the sharp and dangerous blade of public opinion.

Yaalon was undermined, and he was eventually replaced. Five former IDF chiefs of staff were forced to stand up for Eizenkot to buttress his public position. The terrorist from Hebron succeeded in inciting Jews to threaten to murder the chief of staff.

Can terrorism register a greater victory than that?

Moreover, the Hebron incident dramatically exposed the fragility of the Israeli consensus regarding the basic values to which the Jewish states society is committed. Israels core narrativeabout purity of arms and moral superioritysuffered a critical blow, not only because of the actions of the soldier, who was convicted of manslaughter, but primarily due to the groundswell of support that Azarias act of extrajudicial execution received, as a matter of principle, from broad sectors of the Israeli public.

Israeli solidarity, which is an essential condition for the nations survival, is called into doubt when so many hail a convicted killer as a hero.

While all terrorist attacks are very painful, they only pose a danger to society if the public allows them to do so. Terrorism can be defeated by detaching it from internal Israeli disagreements. Israelis must continue responding to terrorism and war as they have for many years: crying, bandaging their wounds, consoling, rememberingand getting on with their individual and national lives with heads held high, without hesitation or vacillation, and with a strong commitment to moral values.

Prof. Yedidia Stern is vice president of research at the Israel Democracy Institute.
Security forces in Egypt's northern governorate of Sharqiya have arrested six people after dozens of men reportedly sexually assaulted a woman on Thursday, Al-Ahram Arabic reported.

The woman was returning home from a wedding party in the city of Zagazig when dozens of men gathered around her and assaulted her.

Police fired in the air amid a state of pandemonium to disperse the crowd around the woman, who was then taken to a local police station.

Sexual harassment and violence has been rampant in Egypt for a number of years.

According to a 2013 UN study, sexual harassment affects 99 percent of Egyptian women and usually increases in crowded areas during holidays.

In April 2014, the Egyptian government criminalised sexual harassment, issuing a law commended by the United Nations which punishes assaulters with at least six months in jail and a minimum fine of EGP 3,000.

A parliamentary committee in January approved a draft bill pushing for tougher penalties than those in the existing law.

In July 2014, an Egyptian court sentenced nine men to between 20 years and life in prison for sexually harassing and assaulting women during celebrations for President Abdel-Fattah Al-Sisi's inauguration the previous month.

They were the first lengthy sentences of their kind since El-Sisi vowed to crack down on widespread sexual assaults and the government's criminalization of sexual harassment.

In January, two low-ranking police officers were sentenced to seven and ten years in prison for sexually assaulting a young woman after kidnapping and arresting her without a prosecution order in an incident that dates back to 2015.

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A 22-year-old man was charged after a father caught him at home with a girl under the age of 15, according to an Iredell Sheriffs Office press release.

Khali Amir Holmes, of Charlotte, is being held under a $300,000 secured bond after being charged with statutory rape of a person 15 years of age or younger.

The exact age of the victim wasnt released.

Deputies were initially called to a Mooresville home on March 24 for a report of a sexual assault, the release said. After talking to those involved, it was determined that Holmes and the girl engaged in sexual activity at the home, the release said.

Holmes first court date is scheduled for March 27.
NEWTON  Carmen Duran is sitting on her own pot of gold right now.

The Discovery High senior spent her final year in high school applying and winning one scholarship after another on her way to a total of $1 million.

I didnt set out with the expectation of achieving over a million dollars in scholarships, Duran said. Basically I applied to schools I was interested in and each of them came back with different with packages of financial aid and scholarships they offered.

She thinks her time at Discovery High  a redesign high school following a problem based learning design  gave her an edge on applications and in interviews for scholarships. Shes at the top of her class and her weighted GPA is 4.995.

The past four years here have been some of the best. Were an all honors high school, and we offer AP (advance placement) courses, Duran said. Im in the Summit program as well, so I definitely expected to get some scholarships just based on how hard Ive worked through high school.

The Summit program allows qualifying students to take Catawba Valley Community College courses in their junior and senior years at Newton-Conover Schools central office. Duran attributes the combination of the Summit and Discovery classes as her source of motivation and encouragement to go after every scholarship she could find.

Discovery High Principal John Robinson is quick to complement the work ethic of Duran and her unrelenting drive to be successful.

Carmen is a student who has taken advantage of our flexibility as a high school, he said. Shes participated in the Summit program, and shes also taken advantage of a lot of online courses. She took advantage of every opportunity she could to put herself in the position shes in.

The principal added Duran always looked for new ways to challenge herself like taking AP calculus online.

The first school Duran was accepted to was Wingate University. They offered her $100,000.

It was schools like that, Wingate, UNC Wilmington, ECU, those were some of the first schools I got accepted to and offered me scholarships, Duran said. I got accepted to mostly public schools early, but once I started hearing back from private universities the amount began to go up.

Georgetown University (in D.C) offered me more than $250,000 in scholarships. That was obviously a big part of the total.

Other major scholarships included the Park Scholarship to North Carolina State University worth $107,000 and the Levine Scholars Program at UNC Charlotte worth $105,000. She was only one of 150 students out of more than 80,000 applicants chosen for a Coca-Cola $20,000 scholarship.

Duran is waiting to hear back from Duke University and the University of Pennsylvania.

She would probably be our first student admitted to Duke University if she chooses it, Robinson said.

Looking back, it happened a little bit at a time, but once it started accumulating it really felt like a snowball effect, Duran said.

Her advice to other students hoping to cash in with scholarships is to apply to as many as they can.

Dont let the fear of not getting something stop you from applying, she said. In applying for scholarships, definitely find something that sets you apart because all the committees who are reviewing applications are looking for what makes you, you and what sets you apart from everyone else.

May 1 is the deadline for high school seniors to announce what school theyll commit to and while Duran isnt certain which school shell choose, she may be leaning toward Georgetown. She recently returned from a visit of the school and was very impressed.

I went to a conference they had and I met the director of the NSA, Admiral Michael Rogers, she said. It was a surreal experience for me just because there were Secret Service agents all around the room.

Duran admits having as many options as she has is great, but it does make the final decision much more difficult, but she is certain what she wants to study. Duran eventually wants to become a lawyer.

Ive never had so much fun ever in all my life, she said.

Neither of her parents were able to go to college which makes this opportunity even more important for her.

The unique education environment of Discovery High was another asset when it came to the college interviews, Duran said.

Throughout my four years of high school, Ive done countless presentations, Duran said. I took a course in public speaking. They teach you how to make presentations and how to be very articulate.

Duran's mother, Lisa Sanders is both proud and excited for her daughter and her daughter's future.

"She is so dedicated to her future, education, and learning to balance high school, college and a job all at once," Sanders said. "I hope that she will inspire other students to strive beyond the hurdles set before them and know that nothing is impossible."

A good resource for college-bound students is the College Foundation of North Carolina, cfnc.org.

It provides information for college admissions and financial aid, students should also check in with their school counselor.
Recent news has highlighted the shortcomings of the proposed Republican health care bill in Congress. But in numerous television appearances, our Rep. Patrick McHenry states confidently that the flawed AHCA bill will pass.

McHenry has also commented that the thousands of his western North Carolina constituents who have for the first time received health insurance via the Affordable Care Act are worse off.

Yet provisions in the Republican bill would cut subsidies and increase deductions thus exposing many to complete loss of health insurance. They just could not afford it.

In response to hundreds of requests that he hold health care town meetings in the 10th District, McHenry and his staff continue to say that he holds them in August, which is well-past the time a bill may pass Congress.

At present, calls and emails to his offices must suffice. Republicans like McHenry seem willing to trade a $34 billion a year federal budget deficit reduction for cutting up to 24 million old, sick and poor citizens from the rolls of the properly insured.

Meanwhile, the top 2 percent of wealthy Americans would get $60 billion in tax cuts every year. We cannot and should not allow this Republican Reverse Robin Hood bill to shift more billions from the working class to the super rich.

If enough of us speak up for affordable, universal health care for all hard-working Americans, perhaps Rep. McHenry and the rest of Congress will enact a humane and fiscally-responsible health care bill.

Frank L. Fox

Asheville

Reaction to Fitzsimmons letter to the editor

I believe Mr. Fitzsimmons should organize all his letters to the editor and self publish them as a work of fiction.

He will take facts and rewrite them to fit his own goal and submit them as facts versus alternative facts. He turns assumptions into facts and even masks untruths as facts.

To self-publish a book is to publish one that none of the regular publishers would publish. Remember, just as we should be wary of everything we read on the Internet, we should apply the same approach to Mr. Fitzsimmons opinion letters.

Without going into all his Fitz-facts, I will just mention a couple. First, why would Putin prefer Trump to Ms. Clinton? Its obvious, Trump has not said a single word that places Mr. Putin in a bad light, and by increasing our military budget by $54 billion, it gives Mr. Putin the justification to increase his. Not that he needs Trumps OK.

Secondly, with at least seven congressional Republican led investigations into Secretary Clintons handling of Benghazi, not a single one found her guilty of any wrong-doing.

He defends Wiki-Leaks and its founder Julius Assange who leaked stolen emails to various governments and other groups (The U.S. press) hoping he can affect change to his liking or pocketbook. Assange even said he would do anything to hurt Ms. Clintons campaign.

He chooses which emails to leak and when to leak them. Reminds me of Big Brother in 1984. Why anyone trusts Wiki-Leaks as a source is dumbfounding. The man is a wanted criminal.

Speaking of truth, where are Mr. Trumps tax returns? Why does he continue to claim the crowd was larger then President Obamas? Why does he continue to lie so much?

Im not talking about what others said he said, but Im talking about times he lied that were on camera in real life. You cant blame others for that.

Oh, and the total absurdity of the wiretaps of Trump Tower by former President Obama. Now he is back pedaling on his repeal and replace of the Affordable Care Act.

By the way, accolades to the HDR for two very informative articles comparing the ACA with Trump-Care-less.

Mr. Fitzsimmons, you can continue to worship your god, Mr. Trump and his ilk, you can continue to disregard truth for alternative facts, (doublespeak from 1984), but I suggest old friend, you make up fictional characters to give life to your works of fiction.

Let me know when you have the book signing.

Don Baldwin

Hickory
HICKORY  North Carolina Department of Transportation workers continue to assess a sinkhole that has closed a portion of N.C. Highway 127 on Wednesday.

Workers were out Wednesday morning assessing the situation and excavating material from the sinkhole.

The damage is believed to be caused by a culvert failure, N.C. DOT spokesperson Jennifer Thompson said.

The N.C. DOT will have to determine the nature of the repairs to see how quickly they can put out an emergency contract for bids to get the road repaired.

The sinkhole is located at a busy intersection near the Hickory Fire Department.

HFD Battalion Chief Michael Cates said there was a lane the department could use, and the fire department would go around the block.

Fire personnel are trained to have both primary and secondary routes to be used in a number of situations other than just roadwork, Cates said.

There are other stations that need ways to get around railroad crossings, Cates said.

Its just something weve always dealt with; this is just something thats going to be a little bit more long term, Cates said.

But well take whatever steps we need to to ensure good response time.

In an email statement, the chief operating officer of Frye Regional Medical Center, which is down the street from the sinkhole, spoke to the impact the sinkhole will have on the hospital's operations.

Were fortunate that the sinkhole that developed on Highway 127 wasnt on the Frye Regional campus, and didnt impact patient care or the ability for ambulances or emergency responders to reach our facility, Frye Chief Operating Officer Chris Fensterle said.

Residents in the area near the sinkhole also spoke about the effect on traffic.

Jim and Karen Peppers, who live on Second Avenue NE, were observing the work at the sinkhole from Sally Fox Park on Wednesday morning.

Theres a lot more traffic in front of our house, Jim Peppers said.

Well, there is an awful lot of traffic here so its going to be a real bottleneck Im sure, you know, problem for people coming in and out, Karen Peppers said.
Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi is scheduled to arrive in Washington on Saturday for a five-day visit which will include talks with President Donald Trump.

State news agency MENA reported that El-Sisi will meet Jim Yong Kim, the head of the World Bank Group, US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, and US Secretary of Defence James Mattis on Sunday. The president will also participate in a roundtable with heads of American corporations investing in Egypt, or intending to in the future.

A meeting with Trump is set for Monday, according to an announcement from the White House last week.

The meeting will deal with a range of bilateral and regional topics, including fighting the Islamic State militant group, pursuing peace and stability in the region, and enhancing bilateral military, economic, security and political relations.

The Palestinian issue is high on the agenda, El-Sisi announced during his meeting with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas earlier this month.

Fighting terrorism will also be prioritised in the meeting, MENA reported, as well as discussing regional crises such as the conflicts in Syria, Iraq, Libya, and Yemen.

El-Sisi will express the Egyptian vision of political settlements to ensure the unity, stability and sovereignty of these countries, MENA reported.

Rhetoric from both sides since Trump's election in November has been warm, in contrast with relations under the administration of Barack Obama, which grew strained after the ouster of Egypt's Islamist president Mohamed Morsi in July 2013.

The Egyptian president was the first Arab leader to congratulate Trump on the phone after he was elected on 9 November, inviting him to visit Cairo.

In January, Trump said during a phone call with El-Sisi that his administration is committed to maintaining annual US military aid to Egypt, praising El-Sisi's efforts in the war against terrorism and extremism.

This is the first official visit by an Egyptian president to the White House since 2010, when Hosni Mubarak met with Barack Obama.

El-Sisi later met with then-president Barack Obama on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York in 2014.

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Indias insistence on keeping a distance from Chinas huge infrastructure enterprise called the One Belt One Road (OBOR) initiative is quite intriguing. Delhi is yet to disclose if it will participate in the Belt and Road forum at Beijing in May that will be attended by several heads of state and representatives. Indias detachment will seem particularly odd in the years to come as the infrastructure emerges on the horizon  as OBOR aims to build land and sea links between China and Europe through roads, railway lines, power projects and ports in potentially over 60 countries.

China has indicated that it would like India to participate in the enterprise but Delhi has balked on essentially two grounds: One that the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), a flagship project of OBOR which runs between Xinjiang and Gwadar in Balochistan, goes through territories India claims, namely Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK) and Gilgit-Baltistan. Delhi has also indicated that it sees OBOR as a unilateral, national initiative of the Chinese which other countries are not obligated to buy into.

Indias first objection is about reaffirming unenforceable claims of sovereignty at the expense of exploring alternative futures  in this case the prospect of integrating South Asia with the Eurasian landmass. Delhis reiteration of its claim to PoK may be politically useful but that claim does not really improve its chances of getting back the territory and neither will Indias objections stop China from pressing on with building infrastructure in Gilgit-Baltistan. On the contrary, if the Narendra Modi government still paid lip service to Manmohan Singhs formulation about Jammu and Kashmir that borders cannot be changed, but they can be made irrelevant then that would have offered room to coexist with OBOR and CPEC  but since the Modi government is focused on isolating Pakistan on the issue of terror and is adopting a hardline policy internally in Kashmir it has no justification left to explore the opportunities that CPEC and OBOR afford.

Delhis attempt to represent OBOR as merely Chinas national initiative downplays or underestimates the transformative potential of the enterprise. There is a lot of commentary on OBOR circulating on the web but one recent paper by Peter Cai offers a very good reminder of its potential. In his analysis for the Lowy Institute for International Policy titled Understanding Chinas Belt and Road Initiative Cai argues that notwithstanding strategic calculations behind OBOR, some of the enterprises key drivers are largely motivated by Chinas pressing economic concerns. It is these economic imperatives that confirm the durability of Chinas ambitions, which will have far-reaching implications for Asia and the world.

In Cais reading, there are essentially three economic reasons for OBOR. One is that China wants to use connectivity and infrastructure development in neighbouring regions to address regional imbalances within China, particularly between landlocked western provinces and the prosperous sea-facing regions in the east. Beijing reckons, for instance, that a poor restive province like Xinjiang will over time develop through improved infrastructure, exposure to market pressures and trade via Pakistan, which the CPEC will enable.

This promise of connectivity has fired the interest of provinces in China. President Xi Jinping has put his authority behind OBOR and hence all levels of the Chinese Government, from the national economic planning agency to provincial universities, are scrambling to get involved in OBOR. Cai writes that nearly every province in China has developed its own OBOR plan to complement the national blueprint Many see it as a golden opportunity to obtain cheap funding and political support for their own infrastructure projects under the banner of OBOR.

Two, Chinas comparative advantage as low cost manufacturing base is ending as wages rise in the country and hence its leadership wants to capture the higher end of the global value chain. To this end, China needs to upgrade its industry, make it more innovation and quality-driven with a view to export high-end Chinese manufactured goods to countries in the neighbourhood participating in OBOR  at the expense of Western-manufactured goods. Importantly, Beijing will not only export higher-end goods via OBOR, it also wants to encourage the acceptance of Chinese technological standards as part of its ambition to become an innovation-based economy and a leader in research and development.

One area where China already achieved success is in high-speed railway technology, where the government has mobilised 10,000 scientists and engineers to incorporate foreign technology and develop its own. China robustly markets this technology abroad; a recent column in the Global Times notes that while India has chosen Japan for its first high-speed railway project, it doesnt mean that it is in Indias best interest to bar China from entering into partnerships on other bullet train projects. It pointedly says that India actually needs China more than China needs India in the arena of steel rail manufacturing and train technology. China is building the 142km Jakarta-Bandung high-speed railway line in a project that will adopt Chinese standards, Chinese technology and Chinese equipment. Beijing is also pushing for acceptance of its standards in the fields of energy and telecommunications.

OBOR also helps China address the problem of excess capacity it has faced since the 2008 financial crisis. Chinese firms borrowed heavily when credit was available and now are saddled with overproduction; for instance in 2015 the country produced more excess steel than the combined production of the US and European Union. Neighbouring countries are not in a position to import such volumes but Cai argues that OBOR is less about boosting exports of products such as steel and more about moving the excess production capacity out of China. He writes that Beijing wants to use OBOR to migrate whole production facilities, a point Chinese Premier Le Keqiang made to ASEAN countries in 2014 when he said that China would like to move its surplus equipment in steel, cement and pleat glass to countries in Southeast Asia via foreign direct investment, so that they can build their infrastructure and produce goods locally. Chinese officials say that this strategy has been informed by Chinas own experience of industrialisation in the 1980s when it imported second-hand production lines from Germany, Taiwan, and Japan.

OBOR is, of course, not without its challenges. The main concern is the availability of funds to achieve such ambitions as Chinese financial institutions may not want to risk losing money on projects where the rates of return are yet unclear. But there is little doubt that OBOR is a legacy-defining enterprise for President Xi Jinping, and as noted, the entire Chinese government is getting geared to try and make it happen.

Indias strategy so far has been to either ignore the ambitious scope of OBOR or resent Pakistans involvement in the flagship CPEC project. This approach does not serve its interests well. For a country that is quite self-conscious about its international image, it looks exceedingly odd for India to idly watch as China sets about altering the landscape around it, consolidating links with the neighbourhood and populating it with its personnel, equipment, technology and standards. Delhis approach also does not make sense since the nature of US commitment to Asia and India is in some doubt given Donald Trumps views on security alliances, H1-B visas, outsourcing and reviving American manufacturing. China clearly looks set to step into the vacuum that the US is creating in Asia through its isolationist, unpredictable President  and OBOR appears to be vehicle that will accelerate Chinas influence in the age of American distraction.

All this will affect India profoundly. This is really in some ways less about America and more about where Asia is headed. China is attempting to integrate South Asia with the Eurasian landmass and India ought not to be steering entirely clear of such an endeavour. This is not to say that India should acquiesce with all of Chinas plans or that it cannot seek greater clarity from Beijing about its plans  but Delhi ought be mindful of the risks of having no stake in a transformative enterprise that most countries in the neighbourhood will inevitably be drawn into.

Two things need to happen for India to move in the direction of eventually participating in OBOR. India and China need to ensure that their differences on political questions do not prevent both sides from advancing economic cooperation, something both countries have struggled to lately. More crucially, the Modi government may need to consider the future of its Pakistan policy, because the possibility of India benefiting from regional connectivity by land would entail a measure of normalised ties with Islamabad. As noted, the BJP government has focused its policy on isolating Islamabad on the issue of terrorism. Pakistan is now not as isolated as Delhi would hope, and India, with its millions of unemployed youth, cannot blithely ignore the economic headwinds that will change Asia. Hardline approaches to Pakistan and Kashmir may be good domestic politics for the BJP, but they are not the geopolitics India needs for its future.

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Homeopathic doctor Atik Afzal Khan was put behind the bars this week for sharing an innocuous Facebook post that says, Ram buys vegetables from Rahims shop.

Khan, from Para village in Madhya Pradeshs tribal district of Jhabua, is the latest to join a bevy of people, particularly from the minority community, to be caught up on the wrong side of the law in the state, ostensibly for making objectionable comments or posts on the social media.

He was arrested on Wednesday evening for posting the photo of a sadhu purchasing meat from a meat shop with the caption: Rahim Ki dukan se Ram hari sabjiya kharidte huen, ek durlabh tasvir (Ram buys green vegetables from Rahims shop, a rare photograph).

Jhabua SP Mahesh Jain said Khan has been booked under Section 505 (2) of the IPC for causing public mischief.

He said the photograph had been lifted from an online library, the Muslim World. Though there was nothing objectionable in the photograph, the SP said, the insertion of word Ram in the caption was offensive to a local resident, Anil Prajapati, who had lodged a complaint over the post.

Ram or Rama is the central figure of the epic Ramayana and is considered by Hindus as the seventh avatar of lord Vishnu.

Khan was denied bail and sent to judicial custody till April 11.

It was just a tip of the iceberg. In May last year the Bhopal police, with the help of the Mumbai police, arrested two youths Qayoom Qureshi and Ali Shaikh from the metropolitan city for allegedly sharing and liking derogatory remarks against goddess Kali.

The police initiated action against them under the National Security Act. As per police sources, they are yet to get a bail.

Police arrested two youths Shakir Yunus and Vasim Shaikh from Khargone in March, 2016 for allegedly sharing a morphed picture of RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat. In the same year in July, a minor was arrested from Jhabua for an objectionable post: We will build Babri mosque in Modis house. Hes released on bail later.

Again in November last year, a 25-year-old man Aslam Khan, who owns a mobile shop, was arrested from Morena for circulating an objectionable photo of the Prime Minister Narendra Modi. As per police sources, he is yet to get bail.

A few months ago, a Bhopal-based bookshop owner was arrested for selling an Urdu weekly, whose contents were deemed objectionable by some right-wing activists in the city.

Shahid Khan, the owner of Yashika Book Corner, was arrested after a complaint was made to police about objectionable content published in Urdu weekly Nai Duniya, though he had neither written the content not published it.

When it comes to complaints against members of the majority community in the BJP-ruled Madhya Pradesh, the over enthusiastic law enforcers either look the other way or face the wrath of the government for taking action.

For instance, seven police personnel including an additional superintendent of police Zia Haq were booked in September last year in Balaghat for allegedly assaulting an RSS pracharak Suresh Yadav in police custody.

Yadav was named in an FIR filed by some members of the minority community for allegedly posting provocative comments against their religion on social media and creating communal tension in the region.

In private the police officials have maintained that they had never assaulted Yadav, and were punished just because they arrested him.

Mohammad Mahir of the MP Muslim Vikas Parishad believes such bias was the outcome of political pressure.

As Muslims we are unable to understand why this is happening, it appears as if rule of law has vanished. The chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan is under RSS pressure. It is being done to polarize the people before the 2018 elections, he said.

The social media too has reacted to Khans arrest with outrage. Comments like The downward spiral continue (Joby Joseph shared by Ananthu Rajagopal), LoL God Bless (Rizwanullah Khan) and Restraint is required. Emotions are dangerous (Harathi Vageeshan) were posted.

Former advocate general Vivek Tankha too believes political pressure is making cops at the local level to act discriminately.

The inclination towards the party in power was apparent, he said, adding, Such behavior is creating rifts between communities.

A senior police official admitted that there was pressure from right wingers at the local level.

The BJP, however, denied the charges that police selectively act against people from a particular community under pressure from local level leaders of the ruling party and right-wing organisations.

Police act when they receive a complaint and there is no question of pressure. However, I would like to add that those who are making such posts should think about their role in vitiating the atmosphere before pointing fingers at others. It is not correct to tolerate or ignore such posts, chief spokesperson of the BJPs state unit Deepak Vijayvargiya said.

Phone calls and messages to the home minister Bhupendra Singh for his comment did not elicit a response.
Actor Ayushmann Khurrana, who has a five-year-old son, Virajveer and two-year- daughter, Varushka, says that hes childlike with his kids and is not the kind of father who enforces rules. Im neither strict nor protective. Im a kid like them. I play with them. While my wife (Tahira) acts like the bad cop, Ive to be the good cop because most of the times Im travelling for my films and gigs. It gets quite hectic and I cant afford to be strict. Ive to be their friend, says Ayushmann, who is currently shooting in Delhi for his film Shubh Mangal Savdhaan alongside actor Bhumi Pednekar.

The actor says that although his children are aware that their father is an actor, they are too young to acknowledge his stardom. They dont really know what is happening around. My son is five. He feels weird, when kids call me by my first name. Being a young father is an advantage. You dont look like a father. Its fun to see your kids grow and youre in touch with the next generation, Ayushmann says.

With her in Chandigarh. The winter sun is so amazing that you don't need a filter. Green is the fav colour of this city. @tahirakashyap #winter #sun #nofilter A post shared by Ayushmann Khurrana (@ayushmannk) on Dec 2, 2016 at 2:58am PST

Ayushmann further adds that they dont feel awkward that their father is in the limelight always. They think this is the normal way of life. They dont feel weird. They are born into this environment, so they have no option, he says.

But would he want them to become actors as well? I dont think they should have that pressure. They should discover life on their own. No one will force them to pursue a certain career, says Ayushmann.

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Actor Deepak Tijori, who starred in a number of hit films including Jo Jeeta Wahi Sikandar, is in the news for the most bizarre reason.

The actor, who has been married to Shivani Tomar for more than 20 years, was thrown out of his home after he had a fight with her recently. His troubles didnt end there. He later discovered that his wife, with whom he has a 20-year-old daughter Samara, isnt his wife at all--at least, legally.

Confused? Heres what happened... After his fight with Shivani, Deepak consulted a lawyer. Turned out, Shivani hadnt divorced her first husband in the first place, making his marriage to her null and void.

That, however, hasnt stopped Shivani from filing for divorce and demanding maintenance from the actor. A report in Spotboye.com says, Shivani filed for divorce and maintenance, which Deepak can ill-afford. However, Deepak just realised that Shivani is not his legal wife!

The report further adds, After consulting a counsellor, Deepak happened to check if Shivani had divorced her first husband. Imagine his horror when he discovered that she had not!

To complicate the matter further, his equation with his daughter isnt smooth either. A friend of the actor was quoted in the report as saying, Shivanis marriage to Deepak is null and void if she hadnt divorced her first husband. So why should Deepak maintain her cost of living? Samara is not a minor, she is 20 years old. So she doesnt qualify for maintenance. As far as her relationship with her father goes, its nice but tilted in favour of Shivani; Samara is closer to Shivani than to Deepak.

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That, Karan Johar and Gauri Khan are the best of friends is not new information. Theyve stood with each other through highs and lows of their life, the most recent example of the same is Gauris specially designed nursery for KJos twin babies.

Gauri has designed a gorgeous new nursery for Karans twin babies at his house. (Karan Johar on Instagram)

But not many know the story behind this friendship. When they were first introduced, Karan, like many others in the industry considered Gauri to be aloof. He spilled the beans in an exclusive interaction with HT Brunch. We first met in 1994 when we were shooting Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge in Switzerland. Gauri was there with a friend, and Shah Rukh (Khan) introduced us. I thought both she and her friend were very aloof. Then, just because I could speak French, Shah Rukh appointed me as the person to take them around for a day in Rougemont in the French part of Switzerland. Gauri obviously didnt believe that somebody from a Hindi film crew was cool enough to speak French, and kind of sniggered at the idea. But things got a bit better once we bought the train tickets and I was able to manoeuvre them through that day. We landed up getting along really well and by the end, I was quite a favourite of hers. In fact, we grew to becoming really close on that trip.

(Karan Johar on Instagram)

Karan added, When we came back to Mumbai, she followed up with me and I became her first friend from the industry, an industry that she had otherwise stayed away from because she was wary of the people in it. The Delhi girl who used to dance with Shiamak Davar had thought that film industry people were not her cup of coffee. I kind of broke that mindset for her. In fact, I think that the foundation of my friendship with Gauri lies in the fact that I made her love the people in the movies, people who are actually really great. She grew to realise that, and today, all her strong equations are from within the film fraternity. Ive seen her evolve from being an apparently aloof girl to now actively belonging to her husbands world. Ive seen her rooting for his films and being stressed and jittery pre-release just like any movie industry persons family member would be. And in the last decade, shes also come into her own in a whole new way.

From strangers in Switzerland to best friends in Bollywood, theirs is quite a story.
The Supreme Courts ban on the sale of BS-III emission norm-compliant vehicles has triggered heavy discounts across the country as auto dealers look to clear stocks.

While car makers in some cities offered discounts of as much as Rs 50,000, the offers were not consistent throughout the country.

Many are also free insurance among other benefits. That has already led to surge in footfalls in dealerships.

There are around 40,000 estimated cars lying in showrooms and with carmakers, across India and with just one day to go for the April 1 ban deadline, heres are the best deals you can get:

Here is what the companies are offering:

-- Honda Cars India is offering Rs 15,000 of benefits on the Brio and of up to Rs 2,00,000 off on the Mobilio crossover, which is based on the Brio platform. Amaze comes with benefits of up to Rs 93,000 and Jazz has a cash benefit of Rs 20,000. The company, however, said that it has stopped making BS III cars in 2010, and that the discounts had nothing to do with clearing the stock.

-- Volkswagen, the German carmaker, is giving a flat 10% discount on its Polo hatchback. The offer is valid till March 31. The Vento, too, is offering the same discount.

-- Hyundai is offering benefits on most of its models. According to the company website, the Grand i10 comes is offering saving of up to Rs 55,000, Elite i20 and i20 Active of up to Rs 25,000, and Santa Fe of up to Rs 2,50,000.

However, it has to be noted that some of these discounts are valid on BS IV vehicles as well.

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French utility EDF is making progress with plans to export nuclear reactors to India and South Africa and says it is in talks with several other countries about nuclear projects.

EDF nuclear newbuild chief Xavier Ursat told reporters that once EDFs takeover of Arevas reactor unit Areva NP was completed by the end of 2017, it would spearhead the French nuclear industrys export drive.

He said talks with the Indian government about a project to build six Areva-designed EPR reactors in Jaitapur, south of Mumbai, were progressing well.

We do not expect to sign a deal for six reactors in one go, but our target is to sign a framework agreement this year that would give us some visibility and allow us to start detailed studies for this project, he said.

He said EDFs proposals to the Indian government were based on the current EPR model - which is under construction in France, Finland and China and will also be built in the UK - not for a New Model EPR which the company is preparing.

Ursat said EDF was also working on a response to the South African governments request for information, made in late 2016, which should be ready by the end of April.

South Africa operates two ageing French-built reactors in Koeberg, but several other reactor vendors including Russias Rosatom are also eying the contract.

We have a history of 30 years of good relations with South Africa, that counts for something, Ursat said.

He said EDF was also hoping for new contracts in China, but said talks there would have to wait for the completion of two EPR reactors under construction in Taishan, southern China.

By year-end we expect to load fuel in Taishan 1, after that we probably will have discussions about the future, he said.

Ursat said there were also possibilities in eastern Europe, including in Czech Republic and Poland.

Brazil also remains interested in nuclear, but that will probably take a few years to put into place, he added.

He said there were contacts with Saudi Arabia about nuclear newbuild, but without a precise time horizon, and that EDF had held talks with the Malaysian government but there had been no progress on that front recently.

Asked about the success of Korean manufacturer Kepco in building second-generation reactors in time and on budget in United Arab Emirates, he said more modern third-generation reactors were still the best option.

Both Areva and Toshiba-owned Westinghouse have effectively been bankrupted by cost overruns on their more expensive and hard-to-build third-generation reactors.

Westinghouse filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on Wednesday, while Areva is being recapitalised by the French state after years of losses.

I think that our third-generation reactor meets the needs of countries that are starting with nuclear energy and will move directly to a third-generation reactor, he said.
European Investment Bank president Werner Hoyer on Friday called on Prime Minister Narendra Modi and discussed Indias funding requirement for environment-friendly projects.

In course of the conversation today the Prime Minister explained Indias policies in the areas of climate change and environmental sustainability. The European Investment Bank has lent over one billion Euros to India towards environmentally sustainable projects including the Lucknow Metro, the PMO said in a statement.

Modi had met a high level delegation of the EIB a year ago at the EU-India summit and promised support for establishment of the banks regional office in Delhi. This office was inaugurated today. it said.

Hoyer appreciated Indias strong and proactive measures in the field of climate change, and expressed the banks continued support for Indias efforts in this direction.

EIB has okayed Rs 1,400 crore (200 million euro) loan to State Bank of India to fund solar power projects.

The long-term loan will support total investment of 650 million euro in five different large-scale photo-voltaic solar power projects, EIB said in a statement.

This will contribute to Indias National Solar mission and reduce dependence on fossil fuel power generation.

Four solar power projects at a generation capacity of 530 MWac have already been identified under this funding, it said.

The new cooperation between the State Bank of India and the European Investment Bank will scale up investment in large scale solar power generation across India, said B Sriram, Managing Director, State Bank of India.

Close cooperation between technical and financial teams from both institutions will ensure that world class projects are supported, he said.

This new project reflects the shared commitment of India and the European Union to tackle climate change and implement the Paris Climate Agreement, said Andrew McDowell, Vice President of the European Investment Bank.

The 20 -year long-term EIB loan will support individual projects. Projects in Tamil Nadu and Telangana are amongst those to be funded under this agreement.

This funding will be in addition to financing from Indian banks and project promoters.

One of the largest lenders in renewable energy investment, EIB has financed projects of 1.7 billion euro (about Rs 11,900 crore) in India since 1993.

Owned by the 28 member states of the European Union, it is the worlds largest international public bank.
The effect of demonetisation is fading and growth is likely to return to the pre-note ban stage, but a clearer picture of the economy will be available by June-end, S&P Global Ratings said today.

Indias effects from demonetisation are fading and a return to the growth path prevailing before the currency note swap looks to be increasingly likely. This should be a two-quarter event, meaning things will become clear by mid-2017, S&P said.

India had demonetised 500 and 1,000 rupee notes on November 8, 2016, and asked holders of such notes to deposit them in banks.

The Central Statistical Office (CSO) last month had projected GDP growth to be 7% in the October-December quarter, belying fears of slowdown post demonetisation. For the full year, it projected India to grow at 7.1%.

In a report on Asia-Pacific economies, the US-based agency said these countries have started 2017 on a solid note and a number of significant political developments in the regions big three economies -- India, China and Japan -- will shape the baseline and risk scenarios this year.

These include the ruling partys victory in a key state election, Chinas National Peoples Congress in mid-March, Japanese Prime Ministers nomination to a third term as the party chief.

S&P Global Ratings Asia-Pacific Chief Economist Paul Gruenwald said 6.4% GDP growth forecast for 2017 for China looks safe for now. We will be watching non-performing loans and the related credit quality indicators in China as well as whether capital outflow pressures rear their heads again, Gruenwald said.

S&P forecast Japans GDP growth at 1.3% this year, pegging it at around 1% over the next few years.

The list of things that could go wrong for APAC nations include US-China trade relations, a possibly faster pace of US Federal Reserve rate hikes and their effect on capital flows, and heightened geo-political tension.

The largest near-term risk is US-China trade relations. It is still unclear who has the upper hand in President Trumps administration: the globalists or the nationalists, Gruenwald said.
President Donald Trump will seek to rebuild the U.S. relationship with Egypt at a Monday meeting with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi focused on security issues and military aid, a senior White House official said on Friday.

"He wants to use President Sisi's visit to reboot the bilateral relationship and build on the strong connection the two presidents established when they first met in New York last September," the official said, briefing reporters on condition of anonymity.

Egypt has long been one of Washington's closest allies in the Middle East, receiving $1.3 billion in U.S. military aid annually. The country is fighting an Islamist insurgency in Sinai, and hundreds of Egyptian soldiers and police have been killed fighting insurgents.

The bilateral relationship was strained when former President Barack Obama criticized a crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt's oldest Islamist group.

Egypt considers the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist group.

Obama froze aid to the country for two years following the ouster of Islamist President Mohamed Morsi in mid-2013 after mass protests against his rule. Morsi, a Muslim Brotherhood member, had been elected the previous year.

Trump's relationship with Sisi got off to a good start when they met last September in New York while Trump was running for president, the White House said.

Trump supports Sisi's approach to counterterrorism, which includes both military and political efforts, his efforts to reform Egypt's economy, and Sisi's calls for "reform and moderation of Islamic discourse," the official said.

Asked whether the United States would designate the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist group, as Egypt has, the official said Trump was interested in hearing Sisi's views during the meeting.

"We, along with a number of countries, have some concerns about various activities that the Muslim Brotherhood has conducted in the region," the official said.

'MORE DISCREET WAY'

Sisi's visit comes as the Trump administration has proposed massive cuts to U.S. foreign aid, the details of which are still to be determined. The White House anticipates aid to Egypt will continue but provided no details on Friday.

"We're in the budget process right now and those discussions are ongoing as to how it will be broken out," the official told reporters.

Some U.S. lawmakers have opposed loosening restrictions on aid to Egypt because of concerns about human rights in the country. The Trump administration intends to address human rights issues behind closed doors, the White House official said.

"Our approach is to handle these types of sensitive issues in a private, more discreet way. We believe it's the most effective way to advance those issues to a favorable outcome," the official said.

The official would not say whether Trump would discuss with Sisi the case of Aya Hijazi, an Egyptian-American who works with street children and was arrested in May 2014 on human trafficking charges. Rights groups have called for her release.

Hijazi has been held in custody for 33 months in violation of Egyptian law, which states that the maximum period for pretrial detention is 24 months.

A verdict was set to be read in a March 23 court session, but was postponed with no reason stated by the judge until April 16. The maximum possible jail sentence in her case is 25 years.

The White House is aware of Hijazi's case "at the most senior levels," the official told reporters.

"We are going to address this with Egypt in a way that we think maximizes the chances her case will be resolved in a satisfactory way," the official said.

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A rift between investors on the board of directors of online marketplace Snapdeal has led to the company missing out on at least two desperately needed funding offers over the past six months, three people familiar with the matter said.

The clash is between early and powerful Snapdeal investors, Kalaari Capital and Nexus Venture Partners, on one side, and SoftBank Group Corp., the companys largest shareholder, on the other, the people cited above said. At the heart of the matter is Snapdeals valuation in a potential funding round, the people said on condition of anonymity.

The boardroom battle has contributed to the crisis at Snapdeal (Jasper Infotech Pvt Ltd), depriving the company of much-needed cash. Since January, Snapdeal has cut hundreds of jobs, slashed spending on discounts and marketing and seen a sharp drop in monthly sales.

The differences between the board members may also complicate a potential sale of Snapdeal. SoftBank has initiated talks with Paytm and Flipkart to sell Snapdeal, Mint reported on 22 March. SoftBank may also put up as much as $50 million in cash to tide Snapdeal over until a merger materialises, Mint reported then. For such a round to happen, Snapdeals other board members may need to be bought out or be convinced to take a large haircut on their investments.

Over the past six months, SoftBank has offered to invest at least once in both Snapdeal and its payments unit, Freecharge. The proposed deal would have lowered Snapdeals valuation (including Freecharge) to less than half of the $6.5 billion it fetched in its last funding round in February 2016, the people cited above said. But the deal was rejected by Kalaari and Nexus as the valuation drop would have led to a significant increase in SoftBanks stake and a corresponding slide in their ownership, the people said.

When SoftBank offered the cut-price deal, Kalaari and Nexus asked the Japanese investor to buy at least part of their shares in the company, the people cited above said.

SoftBank, which has already pumped roughly $900 million into Snapdeal, refused, favouring a direct infusion into the company, the people said.

For Kalaari and Nexus, a lot rides on Snapdeal. It is their biggest bet and generating a lucrative exit from the online marketplace could be crucial for the success of the two Indian venture capital firms. Thats why a fall in their Snapdeal stakes could be damaging.

SoftBank owns 33% in Snapdeal, while Nexus owns roughly 10% and Kalaari nearly 8%, according to documents with the Registrar of Companies. Chief executive Kunal Bahl and Rohit Bansal, chief operating officer, who are also co-founders, together own less than 6.5% of the company after cashing out part of their stakes.

Despite their low stakes compared with SoftBank, Kalaari and Nexus, two of the earliest institutional backers of Snapdeal, still enjoy strong shareholder rights and have veto powers on board matters. However, they would lose many of their rights if their ownership in the company falls below 4.75%, according to Snapdeals articles of association, which define the terms of governance and management.

Apart from the proposed deal with SoftBank, another funding offer, though at an early stage, was made to Snapdeal in the second half of last year by eBay Inc., a minority investor in Snapdeal. eBay had offered to sell its Indian unit to Snapdeal, the three people cited above said. eBay also offered to put cash into Snapdeal but the companys board including SoftBank rejected the deal because of differences over valuation, the people said.

Snapdeal, SoftBank, Kalaari and Nexus did not respond to emails seeking comment.
Donald Trump will sign an executive order Friday that will launch a 90-day investigation of countries against whom the United States runs a bilateral trade deficit. The list, led by China, also includes India, Japan, Germany, South Korea and Canada.

Another executive order, to be issued at the same time, will be about the long-festering problem of under-collection of anti-dumping and countervailing duties, dealing with imports that are substantially cheaper than local rivals because of state-subsidies.

The first executive action will direct the commerce department and a new White House trade council to identify every form of trade abuse and every non-reciprocal practice that contributes to the US trade deficit, commerce secretary Wilbur Ross told reporters on a call previewing the orders on Thursday.

Among the key questions that will be addressed during the 90-day investigation will be the extent to which our bilateral deficit with that country is the result of cheating or other inappropriate behaviour, Ross said.

He added that other questions will include the extent to which the deficit was caused by free trade agreements that did not produce the forecast benefit for our country.

China tops the list with $347 billion trade surplus over the US, followed by Japan with $69 billion, Germany with $65 billion, Mexico with $62 billion, Ireland with $36 billion, Vietnam with $32 billion, Italy with $28 billion, South Korea with $28 billion, Malaysia with $25 billion, India with $24 billion, Thailand with $19 billion, France with $16 billion, Switzerland with $14 billion, Taiwan with $13 billion, Indonesia with $13 billion and Canada with $11 billion.

The trade deficit with India is for goods for 2016, and its been rising every year  going up from $14 billion in 2011.

China might look the chief target here, given the size of the deficit, Trumps remarks from the campaign trail and the timing of the executive orders  just days before the President meets his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping. His administration stressed that was not the case, stating that the orders were a message to the entire world.

But Trump himself suggested otherwise on Twitter.

The meeting next week with China will be a very difficult one in that we can no longer have massive trade deficits...

...and job losses. American companies must be prepared to look at other alternatives.

Extricating the US from unfair trade deals, agreements and situations was one of Trumps chief election planks that also included pulling America out of the 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership and renegotiating NAFTA, a three-country trade agreement with neighbours Canada and Mexico.

But Ross clarified not all deficits would have been caused by unfair deals or cheating. The exceptions would include oil imports by the US that may have cost large trade deficits, or because some products that are not made in the US and have to be imported.

He said the first-of-its kind analysis will demonstrate the depth of the administrations intention to take a very measured and analytical approach to analyzing the problem and, therefore, to developing the solutions for it.
There has been a sudden rise in buyers at automobile showrooms after the Supreme Court banned the sale of BS-III vehicles from April 1 in an attempt to reduce vehicular emissions. While the automobile industry cried foul on the sudden ban as there is 8.25 lakh of unsold inventory with automobile makers and dealers, dealerships have tried to push out the inventory at heavy discounts.

As per the ruling, even though no BS-III vehicles can be bought after March 31, all vehicles bought until then will be registered even in April.

In Rajasthan, there are about 350 dealers who are not panicked by the order. The companies are offering heavy discounts on two-wheelers and four wheelers, which is from Rs 15,000- Rs 20,000 on two-wheelers and Rs 50,000 to a lakh on four-wheelers, said Sai Girdhar, secretary, Rajasthan Authorised Motor Vehicle Dealers Association.

The discounts and footfalls are skewed towards two-wheelers dealers, where the country-wide inventory is the highest at 7.5 lakh vehicles.

In Guwahati, Assam, DR Brijmohan, Hero Motorcorps largest dealer, dropped prices on all BS III models by Rs 7,000 to Rs 15,000. Sales increased significantly, especially for scooters. We have run out of stock and many customers had to return empty-handed, said a DR Brijmohan sales executive.

The dealers said that most of the discounts are absorbed by the respective companies. The automakers, however, refrained from commenting on the matter. But, on Wednesday, Pawan Munjal, chairman, MD and CEO of Hero MotoCorp, said, We have reduced our inventory significantly in the past few months with the aim to minimise our stakeholder losses.

In Madhya Pradesh, people thronged the dealerships. Two-wheeler dealer Surjeet Bajaj offered a concession of Rs 5,000. Other dealerships offered Rs 15,000 in discounts. Some dealerships put up a booked signboard outside. Vishal Jauhari, vice-president of MP Automobile Association, said the offer of concession was mainly on two-wheelers.

In Ranchi, the owner of one of the largest two-wheeler showrooms said most of them had opened discounts as it was driving in footfalls. Once the customers come to the showrooms, it helps us sell the new products as wellBS-III has become a marketing tool, the owner said.

(With inputs from Utpal Parashar, Rakesh Goswami and Ranjan Kumar Srivastava)

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German automaker Volkswagen AG said today it reached a settlement with 10 US states on environmental and consumer claims stemming from its emissions cheating scandal.

The company has agreed to pay $157.5 million to the states, including New York, Massachusetts and Pennsylvania, resolving suits by the states against VW for violating emissions standards.

The agreement avoids further prolonged and costly litigation as Volkswagen continues to work to earn back the trust of its customers, regulators and the public, VW said in a statement.

Volkswagen so far has agreed to pay out more than $ 20 billion in the US, including criminal penalties, to federal and state authorities, as well as consumers and car dealers, to resolve its dieselgate emissions cheating scandal which has rocked the company since 2015.

Regulators discovered Volkswagen diesel cars sold as clean were in fact emitting as much as 40 times the permissible levels of nitrogen oxide during normal driving but were configured to hide this during emissions testing.

As many as 11 million vehicles sold worldwide were configured to cheat emissions testing.

The company in June 2016 reached a $ 603 million agreement with 44 US states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico to resolve consumer protection claims. This did not address claims concerning 3.0 liter vehicles which were included in the latest settlement.

VW has seen strong performance despite the crisis, recording $ 5.4 billion in profits last year after a nearly $ 2 billion loss in 2015.

The 10 states in the settlement had adopted the same emissions standards set by California, which are more stringent than federal law requires.

The Trump administration vowed to roll back requirements for to increase fuel efficiency set by the previous Democratic administration but for now California, the countrys biggest auto market, retains the right to set tougher standards.
When Khalid Masood drove a car into a crowd in London last week, killing four people and injuring many more, it was Britains worst terror incident since 2005. It took him just 82 seconds to hit pedestrians and get to the Parliament building before stabbing a policeman and getting shot. The attack was over before anyone realised what had happened.

How Britain reacted to its Westminster tragedy speaks volumes for how we can defeat Islamic State-inspired terrorism in the social media age.

Hours after the attack, British Prime Minister Theresa Mays calm and unifying words set the tone for the country. The terrorists chose to strike at the heart of our capital city, where people of all nationalities, religions and cultures come together to celebrate the values of liberty, democracy and freedom of speech, she said, ending with: We will all move forward together. Never giving in to terror. And never allowing the voices of hate and evil to drive us apart.

The next day MPs stood up in Parliament one by one to pay their respects and stressed the need to unite the country to fight terrorism.

Of course there were rabble-rousers who leapt at the opportunity to get on TV cameras. Nigel Farage, the former leader of the Ukip Party, wasted no time in blaming migrants for the attack. But Masood was not only born and raised a few kilometres from where Farage lived, he had come from a Christian family and later converted to Islam.

Our social media age gives extremists voices an edge because they attract attention and end up driving the debate. They love the attention even if its negative. But it also makes it near impossible to have a reasonable public debate. Britains far-Right tried their best to score points over the terror attack, by blaming migrants, refugees, or Muslims, but found little hearing outside their bands of followers. Instead they faced an avalanche of criticism for trying to exploit the incident.

The measured manner in which the British establishment reacted to the London terror attack is to be celebrated. Its worth reiterating that groups such as Islamic State (IS) need western countries to overreact to the terrorist threat. Their potency lies not just in the damage they inflict but also in the fear and panic they induce. Partly because they dont want to be seen as soft on terrorism, and mostly because they also dont like being threatened, our media and politicians rarely acknowledge how they also over-emphasise the risk from terrorism.

But terrorists would not succeed if their intended audiences did not feel threatened. IS needs western governments to become paranoid and cast suspicions on all Muslims. It helps them. It makes it easier for them to groom new recruits. Britains response to the Westminster attack is a sign it is finally having a mature debate on terrorism, rather than being driven to panic as its tabloid press is prone to do.

British Muslims were also quick to understand the role they could play in reinforcing Mays words. One group raised over 30,000 (Rs 24 lakh) for the victims families in a week. Co-organiser Akeela Ahmed told me it was our way of paying our respects to the victims and in some small way helping their loved ones.

The day after the attack, Muslim women lined up holding hands across the Westminster Bridge to show their sorrow. A week later Muslim schoolgirls and imams were among the police and thousands of others at a vigil where the attack took place. They wanted to emphasise this was their country too and they were united with non-Muslims against IS. For a terrorist group that places a lot of importance on symbolism this was a visible slap.

The British establishment recognises that ordinary Muslims are essential allies in fighting those inspired by IS. So far so good. But we may not be so lucky next time. Only four people died this time, plus Masood himself. Next time public opinion may be far uglier if more people die. Next time it could be worse.

With US President Donald Trump now in charge there is a palpable worry across Europe that a terrorist attack in the United States could push him to do something irreversibly dangerous. That has made Britain even more determined to sensibly tackle the problem.

Its important we challenge religious extremists and their sympathisers wherever they are and stand for secular and democratic values. There is no doubt that IS is a genocidal organisation that must be wiped out. But we cannot do this by falling into their trap. We cannot defeat terrorism if our actions, rather than weakening the enemy, makes them stronger.

Sunny Hundal is a writer and lecturer on digital journalism based in London

The views expressed are personal

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If you had been told exactly a year ago that Donald Trump would be the 45th President of the United States, that the United Kingdom would not just pass but also trigger Brexit, or that Yogi Adityanath would be the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, you could well have pointed to the calendar and scoffed: Nice try.

All Fools Day may have a single entry on the calendar, but the way things have gone recently, it appears to be a daily observation of absurdity. The occupant of the White House is possibly the symbol of this systemic silliness, especially when he cant control his twitching Twitter trigger fingers. But Trump, over the past two years, has also shown an uncanny ability to toss his critics conjectures (including those of this writer) into the junkyard.

The failure of the Republican healthcare bill, based on the rinse and repeat refrain of repeal and replace Obamacare, has led to another flurry of Worst Week Ever fever within Washingtons wonkdom. Some believe the American President is already a lame duck, others that his agenda is dead, and yet, he has only been President for a little over two months. Teflon Don has defied the doomsayers during his brief political career, and this latest round of obituaries is a fools quest. It may be that Trump will arrive politically dead in four years, but we are not there yet. Just as there is no middle ground in the Trump universe, between loving him or loathing him, the reaction to his tenure in 2020 as he seeks re-election could pivot to either extreme  cruise control or crash and burn. But writing him off at this point isnt worth the paper.

Its instructive to recall that two years into his first term, shellacked by a backlash to the Affordable Healthcare Act, Barack Obamas re-election seemed in serious jeopardy. In this instance, if you speculate, you tend to accumulate a web trail of looking foolish.

Meanwhile further North, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau may be the liberals poster boy but he will not be buoyed by pollsters who indicate that his party, for the first time since the autumn of 2015, is trailing the opposition Conservatives, even as the latter remain leaderless and leaden. Marijuana legalisation, expected next summer, may take him somewhat higher, but nowhere close to the levels his popularity touched, as his government completed its first year. Those visions of a supermajority have dimmed, but with much less than half a term done, the chances of Trudeau recapturing his earlier trajectory are also up in the air.

At the other end of the spectrum of speculation, following the Uttar Pradesh Assembly election results, there are experts already wondering about what Prime Minister Narendra Modi will do in his second term. They are quick to forget that fairly recently, the year 2015 was bookended by outcomes in Delhi and Bihar that had the same pundits pronouncing Modis imminent political eclipse.

Presuming that 2019 is locked and loaded for Modi at this juncture is foolhardy. We should refer to the fine print in financial investment documents to get real: Past performance is not an indicator of future results. As Trump has proven, the political markets dont obey the laws of gravity.

Its probably wise not to take pundits prognostications as profound, certainly not the ones in America, at least not till they can actually pronounce the word pundit.

The only predictable event is that of being pranked again. After all, a year ago, much of the chatter was about Texas Senator Ted Cruz winning the Wisconsin primary and poised to derail the Trump train. That became a path to pratfalls.

In these times of disruption, just about the only safe prediction to make is that crystal ball-gazing may have a bleak future.

Those who are professionals at telling political fortunes, are as reliable as those crafting horoscopes. And the space between reality and their reactions is similar to that of the gulf between the science practised by astronomers and astrologers. It may be wiser to restrict the foolishness to a designated date.

Anirudh Bhattacharyya is a Toronto-based commentator on American affairs.

The views expressed are personal

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DEHRADUN/NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court Friday stayed the order of the Uttarakhand High Court asking the state government to put a complete ban on sale and consumption of liquor in three districts  Rudraprayag, Uttarkashi and Chamoli  home to the Chardham.

A bench comprising Chief Justice J S Khehar and Justice D Y Chandrachud issued a notice and sought response of the parties on whose plea the high court had on December 8 last year ordered prohibition.

The Uttarakhand government had moved a Special Leave Petition (SLP) in the apex court urging it to vacate the HC order. The HC had directed the state government to comply with its order from the next fiscal.

The Supreme Court order comes a day after the Trivendra Singh Rawat government issued an order banning sale of liquor in the three districts and within one kilometre of educational institutions, in compliance with the HC verdict.

Following the SC order, the government would withdraw its compliance order, said officials.

Since the HC order has been stayed by the apex court, the government will soon withdraw its compliance order that it was supposed to enforce from April 1, secretary, excise C S Napalchiyal said. That means that the sale of liquor will be permitted in the three districts and in one km from the educational institutes across the state, he clarified.

Napalchiyal said the state government had filed the SLP on the plea that the government would suffer an annual loss of Rs 100 crore owing to the liquor ban in the three hill districts.

On Thursday, the government had started the process of enforcing the HC order. We had directed the magistrates of the three districts to strictly enforce prohibition, Napalchiyal said. Similar orders had also been issued to the magistrates of all the 13 districts in the state to ensure that the sale of liquor is prohibited within one km of the religious places and educational institutes.

The high-altitude Kedarnath and Badrinath shrines are located in Rudraprayag and Chamoli districts respectively whereas Gangotri and Yamunotri temple are situated in Uttarkashi district. The HC had observed that a complete ban was required at least in these districts considering the growing tendency to consume liquor among the youngsters.

The court had also asked the state government to impose prohibition on public drinking and take steps to check large drunken gatherings. It had said there should be no liquor shop from the next financial year within one kilometre radius of an educational institution or a religious place. It had also asked the state government to put a ban on sale of tobacco within a radius of five kilometre from Gurdwara Nanakmatta, Gurdwara Meetha Reetha Sahib and Gurdwara Hemkund Sahib.

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While a good business for dealers of air conditioners (AC) and coolers is usual when Delhi gets warmer, the sudden heat wave in March has brought heavy gains to AC servicing agents this time.

A number of servicing shops said they were doing brisk business as people have already started using their ACs considering the sweltering heat this season. Usually demand picks up by the second week of April. But this time, we started getting calls from last week itself, said Mohammad Ishfaq, a servicing agent in Malviya Nagar.

Many shops claimed that for the first time, they have introduced a waiting system to meet the demand. Besides, as the demand is more, many operators are also charging way over the usual rates.

Last week I got one AC serviced for Rs 500. This week, when I called for servicing of a second one, the same agency demanded Rs 700, said Rita Prasad, a resident of IP Extension.

Another resident of Rohini rued he is still waiting to get the AC serviced at his apartment. I called the customer care of Voltas on Thursday and they gave me a slot for Saturday. The executive said that they are facing heavy demand, he said.

With the temperature going up every year, more and more people are buying ACs. It doesnt matter whether they stay in a posh bungalow or a one bedroom apartment in an unauthourised colony. Everyone is buying and availing the discounts that we give, said Chetan Bhargav, an AC dealer in Patparganj.

Some dealers claim that the sudden rise in temperature has increased the demand for air conditioners, inverters and coolers by around 30%.

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Members of the Supreme Court-mandated Environment Pollution Control Authority (EPCA) alleged that a section of automobile dealers were resorting to fake sales to buy BS-III vehicles at a discounted price so that they could be resold later.

We have received complaints that a section of automobile dealers purchased BS-III vehicles over the past two days and got them registered in the names of their family members. These vehicles would be resold at a later date, said Sunita Narain a member of the apex court appointed EPCA.

An estimated eight lakh BS-III vehicles were lying in godowns and showrooms across the country. Dealers sold two-wheelers and four wheelers at a discounted price to clear the stock.

The Supreme Court on Wednesday passed an order banning the sale and registration of BS-III emission norm-compliant vehicles from April 1.

The apex court, however, said that registration of vehicles that do not meet BS-IV emission standards is prohibited from April 1 except for vehicles which can provide proof that they were sold before March 31.

Some people are taking advantage of this. They bought two-wheelers and cars at discounted prices with the aim to resell them later, claimed an EPCA member in Fridays meeting.

The matter was given top priority at the EPCA meeting on Friday where members discussed the issue with government representatives from Delhi and adjoining states including Haryana, Rajasthan and UP.

Transport department officials, however, claimed that with online vehicular registration facilities in place in most states, including Delhi, it would be difficult for anyone to hoodwink the law.

It wont be a problem in UP as vehicular registration is done online. Dealers have been directed to collect insurance and registration fees and register the vehicle online by Friday midnight. Any registration done after that wont be accepted, said a transport department official from UP.

While all states have online registration facilities in place, a few others have taken extra measures to tighten the noose against those trying to circumvent the law.

Even though we have online registration, we would also issue a fresh series of registration numbers once the March 31 deadline is over, said a transport department official of Haryana attending the EPCA meeting.

Transport department officials are also keeping a track of the last minute sales of BS-III vehicles in Delhi-NCR and have asked dealers to submit the registration number of cars sold over the past two days.

Demand to remove cess

Meanwhile, member of the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers attending the meeting urged that the 1% cess, which was imposed by the apex court on diesel vehicles with an engine capacity above 2000 cc, should be lifted as all vehicles would now be BS-IV complaint.

When a car is BS-IV complaint that means it is maintaining the standards. Then why penalise it? The cess should be lifted, said a SIAM representative.

The proposal was vehemently opposed by a section of the members who are in favour of phasing out diesel vehicles.

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The German embassy in Cairo welcomed on Friday the first step in allowing German civil society organisations to resume activities in Egypt, after a bilateral agreement was signed in Berlin to that effect.

German ambassador in Egypt Julius Georg Luy hailed the agreement, describing it in a statement on e-mail as "an important first step" and said he hoped that the agreement goes into effect as soon as possible to enable German institutions to resume their work without obstacles, and for the benefit of the two countries.

The agreement is considered an additional protocol to the cultural agreement between the two countries, in effect since 1959, and represents a legal framework for the work of the German institutions in Egypt, once ratified by both sides.

It was signed in Berlin by Philipp Ackermann, the German foreign ministrys delegate for Middle Eastern Affairs, and by Egypts ambassador Badr Abdel-Ati.

The statement adds that it is also a first step towards solving the case of two employees of the German NGO Konrad Adenauer Foundation who were sentenced in absentia in 2011 for crimes related to receiving foreign funds.

Further details of the agreement have not been announced.

The situation of German organisations in Egypt was on the agenda of Chancellor Angela Merkel during her visit earlier this month, the statement reads, adding that Merkel said that organising a legal framework for the work of the organisations will allow individual legal cases from the past to be looked at, and create opportunities for bilateral cooperation.

The statement added that German political organisations are close to German political parties; however, they receive their funding from the German public treasury, according to the Bundestag regulations, and are independent from the German government when it comes to their programmes.

These organisations work on political education inside Germany, and since 1961 they have worked on enhancing cooperation and dialogue at an international level, which means communicating with governments, unions, and civil society outside Germany.

Egyptian prosecutors investigated charges of receiving foreign funds illegally in 2011, investigating a number of NGOs. Fourteen Egyptian and 29 foreign aid workers faced trial for receiving illegal foreign funding and for working without a formal licence.

Twenty-seven defendants, all tried in absentia, received five-year jail sentences, eleven received one-year suspended sentences, and five received two-year sentences.

The court also ordered closure of five foreign NGOs operating in Egypt and funds were confiscated: the US-based Freedom House, the International Republican Institute, the National Democratic Institute, the International Centre for Journalists, and Germany's Konrad Adenauer Foundation.

The case was reopened again in March 2016. A number of prominent activists being investigated in the case have since been banned from travel, and the assets of those named in the case have been frozen.

Merkel met with President El-Sisi and other Egyptian top officials during a short visit in March, where they discussed cooperation between both countries in combating terrorism and irregular migration, and promised $250 million to support the country's economic reform programme.

The German news website Deutsche Welle reported on 2 March that Merkel said that Cairo agreed to easing restrictions on political foundations after her meeting with El-Sisi, saying that "Germany's political foundations are in our opinion a very important contribution to the development of civil society."

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The body parts of a possible male were found near a drain in Gandhi Vihar, Delhi, on Friday morning. At around 7am, a passer-by informed the police control room about decomposed hands and one foot lying near the drain. The head, torso and upper parts of the body were missing.

A senior police officer, who was at the spot said,The body has been brutally cut into pieces. We have found only the hands and one foot. The body appears to be that of a male. We are unable to ascertain his age. There are no identification marks visible on his hands or foot , a senior police officer said.

Police have registered a case of murder and launched investigation. We have contacted police stations across the district asking them to share details of people who went missing in the last two weeks. Also we are accessing footage from CCTV cameras installed in the area, a police officer said.

Police teams across north Delhi are trying to find the other body parts.

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Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal on Friday said if Bharatiya Janata Party or the Congress comes to power in the municipal corporations, the power and water departments will be taken away from the Delhi government and given to the civic bodies as these parties were under pressure from power discoms and private water companies.

Sounding the poll bugle for the April 23 municipal elections at Burari in North Delhi, Kejriwal alleged that a senior BJP leader has recently warned him about it. He appealed the city electorate to ensure that AAP comes to power in the three MCDs so that the good work being done in these two areas continues unabated.

Few days back, a senior BJP leader came to see me. He said a conspiracy is being hatched that if the BJP or Congress comes to power in the MCDs, the power department and the Delhi Jal Board will be given to the municipal corporations. He reminded that these two departments used to be with the MCDs prior to 1998, said Kejriwal.

They are doing this because these parties are under pressure from private companies because AAP government has plugged corruption. We did not allow discoms to raise power tariff...so please ensure that AAP comes to power in the three MCDs. The good work will continue, irrespective of which agency will operate these departments, he added.

Addressing his first public meeting for the April 23 civic polls, Kejriwal stuck to the development work done by his government over the past two years, especially that in power, water, education and health sectors.

With the BJP being more on his target than the Congress, Kejriwal challenged BJP chief Amit Shah for a debate, comparing the performance of the AAP government with that of the BJP-ruled states. The AAP national convener, however, stayed away from naming Prime Minister Narendra Modi even once in his speech.

The BJP has been ruling states like Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh for over a decade. I challenge Amit Shah to compare their performance with the work done by us in two years....BJP is in power in MCDs for 10 years. I challenge them to list even one spectacular work that has been done in the MCDs, Kejriwal said.

He assured people that AAP will implement its promise of waiving off house tax for all residential properties just like it fulfilled the electoral promise of reducing the power tariff by half and providing 20,000 litres of water free to each household every month.

Kejriwal clarified that his government has proved critics wrong by meeting all promises without letting the fiscal health of the state government getting affected.

There is no dearth of money in government. We provided so many services free and the government is not short of funds. We saved money just by curbing corruption. But the BJP and Congress people cry foul that MCDs does not have funds...once we come to power, we will waive the house tax and make the MCDs profitable at the same time, Kejriwal.said.

The first rally of Kejriwal was held in Burari, an area dotted with unauthorised colonies dominated by purvanchalis---the core vote bank.of AAP. The stage was erected on one end of a newly laid road in the unauthorised colony, Harit Vihar.
A 25-year-old constable was stabbed twice by an alleged criminal, but he fought back and caught him in Central Delhis Patel Nagar on Thursday morning.

The policeman, Jitender Tomar, is hospitalised at BLK Hospital with stab wounds behind his ear and to his back, but is expected to survive.

The nabbed suspect, Vikas (name changed), has a criminal record, including dacoity, registered against him when he was a juvenile, said a senior police officer.

Based on his interrogation, police later nabbed his associate, Rohit. A hunt is on for three other suspects who were with the assailant moments before the attack.

The incident took place around 4am on Wednesday when constable Jitender was on patrolling in Prem Nagar, under the jurisdiction of Patel Nagar police station.

Jitender noticed a group of five men loitering around suspiciously. As he approached them, they ran in different directions. Two of them were riding a scooty and Jitender tried to stop them, said a senior police officer.

The policeman physically tried to stop the scooty, causing the vehicle to skid. While Rohit used the chaos to run away, Jitender held on to Sooraj.

Finding himself unable to escape from Jitenders grip, Sooraj allegedly pulled out a knife and stabbed him twice. The knife almost punctured Jitenders lung, but he continued to hold on to the attacker, said the officer.

The bleeding policeman also managed to inform the police about the situatio. Reinforcement arrived quickly after that and Sooraj was handed over to the police team.

Jitender was first rushed to Lady Hardinge Hospital and later moved to BLK Hospital. He is stable and has been able to speak to the investigators, said MS Randhawa, DCP (Central).

A case of attempt to murder has been registered at Patel Nagar police station. While Sooraj is a resident of Munirka in South Delhi, Rohit lives in a locality near the crime spot. The latter too has past criminal cases agai against him, said police.
Delhi lieutenant governor Anil Baijal has shut down a shadowy AAP government unit which was allegedly raised to keep a tab on its own officials and was even provided secret funds last year, the L-Gs office said on Friday.

The group, which the Arvind Kejriwal-led Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government has termed a feedback unit , had around 15 former police officials and experts.

A senior official in the L-G office said Baijal gave approval in the first week of March to shut down the unit, besides terminating its contractual staff.

The move potentially raises the spectre of a fresh confrontation between the Delhi government and the Centres representative. Though relations between Kejriwal and Baijal are cordial so far, the chief minister had accused former L-G Najeeb Jung of trying to usurp his governments powers.

Delhi deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia defending the unit which he said was constituted to keep a tab on the functioning and corruption, if any, in different departments.

Whats wrong with such a unit? The government should have such arrangements for feedback, Sisodia said.

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) registered a preliminary enquiry (PE) in January after former L-G Jung sought a probe into seven instances of alleged irregularity by the Delhi government.

The seven cases were flagged by an inquiry panel constituted by Jung under the chairmanship of former comptroller and auditor general VK Shunglu, who was tasked with examining 400-odd files for possible irregularities in decisions taken by the AAP government.

Sources said the terms of references forwarded to the CBI includes the procedure related to the units hiring and secret funding.

The unit was last year given Rs 10 lakh in secret funds. The funding and expenditure of this unit needs to be probed, besides the exact role this department was playing.

Though it is said that the cabinet approved institution of this wing, but it needs to be seen if all approvals were taken in due course, a vigilance department official said.

A CBI official said investigations into the case was under way.

The question of filing an FIR in the case or our officials conducting searches at any Delhi government premises can only arise when the PE into the particular case is completed, the official said.

LG Jung had stated that some individuals were allegedly employed in the unit which was cleared by the AAP in September without consulting the L-Gs office, officials said.
Ankush Garg, a 21-year-old Saket resident, got out of his house at 10am on Friday morning and hopped on to his friends scooter. They rode the entire day in the sweltering heat, looking for a cheaper, BS-III two-wheeler.

All I want is a motorcycle, which is slightly cheaper due to the discounts being offered. However, I am yet to find a single showroom which has one in stock, Garg said.

And he is not alone. Thousands of Delhiites on Friday made beelines across vehicle showrooms to buy a slightly cheaper vehicle.

The Supreme Court banned the sale and registration of vehicles which are not compliant with BS-IV emission norms from April 1 across the country. To clear the BS-III vehicles in their stock, most companies asked their dealers to offer heavy discounts. And Friday was the last day to avail it.

The crowds were primarily noticed at motorcycle and scooter showrooms. While most of these sported BS-III stock over signs, people still tried their luck and visited multiple shops.

The rush for BS-III two-wheelers was so high that many showrooms, apart from the stock over signs, put their shutters down to avoid the curious crowd.

We had much less stock of BS-III bikes. We had two left, sold them on Thursday, a staff at a Green Park two-wheeler showroom

Few showrooms, however, had stock which was sold quick and fast to few lucky residents.

One such lucky man, Vipin Kumar Gola, got a TVS Apache RTR Rs15,000 cheaper than the on-road price at an Adhchini showroom. This was the last BS-III model at this shop. Now stock over. But I have got my coveted two-wheeler and it has been not that hard on the wallet, Gola said, with a big smile.

In the afternoon, a Bajaj showroom at Lajpat Nagar which HT visited had four BS-III bikes still up for grabs. And the discount on offer was from Rs 4,000-Rs15,000. We had 10 left this morning. Six have been sold, four are left. These will also sell in a blink, Kapil Agarwal, a staff at the shop, said.

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Air India has alerted its staff to alleged attempts by Shiv Sena MP Ravindra Gaikwad to circumvent a ban on flying by booking flights with different honorifics and spellings of his name.

Sources said that Gaikwad is trying different spellings to confuse AI ticketing staff. The state carrier, which had grounded the MP for abusing and assaulting a 60-year-old Air India manager last week, first cancelled Gaikwads Mumbai-Delhi ticket and then another ticket that he had booked from Hyderabad to Delhi on Tuesday.

The Sena MP, against whom police have filed an FIR, again tried booking a Nagpur-Mumbai-Delhi flight on Wednesday.

Ravindra Gaikwad, R Gaikwad, Prof V Ravindra Gaikwad and Prof Ravindra Gaikwad has been banned in our system as he tried booking using different abbreviation. In some cases he tried changing spellings of Gaikwad also. We are scanning all the details as bookings are made through coupon issued by Parliament, said an Air India official.

Gaikwad had an open ticket with Air India and had booked a flight for Wednesday morning. He blocked a seat on a morning flight from Mumbai to Delhi, which was booked through the Air India call centre. When the airline realised who the passenger was, they cancelled the ticket.

Not one to give up, Gaikwad then booked another ticket, this time from Hyderabad to Delhi. However, the airline again came to know who the passenger was and cancelled the ticket once again.

On Wednesday, he tried booking through an agent who contacted the AI headquarter in Nagpur. A confirmation was sought from headquarter and the travel agent refused to book his ticket, the official said.

Gaikwad abused and assaulted Air Indias duty manager R Sukumar with slippers after being denied business class seat on a Pune-New Delhi Air India flight last Thursday.

The 56-year-old MP was then banned by Air India and five private airlines from flying as he refused to apologise for the incident that triggered nationwide outrage.

Fellow MPs criticised Gaikwads action, and Lok Sabha speaker Sumitra Mahajan said she will take a call if any parliamentarian brought the topic to her notice in the House. He, however, remained defiant and, instead, blamed Sukumar for the incident.

He told reporters at Maharashtra Sadan on Thursday morning that he has no regrets. Kaahe ka pashchaataap (what is there to repent)? I will not apologise ... he (Sukumar) should come and apologise. Then we will see. A 60-year-old man should know how to behave, he said.

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A fire broke out at the Ghazipur flower market in East Delhi on Thursday night. Around 150 jhuggis, where shopkeepers sold flowers were gutted in the fire. Fire officials said the control room was alerted about the fire at around 11.30pm, following which 13 fire tenders were rushed to the spot. It took officials at least 3 hours to douse the fire. The loss of the vendors at the market ran into lakhs, officials said.

The temporary sheds were used by flower sellers at the Ghazipur flower market. (Sushil Kumar / HT Photo)

Police said the 150 jhuggis, gutted in the fire, were also used to stock and sell flowers. Police suspect the fire was a result of short-circuit in one of the electricity poles near the sheds. Eyewitnesses claimed to have seen one of the cables from a nearby railway pole falling onto the temporary sheds.

Some families were living in the jhuggis, however, a police officer said, no one was injured in the fire.
After Swaraj Indias plea for a political symbol was dismissed by Delhi High Court, the party has devised an innovative strategy to ensure that there is a uniformity in their political campaign.

The party has asked all its candidates to use the same picture in its posters, hoardings, placards and other poll campaign materials that they will give to election commission to be used in the Electronic Voting Machines (EVM).

A coloured photographs of candidates will be affixed besides EVMs as Delhi goes to vote for the municipal elections on April 23.

Swaraj India, a political party formed by former AAP leaders Yogendra Yadav and Prashant Bhushan, is contesting Delhi municipal corporation elections on all 272 seats.

Member of Swaraj Indias National Presidium, Anupam said, Besides poll publicity materials, we have asked all the members to show the same picture to the voters during their campaigning in the ward.

The party has also asked that each candidates should prominently use the partys logo which is a yellow flag with a red brush strokes in their posters. Also the candidates have been advised to wear yellow clothes which is partys theme colour as much as possible.

They have also been communicated that they should use fixed size banners and posters with yellow background so that there is a uniformity in the campaign.

Swaraj Indias spokesperson Ashutosh Mishra said, It is a disappointment that party might not get common election symbol but this will not harm our chances as civic body elections are fought on hyper local issues and if most people know the candidate personally.

So, if our candidates are able to use their face and partys colour as their brand, the denial of symbol will not be a major constraint, he said.

Meanwhile, challenging a single judges order dismissing its plea for allotting a common symbol to its candidates in the corporation polls, the party has appealed it in front of a double bench in Delhi High Court.

After the Delhi High Court had struck down its demand for identical symbols for all its candidates contesting the corporation polls, party leader Yogendra Yadav had accused AAP of conspiracy by deliberately sitting on a proposal that of election commission that would have cleared the way for Swaraj India for getting a common symbol.

He had said that in March 2015, the state election commission had written to the Delhi government to modify rules to allow recognised political parties, willing to contest 10 per cent of the total seats, to have a common symbol for the polls.

When the state election commission asked the Delhi government to treat this matter on a priority basis, the AAP government sat on it for two years, he said.

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Watering holes at DLF CyberHub in Gurgaon and hotels at Aerocity in New Delhi will be forced to go dry immediately in view of a Supreme Court decision to uphold a previous order prohibiting the sale of liquor near highways across the country.

The apex court on Friday maintained that its verdict banning the sale of alcoholic beverages at establishments located within 500 metres of state and national highways will extend to hotels, pubs and bars too. Consequently, thousands of bars and pubs across the country  including 34 at DLF CyberHub  are likely to lose their liquor licences.

Although the bench headed by Chief Justice JS Khehar refused to drastically amend the order prohibiting liquor at all outlets within the prescribed distance, it introduced a partial modification reducing the limit to 220 metres in areas with a population of less than 20,000.

The verdict came on multiple petitions filed against a previous order passed on December 15, 2016.

The bench, also comprising justices DY Chandrachud and LN Rao, rejected the applicants request to extend the Sunday deadline. As per the order, no establishment that sells or serves alcohol can operate in violation of the apex court directive from April 1.

Drunk driving is a potent cause of fatalities and injuries in road accidents. The Constitution preserves and protects right to life as an over-arching constitutional value, the bench said.

However, it allowed some relaxation in states like Telangana and Maharashtra because their excise year was yet to end. The ban will be enforced from September 30 in those states.

The verdict will prohibit liquor from being served at around 50 hotels, restaurants and pubs in Delhi from the midnight of March 31. The citys excise department said teams will be deployed to ensure that these establishments  mostly on national highway-8  do not violate the apex court order.

Among the major hotels affected by the order are Radisson, Uppal and the ones at Aerocity, excise commissioner Sanjay Kumar told HT.

Around 70 liquor vends located on national highways in the city have already been sealed, officials said.

Gurgaon deputy excise and taxation commissioner Aruna Singh said the authorities would comply with the Supreme Courts order, although they were yet to receive a copy of the same. We have conducted a survey and submitted our report to the headquarters, said Singh.

The fresh ruling virtually rejected attorney general Mukul Rohatgis legal opinion to Kerala and Haryana that the verdict was not meant for restaurants, bars and hotels. As the object of the direction is to prevent drunk driving, making any such relaxation will defeat its purpose, the bench said.

The law officers request to extend the deadline was also dismissed. Rohatgi, appearing for Tamil Nadu, argued that the order required rectification because the court had transgressed its limitations by interfering with the states right to prescribe distance. His argument, however, did not find favour with the court.

The bench cited the topographical constraints of Sikkim and Meghalaya to exempt them from the verdict. Himachal Pradesh received some relief, with the court reducing the prescribed distance from 500 to 220 metres.

The fresh order came on applications urging the court to modify, review or clarify its judgment. Eight states  two of whom later withdrew their pleas  and several representatives of traders had approached the top court in this regard. Eighteen states refrained from filing petitions.

(With inputs from Leena Dhankhar and Vishal Kant)

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Two women from Aizwal in Mizoram died at their friends rented flat in south Delhis Munirka early on Friday morning. Police suspect they died of drug overdose.

The two friends, both 22, were identified as Clara and Rakil.

While Clara stayed in another rented flat in the same building with her cousin, Liankhanmang, Rakil lived at Lucknow in Uttar Pradesh. Police said Clara and Rakil were found unconscious at the flat of Claras friend Jenny. They said Jenny and Liankhanmang too belonged to Mizoram. Clara was unemployed.

The matter came to police notice at 9.20am when they received a call from Safdarjung Hospital that two women were brought to the emergency ward by Jenny and Liankhanmang in an unconscious state. The two were pronounced dead on admission, said a senior police officer.

Jenny and Liankhanmang told the doctor there was a probable drug abuse the preceding night, Chinmoy Biswal, additional deputy commissioner of police (south district), said.

Read: How Delhi has emerged as the new transit hub for party drug peddlers

The exact cause of death would be determined after the post-mortem and viscera reports are released. We have requested that the autopsy should be conducted by a board of doctors, Biswal said.

Jenny told police that Clara and Rakil visited his flat at around 6 pm on Thursday. Rakil had come to meet Clara and Jenny from Lucknow in the afternoon, police said.

While Jenny and Liankhanmang left for their night shift at a call centre, the two women stayed at Jennys flat for the night. Police sources said that Clara and Rakil allegedly consumed a cocktail of alcohol and drugs.

Jenny and Liankhanmang returned on Friday around 6.30 am. Jenny found her flat locked from inside. When despite repeated phone calls and knocks, the women did not open the door, Jenny opened the window and saw Clara and Rakil lying unconscious on the floor.

Jenny raised an alarm and informed Liankhanmang about the matter. He somehow unlatched the main door and entered. Clara was breathing. The two said Rakil was lying motionless, said the officer.

The duo informed neighbours and with their help rushed Clara and Rakil to a nearby clinic where the doctor referred them to Safdarjung Hospital.

By the time the two were admitted to the hospital they had died, said police. The families of Clara and Rakil in Aizwal were informed about the deaths.

The bodies were preserved at the AIIMS mortuary where the autopsy will be conducted after their family members arrive.
For the past four decades Gamil Mattar has been consumed by Arab affairs, first as a diplomat, then as a researcher and now as a prominent commentator and analyst who is very well frequented with Arab foreign policy circles.



This week, ahead of the Arab Summit that is scheduled for Tuesday in Amman, Mattar told Ahram Online that he has really no big expectations of the summit, despite the many challenges facing the Arab world on so many levels.



His reasons are many, varying from a lack of political will to the complexity of each problem. However, Mattars greatest source of disappointment over the lack of collective Arab action is the "sad fact" that "there is no such thing as an Arab order left.



I hate to say it, but this is where we are now; there is no Arab world as such. There are Arab countries and there is a Middle East to which these countries subscribe, Mattar said.



The Amman summit is due to take place against the backdrop of diplomatic efforts to bring a semblance of order or peace to two Arab countries in particular: Syria and Libya.



Both have been crushed by the militant political bras de fer that followed the outbreak of the Arab Spring in 2011, which managed  with Western help  to eliminate Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi who had ruled for 40 years, but failed to bring an end to the regime of Syrian ruler Bashar Al-Assad, who has been in office since June 2000, in succession to his father who ruled for three decades.

Other Arab countries are also suffering considerable instability: Yemen that is steeped in poverty and strife among conflicting powers supported by battling regional players, essentially Saudi Arabia and Iran; Iraq that is still failing to recover from the multiple ethnic fissures that emerged following the US-led war and invasion in 2003; and Somalia, whose strategic placing on the Red Sea brings to it considerable foreign, regional and international interference.



A great part of this and other problems among Arab states have to do with the high level of presumption that many Arab capitals tend towards regarding their status in comparison to other Arab countries, and about the role they could play beyond their own borders, Mattar said.



'Outside intervention'



These same Arab capitals have also failed to put a lid on expanding intervention in Arab affairs on the part of international and regional powers, particularly Iran, Turkey and of course Israel that is pursuing endlessly expansionist policies across the region and not only when it comes to Palestine," Mattar argues.



Outside intervention is such that it would be hard to argue, he says, that Arab affairs are even mostly decided within the realm of the Arab order.



This might be something that we will read in resolutions to be adopted by the Amman summit, but beyond that it is essentially and unfortunately a very feeble influence that most Arab capitals have on the management of Arab affairs.



Syria is a country that has been contested since 2011, essentially between Riyadh and Tehran. Today, the countrys affairs and future is essentially being decided by Russia in consultation with Iran. Libya, meanwhile, is a country that three North African Arab capitals  Cairo, Tunis and Algiers  are trying to fix, but any final scheme would have to be approved by the UN, the EU, the US and Russia.

The Palestinian file  once called "the central cause of the Arab world"  has been put on the backburner for more than five years with most Arab capitals immersed in the waves of the Arab Spring, or trying to ward it off. There is consensus neither among key Palestinian figures nor among concerned Arab capitals, while the position of the US administration under Donald Trump remains ambiguous.

How did the Arab world arrive to such an impasse, seven decades after the launch of the Arab League that was intended as a forum to cement and develop a nascent Arab order? Answers Mattar: It has been a long and unfortunate road of mismanagement and wrong choices.



For Mattar, the Arab world or Arab order has become fudged into a larger Middle East. One reason for this, Mattar argues, relates to the failure of Arab leaders to properly manage Arab resources to serve Arab interests, either at the national or larger regional level.



There has been a lot of waste; a lot of resources have been drained in futile ways, be it oil, investment capacity, political influence, and the rest of it. They have all been irrationally spent and I would not say that any single Arab leader is without guilt, in one way or another, Mattar argued.



At a wider level there is the failure of the today 22 member states of the Arab League, which represents the Arab order, to achieve any sort of integration, be it political, economic or in security matters.



Since the signing of the joint Arab security treaty in the early 1950s, Mattar reminds, There has effectively been less than a handful of meetings for Arab ministers of defence, and that was that, really."



A couple of years ago, Egypt put forward a new proposal to establish a joint Arab military force, but this proposal was immediately crushed by Saudi Arabia that pursued instead a made-to-measure alliance for its war in Yemen, Mattar said.



According to Mattar, the failure to integrate has essentially been about the reluctance of some Arab countries to acknowledge the leadership of others: first the Saudis declined the leadership of Egypts Gamal Abdel Nasser; then the Saudis shrugged the attempts of Iraqs Saddam Hussein to assume leadership of the Arab world.



This is not just about military or political leadership, but even development and culture, Mattar said. As a result, he added, The very pioneering and promising plans for integration that were schemed in some of the best Arab brains in the 1950s through the 1970s were all trashed, or almost.



While failing to act collectively, Mattar said, Arab countries for the most part were failing to make any significant development leaps, at least serious development that goes beyond the mere finding of oil or other natural resources.



This lack of development is not just about prevailing autocracy, but also curtailing civil society, despite the many promising syndicates and workers unions that were there across Arab countries. With declining soft power capacity came also a lack of vision for the future.



This said, of course, in a sense we have to acknowledge that the failure of the Arab League has to do with the way it was established by the British in the mid-1940s, when they knew that the time was coming for them to leave this part of the world in the wake of the end of their empire and the rise of the US after World War II.



The very member states of this pan-Arab organisation were also, in many cases, the making of imperial powers, in the Sykes-Picot Agreement.



So we ended up with some Arab leaders who were not really content with the borders of their newly independent nation states and who tried to expand the scope of their power, either through attempted unities as pursued by Libyas Muammar Gaddafi or by war as pursued by Iraqs Saddam Hussein. And these leaders were assembled in a unity framework that they had not really visualised or structured, Mattar said.



Throughout its seven plus decades, Mattar said, the Arab League has faced serious challenges that raised question marks over its credibility.



These, he argued, included the failure of Arab states to take a clear supportive position towards Nassers decision to nationalise the Suez Canal; the failure of Arab countries to agree on a position on the war in Yemen in the 1960s and the failure of the Arab countries to prevent the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in the 1990s, despite a successful effort a couple of decades earlier that prevented a similar attack.



The challenges also included the subsequent stance in support of foreign military intervention in the Gulf to liberate Kuwait; and the failure of Arab countries to take a collective position on how best to handle the Palestinian cause.



And, of course, the suspension of Egypts membership in the Arab League upon its peace deal with Israel in 1979 dealt one of the most serious blows to the Arab League, given the central role and responsibility that Egypt always had in the League, Mattar said.



Despite the establishment of a branch of the pan-Arab organisation in Tunis during the decade of Egypt's suspension from the League, and a potential new branch opening in the UAE, to host leading Arab meetings, Mattar argues that the role of Egypt as host of the Arab League headquarters remains central.



Consequently, any serious attempt to improve the state of the Arab organisation would have to have a strong Egyptian push, something that does not seem to be in the works for now.



Amid the many home front challenges that the Arab Spring brought to Egypt, Cairo has had little energy to invest in the pan-Arab organisation. Of course, a lack of initiative was there before, given the fact that [former president Hosni] Mubarak had chosen to manage relations with a few selected Arab leaders away from the pan-Arab organisation, Mattar said.



But it was the Arab Spring, Mattar said, that put the pan-Arab organisation before the most unsettling questions: what kind of Arab regimes should the League support, and what form should Arab nation-states take?



Following the initial success of the January Revolution in Egypt, the League acted to support calls for democracy in Libya, Syria and Yemen. It took the decision to suspend the membership of Libya and Syria in condemnation of regime attempts in both countries to quash protests and demands for democracy.



The elimination of Gaddafi allowed the Arab League to bring Libya back in, under a new transitional government.



Prompt Saudi intervention in Yemen, the immediate backyard of the oil rich monarchy, and the quasi war between Saudi Arabia and Iran there and in Syria, prohibited a long term effective role for the Arab League, especially as Egypt, the central Arab country, was suffering internal disturbances with the failure of the elected Muslim Brotherhood president Mohamed Morsi to act inclusively.



His ouster later inaugurated a reversal of the tide of the Arab Spring across the region.



Today, Mattar argues, the question as to the nature of the Arab nation state, put to the pan-Arab organisation, remains pending. Yemen and Libya, both suffering serious disturbances, are still present in the organisation while Syria remains out, despite the keen wish of some countries  including Egypt  that the regime of Bashar Al-Assad be reinstated in the pan-Arab organisation.

The key developments do not start in the Arab League; they start elsewhere, maybe in Tehran or Ankara or Washington, and then they are accommodated in the Arab League. This is why I am convinced that there is not much to be expected of the Arab summit beyond traditional positions that have little impact on the ground. And this is why I stand by my assessment that there is not much left of the Arab order, Mattar concluded.

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The Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) teachers association has said that cuts in the number of seats in MPhil/PhD seats in colleges affiliated to the varsity are unconstitutional.

The additional solicitor general had given us an assurance in the court that this provision will not be given retrospective effect. As clarified by the Supreme Court of India, if supervisor caps must be applied they can only constrain a faculty members activity from when they are adopted. Since JNU appears to have adopted them the day it issued the prospectus, no past research supervising activity of any faculty member should be counted, said Ayesha Kidwai, president, JNUTA.

Another teacher added that there has been such a massive seat cut because the administration has not calculated the outgoing students who will submit their thesis on July this year.

New University Grants Commission (UGC) 2016 guidelines place a cap on the number of research scholars a professor, associate and assistant professor can supervise. The rule has lead to large-scale protests by students of the university.

The numbers of cuts are alarmingly high in some cases. A total of 86% seats were to be cut at the varsity. The School of International Studies shows a cut of 96.29%, the School of Social Sciences, 89.27% and the School of Languages, Literature and Culture Studies 77.71% and Science Schools at 68.78%.

According to the new guidelines, in PhD courses, a professor can supervise a maximum of eight students, and associate professor can mentor six and an assistant professor can supervise four. In MPhil courses, a professor can supervise three students while an associate professor can supervise just two and an assistant professor can mentor just one student.

The introduction of cuts led to large-scale protests by students about two months ago. The students had moved the Delhi high court, but the court quashed the case.

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The Supreme Court on Friday allowed medical aspirants of over 25 years to take this years NEET examination. It has also allowed them to fill forms for the examination till April 5.

Earlier this month, a Supreme Court-appointed panel had vetoed governments move to cap the age of students and the number of attempts they are allowed to clear a top all-India exam for entry into undergraduate medical schools.

The panel, headed by former chief justice RM Lodha, said it was in favour of striking down the governments eligibility criteria because there is a dearth of doctors in the country.

In January, the government issued an executive order limiting to three the number of times a student could take the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET). It also capped the eligibility age of candidates at 25  both decisions made on the recommendations of the Medical Council of India (MCI). The governments order was challenged by students.

Earlier, an eligible student above the age of 17 could apply, and there was no cap on the number of attempts.

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Dior has once again chosen a natural woman  a chic but stylish woman, in touch with her own style  as the focus of the brands Fall 2017 collection designed by Maria Grazia Chiuri. Jennifer Lawrence, an ambassador of the French fashion house for five years, fronts the campaign for the fall collection.

French photographer Brigitte Lacombe  who also shot the brands spring/summer 2017 campaign  has captured key pieces from the Dior Fall 2017 collection, modelled by American actor Jennifer Lawrence in a new advertising campaign. Looking natural and relaxed, the Silver Linings Playbook star shuns glitter, sequins and cocktail dresses for a chic but laid-back look.

Shot in black and white, the campaign shows Jennifer Lawrence in a simple, minimalist decor, modelling the collection in relaxed, natural poses. She can be seen sitting nonchalantly on a chair, a bench, a piece of furniture and a bean bag, or leaning against a white wall.

Brigitte Lacombe has captured the authentic Jennifer Lawrence, wearing clothes perfectly in tune with her personality: laid-back and chic. The actor wears the iconic Bar jacket over slogan T-shirts (We should all be feminists, JAdior) matched with jeans and heels or flats.

Our muse Jennifer Lawrence is still maintaining her cool and relaxed allure in her new campaign for Dior, while rocking the emblematic 'We Should All Be Feminists' T-shirt and the revamped studded 'Diorama' bag by #MariaGraziaChiuri.  @BrigitteLacombe A post shared by Dior Official (@dior) on Mar 30, 2017 at 5:48am PDT

Jennifer Lawrence also shows off the labels accessories, with various combinations of rings, as well as lucky charm necklaces featuring stars or birds. Diors iconic bags feature in the campaign too, including the Lady Dior, reinterpreted with charms and a wider cross-body strap, the Cest Dior, a vintage-style model inspired by a bag from the Dior archives, and the Dioraddict, finished with a woven motif.

Jennifer Lawrence has been a Dior brand ambassador since 2012. She has notably fronted campaigns for the Miss Dior bag, for Dior Beauty makeup and for the labels accessories collections.

No stranger to Dior ads, our muse Jennifer Lawrence makes her #MariaGraziaChiuri collection debut. Shot by photographer @BrigitteLacombe, the new Dior campaign portrays the actress in a series of black and white shots as the poster girl of easy elegance rocking the latest and updated iconic Dior bags. Stay tuned for more! A post shared by Dior Official (@dior) on Mar 30, 2017 at 1:54am PDT

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Two-wheeler showrooms had to down their shutters in Gurgaon on Friday following rush of customers for clearance sale after the ban of BS-III models by Supreme Court .

A number of customers lined up outside showrooms asking for bikes and scooters at discounted prices. However, the manager had to down shutters as they had no stock left of BS-III compliant two-wheelers.

I came to buy an Activa and enquired about Honda Hornet 160R bike, but they have closed the showroom. I rushed here today after getting news of sale of BS-III two-wheelers at a discounted price, said Kamla Devi outside Honda showroom in Sector 14 market.



I came to get any vehicle that was available on discount. I heard they were offering a discount of Rs 15,000 to 20,000 on Splendour and Glamour bikes, said Mukesh Sharma outside Hero Motocorp showroom in sector 14 market.

Ashok Kumar, Varun Kumar Verma, and Virbhan had the same complaint. They came to purchase bikes from Hero showroom but were disheartened to see downed shutters.

A number of customers lined up outside showrooms asking for bikes and scooters at a discounted price but, the management of showrooms had to down shutters as they had no stock left of BS-II compliant two-wheelers. (HT Photo)

People managing the showrooms said they finished their BS-III stock on March 20 and now customers can only buy BS-IV complaint two-wheelers. Some showrooms also pasted notice of BS-III models out of stock.

There was a heavy rush at the showrooms on Thursday evening also as people waited to get delivery of the vehicles.

There were reports that two-wheeler majors Hero MotoCorp, Honda Motorcycle and Scooter India, Bajaj Auto and Suzuki Motorcycle were reportedly offering discounts of up to Rs 22,000 on BS-III models to liquidate stocks. (Sanjeev Verma/HT Photo)

There were reports that two-wheeler majors Hero MotoCorp, Honda Motorcycle and Scooter India (HMSI), Bajaj Auto and Suzuki Motorcycle were offering discounts of up to Rs 22,000 on BS-III models to liquidate stocks, a day after the Supreme Court banned sale and registration of such vehicles from April 1.

With 6.71 lakh two-wheelers, out of over 8 lakh BS-III vehicles impacted by the ban, dealers said the immediate effort is to sell as many units as possible before the deadline by offering unheard of discounts in the industry.

HMSI, which had initially offered a flat discount of Rs 10,000 on its BS-III scooters and motorcycles increased it to Rs 22,000 later in the day.

We already sold out the BS III model vehicles a week back and informed the consumers who visited the showroom to enquire regarding the discounted two-wheelers on Friday. At present, we only have BS IV model vehicles, said Sharad Goyal, who owns a dealership of Hero MotoCorp located in Sector-14.

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Corporates working in the city, residents of upscale colonies and those commuting till Sikanderpur Metro station of the Delhi metros Yellow line are all excited about the launch of the second phase of the Rapid Metro. Commuters said that the service reduced travel time, cost and transportation woes.

The line opened at 3.10pm to the public on Friday from the DLF Phase-1 Metro station, with over 30 passengers on board.

Akshita Sharma, a resident of DLF Phase-5, who was one of the first commuters, said that the metro service was useful. Sharma works with an MNC in Cyber City and uses app-based cabs to return home. However, she said that her travel time was considerably reduced by the metro service and she intends to use it regularly.

I travel in the early morning and evening peak hour. The seven-kilometre journey takes me nearly an hour and more when there is an accident or ongoing construction work on the route. The delay adds to my stress. However, the sector 42-43 metro station is a five-minute walk from my condominium and it took me only 20 minutes to return home from work, Akshita said.

For Vinod Arora, a retired assistant general manager and a resident of Ashoka Society in Sector 56, the Rapid Metro reduced the cost of travel to New Delhi, where he regularly attends cultural and spiritual events.

I frequently travel to India Habitat Centre, India International Centre and other cultural and spiritual centres located across central Delhi. Instead of hiring a cab or driving to these areas at exuberant costs, I can travel to and fro for under Rs200, Vinod said.

JS Chahal, a resident of SunCity, relies on autorickshaws to travel the arterial roads of Gurgaon and towards New Delhi. Chahal said he had been eagerly awaiting the launch of this service as it gives him a safer and cheaper mode of transport.

I have been waiting for the south extension route to start as I was exhausted haggling with autorickshaw drivers over fares. They charge exorbitant amounts for short distances, but now, the metro service will help me visit my friends and relatives in New Delhi at a lower cost and reduced travel time, Chahal said.

The launch of the new line has also benefited those living in New Delhi. Vinayak Iyer, employed with a multinational IT solutions company in DLF Phase-5, said that instead of taking his car to the office, he will use the Yellow line of the Delhi Metro service and the Rapid Metro service to travel between his residence in Saket and his office.

I do not prefer autorickshaws or cabs as a transportation option and I prefer to drive my own vehicle. However, it takes me over 80 minutes to reach my office and another ten minutes to park my vehicle in the basement. But, with the launch of the new metro line, I can reduce my travelling to around 45 minutes at 20% of the cost. This will also save me the hassle of navigating packed roads in the peak hour, Vinayak said.

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Justin Theroux bought his wife Jennifer Aniston an unusual birthday present: A pinata!

Aniston turned 48 recently and her husbands gift was quite thoughtful as he did not put any sweets in it because she does not eat candy, reported E! News.

Jennifer Aniston and Justin Theroux at the Oscars Vanity Fair Party. (REUTERS)

I did a little night for her birthday where we went to a special dinner and had a pinata. Actually, we didnt put anything in the pinata.

We had a pinata and didnt end up smashing it. What are you going to put in it? Kale? She doesnt eat candy! the Leftovers actor said.

Theroux and Aniston took off for a getaway to Cabo San Lucas in Mexico, along with their close friends Courtney Cox and Johnny McDaid at the beginning of February for the Anistons birthday celebrations.

Its a great spot because its close to LA You can dip over there and dip back. We do special things, Theroux, 45, said.

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In the middle of a bitter custody battle with Angelina Jolie over their six children, Brad Pitt was spotted in Los Angeles looking skeletal and thinner than he has in years on Thursday.

The actor, 53, was seen stepping out of an art studio where the Daily Mail reports he has been spending over 15 hours a day, working with his friend and collaborator Thomas Houseago on a sculpture.

New!!!  #BradPitt A post shared by PittsOnly  (@keepingupwiththepitts) on Mar 30, 2017 at 9:19pm PDT

He sported a short new haircut and was dressed in a black bomber jacket, white T-shirt, blue jeans and suede Chelsea Boots, looking like a shadow of his former self, said the Mail report, which also speculated that the legal battle following the separation had taken a toll on him.

Pitt has been notably absent from the public eye since his separation from Jolie in September 2016. He skipped the Hollywood awards season and most of the publicity tour for his new film Allied. Pitt has another film coming up, Mays War Machine.

It was reported last week that Pitt secretly accompanied Jolie on her trip to Cambodia to spend more time with his kids.

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Two Indian petroleum engineers who were abducted in South Sudan have been released, external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj said on Friday.

I am happy to inform about the release of two Indian nationals Midhun and Edward who were abducted in South Sudan. They have reached the Indian embassy in Khartoum.

I appreciate the efforts of Indian Ambassador to South Sudan Srikumar Menon for the release of Indian nationals, she said in a series of tweets.

Indians Midhun Ganesh and Edward Ambrose along with a Pakistani, Ayaz Hussein Jamali, were abducted by rebels from near their workplaces earlier this month in oil-rich Upper Nile state. Jamali has also been reportedly released.

Following requests from Indian and Pakistani governments, the Sudanese and Ethiopian governments coordinated together to secure the release of the three oil workers, Sudans National Intelligence and Security Service said in a statement.

However, it did not specify when the hostages were released.
Chief minister Yogi Adityanath on Friday visited Kanha Upvan, a shelter home for cows and other stray animals run by an NGO patronised by Samajwadi Party patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadavs daughter-in-law Aparna Yadav.

Aparna and her husband, Mulayams son Prateek, who are ardent animal lovers and have been espousing the cause of stray cattle, gave the chief minister a tour of the sprawling complex at Lucknows Nadarganj area.

Spread across 54 acres, the Kanha Upvan, run by the NGO Jeevashraya, houses 950 cows, 917 bulls and 105 dogs in separate enclosures. It also has a veterinary hospital.

Impressed by the facilities at the complex, the chief minister directed government officials to come up with similar facilities in other districts and cities of the state too.

With the expansion of cities, such shelter homes can be an ideal solution to address the issue of cattle settlement, he said.

The 44-year-old monk-turned politician is also an animal lover. He has around 500 cows in a cattle shelter in the Gorakhnath temple, where he is also the head priest.

While taking a round of the veterinary hospital at the complex, the chief minister emphasised the need to have a similar heath facility in each zone of the city as transporting sick stray animals for treatment from one corner to other corner of the city is a cumbersome exercise.

Both Prateek and Aparna had met Adityanath soon after he was anointed as chief minister of UP, and discussed the cow protection measures in the state.

On Friday, they also had meetings with urban development minister Suresh Khanna and minister of state (independent charge) for women and family welfare Swati Singh.

Aparna had contested the recently concluded assembly elections on a SP ticket from Lucknow Cantonment, but lost to BJPs Rita Bahuguna Joshi, who is now a minister in the Adityanaths cabinet.

The chief ministers visit to the shelter home, which was preceded by the duos courtesy call on him, has sparked intense speculation among political circles in the state, particularly given the vicious turf war between Mulayam and his elder son Akhilesh Yadav witnessed in the run up to the assembly elections.

During his visit to Kanha Upvan , Adityanath was accompanied by deputy chief minister Dinesh Sharma, who is credited with conceptualising the project as Lucknows mayor.

During his stay, Adityanath performed puja in an in-house temple and offered fodder to cows.

He also directed municipality officials to arrange for the education of the children of the labourers working at the shelter home.

The chief minister was happy to see the shelter home and has ensured all the help for its expansion, said Yatindre Trivedi, general secretary, of the NGO.

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India said on Thursday national symbols everywhere should be respected, a day after China hoped that the Indian flag issue involving one of its companies officials gets properly resolved.

External affairs ministry spokesperson Gopal Baglay said the relevant authorities are investigating the matter and steps will be taken in accordance with the law.

As far as we understand, the company concerned has also taken action in this matter. It is obvious that national symbols should be respected, everywhere in the world, he asserted.

China has hoped that the Indian authorities would properly resolve the issue of a Chinese official at smart phone maker Oppo allegedly insulting the Indian flag and safeguard the rights of the firm.

We have noted the relevant reports. Company officials are in touch with the local police, Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Lu Kang had told a media briefing.

We hope that it will be resolved properly. The Chinese government always asks its Chinese enterprises and staff overseas to abide by local laws, regulations and respect local practices and customs, he said, replying to a question on the incident in Noida, Uttar Pradesh, which led to protests by staff and public on Tuesday.
United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres on Friday called on the international community to increase aid to help people fleeing the Iraqi city of Mosul which government forces have been battling to retake from Islamic State.

Iraqi forces have seized back most of the country's second-largest city from the Sunni hardline group in a massive six-month campaign.

But at least 355,000 residents have fled fighting, according to the government, and some 400,000 civilians remain trapped inside the densely-populated Old City where street battles have raged for weeks.

"We don't have the resources necessary to support these people," Guterres told reporters during a visit to the Hassan Sham Camp, one of several centres outside Mosul packed with civilians escaping the fighting.

The U.N. and Iraqi authorities have been building more camps but struggle to accommodate new arrivals with two families sometimes having to share one tent.

"Unfortunately our program is only 8 percent funded," he said, referring to a 2017 U.N. humanitarian response program without giving additional details.

During his visit, which lasted about half an hour, residents complained to Guterres about the quality of drinking water and poor living conditions in tents frequented by mice and insects.

"We want to go back to our villages. We are fed up," said Saqr Younis, who fled to Mosul when Islamic State arrived in his village in 2014.

"If we had died by bombardment it would have been more merciful," said Saqr who has been in the camp for four months.

Many of the displaced have returned to their homes in areas retaken from Islamic State but some, like Saqr, have not yet been allowed to return by the authorities.

The Sunni group overran about a third of Iraq in 2014, benefiting from the Sunni-Shi'ite rift that weakened the army.

Iraqi forces have won back control of most cities that fell to the group and the militants have been dislodged from nearly three quarters of Mosul but remain in control of its centre.

Government positions have reached as close as 500 metres to the al-Nuri Mosque, from where Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi declared a caliphate spanning parts of Iraq and Syria in July 2014.

Baghdadi and other IS leaders are believed to have left the city but U.S. officials estimate around 2,000 fighters remain inside the city, resisting with snipers hiding among the population, car bombs and suicide trucks targeting Iraqi positions.

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BJP chief Amit Shah has set a target for himself in Gujarat that even Narendra Modi could not achievewinning 150 assembly seats. Modis best performance is 127 out of 182 seats in the 2002 polls, held after Godhra riots.

Shah raising the bar for Gujarat BJP coincides with BJPs stellar performance in Uttar Pradesh where it won with more than three fourths majority this month. UP is home to more than 200 million people and more populous than countries like Pakistan and Brazil.

Addressing BJP workers at Sabarmati riverfront on Wednesday, Shah said, After 325 seats in UP, go out with confidence that we will get more than 150 seats in Gujarat.

Under Modi, BJP won 127 seats in 2002, 117 in 2007 and 115 in 2012 assembly elections.

Gujarat goes to poll in November-December this year. Narendrabhai no vijayrath November ma Gujarat aavse (Narendra Modis victory run will reach Gujarat in November), he said.

BJPs Mission-150 has several dimensions. No party has every crossed that figure in Gujarat. Congress came nearest to it in 1985 winning 149 seats under veteran Madhav Singh Solanki.

Congresss fortune has been on a decline since 1990 and its tally ranged between 51 and 61 seats in the last three assembly elections.

With Modi as countrys Prime Minister, his trusted lieutenant Shah managing Gujarat affairs and Congresss stock at an all time low, the BJP sees itself within a striking distance of achieving the mission 150.

Winning Gujarat is crucial for Modi, Shah and the BJP.

Modi ruled the western state between October 2001 and May 2014. It was his Gujarat model of governance that helped him capture the imagination of electorate who were tired after a controversy-ridden 10-year-long rule of Manmohan Singh. Modi, certainly, cannot afford to lose Gujarat. Any slide in BJPs performance in Gujarat will be a personal setback for the Prime Minister.

It was Shah who prevailed upon Modi to drop Anandiben Patel as the chief minister in August 2016. Patel was handpicked by Modi to succeed him in Gujarat but remained at loggerheads with Shah, who believed that she 1941-born woman leader could not fit into Modis shoes.

Shah not only ensured Patels removal, but managed to install his confidant Vijay Rupani as chief minister instead of Nitin Patel in a last minute dramatic turn of events.

Gujarat BJP leaders see Shahand not Rupanias the boss. Shah will have to bear the brunt of any adversity in Gujarat. If he manages to pull off a victory, it will be another feather in his cap. Accomplishment of mission 150 will establish him as the king of the BJP.

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The BJP on Friday ruled out any talks with Pakistan and Kashmiri separatists under the present circumstances and said that those advocating such demands are befooling people.

No talks can be held either with Pakistan or internal stakeholders (separatists and stone-pelters) in the present circumstances and those advocating negotiations to reach a political solution for the Kashmir problem are doing so to fool people, state spokesperson Virender Gupta said in a statement.

He alleged that NC leaders were responsible for the current state of affairs in the state but were blaming the PDP-BJP alliance for it. He also criticised those condemning the recent action of security forces in which three stone pelters were killed.

Gupta asked Kashmiri leaders to use their influence in keeping youths away from areas where security forces and terrorists engage in encounters.

He said the state government should take serious note of the pro-Azadi, pro-Pakistan and anti-India posters and flags being displayed in different parts of the Kashmir valley.

He also expressed anguish over reports of a poster which said Welcome to Chota Pakistan on a main road in the heart of Srinagar.

He said the governments indifference to these incidents sent the wrong signals and showed its helplessness or weakness.

Gupta said the governments authority has to prevail if the situation is to be brought to normalcy and to win the confidence of the majority of population that does not endorse acts of terrorism and secession.

The need of the hour is also to impose restrictions on social media that is being used by Pakistan and secessionist forces to instigate people against the government and to further tighten the security in the valley, he claimed.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Friday suspended its party MLC Lal Babu Prasad from primary membership of the party over alleged misconduct with a woman MLC of the LJP.

Confirming the suspension, BJP MLC and senior leader Vinod Narayan Jha said the party had suspended Prasad with immediate effect and would now issue him a show-cause notice. He said the action was taken based on media reports of his alleged misbehavior that had tarnished the party image.

Earlier, on Thursday, Prasad did not find a place in the reconstituted state BJP executive committee. He was vice-president of the state BJP in the outgoing executive committee.

Meanwhile, Bihar legislative council chairman Awadhesh Narayan Singh on Friday referred the matter to the house ethics committee for inquiry.

Council chairman had taken cognizance of the issue after several women members raised the matter in the house on Thursday.

Leader of the opposition in the council, Sushil Kumar Modi, had earlier claimed that nothing had happened. I have talked to the persons, who were said to be involved in the incident, but all of them denied it.

Modi had earlier said that he summoned the warring party members on Thursday based on media reports.

The ruling Grand Alliance (GA) had gone on the offensive on the issue. Deputy chief minister Tejashwi Prasad Yadav of the RJD, a partner of JD(U) and Congress in the ruling GA, had accused Modi of trying to shield the guilty MLC. Education minister and Congress leader Ashok Chaudhary said the BJP was trying to hush up the matter, which reflected the BJPs character.

Till yesterday the BJP was shielding Prasad and today it has suspended him. This exposes the real functioning of the BJP, said former chief minister Rabri Devi of the RJD.

The JD(U), which welcomed the move to suspend Prasad, however, questioned the delay in action.

A scuffle reportedly took place between BJP MLA Niraj Kumar Bablu and Prasad over party MLCs alleged misconduct with Bablus wife, Nutan Singh, also an MLC of the LJP on Wednesday. However, both men had then denied having been involved in any such incident.

Sources in the council said Bablu had written to the chairman about the whole incident related to Prasads misdemeanour, and sought action against him.
Thousands of Indians rushed to the nearest automobile showroom on Friday as dealers offered deep discounts and a slew of freebies to clear leftover stock of cars and two-wheelers compliant with the older BS-III emission norms after the Supreme Court banned their sale from April 1.

Showrooms offered discounts of up to a lakh but in many cities, prospective buyers went back disappointed as dealerships either ran out of stock or downed shutter following excessive rush. Experts said many dealers had booked the vehicles themselves, to sell it later for a massive profit. The sale of the older vehicles is banned from Saturday but there is no restriction on their registration.

Between 1.5 and 1.8 million two-wheelers are sold every day, translating into an average of 50,000 sales daily. Dealers in all cities said most of the discounts were absorbed by respective automobile companies that were not available for comment.

Many dealers have booked these vehicles either in their names or in the names of their friends and families at a discounted price. They will later book profits by selling it at a premium, said Amit Kaushik, managing director (India) with Detroit-headquartered consultancy firm Urban Science.

In Gurgaon and Chandigarh, many two-wheeler showrooms closed for the day after hundreds of customers thronged dealerships after hearing about a clearance sale.

I came to buy an Activa but these people have closed the showroom. I came today after getting news of discounted clearance sale, said Kamla Devi while waiting outside Honda showroom in Sector 14 market.

On Wednesday, the Supreme Court banned the sale of BS-III compliant vehicles from April 1, dealing a Rs 12,000 crore blow to the auto industry. Dealers were left with just 48 hours to dispose of nearly 850,000 vehicles, around 750,000 of which are two-wheelers.

A sales manager from a Honda showroom in Chandigarh said 50 out of 73 vehicles sold on Friday were BS-III models.

A closed Honda showroom in Gurgaons MG Road on Friday. (Sanjeev Verma/HT PHOTO)

Bikes and scooters were sold at a discount of Rs 15,000-25,000 while many cars had a rebate of between Rs 50,000 and Rs 100,000.

I thought I will get a scooter at cheap rates but the showroom is out of stock now said Daljeet Singh, a disappointed buyer from Chandigarh.

In Jaipur, many dealers had to put down the shutters to avoid excessive rush leaving buyers annoyed.

I wanted to buy a two-wheeler, but there is heavy rush and I am unable to meet the dealer to know about the availability of vehicle and discount on particular model, said Ravi Mahawar, a buyer.

Sai Girdhar, the secretary of the Rajasthan Authorised Motor Vehicle Dealers Association, said there was no panic among the states 350 auto dealers. There is a stock of nearly 15000 four-wheelers and 45000 two-wheelers in the state and all dealers can sell their stocks. Its a blessing in disguise for customers who are being offered discounts. If stocks are left then it is companys responsibility, Girdhar added.

In Lucknow, employees at Guds Car Care, a dealer of Maruti-Suzuki two-wheelers in Nishatganj area, said they had work well past midnight on Thursday as eager buyers queued up to avail the huge discounts.

It is a once-in-a-lifetime offer. We are giving a discount up to Rs 20,000 on bikes, NU Alam, the proprietor. Alam has hired private security guards for two days to manage the customers rush and ensure order in his showroom. Suzuki Motors has three dealers of its premium segment bikes in Lucknow.

In Kolkata, many two-wheeler dealers had to return the customers who had queued up outside showrooms hoping to avail discounts. The dealers said that they have been getting inquiry phone calls from customers since Thursday.

(With inputs from HT Correspondents in Lucknow, Jaipur, Chandigarh, Gurgaon and Kolkata)
Danielle McLaughlin, who was found dead near the Palolem beach in Goa on March 14, was laid to rest at a funeral in her hometown of Buncrana, County Donegal, in Ireland, on Thursday. Hundreds of locals and friends paid tributes to her at the funeral.

A post-mortem had concluded that McLaughlin, 28, died due to brain damage and constriction of the neck. Her body arrived in Ireland from Goa on Monday. A person named by the Goa police as Vikat Bhagat, 24, has reportedly been charged for murder.

Reports from Ireland said that at the funeral in the St Marys Church, family and friends presented four symbols of her life, including a guitar, a holy medallion from one of Mother Teresa's care homes in India, a family photo and a poem.

Father Francis Bradley said at the requiem mass that McLaughlin had made a huge impression on people's lives: She was disarmingly kind and forgiving; her warm nature and open heart drew people into her ever-widening, extensive and international circle of friends".

"A brief glance at the vast array of tender messages for Danielle's mother Andrea, her family and friends, shows the immense esteem in which she was held. She had a gentle but powerful way with her -- for it seems that just one encounter with her was enough to change someone's life."

A former student of Liverpool John Moores University, McLaughlin was a dual citizen of Ireland and the United Kingdom. She travelled to India in February on a British passport. The funeral was attended by her friends from New Zealand, Australia, Scotland and England, the reports said.

The McLaughlin family has called for justice for their daughter and sister. A crowd-funding campaign to raise 10,000 Euros to meet the expenses for repatriation of the body from Goa and funeral expenses raised over 40,300 Euros.

A family spokesperson said: We call for justice from the Indian legal system and appeal to the Indian authorities for a full, diligent, transparent and open investigation into all aspects of this crime and have real faith that with their help, full justice will be served and the truth known which will provide some small comfort to the family.

Words and thoughts can do little at a time like this to help us understand how such an awful tragedy can happen and especially to someone so full of life and love as Danielle.

Memorial cards distributed at last weeks vigil in Buncrana had smiling pictures of McLaughlin with some of her last words on her Facebook account: I am very grateful and the luckiest person I know....off on another adventure.

Goa is one of the most popular destinations of British and western tourists.Britains foreign office has a separate section on its India travel advice on Goa.

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The defence sector has received just Rs 61,000 of Foreign Direct Investment between July 2016 and January 2017, post revision of FDI policy last year, the government informed the Lok Sabha.

In a written reply, Mos in the defence ministry Subhash Bhamre said the FDI policy was last reviewed on June 24, 2016 and as per the revised policy, foreign investment up to 49 per cent is permitted under the automatic route.

Foreign investment beyond 49 per cent and up to 100 per cent is permitted through government approval, wherever it is likely to result in access to modern technology.

FDI in defence sector is subject to industrial licence under the Industries (Development & Regulation) Act, 1951. From July 2016 to January 2017, FDI to the amount of Rs 0.61 lakh (61,000) has been received from M/s Elbit Systems Land and C41 Ltd, Israel in M/s BF Elbit Advanced Systems Pvt Ltd, Bhamre said.

He added around 36 FDI proposals or joint ventures have been approved in defence sector for manufacture of various defence equipment.

In response to another question, Bhamre said, one of the reasons for delay in Medium Altitude Long Endurance (MALE) Unmanned Ariel Vehicles (UAV) Rustom II was export denial of critical items and delay in procurement of imported payloads.
The Delhi high court on Friday dismissed Himachal Pradesh chief minister Virbhadra Singhs plea seeking to quash an FIR registered against him and his wife by CBI in connection with a disproportionate assets case.

Justice Vipin Sanghi also vacated an order of the Himachal Pradesh high court of October 1, 2015 restraining CBI from arresting, interrogating or filing a charge sheet in the case without the courts permission.

The writ petition is dismissed. Stay is vacated, Justice Sanghi said.

Also read | CBI probe in disproportionate assets case against HP CM hints at malafide

CBI had registered the FIR against Virbhadra Singh and his wife under Sections 13(2) and 13(1)(e) of the Prevention of Corruption Act and Section 109 of IPC by the CBI on September 23, 2015.

On October 1, 2015, the Himachal high court had passed an interim order restraining the CBI from arresting, interrogating or filing a charge sheet against Singh. The CBI sought to vacate the order, contending that it was hampering the investigation.

The Himachal Pradesh high court order came on Singhs plea to quash the FIR lodged against him by CBI.

In November 2015, the Supreme Court transferred the DA case against Singh from the Himachal high court to the Delhi high court  stating that the transfer was necessary to protect the judiciary from embarrassment.

The apex court, however, did not pass any order to modify the Himachal high court order that restrained the CBI from arresting Singh.

Singh had alleged that CBI had overstepped its jurisdiction in filing the case as the cause of action did not arise in the territory of Delhi.

The CBI on the other hand had contended that the allegations against Singh in the case are very serious as a huge amount of money was involved and the state government has shown over anxiety in protecting him.

The agency had said it had jurisdiction to register and investigate the case in Delhi as the disproportionate assets were allegedly acquired by the Congress leader from the income generated when he was a Union minister during UPA regime.

CBI had registered FIR for alleged property of 6 crore amassed between 2009-12 during Virbhadras tenure as Union steel minister.

Virbhadra, his wife and children are also facing investigation by the enforcement directorate for the same charges of corruption.

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People who made cumulative deposits of Rs 2 lakh or more during the first 50 days of demonetisation will have to mention it in their income tax returns for 2017-18, the government said on Friday.

A simpler, one-page income tax return form unveiled by the government on Friday includes a separate section for cash deposits of Rs 2 lakh and more between November 9 and December 30.

The government had allowed people time till December 31 to exchange and deposit the old Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 bank notes, pulled out of circulation through a shock announcement on November 8.

The government had termed the demonetisation drive a surgical strike on illicit cash and has since then taken several steps to crack down on people suspected to have laundered the banned 500- and 1000-rupee banknotes.

The one-page income tax return form will be for individuals with annual income of up to Rs 50 lakh from sources other than businesses. The earlier form was of three pages.

Sushil Chandra, chairman of the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT), said about two crore individuals will benefit from this move.

Earlier, the government had proposed to make a one-page Income Tax Return (ITR) form only for those with an annual income of Rs 5 lakh.

Only six crore out of 29 crore holding permanent account number (PAN) file income tax returns at present.

This (the move) will simplify the process of filing income tax returns, this will be applicable for all assessess filing returns this year, Chandra said.

At present, ITR 1 also called Sahaj is used by salaried individuals and ITR 2 is for Indians as well as non-resident Indians and Hindu Undivided Families with income flowing in from regular salary, pension, property or even capital gains.

There are other forms for businesses, proprietary businesses and partners in firms, among others.

The move is expected to encourage more and more people to file their income tax returns. Many returnees have been complaining of the cumbersome process of filing income tax returns.

A one-page form makes filing income tax returns simple. Most developed countries have moved towards simplified mode of filing income tax returns, said K Raghu, a chartered accountant and former president of Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI), said.

The e-filing facility for ITR-1 is enabled from April 1 and ITRs can be filed till the stipulated deadline of July 31.

Post July 1, it would become mandatory for an assessee to provide the Aadhaar number or the number showing that he has applied for Aadhaar in the ITR.

At the time of filing the form, a taxpayer has to fill in PAN, Aadhaar number, personal information and information on taxes paid. TDS will be auto-filled in the form.

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The Chenani-Nashri tunnel on the Jammu-Srinagar national highway, which Prime Minister Narendra Modi will dedicate to the nation on Sunday, is Indias first and the worlds sixth tunnel to have transverse ventilation system, providing fresh air to passengers.

This tunnel is the Indias first and the worlds sixth road tunnel with a transverse ventilation system enabled by ABB drives and controlled by ABB software, an official of the ABB said on the eve of inauguration of the 9-km-long tunnel.

ABB is a global leader in industrial technology and operates in approximately 100 countries, including India, according to its official website.

Location of the Chenani-Nashri tunnel. (PTI)

The official said ventilation systems, for such long tunnels, are essential to maintain clean air, permissible carbon dioxide levels and expel harmful vehicle emissions.

To ensure smooth travel and safety of commuters, the ABB has designed, engineered and supplied low harmonics variable speed drive (VSD) system for tunnel ventilation, he said.

The VSDs and motors are installed at the North (Nashri) and South (Chenani) portals for air supply and exhaust.

These VSDs are also equipped with inbuilt redundancy to ensure minimum downtime, the official added.

The tunnel, constructed at a cost of Rs 2,519 crore, will reduce the distance between Jammu and Srinagar -- the twin state capitals -- by 30 km, while ensuring safe and swift passage for commuters, even in adverse weather conditions.

The ventilation system in the Chenani-Nashri tunnel, the longest highway tunnel in Asia, will ensure that passengers have access to fresh air as they drive through it, he said.

This is a proud moment for us. We are providing the muscles and lungs for this critical new tunnel, said Sanjeev Sharma, CEO and managing director of ABB India.

The Chenani-Nashri tunnels safety controls were developed by ABB in India, for effectively mitigating any fire emergencies, he said.

The tunnel, at an altitude of 1,200 metres, is a part of the National Highway Authority of Indias (NHAI) project between Jammu and Srinagar, along national highway 44.

Technologically, this is one of the most advanced road tunnels built in the country, surmounting challenges of terrain and distance, Sharma said.
Finance minister Arun Jaitley on Thursday threw an open invitation to the Opposition in the Lok Sabha for suggestions to make electoral funding cleaner and transparent.

Jaitley said the Opposition, which is against the provisions of the electoral bond-related provisions of the finance bill, has not come out with a single suggestion to deal with the issue.

I am only hearing adjectives like it must be clean, it must be transparent. Please give me ideal combination of the two. We are willing to consider it. I will wait for a specific suggestion, he said, replying to a debate on amendments proposed by the Rajya Sabha to the finance bill 2017. These were later rejected by the Lower House.

I have an open invitation to all, please suggest to me a better system which will ensure clean money and transparency to the extent possible.

But the Opposition accused the government of running roughshod by opening doors for political extortionism and passing draconian provisions in the finance bill.

Among the amendments approved by the Rajya Sabha and rejected by the Lok Sabha was a provision for a company to disclose the name of the political parties that received its contributions.

For its part, the Congress called for an all-party meeting on electoral reforms by forming a committee. It also demanded a political funding bill be brought and debated extensively in Parliament.

I have an open invitation to all, please suggest to me a better system which will ensure clean money and transparency to the extent possible.---Arun Jaitley

...The time has come for cleaner and transparent political funding and for all these measures to be discussed, debated, analysed and then crystallised in the form of transparent political funding bill that is brought in, debated and voted on in both Houses of Parliament, subject to scrutiny by the appropriate standing committee, Congress spokesperson Rajeev Gowda said.

With the amendment finance minister Arun Jaitley has brought in, the limits on corporate funding and corporate donations have been removed.

With the new introduction of the electoral bonds where donations can be made through cheques, corporates can also buy these electoral bonds in designated banks and give those bonds anonymously to political parties, he said.

In the Lok Sabha, Jaitley pointed out that at present, political parties collect most of the funding in cash. This is tax evaded money and there is no transparency.

Reasoning why the new concept of political funding through electoral bonds was made part of the budget and the finance bill, Jaitley said in 2001 and again in 2010, electoral reforms were part of the finance bill.

The purchaser of electoral bond has to use cheques to pay, and the party that receives it has to deposit it in a notified bank account. Only the bank knows who has bought the bonds and the donor knows who he or she has gifted them to, he said.

So this system will ensure clean money. I concede it is only partly transparent. But those who want full transparency have the cheque option (of receiving political donations). But that full transparency and clean money option is a tried, tested and failed system. It has not worked in this country, he said.
The United States' diplomatic policy on Syria for now is no longer focussed on making the war-torn country's president, Bashar al-Assad, leave power, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations said on Thursday, in a departure from the Obama administration's initial and public stance on Assad's fate.

The view of the Trump administration is also at odds with European powers, who insist Assad must step down. The shift drew a strong rebuke from at least two Republican senators.

"You pick and choose your battles and when we're looking at this, it's about changing up priorities and our priority is no longer to sit there and focus on getting Assad out," U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley told a small group of reporters.

"Do we think he's a hindrance? Yes. Are we going to sit there and focus on getting him out? No," she said. "What we are going to focus on is putting the pressure in there so that we can start to make a change in Syria."

In Ankara on Thursday, U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said Assad's longer-term status "will be decided by the Syrian people."

The Obama administration, in its later years, was focussed on reaching a deal with Russia that would eventually see Assad go, though it also shifted its focus to the fight against Islamic State militants, who captured swathes of territory in Iraq and Syria in 2014.

As presidential nominee, Donald Trump said defeating Islamic State was a higher priority than persuading Assad to step down.

"We can't necessarily focus on Assad the way that the previous administration did," said Haley, a former governor of South Carolina. "Our priority is to really look at how do we get things done, who do we need to work with to really make a difference for the people in Syria."

On Wednesday, Haley accused Russia, Iran and the "Assad regime" of committing war crimes. She has also said the United States supports the U.N.-led Syria peace talks, that Syria could no longer be a "safe haven for terrorists" and that it was important "we get Iran and their proxies out."

A senior Trump administration official told Reuters that Haley's remarks reflected "a measure of just realism, accepting the facts on the ground. ... Assad is never going to have sufficient force to reassert control over the whole country. ... Our focus is on defeating ISIS and al Qaeda and preventing Syria from being used as a terrorist safe haven.

But Republican Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham, in separate, strongly worded statements, denounced the shift in the U.S. stance.

McCain, who chairs the Senate Armed Services Committee, said Tillerson's statement "overlooks the tragic reality that the Syrian people cannot decide the fate of Assad or the future of their country when they are being slaughtered" by Assad's military, Russia's air force and Iranian-backed militias.

"I hope President Trump will make clear that America will not follow this self-destructive and self-defeating path," McCain said, adding that U.S. allies could fear a bargain with Assad and Russia "sealed with an empty promise of counterterrorism cooperation."

Graham, who like McCain is a foreign policy hawk and a member of the Armed Services Committee, said it would be a "grave mistake" to drop the removal of Assad as an objective, and would be crushing news to the Syrian opposition and U.S. allies in the region.

In addition, leaving Assad in power is "a great reward for Russia and Iran," Graham said.

CONTRADICTORY MESSAGES

Syrian opposition member Farah al-Attasi said the State Department and the White House were sending contradictory messages on Syria and should start leading and not focus exclusively on fighting Islamic State.

Britain and France reinforced their stance on Assad earlier on Thursday.

French U.N. Ambassador Francois Delattre told reporters: "Assad is not and cannot be the future of his country."

Robert Ford, who resigned in 2014 as U.S. ambassador to Syria over policy disagreements, said the U.S. government's policy since late 2014 had been to focus more specifically on the fight against Islamic State as well as al Qaeda, "even if it never acknowledged that its focus on Syria had shifted."

"Ambassador Haley's remarks just confirm that the Trump administration is following the same path," said Ford, who is now a fellow at the Middle East Institute and senior fellow at Yale.

Since the uprising that led to the six-year-long civil war in Syria, the Obama administration had insisted Assad must go.

But in mid-2014 as Washington increased support to moderate rebels to fight Assad's regime, U.S. officials privately conceded Assad was not going anywhere soon and admitted the difficulty in removing him.

By September 2015, then-Secretary of State Kerry said Assad had to go but the timing of his departure should be decided through negotiation.

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The government has further liberalised its visa regime aimed at bringing more tourists and business travelers to the country. The new changes approved by the cabinet will be rolled out from April 1. Here is all you need to know about the new changes in various visa categories.

1.With effect from April 1, e-visa has been sub-divided into 3 categories -- e-tourist visa, e-business visa and e-medical visa. Till now, e-visa was only for tourists

2.E-visa facility has been extended to nationals of 161 countries for entry through 24 airports (earlier granted through 16 airports) and three ports: Cochin, Goa and Mangalore.

3.The window for application under e-visa scheme has been increased from 30 days to 120 days and duration of stay on e-visa has been increased from 30 days to 60 days with double entry on e-tourist and e-business visa and triple entry on e-medical visa.

4.Separate immigration counters and facilitation desks to assist medical tourists have been provided at airports in Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Bengaluru and Hyderabad.

5.The multiple-entry tourist and business visas for a period of 5 years will now be available to nationals of most of the countries. Upon urgent requests, business visa and medical visa will be granted within 48 hours of application.

6.94 Indian missions having bio-metric enrolment facilities have started giving 5-year long-term tourist and business visa from March . The remaining missions will provide this facility in due course.

7.A new category of visa titled intern (I) visa has been rolled out with effect from March 1, 2017 to a foreigner intending to pursue intership in Indian companies, educational institutions and NGOs, subject to certain checks and conditions. The period of visa is restricted to the duration of internship programme or one year, whichever is less. The intern visa will be granted immediately after completion of graduation/post-graduation.

8.Intern visa, however, will be issued with prior clearance from the home ministry in case of internship in NGOs or internship involving visit to protected and restricted areas.

9.Another new category of visa, titled film (F) visa has also been introduced with maximum duration of one year with multiple entry facility.

10.The minimum salary limit of for grant of employment visa, which is presently US $ 25,000 per annum, has also been modified. This will facilitate foreign nationals engaged as teaching faculty by the central higher educational institutions.

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Two persons were on Friday arrested for allegedly trying to exchange demonetised currency notes with face value of over Rs 92.3 lakh, police said.

The duo was arrested under Karkhana police station limits here and scrapped notes of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 denominations were seized from them, police said.

Earlier, the city police have arrested 41 people and seized the old notes with face value of Rs 7.75 crore from them since March 13.
Thousands of Indians rushed to their nearest automobile showrooms on Friday as dealers offered huge discounts and a slew of freebies to clear leftover stock of cars and two-wheelers compliant with the older BS-III emission norms.

On Wednesday, the Supreme Court banned the sale of BS-III compliant vehicles from April 1, dealing a Rs 12,000 crore blow to the auto industry. Dealers were left with just two days to dispose of nearly 850,000 vehicles, around 750,000 of which were two-wheelers.

Many showrooms offered discounts of up to Rs 1 lakh, but in many cities, prospective buyers went back disappointed as dealerships either ran out of stock or downed shutter following excessive rush. Experts said many dealers had booked the vehicles themselves, to sell it later for a massive profit. The sale of the older vehicles is banned from Saturday but there is no restriction on their registration.

People gather at a Honda showroom for purchasing BS-III model vehicles in Gurgaons Sector-14. (Parveen Kumar / HT Photo)

Consumers waiting for their turn at a Honda showroom to buy their BS-III model vehicles in Jammu. (Nitin Kanotra / HT Photo)

Honda showrooms in Gurgaon had to down their shutters following rush of customers for clearance sale after the ban of BS-III models by the Supreme Court. (Parveen Kumar / HT Photo)

People rush to buy vehicles after reports said Hero MotoCorp, Honda, Bajaj Auto and Suzuki were offering discounts of up to Rs 22,000 on BS-III models to liquidate stocks. (Nitin Kanotra / HT Photo)

A customer waits for his turn at a Honda showroom. (Nitin Kanotra / HT Photo)

Customer try out bikes at a Suzuki showroom. (Burhaan Kinu/HT PHOTO)

Customers check out a BS-III standard motorcycle being offered at a discount at a showroom in Amritsar. (Narinder Nanu / AFP)

There was heavy rush at showrooms on Thursday evening also as customers waited to get delivery of vehicles. (Nitin Kanotra / HT Photo)

With 6.71 lakh two-wheelers, out of over 8 lakh BS-III vehicles impacted by the ban, dealers said they tried to sell as many units as possible before the deadline by offering huge discounts. (Sanjeev Verma/HT PHOTO)

Some dealers, which had initially offered a flat discount of Rs 10,000 on BS-III scooters and motorcycles, later increased it to Rs 22,000. (Arun Sharma/HT PHOTO)
An Indian Navy personnel was on Friday sentenced to two years in prison for outraging the modesty of a minor girl through obscene and vulgar chat messages on internet in 2010.

First Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Moka Suvarna Raju also imposed a fine of Rs 15,000 on INS Shikra staffer Dilip Kumar, 33, working in Mumbai.

The court sentenced Kumar after convicting him for committing various offences under the Information Technology Act, 2000 and section 509 of the Indian Penal Code involving the offence of outraging the modesty of a woman through obscene words or gesture.

Kumar was charged for acts of enticing a minor girl, a resident of Hyderabad, for online relationship and when she refused the same, he harassed her with obscene, vulgar, objectionable and insulting chat messages.

Eleven prosecution witnesses, including outstation witnesses, FSL experts were examined in the case.
Indias traditions never allowed the practice of intolerance as unity in diversity with mutual coexistence and understanding is the strength of the country, President Pranab Mukherjee said on Friday.

Speaking at the inaugural ceremony of the Namami Brahmaputra festival in Guwahati, Mukherjee said he does not agree when people label Indians as intolerant.

There are 200 languages spoken in India across its length and breath. All major seven religions are practised in India. Nowhere in the world is found so much ethnic diversity, he said.

Despite this, India is one nation having one Constitution, living under one flag, one system maintaining regional identity, he said.

President Pranab Mukherjee shakes hands with Bhutan Prime Minister Tshering Tobgay at the Namami Brahmaputra festival in Guwahati on Friday. (PTI)

We are one nation. This mutual co-existence, mutual understanding is our strength. Managing this diversity is our greatest strength. If it is said Indians are argumentative, I will agree. But if it is said Indians are intolerant, I refuse to agree. Intolerance has never been allowed, he said.

Mukherjee said Assam, which is an emerging economic hub of India, is perfectly positioned to become the corridor of the country to the ASEAN nations as the Act East policy takes forefront.

He said India would soon celebrate 25 years of its link with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).

The President said South East Asia is an important destination for Indias investment and trade.

Priests offer prayers at the opening ceremony of the Namami Brahmaputra festival in Guwahati on Friday. (PTI)

Stating that Assam has immense development potential, Mukherjee added that inland water transport system in the National Waterways can change its economic scenario.

The development of this national waterway can give Assam access to international ports like Chittagong in Bangladesh. This will give Assam an exposure to international trade and commerce. With the Act East Policy taking forefront, Assam is perfectly positioned to become the corridor of the country to the ASEAN nations, he said.

Mukherjee hailed Assams richness in natural resources and its hardworking people to underline that all it needed was strong drive, right policies and effective implementation.

State Disaster Response Force personnel show their skills at the inaugural ceremony of Namami Brahmaputra festival in Guwahati on Friday. (PTI)

We have to join hands to make the dream of Bharat Ratna Gopinath Bordoloi -- the first chief minister -- of Assam becoming a front runner in the field of socio-economic progress, a reality, he said.

The President said Assam has overcome a prolonged spell of insurgency and the central government is supportive in rebuilding the state.
The Supreme Court on Friday granted bail to Bitihotra Mohanty, the son of a top IPS officer in Odisha who was convicted for the rape of a German national in Rajasthan.

A fast-track court in Jaipur had convicted Mohanty in 2006 after which the state high court upheld it in 2016. His appeal against the conviction order is pending before the SC.

Son of a top IPS officer in Odisha, Mohanty was released on parole in 2006 to be with his mother who was unwell. But, Mohanty disappeared in 2006, changed his looks and got a job with the State Bank of Travancore on the basis of forged documents and fake identity of Raghav Ranjan.

On a tip-off, police arrested him in Kannur in March 2013 and he was subsequently sent to jail in Jaipur.

The SC bench of Justices SA Bobde and L Nageswara Rao on Friday granted him bail on the condition that he would surrender his passport and furnish a bail bond of Rs 2.5 lakh. He was directed to appear before the Cantonment police station in Cuttack every week.

The apex court granted the conditional release despite a strong opposition by Rajasthans additional advocate general Manish Mallik.

But Mohantys counsel, senior advocate Siddhartha Luthra assured the court his client would not breach the order.
Controversial Calcutta high court judge CS Karnan appeared in the Supreme Court on Friday in a contempt case after weeks of unprecedented public confrontation with the countrys top court.

Karnan  who is Dalit -- hit the headlines for accusing several judges of the Madras high court, where he earlier served, and a SC judge of corruption, nepotism and casteism. He also repeatedly rejected the top courts summons in a contempt case.

On Friday, Karnan appeared combative and even dared the SC to send him to jail, saying he would not personally appear on the next date. His comment came after the apex court said it would not restore judicial work to Karnan.

I am also holding constitutional post. My dignity has been hurt and work has been taken away without hearing me, Karnan told the court.

J Karnan tells SC he has been harassed by senior judges for being a Dalit. His complaints against judges was in public interest @htTweets  bhadra sinha (@BhadraSinha) March 31, 2017

The SC had on February 8 issued a contempt notice to the judge and asked Karnan to be personally present before the top court on February 13.

But Karnan did not obey the court order and failed to appear. Instead, he wrote a letter questioning the contempt proceedings against him. According to the judge, only Parliament had the power to initiate action against a sitting high court judge by way of an impeachment motion.

The characteristic of this order clearly shows the upper caste judges are taking law into their hands and misusing their judicial power by operating the same against a SC/ST Judge with mala fide intention of getting rid of him. Therefore, the suo motu contempt order dated 08.02.2017 is not sustainable under law, Karnan had said.

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Kerala police on Friday booked the CEO of a Malayalam news channel and eight others for the controversy over AK Saseendrans alleged obscene phone call with a woman which led to him resigning as state transport minister last week.

The development comes a day after the channel admitted to setting up the call as a honey trap for the former state transport minister, and apologised for the same. Saseendran quit his post on Monday after the audio clip of a lewd conversation that allegedly transpired between him and a woman was aired by the channel. Earlier on Friday, the Left Democratic Front government announced Thomas Chandy as Saseendrans successor.

Initially, the Mangalam New channel claimed that Saseendran had sought sexual favours from a housewife when she approached him for help. It also claimed that the audio clip was handed over to the channel by the woman as she wanted to expose the minister.

However, channel CEO A Ajith Kumar later clarified that a woman scribe had voluntarily came forward to carry out the sting operation against the minister. He claimed that she was part of an eight-member investigation team constituted by the channel. The CEO was forced to apologise after many writers, intellectuals and journalists criticised the way the channel carried out the sting operation. Two women journalists from the channel also tendered their resignation in protest.

The channel had started its broadcast five days ago and the sting was its first breaking story. When the audio clip was aired, the minister resigned the same evening. In his apology, Kumar pleaded that the fledgling media venture should not be targeted due to the lapse.

Police registered a case against nine people, including the CEO, under non-bailable sections, which include criminal conspiracy, misuse of IT act and other relevant provisions of the Indian Penal Code. The Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) said it will move the National Broadcasting Commission against the channel. The state government already announced a judicial probe into the matter.

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A Muslim group has put up huge billboards in Uttar Pradeshs Faizabad and Lucknow backing the construction of a Ram Temple at a centuries-old disputed site in Ayodhya that has remained at the centre of Indian politics for 25 years.

The hoardings have cropped up roughly a week after Hindu leader Yogi Adityanath took over as the states chief minister. The 44-year-old has publicly argued for a Ram Temple to be built at the disputed site that many Hindus say is the birthplace of Ram, a claim bitterly opposed by Muslim groups.

Desh ke Musalmaanon ka yahi hai maan, Shri Ram Mandir ka ho wahin Nirman (Muslims of India want Ram Temple constructed at the site), proclaims one such hoarding on Lucknows busy Ashok Marg.

Mohd Azam Khan, president of the fledgling Muslim Karsevak Sangh (MKS) that has paid for the billboards, says he was inspired by the Supreme Court calling for an amicable out-of-court settlement to the dispute last week.

We have put up a dozen big and around 200 small hoardings in Lucknow and Faizabad to galvanise opinion for construction of Ram Mandir without waiting for a court verdict, says Khan. A former member of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh-backed Muslim Rashtrya Manch (MRM), Khan parted ways with the organisation because of a difference of opinion over a solution to the dispute.

Khan says he has also launched a campaign among local Muslims and collected 150 signatures so far but says he has received a torrent of abuse and threat calls. I know the number is small, but people are calling me from other states and extending their support, he says.

Azams outfit is not the only one trying to mobilise Muslims to forego their claim on the disputed site in Ayodhya. The Muslim Mahila Foundation in Varanasi has also pitched in favour of a Ram temple.

There can be no two opinions on the fact that Ayodhya is the land and birthplace of Ram. He was born there and hence a Ram Mandir should be built in Ayodhya without any further controversy, says the organisations national president Nazneen Ansari, who translated the Hanuman Chalisa and Ramcharitmanas to Urdu.

But many other Muslim leaders and intellectuals see these attempts as a gimmick and as craven cosying up to the ruling BJP that swept to victory in Indias largest state on the back of, among others, a promise to build the Ram Temple

Some Muslims with little or no standing in the community are in a hurry to cash in on the issue and reap the benefits by aligning with the government, says Athar Hussein, director, Centre for Objective Research and Development (CORD), a Lucknow-based NGO.

After all, where were these so-called Muslim leaders till now? They have been propped up by the ruling party and some RSS-backed organisations.

Others say such moves are meaningless in the absence of a dialogue and may end up vitiating the communal amity.

I am all for finding a solution to the dispute through the mutual agreement route. But then we have to first start the process of dialogue. Come to the negotiating table with a give-and-take approach, says senior Congress leader Ammar Rizvi.

For centuries, Hindus and Muslims have quarrelled over the ownership of the small parcel of land in Ayodhya. To many Hindus, 16th century founder of the Mughal empire, Babar, built a mosque there after destroying a temple.

In 1992, Hindu zealots tore down the Babri mosque, sparking nationwide riots in which about 3,000 people were killed. The BJP expanded rapidly across north India in the 90s riding on the Ram Janmabhoomi movement.

A decades-long court battle has failed to resolve the dispute. At least nine attempt to settle the dispute out of court  dating as far back as 1859  have also met a similar fate.
Madhya Pradesh government will bring a legislation in the forthcoming monsoon session for awarding death penalty to rapists, chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan said here on Friday while speaking at the passing out parade of 89th batch of 633 sub-inspectors on the outskirts of Bhopal.

Chouhan said MP government will bring a bill in the monsoon session of the assembly in which there will be a provision for death penalty instead of jail term for rapists. He said after the bill is passed in the state, it will be sent to the Centre and the President. Chouhan also pointed out that MP might also go for an anti-Romeo squad like arrangement like Uttar Pradesh. He stressed that police should teach a lesson to such youth who harass women.

MP continues to be the most dangerous place for women in the country. Sexual violence and increasing crime against women has been a major concern here. According to latest data, every day, on an average, 12 women are raped in MP.

According to the fresh data submitted in the ongoing assembly, on an average, 11 women were raped every day and six gang-raped every week in the state in last one year. And over half of the victims were minor.

Data show that between February 1, 2016 and mid-February 2017, 4,279 women were raped and 248 gang-raped in MP. Of 4,279 rape victims, 2,260 are minors.

According to the National Crime Records Bureau data released in August last year for 2015, MP reported highest number of rapes (4,391) in the country. There has been an increase in crime against women in MP, with 74% rise in rape cases.

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Belgium has opened an investigation into the suspected involvement of Belgian fighter planes in air strikes in west Mosul that killed dozens of civilians, prosecutors said on Friday.

Iraqi authorities believe more than 130 civilians were killed in strikes over several days in Mosul's al-Jadida area, and attention has focused on one allegedly particularly deadly strike on March 17.

"We have opened a preliminary investigation to establish... whether all procedures were observed during two incidents," prosecutors' spokesman Eric Van Der Sypt told AFP.

"If rules of engagement were properly observed... it is possible that no crime was committed," Van Der Sypt said.

Belgian MP Wouter De Vriendt told Flemish broadcaster VRT the case involved strikes carried out by Belgian F16 fighter jets on March 17.

The coalition had previously said it carried out a strike on March 17 in an area of west Mosul in which civilian casualties were reported, and that it had opened an investigation.

Belgium takes part in the US-led coalition against the Islamic State group, which has conducted tens of thousands of air strikes against the jihadists in Iraq and Syria.

The coalition insists that IS has targeted civilians and used them as human shields, while acknowledging that strikes by anti-IS forces have also left civilians dead.

The United States carries out most Iraq air operations, but Australia, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Jordan, the Netherlands and Britain also carry out missions.

General Stephen Townsend, the senior US commander in Iraq, said this week that a coalition strike in the northern city earlier this month "probably" killed dozens of civilians.

US investigators are also looking at the apparent bombing of a school in Mansura near Raqa, Syria on March 21, and a building next to a mosque on March 16 in Al-Jineh, in Aleppo province.

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In what may kick off a major controversy in BJP-ruled Madhya Pradesh, the madrasa board here has proposed a syllabus to teach its students why they should love their country and be loyal to it.

A syllabus is being prepared for students: Watan se mohabbat ka Islam dharm me kya mahatva hai (What is the importance of loving your country in Islam). The syllabus will help students know how much importance the religion they are following has attached to their love and loyalty (Wafadari aur Mohabbaat) to the country, said a government communique issued on Thursday evening.

Talking to HT, board chairman Syed Imad said the syllabus was being prepared by a committee of scholars after the state governments Rajya Shiksha Kendra gave its nod to his idea about 8-9 months ago.

Once the syllabus is ready, it will be put up before a standing committee of the Kendra for its approval.

Read: Digvijaya booked for social media post saying madrasa, RSS schools spread hatred

I would like to see to it that the syllabus is included in the curriculum from the ensuing academic session this year, he added.

When asked about the need of such a syllabus and its impact on Muslims, Imad said the objective was to educate Muslim students about the teachings of loyalty to the country in the Quran and Hadees.

The teachings are already there in the holy books. We just need to teach the students so that they could tell others about the same effectively in their conversations, he said.

Mohd Mahir, head of the MP Muslim Vikas Parishad, however, is suspicious of the move. He said it was nothing but a saffron agenda particularly after the Uttar Pradesh elections.

Read: UP madrasa to introduce anti-terrorism course in its curriculum

The syllabus sent the message that the Muslims didnt have loyalty with their country, he said.

We will have a talk with the government to know why this need arose to include this syllabus all of a sudden and will then decide the further course of action, he added.
The Election Commission on Friday demanded clarification from E Madhusudhanan, the AIADMK Puratchi Thalaivi candidate for the RK Nagar bypolls, after a complaint said the partys new symbol of the Electric Pole was morphed to resemble the iconic Irattai Ilai (Two Leaves) symbol of the united AIADMK.

The complaint was filed by AIADMK Amma leader TTV Dinakaran, who is also contesting the bye-elections in the constituency of late chief minister J Jayalalithaa.

In its notice, the EC said it has received a complaint which alleged that the O Panneerselvam faction had in its wall posters and social media referred to the symbol as Two Lamps, with the intention to create an impression in the minds of the voters that the symbol resembled the Two Leaves.

Citing the Representation of the People Act of 1951, the EC ordered Madhusudhanan to respond to the complaint by April 3.

The RK Nagar bye-election, scheduled to be held on April 12, is widely being seen as a litmus test for the splintered AIADMK.

Experts believe that, should he win, Dinakaran will replace current chief minister K Palaniswamy. Dinakaran, however, has denied such reports.
President Pranab Mukherjee on Friday said Assam is perfectly positioned to become Indias link to the ASEAN nations as the Act East policy takes forefront, when he inaugurated the five-day Namami Brahmaputra river festival in the state.

He said the countrys traditions, including the teachings of Assams great scholar and social reformer Shankaradev, never allowed the practice of intolerance.

Bhutans Prime Minister Tshering Tobgay also participated at the inauguration ceremony besides Assam governor Banwarilal Purohit, chief minister Sarbananda Sonowal and senior Assam ministers.

The river festival is being organised across 21 districts of Assam through which the Brahmaputra river passes.

He said India would soon celebrate 25 years of its link with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and the region is an important destination for Indias investment and trade.

Stating that Assam has immense development potential, Mukherjee added the inland water transport system in the National Waterways can change its economic scenario.

The development of this national waterway can give Assam access to international ports like Chittagong in Bangladesh. This will give Assam an exposure to international trade and commerce. With the Act East Policy taking forefront, Assam is perfectly positioned to become the corridor of the country to the ASEAN nations, he said.

President Pranab Mukherjee with Assam chief minister Sarbananda Sonowal, governor Banwarilal Purohit and Bhutan Prime Minister Tsering Tobgay during inauguration of five-day 'Namami Brahmaputra' festival in Guwahati on Friday. (PTI Photo)

Mukherjee hailed Assams richness in natural resources and its hardworking people to underline that all it needed was strong drive, right policies and effective implementation.

It is time for this state to establish its enduring mark in the international economic domain as the link between the northeastern part of the country and the ASEAN nations, he remarked.

The President said the Brahmaputra river, which is the lifeline of Assam and the region, is intertwined into the economy, culture and day-to-day life of the people of the areas through which it flows.

He also complimented the state government for having started Namami Brahmaputra as an annual festival to showcase Assams culture as well as potential.

The festival which will continue till April 4.
Dont bite off more than you can chew, goes the old saying.

A python at the Valmik Tiger Reserve in Bihar apparently did not heed this piece of wisdom -- and instead swallowed an adult deer in full. But the prey was a trifle too big for the python.

Forest officials at the famous safari in West Champaran district said the three-metre-long Burmese python went into a semi-consious state after swallowing its prey.

The python would regain full consciousness and will be able to slither again only after it digests the deer, said Hemkant Ray, the divisional forest officer (DFO). But the digestion process is expected to take about two weeks, he added.

Till then, he has ordered guards to protect the python from possible attempts to kill it by poachers and also from other predators.

Forest officials were witness to the python grabbing the 3.5 feet tall prey near the Gandak river in Udaipur range of VTR on Thursday.

Ray said the Burmese python is one of the five largest species of snake.

Burmese pythons are found near water bodies, are sometimes semi-aquatic and also found in trees. The average length of an individual python is 3.7 metres (12.1 feet), but are known to reach 5.74 metres (18.8 feet), he said.

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Railway minister Suresh Prabhu on Thursday informed the Rajya Sabha that the government will spend Rs 10,000 crore to modernise railway infrastructure, including technology to reduce accident rate to zero level.

Prabhu who was replying to a debate on Appropriation (Railways) Bill in the Upper House claimed the rate of train accidents in India has come down, as per the global index.

It does not mean I am happy with this. We would like to work towards zero accidents, he said.

The railway ministers statement came on a day 52 passengers were injured when eight bogies of the Jabalpur-Nizamuddin Mahakaushal Express derailed in the wee hours of Thursday in Mahoba district of Uttar Pradesh.

On railways tech modernisation plan, Prabhu said the Railways will install train protection warning system and eliminate all unmanned level crossings across the country by using Rs 1 lakh crore from railway safety fund.

Besides this, ultrasonic detection system and train collision avoidance system would also be introduced, he said. Without using these technologies, we will not be able to avoid accidents.

The Appropriation Bill was later adopted by the Rajya Sabha.

Citing the paucity of space at stations for accommodating the increasing number of trains, the minister wondered whether rail tracks could be constructed beneath and above the existing ones to decongest platforms. We have to think differently for decongesting the existing platform, Prabhu said.

The government has set a target of renewing 3,500 km length of tracks at a cost of Rs 10,153 crore in 2017-18. To improve the profits of railways, the government is trying to maximize revenues from fares as well as non-fare methods besides reducing the cost of operation.

It was a difficult year for railways as the cost increased due to Pay Commission, and revenue did not increase, Prabhu said.
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) plans to set up a separate Enforcement Department (EFD) proposed to be opened on April 3.

The initiative has been proposed to separate those who oversee the possible rule breaches and those who decide on punitive actions. It will hence, enable the enforcement process to operate fairly and based on evidence.

The EFD shall, inter alia, develop a broad policy for enforcement and initiate enforcement action against the Regulated Entities (REs) for violation consistent with such policy.

EFD would serve as a centralised department to deal with banks only for enforcement action.

This was stated by minister of state in the ministry of finance Santosh Kumar Gangwar, in a written reply to the Lok Sabha on Friday.

At present, the RBI has two departments -- regulation and supervision -- for banks.

The third department of enforcement will look after the issue of any violation by banks and impose penalty or issue warnings.
The hand baggage of passengers flying out of the country will continue to be stamped at all the seven airports where this practice will end on April 1 for domestic travellers, officials said on Friday.

Stamping of passengers hand baggage at seven major airports, including Delhi and Mumbai, will be done away with from Saturday. The other airports are: Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Cochin and Ahmedabad.

However, this would not be applicable to the passengers flying out of the country. Official sources said it was being done as the aviation and security regulators of foreign countries needed to be informed about it in advance and convinced.

All the seven airports have international passenger traffic.

In the meantime, arrangements have been made for smooth scanning of such luggage and CISF personnel, who provide security at these airport, have been briefed.

CISF director general OP Singh had said on Thursday the procedure of stamping and putting tags on hand baggage of passengers will be dispensed with from April 1 at these seven airports.

We have put in place the required security systems that will help us in ushering in this passenger-friendly move, he had said.

The move, the CISF chief said, will enhance passenger experience and provide hassle-free security environment to them.
Power consumers in the state capital will have to pay a sharply higher tariff for per unit electricity consumed and the rate charged from them will be higher than the revised rate of electricity in rural areas of Bihar, effective Saturday, April 1.

The hike in power tariff was as high as 66.66% in case of urban domestic consumers, in the first slab of up to 100 units, that is, from Rs 3 per unit at present, to Rs 5 per unit with effect from Saturday.

Announcing the upwardly revised power tariff, in the state assembly on Friday, chief minister Nitish Kumar also made it clear that electricity consumed for agricultural purposes and by BPL category consumers, would attract the lowest tariff.

The revised power tariff could have been even higher than the rates announced but for a subsidy component, which, Kumar said, would be directly transferred to consumers and be reflected in their power bills in bold letters, as part of the power reforms.

We will be giving a subsidy of Rs 2,952 crore to power consumers in the next financial year, which is higher than the Rs 2,704 crore subsidy given this year. Mentioning the subsidy amount in the electricity bills given to consumers will show how much the government is paying out of their power bills, the chief minister said.

This step would also help in monitoring the performance of power companies and assess the aggregate technical and commercial loss( AT&C) losses, he added.

As per the revised rate, an urban domestic power consumer would have to pay Rs 5 per unit of electricity, as against Rs 3 per unit at present, for the first 100 units consumed, a hike of 66% in the first slab.

This revised rate carries a subsidy of Rs 1.48, on the tariff fixed by the Bihar Electricity Regulatory Commission (BERC), which had proposed Rs 6.45 as per unit rate for urban areas and an overall hike in power tariff by 55% for different categories of consumers, from farms to industrial units.

This had led to a big outcry, with the opposition BJP calling it exorbitant and unrealistic.

Nonetheless, the hike in the power rate would make a big hole in the pockets of those running air-conditioners and other electrical appliances in their homes in Patna and other cities, as the per unit rate would go up further in higher electricity consumption slabs like 100-200 units, 200-300 units and 300 and above units.

As per the revised rates, an urban domestic consumer will have to pay an estimated Rs 500 or more for the first 100 units while those having a higher load would have to shell out much more.

The chief minister, however, pointed out even the enhanced per unit power rate for urban consumers, rural consumers, farming activity and industrial units, was less than the per unit power tariff in West Bengal and UP.

He said the government had asked BERC to calculate the power tariff for different categories of consumers minus subsidy given to power companies, as part of a strategy to initiate power reforms.

Kumar also highlighted the fact that the power availability target for 2017-18 had been fixed at 30,740 million unit, a rise of 23% over this years availability, indicating a growth in the states base of power subscribers.

The tariff hike has been quite substantial even for rural consumers and industrial users. As per the new rate, rural domestic consumers would have pay Rs 3.35 per unit, with a subsidy component of Rs 3.10.

For non-domestic (rural) consumers, the rate per unit has been fixed at Rs 4.33, post deduction of subsidy of Rs 2.50, while non-domestic (urban) consumers will have to pay Rs 7.62 per unit after reduction of 40 paise as subsidy, as against the BERC recommended rate of Rs 8.02.

Consumers in BPL category will have to pay Rs 2.50 paise per unit with subsidy of Rs 3.58 paise, as against BERC rate of Rs 6.08, while connections for agriculture and irrigation would cost Rs 1.50 paise, with a subsidy of Rs 4.29, the highest subsidy component among all categories of consumers.

Industrial connections for different categories will vary from Rs 8.34 to Rs 5.26 per unit, with a subsidy component ranging from 25 paise to 50 paise.

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By Diwali this year, paints in India will be sold with less than one percent of lead that causes indoor pollution and is harmful for children.

The Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) has prescribed new draft rules that allows maximum of 90 particles per million (ppm) or .09% in the paints to be sold for both domestic and industrial purposes across India.

It is a standard similar to international level, said Ravi Aggarwal of non-government advocacy group, Toxic Link. It meant that paints will not contain any added lead. In case of added lead, the toxic level rises to 500 ppm, he said.

According to studies, high lead content in paints leads to indoor air pollution and affects children the most. Exposure to lead can hamper brain development in children. High exposure can even lead to neurological problems, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said recently.

The new guidelines will impact small and medium scale paint industry, which contributes to about 40% of the estimated business of Rs 40,600 crore in 2015-16. The organised sector already meets the standard.

The officials said big paint companies were pushing the government to have a national norm to ensure a level playing field. The paints manufactured by unorganised sector is 20-30% cheaper than that by the organised sector.

Health Facts Lead is a cumulative toxicant that affects multiple body systems and is particularly harmful to children Lead in the body is distributed to the brain, liver, kidney and bones. Lead in bone is released into blood during pregnancy and becomes a source of exposure to the developing foetus There is no known level of lead exposure that is considered safe

A 2013 study by Toxic Link showed high levels of lead in most paints being sold in the market, which was more than 1,000 times the proposed standard of 90 ppm. To meet the new standard, the CPCB has come out with a detailed compliance and testing procedure which the manufacturers will have to abide by.

For paint already manufactured, self-certification by manufacturers on lead content has been allowed, which would be checked randomly by nationally designated laboratories. But for new paints, pre-testing from certified agencies has been made mandatory.

In addition, the CPCB will also conduct random sample testing of paints to find whether manufacturers were complying with the new norm or not. Three to five samples shall be drawn depending on the quantity of a particular batch, says the guideline, which will come into effect from November 11, 2017

The rule also prescribes mandatory submission of annual report to the CPCB.

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A top Hizbul commander active in Jammu and Kashmirs Anantnag district, was arrested here on Friday, police sources said.

Amir Wagay, top commander of Hizbul Mujahideen outfit, was arrested with some arms and ammunition in Srinagar district, a source said.

Wagay was involved in a number of attacks on security forces in Anantnag district. He was high on the wanted list of the security forces, the source added.
The European Union demanded that Britain make "sufficient progress" on its divorce before talks on a trade deal can start as it laid out its tough Brexit negotiating plans Friday.

EU president Donald Tusk ruled out an immediate start to parallel talks, as demanded by British Prime Minister Theresa May on Wednesday in her letter triggering the historic two-year Brexit process.

Tusk's draft negotiating guidelines add that the other 27 countries are ready for a transitional deal after Britain's exit in 2019, but that any such arrangement must be under strict EU rules.

Former Polish premier Tusk said it was his "first divorce and I hope the last one", adding that while he hoped it would not be confrontational the EU would stick to its principles during the talks.

"The EU 27 does not and will not pursue a punitive approach. Brexit itself is already punitive enough," he told a news conference in the Maltese capital Valletta as he revealed his plans.

The EU is keen to stress its unity as it faces the wrenching departure of one of its biggest members, the first time a country has left the bloc in its 60-year history.

Tusk's guidelines will now be sent out to the leaders of the 27 remaining EU countries, which will suggest changes ahead of a special summit in Brussels to approve the plans on April 29.

Germany and France had already set out a united and uncompromising stance against May's demands.

"Starting parallel talks on all issues at the same time as suggested by some in the UK will not happen," Tusk said.

"Once and only once we have achieved sufficient progress on the withdrawal can we discuss the framework for our future relationship."

The guidelines say that the EU called for a "phased approach" that prioritises an orderly withdrawal that reduces the disruption caused by Britain's departure in March 2019.

The fate of three million EU citizens living in Britain and one million British people within the bloc's 27 other nations is at the top of leaders' agenda.

Also looming large is the so-called "exit bill" which Britain will have to pay, estimated to be as much as 60 billion euros ($64 billion, 52 billion), and the border between Northern Ireland and Ireland.

"The European Council (EU leaders) will monitor progress closely and determine when sufficient progress has been achieved to allow negotiations to proceed to the next phase" on a future relationship, the draft guidelines say.

A decision on that could come by the end of this year, a senior EU official said.

The EU said that no trade deal can be agreed on before Brexit takes effect.

But it is also open to a transitional arrangement after Brexit as a "bridge" to a future deal some years down the line, but said that it would have to be under EU rules and the European Court of Justice.

It said it will "prepare itself to be able to handle the situation also if the negotiations were to fail."

The EU's chief negotiator, France's Michel Barnier, is expected to get the green light to start talks with Britain on May 22, an EU official said.

May formally notified the EU of Britain's intention to leave in a letter to Tusk on Monday that diplomats described as surprisingly conciliatory in tone for the most part.

But May's warning in the letter that failure to clinch a deal on trade would affect Britain's cooperation on terrorism and security still rankled with many.

British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, in Brussels as NATO ministers met US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, said London was committed to European security and that it was "not some bargaining chip" in the Brexit talks.

Tusk added he was sure that a "wise and decent" Britain would not do so.

Maltese Prime Minister Joseph Muscat, whose country holds the EU's six-month rotating presidency, meanwhile called for the fate of EU citizens in Britain not to be used in the same way.

EU leaders hope to resolve the divorce issues by the end of the year before moving on to the future relationship and a possible transition.

But that leaves only 10 months before October 2018 when Barnier says the talks must wrap up to give time for the European Parliament and member states to approve what the negotiators come up with.

Britain has meanwhile started laying plans for the daunting task of bringing thousands of items of EU regulation into British law on the day that Britain leaves the EU.

But May is struggling to bring unity in the wake of the divisive Brexit referendum last June that saw 52 percent vote in favour of leaving the EU and 48 percent against.

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The Gangotri and Yamunotri glaciers, considered sacred by billions of Indians, were declared on Friday as living entities by the Uttarakhand high court, which also granted similar status to virtually every creation of nature in the Himalayan state.

The order came barely a few days after the court granted the same status to the Ganga and Yamuna rivers, which flows out of the two glaciers in the Himalayas.

The status means that the rivers and the glaciers have the right to be legally protected and if anyone harms or pollutes them, the law would view it as no different from harming a person.

Gangotri and Yamunotri are also part of Uttarakhands fabled char dham  four pilgrimages visited by lakhs of Hindu devotees every year.

Besides the glaciers, Fridays court order also said rivers, streams, rivulets, lakes, air, meadows, dales, jungles, forests wetlands, grasslands, springs and waterfalls in Uttarakhand must be given corresponding rights, duties and liabilities of a living person, in order to preserve and conserve them.

The past generations have handed over the Mother Earth to us in its pristine glory and we are morally bound to hand over the same Mother Earth to the next generation, a two-judge bench of justices Rajeev Sharma and Alok Singh said.

The very existence of the rivers, forests, lakes, water bodies, air and glaciers is at stake due to global warming, climate change and pollution.

The court passed the order on a PIL filed by advocate Lalit Miglani and others.

Most of the rivers in India are said to be highly polluted with sewage from urban settlements, farming pesticides and industrial effluents freely flowing into the water despite stringent laws.

The high courts orders came days after New Zealand declared its Whanganui river a living entity, making it the first river in the world to be given these rights.

The court had referred to the rights given to the Whanganui river, revered by the indigenous Maori people.
On October 18, 2004, Veerappan  kidnapper, elephant poacher and sandalwood smuggler  was killed.

Lured out of his forest stronghold in Tamil Nadu, Veerappan had unwittingly climbed into an ambulance that undercover police officers from the Tamil Nadu Special Task Force had arranged. They had planted Mr X, a mole, in his ranks, and through him, learned that Veerappan had needed to visit a hospital in Salem for his eye.

That day, Veerappan didnt notice that the name Salem had been misspelt as Selam on the ambulance (in their haste, police had made the spelling mistake). The decade-long manhunt for the countrys most notorious bandit ended in the following 20 minutes. The Special Task Force (STF), which had been constituted to nab him, fired 338 bullets at the ambulance, and three of them hit the 52-year-old poacher.

At 11:10 pm that night, the police file on Veerappan was closed. Operation Cocoon had been successful.

This is how retired police officer K Vijay Kumars new book, Veerappan: Chasing the Brigand, ends. File on Koose Muniswamy Veerappan closed, he writes with what seems like relief at the end of a fast-paced last chapter that describes Operation Cocoon down to the last second. If Veerappan hadnt come on the 18th, I dont know what would have happened. It would have just been one of our serial flops, Kumar says. He believes that unusually, the hitherto elusive Veerappan wasnt very alert that day.

Vijay Kumar was the head of the Tamil Nadu STF, and was running Operation Cocoon. He had been given the job in 2001 by then chief minister J Jayalalithaa; before that, he had been a part of the elite Special Protection Group for Rajiv Gandhi, and in the Border Security Force in Kashmir. He admits that his book, which almost reads like a thriller, is biased towards the STF. It closely retells the details of the hunt for Veerappan, beginning with the formation of the STF in 1990  a joint force constituted by Karnataka and Tamil Nadu  to capture him.

IPS officer K Vijay Kumar was the chief of the Special Task Force that killed Veerappan in an encounter in 2004. (Twitter/AFP)

The structure of Kumars book adds to its pace. Each chapter begins with a description of Kumar interviewing somebody in the police force about Veerappan and the STFs numerous attempts to capture him before Kumar joined. What he learns from the interviews reads as flashbacks, written as though it is all happening in the moment. The book has several gripping scenes, of the time when Kumar was in a part of the jungle full of mines laid by Veerappans gang, and an entire section is dedicated to the kidnap of Kannada icon Rajkumar, the actor with a cult following who remained in the brigands custody for 108 days, albeit unharmed. Kumars pride over various STF operations is evident. What is also palpable is his anger over the many police and forest officers Veerappan killed. Particularly disturbing is his description of senior Indian Forest Services (IFS) officer P Srinivas murder in 1991. Srinivas was shot and decapitated. Srinivas head wasnt recovered until almost three years later, Kumar writes.

The book, in many ways, is an attempt to sift through fact and fiction about Veerappan, and throw light on lesser known details of the hunt for him. How Veerappan died, for instance, has been a major point of contention, as have the smaller facts of other failed operations that nobody, other than those involved, really know.

Kumars book appears like an attempt to respond to the criticism the STF faced after Veerappans death. Back then, activists and several media organisations argued that not only had the bandit not been given a fair chance to defend himself before a court of law, but also, disturbingly, that he had been tortured to death in police custody. One such claim was that Veerappans eye had been gouged out; in his book, Kumar writes that one of the three bullets had gone through his eye. For those who have lived with these accusations for decades, like NK Senthamarai Kannan, Kumars then colleague, this book has been a closure. Those stories arent true. What Kumar has written is what happened, Kannan says.

Others dont agree. R Gopal, the editor and publisher of the Tamil investigative journal Nakkeeran, who once described Veerappan in an interview with Tehelka as a murderer who wanted to correct himself, believes that Veerappan was tortured and murdered in police custody. He says the police were waiting to settle scores with Veerappan  Police-ku thanni kaatinaan avan (to escape from someone right under their nose). They were seething.

This book is written from the polices view; its their record, but the truth is different. Whatever happened in the forests is what we [Nakkeeran] have reported, says Gopal, who is dismissive of Operation Cocoon. He has extensively covered the story of Veerappan and was also an emissary between the smuggler and state governments in carrying out a successful mission in rescuing actor Rajkumar. I dont want to talk about whatever they called it, but Veerappan did not die, like they claim, in an encounter. He was caught alive and tortured for two-three days and killed. They had to embalm the body before photographing  his face was swollen.

Asking author Kumar about whether he would have rather caught Veerappan alive only provokes a more defensive answer. He seems more used to answering the question of whether the STF could have caught him alive. If we had caught him alive, perhaps wed have got to interrogate him for tactics. But we had given him a fair opportunity by law, Kumar says.

After Veerappans death, there were a large number of people who reportedly came to see his body at the Dharmapuri hospital, curious to know if he was really dead, despite knowing that they wouldnt be allowed inside. Of course his death didnt end the spread of his legend  there have been at least six films and a TV serial on the man, including Ram Gopal Varmas Killing Veerappan, released in 2016. Varma alone has made three films on Veerappan, one in Kannada and two in Hindi. Killing Veerappan was a Kannada docudrama and its protagonist was NK Senthamarai Kannan, ironically played by Shiv Rajkumar, son of Veerappans most famous kidnap victim Rajkumar.

So much mythology has sprung up around Koose Muniswamy Veerappan that is it practically impossible to weed out fact from fiction, Kumar writes in his book. There is so much hype around [him] that facts are becoming misty, he says, adding, He had an image of invincibility that has been played up time and again.

The huge controversy around how Veerappan died is the best example of this blurring of lines between fact and fiction. But stories about Veerappan, all riveting and often wildly contradictory, usually fall into two distinct categories. The first kind of narrative comes from those who were enamoured by him, remaining loyal to him throughout his long reign over the forests, and the second from those who have never talked about him without calling him ruthless and terrifying.

People would fall at his feet when he was walking by. They were extremely scared. But Veerappan was also a hero, Kumar admits. It was a most understandable fear  Veerappan was superstitious, and known to take decisions about killing somebody based on just rolling stones like dice. In 1994, in Geddasal, a village in Tamil Nadu, Kumar writes, he and his gang shot men whom he thought had become police informers, hacking their necks with machetes, and then setting their houses on fire.

Kumar talks of how he decided he wanted to take what he calls the human angle with the book. I wanted to talk about how he (Veerappan) was as a father, and as a team leader. I wanted to look at what happens in a generalship when weaknesses come in, and how power plays out.

To do this, he even attempts to write from Veerappans perspective occasionally. He does this when he describes the brutal Geddasal killings, writing in Veerappans voice, first threatening a shepherd for the names of informants, and then furious when he finds them. Unexpectedly, Kumar also does this when he is writing about Operation Cocoon, making Veerappan preoccupied with memories and regrets just before his death.

But Kumar also clarifies that the only important personal facts that he does know are about Veerappans eating habits, how he moved through the difficult terrain, his ability to hide, and his ambushes  things that ultimately led the intelligence-based Operation Cocoon to him. For the book, often, Kumar has had to rely not only on STF accounts but also on very limited police reports and differing oral stories. Media accounts were not always reliable in piecing together the story. A small part of the media had glorified Veerappan no end. It was like a trial by media (for the STF), with constant questions about why nobody had been able to catch him.

According to Veerappans horoscope (which Kumar adds as an appendix to his book), he was bound to be red-eyed, less educated, ungrateful, egoistical, fond of women, petty-minded and short-tempered. He was fated to run away from home and live in another state in vanavasam (exiled in the forest). If he had crossed the age of 65, he would have gone on to live until he was 78. But Veerappan, whose horoscope was charted out by a trusted member of the Valluvan community (hereditary priests who preach and practise astrology), was also to receive rajadandanai  punishment by the state.

The STF had got their hands on the horoscope in 2001, when their intelligence sources found it for them. It was this last detail about rajadandanai that kept several force members going in their long and often frustrating hunt for the man who knew the Sathymangalam forests like the back of his hand. When you live a dangerous life with an uncertain future, every bit of optimism helps, Kumar writes. But would he have done anything differently? He says firmly, Now that this has ended, no.

With inputs from Apoorva Sripathi

(Published in arrangement with GRIST Media)
The Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) is promising work for Indias jobless Hindu youth. The hardline affiliate of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), which has been spearheading the Ram temple movement in Ayodhya, has floated a helpline number for those who want jobs or training and will offer the service free of cost. The service, however, is open only for Hindus.

Unemployed, uneducated or educated youth who need a job or training can call the VHPs Hindu Yuwa Care helpline that will accept such requests in writing or verbally.

In what can be perceived as a potshot at the Narendra Modi government for not being able to fulfill its promise of creating more jobs, VHPs international president Pravin Togadia in a statement said: We do not know the art of building castles in the air. We tirelessly work on the ground, and try to fulfill what we said.

The VHP chief claimed that his outfit has created 50,000 jobs in Ahmedabad alone in the manufacturing sector.

The Bharatiya Janata Party in its manifesto for the 2014 general elections had talked of creating 250 million jobs over the next 10 years as part of an economic development programme.

The VHP, which already runs helplines that offer assistance for the elderly, is touting the new helpline as a means of helping Hindustan (India) become developed and prosperous.

Manufacturers looking for employees are also being encouraged to call the helpline.

The VHP is also pushing the government to expedite the process of the Ram temple construction by passing a legislation in Parliament.

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Its Sushma Swaraj to the rescue. Again !

Swaraj has responded promptly and enquired about a users problem on Twitter after a woman asked if she will have to commit suicide to get in touch with the external affairs minister.

The user, @Jyotiranapande, posted a desperate tweet, asking Swaraj for help in acquiring a visa.

Jyoti said: Please help me for my visa. Mere ko suicide krna parega kya. apni baat aap taak paguchane ko (Do I have to commit suicide to get my problem across to you).

@SushmaSwaraj

Please help me for my visa

Mere ko suicide krna parega kya.apni baat aap taak paguchane ko  Jyoti S Pande (@jyotiranapande) March 30, 2017

And then, Swaraj asked Jyoti not to give up.

Aap haar mat maniye. Mujhe apni samasya batayiye. https://t.co/n37DAroU7z  Sushma Swaraj (@SushmaSwaraj) March 30, 2017

Jyoti -- who lives in Rajasthan, according to her Twitter profile -- had repeatedly tweeted to the external affairs minister last month, saying she needs a tourist visa to visit her husband after her father-in-laws death.

She claimed she does not have a marriage certificate to visit her husband, who is a citizen of New Zealand.

Swaraj actively uses the micro-blogging website to respond to people in distress and provide updates on rescue missions for Indians abroad.

Earlier on Friday, Swaraj announced the release of two Indian engineers who were allegedly abducted in South Sudan. The BJP leader had also posted updates ensuring an impartial probe on attacks against Nigerians in Uttar Pradeshs Greater Noida this week.

But all of ministers tweets arent all about work. Last year, Swaraj tweeted a hilarious reply to a man who complained that he had been sold a defective refrigerator and the company wasnt ready to replace it.

That time, she posted: Brother I cannot help you in matters of a Refrigerator. I am very busy with human beings in distress (sic).

Brother I cannot help you in matters of a Refrigerator. I am very busy with human beings in distress. https://t.co/cpC5cWBPcz  Sushma Swaraj (@SushmaSwaraj) June 13, 2016
From Finance Bill approved in Lok Sabha to Last chance for depositing old notes in RBI today to deposed South Korean president arrested, here are the top 10 stories to bring you up to date.

1) Lok Sabha approves Finance Bill, rejects changes made in Rajya Sabha

The Lok Sabha rejected five amendments moved by the Rajya Sabha to pass the finance bill on Thursday, completing the budgetary exercise well before the start of the next financial year. The finance bill, being a money bill, will now go to the President for approval. As per Article 109 of the Constitution, the Rajya Sabha has limited powers with regard to draft legislations tagged by the government as money bills. However, finance minister Arun Jaitley invited suggestions from political parties  including the Congress and the Biju Janata Dal (BJD)  to make electoral funding more clean and transparent.

Read the full story here.

2) Indian-American Sikh doctor in US gets death threats

A Sikh doctor in the US has received death threats from an anonymous caller in Indiana amid a series of hate crime incidents against Indian- Americans. Amandeep Singh, a general internist at Monroe Hospital in Indiana, recently received the death threat through a text message on his cell phone by the unknown individual who claimed to have murdered the numbers previous owner, community leaders said.

Read the full story here.

3) Supreme Court takes a break from summer holidays; judges to hear cases on triple talaq, WhatsApp privacy

For the first time in the Supreme Courts history, three constitution benches of five judges each will sit during the summer break. These would be in addition to the two regular vacation benches set up every year to hear urgent matters. Nineteen of the 28 judges will be hearing cases during the 90-day break, which is unprecedented. Typically, four SC judges work during court holidays. The practice has often come under criticism in the face of huge backlog. Prime Minister Narendra Modi had last year questioned the long vacation.

Read the full story here.

4) Tamil Nadu parties dont like the sign of Hindi on highways, threaten stir

Tamil Nadu may just witness a renewed anti-Hindi flare-up, with a number of regional parties objecting to the use of the language on signboards across the state. Political groups such as the Marumalarchi Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (MDMK) and Pattali Makkal Katchi (PMK) have threatened to launch an agitation if the Centre continues erasing town names in English and replacing them with Hindi translations on signboards installed across highways passing through Tamil Nadu.

Read the full story here.

5) Uttar Pradeshs meat sellers may call off strike after positive meeting with CM Adityanath

Uttar Pradeshs non-vegetarian fare may be back as the ongoing strike by meat sellers and prominent eateries is likely to be called off soon. The hope was raised following chief minister Yogi Adityanaths assurance to meat sellers and exporters that his government will protect interests of all genuine operators. Sirajuddin Qureshi the president of the All India Jamiatul Quresh  an association of the states abattoirs and meat sellers told HT that it has appealed to it members to consider withdrawing the strike.

Read the full story here.

6) Delhi, Mumbai, 5 other airports to do away with handbag stamping from tomorrow

Domestic air travellers at Delhi and six other airports will not have to get hand baggage tag stamped anymore. The Central Industrial Security Force (CISF), has decided to do away with the procedure to speed up the check in process from April 1. Besides Delhi, the rule will be implemented in Mumbai, Kolkata, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad and Cochin. In December, CISF had started trial runs for this but stamping resumed after a week due to security concerns.

Read the full story here.

7) Last chance for depositing old notes in RBI today, but are you eligible?

The queues at the designated RBI offices are getting longer as the deadline for exchange of scrapped notes draws to a close on March 31. The anxiety is palpable as holding of more than 10 notes of banned currency will become a crime for Indian residents after March 31. But everyone waiting for their turn outside the central banks offices is not eligible to exchange their old notes.

Read the full story here.

8) Bajaj, Hero and Honda offer up to Rs 22,000 discount in clearance sale

Two-wheeler majors Hero MotoCorp, Honda Motorcycle and Scooter India (HMSI), Bajaj Auto and Suzuki Motorcycle are offering discounts of up to Rs 22,000 on BS-III models to liquidate stocks, a day after the Supreme Court banned sale and registration of such vehicles from April 1. With 6.71 lakh two-wheelers, out of over 8 lakh BS-III vehicles impacted by the ban, dealers said the immediate effort is to sell as many units as possible before the deadline by offering unheard of discounts in the industry.

Read the full story here.

9) Deposed South Korean president Park Geun-hye arrested

South Koreas disgraced former President Park Geun-hye was arrested and jailed Friday over high-profile corruption allegations that already ended her tumultuous four-year rule and prompted an election to find her successor. A convoy of vehicles, including a black sedan carrying Park, entered a detention facility near Seoul after the Seoul Central District Court granted prosecutors request to arrest her.

Read the full story here.

10) Saina Nehwal, PV Sindhu set up quarterfinal blockbuster at India Open badminton

Saina Nehwal and PV Sindhu will clash in the quarterfinals of the India Open World Super Series on Friday after both of them won their second round matches comfortably. Saina Nehwal took just 33 minutes to dispatch Pompawee Chochuwong of Thailand with a 21-14, 21-11 win while PV Sindhu outplayed Saena Kawakami of Japan 21-16, 23-21. Both players were guarded in their response to questions on the much-anticipated quarterfinal.

Read the full story here.
Senior Samajwadi Party leader Azam Khan on Friday asked Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adiyanath if he would prefer to offer namaz, as he had earlier said it was similar to surya namaskar.

Reacting to Adiyanaths remark that the prayers offered by Muslims resemble different postures of surya namaskar, Khan said: He would have been handcuffed had he made such comments.

Since you find similarities between surya namaskar and namaz, will you prefer to offer namaz? he asked the chief minister.

The SP general secretary said he cannot comprehend how the prayers offered by Muslims were similar to the sun salutation and questioned Adityanaths intention behind the comment.

Khan said no one would restrain Adityanath from offering namaz.

The UP Chief Minister had on Wednesday said: All asanas (postures) in surya namaskar, pranayama activities are similar to the way namaz is offered by our Muslim brothers. But nobody ever tried to bring them together because few people were interested only in bhoga not yoga.

On crackdown on slaughterhouses, Khan said, Muslims are being forced to eat vegetables to ensure that religious sentiments of others are not hurt. A lion does not eat grass, but it will have to if it wants to survive.

Asked about Shiv Sena MP Sanjay Raut saying RSS Chief Mohan Bhagwat will make a good President, Azam said, The highest post will be occupied by one who has the numbers.
On the very first day of his election campaign, National Conference president Dr Farooq Abdullah warned party workers against rising communal forces in the country.

Aag lagi hui hain, the NC patron said in his unique style. At his histrionic best, the senior Abdullah asked his cadre to work hard to save the country from communal forces. The NC leader, who has always been a crowd puller, announced that India cannot be a country with only one religion and if it is heading there, then a rethink is needed.

Abdullah was speaking a day after Yogi Adityanath took oath as chief minister of Uttar Pradesh.

Although at a distance of 877km from Kashmir, the BJPs decision to entrust UPs chief ministership to Adityanath, who is seen as one of the most divisive and extreme voices of Hindutva, has not left Kashmir untouched.

Immediately after BJP registered a sweeping victory in UP, the two main opposition parties  the Congress and the NC  reached a pre-poll alliance for the Srinagar and Anantnag Lok Sabha seats in the Kashmir by-elections. The Congress will contest the Anantnag seat while the NC will field its candidate in Srinagar. The two parties have decided to field Abdullah, president of NC, as Srinagar candidate and Congress chief in J&K, GA Mir, will contest the Anantnag seat.

While Srinagar constituency will go to polls on April 9, polling in Anantnag will be held on April 12. The Anantnag constituency had fallen vacant after Mehbooba Mufti became the chief minister last year. Nazir Ahmad Khan had been announced as the partys candidate from Srinagar after senior leader and one of the PDP founders, Tariq Hameed Karra, left the party in protest after protracted violence in 2016 left at least 90 people dead in the Kashmir Valley.

The NC upped its ante the day the BJP announced that Adityanath would be UP chief minister. Former CM Omar Abdullah hit out at PDP president Mehbooba, expressing concern and anguish over the UP CMs name. Congratulations @MehboobaMufti. Your friends & allies have chosen a man who called for the dead bodies of Muslim women to be raped as CM, Abdullah wrote on Twitter. Do you still want to try and fool the people of Kashmir, especially those who trusted you in 2014, that a new Vajpayee-like era is starting, he said in another tweet.

The PDP, which publicly has refrained from coming on record on UP, looks visibly hassled at the choice in the run-up to the election. Speaking to HT on condition of anonymity, a senior PDP leader said, The party has to go to elections with the burden of 2016 unrest and Yogi Adityanaths appointment. They (NC) are trying hard to utilise it.

The leader, who admitted that the choice of chief minister scared him, says, The rise of Hindutva extremism is a reality and we need to engage with this reality, justifying the alliance with the BJP.

While Mehbooba who, on one hand, is still trying to hard-sell the alliance with the BJP to people, maintains that only Narendra Modi can heal the wounds of Kashmiri people, she has started talking about issues like the revocation of the controversial Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act (ASFPA) to try and gain some lost ground in her core constituency. We should not shy away from revocation of the AFSPA. When things improve, why not? she said at an India Foundation counter-terrorism conference in New Delhi.

However, her brother Tasaduq, contesting from the restive Anantnag constituency, seems to have gauged the situation better. The junior Mufti, who formally joined the party in January, asked his party men to prioritise their safety and not winning election. Your safety comes first...even if we dont win, it doesnt matter, he told PDP workers at the first campaign meeting. PDP leaders had to reportedly face stone-pelting youth during a rally in south Kashmir.

Policemen chase Kashmiri protesters during a demonstration in Srinagar. (AP File Photo)

Tasaduqs constituency includes the four districts of Pulwama, Tral, Shopian and Anantnag, which reported not only the highest incidences of violent protests but also had the highest number of causalities. Militant leader Burhan Wani, whose death triggered the unrest, was also from the constituency.

The first-timer is faced with a humongous task of going to people after the unrest and justifying alliance with a party where Yogi Adityanath, who calls Muslims beasts on two feet, is a leader of choice, said another PDP leader.

While Kashmiris generally refrain from reacting to political developments in the rest of the country, Adityanaths appointment and the results of the UP election have not left Kashmir untouched. People are discussing the UP chief minister in drawing rooms, on dinner mats, and on social media.

Kashmir did not react when Narendra Modi, who was unpopular in the Valley after the 2002 Gujarat riots, became the Prime Minister. But people have not remained aloof to the changing political dynamics. Yogi is a huge statement from BJP, says former Reuters bureau chief, Sheikh Mushtaq. The argument in Kashmir post-2014 elections was that the Congress or BJP are same sides of the coin and doesnt matter for Kashmiris who is at the helm.

When Modi came to power, it (BJP) was still a mainstream party and Kashmir did not see it differently than Congress. However, with Adityanath, a Muslim-hating fringe has become mainstream and that seems to be a visible agenda, Mushtaq says. People dont see Yogi as a threat to Kashmir, they are worried about Indian Muslims now.

The argument sees reflection in social media, which range from netizens eulogising Pakistan founder Mohammed Ali Jinnah as a visionary to commenting that Indian Muslims who chose secular India over Muslim Pakistan deserved better than Yogi Adityanath.

Every social media status and news story shared had one name in common  that was the monk CMs. Kashmiri youth are showing contempt as well as shock over the choice. This is why many anti-India thinkers in Kashmir were rejoicing at BJPs winning UP: rabid, communal Adityanath is the CM!!! says one Facebook post. Yogi Adityanath will interpret Gandhis Ram Rajya. Evolution, said another.

He has proved that Jinnah was right and Gandhi was wrong, says a young college student who did not want to be identified. The Hindu extremist wave is all over and we will also feel the heat soon, the senior PDP leader echoes the student.

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Farmers in the Hadauti region of Rajasthan are in a fix over repayment of interest-free loans by March-end as they would harvest their crops in April.

I am required to repay a loan of 30,000 before March 31 this year, but I cannot do it because I will harvest my wheat crop in the second week of April, said Ramgopal Meena, a farmer who has two beeghas of agricultural land at Bijaynagar village in Bundi district.

This is the problem being faced by a large number of farmers in Kota who had taken kharif crop loans from cooperative banks last year.

According to rules, if the short-term crop loans are not repaid by March 31, then a 7% interest is applied on them.

Farmers are given interest-free crop loans up to 1.50 lakh for kharif season between March and August, and the last date of repayment is March 31. Loans for rabi crops are given between September and March, and the last date for repayment is June 30.

Most of the farmers have availed of loans for the kharif season, but they have invested a bulk of the amount in rabi crops. As their income from kharif produce is not enough to repay loans by March 31, farmers bank on rabi crops for repayment.

Of around 10 lakh hectares cropped area in Hadauti region during the rabi season, wheat was sown in over 5 lakh hectares, said Hadauti Kisan Union general secretary Dashrath Kumar. The harvest of mustard, coriander and other rabi crops has started but farmers will get major share of their income when wheat will be harvested next month, he said.

Farmers can repay their short-term crop loan only after selling wheat, so the state government should extend the last date of kharif crop loan repayment to June 30.

A Kota Central Cooperative Bank Limited (KCCBL) official said, Crop loans worth 450 crore were given to around 60,000 farmers in the current financial year (2016-17) in Kota district; out of this, 325 crore was given to around 40,000 farmers as kharif crop loan through the Gram Sehkari Samiti.

Asked about farmers difficulties in repaying kharif loans by March-end, KCCBL managing director Indra Singh said, Only the state government or Apex Bank can decide on crop loan deadline extension.

He added, The last date for kharif crop loan repayment is March 31 and there is no change in it.

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The Rajasthan education department is all set to introduce personality development classes and sanskar (cultural values) sessions in government schools.

A senior education department official said schools from this academic session will encourage activities to develop personality of students -- a brainchild of education minister Vasudev Devnani -- apart from training teachers.

The department will call subject experts as guest faculty to give lectures to students. Collectors, superintendents of police and bank managers, among others, will be urged to give lectures and share their experiences with students, the official said. This move will be called pandit Deendayal Upadhyaya Prerak (motivational) address.

Sanskar (cultural values) meets will also be held at schools after morning prayers on every second Saturday. The meet aims to bring out creative and innovative capabilities of students. Lectures will be given on inspiring personalities and discussions will be held on their biographies, said the official.

Rajasthan has around 74,000 government schools in which over 85 lakh students are enrolled.

Among other initiatives, the official said, a siksha sambalan abhiyan will be held in two phases -- from pandit Deendayal Upadhyaya birth anniversary (September 25) to Mahatama Gandhi anniversary (October 2), and from Swami Vivekananda anniversary (January 12) to Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose anniversary (January 23).

Under the campaign, interactions with students will be organised, schools will be inspected and problems addressed. District and block education officers or additional district magistrates will visit the schools, the official said.

Every last Saturday of a month will be observed as Seva Divas to inculcate sanitation habits among students. On this day, teachers and students will work for cleanliness for half an hour, the official said.

Devnani had earlier announced appointment of panchayat education officers (PEOs) who will inspect and monitor schools under gram panchayats.
A minor girl was killed allegedly after being gang raped by members of a local club in West Bengals Malda district.

The unclothed body of the 10-year-old girl was recovered on Friday from an under-construction market complex being built by the club, police said.

Grandfather of the victim in his complaint to the police alleged that the girl was held captive in the club and was sexually assaulted for three days, before being killed.

My granddaughter went missing since Tuesday evening after she went to a nearby grocery shop. I suspect some members of the club and local criminals raped and killed her. I demand stern action against the killers, he said.

The club, which is housed at the under-construction market complex, is located near the victims house at Ratanpur village under Ratua police station, some 250 km north of Kolkata.

Malda district, which shares international border with Bangladesh, is known for illegal poppy trade and high crime graph.

Police have questioned some members of the club in connection with the crime.

We are trying to ascertain where the girl was taken after she went missing. We have already got some clues. We are hopeful the offenders will be arrested soon, said Haradhan Deb, the officer-in-charge of Ratua police station.

Police suspect the girl was killed at least 24 hours before her body was found as it started decomposing. They also believe, more than one person was involved in the crime.

As foul smell started emanating from the complex, some locals went inside and found the girl hanging from the ceiling of a room. The floor of the room was littered with empty liquor bottles.

Some youths consume alcohol and narcotics in and near the club every night. We suspect that some of them confined the girl in the room and gang raped her. Later they strangulated her, said a neighbour Pintu Harijan.

Locals said for the last few days the complex was deserted as the construction work was halted and it was frequented only by some members of the club.

The victim was staying with his grandfather at Ratanpur, while her day-labourer parents, live at Doulatnagar village along with their two other daughters.

The victims family had lodged a missing complaint on Wednesday.
US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson pressed NATO allies Friday to ramp up military spending and denounced Russia's "aggression" in Ukraine, toughening the Trump administration's tone toward Moscow.

Tillerson delivered the message as he met fellow NATO foreign ministers for the first time ahead of a May 25 summit to be attended by leaders including President Donald Trump.

"As President Trump has made clear, it is no longer sustainable for the US to maintain a disproportionate share of NATO's defence expenditures," Tillerson said in Brussels.

He urged his fellow foreign ministers to agree at the May summit to produce plans by the end of the year to meet the spending pledge.

NATO countries originally agreed at a summit in Wales in 2014 to contribute the equivalent of two percent of their gross domestic product to defence.

Seeking to draw a line under the funding row, NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg has sought to play down concerns that Trump is less committed to the 28-nation alliance than his predecessors.

"We see a strong US commitment to NATO, to the transatlantic bond not only in words but also in deeds," Stoltenberg said, citing increased US military deployments in eastern Europe.

Former Norwegian premier Stoltenberg said the European allies themselves realised the need to meet the citing conflicts to the east and south of its borders.

Tillerson's remarks were tougher than those previously made by Trump or his cabinet officials who have stressed better US relations with Moscow after they had sunk to a low under President Barack Obama over the crisis in Ukraine.

"We want to have a discussion around NATO's posture in Europe, most particularly in eastern Europe in response to Russia's aggression in Ukraine and elsewhere," Tillerson told reporters.

In his speech, Tillerson added that NATO was "fundamental to countering both non-violent, but at times violent, Russian agitation and Russian aggression."

US officials said Tillerson would work with NATO allies to press Russia to fulfil its obligations under the Minsk agreements to end the war in eastern Ukraine.

Russia in 2014 annexed Crimea from Ukraine and backed separatists in eastern Ukraine.

Allies have been alarmed at the prospect of Trump seeking to improve relations with Russia at the expense of support for the pro-Western government in Ukraine or NATO allies in former Soviet parts of eastern Europe.

Their concerns were reinforced when Tillerson initially planned to skip the NATO meeting, citing various commitments including a trip to Russia.

But Tillerson, a press-shy former oilman who had friendly ties with Russian President Vladimir Putin, agreed to attend when NATO rescheduled the meeting for Friday.

A senior NATO official told reporters Thursday on condition of anonymity that the Trump administration was now taking a more "mainstream" approach to the alliance and anxiety among allies had eased.

Tillerson arrived in Brussels following a visit to Turkey, a NATO ally and key player in both Syria and Iraq where Washington wants to defeat the Islamic State (IS) militant group.

In the last two years, IS has claimed or hailed a wave of deadly attacks in US and European cities, including Brussels.

But the funding row remains central.

NATO's 2016 annual report said only five countries met the two percent target -- the United States, Britain, Greece, Poland and Estonia -- while Washington still accounted for nearly 70 percent of combined alliance defence spending.

During a visit to NATO in February, US Secretary of Defense James Mattis voiced staunch support for NATO but warned that Washington could "moderate" its commitment if allies fail to pay up.

Trump said after a visit by German Chancellor Angela Merkel this month that Germany owes "vast sums of money" to NATO and the US.

But German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel said it was "totally unrealistic" for his country to meet the two-percent target.

A NATO official told reporters however that Tillerson's funding demands were "well received" by the ministers, who told him what they were doing to meet their pledges.

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Kavan

Director: K V Anand

Cast: Vijay Sethupathi, Madonna Sebastian, T Rajender, Bose Venkat, Aakashdeep Saighal

Rating: 2/5

One of the biggest pitfalls of Tamil cinema is its craze to offer a cocktail of crazy moments, and KV Anands Kavan, starring Vijay Sethupathi, fumbles and falls precisely because of this. The film, written also by a cocktail of three people, Anand, Kabilan Vairamuthu and Subha, throws up some of the most disturbing aspects of our lives today. These include pesticide poisoning, ruthlessly unethical media practices to up patronage and police follies.

As the movie began to roll, I was almost sure that I was about to watch another Erin Brockovich, where Julia Roberts character fights a huge company that is polluting groundwater, leading to cancer among the regions residents. Kavan also starts on that same note, of a large industrial firm, owned by Dheeran Maniarasu (Bose Venkat), a politician guilty of committing a cocktail of crimes, like murder, rape and causing communal tension. And he is aided and abetted in his nefarious industrial activity by a television company, Zen TV. Its chairman, Kalyan (Aakashdeep Saighal). Tramples on every page in journalistic ethics to pamper and pander to sensationalist news, often fabricated, only to get his TRP ratings flying.

It is into this den that Tilak (Vijay Sethupathi) walks, wins over Kalyan and gets down to work, with all the passion of a fresher, to produce results through truth, sincerity and ethics. But he soon finds himself hitting a hard wall when Zen TV invites Maniarasu for an interview, and Tilak is given a script or set of questions and told to follow it to the T. But the journalist in him feels insulted at having to do a PR exercise with a politician-industrialist who is nothing but a hardcore goonda.

It is pretty clear from this point how Kavan will run for the rest of its 159 minutes. Unfortunately, the writers and the helmer completely lose track of the original sin (pesticide poisoning), so to say, and wander into issues like molestation and dog-eat-dog rivalry between two television channels, one of which is run by Thirunavukkarasu (T Rajinder). He hires Tilak  who soon takes on the role of a social crusader.

Obviously, the film loses focus and effect. Adding to this chaos  where we see television companies turning into battlegrounds  are dream sequences (with Tilak imagining his intimacy with Malar, played by Madonna Sebastian), dance numbers and downright awful music.

The one interesting redemption is of course Sethupathi, who manages to stay afloat with a performance that is wonderfully understated, his biggest plus point and that of the movie as well. However, he certainly needs to improve his dialogue delivery, which is sometimes garbled. I know the great Hollywood actor, Marlon Brando, mumbled his way through to stardom and stars. Who knows, Mr Sethupathi might well achieve that too.

And I am giving that one extra star for the hero of Kavan.

Follow @htshowbiz for more

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THE SALESMAN

Direction: Asghar Farhadi

Actors: Shahab Hosseni, Taraneh Alidoosti

Rating: 2 / 5

He may have snagged the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film on two occasions (A Separation, 2011; and The Salesman, 2017) but overall, the work of Iranian writer-director Asghar Farhadi has been, dare one say it, consistently overrated.

The schematic plot of The Salesman attempts to puff up what is essentially a rather shop-worn premise. An actor couple (Taraneh Alidoosti  Shahab Hosseni) is forced to relocate to a rented flat following the imminent collapse of their apartment building.

Soon after they move into their new home, previously occupied by a call girl, the wife is assaulted by one of the former tenants clients.

The rest of the narrative focuses on the highly-strung husband as he sets out to find the attacker and bring him to justice. Quite conveniently, the assailant leaves behind his cellphone (now no longer operational), the keys to his minivan, and a wad of cash.

Farhadis love of theatre is evident in his stage-bound direction, which is chock-a-block with contrivances. For a purported revenge thriller, there is precious little tension. The tale quickly devolves into a mushy melodrama.

A staging of Arthur Millers acclaimed drama, Death of a Salesman, in which the protagonists participate, serves to foreshadow their fraught relationship with its ongoing trauma.

A staging of Arthur Millers acclaimed drama, Death of a Salesman, in which the protagonists participate, serves to foreshadow their fraught relationship with its ongoing trauma.

A little over two hours long, this manipulative morality tale misses its mark despite an intense performance by Hosseni who, incidentally, won Best Actor at last years Cannes film festival.

Its worth noting that this is one of the rare instances of subtitled foreign language film being accorded regular commercial distribution.

On the other hand, just last week, Ken Loachs vastly superior I, Daniel Blake was relegated to a mere three screenings at a single multiplex chain.

Were moving in the right direction, it would seem, even if we are driving the wrong vehicles.

Watch the trailer for The Salesman here

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The civic budget could make owning a home in Mumbai costlier than it already is, with its proposal to charge a 1% surcharge on all property deals.

The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporations decision at a tome the real estate market is already battling a slump is a bid to boost its revenue, but builders and buyers have already started slamming the proposal.

So far, the 1% surcharge is still a proposal. It will require the approval of the state government through an amendment of the Stamp Duty Act.

If cleared, this is how owning a home will get more expensive for you: you will have to pay Rs1 lakh as surcharge for a flat worth Rs1 crore. This is over and above the existing stamp duty of 5% and registration charges of 1% or or 30,000 (whichever is lower)  thats Rs5.30 lakh for a Rs1-crore property. The BMC has defended its proposal.

If the state increases stamp duty by 1% to finance metro projects, and similarly, we ask for 1% surcharge to fund our infrastructure projects, then the amount is going to be used to improve services for the citizens, said a senior civic officer.

Civic chief Ajoy Mehta said: The Goods and Services Tax will protect our revenues for the next five years. But we do not know what will happen after these five years. We have to look for alternate sources of income. These sources must be from within the city limits. While we have made suggestions of a surcharge and collecting professional tax, it is not final yet. We will continue exploring other sources of income.

Indias richest civic body presented its trimmest budget in years. This is said to be the biggest cut in expenditure in its history. The move comes in the backdrop of the Good and Services tax (GST), which will phase out BMCs biggest revenue generater, Octroi, which earned it Rs7,000 crore.

If the proposed amendments are approved, the civic body will yield an additional revenue of Rs3,000 crore.

Developers said the move spells further trouble for the realty sector.

The increased property rate will hamper buyers decision and this will impact the real estate sector as a whole. Developers are already facing a financial challenge and buyers sentiment is not very strong. Finding a home under Rs1 crore in metro cities is already quite difficult and the 1% surcharge will only increase the cost, said Manju Yagnik, vice president, NAREDCO and vice chairperson of Nahar Group.

The surcharge proposal still requires states approval. If the state carries out the amendment, it will come at a heavy cost to homebuyers, who are already troubled by high rates and 5% existing stamp duty. The real estate market will be affected further. However, a standard taxation process should be implemented, said Rajeev Jain, co-chairman, exhibition committee, CREDAI-MCHI and director, Nirmal Lifestyle.

For now, government sources said the state was not in favour of levying the additional burden on citizens, given the slump in the sector.

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GST effect? Most realistic Mumbai civic budget in 10 years

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Chief minister Devendra Fadnavis has assured Shiv Sena leaders that their constituencies will get an equal share of the funds set aside for development.

Shiv Sena legislators and ministers had alleged that constituencies led by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) were not only given more funds by various departments, but a larger piece of the budget pie.

Fadnavis, on Friday, said any discrepancies would be addressed during the ongoing budget session.

The issue of unequal distribution of funds had cropped up during a meeting convened by Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray on Thursday night.

Thackeray reviewed the performance of ministers from his party and was apprised about alleged discrimination towards elected Shiv Sena representatives.

Thackeray spoke to Fadnavis about the alleged unequal distribution of funds to MLAs and the possibility of a farm loan waiver.

Following this, a delegation led by senior party leaders and ministers Eknath Shinde, Subhash Desai, Ramdas Kadam and Diwakar Raote met Fadnavis at his residence on Friday.

Ramdas Kadam said that Fadnavis assured them that legislators from all parties would receive equal funds.

We brought the issue of unequal distribution of funds to the chief ministers notice. We have faith in him and his assurances have satisfied us, he said.

Shinde said that though Fadnavis remained firm on the governments stance on farm loan waivers, the Shiv Sena will continue to press the issue.

The Shiv Senas review meeting was organised keeping in mind the BJPs core committee meeting held to explore the potential scenarios for the midterm polls ,should the Shiv Sena pull out of the government.

According to sources, Thackeray directed party ministers and leaders to strengthen the party, keeping an eye on the next assembly elections.

The party is expected to demand significant portfolios for its ministers during the next reshuffle.

Read

Shiv Senas mayor, but is it BJPs budget for Mumbai civic body?

Five hurdles the Shiv Sena faces in ruling the Mumbai civic body
The forest department has rejected a proposal by the Mumbai police to trap free-roaming leopards in Aarey Milk Colony in Goregaon. The police requested this after a child was attacked by the big cat last week at Aarey Colony.

However, the forest officials told HT that the request has been rejected as lack of awareness is leading to such man-animal conflicts and trapping is no solution.

A survey undertaken by Sanjay Gandhi National Park (SGNP) in collaboration with the Wildlife Institute of India from December, 2014 to April, 2015 found 35 free-roaming leopards across 140 sq km, including areas outside SGNP, the Nagla forest block across the Vasai Creek, and Aarey Milk Colony. Leopards are protected under Schedule I of the Wildlife Protection Act (WPA), 1972.

On March 20, at 9pm, near unit 17 of Chafyachapada in Aarey Colony, a three-year-old boy was attacked by a leopard. His mother then attacked the leopard and saved her child. The child sustained injuries.

In a letter to the forest department by the senior inspector of Aarey police station, which HT is in possession of, the subject read, To trap free-roaming leopards within Aarey Colony that have attacked children.

From the past few months, residents have spotted free-roaming leopards near Royal Palms, Kelte pada, unit 17 Aarey and surrounding forest-like areas. Even cops on night duty have been frequently spotting them in Aarey. In the past, leopards have hurt many children and women. They have dragged away livestock, pets and birds, read the letter.

Details of deserted roads that pose a threat to residents during the night across different areas of Aarey were also mentioned in the letter. There is panic among the tribals who were repeatedly demanding that leopards be trapped. To protect everyone, we request the forest department to trap the leopards as soon as possible, the letter said.

The letter was also marked to additional municipal commissioner of the ward, Aarey chief executive officer, assistant commissioner of police, Dindoshi and deputy police commissioner zone 12 north region. With a rise in man-animal conflicts, we only suggested that the forest department take necessary action and trap the leopard who poses a threat to Aarey residents, said Kirankumar Chavan, deputy commissioner of police, zone 12.

Forest officials said if a leopard is trapped and relocated, another animal from SGNP may take over the abandoned territory. We will be writing to the Aarey police and informing them the issue needs to be properly addressed. Capturing leopards is not the solution as it is violation of WPA and several other measures to protect residents, including clearing garbage that attract dogs (main prey base of leopards), need to be cleaned and awareness drives conducted, said Santosh Kank, range forest officer, Mumbai. Forest department is doing its best to address the issue like regular patrolling, interaction, awareness, camera trapping and even compensation to recent victim.

The letter came a week after Shiv Sena MLA Ravindra Waikar suggested that leopards frequenting the area need to be trapped.

READ MORE

Brave mom pounces on leopard to save son in north Mumbai

Three dogs chase away leopard at Goregaon

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The Vidarbha region of Maharashtra continued to sweat it out with almost all its districts recording a maximum temperature of above 42 degrees Celsius.

Heat wave conditions persisted in the region and according to the regional Meteorological department, it would worsen in the coming days. The Met office also alerted that this tiSWme was going to be a lot more difficult than the heat wave in 2015, in which several people lost their lives to heat-related health conditions.

On Friday, the Met department recorded 44 degrees Celsius in Nagpur, the states second capital, and similar temperatures in Akola and neighbouring Wardha district. In Amravati, the temperature was a notch lower at 43 degrees Celsius.

On Wednesday, Nagpur recorded a temperature of 40 degrees Celsius, whereas it was 43.3 degrees on Thursday. The regional meteorological department has issued a warning about the heat wave in advance. It stated that the temperature of the city will touch new records this year.

The Met department added that the heat wave would continue sweeping through the region over the next few days. In view of the current trend, it could be said that in the next few days, Nagpur will face worse conditions, said a senior official from the regional meteorological department.

The department said that there was a possibility that Nagpur would hit the 45 degrees in the month of April itself.

The district administration has warned the citizens to prepare for a harsh summer this year.

TEMPERATURES ON FRIDAY

Nagpur: 44 degrees Celsius

Akola : 44 degrees Celsius

Wardha: 44 degrees Celsius

Amravati: 43 degrees Celsius

READ MORE

Heat wave kills two in Maharashtra

Temperatures expected to go down in western and central Maharashtra by the weekend
A day after he presented a heavily trimmed municipal budget of Rs25,414 crore that slashed the countrys richest civic bodys total outlay by nearly a third from last year, civic chief Ajoy Mehta spoke exclusively to Hindustan Times about the financial road map for the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC).

The BMCs fixed deposits of Rs61,510 crore  the civic body has faced flak for keeping stashes of cash in FDs at nationalised banks when the city continues to be a mess  have been linked for the first time to the budget, Mehta told HT.

And, a substantial part of it (Rs23,510 crore) will be used for Mumbais long-term development.

Mehta spoke to HT about how there will be an emphasis on financial monitoring to ensure better civic services in Mumbai this year, the BMCs need to look for alternate sources of income once the goods and services tax (GST) is rolled out and the lack of awareness so far in maintaining financial discipline in the civic body.

The BMC has brought down the budget by 32.14% stating that the total outlay was inflated all these years. Why did the civic body not initiate it earlier?

I would say there was lack of awareness on maintaining a certain amount of financial discipline. The expenditure in the last five years was low barring the last financial year. However, the budgetary provisioning kept increasing. This is when I asked my officials to take a re-look at their spending capacity and present a realistic figure. From now, the department heads will also be held responsible to better their spending capacity and also to monitor their expenses every month.

What can Mumbaiites expect from these changes?

There will be constant financial monitoring, which means better delivery of services and quality of work in the city. his is also the first time the Development Plan (DP) of the city has been integrated with the budget. The DP is a well-thought out 20-year plan that needs proper financial backing. There is a complete synergy between these two tools, which will result in better planning.

While the BMC has admitted that there is a slowdown in the real-estate market, it has proposed a surcharge on realty deals. What is the rationale behind this move?

The Goods and Services Tax will protect our revenues for the next five years. But we do not know what will happen after these five years. We have to look at alternate sources of income. This alternate source has to be from within the city limits too. While we have made suggestions of a surcharge and collecting a professional tax, it is not final yet. We will continue exploring alternate sources of income.

What is the BMCs plan for its cash reserves, which is worth Rs61,510 crore?

We have fixed deposits worth Rs61,510 crore, of which around Rs38,000 crores cannot be utilised as it is money reserved for pensions, provident funds and contractor deposits, among other things. However, the remaining sum is for the long-term benefits of the city. This is the first time the fixed deposits have been linked with the budget. We have high-expenditure projects like the coastal road. So whenever, these high-expenditure projects take-off and our cash outflows exceed our revenue income, we can use these deposits for the works.

The opposition has termed it a BJP-sponsored budget, alleging that most of the partys projects have found a mention in the budget. What do you have to say to that?

A budget is a technical exercise involving facts, period.

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GST effect? Most realistic Mumbai civic budget in 10 years

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Unabated illegal sand mining continues in Raigad district, according to environment group Awaaz Foundation, which filed its fourth complaint this year.

Awaaz has images that show sand being carted away by bullock carts along a permanent access road that has been constructed from Awas to Kihim Beach, near Alibaug.

It is distressing to note that sand mining at some of the most beautiful and protected beaches have continued for decades in spite of regular complaints, said Sumaira Abdulali, convener, Awaaz Foundation. In spite of sand being carted away in large volumes and consequent drop of the beach level by almost 10 feet, land erosion and falling trees, there appears to be no will to implement long term action against illegal beach sand mining in Raigad District.

HT had reported on February 6, 9 and in May last year that rampant illegal sand mining was taking place across various areas in Raigad district. Suction pumps were being used to suck out sand from Mahad to Dharamtar creek. Additionally, beach sand mining at Kihim had led to a 70% decline and a 10-feet drop in sand at the beach that led 25 trees getting uprooted due to soil erosion.

Even though the district collector took action at Kihim in the past, the government needs to block the access road being used during low tide by the bullock carts immediately, said Abdulali.

State government officials said that they had taken cognisance of the complaint. Illegal sand mining is becoming a serious concern for the state and may hamper tourism. The Raigad collector is the chairman of the district coastal zone management authority and she is squarely responsible for taking action. We will be taking up the matter with the collector and ensure that such cases stop, said Satish Gavai, principal secretary, state environment department. Similar to Awaaz, we want more citizen activists to come forward and expose such cases so that there is better deterrence.

While officials from the Raigad district collectors office refused to comment in the matter, officials from the Konkan divisional commissioners office said, We have received pictures of the path being used by the bullock carts. Local officers have already been intimated to block it and take action at the site, said Bhausaheb Dangade, Konkan deputy commissioner (revenue).

Why you should care

Sand mining is a major environmental concern which may threaten the existence of over 70% of the worlds beaches, and also contribute to major land erosion, compromising water security, affecting climate and many more such fatal calamities.

Geologists said that sand mining was responsible for affecting the natural flow of rivers by creating pits along the river bed. If excessive mining is done close to infrastructure projects such as bridges, it loosens the foundation of such infrastructure projects and if such illegal activities continue, it may even lead to inundation.

The Law

In 2014, the National Green Tribunal (NGT) had banned sand mining in coastal regions of many states, including Maharashtra, identifying that it was harming the environment. In 2016, the ban was lifted in Maharashtras coastal districts of Sindhudurg, Ratnagiri, Raigad and Thane, after the state government promised the NGT that it will ensure that mining will not affect the environment.

However, various court orders including Bombay High Court, Supreme Court and CRZ notification make it clear that beach sand mining under any circumstances is totally prohibited across the country.

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Maharashtra chief minister Devendra Fadnavis has decided to borrow a leaf of Prime Minister Narendra Modis book. He will start interacting with citizens directly through various Marathi news channels, the same way as Modis Mann ki Baat.

The programme, Mee Mukhyamantri Boltoy (This is the chief minister speaking), has been conceived by the governments information and public relations department. The first episode, which is to be recorded on April 3, will be called Sankalp Shashwat Sheticha (Resolution for sustainable farming) and is scheduled to be telecast on April 9 on various Marathi channels, besides Sahyadri. The department will take up questions from the farmers to be answered by the CM.

Maharashtra government, led by Fadnavis, hopes to quash the Oppositions attack on farm loan waiver in this way. Before this, agriculture minister Pandurang Phundkar announced various new schemes for farmers in his speech on Akashwani on Gudi Padwa on Tuesday

We have been planning this for more than two months now. This is an attempt to connect with the citizens on various subjects. Since agriculture is very close to the CMs heart, the first episode will be dedicated to it, Brijesh Singh, director-general of information and public relations, told HT. It is true that we will not be able to take a lot of questions, but whatever we have will help us understand the problems faced by the farmers. The department concerned will take cognisance of each question.

The state has appealed to farmers to send in their questions at onav.dgipr@maharashtra.gov.in or call 8291528952.

The government is planning to run Mee Mukhyamantri Boltoy once or twice a month.

We realised that we are lagging behind when it come to reaching out to the public on various initiatives taken by the government in various fields. In the 22-minute episode, the CM will first speak on the initiatives taken for the agricultural sector and then reply to the questions put forward by the public and the panel of experts sitting in front of him. We expect this to be a good medium to reach the government, said another official from Mantralaya.

For the first time, seven opposition parties in Maharashtra have joined hands to take on the ruling BJP on the issue of agricultural loan waiver. They have started a 1,500-km protest rally by boycotting the ongoing state Assembly and are interacting with farmers. The rally started from Vidarbha in eastern Maharashtra on March 29, and will culminate in Panvel, near Mumbai on April 4.

READ MORE

Will extend Metro network to Mira-Bhayandar and airport: Maha CM Devendra Fadnavis

GST effect? Most realistic Mumbai civic budget in 10 years
After three decades on the drawing board and 10 years in planning and failed execution, work on the Mumbai Trans Harbour Link (MTHL) will finally begin in October. On Friday, the project got a major boost after the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA) and Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) inked an agreement for the disbursement of the first tranche of Rs7,910 crore.

MMRDA, which has already commenced the bidding procedure for the 22-km link that will connect Sewri in island city and Nhava Sheva on the mainland, is expected to start ground work post monsoon. According to MMRDA officials, with this first tranche, about 45% of the loan amount has been disbursed. JICA has agreed to fund 85% of the Rs17,843 crore project.

The agreement was inked by Sakamoto, chief representative of JICA, UPS Madan, metropolitan commissioner, MMRDA and Selvakumar, joint secretary, Department of Economic Affairs in New Delhi. This is a big boost to MTHL because we have already shortlisted contractors, who have been issued a Request for Proposal for the execution of the project, said Madan.

MMRDA has shortlisted 29 companies, including engineering giants Larsen & Toubro (L&T) and China Railway Major Bridge Engineering Group Co. Ltd, for final stage of bidding for the project. We will finish all the formalities  the bidding, design  in the next few months. We expected ground work to begin post monsoon, Sanjay Khandare, additional metropolitan commissioner, MMRDA.

The construction of the link has been divided into three parts. The first two packages are sea-bridge components, while the third includes construction of a road up to Chirle. The sea bridge will be 16.5-km long, while the road will be 3.813-km long. Once completed, the link will provide faster, shorter and comfortable connectivity to Navi Mumbai International Airport, Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust along with the highways going to Pune and Goa. The sea link will also help develop parts of Navi Mumbai, Raigad district and its surrounding areas.

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After clearing the way to set up a private self-financed university at Pune, the state government is set to seek the legislative nod for four more private universities.

The state cabinet has cleared the decks for DSK School of Design, Symbiosis University (for skill development), Vishwakarma Institute of Technology (VIT) in Pune and Sanjay Ghodawat University (SGU) in Kolhapur, and will soon present the bill for Symbiosis University in the state legislature.

All these institutes are likely to start functioning in the upcoming academic year. This includes Dr Vishwanath Karad MIT World Peace University at Kothrud in Pune which was approved in the legislative Assembly and is now waiting for the approval from legislative council.

The universities can accommodate from 600 to 1,000 students each.

Around three years after the government paved the way for private universities by enacting the Maharashtra Self-financed Universities Act, 2013, six such institutes have been established in the state. The recent move signals the governments inclination to provide space for private entities in the education sector as they would provide additional opportunities to the students.

State education minister Vinod Tawde said that the approvals for the five universities were pending since the tenure of the previous government. The process for issuing a letter of intent [to the promoters of private universities] is quite stringent. We scrutinised the proposals and approved universities which had something unique to offer to the students, he said.

According to sources, the proposed DSK School of Design will offer courses in animation, arts and fine arts, whereas Symbiosis University will be a skill development institute. Similarly, SGU in Kolhapur has proposed to offer regular engineering courses while VIT will focus on programmes on alternate energy sources.

An official from the states higher and technical education department said that the government is pushing for private investment in education as it feels that Maharashtra is lagging behind other states such as Rajasthan, which has many self-financed universities. The public universities are burdened with a huge number of colleges and students. While various bodies have suggested splitting up of large universities into smaller units, the colleges are not willing to lose their association with a prestigious university, he added.

Commenting on the development, Sandip Jha, chairman of Sandip University, Nashik, said, Theres a vast difference between the curriculum of public universities and industrys requirements. We have the autonomy to design our own syllabus. Sandip University is one of the six private universities in the state.

Also read: Soon, Maharashtra students can report sexual abuse online

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Chief minister Devendra Fadnavis on Friday hinted that the government may revoke the suspension of 19 MLAs from the Opposition, who were expelled till December 31 for creating a ruckus in the Assembly during the state finance ministers speech.

On March 18, Opposition MLAs had interrupted Sudhir Mungantiwars presentation of the annual budget to demand farm loan waivers.

After the government presented a proposal seeking the suspension of these MLAs, 10 legislators of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and nine from the Congress were suspended on March 22.

Following this, Opposition leaders boycotted Assembly proceedings.

Speaking in the legislative council, Fadnavis said the government was positive about revoking the suspension. It is difficult to carry out work in the House if there is opposition. We are positive about withdrawing the suspension, and will take a decision on Saturday, Fadnavis said.

To ensure the smooth functioning of the Assembly, senior NCP leader and MLC Sunil Tatkare, Congress leader Narayan Rane and Peasants and Workers Party of India (PWP) leader Jayant Patil asked the chief minister to revoke the suspension.

BJPs ruling partner in the government, the Shiv Sena, was taken by surprise at the governments decision to suspend the MLAs, and had also sought to revoke the decision.

Fadnavis said that earlier this week, a meeting to discuss this issue was held in the legislative council chairmans chamber.

However, party members who were not present at the meeting raised some issues, which delayed the governments decision.

The list of suspended MLAs include former ministers Vijay Wadettivar, Bhaskar Jadhav,Abdul Sattar and Jitendra Awhad as well as young legislators Amit Zanak, Amar Kale and Avdhoot Tatkare. Apart from chanting slogans demanding loan waivers, some members had raised banners inside the House, while some burnt copies of the budget outside Vidhan Bhavan.

Read

Oppn burns Maharashtra budget, Shiv Sena stays calm

19 MLAs suspended: Opposition boycotts Maharashtra legislature, terms decision unconstitutional

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On Friday, a section of Bombay high court lawyers went on strike, supporting the decision of the Advocates Association of Western India (AAWI) to join lawyers from across the country protesting against a recent Law Commission report to amend the Advocates Act.

But legal experts remain divided on the merits of the report.

The Law Commissions 267th report, based on the direction of a three-judge bench of the Supreme Court, recommended an overhaul  more than 30 amendments to the Advocates Act that would make the rules governing lawyers everyday conduct more stringent, clamp down on their right to strike work, weed out misconduct and provide for binding disqualification from state rolls in cases of misconduct (see box for details).

The report also recommends the lawyers be denied a right to strike work and that if compelling conditions exist, then they be allowed just a token strike of a single day on the condition that it is approved by the Bar Council of India.

The suggestion was made to prevent a large number of working days being lost in courts, stated the report.

But most lawyers feel the recommendations are hurried, and that the commission should have at least consulted with the Bar Associations of the various high courts in the country before coming out with their report.

AAWI president, advocate Rajiv Chavan, who led a meeting of over 600 advocates from the Bombay and Goa benches of the Bombay high court on Thursday to take the unanimous decision to join Fridays strike called the report absolutely undemocratic. The report redefines misconduct but the definition is so wide and stringent that no lawyer will be able to practice law anymore, Chavan said.

The report defines professional misconduct as any act of an advocate whose conduct is found to be in breach of, or non-observance of the standard of professional conduct or etiquette required to be observed by him or her.

Senior advocate Rajendra Shirodkar followed the AAWIs decision to join the strike and decided not to appear in court despite having pending cases.

He said, The issue has been under a prolonged litigation before the Supreme Court and various judgments of the Apex Court exist on the issue. Unless it lays down some specific rules or guidelines prohibiting us from striking work, or regulating the same, no one can object to it, Shirodkar said.

Retired Supreme Court judge, Justice BN Shrikrishna, however, believes considering the existing pendency in courts across the country, the lawyers and the BCI have no business to strike work and waste time of the judiciary, especially when the legal process in the country is extremely slow.

The Law Commission report and its draft of advocate (amendment) bill, 2017, stem from an order of the Apex Court passed in July 2016 seeking suggestions to amend the Advocates Act.

Some of the proposed changes:

Lawyers strike: The report says that unless there exists compelling circumstances lawyers cant strike work.

Fake Lawyers and verification: BCI should make stringent rules for verification of certificates of, place of practice of advocates, etc.

Pre-enrolment training for lawyers: The commission recommends making it mandatory for all advocates to undergo a pre-enrollment training for a year

Entrance test: Entrance tests to be made compulsory for admission to any law college across the country

Defining misconduct: While the existing Act does not define misconduct, the report recommends defining misconduct an act of an advocate whose conduct is found to be in breach of or non- observance of the standard of professional conduct or etiquette required to be observed by the advocate.

Disciplinary committee: The report recommends a complete overhaul in appointing a disciplinary body and says that the bar council must constitute a committee that comprises five members: two elected by the council from among its members; two eminent persons from fields other than law; and one person nominated by the high court

Definition of an advocate:Expands the definition of an advocate to include a lawyer working in a law firm and also those working with foreign law firms.

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Delhi lawyers to join countrywide strike

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The Mumbai Metro Rail Corporation Limited (MMRCL) on Thursday carried out a soil test at unit 19 at Aarey Colony under police protection.

The corporation made the move despite an order by the National Green Tribunal on January banning all construction activity at Aarey Colony  including construction for the Metro III project  till the final hearing.

Environmentalists alleged that MMRCL lawyers were denied permission to carry out the test during the hearing on Wednesday but they went ahead with it. Under the directives of the deputy commissioner of police of the zone, 50 police personnel protected the officials and cordoned off the area.

Police personnel guard MMRCL officials while they conduct the test. (Pratham Gokhale/HT Photo)

Soil testing is a site investigation done before beginning construction to assess the suitability of the soil and identify vital data such as the type of soil, distance from ground water, boring level etc. to help in planning the construction.

The MMRCL plans to construct a car shed for the Metro 3 project at Aarey across 33 hectares (ha) area. However, the NGT Pune bench has put a stay on any construction at the green lung until final orders are out. In June last year, petitioners NGOs Vanashakti and Aarey Conservation Group (ACG) had filed a plea seeking long-term protection of the Aarey landscape and to maintain it as a no-development zone. The final order for the matter has been scheduled on April 10.

The applicants said that they would be raising the issue in the form of a contempt application at NGT during the final hearing. The method of using the police to intimidate citizens is deplorable, said Stalin D, director, NGO Vanashakti. They have already defied court orders so what was the point of taking up the matter with the NGT? We will file a contempt application before the tribunal, he added.

Residents too were irked by the move. MMRCLs act clearly shows that they do not respect the law of the land. Even after a NGT judge denied permission to MMRCL lawyers thrice from carrying out the soil test, they still went ahead with it and asked for police protection, said Aarey resident Biju Augustine. This proves that even if NGT does not allow the construction at Aarey in its final order, MMRCL might bypass it, he added.

Meanwhile, MMRCL officials said that soil testing is different from construction. Before starting any construction, we have to test the soil and it is necessary developing a design. As per the Central Metro Act, of 2009, MMRCL can go anywhere, including private premises, to test the soil, said R Ramana, executive director (planning), MMRCL. The applicants were physically hindering the work and so we approached the police. The applicants claims are false.

Officials from the Mumbai police said security was provided to avoid any untoward incidents. As a government body, MMRCL asked for security and we provided it to protect their officials, said Kirankumar Chavan, deputy commissioner of police, zone 12.

Also read: Aarey has been used for non-forest activities since 1949: Maharashtra tells NGT

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The probe into financial irregularities in the Maharashtra State Cooperative (MSC) Bank that has several leading politicians under the scanner, will now be conducted by a retired judge and is to be completed within six months.

State cooperation minister Subhash Deshmukh made the announcement in the legislative assembly on Friday.

Shivaji Pahunkar, additional registrar of the state cooperation department was appointed to conduct the inquiry against the 44 directors of the MSC bank for financial irregularities in 2014. However, in the last 30 months, Pahunkar has sought four extensions.

MSC bank is the apex co-operative bank in the state that controls credit in the entire co-operative sector, and forms the backbone of the rural economy.

The move to complete the probe within six months can become problematic for former deputy chief minister Ajit Pawar, state agriculture minister Pandurang Fundkar, Shiv Sena MP Anandrao Adsul and other 41 senior politicians, largely from Congress and Nationalist Congress Party, who served as directors on the board of the bank.

The bank board was dissolved by the then chief minister, Prithviraj Chavan, following the directive of the Reserve Bank of India, as the bank was in red. The action was taken based on an inquiry report by the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development.

The report pointed to gross financial indiscipline and lack of financial prudence while handing out loans, that left the bank with a negative net worth of Rs144 crore.

The board of directors were replaced by two state-appointed administrators.

Pahunkar, in his inquiry, had given show cause notices and held hearings on the matter, but nothing else had come out of it.

The issue was raised by the legislators during question hour. They alleged political pressure on the investigation officer as the reason for the delay in the probe.

Replying to the debate, the state cooperation minister admitted that the investigation was announced 30 months ago and is yet to be completed. A retired judge will be appointed and will be asked to complete the probe in six months, Deshmukh said.

The bank is now performing well, with its deposits rising by Rs1500 crore. Its NPA (non-performing asset) has come down to 0.3 per cent, he informed.

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Panicked after ramming his car into a parked two-wheeler near Shilpi Chowk at Kharghar, a 17-year-old boy hit a 61-year-old woman on Friday.

The woman, Rekha Ramesh Sharma, was declared dead at a hospital. She lived with her 70-year-old husband at Bhoomiraj Woods building in sector 20.

The police detained the boy, a Class 11 student, and seized the car registered in his fathers name. His father passed away a month ago.

According to the police, the boy lives with his family at Sai Savali apartment in sector 19. The boy accompanied by his friend was heading towards Jalvayu Vihar from Navjeevan hospital.

He rammed his car into a two-wheeler, which was parked on the shoulder of the road at Shilp Chowk at 10.30am. Scared, he accelerated the car and hit the woman, who was walking with her friend, said an officer from Kharghar police station.

The woman fell on the pavement and suffered severe injuries on her head and right hand. She was bleeding profusely, said the officer.

She was taken to Panvel rural hospital and doctors declared her brought dead, the officer said.

While the boy stayed put after the accident and surrendered himself to the police, his friend fled, said Dilip Kale, senior inspector of Kharghar police station. The police have registered a case under sections 304 (A) and 279 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and section 184 of the Motor Vehicle Act. He will be produced before a juvenile court in Karjat on Saturday, said the police.

The police handed over the womans body to her husband after a post-mortem in the hospital. Her two sons, who were out of Mumbai, will reach here on Saturday, said another officer.

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Man drives away after running over stray puppy in Thane

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The first phase of the corporations Rs287.95-crore inland water transport project will span 45km and cover the distance between Vasai and Kalyan. It is expected to reduce the commute from Vasai to Kalyan to 70 minutes, less than the time it takes to travel by road  about 90 minutes to two hours.

The Thane Municipal Corporation (TMC) has allotted Rs9.50 crore for the project this year.

The water transport will cover inter-city and intra-city areas. People will not only be able to commute from one part of Thane to another, but also to Vasai, Kalyan, Mira-Bhayander and Navi Mumbai via the waterways.The first phase of the project will cover Vasai, Mira-Bhayander, Thane, Kolshet, Ghodbunder Road, Saket, Diva, Bhiwandi and Kalyan. This is a distance of 25 nautical miles or 45km, said civic commissioner Sanjeev Jaiswal, while declaring the budget.

The main station will be at Kolshet, where the TMC plans to construct waiting rooms, ticket windows and parking facilities. The corporation plans to enlist the help of neighbouring civic bodies that will benefit from the project, the central government and the maritime board.

In August last year, the TMC had conducted a meeting with the civic chiefs of several municipal corporations, requesting their co-operation. Each civic body agreed to construct jetties in their area as part of the project.

The TMC will develop 13 jetties across the city at areas such as Waghbil, Mumbra, Kalwa, Kasarvadavli and Owala. The civic body will provide infrastructure, boats and ships, while the operations will be handled by private firms.

Officials expect transport to be of three types  goods, passengers and tourists. It costs 50% less to transport goods by water than by roads.

The Ulhas creek, along with Navi Mumbai, Kalyan, Dombivli, Diva, Mumbra, Kalwa, Kopri, Gaimukh, Bhayandar Pada and Ghodbunder Road can be used for inland water transport. Around 32km of the creek falls under the TMCs jurisdiction.

Water transport is cheaper compared to rail or road transport. Thane has a huge coastline. Residents stand to benefit if waterways are introduced. The project will also ease the crowds in local trains.

Once the first phase of the project is completed, the second phase will cover the distance between Saket and Belapur, added Jaiswal.

Benefits of the water transport project

Commuters can expect relief from traffic snarls

It will provide an alternative means of transport in case of emergencies

It is cheaper compared to other modes of transport

It is eco-friendly

The development of tourism will earn revenue for the city

It will connect Thane to the neighbouring cities

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After three days of temperatures that beat the 40 degrees Celsius mark, Maharashtra may get some respite on Friday as the Met department has predicted showers in parts of Vidarbha and Central Maharashtra.

The IMD forecast suggests that temperatures in parts of Maharashtra, including Pune, will fall by 4 degrees, approximately, by Sunday as rainclouds have been spotted in the sky.

According to India Metereological Department, the temperature in Maharashtra will see a dip in the next two day. On Thursday, Parbhani recorded 41.8 degrees Celsius, while Aurangabad stood at 41.4 degrees Celsius. The mercury touched 40 degrees Celsius in Pune.

Above-40 degrees temperature was noted in as many as 19 districts of Maharashtra. IMD officials that the state is in the grip of a heat wave because hot winds were blowing over it from north-west India.

Two people have already lost their lives due to the heat, prompting the state government to issue a list of dos and donts so that citizens can combat the heat.

Parts of Vidarbha and north Maharashtra recorded unusually high temperature in the past three days with Akola recording 44.4 degrees Celsius on Wednesday.

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Heat wave kills two in Maharashtra

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In the wake of alleged racially-motivated attacks on members of the African community, the Consortium of Autonomous Management Institutions in Greater Noida has appealed to the managements of institutes affiliated to it to ensure surveillance of foreign students and provide them hostel facility on their campuses.

Consortium president and chairman, Ishan Institute of Management Technology, Dr DK Garg, said on Friday,As per AICTE norms, foreign students should be provided with hostel facility inside the campus area.

However, Garg was critical of the lack of proper monitoring during the process of admission foreign students in India.

The consortium has urged all its affiliated institutes to obtain character certificates of both Indian and foreign students, Gang said.

He said that if African students are provided accommodation, it is the responsibility of the college authorities to ensure that no illegal activities take place.

Their rooms should be searched regularly. Their attendance should be checked. Their activities outside the campus, too, should be monitored. They will be charged according to the standard fee of private hostels, said Garg.

He said there is even a possibility of some drug peddlers taking admission in the guise of students. He also made a strong case for stricter police surveillance of these institutes.

There are over 60 colleges in Greater Noida which are home to more than 2 lakh students. There is a high risk of narcotics peddlers blending in as students and pushing drug trade. Youths often get lured by such people and turn to drugs for kicks. They are mostly not aware of the health risks, Garg said.

Read I Nigerian brothers recount Greater Noida horror, video of attacks emerges

He said college managements should ensure that the students are engaged in constructive activities. They should be encouraged to pursue their hobbies whenever they have time to spare. They should be involved in extra-curricular activities and cultural events, Garg said.

He came down heavily on the alleged drug running by some members of the African community in Greater Noida.

Colleges should form committees and involve police officers. Any student suspected of being involved in illegal activities should be stopped before he takes to serious crime.

Their parents should also be informed and if they still dont stop indulging in criminal activities, they should be summarily dismissed. FIRs should also be lodged against them, Garg said.

He also proposed more cultural events on campuses that would help foster friendship between Indian and foreign students.

However,the Association of African Students of India (AASI) dismissed Gargs offer saying the African students can take care of themselves.

Its not as if they are providing accommodation for free. The colleges will charge us for hostel accommodation and many students have already paid for their rented accommodations in Greater Noida, Abdou Ibrahim, senior advisor, AASI, said.
At a time Africans living in Greater Noida are a harried lot in the wake of the recent spiral in attacks on them, the universities and colleges they are enrolled in have undertaken an initiative to lend a helping hand and make them feel at home.

Greater Noida has been in turmoil over the past five days following alleged racial attacks on Africans. The sequence of attacks had been triggered off by the death of a 17-year-old school student from suspected drug overdose. It was alleged that the student had been provided with drugs by Nigerian nationals.

The death set off a wave of violence as a mob targeted Africans, mostly students, in Greater Noida. Fearing further attacks and voicing alarm over inadequate security, the students even started keeping away from the institutes they are enrolled in.

As the situation limped backed to normalcy on Friday, colleges and universities reached out to the African students by offering them accommodation, food and other facilities.

Abdul Kalam Technical University (AKTU) in Lucknow issued a circular to all its affiliated colleges in Greater Noida, asking them to take care of the foreign nationals enrolled in their respective institutions.

We have many colleges in Greater Noida where foreign nationals are enrolled and we are concerned about their safety as the region has been in turmoil. We have asked the managements of all our affiliated institutes to ensure that these students are safe on campus and outside, said Dr Vinay Pathak, vice chancellor, AKTU.

Read I Kenyan woman lied about Greater Noida assault, was depressed: African student group

Similarly, Sharda University has arranged for food and accommodation for all African students who are not residing in its hostel.

A total of 60 African students who used to stay outside have sought refuge on our campus. We have shifted them to our hostels and their food and accommodation has also been taken care of. We have also provided food and other basic necessities to students who are staying outside the campus. Food has been given according to their eating habits, said Ajit, spokesperson, Sharda University.

Post the violence between locals and Africans, district magistrate NP Singh had asked all institutes where African students are enrolled, to organise weekly cultural interactive sessions for sensitisation.

Other universities such Amity, Galgotia and Noida International University have also extended a helping hand.

We have been organising culture interactive classes between Indian and foreign students. All African students are safe on our campus, said Savita Mehta, spokesperson, Amity University.

However, the African students say that the sense of fear has still not erased from their minds after the race riots as they continue to boycott college.

It is good that such steps are being taken by colleges but we are still unsure about our safety. I and my friends have not yet gone to college, said Bukola, a student of Noida International University.

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The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Friday attached assets worth around Rs 600 crore of online trading company managing director Anubhav Mittal for allegedly masterminding a Rs 3,700 crore scam.

The attached assets, according to the ED, include balances in 14 bank accounts totalling Rs 543.81 crore, a fixed deposit of about Rs 52 crore with a Hyderabad-based mobile Payment Gateway company named Paynear Solutions, and a villa at Jaypee Greens in Greater Noida, whose estimated worth is put at Rs 3.6 crore.

This case is also being investigated by Uttar Pradesh STF, Income Tax Department and the Serious Fraud Investigating Organisation. The ED said that more attachments shall follow very soon. The case was first highlighted when UP police made Mittals arrest in February this year.

Mittal, a resident of Ghaziabad, was a BTech computer science student when he floated his own company. Five years later, he came about the idea of online barter system, which was basically an online version of a ponzi scheme. The modus operandi was simple.

His company, Ablaze Info Solution Pvt Ltd, claimed that they were in the business of promoting social media penetration and internet popularity for small-time businesses through getting maximum likes on Facebook. He lured investors with weekly returns and promise of bonus on bringing potential investors to the table.

Once an individual would invest Rs 5,750 to Rs 57,500, he or she would start getting regular payments under the name of Earn Rs 5 per click scheme. Such was Mittals business that he became a major social media personality with his Facebook page filled with motivational and inspirational quotes that were read and followed by a vast amount of people. Mittal had also set foot in Bollywood circles with some popular actresses attending parties thrown by him.

Anubhav Mittal had collected several thousand crores of rupees from the customers of his company by false inducements and later siphoned off the same by means of generating false bills, invoices with the assistance of various persons who are under scrutiny, ED said in a statement.
Mobile phone company Oppos assembling unit remained shut on Friday and was likely to reopen only on Monday, police said quoting the management.

The unit was shut on Tuesday after hundreds of employees staged a protest and demanded action against a Chinese national who had allegedly torn an Indian flag and thrown it in a dustbin.

Police officers said they were informed that Oppo will resume its business on Monday at 8am. The employees of the company, who are on leave, have been informed to join back work by Monday by their respective team leaders, police added.

Police also said that they were still analyzing the CCTV footage of the incident that they had procured from Oppos unit in Sector 63. An investigating officer said that the footage obtained from Oppo factory on Wednesday doesnt show the incident clearly as the images were blurred.

There are 45 other cameras that will be scanned by police as they probe charges levelled by three employees in an FIR against the accused Chinese national.

Ajay Kumar, circle officer, City-II police station, said, Its too early to comment as the footage we have obtained has not given us any lead. We have to check the other footage and analyze them properly. By the time the unit opens again on Monday, we possibly may have something to disclose.

Around 4,000 employees work in the company in two shifts  8am to 7pm and 8pm to 7am  to assemble mobile phones. Police said, the accused Chinese national has been booked under Section 2 of the Prevention of Insult to National Honour Act, 1971, and a case has been registered at the Phase-3 police station.

In a statement, the handset maker had said: After thorough investigation, we have found that a worker discarded the Indian flag from the table during a regular external material check. Oppo India regrets this unfortunate incident and reaffirms that this is an individuals behaviour that in no way represents our companys position.

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Arunima Tyagi, sarpach from Basantpur Sainthli village in Ghaziabad, had to resort to arm twisting tactics in a bid to implement the open defecation free (ODF) project under the Swachh Bharat Mission. Flanked by members of her group, she would blow on a whistle outside houses where the residents refused to comply with the ODF programme and even suspended ration supplies to landlords who locked their toilets and did not allow tenants to use them.

Though harsh, such measures were needed to force the people to shun the age-old practice of relieving themselves in the open. We stepped up pressure on locals who were averse to change. Often, women from my group blew on whistles outside houses where the residents avoided construction of toilets. Sometimes, they were even greeted with garlands in a mock gesture. We even asked ration dealers to stop supply to their houses till such time they built toilets, Arunima, a postgraduate in biotechnology, said.

She realised the need to push the ODF project and even championed the cause of protecting girl child in her village. She made it a point to visit households where a girl child was born and greet the residents.

We play Dhol, offer box of sweets and even gift some money to the mother of new born girl. A set of five utensils is also gifted to the family. ASHA and Anganwadi workers also go with us and educate mothers about vaccination and further education of the girl, she adds.

Similarly, Sucheta Singh, the other woman sarpanch from Lateefpur Tibra village near Modi Nagar, achieved the target of making her village, which is home to nearly 5,000 people, open defecation free. She also holds celebrations whenever a girl child is born in the village.

The mother is gifted with a pair of clothes and box of sweets whenever a girl child is born. I had to work hard for ODF as people dont easily shun the traditional practices. Women, on the other hand, welcomed the idea of ODF as it was critical to ensuring their security. However, I observed that the elderly residents were not open to change and were unwilling to give up on the age-old practice, Singh said.

So I roped in youngsters and formed four Nigrani Samitis (monitoring committees). The Samiti members work separately to educate men, women, senior citizens and youngsters. Our persistence worked as even the elderly finally gave in and conformed to the ODF norms, Singh said.

A postgraduate in education, she regularly visits three government schools in her village to create awareness among students about the latest happenings in the country and the world.

The first Sunday in our village is dedicated to educating the masses on ways to ensure clean surroundings, she said.

The woman pradhan is now concentrating on self-defence training for young girls and students. She has also solicited the help of a martial-arts instructor in this endeavour.

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Had British businesses been consulted, British business--small medium or large--unanimously would have said we appreciate and benefit from the single market, the free movement of goods and services, the movement of people, the three million people from the EU that work in the UK, who we need.

Let alone getting our country back, we could be losing our country. Not only have we always had our country by being part of the European Union, but we have had the best of both worlds.

We are not in Schengen, we are not in the euro and we make the laws that affect our daily lives in Westminster--not in Europe --be it our taxes, be it our planning laws, be it business rates, be it tax credits, be it benefits or welfare, be it healthcare. We measure our roads in miles because we choose to, and I pour my beer in pints because I choose to.

The triggering of Article 50 is a self-imposed deadline by the Prime Minister for purely political reasons. She wants to fix the two-year process by 2019 well in time to go into the election in 2020 with the negotiations completed. There is nothing more or less to this timing. People need to wake up to this. Why else would she trigger Article 50 before the French and German elections, when we know Europes attention will be elsewhere? We are going to waste six months of those two years, all because Prime Minister Theresa May hopes the negotiations are complete before her term comes to an end. I can guarantee that the British people will soon become aware of this scheme. The emperor has no clothes.

Reading through the letter that has been delivered to the European Union and listening to the Prime Ministers statement in Parliament today amounted to reading and listening to pure platitudes and, quite frankly, hot air. This goes back to the hot air of Brexit means Brexit. What the letter and the statement very clearly outlined is how complex the negotiations are going to be over the next two years. In fact, they admit that it is unlikely that they are going to be able to conclude negotiations within the two-year period set aside.

That is not the only way in which the British people have been misled. The Conservative party manifesto clearly stated that staying in the single market was a priority. Now the Prime Minister has very clearly stated in her Lancaster House speech, and in Parliament today, that we are not going to be staying in the single market. Had the British people been told this by the Leave and Remain campaigns, I can guarantee many people would not have voted to leave.

Had they been consulted, British business--small, medium or large--unanimously would have said we appreciate and benefit from the single market, the free movement of goods and services, the movement of people, the three million people from the EU that work in the UK, who we need. We have an unemployment rate of under 5%--what would we do without these 3 million people?

This country is one of the leaders in the world in financial services, which benefits from being able to operate freely in the European Union and our businesses benefit from that as a result. That is now in jeopardy as well. We at Cobra Beer manufacture in Britain and Belgium, as well as in India, and export to virtually every EU country.

The Prime Ministers letter to the EU talks with bravado that were actually demanding a fair negotiation, when we in Britain are in the very weakest position. We are up against 27 countries, which are against just one. We are up against the European Commission and the European Parliament. On top of that, the whole world does not want us to leave the European Union. Britain is one of the three largest recipients of inward investment in the world. Our economy depends on inward investment. Since the referendum, the pound has fallen 20%. That is a clear signal from the world, saying, We do not like this uncertainty.

TOPSHOT - Anti-Brexit protesters demonstrate on Whitehall opposite Downing Street in London, on March 29, 2017 after Britain formally invoked Article 50 to start the process of withdrawl from the EU. Britain formally launched the process for leaving the European Union on March 29. (AFP)

The bravado talk of the Brexiteers is heaped with irony and short-sightedness. They say: Look at this past nine months, our economy has not tanked. There is a time in these situations; it takes usually a minimum of one-and-half years before cause leads to effect in a recession.

The letter already talks of transitional deals beyond the three years. No country, no business and no economy likes uncertainty for such a prolonged period. This letter not just prolongs but accentuates the uncertainty that the UK is going to face in the coming years.

It is Philip Hammond who said, We cannot cherry pick, we cannot have our cake and eat it too. The irony is that we have had our cake and ate it. We have had the best of both worlds. We have not been part of an EU super-state, let alone the EU army. The fact is, since the formation of the EU, Britain has had the highest cumulative GDP growth rate in the EU, of 62% versus Germany at 35%. We have done well out of being part of the EU.

What we have embarked on is utter folly. Though the Prime Minister said there is it no turning back, if we come to our senses we will not leave the EU. Article 50 is revocable. At any time from today we can decide we want to stay on. That is for the benefit of the British economy, for keeping the United Kingdom United, and for Europe as a whole--let alone the global economy.

(Karan Bilimoria is a member of the House of Lords. The views expressed are personal.)
The alleged misconduct of a BJP leader with a woman MLC on the legislative council premises rocked both houses of the Bihar legislature on Thursday, forcing the council chairman to take cognizance of the incident that occurred a day before.

According to sources, a scuffle broke out on Wednesday between BJP legislators Niraj Kumar Bablu, an MLA, and Lalbabu Prasad, an MLC, over Prasads alleged misconduct with Bablus wife, Nutan Singh, also an MLC. However, both men later denied having been involved in a disagreement.

Council chairman Awadhesh Narayan Singh said he took note of the issue after several women members raised the matter on Thursday. I will talk to the women legislators who raised the issue in the council and talk to affected parties before proceeding further on the incident, Singh told Hindustan Times.

Read | BJP MLA in Bihar thrashes colleague for harassing wife, Grand Alliance seeks action

As soon as the council assembled for routine business in the first half on Thursday, Reena Yadav of the JD(U), raised the matter and said the incident brought disgrace to the august house. BJP talks big about women empowerment, but the conduct of its member is a matter of concern, she added.

Former chief minister Rabri Devi too joined the issue. Such type of incident should not have happened. The guilty shall be punished, she said.

Neeraj Kumar of JD(U) urged the chairman to refer the matter to the ethics committee of the council.

Intervening in the debate, opposition leader Sushil Kumar Modi however said those involved claimed nothing had happened. I have talked to the persons, who were said to be involved in the incident, but all of them denied it.

In the legislative assembly, the RJD raked up the issue with Bhai Birendra raising the matter during zero hour and Ejya Yadav raising it in the post-lunch session. Women legislators of the ruling alliance also protested the alleged misconduct.

Speaker Vijay Kumar Chaudhary attempted to pacify the agitated members, saying the incident happened on the premises of legislative council. The chairman of the council is competent authority to take note of any incident that took place in his jurisdiction, said Chaudhary.

Meanwhile, deputy chief minister Tejashawi Prasad Yadav condemned the incident and accused Sushil Kumar Modi of trying to defend Prasad.

It will be known as a black day for the state legislature when a senior BJP leader disrespected a woman MLC from its ally party on the august premises, said Yadav.

Sources in the council said Bablu has written to the chairman about the whole incident related to Prasads misdemeanour, and asked for action against him.

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Four people, including a farmer, were killed and 17 others injured in a powerful blast that ripped apart the building of a cold store at Dhuri town of Sangrur district on Friday.

The blast that took place at Guru Nanak cold store, owned by Harinder Singh of Kaheru village, at around 11 am, was so powerful that the building was reduced to rubble within no time, leaving around 20 labourers trapped, who were busy piling up the stock of potatoes kept inside the store.

During a rescue operation carried out by the personnel of the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) and the district administration, four bodies were recovered from the debris later.

The deceased were identified as Paramjeet Singh, Karamjeet Singh and Rajan, all labourers, and a farmer, Gurmeet Singh of Ludhiana, who had come to the store to deliver potatoes. A residential house sharing a wall with the cold store was also damaged, leaving one of the family members injured.

An ambulance at the spot as the rescue work is underway. (HT Photo)

The rescue team had a tough time extracting those trapped under the debris of the collapsed structure.

The nearby residents and those involved in the rescue operation were gasping for breath due to leakage of ammonia gas at the cold store, which also caused irritation in their eyes. Later, water was used to suppress the effect of ammonia.

Of the 17 injured, four were taken to Dayanand Medical College (DMC), Ludhiana; three were shifted to the Rajindra Hospital, Patiala; and ten were undergoing treatment at the civil hospital, Sangrur.

Deputy commissioner (DC) APS Virk said that two among the injured were critical.

Rs 1-LAKH RELIEF TO KIN OF DECEASED

On the direction of chief minister Captain Amarinder Singh, the district administration announced a compensation of Rs 1 lakh each to the families of the deceased and Rs 50,000 each to the injured.

Amarinder directed the district officials to investigate the matter and fix the responsibility for the mishap. He also ordered the state administration to ensure strict implementation of rules in the operation of all businesses and industries using dangerous material.

WHAT CAUSED THE BLAST

Though district officials said prima facie it appears that the blast took place due to leakage in a gas tank at the chiller plant of the cold store, Sangrur DC APS Virk said the Dhuri SDM has been asked to conduct an inquiry into the matter. Nothing can be said until we get the report of the enquiry, he said.

One cant deny some grave error that led the building to collapse. We will go into the depth of the matter to find out whether there were enough safety measures in place at the cold store to fix the responsibility, he added.
Crackdown on illegal slaughterhouses started across Jharkhand with the state governments three-day deadline ending on Thursday. More than 300 illegal abattoirs were sealed and around 1000 notices were served on abattoir operators.

The state body of abattoir and meat shop operators have protested the governments move saying it will make over five lakh people jobless across the state.

A sudden government order is all set to make five lakh people, who are directly or indirectly linked to the meat business, jobless across the state. Now, where will these jobless people go? Will the state government provide them any alternative? asked Mujib Qureshi, president of Jharkhand Pradesh Jaimtul Qureish (JPJQ), an association of slaughterhouse and meat shop operators.

Meat selling shops and abattoirs were found closed in most places of Ranchi after the district administration and civic body served separate notices on 68 illegal abattoirs and 263 meat shops on Wednesday.

A major crackdown is, however, expected only after Ram Navami, which falls on April 5.

We have decided to request the government to make operative Kanta Toli and Doranda-based abattoirs. RMC has not been issuing contracts for the two slaughterhouses since 2005, said Qureshi.

Jhakhand is one of the few states in the country where the Prevention of Cow Slaughter Act, 2005, is in place. The Act imposes a penalty of Rs 5,000 and imprisonment of up to five years or both for offenders. However, despite the law, cow slaughter continues unabated in the several illegal slaughter houses across many districts.

The Jharkhand government had on Monday issued an order for closure of all illegal slaughterhouses in the state by Thursday. The home department has asked all deputy commissioners, senior superintendents of police and superintendents of police to ensure closure of illegal abattoirs in their respective areas.

City SP, Ranchi, Kishor Kaushal said notice were being served and abattoirs owners asked to close them if they did not have licences for operation. The operators are shutting down their shops. If anyone violates the order, we will ensure the law is followed, he said.

Ranchi Municipal Corporation (RMC) also served notices on 263 meat shops, including 54 licensed shops. An RMC official said no licence would be issued for selling meat until government approved slaughter house is opened. He said the Kanke-based government slaughter house would be started by end of April.

The West Singhbhum district administration has sealed 65 slaughterhouses while the East Singhbhum administration has served notices on 72 abattoirs. East Singhbhum administration officials said that a certain fine would be levied on the slaughterhouse if they were found functioning. Several abattoirs were also closed in Gumla and Lohardagga.

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A decision to install CCTV cameras at medical colleges has snowballed into an ethical controversy at the Patliputra Medical College Hospital (PMCH) in Dhanbad, with female MBBS students insisting that such an action would violate their right to privacy.

The students explained that they learn about various organs, including private parts and their functions, in anatomy and physiology classes. If CCTV cameras are installed in classrooms, we wont feel comfortable clearing our doubts with teachers on any subject, one of them said on the condition of anonymity.

Such an action would be unethical. In anatomy classes, we are given male and female bodies to study organs and their functions. There is complete privacy, and discussions are conducted freely because there is nobody but students and a teacher present. Footage from CCTV cameras will be accessible to people outside the laboratories, and they will be in a position to play mischief, the student added.

However, PMCH principal Dr Arun Kumar said he was helpless because the CCTV equipment has been installed in pursuance of Medical Council of India (MCI) directives. The council clearly stated that cameras should be installed in classrooms, laboratories, lecture halls, demonstration rooms, practical rooms and several other locations across the campus, he elaborated.

The directive also specifies that all activities in the campus be captured through CCTV cameras, and later screened live in the principals chamber. This was to ensure that the MCI was kept up to date on academic activities at the institution.

We have to keep the council informed about classroom interactions, besides daily engagements between students and faculty members, Kumar said, adding that they have no option but to adhere to the MCIs directives.

Students, however, said the management should at least try to get surveillance equipment removed from their anatomy and physiology classes.

The other two state-run medical colleges in Jharkhand  the Rajendra Institute of Medical Science (RIMS) at Ranchi and the Mahatma Gandhi Memorial Medical College Hospital (MGMCH) at Jamshedpur  are yet to install CCTV cameras.

An MCI spokesperson said the decision to install the cameras was taken in February, at a meeting of state members. They all strongly recommended the installation of cameras in classrooms. Around 100 medical colleges will be covered in the first phase, he added.
From a policemans son to one of eastern Indias dreaded gangsters, Akhilesh Singh has come a long way in the crime world amassing huge manpower and riches.

Possessing 17 fake PAN cards and 14 voter IDs and Aadhaar cards, he dodged authorities of six states to accrue immovable assets running into several crores.

Though the value of the said properties is still being examined, a rough estimation put their value to be around Rs50 crore.

That this gangster from Jharkhands Jamshedpur city has immovable properties in several cities of Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Uttarakhand and Madhya Pradesh recently came to the fore when policemen, acting on a tipoff, raided his flats in Jamshedpur and Jabalpur where they stumbled on documents that led them to the biggest exposure of the decade in Jharkhand.

Read: ATS to help Jamshedpur police nab gangster Akhilesh Singh

The documents still being scanned and verified have led police to his immovable properties in cities like Ranchi, Jamshedpur, Jabalpur, Noida, Greater Noida, Dehradun and Gurgaon.

Valuation of his properties in the said cities will take time. But, we have certainly crippled him financially by confiscating almost all his properties purchased in fake names, said Jamshedpur senior police superintendent, Anup T Mathew.

He said they would soon be referring the matter to the Enforcement Directorate to probe the money laundered by him in purchasing the properties.

Singh, 35, is a notorious gangster whose influence is spread across several cities of Jharkhand, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh. He has in all 55 criminal cases in his name. Most of them are high profile murder cases.

Tall, fair and handsome, he shot into limelight when he killed Jamshedpurs jailor, Uma Shankar Pandey, in 2002. He was convicted in the said case and sentenced to life imprisonment. He followed up with attacks on a couple of policemen and rivals in the underworld.

Soon, he started collecting huge extortion money from businessmen of Jamshedpur and other cities. Last year, he somehow managed to procure bail and fled away. Recently, his henchmen killed a businessman-turned-politician, Upendra Singh, in broad daylight inside the Jamshedpur court premises.

Policemen probing the seizures said the gangster has also purchased few properties in his wifes fake names. Though her original name is Garima Singh, properties were brought in the name of Anu Singh by using fake voter ID and pan cards.

Read: Two murders bring turf war among Jharkhand gang lords to focus again

The gangster has bought the maximum, six flats and an acre of land in Jabalpur in the name of Sanjay Singh though the PAN card carried his picture. In Dehradun, the flat he owns is in the fake name of Ajit Singh but his photograph is there in the sale deed as the purchaser.

He has procured LPG connections in Jabalpur and Gudgaon in the name of Arvind Sharma with the identity cards carrying his photograph.

His fleet of vehicles lying at Faridabad includes Honda Civic and Honda Creta purchased in the name of one Harendra Singh.
Reports from various media houses say that Rajinikanth would meet Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak on Thursday. However, sources close to the actor say that no such meeting was planned and the reports are baseless.

In 2016, Rajinikanth was in Malaysia for the shoot of his gangster flick Kabali and the actor shares a good rapport with leading businessmen and politicians in the country. Ever since his announcement to visit Sri Lanka was made, Rajinikanths name has been constantly hitting the headlines.

The actor was upset with a few political leaders in Tamil Nadu for opposing his decision to visit Sri Lanka and canceled his plans. Similarly, there were reports saying Rajinikanth is planning to meet his fans on Raghavendra Mandapam to discuss an important issue but the actors publicist denied it as a rumour.

On the career front, Rajinikanth has almost finished his portions in Shankars sci-fi entertainer 2.o and he is also expected to join the shoot of Kabali director Ranjiths new film in May.

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Superstar Rajinikanth on Friday had a special guest in the form of Malaysian Prime Minister Mohammad Najib bin Tun Haji Abdul Razak. According to sources close to Thalaivar, it was a courtesy meeting and one that had no special agenda. Razak met the 66-year-old star at his residence over breakfast and exchanged pleasantries.

Sharing the news on his Twitter page, Razak wrote: Just had a very warm and friendly meeting with Rajinikanth, the Tamil superstar at his home. Latha Rajinikanth and daughter Aishwarya Dhanush were also at home to welcome Razak whose meeting lasted approximately an hour.

Rajinikanth and his family pose with Malaysian PM at his residence on Friday.

Razak is in Chennai to receive an honorary doctorate from Thanjavur University and also meet Governor C Vidyasagar Rao and Tamil Nadu chief minister Edappadi Palaniswami. Razak also had plans to meet members of Rajinikanths fan club but this reports was rubbished as baseless rumour by the actors spokesperson.

Rajinikanth also dismissed rumours about becoming the new face of Malaysian tourism and denied that he is making a foray into politics. Speaking to press outside of his house in Chennai, the actor said that he met Malaysian PM now because he was unable to do so during the shooting of his last movie, Kabali.

I shot Kabali in Malaysia and couldnt get to thank him and express my gratitude to them so he came and we had a cordial meet, Rajinikanth said.

I wasnt offered to become brand ambassador. All these are rumours, he added. Bollywood actor Shah Rukh Khan is currently the Indian brand ambassador for Malaysia.

The actor, whose entry into politics has been the subject of much speculation, denied he had any plans to join politics. He explained that a meeting called by his fans on April 2 had no political undertones.

The meeting on April 2 was long due as fans wanted photographs. Nothing political about that and no major announcement. On April 2 fans are meeting and between April 11 to 16, I will be meeting them, he said.

The BJP has attempted to court Rajinikanth repeatedly in the past as it is keen on becoming a viable political force in Tamil Nadu.

The state remains one of the few in the country to have repeatedly resisted the so-called Modi-wave, a fact experts largely attributed to the core tenets of the BJP -- particularly their emphasis on Hindi, Sanskrit and North Indian traditions -- being unpalatable to the ordinary Tamil.

Reacting to the furore over his Sri Lanka visit, Rajinikanth added, I have given my statement. I am disappointed but its all over and we will sort it out.

The actor has been in the news ever since he had to cancel a trip to Sri Lanka following opposition from Tamil groups such as the MDMK.

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A bomb targeting a Shia mosque in Pakistans northwestern town of Parachinar killed 22 people and injured nearly 70 others on Friday in an attack claimed by a Taliban faction.

The explosion occurred near the womens entrance of the Shia imambargah in the headquarters of Kurram tribal region, located close to the Afghan border, as people gathered for Friday prayers.

The imambargah is located in Shendak bazaar of Parachinar, a town with a Shia majority. Ikramullah Khan, the local political agent, told the media 22 people were killed instantly and 68 were injured.

The Jamaat-ul-Ahrar, a faction of the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, claimed the attack in a message sent to the media. The group was behind a wave of attacks across Pakistan in February, including a suicide bombing in Lahore that killed 14 people.

Guards at the imambargah were busy checking people at the womens entrance when an unidentified person parked a car next to the mosque. Soon after, the explosion occurred.

The Pakistan Army took charge of rescue arrangements and used helicopters to fly the seriously wounded to nearby hospitals.

A parliamentarian from Parachinar, Sajid Hussain, said it was a suicide attack and was preceded by gunfire. The attack took place in a busy area and a womens mosque appears to be the target, he said.

The injured were taken to hospitals in Hangu and Kohat. Officials said they feared the casualties could mount overnight.

Earlier this year, at least 21 people were killed when an explosion hit a vegetable market in Parachinar.

The attacks in February included a suicide blast at a Sufi shrine in Sindh province that killed 90 people and was claimed by Islamic State. The wave of violence dented optimism after Pakistan appeared to be making gains in its war on militancy.

The army launched a crackdown and politicians voted to extend legislation creating military courts to try civilians on terror charges. The law had expired in January, with the controversial tribunals having hanged 12 people and ordered the executions of 149 more.
A bristling China on Friday said Tibetan leader Dalai Lamas upcoming visit to Arunachal Pradesh will damage Sino-India relations and shake the very foundation on which bilateral ties have been built over the years.

In strong language, the foreign ministry said bilateral relations are built on certain foundations but such visits will cause deep damage to them.

The Dalai Lama is set to begin a nine-day visit to Arunachal Pradesh  which China claims as part of south Tibet from April 4 after spending three days in Assam. He will spend two days in Tawang, an important seat of Tibetan Buddhism, and also visit Itanagar and Bomdila.

India has made it clear the visit will go ahead, with junior home minister Kiren Rijiju - who is from Arunachal Pradesh - saying there is no reason to stop him.

China is enraged by the upcoming visit  as it is when the Dalai Lama attends any official function or meets leaders. Beijing sees him a dangerous separatist and a wolf in sheeps clothing, who under the camouflage of greater autonomy for Tibet Autonomous Region, wants to create an independent Tibet or a breakaway region from China.

On Friday, China reiterated its opposition to the visit.

China and India are two major developing countries and we are close neighbours. It is very important for the two peoples to maintain sound and steady China-India relations, foreign ministry spokesperson Lu Kang said.

But such a relationship has to be built on certain foundations. Such visits will have deep damage on China-India relations. We have asked India to stick to its political pledges and not to hurt China-India relations. It will come down to India to make a choice.

Beijings sensitivities also arise from the festering border dispute with India as the boundary between the two large neighbours is yet to be fully demarcated.

We are seriously concerned about the news. On the eastern section of the China-India border, Chinas position is clear and constant. The Dalai-clique has long been engaging in separatist activities with inglorious record, Lu said.

India should be very clear with the true nature of the Dalai-clique. But despite this, India still invited the Dalai Lama to visit the region. This will have serious damage on bilateral relations, he said, responding to a question at the regular foreign ministry briefing.

He added, China firmly opposes the Dalai Lama carrying out any activities in the relevant region and we have expressed our concerns to the Indian side. We urge India to stick to its political statements, respect the consensus and avoid doing anything that might further complicate the matter.

It should not provide any platform for the Dalai-clique and only that way can China-India relations move forward in a sound and steady way.

In 1959, the Dalai Lama had escaped from China through Tawang, considered one of the most important seats of Tibetan Buddhism. Since then, he has visited Arunachal Pradesh in 1983, 1997, 2003 and 2009.
A businessman based in Cyprus is suing the Buzzfeed online media outlet for defamation over its publication of an unproven dossier on President Donald Trumps purported activities involving Russia and allegations of Russian interference during last years US election.

The businessman, Aleksej Gubarev, claims he and his companies were falsely linked in the dossier to the Russia-backed computer hacking of Democratic Party figures. Gubarev, 36, is seeking unspecified damages from Buzzfeed and its top editor, Ben Smith, for the lawsuits libel and slander claims.

Buzzfeeds lawyers, meanwhile, say the case should be tossed out of Miami federal court due to lack of jurisdiction or at least transferred to New York, where the companys main offices are located.

The most recent filing by Gubarevs attorneys on Monday appeared to mock Buzzfeeds editorial style by titling the document this way:

Six Ways Buzzfeed Has Misled The Court (Number Two Will Amaze You) ... And A Picture Of A Kitten.

The 35-page dossier, compiled by former British spy Christopher Steele, was circulating among multiple news outlets during the 2016 election. It contains unproven allegations of coordination between Trumps advisers and Russians on hacking the emails of prominent Democrats and makes unverified claims about sexual activities.

On January 10, Buzzfeed published the dossier in full, noting at the time that much of its content had not been verified. The Associated Press has not authenticated its claims. Trump himself has described the lurid dossier as phony allegations concocted by his political opponents.

In one paragraph, the dossier claims that Gubarev and his companies, XBT Holdings and Webzilla Inc., had been using botnets and porn traffic to transmit viruses, plant bugs, steal data and conduct altering operations against the Democratic Party leadership at the behest of Russian entities, according to court documents filed by his lawyers.

Not a single portion of this statement, as it applies to Mr. Gubarev, XBT, or Webzilla, has any basis in fact whatsoever, his attorneys wrote in a filing dated Monday.

Since the dossiers publication, they added, Gubarev has found his personal and professional reputation in tatters and his wife has been subjected to online harassment. XBT operates 37,000 computer servers around the world, about 40 percent of them in Dallas, the document says.

In his lawsuit, Gubarev is described as a venture capitalist and tech expert who moved from his native Russia to Cyprus in 2002. Gubarev is not involved in politics and has no connections with the Russian government, the document says.

In a March 14 filing, Buzzfeeds attorneys contend the case has no place in a Florida court because neither Buzzfeed nor Gubarevs companies have a strong presence in the state. They want the case dismissed or moved to New York, where Buzzfeeds headquarters are located.

On the most fundamental level, this action has no meaningful connection to Florida, the Buzzfeed lawyers wrote. While the dossier itself continues to generate intense international interest, it is clear that this dispute about its publication has nothing to do with Florida.

Gubarev, however, contends that Buzzfeed regularly reports in and about Florida and that Webzilla has maintained a corporate presence and paid taxes in the state since 2009.

The case, originally filed in February, is pending before Miami US District Judge Ursula Ungaro. She could issue a ruling on the motion to either dismiss or transfer at any time.
An influential group of nine Democratic Senators has urged President Donald Trump to not let a Canadian company use foreign made steel, in particular from India and Italy, in the trans-national multibillion controversial Keystone oil pipeline.

Your memorandum explicitly covers new and expanded pipeline projects so we were confused and disappointed to learn that the Keystone XL pipeline would not be required to use 100 per cent American-made steel, the nine Democratic Senators wrote in their joint letter to Trump, a copy of which was released to the press yesterday.

Further, we are deeply concerned that by allowing this Canadian firm to use foreign steel from countries like India and Italy, which have a history of dumping steel products in the US market at unfair, illegal prices, you are establishing a precedent that will have the effect of costing US jobs and undermining the spirit of your Presidential Memorandum, the Senators wrote.

Led by Senators Chris Van Hollen and Tammy Duckworth the Democratic lawmakers urged Trump to protect American jobs by ensuring all new pipelines - if approved  are constructed and maintained with American made products and equipment.

Other signatories to the letter are Cory A. Booker, Thomas R. Carper, Al Franken, Christopher S. Murphy, Debbie Stabenow, Joe Donnelly Claire McCaskill, Robert Menendez, and Gary C. Peters.

As champions of expanding Buy American requirements to make sure taxpayer-supported projects contract with American companies to the greatest extent possible, we were initially encouraged by this memorandum, they said.

We were disappointed, however, when we learned that your administration would exempt the Keystone XL pipeline project from this Buy American policy, the letter added.

On January 24, Trump issued a Presidential Memorandum to the Secretary of Commerce directing the Secretary to develop a plan under which all new pipelines, as well as retrofitted, repaired, or expanded pipelines, inside the borders of the US, including portions of pipelines, use materials and equipment produced in the US, to the maximum extent possible and to the extent permitted by law.

However, Trump has exempted Keystone pipeline from this.

We request that you reconsider your decision to allow a foreign company to use foreign steel in the Keystone XL pipeline and urge you to secure a firm commitment to source 100 per cent American-made steel for this project, the Senators wrote.

Doing so would be a strong statement of support for American manufacturers and the hard working women and men who fuel our national economy, they said.

The USD 8 billion pipeline that TransCanada wants to build would carry crude oil from Canada through Montana, South Dakota and Nebraska, where it would connect with an existing Keystone pipeline network that would take the oil to Texas Gulf Coast refineries.

Several environmental groups filed lawsuits against the Trump administration yesterday to challenge its decision to approve construction of controversial Keystone pipeline.

The environmental groups contend in their lawsuit filed in Montana that the 2014 report on the projects impact downplays or ignores other significant environmental impacts of Keystone XL, including harms to land, air, water, and wildlife.

Former president Barack Obama, rejected the pipeline, saying it would lead to an increase in greenhouse gas emissions and do nothing to reduce fuel prices for US motorists.

The pipeline that was first proposed in 2008 has drawn strong opposition from environmental groups and some landowners who worry about potential contamination of ground and surface water.
US President Donald Trump predicted an upcoming meeting with Chinese leader Xi Jinping would be very difficult Thursday, laying out an adversarial tone ahead of a high-profile summit.

The meeting next week with China will be a very difficult one, Trump tweeted, in apparent reference to the Mar-a-Lago meeting.

We can no longer have massive trade deficits... and job losses. American companies must be prepared to look at other alternatives.

The summit at Trumps Florida residence would be the first face-to-face meeting between the heads of the worlds two most powerful nations and leading economies.

It follows a rocky start to US-China relations under the billionaire politician, who has repeatedly blasted Beijing for its trade policies and reluctance to bring pressure on North Korea over its nuclear and missile programs.

The meeting, which is scheduled for April 6-7 and was confirmed by both countries Thursday, could be crucial in setting the tone of the relationship between the two powers in coming years.

The White House confirmed the meeting in a statement, saying that the leaders will discuss global, regional, and bilateral issues of mutual concern.

Trump and his wife Melania will also host Xi and Chinas first lady Peng Liyuan for dinner, it added.

The resorts casual nature will allow Trump to receive the Chinese leader without the full pomp and circumstance of a state visit.

Just weeks ago the summit seemed a distant possibility after Trump infuriated Beijing with suggestions he might break from the USs long-standing One China Policy, which nominally acknowledges the Asian giants claims over Taiwan without recognizing them.

In a conciliatory phone call in mid-February, the US president walked back controversial comments on Taiwan, creating an opening for Washington and Beijing to discuss a meeting.

The summit could well be a peaceful combination of a strategic kumbaya and economic gift giving, before storms erupt later over trade, regional hotspots, and human resources-issues, according to Douglas Paal, Asia Director at the Washington-based Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Tough tone

But Trumps tough language on trade and increasing frustration about Chinas policies on North Korea could signal he is already willing to throw sand in the gears.

Relations have been strained by Chinas fierce opposition to a US missile defense system being rolled out in South Korea to protect against attacks from the North.

The US ambassador to the United Nations on Thursday said China can and must do more to force North Korea to halt its nuclear and missile programs.

And, amid reports that Pyongyang is preparing another banned nuclear test, Haley said Washington would not settle for holding another UN debate.

I have no patience for it, and it is not helping anyone. And its not about me. This administration has no patience for it, she said.

Trumps tweet and Haleys comments appeared to be orchestrated, coming just hours after both countries publicly announced Xis visit, which had been in pipeline for weeks.

The tough tone could be a negotiating gambit for from a man who prides himself on mastering the Art of the Deal.

Whatever the motive, it is likely to play well with a base of Trump supporters who wonder why Trump would meet Xi at all.
President Donald Trumps sacked national security adviser Michael Flynn has made an offer to the Federal Bureau of Investigation and congressional panels probing Russian meddling in US polls to testify in return for immunity from prosecution.

The Wall Street Journal, which first reported this development, however, said there was no response to his offer form any of the three entities. Immunity is usually granted when investigators expect to snare a bigger fish.

Flynn was forced to resign just days into President Trumps presidency in January for not telling senior White House officials, including vice-president Mike Pence, the truth about his interactions with the Russian ambassador to the US.

But he has continued t enjoy the support of the president, who came to his aid once again on Friday, tweeting, Mike Flynn should ask for immunity in that this is a witch hunt (excuse for big election loss), by media & Dems, of historic proportion!

Flynns lawyer confirmed his client was in talks with the congressional panels about his testimony offer. General Flynn certainly has a story to tell, and he very much wants to tell it, should circumstances permit, he said in a statement.

Flynns offer to testify comes amid allegations of White House trying to influence an investigation being conducted by the intelligence committee of the US House of Representatives in Russian meddling and alleged collusion by some of Trump campaign aides. The FBI and the intelligence committee of the Senate are carrying out separate probes.

His offer to testify against assurance of immunity was said to indicate he and his lawyers might be expecting legal problems.

Flynn, a former head of US militarys Defense Intelligence Agency, started out a close foreign policy adviser to Trump as a candidate and was among the new Presidents first appointments as his national security adviser.

As the incoming NSA, Flynn had multiple contacts with the Russian envoy in DC Sergei Kislyak, especially on the day president Barack Obama announced a slew of sanctions against Moscow for the election interference.

Flynn was also present at a meeting the envoy had with the president-elects son-in-law Jared Kushner, who has since offered to testify before the congressional panels, about his interaction that included with a the head of a Russian bank sanctioned by the Obama administration after Crimea.

Flynn was also paid thousands of dollars by three Russian companies, including Russia Today that is said to a propaganda arm of Russian intelligence, for speeches he gave in Russia before he started advising Trump formally.
Frances consulate in Shanghai said on Friday that a French national was violently assaulted in the city with a knife this week and urged the French community in China to be vigilant.

The Consulate General of France in Shanghai said in a statement on its website that the victim was attacked on Wednesday by a man who fled after a Chinese colleague intervened. The attacker was later arrested by the Chinese police, it said.

The French embassy and consulate-generals are in constant contact with the Chinese authorities to remind that the security of French nationals in China is a priority, it said.

Attacks on foreigners in China are rare but the incident comes after a Chinese man was shot dead by police this week at his Paris home, triggering rioting in the French capital by members of the Chinese community and a sharp reaction from Beijing.

It was not clear whether the two incidents are related.
The global impact of President Donald Trumps plan to unwind US climate change policies is unclear and will only emerge over time, the United Nations top climate official said on Friday.

In an executive order and a budget proposal, Trump has moved to peel back national policies designed to lower US carbon emissions and meet greenhouse gas reduction pledges under the 196-nation UN Paris climate treaty.

The precise impact on the secretariat and on global climate action linked with these various announcements remains unclear at this juncture, said Patricia Espinosa, executive secretary of the UN body that shepherded the Paris deal into existence.

The approval of US federal budgets, which must be voted by Congress, involves long and complex negotiations, she said in a statement.

I, like many people and organisations around the globe, are watching these developments with interest.

Trumps plan to ease emissions limits for coal-fired power plants and scrap more stringent vehicle pollution standards almost guarantees that the US will fail to meet its commitments under the UN pact, according to experts.

The president has also said he does not intend to honour promises made by the administration of his predecessor, Barack Obama, to give billions of dollars in aid to poor, climate-vulnerable nations.

But whether the US will take the additional step of withdrawing from the Paris pact altogether remains open.

White House press secretary Sean Spicer said on Thursday that a decision would be made ahead of the G7 Summit in Italy in late May.

Espinosa did not react directly to Spicers statement. But she did note that the US is, and remains, a party to the landmark Paris Climate Change Agreement.

The 196 nations that are party to the pact, and its underlying convention, will convene in Bonn, Germany in mid-May for technical talks on the agreements implementation.

We look forward to welcoming and working with (the agreements) delegations, Espinosa said.

Should the US withdraw from the Paris accord, it would be a four-year process.
International powers voiced alarm Thursday at the Venezuelan Supreme Courts move to seize power from the opposition-led legislature, in what was widely branded as amounting to a coup.

The courts move tightened socialist President Nicolas Maduros grip on power after more than a year in which he was locked in a political struggle with the center-right opposition.

Critics said it was an authoritarian turn for the South American oil producing giant, where an economic crisis has caused food shortages, riots and an epidemic of violent crime.

The crisis has raised concerns about stability in Venezuela, which has undergone three attempted military coups since 1992.

The US State Department called the courts move a serious setback for democracy.

Regional powers Brazil, Mexico, Argentina, Peru, Chile and others also warned it was a threat to democracy in Venezuela.

Guatemala also denounced the courts action. But leftist-led Bolivia defended Maduro.

Brazils foreign ministry said it was a clear break with constitutional order.

But the hardest line came from the secretary general of the Organization of American States (OAS), Luis Almagro, who echoed Maduros opponents claims of an internal coup detat.

Maduro has yet to comment publicly about the outcry.

Protesting lawmakers scuffled with riot police outside the court. Opposition groups called for wider street protests on Saturday.

In a tweet, jailed opposition leader Leopoldo Lopez called on people to take to the streets in order to reject dictatorship and rescue democracy.

Lawmakers passed over

The judges move strips Maduros opponents in the National Assembly legislature of what little grip they had over a key pillar of government.

The high court (TSJ) has consistently backed the leftist president in his power struggle with the legislature.

It had on Tuesday also stripped parliamentary immunity from lawmakers in the assembly.

The unconstitutional decisions by the TSJ to strip parliamentary immunity from the members of the National Assembly and assume the legislative function are the latest actions taken by the authoritarian regime to subvert the constitutional order in Venezuela and eliminate all semblance of democracy, Almagros statement said.

He said he denounces the self-inflicted coup detat perpetrated by the Venezuelan regime against the National Assembly, the last branch of government to be legitimized by the will of the people of Venezuela, the OAS statement said.

Army urged to act

The court based its latest decision on an earlier ruling that the opposition majority was in contempt of court.

As long as the National Assemblys contempt of court and invalidity persist, parliamentary powers shall be exercised directly by (the Supreme Courts) constitutional chamber or by the body it designates to safeguard the rule of law, it said late Wednesday night.

The speaker of the National Assembly, Julio Borges, urged the army, which has thus far supported Maduro, to take a stand.

The Venezuelan armed forces cannot remain silent as the constitution is breached, he said, appealing to soldiers who are also suffering through what he called the chaos of the economic crisis.

With the public support of the military and control of most state institutions, Maduro has been resisting opposition calls for early elections.

Contempt of court

The court said the National Assembly leadership was in contempt for swearing in three lawmakers who were banned over alleged electoral fraud.

The opposition Democratic Unity Roundtable (MUD) condemns the fraud charges as a trumped-up bid to curb its power after it won a landslide in legislative elections in December 2015 with a promise to oust Maduro.

The court has overturned every law passed by the opposition-led legislature.

To legally overtake the functions of a branch of government is a coup, said Latin America specialist Christopher Sabatini of Columbia University in New York.

The courts expansion of its own powers came as part of a ruling on an oil law. It enables the government to launch joint ventures with private oil companies without legislative approval.

Venezuela has the worlds biggest oil reserves but the collapse in prices has sapped its revenues, prompting shortages of food, medicine and basic goods like toilet paper.
Hemmed in and closely watched by police, hundreds of Muslims have unrolled rugs and mats and prayed outdoors in the busy streets of a Paris suburb to protest the closure of their prayer hall.

The show of strength Friday by throngs of worshippers in Clichy highlights a long-standing issue for Frances Muslim community, estimated at 5 million people: a shortage of mosques.

Clichy City Hall wants to turn the rented prayer hall the worshippers were using into a multimedia library for the towns 60,000 residents.

It says Muslims can worship at a new Islamic cultural and prayer center, already used by hundreds of people, the town inaugurated last year.

Far-right presidential candidate Marine Le Pen has decried such street prayers to fuel her anti-immigrant, anti-Islam discourse.
A geologist in Nepal, who has been studying the land structure of various heritage sites in the country, has warned that land creeping is threatening the famed Pashupatinath Temple.

Land creeping is the slow downward progression of rock and soil. It also refers to slow deformation of such materials due to prolonged pressure and stress.

We are working for the stability of the Pashupati Kshetra, the Swayambhu Area and Changu Narayan Area for the last 10 years and this is our regular process of the observations and collecting of data, said geologist Ranjan Kumar Dahal.

When we look at the Pashupati area, especially the Pashupati Temple and the river bank of the temple below the staircase from where we can go to the Pashupati Temple, we found that basically the whole mass is now in continuous creep and this is the main thing we will explore in more detail as they are creating lots of cracks on the slope, he added.

The Pashupatinath Temple is a famous temple and pilgrimage site for Hindus, located on the banks of river Bagmati in Kathmandu.

The temple has a long history which appears in various manuscripts and religious texts, attracts pilgrims from around the world.

Experts have witnessed few bulges and deformation on the walls, which clearly suggests that the mass is moving down.

The area below the Slesmantak Forest, the place where Lord Shiva and Parvati are believed to have spent a lot of time, is home to numerous Shivalinga  traditional idol representing the deity Shiva.

Experts have claimed that a replica of Shiva in the site is being pushed upward because of creeping beneath the surface.

Geo-scientists have termed the danger to be at the medium level and have also suggested mitigation measures to prevent further danger.

Dr Dahal has suggested sealing of cracks on the surface as soon as possible and said that drainage system of temple should be managed properly.

Experts said the tradition of Bramhanal  a drainage system that carries the water and the milk offered deity  as the reason for land creeping.
North Korea accused the United States on Thursday of using the Norths nuclear program as an excuse to mask its own opposition to banning nuclear weapons.

Ri Song Chol, a counsellor at North Koreas UN mission, told The Associated Press that the United States drove his country to make and possess nuclear weapons to defend itself against any American aggression.

He said the United States was the first country to use nuclear weapons  against Japan during World War II  and it continues to use them to threaten and blackmail other countries including North Korea.

Ri said he was responding to US ambassador Nikki Haley who said Monday that the United States wouldnt participate in UN talks aimed at banning nuclear weapons because bad actors wouldnt sign or comply with a potential treaty.

North Korea would be the one cheering, and all of us and the people we represent would be the ones at risk, Haley said.

Haley was speaking before the start of UN talks aimed at eventually producing a treaty banning nuclear weapons.

The five nuclear powers  the United States, Russia, China, Britain and France  refused to attend the meeting saying a ban wont work and the world should instead stick with a more gradual approach.

Ri said his country, the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea or DPRK, supports the global effort to eliminate nuclear weapons, but wont give up its weapons until the denuclearisation of the world is implemented.

He said the DPRK is also not taking part in the talks because of joint military exercises by the United States and South Korea using special forces and all kinds of nuclear strategic assets which he said are aimed at secretly invading the North to eliminate its leadership.

It is therefore an immediate and vital requirement for the DPRK to further strengthen its military and nuclear capabilities so it can carry out a pre-emptive strike ... to protect the country from US aggression, Ri said.

He said it is clearly an unreasonable argument that the US cannot eliminate nuclear weapons because the DPRK will not abandon its nuclear weapons.

The deceptive talk of the US representative is to hide US identity as a principal offender blocking the global effort for denuclearization of the world, Ri said.
Two, possibly three, North Koreans wanted for questioning over the murder of the estranged half-brother of their countrys leader were believed to have accompanied the coffin of the victim on a flight from Kuala Lumpur after Malaysia agreed to a swap deal with the reclusive state.

Photographs obtained by Reuters from Japans Kyodo news agency show Hyon Kwang Song, the second secretary at the North Korean embassy in Kuala Lumpur, and Kim Uk Il, a staff member of North Koreas state airline Air Koryo were on a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on Thursday evening.

The pictures match those released by the Malaysian police earlier. The coffin carrying the body of Kim Jong Nam was also believed to have been on the same flight, though this has not been confirmed by authorities.

Malaysian media reported that the third North Korean, Ri Ji U, also known as James, who had been hiding with them at the North Korean embassy in Kuala Lumpur was also allowed to go home. The three men and the coffin are expected to be transferred to a flight to Pyongyang.

Malaysian authorities released the body Kim Jong Nam to North Korea on Thursday, in a deal that secured the release of nine Malaysian citizens held in Pyongyang after a drawn out diplomatic spat.
Over 3,000 industrial units in China have faked emission data, the government said on Friday as it stepped its efforts to control recurring air pollution in major cities, including Beijing.

In all, 3,119 polluters have faked emissions, the ministry of environment said summarising its latest efforts to tackle the smog that often shrouds the north of the country.

Many local governments still dont act, or act blindly to clean up air pollution, it said in a statement.

The ministry dispatched 260 inspectors in 18 teams to visit 8,500 polluters in the north of the country, most of them factories, mines and heating energy providers.

The inspections were done in 18 of the most polluted cities in China, including Beijing, Tianjin and Shijiazhuang from February 15 to March 18, the Hong Kong-based South China Morning reported.

The problems exposed by the ministry show the challenges ahead for Beijing to clean up the nations toxic air, such as cadres who target economic development over clear skies, state-owned enterprises disrespecting local environmental checks and the lack of a systematic legal or administrative approach to curb air pollution, it said.

In his annual press conference on March 15, Chinese premier Li Keqiang said some of the causes for recurring smog remained unknown and announced a special fund to pool together finest scientists to find the unique factors.

We will take firm steps to address coal burning, exhaust of vehicles and dust in tackling smog. We have not yet fully understood the causes of the smog. Some factors remained unknown, in particular about the smog weather in winter in northern China are quite unique, internationally speaking, he said.

People cover their face to protect themselves from smog in Beijing, China. (Reuters File Photo)

So further research needs to be done. China will set up special fund to pool together finest scientists to dig into this matter so that our responses to this problem can be made effective, he said adding that pollution control is a process.

Beijing and other cities in China spend many winter days under a thick, gray haze, with air pollution levels that exceed World Health Organisation (WHO) guideline.

The capital city has made efforts to retire aged vehicles and move heavily polluting industries to distant provinces. But the problem still continue.

A study by the Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention published earlier this month suggested about three million premature deaths could be prevented each year if stricter air quality standards were adopted and enforced.
Two Indian nationals have been arrested in Pakistan after they were found living illegally in Karachi city for the last eight years, census officials said.

The duo from Gujarat had been arrested from Gulshan-e-Iqbal and Saddar areas of Karachi on Monday during the ongoing countrywide census, Sindh Census Commissioner Abdul Aleem Memon said.

The census officials alerted the authorities about the presence of the two Indians which led to a raid by police and intelligence agencies.

According to the officials, the two men have been living in the city for the last eight years.

They have been identified as Hassan Ahmad, a resident of Ahmadabad and Waseem Hassan from Gujarat, local Dunya TV reported.

Both the persons are living in the country without any legal documents.

Pakistan began its first census in about two decades with the assistance of over 200,000 troops and civilian officials on March 15 to collect crucial data that will be used for key policy decisions, including delimitation of constituencies.

The 6th census would be completed by the end of May.
Islamabad has asked New Delhi to respect its ownership rights to Jinnah House, the sprawling residence once owned by Pakistans founder Mohammad Ali Jinnah, following a BJP legislators demand that the structure should be demolished.

The house with grand columns, walnut panelling and Italian marble was built on 2.5 acres in Malabar Hills and its estimated value is $400 million. The residence has been at the centre of a long-running legal dispute over ownership between Jinnahs daughter and the Indian and Pakistani governments.

Pakistan has repeatedly expressed its desire to take possession of the property. The government of India should respect the ownership rights of the government of Pakistan in this regard, Pakistans Foreign Office spokesman Nafees Zakaria told a weekly news briefing in Islamabad on Thursday.

We also expect that the Indian government will fulfill its obligation of protecting that property and its upkeep, he said.

Zakaria was responding to a question about BJP legislator Mangal Lodhas demand that Jinnah House be razed and replaced with a cultural centre. Lodha contended that the house was a symbol of the Partition and the place where the conspiracy to divide the Indian subcontinent was hatched.

The spokesman said the ownership of Jinnah House had already been taken up with Indian authorities and was an ongoing matter.

The property belongs to the founder of Pakistan and should be given to Pakistan. On various occasions, the Indian government has promised to handover the property to the government of Pakistan but (they) have not fulfilled their commitment as yet, he added.

Pakistan had earlier said it wanted to use Jinnah House as its consulate in Mumbai. However, the issue was linked to India being allowed to reopen a consulate in the Pakistani port city of Karachi. With bilateral ties at an all-time low over the past few years, both sides have not been able to make progress on this issue.

Dina Wadia, Jinnahs daughter, has claimed ownership of the building but two other Mumbai residents  Mohamed Ebrahim and Shakir Ebrahim  have approached an Indian court to refute her claim of being the sole heir to the property.

They are the son and grandson of Ashraf Rajabally Ebrahim, the daughter of Jinnahs sister Mariam.

According to the Indian government, Jinnah bequeathed the property to his sister Fatima Jinnah through his will dated May 30, 1939. India designated the immovable and movable property left behind by people who opted to go to Pakistan as evacuee property and took them over. However, Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru ensured Jinnahs assets were not classified as evacuee property as a goodwill gesture.

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Pakistan on Friday said it will boycott an international meeting of parliamentarians scheduled in Dhaka from Saturday, alleging a malicious propaganda by Bangladesh against it.

A 10-member delegation led by national assembly speaker Ayaz Sadiq was due to participate in the 136th Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) assembly in Dhaka.

But the government decided to boycott the meeting because of the continued malicious and uncalled for propaganda and unfriendly attitude of the Bangladesh government against the people and the state of Pakistan.

Read: Pak should be isolated for supporting terror, says Bangladesh home minister

The IPU is the focal point for worldwide parliamentary dialogue and works for peace and co-operation among peoples and for the firm establishment of representative democracy.

Sadiq in a statement said the national assembly members had noted with disappointment the actions and negative public statements coming out of Bangladesh despite Pakistans restraint and overtures to the country.

I have, therefore, decided not to travel to Bangladesh as a visit at this point will not serve the purpose, he was quoted as saying by The Express Tribune.

The boycott of the IPU in Dhaka is another sign of strain in Pakistan-Bangladesh ties. Pakistan has previously commented on the sentencing and hanging of Jamaat-e-Islami leaders for warcrimes committed during the 1971 Liberation War.

Bangladesh has said Pakistans reactions to the judicial verdicts were tantamount to meddling in its internal affairs and also said Islamabad was yet to apologise for atrocities committed by its army.

However, speaker Sadiq said the parliament had sincerely laboured to harness good ties with Bangaldesh.

It was in this spirit that Pakistans parliamentary delegation had unanimously voted in favour of the speaker of Bangladesh Sharmeen Chaudhary for the post of the chairperson of the executive committee of commonwealth parliamentary association in Cameroon in 2014.

Chaudhary had won the election with a narrow margin of 82 votes in favour and 78 against.

Sadiq cited another instance when Pakistan voted a Bangladeshi candidate to become the president of the IPU in 2014. However, it is noted with much regret that the friendly gestures were never reciprocated in the same coin, he said.

Bangladesh, too, has boycotted all international parliamentary meets organised by Pakistan in the past two years, including the SAARC Young Parliamentarians Conference in August 2016, the International Women Parliamentarians Conference 2017 and the Asian Parliamentary Assembly in 2017.
The White House refused Thursday to say whether it secretly fed intelligence reports to a top Republican lawmaker, fuelling concerns about political interference in the investigation into possible coordination between Russia and the 2016 Trump campaign.

Fending off the growing criticism, the administration invited lawmakers from both parties to view classified material it said relates to surveillance of the Presidents associates. The invitation came as The New York Times reported that two White House officials  including an aide whose job was recently saved by President Donald Trump  secretly helped House intelligence committee chairman Devin Nunes examine intelligence information last week.

Nunes is leading one of three investigations into Russias attempt to influence the campaign and Trump associates possible involvement.

Late Thursday, an attorney for Michael Flynn, Trumps ex-national security adviser, said Flynn is in discussions with the House and Senate intelligence committees about speaking to them in exchange for immunity. The talks are preliminary, and no official offers have been made.

General Flynn certainly has a story to tell, and he very much wants to tell it, should the circumstances permit, Flynns attorney, Robert Kelner, said in a statement.

Other Trump associates have volunteered to speak with investigators, but have not publicly raised the issue of immunity.

Flynn, a member of the Trump campaign and transition, was fired as national security adviser after it was publicly disclosed that he misled the vice-president about a conversation he had with the Russian ambassador to the US. Flynns ties to Russia have been scrutinised by the FBI and are under investigation by the House and Senate intelligence committees.

The House panels work has been deeply, and perhaps irreparably, undermined by Nunes apparent coordination with the White House. He told reporters last week that he had seen troubling information about the improper distribution of Trump associates intercepted communications, and he briefed the President on the material, all before informing Rep. Adam Schiff, the committees top Democrat.

Speaking on Capitol Hill Thursday, Schiff said he was more than willing to accept the White House offer to view new information. But he raised concerns that Trump officials may have used Nunes to launder information to our committee to avoid the true source.

The White House has a lot of questions to answer, he declared.

Instead, the White House continued to sidestep queries about its role in showing Nunes classified information that appears to have included transcripts of foreign officials discussing Trumps transition to the presidency, according to current and former US officials. Intelligence agencies routinely monitor the communications of foreign officials living in the US, though the identities of Americans swept up in that collection is to be protected.

The Senate intelligence committee, which has thus far taken a strikingly more measured and bipartisan approach to its own Russia investigation, responded to the White Houses invitation by asking for the intelligence agencies that own the intelligence documents in question to immediately provide them directly to the committee.

In Russia, President Vladimir Putin said there was nothing to the allegations of election meddling.

Did Russia interfere in the US campaign, he was asked at a forum in the northern Russian city of Arkhangelsk? Injecting a bit of humour, Putin answered by quoting George HW Bush from the 1992 US presidential campaign.

Read my lips: No, he said, pronouncing the last word in English for emphasis.

In Washington early last week, White House officials privately encouraged reporters to look into whether information about Trump associates had been improperly revealed in the intelligence gathering process. Days later, Nunes announced that he had evidence, via an unnamed source, showing that Trump and his aides communications had been collected through legal means but then widely disseminated throughout government agencies. He said the collections were not related to the Russia investigation.

Trump spokesperson Sean Spicer said on Thursday the material the White House wants the House and Senate intelligence leaders to view was discovered by the National Security Council through the course of regular business. He would not say whether it was the same material Nunes had already seen.

A congressional aide said Schiff did not receive the White House letter until after Spicer announced it from the White House briefing room.

Spicer had previously dismissed the notion that the White House had funnelled information to Nunes, saying the idea that the congressman would come and brief Trump on material the Presidents team already had doesnt pass the smell test. The White House quickly embraced Nunes revelations, saying they vindicated Trumps explosive and unverified claim that President Barack Obama wiretapped his New York skyscraper.

Nunes has said the information he received did not support that allegation, which has also been disputed by Obama and top intelligence officials.

The Times reported that Ezra Cohen-Watnick, the senior director for intelligence at the White House National Security Council, and Michael Ellis, a White House lawyer who previously worked on the House intelligence committee, played roles in helping Nunes view the materials.

Cohen-Watnick is among about a dozen White House officials who would have access to the types of classified information Nunes says he viewed, according to current and former US officials. Hes become a controversial figure in intelligence circles, but Trump decided to keep him on over the objections of the CIA and National Security Adviser HR McMaster, according to the officials. They spoke only on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment publicly by name.

Cohen-Watnick and Nunes both served on the Trump transition team.

Stephen Slick, a former CIA and NSC official, said it would be highly unusual and likely unprecedented for a member of Congress to travel to the White House to view intelligence reports without prior authorisation.

Nunes has repeatedly sidestepped questions about who provided him the intelligence reports, though he pointedly has not denied that his sources were in the White House. House speaker Paul Ryan, in an interview with CBS This Morning that aired Thursday, said Nunes told him a whistleblower-type person provided the information.

A spokesperson for Ryan later said the speaker was not aware of Nunes source and continues to have full confidence in the Congressmans ability to run the Russia investigation.
Russian leader Vladimir Putin on Thursday said climate change was not caused by human activity, as the White House announced that President Donald Trump would decide by May on continued US participation in the landmark Paris Agreement limiting global carbon emissions.

One day after visiting the Franz Josef Land archipelago in the Arctic, Putin claimed that icebergs had been melting for decades and suggested that global warming was not mankinds fault.

The warming, it had already started by the 1930s, Putin said in comments broadcast from an Arctic forum held in the northern Russian city of Arkhangelsk.

Thats when there were no such anthropological factors, such emissions, and the warming had already started.

The Kremlin strongman added: The issue is not stopping it... because thats impossible, since it could be tied to some global cycles on Earth or even of planetary significance. The issue is to somehow adapt to it.

The declaration came as the White House said Trump would make his pronouncement on the Paris Agreement before a meeting of G7 leaders in Sicily that is scheduled to begin May 26.

Putin supported his argument by saying that an Austrian explorer who had a photographic memory visited the Franz Josef Land archipelago in the 1930s.

Twenty years later the explorer was shown photographs from another expedition there by the future king of Italy and concluded that there were fewer icebergs there, Putin said.

It wasnt immediately clear which explorers Putin was referring to and Italy did not have a king in the 1950s.

Austrian explorer Julius von Payer discovered and mapped the archipelago during a 1872-1874 expedition.

The only Italian expedition to the area was organised in 1899 by Prince Luigi Amedeo, who was also an explorer.

The archipelago was declared Soviet territory by the 1930s.

Putin had previously hailed global warming for exposing natural resources and transport routes which had long been too expensive to exploit.

He had also once speculated that warming by two or three degrees could be a good thing for Russians who would no longer need fur coats.

A U-turn?

The latest declarations were a far cry from Putins speech at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Paris in November 2015.

The quality of life of all people on the planet depends on solving the climate problem, he had said, adding that Moscow had exceeded its obligations under the Kyoto Protocol.

Russias efforts have slowed global warming by almost a year. We were at the same time able to nearly double our countrys GDP over the same period, he said.

We consider it crucial that the new climate agreement be based on the UN Framework of Climate Change and that it be legally binding.

On Thursday, while his Finnish counterpart Sauli Niinisto called climate change a serious threat for the Arctic, Putin said that it brings more propitious conditions for using this region for economic ends.

The Russian leader also wished luck to anti-climate litigator Scott Pruitt, who was confirmed last month as the new chief of the US Environmental Protection Agency to the horror of the scientific community.

Asked by moderator Geoff Cutmore of the CNBC what he thinks of the appointment of Pruitt, a climate sceptic who wants to roll back Washingtons participation in the Paris climate accord, Putin said Pruitts views deserve to be heard.

Positions and suggestions of those who dont agree with their opponents are not so stupid, Putin said. God grant him health and success, everybody should listen to one another and only then you can find an optimal solution to the problem.

Russia is warming at twice the rate of the rest of the world, according to government data, and both scientists and emergencies officials have indicated that disasters such as deadly floods and wildfires are influenced by climate change.
The sacking of South Africas respected Indian-origin finance minister Pravin Gordhan in a cabinet purge pitched the ruling ANC party into chaos on Friday, creating one of its biggest tests since leading the fight against apartheid.

The countrys deputy president Cyril Ramaphosa launched a unprecedented verbal attack on President Jacob Zuma, whose midnight reshuffle sent the rand currency plunging and triggered accusations that he was promoting graft.

Zumas axing of Gordhan also unleashed a wave of opposition in the African National Congress, which came to power under Nelson Mandela in the euphoric 1994 elections but has suffered declining support.

Gordhan was widely seen as a competent manager of one of the worlds most important emerging economies.

Ramaphosa went public with his anger, openly attacking his boss. I told him that I would not agree with him, he told reporters.

There are quite a number of other colleagues and comrades who are unhappy about this situation, particularly the removal of the minister of finance who was serving the country with absolute distinction.

Gordhan was reportedly sacked because of an alleged intelligence report on meetings he held in London earlier this week.

For him to be removed for this type of reasoning is to me unacceptable, Ramaphosa said.

Gordhan held a press conference on Friday, saying he heard of his sacking via television and dismissing the intelligence report as absolute nonsense.

We hope more and more South Africans would make it clear that our country is not for sale, he added.

Zuma made 20 new government appointments in the reshuffle.

Im very uncomfortable because areas where ministers do not perform have not been touched, Gwede Mantashe, the influential ANC secretary general, said.

We cant be happy (with the decision to sack Gordhan) because we think that the finance minister was a hard worker.

Gordhan had been at loggerheads with Zuma for months, receiving support from several ministers and major foreign investors, as well as many ordinary South Africans and veterans of the anti-apartheid struggle.

He campaigned for budget discipline and against corruption, but Zumas allies have accused Gordhan of thwarting the presidents desire to enact radical policies to tackle racial inequality.

Mantashe told 702 radio that Zuma was aware that many in the ANC were unhappy about the purge, in which Gordhan was replaced by home affairs minister Malusi Gigaba.

The president came with a list. (He) said you can comment if you want to comment, but this is my decision, Mantashe said.

The ANC, which was banned under white-minority rule, has lost popularity due to corruption allegations, record unemployment and slow economic growth.
SpaceX successfully launched and then retrieved its first recycled rocket on Thursday, a historic feat and the biggest leap yet in its bid to drive down costs and speed up flights.

It was the first time SpaceX founder Elon Musk tried to fly a booster that soared before on an orbital mission. He was at a loss for words after the Falcon 9 core landed on the bulls-eye of the ocean platform following lift-off with a broadcasting satellite, achieving what some had once told him was impossible.

This is a huge day. My minds blown, frankly, Musk said. He called it an incredible milestone in the history of space and predicted, this is going to be a huge revolution in spaceflight.

SpaceX launched its first recycled rocket on Thursday. (AP Photo)

Musk foresees dozens if not hundreds of repeat flights for a booster and rocket turnarounds of as little as 24 hours, perhaps by next year. Land, refuel and then back up again, with everything leading to one day putting humanity out there among the stars.

This particular first stage landed on an ocean platform almost exactly a year ago after a space station launch for NASA. SpaceX refurbished and tested the 15-foot booster, still sporting its nine original engines. It nailed another vertical landing at sea Thursday once it was finished boosting the satellite for the SES company of Luxembourg. SpaceX employees jammed outside Mission Control at the Hawthorne, California, company headquarters cheered loudly every step of the way  and again when the satellite reached its proper orbit.

The reusable main-stage booster from the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket makes a successful landing. (Handout/Reuters Photo)

Long time customer SES got a discount for agreeing to use a salvaged rocket, but wouldnt say how much. Its not just about the savings, said chief technology officer Martin Halliwell. He called it a big step for everybody  something thats never, ever been done before.

Absolutely astounding, Halliwell said after his companys satellite reached the proper orbit. Just opened the door into a whole new era of spaceflight.

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk shakes the hand of CTO Martin Halliwell at Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral. (AP Photo)

SpaceX granted SES insight into the entire process of getting the booster ready to fly again, Halliwell said, providing confidence everything would go well. SES, in fact, is considering more launches later this year on reused Falcon boosters. At a news conference, Musk personally thanked Halliwell for having faith in SpaceX.

Space X's Falcon 9 rocket lifts off from space launch complex 39A at Kennedy Space Centre, Florida. (AFP Photo)

Youve got to get away from the idea that its secondhand, Halliwell told reporters. Flight proven, Musk quickly added, his preferred term.

Boosters  the most expensive part of the rocket, according to Musk  typically are discarded following liftoff, sinking into the Atlantic. SpaceX began flying back the Falcons first-stage, kerosene-fueled boosters in 2015; its since landed eight boosters, three at Cape Canaveral and five on ocean platforms  actually, six times at sea counting Thursdays redo.

On Thursday, the company even managed to recover the Falcons $6 million satellite enclosure, which used thrusters and parachutes to drop into the Atlantic. Until Thursday, trying to retrieve the second stage used to get the satellite into the proper, high orbit seemed like a Hail Mary pass, Musk said. But no more.

A recycled SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket soars toward space above a Virgin Airlines passenger jet, which had just departed Orlando International Airport, in Orlando, Florida. (Reuters Photo)

Musk said this day was 15 years in coming and that, all told, the reusability effort has cost the company at least $1 billion, which will take time to recoup. He brought all five of his young sons to the launch  and the news conference that followed  wanting them to be witness to history-in-the-making. It was fitting, he noted, that the rocket took off from NASAs Launch Complex 39A at Kennedy Space Center, the starting point for the Apollo moon shots decades ago.

Blue Origin, an aerospace company started by another tech billionaire, Jeff Bezos, already has reflown a rocket. One of his New Shepard rockets, in fact, has soared five times from Texas. These flights, however, were suborbital; in other words, nothing went into orbit.

NASA also has shared the quest for rocket reusability. During the space shuttle program, the twin booster rockets dropped away two minutes into flight and parachuted into the Atlantic for recovery. The booster segments were mixed and matched for each flight.

The Falcon 9 rocket on Kennedy Space Center's historic Pad 39A in Cape Canaveral. (AP Photo/Handout)

As for this SpaceX reused booster, Halliwell said engineers went through it with a fine-toothed comb following its liftoff in April 2016. SES had special access; the satellite provider, after all, has a long history with SpaceX. A SES spacecraft was on board for SpaceXs first commercial satellite launch in 2013.

Halliwell wasnt so sure, though, about the cleaning job. Its a bit sooty, he said with a smile.

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket lifts off on a supply mission to the International Space Station. (Reuters File Photo)

Future refights wont need as much work, Musk conceded,

Given its historic mission, the booster will not fly again, Musk said, but rather remain at Cape Canaveral for viewing.

SpaceX  which aims to launch up to six reused boosters this year, two of them with the yet-to-fly, super-sized Falcon Heavy in late summer  is familiar with uncharted territory.

Besides becoming the first commercial cargo hauler to the International Space Station, SpaceX is building a capsule to launch NASA astronauts as soon as next year. Its also working to fly two paying customers to the moon next year, and is developing the Red Dragon, a robotic spacecraft intended to launch to Mars in 2020 and land. Musks ultimate goal is to establish a human settlement on Mars.

SpaceX booster rocket after a successful vertical landing in the Atlantic Ocean just off the east Florida coast. (Handout/AP Photo)

Key to all of this, according to Musk, is the rapid, repeating turnaround of rockets  and employees. SpaceX posted a help wanted ad on its webcast following the launch.
President Donald Trumps administration on Thursday appealed the latest court ruling against his revised travel ban to the same court that refused to reinstate the original version.

A day earlier, US district judge Derrick Watson in Hawaii handed the government its latest defeat by issuing a longer-lasting hold on Trumps executive order.

Watsons decision came after the Department of Justice argued for a narrower ruling covering only the ban on new visas for people from six Muslim-majority countries. The department urged the judge to allow a freeze on the US refugee program to go forward.

Government attorney Chad Readler said halting the flow of refugees had no effect on Hawaii and the state has not shown how it is harmed by the ban. Watson disagreed.

The administration says the executive order falls within the presidents power to protect national security and will ultimately succeed, while Hawaii Attorney General Douglas Chin likened the revised ban to a neon sign flashing Muslim ban that the government hasnt turned off.

Watson said Hawaii has shown that the ban will harm the states universities and tourism industry as well as the imam of a Honolulu mosque, who joined the lawsuit. Ismail Elshikh said the ban would prevent his Syrian mother-in-law from visiting family in the US.

These injuries have already occurred and will continue to occur if the executive order is implemented and enforced; the injuries are neither contingent nor speculative, the judge wrote.

The president already is appealing a separate case in Maryland. A judge there blocked the six-nation travel ban but said it wasnt clear that the suspension of the refugee program was similarly motivated by religious bias.

The administration wants the 4th US Circuit Court of Appeals to put that ruling on hold while it considers the case. The Richmond, Virginia-based court will hear arguments May 8.

If the court sides with Trump, it would not have a direct effect on the Hawaii ruling, legal experts said.

What a ruling in 4th Circuit in favor of the administration would do is create a split in authority between federal courts in different parts of the country, said Richard Primus, a professor of constitutional law at the University of Michigan law school. Cases with splits in authority are cases the US Supreme Court exists to resolve.
A judge has overturned an order preventing a newspaper from reporting on a child services complaint involving a kindergarten student who brought drugs to school twice.

Judge Lawrence De Bello ruled Monday that he found no evidence to support the states argument that a reporter for the Trentonian newspaper illegally obtained the complaint from the boys mother.

Government lawyers sought the injunction against the newspaper, saying child welfare complaints must be kept confidential under state law. The state had alleged that Trentonian reporter Isaac Avilucea stole the complaint from the mother, but he said she knew he was reporting on the story and gave it to him. She had met with him at his office earlier in the day.

The newspaper and open-government advocates argued that the previous order was a clear violation of the First Amendment. The US Supreme Court has held that the government cannot prevent the press from publishing information except in extreme circumstances involving a clear and present danger

A spokesperson for the state attorney generals office says it is reviewing the decision.

Avilucea said the decision upholds the tenets of the First Amendment protecting the press and strikes at what would have been a very dangerous precedent.

Its been five months of sometimes what I felt like was persecution by the attorney generals office and even the threat of prosecution from them for basically doing my job, said Avilucea, who has been out of work on disability while battling testicular cancer. The idea of criminalising reporting is a sobering thought to not only myself but to journalists across New Jersey and across the S.

The boy has been placed into foster care pending an ongoing custody battle, and his father is facing charges.
The US State Department named British radical Islamic cleric Anjem Choudary and the Islamic State groups Beatles execution squad member El Shafee Elsheikh to its designated terrorist lists today.

The two were among seven backers and foreign fighters of jihadist groups added to the State and Treasury Department blacklists of specially designated global terrorists, which place them under global financial sanctions.

Others added to the lists include Mark John Taylor of New Zealand, who joined the Islamic State in 2014; Trinidadian Shane Dominic Crawford, another IS foreign fighter; and Tunisian-born Swede Sami Bouras, whom the State Department called a member of Al-Qaeda involved in planning suicide attacks.

Also included were Muhammad Bahrun Naim Anggih Tamtomo of Indonesia and Muhammad Wanndy Bin Mohamed Jedi of Malaysia.

Naim is a Syria-based planner and financier for Islamic State, while Jedi works with IS in Syria and Iraq to recruit new fighters from abroad.

Choudary is the only one of the seven not at liberty. The former lawyer of Pakistani descent was jailed in September 2016 for encouraging support for IS jihadists.

Elsheikh, also British, is a member of an Islamic State execution cell dubbed The Beatles, which is accused of multiple beheadings of captives, according to the State Department.

Elsheikh was said to have earned a reputation for waterboarding, mock executions, and crucifixions while serving as an ISIS jailer, said the State Department, using another acronym for the Islamic State.

Listing the seven on the Treasurys sanctions list aims to deny them access to global business and banking networks by banning any American entities from doing business with them.

That ban can extend to foreign entities like banks with US operations, widening the impact of the sanctions.
News, events, history, and other mid-week tidbits.

Tuesday, October 25, 4:30  7 p.m.

Orr Area EMS Open House

Brats and burgers will be served. Event includes a new ambulance tour and blood pressure screenings. For more info: 218-780-3798.

Orr Fire Hall

4540 Lake St., Orr

Tuesday, October 25, 12  6 p.m.

Essentia Health Job Fair

Talent recruiters and department managers will be on-site at Essentia Health-Virginia. Candidates from all backgrounds are encouraged to attendnurses, nursing and clinical assistants, surgery technicians, radiology technicians, respiratory therapists, human resource professionals, and those interested in environmental services or nutrition services. Essentia staff will greet candidates, conduct an initial screening and filter them to appropriate hiring managers for interviews. Select candidates will be verbally offered a position before leaving. Candidates are asked to bring a resume, but its not required. Attire is business casual. For more info: www.essentiacareers.org.

901 9th St. N., Virginia
As a career hotelier who has been in the industry and assisted hotels in 49 US states and 9 Canadian provinces, I have attended literally hundreds of workshops, seminars and programs. As the industry continues to grow in different directions, the number of courses also evolves which causes us to prioritize our time and funds.

With that in mind, I'd like to suggest one that bills itself as "not just for lawyers anymore." This year's sessions do include topics focused on attorneys' role in supporting hotels and hospitality businesses, as well as for others as noted below.

The sessions for Hotel and Restaurant Corporate Counsel have opportunities for them to meet with peers in facilitated conversations to explore common challenges, solutions and law department management. Breakout sessions and roundtable discussions allow the sharing of common problems and potential solutions as the industry continues to evolve.

I have attended the annual Hospitality Law Conference in Houston 4 of the last 5 years. While I am not an attorney, I have known the conference founder Professor Stephen Barth since 2001 and worked with him on educational and training projects over the years. I have always found these hospitality law conferences to be focused and ideal for networking because of the intentionally smaller size of the group. I find this to be a worthwhile program in that I always learn at least a half dozen new insights or approaches that I can use in my work as an expert witness, a keynote speaker or as one who helps hotel owners to identify and solve problems.

The 2017 conference has changed dates this year from February to April to avoid conflicting with Super Bowl 51 (hosted in February in Houston) and to find a schedule that allowed a broader and more diverse audience to attend.

The opening discussion of the 2017 conference features industry thought leaders who will identify the current and future consequences of current developments that hospitality businesses may face and how to manage them.

Cause and Effect: Noteworthy developments of 2016 and what they mean to Hospitality Owners and Operators moving forward:

Topics include:







Joint Employer

UniteHere

Erin Andrews

M & A 's

Short-Term Rentals

UberEATS et al.







These are just a sampling the decisions, episodes, trends and transactions that affected the Lodging, Food & Beverage industries in 2016.

The General Sessions for all attendees cover a wide range of topics, including:

CAUSE & EFFECT: NOTEWORTHY DEVELOPMENTS OF 2016 AND WHAT THEY MEAN FOR HOSPITALITY OWNERS AND OPERATORS MOVING FORWARD

TRAVEL 2017: EMBRACING A FUTURE REALITY, TODAY

THINK TANK ON DESIGNING THE HOTEL OF THE FUTURE WITH SAFETY & SECURITY IN MIND

CAUGHT ON CAMERA! DEFENDING YOUR LIABILITY CLAIM THROUGH VIDEO ENHANCEMENT & ANALYSIS

TECHNOLOGY TRENDS IN LEGAL PROCEEDINGS  ELECTRONIC DISCOVERY

TOP 100 HOSPITALITY CASES OF 2016

HUMAN TRAFFICKING: LEGAL RISKS AND COMPLIANCE CHALLENGES FOR IN-HOUSE COUNSEL AND THEIR ADVISORS

MANAGING A CRISIS FORUMS

TABLE TOP WAR GAME EXERCISE  MANAGING A CRISIS

The program includes different components and focuses.

The Owner Management Summit brings together hotel owners, hotel management groups, hospitality finance executives and attorneys in open discussions about the changing issues on branding, hotel development, hotel management contracts, as well as the financial characteristics of owning and operating a hotel. It is interesting to watch as specialists in other areas grasp a deeper understanding about what other professionals deal with in development and operational areas, as well as the legal protection needed for all parties.

The Hospitality Insurance and Loss Prevention Summit reviews the top claims that have occurred over the last twelve months and the best practices to prevent them from occurring at your hotel or restaurant. This segment break down the silos of the functional areas of risk management, insurance, legal and finance. This year's topics include Understanding the Rights and Potential Pitfalls That Come With Being Designated an Additional Insured on an Insurance Policy,

as well ongoing discussions on understanding the real costs of slip and fall incidents, identifying some of the common causes and steps to be taken to prevent these incidents. The goal is to find more ways to create a Culture of Safety.

The Hospitality Law Conference also features break-out sessions and roundtable discussions in Lodging, Food & Beverage and Human Resources & Labor Relations.

There are unique Hospitality Forums added this year that follow the successful approach of the popular Ted Talks. In brief, 9 minute presentations, subject-matter experts will deliver focused and convincing presentations on many of the most pressing challenges alarming hotel/restaurant owners and operators, developers, and attorneys involved in hospitality.

This year's Lodging Track focuses on

Management agreements, settling hospitality claims, trends in discrimination including the ADA claims arising out of FMLA, distribution and trending issues in hospitality regulation.

The Food & Beverage Track is produced and presented in coordination with the National Restaurant Association. The focus is on food illness and other food safety claims, liability challenges when serving beverages containing alcohol, premises liability claims, and the essential financial aspects of restaurants.

The Human Resources & Labor Relations Track covers changing laws in privacy and data security in the Hospitality industry, as well as detailed discussion on the US Department of Labor's growing attentiveness to hospitality.

This event covers many complex topics, yet it is structured so that it is user friendly and easy to prioritize. I hope to see many of you this year: April 24-27, 2017, Doubletree Suites- Greenway Plaza, Houston, TX

http://hospitalitylawconference.com/#tile_registration

John Dr. John Hogan CHA CMHS CHE CHO

Dr. John Hogan CHA CMHS CHE CHO
BALTIMORE, Md.  Hunt Valley Inn, the premier destination for meetings, conferences and social escapes in the greater Baltimore area of Maryland's historic horse country, announced today the rebranding of the hotel to into the Delta Hotels Baltimore Hunt Valley. Following a transformative renovation, the Delta Hotels Baltimore Hunt Valley continues to enhance guest experience with the addition this premium, full-service MarriottInternational brand that is streamlined and focused on what the guests really need.

"With the renovations that significantly elevated our product, we look forward to working with Marriott International to further amplify the guest experience as a Delta Hotel, where simple is made perfect" said Martin Svigir, General Manager of Delta Hotels Baltimore Hunt Valley. "The combination of the refreshed product and new brand power will seamlessly provide the area's top accommodations for modern business and leisure travelers, groups and event guests."

On the heels of a recent $15 million property-wide renovation to its 392 guest rooms and 30,000 square feet of event space, the conversion will further establish its longstanding reputation as Baltimore County's leading conference hotel. The property features the area's largest collection of meetings, events and weddings spaces as a new member of the award-winning Marriott Rewards loyalty program. Marriott Rewards members will earn points for their stay at Delta Hotels and can redeem for hotel stays across the Marriott Rewards portfolio of brands.

Focusing on truly meaningful elements that provide its guests with a memorable and frictionless journey, the Delta Hotels Baltimore Hunt Valley follows the brand's promise by providing hassle-free amenities such as a destination bar/restaurant, convenient grab-and-go dining options, conveniently located charging stations, streamlined concierge services and complimentary Wi-Fi. With deep roots in Maryland's picturesque horse country, this transformed hotel offers a contemporary style that blends a country club-like setting and a legacy as a storied dining and social center of the region. The Cinnamon Tree restaurant, a local landmark offers destination dining in a stylish setting. The hotel is superbly situated near Baltimore's business hubs with convenient access to the city's downtown attractions and BWI Airport.

"We remain highly selective in partnerships during this exciting period of global growth for the Delta Hotels brand," said Greg Durrer, Global Brand Leader Delta Hotels. "Hunt Valley Inn has a long, proven track record in hotel operations and management excellence, particularly given its desirable proximity to the major metro areas of Baltimore and Washington D.C."

The Delta Hotels brand encompasses a rich Canadian history. The brand's recent expansion into North America has made the brand one of the fastest growing in the Marriott International portfolio. There are currently 38 Delta Hotels and the development pipeline has the brand growing to more than 80 hotels in the next 18-24 months including growth into major global markets including New York, Shanghai and London.

About Delta Hotels Baltimore Hunt Valley

On the heels of a $15 million property-wide renovation, Hunt Valley Inn has re-emerged as Baltimore's premier destination for meetings, conferences, events, business and personal escapes with a fresh new look, personality and focus. Offering 30,000 square feet of refreshed conference space, 392 redesigned guest rooms, complimentary WiFi and parking, all in a verdant campus setting, Hunt Valley Inn is a true retreat. The hotel is superbly situated  adjacent to the regions bucolic horse country, near Baltimore's business hubs with convenient access to the city's downtown attractions and BWI airport. The Cinnamon Tree restaurant, a local landmark offers destination dining in a stylish and contemporary setting. Additional hotel amenities include the Polo Lounge & Bar, Cafe 245, a swim-through indoor/outdoor heated pool and modern fitness center. For more information call 410.785.7000 or visit http://www.marriott.com/hotels/travel/bwidh-delta-hotels-baltimore-hunt-valley/.

About Marriott International

Marriott International, Inc. (NASDAQ: MAR) is based in Bethesda, Maryland, USA, and encompasses a portfolio of more than 8,100 properties under 30 leading brands spanning 139 countries and territories. Marriott operates and franchises hotels and licenses vacation ownership resorts all around the world. The company offers Marriott Bonvoy, its highly awarded travel program. Connect with us on Facebook and @MarriottIntl on Twitter and Instagram.
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Yesterday, the 19-year-old South Florida sensation known as XXXTENTACION was released from prison, where he had been since July 2016 due to allegedly assaulting his then-pregnant girlfriend. On his second day out, he has made a concerted effort to go after the biggest star in hip-hop. He called Drake a bitch in his first post-prison interview. Hours later, he has brought Drakes mother into the fold. Clearly hes gunning for a response from the More Life rapper.

Drake mom kinda cute, she could get it, tweeted the daring SoundCloud rapper.

To be sure, XXX began taking shots at Drake a couple of months ago, greatly increasing his buzz in the process. From behind bars, he was able to hear a snippet of Drakes KMT, which features London rapper Giggs and was included on the chart-topping More Life. XXX feels that the flow Drake exercised on KMT was stolen from the one he used on his biggest hit, Look at Me, which now has almost 45 million plays on SoundCloud.

The rapping styles on the respective tracks in question are indeed similar, though its not as though the flow supposedly coined by XXX  a sped-up take on the triplet flow  exists in a vacuum. In fact, all the slight variations on this same stop-start way of rapping combine to make this type of flow the most common approach in todays scene. Some readily available names that have proliferated this style include Lil Uzi Vert, Migos, and  before some of these guys could walk  Lord Infamous and Three 6 Mafia.

But if XXXs aggressive pestering of Drake is all to keep his name buzzing while he attempts to deliver a Look at Me follow-up, then hes doing a fine job. Drake will, no doubt, be incensed to see the above tweet that sexualizes his mother. Shall he enter the beef? Hes likely having strategic talks in the OVO war room at this very moment.

XXXTENTACION
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Matadors RUKUS imprint will release a four-track EP titled Haze Moon from Anna on April 14. The impressive release consists of two explosive original cuts, Haze Moon and Far Beyond, alongside remixes from label boss Marc Houle and Matador himself. This marks a shift of gear for the Dublin-based imprint, originally a platform for Matadors own productions, as this year will see a number of artists release on the label.

Elsewhere, Hybrasil unleashed the Adjust EP on Italian label Loose Records on March 24, while on April 24, the RASSOR EP gets a release on Shinedoes Dutch-based Intacto Records. Gregor Treshers Break New Soil, meanwhile, will feature Hybrasils Flexo on the Breaking New Soil compilation on May 1. For good measure, Hybrasils Glorify EP surfaces on Ronnie Spiteris Kenja Records on May 25, while his self-titled label Hybrasil launches on April 10 with a two-track EP.

In other release news, the latest effort from Meath-based producer Mark Greene on Orange Recordings hit online stores on March 6. Based in Holland, techno imprint Orange is headed is up by Steve Mulder.
Not from the same part of town, but we both heard the same sound coming.

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Women-owned businesses face a Catch-22 as they grow: The owners need capital to expand. They raise that money from investors, most of whom are men. But if their ownership stake falls below 51 percent, they no longer qualify for preferences awarded to certified women-owned companies.

Losing the "women-owned" certification can make it harder for these businesses to get contracts with larger companies or the government. In some situations, it also could affect tax incentives and grants or loans from the Small Business Administration.

On Thursday, a group of about 75 women entrepreneurs, policymakers and investors gathered in Houston to discuss ways to address challenges as specific as that. One recommendation offered was to change the certification criteria to "women-led" or "women-run" businesses.

"That's something we can all come together and probably change. It's not a partisan issue," Elizabeth Gore, entrepreneur-in-residence at Dell, told the group at Hotel ZaZa. "It's good for enterprise. It's good for women entrepreneurs. It's great for the economy."

Kimberly Weisul, editor-at-large for Inc. magazine, suggested that in the meantime, women venture capitalists invest in women-owned companies to help them maintain the 51 percent threshold.

Gore applauded organizers of Thursday's #JoinTheCircle luncheon for bringing together a varied group to discuss specific actions. It preceded the second-annual Circular Summit, which drew about 300 this year and runs through Friday.

"I think it is very rare when you get a cross section of not just industries but backgrounds in the room," Gore said. " When that happens, I think it's a much richer conversation about what do we all need to succeed. Some of that's leadership. Some of that's policy. Some of that is just encouragement for folks to support women entrepreneurs."

On another topic, Eileen Gittins, co-founder and CEO of Bossygrl, suggested tax credits for venture capitalists and other investors who put their money into women-led and minority-led businesses.

"We seem to have a president right now who is very interested in tax credits," Gittins said.

The luncheon forum was a continuation of discussions that began in the fall. Dell and Deloitte led a series of dinners that included CEOs and entrepreneurs in San Francisco, Chicago and New York to identify specific policies that women entrepreneurs need to succeed at higher levels.

Based off these dinners, more than 80 people signed a letter in November to the presidential candidates. The letter highlighted ways to expand access to capital, increase access to local and global networks and markets, and help women entrepreneurs thrive in the changing face of technology.

"Already, we've had two bills not just passed but signed by the president for women entrepreneurs and women in STEM," Gore said, referring to science, technology, engineering and math. "So that is an early win that a huge collective group has worked on."

The information gathered from Thursday's luncheon will be included in a presentation to Congress and the White House in late May or early June, Gore said.

"The policies are being seen. We're excited about that," Gore said. "It's up to us to continue the conversation. Continue the momentum."

The Circular Summit is a networking event for women entrepreneurs that provides opportunities to meet investors, mentors and peers and to trade tips for expanding their companies. It's co-chaired by Gore and Carolyn Rodz, Houston-based founder of a digital accelerator program for women called Circular Board.

Among the event's speakers is Cherie Blair, founder of the Cherie Blair Foundation for Women and wife of former British Prime Minister Tony Blair. During the luncheon, however, she focused her comments on the three "C's" that women entrepreneurs need. The first is confidence.

"This is so important for women because, as we all know, somehow or the other we've internalized the idea that we're not good enough," Blair said. "Men, on the other hand, always believe they're absolutely good enough."

After a round of laughter, she detailed the other "C's" as capacity, including education and training, and capital. Nina Vaca, chair and CEO of Pinnacle Group, later recommended adding one more.

"The fourth C is a contract," Vaca said. "Because the best way you can help a woman, is you give her a contract. Because the contract will help float all boats. It will help float the boat of access to capital, the access to education, the access to management."

Houston City Councilwoman Amanda Edwards discussed the mayor's Technology & Innovation Task Force that she initiated. She said it is looking at how the city can be proactive and also "get out of the way" in assisting tech innovation.

"Sometimes you have to explore and take a very deep dive as to what all parties can do to really contribute toward building a stronger ecosystem," Edwards said.
WASHINGTON - The Senate on Thursday advanced President Donald Trump's nominees to lead the labor and agriculture departments and moved the new administration closer to filling the final pair of empty seats in his Cabinet.

In back-to-back tallies just off the Senate floor, two committees sent the nominations of former Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue and law school dean Alexander Acosta to a full Senate vote. Republicans hope to vote next week on confirming Perdue to head agriculture and Acosta at labor.

The Agriculture Committee advanced Perdue's nomination by voice vote. The Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee backed Acosta along party lines, 12-11. Democrats have said they are troubled by Acosta's failure to say whether he would uphold current Labor Department rules and by a political hiring scandal on Acosta's watch as head of the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department.

The potential confirmations, especially Acosta's, would cap Trump's sometimes-bumpy drive to confirm members of his Cabinet, some without the extensive vetting usually conducted on nominees.

Trump's attempts to fill the top labor post have been especially fraught.

The first choice, fast food CEO Andrew Puzder, was beset by problems in Puzder's background that ultimately alienated enough Republicans to push confirmation out of reach.

Puzder withdrew his name from consideration in mid-February. Two days later, Trump nominated Acosta.

At his confirmation hearing, the 48-year-old dean of Florida International University law school said he would stand up to any political pressure from the White House. But Democrats said they were concerned that he would just take orders from Trump, who he called his "boss." They pointed to a Justice Department's inspector general report that said Acosta had insufficiently supervised an employee who was using political tests in hiring.

Perdue, 70, gained bipartisan support during his confirmation hearing by stressing that he has worked with Democrats in the past.
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General Electric started its flirtation almost two years ago, reaching out to Baker Hughes about buying business segments like well completions and offshore cementing as the Houston oil field services company prepared for its merger with local rival Halliburton.

Halliburton and Baker Hughes planned to sell assets to appease federal regulators worried the merger would create monopolies in several markets. It didn't work, and the merger collapsed at the end of last April.

But GE already had its peek under the hood. Wasting little time, GE Oil & Gas CEO Lorenzo Simonelli on May 2 requested a meeting with Baker Hughes' chief executive, Martin Craighead, according to a new filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission that documents the timeline that led to merger between Baker Hughes and GE's oil and gas division.

"Once that transaction didn't take place, I seized the opportunity to really connect with Martin," Simonelli said in a prior interview.

Unlike the Halliburton deal, which started with threats of a hostile takeover, Simonelli entered as a friend who wanted to "discuss potential areas of collaboration  across a range of market segments and product lines," the SEC filing said.

They didn't even discuss a potential merger or acquisition when they met one week later. That topic first arose in mid-July, when Simonelli broached whether Baker Hughes would be willing to sell portions of the company. Craighead said Baker Hughes wasn't interested.

Simonelli tried again in late August, asking to meet with Craighead about a "broader potential strategic combination." GE's chairman and CEO, Jeff Immelt, attended the meeting on Sept. 15 and the talks escalated quickly.

Craighead came away impressed by GE's innovative culture and talent, he said in an interview last year.

"For me, that was the tipping point that there was a deal to be done here," he said.

Rather than a flat-out acquisition, Immelt proposed on Oct. 7 to acquire 65 percent of Baker Hughes and merge it with its GE Oil & Gas division. GE would pay $6 billion in cash to fund a special dividend for Baker Hughes shareholders. That amount was later upped to $7 billion and then to $7.4 billion.

On Oct. 13, Immelt made his "best and final offer," agreeing to reduce the ownership stake to 62.5 percent. Craighead insisted on retaining the Baker Hughes name, and they agreed on the phrasing "Baker Hughes, a GE company."

The final details were worked out in late October. GE increased the proposed breakup fee from $800 million to $1.3 billion. (Halliburton paid a $3.5 billion termination penalty to Baker Hughes.)

The deal was finalized Oct. 30 and announced one day later. The merger - still pending with regulators -is expected to close within a few months.

Immelt will serve as the Baker Hughes chairman and Craighead as vice chair. Simonelli becomes the Baker Hughes CEO, with a seat on the board. GE will control six of the 11 directors.

The combined company will employ more than 70,000, surpassing Halliburton and ranking only behind Schlumberger in oil field services. But, with promises of $1.2 billion in savings by 2020, job reductions are likely.

Craighead will be more than fine. His anticipated golden parachute is about $41 million - much higher than the nearly $29 million promised under the Halliburton deal.
The Harris County Sheriff's Office is holding a man behind bars for Brazoria County theft charges, after dismissing on Thursday capital murder charges against him in a deadly shooting at the Haverstock Hills apartment complex.

Jeremy Jones, 28, is being held in the Harris County jail until he can be transferred to Brazoria, on two charges of theft, including one of felony theft of items valued between $25,000 and $30,000, said a spokesman for the Harris County Sheriff's Office.

Harris County investigators had charged Jones Tuesday with capital murder, in connection with a shooting at the northeast Houston apartment complex that left two dead and four others in critical condition.

His charges were dismissed late Thursday. A spokesman for the Harris County District Attorney's office said Jones' alibi was credible, but he declined to elaborate further.

Jones' 34-year-old brother Harvey Jones was charged Tuesday in connection with the same shooting. Harvey Jones was also still in jail Friday afternoon, facing charges of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon.

The shooting happened Sunday at Haverstock Hills, which has a history of being a breeding ground for crime and gang activity.

Among those injured in the gunfire was former America's Next Top Model contestant Brandy Rusher, 32.

Sam Cammack, one of Jeremy Jones' attorneys for an ongoing and unrelated case, disputed witness' statements that had led to the brothers' arrests.

Jeremy Jones was 15 to 20 miles away from Haverstock Hills during the shooting, Cammack said.

The Jones brothers turned themselves in to authorities late Wednesday night.

Jeremy Jones has pleaded guilty to six felony crimes in Harris County since 2010. Charges include theft of motorcycles or vehicles. At the time of the shooting, he was out on bail after being charged March 8 with unauthorized use of a vehicle.
A League City woman who spent two decades as a yacht captain for dinner cruises and charters is facing more than 10 years in federal prison after pleading guilty in a federal identity fraud case, the U.S. Attorney's Office said Thursday.

Cynthia Lyerla, 53, admitted using the birth certificate of Christina White, a woman who died in 1965, to secure a fresh Social Security number in 1992. It allowed her to obtain a new driver's license and passport along with the documentation necessary to work as a charter boat captain, such as a mariner's license and authority from the Transportation Security Administration to enter secure port areas, officials said.
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Mexican-American studies, which has been at the center of recent controversy in Texas, will be the focus of a three-day conference, March 30-April 1, at the University of Houston.

The conference, "Implementing Mexican-American Studies in Texas Public Schools," will include research presentations from Stanford University and other institutions.

"This kind of ethnic studies are one major initiative that should seriously be considered if we want to improve the academics of the working-class Mexican-American (and) Latino students," said Lorenzo Cano, associate director of the University of Houston's Center for Mexican-American Studies.

Cano said that rigorous studies are proving the power of "culturally relevant pedagogy," a teaching concept created by African-American theorist Gloria J. Ladson-Billings.

Thomas S. Dee, a professor at Stanford's graduate school of education, examined ethnic studies programs in the San Francisco school district. He found that the students who took the courses showed significant improvements.

For instance, by the end of high school, the grade-point averages of ethnic-studies students was, on average, 14 points higher than those of their peers who didn't take the classes.

Conference What: "Implementing Mexican-American Studies in Texas Public Schools"

When: March 30 to April 1 Schedule: Kick-off reception 5:30-7 p.m. Thursday, March 30, at Talento Bilingue de Houston (333 S. Jensen). Conferences: University of Houston (4800 Calhoun Rd.), all day: Friday, March 31: MD Anderson Library (Rockwell Pavilion, 2nd floor).

Saturday, April 1: Auditorium 102, Social Work Building. Price: All activities are free and open to the public. For more information go to the conference website. See More Collapse

Dee also found that ethnic-students had significantly better attendance, and had amassed more course credits by graduation.

Also at the conference, the University of Arizona's Nolan Cabrera will present research on the impact of a large Mexican-American Studies program offered by the Tucson Unified School District. That study concludes that the program was transformative, increasing students' likelihood of passing state standardized tests and improving their graduation rates.

In 2010, the Arizona legislature eliminated the Tucscon program, arguing that the curriculum was too political. Supporters of Mexican-American studies and its opponents continue to battle the program's suspension in court.

Mexican-American studies also remain controversial in Texas, with teachers and education activists pushing to offer the courses in schools and to include the subject's materials in the Texas State Board of Education's list of recommended textbooks.

Last year, the first book proposed for the list by the board, Momentum Instructions' Mexican American Heritage, unleashed a series of protests and mobilized Latino educators with support from other communities. Critics described the book as racist, inaccurate and littered with historical distortions. The state board did not adopt the textbook.

"Schools should consider teaching courses that are related to the people who live in their communities," Cano says. He adds that Houston and Texas, with large populations of Latinos with Mexican roots, would particularly benefit from offering Mexican-American studies.

"These kids are going to be an ever larger share of our labor force," Cano said, "and we need them to be ready to take those jobs that are going to be in demand by the knowledge economy, by the high tech industry and even public institutions like schools and local governments."

Olivia.Tallet@chron.com

Twitter: @oliviaptallet
Nationally, a shift is underway in the Hispanic community. The population's growth was once driven by immigration but is now propelled through births here in the United States.

Today, Asian immigrants have replaced Hispanic immigrants as the fastest growing population of new arrivals to the country. And though the Hispanic community is still rapidly growing, experts in recent years have adjusted their projections of just how much growth to anticipate in the future. Once expected to make up 30 percent of the population by 2050, the Hispanic population is now projected to reach around 25 percent of the population by 2065.

Nationally, the shift seems to signal several important changes, according to Mark Lopez, Director of Hispanic Research at the Pew Research Center. With more growth from births rather than immigration, that means the overall Hispanic population is transforming. The use of the Spanish language in the U.S., for example, "seems to be coming to a peak," he said as more Hispanic Americans report using English at home. "The up-and-coming generation is more English-speaking than we've ever seen," said Lopez.

In the Houston area, the Hispanic population represents 36 percent of the metropolitan area today. And though the Hispanic community's evolution differs from the national narrative now unfolding, it still provides something of an example of some of the challenges that persist.

Houston's Hispanic population is a little different from the national community in significant ways. For one, Hispanic immigration to Houston is still greater than Asian immigration, despite a slowdown. The recession hurt Hispanic immigration, Lopez said, and thus the pace of Hispanic population growth. Growing at an average annual rate of 4.4 percent in the years before the recession, the Hispanic population's growth slowed to just 2.8 percent annually between 2007 and 2014, according to the Pew Research Center.

A large driver of the slowdown in Hispanic immigration both locally and nationally was the shift in Mexican immigration. Between 2009 and 2014, for example, the United States saw a net loss of some 140,000 Mexican immigrants leaving the country. "If there are no jobs," Lopez said, "people aren't going to come."

Still a greater portion of Houston's Hispanic community is foreign-born than the Hispanic population nationwide (39 percent versus 35 percent). But this number is decreasing locally, too. And the metropolitan area has a lower rate of naturalization among eligible immigrants across its immigrant populations than the national average  45 percent versus 60 percent.

But Houston mirrors some national trends as well.

Nationally, the Hispanic population is skewing younger. So while half of all Hispanic people born in the United States are under the age of 19, according to Lopez, more than half (53 percent) of all Hispanic people born in the United States in Houston are under the age of 18, according to census data.

"It's really a story of young people, which means education, issues of entering the work force," explained Lopez.

In Houston, an increasing share of the Hispanic community has some sort of higher education, growing from 26 percent of the adult population to 33 percent in 2015, according to estimates from the American Community Survey.

At the same time, however, Hispanic youth are more likely to be both not in school and not working, according to Kinder Institute research. And the percentage of the Hispanic population living in poverty increased from 22 percent in 2010 to 24 percent in 2015, well above the overall Houston area poverty rate of 15 percent.

Indeed, progress in Houston has not been linear. "U.S-born Latinos have advanced much farther than first-generation immigrants in general, but progress stalls after this point," concluded a 2014 Kinder Institute report on Houston's Hispanic community. "The third and later generations of Hispanics are not obtaining substantially more education or making more money in better jobs than the second generation."

In polling, Hispanic Houstonians are the most likely to agree that "If you work hard in this city, eventually you will succeed," but the limited inter-generational gains suggest there are other barriers influencing that success. Cuban immigrants, for example, tend to come to Houston with higher levels of education than those from Central America. And then there are barriers they face once they arrive, including schools where the local nonprofit Children At Risk estimated almost half of the students were at risk of dropping out and that struggle to ensure all students finish ready for college.

Leah Binkovitz (@leahbink), formerly of the Houston Chronicle, is now a staff writer for Rice University's Kinder Institute for Urban Research. This story originally appeared on the Kinder Institute's blog, The Urban Edge.





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It's past 9 p.m. on a Wednesday, and Stanford Street is still  save a group of Houstonians clip-clopping along the sidewalk toward Allen Parkway.

"No, Andrew! This one's mine," Nisha Randle says through laughter as she dives for a telephone pole.

But Andrew Willis is already there, political flyer in one hand, staple gun in the other. The ping-ping of the staple gun rings out as Willis affixes the flyer to the pole with a smile. He steps away, revealing his handiwork.

This is the route Houstonians walked Wednesday evening while posting "Missing Senator" flyers.

"Missing senator," the flyer declares in large, capital letters, above a photo of U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz.

Willis, Randle and a slew of other local activists from a variety of organizations have been posting these all over the city for a month, hoping to catch the attention of passersby. And it's working.

"I think it works because people don't really hang up posters unless it's a missing cat or something," says Randle, a member of Houston's chapter of Pantsuit Republic.

"As soon as you see 'Missing,' you stop, and you try to figure out what's missing. And that's what draws everybody to it," she says. "They're like, 'Wait. That's not a cat. That's Ted Cruz.' And then they start to read the poster, and they're like, 'Oh, snap. Yeah, Ted Cruz is missing.'"

Cruz is, of course, alive and well. But a group of activists from Pantsuit Republic and other organizations like Drinking Liberally, Women and Allies and Indivisible are voicing their frustration with the senator's lack of appearances at town-hall style programs, where voters can ask questions and raise concerns.

"I've stood outside Cruz's office since December, waiting," says Liz McConnell. "We've done a lot of research on this, and Ted Cruz has not done town halls outside of his campaign. Nothing other than campaign fundraising when he was running for president."

Willis racks his brain for a time in recent months when the public has had access to Cruz. But he can't think of any.

"I cannot find a single instance of him doing an in-person town hall," he says. "We're happy to say we might be wrong about this. But that's what's sad: We can't name a single time."

So these "missing" posters seemed like the best way to reach him. Willis, Randle and others hang them all around the city, making sure to hit spots with heavy pedestrian traffic, as well as areas where Cruz himself might see them.

The signs are pointed and unforgiving. Even the aspect ratio of Cruz's mugshot makes him look wider than he is in real life. He's described the way one would list characteristics of a lost pet: "Very anxious and argumentative around non-Republican constituents." "Will attempt to repeal ACA if cornered."

It's unlikely the senator likes them very much. But there's no way of knowing, since his press office did not return requests for an interview.

"When people see them, either they think, 'Ha, that's witty,' or 'Ha, stupid snowflakes,' or 'Ha, let me go to this website and see what the deal is,'" says Randle.

In the past several weeks, organizers have affixed hundreds of these posters to trees and utility poles throughout the city, Willis says as he uses red duct tape to tack a flyer to a tree on Allen Parkway. The paper's corners curl in from the humid air. The red tape is a conscious effort to get people's attention.

But they have to do it on the down-low  often under the cover of darkness, because posting the flyers on public property is illegal. According to the city code of ordinances, anyone tacking up signs on "any utility pole, tree, fence, fire hydrant, street light standard, traffic light standard, stop sign or other traffic directional sign standard or on any other structure of any kind whatsoever located in the public streets, sidewalks, alleyways, easements, public property or any other public place in this city" is punishable by a minimum fine of $300 and a maximum of $500.

"When I post, I usually look around, and then I run," Randle says. "It's like, I look around, and I'm like, 'Is that a cop over there?'"

The signs would be illegal even if they were just postings about a missing cat. But the odds that someone would enforce the citation are higher in this kind of action, which Willis calls "guerilla theater," than they would be if Willis and his crew were searching for Fluffy.

But it's so worth it, says Willis, noting that the flyers easily went viral through Reddit.

"I think it's hilarious. There's a humor to this. There's a bit of trying to shame him, because he's derelict in his duties," he says. "It's perfect. It's tongue-in-cheek. It's about engagement with a shell of humor so people notice."

He hopes that it gives people a laugh, as well as a chance to scratch their chins and consider whether they've seen Cruz listening to his constituents. The flyers are also teeing up for an upcoming event, the details for which have not been fully fleshed out, but which Willis says might offer constituents a chance to voice their concerns in a town-hall setting.

"We'll see if he shows," Willis says.

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AUSTIN  After weeks of negotiations to get support for a school voucher bill, the Texas Senate on Thursday passed a significantly scaled-back version of so-called 'school choice' legislation that would allow parents to use public school funds to enroll their children in private or parochial schools.

Senate Bill 3, authored by Sen. Larry Taylor of Friendswood, passed on an 18-13 vote. Three Republicans -- Sen. Robert Nichols of Jacksonville, Sen. Kel Seliger of Amarillo, and Sen. Joan Huffman of Houston -- voted against it, while the bill won support from one Democrat, Sen. Eddie Lucio of Brownsville.

The legislation would create educational savings accounts for students who leave public schools and give their parents state money to pay for tuition, tutors and other educational materials. The public school district that a student leaves would be allowed to keep a portion of the per-pupil funding, according to the bill. It also would create student scholarships funded by contributions from businesses, which in turn would receive a tax credit.

After a broader version won approval of the Senate Education Committee this month, Taylor had to narrow his proposal to win the backing of enough senators to bring the legislation to the floor under the chamber's rules.

In particular, Republicans from rural districts, where private schools are scarce, were concerned that it would redirect some state funds that otherwise would go public schools.

The revised bill would limit eligibility to students who have attended a Texas public school for one year before they use either program. It also would apply only to schools in counties with a population over 285,000 and would exclude home-schooled students.

The population cutoff means the voucher program would only be available to parents in about 22 of the state's 254 counties.

For students to be eligible, their family's annual income must be at least 175 percent below the federal poverty line, which amounts to about $78,000 for a family of four.

Defending the modifications, Taylor said they would reduce the bill's cost from $300 million to $9 million over the next two years.

"It does not affect our public school finance system, but it does provide a small number of students the chance to consider something different," he said. "I hope by next session when we come back, people will be asking their senators and House members to expand this and put in more folks."

Democrats and Republicans alike questioned several parts of the revised bill, specifically what accountability measures the legislation would impose on private schools that receive public funds.

Sen. Royce West, a Democrat from Dallas, said private schools, for example, do not have to release standardized test score data like public schools do.

"We won't know if those children are flourishing in those private schools," he said.

Before the vote, Taylor rejected efforts to apply the same standards on public and private schools.
When Dalia Leal moved from the Rio Grande Valley to north Pasadena four years ago, she thought she had arrived in a hot spot for high-end retail businesses.

There was no Macy's or mall where Leal lived; so she had to drive to McAllen for any serious shopping.

"This (Pasadena) was like the top-of-the-top," she said.

As of March 26, Pasadena lost its claim to a Macy's when the store closed at the former Pasadena Town Square Mall, now called Plaza Paseo, leaving some area shoppers and one business owner with mixed feelings about the future of retail in largely Hispanic north Pasadena.

"I used to come to the mall just to go to Macy's, that was the big-name store," Austolia Zambrano said in Spanish.

Zambrano, 70, enjoyed the brand-name choices at Macy's. It was a taste of luxury retail in north Pasadena, said the 35-year resident of the community.

"The shoes, the clothes, jewelry, perfume ... I loved it," she said.

More Information Final Hours of a business Robert Avery reflects on being in Macy's on the last day of business. See Page 3. See More Collapse

When the mall opened in 1982, it was anchored by Joske's, Palais Royal and Foley's, which had been the original stand-alone department store in north Pasadena since the 1960s. In 1987, Joske's became Dillard's and by 2006, Macy's had replaced Foley's.

In a January press release, Macy's Inc. announced the closure of 68 of its stores nationally in 2017 as an effort to "streamline its store portfolio, intensify cost efficiency efforts and execute its real estate strategy." Additionally, employees such as the 78 at the Pasadena store will have the opportunity to gain employment at other area Macy's stores.

Naty Salon and Spa owner Naty Longoria is thinking of a domino effect on businesses.

Longoria, 56, came to Pasadena from Mexico more than 25 years ago with a plan to start her own salon. For 19 years business thrived at the salon on Pasadena Boulevard, directly across the street from the mall. That success was because, in large part, she believes, of the salon's proximity to stores like Macy's and before that, Dillard's.

"The employees that worked at those stores would send us clients," Longoria said in Spanish. "Likewise, our customers would come here and when they were finished they would go straight to Dillard's and Macy's.

"My clients tell me that they are taking the 'luxury' out of the mall," she said.

The city of Pasadena is eyeing possible new businesses for the area, including restaurants and perhaps a grocery store, and the city's economic development is working closely with the mall for other potential developments, city spokeswoman Jennifer Pederson said.

"While we are always sad to see a business close its doors in Pasadena, there are many exciting things on the horizon in this area," she said.

The mention of Plaza Paseo, the new name for the mall, elicited an eyeroll from Longoria, who has seen the mall become close to a ghost town and how that has affected north Pasadena businesses. When Dillard's closed, she said lost at least 20 percent of her customers, but she regained that much business when Macy's opened later that year.

Longoria predicts her salon will see a similar hit with Macy's closing, but that this time there will be nothing to replace it.

"When I first came here (to Pasadena), opening up next to the mall was good for business, the perfect location for the kind of clients I wanted to attract," she said. "We would always refer our customers to our business by saying we were across from the mall because with Macy's and Dillard's there - that gave us prestige. Now (the mall) looks more like a flea market."

Longoria is paying close attention to the upcoming mayoral election in Pasadena and what candidates have to say about revitalizing the northern part of the city amidst a federal judge's decision declaring the city's previous system of electing City Council members discriminated against Hispanics.

"We have seven candidates, three are Hispanic," said Longoria. "Before, they just elected themselves for mayor and now that it's changing, we might get someone who listens and hears people on this side of town, not just to the south. I do have hope."
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Five people have been arrested for selling drugs within a "drug-free zone" in the Richmond area.

According to a news release, the Fort Bend County Narcotics Task Force, which is a Houston HIDTA Initiative (High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area), concluded a narcotics investigation targeting illegal street level sales of crack cocaine, synthetic cannabinoids and phencyclidine (PCP) in the Richmond area.

These investigations are the result of numerous complaints from concerned citizens living in the city of Richmond.

During the early morning hours of Friday, March 31, 2017, Task Force agents, with the assistance of the Fort Bend Regional SWAT and the Richmond Police Department, executed a search warrant at a residence located in the 1700 block of George Avenue in Richmond.

Agents conducted a search of the residence, locating a substantial amount of Synthetic Cannabinoids, Powder Cocaine, Crack Cocaine, Ecstasy (MDMA) and Phencyclidine (PCP). Drug paraphernalia indicative of manufacturing, packaging and distributing these illicit substances was also located inside the residence.

Five people were arrested and booked into the Fort Bend County Jail:

Meegan Robinson, 25, of Richmond. Charges: Manufacturing delivery of a controlled substance X2, first degree felony; and Possession of Marijuana class "A" misdemeanor.

Delverick Allen, 39, of Richmond and currently on parole. Charges: Manufacturing delivery of a controlled substance X2, first degree felony; Manufacturing delivery of a controlled substance X1, second degree felony; and Possession of Marijuana, Class "A" misdemeanor.

Evelyn Hawkins, 36 of Kendleton. Charges: Manufacturing delivery of a controlled substance X2, first degree felony; Child Endangerment, second degree felony; and Possession of Marijuana class "A" misdemeanor.

Artela Lighten, 41, of Houston. Charges: Manufacturing delivery of a controlled substance X2, first degree felony.

Steven Hulett, 38 of Houston and currently on parole. Charges: Manufacturing delivery of a controlled substance X2, first degree felony.

All offenses occurred within a Drug Free Zone, in this case Pink Elementary School.
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COSTA RICA - We all stared wide-eyed at a black-mandibled toucan perched 23-feet in front of us while its outsized, brightly colored beak scooped up chunks of bananas as though eating ice cream.

Kathy and I were leading a group of birders and photographers on a tour of Costa Rica when we saw the bird at Dave & Dave's Nature Park, a privately owned preserve in Sarapiqui.

We stood just outside a 900-square-foot covered and handsomely designed photography platform. The toucan first popped up amidst a dense forest canopy along a hill 230-feet above the Sarapiqui River.

It then flew down to bunched up bananas placed on a tree trunk along the forest edge.

David Lando Ramirez, co-owner of the preserve, explained that when toucans realize the reward is worth the risk of encounters with people, they'll come down from the forest canopy to feed on the handout of bananas.

Meanwhile, we had a show of shows watching the strikingly hued bird. Rapid camera flashes made us seem like the paparazzi shooting photos of Angelina Jolie. Not that the glamorous toucan was a female. Both genders look the same.

More Information Toucans They are: Brightly colored birds of tropical rainforest with large, often flamboyant beaks. Features: Beaks larger in proportion to body size than those of most other birds. Feathers: Gaudy colors on beak and body provide camouflage within the color palette of the environment. Living: Usually live in flocks of about six birds but are often seen foraging alone. Diet: Eat mostly fruits, spreading fruit seeds throughout rainforest. Nesting: Tree cavities and abandoned woodpecker holes provide nesting spots. Where: Colorful toucans, hummingbirds, tanagers and other birds at Dave & Dave's Costa Rica Nature Park, info at sarapiquieco-observatory.com. See More Collapse

The bird is the largest toucan in Central America, with a bicolored beak that is gleaming yellow on the upper mandible offset by dark mahogany at the base and all along the length of the lower mandible. Its head and upper back are maroon-black and the lower back a deep blue-black.

Aqua-green surrounds the eye to accent lemon-yellow on the foreneck and breast, with a thin white and red band separating the yellow breast from the blackish belly. A bright red patch shows beneath a white rump as the black tail extends a half-foot long.

The bulky, 7-inch long beak, which is one-third of the bird's total length, is amazingly lightweight but strong. It's also remarkably dexterous, with the lower mandible hinged against the jaw, somewhat like a human jaw, to move up and down when munching - like on a banana.

The toucan eats on fruits and berries with an occasional delicacy of invertebrates and vertebrates like insects and small snakes.

Before landing on the perch, the bird announced its presence atop the tree with vociferous yelps sounding like "HEY-HEY," y'all, picture me.

And we did.

"Our mission," said Ramirez, "is to turn people on to nature, and we do that by bringing wildlife up close and personal, where you can share space with these beautiful animals."
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Classmates tell a kid on the school bus that his family should start packing to move back to Mexico. A mom who speaks Spanish to her child endures rolled eyes and muttered complaints from others waiting in a checkout line. Chants of "build that wall" ring out at a community event.

Stories like these have dominated recent public-comment sessions at meetings of The Woodlands Township board, which responded last week by adopting a resolution that encouraged inclusiveness. But a climate described as increasingly unwelcoming to immigrants - encouraged, some residents say, by the comments and policies of President Donald Trump - is already taking a toll on the prosperous master-planned community.

"Sadly, we are moving back to Mexico this summer after a wonderful seven years of raising our children in this beautiful place," Perla Soto told the township board on March 22. "Personal and professional reasons motivated this decision, but let me be honest - President Trump's anti-Mexican policies gave us the last push."

Soto said she and her friends are encountering hostility in The Woodlands that they didn't experience a year or so ago. She and others attribute the change, at least in part, to Trump's comments referring to Mexican immigrants as killers and rapists and to his administration's aggressive moves to deport people who are in the U.S. illegally.

The Mexicans who have moved to The Woodlands in recent years are not killers or rapists. They are business owners, entrepreneurs and investors. They buy homes. They create jobs. If enough of them leave, the community could suffer economically.

Some of these immigrants chose The Woodlands in response to a marketing campaign targeting Mexicans who qualify for EB-5 visas, available to foreign nationals who have sufficient means to create jobs and invest capital in American communities.

Maitane Tidwell remembers seeing billboards in Mexico City encouraging wealthy Mexicans to buy homes or start businesses in The Woodlands.

"The campaign to bring Mexicans to The Woodlands worked. It was incredibly successful," Tidwell, whose family moved to The Woodlands four years ago, told the township board. "Now let's keep them here, and let's continue to sell the Woodlands as the multicultural community that it was meant to be from its creation."

Although its founder, the late George Mitchell, envisioned The Woodlands as an economically diverse community, it remains mostly affluent and mostly Anglo.

The median annual household income is more than $111,000, according to the township, with only about 20 percent of households earning less than $50,000. The most recent Census Bureau estimates show that The Woodlands is roughly 75 percent Anglo, 15 percent Latino, 5 percent Asian and 3 percent African-American. The Latino population has increased from 12.3 percent in the 2010 census.

And The Woodlands, like Montgomery County as a whole, is Trump country. An enthusiastic crowd turned out to hear Trump speak last June at the Waterway Marriott Hotel, and five months later, the Trump-Mike Pence ticket prevailed in 89 of the county's 90 precincts. The lone exception was a precinct in Conroe.

The words and deeds of the president of the United States set a powerful example. Tidwell told me she doesn't believe the recent anti-immigrant behavior in The Woodlands is representative of the community; instead, the few who are responsible have been emboldened by the president.

A Mexican businesswoman who lived in The Woodlands until about two years ago made the same point as she described the fear and anxiety felt by her friends who still live in the community.

"I think that if the commander-in-chief discriminates, then he's allowing that behavior," said the woman, who now lives in Mexico City. She asked that I not use her name, noting that her family still owns a vacation house in The Woodlands.

Gordy Bunch, the township board chairman, said board members will continue to meet with community members to learn more about their concerns and will study actions taken by other communities to encourage tolerant, respectful behavior.

Bunch noted that he is Latino on his mother's side, a fact that was overlooked by Latino residents who complained to him that they lacked representation on the board.

"There's bias in both directions," Bunch said.

Perhaps so. But it will take more than a resolution to change the attitudes that led to recent incidents of intolerance. The people responsible may be aware that the national leader their community preferred is being blamed for driving away productive, job-creating residents. But it's doubtful they'd appreciate the irony.
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The niece of a 1980 murder victim said Thursday that she is "accepting the inevitable" two days after the Supreme Court ruled that Texas courts must reconsider whether death row inmate Bobby Moore is intellectually disabled and thus exempt from execution.

On April 25, 1980, Moore fatally shot elderly store clerk James McCarble during a robbery at Houston's Birdsall Super Market, not far from Memorial Park. He told police he and his two accomplices picked the store because two elderly people were running the customer service booth, and the cashier was pregnant.

McCarble's niece Marti Jones was 30 at the time. She and other relatives pushed for the death penalty for decades.

"He went to the trouble of killing my uncle," said Jones, now 67. "He leaned over and looked at my uncle ... and shot him. He could've taken the money that he already had and run."

Family members joined the prison's mailing list to follow the case, Jones said. The past 37 years of litigation included at least two execution dates, one stayed just 10 hours in advance.

After the Supreme Court's intervention this week, Jones said she thinks her family is "accepting the inevitable": Moore likely will never be executed.

"I'm OK with him not dying. I don't care, I really don't care," Jones said. "After this long in prison, hopefully he's learned his lesson."

Jones recalled that her uncle took her to church as a child. More than 15 years ago, she told the Chronicle about McCarble, who worked 35 years at the Birdsall Super Market.

"He was a very giving man, a religious man," Jones said in 2001 after Moore received his second death sentence. "He often paid for people's groceries when they couldn't afford them."

The Supreme Court's ruling struck down the test that Texas' Court of Criminal Appeals developed to help determine whether someone is intellectually disabled, sending Moore's case back for reconsideration.
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On Wednesday afternoon, Dr. Pankaj Satija and his wife, both immigrants from India living and working legally in Houston, were abruptly told by immigration officials they had 24 hours to leave the United States. A new policy, they were told, no longer allowed them to extend their temporary permission to stay while they waited for permanent authorization.

The two doctors, who have been here legally for more than a decade and are highly specialized in their fields, were first astounded, then hysterical. Satija had 90 patients scheduled before the end of the week.

"I was breaking down every two hours," said the 40-year-old neurologist who helped found the Pain and Headache Centers of Texas and performs about 200 operations a month.

The couple have never even been issued a parking ticket and pay their taxes quarterly, rather than once a year. Satija's wife, Dr. Monika Ummat, is also a neurologist specializing in epilepsy at Texas Children's Hospital. They have two young U.S.-born children.

But in the latest example of the government taking an unusually harsh stand on immigration and declining to consider cases on an individual basis, Customs and Border Protection officials told them late Wednesday that they were revoking their permits, giving them just a day to pack their bags, collect their children, and return to India where they haven't lived in 15 years.

On Thursday, desperate, they called their legislators. They took to the media along with their attorneys to plead their case, wearing the blue surgical scrubs in which they had hoped to go to work. And they reported, as ordered, ready to leave the country, to customs officials at Bush Intercontinental Airport, where they were told the agency had suddenly reversed course.

"Somebody at a higher level has made that decision," they were told by an agent. "I understand that you are physicians and a lot of lives are at stake."

'Compelling emergency'

The agency offered the couple three months of humanitarian parole, a rare measure allowing immigrants who are otherwise not permitted to enter the United States the opportunity to do so because of a "compelling emergency," enabling them to sort out their paperwork.

It was an unusual act of grace from an administration that has so far seemed intent on removing as many immigrants as it can, making few exceptions, even for those, like the Satijas, with good reasons to stay.

The Department of Homeland Security and Customs and Border Protection did not respond to questions Thursday. Arwen Consaul, a spokeswoman for U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, said in an email that privacy rules meant the agencies could not comment on specific cases.

But Satija's lawyer, Amber Gracia with Quan Law Group, said the happy ending nevertheless reflects how harsh the administration's policies have become.

"The doctors are extremely lucky to have had the resources that they had," she said from inside the lobby of the CBP offices at the airport shortly after they received the news. "But most people don't have those resources. This shows that things are only going to get more difficult."

The couple's nightmare began with confusion over two conflicting dates on their paperwork. They have been here legally since 2002 after coming to do research and complete medical residencies and fellowships at such prestigious universities as Duke and Baylor College of Medicine.

Around 2008, the Houston Methodist Hospital System sponsored Satija for permanent residency, known as a green card.

But because of rules limiting how many immigrants can actually receive permanent residency each year and a tremendous backlog in the overwhelmed system, the doctors were provided a provisional status until their green cards become available. The category for India is currently so behind that only immigrants who applied for the labor certification before June 2008 are receiving their green cards.

Satija and his wife renewed their temporary work authorizations and their travel documents every two years as required. They bought a house in West University Place and had two children, Ralph, who is 7, and 4-year-old Zooey.

The problem surfaced last year after new but little-known regulations resulted in their travel documents being issued only for one year, unlike their employment authorization which is valid for two years.

Document discrepancy

Further confusing the issue was that Customs and Border Protection officials stamped their travel document saying that it expired in June this year, when in fact fine print by another agency, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, noted that their document actually lapsed in June 2016.

The doctors did not notice the discrepancy.

They had an unusually busy year and were not planning international travel. Then last October, Satija's brother called from Delhi and said that their father was extremely ill and had been admitted to intensive care. The family needed to go right away.

They immediately bought plane tickets and packed their bags. Upon returning to the United States about a week later, a Customs and Border Protection official at the airport noted the mismatch on their travel document and that, in fact, it had already expired four months previously.

"The officer looked at it and said it's a common mistake, that it was no big deal," Satija said.

They were allowed in through a program known as deferred inspection, which permits certain travelers without the correct paperwork to enter the country so that they can fix the error.

"We work on spines and brains. We're not people who can afford to make mistakes. We're extremely careful," the physician said. "It's all hindsight now, but two years versus one year, in such small print, my father being sick  it just slipped our notice."

The Satijas immediately applied to renew their expired travel document, which is known as advanced parole and allows immigrants waiting for their green cards to leave the country while their applications are being processed.

As required, they checked in with Customs and Border Protection officials every month to extend their temporary permission to stay while they awaited the more permanent approval from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

Wednesday they were informed that they had been approved for the advanced parole, but that the paperwork was still in the mail. That same day they checked in again with Customs and Border Protection officials, who said the agency now had a new policy and was no longer able to extend their deferred inspection.

"Somebody up there has decided you have to leave the country in the next 24 hours," the agent told the couple as he gave them until the next day to sort out their affairs.

On Wednesday afternoon the couple convinced the federal officials to allow them to call their lawyers, who advised them not to sign any paperwork. They were told by the agent to return to customs offices at the airport and be ready to leave immediately for India.

The Satijas and Quan Law Group attorneys began furiously making calls. Republican Sen. John Cornyn and U.S. Rep. John Culberson, R-Houston, were immediately responsive, Satija said.

The doctor pressed for a postponement of at least a few weeks, noting that he has dozens of surgeries in the next few days including a critical operation to remove hardware from a woman's spine.

"There's been a technical error made here and our situation is completely an oversight, an error made in innocence," he said. "But taking me and Monika away from our patients right now jeopardizes so much for the citizens of this country."

'Not criminals'

Gordon Quan, the law firm's managing partner, said the dilemma illustrates not only the black-and-white view the Trump administration has taken on immigration matters, but the harshness of the system, the complexity of which most Americans don't understand.

"These are not tough decisions. These are not criminals, not a threat to society," he said. "It's just the rigidity of the system  and instead of trying to work with people, the new administration is just trying to force them out, no matter what."

Satija and his wife, who have hardly slept since Wednesday afternoon, said they were relieved at the decision to allow them to stay - but also sobered.

"If this has happened to us, it can happen to so many other people," Satija said. "The system is certainly broken."
AUSTIN -- Attorney General Ken Paxton suffered a significant setback Thursday when the judge overseeing the securities fraud case against him ruled that the trial will be moved outside his home of Collin County, where prosecutors' claim Paxton allies were attempting to create a sympathetic jury pool.

The delay means Paxton will have the criminal trial hanging over his 2018 re-election campaign which is expected to kick off later this year.

District Judge George Gallagher agreed to the change of venue after prosecutors argued that Paxton supporters started a local radio campaign supporting the attorney general that diminished the chance of a fair and impartial trial. Paxton's team of attorneys countered that there is no proof that Collin County residents had been swayed favorably to the attorney general, citing a recent poll.

"The Special Prosecutors presented nothing but hyperbole in an effort to venue shop," Paxton's lawyers said in a filing.

The judge's ruling offered no explanation for his decision, simply stating that "the Court will transfer venue to an appropriate adjoining district to be determined at a later date."

Paxton's lawyers and the special prosecutors have declined to comment, citing a gag order by the judge.

The decision is the latest twist in a criminal trial nearly two years in the making. Paxton was indicted in 2015 and faces two first degree counts of felony securities fraud and one third degree count of failing to register as an investment advisor with the state. If found guilty, he could face thousands of dollars in fines and up to 99 years in prison. Paxton maintains his innocence and says he is the victim of a political witch hunt.

When and where the trial will be held is now in question. The trial was set to begin on May 1, but the venue change means the proceedings won't be rescheduled until the court has determined where to move the trial.

Adjoining counties include Dallas, Denton, Fannin, Grayson Hunt or Rockwall. Gallagher is a judge in nearby Fort Worth in Tarrant County and has been assigned to the case.

Prosecutors said last month they plan to break Paxton's case into two trials: The first would try him on charges that he failed to register as an investment advisor with the state; the second would take up charges that he misled investors by failing to tell them he would make a commission by convincing them to invest in Servergy, a North Texas tech company that purported to sell a revolutionary new server.

'An ethical problem'

Last month, special prosecutors said Paxton's political allies blitzed various media to color the jury pool. Coined "Team Paxton," special prosecutors said the allies arranged radio ads favoring the attorney general. They also say the group arranged for former GOP primary presidential candidate Rick Santorum to appear on a Dallas-area TV news station to say charges against Paxton are politically motivated.

Last month, Gallagher said he would try to seat a jury in Collin County before considering a change of venue. He did not explain his reversal in Thursday's ruling, but the judge did express concern Wednesday during a court hearing about a 2013 invitation to a political fundraiser.

"We may have an ethical problem," he said, and noted that "people who have a great deal of control in this county" are joining lawsuits that can affect Paxton's criminal trial.

The invitation was to a fundraiser for Paxton in December of 2013 when he was running for attorney general. The event was hosted at the home of Keresa and RJ Richardson, political contributors of Paxton who have recently joined a lawsuit to stop payment to the state's special prosecutors. The lawsuit is part of an effort by Jeffory Blackard, a wealthy real estate developer who contends Collin County should not foot the bill for high-priced lawyers to try Paxton.

Motions denied

Gallagher said the court was not aware that four of five members of the Collin County Commissioners Court were listed as sponsors of the event. Members of the court have been subject to heavy pressure locally to stop paying the prosecutors, although it approved earlier payments to the lawyers. The state's 5th Court of Appeals has since instructed the Commissioners Court to stop payment while the issue works through the legal system.

Gallagher denied two other motions Thursday, including a motion by Paxton's legal team to dismiss one of the charges against him due to issues with the grand jury. The other was a motion by the prosecutors to issue a continuance, delaying the trial until a separate court resolves the lawsuit supported by Blackard and the Richardsons to stop paying the prosecutors trying Paxton. The prosecutors last filed an invoice for more than $200,000 and said they are due back pay for more than a year's worth of work.
AUSTIN -- After weeks of negotiations, the Texas Senate on Thursday passed a significantly scaled-back version of so-called 'school choice' legislation that would allow parents to use public school funds to enroll their children in private or parochial schools.

Senate Bill 3, authored by Sen. Larry Taylor of Friendswood, passed with an 18-13 vote. Three Republicans -- Sen. Robert Nichols of Jacksonville, Sen. Kel Seliger of Amarillo, and Sen. Joan Huffman of Houston -- voted against the bill, while it won support from one Democrat, Sen. Eddie Lucio of Brownsville.

The bill now moves to the House, where it lacks support from a large bipartisan group of members, including Education Committee Chairman Dan Huberty of Humble. In February, Huberty said a school choice proposal was "dead, dead, dead."

The Senate legislation would create educational savings accounts for students who leave public schools and give their parents state funds to pay for tuition, tutors and other educational materials. The public school district that a student leaves would be allowed to keep a portion of the per-pupil funding, according to the bill. It also would establish student scholarships funded by contributions from businesses, which in turn would receive a tax credit.

After a broader version won approval of the Senate Education Committee earlier this month, Taylor narrowed his proposal to win the backing of enough senators to bring the legislation to the Senate floor. Taylor said Thursday that he hastily rewrote parts of the bill minutes before the chamber was scheduled to debate it, prompting concern from colleagues that they did not have sufficient time to review major revisions.

Republicans from rural districts, where private schools are in short supply, had among the strongest reservations to the bill, telling Taylor they were concerned that it would redirect some state funds that otherwise would go to public schools.

The revised bill would limit eligibility to students who have attended a Texas public school for one year before they use the program. It also would apply only to schools in counties with a population over 285,000, based on the 2010 Census count, and would exclude home-schooled students. The population cutoff means the vouchers would only be available to students in 17 of the state's 254 counties, though less populous rural counties could opt-in if they put a proposal on a general election ballot and voters approve it. For students to be eligible, their family's annual income must be at least 175 percent below the federal poverty line, which amounts to about $78,000 for a family of four.

Taylor said the modifications would reduce the bill's cost from $300 million to $9 million over the next two years. Senators had to take Taylor's word on thatestimate, since a fiscal note examining the bill's impact after the changes was unavailable.

"It does not affect our public school finance system, but it does provide a small number of students the chance to consider something different," he said. "I hope by next session when we come back, people will be asking their senators and House members to expand this and put in more folks."

Democrats and Republicans questioned several parts of the rewrittenbill, specifically what accountability measures the legislation would impose on private schools that receive public funds.

Sen. Royce West, a Democrat from Dallas, said private schools, for example, do not have to release standardized test score data like public schools do.

"We won't know if those children are flourishing in those private schools," he said.

Before the vote, Taylor rejected attempts by Democrats to require that private and public schools meet the exact same standards. An amendment to that effect, introduced by El Paso Sen. Jose Rodriguez, failed by a 18-13 vote.Taylor said that, in the bill, non-public schools must be recognized by the Texas Private School Accreditation Commission, so they are not completely without oversight. Still, the legislation says parents must be notified that private schools are not subject to federal and state laws with regard to student disability services, which public schools are required to provide.

Sen. Jose Menendez of San Antonio and Sen. Sylvia Garcia of Houston, both Democrats, echoed concerns from education advocates that the bill shifted lawmakers' focus from spending on public schools.

"On the surface, this sounds wonderful, but I don't think in practice this works as well as it sounds," Menendez said. "I don't believe that this system, when we're far from perfecting our public school system  I don't think this is the answer."

The Texas State Teachers Association slammed the bill as a giveaway to private schools."First the Senate follows Dan Patrick's lead and cuts state funding for public education. Then senators approve his voucher bill to drain even more of our tax dollars from public schools to help a handful of families pay private school tuition," the group's president, Noel Candelaria, said in a statement.

Taylor said the bill was not a one-size-fits-all measure, and he welcomed a later debate about reworking the state's school finance system.

"We need to be working on public schools across the spectrum," he said. "We're trying to reach these kids wherever they are."
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WASHINGTON - Michael Flynn, the former national security adviser, has offered to be interviewed by House and Senate investigators who are examining the Trump campaign's ties to Russia in exchange for immunity from prosecution, according to his lawyer and a congressional official.

But the congressional official said investigators were unwilling to broker a deal with Flynn - who resigned last month for misleading White House officials about his contacts with Russia's ambassador to the United States - until they are further along in their inquiries and they better understand what information Flynn might offer as part of a deal.

In a statement Thursday evening, Flynn's lawyer confirmed discussions with the House and Senate intelligence committees about possible testimony by his client. The lawyer, Robert Kelner, did not provide specifics about the terms under which Flynn would testify but said that "no reasonable person, who has the benefit of advice from counsel, would submit to questioning in such a highly politicized, witch-hunt environment without assurances against unfair prosecution.

"General Flynn certainly has a story to tell, and he very much wants to tell it, should circumstances permit," the statement said.

The Wall Street Journal reported Flynn's offer to testify.

Smaller players first

The FBI is investigating whether any of President Donald Trump's advisers colluded with the Russian government in its efforts to disrupt the 2016 presidential election. An immunity deal would make it impossible for the Justice Department to prosecute Flynn.

It is unclear whether any of Trump's other former advisers have asked for immunity from the congressional committees.

It is common for witnesses to demand immunity in exchange for their testimony to ensure that their words cannot be used to prosecute them. Under federal law, Congress can grant witnesses immunity for their testimony, but lawmakers normally do so only after consulting with prosecutors.

Congress normally avoids doing anything that could disrupt a federal investigation. Federal law allows the Justice Department to delay a congressional immunity deal but not block it outright.

The Justice Department declined to comment Thursday evening.

Some experts cautioned against drawing hasty conclusions about Flynn's request for immunity.

"At this early stage, I wouldn't read anything into this request beyond smart lawyering," said Mark Zaid, a Washington lawyer who specializes in national security cases. "In such a politically charged, high-profile national security case, I couldn't imagine not first asking for immunity."

"I would suspect both Congress and the FBI will first generate additional evidence from smaller players before deciding to immunize General Flynn," Zaid said.

Accidental confession?

In September, Flynn weighed in on the implications of immunity on NBC's "Meet the Press," criticizing Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and her associates in the FBI's investigation into her use of a private email server.

"When you are given immunity, that means that you have probably committed a crime," Flynn said during the interview.

Flynn was fired from his job as Trump's first national security adviser after it was disclosed that he misled the vice president about a conversation he had with the Russian ambassador to the U.S. during the transition.

In the weeks after he resigned, Flynn and his business registered with the Justice Department as foreign agents for $530,000 worth of lobbying work that could have benefited the Turkish government.

The lobbying occurred while Flynn was a top Trump campaign adviser. The Turkish businessman who hired Flynn, Ekim Alptekin, has told the AP that Flynn's firm registered under pressure from the Justice Department.

Also Thursday, the Senate Intelligence Committee opened its investigation into Russia's meddling into the U.S. 2016 election.

Russian experts painted a sinister picture Thursday of Russian meddling in the 2016 election, telling the Senate committee about fake news, cyber trolls, smear campaigns and even slayings they say could have ties to the Kremlin.

The hearing focused on tactics Moscow is thought to employ in spreading disinformation to influence the opinions of Americans and U.S. policy. There were a few unexpected revelations in the more than four hours of testimony from historians, cyber experts and former intelligence officials.

Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., told his colleagues on the committee that during the previous 24 hours, his former presidential campaign team was unsuccessfully targeted - for the second time - by hackers at an unknown internet address in Russia. House Speaker Paul Ryan also was targeted by internet hackers recently, said Clint Watts of the Foreign Policy Research Institute.

Propoganda 'on steroids'

All the witnesses stressed the magnitude of the Russian disinformation campaign not only in the U.S. but Europe as well. Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, the ranking Democrat on the committee, called it Russian propaganda "on steroids." Committee chairman Sen. Richard Burr said the problem is going to require a global response.

"We're within 30 days of what is a primary election in France. It could be that the Russians have done enough to make sure that a candidate that went to Russia recently, a socialist, made the runoff. We could end up with a pro-Russian government in France," said Burr, R-N.C. "We don't know what the effects are going to be in Germany. But we've actually seen them (Russia) build up a party in Germany."

Eugene Rumer from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace said the Russian work is not always conducted in the shadows.

"That Russian effort is before us in plain sight - in state-sponsored propaganda broadcasts on RT (Russia Today) in countless internet trolls, fake or distorted news spread by fake news services," Rumer said.

Watts also said no one is talking about the cache of information that Russia still has.

"They hacked 3,000 to 4,000 people. This hacking was pervasive," Watts said, lamenting how the American people have focused too much on the election season hack of the Democratic National Committee. "They have our information" and could use it later for political purposes.

As the hearing got underway in Washington, President Vladimir Putin weighed in from Russia. He dismissed the allegations as "endless and groundless," telling reporters that they are part of a U.S. domestic political struggle.
From a distance, it looked like any other rocket at Florida's Kennedy Space Center, a soaring tower of thrust and power, ready to blast off into orbit. Upon closer inspection, though, there were signs of something different about this particular rocket.

The Falcon 9's first stage booster was not shiny as they usually are. It was just a touch dull, showing, ever so slightly, the scorched wear from its first launch, almost a year ago - a "flight proven" rocket, as Elon Musk's SpaceX likes to call it. On Thursday evening, almost one year after it had previously flown the Falcon 9 rocket, SpaceX launched it again.

Important milestone

The flight, at 6:27 p.m., marked the first time ever that a rocket had flown a payload to orbit, landed vertically and then was reused. The launch signaled an important milestone, capping years worth of work and some fiery theatrics of boosters screaming back from space only to explode in failed attempts to land on ships at sea.

In December 2015, however, SpaceX was able to land its first rocket on a landing pad at Cape Canaveral. And then a few months later it did it again, this time at sea. Since then, it has made landing rockets as exciting - or more so - than the 3-2-1, bone-rattling liftoffs of fire and smoke that have reignited interest in space.

After the successful launch, an emotional Musk called it, "an incredible milestone in the history of space."

Once aloft, the Falcon 9 boosters perform a bit of aerial acrobatics, turning around and then flying back to Earth. Guided by computer algorithms and GPS navigation, they make their way through the clouds to their target, slowing down by firing their engines again, until they touch down softly, with remarkable, near bulls-eye precision.

Rabid fan base

All of those daring feats, though, are meant to serve a higher purpose than entertaining the company's growing and at times rabid fan base, which treats launches like groupies do rock concerts. The real goal is to dramatically lower the cost of spaceflight, making it accessible as the company pursues its ultimate goal of reaching Mars.

That has taken a lot of ingenuity - and computing power. Up until recently, the first stages of rockets were traditionally discarded, thrown away into the ocean after providing the initial power to escape Earth's gravity.

Delivering satellite

Thursday's flight was the first time a rocket designed to deliver a payload to orbit - a more difficult feat than Blue Origin's suborbital flights - had been launched anew. And it came during a mission to deliver a commercial satellite for SES, a Luxembourg-based satellite operations company, to what's known as geostationary orbit, more than 22,000 miles high.

"What SpaceX did today is a historic accomplishment," said Alan Stern, a former NASA executive and chairman of the board of the Commercial Spaceflight Federation. "They are transforming the future of space exploration."
WASHINGTON - President Donald Trump showed his mounting frustration with the Republicans' stalled Obamacare repeal effort Thursday, threatening to "fight" recalcitrant members of the hard-right Freedom Caucus, including a pair in Texas.

The fighting words came on Twitter, where Trump has been targeting holdouts since last week's decision to pull Republican replacement legislation from the House floor - his first legislative failure, which came for want of Republican votes when the Democratic minority stood uniformly in opposition: "The Freedom Caucus will hurt the entire Republican agenda if they don't get on the team, & fast. We must fight them, & Dems, in 2018!"

It was Trump's third tweet attacking the Freedom Caucus, including one earlier this week: "The Republican House Freedom Caucus was able to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. After so many bad years they were ready for a win!"

Until last Friday's failed vote, the Freedom Caucus counted five members from Texas. Over the weekend, U.S. Rep. Ted Poe of Humble broke with the group, saying it would allow him to be a "more effective" lawmaker.

Two other caucus members from Texas, U.S. Reps. Brian Babin of Woodville and Joe Barton of Arlington, also came along to support the final version of the bill, which offered enough enticements for some conservatives but not enough for others.

In the end, two Texans held out: Louie Gohmert, of Tyler, a high-profile critic on television, and Randy Weber of Friendswood, who said the final product "simply is not yet good enough."

Weber declined to comment Thursday on Trump's implied threat. Gohmert responded on Twitter:

"I understand the President's frustration," he wrote. "I share that frustration w/ a swamp refusing to repeal Obamacare. I am on board for actual repeal."

Brady calls for unity

While Trump played the bad cop, the architects of the GOP replacement bill, including House Ways and Means Chairman Kevin Brady of The Woodlands, were trying a more conciliatory approach.

"There are members who have informally reached out to others in an organic way to find out if there are ideas out there where members who could not get to 'yes' have ideas that could get them to 'yes,'" Brady said Thursday.

Brady made clear, however, that while those conversations will continue, "we are turning our attention to tax reform."

Asked about Trump's tweet threatening to go after the holdouts in next year's congressional elections, presumably by running candidates against them in Republican primaries, Brady was circumspect.

"I'm convinced, to do what's right for America and deliver on our promises, we need to unify behind this president," he said. "He's clearly put out and frustrated by what occurred, and he wants, as we do, to deliver on that promise. So, I'm hopeful."

House Speaker Paul Ryan said he shared Trump's frustration.

"About 90 percent of our conference is for this bill to repeal and replace Obamacare and about 10 percent are not. That's not enough to pass a bill," he said. "We're close, and what we're encouraging our members to do is, keep talking with each other until we can get the consensus to pass this bill. But it's very understandable that the president is frustrated that we haven't gotten to where we need to go."

Barton, the No. 2 Republican on the Energy and Commerce Committee, which had a hand in crafting the bill, made clear in a statement Thursday that despite his earlier misgivings, he is ready to sign on if Republicans try again.

"The Freedom Caucus is working with House Leadership to get to 'yes' on repeal and replace of Obamacare," he said. "Republicans have made a commitment to get rid of this disastrous law and we will not stop until we get there. With the changes incorporated last week, I will vote yes when this bill reaches the House floor."

Infighting continues

White House spokesman Sean Spicer declined to say if the president's latest tweet was meant as a threat, saying he would let it "speak for itself." But he alluded to signs that the resistance on the right may be softening. "I think that there's a few members of the Freedom Caucus, both prior to last Friday's vote and since then, who have expressed a willingness to want to work with him rather than necessarily as a bloc. And I think that there continues to be some promising signs with that."

Since last Friday's humiliating setback, Republicans have been looking for ways to restart their halted effort to jettison or rewrite the Affordable Care Act, which President Barack Obama signed in 2010. U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, another conservative critic of the GOP health care bill, sounded a note of optimism Tuesday, telling a Federalist Society gathering that "There are actually a lot of areas of consensus dealing with Obamacare repeal."

Finding that common ground has proven elusive so far, however, as concessions to hard-right conservatives who have dubbed the bill "Obamacare Lite" threaten to push away moderates who worry about rolling back the health care law's protections for the poor, the elderly and the disabled.

Sparks flew between the two camps Thursday amid reports that New York Republican Chris Collins, a member of the moderate "Tuesday Group," had rebuffed direct negotiations with the Freedom Caucus. "If that call comes in," Collins said, "just hang up."

"This is the definition of intransigent," said Michael Needham, chief executive officer of Heritage Action, one of the leading groups pressuring conservatives to reject the GOP health care bill.

'Not a governing move'

It remains unclear what the White House strategy may be in singling out the most conservative members of the Freedom Caucus, given that the 30-member bloc could be pivotal to tax reform and the rest of the GOP agenda.

"It's never politically wise to chastise those you might need," said University of Houston political scientist Brandon Rottinghaus. "This is a campaign move, not a governing move. That difference has not been clear to the White House so far."

It also is questionable how much leverage Trump has, given that activist groups in many of these conservative lawmakers' districts remain adamantly opposed to the GOP replacement plan. Gohmert won his deeply conservative district last November with nearly 74 percent of the vote, a few ticks better than Trump, who got 72 percent there. Weber won with nearly 62 percent in a district where Trump garnered 58 percent.

"They have more to fear from their constituents who are committed to those conservative principles, and less committed to governing Trump style," Rottinghaus said. "The problem is that they were put in a position of having to vote on something that has been a challenge for the more conservative elements of the party. Parties have to resolve their differences all the time. But typically it's the case that they would resolve those differences before it comes to a vote. That was the biggest strategic failure here."
Sometimes passing a law is a bit like playing poker. If you can't see the sucker at the table, it's you.

Well, we've been looking around the table after Congress rolled back an Obama-era regulation that prevented internet service providers (ISPs) from selling your private information without your permission, and we've got some bad news for the American people.

Ladies and gentlemen, you've been played for a sucker. Every website you visit, every internet search, even your geo-location is up for grabs.

Members of Congress get to do a favor for their big-money donors. Comcast, Verizon, AT&T and other ISPs get to make cash by selling your information. And you just have to live with it.

Plenty of Trump voters have reacted with outrage after watching Republicans in Congress pass the bill, according to a CNN report. They expected Trump to protect their online privacy from big corporations, but the White House has said it will sign off on the change.

Don't like it? You probably don't have much of a choice. Less than 15 percent of Americans have more than two options for basic broadband internet service, according to the Federal Communications Commission. A majority of Americans only have a single option if they want to buy a high-speed service. That's not a market. That's a monopoly.

The communication industry didn't always have a free hand with your personal information. Telephone companies, for example, can't sell your call records. But today's telecoms want special treatment - and one party in Washington is willing to give them exactly what they want. Every single Texas Republican in Congress voted to strip Americans of their online privacy. Every single Texas Democrat voted to protect it.

Why did Ted Cruz and his pals sell you out? Just follow the cash. The Texas politicians who voted for the privacy rollback received nearly $1 million in contributions from telecom-related industries, individuals or political action committees, Chronicle digital producer Fernando Ramirez wrote this week. That's not exactly penny slots, and telecoms are going to keep greasing the wheels to get what they want. It doesn't stop with your private information - telecoms want to own the whole internet by eliminating a policy known as "net neutrality."

It's complicated, but the telecoms basically are trying to replace the freeway of the Internet with their own private toll roads. Be prepared to pay extra or suffer with slower connection speeds if you want to look at websites outside of your ISP's preferred network.

The brilliance of the internet is that it creates the ultimate free market by having everyone compete on the same playing field. Silicon Valley startups would be strangled in the cradle if established players could buy preferential treatment from telecoms.

Congress and Donald Trump are gambling with the future of the internet. Consider the privacy roll-back their first ill-advised bet.
It's hard to imagine a Hill Country bereft of winding rivers, fast-running streams, lazy creeks and deep, green swimming holes. Where would Mystic, Waldemar and Flaming Arrow campers go to canoe, swim and lounge? If the Blanco River no longer traveled through its distinctive white limestone streambed, would tourists still flock to the city of Wimberly?

Jacob's Well, the swimming hole on Cypress Creek northwest of Wimberly, has already stopped flowing twice in the past couple of years. Yet misguided water policy proposals under consideration in the Legislature threaten to permanently harm the Hill Country's scenic and life-sustaining waterways. Lawmakers must protect these precious resources and oppose the legislation that would loosen oversight of groundwater production laws.

Right now a variety of permits are pending for water use in various aquifers that underlie the Hill Country. If all the pending permits for water use were issued, "water levels would drop several hundred feet beneath Hays County, potentially affecting Jacob's Well, Fern Bank Springs and the Blanco and Guadalupe rivers," according to environmentalist Jim Blackburn.

It's not just recreational use of Hill Country streams, creeks and rivers that is in peril. The waterways also support a host of wildlife.

Opposition to legislation filed by state Sen. Juan Hinojosa, D-McAllen, and state Reps. Kyle Kacal, R-Bryan, and Philip Cortez, D-San Antonio, is imperative. The bills - which appear to benefit Greg LaMantia, a politically connected South Texas beer distributor - would result in less regulation of groundwater production.

LaMantia, the owner of the 5,000-acre Needmore Ranch east of Wimberley, is asking for permission to pump as much as 550 gallons of water per minute, for livestock and agriculture, according to the Austin-American Statesman. "Assuming one cow takes 15 gallons of water per day, that is enough water to support 10 cows per acre when most Hill Country ranches run one cow/calf per 8-15 acre," Blackburn wrote in a recent update on water issues in the Texas Hill Country.

Groundwater conservation districts - created by the state to regulate withdrawals of water below the surface of the land and to protect landowners from the negative effects of their neighbors' drilling for water - cover part of the areas affecting the groundwater underneath the Hill Country. But some groundwater conservation districts have rules that are more lax than others.

Under the Hinojosa bill, landowners with more than 1,000 acres that are in the territory of two or more groundwater districts would have the right to choose which district to apply to for permitting. The Cortez bill mandates that groundwater districts issue pumping permits "without notice or opportunity for hearing" to those who own at least 1,000 acres that are in the territory of two or more groundwater districts.

If these bills pass, they will further tilt the water rights' playing field in favor of large landowners at the expense of the public. If too much groundwater is pumped out of the aquifers underlying the surface of the land, then rivers, streams, creeks and swimming holes can be depleted.

Ultimately, to protect all our waterways, the Legislature must address a conflict that lies at the very heart of Texas water law. The water below ground belongs to the landowner, who historically has been able to pump as much as he likes. Yet the water above ground belongs to the state, which has a duty to preserve it under the Texas Constitution. The Legislature must pass responsible legislation to prohibit pumping that depletes these cherished waterways.

Anyone who doubts that Hill Country water is at risk should travel to Fort Stockton in West Texas, stand on the banks of the once abundant Comanche Springs and stare down at the now dusty streambed. The springs dried up in 1951, the year that Clayton Williams Sr., and other owners of ranch land 10 miles west of Fort Stockton had irrigation wells drilled. The well pumps worked so efficiently that the flow of the springs slowed to a trickle within hours after the pumps started, according to an account in the Texas Observer. It's been a decade since the spring has flowed reliably.

There is no other place in Texas like the Hill Country. We must protect its magic for future generations.
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Needed: farmworkers

Regarding "Farmers becoming desperate for labor" (Page B5, Sunday), it seems the farmers have taken a short cut in farm labor for many years by hiring undocumented immigrants rather than building a workforce. Based on the problems in recruiting workers, it appears the farm owners didn't pay or work within the federal wage and hour guidelines, or they didn't pay either employer or employee taxes.

When workers are needed, a good place to start is where there are millions of unemployed. It requires a change in attitude: Busing families from across the country. Finding and financing homes. Paying increased wages.

Also, it sounds like fertile ground for farm-labor unions. Unions for many years have known where and how to get all the workers needed to do any job.

However, the problem is the firms that use union labor must follow the federal and union guidelines, something these farmers seem to be unfamiliar with. Mistreatment of labor only lasts so long before it comes to the lights and causes this kind of trouble.

Chris Fiedler, Houston

Communist China

Regarding "Trump's ideas will help make China great again" (Page A17, Wednesday), China is worried about its smog and related problems; they just launched a massive, ambitious program to get back their blue sky. Under its guided economy system, China is able to achieve its goals.

It is conceivable that China's massive adoption of renewable energy while de-emphasizing coal might yield an early measurable improvement in global climate within four years.

Ariel Jose Thomann, Houston

A&M's traditions

Regarding "Perry's op-ed ignores A&M's major strides" ( Page A23, March 24), in his political commentary about Rick Perry's letter on the disqualification of Texas A&M's elected student-body president, Loren Steffy shows his true colors and they aren't red, white and blue (or maroon and white).

Steffy states that he does not know (or obviously care) why the election winner was disqualified - glow sticks, or something else - but that if the student government administration deliberately erred in their interpretation of campaign finance rules and conspired to throw a student election in the interest of diversity, then it was "a wonderful, wonderful mistake." Really? So, according to Steffy, it would be commendable to throw an election and ignore the rules of due process and democracy in order to advance your own social agenda?

The gentleman is living in the wrong country. And as a proud graduate of Texas A&M and its strong traditions, I respectfully submit that Steffy also attended the wrong university.

D. Sumner O'Neill, Cypress

Alarm bells sounding

Regarding "After America" (Page A33, Sunday), when White House adviser Steve Bannon said before the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) that the Trump administration's nominees to lead the federal agencies were there to "deconstruct the administrative state" (weaken the regulating arms of the federal government), we were put on notice to potential intentions of this administration.

To many of us who have recognized that in the past the federal government has been our last protection from potential abuses of the states, this sounded alarm bells. To those who have been raised hearing the supposed evils of the federal government this was a soothing sound.

Either way, this comment should have alerted America to the potential, hard-to-reverse changes envisioned in the federal government that were not raised during the campaign season.

Ron Curtis, Houston
Texas Senate Bill 25, currently being sent to the House, is a horrible policy rooted in good intentions. SB 25 prevents parents from suing their physician if their child is born with abnormalities or severe health conditions - even if those are discovered during the pregnancy and hidden from the parents.

As it is currently on the books, parents can file a "wrongful birth" claim against their doctor if they can make the case that they were not properly warned about severe health conditions. In legal terms, "wrongful birth" would no longer be a cause of action in malpractice suits.

The concept is clear: Given disproportionately-high abortion rates for fetuses with abnormalities and disabilities (such as Down Syndrome), some physicians and Texas legislators are attempting to curb that trend. If you simply hide medical knowledge about severe health conditions then parents are less likely to terminate the pregnancy, or so the thought goes.

Although these conditions - and subsequent lawsuits - occur rarely, it's worth considering whether this will improve medical care or serve as a veiled measure to restrict and reduce abortion. I find it horribly sad to watch the Down Syndrome population decline rapidly as expectant parents choose abortion instead of raising a child with unique needs, but this bill isn't the way to change that cultural problem.

Sen. Brandon Creighton, R-Conroe, who authored the bill, argues that SB 25, "does not permit a physician to lie[or] decrease a physician's standards of care or responsibilities, period."Representatives of NARAL Pro-Choice America, on the other hand, beg to differ, asserting that "SB 25 would allow doctors to lie to their patients."

The truth is probably somewhere in the middle: While the legislation doesn't exempt doctors from potentially having their medical licensing stripped away if they willfully mislead patients, it certainly muddles their motives. If this bill passes, doctors will have less incentive to provide full medical disclosure, as the proposed law would lower the legal stakes for them.

The consequences of this bill are glaringly obvious: With less knowledge comes less ability to prepare. Having a child with a disability or severe medical issue certainly requires great emotional strength, increased attention, specific knowledge and a great deal of financial planning. Early detection of abnormalities can help parents become more prepared to take on the unique challenges that will persist throughout their child's life. To deny parents the ability to prepare is not only short-sighted, but has potential to harm the child's development if the parents cannot anticipate needs and adjust accordingly.

Even for those who want truly compassionate pro-life policy, SB 25 is a bad approach. If we actually care about helping disabled children have the best possible quality of life, their parents need full information, and physicians need to foster healthy, honest dialogue where patients don't have to worry about physicians' individual morality getting in the way of medical care. Incentivizing information-withholding in the medical industry is a ludicrous idea. And worse, this doesn't help children in need have the best possible chance at success.

I desperately hope Texas Republicans will pursue policies that actually help families prepare for challenging situations and don't make it easier for doctors to engage in unethical practices. Reducing medical information isn't the right way to handle complex ethical issues and will only hurt Texas families.

Wolfe, an Austin resident, is managing editor of Young Voices, an op-ed writing organization based in Washington, D.C. Twitter: @lizzywol.
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Nearly 8 in 10 (77%) Singapore candidates prefer to take responsibility for developing their skills using a combination of self-learning and leveraging on-the job experience, according to a survey by recruitment consulting firm Hays.



Another 16% rely on their employer to provide training and development while 7% take formal courses to add to their skill set.



Unlike past generations, Singapores workforce of today is far more proactive in keeping up with the changing demands for specific skills and knowledge related to their job and sector, said Lynne Roeder, managing director of Hays in Singapore.



There is much to be gained from making the most of mentors and stretch goals at work to take your skills to the next level. Online courses also make it that much easier to keep up with the skills and knowledge needed in your sector.



Results were based on a poll conducted across five key Asian employment markets from January to March this year. Self-learning and on-the-job experience ranked as the preferred method of skills building in all locations:
Refusing to negotiate over wages, denying people their natural justice rights, this isnt what an ethical company looks like, he added.

However, in a rare move for employers, Ceres Organics has chosen to speak out about the allegations, denying all those it deems untrue and explaining any ambiguities.

Ceres Organics remains willing to finalise the collect agreement and negotiate with the union representing members of the distribution centre, it explained in a statement released earlier today.

However, as it has told the union, it will not alter its historic business cycle to make one-off wage increases like that being sought by the union.

First Union is seeking a three per cent raise for members  however, the company has always awarded such increases in July, following its annual business review and forecasting process. Last July, all employees, including union members, received an average wage increase of six per cent.
If you think Gordon Ramsay eats airplane food like the rest of us, you know nothing about the celebrity chef.

In a recent interview with Refinery29, he was asked about his methods for eating on the go and he answered in the most Gordon Ramsay way possible.

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If hes not flying out of terminal five in Heathrow, where one of his own restaurants is located, Ramsay prefers to hit up an Italian bar to eat some meats, drink a glass of red wine and eat some sliced fruit with Parmesan cheese. Im like a pig in shit, he tells the publication.

Gordon Ramsay in the Tag Team/Pop-Up Restaurant episode of Masterchef. (Photo by FOX via Getty Images)

But when it comes to eating on the plane, its a completely different story. Dont even bother asking him if hed like the salmon or the chicken, because theres no fucking way I eat on planes, he says.

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After a decade of working with Singapore Airlines developing their in-flight menus, Ramsay knows enough about airplane food to know that it does not meet his standards and hes been adamant about not being a ready meal fan in the past.

This might not come to be a surprise to anyone whos ever eaten a meal on an airplane, but most in-flight meals are prepared 10 hours before being eaten in catering facilities located near the airport, and heated in convection ovens on the plane, according to Thrillist. Thats why some flight attendants know to pack their own pre-made meals to bring with them.

"Theres no f*%king way I eat on planes."

But Ramsay isnt the only celeb chef who cant stand airplane food. In an interview with Bon Appetit last year, Anthony Bourdain also said he would never eat in-flight meals. No one has ever felt better after eating plane food. I think people only eat it because theyre bored, he said.

Bourdain is instead the type to either bring BBQ onto a flight and have everyone hate him, or, unsurprisingly, the guy who just orders cheese and a lot of wine.

Now if you, like Ramsay and Bourdain, refuse to eat airplane food, there are some healthier options for you to consider. Recently, INSIDER spoke with nutritionist Karen Hansel about the healthiest things to eat on a plane.

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Some of the options she recommends require you to make them at home and bring them with you, such as a turkey or peanut butter sandwich on whole wheat bread, or to purchase items like a banana and Greek yogurt at the vendors at the airport while you wait for your flight.

We have to admit, Ramsay does have a knack for being upfront about things, and once again, he might be right about this one. Maybe next time when youre packing for a trip, think about planning a little meal of your own for when you board the plane.

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A Florida high school is under fire after it posted sexist flyers depicting what good girls wear to prom.

On Monday, a student at Stanton College Preparatory School in Jacksonville tweeted a photo of the posters. The images depicted what types of dresses were allowed to be worn at the school dance. Those that showed some skin  meaning those with crop tops, low-cut backs, thigh-high slits and plunging necklines  were deemed unacceptable. Those that had more coverage were deemed OK.

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The poster with the appropriate dress patronizingly read, Going to Stanton prom? Yes you are. Good girl.

Good thing they told us a week before prom it's not like everyone has their dress already....... pic.twitter.com/3nOKhSTu4R  Lily (@LILwillingham) March 27, 2017

According to the tweet, the dress code was put in place just one week before the school dance. It's not like everyone has their dress already the student sarcastically wrote.

Many have criticized the dress code for being sexist not just because it only applies to girls, but because it sexualizes the teens and implies that girls who show more skin are bad.

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As a result, many took to Twitter to express their outrage. The student body even created the hashtag #scpgoodgirl to let their feelings be known.

EXCUSE ME? Treating girls like dogs & imposing excessive lists of restrictions? WHATS NEXT? "Boys will be boys"? Unacceptable. #SPCgoodgirlhttps://t.co/v2fJBHKwiP  Sarah Lendvay (@sarah__i_think) March 28, 2017

"good girl" this is absolutely disgusting and insulting to all the intelligent young ladies who attend this school https://t.co/kgLBXI0MhI  cam (@camrynDAMNico) March 27, 2017

@DuvalSchools ...perpetuating sexist standards in 2017, and even male students are angered? In FLORIDA?! #youretheproblem#scpgoodgirl  Kate Assad (@CheechLove) March 30, 2017

When people normalise disgusting and sexist dress codes #scpgoodgirlpic.twitter.com/PwbRrUKraU  NinjaPigeon  (@ida_voutila) March 29, 2017

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One Twitter user also noted that the posters perpetuate rape culture.

Your sign is suggesting that females be cautious of what they wear so that males dont get too excited, which exhibits and furthers rape culture dont you think? user Liv wrote in a Twitter photo. Women have shoulders, thighs and backs just like men do. If you and your staff are sexualizing their bodies, it is YOUR problem and you need help.

On top of creating their own Twitter hashtag, the student body wore white and purple  two prominent colours of the suffragette movement  in protest and to show support of female students.

UPDATE for everyone I did not get called to admin and the principal apologized. Also our student body really showed unity today! pic.twitter.com/U7UZ3gR3pv  Lily (@LILwillingham) March 28, 2017

In response, the school quickly pulled down the posters and issued an apology to the students.

The display of prom dress photos at Stanton College Prep is not appropriate or an approved policy. Images were removed on Mon. #SCPgoodgirl  DCPS (@DuvalSchools) March 28, 2017

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The display of prom dress photos pertaining to recommend attire at Stanton College Preparatory School is not an approved policy by the school or Duval County Public Schools, the school said in a statement. The displayed images were immediately removed by school leadership on Monday. Both students and staff have been informed this was not acceptable or appropriate guidance for prom dress attire.

But while many appreciated that the school recognized their error, some claim the admin still needs to do more.

@DuvalSchools Thank you, but you need to follow up to address the underlying issues that made someone think was ok to begin with#SCPGoodGirl  Aamana (@Aamana3) March 28, 2017

@DuvalSchools You need to address this issue. It goes beyond Stanton. This needs to force your schools to finally change.  Broadway Trash (@TrashBroadway) March 29, 2017

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Seventeen year old Lalonie Davis may be young, but she's ready to put just about anyone in their place for trying to shame her body hair.

After sharing a thread on Twitter in late March in an effort to empower women to embrace their body hair, Davis was met with a number of demeaning replies, and said she was even told to kill herself.

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y'all think body hair on girls is gross, i think misogyny is grosser  why can't i do what i want to do w MY body w/o being told to kms? pic.twitter.com/ht3leVzMJr  lalonie (@SLAYLONIE) March 23, 2017

In response, the Los Angeles native, who also works as an illustrator, posted the same photo flaunting her unshaved armpits to Instagram with a similar caption. Making it clear that a woman should not be shamed for her choice to rock body hair.

"A body hair positivity post to remind you all that what I do with my body is MY choice," the teen penned. "You don't have to like it, but please know that misogynistic opinions that shame girls for having body hair while ignoring boys who do will never get me to change who I am."

She continued:

You are lame af if you take time out of your day to police someone's body. I will post what I want and do what I want with my body. Baby girls don't ever let anyone ever make you feel bad for being who you are or doing what you want to do. You are deserving of self respect and love no matter the decisions you make with your body. Body hair is normal and so are you. It's okay to do what you want to do with your body.

But while Davis' words were encouraging, some of the comments she got from other users on the 'gram were the exact opposite. Leaving replies like, "Fucking gross," and "Grow out your leg/arm pit hair and see if your man stays with you."

Thankfully, a number of Davis' followers came through to spread messages of love and positivity.

"You're perfect, and strong, and an amazingly beautiful woman," a user said.

"Slayyyy queen," wrote another.

Unfortunately, the following day, Instagram user prince_don_ made a video about Davis' post, which he claims was not "intended to shame any women or their bodies"  but did just that by calling her photos "nonsense" and "highly un-fucking-attractive."

The part-time artist regrammed the post and left some harsh words for the body shamer.

"I AM SO FLATTERED THAT THIS BOY TOOK TIME OUT OF HIS DAY TO MAKE THIS WHOLE ASS VIDEO EDIT TO DEMEAN WOMEN!!!!," she wrote. "ALSO 'IT'S NOT MISOGYNY' BUT I'VE NEVER SEEN SOMEONE TELL A BOY TO KILL THEMSELVES FOR HAVING ARMPIT HAIR AND GET DEATH THREATS!!!!!"

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Later speaking to Yahoo Style, Davis told the platform that she never intended for the post to become as big of a deal as it did. She simply wished to "show girls that its normal to have body hair even though its often shamed and overlooked."

But despite the unwarranted backlash the teen received, it seems as though more people are learning to embrace women's body hair.

Last week, Wonder Woman fans were pretty pissed off that Gal Gadot's armpits were blurred out, and argued that judging by the story's setting, which takes place in Ancient Greece, the character's underarms should have been a little bit more fuzzy.

Hopefully as time goes on, women's body hair won't even be worth discussing at all. Until then, keep flaunting yourself in whatever way makes you most comfortable, ladies.

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There's no one way to look straight, or gay, or bi, just as there's no one way to look transgender.

Which is why one trans man took to Instagram to prove that every trans person's experience and transition is unique.

Jaimie Wilson posted before and after photos of his transition on the social media site, showing that there is no "tell" when it comes to identifying someone who's trans, but that doesn't diminish who they are no matter what stage of the transition they're at.

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"DONT JUDGE A BOOK BY ITS COVER. I am posting this picture to show that not everyone has to show 'signs' to be transgender. You don't have to pass a test to prove you're trans...and you sure as hell don't need ANYONES approval but your own," Wilson posted on Instagram.

"When I came out people refused to believe I was a man because of how 'Feminine' I presented for 18 years. So why am I posting this comparison? Because I want people to see it doesn't matter what some LOOKS like...if someone has the guts to tell you 'I'm transgender' 'I'm gay' 'I'm bisexual' anything like that PLEASE BELIEVE them and be there for them because stereotypes need to be broken."

The 21-year-old Florida native, who was assigned female at birth and grew up in a very conservative family, told Cosmopolitan.com he knew from an early age that he felt different.

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"I knew from an early age that I felt 'different' but growing up in a religious household I was sheltered  I didn't really know anything about being transgender," he said. "I just remember being as young as five and thinking I was going to grow up to be a guy."

This isn't the first time Wilson has talked about his transition online.

In February, he posted shots of him before and after his transition, pointing out there's no one way to look "masculine" or "feminine."

"At first I was scared to come out as transgender because I didn't give any 'signs' as people say. I looked and presented very feminine...not because I wanted to but because I felt pressured to make the people around me happy.

"When I first came out people tried telling me 'this is not who you are' that's when I realized you are NOT who people think you are...you are who you KNOW you are."

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He also loves sharing throwback pics of himself before and after his transition.

Unfortunately, according to Pink News, Wilson's family hasn't been a part of his life since coming out as trans.

"Coming out as transgender was the best and worst day of my life thus far," he wrote on Facebook.

I miss having my family in my lifeI miss my parents being proud of mebut you know what I dont miss? I dont miss the nights I laid alone battling with my feelingsI dont miss waiting for everyone to leave the house so I could put on masculine clothes and tuck my long hair under a hatI dont miss hiding."

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Looking masculine actually prompted some backlash from the trans community, with some critiquing his appearance as "too masculine."

"People say that I'm trying too hard to be like a cisgendered male," Jaimie told Cosmo. "The first time I came in for an appointment to the doctor, they didn't understand, they thought I was there to transition from male to female!"

His point? That every trans person looks different.

Keep doing your thing, Jaimie!

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gradyreese via Getty Images Shot of two businesswoman working together in an office

By Alexandra Crofton and Tite Nyabenda

This March we saw women come together in celebration of International Women's Day and demand more action to end inequality.

In the conversation of improving women's rights and gender equality, one area often left unmentioned is the tremendous gains women can make simply through the ability to save their money and access credit.

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Clothilde is 24-years-old and the mother of a 4-year-old son. She lives in Ngozi province, Burundi, and is a member of the Ijukiribikorwa savings group. Her story shows the success women can achieve when they have the opportunity to enter and engage in the local economy.

In sixth grade, I started having problems with my mother. She did not want me to continue my studies, because she wanted me to stay home and take care of the housework. I refused to leave school, so I was made to work in the fields, and only permitted to study after I had completed this work.

Because she is a woman, the social and cultural gender norms that shape Clothilde's world relegated her to unpaid housework, and forced her to abandon the opportunities an education could have given her.

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Adolescent girls in Burundi, like Clothilde, face the double vulnerability of being young and being female. They face high rates of sexual exploitation, asset seizure and mistreatment by brothers and males in their communities. They often do not have control over their own time and rely on parental encouragement and permission to participate in activities that take time away from their household responsibilities.

Ultimately, girls are operating within a society that limits their access to purchasing assets, such as business equipment, land and livestock; mobility, and independent decision-making.

My father, who lived in another community, sent me uniforms and books to start secondary school. But my mother continued to try to keep me away from school. When I became pregnant, things became worse for me at home, and I finally left my family's home to seek refuge at the neighbour's house.

Men have a key role in challenging negative gender norms and can, and often do, champion the equal place of women outside the home.

Encouraging men to take active roles in unpaid care and domestic work and adjusting their perceptions around women's productive and reproductive roles goes a long way in enhancing women's economic empowerment.

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When I heard that CARE had created a project specifically to work with girls in our village, I was overcome with joy. I was so interested in the project, I helped recruit girls to join. I was chosen by all the members of the savings groups in our village to become a supervising agent for the project. In our group, we started saving 100 Burundian francs (CAD 7 cents) a week, but after the first year, we increased the stake to 250 BFI.

I was eager to take my first loan of 10,000 BIF (CAD $7.71) to start my beignet business [a type of pastry]. The business was successful, so I took another loan, this time of 50,000 BIF (CAD $38.59) to increase production. With the profit I earned, I opened a small shop, and am now training a boy who will take care of the shop while I make the beignets. I have also now purchased a mobile phone to help with my business, and invested in farming and pig raising.

Removing gendered barriers is essential to ensure that women have equal access to productive resources and economic opportunities.

Through the social and financial support of her village savings and loan association (VSLA), Clothilde was able to have access to finance, purchase a shop, and develop her business skills - opportunities women are all too often denied.

I am now able to support myself and my son without relying on my parents, so I have now taken in an orphan girl. In the two years since I joined the VSLA, I have saved almost 1,000,000 BIF (CAD $771.85) - I will be a millionaire! Many boys approach me proposing marriage, but for me, business comes first, because it is never too late to get married.

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Now, Clothilde is an active and productive participant in the economy -- and a proud, empowered woman.

When more women work, economies grow. This makes women's economic empowerment an issue of social justice and gender equality, as well as an important tool to help women, their families, and their communities escape poverty and build prosperity.

Written by Alexandra Crofton, CARE Canada, and Tite Nyabenda, CARE Burundi

The views expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of CCIC or its members.
In Sunday's Toronto Star, Robin Sears writes that progressives should "blush" about being in the same camp as right-wing populists when it comes to opposing trade deals. He says, "How is it possible that Donald Trump, Marine Le Pen, Bernie Sanders and Jeremy Corbyn are all bosom allies in opposing every trade agreement?"

It is precisely because of "progressives" such as Sears, and their wholesale support for trade agreements, that they find themselves isolated from the very electorate they wish to court.

Much has been written on how the Democratic Party abandoned their working class unionized electorate -- suffering from mass-deindustrialization due to free trade -- pushing them into the hands of Donald Trump. Similar overlaps occur between France's Parti socialiste voters, and Le Pen's Front National voters.

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Progressives who vow to do things differently, and then decide to push the Washington consensus on trade agreements, cause the very disillusionment exploited by the Trumps and the Le Pens of the world.

For as much as a government wishes to enact progressive policies, trade agreements -- such as the Canada-EU Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) and the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) -- curtail their abilities to redistribute income and legislate for the common interest. These deals are vectors of inequality.

Putting the word "progressive" in front of a trade deal -- without substantial changes in the way they are negotiated, enforced, and worded, may assuage the guilt of those who are strong-armed into supporting them, but doesn't actually make them so. It's just false advertising.

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Sears argues that we should support a trade agreement that advances the agenda supporting equality and the environment. Agreed.

But for the last 30 years, nothing substantial has changed in how trade deals are negotiated: in secret with only business interests around the table.

Both the TPP and CETA do not have detailed commitments to environmental and labour protection, but a detailed wish lists of non-binding terms with wishy-washy language. Investor rights, though, are very much protected throughout these agreements with investor state dispute mechanisms.

These documents have very little to do with "protectionism" and tariffs, but rules favoring corporations around encouraging privatization, protecting investors' patents, allowing corporations to have more influence on the regulatory process, and weeding out public interest legislation that business considers too burdensome. They are very much political documents, about the rules of trade, and are hardly economic documents.

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And as trade becomes more important, and the nation state loses its importance and ability to set rules, partly due to trade agreements, partly due to ambient corporate globalization, many on the right long for their racist-based national identities. However, this is not the solution.

The solution to corporate power is to create binding corporate obligations and to create balanced trade agreements that bring democracy in, instead of creating supranational rules to favour corporations. These deals need strong mechanisms to actually reign in inequality, and protect the environment.

And if "progressives" are unwilling to understand that people are yearning for real change on this issue, and become indistinguishable from status quo politicians, they will ensure their own irrelevancy.

Maude Barlow is the National Chairperson and Sujata Dey is the Trade Campaigner of the Council of Canadians.

This blog has been updated.

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Canada is a sanctuary country. President Donald Trump has stirred a lot of enthusiasm in Canada for sanctuary cities. While it makes a great political statement, its also a divisive tactic used by Americans. The "Us" versus "Them" model.

When a person is escaping war or simply wants to immigrate to Canada, the driving force is the idea that Canada is an inclusive, safe country of multiculturalism. There's no thought that a single city in Canada is somehow a sanctuary while the rest of Canada isn't. Declaring a city a "sanctuary city" is a slap in the face of Canadians because a sanctuary city tells the world that somehow the rest of Canada is not a safe place for refugees and immigrants. That Canada is full of anger and hatred towards migrants.

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Undocumented immigrant activists argue that sanctuary cities provide a sense of security that other cities don't. Undocumented people "who need our help and the services of our great city, including ambulance, police, fire stations, women's shelters and even schools, may not be able to access those services, because of their concern that they may be required to provide personal information to city officials and then risk being deported." Activists feel that letting someone who is undocumented have access to all municipal services will make them feel safe against bigotry and hatred. Unfortunately, bigotry and hatred exists in the human heart and that can be a deep pool to drain.

A battered woman will be abused regardless of where she lives. Not going to the police or to a women's shelter is a sad symptom of such abuse. No woman's shelter would refuse entry to an abused woman because she's undocumented. No fire department will not respond to a fire. Similarly, if a neighbour's house is burning, someone will call the fire department if only to save one's own dwelling. It's difficult to believe that an undocumented person would let his dwelling burn down and loose all belongings.

But an undocumented immigrant is fearful of being deported, you say. Yet by remaining undocumented one chooses a lifetime of fear. Fear that creates a "Us" versus "Them" mentality. Where anyone outside the safe zone will hurt you. A sanctuary city implicitly says, "Relax. You can be undocumented here. No one will pick on you. But leave and you're putting yourself at risk."

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That idea has effectively worked in America. It's an easy way to further divide and isolate the population of a country, and in so doing have stronger control over political agendas. Imagine if the mistrust between America's sanctuary cities and other urban and rural places was gone. People wouldn't be arguing about who is breaking the law, flinging labels at one another, or threatening to withhold federal monies needed for infrastructure. Maybe people would get together with their federal representatives and help create an easier and fairer process for citizenship. Recognize the different cultures, accept the people, and move forward onto other important issues -- say, election hacking.

Canadian immigration officers deal daily with undocumented people from different countries. Human trafficking and illegal smuggling of people is an underground industry. Women are put into prostitution rings. People make money off fake passports and sham marriages.

While discrimination and prejudice are part of any society's fabric, Canadians generally make great effort to be inclusive and welcoming. Canada is proudly multicultural, promoting and celebrating cultural diversity in yearly events like Heritage Days and Caribbean Festival. When an advocacy group or politician claims that a sanctuary city needs to exist to protect undocumented immigrants from bigotry and hatred, and make them feel at home and not prosecuted by police, it says two things.

This blows up the idea of an inclusive, respectful nation.

One is that "Canadian justice and authority is bad, so this city will make sure the bad police won't hurt you." The second things is "You're safe here but don't go anywhere else in Canada because those Canadians are hateful, fearful and angry against people like you." Us versus them. On so many levels. This blows up the idea of an inclusive, respectful nation.

Sanctuary cities also ignore the fact that Canada courts foreigners to come here. There is no restriction on which cities can welcome foreigners. Universities make money having foreign students. The contentious Temporary Foreign Worker Program lets any employer bring in foreign workers.

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What breeds suspicion and fear is separating or hiding certain peoples from society. The majority don't understand the immigrants, and the immigrants fear the majority. That's what American society has become. Marginalized. Fractured. Fear driven.

A Canadian sanctuary city is Canada trying to be like the United States. What we forget is that Canadians are at their best when they aren't acting like Americans. And it goes the same for immigrants to Canada. Immigrants (undocumented or documented) shouldn't be sheltered in sanctuary cities. If immigrants truly want to be part of Canadian society and have the respect, compassion and understanding of Canadians, immigrants must be visible, noticed, and vocal. We cannot hide undocumented immigrants and hope they will learn to trust us. Because we won't be able to trust or understand them.

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RadekProcyk via Getty Images Kobane, Syria - March 31, 2015: Destruction of Kobane - kurdish city in northern Syria.

Whether or not you try to ignore it, the six-year-old Syrian Civil War is the shame of our generation.

All people who, like me, are educated, are fortunate enough to live in peace and have access to information in real time, and are parents to tomorrow's generation, have a moral obligation to concern themselves with what is happening in Syria.

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Forget geopolitics that make it all too easy to declare ourselves powerless. Think instead of the Syrian children and teens, of the millions of internally displaced persons and millions of refugee children whose journeys have been much too perilous. We all have a role to play in ensuring a better future for vulnerable children in Syria and in the neighbouring countries that have so generously opened their doors to nearly five million Syrians.

Indifference is not an option, because unless they forced to do so, children do not wage war. They do not bear arms and kill. All children want is to play, to learn and to grow. But to do so, they need to feel safe.

Tragically, the reality in Syria is the exact opposite. Children are constantly targeted; they are attacked. Their houses are hit, their schools destroyed and their playgrounds bloodied.

Hospitals are bombed so often they scarcely have anything to treat injured children. Doctors, lacking medical supplies, can only save those with the best chance of survival.

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The year 2016 was the worst for Syrian children. UNICEF recorded 652 child deaths due to acts of war and 851 children recruited for combat by warring factions. And beyond numbers and statistics, there are the psychological traumas, the nightmares and the despair.

Imagine if you were in Syria, and those were your children. What would you do? In and around Syria, thousands of children are forced to go to work instead of school, and far too many young girls are married off despite their tender age. Like us, their parents are thinking of their children's future, but with so few solutions and choices to survive their poverty and deprivation, they are forced to make these drastic decisions.

My own daughter and son were five and seven respectively when this terrible war broke out. I cannot imagine them growing up assailed daily by fear, hunger and cold. I can much less imagine marrying off my 11-year-old daughter because it is her only chance for a future.

What strikes me even more, when I travel in the area and meet these children's parents, is the pride they feel when they introduce their daughter or son who still has the opportunity to go to school. I have nothing but admiration for them and all their efforts and sacrifices, because these are the children who will be able to help rebuild Syria when the fighting stops.

When people ask me what UNICEF wants, my answer is this: more money to give the children impacted by war the help they need. Moreover, we need free access for our teams on the ground and we need those at war to give them safe passage so they can reach children whose lives are in danger.

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But here is my own personal request for everyone of my generation: try, just for one moment, to put yourself in the place of a Syrian child, and use all of the fear, injustice and hunger that conjures to act. We must demand that parties involved in the Syrian conflict and their supporters cease all attacks against schools, health centres and water infrastructures, and we must ask anyone with any influence in this war to commit immediately to protecting Syrian children rather than attacking them.

The children in Syria must not be forgotten.

Genevieve Boutin is Humanitarian Affairs Chief for UNICEF Middle East and North Africa. She is Canadian and based in Jordan.
Imagine a world with woolly mammoths roaming in the wild, a world where history's creatures come to life. It's a surreal picture but it could all come true within our lifetime. Many are trying to bring back earths lost animals but how ethical is this really?

It's long been a fantasy; ever since Jurassic Park, scientists have dreamed of bringing a species back to life. Also known as resurrection biology (because that doesn't sound creepy), de-extinction is taking the cells and DNA of one organism and then cloning it to recreate a species. Cloning may be the most well-known approach but back breeding and genetic engineering are other methods.

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Take the woolly mammoth for example. After retreating to Siberia during the end of the Ice Age around 10,000 years ago, the species died out. Scientists are now currently looking into creating hybrids of elephants and 'mammoths' by manipulating elephant cells. The Mammoths Revivalists Team at Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering, Harvard has already begun carrying out the stages. They have been using CRISPR genome engineering to copy and paste the mammoths DNA into living elephant cell cultures known as fibroblasts.

The woolly mammoths blood oxygen must be released at lower temperatures and they also have subcutaneous fat for fasting. Due to this, the team have already engineered the elephant's fibroblasts to have these genetic and experimental mutations, along with the well-remembered hairy genes. Manipulating the blood, fat and hair cells of an elephant will help revive, or at least bring about, an extremely similar species.

So, what are the benefits of this?

Firstly, it would bring justice for the animals and plants that humans have drawn into extinction. It's more of a feeling than a fact but it seems obvious for some. If we're the reason they no longer live among us, don't we owe it to them to bring them back? This moral narrative seems a tad insulting to the animals and earth we have hurt. It suggests that we would be righting our wrongs, when really; nothing can excuse or make up for what we have done to our environment.

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Ah, but can we now start to help the environment? Can we begin to put in more of an effort? There is the thought that certain species which have become extinct would be able to better and help the environment if they were re-introduced. The animals would be able to restore threatened or damaged ecosystems. Every animal within an ecosystem has a function. When animals from the past disappeared, many habitats changed for the worst.

The now-extinct passenger pigeon played a great role in shaping the environment. Once known as the eco-system engineer of Eastern North American rainforests, these birds became extinct in 1914. They created canopy thinning due to the size and density of their flocks, breaking leaves and branches allowing for the sunlight to hit forest floors. This let other species on the ground find warmth and vegetation flourish. This wasn't their only effect on the forests. They created fires wherever they went; forest fires. Their droppings were so flammable that they increased the occurrence of forest fires allowing for the regeneration and succession of the habitats. Many believe that de-extinction of animals could help to create rich biodiversity in threatened or endangered habitats.

Not only would it better the environment, it would also better our understanding of these creatures. As our scientific knowledge increases from the experimentation and creation of extinct species, we will be given a better insight on evolution. We will understand in more depth the reasons for their progression and also for their ending. We will begin to learn more about the natural resources we cannot use, taking that knowledge and then applying it to the conservation of currently endangered animals.

...but what are the cons?

Just like most things within the realm of science, there are risks. Although some assume that bringing keystone species back may help the environment, we can't be so sure. These animals would now be alien to their habitats. As the habitat is no longer what it was, the species role within the ecosystem may have also changed. This could actually pose a threat to the other species within the environment as they intrude into the area and become competition to food sources. Once again we're trying to force nature to act in a certain way, rather than letting it remain natural. Humans seem to be unable to have an impact on the environment whatever the context may be.

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Many scientists also believe that priorities would change within the conservation of currently endangered species. Would we still put in the effort to preserve living animals if we knew we could just magically bring them back from the dead? Douglas McCauley, an ecologist at University of California, Santa Barbara, stresses this worry;

"Honestly, the thing that scares me most is that the public absorbs the misimpression that extinction is no longer scary. That the mindset becomes: Deforest, no biggie, we can reforest. If we drive something extinct, no biggie, we can de-extinct it."

It seems as though the money we spend on the de-extinction of animals would be more beneficial going towards the preservation of currently endangered species. Does it not make more sense to focus on the living rather than the dead?

By Frederick William Frohawk (16 July 1861 - 10 December 1946), an English zoological artist and lepidopterist. [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

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Of course, another fear on people's minds is whether it is ethically acceptable to put the animals through this treatment. It may seem a good idea for research and technological advancements but how good an idea is it for the animal's own wellbeing. It does not seem in the animal's interests to be brought back from extinction purely to be used for human purposes. Animals must also be exploited throughout the process of back breeding and genetic engineering. Is this justifiable?

It seems that with the subject of de-extinction, we must look at our reasons for doing such a thing. Are the risks really worth it and who are we truly benefiting in the end?

By Simone Kelly - Online Journalism Intern

Frontier runs conservation, development, teaching and adventure travel projects in over 50 countries worldwide - so join us and explore the world!
Xsandra via Getty Images

Your CV is the gateway between you and that first meeting with a recruiter, hiring manager, or future boss. If you want to get your foot in the door, then you need to write a good one.

Writing a great CV need not take long and the impact on your job search will make that time well spent. Before you hit send on your next job application, follow our five quick tips to improve your CV and get more interviews.

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Focus on your achievements and make it tangible

A wordy CV outlining every detail of your job means that the most important information will get lost. Don't distract from your accomplishments. Cut out the filler and highlight your main, tangible achievements. Use facts and figures if possible. How much did you grow your market? How much revenue did you bring in? How did you make a failing process more efficient and what was the business result? These sorts of tangible achievements will make it much easier for a prospective employer to see your worth.

Always tailor your CV to the role

It doesn't take long to tailor your CV for a new job, but it could make a huge difference. After reading the job description, revise your CV focusing on the work you did and accomplishments you've made that are relevant. If there are any areas you're lacking, think about your transferable skills or life experiences. Candidates often downplay these skills but hiring managers are interested in more diverse backgrounds so don't be afraid to include it.

Update your career summary as well if needed. These details matter. If you send a generic CV, it looks like you don't care much for the job. Tailoring your CV will make you a more competitive candidate.

Keep it simple

Unless you're a designer, keep your CV simple and straightforward. Your goal is to provide information about yourself clearly and succinctly. Fancy fonts or complicated layouts can do more damage than good.

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If it's difficult to read your CV or find basic details on it, then busy hiring managers will not bother to consider you. Don't make their job harder than it already is. Make sure your CV is scan-able and well-structured so that they can quickly get an idea of your experience and credentials. Two pages in length is standard.

Get a second opinion

We all make mistakes, but your CV should present the very best of you. Take care to perfect it. No matter how brilliant or conscientious a writer you are, always ask a friend, family member, or trusted colleague to review your CV before you send it out. Any error could be a deal-breaker. You don't want to lose out on that job because of a silly spelling mistake or misplaced comma.

Double check that your contact details are correct

You'd be surprised how often people are sloppy with their contact details! Ensure that these are correct and prominently placed. If you have an online portfolio or LinkedIn profile with glowing recommendations, make sure to include those details too. And if you're sending an electronic CV, hyperlink to the websites to make it as simple as possible for the recruiter or hiring manager to find out more about you. Just make sure that these profiles are as impeccably presented as your CV.
Image: Binti

To celebrate International Women's Day, The Edinburgh Collection Limited sponsored an art night with the Indo-Canadian aritist, Nimisha Bhanot, famous for her work that sexually liberates women of colour. Her work challenges what we expect from women in a patriarchal society, as her women hold your gaze, and make you think about why you are reacting to her art in that way.

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Nagini (2015) Oil on canvas, 30x48 inches via www.nimishabhanot.com

The event itself was organised by Binti, a charity which promotes menstrual dignity through access to sanitary protection and education globally. The charity also works to #smashshame surrounding periods and menstruation. Something, which was brought up by Binti Ambassador Anila Dhami, as she introduced the evening:

"'They say a picture speaks a thousand words' which I think is the perfect saying for this evening as it is fundamentally about a word difficult to say and speak about. 'Menstruation' is a biological fact for many women around the world yet still has stigma attached to it. I didn't think I would ever be able to speak so openly about it. But it's a real problem - having a lack of sanitary towels or education around it. It's a cause I've now come to think and speak about greatly thanks to Binti.

Art is a form of expression and can be equally, or more, powerful than words. Art has the power to transform beliefs, inform thoughts, and inspire - not just ourselves as we pour ourselves on to paper, but also other in maybe thinking up an idea or inspiring them to act.

Henri Matisse says: 'creativity takes courage'. Nimisha is one woman who has been courageous and 'bold for change' - the theme for this year's International Women's Day. Nimisha is a contemporary Canadian artist whose work critiques the societal role and perception of South Asian women from a bi-cultural lens. Whether portraying badass brides or daughters-in-law, she juxtaposes cultural signifiers against sexually liberated composition to challenge patriarchal expectations of women.

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For me, her paintings are seeing what is difficult to say. They are a challenge to look at because they fuse what is considered the societal 'norm' in our minds with what has stigma attached to it.

Tonight, we're all being bold together and joining Nimisha in smashing shame and stigma around menstruation. Let's be bold for change together - and have fun at the same time!"

Image: Binti

The evening started with mingling and getting to know fellow attendees, before moving on to the painting part of the evening for which Nimisha had chosen a task where participants used her painting as an example and guide.

Her painting, and the paintings for the night were inspired by the fabulous Georgia O' Keeffe who throughout her career denied furiously that her infamous flower paintings were in fact paintings of vulvas. Whether they were or not, they have been interpreted as such, and appropriated by feminism since the 1970s as being empowering.

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Image: Binti

What was truly inspiring however was the way in which each artist used the theme to produce their own unique work, which was revealed during the critique of everyone's work after the painting session.

There were so many amazing responses to what it was that inspired their work but the three that stood out to me were Abbi's, Ahrabi's and Raj's.

Abbi discussed how her painting represented both pain and beauty:

"So I did the legs kind of purple/ blue to represent...bruising or pain, and then the...vagina is like a lotus and...a henna in style, so just something beautiful basically".

Ahrabi's beautiful painting also represented similar themes about how womanhood comes with both beauty and pain:

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"I wanted this to represent the female form, I wanted to put a lot of decoration on it, but then the central point I focused on and couldn't wait to put on is actually this scar over here. Just to represent that...as women we decorate ourselves...we're beautiful, but we all have our scars, and I wanted this to represent that."

From a male perspective, Raj talked about what the two different sides of his painting represented, as one side was filled with dark colours, and the other sunshine and light:

He said that the dark side represented, "all the hurt and pain", that women go through. Whereas, the other side represents, "the happiness that women bring to all of us, they give birth to kings and queens".

If you want to see in full what each artist said about their work, the video from the night is available on Binti's Facebook page.

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Image: Binti

The evening was profound in so many ways but what I think was significant is that it was vulvas that were being drawn. Everyone for example knows how to draw a penis. Yet, if you asked a lot of people on the street they'd hesitate when asked to draw the exact shape of a vulva. Why is this the case?

Manjit K. Gill, founder of Binti, commented that she, "never remembered seeing a vulva", when she was growing up being drawn. That is why she was so inspired by the way in which the painters, "described why they did what they did" (in the commentary). She was especially pleased by the way in which: "It was a safe and open place", in which to discuss vulvas and menstruation.

For me, having a place where women were forced to confront their vulva and what is actually going on 'down there', reminded me of the episode in Orange is the New Black in which a lot of the women in the prison did not realise that they have two separate holes, one for urinating (the urethra's opening is located between the clitoris and the vaginal opening) and one for everything else (the vaginal opening). This is because a women's sexual organ is never talked about in the same anatomical detail as a man's in my experience. I for one had heard of what balls were way before I heard about what the different bits of my own anatomy were (I am not talking about education from class, but 'playground talk' if you will).

Image: Orange is the New Black/ Netflix

Binti however wants it to be something that is talked about and will be holding events regularly to explore every facet of the vulva, including the biology, emotional, spiritual, cultural, and healthy aspects of vulvas, as well as talking about menstruation.

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These events will all be part of Binti's mission to help #smashshame around menstruation. All around the world today there are still stigma's and taboos associated with periods that mean that menstruating becomes something that is simply not talked about. Binti's mission is to get people talking about periods, and replace the shame associated with periods with a message of empowerment. No matter who you are, you should not be ashamed of your body bleeding, when it is something that you cannot control. That means you shouldn't be afraid any longer to openly walk with your sanitary pad or tampon to the toilet to change it instead of tucking it under your sleeve, and you should not have to pay tax for tampons, or other sanitary products (sanitary products are not LUXURY products). Young women should not miss school because they cannot afford or get access to sanitary pads (whether it be in the UK or India) due to that no one talks about how they are necessary items. Binti believes that menstruation should in fact be a stand alone topic at schools because menstruation can start as young as 9 years old.

That is why the need to #smashshame is so important, as not talking abut menstruation affects the population in ways that people do not even realise or imagine. So talk about your period, talk about your vulva (and not just women, men too should let it be known that they are not afraid if these topics are brought up, and bring them up as well). And get painting, drawing, writing and creating too.
Are you compulsive about planning? Congrats, here's another item for your list: "Studio Time"

1) A cozy cafe. A notepad. A pen. Plain A4 papers. Watercolor paints. Fresh cooking ingredients. A half-empty sheet music to be completed by no one other than yourself...

2) Problem sets. Research papers. Midterm exam. Presentations. Grad school applications. The MCAT. Job interviews...

As students, we constantly find ourselves caught in between the two sometimes conflicting sets of things that we would like to do. We are young, creative, full of energy and passion. We want to explore the world in our own ways, dream wildly, and leave an unique mark everywhere we go.

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Yet, is this dreaming realisticty? Aren't our real lives filled withReality... Doesn't reality mean the long, apparently never-ending list of to-do items for the week to come? Why spend your time working on a creative writing piece that you don't even know will get published somewhere and dreaming about life as a bestselling author in the Faraway FutureLand, when you know that a certain standardized test may get you an extremely high-paying job and a great sense of stability/security in 3-5 years?

As renowned primatologist and conservationist Dr. Jane Goodall suggests, every individual makes a difference. But how? Would the latter be a more direct approach than the former, where the level of risk may be higher?

Like many Pomona students, I've been somewhat of a perfectionist who is quite compulsive about planning, from day-to-day homework, meetings, extracurriculars, and events schedule to longer-term research projects. Even the process of planning in itself can take up a great deal of time.

To what end? We may constantly ask ourselves, to what end?. On the one hand, the sheer business of our daily schedules can seem frightening, and deviating from our routines and plans can cause frustration and uneasiness. On the other hand, it feels super rewarding to check our to-do lists.

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Surely, we like to measure success by "products" -- somewhat inevitably so: who wouldn't like to see a nice stack of high-quality, double-spaced papers for all which you proudly claim authorship? To achieve these goals, forward planning is often necessary. Despite all the potential tradeoffs involved, it may be mentally difficult to reduce the level of planning for those of us who are addicted to this idea, perhaps for a similar reason why some people just can't help but to overstudy, flipping through study materials over and over again although you may be sure that you already know them by heart.

Instead of arguing us to change our habits radically, I advocate for what is upon first glance quite the opposite: inserting another to-do item.

It was on another one of those busy days packed with iCal items that writer, artist, and teacher Amy Whitaker spoke at the Athenaeum about "art thinking, or inventing Point B in any area of life," an idea that she discusses in length in her book Art Thinking: How to Carve Out Creative Space in a World of Schedules, Budgets, and Bosses.

While her book partly focuses on how creative individuals bring their ideas into the business world, I have found some of Whitaker (a Williams College graduate)'s suggestions extremely relevant to us as liberal arts college students. In particular, the idea of an one-hour "studio time" every day is particularly appealing to me.

There is not a precise definition of "studio time" -- it can be anything from creative writing to composing a song, to simply doing some sports. Maybe one way to see it is considering it "me time" when we can let everything else go, and simply think about what we'd like to think about, and pursue whatever we want to pursue.

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An hour a day may sound like an awful lot of time when your schedule is literally packed with back-to-back items all day, but the benefits may outweigh the costs. For one, this may allow you to work incrementally on a large-scale, ambitious project.

It can be intimidating to think about publishing a book while being a full-time student or working a day job, but having time set aside daily will allow us to accomplish our goals. Further, although we cannot always gauge the outcomes of our "studio time" precisely, we may likely feel more positive about everything else in life.

We say that the week back from spring break brings us back to reality. Fair enough. After all, finals are coming up in just over a month, and it's also the time of the year to finalize summer/post-graduation plans and think ahead about the types of opportunities we may be applying for in the fall. Indeed, this not-so-healthy stressful mentality has started way back, and arguably, it never really ends.
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At the beginning of May, six regions of England will go to the polls to elect new Mayors of Combined Authorities, giving them control over public spending and the ability to make investment decisions on everything from infrastructure, to the NHS. The elections mark a historic moment in the recent wave of devolution, which aims to hand back control from Westminster to regions and communities.

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The devolution of power to local and regional levels has the potential to radically reshape and improve England's democracy. But at the moment, there's a risk that far from empowering all members of society, devolution processes hand more power to already powerful groups -in simple terms, to the 'male, pale and stale'. Trump caused outrage in January when he signed away the reproductive rights of women in developing countries surrounded by an all-white-male team, and rightly so. Yet closer to home, the Greater Manchester devolution deal in 2014 was signed by 12 white men, with a similarly embarrassing photo. This wasn't a one off; women are underrepresented across local and regional government. Just 55 out of 330 council leaders and four out of sixteen directly elected local authority mayors are women. The region with the longest standing devolution deal, London, has never had a female mayor.

Trump's photo got the public's attention because it so blatantly failed to include the people who would be affected or who could legitimately represent those affected. Was the Greater Manchester devolution deal photo so different? Local government, and the new combined authorities - composed of local authorities represented by their leaders - make hugely important decisions about policies that affect women as much as men. Combined authorities will have power over investment in further education courses, in transport links between different areas, in housing and will set the economic strategy for their area. Some have tax-raising powers and responsibility for NHS budgets. This is a far cry from the stereotypical image of local government organising waste collection.

Many local government policy areas actually have a much greater impact on women than men. For example, local government has oversight of childcare provision as well as responsibility for delivering and funding social care (cut by more than 5billion since 2010). Women, who in 2017 still shoulder the greatest burden of caring responsibilities in the family, are simply more affected by decisions on who gets state-funded care, and how it's delivered. Women need proper, legitimate representation for their voices to be heard, and for the services that affect them disproportionately to be as highly prioritised as other areas. The Northern Powerhouse may need rail links, broadband and roads to succeed, but it will also require 'social infrastructure', such as high quality early-years childcare and services that support families - especially women - with caring responsibilities.

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Women MPs including Trudy Harrison and Jess Phillips have made the case that the job of gender equality in our national parliament is not yet done. They're absolutely correct; but as well as parliamentary democracy, we must turn our attention to local and regional government. Several organisations are rising to this challenge, particularly in the North. DivaManc is working to include the views of diverse groups of women in Greater Manchester's devolution process, ensuring the 'opportunities, wishes, fears and contributions of Greater Manchester women and girls' are reflected. The People's Powerhouse convention, set up by two council chiefs - Jo Miller and Donna Hall - will bring together policymakers, local people and practitioners 'to work together to shape the kind of north we all want to live and work in' - in contrast to a recent Northern Powerhouse conference in which only one-in-seven speakers were women. Our own work at IPPR is looking at what we can learn from initiatives in other countries to improve gender representation in local and regional government.

It's great to see the energy behind projects like DivaManc and the People's Powerhouse - as Jo Miller has said, 'the sisters are roaring'. But to make gender equality in local and regional government a reality, this pressure must be sustained. The current process of devolution places England's democracy at a crossroads. On the one hand, there's a risk that power is handed to people who don't represent the communities they claim to. On the other, we have the opportunity to re-evaluate our democratic processes and institutions, and make sure gender equality is designed in from the start. Let's choose the second; it is the twenty-first century, after all.

Carys Roberts is a Research Fellow at IPPR, the progressive policy think tank, and tweets @carysroberts

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HuffPost UK is running a month-long project in March called All Women Everywhere, providing a platform to reflect the diverse mix of female experience and voices in Britain today
In 2014, as I took the train to London for Balfour Beatty's LGBT network launch I knew that my life would soon change forever. At 43 I had finally come to the decision that I could no longer hide who I really was. I had to come out as a transwoman; no matter the consequences.

For 20 years I had known this but suppressed it. Like most LGBT people who are yet to come out, I was petrified about the impact it could have on my family and career working in the construction industry.

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The impact of not coming out was considerable, particularly for my health. For a decade I suffered from severe panic attacks and anxiety linked to my Gender Dysphoria. While I spoke to my GP, who just prescribed me medication, I still did not feel comfortable to say what the true cause of my anxiety was, even in such a confidential space.

Looking back, Balfour Beatty were the catalyst to me changing to be my true self as I continued to hide and lead a double life until one day I saw a notice at work that they were launching one of the construction industry's first LGBT networks. I don't know why I felt drawn to attend the meeting after so many years suppressing myself but it just felt right to go.

On the train to London I was very nervous. At the end of the meeting I summoned the courage to go up the HR Director present and tell her: " I am a transwoman, I want to come out at work."

I will forever be grateful to the support I received from her and those at Balfour Beatty. Together, we made a plan of how I would come out. I first spoke to my family and close friends and following a meeting with my Managing Director a meeting was called with the entire office where it was announced what was happening. It was incredibly emotional; my Managing Director has since said he found it as touching as when he delivered his daughter's wedding speech.

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After the resounding support from my work colleagues I decided to post on Facebook to share with the rest of the world that I was an open transwoman.

The reaction from people varied. While my parents were initially shocked, and things were difficult at first, they are now fully supportive and call me Christina. My marriage, however, broke down and I ended up getting a divorce in 2015. I had to work hard to educate my children, but thankfully I now see them regularly and they too have accepted me as the person I am.

Some of my closest friends, who I had known for decades, I no longer speak to. However, their loss is my gain. I now have a much stronger and loyal network of friends and being able to be truly myself is priceless.

Balfour Beatty continues to be a bastion of support and, as surprising as people may find it, I have not had any negative experiences working on construction sites as a transwoman - no one bats an eyelid.

I am proud that today I am known as one of the first transwomen to come out in the construction industry. Having people tell me that they have felt able to begin their transition process, and be open at work because of me, makes me realise that, while difficult at times, my decision to transition was the right one.

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My advice to other transpeople on Trans Day of Visibility would be - be yourself. There are so many of us who continue to hide, understandably because of the transphobia that still exists within society, but from my experience the worst of your fear comes from your own mind; you will be surprised at the level of support and care that exists should you look for and want it. The more of us who feel able to be our authentic self means the more those who resist our right to exist and be ourselves will have to change and adjust. I believe I already see that happening now - the mindset is changing and the support is growing.

The world in the past three years has moved forward at an amazing pace and it has been really heartening to see the progress that the trans movement is making. However I know that we still have so far to go and realise that my experience has been an incredibly lucky as not all employers are like Balfour Beatty. Because of that I will keep on driving the movement forward, raising awareness and promoting the needs of the trans community, because their fight for true equality is my own battle too.
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Months before a big trip, you begin to imagine yourself in certain scenes and situations that might be encountered on your new journey. For lack of better insight, you collect your visions from movies, books, and stories told by your friends or family members. You try to mentally prepare yourself for the changes and differences that are about to take place, but you may be basing your thoughts off some false notions. Below is an article that helps highlight some common expectations international students may have about coming to London.

1.)The English accent will not rub off on you over a semester, but the slang might.

The charming English accent is adored by those all over the world, but unfortunately a semester abroad will not allow you to adopt its delivery. However, you are bound to pick up on some British slang. Many people will ask "where abouts" you are from, or if you enjoy riding the "tube", and they will likely say "cheers" instead of "thank you". Soon enough, these phrases will become a natural part of your vocabulary.

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2.)Google maps is not your friend anymore, Citymapper is.

Nothing screams "tourist" like walking in circles trying to listen to Google Maps. If you are an avid Google Maps person, I suggest changing to Citymapper before making your way to London. Citymapper conveniently provides the quickest route on the tube, bus, driving, and by foot. It also shows the estimated price for the tube or bus rides.

3.)Londoners drink as much coffee as tea (maybe even more).

Don't be too quick to kiss your morning coffee goodbye and hop on the English tea game, because the Brits like their coffee just as much as they like their tea. Espresso, macchiato, cappuccino, and Americano can be found and perfected at any coffee shop and even in most restaurants. But if you ARE looking for the classy "afternoon tea" in London, it does not disappoint.

4.)Although public transportation is heavily relied on and easier than you've heard, you will walk A LOT more than you ever have.

Yes, London ranks up there with some of the largest cities in the world. They've mastered public transportation, but don't think that means you get to be lazy. A 10-15 minute walk is known as "just around the corner" so get used to power-walking and bring comfortable shoes. In the (often) occurrence of a tube strike or traffic delay, you'll learn that even the locals are more familiar with the bus routes and underground than they are with the walking commute.

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5.)It is true that Londoners are rather quiet and reserved. However, when it comes to your politics, you will be asked for your opinion.

Making eye contact with a stranger on the street might be taboo in London, but to ask the political views of someone you just met is surprisingly normal. Don't think Londoners aren't educated on politics in other countries. They are very aware and very curious. Your best bet is to educate yourself a little before coming overseas so you can share your insights.

6.)Londoners are always in a hurry- but they are also always late.

You might assume that Londoners are prompt with time because they always seem to be in a hurry, but that isn't quite the case. You can break a sweat running down the escalators in the station and still just barely miss the closing doors of the train you were supposed to catch. Traffic, delays, and hustling through the crowd are indeed things you have to take into account when travelling around this city.

7.)Don't let the sheer tights and heels fool you. It's cold here. Bring your winter jacket.

For the amount of time spent outdoors and the chilling gusts of wind encountered, you will definitely want a winter jacket from November through March. The city has an average temperature of around 5-6C through the month of February, and there's always a slight chance of a light snow.

8.)It doesn't rain ALL the time. You'll catch an inconvenient rain or mist now and then, but London is also filled with sunny days and blooming flowers (especially in the spring).

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British movies seem to do a good job of capturing the random downpours and gothic vibes of London. Inevitably, you'll get a streak of gloomy days where the air feels wet and the sidewalks are lined with puddles. But I promise you will not be deprived of sunshine and a warm breeze in the spring. That first sighting of a cherry blossom is a sign for the lighter, care-free days of enjoying a pint outside the pub.

9.)London has a huge amount of diversity and English is very often not someone's first language.

Stirring the beautiful melting pot, London will give you a taste of people from all over the globe. It doesn't take more than a few hours in the city to realize it is full of different languages, culture, and religion. In fact, it's not uncommon for English to be someone's second, or even third language.

10.) Londoners DO read the paper and it's passed out for free all over the city.
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I came to the UK 17 years ago to pursue my dream of becoming a nurse. I love England and I have raised my family here. My kids are British. I have never had any problem or felt discriminated against, but since Brexit, I've started to feel like a second class citizen.

This week Mrs May has triggered Article 50. I now live in a country, which officially does not have my interests at heart. Last week I called this country 'home'. 'Home' is about respect, about belonging, about feeling safe and valued, about being 100% welcome. But today I don't feel welcome. I've been stabbed in the back, lied to and lied about by the government.

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Again this week the Department of Health have announced another pay increase of just 1% for NHS workers meaning that in real terms is another pay cut as current cost of living rise is standing at 2.3% and is forecast to go even higher in coming months.

Since 2010 due pay stagnation and austerity measures my salary have been cut by 14% on real terms, meaning that now lots of my colleagues are struggling to make ends meet. On the top of that you need to add the uncertainty that Brexit.

By not guaranteeing our right to stay and delaying the decision about our future is sending the wrong message to the rest of the world. By using us as bargaining chips on the EU negotiation table is sending a message that foreigners are no longer welcome to come to the UK. What Mrs May doesn't realise is that nurses and doctors are highly valued and in high demand in other parts of the world like USA, Australia, Germany or Saudi Arabia for example.

Because of this uncertainty since Brexit applications from EU nurses wanting to come here have plummeted by 90%. The UK is no longer the first choice for EU nurses looking for a job. Why a migrant should come to England to settle when he or she don't have any guarantees that will be able to make a future in this country like I did 17 years ago. As a migrant the hardest decision is to leave your country, and the only thing we are looking for when we choose where to settle is a guarantee that we can settle and rebuild our lives and careers there. At present that is not the case of the UK.

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There are an estimated 57,000 EU nationals working for the NHS, including 10,000 doctors and 20,000 nurses plus another 80,000 EU citizens working on the social care system. But the uncertain future means many they are starting to leave. At present, we are so short of nurses, the health service can't afford to lose more health workers.

Mrs May tactics are backfiring. The NHS is so desperate to recruit more nurses and doctors we cannot afford to turn our backs on EU Citizens.

Over the last year I've thought about my own situation. I love England and I have raised my family here. My kids are British. I have never had any problem or felt discriminated against. The NHS is made by over 200 different nationalities and is this diversity what makes it the best health care system in the world because until now it has managed to attract the best of the health professionals from around the world. But now the situation is changing, my EU colleagues have started to leave and more are thinking about moving to better pastures in coming months. If I was single I probably would have packed my bag a few months ago but I have a family to think about. I have also worked very hard to get where I currently am. I love my job and nursing is my passion and why I should leave? Mrs May and the Conservative Party have woken up my fighting spirit.

Someone described me the other day as a mixture of Spanish passion with a British heart. I will continue this fight because after Britain is my home and I want to fight for a better future, for me, my kids, my fellow EU citizens and everyone living in this amazing country called the UK. I have a mission; my mission is to fight together with ALL of you (Brexiters & Remainers) to make sure we make Britain great again.

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Today I don't feel safe or valued anymore, It's a broken home. As I said before, my passport might say I'm Spanish but my heart is British and at present it's breaking my heart.
Okay then, what happens next? The press is full of guidance as to the steps which follow the giving of notice under Article 50. First there will be a White Paper. Then Mr Tusk will send out guidelines regarding the structure of negotiations. The rest of April will be spent by the EU producing a mandate, completed at a summit on 29 April. From then on there will be negotiations, summits, walkouts and all the rest of it with a view to having an agreement ready for ratification in the autumn of 2018.

That all seems simple enough, but it doesn't deal with the difficult bit: how the two sides will handle the negotiation from a political point of view. As always the trick is to look at the domestic politics, in the UK the interaction between Mrs May and her Parliamentary colleagues, in the EU the relationship between the Commission and the various states.

Tennyson's famous poem about the Charge of the Light Brigade describes how:

"Cannon to right of them,

Cannon to left of them,

Cannon in front of them

Volley'd & thunder'd."

It cannot have been very pleasant if you were charging, but at least all the cannons were being fired by the same enemy. Mrs May is in a slightly different position. For her, if the guns ahead are those of the EU, those firing in from the sides are from the home team, a combination of extreme Brexiteers and Remainers who will not be happy unless any deal fits in with their specific requirements. Although their starting points may be different they have in common a rigid opposition to compromise and an insistence that they will only support a deal that gives much the same benefits as the UK currently enjoys, the Remainers being prepared to give up immigration controls for this, the hard Brexiteers being happy to walk away without a deal.

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Like any good general, Mrs May has to decide in which order she is going to deal with her problems and, no doubt conscious that she only has a small majority, she must deal with the domestic ones first or risk her negotiations being derailed when they come to be voted on. So which should it be, Brexiteers or Remainers?

Her tactical decision to neutralise the Brexiteers first was evident from the shape of her negotiating team, which includes the Brexit campaigners David Davis, Boris Johnson and Liam Fox. Let them be the ones who explore the hardline, no concessions, approach. Give them the job of selling to the public a 'no deal' solution. Either they will come across to a more practical way of approaching matters, and it seems that David Davis may already have done this, or they are gradually going to be exposed as "nutters". Either way they will have lost their force as blockers of a sensible compromise.

The cannons on the other side are manipulated by those who not only voted against leaving the EU in the referendum, after all many of us did that, but now insist that a deal will only be acceptable if it provides all the benefits of membership. That means that as the government takes the tough stance which is essential in this sort of negotiation, they will undermine it from the wings. "We cannot accept any limitation to our access to the market", "it would start things off well if we guaranteed the position of EU nationals working here without reciprocal rights for our people", blah, blah, blah. At the moment they are making a lot of noiose, laying down terms to which they say the government must adhere, without any real thought as to whether they are achievable or not. I expect it is fun making lists of conditions in a Westminster bar but it is a pointless exercise unless those conditions have a prospect of being accepted by the EU at a price which the electorate would be prepared to pay.

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Probably the government needs to do little about this particular cohort as their position will look increasingly unrealistic as the EU presents its position. Nonetheless it is going to be tedious if every time a hard negotiating position is taken, there is a group of politicians saying that in that case they will vote down the ultimate deal.

Mrs May only has a small majority and for that reason is vulnerable in Parliament to either of the groups who threaten to undermine her. Still, her popularity with voters is high and even those who would not normally warm to her brand of conservatism see that she has a hard job and wish her well with it. If she is to keep her domestic opponents in line she may need to call on that support, not just from her own party but from members of other parties too. It is not suggested that she should communicate with the voters by twitter feed or indeed change her rather tight-lipped style. Until now her public speeches have been forthright and comprehensible. Provided they continue to be so, the public will cut her plenty of slack and she will be able to appeal to them direct and not rely on normal political networks. There are times when the new populism has its uses.

Move to the other side of the fence and one sees something similar. The EU negotiators will have on their flanks those who believe in some sort of a "punishment" agenda and those, perhaps in Eastern Europe, who are concerned that the UK should continue to make a contribution to their security at any cost. Again, the groups will need to be picked off, and if the negotiators are keen to put through a sensible deal, they should probably let the punishment tide run first. It is only when the EU has considered whether it wants an enemy on its western flank or not that those who believe in compromise will get their heads.

So what are the stages likely to be? First, the two sides will set out their position and they will do it with particular audiences in mind. The UK will be anxious to take a very hard position to kill off internal criticism from the Brexiteers. The EU will let the punishment men call the shots. After six months or so it will look pretty grim and any overt attempt towards compromise will only emerge in late 2018/early 2019 when the more extreme elements on both sides have been discredited. Two possible conclusions are worth bearing in mind. Do not get too distressed at the state of negotiations when the nutters are still being flushed out. They have to be fed with rope so there is bound to be a horrible tangle while they tie themselves in knots. Second, if you are going on holiday to somewhere which does not use the Euro or sterling in the next year or so, it might make sense to buy your currency before the fun starts.

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First published in the Shaw Sheet

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Tuan Nguyen lost his vision when he was 19.

At the time, he was a sophomore in a Vietnamese university and had to quit school because he couldn't keep up with his schoolwork.

There are millions of visually impaired people in Vietnam, and they face enormous educational, professional, and social barriers - inaccessible university examinations impeding their graduation, frequent denials from employers, and stereotypes and discrimination in their communities.

Motivated to create equal opportunity for the blind, Tuan joined UNICEF's UPSHIFT Incubator pilot in Vietnam, which aims to help youth take entrepreneurial action and address local challenges they find in their communities. Leveraging his expertise in IT,Tuan and his team developed a job board and online forum for blind people, both to connect candidates with employers, as well as offer virtual support services and mentoring. The website launched in December of last year.

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Tuan and his team

Tuan's story shows us what young people can achieve when they have the skills and opportunities. That's why today, UNICEF and Pearson are proud to announce a partnership to scale the UPSHIFT programme in Vietnam and introduce a similar programme based on the same principles in Myanmar. Together we hope to empower more young people like Tuan and his team; to equip them with 21st century and employability skills.

Southeast Asia is currently experiencing a staggering youth boom, with more than half of the 630 million people in the region under the age of 20. This is a huge proportion of young people who have the potential to significantly boost the prosperity, stability, and well-being of their countries; to create a future in which they will thrive.

Our joint programme will aim to encourage just that. Through a series of workshops, vulnerable and marginalised youth will learn crucial skills such as critical thinking, communication, teamwork, entrepreneurship, and project management. Just as Tuan and his team did, they will then have the opportunity to apply these skills, identifying and analysing real-world challenges and problems in their communities.

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The workshops in action

We know that businesses have the scale, investment, and expertise to help address the world's biggest challenges. In addition to investing over $1 million, Pearson will contribute to curriculum development, mentoring for participants, and workshop facilitation, to scale up the great work piloted by UNICEF and help empower more young people with better jobs and better lives.

Together, Pearson and UNICEF see the opportunity to directly reach over 3,000 young people in Myanmar and Vietnam, which will in turn impact positively on tens of thousands of their peers as the UPSHIFT ideas and innovations take effect in communities.
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Since becoming Prime Minister, Theresa May has been advancing a view of history: a history of 'Global Britain'. This history grounds her case for Brexit, because, for May, where we are going is intimately bound up with where we have been. May's view of history is designed to do a variety of jobs. It has to justify optimism in the future, by pointing to a past golden age, whilst simultaneously explaining why the present is so unsatisfactory. It must also gloss over episodes which it is no longer fashionable to dwell upon, let alone celebrate. Consequently, it's a selective history: mythology and amnesia in equal measure.

May's 'Global Britain' has a profoundly moral history. After all, 'it was Britain' May argues, 'that took an historic stand to ban slavery two centuries ago'. Britain, then, has a history of 'projecting' it values across the world. For May, British 'history and culture is profoundly internationalist'. Consequently, 'Global Britain' has 'ties of family, kinship and history to countries like India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and countries across Africa, the Pacific and Caribbean.' Although this list points in the direction of Empire, May never uses the word, nor any of its cognates. To refer to Empire would, of course, raise difficult moral issues. Therefore, May refers to the Commonwealth. Sometimes, it would seem, she uses it as a euphemism for Empire. In fact, if May's history is to be believed the Commonwealth has been around for more than a century, and has included India since around 1914.

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Not only did Britain play the leading role in the abolition of slavery, Britain has played an important role spreading freedom and democracy. This, May claims, was Britain's gift to America, a gift that America perfected. Quoting Winston Churchill, she argues that the 'joint inheritance of the English-speaking world' which includes the 'Magna Carta, the Bill of Rights, the Habeas Corpus, trial by jury, and the English common law, find their most famous expression in the American Declaration of Independence', a document which May calls 'the textbook of freedom.'

The foundation of America, was a game changer for Britain's global role. From then on, May claims, Britain and America have been partners, 'bringing peace and prosperity to billions.' '[I]t is through our actions' she argues, 'over many years, working together to defeat evil or to open up the world, that we have been able to fulfil the promise . . . of freedom, liberty and the rights of man.' It was the Anglo-American partnership that won the First World War, and defeated fascism in the 1940s. Similarly, the Berlin Wall fell and the people oppressed by Communism were liberated by 'the freedoms that President Reagan and Mrs Thatcher brought to Eastern Europe.'

Notably, in May's history of Britain c. 1833 to 1990 European nations play a wholly negative or passive role. Fascism in Germany and Italy had to be defeated, France and Poland had to be liberated. Nor is there any sense that European institutions played a role in guaranteeing peace or safeguarding democracy. Rather, 'the Special Relationship . . . made the modern world.' Here May refers to the United Nations, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and NATO, institutions that she claims have been the cornerstone of global peace and prosperity in the golden age which lasted from 1945 to 1990, or thereabouts.

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From this perspective, Brexit is wholly unproblematic. For it is the Anglo-American alliance, a combination of British values and institutions, and US power, which led to global peace and economic growth.

Turning to more recent history, May's history is less rosy. The fall of Soviet Communism, was accompanied by new difficulties. First, 'across the world, ancient ethnic, religious and national rivalries - rivalries that had been frozen through the decades of the Cold War - returned.' What is more, since the early noughties, '[n]ew enemies of the West and our values - in particular in the form of Radical Islamists' have emerged.

The noughties, May claims, were the time when the seeds of the current crisis were sewn. The invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan after 9/11 was a major mistake. Indeed, '[t]he days of Britain and America intervening in sovereign countries in an attempt to remake the world in our own image are over.' On top of this, globalisation failed to benefit working people, and the 'financial crisis and its fall out', made matters worse. Together, these troubles have led to a 'loss of confidence in the West', at the very time when China and Russia, 'countries with little tradition of democracy, liberty and human rights' have become more assertive.

But there is hope. May takes her inspiration from the 1980s, the last decade of uncomplicated Anglo-American triumph: the period in which Reagan and Thatcher won the Cold War. Their victory was achieved 'not just through military might, but by winning the war of ideas.' Brexit, then, is crucial not just to Britain's renewal, but to the global victory of 'open, liberal, democratic societies.' May's implication is that 'the United Kingdom's place in the European Union came at the expense of our global ties'. Therefore, by leaving the EU, Britain can once again play the role of a Global leader. It seems she imagines herself and Donald Trump as a latter-day Thatcher and Reagan, transforming the world through the power of ideas.

A renewed Special Relationship, May claims, will allow Britain and America to 'rediscover our confidence together.' At the same time Brexit will allow Britain to take on a new 'even more internationalist role' once again championing 'international cooperation and partnerships that project our values around the world.'

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The attack outside Westminster last week prompted the predictable Islamophobic backlash which occurs whenever an act of terror is carried out. Britain First and it's ilk took to social media to advocate for tighter borders, stopping Islam and vilifying innocent people. This right-wing rhetoric feeds into the politics of fear used to justify anti-immigrant and anti-refugee policy. Isn't it time we started to look at the wider picture and fight hate by being the accepting and tolerant nation we pride ourselves on being? The answer could be that simple.

In the midst of this political climate, the Dubs scheme for the resettlement of unaccompanied refugee children from Europe to the U.K was closed two weeks ago. The vote ended a scheme originally intended to offer safe refuge to 3000 child refugees after taking in just 350. It made few headlines, and generated little outrage.

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The decision to close Dubs is not only morally reprehensible, but is also counterproductive in the fight to curb radicalisation. This decision, 'justified' to many by the idea that closing our borders keeps us safer, will in fact push vulnerable children in the path of those who would seek to radicalise them. This puts especially these children, but also European citizens and residents in danger.

The construction of this fearful political narrative also blinds people to the dangers facing child refugees in Europe, by giving people an excuse not to engage with the real problem. They can then use hasty convictions to dismiss our nation's responsibility to safeguard refugee minors.

The children this rhetoric has helped slam the door on, are unaccompanied young people currently living in Europe. It is the children who spent months in Calais. It is those en route, somewhere in Italy or Serbia. It is those sleeping in parks in Athens, because the current waiting list for official accommodation for unaccompanied minors is more than 1600 names long. Despite being in supposedly 'safe' Europe, so many are not under official protection, and are therefore without care. Many are sleeping rough, without a reliable source of food or money. On Greek Islands, minors report being detained upon arrival and remaining in jail for up to half a year. When asked what reason was given for their detention, one sixteen year-old from Afghanistan who had suffered this treatment stated, "police say, outside not safe. Here, inside, you are safe". Why are vulnerable children put in detention centres - which are hardly better than prisons - instead of being provided adequate care.

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In Athens, without hope of any other ways of receiving money, some minors are turning to prostitution, hoping to save enough to pay a smuggler to get them to a country where they will be given accommodation and be able to attend school. In Calais a recent mayoral order required charities to stop distributing food to refugees who have returned to the site of the razed 'Jungle' camp. Most of those affected, before the ban was ruled illegal by a court in Lille last week, were minors. In Serbia last month, a fourteen year-old reported being viciously beaten by border police before being attacked by their dogs. This neglect and brutality is the reality facing the children we are unwilling to help. It is because we refuse our assistance, that those who would seek to radicalise them have an opening. They present themselves as the children's only option.

Safe Passage UK reported that if the Dubs Scheme closed, traffickers would make millions. There is no doubt that because of this decision, some minors who could have been resettled in the UK, will instead be sold into slavery in Europe. And some will be radicalised. A report from the Council of Europe warned that European government's inaction also leaves children vulnerable to smugglers and traffickers. Quilliam think tank reported that extremists are recruiting in refugee camps, and specifically targeting unaccompanied minors. 88,300 children, reported as missing by EuroStat, are thought to be at risk of radicalisation.
"Are you apprehensive? It's your first time here, yes?" The sharp-suited Somali with an English accent tipped his Panama hat as we descended onto the heat-blasted runway at Hargeisa airport, North-west Somalia. "There's no need, it's quite safe. The local people would apprehend anyone dangerous long before they reached you. Everyone's on watch you see."

My fellow traveller is a member of Somalia's diaspora and was visiting, like us, to assess the effects of a drought which has raised fears of imminent famine. Somalis heralding from the self-declared state of Somaliland (recognised internationally only as an autonomous region within Somalia), are fiercely proud, not only of the relative security they maintain (armed groups active elsewhere are absent here) but also because of their self-sufficiency as nomadic pastoralists, and their community solidarity in times of crisis.

As the Disasters and Emergencies Committee (DEC) launched its East Africa food crisis appeal back in the UK, we were in Somalia to meet affected communities and see how the CARE International team was scaling up emergency activities. To reach some of CARE's projects we would travel in convoy over 700km from the Somaliland capital, crossing parched rivers within arid landscapes emptied of people, populated only by voluptuous termite mounds, huge structures scattered across the terrain like earthen sculptures. In places where the ground resembled desert, our wheels spun jet streams of dust so thick the guides had to drive in parallel to avoid being blinded. Everywhere, the sun blanched the colour from the remaining wildlife.

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At the point the sky met the horizon, the intense heat created the illusion of water. Other than the abandoned carcasses of goats and sheep by the side of the road, the only animals we passed were occasional thin groups of camels feeding listlessly from acacia trees. Able to survive for weeks without water, these ragged dromedaries, like the rest of Somalia's livestock, were clearly dying. Before the rains failed again in 2016 these animals were destined for Saudi Arabia, a vital market which closed abruptly in December when Saudi authorities cited fears of illness among Somali livestock. When an economy is so dependent on livestock exports as it is in Somalia such bans are crippling, not least because the blockade of war-affected Yemen has prevented sales to Somalia's other main trading partner.

After two days we stopped in the village of Garadag: a few single-storey concrete structures and numerous sheds with corrugated roofs huddled around a central well. Over the preceding months, as rivers had dried up, Garadag's numbers had swelled. Nearby, dozens of displaced families had set up temporary shelters, arriving in the village searching for water, food and support. We asked Somali colleagues and community leaders if this caused conflict. Each time we received the same response: "We help one another."

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"Elders say they have never seen a drought like this,' said Garadag's Vice-Mayor, addressing us with dignity in the stifling village hall. "In Garadag, we've received 800 families from surrounding areas. They can't find water. In the whole district, 20 villages have emptied - 11,000 families are displaced. People have already died because of lack of food. They are starving."

The sheer scale of this catastrophe means that usual coping mechanisms, such as transporting livestock to healthier grazing land, are not available to affected pastoralists. Not only are neighbouring districts affected, but also bordering countries.

"In times of drought, we move to another region," said one henna-bearded elder. "Now everyone is affected. We used to go to Djibouti but there's drought there; also in Kenya and Ethiopia. There's no way out.'

Across from the village hall, past the well, the newcomers could be identified by makeshift shacks of mud, sticks and plastic rags. Surrounded by children, Amina was assembling the skeleton structure of a new shelter. To reach the village, she had walked 70km under searing heat with six children and her elderly parents.

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"Thirst drove us here," she said. "The children were asking for water and I couldn't give it to them. Our animals are all gone." Somalis' assets are held in livestock, not in current accounts, so their loss means bankruptcy. Amina's family was now surviving through the combined help of the villagers and humanitarian agencies.

Elsewhere, we heard similar stories of Somalis supporting each other. In a settlement outside Burao, Somaliland's second largest town, a savings association set up by CARE International and run entirely by local women was providing them not only with status and a voice in the community but also emergency support. Zeinab, one of CARE's female project officers, explained how women pay regularly on behalf of their families into the shared scheme. In normal times, the association can provide loans for entrepreneurial ventures such as small shops. During times of crisis such as severe drought, the collected funds offer a form of insurance for the most vulnerable.

"In one village I visited last week, not only was the association using savings to help their own people in the group," said Zeinab. "They also paid for trucks to get water to new arrivals in the community.'

The humanitarian response is well underway in Somalia - and it is the Somalis who are leading it.
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On Wednesday 29th March 2017, a six-page letter was signed and sent to the President of the European Council, Donald Tusk, outlining the United Kingdom's "intention to withdraw" from the European Union in accordance to Article 50. Article 50 is part of the Lisbon Treaty, which was ratified in 2009 and is the formal mechanism which can be used by an EU member state to leave the Union. This gives the United Kingdom two years to negotiate with the European Union to come up with a 'deal' as part of the leaving process. However, the deal will need to be approved by a "qualified majority", which includes MEP's and the remaining EU member states.

The member state, which wants to leave the European Union will have to meet its "constitutional requirements". On the 23rd June 2016, 17,410,742 people voted leave compared to 16,141,241 who voted remain, which meant that the leave campaign had a small majority. Notably, there wasn't a clear majority in terms of there being a high margin and the fact that the referendum was advisory means that there could have been a further referendum to get a clear-cut result. However, the referendum result was used by Theresa May to warn the other EU member state that Brexit will happen. After a lengthy court battle, the Supreme Court ruled that Article 50 could only be triggered with Parliamentary consent. The House of Commons and Lords passed the 'Brexit Bill' and it was given the Royal Assent by Her Majesty the Queen to become law. The "Constitutional requirement" was fulfilled and Theresa May was able to trigger Article 50. Furthermore, Theresa May addressed the Commons on Wednesday and proclaimed that the Government has acted on the "democratic will of the British people".

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"The United Kingdom wants to agree with the European Union a deep and special partnership that takes in both economic and security cooperation."

The letter itself emphasised the phrase "deep and special partnership" 7 times and "economic and security cooperation" 4 times. In parliament, the message was similar that Britain was going to leave the European Union, but still wants to work closely with the other EU member states. Donald Tusk reacted to the triggering of Article 50 at a press conference, where he held the letter in his hand and expressed his sadness.

"There is no reason to pretend this is a happy day"

However, Tusk remained positive as he implied that Brexit has led to the other 27 EU member states working together closely and having a more strengthened relationship.

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Jeremy Corbyn responded by describing the Theresa May's path as being "reckless and damaging" and in recent days he has made it clear that the Labour Party would oppose the Government if they were putting the interests of the British people at risk. The SNP are also increasing the pressure because on Tuesday MSPs passed legislation on a second Scottish Independence referendum at Holyrood. The majority of Scotland voted to remain in the EU, therefore the SNP argue that Scottish independence and becoming members of the EU would be key. However, it is still unclear what the overall deal will be with the EU, so for those seeking independence it is hoped that the referendum takes place after the Brexit negotiations.

A hard Brexit will mean that the United Kingdom would lose access to the single market and free movement, whereas a soft Brexit will attempt to keep as much of the benefits of the EU as possible. The Prime Minister has said that Britain will leave the Single Market, therefore a Hard Brexit is likely but the extent is still unknown. There is no mandate for either a Hard or Soft Brexit, so the Prime Minister must negotiate the right deal for the British people. However, announcing that the United Kingdom will leave the Single Market before the negotiations could be a flaw in the Brexit plan. The single market is key for a range of reasons such as trade, therefore by leaving it completely could lead to catastrophic results. However, Brexiteers have argued that leaving the Single Market will end free movement.

The German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, said that the trade deal will have to wait until after the negotiations. This is problematic for the Government because they were most likely intending to negotiate a trade deal alongside withdrawal from the EU, but the trade deal could take longer to agree on and implement, which inevitably means it may not take full force until years after Brexit. In addition, the tone the Prime Minister adopted about walking away from the negotiations with no deal faded as in the letter to Donald Tusk, it was specifically mentioned that leaving without a deal is "not the outcome that either side should seek".
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Williamstown Elementary School teacher Frani Miceli accepts her Educator of the Year Award in Worcester on March 25. Miceli poses with her fifth-grade class. PreviousNext

Williamstown Teacher Honored by State Down Syndrome Congress



Frani Miceli's class participates in World Down Syndrome Day in honor of their classmate Cole by wearing crazy socks to school.

WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass.  A Williamstown Elementary School teacher has been named the Educator of the Year by the Massachusetts Down Syndrome Congress.

Fifth-grade teacher Frani Miceli was nominated for the award by Steve and Donna Narey, whose son Cole has Down syndrome and has been with Miceli for both fourth and fifth grades. Miceli joined other award recipients as well as Principal Joelle Brookner and paraprofessional Kelly Galusha at a ceremony in Worcester on March 25.

"One of the reasons the kids in Cole's class are so wonderful to him and want to include him is because Frani does," Donna Narey said. "She sets the tone for inclusion, not only for her class but also for the rest of the school."

Officials with the Massachusetts Down Syndrome Congress said there were several reasons why they chose Miceli for the honor. First, she sets an example for all her students in the classroom as well as on the playground and encourages Cole's fellow students to be inclusive. Since his time in the classroom can be limited, she makes sure to maximize that time for the benefit of Cole and his peers. For example, she will often allow Cole to pick an activity and have his peers participate with him so they learn together.

Also, as Cole is non-verbal and uses adaptive sign language, Miceli has made the effort to learn sign language herself and then teach the whole class. She has made a point to have a day in October for her students to celebrate Down Syndrome Awareness month. She even has encouraged inclusiveness beyond the school grounds, inviting the class to join Coles Buddy Walk team and to root for him in the Special Olympics.

In her speech accepting the award, Miceli said having had Cole in her class for two years has improved her life in many ways.

"As a teacher, I've learned some things from Cole," she said. "I've learned kids develop at different paces, but development will come. That being nice can't be measured by a test, but that it's just as important."

Miceli said Cole has improved the lives of the other 17 students in her class as well.

"Any teacher knows that every once in awhile you get one of those magical classes. A class of kids who are exceptionally kind. A group of kids who enjoy learning and playing with each other. A class you miss over the weekend. That's the makeup of my class this year," she said. "The kids in my room embody kindness, which I believe they have learned because of having Cole as a classmate."

Miceli said that she recently asked her students what Cole has taught them and read some of their responses:

 "Cole has taught us to have a bright outlook and to enjoy life."

 "That being different doesn't matter."

 "That it's possible to talk using your hands instead of your voice."

 "Cole has also taught us to stand up for what's right."

Miceli also shared that her students thought the "Educator of the Year" award should actually go to Galusha, who is Cole's one-on-one paraprofessional.

"I think they have a point," she said. "I'd like to extend a heartfelt thanks to Kelly for all of her work with Cole. I'm thankful that both Kelly and my principal, Joelle Brookner, accompanied me here today. I'm thankful for this award. I'm thankful for my sweet students. I'm thankful for Donna and Steve Narey for entrusting me with their son. And I'm thankful for Cole."

Brookner said the award is "well-deserved" by Miceli.

"Inclusion is one of the core values of WES, and it is wonderful that one of our teachers was recognized for her work in that regard," she said, adding that she loved that Miceli openly recognized Galusha during her speech at the ceremony. "Both Frani and Kelly are wonderful educators and they are symbols of what we stand for here and the kind of community all our staff strives to create at WES.

"How do I feel? So proud."
North Adams Native Honored as Urologist in New Hampshire

NORTH ADAMS, Mass.  Dr. James A. Betti, son of Lois Betti and the late David Betti, born and raised in North Adams, was recognized in the April issue of the New Hampshire magazine as one of the top four urologist in the state of New Hampshire.

The selection process was completed by Castle Connolly Medical LTD, a health care research and information company founded in 1991 by a former medical College Board chairman and president to help guide consumers to Americas top doctors and hospitals. Licensed physicians are invited to nominate colleagues from any medical specialty through an on-line process.

"I am so very pleased to be recognized by my peers," Betti said. "It is such a great honor."

Betti joined the Lahey Institute of Urology at Portsmouth in 2010, where he is currently practicing. His special interests include general urology, laser treatment of benign prostatic hyperplasia, and stone therapy.

Betti is board-certified by the American Board of Urology and was educated at Drury High School, then graduated from Williams College. Following graduate school at UMass Amherst, he graduated from Dartmouth Medical School in 1985, completed his internship Albany Medical Center (General Surgery), Albany, N.Y., 1985-87, Albany Medical Center (Urology), Albany, NY, 1987-90, Chief Resident: 1989-90.

Castle Connolly's physician-led team of researchers follows a rigorous screening process to select top doctors on both the national and regional levels. The team does a careful screening of doctors educational and professional experience before the final selection is made of among those physicians most highly regarded by their peers.
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Montreal, 30 March 2017  ICAO Secretary General Dr. Fang Liu stressed the need for continued progress on the sustainability of international aviation this past Saturday, as she accepted the 2017 Air Transport News (ATN) Leader of the Year Award during a special ceremony in Ekali, Greece.

I am deeply honoured to be named ATNs Leader of the Year, an accolade which I proudly accept in recognition of the great leadership role that the International Civil Aviation Organization has continued to uphold, Dr. Liu declared. I also accept it on behalf of the many officials of the Member States and international and regional organizations with whom I have the great privilege to collaborate as ICAO Secretary General, and also the many industry leaders and experts who play such an important part in our work.

This is an important moment in the history of our sector, with many challenges now confronting ICAO and the entire air transport community, the Secretary General continued. It is critical, therefore, that as we confront the prospects of dramatic air transport growth, our global community also continues on pace to refine aviations objectives for safety, security, efficiency, economic development and environmental performance.

Since 2012, ATN has presented annual awards in 11 air transport sector categories. Its Leader of the Year Award has previously been awarded to airport and airline CEOs and to ICAOs previous Secretary General.

During her mission to Greece, Dr. Liu conducted bilateral meetings with the countrys Alternate Minister of Foreign Affairs, Prof. George Katrougalos, and the Governor of the Hellenic Civil Aviation Authority, Mr. Konstantinos Lintzerakos. Topics discussed included priorities of common interest in the fields of safety, security, environment protection, capacity building and training, and the socio-economic benefits which can follow when States ensure compliance with ICAOs global norms.

The Greek officials expressed interest in becoming new members of ICAOs Public Key Directory, a crucial tool in the UN agencys global travel document security framework. They also recognized the value in enhancing their States implementation of the latest Performance-based Navigation (PBN) procedures, which realize fuel efficiency, capacity enhancement, and emissions reduction benefits.

Resources for Editors

About ICAO

A specialized agency of the United Nations, ICAO was created in 1944 to promote the safe and orderly development of international civil aviation throughout the world. It sets standards and regulations necessary for aviation safety, security, efficiency, capacity and environmental protection, amongst many other priorities. The Organization serves as the forum for cooperation in all fields of civil aviation among its 191 Member States.

ICAO's Secretary General

Contacts

Anthony Philbin

Chief, Communications

aphilbin@icao.int

+1 514-954-8220

+1 438-402-8886 (mobile)

Twitter: @ICAO

William Raillant-Clark

Communications Officer

wraillantclark@icao.int

+1 514-954-6705

+1 514-409-0705 (mobile)

Twitter: @wraillantclark
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Addressing the Special Meeting of ECOWAS Member States this week in Accra, Republic of Ghana, during a complementary event to the Second ICAO Meeting on the Sustainable Development of Air Transport in Africa, ICAO Council President Dr. Olumuyiwa Benard Aliu commented that West Africas air transport market has huge untapped potential.



As a sub-region with a population of over 300 million people, accounting for thirty-one per cent of Africas entire population, its air transport market represents only about 17 per cent of Africa-wide aviation activity, he added.



During a second special side event in Accra, aimed at promoting enhanced air links between African States and Diaspora Member States, President Aliu further remarked that The African Unions Declaration of the Global African Summit, adopted in May 2012, specifically calls for government action to foster increased economic partnership, by promoting linkages between the African Union and the Diaspora. The promotion of these linkages will require coordinated action in a number of key areas, especially the exchange of air traffic rights, the availability of highly educated and skilled professionals, and the coordinated development of air transport and tourism infrastructure, in order to meet growing demand for travel.



Dr. Aliu reiterated that ICAO would keep assisting States as they move forward with all of their regional and national targets, in particular through the UN Organizations No Country Left Behind initiative and with the support of the ICAO Regional Offices in Africa.



While in the Republic of Ghana, President Aliu, accompanied by the Director, Air Transport Bureau, the Regional Director for Western and Central Africa, Mr. Mam Sait Jallow, and the Regional Director for Eastern and Southern Africa, Mr. Barry Kashambo, met and held discussions with the President and Head of State of the Republic of Ghana, H. E. Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, its Hon. Minister of Aviation, Ms. Cecilia Abena Dapaah, and a cross section of the aviation community in Ghana, and visited various aviation facilities including the Aviation Training Academy and new Kotoka International Airport Terminal project.



Dr. Aliu thanked the Head of State for the commitment and support of his government to the development of aviation and the leadership of Ghana at regional and international levels. The Council President highlighted the opportunities and challenges to be anticipated as a result of the projected growth in air traffic globally over the next 15 years and presented some of the latest global aviation developments, with particular emphasis on ICAO programmes and projects for African States, under ICAOs No Country Left Behind initiative, which he called on Ghana to continue to participate in and make full use of.



President Aliu also requested that Ghana champion the follow-up to the outcomes of the Meeting of the African Union Specialized Transport Committee held in Lome, and in particular, the actualization of the Single African Air Transport Market. Noting Ghanas interest in developing Biometric travel documents/passports, the President expressed ICAOs availability to offer technical assistance and provide advice and guidance in the process.
Pakistan Allows Man to Register as Countrys First Jew in Decades

The Fellowship | March 31, 2017 Pakistan Allows Man to Register as Country's First Jew in Decades

The Times of Israel reports on the efforts of one Pakistani citizen, Fischel Benkhald, to finally register as Jewish, something he feared to do because of possible backlash from his Muslim neighbors.

Benkhald, who was born Faisal Benkhald, was brought up by a Jewish mother and Muslim father in Karachi. He had been pushing to change his national identity card status for three years. He chose the Yiddish name Fischel.

Wilson Chowdry, chairman of the British Pakistani Christian Association, took up Benkhalds cause with the Pakistani High Commission in London.

In 2014, Benkhald told The Times of Israel he intended to register as a Jew, but feared being rejected and a backlash from neighbors if they found out he was Jewish

Before rampant anti-Israel sentiment forced Jews to leave the Asian country in the years following 1948, Karachi was once home to over 1,000 Jews. Chowdry estimates that hundreds of Jews are now living secretly in Pakistan.
After nearly five months of campaigning and global protests, Samsung officially published its plan to deal with the 4.3 million Galaxy Note 7 devices produced and recalled worldwide following battery faults.

People around the world signed petitions, emailed Samsungs CEO, demonstrated in cities around the world, and finally Samsung has listened. This is major win for everyone that took action, and a step towards shifting the way we produce and dispose of electronics, said Jude Lee, Global Senior Campaigner at Greenpeace East Asia.

While we welcome this news, Samsung must share as soon as possible more detailed timelines on when it will implement its promises, as well as how it intends to change its production system to make sure this never happens again, added Lee.

This companys commitment came within days from the launch of Galaxy S8, the first Samsung phone to be released since the Note 7 incident. The phone will be the first test to see how the company will apply these commitments to proceeding models. In a public statement released on its website, Samsung committed to:



refurbishing and selling the recalled phones or use them as rental phones,

detach salvageable components, such as semiconductors and camera modules, for reuse or sale; and,

extract metals using environmentally friendly methods.

The IT giant also claimed it will be joining a new research conducted by the European Union aimed at developing a new environmentally friendly technology to recycle smartphones.

This is a very welcome move from Samsung, being one of the worlds leading smartphone companies. For them to accept every single Greenpeace demand to reuse the almost new components and those that have the highest environmental costs, push for efficient disassembly and more effective recovery systems, among others is a step in the right direction and is truly what we call true innovation, said Abigail Aguilar, Detox Campaigner for Greenpeace Philippines.

Electronics production, including smartphones, is incredibly energy and resource intensive, according to a Greenpeace USA report published in February 2017 on the impacts of smartphone production since 2007. According to a United Nations report in 2014, e-waste volumes from small IT products, such as mobile phones and personal computers are predicted to rise globally to 50 million metric tons or more every year in 2017. This represents a massive waste of resources, and a source of contamination from hazardous chemicals.

In the Southeast Asian region, the International Data Corporation (IDC) Asia/Pacific Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker estimates the total smartphone shipments to nearly 28 million units in the second quarter of 2016. Countries in the SEA region tracked by IDCs local and regional analysts are Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.

In 2014, Samsung accounted for 13.3% of smartphones shipments in the Philippines, second only to local brand Cherry Mobiles 21.9% market share. The growing smartphone adoption among Filipinos drives the Philippines smartphone market to a high 20% year-over-year (YoY) growth. This puts the Philippines as the fastest-growing smartphone market in Southeast Asia to date.

A survey conducted by Greenpeace revealed that the Philippines has the highest number of phones possessed by an individual, with 6.76 mobile phones per capita. The countries surveyed include USA, China, Indonesia, and South Korea, among others.

Filipinos being tech lovers have the power in their hands to influence Samsung to transition from the current business model of producing tons of electronic waste to closing the loop, tackling overconsumption and transitioning from programmed obsolescence to repairability, said Aguilar.

Greenpeace will further push the tech sector in the coming month to rethink its impact on the planet. The Galaxy S8 and best-selling models from 14 top IT companies will be scored to inform customers on how repairable the phones are.
Get our free weekly email for all the latest cinematic news from our film critic Clarisse Loughrey Get our The Life Cinematic email for free Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the

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Scarlett Johansson might be best known as the queen of science fiction but the actor is keen to try her hand at other endeavours.

The actor has said she might swap films for politics and run for office in the US. Johansson explained she had always had a keen interest in local politics and was keen to follow it up.

Ive always been interested in local politics, the 32-year-old said during a Good Morning America appearance. Right now I think with my young daughter, and also as my career is going right now, its not the right time.

But eventually, maybe if my daughter was older and I could totally focus myself on something like that, I think it could be interesting.

Johnasson attended the Womens March on Washington, a protest which took place the day after Donald Trump was elected, and gave an impassioned speech about Planned Parenthood and womens abortion rights. She told the crowd about the life-saving experiences both herself and close friends have had at Planned Parenthood - a non-profit organisation that provides reproductive health care in the US and globally.

Johansson, who was named the top grossing actor of 2016, said despite being a public figure she likes to keep her private life private but added a caveat for the Trump era. I feel that in the face of this current political climate, it is vital that we all make it our mission to get really, really personal, she said.

Scarlett Johansson on screen Show all 25 1 /25 Scarlett Johansson on screen Scarlett Johansson on screen Scarlett Johansson on screen Scarlett Johansson in Luc Besson's Lucy (2014) Scarlett Johansson on screen Scarlett Johansson on screen Scarlett Johansson again in Lucy (2014) Scarlett Johansson on screen Scarlett Johansson on screen Joaquin Phoenix falls in love with a software package (Scarlett Johansson) in Her (2013) Warner Bros Scarlett Johansson on screen Scarlett Johansson on screen Scarlett Johansson and director Joseph Gordon-Levitt in Don Jon (2013) Scarlett Johansson on screen Scarlett Johansson on screen L to R: Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner), Captain America (Chris Evans) & Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) in Avengers Assemble (2012) Marvel Scarlett Johansson on screen Scarlett Johansson on screen Scarlett Johansson as the Black Widow in Iron Man 2 (2010) Rex Features Scarlett Johansson on screen Scarlett Johansson on screen Drew Barrymore and Scarlett Johansson in 'He's Just Not into You' (2009) Scarlett Johansson on screen Scarlett Johansson on screen Natalie Portman and Scarlett Johansson in The Other Boleyn Girl (2008) IMBD Scarlett Johansson on screen Scarlett Johansson on screen Rebecca Hall, left, and Scarlett Johansson star in Woody Allen's Vicky Cristina Barcelona (2008) AP Scarlett Johansson on screen Scarlett Johansson on screen Scarlett Johansson in The Spirit (2008) IMBD Scarlett Johansson on screen Scarlett Johansson on screen Scarlett Johansson in The Nanny Diaries (2007) IMBD Scarlett Johansson on screen Scarlett Johansson on screen Scarlett Johansson in The Prestige (2006) YouTube Scarlett Johansson on screen Scarlett Johansson on screen Scarlett Johansson lights up on screen in the film The Black Dahlia (2006) CHRIS BRANDES Scarlett Johansson on screen Scarlett Johansson on screen Josh Hartnett and Scarlett Johansson in The Black Dahlia (2006) Moviestore Collection/REX Scarlett Johansson on screen Scarlett Johansson on screen Hugh Jackman and Scarlett Johansson in Scoop (2006) IMBD Scarlett Johansson on screen Scarlett Johansson on screen Scarlett Johansson in Woody Allen's Match Point (2005) IMBD Scarlett Johansson on screen Scarlett Johansson on screen Scarlett Johansson in Woody Allen's Match Point (2005) YouTube Scarlett Johansson on screen Scarlett Johansson on screen Scarlett Johansson in The Island (2005) IMBD Scarlett Johansson on screen Scarlett Johansson on screen Scarlett Johansson in A Good Woman (2004) Lions Gate Entertainment Scarlett Johansson on screen Scarlett Johansson on screen Scarlett Johansson in A Good Woman (2004) YouTube Scarlett Johansson on screen Scarlett Johansson on screen Scarlett Johansson and Bryan Greenberg in The Perfect Score (2004) Paramount Pictures Scarlett Johansson on screen Scarlett Johansson on screen Scarlett Johansson,The Girl with a Pearl Earring (2003)  Jaap Buitendijk Scarlett Johansson on screen Scarlett Johansson on screen Scarlett Johansson in Ghost World (2001) IMBD Scarlett Johansson on screen Scarlett Johansson on screen Scarlett Johansson in The Man Who Wasn't There (2001) USA Films Scarlett Johansson on screen Scarlett Johansson on screen Robert Redford and Scarlett Johansson in The Horse Whisperer (1998) Buena Vista Pictures/AFP

Politics is not the only non-film industry Johansson, whose new film Ghost in the shell came out yesterday, has expressed interest in.

The actor, who rose to fame for her roles in Lost In Translation and Girl With A Pearl Earring, opened a popcorn shop in Paris last Autumn. Jumping on the latest food fad, her shop serves gourmet popcorn in an array of unusual flavours.

She launched the business venture alongside her French husband Romain Dauriac who she filed for divorce from earlier this month.
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For the last few seasons, box-fresh trainers have ruled supreme  largely thanks to the return of the bright white Stan Smith  but now, a new trend is on the up-and-up.

So fresh and so clean? We dont think so. This spring its all about doodles.

Recommended Ugly is the next big trainer trend for 2017

Yes thats right, a past time you probably havent participated in since you signed your leavers day shirt or attempted to perfect the pointed S symbol, scribbling on your kicks is now considered less high-school and more high-fashion.

Consistently in pursuit of self-expression, DIY touches arent anything new in the fashion world; think punks anarchic scrawls and safety pins.

And, there are plenty of personalisation platforms already out there for trainers like NikeiD and MiAdidas.

Ugly Shoes Show all 6 1 /6 Ugly Shoes Ugly Shoes Platform Wedge 45.99 zara.com Ugly Shoes Molly Goddard Calf Boots 150 topshop.com Ugly Shoes Oki Kutsu Misore Knot Runners 74.99 office.co.uk Ugly Shoes Pointed Slip On Shoe 79 cosstores.com Ugly Shoes Birkenstock Arizona 149.95 office.co.uk Ugly Shoes Frayer Chunky Sandal 25 asos.com

But, this trend is more about erratic and subjective touches.

Back in the early 00s, Maison Margiela sold its own version of illustrated kicks with the German Army trainer that was covered in drawings by staff.

While more recently, Vetements joined forces with Reebok on the InstaPump Fury which came graffiti-clad in phrases like Im Bored and Full on Life. They also fetched a hefty price tag, setting back anyone who could get their hands on a pair a breezy 500.

A volley of stylish celebs have been seen sporting the trend too.

Rapper Tyler the Creator is well-known for drawing all over his Vans and Kanye West, Swaggy P and Shia LaBeouf are all partial to custom kicks plastered with various markings.

Recommended Why Nike trainers are the most counterfeited product in the world

While its definitely time to put well-worn sneakers back into rotation, for most of us the idea of spending 500 on a pair of trainers covered in elementary doodles seems senseless.

Instead why not grab an old pair and, sharpie in hand, use them as a blank canvas.
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Time Out London has sparked outrage with its suggestion that eating Xiao Long Bao dumplings is like popping spots.

Its enough to put anyone off their food, but that wasn't the main problem.

In a video on their Facebook page, Time Out introduces Xiao Long Bao - AKA Shanghai soup dumplings.

The short clip includes footage of people eating the dumplings.

Recommended Giant dumplings filled with soup come to New York

As people squeeze and prod the Xiao Long Bao, the soupy contents pours out.

For their part, Time Out likened it to popping spots: Love popping spots AND eating dumplings? Combine the two with exploding soup dumpling, they wrote.

And people are not happy about it.

The video has received over 1,800 angry reactions on Facebook - more than the number of likes - and many outraged comments.

One of the main reasons the video provoked such a strong reaction is that the dumplings arent meant to be popped before being eaten.

Time Out have now issued an apology: After our recent video on Chinese dumplings, weve been politely informed that bursting these lovely little parcels of culinary joy before they reach your lips really isnt the done thing at all.

So, first off, apologies to anybody who was peeved by our post. Secondly, we'd like to invite the knowledgeable food-lovers of China and Asia to tell us what traditional delicacies we Londoners should try - and how to eat them properly.

Were an inquisitive bunch at heart you know, and while we dont always do things the traditional way, were always looking to learn.
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Lydia Brain thought her exceptionally heavy periods were an unlucky fact of life and put up with them for years.

But now she says she wishes she had sought medical help sooner, as the problem turned out to be caused by a rare form of womb cancer.

The 24-year-old said that before she began treatment her periods would last up to 10 days, with extremely heavy bleeding for around five to seven days.

At one point Id be getting through the largest size tampons and a night-time sanitary towel in about an hour, she told The Independent.

They were very heavy for several years, and it hadnt always been like that. They got worse and worse and after a while I realised they were abnormal.

It was quite debilitating at the time, she said. I would have to make plans around them and cancel trips."

Ms Brain was eventually diagnosed with a cancer of the uterus, called inflammatory myofibroblastoma, which is so rare that she is only the 11th person ever to have suffered from it.

It is a form of womb cancer, which is the fourth most common cancer in women in the UK  more common than both ovarian and cervical cancer. Around 9,000 women are diagnosed with womb cancer each year.

Irish teenager breaks European cancer treatment fundraising record

Embarrassment and a feeling that heavy periods were something that happen to some women stopped Ms Brain her from visiting a doctor about the problem straight away, she wrote in a blog post.

She said she had an unrelated ultrasound scan three years ago to check she didnt have polycystic ovaries because she was taking medication for acne.

That was before Id gone to the doctor for bleeding, or heavy periods, or anything really. By chance they found a lump in my womb, which they thought was a fibroid  theyre small, and common, lots of women have them.

Assuming her symptoms were partly caused by the lump, which she believed to be benign, Ms Brain, who lives in Manchester, continued her daily life and hobbies, including pole dancing.

However, her heavy periods continued to interfere with her life, including one horrifying occasion, described in her blog, when she stood in the passport queue at Stansted airport for 40 minutes with blood running down her legs.

Covered with a long coat and the most intense fear and mortifying embarrassment, silently queueing and not making a fuss, she wrote.

I was too embarrassed to tell a male member of staff I needed to get through the queue immediately and go to the toilet, or better yet to a hospital.

When she eventually visited a doctor about the problem a week and a half later, she was told that scans were not offered for one-off events.

At the time I felt a sense that heavy periods and abnormal bleeding were just accepted as something that happened to some women, sometimes, she said.

Even after mustering all of the words I could find to explain how abnormal it was to a male doctor; it was still put down as an odd period, probably stress induced.

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

Eventually, following hospital scans and weeks of tests on the fibroids, during which doctors in America and Ireland were consulted, it was discovered that tumours had embedded the wall and lining of her womb, causing her heavy bleeding each month.

Doctors removed one of the tumours and have have now induced the menopause in Ms Brain in an attempt to starve the cancer of the hormone oestrogen and help her recover.

Ms Brain, who is working with two charities looking into gynaecological cancer research and awareness called Grace and Eve Appeal, said she wanted to raise awareness of the symptoms of womb cancer and remove stigma around talking about periods.

If I had been more prepared to openly discuss my symptoms and if issues with womens vaginas and periods were taken more seriously, I could have been diagnosed sooner and the outlook for my treatment and fertility would be brighter.
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Good parents want their kids to stay out of trouble, do well in school, and go on to do awesome things as adults.

And while there isn't a set recipe for raising successful children, psychology research has pointed to a handful of factors that predict success.

Unsurprisingly, much of it comes down to the parents.

Here's what parents of successful kids have in common:

They make their kids do chores

"If kids aren't doing the dishes, it means someone else is doing that for them," Julie Lythcott-Haims, former dean of freshmen at Stanford University and author of "How to Raise an Adult" said during a TED Talks Live event.

"And so they're absolved of not only the work, but of learning that work has to be done and that each one of us must contribute for the betterment of the whole," she said.

Lythcott-Haims believes kids raised on chores go on to become employees who collaborate well with their coworkers, are more empathetic because they know firsthand what struggling looks like, and are able to take on tasks independently.

She bases this on the Harvard Grant Study, the longest longitudinal study ever conducted.

"By making them do chores  taking out the garbage, doing their own laundry  they realize I have to do the work of life in order to be part of life," she previously told Business Insider.

They teach their kids social skills

Sleep deprived mothers and fathers share their most scatter-brained stories (Rex Features)

Researchers from Pennsylvania State University and Duke University tracked more than 700 children from across the US between kindergarten and age 25 and found a significant correlation between their social skills as kindergartners and their success as adults two decades later.

The 20-year study showed that socially competent children who could cooperate with their peers without prompting, be helpful to others, understand their feelings, and resolve problems on their own, were far more likely to earn a college degree and have a full-time job by age 25 than those with limited social skills.

Those with limited social skills also had a higher chance of getting arrested, binge drinking, and applying for public housing.

"This study shows that helping children develop social and emotional skills is one of the most important things we can do to prepare them for a healthy future," said Kristin Schubert, program director at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, which funded the research, in a release.

"From an early age, these skills can determine whether a child goes to college or prison, and whether they end up employed or addicted."

They have high expectations

Using data from a national survey of 6,600 children born in 2001, University of California at Los Angeles professor Neal Halfon and his colleagues discovered that the expectations parents hold for their kids have a huge effect on attainment.

"Parents who saw college in their child's future seemed to manage their child toward that goal irrespective of their income and other assets," he said in a statement.

The finding came out in standardized tests: 57% of the kids who did the worst were expected to attend college by their parents, while 96% of the kids who did the best were expected to go to college.

That parents should keep their expectations high falls in line with another psych finding  the Pygmalion effect, which states "that what one person expects of another can come to serve as a self-fulfilling prophecy"  as well as what some teachers told Business Insider was most important for a child's success.

They get along with each other for the most part

Children in high-conflict families, whether intact or divorced, tend to fare worse than children of parents that get along, according to a University of Illinois study review.

Robert Hughes Jr., professor and head of the Department of Human and Community Development in the College of ACES at the University of Illinois and study review author, also notes that some studies have found children in nonconflictual single-parent families fare better than children in conflictual two-parent families.

The conflict between parents prior to divorce also affects children negatively, while post-divorce conflict has a strong influence on children's adjustment, Hughes says.

One study found that, after divorce, when a father without custody has frequent contact with his kids and there is minimal conflict, children fare better. But when there is conflict, frequent visits from the father are related to poorer adjustment of children.

Yet another study found that 20-somethings who experienced divorce of their parents as children still report pain and distress over their parent's divorce 10 years later. Young people who reported high conflict between their parents were far more likely to have feelings of loss and regret.

When they do face conflict, they fight fair in front of their kids

When kids witness mild to moderate conflict that involves support, compromise, and positive emotions at home, they learn better social skills, self-esteem, and emotional security, which can help parent-child relations and how well they do in school, E. Mark Cummings, a developmental psychologist at Notre Dame University, tells Developmental Science.

"When kids witness a fight and see the parents resolving it, they're actually happier than they were before they saw it," he says. "It reassures kids that parents can work things through."

Cummings said kids pick up on when a parent is giving in to avoid a fight or refusing to communicate, and their own emotional response is not positive.

"Our studies have shown that the long-term effects of parental withdrawal are actually more disturbing to kids' adjustment than open conflict," he says. He explains the children in this instance can perceive that something is wrong, which leads to stress, but they don't understand what or why, which means it's harder for them to adjust.

Chronic stress from repeated exposure to destructive conflict can result in kids that are worried, anxious, hopeless, angry, aggressive, behaviorally-challenged, sickly, tired, and struggling academically.

They've attained higher educational levels

A 2014 study lead by University of Michigan psychologist Sandra Tang found that mothers who finished high school or college were more likely to raise kids that did the same.

Pulling from a group of over 14,000 children who entered kindergarten in 1998 to 2007, the study found that children born to teen moms (18 years old or younger) were less likely to finish high school or go to college than their counterparts.

Aspiration is at least partially responsible. In a 2009 longitudinal study of 856 people in semirural New York, Bowling Green State University psychologist Eric Dubow found that "parents' educational level when the child was 8 years old significantly predicted educational and occupational success for the child 40 years later."

They teach their kids math early on

A 2007 meta-analysis of 35,000 preschoolers across the US, Canada, and England found that developing math skills early can turn into a huge advantage.

"The paramount importance of early math skills  of beginning school with a knowledge of numbers, number order, and other rudimentary math concepts  is one of the puzzles coming out of the study," coauthor and Northwestern University researcher Greg Duncan said in a press release. "Mastery of early math skills predicts not only future math achievement, it also predicts future reading achievement."

They develop a relationship with their kids

One mother shared a candid post on Facebook about the things she wished she knew before having children (Getty Images)

A 2014 study of 243 people born into poverty found that children who received "sensitive caregiving" in their first three years not only did better in academic tests in childhood, but had healthier relationships and greater academic attainment in their 30s.

As reported on PsyBlog, parents who are sensitive caregivers "respond to their child's signals promptly and appropriately" and "provide a secure base" for children to explore the world.

"This suggests that investments in early parent-child relationships may result in long-term returns that accumulate across individuals' lives," coauthor and University of Minnesota psychologist Lee Raby said in an interview.

They're less stressed

According to recent research cited by Brigid Schulte at The Washington Post, the number of hours that moms spend with kids between ages 3 and 11 does little to predict the child's behavior, well-being, or achievement.

What's more, the "intensive mothering" or "helicopter parenting" approach can backfire.

"Mothers' stress, especially when mothers are stressed because of the juggling with work and trying to find time with kids, that may actually be affecting their kids poorly," study coauthor and Bowling Green State University sociologist Kei Nomaguchi told The Post.

Emotional contagion  or the psychological phenomenon where people "catch" feelings from one another like they would a cold  helps explain why. Research shows that if your friend is happy, that brightness will infect you; if she's sad, that gloominess will transfer as well. So if a parent is exhausted or frustrated, that emotional state could transfer to the kids.

They value effort over avoiding failure

Where kids think success comes from also predicts their attainment.

Over decades, Stanford University psychologist Carol Dweck has discovered that children (and adults) think about success in one of two ways. Over at the always-fantastic Brain Pickings, Maria Popova says they go a little something like this:

A "fixed mindset" assumes that our character, intelligence, and creative ability are static givens that we can't change in any meaningful way, and success is the affirmation of that inherent intelligence, an assessment of how those givens measure up against an equally fixed standard; striving for success and avoiding failure at all costs become a way of maintaining the sense of being smart or skilled.

A "growth mindset," on the other hand, thrives on challenge and sees failure not as evidence of un-intelligence but as a heartening springboard for growth and for stretching our existing abilities.

At the core is a distinction in the way you assume your will affects your ability, and it has a powerful effect on kids. If kids are told that they aced a test because of their innate intelligence, that creates a "fixed" mindset. If they succeeded because of effort, that teaches a "growth" mindset.

The moms work outside the home

According to research out of Harvard Business School, there are significant benefits for children growing up with mothers who work outside the home.

The study found daughters of working mothers went to school longer, were more likely to have a job in a supervisory role, and earned more money  23% more compared to their peers who were raised by stay-at-home mothers.

The sons of working mothers also tended to pitch in more on household chores and childcare, the study found  they spent seven-and-a-half more hours a week on childcare and 25 more minutes on housework.

"Role modeling is a way of signaling what's appropriate in terms of how you behave, what you do, the activities you engage in, and what you believe," the study's lead author, Harvard Business School professor Kathleen L. McGinn, told Business Insider.

"There are very few things, that we know of, that have such a clear effect on gender inequality as being raised by a working mother," she told Working Knowledge.

They have a higher socioeconomic status

Tragically, one-fifth of American children grow up in poverty, a situation that severely limits their potential.

It's getting more extreme. According to Stanford University researcher Sean Reardon, the achievement gap between high- and low-income families "is roughly 30% to 40% larger among children born in 2001 than among those born 25 years earlier."

As "Drive" author Dan Pink has noted, the higher the income for the parents, the higher the SAT scores for the kids.

"Absent comprehensive and expensive interventions, socioeconomic status is what drives much of educational attainment and performance," he wrote.

They are "authoritative" rather than "authoritarian" or "permissive"

First published in the 1960s, research by University of California at Berkeley developmental psychologist Diana Baumride found there are basically three kinds of parenting styles:

Permissive: The parent tries to be nonpunitive and accepting of the child

Authoritarian: The parent tries to shape and control the child based on a set standard of conduct

Authoritative: The parent tries to direct the child rationally

The ideal is the authoritative. The kid grows up with a respect for authority, but doesn't feel strangled by it.

They teach "grit"

In 2013, University of Pennsylvania psychologist Angela Duckworth won a MacArthur "genius" grant for her uncovering of a powerful, success-driving personality trait called grit.

Defined as a "tendency to sustain interest in and effort toward very long-term goals," her research has correlated grit with educational attainment, grade-point average in Ivy League undergrads, retention in West Point cadets, and rank in the US National Spelling Bee.

It's about teaching kids to imagine  and commit  to a future they want to create.

They give their kids bias-proof names

A host of research shows just how much your name can affect your lifetime success, from your hireability to your spending habits.

Career-wise, people with names that are common and easy to pronounce, for example, have been found to have more success.

They apply behavioral control, not psychological control

(Getty (Getty)

According to a longitudinal study from University College London, parents' psychological control of their children plays a significant role in their life satisfaction and mental well-being.

As Jeff Haden explains for Mic:

People who perceived their parents as less psychologically controlling and more caring as they were growing up were likely to be happier and more satisfied as adults.

On the flip side, the people whose parents applied greater psychological control as they were growing up exhibited significantly lower mental well-being throughout their adult lives; in fact, the effect was judged to be similar to the recent death of a close friend or relative.

Not allowing children to make their own decisions, invading their privacy, fostering dependence, and guilting children into doing what they want are all examples of how a parent might apply psychological control.

Whereas psychological control is about trying to control a child's emotional state or beliefs, Haden points out that behavioral control is different in that it's about setting limits on behavior that could be harmful. Examples of behavioral control include setting curfews, assigning chores, and expecting homework to be completed.

They understand the importance of good nutrition and eating habits

Successful people recognize that good eating habits can help you focus and be productive throughout the day.

As Business Insider previously reported, Dr. Catherine Steiner-Adair, a family and children's clinical psychologist and author of books like "The Big Disconnect: Protecting Childhood and Family Relationships in the Digital Age," told Slate that developing food habits in kids that are both mentally and physically healthy requires involvement from parents.

To help their kids develop a sense of body acceptance and a body-positive self-image, she says parents need to role model good attitudes about their own and others' bodies, healthy eating habits of their own, and a positive attitude about food.

Read more:

 This is what the Queen's grandchildren call her in private

 How 10 highly successful people manage stress

 The 5 best airline meals

Read the original article on Business Insider UK.  2016. Follow Business Insider UK on Twitter.
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Apple has won a major legal battle that had pitted it against some of Australias largest banks and will likely mean the tech giant can retain full control of the use of its payment technology in the country.

The Australian Competition Consumer Commission (ACCC) announced on Friday that it had rejected a request by four of the countrys largest banks to negotiate with Apple over mobile payments.

The National Australia Bank, Westpac, Commonwealth Bank of Australia and Bendigo and Adelaide Bank had been trying to negotiate with Apple to allow iPhone users to make payments from their own integrated digital wallets instead of through Apple Pay, without paying Apple fees.

The Near-Field Communication (NFC) technology enables users to make contactless payments through their phones from a bank card digitally registered with Apple Pay. Each transaction then enables Apple Pay to charge a fee to the respective bank.

The banks sought to bargain over connecting the payments technology with their individual apps used in iPhones. This, they said, would have been of significant public benefit because it would have increased competition and consumer choice in digital wallets and mobile payments.

However, ACCC competition regulator chairman Rod Sims said Apple Pay would increase competition between the banks, making it easier for consumers to switch between card providers by limiting any lock-in effect individual bank wallets may cause.

Mr Sims also listed the rapid change in the development of this emerging market as a reason for the ruling because it is uncertain how competition may develop.

The ACCC also stated that individual bank wallets would make Apple operate more like Google, whose Android system enables payment from a variety of different banking apps. Mr Sims told Reuters that if they had ruled against Apple, it could force one competitor to adopt a strategy of the other.

Customers of the four banks had up until now been prevented from using Apple Pay, launched last year in Australia, because the banks had not yet reached an agreement on the conditions with Apple.

Another Australian bank, ANZ, which uses Apple Pay, said that it had already seen customer numbers increase as a result of the payment technology.

Following the latest decision, the banks will be able to negotiate with Apple on an individual basis but the ruling means they have lost their power to bargain collectively.

In a collective statement cited by Reuters, the banks said they were disappointed given our considerable effort to demonstrate the public benefits inherent in open NFC access.

The worlds most valuable brands Show all 10 1 /10 The worlds most valuable brands The worlds most valuable brands 1st - Google Google replaced Apple as the worlds most valuable brand, with a brand value of $109.5bn, according to Brand Finance The worlds most valuable brands 2nd - Apple Apples brand value declined from $145.9bn to $107.1bn in 2016 The worlds most valuable brands 3rd - Amazon Amazon's brand value rose from $69.6bn to $106.4bn in 2016 Amazon The worlds most valuable brands 4th - At&t Of the 40 telecoms brands in the ranking, AT&T in 2016 overtook Verizon as the most valuable brand rising to $87bn from $59.9bn the year before The worlds most valuable brands 5th - Microsoft Microsoft's brand value rose marginally from $67.3bn to $76.3bn in 2016 The worlds most valuable brands 6th - Samsung Amazon's brand value rose from $58.6bn to $66.2bn The worlds most valuable brands 7th - Verizon Verizon's brand value inched up from $63.1bn to $65.9bn The worlds most valuable brands 8th - Walmart Walmart's brand value rose from $53.6bn to $62.5bn The worlds most valuable brands 9th - Facebook Facebook's brand value increased sharply from $34bn to just shy of $62bn The worlds most valuable brands 10th - ICBC ICBC saw its brand value rise to $47.8bn from $36.3bn. It was the most valuabe financial brand in the world in 2016 replacing Wells Fargo

Apple was not immediately available for comment when contacted by The Independent.

In a statement cited by the Financial Times, Apple said they look forward to continuing to work with individual banks in Australia and around the world to bring Apple Pay to their customers.

The company told the paper that 3,500 banks in 15 markets now use Apple Pay.
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Official confidence in the implementation of a new electronic customs processing system has collapsed, adding to fears about the ability of the UK to cope with an expected surge of work when the UK leaves the European Union in 2019.

The Treasury Select Committee on Friday published correspondence between its chair, Andrew Tyrie, and Jim Harra, a director general at HM Revenue and Customs.

This shows that HMRCs grading of progress in establishing the new system due to be introduced in 2019  known as the Customs Declaration Services (CDS)  has declined from on time in November 2016 to in doubt in January 2017.

Recommended Leaving EU customs union will mean border queues warn experts

In just 67 days, confidence in the successful implementation of the CDS  a project that HMRC itself describes as business critical  has collapsed, said Mr Tyrie.

Customs is at the heart of the Brexit debate. It is part of the essential plumbing for international trade, and ensuring it continues to function smoothly post-Brexit has to be a priority for the Government.

Mr Tyrie drew attention to HMRC estimates that it could be forced to deal with a five-fold increase in declarations when the UK leaves the EU.

The consequences of this project failing, or even being delayed, could be serious, he explained. Much trade could be lost. The project, therefore, merits a high degree of scrutiny by Parliament.

This follows the warning earlier this week from the chief executive of the port of Dover, Tim Waggott, of an Armageddon scenario on customs post-Brexit.

He referred to previous backlogs of HGVs into the port due to strikes in France.

In 2015 we saw Operation Stack in place for an unprecedented 30-plus days, Mr Waggott told the BBC. We will see that every day of the year, in perpetuity, if we dont get this situation sorted.

In her Lancaster House speech in January, Theresa May confirmed that the UK would quit the EU Customs Union in order to be able to strike its own new trade deals with other countries.

But the Prime Minister also said that she wanted a completely new customs agreement with the EU in order to prevent a return to costly rules of origin checks on UK goods sent to the continent, our largest single export market.

Yet even if there was a new deal that prevented the need for such checks, trade experts have warned that there would still be considerably more waiting and disruption for UK lorries entering the EU since drivers would have to demonstrate to border officials that they were exempt.

On the UK-side, the current customs system is the Customs Handling of Import and Export Freight.

This is being replaced by the more advanced CDS, which is supposed to electronically process all customs declarations, as well as record trade and transport statistics.

CDS is supposed to be operational from January 2019, shortly ahead of the scheduled Brexit date in March 2019.

Mr Tyrie said that HMRC needed to demonstrate its contingency plans for if CDS is not delivered on time.
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UK house price growth slowed in March but home ownership fell to its lowest level since 1985, according to Nationwide.

Figures published on Friday showed that annual house price growth softened to 3.5 per cent over the last month, down from 4.5 per cent in February. House prices fell by 0.3 per cent.

There was a mixed picture across the UK in [the first quarter of 2017], said Robert Gardner, Nationwides chief economist. Six regions saw the pace of house price growth accelerate, six saw a deceleration and one (East Midlands) recorded the same rate as the previous quarter.

He said that the South of England continued to see slightly stronger price growth than the North of England, but that there was a narrowing in that differential.

The figures also showed that home ownership fell to its lowest level in almost 32 years.

Mr Gardner said that over the past decade, there had been a particularly marked decline in the home ownership rate among young adults, or those aged between 25 and 34.

That is traditionally the segment that includes the most first-time buyers.

Nationwide said that about 38 per cent of young adults now owns property, which is considerably lower than was the case a decade ago.

The proportion of home ownership has also fallen sharply among those aged 35 to 44. It currently stands at about 56 per cent, down from 74 per cent in 2006.

Outrageous property deals in pictures Show all 15 1 /15 Outrageous property deals in pictures Outrageous property deals in pictures The Park Lane townhouse set to become one of the UK's most expensive student flats at 4,000 a week A town house situated in Park Lane, one of the most affluent places in London, is about to become the capitals most expensive student residence. Most of London students usually live in halls of residence before moving on to house-share. For this reason it is fair to say few will able to afford the 3,540 square foot three-bedroom flat, which is available for 4,000 a week, 16,000 per month or 192,000 per year. Wetherell Outrageous property deals in pictures London's most expensive flat goes on sale at Buckingham Palace near Buckingham Palace priced at 150m A luxury flat in Londons historic Admiralty Arch, which overlooks Buckingham Palace, could sell for up to 150 million. If sold for that price, the 15,000 sq ft apartment will become London's most expensive flat, topping One Hyde Park, a flat which sold for 140 million in 2014.The Grade I listed property boasts 12 bedrooms and 12 bathrooms Outrageous property deals in pictures Little White House inside the US embassy complex in London goes on sale for 2.5m A luxury home inside the US embassy complex has gone on sale for 2.5m. The property is said to be the most protected home in Britain and any visitor is asked to carry an identity card at all times. The complex has patrolling US marines, a 24-hour British police presence, checkpoints, anti-tanks blocks and CCTV.But potential buyers looking for a fortress should not get their hopes up as all the security will disappear once the US embassy moves to a new site in Nine Elms in 2017. The home, located at 4 Blackburnes Mews near Grosvenor Square, dates back to 1732 and owes its nickname to its white facade, grand entrance and sweeping staircase as well as its proximity to the US embassy. It provides nearly 3,000 sq ft of living space and benefits from access to communal gardens. Wetherell Outrageous property deals in pictures First London luxury flats to contain their own private art gallery with prices going from 3.8m up to 7.7m The first private luxury apartment building in London with its own private art gallery has been unveiled in March. The Chilterns at 24 Paddington Street contains 44 luxury residences, the majority of which were sold in 2013. It contains a signature restaurant, a 24 hour-hotel style concierge service, a gymnasium and sauna and a private cinema. The new art gallery, with original pictures of the area by David Bailey, is part of the lobby of the building and is one of the most exciting and unique features of the Chilterns, according to Stephen Conway, CEO of Galliard Homes. With prices going from 3.8 million up to 7.7 million for a three bedroom flat, the residence is located between the local shops of Marylebone High Street and Baker Street. Outrageous property deals in pictures Margaret Thatcher's Belgravia home is up for sale for 30m Margaret Thatchers six-floor townhouse in Belgravia is on the market for a cool 30 million. The Grade II listed building on No. 73 Chester Square, one of Londons most prestigious addresses, now boasts a lift, a newly constructed mews house with a roof terrace and a private garage after a three-year refurbishment by Leconfield, a development and construction company. Some features from Thatchers time at the property remain. The layout and design of the formal dining room and interlinking study on the ground floor has been reinstated exactly as the Iron Lady had it during her 22 years at the property, from 1991 until her death in 2013. Outrageous property deals in pictures Tiny London house that is just 10ft wide goes on market for 800,000 A tiny terraced house that measures no more than 10ft wide has gone on the market in south London for a staggering 800,000. The house, generally labelled "unique" by estate agent Foxtons, looks all the more unusual because it is sandwiched between two regular-sized homes. It doesn't even have a proper back door - images of the interior suggested renovators had sought to maximise the property's space by including a folding aperture to the similarly narrow back garden. Outrageous property deals in pictures The Mayfair penthouse that sold for 30 million A Mayfair penthouse on Albemarle Street, one of Mayfair's oldest roads, sold to a mystery buyer for 30 million in December. The 5,845 sq ft, three-bedroom family home is thought to be one of the most expensive properties sold in the capital this year, and comes with an annual service charge of 61,000. supplied by Estate agent Peter Wetherell Outrageous property deals in pictures The dilapidated pre-fab 'shed' sold for nearly 1 million A pre-fabricated bungalow in south-east London has sold at auction for just under 1 million. The 1950s property in Peckham comes with 0.6 acres of land, is in need of renovation and has no fitted bathroom, but still sold for 950,000. A guide price of 590,000 was initially set, but increased rapidly during the bidding. Google Maps Outrageous property deals in pictures The starter home flats that went for a combined 60 million Some 215 affordable starter homes, specifically designed for first time buyers, sold out in just three hours in November, after dozens of aspiring homeowners camped overnight and queued in bad weather to get their hands on the flats. The starter home flats at Trinity Square by Galliard Homes went for a combined 60 million, or an average of 700 per sq ft. Londoners looking for affordable housing did not hesitate to camp out for up to two days to snag a flat, despite the fact that the project will not be complete for another two years. Galliard Outrageous property deals in pictures The longest lateral flat where H.G wells hosted a book club: yours for 3.65m The 2,200 square foot apartment in Chiltern Court in Marylebone was also home to author Arnold Bennett and political cartoonist David Low. Now on the market for 3.65 million through Rokstone agency, the four-bedroom flat has been refurbished into a luxury apartment, providing an exceptional 40 meter window frontage and depth. It claims to be the longest and most outstanding lateral flat - ones that stretch the full width of a building, or sometimes across two buildings - currently for sale in Londons West End. Rokstone Outrageous property deals in pictures Gatti House: the flats with celebrity links and private "pizza" lift that sold for a collective 16.5 million Celebrity links, a famous history and a private pizza lift has helped set a new record for price per square foot for a block of flats in central London. The four flats have sold for a collective 16.5 million at Gatti House on Londons Strand. Gatti House, a magnificent grade II building built in 1867, was sold as four separate apartments priced from 2.95 million to 5.95 million by CBRE Residential and Beauchamp, which has completed the last remaining sale. CBRE Residential and Beauchamp Outrageous property deals in pictures Londons most expensive office A newly refurbished office in the heart of Mayfair measuring 6,000 sq ft was unveiled by Enstar Capital in October. At 500 per sq ft, it is set to be the most expensive commercial fit out ever undertaken in the West End, according to the developer. The workspace on 54 Brooks Mews features gold-plated executive washrooms inspired by Armani-hotel in Italy, timber flooring imported from a 16th century monastery in Tuscany and an Art Deco entrance restored with a new 54 entrance logo replicating Steve Rubells famous studio 54 nightclub logo from the seventies. While the directors floor include a rooftop terrace dressed with loungers and an outside meeting and dining table. Enstar Capital Outrageous property deals in pictures Former garage in Mayfair become worlds most expensive mews house at 24m in Mayfair In September, the worlds most expensive mews house, in Reevews Mews, sold to a Qatari buyer for an eye-watering 24 million. Outrageous property deals in pictures A penthouse where you canoe from your front door, yours for 16.95 million London luxury dockside complex located on Chelsea creek is due for completion by the end of 2016. But its luxury flats are already on sale including this penthouse yours for 16.95 million. Its future residents will be able to slip down the river for a work out on the water at anytime of the day. Outrageous property deals in pictures The only property in London too expensive for the citys super-rich property buyers A 45 bed-room mansion near Hyde Park, previously owned by a Saudi Prince, received a private bid for 280 million. If accepted this would have made the property he most expensive single home ever to be sold in Britain. It was originally listed with an asking price of 300 million more than double the price of the UKs second most expensive home.

The average cost of a house in the UK, according to the latest Nationwide figures, stood at 207,308 in March, up from 205,846 in February.

Separate research by the National Housing Federation published on Friday showed that care workers, cleaners and shops assistants face being forced to spend more than 40 per cent of their earnings on rent in all nine English regions.
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The founder of clothing line Uniqlo has said that his company could shut its US operations completely if President Donald Trump insists firms produce their goods in the US or pay much higher taxes.

Speaking in New York this week, Tadashi Yanai, chairman and president of Fast Retailing, which owns Uniqlo, said that he would withdraw from the United States if import duties were imposed.

We would not be able to make really good products [in the US] at costs that are beneficial to customers, he told Japans Asahi Shimbun.

He said that it would be impossible to manufacture quality products at a cost that is affordable for consumers.

If [manufacturing products in the United States] is not a good decision for consumers, it is meaningless to do business in the United States, he added.

Mr Trump has in the past warned that the US will impose a border tax of up to 35 per cent on some goods produced abroad and imported into the US.

In mid-March, Germanys economy minister said that her country could file a law suit against the US at the World Trade Organisation if the taxes are introduced. Duties would be expected to hit Germany particularly hard because of the number of cars the country produces.

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

Uniqlo was founded in Yamaguchi, Japan, in 1949 as a textiles manufacturer and has since emerged into a global brand, boasting over 1,000 shops worldwide.

It currently operates around 50 shops in the US according to its website.
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A 105-year-old who survived a Japanese prisoner-of-war camp, treated Saddam Hussein and invented the pollen count is still working as a doctor.

William Frankland celebrated his birthday last week, and has just had his latest paper published in a medical journal  the fourth since he became a centenarian.

So many people have asked me how Ive lived so long, Dr Frankland told The Daily Mail. There are many occasions Ive been so near death, but for some reason or another escaped.

One of those occasions was as a prisoner at the notorious Changi POW camp after the British surrender to Japan in the Battle of Singapore during the Second World War.

He was transferred to a work camp known as Hell Island, where he suffered a bashing so brutal he was knocked unconscious. Dr Franklins commanding officer would later tell him: We thought wed lost you. When you got up, you staggered with your fists out and looked as if you were going to hit a Japanese officer. A Japanese private was about to put his bayonet through your chest.

Dr Frankland would eventually resume his medical career in 1946 as a clinical assistant to Sir Alexander Fleming, the scientist who invented penicillin in 1928.

The centenarian made his landmark pollen discovery in 1954. He showed that hay fever and asthma sufferers who were given injections of a protein in pollen could have their symptoms greatly reduced.

 Britain's oldest Olympian celebrates his 100th birthday

His findings eventually led to the formation of the pollen count  a measurement of how much pollen is in the air  which is still used by the Met Office to this day.

In 1979 Dr Frankland was invited to visit a VIP in Iraq. It turned out to be Hussein, the countrys new leader.

There he was told Hussein had severe ashthma, but after running tests the doctor simply told the Iraqi leader he had a 40-a-day addiction to cigarettes.

110 not out! Britain's oldest man Show all 5 1 /5 110 not out! Britain's oldest man 110 not out! Britain's oldest man 18-110notout1-Fox.jpg Andrew Fox 110 not out! Britain's oldest man 18-110notout2-Fox.jpg Andrew Fox 110 not out! Britain's oldest man 18-110notout3-Fox.jpg Andrew Fox 110 not out! Britain's oldest man 18-110notout4-Fox.jpg Andrew Fox 110 not out! Britain's oldest man 18-110notout5-Fox.jpg Andrew Fox

To my lasting regret, I told him that was his trouble and that if he carried on, in another two years he wouldnt be head of state, he told The Daily Mail.

On the NHS, Dr Frankland said it was grossly underfunded. Nye Bevan had a wonderful idea in 1948 when he founded something the world envied. Then - but not now, he said.
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An anti-war demonstrator attempted to perform a citizens arrest on a Saudi general visiting London, over his country's alleged war crimes in Yemen.

Major General Ahmed Asiri was confronted by activist Sam Waldron, who was quickly pushed away by the soldiers bodyguards.

British police also pulled away protesters who shouted hands off Yemen and attempted to block the generals car.

 Saudi ambassador gives bizarre answer to illegal Yemen cluster bombing question'It's like asking if youll stop beating your wife

Video footage caught General Asiri showing protesters the middle finger.

On Twitter, the Saudi Embassy called the protests an attempted attack.

General Asiri was visiting London to speak at a foreign policy think tank about the ongoing civil conflict in Yemen, in which Saudi Arabia is deeply embroiled and has been accused of war crimes.

Around 7,600 people have died so far in the conflict and two million are internally displaced.

The general is a spokesperson for the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen and a senior adviser to the Saudi Arabian Defence Minister. Last year, he denied Saudi forces had been using British made cluster bombs in Yemen, but this was later revealed to be untrue.

Cluster bombs randomly scatter explosives over a wide area, instead of a single target, greatly heightening the threat to civilians. The United Kingdom is prohibited from using the munitions in conflict but has supplied them to other countries.

Mr Walton said: Asiri represents a regime that has killed thousands in Yemen and shown a total contempt for international law. I tried to arrest him because of the war crimes he has overseen and propagated for, but he was surrounded by bodyguards who roughly forced me away.

Asiri shouldnt be welcomed and treated like a dignitary, he should be arrested and investigated for war crimes.

Andrew Smith of Campaign Against Arms Trade said General Asiri was the mouthpiece for a devastating bombing campaign.

The situation in Yemen Show all 14 1 /14 The situation in Yemen The situation in Yemen Houthi supporters trample on a US flag during a gathering mobilizing more fighters into several Yemeni battlefronts, in Sana'a, Yemen EPA The situation in Yemen People carry the coffins of men, who were killed in the recent Saudi-led airstrikes during their funeral, in the Old City of Sanaa, Yemen AP The situation in Yemen Pro-government fighters give food to Yemeni children on the road leading to the southwestern port city of Mokha. Yemeni rebels are putting up fierce resistance in a key Red Sea port city where they are encircled by pro-government force Getty Images The situation in Yemen A Yemeni stands in front of a graffiti protesting US military operations in war-affected Yemen, in Sana'a, Yemen. According to reports, US Special Forces troops allegedly disembarked from US helicopters in the Yemeni town of Yakla and attacked several houses belonging to members of the terrorist group Al-Qaeda, killing three high-ranking Al-Qaeda members and nine civilians, six women and three children. One American serviceman has been killed and three injured in the attack EPA The situation in Yemen US Special Forces troops allegedly disembarked from US helicopters in the Yemeni town of Yakla and attacked several houses belonging to members of the terrorist group Al-Qaeda, killing three high-ranking Al-Qaeda members and nine civilians, six women and three children. One American serviceman has been killed and three injured in the attack EPA The situation in Yemen A Yemeni female fighter supporting the Shiite Huthi rebels, and carrying weapons used for ceremonial purposes, takes part in an anti-Saudi rally in the capital Sanaa Getty Images The situation in Yemen Yemeni female fighters supporting the Shiite Huthi rebels, and carrying weapons used for ceremonial purposes, take part in an anti-Saudi rally in the capital Sanaa Getty Images The situation in Yemen A boy shouts slogans next to pro-Houthi fighters, who have been injured during recent fighting, during a rally held to honour those injured or maimed while fighting in Houthi ranks in Sanaa, Yemen Reuters The situation in Yemen Balls of fire and smoke rise from a Houthi-held military camp following alleged Saudi-led airstrikes, in Sana'a, Yemen EPA The situation in Yemen Yemenis search under the rubble of damaged houses following reported Saudi-led coalition air strikes on the outskirts of the Yemeni capital Sanaa Getty Images The situation in Yemen A Yemeni boy looks on as Yemenis search under the rubble of damaged houses following reported Saudi-led coalition air strikes on the outskirts of the Yemeni capital Sanaa Getty The situation in Yemen A Yemeni boy sits amidst the rubble of damaged houses following reported Saudi-led coalition air strikes on the outskirts of the Yemeni capital Sanaa AFP/Getty The situation in Yemen Marine One with US President Donald Trump flies with a decoy and support helicopters to Dover Air Force Base in Dover, Delaware, for the dignified transfer of Navy Seal Chief Petty Officer William 'Ryan' Owens who was killed in Yemen Getty Images The situation in Yemen US President Donald Trump aboard the Marine One to greet the remains of a US military commando killed during a raid on the al Qaeda militant group in southern Yemen on Sunday, at Dover Air Force Base, Delaware, US Reuters

Mr Smith added: He should not be getting invited to address parliamentarians and think tanks to whitewash the atrocities that are taking place.

The voices that need to be heard are those of Yemeni people who are victims of a humanitarian catastrophe - not those that are inflicting it. If the UK is to play a positive role in bringing peace then it must end its complicity and end the arms sales.
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Nearly half of care workers leave the job within a year, a report has found, prompting calls for the Government to urgently address serious threats to social care provision.

A damning study by the Communities and Local Government (CLG) Committee found that half of care workers (48 per cent) leave within a year of starting, while the annual turnover rate for nurses working in social care stands at 36 per cent  meaning the sector is having to replace more than a third of nurses each year.

In 2015, seven per cent of roles (84,000 jobs) were vacant, pointing to severe challenges in maintaining staffing levels, amid warnings that another 275,000 people will be needed to work in the sector by 2025.

In an indication of acute financial threats faced by care workers, the report revealed that half of care workers are on zero hour contracts, compared with three per cent of national work force, while the median hourly pay for a care worker stands at just 7.40.

Concerns were also raised over the lack of training provided to care workers, with the report finding nearly one in four (24 per cent) administer medication they are not trained to do, and 27 per cent had no dementia training.

One former care worker, who worked in a care home on a zero hour contract for a year, told The Independent the work was "stressful" and that she got "very little training", adding that because of the low pay and long hours, some people cut corners.

The pay was so low, particularly for what youre expected to do. We received minimum wage, 7.20 an hour I think, said the woman, who asked not to be named.

I was basically thrown into the deep end with very little training. I had a couple of days of observing but then I was expected to just do whatever the other employees were doing. I didnt feel supported at all and there was far too much to do with just two carers on the floor.

I mostly worked with people from EU countries like Romania and Poland, and many of these people would work five 12-hour shifts a week, mainly to support their families. I was shocked at how much they worked for so little  its exhausting work.

I felt among some staff there was resentment if the managers and people earning crazy amounts while they worked so hard and got barely anything. For some staff... this led to their work becoming sloppy and cutting corners.

I know I couldn't do it long term. It was tiring, stressful and you don't see the reward in money.

In a sign of the pressures placed on staff in the sector, figures from the Office of National Statistics (ONS) revealed earlier this month that care workers in the UK face a suicide risk that is almost twice the national average.

The DLG Committee warned in the report that unless significant extra funds were provided in the short and medium terms, the social care system would be unable to cope with the demands placed upon it, adding that while extra funding alone would not solve the problems, the other steps suggested would simply fail without it.

While Chancellor Philip Hammond announced in his budget earlier this month that an additional 2bn would be provided to adult social care over the next three years, the Committee said this fell short of the amount required to close the social care funding gap, and recommended an urgent review of how to fund social care in the long-term.

Recommended Social care cuts prompt chronically ill woman to seek euthanasia

Clive Betts, Chair of the Communities and Local Government Committee, said care providers were facing "acute threats" financially, as well as a lack of training and inadequate career opportunities within the sector, adding that they are not rewarded for the responsibilities they take on.

Adult care workers are to often seen as people who wheel a trolley around and make the tea for people, but its a lot more than that, Mr Betts told The Independent.

When you think people have a responsibility to administer medication, to ensure people have a proper bath or a shower, even just helping them get up and have a proper meal. Its a real responsibility and people are not rewarded for it.

There should be some sort of formal, higher qualification in social care and then the possibility of moving onto a nursing qualification. That could all be there for people as a career possibility.

He added: During our inquiry we heard mounting concerns about the serious impact which inadequate funding is having both on the quality and on the level of care which people receive. We heard compelling evidence of acute threats to care providers financial viability and an increasing reliance on unpaid carers.

A long-term fix, working on a cross-party basis and involving the public and social care sector, is urgently necessary to meet the ever-increasing demographic pressures on the system.

This review must be ambitious and consider a wide range of potential funding sources, looking again at age-related expenditure, options such as a hypothecated tax for social care, a compulsory insurance scheme, and differences in how individuals contribute.

Responding to the findings in the report, Richard Humphries, Senior Fellow at The Kings Fund, an independent charity working to improve health and health care in England, said: "While the extra money announced in the recent Budget was welcome and will make a short-term difference, it does not provide a long-term solution.

"This means it is vital that the Green Paper due later this year sets out a radical vision for the future of social care and a sustainable funding settlement.

"Crucially, the government must follow through by implementing the long-term reforms that are so badly needed. Too many previous governments have said the right things but then failed to deliver  this government must have the courage to break the mould.

Urging that the issue "cannot be ignored", David Pearson, Honorary Treasurer of the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services (ADASS), said: The report highlights the worrying consequences of the pressures on adult social care, and makes a compelling case for immediate extra funding.

Social care needs to be treated as a national priority to ensure thousands of elderly and disabled people and their families get the personal and dignified care they deserve.

Not only are people living longer and with increasingly complex needs, care workforce challenges, including the welcome national living wage and retention of staff, are creating further pressures - the need to future-proof the social care system cannot be ignored.

UK news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 UK news in pictures UK news in pictures 7 November 2022 Handout photo issued by Just Stop Oil of a protester who has climbed a gantry on the M25 between junctions six and seven in Surrey, leading to the closure of the motorway PA UK news in pictures 6 November 2022 A grey seal with its pup, at the Donna Nook National Nature Reserve in north Lincolnshire, where they come every year in late October, November and December to give birth to their pups near the sand dunes, the wildlife spectacle attracts visitors from across the UK PA 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

The CLG Committee held eight evidence sessions over four months for its full Adult Social Care inquiry into the financial sustainability of local authority social care and the quality of care provided, which has questioned a range of witnesses from carers and people who receive local authority funded social care to local authorities, care providers and NHS representatives.

When approached for a comment, a Government spokesperson said: We recognise the challenges councils face in delivering social care and the need for a long-term sustainable solution. Thats why were giving councils an extra 2bn to help deliver these services, taking the total to 9.25 billion over the remainder of this Parliament.

Its also why were committed to having a fair and more sustainable way of funding adult social care for the future, especially given people are living longer. Well be setting out our proposals in a forthcoming green paper.
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One of the UKs biggest banks is to offer its transgender customers a choice of 10 new gender-neutral titles.

HSBC will now give customers the option of a range of titles, including Ind, which stands for individual, meaning free of gender, and Mre, an abbreviation for mystery.

Announcing the move on Friday, marking Transgender Day of Visibility, the bank published a video of its project manager Stuart Barette, who is trans himself, explaining the importance of offering the opportunity for customers to choose from a range of titles.

Mr Barette, who is also lead for HSBCs Pride network, tells of his own experience, saying: On the day that I went into the branch to change my name and my gender, I was terrified to be honest, because when you go in to change your gender in a bank you have to come out to the branch.

And coming out to anyone is a difficult situation. Its very nerve-wracking; you dont know how people are going to react."

Mr Barette goes on to explain that HSBC had arranged training for all branch staff and contact centre staff for how best to deal with these changes and have a good understanding of the experiences of those in the trans community.

For transgender people we had 'Mx' but we didnt have a whole range of other ones. And actually, especially for people who identity as non-binary, they dont necessarily always want to use the 'Mx' titles, he said.

Previously, I think that not everybody was as aware of their parts to play on peoples journeys, and understanding that helps to make that journey a little bit easier.

LGBT+ rights around the globe Show all 9 1 /9 LGBT+ rights around the globe LGBT+ rights around the globe Russia Russias antipathy towards homosexuality has been well established following the efforts of human rights campaigners. However, while it is legal to be homosexual, LGBT couples are offered no protections from discrimination. They are also actively discriminated against by a 2013 law criminalising LGBT propaganda allowing the arrest of numerous Russian LGBT activists. AFP/Getty LGBT+ rights around the globe Brunei Brunei recently introduced a law to make sodomy punishable by stoning to death. It was already illegal and punishable by up to 10 years in prison AFP/Getty LGBT+ rights around the globe Mauritania Men who are found having sex with other men face stoning, while lesbians can be imprisoned, under Sharia law. However, the state has reportedly not executed anyone for this crime since 1987 Alamy LGBT+ rights around the globe Sudan Both male and female same-sex sexual activity is illegal under Sudanese law. Men can be executed on their third offence, women on their fourth Getty LGBT+ rights around the globe Saudi Arabia Homosexuality and gender realignment is illegal and punishable by death, imprisonment, whipping and chemical castration Getty LGBT+ rights around the globe Yemen The official position within the country is that there are no gays. LGBT inviduals, if discovered by the government, are likely to face intense pressure. Punishments range from flogging to the death penalty Getty LGBT+ rights around the globe Nigeria Both male and female same-sex sexual activity is illegal and in some northern states punishable with death by stoning. This is not a policy enacted across the entire country, although there is a prevalent anti-LGBT agenda pushed by the government. In 2007 a Pew survey established that 97% of the population felt that homosexuality should not be accepted. It is punishable by 14 years in prison Reuters LGBT+ rights around the globe Somalia Homosexuality was established as a crime in 1888 and under new Somali Penal Code established in 1973 homosexual sex can be punishable by three years in prison. A person can be put to death for being a homosexual Reuters LGBT+ rights around the globe Iraq Although same-sex relationships have been decriminalised, much of the population still suffer from intense discrimination. Additionally, in some of the country over-run by the extremist organisation Isis, LGBT individuals can face death by stoning Getty

The bank now informs customers on its website that the can update their gender at their local branch. We can also update your information to represent a gender neutral title (i.e. Mx) if you do not wish to have a gender specific title on your account, it states.

It proceeds to explain that within the title section, "Mx" is listed as an option, but that the bank will also allow title changes to one of nine titles listed, which include M, Misc, Msr, Myr and Sai.

Other banks, including Royal Bank of Scotland and Barclays, also allow customers to have gender neutral titles.

Responding to the move by HSBC, a spokesperson from UK LGBT charity Stonewall said: Its great to see an increasing number of organisations prioritise issues affecting trans people.

The banking sector has taken huge strides towards making lesbian, gay, bi and trans employees and customers feel valued. This was demonstrated earlier this year by Lloyds Banking Group, who came number one in our top 100 LGBT inclusive employers in Britain.
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An inmate died after prison officers used unlawful force against him, a jury has found.

John Ahmed, a 42-year-old father of four, was subject to multiple uses of force in three separate locations at Strangeways Prison in Manchester over around twenty minutes before he became unresponsive, the court heard.

Shortly before he died, Mr Ahmed had been exercising in the prison yard with a fellow prisoner, who was seen to pick up an item and hand it to him, at which point he was led into a wing corridor to be searched by two prison officers.

It was determined that a struggle soon ensued between Mr Ahmed and the prison officers. While the officers repeatedly described the inmate's behaviour as violent and aggressive, the jury rejected this narrative and criticised the officers for their failure to employ appropriate de-escalation techniques.

It found the officers had acted disproportionately and unlawfully at almost every stage, referring particularly to their actions in moving Mr Ahmed between locations in a bent-over position with his hands behind his back, and keeping him handcuffed in prone, face-down restraints on the ground  in contravention of Prison Service guidance and policy.

When during the third period of restraint Mr Ahmed began foaming at the mouth and making gurgling noises before becoming unresponsive, the officers kept him in wrist locks whilst checking on his welfare, the jury heard.

An ambulance was called and CPR was carried out, but Mr Ahmed was pronounced dead on arrival at a nearby hospital.

In addition to their findings on the use of force by prison officers, the jury also concluded that the supervising member of healthcare staff failed to carry out appropriate checks on Mr Ahmeds physical wellbeing during the periods of restraint, and identified omissions on the part of the prison drug and alcohol clinicians in failing to refer him to the prison mental health team.

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The coroner indicated he would make a Prevention of Future Deaths Report to draw attention to the lack of guidance in place for healthcare staff regarding their role in restraint - a situation which he deemed untenable.

It comes a day after the prison system was criticised following the death of a suicidal teenager, who was found hanged in his cell after receiving a letter from the Home Office saying he was liable to deportation.

John and Margaret, Mr Ahmeds mother and father, said following the verdict: We are happy that the truth was established through the inquest - particularly the jurys finding that at no stage did John offer any violence or aggression, and that his death was not attributable to drug use.

We hope that the prison authorities will address the concerns raised by Mr Meadows, and that future deaths can be prevented.

Charles Myers of Minton Morrill Solicitors said: This is a tragic case whereby prison staff have acted in a heavy-handed, disproportionate and unlawful manner, failing to take into account clear and obvious risk factors in their decision-making around the use of force.

It is also incredibly unfortunate that some officers appear to have tailored their evidence at the inquest to fit a particular narrative about John, which the jury have unanimously rejected.

It is concerning to say the least that there is such a lack of clarity on the nature of the role of healthcare in supervising the use of force by prison officers - the fact that this has apparently been under review for over ten years suggests that the issue has been ignored for quite some time.

It is hoped that the coroner raising this issue through official channels will lead to proper consideration by NHS England of appropriate policy and training for all prison healthcare staff.

Deborah Coles, Director at INQUEST said: John died as a result of the unlawful use of force by prison officers. That he died at the hands of those who should have been protecting him is deplorable.

UK news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 UK news in pictures UK news in pictures 7 November 2022 Handout photo issued by Just Stop Oil of a protester who has climbed a gantry on the M25 between junctions six and seven in Surrey, leading to the closure of the motorway PA UK news in pictures 6 November 2022 A grey seal with its pup, at the Donna Nook National Nature Reserve in north Lincolnshire, where they come every year in late October, November and December to give birth to their pups near the sand dunes, the wildlife spectacle attracts visitors from across the UK PA 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 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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

This inquest has heard disturbing evidence about the failure of prison staff to adhere to their own guidance that restraint should be the last resort and that prone restraint carries inherent risks.

Restraint related deaths are extremely rare in prison and this inquest points to the need for an urgent review by NOMS and NHS England into use of force, to ensure that health care and prison staff are fully aware of their roles and the need for safety of prisoners to be paramount during any restraint.

Given the ongoing concern about drugs in prison and the potential for restraint to be used, it is essential that these issues are addressed urgently.

A Prison Service spokesperson said: This is a tragic case and our thoughts are with the family and friends of John Ahmed. We will now carefully consider the findings of the inquest.
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Anjem Choudary and a British member of the Isis cell known as The Beatles have been named as specially designated global terrorists by the US.

The Department of State said Choudary and El Shafee Elsheikh pose a significant risk of terrorism threatening Americans, national security or the countrys economy.

The order imposes sanctions forbidding American nationals from having any dealings with the pair and freezes any of their property or interests subject to US jurisdiction.

 Anjem Choudary: Radical preacher found guilty of inviting support for Isis

Choudary, a 50-year-old hate preacher, was jailed for supporting Isis last year but is feared to be continuing attempts to radicalise and recruit jihadis in prison.

A spokesperson for the US State Department said he acted as a key figure in Isis recruitment drive and listed his links to convicted terrorists and extremist networks including the proscribed al-Muhajiroun group.

Recommended How Anjem Choudary was finally caught after 20 years of spreading hate

Choudary evaded British law for two decades, despite being linked to a string of terror plots and banned organisations, but was eventually prosecuted after an Isis militant published his declaration of allegiance to the group in 2014.

Elsheikh travelled to Syria in 2012 with friends and joined al-Qaedas Syrian branch Jabhat al-Nusra, before defecting to Isis when the groups split.

He has been identified as either Ringo or George in the British cell known as The Beatles, which included the executioner known as Jihadi John before he was killed in a US drone strike last year.

The group was accused of beheading more than 27 hostages and torturing many more, the State Department said, adding: Elsheikh was said to have earned a reputation for waterboarding, mock executions, and crucifixions while serving as an Isis jailer.

Timeline: The emergence of Isis Show all 40 1 /40 Timeline: The emergence of Isis Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2000 Abu Musab al-Zarqawi (pictured here) forms an al-Qaeda splinter group in Iraq, al-Qaeda in Iraq. Its brutality from the beginning alienates Iraqis and many al-Qaeda leaders. Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2006 Al-Zarqawi is killed in a U.S. strike. Al-Zarqawis successor, Abu Ayyub al-Masri, announces the creation of the Islamic State in Iraq (ISI). Reuters Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2009 Still al-Qaeda-linked ISI claims responsibility for suicide bombings that killed 155 in Baghdad, as well as attacks in August and October killing 240, as President Obama announces troop withdrawal from Iraq in March. Getty Images Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2010 Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi becomes head of ISI, at lowest ebb of Islamist militancy in Iraq, which sees last U.S. combat brigade depart. Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2012 In Syria, protests (pictured here starting in Daree) have morphed into what president Assad labelled a real war with emergence of a coalition of forces opposed to Assads regime. Syria group Jabhat al-Nusra are among rebel groups who refuse to join, denouncing it as a conspiracy. Bombings targeting Shia areas, killing more than 500 people, spark fears of new sectarian conflict. Sunni Muslims stage protests across country against what they see as increasingly marginalisation by Shia-led government. AP Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2013 Al-Baghdadi renames ISI as the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, or Isis, as the group absorbs Syrian al-Nusra, gaining a foothold in Syria. In response, al-Qaeda chief Ayman al-Zawahiri (Bin Ladens successor) concerned about Isis expansion orders that Isis be dissolved and ISI operations should be confined to Iraq. This order is rejected by al-Baghdadi. AFP Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2014 - January Isis fighters capture the Iraqi cities of Fallujah and Ramadi, giving them base to launch slew of attacks further south. AP Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2014 - June Isis declares itself the Caliphate, calling itself Islamic State (IS). The group captures Mosul, Iraqs second largest city; Tal Afar, just 93 miles from Syrian border; and the central Iraqi city of Tikrit. These advances sent shockwaves around the world. Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2014 - June Around the same time Isis releases a video calling for western Muslims to join the Caliphate and fight, prompting new evaluations of extremists groups social media understanding. Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2014 - June Isis take Baiji oil fields in Iraq - giving them access to huge amounts of possible revenue. EPA Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2014 - August James Foley is executed by the group as concerns grow for second American prisoner, fellow reporter Steven Sotloff. AP Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2014 - August Obama authorises U.S. airstrikes in Iraq, helping to stall Isis along with action by Kurdish forces following the deaths of hundreds of Yazidi people on Mount Sinjar. Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2014 - September Isis release video showing Steven Sotloffs murder prompting Western speculation his executioner is same man who killed Mr Foley. EPA Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2014 - September Obama tells us that America will hunt down terrorists who threaten our country EPA Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2014 - September Isis release a video appearing to show David Haines, who was captured by militants in Syria in 2013, wearing an orange jumpsuit and kneeling in the desert while he reads a pre-prepared script. It later shows what appears to be the aid worker's body. Rex Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2014 - September Peshmerga fighters scrabble to hold positions in the Diyala province (a gateway to Baghdad) as Isis fighters continue to advance on Iraqi capital. AFP Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2014 - October Aid worker Alan Henning is killed. Self-imposed media blackout refuses to show images of him in final moments, instead focuses upon humanitarian care. AP Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2014 - October Isis raise their flag in Kobani, which had been strongly defended by Kurdish troops. The victory goes against hopeful western analysis Isis had overextended itself, while alienating much of the Muslim population through the murder of Henning. Victory causes fresh waves of Kurdish refugees arriving in Turkey. Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2014 - November American hostage, who embarced values of Islam, Peter Kassig and 14 Syrian soldiers are shown meeting the same fate as other captives. But intelligence agencies will be poring over the apparently significant discrepancies between this and previous films. Seramedig.org.uk Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2015 - February Isis has released a video revealing the murder by burning to death of a Jordanian pilot held by the group since the end of December 2014. Reuters Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2015 - February Isis militants have released videos which appear to show the beheading of Japanese hostages Haruna Yukawa and Kenji Goto. Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2015 - February American aid worker, Kayla Mueller was the last American hostage known to be held by Isis. She died, according to her captors, in an airstrike by the Jordanian air force on the city of Raqqa in Syria, though US authorities disputed this. AP Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2015 - February Isis militants have posted a gruesome video online in which they force 21 Egyptian Coptic Christian hostages to kneel on a beach in Libya before beheading them. Egypt vowed to avenge the beheading and launched air strikes on Isis positions. AP Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2015 - February The British Isis militant suspected of appearing in videos showing the beheading of Western hostages has been named in reports as Mohammed Emwazi from London. Rex Features Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2015 - March Isis triple suicide attack has killed more than 100 worshippers and hundreds of others were injured after the group members targeted two mosques in the Yemeni capital of Sanaa. AP Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2015 - April Iraqi forces have claimed victory over Isis in battle for Tikrit and raised the flag in the city. EPA/STR Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2015 - April Isis has claimed responsibility for a suicide bomb attack in Afghanistan that killed at least 35 people queuing to collect their wages and injured 100 more. EPA Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2015 - April Isis media arm released a 29-minute video purporting to show militants executing Ethiopian Christians captives. The footage bore the extremist groups al-Furqan media logo and showed the destruction of churches and desecration of religious symbols. A masked fighter made a statement threatening Christians who did not convert to Islam or pay a special tax. Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2015 - May Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of Isis has been "incapacitated" by a spinal injuries sustained in a US air strike in Iraq. He is being treated in a hideout by two doctors from Isis stronghold of Mosul who are said to be "strong ideological supporters of the group". Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2015 - May Isis has also claimed responsibility for killing 300 of Yazidi captives, including women, children and elderly people in Iraq AP Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2015 - May Isis attack on Prophet Mohamed cartoon contest in Texas was its first action on US soil. Two gunmen were shot and killed after launching the attack at the exhibition. Elton Simpson and Nadir Soofi have been named as the attackers at the Curtis Culwell Centre arena in Garland. Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2015 - May Isiss deputy leader, Abu Alaa Afri, a former physics teacher who was thought to have taken charge of the deadly terrorist group, has been killed in a US-led coalition airstrike. Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2015 - May US special forces have killed a senior Isis leader named as Abu Sayyaf in an operation aiming to capture him and his wife in Syria. Getty Images Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2015 - May Iran-backed militias are sent to Ramadi by the Iraqi government to fight Isis militants who completed their capture of the city. Government soldiers and civilians were reportedly massacred by extremists as they took control and the army fled. Charred bodies were left littering the city streets as troops clung on to trucks speeding away from the city. Ramadi is the latest government stronghold to fall to the so-called Islamic State, despite air strikes by a US-led international coalition aiming to stop its advance in Iraq and Syria. AFP Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2015 - May Isis rounded up civilians trapped in Palmyra and forced them to watch 20 people being executed in the historic citys ancient amphitheatre. The Unesco World Heritage site was overrun by militants, threatening the future of 2,000 year-old monuments and ruins. Thousands of Palmyras residents fled but many are still living within the city walls, while the UN human rights office in Geneva said it had received reports of Syrian government forces preventing people from leaving until they retreated from the city. Getty Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2015 - May A group of Isis-affiliated fighters have captured a key airport in central Libya. The militants took control of the al-Qardabiya airbase in Sirte after a local militia tasked with defending the facility withdrew from their positions. Affiliates of Isis, already control large parts of Sirte, the birthplace of former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi and a former stronghold of his supporters. Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2015 - June The US Air Force has destroyed an Isis stronghold after an extremist let slip their location on social media. According the Air Force Times, General Herbert "Hawk" Carlisle, commander of Air Combat Command, said that Airmen at Hulburt Field, Florida, used images shared by jihadists to track the location of their headquarters before destroying it in an airstrike. Reuters Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2015 - June Kurdish forces captured a key military base in a significant victory in Raqqa as well as town of Tell Abyad. YPG fighters, backed by US-led airstrikes and other rebels, consolidated their gains, when they seized the key town on the Syria-Turkey border. They are now just 30 miles to the north of Raqqa and have cut off a major supply route deep inside Isis-held territory. Ahmet Silk/Getty Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2015 - June Isis has released gruesome footage claiming to show the murder of more than a dozen men by drowning, decapitation and using a rocket-propelled grenade as it seeks to boost morale among its fanatical supporters. Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2015 - June Isis has begun carrying out its threat to destroy structures in the ancient Syrian city of Palmyra, blowing up at least two monuments at the Unesco-protected site as Syrian government troops made advances on the Islamists positions. AFP

His mother, Maha Elgizouli, said the 28-year-old militant was a regular Londoner as a child, but became radicalised after one of his brothers was drawn into gang crime and jailed.

Elsheikh is believed to be living in northern Syria with at least two wives and two children, while his younger brother, Mahmoud, was killed fighting in Iraq.

The other Beatles who have been identified include Alexanda Kotey, whose whereabouts are unknown, and Aine Davis, who was arrested in Turkey.

Several British Isis militants have been declared specially designated global terrorists, including Scottish jihadi bride Aqsa Mahmood.

The designation has frequently preceded air strikes, such as operations that killed Isis spokesman Abu Muhammad al-Adnani and senior al-Qaeda leaders in Afghanistan.

The Department of State also listed Sami Bouras, a Swedish al-Qaeda member involved in planning suicide attacks, Shane Dominic Crawford, an Isis fighter and propagandist from Trinidad and Tobago, and Mark John Taylor, an Isis militant from New Zealand who used social media to call for terror attacks in his home country and Australia.
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A Vogue model has been found dead in a room of a hostel dormitory in Bangladesh.

Police recovered the body of Raudha Athif, a 21-year-old medical student from the Maldives, at noon on Wednesday and her death is being treated as a suicide.

An hour earlier some of her classmates living in the same building discovered Ms Athif.

We primarily suspect it is a suicide case. However, we can't come to any conclusion until we get the autopsy report, said Zillur Rahman, officer-in-charge of Shah Makhdum Police Station, to Bangladesh's The Daily Star.

Mahmuda Begum, superintendent of the female hostel, said Athif always looked happy and it is hard to believe she would commit suicide.

Ms Athif posted regularly on her Instagram, sharing professional photos and sketches of herself with her 31 thousand followers. The student saw modelling as a hobby rather than a career and ultimately prioritised her desire to become a doctor over the fashion industry.

Modelling is a hobby rather than a career for me, since Im studying to become a doctor, she told Vogue India when they photographed her last year, selecting six models from six nations of the Indian subcontinent to appear on their cover. Ive never been so bold as to take part in any big pageant before this.

Ms Athif also told the publication she wanted to be an environmentalist when she was younger. She said the only advertising campaign she had featured in before this one was one for the environmental services when she was just 14.

Vogue 95th anniversary party Show all 20 1 /20 Vogue 95th anniversary party Vogue 95th anniversary party Hailey Baldwin in Balmain Vogue 95th anniversary party Lily Aldridge in Alexandre Vauthier Vogue 95th anniversary party Zendaya in Katherine Mavridis Vogue 95th anniversary party Suki Waterhouse in Temperley Vogue 95th anniversary party Stella Maxwell and Barbara Palvin in Ralph and Russo couture Vogue 95th anniversary party Zoe Kravitz in Balenciaga Vogue 95th anniversary party Alexa Chung in Valentino Vogue 95th anniversary party Bella Hadid in Balmain Vogue 95th anniversary party Izabel Goulart in Alexandre Vauthier Vogue 95th anniversary party Isabeli Fontana in Mugler Vogue 95th anniversary party Rihanna in Dior Vogue 95th anniversary party Constance Jablonski in Calvin Klein Vogue 95th anniversary party Doutzen Kroes in Calvin Klein Vogue 95th anniversary party Lindsey Wixon in Ulyana Sergeenko Vogue 95th anniversary party Kris Jenner and Kanye West Vogue 95th anniversary party Anna Cleveland Vogue 95th anniversary party Nastasha Poly in Francesco Scognamiglio Vogue 95th anniversary party Lily Donaldson in Saint Laurent Vogue 95th anniversary party Gigi Hadid in Versace Vogue 95th anniversary party Kendall Jenner in Ulyana Sergeenko

Becoming a doctor to help people has always been my dream, she said. It was a small environmental campaign for our national television network, encouraging people to ban plastic bags in favour of eco-friendly alternatives.

The student, who was known for her striking blue eyes, once posted a shoot online which she called the Maldivian Girl With Aqua Blue Eyes

Anyone in need of confidential support and advice can contact the Samaritans for free, 24/7, on 116 123 or email: jo@samaritans.org or visit a local Samaritans branch

Further information about depression is available at www.rethink.org and via the Rethink Mental Illness Advice and Information phone line on 0121 522 700
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The wife of an American tourist killed in the Westminster attack is getting stronger every day as she recovers from her injuries in hospital.

Melissa and Kurt Cochran were on the last day of a holiday celebrating their 25th anniversary in London when Khalid Masood ploughed his car into pedestrians on Westminster Bridge.

Mr Cochran died of his injuries at the scene, while his wife was taken to hospital suffering a broken leg, rib and head injuries.

Melissa Cochran, the wife of killed American tourist Kurt Cochran, is recovering from her injuries in hospital (Clint Payne ) (Clint Payne)

Her brother, Clint Payne, published photos of the 46-year-old in hospital as her treatment continues.

One with the caption getting stronger every day! showed Mrs Cochran wearing a hospital gown, standing with the aid of crutches and her leg in a protective frame.

Another showed her on the phone with loved ones in the US, surrounded by family in her hospital bed.

Talking with loved ones at home is some of the best medicine, Mr Payne said.

He posted the photos to a GoFundMe page raising money for in the memory of Mr Cochran and for his wifes treatment and loss of income.

 Westminster attack: Vigils are held around the UK

The fund has so far raised more than $75,000 (60,000) from well-wishers around the world.

Mr Payne said his sister was so grateful and overwhelmed with your generosity and outpouring of love and thanked almost 2,000 donors for their kind words and support.

Although the days since the attack had been "humbling and difficult" for the family, he said relatives took comfort from the idea that Mr Cochran focused on "the positive" things in life, adding: "Those of us who knew Kurt in life know that Kurt would not bear ill feelings towards anyone, and we can draw strength as a family from that.

His whole life was an example of focusing on the positive, not pretending that negative things don't exist, but not living our life in the negative.

"And that's what we choose to do also."

Inquests were opened into the death of Mr Cochran and three other victims of the Westminster attack on Thursday.

In pictures: Westminster attack Show all 9 1 /9 In pictures: Westminster attack In pictures: Westminster attack An air ambulance lands after gunfire sounds were heard close to the Palace of Westminster in London PA wire In pictures: Westminster attack MPs wait until the situation is under control in Westminster. 'The alleged assailant was shot by armed police,' David Lidington, leader of the House of Commons, told the house. BBC News In pictures: Westminster attack Crowds gather in Westminster after shooting incident, which police are treating as terror attack BBC News In pictures: Westminster attack Police were also called to an incident on Westminster Bridge nearby AP In pictures: Westminster attack Early reports indicate the car, which mounted the pavement on Westminster Bridge and mowed into around a dozen people, was the same vehicle which then rammed into the railings of the Palace of Westminster, just around the corner Reuters In pictures: Westminster attack Security sources described the suspected assailant as a middle-aged Asian man, who is understood to have left the car before attacking a police officer with a seven-to-eight inch knife PA wire In pictures: Westminster attack Police have asked people to avoid the immediate area to allow emergency services to deal with the ongoing incident AP In pictures: Westminster attack One woman has died and a number of others, including the police officer, have been hurt, according to a junior doctor at St Thomas' Hospital Reuters In pictures: Westminster attack At least three gun shots were heard by those inside Westminster, and proceedings in the House of Commons have been suspended AP

He died of injuries sustained in Masoods car attack on Westminster Bridge, as did British mother Aysha Frade and pensioner Leslie Rhodes.

The suspected Isis supporter then crashed into railings outside the Houses of Parliament, ran into an entrance and stabbed PC Keith Palmer to death, before being shot dead by armed police.

Thousands of people joined hands in a vigil for the victims exactly a week after the attack on Wednesday, while tributes have been paid across the country.

Investigators continue efforts to establish the motive of Masood, a 52-year-old Muslim convert who had a lengthy criminal histroy and lived in areas including Sussex, Birmingham and London.

Isis hailed him as a soldier of the Islamic State in its claim of responsibility for the attack but the extent of the groups involvement remains unclear.

Twelve people have been arrested in connection with the probe but only one remains in custody after a 58-year-old man from Birmingham was released on Wednesday.

A 32-year-old woman from Manchester remains on bail and 10 others arrested were freed with no further action.
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The European Council President Donald Tusk has said the EU will not punish the UK, because Brexit is punishment enough, as he released a set of draft guidelines defining the blocs position on talks for the next two years.

Mr Tusk spoke at a news conference after the guidelines were sent to the heads of the 27 remaining members of the EU  and immediately leaked to several news outlets.

The draft guidelines appeared to offer a concession to Theresa May, suggesting talks on future trade arrangements could begin once sufficient progress was made on the initial Brexit divorce deal.

But speaking to reporters, Mr Tusk said this was not the same thing as the parallel talks demanded in Ms Mays letter triggering Article 50.

The EC President insisted Britains withdrawal from the bloc must come ahead of any new relationship between the two parties.

Yet he said the EU will not seek to punish the UK in the initial stage of the talks. We will not be punitive. Brexit itself is punitive enough, he said.

The head of the rotating EU presidency, Maltese Prime Minister Joseph Muscat, appeared alongside Mr Tusk at the news conference.

He said the Brexit negotiations will be tough but it will not be a war, and warned both sides that citizens in Britain and other EU nations should not be used a bargaining chips.

How Brexit affected Britain's favourite foods from Weetabix to Marmite Show all 8 1 /8 How Brexit affected Britain's favourite foods from Weetabix to Marmite How Brexit affected Britain's favourite foods from Weetabix to Marmite Weetabix Chief executive of Weetabix Giles Turrell has warned that the price of one of the nations favourite breakfast are likely to go up this year by low-single digits in percentage terms. Reuters How Brexit affected Britain's favourite foods from Weetabix to Marmite Nescafe The cost of a 100g jar of Nescafe Original at Sainsburys has gone up 40p from 2.75 to 3.15  a 14 per cent risesince the Brexit vote. PA How Brexit affected Britain's favourite foods from Weetabix to Marmite Freddo When contacted by The Independent this month, a Mondelez spokesperson declined to discuss specific brands but confirmed that there would be "selective" price increases across its range despite the American multi-national confectionery giant reporting profits of $548m (450m) in its last three-month financial period. Mondelez, which bought Cadbury in 2010, said rising commodity costs combined with the slump in the value of the pound had made its products more expensive to make. Cadbury How Brexit affected Britain's favourite foods from Weetabix to Marmite Mr Kipling cakes Premier Foods, the maker of Mr Kipling and Bisto gravy, said that it was considering price rises on a case-by-case basis Reuters How Brexit affected Britain's favourite foods from Weetabix to Marmite Walkers Crisps Walkers, owned by US giant PepsiCo, said "the weakened value of the pound" is affecting the import cost of some of its materials. A Walkers spokesman told the Press Association that a 32g standard bag was set to increase from 50p to 55p, and the larger grab bag from 75p to 80p. Getty How Brexit affected Britain's favourite foods from Weetabix to Marmite Marmite Tesco removed Marmite and other Unilever household brand from its website last October, after the manufacturer tried to raise its prices by about 10 per cent owing to sterlings slump. Tesco and Unilever resolved their argument, but the price of Marmite has increased in UK supermarkets with the grocer reporting a 250g jar of Marmite will now cost Morrisons customers 2.64 - an increase of 12.5 per cent. Rex How Brexit affected Britain's favourite foods from Weetabix to Marmite Toblerone Toblerone came under fire in November after it increased the space between the distinctive triangles of its bars. Mondelez International, the company which makes the product, said the change was made due to price rises in recent months. Pixabay How Brexit affected Britain's favourite foods from Weetabix to Marmite Maltesers Maltesers, billed as the lighter way to enjoy chocolate, have also shrunk in size. Mars, which owns the brand, has reduced its pouch weight by 15 per cent. Mars said rising costs mean it had to make the unenviable decision between increasing its prices or reducing the weight of its Malteser packs. iStockphoto

That same phrase was repeated by Mr Tusk at the end of the conference, in the context of security cooperation between the EU and the UK.

Mr Muscat admitted that he and other European leaders had read with concern Ms Mays comments, in an interview with the BBCs Andrew Neil, in which she referred to Britain's valuable contribution to security across the continent.

Asked whether the UK would stay a member of Europol after Brexit, the Prime Minister said: I think security co-operation in a number of crime and justice matters is important for us.

Its not just Europol, there are some other things, there are systems about exchanging information about people crossing borders, for example, which I think are valuable: valuable to us, and valuable to the other countries in the EU...

I would like to be able to maintain the degree of co-operation on these matters that we have currently.

Mr Tusk said that, particularly after the attack on Westminster nine days ago, it was clear terrorism was a common threat to the whole of Europe, and said security was not a bargaining chip on the table.

Mr Muscat said he had received assurances from Downing Street that the matter was one of misinterpretation. He said the UK were decent partners, and his government would take the British government at its word.
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Donald Tusk has set out the EUs draft negotiating position, making clear that Britain must start to deal with its divorce from Europe before talks on future trade terms.

The European Council Presidents nine-page document states that there must be sufficient progress on withdrawal talks  including a divorce bill potentially running as high as 50bn  before negotiations on future relations begin.

The guidelines also make clear that the EU is willing to consider a transitional deal after Brexit and is also ready for talks to fail.

It comes after Theresa May triggered Article 50 on Wednesday with a letter calling for withdrawal and trade talks to start at the same time, while sparking anger by linking security cooperation to future trade bargaining.

Mr Tusks document said: In these negotiations the Union will act as one. It will be constructive throughout and will strive to find an agreement. This is in the best interest of both sides.

The Union will work hard to achieve that outcome, but it will prepare itself to be able to handle the situation also if the negotiations were to fail."

The draft sets out a staged approach to talks, with the first part dealing with disentangling existing relations between London and Brussels. This will be the moment that both sides will settle how much the UKs obligations are, in terms of a divorce bill.

 Brexit Secretary David Davis admits deal with 'exact same benefits' is not a promise

The move flies in the face of Ms Mays call for talks on withdrawal and future trade terms to start at the same time, but does leave open the possibility of them eventually taking place in tandem as long as divorce talks advance.

The second part of the EUs process will begin to set a framework for negotiations on a potential trade deal, while the third part will deal with the transition from the old to the new relationship.

The paper, which sets the scene for two years of tough Brexit talks, has now been sent to European capitals before a full negotiating mandate is cemented at a summit on 29 April.

The guidelines will form the basis of a mandate for chief EU negotiator Michel Barnier, who expects to launch negotiations in early June.

It means he will have some 16 months to conclude the basics of a withdrawal treaty and future relations framework that can then be ratified by lawmakers on both sides in time for Brexit on 29 March 2019.

The guidelines put no timeframe on how long a potential transition between Brexit and a new relationship should last, though many EU officials believe it could be between two and five years.

A UK Government spokesman said: These are draft guidelines and we look forward to beginning negotiations once they have been formally agreed by the 27 member states.

It is clear both sides wish to approach these talks constructively, and as the Prime Minister said this week, wish to ensure a deep and special partnership between the UK and the European Union.
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Allegations of anti-Semitism in Labour are putting more than a third of British voters off supporting the party, a new poll suggests.

The survey, conducted by ComRes on behalf of the Jewish News newspaper, found 34 per cent of voters said reports of anti-Jewish sentiment made them think twice about voting Labour.

That figure rises to 50 per cent among current Conservative voters, 43 per cent for Liberal Democrats and 34 per cent among Ukip backers. Fourteen per cent of Labour voters say they are deterred from supporting the party because of alleged anti-Semitism within its ranks.

The finding comes as an internal Labour disciplinary hearing begins looking into allegations that Ken Livingstone made comments grossly detrimental to the Labour Party after he suggested Adolf Hitler supported Zionism.

Mr Livingstone has been suspended by Labour since making the comments last April. He has consistently stood by his remarks, claiming he was simply stating historical facts.

In his defence submission ahead of the hearing, he claimed he was being targeted by supporters of Israel who were attempting to silence his criticism of the Jewish states aggression, and called the disciplinary hearing absurd.

According to the ComRes poll, 29 per cent of voters believe the former London mayor should be expelled from the party, while 20 per cent disagree.

Labour antisemitism row: What Livingstone said Show all 14 1 /14 Labour antisemitism row: What Livingstone said Labour antisemitism row: What Livingstone said On Israel and Palestine The simple fact in all of this is that Naz made these comments at a time when there was another brutal Israeli attack on the Palestinians; and theres one stark fact that virtually no one in the British media ever reports, in almost all these conflicts the death toll is usually between 60 and 100 Palestinians killed for every Israeli. Now, any other country doing that would be accused of war crimes but its like we have a double standard about the policies of the Israeli government Labour antisemitism row: What Livingstone said On Antisemitism in the Labour Party As Ive said, Ive never heard anybody say anything antisemitism-Semitic, but theres been a very well-orchestrated campaign by the Israel lobby to smear anybody who criticises Israeli policy as antisemitic. I had to put up with 35 years of this Labour antisemitism row: What Livingstone said On Naz Shah Its completely over-the-top and rude, but who am I to denounce anyone with all of that. It was wrong. I dont think she is antisemitic, it was incredibly rude but I dont believe she is an antisemite. When the NEC investigation is finished they'll say it was rude and over the top but they wont find any evidence that she actually hates Jews. Weve got to investigate all these charges and the context in which they are made. If she is antisemitic like the other three or four members weve found who are antisemitic, shell be expelled Labour antisemitism row: What Livingstone said On other alleged antisemites in Labour That is part of the classic antisemitic thing about an international Jewish conspiracy  that is the reason we need to have an investigation. Ive got an open mind. Ive seen nothing to suggest to me that she is antisemitic. I wouldnt have supported her if I [thought] she was antisemitic Labour antisemitism row: What Livingstone said On whether what Hitler did was legal, as stated by Naz Shah Thats a statement of fact  Hitler, Im sure, passed all those laws that allowed him to do that  its history  literally, Hitler was completely mad, he killed six million Jews. Shes not saying its legal to kill six million Jews: what they were doing in that country allowed them not just to kill six million Jews, kill all the communists, kill all the leftists like me, my father almost died when a Nazi sub sank his boat. I have no sympathy with Hitler Labour antisemitism row: What Livingstone said On another alleged antisemite in Labour No, that is, and thats why shes been suspended or expelled. What Ive said is that in 47 years of the party in all the meetings Ive been in Ive never heard anyone say anything antisemitic. There are bound to be in a party of half a million people youll have a handful of antisemites, youll have a handful of racists. Youve managed to dig out virtually every antisemitic comment that Labour members have made out of half a million people. Ive never met any of these people. Theres not a problem. Youre talking about a handful of people in a party of half a million people. Jeremy Corbyn has moved rapidly to deal with them Labour antisemitism row: What Livingstone said On Jeremy Corbyns response to the allegations He met with Naz and she agreed she would stand down while the investigation is going on. He called her in to see her. Theres been a huge investigation of virtually everything that anybody put on the internet  many of these people are quite new and recent members of the party that joined in the big influx. 300,000 new people came in Labour antisemitism row: What Livingstone said On his meeting a man accused of antisemitism in London This is the man who called for Muslims around the world to donate blood after the attacks of 9/11 when he came to London I went with him to the Regents Park mosque where he said no man should hit a woman and you should not discriminate against homosexuals. So I cant equate what I heard him say he made no antisemitic statement while he was here in London. I dont investigate people. Ive simply said what I believe to be true which is that Naz was not antisemitic. She was completely over the top, very rude, but that does not make her an antisemite Labour antisemitism row: What Livingstone said On John Manns comments He went completely over the top. I was actually doing a radio interview at the time that he was bellowing that Im a racist antisemite in my ear. Ive had that with John Mann before a few weeks ago screaming that I was a bigot down the phone. Im not an apologist for anyone who makes antisemitic statements. What Im saying is dont confuse antisemitism with criticism of the Israeli government policy Labour antisemitism row: What Livingstone said On calling a Jewish journalist a concentration camp guard whilst Mayor of London I cant tell if a journalist is Jewish or Catholic or anything. If a journalist is chasing you down the street at nine of clock at night you might be rude to them. Some people might have hit him! He said he was just doing his job. We went all the way to the High Court and the judge opened his judgement by saying I hope no one here is going to suggest that Mr Livingstone is antisemitic. We won the case Labour antisemitism row: What Livingstone said On claims about Hitler and Zionism I cant tell if a journalist is Jewish or Catholic or anything. If a journalist is chasing you down the street at nine of clock at night you might be rude to them. Some people might have hit him! He said he was just doing his job. We went all the way to the High Court and the judge opened his judgement by saying I hope no one here is going to suggest that Mr Livingstone is antisemitic. We won the case Labour antisemitism row: What Livingstone said On John Mann Id simply say to John Mann go back and check. Is what I say true, or is it not? The BBC, youve got a huge team of researchers, it will take just an hour or two to go back and confirm. I was asked a question, I answered it. I have never in 45 years since I won my first election, I have never lied. I have always answered the question Labour antisemitism row: What Livingstone said On raising the issue if Hitler It lays you open to people smearing and lying about you. Ive always answered the questions put to me and that simple fact is weve had a handful of people saying antisemitic things in the Labour Party, theyve been suspended, some of them are on their way to being expelled, some of them have been expelled already Labour antisemitism row: What Livingstone said On people calling for him to be suspended All my usual critics  but the simple fact is I agree with them; there is no place for antisemitism in the Labour party. For them to suggest I am antisemitic is a bit bizarre considering we worked with Jewish groups and put on exhibitions about the scale of the holocaust, we worked with Jewish groups to tackling the scale of antisemitism back in the 1970s. Ive always opposed every form of racism whether its against black people or Jews. Im going to stay in the Labour party and continue to fight against all forms of racism and discrimination as I have my entire life

Justin Cohen, news editor of Jewish News, said: "The fact that a majority of voters with a view on Ken's fate - including a quarter of those still prepared to vote Labour - say he should be expelled speaks directly to the charge he faces of making comments detrimental to the Labour Party.

"Every time he opens his mouth he seems to bring the party and the leader he professes to care so much about into further disrepute. It's time the party severed ties with this serial offender if it cares at all about its relationship with the Jewish community and about upholding its own rules.

"Ken Livingstone may be able to wheel out five Jews to defend him, but this doesn't deflect from the alienation that many in the Kewish community, including lifelong-Labour voters, currently feel about the party."

Of those surveyed by ComRes, 28 per cent think the Labour Party has a particular problem with anti-Semitism, compared to 22 per cent who say it does not.

Fewer than one in five voters (18 per cent) think Labour is currently doing enough to tackle anti-Semitism within the party.

And in a blow to Jeremy Corbyn, more voters felt the party had a stronger sense of common decency under former leader Tony Blair than under the current leadership.

A spokesperson for Jeremy Corbyn told The Independent: "Jeremy and the Labour Party have consistently spoken out against all forms of anti-Semitism and condemn all forms of anti-Semitism, which is why we set up the Chakrabarti inquiry into anti-Semitism and the Party is implementing its findings."
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An effective abandonment of NHS waiting times targets will cause more "discomfort and pain" for elderly patients, it has been claimed.

The changes announced by health service chief Simon Stevens have prompted widespread anger, with politicians, charities and health bodies labelling them appalling.

Under the shake-up, patients face longer waits for non-emergency surgery such as cataract operations and hip replacements in a trade off for improved care elsewhere, such as cancer diagnosis and in A&E departments, said Mr Stevens.

But the British Medical Association (BMA) said the plans show the NHS is at breaking point and meeting one promise by missing another should not be happening in todays NHS.

A target that no patient should have to wait longer than 18 weeks for a hospital operation from when they are referred by their GP has been in place since 2004, but the number of patients waiting longer than that is rising.

As shown in the chart below, created by Statista for The Independent, at the start of 2013, 5.7 per cent of patients waited more than 18 weeks for non-emergency surgery. By January 2017, this had risen to 10.1 per cent.

What were seeing here is quite appalling, said shadow health secretary Jonathan Ashworth.

It will mean many elderly people waiting in discomfort and pain for hip replacements, knee replacements, cataract operations, operations of that order, he told the BBC.

Made by statista.com for The Independent (Statista)

Its a direct consequence of the big financial squeeze being imposed on the NHS by this Conservative government.

Clare Marx, head of the Royal College of Surgeons, said the 18-week target had been jettisoned in all but name, warning: Today's announcement means more patients will wait longer and in more pain before planned surgery.

We risk returning to the days of unacceptably long waits for elective surgical treatment, she said.

Ms Marx said she welcomed some of the initiatives set down in the two-year blueprint for the NHS, including plans to free up two to three thousand hospital beds.

It is absolutely right to look at how beds in hospitals can be made available by supporting patients to receive care and support in the community, she said.

Mr Stevens said the NHS would not be returning to the year-long waiting list situation of decades ago.

Back to the year 2000, people were waiting 18 months or longer and the NHS has delivered 18 weeks as a target, he said.

I think nobody wants to go back to that very, very long time and there will be anxiety about that - but I think it is completely unreasonable to expect NHS services to provide everything, when the restrictions on funding and the demand is rising all the time.

He also said GPs would be asked to cut back on patients they referred to hospital with other options such as physio encouraged instead, promising quicker cancer diagnosis and A&E care in return.

 Philip Hammond claims the Tories are 'the party of the NHS' during Budget 2017

The NHS is at breaking point from a combination of increasing demand and inadequate resources, said Mark Porter, council chair of the BMA.

Achieving one delivery promise only by missing another is a textbook example of rationing access to care. It should not be happening in today's NHS.

The NHS, and its expert and professional staff, are working hard under extreme pressure, but fundamentally the failure to meet the access promises is a direct consequence of the Government's decision to allocate less resources to the NHS than other leading European countries.

John Appleby, director of research and chief economist at The Nuffield Trust, said squeezing the NHS funding balloon had led to a reduction in quality (longer waiting times) in a tweet responding to the news.

Mr Ashworth also blamed Government underfunding for the changes. Ive got no criticism of NHS bosses like Simon Stevens, theyre faced with huge dilemmas, he said.

But Ive got huge amounts of criticism of the government. If they gave the NHS the money it needs, and if they hadnt broken their promise on NHS funding, we wouldnt be in this situation today.

Its simply not good enough, and it is a consequence of the governments underfunding of the NHS but also their inability to get a grip of the staffing crisis, something that is only going to get worse with Brexit.
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Nicola Sturgeons formal request for a second Scottish independence referendum has been delivered to Theresa May.

The First Minister wrote the Section 30 letter on Thursday night after MSPs voted 69 to 59 in favour of seeking permission for an independence referendum to happen between autumn 2018 and spring 2019.

Ms Sturgeon said her mandate for a second vote is now beyond question, warning it would be democratically indefensible and utterly unsustainable for Westminster to stand in its way.

David Mundell, Scottish Secretary in Parliament, has already said the Government will reject the request.

The Scottish Government tweeted a picture of the SNP leader with her feet up on a couch in her Bute House residence writing the letter.

The tweet read: First Minister Nicola Sturgeon in Bute House, Edinburgh, working on final draft of Section 30 letter to Prime Minister Theresa May.

Polls suggest there is no clear preference for independence in Scotland, but 62 per cent of Scottish voters backed keeping the UK in the EU in last years referendum.

 Holyrood backs Nicola Sturgeon's call for second referendum

The SNP manifesto for 2016s Holyrood elections made clear another vote on independence should take place if there was a material change in circumstances after the last ballot in 2014.

An example cited was if Scotland was taken out of the EU against its wishes.

How Brexit affected Britain's favourite foods from Weetabix to Marmite Show all 8 1 /8 How Brexit affected Britain's favourite foods from Weetabix to Marmite How Brexit affected Britain's favourite foods from Weetabix to Marmite Weetabix Chief executive of Weetabix Giles Turrell has warned that the price of one of the nations favourite breakfast are likely to go up this year by low-single digits in percentage terms. Reuters How Brexit affected Britain's favourite foods from Weetabix to Marmite Nescafe The cost of a 100g jar of Nescafe Original at Sainsburys has gone up 40p from 2.75 to 3.15  a 14 per cent risesince the Brexit vote. PA How Brexit affected Britain's favourite foods from Weetabix to Marmite Freddo When contacted by The Independent this month, a Mondelez spokesperson declined to discuss specific brands but confirmed that there would be "selective" price increases across its range despite the American multi-national confectionery giant reporting profits of $548m (450m) in its last three-month financial period. Mondelez, which bought Cadbury in 2010, said rising commodity costs combined with the slump in the value of the pound had made its products more expensive to make. Cadbury How Brexit affected Britain's favourite foods from Weetabix to Marmite Mr Kipling cakes Premier Foods, the maker of Mr Kipling and Bisto gravy, said that it was considering price rises on a case-by-case basis Reuters How Brexit affected Britain's favourite foods from Weetabix to Marmite Walkers Crisps Walkers, owned by US giant PepsiCo, said "the weakened value of the pound" is affecting the import cost of some of its materials. A Walkers spokesman told the Press Association that a 32g standard bag was set to increase from 50p to 55p, and the larger grab bag from 75p to 80p. Getty How Brexit affected Britain's favourite foods from Weetabix to Marmite Marmite Tesco removed Marmite and other Unilever household brand from its website last October, after the manufacturer tried to raise its prices by about 10 per cent owing to sterlings slump. Tesco and Unilever resolved their argument, but the price of Marmite has increased in UK supermarkets with the grocer reporting a 250g jar of Marmite will now cost Morrisons customers 2.64 - an increase of 12.5 per cent. Rex How Brexit affected Britain's favourite foods from Weetabix to Marmite Toblerone Toblerone came under fire in November after it increased the space between the distinctive triangles of its bars. Mondelez International, the company which makes the product, said the change was made due to price rises in recent months. Pixabay How Brexit affected Britain's favourite foods from Weetabix to Marmite Maltesers Maltesers, billed as the lighter way to enjoy chocolate, have also shrunk in size. Mars, which owns the brand, has reduced its pouch weight by 15 per cent. Mars said rising costs mean it had to make the unenviable decision between increasing its prices or reducing the weight of its Malteser packs. iStockphoto

Scottish Conservative, Labour and Liberal Democrat politicians are opposed to another referendum and Ms May has repeatedly claimed now is not the time for another vote, suggesting she will reject Ms Sturgeons request.
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Lower-achieving pupils from rich families earn more than talented poorer children, the Education Secretary has admitted.

Justine Greening was speaking at a conference on social mobility, which she described as a cold, hard, economic imperative for the country.

Ms Greening drew on her experience growing up in Rotherham as she outlined the challenges faced by poorer families.

Children from high-income backgrounds who show signs of low academic ability at age five are 35 per cent more likely to become high earners than their poorer peers who show early signs of high ability, Ms Greening said.

She added: Graduates from disadvantaged backgrounds who do make it to the top jobs still earn, on average, over 2,200 a year less than their colleagues who happen to have been born to professional or managerial parents  even when they have the same educational attainment, the same role and the same experience.

 Shami Chakrabarti defends sending son to private school

Ms Greening said a postcode lottery of education funding was to blame, along with a failure to prepare vocational workers for progressing in their careers.

Last year, Prime Minister Theresa May made improving social mobility a priority for the Government.

In January, she vowed to fight burning injustices that undermine the solidarity of our society.

But campaigners have warned of the challenges facing the Government.

A Social Mobility Commission poll conducted last year found that 45 per cent of Britons believed where you end up in society is mainly determined by your background and who your parents were. Just 29 per cent of people believed Britain was meritocratic.

Alan Milburn, chair of the Commission, said a new and far bigger national effort was needed to reduce poverty and improve mobility.

That will mean long-term and fundamental reforms to our countrys education system and local economies and in the labour and housing markets, he explained.

Elitist Britain: Run by the privately educated Show all 7 1 /7 Elitist Britain: Run by the privately educated Elitist Britain: Run by the privately educated MPs Hardly a surprise: One in three (33 per cent) of MPs went to private school, compared to seven per cent of the public. This includes 52 per cent of Conservatives, 41 per cent of Liberal Democrats, and 10 per cent of Labour MPs PA Wire Elitist Britain: Run by the privately educated The media More than half of the top 100 media professionals (54 per cent) are privately educated, compared to 47 per cent in 1986. Half of them went to Oxbridge, while two thirds of new entrants to journalism have managerial and professional family backgrounds Getty Elitist Britain: Run by the privately educated Judges Although the Government is committed to ensuring a more diverse judiciary, seven in 10 senior judges went to independent schools Rex Features Elitist Britain: Run by the privately educated The England cricket team A large percentage of England's cricket team is privately educated: 33 per cent PA Elitist Britain: Run by the privately educated BBC executives 26 per cent of BBC executives went to private school. Getty Elitist Britain: Run by the privately educated Civil Service Over half (57 per cent) of Whitehall permanent secretaries are Oxbridge educated, while 11 per cent went to comprehensive schools Getty Elitist Britain: Run by the privately educated House of Lords Although it doesn't seem possible, the House of Lords is even more dominated by the elite than the Commons: two thirds of Conservative peers, half of Labour, and 62 per cent of crossbenchers attended an independent school. A miserable 12 per cent went to a comprehensive AFP/Getty

Paul Gregg, professor in economic and social policy at the University of Bath, added: For children educated in the 1980s, Britain had an unenviable record of being a society where a persons origin determined their destiny.

Being among the least socially mobile countries in Europe and performing less well than it has had in previous generations, this has made social mobility a key issue for social policy in the UK.

The policy challenge now is how all actors in society  from government to schools to employers  can best contribute to turning this around for the current generation of school-aged children.
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A Brexit deal will not automatically apply to the overseas British territory of Gibraltar and could be vetoed by Spain, according to the EUs draft guidelines for the UKs exit negotiations.

It came as Donald Tusk, the European Council President, set out the EUs nine-page draft negotiating position, making clear Britain must make significant progress with its divorce from Europe before any talks on future trade terms begin.

But in what will be viewed as a significant diplomatic victory for Madrid, however, the guidelines add: After the United Kingdom leaves the Union, no agreement between the EU and the UK may apply to the territory of Gibraltar without the agreement between the kingdom of Spain and the UK.

It means issues relating to the territory will have to be solved bilaterally between Downing Streets negotiating team and Madrid and will likely become a contentious point throughout the two-year timeframe to negotiate Britains exit deal.

The territory  situated on Spains southern tip  has been in British hands for over 300 years and residents there voted overwhelmingly in favour of remaining within the EU at the referendum last June by 96 per cent.

Recommended Gibraltar seeks EU deal that keeps free movement and single market

But speaking shortly after the vote last year Spains acting foreign minister Jose Manuel Garcia-Margallo expressed his hope that the Spanish flag on the Rock was much closer to reality. The suggestion, however, that the vote could lead to shared sovereignty for the territory and its eventual return to Spain was rejected by the Gibraltar and British governments.

The draft guidelines also make clear the EU is willing to consider a transitional deal after Brexit and is also prepared for talks to collapse.

Mr Tusk's document said: "In these negotiations the Union will act as one. It will be constructive throughout and will strive to find an agreement. This is in the best interest of both sides.

The Union will work hard to achieve that outcome, but it will prepare itself to be able to handle the situation also if the negotiations were to fail.
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British citizens who volunteer for the Israeli army should be prosecuted like others who fight for foreign forces, according to Baroness Warsi.

The former Senior Minister of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs said people should only be legally allowed to fight for the state they are a citizen of.

It is currently possible for anyone to join the Israel Defence Force (IDF) through the Mahal program if they meet specific background and age requirements.

But while people fighting for various foreign forces have faced prosecution upon there return to the UK - including some who claim to have been opposing the Assad regime in Syria - those who temporarily join up with the IDF have not.

Baroness Warsi said the UK government's current policy on the issue was not brave enough.

If you go out there and fight for any group, you will be subject to prosecution when you get back. If you go out and fight for [Syrian President Bashar] Assad, I presume, under our law, that is okay. That cant be right, Baroness Warsi told the Middle East Eye.

The only reason we allow the loophole to exist is because of the IDF, because we are not brave enough to say if you hold British citizenship, you make a choice.

"You fight for our state only. That has to go out strong."

She also added that current debates focus on demanding loyalty from British Muslims, but that the same rule should apply to all.

We dont talk about it in relation to other communities. We accept that other communities hold multiple identities. Let's just shut down this loophole. If you dont fight for Britain, you do not fight, she added.

I fundamentally believe that our policy towards Israel is flawed.

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

Stuart Polak, honorary president of the Conservative Friends of Israel disagreed and called her comments misguided.

To equate the actions of the Israel Defense Force and non-state actors that can include vile terror groups such as Islamic State [Isis], is misguided, Lord Polak told the Times of Israel.

This blase attitude is both careless and shows a total lack of understanding of the only true democracy in the Middle East."
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Britains railways are about to be hit by the biggest spending cutbacks since the 2008 financial crash amid warnings that it could endanger passengers lives, The Independent can reveal.

An explosive leaked document exposes how a national lack of funding has forced rail bosses to cancel a vast array of track upgrades in a bid to save millions of pounds.

The scale of axed projects has led to serious concerns over track safety and also threatens devastating consequences for the rail industry with contractors hardest hit.

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Unions reacted with outrage, warning of a rail disaster, up to 1,000 job losses and claiming ministers are trying to bury the news amid the furore around Brexit. Labour accused the Government of more broken promises.

But it is only the latest blow in a broader darkening picture for Britains public services  with the NHS effectively ditching operation waiting time targets, defence chiefs considering downsizing the Royal Marines and schools facing the deepest cuts since the 1980s.

The Independent was passed a letter penned by senior Network Rail official Ben Brooks in which he soberly sets out the testing times up to 2019, the remainder of the organisations control period 5.

Mr Brooks wrote: Because of significant overspends in some areas, including some enhancement schemes and the fact that the routes are more expensive to run than predicted, there is simply not enough money left in CP5 to continue as we have been.

So the whole of Network Rail has to cut costs.

 Philip Hammond defends his maiden Budget

He adds: The last time the track renewals industry had a cost challenge of this magnitude, 7-8 years ago, the supply chain suffered massively (we lost a principal contractor and many second tier suppliers)this is going to be a tough couple of years for the whole industry.

His letter then sets out the impact of tightening public finances on Network Rails existing high output track renewal programme, including the cancellation of:

All remaining renewal schemes on the London North Western route, running from the Euston Station through Cumbria to Scotland.

All work on the Wessex route, taking in the major commuter area of South West London, plus routes from Waterloo to the South and South West of England.

All work planned for 2019 in Wales.

There are reduced renewal programmes on the South East route, covering the network from London across Kent, Surrey and Sussex, and on the Western route from London Paddington to Bristol and Penzance.

The letter reveals that officials planning work on the London North Eastern & East Midlands route, covering lines from the Scottish border to London King's Cross and from Sheffield to London St Pancras, have already deferred 139m of spending.

It meant the end of all programmes on the routes to renew vital ballast, the thick gravel that covers track helping to constrain it under heavy traffic and drain water.

The letter insists that schemes cancelled would be the ones that don't bring an immediate safety or performance benefit.

But General Secretary of the TSSA union Manuel Cortes, representing white-collar rail staff, said: There is simply no need to play austerity politics with rail safety  it will endanger passengers lives.

If the cuts go through, it is hard to conceive how another rail disaster cannot happen.

Shadow transport secretary Andy McDonald said: This is further evidence of the Governments mishandling of Network Rail. The bottom line is that promised maintenance, investment and upgrades have been poorly planned and managed, meaning that the performance and safety of our railways is undermined.

Its not just passengers who will pay the price for these broken promises, but scores of businesses in the supply chain and those employed in the industry are faced with uncertainty. The Government must urgently clarify how they will get the programme back on track.

Commuters at Waterloo station could feel the hit (George Franks)

The letter from Mr Brooks expressly states that there are currently no plans for voluntary or compulsory redundancies.

But it accepts there could be a heavy cost for those employed by firms carrying out work for Network Rail, adding: Our sub-contract team members and our supply chain will be hit hardest, as this is the area of the business where we have potential to reduce our workforce quickly and relatively easily.

A spokesperson for organisation told The Independent: Network Rail has no plans to cut any safety-critical jobs or any safety critical work. Any such suggestion is ridiculous scaremongering. Network Rail is investing billions of pounds to improve our railway and will continue this investment through to 2019.

But the rail network has faced a number of cost pressures and changing priorities, and like all businesses we have to live within our means. This sometimes means making hard choices

We are making savings in non-essential areas to ensure were delivering value to the taxpayer, while at the same time continuing to deliver a safe, reliable and expanding railway. The safe running of the rail network will never be compromised and the adjustment in the activity of our high output track renewals work represents just 0.3% of our spend in the running of the railway network.

Britain has the safest railway in Europe, thanks to the efforts of many thousands of hard working men and women, and they are ill-served by such baseless scaremongering by trade unions.

A spokesman from the Department for Transport said the Government is delivering the biggest rail modernisation programme for more than a century.

He added: Network Rail has been set stretching targets by the independent regulator, the Office of Rail and Road, to deliver work at a lower cost while maintaining a safe and reliable network.

This is essential to ensure that maximum value is derived for passengers, freight users and taxpayers.
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South Africas Jacob Zuma has taken the biggest political risk of his scandal-hit presidency, sacking the locally and internationally well-regarded finance minister Pravin Gordhan in a dramatic midnight Cabinet reshuffle.

By taking the unusual step of swinging the axe without consulting senior members of the African National Congress (ANC), President Zuma plunged the ruling party into what analysts have called its worst crisis since the 1994 end to apartheid rule.

Mr Gordhan was recalled from trade talks in London this week, on the pretence that he and his deputy Mcebisi Jonas were plotting with UK banks against the interests of the South African economy. Both were sacked, despite Mr Zumas own deputy Cyril Ramaphosa dismissing reports of the plot as spurious.

The timing of the reshuffle in the early hours of Friday, with 10 out of 35 ministers losing their jobs in all, was designed to reduce the impact on financial markets.

Nonetheless, the value of the rand crashed by 5 per cent and looked set for its biggest weekly decline since December 2015. Banking stocks were also down by a similar amount, while bond yields climbed sharply  a sure sign that investors were becoming less confident in the countrys ability to repay its debts.

Mr Gordhan, who also served a previous stint as finance minister between 2009 and 2014, espoused an emphasis on fiscal responsibility and was seen as a safe pair of hands. Mr Zumas critics said his sacking could pave the way for a raid on the Treasury.

Demonstrators took to the street outside parliament on Friday morning after news of the sacking emerged, singing protest songs and demanding Zuma Must Fall.

They were encouraged by Mr Gordhan who called a news conference shortly before midday, urging ANC members to hark back to their routes as a party of activists and suggesting they organise against the presidency.

We hope that more South Africans will make it clear that our country is not for sale, he told his supporters.

As well as the critical deputy President, the ANC Secretary General Gwede Mantashe said he was very uncomfortable with how the reshuffle was conducted, suggesting Mr Zuma had sacked competent ministers while retaining those who do not perform.

I feel like this list [of changes] has been developed somewhere else and was given to us to legitimise it, Mr Mantashe told Talk Radio 702  an apparent reference to ongoing allegations that Mr Zuma is unduly influenced by the wealthy Gupta family.

But in signs of a growing rift in the party, the ANCs powerful youth wing and Womens League both backed the changes, calling Mr Gordhans replacement  former home affairs minister Malusi Gigaba  an experienced and intelligent appointment.

The main opposition party, the Democratic Alliance, said it would file an urgent legal request to try and block the reshuffle and separately push for a parliamentary vote of no-confidence in the President.

Mr Zuma has survived such attempts before - as well as an attempted coup by senior party members late last year  despite having to pay back millions in state funds he spent on his private home. The President is expected to survive once again, but his growing unpopularity could seriously harm the ANCs prospects ahead of the 2019 general election.
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FBI images of the Pentagon in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, have resurfaced years after they were first released.

The photographs show the devastation caused after American Airlines flight 77 into the side of the building, killing 184 people - including all 59 passengers and crew on board.

Images show first responders battling stubborn blazes at the complex, debris from the plane's fuselage and haunting images from the scorched interior of the Arlington, Virginia landmark.

The airliners wings clipped off light poles before hitting into the western side of the building at the first-floor level. The jet ripped a hole in the structure that extended more than 100 yards into the building. It took firefighters days to fully extinguish the blaze.

Luckily, the plane struck a portion of the building that was under renovation and relatively empty. If it had struck another side or happened after the renovations were completed, the death toll would have been significantly higher, experts said at the time.

One haunting image shows a fireman holding the US stars and stripes flag in the gutted building while others survey the devastation.

FBI release unseen image of Pentagon on 9/11 Show all 19 1 /19 FBI release unseen image of Pentagon on 9/11 FBI release unseen image of Pentagon on 9/11 FBI FBI release unseen image of Pentagon on 9/11 FBI FBI release unseen image of Pentagon on 9/11 FBI FBI release unseen image of Pentagon on 9/11 FBI FBI release unseen image of Pentagon on 9/11 FBI FBI release unseen image of Pentagon on 9/11 FBI FBI release unseen image of Pentagon on 9/11 FBI FBI release unseen image of Pentagon on 9/11 FBI FBI release unseen image of Pentagon on 9/11 FBI FBI release unseen image of Pentagon on 9/11 FBI FBI release unseen image of Pentagon on 9/11 FBI FBI release unseen image of Pentagon on 9/11 FBI FBI release unseen image of Pentagon on 9/11 FBI FBI release unseen image of Pentagon on 9/11 FBI FBI release unseen image of Pentagon on 9/11 FBI FBI release unseen image of Pentagon on 9/11 FBI FBI release unseen image of Pentagon on 9/11 FBI FBI release unseen image of Pentagon on 9/11 FBI FBI release unseen image of Pentagon on 9/11 FBI

The batch of 27 archived images uploaded to the website, FBI Records: The Vault also show fragments of the plane, which had left Dulles International airport in Washington DC for Los Angeles before it was hijacked by terrorists.

The plane which struck the Pentagon at 9.37am was the third of the four attacks and happened 30 to 45 minutes after the attack on the World Trade Centre towers in New York were hit, with the fourth plane - United 93 - aimed at Washington DC, crashing Pennsylvania shortly after 10am after passengers and crew fought to regain control.

One of the pictures of the aftermath of the Pentagon attack shows rescue workers with sniffer dogs searching the rubble for survivors or bodies. Officers spent several days trying to recover bodies hidden within the debris.

The total number of people killed in the 9/11 attacks was 2,996, while more than 6,000 were injured, making it is the single worst act of terrorism in history.

It was previously thought that the images had been newly released because of a fresh date stamp. But FBI spokeswoman Jillian Stickels said the pictures were first posted online in 2011.

A technical glitch caused them to disappear from the site for an undetermined period of time, she added. They were restored in recent days to public view once the FBI learned they were missing, according to the FBI spokeswoman.
Park Geun-ryeong, the younger daughter of former President Park Chung-hee, affirms her marriage vows in a Moonies mass wedding on Wednesday.

Park and Shin Dong-uk, a professor of cultural studies at Baekseok College, tied the knot in October last year but participate in a mass wedding of the Unification Church at Sun Moon University in Asan, South Chungcheong Province, along with 7,500 other couples from 160 countries.

Shin told the Chosun Ilbo, "Although we did not convert to the Unification Church, when the idea was proposed by the church, we agreed because we wanted to get a blessing from the Rev. Moon Sun-myung, a global religious leader."

Shin denied he married Park for her political connections. "I'm aware that many people suspect that I'm using this marriage to fulfill my political ambitions. But although there were difficulties, we are living modestly and happily and rely on each other."

The colorful couple were both married before, and their union has set tongues wagging because Shin at 41 is 14 years younger than his wife. There have been rumors that the marriage met with disapproval from the bride's older sister, former Grand National Party chairwoman Park Geun-hye, and her equally colorful younger brother Park Ji-man, neither of whom attended the wedding.

The mass wedding will be broadcast live on the Internet, and thousands of couples will tie the knot simultaneously around the world, the Unification Church claimed.
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Men using Mexico Citys metro trains got a shock when they sat down on a seat featuring a lifelike penis.

Campaigners against sexual violence placed the seat, which is moulded in the shape of a male body  complete with genitals, on public transport in a drive designed to show men the difficulties women face every day.

A note on the floor in front of the seat read: Its uncomfortable to sit here, but thats nothing compared to the sexual violence suffered by women on their commute.

A video promoting the stunt has been watched some 800,000 times on YouTube and is part of a UN Women campaign, alongside the Mexico City government, to tackle the problem of sexual assault.

In it, men can be seen leaping straight back up after trying to sit in the seat. Bemused, confused and disgusted expressions are seen on passengers faces as they catch sight of the moulding.

Mexico City moved in 2000 to make the first three carriages of metro trains women-only all day because of a surge in complaints about harassment, but it appears the problem remains.

Even one of the countrys most famous luchadores has joined the #NoEsDeHombres campaign. Masked professional wrestler El Hijo Del Santo exhorted his 70,000 Twitter followers to inform yourselves and share, until its clear this fight will be won.

Holly Kearl, founder of the Stop Street Harassment campaign in the US, told the BBC: Too often initiatives around womens safety focus on what women should or should not do, so it is refreshing to see a creative campaign aimed at men.

On YouTube, the reaction was not universally positive.

One angry male commenter condemned the video as misandrist and said it accused an entire gender over the actions of an idiotic and uneducated percentage.

A woman wrote under the video: These misandrist campaigns make me angry. To other women I say, Dont you have sons, fathers or partners? Do you agree with generalising and demonising the male sex in this way?
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Hard-right Russian nationalists are mourning the 150th anniversary of the sale of Alaska to the US, with some calling for the territory to be returned.

There will be few events marking the 1867 sale in the US, but in Russia it has brought back bitter memories and is being seen as a "convenient" opportunity for nationalists.

Some historians regard the transaction as a short-sighted blunder by Czar Alexander II, giving up Alaska's rich natural resources, particularly its oil and gas, for $7.2 million - about $125 million (100 million) in today's money.

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If Russia was in possession of Alaska today, the geopolitical situation in the world would have been different, Sergey Aksyonov, the prime minister of Crimea, told a Crimean television network this month.

Russians started to settle in Alaska in 1784, from where it set up trading posts and carried out missionary work. By the 1860s, Russia had lost the Crimean War and was in a difficult financial position. The Czar feared losing its American territory without any compensation and decided to make a deal with the US.

Andrei Znamenski, a history professor at the University of Memphis, told the New York Times that calls to reclaim Alaska were not limited to extremists.

Its a very convenient episode for nationalists, who want Russia to expand, to exploit. It fits into national rhetoric: Look how the Americans have treated us.

According to the Times, Russias foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, recently told a Russian newspaper: The anniversary may, of course, trigger diverse emotions. But it is a good occasion to refresh memories of Russians contribution to exploration of the American continent.

Speaking about Alaska, Russian President Vladimir Putin previously said we dont need to get worked up about this.

At this weeks International Artic Forum in Russia, Mr Putin said that Russia military activities in the Arctic region are contained locally and pose no threat to the global security, a Russian agency reports.

He blamed American activities in Alaska for potentially destabilising the world order.

What we do, is contained locally, while what the US does in Alaska, it does on the global level, he 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. 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Indigenous protesters blocked a major transamazonian highway to protest against the lack of governmental support during the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic and illegal deforestation in and around their territories AFP via Getty World news in pictures 16 August 2020 Lightning forks over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as a storm passes over Oakland AP World news in pictures 15 August 2020 Belarus opposition supporters gather near the Pushkinskaya metro station where Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester died on August 10, during their protest rally in central Minsk AFP via Getty World news in pictures 14 August 2020 AlphaTauri's driver Daniil Kvyat takes part in the second practice session at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo near Barcelona ahead of the Spanish F1 Grand Prix AFP via Getty World news in pictures 13 August 2020 Soldiers of the Brazilian Armed Forces during a disinfection of the Christ The Redeemer statue at the Corcovado mountain prior to the opening of the touristic attraction in Rio AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 August 2020 Young elephant bulls tussle playfully on World Elephant Day at the Amboseli National Park in Kenya AFP via Getty

He called the US missile defence system in Alaska one of the most pressing security issues.

It is not just a defence system but a part of the nuclear potential removed to a distant area," he said.

Mr Putin said that Russian activities in the Arctic were aimed at restoring navigation and ensuring its security.

Despite the views of some nationalists, the Kremlin has shown no intentions of retaking Alaska like it annexed Crimea in 2014.

Reactions to the sale of Alaska 150 years ago were mostly positive at the time, though some Russians felt betrayed. It allowed Russia to have a closer relationship with the US while preventing its annexation by the British. For the US, Alaska provided a trade route into China.
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Trevor Noah has launched a scathing attack on Ivanka Trump's decision to accept a role as her father's advisor and labelled the first daughter a "liar".

Ms Trump, President Donald Trumps second child who is said to be his favourite, has been appointed as an official government employee and will join her husband, Jared Kushner, who also serves as an unpaid White House advisor to her father.

The comedian, who hosts The Daily Show, alerted viewers attention to the fact Ms Trump claimed she would not be joining her fathers team after the election.

After the first daughter was directly asked whether she would be joining the Trump administration during an appearance on 60 Minutes last November, she said: No, Im going to be a daughter.

And a liar, Noah chipped in on his show on Thursday, mocking Ms Trumps cordial smile after they showed a clip of the interview.

At the time Ms Trump came under fire for using the appearance to promote a $10,800 diamond bracelet from her fashion line and the company later apologised for promoting the jewellery.

Look, we all knew that Donald couldnt stand to be apart from Ivanka,Noah said on Thursday's show. In his four-year term, he was eventually going to find some way to bring her in. But two months? Im shocked - two months in? This guy has the patience of a toddler.

Remember how Donald Trump and Ivanka promised they wouldnt turn the White House into a mom and pop store? Yeah, no nepotism, remember that? Well, clearly, they dont.

Sevnica: Melania Trump's home town Show all 18 1 /18 Sevnica: Melania Trump's home town Sevnica: Melania Trump's home town The 12th-century castle dominates Sevnica old town Getty Images Sevnica: Melania Trump's home town The old town has a beautiful riverside setting Getty Images Sevnica: Melania Trump's home town 'White House' slippers in Sevnica castle Nick Redmayne Sevnica: Melania Trump's home town The annual salami festival, the Salamiada Nick Redmayne Sevnica: Melania Trump's home town Sevnica was a nondescript town before Melania hit the big time AFP/Getty Images Sevnica: Melania Trump's home town Sevnica butchers take their sausage-making skills seriously Nick Redmayne Sevnica: Melania Trump's home town Only men are allowed in the Salamiada Nick Redmayne Sevnica: Melania Trump's home town As American as.... a Sevnica apple pie Nick Redmayne Sevnica: Melania Trump's home town There are no plans to make a Donald pie Nick Redmayne Sevnica: Melania Trump's home town The slippers featured in a recent fashion show AFP/Getty Images Sevnica: Melania Trump's home town The castle is one of the top tourist sites in town Getty Images Sevnica: Melania Trump's home town Melanija cake has gone down a storm AFP/Getty Images Sevnica: Melania Trump's home town The smart house still owned by Melania's parents Nick Redmayne Sevnica: Melania Trump's home town They live in America but visit occasionally Nick Redmayne Sevnica: Melania Trump's home town The communist block of flats in which Melania grew up Nick Redmayne Sevnica: Melania Trump's home town Melania skin cream, for a presidential complexion Nick Redmayne Sevnica: Melania Trump's home town First lady chocolates, dusted with gold Nick Redmayne Sevnica: Melania Trump's home town Even locals can't get enough of the Melanija cake Nick Redmayne

After criticism from ethics experts that occupying a voluntary role would allow Ms Trump to eschew some of the usual rules, this week it was announced she would be appointed as a federal employee instead. Ms Trump, who was regularly brought in during the campaign to make her father more attractive to female voters, already has an office in the West Wing.

Ethics experts have raised alarm bells about the appointment and argue it violates federal nepotism laws. Barack Obamas White House ethics lawyer, Norman Eisen, has suggested Mr Trump does not believe nepotism rules apply to his presidency.

The lawyer said both the Obama and George W Bush administrations included the White House in its interpretation of the 1967 federal nepotism law that says no public official, from the President stretching down to a low-level manager at a federal agency, may employ or promote someone who is related to them.

In his opinion, Mr Trump appears to have found a loophole. The law states any appointee found to have violated the law is not entitled to pay by the federal government, which appears to provide the opportunity for Mr Trump to employ his daughter and son-in-law, Mr Kushner, who is also an unpaid government employee, to relinquish paychecks while still having a role in the Trump administration.

I have heard the concerns some have with my advising the president in my personal capacity while voluntarily complying with all ethics rules, and I will instead serve as an unpaid employee in the White House office, subject to all of the same rules as other federal employees, Ms Trump said in a statement.

Throughout this process, I have been working closely and in good faith with the White House counsel and my personal counsel to address the unprecedented nature of my role.
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A former spokesman for Barack Obama has said the ex-president is genuinely concerned about developments engulfing the Trump administration.

Josh Earnest, who served as White House press secretary from 2014 to 2017, was asked about his former bosses' thoughts about what was transpiring under his successor.

Hes genuinely concerned, Mr Earnest told MSNBC.

Mr Earnest is now a analyst for the liberal-leading television network, a post he took after Mr Trump assumed the presidency on January 20.

Since then, Mr Obama has been virtually silent about the various controversies that have beset Mr Trump.

 Trump signs order overhauling Obama's attempts to slow climate change

His only public statement, delivered through a spokesman, was to strongly deny Mr Trumps claim - which the New York tycoon delivered without evidence and has been debunked by congressional investigators - that he wiretapped Trump Tower.

Yet, Mr Earnest has provided some insight into the hinting of the former president. Earlier this week, he said Mr Obama would be happy to continue to offer advice to Mr Trump as he did during the transition between their administrations.

Mr Earnest said he is not aware of any communication between his former boss and Mr Trump since Inauguration Day. The two spoke multiple times during the transition.

Im not aware theyve had conversations since President Trump took office, but the telephone line still works so if he wants advice or insight, Im confident that President Obama, whos interested in the success of the country, would be happy to share his experience with President Trump, he said.

Mr Earnests comment came as Mr Trumps administration continues to fight controversies on several fronts.

On Thursday night, it emerged that former national security adviser Michael Flynn has offered to cooperate with congressional investigators in exchange for immunity from prosecution.

General Flynn certainly has a story to tell, and he very much wants to tell it, should the circumstances permit, Mr Flynns lawyer, Robert Kelner, said in a statement Thursday evening.

Out of respect for the committees, we will not comment right now on the details of discussions between counsel for General Flynn and the House and Senate intelligence committees, other than to confirm that those discussions have taken place. But it is important to acknowledge the circumstances in which those discussions are occurring.
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Donald Trump has shared a picture of his handshake with the Danish Prime Minister at the White House, exactly two weeks after the US President appeared to snub Angela Merkel by refusing to shake her hand.

In an awkward first meeting with the German Chancellor earlier in March, Ms Merkel could be heard asking her American counterpart if he wanted to shake hands.

Footage from the Oval Office photocall showed Mr Trump staring back at the cameras without responding.

Fast forward a fortnight and the President greeted Lars Lkke Rasmussen on the same, now familiar, yellow chairs.

The @realDonaldTrump Twitter account posted a photo from that encounter showing a grinning Mr Trump shaking his hand along with the photo caption: An honour to welcome the Prime Minister of Denmark Lars Lkke Rasmussen to the White House!

The change in tone was noted by several people on Twitter.

One wrote: The contrast in body language is staggering. Get your act together & start behaving like a person.

Another said: I see you're shaking hands with foreign leaders again. Is it because he's a 'he'?

Mr Trump insisted the negative news reports about his meeting with Ms Merkel were inaccurate.

"Despite what you have heard from the FAKE NEWS, I had a GREAT meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel," he wrote on Twitter.

Angela Merkel and Donald Trump at the White House (Screengrab)

Commenting on yesterday's meeting, Mr Trump said Mr Loekke Rasmussen was a "wonderful man doing a wonderful job".

"We have a truly great relationship and we're working together on many fronts," he said, as the Danish PM sat alongside him. "We're going to have certain exchanges that I think will be very fruitful."

Mr Loekke Rasmussen said it was "nice to be here".
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Donald Trump called gaining immunity from prosecution "so corrupt" and and an "embarrassment"six months before urging his former national security adviser to seek the same protection.

Mr Trump was speaking to supporters at a rally in Melbourne, Florida, last year when he said of Democratic staff being given immunity in the investigation into Hillary Clinton's emails: "Have you ever seen anything so corrupt in your life? Have you ever seen a greater embarrassment to our country?

"If you're not guilty of a crime, what do you need immunity for?

The September 2016 footage appears to contradict his advice to Michael Flynn, handed down on Twitter on Friday, that he "should ask for immunity" during the "witch-hunt" investigation into links between Russia and his Presidential campaign.

Mr Flynn, who resigned after less than a month in post over undisclosed contact with a Russian diplomat, reportedly offered to testify in exchange for being protected from prosecution.

His lawyer said "unfounded allegations" against Mr Flynn amounted to a "witch-hunt environment" and that seeking immunity was a reasonable reaction.

Footage has also resurfaced of Mr Flynn saying that being granted immunity in an investigation means "you've probably committed a crime". He was also discussing the controversy over Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server, with NBC News' Chuck Todd.
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The scandal around possible links of Donald Trumps election campaign to Russia is one of the worst outrages in American history, a former Labour Secretary has said.

Robert Reich, who served under President Clinton, said that if contact with Russians occurred and Mr Trump knew about it, it would be grounds for impeachment.

The politician turned academic is a vocal critic of the President but accepts that poor work by successive governments on reducing inequality contributed to his win.

 Trump: If you're not guilty of a crime what do you need immunity for?

He penned a blog post which outlined his views on Mr Trumps smog technique of covering up potential scandals with other accusations, such as accusing Barack Obama of wiretapping his property, and altering the news agenda.

Mr Trump has struggled to shrug off allegations that members of his electoral campaign had contact with people working for Russia.

An FBI investigation into the allegations has now been launched. In addition, disgraced former National security Adviser Michael Flynn  who resigned over his undisclosed contact with Russian officials  offered to testify before congress in exchange from immunity from prosecution. His lawyer said he has a story to tell. Mr Reich said the announcement was explosive.

Mr Reich said of the scandal: Nothing remotely as serious has ever occurred in United States politics. Russias interference is a direct attack on American democracy.

If Trumps aides were involved, thats treason. If Trump knew about it and did nothing, thats an impeachable offense at the very least.

However, the current, messy nature of Washington politics and Mr Trumps consistent denial and evasion of the issue means any official investigation is likely to move slowly.

Mr Reich said it would need politicians on both sides to overcome their bipartisan differences.

The biggest danger he [Mr Trump] faces is that Republican statesmen might emerge from the mist, who are sufficiently concerned about the integrity and sanctity of our democracy to act as lighthouses, he said.

Trumped! The best cartoons on 'The Donald' Show all 28 1 /28 Trumped! The best cartoons on 'The Donald' Trumped! The best cartoons on 'The Donald' Brian Adcock Trumped! The best cartoons on 'The Donald' Dave Brown Trumped! The best cartoons on 'The Donald' Brian Adcock Trumped! The best cartoons on 'The Donald' Dave Brown Trumped! The best cartoons on 'The Donald' Dave Brown Trumped! The best cartoons on 'The Donald' Brian Adcock Trumped! The best cartoons on 'The Donald' Dave Brown Trumped! The best cartoons on 'The Donald' Dave Brown Trumped! The best cartoons on 'The Donald' Dave Brown Trumped! The best cartoons on 'The Donald' Brian Adcock Trumped! The best cartoons on 'The Donald' Dave Brown Trumped! The best cartoons on 'The Donald' Brian Adcock Trumped! The best cartoons on 'The Donald' Dave Brown Trumped! The best cartoons on 'The Donald' Brian Adcock Trumped! The best cartoons on 'The Donald' Dave Brown Trumped! The best cartoons on 'The Donald' Brian Adcock Trumped! The best cartoons on 'The Donald' Dave Brown Trumped! The best cartoons on 'The Donald' Brian Adcock Trumped! The best cartoons on 'The Donald' Brian Adcock Trumped! The best cartoons on 'The Donald' Christian Adams for Daily Telegraph Trumped! The best cartoons on 'The Donald' Martin Rowson for The Guardian Trumped! The best cartoons on 'The Donald' Christian Adams for Daily Telegraph Trumped! The best cartoons on 'The Donald' Morten Morland for The Times Trumped! The best cartoons on 'The Donald' Bob Moran for Daily Telegraph Trumped! The best cartoons on 'The Donald' Christian Adams for Daily Telegraph Trumped! The best cartoons on 'The Donald' Morten Morland for The Times Trumped! The best cartoons on 'The Donald' KAL for The Economist Trumped! The best cartoons on 'The Donald' Martin Rowson for The Guardian

They would guide the public through it and shine a beam of clarity on one of the worst outrages in American history.

Similar sentiments were expressed by famous reporter Carl Bernstein, whose reporting of the Watergate scandal eventually led to the resignation of President Nixon.

Mr Bernstein, who has claimed there is a potential cover up to hide Mr Trumps alleged Russian connections, said it was Republican politicians who really made a difference during the Watergate.
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A judge has approved an agreement for President Donald Trump to pay $25 million (19.9m) to settle lawsuits over his now-defunct Trump University.

The decision by US District Judge Gonzalo Curiel in San Diego ends nearly seven years of legal battles with customers who claimed they were misled by failed promises to teach success in real estate.

The ruling settles two class-action lawsuits and a civil lawsuit by New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman.

Mr Trump had vowed never to settle but said after the election that he didn't have time for a trial, even though he believed he would have prevailed. Under terms of the settlement, he admits no wrongdoing.

The lawsuits alleged that Trump University gave nationwide seminars that were constantly pressuring people to spend more and, in the end, failing to deliver.

Attorneys for former customers have said their clients will get at least 90 per cent of their money back, based on the roughly 3,730 claims submitted.

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

Trump University dogged the Republican businessman throughout the campaign as rivals used Mr Trump's depositions and extensive documents filed in the lawsuits to portray him as dishonest and deceitful.

Mr Trump brought more attention by repeatedly assailing Judge Curiel, insinuating that the Indiana-born judge's Mexican heritage exposed a bias.

The judge rejected requests by two former students who objected to the settlement, scuttling the possibility of derailing the agreement with the prospect of more litigation.

When attorneys reached a deal shortly after Mr Trump's election, Judge Curiel said he hoped it would be part of a healing process that this country very sorely needs. A month later, he granted preliminary approval of the deal.

The settlement was announced 10 days before a trial was set to begin, sparing Mr Trump what would have been a major distraction. The trial would have been pinned on whether a jury believed Mr Trump misled customers by calling the business a university when it wasn't an accredited school and by advertising that he hand-picked instructors.

Transcripts of about 10 hours of Trump depositions provided additional material to rivals, though Judge Curiel denied a request to release video of Mr Trump's testimony that would have likely been used in campaign attack ads. Mr Trump acknowledged in the depositions that he played on people's fantasies, and he could not recall names of his employees despite his advertising pitch that he hand-picked them.

Mr Trump has repeatedly claimed a 98 percent customer satisfaction rate on internal surveys. Plaintiffs countered that students were asked to rate the product when they believed they still had more instruction to come and were reluctant to openly criticise their teachers on surveys that were not anonymous. \

Associated Press
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Donald Trump has authorised easing restrictions on counter-terrorism air strikes in Somalia that were put in place to prevent civilian casualties.

Pentagon spokesman Navy Capt. Jeff Davis said in a statement that the order gives more authority to the US military head in Africa command to perform precision airstrikes on al-Shabaab, a designated terrorist group.

The group carried out a 2013 attack on the Westgate Mall in Nairobi, Kenya resulting in 60 deaths and 175 wounded as well as several other attacks.

Recommended Trump gives Pentagon permission to carry out more raids in Yemen

Somalia is currently experiencing extreme drought, famine, and cholera as well as violence from al-Shabaab.

Mr Trump has designated certain regions an area of active hostilities where the Presidential Policy Guidance rules do not apply. Mogadishu has been excluded from the list of regions.

The Guidance rules were put in place by former President Barack Obama in 2013 to govern counterterrorism strikes away from conventional war zones, like those in Afghanistan and Iraq, the New York Times reports.

It required interagency vetting, that the target had to pose a direct threat to the US, and that assuredness that civilians would not be killed in any strike.

Africa Command, the US military presence on the continent, can now conduct air strikes on anyone they feel are al-Shabaab members, even if the individuals targeted do not pose a direct threat to Americans and without the requirement to make sure no civilians are in the immediate area.

US Africa Command Commander, General Thomas Waldhauser, said that the cardinal rule in these types of engagements is to not make more enemies than you already have. And I think we go to great pains to do that.

Because easing the restrictions reduces time spent on getting approvals, it allows for targeting the terrorists in a more rapid fashion, as Mr Waldhauser said.

A British military officer with recent experience in East Africa told The Independent that the change in restrictions does not put civilians in any more danger that what exists now.

The process is shortened, this does not mean that the process is any less effective at mitigating against civilian casualties, the officer explained.

What the easing of restrictions will do is improve [The African Union Mission in Somalia] AMISOM and the Somali National Armys chances of defeating al-Shabaab, the officer said.

The key will be good on the ground intelligence.

The potential escalation of the situation in Somalia worries some based on recent events.

Mr Trumps decision to loosen terms for using force mirrors what he did for Yemen earlier in his term. A raid there resulted in scores of civilian deaths as well as the death of a Navy SEAL and losing a $75 million aircraft.

The 17 March US air strike in Mosul, Iraq may have killed as many as 200 people.

Despite lifting restrictions put in place by the Obama administration, the move by Mr Trump is not in complete opposition to his predecessor.

Mr Obama also had issued an easing of restrictions around Surt, Libya for a short period of time and also allowed some air strikes to be carried out without the restrictions and process of the Presidential Policy Guidance.
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EU chief Jean-Claude Juncker has threatened to campaign for the state of Ohio to become independent from Washington if Donald Trump keeps encouraging countries to leave the European Union.

The President of the European Commission was speaking in Malta after Theresa Mays Article 50 letter was delivered to Donald Tusk, the President of the European Council.

Mr Juncker said that despite the formal beginning of the two-year Brexit process, it was business as usual for the EU. But he warned that if Mr Trump continues to lobby for the further destabilisation of the union, he will retaliate.

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"Brexit isn't the end. A lot of people would like it that way - even people on another continent where the newly elected US president was happy that Brexit was taking place and has asked other countries to do the same.

"If he goes on like that, I am going to promote the independence of Ohio and Austin, Texas, in the United States, he said.

The US President previously said Brexit would be a great thing for the UK and that a favourable trade deal with the US could tempt others to leave the EU bloc.

Mr Juncker said Brexit should be seen as a new beginning for the bloc and that there was much work to do including strengthening security and defence policy.

A chicken coop is a close combat formation compared to Europes common defence, he said, addressing his audience in German.

Mr Tusk, who also spoke at the meeting of leaders of the centre-right European Peoples Party, said there was something positive in Brexit and that it would make the remaining 27 countries more determined and more united.

He said: "Yesterday, right after receiving the letter from Prime Minister Theresa May invoking Article 50, I said that paradoxically there's also something positive in Brexit.

"Brexit has made us, the community of 27, more determined and more united than before.

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

"I am fully confident of this ... and I can say that we will remain determined and united in the future, also during the difficult negotiations ahead.

There is no alternative than a united and sovereign Europe."

The European Parliament President, Antonio Tajani, also called for unity at a time when the EU is facing division.

"Economic crisis, immigration, terrorism, Brexit, the responsibility of the EPP (European People's Party) is most important responsibility. We need to work all together, we need to be united, he said.
Qatar Airways is offering loaner laptops to its business class passengers in the wake of a U.S. ban on them on flights from several countries.

"As an award-winning and global airline we truly appreciate the importance of being able to work on board our aircraft and that is why I have insisted on offering only the best possible solution for our customers," said Akbar Al Baker, the company's CEO.

"By providing this laptop loan service we can ensure that our passengers on flights to the U.S. can continue to work whilst on-board. This unique ability to offer 'business as usual,' above and beyond the competition, is yet another example of Qatar Airways justification for being the 'World's Best Business Class.'"


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The Senate Intelligence Committee has reportedly turned down Michael Flynn's request for immunity from prosecution in exchange for being interviewed as part of their investigation into Russia's alleged hacking of the 2016 presidential election.

Mr Flynn's lawyer was told immunity was wildly preliminary and not on the table at this point, a senior congressional official told NBC. It does not necessarily rule out immunity at a later date, as the investigation is still being pursued.

President Donald Trump has supported the decision of his former national security adviser to seek immunity in exchange for his testimony in congressional probes of possible ties between the Trump campaign and Russia.

Mr Flynn wants protection against unfair prosecution if he testifies before the intelligence committees of the US Senate and the House of Representatives, his lawyer, Robert Kelner, said on Thursday.

Mr Kelner confirmed that discussions had taken place with the House and Senate Intelligence Committees, and said General Flynn certainly has a story to tell, and he very much wants to tell it.

Mr Kelner said, however, that out of respect for the committees, he and his client would not be commenting on the details of their discussions with the committees.

He then accused the media of being awash with unfounded allegations, outrageous claims of treason, and vicious innuendo.

As for Mr Trump, he wrote in a tweet: Mike Flynn should ask for immunity in that this is a witch hunt (excuse for big election loss), by media & Dems, of historic proportion!.

Senator Angus King, a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said it was too soon to discuss immunity for Mr Flynn. A government official with direct knowledge of the case told Reuters that lawyers for Flynn raised the immunity request roughly 10 days ago with representatives of the Senate Intelligence Committee.

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

Testimony from Mr Flynn could help shed light on the conversations he had last year with Sergey Kislyak, Russian ambassador to the United States, while national security adviser for Mr Trump's presidential campaign.

Mr Flynn was forced to resign as national security adviser in February for failing to disclose talks with Mr Kislyak about US sanctions on Moscow and misleading Vice President Mike Pence about the conversations, which occurred before Mr Trump took office.

Congressional committees and the Federal Bureau of Investigation are also looking into allegations of Russian meddling in the election campaign. Russia has denied allegations that it hacked emails of Democratic groups and released information to tip the presidential election toward Mr Trump.

Mr King said of Mr Trump's remarks on Mr Flynn: This is not a witch hunt... This is an effort to get to the truth of some very important questions.

There is no doubt whatsoever that the Russians were behind an effort to interfere in our elections, he told CNN. To continue to deny that - it just flies in the face of all of the reality.
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Donald Trump's former national security adviser Mike Flynn has told officials he is willing to be interviewed in an ongoing probe into possible links between the President's team and Russia, according to a US newspaper report.

Mr Flynn, who was fired for failing to disclose talks with Russia's ambassador about US sanctions on Moscow, has informed the House and Senate intelligence committees and the FBI that he will cooperate with the investigation into the Trump campaign's potential ties to the Kremlin.

His lawyer Robert Kelner released a statement on Thursday evening saying Mr Flynn "certainly has a story to tell, and he very much wants to tell it, should the circumstances permit".

 Michael Flynn once said anyone seeking immunity 'probably committed a crime'

"No reasonable person, who has the benefit of advice from counsel, would submit to questioning in such a highly politicized, witch-hunt environment without assurances against unfair prosecution," he added.

The initial report in The Wall Street Journal cited unnamed officials with knowledge of the matter.

It said Mr Flynn had agreed to be interviewed in return for the promise of immunity from prosecution.

His lawyer reportedly made the offer to the officials, which has not yet been accepted.

 Michael Flynn resigns as national security adviser over Russia row

The 58-year-old retired US Army lieutenant general found himself at the centre of a gathering storm in February after it emerged he had spoken with a Russian diplomat about the issue of US sanctions before Mr Trump took office, and indicated the relationship between the two countries would improve under a new administration.

Sanctions had been imposed by Barack Obama in response to Russias alleged cyber-interference in the presidential election.

Mr Flynn had originally denied discussing sanctions with senior officials, including Mike Pence. But when it emerged that US intelligence officials had been monitoring the call to the Russian Ambassador to Washington, Mr Flynn had to reverse course.
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The top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee looking into potential ties between associates of President Donald Trump and Russia has said he has profound concern about the way intelligence materials were possibly shared with the panel's chairman.

Two White House officials reportedly played a role in giving Republican Devin Nunes the intelligence reports that formed the basis for a statement that Mr Trump transition team members had information incidentally picked up.

Adam Schiff, a California Democrat, said he has a lot of unanswered questions about the process. He raised concerns about why, if the White House did give Mr Nunes the information, it shared the reports with the congressman rather than going directly to the White House.

Why all the cloak and dagger stuff? Mr Schiff asked.

The White House refused to discuss the report, which first appeared in The New York Times. Asked if he would tell reporters if the report was wrong, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer said he was not going to get into it.

However, the administration did invited legislators from both parties - and both the Senate and House investigations into Russia - to view classified material it said relates to surveillance of the president's associates.

The White House's invitation letter came amid the quickly rising storm over Mr Nunes. The House panel's work has been deeply, and perhaps irreparably, undermined by Mr Nunes' potential coordination with the White House. He told reporters last week that he had seen troubling information about the improper distribution of Trump associates' intercepted communications, and he briefed the president on the material, all before informing Mr Schiff.

Mr Schiff said he was more than willing to accept the White House offer to view new information. But he raised concerns that Trump officials may have used Mr Nunes to launder information to our committee to avoid the true source.

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

The furore over the White House came as public hearings for the Senate investigation into Russias interference with the 2016 presidential election began, with Senator Mark Warner noting this is not fake news. This is actually what happened to us.

Mr Warner is the Vice Chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee in charge of the investigation into not only Russian interference but any ties President Trumps campaign and transition teams may have had with Russia during the election.

Three main witnesses appeared before the committee as part of a primer on what Russia is capable of and what they could have done to the 2016 election.

Russian history was discussed as a means of understanding their current and future capabilities. Roy Godson, a professor at Georgetown University, said regarding how Russia were able to make such advances in cyber attacks: they were able to take enormous advantages while the US was not paying as much attention to the matter.

Dr Eugene Rumer, Director of Russia and Eurasia Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, also explained that Russias defence costs are far less than the US and the tools they use are cheap.

A handful of cyber criminals costs a lot less than an armored brigade, Mr Rumer added.

Chairman of the committee Republican Senator Richard Burr confirmed with Mr Rumer that there was indeed evidence of [Russias] ability to build up or destroy the character of [candidates].

Mr Rumer said fake news sites detailing the failures of Angela Merkel - like allowing Syrian and other refugees into Germany - were popping up everywhere in order to discredit her in the eyes of the public.

Staggering is how Mr Rumer described Russian influence on the French election. He said Russian President Vladimir Putin hosted the far-right candidate in Moscow almost with a smirk. Like he was saying we dont interfere, but we have the right to engage any candidate in the process.

Clint Watts, Senior Fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute Program on National Security, also noted that Russian interference in elections has the goal of creating confusion information sources by blurring the lines between fact and fiction.

Mr Watts also has a list of recommendations for combating such foreign influence but Mr Burr said the committee noted that the list has not been heeded and that the US response to date has been woefully short of what needs to be.

The committee plans to continue holding public and private hearings but private interviews of potential witnesses will be conducted first in order to determine what kind of new information they can present to the committee and the public.
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The White House has insisted it is not concerned Michael Flynn may reveal damaging information about Donald Trumps alleged links to Russia, if the former national security advisor testifies before Congress or speaks to the FBI.

Mr Flynn has reportedly offered to cooperate with FBI investigators and two Congressional committees in return for immunity from prosecution, as they probe Russia's alleged cyber-meddling in the 2016 election, and possible links between Moscow and Mr Trumps campaign team.

On Friday morning, Mr Trump tweeted his belief that Mr Flynn should indeed testify. Mike Flynn should ask for immunity in that this is a witch hunt (excuse for big election loss), by media & Dems, of historic proportion.

Mr Trump would not comment further when asked about Mr Flynn during a White House meeting with US manufacturers.

However, White House spokesman Sean Spicer later doubled down on this at a briefing with reporters. Asked if Mr Trump was concerned about possible testimony from Mr Flynn, he replied: Nope.

He believes that Mike Flynn should go testify, Mr Spicer said. He should go up there and do what he has to do to get the story out.

Asked whether it was appropriate for Mr Flynn to seek immunity - something both Mr Trump and Mr Flynn had previously suggested was evidence of criminal behaviour - he said: That is up to him and his lawyer. Im not going to give Mike Flynn or anyone else legal advice from the podium.

Mr Spicer said Mr Trump wanted Mr Flynn to testify to get this matter behind us but declined to say specifically that he should be granted immunity.

The president is very clear that he wants Mike Flynn to go and be completely open and transparent with the committee, and whatever it takes to do that he is supportive of, Mr Spicer said.

 Michael Flynn once said anyone seeking immunity 'probably committed a crime'

Meanwhile, Congressional investigators on Friday rebuffed Mr Flynns offer of cooperation in exchange for immunity from prosecution, saying it is too early in their probe of possible Russia connections to discuss a deal.

The Associated Press said a congressional aide confirmed that preliminary discussions with the Senate intelligence committee involved immunity but that it was too early in the investigation to set terms.

The top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, Congressman Adam Schiff, of California, said committee leaders would be discussing the issue with their Senate counterparts and the Justice Department.

We should first acknowledge what a grave and momentous step it is for a former national security adviser to the president of the United States to ask for immunity from prosecution, Mr Schiff said in a statement.

As with any investigation - and particularly one that grows in severity and magnitude by the day - there is still much work and many more witnesses and documents to obtain before any immunity request from any witness can be considered, Mr Schiff said.

Mr Schiff went to the White House on Friday at the administration's invitation to review documents that it said support Trump's contention he and his team were subjected to surveillance by the Obama administration during the presidential campaign.

Mr Flynns lawyer, Robert Kelner, said no reasonable person who has a lawyer would answer questions without assurances that he would not be prosecuted, given calls from some members of Congress that the retired lieutenant general should face criminal charges.

General Flynn certainly has a story to tell, and he very much wants to tell it, should the circumstances permit, Mr Kelner said

The Republican chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Devin Nunes, has been criticised by his colleagues on the panel for his handling of the investigation of possible Russian connections, including going to the White House complex independently to review documents on the purported surveillance.

FBI Director James Comey has said there is no evidence of wiretapping at Trump Tower in New York but that the agency is investigating whether the Trump campaign colluded with Russia.

Senator Angus King, a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, also said it was too soon to discuss immunity.

Mr Flynn was forced to resign on 13 February for failing to disclose talks with Russian ambassador to the US, Sergei Kislyak about US sanctions on Moscow and misleading Vice President Mike Pence about the conversations, which occurred before Trump took office

The Russian government has denied the allegations and denied that it hacked emails of Democratic groups and released information to tip the election toward Trump, who has called for better U.S. relations with Moscow.

In a CNN interview on Friday, Mr King defended the investigations. This is not a witch hunt... This is an effort to get to the truth of some very important questions.

There is no doubt whatsoever that the Russians were behind an effort to interfere in our elections, Mr King said. To continue to deny that - it just flies in the face of all of the reality.
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The United States has sanctioned 11 North Koreans and one North Korean coal company for their links to the country's nuclear weapons program.

The US Treasury on Friday accused the individuals of working as agents of North Korea's government in Russia, China, Vietnam and Cuba to provide financial support for previously sanctioned companies.

"Today's sanctions are aimed at disrupting the networks and methods that the Government of North Korea employs to fund its unlawful nuclear, ballistic missile, and proliferation programs," Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said in a statement. "I urge our partners and allies to take similar measures to cut off its funding."

North Korea has launched three failed missile tests this month. In response, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said that military options could be "on the table" if they continue testing nuclear weapons.
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The White House has refused to say whether it secretly fed intelligence reports to a top Republican lawmaker, fuelling concerns about political interference in the investigation into possible coordination between Russia and the 2016 Trump campaign.

Fending off the growing criticism, the administration invited lawmakers from both parties to view classified material it said relates to surveillance of the President's associates. The invitation came as The New York Times reported that two White House officials  including an aide whose job was recently saved by President Donald Trump  secretly helped House Intelligence Committee chairman Devin Nunes examine intelligence information last week.

Nunes is leading one of three investigations into Russia's attempt to influence the campaign and Trump associates' possible involvement.

Late Thursday, an attorney for Michael Flynn, Trump's ex-national security adviser, said Flynn is in discussions with the House and Senate intelligence committees about speaking to them in exchange for immunity. The talks are preliminary, and no official offers have been made.

General Flynn certainly has a story to tell, and he very much wants to tell it, should the circumstances permit, Flynn's attorney, Robert Kelner, said in a statement.

Other Trump associates have volunteered to speak with investigators, but have not publicly raised the issue of immunity.

Flynn, a member of the Trump campaign and transition, was fired as national security adviser after it was publicly disclosed that he misled the vice president about a conversation he had with the Russian ambassador to the US. Flynn's ties to Russia have been scrutinised by the FBI and are under investigation by the House and Senate intelligence committees.

The House panel's work has been deeply, and perhaps irreparably, undermined by Nunes' apparent coordination with the White House. He told reporters last week that he had seen troubling information about the improper distribution of Trump associates' intercepted communications, and he briefed the president on the material, all before informing Rep. Adam Schiff, the committee's top Democrat.

Speaking on Capitol Hill Thursday, Schiff said he was more than willing to accept the White House offer to view new information. But he raised concerns that Trump officials may have used Nunes to launder information to our committee to avoid the true source.

The White House has a lot of questions to answer, he declared.

Instead, the White House continued to sidestep queries about its role in showing Nunes classified information that appears to have included transcripts of foreign officials discussing Trump's transition to the presidency, according to current and former US officials. Intelligence agencies routinely monitor the communications of foreign officials living in the US, though the identities of Americans swept up in that collection is to be protected.

The Senate intelligence committee, which has thus far taken a strikingly more measured and bipartisan approach to its own Russia investigation, responded to the White House's invitation by asking for the intelligence agencies that own the intelligence documents in question to immediately provide them directly to the Committee.

In Russia, President Vladimir Putin said there was nothing to the allegations of election meddling.

Did Russia interfere in the US campaign, he was asked at a forum in the northern Russian city of Arkhangelsk? Injecting a bit of humour, Putin answered by quoting George H.W. Bush from the 1992 US presidential campaign.

Read my lips: No, he said, pronouncing the last word in English for emphasis.

In Washington early last week, White House officials privately encouraged reporters to look into whether information about Trump associates had been improperly revealed in the intelligence gathering process. Days later, Nunes announced that he had evidence, via an unnamed source, showing that Trump and his aides' communications had been collected through legal means but then widely disseminated throughout government agencies. He said the collections were not related to the Russia investigation.

Trump spokesman Sean Spicer said Thursday the material the White House wants the House and Senate intelligence leaders to view was discovered by the National Security Council through the course of regular business. He would not say whether it was the same material Nunes had already seen.

A congressional aide said Schiff did not receive the White House letter until after Spicer announced it from the White House briefing room.

Spicer had previously dismissed the notion that the White House had funnelled information to Nunes, saying the idea that the congressman would come and brief Trump on material the president's team already had doesn't pass the smell test. The White House quickly embraced Nunes' revelations, saying they vindicated Trump's explosive and unverified claim that President Barack Obama wiretapped his New York skyscraper.

Nunes has said the information he received did not support that allegation, which has also been disputed by Obama and top intelligence officials.

The Times reported that Ezra Cohen-Watnick, the senior director for intelligence at the White House National Security Council, and Michael Ellis, a White House lawyer who previously worked on the House Intelligence Committee, played roles in helping Nunes view the materials.

Cohen-Watnick is among about a dozen White House officials who would have access to the types of classified information Nunes says he viewed, according to current and former US officials. He's become a controversial figure in intelligence circles, but Trump decided to keep him on over the objections of the CIA and National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster, according to the officials. They spoke only on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to comment publicly by name.

Cohen-Watnick and Nunes both served on the Trump transition team.

Stephen Slick, a former CIA and NSC official, said it would be highly unusual and likely unprecedented for a member of Congress to travel to the White House to view intelligence reports without prior authorisation.

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

Nunes has repeatedly sidestepped questions about who provided him the intelligence reports, though he pointedly has not denied that his sources were in the White House. House Speaker Paul Ryan, in an interview with CBS This Morning that aired Thursday, said Nunes told him a whistleblower-type person provided the information.

A spokesman for Ryan later said the speaker was not aware of Nunes' source and continues to have full confidence in the congressman's ability to run the Russia investigation.

Associated Press
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The author of The Anarchist Cookbook, a manual for causing violence which has sold millions of copies, has died at the age of 66.

William Powell began his researching his book in the wake of his anger as a teenager about the Vietnam War.

The result was what the New York Times called a diagram- and recipe-filled manifesto that Mr Powell saw as an educational service for the silent majority.

Mr Powell died on 11 July 2016 however media was not aware of his passing until the recent documentary, called American Anarchist, was released by director Charlie Siskel.

He was born in 1949 on Long Island and lived in England for some time due to his fathers work as a United Nations spokesperson.

It is believed that the book was used by high school students when they killed 12 fellow students and a teacher in the 1999 Columbine High School shooting incident in Littleton, Colorado.

The Washington Post reports that the manual was also used by Timothy McVeigh in the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing that killed 168 people including children in the government buildings daycare as well as the 2001 shooting in Tuscon, Arizona that severely injured Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords.

Mr Powell wrote in the book that revolutionaries believe that the government in power is illegal...I see no reason that he should feel restricted by laws made by an illegal body.

He saw himself and his colleagues as challenging the authority of then-President Richard Nixon.

In Anarchist Cookbook Mr Powell covered topics like how to set booby traps, build explosives, sabotage, drug use, and combat methods.

Later in life, however, Mr Powell expressed regret at the way the manual was being used, saying it was a misguided product of my adolescent anger at the prospect of being drafted and sent to Vietnam to fight in a war that I did not believe in.

He wrote a new forward to the book in 2000 saying he once thought violence was an acceptable means to affect change in the world, but that he no longer felt that was true.
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Japan has killed 333 whales in the Antarctic during a hunt it has justified in the name of ecological research.

This is the second year Japan has taken part in a whale-killing spree, which it says is to conduct scientific activities under a revised whaling programme.

The Fisheries Agency announced that the five-ship fleet had returned from its four-month expedition.

Recommended

According to the Institute for Cetacean Research, the expedition was a survey for a research programme carried out by the Japanese Whale Research Institute with the permission from the Minister of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries.

The International Whaling Commission, which regulates the industry, has banned commercial whaling since 1986, but an exemption for scientific studies remains.

Japan has been accused of using the exemption as cover to continue its commercial activities and sell the whales.

In 2014, the International Court of Justice ruled that Japan should stop its Antarctic whaling programme because its purpose was not scientific as previously claimed.

Animal protection charity Humane Society International has called for an end to Japanese whaling.

Each year that Japan persists with its discredited scientific whaling is another year where these wonderful animals are needlessly sacrificed, Kitty Block, the groups executive vice-president told The Guardian.

It is an obscene cruelty in the name of science that must end.

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. 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Last year, Japan resumed the programme after reducing its catch quota by about two thirds and killed 333 minke whales, including more than 200 pregnant whales.

But the International Whaling Commission has not reached a consensus on whether it has met requirements, National Geographic reported.

On its website, the Institute for Cetacean Research said the 134-day survey helped to gather biological information on the Antarctic minke whale and its prey and on the structure and dynamics of the Antarctic marine ecosystem.

The report also says specimens were collected for further research.

Heather Sohl, WWF chief adviser on Wildlife, said: 30 years since the international moratorium on commercial whaling came into effect, it is unacceptable that so-called scientific whaling is still putting whales, such as the 300 minke whales caught by Japan, at risk.

The Southern Ocean is a vital area for marine life, home to species like minke and blue whales, seals, penguins and krill. It is under threat from manmade affects such as climate change and the risk of unsustainable fishing practices. It is essential that whaling under the pretence of science stops, and the Southern Ocean Sanctuary is respected once and for all.
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Christian defendants facing trial over an alleged lynching were reportedly promised acquittal by a public official if they converted to Islam.

The 42 men were charged with killing two Muslims after the suicide bombing of two churches in Youhanabad, Lahore.

At least 15 people died in the 2015 attack, one of a number carried out by the Taliban on Pakistans minority Christian community.

 More than 80 people killed in a Pakistan terror attack

Public Prosecutor Syed Anees Shah gathered the accused outside the courtroom and asked them to embrace Islam, legal activist Joseph Franci told the Express Tribune.

He told them if they embraced Islam, he can guarantee them their acquittal in this case.

Earlier this month, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif said Muslims were not allowed to force others into converting religion.

Mr Franci told the newspaper the accused did not answer and were surprised by the comment. But Mr Shah reportedly made the same offer six months ago.

After an initial denial, Mr Shah admitted to the Tribune he offered the defendants the chance to convert.

Nadia Rahman, Amnesty Internationals Pakistan campaigner, condemned the prosecutors actions.

She told The Independent: Just two weeks after the Prime Minister publicly called forced conversions a crime in Islam, this outrage shows that it is not enough to merely offer words. Action must be taken.

The discrimination against religious minorities in Pakistan often flows from the state itself, or with the authorities looking on with indifference.

Its not enough to transfer this prosecutor from the case  there must immediately be an independent and effective investigation with a view to holding the perpetrators to account through fair trials without recourse to the death penalty.

Highly conservative Islam is widespread in Pakistan and Christians, who make up around 1.6 per cent of the population, make up one of the most maligned sections of society.

There have been numerous instances in recent years of Christians being targeted in bombings and also by mobs accusing them of blasphemy.

Pakistanis of no religion have also been victims of state blasphemy laws. Earlier in March, authorities charged three bloggers, including a man who used the pseudonym Allama Ayaz Nizami, who headed the Atheist and Agnostic Alliance Pakistan.

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

The groups website and Facebook page now appear to have been taken down.

Soon after the arrests, the hash tag #HangAyazNizami became one of the most trending in the country, as people called for his execution.

Blasphemy is punishable by death in Pakistan.

Senior judges have called for restrictions on social media in order to stop the circulation of so-called blasphemous material.

But critics have said blasphemy laws are being used to silence people opposed to hard line conservatives.
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Donald Trumps Defence Secretary has accused Russia of mucking around in other peoples elections and violating international law.

General James Mattis made the claim following talks with his British counterpart, who accused Russia of persistent interference across the globe as tensions continue to rise between the Kremlin and the West.

Sir Michael Fallon said there cannot be any return to business as usual with Russia if the behaviour continues.

Theres a pattern of interference now by Russia in different parts of the globe that needs us to be  when we engage with Russia  wary of what Russia is up to, he told a press conference.

 Warner: There were upwards of a thousand internet trolls working out of a facility in Russia

We need to be extremely watchful of this persistent pattern of Russian interference.

Sir Michael said Britain would continue to work with Russia to avoid conflict in Syria, where Vladimir Putins forces are waging a bombing campaign in support of Bashar al-Assad while the US-led coalition supports anti-Isis opposition forces with air strikes.

General Mattis, who fought in the Gulf War, Afghanistan and Iraq before being picked for his role in the Trump administration, said he was concerned about Russian activity in Afghanistan and elsewhere.

We look to engaging with Russia on a political or diplomatic level but right now, Russia is choosing to be a strategic competitor and were finding that we can only have very modest expectations of the areas where we can cooperate, he said.

Its no longer a cooperative engagement with them.

In pictures: Russian air strikes in Syria Show all 19 1 /19 In pictures: Russian air strikes in Syria In pictures: Russian air strikes in Syria Syrian boys cry following Russian air strikes on the rebel-held Fardous neighbourhood of the northern embattled Syrian city of Aleppo Getty In pictures: Russian air strikes in Syria Russian defense ministry spokesman Major General Igor Konashenkov speaks to the media in Moscow, Russia. Konashenkov strongly warned the United States against striking Syrian government forces and issued a thinly-veiled threat to use Russian air defense assets to protect them AP In pictures: Russian air strikes in Syria Syrians wait to receive treatment at a hospital following Russian air strikes on the rebel-held Fardous neighbourhood of the northern embattled Syrian city of Alepp Getty In pictures: Russian air strikes in Syria Russian Deputy Defense Minister Anatoly Antonov speaks at a briefing in the Defense Ministry in Moscow, Russia. Antonov said the Russian air strikes in Syria have killed about 35,000 militants, including about 2,700 residents of Russia AP In pictures: Russian air strikes in Syria Jameel Mustafa Habboush, receives oxygen from civil defence volunteers, known as the white helmets, as they rescue him from under the rubble of a building following Russian air strikes on the rebel-held Fardous neighbourhood of the northern embattled Syrian city of Aleppo Getty In pictures: Russian air strikes in Syria Civil defence members rest amidst rubble in a site hit by what activists said were airstrikes carried out by the Russian air force in the town of Douma, eastern Ghouta in Damascus, Syria Reuters In pictures: Russian air strikes in Syria A girl carrying a baby inspects damage in a site hit by what activists said were airstrikes carried out by the Russian air force in the town of Douma, eastern Ghouta in Damascus, Syria Reuters In pictures: Russian air strikes in Syria Civilians and civil defence members look for survivors at a site damaged after Russian air strikes on the Syrian rebel-held city of Idlib, Syria Reuters In pictures: Russian air strikes in Syria Civilians and civil defence members carry an injured woman on a stretcher at a site damaged after Russian air strikes on the Syrian rebel-held city of Idlib, Syria Reuters In pictures: Russian air strikes in Syria Volunteers from Syria Civil Defence, also known as the White Helmets, help civilians after Russia carried out its first airstrikes in Syria In pictures: Russian air strikes in Syria The aftermath of Russian airstrike in Talbiseh, Syria In pictures: Russian air strikes in Syria Smoke billows from buildings in Talbiseh, in Homs province, western Syria, after airstrikes by Russian warplanes AP In pictures: Russian air strikes in Syria Russian Air Forces carry out an air strike in the ISIS controlled Al-Raqqah Governorate. Russia's KAB-500s bombs completely destroy the Liwa al-Haqq command unit In pictures: Russian air strikes in Syria Caspian Flotilla of the Russian Navy firing Kalibr cruise missiles against remote Isis targets in Syria A TASS/ITAR-TASS Photo/Corbis In pictures: Russian air strikes in Syria Russia claimed it hit eight Isis targets, including a "terrorist HQ and co-ordination centre" that was completely destroyed In pictures: Russian air strikes in Syria A video grab taken from the footage made available on the Russian Defence Ministry's official website, purporting to show an airstrike in Syria In pictures: Russian air strikes in Syria A release from the Russian defence ministry purportedly showing targets in Syria being hit In pictures: Russian air strikes in Syria Russia launched air strikes in war-torn Syria, its first military engagement outside the former Soviet Union since the occupation of Afghanistan in 1979. Russian warplanes carried out strikes in three Syrian provinces along with regime aircraft as Putin seeks to steal US President Barack Obama's thunder by pushing a rival plan to defeat Isis militants in Syria In pictures: Russian air strikes in Syria Caspian Flotilla of the Russian Navy firing Kalibr cruise missiles against remote Isis targets in Syria, a thousand kilometres away. The targets include ammunition factories, ammunition and fuel depots, command centres, and training camps A TASS/ITAR-TASS Photo/Corbis

General Mattis said the US was attempting to diplomatically carve out room for manoeuvre so Russia can change its behaviour and act in accordance with international norms and international law.

Russias violations of international law are now a matter of record, from what happened with Crimea to other aspects of their behaviour in mucking around inside other peoples elections, he added.

His statements were in stark contrast to those made by Mr Trump, who publicly discredited a report by his own intelligence agencies that found Russia had interfered to turn the US election in his favour.

The President has also drawn criticism for making complimentary remarks about Mr Putin during his election campaign and the transition period.

Investigations continue into Russias alleged interference in the US election, which the Kremlin denies, as well as accusations of meddling ahead of the votes in Germany and France.

Tensions have been rising over Russias backing for President Assad in Syria, the Ukrainian war and a military build-up in competition with Nato.

Both Sir Michael and General Mattis issued a challenge for members of the military alliance to commit themselves to year-on-year increases in defence spending, calling for fairer burden sharing in the military alliance.

Nato has been building up forces in Estonia to deter Russian aggression (PA)

It came as reports suggested the Royal Marines may face cuts in response to a 10bn funding shortfall faced by the Ministry of Defence over the coming decade.

Sir Michael declined to rule out a cut in the elite commando units, telling BBC Radio 4s Today programme that while he had not agreed any reduction in the size of the Royal Marines, numbers were kept under review.

But in his conference with General Mattis at Lancaster House, he stressed Britains military budget was growing every year and remains the largest among European Nato states.

The UK and US are among just five of the alliances 28 members to meet a target of spending 2 per cent of GDP on defence.

Mr Trump has repeatedly raised the issue, appearing to threaten the withdrawal of US funding after tense talks with Angela Merkel earlier this month.

Responding to previous allegations by Sir Fallon that Russias behaviour was becoming more assertive and arrogant, the Russian embassy in London dismissed his remarks as a string of unfounded accusations.

Russia is an independent and sovereign state pursuing its national interest as defined by ourselves, a spokesperson said, claiming that it was clearing up the mess made by Western states in Syria, Libya and Afghanistan.

Analysis by Kim Sengupta

The question was about Russia and Afghanistan --- James Mattis, unprompted, included in his answer the assertion that the Kremlin has interfered in democratic elections.

In his first visit to the UK since becoming Donald Trumps Defence Secretary, Gen Mattis was gracious in talking about the special relationship, shared values, and this countrys supposed global role. He was careful to avoid talking about Brexit and looked mildly puzzled when, standing beside him, his British counterpart Sir Michael Fallon tried to maintain, with no great conviction, that Theresa May had not threatened to use security cooperation as a bargaining counter for a trade deal with the European Union.

But Gen Mattis was keen to talk about Russia. There will be no return to business as usual" with Vladimir Putins government which right now is choosing to be a strategic competitor and Russias violation of international law are now a matter of record. He had very modest expectations of potential for cooperation. And he reminded a press conference in London of their behaviour in mucking around inside other peoples elections and that sort of thing.

This comes at a time when Washington is enmeshed in investigations into Donald Trumps Russian connections and allegations that the Kremlin attempted to get a Muscovian candidate into the White House. In the latest development, Mr Trumps national security advisor, former Lieutenant General Michael Flynn, has asked for immunity from prosecution in return for testifying to Congress about Russian meddling in the US presidential elections.

Gen Mattis had once presided over an investigation into Lt Gen Flynn himself. The proceedings in 2010 found that Lt Gen Flynn had shared classified information with various foreign military officers and officials in Afghanistan without proper authorization. It was reported last November that Lt Gen Flynn had personally crossed out Gen Mattiss name from a list of candidates for security position in the Trump administration.

Mr Trump had declared that Lt Gen Flynn was right to ask for immunity from prosecution as the Democrats were carrying out a witch hunt against his disgraced former national security advisor. He also continued to complain about the investigation of Russian actions as also a witch hunt. Asked directly recently whether Moscow had interfered in the US elections, something which goes to the heart of Mr Trumps legitimacy as President, Gen Mattis responded I would say theres very little doubt that they have interfered or attempted to interfere in a number of elections in democracies. One wonders how long the Defence Secretary will hang around if the net continues to close in around Mr Trump.
During his campaign for president, Trump complained frequently about China's trade practices, threatening to impose tough import tariffs on Chinese goods and promising to label the country a currency manipulator.

A White House statement said the agenda will include "global, regional, and bilateral issues of mutual concern," without giving any specifics.

President Trump will host Xi for two days at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.

The White House confirmed Thursday that Chinese President Xi Jinping will visit the United States for talks with President Donald Trump on April 6.

U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson visited China earlier this month to lay the groundwork for Xi's visit.

In his own meeting with the Chinese president, Tillerson told Xi that President Trump looks forward to enhancing the understanding between the two countries.

In February, Trump reaffirmed Washingtons long-standing "One China" policy in a call with Xi, in an apparent move to ease concerns in China that he might use Taiwan as leverage in negotiations over trade, security and other sensitive issues. The policy in place since 1979 requires Washington to maintain only unofficial ties with Taiwan, which China claims as its own territory.

Relations between China and the U.S. under President Barack Obama were strained by issues including China's island-building in waters that straddle the international shipping lanes in the South China Sea, allegations of cyber hacking and a U.S. policy rebalance to Asia.

One bright spot touted by both sides was their cooperation, as the world's top emitters of greenhouse gases, on tackling climate change. Lu said Wednesday that China would stick to its climate commitments after Trump, who has called climate change a hoax, this week rescinded measures enacted by Obama to reduce coal and oil use.

Information from AP was used in this report.
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The Syrian soldiers in this dust-covered, rubbelised town dont smile very much and their battle fatigue is obvious. They wear an assortment of T-shirts and scarves and black headbands  not unlike their Isis enemies -- and when a radio crackles the news that an officer has been killed by a mine in a neighbouring village, they show no immediate reaction. Combat troops dont look like the men at headquarters with their neat uniforms and clip-boards and strategic explanations. But in Deir Hafer, these Syrian soldiers are lucky. Twelve hours ago, their Isis enemies  rather than fighting to the death -- suddenly fled for their lives.

The crushed buildings and flattened houses of this empty provincial town on the highway to Raqqa show just what happened. The Syrian and Russian jets tore the place to bits and then the Syrian army swept in so fast from either side that Isis had time only to abandon their front line. Over three weeks, they had fought off the Syrians with suicide trucks and from a vast network of trenches on each side of the motorway and then  unlike their comrades in the streets of Mosul far to the east  they ran for their lives. An astounding thought. Did the lives of Isis men actually matter after all? Had the death cult of the 'Caliphate' in this place of desolation suddenly collapsed?

The Syrian soldiers were amazed. They had fought the cruellest army in the world and they had won. Some of the soldiers were local men who had themselves lived in secret here under Isis rule and crept out of Deir Hafer to rejoin their army and then fought to liberate their own homes. They had seen the Caliphate with their own eyes and some of them had suffered for it. No wonder they didnt smile or joke the way soldiers often do when theyve survived a battle. They were absorbing the one crucial lesson of all who face Isis: that you can beat them.

Recommended Final evacuation of Homs begins under close Russian supervision

So these soldiers wearily took the only foreign journalist in the town  or whats left of it  to the bureaucracy of death which Isis left behind: the hastily abandoned execution courts, the vile, dark, black-painted prisons, the vast heaps of files thrown to the floor with such carelessness that I could pick up just one piece of paper and read that Hassan al-Khalef al-Mustafa Ibn Osman stole farm cereals from a government building and then attacked an Isis Mujahid fighter, for which he was sent to the Special Legal Sharia Court after being charged with breaking the rule of God. Poor Ibn Osman. I fear he was taken to the iron execution platform -- black-painted, of course, the metal floor sheets loose fitting and rumbling with menace beneath your feet, the last sound the condemned man must have heard -- which stands scarcely 12 metres from the grubby room in which his judges sat.

I found a Syrian soldier standing beside it, eyes narrowed, a black scarf round his forehead, who told his story bleakly and without prompting. My cousin was executed here, he said. He was Bassem Hassan al-Khalouf. When he and 11 others thought the Syrian army was coming last year, they flew the Syrian flag from the roof of a house. Daesh [Isis] arrested eight of them. The others managed to run away. They were tortured. And then they were executed. They were shot here, and after they were killed, their bodies were hanged on this platform for three days to terrify the people. After this, I managed to escape from Deir Hafer and to come back today as a soldier.

There is room for four corpses to be hanged around the execution platform. Im growing used to these repulsive things in each town the Syrian army takes back from Isis. So, no doubt, did the people of Deir Hafer grow used to it, some of whom  God spare them, I suppose we must say  obviously gave their support to Isis at the beginning of its three-year occupation. Deir Hafer is a Sunni town and the tribes who lived here and in the 27 newly liberated villages around have just sent an appeal for reconciliation to the army  that word reconciliation again, with its combination of grovelling sorrow and special pleading  and the army have sent the petition on to the regime authorities in Aleppo city.

Of course, Isis might try to return  as it did, shockingly, to Palmyra after the ancient citys first liberation  but the Syrian military campaign here appears to be on a far larger scale. They attacked Isis from two sides  no frontal attack is worth the casualties, the Syrians have decided  but for all the captured American equipment Isis is able to deploy in Iraq, its artillery outside Deir Hafer appears to have been a single and highly eccentric gun which the soldiers inspected here with growing incredulity. It appears to be a Russian-made T-62 tank barrel welded onto the chassis of a French Second World War artillery piece.

But such details should not detract from the dark world which lay uncovered in Deir Hafer. Its message was prayer and death and best described, perhaps, in consecutive order as we prowled round the wreckage of this horrible place, the distant thump of explosions from the new front line down the motorway echoing through the shattered streets. The familiar Isis logo of Allah, the Prophet Mohamed in black paint on a white background drips from every wall, often from every building in a street. The highway underpass is decorated with quotations from the Quran.

The essence of religion is a book which leads you, is painted on a wall close to the Isis religious court. You walk through a broken doorway into a series of rooms, all black-painted, decorated only with further religious quotations. You who terrorise the enemy, it says, will be recorded as a martyr by the girls of paradise. And you suddenly realise that the judges must have regarded themselves as those who terrorised their enemies. For them the girls of paradise. Most of the judges, according to the executed al-Khaloufs cousin, were Egyptians.

Its a small room with some overturned chairs and a heap of documents containing the names of litigants  some families here, it seems, used Isis courts to settle scores against their old enemies from pre-war days  and those whose presence was demanded before the judges. Thus Shawkat al-Kurah Ali al-Haj Obeid, uncle of Abdullah bin Mohamed who lives in Kiarieh is instructed to be present at the office of the Islamic police in Deir Hafer on 8 May 2014 at 9.00am and any delay or refusal [to be present] will be punished. The investigating judge will be Abdul Hamid al-Ghaif.

Outside is a sunken room above which is written  I need not mention the colour black any more  Room of the legal judge. There are pamphlets of sharia rulings  in colour and printed, I note, in the Saudi capital of Riyadh  and a dirty old desk-top computer and printer. Heres another sinister accusation paper on the floor, in which "Mojahid" Ahmad Abu Obeidi of the "Free Revolutionary Police" in Deir Hafer accuses a Syrian refugee called Ali, newly returned from Lebanon, of meeting at night with a local girl, of pretending to go to evening prayers when in fact he was seeing a woman. Ali, we are told, confessed.

Just next door is the prison. It has cells above and below ground without lights and a filthy cement lavatory and a single quotation on the wall: If people want life, their faith will respond to them. The doors are of thick iron, there are padlocks on the floor. Across a courtyard now smashed by Syrian and Russian bombs is another prison. More iron doors. And then up the road is a school which was turned into a recruitment centre  yes, this means that civilians of Deir Hafer did collaborate  but the desks are missing. So are the schoolbooks. Education is not part of the Isis faith.

Half a mile away stands the headquarters of the local agriculture department, its broken cranes and trucks standing forlornly beside what should have been a granary or a warehouse. But it is a weapons factory. There are newly-minted shells and mortars and anti-personnel mines and rockets and piles of metal tubes. Several professionally-made artillery rounds are displayed on tables  clearly, they are models for the Isis manufacturers to copy. They must learn their craft from the state-of-the-art explosives which we in the West  or in Russia  first create.

Beneath the motorway, there is a field hospital for Isis fighters with yet more huge Isis logos and Koranic inscriptions and bits of syringes. Dar al-Fatah, it says above the concrete door. This is The House of God it states. And here is a surprise, a pile of glossy magazines published by the Free Syrian Army, the so-called moderate rebels of whom David Cameron once spoke with admiration. Why did Isis indulge the hopeless FSA militia with all its western connections by stockpiling its magazines? And why, for that matter, were some of the court documents apparently written out under FSA titles?

Its all part of a story which the Syrian government likes to tell; that there is no difference between Isis and the FSA and Nusra/al-Qaeda or any other group and that other foreigners in Deir Hafer included Tunisians and Chechens. And they may have a point. These battles also prove the lie of that constant US claim that the Syrian army does not fight Isis. But the real message of Deir Hafer is one which we all know, but which we probably need to see in order to believe.

It is the Isis message. Holy judgement is about punishment and death. The town square is for execution. The place of fruit and agricultural growth is a factory for shells. The school is a place of military recruitment. The hospital is to repair men for further killing. The only joy is to be sought in paradise. Nothing Deir Hafers former rulers left behind had the slightest connection with life. No wonder the soldiers were not smiling.
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The United States' diplomatic policy on Syria for now is no longer focused on making the war-torn country's president, Bashar al-Assad, leave power, the US ambassador to the United Nations has said, in a departure from the Obama administration's stance on Assad's fate.

The view of the Trump administration is also at odds with European powers, who insist Assad must step down.

"You pick and choose your battles and when we're looking at this, it's about changing up priorities and our priority is no longer to sit there and focus on getting Assad out," US Ambassador Nikki Haley told a small group of reporters on Thursday.

"Do we think he's a hindrance? Yes. Are we going to sit there and focus on getting him out? No," she said. "What we are going to focus on is putting the pressure in there so that we can start to make a change in Syria."

The Obama administration, in its later years, was focused on reaching a deal with Russia that would eventually see Assad go though it also shifted its focus to the fight against Islamic State militants, who captures swathes of territory in Iraq and Syria in 2014.

As presidential nominee, Donald Trump said defeating Islamic State was a higher priority than persuading Assad to step down.

"We can't necessarily focus on Assad the way that the previous administration did," said Ms Haley, a former governor of South Carolina. "Our priority is to really look at how do we get things done, who do we need to work with to really make a difference for the people in Syria."

US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley says she would like nothing more than to rid the world of nuclear weapons but it was unrealistic in the current geopolitical environment (AFP/Getty Images)

On Wednesday, she accused Russia, Iran and the "Assad regime" of committing war crimes. She has also said that the United States supports the UN-led Syria peace talks, that Syria could no longer be a "safe haven for terrorists" and that it was important "we get Iran and their proxies out".

A senior Trump administration official told Reuters Ms Haley's remarks reflected "a measure of just realism, accepting the facts on the ground.... Assad is never going to have sufficient force to reassert control over the whole country

"Our focus is on defeating Isis and al-Qaeda and preventing Syria from being used as a terrorist safe haven."

Syrian opposition member Farah al-Attasi said the State Department and the White House were sending contradictory messages on Syria and should start leading and not focus exclusively on fighting Islamic State.

US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, speaking in Ankara on Thursday, said Assad's longer-term status "will be decided by the Syrian people".

Britain and France reinforced their stance on Assad earlier on Thursday.

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French UN Ambassador Francois Delattre told reporters: "Assad is not and cannot be the future of his country."

Robert Ford, who resigned in 2014 as US ambassador to Syria over policy disagreements, said the US government's policy since late 2014 had been to focus more specifically on the fight against Islamic State as well al-Qaeda, "even if it never acknowledged that its focus on Syria had shifted".

"Ambassador Haley's remarks just confirm that the Trump administration is following the same path," said Mr Ford, a fellow at the Middle East Institute.

Since the uprising that led to the six-year-long civil war in Syria, the Obama administration insisted that Assad must go.

But in mid-2014 as Washington increased support to moderate rebels to fight Assad's regime, US officials privately conceded Assad wasn't going anywhere soon and admitted the difficulty in removing him.

By September 2015, John Kerry said Assad had to go but the timing of his departure should be decided through negotiation.

Reuters
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From the steps of the old, blue-domed shrine, if you look past the families feeding pigeons on the plaza below and the lines of clogged traffic beyond, you can glimpse the stark, white stone monument two blocks away, rising from a platform next to the street. If you approach it, following the garbage-strewn banks of the Kabul River on one side and a row of small shops on the other, you feel a prickle of horror. The railings around the monument are hung with posters of womens faces  disfigured, half-blind, burned.

People flow past the site, carrying shopping bags, tugging at children, heading somewhere in the city. Some pause to look at the posters, or read the inscription etched in the stone, although most hurry by. On the riverbank below, drug addicts huddle, lost in another world.

Recommended Taliban seizes key Helmand district from Afghanistan army

But everyone knows what happened here two years ago, in the shadow of the historic Shah-do Shamshira mosque and the adjacent shrine of an ancient Mogul king.

Everyone knows that a young woman named Farkhunda was attacked outside the shrine after being falsely accused of burning a Koran, then dragged along the river road by a frenzied mob that bludgeoned and stoned her to death, ran her over with a car and set her body on fire. The white obelisk, unveiled on the first anniversary of her killing, marks the spot where she died.

It was a terrible, savage thing, said Naquibullah, a tailor whose workshop is across the street. On the afternoon of March 19, 2015, he was bent over his sewing machine when he heard shouting and commotion and poked his head out the door. I saw them throwing stones... I couldn't bear to watch.

The killing of Farkhunda Malikzada, 27, captured on mobile phones and shown repeatedly on TV, horrified the nation and the world. It also embarrassed officials of the Western-backed government, which has attempted to promote women's rights in the conservative, tribal Muslim society, where women and girls are often killed with impunity in the name of protecting family honour.

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. 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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. 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Nearly 50 men were tried in connection with the attack, including police officers accused of failing to stop the assailants. Four men were sentenced to death, but those sentences were later commuted, and most of the lengthy prison terms given to eight others were reduced. The incident also energised the struggling Afghan women's movement, which staged protests outside the shrine. But over time, the momentum dissipated.

Last week, as Afghans celebrated the Persian spring festival known as Nowruz, families dressed up and visited shrines across the city. Outside Shah-do Shamshira, they bought corn and took pictures of their children feeding the pigeons. Some climbed the steps to the shrine, took off their shoes and went inside to pray or meditate.

The tall white monument stood almost unnoticed. A few women paused briefly to look up. Some wore burqas that hid their eyes; others remained silent while their husbands discussed the case. One woman, a government worker wearing a flowered headscarf, stopped long enough to touch the pedestal and murmur a prayer.

She was a good girl. She did not deserve this, the woman said firmly before she hurried away.

But the most disturbing aspect of Malikzada's murder was how many Afghans  preachers, police officials, young urban men wearing jeans and carrying mobile phones  were ready to think that she did.

Her attackers were driven by religious rage, converging on the shrine as word spread that its custodian had accused her of burning a Koran. This was blasphemy  an unpardonable sin and a capital crime in a tribal society steeped in Sunni Islam and deeply conflicted about Western influence.

Even in a busy capital with a veneer of modernity, hundreds of youths rushed to join the vengeful fury. Video footage showed a crowd stomping and pummeling a body on the sidewalk, while others filmed the scene on their phones. There were exultant shouts of Allahu akbar!

Afghans are easily roused to defend their faith, whether they wear long beards or razor haircuts. Thirty years ago, they went to war against the Soviet army in the name of Islam. In the past decade, as Western military and cultural influence spread, so did local resentment and suspicion. In 2012, protests erupted over reports that Korans had been incinerated at a US military base.

There was a startling anti-Western element to Malikzadas murder, too. As they beat and kicked her, some attackers shouted that she was working with foreigners. By the next day, imams and government officials were denouncing her as having colluded with infidels.

A photo that circulated widely on social media, taken during the attack, showed a woman with wild, dishevelled black hair, her face streaming blood, gesturing in defiance at her attackers. It was easy to see how she could be viewed as a blasphemous witch.

It later emerged, though, that Malikzada was studying theology and teaching children to recite the Koran. The incident at the shrine started when she confronted its custodian for selling religious charms, which she felt was un-Islamic, and he shouted that she had burned a Koran. After a police investigation found the charge was false and the custodian was arrested, public opinion quickly changed and women's groups and political activists staged protests.

In my village some people said she deserved what happened for desecrating our religion, but later they regretted it, said an engineer named Abdul Aziz, 30, who stopped by the monument Thursday. A visitor from a northern province, he said he had learned about the incident on Facebook. What they did was wrong, whether to a Muslim or a non-Muslim, he concluded.

A little while later an elderly man, hunched over and carrying a sack, stopped in front of the monument and gazed at it for several minutes. An educated man who had seen better times, he spoke with an air of sad wisdom.

It was so shameful, he said. Even if Malikzada had committed blasphemy, he said, she should not have been dragged down the street and burned.

Did we not have a government? Did we not have courts? he demanded. There is no justice in this country, no rule of law. So people take it into their own hands.

As the afternoon sun waned, drug addicts were still crouched on the riverbank beneath the monument. In the plaza down the street, people were still scattering corn to the pigeons. On the shrine steps, a young woman named Zarifa, wearing a fashionable but modest black robe, was talking on a mobile phone through her face covering.

She nodded when asked whether she knew what had happened to Malikzada.

Yes, it was totally wrong. It was against our religion and our culture, she said. Then she turned away and went back to her conversation.

 The Washington Post
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Airline food gets a bad rep  and one man thinks this prejudice is unwarranted.

Speaking to Business Insider, Nik Loukas, the author of InflightFeed and veteran industry professional, said: "In the last five years, airlines are really trying hard to outdo each other with the kind of meals theyre offering."

Good or bad, the humble airline meal never fails to leave an impression with the traveller: "When people step off the plane at their destination they talk about two things: The crew and the food."

Loukas thinks it's the weirdness of eating a meal at 30,000 feet at a speed of 800kph that lodges in the memory. "It's not normal," he says.

The ex-Qantas Airways crew member travels over 180,000km each year in search of the latest in-flight meal options gracing the skies. He told us which five airlines do it best  scroll down to see them in no particular order.

Austrian Airlines  'Hands down the best breakfast Ive eaten on a plane.'

"Hands down the best breakfast Ive eaten on a plane in a seriously long time." Says Loukas, though the meal was bought at an extra cost, "you can upgrade your in-flight meal for 15 (13/$16) and receive quite a fantastic meal."

The meal won a 9.4 rating on InflightFeed.

Singapore Airlines  'The in-flight meal options... even in economy class were fantastic.'

Loukas was travelling in Singapore Airline's famous Suite Class when he was this up. "I love Singapore Airlines, the service was amazing and the in-flight meal options in business, first, and even in economy class were fantastic."

He notes on InflightFeed that suites and first class passengers are greeted with Dom Perignon Vintage 2004 as a welcome drink.

Scandinavian Airlines  'Like dining in a cool, Scandinavian restaurant.'

"Business class is like dining in a cool, Scandinavian restaurant, meal trays aren't used for the main meal service, and the second meal service is quite nice as you can pick and choose what you want from the buffet trolley that comes through the cabin."

In economy, though, Loukas noted on his site that some travellers might find the buy-on-board range relatively poor value.

Air Europa  'Like eating from a farmers market, so fresh.'

"Probably the most amazing business class meal I've received in Europe. Just look at it, so amazing. Like eating from a farmers market, so fresh, and unique."

The meal received an overall rating of 9.2 on InflightFeed.

Turkish Airlines  ' Their meals are... some of the best in the world.'

"Turkish Airlines is amazing, their meals are very fresh, tasty and some of the best in the world in my opinion, including economy class," Loukas says.

Read more:

 The perfect book to read at every stage of your career

 Leftover rice could make you sick if you don't do this one thing

 SpaceX is about to try something 'potentially revolutionary' in the history of space travel

Read the original article on Business Insider UK.  2016. Follow Business Insider UK on Twitter.
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A passenger on an Emirates flight to Dubai was recently stunned to find his inflight meal with the prestigious airline consisted of a roll with a square of what looked like processed cheese and a very, very small piece of chicken in the middle.

Here are The Independent's worst experiences of plane food.

Simon Calder, travel correspondent

Over the years I have learned that the less hungry I am when boarding a flight, the happier the flight is likely to be. At the same time as airlines strip away complimentary catering, airports are getting better at providing fresh, nutritious fare to fill the dwell time between clearing security and boarding the flight.

But on long-haul trips, most passengers simply accept whats on offer  and, as the airlines know, feeding us helps to pass the time on interminable flights.

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Viasa, the leading Venezuelan airline, had a particularly painful itinerary from Heathrow to South America, but it beat the competition hands-down for price. The journey began by flying further away from Venezuela, to Paris Charles de Gaulle. After an hour or two on the ground in France, the elderly DC10 took off for Margarita, Venezuelas holiday island. Half the plane emptied to go off and enjoy the beaches and lagoons, while the rest of us carried on to Caracas.

At the airport serving the capital, the journey was far from over. I connected to a six-hour overnight hop to Rio, with Sao Paulo a couple of hours beyond that  where an onward flight to Asuncion in Paraguay awaited.

Shortly after take-off from Caracas, dinner arrived. It was the standard staple of chicken and rice. By now it was 3am in London, my tastebuds had been dulled by 17 hours of travel and my appetite was all over the place. So even though it was lukewarm and looked unappetising, I finished the meal.

Whether it was the chicken or the rice, revenge was not instant. If you are familiar with bacillus cereus (from reheated rice) or salmonella (from undercooked chicken), you will know that it usually takes a good few hours before the stomach cramps, vomiting and diarrhoea begin. I was checking in for the final leg to Asuncion when it struck.

Missing the flight would have been disastrous, financially and logistically. So despite feeling ghastly, I managed to get airside and ask at the gate how busy the flight was. Barely a quarter full, was the answer.

If you are to suffer a severe gastro-intestinal attack, a mostly empty Boeing 737 is a good place to be. With three seats of my own at the back beside the loo, and an unlimited supply of sick bags, I got through the two-hour flight.

All that remained for me to do was clear immigration.

Asuncion airport is not the busiest in the world, but it does have a lunchtime bulge as flights arrive from various other South American capitals. The queue for passports was long, and every time I got near the front, I had to race away to the bano. It was mid-afternoon by the time I emerged, pale and feeble, but by then with the bacteria responsible fully evacuated.

On the flight home, I managed somehow to persuade the Viasa ticket desk to endorse the ticket across to British Airways  which at the time flew non-stop to Heathrow. And soon afterwards, the Venezuelan airline went bust.

The best inflight meal? Sashimi at 35,000 feet. But the raw fish was not aboard a Japanese airline, nor a long-haul flight: just a short hop from Reykjavik to Heathrow, with Icelandair. Fresh, tasty even at six miles high, and nutritious.

Julia Buckley, acting head of travel

Flying from Curacao to Haiti last year  via Miami on American Airlines, a six(ish) hour journey  I splurged on an upgrade to first class, one of the perks of which, I assumed, would be a good meal on the flight. Instead, I got an inedible attempt at breakfast on the crack-of-dawn first leg and took so long to get through passport control and customs at Miami that I had to make a run for the plane. No problem, I thought, therell be a proper meal on board. And there was, for virtually everyone except me  it turned out that on AA first class passengers are able to pre-book fancy meals, and because I hadnt all they had for me was a limp salad with some crackers they were doling out in economy. The cabin crew were deeply unsympathetic to my flight  I hadnt realised back then that they hate first class passengers.

My other perennial bugbear was the food British Airways used to serve on shorthaul flights  their chicken wraps with no discernable filling have the dubious privilege of being the only plane food Ive rejected outright.

The best? Austrian Airlines allows all passengers to pre-book a meal made by Do&Co, and I had a fantastic unplanefood-like platter of spatzle flying Vienna to Heathrow a couple of years ago. And three years ago I flew BMI Regional from Bristol to Milan. Not only was the cabin a 1-2 formation so I sat by myself, as if I was in a private jet; but they handed out really solid snack packs with everything from biscuits and crackers to nuts. It was one of my favourite ever flights.

Josh Withey, assistant editor Indy100

My worst meal was last autumn flying BA to Hong Kong  not terrible but unremarkable. It was your standard chicken or beef selections with a bread roll, then a slightly sad looking breakfast. My best was to Taiwan (via Bangkok) on EVA Air. They served a range of meals including western cooked breakfast, tasty curries with rice and some gorgeous stir fries too.

Rachael Pells, education correspondent

It wasnt my own worst meal, but flying Virgin Atlantic from Havana back to the UK in 2012, a vegan couple sat next to me were given first meat and then a vegetarian meal, despite having registered for vegan meals. The (British) air steward told them to just deal with it! Weirdly, the best plane meal I ever had was on Ukranian Airlines. It was only pasta but there was plenty of it and I just remember being really impressed. Qatar Airways were really generous on a recent flight  they had a really nice curry and savoury pastries last November. Emirates last week coming back from Dubai was pretty gross  really salty food.
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How we once laughed at Eurocrats and the boring dull Eurospeak of their documents. But now, no written-in-Brussels document will be as parsed, construed, interpreted and re-interpreted with such care as the one setting out the rules for Britains departure from the European Union.

Prime Minister Theresa May, with her Trump-style signing ceremony of her Article 50 letter in Downing Street, has had the last flashy moment in the Brexit saga. Today, it is 27 other nation states, each as proud and sovereign as the United Kingdom, in the driving seat.

Britain, under May, has become a rule-taker, not a rule-maker. The Brexit blowhards can huff and they can puff but they will not blow down the house Europe has made.

The EU negotiating mandate is full of language British Government officials have not heard since the days of US President Eisenhower berating Prime Minister Anthony Eden over his folly at Suez in 1956.

For the first time in the EUs history the metaphor cherry-picking appears, meaning Britain cannot play with the EUs indivisible four freedoms.

 Theresa May says Britain's 'best days lie ahead' in Article 50 speech

For centuries perfidious Albion was the master of divide-and-rule diplomacy. The EU is determined to confound such knavish tricks as insisting the negotiations will be conducted as a single package and nothing is agreed until everything is agreed.

The EU 27 will have unified positions and there will be no separate negotiations between individual member states and the UK on matters pertaining to the withdrawal of the UK from the Union. So there is no point in Boris or Liam or any Brexit minister going to Warsaw or Romania to try and win support for Britains Brexit demands.

The sight of assorted Royals on a so-called charm offensive in corners of Europe will be seen as the folklore it is  more Ruritania than serious diplomacy.

This week all the centre-right parties in the European Peoples Party (EPP) that control most governments and top EU posts are holding their annual conference in Malta. There was a time when the Conservative Party and its MPs were major EPP players. But David Cameron and William Hague amputated the Tories from political Europe in 2009. Labour is more marginal in the continent than ever in its history. British political influence in the EU is close to zero.

The running order of negotiations May must now obey  the UK is bound by treaty legal duty to follow EU policy until it leaves  has not been changed since Michel Barnier first set it out some time ago.

First the money, then the status of EU citizens in Britain and British citizens in Europe. Many people, including Ukip, insist they want all EU citizens to stay here. But at the same time, the Home Office is rejecting one in five of those who apply for permanent residence.

The 85-page form is a Home Office bureaucrats wet dream, as anyone can stumble while filling in the mind-numbing details asked for and thus be rejected. In Berlin, the head of the Brexit department in the foreign ministry told me: We have been asking London to supply a list of names of the EU citizens resident in the UK and they cannot.

In Warsaw, Polands Europe Minister says that the question of social security rights and payments is central and that is not an EU but a national competence. In Spain, there are 300,000 British expats officially registered as living there but the British embassy reckon there are probably up to one million Brits with a home or business or who have retired to Spain. Who will list all of these and will the NHS keep sending 250m a year to Andalusia and Valencia to pay for the medical care of British wrinklies?

May has made much of her wish for transitional arrangements to be put in place between the formal political Brexit of withdrawing from the treaty on 29 March 2019 and the final deal on trade and access to the EU market. In that period, the EU27 in their negotiating document state that this would require existing Union regulatory, budgetary, supervisory and enforcement instruments and structures to apply.

 Donald Tusk outlines EU guidelines for Brexit talks

Translated from Eurospeak, it means that even after the UK has unsigned the treaty and no longer elects MEPs (pause as we weep over Ukips demise) or sends a commissioner and ministers to shape EU rules and policy, London will be expected to abide by EU rules and laws, accept the European Court of Justice (ECJ) which enforces these rules, and make the same contributions to the budget as today until the transition period is over.

So we will be out of the EU yet still de facto members, rather like Norway or Switzerland, which accept the four freedoms and make major financial contributions to the EU.

There is a nod to the border issue in Northern Ireland but only on the basis of respecting the integrity of the Union legal order which en clair means the ECJ again. In contrast to her Lancaster House speech, May seems to have dropped the idea of leaving the Customs Union. A UK outside the Customs Union would mean the end of intra-Ireland open trade and business.

Finally, Madrid has got what it has wanted since joining the Union 30 years ago. No agreement between the EU and the United Kingdom may apply to the territory of Gibraltar without the agreement between the Kingdom of Spain and the United Kingdom, the document says, which means Spain now wields veto power over Gibraltar  something which the Foreign Office has always resisted. It is a major diplomatic defeat for Britain.

There is other language in the EU negotiating mandate which is hard and uncompromising. One can only wish David Davis well. He campaigned for 13 years against the Labour Governments modest steps to be a sensible EU partner and player. He has won his plebiscite. Theresa May has signed her letter. But the language of the EU is clear and limpid. British anti-Europeans wanted to destroy what Europes nation states have painstakingly created over decades. It is not going to happen, and if Britain wants any access to Europe, it will be on the EUs terms, not those of Nigel Farage and Boris Johnson.

Denis MacShane is the UKs former Europe Minister and author of Brexit: How Britain Left Europe (IB Tauris)
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The European Commission is finalising plans to be published this summer for EU nations to swap, within 15 minutes, information they hold on suspected terrorists from third world countries such as Syria.

Brussels officials assumed that the UK would want to be part of what will be a significant strengthening of Europes armoury against terrorism. Until Wednesday, that is, when Theresa Mays Article 50 letter triggering formal Brexit talks suggested a trade-off between the UKs role guaranteeing Europes security with its ability to trade with the EU 27.

To say it went down badly in European capitals is an understatement. Her timing was awful after the strong messages of support to the UK from EU leaders after the terrorist attack at Westminster. It might not have been intended as a threat, but was bound to be interpreted as one. UK ministers had to hit the phones to reassure their EU counterparts that Britain would not withdraw cooperation on crime and terrorism. It was never going to happen, as it would have hurt the UK as well as the EU. We overshot the runway, one Conservative MP admitted.

 'We already miss you': Donald Tusk after receiving Article 50 letter

Fortunately, the reassurance strategy appears to have worked. Both the UK and EU are now resorting to the old trick of blaming the media for exaggerating the alleged threat. Cest la vie in my trade.

Yet it was an unforced error by May that overshadowed her otherwise positive and constructive approach to the tricky negotiations that lie ahead. She should have known better. A year ago, her aides made clear the EU cooperation on security she had seen as Home Secretary tipped the balance (narrowly) in favour of her backing Remain rather than Leave in the referendum. In a speech last April, May said Britain would be less safe without the effective cooperation between different European law enforcement organisations. My judgement, as Home Secretary, is that remaining a member of the EU means we will be more secure from crime and terrorism, she added.

Mays retreat is another sign that EU leaders are firmly in the driving seat. They were always going to be once Article 50 was invoked. Today, the penny finally dropped. The EUs draft negotiating guidelines rejected Mays call for parallel talks on a divorce settlement and a future trade deal. Donald Tusk, President of the European Council representing the 27 leaders, said they alone will decide when sufficient progress has been made on issues such as Britains exit payment. Only then can the negotiations turn to trade and other issues. He hoped this would happen by this autumn, ratcheting up the pressure on Britain to agree a divorce payment in principle. Tusk also made clear that the UK would still have to be subject to European Court of Justice (ECJ) rulings during any transitional period after it formally departs in 2019.

A settlement running to tens of billions of pounds and a continuing ECJ role will be very hard for May to sell to the hardline Tory Brexiteers, who have appeared to call the shots until now. The Prime Minister has failed to prepare them for such bad news. Instead she pursued another reassurance strategy  to convince the Brexit brigade that she could be trusted to deliver their prize even though she backed Remain.

Her letter to Tusk belatedly prepared the ground for the compromises needed to get a deal. It was a cold shower of realism for the hardliners. It showed that May believes a positive partnership with the EU would be much better than a clean break and World Trade Organisation tariffs and other barriers. Some ministers favour this, including the International Trade Secretary Liam Fox, even though most businesses are appalled by the prospect.

Mays letter showed that she is on the side of the pragmatists, led by the Chancellor Philip Hammond, who want an EU agreement. She has been hinting at this privately to pro-EU Tory MPs. She is said to have remarked that she had not suddenly become some crazed Brexiteer who was going to just jump off a cliff. But the pro-Europeans were starting to doubt her, especially in January when she said she might walk out of the talks without a deal (a threat dropped from this weeks letter).

The problem is that, if May sticks to her new conciliatory tone in the negotiations, the hardliners could turn their guns on her  backed by her current cheerleaders in the pro-Brexit press. At some point, both will probably urge her to walk out without an agreement.

She knows full well that Tory divisions over Europe have wrecked the careers of the partys last three prime ministers. So there will be times over the next two years when she will be tempted to put party management first  not least to ensure her own survival.

Despite some inevitable differences, the opening salvos from both the UK and the EU show that a mutually beneficial deal is possible. To achieve one, May will have to put the national interest before narrow party interest.
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Six months ago, they were both in agreement.

Someone seeking immunity during a criminal investigation means that youve probably committed a crime, said retired general Michael Flynn, at the time an advisor to Republican candidate Donald Trump.

The New York tycoon expressed similar a sentiment. Getting immunity was so corrupt, he told an election rally in Melbourne, Florida. If you're not guilty of a crime, what do you need immunity for?

Fast forward to the tenth week of Mr Trumps presidency, and things look very different. Mr Flynn has reportedly asked for immunity from prosecution from the FBI in cooperation in its investigation into Mr Trumps alleged links to Russia.

And his boss, thinks the same. Mike Flynn should ask for immunity in that this is a witch hunt (excuse for big election loss), by media & Dems, of historic proportion, Mr Trump wrote on Twitter.

What is anyone to make of this? If youre a Trump supporter you may be inclined to believe the presidents explanation. You may believe that the presidents enemies - the so-called deep state - are trying to undermine the man who has vowed to take on the establishment.

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

For anyone else, it just adds to the stink coming from the White House, that and the sense of chaos.

It is worth stressing again, that investigators have so far revealed nothing that proves collusion between the Trump campaign and Russias alleged attempts to interfere in the 2016 election.

There have been lots of claims and lots of accusations, but so far the authorities have not released into the public domain anything that might be considered a smoking gun. They have been investigating since last July.

At the same time, the Trump administration is unable to escape dark cloud of scandal and haplessness that hangs over the White House. Even if the FBI and congressional probes ultimately decide there is no evidence that Trumps associates cooperated with Moscow, the issue has engulfed his administration at at time when it should be making hay.

Trump desperately needs a win. His first legislative project, an attempt with House Republicans to repeal and replace Obamacare, ended in shambles and embarrassment. The administration was made to look naive and unprepared.

Then, with the White House still reeling from its loss, it was obliged to deny allegations that it had conspired with the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Devin Nunes, to leak information that appeared to support Mr Trumps claim he had been electronically surveilled. Then the White House was accused of potentially colluding with Mr Nunes to cancel testimony from Sally Yates, the former acting deputy attorney general, and the person who had briefed Mr Trump that Mr Flynn may be vulnerable to blackmail from the White House.

The first 100 days of any presidency are considered the honeymoon period, the time when the new incumbent makes their mark. By this stage, Barack Obama had already passed two major legislative achievements - an $800bn economic stimulus package and a law making that made it easier for women to sue for equal pay.

Not surprisingly, this has left Mr Trump an unhappy man.

Come nightfall, Mr Trump is often on the phone with fellow billionaires and decades-long friends, commiserating and critiquing his own staff, Axios reported.

Little wonder. Mr Trump sold himself to his as the man who could close the toughest of deals and who would drain the corrupt swamp of Washington. He appears unable to do either.

It is not a good look. And it smells even worse.
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During the 2011 Egyptian revolution, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi  Egypts then head of military intelligence  directed that forced virginity tests be carried out on women in Tahrir Square to protect them against allegations of rape. Seventeen women were detained, strip-searched, given electric shocks, forced to have the examination and then declared not to be virgins.

Instead of being tried before a court, in July 2013 al-Sisi overthrew the government and became president. It turns out those forced virginity tests were just the beginning of a rule of terror he would inflict over all Egyptians who opposed him  some 60,000 political prisoners languish behind bars in Egypts rat-infested prisons. Many have been tortured to death and denied medical attention whilst children have been beaten, electrocuted and exposed to the public as terrorists.

Despite the crackdown on civil society in Egypt, the abuses carried out in the country are well-documented. Why, then, are a host of western leaders, who continuously stress their commitment to democracy and the rule of law, queuing up to meet with the military strongman? On 3 April Donald Trump will become the latest head of state to receive al-Sisi when he visits Washington; Italy, France, Germany and Britain have all hosted the Egyptian president and with this offered tacit endorsement to his regime.

Egyptian protesters defy curfew and return to streets Show all 8 1 /8 Egyptian protesters defy curfew and return to streets Egyptian protesters defy curfew and return to streets 544161.bin AP Egyptian protesters defy curfew and return to streets 544162.bin EPA Egyptian protesters defy curfew and return to streets 544081.bin GETTY Egyptian protesters defy curfew and return to streets 544164.bin REUTERS Egyptian protesters defy curfew and return to streets 544165.bin GETTY Egyptian protesters defy curfew and return to streets 544082.bin AP Egyptian protesters defy curfew and return to streets 544163.bin AP Egyptian protesters defy curfew and return to streets 544083.bin GETTY

There are a number of reasons why al-Sisi  or the office he holds  is considered strategically important, not least his commitment to fighting Isis. He is tough on terror at home and in the region, he says; so tough, in fact, that security forces recently arbitrarily detained and forcibly disappeared up to 10 men, most likely killed them, then staged a counter-terrorism raid to cover it up. But he has attracted limited criticism, for all manner of human rights abuses are carried out in the name of the war on terror.

What really set the bar for the impunity which circles the Egyptian government will always be the August 2013 massacre when some 1,000 Egyptians were killed in Rabaa Al-Adawiya Square as they protested against al-Sisis overthrow of the countrys first democratically-elected president Mohammed Morsi. Shortly afterwards the US briefly broke off, then re-established military aid to Egypt; France sold fighter jets to the country whilst the UK, who had suspended a number of military licences, reinstated several of these.

The message was clear: Egyptian security forces could do as they pleased and would attract little international condemnation, for vested interests in the country override everything else. To this day, not one member of the army or security forces who took part in the massacre has paid for their crimes.

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In February 2011, former Egyptian President Hosni Mubaraks resignation was met with a roar of approval by protesters in Tahrir Square and 24-hour media coverage. But last week the news that Mubarak was released from the comfortable military hospital where he was being detained slipped out relatively unnoticed. This is a man who incited the killing of 900 protesters during the 18-day uprising, sending camels and horses charging into the crowds of demonstrators, only to be freed from prison after just six years.

Western countries have the power to cast heads of states out into the cold, if they choose to do so. In 2002, the EU imposed sanctions on Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe and his wife for electoral fraud and human rights abuses. In 1997, then US president Bill Clinton placed a trade embargo on Sudan and froze Omar al-Bashirs assets, again over human rights abuses.

But the decision on which leaders to take a stand against is largely arbitrary. It depends not just on such violations of rights, but on how hostile these states are to western interests.

As Mubarak settles back into his comfortable home in Heliopolis, thousands of pro-democracy activists are still detained in the worst of conditions. But for as long as the international community stay silent on human rights abuses in Egypt, authorities there will continue to commit them. Ultimately, it is the Egyptian people who pay the highest price for the Wests endorsement of Al-Sisis regime.
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Standing high above Mosul beside the ruins of the Nabi Yunus shrine, destroyed by Isis as idolatrous in 2014, one can see the west of the city on the far side of the Tigris River. There the Iraqi security forces and Isis are engaged in the fiercest and longest battle of the Iraq conflict. Like many battlefields, the scene is eerily pretty as spring rains turn the trees and grass a fresh green colour, and buildings are too distant to tell if they have been damaged or destroyed.

A single large column of black smoke and three smaller plumes of white smoke rise over west Mosul, but do not look very menacing. There is the crash of an artillery piece firing close by and, a few seconds later, another wisp of smoke or dust appears on the other side of the city. Isis mortar teams periodically fire in our direction and we visit the Nabi Yunus covered market where earlier a round hit a shop selling perfume which exploded into flames, killing 11 adults and a child.

In modern war, every bombardment of a city from ground and air is different, but the justification by politicians and military commanders is usually much the same. Those ordering the air, missile or artillery attacks emphasise the meticulous care they take to avoid civilian casualties and, if these inadvertently occur, it is only because of the devilish practices of the other side who are using ordinary folk as human shields. Much the same lies were used to justify the Israeli bombardment of Lebanon in 1982, 1996 and 2006 and of Gaza in 2008, 2009 and 2014; the American bombing of Iraq in 1991 and 2003; the Syrian government levelling of whole towns since 2011 and the Russians doing much the same since they intervened in Syria in 2015.

In all cases, if you bomb an area containing both combatants and civilians you will kill many of the latter, because you can never distinguish sufficiently between the two, even if that was not your original intention.

 Women and children treated for chemical weapon exposure in Mosul

The grisly tradition of trying to explain away heavy civilian loss of life caused by aerial and artillery bombardment of cities is being maintained by the US-led air coalition and Iraqi government during the siege of Mosul.

Once again, the propaganda myth that surgical strikes can distinguish the innocent from the guilty has been pumped out. But what counts is the accuracy not only of the weapons, but of the information about who is going to be on the receiving end  something which, in the chaos of war, is always inadequate.

People in flight from Mosul are caustic about Iraqi and US claims about the accuracy of their weapons. Mohammed Ali Suleiman, a 66-year-old shopkeeper, said they talk about smart bombs but my neighbourhood is 90 per cent destroyed by them. Jasim, living inside an Isis-held area near the Old City, was badly wounded in the lower leg by a bomb dropped by a drone because he had not heard that the Iraqi military and the US air controllers regard the use of canvas to cover cars or roofs as a sure sign that Isis is hiding a fighting position or arms dump.

Isis snipers are killing anybody who tries to leave west Mosul because they do not want to lose their human shields but even if they did not do so, a proportion of the civilian population would stay behind and be targeted along with Isis fighters. Unexplained is why the Baghdad government at first urged civilians in Mosul to stay in their homes, though this played into the hands of Isis. Somebody grossly underestimated the strength of Isis resistance, or did not want to cope with a million displaced people, or had foolish and romantic ideas about a popular uprising against Isis.

The obvious falsehood that a bombardment can be conducted in a confined area where civilians are present without killing a lot of them has a quite limited sell-by date. Israelis, Americans, Syrians, Russians and Iraqis have all, at different times, responded to mass killings for which they are being blamed by a flat denial that it happened at all, by stating that it was not as large as reported or that somebody else is responsible. Where the evidence is incontrovertible, the aim is to muddy the waters until the news agenda has moved on. An old PR adage about how to deal with damaging news advises those rebutting it to first say no story and then say old story"; this works well in most cases.

The problem is that, in the case of bombing campaigns, disaster is always just around the corner. A sympathetic media generally goes along with the pretence that bombing and shelling is more discriminating than it really is and plays down evidence to the contrary. But this just stores up trouble for the future when calamity finally strikes  as it always does  and denials and evasions simply underline the guilt of the perpetrator.

In pictures: Mosul offensive Show all 40 1 /40 In pictures: Mosul offensive In pictures: Mosul offensive A doctor carries an Iraqi newborn baby at a hospital in Mosul, Iraq July 18, 2017. Reuters In pictures: Mosul offensive Iraqi girls play at a yard of a school in Mosul, Iraq July 18, 2017alal Reuters In pictures: Mosul offensive A woman on crutches who is a relative of men accused of being Islamic State militants is seen at a camp in Bartella, east of Mosul, Iraq July 15, 2017. Picture taken July 15, 2017. Reuters In pictures: Mosul offensive A displaced girl, who fled from home carries a doll at Hamam al-Alil camp south of Mosul, Iraq July 13, 2017. Reuters In pictures: Mosul offensive Iraqi federal police members and civilians celebrate in the Old City of Mosul on 9 July 2017 after the government's announcement of the "liberation" of the embattled city. Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi's office said he was in "liberated" Mosul to congratulate "the heroic fighters and the Iraqi people on the achievement of the major victory" AFP/Getty Images In pictures: Mosul offensive A picture taken on 9 July 2017, shows a general view of the destruction in Mosul's Old City. Iraq will announce imminently a final victory in the nearly nine-month offensive to retake Mosul from jihadists, a US general said Saturday, as celebrations broke out among police forces in the city. AFP In pictures: Mosul offensive Members of the Iraqi federal police raise the victory gesture as they ride on a humvee while advancing through the Old City of Mosul on 28 June 2017, as the offensive continues to retake the last district held by Islamic State (IS) group fighters. AFP/Getty Images In pictures: Mosul offensive Smoke billows as Iraqi forces advance through the Old City of Mosul on 26 June 2017, during the ongoing offensive to retake the last district held by the Islamic State (IS) group. AFP/Getty Images In pictures: Mosul offensive An Iraqi man wearing the green scarf of the Shi'ite faith kisses an Iraqi Army soldier on safely reaching the Iraqi forces position as Iraqi civilians flee the Old City of west Mosul where heavy fighting continues on 23 June 2017. Iraqi forces continue to encounter stiff resistance with improvised explosive devices, car bombs, heavy mortar fire and snipers hampering their advance. Getty Images In pictures: Mosul offensive A picture taken from the inside of an Iraqi forces armoured vehicle shows residents walking through a damaged street as troops advance towards Mosul's Old City on 18 June 2017, during the ongoing offensive to retake the last district still held by the Islamic State (IS) group. Military commanders told AFP the assault had begun at dawn after overnight air strikes by the US-led coalition backing Iraqi forces. They said the jihadists were putting up fierce resistance. AFP/Getty Images In pictures: Mosul offensive Iraqi Army soldiers advance in a destroyed street after an Iraqi forces airstrike targeted an Islamic State sniper position 17 June 2017 in al-Shifa, the last district of west Mosul under Islamic State control. IS snipers, as well as car and suicide bomb attacks continue to hinder the Iraqi forces efforts to retake the final district. A series of airstrikes by Iraqi helicopter gunships attempted to hit multiple Islamic State sniper positions in al-Shifa. Getty Images In pictures: Mosul offensive An Iraqi soldier frisks a displaced Iraqi man at a temporary camp in the compound of the closed Nineveh International Hotel in Mosul on 16 June 2017 which was recovered by Iraqi troops from Islamic State group fighters earlier in the year. A screening centre set up in the compound's fairgrounds sees a constant stream of Iraqis fleeing the battle for Mosul, awaiting their turn to be checked by the Iraqi forces who are searching for suspected Islamic State (IS) group members. The small fairground lies at the end of a pontoon bridge across the Tigris recently opened to civilians that is the only physical link between the two banks of the river. AFP/Getty Images In pictures: Mosul offensive Iraqis staying at the al-Khazir camp swim in a river near the camp for internally displaced people, located between Arbil and Mosul on 11 June 2017. AFP/Getty Images In pictures: Mosul offensive Iraqi government forces drive on a road leading to Tal Afar on 9 June 2017, during ongoing battles to retake the city from Islamic State (IS) group fighters. AFP/Getty Images In pictures: Mosul offensive An Iraqi policeman carries a poster bearing an image of Mosul's iconic leaning minaret, known as the "Hadba" (Hunchback), on 22 June 2017. AFP/Getty Images In pictures: Mosul offensive Iraqis stand in line to receive food aid in western Mosul's Zanjili neighbourhood on 7 June 2017, during ongoing battles as Iraqi forces try to retake the city from Islamic State (IS) group fighters. Living conditions in Mosul have again deteriorated since the start of the Iraqi government's offensive on the city in October in which they retook a large part of the west of the city. AFP/Getty Images In pictures: Mosul offensive Displaced Iraqis carry lightbulbs and sacks as they evacuate from western Mosul's Zanjili neighbourhood as government forces advance in the area during their ongoing battle against Islamic State (IS) group fighters on 13 May 2017 AFP/Getty Images In pictures: Mosul offensive A member of the Iraqi Counter-Terrorism Service (CTS) flashes the victory gesture as he patrols in western Mosul's al-Islah al-Zaraye neighbourhood on 13 May 2017 AFP/Getty Images In pictures: Mosul offensive Iraqi army soldiers from the 9th armoured division on a truck flash the sign of victory as they drive back from Mosul to the town of Qaraqosh (also known as Hamdaniya) Getty In pictures: Mosul offensive Members of Iraqi forces flash the sign of victory on their vehicle as they advance towards Hammam al-Alil area south of Mosul Getty In pictures: Mosul offensive A member of Iraqi security forces gestures in Hammam al-Alil, south of Mosul, Iraq Reuters In pictures: Mosul offensive Iraqi children, one flashing the sign of victory, greet Iraqi army's soldiers from the 9th armoured division in the area of Ali Rash, adjacent to the eastern Al-Intissar neighbourhood of Mosul Getty In pictures: Mosul offensive Peshmerga forces look at a tunnel used by Islamic State militants near the town of Bashiqa, east of Mosul, during an operation to attack Islamic State militants in Mosul, Iraq Reuters In pictures: Mosul offensive An Iraqi soldier takes a photograph with his phone as his comrade stands next to a detained man, whom the Iraqi army soldiers accused of being an Islamic State fighter, who was fleeing with his family in the Intisar disrict of eastern Mosul, Iraq Reuters In pictures: Mosul offensive Iranian Kurdish female members of the Freedom Party of Kurdistan (PAK) hold a position in an area near the town of Bashiqa, some 25 kilometres north east of Mosul Getty In pictures: Mosul offensive Iraqi families, who fled their homes in Hamam al-Alil, gather on the outskirts of their town Getty In pictures: Mosul offensive Displaced people walk past a checkpoint near Qayara, south of Mosul, Iraq AP In pictures: Mosul offensive Iraqi families who were displaced by the ongoing operation by Iraqi forces against jihadists of the Islamic State group to retake the city of Mosul, are seen gathering in an area near Qayyarah In pictures: Mosul offensive A boy who just fled Abu Jarbuah village is seen with his family at a Kurdish Peshmerga position between two front lines near Bashiqa, east of Mosul, Iraq Reuters In pictures: Mosul offensive An Iraqi child eats a pomegranate upon the arrival of Iraqi forces in the village of Umm Mahahir, south of Mosul Getty In pictures: Mosul offensive People who just fled Abu Jarbuah village sit as they eat at a Kurdish Peshmerga position between two front lines near Bashiqa, east of Mosul, Iraq Reuters In pictures: Mosul offensive A couple who just fled Abu Jarbuah village are escorted by Kurdish Peshmerga soldiers Reuters In pictures: Mosul offensive Women carry a boy over a wall as civilians flee their houses in the village of Tob Zawa, Iraq AP In pictures: Mosul offensive An Iraqi soldier and a civilian ride a motorbike as smoke rises behind them, on the road between Qayyarah and Mosul Getty In pictures: Mosul offensive A member of Iraqi forces, wearing a skull mask, waits at a checkpoint for people fleeing the main hub city of Mosul Getty In pictures: Mosul offensive An Iraqi soldier sits at a checkpoint in an area near Qayyarah Getty In pictures: Mosul offensive Iraqi men prepare food portions for Iraqi forces deployed in areas south of Mosul Getty In pictures: Mosul offensive Iraqi forces celebrate upon the arrival of vehicles bringing food to them Getty In pictures: Mosul offensive Iraqi childen smoke cigarettes upon the arrival of Iraqi forces in the village of Umm Mahahir, south of Mosul Getty In pictures: Mosul offensive A member of Iraqi forces distributes drinks to children in the village of Umm Mahahir, south of Mosul Getty

I remember during the American-led air campaign in Baghdad in 1991 visiting a bombed baby milk factory at Abu Ghraib, which the US insisted had produced biological weapons. I was there soon after the attack and there was no doubt that it had, indeed, once produced baby milk, though it appeared to have gone out of business. I found a smashed desk with a drawer full of angry letters from creditors. So far as I recall, it emerged long after that the US had probably bombed the factory because they had spotted a piece of camouflage netting there similar to that used at other facilities they were sure were producing biological weapons.

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The bombing of buildings in the al-Jadida district of east Mosul on 17 March, which may have killed as many as 240 people, is the present day equivalent of the Abu Ghraib factory a quarter of a century ago. The Iraqi civilian and military authorities have responded with an unconvincing scatter-gun of contradictory counter allegations of the type one has so often heard in the past from Israelis, Americans, Russians and Syrians. They suggestion is that only 61 people died and Isis had packed the walls of the building with explosives or left a giant suicide bomb outside it.

Governments are commonly hypocritical and mendacious about the effect of bombing campaigns carried out in their name, but it is too easy for the media to be holier than thou. The Iraqi government and its allies are right to try to recapture Mosul in order to destroy Isis, a movement of monstrous evil which has murdered, raped and enslaved.

In practice, there is no way of defeating its fanatical fighters in the city without using airstrikes and artillery fire in support of ground troops. The mistake is not in the use of these weapons, but in failing to admit their indiscriminate nature or get civilians out of Mosul before they were used.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said Thursday he would be willing to meet with U.S. President Donald Trump.

Speaking at an Arctic forum, Putin and Finland's president, Sauli Niinisto, said they were open to the idea of such a meeting, and Niinisto said he would be honored to host the summit in his country.

Putin said Russia has many friends in Washington and relations between the two countries would get better at some point.


One of Ireland's richest men has lost a bid to sue the country's parliament after two elected representatives disclosed details of his banking affairs.

A judge upheld parliamentary freedom of speech and the separation of state powers after telecoms and media tycoon Denis O'Brien took legal action against the entire Oireachtas following remarks made under parliamentary privilege in 2015.

The billionaire, who controls a sizeable section of the Irish media, said the TDs acted "recklessly and maliciously" in disclosing information using protection afforded to parliamentarians to "usurp" a High Court order barring publication of his financial records.

Ms Justice Una Ni Raifeartaigh said the framers of the constitution had created a strong set of privileges and immunities for parliamentary speech and the court did not have a role in policing such utterances.

She added: "The language used to describe those privileges and immunities, in my view, signals the importance with which freedom of speech in the Oireachtas, and therefore in the Irish democratic state, was viewed and I have reached the conclusion that none of the issues in the present case are justiciable in the present case."

Mr O'Brien sought an injunction in 2015 preventing RTE from reporting on what he claims are stolen files of his banking records with the state-owned IBRC, formerly rogue lender Anglo Irish Bank.

The Dubliner, who lives in Malta, said two TDs (MPs) - Independent Catherine Murphy and Sinn Fein's Pearse Doherty - knew exactly what they were doing when they later read details of the file into the public record.

He also referred to death threats made against him and his family around the time of the affair.

The High Court judge acknowledged parliamentary speech could be damaging and dangerous to individuals.

She concluded: "However my understanding of the Irish constitutional provisions is that the courts simply do not have a role in policing parliamentary utterances except perhaps in some extremely exceptional and limited circumstance of which the present case is not one."

The judge said the fact there cannot be immediate recourse to the courts placed a heavier burden on the legislature to ensure that constitutional rights are respected.

She called for a review by a committee of the Irish parliament considering whether and when a Dail deputy may reveal matters before the courts which are the subject of an injunction protecting their confidentiality.

Ms Justice Ni Raifeartaigh said that should consider the role of the Speaker, the Ceann Comhairle, and how a Dail committee should deal with such an event.

She noted some ambiguity around the procedures concerning such speech.

"Judicial intervention in this area would not constitute the restoration of a constitutional equilibrium disrupted by the parliamentary utterances, but would itself constitute a disruption of the equilibrium established by our constitution.

"If there is to be a signal sent out to prevent future revelations in the Dail of private information or material the subject of injunctive relief granted by a court to an individual citizen, any such signal must come from the court of public opinion and the Houses of the Oireachtas, but not from the courts of justice."
Michael Gove takes part in an event being hosted by the Ireland edition of The Times at the Conrad Hotel in Dublin

Michael Gove, one of the chief architects of Brexit, has said he envisages that EU citizens will be able to "move freely" in and around the UK after the pull-out is completed.

Speaking in Dublin, the prominent British Tory and former cabinet minister also claimed Britain will likely beef up its security presence around the European continent and rest of the world post-Brexit to safeguard its interests.

"One of the things that I envisage is, after we leave the European Union, EU citizens will be able to move freely into the UK," he said.

"It is just they won't have the same rights to work and secure access to public services and welfare benefits."

Mr Gove, now a backbencher, told the audience at an event organised by the Ireland edition of The Times, that Irish citizens would be treated differently from others in the EU, and would have the same rights to live and work in the UK as has been the case historically.

"This will allow people to benefit from tourism, it will allow people to travel freely, but you also ensure the critical pinch point in migration, which is access to work and access to public services, is controlled," he added.

Mr Gove said British Prime Minister Theresa May will want to "keep her options open" in the divorce deal negotiations, but suggested his EU open access approach would resolve a number of issues surrounding migration concerns.

The option would also make it "perfectly possible" to prevent a hard border being re-erected in Ireland, which threatens peace and prosperity in the country, he suggested.

"There are different ways of proceeding when it comes to guaranteeing the right of Irish citizens and respecting Britain's desire to have its own migration policy, but also to be able to benefit from the talents and the presence of EU citizens," he said.

"Of course, the Prime Minister wants to keep her options open, but one idea which I find attractive is the idea that people from the European Union should be able to continue to come to the UK.

"But in order to work or to have access to public service, they need a valid work permit."

Mr Gove also predicted a ramping up of British security overseas would follow after it pulls out of the EU.

"It will be the case, I suspect, that Britain will have an even more powerful security presence, both on the continent of Europe, places like Estonia, and also in projecting power beyond the European continent in order to safeguard trade routes and our interests across the world," he said.

But he dismissed suggestions London will use its security clout as a bargaining chip with Brussels during break-up talks as a misinterpretation of the fact.

"(Brexit Secretary) David Davis has pointed out that if there is no deal, then current arrangements that benefit everyone in security terms would no longer exist," he told the Press Association.

"It was a statement of fact.

"I think the Prime Minister when she was home secretary played a leading role in advancing security cooperation across the European Union, she is personally invested in it, and it was a statement of fact, not a negotiating tactic."
A Dublin Bus inspector outside Heuston Station in Dublin, as commuters faced travel disruption across Ireland

Bus services in Dublin and rail links country-wide were returning to normal after a wildcat strike causing rush-hour gridlock and commuter chaos drew widespread criticism.

Unannounced secondary pickets in support of the ongoing Bus Eireann walkout crippled Dublin Bus, Irish Rail and Dart services, catching tens of thousands by surprise on Friday morning.

Many were left out of pocket by seeking alternative transport while retailers say they lost tens of thousands of euro from the "illegal" action , which even drew disapproval from union leaders.

Dermot O'Leary, general secretary of the National Bus and Rail Union, said the escalation in transport disruption was "unofficial" and that all Dublin Bus and Irish Rail workers should have been in work as normal.

"The NBRU fully understands the frustrations bring felt by Bus Eireann staff as a result of the imposition of unagreed and unilateral cuts to terms and conditions," he said.

"However, it should be understood that the only official dispute that the NBRU can prosecute is that which we are conducting presently at Bus Eireann."

Siptu said it did not condone the wildcat action and "regrets the manner in which tens of thousands of commuters were unable to obtain public transport services in Dublin and across the country".

Transport Minister Shane Ross said the travelling public were rightly very angry at the unexpected pickets.

"This is not part of the fair conduct of strikes," he said.

"My first concern is with all the passengers affected by this ongoing strike and by this new unofficial and unjustified protest, and I very much regret the impact on them.

"I understand that the travelling public are, rightly, very angry at having to deal with this sudden, unannounced disruption to their Friday morning and I hugely sympathise with their unforeseen predicament."

However, Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams said Mr Ross was sitting on his hands as the pay and conditions row at Bus Eireann deepens.

"The crisis at Bus Eireann, and right across our public transport network, has been caused by bad policy and now by the inaction of a minister who has a very clear privatisation agenda," he said.

"The Taoiseach, who is happy to turn a blind eye, is completely complicit."

By midday, Dublin Bus said picketing by Bus Eireann employees at its depots had stopped and services were resuming on all routes.

Irish Rail apologised to customers and said services were also returning to normal, although some had to be cancelled. It has offered refunds for anyone affected.

Taxis reported a huge surge in business, with many off-duty drivers being called in to work, as commuters struggled to make their way through dense morning traffic.

Many people opted to walk long distances into work.

The Luas tram service was running in Dublin while school transport operators were mostly unaffected.

The Irish Small and Medium Enterprises Association condemned the surprise strike action as "illegal" and said retailers will lose tens of thousands of euro while workers are forced to pay taxi fares to get to work.

Business leaders Ibec said the "outrageous, unofficial industrial action" is "illegal and demonstrates contempt for the travelling public, including some of the most vulnerable sections of society".

Bus Eireann said trust must be restored for both sides in the dispute to reopen "time-limited talks".

About 2,600 Bus Eireann workers walked out last Friday following a long-running dispute with management over threatened 30% pay cuts and warnings that the company was being driven into insolvency.

Bus Eireann bosses have warned losses continuing to accelerate at the company, and exacerbated by strike action to date, threaten to collapse the company this year - its 30th anniversary.
The interior of Lloyds of London, the centuries-old insurance market, is pictured in the City of London yesterday Photo: Getty

Luxembourg has claimed a legal right to grab the European Banking Authority for itself after Brexit, despite pitches from Ireland and other states to host the EU institution.

Dublin's ability to lure financial firms post Brexit got a much-needed boost yesterday after the Royal London Mutual Insurance Society picked Ireland as its future EU base, and with JP Morgan now poised to expand its presence here as a result of Brexit.

It's a turnaround after Lloyd's of London, the iconic UK insurer, gave Dublin the swerve in favour of Brussels.

As this newspaper reported yesterday, JP Morgan is considering taking enough new office space to house 1,000 employees in Dublin's Capital Dock, close to the IFSC.

But the good news was offset by a ratcheting up of competitive tension from Luxembourg in the high-stakes battle to host the London-based European Banking Authority (EBA).

Luxembourg has claimed a legal right to host the EBA under an obscure ruling dating to the 1960s. The EBA must relocate its 159 London employees from the Canary Wharf financial district in the wake of Brexit.

The EBA's new location must be decided by the European Commission, unless Luxembourg's claimed automatic entitlement is upheld.

Dublin and other European financial services centres have been jostling for London's mantle as a global financial centre since the shock referendum result last summer.

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But the race has heated-up since British Prime Minister Theresa May formally triggered divorce proceedings with the bloc.

In the past two days a wave of companies have signalled their intentions to open subsidiaries in the single market.

Scramble

Royal London's decision will see it turn its Irish arm into a licensed European subsidiary.

US giant Citi told London staff yesterday it won't hang around while Brexit talks happen to decide the future for thousands of its workers.

In a memorandum to staff, Jim Cowles, the bank's head for Europe, the Middle East and Africa, said "banks can't wait two years or more for a deal to be struck on passporting or equivalence".

The scramble to host the EBA also intensified.

Luxembourg's Prime Minister Xavier Bettel threw down the gauntlet to competing centres by claiming its campaign for the agency was rooted in a decision taken by European leaders in 1965. The assertion was conveyed in a letter to the EU Council President Donald Tusk and European Commission head Jean-Claude Juncker.

In January, Taoiseach Enda Kenny described Dublin as an "ideal" base for the EBA.

In a statement last night, the Department of Finance stressed the Government had been "active" in pursuing the right to host the EBA.

The agency is responsible for harmonising banking supervision across member states and is best known for its 'stress testing' measures - a key plank in the EU's attempt to restore faith in the region's banking system after the financial crisis.

A spokesperson for the department said Financial Services Minister Eoghan Murphy "recently raised our bid at a meeting with the European Commission Vice President Dombrovskis" and added that "officials have also raised the bid at meetings with EBA and with European Commission officials".

He said Dublin, as an English-speaking and well-established financial services centre, represented "the least disruptive option for the EBA relocation".

The renewed push for the EBA comes after Mr Murphy raised concerns about the risks of a regulatory race to the bottom. That was after US-based insurer AIG opted to relocate its new European hub in Luxembourg, despite Ireland earlier being in the running for the investment.

In a meeting with the EC earlier this month, Mr Murphy warned against regulatory arbitrage. According to a spokesperson for the minister, he pressed the case for "consistency across EU member states in the application of European and member state regulatory standards for financial services".
Britains ambassador to the EU Tim Barrow leaves after delivering British Prime Minister Theresa Mays formal notice of the UKs intention to leave the bloc under Article 50 of the EUs Lisbon Treaty to European Council President Donald Tusk in Brussels this week Picture: AFP/Getty

Negotiations on future trade relations between the UK and EU can only begin after "sufficient progress" has been made on disentangling Britain from the ties and obligations of its 44-year membership, the European Council has said.

But in its draft negotiating guidelines for the upcoming withdrawal talks, the Council did not rule out trade talks beginning within the two-year period leading up to Brexit.

While a trade deal can only be formally concluded once the UK has ceased its membership, it will be possible to negotiate "an overall understanding on the framework for the future relationship" to allow for a swift agreement after withdrawal.

The position marks a compromise between Britain's call for parallel divorce and trade talks and the insistence of some EU leaders that trade discussions can begin only after Brexit.

The reference to "sufficient progress" being required in the divorce talks before moving on to trade may be interpreted in London as a welcome signal that the Brexit deal does not have to be finalised before negotiations on future relations begin.

But it may also suggest that the question of the UK's "divorce bill" must be settled in advance of the vital trade talks.

With European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker indicating that the EU is likely to seek around 50 billion from Britain to settle existing obligations, prior agreement on the bill would rob Prime Minister Theresa May of a powerful weapon to influence the outcome of trade negotiations.

The guidelines were leaked moments before European Council president Donald Tusk was due to launch them at a press conference in Malta.

They have been circulated to the 27 remaining member states, who are expected to agree them at an extraordinary summit on April 29, allowing negotiations to begin in earnest.

It is understood the guidelines contain explicit references to the Northern Irish peace process and the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic.

Earlier this week the Taoiseach said he was confident that Ireland's interests will be reflected in the draft Brexit negotiating guidelines due to be published by Brussels on Friday.

With the formal divorce process now underway, European Council President Donald Tusk will set out the bloc's priorities for the talks, which the Government expects will make reference to Ireland's "unique circumstances", including the pledge that there will be no return to a hard border.

The guidelines represent the Council's formal response to Mrs May's letter on Wednesday notifying Brussels of the UK's intention to quit under Article 50.

The unprecedented decision to withdraw creates "significant uncertainties that have the potential to cause disruption, in particular in the UK but also in other member states," said the draft guidelines unveiled by Mr Tusk.

They state that the EU will "give priority to an orderly withdrawal", and will take a phased approach, with the first phase aiming to settle the terms of the UK's removal from the rights and obligations derived from membership, and provide "as much clarity and legal certainty as possible" to citizens and businesses.

Only once "sufficient progress" has been achieved on this phase will talks move on to the future relationship.

In a clear warning to the UK not to attempt to gain advantage by using "divide-and-rule" tactics to cut special deals with national capitals, the guidelines state that the EU will "act as one".

"So as not to undercut the position of the Union, there will be no separate negotiations between individual member states and the United Kingdom on matters pertaining to the withdrawal," it said.

The guidelines promise the EU will take a "constructive" approach to negotiations and hopes to keep the UK as a "close partner" in the future.

But they stress that the EU's overall objective will be "to preserve its interests, those of its member states, its citizens and its businesses".

Speaking in Malta, Mr Tusk issued a firm rejection of Britain's call for simultaneous divorce and trade talks.

"Starting parallel talks on both issues at the same time, as suggested by some in the UK, will not happen," he said.

He said the EU shared the UK's desire for a close future partnership.

"Strong ties reaching beyond the economy, and including security co-operation remain in our common interest," he said.

Mr Tusk said that the Article 50 withdrawal negotiations were essentially a matter of "damage control" and would be "difficult, complex and sometimes even confrontational".

But he said: "The EU27 does not and will not pursue a punitive approach. Brexit in itself is already punitive enough.

"After more than 40 years of being united, we owe it to each other to do everything we can to make this divorce as smooth as possible."

He added: "Our duty is to minimise the uncertainty and disruption caused by the UK decision to withdraw from the EU for our citizens, businesses and member states.

"We have to think of people first. Citizens from all over the EU live, work and study in the UK, and as long as the UK remains a member their rights are fully protected.

"But we need to settle their status and situation after the withdrawal with reciprocal, enforceable and non-discriminatory guarantees."

In a sign of Brussels' determination to extract a "divorce bill" from Britain, Mr Tusk added: "We will need to make sure that the UK honours all financial commitments and liabilities it has taken as a member state.

"It is only fair towards all of those people - communities, scientists, farmers and so on - to whom we, all the 28, promised and owed this money.

"I can guarantee that the EU, on our part, will honour all our commitments."

Mr Tusk, who will come to London for talks with Mrs May ahead of the April 29 summit, also said the EU would seek "flexible and creative solutions" to avoid the creation of a hard border between Northern Ireland and the Republic.
The Department of Agriculture in Northern Ireland is to engage in a crackdown on those who benefit from cheating in a campaign that is targeted at both farmers and those directly employed within the department.

The development comes on the eve of the application by UK, including Northern Ireland, to exit the EU.

In the campaign entitled Fraud costs everyone! Dont cheat yourself, help us to help you, the department is calling for those with knowledge of possible irregularities in schemes and payments to become whistleblowers to weed out any unapproved practices.

The call for allegations of fraud to be highlighted is accompanied by a direct phone line number 0808 1002716 which has been issued by the Department of Agriculture, Environment, and Rural Affairs, Norther Ireland, setting out animal disease compensation, EU grants and subsidies, livestock ear tag switching, abuse of official assets, and inappropriate claims for travel and subsistence as key target areas to be observed by the public.

They are appealing to the public If you think someone is engaged in fraudulent activity call the DAERA fraud hotline with the assurance that All information will be treated in the strictest confidence.

The hotline process of whistleblowing on cheats which is already being pursued by the insurance industry in this country is showing returns for the campaign.

Presently 26 claims for accident compensation in Co Galway, and a further 19 similar cases in Co Donegal are under investigation for alleged fraud, bases on information which has been obtained by the insurance companies.

Two years ago, then Minister for Agriculture, Simon Coveney, said that there was no basis for investigation of possible fraud with schemes being administered by his department on behalf of the EU.

The Minister was replying to Deputy Martin Ferris who questioned the measures in place to prevent fraudulent claims being made under REPS and if his attention has been drawn to claims made in respect of lands that did not belong to the claimants.

The Kerry TD questioned if any such fraudent claims were being investigated.

Minister Coveney said said that the Department of Agriculture had no evidence of any widespread breaches of land-ownership requirements under the REPS Scheme and were not carrying out formal investigations in this area at this point in time.

However, he said if such information exists, the Department would be glad to receive further details.

He said that applications are cross-checked with records held under the Departments Single Payments System and Animal Identification and Movement System and prepayment checks and on-farm inspections are carried out annually.

The Minister added that where an applicant knowingly made false or misleading statements or withheld essential information in support of any claim for payment, their participation in the scheme may be terminated and all or part of any aid already paid must be returned.
Ex-President Park Geun-hye was arrested early Friday after a court granted prosecutors' request for a warrant on a slew of charges including bribery, abuse of power and leaking government secrets. The Seoul Central District Court accepted that her arrest is necessary to "hedge the risk of Park fleeing or destroying evidence."

Former President Park Geun-hye is being driven from the Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office in Seoul on early Friday. /Newsis

Park was taken to a remand prison, the third ex-president to be detained on criminal charges after Chun Doo-hwan and Roh Tae-woo. Park, who was ousted last month, had been waiting all night at the Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office about 150 m away as the court reviewed the warrant request.

Former President Park Geun-hye enters the Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office in Seoul on Thursday. /Yonhap

Earlier in the day, she appeared in court to plead innocence. Intense legal debate took almost nine hours before the court spent another eight hours deciding whether to take her into custody. Prosecutors argued that Park needs to be arrested since her alleged accomplices are already on remand while their trial is in progress, whereas her lawyers said she presents no flight risk and is unlikely to destroy evidence since she had been living under virtual house arrest since her ouster. Park faces 13 charges, including colluding with her confidante Choi Soon-sil to solicit W43.3 billion in bribes from Samsung and extorting billions more from other top conglomerates (US$1=W1,118). She denies all charges.
Irish-listed Amryt Pharma posted operating losses before tax of 7.8m following a number of strategic acquisitions over the course of 2016.

The company said that it had signed an exclusive licensing agreement with Aegerion Pharmaceuticals in December, which it said could have a transformational effect on the business.

Amryt specialises in creating drugs to treat extremely rare skin conditions. The company said it had made significant progress over the past 12 months, having secured patents in the US, Europe, and in Japan for its Episalvan drug which could provide a treatment for the genetic skin condition Epidermolysis Bullos (EB).

EB makes the skin of those afflicted extremely delicate.

Children suffering from the disease are known as 'butterfly children'.

The company's final-year results reveal that purchases of Birken AG and Som Pharmaceuticals in April cost just over 10m.

The company said it was in a strong position following the acquisitions. Revenues for the year totalled 1.35m, in line with management expectations.

"It has been a tremendously exciting year for the company," said Joe Wiley, CEO of Amryt Pharma. "Amryt has made significant progress, both strategically and operationally.

"A landmark point came in December 2016 when we reached an agreement to in-license the drug, Lojuxta, which treats a rare, life-threatening disorder, HoFH.

"The agreement has provided us with a cash-generative product, with untapped sales potential, as well as a pan-European infrastructure which we can use for other drug assets," Mr Wiley added.

Amryt said it would be focusing on building sale of Lojuxta in the year ahead.

The company added it had secured an agreement with the European Investment Bank for a 20m loan facility.

Earlier this week, Amryt announced the appointment of David Allmond as the firm's new chief commercial officer (CCO).

Allmond worked for Aegerion Pharmaceuticals, where he was President of EMEA and involved in the commercialisation of Lojuxta.

CEO Joe Wiley said that Allmond's extensive commercial experience and his knowledge of Lojuxta is welcome.

"David will resume control of the Lojuxta team and is the ideal person to take on responsibility for the commercial development of this business," Mr Wiley said.

"We remain very excited about the potential to increase the numbers of patients on treatment in existing markets and also to open new markets within our territories."
Chopped and Fit Studios co-owner Brian Lee has revealed that his business empire started off aged just 11, when he started cutting his neighbour's lawn.

Everything Dubliner Brian touches seems to turn to gold - Chopped now has 19 stores across the country and sells over 20,000 salads every week.

Speaking of his humble beginnings, he said: "I went up to the second-hand store, 117 later I got two lawnmowers with a friend, so I could cut twice as much grass.

"Off we went, knocking on doors and asking people if they wanted their grass cut.

"We went over to the local shopping centre and got business cards printed."

He gave an insight into the simple push behind his first business.

He explained: "Looking back on it now it was an entrepreneurial thing but I was doing it because I was looking for money to buy something nice or to do something I wanted to do.

"In my family if you wanted something nice back then you had to work for it."

He then found another goldmine a few years later, when he managed to earn a tidy amount from a phone accessories deal.

Speaking on The Late Late Show, he said: "I was 15 or 16 when I took a job in the local Spar shop and I met Andy (Chen), Andy's from China and he was brining in phone covers for selling.

"He was trying to sell me one down in the back of the stock and I thought I could sell a few of those in school.

"So I took a bag of them off him, I had a locker full of them, I was selling them for 10 and they were bringing them in for 10C each, so there was good margins on them... Later on that year we ended up importing about 50,000 of them."

Brian and Andy are clearly talented at spotting at opening in the market because in 2011 they realised there was a need for fresh and healthy food businesses in Ireland.

Expand Close Chopped managing director and co-founder Brian Lee / Facebook

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Brian told Ryan Tubridy: "Later on I knew it was only a matter of time until Irish people started becoming more healthy and conscious on what they wanted to eat.

"That was 2011 when we started thinking should we do this or not do this.

"The next question was would people queue for salads, we started working around business ideas and the idea was make everything real and enjoyable and make it an experience for the customer.

"With this programme for business I started to create a brand, we put so much work into creating the look, the feel, the brand, we even knew it would come in a brown paper bag."

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Business is booming for Brian and Andy and their plan is to open more branches and expand their team.

Brian said of Chopped's success: "Years ago my grandparents and your grandparents would have been eating real, fresh food that would have been grown in the area..

"We're educated on what we need to eat and how we need to eat, I feel like there's a generation who didn't get that and now there's a younger generation who are getting that."

Viewers were impress by Brian's down-to-Earth interview and business sense.
The ESB already has planning permission for the huge station on a 50-acre site at Knottingley in Yorkshire. Stock image

The ESB is advancing plans for a 1bn power plant in the UK and seeking an equity partner to help build the huge 1,600 megawatt facility.

When the power plant in Yorkshire is built it will rank among Britain's biggest.

Investment bank Nomura has been hired by the ESB to find a partner for the new gas-fired power station development, code-named Project Knight Rider.

The ESB already has planning permission for the huge station on a 50-acre site at Knottingley in Yorkshire.

Speaking to the Irish Independent earlier this month, group finance director Pat Fenlon said it would be the end of the year at the earliest before a decision would be made about when the project will actually proceed.

That's because the UK government doesn't hold its next annual capacity auction until the end of this year. Those auctions are held to ensure that the UK has adequate power supplies during winter periods, when demand peaks.

The ESB has told potential investors that the UK will need new gas-fired power stations to take up the slack as about 20 gigawatts of coal-fired and nuclear-powered electricity generation is shut down by 2025.

It has also told likely backers that the UK's electricity reserve margin fell from about 18pc in 2011 to just 0.1pc during the winter that has just ended, before the use of emergency supplementary balancing reserves. Those reserves are used by the National Grid in what it says are the "unlikely event" that there is insufficient capacity to meet demand. It typically involves bringing old power stations that are already closed, mothballed or generally unavailable into action to meet shortfalls.

According to industry publication 'SparkSpread', which first reported that the ESB is now seeking an equity partner for Knottingley, the utility is also in talks with General Electric for the supply of two 800-megawatt turbines for the project. The ESB confirmed it is hunting for an equity partner.

"ESB has approached the market seeking expressions of interest from potential investors interested in acquiring a share in the Knottingley CCGT development project in West Yorkshire," it said.
The National Asset Management Agency is preparing to sell a portfolio of loans tied to the late Cork developer Owen O'Callaghan.

It is understood a formal auction for the partially-peforming loans, bundled together under the name Project Lee, could be underway by May or June.

The Irish Independent has established that this latest sell-off of comes as contenders for AIB's Project Cyprus portfolio move in to the second round of bidding.

While both of the loan bundles are relatively small compared to the multi-billion portfolio sales seen in recent years, each will be closely watched for evidence of improving sentiment about the outlook for Ireland's real estate market.

Project Cyprus also marks the first major sale of non-performing residential loans by a domestic bank. The book of buy-to-let mortgages, is understood to have a face value of close to 300m.

Several global debt funds have cast an eye over the assets, including Lone Star and Cerberus Asset Management.

Grant Thornton is advising on the sale.

According to sources, the Project Lee loans have a similar face value - estimated at about 250m.

Nama initially intended to offload O'Callaghan's impaired mortgages in 2015 but a thicket of legal complexities forced a lengthy delay.

The revived sale is expected to attract a swathe of investors given the revival in commercial real estate values.

Two years ago, when Nama first unveiled plans to sell off the portfolio, Owen O'Callaghan said the market would view the loans "very positively". He insisted: "These loans have always been and are fully performing and the suite of assets covered by the loans which are now for sale are amongst the best performing retail and commercial assets in the country."

Owen O'Callaghan - one of boom-time Ireland's most prolific retail park developers - died earlier this year after a short illness.

His company, O'Callaghan Properties, built Cork's Merchant's Quay Shopping Centre, Dublin's Liffey Valley Shopping Centre, and Athlone's Golden Island development.

News of the looming debt sales come as Navigation Square - a 90m development by O'Callaghan Properties in Cork city's vast docklands - received a green light after An Bord Pleanala said all appeals had been withdrawn.

The project was the brainchild of the late developer, his son and current head of O'Callaghan Properties, Brian O'Callaghan, hailed this week's planning news as "a great day for Cork and for the region".
Robert Elliot has formally taken up his role as chairman of PTSB following the retirement of outgoing chairman Alan Cook.

Mr Elliot takes up the position having recently retired from international law firm Linklaters. Mr Cook had served as PTSB chairman for six years.

In addition, Conor Ryan has been appointed as group company secretary designate. Mr Ryan will take up the position following the retirement of Ciaran Long.

Mr Ryan joined the bank in 1989 and has held the position of deputy company secretary for the past five years. He served as President of the Institute of Chartered Secretaries and Administrators in Ireland between 2014 and 2016.
Shanghai will be one the cities visited by the Irish delegation

Fifteen Irish companies will tour China next month as part of Tourism Irelands mission to boost visitor traffic from the country.

The sales mission will target top Chinese travel agents and tour operators in the key cities of Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Hong Kong.

Travel agents are still widely used in China, with language barriers, visa preparation and knowledge gaps providing difficulty for many Chinese tourists.

The objective of the trip will be to engage with Chinese travel professionals who are currently selling the island of Ireland, or who have strong potential to sell the country as an attractive destination.

Our sales mission is a key element of our promotional programme in China, to win a greater share of the 4 million Chinese visitors who travel to Europe each year, said Niall Gibbons, CEO of Tourism Ireland.

Tourism Ireland is committed to growing Chinese visitor numbers to Ireland and our sales missions play a significant role in helping us do so, Mr Gibbons added.

Latest data from the United Nations World Tourism Organization show that China is now the worlds largest outbound travel market, with around 127m people heading overseas each year, with an estimated spend of around 273bn.
US-based financial services firm Northern Trust plans to add 200 new roles in Limerick, taking total staff to 1,200.

Northern Trust's senior vice president Eamonn Fallon announced the planned expansion, and said a majority of roles at the firm are being filled by graduates.

He was among a panel of experts who discussed the potential to develop financial services in Limerick in front of an audience of 150 business and political leaders at the Westin Hotel, Dublin on Wednesday.

Northern Trust's Limerick operation is drawing staff from 13 counties, he said.

The event was organised by Dublin-based Capital Limerick, a group set up to promote the Mid West. The panel was made up of economist Dr Stephen Kinsella of the University of Limerick, Kevin Thompson, CEO of Insurance Ireland, Andrea Linehan, commercial director of Irish startup Grid Finance, Eamonn Fallon and moderated by Irish Independent Business Editor Donal O'Donovan.

Niall O'Callaghan, of the IDA also addressed the event.

"Limerick is well-positioned to attract firms with its pro-business environment, appropriate talent, good infrastructure and connectivity, supported by a strong city brand," Mr Thompson told the audience. "However, financial services firms tend to cluster in financial centres and the importance of reminding the industry of the Mid West's roots in aircraft leasing and the recent expansion of the financial services offering, cannot be underestimated in terms of attracting further investment." Kevin Thompson told the audience.
BANKS and insurance companies have been heavily criticised for denying consumers access to financial services.

Financial services ombudsman Ger Deering has found against banks that closed the current accounts of customers over false allegations that there was a breach of money-laundering rules.

And insurers have been accused of failing to pay out on claims by saying consumers had not disclosed all relevant facts when taking out the policy.

Presenting a review of consumer complaints dealt with last year, Mr Deering said he has seen a rise of banks and insurers simply telling customers they would no longer deal with them.

This has left people without banking services, and left others unable to get insurance cover, as someone denied cover by one company is then rejected by the rest.

I have been concerned to note, in a number of complaints to this office, the manner in which some banks and insurance companies either denied or curtailed services to customers.

Access to certain financial services in the banking and insurance sectors is not a luxury.

He said that access to financial services is an essential part of everyday living.

I will continue to pay particular attention to the conduct of banks and insurance companies to ensure that their conduct is fair, reasonable and proportionate.

Statistics released by the ombudsman show that Ulster Bank had the most complaints upheld against it last year.

It was followed by Irish Life, and then AIB.

Bank of Ireland was next, but it would be in joint second place for the number of complaints upheld if Bank of Ireland and Bank of Ireland Mortgages were added together.

Mr Deering provided a sample of complaints where he awarded compensation against financial companies, but did not name them.

He said a bank was ordered by him to pay 4,000 in compensation to a customer and refund fees after it denied access to online banking. It is understood the customer had exceeded an overdraft limit and issued cheques that bounced.

The bank had shut off the online banking option as a punishment, but allowed the customer to continue to use its branches.

Mr Deering ordered an insurance company to pay 3,000 in compensation after it unreasonably denied a claim and cancelled the policy.

It is understood Mr Deering is concerned that insurance companies are increasingly resorting to saying a policy is invalid, and refusing to pay out, by alleging that there was a non-disclosure of a key fact.

This might include an allegation that the consumer did not admit they had made a previous insurance claim.

A bank was also ordered to pay a customer 10,000 and issue an apology for freezing a bank account. This was done in unfair, unreasonable and embarrassing circumstances, Mr Deerings report says.

The ombudsman operates a free dispute resolution mechanism for consumers and can award compensation of up to 250,000, and reverse decisions of finance companies.
Irish start-up Treasury Delta has agreed a strategic alliance with John Power, former chairman of Independent Finance Providers Ireland, aimed at boosting the number of lenders using its new financial technology platform.

Treasury Delta, set up by ex-ESB and Bank of Ireland financier Padraig Brosnan, aims to drive down costs for businesses by allowing them to compare and buy financial services using his company's online platforms.

Treasury Delta's products include a treasury management function that lets companies calculate their total banking fees and costs, and tender for providers to compete for some or all of that business.

Padraig Brosnan says the platform will disrupt the traditional banking model by giving businesses greater insight and control of pricing.

Seven financial institutions have signed up to the service, which is set to go live in the first half of this year. Interest has been registered ahead of the launch from SMEs and corporates representing more than 8bn of business, the company said.

A separate service will allow established and new lenders to tender direct to businesses.

The alliance with John Power is to boost the number of credit providers plugged into the Delta Treasury platform, Brosnan said. "We're delighted with this strategic alliance as it assists Treasury Delta to fast-track our route to market, creates more awareness of our product offering, and also validates our sales and marketing model which can be easily deployed in other international markets.

Treasury Delta will make it easier for new entrants to offer credit in the Irish marketplace - ultimately driving down the cost of credit, he said.
Twitter boss Jack Dorsey has told a Dublin audience that Twitter will "endure forever" despite being no closer to making a profit after 11 years.

Speaking at the company's Dublin office yesterday, Mr Dorsey also said that paid subscriptions to the service are "a germ of an idea" that could be introduced for professional users such as journalists.

Twitter employs around 200 staff here.

And Mr Dorsey claimed that Twitter is winning its war against trolls with recently introduced features, and that the service's previous mechanisms weren't "fair" on harassment victims.

"Profitability is a choice," he said. "It's a choice between investment or driving profit. We believe that there's a massive opportunity in continuing to grow and invest in the business.

"I think Twitter is a company that endures forever. It will last because it's fundamental. So we're going to take the time necessary to do the right things for the people using the product and also for our advertisers. And the revenue will follow."

Despite its global utility as a news-breaking service, Twitter has struggled to match its commercial fortunes with its high profile.

Its most recent financial statement showed continuing losses with little sign of a commercial pickup.

The company is now considering the introduction of a paid subscription service that could give users more analytics feedback on how their tweets are performing.

"I think looking at subscriptions is interesting," said Mr Dorsey. "I think there's some value there, especially for journalists and in providing more economic incentive. It's just a germ of an idea, nothing serious yet. But we should always have an open mind to compliment our advertising business."

Asked about how long Twitter can operate as a loss-making business, Mr Dorsey said that the company would continue its direction.

"To me it's not a matter of time," he said. "It's a matter of focus in making sure that we have a good understanding of what matters most. Our advertising business is amazing. It's one of the biggest at scale out there. We're really proud of it. We have a phenomenal business. There haven't been a lot that have managed to do what we did, which is turn the growth around."

Mr Dorsey said that the company is making solid progress in discouraging trolls and abusers on Twitter.

"In the past, we were pretty mechanical across the board, especially around abuse," he said. "We put the burden on the victim. We made them do a bunch of work to get rid of the harassment, which just wasn't fair.

"Now we're using technology to take some of that burden away. And we're recognising more and more of the harassing conduct faster and hiding it. We've got a lot better at applying machine learning to our problems. So trolls are now starting to say that Twitter's kind of boring now because this is so hard.

"We're never going to be done. People are going to find new ways of harassing people, as they do in the real world. So our communication channel is no different from how people discover new ways to use a phone to harass people."

Stung by the relentless criticism of the way abuse was escalating on Twitter, Mr Dorsey said that the company has been prioritising it since January.

"I think we were unfairly amplifying [harassment] just by the very nature of our service," he said. "So we took a very different approach at the beginning of the year. We made it the company's first priority. And by that we said 'drop whatever else you're doing and work on this until it's fixed'. We've made a tonne of progress."

He said that Twitter is still considering whether or not to introduce an 'edit' button for people to change the content of their own tweets. "The biggest seed of it is that people want to be able to correct spelling mistakes," he said. "So they want a small window to correct spelling mistakes. But even there, others say 'no, tweet again to say you made a mistake'. So everyone has a different opinion on it. We're just weighing everything up."

The Dublin stop is only the second time that Mr Dorsey has been to Ireland and is the first time he has visited Twitter's office here.

Earlier this week, Mr Dorsey launched Square, the payment company he runs in addition to being chief executive of Twitter, in the UK.
Malaysia agreed to hand over the body of the slain half-brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un to the North, according to a joint statement by the two countries on Thursday.

In return, North Korea lifted an exit ban on nine Malaysian diplomats and their families who had been held hostage in the renegade state.

Three North Koreans who were identified as suspects in the assassination of Kim Jong-nam and were holed up in the North Korean embassy in Kuala Lumpur also left Malaysia and went home.

A plane carrying the body left Malaysia for Beijing at 6 p.m., and an aircraft with the Malaysian diplomats and their families took off from Pyongyang at 7:25 p.m.
FILE PHOTO: A man arrives at the Uber offices in Queens, New York, U.S., February 2, 2017. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid/File Photo

Uber Technologies has reached a settlement with Pennsylvania's taxi regulator to end the ride-sharing company's appeal of a record $11.4m (10.6) fine for operating illegally.

A notice posted on Tuesday with the Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania said Uber and the state's Public Utility Commission had reported an agreement in principle to settle the case, which involved the largest fine imposed by that regulator.

The appeal was put on hold so a formal agreement between Uber and the PUC could be worked out.

Uber spokesman Craig Ewer confirmed the substance of the notice, but declined to provide details about the accord. PUC spokesman Nils Hagen-Frederiksen said: "The matter is under review by the commission."

The PUC fined Uber last April after finding that the San Francisco-based company had from February to August 2014 provided 122,998 rides in Pennsylvania without prior approval, and obstructed a state probe into its operations.

Though the $11.4m fine was six times larger than any prior fine imposed by the PUC, it had been reduced from the $49.9 million ordered earlier by two administrative law judges.

The PUC rejected Uber's bid to reconsider the fine on September 1 Uber appealed that decision to the commonwealth court four weeks later.

On March 8, Uber said it would stop using its so-called "Greyball" technology, which helped identify and avoid regulators seeking evidence that drivers were evading local laws governing taxi services.

It is unclear whether that decision was a factor in resolving the Pennsylvania case.
The US State Department told Congress it backs the sale of 19 Lockheed Martin F-16 fighters to Bahrain without preconditions on improved human rights previously demanded by the Obama administration, according to two people familiar with the proposal.

The request of support for the sale of up to $2.7bn in jets doesn't include a package to upgrade older F-16s, which officials said last year could bring the proposal to as much as $4bn, according to the people, who spoke on condition of anonymity. Wednesday's request triggers a roughly three-week informal notification period that will be followed by a formal, publicly-released document that Congress has 30 days to approve.

The decision highlights the Trump administration's outreach to traditional Gulf Arab allies, which the White House sees as a bulwark against Iranian expansion and a partner in the fight against terrorism. Trump met earlier this month with Saudi Arabia's deputy crown prince in Washington, while Secretary of State Rex Tillerson met UAE Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed.

The notice also came the same day the commander of US forces in the Middle East, Army General Joseph Votel, told a House committee that foreign arms sales to allies shouldn't be burdened with preconditions tied to human rights because they could damage military-to-military ties. Votel, who heads the US Central Command, singled out Bahrain as an example.

"While we have historically enjoyed a strong mil-to-mil relationship with our Bahraini counterparts, the slow progress on key FMS cases - specifically additional F-16 aircraft and upgrades to Bahrain's existing F-16 fleet, due to concerns of potential human rights abuses in the country - continues to strain our relationship," Votel said in prepared testimony to the House Armed Services Committee, referring to the Pentagon's Foreign Military Sales program.

The Obama administration told Congress in September it wouldn't complete approval of the sale until Bahrain demonstrated progress on human rights issues after its Sunni-dominated government suppressed nonviolent opposition and dissolved the main opposition group of the country's Shiite majority.

Tennessee Senator Bob Corker, the Republican chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, said in a statement this week that "there are more effective ways to seek changes in partner policies than publicly conditioning weapons transfers in this manner".

In its 2016 human rights report, issued after Trump took office, the State Department cited restrictions on free expression, "lack of judicial accountability for security officers" accused of human rights violations, and limitations on "citizens' ability to choose their government peacefully" as among the nation's most serious human rights problems. It did say the government has taken steps to carry out recommendations aimed at reviewing allegations of police brutality and torture following mass protests beginning in 2011.

Bahrain is seen as a key US partner in the Middle East, hosting the US Navy Fifth Fleet headquarters and the "Combined Maritime Forces" in Manama. Bahrain also has actively supported US-led military operations against Islamic State terrorists in Syria since September 2014, primarily by allowing the US continued use and access to its facilities.

(Bloomberg)
The logo of BT is seen outside the headquarters in Milan, Italy

Three employees of BT's Italian unit warned their supervisor about possible accounting problems - a year before the phone company revealed financial irregularities at the Italy division, one of the three has said.

The source's disclosure raises questions about how promptly BT began investigating an accounting scam that has cost it 530m and hit its share price.

BT, one of Britain's oldest companies, said last October it had discovered "inappropriate management behaviour" and "historical accounting errors" at its Italy unit, taking a 145m (169m) write-down.

In January, it said in a statement it had identified improper accounting at BT Italy and expanded the write-down to a total of around 530m.

BT CEO Gavin Patterson told reporters at the time that BT could not have detected the problem sooner because Italian managers kept their London bosses in the dark.

BT did not say how it believed managers were involved in this deception. Reuters was unable to verify BT's allegation.

The source, speaking on condition of anonymity because Italian prosecutors are investigating the matter, told Reuters that he and two BT Italy colleagues had met the head of European sales, Jacinto Cavestany, on the sidelines of a company gathering in Munich in November 2015.

The three told the sales chief that they were worried something was wrong with the unit's financial results, though they did not provide evidence.

BT said in response to questions by Reuters that it began an internal investigation after receiving allegations in late summer 2016 of "inappropriate behavior" at BT Italy - almost a year after the Munich meeting. It did not specify the allegations or say exactly when the probe began.

Contacted by Reuters, Cavestany referred questions to BT. The company said in an email that "Jacinto has no recollection of these issues being raised with him at the conference".

Gianluca Cimini, in an email to Reuters, denied allegations of bullying. In relation to alleged financial irregularities, he said he knew of no illegal behavior and that BT Italy's accounts were verified by head office during his time as CEO.

BT declined to say when it uncovered irregularities. (Reuters)
(Clockwise from top left): Captain Dara Fitzpatrick, Captain Mark Duffy, Ciaran Smith and Paul Ormsby

The Late Late Show has been praised for their solemn tribute to the four members of Irish Coast Guard crew Rescue 116.

Captain Dara Fitzpatrick, Paul Orsmby, Captain Mark Duffy and Ciaran Smith all lost their lives when their helicopter crashed off Blacksod Bay in Mayo on March 14.

While Captain Fitzpatrick and Captain Duffy have since been buried, the search mission for the remains of Paul and Ciaran sadly continues.

Tonight the Late Late Show had a harrowing tribute to the heroic group.

Author Joseph O'Connor read his stunning poem 'Rescue 116' in front of screens displaying their faces and a video montage of brave Coast Guard rescues.

The poem spoke powerfully about the daring and courageous work our Coast Guard crews do.
A new regulatory framework for water safety at Irish swimming pools is to be implemented following the death of a three-year-old boy.

Ronan Kennedy, from Templederry, Co Tipperary, drowned in a jacuzzi at a hotel pool in Youghal, Co Cork, on July 13, 2015.

An inquest this week heard how the boy walked out of a changing room and stepped into the active jacuzzi while kids' club staff placed armbands on children yards away.

The inquest also heard how passers-by could not see the drowning boy beneath the bubbling waters.

Irish Water Safety (IWS) chief executive John Leech confirmed there are no regulations in place governing Irish swimming pools, both public and private, at the child's inquest earlier this week.

But now the Department of Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government has confirmed that Minister Simon Coveney is set to allocate funds to support IWS in developing a regulatory framework.

Ronan's parents, Brigid and John Kennedy, welcomed the development.

"It still has to be put in place, we need something on paper, but this is very much a positive," Mrs Kennedy said. "In our situation, we need to focus on as many positives as possible. Ronan wasn't the kind of child who would sit down and let nothing happen. We can't let him nor his two brothers down."

Mr Leech said this was "a great legacy for Ronan".

"I am very pleased this has happened. His is an incredibly tragic story but this is a very strong legacy to come out of it and it's a very good news story. This will improve water safety and prevent further drownings across the country," Mr Leech said. His organisation could now move to liaise with European counterparts to devise and formulate best-practise safety measures to optimise safety for Irish pool users.

"It's a historic development for Ireland. It will take some time to implement but it's incredibly good news in terms of water safety," Mr Leech said.

Earlier, Mr Leech had recommended an inspectorate be established to formulate and implement regulation in a bid to minimise future drownings.

Dublin Coroner Dr Myra Cullinane affirmed his recommendations at the inquest and the Kennedy family called for swift action as the summer season approaches.

A spokesman for the minister said: "The minister has indicated that he will provide funding support for Irish Water Safety to assist it in reviewing best practice in other European countries with a view to informing the development of an appropriate regulatory framework for Ireland."
A man and woman whose bodies were recovered from the River Shannon this afternoon have been confirmed as being Irish and English, respectively.

Gardai are investigating all circumstances after the man and woman were discovered at the marina in the town of Carrick-on-Shannon, Co Leitrim.

It had been reported earlier to gardai that a couple who were on holiday in the area and had hired a boat had gone missing.

The couple are aged in their thirties and are understood to have lived in Germany, but had a family connection with a nearby local area.

They hired a cruiser on the Shannon River earlier this week.

The body of the man was located close to the hired cruiser at 2pm today, while the woman's body was later recovered.

The community of Carrick-on-Shannon are in shock after the double tragedy.

"We're very shocked and saddened for such a tragedy to happen in our lovely community and our waters," Councillor Finola Armstrong-McGuire told Independent.ie.

"Tragic accidents have happened over the years, the Shannon can be cruel."

Councillor Enda Stenson also shared his sympathies with the couple's families.

"A gloom descended over the town when the news came through," he said.

"There was an event on in the sports complex and everybody was in shock when we heard. Our sympathy goes out to the families, there are two families grieving tonight."

The couple's remains will now be removed to Sligo University Hospital where a post mortem will be carried out on Monday.

Gardai are investigating all circumstances surrounding the death but confirmed at this stage the deaths are being treated as accidental.
As the week draws to close everyone looks forward to getting home to relax.

We can take home for granted but we all know deep down what it means to us.

It is our anchor for our personal and family life.

Sadly not everyone has this security in life.

There is now a record high of 7,421 people homeless in Ireland - a 28pc rise since the same time last year. At the same time there is talk of a recovery.

Thereve been welcome improvements in some areas. However, the harsh reality is many families and individuals are still losing their homes.

Expand Close Camille O'Sullivan performs at the Rock against Homelessness concert at the Olympia Theatre in support of Focus Ireland. Picture credit; Damien Eagers 24/4/2016 / Facebook

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Whatsapp Camille O'Sullivan performs at the Rock against Homelessness concert at the Olympia Theatre in support of Focus Ireland. Picture credit; Damien Eagers 24/4/2016

Focus Ireland figures show 62 families with 105 children became homeless in Feb in Dublin.

That means one child became homeless every 6 hours in our capital city in February.

It is terrible to see the awful impact being homeless has on anyone  especially children.

Childhood should be the happiest time for children. However, its outrageous that over 2,500 children are homeless nationwide.

Expand Close Niamh Farrell, lead singer with Ham Sandwich performs at the Rock against Homelessness concert at the Olympia Theatre. Picture credit; Damien Eagers 24/4/2016 / Facebook

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Whatsapp Niamh Farrell, lead singer with Ham Sandwich performs at the Rock against Homelessness concert at the Olympia Theatre. Picture credit; Damien Eagers 24/4/2016

It is wrong this was allowed to happen.

Focus Ireland is driven by the fundamental belief that homelessness is wrong and our staff work tirelessly every day to help families, children and individuals overcome the terrible impact being homeless has on them.

We support them while they are homeless and help as many as we can to secure a home with support from the Dublin Region Homeless Executive and Local Authorities.

Through this work we managed to secure a home for one family every day in 2016. However, on that same day two to three more families become homeless as the crisis deepened.

Expand Close Those at the Rock Against Homelessness gig at the Olympia Theatre in Dublin last night included singer Roisin O Photo: Damien Eagers / Facebook

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Whatsapp Those at the Rock Against Homelessness gig at the Olympia Theatre in Dublin last night included singer Roisin O Photo: Damien Eagers

It is wrong this is still happening.

Children living in hotel rooms with parents where they dont have anywhere to cook a meal or even for the kids to play.

Parents who, no matter how they strive, cannot provide a secure home for them. Some young people who leave State care at 18 and become homeless.

This is how some people are treated today. Everyone agrees its a scandal but yet it continues. People rightly ask: "How can this still be happening?"

A key part of the failure by successive governments to tackle the homeless crisis is the response has been led by many 'halfway house' policies.

The alternative would be, for instance, to directly fund the local authorities to actually build the new housing themselves, or instead offering incentives to people to rent out their empty houses or stop hoarding building land to introduce penalties for those who will not.

We also need to introduce binding legislation to fully protect tenants against financial institutions and vulture funds who are foreclosing on buy-to-let properties.

These policies should be a part of a dedicated sub-strategy to address family homelessness, which would take account of how recent this problem is in Ireland and its potentially devastating effects on the children involved.

However, the current failing approach of 'halfway house' policies to try and keep everyone happy will continue unless more people speak out. We need more people to deliver a clear message to all the political parties to say: "Enough. It is wrong to allow one more person, one more family, one more child to become homeless."

This shift is happening. More people are talking about homelessness. More want action. More are taking action through campaigns and by holding events to support charities.

One such event is Independent Newspapers' second Rock Against Homelessness concert in aid of Focus Ireland on next Friday April 7th in the Olympia Theatre.

Top Irish acts are playing for free to help our work supporting over 13,000 people a year who are homelessness or at risk. We prevent many people from becoming homeless and also provide a permanent place to call home for over 600 households nationwide.

Focus Ireland is so thankful for the vital funds raised by events like Rock Against Homelessness as it means our staff are there when people need support.

Rock Against Homelessness is going to be a great night so buy a ticket before they sell out.

This event also helps keep the crisis on the agenda and it gives a chance for people to rally and show support. For people to stand together challenging homelessness.

Hopefully, we can all work towards a time when there is no need for charities like Focus Ireland.

There is still a journey to make till we get there but its one worth making.

We look forward to its end as that will mean everyone has finally made it home.
Mr Justice Cross told the High Court, sitting in Cork, that Jacks parents, Gerard and Charlene Murphy, and his grandmother, Maura Roche, had shown the little boy extraordinary love and care. (Stock image)

A 4.5m settlement was approved for a brave 10-year-old "fighter" who suffered catastrophic injuries at birth.

Mr Justice Kevin Cross approved the settlement as he hailed the family of Jack Murphy as "a good example of the very best in Irish society".

Mr Justice Cross told the High Court, sitting in Cork, that Jack's parents, Gerard and Charlene Murphy, and his grandmother, Maura Roche, had shown the little boy "extraordinary love and care".

His grandmother told the court that Jack had battled back from many health problems.

The little boy was very ill last Christmas but again rallied. "He is a fighter and I cannot see him going anywhere for the next while," she said.

"He has gone down a bit from last year. But he is a fighter."

When asked about the proposed settlement, Mrs Roche said: "It is a small price to pay for what we have suffered. But it is what is best for Jack."

The boy was born with catastrophic birth injuries in 2006. He was left unable to communicate, with severe respiratory problems as well as chronic epilepsy.

He also has special feeding needs.

Jack suffers fits on a daily basis and is particularly restless and uncomfortable at night. He will require round-the-clock care for the rest of his life.

Denis McCullagh, for the plaintiff, said he believed he had never acted for anyone in a worse situation than the boy.

Jack had sued St Finbarr's Hospital, Cork, and the HSE, via his parents. "Liability is not formally admitted. But it is clear from the offer that there is no significant dispute as to liability," Mr Justice Cross said.

Mr McCullagh told the court that a settlement of 4.5m has been agreed.

An overall figure of 5.5m as to loss of income, future care needs and accommodation costs had been worked out.

This was then reduced by 20pc to the agreed 4.5m.

The court was told that a key element of Jack's future care will be securing a permanent home for his parents so they can care for his extensive needs.

The couple are from Kilbehenny, Co Limerick, but are renting a property outside Mitchelstown, Co Cork. They have three younger children.

The judge said: "I have no hesitation in approving of the settlement. I must commend the tender and loving care of his parents and grandmother."

The case was adjourned until June 21 for final details of the settlement package to be confirmed.
A teenager who took part in a gang attack on a man who was stabbed 20 times and pushed into the Royal Canal in Dublin will spend the next few weeks in custody while a judge decides his fate.

Remanding Michael Daly (18) in custody today, Judge Martin Nolan told him: Absorb what you learn in there and decide whether that's your future or not.

Daly, with an address in Knockmore Grove, Tallaght, Dublin pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to one count of assault causing harm to Jack Serole at the Royal Canal in Dublin 7 on May 18, 2015. He will be sentenced on April 25.

Daly is one of three teenagers charged over the unprovoked attack and the last to be sentenced. His co-accuseds, who can't be named as they are still juveniles, were detained for 18 months and three-and-a-half years respectively for their roles in the attack.

Garda Elaine O'Malley told Fiona Murphy BL, prosecuting, that Mr Serole, who is originally from Botswana, was walking home from the pub along the canal in the early hours of the morning when he was set upon by a group of four youths.

The boys asked him for his phone and wallet before punching Mr Serole and stabbing him repeatedly. They then pushed him into the canal.

Mr Serole couldn't swim, the court heard. He could feel himself drowning, Ms Murphy said. But he kicked and managed to get out of the canal. He then walked home to his partner who immediately rang for an ambulance.

Paramedics found Mr Serole had 14 stab wounds on his back, four on his arms and two on his legs. The wounds were up to one centimetre deep. He was suffering from hypothermia and had to be rushed to hospital for treatment. He also suffered broken front teeth in the incident.

In a victim impact statement handed up to court, Mr Serole said he now suffered from anxiety when he saw groups of young men and still experienced pains in his body.

Gardai examined CCTV footage and managed to identify three of the four assailants.

When Daly was arrested, he confessed to taking part in the attack, but denied using a screwdriver that was found at the scene. Another boy admitted to using a knife during the attack. Daly said he hit and kicked Mr Serole, but denied pushing him into the canal. He was 16 at the time of the attack.

When asked why he assaulted Mr Serole, he said, I don't know. Daly was seen on CCTV footage helping Mr Serole out of the water shortly after the attack.

Daly has four previous convictions including for assault, trespass and robbery. He has been in custody for the last two weeks since he failed to turn up to court and a bench warrant was issued for his arrest.

Defence barrister, Damian McKeone BL, handed up a letter of apology from his client, who he said was extremely remorseful.

He said Daly had a difficult upbringing and at one point ended up in a homeless shelter for teenagers. He was on drink and drugs at the time of the attack and couldn't remember much of it.

He noted that if the case had come to court earlier, Daly could have been treated like a juvenile along with his two co-accused.

Judge Nolan said Daly should spent the next three weeks in custody considering what he had done. What you did on this night was serious, the judge said. Somebody could have died.
One of Korea's largest cherry blossom festivals is set to welcome visitors in Jinhae in South Gyeongsang Province. The annual festival gets under way with fireworks celebrations and several pre-events on Friday, and runs through April 10.

Crowds of visitors descend on the naval port city every spring, when its approximately 360,000 cherry trees begin to bloom.

The area's major attractions, including Yeojwa Stream, whose banks are strewn with pink petals at this time of year, and Gyeonghwa Station, a small, picturesque stop on the local railway, are expected to be shrouded in cherry blossoms this weekend.


An alleged tiger kidnapper was seen buying a litre of milk at a petrol station in the early hours of the morning of the alleged offence, a jury has been told.

Jonathan Gill (35) is accused of a kidnapping a Drogheda postal worker, his partner and their 10-week-old baby daughter before robbing over 600,000 from the man's workplace.

It is the State's case that Mr Gill was one of a group of five who were involved in holding the family hostage in their own home before moving them to a shed about a 90-minute drive away.

Mr Gill of Malahide Road, Swords, Dublin, has pleaded not guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to falsely imprisoning Warren Nawn, Jean Marie Nawn and their ten-week-old baby in Drogheda between August 1 and August 2, 2011.

The trial has previously heard that the couple's baby started crying as they were being taken to the shed in Swords where they were held overnight. Ms Nawn said the child was hungry and the raiders stopped to buy him a litre of milk.

It is the State's case that gardai later recovered the empty container from a partially burnt out vehicle after the kidnapping ended. They say they also recovered other items from the shed where the family were held including some cigarette butts.

Today a detective gave evidence that in the aftermath of the kidnapping he canvassed 24 hours shops in search of one that sold a litre of milk in the early hours of August 1, 2011.

Staff at the Topaz Garage in Balgriffin told him they had sold a litre of milk during that time. The detective told Vincent Heneghan SC, prosecuting, that he then pulled up the CCTV from the garage.

He said he saw a male on the footage buying milk at 5.14am who he identified as the accused, Jonathan Gill.

The trial continues before Judge Elma Sheahan and a jury of seven men and five women.
Ian Bailey has been arrested and bailed in connection with the death of French filmmaker Sophie Toscan du Plantier.

He was arrested after a High Court judge endorsed a European Arrest Warrant issued by the French authorities, who want to try him for voluntary homicide.

Mr Bailey (60), of The Prairie, Liscaha, Schull, Co Cork, was subsequently remanded on bail following a short hearing.

Detective Sergeant Jim Kirwan told the court that he arrested Mr Bailey at the Criminal Courts of Justice at 10.21am, about 20 minutes after the warrant was endorsed.

Det Sgt Kirwan handed him a copy of the arrest warrant and, when asked if he wished to say anything, Mr Bailey responded: "The warrant, as read to me, is severely factually flawed."

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His legal team has previously told the court that they intend to oppose the application to have him sent to France.

Mr Justice Tony Hunt said bail is not an issue in this case. He set bail at 15,000 on Mr Bailey's own bond with no lodgment. He must remain at his current address and hand over his expired passport to gardai.

He must not leave the jurisdiction without permission from the court and must attend the High Court when required.

The judge set a date for next Friday, April 7, to hear submissions relating to the application made by the French authorities. He told Mr Bailey that he is not obliged to attend in person on that date.

He told Mr Bailey's legal representatives it would be best if they have their submissions ready at that time, adding: "The quicker you get them in, the quicker we can work towards dealing with the matter."

French authorities have already served Mr Bailey with an indictment and want him to face trial in France for the alleged voluntary homicide of Ms Toscan du Plantier, who was found beaten to death outside her holiday home in Schull in December 1996.

Mr Bailey has denied all links to the death of Ms Toscan du Plantier and alleges a Garda conspiracy to frame him.

This is the second time the French authorities have tried to bring Mr Bailey to France following a rejection by the Supreme Court in 2012.
Earlier this month, the High Court cleared the way for the man's deportation after hearing evidence of terror convictions in his native country and France. Stock image

A stay has been put on the deportation of a convicted Islamic terrorist pending the outcome of a Supreme Court appeal.

Although the court decided to allow the man to lodge an appeal earlier this week, lawyers for Justice Minister Frances Fitzgerald said yesterday they intended to proceed with the deportation anyway.

Barrister Sinead McGrath said the man was considered "a threat to national security".

But the man's legal team successfully applied for a short stay on the deportation order being executed until the outcome of the appeal is known.

His barrister, Michael Lynn, has said the man is at risk of torture if returned to his home country.

The man, whose name and country of origin cannot be disclosed for legal reasons, is currently being detained in Cloverhill Prison and will remain there for the duration of his appeal.

Earlier this month, the High Court cleared the way for his deportation after hearing evidence of terror convictions in his native country and France.

A dossier compiled for the minister said evidence had been given in a French court that he had raised money for jihadists and was a follower of al-Qa'ida.

Terrorist

The High Court also heard he had received life and death sentences in his home country for involvement in a terrorist organisation and murder. Death sentences are no longer implemented there.

The man never served any of the sentences in his home country. Instead he fled to Ireland where he gained refugee status in 2000 after giving false information about his background.

This was revoked following his convictions in France and he has been battling deportation from Ireland since 2012.

Giving reasons for allowing an appeal, a three-judge Supreme Court said a number of questions of general importance arose which needed to be clarified.

These included whether or not the minister should have invited submissions from the man on material which suggested he would not be in danger if returned to his home country.

The court will also examine if reasons identified by the minister provided a sufficient lawful basis for deportation.

The matter will return to the court next month for a case management hearing.
A former youth worker caught with child pornography which he sent to others online while pretending to be a 15-year-old boy has been given a suspended sentence.

Dublin Circuit Criminal Court heard Des Kavanagh (39) had suppressed his sexuality as a gay man since he was a teenager and on joining an online adolescent chat group had felt accepted and found support he did not have in real life.

Kavanagh pretended to be 15 during most of the online conversations and began sending images which included child pornography to other users, pretending the images were of himself.

A forensic psychologist told Judge Martin Nolan that Kavanagh had been interested in chatting online with people the same age as he was when he discovered he was gay.

Gardai received information from Interpol and obtained search warrants for locations linked to Kavanagh which led to the recovery of 240 images and two short movie clips from his laptops.

The movies and images all fell into the two lowest categories of illegal material which are child posing and sexual activity between children. There were no images in the most serious categories.

Kavanagh, of Turra, Glynn, Carlow pleaded guilty to possession and distribution of child pornography at a former address in Tallaght, Dublin in May and June 2010. He has no previous convictions.

Judge Nolan noted Kavanagh had been candid with the gardai and made full admissions. He said Kavanagh was a complicated man who had suppressed his sexuality for a long time which created problems.

He said the distribution and downloading of the images was not for profit. He said it seemed Kavanagh did not pose a risk to children and the evidence was he was unlikely to re-offend.

The judge noted that this was a serious offence and this type of behaviour caused harm.

Judge Nolan said in this particular case it would be unfair to impose a custodial sentence due to Kavanagh's history, level of involvement, the categories of the images and the way he met the case.

He imposed a two year sentence which he suspended on condition Kavanagh be of good behaviour.

Judge Nolan said it seemed Kavanagh had received help and the involvement of the probation service was not required.

Defence counsel, Philip Rahn BL, submitted that the case was not at first blush what one thought of when one heard of child pornography and asked the court to take into account that this had been hanging over Kavanagh for six years during which time he had come to no further garda attention.

He asked the court to take into account the category of the images and see the offences in light of the type of distribution involved. He said his client had been assessed as at low risk of re-offending and had expressed remorse. He co-operated fully with gardai.

Additional evidence

Garda Kieran McGrath told Geraldine Small BL, prosecuting, that following receipt of information from Interpol gardai obtained search warrants and seized a number of laptops from Kavanagh.

They were sent for analysis and 240 images and two movie clips of child pornography were found.

Gda McGrath said Kavanagh, who was a youth worker at the time, was co-operative with gardai and made full admissions.

He said that in most online conversations Kavanagh was pretending to be a 15 year old boy. He said Kavanagh would start by sending an innocent image of a boy and later sent images of child porn to other users pretending it was of himself.

He told gardai he had been involved in chat rooms for about 18 months and admitted he had been getting gratification from it. He said he had pretended to be a 15 year old as a way for other people online to get talking to him. He said that there was also adult pornography involved.

Gda McGrath told Judge Nolan that gardai were not certain if Kavanagh was talking to children as they only had the other people's user names.

He agreed with Mr Rahn that there was no suggestion of any contact offences and that Kavanagh had not come to any further garda attention. He agreed that Kavanagh had accepted full responsibility for the material and that the distribution was not for commercial gain.

The garda agreed Kavanagh had expressed remorse as well as relief at being caught by gardai.

A forensic psychologist called by the defence told Mr Rahn that she had met with Kavanagh and assessed him to be at the lowest possible risk of re offending.

She said that during her meetings with Kavanagh he said he found out he was gay as a adolescent but suppressed his true orientation as he was afraid of rejection.

The witness said when he discovered an internet group for adolescents he joined out of interest. She said he was interested in chatting with young people who were the same age as him when he discovered he was gay and was amazed at how things had changed.

She said he knew he would not be allowed access to the group so pretended to be an adolescent and became an active member. He had private chats and started swapping images. He was pretending that the images were of him. He would try and stop but reactivate his account a few days later.

She said he felt accepted and had support he did not have in real life.

She told Mr Rahn that Kavanagh told her his interest in adults and there was no evidence he was engaging with children.
Jackie Lavin is suing her long time partner, Bill Cullen, and one of his companies which is in receivership, over an alleged failure to complete a 1m property sale.

Ms Lavin of Osberstown House, Naas, Co Kildare, has brought proceedings against Glencullen Properties (in receivership) and Mr Cullen, also of Osbertown House. He is the firm's sole shareholder and a director.

The case concerns the sale of Killegy House in Muckross, Co Kerry, to Ms Lavin, the High Court heard.

Ulster Bank appointed Kavanagh Fennell as receivers over the company's assets, including Killegy House, in 2012 .

Ms Lavin claims she has been a longtime resident of Killegy House which she considers is her home. She said that she had been employed by the company in a management capacity.

Ulster Bank created a charge over Glencullen's assets in 1999, including Killegy House. Ms Lavin claims that in 2009 the company sought additional credit facilities from Ulster Bank to alow it continue to trade during the downturn.

She claims the bank was unwilling to do this unless 1m was invested in the company. Following the sale of a property they had in Florida for US$7.25m Ms Lavin said she agreed to advance Mr Cullen 1m.

This was so he could pay down Glencullen's liabilities.

As part of the arrangement, Killegy House would be sold to her, she said. She paid over 757,000 to the company but it has failed to complete the sale of the property to her, she claims.

She also claims she has suffered loss and damage. After the company was placed in receivership, an order was obtained from the Residential Tenancies Board requiring her to leave Killegy House.

In her action, she seeks an order for the specific performance directing the sale of Killegy House to her.

She also seeks an order prohibiting the defendants from entering into any contract for sale of the property other than with Ms Lavin.

Glencullen Properties denies the claims and argues that she is not entitled to any of the orders she seeks.

The court heard that Mr Cullen has not delivered a defence to the action.

In its defence, the company says it accepts Ms Lavin agreed to advance Mr Cullen 1m so he could loan Glencullen funds to reduce its liabilities.

However, the company denies the monies were advanced as part of an agreement to sell Killegy to Ms Lavin. The company said it never agreed to sell the premises to her for any sum nor is there any contract of sale between the parties.

It also said Ms Lavin has failed to comply with the order it obtained requiring her to leave Killegy and it has brought enforcement proceedings before the Circuit Court.

It further submits that after advancing the loan to Mr Cullen in late 2010, Ms Lavin signed a statutory declaration that she did not hold any interest right or tittle to any assets of Glencullen.

The company accepts that, by an oversight, Killegy House was not listed in the documentation the declaration refers to property of Glencullen which includes the premises.

Ms Lavin accepts she signed a waiver but did so because, if she didn't, the bank would cut Glencullen off from access to further credit.

The case was mentioned before Mr Justice Tony O'Connor on Friday.

The judge was asked to deal with a preliminary issue in the case relating to discovery of documents by Ulster Bank in the case which Ms Lavin's lawyers say are relevant to her claim. The bank is not a party to the proceedings.

The case was adjourned and will be mentioned before the court at the end of April.
A financial controller who stole 270,000 from a solicitors firm to pay off her ex-husbands gambling debts has been jailed for 18 months.

Counsel for Donna Magee asked that she be given a week before starting her sentence in order to make arrangements for her 14-year-old child. This was refused by Judge Martin Nolan, who said it was too serious an offence.

Magee, with an address in Holyfields, Dungannon, Co Tyrone, pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to stealing in excess of 270,000 from her former employers. She did so over the course of several months by making transfers into her own bank account.

The 47-year-old mother-of-one worked as a financial controller at OMara Geraghty McCourt Solicitors in Dublin between late 2007 and June 2009, before irregularities in the firms accounts were discovered.

In court today, Judge Nolan said: She was in a position of trust and she abused that trust...It was a dreadful thing to do. He handed down a three-year sentence but suspended the final 18 months.

Elva Duffy BL, prosecuting, said Magee had a very significant level of control of the running of the accounts and made payments to herself through systems that appeared to be legitimate but, in fact, were not.

On one occasion, Ms Magee made a payment of 101,000 to herself, which was intended for one of the firms clients in the UK, which was due to the client from a relatives estate.

When the firm contacted the client, they were told the payment was never received.

On another occasion, on June 24 2009, Magee transferred 55,000 to her own account, which was intended as a VAT payment to Revenue.

Effectively, her tracks were covered in the ways the monies were managed, Ms Duff said.

Det Gda Sean ORiordan told the court Magee had full authority to do the transfers.

He said as part of the investigation, Magees accounts, which held 173,000, were frozen. This amount was eventually recovered by the firm, so there is still approximately 100,000 outstanding, he said.

Magee has a number of previous convictions in Northern Ireland, including forgery dating back to 2002. She served nine months in prison in 2014 for offences committed in the North.

Bernard Condon SC, defending, said Magee was the sole carer of her daughter. He said she worked hard to rebuild her life and gain sole custody of her child after she was released from prison in 2015.

Her genuine reason to exist is her daughter, Mr Condon said. She worked long and hard to get sole custody.

Her husband had issues with gambling, so the pressure was on her to provide, Mr Condon said.

Ms Magee was put under a lot of pressure in relation to loans that her husband had taken out, and she said she only took the money in order to pay her husbands debts.

While working at the solicitors firm in Dublin, she would leave her house at 5.45 every morning, to get a train, bus and taxi to the Dublin office for 8.15. She would then return home to the North every evening to make dinner and help with homework.

Magee has described her life as a conveyor belt, said Mr Condon.

Shes had serious problems in her life. But it benefits the court to look at her now  nine years since she worked in the Dublin firm, said Mr Condon.

Mr Condon said a psychologists report said Ms Magee had a tough Northern upbringing, growing up in during the Troubles, with a father who struggled with alcohol issues and violence.

The doctors report, read out to the court by Mr Condon, said that at first glance, it appeared Ms Magee was stealing for personal gain but it appears she was overwhelmed by her partners debt situation.  This woman is crying out for help and is genuinely overwhelmed.

Mr Condon added: She does appear to be a vulnerable woman who can be used, as she was by [her husband].

He said there was no explanation as to why the case has taken nine years for this case to come to court.
John Breen and George Davis, pictured leaving the Four Court after a Circuit Civil Court action.Pic: Collins Courts

Dun Laoghaire news vendor George Davis may sell newspapers at the entrance to the town's main shopping centre for the rest of his life, a judge declared Friday.

Judge Francis Comerford said Mr Davis could operate on the tiled area between the public footpath and the side doors of the centre.

The Judge told Barrister Mark O'Riordan Bl counsel for Mr Davis that the centre's owners Coltard were bound by way of a constructive trust which allowed Mr Davis to continue his operation.

Mr Davis had to wait four days to see if he is to be turfed off his newspaper sales pitch at the entrance to Dunlaoghaire Shopping Centre.

On Tuesday, Judge Francis Comerford had adjourned his decision for further consideration until today.

Mr Davis has sold millions of papers over almost 40 years from a four-wheeled buggy at the main entrance doors to a South Dublin shopping centre.

The court heard last week he'd been told to "push off" from the area.

The decision today hung on the courts attitude to evidence of a purported contract agreed by barristers John Peart, now a senior counsel, and Mary Finlay, now Appeal Court Judge Ms Justice Mary Finlay Geoghegan.

Judge Francis Comerford was told in the Circuit Civil Court that solicitors involved in a late 1970s bid to shift Davis from his Georges Street site had been struck out by the High Court on foot of the settlement.

Barrister Mark ORiordan, who appeared with Kenny Sullivan Solicitors for Davis, told the judge the written agreement could not be found and had not been made an order of court at the time. Mr Davis and a number of staff who worked the pitch, gave evidence to the court.

John Peart SC said that when the shopping centre was being built in the 1970s a hoarding around the construction site contained an indentation from which Mr Davis, of Hadleigh, Ballybride Road, Rathmichael, Dublin, continued to sell his papers to passers-by.

He said the then Ms Finlay had drawn up an agreement which they both signed stating that Davis could sell his newspapers from the central entrance.

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It clearly gave Mr Davis a right to sell his newspapers at the front entrance only of the shopping centre for his lifetime, Peart told Mr ORiordan. The case was over. We went into court and had it struck out.

Coltard, which acquired the centre in 1998 plans a 10million redevelopment of the centre involving the creation of two large anchor stores fronting on to Marine Road and onto Georges Street.

Raymond Delahunt, counsel for Coltard, told the court that at no time since 1998 had Mr Davis paid a rent to Coltard and his unauthorised use of the shopping centre entrance to sell papers had never been sanctioned by the company.

Mr Delahunt, who appeared with Baily Homan Smyth McVeigh Solicitors, said Mr Daviss use of the property was no more than a mere licence which was revocable at Coltards option.

In July 2013 the company received a complaint from a tenant concerning Daviss trolley-type structure and the fact that third parties, including cigarette smokers, regularly congregated at it causing obstruction of the entrance and fire exit.

Mr Delahunt said Coltard, considering the flammable nature of newspapers, had a genuine concern for the safety of its employees, customers and tenants. Davis had twice been asked and had refused to vacate the property.

Coltard was seeking court orders directing him to move on.

In a defence and counterclaim Mr ORiordan alleged Mr Davis had sold newspapers at the entrance for more than 38 years and holds a lifelong irrevocable licence which he asked the court to affirm. Davis also seeks an injunction restraining Coltard from interfering with his news vending pitch.

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Discovery

The veteran newspaper vendor's staff had pin-pointed the whereabouts of double murderer Malcolm MacArthur for gardai almost 35 years ago.

A former employee of Mr Davis, now retired in Co Tipperary, recognized MacArthur when he bought a newspaper from one of Daviss two news stands at the shopping centre in 1982.

He and Davis tipped off the gardai that MacArthur was hiding somewhere in Dun Laoghaire.

Gardai, led by Detective Sergeant John OMahony, who later became head of the Criminal Assets Bureau and is currently an Assistant Commissioner, set a trap for the killer and eventually traced him to and arrested him in the home of the then Attorney General Paddy Connolly who passed away in January last year.

MacArthur later admitted the murder of 27-year-old nurse Bridie Gargan who had been sunbathing near her car in the Phoenix Park.

While on the run MacArthur three days later shot dead farmer Donal Dunne, in Edenderry, Offaly, while inspecting a shotgun he said he wished to buy from the farmer.

George Davis today said that as a result of the tip-off Detective OManony set up a garda hide-out van to look out for MacArthur.

He was traced to the home of the Attorney General who was on holiday in the US at the time and was recalled by Taoiseach Charles Haughey.

MacArthur was arrested on August 13, 1982.

He was released after 30 years imprisonment in September 2012.
Danielle McLaughlin was murdered while travelling in Goa

Hundreds of mourners dressed in bright colours with flowers in their hair gathered in Buncrana for the funeral of backpacker Danielle McLaughlin, who was murdered in India earlier this month.

Parish priest Fr Francis Bradley described the 28-year-old as a "beautiful, cherished, thoughtful free spirit".

He told mourners that despite the "callous nature" of her death, her legacy should be "joy, thanksgiving and peace".

Her friends had suggested that the congregation wear bright colours to the funeral at St Mary's Church, Cockhill, Co Donegal, as it better represented Ms McLaughlin's vibrant personality.

Ms McLaughlin was laid to rest in the cemetery beside her grandparents.

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She was killed while travelling in Goa.

Her body was discovered in Canacona, a popular tourist area in the south of the Indian state.

A post-mortem examination concluded that brain damage and constriction of the neck caused her death.

A 24-year-old man, Vikat Bhagat, appeared in court two weeks ago charged with murder.

He will also face rape charges.

Items including Ms McLaughlin's diary, guitar, a family photograph and a rosary bracelet were taken to the altar by her sister and friends.
AN 800-pupil international school is to open in south Dublin in September 2018, it was confirmed today.

The school will cater for both local and expatriate pupils, aged between three and 18, on a campus in refitted former Microsoft office block at South County Business Park, Leopardstown.

It is a partnership between Nord Anglia Education, which runs 43 international schools globally, and Irish entrepreneur Barry OCallaghan, who started the educational software company, Riverdeep.

There is a growing market in international education at second-level, much of it driven by families in places such as Asia who want an English-speaking education for their children.

International schools are also often favoured by multinational executives, many more of whom are expected in Ireland as a consequence of Brexit.

The availability of school places is a critical issue for companies asking senior executives to relocate, and payment of private school fees are generally included in the remuneration package.

Nord Anglia, which has its headquarters in Hong Kong, has links with world-leading third-level institutions such as Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Kings College London and the New York performing arts conservatory, Juilliard.

The company says the Dublin campus will feature extensive facilities, including specialist arts and STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts and maths) facilities to support the delivery of its collaborations with Juilliard and MIT, respectively.

Nord Anglia Head of Brand, Sarah Doyle, said they were still developing their curriculum offering and could not confirm whether the International Baccalaureate would be the only programme available for students. She said their education team in Oxford was fine-tuning the offering for Dublin and the standard practice was develop an offer best suited to the needs of each market.

She could not state what the fees would be. However, they are expected to be far in excess of charges at other fee-paying day schools in Dublin.

Schools operated by Nord Anglia across Europe generally charge in the region of 20,000 a year for second-level day pupils.

The school is not yet open for applications but it is inviting interested parties to register on its website for updates.

Barry OCallaghan said he believed the partnership could be the beginning of systemic educational innovation for Irish education.

As a leading, global education company, not only will they bring international educational expertise into the Irish market together with a host of world leading academic partners, but they are also a significant multinational company who are committing meaningful capital and resource to the Irish market which in turn will lead to the creation of significant jobs over the coming years," he said.

Nord Anglia chief executive, Andrew Fitzmaurice, CEO said, as one of the fastest growing economies in Europe, Ireland is an increasingly attractive destination for families, fuelling demand for international education from both expatriate and local parents alike
Britains ambassador to the EU Tim Barrow delivers British Prime Minister Theresa Mays formal notice of the UKs intention to leave the bloc under Article 50 of the EUs Lisbon Treaty to European Council President Donald Tusk in Brussels Photo: AFP/Getty

The European Union will seek flexible and creative solutions to avoid a hard border, European Council President Donald Tusk has pledged.

Mr Tusk said this will be of crucial importance to support the peace process.

Mr Tusk published the EUs draft guidelines for the Brexit negotiation today, which signals backing by Brussels for a continuation of the Common Travel Area.

The protection of the peace process, the need to avoid a hard border, and the recognition of bilateral agreements between Ireland and the UK have all been flagged in the EU's document.

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"We will seek flexible and creative solutions aiming at avoiding a hard border between Northern Ireland and Ireland. It is of crucial importance to support the peace process in Northern Ireland," Mr Tusk said.

In the nine page document, one paragraph is focused exclusively on Ireland.

It states that in view of the unique circumstances on the island of Ireland, flexible and imaginative solutions will be required, including to avoid a hard border.

The document also states that the EU should recognise existing bilateral agreements between the UK and Ireland which are compatible with EU law  suggesting support for maintaining the Common Travel Area.

Taoiseach Enda Kenny said earlier this week that he was confident that Irelands interests would be reflected in the document.

Reference to Ireland and its unique circumstances will be of relief to the Government, after a mammoth diplomatic drive over the last nine months flagging up the issues around European capitals.
1.5b yuan lending fraud trial begins

From:Shanghai Daily | 2017-03-31 01:40

A high-profile financial fraud trial  involving 1.5 billion yuan (US$220 million) of investor savings  started at Xuhui District Peoples Court of Shanghai yesterday.

Fifteen former employees of the now-defunct online peer-to-peer lender Jinxing Investment were on trial. Ji Jianhua, the companys chief financial officer, was accused of illegally raising funds, and 14 senior managers have been accused of illegally absorbing public savings.

Part of the cash Jinxing received was diverted to personal or related accounts controlled by the companys president Wang Mian, while investment projects promised to investors were all faked, Ji told the court yesterday.

Prosecutors said there were still 400 million yuan of repayments that werent made in the wake of the case being exposed.

Operated by Shanghai Uprosper Asset Management Co and established on August 2014, Jinxing Investment offered short-term, peer-to-peer lending products promising high rates of return, the prosecutors said.

Investors flocked to sign up online, enticed at the prospect of higher returns than bank deposits offered, as well as easier access to loans than the banks allowed.

Wang, who hasnt been found since the companys liquidity risks unfolded last June, grabbed some 160 million yuan belonging to the company before his escape, the court heard.

Jinxing was shut down after Wangs disappearance and Jis surrender to the local police last June.

More than 200 investors gathered in court in Xuhui for the hearing yesterday, many of them elderly investors. Trials of the 14 senior managers would be held at a later date, the court said.

By the end of December, about a third of the nearly 4,000 Chinese peer-to-peer platforms were found to have been involved in fraud, according to Yingcan Group.

The lack of adequate regulation and the often dubious legitimacy of how the platforms operated were among reasons for the losses.
Philomena Canning, chair of Midwives for Choice in Ireland, said: "This is the second time Irelands industrialised system of maternity care has been criticised by an international body." Stock photo

The need for an overhaul of the "over-medicalised" system of care in Irish maternity services has been supported by the Commissioner for Human Rights of the Council of Europe.

The support is outlined in the latest report of the watchdog and it follows calls by a midwives' lobby here.

The midwives want to reduce the practice of speeding up labour and end what they see as the "production line" which can leave women delivering babies within eight hours of being admitted to hospital.

Philomena Canning, chair of Midwives for Choice in Ireland, said: "This is the second time Ireland's industrialised system of maternity care has been criticised by an international body.

"We strongly support the international calls for maternity care that respects the needs and choices of individual women."

Women should have access to maternity and delivery services without time pressure or being exposed to artificial methods of speeding up birth, she said.

"During Ireland's human rights examination in February this year in Geneva, the UN's Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women called on the Government to ensure that women can access maternity services that do not use artificial methods to accelerate labour and that respect the normal birth process," she said.

"It described Ireland's system of maternity care as one that transformed the most important experience of a lifetime for women and their partners into a production-line process."

Lobby groups for a change in the way maternity services are delivered here have pointed to the fourfold in increase in the rate of caesarean sections in the past 30 years.

A study by the ESRI showed these births have risen from 7pc in 1984 to 13pc in 1993 and stood at 30pc by 2014.

The rise, which is due to a complex set of reasons, has helped lower the death rate among mothers and children in childbirth.

But it is acknowledged that more efforts need to be made in several hospitals to reduce the rate.

A HSE report showed that 35pc of first-time mothers in Cork University Maternity Hospital, University College Hospital Galway and Waterford Regional Hospital had an instrumental delivery with forceps or vacuum.

Women have identified priorities for their childbirth experiences as: the availability of pain relief; partnership with the midwife; and individualised care.

A survey of midwives in 2014 found there were 1,849 midwives employed in maternity services. This meant the ratio of one midwife to 38 births, based on a total of 70,879 births at the time. The figures showed that around 554 midwives were needed.

Negative

Ms Canning also said the organisation also "fully endorses the Commissioner's concerns about the negative impact of the Eighth Amendment on the human rights of all women throughout pregnancy and childbirth, and we share his hope that this legislation will soon be repealed".

"Bodily integrity is a legal, constitutional and human right in Ireland that is flouted on a daily basis in our labour wards," she added.
Hermione Duffy, wife of Coast Guard Captain Mark Duffy, walks behind the coffin of her husband at his funeral Photo: Mark Condren

They stood outside the church after the funeral, and President Michael D Higgins wrapped each heartbroken family member in a warm embrace.

First Mark Duffy's teenage daughter Esme, then his wife Hermione, and lastly his 12-year-old son Fionn.

It was a proper, grandfatherly hug that spoke of true comfort and solidarity rather than mere formality.

But above all, it expressed the gratitude of a nation for a man whose rare courage saw him fly across the country and out into the pitch-black skies over the Atlantic where the merciless waves pitched below, in a bid to help others.

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The brave captain of Rescue 116 had told his wife not to be afraid if the worst should happen and to "be strong" and raise their children.

"He told me not to be afraid, to be strong, that he knew I could do it, that I was the better parent to do it," Ms Duffy said.

"My heart is broken. We loved him so much," she told mourners in a tribute to her husband read on her behalf by family friend Garda Declan Whelan.

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A poignant guard of honour outside the small stone church of St Oliver Plunkett at Blackrock, outside Dundalk, Co Louth, was formed by members of the emergency services, including the Coast Guard, Dublin Fire Brigade, Mountain Rescue, Civil Defence and the Naval Service.

The children of St Vincent's Secondary School, which Esme attends, as well as the local school, St Francis, where Fionn is a pupil, formed another deeply moving guard of honour.

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The roar of the sea played its own tribute as the tide came in at Blackrock - with mourners assembled outside the church quietly remarking on the coincidence of how the accident had happened at Black Rock lighthouse off the coast of Mayo.

Ms Duffy's tribute spoke of her husband's love of the sea with its ebb and flow and the reflecting sun on the water.

The couple had enjoyed moonlit walks on the beach followed by cups of tea.

"Our home by the sea was our wee world," she said.

The Taoiseach was represented by his Aide de Camp Lt Col Kieran Carey.

Also in attendance was Transport Minister Shane Ross, while Sinn Fein President Gerry Adams, who is a local TD, and former justice minister Dermot Ahern also attended. The family of Dara Fitzpatrick, who also lost her life in the crash, were there in solidarity.

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The Primate of all Ireland, Archbishop Eamon Martin, helped celebrate the Mass.

Symbols brought to the altar representing Mr Duffy's life included his slippers, his and his wife's wedding bands from their 17-year marriage and his flying helmet - mourners heard he loved flying the helicopter for search and rescue and was proud to do so. Also included were three rings given by Mr Duffy to his wife for her 40th birthday, a story book entitled 'Lost and Found', a rugby ball and a selection of cards made by the children.

Mourners heard a dark cloud had descended on the island of Ireland when news of the Rescue 116 tragedy broke - a "community catastrophe" which had caused our hearts to become "paralysed with shared grief and loss".

Chief Celebrant Fr Stephan Duffy, uncle of Mr Duffy, described him as his "best friend".

He was "happy, generous to a fault and innocent in heart and soul," he said.

Ms Duffy's beautiful tribute to her husband described their happy life of 26 years together as a couple.

"When Mark came home from a 24-hour shift, he would come in and say: 'Oh Hermione, I love getting home to you and the kids, but I love flying that helicopter'," she said.

"We adore and love you Mark," her words concluded.

"Our charming, handsome, and bashful daddy hero. Guess how much I love you? I love you to the moon and back."

A piper played a lament as the remains left the church for cremation, accompanied by the sound of waves breaking on the shore.
Northern Ireland's political parties have been invited to "intensive talks" to restore the collapsed Stormont Executive.

The Northern Ireland Office (NIO) has said the talks, due to begin on Monday, April 3, will have work to find agreement on forming a government and addressing the implementation of outstanding issues from previous agreements.

Officials have said both the British and Irish governments will be involved, there will be an agreed agenda regular bi-lateral meetings and roundtable talks.

Minister for Foreign Affairs Charlie Flanagan said he will work in the days ahead to protect the interests of Northern Ireland, especially in the wake of Brexit.

The heart of the Good Friday Agreement is its interlocking political institutions operating on the basis of partnership, equality and mutual respect. As a co-guarantor of the Agreement, the Irish Government is determined to uphold its principles and protect its institutions. In the days ahead we will work with all concerned to this end.

I believe it is critically important to see devolved Government restored and working effectively in the interests of the people of Northern Ireland, in particular in the context of Brexit.

Following the March 2 snap election, brought about after Martin McGuinness resigned as deputy First Minister over the Renewable Heating Incentive, the parties failed to find agreement within the three-week time span for talks.

Some described the process as "shambolic".

Secretary of State James Brokenshire is faced with the possibility of calling another election or seeking legislation from Westminster to bring about direct rule if no deal is reached within the coming weeks.
The family of a farmer who died suddenly while at his wife's funeral have paid tribute to the devoted couple.

James McAlister became unwell on Wednesday while shaking hands with mourners at his wife Kathleen's funeral service at St Mary's church in Cushendall. The couple lived in Cushendall in Co Antrim and were aged in their 70s.

Mrs McAlister had died on Monday. Today, her husband's funeral service will take place at the same church.

Yesterday, Mr McAlister's niece Marie Molloy (36) and nephew John James McAlister (41) paid tribute to their uncle, who was known to friends as 'Big Jas'.

"It was a big shock at the time," said Marie at her uncle's home.

"We're pulling together and the community have been awfully supportive. James and Kathleen were lovely people, very kind and generous."

John James said the family were still trying to absorb both losses in such a short space of time. "It's an awful shock seeing someone like that", he said. "He had started shaking hands with people offering their condolences and he took unwell."

Doctor

Despite efforts made to save Mr McAlister, he was unable to recover.

"There was a doctor at the funeral and she was working at him within minutes," said John James.

"The first response team in Cushendall came with a defibrillator and they were on the scene within minutes, working with him until the ambulance arrived." Tragically, he was pronounced dead at the scene.
A mother says her daughter has been waiting "all her life" for the Government to ratify the UN Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities.

Yesterday marked the 10-year anniversary of when the convention was first adopted and Ireland remains the only EU country that has failed to ratify it.

Protesters from disability groups all across Ireland gathered outside Leinster House, calling on the Government to change this.

Tracey Holsgrove, whose disabled daughter Fionnuala Lynch will turn 10 in July, told the Irish Independent her family has been fighting for equality for the entire decade.

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"It is 10 years today since our country made a big show of being one of the first countries to sign the convention. Fionnuala was born 10 years ago and we have literally waited all her life for this to be ratified."

The protest was co-ordinated by a number of disability groups including Down Syndrome Ireland, Rehab, and the Irish Wheelchair Association.

Speaking at the event, leading disability rights activist Joanne O'Riordan, who was born with no limbs, said disabled people "deserve to be treated equally".

"The sad reality is that most people living in Ireland are unaware of the positive implications that this convention will have on our lives," she said.
Military jets were spotted swooping low over Dublin city on Friday - and many people were wondering why.

As people flocked outside to make the most of the good weather in the capital, many questioned why there were several Air Corps planes flying low over th city centre.

One asked Independent.ie: "Everyone in the office would like to know why are there three military jets swooping low over Dublin city centre today?"

Others took to social media to question why the jets were buzzing overhead.

An Air Corps spokesman told Independent.ie that it's all just a routine practice procedure.

He explained: "They were practicing for an upcoming ceremonial fly pass using PC9Ns from the training school of the Air Corps.

"It would have taken around 30 minutes, although I'm not sure how many planes were involved today.

"It's fairly normal, we would have had a lot more of them last year with the 1916 commemorations."
Alcohol Action Ireland is encouraging parents to warn teenagers about the dangers posed by excessive alcohol consumption

A universal approach is needed to tackle underage drinking as Irish teens resort to sneaking alcohol into hairbrush handles and injecting it into oranges, TD Anne Rabbitte has said.

Deputy Rabbitte said that there are not enough opportunities to help teenagers in Ireland to have fun in an alcohol-free environment.

The Galway East representative told Independent.ie: "I'm no different to any other parent, I just happen to be in a prime position where I can bring these issues to the Dail to discuss the issues happening in the real world.

"It's a problem for parents and pressure on teenagers, it's a concern out there.

"The 'in thing' at the moment is injecting oranges with alcohol, freezing them and then segmenting them up as you get nearer to the disco.

"The other one is getting a round tube-shaped hairbrush that comes apart and putting vodka or whatever into that.

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"I'm talking about 14, 15 or 16 year olds, not 18-year-olds, these are underage discos with the hairbrushes going into the handbags.

"People don't celebrate how we might have celebrated, but it can be like putting on a show of how much alcohol you've had after an exam or after the mocks, it's like a trophy drawer of alcohol, it's shocking," she added.

The Fianna Fail Spokeswoman on Children - who is a mum to two teenagers herself - said there's an onus on society to try to prevent minors from starting to drink and ensuring those who do are safe.

She said: "I think it's a universal responsibility - there's the role of the parent, the role of the proprietor, community policing and education.

"I would like to see more vigilance, more Garda presence around discos, I would love to see Gardai going into discos.

"As a parent I would like to know if there's children in there who have had alcohol and are waiting on their parents, how are they treated and how are they minded? These are serious questions."

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She said that there are not enough options for teens in many parts of the country who want to go on nights out sober.

She said: "There are not enough alternatives, we can we have as much sport as we want but it's social activities in the line of discos.

"Kids need the opportunity to go and enjoy themselves and socialise in an alcohol-free environment without any pressure.

"We have to give them the chance to grow up in an environment that's fun and they can have the opportunity to get dressed up and learn what it's like to go out after nine o'clock, to know the risks and implications and express themselves.

"I cannot praise activities the likes of Foroige and No Name Club discos enough but there's not one in every medium-sized town in the country, maybe there is in Dublin but outside of the M50 there are very little opportunities."

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Deputy Rabbitte said "parents should support teenagers" and it's important to discuss underage drinking.

She explained: "There's a statistic out there that say if you have 100 kids going into First Year, by the end of that year 5-10 will be drinking, not dabbling but drinking.

"By the time they get to Second Year this number rises to 25 and in Third Year 50pc of that classroom is drinking, in fourth Year it jumps again to over 60pc.

"By the time you get into Leaving Cert on average just 5pc of teenagers don't drink.

"We have a huge problem and we're not discussing it, I'm not trying to finger point but I want to start that conversation."

She said that she would love to speak to teenagers themselves and get their views on alcohol.

She said: "I'd love to go into schools and talk to teenagers, we need their engagement and what they have to say.

"Who's listening to teenagers and giving them a chance to speak?"
Lawyers for the Oireachtas have been asked to scrutinise the long-awaited report on water charges amid claims that the proposed regime will be deemed "illegal".

Committee chairman Padraig O Ceidigh has requested the Dail's legal team determines whether the measures agreed by members this week will comply with the EU's Water Framework Directive.

The report, which has yet to be signed off by the 20-person committee, proposes to replace the current charging system with a new regime that centres on 'excessive usage'.

The scheme is designed to ensure that only households that "wilfully" waste water will be hit with penalties.

Such penalties will only apply after a six-month period during which the offending household will be warned to improve conservation.

The package, agreed in principle this week, will also ensure those who paid their bills will be refunded.

All new builds will be required to have meters installed as a precondition and the Government will be told to "incentivise" the voluntary take-up of meters.

The report also emphasises the need to ensure those on group water schemes are treated equally, while it commits to make provision for Irish Water to be held in public ownership.

Under the deal, the Commission of Energy Regulation will be handed the role of determining what constitutes 'normal usage' of water per household.

It was agreed that households that use 70pc above this limit will then reach a second threshold known as 'excessive usage'.Families that fall into this category will be deemed to be "wilfully" wasting water and will be slapped with penalties.

When calculating in terms of individual occupants of a property, the threshold for excessive usage will be set at 226 litres per day - the equivalent of almost three full bathtubs.

However, Government sources emphasised that this rate will reduce over time, as people improve their conservation habits following the introduction of the new water regime.

Once lawyers for the Oireachtas clear the report, members will be asked to sign off on it, potentially as early as Tuesday. It will then go to the Dail for a vote.

But the water issue continued to cause controversy in political circles yesterday. Former environment minister and Labour Party TD Alan Kelly warned that the regime could be "illegal".

The Tipperary TD said he did not believe what was proposed would pass what is known as the polluter-pays and cost-recovery principles. Mr Kelly said that failure to comply with these rules would open Ireland up to massive fines.

Green Party leader Eamon Ryan described the proposed regime as "madness", saying it would prove impossible to measure wastage without a proper metering system.

Sinn Fein TD Eoin O Broin said families would be given six months to reduce excessive consumption.

"If there are still households who continue to wilfully allow vast amounts of water to be wasted, then there will be fines," he said.

"But the crucial thing is there would be in the first instance exemptions, the second thing would be supports and only if people didn't take up those supports would the possibility of fines kick in. That's fines and penalties for wilful wastage."
Social Protection Minister Leo Varadkar has said any move to pass a motion of no confidence in the Garda Commissioner would not be good for the future of parliament.

Mr Varadkar today called on parties such as Sinn Fein and Labour to reconsider their decision to submit no confidence motions.

Speaking to reporters in Dublin, Mr Varadkar said he believes Ms OSullivan is part of the solution in dealing some of the very dirty practices within the force.

She has a very tough job. The question you always have to ask yourself is whether she is part of the solution or part of the problem . I think she's part of the solution, Mr Varadkar said.

And you have to ask yourself whether she is genuine in trying to clean up some of the very dirty practices that have been going on in the gardai for so long. And I think she is genuine in her efforts to clean it up. But I do hope that garda management and Garda more broadly understand the extent in which the public and the government are dissatisfied with the kind of practices that have been going on within the force.

"Things that might have been acceptable 30, 40, 50 years ago but in the 21st century are just not on when it comes to honesty and probity and ethics.

A number of parties, including Sinn Fein and Labour, are planning to table no confidence motions the week after next.

Sinn Feins finance spokesperson Pearse Doherty told Independent.ie that Ms OSullivans performance at the Oireachtas Justice committee does not change the partys position.

But Mr Varadkar warned against the Dail trying to unseat her.

Id hope that Sinn Fein and the other parties who are pursuing this motion against the commissioner will think long and hard about it. Because I think we should be in a position where Dail Eireann, which does not appoint the garda commissioner after all, starts to express or pass motions of no confidence in office holders or employees anywhere in the State, he said.

I don't think it would be a good thing for the future of parliament if parliament of Dail Eireann was to start passing motions in people they don't appoint or have the authority to dismiss.

Ceann Comhairle Sean O Fearghail has described Garda Commissioner Noirin OSullivan as courageous and brave, saying she is entitled to her good name.

In an unusual intervention from the chairman of the Dail, Mr O Fearghail said he knows Ms OSullivan socially and that he would be very surprised and disappointed if it emerged she has done anything untoward.

Speaking to Kildare Today on his local radio station KFM, Mr O Fearghail warned against TDs using privilege to besmirch ones reputation.

He also said that group think is one step short of mob rule.

The Fianna Fail TD told broadcaster Shane Beatty:

My personal experience of her is she is a very fine member of the force, that shes very brave and courageous. I dont know what is going to be found but I think she, together with every other individual is entitled to their good name. Theyre not entitled to have that name besmirched without concrete evidence.

Mr O Fearghail said that he knows Ms OSullivan and that her husband and that he went to school to with Chief Supt Jim McGowan, who he is says is a good friend.

I think we need to be very careful, that while we have privilege, we dont have the right to take anybodys good name without there being evidence, he said.

And I have to say in conclusion from me on this matter, I would be very surprised and disappointed if anything were to emerge to suggest or to prove Noirin OSullivan had done anything untoward in her role as garda commissioner.
Fair to spur high-tech trading

From:Shanghai Daily | 2017-03-30 09:29

Shanghai will host the fifth China (Shanghai) International Technology Fair next month to boost trading of advanced technologies and help commercialize research results, the city government said yesterday.



The fair will display technologies in clean, information and biological technologies from over 20 countries, said Dong Chao, deputy director of the Shanghai International Technology Exchange Center at Shanghai Commission of Commerce.

The government has organized 12 private and some state-owned investment companies to help exhibitors raise funds, Dong said.

The country of honor at the fair is the Netherlands, which will display its agriculture, sustainable development, laser and digital technologies.

The fair will take place from April 20 to 22.
Pope Francis will "do everything he can" to come to Ireland next year, a senior Vatican official has said.

Several months after Taoiseach Enda Kenny broke news of the intended visit, the Holy See confirmed plans are being made for the pontiff to travel.

Cardinal Kevin Farrell, Prefect of the Holy See's Dicastery for the Laity, Family and Life, said it is hoped the Pope will attend the church's World Meeting of Families in Dublin in August 2018.

"If the Pope is possibly able to be there, and circumstances around the world permit him to be able to go there, I'm sure he will do everything he possibly can, at least that's what he has expressed, to be there," the cardinal said.

Archbishop of Dublin Diarmuid Martin said: "If he does come, he'll surprise us and challenge us. It will be very different from an earlier visit, the only time a pope came to Ireland. Ireland has changed, the Pope has changed and he will live up to challenging us."

A visit by the pontiff would be the first by the head of the Catholic Church since Pope John Paul II came to the Republic in 1979.

Tensions

He was unable to visit Northern Ireland and instead, amid widespread security fears and cross-community tensions, he travelled as far as Drogheda, just south of the Border, and addressed hundreds of thousands.

DUP leader Arlene Foster, whose party was staunchly anti-papist under the late Ian Paisley, has pledged to meet Pope Francis if he can make a trip to the North.

The World Meeting of Families, which is held every three years, is in Dublin next August.

In a letter on the gathering, the Pope said: "My thoughts go in a special way to the Archdiocese of Dublin and to all the dear Irish nation for the generous welcome and commitment involved in hosting such an important event."

Just five years ago, amid a wave of inquiries into decades of clerical child sex abuse, the Taoiseach branded the Holy See "a dysfunctional, elite hierarchy" which was determined to frustrate the investigations of "a sovereign, democratic republic".

The Vatican recalled its ambassador to Ireland just days later. The Irish embassy to the Holy See in Rome was also shut that year, ostensibly as a cost-cutting measure. It reopened three years later.

The papal visit will coincide with the Citizens' Assembly issuing recommendations next year on the Eighth Amendment, which effectively bans abortion.
School buses are about to get caught up in the fallout of the Bus Eireann strike. Photo: Photofusion/UIG via Getty Images

Schools could be hit next by the Bus Eireann strikes as school bus drivers are to ballot for industrial and strike action.

Bus Eireann school bus drivers are considering strike action due to the threat to their jobs resulting from the wider crisis in the company.

SIPTU Sector Organiser, Willie Noone, said: Today the SIPTU National School Bus Drivers Committee decided to commence the process of balloting its members for industrial and strike action in sympathy and support of their colleagues in Bus Eireann.

Although they are employees of Bus Eireann these workers have to date not been party to the ongoing dispute at the company. However, it is now known that their livelihoods will also be adversely affected in the circumstances that their employer is not able to continue trading. This leaves our members with no other option but to consider industrial action to protect their jobs and the services they provide.

The ballot for industrial action and strike by SIPTU members employed as Bus Eireann school bus drivers is scheduled to be completed by April 21.
Tailbacks have been reported across the capital (picture Mark Condren)

Tailbacks have been reported across the capital (picture Mark Condren)

Bus Eireann employee strikers and supporters at the demonstration outside Leinster House earlier this week. Pic Tom Burke

About 2,600 workers walked out last Friday following a dispute with Bus Eireann management over potential 30% pay cuts

Commuters take to cars and walking to get to work and school in Dublin. Photo: Mark Condren

UNOFFICIAL pickets, which caused major disruption for early morning commuters, have been lifted but road users are warned to expect a "hectic" evening.

Tens of thousands of people were forced to make alternate travel plans amid huge disruption to Irish Rail inter city services, Dart services and Dublin Bus services on top of the strike at Bus Eireann. People were forced to revert to cars and taxis as they struggle to get to work, school and third level education.

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Secondary picketing relating to the Bus Eireann strike caused the majority of trains across the country to be cancelled and Dublin Bus services to operate at a much reduced capacity this morning.

Pickets at Irish Rail were stood down at 10am but the domino effect will be felt for the remainder of the day, according to an Irish Rail spokeswoman.

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AA Roadwatch are now urging road users to expect a "hectic evening" as most people drove to work this morning, and will have to do the same home.

"At present traffic is very busy on a number of routes out of the city centre, as is common for a Friday afternoon as people leave for the weekend.

"The fact that Irish Rail and Dublin Bus services have resumed, albeit with delays, should help things and mean they are possibly not as bad as they could have been," said a spokesperson for AA Roadwatch.

The N4, N7 and M50/M11 southbound are experiencing delays. Heading out through Phibsborough, Drumcondra and on the Stillorgan and Rock Roads will also be slow moving this evening.

AA Roadwatch are advising people to give themselves plenty of time to travel this evening.

An Irish Rail spokeswoman said the disruption to inter-city services later today will likely be minimal.

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Chaos

But the unofficial action caused huge chaos for commuters and rail and DART passengers with 95pc of services not operating this morning, she said.

Expand Expand Previous Next Close Picket at Dublin Bus depot this morning (Picture: Mark Condren) Commuters have been forced to make alternative travel plans (picture: Mark Condren) / Facebook

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Unofficial pickets at Dublin Bus depots have also been lifted.

"Dublin Bus wishes to advise customers that picketing by Bus Eireann employees at our depots has now ceased and services are resuming on all routes," a spokeswoman said.

"We are making every effort to resume services as quickly as possible however there may be delays on services for a period this morning due to the earlier disruption.

"We advise customers to also check our Twitter account, @dublinbusnews, visit our website, www.dublinbus.ie or contact our customer comment line on (01) 8734222 for the most up to date information on our services. We apologise to customers for the inconvenience caused."

The NBRU said it sent a strong message to members about this morning's wildcat action.

It is hoped that similar action will not take place again but the union has again reiterated the need for the current dispute to be resolved.

SIPTU Transport Division organiser, Greg Ennis, also said that the union "did not organise and does not condone" the unofficial action which disrupted rail and bus services this morning.

Bus Eireann workers placed pickets on Irish Rail and Dublin Bus depots in the early hours, in a move that was unexpected.

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The Bus Eireann strike, which has been running for a week today, is set to run indefinitely and centres on cost-cutting plans set to be introduced by the company.

Transport Minister Shane Ross said this morning that he was encouraging Bus Eireann and staff to return to discussions in a bid to end the strike.

However, he re-iterated that he would not be intervening in the strike.

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He described the unofficial action as "appalling".

"It's just not on and the law will have to take its course in cases like this because this is not something which I'm sure, ordinary bus workers wanted to happen. The travelling public did not want this to happen."

He said it was confident that the parties would return to talks but said if they did not he would not be intervening.

"I'm not going to intervene myself in an industrial relations dispute... this is something which the parties have got to sort out among themselves. If I was to go into talks at this stage they would look to me to bring the taxpayer's money to a situation where it will be absolutely and totally inappropriate," he said.

Such a move would "set a precedent for every future strike" he said.

He said he had sought an increase in subvention for the company this year but re-iterated his stance that he would not be opening the public purse to resolve the dispute.

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In Cork companies, such as VoxPro, took to contracting private bus companies to ferry employees to work from around the city.

Tourists at Cork's Kent Station were left stranded this morning.

German holidaymakers Gert and Inge Schaube from Freiburg had originally hoped to get the bus from Cork to Dublin - but then opted for the train because of the strike only to find themselves still stranded.

"We do not know what to do," Gert said.

"We did not want to hire a car but I do not think we will have a choice."

The couple stressed that they hoped the disruption wouldn't spoil their Irish holiday - but admitted they fear it could limit their ability to see the sights they want to.

Warning

Earlier, Irish Rail spokesman Barry Kenny was on RTE Radioto provide an update on the widespread disruption, which left most of the country without trains for four hours during the heavy morning commute.

"The vast majority of services are disrupted this morning because of the orchestrated secondary picketing which is taking place," he said.

"There was no warning of this... Bus Eireann picketers first turned up at a number of our depot this morning. We first got word of it not long after 4am and it became apparent that this was orchestrated," he said.

"It was designed, clearly, for maximum effect."

Dublin Bus drivers at a depot in Clontarf did not want to speak on the record about the secondary picketing when approached earlier this morning.

Close to one hundred Dublin Bus drivers were stood outside the depot at the time.

However, one driver said:

"We're not going to pass a picket. Everyone here took a decision this morning not to do that.

"There's chaos because we're not going to pass a picket," he added.

Bus Eireann drivers were positioned outside dart stations in the city, with placards addressing train drivers saying "please do not drive your train. Support the Bus Eireann workers".

Drivers say the latest contagion in transport action was decided by a large group of them as opposed to the unions.

Business

Dublin business association DublinTown also criticised the pickets that left thousands of workers without a means of getting into work this morning.

However Richard Guiney, DublinTown CEO said the unofficial action won't likely affect local businesses because most people who come into town to shop or socialise do so after the morning rush hour.

However, he said the wildcat strike was still not acceptable.

"DublinTown is pro-public transport but the service needs to be reliable. We cannot have a situation where all public transport disappears without notice," he said.

Cork Business Association (CBA) boss, Pat O'Connell, said trader concerns were escalating with indications that foot-fall in city centre retail outlets is down by as much as 30pc due to the protracted strike by Bus Eireann workers.

"This needs to get sorted out because it is now threatening to cause serious harm not just to Cork and rural Ireland but to the entire economy."
Bus Eireann employee strikers and supporters at the demonstration outside Leinster House earlier this week. Pic Tom Burke

About 2,600 workers walked out last Friday following a dispute with Bus Eireann management over potential 30% pay cuts

Commuters take to cars and walking to get to work and school in Dublin. Photo: Mark Condren

Commuters have reacted angrily this morning to being unexpectedly forced to make alternative travel plans as the Bus Eireann dispute spilled over to Irish Rail and Dublin Bus.

Independent.ie asked if you were impacted and dozens of people got in touch to explain their frustration. .

"Bit of a warning would've been helpful! This isn't helping anyone! They could try do what many countries do, just let passengers on without paying," Laura Fucci said on Facebook.

KerrieAnne Hammill, who was due to travel for an early morning charity event, said it was already "chaos" in the capital.

"Good luck to you all making your commute , it's chaos already out there," she said.

Sharon Coleman, another reader, described the unofficial action as " disgraceful".

"The company will be forced into privatisation," she said.

"Got the Dart to work for night duty and now I find, I will have to walk home, Ballsbridge to Dun Laoghaire," reader Paul Kilmartin said.

"Currently making my way to work by car from Kildare to Dublin City Centre. While annoying for me, my beef is that those who rely on public transport for medical appointments and treatment have been seriously discommoded.

"A lot of whom are elderly and don't have access to private cars. I agree people have a right to strike on notice but to strike in solidarity without notice is unfair," Avril Delaney said.

Speaking in Cork German holidaymakers Gert and Inge Schaube from Freiburg had originally hoped to get the bus from Cork to Dublin - but then opted for the train because of the strike only to find themselves still stranded.

"We do not know what to do," Gert said.

"We did not want to hire a car but I do not think we will have a choice."

In Dublin commuters opted to walk to work due to the traffic issues.

"Barry Sweeney (47) from Clontarf gave up on trying to hail down a taxi on the Coast Road and instead decided to walk to work - a 6.5km journey to Hodges Figgis on Dawson Street."

Mr Sweeney said commuters should have been given more notice.

"I'm stranded otherwise," Mr Sweeney said.

"I'm in support of unions, it's just that I guess it's just the flash nature of it all.

"Top executives aren't gonna be as affected by it, it's the ordinary people," Mr Sweeney added.

A number of commuters, including Mr Sweeney hit out at the inaction from Transport Minister, Shane Ross, who is adamant he will not step in to resolve the dispute.

"It's hardly surprising coming from him, is it?

He's the Minister for Transport...this is bad politics," he added.

Meanwhile, Philomena Walsh was also in the Clontarf area, hoping to get a bus into work on O'Connell Street.

"I just think the Minister should have stepped in and done something," she said.

"I think they should have given us more notice, to spring something on us at 4.30 in the morning, no one is going to know anything about that getting up and going to work.

"They should have publicised it more rather than springing it on us," she added.
Sgt Maurice McCabe, pictured, and Superintendent David Taylor have objected to senior gardai, including Martin Callinan, sharing the same legal representation Picture: Tom Burke

Major flashpoints have emerged at the Disclosures Tribunal with concerns expressed about Garda Commissioner Noirin O'Sullivan, her predecessor Martin Callinan, and at least three other senior officers all being represented by the same legal team.

Lawyers for Garda whistleblowers Sergeant Maurice McCabe and Superintendent David Taylor are considering lodging objections due to concerns the arrangement could cause "a conflict of interest".

Michael McDowell SC, for Sgt McCabe, said it could limit the ability of some officers to give evidence independently.

A second major flashpoint also emerged yesterday, with disagreements between the tribunal chairman, Mr Justice Peter Charleton, and lawyers for three media groups in relation to journalistic privilege.

Mr Justice Charleton said journalists should first indicate if they knew anything of value to the tribunal before the issue of journalistic privilege could be discussed. However, lawyers for Independent News & Media, the 'Irish Times' and Associated Newspapers said they wanted issues around privilege clarified first.

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The tribunal, which is investigating allegations that a smear campaign against Sgt McCabe was orchestrated by senior gardai, as well as separate allegations about the treatment of Garda Keith Harrison, met to hear applications from potential witnesses for legal representation.

Mr Justice Charleton said people whose reputations may be affected by the tribunal were entitled to apply for legal representation and that he would issue determinations next Monday on who could be represented.

Conor Dignam SC applied for representation for Ms O'Sullivan, former commissioner Mr Callinan, and other members of the force, save those who opt for their own representation.

He confirmed he was also representing three officers, of chief superintendent and assistant commissioner rank.

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These officers were written to by the tribunal about public comments they made where they denied there was any cause for concern in relation to allegations Sgt McCabe made about policing issues in the Cavan/Monaghan division.

The O'Higgins report found that issues of concern did in fact exist.

Mr McDowell applied for representation on behalf of Sgt McCabe. He also said he may be objecting to "the appropriateness of such a broad representation", as outlined by Mr Dignam. "There can be a conflict of interest and there can be a process issue in that the commissioner is assembling instructions for a wide variety of people. There can be a question of her having a conflict of interest in that context," said Mr McDowell.

"I have a deep concern about the Garda Commissioner and former commissioner Callinan being represented by the same person.

"And [I have] a deep concern that the process that has been established to gather evidence by a single team for this tribunal will have a serious effect on the capacity of individual members of An Garda Siochana to be independent in their testimony before this tribunal."

Mr McDowell's concerns about a potential conflict of interest were echoed by barrister John Ferry, who applied for representation for Supt Taylor.

Mr Justice Charleton said he could not see there being a conflict of interest, but added that things may become clearer in due course.

Applications for legal representation were also made on behalf of former justice minister Alan Shatter, RTE and a number of its employees, Tusla, Fianna Fail TD John McGuinness, Garda Harrison, and a number of individual gardai.

Much of the short hearing was taken up with testy exchanges between Mr Justice Charleton and lawyers for media organisations.

The judge indicated he did not want to accede to requests for a hearing to clarify issues surrounding journalistic privilege.
The drop in sterling and increased general uncertainty arising from Brexit have been flagged as the major reasons for the fall off in numbers (Stock image)

Trips to Ireland from the UK decreased by almost 6pc in the three months to March, according to the latest data released by the Central Statistics Office (CSO).

The drop-off will be of concern to the Irish tourist industry, which depends on UK visitors for a large proportion of its revenue.

While Irish tourism posted record growth in 2016, policy makers will be hoping the latest data is not a harbinger of what is to come once Brexit kicks in. UK visitors still represent the largest proportion of tourists to Ireland with 789,200 trips made between December and the end of February.

That represents a fall of 5.9pc compared to the same period last year, or almost 50,000 fewer people.

Tourism Ireland told the Irish Independent the figures reflect a trend that is being reported by hoteliers and visitor attractions across the country in recent months. The drop in sterling and increased general uncertainty arising from Brexit have been flagged as the major reasons for the fall off in numbers.

Niall Gibbons, CEO of Tourism Ireland, said: "Economic uncertainty is making British travellers more cautious about their discretionary spending, which is impacting on travel to Ireland."

Overall, tourists levels over the three months were up by 3pc. Visits from other EU countries rose 0.7pc. There was a spike in visits from North America, up 38.2pc compared with a year earlier.
Model Ali McDonnell is calling for a greater understanding of people with autism.

Her plea comes after her son Harry was diagnosed with the condition last June.

Ali (35) said she "never felt so alone" as when doctors told her he had autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).

"I had just had a baby four days before that. There was a lot going on and when I got Harry's diagnosis... I cried for days.

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"People said, 'Oh maybe it's the baby blues', and it's not. My son had just been diagnosed with autism and ADHD and I didn't know what to do."

Ali, who is an ambassador for charity Irish Autism Action, is also mum to son Alex (15) and daughters Sara (13) and nine-month-old Sienna, all of whom "adore" their brother.

"It's very hard on them. He would cause murder in the house and have fights with them but they're doing their best. They adore him," she told the Herald.

The Rathfarnham woman did not know anything about ASD when her son was given his diagnosis. She felt she was not given enough information on what her next step should be to help him.

Expand Close Model Ali McDonell (Centre) and her son Harry Dempsey launch Irish Autism Action's Blue Nose Day which takes place on Monday 27th April, 2017. / Facebook

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"I'm still trying to figure this out. I think every parent in this country with a child on the spectrum is still very confused about it," she said.

"You're given a diagnosis and you're told, 'There you go'. But no, what's the next step?" she added.

"I hadn't got a clue about autism. I'm learning more about it every day as I meet more kids and adults on the spectrum.

"However, any of the psychologists I spoke to, they're not giving me the answers I need."

Ali took Harry to a doctor when he began to have "meltdowns", something she had not seen in his older siblings.

"He was always verbal and spoke early. He was hyper all the time, there were highs and lows," she said.

"Harry had no fear of anybody and he would have these meltdowns. After being a mom of two other kids, I knew that wasn't right.

"He's hilarious. He has an amazing personality. He also has dyslexia and he finds learning very difficult."

Ali says his school is doing the best it can for him, but feels it could be provided with more support.

"Harry goes to a resource teacher for half-an-hour a day but, because of his ADHD, she finds it very hard. Out of a half-an-hour session, she might get five minutes' work done with him."

Ali spoke about the difficulties Harry faces on a daily basis.

"When a child on the spectrum walks into a room, they will notice the telly is on, the light flickering in the corner, what conversations are going on, they're taking everything in and it can be overwhelming for them," she said.

"When Harry's sitting down to learn in school with ADHD, it's next to impossible for him."

Ali is considering the idea of putting her son on ritalin, a central nervous system stimulant that is used to treat ADHD, however she worries it could "dull" him.

"I'm toying with the idea of medication. It breaks my heart because I hear such mixed reviews about it," she said.

"Do I medicate my son to help him learn? People say you'll dull your child and I don't want to dull him, but at the same time I want him to have a future.

"My hope for Harry is that there will be more understanding of him. The more awareness we raise for children on the spectrum, the better the outcome for them as adults," she said.

As part of its programme for Autism Awareness Month, Irish Autism Action will hold it's annual Blue Nose Day on April 27, when organisations, clubs and schools around the country will wear blue noses.

Noses are available for a donation of 2 each from the charity. Email info@autismireland.ie for details
Shanghai asked to do more on innovation

From:Shanghai Daily | 2017-03-30 09:43

Shanghai should strengthen support for startups and talent as well as improve management of intellectual property rights to boost innovation and entrepreneurship, local political advisors said yesterday.



These moves will help turn the city into a global tech and innovation center by 2030, the advisors said.

Shanghai has built 18 city-level innovation platforms to support its ambition. The Zhangjiang High-Tech Park has been labeled as the national technology park.

But Shanghai should expend more efforts to create a top Internet company in the city along the lines of Baidu in Beijing, Alibaba in Hangzhou and Tencent in Shenzhen, the members said during a meeting of the Shanghai Committee of the Chinese Peoples Political Consultative Conference.

Shanghai has the means to tap the huge potential and opportunities in Big Data, artificial intelligence and industrial Internet in China because the city leads in these sectors nationwide, the advisors said. Shanghai is offering subsidies to attract overseas talents and engineers.

Shanghai should also improve intellectual property rights management. The city aims to build an Asia-Pacific IPR trade center, said Shanghai CPPCC member Zheng Long.
The new charges are year-round, flat fees priced by weight, as opposed to previously contentious peak and off-peak baggage charges Picture: Colin O'Riordan

A couple could spend 240 bringing their suitcases on a return trip to the Canary Islands after Aer Lingus hiked its checked baggage fees by as much as 40pc.

The airline has switched to a three-tier pricing system, with checked bag charges now differing for 'near', 'mid' and 'far' destinations.

The new charges are year-round, flat fees priced by weight, as opposed to previously contentious "peak" and "off-peak" baggage charges.

The cost of taking a 25kg bag one way to a 'far' destination such as the Canary Islands is now 60 all year round. It means a couple each taking this size suitcase on a return trip would pay 240.

Meanwhile, a family of four taking lighter 15kg cases on a trip to Spain would pay 35 each, or 70 return - a grand total of 280 for the whole family.

Under the new system, 'near' charges for 15kg bags will fall from peak rates of 25 to 15 each way on routes including the UK, Amsterdam, Paris and Brussels.

Expand Close Table of Aer Lingus's new, three-tier, short-haul baggage fee structure. Table: Aer Lingus / Facebook

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Whatsapp Table of Aer Lingus's new, three-tier, short-haul baggage fee structure. Table: Aer Lingus

However, charges for 15kg bags on 'mid' destinations like much of Spain, Portugal, Germany and Italy will jump from 25 to 35.

And 15kg checked bags on 'far' routes will rise by more than 40pc from 35 to 50 for a single flight. 'Far' includes longer flights to destinations such as Corfu, Croatia and the Canary Islands.

The costs increase further for heavier bags of 20kg and 25kg - up to 40kg of luggage packed into two separate bags costs 85 one way on a 'far' route.

The cost of baggage on transatlantic flights has not been affected.

Aer Lingus has defended the price changes, saying that 58pc of short-haul customers travel on its 30 'near' services, where it says prices have fallen.

"While guests travelling to 'mid' and 'far' destinations incur higher baggage fees, guests travelling to 'near' destinations in fact are paying 40pc less when compared to baggage fees at the same time last year," a spokesperson for Aer Lingus said.

Comparisons are complicated, however, by the fact that the airline previously charged different fees for travel in peak (summer, Christmas) and off-peak times.

Ryanair similarly 'simplified' its checked bag fees last year, with some confusion as to how the new charges differed from previous peak and off-peak rates.

"Irish travellers benefit from some of the most competitive air fares across Europe," the spokesperson continued, while also pointing out that Aer Lingus allows up to two pieces of free cabin baggage per passenger.

The airline offers flexi-fares with checked baggage included, too.

"On short-haul we are focused on providing the lowest priced seat, and thereafter customers may choose from a menu of additional extras," it said.

The new fees came into effect for bookings made after last Tuesday.

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Sligo is set to make waves all along the Wild Atlantic Way next month, with the edgy Irish Surfing Festival rolling into town.

The festival, also known as Shore Shots (shoreshots.ie), brings a host of pro surfers, street artists, musicians, MTV video makers and fun to the west coast.

It runs over the weekend of April 22-23, with tickets including access to almost all talks, events and festivities priced at 60pp.

Special guests this year include big wave surfer Andrew Cotton, currently searching for a world record-breaking 100-ft wave to surf, Waterford street artist James Earley (below, with his work on Temple Bar's Bloom Hotel) and artist Dorothy Cross.

Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Previous Next Close Street artist James Earley. The 2017 Shore Shots Festival takes place in Sligo. Photo: Ian Mitchinson Easkey Britton. The 2017 Shore Shots Festival took place in Sligo. Photo courtesy of Finisterre Gearoid McDaid surfing at Easkey, Co. Sligo. Photo: Ian Mitchinson Nick Von Rupp surfing at Mullaghmore. The 2017 Shore Shots Festival takes place in Sligo. Photo: Ian Mitchinson Street artist James Earley's work in Tramore. Photo: Ian Mitchinson / Facebook

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This is the second year Shore Shots has been staged in Sligo, bringing a welcome economic boost with its talks, movies, food and drink - not to mention an excuse to sample the county's ever-improving Sligo Food Trail (sligofoodtrail.ie).

A weekend of surf culture, adventure, film, music and technology also includes a special viewing of Ross Whitaker's Between Land and Sea, which documents a year in the life of Lahinch, with a Q&A from pro-surfer Ollie OFlaherty.

Fancy riding monster waves yourself? You can tackle an epic example beneath the Cliffs of Moher, courtesy of an Oculus Rift 360-degree VR headset.

Other events include a live performance from David Kitt, a storytelling workshop with local surfer and environmentalist Easkey Britton (below), a photography exhibition by Ian Mitchinson (see galleries above and below) and the best viral clips and footage captured by surfers along the Wild Atlantic Way over the past twelve months.

Last years winner was Chris Case from Fish Farm TV, who scooped the top prize with Of Viking Minds  an edited version of his video is above.

The Irish Surfing Festival was originally held in Dublin's Light House Cinema, but this is the second year it has been held in Sligo.

Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Previous Next Close Easkey Britton. The 2017 Shore Shots Festival took place in Sligo. Photo courtesy of Finisterre Street artist James Earley. The 2017 Shore Shots Festival takes place in Sligo. Photo: Ian Mitchinson Nick Von Rupp surfing at Mullaghmore. The 2017 Shore Shots Festival takes place in Sligo. Photo: Ian Mitchinson Gearoid McDaid surfing at Easkey, Co. Sligo. Photo: Ian Mitchinson Street artist James Earley's work in Tramore. Photo: Ian Mitchinson / Facebook

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Whatsapp Easkey Britton. The 2017 Shore Shots Festival took place in Sligo. Photo courtesy of Finisterre

Sligo is such an exciting place to be right now with so many people moving their work here to enjoy the Wild Atlantic Way lifestyle," says festival director Aidan Ellis.

"Its got music, arts, technology and creativity all in one place, but you can also jump out for a surf or hike just five minutes from your door.

The festival is partnered by LookWest.ie and sponsored by Tullamore D.E.W.

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There was a big turn out at a public meeting to discuss the possible threat to transport services in the county.

The meeting which was organised by Sinn Fein was attended by MEP Liadh Ni Riada, local Sinn Fein councillors and bus driver Michael McComiskey of the National Bus and Rail Union (NBRU).

Speaking after the meeting Ms Ni Riada said it was important people showed the government just how crucial rural services are.

'The threat of cuts to services continues to loom large over rural Ireland. The mood from the meeting was one of worry and concern. Neither Bus Eireann nor the Government seem to recognise that these services are not numbers on a page that can be wiped out to balance the books, they are a lifeline for local people.

'They are how the elderly see family and get to their doctor, how students get to school, how people get to work and with the government doing nothing to stem the ever increasing costs of car insurance and rent in population centres they are increasingly people's only mode of transport.'

Cllr Johnny Mythen said that Mr McComiskey, a bus driver with Bus Eireann, told the crowd about the situation within Bus Eireann. 'He basically said that rural Ireland is very much under threat. This will be especially true when the motorway is opened because companies will be able to cherry pick the most profitable routes.

'These routes are a social necessity for people. I know of one woman who is partially blind and depends on the public bus service to travel everywhere. For villages like the likes of Olyegate, Inch and other places off the beaten track they are facing massive uncertainty because it is possible that these services will be axed.

'A public transport service can't be just about profit, it is also there to provide a service for public. The Government is subsiding some private companies to a greater extent than Bus Eireann.

'Another issue is that in some private companies drivers are being paid the minimum wage and as a result receive the Family Income Supplement payment so the Government is essentially subsiding them through the Department of Social Protection.

'Bus Eireann doesn't have a fair playing field and comparing public and private transport services is not comparing like with like.

'There has been criticism of Shane Ross and we know that he can't get involved in industrial disputes but he can meet with the Department of Social Protection and the National Transport Authority and discuss the contracts given out.

'I can't understand why people aren't jumping up and down about this. Already Route 2 which runs from Enniscorthy to Waterford and is used by many people to go to Waterford Hospital has been changed so now there is a two hour wait to changeover in Wexford.

'This essentially means that it is taking people four hours to go to Waterford - you would be in Spain quicker. It's mental stuff.

'The loss of a public bus service would be an economic nightmare and would isolate rural Ireland. We have to have a reliable public service. Every country in the world has one.'
Actors Sarah Greene (L) and Daniel Radcliffe during the Broadway opening night of "The Cripple Of Inishmaan" at the Cort Theatre on April 20, 2014 in New York City. (Photo by Andrew Toth/Getty Images)

Sarah Greene attends the "Charles James: Beyond Fashion" Costume Institute Gala at the Metropolitan Museum of Art on May 5, 2014 in New York City. (Photo by Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images)

Actress Lacey Chabert attends the American Humane Association's 5th Annual Hero Dog Awards 2015 at The Beverly Hilton Hotel on September 19, 2015 in Beverly Hills, California. (Photo by Tibrina Hobson/Getty Images for American Humane Association)

Irish actress and singer Sarah Greene poses during a photocall for the TV series "Ransom" as part of the MIPCOM (The world's entertainment content market), on October 17, 2016 in Cannes, southeastern France. / AFP / VALERY HACHE (Photo credit should read VALERY HACHE/AFP/Getty Images)

Irish actress and singer Sarah Greene poses during a photocall for the TV series "Ransom" as part of the MIPCOM (The world's entertainment content market), on October 17, 2016 in Cannes, southeastern France. / AFP / VALERY HACHE (Photo credit should read VALERY HACHE/AFP/Getty Images)

Actress Sarah Greene attends the after party for the Broadway opening night of "The Cripple Of Inishmaan" at The Edison Ballroom on April 20, 2014 in New York City. (Photo by Andrew Toth/Getty Images)

Poldark star Aidan Turner & Sarah Greene attend a panel discussion on acting at The Teacher's Club on Parnell Street as part of the Jameson Dublin International Film Festival

Irish actress Sarah Greene has opened up about the scrutiny she experience during her split with former boyfriend of five years Aidan Turner.

Greene (31), who recently starred in Rebellion and Turner (33), who shot to fame as the titular star of BBC's Poldark began dating in 2010 before parting ways in 2015 and were characteristically low-key throughout their relationship, making only a handful of public appearances together. T

They've kept to their ways, choosing against trashing each other in a war of words after their break-up. But Greene said the most frustrating part was misinformation being spread about their relationship.

"No one likes that scrutiny or people thinking they know something about you and they're just guessing - you know, reading a 'source says' and taking that as verbatim. I just ignore it now though and I did at the time as well," she tells the April issue of Image Magazine.

Expand Close Aidan Turner and Sarah Greene / Facebook

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"At first it got to me and then it was like, 'you know what? People can say whatever they want, people are always going to say whatever they want.

"My mates and my family know who I am and that's all I really care about. Making my parents proud and happy."

She did say she would be reluctant to date another actor, adding: "I'm not on the lookout right now so I haven't really thought about it. If I meet someone nice, great, but I'm very happy on my tod."

Similarly Turner, who is reportedly dating advertising executive Tara Derakshan, said last year he also would prefer not to date a fellow actor, saying the relationship can be clouded with industry talk and overshadow the "real things".

Expand Close Sarah Greene at the IFTA Awards 2015 at The Mansion House / Facebook

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Meanwhile, Sarah, who lives in London with former Love/Hate stars Ruth Bradley and Charlie Murphy, heralded a new golden era of opportunities for Irish actresses, crediting Saoirse Ronan and Ruth Negga for paving the way.

"It's a really exciting time for Irish actresses and actually women from all different parts of this creative industry. It's opening up more and more. It was kind of Saoirse Ronan who really paved the way - she's the youngest of us all, but she did. She paved the way and opened doors for all of us. We're all rising on her coat-tails and I'd take any job she doesn't want to do."

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Actor David Eigenberg attends the 2016 NBCUniversal Summer Press Day at Four Seasons Hotel Westlake Village on April 1, 2016 in Westlake Village, California. (Photo by Jason Kempin/Getty Images)

David Eigenberg poses backstage at the "America Salutes You" Concert Honoring Military, Veterans, And Their Families at Rosemont Theatre on November 12, 2016 in Chicago, Illinois. (Photo by Daniel Boczarski/Getty Images for Civic Entertainment)

David Eigenberg poses at a photocall during the 53rd Monte Carlo TV Festival on June 10, 2013 in Monte-Carlo, Monaco. (Photo by Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images)

Steve Brady and Miranda Hobbes in Sex and the City. Image: HBO

Just how much has "nice guy" Steve Brady changed from his Sex and the City days?

We meet Steve Brady, played by David Eigenberg, in season two of the iconic noughties show as a persistent bar tender that takes an immediate interest in Miranda Hobbes, and soon becomes her on-and-off again boyfriend for the rest of the series.

Throughout the series, Steve convinces Miranda to put her faith in him, and they go on to raise their child together when Miranda unexpectedly becomes pregnant, and the pair later marry.

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While Steve's cheating in the Sex and the City movie may have lost him some fans, Steve is one male character from the show that we can't help but love.

Since SATC ended in 2004, David Eigenberg has gone on to take the role of firefighter Chris Hermann in NBC's Chicago Fire, and has aged like a fine wine.

Expand Close David Eigenberg poses at a photocall during the 53rd Monte Carlo TV Festival on June 10, 2013 in Monte-Carlo, Monaco. (Photo by Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images) / Facebook

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Whatsapp David Eigenberg poses at a photocall during the 53rd Monte Carlo TV Festival on June 10, 2013 in Monte-Carlo, Monaco. (Photo by Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images)

Now 52 years old, Eigenberg is married and has two children.

Expand Close Actor David Eigenberg attends the 2016 NBCUniversal Summer Press Day at Four Seasons Hotel Westlake Village on April 1, 2016 in Westlake Village, California. (Photo by Jason Kempin/Getty Images) / Facebook

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Whatsapp Actor David Eigenberg attends the 2016 NBCUniversal Summer Press Day at Four Seasons Hotel Westlake Village on April 1, 2016 in Westlake Village, California. (Photo by Jason Kempin/Getty Images)
Vogue Williams & Spencer Matthews leaving RTE studios together where Vogue was a guest on Brendan O'Connor's Cutting Edge

Prince Harry and Maid of Honour Pippa Middleton walk down the aisle at Westminster Abbey following the wedding ceremony of Prince William, Duke of Cambridge and Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge on April 29, 2011

Pippa Middleton with sister Kate at the royal wedding in 2011

Pippa Middleton and James Matthews attend day nine of the Wimbledon Tennis Championships at Wimbledon on July 06, 2016 in London, England. (Photo by Karwai Tang/WireImage)

Vogue Williams & Spencer Matthews arrive at RTE studios together where Vogue is a guest on Brendan O'Connor's Cutting Edge

Pippa Middleton and James Matthews attend church on Christmas Day on December 25, 2016 in Bucklebury, Berkshire. (Photo by Samir Hussein/Samir Hussein/WireImage)

Vogue Williams & Spencer Matthews leaving RTE studios together where Vogue was a guest on Brendan O'Connor's Cutting Edge

It's tipped to be the celebrity wedding of the year.

Kate Middleton's younger sister Pippa and hedge fund manager James Matthews will exchange vows at her family's Berkshire home on May 20 which will quench any appetite for royal wedding glamour.

After that Alexander McQueen gown made her an overnight sensation, Pippa is making sure all eyes will be on her - even if the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge are sitting in the front row.

While James' younger brother Spencer, former Made in Chelsea lothario, has been keeping a relatively low profile in the build-up to the wedding, his new romance with Irish tv presenter Vogue Williams might change that.

Expand Close Vogue Williams spotted walking with boyfriend Spencer Matthews on Dublin's Coppinger Row / Facebook

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Whatsapp Vogue Williams spotted walking with boyfriend Spencer Matthews on Dublin's Coppinger Row

He's been pictured out and about in Dublin with his new girlfriend in recent days, even joining her in a Facebook Live chat in conjunction with Brendan O'Connor's Cutting Edge on RTE, where he confirmed the relationship.

When asked if Vogue would make an appearance at the wedding, saying "this is very new", adding: "If I could shout it from the mountain tops I would."

But according to reports, Pippa has enforced a 'no ring no bring' rule for wedding guests, meaning you can only bring a guest if you're married or engaged.

It is believed that the pair will tie the knot at St Mark's church in Berkshire, England and will have the reception at the Middleton family home nearby.

Expand Close Pippa Middleton and James Matthews attend church on Christmas Day on December 25, 2016 in Bucklebury, Berkshire. (Photo by Samir Hussein/Samir Hussein/WireImage) / Facebook

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Whatsapp Pippa Middleton and James Matthews attend church on Christmas Day on December 25, 2016 in Bucklebury, Berkshire. (Photo by Samir Hussein/Samir Hussein/WireImage)

She will reportedly have her nephew Prince George (three) as a page boy, while her niece Princess Charlotte (two) will be a flower girl.

The happy couple announced their engagement in July, confirming rumours with a statement: "Miss Pippa Middleton and Mr James Matthews are delighted to announce they became engaged on Sunday 17th July and plan to marry next year."

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The pair were together for less than a year after enjoying a brief relationship in 2012 before becoming engaged.
More than 70 others were wounded in the blast

At least 24 people have died and more than 70 others were injured after a suicide car bomb attack near a Shia Muslim place of worship in the north-west Pakistani city of Parachinar.

The attack took place near Parachinar's Shia mosque, which is located near the Noor Market.

TV footage showed people transporting the victims in ambulances and private vehicles.

Jamaat-ul-Ahrar, a breakaway faction of Pakistani Taliban militants, has claimed responsibility for the attack.

Spokesman Asad Mansoor said the attack was carried out by one of the group's members, Abul Durda, using a car bomb to target Shias, whom the militants consider to be heretics.

The blast was so powerful it also damaged vehicles and nearby shops, according to government administrator Zahid Hussain.

He said authorities have declared an emergency and rescuers are transporting the wounded to nearby hospitals.

Parachinar is a key city in the Kurram tribal region bordering Afghanistan and has been wracked by sectarian violence in the past.

The region was once a stronghold of Pakistani Taliban and Sunni militant groups. Although the army said it has cleared the Kurram region of militants, violence has continued.

Mansoor and Lashker-e-Jhangvi, another banned Sunni sectarian militant group, have claimed responsibility for previous attacks in the region, where Shia Muslims are in the majority.

Sabir Hussain, a hospital official, said the Pakistan army used helicopters to transport 40 wounded to hospitals in the north-western city of Peshawar.

Angered over the attack, some residents were seen chanting slogans against the government. Security forces subsequently fired shots in the air and dispersed the crowd.

Earlier, the Pakistan army said it had dispatched a helicopter along with a team of doctors to help the victims and evacuate the wounded to hospitals in other cities.

Prime minister Nawaz Sharif condemned the bombing and vowed to eliminate terrorism.

"The network of terrorists has already been broken and it is our national duty to continue this war until the complete annihilation of the scourge of terrorism from our soil," he said.

The blast came hours after state-run media said Pakistani president Mamnoon Hussain had signed a bill removing the last hurdle for the revival of military courts to try terrorism suspects.

The development came days after Pakistan's Senate and National Assembly separately passed a constitutional amendment to extend the practice, which has been in place for two years.

A previous 2015 amendment established the military courts for a two-year mandate which expired in January.

The move to send terror suspects to military courts followed the December 2014 Taliban attack on an army-run school in the north-western city of Peshawar which killed 154 people - mostly schoolchildren.

Pakistan has also lifted its moratorium on the death penalty and has executed more than 400 people, but most of those cases were linked to murders unconnected to terrorism.

Meanwhile, Pakistan's army said it has killed a "high-value" Pakistani Taliban leader, Mehmood-ul-Hassan, along with an associate in a raid in the South Waziristan tribal region.

Troops also seized a cache of weapons from the hideouts of slain militants, who for years operated from the region to orchestrate attacks in the country.

AP
Malaysia said yesterday it had agreed to release the body of Kim Jong-nam to North Korea in exchange for the return of nine Malaysians held in the North's capital.

Relations between Malaysia and North Korea have been badly frayed by the murder of the North Korean leader's half brother at Kuala Lumpur's airport.

Both countries withdrew their ambassadors and North Korea blocked nine Malaysians from leaving the country.

Malaysia responded in kind, barring North Koreans from exiting its soil, including three suspects believed to be hiding in the North Korean Embassy.

Following negotiations that he described as "very sensitive," Malaysia Prime Minister Najib Razak said North Korea had allowed the nine Malaysians to leave, and that Malaysia had agreed to release Mr Kim's remains to North Korea. He didn't say whether Mr Kim's body had already left Malaysia.

Earlier, a van was seen leaving the morgue where Mr Kim's body was being held, after which police guards were removed. Mr Najib said in a statement that Malaysia would also "allow North Koreans to leave Malaysia" as part of the agreement. It wasn't clear whether that included the three suspects wanted by police.

The three include an embassy employee and an Air Koryo worker.

Four other North Korean suspects left the country on the day Mr Kim was killed.

"Following the completion of the autopsy on the deceased and receipt of a letter from his family requesting the remains be returned to North Korea, the coroner has approved the release of the body," Mr Najib said.
Cars under flood waters outside the Robina Hospital after torrential rain on Australias Gold Coast. Photo: AFP/Getty Images

The Queensland Police Service released photos of a bull shark washed up on a road near the town of Ayr after torrential rains lashed the east coast of Australia

A shark found in the middle of the road stunned residents of a small Australian town following a deadly storm.

The bull shark washed up on a flooded road near the town of Ayr, Queensland, after tropical cyclone Debbie battered northeast Australia.

Queensland Fire and Emergency Services (QFES) shared photos of the shark on social media, warning members of the public to stay out of flood water near the Burdekin River.

It came as Australian authorities told 40,000 people to evacuate to higher ground yesterday as a storm system generated by the powerful cyclone that pummelled the north-east two days ago swept down the coast with heavy rain.

Cyclone Debbie hit as a category four storm in the north of tropical Queensland state on Tuesday, smashing tourist resorts, bringing down power lines, flattening canefields and shutting down coal mines.

Driving rain fell most heavily yesterday in hinterland and coastal areas either side of the state capital, Brisbane.

"This severe weather system that began with Cyclone Debbie and is tracking down the coast is causing havoc across our state," Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said.

The cyclone was downgraded to a tropical low depression on Wednesday but yesterday was driving squalls with torrential rain across a 1,200km stretch of Australia's east coast, swelling rivers, causing flash floods and prompting authorities to tell 40,000 people to evacuate.

In Lismore in the north of neighbouring New South Wales state, the State Emergency Service ordered 7,000 residents in low-lying areas to leave after forecasts predicted the town's worst flood in nearly 20 years.

A levee protects the rural hub in the Northern Rivers region of New South Wales, home to at least 25,000 people, but most of those downtown planned to seek higher ground, Geoff Baxter, a barman at the Richmond Hotel, told Reuters. "We're clearing out the pub, mate, and closing it up. All the shops got closed, everyone's clearing up their cellars," he said.

Further north, Queensland closed more than 2,000 schools as sustained heavy rainfall brought flash floods to the Gold Coast tourist area. In the cyclone-hit zone further north still, military helicopters, ferries and planes brought hundreds of holidaymakers stranded on resort islands in the storm's path to the mainland, where tens of thousands more people were without power.
China is planning to create a reserve for the giant panda which will be three times the size of Yellowstone National Park in the US.

The panda reserve will incorporate parts of three western provinces to provide an unbroken range for the endangered animals in which they can meet and mate, in the interests of enriching their gene pool.

Xinhua News Agency said about 170,000 people will have to be moved elsewhere to make way for the 10,476-square mile (27,134-square kilometre) reserve.

Giant pandas are China's unofficial national mascot and live mainly in the mountains of Sichuan, with some in neighbouring Gansu and Shaanxi provinces.

An estimated 1,864 pandas live in the wild, where they are threatened chiefly with habitat loss, with another 200 in captivity.
Technicians at the scene of the shootout in Anchorage, Kentucky (AP)

A man shot his girlfriend in the head then killed himself during a gunfight with police after a two-day, cross-state crime spree in which they allegedly stabbed an elderly widower to death and stole two cars and a gun, police have said.

Investigators from at least four jurisdictions are trying to piece together the series of events that left 18-year-old Destiny A Moneyhun and 25-year-old Bradley James Sheets dead in an overgrown field in Anchorage, Kentucky, a wealthy suburb of Louisville 100 miles from their home in Barren County.

In between, they allegedly stopped in Hardin County where police say they stabbed 74-year-old Lewis Hoskinson to death with a large knife and stole his car.

Police in Barren County started looking for them on Monday when a room-mate reported that his truck, his credit card and gun had been stolen, said Glasgow Police Captain Jennifer Arbogast.

They issued a state-wide bulletin asking police to look out for the two as suspects in the thefts, warning they should be considered armed, dangerous and possibly suicidal.

Police encountered them next on Tuesday night in Anchorage.

A resident reported a suspicious car parked at a dead-end gravel road leading to an overgrown field.

Officers with Anchorage Police Department checked the registration and found it registered to a man in Hardin County. They called the sheriff's office there and asked that they check on the owner.

Hardin County Chief Deputy David Lee said an officer was dispatched and looked through the window of the home, where Mr Hoskinson lived alone since his wife died.

The officer saw signs of foul play - the house had been ransacked - and called back-up. The deputies entered and discovered Mr Hoskinson's body. He had been stabbed with a large knife, Mr Lee said.

Ms Arbogast confirmed that the couple knew Mr Hoskinson, but she declined to say how.

"They knew this man. They knew him well," she said. "They knew the home and they had been there in the past."

Anchorage Police Officer Brian Taylor and Lieutenant Mark Hoskins, unaware that the body had been discovered linked to the stolen car parked in their town, began searching the area.

They came across Sheets and Moneyhun under a tree in the thick brush.

Louisville Metro Police Colonel Michael Sullivan, whose department is leading the investigation into the shooting, said Sheets took out a revolver and pointed it at the officers.

The police department released footage from a body camera worn by Officer Taylor during the confrontation.

It is difficult to see the suspects, but Mr Hoskins can be heard telling them to stand up, then Officer Taylor shouts: "He's got a gun, he's got a gun, he's got a gun."

Mr Hoskins shouts: "Put it down."

Mr Sullivan said Officer Taylor took cover, and Mr Hoskins fired at Sheets, who fell to the ground and dropped the gun. Mr Sullivan said Moneyhun picked the gun up from the ground and pointed it at police.

Mr Hoskins, in the video, screams again: "Put it down, put the gun down."

Four more shots ring out, and Mr Sullivan said Mr Hoskins fired at the woman. She dropped the gun.

Mr Sullivan said Sheets picked it up again, put it to Moneyhun's head and fired, killing her, then shot himself in the head.

He said the preliminary investigation suggests both were hit by the officer's gunfire, though they are believed to have died from the bullets fired by Sheets.

The entire exchange lasted only a few seconds.

Both officers remain on administrative leave while Louisville police complete the investigation.

Anchorage Police Chief Dean Hayes said it remains a mystery why Moneyhun and Sheets ended up in Anchorage, a quiet small town of just 2,300 people, 60 miles from the Hardin County home where the widower was found dead.

"There's a lot of emotion spread over those 60 miles," he said. "Between that crime scene down there, and the one here, our officers feel it, the community feels it."

AP
A judge in Hawaii handed the government its latest defeat by issuing a longer-lasting hold on Donald Trump's executive order (AP)

Donald Trump's administration has taken an appeal against the latest court ruling blocking his revised travel ban to the same court that refused to reinstate the original version.

US District Judge Derrick Watson in Hawaii handed the government its latest defeat by issuing a longer-lasting hold on the president's executive order.

Judge Watson's decision came after the Department of Justice argued for a narrower ruling covering only the ban on new visas for people from six Muslim-majority countries.

The department urged the judge to allow a freeze on the US refugee programme to go forward.

Government lawyer Chad Readler said halting the flow of refugees had no effect on Hawaii and the state has not shown how it is harmed by the ban. Judge Watson disagreed.

The administration says the executive order falls within the president's power to protect national security and will ultimately succeed, while Hawaii attorney general Douglas Chin likened the revised ban to a neon sign flashing "Muslim ban" that the government has not turned off.

Judge Watson said Hawaii has shown that the ban will harm the state's universities and tourism industry as well as the imam of a Honolulu mosque, who joined the lawsuit.

Ismail Elshikh said the ban would prevent his Syrian mother-in-law from visiting family in the US.

"These injuries have already occurred and will continue to occur if the executive order is implemented and enforced. The injuries are neither contingent nor speculative," the judge wrote.

Mr Chin said that a notable part of the ruling was that the court took into account 20 to 25 statements made by Mr Trump as a candidate and as president and by his surrogates.

"The court will not crawl into a corner, pull the shutters closed, and pretend it has not seen what it has," Judge Watson wrote.

The Department of Justice said it strongly disagrees with the ruling.

Government lawyers filed documents appealing against Judge Watson's decision to the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals, a move Mr Chin said he expected.

The judge said his ruling will stay in place until he orders otherwise and will not be suspended for an appeal.

The administration said in court documents that the appeal also applies to Judge Watson's previous temporary block of the travel ban.

The White House says Mr Trump's executive order is legal, necessary for national security and will ultimately be allowed to move forward, spokesman Sean Spicer said.

Judge Watson's indefinite hold is "just the latest step that will allow the administration to appeal", Mr Spicer said.

AP
RBR has so far invested almost half its 250m francs in assets to buy roughly 0.2pc of Credit Suisse, which it believes would be worth twice as much if the bank focused solely on wealth management and its Swiss business. (AP)

European authorities are investigating dozens of people suspected of tax evasion involving Swiss bank Credit Suisse, officials have said.

Dutch authorities said they had detained two people and seized assets including luxury cars, paintings and even a gold bar in the multi-country sweep.

Credit Suisse said local authorities had made "visits" to its offices in Amsterdam, Paris and London in connection with unspecified client tax issues.

Sources claimed the case involved Credit Suisse, but bank officials and authorities would not confirm any link to the investigations.

The operation, coming just days before Credit Suisse begins a programme of automatic information exchange with European countries, shines an international spotlight on a Swiss banking industry which has for years had a reputation as a haven of secrecy for tax evaders.

The Dutch tax administration said authorities detained two suspects and seized a gold bar, luxury cars, dozens of paintings, property, jewellery and bank accounts as well as data from thousands of account holders.

It said more actions are likely in the coming weeks.

Funds worth several million euro had been hidden from authorities, a statement said, adding that related investigations are under way in the UK, Australia, Germany and France.

The administration said: "Yesterday, during internationally coordinated operations, the FIOD (Dutch investigation body) searched houses of persons with undeclared savings and seized administrative records from the Swiss bank.

"The same operations were carried out in the other European countries and Australia.

"The suspects with undeclared savings in the above-mentioned countries all deposited their money in the same Swiss bank."

Credit Suisse said it is cooperating with authorities and emphasised its "strategy of full client tax compliance".

Bank officials declined to comment further.

Swiss banks have long been a focus of international efforts to clamp down on tax evasion and avoidance. Switzerland changed its rules on banking secrecy for foreigners after a US-led effort to crack down on tax cheats uncovered large-scale evasion assisted by Swiss banks.

In December, the Paris-based Financial Action Task Force said Switzerland had achieved "good results" in fighting money-laundering and terrorism financing, but called on it to strengthen its compliance controls, boost scrutiny on the use of cash and share information more with foreign authorities.

Sindy Schmiegel, a spokeswoman for the main Swiss bankers' association, SwissBanking, said: "Swiss banks won't accept untaxed assets, and don't want to manage them."

For the first time, Swiss banks in 2018 will start providing data on accounts to tax officials in countries abiding by Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development standards.

The Dutch tax authorities said current technology, greater international cooperation and the lifting of bank secrecy are making it easier for authorities to find tax evaders and their money.

The Dutch seizures included data from thousands of account holders, and raids were conducted in The Hague, Hoofddorp, Zwolle and Venlo.

UK tax authorities, meanwhile, said they launched a criminal investigation into suspected tax evasion that was focused on senior employees of the unspecified financial firm and a number of customers.

"The international reach of this investigation sends a clear message that there is no hiding place for those seeking to evade tax," HMRC said.

Authorities in Australia said they were investigating 346 Australians with links to Swiss banking relationship managers who are alleged to have "promoted and facilitated tax evasion schemes".

Kelly O'Dwyer, the country's minister for revenue and financial services, said the investigation showed that the Australians identified hold numbered accounts with a Swiss bank.

"The fact that these accounts are unnamed means that by their very nature they are likely to have been established to hide the identity of the owner," Ms O'Dwyer said.

"Unfortunately, there are still those who believe they can dodge from their tax obligations and avoid detection by government agencies."

AP
RNLI lifeboat and a rescue helicopter searching Barmouth Beach as two boys and a man are feared dead after they went missing off the Welsh coast in separate incidents

A rescue helicopter searches over Barmouth as two boys and a man are missing in the sea off the Welsh coast in separate incidents

Handout photo taken with permission from the Twitter feed of @huw_price of a rescue helicopter in the Yr Aran area of Snowdonia, as North Wales Police said that emergency services are at the scene of an incident involving a helicopter

Handout photo taken with permission from the Twitter feed of @crugfarmplants of smoke rising from a mountain in the Yr Aran area of Snowdonia, as North Wales Police said that emergency services are at the scene of an incident involving a helicopter

Vehicles parked outside the Llanberis Mountain Rescue station in the Snowdonia mountain range in north Wales (Image: Peter Byrne/PA Wire)

A vehicle parked outside the Llanberis Mountain Rescue station in the Snowdonia mountain range in north Wales (Image: Peter Byrne/PA Wire)

Vehicles parked outside the Llanberis Mountain Rescue station in the Snowdonia mountain range in north Wales (Image: Peter Byrne/PA Wire)

A footpath leading up the Snowdonia mountain range in north Wales where the search for theTwin Squirrel helicopter was focused early on Thursday (Image: Peter Byrne/PA Wire)

Ruth Burke, who died in the helicopter crash in Wales

Police release photo of crash location (Inset: Two of the victims, Ruth and Kevin Burke)

All five people who lost their lives in a tragic helicopter crash have been recovered, North Wales Police confirmed this evening.

The five passengers' identities were also confirmed with the families' consent as Kevin and Ruth Burke, aged 56 and 49, Donald and Sharon Burke, aged 55 and 48 respectively and 51-year-old Barry Burke.

All are from the greater Milton Keynes area. The family have strong Irish connections and were travelling from Milton Keynes to Dublin for a family Confirmation at the time of the crash on Wednesday evening.

The helicopter crashed into the Rhinog Mountains of Snowdonia.

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Whatsapp Police release photograph of the location of the helicopter crash to indicate how difficult conditions are in the area

Police have released a photo of the area taken before the crash, to show how difficult conditions are in the area.

North Wales Police Chief Inspector Richie Green paid tribute to the professionalism, bravery and skill of all those involved in the operation. "Shortly before 3.30pm this afternoon the last of the five who were on board the helicopter were recovered and they have now been transported to a local hospitals mortuary," he said.

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"Thames Valley Police Family Liaison Officers have informed family members and we can now begin the very difficult process of formal identification.

"Well continue to support the family and Id simply ask both media and public alike to respect their privacy at this time.

"Our thoughts remain with the extended family and their friends."

The team's recovery operation was hampered earlier today by what were described as "treacherous" weather conditions.

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Chief Inspector Green continued; "I would also like to thank the police officers and Mountain Rescue personnel not just for their dedication and skill in very trying conditions but also the dignified and compassionate manner in which the whole operation was conducted.

"Now all the bodies have been recovered the joint investigation with the Air Accident Investigation Board will begin in earnest to establish how this accident happened.

"Again with the familys consent we are sharing a photograph of the scene taken before the crash which gives some indication of the extremely difficult conditions we are working in."

"Until the helicopter is fully recovered the scene will remain cordoned and under Police & RAF guard so Id remind people to please keep away from the area.

"The temporary exclusion zone over the crash site with a height of 5500 foot above sea level remains in place but has been reduced to a 2 mile radius.

"Recovery of the helicopter will begin, weather permitting, this weekend and led by the AAIB whilst North Wales Police will prepare a file for HM Coroner and assist the AAIB investigation.

The police are still requesting any witnesses that may have been the wider area of the incident on Wednesday evening.

He said: "The time parameters have changed, we want to hear from witness who might have seen anything between midday and one o'clock on Wednesday 29th March in the Trawsfynydd area, specifically to that time and that area please."

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Tragedy

The family were travelling to Ireland for a confirmation when the tragedy happened.

A family spokesman said in a statement released to Milton Keynes Citizen: "Six children have lost their parents in this tragedy.

"At this stage, the family wants to be left alone to be able to deal with their grief over this terrible loss and concentrate upon looking after the children."

The Burke brothers were the sons of Donal and Noeleen Burke. Donal was a member of the De Burca family from the Kilcummin area on the North Mayo coast. He passed away three years ago.

Noeleen, who is in her 80s, is from Kimmage in Dublin.

Kevin Burke ran a successful construction firm, Staske Ltd, and the helicopter that crashed was owned by the firm. The couple have a 19-year-old daughter and a younger son.

Donald and Ruth are survived by a son and twin daughters. Barry is survived by his partner and one son.

A vastly experienced pilot, Kevin used the firm's helicopter to commute between the various development projects his firm undertook around the UK.

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A relative told this newspaper: "We were all a very close family. We're absolutely devastated.

"Kevin was a very experienced pilot. He never took chances. He was an excellent pilot and he had a lot of flight hours and he never took risks.

"They messaged me yesterday morning and they only decided to come when they checked the weather. The weather was supposedly OK, but it doesn't look like it was OK.

"We were all looking forward to seeing them. We're all devastated. They were lovely people and they were very family orientated. We were all very close."
Handout photo of Melissa Cochran (46) a victim of the Westminster terror attacks with her mother and father (background), whose family have released photos showing her defiant path to recovery in hospital. Photo: Clint Payne/PA Wire

Handout photo of Melissa Cochran, 46, a victim of the Westminster terror attacks, whose family have released photos showing her defiant path to recovery in hospital. Photo: Clint Payne/PA Wire

The family of an American victim of the Westminster terror attacks has released photos showing her defiant path to recovery in hospital.

Melissa Cochran (46) was shown smiling and standing with the aid of crutches in pictures released on the family's fundraising page with a caption that read: "Getting stronger every day."

A second picture of her smiling in bed while surrounded by relatives said: "Talking with loved ones at home is some of the best medicine."

Mrs Cochran, from Utah, lost her husband Kurt (54) during the Westminster terror attack on March 22.

The couple had been celebrating their 25th wedding anniversary in London when they sustained multiple injuries in Khalid Masood's lethal attack, which left five dead, including police officer Keith Palmer.

Mrs Cochran was taken to hospital after suffering a broken leg, rib and cut head after Masood drove into pedestrians on Westminster bridge before crashing into a fence at the western entrance to the Palace of Westminster.

That is where he stabbed Pc Palmer to death inside the Palace grounds.

Mr Cochran died from multiple injuries at the bridge scene.

Mrs Cochran's brother, Clint Payne, earlier this week said the days since the attack had been "humbling and difficult" for the family, but that it had been a "tender experience" for them to be together to support her.

Mr Payne said they took comfort from the idea that Mr Cochran focused on "the positive" things in life, saying: "Those of us who knew Kurt in life know that Kurt would not bear ill feelings towards anyone, and we can draw strength as a family from that.

"His whole life was an example of focusing on the positive, not pretending that negative things don't exist, but not living our life in the negative.

"And that's what we choose to do also."

The couple's GoFundMe page, created in the hours after Mrs Cochran arrived in hospital, has so far raised over 60,000, against an original target of 40,200.
Violent scenes involving dozens of men brandishing a range of weapons during a clash at a community centre have been described as "absolutely appalling" by police.

Video footage of the incident at the Bangladeshi Community Centre in Leeds in May 2015 was played at the city's Crown Court earlier this week as the prosecutions of more than 30 people involved in the clashes drew to a close.

In the footage released by West Yorkshire Police, one man - Shamin Hussain - can be seen attacking another man with a hammer.

Other weapons used in the violence at the centre in the Harehills district included iron bars, knives and chairs.

Police said 32 people have now been successfully prosecuted over the incident. Of these, six have received jail sentences, including Hussain.

Detective Superintendent Pat Twiggs, who led the investigation, said: "The scenes of violence witnessed that day at what was supposed to be an organised community meeting were absolutely appalling.

"Against a background of tensions around the centre's hierarchy, a large number of people went to the meeting intent on causing violence, with some having hidden weapons around the building ready to use.

"The meeting very swiftly descended into large-scale disorder, with a number of men attacking each other with weapons, including iron bars and knives, resulting in a number of injuries including serious head injuries."

Mr Twiggs said the local community police officer and his two police community support officer colleagues who were at the event found themselves "vastly outnumbered and in the midst of a really dangerous and intimidating situation that was completely unexpected".

The officer said: "Despite that, they did everything they could to protect people and restore order, and put themselves in between those who were fighting until other colleagues arrived.

"It was a really frightening situation for them to be faced with and one which illustrates quite clearly the risks officers can face as they work to protect our communities and keep people safe."

Mr Twiggs said: "This incident caused understandable concern in the community and also attracted a national focus which put Leeds in a negative light.

"West Yorkshire Police will not tolerate anyone who seeks to settle their differences with violence and will always take robust action against those who do.

"We hope the conclusion of this case will serve to reassure the community and provide a deterrent to those who think they can act outside of the law."
The German interior minister has accused Turkey of "provocation" in a growing row over spying.

Thomas de Maiziere said that any Turkish diplomats or officials who were found to have spied in Germany would be expelled from the country.

Several leading MPs said that did not go far enough and demanded a criminal investigation. But Mr de Maiziere suggested that Turkey may have deliberately exposed its own spying as an act of provocation.

There has been a public outcry since it emerged earlier this week that Turkish intelligence spied on hundreds of expatriate Turks living in Germany.

The case emerged after Turkish intelligence sent German authorities a list of 358 targets and requested assistance in monitoring them. Most of the targets were alleged supporters of Fethullah Gulen, the cleric Turkey accuses of being behind last year's failed coup attempt.

But it has since emerged that they also included the names of two German MPs.

Mr de Maiziere said Turkey could not seriously have expected German co-operation in spying against its own citizens.

"There may have been a plan behind it. We have to consider that. Provocation maybe," he told ZDF television.

Although there is no hard evidence of Turkish spying on German soil, there have "long been indications", Mr de Maiziere said. "Foreign information gathering through the intelligence services is one thing. But if they have spied behind our back with agents who are not registered that is intolerable," he said. The case has put renewed strain on relations between the two Nato allies.

There has been considerable anger in Germany at the arrest of Deniz Yucel, a German journalist, on charges of spreading "terrorist propaganda" with his reporting for 'Welt' newspaper.

The Turkish government has reacted furiously after several ministers were blocked from campaigning ahead of next month's referendum on wide-ranging new powers for President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Telegraph Media Group Limited [2022]
A transition period offered to Britain by the European Union in Brexit negotiating guidelines it issued on Friday is the only way to avoid the talks failing, an ally of German Chancellor Angela Merkel said.

In the guidelines, the EU offered Britain talks this year on a future free trade pact but made clear that London must first agree to the bloc's demands on the terms of Brexit.

The document, seen by Reuters, sets tough conditions for any transition period, insisting Britain must accept many EU rules after any such partial withdrawal.

Detlef Seif, the deputy EU spokesman for Merkel's conservative parliamentary bloc, said there were effectively only 15 months for the negotiations and this was insufficient time to wrap up Britain's exit from the bloc.

"Without transitional provisions, the negotiations would be doomed to failure from the start," Seif told Reuters.

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"The proposal provides the necessary room and flexibility to negotiate reasonably and to reach high-quality arrangements," he said of the guidelines, which may be revised before leaders of the remaining 27 EU states endorse them at an April 29 summit.

"The more access to the internal market Britain wants, the greater the trade-off and so the more Britain must submit to EU law," said Seif, warning Britain not to try to divide the bloc by negotiating with individual member states.

"Should this transpire, it would be the end of the EU's good behaviour and willingness to compromise, which can clearly be seen in the draft guidelines," he added.

Steffen Seibert, Merkel's spokesman, told reporters on Friday that negotiations about a future free trade deal between Britain and the EU could take place only after the contours of the Brexit divorce talks were clear.

Bavarian premier Horst Seehofer said it was important to quickly establish new parameters for trade with Britain, his state's third biggest European trading partner.

"We must establish a new basis for the relationship in the Brexit negotiations as quickly as possible, and do everything we can to avoid new trade barriers," he wrote in a commentary to be published next week in German magazine vbw-Unternehmermagazin.
Michael Flynn has a story to tell, his attorney said (AP)

Congressional investigators have rebuffed former US national security adviser Michael Flynn's offer of cooperation in exchange for immunity from prosecution.

Members of the Senate intelligence committee decided it is too early in their probe of Russia connections to discuss a deal.

President Donald Trump tweeted that Mr Flynn, his former adviser, should ask for immunity because he is facing "a witch hunt".

Mr Flynn's attorney said talks have taken place about immunity in order for him to testify. Intelligence committees in both the Senate and House are investigating Russia's meddling in the 2016 presidential election.

A congressional aide confirmed that preliminary discussions with the Senate intelligence committee involved immunity but that it was too early in the investigation to set terms.

Mr Trump weighed in on Friday, tweeting that Flynn "should ask for immunity in that this is a witch hunt (excuse for big election loss), by media & Dems, of historic proportion!"

It was unclear from that tweet whether he was advising the Justice Department or the congressional panels to give his former adviser immunity. The president is not supposed to direct ongoing investigations.

White House spokesman Sean Spicer said Mr Trump just wants Mr Flynn to testify, and there are no concerns that he could implicate the president in any wrongdoing.

The top Democrat on the House intelligence committee, Adam Schiff, of California, said committee leaders would be discussing the issue with their Senate counterparts and the Justice Department.

"We should first acknowledge what a grave and momentous step it is for a former national security adviser to the president of the United States to ask for immunity from prosecution," Mr Schiff said.

Mr Flynn's attorney Robert Kelner said no "reasonable person" who has a lawyer would answer questions without assurances that he would not be prosecuted, given calls from some members of Congress that the retired lieutenant general should face criminal charges.

"General Flynn certainly has a story to tell, and he very much wants to tell it, should the circumstances permit," Mr Kelner said on Thursday.

Mr Spicer said the president wants Mr Flynn to testify in front of the committees.

"He thinks he should go out and tell his story," Mr Spicer said on Friday.

Mr Flynn's ties to Russia have been scrutinised by the FBI and are under investigation by the congressional committees.

Both panels are looking into Russia's meddling in the election and any ties between Trump associates and the Kremlin.

Since July, the FBI has been conducting a counter-intelligence investigation into Russia's interference in the election and possible coordination with Trump associates.

In September, Mr Flynn weighed in on the implications of immunity on NBC's Meet The Press, criticising Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and her associates in the FBI's investigation into her use of a private email server.

"When you are given immunity, that means that you have probably committed a crime," Mr Flynn said during the interview.

A spokesman for Devin Nunes, the Republican chairman of the House intelligence committee, said the panel has not offered an immunity deal to Mr Flynn.

The committee "had a preliminary conversation with Michael Flynn's lawyer about arranging for Flynn to speak to the committee," spokesman Jack Langer said. "The discussions did not include immunity or other possible conditions for his appearance."

AP
The German finance minister noted that this was the first anti-dumping move by the new US administration

Germany's foreign minister has said the EU should consider filing a trade case against the US over Washington's decision to impose anti-dumping duties on steel imported from Europe.

Among the companies which would be affected by the tariffs are two German steelmakers, Salzgitter AG and Dillinger Huette.

Sigmar Gabriel said the US calculations contradicted World Trade Organisation rules and are intended to protect US steelmakers "by putting the better German steel industry at a disadvantage".

Mr Gabriel noted that it was the first anti-dumping procedure launched by the new US administration.

He called the American move unacceptable, and urged the EU to examine whether to file a WTO case.
President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump arrive in the East Room of the White House in Washington. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)

US President Donald Trump speaks during an event celebrating Womens History Month, in the White House. Photo: Getty

A U.S. judge on Friday approved a $25 million (23.38m) settlement to resolve a class action lawsuit that claimed fraud against President Donald Trump and his Trump University real estate seminars.

The ruling from U.S. District Judge Gonzalo Curiel in San Diego concluded a lengthy and contentious lawsuit that played a prominent role in the presidential campaign last year.

The Trump University students, who paid as much as $35,000 for the seminars, claimed they were lured by false promises that they would learn Trump's investing "secrets" from his "hand-picked" instructors.

One Trump University student objected to the deal, in particular a provision blocking students from opting out of it. She said in court papers she would like to seek full recovery from Trump, plus punitive damages and other relief.

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Whatsapp President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump arrive in the East Room of the White House in Washington. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)

An attorney for that student could not immediately be reached for comment.

During the campaign, Trump vowed to continue fighting the fraud claims but agreed to the settlement soon after he was elected. He has admitted he did not personally select the instructors, but his lawyers have described the claim as sales "puffery."

Last year, Trump accused Judge Curiel of bias based on the Indiana-born judge's Mexican ancestry.

In his ruling on Friday, Curiel called the $25 million settlement "extraordinary" in that it represented an estimated 80 percent recovery for the students.

"The amount offered in settlement provides significant and immediate recovery," Curiel wrote.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, right, and Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu visit the cave of Arctic Pilots Glacier in the remote Arctic islands of Franz Josef Land, Russia, yesterday. Photo: Reuters

Vladimir Putin personally ordered a campaign that amounted to "propaganda on steroids" as he sought to steal the presidential election from Hillary Clinton, US Senators have claimed.

Thousands of "cyber trolls" based in Russia were said to have pumped out "fake news" targeting voters in key states such as Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania, all of which Mr Trump won despite being behind in polls.

Kremlin-backed computer operatives even sought to influence Mr Trump himself, flooding his Twitter feed with conspiracy theories when they knew he was online, the Senate Intelligence Committee was told at its first public hearing in Washington.

Mr Putin issued his most emphatic denial so far, calling the accusations that he meddled in the US election "nonsense, endless, and groundless". He said: "Ronald Reagan was talking about taxes once and said 'Read my lips'... Read my lips - no."

The quote was in fact from George H W Bush.

Mark Warner, a Democratic senator who is vice-chairman of the Senate committee, said: "Vladimir Putin ordered a deliberate campaign carefully constructed to undermine our election. There were paid internet trolls working out of a facility in Russia.

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"This Russian 'propaganda on steroids' was designed to poison the national conversation in America."

On whether there were links between Russia and Mr Trump's campaign, Mr Warner said: "We are seeking to determine whether there is an actual fire, but there is a great, great deal of smoke."

Giving evidence Clint Watts, a former FBI agent, said: "Russia sought to sideline opponents on both sides of the political spectrum."

Mr Putin said he was ready to meet with Mr Trump and work with him to fight terrorism, and criticised what he called use of the "Russian card" in US politics.

Mr Warner and the panel's chairman, Republican Senator Richard Burr, provided an update on Wednesday of the committee's investigation into activities Russia might have taken to alter or influence the 2016 elections and whether there were any campaign contacts with Russian government officials that might have interfered with the election process.

"There were upwards of 1,000 paid internet trolls working out of a facility in Russia, in effect, taking over series of computers, which is then called a botnet," Mr Warner told reporters on Capitol Hill.

Meeting

But Mr Putin pointed to the fallout of the scandal in Washington as "proof" that Russia had not interfered in the election, saying that it had made it impossible to plan a meeting with Mr Trump.

"The president is barred from implementing his agenda on health care or international affairs, relations with Russia and we will wait till things stabilise," he told CNBC during a forum on Arctic development in the northern port town of Arkhangelsk.

"At a certain point of time it will come to a close and we will decide when and where the meeting is held," he added.

Earlier yesterday, the Russian foreign ministry hit out at claims one of its diplomats had been identified as a spy with a key role in the alleged influence campaign.

Mikhail Kalugin, the former head of the economic section at the Russian embassy in Washington, was first accused of being a Russian spy by Christopher Steele, a former British intelligence officer, in a dossier on alleged links between the Kremlin and Mr Trump's electoral campaign that was made public in January.

The BBC claimed on Wednesday that US intelligence agencies have now confirmed that Mr Kalugin is a member of the SVR or GRU, Russia's main overseas intelligence branches.

The claim is significant because none of the allegations in Mr Steele's 35-page dossier has yet been verified.

The Senate Intelligence Committee may call Mr Steele to testify about his claims at its hearings into the affair.

Meanwhile, Ivanka Trump said she will become an official unpaid federal employee after Democratic lawmakers said her previously unspecified role advising her father, Mr Trump, raised questions about how she would avoid conflicts of interest.

Telegraph Media Group Limited [2022]
The firm's offices in London were visited by officials

Credit Suisse has said its offices in London, Paris and Amsterdam have been visited by local authorities in connection with unspecified client tax issues.

The Swiss bank said the contacts took place a day earlier, and emphasised its "strategy of full client tax compliance".

It said Credit Suisse will next month start a programme of automatic information exchanges with European countries.

Credit Suisse spokeswoman Anna Sexton declined to comment further.

Swiss banks have long been a focus of international efforts to clamp down on tax evasion.

In December, the Paris-based Financial Action Task Force said Switzerland had achieved "good results" in fighting money-laundering and terrorism financing, but called on it to strengthen its compliance controls, boost scrutiny on the use of cash and share information more with foreign authorities.
Syria has been devastated by the ongoing civil war

The humanitarian benefits from funds raised for Syria at an upcoming aid conference require peace and stability to be effective, the head of the Red Cross and Red Crescent has said.

Elhadj As Sy, secretary-general of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), repeated his call for the warring sides in Syria's civil war to stop fighting after he returned from a third trip to the country, his first since last year.

A major conference in Brussels next week will set out plans to help the country rebuild once there is an end to the civil war, now in its seventh year.

The IFRC said Mr Sy visited Homs and Damascus during the two-day visit, meeting foreign minister Walid Moallem in the capital.

Meanwhile, the UN's Palestinian relief agency said Syria's Palestinian refugee population has fallen by a fifth since the start of the conflict in 2011.

UNRWA director Pierre Kraehenbuehl said there are 440,000 refugees in Syria, compared to 560,000 in the country before the war.

Many of those still in Syria have been displaced by the conflict.

For them, it is the second time they or their families have been forced out of their homes, after being displaced from Palestinian lands by Israeli forces last century.

"Displacement is a very difficult experience, to lose another home, to lose another place of residence," said Mr Kraehenbuehl, who was wrapping up a five-day tour of UNRWA operations in Syria.

Palestinian camps in Damascus and Aleppo, Syria's largest city, have been destroyed.
Malaysia's foreign minister Anifah Aman with the nine Malaysians who were returned from Pyongyang (AP)

Three North Koreans who have been hiding out in their country's embassy in Malaysia for weeks have been allowed to fly home after investigators cleared them of wrongdoing in the death of Kim Jong Nam.

The move came after Malaysia and North Korea struck a deal this week to end a diplomatic stand-off over the February 13 murder of Kim Jong Nam, the estranged half-brother of North Korean ruler Kim Jong Un.

Although details of what led to the agreement were not released, it gave North Korea custody of Mr Kim's body and allowed Malaysia to question the three men who were hiding in the embassy.

Earlier this month, Malaysian national police chief Khalid Abu Bakar hinted that the men had valuable intelligence, adding that he would wait to question them, "even if it takes five years".

But on Friday, in the wake of the larger political deal with North Korea, Mr Khalid said authorities recorded statements from the men and then released them.

"We have obtained whatever we wanted from them," Mr Khalid told reporters. "We have allowed them to go."

It is an abrupt turnaround in a bizarre case which is part diplomatic drama, part murder mystery.

Investigators say Kim Jong Nam, who was in his 40s, was poisoned at Kuala Lumpur airport by two young women wielding VX nerve agent, a banned chemical weapon.

Although Malaysia has never directly accused North Korea of carrying out the attack, speculation is rampant that it orchestrated a hit on a long-exiled member of its ruling elite.

Malaysian investigators had said they wanted to question seven North Koreans in the case: four men who left the country on the day of the attack, and the three who were holed up inside the North Korean embassy in Kuala Lumpur.

The three men who were hiding in the embassy - including an embassy official and a North Korean airline worker - flew to Beijing on Thursday, where they were subsequently seen at the airport, presumably on their way home.

"(The) investigation into the murder is still ongoing," Mr Khalid said.

"We are still hoping the North Korea authorities will hand over to us the four North Korean suspects we have named earlier on."

This is highly unlikely. North Korea has denied having anything to do with the killing and has slammed Malaysia's investigation as flawed and politically motivated.

North Korea has not even publicly acknowledged that the victim was, in fact, Kim Jong Nam. Instead, it refers to him as Kim Chol, the name on the passport he was carrying at the time of his death.

Mr Khalid said he is "sure they know very well" who the man really is. He said that on the day the victim died, the North Korean Embassy identified him as Kim Jong Nam before insisting he was Kim Chol the next day.

The police chief added that Malaysia released Kim Jong Nam's body after receiving a request from his next of kin. Without specifying exactly who sent the letter, Mr Khalid said: "Legally speaking, Kim Jong Un is the next of kin."

Kim Jong Nam had three children with two women in Macau and mainland China.

Thursday's political deal also secured the release of ordinary citizens who had been caught up in the diplomatic fight.

North Korea was so enraged by Malaysia's investigation that it announced earlier this month that Malaysians could not leave North Korea. Malaysia responded in kind, with an exit ban of its own targeting North Koreans.

Those bans have now been lifted, and the nine Malaysians held in North Korea have now returned home.

AP
Donald Trump took to Twitter to attack the conservative Freedom Caucus group (AP)

US president Donald Trump is poised to sign two executive orders aimed at cracking down on trade abuses.

The orders come a week before Mr Trump hosts Chinese president Xi Jinping at his estate in Florida, and follows tough election campaign rhetoric in which the man who became US leader said he would name China as a currency manipulator.

The US has its highest trade deficit with China, at 347 billion dollars (278 billion) last year.

Peter Navarro, director of the White House National Trade Council, insisted the orders had nothing to do with the visit and were not an attempt to send a message to China.

He told reporters: "Nothing we're saying tonight is about China. Let's not make this a China story. This is a story about trade abuses, this is a story about an under-collection of duties."

The first of the two orders Mr Trump will sign calls for completion of a large-scale report to identify "every form of trade abuse and every non-reciprocal practice that now contributes to the US trade deficit," said commerce secretary Wilbur Ross.

Officials will have 90 days to produce a country-by-country, product-by-product report which will serve as the basis of future decision-making by the administration on trade-related issues.

"It will demonstrate the administration's intention not to hip-shoot, not to do anything casual, not to do anything abruptly, but to take a very measured and analytical approach, both to analysing the problem and therefore to developing the solutions for it," he said, describing the report as the first of its kind.

While Mr Trump has long argued that trade deficits imperil US workers, Mr Ross cautioned that they are not necessarily all bad.

In some cases, for instance, the US simply cannot produce enough of some things to meet domestic demand. In others, foreign countries may make products substantially cheaper or better than in the US.

Deficits in trade can also mean that foreign countries and entities are investing in US assets.

Mr Ross argued that the US has the lowest tariff rates of any developed country.

The report, he said, will examine whether deficits are being driven by things like cheating, specific trade obligations, lax enforcement and World Trade Organisation rules.

Mr Ross said the report would not focus extensively on currency manipulation, which is under the purview of the US Treasury Department, despite Mr Trump's bullish campaign rhetoric.

The second order will focus on stepping up the collection of anti-dumping and countervailing duties, which are levied against foreign governments what subsidise products so they can be sold below cost.

Mr Navarro said the US is leaving billions of dollars on the table as a result of lax enforcement of commitments in trade pacts.

The order will establish more effective bonding requirements, among other measures.

Mr Trump tweeted on Thursday evening that his first meeting with the Chinese leader would "be a very difficult one in that we can no longer have massive trade deficits ... and job losses."

He also wrote: "American companies must be prepared to look at other alternatives."

The US trade deficit totalled 502.3 billion dollars (403 billion) last year, a slight increase from 2015, according to the commerce department.

The trade gap rose to its highest level since 2012 last year, though the imbalance remains below its 2006 high, shortly before the financial crisis struck.

Mr Trump has portrayed trade deficits as strangling economic growth and devastating factory jobs at home.

Research last year by academic economists, including David Autor of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, found that China's emergence has hurt some communities and they have yet to fully recover.

But foreign trade has also helped reduce prices for clothing, cars and furniture, among other items, which has created savings for US consumers.

While economists concede the benefits of trade can be uneven, they argue the job losses which Mr Trump blames on trade pacts can largely be attributed to automation.

A study released this week by the National Bureau of Economic Research estimates that robots account for up to 670,000 lost factory jobs between 1990 and 2007.

Both exports abroad and imports into the United States fell in 2016, but exports declined by a greater sum in part due to a stronger dollar making American-made goods and services more expensive overseas.
Rhode Island voters will head to the polls Tuesday to choose the first new face to represent the state's 2nd congressional district in 20 years as leading candidates Seth Magaziner and Allan Fung vie to replace the retiring James Langevin, who has served in the role since 2001. The tightly-contested congressional race is just one of a number of important contests taking place Tuesday as the state will also select its next Governor, voters will decide the fate of a number of high-priced ballot initiatives and towns up and down Rhode Island select their local officials in a number of highly-divisive and politicized town council and school committee races. Do you believe the results of this years election will make a positive or negative impact on your community? Let us know in this week's poll question below.

You voted:
Visakhapatnam, often abbreviated to Vizag, is a coastal port city in the state of Andhra Pradesh. It is located in the northeastern part of the state, nestled between the hills of the Eastern Ghats and the Bay of Bengal.

Known for its beautiful landscape and golden beaches, the city is also called Jewel of the East coast and Goa of the East.

Visakhapatnam is the administrative headquarters of Visakhapatnam district. With a population of 4.29 million, it is the largest city in Andhra Pradesh. It is also home to the Eastern Naval Command of the Indian Navy.

Once a small fishing hamlet, Visakhapatnam has seen rapid development in the past few years. It is now a fully developed port city and a major industrial town in south India.

Transport

Visakhapatnam is strategically located on the eastern coast of India and serves as the gateway to East and Southeast Asian economies. Its transport system is well developed and includes a well-connected road, rail, water, and air network.

Visakhapatnam has two ports: Visakhapatnam Port (opened in 1933) and Gangavaram Port (opened in 2008). While Gangavaram port is the deepest port in the country, Visakhapatnam port is one of the busiest ports in India. It has the ability to handle large international vessels and takes care of all strategic operations through sea transport.

A new satellite port is also being developed at Bhimli, which is 12.42 miles away from Visakhapatnam port.

National highway (NH) number 5, part of Golden quadrilateral system of the Indian highway network, connects Visakhapatnam to the major cities on the eastern coast. The city railway system ensures connectivity to metro cities like Delhi, Jaipur, Chennai, Indore, Coimbatore, and Hyderabad.

Port sector

Visakhapatnam is an arterial port connecting manufacturing hubs and industrial clusters across the region. It is among the 13 major seaports in India and is the second largest seaport in Andhra Pradesh, in terms of annual traffic.

Visakhapatnam is an all-weather, landlocked and protected port, meaning it is encircled by land with an opening to the sea. It houses the countrys biggest ship-building and ship-repair industry.

Key exports from Vizag comprise of: iron ore (especially from Bailadila mines to Japan), manganese ore, spices, and wood. Primary imports include mineral oil, coal, luxury items, and other industrial products.

The hinterland of Visakhapatnam port constitutes an approximate area of 1.31 lakh square miles (3.4 lakh sq. km) that includes Andhra Pradesh and the adjoining mineral rich areas of Odisha, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, and Karnataka states.

According to the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), the federal government has recently invested over US$925 million (Rs 6,000 crore) in further developing the Visakhapatnam port. Additionally, coastal economic zones are being developed to reduce logistics cost under the Sagarmala project.

Industrial hub

Visakhapatnam is a thriving industrial city. Endowed with rich mineral reserves in its hinterland, well developed means of transport, telecommunications, and infrastructure facilities, the city offers unlimited potential for industrial growth.

In the 1970s and 80s, Visakhapatnam grew rapidly following major investments in state owned industries such as the Hindustan Shipyard Limited, Hindustan Petroleum Corporation, Visakhapatnam Steel Plant, Hindustan Zinc Plant, and a host of other ancillary industries. At present, it is home to many heavy industries such as GAIL, HPCL, BHEL, Dredging Corporation of India, Coromandel Fertilizers, RINL and LG Polymers, Reliance, Brandix, Essar Pellet Plant, among others.

There are several Special Economic Zones and industrial parks in Visakhapatnam, namely the Visakhapatnam Special Economic Zone (VSEZ) that started operations in 1989, Andhra Pradesh Industrial Infrastructure Corporation (APIIC), Aganampudi Industrial Park, Visakha Dairy, JNPC, Brandix Apparel City etc.

Exports from VSEZ stood at a whopping US$8.8 billion (Rs 57,134 crore) during 2015-16, up from US$6.9 billion (Rs 44,999 crore) in the previous year, mirroring an increase of 27 percent.

Emerging IT sector

Visakhapatnam is soon to be the information technology (IT) and innovation hub of Andhra Pradesh. The state government is committed to promoting IT growth through the development of IT economic zones and incubation centers. New state initiatives include development of a mega IT hub at Madhurawada IT Park Hill and Sunrise Start-up Village at Rushikonda.

Visakhapatnam is home to several institutes and R&D centers. Its cosmopolitan culture along with the availability of large, highly skilled, and accessible workforce has attracted many IT companies to the region. Some of them are HSBC, IBM, Sutherland, Wipro, Tech Mahindra, HSBC, and Concentrix.

The IT sector in Vizag registered a turnover of approximately US$308 million (Rs 2000 crore) during the financial year 2015-16 and employed over 19,000 people. Software exports from the city stood at US$1.83 billion (Rs 11,875crore) in the year 2015-16.

Investment prospects

Visakhapatnam is endowed with natural advantages like the availability of large mineral reserves, a long coastline, and deep draft ports that enable linkages with major markets in Southeast Asia.

Excellent government support, accelerated industrialization in the region, access to skilled workforce, agglomeration of cargo from distant hinterland centers, and increased connectivity continue to create ample opportunities for businesses in the region.
New Delhi, Mar 31 (IBNS) They had not met each other before and knew little about each otheras culture when they started off. But soon, surprise was replaced with respect, impatience with empathy and the outcome: The Magic Diary.

They had not met each other before and knew little about each others culture when they started off. But soon, surprise was replaced with respect, impatience with empathy and the outcome: A Pocketful of Dreams.



Well, it all began with a unique initiative of storytelling, spearheaded and curated by an Indian, Jayalasksmi Sengupta, a New Delhi based journalist and editor in a publishing house, who says the journey of the storytellers of "The Magic Diary" project, which started in June 2015, is a remarkable one.



"When 35 students of us from a writing course came together to form a global storytelling community over cyberspace, we had no idea we about to start a movement: a unique collaborative adventure of unifying people across all boundaries," says Sengupta, Project Designer and Curator.



Over a period of time, the group expanded to include 15 more eager writers, some veteran authors as well, to produce a collection of their work in three volumes, as e-books on Amazon. The profit from sales has been pledged to promote literacy across the developing nations. We wanted to create awareness of the fact that despite all man-made boundaries we are all one and can work together meaningfully towards the benefitting others, says Sengupta.





Today, the Magic Diary project stands for this unifying spirit. The spark that started with a handful of storytellers, who trusted in a dream is a glorious success today. The project has been recognised as a heart-warming peoples project by several illustrious people since then. Tim Wilson, honourable MP and former Human Rights Commissioner from Australia congratulated the team for their effort. Dr Denise Comer from Duke University has likewise supported the initiative. Several writers were her students from a writing course that she had conducted.



According to Sengupta they are a lucky generation that saw the huge wide world shrink into a global village and, thanks to the many significant inventions found learning more fun than ever. "We know we are a privileged lot, and so our foremost gratitude goes to those who helped us come together, work together, and in the end made our voice heard all over cyberspace."



The project that shaped up over two years has been an intensively interactive and participative project where all members contributed to its build up in some ways or the other. They lend their expertise, their valuable time, and more importantly their unstinted support to create magic out of a nebulous idea.



Since the project was inspired by the structure of a massive open online courses (MOOC), it was designed meticulously on those lines with utmost care given to the process of peer learning and reviewing. Every idea, article, and story in this book was discussed with suggestions to rewrite them before the final submission was made.



This collaborative effort saw participation from all over the world. A remarkable artist, Pat Southern-Pearce from UK created the covers. The representative countries include USA, Canada, Russia, England, Ireland, Scotland, Italy, France, Belgium, Hungary, Denmark Armenia, Romania, Russia, Iran, Morocco, Zambia, Egypt, South Africa, Mauritius, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Singapore, Indonesia, Vietnam, Australia, China and Japan.



"Over the months that we worked together, deliberating, planning, writing, and rewriting, we progressed and grew not just as writers, and professionals, but also as good friends, respectful of our differences," says Sengupta.





"The Magic Diary was conceived as a timeless journey through the world. It stands as an example of positive, healing, creative force that can move mountains," says Sengupta. Nurtured in an environment of gratitude and encouragement, the Magic Diary project is a rare example of universal brotherhood and a roadmap to world cooperation. The growing community looks forward to taking this constructive, transcontinental movement forward and spreading the loving energy of creative harmony.



The website: https://magicdiary2017.wordpress.com/
New York, Mar 31 (Just Earth News): On what he called a avisit of solidaritya with Iraq, Secretary-General AntAnio Guterres on Thursday welcomed the commitment of the countryas leaders to civilian protection and national dialogue, and pledged the ongoing support of the United Nations as the Government seeks to bolster aid delivery to needy populations and rebuild Iraq institutions.



This is a visit of solidarity with the Iraqi people; solidarity with Iraqi Government and institutions; solidarity in what I believe is an historic moment for Iraq, the Secretary-General said during a press encounter in Baghdad, with Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi.



Noting that Iraq is in the final stages of its fight against terrorism, Guterres said the UN is strongly hopeful that the liberation of Mosul form the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL/Daesh) will soon be complete.



At the same time, I was extremely encouraged by the commitment expressed by the Prime Minister, both in relation to the protection of civilians, in the conduct of the operations and the full respect of international humanitarian law, said the UN chief.



He said he was also encouraged by the Iraqi leaders commitment to a national dialogue and an effective process of reconciliation. This, he said, would allow after the liberation of Mosul for Iraq to progressively create the conditions for, a normal life of a State; a State in which all communities can feel they belong; a State in which all communities respect each other and reconciliation becomes something natural.



Guterres went on to express the total support of the UN to the Iraqi Governments efforts in humanitarian aid to the populations that have been affected by terrorism. At the same time, he appealed to the international community to support Iraq both in relation to the relief to the victims but also in relation to the stabilization, reconstruction and build-up of national institutions.



As for his talks with the Prime Minister, the Secretary-General said the two felt it was important that the Daesh is held accountable for the crimes committed by the terrorist group.



Those crimes need to be well known, need to be punished, he said, stressing that it is important that the international community is fully of the terrible sacrifices of all the populations of Iraq Sunni and Shia, Muslims and Christians  that were victims of the cruelty of Daesh. This is something that needs to be known and that needs to find the adequate mechanism of effective accountability.



The UN chief said the worlds young people must understand that terrorism is not the way to express their anger [] even if in some moments they might be angry or anxious in relation to the events that take place. Indeed, the fight against terrorism must be accompanied by the fight to tackle its root causes, and by making it very clear the horrendous nature of the crimes committed by organizations like Daesh.



the Secretary-General expressed to the Prime Minister, his total solidarity, and our total commitment to work together with your Government. Iraqs leaders have a very important task ahead with the full liberation of the country and with the full reconciliation of Iraqis for a future of democracy and prosperity.



While in Baghdad, he also met with the Iraqi President, Foreign Minister and Speaker of the Parliament, before heading later in the day to Erbil. Guterres has been in the region since Monday, when he began his visit in Jordan. Yesterday, he addressed the Summit of the League of Arab States.



UN Photo











Source: www.justearthnews.com




New York, Apr 1 (Just Earth News): Highlighting the lack of resources for United Nations programmes assisting those displaced by the fighting in Iraq's Mosul Secretary-General AntAnio Guterres urged the international community to do more to help the people who have asuffered enormously and go on suffering.

This is a moment in which the Iraqi people [and] the people of Mosul need the solidarity of the international community, Guterres told the press at the Hassan Sham camp, located about 30 kilometres east of Mosul.

Solidarity with those liberating Mosul [and] with the civilians who are suffering [] to guarantee protection of those civilians and, at the same time, solidarity with the victims and creating the conditions for reconciliation, he added.

In his remarks, he also drew attention to the severe lack of funding for UN programmes assisting the displaced. Currently, the funding stands at eight per cent.

[This] shows how limited our resources are compared to the tragedy these people are facing, noted the UN chief.

According to estimates, there are about 11 million people in need of humanitarian assistance in the country. Of this figure, about three million are internally displaced. In Mosul, more than 285,000 individuals have been displaced due to the military operations to retake the city from Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL/Da'esh) terrorists, including some 122,000 over the past month. Cumulatively, more than 350,000 individuals have been displaced since the operations began on 17 October 2016.

Guterres further spoke of efforts by the regional government of Kurdistan as well as by non-governmental organizations and stressed that international solidarity is vital to improve the conditions of those affected as well as to create conditions for reconciliation within the communities and at the national level once Mosul is fully liberated.

Also highlighting that terrorism is a global threat and terrorist groups are interlinked, greater support from the international community was in everyone's interest.

Because the terrorist threats we see in Mosul are the same as the terrorist threat we see everywhere in the world, he said.

Mosul tops UN migration agency's funding appeal for Iraq

The United Nations migration agency on Friday called for $76.3 million in its IOM-Iraq 2017 Funding Appeal. About $28.8 million, or 38 per cent, will be allocated for the Mosul Crisis Response for the first six months of this year.

The funding will go for camp coordination and management, health, protection, emergency livelihoods and related services.

In on Friday's announcement, IOM noted that displaced Iraqis live in shelter which are inadequate for the harsh winters and summer weather conditions that vary by more than 50-degrees in temperature.

Photo: UNAMI

Source: www.justearthnews.com
The Kerala Governmemt state issued a notification for the implementation of the EWS quota on October 23, 2020
The gorgeous Shilpa Shetty is headed to Sri Lanka for work with husband Raj Kundra.

"Headed to Sri Lanka on a work commitment. Always nice to have Raj Kundra along. Work with pleasure, travel diaries, family first," the actress-entrepreneur posted on her social media accounts on Thursday.

Headed to SriLanka on a work commitment:) always nice to have @rajkundra9 along #workwithpleasure #traveldiaries #familyfirst A post shared by Shilpa Shetty Kundra (@officialshilpashetty) on Mar 30, 2017 at 1:45am PDT

The 41-year-old posted an image of herself and Kundra on Instagram and Twitter. They are seen in casual denims and are walking side by side with an airport entrance in the backdrop.
PDS board approves interim dividend of Rs2.50 per share PDS Limited has informed that the Board of Directors of the Company on Monday has approved an Interim Dividend of Rd2.50 per share. The Company adopted a dividend distribution policy... November 07, 2022 | 07-11-2022 3:10 pm

Rajesh Exports incorporates 100% subsidiary ACC Energy Storage; Stock climbs 2% Rajesh Exports Ltd. has announced that it is foraying into Advanced Technology Solutions with a focus on Energy Storage Solutions. REL has been selected by the Government Of India as one ... November 07, 2022 | 07-11-2022 2:42 pm

Markets under selling pressure with Nifty around 18,100-levels Domestic benchmark indices trading mixed after a gap-up opening on Monday. Both the Sensex and Nifty benchmarks are marginally lower in the afternoon market session. On the sectoral front... November 07, 2022 | 07-11-2022 2:00 pm

Rupee rises 23 paise to 82.12/ $ Early on Monday, the rupee strengthened versus the US dollar by 23 paise to 82.12 amid rising local stocks and falling oil prices. The native currency rose 23 paise from its previous close to t... November 07, 2022 | 07-11-2022 1:20 pm

Cineline India opens 5-Screen multiplex, MovieMAX in Mumbai; Stock jumps 3% Cineline India Limited stocks in the fast lane after announcement of opening of 5-Screen multiplex at Sarvodaya Mall Kalyan, Mumbai. In a regulatory filing, the company informed the ... November 07, 2022 | 07-11-2022 12:47 pm
Indrani Das, an Indian-American teen, won the oldest most prestigious science and math high school competition in the US, bagging a whopping $250,000, for her research on preventing death from brain injuries or neurodegenerative diseases.

twitter.com/Deepika Kurup

As reported by Times of India, Indrani was one of the five Indian Americans out of the top ten qualifiers in the country. It also highlighted a previous report by the National Foundation for American Policy, which revealed that more than a staggering 80 percent of United States' Top High School Science Students have immigrant parents!

Is it just coincidence or do immigrants have an edge when it comes to excelling in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM)?

A recent study published in the journal Demography helps shed some light on this phenomenon as published in npr.org. It reveals the reasoning for why immigrants chose the occupations they do.

Economist, Marcos Rangel, of Duke University and his co-author, Marigee Bacolod of the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School analysed data of young adults who arrived in the U.S. before the age of 18.

kvpr.org

The data looks at the skill requirement for varied occupations, such as physical strength, communication skills, social skills, math, and reasoning. They also got a glimpse into the majors that people who went into college chose.

Heres how the immigrants being studied were classified:

They divided the immigrants that were being reviewed in two ways, as they believed these factors had a profound impact on someones ability to become proficient in a second language.

1. Immigrants that arrived before the age 10.

2. Immigrants whose native language was closer to English, like say German.

twitter.com/Geeta Goindi

Heres what study revealed:

 Immigrants, in general, were more likely to choose jobs that required more physical strength, which is indicative of the lack of access to higher education.

 They were also more likely to chose jobs that require logic or social or emotional skills, rather than communication skills.

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 Immigrants who came from more linguistically distinct places, like Vietnamese, were more like to major in a STEM field.

 Academically motivated students would rather excel quickly in a universal language such as mathematics, rather than play catch-up in an English class, states Rangel.

In fact, Rangel who himself hails from Brazil and came here as a young father of two, states that his older kid who was already 5 years old (already reading Portuguese), compared to his younger kid who attended Pre-K in English in the U.S., is more inclined to excelling in Math.

siiscanada.com

He also states that although cultural values also impact an immigrants career choice, the study focuses on the larger reasoning behind the choices immigrants make regarding the picking up and developing certain skills and talents abroad.
For an able bodied person, losing the ability to walk because of an accident can come as a shock and changes the way they live their lives. And while people have family and friends to seek support from, animals don't. Derrick Campana of Animal Ortho care has taken upon himself to help them.

He started out making orthotics for people, but then turned his attention to animals. He has fashioned prosthetic limbs for animals like elephants, horses and even dogs.

1. Angel Marie, a three-legged mini horse who wears a prosthetic leg made by Derrick Campana of Animal Ortho Care, looks up from her feeding bowl during a visit in Sterling, Virginia.

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2. Hudson, a pitbull mix with an amputated paw, wears a prosthetic paw.

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3. Various molds for animal prosthetics made by Derrick sit upon a shelf at their facility.

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4. Campana kneels beside Angel Marie, a three legged mini horse who wears a prosthetic leg made by him.

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5. The team works to find a solution for Beauty, a goat who cannot stand on her permanently damaged legs.

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6. Helping an animal with disability is a long process.

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7. The prosthetic leg made by Campana for Angel Marie, the three-legged mini horse, sits atop a bale of hay.

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8. A mold for a prosthetic leg he made for a Thai elephant who lost a limb to a landmine at Campana's facility.

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9. Kenna, a three year-old golden retriever born without a front paw, wears a prosthetic paw.

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10. Owner Lennie Green of Industry Maine puts a prosthetic leg on Angel Marie.

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11. Campana holds the prosthetic paw he made for Kenna, a three year-old golden retriever.

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12. Hudson, a pitbull mix with an amputated paw, wears a prosthetic paw.

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13. Campana holds the mold for a prosthetic leg he made for a Thai elephant who lost a limb to a landmine.

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With sensitive defence airstrips often blocked by schedule carriers' planes that get stuck there due to technical reasons for several hours, the Indian Air Force (IAF) has asked airlines to station aircraft removal kits and trained personnel to operate them at its airports.

BCCL

If airlines fail to do so, IAF has warned that their permission to operate flights to IAF airports like Jammu, Srinagar, Pune and Chandigarh could be cancelled this summer.

Schedule Indian carriers operate regular flights to about 20 defence airfields that have a civil enclave or passenger terminal. These include IAF bases like Gorakhpur, Allahabad and Bikaner, and Naval bases like Goa's Dabolim and Vishakhapatnam.

BCCL

All these airports have only one runway. If a plane gets stuck, the forces can't operate their fighter jets  something that has security implications. For instance, last summer an A-320 remained stuck at the ultra critical Srinagar airport for almost two days after its tyres burst on landing there.

The Navy has also decided to allow on a trial basis 15 aircraft per hour, up from 12, during peak period of 12.30 pm to 3.30 pm at its Dabolim base in Goa.
The Gujarat State Assembly, today, cleared the amended law for cow slaughter confirming life term as punishment for those found guilty. Under the previous law, the maximum punishment was seven years. Read more

AP

Here are five more must-read stories of the day:

1) Mexican Judge Clears Man Of Minor Rape Case Saying 'He Didn't Satisfy His Sexual Appetite'

A Mexican Judge cleared charges against a wealthy man for sexually abusing a minor on the grounds that the assault did not satisfy him sexually. The ruling caused a massive outrage in Mexico, who saw this is just another case of an exemption for wealthy men. Read more

2) Banned Shiv Sena MP Tried To Cheat Air India By Flying With Other Names, But Failed Thrice

Shiv Sena MP Ravindra Gaikwad, who has been barred from flying by domestic airlines and booked by police for assaulting an Air India staffer, has tried at least thrice to book a seat on the national carrier, using a new alias each time. Read more

3) Uber Index Reveals That Most Of Bengaluru People Forget Their Stuff In Cabs, Delhiites Are Next

REUTERS If you are asked about what are the most common things that customers have left behind in Uber cabs in India, you would say wallets, rings, phones, etc. However, the according to the list that the ride-hailing app released, there are a few uncommon entries like puppies and a cheque for Rs 15 Lakh. Read more





4) UP Cops Follow CM Yogi's Order, Reach Office Early And Clean Police Station Themselves





PTI With Uttar Pradesh chief minister Adityanath Yogi's order to clean up the state on the lines on nationwide campaign 'Swachh Bharat' has made the policemen in Lucknow clean the police stations all by themselves. Read more





5) UP School Warden Allegedly Strips 70 Girls To Check Menstrual Blood, Govt Orders Probe




Days after Mangal Prabhat Lodha, a Bharatiya Janata Party MLA from Mumbai demanded the demolition of Jinnah House in Mumbai, Pakistan has demanded that the former residence of Muhammad Ali Jinnah should be handed over to the country.

BCCL

Reacting to Lodha's demand, Pakistan Foreign Office spokesperson Nafees Zakaria termed it as "absurd".

He said, Jinnah House in Mumbai was a property of Pakistans founding father and hence the historic building should be handed over to Pakistan.

BCCL

Zakaria said Pakistan had repeatedly expressed its desire to take possession of the property.

The government of India should respect the ownership rights of the government of Pakistan in this regard. We also expect that the Indian government will fulfil its obligation of protecting that property and its upkeep.

BCCL

He further added that Pakistan has already taken up the issue with Indian authorities. He added that India "promised" it will hand over the prime South Mumbai (Malabar Hill) property but has "not fulfilled its commitment as yet."

The historic European-style building was designed by architect Claude Batley, construction for which commenced in 1936.

BCCL

The property is currently in the possession of the Ministry of External Affairs and there has been a long-standing proposal to set up a South Asian Centre for Arts and Culture within the premises.

According to the Enemy Property (Amendment and Validation) Bill, 2016, which was passed by the parliament recently, successors of those who had migrated to Pakistan and China during partition will have no claim over the properties left behind in India.
With Uttar Pradesh chief minister Adityanath Yogi's order to clean up the state on the lines on nationwide campaign 'Swachh Bharat' has made the policemen in Lucknow clean the police stations all by themselves.

PTI

The policemen, armed with brooms, took suo moto of the cleaning process in a police station in Lucknow. The Chief Minister had issued an order asking the Uttar Pradesh Police to run a cleanliness drive at all police stations and police lines every Friday.

PTI

The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Uttar Pradesh had laid special focus on cleanliness in its manifesto in the run-up to the assembly elections.

The 'Swachh Bharat' mission was initiated by Prime Minister Modi earlier in 2014 after the BJP formed government at the Centre.
The world may have forgotten the ongoing immigrant strife, but forgetting was never a solution. An issue will continue to be an issue until it's fought and this is what a Muslim immigrant will do.

A pulmonologist born in Pakistan, Dr Asif Mahmood will now run for California lieutenant governor and fight the Trump's hate.

He recently made it public that he will run for California lieutenant governor joining the 2018 race, on a platform of saving the Affordable Care Act.

Dr. Asif Mahmood hopes to be the first Muslim elected to statewide office in CA. The physician from Pasadena is running for Lt. Gov. pic.twitter.com/dKtatzCS9Z  Elex Michaelson (@abc7elex) March 29, 2017

The agenda of his campaign is to facilitate free community college education and opposes President's anti-immigration measures.

I am a proud Muslim and I love America, Dr Asif Mahmood said at a news conference, as reported by The Independent.

During his speech, he expressed his reprimand against immigrants attacks -- people of colour and Muslims. He further added that it's time that everyone fights the hate and which is why he has taken the onus on himself.

"California must be the leader of the Trump resistance, and I will fight him every step of the way.

AP

He said that he moved to America because his family wanted to live in a place that celebrates diversity and tolerance. As someone who's a first-time candidate, his challenge is to fabricate a statewide coalition, potentially anchored to civil rights.

Mahmood, a Democrat, and is looking forward to victory, so that he's able to change people's mentality towards immigrants and Muslims. Let's hope that his religion doesn't act as an obstacle in a state known for diversity.
Argentina lawmakers have unanimously voted to legalise marijuana and joined the league of Colombia, Chile, and Mexico who have all legalised the use of the drug for medical and scientific aims.

reuters

In fact, Argentina's neighbour Uruguay has even legalised smoking marijuana in a bid to take the business away from the country's mafia.

The final nod of approval to the bill came on Wednesday allowing the federal government to grow marijuana for research and therapeutic purposes.

reuters

The bill will become a law once the President, Mauricio Macri signs it. The law will lift the ban on importing cannabis oil, permitting Argentines to purchase it with a prescription.
At least 22 people were killed and 57 wounded when a car bomb tore through a market in a mainly Shiite area of Pakistan's tribal belt on Friday.

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Survivors described hiding inside shops after hearing a "huge bang", as frantic bystanders rushed to help the wounded inside the busy market in Parachinar, the capital of Kurram tribal district.

"I heard a loud bang and people were screaming," Muhammad Ali, a local resident who was in a market shop when the blast detonated, told AFP.

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The attack comes after a wave of militant violence killed 130 people across Pakistan in February, unnerving citizens who had been emboldened by improving security and prompting a military crackdown.

Shahid Ali Khan, a local administration official, confirmed the blast had been a car bomb. Shiite leaders and local residents quickly accused security forces of failure, with small protests breaking out in Parachinar.

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Jamaat-ul-Ahrar (JuA), a faction of the umbrella Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, or Pakistani Taliban, swiftly claimed the attack. The group was also part of the wave of attacks which shook the country in February, claiming responsibility for a suicide bomb in Lahore which killed 14 people.

February's assaults also included a suicide blast at a Sufi shrine in Sindh province which killed 90 people and was claimed by Islamic State. The wave of violence dented optimism after the country appeared to be making strong gains in its decade-and-a-half long war on militancy, with analysts speaking of a militant resurgence.

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Pakistan's powerful army launched a crackdown and temporarily closed the border with Afghanistan, which it accused of harbouring the militants who had carried out the attacks.

Politicians also voted to extend legislation creating secret military courts to try civilians on terror charges. The law had expired in January, with the controversial tribunals having hanged 12 people and ordered the executions of 149 more.

Rights activists have slammed the move, calling it part of a "seriously flawed counter terrorism strategy".
A Japanese whaling fleet returned to port on Friday after an annual Antarctic hunt that killed more than 300 of the mammals as Tokyo pursues the programme in defiance of global criticism.

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The fleet which consisted of five ships set sail for the Southern Ocean in November, with plans to slaughter 333 minke whales, flouting a worldwide moratorium and opposition led by Australia and New Zealand.

More than 200 people, including crew members and their families, gathered in the rain for a 30-minute ceremony in front of the Nisshin Maru, the fleet's main ship, according to an official of the Shimonoseki City government.

In a press release, the agency described the mission as "research for the purpose of studying the ecological system in the Antarctic Sea".

But environmentalists and the International Court of Justice (IJC) call that a fiction and say the real purpose is simply to hunt whales for their meat.

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Anticipating the fleet's return, animal protection charity Humane Society International called for an end to Japanese whaling.

"Each year that Japan persists with its discredited scientific whaling is another year where these wonderful animals are needlessly sacrificed," said Kitty Block, the group's executive vice president.

Japan also caught 333 minke whales in the previous season ending in 2016 after a one-year hiatus prompted by an IJC ruling, which said the hunt was a commercial venture masquerading as science and ordered Tokyo to end it.

Under the International Whaling Commission (IWC), to which Japan is a signatory, there has been a moratorium on hunting whales since 1986.

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Tokyo exploits a loophole allowing whales to be killed for "scientific research" and claims it is trying to prove the population is large enough to sustain a return to commercial hunting.

But it also makes no secret of the fact that whale meat ends up on dinner tables and is served up in school lunches.

Japan has hunted whales for centuries, and their meat was a key source of protein in the immediate post-World War II years when the country was desperately poor.

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But consumption has dramatically declined in recent decades, with significant proportions of the population saying they "never" or "rarely" eat whale meat.

In response to the ICJ ruling, Japan's 2014-15 mission carried out only "non-lethal research" such as taking skin samples and doing headcounts.
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A controversial deputy education minister, who hails from the small rightist-populist party that serves as the junior coalition partner, on Friday said he "disagrees with everything", when asked about new austerity measures being negotiated with creditors.
The Next Phase in the War on BDS: Why Israel Detained Omar Barghouti

By Ramzy Baroud

March 30, 2017 " Information Clearing House " - The Israeli state has violated international law more than any other country, yet has rarely, if ever, been held accountable for its crimes and misconduct.

Israels successful public relations campaigns through its ever-willing western media partners, coupled with the relentless work and pressure carried out by its powerful backers in Washington DC, London, Paris and elsewhere, have borne stupendous results.

For a while, it seemed that Israel was capable of maintaining its occupation and denying Palestinians their rights indefinitely, while promoting itself as the only democracy in the Middle East.

Those who dared challenge that skewed paradigm through resistance in Palestine were eliminated or imprisoned; those who challenged Israel in public arenas anywhere in the world were smeared as  anti-Semitic  or  self-hating Jews .

Things seemed to move forward nicely for Israel. With American-western financial and military aid, the size, population and economy of illegal settlements grew at a fast rate . Israels trade partners seemed oblivious to the fact that settlement products were manufactured or grown on illegally occupied Palestinian land.

Indeed, for a long time the occupation was very profitable with very little censure or pressure.

All that Israeli leaders needed to do was to adhere to the script: Palestinians are terrorists, we have no peace partner, Israel is a democracy, our wars are all carried out in self-defence and so on. The media repeated such misleading notions in unison. Palestinians, oppressed, occupied and disowned were duly demonised. Those who knew the truth about the situation either faced the risk of speaking out  and suffered the consequences  or remained silent.

But as the saying goes: You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.

Justice for Palestinians, which once appeared as if a lost cause received a massive resurgence during the Second Palestinian Intifada (Uprising) in 2000.

Growing awareness resulting from the dedicated work of many intellectuals, journalists and students saw the arrival of thousands of international activists to Palestine as part of the International Solidarity Movement (ISM).

Academicians, artists, students, religious officials and ordinary people came to Palestine and then fanned out to many parts of the globe, utilising whatever medium available to spread a unified message to their numerous communities.

It was that groundwork that facilitated the success of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement (BDS).

Established in 2005, BDS was a call made by Palestinian civil society organisations to people around the world to take part in exposing Israeli crimes and to hold accountable the Israeli government, army and companies that benefit from the subjugation of Palestinians.

With large and growing networks already in place, BDS spread quickly and took the Israeli government by surprise.

In the last decade, BDS proved resilient and resourceful, opening many new channels and platforms for discussions on Israel, its occupation, Palestinian rights and the moral accountability for those who either support or ignore Israels violations of human rights.

What worries Israel most about BDS is what it calls the movements attempt to  delegitimize  it.

Since its inception, Israel has fought for legitimacy. But it is difficult to achieve legitimacy without respecting the rules required for a country to be legitimate. Israel wants to have it both ways: sustain its profitable occupation, test its latest weapon technology, detain and torture, besiege and assassinate while receiving international nods of approval.

Using threats, intimidation, cutting off of funds, the US and Israel have laboured to silence criticism of Israel, Americas main ally in the Middle East, to no avail.

As recently as days ago, a United Nations report said that Israel has established an apartheid regime; although the author of the report, Rima Khalaf resigned under pressure, the genie cannot go back to the bottle.

Progressively, BDS has grown to become the incubator of much of the international censure of Israel. Its early impact included artists who refuse to entertain in Israel, then companies started to shut down their Israel operations, followed by churches and universities divesting from Israeli economy. With time, Israel has found itself facing a unique, great challenge.

So, what is Israel to do?

Ignoring BDS has proved dangerous and costly. Fighting BDS is like launching a war on civil society. Worse, the more Israel tries to disrupt the work of BDS, the more it legitimises the movement, offering it new platforms for debate, media coverage and public discussions.

In March 2016, a large conference brought together Israeli government officials, leaders from the opposition, media pundits, scholars and even entertainers from Israel, the US and elsewhere.

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The conference was organised by one of Israels largest media companies, Yedioth Ahronoth.

It was a rare display of unity in Israeli politics; hundreds of influential Israelis and their backers trying to forge a strategy aimed at defeating BDS.

Many ideas were put on the table.

Israeli Interior Minister, Aryeh Deri, threatened to revoke the residence of Omar Barghouti, BDS co-founder and one of its most effective voices.

Intelligence and Atomic Energy Minister, Israel Katz, called for the targeted civil elimination of BDS leaders, signaling Barghouti, in particular.

Public Security Minister, Gilad Erdan, wanted BDS activists to pay the price.

The war on BDS had officially started, although the groundwork for that battle was already in motion.

The UK government announced earlier in the year that it was illegal to refuse to buy goods and services from companies involved in arms trade, fossil fuels, tobacco products, or Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank.

That same month, Canada passed a motion that criminalises BDS.

A couple of months earlier, the US Senate passed the Anti-Semitism Awareness Act , conflating the definition of anti-Semitism to include criticism of Israel on US campuses, many of which have responded positively to the call made by BDS.

Eventually, the UK adopted a similar definition equating between legitimate anti-Jewish hate crimes and criticism of Israel.

More recently, Israel passed a law that bans individuals accused of supporting the BDS movement from entry to Israel. Considering that entering Israel is the only way of gaining access to the Occupied Palestinian Territories, the Israeli ban aimed at severing the strong rapport that has been connecting Palestinians to the global solidarity movement.

The anti-BDS campaign finally culminated in the detaining and interrogation of Omar Barghouti himself.

On 19 March, Israeli tax authorities detained Barghouti and accused him of tax evasion.

By doing so, Israel has revealed the nature of the next stage of its fight, using smear tactics and faulting leading activists based on charges that are seemingly apolitical in order to distract from the urgent political discussion at hand.

Along with other steps, Israel feels that defeating BDS is possible through censorship, travel bans and intimidation tactics .

However, Israels war on BDS is destined to fail, and as a direct result of that failure, BDS will continue to flourish.

Israel has kept global civil society in the dark for decades: selling it a misleading version of reality. But in the age of digital media and globalised activism, the old strategy will no longer deliver.

Regardless of what transpires in the case of Barghouti, BDS will not weaken. It is a decentralised movement with local, regional, national and global networks spanning hundreds of cities across the world.

Smearing one individual, or a hundred, will not alter the upward movement of BDS.Israel will soon realise that its war on BDS, freedom of speech and expression is unwinnable. It is a futile attempt to muzzle a global community that now works in unison from Cape Town, South Africa to Uppsala, Sweden.

Dr. Ramzy Baroud has been writing about the Middle East for over 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, The Second Palestinian Intifada and his latest My Father Was a Freedom Fighter: Gazas Untold Story. His website is www.ramzybaroud.net .
Let Them Eat Bombs



Will Donald Trump Escalate the Devastating War and Hunger in Yemen?

By Medea Benjamin

March 30, 2017 " Information Clearing House " - This week marks the beginning of year three of the Saudi-led military intervention in the civil war in Yemen, an intervention that has resulted in an epic tragedy of destruction and starvation. Tens of thousands of Yemenis marked the occasion by pouring into the streets of the capital, Sanna, to call for an end to the Saudi airstrikes that have been supported by the US military. But instead of pushing to jumpstart stalemated negotiations to end the conflict, the Trump administration seems anxious to get more deeply involved in the war by supporting an attack on the key port of Hodeidah and resuming halted weapons sales.

Greater US support for the Saudis, who intervened in Yemen to try to stop the Iran-friendly Houthis from coming to power, is part of Trump's "get tough" policy on Iran. But further escalation of the war in Yemen, particularly an offensive to seize Hodeidah from the Houthi rebels, will mean even more death and hunger for the Yemeni people. Jeremy Konyndyk , who was the director of foreign disaster assistance at US AID under Obama, said a serious disruption of the Hodeidah port could well "tip the country into famine."

Defense Secretary Jim Mattis has requested for US support for the Hodeidah attack, a request that will reportedly come before Trump's national security advisors this week. The Obama administration, which had been helping the Saudi bombing campaign from the beginning with weapons and logistics, did not support this particular attack because they thought it would exacerbate the humanitarian crisis since Hodeideh has been the main port of entry for humanitarian supplies.

On March 23, a bipartisan group of ten senators, including Senators Chris Murphy (D-CT) and Marco Rubio (R-FL), urged Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to launch an urgent diplomatic effort to help avert a pending famine in Yemen and three other nations, and included a specific call to keep the Hodeidah port open to humanitarian aid.

Yemen imports 90 percent of its food, and the war, including a Saudi naval blockade and a previous bombing of cranes at the Hodeidah port where all the large grain silos are located, has made it difficult to import sufficient food and humanitarian supplies. Food shipments into Hodeidah have already fallen precipitously, with only a few ships arriving each week, compared to dozens before the war, and more shipping lines are pulling out due to the growing risks.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) says speed is of the essence to prevent a tragedy of massive proportions. "Words cannot capture the extent of the suffering of the Yemeni people," said ICRC Middle East director Robert Mardini . "Their resilience has reached a breaking point." Twenty people are dying every day, many of curable diseases because only 45 percent of the health facilities are functioning."

A UNICEF report shows over 400,000 Yemeni children suffering from severe acute malnutrition, and a child dying every 10 minutes from malnutrition, diarrhea and respiratory-tract infections.

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Jamie McGoldrick, Humanitarian Coordinator for Yemen put the tragedy in human terms . "Fisherman can't fish, farmers can't farm, civil servants don't get paidpeople having to make life and death decisions: Do you feed your children or do you pay for medical treatment for your child? And that's a daily call for many families."

UN and private relief organizations have been mobilizing to respond to the crisis. In February, the UN launched a humanitarian appeal calling for $2.1 billion. As of March, however, only 7 percent of the appeal had been funded and the UN Refugee Agency has received less than half the funds it needs.

While the wealthy nations must open their wallets to feed starving Yemenis, the only way to end the humanitarian crisis is to end the conflict. This would mean a ceasefire, a push for negotiations and in the case of the US, an end to weapons sales to the Saudis.

President Obama supported the Saudis with massive weapons sales during his eight years in office. But just before leaving office in December 2016, when faced with increased pressure from human rights groups and lawmakers after a Saudi strike on a Yemeni funeral killed at least 140 people, President Obama put a halt of the sale of precision-guided munitions to the Saudis.

Trump's State Department already gave notice to Congress that they have approved a resumption of these sales. If there is no objection from Congress and President Trump signs off on the deal, the deal will go through. Amnesty International urged Trump not to sign off on the sales, saying that new US arms could be used to devastate civilian lives in Yemen and could "implicate your administration in war crimes."

This is not the time to escalate the war. Unless an urgent effort is made to find a political solution and get massive food aid into the country, almost 7 million people in this war-torn nation will face starvation. Stopping on attack on Hodeidah and making sure the port is secure for food shipments is a critical first step.

Medea Benjamin, cofounder of the peace group CODEPINK , is author of Kingdom of the Unjust: Behind the US-Saudi Connection .

The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Information Clearing House.

Donald Trump's Shift On Yemen Risks Plunging The Country Into Famine : President Donald Trump may be on the brink of sparking a full-blown famine in Yemen ? all because of a subtle shift in messaging that risks effectively cutting off humanitarian relief to the war-torn nation.
If Aleppo Was a Crime Against Humanity, Isnt Mosul?





When U.S. rivals committed atrocities in Aleppo, Western talking heads were appalled. But when the U.S. supports them in Mosul? Silence.



By Evan W. Sandlin

March 30, 2017 " Information Clearing House " - " FPIF " - Mosul, Iraqs second largest city and the last major Islamic State stronghold in the country, is nearly under Iraqi government control.

The Islamic State, or ISIS, has occupied the city since June 2014. Now, with the help of U.S. airpower, the entire eastern portion of the city has been retaken, and roughly 33 percent of Mosul is in Iraqi government hands. ISIS is  completely surrounded , according to Western-coalition officials.

But whats happening in Mosul could be called massacre just as easily as it could be called liberation. And the choice of words and focus is instructive.

Dont Call It Aleppo

Compare it to the feverish Western coverage of the siege of rebel-held Aleppo by Russian and Syrian government forces.

Just three months ago, on the eve of Aleppos fall to the Syrian regime, the New York Times declared that Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad, Russian president Vladimir Putin, and Iran were Aleppos destroyers, and decried the slaughter of civilians and intense shelling of residential neighborhoods. There was little discussion of the rebels, many of which had received U.S. funding or weapons at some point during the conflict  and almost all of which had engaged in severe violations of human rights of their own.

The Times assigned complete responsibility for the disaster to the Syrian government, which it said had ignored the demands of peaceful protesters and unleashed a terrifying war. That position unsurprisingly mimicked the U.S. governments. (The U.S. ambassador to the UN, Samantha Power , even compared the fall of Aleppo to the Rwandan genocide and the massacre at Srebrenica.)

If stripped of the hyperbole, the Times was not wrong. The population of Aleppo had been subjected to a brutal siege carried out by the Syrian military and its allied militias. Barrel bombs had devastated the city for years, destroying primarily civilian infrastructure such as mosques , hospitals , and schools . Humanitarian access to the eastern half of the city was made difficult by regime checkpoints and attacks.

In February 2015, the Syrian government expelled the UN officials responsible for coordinating humanitarian access, while both Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch condemned the siege of Aleppo as a crime against humanity.

Meanwhile, in government-held areas of Aleppo, the Syrian regime operated as a police state usually does: by arresting and torturing dissenters. The report released by the UN Human Rights Council on March 1 makes it clear that that the Syrian regime is guilty of heinous crimes in Aleppo, including summary execution and the use of chemical weapons.

And while it is gross negligence for the Western press to completely ignore the crimes of U.S.-backed rebels, there is ample justification for focusing disproportionately on the crimes of the Syrian government and their Russian backers, who possess a disproportionate share of firepower and therefore possess the greatest potential to unleash devastation at a moments notice.

In Iraq, the fall of Mosul looks remarkably similar to the fall of Aleppo  but without the same sort of Western denunciation.

Torture and Murder in Mosul

The obvious distinction between the two battles is that eastern Aleppo was occupied by U.S. and Gulf-backed rebels, while the universally despised Islamic State occupies Mosul.

There is no moral equivalency between the two, but we would do well to remember that life in Aleppo under the rule of extremist groups such as Ahrar al-Sham, Jahabat al Nusra, and Nour al-Din al-Zenki wasnt pleasant either. These groups engaged in and continue to engage in widespread human rights abuses, persecute religious minorities, and implement draconian laws.

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Not all rebel groups in Aleppo were hardline reactionaries, and even if they were it would hardly excuse the Syrian and Russian siege and slaughter. Likewise, the occupation of Mosul by the Islamic State does not justify the wholesale destruction of parts of the city by U.S. airpower. Nor does it justify the abuses by the U.S.-backed Iraqi government and its allied militias.

The battle of Mosul began in earnest in mid-October 2016, with Kurdish and Shia militias tasked with taking back villages surrounding the city while Iraqi forces entered Mosul itself, all while the U.S.-led coalition provided support from the air.

A number of these Shia militias , including the Badr Brigades and the Hezbollah Brigades, had previously detained, tortured, and disappeared fleeing civilians during the sieges of Tikrit and Fallujah. The Iraqi government has a similar record of cruelty, to say nothing of the U.S. military  which had very recently twice turned Fallujah, the city of mosques, into a city of rubble.

As Iraqi forces and allied militias began to re-take Mosuls suburbs, they began to abuse the civilians that came under their control.

To no ones surprise, militia fighters carried out revenge attacks against suspected collaborators. But the abuses carried out by the Iraqi military are undoubtedly worse. Videos show Iraqi forces torturing young boys with hammers and running them over with tanks . The Iraqi military carried out summary executions of both captured Islamic State militants and civilians in villages surrounding Mosul. These violations continued well into the offensive. As recently as late January, images and videos of Iraqi forces torturing and executing captives were still being released.

Crimes from the Sky

As in any modern conflict, crimes committed by ground forces are particularly unsettling for their visibility and their plain inhumanity, but the worst crimes come from the sky. The Iraqi military and their allied militias are brutal indeed, but they are no match for the barbarism of U.S. airpower.

The toll of coalition airstrikes worsened dramatically once Iraqi and allied forces had retaken the surrounding villages and began to enter the densely populated city from the east. By early January, the Iraqi military had retaken eastern Mosul with significant humanitarian cost to civilians, the casualty-tracking site AirWars.org reports. U.S. airstrikes in Mosul increased 33 percent in January, it calculates, and a record number of civilians were killed, including whole families.

By late January, the UN counted 1,096 people killed during the offensive, half of them civilians. That toll has only continued to increase in recent days as the Iraqi military pushes west.

Just as in Aleppo, civilian buildings such as hospitals and mosques have been the targets of U.S. attacks. In one incident, Nineveh Media Center  Mosuls main news outlet  was hit, killing an estimated 50 civilians. Activists claimed the center was targeted due to its publication of ISIS propaganda, which even so would be a disturbing and violent attack on press freedom. Elsewhere, U.S. Apache helicopters, along with Iraqi ground forces, shelled and pummeled buildings in the Dawasa neighborhood, killing 130 civilians.

White phosphorus , a chemical weapon capable of burning human flesh to the bone, has also been used by coalition forces in the city.

It is estimated that the coalition killed up to 370 Iraqi civilians , including scores of children, in the first week of March alone. In the words of one Mosul resident, Now it feels like the coalition is killing more people than ISIS.

International Law

The United Nations has routinely expressed deep concern that coalition airstrikes were targeting civilian infrastructure in Mosul. To compound matters, fuel, food, and water are quickly running out. The UN and other humanitarian organizations place the blame squarely on the U.S.-imposed three-month siege that cut all supply lines to the city. Essential food items are virtually unattainable for many of Mosuls inhabitants, the New York Times reports.

Excuses for the slaughter abound, and they are both entirely familiar and unconvincing.

The standard response is that the Islamic State hasnt allowed civilians to leave Mosul and instead uses them as  human shields . This is likely true  but it was also true in rebel-held Aleppo, according to the UN Human Rights Council. This didnt stop the editors of the New York Times from condemning Russian airstrikes that devastated the city.

In fact, bombing densely populated cities anywhere is guaranteed to kill civilians. The U.S. and its coalition partners know this. They simply dont believe those civilians matter enough.

The State Department rejects any comparison to Aleppo, an Obama-era spokesman said, since in Mosul you have an entire coalition of some 66 nations who have planned for months with the vast support and legitimacy of the international community.

This statement is absurd. War crimes dont get a pass when more nations participate in them.

And the use of the word legitimacy, which has precisely no legal meaning, is meant to distract from the fact that Russias intervention in Aleppo was also legal under international law  no less so than Washingtons in Iraq, since both countries have welcomed by the respective regimes theyre fighting to preserve. However, the legality of the intervention does not absolve one from the obligations imposed by international humanitarian law in the course of the intervention.

The Scoundrels Last Refuge

In the end, all attempts at differentiating the siege of Mosul from the siege of Aleppo reduce to the scoundrels last refuge: Its acceptable when we do it. Its no surprise that Western talking heads purport to care very much about a massacre committed by a rival power, which we cant do much about in any case, while either ignoring or supporting a different massacre carried out by U.S. hands.

Furthermore, whats happening in Mosul is in danger of being repeated. President Trump has already increased the frequency of drone bombings and U.S. raids  a sign that he harbors even less concern for civilian life than did President Obama. The U.S. recently announced it will deploy another 400 troops to Syria to assist in the battle for Raqqa, Syria.

Above all, there is little evidence that removing the Islamic State from Mosul by shelling and bombing dense civilian neighborhoods will result in lasting stability. Once the U.S. destroys a city, directly or indirectly, it summons the kind of chaos and resentment that guarantees it will soon need to intervene militarily once again to safeguard its newly constructed client .

What happens after Mosul? Look to Fallujah , where disdain for both the Iraqi government and the U.S. runs high in the aftermath of multiple coalition campaigns. What happens after Raqqa? Look to Damascus , where suicide bombing has increased after the rebel defeat in Aleppo.

Many Iraqis residing in Mosul will be glad to be free of the Islamic State, but many will also be mourning the loss of their family members. And if history is any guide, they will blame the U.S. occupier and its client government in Baghdad.
Trump Is Killing Record Amounts of Civilians In The Middle East





It turns out Trumps first disastrous raid in Yemen  an exercise in boosting his strongman image by green lighting a raid that Obama wasnt kickass enough to authorize for reasons that are now deadly apparent  was only the start of a bloody campaign that looks a hell of a like the start of war with Iran.

By Mike Redmond

March 30, 2017 " Information Clearing House " - In the days leading up to the 2016 election, I became aware of a chilling rationale that powered support for Donald Trump among active military members that went way beyond the old chestnut that Republicans quickly lose their religion on deficits when it comes to defense spending. And Donald Trump has already demonstrated that hell yank meals away from senior citizens if itll buy a few more bullets. Sorry, Grandpa, weve got brown people to kill. Have you tried eating a shoe?

And while I absolutely understand the instinct to protect ones job and put food on the table, which voting Republican is almost guaranteed to do if youre in the military, where I start to become concerned is when I hear things like, Donald Trump is finally going to let us kick some ass. Which is also the same mentality that earned Trump an endorsement from the Fraternal Order of Police . Essentially, anything goes. Its an idea that stretches back to the aftermath of the Vietnam War when a myth was deliberately injected into our national lexicon that America lost that endeavor because we had  one hand tied behind our back . Except anyone with even a cursory knowledge of Vietnam knows that orders to commit horrifying and unconscionable acts were carried out pretty easily.

But before I paint with too broad of a brush, the military and police are obviously not a giant monolith where everyone votes and thinks in lockstep. I know there are men and women in uniform who fully appreciate the violence thats about to be unleashed under the questionable leadership of a narcissistic manic who openly advocated committing war crimes and faced zero repercussions for it. And in the coming days, I have no doubts that those men and women will be the heroes who come forward to tell us how that violence happened and why it shouldnt be ignored.

Which brings us to Trumps current meddling in the Middle East thats being overshadowed by whatever the hell Devin Nunes is trying to pull and the spectacular failure of the American Health Care Act . It turns out Trumps first disastrous raid in Yemen  an exercise in boosting his strongman image by greenlighting a raid that Obama wasnt kickass enough to authorize for reasons that are now deadly apparent  was only the start of a bloody campaign that looks a hell of a like the start of war with Iran .

Even more alarming, reports from the ground in Yemen, Mosul, and Syria all share a consistent theme that should give anyone with an understanding of how the military operates significant pause: The rules of engagement are being relaxed. From The New York Times (emphasis mine):

The American-led military coalition in Iraq said Friday that it was investigating reports that scores of civilians  perhaps as many as 200, residents said  had been killed in recent American airstrikes in Mosul, the northern Iraqi city at the center of an offensive to drive out the Islamic State.

If confirmed, the series of airstrikes would rank among the highest civilian death tolls in an American air mission since the United States went to war in Iraq in 2003. And the reports of civilian deaths in Mosul came immediately after two recent incidents in Syria , where the coalition is also battling the Islamic State from the air, in which activists and local residents said dozens of civilians had been killed. No Advertising - No Government Grants - This Is Independent Media Get Our Free Daily Newsletter Taken together, the surge of reported civilian deaths raised questions about whether once-strict rules of engagement meant to minimize civilian casualties were being relaxed under the Trump administration, which has vowed to fight the Islamic State more aggressively.

Naturally, the Pentagon denies that the rules of engagement have been changed. However, in the same breath it also says that  minor adjustments  have been made to speed up the process of providing air power i.e. drone strike the shit out of anything and everything without getting too bogged down in details like maybe not killing a bunch of civilians in record numbers. Also, according to The Daily Beast, in a report about another strike in Syria last week that possibly killed as many as 50 civilians and wouldve left 200 dead had a religious lesson not gone past schedule, since December the authority to approve airstrikes has been relegated to the lowest appropriate level . The reaction youre looking for is Jesus Christ.

Of course, this raises questions about Secretary of Defense James Mattis, who has the distinct honor of being one of the few cabinet appointees not tainted by Russia, which is how low the bar is right now. While the conventional wisdom at the time of his appointment was that Mattis is a well-read, data driven officer who would keep Trump in line, specifically in regards to NATO, there were far too few concerns about his actual views on civilian casualties . In light of recent events, its probably safe to say those views hover somewhere between, What are ya gonna do? and Eh, fuck em. Which is exactly how we ended up with ISIS and are rocketing towards making that mistake all over again because apparently the Muslim ban wasnt a big enough recruitment tool.

As we speak, American troops are slowly being dragged into a ground war in Syria  and if youve been paying attention, thats on top of the other ground war slowly being rolled out in Yemen  and Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT) warns that all of the pieces are in place to repeat Iraq all over again. Or more specifically not in place because our president isnt big on planning.

This past Thursday, I joined other members of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee for lunch with Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. I was glad that Tillerson was willing to open the doors of the State Department to a bipartisan group of senators, and our discussion was honest and frank. In the meeting, Tillerson showed admirable candor in admitting that the military strategy was far ahead of the diplomatic strategy in Syria.

But this was actually a dramatic understatement. Unless a secret plan exists that Trump is keeping from U.S. senators and his own Secretary of State, there is absolutely no plan for who controls post-ISIS Raqqa, or post-Assad Syria.

Murphy continues:

Without a political plan for the future of Raqqa, a military plan is practically useless. Yes, getting ISIS out of Raqqa is a victory in and of itself, but if we set into motion a series of events that simply prolongs the broader conflict, ISIS will easily pick up the pieces and use the ongoing turmoil to regroup and reemerge. We should have learned in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya that a military victory without a plan for what comes next is really not a victory at all. But unbelievably, we seem on the verge of making this mistake again, because of (understandable) enthusiasm for taking the fight to a vicious enemy.

To anyone concerned about human life, from the soldiers who are about to fed into another meat grinder, to innocent civilians who are becoming more and more of an afterthought, to the deadly consequences of ISIS growing in numbers, this is goddamn alarming information. Unfortunately, for Trump voters, this is him actually delivering on a campaign promise by not being some egghead pussy who worries about the ramifications of ruthlessly bombing the hell out of innocent people who practice a religion that barely registers as a threat to American lives. Youre more likely to get struck by lightning than die in a terrorist attack, but that doesnt come with an air of religious superiority and good old fashioned white supremacy, so Im an idiot for even trying. Keep kicking ass, everybody.

Mike Redmond spent a decade writing about Kim Kardashian for a living. This is his penance. Follow him on Twitter .

This article was first published at The Daily Banter
Trump can be criticized for many things, but lack of clarity about his intended war on terror approach is not one of them. All along, Trumps solution to terrorism was as clear as it was simple; as I described it in September 2016:

He constantly criticized Obama  who bombed seven predominantly Muslim countries  for being weak in battling ISIS and al Qaeda. Trump regularly boasted that he would free the U.S. military from rules of engagement that he regarded as unduly hobbling them. He vowed to bring back torture and even to murder the family members of suspected terrorists  prompting patriotic commentators to naively insist that the U.S. military would refuse to follow his orders. Trumps war frenzy reached its rhetorical peak of derangement in December 2015, when he roared at a campaign rally that he would bomb the shit out of ISIS and then let its oil fields be taken by Exxon, whose CEO is now his secretary of state.

But what is becoming clear is that Trump is attempting to liberate the U.S. military from the minimal constraints it observed in order to avoid massive civilian casualties. And this should surprise nobody: Trump explicitly and repeatedly vowed to do exactly this during the campaign.

Whats particularly notable is that the number of airstrikes actually decreased in March (with a week left), even as civilian deaths rose  strongly suggesting that the U.S. military has become even more reckless about civilian deaths under Trump than it was under Obama:

In sum: Although precise numbers are difficult to obtain, there seems little question that the number of civilians being killed by the U.S. in Iraq and Syria  already quite high under Obama  has increased precipitously during the first two months of the Trump administration. Data compiled by the site Airwars tells the story: The number of civilians killed in Syria and Iraq began increasing in October under Obama but has now skyrocketed in March under Trump.

The most recent atrocity was the killing of as many as 200 Iraqi civilians from U.S. airstrikes this week in Mosul. That was preceded a few days earlier by the killing of dozens of Syrian civilians in Raqqa province when the U.S. targeted a school where people had taken refuge, which itself was preceded a week earlier by the U.S. destruction of a mosque near Aleppo that also killed dozens. And one of Trumps first military actions was what can only be described as a massacre carried out by Navy SEALs, in which 30 Yemenis were killed; among the children killed was an 8-year-old American girl (whose 16-year-old American brother was killed by a drone under Obama).

March 30, 2017 " Information Clearing House " - " The Intercept " - From the start of his presidency, Donald Trumps war on terror has entailed the seemingly indiscriminate slaughter of innocent people in the name of killing terrorists. In other words, Trump has escalated the 16-year-old core premise of Americas foreign policy  that it has the right to bomb any country in the world where people it regards as terrorists are found  and in doing so, has fulfilled the warped campaign pledges he repeatedly expressed.

Trump's anti-terror platform is explicitly 1) more bombing; 2) Israel-style police profiling; 3) say "radical Islam" https://t.co/NyivdkUanp  Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) September 19, 2016

The clarity of Trumps intentions regarding the war on terror was often obfuscated by anti-Trump pundits due to a combination of confusion about and distortions of foreign policy doctrine. Trump explicitly ran as a non-interventionist  denouncing, for instance, U.S. regime change wars in Iraq, Libya, and Syria (even though he at some points expressed support for the first two). Many commentators confused non-interventionism with pacifism, leading many of them  to this very day  to ignorantly claim that Trumps escalated war on terror bombing is in conflict with his advocacy of non-interventionism. It is not.

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To the extent that Trump is guided by any sort of coherent ideological framework, he is rooted in the traditions of Charles Lindbergh ( whose America First motto he took ) and the free trade-hating, anti-immigration, uber-nationalist Pat Buchanan . Both Lindbergh and Buchanan were non-interventionists: Lindbergh was one of the earliest and loudest opponents of U.S. involvement in World War II, while Buchanan was scathing throughout all of 2002 about the neocon plan to invade Iraq .

Despite being vehement non-interventionists, neither Lindbergh nor Buchanan were pacifists. Quite the contrary: Both believed that when the U.S. was genuinely threatened with attack or attacked, it should use full and unrestrained force against its enemies. What they opposed was not military force in general but rather interventions geared toward a goal other than self-defense, such as changing other countries governments, protecting foreigners from tyranny or violence, or humanitarian wars.

What the Lindbergh/Buchanan non-interventionism opposes is not war per se, but a specific type of war: namely, those fought for reasons other than self-defense or direct U.S. interests (as was true of regime change efforts in Iraq, Libya, and Syria). Lindbergh opposed U.S. involvement in World War II on the ground that it was designed to help only the British and the Jews, while Buchanan, on the eve of the Iraq invasion, attacked neocons who seek to ensnare our country in a series of wars that are not in Americas interests and who have alienated friends and allies all over the Islamic and Western world through their arrogance, hubris, and bellicosity.

The anti-Semitism and white nationalistic tradition of Lindbergh, the ideological precursor to Buchanan and then Trump, does not oppose war. It opposes military interventions in the affairs of other countries for reasons other than self-defense  i.e., the risking of American lives and resources for the benefits of others.

Each time Trump drops another bomb, various pundits and other assorted Trump opponents smugly posit that his doing so is inconsistent with his touted non-interventionism. This is just ignorance of what these terms mean. By escalating violence against civilians, Trump is, in fact, doing exactly what he promised to do, and exactly what those who described his foreign policy as non-interventionist predicted he would do: namely, limitlessly unleash the U.S. military when the claimed objective was the destruction of terrorists, while refusing to use the military for other ends such as regime change or humanitarianism. If one were to reduce this mentality to a motto, it could be: Fight fewer wars and for narrower reasons, but be more barbaric and criminal in prosecuting the ones that are fought.

Trumps campaign pledges regarding Syria, and now his actions there, illustrate this point very clearly. Trump never advocated a cessation of military force in Syria. As the above video demonstrates, he advocated the opposite: an escalation of military force in Syria and Iraq in the name of fighting ISIS and al Qaeda. Indeed, Trumps desire to cooperate with Russia in Syria was based on a desire to maximize the potency of bombing there (just as was true of Obamas attempt to forge a bombing partnership with Putin in Syria).

What Trump opposed was the CIAs yearslong policy of spending billions of dollars to arm anti-Assad rebels (a policy Hillary Clinton and her key advisers wanted to escalate ), on the ground that the U.S. has no interest in removing Assad. That is the fundamental difference between non-interventionism and pacifism that many pundits are either unaware of or are deliberately conflating in order to prove their own vindication about Trumps foreign policy. Nothing Trump has thus far done is remotely inconsistent with the non-interventionism he embraced during the campaign, unless one confuses non-interventionism with opposition to the use of military force.

Trumps reckless killing of civilians in Iraq, Syria, and Yemen is many things: barbaric, amoral, and criminal. It is also, ironically, likely to strengthen support for the very groups  ISIS and al Qaeda  that he claims he wants to defeat, given that nothing drives support for those groups like U.S. slaughter of civilians (perhaps the only competitor in helping these groups is another Trump specialty: driving a wedge between Muslims and the West ).

But what Trumps actions are not is a departure from what he said he would do, nor are they inconsistent with the predictions of those who described his foreign policy approach as non-interventionist. To the contrary, the dark savagery guiding U.S. military conduct in that region is precisely what Trump expressly promised his supporters he would usher in.
Paul Saunders, associate publisher of the National Interest , interviewed Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov on Friday, March 24, 2017, in Moscow. Their wide-ranging and blunt conversation, which lasted over an hour, covered topics from Ukraine and Syria to the 2016 U.S. presidential election and the future of U.S.-Russia cooperation.

March 30, 2017 " Information Clearing House " - " National Interest " -

Question: Id like to start by asking you about your forthcoming meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson; weve read in the press that the two of you may be meeting soon.

Sergey Lavrov: So they say.

Question: Could you perhaps tell us about your expectations and goals in dealing with Secretary Tillerson?

Sergey Lavrov: Well, after the American election, soon after Election Day President Putin and President-elect Trump talked over the phone. It was a good but very general discussion touching upon the key issues in our relations, and of course the key international issues. And they agreed that they would continue being in touch, and after the inauguration they talked again, and they reconfirmed the need to look for ways which would be effective in handling international problems. And of course to see what could be done to bring the bilateral relations to normalcy. They also agreed that Mr. Rex Tillerson and I would look into the agenda in some more details, and would also discuss the preparation for the presidential meeting which should take place when both countries, both leaders feel comfortable.

And we met with Rex in mid-February in Bonn on the margins of the G-20 ministerial meeting, and covered quite a lot of the bilateral agenda. I briefed him about the relationship on bilateral issues with the Obama administration, the problems which accumulated during that period. We did not go into the substance of this, I just briefed him so that his team, which is still being assembled, could take a look at these issues and determine what kind of attitude they would have on them. And we discussed Syria, Iran, the Korean Peninsula, the Middle East in general, relations between Russia and the West. It was a very general, but rather substantive discussion, obviously it was the first contact and Mr. Rex Tillerson is just getting into the shoes of his new capacity. We discussed the possibility of personal meeting and have been continuing these discussions. As soon as we finalize them it will be announced.

But my feeling is that from the point of view of personal relationship, we feel quite comfortable. I feel quite comfortable, I believe Rex had the same feeling, and our assistants should work closer, but of course this could only be done when the team in the State Department is complete.

Question: Of course. If I could follow up on your answer there, you mentioned bringing normalcy to the U.S.-Russia relationship. What do you think normal is?

Sergey Lavrov: Normal is to treat your partners with respect, not to try to impose some of your ideas on others without taking into account their own views and their concerns, always to try to listen and to hear, and hopefully not to rely on a superiority complex, which was obviously the case with the Obama administration. They were obsessed with their exceptionality, with their leadership. Actually the founding fathers of the United States, they also spoke of their leadership, and they believed that the American nation was exceptional, but they wanted others just to take the American experience as an example and to follow suit. They never suggested that the United States should impose, including by force, its values on others.

And the Obama administration was clearly different. Actually, long before Ukraine, long before Crimea, in early December 2012, there was an OSCE ministerial meeting in Dublin. And Hillary Clinton was secretary of state and was the head of the delegation, we had a bilateral meeting with her, she was trying to persuade me on something which was a difficult issue on the agenda, but I recall this situation because in the margins of this ministerial meeting she attended a meeting in the University of Dublin, and she delivered a lecture in which she said something like: We are trying to figure out effective ways to slow down or prevent the move to re-Sovietize the former Soviet space. December 2012.

What kind of action she was considering as the move to re-Sovietize the space, I really couldnt understand. Yes, there were discussions about Ukraine, about Kazakhstan, Belarus and Russia, forming the Customs Union, and if this was the reason, then of course it showed very obviously the real attitude of the Obama administration to what was going on in the former Soviet space and the area of the Commonwealth of Independent States, its obvious desire to take over this geopolitical space around Russia without even caring what Moscow might think.

This was the reason for the crisis in Ukraine, when the U.S. and European Union bluntly told the Ukrainians: either you are with us, or you are with Russia against us. And the very fragile Ukrainian state couldnt sustain this kind of pressure, and what happened happened: the coup, and so on and so forth (if you want I can discuss this in some detail later). But my point is that they considered normal that the people in Obamas team should call the shots anywhere, including around such a big country as the Russian Federation. And this is absolutely abnormal in my view.

At the same time, when we visited Venezuela with our naval ships, they were raising such hell, as if no one could even get closer to what they believe should be their backyard. This mentality is not adequate for the twenty-first century. And we of course notice that President Trump is emphasizing the need to concentrate on U.S. interests. And foreign policy for him is important as long as it serves the United States interests, not just some messiah projects doing something just for the sake of showing that you can do it anywhere. Its irrational, and in this he certainly holds the same position as we do in Moscow, as President Putin does, that we dont want to meddle in other peoples matters. When the Russian legitimate interests are not, you know, involved.

Question: You just mentioned at the end of your statement that the United States shouldnt meddle in others affairs, and obviously many Americans today feel that Russia has meddled in American affairs, in the 2016 election. Your government has denied that. But how do you explain what happened in the United States? Do you feel that Russia had any involvement or any responsibility at all for what transpired?

Sergey Lavrov: I believe that these absolutely groundless accusationsat least I havent seen a single fact that this was substantiated. I believe these accusations were used as an instrument in the electoral campaign, which for some reasons seemed to the Democratic Party to be an efficient way to raise support among the American people, playing on their feelings that no one shall meddle with American affairs. This is a Russophobic instrument. It was a very sad situation because we never wanted to be unfriendly with the American people, and apparently the Obama administration, the elite in the Democratic Party, who made every effort during the last couple of years to ruin the very foundation of our relationship, decided that the American people should be brainwashed without any facts, without any proof. We are still ready to discuss any concerns of the United States.

As a matter of fact, in November 2015, long before this hacker thing started, we drew the attention of the U.S. administration to the fact that they kept hunting Russian citizens suspected in cybercrime in third countries, and insisting on them being extradited to the United States, ignoring the treaty on mutual legal assistance which exists between Russia and the United States, and which should be invoked in cases when any party to this treaty has suspicions regarding the citizen of another one. And this was never done.

So what we suggested to them in November 2015, that we also dont want to see our citizens violating law and using cyberspace for staging all kinds of crimes. So we would be the last one to try to look aside from them. We want them to be investigated and to be disciplined. But since the United States continued to avoid invoking this treaty on legal assistance, we suggested to have a meeting between the Justice Department and the Russian prosecutor-general, specifically at the expert level, on cybercrime. To establish confidential, expert, professional dialogue to exchange information.

They never replied; when we reminded them that there was a request, they orally told us that they were not interested. But in December 2016, more than one year after our request was tabled, they said, Okay, why dont we meet? But this came from Obama administration experts, when they already were on their way out. Some technical meeting took place; it was not of any substance but at least they responded to the need to do something about cyberspace.

And of course on cybercrimes the discussions in the United Nations are very telling. When we are leading the debate on negotiating an instrument which would be universal and which would be mandatory for everybody, the U.S. is not really very much eager, and is not very enthusiastic.

Speaking of meddling with others matters, there is no proof that Russia was in any way involved either in the United States, or in Germany, or in France, or in the United Kingdomby the way, I read yesterday that the Swedish prime minister is becoming nervous that they also have elections very soon and that Russia would 100 percent be involved in them. Childish, frankly speaking. You either put some facts on the table or you try to avoid any statements which embarrass you, even if you dont believe this is the case.

Its embarrassing to see and to hear what we see and hear in the West, but if you speak of meddling with other countries matters, where facts are availabletake a look at Iraq. It was a very blunt, illegal intervention, which is now recognized even by Tony Blair, and those who were pathetically saying that they cannot tolerate a dictator in Iraq. Take a look at Libya, which is ruined, and I hope still has a chance to become one piece. Take a look at Syria, take a look at Yemen: this is the result and the examples of what takes place when you intervene and interfere. Yes, Im sure you can say about Ukraine, you can say about Crimea, but for this you have to really get into the substance of what transpired there.

When the European Union was insisting that President Yanukovych sign an association agreement, including a free-trade zone with zero tariffs on most of the goods and services crossing the border between Ukraine and the European Union, and at that point it was noted that Ukraine already had a free-trade area with Russia, with some different kind of structure, but also with zero tariffs. So if Russia has zero tariffs with Ukraine, Ukraine would have the same with European Union but we have some protection, under the WTO deal with the European Union, so the only thing we said: guys, if you want to do this, we would have to protect our market from the European goods which would certainly go through Ukraine to Russia, trying to use the zero-tariff arrangement. And the only thing suggested, and Yanukovych supported, is to sit down the threeUkraine, EU and Russiaand to see how this could be handled. Absolutely pragmatic and practical thing. You know what the European Union said? None of your business.

Then-President of the European Commission Mr. Jose Manuel Barrosso (my favorite) stated publicly that we dont meddle with Russias trade with China, so dont meddle with our deal with Ukraine. While the situation is really very different and the free-trade area argument was absolutely ignored. And then Mr. Yanukovych asked for the signature of this deal to be postponed, for him to understand better what will be the consequencesfor his industry, for his finances, for his agricultureif we would have to protect ourselves from potential flow of cheap goods from Europe. Thats so, and then the coup was staged, in spite of the fact that there was a deal between Yanukovych and the opposition, witnessed by Germany, France and Poland.

Next morning, this deal was torn apart under the pretext that Yanukovych disappeared, and therefore all commitments were off. The problem is that he did not leave the country, he was in another city of the country. But my main point is that the deal which they signed with him was not about him; it was about his agreement to go to early elections  and he would have lost these elections  but the deal started by saying, We agree to create a government of national unity.

And next morning, when they just tore apart this deal, Mr. Arseniy Yatsenyuk, then a leader in Ukraines Batkivshchyna party, and others who signed the deal with the president, they went to this Maidan, to the protestors, and said, Congratulations, we just created the government of the winners. Feel the difference: government of national unity and government of the winners. Two days later, this parliament, which immediately changed their position, announced that the Russian language is no longer welcome.

A few days later, the so-called Right Sector, the group which was an instrument in the violence in Maidan, they said that Russians have nothing to do in Crimea, because Russians would never honor the heroes of Ukraine, like Bandera and Shukhevych, who were collaborating with Nazis. These kinds of statements led to the people in the east of Ukraine just to say: guys, you did something unconstitutional, and we dont believe this is good for us, so leave us alone, let us understand what is going on in Kiev, but we dont want any of your new ideas to be imposed on us. We want to use our language, we want to celebrate our holidays, to honor our heroes: these eastern republics never attacked anyone. The government announced the antiterrorist campaign in the east, and they moved the regular army and the so-called voluntary battalions in the east of Ukraine. This is not mentioned by anyone. They are called terroristswell, they never attacked a person.

And investigations of what actually happened on that day of the coup is going nowhere; the investigation of the murder in Odessa on the second of May, 2014, when dozens of people were burned alive in a trade-union office building, is moving nowhere. Investigation of political murders of journalists and opposition politicians is not moving anywhere. And they basically passed amnesty for all those who were on the part of the opposition during the coup. And they prosecute all those who were on the part of the government.

But even now they want to prosecute Yanukovych in absentia, but one interesting thing maybe for your readers to compare: there was a deal on the twenty-first of February, next morning they said, Yanukovych is not in Kiev, so our conscience is clean and we do what we please, in spite of the commitment to national unity. About the same time there was a coup in Yemen. President Hadi fled to Saudi Arabia. Not to some other city in Yemen, but he fled abroad.

More than two years passed, and the entire progressive international community, led by our Western friends, insists that he must be brought back to Yemen and that the deal which he signed with the opposition must be honored by the opposition. My question is why Ukraines situation is treated differently from the situation in Yemen. Is Yemen a more important country? Are the deals which you sign, and the need to respect your word and your deals, more sacred in Yemen than in Ukraine? No answer.

Sorry for getting into all these details, but people tend to forget, because theyre being brainwashed every day with very simple phrases like Russia is aggressor in Ukraine, annexation of Crimea and so on and so forth, instead of laboring your tongues, people should go there. Those who go to Crimea, see for themselves how the people live there, and they understand that all these hysterical voices about violation of human rights, about discrimination vis-a-vis Crimean Tatars, is a lie.

Question: Maybe coming back, just for a moment, to the U.S. election, and setting aside the question of evidence, because your government has its perspective, the U.S. intelligence community has its perspectiveI dont think those differences are likely to be reconciled. Setting that question aside, many Americans believe that Russia did interfere in the election; its contributed to a particular political climate in the United States. Do you view that as an obstacle to the U.S.-Russia relationship, and do you believe there is anything that Russia can or should do to try to address these widespread concerns?

Sergey Lavrov: You said a very interesting thing. You used the word perspective. You said, Russia has its own perspective; the American intelligence community has its own perspective. Perspective is something which many people have. We speak about facts, about proofs. And with all these perspectives, these hearings which sometimes are shown on CNN, on Russian TV, I havent heard any, any proof. Except the confirmation that the FBI and the NSA started watching what the Trump team is doing sometime in July. I heard this recently.

And I take this as acceptance by those who were doing this, for whatever reason, and they clearly said that this was not because of the suspicion that he had something to do with Russia but this was a routine process during which they find a trace leading to the Trump headquarters. Fine, this is a fact: they admitted that they started this. So what? If by admitting this they make their perspective regarding Russia a fact, I cannot buy this.

And then you said, they have their own perspective, and that the American people believe Russia had something to do with the American elections. Categories like perspective and belief are not very specific. And we speak about some very serious accusations. I understand that in the West, people who indeed profess Russophobic feelings, and unfortunately they arethey used to be very powerful, they are still very powerful even when they lost the elections, and Russophobic trends are obviously seen even in the Republican camp. You know, its very easy to find some external threat and then to put all the blame on this particular external threat.

When in 2014 the Malaysian plane was shot down over Ukraine, two days later I think, in the UN Security Council, when we insisted on adopting a resolution demanding further investigation, the American officials said yes, we believe investigation must be held, but we already know the result.

What about the presumption of innocence? The same happened with Litvinenko, the poor guy who was poisoned in London, when from the very beginning they said, we will have an investigation but we know who did it, and they never made this trial public. And they never accepted the offer of assistance which we were ready to provide. And so on and so forth.

Now, yesterday, this terrible murder of the Russian and Ukrainian citizen, who used to be an MP in Russia, and did not stay in the current parliament, and President Poroshenko two hours after the guy was murdered says that this was a terrorist attack from Russiawho also blew up the munition depot near Kharkov. It was said a few hours later by the president of a democratic country, whom our American and European friends call a beacon of democracy. I thought democracy was about establishing facts when you have suspicions.

And democracy is about division of power, and if the chief executive takes upon himself the functions of the legal system, of the judicial system, that does not fit with my understanding of how Western democracy works. Were ready to discuss anythingany facts, I mean. Were ready to assist in investigations of whatever issues our partners anywhere might have. Whether this is going to be an obstacle to normal relations, I dont think so. I believe the Russian people, at least if we are asked, I would say no, if it depends on us. I understand that there are some people in the United States who want this to become an obstacle, and who want to tie up the team of President Trump on the Russian issue, and I believe this is very mean policy, but we see that this is taking place.

What can Russia do to help? Unfortunately, not much. We cannot accept the situation, but some absolutely artificial hysterical situation was created by those who severed all of the relationshipwho dropped the deal on the Bilateral Presidential Commission between Moscow and Washington with some twenty-plus working groups, a very elaborate mechanism of cooperationand then after they have done this, after they prevent the new administration from doing away with this absolute stupid situation, to ask us to do something? I dont think its fair.

We said what we did, that we are ready to work with any administration, any president who would be elected by the American people. This was our line throughout the electoral campaign, unlike the acting leaders of most European countries who were saying absolutely biased things, supporting one candidate, unlike those who even bluntly warned against the choice in favor of the Republican candidate, and this somehow is considered normal. But I leave this on the conscience of those who said this and then immediately chickened out and then started praising the wisdom of the U.S. electorate.

We said that we would be ready to come back to the relationship and to develop the relationship with the United States to the extent, and to the depths, to which the administration is ready to go. Whatever is comfortable for our partners, we will support and provide it. We talk on the basis of mutual respect and equality, trying to understand the legitimate interest of each other and to see whether we can find the balance between those interests. We will be ready to cover our part of the way, as President Putin said, but we will not be making any unilateral steps. We offered cooperation on very fair terms, and we will judge by the deeds of course.

Question: Perhaps we can pivot to international affairs. In the United States theres been discussion of a new Cold War; you, for your part, recently talked about a post-West international order, which as you may imagine is not something that many in the United States and other Western countries would readily embrace. In fact, some may even be strongly inclined to resist the emergence of a post-West order. What do you think a post-West order is, and do you think that it makes confrontation between Russia and the United States, or Russia and the West, inevitable?

Sergey Lavrov: Well first, I don't believe that we are having another Cold War. Ideologically, were not different, were not apart. Yes, there are nuances in how the countries in the West and Russia and its neighbors are run. But all in all the basis is democracy, which is elections, basically, and organizing the system, the way you respect the opposition and its also market economy. Again with give and take: you know in some countries the state is much more involved in economy than in others, but this happened in France some time ago, in the UK some time ago, so this is all secondary details, I would say. Theres no ideological differences as far as democratic principles and market economy are concerned. Second, these days, unlike the days of the Cold War, we have much clearer common threats, like terrorism, like chaos in the Middle East, like the threat of the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. This was never the case during the Cold War days, which was a very negative balance with sporadic conflicts in periphery. This time we have global universal threats, not sparing anyone, and this is what we witness almost daily, with these terrorist attacks in the Middle East and Europe, there was one in the United States, and so on and so forth.

So this absolutely makes it necessary to reassess where we are and what kind of cooperative structure we need. Post-West system, post-West order: I mentioned this term in Munich at the Munich Security Conference, and I was really surprised that people immediately made me the author, the coiner of this term, because the title of the conference contained post-West orderwith a question mark, yes. I put the question mark aside for one very simple reason: if we all agree that we cannot defeat terrorism, organized crime, drug trafficking, climate change without a universal coalition, if we all agree that this is the case, and I believe we do, then it would certainly be necessary to recognize that the world is different, compared to the many centuries when the West was leading with culture, philosophy, military might, economic systems, and so on and so forth.

We all have, China, the whole Asia-Pacific region, which President Obama, by the way, said is the place where the U.S. would be shifting, which in itself means that he was not thinking of the West order but post-West order. And, of course, Latin America; Africa, which is hugely underdeveloped but has the potential with resources and labor, young and vigorous, still untapped. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson just a few days ago in Washington convened a coalition to fight terrorismsixty-eight countries, if I am not wrong, double the number of the countries in the West. This meeting was post-West order, or a manifestation of post-West order. So I dont believe the Western countries should be really offended or should feel that their contribution to the world civilization has been underestimatednot at all. Its just the time when no one can do it alone, and thats how we feel. Its a polycentric world. Call it multipolar, call it polycentric, call it more democraticbut this is happening. And economic might, financial might and the political influence associated with all this, theyre much more evenly spread.

Question: Lets zero in on Syria. You mentioned the terrorism issue and certainly the struggle with ISIS is an important focus for the U.S., for Russia. There has been, as Im sure youre aware, some skepticism in the United States about Russias role in Syria. President Donald Trump, when he was a presidential candidate, certainly referred many times to a desire to work with Russia in Syria. How do you envision the opportunities and constraints on the U.S. and Russia in working together in Syria, and do you have any specific new ideas about how to do that?

Sergey Lavrov: First, when this coalition was created by the Barack Obama administration (the coalition which was convened in Washington just a few days ago) it was understood that out of sixty-some countries, only a few would be actually flying air force and hitting the ground. Others were mostly political and moral support, if you wish, a solidarity showwhich is fine, its important these days as well to mobilize public opinion in as many countries as you can. We were not invited. The Iranians were not invited. Some others were not invited, who I believe should be important partners in this endeavor. But this was motivated by some ideological considerations on the part of the Barack Obama administration. I just dont want to go into the reason for why they assembled this particular bunch of people.

But what I can attest to is that one year into the creation of this coalition, it was very sporadically using the air force to hit some ISIL positions. They never touched the caravans who were smuggling oil from Syria to Turkey and, in general, they were not really very active. This changed after we responded to the request of President Assad, who represents, by the way, a legitimate government member of the United Nations. After we joined, President Vladimir Putin and President Barack Obama spoke in New York in September 2015, and President Putin clearly told him that we would be doing this and we were ready to coordinate, and they agreed to have these deconfliction discussions, which did not start soon actually, not through our fault. But when we started working there the U.S.-led coalition became much more active. I dont want to analyze the reason for this. Im just saying before we moved there with our air force, the U.S. coalition was very rarely hitting ISIL positions and almost never hitting the positions of Jabhat al-Nusra, which many people believe has been spared just in case at some point they might be needed to topple the regime. And this feeling, this suspicion, is still very much alive these days, when Jabhat al-Nusra already twice changed its name, but it never changed its sponsors who continue to pump money and whatever is necessary for fighting into this structure. And people know this. So when we moved there, at the request of the government, we suggested to the U.S. to coordinate our efforts. They said, No, we can only go for deconfliction, and deconfliction procedures were developed and are being applied quite well, but we believed it was a shame that we couldnt go further, and coordinate targets and what have you. And then my friend, John Kerry, who was very sincere in his desire to overcome the ideologicalnot ideological, but to overcome some artificial barriers, and to indeed start military coordinationwe spent almost from February 2016 to September 2016 when, eventually, we had a deal to separate the armed groups, with whom the U.S. and the allies cooperate, from ISIL and Jabhat al-Nusra, and then to coordinate the targets and basically to strike only those targets which would be acceptable to both Russians and the Americans. Quite a few people really understood the quality of this deal.

I put myself in the shoes of those who were criticizing us for hitting wrong targets. You remember, there was so much criticism. So the deal we reached with Kerry, when none of us could strike unless the other supports, was solving this problem. And the fact that the Pentagon just disavowed what Kerry did, and Obama could not overrule the Pentagon, meant for me only one thing: that he, the president of the United States, Barack Obama, was motivated by the desire to have some revenge on Russia, for whatever reason and for whatever situation, rather than to capitalize over the deal reached between John Kerry and us, to make the war against terror much more efficient in Syria. But let God judge him.

Now, whether we have an opportunity to resume the cooperation: yes we do. Yes, President Donald Trump said that fighting terrorism is his number one international goal, and I believe this is absolutely natural. We will be sharing this approach, I am sure, and its also, in this sense, coming back to our first question which we discussed, about intervention in other parts of the world, terrorism is a universal threat. So when you interfere to fight terrorist manifestations, its in the interest of your country. Its another matter that you have to be faithful to international law. And the coalition, of course, led by the United States, was never invited to Syria. We were, Iran was, Hezbollah was. Still, the Syrian government, while complaining that the coalition were there uninvited, they said, If and since youre going to coordinate with Russians, with those who fight ISIL and Nusra, we take it as this is what you want, to defeat terrorism, not to do anything else in Syria. So deconfliction procedures continue to be applied.

You might have heard that the chief of general staff of the Russian Army, General Gerasimov, met with General Dunford.

Question: Twice, I understand.

Sergey Lavrov: Twice, at least, and they talked over the phone. And this is something the military discussed. I assume that if their discussions go beyond deconfliction, I dont want to speculate, this would be a welcome sign that we can really do what is necessary to bring about the situation when everyone who confronts ISIL and Nusra on the ground acts in coordination. If not under the united commandthis, I think is unachievablebut in a coordinated manner.

The Turks have troops on the ground. Iran, Hezbollah are invited by the government. Russian air force with some ground special military police helping keep law and order in the Sunni quarters of Aleppo and Damascus, the military police from Russia is largely composed of Russian Sunnis from the northern CaucasusChechens, Ingush and others.

The U.S. Air Force and the coalition air force; U.S. special forces on the ground. Apparently there are French and UK special forces on the ground. The military groups who are part of the so-called Free Syrian Army, the military armed groups who are part of the Kurdish detachmentsthere are so many players: I listed all those who declare that ISIL and Nusra are their enemies. So some harmonization is certainly in order, and we are very much open to it.

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When the United States dropped from the deal, which we negotiated with John Kerry, we shifted to look for some other opportunities and we had the deal with Turkey laterwhich was later supported by Iranwhich brought about some kind of cessation of hostilities between the government and a group of armed opposition. And we created, in Astana, a parallel track supportive of the Geneva negotiations concentrating on mechanisms to monitor the cessation of hostilities, to respond to violations, also to build up confidence by exchanging prisoners, and so on and so forth.

It is not welcome by quite a number of external players who try to provoke and encourage the radicals, radical armed groups in Syria, to make trouble and to stage some terrorist attacks. They launched a huge offensive now in the northern part of Hama Province, and they basically coordinate with Jabhat al-Nusra, under its new name. So its also a game for influence in Syria, unfortunately, which prevails in the minds of the people who promote such an approach, rather than the need to get united to fight terrorism, and then to have a political deal. Its a fight for influence on the battleground, and this is unfortunate. We dont need this now. What we need is to strengthen the cessation of hostilities and to support strongly the political process in Geneva, concentrated on the new constitution, which would be accompanied by a division of power between the government, the opposition, all ethnic groups, then elections and so on and so forth. But all this would be absolutely meaningless if people sacrifice the fight against terror for the sake of their goal, their obsession, with regime change.

Question: In Iran, the Trump administration seems to have signaled an intent to try to enforce the Iran nuclear deal, the JCPOA, more strictly, perhaps to be more assertive in challenging Irans regional role. And Id be curious about your reaction to that and the degree to which Russia could work with, or not work with, the United States on either of those things. Then there is Ukraine. Clearly a very complex problem, the Minsk Process I think to many outside observers really seems to have stalled. Is that process dead? Is there any way to move forward?

Sergey Lavrov: On Iran, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action was a product of collective workits a compromise. But the key things were never compromised. Its a compromise which allows for all of us, with the help of the International Atomic Energy Agency, to be sure that Irans nuclear program is going to be peaceful, that all the elements which cause suspicion would be removed, and handled in a way which gives us all certainty and gives us control over the implementation of those arrangements.

I dont think that the Trump administration is thinking in the same terms as the slogans during the campaign, that Iran is the number one terrorist state; we dont have a single fact to substantiate this claim. At least when we were facing a huge terrorist threat, when we were under terrorist attack in the 1990s in the northern Caucasus, we detected and discovered dozens and hundreds of foreign terrorist fighters from very close neighborship to Iran, but not from Iran at all. And we know that the political circles in quite a number of countries were really encouraging these terrorist groups to go into the northern Caucasus. Iran had never challenged the sovereignty of the Russian Federation, never used its own links with Muslim groups to provoke radicalism and to create trouble. What we do now with Iran and those that cooperate with us and the Syrian army is fighting terrorists in Syria. Iran is a powerful player on the ground, legitimately invited by the government. Iran has influence over Lebanese Hezbollah, which is also legitimately on the ground. And if we all want, you know, to topple, to defeat terrorists in Syria, there should be some coordination. I have already touched upon this.

The IAEA regularly reports on this Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action implementation. The latest report once again confirmed that there are no violations of the part of Iran, and that the deal is being implemented in line with the commitments of Tehran and all others. Its another matter that the steps which were promised in return to the implementation, namely sanctions relief, are not being undertaken by all Western participants as fast and as fully as was promised. But thats another matter.

On the Minsk agreements, I believe that the Ukrainian government and President Poroshenko personally want them dead. They want them dead in a way which would allow them to blame Russia and the people in the east of Ukraine. They certainly encountered huge opposition from the radicals, and the radicals believe that this government is weak enough just to wait it out and to have either early elections or to have another Maidan. The biggest mistake of President Poroshenko, I am convinced, was that after he signed this agreement in February 2015 in Minsk, and he came back with the success, with the support of Germany, France, then the Security Council in New York endorsed this deal, and he should have used this moment to impress upon his parliament, upon the opposition, that this was a good deal supported by the European Union, where he wanted to join.

Instead, he started apologizing in front of his opposition when he got back to Kiev saying, you should not think this is serious, I did not commit myself to anything in the legal wayin the legally binding waythis is not what you read. And so on and so forth. He cornered himself in the situation of an absolutely irresponsible politician who signed one thing and who was saying that this is not what he signed one week later when he came back. The opposition felt that this was his weakness and they started carving out of his position anything which was still reasonable. The fact is that every day he is in contact with President Vladimir Putin, they talk over the phone sometimes, they talk on the margins of the meetings of the Normandy Format when the leaders have their meetings; the last one was in October in Berlin last year. But my impression is that he tries to be constructive, to find ways to come back to the Minsk implementation. But the next day he comes back to Kiev or goes abroad, and goes public saying things which are absolutely aggressive and are absolutely unfair.

One very simple example: in the Minsk agreement, they provide for preparation for elections on the special status of these territories. The status itself is listed in the deal, and the law on this special status is already adopted by the Rada, but it is not in force. Then amnesty, because you dont want to have a witch hunt, and the constitutional confirmation that this special status is permanent. That was all. And after this is done, the Ukrainian government restores full control over the entire Russian-Ukrainian border. They are saying now: no elections, no special status, no constitutional change, no amnesty, until we first take control of the border. But everyone can read the Minsk agreementits only three pages. And it says absolutely clearly that the border transfer is the last step, and everyone understood why when this was negotiated. Because if you just under these circumstances, with all these animosities, with all these so-called voluntary battalions, Azov, Donbass and all the radicals, not reigned in by the governmentwhen you just say, okay, take the border and we trust you that will do everything else, these people would just be victims. They will be suffocated and burned alive like the people in Odessa. So the political guarantees are crucial, and Germany, France and others understood this very well, just like the Americans understood this very well, because we did have parallel trackparallel to the Normandy Formatwith the U.S., and we are ready to revive it again.

But one very simple example. October 2015, Paris: the Normandy leaders meet. And there is very specific discussion regarding the law on special status. The logic and sequence of the Minsk agreement is that you first have the special status, and then you have elections. Because people would normally want to know what kind of authority those for whom they are going to vote would have. Poroshenko said, no, we first have to have elections. Then I, Poroshenko, would see whether the people elected are to my liking. And if they are, then, we will give them the special status.

Which is rather weird. But still, we decided just to move forward; we would be ready to have some compromise on this thing, in spite of the fact that it was absolutely clearly spelled out in the Minsk agreement. And then the former foreign minister of Germany, who was participating in the meeting, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, who is now president of Germany, he said, why dont we have a compromise formula which would mean that the law on the special status is adopted, but it enters into force on the day of elections temporarily, and it would enter into force, full fledged, on the day when the OSCE reports that elections were free and fair, and in line with democratic OSCE standards?

Everyone says okay. Poroshenko says okay. One year later, in October 2016 in Berlin, the same group of people, the leaders with the ministers. And President Putin is saying the formula of Steinmeier is still not embodied in any papers, in the Contact group process, because the Ukrainian government refuses to put in on paper. Poroshenko said, well, but it is not what we agreed, and so on and so forth. And then Putin said, well this is Mr. Steinmeier, ask him about his formula, and he reiterated this formula: temporary entry into force on the day of elections, full entry into force on the day the OSCE confirms they were free and fair. Merkel said the same, Hollande said the same, that this was absolutely what we agreed.

And then Poroshenko said, okay, lets do it. October 2016 is almost half a year ago. And we are still not able, because of the Ukrainian government opposition in the Contact group, to fix this deal on paper. So I can go for a long time on this one, but I am sure that those people who are interested can go and who follow the developments in Ukraine, they understand why we are not at the point of Minsk implementation.

The Ukrainian government wants to provoke the other side to blink first and to say, enough is enough, we drop from the Minsk deal. Thats why the economic blockade, thats why the prohibition for the banks to serve the population in the east. By the way, in the Minsk agreements, two years ago we discussed the difficulties in banking services for this part of Ukraine and Germany and France committed themselves to organizing mobile banking, and they failed because they could never get cooperation from the Ukrainian authorities.
It was the end of the day for four suspected armed robbers who specialise in tricking sellers of expensive mobile phones pretending to be online buyers and thereafter rob the sellers at the point delivery as they were arrested by the Lagos State Police Command. .

The suspects, Wilfred Ehis, 30; Bright Eloho, 24, Emeka Egbemedu, 22 and Olanrewaju Kamilu, 33 were arrested on Wednesday evening in Olamulti Hotel, New Site, Iba, Ojo, Lagos.

The gangs had on 7 March, 2017 shot one Sgt. Garba Kadiri, an RRS operative while attempting to evade arrest when they were tracked down by the officers in Pretty Street, Iyana School, LASU  Iyana Road.

The RRS operatives, working on reports from victims of the same robbery perpetrated by the gang, had tracked Ehis and his gang to a location in Iba, where the gang shot the officers before escaping.

According to Ehis, a Chemical Engineering graduate of University of Benin, Edo State, what I do is shop online for expensive phones and goods. I request the sellers to make home delivery.

I would send the delivery address to the seller. When the seller gets to the address, he would call me and I would control my boys to go to the delivery address and rob the seller.

He stressed: That is my role. I shop online. Send the delivery address to the seller and make sure he is at the delivery address, then control the boys to collect the ordered items from him.

I dont follow them to the robbery scene. It is only Nurudeen, alias Onyeabo that I know carry out the execution. I know he has a locally made short  gun. And, I am aware he had recruited other boys to join him in the robbery.

All I do is stay in hotels. I dont even go out at all. I am always indoor. They do the robbery, sell the phones and give me, my own share of the deal. Nurudeen is always in hiding. He doesnt come outside since SARS, Lagos picked up his closest friend last year. He is short in size and he sneaks into Lagos mostly at night through the creeks from Ogun State, he disclosed.

Sources stated that Ehis has several gangs who did his runs for him. The source added that he was into internet fraud and ATM point robbery.

The source added that, Ehis before his arrest stood at different ATM points in Igando, Ojo, Alaba and Apapa to monitor ATM users, who withdrew money, and that he controlled his gangs, who operate mostly on motor cycle (okada) to trail the withdrawals and collect the money from them.

After his arrest, about five victims from Computer Village in Ikeja have besieged RRS headquarters to give information about the operation of the gang.

Two of such victims who came forward on Thursday were Oluwaseyi Sunday and Alabede Habib.

Both of them in separate statements stated that Ehis, pretending as Barrister Deji had sometime in February 2017 requested that expensive phones be delivered to him on two different addresses on LASU-Iyana Iba Expressway. The victims were later robbed by three of Ehiss gang members operating on motor cycle at the delivery points.

The sellers claimed they lost N800, 000 and N450, 000 in the robbery.

Items recovered from Ehis when he was arrested were a Tecno Cq phone, an LG 3 Phone; One mobile phone; 2 Wrist watches, a Canon camera Eo87D; one neck lace, one Sony laptop, a rap of Indian Hemp and an ash colour Altima salon car, with the registration No. APP 493 EH.

Source: ( PM News )
The outbreak of meningitis has continued to take more lives as one person has been confirmed dead by the Jigawa Government and four others injured in four local government areas of the state.

Muhammad Kainuwa, the permanent secretary of the state Ministry of Health, confirmed this to journalists in Dutse on Thursday. Mr. Kainuwa said that five suspected cases of Cerebro Spinal Meningitis (CSM) were reported to the ministry.

He explained that two of the cases were recorded in Gwaram Local Government Area, while one each was reported from Kirikasamma, Kiyawa and Maigatari Local Government Areas.

The permanent secretary added that a 13-year-old boy lost his life to the disease in one of the cases recorded in Gwaram.

According to him, the four infected persons had already been treated.

As of today, five suspected cases were reported in Kiyawa, Kirikasamma, Gwaram and Maigatari local government areas.

In Gwaram, there were two cases where a 13-year-old boy lost his life.

And all cases reported were investigated using standard operation procedures and specimens were taken also where one was found to be positive, he said.

Mr. Kainuwa also said that the ministry had contacted the National Primary Healthcare Development Agency (NPHCDA) for vaccines.

The major challenge is the non-availability of the vaccines.

But as soon as the Federal Government made available the vaccines, we will immunise the affected communities, said Mr. Kainuwa.

He added that the ministry had mobilised its Disease Surveillance and Notification Officers in all the local government areas in order to combat the menace.

Besides, the permanent secretary said that as part of measures to prevent further spread of CSM, the ministry is also collaborating with the World Health Organisation (WHO) for proper documentation of the disease.

We have also increased our surveillance in collaboration with WHO particularly in Maigatari which is along the Nigeria/Niger border.

The WHO is also providing more investigative kits, the state government has also reactivated the Port Health facility in Maigatari.

Also, weve already commenced creating awareness across the state so that people will able to prevent themselves from getting infected and also quickly bring to hospital anyone that has the symptoms.

We also use jingles in radio stations in the state so as to reach to the populace, the permanent secretary said.

Mr. Kainuwa, therefore, advised residents to take precautions against the disease and make sure that they do not sleep in unventilated and crowded rooms.

(NAN)
A High Court of the Federal Capital Territory in Maitama, Abuja, on Thursday, adjourned till May 19 to decide on the procedure it would adopt for taking the evidence of a former Chief of Administration of the Nigerian Air Force Headquarters, Air Vice Marshall Mohammed Mamu (retd.), who is being prosecuted for alleged bribery charges.

Justice Salisu Garba adjourned the case after the defence lawyer, Mr. Joseph Daudu (SAN), indicated that a special procedure might be necessary for his client to continue his testimony because of its potential risk to national security.

The judge decided to entertain arguments on Daudus request after the counsel prosecuting for the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, Mr. Sylvester Tahir, opposed any plan to adopt a special procedure for taking the defendants evidence and insisted that Mamu must continue his testimony in the open court.

Mamu was testifying on Thursday as the first defence witness in his ongoing trial, when he paused to inform the court that the purpose for which a sum of $300,0000, described by the EFCC as proceeds of bribery, was paid to him can be directly linked with national security.

The point was restated by the defence lawyer and the judge readily indicated his interest to adopt the necessary measures, including taking the defendants evidence in camera if necessary.

Daudu also asked for a stand-down for some minutes to enable him to give a preview of Mamus testimony to the prosecuting counsel, so that the lawyer would better appreciate the potential risk to national security in what the defendant was going to say.

But in response, Tahir rejected Daudus offer, insisting that the pre-condition for adopting special measures for taking evidence had not been met in the case.

The prosecuting counsel argued that Mamu was neither the President nor a governor of a state, as envisaged under sections190 and 232 of the Evidence Act, in order for his evidence to be accorded such special treatment.

He insisted that the security of the nation was not in issue in the case, adding that the trial must continue in the open court.

He said, Section 243 of the Evidence Act deals with exclusion of evidence in terms of public interest. Our take is that the issue here is not of national security. As far as we are concerned, the pre-condition for exclusion of evidence has not been met.

The DW1 (first defence witness  Mamu) is not a minister or a governor. He is not caught by the provision of section 243 of the Evidence Act.

Source: Punch
The Central Bank of Nigeria has announced on Thursday that it will from next Monday begin the sale of foreign exchange to Bureau De Change operators twice weekly.

The Acting Director, Corporate Communications Department, CBN, Mr. Isaac Okoroafor, who confirmed this, stated that the move was part of the apex banks determination to sustain the liquidity in the forex market.

Specifically, he said that the BDC operators would henceforth enjoy twice weekly purchases at the sum of $10,000 each.

The apex bank, according to Okoroafor, has called on all licensed BDC operators to fund their accounts with the CBN on Mondays and Wednesdays, while they receive their purchases on Tuesdays and Thursdays respectively.

He said, In continuation of its determination to sustain liquidity in the foreign exchange market, the Central Bank of Nigeria wishes to inform market participants and the general public that it will commence twice weekly forex sales to Bureaux de Change from Monday, April 3, 2017.

In a similar development, the CBN on Thursday offered the sum of $100m to authorised dealers to service forward requests.

The development followed the regulators decision to increase forex sale to the BDCs.
An Ikeja Magistrates Court has granted a 45-year -old man, Kunle Ajibade, bail after he was accused for allegedly raping his own daughter.

He was released on a bail of N500,000 with two sureties in like sum.

The accused, a driver, who resides at 3, Oyediran Close, Ayobo, a suburb of Lagos, is being tried for rape and sexual assault.

Ajibade, however, entered a not guilty  plea.

The accused, according to Insp. Racheal Williams committed the offences on March 26 in his house.

Williams said the accused raped his 16- year -old daughter inside his bedroom, adding that he claimed he did not know when he raped her.

According to the inspector, the accused had said during interrogation, I did not know what came over me when I sighted my daughter who was asleep and raped her.

The girl cried and went to report to her mother, who went to the market.

The offences contravened Sections 259 and 261 of the Criminal Law of Lagos State, 2015 (Revised).

The Magistrate, Mrs Linda Balogun, adjourned the case until April 26 for mention.

(NAN)
The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, on Thursday, March 30, 2017 arraigned the duo of Adegbite Adetoye and Ponnle Abiodun along with Origin Oil and Gas Limited before Justice Silvanus Orji of the FCT High Court Apo, Abuja on an 11-count charge of fraud and abuse of Petroleum Support Fund to the tune of N735 million.

Adetoye and his co-accused allegedly conspired and fraudulently obtained the sum of N735, 132, 076.18 (seven hundred and thirty five million, one hundred and fifty two thousand, seventy six naira, eighteen kobo) from the federal government as payment for the importation of 15,000mt of premium motor spirit (PMS) which they claim to have purchased from Vitol SA and imported into Nigeria through MT Silverie.

The offence contravenes Section 8 (a) and punishable under Section 1 (3) of the Advance Fee Fraud and Other Fraud Related Offences Act, 2006.

The defendants pleaded not guilty to the charge. S. I Ameh, SAN, counsel to the defendants, informed the court that he had a pending bail application dated March 27, 2017 and served on the prosecution same date.

He urged the court to admit the defendants to bail adding that they would be available for trial. Counsel to EFCC, Steve Odiase, did not oppose the application on the ground that the defendants had earlier been granted administrative bail by the Commission.

Justice Orji granted bail to the defendants in the sum of N100million each with two sureties in like sum. The sureties must be civil servants not below grade level 14 or residents in Abuja with traceable address to be verified by the court or EFCC. The defendants must not travel out without the permission of the court.

The case has been adjourned to May 22nd and 25th, 2017 for hearing. Meanwhile, Justice Orji has ordered the defendants to be remanded in prison custody pending the perfection of their bail terms.
The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, Ibadan zonal office, Oyo State, on Thursday said a herbalist had been arrested by its operatives for falsely obtaining N45m from a victim under the pretext of offering herbal and spiritual healing.

A statement from the EFCC Head of Public Affairs in the zone, Ayo Oyewole, said the suspect, Aminat Okiribiti, 34, committed the crime with two other accomplices at large, one of who is said to be her husband.

The statement said, Aminat (Okiribiti) was arrested for an alleged case of conspiracy and obtaining money under false pretences. In a rehash of the old infamous advance fee fraud tactic of spiritual help and solution to all problems, a victim recounted her ordeal in the hands of a syndicate to our operatives, signalling a warning to the public.

Aminat, alongside other three cohorts still at large, conspired, using the decoy of providing cure and spiritual solution to the health challenges of the victims children and fleeced her of the sum of N45m.

Aminat, who is married to one Wande Okiribiti, 47, who is still at large, confessed that some of the money obtained from the victim was collected through her (Aminats) bank account domiciled in one of the new generation banks located in Ibadan.

The statement said Aminat and the victim met sometime in October 2014, at Utako, Abuja, adding that the suspect would be charged to court at the end of investigation.

Source: Punch
The Kaduna State Governor, Mallam Nasir el-Rufai, on Thursday met with religious leaders under the aegis of the Christian Association of Nigeria and the Jamaatu Nasir Islam from the three local government areas affected by herdsmen killings in the southern part of the state.

The three local government areas are Jemaa, Kaura and Zango-Kataf.

The governor, while speaking during the meeting which lasted for several hours at the late Gen. Usman Katsina House, Kaduna, also hinted that the government was working toward the redeployment of all security agents of southern Kaduna extraction out of the zone.

He noted that those security agents in the crisis zone had caused more damage than resolving the age-long crisis.

According to him, the government would ensure that security agents from the zone, who are indigenes are posted out while those from other states are brought to serve in the area.

The governor also said the state government had hired 50 lawyers to build the capacity of the states Ministry of Justice and to enable it to prosecute those suspected to be behind the crisis in the southern part of the state.

El-Rufai vowed that no amount of blackmail would stop him from tackling the crisis in Southern Kaduna.

He called on people of goodwill to join him in ending the Southern Kaduna crisis which had over the years claimed several lives and property.

He said he would continue to fight those behind the evil forces against the peace and stability of the state, adding that the meeting was aimed at strengthening peace, security and development of the state.

The governor said, Evil is evil and it can be committed by anybody whether the person is a Muslim or Christian, Hausa or Bajju person, a Fulani or Atyab person.

Source: Punch
AN ETHIOPIAN TRIBE HOLDS A BIZARRE FAT MAN COMPETITION WHERE TRIBESMEN COMPETE TO BECOME THE MOST ROTUND.

The Bodi tribe live in the deep south of the African country and the contest is done annually to celebrate the tribes new year.

The competitors spend six months preparing for the big day with strict rules surrounding the event.

For half a year the men feed themselves solely on fresh milk and cows blood to fatten themselves up for the big day.

During this time they are not allowed to leave their huts or have sex, but they are waited on hand and foot.

Women and girls bring them milk every morning in their quest for big gut glory.

The only prize for the winner is fame and the adulation of his fellow tribesmen.

The area of the Omo Valley where they live does not welcome tourists meaning their traditions have been left largely undisturbed for generations.
The deceaseds family said after his death, Mr. Kalios body was deposited in a morgue without the knowledge of any of his children.

Belema Uduje, the deceaseds daughter, who spoke about the development, said the family suspects foul play in Mr. Kalios death.

This was a man full of life without any complaint, said Mrs. Uduje, a medical doctor.

And a week before we were told of his death, all efforts to reach him on phone and Facebook were futile, as his phone was switched off and his Facebook account deleted.

But few days after his death his phone was on, this was extremely puzzling. Why would someone deliberately switch off his phone and delete himself from social media?

Mrs. Uduje said they were told her father had complained of a headache and was rushed to a hospital where a CT scan was done.

The scan result showed bleeding from both sides of the brain which was caused by trauma, she said.

We were also told that a neurosurgeon requested that surgery be done to drain the blood, which we were told that our father consented to, and he died after the surgery was done.

Even after he died, his body was taken to the mortuary. All these happened without us being informed. He had no life threatening medical condition. He was a healthy fun loving man.

Mrs. Uduje said efforts to seek answers to questions surrounding the cause of death from the deceaseds second wife were also unsuccessful.

We also pleaded with his family to ask questions but the family says they are not interested in knowing what happened to their brother they just want to bury him, she said.

Circumstances surrounding his death are suspicious. It is very impossible for a healthy individual to bleed in the brain. The deceased just retired from Shell Petroleum Development Company less than a year, and he was paid gratuities and benefits in full. I am asking the appropriate authorities to seek justice for my father.

It is on this premise that we are appealing to the Inspector-General of Police (IGP), and the Rivers State Governor, Barr. Nyesom Wike, to investigate the circumstances surrounding the death of our father, and ensure that all those involved in his death be brought to book.

She also called on the Nigerian Medical Association, Port-Harcourt branch, to assist her and members of her family in Investigating the cause of her late fathers death.

Equally, two of the deceaseds daughters, who are lawyers, also appealed to the Port-Harcourt branch of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), to join in the investigation to unravel the death of their father.

Source: ( Premium Times )
The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission has invited more senior officials of the Central Bank of Nigeria as part of investigations into an alleged foreign exchange scam and other sharp practices within the apex bank. Reliable sources within the anti-graft agency said the investigators probing the scam believed strongly that the activities of some officials of the bank impacted negatively on the fortunes of the naira and contributed to its drastic slump in recent months.

The PUNCH had exclusively reported on Thursday that the EFCC detained and grilled two directors on Wednesday. It was, however, learnt on Thursday that the officials were released late on the same day after writing statements on oath. A reliable source within the agency had earlier assured our reporter that the CBN senior officials were being grilled as of the time this paper was going to bed on Wednesday.

Additional findings by The PUNCH on Thursday revealed that the senior officials grilled by the EFCC were the Director of Procurement and a Special Adviser to the Central Bank Governor, Godwin Emefiele.

A top official at the anti-graft agency said the bank accounts of suspected persons were being scrutinised by security agents with a view to determining the sources of money and their trails. The source added that the agents would check if the money which passed through the accounts corresponded with the salaries and allowances of these officials.

The source said, We actually invited about four senior CBN officials on Wednesday but only two showed up. One of them told us that he was ill and asked us to reschedule the invitation.

We have now sent out letters to other senior officials and they will appear before us soon. You should understand that things that involve the apex bank are always sensitive.

The source said due to the sensitive nature of the investigations, the presidency must be carried along. He added that the EFCC would send a report of the probe to President Muhammadu Buhari after investigations might have been concluded.

The commission had about four weeks ago commenced investigations into the activities of the apex bank over sharp practices that caused the naira to depreciate sharply.

However, immediately after the EFCC investigations commenced, the CBN reeled out new policies which caused the naira to appreciate. Detectives at the commission suspect that many top level officers at the CBN are part of the alleged fraud.

Speaking on Wednesday, a source at the EFCC, who wished to remain anonymous had said, We have arrested two directors of the CBN in connection with forex manipulation. Ironically, immediately we started investigating these chaps a month ago, the CBN reeled out a new forex policy which seeks to flood the market with excess dollars to strengthen the naira.

Already, we have searched their houses and recovered some sensitive documents. We have reason to believe that they may not have acted alone. We expect to make more discoveries as investigations continue.

When contacted on Wednesday, the Acting Director, Corporate Communications Department, CBN, Mr. Isaac Okoroafor, had said that no director of the apex bank had been arrested by the EFCC.

He said, This is not true. No director of the bank (CBN) has been arrested by the EFCC. The current activities of the CBN in the forex market are a result of months of study, monitoring and planning to tackle the activities of black marketers.

On Thursday, however, when one of our correspondents confronted Okoroafor with additional information on the probe and the designations of those grilled and briefly detained, he was less than forthcoming. Asked to respond, Okoroafor said, You have published a false story that our directors were being detained, what do you want me to say? I have no comments. You can continue with your falsehood. I have no comment.

Source: Punch
7 Prisoners were left injured at the Kimironko Prison in Gasabo District in the countrys capital Kigali, injuring seven inmates.

Property was destroyed by the inferno in spite of the fact that Rwanda police fire fighters immediately intervened to put out the fire before gutting all prison facilities.

Inmates were evacuated to separate facilities, while police, soldiers and prison guards surrounded the prison to ensure no inmate could take advantage to escape.

George Rwigamba, Commissioner General Rwanda Correctional Services (RCS), said seven people received minor injuries in the fire and inmates had been evacuated to a separate wing within the prison facility.

He added, No death has been recorded and no inmate escaped. However, their properties including mattresses, hygiene materials among others were all destroyed, he added.

Rwigamba stated that those injured would be treated inside the prison, adding that investigations were ongoing to find out the root cause of the fire.

Neighbouring residents told newsmen that they heard gunshots inside the prison when the fire broke out.

For the last three years, prisons like Muhanga (Southern Province) Rubavu (Western Province) and Nyarugenge (Kigali City) were gutted by fire with the latter having been burnt in December 2016.

Source: ( PM News )
Yesterday morning it was announced that controversial journalist, Kemi Olunloyo has regained her freedom, a good news that left Nigerians happy that she became a trend on Twitter, but it seems an happy as Kemi has just been remanded in prison again.

Just after a Magistrate Court had granted her bail and she was about to take her leave apparently, a Federal High Court in rivers has denied her bail.

For the second time in two weeks, a journalist and blogger, Kemi Olunloyo has been refused bail and remanded in Port Harcourt prison custody.

This time, it was the Federal High Court in Rivers State that denied the daughter of the former governor of Oyo State and remanded her in prison after a Magistrate Court had granted her bail.

However, charges against the Port Harcourt-based publisher, Samuel Walson, were dropped.

Olunloyo and Walson were arrested over an alleged online defamatory publication against a frontline cleric, Pastor David Ibiyomie.
The Lagos State Police Command on Friday said they arrested an armed robbery gang that lured phone sellers to hotel rooms to rob them.

According to the Commissioner of Police in Lagos State, Mr Fatai Owoseni told journalists in Ikeja that four suspects that had been arrested, shot their victims before dispossessing them of valuables.

He said, We have got 12 cases of this nature which led to covert operations.

They shot one of our policemen on the leg when he took phones to them under disguise, but the police eventually arrested the kingpin, which led to the arrest of two others.

One KIA Optima car, four expensive phones, wristwatches, camera, laptop computer and substance suspected to be Indian hemp, were recovered from them.

We are still out to get other members of the gang, as this is believed to be just a unit out of several other units the suspects have.

Owoseni also paraded five suspects for presenting themselves as haulage contractors, just to cart away unsuspecting victims property.

According to the commissioner, their motive is to divert and sell goods given to them, while they dismember the trucks and sell to spare parts traders.

They have confessed to diverting some other trucks with flour worth N6million which they were supposed to transport.

The receiver has been traced, and will also be arrested. he said.

He added that two suspects who specialised in forging vehicle particulars, with which they sell stolen vehicles to unsuspecting members of the public, were also arrested at Festac.

Owoseni said investigation was on to arrest other members of the gang.

Source : ( Punch Newspaper )
A whistle blower of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) Mr. Adewale Atanda has described how the former Governor of Oyo State, Chief Rashidi Adewolu Ladoja sent 600,000 to his daughter, Bimpe, in London sometime in 2007.

The former governor of Oyo State, Ladoja is being tried for alleged N4.7bn fraud during his tenure as governor of the State.

The prosecution witness, Mr. Atanda, who was then Senior Special Executive Assistant to Ladoja, told the court that the money was part of a sum of N634m, which some stockbrokers contributed to forestall Ladojas impeachment.

According to him, the ex-governor had earlier instructed the sale of some shares belonging to the Oyo State Government to the said stockbrokers who later contributed N634m to forestall his impeachment.

The N634 million, Atanda said, was part of the commission and profit realised by the stockbrokers.

He said out of the N634 million delivered to him by the stockbrokers, he had to removed about N180 million which he had earlier borrowed and spent on Ladojas instructions during the heat of the impeachment.

Part of the N180m, he said, was the N80 million loan he obtained from Wema Bank Plc, which Ladoja used to purchase 22 vehicles for Oyo State lawmakers to prevent his impeachment.

Another was a loan of N80m, which he (Atanda) obtained from Lagoon Savings and Loans for the purpose of buying for Ladoja a property known as Quarters 361, which the Oyo State Government put up for sale and N13.8million which Ladoja used to buy two Land Cruiser vehicles for the state security personnel for his protection.

Atanda further said having deducted the N180 million which he borrowed on Ladojas behalf, he distributed the balance of the N634 million according to Ladojas instructions.

Among the beneficiaries of the money, he said, was Bimpe, to whom he delivered 600,000 in 50 bills in London sometime in 2007. Ladojas wife, Yinka, also got on different occasions sums of N20 million, N19.5 million and $13,000 Dollars.

Other beneficiaries, Atanda said, were lawyers including Akintola and Olujinmi who the witness said represented Ladoja in court.

Asked by the prosecutor, Oluwafemi Olabisi, under what circumstances the sum of 600,000 was paid to Bimpe Ladoja, Atanda said, His Excellency wanted me to pay the money into his account but I had difficulty in doing it. I told him and he said he would ask his daughter to contact me. She did and I gave her the money.

The money was mostly in 50 notes; I put it in small suitcases and handed the money over to her in London. I think it was in 2007, the witness stated.

Atanda added that the N20 million he gave to Yinka Ladoja was probably what she had lent Ladoja during the impeachment heat. On another occasion, they were conducting Local Government Area elections in the state. So, on the eve of the election, I think money was required to be distributed to all the local governments. I was in Lagos, she (Yinka) called me and said His Excellency said she should collect N19.5 million.

Then there was a time she was travelling and I was told to send $13,000 into her account, Atanda added.

Under cross-examination by Ladojas lawyer, Bolaji Onilenla, Atanda said neither Bimpe nor Ladoja gave him anything to acknowledge the payment of the 600,000 to Bimpe.

At this point further proceedings were adjourned till April 12 and 13, 2017.

The EFCC is prosecuting Ladoja alongside a former Oyo State Commissioner for Finance, Waheed Akanbi.

The duo were arraigned on eight counts of money laundering on December 14, 2016 before Justice Mohammed Idris of the Federal High Court in Lagos.

They were accused of conspiring to siphon N4.7bn from the coffers of the state and launder same.
The Executive Vice Chairman of the Nigerian Communications Commission, Prof Umar Danbatta has condemned unwarranted cutting of fibre cables and unending community attack on telecommunications infrastructures.

He said these were some of the reasons for poor quality of services in the country.

Danbatta, who spoke on Channels TV programme Sunrise Daily, said though the drop call rates being experienced by consumers was not acceptable, findings by the Commission showed that fiber cut and sabotage were largely responsible for the poor quality of networks.

Based on the measurement of quality of service we have conducted, the call drop rate is not acceptable; the call success rate is equally not encouraging.

But our findings also show that there are technical and non technical factors responsible for the poor quality of networks.

These factors include fiber cut, community issues and unsteady electricity supply, Danbatta said on questions centered around quality of telecoms services.

Danbatta argued that electricity supply was closely tied to the quality of service as all the network operators depend on electricity supply on a daily basis.

Even though they do depend also on generating power on their own, they still have challenges of diesel most of the times, he noted.

He said in order to address some of the issues, the Commission had suggested to the network operators to look for alternative means of powering their base stations.

One of such alternative means he noted was solar energy.

Admitting that although the option entails additional investment, he said it will ultimately be a solution to lack of electricity supply.

Source: Dailypost
Two drug traffickers has been arrested by the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) on Friday at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport (MMIA), Lagos with cocaine and heroin.

According to the ,spokesperson of the NDLEA, Mr Mitchell he said in an announcement in Lagos that one of the apprehended traffickers concealed cocaine in his boxer shorts and his baggage, while the other ingested heroin.

Ofoyeju said that one of them claimed to be a shipper of jewellery,while the other said he was a car parts merchant.

The NDLEA representative said that cocaine, weighing 750 grams, was found with the jewelry merchant, while the car parts merchant ingested 94 wraps of heroin, weighing 1.595kg.

As indicated by him, this is one of the biggest amounts of medications ingested by a suspect at the Lagos air terminal in recent times.

The suspects, who arrived from Brazil and Uganda with cocaine and heroin respectively are currently being interrogated for illegally importing narcotics into the country, he said.

Ofoyeju cited the NDLEA Chairman, Mr Muhammad Abdallah, as saying that the office would keep on foiling the arrangements of drug traffickers to profit illegally.

NDLEA is working very hard to intercept drugs at all entry points and also arrest every trafficker.

Those that intend to enrich themselves with proceeds of drugs will end up in detention.

The arrests validate our resolve to address the problem of drug trafficking in the country, while the suspects will soon be charged to court, he quoted Abdallah as saying.

Source: ( PM News )
The personal Assistant on Social Media,to President Muhammadu Buharis ,Lauretta Onochie, has faulted the Senate for Wednesdays suspension of its former leader, Ali Ndume.

In a message she posted on her Facebook page, Onochie said the senators did not have any constitutional power to deny any part of the country its representation.

She said the development had further showed that the Senate had been hijacked by some men being haunted by their past.

She wrote, It is very clear that the peoples parliament, otherwise known as the Senate, has been hijacked by a few unwholesome men who are haunted by their past and yes, the present.

There is no power in the constitution of Nigeria that gives the right to the Senate to deny any part of Nigeria their representation by suspending any senator. That is where I stand!

The Nigerian Senate continues to play the role of the accuser, the police, the court and the executioner. Impunity and the height of ignorance.

It is obvious that the Nigerian Senate has no regard for our institutions like the police and the law courts. We cant remember when they had evidence against anyone and handed the matter to the police.

Onochie said listening to the Senates spokesman, Aliyu Sabi-Abdullahi, during a television interview in the morning, she was convinced that the senators knew that they had goofed and crossed the line.

Source: (Punch Newspaper )


Nigerians have taken to social media to express their dissatisfaction towards Kemi Olunloyos arrest, jail and also appearing in court in prison uniform.

Also recall that just after a Magistrate Court had granted the controversial blogger bail and was about to take her leave a Federal High Court in Rivers denied her bail again, leaving her remanded in prison.

However, Nigerian took to twitter to express their dissatisfaction.
Daughter of a dictator and later head of state herself, South Koreas Park Geun-Hye has spent nearly two decades living in Seouls sprawling presidential palace. Now she will be locked in a cell, eating $1.30 meals and doing her own washing up.

A court on Friday ordered the ousted South Korean leader arrested as a criminal suspect in the vast corruption and influence-peddling scandal that brought millions of people into the streets, and culminated with her impeachment.

She will join other key figures in the scandal, including her secret confidante Choi Soon-Sil and the heir to the Samsung business empire Lee Jae-Yong, at the Seoul Detention Centre in Uiwang.

The complex south of the capital is made up of cell blocks  women and men are segregated  and other facilities, behind a barbed wire fence and a high wall interspersed with watch towers.

Its list of past residents reads like a Whos Who of South Korean business and politics, among them an army-backed ex-president jailed in the 1990s for bribery, a former spy chief, and SK Group chairman Chey Tae-Won, who leads the countrys third-largest conglomerate.

Most detainees at the centre share 12-square-metre cells designed to hold about six people, but prominent figures stay in one-person facilities due to safety concerns.

The humble, 6.5-square-metre space features a foldable mattress on the floor serving as a bed, a television, a small cupboard, and a toilet and cold-water sink  although reports suggested that given her status Park could be allocated one of the larger cells to herself.

Inmates can use communal hot bathing facilities twice a week.

Three meals are provided, budgeted at 1,440 won ($1.30) each. Inmates are required to eat in their cell and wash the meal tray at the sink before returning it. No outside food is allowed.

Detainees are required to wear uniforms  the womens are green  with morning roll call at 6am and evening 9pm. An hours outdoor exercise is allowed each day.

In between inmates can be questioned by prosecutors and meet their lawyers.

Prison authorities do not impose any time limits on attorney consultations, with some wealthy inmates taking advantage of the rule to spend most of their waking hours at a visiting area with their lawyers.

Cho Yoon-Sun, Parks former culture minister currently on trial for creating a blacklist of artists critical of Park to starve them of state subsidies, has her husband among her defence lawyers.

According to Seoul-based JoongAng Monthly Magazine she stays in the visiting area with him from nine to five every day.

A former lawyer and banker herself and long known for a luxurious lifestyle, Cho is reportedly having trouble adjusting to prison life, refusing to eat food from the centres kitchens and subsisting mostly on fruit.

 Bad hair day 

Park faces multiple charges from bribery to abuse of power, according to prosecutors probing the scandal centred on her and her friend Choi.

It remains unclear whether Park will receive any special treatment at the detention centre, but her detention is another disgrace in the decline and fall of a woman seen for decades as the countrys political princess.

The 65-year-old daughter of late strongman Park Chung-Hee, has long maintained an elaborate hairstyle emulating her late mother  a popular figure among aged, conservative voters  and has refused to be seen by others without undergoing an hour-long daily routine at the hands of her stylists.

The practice came under fire when it was reported to be among the possible explanations for her absence during the first critical hours of the Sewol ferry sinking disaster in 2014, while officials were frantically asking for guidance.

Park has invited the stylists  two sisters who industry sources suggest could charge 500,000 won ($450) per visit  to her private home every day since she left the presidential palace earlier this month, including when the Sewol ferry was finally lifted out of the water, prompting online jeers.

Her preferred style requires dozens of small metal pins to maintain its form, which are banned in prison for security reasons.

Lawmaker and former prosecutor Lee Yong-Ju told a radio station: The moment Park undoes her hair, or when she wakes up in prison and realises that she can no longer do her hair, she will really be faced with this stark new reality.

AFP
The Senate, announced that it has accepted the peace move by President Muhammadu Buhari to end the clashes between both arms of government ( Executive and Legislative )

The Chairman, Senate Committee on Media and Public Affairs, Sabi Abdullahi, in a chat with journalists on Thursday, said the National Assembly welcomed the initiative with open arms.

Buhari had on Wednesday made the move aimed at improving the relationship between the two arms of government, which has gone sour lately.

At the meeting of the Federal Executive Council, which he presided over, the President was said to have set up a cabinet committee that would proffer a solution to the crisis.

Abdullahi, in his reaction, said, We have heard about the initiative by President Muhammadu Buhari in setting up a Presidential Committee on Executive-Legislature Relations to be headed by Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo.

It is a good step in the right direction. The Senate, in particular, and the National Assembly in general, is ready to cooperate with the group and work with them to resolve all grey areas standing on the way of the smooth working relationship needed to deepen our fledgling democracy and ensure good governance for the benefits of Nigerians.

The Senates spokesman, however, pointed out that the decision by the upper chamber of the National Assembly to reject the acting Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, Mr. Ibrahim Magu, should not be seen as the cause of the rift.

The lawmakers had also suspended their consideration of Buharis request for the approval of Resident Electoral Commissioners by two weeks in protest against his retention of Magu as acting Chairman of the EFCC.

He said, On the RECs, all the Senate said was that if we have passed some resolutions and they were rubbished, why are we passing another? The Senate simply asked the President of the Senate to liaise with the President of the country to know what had happened to the passed resolution.

Source: ( Punch Newspaper )
President Muhammadu Buharis Personal Assistant on Social Media, Mrs. Lauretta Onochie, on Wednesday chided senators over their current rift with the Executive, saying they have turned themselves into blackmailers.

Also, a former Minister of Education, Oby Ezekwesili, has described National Assembly members as tragic-comedians who are paid over a N100bn yearly to mock Nigerians.

Onochie said the federal lawmakers had turned themselves into what she called a self-serving trade union that work with blackmail.

She posted the information on her Facebook page as her reaction to the Executive and Legislative face off over Buharis refusal to implement some of the resolutions made by the Senate.

Onochie posted the message at a time the President set up a cabinet committee to work out how to end the rift.

She said there were a few clowns in the Senate who she said were being manipulated by awaiting-trial cabal.

She wrote, At best, the Nigerian Senate has turned itself into a trade union of some sort. Not a patriotic trade union that cares and fights for the well being of the citizens, but a blackmailing self-serving trade union that work with blackmail!

But there are many patriotic and people-oriented senators in that Chamber. Where are they? Why are they silent? Why are they succumbing to the bullying antics of a few clowns who are being manipulated by the head cabal? Yes, the cabal!

What are the patriotic senators doing to let Nigerians know that they are not part of the unholy and demonic alliance of the awaiting-trial cabal?

How can they sit pretty, and allow those who are either under criminal investigations or are awaiting trials to be the ones deciding the fate of Nigerians?

The presidential aide said unless the good elements in the Senate begin to speak up and dissociate themselves from the cabal, Nigerians would think and believe they are all the same.

She argued that Buhari had the right to choose who should serve Nigerians, saying it is within his constitutional rights.

She said armtwisting and blackmail would not succeed over patriotic considerations.

Onochie accused the senators of forgetting their principal role of lawmaking.

Onochie said because she was not afraid of being criticised, she would continue to voice her opinion on issues in the country that she finds detrimental to the well-being of all Nigerians.

So, why is the Nigerian Senate acting like a bunch of errant schoolchildren in a playground?

For not giving me a piece of your snacks, you cant play with us. Bullying and intimidation! Many of us remember this from our primary school days. Its back in our Senate!, she said.

Ezekwesili, who described National Assembly members as tragic-comedians, urged the youths to stop being entertained by lawmakers folly and instead demand for social change.The former minister said this in a series of tweets while reacting to recent happenings in the Senate on Wednesday.

The Senate has recently been embroiled in several scandals, including an allegation that Senator Dino Melaye does not hold a first degree from Ahmadu Bello University, Zaira as claimed.

After several twists to the scandal resulting in an investigation by the Senate and a N5bn suit against Sahara reporters, ABUs Vice Chancellor, Prof. Ibrahim Garba, told the Senate Ethics Committee that Melaye graduated from the university with a Third Class in BA Geography.

Melaye had subsequently posted a comic video online in celebration. He also appeared at the Senate plenary dressed in an academic gown.

But, in several posts on her Twitter page, Ezekwesili, who is a co-founder of Transparency International, wondered why Nigerians felt entertained by happenings in the Senate.

While addressing youths on Twitter, she said, Be laughing while tragi-comedians that cost more than N100bn every year carry on at the National Assembly. Better fight for your future.

The 8th National Assembly has done nothing for citizens except pay themselves fat allowances, engage in scandals and produce comedies.

Source: Punch
The number of Nigerians been deported has continued to be on the rise, as 23 Nigerians living in the United Kingdom were deported back home.

They were deported from the United Kingdom on Thursday for committing immigration-related offences in the country.

The deportees, who are all males, arrived at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport (MMlA) Lagos at about 6.a.m on Friday.

DSP Joseph Alabi, the Spokesman of the Lagos Airport Police Command, confirmed the development.

The deportees were received by officers of the Nigerian Immigration Service (NIS), the National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP), and the Police.

Source: ( Bounce News )
The tenth edition of Indian Premier league is going to start soon and ahead of it, there is a bad news for all the fans of Royal Challengers Bangalore. The batsman KL Rahul will not be seen playing on the field in the league due to a shoulder injury.

The batsman during the first Test against Australia in Pune suffered a shoulder injury but he continued to play in the next matches of the series.

The captain Virat Kohli has been ruled out of IPL for few weeks as he sustained shoulder injury. The Indian premier league is scheduled to begin from April 5.

Also Read:

Pakistan bans its fastest bowler Mohammad Irfan for sport fixing

India-Pak match in Dubai may not be permitted by GOVT

2018 World Cup of India's national sports to be held in India
ADM to acquire French sweeteners and starches company

ADM has announced the proposed purchase of Chamtor, a French producer of wheat-based sweeteners and starches, complementing its Eastern Europe additions with expansion in Western Europe.

ADM has announced the proposed purchase of Chamtor, a French producer of wheat-based sweeteners and starches.

After adding to our sweetener and starch capabilities in Eastern Europe, we are continuing to execute our strategy by expanding in Western Europe, said Pierre Duprat, president, ADM Europe, Middle East and Africa. Seventy percent of the European starch and derivatives market is in Western Europe. Chamtor is located in the heart of the European wheat belt, and is perfectly positioned to efficiently serve Western European sweetener and starch customers, particularly in France, Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands.

Chamtor, founded in 1992, produces glucose, starch and proteins from wheat. The company, which is currently owned by Vivescia Industries, is located in Reims, France, and has about 210 employees.

In 2015, ADM purchased full ownership of corn wet mills in Bulgaria and Turkey, and a 50% stake in a wet mill in Hungary. Last year, the company acquired a sweetener and starch facility in Morocco, and announced expansion plans for the Turkey and Bulgaria plants.

One of the key elements of our strategy to grow shareholder value is the expansion and diversification of our global sweetener and starch capabilities, said Chris Cuddy, president of ADMs Corn Processing business. With our significant and growing footprint, we are looking forward to efficiently serving sweetener and starch customers throughout Europe.

Under French law, the signing of an acquisition agreement is contingent upon informing and consulting with relevant employee representative bodies. Subject to that process, ADM is targeting completion of the sale, which requires regulatory approvals, by this summer.
Hog Commentary Walsh Trading - Mon Nov 7, 5:00PM CST Hog markets rallied significantly today with the Dec contract up over $4 and the Feb contract up over $2.50, hitting a high of $89.65 before settling at 89.05 on the day. This rally comes after speculation...

Cotton Closes in Black on Monday Barchart - Mon Nov 7, 4:46PM CST Mondays cotton trade added 16 to 87 points to the rally. December ended the day up by 56 points and to levels not seen since 10/11. NASS reported 62% of the cotton crop was harvested through 11/6. That... CTZ22 : 86.83 (-0.75%) CTH23 : 85.15 (-0.79%) CTK23 : 84.39 (-0.80%)

Cattle Close Higher on Monday Barchart - Mon Nov 7, 4:46PM CST Live cattle futures ended the week with $0.47 to $1.40 gains led by the Dec contract. Feeder cattle closed the day with 30 to 70 cent gains. Cash trade was quiet on Monday. Last weeks cash price was... LEZ22 : 153.050s (+0.92%) LEG23 : 155.025s (+0.42%) LEJ23 : 158.550s (+0.35%) GFX22 : 178.225s (+0.22%) GFF23 : 179.925s (+0.17%)

$4 Gain for Dec Hogs Barchart - Mon Nov 7, 4:46PM CST December hogs rallied $4.60 of their $4.75 limit at the high on the day, and closed with a $4.07 gain. That took the contract back to 10/27 levels. The other front months also closed higher, but the gains... HEZ22 : 87.050s (+4.91%) HEJ23 : 94.350s (+2.11%) KMZ22 : 96.200s (+2.48%)

Double Digit Pullback for Soy Futures Barchart - Mon Nov 7, 4:46PM CST The new week of soybean trading ended with beans 8 1/4 to 12 cents in the red. Jan beans closed near their low on a 22c range. Meal prices bounced in the afternoon to end mixed within $1.50/ton of UNCH.... ZSX22 : 1440-4 (unch) ZSPAUS.CM : 14.1524 (-0.72%) ZSF23 : 1446-2 (-0.28%) ZSH23 : 1454-4 (-0.24%)

Wheats Fade into Close Barchart - Mon Nov 7, 4:46PM CST Afternoon action in Mondays wheat market left the board mixed but mostly higher. CBT prices went home with a penny to 3 cent losses. Dec closed mostly mid ranged on the 30 cent range. KC HRW futures... ZWZ22 : 843-4 (-0.27%) ZWH23 : 861-4 (-0.29%) ZWPAES.CM : 7.7799 (-0.24%) KEZ22 : 957-0 (unch) KEPAWS.CM : 9.1529 (+0.44%) MWZ22 : 960-2 (unch)

Corn Market Closes Monday Red Barchart - Mon Nov 7, 4:46PM CST Mondays corn futures market ended the session with 2 to 5 1/4 cent losses for the front months, For December that was the weakest close since 10/6. The December to December premium tightened to now... ZCZ22 : 675-2 (unch) ZCPAUS.CM : 6.7306 (-0.72%) ZCH23 : 681-0 (unch) ZCK23 : 681-4 (unch)

Livestock Report Walsh Trading - Mon Nov 7, 4:26PM CST Cattle rallies
Update 11/2/17  Douglass, the owner of Self Storage of Spokane, has received construction permits to begin developing the storage project tapped for the former Mann Center site in the Hillyard neighborhood of Spokane. The $4 million project is now expected to include 12 single-story buildings comprising 88,000 square feet, according to the source.

Though several neighborhood and business leaders are unhappy with the project, they acknowledge the property had become a blight to the community. It was an eyesore, but from our point of view its going to be just as much of an eyesore as a storage place, Richard Burris, president of the Greater Hillyard Business Association, told the source. It wouldve been nice if it were a retail center or something more attractive, but hes the property owner and he can do what he wants.

That property had such potential, said Luke Tolley, who represents the Hillyard neighborhood on the citys community assembly. There was a ton of opportunity to make that a community asset. Instead it went this other direction. Presumably, what it will become will at least be presentable. It sat and rotted so long.

Douglass and his wife, Maxine, acquired the property at auction in 2015 for $1.6 million.

Self Storage of Spokane has another facility in Spokane and one in Spokane Valley, Wash. Douglass son, Lancze, owns at least seven Secure-It Self Storage facilities in the region, the source reported.

3/31/17  Real estate developer Harlan Douglass has purchased the former Joe E. Mann Army Reserve Center in Hillyard, Wash., for $1.6 million with the intent to build a self-storage facility in its place. The existing building at 4415 N. Market has been demolished to make way for Market Street Storage, a $2 million complex, according to Steve Krum, project manager for Douglass Properties, which will build the site.

Designed by Stephen Bourne, an architect with Seattle-based Site + Plan + Mix LLC, the facility will comprise 60,000 to 70,000 square feet of storage space. Construction could begin later this year, Krum said. Were still dealing with the city on right-of-way and things of that nature, he added. Were hoping for construction in late 2017, but it could be a 2018 project.

Douglass originally proposed a $4 million, 11-building complex comprising 130,000 square feet of storage space. We had planned to build out the whole site and scaled back significantly, said Krum, adding the site could be expanded in the future.

Douglas is seeking to reroute public water mains and reduce public utilities easements on the property. Its also proposing access to the facility via Market Street, with an exit-only gate on Haven Place, according to the source.

The city attempted to repurpose the landmark building since it closed in 2010, when the operation was moved to the new Armed Forces Reserve Center at Fairchild Air Force Base. Several public entities, including Spokane Public Schools and the Spokane Tribe of Indians, offered proposals for the center, which was built in 1958. The school district backed away from the site after it was vandalized in 2013.

The Army rejected several more proposals, and then claimed it would consider transferring the property to the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs. The transaction never materialized and the property was auctioned in 2015. At the time, it had an assessed value of $2.8 million, the source reported.

The property was named for World War II Army Pfc. Joe E. Mann, who was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor for destroying an enemy artillery position after suffering wounds during a battle in the Netherlands in 1944, the source reported. He was killed during an enemy attack the next day after he threw his body on a grenade to protect his fellow soldiers.

Douglass Properties owns several apartment communities in Spokane.
Cohen & Steers, a U.S. group with about $60 billion in assets, is the latest fund manager to affirm its commitment to London despite Brexit, pledging to expand its staff in Britains financial center.

Its plans arent derailed by British Prime Minister Theresa Mays announcement this week to the European Union that she would invoke the Article 50 clause for the U.K. to leave the trading bloc. Cohen & Steers is adding to its analyst and client servicing teams over the coming weeks, while planning to launch later this year a global Preferred Securities fund that will be available to investors in Europe, according to interviews the firm gave Institutional Investor.

The publicly traded asset managers commitment to London follows similar pledges from other buy-side firms, including Columbia Threadneedle Investments, OppenheimerFunds and Unigestion, despite some sell-side banks outlining plans to seek alternative locations for their teams.

We believe that Brexit may impact some of the fundamentals, but in terms of business development and distribution, at this point, we dont see a need to change our strategy, Stephen Dunn, Cohen & Steers executive vice president and head of global distribution, said in an interview.

For Cohen & Steers, the U.K. remains appealing compared to much of Europe. Dunn said the firms strategies in listed property, listed infrastructure, commodities and natural resource equities, are being actively sought after by many U.K. pension funds and consultants who are seeking income and are keen to diversify.

There are certain countries where, we believe, there isnt an appetite for our strategies, he said, pointing to challenges the fund manager faces in Germany, Switzerland and The Netherlands.

Historically, Germany has not been a place where investors have opted for listed real assets. It has been very private equity orientated, Dunn said. Others, like Switzerland, have had a country bias, and, in the Dutch market, regulators have been pushing fees down.

Cohen & Steers, which is based in New York, developed a European footprint in Brussels when it acquired Belgium boutique Houlihan Rovers in 2006. But the group relocated to London and commissioned Greenwich Associates to assess its product range and the markets in which it operates.

We wanted to be in London. Brussels was not the easiest place to do business, Dunn said. We wanted to be where the major capital markets activity was.

The firm has portfolio management, research, operations, and trading in London, according to Dunn. His colleague Ben Morton  a portfolio manager for listed infrastructure  said the investment management team is keeping a close watch on the political situation in Europe, noting the forthcoming elections in France and Germany.

Increasingly, we are having to be as concerned about politics as we have about regulation, said Morton. If you think about Europe post the financial crisis, it was the place where we saw the most punitive regulatory actions. You have to anticipate that politics is now just as important as regulation.

Despite the group pledging its commitment to London, Dunn acknowledged the appeal of Luxembourg domiciled funds to some of its Asian clients in Japan. The firms planned Preferred Securities fund, which will have a global mandate, will be domiciled in Luxembourg and managed by William Scapell in Cohen & Steers New York office.
The partnership allows the U.K. fixed-income specialist to take its first steps into the U.S. market.

TwentyFour Asset Management, a U.K. fixed-income manager, is offering its first U.S. fund with the help of Dallas-based distributor American Beacon.

The firms entrance in the U.S. market comes two years after the asset management arm of Vontobel, a Swiss private bank, acquired the business and pledged to extend the British fund managers international reach. Mark Holman, chief executive of TwentyFour, said in an interview that the Securities and Exchange Commission has approved its American Beacon TwentyFour Strategic Income Fund for sale starting April 3.

The barriers to entry to other international markets can be taken down by entering into a partnership, he said, referring to the firms relationship with American Beacon. The real positive has been overseas distribution. Vontobel has a big presence in the U.S. through its U.S. asset management boutique.

The American Beacon TwentyFour Strategic Income Fund, which sits in a multi-sector bond category, will be the U.S. equivalent of the firms global unconstrained fund, according to Holman. U.S. investors will be offered discounts on the fees for investment blocks larger than $250,000, the firms filing with the SEC shows.

The U.K. version of the fund has been part of the reason for the groups rapid growth in Europe. TwentyFour Asset Management has grown from a start-up boutique in 2008, when the global financial crisis on Wall Street was intensifying, to a niche manager with more than 9 billion (about $11.3 billion) in assets.

Holman, who previously worked at Barclays Capital, Lehman Brothers and Morgan Stanley, says TwentyFours acquisition by Vontobel didnt change the firms culture of performance comes first.

Under the deal, announced in March 2015, Vontobel bought a 60 percent stake in the British fund manager. TwentyFours partners and employees kept 40 percent of the business, but agreed to be sell their stake to Vontobel over the longer-term.

When we went into the partnership with Vontobel, we wanted to remain a stand-alone boutique, but we now have a bigger institutional backbone and supervisory board, said Holman. There are five seats on that board, and two of them are from us.

Vontobels New York operation, Vontobel Asset Management, was founded in 1984 and now has some $32.8 billion in assets, according to the companys website.

TwentyFours distribution partner, American Beacon, lists on its website several large fund managers as its sub-advisors, including Pacific Investment Management Company, Man GLG and Templeton Investment Counsel. American Beacon didnt immediately provide comment.
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The president will take a more aggressive stance with China and Russia if Republicans win the House or the Senate, according to BCA Researchs Matt Gertken.
One head is elevated to top post after chair steps down
Insurers are starting to receive a deluge of claims in the wake of Cyclone Debbie, as flooding due to the ex-tropical cyclone further compounds the damage bill.According to the Insurance Council of Australia (ICA), about 3,500 claims had rolled in after the system devastated North Queensland.Its going to be very big, Andrew Steel, the Townsville-based chief executive of Steel Pacific Insurance Brokers, told The Courier-Mail.The brokerage has so far received almost 100 claims, from Mackay to Prosperpine, and expects the number to significantly ramp up Friday and Monday as there are still a lot of people who are getting over the disaster or could not yet reach affected zones.Major insurer Suncorp has so far logged 1,200 claims, while Racq has had 397 and Youi 372, almost all for home and contents damage. Allianz , meanwhile, had 40 as of Thursday morning, the report said. IAG has taken around 300 claims, mostly for damages to property from its CGU and NRMA brands.
Queensland continues to be battered by extreme weather in the wake of Cyclone Debbie as heavy rains have caused flash flooding in parts of the state.As Ex-Tropical Cyclone Debbie continues to move south east, the Bureau of Meteorology (BoM) has issued a spate of flood warnings for coastal areas between Gladstone in Queensland and Bellingen in northern New South Wales.The flood warnings also extend inland to parts of the Central Highlands and Coalfields, Central West, Maranoa and Warrego, the Darling Downs and Granite Belt forecast districts, as well as the far northern New South Wales ranges.Yesterday, Arthur J Gallagher announced that it had closed its branches in Brisbanes CBD, Toowong and Beenleigh for safety reasons as parts of the state saw in excess of 500mm of rainfall in a matter of hours.While the heavy rain subsided overnight, strong winds were expected to persist throughout Friday, with New South Wales set for the next downpour.Jane Golding, New South Wales weather services manager, said that heavy rainfall and high winds are expected in the region throughout Friday.A flood watch has been issued for numerous north-eastern NSW rivers. A severe weather warning has been issued for rain and wind, Golding said.Minister for Justice Michael Keenan announced further disaster recovery assistance for parts of Queensland via the jointly-funded Commonwealth-State Natural Disaster Relief and Recovery Arrangements (NDRRA).The additional assistance has been extended to Mackay and Whitsunday to provide personal hardship and distress assistance for families and individuals, Kennan said.
The Insurance Council of Australia (ICA) has welcomed the NSW Parliaments decision to axe the Emergency Services Levy (ESL) by passing the Fire and Emergency Services Levy Bill 2017.The new system will see the states firefighters and State Emergency Service get its funding from the property-based Fire and Emergency Services Levy (FESL) instead of from tax on insurance companies, as of July 01, 2017.The ESL is said to add some 21% to home building and contents premiums, as well as impacting some motor insurance policies.No longer will the responsibility for funding these vital services be borne only by households that purchase insurance, but by the entire community, said ICA CEO Rob Whelan. Everyone benefits from these services, and it is only fair that all homeowners contribute to their upkeep.Though the industry is delighted to no longer be acting as a tax collector for the government, the switch has no significant financial impact on insurance companies because the ESL isultimately paid for by policyholders, not insurers.The ICA boss said NSW policyholders would benefit once the new system is implemented.Though households will now pay the FESL through their council rates, the reduction in insurance premiums through the removal of the ESL will leave policyholders ahead by an average of almost $50 a year, according to government estimates, he explained.
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Smaller brokers will need to look towards partnerships to be able to thrive in the face of disruption, an industry head has said.Speaking to a sold-out crowd at ANZIIF s inaugural Insurtech Conference held in Sydney this week, Lambros Lambrou , CEO of Aon Risk Solutions in Australia, said that the rise of technology and insurtech will not mean the end of brokers.However, Lambrou noted that the biggest challenge facing smaller brokerages will be the marriage between face-to-face relationships with clients and creating fit for purpose solutions for tomorrows world.That is where you are going to see people partnering up, Lambrou said.Companies are not going to have to sell themselves short, or sell-out to a big organisation like Aon, but they are going to be pushed to think about partnerships with other like-minded organisations.It is going to be very difficult otherwise.Lambrou was quick to note that the power of a face-to-face, human interaction is not to be underestimated.As an industry built on the foundation of utmost good faith, broker-client relationships remain important.While technology is moving into the industry at an accelerated pace, the role of the broker as a point of contact for a client in an increasingly complex and risky world will be key.Lambrou noted that while he has seen improvements in the use of technology in the broker-client relationship, it is still yet to be proven that SME clients will adopt a one size fits all technological approach to managing risk.By partnering, the industry can maintain its relevance to clients and will be able to take advantage of risk changes, which will make the industry more important than ever before.As an industry we need to think less about competitive behaviour, in terms of the way we compete with each other, and need to think more about how we work with each other and partner with each other to create a vibrant future for us, which I think is very bright, Lambrou continued.
Under Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Canadas government will introduce legislation to legalize recreational marijuana across the country. With the legislation expected by early April, legalization should become national law by July of 2018. With legalization on the horizon, it could be asked if Canadas market is ready to tackle the specialized commercial risks associated with the cannabis industry.With a well-established legalized market, Colorado is set to host a world-first cannabis insurance masterclass on April 27. The timely Cannabis Cover 2017 will unite innovators like Next Wave, PPBIB, RT Specialty, Wilson Elser and Merlinos & Associates for expert discussions of the risks facing the industry and the specialized underwriting necessary to address perilous gaps in coverage.From the regulatory challenges across agriculture and retail, to product liability and recall concerns, a day-long agenda of panel discussions and presentations will deliver the most timely, expert perspectives available on the topic.Attend Cannabis Cover on April 27 to gain leading insights from innovative experts and for the unique opportunity to network with specialty wholesale brokers and groundbreaking underwriters and carriers.
Will Montgomery, agency principal at Montgomery & Associates Insurance Agency, takes a certain pride in what he calls his PhD  his public high school diploma.He never went to college. Yet that didnt stop Montgomery opening the doors to his own business when he was just 27, having gone into insurance practically straight out of high school.The 34-year-old runs the agency he started in 2010  now with 17 staff across two offices  in Nashville, Tennessee. He spoke toabout the confidence it took to take the plunge into agency ownership at such a young age.I didnt go to college. I went to high school. I say, kind of jokingly, I got my PhD  my public high school diploma, he said.I was trying to find my path. I always knew I wanted to be in a business that created a passive income stream because that was more powerful than hitting these big licks over and over and always having to chase the next one, forever. I always wanted to be in a model like that and I knew insurance was the way to do that.Out of high school, Montgomery briefly worked telemarketing  until one fateful call he made for a sale turned into a job with the captive agent he was calling.He cut his teeth there before heading into a joint partnership, still captive, when he was just 22.It was a big step. I just thought, what do I have to lose? I didnt have anything to lose  I didnt have money, I had no expenses, I was 22 years old, he explained. Probably I was a little bit ignorant. I didnt know enough to not do it. I didnt know what to be afraid of.Some people never pull the trigger. I didnt have a college degree, so I was never going to be cut out to work for somebody for any length of time.We created our own destiny one way or the other, but we didnt have our entire destiny because we were still captive to that one insurance company. We couldnt do exactly what we wanted.So, after almost five years, when the pair was bought out, Montgomery cut out to forge his own path.I knew about three years into being captive that I didnt see myself being in that model long-term, he explained. I felt like my hands were tied, to do the things that my clients really wanted us to do. Over time, working with a lot of different clients  I felt it really limited the potential for growth.Its hard to make that leap. I didnt have enough money at that time to get started on my own. It was a timing thingModestly, Montgomery said: Weve been fortunate to have a little bit of success in a relatively short amount of time.The first year was the learning curve. It was basically a crash course in how to build a company. But nothing worth doing is easy, right? It wasnt easy at first.Fast-forward to 2017and hes got two offices and 17 staff.Montgomery said he believes the secret to his success is the motivation he inherited from his late father.My father passed away when I was four years old, he notes, but from what I understand he was always a successful entrepreneur and he always did well. I think subconsciously I always wanted to do something similar. So I have a lot of internal drive.
As the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) nears its expiration and reauthorization date, political pressure on the future of flood insurance is heating up.The latest organization sounding the alarm, as their press release read, is the National Association of Realtors (NAR) which is lobbying government for greater private access but also public reauthorization.A policy expert at the NAR, speaking on background, said if the NFIP isnt reauthorized and is allowed to end policyholders would lose their insurance because they renew on an annual basis.That possibility, the expert said, would hurt the housing industry because homes built on a floodplain with offers on the table couldnt close sales due to their defunct policies.Meanwhile, calls for greater privatization, in some cases for the NFIP being turned into an insurer of last resort, are growing louder from the insurance industry. Speaking on the NFIPs reauthorization, John Dickson, President of National Flood Services (NFS) Edge Insurance Agency told Insurance Business brokers should look for independent, fully private options for flood coverage.Needs have evolved over time and Im not sure the NFIP has kept pace for every need for every home and the private market is stepping in to do that today. So every day there are different options, different coverages, different products that help homeowners. Dickson said.NAR President, William E. Brown stated he was in favor of significant reform but not the complete dissolving of the NFIP. He explained the realtors organization isnt lobbying for the NFIP to be reduced to an insurer of last resort either, because there isnt enough capacity in the market. Instead, the NAR will lobby for policyholders ability to switch from the NFIP to private coverage and back again without any penalties - a long-standing issue with private flood insurers.Last year was the third largest claims payout year in NFIPs history, costing more than $4 billion. While there were five billion-dollar floods, including Hurricane Matthew, four of the five were inland, and the largest single event was in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, in August, just one year out from the NFIPs expiration date, Brown said.Dickson pointed to the Baton Rouge catastrophe as part of whats wrong with the current system.North of 83% of the homes that were severely damaged by that event (in Baton Rouge), the homeowners werent insured for flood, he explained. Its a travesty. It leaves many people severely impacted when a flood insurance policy would get them back on their feet again.
A Qatar Insurance Co. SAQ unit has signed a lease for a new headquarters close to the Lloyds of London insurance market, which is more than twice the size of the companys existing premises.

Antares Underwriting Services Ltd., acquired by QIC in 2014, agreed with Aldgate Developments and the City of London Corp. to lease 21 Lime Street, an office development that will be completed next month, according to a joint statement issued by the buildings broker CBRE Group Inc. The company will occupy the entire 32,000 square feet (3,000 square meters) of offices in the building on a 15-year lease.

Acquiring a new headquarters underlines the companys commitment to the Lloyds of London insurance market and reflects the companys growth under QIC, Antares managing director Stephen Redmond said in the statement. QIC is the largest insurance company in the Middle East and North Africa by market value.

The decision comes as other companies in London consider moving employees out of the the city following Britains vote to leave the European Union. Lloyds of London, the insurance market founded in the British capital in 1688, plans to open a European Union hub in Brussels following the U.K. vote to leave the bloc.

Copyright 2022 Bloomberg.

Topics Market London
Minnesota is better prepared for a potential bird flu return after a devastating 2015 epidemic, according to poultry producers and experts.

Poultry farmers are waiting as the early spring opens water on lakes and rivers, leading to the migration of wild birds that carry the virus, the Mankato Free Press reported. The bird flu has been detected in two states, including a dangerous pathogenic virus in Tennessee.

People arent panicked, said Abby Neu, poultry regional educator for the University of Minnesota Extension. Theyre certainly increasing their awareness and surveillance, though.

Neu said the last outbreak taught everyone lessons, including how to closely control vehicles on farms to prevent them from introducing the virus.

She recently demonstrated the best biosecurity practices for producers at the Midwest Poultry Federation Convention in St. Paul. Her tips included how to properly disinfect boots and clothing, and take other precautions to prevent contaminants from entering barns.

This is a large convention with more than 3,000 people from across the country, Neu said. Everyone is on the same page. The little guys and the big guys are working together.

U.S. Sen. Al Franken of Minnesota has asked President Donald Trump for sufficient funding for the 2018 budget to support avian influenza surveillance and outbreak response. Franken said federal funding through the U.S. Department of Agriculture in 2015 helped put protocols in place to better address outbreaks of bird flu.

Franken said combating the last avian influenza outbreak required $1 billion in federal funding and that the department currently has less than $90 million available for such efforts.

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Topics Agribusiness Minnesota
A Republican member of the Senate Banking Committee said on Thursday that he was frustrated that the Trump administration had not yet dropped the governments case against Metlife Inc., an insurer challenging its too big to fail designation.

Senator Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania said slow action by the administration could entrench regulations pursued by former U.S. president Barack Obama. In particular, Toomey said he was surprised that the White House had not yet dropped the governments appeal in the MetLife case.

The Financial Stability Oversight Council, which is now headed by Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, is fighting MetLife over the Obama administrations decision that the company, as a critical part of the financial system, requires stricter oversight.

MetLife challenged its designation and last year won an initial ruling that the government panel erred in giving it that label. But the Obama administration appealed that ruling, and the new team Trump put in place has not yet moved to scrap that appeal, which is still pending.

I remain disappointed and a little frustrated that we havent dropped that appeal, because as we know, that decision by the D.C. Circuit Court could be out at any time, he said at the Capital Markets Summit hosted by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

Toomey and other Republican members of the Senate committee sent a letter on Tuesday to Mnuchin, urging the Financial Stability Oversight Council to review its designation policies.

The Treasury Department did not have an immediate response to Toomeys criticism.

Toomey also said Republicans would probably have to pursue significant changes to Dodd-Frank through a controversial budget reconciliation process because there would not be enough support from Democrats to allow a revamp of the Wall Street reform law, which was enacted after the 2008 financial crisis, to pass the Senate under normal rules.

Specifically, Toomey said he wanted to use that approach to restructure the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, replacing the director with a bipartisan commission and placing its budget under the control of congressional appropriators.

(Reporting by Pete Schroeder; Editing by Lisa Von Ahn)

Topics Politics
A Texarkana judge has dismissed 11 civil lawsuits connected to the historic 2010 flood at Albert Pike campgrounds in Ouachita National Forest in Arkansas that took the lives of 20 men, women and children.

The 11 lawsuits, which were consolidated to one, allege that the government was aware of the risks of camping in Albert Pike when campers were trapped in the 2010 flood. The flood caused Little Missouri Rivers water levels in the Ouachita National Forest to rise from 3 to 23 feet.

U.S. District Judge Susan Hickey has ruled that the U.S. government is immune from the lawsuits because of the Arkansas Recreational Use Statute, the Texarkana Gazette reported.

The plaintiffs argued that the camp grounds lacked warning signs and disregarded its own scientific reports which place the campground in a 100-year flood plain. They said an exception for malicious conduct, which includes a reckless disregard of the consequences, outlined in the statute should apply.

But Hickney dismissed arguments from the plaintiffs lawyers, saying the case lacked evidence that the government knew the area was a flood plain.

The EA (environmental assessment) stated that warning signs regarding possible flash floods would be posted in Loop D; however, the Court is unaware of any rule or regulation that required the warning signs to be posted, Hickeys opinion states.

The plaintiffs have the option to appeal Hickeys ruling.

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Topics Lawsuits Legislation Flood
Florida officials say theyre continuing aggressive efforts to stop the spread of the Zika virus.

Gov. Rick Scott met Monday with Miami-Dade County officials to discuss Zika preparedness ahead of Floridas rainy season, when mosquitoes are most prevalent.

Officials said fewer travel-related cases are being reported in Florida so far this year, compared with last spring.

Officials also said state labs and Miami-Dade mosquito control operations added staff since last years Zika outbreak. Counseling also is available for families affected by the virus that can cause severe brain-related birth defects.

Florida has reported two locally acquired Zika infections in 2017. Health officials said both patients likely contracted the virus last year in Miami-Dade County.

Zika mainly spreads by mosquito bites but can also spread through sex.

Copyright 2022 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Topics Florida
North Carolina Department of Insurance (NCDOI) announced the conviction of two retired insurance agents in a regional scam targeting senior citizens.

Insurance Commissioner Mike Causey said the two retired agents, Milton Hooks, 72, of Rocky Mount, and James Mangum, 69, of Tarboro, were convicted on six counts each of obtaining property by false pretense.

The case was the result of an extensive seven-year investigation in fourteen counties conducted by the NCDOIs Criminal Investigation Division. The Hooks and Mangum scam involved the reallocation of money people had in savings and insurance policies.

NCDOI criminal investigators brought the case against Hooks and Mangum for influencing 77 victims across North Carolina to remove money from their 401K and other life insurance policies and put it into an annuity product known as a Fixed Indexed Annuity from 2004 to 2011. Hooks and Mangum used their credibility as fiduciaries to move approximately $11 million into various annuity accounts with three companies that sold these products and garnered over $620,000 in commission payment for the sale of these products under false pretense, according to NCDOI.

As part of a plea agreement with the court, these victims were refunded their initial investment plus interest by the companies to the victims.

It was discovered during the investigation that Hooks and Mangum also influenced four victims into making individual $316,000 investments which they directly diverted into their bank accounts and laundered the money for their own personal use. These four victims were repaid the money directly from Hooks and Mangum as an additional part of their plea agreement.

Superior Court Judge Thomas H. Lock dismissed 100 counts of obtaining property by false pretense across Beaufort, Bertie, Bladen, Chowan, Cumberland, Edgecombe, Halifax, Hertford, Hoke, Martin, Mecklenburg, Robeson, Wake and Washington counties and suspended Hooks and Mangums sentence because all the victims would be repaid the money that was defrauded from them.

Preying on our senior citizens is wrong, said Causey. I am pleased NCDOI criminal investigators were able to recover nearly $11 million in this important case that hopefully will help deter white collar crime like this in North Carolina.

An estimated 10 cents of every dollar paid in premiums goes toward the payment of fraudulent claims. The Department of Insurance employs 20 sworn state law enforcement officers dedicated to investigating and prosecuting claims of insurance and bail bonding fraud.

Source: North Carolina Department of Insurance

Topics Agencies North Carolina
New Mexico this year will receive the largest tobacco settlement payment it has ever received from the industry.

The state attorney generals office made the $50 million announcement this week, saying the payment includes an additional $14.5 million as a result of a court ruling in which the judge sided with New Mexico over allegations that the state had been shortchanged by the industry.

Attorney General Hector Balderas said the payment will ensure additional funds are funneled to public education and health programs.

The New Mexico Legislature decides how to spend the tobacco settlement money. The largest recipient is Medicaid, which provides access to health care for low-income individuals and families.

Other programs funded by the settlement money include cancer screening, smoking cessation and services for HIV patients.

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Topics Mexico New Mexico
A homeowners association representing property owners at a downtown San Francisco high-rise has sued the developers on for failing to tell residents the condominium tower was sinking at an unexpected rate.

The Millennium Tower homeowners associations lawsuit is the latest suit filed in a high-profile dispute over the sinking building that opened in 2009. Lawsuits involve the developer, the city and owners of the multimillion-dollar condos.

But Daniel M. Petrocelli, the lead attorney representing the homeowners association, says California law gives homeowner associations sole authority to pursue damages for structural repairs and retrofits. So he says a fix can only be accomplished through the HOAs lawsuit.

This is the only case that secures all the money it will take to fix the building and fix it once and for all, said Petrocelli.

The high-rise that opened its doors in 2009 has been dubbed the Leaning Tower of San Francisco. It has sunk about 16 inches into landfill and is tilting several inches to the northwest. The sinking has been uneven, creating a 2-inch tilt at the base and a roughly 6-inch lean at the top.

A dispute over the buildings construction in the seismically active city has spurred numerous lawsuits involving the developer, the city and owners of its multimillion dollar condos.

Wednesdays suit comes just a few months after a group of 20 homeowners at the 58-story condominium tower sued developer Millennium Partners and multiple city agencies, alleging that both the builder and public officials knew about, but failed to disclose to buyers, evidence that the luxury high rise was sinking at an unexpected rate.

The claim was filed against developer Millennium Partners, the San Francisco Department of Building Inspection, the city attorney and the Transbay Joint Powers Authority.

We are disappointed and puzzled that the HOA board now is shifting gears to a disruptive strategy that leaves us no choice but to defend ourselves against false claims. The factual allegations in the Complaint are false, and we look forward to refuting them, said P.J. Johnston, a spokesman for Millennium Partners.

Separately, San Francisco City Attorney Dennis Herrera claims the buildings developers knew about the problems but did not disclose the information to potential home buyers as required by law.

Herrera filed a lawsuit against Mission Street Developers LLC in a cross-complaint of a previous lawsuit filed by homeowners against the Transbay Joint Powers Authority. The authority is building the new Transbay Transit Center next door.

Herrera said an investigation showed that the developer knew by February 2009, before any condos were sold, that six inches was the maximum amount of settlement predicted for the tower by the projects geotechnical engineer. However, by the time the sleek, mirrored high-rise was completed around February 2008, it had already sunk by almost six inches.

The developers have said the allegations by the city attorney have no merit. Spokesman PJ Johnston has said developers complied with all state and local laws regarding disclosure to potential buyers.

When the Millennium Tower opened, it became a haven for the well-heeled, and all 419 condos quickly sold out. Tenants have included former San Francisco 49er Joe Montana, the late venture capitalist Tom Perkins and Giants outfielder Hunter Pence.

The building has a sprawling indoor lap-pool, a health club and spa, an in-house cinema, and a restaurant and wine bar run by celebrity chef Michael Mina. Penthouses have sold for more than $13 million.

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Topics Lawsuits Homeowners
Un ottobre da sogno per Antonio Conte: lex ct della Nazionale italiana, attualmente alla guida del Chelsea, nelle ultime quattro gare di Premier League ha collezionato solo successi, conditi da 11 reti segnate e addirittura nessuna incassata. Numeri da record che non sono certo passati inosservati alla Federazione inglese, la quale ha conferito al tecnico leccese lambito premio di Manager del mese.

Unavventura oltremanica iniziata in sordina, quella di Conte, pur a fronte di tre vittorie nelle prime tre gare di campionato. A far vacillare, anche se solo per un momento, le certezze del patron del club londinese, Roman Abramovich, i risultati conseguiti tra la 4a e la 6a giornata, coincisi con un pareggio sul campo dello Swansea City e, soprattutto, con le due pesanti sconfitte subite dal Liverpool, sul terreno casalingo di Stamford Bridge, e dallArsenal. In particolare, la debacle interna coi Reds, aveva irritato non poco il numero uno russo, poiche occorsa proprio nel giorno della sua 250esima partita da presidente della societa.

Come detto, solo un momento. Dopo lincontro dellEmirates, il tecnico salentino cambia modulo, adottando un piu equilibrato 3-4-3 e inserendo elementi di corsa come lo spagnolo Pedro. Una svolta totale perche, di li in poi, il Chelsea inanellera solo e soltanto vittorie: 2 gol allHull City e al Southampton in trasferta, 3 ai campioni dInghilterra del Leicester e 4 allo United in casa, con un meraviglioso numero zero nella casella delle reti subite. Un fantastico poker, ottenuto tra l1 e il 29 ottobre. Un cambio di marcia sbalorditivo, confermato dal 5 a 0 rifilato ai toffees dellEverton nel primo match di novembre, e una scalata che, man mano, ha portato i blues al secondo posto in classifica, a soli 2 punti dal Liverpool capolista.

E allora, non poteva mancare il riconoscimento di migliore allenatore del mese, ottenuto surclassando tecnici del calibro di Jurgen Klopp (Liverpool), Arsene Wenger (Arsenal) e Mark Hughes (Southampton). Tanta, ovviamente, la soddisfazione: E un grande onore e voglio condividerlo con i giocatori e con la societa  ha dichiarato Conte sul sito ufficiale della Premier League -. E la prima volta che lavoro in un altro Paese, con una cultura diversa, e portare la propria filosofia non e facile, ma ora sono contento di questa scelta.

A completare la festa, la premiazione del fantasista belga, Eden Hazard, come miglior giocatore di ottobre. Due risultati importanti per il club, ottimo incentivo per la rincorsa al trono dei campioni, occupato dal Leicester di Ranieri. Il prossimo appuntamento per l11 di Conte sara al Riverside Stadium, tana del Middlesborough neopromosso. Il tempo di festeggiare e gia finito.
What Is the FAFSA?

The Free Application for Federal Student Aid, known as the FAFSA, is the official form to apply for federal financial aid to pay for college. It is also used by many states, individual colleges, and universities in making their financial aid decisions.

Specifically, the FAFSA determines who will receive aid in the form of loans, scholarships, and grants based on the information collected from the application.

Key Takeaways The Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) is used by the federal government to determine a family's eligibility for grants, work-study, and loans to pay for college.

States, individual colleges and universities, and private scholarship programs also use information from the FAFSA to make financial aid decisions.

Applications for FAFSA open in October of the prior year to enrollment and close in June of the academic year.

Funding is often granted on a first-come, first-serve basis, with students applying in June typically eligible only for loans.

Each FAFSA application period is 19 months, starting October 1 of the year before the award year and ending June 30 of the award year. For example, FAFSA applications for the 202223 academic year could be submitted between October 1, 2021, and June 30, 2023. Filling it out as early as possible is a good idea because many states have financial aid deadlines considerably earlier than June 30, and their aid may be available only on a first-come, first-served basis.

The FAFSA lists some of those deadlines, and the office of Federal Student Aid publishes a more comprehensive list of state student aid deadlines.

How Does the FAFSA Work?

The office of Federal Student Aid, part of the U.S. Department of Education, annually provides more than $150 billion in federal aid to some 13 million students. That aid consists of grants, work-study, and loans.

Grants , sometimes referred to as scholarships, are meant for students with "exceptional financial need" and don't have to be repaid. Today's most common federal grants for education are known as Pell Grants.

, sometimes referred to as scholarships, are meant for students with "exceptional financial need" and don't have to be repaid. Today's most common federal grants for education are known as Pell Grants. Work-study programs provide paid part-time jobs for undergraduate and graduate students through participating colleges and universities.

programs provide paid part-time jobs for undergraduate and graduate students through participating colleges and universities. Loans, unlike grants or scholarships, must eventually be repaid. However, federal loans tend to have low interest rates compared with those available from private lenders, in addition to more favorable repayment terms. There are several types of federal loans for higher education, sometimes referred to as Stafford Loans. Direct subsidized loans have the best terms and are available only to families with financial need. Direct unsubsidized loans are available to families regardless of financial need. Direct PLUS loans, are available to parents and graduate or professional students, regardless of financial need, although borrowers must have an acceptable credit history.

The FAFSA, which is administered by the office of Federal Student Aid, is the doorway to all of these types of aid.

The questions on the FAFSA are intended to determine the students level of financial need and establish their Expected Family Contribution (EFC). That's the amount of money the student and parents are expected to be able to pay out of pocket each year for the students college costs, under federal rules. Overall, the federal government, state assistance programs, the colleges the student is applying to, and other scholarship sources all use that data to determine how much aidand what kinds of aidthe family is eligible for.

Beginning in July 2023, the term "student aid index" (SAI) will replace EFC on all FAFSA forms, thanks to the 2021 Consolidated Appropriations Act. The change attempts to clarify what this figure actually is: an eligibility index for student aid, not a reflection of what a family can or will pay for post-secondary expenses. Adjustments to how the SAI is calculated are also planned to take effect.



Students can expect to receive a financial aid offer around the time that students are accepted by a college. Financial assistance may consist of a package of grants, work-study, and loans. These offers can differ from college to college.

How to Fill Out the FAFSA

The FAFSA is widely known as being complex. It requires students to respond to a number of questions that may take some time to complete. Importantly, families need to submit a new FAFSA every year in order to maintain their financial aid or to try again if they didn't get any aid the first time they applied.

Questions range from basic identifying information for the student and their parents (name, address, Social Security number, date of birth, etc.) to a detailed examination of their finances.

In addition, students and parents will need to supply information on their income and assets, including bank accounts, investments, real estate (except for the family home), and any businesses they own (excluding family farms and small businesses). Both parents and students have a FAFSA account and each must complete FAFSA.

Much of this information will be available from the family's tax returns. The IRS Data Retrieval Tool (IRS DRT) makes it possible to download that data directly to the FAFSA in many cases.

To answer the other financial questions, it will be helpful to have bank, brokerage, and mutual fund statements at hand. For a preview of the FAFSA's questions, the office of Federal Student Aid makes a copy of the printed FAFSA form available online. (Note that while it's permissible to fill out and submit a paper FAFSA form, the online version can be faster and more efficient unless you don't have access to a computer or the internet.)

The FAFSA vs. the CSS Profile

While the FAFSA is the best known and most widely used financial aid application form, it is not the only one. Another is the CSS Profile, an online application administered by the College Board and used by several hundred colleges, universities, and private scholarship programs to determine the student's eligibility for need-based, non-federal financial aid.

Unlike FAFSA, signing up for the CSS Profile isn't always free. Families pay $25 for the first school their student applies to, then $16 for each additional school, although the fees are waived for families making less than $100,000 per year.

The CSS Profile asks many questions similar to those on the FAFSA, yet has some important differences. For example, the CSS Profile takes equity in the family home into account, while the FAFSA does not. The CSS Profile also wants to know about any balances in retirement plans, while the FAFSA ignores them.

Some colleges and universities require families to fill out both the FAFSA and the CSS Profile. A number of schools also have their own, individualized scholarship applicationsone more reason to get started as early as possible.

Who Qualifies for FAFSA? To be eligible for FAFSA, a student must have financial need, be enrolled in a college or university in either a diploma or certificate program, and be a U.S. citizen or eligible noncitizen. Federal eligibility requirements also include the following criteria: a valid Social Security number, continued satisfactory performance in school, and completing a high school diploma, among others.



What Is the Deadline for FAFSA? FAFSA is available October 1 of the year prior to enrollment, and may at times be administered based on a first-come, first-serve basis until June of the academic school year. For this reason, applying as early as possible can increase the likelihood of receiving financial assistance. For example, students who apply in June are often only eligible for loans.

What Is the Income Limit for FAFSA? In short, no income-limit is in place to qualify for FAFSA. Instead, factors including year of enrollment and family size are considered along with displaying financial need.



The Bottom Line

Filling out the FAFSA is the first step many families take when seeking financial aid for college. It helps establish eligibility for grants, work-study programs, and loans. Fill it out as early as possible! Many states have financial aid deadlines earlier than June 30, the end of the 19-month FAFSA application period, and their aid may be available only on a first-come, first-served basis.


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Cambodia has recently recovered from decades of civil conflict, and remains one of the poorest countries in the region. The current political stability and peace in Cambodia has provided great opportunities for the Royal Government of Cambodia (RGC) to focus on national reconstruction and economic development. The Royal Cambodian Armed Forces (RCAF) is currently at a major crossroads with respect to reforming its forces which contributes to the governments grand strategy called the Rectangular Strategy.1





This strategy lists reform of the RCAF as one of the outcomes needed to achieve national strategic objectives. It states that the RGC is strongly committed to military reform with the goal of rebuilding the armed forces to an appropriate size and quality to be able to defend the country in wartime and peacetime.2 Although the RCAF has achieved its missions considerably satisfactorily, it faces significant challenges with respect to its reform program.





This paper will evaluate the RCAFs defense policy and strategy and its role in the achievement of Cambodias national strategic objectives. The paper first traces the RCAFs evolution from independence to the modern era. It then discusses Cambodias national security challenges, both traditional and non-traditional. This discussion is followed by an analysis of Cambodias strategic guidance and the RCAFs role and response to meet the governments strategic objectives. The paper will also examine security trends in the Asia-Pacific region and their implications for Cambodias security environment. Finally, the paper will consider some recommendations for Cambodia to develop the RCAF to achieve Cambodias national strategic objectives in peace, conflict, and war in the 21st century.





Brief History of the RCAF





The RCAF had its origins in the 1946 FrenchKhmer Arms Treaty prior to Cambodian independence from France in 1953. This Treaty declared that Cambodia would have its own armed forces. At the time, King Norodom Sihanouk, who ranked as the Highest Commander of the RCAF, claimed that the RCAF was to play a peace-keeping role. The King emphasized that We do not love war because we have endured it for centuries already.3 Moreover, the King stated that history shows us that war has engendered only injustice, cruelty and anarchy in the region. However, we are ready to fight to our last breath to protect our independence and our territorial integrity.4





The Treaty also declared the RCAF mission as maintaining the sovereignty of the Kingdom of Cambodia, respecting the rule of law, maintaining public order, and maintaining the kingdoms border integrity.5 From 1954 to March 1970, under the Sangkum Reas Neyum (Popular Socialist Community Regime), which was under the leadership of Sihanouk, the RCAF enjoyed professional development and unity, enabling it to fulfil its duty to effectively protect and maintain the integrity of Cambodia. At that time, Cambodia was referred to as an island of Peace in the Indo-China peninsula/region by the national and international community.6





The Cambodian situation dramatically changed following the bloodless coup on March 18, 1970 during which Sihanouk, Cambodias Head of State, was removed by his Defense Minister General Lon Nol.7 Cambodia had not only suffered from the spillover effects of the Vietnam War in the 1960s and 1970s, during which massive US bombing was conducted on Cambodian territory, but Cambodia had also endured devastating civil conflict  mainly during the destructive and totalitarian Khmer Rouge Regime under Pol Pot from 1975 to early 1979, during which about one million people were killed. For more than three decades of civil conflict, the RCAF has endured many bitter experiences and hard times in developing its professionalism, as it was divided into different groups with different political ideologies, military doctrine, and equipment, and was used variously as a political instrument by its embroiled political leadership.8





The Paris Peace Agreements of 1991 brought new hope to the Cambodian people following almost forty years of suffering. A democratically elected government was established following UN-supported elections in 1993. A Cambodian Constitution was then promulgated which clearly articulated Cambodias aspiration to become an independent, neutral, and liberal democratic state.9 The RCAF was also made into a unified national armed force by integrating all three military factions except for the Khmer Rouge force.





The three Cambodian military factions which complied with UN requirements were integrated into a unified national force; they included the Cambodian Peoples Armed Forces (CPAF), the Khmer Peoples National Liberation Armed Forces (KPNLAF), and the National Army of Independent Kampuchea (NAIK). The Khmer Rouge army faction was named the National Army of Democratic Kampuchea (NADK) and it boycotted the peace process and continued fighting against the government along the Cambodian-Thai border. Among the four Cambodian military factions, the CPAF was the largest armed force with over 100,000 effective regular soldiers and militia, and it belonged to the State of Cambodia (SOC).10





The integration of all the Cambodian military factions resulted in a total personnel number of around 203,821.11 This force strength was assessed as being too large, considering the size of the Cambodian population. Therefore, a military reform program was initiated by the UN to contribute to poverty reduction by transferring some of the defense budget to other needed social services such as health and education, and to reduce the size of the RCAF in line with available resources. Cambodia faced significant challenges as the Khmer Rouge military forces were still a major threat to the national interest. Therefore, the RCAFs primary role focused on the internal threat from the Khmer Rouge forces which occupied some areas of Cambodian territory especially the area along the Cambodian-Thai border, and which continued to wage guerrilla warfare against the ruling coalition government.12





The coalition government broke down as second Prime Minister Hun Sen and his counterpart Prime Minister Prince Norodom Ranariddh used their forces against each other to seize power in 1997, which led to international pressure and the withholding of foreign aid.13 As a result, the military reform program ceased. The governments status was restored after Hun Sen allowed Prince Ranariddh to return and held new parliamentary elections in July 1998, as a result of international coordination and pressure.





The defense policy of the RGC has changed dramatically after the complete demise of the Khmer Rouge administrative and military organization in 1998, as peace prevailed throughout the country. The RGCs defense policy declared that there was no indication of external military threats to the Kingdom of Cambodia in the present time and in the short- to medium-term future.14 Consequently, Cambodia began reducing its large standing force. However, the consequence of rising tensions with Thailand on their maritime and land border issues led to Cambodia stalling its demobilization program in 2008. There was an increased emphasis on the defense of borders by improving military capability to meet the security threat primarily from Thailand. These events were a significant challenge to the RGC military reform program. Efforts to reform the RCAF faced significant challenges before success could be achieved. Among the many problems faced by the RCAF were issues that could undermine the reform program, such as the lack of a strategic reform framework, poor reform management, and constraints on budget, human resources, and international cooperation.





Cambodias National Security Challenges





Cambodia faces a wide range of immense strategic challenges. Cambodias main security issue, traditional security, are the geographic challenges to its national security and development. As stated earlier, land and maritime territorial disputes with the neighboring states of Vietnam, Laos, and Thailand are the obvious and long standing security challenges in Cambodias strategic environment. While border disputes with Vietnam and Laos are being resolved through improved bilateral arrangements, the recent border clashes with Thailand are much more hazardous to Cambodias national security.





Recently, the dispute has become particularly dangerous as both sides have used military means to settle their dispute. This situation is made worse by the maritime dispute known as the Overlapping Claims Areas (OCA) between Cambodia and Thailand following the discovery of oil and gas in the Gulf of Thailand. In 2009, Thailand unilaterally revoked the 2001 MOU regarding the area of their OCA to the Continental Shelf as a result of its frustration with the failure to resolve the land border dispute. Cambodia remains highly optimistic that offshore natural resources may significantly boost its economy by as much as USD 1.7 billion per year by 2021.15 Therefore, this important security issue will determine Cambodias future access to offshore resources.





Cambodia also faces several transnational security challenges. Cambodia shares borders with Thailand, Laos, and Vietnam, and has limited resources to adequately monitor its overland crossings, maritime security, and coastlines. As a result, Cambodias most significant challenge can be observed along its porous border towns and waterways. Potential pandemics, terrorist threats, and illicit activities such as the trafficking of drugs, small arms and people, are grave concerns for the Cambodian government as people and goods continue to move easily across mainland Southeast Asia.16





As for terrorism, although Cambodia is not threatened by significant organized domestic terrorist groups currently operating in the country, the government is nevertheless cautious about the regional threat and has classified terrorism as one of its top transnational security concerns. Cambodia may be used as a safe haven by terrorist groups in the Southeast Asian region such as Indonesias Jemaah Islamiyah (JI).17





RGCs Strategic Direction and RCAFs Response





Cambodias national defense policy and objectives are based on three main strategic factors: the RGCs political agenda, assessments of threats to national security, and the states Constitution. The RGCs strategic interests and objectives have focused on international security, social order, national reconstruction, and international cooperation.18 As Cambodia is one of the poorest countries in the region, its primary national interest is economic development and reducing poverty.19 Cambodias capacity to address its main challenge of achieving its poverty reduction target will be impossible without assistance from the international community.





As a result, one of the pillars of Cambodias Rectangular Strategy is to integrate Cambodia into the regional and international communities.20 To achieve its goal, the RGC has embarked upon reforms in many fields of government, including military reform as one of the key fields of reform for the RGC. The Prime Minister has firmly committed to the necessity of reform by stating that reform is a matter of life and death for Cambodia.21





The RCAF has played a significant role in achieving Cambodias national security concerns and national interests. The RGCs defense policy changed dramatically after the demise of the Khmer Rouge administrative and military organization in 1998, as peace prevailed throughout the country. The RCAFs primary role was swiftly re-oriented from an inward-looking to an outward-looking policy. Emphasized in the Cambodian National Defense White Paper 2006, there are four basic roles of the RCAF: to defend the nation and its strategic interests; to contribute to national development; to maintain peace, stability, and social order; and to participate in international cooperation.22 All of these roles will remain relevant as part of the national effort to promote stability and achieve strategic objectives.





The Defense Reform Program and its Implications





Since 1993, military reform in Cambodia has been driven by the complete end of civil war. Moreover, the integration of all factions into a unified Cambodian military, the Royal Cambodian Armed Forces (RCAF), gave it a considerably large strength of around 203,821. Under the UN transitional administration, only 36,000 soldiers out of the planned 150,000 were demobilized. Another objective for the reform of the military has been to lower military spending, as well as to transfer the savings from demobilization to the development of priority sectors such as health, education, and rural development.





In 2000, the RGC recognized the end of the civil war by releasing its first-ever Cambodian defense strategy document, the Defense White Paper (DWP) titled Defending the Kingdom of Cambodia 2000: Security and Development. The DWP advocates a significantly smaller and more effective military force in the future. To achieve this reform, the DWP calls for the demobilization of 55,000 troops from a total force of 160,000, and a restructuring of the defense organization. The government planned to downsize the RCAF from over 20 divisions to 12 brigades. It also aimed at training more young officers mainly abroad, and establishing more military bases and barracks.





A consequence of the rising tensions with Thailand since 2008 has meant that the RGC has stalled the downsizing program. The deep reform program has refocused on the priority of border defense including maritime and land borders. Strategic roads, bases, communications facilities, and villages have been built along the border. The RGC has purchased new military equipment for the purpose of national defense. Military training exercises have been actively conducted at all levels. At the same time, more soldiers have been recruited.





Before the 2008 Thai invasion of the territory surrounding the Preah Vihear temple  despite border issues being longstanding issues  Cambodia had never thought that it would be subjected to a physical threat from an immediate neighbor. The greatest security concern for Cambodia had been transnational security challenges along its borders. However, the 2008 border clashes with Thailand were a wakeup call for the Cambodian government and its armed forces to reconsider its defense capability. While border disputes, threats from transnational criminals and international terrorism have recently become major concerns, the RCAF has strengthened its defense capability to protect its borders, especially through the sustainable presence of the RCAF at all strategically important points. Designating the RCAF as a border protection force has been intended not only for the protection of the nation against any external intrusion into Cambodian territory, but also to maintain peace and stability with neighboring countries. This has remained the top foreign policy priority of the government.23





Cambodias protracted border dispute with Thailand since 2008 has had a significant impact on its strategic circumstances. The defense sector has now been prioritized following the border clash with Thailand over the small piece of land surrounding the Preah Vihear temple. The dispute on the overlapping maritime border with Thailand, which is rich in oil and gas reserves, is also seen as a driving factor for prioritizing Cambodias defense sector. The RGC has dramatically changed its military reform focus beyond the current downsizing program of its large forces to a deep military reform aiming at modernizing its military capability.





The RGC has made defense of its borders a priority and the 3rd, 4th, and 5th military regional commands are charged with the task. Since late 2008, a hundred buildings for military headquarters and military barracks have been built. The defense communication system has been improved. Thousands of houses have been built along the Cambodian-Thai border for soldiers families. Military strategic routes along the border have been constructed. Military training and exercises have been conducted nationwide including sending hundreds of troops to be trained abroad. Field exercises and live-fire weapons training which were almost non-existent, have been actively conducted. For example, in early 2010, hundreds of BM-21 multiple rocket launchers have been fired as part of military training exercises.





Recently, the RGC has purchased new military equipment such as almost one hundred of the new Eastern European-made tanks, combat vehicles, and Armored Personnel Carriers (APC),24 and most recently the government purchased a number of Chinese-built Zhi-9 utility helicopters.25 More soldiers have been recruited. The RGC has increased its naval capability by increasing the size of the navy and purchasing more equipment in order to protect Cambodian maritime interests. As for security institutional building, the RGC has established counter terrorism and maritime security to protect Cambodias national interests. Cambodias defense spending has increased considerably. The national budget increased 17 percent to USD 2.4 billion of which USD 300 million is allocated for national defense sector.26 This is compared with the 2010 budget which was USD 1.97 billion, of which USD 276 million was allocated for defense spending.27





This is the first of a two-part paper. The second part can be found here.







Notes





1. Rectangular strategy for growth, employment, equity and efficiency phase II is the Socio Economic Policy Agenda of the Royal Government of Cambodia of the fourth legislature of the national assembly. It was announced by the Prime Minister at the Office of the Council of Ministers, Phnom Penh on 26 September 2008. The rectangular strategy phase II maintains the earlier structure and fine-tunes and sharpens the prioritized policies of the rectangular strategy in its first phase.





2. Royal Government of Cambodia. (2009). National Strategic Development Plan 2009-2013. Phnom Penh: The Prime Minister Office, pp. 18-19.





3. Royal Cambodian Armed Forces. (2000). Brief History of RCAF [in Khmer]. Phnom Penh: Information and Propaganda Department, p. 2.





4. Ibid.





5. Ibid.





6. Ibid.





7. Kingsbury, D. (2005). South-East Asia: A Political Profile. New York: Oxford University Press, p. 207. The Lon Nol coup can be seen as supportive of US strategy in the region  it was widely believed to be strongly backed by the CIA and received immediate US support.





8. Cambodian Ministry of National Defense. (2000). Defense White Paper: Defending the Kingdom of Cambodia: Security and Development. Phnom Penh: Royal Government of Cambodia, pp. 1-8.





9. The Constitution of the Kingdom of Cambodia 1993, p. 3.





10. FitzGerald, D. (1996). The Cambodian military factions and their role in the election. In Selochan, V. and Thayer, C. A. (eds.), Bringing Democracy to Cambodia. Canberra: Australian Defence Studies Centre, pp. 73-88.







11. International Crisis Group. (2000). Cambodia: The elusive peace dividend. ICG Asia Report, p. 8.





12. An, S. (2010). Conflict resolution in Cambodia. Cambodia Institute Cooperation and Peace Working Paper no. 35, p. 7.





13. Lum, T. (2009). Cambodia: Background and U.S. Relations. Washington DC: Congressional Research Service Report for Congress, p. 3.





14. Cambodian Ministry of National Defence. (2006). Defence White Paper, Defending the Kingdom of Cambodia: Security, Development and International Cooperation. Phnom Penh: Royal Government of Cambodia, p. 23.





15. International Monetary Fund. (2007). Cambodia: Selected issues and statistical appendix. IMF Country Report.





16. Ear, J. H. S. (2010). Cambodias transitional security challenges. In Issues for Engagement: Asian Perspective on Transitional Security Challenges. Honolulu, HI: APCSS, p. 67.





17. Ibid.





18. National Strategic Development Plan 2009-2013, p. 1.





19. Ibid.





20. Ibid.





21. Address by the Cambodian Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Cambodia on Rectangular Strategy for Growth, Employment, Equity and Efficiency Phase II at the First Cabinet Meeting of the Fourth Legislature of the National Assembly at the Office of the Council of Ministers, Phnom Penh, September 26, 2008.





22. Ministry of National Defense. (2006). Defending the Kingdom of Cambodia: Security, Development and International Development. Cambodia Defense White Paper 2006, p. 40.





23. National Strategic Development Plan 2009-2013, p. 20.





24. Cambodia boosts army with new tanks, APCs. (September 16, 2010). Channelnesasia.com. Retrieved from http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/afp_asiapacific/view/1081469/1/.html





25. China to lend Cambodia $195 mln to buy its helicopters. (August 22, 2011). Reuters. Retrieved from http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/08/22/cambodia-china-helicopters-idUSL4E7JM0XI20110822





26. Cambodia to raise military pay under higher 2011 budget. (October 18, 2010). Voice of America. Retrieved from

http://blogs.voanews.com/breaking-news/2010/10/18/cambodia-to-raise-military-pay-under-higher-2011-budget/





27. Ibid.








An alleged 'tiger' kidnapper was seen buying a litre of milk at a petrol station in the early hours of the morning of the alleged offence, a jury has been told.

Jonathan Gill (aged 35) is accused of a kidnapping a Drogheda postal worker, his partner and their 10-week-old baby daughter before robbing over 600,000 from the man's workplace.

It is the State's case that Mr Gill was one of a group of five who were involved in holding the family hostage in their own home before moving them to a shed about a 90-minute drive away.

Mr Gill of Malahide Road, Swords, Dublin, has pleaded not guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to falsely imprisoning Warren Nawn, Jean Marie Nawn and their10-week-old baby in Drogheda between August 1 and August 2, 2011.

The trial has previously heard that the couple's baby started crying as they were being taken to the shed in Swords where they were held overnight. Ms Nawn said the child was hungry and the raiders stopped to buy him a litre of milk.

It is the State's case that gardai later recovered the empty container from a partially burnt out vehicle after the kidnapping ended.

They say they also recovered other items from the shed where the family were held including some cigarette butts.

Today a detective gave evidence that in the aftermath of the kidnapping he canvassed 24 hours shops in search of one that sold a litre of milk in the early hours of August 1, 2011.

Staff at the Topaz Garage in Balgriffin told him they had sold a litre of milk during that time. The detective told Vincent Heneghan SC, prosecuting, that he then pulled up the CCTV from the garage.

He said he saw a male on the footage buying milk at 5.14am who he identified as the accused, Jonathan Gill.

The trial continues before Judge Elma Sheahan and a jury of seven men and five women.
The lender is negotiating the potential purchase of a building being developed by a venture between Kennedy Wilson and Nama. The building at 200 Capital Dock has about 130,000 square feet (12,000 square metres) of space. Thats enough for more than 1,000 workers.

Other options are still very much on the table, JP Morgan said in a statement, reiterating comments made two weeks ago. We want to see how negotiations progress. No final decisions have been made.

Nama and Kennedy Wilson declined to comment.

Separately, Royal London Mutual Insurance Society said yesterday it will turn its Irish business into a regulated subsidiary as a result of Britains decision to leave the EU. Lloyds of London confirmed it would open an EU hub in Brussels by the beginning of 2019.

UK prime minister Theresa Mays plan to pull Britain out of the single market has prompted international banks and insurers to begin looking to relocate jobs to other EU countries.

Estimates for the number of people who could move range from 4,000 to more than 200,000.

Citigroup may move some of its thousands of workers in London out of the city and create a new trading unit within the EU, the banks Jim Cowles wrote in an internal memorandum obtained by Bloomberg.

The firm will keep London as its main European headquarters, he wrote. Financial services firms need a regulated subsidiary in a EU country to offer their products across the bloc if Britain no longer has access to the single market. Most banks are relocating as many as 1,000 workers initially to cities including Dublin, Madrid and Amsterdam with Paris and Frankfurt lower down the list, Jefferies Group analyst Mike Prew said.

Dublin is among the locations being considered by JP Morgan for an enlarged EU hub following the Brexit vote. Before the June 23 referendum, chief executive officer Jamie Dimon told UK staff that as many as 4,000 people could be relocated in the event of Brexit. In January, he said that number could be even higher  or lower  depending on how the UK governments negotiations play out.
Management said they did not have the resources to have staff at night.

An inspection of the Azalea Services Centre, in Roscommon, also found that because of a lack of resources, residents toileting needs were not attended to at night in two of the three houses inspected, as staff were rostered to sleep.

According to the inspection report, published yesterday by the Health Information and Quality Authority (Hiqa): In one case reviewed, a resident was assisted to bed at 21.00hrs and they were not toileted again until 08.00.hrs.

The centre is run by the Brothers of Charity Services Ireland, and Hiqa found that, over a 14-night period, staff had documented in the residents daily notes that the resident was incontinent on 11 occasions, when they changed the resident the following morning.

The inspector found that by not providing adequate staff to toilet the residents at night (when required), the provider had placed the residents at increased risk of pressure wounds and a reduction of their skin integrity.

In addition to this major non-compliance with standards, the inspection report also found that restrictive nightwear was used to manage some residents behaviour at night, and that there were issues with the arrangements in place for managing residents money.

For example, in one house, a residents funds were used to pay for the day-to-day running of the centre, the report outlined.

Furthermore, a resident had contributed to the purchase of a car.

These purchases were not in line with the residents service-level agreement, or the organisations policy or procedures in managing residents finances.

Eight of the 12 actions arising from an earlier inspection had not been completed. Due to the significant level of risks identified, Hiqa held a meeting with the provider and made them aware of their responsibilities, but a subsequent action plan did not satisfactorily address the failings identified in this report and Hiqa said it was considering further regulatory action, in relation to this issue.

The inspection report was one of 16 published yesterday, at www.hiqa.ie.
Gardai said the man is receiving medical treatment after the incident at Morning Star national school in Ballyphehane, on the southside of Cork city.

The school has also introduced a new entrance policy for students.

In a statement released yesterday, the school said the man presented at the main school office around 8.45am on Tuesday and claimed he wanted to enrol his son.

They said the man appeared quite anxious and sounded incoherent and had no information about a son.

When pressed for information, the school said the man became verbally abusive and was escorted by the principal away from the entrance.

The man resisted so the principal had to move him away physically, the school said.

Gardai were called and other teachers escorted children to class as the principal continued talking to the man, who calmed down. But he left calmly before gardai arrived.

A Garda spokesman confirmed last night that the man was subsequently arrested and detained under the mental health act, and is receiving treatment.
The news comes on the 10th anniversary of the opening of the countrys newest maternity hospital which, after a decade, finally has its own management and its own budget, independent of Cork University Hospital (CUH)  essentially the control the hospital had been seeking.

The interaction with Mr Harris followed a series of Irish Examiner reports highlighting the impact of excessive waiting times on women with serious gynaecological problems, where outpatient waiting lists had climbed to over 4,300.

Last night Mr Harris, who visited CUMH in January, said he was delighted to deliver on a commitment given at the time to consultants to support a plan that will make a real difference for women in this region.

The business plan was presented by consultants to the minister at the Department of Health yesterday.

Prof John R Higgins, clinical director of CUMH, who led the delegation meeting to the minister, said they were delighted with his response.

This is great news for the women of Cork and a great birthday present for CUMH as we celebrate our 10th birthday today, he said.

The fully-costed, three-year plan includes a capital investment of more than 1m this year with an extra days theatre time at CUH, the South Infirmary and the Mater Private. Next year will see the appointment of two permanent consultant obstetrician/ gynaecologists and the opening of a second gynaecology theatre at CUMH as well as a day unit.

The development of a one-stop shop will start in 2019. All of these developments were on the consultants wishlist.

Last year, almost the entire consultant cohort at the hospital took the unprecedented step of writing to the CEO of CUH, Tony McNamara, saying they could no longer take responsibility for women on the waiting list given the chronic underinvestment.
Commissioner Noirin OSullivan, and her predecessor, Martin Callinan, applied jointly to the tribunal, through barrister, Conor Dignam, for legal representation at hearings due to begin in the coming months.

It is expected Mr Dignam will make applications for other senior officers, when hearings get under way.

Sgt McCabes barrister, the senator and former justice minister, Michael McDowell, told the tribunal, yesterday, that his client is deeply concerned at the move, which he fears could give rise to conflicts of interest.

Sgt McCabe wants to ensure garda witnesses feel free to give evidence independently, even where it might reflect badly on a colleague. Tribunal chairman, Peter Charleton, is to consider the applications and objections, and return with a decision next Monday.

Twelve applications were made for legal representation for the first phase of the tribunal, which will consider the claims that Sgt McCabe was the victim of a deliberate campaign to create doubt over his character and motivations, while he was whistleblowing on wrongdoing and failings within the force.

The second phase will consider any other disclosures, made by other gardai, about wrongdoing in the force.

Among those seeking representation is Superintendent David Taylor, the former garda press officer who made a protected disclosure, claiming he was directed to spread false and damaging stories about Sgt McCabe.

Tusla, the Child and Family Agency, which mishandled a false claim of sexual assault against Sgt McCabe, also made an application, as did a number of middle-ranking gardai, and whistleblower, Garda Keith Harrison.

An application was also made for TD, John McGuinness. The former chairman of the Public Accounts Committee says he was approached by Callinan, and told Sgt McCabe was not to be trusted, just before the committee was to hear from Sgt McCabe.

A number of media organisations also sought representation, as the tribunal will be investigating contacts between gardai and journalists and broadcasters.
The report, Changing Perceptions: Stigma and Social Housing in Ireland, was carried out on behalf of Cluid Housing by Anna Carnegie, Michael Byrnen and Michelle Norris of the School of Social Policy, Social Work and Social Justice, University College Dublin.

The report states: In many residents opinions the general public characterises them as work-shy, exploiting the benefits system and that they live rent free or in free houses.

One interviewee identified a perception that social housing residents were all scroungers and drug addicts and another said he welcomed the opportunity to meet non-social housing residents so they could see he wasnt the big bad wolf.

The report looks at case studies from three developments in Dublin  Ballymun, Clarion Quay, and Fatima Mansions. Many social housing residents expressed frustration about the prevalence of negatives stereotypes of the sector and complained: Were all tarred with the one brush.

Simon Brooke, head of policy at Cluid Housing, said the issue of stigma in social housing is one that Cluid tenants and staff encounter every day.

According to the report: There is strong evidence that, due to the impact of social housing policy and other factors, residualisation of the Irish social rented sector has operated in an uneven fashion and as a result some social rented neighbourhoods are more stigmatised than others.

Particularly in large estates, residents tended to have strongest bonds with their immediate neighbourhoods and had a more informed, fine-grained perspective on the concentration of problems such as anti-social behaviour within their neighbourhood than outsiders. As a result, in residents eyes at least, some parts of these large estates were more stigmatised than others.

It suggests changes to the built environment, good transport networks, and mixed tenure can help combat stigmatisation of social housing areas, changing perceptions of areas away from ideas that they are rife with anti-social behaviour and instead focusing on community spirit.

Among the case studies, Social renters from Clarion Quay argued that the complexs mixed tenure nature coupled with its location in a mixed tenure neighbourhood helped mitigate risk of stigmatisation. Fatima Mansions residents agreed that the introduction of private housing during the estates regeneration and implementation of an image change strategy at this time helped to reduce its stigmatisation.

Minister for Housing Simon Coveney launched the report, stating the Rebuilding Ireland programme would result in more mixed tenure developments.
YEARS ago, we brought our first-born daughter to California on a holiday  to be utterly surprised at the parenting tips we received on beaches and campsites, all advising us to protect our child more.

With curiosity, I recently came across Achtung, Baby, the book by American author Sara Zaske (expected to be published later this year), who in turn was stunned by the sheer und utter laissez faire she experienced among parents in Berlin.

I am a mum-of-two, I used to live in Cork for years before returning back home to Germany with my Irish husband.

My eldest daughter, who will be nine in August, is allowed to go to the bakery on Saturday and Sunday mornings to get breakfast rolls (brotchen), or to get fresh ice cream at the cafe around the corner.

We have no problem letting her walk to school with three other girls from her class and return on her own if they stay over for lunch when she doesnt.

Tuesday afternoons she is allowed to go to volleyball practice on her own and I let her even stay at home for a few minutes when I have to pick up her younger sister, who is aged five.

In several states in the US I could get into serious trouble over this.

Ive had no calls from child protection authorities here, yet. But when I look at our girls, I see that they are stronger than I ever hoped, because we let them be independent.

Sara Zaske describes how she freaked and screamed achtung! at a playground where children dangled from a 20ft wooden dragon while the parents sat nearby, relaxed and unfazed.

I remember a similar incident when a child nearly ran off a climbing tower at a playground and I shouted stop! just in time.

My mother told me I should mind my own business. Still, I am glad I shouted and that the child stopped.

It is important to remember that Berlin is far more metropolitan than the small town we live in (though that might mean even more admiration for parents who let their child become selbststandig or independent).

Also, it scares the bejesus out of me when my nine-year-old does all those things on her own.

There are two very simple reasons I cannot supervise her every step: One, I need to prepare her for the moments when I just cannot be around (hopefully only because of work or dentist appointments or rock concerts and not because of tragic circumstances).

And, two, I want to be able to go to work or the dentist or rock concerts again without worrying.

This mix of being selfless and selfish makes me take a deep breath every time she heads out on her own, talk to her about what freedom means until the cows come home and shake my head about parents who drive their children everywhere, cling onto them like magnets and give up their own personality entirely.

But as much as I would love to agree with Achtung, Baby and its free-to- roam approach  I dont see that as an overall German parenting style.

I know more mothers who hold their childs hand nonstop until they are 12 (or older) than who dont.

I even know of a father who waited outside party venues until 3am to watch over his daughter until well after she had finished secondary school.

Is it laziness when parents just do everything with and for their children? Believe me, it takes time to walk the way to school for weeks until your child can do it alone.

It is tiring to repeat a million times why talking to strangers is a no-go and what your child should do in case they are approached.

And my anxiety levels soar when my girl is five minutes later than normal (and all I can think of is the scene from Stephen Kings Pet Cemetery when the child gets hit by a truck).

Arent children safer when they know how to do things by themselves? I believe it makes them strong, it makes them self-reliant. And they are so proud of their own achievements.

When I dared to pick up my older daughter from school on her second day, she walked past me, hissing: You said, youd only pick me up on the first day. That was yesterday.

And she stomped home, annoyed. I have never picked her up since.

However, I dont let her boss me around. I call the shots and so she gets told what she is allowed to do, given that we can rely on her.

This is a matter of preparing her well so she knows what to do whichever situation she might experience.

I think it would be great if we all would relax a little  internationally, in Germany as well as Ireland.

Would I say the same if I was still living in Ireland? I dont know.

Maybe I would use excuses like, there are no cycle or footpaths on the way to school if we lived in Cork or Dublin, yeah. Or maybe my children would be the only ones walking to school.

By the way, we get a babysitter when we go to rock concerts. Dont call the authorities on me quite yet.

The German approach to parenting
THE relationship between business, politics, and the environment is about to become more complicated. As US President Donald Trumps administration tries to dismantle vital environmental protections, some of which have existed for decades, business leaders are increasingly recognising  and acting upon  the need for environmentally sustainable policies.

Trump, who once called climate change a Chinese hoax intended to weaken the US economy, has already repealed the Stream Protection Rule, which bars coal producers from dumping waste into waterways.

Next on the chopping block may be the Clean Power Plan, which limits greenhouse-gas emissions from generating plants  by far the countrys largest source of CO2 emissions  with the goal of cutting carbon pollution from the power sector to 32% below 2005 levels by 2030. The Trump administration has even threatened to back out of the Paris climate agreement, to which the worlds governments committed in 2015.

A decade ago, business leaders would have largely welcomed such regressive environmental policies, which can lower costs and expand opportunities, by reducing constraints on their companies behaviour.

But today, even as markets respond bullishly to Trumps business-friendly pledges  not just deregulation and tax cuts, but also a trillion-dollar infrastructure plan that would include reviving coal  business leaders have remained cautious.

In particular, they have strong reservations about a potential withdrawal from the Paris climate agreement. Whatever benefits could be derived from a low-regulation economy would not offset the harm of reneging on environmental commitments that are viewed as vital to American business success.

Some are already making their voices heard on the matter. Since Trumps election, nearly 900 companies and investors, many of them American, have signed an open letter Business Backs Low Carbon, calling on the administration not to withdraw the US from the Paris agreement. These companies, which include large multinationals, believe that failure to build a low-carbon economy would jeopardise Americas prosperity.

There is compelling recent research to support this view. Last month, a study by Energy Innovation showed that elimination of the Clean Power Plan alone could cost the US $600bn (560bn) and cause 120,000 premature deaths by 2050.

By contrast, efforts to build a more sustainable economy would bring far-reaching benefits.

Last January, the Business & Sustainable Development Commission estimated in its flagship report that companies could unlock 12tn globally in revenue and savings by pursuing sustainable business models.

Such models can also create up to 380m jobs by 2030 in key economic sectors, including food and agriculture, energy, transport, health, and municipal government. In the energy sector alone, the opportunities are valued at $4.3tn (4tn).

Corporate strategies are increasingly falling into line with these findings. In 2005, on the heels of Hurricane Katrina, which devastated the US Gulf Coast and affected a significant regional consumer base for Walmart, the companys then-CEO Lee Scott delivered a telling speech, entitled Twenty-First Century Leadership, to all company employees.

Scott set significant environmental goals, as part of a broader vision for Walmart to become a more responsible corporate citizen.

Today, Walmart is a leading commercial solar and on-site renewable-energy user, deriving about 25% of its global energy consumption from renewable sources.

But, while business leadership and collective action are needed to create a sustainable and inclusive economy (a central message of our commissions report), the private sector cannot do it alone.

So it is not enough simply to oppose Trumps environmentally damaging policies; businesses need to get his administration on their side, so that the US authorities create an environment that encourages sustainable practices and green innovation.

A groundswell of support from CEOs, on a nonpartisan basis, could be the key to spurring the needed action. Before the Paris climate conference, politicians knew that environmental activists wanted a deal to limit climate change; arguably, what ultimately drove them to act, however, was finding out that CEOs and boards felt the same way.

Business leaders need to show Trump that they are not cheerleaders for coal, pollution, and global warming. They are determined champions of an enlightened environmentalism that is in the interest of all their stakeholders  customers, shareholders, employees, and the communities in which they operate.

Mark Malloch Brown, a former UN deputy secretary-general and UK Foreign Office minister of state for Africa, is Chair of the Business and Sustainable Development Commission. Copyright: Project Syndicate, 2017.
Friday, March 31st, 2017 (9:00 am) - Score 1,134

Urban fibre optic ISP Hyperoptic has signed a new supply agreement with Nottingham City Homes (NCH), which means that council residents at the Victoria Centre Flats and The Woodlands will soon be able to access ultrafast broadband via Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) technology.

NCH is an arms length management organisation of Nottingham City Council, which means that the council owns the homes and NCH manage them on its behalf, under the governance of a Board made up of councillors, tenants and leaseholders etc. As a result of that NCH manage around 27,000 homes in the city of Nottingham.

Hyperoptic claims that related installation work is already underway and thousands of Nottingham Councils residents are expected to be online with 1000Mbps (1Gbps) capable connectivity within the month. The Victoria Centre Flats work is also occurring in tandem with an upgrade to the buildings intercom system, which is helping to minimise disruption.

Steve Holford, Hyperoptics Chief Customer Officer, said: Two issues that typically compound digital exclusion are the provision and quality of broadband services. A lack of broadband provision and a poor experience hinders adoption. Our full fibre approach gives social housing residents access to the fastest broadband speeds in the UK  the best positive Internet experience they could possibly have. The feedback from Councils we are working with has been phenomenal and we look forward to repeating this success with Nottingham City Homes.

Steve Edlin, Assistant Director at Nottingham City Homes, said: When we reviewed the broadband service available to our tenants at Victoria Centre flats and the Woodlands, it was important we were able to offer something reliable and fast, so the buildings are future proofed to handle the requirements technology may present us with in the future. We were keen to minimise disruption to the individual tenants, so made sure we coincided visits for broadband with the updating of the buildings intercom system within Victoria Centre. I hope the tenants see the real difference with the service now available to them.

All of this supports the providers wider goal of expanding the reach of their network to over 500,000 homes by the end of 2018 2019. The ISP tends to focus most of their deployments on big office blocks and large apartment buildings (i.e. Multi-Dwelling-Units with at least 50 units), although they have recently branched out to cover a few housing estates (here).

Customers can choose either a broadband and phone bundle (attracts no connection fee) or a broadband-only service (attracts a one-off connection fee of 40). Both types of package offer unlimited usage, 24/7 support, an included wireless router, 12 month contract term and dynamic IP (CGNAT); add 5 for a Static IP instead. The current prices for these can be found below.
Friday, March 31st, 2017 (8:21 am) - Score 2,082

The price that ISPs and consumers pay for access to a 40Mbps FTTC superfast broadband line on Openreachs (BT) network in the United Kingdom is set to fall after the telecoms regulator, Ofcom, launched a new review of the wholesale local access market. Quality of service standards will also be improved.

The 2017 Wholesale Local Access Market Review aims to examine the wholesale costs of providing fibre optic based broadband and phone access services to Internet Services Providers (e.g. FTTH/P, FTTC, G.fast etc.). This was originally due to begin at the end of 2016 but it was delayed by the regulators struggle to reach a voluntary deal with BT over the future of Openreachs governance (finally agreed in early March).

The process for this actually began last May 2016 when Ofcom launched a short consultation on their proposed approach to the cost modelling of fibre access services (here), although this didnt reveal much in the way of new information.

A Quick Recap

Ofcom generally conducts a major review on this side of the market every three years or so and indeed the last one in 2014 also introduced a variety of Quality of Service improvements. New Charge Controls were also imposed on Openreachs copper broadband services (i.e. they were deemed to still hold Significant Market Power [SMP] in that market), albeit not their newer and faster fibre-based solutions.

At the time the regulator chose not to fiddle with Openreachs fibre pricing because they believed that the price of fibre broadband is currently constrained by the availability of standard broadband services and competition from Virgin Medias Hybrid Fibre Coax (HFC) EuroDOCSIS 3.1 network.

Ofcom had also previously (2010) granted BT a period of grace so that they could invest in their up to 80Mbps capable Fibre-to-the-Cabinet (FTTC / VDSL2) lines, as well as ultrafast FTTP, for a few years without fear of heavy handed regulatory intervention getting in the way of their model, but this fair bet approach might not last past 2020.

The New Review

Today Openreachs up to 40-80Mbps capable Fibre-to-the-Cabinet / VULA (FTTC / VDSL2) lines cover the vast majority of premises and this will increase to near universal coverage over the next few years. At the same time Virgin Media are expanding their 300Mbps HFC network to around 65% of UK premises by 2019. Overall 7.2 million premises currently subscribe to an FTTC connection via various ISPs (Sky Broadband, TalkTalk, BT etc.) and Virgin Medias HFC broadband network caters for 5 million.

Meanwhile pure fibre optic broadband (FTTP/H) services continue to suffer from only very limited availability (around 2% of UK premises) and Openreach has yet to even begin the commercial deployment of their future 300Mbps G.fast technology (expected to start later in H2 2017).

In other words, Ofcoms review has chosen to leave FTTP/H and G.fast alone (they dont want to discourage it by being heavy handed with regulation), while Virgin Media arent yet deemed to have SMP. Admittedly the related ultrafast services will grow much more rapidly over the next few years and so they may eventually be tackled in future reviews, but for now Ofcoms focus is on the dominant FTTC service.

Ofcoms analysis shows that the most important package for consumers will be an FTTC one offering a 40Mbps download speed and 10 Mbps upload speed (ISPs usually see this as an up to 38Mbps service), which is now a mass market product. As a result the regulator intends to reduce Openreachs wholesale charges for this broadband package, with the price falling from todays level of 88.80 +vat per year to 52.77 +vat in 2020/21.

Remember that the price consumers pay will always be higher as ISPs need to add 20% VAT, profit margins, data capacity and service features etc. on top. However the reduction is quite significant and so Ofcom rightly expects providers to pass this discount on to consumers.

Meanwhile the regulator has said that price for an 80Mbps (up to 76Mbps) or 55Mbps FTTC tier will NOT be forced lower and BT will no longer be subject to the VULA Margin Condition that currently applies on such lines. Oddly Ofcom dont similarly intend to reduce the price of Openreachs 18Mbps and 40Mbps FTTC tiers with sub-10Mbps upload, although BT may feel the need to do this through self-regulation as otherwise their pricing will be very wonky.

Curiously Ofcom believes this will help BTs rivals to compete for customers and act as an incentive for BTs rivals to invest in their own ultrafast networks for the longer term, although there are some caveats to that viewpoint (more on that later).

Jonathan Oxley, Ofcoms Competition Group Director, said: Our plans are designed to encourage long-term investment in future ultrafast, full-fibre networks, while promoting competition and protecting consumers from high prices. People need reliable phone and broadband services more than ever. Were making sure the market is delivering the best possible services for homes and business across the UK.

Meanwhile standard broadband services delivered over Openreachs copper network (e.g. ADSL) will continue to be subject to a charge control with the price remaining broadly stable. Elsewhere Ofcom will also use the new review as a vehicle for introducing some of the service performance / quality improvements that their recent Strategic Review demanded (here).

Ofcoms Quality of Service Proposals * Openreach to complete 93% of fault repairs within one to two working days of being notified, compared with 80% today; * Complete 97% of repairs no later than six or seven working days; * Provide an appointment for 90% of new line installations within 10 working days of being notified, compared to 80% within 12 days currently; and * Install 95% of connections on the date agreed between Openreach and the telecoms provider, up from 90% today.

The quality of service targets will also be adjusted slightly to deal with instances where external factors beyond Openreachs reasonable control (MBORC), such as extreme weather, mean it is not possible to meet the service standard. The targets will allow that up to 3% of repairs and 1% of installations in a typical year might be delayed due to such factors.

The new requirements would need to be met in full by 2020/21 and Ofcom has also proposed transitional targets to ensure progressive improvements in service before then. All of measures form part of Ofcoms Wholesale Local Access Market Review for the period from April 2018 to March 2021. The consultations close on 9th June 2017 and Ofcom expects to publish its final decisions in early 2018, with the new rules taking effect from 1st April 2018.

However the dilemma for Ofcom in all of this remains the problem of finding a balance between two opposing aspects of price and investment. Naturally ISPs like TalkTalk and Sky Broadband would love to offer a cheaper and possibly more flexible FTTC product to their subscribers, which would also increase the uptake of superfast (24Mbps+) class broadband connections and that may in turn also benefit the Governments Broadband Delivery UK programme (the clawback clause in related contracts requires BT to return public investment as a result of high take-up, which can then be reinvested to boost coverage).

On the other hand the regulator has to tread carefully because they run the risk of making FTTC so cheap that it could discourage investment in new / alternative / faster networks, which might struggle to compete against the extremely low pricing. Lest we forget that both the Government and Ofcom are currently very keen to encourage more coverage of ultrafast FTTH/P (example), especially via alternative networks (non-Openreach based).

A similar situation already exists in todays market. Over half of the broadband lines in the UK are still based on slower pure copper ADSL based lines and thats partly because theyre so cheap and not everybody sees the faster services (FTTC, HFC, FTTP etc.), which usually cost a few  extra per month, as a necessary upgrade.

An Openreach Spokesperson told ISPreview.co.uk: Ofcom have proposed a number of ways to address fibre pricing and service so we will be reviewing these in detail, but on first viewing they do not appear to incentivise more investment in full fibre networks. The UK needs a regulatory framework that encourages investment and rewards risk. Building digital infrastructure is very expensive with long payback periods and we wont recover our more than 3bn investment in fibre until after this charge control period. We want to invest in more full fibre infrastructure, and well be consulting with our CP customers to develop new business models and support to achieve that. Improving service is our number one priority and while we have been making great strides over the last year, we are determined to go even further in meeting our customers rising expectations. We support the ambition of higher service targets and we want to work closely with the rest of the industry to make sure these are the right measures and that theyre achievable.

Separately the regulator will soon consult on detailed plans to open up BTs network of telegraph poles and underground tunnels to competitors, which is designed to further promote competitive investment in ultrafast full-fibre (FTTP/H) networks. Mind you Openreach have already done a lot of the leg work for this post-Strategic Review by developing an enhanced Physical Infrastructure Access (PIA) solution and building a Dark Fibre Access (DFA) product.

2017 Wholesale Local Access Market Review

https://www.ofcom.org.uk/../0033/99636/Vol1-Market-review.pdf Quality of Service for WLR, MPF and GEA

https://www.ofcom.org.uk/../0033/99645/QoS-WLR-MPF-GEA.pdf MPF Rental at Service Maintenance Level 1

https://www.ofcom.org.uk/../0031/99751/MPF-SML1-Rental-condoc.pdf

UPDATE 9:22am

As usual Ofcom has put out a lot of documents for us to read and so were now reading through those and will post any related highlights in further updates. For example, we note that Ofcoms review says a couple of interesting things about their proposals for standard broadband (i.e. speeds of up to 30Mbps) services.

Our main proposals in respect of standard broadband are:  BT must continue to offer LLU services. We will continue to impose a cost-based charge control on the main form of LLU (MPF) and the supporting services used by BTs competitors (referred to as ancillary services).  To remove the specific network access obligation and charge control on SMPF. However, BT will still have to provide network access on reasonable request, be subject to non-discrimination obligations (including EOI) and must set charges on a fair and reasonable basis.  To support the deployment of new technologies such as Long Reach VDSL (LR-VDSL), which has the potential to increase broadband speeds in particular in rural areas. In some areas it may no longer be feasible for BT to provide LLU or SLU alongside LR-VDSL so we are proposing a process which could release BT from its LLU and/or SLU obligations in the small number of geographic areas where this is appropriate.

The last one is particularly interesting because BT want to use LR-VDSL technology (i.e. FTTC fibre broadband lines that work over longer distances) in order to help deliver on the Governments proposed 10Mbps Universal Service Obligation (USO).

One of the problems with this approach is that you really have to disable older copper-line ADSL services in related areas in order for LR-VDSL to harness its spectrum and work properly, which is a challenge in areas where other ISPs have existing ADSL subscribers or unbundled (LLU) networks. So Ofcom is now giving Openreach the flexibility to tackle this and it remains to be seen whether TalkTalk and Sky Broadband will protest.

UPDATE 9:40am

A comment from TalkTalk.

Dido Harding, TalkTalks CEO, said: We welcome moves to cut prices and improve Openreachs service, but consumers will be frustrated that they have to wait a year before they benefit. Ofcoms decision to only regulate some products also risks entrenching a speed divide, with customers having to make a false choice between fair prices or higher speeds. Ensuring consumers enjoy low prices on all superfast products is the best way to maximise take-up and encourage investment in the pure fibre infrastructure of the future.

UPDATE 9:45am

Ofcom make an interesting statement on Service Level Agreements (SLAs) and Service Level Guarantees (SLGs). Currently, when Openreach fails to repair faults in line with its one or two working day service level agreement, it needs to pay daily compensation to retail telecoms providers up to a maximum of 60 working days.

The evidence Ofcom have reviewed indicates that a material number of faults remain unrepaired after this period. To ensure the continued effectiveness of these service level guarantee payments, they are proposing that there should be no caps on the periods over which fixed compensation is payable.

On a similar basis, they propose to remove the cut off period for installation SLGs. These arise when Openreach fails to install a service on the date promised.

Separately Ofcom has taken data from Openreach and Virgin Media, which has been used to produce a useful forecast of superfast broadband (i.e. 30Mbps to 300Mbps) services over the next few years.

UPDATE 9:54am

Curiously Cityfibre views todays announcement is a positive step, despite the lower pricing of FTTC being something that could hamper any wider move they may make into the residential market.

Mark Collins, Cityfibres Director of Strategy and Policy, said: Ofcom is finally delivering its promise to support full fibre investment and competition that will help close the UKs embarrassing fibre gap. This review is a major step forward. It provides the incentives for investing in full fibre networks that compete with BT. In addition to the measures announced today, we urge Ofcom to follow through on its proposals to improve access to BTs ducts and poles, and if Ofcom gets that right it will give us the tools and incentive to continue our investment in full-fibre infrastructure across the UK, and deliver it further and faster.

UPDATE 10:55am

Skys turn to comment.
After Congress on Tuesday approved a resolution that would toss out significant online privacy protections, one Internet user decided to do something about it.

Adam McElhaney, who calls himself a privacy activist and net neutrality advocate, created a website and a GoFundMe page to raise money to buy the internet histories of the legislators who backed the resolution so he can make them available and easily searchable.

According to McElhaney's GoFundMe page, he also plans to do the same to the legislators' families and any executives involved.

[ To comment on this story, visit Computerworld's Facebook page. ]

"I plan on purchasing the Internet histories of all legislators, congressmen, executives, and their families and make them easily searchable at searchinternethistory.com," he wrote. "Everything from their medical, pornographic, to their financial and infidelity. Anything they have looked at, searched for, or visited on the Internet will now be available for everyone to comb through Let's turn the tables."

McElhaney set a $10,000 goal and as of 3 p.m. ET on Thursday had raised more than $167,600 from nearly 11,000 donors in four days.

The campaign is getting attention because of the lawmakers' votes to enable ISPs, such as Verizon and Comcast, to sell users' web browsing history.

Marketers could buy information on users' online shopping habits, what they shop for, what medical sites they visit and what sites they visit that they'd rather no one know about. It could all be bought and sold without the users' consent.

In a vote that ran along party lines, congressional Republicans voted to send the legislation to President Donald Trump, who is expected to sign it, effectively erasing privacy measures that former President Barack Obama signed last year.

Those privacy protections, which were set to go into effect at the end of this year, were intended to limit what ISPs could do with customer information, such as browsing habits, app usage, location data and Social Security numbers.

The protections also forced ISPs to put up stronger boundaries to protect user data from hackers.

Companies like Google and Facebook are able to sell users' data. For instance, Google can sell information about what its users search for. The difference is that Google and Facebook operate on the internet, while the ISPs are the means for users to connect to internet. While a user could make a choice not to use Facebook, it would be difficult for many U.S. users to pick a different ISP because many areas have few options.

"I think this is not a good situation," said Judith Hurwitz, an analyst with Hurwitz & Associates. "One of the biggest problems is that there is no opt-out provision in the new law. This gives the vendors a huge amount of power over private information, including medical data. This will hurt Internet users."

She doesn't expect the activist's efforts to release the private information of Republicans in Congress to have much affect, but said the "problems will be dramatic" if the resolution becomes law.

However, Rob Enderle, an analyst with the Enderle Group, said the changes could have a positive effect.

"In a competitive market, it should help keep prices down," Enderle said. "Companies like Google had been selling this kind of information for some time, helping fund their free services."

He, too, doesn't expect McElhaney's effort to have much effect.

"It may simply result in aggressive actions against people personally attacking lawmakers," Enderle said.

This story, "Privacy activist wants to unveil lawmakers' browser histories" was originally published by Computerworld .
Microsoft will sell Samsung's newest Android-powered phones, the Galaxy S8 and S8+, in its brick-and-mortar stores next month.

The phones can be pre-ordered now at Microsoft's retail outlets -- but not online -- and will also be available for purchase in the stores beginning April 21, Samsung's release date for the new, larger models. Microsoft's prices will be the same as Samsung's: $750 for the Galaxy S8, $850 for the S8+.

But the Galaxy S8 and S8+ phones sold by Microsoft will not be identical to those offered elsewhere. "A Microsoft customization is applied when the devices are unboxed and connected to Wi-Fi," a Microsoft spokeswoman said in an emailed statement. "This customization ensures customers a best-in-class productivity experience with Microsoft applications such as Office, OneDrive, Cortana, Outlook and more."

Microsoft has worked hard to craft Android versions of its productivity apps since it spun its mobile strategy away from building and selling Windows-powered smartphones.

The company couched the Galaxy sales as part of that theme. "The new device customization is an example of bringing together Microsoft applications on more devices so customers can work, play and connect from their pockets," the spokeswoman added.

"I think it's a pretty smart move," said Jack Gold, principal analyst at J. Gold Associates. "Samsung is probably the No. 1 enterprise supplier of Android smartphones today. And they're configuring the phone to make sure their products are on it."

Gold's point? "This is a preemptive strike against Google," he said.

Microsoft has always been most interested in its commercial customers, those who contribute the majority of the company's revenues. Gold emphasized that those thoughts remained uppermost at Redmond.

"Microsoft has two plays in the enterprise, the traditional, where Exchange is the back-end, and then the cloud," he said, talking of mobile. "Microsoft's asking, 'Can I keep them from saying "I can switch to Google,"' when they go to the cloud? So, this is a stake in the ground, Microsoft saying, 'Try our stuff, you'll like it.'"

Although Gold expects Microsoft to try to sell company app-equipped phones to enterprises in other ways, perhaps by making deals with carriers, which are the usual sellers of smartphones to corporate customers buying in bulk, he is also upbeat about Microsoft's immediate plans. "In big companies, remember, 30% to 40% of smartphones are BYOD," Gold said of the "bring your own device" model where businesses support employee-owned phones, tablets and notebooks in the office.

Microsoft's Samsung deal has been low profile; rather than issue a press release or even publish a post on one of its countless blogs, the company issued a statement. Likewise, the Galaxy S8 and S8+ will be sold, at least initially, through Microsoft's limited number of retail stores only.

Gold thought he had an answer for why Microsoft chose that sales approach.

"From Microsoft's point of view, they don't want to make it too public because that just encourages people to say, 'See, Microsoft can't sell their own phones, so they're selling Android,'" Gold said. "It's a balancing act for them."
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LONDON  It took Britain more than 10 years of trying to join the European club. Its now got just two years to get out and strike a new relationship.

If anyone thinks that will be easy for Britain, a look back to its entry more than 50 years ago will show how difficult and protracted talks with the European Union can be.

Successive British governments slogged away at trying to convince the original six members  Belgium, France, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and West Germany  to let it into what was then the European Economic Community. Membership in 1973 took 12 years of on-and-off discussions that at various times humbled the British.

Prime Minister Harold Macmillan got so distraught he confided in his diary in 1963 that all our policies at home and abroad are in ruins after French President Charles de Gaulle vetoed Britains first bid to join. De Gaulle would torpedo Britains second attempt four years later, too.

Boy, was it tough, said Piers Ludlow, a historian at the London School of Economics who is a specialist on Britains postwar relations with Europe.

The past talks highlight some of the challenges Britain faces today. While the international political situation is different, the negotiations promise to be even trickier, with far more EU members involved and more complex and interdependent economies.

British Prime Minister Theresa May on Wednesday formally began the divorce talks with the EU. Her government is hoping to settle the exit terms alongside talks over the creation of a deep and special partnership. The EU wants to first reach a deal on the exit deal and has insisted that any future relationship must be seen to be inferior to full membership.

Nine months on from the British vote to leave the EU, the two sides are finally setting up their stalls. The past suggests that it will be the British who will have to make the bulk of the concessions.

Ludlow noted that in the early 1960s, Britain thought it would be relatively easy to join because of its status as a top European power  echoing the rhetoric from Brexit proponents today, who argue that they will get a good deal from the EU because the EU has a lot to lose through its strong trade ties.

Instead, the years of discussions showed the Europeans  and the French in particular  to be stubborn negotiators.

For them, of course it is rather harder to reach a consensus opinion because theyve got their own national interests and theyve got to reach agreement among the six, Geoffrey Rippon, Britains chief negotiator during the early 1970s, had said.

Now there are 27 countries to negotiate with.

And once again, there are concerns on the British side that the French will prove the most intransigent. As Rippon said all those years ago: Theyre hard bargainers.

The EU side will be more efficient today, as it has a more powerful executive commission to lead the day-to-day talks. The commission has built up decades of experience on trade negotiations, handling them on behalf of all member states.

But even so, it will take time for all the EU member states to agree on each point of negotiation. Canadas recently concluded trade deal with the bloc took seven years.

Anyone involved in enlargement/trade deals over the past 60 years can tell you, its not a fun beast to negotiate with, Ludlow said of the EU. Its like a ponderous giant; thats the nature of the beast.

Michel Barnier, a former French diplomat, will be the EUs lead Brexit negotiator and is already setting the terms of the agenda.

While admitting that the EU hopes to get a new trade deal within the two years, Barnier has insisted that discussions cannot proceed until Britain settles its multibillion exit bill  what it owes on such things as pension obligations to EU staffers and budgetary contributions it has already committed to.

And theres more than just trade to be discussed, with topics ranging from security cooperation to airlines access to European skies.

Ludlow said the cost of the divorce bill has added a fraught element in much the same way financial matters did decades ago when Britain tried to join. Back then, Britain fought hard not to be one of the largest net contributors to the European budget but eventually conceded defeat to get the green light on its accession.

The question of what the divorce settlement will be looks likely to be one of the hardest elements of the negotiations, Ludlow said.

Another key lesson from the past is that Britain should park any notion that it can exploit differences among the other EU 27 member states. Jean-Claude Juncker, the president of the EU Commission, warned recently that the old British imperial tactic of divide-and-rule wont work.

There will be a single negotiating line and a very strong desire for negotiators to stick together even if Berlin has a different view from Madrid or Warsaw, said Ludlow, the author of Dealing with Britain: The Six and the First U.K. Application to the EEC.

If you go back to the 1960s, British negotiators found it massively frustrating, he added. Every time the British made a proposal, Europes representatives left the room to find a unanimous position.

In many ways, the backdrop now is more difficult than it was back in the 1960s and 1970s. There are 21 more members to negotiate with and each one has a veto; the importance of Europe to member states is more pronounced after another four decades of integration; and the EU faces a crisis of confidence after years of economic turmoil in some of the countries that use the euro.

Theres now even more at stake, Ludlow said. The EU is also conscious of its own fragility and has incentives to avoid the British disrupting the process on the way out.

Would de Gaulle be surprised at the turn of events?

Probably non.
It was 430 years ago that Sir Walter Raleighs English immigrants, whose subsequent disappearance gave North Carolina history its Lost Colony, first arrived at Roanoke Island. Such a long-ago anniversary is a noted rarity in American history. But, North Carolinians can now celebrate an even earlier  by 20 years  European settlement; and, remarkably, it was not on the coast.

In 1567, Spanish soldiers built a fort just north of todays Morganton. They lived there only a short time, but archaeological evidence and an extraordinary story are shared in a new exhibit presented by the Exploring Joara Foundation installed at the History Museum of Burke County. It comes just in time to commemorate the 450th anniversary of this surprising episode in Americas early history.

At mid-century following Columbuss accidental discovery of a New World in 1492, French and Spanish kings were contesting for control of North America. Of immediate interest, each wanted to protect or to pirate treasure-laden ships returning to Europe from the Caribbean Sea along the Gulf Stream. In 1565, King Philip II commissioned Pedro Menendez de Aviles to secure Spains claim to La Floridas coastline, running from Key West to New Foundland.

Menendez obliged by massacring the French soldiers at Fort Caroline and then building his Fort San Augustine nearby. In the following year, 1566, he constructed Fort San Felipe at Santa Elena, todays Port Royal, S.C. (actually on the Marine Corps Parris Island). The French had already abandoned their 1562 Charlesfort there.

In December, Menendez sent Captain Juan Pardo on an expedition from Santa Elena into the interior of La Florida with 125 soldiers and a priest to Christianize the inhabitants and to secure an overland route to the silver mines in Mexico. (At the time, Spanish explorers poorly understood the continents geography.) They trooped upstream along the Wateree and Catawba rivers through the center of todays South Carolina. Along the way, they visited several Indian villages, exhibiting infamous 16th century Spanish diplomacy. They demanded food and housing and Pardo informed the natives their land was now Spains and they were to follow the Pope.

In early 1567, Pardo entered todays North Carolina along the Catawba River and turned northwest, likely passing through todays Lincolnton, and arriving at the principal regional town, Joara, in todays Burke County. During two weeks, Pardos men and Joarans built Fort San Juan, which he garrisoned with 30 soldiers. Pardo and the other soldiers returned to Santa Elena.

Twenty of the Fort San Juan garrison left under Sgt. Hernando Moyano de Morales marched into the mountains and fought against a native tribe, the Chiscas, in todays northeast Tennessee, killing large numbers of Indians and burning 50 houses. Before Moyano could march again from Fort San Juan in further explorations, a Chisca headman threatened in a message to come over the mountains to eat Moyano, his soldiers and his dogs. In April 1567, Moyano, making big trouble for everyone, attacked instead, killing more Indians, destroying villages and building another fort. In September, Pardo again marched inland, building additional forts and garrisoning men at each.

Guests, like fish, begin to smell after three days, Benjamin Franklin later wrote. In the case of Pardos forts, the Spanish soldiers soon wore out their welcome. In a coordinated attack in spring 1568, Indian groups assaulted the separate forts, killing all the Spanish soldiers but one. They let him live to warn the Spanish in Santa Elena never to return. The Joarans, ancestors of the Saura, torched Fort San Juan and the adjacent soldiers village, Cuenca.

Had the Spanish lingered longer at Joara, scholars believe they would have found the gold that sparked Americas first gold rush, in North Carolina in the 1820s. If so, our history would be entirely different. Had the native tribes not called foul on the egregious behaviors of Juan Pardos men and acted in response, what we call today the Old North State would most likely be in a Spanish-speaking country.

This is not an immigration story; its a story about people rising up together in the face of external threats of arrogance and power to defend their way of life. North Carolinas history is rife with stories of us versus them. And, although the us and the them continually change from one issue to another, We the people, as the Joarans showed, is still the most important group to commend and to unite when confronting irrational arrogance and the reckless exercise of power.

Visit www.exploringjoara.org to learn more, and see the exhibit at the History Museum of Burke County in Morganton. Visit the Santa Elena History Center (www. santa-elena.org) in Beaufort, S.C., to learn about Spains early settlement efforts.
Former US Army Lieutenant General Michael Flynn requested immunity in exchange for his potential testimony on Russian interference in the 2016 Presidential election, according to a letter [text, PDF] sent Thursday from his attorney, Robert Kelner [corporate profile]. Flynn was appointed to the top post of the National Security Council [official website] by President Trump before resigning [text, PDF] at the Presidents request less than a month later, following reports that he had lied to Vice President Mike Pence about meetings with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak. In the letter, Kelner refers to allegations against Flynn, including treason and other criminal activity, as outrageous and vicious innuendo. Despite denying those allegations, the letter does state General Flynn certainly has a story to tell, and he very much wants to tell it, should the circumstances permit.

No reasonable person, who has the benefit of advice from counsel, would submit to questioning in such a highly politicized, witch hunt environment without assurances against unfair prosecution.

Allegations of Russian connections have been a problem for US President Donald Trumps administration in the early stages of his presidency. Last week, FBI Director James Comey confirmed [JURIST report] that the FBI is investigating allegations of Russian interference with the 2016 US presidential election. Earlier this month US Attorney General Jeff Sessions recused himself [JURIST report] from probes into Russian interference after it was revealed that he had met with Russian officials [JURIST reports] during the campaign. In January a group of US Senators introduced legislation seeking to make mandatory sanctions enacted [JURIST reports] in December by then-president Barack Obama.
The recently-impeached South Korea President Guen-Hye Park [BBC profile] was arrested Friday on charges of bribery, coercion, abuse of power, and leaking government secrets. Park may be facing an additional nine other charges and can be held behind bars for up to 20 days during the course of the investigation. A Seoul district court issued the warrant for the arrest early morning on Friday after a nine-hour warrant request hearing [NPR report] the longest warrant request hearing in South Koreas history. Judge Bu-young Kang issued the warrant acknowledging the prosecutions legitimate concerns over destruction of evidence and rejecting as inadequate [Reuters report] the defenses assurance that Park was not a flight risk. Park has been taken to a detention center outside Seoul, where Samsungs would-be head Jae-Young Lee [Forbes profile] is also being held in connection with matters relating to the same corruption scandal. Park may face more than 10 years in prison if convicted.

This is the latest development in a scandal that has grown to encompass numerous South Korean political and corporate leaders. Earlier this month South Koreas Constitutional Court upheld [JURIST report] parliaments decision to impeach [JURIST report] Park over a scandal related to government bribes paid by Samsung. South Korean lawmakers voted 234-56 to impeach Park in December. In February Samsungs would-be head Lee was arrested [JURIST report] on charges of bribery and undue influence in connection with the scandal. Five Samsung executives denied the charges [JURIST report] of bribery, embezzlement and corruption that were leveled against them in connection with Park. Two weeks ago the Seoul Central District Court said that it reassigned Lees bribery case [JURIST report] to a new judge, after reports surfaced the same week concerning the previous judges connection to a woman Lee is accused of bribing. In February South Koreas special prosecutor indicted [JURIST report] former culture minister Yoon-sun Cho [official profile] and former presidential chief of staff Ki-choon Kim on charges of coercion, abuse of power and perjury connected to creation of a blacklist of opposition artists critical to Park.
[JURIST] Israels Security Cabinet voted unanimously on Thursday to approve the first settlement in the West Bank in more than 20 years. The settlement will be constructed [Jerusalem Post report] near the Palestinian city of Nablus and is intended to house approximately 40 families whose houses were demolished in the clearing of an unauthorized settlement site in February. According to Peace Now [official website], an Israeli anti-settlement watchdog group, the approval will also enable [press release] the retroactive legalization of three settlements in the West Bank. The action has been met with public outcry from Palestinian officials and comes one month after the US White House stated [press release] that while they  dont believe the existence of settlements is an impediment to peace, the construction of new settlements or the expansion of existing settlements beyond their current borders may not be helpful in achieving that goal.

While Israel and Palestine have a troubled past [HRW backgrounder], the issue of settlements in the West Bank have escalated tensions in the last decade. In November Israels Ministerial Committee for Legislation unanimously approved [JURIST report] the Formalization Bill to legalize the West Bank outposts. In March the spokesperson for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights said [JURIST report] that the office is concerned about the apparent extra-judicial execution of a Palestinian man in the West Bank. In January Human Rights Watch (HRW) urged [JURIST report] businesses to cease operations in Israel settlements. In August 2015 UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon urged both sides of the conflict [JURIST report] to reconcile and move towards peace after an attack occurred in the West Bank village of Duma, where Jewish extremists allegedly set fire to a Palestinian home while a family slept inside. Last April HRW alleged [HRW report] that Israeli settlement farmers in the occupied West Bank are using Palestinian child laborers in dangerous conditions in violation of international laws.
North Carolina House Bill 2 (HB2) [text, PDF], commonly known as the bathroom bill, was repealed [HB142, PDF] on Thursday. Governor Roy Cooper [official website] signed HB142 [press release], which repeals HB2, after the legislature passed the bill [HB142 docket] in a 70-48 vote. In signing the bill, Cooper stated that the bill was meant to not only end discrimination against the LGBT community but also repair the reputation of North Carolina, which has lost jobs and sporting events due to the controversy over the earlier law. The bill removes the requirement that people in government-run facilities use multi-occupancy bathrooms corresponding with their birth gender. It also allows local governments to pass and amend their own nondiscrimination ordinances beginning in 2020.

North Carolinas bathroom bill has generated significant controversy. In February, six Democrats in the North Carolina House of Representatives filed a bill [JURIST report] to repeal HB2. Last May, former governor Pat McCrory filed a complaint for declaratory judgment asking the federal court to weigh in on the legality of the bill, but withdrew [JURIST reports] from the lawsuit in September. In March 2016 Cooper, then-North Carolina Attorney General, stated during a press conference that he would not defend [JURIST report] HB2, which he considers to be discriminatory against the LGBT community. Earlier that week North Carolina individuals and civil rights groups filed a lawsuit [JURIST report] against McCrory, claiming that the bill was unconstitutional and discriminatory. Earlier that month McCrory signed the bill into law [JURIST report], preventing local governments from enacting their own nondiscrimination ordinances and making them unable to pass laws allowing transgender people to use the public restroom or locker room that corresponds with their gender identity. In February of that year, McCrory issued an executive order [JURIST report] clarifying that the intention of the bill was to prevent crimes in bathrooms and similar places.
[JURIST] A UK court of appeals declined [judgment, PDF] on Thursday to allow a man with a terminal disease the right to seek his own death. Noel Conway [Twitter profile] has terminal motor neurone disease and is only expected to live another 12 months. Conway asked the court to find that the Suicide Act of 1961 [text] is in conflict with Articles 8 and 14 of the Human Rights Act of 1998 [text], which relate to respect for private and family life, and protection from discrimination, respectively. Under current UK law, suicide and assisted suicide are illegal. The court ruled 2-1 that it is institutionally inappropriate to determine incompatibility between pieces of legislation. However, Lord Justice Burnett wrote, My conclusion does nothing to diminish the deep sympathy I feel for Mr Conway, his family and others who are confronted with the reality of living and dying with incurable degenerative conditions. Conway has announced will appeal the decision.

The right to die is a contentious issue worldwide. In January French lawmakers approved [JURIST report] a bill that will allow physicians to keep terminally ill patients sedated until death, opting not to extend the bill to cover physician-assisted suicide. In December the Court of Appeals of Quebec overturned [JURIST report] a lower court injunction and ruled that Quebecs physician-assisted death law is not in conflict with any elements of the Quebec Criminal Code. In November German lawmakers approved a bill [JURIST report] allowing assisted suicide for altruistic motives but banning the practice in cases where it is being conducted on a business basis. The month before California Governor Jerry Brown signed legislation [JURIST report] that provides terminally ill patients the right to die. Last May a Dutch court cleared [JURIST report] a man of all criminal charges for assisting his 99-year-old mother in committing suicide.
The Supreme Court of Venezuela [official website, in Spanish] on Wednesday essentially dissolved [decision, in Spanish] the opposition-controlled National Assembly, assuming all legislative powers. The court ruled that because the legislature had defied previous court rulings, all of its decisions are invalid. The move has been decried as a coup [Miami Herald report] by the opposition and has already been condemned by the international community.

There has been considerable legislative tension between the pro-government controlled Supreme Tribunal of Justice and the opposition-majority National Assembly of Venezuela following the December 2015 election. Last November the National Assembly postponed a symbolic trial of President Nicolas Maduro in an effort to ease political tension in the nation [JURIST report]. In October the National Assembly voted to open criminal impeachment proceedings [JURIST report] against Maduro, alleging that he manipulated the constitution to remain in power. That same month the Assembly also declared [JURIST report] that there is a breakdown of constitutional order and that the government had staged a coup by blocking an attempt to remove Maduro from power. In June government officials asked the Supreme Court to deny a referendum [JURIST report] to remove Maduro proposed by opposition leaders. In April Venezuelas opposition-led parliament approved [JURIST report] new referendum rules. In March the Supreme Tribunal of Justice ruled that the Venezuelan national assembly may not review the appointment of 13 justices [JURIST report] to the high court by the Socialist Party.
[JURIST] Volkswagen (VW) [corporate website] reached additional settlements [press release] with US state attorneys general on Thursday for emissions standards fraud. In addition to a $4.3 billion settlement agreement [PDF] that VW reached with the US Department of Justice [official website] earlier this month, VW has now agreed to pay approximately $157.5 million to 10 states in order to settle consumer and environmental state claims stemming from the violations of emission standards. The settlement agreement was reached with Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Massachusetts, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington. These states have adopted Californias vehicle emissions standards, which are more stringent than normal US standards, per a waiver [text] from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) [official website].

The VW scandal began in September 2015 when it was leaked that VW had intentionally circumvented emissions tests through installing technology to determine when emissions testing would take place and alter the cars emissions during inspections. It was found that the practice took place for at least six years. In February VW agreed to plead guilty and pay billions of dollars [JURIST report] to correct their 3.0 liter diesel engine vehicles. VW pled guilty [JURIST report] earlier this month per the agreement. In December the EU decided to take action [JURIST report] against seven member states over the emissions scandal. A US judge approved [JURIST report] a $14.7 billion settlement in October between VW and the US Department of Justice, the Federal Trade Commission, the state of California and car owners who filed a class action lawsuit over the companys emissions scandal. In September the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission sued [JURIST report] VW and its local subsidiary for misleading customers. In July a judge for the US District Court for the Northern District of California gave preliminary approval [JURIST report] to a $15 billion settlement between VW and the US Environmental Protection Agency, California officials and consumers.
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Danone is to sell US organic dairy unit Stonyfield as part of a deal with local regulators on the French giants planned acquisition of US food and beverage group WhiteWave Foods.

Last summer, Danone announced it had struck a deal to buy Alpro and Silk owner WhiteWave for US$12.5bn.

In December, Danone sold a unit in Belgium to secure EU approval for its acquisition of WhiteWave. Today, the company said it would offload Stonyfield in an agreement with the US Department of Justice, which had also been scrutinising the impact of the purchase of WhiteWave.

Plans for the US$12.5bn takeover of WhiteWave Foods by French dairy giant Danone have reached a major milestone, with the approval of the deal in principle by the Antitrust Division of the US Department of Justice (JOJ), the companies announced today (31 March).

Danone said it would sell Stonyfield, in the months following the closing of the acquisition of WhiteWave to facilitate the prompt closing of the deal.

Whitevave said it now expects the deal to close shortly, but said there can be no assurance regarding timing of completion of regulatory processes.

Danone CEO Emmanuel Faber said: As part of the agreement in principle with the DOJ, we made the strategic decision to divest Stonyfield as it allows us to take a major step towards completing the WhiteWave transaction expeditiously. This is a good outcome as it addresses the DOJs concerns and enables Danone to shortly begin to capture the benefits of the combination, and the value creation announced last July.

Faber said: We are committed to finding the right partner to support Stonyfields growth journey in the future. In doing so we will attract more competition and capital into the US organic segment, creating an opportunity for it to grow even faster. Through the WhiteWave transaction, Danone will strengthen and expand its position in resilient growth markets. Danone will notably double the size of its North America business to more than $6bn in turnover, allowing the company to become a top 15 food and beverage company in the US and the number one in refrigerated dairy  excluding cheese  in this key strategic geography. The transaction also offers the potential to broaden Danones reach across geographies through new high growth categories in the future.

As part of the announcement, Danone reaffirmed it expected to see significant run-rate EBIT synergies from the purchase of WhiteWave of $300m by 2020. It expects to see a 0.5-1% improvement to its annual like-for-like sales and solid EPS accretion from 2017 and above 10% based on run-rate synergies.
Alex Knight, the chief executive of Samworth Brothers, has stepped down just over a year after being appointed, the UK food group confirmed today (30 March).

Samworth group chairman Nick Linney said: Alex has worked with the group for over 20 years but believes the business is best served by a change in structure. During his period as group chief executive, Alex has made an enormous contribution to the business and his leadership has been notable for his hard work, strong values and commitment during a busy period. We thank him for this.

Leicester-based Samworth was asked by just-food if the company was considering a change in structure, but a spokesperson declined to comment.

In a statement, Samworth said group holdings board director Mark Samworth has taken on the chairmanship of the group executive board until a successor to Knight has been appointed, following an open search process that will take place through the course of this year.

Knight took up the group chief executives post in January 2016 after Lindsey Pownall stepped down for personal reasons, although the group said then Pownall would still work with Samworth as an advisor to its board.

Samworth counts Cornish pasty brand Ginsters in its range. The group announced in January it had acquired West Cornwall Pasty Co., a UK food-to-go retail chain specialising in making and selling pasties.
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Dallas, TX, USA, 03/31/2017 /SubmitPressRelease123/

When I was a federal prosecutor, one of my best friends specialized in prosecuting federal firearms offenses. I handled some of those cases, too, both at trial and on appeal, but we had a specific program dedicated to going after gun crime. That program had a slogan: Gun Crime Means Hard Time, offers Helms, Dallas criminal defense lawyer. The term gun crime applies to a lot of different types of cases, including possession of illegal weapons and ammunition and taking a weapon to a prohibited place. The most common type of gun case, though, is a felon-in-possession case at the federal level, or Unlawful Possession of a Weapon (UPW), at the state level. These types of cases involve the possession of a firearm by someone who has been convicted of a felony. If you have been convicted of a felony, it is illegal for you to possess a firearm.

After a felony conviction, Texas law prohibits you from possessing a firearm within five years after you have been released from prison, community supervision, parole, or mandatory supervision, whichever is LONGEST. This means, for example, that if you are sent to prison and released on parole, the five years begins to run after you are finished with parole. Even after that period expires, though, you are ONLY allowed, under Texas law, to possess a firearm in your home or residence.

Here is the problem: Federal law says that, if you have a felony conviction, you cannot possess a firearm for the rest of your life. So, if you have been convicted of a felony, the federal government can prosecute you for possessing a firearm no matter how long ago your conviction or release from prison, supervision, or parole was. Why can they do that? Because Texas law does not trump federal law. The fact that you can possess a firearm under Texas law does not mean it is legal under federal law.

Most cases under either state or federal law come down to whether the accused was knowingly possessing the gun. Many people accused of illegally possessing a gun say, It wasnt my gun. That does not matter. You can possess a gun even though it does not belong to you. Possession means that you have the ability to exercise control over it. You can do that whether the gun belongs to someone else or not.

The law says that people with felony convictions cannot possess a gun because our society believes that it is too dangerous to allow convicted felons to have guns. Think about this: You can rob a bank with someone elses gun. You can shoot someone after an argument with someone elses gun. That gun is just as lethal even though it belongs to someone else. So, the danger that the law is trying to stop is not lessened because the gun belongs to someone else.

Defending gun possession cases usually involves focusing on whether the accused knew that gun was wherever the police found it. If you do not know anything about the gun, you cannot knowingly possess it.

For example, lots of guns are discovered in cars during a traffic stop. They are often under the seat or somewhere like that. If you are just temporarily borrowing the car from someone else, there is a chance that the owner of the car left it there without telling you, and you did not know the gun was there. That might be the reasonable doubt you need.

A good criminal defense lawyer will investigate all of the circumstances of how and where the gun was discovered. If it was found in your pants pocket, you are probably out of luck, because you were in control of it, and it is hard to claim you didnt realize there was a gun in your pocket. But if the situation is less clear, it is important to have a diligent defense lawyer to make sure that your rights are protected.

If you, a family member or someone you know has been charged with possession of a firearm or any other in the Dallas area, contact Dallas criminal defense lawyer John Helms at (214) 666-8010 or fill out the online contact form. You can discuss your case, how the law may apply and your best legal options to protect your rights and freedom.

source: http://johnhelms.attorney/defending-firearm-possession-cases-explained-dallas-criminal-defense-lawyer

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ORD  The next step for possible groundwater recharge projects in a 680-square-mile area within the Central Platte and Lower Loup natural resources districts is to figure out what those projects will cost.

John Engel of HDR in Omaha had presented a feasibility study update to the CPNRD board in January and gave the same report Thursday at the Lower Loup NRD meeting in Ord.

LLNRD Assistant General Manager Russ Callan told the Hub the next step is for HDR engineers to estimate costs for the six proposals. He said a small group of directors and staff from the two NRDs probably will review the cost report before it is presented to the full boards.

The concern is for areas in the South Loup and Wood River watersheds with groundwater declines, but little or no recovery even in wet times.

At the CPNRD meeting in January, Engel said there are areas with static water levels down 5-10 feet and some hot spots with declines from base measurements of 40-50 feet. The largest declines are in central and northern Buffalo County.

The area studied within the CPNRD is north of Kearney, running northwest along Highway 40 through the Riverdale, Amherst, Miller, Sumner and Eddyville areas. The east section ends north of Highway 30 between Gibbon and Shelton.

The area within the LLNRD mostly is in northern Buffalo County with the South Loup River serving as the north border. Areas south of Pleasanton and Ravenna are included.

Engel said annual average groundwater pumping for agriculture in the study areas is about 100,000 acre-feet, while annual average recharge is 93,000 a-f. Those averages include some net-gain areas, he said, but there are more sites with recharge deficits ranging from 0-10 a-f up to 100-110 a-f.

Officials at the two NRDs asked HDR engineers to look at projects that could enhance recharge by 10,000 a-f annually, Engel said, to rest or at least stabilize groundwater levels.

The six project ideas reviewed involve possible diversions from the Platte, Wood, South Loup or Middle Loup rivers, and activities such as land use changes, administrative actions, storage reservoirs in upper basins, surface water diversions into new or existing storage sites and augmentation wells.

They are:

- Capture excess Wood River flows to divert into right of way ditches or ponds between the Wood and South Loup rivers.

- A South Loup diversion near Pleasanton.

- Enhance the B1 Reservoir at Gothenburg to allow water storage for delivery to the upper Wood River area.

- A Middle Loup diversion west of Arcadia to move water through Clear and Mud creeks.

- A South Loup reservoir above Arnold to hold water in the spring for later releases.

- Projects to maximize on-site groundwater recharge, such as return flow pits, small detention cells, enhanced wetlands, buffer strips and terraces to capture runoff.

There may not be a silver bullet and if there were, it would be very, very expensive, Engel said in January, noting that a pumping station alone could cost $5 million-$10 million, and the Middle Loup option might cost $15 million-$19 million.

Callan told the Hub that additional information about water depletions and quality is being collected in the South Loup Watershed.

The LLNRD board approved a $71,105.25 bid Thursday from Downey Drilling Inc. of Lexington for two wells at each of five sites from Arnold to Ravenna to gather more information on groundwater depletions. Cullan said the information may help to identify sites for recharge projects.

The wells will be drilled as soon as possible.

Water quality samples from the South Loup River will be collected weekly this summer at six sites. Cullan said the EPA has listed the South Loup as impaired waters because of E.coli concerns.

The LLNRD is working with the Nebraska Department of Environmental Quality, which will analyze the water samples, and Nebraska Department of Natural Resources, which will measure river water height and flows.

A lot of E. coli is runoff draining from pastures and towns, Cullan said, adding that samples are taken in the summer when human contact with river water is more likely.

The agreement between the NRD and DEQ is for a two-year project.
KEARNEY  Its official: The Nebraskan Student Union at the University of Nebraska at Kearney will be getting a $6 million upgrade, which will include the addition of a Chick-fil-A, Starbucks and new dining and meeting spaces.

The plan to overhaul UNKs student union was approved in a unanimous vote Friday by the University of Nebraska Board of Regents in Lincoln. The project is slated to begin as early as April and will renovate the building entrance and adjacent corridors, reconfigure meeting and dining spaces, update interiors, fix issues with the HVAC and air exhaust, address lighting and sewer issues, and add new retail areas to the building.

The Nebraskan Student Union is the heart of our campus, serving the entire UNK community, Vice Chancellor for Business and Finance Jon Watts said. This multi-phase remodel will enhance the social and student activities hub of the university, providing programs, services, and spaces that are more fully aligned with current and future needs of students. The proposed remodel will create highly interactive spaces that allow for students and student organizations to interact with each other in more meaningful ways, and the new restaurant choices will enhance the appeal of UNKs most popular campus destination for students.

The Nebraskan will be remodeled in phases, University of Nebraska President Hank Bounds said, and the building will remain open during the renovations.

The project will not require state funds, Bounds said, and will be paid with $5 million in restricted revenue-bond money and $1 million from Chartwells Dining Services, UNKs dining service contractor.

The student union is the focal point on campus, and its where all student dining is, Bounds said.

The 22,000-square-foot Nebraskan currently houses a Starbucks, but the renovations will expand that space to allow for a 1,208-square-foot shop, which is the minimum size for a full scale Starbucks. The building also houses several program offices, including the Office of Multicultural Affairs, Student Engagement, Fraternity and Sorority Life, Student Government, the Antelope Bookstore, and a ballroom.

The Office of Multicultural Affairs offices and adjacent areas were updated during renovations to the student union in 2015-16, and the remainder of the first floor will be upgraded to match the design and decor of that first phase, according to a news release from UNK.

In addition to the Nebraskan renovation, the NU Board of Regents also approved a name change for Founders Hall to Jerome and Charles J. Warner Hall after prominent father and son state senators who played a significant role in UNKs history.

The board also approved the creation of a BS in Health Sciences program at UNK, which will be geared toward nontechnical health careers such as corporate medical pharmaceutical sales, and will be administered by the Office of Health Sciences Programs in the College of Natural and Social Sciences.
GRAND ISLAND  A Kearney High School project to inventory ecosystem features, including plants and wildlife, at the site for a wetland-outdoor learning center to be developed this summer got a $1,000 boost Thursday from the Central Platte Natural Resources District.

The CPNRD board approved the funds for a Kearney Outdoor Learning Area BioBlitz, which will be from 7 a.m. to noon April 22  Earth Day  and involve KHS and University of Nebraska at Kearney students as data collection leaders.

The BioBlitz budget is $2,000 for equipment, supplies and marketing materials.

The funding application to CPNRD says the public and students from other Kearney schools will be invited to participate. Experts such as wildlife biologists, soil scientists and botanists will be present to confirm identifications of species and site conditions.

Project leaders are KHS life sciences teachers Alison Buescher and Rick Lindeman and grant writer-coordinator Mark Whitacre.

CPNRD Programs Committee Chairman Bob Schanou of Shelton said Thursday the goal is to identify soil, water and wildlife conditions now, and then have future KHS and UNK students determine changes at the site over the years.

The application says the area is south of the main KHS campus along Turkey Creek. KHS students will be involved in the design and development of the outdoor learning center, which is being funded by the Environmental Protection Agency, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Nebraska Environmental Trust.

BioBlitz participants will assemble April 22 at the high schools Scott D. Morris Institute. They will be assigned to teams and given instructions about collecting and inputing data.

In other business at Thursdays CPNRD board meeting in Grand Island, an agreement was approved to spend $343,259 over the next four years for an ongoing crop water use-evapotranspiration study with the University of Nebraska-Lincoln that includes the entire Central Platte district.

CPNRD General Manager Lyndon Vogt said study information is being used to determine crop water use by different crops grown in the NRD and to assist producers with irrigation scheduling.

Also Thursday, the board approved a change order for the Prairie/Silver/Moores drainage improvement project in the Grand Island area to allow the current phase one contractor, Van Kirk Brothers Construction of Sutton, to remove roots and other debris left from tree-removal work. The cost is $344,000.

Eastern Projects Committee Chairman Jerry Wiese of Grand Island said the work was scheduled in phase two, for which bids will be taken soon, but it should cost less to have the current contractor do the job. It is in the budget, in the sinking fund, so were just using it now, rather than later, he said.

In other business the directors:

- Approved 10 college scholarships of $1,000 each. Hub Territory recipients are Jason Line of Miller, Carson Schultz of Wood River, Sage Williams of Eddyville and Chandler Flynn of Lexington.

- Changed the May board meeting to June 1 because of a conflict with a national conference on May 25.

- Were reminded that the 29th-annual Nebraska Childrens Groundwater Festival will be May 9 at Central Community College and College Park in Grand Island. CPNRD is the main sponsor of the event, which will include Hub Territory students from Elm Creek, Broken Bow and Lexington this year.

- Were updated by CPNRD Biologist Mark Czaplewski on Platte River Recovery Implementation Program work to identify additional water projects to meet first increment (13 years) goals to reduce river depletions and the steps ahead to seek a first increment extension to 2032.

- Were told by Chairman Jim Bendfeldt of Kearney that he has been re-elected as Nebraska Association of Resources Districts president. He gave a short overview of a recent trip to Washington, D.C., by 55 NARD representatives.
KEARNEY  University of Nebraska at Kearneys Founders Hall now will bear the name of two prominent Nebraska state senators  father and son  who played a significant role in the institutions history.

The name Jerome and Charles J. Warner Hall, was approved by the University of Nebraska Board of Regents at its meeting today, and the transition from Founders Hall to Warner Hall begins immediately.

By naming Founders Hall the Jerome and Charles J. Warner Hall, UNK and the Board of Regents express their gratitude and appreciation to the families of Charles and Jerome Warner for their exemplary service to the University of Nebraska at Kearney and University of Nebraska, UNK Chancellor Doug Kristensen said in the universitys proposal.

The idea to honor the Warners arose during the year-long Year of Celebration at UNK in 2016, during which the university celebrated 111 years as an institution, and 25 years as part of the University of Nebraska. The Warners legacies appeared in university research, in documents and presentations throughout the year.

Chancellor Kristensen, in his March 1, 2016, address, A Century Later: From 111 Ballots to Today, reminded the audience that it was Charles J. Warner - often referred to as the grand old man of Nebraska politics - who in the Nebraska House of Representatives in 1903 led the effort to establish Kearney Normal School.

Charles Warner was a member of the Nebraska House from 1901-1907, then in the Nebraska Senate from 1919-1937, and then the Nebraska Unicameral from 1937-1939, and served as the combined legislatures first Speaker. He was later elected lieutenant governor four times, serving from 1949 until his death at age 80.

Jerome Warner himself became the next grand old man, serving 35 years in elected service as state senator, including as Speaker, and heading committees on Education, Appropriations, and Revenue, and the Executive Board. He led efforts on bills related to state school aid, forming the Department of Administrative Services, limiting property taxes, highway and road funding, development of the biennial budget process, among others. His leadership helped make Kearney State College part of the state university system in 1989.

Charles Warner received the Nebraska Builder Award, the University of Nebraskas highest non-academic honor, for his contribution to the welfare of the university and the state; and Jerome Warner received the Honorary Degree, Doctor of Humane Letters, from the University of Nebraska Board of Regents.

The building  which houses administration, some business offices, departments of criminal justice, political science, math and social work  was dedicated by Kearney State College in 1978 with Founders Hall honoring the memories of the original founding faculty and administration. The Founders Hall dedication plaque will continue to hold a place of honor in Warner Hall.

Upon approval today, the university will begin transitioning to calling Founders Hall, Warner Hall, with the full formal name Jerome and Charles J. Warner Hall. Signage will be updated over the summer, with a ceremony to recognize the naming planned the first week of fall semester.
KEARNEY  An elderly woman was listed in critical condition today following a car-pedestrian crash in the parking lot of Kearneys Walmart Supercenter.

Paula Newmyer, 88, of Kearney was injured at about 2:57 p.m., a Kearney Police Department incident report says, when an 18-year-old Kearney man backed up in the Walmart parking lot at 5411 Second Ave. and struck Newmyer with a 1989 K1500 Chevrolet pickup.
A rose to ... the Suicide Prevention Stakeholder Coalition, which was organized through Buffalo County Community Partners to spread the word about help and hope to young individuals who are thinking about ending their lives.

On Monday, more than 300 people gathered to hear panelists talk about suicide prevention resources. Bringing together the Suicide Prevention Coalition was a delicate and demanding task, but community members who became involved threw their hearts and minds into the project knowing theres a need to reach out and help youths in need. There is much positive momentum. Next step will be the Rae of Hope Foundations April 13 launch party.

During the gathering earlier this week, panelists fielded several dozen questions, addressed myths about suicide and touched on the agencies equipped to provide mental health services, including Richard H. Young Hospital, Region 3 Behavioral Services, Kearney Police Department, churches and Kearney schools.

People learned about suicide prevention resources for teens and went home with a hotline number that should be programmed into every teenagers phone: 741-741.

A raspberry to ... Columbus Day. It honors the worlds most famous explorer, but history hasnt been kind to the man who discovered North America. Columbus now is regarded less as an explorer and more as an exploiter. Rather than observing Columbus Day, how about honoring Native Americans who made history?

We Nebraskans are proud of Ponca Chief Standing Bear, who was banished to Oklahoma along with other members of his northeast Nebraska tribe. On the trail to Oklahoma, Standing Bear promised his dying son that he would be buried on tribal land.

The U.S. Army intercepted Standing Bear as he returned to Nebraska to bury his son, and the chief and his people were detained in Omaha and offered little hope they could continue their journey.

Standing Bear became famous because his 1879 trial resulted in a judge declaring Native Americans are persons within the meaning of the law and have the right to be brought before a judge to determine if there are grounds for detention, also known as the right of habeas corpus.

The Standing Bear case is the inspiration behind Nebraskas state motto, Equality before the law.
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International Trade Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne speaks with the media in Berlin, Germany, on Thursday, February 16, 2017. Canada and Britain are holding informal free trade talks, even though Britain is barred from direct negotiations before it formalizes its Brexit divorce from the European Union.International Trade Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne says Canada says it isn't breaking any EU rules by doing that. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Adrian Wyld
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An excerpt from Life after the Diagnosis: Expert Advice on Living Well with Serious Illness for Patients and Caregivers.

Serious illness doesnt discriminate; it strikes patients of all ethnic and cultural backgrounds. Members of particular groups frequently have traditions that govern how they deal with serious illness, dying, and death.

In todays Western cultures, the wishes of seriously ill people are paramount. Our laws and institutions are geared to see that their directives are carried out. In other cultures, decisions are based on whats best for the family and the individuals interests are less important. The patients family, not the patient, is expected to make the important decisions including treatment and end-of-life decisions.

If you want your family to make those decisions, make your wishes clear. Put them in writing. Make sure that theyre in your medical record. Tell your family, friends, and medical providers that you authorize your family to make all the necessary decisions regarding your treatment and end-of-life.

When it comes to cultural differences, my major concern is that assumptions will be made that dont reflect patients wishes.

I was treating Mae, a Chinese-American patient in the ICU when it became clear that she had only a matter of days left. I asked her nurse, who was also Chinese-American, if she knew whether anyone had asked about Maes spiritual preferences. Did she want to see a spiritual leader or have particular customs followed? Oh, no, the nurse replied, We Chinese arent religious. Her answer surprised me. It was not what I had experienced. So I asked Maes family, learned that they were Catholic, and was told that both Mae and her family wanted her to receive the Sacrament of the Sick, which we soon arranged

You cant assume that you know about someone because you know their ethnicity, country of origin, religion, or primary language. You certainly dont know their preferences for something as personal as medical care and spiritual needs at the end of life.

Although cultural traditions play a role in making treatment decisions, that role is not absolute. For example, in some cultures the tradition is to withhold unfavorable information from patients. In those cultures physicians dont discuss diagnosis and prognosis directly with the patient. And yet, cultures are not homogeneous. Opinions diverge even in the most traditional communities. They are never 100% one way or the other. Ultimately, treatment and end-of-life decisions are personal and vary with each case.

I tell my students to be curious. To ask respectful questions like, What do I need to know about your culture or religion to make sure I take good care of you? Share these traditions and practices with your doctors and nurses. If the person who is ill in your family is potentially more traditional than you are, you can ask them the same question- Grandma, what are the traditions in our family that are important when taking care of people who are sick? This question about traditions is another opportunity for the person who is sick to find meaning, purpose, legacy and dignity by sharing family and cultural traditions.

On the other hand, I sometimes find that people dont want straight talk. Some people prefer to be a bit in the dark, to live with some denial. Thats OK, too. The point is that you can never know what someone will say. That goes for me as a doctor and for family members. The goal is not to assume what someone wants, but to ask.

At 84, Mr. Wong, was admitted to the hospital with right-sided abdominal pain. An ultrasound revealed a mass in his gall bladder that looked like cancer. His family told us not to tell him what we found because he wouldnt be able to take such bad news. They said that in their tradition the family would make all medical decisions for him.

One morning, when Mr. Wong was feeling better, I visited him. He was in bed and a Mandarin interpreter was with his family in her room. I wanted to respect the familys wish, but I also wanted to respect Mr. Wong. So I said, Mr. Wong, I have information about whats going on. Some people want me to tell them everything while others prefer that I only speak to their families. How do you feel?

Mr. Wong thought for a moment and then spoke in Mandarin, which the interpreter translated. You know doctor, everyone has to die someday. I was stunned. I hadnt said anything about dying. I regrouped and said that yes he was right but what I wanted to know was how he wanted me to handle new information about his condition and whether he wanted me to tell him or his family. Oh doctor, he replied, you will tell me everything. And by the way, its OK if you also want to tell my family.

Mr. Wong went on to tell us that he felt better and wanted to go home. He declined a biopsy that his family had been ready to consent to. Mr. Wongs family thought they were protecting him, but they complicated the situation and made it more difficult. They nearly exposed him to a biopsy that she didnt want.

The U.S. and every state have laws that mandate that health care providers make interpreters available for any person who doesnt speak English. These laws are so important because they support better patient-doctor and nurse communication, which is the backbone of good medical care.

Steven Pantilat is founding director, University of California, San Francisco Palliative Care Program. He is the author of Life after the Diagnosis: Expert Advice on Living Well with Serious Illness for Patients and Caregivers.

Image credit: Shutterstock.com
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Everyone immersed in the culture of medicine knows that physicians sometimes defer the discussion about prognosis to patients who are battling a life-threatening illness. Everyone, that is, except the patient. We arrive on your doorstep believing that our presence indicates the obvious. So, how are we to know that we have to ask for something as life altering and important as a prognosis? Deferring to the patient for prognostic discussion occurs among health care professionals so much so that it has become lost on the most important person of all. The one who has the illness. The one who may lose his or her life, and the one who needs to make decisions based on the facts  not false hopes or useless treatments.

Not every physician elects to leave the discussion about the prognosis for a life-threatening illness up to the patient, but far too many do. Putting off the necessary conversation does nothing to soften the blow that for some, will inevitably come later in the disease process. It is too late when it is time for hospice. Patients no longer have the time or energy to carry out that which is important to them, and they will go to their grave in angst over what could have been.

So, what do patients want from their physicians when communicating prognostic information? Unless we have informed you otherwise, we want your total honesty. Tell us what you know. We do not want to hear that you cannot predict exactly what will happen during the course of our illness. That is not what we are asking. We want to know, statistically, how does this disease at the stage we are presenting, usually unfold. We understand that you cannot provide a locked-in concrete answer. We are still dealing with probabilities in the early phase of our illness. We need to hear what could happen and what is likely to happen, with no guarantees, in order to make preparations for what could either be a negative or a positive outcome.

If patients want the truth, and they do, then they also want their own doctor to be the one to deliver it. Leaving this discussion for a resident physician is not something that we will appreciate unless the resident physician has been our primary caregiver. First of all, if we hear a poor prognosis from someone less experienced than you, we are not going to believe it anyway. We do not want it to be true, and if our attending physician has not mentioned it, then perhaps this less experienced physician is mistaken in their assessment of our condition. Likewise, if we catch you by surprise during morning rounds having received such a disclosure from an intern or resident, do not try to minimize the disclosure unless it was overstated. As dismayed as we may be, we do not want you to change the facts to make us feel better. We trust you, and the problem with falsehood is that once it is discovered, we can never believe anything else you say. That would effectively be the end of our doctor-patient relationship, and if we are in crises, that is the last thing we need at the moment.

Choose your words carefully. Once spoken, you cannot take them back. At a local community hospital where I was once employed, I overheard a physician tell a patient that she had to stop chemotherapy. When the patient asked what else the doctor was going to try, he said, Nothing, and abruptly left the room. The patient burst into tears. As patients, we would prefer something a little more subtle. In contrast, it was once my good fortune to hear an experienced oncologist say the following to a dying patient:

You arent responding to treatment as well as I had hoped, and the chemotherapy is making you very sick. Lets discontinue treatment for now until you are feeling better. We can revisit your medical status in a week, and we can talk about your options then.

If you have already engaged the patient in an honest assessment about the progression of their disease, the meaning of the above conversation will not be lost. Over the next week, we will go over the possibilities in our own mind. Although we may be disappointed, it will come as no surprise if you recommend that no further curative treatment be pursued. The one to two week period between conversations gives the patient time to slowly absorb the shock and to come to terms with the realization that they may be losing the battle with their disease before they have to face the concrete determination.

Consequently, what we want most during the course of our illness is YOU. We acknowledge that you are only one person, we are not your only patients, and there are only so many hours in a day. But when things go south, we want our own physician. We understand that we will not always have the advantage of your physical presence, but we want to know that you are up to date with our medical status. If we are in the hospital, we want to know that the culture of collaboration between you and your colleagues is such that we can rely on them in your absence. Patients want to know, that in your absence, every aspect of their care will be covered. They do not want to have to worry that another physician, who doesnt know them, will arrive and disregard your orders. If you strive to do the very best that you can, it will be enough. You will have your patients loyalty and gratitude for your efforts, regardless of their personal outcome.

Linda Haller is founder, Examining the Examiner.

Image credit: Shutterstock.com
The Fuelling Ambition: Steps to Success South East event is being hosted by Enterprise Ireland and Network Ireland, in conjunction with the Kilkenny Local Enterprise Office (LEO) and the Entrepreneurs Academy and will take place in the Hotel Kilkenny, College Road, Kilkenny on Thursday, April 6 at 6pm.

The event aims to encourage, support and drive the ambition of female entrepreneurs in Wicklow and across the country. Clare Hughes, Managing Director of CF Pharma and Geraldine Byrne, Founder of Mediskin are two big Irish success stories and they going to share their business journeys and steps to success at the event.

Building on the successful Fuelling Ambition initiative introduced in 2016, this years roadshow will feature an Elevator Pitch competition with a prize package worth 4,000.

MC for the Evening is Chief Executive of the Design and Crafts Council of Ireland, Karen Hennessy. Karen currently sits on the Irish Design Interdepartmental Steering Group, the Advisory Group for Small Business (AGSB), Chartered Accountants Irelands Members in Business Committee and Kilkenny & Carlow Education and Training Board. She was recently appointed to the Irish Advisory Board of UCD Cantillon Centre for Entrepreneurship, Innovation and Design.

Clare Hughes is Managing Director of CF Pharma based in Kilkenny. CF Pharma specialize in the development of niche generics, medical devises and innovative food supplements. They offer a globally exclusive portfolio of products to other pharmaceutical companies and directly to consumers.

Tickets are free but must be booked at fuellingambitionkilkenny.eventbrite.com.
(Kitco News) - Modern day fiat money is an abstract concept. Sure, money is the medium of exchange that allows you to pay your mortgage, go out to dinner and load up on groceries at the store. But, at its base, money is a scorecard system that bypasses the need for bartering. It is a social construct that facilitates activities in our highly developed economy.

In today's world, money is largely digitized and made up of via electronic records and numbers in computer systems. Your bank account is comprised of numbers in a computer file, not gold or silver bars in a vault.

Taking this a step further: the majority of modern day money is credit, which represents money created through the loan creation process. Central bankers call this: fractional reserve banking. This process allows banks to take in deposits, then loan out that same money and theoretically create new money, via credit expansion.

Here's how the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta explains the concept:

"The story that's usually told about the origin of fractional reserve banking is told about ancient goldsmiths. Goldsmiths stored precious metals in their vaults and people came to them to store precious metals on their account. And, over time, the goldsmiths realized, you know, if I lent this gold out and put it out there in the community in some sort of an investment, then I could made a profit and return the gold to the vault before anybody is the wiser."

Setting the Current Stage

Former Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke spearheaded a massive effort to prevent the U.S. economy from sliding into another Great Depression after the 2008 global financial crisis imploded. Bernanke unleashed the powers of the central bank to create money via quantitative easing and balance sheet expansion, commonly referred to as money printing.

Despite his critics, Bernanke  a keen student of Great Depression economic history  probably saved the country from another depression with his bold and unconventional actions. Yet, the U.S. economy has still not fully healed. Gross domestic product growth is positive, but has failed to hit its pre-2008 stride.

Most importantly  Federal Reserve monetary policy has not even come close to normalization. In March 2017, the federal funds rates stands at a still historically ultra-low 0.75-1.00%. It is nearly nine years since the Fed dropped the funds rate to zero-0.25% in December 2008 to stave off economic depression. The path to policy normalization has been shepherded along in a slow pace by Fed Chair Janet Yellen, as central bankers didn't want to spook, consumers, markets and businesses and trigger a renewed economic downturn.

As a reference point, in 2006, the fed funds rate stood at 5.25%. In 2000, the fed funds rate stood at 6.50%. Admittedly, that is on the high end in recent monetary policy tightening cycles  but it is important to remember what occurs during "normal" tightening cycles.

That brings us back to fractional reserve banking. Bill Gross, fund manager at Janus Capital Group, recently highlighted this issue in a note to clients:

"It still mystifies mehow a banking system can create money out of thin air, but it does. By rough estimates, banks and their shadows have turned $3 trillion of "base" credit into $65 trillion + of "unreserved" credit in the United States alone  Treasuries, munis, bank loans, mortgages and stocks too, although equities are not officially "credit" they are still dependent on the cash flow that supports the system."



Chart source: fred.stlouisfed.org

Running On Credit

Gross highlighted current credit conditions noting that: "the global economy has created more credit relative to GDP than that at the beginning of 2008's disaster. In the U.S., credit of $65 trillion is roughly 350% of annual GDP and the ratio is rising."

Gross issued this warning:

"Our highly levered financial system is like a truckload of nitro glycerin on a bumpy road."

He went on to say that one mistake could trigger a credit implosion where investors

"all rush to the bank to claim its one and only dollar in the vault." When this happened in 2008, Bernanke had the tools available to him to cut rates to near zero and create trillions of dollars via quantitative easing to prevent a "run on the system."

With Fed rates at 1.00% and balance sheets still historically swollen, the central bank is out of bullets.

The moral of Gross's story? He points to Will Roger's famous quote: "I'm not so much concerned about the return on my money," he wrote, "but the return of my money."

Gold has always served as the ultimate safe-haven and capital preservation vehicle. Have you taken the time to properly diversified your portfolio?
March 31 (Reuters) - The following are the top stories on the business pages of British newspapers. Reuters has not verified these stories and does not vouch for their accuracy.

The Times

* Online retailer AO World Plc raised 50 million pounds ($62 million) to underpin its balance sheet by selling new shares at less than half the price the shares floated at about three years ago. * JPMorgan Chase & Co is in talks to buy a Dublin office building as one of its strategies to cope with Brexit, while Citigroup Inc has warned staff to brace for a "hard" departure. The Guardian

* Managing Director Paula Nickolds of John Lewis Plc , Britain's largest department store operator, has warned of more job cuts this year and possible price rises as she said shoppers' behaviour was changing "profoundly and fast." * HSBC Holdings Plc is to offer its transgender community a choice of 10 new gender-neutral titles as part of its plan to improve the banking experience for customers. The Telegraph

* Britain has begun to take back control from Brussels as Brexit minister David Davis announced that the first European Union law to be scrapped after Brexit will be a charter that helps criminals avoid deportation. * Two days after Prime Minister Theresa May wrote to Brussels announcing UK's formal withdrawal from the EU, Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon penned a letter demanding May give Scotland a referendum vote. Sky News

* The Bank of England is consulting on the additives used to produce its polymer banknotes after criticism of the use of animal fat in the new five-pound notes. * Chief Executive Joe Kaeser of Siemens AG has told Sky News that he is "confident and optimistic" that Britain will "find its way" through the turbulence of Brexit. The Independent

* Major international technology firms have announced that they will set up a cross-industry forum to tackle online extremist propaganda following a crunch meeting with Home Secretary Amber Rudd. (Compiled by Kanishka Singh in Bengaluru; Editing by Leslie Adler)
March 31 (Reuters) - The following are the top stories in the Financial Times. Reuters has not verified these stories and does not vouch for their accuracy.

Headlines

* BoE consults on alternatives to using animal fat in bank notes * Ousted South Korean president Park Geun-hye arrested * NHS patients warned of longer waits for operations * Hinkley Point construction gets under way Overview

- The Bank of England is consulting on which materials must be used to make notes after the discovery of small amounts of animal fat in plastic 5 pound ($6.24) notes sparked outrage. BoE, in a public consultation, said it "respects those concerns and is treating them with the utmost seriousness".

- Facing at least 13 charges, ousted South Korean president Park Geun-hye was arrested on Friday. Park is accused of letting a now-jailed confidante, Choi Soon-sil, meddle in state affairs and gain unauthorised access to classified documents, while colluding to extort about $70 million from businesses for two foundations under Choi's effective control

- Patients seeking non-urgent operations and treatment in accident and emergency departments will have to wait longer, according to an NHS report. Chief executive of NHS England Simon Stevens presented the report on Friday into progress on its five-year plan.

- EDF said it has begun construction of the first permanent structures at Hinkley Point nuclear power station in Somerset. This is Britain's first new nuclear plant since the 1990s. Prime Minister Theresa May had given a go-ahead to the project last September.

($1 = 0.8016 pounds)

(Compiled by Sangameswaran S in Bengaluru; Editing by Peter Cooney)
* APRA limits new interest-only lending to 30 pct vs 40 earlier

* Banks to limit investor lending to "comfortably below" 10 pct

* More steps needed to combat housing mania - analysts

* Quality of bank lending "high" - ABA

(Adds details, background)

By Wayne Cole and Swati Pandey

SYDNEY, March 31 (Reuters) - Australia's banking watchdog on Friday launched a new salvo in its battle against speculative home lending and explosive house prices, though analysts were far from convinced the war was yet won.

The Australian Prudential Regulatory Authority (APRA) asked banks to limit new interest-only lending to 30 percent of total new residential mortgage lending, from 40 percent now. It also demanded that banks limit investor credit to "comfortably remain below" a previously-set cap of 10 percent annual growth.

The measures come as regulators grow increasingly worried about a run-up in borrowing at a time when household debt is already at record highs and could weigh on consumer spending power - risking a damaging pullback in home prices.

But industry players say more stringent measures are needed to cool the red-hot market.

"This is not a hard change to the target as had been mooted recently in the press (with) some suggesting the 10 percent limit could be as much as halved," said Bill Evans, chief economist at Westpac Banking Corp .

Westpac is Australia's No.2 mortgage lender after Commonwealth Bank .

"Looking ahead, the Reserve Bank of Australia's (RBA) Stability Review on April 13 may provide more clarity on the macro prudential policy outlook and potential triggers for further action," Evans noted.

Behind-the-scenes pressure from the regulators has already prompted the major banks to lift borrowing costs on a range of home loans for investors, and even owner-occupiers. "Another potential area would be to lower that investor lending growth rate. Ten percent is still a fairly high clip," said Phil Miall, head of credit research and strategy at Brisbane-based QIC, which has A$74 billion of assets under management.

"If they want to get more aggressive they could look at risk weights...and that would force banks to hold more capital against those particular loan types."

Home prices have surged in Sydney and Melbourne in recent months, with annual growth reaching almost 20 percent in Sydney according to property consultant CoreLogic.

Mortgage lending is a staple for Australia's "Big Four" banks which depend on home loans for 40-60 percent of their revenue.

The Australian Bankers' Association said the quality of bank lending was high. Borrowing with loan-to-value ratio (LVR) of 90 percent or more was at record low levels while the proportion of new interest-only home loans had "declined significantly" over the past two years, it said.

Interest-only loans were singled out for special attention because they are favoured by speculators for their tax advantages.

"APRA views a higher proportion of interest-only lending in the current environment to be indicative of a higher risk profile," APRA Chair Wayne Byres said in Friday's statement.

The watchdog said it might impose added restrictions on banks should the proportion of new interest-only mortgages exceed 30 percent of total new home-loan lending.

Analysts noted APRA's latest steps were not as bold as in New Zealand where regulators slapped strict LVR limits on banks in an attempt to cool prices in the largest city of Auckland.

"Overall, we see the measures as erring to the softer end of expectations," said Michael Turner, a fixed income strategist at RBC Capital Markets.

"Relative to the earlier measures, we doubt that the impact will be as large, although it is still reasonable to expect some slowing in investor activity through 2017 given declining rental yields, increasing mortgaging rates, and oncoming supply."

(Additional reporting by Jamie Freed and Cecile Lefort; Editing by Eric Meijer)
(Updates to close)

March 31 (Reuters) - Australian shares finished lower on Friday, weighed down by losses in financials as investors repositioned themselves after a strong rally on Thursday.

The S&P/ASX 200 index fell 31.3 points or 0.53 percent to 5,864.9 at the close of trade.

The market managed to keep its head above water this week, climbing 1.94 percent versus last week's 0.8 percent decline. It rose for a fourth straight quarter, its longest winning streak since June 2014.

Financial stocks fell 0.58 percent after their longest daily bull run since Oct. 10, 2016.

Three of the "Big Four" banks fell less than 1 percent, while ANZ Banking slipped 1.39 percent after 11.6 million shares changed hands, twice the 30-day average.

BHP Billiton failed to impress, falling 0.91 percent this week, and 0.12 percent on the day, hurt by a 2 percent drop in Chinese iron ore futures. Oil prices, which fell on profit-taking on Friday, further undermined BHP, which has significant exposure to the sector. Energy stocks Woodside Petroleum , Oil Search , Beach Energy and Santos fell 0.8 percent to 1.3 percent. The energy index fell 0.9 percent after six straight gaining sessions. It rose 2.12 percent this quarter.

New Zealand's benchmark S&P/NZX 50 index climbed 0.38 percent or 27.67 points to 7,196.78.

The index rose 4.6 percent this quarter, compared with a 6.52 percent loss in the previous quarter.

Telecom and consumer discretionary stocks led overall gains. Spark New Zealand , up 1.45 percent, was the top performer on the index, followed by Contact Energy which rose 1.4 percent.

(Reporting by Aparajita Saxena in Bengaluru; Editing by Eric Meijer)
Source: Government of Chile

(Kitco News) - In the fight against illegal gold operations in South America, some authorities may be hurting local business owners.

Since the infamous Harold Vilches gold smuggling case, Chilean authorities started to impose tougher restrictions on gold imports that are proving impossible to meet, Felipe Munoz, co-founder of Aurica Metales, told Kitco News in an exclusive interview. The new push is part of Chiles efforts to cut down on illegal gold being brought into the country.

The Vilches case has completely paralyzed imports of bullion products into Chile, noted the Santiago-based precious metals importer. One of the new rules established by the Chilean customs in response to Vilches' illegal activities was to force gold importers to specify the exact number of coins manufactured in the country of the bullions origin in a given year.

The catch-22 is that this kind of information is very hard to obtain in countries such as the U.S. and Canada, explained Munoz, the two nations he mainly does business with.

In the five years that weve been in operations in Chile, weve imported 15,500 ounces of Gold Maple, which is a 24-carat, highest purity unit. That number has dropped down to zero since December 21, 2016, when the tougher rules were introduced, he said. Since that day, I havent been able to import anything  gold, silver, or platinum. The new regulations gravely affect my business.

Earlier in March, Bloomberg published a feature about the Chilean smuggler, Harold Vilches, 23, who confessed to the American and Chilean authorities that he sold 4,000 pounds of illegally mined gold, the majority of which was reportedly bought by NTR Metals office in Miami.

Vilches was interviewed by the FBI as well as Chilean prosecutors in October 2016. During his testimony, Vilches named two NTR Metals executives  Renato Rodriguez and Samer Barrage  who were allegedly aware they were buying illegal gold and are said to have prepped Vilches on what to say to customs agents. NTR Metals employees denied the allegations.

In another recent case involving NTR Metals and illegally smuggled gold, the companys operations manager, Juan Pablo Granda was arrested on March 15 when he returned to Miami from South American jungles, where he was allegedly sent by NTR Metals to buy gold for smelting.

Munoz told Kitco News that cases like this have forced Chile to come up with absurd import rules.

Vilches originally bought illegal gold in Peru and Bolivia, then moved it to Chile to melt it into ingots. As he was trying to leave the country, Vilches came up with the lie, telling the customs agents that the golden bars he had in his possession were melted out of the gold coins bought locally.

What the border agents discovered was that the math simply didnt add up.

He would have had to buy and melt 30,000 Chilean coins to equal the number of bars he was trying to move. Chile, however, stopped producing these coins in late 1970s, making it impossible for him to obtain that many, Munoz pointed out. This is the reason behind the new December rule, which requires importers to list the number of coins produced in the country where gold is coming from.

Gold Smuggling on the Rise  Nonprofit org.Verite claims that 40 tons of gold shipped from 5 Latin American countries came from illegal mines, which almost doubles the legal export volume of these countries.  Global Initiative against Transnational Organized Crime says that "about 28% of gold mined in Peru, 30% of gold mined in Bolivia, 77% of gold mined in Ecuador, 80% of gold mined in Colombia, and 80-90% of Venezuelan gold is produced illegally."  In Venezuela alone, Kitco News found that there are roughly 100k workers at illegal gold mines, with 90% of the country's total gold production comes from mafia-controlled mines.

Aurica is currently taking legal action against the Chilean government, said Munoz, adding that the new measures violate free trade agreements between Chile and North American partners like the U.S. and Canada.

Aside from providing a list of coins produced in a given country, the governments December legislation (translated into English) requires gold importers to also present:

-A copy of a decree from the country of origin [Canada, in Munozs case] that authorizes the minting of coins and lists the number of coins minted.

- A certificate of authenticity of "Legal Tender, issued by a competent body from the country of origin or endorsed by a State Agency of the country of origin, which can guarantee the purchase as a ticket, invoice or similar, indicating that it is a legal tender, listing date of issue and quantity of coins purchased.

To Munoz, these requirements are virtually impossible to adhere to and have stalled his business operations.

The second bullet is even more difficult to meet since there are no legal tender certificates in the United States or Canada because the coins are minted under the laws of those countries, he said. I doubt that the Royal Canadian Mint or the U.S. Mint deliver that information.

Whats more, he explained that one of the biggest issues importers have with the new regulations is that Chilean authorities assume that all the gold is bought directly from governments, which is not the case. In reality, [we] purchase from authorized dealers, [but] all the documents Chile requires need to be issued by the government or endorsed by a State Agency of the country of origin.

The issues with Chilean customs have been raised by the media in the past. Chiles Center for Journalistic Research (CIPER), for example, reported last year that 375 of the countrys customs agents were spread very thin and lacked proper training.

Despite rigorous training, customs inspectors remain the same. It is clear that the 375 inspectors are able to visually check only 5% of the imported merchandise and verify that the product, quantity and value of the merchandise documented by the owner is real, the CIPER website wrote, adding that when it comes to exports, there is practically no proper checks in place.

Munoz agreed, noting that In Chile, the sale of metals is uncommon, so much so that customs agents arent properly trained to deal with metals imports/exports cases.

*** The original interview with Felipe Munoz was conducted in Spanish and then translated into English.

By Sarah Benali and Anna Golubova of Kitco News;

sbenali@kitco.com and agolubova@kitco.com

Follow @SdBenali and Follow @annagolubova
BEIJING, March 31 (Reuters) - China has issued a flurry of measures on Friday aimed at promoting oil and commodities trading in seven new free trade zones, including granting more crude import quotas and establish trading platforms according to statements regarding two of them.

The new free trade zones will be in Liaoning, Zhejiang, Henan, Hubei, Chongqing, Sichuan and Shaanxi, where free trade in commodities, especially in oil products will be promoted, according to a document issued ahead of a press conference in Beijing. In a statement regarding the new trade zone in eastern Zhejiang province, the government said two to three companies will be allowed to apply for crude oil import quotas and plans for setting up a spot oil trading platform will be expedited.

The Zhejiang trade zone is located in the coastal archipelago city of Zhoushan, already one of the country's largest storage bases for petroleum. Privately-run Rongsheng Holding Group is planning a mega greenfield refinery in Zhoushan. A Zhoushan-based industry executive involved in oil storage said the local commodity exchange will first trade fuel oil and liquefied natural gas, but added that oil firms remained sceptical over efforts to attract liquidity.

Fuel blending and tax-bonded trade of marine bunker fuel will be encouraged in the 120 square-kilometre Zhoushan zone, according to a statement posted on the website of the State Council. Oil products futures may also be explored when the conditions are ripe, said the statement.

A long-planned Shanghai crude oil contract, on the other hand, has been quietly shelved due to market resistance and Beijing's concerns over capital outflows. Zhejiang will improve infrastructure including ports, pipelines, storage facilities, logistics and shipping, and encourage major oil-producing countries to invest in storage facilities as China aims to lift both strategic and commercial reserves held in the trade zone.

Oil-producing nations and foreign energy companies are also encouraged to invest in refining projects in Zhejiang, China's cabinet said.

In a separate statement, Liaoning province in the northeast will also allow refiners in its new trade zone, spread across the cities of Dalian, Shenyang and Yingkou, to apply for crude oil import quotas, China's cabinet said.

(Reporting by Meng Meng and Aizhu Chen; Editing by Tom Hogue)
* China buys record Americas oil imports in March - Reuters data

* Americas market share rises 1.1 pct points in Q1 to 14 pct

* Unipec urges Asian buyers to diversify from Mideast, Africa

* Seeks supply from new frontier - greater U.S. Gulf coast region

By Florence Tan

SINGAPORE, March 31 (Reuters) - China's largest crude oil buyer Sinopec aims to ship more cargoes from Brazil, the United States and Canada, to help ensure stable crude supplies as the Middle East boost refining capacity and Africa suffers disruptions.

Shipments from the Americas hit an all-time high in March, boosting the region's share of the Chinese market by 1.1 percentage points in the first quarter to close to 14 percent, data from Thomson Reuters Oil Research & Forecasts showed.

"We're facing a big challenge on the supply side," said Chen Bo, president at Unipec, which purchases crude for Asia's largest refiner Sinopec .

Asia needed to step up crude imports from the "new frontier", the greater U.S. Gulf Coast region made up of the United States, Canada and Latin America, to meet its growing demand, he told a seminar this week.

Chen said China, the world's second largest oil consumer behind the United States, is on track to become the largest crude importer this year ahead of the United States.

China will add just under 2 million barrels per day (bpd) of refining capacity between 2016 and 2020, taking its total capacity to nearly 12.5 million bpd by the end of this decade.

Also, by end-2018, the total crude import quota for independent refineries will grow to 2 million bpd, about 500,000 bpd more from March 2017 as government approvals flow through, he said.

SUPPLY DIVERSITY

Asia, which will account for a third of the world's refining capacity by 2020, will have to look beyond traditional markets Middle East and Africa for crude supplies, Chen said.

Security of supply and the optimization of supply were vital for Unipec.

"If every consumer goes to the Middle East and Africa we don't know what will happen to the market. So we have to diversify," he said.

China's crude imports from the Americas, led by Brazil, Venezuela and Colombia, hit 5.61 million tonnes (1.3 million bpd) in March, the highest in Reuters' data going back to 2006.

In the same month, China's crude oil deficit came in a hefty 15 million tonnes after touching a record 19 million tonnes in December 2016 as domestic production shrank while imports surged, customs data showed.

"Record imports are being driven by falling production, higher refinery runs, huge infrastructure and SPR (Strategic Petroleum Reserves) builds," Virendra Chauhan from consultancy Energy Aspects said. The agency expects Asia's crude imports, led by China, to rise by 900,000 bpd on year in 2017.

A preference for low-sulphur oil produced in the Americas by China's private refineries, the so-called "teapots", helped boost imports from the region, while increasing U.S. shale output and production cuts by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries have made it economical for traders to send huge volumes of crude from west to east. Brazil overtook Venezuela as the top South American crude supplier to China in the first two months of this year due its favoured medium-heavy quality grades, while China became the No. 3 destination for U.S. crude exports in 2016. The Americas has the potential to become a "global trading hub" in the next decade, Chen said.

<^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ China's crude imports from the Americas China crude supply gap ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^> (Reporting by Florence Tan; Additional reporting by Meng Meng and Chen Aizhu in BEIJING; Editing by Richard Pullin)
(Kitco News) - Following El Salvadors recent nationwide ban on mining, another group of South Americans -- farmers -- have made headlines, putting a stop to a potential gold mine near their communities.

As reported by the Wall Street Journal, farming town Cajamarca, which has 22,000 people and is situated near a rich mineral deposit, made it clear it is choosing crops over gold.

The results of a referendum on Sunday showed that the people of Cajamarca voted to halt South African-based AngloGold Ashanti in order to protect their surrounding environment and community.

AngloGold was planning to start excavating in the area, which is said to hold about $35 billion in gold under the surrounding mountains in the region, the WSJ reported.

The mining giant proposed to develop one of the worlds largest open-pit operations in this unexploited area, which is expected to generate 28 million gold ounces for the company. To Colombia, that would generate $180 million in annual royalties and tax revenues, the article said.

However, AngloGold finds itself at an impasse after the people of Cajamarca have voiced their concerns -- an impasse that could prevent large-scale mining until 2026 given the countrys lengthy licensing and construction process.

And, AngloGold might not be the only miner getting pushback as three other mineral-rich towns are reported to want to mimic Cajamarcas anti-mining referendum.
ACCRA, March 31 (Reuters) - The Bank of Ghana said the yield on its weekly 91-day bill dipped to 17.3888 percent at an auction on Friday from 17.5103 percent at the last sale, on March 24. The bank said it had accepted 715.52 million cedis ($165.2 million) worth of bids out of 802.76 million cedis tendered for the 91-day paper, which will be issued on April 3. For full details, click here: ($1 = 4.3300 Ghanaian cedis)

(Writing by Kwasi Kpodo; Editing by Hugh Lawson)

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.
Following are news stories, press reports and events to watch that may affect Poland's financial markets on Friday. ALL TIMES GMT (Poland: GMT + 2 hours):

CPI

Poland's statistics office is due to release flash CPI data for March at 1200 GMT. DEBT

Poland's Finance Ministry is due to publish its debt supply schedule for April and the second quarter at around 1300 GMT.

ENEA Polish state-run utility Enea plans to pay out 110.4 million zlotys ($28 million) in dividend from 2016 profit which came in at 784 million zlotys, compared with an impairment-driven net loss in the previous year, the company said late on Thursday. COAL

Poland's biggest coal mining firm PGG will take over its smaller troubled rival KHW on Friday after state-run utilities agreed to help PGG with a total of 1 billion zlotys.

Bondholders at KHW did not agree to convert the company's debt into equity as part of the plan but approved a different form of the debt restructuring, Rzeczpospolita daily said quoting unnamed sources.

PROTESTS

Teachers at 45 percent of Polish schools and kindergartens will strike on Friday to protest against the government's education reform, Gazeta Wyborcza daily said on Friday.

****Reuters has not verified stories reported by Polish media and does not vouch for their accuracy.****

For other related news, double click on: Polish equities E.Europe equities Polish money Polish debt Eastern Europe All emerging markets Hot stocks Stock markets Market debt news Forex news For real-time index quotes, double click on: Warsaw WIG20 Budapest BUX Prague PX (Reporting by Warsaw Bureau)
HANOI, March 31 (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 0406 GMT.

March 31 USD/VND mid-point 22,276 USD/VND interbank 22,755/22,760 USD/VND unofficial 22,760/22,775 SJC gold (mln dong/tael) 36.32/36.54

Interbank offered rates Overnight 4.6-5.1

1 week 4.7-5.3

1 month 4.9-5.3

3 months 5.0-5.3

NOTES: As of Jan. 4, 2016, the State Bank of Vietnam has begun setting the mid-point rate on daily basis, allowing dollar/dong transactions to move in a band of +/- 3 percent around the mid point. The dong's exchange rate against other currencies is not restricted by a band. Interbank offered rates are the latest indicative bid/ask prices, quoted from market sources.

One tael is equivalent to 37.5 grams or 1.21 troy ounces. SJC gold prices are quoted by state-owned Saigon Jewelry Co.

For more interbank rate fixings released at 0400 GMT, click on .

For Vietnam market overview click on: Vietnam's bonds market auctions: Bonds auction results: (Compiled by Hanoi Newsroom; Editing by Sherry Jacob-Phillips)
(Adds Metro appoints board members for new unit)

DUESSELDORF, Germany, March 31 (Reuters) - A German higher regional court in Duesseldorf said on Friday it would decide within three months whether or not to allow retailer Metro to continue with a planned breakup while lawsuits by shareholders against it are still pending.

Metro shareholders voted overwhelmingly last month to back a plan to split off the group's wholesale and hypermarket food business from Media-Saturn, Europe's biggest consumer electronics group, this summer. However, four lawsuits by shareholders have been brought against it, among others from Erich Kellerhals, the founder of Media-Saturn who still owns a stake of 22 percent in the business. Metro, a sprawling conglomerate with 2,000 stores in 29 countries, has been restructuring in recent years to focus on cash-and-carry and consumer electronics, selling its Kaufhof department stores and Real supermarkets in eastern Europe.

It hopes the split will help the independent companies pursue more acquisitions and trigger a revaluation of the stock as Metro currently trades at a discount to pure wholesale retailers such as Sysco and Britain's Booker .

Separately, Metro said that Chief Executive Olaf Koch has been appointed to head the new food group until March 2022. The other board members, including Chief Financial Officer Christian Baier, have been mandated for a term ending Sept. 30, 2020.

(Reporting by Matthias Inverardi; Writing by Arno Schuetze; Editing by Georgina Prodhan)
(Kitco News) - Gold is preparing to end its third week in positive territory but with prices down from one-month highs, damage has been done to the markets short-term momentum, according to some analysts.

June April gold futures last traded at $1,251.1 an ounce, relatively flat from last Friday. However, silver has managed to outperform the yellow metal and is seeing strong gains for the third straight week. May silver futures last traded at $18.275, up almost 3% from the previous week.

According to commodity analysts at Capital Economics, silver prices have surged as industrial demand in base metals has seen persistent strength.

According to one analyst, silvers outperformance could be a positive sign for gold in the long-term.

Right now from a technical perspective, gold and silver are trading in no-mans land, said Mark Valek, fund manager at Incrementum AG, and one of the authors of the annual In Gold We Trust report. However, I think we could see a move in a couple of weeks as I see silvers performance confirming golds uptrend.

In the near-term, Valek said that until there is a breakout, gold and silver will remain stuck in their respective channels and continue base-building.

Its All About The USD

Many analysts have noted that golds inability to break above its 200-day moving average or even break above Februarys high has been disappointing and could indicate that prices will test the bottom of its recent range next week.

Gold has a strong inverse correlation with the U.S. dollar. Right now looks like the metals momentum has turned down, said Darrin Newsom, senior analyst at Telvent DTN. I wouldnt be surprised to see lower prices next week.

Colin Cieszynski, senior market analyst at CMC Markets Canada, said that he also sees the potential for near-term weakness in the gold market and is watching the U.S. dollar closely.

The price and momentum indicators suggest the price has peaked for now and is rolling over. Meanwhile, the US Dollar Index is bouncing back above 100.00, he said.

The U.S. dollar saw renewed strength this past week as a gaggle of Federal Reserve regional presidents have provided generally supportive statements on the U.S. economy, even if the outlook for future rate hikes remains mixed.

Analysts expect that data next week, including Fridays nonfarm payrolls report, to have the biggest impact on the U.S. dollar and gold prices. Early economist forecasts are calling for employment growth of around 200,000. A strong employment report would strengthen the U.S. dollar as it would support further rate hikes from the U.S. Federal Reserve, which in turn would be negative for gold.

Fed comments this past week have helped to raise market expectations for the next rate hike. CME 30-Day Fed Fund futures are pricing in a 55% chance of a rate hike in June; further out, markets are also pricing in a 55% chance of a third 25 basis-point move.

But Dont Count Out Gold Just Yet

Chris Vecchio, senior market strategist at DailyFX.com, said that he remains fairly constructive on gold as the metal has been fairly resilient in the face of a stronger U.S. dollar.

He added that the U.S. dollar and gold will be sensitive to U.S. deficit and budget talks that need to start next week. If Washington politicians arent able to pass funding legislation to raise the debt ceiling, the government could shut down as early as April 28.

The odds of a government shutdown are growing and I think this is going to weigh on the U.S. dollar, he said. Political risks are keeping a strong bid under gold. Ultimately expanding deficits this year will put the country at risk of a downgrade and that will significantly hurt the U.S. dollar and drive gold higher.

Vecchio also said that seasonal factors could also support gold in a weak-U.S. dollar environment. He explained that historically, April is the third worst month for the U.S. dollar, behind December and September.

However, while he sees potential for gold, Vecchio said that he is waiting for a breakout before he jumps into the market.

Right now, gold is trading in a wide range. To keep it simple: If prices break above $1,264 then I am long; if prices break below $1,194, I am short. Anything in between, I am sitting on my hands.

Levels To Watch

Its not just Vecchio who is watching $1,264 an ounce, which marks the February high. Most analysts agree that this is the price level that needs to break on golds journey back to $1,300 and potentially new multi-year highs.

Valek said that while he is optimistic on gold, his firm is waiting for prices to break $1,300 before they increase their bullish stance.

On the downside, most analysts are watching support at $1,228 an ounce, which represents golds 50-day moving average. Newsom said that a break below that would lead to a test of the next support level at $1,210 an ounce.

Newsom added that as long as prices remain above $1,198, the yellow metals long-term uptrend, established at the start of the year, is still in place.

Ultimately, the charts show the long-term trend for the U.S. dollar is bearish and the long-term trend for gold remains bullish, he said.

The Final Say

While next weeks main event will be Fridays U.S. jobs report, there will be plenty of important data that could increase volatility in markets. Markets will receive the ISM manufacturing report for March on Monday while the service sector report will be released Wednesday. Also on Wednesday is the ADP private-payrolls report, which is used as a barometer ahead of the official government numbers.

The Federal Reserve will also release the minutes on Wednesday of its March monetary policy meeting. A hawkish tone in the minutes would be negative for gold because markets could start to price in more rate hikes than are currently expected.
NewstalkZB reports:

The Opportunities Party has pensioners in its sights calling for a radical overhaul of the superannuation scheme.

Party founder Gareth Morgan has concerns about how the benefit is allocated, saying people like him, whore well off, dont need the $40,000 a year theyre entitled to receive.

He said the trouble with New Zealand Super is its the highest of all the benefits  its level is way too high, and should be cut in half and taken away from people like him.

If people need it, sure, then they get their top up- but its targeted, its means tested and then that money which is about three billion or about a quarter of New Zealands super gets spent on the most vulnerable.
Shenandoah, IA (51601)

Today

Partly cloudy this evening, then becoming cloudy after midnight. Low 42F. Winds SE at 10 to 15 mph..

Tonight

Partly cloudy this evening, then becoming cloudy after midnight. Low 42F. Winds SE at 10 to 15 mph.
The main cast of Netflix's new superhero series "Iron Fist" and writer-producer Scott Buck, right, speak to reporters at a media event at the Four Seasons Hotel in Seoul, Wednesday. From left are: Finn Jones, Jessica Henwick, Tom Pelphrey and Buck. / Yonhap



By Park Jin-hai

Video streaming giant Netflix, which has seen a sharp increase in the number of its international subscribers, brought the cast and director of its latest original series "Iron Fist" to Seoul.

The superhero series based on the namesake 1974 Marvel comic book depicts an atypical superhero story _ brighter in its tone and more focused on drama than other productions, according the show's executive director.

Writer-producer Scott Buck, who visited Seoul with the show's main cast _ Finn Jones, Jessica Stroup and Tom Pelphrey _ said, "I think each of these shows takes its tone from the character. Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage are all darkly haunted figures," during a media event at the Four Seasons Hotel in Seoul, Wednesday, for the 13-part television series. "But Danny Rand is not that way despite much tragedy in his life. He's someone who's always hopeful, who's always optimistic. He is a bright personality."

"Iron Fist" stars Finn Jones as Danny Rand, who lost his parents in a plane crash, was adopted by Buddhist monks in China and trained in martial arts to gain the power of the Iron Fist.

The story starts after he mysteriously returns to New York City, 15 years after being presumed dead, reclaiming his family's company.

British actor Jones, of HBO's popular "Game of Thrones" series, said shooting the action scenes was challenging, because he was pressed for time. "Martial artists have been training their whole lives to perfect their craft. I had three weeks. I had a very busy film schedule and I just had to use all my time around the clock to try to bring the character to life emotionally and physically," he said. "But, as soon as I was in there and was getting myself involved in it, I found that I really enjoyed what martial arts brought to my life."

Jones said what he most liked about his character was his imperfections. "For me to play a perfectly formed hero isn't interesting. What is interesting is inspecting his flaws and embracing his faults," he said.

The fourth Marvel-Netflix superhero series started airing March 17, however, it has received negative reviews from critics, for a lack of excitement and sense of real danger, in comparison to the successful franchises "Daredevil" "Jessica Jones" and "Luke Cage."

Buck, who also worked on HBO's "Six Feet Under" and Showtime's "Dexter," accepts that the show is a little bit slower than the other Marvel Netflix shows. "I think that's largely because we were more focused on telling a story about a character evolving and growing and changing," he said. "Even though Marvel does a lot of exciting action, battle sequences and fights, we couldn't just do that for the sake of doing an exciting piece. Every fight we did has to mean something to Danny. They have to have a purpose."
Kim Jae-wook / Courtesy of Better Ent



By Park Jin-hai

Kim Jae-wook, who portrayed the villainous psychopathic heir of a chaebol in the recently ended OCN thriller "Voice," said he is content with his acting.

"In hindsight, I think that I didn't overdo it in playing the role of Mo (Tae-gu)," Kim said during an interview with The Korea Times in a Seoul cafe Tuesday. "Instead of working up to make the role fancier and stand out from the others, I thought I finished it fine-cut, without frills,"

In the crime thriller, which tells the story of a "Golden Time" team chasing serial killers, the model-turned-actor has been credited for his depiction of cold-blooded psychopathic killer Mo Tae-gu, who doesn't flinch and calmly wields iron balls to crush his victims, crucifies an old woman who tipped off police and keeps victims' organs in a refrigerator.

Although the character was evil, Kim is featured in a suit. He stole every scene as a psychopathic killer who is spine-chilling and grotesque but sexy at the same time. "The writer wanted Mo as an elegant man with a high-class attitude _ a person who not only murders ruthlessly but also has a grotesque beauty," Kim said.

The OCN thriller, despite controversies over its violence, succeeded in creating extreme tension for viewers and it closed with the cable channel's highest viewership rating of 5.7 percent.

Kim, 33, who debuted in 2002 with "Ruler of Your Own World" and started earning recognition from his role in "The 1st Shop of Coffee Prince," has been the biggest beneficiary of the drama, emerging as one of the hottest actors.

Kim said he took some reference from Christian Bale of "American Psycho" and the role was hard physically and emotionally. "Killing scenes were hard," he said. "When Mo made the victim walk around barefoot on broken glass before he hammered him like he was playing a game, my body showed a strong reaction. My hands shook and the heart beat faster, and even after the director said cut,' my body continued to tremble."

Shooting the scene of killing an old woman was the most emotionally taxing. "The lines (of the scene) were strong and the mood in the victim's house, where she gets crucified, was strong. Mo, who looks like one from a noble class, comes out of his upscale house and turns up at the victim's place, where he doesn't seem to fit at all. As if he just dropped into a convenience store or cafe, he kills his victim easily. Thinking of the full radius of his actions, walking on the two extreme edges, it felt very strong to me."

In the end, Mo is murdered at a mental institution, at the hands of a psychopathic doctor. Kim said he liked the ending.

"We shot the scene with a purpose," he said. "The drama's director, writer and I all had agreed that Mo should not have a halfway ending. The devil should perish for good. Getting arrested and locked up in a mental hospital would not have given the kind of relief all our viewers wanted. So we mixed it with some fantasy elements; he should have that ending."

Kim, who has appeared in many non-commercial movies, including "Another Way," dealing with life and death, said he wants to be an actor whose next move makes viewers curious, in any project or character.

"Most of the commercial films have offered me roles that I performed in my 20s. As an actor, I don't live on consuming the image that I've built on," Kim said. "I don't insist on art movies, but when I have to choose, I tend to choose the ones that trigger my curiosity and that I feel that I can do well. Since I love acting, when I play such roles in such projects, I feel satisfied and am convinced that I'm going the way I truly love."

As one of his latest ventures, he recently participated in a Korea-Japan joint project, where he had to act in Japanese. "It was an interesting experience. Only the director and I were Koreans, the others were all Japanese. It is my first full Japanese-language movie and will be released this year. I'm very much excited about it," Kim said.
Actor Jin Goo poses during an interview at a cafe in Samcheong-dong in Seoul, Tuesday. / Courtesy of NEW



By Kim Jae-heun

Actor Jin Goo returns with the new action crime movie "One Line," portraying the role of professional swindler Suk-goo on the big screen.

It has only been a year since the actor achieved critical success with the TV series "Descendants of the Sun" and he is more humble than ever.

"It would be a lie if I say I don't feel burdened on this film after such a big success with Descendants of the Sun," Jin Goo said during the interview with The Korea Times at a Samcheong-dong cafe in Jongno, Seoul, Tuesday.

"But I try to act like I don't feel pressure. I learned a lesson when I rose to stardom with the movie All In. I gained so much love for half a week and it disappeared instantly. It was the moment that I received the biggest popularity and love in my life and at the same time, I felt great frustration when they were gone all of sudden. I told myself that if I achieve any big success again, I won't enjoy it too much," said Jin Goo.

The 2003 film "All In" was his very first starring role along with veteran actors Lee Byung-hun, Song Hye-kyo and Ji Sung. At the time, it was only four months after his debut and he participated in the screen audition. Jin reminisced that he was a fool to believe success was easy.

He was jobless for two and a half years until he rose back again with noir film "A Dirty Carnival" in 2006 when he was close to giving up his career.

"I failed to make auditions for two and a half years until I was cast for A Dirty Carnival. I was in despair then and thought I wouldn't make it. But the director told me he wants to cast me because I look unselfish. Since then, I learned that people like my look without greed and arrogance," Jin said.

Jin's swindler role in the upcoming film "One Line," somehow reflects his kind characteristics. The actor said not all charlatans show their jobs on their faces and some swindlers have trustworthy appearances like his character do.

Based on a real fraud case that occurred in 2005, the scenario depicts the story of a group of fraudsters taking out loans from banks, hiding their identities. "One Line" is a slang word to describe an act of fraud to get a loan from the bank.

Actors Lim Siwan, Park Byung-eun and Lee Dong-hui also star in the film.



Q. Could you explain the new film briefly?

A. It's a movie with a good scenario and a good message. You can find out about our rookie director Yang Kyeong-mo and comparatively unknown actors like Park Jong-won and Lee Dong-hui. They are very entertaining actors.

Q. How similar are you to the character Suk-goo you portrayed onscreen?

A. When I was first cast for the film, the director told me to be myself. I don't know how he knew me, but he told me if I speak and behave like I normally do, I will be the character in the scene.

I at first didn't believe that because I am not a swindler and I don't lie in my life, but later, when I watched the film, I realized that a swindler doesn't have to act like a typical swindler.

Q. How do you normally engross yourself in the character?

A. I talk a lot with the director and actors. I think communication is very important. I used to study my characters a lot, but it always fails when shooting begins because directors have a fixed image of my character in their head. In the end, you have you act how the director wants.

Drinking alcohol the night before I shoot an emotional scene is one of my methods too. I am not comfortable acting romantic scenes so a hangover helps me partially overcome the awkward feeling.

Q. What did you focus on mostly when you acted the character Suk-goo?

A. I wanted to deviate from a typical swindler character. I tried to play him as a protagonist on the screen. He has the ability to carry out inhumane acts somehow humanely.

Q. You said you want to act until you die?

A. Yes. I love this job because I become a different person every day. I think this is the advantage of becoming an actor. You are always acting someone else.

Q. How do you choose your scenario?

A. If I enjoy the scenario very much, then I go for it. The shorter it takes for me to finish the story, the more I enjoyed the story. If I enjoyed it much, it also means I understood the story well. This is important for me because I need to make audiences understand the plot with my acting.

Q. In which film or TV series do you think you are most attractive?

A. I looked attractive in the thriller Truck. There is a scene where I am looking outside the truck and I am lying to counterpart actor Yoo Hae-jin saying I am not a killer.' It's a wonderful shot.

My character in the Descendants of the Sun was also cool.
By Yoon Ja-young



Retail sales rebounded for the first time in four months, but the contraction of industrial output is overshadowing expectations of an economic recovery.



According to Statistics Korea, retail sales increased 3.2 percent in February from the previous month. The recovery is meaningful since sales had contracted for three consecutive months since last November.



Increasing sales of durable goods such as cars as well as non-durable goods including cosmetics led the rebound.



The statistics office explained that Chinese merchants who sell Korean products in their home country bought Korean cosmetics en masse, to increase stocks ahead of the Chinese government's economic retaliation on Korea's decision to deploy a U.S. Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) anti-missile system.



"Sales of some items such as cosmetics and bags soared at duty free shops. Sales at duty free shops stood at 1.55 trillion won in February, up 9.5 percent from the previous month and the biggest monthly figure ever," said Ahn Hyung-jun, the director in charge of economic statistics at Statistics Korea. Accordingly, some analysts are skeptical about the recovery of sales despite the positive February figures as the number of Chinese tourists has already plunged following the restrictions on group travel to Korea by the Chinese government.



Worse, production indices are shaky.



Industrial output decreased 0.4 percent in February from the previous month, ending increases for three months since last November. Production in the mining, manufacturing, gas and electricity sectors fell 3.4 percent, marking the biggest fall since December 2008. A fall in semiconductor production, which dipped 11.5 percent, as well as a 6.1 percent contraction in automobile production pulled down the index.



"The decrease is due to a slowdown of smartphone sales by Chinese companies and sluggish exports of automobiles and car components. However, these factors are likely to be temporary," said Eo Woon-sun, an official in charge of industrial data at the statistics office. Chinese smartphone manufacturers import chips from Korea.



"The production side fell short of expectations. The year-on-year growth was due to the base effect of the last year, but month-on-month decreases deserve attention," said Kim Doo-un, an economist at Hana Financial Investment.



"Despite double digit growth in exports, falling factory operation rates and increases in stock all reflect that production activities have slowed down."



The average operation rate of factories marked 70.9 percent, down 3.3 percentage points from January, the lowest level since last October.



"Despite indices of positive sentiment, the industrial output index shows that uncertainties linger," Kim said.



Facility investment also dipped 8.9 percent, as spending on machinery and transportation equipment dropped noticeably.



"There are positive signs of a recovery such as increasing exports and improving economic sentiment. However, uncertainties remain with trade issues as well as the pace of key rate hikes in the United States," the finance ministry noted in a report.



"The government will strengthen risk management while implementing aggressive macroeconomic policies and enhancing the vitality of each economic sector."




KCCI Chairman Park Yong-maan

By Lee Hyo-sik

The Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KCCI) is moving to more actively represent the interests of family-controlled large business groups to fill the void left by the scandal-hit Federation of Korean Industries (FKI).

The country's largest business association with 160,000 member companies said Thursday that it will set up a "large business committee" to more effectively speak for conglomerates.

The KCCI, headed by Chairman Park Yong-maan, has already been running separate committees advocating the interests of small- and medium-sized enterprises.

The move comes at a time when the FKI, the primary conglomerate lobby for the past 55 years, has pledged to abandon its role as a "chaebol spokesperson" and transform itself into a think tank, following its involvement with Choi Soon-sil, a close friend of ousted President Park Geun-hye, who is at the center of a huge corruption scandal.

The FKI, headed by GS Group Chairman Huh Chang-soo, has been facing calls for dismantlement for pressing 19 business groups to donate 77.4 billion won to the Mir and K-Sports foundations, which were established and controlled by Choi. Instead, it decided to downsize its organization and cut its budget by 40 percent as it struggles to survive the biggest crisis in its history.

"Some large business groups asked us to arrange a place where they could gather and discuss their concerns," a KCCI official said. "Conglomerates are also our members and given that we have been operating committees for small companies, we decided to accept their request."

As many as 40 large businesses will take part in the envisioned consultation body, according to the official, who also said the KCCI will strengthen its role in easing unfavorable public sentiment toward conglomerates, as well as reflecting their concerns in its policy suggestions.

"Committee members will likely be made up of business groups with over 5 trillion won in assets. But those with less can also be part of the body if they want to," he said. "We will actively promote exchanges among our members and stand for their interests."

Ahead of the May 9 presidential election, the KCCI has become more aggressive in demanding political parties tend more to concerns raised by businesses and introduce more corporate-friendly policies.

The association has delivered its policy proposals to the Democratic Party of Korea and four other parties that will field presidential candidates. Under three principles: a fair society, market economy and future prosperity, it presented a nine-issue national agenda, asking each party to introduce policy tools to achieve them.

Some of the issues include restoring trust among market players, overhauling corporate governance structure in a market-friendly manner, ensuring government policy consistency and nurturing services industries.

"Based on opinions we gathered from our member companies nationwide, we came up with the nine issues," KCCI Chairman Park said. "We demand presidential candidates pay more attention to our opinions and introduce economic policies that reflect our concerns. Their policy vision matters because it determines the future of this country and people living in it."
Company denies allegations of fraudulent bookkeeping; stock plunges 3.5%



By Nam Hyun-woo



The Financial Supervisory Service (FSS) said Thursday it will look into allegations that Samsung BioLogics falsified its accounting books to facilitate the company's initial public offering (IPO).



The financial regulator made the decision earlier this week and is now checking internal protocols to launch the special inspection of the company, officials said.



"Following reports from civic groups and politicians, the FSS examined the audit report on Samsung BioLogics done by the Korean Institute of Certified Public Accountants, and decided that it needs more clarity," an FSS official said.



The announcement immediately prompted investors to dump Samsung BioLogics stocks, which closed at 177,000 won Thursday, down 3.54 percent from the previous day.



Regarding the regulator's move, Samsung BioLogics said in a statement that it has not yet received any official notification from the FSC regarding a special audit.



It denied all allegations circulating on the market.



"We believe our bookkeeping standards are clear. We have reviewed the standards with several accounting firms and five global securities firms and have fully explained the legality of our standards to the relevant authorities and our investors," it said.



"Should there be a review, the company will fully cooperate and expects to clarify that our standards were appropriate."



The People's Solidarity for Participatory Democracy, a progressive civic group here, has claimed that the company's report of 1.9 trillion won ($1.7 billion) in net profit in 2015 was problematic.



Samsung BioLogics had been reporting deficits from 2011 to 2014 but turned profitable in 2015, which was possible because it changed the accounting method for its subsidiary Samsung Bioepis.



According to a Samsung BioLogics statement, the swing to earnings came from "a one-off profit as Bioepis was no longer accounted for as a consolidated subsidiary and instead became an investment in an associate."



The change in accounting method allowed Samsung BioLogics, which holds a 91.2 percent stake in Bioepis, to book a surge in Bioepis' stock value as its earnings.



"Taking out the amount already reflected in the financial statements, the valuation gain amounts to 4.45 trillion won."



However, the civic group has raised doubts on the legitimacy of the change in the accounting method ahead of the IPO.



Samsung BioLogics carried out its IPO on the main Seoul bourse in 2016.



In response, the company said that it did not commit any wrongdoing.



"Samsung BioLogics did not want to change its valuation method as it could be misleading, due to large-scale valuation gains," the company said.



"However, we accepted a change to the valuation method because we respected the recommendation of our external auditors who advised us that it should be strictly evaluated according to the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS), enhancing accounting transparency as a global company."



The company added Samjong KPMG believed that the company should carry out a fair value evaluation under the IFRS, and Deloitte Anjin, its designated external auditor in 2016, determined that the accounting was correct.



The FSS move came after a number of lawmakers questioned Gov. Zhin Woong-seob over the issue last month. Then, Zhin said the regulator would make a decision after consulting with related institutions. Some market observers raised suspicions that the financial authorities were acting under pressure from the political sector.




Mao Havannal, right, Cambodia's secretary of state for civil aviation, gives an appreciation plaque to Park Soon-chun, a sales director at the Korea Airports Corp., during an opening ceremony for an aviation training center. / Courtesy of the Korea Airports Corp.



By Jung Min-ho

Korea's years of effort to pass on its aviation knowhow to Cambodia came to fruition last week when the latter opened its first Civil Aviation Training Center (CATC) in Phnom Penh.

According the Korea Airports Corp. (KAC) and the Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA), about 1,000 people, including Cambodian Defense Minister Tea Banh and Secretary of State for Civil Aviation Mao Havannal, attended the opening event March 23 to celebrate the accomplishment.

The KAC teamed up with KOICA in 2013 to provide the Southeast Asian country with facilities and education programs to train its future aviation experts.

The KAC hopes the training center will enable Cambodians to train their own aviation safety managers and technicians without depending on overseas training programs.

Civil aviation safety management requires sophisticated control and technology both from within the aircraft and on the ground. But many developing nations lack the knowhow and technology to train people for the job.





Air traffic control simulators are installed at the Civil Aviation Training Center in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. / Korea Times photo by Jung Min-ho



So the two organizations' world-class human resources were put toward helping Cambodia. They allocated a budget of 11 billion won ($10 million) to support the project.

Citing the $600,000 that Korea received from the United Nations in 1984 to build its civil aviation training center, KAC President Sung Il-hwan said he is glad to "give back."

"Korea was a beneficiary of such help 30 years ago. It is great that we finally gave it back to another country," he said in a statement. "We want to continue to share our knowhow with more countries in Southeast Asia and Africa."

In recent years, tourism has grown into one of the most important sectors in Cambodia's economy, drawing people from around the world to its cultural attractions such as Angkor Wat. Meanwhile, the issue of enhancing its aviation management and educational systems has become increasingly important to maintain the upward trend.

According to Cambodian media, the number of visitors arriving at Cambodia's international airports grew at an average of 8 percent per year from 2008 to 2016, increasing from about 2.5 million to 7 million people.

KOICA said it expects the training center to help the country's tourism industry.

With cutting-edge air traffic control simulators installed at the center, trainees can prepare for emergencies, such as misleading information, foreign objects, lightning and bird strikes.

The KAC and KOICA said they will continue to help the CATC to enhance its systems.
Malaysia released the body of the slain half brother of North Korea's leader to the North, ending a diplomatic row between the two countries over Kim Jong-nam's death.



"Malaysia agreed to facilitate the transfer of the body to the family of the deceased in North Korea," according to a joint statement between North Korea and Malaysia carried by the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).



The deceased refers to Kim Jong-nam, who was killed last month in Malaysia after two Asian women smeared the banned chemical weapon VX nerve agent on his face.



The agreement also called for lifting a travel ban imposed on citizens staying in each other's countries, the KCNA said.



Under the deal, Kim's body as well as those of two North Korean diplomats suspected of involvement in the killing left Kuala Lumpur on a Malaysia Airlines Flight 360 Thursday afternoon and arrived in Beijing around 2 a.m. Friday. The North Korean diplomats were seen leaving the airport in a black limousine.



The officials and Kim's body are expected to leave for Pyongyang on an Air Koryo flight as early as on Saturday.



Malaysian police earlier said that eight North Koreans are suspected of being involved in the killing. North Korea claimed that Malaysia colluded with South Korea to manipulate the probe.



North Korea imposed a temporary exit ban on Malaysians staying in the North, saying that the move will be effective until the row over his death is resolved. In a tit-for-tat action, Malaysia banned North Korean diplomats from leaving the country.



"This would allow the nine Malaysians presently in Pyongyang to return to Malaysia and (North Korean) citizens in Kuala Lumpur to depart Malaysia," the KCNA said.



Both countries decided to patch up their frayed ties as they reaffirmed the importance of their relations which were established in 1973, it added.



"In this connection, both countries agreed to positively discuss the re-introduction of the visa-free system and work towards bringing the relations to a higher level," it said.



Malaysia canceled its visa-waiver program with North Korea and kicked out North Korean Ambassador to Malaysia Kang Chol in retaliation for North Korea's "diplomatically rude" remarks.



Pyongyang claimed that the dead man is Kim Chol, the name on a passport held by Kim Jong-nam. It said that a North Korean citizen carrying a diplomatic passport fell into a state of "shock," without making any references to his identity.



Seoul has claimed that North Korea is behind the killing, saying that the North's leader has issued a standing order to kill his brother since he assumed power in 2011.



Out of the eight North Korean suspects, four fled Malaysia on the day of Kim's death. Kim Jong-chol, who was earlier taken into custody, was released.



Malaysian police have been looking for three suspects including a diplomat believed to be hiding at the North Korean Embassy in Malaysia. (Yonhap)




#prosecution Prosecution raids bakery giant SPC in probe into alleged unfair practices Prosecutors raided the offices of the nation's largest bakery chain SPC Group on Tuesday as part of an investigation into alleged unfair practices of awarding business contracts to...
Supporters of former President Park Geun-hye bow down on their knees toward the main entrance of the Seoul Detention Center in Uiwang, Gyeonggi Province, where the arrested Park is being held on corruption charges, Friday. They held a rally there to claim her arrest was unfair. / Yonhap
South Korea on Friday strongly denounced Japan's renewed claim to Korea's easternmost islets in its latest education guidelines and demanded their immediate withdrawal.



The Japanese government earlier decided to approve the revised guidelines that call for teaching students in elementary and middle schools that Dokdo belongs to Japan.



The guidelines, which also serve as a basis for writing textbooks, have been posted online for public viewing since mid-February. They will be added to the elementary school curriculum from 2020 and to the middle school curriculum from 2021.



"The government strongly denounces the Japanese government for finally approving the education guidelines for its elementary and middle school social studies that include its unjustified claims to our inherent territory of Dokdo despite our repeated warnings," the foreign ministry said in a statement. "And we demand its immediate withdrawal"



"We warn Japan to bear in mind that if it pushes again to inject inaccurate historical perceptions following the wrongful claims to Dokdo, which was the first victim of Japan's imperialism, in its newly authorized textbooks, its next generations will learn false history," it added.



The ministry plans to call in a Japanese embassy official to lodge an official protest.



Dokdo, a set of rocky islets lying closer to the Korean Peninsula in the East Sea, has long been a recurring source of tension between the neighbors. South Korea has kept a small police detachment on Dokdo since its liberation from Japan in 1945 and has made clear that Tokyo's claims are utterly groundless.



Last week, the Japanese education ministry announced the list of its newly authorized textbooks to be used from April next year for high school sophomores.



Of the 24 newly approved social studies textbooks, 19, or nearly 80 percent, claim that Dokdo is Japanese territory. Some state that South Korea is illegally occupying Dokdo, called Takeshima, in Japan.



Japan's repeated claims to the South Korean territory is expected to worsen the frayed diplomatic relations between the two neighbors as they have been at odds for months over a recently-erected girl statue that symbolizes Tokyo's wartime sexual slavery of Korean women.



Japan has been demanding the removal of the statue installed in front of its consulate in the southern port city of Busan, saying that it is in violation of the spirit of the deal reached in late 2015 between the two neighbors to resolve the rift over the issue "once and for all." It brought in its ambassador in protest in January and he has not come back to Seoul yet. (Yonhap)




Sewol ferry arrives at Korea's southwestern port of Mokpo. / Yonhap



By Lee Kyung-min

The ferry Sewol arrived at the southwestern Mokpo New Port on a semisubmersible recovery ship, Friday, 1,080 days after it sank in waters off the island of Jindo.

The recovery ship arrived at the port in Mokpo, South Jeolla Province, at 1 p.m., six hours after it began sailing from the site where the Sewol was raised and placed onto it.

The recovery ship was safely secured at the port 30 minutes later at 1:30 p.m., according to the Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries.

Sailing at a speed of between 13 and 18.5 kilometers per hour, the recovery ship experienced no problems or complications.

Weather conditions were favorable, as rain that continued in the early morning let up in the afternoon and wave heights remaining below 1 meter during the entire journey.

It will take about a week to detach the ferry from the recovery vessel and move it into a dry dock, a task expected to be completed by next Thursday.

The ministry said 456 module transporters will be maneuvered under Sewol between Saturday and Monday.

Sufficient time and effort are necessary to firmly secure the transporters, designed to move heavy objects, under the ferry for the weight to be evenly distributed. The transporters will be divided into six rows of 76, it said.



Sewol ferry arrives at Korea's southwestern port of Mokpo. / Yonhap



Failure to do so could cause the ferry to slide and fall, damaging it and hampering the investigation into the reasons behind the sinking.












By Lee Han-soo





Lee Joon-seok, captain of the sunken ferry Sewol, at Gwangju High Court on Apr. 28, 2015. / Yonhap

The jailed former captain of the sunken Sewol ferry does not want to talk about the tragedy, a prison official says.

Lee Joon-seok was convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison on Nov. 12, 2015, for negligence contributing to the deaths of more than 300 passengers in April 2014.

"Lee doesn't want to talk about anything to do with the Sewol," a Suncheon Prison official told Donga Ilbo.

"He no doubt knows about the news of the ferry being salvaged. But he has shown no noticeable change in his behavior and is acting as usual."












By Lee Kyung-min



Expectations are growing that the prosecution will accelerate its long-stalled investigation into former presidential secretary Woo Byung-woo and major business groups, following the arrest of former President Park Geun-hye.



The Seoul Central District Court issued the arrest warrant early Friday, recognizing the prosecution's 13 charges against Park including bribery, abuse of power and extortion as well as the possibility of her destroying evidence. Park was transported to Seoul Detention Center in Euiwang, Gyeonggi Province, where her "accomplices" are detained including Samsung Electronics Vice Chairman Lee Jae-yong, former chief of staff Kim Ki-choon, former Culture Minister Cho Yoon-sun and her longtime confidant Choi Soon-sil, the central figure in the influence-peddling scandal.



Woo and business groups including SK, CJ and Lotte were earlier implicated in the corruption scandal that led to Park's impeachment. But they have all managed to dodge investigation so far due to a lack of evidence, time constraints, and a shortage of prosecution manpower and resources.



The prosecution may summon Woo as early as Saturday or Sunday, to question him over his alleged abuse of power as well as personal corruption. Earlier, the prosecution sought an arrest warrant for Woo, but the Seoul court rejected the request citing a lack of evidence.



Woo is suspected of thwarting investigation into alleged malfeasance of the Coast Guard in the Sewol ferry sinking in 2014 to minimize the blowback on the Park Geun-hye administration.



The prosecution recently secured statements from senior prosecutor Yoon Dae-jin who led the investigation in 2014 at the Gwangju District Prosecutors' Office. While the specifics are not available, Yoon reportedly told the prosecution about Woo's alleged role in pressuring his team not to thoroughly look into the Coast Guard over the sinking of Sewol.



The prosecution is also looking into an allegation that Woo attempted to name one of his associates to the culture ministry-led special investigation unit formed to tackle corruption in sports.



The prosecution is investigating allegations that Woo, the former Cheong Wa Dae civil affairs secretary, had his staff, whose primary task was to monitor corruption of public officials, to inspect public officials who failed or showed reluctance to follow presidential office orders. Many former and incumbent officials at the culture and foreign ministries, and the Fair Trade Commission are believed to have been dismissed or demoted in the process. He also faces alleged dereliction of duty for overlooking or aiding and abetting the alleged criminal activities of Choi.



Investigators at the Seoul Central District Prosecutors Office raided his office in Cheong Wa Dae, March 21, and secured documents there.



Other allegations against him include that he engaged in perjury and unlawful surveillance of citizens.



Meanwhile, investigations into SK, CJ and Lotte are likely. SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won and CJ Group Chairman Lee Jay-hyun are suspected of giving money to two foundations set up and controlled by Choi in return for being granted presidential pardons after they were convicted of embezzlement among other financial crimes. Lotte Group is suspected of giving money to the foundations in return for being granted a right to run duty free shops.



The de facto Samsung leader, Samsung Electronics Vice Chairman Lee Jae-yong, was indicted on charges of bribery for giving money to the foundations and Choi's daughter Chung Yoo-ra in return for Park's pressure for the merger of two affiliates of the group that cemented his position.



Samsung was the largest donor, giving 43.3 billion won ($39 million) to the foundations, followed by Hyundai Motor (12.8 billion) and SK Group (11.1 billion). CJ gave 1.3 billion won.




The now closed inter-Korean Gaeseong Industrial Complex seen from the Dorasan Observatory in Paju, Gyeonggi Province. / Korea Times file



By Kim Ji-soo



As the selection of presidential candidates is coming down to the wire for the May 9 election, some entrepreneurs, such as Park Yong-man, are feeling cautious optimism.

"For me, our company's assets are there," said Park, president of Rok-Sec Garments, in an interview in his office, explaining why he hopes the former Gaeseong Industrial Complex in North Korea will reopen.

His company was one of 123 firms that operated out of the industrial zone, which was abruptly shut down in February 2016 by former President Park Geun-hye, following the North's Jan. 6 nuclear test and long-range rocket launch, Feb. 7.

His 35-year-long career in clothing manufacturing, specifically on an OEM and ODM basis, has helped Park survive the industrial park's unforeseen closure last year, he said.

"When I first started here in this neighborhood in Wangsimni, Seoul, it was hills and unpaved roads," Park said, recalling how he first got started. Now, he owns a building in the neighborhood, which he chose for its closeness to the textile center at Dongdaemun Market and its strategic location, and accessibility to all parts of Seoul and to his clients.

The decades of experience of running a small-and medium-sized business in Korea has given him the capacity to manage risks, including the abrupt closure of the inter-Korean industrial zone. "But I never really thought that they would do it so early," Park said.

Park is working on his next product  a foot massager.

President Park Yong-man of Rok-Sec Garments talks to The Korea Times in his office in Wangsimni, Seoul, Thursday. / Korea Times photo by Kim Ji-soo



"We have to keep moving forward to stay alive," Park said.

The 58-year-old passionately spoke about his new product and why it was important to stimulate the feet's micro-vessels, taking care to avoid side effects, in order to live healthily.

Park may well be one of the lucky few among the 123 entrepreneurs that had operated businesses in the industrial zone. He bristled at how the former Park administration neither properly notified nor compensated the firms. With a new administration coming in after the May 9 election, Park sees hope in the industrial park's reopening.

But was he not worried about the North Korean nuclear test or the new U.S. administration?

"Singular political leaders or governments sometimes can make decisions that can bring about a virtuous cycle of events," Park said.

The candidates for the upcoming presidential election in South Korea are all likely to be announced soon. The conservative Bareun Party has chosen Yoo Seong-min as its candidate. Ahn Cheol-soo is running strong in the People's Party primaries, while Moon Jae-in, the frontrunner of the liberal Democratic Party of Korea, is expected to seize his party's ticket.

But various polls have shown that South Koreans are favoring Moon as their next possible president, amid the nationwide disappointment at former President Park, who was embroiled in an influence-peddling scandal involving her confidant Choi Soon-sil that ultimately led to her impeachment and removal from office.

In February, Moon posted on his official Facebook page about the Gaeseong Industrial Complex, saying he wants to reopen and expand the park in order to encourage more South Korean firms to advance into the North Korean market.

Lee Joung-duk, president of Young Inner Foam, is another entrepreneur who had a factory at the inter-Korean industrial park. When he was interviewed soon after Gaeseong's closure in 2016, Lee seemed very much in shock.

About a year later, however, he was back on his feet, running a factory in Goyang, Gyeonggi Province, and opening one in Vietnam. During that time, he also participated in the candlelit rallies in downtown Seoul last year.

"Like the other participants, I felt anger as a citizen of the country at the ruling party and the administration, and felt indignation as a former businessman at Gaeseong," Lee said over the telephone.

Young Inner Foam, an underwear manufacturer, started operations at Gaeseong in 2007. At the time, Lee already had one factory in Gwangmyeong, Gyeonggi Province, and another in Cambodia. After the industrial zone's closure, he went to Vietnam. He somehow managed to survive on government insurance payments made to companies forced to pull out from Gaeseong.

Compensation to the firms varies. According to various reports, the emergency committee estimates the total damage suffered by all 123 firms was at 1.5 trillion won, but the government's estimate puts the damage at around 780 billion won. As of late January 2017, 501.3 billion won had been paid out by the government.

"I know most of the 123 firms are struggling. The big ones may be okay, and I am doing okay, but it's the small ones that have taken the brunt of the closure," Lee said.

Isn't Lee also worried about the North Korean nuclear issue or the strident stance of the Trump administration in the United States?

"We have to deal with North Korea from a broad perspective" Lee said.

Yang Moo-jin, a professor at the University of North Korean Studies, said there are real obstacles to reopening the Gaeseong Industrial Park, most especially the United Nations Security Council's imposition of tougher sanctions on North Korea last year in an effort to curb foreign currency transactions with North Korea.

"But two important factors here may be the will of the incoming political leader and his or her ability to persuade our ally, the United States," Yang said.
Liberals worry about Park supporters sympathy votes

By Kim Rahn

After former President Park Geun-hye was put behind bars over the massive corruption scandal, attention is now on how the arrest will influence the May 9 presidential election.

Some expect it will not have a great impact on the current situation where liberal candidates are sweeping the top rankings in opinion polls, considering more than 70 percent of the public wanted Park's arrest. But others say Park wearing a prison uniform could cause an emotional protest from conservative voters and sway them to cast sympathy votes for conservative candidates.

The largest liberal Democratic Party of Korea (DPK) forecast that public sentiment, which is calling for a change in government after the corruption scandal of the conservative Park administration, will stay the same despite her arrest.

For now the party has the best chance to win the election, as the combined support for the party's three contenders  former party leader Moon Jae-in, South Chungcheong Province Governor An Hee-jung and Seongnam Mayor Lee Jae-myung  stands at nearly 60 percent.












By Kim Hyo-jin



Parties and presidential contenders said Friday former President Park Geun-hye's arrest showed equality before the law, saying it should be a fresh start for the country as it recovers from the corruption scandal.



The Democratic Party of Korea (DPK), said it was a reasonable conclusion considering the impartiality of the law and principles.



"Everyone is equal before the law," said Rep. Youn Kwan-suk, the party's chief spokesman. "We hope today's historic decision will help reveal the truth about the unprecedented presidential scandal that disrupted state affairs."



The party's presidential contenders also voiced hope that this would become an opportunity to truly reform the country.

"It was the first step to renew a damaged Korea," said Rep. Park Kwang-on, a spokesman for leading contender Moon Jae-in. "Now we should channel our focus into building a fair and clean country."



Seongnam Mayor Lee Jae-myung's spokeswoman Rep. Je Youn-kyung said, "It is the start of a long path to clear up deep-rooted social evils. It is a decision that reflects the spirit of the times."



The People's Party, and its presidential aspirant Ahn Cheol-soo, echoed a similar view to the DPK's, calling it an "inevitable result."



"Park brought this upon herself by seeking to hide evidence and making false excuses," a spokesman for Ahn said. "It was a realization of the constitutional value that everyone is equal before the law."



Conservative parties remained somewhat skeptical of the necessity of the arrest. "Though we do not question it being a decision based on the law and principles, we have to wonder if there was any room for an indictment without detention in the name of social unity," Bareun Party spokesman Rep. Oh Shin-hwan said.



The Liberty Korea Party, of which Park is still a member, released a short statement: "It is deeply regrettable. We hope the country will not repeat the painful history of having a former president imprisoned."



Park is expected to be detained for up to 20 days while the prosecution assembles its case to prove her complicity in bribery and abuse of power with her longtime confidant Choi Soon-sil.




By Jun Ji-hye

South Gyeongsang Province Governor Hong Joon-pyo was selected as the presidential candidate of the former ruling Liberty Korea Party (LKP), Friday.

Hong Joon-pyo

"This era requires a strongman who is very determined," he said after the victory. "I will be a dignified and confident president after winning in the May 9 election."The tough-talking prosecutor-turned-politician was picked as the conservative party's flag-bearer with 54.2 percent of the vote at the LKP's convention in Seoul. He beat out three other contenders  former six-term lawmaker Rhee In-je, North Gyeongsang Province Governor Kim Kwan-yong and Rep. Kim Jin-tae.

Referring to former President Park Geun-hye's arrest carried out earlier in the day, he said that it was time for the people to forgive her.

Hong also said, "I presented myself for this election to win. Conservative forces will definitely win when they stick together."

The LKP selected its candidate based on a vote by party members and the opinion poll, each with a 50 percent weighting.

Kim Jin-tae, a close aide to Park, ranked second with 19.3 percent of the votes.

In Gallup Korea's latest survey, Hong ranked fifth with support of 4 percent after Moon Jae-in of the liberal Democratic Party of Korea (DPK) with 31 percent, Rep. Ahn Cheol-soo of the People's Party with 19 percent, South Chungcheong Province Governor An Hee-jung of the DPK with 14 percent, and Seongnam Mayor Lee Jae-myung of the DPK with 8 percent.

With the election only 39 days away, Hong apparently needs to seek an alliance with other conservative forces, particularly the Bareun Party, to take on frontrunner Moon. But the sharp-tongued political fighter has recently launched a war of words with that party's candidate, Rep. Yoo Seong-min, by framing him as a traitor who betrayed Park.

The Bareun Party was set up by defectors from the LKP in the wake of Park's impeachment over the massive corruption scandal.

"We can forgive a murderer, but we can't forgive a traitor," he told reporters, Wednesday.

Yoo shot back the following day, saying Hong's remarks were the language of gangsters. He defended his actions by citing the Constitutional Court's ruling that removed Park from office.
The United States should be prepared to launch preemptive strikes on North Korea, including a nuclear attack if necessary, before the communist nation uses its nuclear bombs that could "kill 90 percent of Americans," a former CIA chief said Wednesday.



James Woolsey, who served as CIA director from 1993-95, made the case in an op-ed piece in the Hill newspaper, arguing that the U.S. is erroneously underestimating Pyongyang's capabilities to deliver nuclear weapons by missile, freighter and even satellite.



"Why do the press and public officials ignore or under-report these facts? Perhaps no administration wants to acknowledge that North Korea is an existential threat on their watch," Woolsey said in the article, titled "How North Korea could kill 90 percent of Americans."



"Whatever the motives for obfuscating the North Korean nuclear threat, the need to protect the American people is immediate and urgent. The U.S. must be prepared to preempt North Korea by any means necessary, including nuclear weapons," he said.



Woolsey rejected the official U.S. intelligence assessment that the North has not yet demonstrated mastery of the technology to build an intercontinental ballistic missile reentry vehicle or to miniaturize nuclear weapons small enough to fit atop an ICBM capable of reaching the U.S.



"Any nation that has built nuclear weapons and long-range missiles, as North Korea has done, can easily overcome the relatively much simpler technological challenge of warhead miniaturization and reentry vehicle design," he said, adding that the North's road mobile KN-08 and KN-14 missiles appear to be equipped with sophisticated reentry vehicles.



Even if the North were not yet able to deliver nuclear weapons by missile, it can still deliver one "hidden on a freighter sailing under a false flag into a U.S. port, or hire their terrorist allies to fly a nuclear 9/11 suicide mission across the unprotected border with Mexico," Woolsey said.



"In this scenario, populous port cities like New York, New Orleans, Los Angeles, and San Francisco, or big cities nearest the Mexican border, like San Diego, Phoenix, Austin, and Santa Fe, would be most at risk," he said. "A Hiroshima-type A-Bomb having a yield of 10-kilotons detonated in a major city would cause about 200,000 casualties from blast, thermal, and radiation effects."



The North could use a satellite to deliver a small nuclear warhead designed to make a high-altitude electromagnetic pulse (EMP) attack against the U.S., he said.



"According to the Congressional EMP Commission, a single warhead delivered by North Korean satellite could blackout the national electric grid and other life-sustaining critical infrastructures for over a year, killing 9 of 10 Americans by starvation and societal collapse," he said. (Yonhap)




Ecuador on Wednesday called off a visa waiver program for North Korea in an apparent response to U.N. sanctions on the North's nuclear and missile tests.

The step took effect immediately after a foreign minister order requiring North Koreans to get a visa to enter Ecuador was announced in the official gazette on the day.

Up until now, North Koreans could stay in the South American nation without a visa for up to 90 days.

The visa restrictions are viewed as unusual given that Ecuador is one of the nations whose visa policies are the most lenient in the world. In addition, North Korea has been endeavoring to open diplomatic relations with Ecuador since anti-U.S. leftist Rafael Correa took the presidency in 2007.

Ecuador strongly guarantees the universal freedom of movement in its Constitution revised in 2008, allowing all nationals of all nations around the world, except for 11 countries, to enter visa-free.

The 11 nations are Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Cuba, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Nepal, Nigeria, Pakistan, Senegal and Somalia.

The Ecuadorian step against the North is the second of its kind this year, following Malaysia.

On March 6, Malaysia excluded Pyongyang from its visa waiver program in a punitive step against the North's alleged murder of Kim Jong-nam, a half brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, at Kuala Lumpur Airport early last month.

In July last year, Singapore also ended a visa-free program for the North as part its measure to implement the U.N. Resolution 2270 against Pyongyang's fourth nuclear test in January and a long-range missile launch the following month.

Now North Koreans can travel to only 38 nations visa-free. (Yonhap)
A ranking North Korean defector has claimed that the two Koreas' unification cannot be delayed further in the face of the North's mounting nuclear threats, a South Korean political party said Thursday.

Thae Yong-ho, a former North Korean diplomat, made the remark during a closed-door forum hosted by the Liberty Korea Party on Tuesday, according to party officials.

"If we don't unify, and if the Kim Jong-un regime doesn't collapse, we will die," he was quoted as saying. "The issue of unification must be discussed as a matter of life or death."

Pyongyang has reportedly completed preparations to conduct a sixth nuclear test.

Thae noted South Koreans' apparent complacency about the possibility of a nuclear strike.

"Think about Kim Jong-un's character," he was quoted as saying. "He has executed his relatives. Would he hesitate to use (a nuclear weapon) against the South Korean people?"

The North Korean regime must be brought down by its own people with the help of outside information, he added.

Thae worked as a minister at the North Korean Embassy in London before he defected with his family to South Korea last year. (Yonhap)
By Jun Ji-hye

The government strongly condemned Japan's approval of revised educational guidelines that call for its elementary and middle schools to obligatorily teach students that Korea's easternmost islets of Dokdo belong to Japan, Friday.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Education demanded the guidelines be immediately corrected.

Japan's latest provocation regarding Dokdo is expected to further worsen Seoul-Tokyo relations that have already been deadlocked after the Japanese government recalled Ambassador to South Korea Yasumasa Nagamine in early January to protest the installation of a "comfort woman" statue in front of its consulate in Busan.

"The government strongly denounces the Japanese government for finally approving the education guidelines for its elementary and middle school social studies that include its unjustified claims to our inherent territory of Dokdo despite our repeated warnings," the foreign ministry said in a statement.

It warned that Japanese students will learn false history under the guidelines.

Later in the day, the ministry called in Hideo Suzuki, a minister at the Japanese Embassy, who is currently serving as acting ambassador, to lodge an official protest, stressing that Dokdo is Korea's inherent territory historically, geographically and by international law.

Korea has effectively controlled Dokdo with a small police detachment there since its liberation from Japan in 1945.

The approval of the guidelines came after the Japanese education ministry announced last week a list of newly authorized textbooks to be used beginning April next year for high school sophomores.

Of the 24 newly approved social studies textbooks, 19, or nearly 80 percent, claim that Dokdo is Japanese territory. Some state that South Korea is illegally occupying Dokdo, called Takeshima in Japanese.
By Lee Han-soo

Seoul's private high schools that accept students through application are planning to take foreigners next year, according to a new Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education policy announced Wednesday.

Schools affected include: autonomous private high schools (not subject to government curriculum standards and that allow more freedom to students than conventional schools); science high schools (that nurture gifted students in science), and international high schools (that nurture gifted students with expertise in international relations).

The policy will allow the schools to admit a "small" number of foreigners, with the exact number not specified.

Schools that want foreign students can submit a study plan to the Seoul Metropolitan Office of Education for review.

A Seoul education authority official said authorization for foreign student enrollments will be given "after our review on certain criteria, such as whether the institution has a dormitory or a Korean language curriculum."
By Jun Ji-hye



Vice Defense Minister Hwang In-moo will visit Egypt and Angola this week to discuss strengthening defense cooperation with the countries, the defense ministry said Monday.



This is part of Seoul's efforts to isolate Pyongyang further in line with tougher sanctions imposed by the United Nations Security Council (UNSC).



Hwang will meet with Egyptian Defense Minister Sedki Sobhy Tuesday and sign a memorandum of understanding on institutional strategy for defense cooperation which will include increasing high-level exchanges and expanding defense industry cooperation.



The visit followed Vice Foreign Minister Lim Sung-nam's trip to Egypt over the weekend during which Lim sought the African country's cooperation on security issues as it is currently a non-permanent member of the UNSC.



Egypt was previously friendly with the North, but the Egyptian foreign ministry issued a statement criticizing the reclusive state after its fifth nuclear test last September.



On Friday, Hwang will visit Angola and meet with its Defense Minister Joao Lourenco and other ranking military officials to reaffirm the two countries' military cooperation, the ministry added.



The vice defense minister plans to appeal for Angola, a traditional ally of North Korea, to maintain its cooperation with international pressure against Pyongyang's nuclear and missile development.



Last December, Defense Minister Han Min-koo held a defense ministerial meeting with Minister Lourenco in Seoul for the first time since the two countries established diplomatic relations in 1992.



"Hwang's visits to Egypt and Angola will be a chance for the nation to enhance substantial defense cooperation further with African countries," the ministry said in a release.



Hwang visited Ethiopia, Uganda and Kenya last May to seek such cooperation, the ministry added.



Last year alone, Pyongyang carried out two nuclear tests and launched more than 20 ballistic missiles in defiance of the concerted warnings from the international community.



North Korea again fired four ballistic missiles March 6, 22 days after firing a new intermediate-range ballistic missile. The latest launch conducted on March 22 ended in failure as the missile exploded in mid-air shortly after liftoff.



According to 38 North, a U.S.-based North Korea monitoring website, another indication that Pyongyang may be preparing for its sixth nuclear test has also been detected as satellite imagery showed several vehicles or trailers at the entrance to the Punggye-ri nuclear test site.



The ministry noted that the North is capable of pushing for its sixth nuclear test at any time once its leadership decides to do so.








Former President Park Geun-hye walks into the Seoul Central District Court to attend a hearing over her arrest on Thursday morning. The prosecution requested the arrest warrant on multiple charges, including bribery, coercion, abuse of power and the leak of state secrets presumably in 13 cases implicating her close friend and scores of aides. She has denied any wrongdoing. / Korea Times photo by Choi Won-suk









Former President Park Geun-hye walks into the Seoul Central District Court to attend a hearing over her pre-trial detention on Thursday morning. / Korea Times photo by Choi Won-suk





Former President Park Geun-hye walks into the Seoul Central District Court to attend a hearing over her pre-trial detention on Thursday morning. / Korea Times photo by Choi Won-suk



By Jung Min-ho



Former President Park Geun-hye attended a court hearing to review the validity of a warrant to arrest her on corruption charges, Thursday.



This was the first time a former president has attended a court hearing on an arrest warrant since the system was adopted in 1997.



Judge Kang Bu-young, 43, is expected to decide whether to issue the warrant Friday morning.



The hearing finished at 7:10 p.m. after eight hours and 40 minutes  the longest on record.



After the hearing, the court ordered her to stay in a room on the 10th floor of the Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office to wait for the decision.



Park appeared at the court at around 10:20 a.m. Unlike her previous public appearances, she seemed nervous, and did not say a word to reporters who asked her a barrage of questions.



After getting out of her black sedan, she hurried into the courthouse, which was surrounded by 2,000 police officers.



The two senior prosecutors who interrogated her last week  Han Woong-jae and Lee Won-seok  clashed with her lawyers  Yoo Young-ha and Jung Jang-hyun  in the hearing.



Park was also given time to respond to the 13 charges against her, including bribery, abuse of power and the passing of confidential state information to an unauthorized person.



She denied all of the charges, claiming none of her actions came from bad intentions.



Her lawyers said Park did not do anything illegal or order her aides to do so in order to help her confidant Choi Soon-sil, claiming the former president was unaware of her friend's criminal activities.



However, it is unclear whether the court will accept her claims. The Constitutional Court has already acknowledged her abuse of power for her friend Choi's personal gain when it upheld her impeachment, March 10.




Roh Tae-woo and Chun Doo-hwan during their first trial on Aug. 26, 1996. / Korea Times file



By Lee Han-soo

Park Geun-hye is the country's fourth former president to be questioned over criminal allegations, following Roh Tae-woo, Chun Doo-hwan and the late Roh Moo-hyun.

If a warrant is issued, Park will be the third former president to be arrested. Presidents Roh Tae-woo and Chun Doo-hwan were arrested and sent for trial.

Roh Tae-woo was the first former Korean president to wear a prison uniform.

The Supreme Prosecutors' Office on Nov. 1, 1995, investigated him for receiving over 200 billion won ($179 million) in bribes from conglomerates, including from then Daewoo Group chairman Kim Woo-jung.

"I will carry all the distrust and conflict," Roh said before he was jailed at a Seoul detention center. "I will accept any form of punishment."












By Young Hoy Kim Kimaro





You may have been shocked to read last month that the majority of the people living in rural hinterlands of Kilimanjaro don't hold bank accounts, that instead they turn to spare cooking pots, layers of old clothing, underside of a mattress, or a pot buried inconspicuously under a tree or whatever to stash away spare cash.

We had our first brush with microcredit through rural Savings and Credit Cooperative Societies (SACCOSs) about 10 years ago. It was highly successful. But success which triggered rapid expansion of loans exceeding SACCOSs' ability to manages put their very existence to the test.

Neither SACCOSs themselves nor we realized that what they needed before any additional money was improved ability to track loan repayments. This happens a lot in development efforts. Money is often taken as the panacea, and we too had fallen into that trap.

Our second attempt to make a difference to rural microfinance was to bring in the local Uchumi Bank, which was reputed to be pro rural SACCOSs. From the start, Uchumi put forward two conditions which must be met for a SACCOS to be taken under its wing.

1. SACCOS Boards shall be composed of people with adequate education and work experience, to enable them to comprehend financial reports.

2. SACCOSs shall be registered with the local government as legal, financial entities.

All sensible demands but in the rural setting of Tanzania today, these conditions are challenging. Boards of church run SACCOSs tend to be filled with church elders, irrespective of their educational level. Very few board members of rural SACCOSs have more than primary education because at the time they went to school, access to education was severely limited.

In those days, less than 0.1% of the age cohort could find placement in the then one and only University in the country; less than 15% of the age cohort could get secondary education. And, after schooling why would they hang around in a village when well-paying jobs were to be found in cities?

Formal registration to become a legal, financial entity requires a minimum of 5 million shillings (about $2,300) as a capital base. A small sum for a financial institution, even by Tanzanian standards; but it is still a tall order for small rural SACCOS upstarts whose membership base may be as low as 100. Even if they reached that threshold, SACCOSs were skeptical of the notoriously cumbersome government red tape. How long would the process take? Six months? A year? Forever?

SACCOSs were discouraged. Try as we might, we could not bring the two sides together. Our initiative fizzled away. Then an unexpected opportunity presented itself.

During our visit with Prof. Walt Schafer, a Chico Rotarian who has long been supporting Rotary work on Mount Kilimanjaro, we shared the frustrations we faced in our efforts to modernize SACCOSs' management capacity which would put them on a sound path of growth. "If only " That was in October last year.

Prof. Schafer knew two MBA holders from Chico University in California who might be interested. And sure enough, they were. They signed up to come to Mwika in July this year to conduct short-term training on financial analysis and reporting, simplified and custom tailored to the needs of rural SACCOSs in Tanzania.

The prospect of sound technical backstopping energized us. We met with leaders of four SACCOSs. With no pre-conditions before them, they too were enthused.

In February, a three week course on computer basics was launched with 12 SACCOS staff participating. Many of the trainees had never even touched a computer before. Taming a jumpy mouse was a huge challenge they had to sweat out and master before all else. Their perseverance and enthusiasm for the training manifested in exceptionally high attendance rate  88 percent on average when normally one hopes for 50 to 60 percent at best!

At the start of the third week of training, they pleaded. "Please and please if there is any chance  extend the training just a little longer?" How could we say no to such an enthusiastic group of trainees? So we added on two more weeks to the training.

We reached out again to Uchumi Bank, which had these SACCOSs a computer here, a lap top there but no training to go with them. Perhaps Uchumi Bank assumed training was as easily available in villages as in Moshi town where it is located. The bank was sore that these SACCOSs did not use the donated computers for their SACCOS work. But how could they? Our third (and current) entry into the SACCOSs scene with a focus on computer skills training for SACCOSs' staff to build their management capacity fills this gaping hole.

The last of their five-week long training, the trainees are in the thick of computerizing their SACCOSs' database. A big morale booster follows at the end of this part of their training. SACCOSs whose staff demonstrate satisfactory mastery of computer skills will return to their SACCOSs with computers and accessories such that each SACCOS will be equipped with a desk top, a lap top, a printer and stabilizer, including what they received from the Uchumi Bank previously.

Then in July, more training will follow. This time, taking it a level higher, touching on basic financial analysis and reporting which will be conducted by the two MBAs from Chico.

For SACCOSs which faithfully put into practice what they learn, and produce board reporting using analytical approaches and raising the loan repayment rates, we hope to reward them with an injection of capital as they will be ready for more aggressive growth. But before we make promises and raise expectations, we'd better start fund raising.

Hopefully, what we learn from this experience will enable us to reach out to more SACCOSs to improve their operations. When we do, we hope the Uchumi Bank will be with us as a full partner.

The writer resides on the slopes of Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania. She worked for the World Bank for nearly 30 years and her email is youngkimaro@gmail.com.
By Jason Lim





Everything is certified these days. From used cars, massages and organic foods to program management and cyber security, certification is a ubiquitous and somewhat mysterious term that denotes a certain level of quality, authenticity, truthfulness, expertise, and everything good about the product or person. In fact, there are certifications that certify other certification processes so as to certify their capability to certify things in a certifiable way. It's certifiably crazy sometimes.

Granted, certification is oftentimes useful way for potential consumers to lessen their chances of buying lemons and employers to mitigate the risk of hiring an unqualified subject matter expert. Professional certifications, especially, does imply a certain level of baseline competency for specific subject areas and provide some guidance among competing and chaotic claims for expertise. At the same time, certification is also used to raise the barrier to entry for certain professions, control the market for specific skill sets that are in particular demand, or make a quick buck by offering professional branding or respectability through a quick training and testing program.

But when South Korea's Ministry of Labor recently announced that they were now offering certifications for skills related to the so-called "Fourth Industrial Revolution." These skills include 3D printing, robot manufacturing and so on. In announcing the establishment of 17 new professional certification areas that included the above, the Ministry of Labor expressed hope that these new certifications would increase employment in jobs related to the Fourth Industrial Revolution.

For those of you no familiar with the term, Fourth Industrial Revolution refers to the potential that the new, emerging technologies such as ubiquitous connectivity of things (IoT), artificial intelligence, neural-machine cognitive interface, autonomous driving vehicles, robots and others will fundamentally shift the way that human beings interact with their environment and one another. It follows on the heels of the Third Industrial Revolution that began in the 1980's and transformed our analog world into a digital one. In short, it's a term that describes a socioeconomic phenomenon that is founded on set of disruptive technologies that are still maturing and translating themselves into products and services. In short, it's still in the storming and forming stages. No one knows how this will all shake out at the end.

And now the South Korean central government wants to certify what's not really defined and encourage employment in jobs that don't exist. It's pretty obvious that the Ministry of Labor views its certification process as some sort of a centrally-managed job creation effort, much akin to public works projects. While I laud its efforts to want to be proactive, I don't think formal certification process is the best way to encourage innovation and prepare South Korea to compete in the coming paradigm shift.

This reminds me strongly of former President Park Geun-hye's mantra of "Creative Economy" that the government tried to drive by building Creative Centers of Excellence in every province and giving lip service to the need put into place a nurturing environment for start up's. It was an attempt to drive innovation through exhortation, rather than a serious attempt to reform the economic planning and governance structure that inhibits entrepreneurships and gives lopsided advantage to the established conglomerates.

This is a perfect example of what got you here won't get you there. South Korea's governance psyche is so addicted to the lessons learned during the march to the Miracle on Han that everything that has happened since then has been an attempt to apply the old model to new environments and paradigms. Using centralized command and control to allocate resources to maximize national output during transition into an industrialized economy might have worked before, but you can't issue a government mandate to spring forth a Silicon Valley. You have to allow your economy to innovate from bottom-up.

Understand that allocation in resources, skills, and focus is determined not only by formal policies but also by personal initiative, informal relationships, spontaneous actions, and preferences of people at all levels. In short, create an ecosystem of empowerment at the lowest levels possible because this will lead to not only efficiency but also innovation that's bottom up, which is more likely to be taken up by others.In essence, you cannot dictate the shape and flow of innovation top down.

Rosabeth Moss Kanter, professor at Harvard Business School, writes, "Formal structures can be too general or too rigid to accommodate multidirectional pathways for resources and idea flows. Rigidity stifles innovation. Informal, self-organizing, shape-changing, and temporary networks are more flexible and can make connection between people or connect bundles of resources more quickly When people self-organize to create networks to share information, new initiatives or innovations are often the result. Organizations must encourage the creation of such networks and facilitate them through communication platforms or meeting spaces."

In other words, sometimes less is more.



Jason Lim is a Washington, D.C.-based expert on innovation, leadership and organizational culture. He has been writing for The Korea Times since 2006. Reach him at jasonlim@msn.com, facebook. com/jasonlimkoreatimes or @jasonlim2012.


By Oh Young-jin





Some detractors of Moon Jae-in would call him and his supporters a bunch of commies and claim that they shouldn't be trusted to run the country.

Moon, the leading contender in the May 9 presidential election, recently caught a great deal of flak for talking about his being cited by Chun Doo-hwan, a former Army general and president, for his tour of duty in a Special Forces unit. Gwangju people were upset because Chun was responsible for the May 18, 1980 massacre by Special Forces soldiers, as part of his power grab.

How do the two events get linked? Obviously, the first has got so much under Moon's skin that he had felt an urge to deal with it by bringing about his not-so-proud ties with the infamous general.

Even experienced pundits said that Moon got carried away but chances are that it is not the case.

But it should be seen rather as a gesture by Moon to reach out to the other side  the hostile territory of the conservatives. Interestingly, Moon has been careful not to look friendly to conservatives and is prone to chide An Hee-jung, the distant second in the party primary to choose its standard bearer, for doing so.

That is Moon's strategy not to raise the ire of his traditional progressive support base and prevent them from going astray. An, the South Chungcheong Province governor, tried to do the lofty political initiative and has paid heavily through a major slip in popularity, serving as a lightning rod for the progressives' wrath.

Despite his blooper, Moon's strategy of trying to rein in his traditional supporters, called "domestic rabbits" has worked, snaring the important and convincing victory in the first stop of the primary round in Gwangju.

There are a couple of factors that Moon had stealthily tried to address his being branded as commie at a considerable risk.

First, his popularity is solid with his support base, strong enough to win the party's candidacy. But he needs more than that to win the presidential election, including stragglers from the conservatives.

True, conservative contenders turned into dwarves after President Park Geun-hye was found to be incapable of governing the nation and was impeached. But, it is too early to rule out that the conservatives can turn into a veto group for Moon, especially when Ahn Cheol-soo, former software mogul and now candidate-to-be of the third-largest Honam-based People's Party. Honam includes western parts of the nation  Jeolla Provinces and Gwangju City  a traditional rival to Yongnam, Gyeongsang Provinces and Busan. Moon and Ahn are from Yongnam to win a broader support from both regions, pivotal to the victory.

Being called a commie can have an incendiary effect for Moon first because his potential rival Ahn is free from such red-baiting accusations. Ahn was a businessman, a job of conservative nature, and his newcomer politician status can help reliever him of ideological baggage. Then, in the "anything-goes" election politics, if you get such a labeling, it would stick to Moon whether it is true or not.

So why is Moon gaining such suspicions, except for the black propaganda factors?

Here are four of his remarks that have poured gasoline on his detractors and made them scream, "A commie."

"I would go to North Korea first before the United States, if I become president."

True, it's customary for a new Korean President to visit the U.S. because it is the most important ally. But when the current dicey balance of power is skewed further by the North's missile and nuclear development efforts at the risk of another conflict on the peninsula, dealing with the North would be a higher priority for a new President and the alliance as well. Going to Pyongyang or meeting Kim Jong-un wouldn't be an act of treason but one promoting peace for everybody.

"I would reopen Gaeseong Industrial Park."

The flagship inter-Korean joint project was closed by former President Park as one of the first steps to accommodate U.S. calls for the closure dating back to the Bush administration to constrain the North's cash flow. That was seen by some as an act of burning down the last bridge leading to the North. There have been no talks with the North since but the North has pressed on with its plan for the weapons of mass destruction. Seen in an ideological light, it could be taken as a willingness to sleep with the enemy but it could be broadly thought it would be a way of breaking the gridlock through a change of approach.

"I am opposed to the deployment of Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD)."

China is vehemently opposed to its U.S. missile interceptor against the North's missile attacks by claiming that it targets China. It is a Chinese ruse to get at the U.S. in its broader campaign to stake its claim in South China Sea and for Asia as well. But it was Moon's moment to vacillate between putting all eggs in the same basket and diversifying the portfolio.

"We have to learn to say no to Americans."

Moon also said that the U.S. is Korea's most important friend. It is absurd to assume that Korea has not said no to the U.S. So it is more correct to take this statement for campaign rhetoric.

All told, Moon is often seen with a halo from his mentor and friend Roh Moo-hyun on his head.

What he has been saying is reminiscent of the late president who rose to power amid the cresting anti-Americanism following the deaths of two girls crushed by U.S. armored vehicles in exercise.

But there are two factors that indicate Moon is different from Roh in terms of personal character and infrastructure of support he has inherited.

First, it is true that his remarks are for election purposes but also reflect how he feels about the related issues. But bear in mind the transition from candidate to president. Moon has had such experience as chief of staff and other senior lieutenants for Roh so the chance is that he would avoid a rough patch in his learning curve as his friend did. Roh didn't have such a benefit.

Then, much of his supporting staff is inherited from Roh and they come with the whole nine yards of experience.

They, Moon included, know what politics are about  getting the job done can be more important than causes. Just think why Roh kept Moon at his side for much of his time in office. It wouldn't terribly wrong to think that he knew Moon is steady and less prone to ups and downs in emotional swing. To Roh, Moon was a counterweight to bring a sense of balance to him and served as ballasts to calm him down.

So the chance is that Moon may turn out to be a lot more regular guy than some people want to believe, maybe disappointingly so to some.

Oh Young-jin is The Korea Times' chief editorial writer. Contact foolsdie5@ktimes.com and foolsdie@gmail.com.
By Do Je-hae





My shrimp pancake after Maangchi's recipe / Korea Times photo by Do Je-hae

Before I got into cooking several years ago, I used YouTube primarily to listen to classical music or learn how to play certain pieces on the piano, such the Chopin Polonaise in A-flat.

Now the video-sharing website has become an indispensable tool for me in learning how to cook Korean food or "hansik." In the YouTube era, I'm sure this is the case for not just working women like myself, but for countless others who want to improve their cooking skills without having to attend classes or tune into a TV cooking program at a designated time.

My favorite cooking channel on YouTube is Maangchi (the pseudonym of the presenter), who was described by the New York Times as "YouTube's Korean Julia Child." My heart lights up whenever she uploads a new video and I am always tempted to try her latest recipe.

Now the New York-based online cooking star has more than one million subscribers on YouTube and has a revenue-sharing partnership with it that allows her to shoot her videos and cook full time. Since I started my column for The Korea Times a while ago, the first person I wanted to interview was Maangchi because I wanted to share her amazing YouTube work with foreign readers of our paper.

Before interviewing her, I did some research on Maangchi. I was stunned when a New York Times interview in 2015 mentioned that she has more YouTube subscribers than Martha Stewart, the renowned lifestyle queen. This is mainly because I could not believe that someone who specializes in hansik, which is much less well known compared to Japanese or Chinese food globally, has more subscribers than Stewart's lifestyle channel on YouTube. Stewart's channel covers not just food but various subjects that women are fascinated with, including interior design and decorating, not to mention the numerous how-to home maintenance videos. I did some fact-checking, and Maangchi has more than one million YouTube subscribers as of this week, whereas the founder of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia has about 259,000.

Besides the YouTube channel, Maangchi also operates maangchi.com, a popular website for Korean cuisine and is the author of the 2015 cookbook "Maangchi's Real Korean Cooking: Authentic Dishes for the Home Cook." But her videos bring out the best of Maangchi because she shares delightful stories about the food she makes.

There are many reasons why hansik lovers are hooked on her videos, but for me, the main one is that her recipes are easy to follow and I sort of get the warm feeling of learning how to cook from mom. "I think it's because when people try one of my recipes and it turns out delicious, they impress themselves, their family, and their friends," Maangchi said in an e-mail interview. "Then they tell them where they learned how to do it and through word of mouth my videos get passed around."

Maangchi in her kitchen / Courtesy of Maangchi

Also her bubbly personality makes viewers happy. "I'm always excited about eating delicious food. I'm doing what I like so all my passion is in my work and I feel creative all the time. I never think about my age," she said.



I still remember the first dish I made following Maangchi's recipe  shrimp pancakes. They were delicious, but kind of time-consuming to make. I asked Maangchi for some quick recipes for working women and men. "Home cooking is almost always more delicious than eating out, and much cheaper," Maangchi said. "My apple ssamjang recipe uses apple instead of sugar, which adds crispness to the ssamjang that is really irresistible. With multigrain rice and a variety of lettuce, it's a great, quick meal that's delicious and good for you."

She also suggested her recent gamjajeon recipe, which is also "super-popular because it's so easy to make and so tastes great." Maangchi says mandu-guk is also a good choice. "It's best with homemade mandu, but store-bought mandu is okay too."

I was also fascinated that Maangchi started her second career after her children moved out of the house. When she is not on YouTube, she is Emily Kim, who previously worked as a family counselor in Toronto. Her moniker comes from her online gaming phase before she started a YouTube career as a home chef in 2007.

Her journey to YouTube stardom is inspirational particularly for those who are middle-aged or older envisioning and preparing for a second career. Here are some of her tips. "First, your new career should involve something that you love doing. I started making Korean cooking videos because it was fun to do, and it kind of took off. I'm very lucky that without any long-term plan at all, just following my passion, I ended up making a career from sharing Korean food and recipes with the world," Maangchi said.

"So if you choose something you love to do, even if you're not hugely financially successful you'll get a lot of satisfaction in doing it and seeing people enjoy your work. I think YouTube is a wonderful place to share your passion because you can reach millions of people around the world who are eager to learn something new from people just like you and me."
Tepid response to provocation is no longer tenable



There are clearer signs that North Korea may conduct another nuclear test ahead of the meeting between U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping April 6 and 7.



The U.S.-based North Korea monitoring website 38 North said Tuesday that its satellite imagery of the Punggye-ri nuclear test site indicates that the North's nuclear test preparations are in their final stages. The images, taken March 25, showed up to four vehicles or equipment trailers continuously present at the entrance to the underground test site, with communication cables laid on the ground, 38 North said.



Seoul's military also confirmed this view, noting that Pyongyang is capable of carrying out a nuclear or missile test whenever Kim Jong-un orders one. If the rogue state conducts the test, it will be its sixth. Some pundits here speculate that the North might detonate multiple nuclear bombs simultaneously as Pakistan did in 1998.



With another blast, North Korea could try to rattle the South in the run-up to the May 9 presidential election. Or the North might seek to embarrass the new U.S. president who has tweeted that its goal of possessing an intercontinental ballistic missile "won't happen," before his meeting with Xi.



But it's too early to hastily conclude that there will be another nuclear test. The chance is that the reclusive regime in Pyongyang could act after assessing the outcome of the Trump-Xi meeting by ramping up tensions with its intentional exposure of nuclear test preparations.



In that case, the North might conduct its sixth nuclear test around the 105th anniversary of the birth of its founder Kim Il-sung on April 15 or a meeting of its rubber-stamp Supreme People's Assembly on April 11. Kim Jong-un could aim to maximize the North's nuclear blast yield before a new administration is in place in Seoul.



South Koreans cannot help but feel frustrated at the fact that there is little they can do, though another blast is imminent.



Seoul, Washington and Tokyo can join forces to get the United Nations to issue a strong prior warning by suggesting concrete evidence that the North is about to violate U.N. resolutions. One can hope that the imminent test will be averted if China, North Korea's de facto sole ally, acts decisively. But if the past is any guide, these expectations are dubious.



Given that the North's other provocation is intolerable, our approach to this tormenting issue should be totally different after the sixth nuclear test. Our tepid response, relying solely on the U.N.'s tougher sanctions, is no longer tenable.



There must be stepped-up efforts to enhance our anti-missile shield across the board. This is, of course, not to say that we have to exclude dialogue. The bottom line is that we have to at least brace for the North's nuclear-tipped missiles.












Samsung unveiled its new flagship smartphone in New York's Lincoln Center Thursday. The Galaxy S8 smartphones, which will be available starting April 21, have been advertised as quicker, smarter and more stylish than their predecessors.



This is the first time for the electronics giant to unveil a new phone since its fire-prone Note 7 which resulted in a disastrous global recall and cancellation. Samsung's brand image was further tainted after its de facto leader Lee Jae-yong, vice chairman of Samsung Electronics, was arrested in a bribery case involving former President Park Geun-hye.



The introduction of the new phone seems to have succeeded in capturing global media attention. The positive responses are centered on new technologies that were not seen in its predecessors. The "infinite display" gives users an unprecedented full screen experience with an expanded glass screen that covers nearly the entire front of the device. Its digital assistant Bixby also gained a lot of attention with upgraded functions by using artificial intelligence.



The smartphone market is becoming saturated and it is becoming harder to wow consumers. To stay ahead of global competitors, it is crucial to constantly upgrade devices with new technologies and designs. From the Note 7 debacle, Samsung surely would have learned that packing a phone with new technologies is meaningless if the product is unsafe and prone to malfunctions.



It remains to be seen whether its new generation of smartphones reflect Samsung's renewed commitment to quality and safety. Consumers who were hugely inconvenienced after buying the Galaxy Note 7 smartphone will not easily forget their frustration with the Samsung device and its substandard customer service. To redeem itself and regain customers' trust, Samsung will have to convince them that its future products are reliable and that it will never forgo safety issues for the sake of technological innovation.



With Chinese manufacturers such as Huawei quickly catching up, Samsung cannot afford to be complacent if it wants to maintain its lead in the global smartphone war.






By Park Jae-hyuk

As far as job security is concerned, Hyundai Motor is touted as the best place for workers as the automaker's militant trade union safeguards them against any attempts by management to cut payrolls.

However, they seem not to be content with the status quo as the union is asking the company to guarantee that their jobs will be safe even after the full-fledged introduction of robotic production, possibly controlled by artificial intelligence (AI).

According to industry officials Wednesday the union has recently offered to negotiate with the company over the agenda this year.

"Considerable parts of the car industry have been outsourced and modularized so far," the union wrote in a newsletter to members. "As our job security is expected to severely worsen due to industrial development, we have decided to demand management take appropriate measures."

Experts admit industrial development, especially the growth of the eco-friendly electric car market, will result in a sharp reduction in manufacturing jobs in the automotive industry.

For instance, a Tesla factory in California lacks conveyor belts and is mainly operated by robots, because electric cars are more easily manufactured with fewer components compared to gasoline models. The U.S. carmaker is known to hire the minimum number of workers for the factory.

Against this backdrop, Hyundai's union appears to seeking a promise that the company will not allow robots to take over well-paying jobs  their average annual salary was 96 million won ($86,000) in 2015  the latest data available.

And as usual, the company cannot turn a deaf ear to the demands of the union, which is notorious for frequent walkouts, no matter how strange they are.

Earlier this month, labor and management established a 16-member-committee to discuss the matter. The union at that time said it will thoroughly check whether the job security of workers will actually be threatened by eco-friendly cars. The committee members visited factories manufacturing eco-friendly vehicles as well.

However, the company criticized the union for its lack of deep consideration on the new technology.

"The Fourth Industrial Revolution is merely a plausible excuse," a Hyundai Motor spokesman said. "The union has always asked the company for perfect job security, which we can hardly accept."

Plus, the union has requested the company to extend the retirement age from 60 to 64 and to raise the base salary by 7 percent. The union also said it wants to retain the family succession of employment despite a corrective order from the government.

Critics said the union should change its attitude, pointing out the negative public sentiment toward it at a time when the unemployment rate continues to rise. They also said the union's unreasonable demands are prompting the company to move its manufacturing plants to other countries.
KT&G plnat in Sintanjin, South Chungcheong Province / Courtesy of KT&G



By Nam Hyun-woo

KT&G President Baek Bok-in vowed to push for new growth of the country's largest cigarette manufacturer during an event to celebrate the company's 30th anniversary at its head office in Daejeon, Friday.

"KT&G's history dates back to the late 19th century when a ginseng division of the finance department was established. Through transformation into a public corporation and privatization, we have grown into a global powerhouse," Baek said.

"In time with the 30th anniversary, we will focus on exports, managerial innovation and corporate social responsibilities so as to spearhead future growth."

The ginseng division of the finance department was set up in 1899 in the waning years of the Chosun Kingdom (1392-1910).

The government monopoly became a public corporation on April 1, 1987 and the firm, which changed its name to KT&G after privatization in 2002, set the date as its official foundation.

KT&G faced a challenge in 1988 as the Korean market was opened to foreign brands but the company still accounts for more than 60 percent of cigarette sales here.

Since 2002, the company has chalked up fast growth through leadership of professional businessmen not like other domestic conglomerates, which are controlled by founding families.

The company more than doubled its sales and operating profits from 2002. Its market capitalization also soared around four times to more than 13 trillion won over the 15-year period.

The company first exported its products in 1988 and thereafter it actively tried to tap into global markets. Currently, a majority of its sales come from overseas  it sold 48.7 billion cigarettes in 50 countries last year.

It also diversified its business portfolio. Under its wing, KT&G has Korea Ginseng Corporation, which sells ginseng and ginseng supplements, cosmetics producer Cosmocos and Yungjin Pharmaceutical.

The company is also praised for its transparency and advanced governance structure.
By Yoon Sung-won



Korea is stepping up support for researchers who seek cooperation with European countries, according to the National Research Foundation (NRF), Wednesday.



The foundation is hosting a two-day R&D fair between Korea and the European Union (EU) in Seoul and Daejeon which started yesterday.



"We have continued to push for collaborations between researchers in Korea and Europe to meet the rising demand for cooperation in the last decade," NRF Secretary General Kim Jun-dong said during his opening speech of the event in Seoul, Wednesday.



"On the government level, the two parties have organized five meetings as of 2015 geared toward boosting cooperation in information, communication, nano, bio and energy technologies."



Kim added the sixth meeting is scheduled to be held in the latter half of this year.



Alongside science and technology researchers, domestic and foreign funding agencies, officials from the Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning, Korea Institute for Advancement of Technology, EU delegation to Korea and representatives of European embassies have joined the event.



The NRF said the event mainly aims at promoting awareness on cooperative R&D programs between Korea and the EU such as Horizon 2020, an EU funding program for innovative research projects.



The fair also seeks to build networks between researchers in Korea and Europe in selected areas such as information, communication, bio and energy technologies. The agenda was discussed during governmental talks between Korea and the EU in 2014.



"We expect the fair will provide researchers here with actual help in establishing contact with their European counterparts and building a consortium for projects," an NRF official said.



The NRF is headed by President Cho Moo-je, who took charge of the state-backed institute midway through last year.



"As a trusted partner for researchers and the public, the NRF is committed to establishing a researcher-friendly support system that helps researchers achieve more successful outcomes and accelerate the emergence of a creative economy," he said.



"Furthermore, the NRF is blazing new paths through which researchers can expand their prospects in the world and fuel our ongoing growth towards a future society in an effort to realize a more prosperous tomorrow for both research and the nation."




By Kang Seung-woo

NEW YORK  Samsung Electronics expects its new Galaxy S8 smartphone to outsell its successful predecessor, the S7.

The new handset is drawing rave reviews after it was unveiled Wednesday (local time) in two different models  the standard S8 with a 5.8-inch display and a larger Galaxy S8 Plus with a 6.2-inch screen.

Samsung sold about 50 million Galaxy S7s and Galaxy S7 edges in 2016 after releasing them in March, with the lineup working overtime to fill the void left by its jumbo smartphone, the Galaxy Note 7 that was recalled late last year due to battery fire issues.

"I am looking forward to hearing good news," said Koh Dong-jin, the president of Samsung Electronics' mobile communications business, in a press conference. "After collecting opinions from many people, including consumers and clients, I can guess that the S8's sales tally could top that of the S7."

However, Koh did not elaborate on how many he anticipates to move.

Even ahead of the S8 launch, market watchers forecast that the latest phone would surpass its previous model in terms of global sales.

"The global sales of the Galaxy S8 are expected to top 60 million. It will establish itself as a successful model," said Noh Kyeong-tak, an analyst at Eugene Investment and Securities, earlier this month.

In order to achieve this, Samsung needs to put on a good show in China which accounts for 30 percent of the global smartphone market.












Visitors to Samsung Electronics' unpacked' event for its flagship Galaxy S8 smartphone join a hands-on demonstration session at the Lincoln Center in New York, Wednesday (local time). / Courtesy of Samsung Electronics



New phones to be available on April 21



By Kang Seung-woo

NEW YORK  Samsung Electronics' new flagship smartphone, the Galaxy S8, is receiving rave reviews around the globe.

The long-awaited smartphone was finally unveiled at New York's Lincoln Center, Wednesday (local time), with more than 20,000 in attendance. The unveiling was also livestreamed.

Given that the S8 was the first major phone since the ill-fated Galaxy Note 7, there had been plenty of talk about the device, but the anticipation for the phone was so high, as evidenced by a long queue of people awaiting entrance  even two hours before the event was supposed to start.

For the two-hour event  one hour for a presentation by Samsung staff, including Mobile Communications Business President Koh Dong-jin, and the other for a tryout time  25,000 people visited the venue to get their hands on the high-end phone in advance of its release and they were satisfied.

"It is a really good phone. It is more than what I expected from Samsung. We can really see that the company is bringing new specifications and new functionality to the smartphone market," said Bruno Martinez of Brazil's Showmetech, a website specializing in information technology (IT).

"I am guessing it is going to be a great success in the world."












By Jhoo Dong-chan



A senior engineer of General Motors demonstrated his confidence in the recently introduced Chevrolet Bolt electric vehicle (EV), claiming the model is superior to its competitors.



GM Chevrolet Bolt EV Chief Engineer Michael Lelli also said that the model, which was well received here for its long range on a single battery charge, will dominate the Korean market. Still, most customers are reluctant to buy EVs for the lack of charging infrastructure.



"With its drive range of 383 kilometers, you don't need to charge the Bolt EV every day. I also drive the Bolt EV in the U.S., and only charge it once a week. With a model like the Bolt EV, you don't need to look around to find charging stations every day," Lelli told The Korea Times in an interview on the sidelines of the Seoul International Motor Show 2017 held at KINTEX in Goyang, Gyeonggi Province, Thursday.



"The model is a revolutionary product that was developed based on the deep expertise of GM engineers worldwide and years of customer feedback and innovative partnerships. With its affordability, long range and exciting new technologies, it will enable more customers to experience a true EV life."



He also guaranteed that the Bolt EV will dominate the Korean market in quality against its rivals, including the Hyundai Motor Ioniq EV.



"An EV needs four things _ affordability, drive range, functionality and technology. The Hyundai Ioniq doesn't deliver all four," Lelli said.



"The Bolt EV has 56.6 cubic feet of cargo space when folding the rear seats. I understand the Ioniq EV is a bit cheaper than the Bolt EV. Considering its quality, however, the price gap is acceptable."



In metric, 56.6 cubic feet is equal to 1.60 cubic meters.



With LG Electronics, GM jointly developed a new cell and battery pack consisting of 288 lithium-ion cells that include 10 modules and 96 cell groups for the Bolt EV. Its motor produces up to a maximum of 204 horsepower. It takes less than seven seconds to reach 100 kilometers per hour.



The Bolt EV is priced at 47.79 million won, but end consumers would pay less than 30 million won thanks to government subsidies for EVs, which the Bolt EV managed to meet.



GM started to receive preorders for the Bolt EV on March 17, and all 400 cars available were sold out in two hours.








Chief Executive Election candidates John Tsang, Carrie Lam and Woo Kwok-hing stand on stage during the announcement of the results of the Hong Kong Chief Executive Election.



Beijing's preferred candidate promises more inclusive leadership and better ties between executive and legislature



By Joyce Ng, Tony Cheung, Jeffie Lam, Stuart Lau, Kimmy Chung





Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor was elected as Hong Kong's first female leader on Sunday, promising to unite a divided city with a more inclusive style of governance and appealing for the chance to start a new chapter.

The former No 2 official, who secured 777 out of the 1,186 votes cast by the Election Committee tasked to pick the next chief executive, also vowed to find ways to improve relations between the executive and the legislature.

However, opposition politicians remained sceptical, given her non-committal response to their demands for universal suffrage. They also pointed out that she was picked by a small-circle electorate despite being eclipsed in the popularity stakes by John Tsang Chun-wah, who finished a distant secondwith 365 votes.

The third candidate, retired judge Woo Kwok-hing, managed only 21 votes.

The State Council's Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office said the election had been "open, fair and orderly", and that Lam "fitted" Beijing's requirements for a chief executive. The office will now get started on procedures to formally appoint Lam.

Beijing's liaison office said it expected Lam to implement the "one country, two systems" policy and the Basic Law "accurately".

While critics called the election result "a defeat of the people's majority views" and blamed it on Beijing's "interference" in lobbying support for Lam, the former chief secretary projected her win as the fruit of her own labour and that of her team.

Popular underdog Tsang appeared gracious in defeat, hugging Lam on stage and later urging Hongkongers to accept the result and support the winner for the good of the city.

Delivering her victory speech in a conciliatory tone, Lam, 59, said she had realised her shortcomings and learned humility on the campaign trail.

"Hong Kong, our home, is suffering from quite a serious divisiveness and has accumulated a lot of frustration," she said.

"My priority will be to heal the divide and to ease the frustration  and to unite our society to move forward."

To achieve that, Lam said, she would choose talent on merit rather than political affiliation, and form a platform to maintain regular communication with all parties in the legislature.

However, regarding the pan-democrats' biggest demand  restarting the stalled electoral reform process with the goal of universal suffrage  Lam would only say she would start with "easier subjects that will not be severely affected by one's political affiliation".

She vowed to uphold the "one country, two systems"formula for Hong Kong and the city's core values such as inclusiveness, respect for human rights, rule of law and clean government.

Lam promised to get moving on taking the city forward, starting with the policy proposals in her manifesto, such as ramping up spending on education, lowering the profits tax rate for smaller enterprises and boosting land supply for housing.

The higher-than-expected vote tally reflected "unprecedented unity" among the pro-establishment camp under "the central government's full support", said Lau Siu-kai, vice-president of the Chinese Association of Hong Kong and Macau Studies, a quasi-official think tank based in Beijing.

Lau said the pro-Beijing camp, split between outgoing chief executive Leung Chun-ying and Henry Tang Ting-yen in the last election, had unified behind Lam this time.

Leung won the 2012 election with 689 votes, earning the number as a derogatory nickname.

In yesterday's election, only about 60 pro-Beijing votes are believed to have gone to Tsang, who had been promised 300 votes by the pan-democrats.

It has been reported that Beijing officials lobbied Election Committee members  including Hong Kong's richest man, Li Ka-shing  to vote for Lam. Two of Tsang's nominators also made a last-minute U-turn on Saturday, with one of them, Ricky Chim Kim-lung, admitting he had been approached by the liaison office.

Tsang himself denied any knowledge of Beijing's "interference" yesterday, while Lam would not concede that her success was a result of the central government's lobbying.

Asked whether she would have the courage to stand up to Beijing on issues opposed by Hongkongers, Lam replied: "You have seen my guts. I will remain fearless on issues that are for the good of Hong Kong."

The new leader in waiting said she would visit the liaison office in the coming few days "as part of the protocol", along with visits to other offices, including that of the incumbent chief executive.

Former chief executive Tung Chee-hwa, now a state leader, said Lam would be able to lead Hong Kong out of its troubles.

Ray Yep Kin-man, a public policy professor at City University, said Lam's victory was a "demonstration of democracy in Chinese style" and "a defeat of Hong Kong's majority view". She should form a cabinet with credible figures to rebuild trust.
A pink phone, suspected of belonging to the Moritomo Kindergarten president's wife Kagoike Aki, received a text message that says "I want to believe you," sent from Akie Abe on Feb. 25. / Screen captured from Akie-leaks



By Eom Da-sol





Abe Akie

A mysterious Japanese website has disclosed text messages allegedly exchanged between the Japanese Prime Minister's wife Akie Abe and the Moritomo Kindergarten president's wife Aki Kagoike, key players in a political scandal sweeping Japan.

The website, "Akie-leaks," posted 73 photos of a pink mobile device showing text messages. It alleged that Kagoike owns the device. The post was named "Part of text messages exchanged between Mrs. Abe and Mrs. Kagoike by time."

Some of the messages were the same as those the Liberal Democratic Party of Japan disclosed hours before the post, adding credibility to the website.

Akie Abe has been at the center of a political scandal since last month for retaining her relationship with the kindergarten in Osaka.

It was suggested that the kindergarten, where Akie Abe was an honorary principal until she resigned last month, bought land from the government last year at a reduced price and received reimbursement from the government unlawfully.

Last month, Shinzo Abe strongly denied the scandal and said: "I will resign as prime minister and as a member of parliament if my wife and I have done anything wrong."

Some Japanese internet users questioned Akie-leaks, suggesting "the photos might have been fabricated" and "the source of photos is unknown."

Akie-leaks was published as a domain on Mar. 24 but the owner's name was not registered, according to domain information lookup website Whois.
Shimiken / Courtesy of Twitter



By Lee Han-soo

Adult movie actors are in short supply in Japan.

"The number of adult film actors is less than the known population of Bengal tigers," said Shimiken, 35, touted as the king of adult films. "We are at the edge of extinction."

There are more than 10,000 actresses in the Japanese adult film industry but only about 70 actors. There are far fewer so-called "talented" actors.

"I have been with more than 7,500 actresses since I debuted 19 years ago," Shimiken said. "However, I have recently been feeling my limits."

He said about 4,000 adult videos are made monthly in Japan and male actors are always needed.

"If you are looking for a job, look no further," he said. "This job has a lot of perks."
With his still unclear date of enlistment, Lee Min Ho talks about what he wants to do before doing so. The handsome actor attended the press conference for MBC's documentary "DMZ, The Wild".

According to All Kpop, Lee Min Ho's press conference was held on Wednesday, March 29. During the said event, the actor spoke about his pending military enlistment.

In his statement, Lee Min Ho said that he would feel gloomy if the time comes for him to enlist, just like everyone enlisting in the military would feel so. Lee Min Ho added that he would like to work on more projects as he can as he wait for the final date for his enlistment.

Lee Min Ho is the narrator of MBC's documentary "DMZ, The Wild". In the press conference, the actor stated how he felt guilty of the soldiers stationed at the Korean Demilitarized Zone.

"All the soldiers stationed at the DMZ were very young. I felt a sense of guilt," said Lee Min Ho during the event. The actor reportedly camped at the Korean DMZ for 3 days and 2 nights.

MBC's "DMZ, The Wild" is a documentary that reveals the scenic view around the Demilitarized Zone. Lee Min Ho stated why he took part in the documentary for 2 reasons: He has an interest in documentary films; and the actor liked the experience of being at the DMZ himself.

The film's director, Kim Jung Min, also stated that Lee Min Ho took part in the project for free. He director added that Lee Min Ho's passion for documentaries is not just for show. "DMZ, The Wild" is scheduled for airing on Monday, April 3.

In other news, rumors continue to spread about Lee Min Ho and girlfriend Suzy Bae's wedding. There are also rumors that Suzy Bae is pregnant, reports Korea Portal.

However, Lee Min Ho has neither confirmed nor denied the rumors. Suzy Bae's side has also not released a statement regarding the rumors yet.
Historic ties of north Meck span throughout region Though the north Mecklenburg area didnt see significant population growth until a few decades ago, its rich history dates back to the Revolutionary War. That was the basis of...

An easier-than-expected first mammogram experience HUNTERSVILLE  Scheduling a cancer screening probably ranks somewhere on your to-do list between "clean out the garage" and "donate those clothes that don't fit." Sure, you'll get to it at...
The Director General of the Geneva based World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) Dr. Francis Gurry has commended Sri Lankas efforts to draft a national policy on Traditional Knowledge (TK) and Traditional Cultural Expressions (TCEs) and has expressed hope that the WIPO supported twin national and cross-regional workshops on this theme to be held in Colombo in April 2017 will lead to legislation that will protect and give value to the intellectual property rights associated with Traditional Knowledge (TK), and Traditional Cultural Expressions (TCEs) unique to Sri Lanka. He also praised Sri Lanka for the enhancement of national capacities in several spheres of intellectual property in the country in recent years and for its continued cooperation and active engagement with WIPO.

The Director General made these observations when he met Secretary to the Ministry of Industry and Commerce Mr. Chinthaka S. Lokuhetti in Geneva on 30th March 2017, on the sidelines of the 37th Session of the Standing Committee on the Law of Trademarks, Industrial Designs and Geographical Indications (SCT) held from 27-30 March 2017 in Geneva.

Earlier in his address to the Standing Committee Meeting, Secretary Lokuhetti, noted that the Cabinet of Ministers had approved amendments to the Intellectual Property Act No.36 of 2003, which aims to facilitate registration of Geographical Indications in Sri Lanka and safeguard the interests of the producers and exports of Ceylon Tea and Ceylon Cinnamon. The proposed amendment as an interim measure to protect Geographical Indications (GIs) has now been gazetted, and will be tabled in Parliament shortly and National Intellectual Property Office of Sri Lanka (NIPO) is making preparations to issue GI registration certificates accordingly.

Secretary Lokuhetti also met with Mr. Minelik Getahun, Assistant Director General of the Global Issues Sector of WIPO who has been invited by the Government of Sri Lanka to participate in the national workshop and G-15 member States workshop on Traditional Knowledge, and Sri Lankas celebration of World IP Day to be held in the week of 24th April 2016 in Colombo. The visit of Mr. Getahun will be the most high-level official visit from WIPO since the visit of DG Gurrys visit to Sri Lanka in November 2013, when a 10 Point GoSL-WIPO Intellectual Property Action Plan was initiated, and under which significant progress has been made in all spheres of cooperation.

The Secretary also met the Director of the Regional Bureau for Asia and Pacific of WIPO, Mr. Andrew Michael Ong, where the support of WIPO was sought in the formulation of the national IP policy for Sri Lanka, accession to Madrid Protocol, development of IP Hubs within Sri Lanka and in strengthening the capacity of the National IP office (NIPO), in terms of structure, human resources and skills, including the development of middle level management. It was agreed that relevant officials from Sri Lanka undertake a Study Visit to the Republic of Korea in June 2017, with the objective of learning from the best practices in establishing a coherent IP strategy.

Sri Lanka's Permanent Representative to the UN in Geneva Ambassador Ravinatha Aryasinha, Sri Lanka's Permanent Representative to the World Trade Organization (WTO) Ambassador R.D.S. Kumararatne, Director General of the National Intellectual Property Office of Sri Lanka (NIPO), Mrs. Geethanjali Ranawaka, Second Secretary of the Geneva Mission Ms. Dilini Gunasekera, and Mr. Gihan Indraguptha, Head of the G-15 Secretariat were associated in the discussions.

Press release in PDF

Permanent Mission of Sri Lanka

Geneva

31 March 2017
PRESS RELEASE

Lavrov: Russia Ready To Develop Relations with Washington

March 30, 2017 (EIRNS)In a wide-ranging interview with the National Interest magazine, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Russia is ready to establish good relations with the U.S., while exposing the role of Hillary Clinton in launching an anti-Russian campaign in the West as early as 2012.

When asked about his expectations and goals in dealing with Secretary Tillerson, and relations with President Donald Trump, Lavrov replied:

"Well, after the American election, soon after Election Day President Putin and President-elect Trump talked over the phone. It was a good but very general discussion touching upon the key issues in our relations, and of course the key international issues. And they agreed that they would continue being in touch, and after the inauguration they talked again, and they reconfirmed the need to look for ways which would be effective in handling international problems. And of course to see what could be done to bring the bilateral relations to normalcy. They also agreed that Mr. Rex Tillerson and I would look into the agenda in some more details, and would also discuss the preparation for the presidential meeting which should take place when both countries, both leaders feel comfortable. "And we met with Rex in mid-February in Bonn on the margins of the G20 ministerial meeting, and covered quite a lot of the bilateral agenda. I briefed him about the relationship on bilateral issues with the Obama administration, the problems which accumulated during that period. We did not go into the substance of this, I just briefed him so that his team, which is still being assembled, could take a look at these issues and determine what kind of attitude they would have on them. And we discussed Syria, Iran, the Korean Peninsula, the Middle East in general, relations between Russia and the West. It was a very general, but rather substantive discussion. Obviously it was the first contact, and Mr. Rex Tillerson is just getting into the shoes of his new capacity. We discussed the possibility of personal meeting and have been continuing these discussions. As soon as we finalize them it will be announced."

Asked what he considered "normal" relations with the U.S. Lavrov said:

"Normal is to treat your partners with respect, not to try to impose some of your ideas on others without taking into account their own views and their concerns, always to try to listen and to hear, and hopefully not to rely on a superiority complex, which was obviously the case with the Obama administration. They were obsessed with their exceptionality, with their leadership. Actually the founding fathers of the United Statesthey also spoke of their leadership, and they believed that the American nation was exceptional, but they wanted others just to take the American experience as an example and to follow suit. They never suggested that the United States should impose, including by force, its values on others. "And the Obama administration was clearly different. Actually, long before Ukraine, long before Crimea, in early December 2012, there was an OSCE ministerial meeting in Dublin. And Hillary Clinton was Secretary of State and was the head of the delegation. We had a bilateral meeting with her. She was trying to persuade me on something which was a difficult issue on the agenda, but I recall this situation because in the margins of this ministerial meeting, she attended a meeting in the University of Dublin, and she delivered a lecture in which she said something like: We are trying to figure out effective ways to slow down or prevent the move to re-Sovietize the former Soviet space. December 2012! "What kind of action she was considering as the move to re-Sovietize the space, I really couldnt understand. Yes, there were discussions about Ukraine, about Kazakhstan, Belarus and Russia, forming the Customs Union, and if this was the reason, then of course it showed very obviously the real attitude of the Obama administration to what was going on in the former Soviet space and the area of the Commonwealth of Independent Statesits obvious desire to take over this geopolitical space around Russia without even caring what Moscow might think. "This was the reason for the crisis in Ukraine, when the U.S. and European Union bluntly told the Ukrainians: either you are with us, or you are with Russia against us. And the very fragile Ukrainian state couldnt sustain this kind of pressure, and what happened happened: the coup, and so on and so forth.... But my point is that they considered normal that the people in Obamas team should call the shots anywhere, including around such a big country as the Russian Federation. And this is absolutely abnormal in my view."

Lavrov spoke about the obvious operations against Trump: "I understand that there are some people in the United States who want this to become an obstacle, and who want to tie up the team of President Trump on the Russian issue, and I believe this is very mean policy, but we see that this is taking place," Lavrov said.
Perhaps the great (however obvious) lesson of the last several years  the waves of police violence against black men, the bitter and hate-fueled rise of Trump and worldwide xenophobia  is that we have not transcended and learned from history nearly as well as we might have thought. Maybe we need reminding. In two recent books, Map to the Stars by Adrian Matejka and Voyage of the Sable Venus, the 2015 debut by Robin Coste Lewis, black poets jog our collective memories, facing the distant and recent history of black Americans, asking us to try to see ourselves in their mirrors.

Lewis, who won the 2015 National Book Award in poetry for this book, is a challenging poet, both because her poems stare unflinchingly at evidence of some of Americas most shameful sins and because her fierce intelligence casts its gaze in long, sometimes exhausting poems. She is many poets in one: formalist, surrealist, experimentalist, collage artist, confessor. She is a poet and a scholar (her degrees include a masters in theological studies in Sanskrit and comparative religious literature from Harvard Divinity School), but her poems show she has also deeply studied visual art, cataloging the history of representations of the subjugation of black womens bodies at the hands of whites. She doesnt merely cast blame at white Americans, though; this book is also a personal history: the black side / of my family owned slaves, she writes on the books first page. Lewis struggle to discern her own culpability makes this book as mesmerizing as it is disturbing.

What can History possibly say?

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Sometimes I feel a pride I cannot defend

or explain. Sometimes I smile.

Into the barbed nectar

of this story I have stared

my whole life.

For Lewis, the past  both near and distant  is a constant presence. Whatever she trains her attention on  from cultural monuments to personal memories  reveals a latticework of proofs that black women simply are not free. The poem Frame is a condensed personal history of growing up in the 1970s around L.A., where white farmers land borders black neighborhoods and a new library becomes both the hopeful key to escape and a haunting reminder of how reluctant history is to let lives change:

 English was really a type of trick math:

like the naked Emperor, you could be a King

capable of imagining just one single dream;

or there could be a body, bloody

at your feet  then you could point at the sky;

or you could be a hunched-over cotton-picking shame;

or you could swing from a tree by your neck into the frame.

Two groups of lyric poems frame Lewis most startling work, a masterful achievement from which the collection takes its title. The books 80-page central poem is composed of nothing but juxtaposed language from titles and catalog descriptions of works of art in which black women appear, grouped into sets of roughly chronological stanzas like this:

Bust of a Nubian Prisoner

with Fragmentary Arms

Bound Behind Funerary Mask

of a Negro with Inlaid Glass Eyes

and Traces of Incrustations

Present in the Mouth

It constructs a kind of narrative tour through the shameful history of white depiction of the black female body, difficult to excerpt and an endurance test for the reader. The product of exhaustive research, this poem makes central what has heretofore been marginalized  it collects the language used to describe the least important people in the paintings. Or, when black figures are central subjects, they are often described in words that exoticize, fetishize, generalize, romanticize or in other ways dehumanize them. This poem presents a jaw-dropping lexicon of injustice that has been carried forward in the language for centuries.

In Lure, another extended poem, Lewis recounts childhood sexual abuse in excruciating, unprintable detail; it is Lewis most poignant statement about memory:

I am not three.

You are not seventy-nine  .

I am not admiring the shine

Of my new white patent leather shoes

Resting at the edge of your knee.

Denying the traumas of the past, negating them, only serves to etch them more deeply into present consciousness. Lewis linguistic erasure of personal trauma mirrors the public erasure enacted in the titles and descriptions of works of art, hidden in plain sight.

Matejka was a National Book Award finalist for his third collection, The Big Smoke, about the groundbreaking African American boxer Jack Johnson. His fourth book, Map to the Stars, is an autobiographical work that, like Lewis, takes its inspiration from the visual arts  though not just high art. Set in 1980s Indianapolis, these poems tell the story of Matejkas youth using a budding teens obsession with space as an extended metaphor. When Matejkas speaker looks up, he sees ancient heroes posturing in the edges of the Earths/ afro. Its a place where poor only matters around / people who arent poor.

Matejka describes a not-unhappy life of modest means. We have a brown couch, a dining table with a trick leg & two chairs. A B&W set with its own wheeled stand. A secondhand turntable that works when we can find a good needle. But this life is also shadowed by the absentee fatherism of it. Where have all the fathers gone? Well, this is the world of Post-Vietnam Blacks  the title of one poem  in which many of the men, and much of the hope, reside in The spacious myth of space.

Instead of Lewis catalogs of art, Matejka offers as a mirror-world the 80s craze for space exploration. This was the era of the Voyager II space mission and Star Trek reruns; the final frontier represents all the lies beyond the citys limits and limitations, including the promise of prosperity in the suburbs.

A series of Startdate poems recasts childhood antics and trials in the parlance of Star Trek:

Either

Im a red shirt or the captain.

Either I can hear

my mother call or I saw

a molester peeking from

the drainpipe. Stranger

danger ...

Matejka reclaims this cultural material, which, in other hands, would be merely kitschy. He walks a narrow line, on one side of which is sentimentality; on the other is the wide-eyed freshness and innocence with which youth views the world, which we are all ever struggling to recall. He makes Star Trek feel tragic, irreparably lost and powerfully filled with hope and promise.

In this figurative universe, Voyagers golden record / [that] spun someplace in the space / between Uranus & Neptune rather obviously points toward the rise of hip-hop culture and the onset of adolescence for these poems protagonist. If Lewis seeks to show how high culture has functioned to alienate and subjugate black Americans, Matejka reminds us of the claims black Americans have on popular culture and current events, and offers a fresh set of figures for describing the youth of black Americans now entering middle age.

Like Lewis, Matejka also looks closely at paintings. A series of ekphrastic poems animates the subject matter of Jean-Michel Basquiats works. Basquiat was a black artist  along with Max Roach, Eddie Murphy, Richard Pryor, Sun Ra and Prince, all of whom make appearances  who created an original cultural language to describe an African American experience. Matejka also finds common ground with other poetic close observers and urban chroniclers, including Emily Dickinson, Gwendolyn Brooks, Lynda Hull and Yusef Komunyakaa.

There is truly an astounding wealth of material here, cultural artifacts that add up to an ironclad allegory for the plight of urban African Americans in the 80s, which serves to point the way to where we are now.

These poets ask how can we escape or overcome the past. By staring at it, they seem to answer, as into a mirror, until we catch up to what made us.

Teicher is the editor of Once and for All: The Best of Delmore Schwartz. His next book of poetry, The Trembling Answers, will be published in April.

Map to the Stars

Adrian Matejka

Penguin: 128 pp., $18 paper

Voyage of the Sable Venus

Robin Coste Lewis

Knopf: 160 pp., $19.95 paper
In his superb account of the final, violent throes of World War I, military historian Gene Fax tells of an American lieutenant who watched as ambulances pulled to the side of the road to let the artillery, which had priority, pass.

From time to time, the lieutenant wrote, our men would glance curiously into the ambulances, at the shattered and bleeding forms, many of them blackened, disfigured, and torn beyond recognition, as if trying to decide what they themselves would look like shortly.

Next year will mark the centennial of the armistice that ended what was initially called the Great War in which industrial-strength weaponry  machine guns, poison gas, flamethrowers, long-range artillery and early model tanks, plus aerial bombing and target spotting  killed millions. America ventured into the slaughterhouse of Europes Western Front reluctantly, even grudgingly, in the fourth year of war.

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Fax, a member of the Society for Military History, has written a compelling account of the hastily assembled, lightly trained American Expeditionary Forces: With Their Bare Hands: General Pershing, the 79th Division, and the Battle for Montfaucon.

Fax does not focus on how the war began. That subject area has been largely worked over: the assassination of the Austro-Hungarian archduke in June 1914, the interlocking alliances and hatreds of the European powers, the horrors of trench warfare.

For years, President Wilson was stubbornly determined that America would remain neutral. Only when German submarines began sinking U.S. ships did he relent. The United States declared war on Germany in spring 1917.

Cmdr. Gen. John Pershing announced that his troops, the American Expeditionary Forces, would fight as an American army and not as replacements for the depleted French and British forces. To the dismay of the Allies, he insisted that his troops needed more training. Not until the late summer of 1918 did the Americans join the battlefield en masse. The Germans were close to Paris and the French were near panic.

Fax closely examines the role of the AEF in the final 47-day battle in the Argonne Forest that preceded the Nov. 11 armistice. He makes copious yet judicious use of letters home by frontline soldiers, official after-action reports, studies by historians and the published memoirs of high-ranking officers on both sides.

At close to 500 pages, With Their Bare Hands is not a swift read. There are a lot of names, unit numbers and moving parts. Yet the effort is more than rewarded for anyone interested in how the United States, fitfully and on its own terms, was forced to assert itself as a world power.

Fax points out the American armys many battlefield shortcomings: communication snafus, inability to get food and water to the troops, lack of coordination between infantry and artillery and transportation gridlock.

With Their Bare Hands supports a military truism that going into battle without allies can be difficult, but going into battle with allies can be even more difficult.

The U.S. military learned to fight by fighting.

Gen. Black Jack Pershing thought the British and French  particularly the French  had lost the will to fight and settled into a rank stalemate. For their part, British and French commanders thought the American soldiers were too undisciplined and soft.

Both sides were wrong, Fax writes. The Americans were green but gutsy. The allies, bloodied at the Somme and Verdun, hated trench warfare and desperately tried for a breakthrough.

Fax quotes historian Michael Howard that armies often find themselves with poor strategies not necessarily through the stupidity of their leaders but because all other options seem to be foreclosed or appear demonstrably worse.

The centerpiece of With Their Bare Hands is the struggle for Montfaucon in northeastern France, a ridge that gave the Germans an unobstructed view of the battlefield. The Americans failure to take it as quickly as planned has been widely criticized, particularly by the French.

(Two fine books in the last year have dealt with the same battle: William Walkers Betrayal at Little Gibraltar and Mitchell Yockelsons Forty-Seven Days.)

Fax does not support Pershings triumphalism that the AEF won the war. On the other hand, he says that by forcing the Germans to call for reinforcements, the Americans took pressure off the British and French in their section of the front.

Yet the Americans made a tactical error in maintaining a rigid sense of turf. Each unit had its own territory and was not to cross over into anothers sector even if the troops in the latter were pleading for help.

One U.S. artillery captain said to hell with the rules and ordered a strike into an off-limits zone, destroying several enemy artillery batteries. For his defiance, he was threatened with court martial, although the threat was never carried out.

Three decades later the upstart captain  one Harry Truman  was a candidate for president against long odds. Veterans of the division he had rescued remembered the favor and came to his aid.

Fax admires Pershings tenacity. Still, he criticizes Black Jack for refusing to grasp the need to coordinate artillery and infantry and to accept that the ultimate weapon of war was no longer the hard-charging infantry soldier with a rifle and bayonet.

The U.S. military learned to fight by fighting. Of 2 million Americans who went to France, 205,000 returned having been wounded; almost 72,000 (killed by combat or illness) returned not at all.

The American public had learned a lesson that it still finds hard to accept: The cost of being a world power is high.

The chief American contribution to victory was not its battlefield performance although that was far from negligible, Fax concludes. It was to make clear to the exhausted Germans that they could no longer hope to win a war of attrition.

No matter how many Americans became casualties, there would always be millions more.

Tony Perry covered the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as a reporter for the Los Angeles Times. After leaving The Times in 2015, he is writing a book about the Marines in World War I.

With Their Bare Hands: General Pershing, the 79th Division, and the Battle for Montfaucon

By Gene Fax

Osprey Publishing: 496 pp., $30
Republicans in Congress and statehouses across the country harbor an antipathy to Medicaid that is impossible to explain, except as hostility to the poor families that are its chief beneficiaries.

Sam Brownback, the GOP governor of Kansas, translated ideology into action on Thursday when he vetoed a bill that would have made Kansas the 32nd state to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act. The measure would have brought health coverage to as many as 180,000 of his states residents, with the federal government picking up 95% of the tab this year. Yet in his veto message Brownback called the expansion an irresponsible budget-buster.

Thats not the only flaw in Brownbacks statement. He calls Medicaid a welfare program, which isnt true, and alludes to restarted negotiations in Washington, D.C., to repeal the ACA, which already have broken down. He gripes that the expansion bill passed by the Kansas legislature doesnt cut off funding for Planned Parenthood, which of course is a Republican blind spot that no medical treatment can probably cure. He also took a coded swipe increasingly heard from the GOP by identifying the expansion beneficiaries as the able-bodied. More on that in a moment.

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The cost of expanding Medicaid under ObamaCare is irresponsible and unsustainable.  Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback, whose budget policies have put his state in an economic hole

First, lets examine some of the other common right-wing slams of Medicaid. One often heard from House Speaker Paul D. Ryan, R-Wisc., and Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price is that Medicaid patients cant find doctors to treat them. One out of every three physicians in this nation arent seeing Medicaid patients, Price said recently; Ryans version, uttered during a press conference earlier this month but repeated endlessly, is that more and more doctors just dont take Medicaid.That is a huge, growing problem with Medicaid.

Of course, Prices calculation means that more than two-thirds of doctors do accept Medicaid patients. Nor is there any evidence that that figure is generally falling. Nationally, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation, Medicaid patients access to care and their satisfaction with their coverage is very close to that of people with employer-paid insurance  and way ahead of people with no insurance.

The percentage of doctors accepting Medicaid patients does vary widely among states and metropolitan areas, but that mostly has to do with physician reimbursement rates, which vary state-by-state. Theres an obvious remedy for that local effect and the national acceptance rate, well within the power of Ryan to rectify, with Prices help: raise the reimbursement rates, which are well below those paid by private insurers and Medicare.

Conservatives love to assert that Medicaid does little to improve the health and well-being of its enrollees. Thats also contradicted by the facts. A study led by Benjamin Sommers of Harvards school of public health compared health statistics in Kentucky and Arkansas, which expanded Medicaid, with Texas, which did not. It found that in the expansion states, enrollees were far less likely to skip medications because of cost, spent much less out-of-pocket on care, and had fewer visits to the emergency room. Diabetes screening was improved, as was regular care for chronic conditions. Medicaid enrollees reported improved healthcare quality and described their own health as better.

Nevertheless, expansion opponents continue to rely on these myths, as well as the argument that Medicaid expansion is somehow a handout to able-bodied Americans at the expense of enrollees in traditional Medicaid. Traditional Medicaid targets children and their parents, while the expansion brought in childless adults with household incomes up to 138% of the federal poverty line. Among the subtexts here is that the federal government pays less of the cost of the traditional program than it does of the expansion. The governments share of the latter will drift down to 90% in 2020 and remain there, unless Congress changes it.

The notion that able-bodied Americans are getting away with something is what animates the crusade to add work requirements to expansion Medicaid. The flaw here is that Medicaid is not a welfare program for the jobless, but a healthcare program. Its benefits never have been predicated on recipients seeking or holding a job, in part because thats unnecessary: About 80% of all Medicaid recipients already are members of working households, and 60% are working themselves. Of the others, according to a 2016 survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation, all but 3% are ill or disabled, going to school, are family caregivers at home, retired, or unable to find a job. In other words, work requirements appear to be more an ideologically punitive step than a practical one.

Brownback isnt the only state-level Republican to continue opposing Medicaid expansion. The North Carolina legislature is still trying to thwart the efforts of the newly elected Democratic governor, Roy Cooper, to implement expansion. Theyve filed a lawsuit asserting that his effort to do so unilaterally would violate a 2013 law that requires legislative approval; Coopers position is that the law infringes on his constitutional prerogatives as governor. Coverage for as many as 500,000 low-income residents hangs in the balance.

The Idaho Senate earlier this month rejected a Democratic plan that would have brought an estimated 78,000 residents under Medicaids umbrella, and the idea appears to be dead for the year. Republican Gov. Butch Otter has said that expansion would mean subordinating our Idaho priorities to the siren song of federal dollars. In Missouri, Gov. Eric Greitens has blown off a Democratic legislative effort to expand Medicaid. Republican legislators in Virginia remain united against Democratic Gov. Terry McAuliffes drive to cover as many as 400,000 Virginians.

Elsewhere, the collapse of House Republicans ACA repeal measure has prompted Republican-dominated statehouses to reconsider their long opposition to Medicaid expansion. That includes Georgia, where Gov. Nathan Deal said he would consider some form of expansion, possibly through a federal waiver that would allow the state to fashion its own version of expanded Medicaid. But that probably wont happen this year, and opposition remains strong in the legislature.

Brownbacks veto was expected, because although the legislatures expansion measure won great support even among Republicans, it didnt reach the two-thirds majority needed to override a veto. Efforts are underway now to drum up enough additional votes to do so within the 30-day window allowed by Kansas law.

Supporters of expansion have reason to find Brownbacks veto message especially irksome. Thats because he contends that the expansion would place a burden on the state budget. The cost of expanding Medicaid under ObamaCare is irresponsible and unsustainable, he wrote. The major burden on the Kansas budget comes from Brownbacks own policies, which encompassed huge tax cuts that brought great benefits to the states higher-income residents while leading to ruinous budget cuts for state services and schools. Brownback defended the tax cuts as the key to supercharged job growth, but that hasnt happened. Instead, economic growth in Kansas has fallen behind the country as a whole, its neighbor Missouri, and states that pursued a more rational budget policy such as California, which has left Kansas in the dust.

Given Brownbacks insistence on the wisdom of his policy despite its obvious failure, no one had a right to expect he would take a smarter line on Medicaid expansion. Nor have the other Republican state leaders who are clinging to their dead-end notion that they should turn up their nose at billions of dollars in federal funds to bring healthcare to hundreds of thousands of their residents. If the failure of the House GOPs repeal measure doesnt show them that its time to get on board with Medicaid, what will?

Keep up to date with Michael Hiltzik. Follow @hiltzikm on Twitter, see his Facebook page, or email michael.hiltzik@latimes.com.

Return to Michael Hiltziks blog.
Followers of the Wells Fargo scandal, in which bank employees opened as many as 2 million checking, savings and credit card accounts behind customers backs in order to meet their own quotas, may have been surprised by the recent announcement that the bank would settle as many as a dozen class-action lawsuits related to the scandal for $110 million.

That may sound like a lot of money, but to us, that sounded low. It sounds low to lawyers for some of the victims too. Thats according to my colleague James Rufus Koren, who reported Friday that some of those lawyers are out to kill the deal. Lets hope they can, because the settlement would allow Wells Fargo to exploit one of its sleazier customer policies to shortchange not only its victims, but the public.

Theres only one place thats had that decision, and ... thats the only place where Wells Fargo wants these cases settled. We think thats a little dubious.  Christopher Hood, lawyer for Wells Fargo victims

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The sleazy policy at the heart of this noisome deal is the banks insistence that any customer with a dispute must bring that dispute to arbitration, not to a courtroom. As weve reported, this is a requirement that chiefly benefits Wells Fargo, because big companies almost invariably have an advantage over their customers in arbitration. In fact, the arbitration clause may have helped Wells Fargo cover up the scandal for years, because arbitration cases arent reported publicly.

The clause is especially obnoxious in the context of this scandal. Thats because, on the face of things, one would think that the employees who were saddling customers with bogus accounts were operating outside the bounds of the account agreement the customers had signed.

But the banks position has been: Once you become our customer, youre doomed to arbitration no matter what. Among all the lawsuits erupting from the scandal thus far, the bank has obtained one ruling in its favor, from San Francisco Federal Judge Vince Chhabria. He ruled last September that, since Wells employees had used personal information the customers had given the bank to open their legitimate accounts, the misuse of that information may relate to the legitimate accounts. Therefore, the banks insistence on arbitration is not wholly groundless, Chhabria ruled, and ordered the customers into arbitration.

Remarkably, Chhabria even extended his ruling to Kaylee Heffelfinger, who alleges that two fake accounts were opened in her name before she opened legitimate accounts. But the judge bought the banks argument that Heffelfinger already had provided bank employees with enough personal information, even though she hadnt actually finished opening her real accounts. So he dismissed her lawsuit too.

Unsurprisingly, Wells Fargo is trying to leverage this one advantageous ruling to its own benefit. The settlement it reached was in the case in Chhabrias court, the only place the bank has scored a victory on arbitration.

Theres only one place thats had that decision, and it turns out thats the only place where Wells Fargo wants these cases settled, Christopher Hood, a lawyer in Birmingham, Ala., with two federal lawsuits against the bank, told Koren. We think thats a little dubious.

But it could apply nationwide; plaintiffs in other lawsuits would have to opt out of the settlement to proceed with their own cases.

Theres another reason a settlement like this runs counter to the public interest: It could forestall discovery in the other lawsuits.

There are ample indications that the widespread practice of opening bogus accounts without customer consent may have been known at the highest level of Wells Fargo management, including former Chairman and Chief Executive John Stumpf; his successor as CEO, Tim Sloan; and his successor as chairman, Stephen Sanger, a board member since 2003.

This attempt to short-circuit the litigation further gives the lie to the banks claim that its committed to do everything it can to rectify the alleged fraud  to make things right and restore trust, as its publicity material says. Customers still seem very skittish about doing business with Wells Fargo, and this settlement may be another sign that theyre right.

Keep up to date with Michael Hiltzik. Follow @hiltzikm on Twitter, see his Facebook page, or email michael.hiltzik@latimes.com.

Return to Michael Hiltziks blog.
China appeared to be planning for a wave of Disney theme parks: one in Zhengzhou, a transport hub in central China; another in Baotou, an industrial city known for its rare earths mining; even one in Hefei, the capital of Anhui, a province so poor its sometimes called the Appalachia of China.

But there was a catch: The Walt Disney Co. didnt know anything about them.

A former company employee, Meng Dekai, signed deals with several high-ranking Chinese officials  including the mayors of major provincial cities  to build Disney-related parks without the companys consent, Chinese media reported. Altogether, the deals involved 2,000 acres of land and an anticipated $4.3 billion of investment.

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Meng had the title of International Special Project Director at Disney and resigned on March 29, according to a Thursday report in International Financial News, an online subsidiary of the state-run Peoples Daily newspaper.

A representative of Disney did not respond to a request for comment. Disney has launched an investigation into the case, a company representative told the New York Times.

The deals underscore the pitfalls for foreign companies operating in the worlds second-largest economy, where local partners often operate with little oversight, and despite repeated government crackdowns, the business environment is plagued by corruption and fraud.

Chinese newspapers have reported on several deals connected with Meng, most in major provincial cities, raising some confusion over the apparent proliferation of Disney projects across the country. Meng is linked to 21 enterprises, all of which begin with the same Chinese character  Di  that Disney uses in its Chinese name, according to Tianyancha, an online database of Chinese companies.

Mengs first Disney-related project was in Ningbo, an industrial city in southeast Chinas Zhejiang province, in December 2009, according to the International Financial News. He opened a company branch office in the city, becoming its first legal representative.

The project is called Diqu Cultural Park and covers 93 acres, according to the Ningbo municipal governments webpage. Its main functions are research and manufacturing for Disneys merchandise, it said.

In 2012, the government of Baotou, an industrial capital of northern Chinas Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, signed a contract with one of Mengs companies  Diqu, which could translate to Disney interesting  to build a similar project.

Meng appears to have attracted scrutiny in late 2015.

Documents published by International Financial News showed that Disney signed a contract with the government of Henan  an impoverished, densely populated province in central China  on Nov. 19, 2015, agreeing to create a Disney branch in its capital Zhengzhou within three months. The agreement gave Disney a share of profits generated from Disney-authorized e-commerce platforms in the province.

Then, Meng allegedly went rogue. His company Dimei Investment  a name comprised of the Chinese characters for Disney and America  was registered five weeks later and soon entered into its own partnership with the Zhengzhou municipal government. In February, local officials announced the $435 million Walt Disney Zhengzhou, leading to widespread speculation that the company was planning a fully fledged theme park in the city.

The park would contain features such as a dream-like theme street and recreational center, the state broadcaster CCTV reported.

Yet on Feb. 13, Disney China denied that it had any plans for construction or major investments in the city.

According to International Financial News, local officials terminated the contract on March 15.

Dimei responded in a letter to the local government. First of all, Dimei is Disneys partner, and is a Disney-authorized company, it said, according to the report. Both parties had known this fact. We never intended to hide anything, or falsely state anything. Second, the construction in the agreement was Dimeis investment, unrelated to Walt Disney.

The status of the Baotou and Ningbo projects remain unclear.

Disney films and characters enjoy enormous popularity in China. Last June, the company opened a nearly 1,000-acre, $5.5-billion resort in Shanghai. The park has attracted 8 million visitors since its opening, Disney Chief Executive Robert Iger said at an annual shareholders meeting in early March.

Yet its popularity has also brought a scourge of copycats. Last May, visitors to a southeastern Chinese theme park operated by Dalian Wanda  Chinas largest commercial property company  found apparent employees dressed as Snow White, Star Wars Stormtroopers, and Captain America.

Another theme park in western Beijing, the Shijingshan Park, once featured a castle that resembles Disneys trademark Cinderellas Castle. Mickey Mouse, Goofy and other trademarked Disney characters roamed its streets. Chinese state media has reported that in recent years, the Disney-themed characters may have been removed.

Yingzhi Yang in The Times Beijing bureau contributed to this report.

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A scathing Los Angeles County study has concluded that the troubled Aliso Canyon natural gas facility isnt needed to ensure reliability of electricity and gas service in the region this summer or the coming winter.

That review sharply contrasts with the dire warnings issued last summer by state regulators, who stirred up fears of blackouts and the possibility of snuffed-out pilot lights come winter without the use of Aliso Canyon.

Some proponents of Aliso Canyon even took to social media, posting, Are Southern Californians Afraid of the Dark? to win support for keeping the storage facility in operation.

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But according to the countys study, the facility may not even be needed. Whats more, the California Public Utilities Commission and the California Energy Commission have produced reports that fail to provide the public with a complete picture of  the need for withdrawals from Aliso Canyon.

The information from California energy regulators on peak demand and the systems ability to supply that demand without Aliso Canyon are confusing and inconsistent, stated the report by EES Consulting, a Kirkland, Wash., engineering firm hired by the county.

The Aliso Canyon natural gas storage plant is the largest in the state and the fourth largest in the nation. Understanding its role as a backup supply during a heatwave or cold snap is essential as regulators decide on the fate of the plant, which has been largely shuttered since an October 2015 methane link.

The leak lasted four months  the worst such incident in the nations history  and led the state to order a moratorium on injections of gas into the plant and limit withdrawals while a review of its operations were conducted. The utilities commission is set to hold hearings in the L.A. area April 17 to receive public input on Aliso Canyon.

Scott Kuhn, principal deputy county counsel for Los Angeles County, said EES Consulting was hired because of Southern California Gas repeated blackout warnings.

Weve been through a winter and weve been through a summer and the sky is not falling, Kuhn said. The report shows [Aliso Canyon] is not really needed, he said, adding that further investigation is warranted.

The advocacy group Consumer Watchdog is also calling for an investigation. In a March 30 letter to state Atty. Gen. Xavier Becerra, the group said the report proves that regulators cannot be trusted to honestly assess the need for Aliso Canyon.

For consumer advocate Bill Powers, a San Diego engineer who has lobbied for the facilitys closure, the report offers some vindication.

Ultimately, the state really dropped the ball here, Powers said.

The utilities commission said it would review the county study as well as all other public comments submitted in advance of its final report on Aliso Canyon.

While the need for Aliso Canyon to meet demand in L.A. on high gas demand days has been reduced over the past year due to the success of mitigation measures and infrastructure upgrades to the electric transmission system, there is still a risk that there would be insufficient supplies of gas during a summer heat wave that could lead to curtailment of electric service, said Terrie Prosper, a utilities commission spokeswoman.

Prosper said voluntary reductions in gas usage will be an important part of maintaining reliability during high electricity demand through the summer in the event Aliso Canyon remains unavailable.

Albert Lundeen, a spokesman for the California Energy Commission, did not address conclusions in the L.A. County report but said in a statement that the commission would continue working with the PUC, California Independent System Operator and the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power to assure the energy system for Southern California remains reliable.

Residents near the plant want it closed for good after the methane leak upended their lives. About 8,000 residents, largely in the nearby Porter Ranch community, had to flee their homes, many complaining of headaches, nosebleeds and nausea. The gas leak kept some out of their homes for months.

In addition, realtors said the gas leak disrupted the housing market as the problem spooked potential home buyers and left some sellers in a lurch. Some residents fear that if the plant returns to full operation, they remain at risk for another major leak.

You have a lot of people who are leaving, said Andrew Krowne, who sits on the Porter Ranch Neighborhood Council. Krowne, an accountant whose office is in Porter Ranch, moved to Northridge after he, his wife and five children were displaced for five months in a hotel.

Its been proven again and again that this facility isnt needed, Krowne said about the latest report from EES. Youve still got ongoing health issues. People dont know whats going on with their bodies.

But that hasnt stopped Southern California Gas from pushing for the reopening of Aliso Canyon. The company says the plant is necessary to meet demand, pointing to withdrawals of gas on Jan. 24 and 25 when cold temperatures enveloped the region.

Without the plant, the company has been operating a little bit on the edge, said Chris Gilbride, a spokesman for Southern California Gas.

Los Angeles County has not shared their study with us, Gilbride said. However, in three consecutive technical assessments the states energy experts have concluded Aliso Canyon is necessary to support the reliability of the regions natural gas and electricity systems, and the results of those studies have been independently reviewed or verified by experts at the national labs.

One review by Walker & Associates and the Los Alamos National Laboratory described Aliso Canyon as an integral part of the SoCalGas system, without which the system cannot function at maximal utilization or handle potential shortages of gas in the L.A. Basin and other areas.

But it also pointed out that steps taken to offset the loss of Aliso Canyon may have helped prevent blackouts.

Those steps and other actions also eliminated the need to withdraw gas from Aliso Canyon in January, the county report said. At the time, Powers had argued that Southern California Gas was manipulating data to create an artificial need for fuel from Aliso Canyon.

Its embarrassing that the state, with so much attention on this, let SoCal Gas drive the bus and gin up a manufactured, artificial reason to withdraw a tiny amount of gas, Powers said.

ivan.penn@latimes.com

For more energy news, follow Ivan Penn on Twitter: @ivanlpenn
The gig: Elizabeth Echols, 56, is director of the state Office of Ratepayer Advocates, the agency that represents consumers before the California Public Utilities Commission. She oversees 147 engineers, economists and financial experts who work for low utility rates for consumers. The Boston native who grew up in Berkeley was confirmed to the post March 13.

Heroes: Echols is nothing if not passionate about the causes she pursues. Her mother, Jean Echols, an artist and educator in Berkeley, was her first inspiration. Observing her mothers enduring focus on helping children served as an example. Then she found heroes in Nelson Mandela and Martin Luther King Jr. The reason for that is just their commitment and sacrifice for the goal of equality and equal opportunity. Both of them were prepared to die for the cause.

For the record: An earlier version of this article stated that Elizabeth Echols is a Virginia native who lives in Oakland. She is a Boston native who lives in Berkeley.

Elite education: After graduating from Berkeley High School, Echols attended Yale University, from which she graduated in 1982 with a degree in economics and political science. I had decided at a very young age that I wanted to go back East, Echols said. But she eventually returned to the West Coast to earn her law degree from Stanford University in 1989.

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Down under: For many years, Echols was never one to stay put too long. She loves to travel. That love carried her to Australia for a year on a Rotary Foundation Fellowship to study economics after Yale. She once took a train for three days from city to city. Taking the train across Australia sounds boring, but it was fascinating. Crossing the desert for three days, it was beautiful because you just see the different times of day  all the little tiny towns.

Internet regulation: Echols joined the Clinton administration about four years after working for a private sector law firm in Washington, D.C. She first served in the Commerce Department and later at the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, which developed Internet policies under the direction of Vice President Al Gore, who popularized the term information superhighway.

We were working on what types of laws and regulations were needed for this new thing, Echols said of the period. She said Gore, an early critic of the digital divide, told them: Lets not overregulate it. Lets encourage it to grow. She eventually joined Gore in the White House.

Bridging the divide: After working in the Clinton administration on digital issues, Echols moved back to the San Francisco Bay Area for nonprofit work that focused on teaching low-income consumers, women and people of color about Web design and programming. She described it as some of her most rewarding work.

As Google talked of organizing the worlds information and making it accessible to everyone, she decided to join the Silicon Valley giant. She again connected with Gore, who at the time was talking about renewable energy and energy efficiency. That became her new focus. I was there listening to him in the audience, and I said, I really need to turn my time and talent to that, she said.

A new day: With the hope and change touted by the Obama administration, Echols returned to work for the federal government, this time as the U.S. Small Business Administration administrator for Western states. That was all about creating economic opportunity, Echols said. Eventually, the politics bug bit her and she made an unsuccessful run for the California Assembly to represent Berkeley, Oakland and other East Bay cities.

Whats next: As it has been through much of her career, Echols goal now is to ensure all people have equal access to services. Now its access to essential services, whether water or electricity, she said. The thread that runs through all of these different pieces of my career  for me its about creating opportunity and access for people, and particularly our underserved communities.

Echols knows the challenges of making ends meet first hand. She was one of four children raised by a mother who earned only a modest income as an artist. Its something she keeps in the forefront of her mind as she works to defend consumers against rate increases by utilities. I learned growing up the value of a dollar, Echols said. Its a dollar. Its important.

Personal: Echols lives in Berkeley with her husband of 12 years, Parviz Boozarpour. They have a 3-year-old daughter, Theresa. Shes a riot, Echols said. I like to hike. I like to camp. I actually met my husband on a Sierra Club hike. Though they dont travel as much with a young child, it remains one of her passions. Theres so much to see and learn about other cultures, she said.

ivan.penn@latimes.com

For more energy news, follow Ivan Penn on Twitter: @ivanlpenn
A dispute seems to be brewing between Alaska Airlines and Sir Richard Branson, the billionaire businessman who helped create California-based Virgin America.

Alaska Air Group, the parent company of Alaska Airlines, acquired Virgin America last year for $2.6 billion and announced plans to retire the Virgin America brand by 2019.

Branson, who opposed the sale, told reporters in Seattle this week that Alaska Air Group must pay royalties for the Virgin name under a licensing deal that runs until 2040, according to the Associated Press.

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According to earnings reports, Virgin America paid $7.7 million in 2015 to Bransons Virgin Group for the rights to the name. But the report said the licensing fee was scheduled to increase, starting in 2016, from 0.5% of total revenue to 0.7%.

During a conference call with investors this week, Alaska Air Group legal counsel Kyle B. Levine acknowledged that the contract for the Virgin America brand does extend until 2040.

So, Richard is accurate on that, he said. What he didnt mention is there are lots of ways out of the contract. And more to the point, in our view, no, we do not need to keep paying for a brand that were not using.

hugo.martin@latimes.com

To read more about the travel and tourism industries, follow @hugomartin on Twitter.
Wells Fargo & Co. said Tuesday it would pay $110 million to settle a raft of consumer lawsuits over the banks unauthorized accounts scandal, but lawyers behind some of those cases are hoping to kill the deal and push for a bigger payout.

Calling the agreement both premature and far too small, these lawyers say they plan to formally object to the settlement and take whatever other actions they can to keep their own cases going  and perhaps reach a more lucrative deal with the bank.

Our position is were moving forward however we can at this point, said Steven Christensen, an attorney who filed a case against the bank in federal court in Utah last year. We do not feel this settlement is a fair or adequate resolution.

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Opposition to the settlement could result in a range of outcomes, from a sweeter deal for Wells Fargo customers to no deal at all. Though the settlement was negotiated by one law firm representing a handful of clients who sued the bank in federal court in San Francisco, the deal would apply to Wells Fargo customers nationwide.

If the settlement is approved and finalized  a process that could take several months  only customers that opt out of the settlement would be able to continue legal action against the bank. Most consumers dont opt out of settlements, so approval of the deal would probably have the effect of quashing nearly a dozen cases in other jurisdictions or severely limiting the number of customers who could participate in them.

The lawyers at Seattle firm Keller Rohrback who negotiated the Wells Fargo deal stand to get a big payout if this settlement is finalized, while attorneys in other cases are likely to get much less or nothing at all. But those attorneys say there are key legal issues at play too.

Christensen and others argue that Keller Rohrback had little leverage in negotiations with Wells Fargo because of an early ruling against the firms clients. In that case, U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria decided in 2015 that plaintiffs Shahriar Jabbari and others could not sue the bank and must instead settle their disputes in private arbitration.

Wells Fargo argued, and Chhabria agreed, that the agreements customers sign when they open Wells Fargo accounts demand that customers resolve all disputes with the bank  even disputes over unauthorized accounts  in arbitration.

Although Wells Fargo has referenced Chhabrias ruling in other courts, arguing that plaintiffs in other cases also should be forced to arbitrate, so far no other judge has issued such a ruling. Christopher Hood, a Birmingham, Ala., attorney who is representing clients in two federal cases against the bank, said it is telling that Wells Fargo chose to negotiate a settlement in the Jabbari case.

Theres only one place thats had that decision, and it turns out thats the only place where Wells Fargo wants these cases settled, Hood said. We think thats a little dubious.

Alexandra Lahav, a law professor at the University of Connecticut who specializes in class actions and complex litigation, said thats a legitimate concern.

The potential that this plaintiff is willing to settle for less and that Wells Fargo can benefit from their relative disadvantage could be a concern for a judge, she said.

Christensen and Hood say they believe theres a chance their cases will be allowed to proceed and will not be sent to arbitration.

We feel we would get a different result in Utah or another jurisdiction, Christensen said.

Hood said the customer contracts signed by his clients  some of whom initially opened accounts at Wachovia, a bank acquired by Wells Fargo in 2008  contain a different and somewhat more limited arbitration agreement than the ones signed by plaintiffs in the Jabbari case.

Hood said the differences in those arbitration clauses could be enough for a judge to allow his cases to move forward. And if the case is allowed to proceed, he said it could result in a ruling or settlement of much more than $110 million.

We think were going to take a run at these guys, he said.

Hood and Christensen also point out that none of the cases against Wells Fargo have made it to the discovery phase  the point at which the bank would have to turn over records and other evidence. With no discovery so far, attorneys say the scope of the banks wrongdoing is still unclear. For now, theyre relying only on numbers the bank has reported itself, based on a report from an outside auditing firm.

Without discovery, no one can determine the extent of the damage Wells Fargo has caused, Christensen said.

Wells Fargo in September agreed to pay $185 million in fines to regulators to settle investigations and a city of Los Angeles lawsuit over the creation of unauthorized accounts. The bank acknowledged that employees, 5,300 of whom were fired over the practice, created as many as 2.1 million unauthorized checking, savings and credit card accounts from 2011 to 2015.

Its never been clear, though, how many of those accounts were actually unauthorized or how many customers were affected. The bank has pledged to repay fees that customers were charged for unauthorized accounts in their name and so far has paid $3.2 million to an undisclosed number of customers who hold about 130,000 accounts.

Lahav said settling before discovery is a cause for concern but a move that makes sense for Wells Fargo. It limits the risk that the institution might have to turn over additional, potentially damaging information, if a different judge allows a case to proceed. Settling now also puts consumer lawsuits to rest and could limit the amount of attention paid to the banks arbitration policy, which has been widely criticized and is the subject of proposed federal legislation.

One way to view the deal, Lahav said, is that Wells Fargo opted to settle a case in which it was already ahead rather than risk falling behind in other cases and possibly paying a bigger settlement later. The $110 million the bank has agreed to pay amounts to 0.5% of the banks 2016 profits.

If they succeed in getting this settlement approved, all those other cases are off the table, Lahav said. Whatever rulings there might have been regarding arbitration will never happen. And if those cases are less good for Wells Fargo than this one, all the better for Wells Fargo.

Of course, theres a risk on the other side too. If other cases proceed and more judges rule that Wells Fargo customers must go to arbitration, the bank might decide it shouldnt settle at all, though Wells Fargo said Tuesday the settlement is part of its effort to rebuild customer trust.

Maybe this is the best settlement the plaintiffs can get, Lahav said. But the circumstances make you think its worth a hard look.

Derek Loeser, one of the Keller Rohrback attorneys representing Jabbari, declined to comment beyond saying that the arbitration clause was obviously central to this litigation and the resolution of it for all parties.

Through a spokesman, Wells Fargo declined to comment further, noting that attorneys for the bank and plaintiffs are working on the preliminary settlement agreement that is expected to be submitted in the coming weeks.

The settlement plan will probably include an analysis of the risks and potential rewards for Wells Fargo customers in accepting this settlement rather than continuing to fight the bank in court.

It will also shed more light on key details of the settlement, including the amount of money the plaintiffs attorneys will ask for  often about 25% of the total payout, in this case $27.5 million  and how much the average Wells Fargo customer might get.

james.koren@latimes.com

Follow me: @jrkoren

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Emmy-winning television director and producer Christopher Misiano has listed his longtime home in historic Los Feliz for sale at $4.2 million.

The stately English traditional was designed by Arthur R. Kelly  whose works include the Playboy Mansion and the Frost-Tufts House  and was built in 1921 for W.S. Waite of Michigan. Later that decade, it was owned by Earle C. Anthony, the business pioneer who founded KFI-TV and what later became KFI-AM radio.

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Set on more than half an acre, the home blends classic architecture with contemporary design in some 5,490 square feet of living space. Features of note include arched doorways, subdued hues and hardwood floors. Vibrant Paonazzo marble countertops provide visual interest in the chefs kitchen.

Bedrooms are divided between east and west wings, while the master suite takes in views of Griffith Observatory and downtown Los Angeles. There are six bedrooms and 5.5 bathrooms in all.

French doors open to a flat backyard filled with lawns, mature trees, a slate patio and a swimming pool and spa. Elsewhere on the grounds is a detached guest house.

Theres also parking for 12 cars, including four covered spaces.

Patricia Ruben of Sothebys International Realty holds the listing.

Misiano has credits that include Law & Order, ER and The West Wing, the latter two for which he won a pair of Emmys. More recently he worked as an executive producer on Code Black and as director on Suits.

He bought the property in 2002, The Times previously reported.

neal.leitereg@latimes.com

Twitter: @NJLeitereg

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A San Diego federal judge on Friday morning finalized the $25 million settlement in the Trump University litigation, dismissing the objection of a Florida woman and finding in favor of the 3,700 others who stand to recoup the vast majority of what they spent on the real estate barons investment program.

The ruling ends six years of litigation that got nasty from the start  including an early countersuit by Donald Trump that failed  and became political fodder in his race for the White House.

The written ruling from U.S. District Judge Gonzalo Curiel still leaves open the possibility of an appeal, which could tie up the three class-action lawsuits  and the settlement funds  for years to come.

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A day earlier, a New York attorney representing Sherri B. Simpson, the lone class member who filed an official objection to the settlement, argued to the judge that she should not be bound by the agreement.

Gary Friedman said the 2015 notice sent to potential class members clearly stated that participants would be able to opt out of the lawsuit at a later date in case of a settlement and preserve their right to sue Trump individually  a step Simpson wants to take.

She just wants her day in court, Friedman said outside the courthouse Thursday, adding that Simpson wants to try to win a verdict against Trump that would triple her award.

Lawyers for the plaintiffs disagreed, saying the language in the notice when read in the correct context stated that participants could only opt out of receiving a portion of the settlement, not leave the case entirely.

Curiel wrote in his decision that the language in the 2015 notice was clear as to her options, with the preamble to one section unequivocally stating: You have to decide whether to stay in the Classes or ask to be excluded before the trial, and you have to decide this now.

The judge added that Simpson had plenty of opportunity earlier to opt out of the case and file her own lawsuit, and could have even requested to leave the case after the opt out deadline had passed. The judge allowed a few other class members to do so at the time.

She chose not to do so, and cannot now belatedly argue that due process compels a further opt-out opportunity, Curiel said.

His final approval allows more than 3,700 class members who were part of the two lawsuits filed in San Diego to recover an estimated 90 percent of what they spent on Trump University, attorneys said. The exact amount is still being calculated as claims are verified. Roughly 7,000 class members were initially eligible for recovering a portion of the settlement, but many did not file claims by the March 6 deadline.

The New York Attorney Generals Office, which filed the third lawsuit and was awarded $4 million of the settlement, has offered to give $1.6 million to the students in the San Diego cases.

The judge called the award amount exceptional and commended the plaintiffs lawyers for agreeing to take the case pro bono to maximize the return for their clients.

We spent thousands of days fighting for thousands of victims, and we are grateful to see this result approved by the Court, one of the plaintiffs lawyers, Rachel Jensen of Robbins Geller Rudman & Dowd, said in a statement Friday.

Curiel also approved an incentive award of $15,000 each for the five class representatives whose names were on the San Diego cases: Sonny Low, John Brown, J.R. Everett and former plaintiff Tarla Makaeff in one case, and Art Cohen in the other.

I never dreamed wed be able to return over 90 percent of the money students around the country spent on this school, Cohen said in a statement. Its unheard of and I couldnt be happier.

The lawsuits, kicked off by Makaeff in 2010, claimed Trump University used unsavory sales tactics and made false promises to persuade students to sign up for seminars, the ultimate goal to solicit memberships to the Gold Elite program for $35,000. The yearlong membership promised a personal mentor and exclusive access to Trumps real estate resources.

Trump zealously denied the claims, arguing the program was valuable and blaming the students for their own shortcomings. He repeatedly promised to fight the lawsuits at trial.

Days after he won the presidency in November, just as both sides were prepared to begin the first trial, the case settled with no admission of liability or wrongdoing by Trump or Trump University. Trump said in tweets that he needed to focus on transitioning to the White House but boasted he still would have prevailed at trial.

kristina.davis@sduniontribune.com

Twitter: @kristinadavis

UPDATES:

11:30 a.m.: This article was updated with additional details.

This article was originally published at 9:30 a.m.
The characters in Rules of Seconds, a new play by John Pollono at the Los Angeles Theatre Center, are a lively anachronistic mix. Their boots and pistols suggest the dramas 1855 Boston setting, but their F-bombs could get them cast in Quentin Tarantinos next movie.

This Latino Theater Company production, directed by Jo Bonney, isnt much concerned with historical accuracy. A 21st century comic melodrama set in the 19th century, the play constructs its own scattershot theatrical universe  a perfect playground for a cheeky ensemble featuring a seductively distressed Amy Brenneman, a dashingly villainous Jamie Harris and a roguishly heroic Josh Helman.

Pollono, author of the play Small Engine Repair that Bonney directed off-Broadway (after the works successful world premiere at Rogue Machine Theatre), wants to entertain and mostly succeeds after a bumpy start. Melodrama has a bad name, but its tense plots, whiplash turns and weepy reconciliations have been hooking audiences for ages.

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A tale in which even the most minor infractions to male self-esteem are settled through the arcane code of dueling, Rules of Seconds exploits the suspense of its situation with an insouciant tongue-in-cheek spirit. Like any effective comedy, the play takes its own contrivances seriously. The actors never lose faith even when the gags grow ludicrous.

Martha Leeds (Brenneman) and her gentle, germophobic son Nathaniel (a lovably fretful Matthew Elkins) have been struggling to keep the family shipping company afloat. Forced to eat their horse after selling everything else they have of value, they are relieved when haughty Walter Brown (Harris) inexplicably offers to buy their business.

At the contract signing, however, Walter insists on shaking hands with Nathaniel, who instantly sputters into a full-blown panic attack, spilling tea on Walters expensive boots and humiliating himself with incoherent muttering. Walter, who harbors a deep resentment toward Martha for spurning his advances years ago, challenges Nathaniel to duel, an anomalous situation for Nathaniel, who despite his strapping size wouldnt be able to chase a squirrel out of his backyard.

Nathaniels brother, James (Helman), who has been estranged from the family after a mysterious blowout, returns just in the nick of time. As James girds Nathaniel for battle, Martha, in the plays most shockingly original scene, tries to flirt her way into Walters forgiving graces to save her inept son from a near-certain death sentence.

The sexual negotiations that take place, while not the kind of thing youd see in classic literature from the period, hint that evil, manipulative men were as perversely nasty in the distant past as they are in hidden camera videos today.

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Pollono populates Rules of Seconds with doctors who are up to their elbows in blood fishing out bullets and a slew of bickering servants, two of whom wistfully imagine a world sanctioning gay marriage. A starchy old-school gentleman (Ron Bottitta) pops out from time to time to enumerate the elaborate set of fussy rules governing those who believe the merest slight must be repaid by a flesh wound, amputation or agonizing death.

The basic creed, that honor can only be restored by the spilling of blood, is the oppressive patriarchal target of Pollonos freewheeling attack. The satire here is disguised as farce masquerading as a stage potboiler.

The sexual politics of the story are enlivened by the luminous clear-sightedness of Brennemans Martha, who turns out to be a good deal more formidable than her damsel-in-distress demeanor might make her seem. Jennifer Pollono, the playwrights wife and a regular performer in his plays, provides invaluable assistance as Hannah, a hardy Irish Catholic housekeeper who works for Walter but whose heart and loyalty still belong to James.

The back stories are rather extensive for a play that sticks largely to the surface. There are some dips  scenes that arent fully integrated and that seem like placeholders for a later draft. But Bonney, who directed Suzan-Lori Parks more ambitiously anachronistic drama Father Comes Home From the Wars, Parts 1, 2 & 3 in New York and at the Mark Taper Forum, keeps things briskly moving in a production that features dancing projections by Hana Kim that would seem perfectly at home between sets at a Staples Center concert.

Rules of Seconds is the inaugural offering of the Temblors, a new Latino Theatre Company collective of seven Los Angeles-based playwrights. Its a bouncy start that, in conjunction with the musical Hamilton, could renew interest in the obsolete art of dueling.

A word of warning: The production doesnt stint on fake blood. Chances are, however, that youll be chuckling too much to squirm when it gushes.

         

Rules of Seconds

Where: Los Angeles Theatre Center, 514 S. Spring St., L.A.

When: 8 p.m. Thursdays-Saturdays, 3 p.m. Sundays; ends April 15

Tickets: $22-$52

Info: (866) 811-4111 or thelatc.org

Running time: 2 hours

charles.mcnulty@latimes.com

Follow me @charlesmcnulty
All directors yell Action! Walter Hill knows how to orchestrate it.

Over the course of four decades, the American auteur has employed familiar male archetypes  bare-knuckle brawlers, contract killers, crooked cops  in a series of hard-hitting, sneakily poetic B-movies that harness the elementary power of cause and effect.

Its easy to get blinded by technical possibilities, noted Hill, 75. Theres a lot to be said for aesthetic simplicity.

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A consummate craftsman in the Robert Aldrich/Don Siegel tradition, Hill introduced Eddie Murphy to movie screens in 48 Hrs. and gave the world an enduring cult classic (and a set of evergreen Halloween costumes) with The Warriors. He directed the pilot episode of Deadwood and the Emmy-winning miniseries Broken Trail, doing as much as any working filmmaker to ensure that the western remains a going concern.

The Assignment, which opens Friday, is perhaps his most audacious production yet. A pulpy comic-book thriller about a rogue surgeon (Sigourney Weaver) who performs a vengeful gender reassignment operation on a hit man named Frank Kitchen (Michelle Rodriguez), its somehow also Hills first film with women in the lead roles.

An identity-politics powder keg that sharply divided audiences at last years Toronto International Film Festival, The Assignment also betrays its creators predilection for the lurid and the low, to which Hill always offers the same response: Guilty.

Hill, a brawny gentleman with a deep, resonant voice, spoke about his new movie and his career  which is getting a mini-retrospective at the Aero Theatre in Santa Monica  from his Beverly Hills home.

Why do you love working with the rules and codes of established genres?

I think they generally have the best stories and work the best for film. I see movies all the time where I question why the hell they even made them, because the animus is so clearly nonfilmic. I dont mean that you need to have thundering herds or raging gunfights as opposed to ideas, but I think certain things are more filmic than others. Genre filmmaking does supply a kind of structure that allows the filmmaker and the audience some common ground to then say, Lets see what were going to do on our little journey here.

The Assignment has been percolating in one form or another for a long time. Why make it now?

The idea that [the movie tackles] this hotly contested social issue is  not without humor, shall we say. That we live in a gender-fluid society seems to me to be so obvious, and  if youre looking for me to do one of those Fred Feelgood, Heartbreak Harry kind of movies, thats not my gift. When in good form, I like to challenge attitudes.

If youre looking for me to do one of those Fred Feelgood, Heartbreak Harry kind of movies, thats not my gift. I like to challenge attitudes.  Walter Hill

The movie is about a disturbed maestro pursuing a violent, manipulative craft, whos also trying to argue that shes an artist.

Very good! Im with ya!

So is this a personal film, a reflection on your own place in the movie universe?

Oh, I cant say that. Thats too much.

But you are sympathetic to a character that could easily have been drawn as a villain.

Yes, Im very sympathetic to her character. And Im very sympathetic to Frank in the end. He dedicates himself to a higher path. By being given the body of a woman, he becomes a better man.

The movie has a kind of heightened artifice thats unusual for you. And, of course, the premise is fairly outrageous.

If you were entertained, then one has accomplished ones first task. There arent any rules except dont be boring. Were all guilty, by the way, at some point in our career of having made a boring movie. If youre lucky enough to last.

You have this incredible vantage point, where youve seen Nicolas Winding Refn with Drive and Edgar Wright with the upcoming Baby Driver make movies that are directly indebted to your film The Driver, which was ignored when it was released. That must affect the way you handle the reception of your newer films.

Oh, definitely Look, nobody likes to pick up the newspaper and read that youre a bum. But at the same time, so many films that Ive done that now seem to be generally spoken well about, at the time they can came out were  Boom!  backhanded across the room. I always say this: Nobody knows anything about a movie till 20 years later. It takes a while to see if theyre any good.

 Ansel Elgort, Kevin Spacey, Lily James, Jon Hamm and Jamie Foxx star in Baby Driver.

Youre interested in characters who do evil things, but operate at a slight remove from their actions. They have a reason that justifies it.

They have a different moral code, and they test themselves through certain kinds of confrontations. I dont do movies about kidnappers, hostage-takers, where you cross into the middle-class world and make them the victims. Its usually rotten people taking on rotten people.

Quoting Edgar Allan Poe at length, the surgeon in The Assignment says that art should be indifferent to moral considerations. Do you think films and politics belong in different arenas?

We live in passionate times at the moment, political and otherwise, and as usual, the art world is being encouraged to take sides and be part of the polemic. I think this is very dangerous theres a higher calling for those of us that tell stories  there are character truths, and the idiosyncrasies are more true than general truths.

When directors become successful, they often become pillars of society. Or they become spokesmen for the arts. I am neither. Im just trying to catch up on my reading.

calendar@latimes.com

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For long stretches of its development, Ghost in the Shell provoked controversy over its casting, particularly the choice to make Scarlett Johansson the films lead character, the Major. In the original Japanese manga, the character is an Asian heroine named Motoko Kusanagi.

Rupert Sanders movie hits theaters this weekend, allowing the debate either to be put to rest or intensify. But at least one of the filmmakers remains perplexed by the kerfuffle.

Ive found the casting controversy quite weird, said Jess Hall, the cinematographer and longtime Sanders collaborator.

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If you look at Section 9, its really very diverse casting, he said, alluding to the movies elite self-defense unit. You have a Fijian [Lasarus Ratuere], a Dane [Pilou Asbk], several Japanese actors, including one of the countrys biggest stars [Takeshi Kitano]. I dont really understand it.

Hall was speaking to The Times at the premiere of the Paramount release here this week. The futuristic film, based on Masamune Shirows 1990s-era series, follows the robot-human hybrid the Major as she helps Section 9 defeat a dangerous cyber-hacking threat as well as discover her past.

Hall noted that some of the propertys Japanese principals were not upset by the casting, alluding to an interview response by the director of earlier Japanese-language films Mamoru Oshii that the Majors protean nature rendered race irrelevant. They dont seem to have as big an issue with it there, he said.

The casting raises questions as much philosophical as practical: How much do an actors personal or ethnic traits matter when it comes to playing a fictitious character? (This is, of course, a subject thats come up in a variety of contexts, including with straight actors playing gay characters.)

And in the age of awareness about diversity, what is the extent of studios obligations to find opportunities for actors of color? To its critics, whitewashing is as ignoble as blackface and will be judged by history just as harshly. To its supporters, it is simply the reality of Hollywood, which will use actors it believes can best sell or act in a film.

Hall said he wanted to stress that its viable to have these conversations. Its important to talk about. I just dont know that we should be talking about it as much with this film, he said.

The irony is that U.S. audiences could reject Ghost for not being global enough, yet the film could fare better around the world because it features an American star. (Box-office projections for the U.S. this weekend are for a modest $25 million.)

Whether the controversy will quiet after people see Johansson act in the role as opposed to simply as a name on the page remains an open question.

Hall, at least, hopes it will.

Im happy its finally coming out and people could talk about the movie, he said.

See the most-read stories in Entertainment this hour 

steve.zeitchik@latimes.com

Twitter: @ZeitchikLAT

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When we last saw Sterling Archer, the coldly efficient (if cheerfully idiotic) former spy turned private eye was floating face down in a Los Angeles pool in a moment straight out of Sunset Boulevard. When we see him again on the new season of the animated comedy Archer, which debuts on its new home on FXX on April 5, hes navigating post-war L.A. as a hard-boiled, hard-drinking gumshoe straight out of classic noir. (Though, to be honest, he was always hard-drinking.)

How has a series known for rapid-fire comic exchanges, giddily obscure references and surrealistic flourishes such as a Q-like inventor on staff with a thing for holographic companionship arrived in the world of Raymond Chandler? Thats a question for series creator Adam Reed, who for seven seasons has shifted Archer  voiced with perfect baritone certitude by comic H. Jon Benjamin  through homages to other macho touchstones Smokey and the Bandit, Miami Vice and Magnum P.I. One episode even crossed into Benjamins other gig as Bob on Foxs Bobs Burgers.

My worry has always been, I dont want to repeat myself or bore anybody, so I try to come up with ways to keep people interested, Reed said, speaking by phone from North Carolina, where he splits time between his home in Atlanta. We chatted with Reed about whats next for Archer, the Figgis Agency and the pleasures of not being topical in 2017.

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Youve packed up the show up and taken it to post-war L.A. for the new season. Why and how did this happen?

It just sort of popped into my head. But I started planning for this season early on in the previous season, and thats why we [situated] the back half of Season 6 on a movie set that was kind of a film noir detective thing, to plant all those seeds in Archers subconscious so this would make sense. Or at least make sense to me.

Where did you get the idea to jump the show into a new timeline?

I wanted to, in a longer form, deal with the death of [Archers devoted valet] Woodhouse, both in the character Woodhouse and [actor] George Coe passing away. We left him with his future uncertain, but injuries so grievous that it seemed at best a coma. And then once we were dealing with Archers subconscious we could do anything. I had been a longtime fan of the detective genre and film noir and wanted to write some hard-boiled dialogue.

A lot of the characters behavior has shifted too, like Archer is pretty toned down from his usual self. And did Pams character [Amber Nash] actually shift genders?

Its just assumed that she is a man. She has a male haircut and wears mens clothing and is a homicide detective, which I dont guess women probably got to do that much in the 40s. But we dont really talk about it, it just sort of is.

The slots are sort of predetermined, I think, with detective fiction. You have the detective anti-hero, which obviously was Archer, and Lana [Aisha Tyler] fit neatly in the femme-fatale category. Cyril [Chris Parnell] fit neatly into the cop on the take. But I wanted two cops to be partners, and Pam just made the most sense. Its sort of also a tip of the hat to Bud White in LA Confidential. She likes to smash stuff.

Youve spoken before about FX being very helpful with letting you stretch out, is that still the case?

Absolutely. They give really great notes, which I hate. I think the only thing worse than bad notes is good notes. You cant argue about them, you just go, Oh God, thats right, that was great.

But early on I pitched FX the idea of doing this season as a straight drama and they sort of chuckled and moved on to the next topic. A few days later I was like No, Im really serious, what do you think about doing this as a drama? And they did have some input there and said, No, we dont like our comedies to not be funny.

The references in some of the jokes you write can run pretty deep. I think (1930s comic duo) Wheeler & Woolsey is one coming up this season? I had to look that one up.

I also looked that up. And I cant remember what the joke was going to be, but Im terrible for that because I will have a germ of a joke in my head and then spend an hour on Wikipedia finding the most esoteric version of that joke I can get. And then the character, usually Archer, is like How do you not know that?

Now that youve jumped out from the espionage agency where this series started, suddenly spies have become topical.

I know, I joked that were somehow responsible. Its kind of crazy how cyclical this is  its like bell-bottoms, were back to where this is a thing now.

Do you miss it? Is there a chance youd go back into the spy universe?

Im glad that theyre currently a detective agency because then you can focus on not necessarily the geopolitical stuff thats dominating the news.

As a writer, for me, my goal is to just sort of forget about whats going on in real life for as long as possible when Im buried in an Archer script. I think theyll be doing extramarital affairs and finding missing dogs and jewelry for awhile before we get back into the Cold War.

So Archer is now signed through its 10th and final season. Are you thinking in terms of what happens beyond that?

I cant currently think in those terms because I hyperventilate.

See the most-read stories in Entertainment this hour 

chris.barton@latimes.com

Follow me over here @chrisbarton.

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Growing up in Los Angeles, Jasmine Yahid thought a lot about her nose. Too big, with a bump that drew attention, she felt.

So Yahid decided to undergo what has become a rite of passage for many modern women of Iranian descent: She went under the knife.

Although an Angeleno, the 25-year-old retail employee was following a tradition that has gained momentum since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

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Yahids parents had emigrated from Iran, where the autocratic government sees anything that smacks of Western culture as an act of dissent. In a country where women must cover almost every part of their body except their face, many have chosen the quiet rebellion of altering their nose to reflect an Anglo American aesthetic.

These women, a highly educated population, are handicapped at every turn within the laws, said Nina Ansary, an expert on womens rights issues in Iran. So they find ways of expressing themselves.

The tradition migrated to the U.S. and now has become entrenched here  although not because of protest.

While thick eyebrows and large eyes have always fit Iranian ideals of beauty, the Persian nose, with its often steep bridge and wide shape, has long been a source of angst for many women.

I wanted a nose that fit myself but was also prettier and cuter. I wanted to look Persian and Jewish still, Yahid said. In the beginning, I was very unhappy, but over time, I looked at my profile and was very happy with how it turned out.

Iran had one of the highest rates of rhinoplasty worldwide in 2013, just behind Brazil, Mexico and the United States, according to a survey by the International Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgery.

Women do nose jobs in Iran because it is the only part of their body that they can show in society, said Golbon Jamshidi, a 24-year-old graduate student in Tehran who underwent the procedure six years ago. We have to wear a scarf to cover our hair, and so we get a nose job to make ourselves more beautiful. It starts from high school.

For Americans, such as Yahid, the pressure to change their nose remained intense.

I had friends and family tell me, Why dont you get it done? Your nose is so big, and it doesnt look good,  she said.

The pressure can start at a very early age.

Laila Cohen, 21, from the San Fernando Valley, got her first nose job when she was 15 and a junior in high school. She underwent the procedure for a second time last year.

It felt unreal. When they woke me up, I was in disbelief and denial, Cohen said. It was too good to be true.

Cohen, a political science student at UCLA, said her mother also underwent rhinoplasty when she was very young.

Nose jobs have become ingrained in Persian culture. Iranian American comedians, such as Max Amini, joke that young women use breathing problems as an excuse to change how their nose looks and that Persian women at parties look the same after visiting the same plastic surgeon.

Persis Karim was 18 when her father surprised her with a gift: money he had secretly saved for her to get a nose job.

Her three sisters had all undergone surgery.

Karim, 53, now an English professor at San Jose State, cried.

Are you telling me I have a big nose? she remembered asking her father.

No, its just what everyone does, and Im trying to be fair, he responded.

Karim said shes proud that she resisted the pressure to go under the knife.

But Yahid felt something different once she did: relief.

People treat you different to a certain extent. You feel more approachable if you look better, and I dated more guys. It was nice that people forgot what I looked like before, she said.

Typically, friends in their early 20s get their surgeries months apart from one another. They scour online reviews of plastic surgeons and refer each other to doctors they think will be able to achieve their desired nose.

The process isnt cheap. Some plastic surgeons in Beverly Hills charge upward of $20,000.

In the past, it was common for young Americans to travel to Iran during their summer vacations to get nose jobs, avoiding the watchful eyes of their peers. The considerably cheaper prices were an added incentive: In Iran, the procedure costs about $7,000.

A growing number of young women of Iranian descent reared in America now eschew the pinched tip and deep slope favored by Iranian women for a more subtle change that preserves their Iranian look.

A lot of Persian women get more attention because of their ethnic look, said Beverly Hills plastic surgeon Payman Simoni.

In the months before her operation, Yahid spent up to 10 hours a week researching different noses and how to prepare for surgery.

But she had a difficult time finding a nose she wanted. I wanted to still look Persian and feel like myself, she said.

The day of her surgery, Yahid threw on her most comfortable clothes and hopped in the back seat of her parents car.

It was early morning, but she was full of energy, she recalled. She had waited years and saved thousands of dollars for this day.

Its been more than a year since Yahid had rhinoplasty. Although shes happy with the result, she feels she could have done a better job researching the perfect nose.

Still, she conceded: It would make my life easier if I could just be the ideal thing, and not feel like I have to conform.

melissa.etehad@latimes.com

Follow me on Twitter @melissaetehad

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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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Art dealer Perry Rubenstein pleaded no contest Thursday to charges that he failed to fully pay his clients, including former Hollywood power broker Michael Ovitz.

Rubenstein, 63, appeared in a downtown Los Angeles courtroom and pleaded no contest to two felony counts of grand theft by embezzlement, according to the Los Angeles County district attorneys office.

As part of the plea deal, a third felony theft charge will be dismissed.

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Prosecutors alleged that Rubenstein sold two of Ovitzs works by artist Richard Prince, but failed to turn over the proceeds.

Rubenstein was also accused of failing to turn over the cash from the sale of a scroll by Japanese artist Takashi Murakami to an art collector based in Massachusetts. Rubenstein had sold the Murakami scroll, World of Sphere, to the Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation. The scroll is now listed as part of the Broad Museums collection but is not publicly displayed.

Rubensteins defense attorney declined to comment.

Rubensteins sentencing is scheduled for May 22. He faces up to 180 days in jail and three years of probation. A 16-month prison term was suspended on the condition that he completes the terms of his sentence, said Greg Risling, a spokesman for the district attorneys office.

Rubenstein is also expected to pay restitution.

Ovitz appears to have already received payouts for his losses. In civil court, Ovitz sued Chartis Property Casualty Co., previously known as AIG, seeking reimbursement of up to $2.5 million for one of the Prince paintings sold by Rubenstein, Untitled.

The insurance carrier had also agreed to pay $1.6 million to cover the loss of Nobodys Home, the other Prince painting that Rubenstein sold for Ovitz, according to court papers.

The lawsuit against the insurance company was settled in 2016, but its unclear how much money Ovitz ultimately received, according to court papers filed in the Central District of California.

Before moving to Southern California about six years ago, Rubenstein made his name as an art dealer in Manhattan. In Los Angeles, he opened an eponymous gallery along Highland Avenue. The gallery has since closed.

matt.hamilton@latimes.com

Twitter: @MattHjourno

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Ten members and associates of one of the largest Los Angeles street gangs were arrested Thursday in a two-day operation targeting the distribution and sale of narcotics and the unlawful sale of weapons.

The cooperative effort by the Department of Homeland Security, LAPD and the Los Angeles County Sheriffs Department began Tuesday and progressed into Wednesday with the arrests of eight suspects. The remaining two will be extradited from Honolulu and Indianapolis.

Three others who are facing similar charges were already in local custody, and there is an ongoing search for five additional suspects, according to the U.S. attorneys office.

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Federal prosecutors said the indictments covering federal narcotics and weapons offenses followed a more than two-year investigation.

Authorities said nearly 9 pounds of methamphetamine and 14 firearms, including five assault rifles, were seized during the operation.

Among the local arrests were Giovanny Ochoa, 26, of Hawthorne and Aveline Villalba, 36, of South Los Angeles. Both were charged in a February indictment with selling about a quarter-pound of meth to undercover authorities. Ochoa is also suspected in another narcotics transaction.

According to the indictment, in one incident Ochoa met an undercover official in front of a grocery store where he offered to sell a quarter-pound of meth for $1,500.

Ochoa and Villalba each face a 10-year mandatory minimum prison term with the possibility of life if convicted of the narcotics and weapons charges.

All eight of those arrested locally have been arraigned and pleaded not guilty; their trials are pending. The two suspects taken into custody outside the state are being held without bond and should be extradited to L.A. in the next few weeks, authorities said.

jeff.landa@latimes.com

Twitter: @JeffLanda

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A man whom sheriffs deputies saw walking down the street covered in blood in Palmdale on Thursday had moments earlier stabbed his mother and killed his grandmother, authorities said.

When deputies stopped Richard Flores as he walked along the 37000 block of Spring Street about 3:30 p.m., Flores made statements to them that he was involved in the incident they were responding to, sheriffs officials said in a statement. He also was soaked in blood, deputies said.

Sgt. Troy Ewing of the Los Angeles County Sheriffs Department homicide bureau told KCBS that Flores was somewhat incoherent and was sort of rambling on when he was stopped.

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Moments earlier, authorities had been called to a home in the area about the assault of a woman, officials said. When deputies arrived at the home, they found Flores mother with trauma to her upper body.

Flores mother walked deputies deeper into the home, where they found his grandmother stabbed to death, officials said. She was identified as Maria Valenzuela, 82, and had been stabbed in the head, coroners officials said. A weapon was recovered at the scene.

Shes a really dear woman. I cant believe this happened, neighbor Trevor Livingston told KCBS.

Flores, 29, was arrested on suspicion of murder and is being held in lieu of $2 million bail. Jail records show hes due in court Monday. A motive for the attacks has not been released.

joseph.serna@latimes.com

For breaking California news, follow @JosephSerna on Twitter.

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A Redondo Beach doctor was sentenced Thursday to seven years in state prison for selling narcotics to undercover police in 2014.

Gerard Goryl, 61, pleaded no contest in December to 38 counts, including the unlawful prescription and possession for sale of a controlled substance. Prosecutors said Goryl sold Xanax and the strong painkiller hydrocodone to undercover officers over a two-month period.

The drugs, both controlled substances, were sold without proof of medical need or an examination.

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In April 2014, the Redondo Beach Police Department and the federal Drug Enforcement Agency began to investigate A Better Weigh, the medical clinic run by Goryl and his assistant Wilfred Arvizo Jr., 69, who is also a co-defendant.

Several recorded undercover trips revealed Goryl and Arvizo giving controlled substances without prescriptions or medical reasons to people in exchange for cash payments, according to court documents.

Law enforcement officials documented numerous unscheduled visits where they were able to negotiate cash deals for narcotics, usually in unmarked pill bottles, without any paperwork. On one occasion Goryl even told an undercover officer not to let police search the officers vehicle, court documents said.

A state system used to track a doctors and patients prescriptions showed the amount of hydrocodone that Goryl obtained for distribution to patients between 2009 and 2012 jumped from 38,000 to 56,100.

Arvizo faces similar counts and could spend more than eight years in state prison. Hes scheduled to return to court in June.

jeff.landa@latimes.com

Twitter: @JeffLanda

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A suicidal man who perched for 21 hours on the railing of Interstate 5 near Old Town ended what California Highway Patrol officers said was the longest such standoff in memory by dropping onto some bushes, landing with minor injuries Friday.

The ordeal wreaked havoc on the Thursday evening commute and again in the morning with the closure of southbound lanes of I-5 at Rosecrans Street, and northbound lanes to west Interstate 8.

Three alternating teams of law enforcement crisis negotiators had been talking to the 38-year-old man since he was first noticed on the north I-5 overpass to west I-8 about 2:30 p.m. Thursday.

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Authorities did not reveal what they learned about the man, or why he wanted to end his life. But they said they were not going to rush him, regardless of how impatient motorists might be at the detours and delays he caused.

Our chief concern is public safety, said police Sgt. Ray Battrick. Well take as long as it takes to help this person out of crisis.

San Diego police got a notice about 12:30 p.m. Thursday that a man had made threats to kill himself by jumping off an unspecified bridge, CHP Officer Jake Sanchez said.

Two hours later, a man was seen on the ledge of the I-5 overpass.

The CHP quickly blocked traffic for the safety of the individual and the motorists below, Sanchez said. And the San Diego Fire-Rescue Department placed a giant inflated airbag beneath the man.

Many commuters initially were halted close enough to see the man and hear some of his comments.

Daniel Armenta, 33, said he and other northbound motorists got stopped on I-5 directly below the overpass for about 25 minutes on Thursday afternoon before traffic was diverted.

He was very erratic, Armenta said of the mans behavior. He said the man alternately stood and sat on a rail on the edge, saying Sorry, mom and Sorry, dad.

His actions were as if he was going to jump. I started to pray for him, Armenta said.

A woman on the overpass who called the man babe repeatedly pleaded with him to step away from the edge, Armenta said.

Traffic is still snarled on I-5 south as jumper on I-5 I-8 interchange. San Diego police negotiators have been talking to the man since after he was first noticed on the I-5 overpass about 2:30 p.m. Thursday. (John Gibbins / San Diego Union-Tribune)

Police Capt. Mike Hastings, who supervises the emergency negotiating teams, said every situation of dealing with a suicidal person is different, calling for a different pace and tactics in negotiating.

The preservation of life is always paramount, Hastings said. I know drivers are concerned. But the guy out there is in crisis.

In the end, about 11:30 a.m. Friday, the man climbed outside the railing along the edge over southbound I-5 lanes and deliberately moved to the far right side away from the airbag. He clung there for some moments, then let go, falling backwards onto bushes about 15 feet below. He asked officers nearby for assistance, and he was put on a gurney, then into an ambulance, Sanchez said.

The man was taken to a hospital for a mental health evaluation.

While CHP officers were busy with the freeway closures and assisting police crisis negotiators in Old Town, authorities reported three suicides in a two-hour period.

In Oceanside, a woman ran in front of a southbound Amtrak train at Cassidy Street about 9:20 a.m. Friday. The train was held until almost noon for an investigation. About 10:45 a.m., a woman parked her car on the San Diego-Coronado Bridge and jumped to her death, and about the same time, a man shot himself on Interstate 8, east of Willows Road.

Previous story: Erratic man threatening to jump off overpass; south I-5 closed 

San Diego County has seen several other prolonged freeway closures while negotiators tried to talk someone off an overpass.

In 2011, a man remained on the 30th Street bridge over state Route 94 for 19 hours before he was taken into custody.

In 2012, an emotionally unstable man in his 60s sat on a freeway sign at Balboa Avenue over Interstate 805 overnight for nine hours before climbing down on a fire truck ladder.

Later that year, on Dec. 28, two suicidal men closed different freeways  Interstate 805 at 47th Street for seven hours and state Route 163 in Balboa Park for one hour  before surrendering.

According to the San Diego County Suicide Prevention Council, there were 427 suicides in the county in 2015, just slightly more than one a day.

Anyone who has suicidal thoughts or is in an emotional crisis can talk to counselors at the National Suicide Prevention hotline, (800) 273-8255 or the San Diego Access & Crisis hotline at (888) 724-7240.

Helpful resources may be obtained at www.Up2SanDiego.org and at the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention in San Diego at (855) 869-2377.

Staff writer David Hernandez and staff researcher Merrie Monteagudo contributed to this story.
In his first meeting with NATO, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson on Friday delivered a firm rebuke of Russian aggression and promised allies that the United States will stand by their side -- while also demanding they spend more on defense and do more to fight terrorism.

Tillerson participated in abbreviated discussions with foreign ministers from the 27 other NATO member nations, who were sent scrambling last week to accommodate the top U.S. diplomat after he said he could not attend the meeting originally planned for early April.

What was supposed to be a two-day meeting was compressed into a half-day of talks; Tillerson spent just under five hours at NATO headquarters in Brussels and left for Washington before NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg gave a closing press conference.

The foreign ministers meeting is crucial because it lays the groundwork for a NATO summit with heads of state in May, which will be President Trumps first overseas trip since taking office. Trump has had to work hard to dispel doubts he created about his commitment to NATO, an alliance that has served as the foundation of Western security since World War II.

The United States is committed to ensuring NATO has the capabilities to support our collective defense. We understand that a threat against one of us is a threat against all of us, Tillerson said.

But, he added, as President Trump has made clear, it is no longer sustainable for the U.S. to maintain a disproportionate share of NATOs defense expenditures.

The United States is amping up pressure on NATO members to increase their defense spending to 2% of gross domestic product, in line with a 2014 agreement among the alliances member countries to meet the target by 2024.

Only five NATO countries meet the 2% threshold. The U.S. spends 3.61% of its GDP on defense, more than any other member of the alliance.

Tillerson said that if countries have not met the 2% spending goal by the end of the year, they should at least have a concrete plan that clearly articulates how, with annual milestone progress commitments, the pledge will be fulfilled.

Pressure to meet that strict deadline is likely to upset some allies.

German Vice Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel told reporters before Fridays meeting that he thinks it would be completely unrealistic for Germany to bring its military defense spending up to 2% of GDP.

I dont know any politician in Germany who thinks that this would be reachable or desirable, Gabriel said.

The allies agreement to boost spending is a loose set of guidelines, but is not binding, Gabriel argued.

Germany is increasing its military spending this year to $39 billion, or 1.2% of its GDP. Gabriel rejected the Trump administrations focus on military expenditures, arguing that humanitarian aid and Germanys spending to take in refugees should be considered part of the defense budget.

Other foreign ministers were more accepting of the Trump administrations pressure to step up defense spending. Several countries have signaled they will start spending 2% of GDP before the 2024 deadline. Romania says it will reach 2% this year.

In private talks with the ministers, Tillerson harshly criticized Russian aggression and intimidation in Ukraine and pointedly blamed Russia for a recent escalation in violence there. He said, twice, that U.S. sanctions slapped on Moscow as punishment would remain in place. This was significant because in his previous career as CEO of ExxonMobil, Tillerson had lobbied against the sanctions, which he said were causing the firm to lose money on exploration deals in Russia.

Several ministers from Eastern European countries said they were reassured by Tillersons rebuke of Russia. There have been concerns that Trump would seek closer ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin. Baltic countries Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia see Russias intervention in Ukraine as a particular threat.

Tillerson has no illusions about Russia, Latvian Foreign Minister Edgars Rinkevics said in an interview.

Estonian Foreign Minister Sven Mikser also seemed satisfied. When it comes to security and defense, I think we are going to see much more continuity than perhaps we expected, Mikser said. I think we may see greater or a bigger departure from [former President] Obamas policies in other areas such as trade and environmental policy.

Tillerson also called on allies to take a greater role in the fight against terrorism.

NATO can and should do more, he said. Fighting terrorism is the top national security priority for the United States, as it should be for all of us.

Ministers said they wanted to hear specific proposals for the fight on terrorism.

There is a willingness to involve NATO more, Rinkevics said. What would be very good is that we also use those two months [until the May meeting] not only talking about defense spending, which is very important, but also preparing more concrete decisions.

Tillersons earlier announcement that he would skip the ministerial meeting struck a nerve among the alliance members, coming at a sensitive time when tensions between the Trump administration and NATO allies have soared.

The schedule change caused an awkward protocol shuffle, with a handful of foreign ministers unable to make it to Brussels.

British Foreign Minister Boris Johnson described Tillersons message as the need to adapt.

The reason [NATO] is the most successful alliance in history is because its continually been able to adapt, Johnson said. Obviously we face new challenges now from Russia, a resurgent Russia getting up to all kinds of mischief in the Western Balkans and elsewhere. The crucial message  is that as NATO adapts and faces new challenges, we have to fund this organization properly.

Stoltenberg praised what he described as transatlantic unity. The meeting today was important because it was one meeting in a series of meetings where the new U.S. administration has come to Europe and expressed strong commitment to NATO, to the transatlantic bond, Stoltenberg said.

I believe its very important to remember that fair burden-sharing or increased defense spending across Europe and Canada is not just something you have to do to please the United States, he added. It is about investing in our own security, in the security of Europe, because Europe is very close to the turmoil, the violence in North Africa, Iraq, Syria, and were closer also to Russia.

Stupp is a special correspondent. Times staff writer Wilkinson reported from Washington.
The White House offered Thursday to show lawmakers intelligence reports that purportedly mention associates of President Trump, raising new questions about whether the presidents staff previously leaked details about the classified documents it is now offering Congress.

In a letter Thursday, White House Counsel Donald McGahn invited the leaders of the House and Senate intelligence committees to review the classified documents  apparently the same reports mentioning Trump transition officials that Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Tulare), the House committee chairman, said he was shown at the White House last week.

The developments seemed to confirm that the initial disclosure of the reports to Nunes alone was at some level a White House effort to shift attention away from the presidents discredited claim that then-President Obama ordered him to be wiretapped.

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In the ordinary course of business, National Security Council staff discovered documents that we believe are responsive to a request from the House panel about intelligence information collected on Trump associates, McGahn said in his letter to the lawmakers. We would like to make these available for  inspection.

Separately, a congressional aide said that Trumps former national security advisor, retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, had been seeking immunity from prosecution in return for testifying to the House and Senate committees. The development was first reported by the Wall Street Journal.

Gen. Flynn certainly had a story to tell, and he very much wants to tell it, should the circumstances permit, his lawyer, Robert Kelner, said in a statement.

No reasonable person, who has the benefit of advice from counsel, would submit to questioning in such a highly politicized, witch-hunt environment without assurances from unfair prosecution.

The White House offer to allow members of Congress to see the intelligence reports came after the New York Times reported that two White House officials, Ezra Cohen-Watnick, the senior director for intelligence at the National Security Council, and Michael J. Ellis, a lawyer in the White House counsels office, helped Nunes gain access to the reports.

Ellis had worked closely with Nunes when Ellis was the general counsel for the House Intelligence Committee. Cohen-Watnick, a former Defense Intelligence Agency official, advised the Trump transition team along with Nunes.

Cohen-Watnick is in over his head in the job, a senior intelligence official asserted, commenting on condition of anonymity in order to speak freely, and doesnt have the depth of experience at intelligence agencies that officials have come to expect of someone in his role.

He was brought into the White House by Michael Flynn before Flynn was fired as national security advisor in February, and several senior intelligence officials said they were surprised Cohen-Watnick wasnt replaced when H.R. McMaster took over Flynns job.

Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Burbank) told reporters he would review the documents but was troubled by the the cloak-and-dagger stuff and the circuitous route that the White House appears to have used in providing the materials to Nunes, who has refused to disclose the source he received them from.

If that was designed to hide the origin of the materials, that raises profound questions about just what the White House is doing, Schiff said. We need to get to the bottom of whether this was some sort of stratagem by the White House.

He added that if the White House goal was to distract the committee from its investigation into whether the Trump campaign had contacts with the Russian government, it will not be successful.

It remains unclear whether the intelligence reports referred to by the White House describe actual conversations between Trump transition officials and foreign officials under U.S. surveillance, or whether the Trump associates are only mentioned by others in intercepted conversations, emails or other communications.

Trump said last week he felt partly vindicated by Nunes disclosure, saying that it backed up his previous claim that he had been wiretapped before the election by President Obama. Nunes, however, said that never happened, and that the surveillance he referred to took place after the election, was legally authorized and did not involve Russia.

Nunes set off a firestorm last week when he disclosed at a hastily-called news conference that an unidentified source had told him of dozens of intelligence reports from court-authorized surveillance that included the names of transition teams members. He said he was going immediately to the White House to brief President Trump on the information.

Nunes subsequently admitted that he had received the information at the White House complex, claiming it was the only place where he could examine the highly classified intelligence report.

His spokesman conceded that Nunes did not know for sure that any Trump aides had actually been subject to surveillance, only that their names had appeared in intelligence reports, which could have resulted from other people talking about them.

He has refused to say more about his source, repeating that refusal Thursday.

As hes stated many times, Chairman Nunes will not confirm or deny speculation about his sources identity, and he will not respond to speculation from anonymous sources, said Jack Langer, Nunes spokesman.

In a letter Thursday to McGahn accepting his offer to examine the documents, Schiff said he hoped the White House would confirm that the reports are the same as those first shared with Nunes.

In his letter, McGahn did not disclose whether Trump associates were mentioned in the reports. He asked the House committee to investigate whether the information in the reports was legally collected and whether so-called unnmasking procedures, governing the disclosure of the names of U.S. citizens picked up by surveillance, were followed.

Was there any improper unmasking or distribution of intelligence? he said. To the extent that U.S. citizens were subjected to such surveillance, were civil liberties violated?

To answer such questions, Schiff said, the committee would need White House help in getting intelligence agencies to explain how the information was gathered, and what justification supported any unmasking or dissemination.

None of this is likely to be apparent on the face of these documents.

Numerous transition officials could have communicated with foreign ambassadors or others in the United States who were under court-authorized surveillance for counterintelligence purposes. If so, they could have inadvertently, but legally, been monitored by U.S. intelligence.

Senior intelligence officials can decide to include names or other identifying information of Americans in classified foreign intelligence reports if they believe that doing so is important for understanding the intelligence, or if it shows clear evidence of a potential crime.

This unmasking process could have happened with the Trump transition team. Its unclear whether any names of Trump transition officials were unmasked in the documents Nunes referred to, or whether their identities were masked yet obvious from how they were described.

Foreign officials under surveillance might have mentioned the names of Trump aides or claimed to have had conversations with them. A claim of that sort might have been considered important enough to be included in an intelligence report, a former intelligence official said.

Nunes has questioned whether Trump associates names that should have been kept confidential were unmasked and then widely disseminated in the government in the closing days of the Obama administration.

White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus, White House aide Stephen Miller, Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner and Trumps three eldest children all played formal roles in Trumps transition, along with many other Trump associates and former government officials. Nunes himself was a member of the transition executive committee.

Although the conversations referred to in the intelligence reports apparently do not involve Russia, Kushner was one of several Trump associates who met with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak during the transition.

Flynn was ousted as Trumps national security advisor last month after news reports disclosed that he had misled Vice President Mike Pence about phone conversations with Kislyak.

The calls were picked up by U.S. surveillance targeting the Russian envoy, and a description of the contents was leaked to the Washington Post after the Justice Department warned the White House that Flynn could be subject to blackmail.

Trumps decision during his transition to shun many briefings from U.S. government officials and to use his own channels to reach out to foreign leaders may have contributed to an increased flow of intelligence reports about what ambassadors and other foreign officials in the U.S. were saying about the incoming administration.

david.cloud@latimes.com

Twitter: @davidcloudLAT

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5:30 p.m.: The story was updated with news that former national security advisor Michael Flynn has discussed an immunity deal with congressional investigators.

The story was first published at 4:55 p.m.
For weeks, President Trump has bemoaned court decisions blocking two versions of his ban on travel from six majority-Muslim countries and all refugee resettlement, saying he wants to take his case to the highest court of the land.

Soon, he might get the chance.

The Department of Justices appeal on Thursday of a Hawaii court order halting the latest iteration of the ban means the federal government is now fighting to implement it in two federal appeals courts on opposite ends of the country: the 9th Circuit in San Francisco and the 4th Circuit in Richmond, Va.

If the courts issue rulings that conflict with each other, legal experts said, there is a high chance that the Supreme Court would take up the case.

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Timing could be on Trumps side. The presidents high court nominee, Neil Gorsuch, is expected to be confirmed and sworn in in April, tipping the ideologically divided court to lean conservative.

Appealing to the Supreme Court was risky before, said Josh Blackman, a constitutional law professor at the South Texas College of Law Houston. But now it makes more sense.

Even if the appeals courts rule similarly on the ban, Blackman said, the Supreme Court could still choose to review it if a request is made and at least four of its justices agree. The court would not have to wait for both lower courts to rule.

Earlier this month, the Department of Justice appealed a Maryland district judges order against the travel ban to the Fourth Circuit.

The rulings in Hawaii and Maryland said Trumps executive order discriminated against Muslims and cited his campaign promises to suspend Muslim travel to the U.S. as evidence of his orders anti-Muslim bias.

The Hawaii ruling is broader than the Maryland one. It blocks the most significant parts of order, which seeks to prevent citizens of six majority-Muslim countries  Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen  from entering the U.S. for 90 days and stop all new refugee resettlement for 120 days. The Maryland ruling halted only the ban on travel into the U.S.

Oral arguments are scheduled for May 8 in the 4th Circuit, which hears cases from nine federal district courts in Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina. But the court could rule sooner on an emergency request from the government to to reinstate the travel ban before a hearing on the fuller merits of the case.

I expect the loser will seek Supreme Court review, said UC Irvine Law School Dean Erwin Chemerinsky. I do not think the Trump administration will give up on this.

The decision in the 9th Circuit is expected to come later.

A three-judge panel from the court already denied a government request last month to reverse a ruling against the first travel ban by a federal judge in Washington state. The full court then refused to revisit that decision, though five judges dissented.

Trump lampooned the bad court, which has jurisdiction over federal courts in nine Western states.

He signed a new executive order on travel on March 6 that was modified in an attempt to survive court challenges.

The new order removed a preference for refugees who are religious minorities and gave exemptions from the travel ban to green-card holders and those who already held valid visas. It also removed Iraq from the list of countries whose nationals could not travel to the U.S.

Those changes appeased at least one federal judge in Virginia, who ruled in a separate case on March 24 that the revised travel order likely falls within the bounds of Trumps presidential authority.

The opinion from U.S. District Judge Anthony Trenga of the Eastern District Court of Virginia, which rejected a request to halt the travel order, gave less weight to Trumps statements during the presidential campaign. It more strictly looked at how the travel ban is worded in light of presidential power over immigration and national security.

The opinions of judges in favor of Trump will likely be cited in higher courts, including the Supreme Court, Blackman said.

I have no idea how the [Supreme] Court would rule, he said. But the executive order is toast if the administration fails on it a second time.

jaweed.kaleem@latimes.com

Jaweed Kaleem is The Times national race and justice correspondent. Follow him on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.

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Strong winds continued to buffet the Las Vegas Valley on Friday, a day after gusts wreaked havoc by delaying flights, toppling four large trucks, uprooting trees and destroying at least one casino marquee.

Alex Boothe, intern meteorologist with the National Weather Service, said powerful winds in the spring arent unusual, but Thursdays wind speeds were the highest the region had experienced since 2012.

It was higher than were used to, Boothe said. Its been a little while.

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The winds were strong enough to force the National Weather Service to issue a dust warning and a wind wind warning. Boothe said that occurs when visibility is a quarter of a mile or less and winds are sustained at 40 mph or gusts top 58 mph for at least an hour. The last dust warning issued here was in September.

Boothe said peak winds hit 84 mph at Desert Inn Road and Highway 215 near Summerlin, a community about 20 minutes west of the Strip. Video posted on social media by travelers near Red Rock Canyon showed cars pulling over as visibility deteriorated.

Four trucks were blown over on roads during the peak winds, causing delays on Interstate 15, where lanes were closed around St. Rose Parkway exit near M Resort Spa Casino for about three hours before reopening Thursday evening.

The winds mangled the Main Street Station casino sign, leaving it tilting to one side and sustaining some missing pieces.

Workers clear debris from a tree that fell during a severe wind storm in Las Vegas. (John Locher / AP)

Crews on Friday had laid the sign flat and roped off the area, according to Boyd Gaming spokesman David Strow.

It is beyond repair, he said. That sign will be gone.

He said it had been there since the 1980s, and the casino would be looking into designing and replacing it. Several other signs were damaged around the Strip as well, including the marquee at a large souvenir shop.

Monte Carlo Hotel and Casino took on some damage near its food court when a gust knocked down an 8-by-10-foot construction wall  forcing it to close off a small gambling area for about three hours.

MGM Resorts International spokeswoman Yvette Monet said the construction area was part of the Monte Carlos $450-million upgrade, including the launch of Park MGM hotel scheduled for late next year.

Monet said one person sustained a minor injury from the walls collapse and was treated on site.

The winds also forced some attractions on the Strip to close, including all of the rides atop the Stratosphere Hotel and Casino. Elevator rides up to the 1,149-foot observation deck remained open, however.

At McCarran International Airport, where peak winds reached 60 mph, 18 flights were diverted Thursday and other flights were delayed. By Friday afternoon, the delays were less than 15 minutes.

Around the Las Vegas Valley, some streets were blocked by fallen trees; Clark County officials said they responded to about 60 calls. Local television news reports showed one tree had fallen onto a home, collapsing part of its roof. Video on social media showed trampolines, barbecues and patio furniture being blown across streets and yards.

NV Energy reported Friday it was still attempting to restore power to customers after about 50,000 were left in the dark because of wind damage.

Unlike Phoenix, where dust storms approach like dirt tsunamis and blanket the area, Las Vegas is more insulated because its surrounded by mountains, Boothe said. Severe dust storms  called haboobs  are more likely to occur in Phoenix because it has fewer barriers to stop the wind from picking up dirt and blowing it through the air.

Boothe said that by Saturday, the winds in Las Vegas should be breezy.

david.montero@latimes.com

Twitter: @davemontero

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Death penalty advocates like to argue that putting a convicted murderer to death gives the victims family and friends a sense of closure, as though having another body in the ground somehow evens the score or lessens the loss or at least gives the tragedy a dramatic final ending. In reality, though, the extraordinarily lengthy delays in conducting a capital murder trial, followed by the extensive appeals process, means that decades can pass between a murder and an execution  if the execution happens at all. So not only is that supposed moment of closure elusive, but the drawn-out process  often accompanied by years of court hearings and filings generating fresh news coverage  means the families wind up reliving the trauma over and over again.

Nationwide, the average length of time between sentencing and execution is nearly 16 years. In California, about half of the inmates on death row have been there at least 20 years. Of the 123 California death row inmates who have died since 1978, only 15 were executed.

Relatives of the victims of Scott Dekraais horrific 2011 beauty salon attack in Seal Beach, in which he killed his ex-wife and seven other people, are learning about the tortuously long legal process. Dekraai pleaded guilty in 2014. On Wednesday, California Atty. Gen. Xavier Becerra announced that rather than seek a sentence of life without parole, he would seek the death penalty.

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Becerra made that decision despite objections by some of the victims families that they just want the legal battle to end. Tom Stretz, whose stepdaughter was among the murdered, described his emotions: Its miserable  there are no words. Every time any element of the case comes up, we just regurgitate the same feelings. Anger, sadness, disbelief  its almost surreal.

In fact, studies have found that capital-murder trials and executions rarely bring a sense of closure, or peace, to the families. Florida therapist Lula Redmond, who works with such families, told Psychology Today that taking a life doesnt fill that void, but its generally not until after the execution that families realize this. Victims families often find themselves sympathizing with the families of the killer, finding solace in shared trauma. Grief, as those who have experienced it can attest, never really goes away. But it does fade with time.

It takes much longer to fade, however, if the criminal justice system, in its misguided thirst for taking one life to atone for loss of another, forces the grief-stricken and traumatized to keep reliving the moment  cruel and unusual punishment, if you will, for those who are guilty of nothing.

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The U.S. military campaign against Islamic State, which began in 2014 as a humanitarian effort in Iraq and quickly escalated to a major military commitment in both that country and Syria, is entering what could be a decisive phase. With its regional allies, the U.S. is making significant progress toward the goal enunciated by former President Obama: to degrade and ultimately destroy the self-styled caliphate. Soon the offshoot of Al Qaeda may be dislodged from two cities it controls: Mosul in Iraq and Raqqah in Syria.

But as the U.S. and its allies approach that objective, civilian casualties have increased dramatically. Airwars, a nonproft group that monitors casualties from airstrikes in the campaign against Islamic State and other groups, reports that more than 1,000 civilian noncombatant deaths have been alleged from coalition actions across Iraq and Syria in March.

This week Lt. Gen. Stephen Townsend, the commanding general of the campaign against Islamic State, acknowledged that a March 17 air strike by the U.S.-led coalition probably destroyed an apartment block in Mosul in which 200 people died. The Iraqi army originally had blamed the deaths on improvised explosive devices planted by Islamic State, but on Wednesday Iraqi Gen. Talib Shaghati Kenani said it was clear that the devastating explosion was the result of a U.S. airstrike. He insisted, however, that the troops that requested it didnt realize civilians were present.

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Obviously, a full investigation needs to be made of this and other incidents in which civilians have died, and compensation must be paid to the families of the victims.

The larger imperative for the U.S. and its allies is to ensure that civilian casualties are minimized. That will obviously be harder than it was at earlier stages in the campaign when airstrikes were targeting Islamic State positions in remote areas.

Human rights activists have expressed concern about a decision by the Pentagon in December to allow U.S. military advisors to call in airstrikes more quickly, rather than go through a strike cell at headquarters. Its not clear that there is any connection between that decision and the increase in civilian casualties, but an additional layer of accountability strikes us as appropriate when airstrikes are being launched in an urban setting.

So far, despite all the derisive attacks he made as a candidate on the former administrations Islamic State strategy, President Trump has done little to change that approach. Now, ominously, he plans a comprehensive review of the current battle plan that could include relaxing the rules of engagement. Complicating the Pentagons calculations is the fact that Americans are involved in the war against Islamic State not only as pilots and advisers but as warriors in harms way  even if they arent formally designated as such.

But even when Americans are on the front lines, the highest traditions of the U.S. armed forces include protecting the lives of innocent civilians. Its important that the U.S. adhere to those values in this conflict  and insist that its allies do the same.

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Venezuelas violent crime epidemic appears to be escalating into a full-blown humanitarian crisis. The precise dimensions are hard to know, however, because along with the collapse of the economy and widespread hunger has come a near blackout of reliable government crime statistics.

The Venezuelan government stopped publishing comprehensive crime data more than a decade ago, and the discrepancies between what authorities say and data released by independent organizations are extreme.

For instance, local officials announced that 17,778 Venezuelans were victims of homicide in 2015. But the Venezuelan Violence Observatory, a nongovernmental group, estimated that there were 27,875 murders that year, which would make Venezuelas homicide rate one of the highest in the world, at 90 killings per 100,000 residents. The group found that the rate climbed higher in 2016, to 92 per 100,000.

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Venezuelas capital, Caracas, was proclaimed the most violent city in the world last year by the Citizens Council for Public Security and Criminal Justice, a Mexican research group that tallies an annual index of the worlds most violent cities. The homicide rate supposedly topped 119 per 100,000 residents, the group said. But there are no official statistics to support the claim and, predictably, the Venezuelan government has denied it.

Impunity is rife and the cost of murder low, with an estimated 92% of homicides not resulting in a conviction.

One reason for the data discrepancies is that the Venezuelan government has excluded extrajudicial killings from its homicide count, while human rights groups such as violence observatory do not. Also, the government has traditionally relied on statistics gathered by the Ministry of Health, while the observatory combines this health data with unofficial information about so-called resistance deaths attributed to state security forces and other deaths being investigated by independent forensics agencies.

In the absence of concrete and comprehensive statistics, some groups are attempting to gather oblique data on Venezuelas crime wave. Our organization commissioned a study on perceptions of violence from the Latin American Public Opinion Project at Vanderbilt University. Early data indicate that 6 out of 10 Venezuelans reported at least one murder in their neighborhood over the previous 12 months. By way of comparison, only 3.5 out of 10 respondents said the same in El Salvador and Honduras, considered the two most violent countries in the world.

The public opinion project survey also found that 80% of Venezuelans are very or partly afraid of being murdered in the coming year. This fear of violence is fueling a migration crisis as Venezuelans flee to Brazil and Colombia.

There are many causes of the spiraling homicide problem in Venezuela. Political and economic crises have undermined the legitimacy of institutions. The military and police have been largely discredited. State security agencies are said to both commit and ignore lethal violence. Impunity is rife and the cost of murder low, with an estimated 92% of homicides not resulting in a conviction. And gang violence has soared in the capital city.

But without solid statistics, Venezuela has little chance of slowing the crime wave anytime soon. It is next to impossible to make effective public policy without reliable data. Over the last decade, Venezuela has implemented no less than a dozen anti-crime initiatives, with no visible results to show for them. In fact, there are signs that these operations actually worsened the situation by militarizing public security and stigmatizing poor communities.

Curiously, Venezuelans appear to be hopeful that the government can reduce violent crime. According to the Vanderbilt survey, 70% of citizens feel that public authorities should take the lead in preventing homicide, though most rejected iron fist measures involving repressive police action and stiffer penalties. More than 50% of Venezuelans reject the death penalty for people convicted of murder, and 63% said that prevention measures, particularly education and employment, would be the most effective way to curtail crime.

Reducing homicide is difficult, but not impossible. Many countries and cities across Latin America have successfully lowered their homicide rates after setting targets, introducing data-driven policies, and sticking to a long-term plan. Colombia has nearly cut its homicide rate in half since 2004, for instance.

Venezuela can do the same, but not without diagnosing the true scale of the problem.

Juan Carlos Garzon is a regional advisor for the Igarape Institute. Robert Muggah is the co-founder and research director of the Igarape Institute and SevDev Foundation.

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Iraqi officials report that a U.S. airstrike killed nearly 200 civilians in West Mosul on March 17. The U.S. military acknowledged that it had carried out a mission in the area, and is now investigating this strike as well as another in March, said to have killed dozens of civilians near the Syrian city of Raqqah.

When a missile meets its target, chemicals inside the weapon combine, causing gases to expand and exert pressure on the warhead, which shatters outward, turning into shrapnel behind a blast wave. This wave, faster than sound, compresses the surrounding air, pulverizes any nearby concrete, plaster, or bone, and creates a vacuum, sucking debris back to the zero point. The chemical interaction also produces heat, causing fire.

Although the ensuing civilian casualties may seem like unstoppable tragedies, they are not. Civilian casualties are not inevitable. They are a choice.

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The U.S. military predicts how many people will die in its airstrikes by surveilling and estimating the population within a proposed blast radius. It also sets a limit on the number of innocent people each command is authorized to kill incidentally. This limit, called the Non-Combatant Cutoff Value, or NCV, is perhaps our starkest rule of engagement, and it varies region-by-region for political reasons.

Our policy for last year...was to tolerate the death of 112 Iraqi or Syrian civilians per American civilian.

In Afghanistan, civilian casualties caused by U.S. airstrikes are considered a liability in our relationship with that countrys government. The NCV for Afghanistan is therefore zero.

In Iraq and Syria, the calculus is different. The Pentagon believes Islamic State is a greater threat than the Taliban; the Iraqis have been requesting more aggressive support; the fighting is more urban.

Last year in Baghdad, I asked then-U.S. Army spokesman Col. Steve Warren what the NCV was for Iraq. That is: How many innocent Iraqis was his command authorized to kill incidentally in an airstrike?

There are numbers  we dont put those numbers out, he told me, and heres why we dont put em out: because if the enemy understand, oh if I have X number of civilians around a thing, its gonna be harder for right? So thats a piece of information that we protect.

The number, however, came out. It was first reported by Buzzfeed, and then the Associated Press, in December, when the Army issued its latest Rules of War Manual.

According to senior defense officials, the AP story ran, military leaders planning operations against the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria may authorize strikes where up to 10 civilians may be killed, if it is deemed necessary in order to get a critical military target.

That number yields some grim math. Last year, the coalition acknowledged 4,589 airstrikes in Iraq and Syria. If the NCV was 10 throughout, then U.S. policy in 2016 was to tolerate the incidental killing of a maximum of 45,890 innocent Iraqis and Syrians in order to destroy Islamic State. For context, the common estimate for Islamic State fighters in Iraq and Syria is 40,000, and between Sept. 11, 2001, and 2016, foreign terrorists killed a total of 411 American civilians, worldwide.

Our policy for last year, then, was to tolerate the death of 112 Iraqi or Syrian civilians per American civilian.

Thats on paper. In practice, the military does not typically expect civilian casualties, and it engineers strikes to avoid them. I doubt the military anticipated, specifically, those 200 civilians who died in Mosul. We have killed far fewer noncombatant Iraqis than the NCV permits  a minimum of 2,831, according to Airwars, the preeminent independent monitoring group. (The U.S. has confirmed only 220 as of March). And in dozens of interviews with men and women responsible for such strikes, no one expressed a desire to kill civilians or the opinion that it is ever strategically advisable to do so. Recently embedded in a tactical operations center to observe airstrikes, I met targeteers and commanding officers who were mostly conscientious, within the parameters of their bloody business.

But whats on paper matters. On paper is where we read about equal justice under the law, and facts submitted to a candid world, and unalienable rights.

The math, then, is troubling  especially under a president who, unlike the men and women he leads, has endorsed the intentional, rather than incidental, killing of noncombatants.

The other thing with terrorists, then-candidate Donald Trump said on Fox and Friends in December 2015, is that you have to take out their families.

To do so would be a war crime. Whether or not the Trump administration has relaxed the rules of engagement, as some suspect, Airwars reported in March that we are, for the first time, causing more civilian casualties in the fight against Islamic State than our Russian counterparts. This monstrous fact will disturb the troops I met in December, who believe that we are always the good guys when it comes to civilian casualties. Or at least the better guys. But there are no good guys in this process. That we have an NCV greater than zero implies something ugly, if unsurprising, about the way we see ourselves in the world, how we value a foreign life against an American one. We value it less.

It is reasonable to care more for countrymen than foreigners. Devotion to family, neighbors and friends defines a life, and one does not love a stranger, a little girl in Mosul, as much as a daughter. But neither should we be willing to kill that little girl to achieve our aims. Arguably legal, our utilitarian position is neither brave nor morally ambitious for a superpower dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Nick McDonells most recent book, The Civilization of Perpetual Movement, was published in 2016.

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With so much going on in Washington, the American people may not be up to date with the Congressional Review Act  an obscure tool Congress has been using to rescind policies that were put in place by the previous administration. Most recently, the House and Senate voted to undo rules designed to protect the privacy of American consumers when they sign up for and use broadband Internet service. This would leave Internet users worse off, but theres still time for President Trump to veto the legislation.

Two Commissioners from different agencies teamed up to write this op-ed because both the Federal Communications Commission and the Federal Trade Commission have a role in protecting consumer privacy. The FCC protects consumers when they sign up for or use their broadband connection; the FTC protects them when they use the products and services running over that network (think websites, social networks and streaming services).

Last fall, the FCC adopted rules requiring broadband providers to get explicit permission from consumers before using their sensitive personal data for purposes other than providing broadband.

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Advocates for repealing those protections argue that they create consumer confusion by establishing two sets of rules, one for broadband providers, set by the FCC, and another for online products and services, policed by the FTC.

[I]f the legislation approved by Congress becomes law, there will be no privacy rules governing broadband providers.

But thats nonsense. The FCCs new rules are in keeping with the FTCs longstanding guidelines, and they match the expectations consumers have when they go online. The rules also recognize the reality that while consumers can choose between different search engines, social networks and other websites based on privacy, many have no choice when it comes to high-speed broadband at home.

What people may not realize, moreover, is that if the legislation approved by Congress becomes law, there will be no privacy rules governing broadband providers. The FCC no longer will be able to protect consumer privacy and, because of arcane restraints on its jurisdiction, the FTC will be unable to pick up the slack.

Under the FCCs privacy rules, your broadband provider needs to get your express consent before collecting information about what you search for on the Internet, post on social media and what videos you watch online. As we connect more things in our homes, your broadband provider can infer a lot of things about you just by looking at the data traffic flowing from these devices  things like when youre home, when youre awake, when youre cooking or whether you have children.

If the legislation is signed into law, your broadband provider could collect this information and sell it to advertisers, or any third party, without your knowledge  and without ever offering you a choice.

Since recent polls suggest that 91% of Americans feel they already have given up too much of their personal data, we believe that consumers want these commonsense protections extended, not erased.

Last years election was fought over many issues; removing privacy protections from American consumers was not one of them. We have yet to hear from a single consumer who wants less control over their sensitive personal data. Unfortunately, that is exactly what this legislation would do. It is our hope that President Trump, who was elected by arguing that he would stand up for the average American, does what most Americans would expect and vetoes this legislation.

Terrell McSweeny is commissioner of the Federal Trade Commission. Mignon Clyburn is commissioner of the Federal Communications Commission.

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The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform held a hearing on government transparency last week. On the agenda: bills that put government data into more accessible, readable formats; that subject mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to Freedom of Information Act requests; and that require an audit of the Federal Reserve.

These are fine ideas, but none comes close to dealing with the lack of transparency at the top of our democracy.

Although we know that Russia tried to help put President Trump in power through a sophisticated computer hacking operation, and that the FBI has information suggesting some of Trumps campaign operatives may have collaborated with the Russians, we still do not have even the most basic information about the presidents or the Trump Organizations financial dealings with the Russians or with any other foreign power.

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The reason for this is simple  the president has not released his tax returns. He doesnt have to; theres no law forcing his hand, although every other president since the 1970s has done so. As a candidate, Trump filled out Form 278, which is a financial disclosure statement that presidents, candidates for president and other senior executive branch officials must file annually. But Form 278 alone, without Trumps tax returns and given his refusal to truly divest from his businesses, isnt sufficient to do the disclosure job.

All high-ranking officials except the president are subject to criminal conflict of interest prosecution.

Many of the Trump Organization entities are set up so as not to pay their own corporate income tax but to pass through profits and losses to their owners, principally President Trump. Information about the profits and losses, including debt payments, of Trump corporations and limited liability companies is included on his personal tax returns. If there were, say, several million dollars a year in interest paid each year on a loan from an opaque Russian entity financing Trump Organization businesses, that information would have to be disclosed on his tax return in order for him to deduct the interest.

Very little of such Trump Organization information is captured by Form 278. This is because it has nothing to do with taxes, it reports only the personal assets, income and liabilities of whoever must fill it out, not of the entities that he or she controls.

In the presidents case, even if he could take a tax deduction for interest payments by a Trump-controlled corporation or LLC to a foreign lender, he would not have to disclose this on his Form 278 because it is not his loan. Unless the loan is set up so that he is personally liable (and we know from past reporting on his business dealings he does not like to do that), the loan does not have to be disclosed. (The interest paid may reduce the overall earnings reported, but the amount of the loan and the identity of the lender would remain concealed.)

Form 278 also does not require disclosure of the identities of other business partners in Trumps corporations and LLCs. If there is capital infusion in a Trump business from a foreign sovereign wealth fund, for instance, you wont find that on Form 278 because technically it is not a direct payment to Trump but rather to a corporate entity controlled by Trump.

Congress can amend the statute governing Form 278 to require more disclosure of debts, capital infusions and revenues of corporations, LLCs and other entities controlled by high-ranking office holders.

We are entitled to know, for example, about any foreign payments that have been flowing to or from senior officials, including the president, who are responsible for our intelligence operations and national defense. We are similarly entitled to information about foreign money going to or from officials who negotiate trade agreements, whether the president or the U.S. Trade Representative.

It may not seem necessary to extend the collection of this information beyond the president, since all other high-ranking officials are subject to criminal conflict of interest prosecution. Those laws mean that such officials tend to sell any controlling corporate interests that might relate to their duties when they enter public service. Nonetheless, it would be better if Form 278 expressly ask them as well as the president to disclose such interests.

With regard to President Trump, Russian money is what we are most concerned about now, but we also want to know more about his financial connections in the Middle East and China as well.

In addition to amending Form 278, Congress should use its subpoena powers to get the presidents tax returns and to demand other relevant information from the Trump Organization. This cannot wait. If anyone helped the Russians conduct hostile spying activities in the United States to disrupt the 2016 election, that person probably committed treason. Although we should assume that the president had nothing to do with such a conspiracy unless proven otherwise, we do have a right to know about his business dealings abroad, including his possible dealings in the very same country that took such extraordinary measures to harm us.

Richard W. Painter, a law professor at the University of Minnesota, was chief White House ethics lawyer under President George W. Bush from 2005 to 2007.

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Irony abounds in former national security advisor Michael Flynns request that he be offered immunity from prosecution in exchange for testifying before the House and Senate intelligence committees, which are investigating possible collusion between Russia and the Trump election campaign.

This is the same Michael Flynn who said this last year on Meet the Press about aides to Hillary Clinton who had received immunity during the FBIs investigation of Clintons private email server:

I mean, five people around her have had, have been given immunity to include her chief of staff. When you are given immunity, that means you have probably committed a crime.

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Flynn definitely deserves all the scorn hes receiving for inconsistency. So does President Trump, who tweeted his support for the immunity idea Friday morning.

Mike Flynn should ask for immunity in that this is a witch hunt (excuse for big election loss), by media & Dems, of historic proportion!) The problem is that in October 2016 Trump tweeted: ATTN: @HillaryClinton - Why did five of your staffers need FBI IMMUNITY?!

Hypocrisy aside, is there anything wrong with Flynn trying to protect himself from possible legal exposure? Does taking such precautions create a presumption of guilt? I dont think so  any more than invoking ones 5th Amendment right against self-incrimination does.

Of course, whether Flynn has a right to ask for immunity is a different question from whether his request should be honored. Also, Flynns lawyer is exaggerating the unfairness of environment in which Flynn would testify. The lawyer, Robert Kelner, referred to a highly politicized, witch hunt environment and the possibility of an unfair prosecution. Trump, of course, also alleged a witch hunt in supporting Flynns immunity request.

Witch hunt is way over the top; but clearly there is a growing perception that the Trump campaign was too close to Russia, and it has been abetted by the administrations evasions and misstatements. Even if you dont believe that such a climate would influence the Justice Department  or a potential special counsel  to launch an otherwise meritless prosecution of Flynn, his lawyer would be remiss not to ponder that possibility.

For example, might a special counsel conclude that Flynns conversations with Russias ambassadors during the transition between administrations violated the Logan Act, a 1799 law that prohibits private citizens from interfering with diplomatic relations between the U.S. foreign governments. The law is generally regarded as a dead letter, but perhaps an imaginative prosecutor might take a chance.

Flynns request for immunity has inspired some intricate speculation about exactly how his lawyer thinks it would help him. (This analysis by Philip Bump in the Washington Post draws a parallel to the case of Oliver North, the key figure in the Iran-Contra scandal.)

But the overriding reason for the request seems simple: Flynns lawyer wants to protect the interests of his client in an unpredictable legal and political environment. That some people  including Flynn and Trump  have interpreted similar actions as evidence of guilt doesnt make them illegitimate.

The man who led Hillary-hating Republican convention delegates in a chorus of Lock her up is an unsympathetic figure. But as a potential target of federal prosecutors  a role his lawyer has assigned to him  hes entitled to zealous legal representation.

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Its a dangerous time to be LGBT in America.

The White House announced this week that it will be repealing an Obama executive order designed to enforce workplace protections for LGBT federal contractors. Just days after the Trump administration removed LGBT seniors from two federal surveys, the Census Bureau announced that queer and transgender people will not be included in its 2020 survey, contrary to previous reports. A leaked draft earlier this January suggested that LGBT Americans will be counted for the first time, but the department claimed that was a mistake.

Meanwhile, a recent report from the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University, San Bernardino found that anti-LGBT hate crimes have spiked in the months since Trumps election.

In the face of an unprecedented assault on the LGBT communitys rights and safety, gay Republican groups have claimed that advocates must compromise with the new occupants of the Oval Office. Youre going to have to meet Republicans where they are, and understand the political reality of today, Log Cabin Republican president Gregory T. Angelo told The Huffington Post. Thats precisely what gay conservative groups have been trying to do for years: to push for greater understanding and cooperation between the GOP and the LGBT community.

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Advocating for inclusion and compassion from Republican leaders is a noble goal. But it clearly isnt working.

Despite public pressure from influential queer and transgender Republicans, the party has continued to force America to the far right. Even while openly advocating for LGBT equality, Trump has pursued a platform that could set the community back decades. If gay conservatives want to make the right less hostile to LGBT people, they shouldnt continue fighting a losing battle. The only way to change the Republican Party is to leave it.

The only way to change the Republican Party is to leave it.

LGBT conservatives might seem like a niche demographic, but there are a lot more of them than you think. In 2008, 27 percent of LGBT people cast a ballot for John McCain over Barack Obama. Two years later, that number was even higher. During the 2010 midterms, a historic 31 percent of LGBT voters went red. That protest vote, largely in response to Obamas perceived lukewarm stance on LGBT rights, had critical consequences. It was the election in which the Tea Party took control of the House, pushing the right-wing toward the extremist populism that now dominates the GOP.

Exit polling showed that 5.7 million LGBT people voted in the 2012 election. If we consider the 2010 result a ceiling for how high the gay Republican vote can go, thats a max of 1.8 million votes  enough to tip the scales in a close race.

Caitlyn Jenner, the nations most famous LGBT conservative, believes that its possible to use these massive numbers to transform the Republican party from the inside. Jenner was one of the few high-profile celebrities to attend Trumps inauguration. In a New York Times op-ed, the Olympic gold medalist told her close friend, Jennifer Finney Boylan, that she was there working.

I had an objective when I went there to meet as many people and open as many doors as I possibly could, Jenner said, and I was able to accomplish that.

But how far did opening those doors get her? Not very.

In February, the Trump administration announced that it would be rolling back federal protections for transgender students. Although reports suggested that Trump has tabled an executive order that would have permitted broad-based discrimination against the LGBT community, that order is still very much under consideration  and may be introduced at a later date.

This is precisely the bind that organizations like the Log Cabin Republicans have found themselves in since 1977, when the group formed in order to get California conservatives to help kill a 1978 ballot initiative that would have allowed schools to fire openly gay teachers. That effort was successful. In the decades since, advocates have had moderate success in getting Republicans to back pro-LGBT legislation, including a 2015 bill in Utah preventing workers from being fired on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity.

Meanwhile, gay conservatives in Florida report that support for nondiscrimination legislation has been growing among GOP legislators in recent years. In 2017, 15 Republicans have signed onto a bill that would prevent bias in housing and employment.

These gains are admirable, but theres little evidence that incremental shifts within the Republican party are due to change from the inside. The Utah nondiscrimination bill, for instance, was carried over the finish line by LGBT organizations like Equality Utah. And even that so-called compromise left open a wide exemption for religious groups to discriminate in the name of faith, permitting the very bigotry it was purported to abolish.

At the 2016 Republican National Convention, the GOP introduced the most anti-LGBT platform in the partys history, one in which its members openly endorsed conversion therapy. The American Civil Liberties Union has predicted that a record number of discriminatory bills targeting the LGBT community will be introduced at the state level this year. Arkansas and Texas are both considering bills that would prevent transgender people from using bathrooms that correspond with their gender identity, similar to North Carolinas infamous House Bill 2.

In 2018, the LGBT community will be called upon in yet another crucial midterm, one that will act as a referendum on policies that have already negatively impacted queer people. If LGBT conservatives want to influence the Republican politicians who keep chipping away at their basic dignity, they neednt keep pounding on the doors of political extremists who arent interested in true cooperation. They should stop giving them their votes.

Nico Lang is co-editor of the Boys anthology series. You can read his work in Rolling Stone, Salon and the Onion A.V. Club. Find him on Twitter @nico_lang.

Follow the Opinion section on Twitter @latimesopinion and Facebook
The robots are coming! The robots are coming! They are coming and they will completely alter our economic reality. However, instead of planning for this revolutionary change, Americas politicians  from Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders on down  continue to cling to the illusion that, with the right tinkering, there can be enough jobs enough for everyone, just like in the good old days.

Well, the good old days are gone, and a story on the Futurism website demonstrates why: Changying Precision Technology Co.s cellphone factory in China recently replaced 90% of its workers with machines and saw productivity increase by 250% while the number of product defects fell by 80%. This is great news for the company, not so great news for the now-unemployed workers.

Because free-market capitalism moves relentlessly toward innovation and efficiency, this is a phenomenon that will be repeated in small steps and big leaps in every industrialized society.

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A White House report released in December says 83% of U.S. jobs in which people make less than $20 per hour are now, or soon will be, subject to automation. Additionally, thanks to the new marvel of driverless vehicles, all the underemployed folks who have found a slot driving for Uber and Lyft may soon find themselves redundant. And not just them. Driverless long-haul trucks are rolling into view, too. The White House study projects that as many as 3.1 million drivers of all kinds  cabbies, truckers, chauffeurs, bus drivers  could be made obsolete by the technological revolution in just a few years.

1 / 51 la-1491523602-y7ephyarj1-snap-image (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times) 2 / 51 la-1491368625-0bgh58ihw8-snap-image (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times) 3 / 51 Top of the Ticket cartoon (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times) 4 / 51 Top of the Ticket cartoon (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times) 5 / 51 Top of the Ticket cartoon (David Horsey / Los angeles Times) 6 / 51 Top of the Ticket cartoon (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times) 7 / 51 Top of the Ticket cartoon (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times) 8 / 51 Top of the Ticket cartoon (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times) 9 / 51 Top of the Ticket cartoon (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times) 10 / 51 Top of the Ticket cartoon. (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times) 11 / 51 Top of the Ticket cartoon (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times) 12 / 51 Top of the Ticket cartoon (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times) 13 / 51 Top of the Ticket cartoon (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times) 14 / 51 Top of the Ticket cartoon (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times) 15 / 51 Top of the Ticket cartoon (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times) 16 / 51 Top of the Ticket cartoon. (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times) 17 / 51 Top of the Ticket cartoon (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times) 18 / 51 Top of the Ticket cartoon (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times) 19 / 51 Top of the Ticket cartoon (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times) 20 / 51 Trump inspires millions to take to the streets -- to oppose him. (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times) 21 / 51 Top of the Ticket cartoon (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times) 22 / 51 Top of the Ticket cartoon (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times) 23 / 51 Top of the Ticket cartoon. (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times) 24 / 51 Top of the Ticket cartoon (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times) 25 / 51 Top of the Ticket cartoon (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times) 26 / 51 Top of the Ticket cartoon. (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times) 27 / 51 Top of the Ticket cartoon (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times) 28 / 51 Top of the Ticket cartoon (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times) 29 / 51 Top of the Ticket cartoon (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times) 30 / 51 Top of the Ticket cartoon (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times) 31 / 51 Top of the Ticket cartoon (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times) 32 / 51 Cartoon caption contest winner at the DENT conference in Sun Valley, Idaho: Jon Duval, executive director of the Ketchum Community Development Corporation. (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times) 33 / 51 Old radicals and big media descend on Selma (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times) 34 / 51 Horsey imagined the creation of the Ann Coulter phenomenon in this cartoon from 2007. (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times) 35 / 51 This David Horsey drawing is a reconfiguration of a cartoon he first published in 2006. (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times) 36 / 51 Donald Sterling, owner of the L.A. Clippers, should give Cliven Bundy a call. After Sterling loses his NBA franchise and the deadbeat Nevada rancher loses his cattle, the two old racists will both need a buddy. Maybe they can team up together and open an all-white rodeo. (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times) 37 / 51 Besides sending a chill up the spine of the international community, Vladimir Putin has accomplished one other thing by seizing Crimea and threatening the rest of Ukraine: Putin has brought back the bear. (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times) 38 / 51 The right-wing insurrection at the Bundy ranch in Bunkerville, Nev., has taken another weird turn with new revelations about the family history of Cliven Bundy. (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times) 39 / 51 See full story (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times) 40 / 51 See full story (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times) 41 / 51 See full story (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times) 42 / 51 See full story (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times) 43 / 51 See full story (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times) 44 / 51 See full story (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times) 45 / 51 David Horsey / Los Angeles Times (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times) 46 / 51 See full story (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times) 47 / 51 See full story (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times) 48 / 51 See full story (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times) 49 / 51 See full story (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times) 50 / 51 See full story (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times) 51 / 51 See full story (David Horsey / Los Angeles Times)

Andrew Yang, founder and chief executive of Venture for America, published an article this month that cites the White House report and warns Americans to get ready for an era of 60% unemployment. Having surveyed the thinking of top innovators in Silicon Valley, Yang says, Literally the smartest people in the world think an unprecedented wave of job destruction is coming with the development of artificial intelligence, robotics, software and automation. And he quotes perhaps the brainiest guy in the world, scientist Stephen Hawking, as saying the rise of artificial intelligence is likely to extend job destruction deep into the middle classes, with only the most caring, creative or supervisory roles remaining.

Is anyone in Congress or the Trump White House (the report on automation was a leftover from the Obama administration) taking job destruction into account as they mull over long-range economic schemes? It appears not. Trump and his new EPA director are busy hacking away at environmental regulations, ostensibly to save a few jobs in the doomed coal industry, even as machines are steadily replacing workers in those same jobs. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin is on record insisting that automation and artificial intelligence will not kill very many jobs anytime soon. That is 50 or 100 years down the road, Mnuchin claims.

But Yum Brands Chief Executive Greg Creed told CNBC that, in his industry (Yum brands owns Taco Bell, Pizza Hut and KFC), change is coming much faster than the Treasury secretary predicts. I do believe that probably by the mid 20s to the late 20s, youll start to see a dramatic change in how machines sort of run the world, Creed said.

Right now, it is tough for anyone with a high school education to find a job that pays enough money to live on. In just a few years, millions of jobs at the low end of the economic spectrum will be taken over by machines and the undereducated will be completely out of luck. It will not just be hamburger flippers in trouble, though  or truckers or factory workers. Numerous middle-class office workers will be displaced by robots, as well.

A significant part of this dislocation can be ameliorated by getting people better educated and able to do the work that machines cannot do (at least not yet). So, political leaders should begin getting much more serious about dealing with the prohibitive cost of higher education.

There is something bigger than retraining and education to be considered, though. On some not-too-distant day, it will become clear that our civilization has become so reliant on highly efficient, wondrously intelligent machinery that we simply do not need that many people to work in traditional jobs. There will be plenty of wealth to go around, but not that much work. Unless we want millions to starve or go homeless or riot in the streets, our society will need to guarantee a minimum income for everyone by letting all citizens share in the vast wealth created by robot labor.

To make a world with a limited need for human workers function successfully, we will have to find the answers to some big questions:

 How can humans feel useful in lives that are not centered around work?

 Are there rewarding tasks to be done by the underemployed whose value is not measured by money?

 Can we find it in ourselves to respect people who do those tasks or will we dismiss them as freeloaders? (Being more liberal-minded ought to be easier since a majority of us may lack traditional employment.)

 In a country built on self-reliance, the Protestant work ethic and meritocracy, can we adjust to a very different idea about how we spend our lives?

 Can the antigovernment philosophy that infuses and informs much of American politics ever accept the redistributive mechanisms that would be necessary to provide a minimum income to all?

We need to start thinking about these and other thorny questions now, because a great dislocation is not far away.

David.Horsey@latimes.com

Follow me at @davidhorsey on Twitter
The election for the 34th Congressional District is Tuesday, and 24 candidates are vying to fill the vacancy in the central Los Angeles district. Heres what you should know if youre one of the 305,000 voters in the district, and why you should care if you arent.

Theres another election happening? What? Where? Why? How?

Yes, we know Los Angeles just got through with an election March 7, but that was for L.A. mayor, City Council and county measures.

This election is about electing a new member of Congress for L.A.s 34th District, which stretches from Koreatown and Westlake, through downtown, Chinatown and parts of East Los Angeles, Boyle Heights, Highland Park and Eagle Rock.

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Theres hasnt been a member of Congress representing those neighborhoods since Feb. 1, when Xavier Becerra resigned to be sworn in as Californias attorney general.

Its the first congressional election since Donald Trump was elected president, so its been getting a lot of national attention.

Though Gov. Jerry Brown nominated Becerra for the post back in December, the fact that he didnt step down until he was confirmed by the state Legislature made it hard to consolidate the special election with the already scheduled March races.

The two dozen hopefuls are wrangling for a spot among the top two finishers, hoping to get into a likely runoff election June 6. If any candidate receives more than 50% of the vote, no runoff will be held, but with so many competing, the chances of that happening are low.

So whos running?

Most of the candidates have never run for political office before. Theres a union organizer, a former journalist a rocket scientist and a film producer in the running. Theres also a state assemblyman, a county prosecutor and a slew of local activists and community leaders.

Heres a rundown of the long list of candidates who are running.

What do they think about the top issues?

All but four of the candidates are Democrats. Even though most of them are basically in agreement about some of the biggest challenges facing the district, their approach to the issues differs significantly. And there are also a Republican, a Libertarian, a Green Party member and an independent in the mix.

To help you sift through some of their policy stands, we asked the candidates to give us their views in 100 words or less on six top issues.

More on the issues:

Heres what 23 candidates in L.A.s congressional race say on the top issues.

Immigration issues matter a lot to voters and to the candidates

With Trump in the White House and potential battles brewing over issues like sanctuary cities, most of the candidates have vowed to fight the president on immigration issues if elected.

One poll suggested immigration is one of the top priorities among likely voters, and half of the candidates in the race are either immigrants or the children of immigrants.

A lot of women are running

Thirteen of the 24 candidates in this race are women, and eight are Latinas. Many of them have years of experience as community organizers, media personalities and activists.

Several of the candidates participated in the womens marches in Los Angeles and Washington, D.C.

When asked at a recent candidate forum to describe themselves in one word, the women running in the 34th District chose words such as relentless, strong and badass.

More on some the women who are running:

> Congressional candidates Yolie Flores and Maria Cabildo launch first video ads and play to their strengths

> Congressional candidate Wendy Carrillo delves into her immigration story in emotional video ad

> L.A. congressional candidate Alejandra Campoverdi makes healthcare debate personal in first TV ad

> Donald Trump is the bad guy in the first TV ad of Los Angeles congressional race

> Former leader of antipoverty group joins race to replace Xavier Becerra in Congress

Many see this as a contest between establishment Democrats and the Bernie Sanders progressive wing of the party

This is one of the few districts in California that voted for Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders over Hillary Clinton in last years presidential primary.

Three candidates, Wendy Carrillo, Kenneth Mejia and former Sanders campaign aide Arturo Carmona, are competing for votes from the most progressive wing of the party. Sanders hasnt thrown his support to any candidate.

State Assemblyman Jimmy Gomez is considered by most to be the establishment candidate. Hes raised the most money, a lot of it from powerful political action committees.

This is considered a safe Democratic seat, so as the intraparty battle plays out in this first-in-the-nation special election, it could hold clues as to where Democratic Party politics are headed in the future.

Most of the campaign money has gone to just five candidates

Even though theres more than 20 candidates in the race, three quarters of the money raised has gone to five campaigns, according to a Times analysis of FEC filings.

More than 80% of the campaign cash in the contest came from outside the 34th District, where the median household income is $35,181.

Small donors have also played a big role for some of the candidates.

More on the money:

> The money race in the 34th Congressional District

The outcome depends heavily on turnout

Predictions about how many voters will actually turn out have been all over the map. Some say it could be as low as 9%, while others think it will be closer to the 20% turnout of L.A.s city elections.

Either way, this special election isnt likely to get the kind of widespread participation we usually see in presidential years, so the unusually large number of candidates are fighting for a relatively small number of votes. That means this race is a battle to get a candidates closest friends and supporters to show up at the polls.

There are signs Korean American candidate Robert Lee Ahn has already been particularly successful at that  a recent analysis showed nearly a quarter of the mail-in ballots turned in for the race so far were cast by Korean American voters.

Whos backing who?

State Assemblyman Gomez, who represents about half the voters in the 34th District, has the backing of the California Democratic Party and dozens of elected officials, including Becerra and L.A. Mayor Eric Garcetti.

This isnt necessarily a totally positive thing for Gomez, who has had to fight against the idea that hes been anointed by Democratic Party insiders.

This race is still wide open and other endorsements might play a big role, too. Maria Cabildo was endorsed by the Los Angeles Times editorial board, while Yolie Flores got the backing of former L.A. Mayor Richard Riordan. Gomez has received support from most of the major labor unions involved in L.A. politics and from environmental groups and Planned Parenthoods advocacy arm.

The L.A. County Young Democrats backed Sara Hernandez, while Carmona received support from National Nurses United and the California Nurses Assn., which were big Sanders backers, and dozens of other volunteers and staff members from the Sanders campaign.

Carrillo received endorsements from the chairman of the Standing Rock Sioux reservation and a trio of prominent Sanders supporters.

How and where do I vote?

If youre voting in person on Tuesday, you can find your polling place here. If youre voting by mail, remember that your ballot will be counted as long as its postmarked by April 4 and is received by election officials by April 7. You can also drop your mail-in ballot off at any polling place.

And if youre a Korean-speaking voter or you know someone in this district who receives their voting materials in Korean, double-check your sample ballot. There was an error on some Korean language ballots that could cause you to vote for the wrong person inadvertently.

Where do I find out who won?

Well be tracking election results and election day happenings live and you can follow along at latimes.com/essentialpolitics.

christine.maiduc@latimes.com

For more on California politics, follow @cmaiduc.

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Updates on California politics

UPDATES:

April 3, 9:25 a.m.: Updated with current information about voting.

This article was originally published on March 31.
In the crowded field of two dozen candidates vying to replace Xavier Becerra in Congress, most of the money from donors has been flowing to a handful of hopefuls. Of the more than $2.4 million that has been raised by candidates since December, nearly 75% has gone to just five campaigns.

And in a race where local activists and community leaders dominate the field, an overwhelming majority of the money has come from outside the 34th Congressional District, which stretches from Koreatown and downtown Los Angeles to the more residential neighborhoods of Boyle Heights, Highland Park and Eagle Rock.

The latest fundraising and spending figures, released last week, give a fuller picture of which candidates are running viable campaigns to try to win the top two spots in the Tuesday primary in order to secure a spot in a likely June 6 runoff. (In the unlikely event that one candidate wins more than 50% of the vote, there wont be a runoff.)

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Heres some of what we found:

The top five raised nearly three times the amount of the rest of the field combined

So far, donors have favored five candidates: Assemblyman Jimmy Gomez, Sara Hernandez, Robert Lee Ahn, Alejandra Campoverdi and Yolie Flores.

Not counting money candidates gave to themselves, Gomez was the top overall fundraiser, bringing in $540,360 since announcing his run in December. Hernandez, a former teacher who also worked as an L.A. City Hall aide, has raised $425,330 overall. But late entry Ahn, a former planning commissioner, out-raised both Hernandez and Gomez in the most recent campaign finance period, bringing in $330,300 in donations from Jan. 1 to March 15, putting him third in overall fundraising.

Most of the cash came from outside the district, and a lot of it came from outside California

According to a Times analysis of Federal Election Commission filings, more than 80% of the contributions where a ZIP Code was disclosed (which is most of them) came from areas outside the district.

Much of that money has been raised in more affluent parts of L.A. County, particularly the Westside. Those wealthy donors are trying to sway voters in an immigrant-heavy district where nearly half of the households earn less than $35,000 a year.

Some candidates have geographic strongholds. Gomez received a substantial share of his local money from northeast L.A., which he represents in the state Legislature, while more money from downtown L.A. has flowed to Hernandez than to many of the other candidates. Ahn, who would be the only Korean American in Congress if elected, has his strongest base in Koreatown, where his fundraising dwarfed the other candidates.

Campoverdi had a strong base of support from donors outside of California, where she raised 52% of her $262,737. She received more money from donors in New York state and Illinois than the $23,300 she raised from ZIP Codes inside the 34th District.

That could be chalked up to her itinerant resume: She attended Harvard and worked for President Obamas campaign and later as a White House staffer before moving on to Univision News and the Los Angeles Times. (She left The Times last July.) Her largest donors range from Obamas longtime aide Reggie Love to Shervin Pishevar, a venture capitalist and co-founder of the Los Angeles transportation start-up Hyperloop One.

Small-dollar donations play big role for some candidates

About $351,000, or 14% of all reported contributions, came from donors who gave less than $200. Arturo Carmona, Wendy Carrillo and Green Party candidate Kenneth Mejia, who are all vying for votes from the progressive wing of the Democratic Party heavily influenced by former presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders, raised a lot from small donations.

Carmona, a former Sanders campaign advisor, raised the most in small donations, with $81,608, or about 46% of his overall total through March 15. Mejia, on the other hand, raised the largest share in small-dollar donations, about 90% of the $35,682 he raised in total.

Campoverdi raised $48,780 in donations of $200 or less, and Carrillo received $41,330 in small bucks.

The perks of being the establishment-backed candidate

Gomez has spent most of the race fighting the idea that hes part of the Democratic Party establishment. But hes benefited from that status, raising just under a third of all his contributions, or $167,090, from powerful political action committees.

Almost $45,000 of that came from fellow Sacramento legislators or their campaign committees, and state and local candidates. Healthcare industry committees and Native American gaming tribes have also contributed significant amounts to Gomez. And although registered California lobbyists are barred from giving money to his state Assembly campaign, Gomez received $10,400 worth of contributions to his U.S. congressional campaign from 10 registered lobbyists.

Playing to their strengths

For the rest of the top fundraising candidates, targeting their various bases of support was important. Maria Cabildo, a longtime affordable housing advocate, received a large share of contributions from employees of the East L.A. Community Corporation, the affordable housing development group she helped start, and others in the housing industry.

Hernandez, who worked as Councilman Jose Huizars downtown director, received donations from prominent downtown developers such as Geoff Anenberg and collected money from downtown chefs, including $1,500 from Neal Fraser of Redbird.

Flores, a former Los Angeles Board of Education member and social worker, received more than $30,000 from groups and advocates involved in charter schools, education groups and childrens issues.

Howd they spend it all?

The top fundraisers mostly spent their money on time-tested strategies, including mailers. Gomez spent $107,170 on stationery, direct mail and postage, which made up about 40% of his spending. Hernandez, the only candidate to spend a significant amount on TV ads so far, dropped $125,349 on media production and advertising, nearly half of her expenditures.

Campoverdi, who released an emotional ad highlighting her familys history of breast cancer, spent a lean $35,711 on media buys, audio-video production and media consulting.

Ahn has spent a total of $352,538, including just over $168,000 on potholders, notepads, envelopes, printing, mailing and postage. He also spent just under $11,500 on other old-school tactics: door hangers, lawn signs and banners.

The candidates with their own skin in the game

Some of the lesser-known candidates new to politics are reaching into their own pockets.

Ahn loaned his campaign a staggering $295,000 and paid for another $8,400 in expenses out of his own pocket. Carmona loaned his campaign an additional $3,000 on top of $25,000 he had already forked over earlier in the race.

Tracy Van Houten spent $17,001 on her campaign, while Ricardo De La Fuente gave his campaign an initial loan of $8,591. A handful of other candidates, including Gomez, Hernandez, Flores and Raymond Meza, had previously donated to their own campaigns.

Money in the bank

Ahns massive loan to his own campaign left him in a competitive position for the final weeks of the campaign, with $271,200 in the bank. Thats just slightly behind Gomez, who has $274,830 left to spend, but well ahead of Hernandez, who has less than $141,000 banked.

Campoverdi has about $123,000 cash on hand, while Cabildo is trailing with less than $100,000 in the bank.

Those dollars could be crucial in the final days of the campaign, as candidates ramp up their get-out-the-vote operations and drop last-minute mailers and other ads as they try to capture voters attention.

As the election nears, federal law requires candidates to disclose such donations within 48 hours of receiving them.

Since March 15, Ahn has raised more than $103,000 in donations of $1,000 or more, so he likely has significantly more money to burn than the other candidates.

De La Fuente, a long-shot candidate who most recently worked for his fathers long-shot presidential campaign, loaned himself $40,000 in the last couple of weeks. Gomez has raised an extra $38,900 in big donations since mid-March, while Campoverdi added another $26,900 into her campaign coffers.

The full report of money raised and spent up until the day of the April 4 election wont be available until a month later, when its likely the top two finishers in the primary will be far into their campaigns for the June 6 general election.

christine.maiduc@latimes.com

maloy.moore@latimes.com

ryan.menezes@latimes.com

javier.panzar@latimes.com

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Updates on California politics
A former senior White House official is seeking immunity from prosecution.

The president is threatening to mount primary challenges against conservative Republicans who defy him.

And yet another campaign promise  this one on trade  appears to be dwindling out of sight.

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Its hard to believe amid all the turmoil, but President Trump has been in office for only 70 days; 95% of his term is still ahead.

Good afternoon, Im David Lauter, Washington bureau chief. Welcome to the Friday edition of our Essential Politics newsletter, in which we look at the events of the week in Washington and elsewhere in national politics and highlight some particularly insightful stories.

FLUNKING THE SMELL TEST

When House Intelligence Committee chairman Devin Nunes (R-Tulare) showed up at the White House last week declaring that he urgently needed to brief the president on new evidence indicating that some transition aides might have improperly been subject to surveillance, questions abounded.

One question, however, seemed easily dismissed by White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer.

The suggestion by reporters that Nunes source might have been someone at the White House doesnt really pass the smell test, he said. It doesnt really seem to make a ton of sense.

Indeed.

The caper didnt make much sense, and it didnt pass anyones smell test. And now that White House aides have been identified as having set it up  primarily two lawyers at the National Security Council, one of whom used to work for Nunes committee  the administration finds itself in even more trouble.

Spicer inadvertently identified the problem last week when he tried to brush aside the suggestion that Nunes was acting at the behest of the White House.

I dont know why he would come in to brief the president on something that we gave him, he said.

The ranking Democrat on the intelligence committee, Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Burbank), supplied the most obvious answer: White House aides, he suggested Thursday, were laundering information and trying to hide the origin of the materials.

Nunes heads a committee that is tasked, in part, with investigating whether anyone close to Trump colluded with Russian officials in their efforts to influence the 2016 election.

He now faces accusations even from some fellow Republicans that he has compromised himself by working hand-in-hand with the White House hes supposed to be probing. And the White House now appears to have been trying surreptitiously to influence the House investigation.

All that, seemingly in order to provide some backing, however tangential, for Trumps insistent belief that President Obama, or people working for him, had spied on him.

Whether the documents that Nunes says he saw actually show any impropriety remains unclear. White House officials on Thursday said they would allow Democratic lawmakers to see the documents, but so far, that hasnt happened.

Nunes initially implied that the intelligence reports showed that aides to Trump had been swept up by U.S. intelligence surveillance during the transition. The surveillance was legal, but troubling, he said. He also suggested that the names of some of the transition officials might have improperly been unmasked.

He later partially backed away from both of those assertions. Most, maybe all, of the intelligence reports may simply show foreign officials  ambassadors and others  talking about Trump aides, officials say. And Nunes now says that he could discern which transition officials the reports referred to, but has waffled on whether any of their names were disclosed.

If any of the intelligence reports did involve improper unmasking of names, that could be evidence that the rules designed to protect Americans from foreign intelligence surveillance need toughening.

But much to the chagrin of White House officials, that discussion has largely been overshadowed by the appearance that Trump aides tried to use Nunes to covertly influence the House investigation.

Meantime, the House investigation, itself, has been stalemated by a week of partisan wrangling. Nunes and Schiff met Thursday in an effort to get the process back on track. Whether that can happen remains to be seen.

By contrast, leaders of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Chairman Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.) and the vice-chair Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), devoted much of a news conference on Wednesday to stressing the bipartisan nature of their work, David Cloud wrote. Theyre also moving much more slowly.

Both committees apparently have been approached by the lawyer for retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, Trumps former national security advisor, asking about a possible deal in which he would get immunity from prosecution in return for his testimony.

So far, neither committee has taken Flynn up on that offer, as Schiff made clear in a statement on Friday in which he said it was a grave and momentous step for a former national security advisor to ask for immunity. There is still much work and many more witnesses and documents to obtain before considering immunity requests, he wrote.

This graphic helps chart some of the links among people who have figured in the Russia story to date.

THE FISSURE IN THE GOP

They helped drive John Boehner from the speakers chair and have bedeviled GOP leaders for six years. Now, the House Freedom Caucus is once again feeling empowered, Lisa Mascaro wrote.

That has gotten Trumps ire up, and he lashed out at Freedom Caucus members in a tweet on Thursday, suggesting that he might try to back primary challengers against some of them in 2018.

Even Franklin D. Roosevelt at the height of his political power failed when trying to unseat members of Congress from his own party who opposed him. From a president whose approval rating remains stuck at about 40%, the threat was audacious, but not noticeably intimidating, Mike Memoli reported.

One key problem for Trump, Memoli noted, is that there arent a lot of actual Trumpists in Congress: The president took over the GOP, but hasnt necessarily won over its elected officials.

Those divisions within the GOP have left Trumps legislative agenda very much in question. After last weeks collapse of the effort to repeal Obamacare, Republicans are uncertain where to turn.

One possibility, Noam Levey wrote, is that the administration may feel compelled to fix some of the health laws shortcomings rather than risk a collapse on its watch.

That might even open the way to some bipartisan agreements, Levey noted. House Speaker Paul Ryan seems to fear that possibility, warning against bipartisan outreach in an interview with CBS.

With his legislative agenda stymied, Trump has been returning to political symbolism, Memoli wrote. One highly visible example this week: Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions showed up at the White House briefing room to describe to reporters what appeared to be a tough policy against so-called sanctuary cities.

But on closer look, the policy he talked about was one adopted last summer by the Obama administration. Any new Trump administration positions remain weeks, perhaps months, in the future, Justice Department officials conceded.

The one area where Republicans have been able to make progress is in repealing regulations that the Obama administration proposed in its final months.

The latest repeal came Thursday. Conservative states that want to restrict money for Planned Parenthood will now have an easier time as Congress wiped out a regulation that limited such efforts.

But as Lisa Mascaro wrote, to win passage, Senate Republicans had to hurriedly bring Vice President Mike Pence to Capitol Hill to break a tie after two women Republican senators, Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, voted against the measure.

Despite the legislative setbacks and the investigations, many Trump voters are standing by their man, Noah Bierman found in a trip to a key swing county in Pennsylvania, a crucial swing state.

Trump, he noted, has dropped in virtually all polls, but thats mostly because he has energized the Democratic opposition and alienated voters who were ambivalent. His own base has remained solid.

And then there are Trump supporters in deep-blue California. As Mark Barabak reported, they largely try to keep their heads down.

TRADING POSITIONS ON NAFTA?

Trumps vow to uproot the NAFTA trade agreement with Mexico and Canada was a central theme of his campaign. Now that hes in office, reality looks very different.

A draft outline of the administrations negotiating stand, sent to Congress, calls for incremental changes to NAFTA, not a complete overhaul, Don Lee reports.

The NAFTA climbdown is just one indicator of a deep split within the administration over trade policy, Lee wrote. Hard-line critics of past trade policies, notably Peter Navarro, the former UC Irvine professor who heads a newly created White House trade office, have been losing clout to more traditional Republicans with close ties to Wall Street, a group headed by Gary Cohn, Trumps top economic advisor, a former president of Goldman Sachs.

REVERSING FIELD ON CLIMATE CHANGE

By contrast to the tepid steps on trade, the Trump administration has moved aggressively to reverse Obama administration policies on the environment. This weeks installment was a far-reaching order to begin overturning Obamas policies on global warming.

The change could take years to play out  environmental groups will fight EPA chief Scott Pruitt in court, much as Pruitt fought the Obama administration when he was Oklahomas attorney general. But in the meantime, the federal governments decision to stop leading the charge against climate change will test the ability of California and other environmentally minded states to set national policy on their own, Halper wrote.

On another environmental issue, nuclear waste, the fight will be with Nevada officials, including the states Republican governor, Brian Sandoval.

With former Sen. Harry Reid now retired and no longer able to block policies he opposed, the Trump administration is making a serious effort to revive the long-stalled Yucca Mountain nuclear dump, Ralph Vartabedian reported. Nevada officials remain deeply opposed, but after 30 years of fending off the project, they may now be out of luck.

NEXT WEEK: DOES THE SENATE GO NUCLEAR?

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky plans to bring the Supreme Court nomination of Neil Gorsuch to the floor on Tuesday. Democratic leader Chuck Schumer of New York has threatened a filibuster.

As Mascaro wrote, that has set up a legislative game of chicken. If Schumer can hold 41 of the 48 Democrats to sustain a filibuster, McConnell has made clear hell change the Senates rules to eliminate filibusters for high court nominees, the next step in a process that Reid began in 2013 when he eliminated filibusters for other nominees.

So far, 33 Democratic senators have committed to back the filibuster. Two, Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota, say they will oppose it. One, Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont, has indicated doubts about filibustering.

MORE SECRECY ABOUT WARFARE

More American troops are fighting in the Mideast, but how many more remains a secret. The Pentagon has stopped telling the public about troop deployments, reversing an Obama administration policy, Bill Hennigan reported.

Meantime, the fight against Islamic State militants in Syria remains complicated by disagreements between the U.S. and Turkey over whether to provide arms and assistance to Kurdish militias. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson traveled to Turkey this week, but failed to reach an agreement with Turkish leaders, who see the Kurds as a threat, Tracy Wilkerson and Umar Farooq reported.

A CLINTON PRECEDENT

Trump remains the defendant in several lawsuits, including some by women alleging sexual harassment. His lawyers went to court in New York this week to try to have one such case dismissed, arguing the president should be immune from a suit in state court, David Savage reported. They cited the most unlikely of precedents, the case Bill Clinton lost to Paula Jones.

ALL THE PRESIDENTS TWEETS

Twitter has long been Trumps favored means of pushing his message. Were compiling all of Trumps tweets. Its a great resource. Take a look.

LOGISTICS

That wraps up this week. My colleague Sarah Wire will be back Monday with the weekday edition of Essential Politics. Until then, keep track of all the developments in national politics and the Trump administration with our Essential Washington blog, at our Politics page and on Twitter @latimespolitics.

Send your comments, suggestions and news tips to politics@latimes.com.

If you like this newsletter, tell your friends to sign up.

David.lauter@latimes.com

@davidlauter
Adam Schiff views documents White House says back Trump surveillance claim By Michael A. Memoli (Pablo Martinez Monsivais / Associated Press) Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Burbank) traveled to the White House Friday to view documents President Trump has said partially vindicate his claim that his predecessor ordered surveillance of him during the campaign. In a statement, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee said he was told they were precisely the same materials viewed previously by the committees chairman, Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Tulare), which Schiff said should now be shared with the full panel membership. Nothing I could see today warranted a departure from the normal review procedures, Schiff said, adding that he could not discuss the contents of the documents, which remain classified. Nunes was shown the documents last week by White House officials surreptitiously, then announced to reporters the next day that he needed urgently to go to the White House to brief Trump about them. Schiff, in his statement, said that the White House has yet to explain why senior White House staff apparently shared these materials with but one member of either [Intelligence] committee, only for their contents to be briefed back to the White House. Schiff also had a brief but cordial meeting with Trump during his time at the White House, a spokesman said. White House spokesman Sean Spicer told reporters earlier Friday that other Democrats have been invited to the White House to view the materials, which he said would shed light on their investigation. Both the House and Senate Intelligence Committees are conducting separate reviews of Russian interference into the 2016 election; Trump has asked each panel to also probe his own claim that his predecessor engaged in wire tapping of his phones at Trump Tower during the campaign, an assertion that has been denied by Nunes as well as the heads of the FBI and intelligence agencies. Facebook

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Mnuchin regrets plugging The Lego Batman Movie, pledges to exercise greater caution in the future By Jim Puzzanghera Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin on Friday told a top government ethics official he should not have publicly plugged The Lego Batman Movie  a film in which he has a financial stake  and promised to exercise greater caution in the future. I take very seriously my ethical responsibilities as a presidential appointee and the head of the Department of the Treasury, Mnuchin wrote to Walter Shaub, director of the U.S. Office of Government Ethics. On Monday, Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) asked Shaub to determine whether Mnuchin had committed an ethics violation last week when he discussed the movie during an event hosted by the Axios news website that aired on C-SPAN2. Read More Facebook

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Rep. Adam Schiff says its too early to consider an immunity deal for Michael Flynn By Associated Press The top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee says its too early to consider an immunity deal for President Trumps former national security advisor. Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Burbank) says that Michael Flynn even discussing possible immunity in exchange for protection from prosecution is a grave and momentous step because of the seniority of his former position. Schiff says the House Intelligence Committee is interested in hearing Flynns story, but there would have to be coordination with the Senate Intelligence Committee and the Justice Department on the terms. The House and Senate intelligence committees and the FBI are investigating Russias meddling in the 2016 election. The investigation includes scrutiny of Flynns ties with Russia. Read More Facebook

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Trump administration admonishes California chief justice over claim that agents are stalking immigrants By Del Quentin Wilber U.S. Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions (Mark Wilson / Getty Images) The Trump administration on Friday fired back at Californias top judge, disputing her characterization this month that federal immigration agents were stalking courthouses to make arrests. In a letter to Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye, leaders of Trumps Justice Department and Department of Homeland Security objected to her description of federal agents conduct. As the chief judicial officer of the state of California, your characterization of federal law enforcement is particularly troubling, wrote Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions and Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly, objecting to Cantil-Sakauyes use of the word stalking. They said agents with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) were using courthouses to arrest immigrants in the U.S. illegally, in part, because California and some of its local jurisdictions prohibit their officials from cooperating with federal agencies in detaining such immigrants under most conditions. Sessions and Kelly told Californias top judge that she should consider taking her concerns to Gov. Jerry Brown and the cities and counties that limit local law enforcements involvement with immigration agents. Cantil-Sakauye, a former prosecutor who rose through the judicial ranks as an appointee of Republican governors, said through a spokesman that she appreciated the Trump administrations admission that they are in state courthouses making federal arrests. Making arrests at courthouses, in my view, undermines public safety because victims and witnesses will fear coming to courthouses to help enforce the law, she said Friday. She expressed disappointment that courthouses, given local and state public safety concerns, were not listed as sensitive areas offlimits to agents. Federal policy lists schools, churches and hospitals as sensitive areas. The letter from the Justice Department officials defended the arrests of immigrants at courthouses. By apprehending suspects after they have passed through security screening at courthouses, federal agents are less likely to encounter anyone who is armed, the letter said. The arrest of individuals by ICE officers and agents is predicated on investigation and targeting of specific persons who have been identified by ICE and other law enforcement agencies as subject to arrest, they wrote. Cantil-Sakauye had asked the Trump administration on March 16 to stop immigration agents from seeking immigrants at the states courthouses. Courthouses should not be used as bait in the necessary enforcement of our countrys immigration laws, she wrote in a letter to Sessions and Kelly. Her letter did not say which courthouses had been the location of such stalking, but judges and lawyers in Southern California have complained of seeing immigration agents posted near courts. She said she feared the practice would erode public trust in the state courts. Sessions and Kelly urged Cantil-Sakauye to speak to Brown and other officials who have enacted policies that occasionally necessitate ICE officers and agents to make arrests at courthouses and other public places. Facebook

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Back in the spotlight, Hillary Clinton takes aim at Trumps budget By Evan Halper Hillary Clinton stepped back into the spotlight this week after laying relatively low since the election, and she had some advice for President Trump: Tear up the White House budget plan. Clinton was at the Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace and Security to bestow an award named in her honor to Colombian leaders who helped bring an end to war in that country and elevate the role of women in the peace process. She spoke of the progress the world has made in advancing womens rights since she spoke forcefully on the issue two decades ago when the U.N. gathered world leaders to address it in Beijing. But she warned that progress is threatened by Trump. We are seeing signals of a shift that should alarm us all, Clinton said. This administrations proposed cuts to international health, development and diplomacy would be a blow to women and children and a grave mistake for our country. Clinton then raised the letter signed by 120 former generals and admirals beseeching the Trump administration not to make the cuts. These distinguished men and women who have served in uniform recognize that turning our back on diplomacy wont make our country safer. It will undermine our security and our standing in the world. A lot has changed since Clinton was on the campaign trail, but some things about her style on the stump havent. She pulled out a favorite line from last year as she began to talk about a study that backed up her point about the damage Trumps budget plan could do. Here I go again, Clinton said to whooping and cheering from an audience of mostly female students, talking about research evidence and facts. Facebook

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Seeking a way forward, Trump increasingly finds himself at odds with his own party By Michael A. Memoli (Evan Vucci / Associated Press ) President Trump won his office in spite of the best efforts of some in his party. Now, the tenuous nature of the bonds between Trump and the GOP are increasingly on public display as the president openly feuds with conservatives and White House officials debate whether to reach out to Democrats in order to restart his domestic agenda. The latest and strongest evidence came Thursday as Trump escalated his political battle against the members of the House Freedom Caucus, the conservative lawmakers who helped block the healthcare bill he backed. Early in the morning, he said on Twitter that the caucus would hurt the entire Republican agenda if they dont get on the team. We must fight them, & Dems, in 2018! he added. It was an extraordinary message, suggesting that Trump might try to back challengers in primaries against lawmakers of his own party  something few presidents have tried, none with much success. Read More Facebook

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Tillerson tells NATO allies to pay more, do more to fight terrorism By Catherine Stupp Secretary of State Rex Tillerson on Friday promised NATO allies that the United States will stand by their side but also expected them to spend more on defense and do more to fight terrorism. Tillerson participated in a day of discussions with foreign ministers from the 27 other NATO member nations, his first with the full roster of allies, who were sent scrambling last week to accommodate the top U.S. diplomat after he said he could not attend the meeting originally planned for early April. The United States is committed to ensuring NATO has the capabilities to support our collective defense. We understand that a threat against one of us is a threat against all of us, Tillerson said. But, he added, as President Trump has made clear, it is no longer sustainable for the U.S. to maintain a disproportionate share of NATOs defense expenditures. The United States is amping up pressure on NATO members to increase their defense spending to 2% of gross domestic product, in line with a 2014 agreement among the alliances 28 member countries to meet the target by 2024. Only five NATO countries meet the 2% threshold. The U.S. spends 3.61% of its GDP on defense, more than any other member of the alliance. Tillerson said that if countries have not met the 2% spending goal by the end of the year, they should at least have a concrete plan that clearly articulates how, with annual milestone progress commitments, the pledge will be fulfilled. Pressure to meet that strict deadline is likely to upset some allies. German Vice Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel told reporters before Fridays meeting that he thinks it would be completely unrealistic for Germany to bring its military defense spending up to 2% of GDP. I dont know any politician in Germany who thinks that this would be reachable or desirable, Gabriel said. Germany is increasing its military spending this year to $39 billion, or 1.2% of its GDP. Gabriel rejected the Trump administrations focus on military expenditures, arguing that humanitarian aid and Germanys spending to take in refugees should be considered part of the defense budget. Tillerson also called on allies to take a greater role in the fight against terrorism. NATO can and should do more, he said. Fighting terrorism is the top national security priority for the United States, as it should be for all of us. Tillersons earlier announcement that he would skip the meeting struck a nerve among the alliance members, coming at a sensitive time when tensions between the Trump administration and NATO allies have soared. The schedule change caused an awkward protocol shuffle, with a handful of foreign ministers unable to make it to Brussels. What was supposed to be a two-day meeting was compressed into half of a day. NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg tried to cast optimism on the last-minute schedule change, calling it a sign of the strong transatlantic unity and flexibility of our alliance that we were able to find a date. The foreign ministers meeting is crucial because it lays the groundwork for a NATO summit with heads of state in May, which will be President Trumps first overseas trip since taking office. Tillersons day of talks at NATO headquarters in Brussels follows visits from Defense Secretary James Mattis and Vice President Mike Pence, who attempted to dispel fears that the Trump administration will seek to loosen ties with the alliance. Trump called NATO obsolete in an interview published days before his inauguration. He later insisted, during German Chancellor Angela Merkels visit to the White House earlier this month, that the U.S. will maintain its strong commitment to the alliance. Tillerson arrived in Brussels on Friday morning after meeting Thursday in Ankara, Turkey, with that countrys President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu to discuss terrorism and Syria, though the leaders failed to reach an agreement on how to combat Islamic State. Facebook

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Trump weighs in on Michael Flynns request for immunity President Trumps former national security advisor, retired Army Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, is seeking immunity from prosecution in return for testifying to the House and Senate intelligence committees, a congressional aide said. The development was first reported by the Wall Street Journal. Gen. Flynn certainly had a story to tell, and he very much wants to tell it, should the circumstances permit, his lawyer, Robert Kelner, said in a statement. No reasonable person, who has the benefit of advice from counsel, would submit to questioning in such a highly politicized, witch-hunt environment without assurances from unfair prosecution. On Friday morning, Trump tweeted his support for Flynns request. Flynn was ousted as Trumps national security advisor last month after news reports disclosed that he had misled Vice President Mike Pence about phone conversations with Sergey Kislyak, Russias ambassador to the U.S. The calls were picked up by U.S. surveillance targeting the Russian envoy, and a description of the contents was leaked to the Washington Post after the Justice Department warned the White House that Flynn could be subject to blackmail. Read More Facebook

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Former national security advisor Michael Flynn seeks immunity By David S. Cloud President Trumps former national security advisor, retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, has been seeking immunity from prosecution in return for testifying to the House and Senate intelligence committees, a congressional official confirmed Thursday. The negotiations were first reported by the Wall Street Journal. In a statement, Flynns lawyer, Robert Kelner, said Gen. Flynn certainly had a story to tell and he very much wants to tell it, should the circumstances permit. No reasonable person, who has the benefit of advice from counsel, would submit to questioning in such a highly politicized, witch-hunt environment without assurances from unfair prosecution. Trump fired Flynn three weeks into the new administration after news reports disclosed that he had lied to White House colleagues, including Vice President Mike Pence, about his contacts with Sergey Kislyak, Russias ambassador to the U.S. In December, Flynn had telephone conversations with Kislyak in which he discussed sanctions that the Obama administration had recently imposed on Russia to punish Moscow for its interference in the 2016 presidential election. Flynn denied to Pence and other officials that he had discussed the sanctions with Kislyak. So far, the committees, which are investigating Russian interference and whether anyone close to Trump colluded with Moscow, have not taken Flynn up on his offer, the Journal reported. Facebook

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Trump administration appeals Hawaii judges order against travel ban By Jaweed Kaleem The Department of Justice has appealed a Hawaii court order that brought President Trumps travel ban to a national halt. The government has argued that the president was well within his authority to restrict travel from six Muslim-majority countries and put a pause on refugee resettlement. The appeal Thursday to the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals came a day after U.S. District Judge Derrick Watson in Honolulu refused to dismiss his temporary block of the travel ban that he issued on March 15. With the appeal, the government is now fighting to reinstate the travel ban in two appeals courts on opposite ends of the country. That increases the likelihood that one of the cases will make it to the U.S. Supreme Court. Earlier this month, the Department of Justice appealed a Maryland district judges order against the travel ban to the U.S. 4th District Court of Appeals in Richmond, Va. Both rulings in Hawaii and Maryland said Trumps executive order discriminated against Muslims. Watson and U.S. District Judge Theodore Chuang in Maryland cited Trumps campaign promises to suspend Muslim travel to the U.S. as proof of his orders anti-Muslim bias. The Hawaii ruling is broader than the Maryland one. It blocks a 90-day pause on travel to the U.S. from nationals of six majority-Muslim countries and a 120-day moratorium on new refugee resettlement. The Maryland ruling only halted the ban on travel into the U.S. by citizens of Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen. The 9th Circuit, which has jurisdiction over nine Western states, is the same court where a panel of three judges denied a government request last month to reverse ruling against the first travel ban by a federal judge in Washington state. Trump, in turn, lambasted the bad court and signed a new executive order on travel on March 6 that was modified in an attempt to survive court challenges. Facebook

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Senate heads for nuclear option if Democrats filibuster Gorsuch nomination By Lisa Mascaro One of the Senates most serious jobs  confirming the presidents choice for a lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court  has devolved into a game of political chicken. Senators are heading toward an institution-defining showdown next week as Democrats promise to try to block President Trumps nominee, Judge Neil M. Gorsuch, with a filibuster, a rarely seen maneuver for high court appointments. Republicans are threatening to respond by changing long-standing Senate rules to circumvent the 60 votes that would be needed to overcome a filibuster. Instead they would allow confirmation with a simple majority. The outcome has the potential to not only shape the future of the Supreme Court  which has been without a full bench since the sudden death of Justice Antonin Scalia last year  it also could crush one final vestige of bipartisanship in the Senate, altering the upper chamber for years to come. The battle over the Supreme Court seat was always expected to be a partisan affair in todays heated political climate. But the polemics intensified after the Republican majority denied President Obamas nominee, Judge Merrick Garland, a confirmation hearing ahead of last years presidential election. Read More Facebook

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Scalias seat has been vacant longer than any Supreme Court justices in nearly 50 years By Colleen Shalby (J. Scott Applewhite / Associated Press) Its been more than 400 days since Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalias death left his seat vacant. With Republicans having blocked a vote on then-President Obamas nominee, Judge Merrick Garland, and with Senate Democrats now making plans to filibuster President Trumps nominee, Judge Neil M. Gorsuch, it could take even longer to replace Scalia. Its not unheard of for a justices seat to remain empty for a considerable amount of time. Pew Research Center did the math and found that the longest gap was 841 days, in the mid-1840s, from the time of Henry Baldwins death to his replacement Robert Griers confirmation. But the last time in recent history that a vacancys duration in this range occurred was after Abe Fortas resigned in 1969. It took 391 days to fill that seat, an interval that ended in 1970 when Harry Blackmun  the justice who authored the courts landmark opinion in Roe vs. Wade  was confirmed. Blackmun was President Nixons third pick to fill that seat. The second-longest vacancy in recent years occurred in 1988. It took 237 days to fill Lewis Powells seat after he retired, with Anthony Kennedy succeeding him. Its been 58 days and counting since Trump nominated Gorsuch. Heres how his waiting time from nomination to confirmation stacks up against the current justices: Elena Kagan: 87 days

Sonia Sotomayor: 66 days

Samuel A. Alito Jr.: 82 days

John G. Roberts Jr.: 23 days

Stephen G. Breyer: 73 days

Ruth Bader Ginsburg: 50 days

Clarence Thomas: 99 days

Anthony M. Kennedy: 65 days If Gorsuch is confirmed soon, he wont start considering cases until the courts new term in October.

And if hes not confirmed? Trump would nominate another successor to Scalia  theres no limit on how many times he can do that. Until Scalias seat is filled, lower courts decisions serve as tie-breakers. Facebook

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Sens. Manchin and Heitkamp become first Democrats to announce support for Gorsuch By David Savage Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota became the first Democrats to say they will vote for Judge Neil Gorsuch and not support the effort to filibuster his confirmation to the Supreme Court. Their announcements came as no surprise. Both are centrists who have to run for reelection next year in states that voted overwhelmingly for Trump. After considering his record, watching his testimony in front of the Judiciary Committee and meeting with him twice, I will vote to confirm him to be the ninth justice on the Supreme Court, Manchin said. I have found him to be an honest and thoughtful man.... I have not found any reasons why this jurist should not be a Supreme Court justice. Heitkamp said she was impressed with Gorsuchs record as a judge. This vote does not diminish how disturbed I am by what the Republicans did to Judge [Merrick] Garland, referring to the GOP-led Senates refusal last year to consider President Obamas choice to fill the seat of the late Justice Antonin Scalia. But I was taught that two wrongs dont make a right, she said. The Republican majority in the Senate needs six more Democrats to join with them if they hope to stop the expected filibuster of President Trumps Supreme Court nominee. It takes 60 votes to end the debate under the Senates current rules. But the 52 Republicans may vote to simply eliminate this requirement if the Democrats stand firm against Gorsuch. On Monday, the Senate Judiciary Committee is expected to approve Gorsuch on a party line vote and send the nomination to the Senate floor. A final vote is expected April 7. Facebook

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White House invites lawmakers to see intelligence material after New York Times report By Noah Bierman The White House has invited House and Senate intelligence committee chairs to review documents that it says were recently discovered by national security staff that could help determine whether information gathered about American citizens was mishandled. White House spokesman Sean Spicer would not say whether these are the same documents that Rep. Devin Nunes, the Tulare Republican who chairs the House intelligence committee, said he reviewed last week. Nunes has refused to identify his sources. Some saw his disclosure as an attempt to give credence to President Trumps widely refuted claim that President Obama had ordered wiretaps on his phone during the campaign. Nunes said the material he reviewed suggested that intelligence agencies had incidentally collected information about Trump or his associates. He has declined to be more specific or share the information with the committee. But the New York Times reported Thursday, citing unnamed sources, that two White House officials helped Nunes get access to the documents. And now the same information may be provided to other members of the Intelligence committee. In a letter to the bipartisan group of intelligence leaders sent Thursday, White House Counsel Donald McGhan said administration lawyers would supervise the review given the sensitivity of the documents to protect the extremely sensitive intelligence sources and methods. The letter calls on the committee to investigate the possibility that classified information was inappropriately gathered and handled and whether civil liberties of American citizens were violated. Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Burbank), the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, told reporters that he welcomed the chance to review the materials, though he said he would be obligated to share them with the rest of his committee. More troubling to Schiff, he said, was the cloak and dagger stuff and circuitous route that the White House national security staff appears to have used to disseminate the materials in that secret meeting with Nunes. Schiff said White House staff may have been trying to launder information through the committee, rather than simply providing it directly to the president. If that was designed to hide the origin of the materials, that raises profound questions about just what the White House is doing, Schiff said. We need to get to the bottom of whether this was some sort of stratagem by the White House. In a letter to McGhan, Schiff said answering the White Houses questions would require asking intelligence agencies how the information in the documents was gathered. I hope you will confirm to the committee whether these materials are the same as those first shared with Nunes, Schiff wrote. 2:11: This story was updated with staff reporting Facebook

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Trumps team: A network of ties to Russia By Angelica Quintero The FBI is investigating possible coordination between people associated with the Trump campaign and Russian authorities during the 2016 election. The U.S. intelligence community has said it is confident that the Russian government directed hacking operations and intended to interfere with the U.S. election process. Take a look at how some high-profile people have been drawn into the investigation. See the graphic  Facebook

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Former RNC official is first to depart senior West Wing staff By Michael A. Memoli A former top Republican National Committee official and ally of White House chief of staff Reince Priebus will depart her West Wing post in the first significant shake-up of President Trumps senior staff. Politico first reported that Katie Walsh, the deputy White House chief of staff, will leave to take on an advisory position with political groups that were formed to support the presidents agenda from the outside. Walsh had served as chief of staff at the RNC when Priebus was party chair. At the White House, she served in a similar capacity under Priebus, tasked with overseeing the senior staff and the scheduling operation. Though White House officials denied the move was a signal of disharmony within the senior ranks, her departure spoke to issues dogging the new administration  a top-heavy operation in the West Wing and also the inability of the president to sustain the kind of grassroots support for his agenda that proved key to his electoral win. It was abundantly clear we didnt have air cover when it came to the calls coming into lawmakers, and nobody can fix this problem like Katie Walsh, Priebus told reporters later, according to Time. Facebook

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Putin: Read my lips, there was no Russian meddling in U.S. vote By Ann M. Simmons Russian President Vladimir Putin meets with Finnish President Sauli Niinisto during the International Arctic Forum in Arkhangelsk, Russia, on Thursday. (Sergei Karpukhim / AFP/Getty Images) Calling the accusations lies, Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday denied that Moscow meddled in last years U.S. elections. Read my lips, no, Putin said during a panel moderated by CNBC, according to a report on the news agencys website. All those things are fictional, illusory and provocations, lies, the Russian president said. All these are used for domestic American political agendas. The anti-Russian card is played by different political forces inside the United States to trade on that and consolidate their positions inside. Putins comments came as the Senate Intelligence Committee was set to begin a hearing entitled Disinformation: A Primer in Russian Active Measures and Influence Campaigns, which will focus on understanding the method of Russias active disinformation campaign and assess the extent of Moscows interference. FBI Director James Comey confirmed earlier this month that his agency was investigating Russias intrusion into the 2016 poll and whether there was any collusion between Moscow and President Trumps campaign. Read More Facebook

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Trump levels extraordinary threat against GOP conservatives; Ryan says he understands presidents frustration By Noah Bierman House Speaker Paul D. Ryan commiserated with President Trump Thursday after the president launched a Twitter assault on the group of rebellious Republicans known as the Freedom Caucus. I understand the frustration, I share the frustration, Ryan told reporters Thursday, when asked to respond to Trumps threat to campaign against fellow Republicans. Freedom Caucus members, who back limited government and have defined themselves in opposition to the Washington establishment, have been a major headache for GOP leaders. Ever since the Republicans took control of the House in 2010, conservative refusal to back key bills to fund government agencies has forced GOP leaders to negotiate with Democrats for the votes they need. Freedom Caucus members helped lead the charge against former Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio). The caucus was blamed by many Republicans last week for torpedoing the leaderships plan, backed by Trump, to make significant changes to Obamacare. Still, Trumps threat to fight them in the 2018 elections was an extraordinary step. Trump had previously made electoral threats against wayward members of his party, but Thursdays tweet was especially direct, threatening to treat them the same way as Democrats. The Freedom Caucus will hurt the entire Republican agenda if they don't get on the team, & fast. We must fight them, & Dems, in 2018!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 30, 2017 Freedom Caucus members have begun pushing back aggressively. A spokeswoman for the group argued on Twitter that Trump did not have his facts right and that Republican moderates were equally responsible for sinking the healthcare bill. View Twitter post Finding Trump supporters to challenge Republicans in a primary would be hard and could further thrust the GOP into civil war. Trump, despite low poll numbers nationally, remains popular in core Republican districts. Many members of Congress, however, ran ahead of him in their districts in the last election. The president has also suggested he might be open to cutting deals with Democrats, something the White House has discussed but not followed through on. That would also be difficult, given the rancor on the left. Ryan said Thursday that the best path is for Republicans to come together on healthcare and other issues About 90% of our conference is for this bill to repeal and replace Obamcare, and about 10% are not. And thats not enough to pass a bill, he said. What I am encouraging our members to do is to keep talking with each other until we can get the consensus to pass this bill. But its very understandable that the president is frustrated that we havent gotten to where we need to go, because this is something that we all said we would do. Facebook

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Pence casts tie-breaking vote to advance bill that would let states withhold federal funds from Planned Parenthood By Lisa Mascaro Republicans needed Vice President Mike Pence to cast a tie-breaking vote Thursday in the Senate to advance legislation that rolls back rules preventing states from withholding certain federal funds to Planned Parenthood and other abortion providers. With opposition from two Republican women, Sens. Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Republicans did not have enough votes with their slim 52-seat majority to advance the bill. Pence, a longtime opponent of abortion, arrived to cast the vote breaking the 50-50 tie  and will be expected to do so later Thursday on final passage. We just saw a historic moment, said Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) It is a sad day for the United States Senate. The measure rolls back a regulation finalized at the end of President Obamas administration that explicitly prevented states from denying federal Title X family planning funds to clinics, like Planned Parenthood, that also provide abortion services. Under longstanding practice, no federal funds can be used for abortions, but federal family planning money can flow to the clinics to provide other healthcare services. Some Republican-led state governments had been moving in recent years to choke off Title X funds from any clinics that offered abortion service. The Obama rule sought to prohibit such practices. The bill Thursday, sponsored by Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa), has already cleared the House. It is part of a series of bills being passed by Congress under the so-called Congressional Review Act, which allows federal regulations put in place during the final days of the previous administration to be undone by simple majority passage. Passage by the Senate later Thursday would send it to the White House for President Trumps signature. Busy day in D.C., but always happy to make time to meet visitors touring the Capitol. pic.twitter.com/4q6JG8wP0E  Vice President Mike Pence (@VP) March 30, 2017 Facebook

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Senate committee narrowly approves Acostas nomination to be Labor secretary By Jim Puzzanghera (Manuel Balce Ceneta / AP) A Senate committee on Thursday narrowly approved R. Alexander Acosta to be Labor secretary, moving to fill one of President Trumps few remaining vacant Cabinet posts. The nomination of Acosta, a law school dean and former Justice Department official, was approved by a 12-11 vote by the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. All of the panels Republicans supported the nomination; all of the Democrats were opposed. If confirmed in a full Senate vote, which is expected soon, Acosta will be the only Latino in Trumps Cabinet. A date for the final vote hasnt been set. Read More Facebook

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Follow the money and the trail of dead Russians, expert urges senators By Del Quentin Wilber (Susan Walsh / Associated Press) The Senate Intelligence Committee hearing Thursday into Russian efforts to influence the November elections has been a long history lesson, tracing Moscows decades-long efforts to use misinformation to undermine democracies. But Clinton Watts, of the Center for Cyber and Homeland Security at George Washington University, provided a roadmap to better understanding the Kremlins efforts. He urged senators and the U.S. government to follow the money to figure out how misinformation websites and social media outlets are being funded. While the Russians conducted their hacking in the Internets shadows, their efforts to influence the election was hardly a secret, he said. You can hack stuff and be covert, but you cant influence and be covert, he said. You have to ultimately show your hand. And thats why we have been able to discover it online. The second way to trace Russian influence was more ominous: Follow the trail of dead Russians, he said. There have been more dead Russians in the past three months that are tied to this investigation, he added. They are dropping dead, even in Western countries. Watts didnt finish the thought but was likely referring to a spate of deaths of high-profile Russians, some of which appeared to be assassinations although others appear to have been from natural causes. With the daytime execution of a Russian politician in Ukraine last week, at least eight Russian politicians, activists, ambassadors and a former intelligence official have died since the U.S. election. Facebook

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Russia has stepped up efforts to influence elections, experts tell Senate panel By David S. Cloud (Susan Walsh / Associated Press) Moscow has stepped up its interference in U.S. and European elections, using social media, hacking and other tools to undermine public confidence and to raise doubts about the U.S as an ally, Russia experts told the Senate Intelligence Committee on Thursday. The committee was taking testimony from experts in Russian propaganda and intelligence operations as part of its investigation into Moscows meddling in the 2016 election. Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), the top Democrat on the panel, emphasized that in addition to examining the broad topic of Russian efforts to influence the election, the panel also must seek to answer whether President Trumps campaign had contact with Russian officials last year, noting the the FBI has opened its own probe. I will not prejudge the outcome of our investigation. We are seeking to determine if there is an actual fire, but there is clearly a lot of smoke, Warner said. Dr. Eugene Rumer, Director of the Russia and Eurasia Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, told the panel that Russian President Vladimir Putin probably viewed Moscows meddling in the U.S. election as an unqualified success. Facebook

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Tillerson meets Turkish officials to seek support for battle against Islamic State in Syria By Umar Farooq Secretary of State Rex Tillerson on Thursday met for more than two hours with Turkeys president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, as they hoped to shore up troubled relations between their nations. Making his first trip to Turkey, Tillerson became the highest-ranking Trump administration official to hold a face-to-face session with Erdogan, an increasingly authoritarian leader who is also a NATO member and key ally in the fight against Islamic State in Syria. The meeting went longer than planned. Turkey and the United States disagree sharply on how to combat Islamic State: Washington supports Kurdish militias that Erdogan regards as an arm of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which Turkey and the U.S. consider a terrorist organization. Trying to fight against Daesh through terrorist organizations such as ... extensions of the PKK, would be like shooting yourself in the foot, Erdogans senior advisor, Ibrahim Kalin, said ahead of Thursdays meeting. Daesh is a pejorative Arabic acronym for Islamic State. Read More Facebook

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Hawaii judge extends national halt on Trumps travel ban By Jaweed Kaleem Donald Trump in San Diego in May. (John Gastaldo / San Diego Union-Tribune)) The Hawaii federal judge who brought President Trumps revised travel ban to a national halt this month extended his order blocking the bans enforcement. The move Wednesday sets the stage for the Justice Department to appeal to the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals to reverse the ruling. U.S. District Judge Derrick Watsons original order halting the travel ban was issued March 15, a day before the ban was to go into effect, in the form of a temporary restraining order. At a hearing in Honolulu on Wednesday, federal lawyers asked Watson to either dismiss that order or narrow the restrictions to apply to fewer parts of the travel ban. Instead, Watson said he would turn the order into a preliminary injunction, which has the effect of extending his order blocking the travel ban for a longer period. Watson said he would keep intact the restrictions on the travel ban -- a block of its 90-day moratorium on travel to the U.S. from nationals of six majority-Muslim countries and its 120-day pause on new refugee resettlement. If the Justice Department appeals the case, it will be heard in the same court that upheld a national halt to Trumps first travel ban last month after a Seattle federal judge ruled against it. The administration has already appealed to the U.S. 4th Circuit Court of Appeals a Maryland judges more limited March 16 ruling that stopped enforcement of the travel orders country-specific ban. Both the Hawaii and Maryland judges found Trumps executive order to discriminate against Muslims. They used the presidents campaign statements promising to suspend Muslim travel to the U.S. as evidence of the orders anti-Muslim bias. Government lawyers have argued that the president is not singling out Muslims but instead acting within his power to restrict immigration and safeguard national security while better vetting procedures are developed to prevent potential terrorists from entering the U.S. Trump has said hell take the case over the travel ban to the U.S. Supreme Court. Facebook

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Ivanka Trump gets formal White House role, with ethics obligations but no pay By Michael A. Memoli (Brendan Smialowski / AFP-Getty Images) Ivanka Trump is taking on a more formal White House role  with a title but not a paycheck  a move intended to quell ethics concerns raised about her status in her fathers administration. In a statement, the White House noted that the presidents elder daughter already had an unprecedented role in the administration different from that of previous presidential children. She now will take the title of special advisor to the president, and therefore assume the same responsibility to abide by ethics standards that other federal employees have, the statement said. The decision demonstrates the administrations commitment to ethics, transparency and compliance, the administration said. Although Ivanka Trump already had a West Wing office  as does her husband, senior advisor Jared Kushner  she now will have increased opportunities to lead initiatives driving real policy benefits for the American public that would not have been available to her previously, a White House spokesman said. The announcement came on a day when President Trump sought to promote his administrations commitment to empowering women. He delivered remarks at an East Room event that included other top women in his Cabinet, including U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley and Small Business Administration head Linda McMahon. Ivanka Trump held a roundtable with female business owners earlier, Press Secretary Sean Spicer said. Earlier Wednesday, leading Senate Democrats sent a letter to the Office of Government Ethics raising concerns about the increasing, albeit unspecified position Ivanka Trump had held and the potential conflicts of interest that her government position might trigger with her personal businesses, including a retail clothing brand. The letter from Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Tom Carper (D-Del.) asked the agency whether Trump would be required to divest herself of personal assets or if she could be required to recuse herself from certain functions. Trumps new position was first reported by the New York Times. In a statement to the paper, Trump said she was acting in response to ethics concerns, but noted she already had been voluntarily complying with all ethics rules. Facebook

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Russia inquiry one of the biggest congressional probes in decade, senators say By David Lauter Sens. Richard Burr (R-N.C.), right, and Mark Warner (D-Va.). (Susan Walsh / Associated Press) The Senate Intelligence Committees probe into Russian involvement in the 2016 U.S. presidential election will be one of the biggest investigations in years and has already involved an unprecedented level of cooperation between Congress and U.S. spy agencies, the panels chairman said Wednesday. At a Capitol Hill news conference, the committee chairman, Sen. Richard Burr of North Carolina, and its ranking Democrat, Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, emphasized the bipartisan nature of the panels efforts, drawing a determined, though unstated, contrast with the partisan dysfunction of a parallel investigation in the House. The committee will go wherever the intelligence leads us, Burr said. And he pointedly refused to endorse White House statements that investigators inevitably will find that there was no collusion between President Trumps campaign and the Russians. It would be crazy to try to draw any conclusions at this point, Burr said. We know that our challenge is to answer that question to the American people, Burr said, referring to the issue of Trumps involvement. Warner said he had confidence in Richard Burr to run a fair investigation and produce a bipartisan conclusion. Warner said Americans should not lose sight of what the investigation is about: An outside foreign adversary effectively tried to hijack the election and favor one candidate over the other. They didnt do it because it was in the best interest of the American people, he said. "[Russian President] Vladimir Putins goal is a weaker United States. The Russian action should be a concern of all Americans regardless of party affiliation, he added. The committee staff already has reviewed thousands of pages of intelligence documents and has begun scheduling interviews with a list of 20 preliminary witnesses, who will be questioned in private before the panel holds public hearings, Burr said. He strongly implied that one of the potential witnesses is retired Gen. Michael Flynn, who was fired from his post as national security advisor to Trump after the disclosure that he had misled Vice President Mike Pence and others about his contacts with Russias ambassador to the U.S. You would think less of us if the committee had not talked with Flynn, Burr told reporters. The witnesses, including Jared Kushner, the presidents son-in-law and advisor, will be questioned when the committee is ready, he said. Facebook

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Justice Department watchdog finds DEA cash seizure program may pose risk to civil liberties By Del Quentin Wilber A Ukiah, Calif., police officer works with a dog to search for drugs or cash in a motorists car on May 14, 2014. (Francine Orr/ Los Angeles Times) The way the Drug Enforcement Administration seizes cash and other assets may pose a risk to civil liberties, the Justice Departments internal watchdog reported Wednesday. The Justice Departments inspector general also determined that the agency does not measure or track how its asset seizure activities advance criminal investigations. Over the last decade, more than $28 billion has been seized through the departments asset forfeiture program. The effort and others in states have generated intense controversy in recent years, with critics contending that many seizures are unfair because some who lose their assets are never charged with crimes. Law enforcement officials, however, say that seizing property and cash is a key tool in disrupting criminal organizations and compensating the victims of crimes. Former Atty. Gen. Eric Holder in 2015 limited how state and local authorities can obtain seized funds by working with federal agents. In its report released Wednesday, the inspector general examined 100 cases in which the DEA seized cash. Eighty-five of the cases involved interdiction at transportation hubs, such as airports or parcel centers. Nearly 80 of those seizures resulted from the direct observation of agents or local police. The inspector general and the Justice Department have raised concerns in the past about such stops and searches, in part, due to the potential for racial profiling. Of the 100 cases, the DEA could verify that only 44 advanced ongoing investigations, led to a new investigation, or resulted in an arrest or prosecution, the inspector general found. When seizure and administrative forfeitures do not ultimately advance an investigation or prosecution, law enforcement creates the appearance, and risks the reality, that it is more interested in seizing and forfeiting cash than advancing an investigation or prosecution, the report said. The inspector general also found that the Justice Department does not provide enough training or require state and local officers working on federal task forces to be trained on asset forfeiture policies. The Justice Department responded in a letter to the inspector general that its analysis was flawed and its sample significantly underreported the amount of seized funds that are ultimately returned. In a statement, Justice Department spokeswoman Sarah Isgur Flores said, Asset forfeiture is a powerful and effective law enforcement tool, allowing the department to compensate victims, deprive criminals of the proceeds of their crimes, remove the tools of crime from criminal organizations, and deter crime. The department believes that the ongoing public debate about asset forfeiture is healthy, she added, but as outlined in our formal response, we strongly disagree with large swaths of this report and its flawed methodology that failed to address the essential role asset forfeiture plays combating some of the most sophisticated criminal actors and organizations, including terrorist financiers, cyber criminals, fraudsters, human traffickers, and drug cartels. 9:23 a.m.: This story was updated with Justice Department comment. Facebook

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Hoax. Con job. Chinese plot. Trump tweets have bashed climate science for years By Michael Finnegan President Trump signs an executive order Tuesday to rescind Obama administration policies on climate change. (Pablo Martinez Monsivais / Associated Press) As President Trump moved to halt federal efforts against global warming on Tuesday, he avoided an important phrase: climate change. It was the same story during his campaign for president; Trump rarely mentioned it. When he pledged in May to withdraw the United States from the Paris treaty, a pact among nearly every nation on Earth to reduce the carbon emissions that cause global warming, it was one of the few occasions when Trump broached the topic. Trumps muted approach made political sense. To reject science is to risk alienating millions of moderate voters who support action to stop global warming. But before Trump started running for president, he often bluntly attacked climate science. Some highlights from his Twitter feed: Read More Facebook

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Supreme Court rules in favor of merchants who want to advertise credit card fees By David Savage Supreme Court rules on swipe fees (J. Scott Applewhite / Associated Press)) Merchants may soon have the right to tell customers that they will pay a surcharge if they use a credit card rather than pay with cash. The Supreme Court cast doubt Wednesday on laws in California, New York, Florida and seven other states that make it illegal for sellers to impose a surcharge on credit card sales. In a 8-0 decision, the justices said these laws regulate speech and may be challenged as violations of the 1st Amendment. Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. said these laws do not prevent merchants from offering a discount for those who pay cash. Rather, they simply forbid disclosing that a posted price includes a surcharge of 2% to 3% for using a credit or debit card. Merchants want to pass the fees along only to their customers who choose to use credit cards, he said. They also want to make clear that they are not the bad guys -- that the credit card companies, not the merchants, are responsible for the higher prices. But the ruling Wednesday was only a partial victory for the five New York businesses, including a hair salon and an ice cream parlor in Brooklyn, that sued to challenge the ban on advertising or disclosing surcharges for using credit cards. The U.S. 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals in New York had upheld the law on the grounds it was a price regulation, not a speech restriction. Roberts and the high court disagreed. What the law does is regulate how sellers may communicate their prices, he said. A merchant who wants to charge $10 for cash and $10.30 for credit may not convey that price any way he pleases. He is not free to say '$10, with a 3% credit card surcharge. But the justices did not strike down the state laws, instead sending the case back to the New York court to decide whether this speech regulation could be justified. Sometimes, laws are used to regulate the words of commercial transactions to prevent buyers from being fooled or confused. Until recently, the major credit card companies had imposed contract restrictions that prevented merchants from disclosing surcharges. But those provisions have challenged and knocked down. That in turn led to new legal challenges against the state laws which forbid sellers from disclosing these surcharges. The case decided Wednesday was Expressions Hair Design vs. Schneiderman. Facebook

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Trumps poll numbers are low. But the people who put him in office say its not time to judge him  yet By Noah Bierman Its been five months since the euphoria of a Donald Trump rally at the local arena brought optimism to this former Democratic stronghold. The snow from a long winter has begun melting into the rocky soil, and the digital sign in a torn-up parking lot blinks hopefully: Warm days are coming. President Trump has yet to deliver jobs or the repeal of Obamacare. But here, in an area crucial to his unexpected election victory, many residents are more frustrated with what they see as obstruction and a rush to judgment than they are with Trump. Give him six months to prove himself, said an information technology supervisor. Give him a year, said a service manager. Give him four years, said a retired print shop owner. Give the man a chance, said Crystal Matthews, a 59-year-old hospital employee. Theyre just going to fight him tooth and nail, the whole way. Read More Facebook

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To fight womans defamation claim, Trump cites the Bill Clinton-Paula Jones case  which the president lost By David Savage President Trump is citing Bill Clintons famous sexual harassment battle in his effort to block a California womans lawsuit claiming Trump lied about groping her in the Beverly Hills Hotel in 2007. Problem is, Clinton lost that bid for legal immunity when the Supreme Court ruled unanimously in 1997 that the chief executive is not shielded from responding to a civil suit regarding his private behavior. Read More Facebook

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House sends Trump bill to kill landmark broadband privacy regulations By Jim Puzzanghera Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) sponsored the repeal bill. (Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images) The House voted Tuesday to kill landmark privacy restrictions for Internet service providers and sent the bill to the White House, which indicated President Trump would sign it and invalidate the rules before they go into effect. The measure, approved largely along party lines, repeals tough new Federal Communications Commission regulations that would require broadband companies to get explicit customer permission before using or sharing most of their personal information. The data include health information, website browsing history, app usage and the geographic information from mobile devices. The rules also tighten data security requirements. Republicans, along with AT&T Inc., Charter Communications Inc., Comcast Corp. and other providers of high-speed Internet service, strongly opposed the rules. They argued that the restrictions are tougher than those for websites and social networks that also collect and use the highly valuable consumer data, which companies use to target advertising. Read More Facebook

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U.S. commander says theres a fair chance that coalition airstrike is responsible for civilian casualties in Mosul By W.J. Hennigan Rescuers are still recovering bodies from a suspected U.S. airstrike in the Iraqi city of Mosul. (Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times) The top U.S. general commanding the fight against Islamic State in Iraq and Syria said that the U.S.-led coalition was probably responsible for a blast that killed more than 200 people. If we did it, and I would say theres at least a fair chance that we did, it was an unintentional accident of war and we will transparently report it to you, Lt. Gen. Stephen Townsend told reporters Tuesday via teleconference from Baghdad. He made the comments in response to witness reports that an airstrike by the U.S.-led coalition leveled a large apartment block and killed scores of civilians, including women and children, in west Mosuls Jadidah neighborhood on March 17. My initial assessment is that we probably had a role in these casualties, Townsend said. But investigators are still trying to determine whether other factors -- possibly including repeated airstrikes in the neighborhood or an explosive device accidentally or deliberately planted near the building -- could have led to its collapse. The fact that the whole building collapsed contradicts our involvement, Townsend said. The munition that we used should not have collapsed an entire building. So thats one of those things were trying to figure out in the investigative process. Read More Facebook

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Gov. Jerry Brown calls Trump energy plan a colossal mistake that will galvanize climate change activists By Evan Halper Gov. Jerry Brown. (Gregory Bull / Associated Press) California Gov. Jerry Brown warned that President Trump has just made a colossal mistake in gutting the federal governments effort to combat climate change, which will ignite a response Trump is unprepared to handle. It defies science itself, Brown said in a call to The Times shortly after Trump signed an executive order that aims to bring an abrupt halt to the United States leadership on global warming. Erasing climate change may take place in Donald Trumps mind, but nowhere else. Yes, there is going to be a counter-movement, Brown vowed, predicting Trumps actions will mobilize environmentalists in a way President Obama never could. I have met with many heads of state, ambassadors. This is a growing movement. President Trumps outrageous move will galvanize the contrary force. Things have been a bit tepid [in climate activism]. But this conflict, this sharpening of the contradiction, will energize those who believe climate change is an existential threat. Brown and other big-state governors and mayors are moving swiftly to fill the global leadership vacuum Trump created with Tuesdays directive, which stops short of officially pulling the U.S. out of the Paris climate accord of 2015. I see Washington declining in influence, but the momentum being maintained by California and other states aligned with China and those who are willing to do something, said Brown, who will be traveling to China soon for meetings on climate. There is a growing activism on the part of millions of people who will not stand by and let Donald Trump effectively tear up the Paris agreement and destroy Americas climate leadership and jeopardize the health and well being of so many people. In the face of Trumps retreat on climate, Brown said California will step up its own efforts to push others toward clean energy. We are not fully meeting the challenge of climate change yet, he said. We are doubling down on our commitment. We are reaching out to other states in America and throughout the world and other countries . We have plenty of fuel to build this movement. This is real, Brown said of the threat created by climate change. The nations of the world have recognized it in Paris  I will continue doing my best to work with and rouse the world community, whatever the politicians in Washington do or dont do. Facebook

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Trump orders government to dismantle Obamas climate change policies By Evan Halper  President Trump ordered an abrupt halt to Americas crusade against climate change. (March 29, 2017) (Sign up for our free video newsletter here http://bit.ly/2n6VKPR) President Trump on Tuesday ordered the federal government to retreat from the battle against climate change launched by President Obama, issuing a directive aimed at dismantling the core policies that have made the U.S. a global leader in curbing emissions. The plan unveiled by Trump reflects an about-face for the U.S. on energy, and it puts into jeopardy the nations ability to meet the obligations it agreed to under the global warming pact signed in Paris with 194 other nations. It would shelve the landmark Clean Power Plan that mandates electricity companies reduce their emissions. It seeks to dislodge consideration of climate throughout the federal government, where it has been a factor in every relevant decision in recent years. My administration is putting an end to the war on coal, Trump said. I am taking historic steps to lift the restrictions on American energy to reverse government intrusions and to cancel job killing regulations. Under the order, the government will abandon the social cost of carbon that regulators had painstakingly calculated and begun factoring into their decision on permit applications and rulemaking. Restrictions on methane releases at oil and gas drilling facilities would be eased. Agencies will also stop contemplating climate impacts as they launch into new projects, and restrictions on coal leasing and fracking on federal lands will be lifted. The directive, for which progressive states and environmentalists have been preparing for months, is certain to set off years of litigation and conflicts between Washington and state capitols. Some of the most far-reaching policies Trump is seeking to bring to a halt cannot be canceled unilaterally and require lengthy administrative proceedings. But others he can end with the stroke of his pen. Smoke rises from the Colstrip Steam Electric Station, a coal-burning power plant in Colstrip, Mont., on July 1, 2103. (Matt Brown / Associated Press) Facebook

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A trade war is brewing inside the White House between rival camps By Don Lee Soon after President Trump took office, an executive order was quietly drafted to suspend talks with China on an obscure but potentially far-reaching treaty about bilateral investment. After eight years and two dozen rounds of negotiations, the treaty terms were almost in final form. Pulling out after so much time and effort would send a clear message that the Trump administration meant to take a new and tougher approach to China. But the executive order never even got to the presidents desk. It was quietly shelved, according to sources inside and outside the White House, at the behest of former Goldman Sachs President Gary Cohn, now Trumps top economic advisor. Killing the order was a small victory for a White House faction that supports free trade and the global economy. But it was only an opening skirmish in what promises to be a long and bitter struggle over trade policy that so far is being waged behind the scenes in the Trump administration. Read More Facebook

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Supreme Court reverses death sentence for Texas inmate who could not tell time or name the days of the week By David Savage The Supreme Court set aside a death sentence on Tuesday for a Texas inmate who as a 13-year-old could not tell time or name the days of the week, concluding he should not be executed in light of his mental disability. In a 5-3 decision, the justices reversed the Texas state appeals court that had restored a death sentence given to Bobby James Moore, a 57-year old prisoner who shot and killed a store clerk in a botched robbery in 1980. At issue was whether Moore had a mental disability that would make his execution cruel and unusual punishment under the 8th Amendment. The justices banned states from executing prisoners with a mental disability, but they left states some flexibility to set the standards. But three years ago, the justices faulted Florida authorities for relying almost entirely on I.Q. scores. In the Texas case decided Tuesday, the justices said state judges had ignored ample evidence that Moore had severe mental disability as a child. That evidence was not overcome by the fact that he had adapted well in prison, they said. At 13, Moore lacked the basic understanding of the days of the week, the months of the year and the seasons; he could scarcely tell time or comprehend the standards of measure, said Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. After failing every subject in the ninth grade, Moore dropped out of high school. Cast out of his home, he survived on the streets, eating from trash cans, even after two bouts of food poisoning. After fatally shooting the clerk in the 1980 robbery, he was sentenced to death. The Texas courts reexamined his sentence after the high court abolished capital punishment in 2002 for defendants with a mental disability. A state judge listened to experts and set aside Moores death sentence, But the states criminal appeals court disagreed. Its judges said Moore had demonstrated adaptive strength by living on the streets and carrying out a robbery, and therefore did not qualify as having a severe mental impairment. Ginsburg said the state judges had relied on an outdated understanding of mental disability, and her opinion in Moore vs. Texas said the state court must reconsidere its decision. Justices Anthony M. Kennedy, Stephen G. Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan agreed. Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. dissented. While he agreed the states authorities may have used outdated standards, Moore had I.Q. scores ranging from 69 to 79 that show he did not have the significantly sub-average intellectual functioning that would exempt him from the death penalty. Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito agreed. Facebook

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The Freedom Caucus roars back to relevance to challenge Trumps agenda and strategy By Lisa Mascaro When House Speaker Paul D. Ryan pulled the plug on the GOPs Obamacare overhaul, lawmakers spilled out of the Capitol basement, angry, frustrated and stunned. But Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.), leader of the conservative and rebellious House Freedom Caucus that led the fight against the bill, was uncharacteristically quiet, downplaying his political victory and mulling over the next move. After coming together to battle President Obama and becoming a driving force in the Republican Party, this 30-member-plus bloc of deficit hawks and right-flank conservatives had appeared for a while to be pushed aside by the movement that swept President Trump into office. But after helping defeat the GOP healthcare overhaul, the Freedom Caucus has roared back to relevance as a political power in the Trump era. It has reasserted itself as not just a renegade assemblage of mostly back-bench lawmakers, but as a core block of votes that Trump will need to push past the healthcare debacle to tax reform, budget battles and other issues. These guys saved the Republicans, said Adam Brandon, president of FreedomWorks, a group that organized a North Carolina rally on Monday in honor of Meadows. As beaten and battered as they are, weve got a group thats willing to take the hard decisions. If youre going to drain the swamp, these are the guys who are going to do it. Read More Facebook

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White House stopped Yates testimony about Russian meddling in presidential election, lawyer says By Associated Press A lawyer for former Deputy Atty. Gen. Sally Yates said in letters last week that the Trump administration had moved to squelch her testimony in a hearing about Russian meddling in the presidential election. In the letters, attorney David ONeil said he understood the Justice Department was invoking further constraints on testimony she could provide at a House Intelligence Committee hearing that had been scheduled for Tuesday. He said the departments position was that all actions she took as deputy attorney general were client confidences that could not be disclosed without written approval. The Washington Post first reported the letters. A person familiar with the situation confirmed them as authentic to the Associated Press. The White House called the Post story entirely false. Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Tulare), chairman of the House Intelligence Committee and part of Trumps transition team, last week announced that the committee was canceling the planned public hearing with Yates and two former Obama administration intelligence officials  the former director of national intelligence, James Clapper, and former CIA Director John Brennan. Read More Facebook

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Did Mnuchin cross an ethical line in plugging The Lego Batman Movie? A senator wants to know By Jim Puzzanghera (Pablo Martinez Monsivais / Associated Press) A Democratic senator wants to know if Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin committed an ethics violation when he publicly plugged The Lego Batman Movie, a film in which he has a financial stake. A former Hollywood financier, Mnuchin was asked at the end of a question-and-answer session on Friday hosted by the Axios news website to name a movie people should see. Well, Im not allowed to promote anything that Im involved in. So I just want to have the legal disclosure, youve asked me the question and I am not promoting any product, Mnuchin said at the event, which aired on C-SPAN2. But you should send all your kids to Lego Batman,  he said. The crowd laughed. But Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon, the top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, wasnt amused. Hes asking the U.S. Office of Government Ethics to look into the comments. Read More Facebook

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Venezuela hits back in showdown with OAS, U.S. over democracy By Tracy Wilkinson The Venezuelan foreign minister had harsh words Monday for the regional organization that is considering sanctioning her country for its failure to hold democratic elections. Delcy Rodriguez, the foreign minister, accused the Organization of American States of wanting not to punish Venezuela but to destroy it. Rodriguez appeared at an OAS panel convened in Washington. D.C., after the United States and 13 other of the hemispheres nations united to demand the leftist Venezuelan government free political prisoners and set a date for long-overdue elections. Failure to do so, the 14 countries warned, could trigger a decision to suspend Venezuela from the 69-year-old regional body. OAS Secretary-General Luis Almagro, a former Uruguayan foreign minister, has been especially critical of Venezuelas embattled government. He noted that President Nicolas Maduro canceled both a referendum that could have recalled his government and later regional elections, after the opposition made huge gains in parliamentary voting in 2015. In addition, thousands of people have been arrested for their political beliefs, Almagro said, including opposition leader Leopoldo Lopez, who has been in jail for three years. But Rodriguez, in a speech to the OAS panel, said Venezuelas revolution continues strong. She accused Almagro of being a stooge of the U.S. government, a lying mercenary who is a traitor to everything a Latin American diplomat should represent. He lacks independence when he voluntarily bows to the wishes of the most powerful nation of this organization -- and becomes its spokesman, Rodriguez said. Although the OAS has often been accused of pro-Washington tendencies, 13 nations in addition to the United States have joined to condemn Venezuela, a significant shift in Latin America away from populist regimes. Other leftist-ruled countries, like Bolivia, have said they will support Venezuela. Rodriguez said the accusations against her government were unilateral, unjustified and biased. She called on the OAS to suspend discussion of Venezuela, but another session was scheduled to proceed on Tuesday -- the same day Maduros Socialist Party is planning big anti-imperialism marches at home. All of the countries most critical of Venezuela, including the United States, say suspension of the oil-rich, Caribbean country from the OAS should be a measure of last resort. Despite its oil wealth, Venezuela is in the throes of an economic and humanitarian disaster, with severe shortages of food and medicine and skyrocketing inflation and homicide rates. Facebook

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Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions criticizes sanctuary cities but offers no new policies By Michael A. Memoli  Decrying the safety risk posed when cities dont cooperate with federal immigration authorities, Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions repeated previous statements that the Trump administration would seek to deny so-called sanctuary cities some federal grant fun Decrying the safety risk posed when cities dont cooperate with federal immigration authorities, Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions repeated previous statements that the Trump administration would seek to deny so-called sanctuary cities some federal grant funds, but offered no new policies. Despite his high-profile appearance at the White House briefing room, Sessions merely reiterated Obama administration policy related to immigration. Justice Department officials said any new measures would be weeks or months in the future. The Obama administration issued instructions last July that required any cities applying for Justice Department grant programs be in compliance with federal law requiring cooperation between local, state and federal agencies with requests from the Immigration and Naturalization Service. Sessions noted that any jurisdiction applying for grants from his department would have to certify that compliance. The Justice Department already has been requiring that, which indicates that police and sheriff departments which currently have Justice Department grants already have been asserting that they are meeting the requirements of federal law. Although many cities have policies that they, or critics, characterize using the label sanctuary, those policies do not necessarily mean they are violating the law. Sessions did say that the Justice Department could in the future institute additional requirements, but announced none. Fundamentally, we intend to use all the lawful authority we have to make sure that our state and local officials, who are so important to law enforcement, are in sync with the federal government, he said. He did offer a warning to jurisdictions considering adopting sanctuary status. The California legislature is considering a proposal to institute the designation statewide; Sessions, though, singled out Maryland for a similar proposal. That would be such a mistake, Sessions said, while noting Marylands Republican governor opposes the change proposed by the heavily-Democratic legislature. Sessions cited a high-profile case in San Francisco where a 32-year-old woman was killed by man who had been previously deported multiple times despite a request by immigration authorities to continue his detention to illustrate the administrations case against such policies. Countless Americans would be alive today and countless loved ones would not be grieving today if these policies of sanctuary cities were ended, Sessions claimed. Facebook

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Devin Nunes plot thickens, as his spokesman concedes he met source for surveillance claim at White House By David S. Cloud The day before the House Intelligence Committee chairman revealed that conversations by Trump transition officials may have been inadvertently picked up by U.S. surveillance, he met with the source of the information at the White House, his spokesman said Monday Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Tulare), went to the White House because there was a facility there for reviewing classified information, said Jack Langer, a spokesman for Nunes, who has refused to divulge the identity of his source. Chairman Nunes met with his source at the White House grounds in order to have proximity to a secure location where he could view the information provided by the source, Langer said. The latest news added another twist to a bizarre series of events last week: On Monday, FBI Director James Comey testified before Nunes committee that his investigators were looking at possible coordination during the presidential campaign between Russian officials and people close to Preisdent Trump. Tuesday night, Nunes went to the White House where someone showed him documents related to U.S. intelligence surveillance, according to his statement. On Wednesday, Nunes announced to reporters that he had seen evidence indicating that people close to Trump had been subjects of surveillance during the transition. He then went to the White House, saying that he needed to brief Trump about the revelations. On Thursday, Nunes apologized to committee members for not having shown the evidence to them before briefing the president. Later that day, his spokesman conceded that Nunes did not know for sure that any Trump aides had actually been subject to surveillance, just that their names had appeared in intelligence reports, which could have resulted from other people talking about them. That sequence of events could buttress Democrats claims that the episode last week was a White House ploy to shift attention away from the FBI investigation. Democrats already have been saying Nunes should be disqualified from heading an inquiry into whether Trumps aides had improper contacts with Russia. Nunes statement left several questions unanswered. One is why he would have had to go to the White House unless his source worked there, because members of Congress have access to a secure facility at the U.S. Capitol. Asked to explain Nunes actions, Langer said in an email, The information comprised executive branch documents that have not been provided to Congress. Because of classification rules, the source could not simply put the documents in a backpack and walk them over to the House Intelligence Committee space.  He added: The White House grounds was the best location to safeguard the proper chain of custody and classification of these documents, so the Chairman could view them in a legal way. Last week, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer had dismissed speculation that the White House had supplied Nunes with the information, saying that the suggestion did not pass the smell test. He added, however, that he did not for sure what Nunes had told Trump or where his information came from. After Nunes apologized to members of his committee Thursday and promised to thoroughly investigate the surveillance, several lawmakers said Nunes had promised to provide them the surveillance information he had received. That has not occurred yet. In his first statement last week, Nunes said he was concerned that some Trump transition officials identities might have been improperly revealed in intelligence reports, despite rules requiring them to be kept confidential in most cases. The Chairman is extremely concerned by the possible improper unmasking of names of U.S. citizens, and he began looking into this issue even before President Trump tweeted his assertion that Trump Tower had been wiretapped, Langer said. Whether any officials names actually were unmasked is unclear. The ranking Democrat on the committee, Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Burbank) has questioned Nunes assertions about improper unmasking. But Schiff noted that he has not seen the documents Nunes claims to have seen. Schiff had no comment on the news that Nunes had seen the documents at the White House. UPDATES 10:20 a.m.: This article was updated with staff reporting. This article was originally published as an Associated Press report at 9:06 a.m. Facebook

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Venezuela in showdown with OAS, U.S. over political prisoners By Tracy Wilkinson The besieged leftist government of Venezuela is under mounting pressure after the United States and 13 of the hemispheres other leading nations demanded the release of political prisoners and other pro-democracy concessions. The Organization of American States, the regions main collective body, has threatened to suspend Venezuela because of what it called the autocratic repression imposed by President Nicolas Maduro. Maduros foreign minister, Delcy Rodriguez, will appear Monday before an OAS panel in Washington to plead her governments case. This comes after members of the Venezuelan delegation stormed out of OAS meetings last week, according to diplomats. OAS Secretary-General Luis Almagro, in a report on Venezuela, noted that Maduro canceled both a referendum that could have recalled his government and later regional elections, after the opposition made huge gains in parliamentary voting in 2015. A Maduro-controlled Supreme Court then stripped the parliament of much of its power. In addition, thousands of people have been arrested for their political beliefs, Almagro said, including opposition leader Leopoldo Lopez, who has been in jail for three years. The OAS is demanding Venezuela hold elections or risk suspension from the group, a drastic measure. The last time a country was suspended was when the military and right-wing politicians staged a coup against the elected president in Honduras in 2009. Under OAS regulations, a country can be suspended when the democratic order is altered. Venezuela is in the throes of a devastating economic and humanitarian crisis. The oil-rich country has among the highest homicide and inflation rates in the world and suffers from severe shortages of food and medicine. The Maduro government angrily condemned the OAS actions as imperialist interference and vowed to resist. Adan Chavez, brother of the late Hugo Chavez, the socialist strongman who set Venezuela on its revolutionary path, claimed the OAS was plotting a coup against Maduro. Maduro views much of his opposition as right-wing oligarchs who have long repressed the poor. Although the OAS has often been accused of pro-Washington tendencies, it is significant that 13 nations in addition to the United States are united in condemning Venezuela. This marks a shift away from populist regimes in much of Latin America. The Trump administration, which has shown little interest in Latin America beyond Mexico, did issue instructions to diplomats to find ways through the OAS to put pressure on Venezuela, according to people familiar with the matter. Those instructions came despite parallel administration plans to slash funds to the OAS and other multilateral institutions like the United Nations. Trump recently spoke by telephone to the presidents of Chile and Brazil and in both cases discussed Venezuela, the White House said. And he met at the White House with Lilian Tintori, the wife of Lopez, the jailed opposition leader, as she lobbied for her husbands freedom. The Treasury Department earlier this year slapped sanctions on Venezuelas vice president, Tareck El Aissami, alleging he was a major drug trafficker, charges he denied. Were not pushing for Venezuelas expulsion from the OAS at this time, State Department spokesman Mark Toner said late last week. However, we do think the OAS is the appropriate venue to deal with the ongoing situation in Venezuela, he said. Elections are essential to securing accountability, and the Venezuelan people deserve a voice in creating solutions to the myriad economic, political, and social and humanitarian challenges that they face. Facebook

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Trump takes to Twitter to blame GOP hard-liners over healthcare failure By Laura King (Mandel Ngan / AFP-Getty Images) President Trump on Sunday blamed fellow Republicans and two influential conservative advocacy groups for last weeks failure of the GOP healthcare plan. The president had said on Friday that it was the fault of Democrats that House Speaker Paul D. Ryan pulled the measure from consideration rather than putting it forth for a floor showdown that the GOP leadership would have lost. In a Sunday morning tweet, the president appeared to shift culpability to the House Freedom Caucus, a conservative group of GOP lawmakers who were key to depriving Trump and his camp of the votes needed for passage. Democrats are smiling over the bills failure, Trump declared on Twitter. The Freedom Caucus, he said, had saved President Obamas Affordable Care Act with the help of Heritage Action and the Club for Growth, two organizations that had opposed the GOP measure. The chairman of the House Freedom Caucus, Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.), declined to engage in any sparring with the White House, instead predicting that a Trump-led Republican effort to overhaul Obamas signature healthcare legislation eventually would move ahead. At the end of the day, the most valuable player will be President Trump, he said on ABCs This Week. Meadows also insisted there had been no conversation about any attempt to force out Ryan, who is being blamed for failing to marshal sufficient support for the measure he had spearheaded. Trump so far has refrained from public criticism of the speaker, but  again on Twitter  he specifically urged followers to watch a Fox News segment on Saturday night, featuring commentator Jeanine Pirro excoriating Ryan and calling for him to be ousted. That gave rise to speculation that Trump would seek to force the speaker to take the fall for the debacle. Read More Facebook

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After the GOP healthcare bill fizzles, Trump blames the Democrats and says he learned a lot about loyalty By Brian Bennett  President Trump addresses the cancellation of a vote Friday on the GOPs plan to overhaul the Affordable Care Act. After failing to land a deal on the healthcare bill, President Trump on Friday blamed Democrats, even though the GOP controls Congress and the White House, and made few overtures across the aisle when pushing the bill. When you get no votes from the other side -- meaning Democrats -- it is really a difficult situation, Trump told reporters in the Oval Office after a revolt by Republican lawmakers forced House leaders to stop a vote in their bid to overhaul the Affordable Care Act. Trump insisted that the current healthcare law, commonly known as Obamacare, will collapse under its own weight, and then Democrats will want to make a deal with the White House. I truly believe the Democrats will come to us, Trump said. In the meantime, Trump is moving his attention to pushing through a tax reform bill, he said. We will probably be going really hard for the big tax cuts and tax reform -- thats next, he said. Trump, who has spent decades negotiating real estate deals and seeing many of them fall through, seemed sanguine discussing the effort he put into getting a healthcare reform bill passed. This was an interesting period of time, Trump said. We learned a lot about loyalty and we learned a lot about the vote-getting process. Trump stopped short of blaming House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) and avoided singling out the group of conservative Republican lawmakers, who dug in their heels in opposition. Lawmakers in the House Freedom Caucus that largely stood against the bill are very good people and friends of mind, he said. I was disappointed because we could have had it, he said. Im a little surprised, he said. When asked by a reporter if he would reach out now to Democrats for ideas on how to get a deal, Trump said, No, I think we need to let Obamacare go its way for a little while. Then well see how things go. Facebook

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Tillerson will meet with NATO counterparts, after all By Tracy Wilkinson Secretary of State Rex Tillerson will meet with NATO allies next week in Brussels, a move that could quell controversy over his earlier decision to skip a long-planned summit of the transatlantic alliance. The State Department said Friday that Tillerson added a stop at NATO headquarters in Brussels to a previously scheduled trip to the Turkish capital of Ankara. Tillerson will be in Ankara on Thursday to meet with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and other senior Turkish officials to discuss the fight against Islamic State militants in Syria and to reaffirm Turkeys important role in ensuring regional stability, the State Department said. The next day, he will go to NATO, the State Department said. NATO officials were attempting to put together a session with the other 27 allied nations. Earlier this week, news that Tillerson would miss the NATO ministerial meeting set for April 5-6, roiled the alliance. Administration officials said Tillerson would have to be in Washington to attend President Trumps first face-to-face meetings with Chinese President Xi Jinping on April 6-7. At the same time, Tillersons aides announced he would be traveling to Moscow the following week. Criticism was swift from European allies but also from several former American diplomats and key U.S. lawmakers, who said the decision raised questions about the Trump administrations commitment to NATO. During his campaign, Trump called the alliance obsolete, although more recently he has voiced support for it while also demanding members spend more money on defense. In response, Tillersons aides said they were exchanging possible alternative dates with NATO to attempt to arrange a meeting in which all parties could participate. It was not yet clear if next Fridays meeting will take the place of the April 5-6 session, which as of late Friday remained on NATOs formal calendar. Diplomats considered the ministerial meeting as especially important because it will lay the groundwork for a May 25 NATO summit of heads of state and government, which Trump has said he will attend. Facebook

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Charter promises Trump something new ($25-billion investment) and something old (20,000 jobs) By Jim Puzzanghera Charter Communications Chief Executive Thomas Rutledge. (Mandel Ngan / AFP/Getty Images) The chief executive of Charter Communications committed in a meeting with President Trump on Friday to invest $25 billion on broadband infrastructure while joining a trend of business leaders touting previously announced job creation at the White House. In the case of Charter  Southern Californias dominant cable-TV and Internet service provider  Chief Executive Thomas Rutledge said he expected to hire 20,000 new U.S. employees over the next four years. Charter had made the hiring promise in 2015 when it was purchasing Time Warner Cable. The new development was the time period in which it will occur. Nevertheless, Trump indicated the job creation was triggered by his election. Read More Facebook

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Threats made against Hawaii judge who ruled against travel ban By Jaweed Kaleem (George Lee / The Star-Advertiser via AP) The Hawaii federal judge who brought President Trumps revised travel ban to a national halt last week has become the target of threats. U.S. District Judge Derrick Watson has received the threats since his March 15 ruling, according to FBI spokeswoman Michele Ernst. Ernst said the FBI is ready to assist but declined to provide more information. The U.S. Marshals Service also said it would not give details. The U.S. Marshals Service is responsible for the protection of federal judicial officials, including judges and prosecutors, and we take that responsibility very seriously, the agency said in a statement. While we do not discuss our specific security measures, we continuously review the security measures in place for all federal judges and take appropriate steps to provide additional protection when it is warranted. Watson, a judge in the U.S. District Court of Hawaii in Honolulu, issued a scathing 43-page opinion against the travel ban the day before it was to go into effect. He wrote that, despite the bans stated secular purpose, Trumps own words marked the executive order as a fulfillment of the presidents campaign promise to temporarily bar Muslims from coming to the U.S. The illogic of the governments contention is palpable, Watson said. In response, Trump said Watsons ruling was terrible and makes us look weak. Trump has vowed to take the travel ban case to the U.S. Supreme Court. An appeal of a separate Maryland federal judges ruling against the travel ban is currently pending in the U.S. 4th District Court of Appeals. Facebook

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House GOP gives up on healthcare bill as Trump suffers first legislative defeat By Lisa Mascaro Unable to muster enough support from his own party, House Speaker Paul D. Ryan again postponed a vote Friday on the GOPs plan to overhaul the Affordable Care Act. The move came at the request of President Trump, who just Thursday night issued an ultimatum that lawmakers should hold the vote regardless of the outcome. It was the second time House GOP leaders had to delay a final reckon
From research on stem cells and DNA sequencing to experiments with fruit flies and surveys of human behavior, projects funded by the National Institutes of Health aim to make Americans healthier. A new analysis finds that NIH-funded research also fuels the kinds of innovations that drive the U.S. economy.

Between 1990 and 2012, close to 1 in 10 projects made possible by an NIH grant resulted in a patent, usually for a university or a hospital.

The indirect effects were far greater: Close to 1 in 3 NIH research grants generated work that was cited in applications for commercial patents.

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Over roughly two decades, 81,462 patents filed by companies and individuals cited at least one NIH-sponsored research project in their applications. Some 1,351 of those patents were for drugs that would go on to be approved by the Food and Drug Administration.

The study, published Thursday in the journal Science, undergirds a point repeated frequently since the Trump administration unveiled a budget plan that proposed cutting the NIH budget by 20% in 2018: that research funded by taxpayer dollars not only improves lives and forestalls death, it creates jobs  which the president has long asserted is his highest priority.

It is an argument often made in support of such scientific undertakings as space exploration, and sometimes for defense spending. But when it comes to biomedical research, public spending is frequently dismissed as a way to sustain university professors or seek esoteric answers to the mysteries of life.

It shouldnt be, said Pierre Azoulay, a professor of technological innovation at MIT and coauthor of the new analysis.

NIH public funding expenditures have large effects on the patenting output of the private sector, Azoulay said. These results should give a lot of pause to those who think these cuts are going to have no effect.

Ashley J. Stevens, a biotechnology researcher who is president of Focus IP Group in Winchester, Mass., said the new study clearly ... supports the premise that increased investment in the NIH leads directly to improved public health.

It also makes President Trumps proposal to cut the NIH budget by $1.6 billion this year and $6 billion next year to fund a border wall and increased military spending incompatible with his America first objectives, added Stevens, who was not involved in the study.

More than 80% of the NIH budget is parceled out to researchers across the country and around the world. Each year, NIHs 21 institutes award close to 50,000 competitive grants to investigators at more than 2,500 universities, independent labs and private companies. The University of California, for instance, received nearly $1.9 billion in total NIH funding last year.

Led by Harvard Business School entrepreneurship professor Danielle Li, the new research scoured 1,310,700 patent applications submitted between 1980 and 2012 in the life sciences, a category that includes drugs, medical devices and related technologies. In the footnotes, citations and supporting data, the study authors looked for references to any of the 365,380 grants the NIH funded between 1980 and 2007, as well as to research articles generated by those grants.

To capture the unappreciated indirect spillovers of knowledge that result from NIH-funded work, the authors focused especially on 232,276 private-sector patents in the life sciences.

Li, Azoulay and Bhaven Sampat, a health policy professor at Columbia University, found 17,093 patents that were assigned to universities and public-sector institutions. These patents are certainly valuable  they can spur further research, support professors and graduate students and boost endowments.

These results should give a lot of pause to those who think these cuts are going to have no effect.  Pierre Azoulay, professor of technological innovation at MIT

But private-sector patents may reverberate more widely through the economy, generating capital, manufacturing jobs and profits. And their intellectual debt to publicly funded research is rarely counted or acknowledged outside the fine print of these patent applications.

In all, 112,408 NIH-funded research grants  31% of the total disbursed between 1990 and 2007  produced research that was cited by 81,462 private-sector patents, the team found.

If you thought this was just ivory tower stuff that has no relevance, I think we contradict that, Azoulay said.

The findings demonstrate that the broad economic effects of NIH budget cuts would not necessarily be felt immediately, since it could take years for a research paper written by NIH-funded investigators to find its way into a patent application.

These effects are going to be delayed, Azoulay said. The slowdown resulting from a cut in the NIH budget now is for President Ivanka Trump or President Chelsea Clinton to worry about.

But the study also makes clear that publicly funded research lays the groundwork for important innovations and discoveries that companies and individuals seek to patent.

Biomedical research is perhaps the most complex type of research there is, Azoulay added: These are fundamentally harder problems. There are a lot of blind alleys, experimentation that leads to nothing.

Intriguingly, the new research found that there was little difference in the economic impact of grants for basic science and applied science. Both types of grants were equally likely to be cited in patent applications if they explored fundamental dynamics of biology (such as cellular processes) or if they studied specific disease states in humans.

That distinction is important, because researchers and scientific leaders have quarreled for years over how NIHs limited budgets should be apportioned.

Scientists who study very basic biological processes, or who work with simple organisms like yeast, earthworms or fruit flies, often argue that their contributions are most valuable because they shed light on how all life  including human life  works.

Scientists whose research is more applied, including clinical trials and epidemiological studies, believe their work contributes more directly to improving human health.

The new study suggests that both categories contribute to commercial innovation.

Stevens called this finding remarkable.

Azoulay acknowledged that neither the progress of life sciences research nor its contribution to the economy is neat or easy to quantify.

The sausage factory doesnt look up-close very appetizing, he said. But in the sweep of history, this system delivers things.

Not all patents become lucrative or open new paths to treatments, Azoulay said. But with time and continued funding, they do lead to breakthroughs.

One of the best examples is the cancer drug Gleevec, which emerged from NIH-funded work on basic cellular function. Since its approval in 2001 as a treatment for chronic myeloid leukemia, Gleevec has turned that once-deadly cancer into a disease that most survive. Many call it a miracle drug.

One Gleevec can justify a lot of failures, Azoulay said.

melissa.healy@latimes.com

@LATMelissaHealy

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SHANXI, CHINA -NOVEMBER 26: (CHINA, HONG KONG, MACAU, TAIWAN OUT) Smoke billows from stacks as Chinese men pull a tricycle in a neighborhood next to a coal fired power plant on November 26, 2015 in Shanxi, China. A history of heavy dependence on burning coal for energy has made China the source of nearly a third of the worlds total carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, the toxic pollutants widely cited by scientists and environmentalists as the primary cause of global warming. Chinas government has publicly set 2030 as a deadline to reach the countrys emissions peak, and data suggest the countrys coal consumption is already in decline. The governments of more than 190 countries are expected to sign an agreement in Paris to set targets on reducing carbon emissions in an attempt to forge a new global agreement on climate change. (Photo by Kevin Frayer/Getty Images) ** OUTS - ELSENT, FPG, CM - OUTS * NM, PH, VA if sourced by CT, LA or MoD ** (Kevin Frayer / Getty Images) Smoke billows from stacks in Shanxi, China. (Kevin Frayer / Getty Images)

This is how much global trade costs, not in dollars but in premature deaths caused by pollution

Rich countries like the United States import tons of stuff from China and other less-developed nations. In so doing, we not only send our dollars abroad  were also exporting premature deaths that would have occurred here if we had to make those goods ourselves.

Indeed, one of the reasons its cheaper to produce things elsewhere is that other countries have fewer rules about keeping dangerous pollutants out of the air. So we save money and people in other parts of the world shave years off their lives.

An international team of researchers has now tallied the health toll of international trade for a single year. These experts determined that in 2007 alone, about 762,400 people around the world died prematurely as a result of being exposed to pollution that was emitted to make goods that were used somewhere else.

In our global economy, the goods and services consumed in one region may entail production of large quantities of air pollution  and related mortality  in other regions, the researchers explained this week in the journal Nature. To the extent that international trade makes goods cheaper, they added, the consumer savings may come at the expense of lives lost elsewhere.

Here are some more numbers to help understand the health consequences of international trade in 2007:

2.5

The maximum size of the fine particles that cause air pollution, measured in micrometers. To get an idea of how small that is, 2.5 micrometers is about 10 to 100 times smaller than the width of a human hair. And to get an idea of how damaging these particles can be, more than 90% of the deaths around the world due to air pollution have been traced to fine particulate matter that measures 2.5 micrometers across, or less.

Still image of soot and sulfate particles that measure about 1 micrometer in diameter. (Peter Buseck / Arizona State University)

4

The types of diseases caused by air pollution that lead to premature death. These include ischemic heart disease, stroke, lung cancer and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, or COPD.

A CT scanner, which will check for signs of lung cancer. (Jim Cole / Associated Press) (Jim Cole / AP)

70,000

Premature pollution-related deaths in the U.S. caused by our own industrial activities. The corresponding estimate for China was 960,000.

Oil workers near Medicine Lodge, Kan. (Orlin Wagner / Associated Press) (Orlin Wagner / AP)

19,000

Approximate number of premature deaths in the United States that were caused by pollution released here to make goods that were used somewhere else. This includes roughly 3,000 premature American deaths linked to items exported to China, 2,000 for exports to Latin America and 4,000 for exports to Canada.

Container ships being loaded at the Port of Long Beach. (Bob Chamberlin / Los Angeles Times) (Bob Chamberlin / Los Angeles Times)

3,800

Estimate of the number of premature deaths in Canada that could be traced to pollution created in the U.S. (Thats slightly lower than the 3,900 or so Canadian deaths that were due to industrial activity of their own.) Another 1,000 premature deaths occurred in Latin America as a result of U.S. air pollution.

A Boeing assembly line in Renton, Wash. (Ted S. Warren / Associated Press) (Ted S. Warren / AP)

238,000

Premature deaths in China due to air pollution that was created in the course of making stuff that was ultimately used in other places. Among these early deaths, about 54,000 were tied to the production of things consumed in the United States, and an equal number were related to items used in western Europe.

A thick haze hangs over Beijing and much of eastern China in this 2015 satellite image. (Jeff Schmaltz / NASA)

47,000

Approximate number of early deaths in eastern Europe that were due to pollutants emitted in western Europe. The reverse figure was a comparatively low 17,000.

A Volkswagen factory in Wolfsburg, Germany. (Adam Berry / Getty Images) (Adam Berry / Getty Images)

5th

Ranking of United States in terms of number of early deaths around the world caused by consumption of goods and services here. (That number, by the way, was about 170,000.) China got the top ranking (roughly 840,000 premature deaths), followed by India in second place (about 440,000 premature deaths) and western Europe in third (310,000 premature deaths). Fourth place went to countries in Asia besides China, a region that includes Japan and South Korea (220,000 premature deaths).

A woman wears a mask for protection against air pollution in Beijing. (Andy Wong / Associated Press) (Andy Wong / AP)

2nd

Ranking of the United States in terms of the number of early deaths suffered by citizens of other countries because of pollutants emitted during the production of goods and services used here. (That figure was estimated to be 102,000.) The only region whose consumption caused more premature deaths to other people was western Europe; consumption there hastened the deaths of about 173,000 people from other parts of the world.

Americans spend nearly $40 billion on imported telephones. (Kiichiro Sato / Associated Press) (Kiichiro Sato / AP)

12%

The percentage of premature deaths around the world caused by air pollution that could be traced to a region other than the one where the death occurred.

A worker operates a machine to make socks at a production plant in Yiwu, China. (Eugene Hoshiko / Associated Press) (EUGENE HOSHIKO / AP)

22%

The percentage of premature deaths around the world caused by fine particulate matter emitted to make stuff in one place that was actually used somewhere else.

A drone is inspected at a manufacturing plant in Tijuana. (Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times) (Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times)

karen.kaplan@latimes.com

Follow me on Twitter @LATkarenkaplan and "like" Los Angeles Times Science & Health on Facebook.

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Hes performed in ancient structures where pharaohs were entombed, emperors lived and Julius Caesar rebuilt: the Great Pyramids of Egypt, Beijings Forbidden City and Tunisias Roman Theatre of Carthage.

On Monday, Yanni, the international superstar and popular recording artist, will play in an opera house of prestige and recognition: Segerstrom Center for the Arts.

Thousands flock to see the self-taught pianist and composer perform songs like Whispers in the Dark, Desire and Secret Vows, and to date, he has nearly 40 international fan clubs.

Yiannis Chryssomallis, by birth, from Kalamata, Greece, has sold millions of albums and concert tickets worldwide, and hes raised more money for Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) than Big Bird.

He also has women calling him charming, strikingly handsome and mystic.

And theyre all clamoring for a peck.

One kiss per show, Yanni, 62, said, with a laugh.

Its a busy life.

Hes in the midst of preparing for his upcoming tour, An Evening in Conversation with Yanni and his Piano, where for the first time, fans will be given the opportunity to talk with him.

Without the backing of an orchestra, Yanni will play from his piano from time to time throughout the show, and he plans to step off the concert stage to interact with fans in a more intimate and personal way.

Hell share his experiences traveling the globe, his understandings of cultures and his experience in planning and performing shows in some of the most revered places in the world.

Fans are encouraged to ask him anything.

Over the years I was playing with big orchestras, but I wanted to get close with my audience, Yanni said. I could see they wanted to ask questions. I wanted to see their faces, their eyes, and now its like lifting a veil that always existed. No two concerts are alike.

Its an experience fans havent seen before because each evening will be unscripted, and the conversation will go wherever the audience questions lead, Yanni said.

He wishes to engage his audience with his composing process while demonstrating live illustrations on the piano, and also exchanging ideas and telling stories and philosophies.

His style blends contemporary instrumental and world music, often performing updated versions of famous classical melodies.

At least 16 of Yannis albums have peaked at No. 1 in Billboards Top New Age Album category, and two albums received Grammy Award nominations.

He has been awarded more than 40 platinum and gold albums worldwide and sold more than 25 million albums globally. More than 500 million people in over 140 countries have seen and heard his live performances.

Yanni played piano at age 6, without formal training.

At 18, he moved to the U.S. to attend the University of Minnesota, majoring in psychology. During his time as a student, he played in a local rock band and studied piano and other keyboard instruments, teaching himself musical shorthand.

He recorded his first album in 1980 with Atlantic Records. Best-selling records, videos and overcrowded concerts soon followed.

Charitable and humanitarian activities remain close to his heart, as he continues to support children, music and education in the cities he visits.

Since the early years of his career, Yanni has raised millions of dollars for PBS, assisted the conservation efforts of the World Wide Fund for Nature and was the first artist to be honored with the adoption of a giant panda by the people of China.

I do as much as I can do to be a productive and contributing member of society, said Yanni, refraining from elaborating on his current charitable projects. Im the only person who needs to know.

As for the secret behind the great, flowing hair?

There isnt one.

At this point in my life, Im just happy to have hair, he said. Its the genes.

If You Go

What: An Evening in Conversation with Yanni and His Piano

When: 7:30 p.m. April 3

Where: Segerstrom Center for the Arts, 600 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa

Cost: Tickets start at $59

Information: (714) 556-2787 or visit scfta.org.

kathleen.luppi@latimes.com

Twitter: @KathleenLuppi
Whether or not Episcopal Church leadership in Los Angeles sought a buyer for the St. James the Great church property in Newport Beach was a matter of dispute for lawyers arguing whether a bishop acted properly when he tried to sell the land to a developer.

Thursday was the third and final day of a disciplinary hearing where Bishop J. Jon Bruno of the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles faced allegations that he was deceptive and unbecoming of a clergyman when he tried to sell the church site at 3209 Via Lido, locked congregants out and then kept the gates closed even after the sale fell apart.

The Rev. Canon David Tumilty, Brunos chief of staff and executive officer for operations, reiterated Brunos testimony from Wednesday that the diocese did not actively market the St. James property even though it had received offers.

Tumilty described a meeting in February 2015 in which Bruno and John Cushman, a broker involved in a separate real estate transaction with the diocese, asked Bruno about his plans for the St. James site, meaning whether the diocese would sell it. Bruno said he had received some offers but rejected them because they werent good enough given the churchs nearly $8-million appraised value.

A few weeks later, Cushman brought officials a $15-million cash offer from Legacy Partners, a developer that wanted to build luxury townhomes on the site.

We did not request him [Cushman] to do anything, Tumilty said. We did not sign a brokerage agreement with him. The bishop did not ask him to go find us offers.

Bruno signed an agreement in April 2015 to sell the property to Legacy, informed the congregation in May and locked the church doors in June.

Legacy dropped out of the deal when investment partner AIG Global Real Estate decided not to proceed. But St. James parishioners, stunned by the process and the church closure, fought back with an ecclesiastical complaint that led to this weeks hearing, similar to a trial, in a Pasadena hotel conference room.

The hearing, conducted by a five-member panel of Episcopal Church officials from around the country, could lead to suspension or defrocking for Bruno.

With the hearing concluded, the panel will deliberate. The Right Rev. Herman Hollerith, the panel chairman and bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Southern Virginia, said he doesnt expect a decision before Easter, April 16.

The congregation alleges Bruno was not forthcoming about his sale plans and that he didnt have permission from the dioceses governing body to sell the property. Parishioners claim he was untruthful about several issues, from his plans for the expected sale proceeds to the financial health of the church. They say his conduct, from his alleged misrepresentations to locking up the church, was unbecoming a member of the clergy.

Bruno countered that he didnt need permission, and at any rate, the property didnt sell. He said he acted with information he had at the time about St. James financial situation and that he did not intentionally obscure the truth.

Bruno and other advisors testified that they diagnosed the churchs fiscal health based on a budget filing from mid-2014 that Bruno said showed the church was struggling.

But a parishioner  an accountant who led the churchs volunteer finance team  testified Tuesday that St. James was rapidly approaching financial independence through pledges and that it probably no longer needed the $48,000 subsidy it was getting from the diocese.

Congregation lawyer Jerry Coughlan showed Tumilty a letter from a church in La Crescenta asking the diocese for $153,000 in assistance in 2016 and noting a $16,000 deficit that it planned to remedy through fundraising.

That church has not been sold.

So of the two churches ... you decided that St. James was the one that was unsustainable and this one was sustainable? Coughlan asked.

I did not say that this [the La Crescenta church] was sustainable, Tumilty replied.

hillary.davis@latimes.com

Twitter: @DailyPilot_HD
Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback met with Vanguard University administrators and local Christian leaders last week to discuss racial reconciliation.

The meeting, during a two-hour luncheon March 24 at the Christian university in Costa Mesa, followed Brownbacks keynote presentation at the local Mayors Prayer Breakfast.

Leaders were invited to share their perspectives on how they are seeing racial reconciliation play out in their communities.

Brownback, while serving as a U.S. senator in 2001, was part of a bipartisan coalition that led to the establishment of the National Museum of African American History & Culture, which debuted last September at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C.

Volunteers to build new playground for Boys & Girls Club branch in F.V.

More than 200 volunteers plan to join forces Saturday to build a new playground at the Boys & Girls Clubs of Huntington Valleys Kingston Branch in Fountain Valley.

The event is scheduled for 8:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. at 16582 Brookhurst St. and will include participants from Foresters Financial, the Boys & Girls Club, KaBoom and the Fountain Valley community, organizers said.

The playground design is based on childrens drawings created in January.

The Kingston Branchs existing playground is about 20 years old and has gotten worn out, officials said. The new playground is expected to last 15 years and eventually serve more than 1,000 children and their families.

Art Stars Awards ceremony Sunday in Laguna Beach

The Laguna Beach Arts Alliance will present the 11th annual Art Stars Awards beginning at 6 p.m. Sunday to honor Lagunas artistic community.

The awards, in seven categories, will be presented to organizations, businesses and individuals who contributed to local arts and culture in the past year.

Actress Joely Fisher will be guest speaker.

The event will be at Seven-degrees, 891 Laguna Canyon Road, Laguna Beach. It will include the awards ceremony, dinner and a red carpet reception with champagne and hors doeuvres.

Individual tickets are $100. For more information, email info@lagunabeacharts.org or visit bit.ly/2oeSW6M.

Newport Beach seeks feedback on park expansion

Newport Beach invites the public to offer feedback on a proposed extension of Lower Sunset View Park.

The proposed extension is at the northeast corner of Superior Avenue and Coast Highway, where a parking lot now sits, primarily to serve beach and Sunset Ridge Park visitors. The extension would expand the parking and create a new recreational area in the undeveloped space between the lot and Sunset View Park.

Previous ideas for the spot have included a dog park, a playground, an exercise circuit, restrooms and open space.

Commenters can submit their feedback in writing to recreation@newportbeachca.gov or during the next meeting of the Newport Beach Parks, Beaches & Recreation Commission at 6 p.m. Tuesday at City Hall, 100 Civic Center Drive.

Corona del Mar resident honored at diabetes benefit

Corona del Mar resident Ellen Darling was one of two honorees at the JDRF Orange County chapters Dream Gala on March 18 at the Ritz-Carlton resort in Dana Point.

The event drew nearly 500 people to help raise $1 million for research into Type 1 diabetes.

Darling and Tracey McCarter were honored for their contributions to Orange Countys T1D community.

Darlings family buys a table at the Dream Gala every year to support the cause. She is a partner at the law firm K&L Gates and was named one of the Top Women Lawyers of 2011 through 2013 by The Daily Journal, according to a news release.

Free Spanish-language classes offered for new and expecting parents

MOMS Orange County is offering free Spanish-language childbirth preparation classes and classes for new parents in partnership with the Costa Mesa Family Resource Center.

The courses will be held at the Family Resource Center in the Melinda Hoag Smith Center for Healthy Living at 307 Placentia Ave. in Newport Beach.

The childbirth preparation course is a four-class series for parents-to-be covering pregnancy anatomy and physiology, prenatal care, preparation for labor and delivery, postpartum care, newborn care and breastfeeding.

Mommy & Me is an eight-class series in which mothers and their children ages 12-17 months learn activities intended to stimulate the childrens mental and physical development.

MOMS Orange County, a Santa Ana-based nonprofit, is taking registration for the courses at (714) 972-2610, (800) 787-5858 or momsorangecounty.org/programs/classes. Once a registration list is compiled, the organization will announce class dates and times, according to spokeswoman Amanda Irving.

Girls Scouts center at Marina Park gets $2.5-million gift from Argyroses

Girl Scouts of Orange County announced it has received a $2.5-million gift from Newport Beach real estate mogul and philanthropist George Argyros and his wife, Julia, for the Girl Scouts 6,000-square-foot Leadership Center under construction at Newport Beachs Marina Park. The center will be named after Julia Argyros, according to a news release.

The center is scheduled to open later this year as Orange Countys hub for Girl Scouts STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) programs and a place for girls to explore careers.

We are profoundly grateful to Julia and George Argyros for this truly transformational gift, Nancy Nygren, chief executive of Girl Scouts of Orange County, said in a statement. The Argyros Girl Scout Leadership Center will give girls early exposure to STEM, helping them understand how STEM is part of everything they do and inspiring them to embrace their STEM education.

Marina Park also features a community and sailing center, marina, playground and restaurant.

Fundraiser for Special Olympics planned in Costa Mesa

The Costa Mesa Police Department, Claim Jumper restaurant and South Coast Plaza are collaborating to put on a fundraiser next week benefiting the Special Olympics.

The annual Tip-a-Cop event will be held from 5 to 9 p.m. April 6 at the Claim Jumper at South Coast Plaza, 3333 Bristol St., Costa Mesa.

During the event, Special Olympics athletes and Police Department staff will fill various roles in the restaurant, with tips they receive going to benefit the Special Olympics. A fundraising raffle also will be held.

Costa Mesa councilmen to hold homelessness forum

Costa Mesa City Council members Allan Mansoor and John Stephens will present a forum April 6 to discuss homeless issues in the city.

The two will moderate the discussion along with a panel of experts who will discuss what the city and local organizations are doing to address homelessness in Costa Mesa and how residents can get involved.

The forum will start at 6:30 p.m. at Newport Mesa Church, 2599 Newport Blvd.

Former explorer to speak at Newport library

Wade Davis, an anthropology professor at the University of British Columbia, will speak at the Newport Beach Central Library on April 7 and 8.

Davis, who was featured in the IMAX movie Grand Canyon Adventure: River at Risk, was an explorer-in-residence for the National Geographic Society from 1999 to 2013.

The April 7 event is sold out, but $35 tickets are available for April 8 at bit.ly/1Ojt8h3. The lecture starts at 2 p.m.

Walk Run Read to aid H.B. Librarys Literacy Volunteers

The Huntington Beach Public Library will present its fifth annual Walk Run Read 5K and Kids Fun Run beginning at 8 a.m. April 8.

The event at Huntington Beachs Central Park will help raise money to support the librarys Literacy Volunteers programs.

Registration is $40 for the 5K (3.1 miles) and $5 for the 1-mile kids run for ages 12 and under. To register and for more information, visit walkrunread.com.

Learn relaxation techniques in Laguna

The American Assn. of University Women of Laguna Beach will present a symposium on the mind-and-body connection April 8 at the Laguna Beach Library.

A panel of five speakers, including Lori Kahn, owner and founder of OM Laguna Beach, and Pam Wicks, music director of Lagunas Neighborhood Congregational Church, will share insights and answer audience questions while guests can learn breathing exercises to reduce stress.

The event, from 2 to 4 p.m., is free and open to the public, though space is limited. To reserve a spot, call (949) 497-1733 or sign up at the library at 363 Glenneyre St.

Tickets on sale for H.B. Library comedy show

Tickets available for $4 for the Huntington Beach Public Librarys Buster Balloon Show, featuring comedy, magic and balloon creations.

The event will begin at 2 p.m. April 18 in the Tabby Theater at the library, 7111 Talbert Ave.

For more information, call (714) 375-5107 or visit hbpl.org.

Pacific City to host art night

Pacific City will host a Paint Nite on April 12 in which people can drink and create art while guided by a professional.

The event will be held from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. at Pacific Citys Lot 579, an artisanal market at 21010 Pacific Coast Hwy.

Tickets can be purchased for $45 at bit.ly/2nBhFPT.

Tree forum on tap in Laguna

The Laguna Beach Beautification Council will present a free public seminar titled Branching Out: A Public Forum on Trees from 10 a.m. to noon April 22 at the Laguna Beach City Council chamber, 505 Forest Ave.

Topics will include tips on maintenance, fire safety and selecting trees suited for Laguna Beach. There also will be door prizes.

For more information or to reserve a seat, email Sandy Desmond at wailupe@aol.com.

Events advancing Newport to Ensenada race coming in April

Members of the Newport Ocean Sailing Assn. are preparing events leading to the 70th Newport to Ensenada International Yacht Race on April 28.

We look forward to everyone; renewing old acquaintances while making new memories together, said Commodore Tom Kennedy.

The public Race Week Kick-Off Party is scheduled for noon to 4 p.m. April 23 at Marina Park, 1600 W. Balboa Blvd.

The annual Skippers Luncheon will be held at at 11:30 a.m. April 26 at the Bahia Corinthian Yacht Club, 1601 Bayside Drive, Corona del Mar. Topics will include the latest in weather forecasting, winning strategies, safety, teamwork and recognition for skippers who have sailed in the Newport to Ensenada race more than 20 times. The cost is $15 per person.

The VIP reception for boat owners, city officials, visiting dignitaries and sponsors is set for 6 to 9 p.m. April 26 at Sterling BMW in Newport Beach.

And skippers, crew members and invited guests can attend the annual Sail Away Party from 6 to 10 p.m. April 27 at the American Legion Yacht Club in Newport Beach.

For more information about the events, call (949) 644-1023 or email info@nosa.org.

H.B. Central Library to host Sleeping Beauty ballet

Tickets go on sale Saturday for Ballet Etudes production of Sleeping Beauty at the Huntington Beach Central Library, 7111 Talbert Ave.

Performances will be at 4 and 7 p.m. May 23 and 24.

Tickets are available for $5 at the librarys childrens desk. For more information, call (714) 375-5107.
Charles Chuck Martin, a prominent Orange County businessman and philanthropist, died Tuesday morning at Hoag Hospital in Newport Beach of complications related to liver cancer. He was 80.

The Laguna Beach resident served on the boards of dozens of companies and was known for his philanthropic efforts supporting local institutions such as UC Irvine, Chapman University and the Orange County Museum of Art.

I think the most amazing thing about Chuck was, even for all of his success in business and finance, hes continued to be the most humble, down-to-earth man Ive ever met, said longtime friend Mike Cancelleri.

Cancelleri met Martin about 20 years ago when Cancelleri was attending Chapman University in Orange working on his undergraduate degree. After graduation, Martin invited Cancelleri to work with him and the two remained close. Cancelleri describes Martin as a second father to him.

All he ever cared about was the impact on others and how he could contribute in a bigger way to everything he was involved with, Cancelleri said. He was an inspiring person.

Martin grew up in poverty in a small town in Ohio. He became the first person in his family to attend college, worked his way through Ohio State University and graduated with a degree in engineering physics. He had five majors: physics, mathematics, chemistry, electrical engineering and business, according to a biography that accompanied his most recent book, Orange County, Inc.: The Evolution of an Economic Powerhouse.

After graduating, Martin went to work at Hughes Aircraft Co.s defense electronics facility in Fullerton.

After leaving Hughes, he launched a successful career as an entrepreneur and investor. He founded venture capital firm Enterprise Partners in 1984. He also co-founded Westar Capital, an investment firm, along with George Argyros.

In 2005, he founded an investment management firm called Mont Pelerin Capital.

Martin was a longtime trustee at UC Irvine and Chapman University. He served as chairman of the board for the Graduate School of Management at UCI from 2000 to 2005. He also created and sponsored the Polaris Investment Competition for students to receive funds to obtain MBA degrees, awarding 115 scholarships between 2004 and 2014.

Martin and his wife, Twyla, donated $2 million in 2005 to Chapman Universitys Dodge College of Film and Media Arts.

Martin also was a passionate advocate for the arts. He served as the founding board chairman of the Orange County Museum of Art in Newport Beach from 1996 to 2000. Martin and his wife also established the Martin Foundation and Charitable Trust for the Orange County Endowment for Intellectual Advancement, which supports higher education and the arts.

Chuck Martin  has spent decades ensuring Orange County residents and visitors have access to the arts through his personal support and advocacy, OCMA Director and Chief Executive Todd Smith said in a statement. We will forever be grateful for his passion and dedication, and our thoughts are with Twyla Martin and their extended family.

hannah.fry@latimes.com

Twitter: @HannahFryTCN
I had to laugh when reading that several Glendale City Council candidates want to keep the Sears building because it is historic.

Heres my take: beautiful historic buildings that bring charm to the community are wonderful  look at how Rick Caruso brought the Masonic temple back to life, and look at the beauty of Old Town Pasadena. But then there are places like the Sears building, which is the textbook example of architecture that should never have been approved in this city.

I grew up in Glendale in the 1960s and 70s going to Billys Deli on Orange Street, and I can remember always looking over at Sears and wondering how any building could be so ugly. Its blank, windowless facade is a symbol of a bygone era with a layout thats all about the parking lot as king.

Join the conversation on Facebook 

Today, our downtown is being transformed into a wonderful, vibrant walking community thats suddenly full of life  and full of people who want more charming places to eat and shop, thanks to our exciting new modern apartment building population.

I urge these City Council candidates to embrace a new vision for our downtown. Lets take this Sears block (once the inevitable happens) and create something lovely, full of life and light, and pedestrian-friendly for our community  perhaps a beautifully designed plaza with outdoor cafes around a fountain where people can gather and enjoy time with friends and family. I really think Glendale needs visionary leaders who can imagine a more vibrant and beautiful downtown for the community, not leaders who want to stick with an old model that never really worked.

Laura Lindberg

Montrose



Term limits offer an opportunity

On April 4, voters have an opportunity in Glendale to limit how many times our council members can be reelected to office. Currently, the power of the incumbent is almost insurmountable for a challenger.

Council members Paula Devine, Vartan Gharpetian and Zareh Sinanyan voted to place Measure L on the ballot for the April 4 election. If approved, beginning with the 2017 elections, council members service would be subject to a maximum of three four-year terms.

Dozens of California cities and counties have already instituted term limits, and in 2002 Los Angeles County voters passed Measure B to limit the supervisors to three consecutive four-year terms. Measure L will do the same.

Below are several reasons for limiting the length of public -service:

Reduces the number of career politicians. The job of an elected city council member is to represent the interests of the citizens for a time and then turn the job over to another volunteer.

Minimizes opportunities for corruption.

Offers opportunities for leadership in a community to many more citizens. Many talented potential leaders will simply not run for council because of the challenges of running against an incumbent.

Creates new and fresh perspectives and motivated individuals that are interested in serving the public and not simply holding an office.

Please vote yes on Measure L.

Pam Ellis

Glendale



Grant Michals is a tireless advocate

There are several good candidates running for Glendale City Council. I urge you to consider Grant Michals for one of your three votes. His numerous volunteer efforts all over Glendale illustrate his value to all the residents of our diverse city.

He is a longtime member of the Crescenta Valley Community Assn. Steering Committee, president of the Montrose-Verdugo City-Sparr Heights Neighborhood Assn. and president of the Glendale Homeowners Coordinating Council. He also serves on the Parks, Recreation & Community Services Commission and took part in the annual homeless count out in the streets. He is a small business owner. Grant is not only a Friend of Rockhaven, he personally helps with the maintenance. His work with Glendale Clean & Beautiful includes graffiti removal and the annual I Love My Neighborhood poster contest in cooperation with GUSD.

Most importantly, he frequently attends Glendale City Council meetings, giving him real understanding of the work of the council and the needs of community members who come to speak of their concerns.

Please vote for Grant Michals on April 4.

Sharon Weisman

Glendale



Listed priorities are just words

I received a campaign flier from Vrej Agajanian on Saturday. He listed his priorities as: traffic and pedestrian safety, responsible appropriation of funds, cutting red tape for small business, innovative parks and youth recreation, protect neighborhoods from overdevelopment and eliminate senior and veteran homelessness. I am sure that these priorities are on the list of every candidate for Glendale City Council. Who wouldnt want all of the above?

The problem is these priorities are just words.

Traffic and pedestrian safety: How can you possibly do anything about drivers who pay no attention to speed limits or stop signs with just words? And it is getting worse.

Responsible appropriation of funds: What funds? Glendale will be broke when it has to pay back the millions of dollars for the funds from the utility tax increase fraudulently transferred to the Glendale general fund.

Overdevelopment has already occurred: 4,000 new apartment units on every available piece of open land.

Eliminate senior and veteran homelessness: I read this as low-cost housing, which has no definition and rent control which is just government telling a business owner what he or she can charge for their services. Just more words.

I would love to see any candidate for City Council present a plan that actually sounds like it would solve just one of these grandiose priorities.

So far all I hear are words with no substance.

Jim Kussman

Glendale
If you havent seen a blazing hillside of California poppies in the last few weeks, you just arent paying attention  or going to the right places. Drive to a park in just about any direction away from downtown Los Angeles, and youre bound to see one of the best wildflower displays in decades.

Some blooms may last longer than others but its best to go soon if you want to see the big show.

Your chance to see Southern Californias epic wildflower bloom is running out. Heres where to go 

Advertisement

West

The western end of the Santa Monica Mountains are popping with California poppies, lupine, blue dicks and other wildflowers.

Zachary Behrens, senior communications fellow for the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area, recommends a hike up the Ray Miller Trail in Point Mugu State Park in Ventura County. You cant beat five miles of hiking along wildflowers and nonstop ocean views, can you? he writes in an email.

The sweet spot for wildflowers is the La Jolla Valley, where youll find native California grasses too, but that requires a longer hike. Get there on foot by taking the Ray Miller Trail to the Overlook Fire Road from the La Jolla Canyon turnoff on Highway 1.

You also can drive a little farther, west of Mugu Rock, and climb up the steep Chumash Trail to access the valley. Or you can head to Mugu Peak from the Chumash Trail too; flowers are pretty much all over this area right now. (The most direct canyon trail to La Jolla Valley has been closed since 2015 because of storm damage.)

Heres a trail map of the park that shows where to start your hike. Park entrances along Highway 1 are about 15 miles south of Oxnard.

Info: Point Mugu State Park

North

The Antelope Valley California State Poppy Reserve in Lancaster wasnt expecting much this wildflower season. The surprise came in mid-March when pockets of poppies unfurled in their golden glory.

A little more rain and moderate temperatures kept everything in balance. Now, intense streaks of orange can be seen on the high desert hillsides on the reserves eastern side. You can walk right up to them (but not through them, please) on a 1.5-mile hike to Vista Point.

Colors become more intense the closer you get, and look too for soft purple hillsides (lacy phacelia) and patches of yellow (goldfields). The bloom is expected to last until mid-April.

The reserve recommends visiting during the week. Swarms of weekend visitors have caused parking lots to temporarily close and traffic jams at the entrance on Lancaster Road. And dont bring your dog; theyre not allowed.

To avoid the crush, stop alongside nearby roads where there are brilliant displays too. Just take care to pull off the shoulder and not impede traffic. One more tip: Take San Francisquito Canyon instead of Highway 14 as you head to Lancaster. Its a road through greened-up hills that passes by Lake Elizabeth.

Info: Antelope Valley California State Poppy Reserve,15101 Lancaster Rd, Lancaster; (661) 724-1180

Southeast

Every week in spring, the Wild Flower Hotline run by the Theodore Payne Foundation in Sun Valley points wildflower lovers to good viewing places.

Recent recommendations have included Ronald W. Caspers Wilderness Park in San Juan Capistrano, which has California poppies but also varieties of lupine, bright red coastal paintbrush and big white swords of chaparral yucca. The place to see it all is the East Ridge Trail.

Info: Caspers Wilderness Park, 33401 Ortega Highway, San Juan Capistrano; (949) 923-2210

Poppies are showy now in other parts of Orange County too: Walker Canyon in Lake Elsinore (very near Interstate 15) and Weir and Santiago canyons.

You can access the Wild Flower Hotline online or by calling (818) 768-1802, Ext. 7.

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travel@latimes.com

@latimestravel
China has detained a Taiwanese human rights activist, the government in Taipei said, in a case that people on the island call unusual and likely to depress already troubled relations between the two sides.

Authorities in China detained Lee Ming-che on suspicion that he took part in activities that endangered state security, a spokeswoman for the semi-governmental Straits Exchange Foundation in Taipei said.

Chinas Taiwan Affairs Office announced his detention Wednesday, 10 days after Lee went missing in the Chinese territory of Macau.

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The office, which represents mainland China in Taiwan, did not explain the reason for the detention, but Taiwanese officials said colleagues of Lee, 42, described how he used social media to tell at least 100 people in China about Taiwans growth as a democracy.

He also had a history of helping human rights lawyers in China, although there were no reports that he did so on the most recent trip.

China sees self-ruled Taiwan as part of its territory and tells its people through state-controlled mass media that the two sides must eventually reunite. The communist government discourages exposure to democracy, which in Taiwans case could lead to greater autonomy  rather than unification  through election of anti-China presidents or voter referendums in favor of independence.

Taiwan broke away from the mainland in the late 1940s when Nationalists led by Chiang Kai-shek fled there from mainland China after being defeated by Communist forces. Democracy emerged in Taiwan only in the 1980s after decades of authoritarian rule. Relations between Beijing and Taipei have been icy for 70 years, without formal diplomatic relations.

A Taiwanese person gets detained in China less than once a year for political reasons, Straits Exchange Foundation Deputy Secretary-General Lee Li-chen said. But Lee Ming-che is the first case involving a Taiwanese human rights activist, she said. An unknown number of other Taiwanese do human rights work in China without incident, she said.

We feel pretty nervous now, the foundation official said, adding that her organization had sent three letters and made calls to its counterpart foundation in China for more information. If they can tell us what laws theyre using and the location of the arrest, we or the [Taiwan] government or his family members can do follow-up.

The case will further upset tense relations between China and Taiwan, analysts in Taipei fear. The two sides have not formally talked since May, when President Tsai Ing-wen took office in Taiwan. Tsai disputes Beijings condition for dialogue  an acknowledgment that both sides belong to one China. Senior members of her Democratic Progressive Party advocate more autonomy for Taiwan.

Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen, left, waves from a Zwaardvis-class submarine during a visit at Zuoying naval base in Kaohsiung, southern Taiwan, on March 21, 2017. (Chiang Ying-ying / AP)

This case might worsen the relations between the Taipei and Beijing governments, said Wu Chung-li, a political science research fellow at Academia Sinica, a university in Taipei. Its a challenge to both governments: How can they both rationally deal with this case? And Id say thats pretty important.

The Taiwanese governments Mainland Affairs Council criticized China in a statement Wednesday for not answering official inquiries about Lees disappearance. China should say what legal grounds it has for restricting his freedom, let him contact family and give him access to a lawyer, it said.

The Mainland Affairs Council urges China to communicate on this matter and handle it in appropriate way, the statement said. At the same time, avoid affecting todays complex, sensitive cross-strait [Taiwan-China] relations.

Since May, China has retaliated against Tsai by pulling back on Taiwan-bound group tourism and short-term exchange students, scholars and government officials believe. Last year it persuaded an African country allied with Taiwan to drop relations, the government in Taipei says. In December and January, Chinas Peoples Liberation Army passed its aircraft carrier around Taiwan, which is 99 miles away from the mainland at its nearest point.

Lee Ming-che once worked for Taiwans ruling party, although a party spokeswoman declined to describe details of his work.

The philosophy graduate of Chinese Cultural University in Taipei more recently volunteered for a league of Taiwan human rights groups gathering information on international laws to make sure Taiwan was complying, said Chiu Yi-ling, secretary general of the league member Taiwan Assn. for Human Rights.

Lee has visited China once a year for the last decade and had made friends there through social media, colleagues said.

Police in China have targeted 248 Chinese human rights lawyers and activists in a crackdown since July 2015 and convicted three, London-based advocacy group Amnesty International says.

Over the last year, Lee was using the social media service WeChat from Taiwan to teach people in China about the ethnically Chinese islands growth as a democracy, Chiu said. WeChat is a Chinese service with about 700 million active users.

China is right next to us and their human rights situation is terrible, so he had paid careful attention to it in recent years, Chiu said. Protesters, activists and writers are periodically detained, sometimes without notice to family.

The data transmission function of Lees WeChat account was shut off last year and a box of books on Taiwan democracy he mailed to a contact in China in 2016 never made it, said Cheng Hsiu-chuan, president of Lees employer, Wenshan Community College.

Colleagues suspect Lee was detained in Macau on March 19, shortly after he flew there from Taiwan and cleared immigration, or perhaps later that day as he crossed a land border into the mainland Chinese city of Zhuhai. He wanted to reach the nearby city of Guangzhou to see friends and pick up medication for his mother-in-law in Taiwan, his wife, Lee Ching-yu, said.

Chinese police and state security officers detain other Taiwanese for political reasons, but their cases seldom cause a stir in Taiwan, said Shane Lee, a political scientist at Chang Jung Christian University in Taiwan.

Its quite often, but theyre not reported unless they belong to an organization that makes a fuss about it, the scholar said. Some return to Taiwan in weeks or months. Others are probably in prison, Lee said.

A dealer of old stamps was once detained because someone in China believed the stamps were politically suggestive, he said. In 2015, Chinese authorities detained a Taiwanese practitioner of the banned spiritual group Falun Gong.

Lee Ming-che could face a tough prosecution because in January China started enforcing a law that gives police and other agencies the power to restrict nongovernmental organizations, including those based offshore, Amnesty International said in a statement Wednesday. Violators face three years to life in prison, the group said.

Lee Ming-ches detention on vague national security grounds will alarm all those that work with NGOs in China, Amnesty Internationals East Asia director, Nicholas Becquelin, said in the statement. If his detention is solely connected to his legitimate activism, he must be immediately and unconditionally released.

Jennings is a special correspondent.

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Russias suspected interference in last years U.S. presidential election may have come as a surprise to some. But to many European nations, such an intrusion is nothing new.

For years, Russia has used a grab bag of illicit tactics, including the hacking of emails and mobile phones, the dissemination of fake news and character assassination, to try to undermine the political process in other countries.

They have a history of doing this, Roy Godson, professor of government emeritus at Georgetown University, told a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing Thursday. They find this a successful use of their resources.

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Moscow has recently stepped up this type of activity, targeting political processes in France, Germany and the Netherlands, among other nations, according to experts who testified on the first day of a series of Senate hearings on Russias propaganda and intelligence campaign aimed at undermining the 2016 vote.

Russias tentacles are far-reaching in Europe

Some of the nations Russia has stung are Western foes, others former Soviet republics, or states that fall within Moscows sphere of influence.

Eugene Rumer, director of the Russia and Eurasia program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, testifies Thursday on Capitol Hill. (SAUL LOEB / AFP/Getty Images)

There are ample examples, Eugene Rumer, director of the Russia and Eurasia program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, told the Senate committee.

Ukraine was hit during its 2004 and 2014 election campaigns, Rumer said. Malware was used to infect the servers at Ukraines central election commission and was also believed to have been responsible for a December 2015 power outage that left thousands of Ukrainians in the dark, according to media reports.

Hungary, the Baltic States, and the former Soviet republic of Georgia, which Russia invaded in 2008, have also been the target of political subversion by the Kremlin, which has often sought to bolster the political ambitions of far-right and Euro-skeptic parties or foster instability or social unrest, experts said.

It is really in central and Eastern Europe that theyve really been able to practice and hone these techniques and youre now starting to see that theyre comfortable enough with them to start to export them to other parts of the world, Hannah Thoburn, a research fellow at the Hudson Institute, said during a conference call about Russias interference in foreign elections hosted by the Foreign Policy Initiative, a Washington-based think tank, during the U.S. election campaign.

On Wednesday, Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr warned Russia was actively involved in efforts to interfere in the upcoming French and German elections.

Were on the brink of potentially having two European countries where Russia is the balance disruptor of their leadership, Burr said at a news conference. A very overt effort, as well as covert in Germany and France, already been tried in Montenegro and the Netherlands.

The first round of the French vote is set for April. If no candidate wins a majority, a runoff election between the top two candidates will be held in May.

French presidential election candidate for the far-right National Front party Marine Le Pen at Moscows Hotel National last week. (KIRILL KUDRYAVTSEV / AFP/Getty Images)

Experts said Russias aim was to support Frances far-right candidate Marine Le Pen, whose National Front party received an $11.7-million loan from a Russian bank in 2014, according to several international news reports. Russia has also reportedly lent money to Greeces Golden Dawn, Italys Northern League, Hungarys Jobbik and the Freedom Party of Austria  all far-right nationalist parties.

Putin has denied meddling in Frances politics and has called accusations of Moscows interference in the U.S. election lies.

The Kremlins political favorites in other European nations  typically populists  have been given favorable news coverage by Russian news outlets, such as the state-owned satellite network RT and the website Sputnik, while their opponents are denigrated, often in fake news stories and by Internet trolls, experts said.

In December, the English-language Moscow Times newspaper reported that RT was given an additional $19 million to start a French-language channel.

Germany is also believed to have fallen prey to Russian attempts to undermine the countrys presidential election, scheduled for September. The countrys domestic intelligence agency has accused Russia of cyberattacks and cyberspying, according to a report in November by the Associated Press.

Bruno Kahl, who heads Germanys Federal Intelligence Service, said material hacked from the German parliament and published by the whistle-blower website WikiLeaks came from the same Russian group that hacked the U.S. Democratic National Committee, the AP reported.

The perpetrators have an interest in delegitimizing the democratic process as such  whomever that later helps, Kahl was quoted as saying.

Americas hands are not clean

The U.S. has a long history of trying to influence presidential elections in other countries and did so as many as 81 times from 1946 to 2000, according to a database amassed by political scientist Dov Levin of Carnegie Mellon University.

That number does not include military coups and efforts to change a regime following the election of candidates whom Washington considered unfavorable  notably in Iran, Guatemala and Chile. Nor does the number of cases include general assistance the U.S. has provided during an electoral process, such as election monitoring.

The body of President Salvador Allende, wrapped in a Bolivian poncho, is carried by soldiers and firefighters from the destroyed presidential palace after the Sept. 11, 1973, coup that ended Allendes three-year government. (EL MERCURIO / AP)

During the Cold War, the goal of U.S. meddling was primarily to contain the spread of communism, and the approach continued into the post-Soviet era, stretching from the Middle East and Europe to Latin America and the Caribbean, according to Levins research.

Examples include the spreading of negative news against Marxist Sandinistas in Nicaragua in 1990, resulting in the presidential election defeat of Daniel Ortega; training and financial support given to Vaclav Havels party and its Slovak affiliate in the former Czechoslovakia; and supporting particular candidates in Haiti in an attempt to weaken the presidential prospects of Jean-Bertrande Aristide, a Roman Catholic priest and proponent of liberation theology.

And as Moscow likes to point out, Washington has also tried to sway Russian elections. In 1996, for example, the White House endorsed a $10.2-billion International Monetary Fund loan to help shore up the floundering Russian economy and allow then-President Boris Yeltsin to gain popularity while spinning the narrative that only he had the reformist credentials to secure such loans.

Times staff writer Nina Agrawal contributed to this report.

ann.simmons@latimes.com

For more on global development news, see our Global Development Watch page, and follow me @AMSimmons1 on Twitter

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One of the biggest breakups in history gets underway as Britain files to leave European Union

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The European Union softened its public stance on Britains exit from the bloc Friday, with European Council President Donald Tusk signaling some flexibility on allowing talks on a new relationship before the divorce proceedings are complete.

Draft guidelines obtained by the Associated Press say that the EU and Britain must first settle the disentanglement of Britain from the bloc. But once there is a tentative consensus on reciprocal treatment of citizens in each others nations, budget commitments, legal clarity for companies working in Britain and a solution on the Irish border with Britain, the EU would be willing to look ahead.

Once, and only once we have achieved sufficient progress on the withdrawal, can we discuss the framework for our future relationship, Tusk said in Valletta, Malta. He said he hoped that could come as soon as the autumn.

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It will take a summit of the leaders of the remaining 27 member states, however, to signal that that moment has come.

The guidelines say it is a priority to settle questions about British and other European citizens living in each others countries, and call for flexible and imaginative solutions for the issue of Britains land border with EU member Ireland.

EU leaders warned after a meeting Friday that the two years of talks triggered this week to negotiate Britains exit will be difficult  but insisted they dont want all-out economic or diplomatic conflict. Tusk is presenting the EUs draft negotiating guidelines to leaders of the 27 member states Friday.

Tusk said the EU will not punish Britain in the talks, saying that Brexit itself is punitive enough. The head of the rotating EU presidency, Maltese Prime Minister Joseph Muscat, insisted the negotiations will not be a war.

Tusk ruled out the suggestion that there was an inherent threat in British Prime Minister Theresa Mays departure letter Wednesday, which some felt hinted that Britain would end security cooperation with continental Europe unless it gets a good Brexit deal.

I know Theresa May well enough and I know her approach to this issue. This is why I rule out this kind of interpretation ... that security cooperation is used as a bargaining chip. It must be a misunderstanding, Tusk said.

British Foreign Minister Boris Johnson also insisted Friday that Britains commitment to European defense and security is unconditional and not some bargaining chip in any negotiations over Brexit.

Johnson, speaking in Brussels upon arrival for a NATO meeting, said he has had good feedback from partners since Wednesdays British formal announcement of its departure from the EU, despite worries on both sides of the English Channel about Brexit.

We really are moving forward now. Theres a lot of goodwill, willingness to achieve what the prime minister has said she wants to achieve, he said.

The British government triggered the EU exit process Wednesday with Mays letter to the EU and began outlining Thursday how it intends to convert thousands of EU rules into British laws in a Great Repeal Bill.

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Israels move to approve a new settlement deep in the West Bank brought international condemnation Friday, even as the government was bending to pressure from the Trump administration to limit the footprint of future settlement building.

The decisions drew a furious reaction from Palestinians, who said the move could destroy any chance for peace in the region.

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres was disappointed and alarmed about Israels decision to authorize the first new government-approved settlement in more than two decades.

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The Israeli security cabinet approved the new settlement late Thursday, following up on a promise to residents of the illegal hilltop outpost of Amona before they were evacuated in February under an order from the Supreme Court. The cabinet also advanced construction tenders from 2,000 new homes and declared 250 acres of the West Bank as state land.

We promised and we made good on it, said Ofir Akunis, a lawmaker from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahus Likud party.

But Netanyahus government also said that in response to President Trumps positions it would limit new construction in the more than 100 existing settlements to those areas already built.

The decisions allow Netanyahu to give his pro-settlement constituents a victory, while containing ideologues who seek unrestrained settlement growth and annexation, moves which would isolate Israel abroad, said Ofer Zalzberg, an analyst for the International Crisis Group.

The way in which this has both limitations and achievements for the settlers allows Netanyahu to avoid overreach in terms of having Trump serve as the pretext for avoiding annexation, Zalzberg said, and at the same time not being labeled as Leftist by the settlers.

Meanwhile, Palestinian officials in the West Bank said that U.S. acceptance of the new settlement could undermine any attempts by the Trump administration to revive peace negotiations, which have been moribund in recent years.

The fact they are coming now and saying they are building a new settlement, is a sign that Netanyahu is very confident, and doesnt think that theres anyone abroad who will stop him, said Xavier Abu Eid, an advisor to the Palestine Liberation Organizations Negotiations Affairs Department.

A Palestinian protester uses a slingshot to hurl stones toward Israeli security forces near Nablus, in the occupied West Bank. (JAAFAR ASHTIYEH / AFP/Getty Images)

Palestinians and much of the international community consider all Israeli building in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem as illegal. The United Nations, the U.S. and European countries have warned that settlement expansion was rapidly endangering prospects for peace through a two-state solution for Israelis and Palestinians.

Guterres condemns all unilateral actions that, like the present one, threaten peace and undermine the two-state solution, the U.N. said in statement Friday.

Federica Mogherini, the European Unions High Representative on Foreign Affairs, said in a statement the decision to establish a new settlement threatens to further undermine prospects for a two state solution, which remains the only realistic way to fulfill the aspirations on both sides.

During the Obama administration, Israeli settlement building was a sore point of contention. Trump, who has said Netanyahu should hold off on the expansion of settlements, pledged during his campaign to avoid public criticism of Israel.

All Israeli settlements are illegal and we are not going to accept any formula that aims at legitimizing the presence of Israeli colonies on occupied Palestinian land, Saeb Erekat, the chief Palestinian negotiator, said in a statement.

Israel enjoys a culture of impunity that allows it to strengthen its apartheid regime in Occupied Palestine, Erekat said. We send a clear message to the U.S. Administration, the United Nations and to the European Union: Peace is not going to be achieved by tolerating such crimes.

The new settlement  to be called Geulat Zion  is planned for an empty hilltop about two miles east of Shilo, a remote Israeli settlement deep in the West Bank.

Israels Peace Now organization  an opponent of settlement expansion  said its the first time since 1991 that Israels government has decided to establish a settlement in such a far-flung spot.

In a statement, Peace Now said the new settlement would be strategic for the fragmentation of the West Bank because it would join a series of Israeli towns that effectively would prevent the establishment of a contiguous Palestinian state.

The group alleged that Netanyahus new policy of settlement restraint contained loopholes that would enable the government to continue building if it wanted.

Israel and the Trump administration have been negotiating a joint approach to West Bank settlements over the last few weeks, with Trumps negotiations envoy, Jason Greenblatt, and Netanyahu devoting two March meetings to settlements.

Greenblatt also met with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas twice in March to discuss the peace process.

Following the settlement announcement, a White House statement said that further unrestrained settlement activity does not help advance peace but expressed understanding that the new settlement was part of a commitment made to Amona evacuees before Trump called for restraint.

Going forward . . . the Israeli government has made clear that Israels intent is to adopt a policy regarding settlement activity that takes President Trumps concerns into consideration, the statement said.

Settler leaders hailed Israels decision to establish a new settlement, but expressed concern that the government had not set a timetable for the beginning of construction.

Betzalel Smotrich, a legislator from the pro-settler Jewish Home party, tweeted the decision on Geulat Zion represented a breakthrough but also cautioned that the restraints on building amount to a freeze in the West Bank.

The Right claims the government decided in favor of construction. The Left claims its a freeze, Smotrich wrote. Regretfully, the Left wing commentators are correct. The right is willfully blind.

Mitnick is a special correspondent.

@joshmitnick
Israels government approved its first new West Bank settlement in two decades Thursday, creating a test for President Trumps foray into Middle East peacemaking.

The White House said that further settlement activity does not help advance peace and that it expects Israel to show restraint moving forward.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahus office announced the decision late Thursday after a meeting of his policymaking Security Cabinet.

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Netanyahu has vowed to build a new settlement to compensate the residents of Amona, an illegal settler outpost that was demolished in February under the orders of the Supreme Court.

Thursdays announcement said the settlement would be built near the settlement of Shilo, which is near the Amona site.

The Palestinians claim the West Bank and East Jerusalem, areas captured by Israel in 1967, as parts of a future state.

More than 600,000 Israelis live in settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. But Israel has not built a full-fledged new settlement since the 1990s. Instead, construction during that period has expanded existing settlements or taken place in unauthorized outposts like Amona. Netanyahus hard-line government, which is dominated by settler allies, recently passed legislation aimed at legalizing dozens of those outposts.

The Palestinians and the international community consider the settlements obstacles to peace because they gobble up territory where the Palestinians seek to establish their state.

Israel says the status of settlements as well as other issues, such as security, should be resolved in peace talks.

Palestinian official Hanan Ashrawi condemned the new settlement approval and called for international intervention.

Todays announcement once again proves that Israel is more committed to appeasing its illegal settler population than to abiding by the requirements for stability and a just peace, she said. It is time that all members of the international community serve the cause of peace and justice and bring Israel to cease and desist its unlawful settlement activities and illegal unilateralism once and for all.
At least 22 people were killed and more than 70 injured Friday when a bomb exploded outside a Shiite Muslim mosque in northern Pakistan, officials said.

Residents of the town of Parachinar, near the Afghan border, said explosives were planted in a car near the main gate of the towns main Shiite mosque shortly before weekly Friday prayers, when thousands of worshipers gather. The gate is used by women congregants.

The attack was claimed by Jamaat-ul-Ahrar, a faction of the Pakistani Taliban militant federation, which was responsible for several deadly attacks across the country in the last two months.

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In January, the group said it carried out the suicide bombing of a vegetable market in Parachinar that killed 28 people and wounded hundreds.

The Sunni militant group has targeted Shiites, Christians and other religious minorities in recent years in Pakistan.

Javed Hussain, a shopkeeper near the site of Fridays blast, said a car that was apparently used in the explosion was badly damaged and that the blast struck several vehicles and shops nearby.

Residents then attempted to march to the main government compound in Parachinar, capital of the Kurram tribal region, to demand better security. The public demonstration mirrored the increasing anger shown by Pakistanis amid a growing list of militant attacks.

Witnesses said paramilitary troops deployed at the government compound fired several shots to disperse the demonstrators. Two people reportedly died in the shooting, but officials did not confirm the account.

The government hospital in Parachinar was overwhelmed with victims and Pakistans military said in a statement that critically wounded people were being airlifted to Peshawar, the nearest city, for treatment.

Sadique Hussain, organizer of the Haideri Blood Bank Society in Parachinar, said that 22 bodies had been recovered from the scene and at least 30 people were in critical condition in the main hospital.

Ali is a Times special correspondent.

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Earlier this week, when Mexican authorities issued an arrest warrant for the former governor of the border state of Chihuahua, he joined a long list of former governors from across the country who have run afoul of the law, usually on charges of corruption.

Some former governors are serving time in prison; some are facing criminal charges. Four are being sought by authorities. Its quite a record for a country with just 31 states.



For the record: An earlier version of this article said that Mexico has 22 states. It has 31 states.

Heres a guide to Mexicos ex-governors with legal issues.

Wanted

Former Veracruz Gov. Javier Duarte, seen in a file photo, has disappeared, and a 15 million pesos reward has been offered for information leading to his arrest. (Marco Ugarte / AP)

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Javier Duarte

Governor of Veracruz (2010-2016)

Duarte stepped down from the governors post Oct. 12, six weeks before the end of his six-year term. He then disappeared, and Mexican authorities announced a reward of 15 million pesos (about $730,000) for information leading to his arrest. He is accused of money laundering, involvement with organized crime and various acts of fraud, including setting up shell companies to divert public funds for his private use.

Cesar Duarte

Governor of Chihuahua (2010-2016)

Duarte is wanted on corruption charges. The current governor of the border state has called him a fugitive and said its likely that Duarte fled across the border to El Paso, Texas. (He is no relation to fellow fugitive Javier Duarte from Veracruz.)

Eugenio Hernandez Flores

Governor of Tamaulipas (2005-2010)

Hernandez is a fugitive in the eyes of U.S. law enforcement. Along with his brother-in-law, Hernandez was named in a 2015 federal indictment in Texas that accuses him of money laundering. He has called the charges baseless and lives openly in Mexico, where there are no charges against him.

Tomas Yarrington Ruvalcaba

Governor of Tamaulipas (1999-2004)

Hernandezs predecessor as governor of the state bordering Texas is wanted in the U.S. on a federal racketeering indictment, which charges that he engaged in money laundering and received bribes from traffickers.

Imprisoned

Former Tabasco Gov. Andres Granier was convicted of corruption. (STR / EPA)

Andres Granier

Governor of Tabasco (2007-2012)

He has been jailed since 2014 on corruption charges. After flying from Miami to Mexico in 2013 to face trial, he told reporters at the airport, I come to clear my name. I have no reason to run.

Luis Armando Reynoso Femat

Governor of Aguascalientes (2004-2010)

He was arrested in 2015, convicted of fraud and sentenced to six years in prison.

Mario Villanueva

Governor of Quintana Roo (1993-1999)

He is serving a 22-year sentence in a Mexican prison after serving 3 1/2 years in a federal lockup in the United States after he admitted conspiring to launder money.

Under suspicion

Guillermo Padres

Governor of Sonora (2009-2015)

Padres turned himself in to authorities in Mexico City in November and has denied graft charges leveled against him. As governor of the state bordering Arizona, Padres served under the banner of the opposition National Action Party. He and Reynoso Femat of Aguascalientes, who also belongs to the National Action Party, are the only former governors known to be in legal trouble who were not members of President Enrique Pena Nietos Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI).

Rodrigo Medina

Governor of Nuevo Leon (2009-2015)

He is under investigation for corruption.

Roberto Borge

Governor of Quintana Roo (2011-2017)

He is under investigation for corruption.

patrick.mcdonnell@latimes.com

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He defended the sacred lands of Mexicos Tarahumara people. Then a gunman cut him down
He sought to cut an image as a fearless anti-crime crusader in his home state of Nayarit, in western Mexico.

Edgar Veytia  the states attorney general, a lawyer and a survivor of a 2011 assassination attempt linked to traffickers  once declared: Nayarit is not fertile ground for law-breaking. Here, there is no room for organized crime.

His purported crime-fighting acumen even led to a corrido, or popular ballad, championing Veytia as the terror of criminals and the lawyer with a pistol on his belt.

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But media reports had hinted of a darker side, linking Veytia to the powerful Jalisco New Generation Cartel, a bitter rival of the Sinaloa Cartel of Joaquin El Chapo Guzman. Relatives of disappeared victims of the cartel wars complained publicly that the attorney generals office in Nayarit did little to find their missing loved ones.

Now U.S. authorities say that Veytias law-and-order image was a public relations facade concealing his involvement in the nations massive illegal drug trade  an allegation that amplified the common belief in Mexico that being a politician is a license to amass clandestine riches.

Veytia, 46, was arrested at the U.S.-Mexico border Monday in San Diego on a federal indictment from New York alleging that he has conspired to smuggle heroin, cocaine and methamphetamine to the United States since 2013  the year he became the top law enforcement official in Nayarit state.

Veytias arrest is the just latest sign that official corruption continues to debilitate Mexicos government.

Earlier this week, authorities issued an arrest warrant on corruption charges for Cesar Duarte, the ex-governor of the border state of Chihuahua, a major drug-trafficking corridor to the United States. Calling him a fugitive, the current governor said that Duarte had likely fled across the border to El Paso, Texas.

Three other former governors  two from the border state of Tamaulipas and one from the Gulf state of Veracruz  are also fugitives on various charges. The ex-governor of Veracruz, Javier Duarte, who is not related to the fugitive Chihuahua ex-governor, reportedly began his escape last year on a state helicopter.

In November, the former governor of Sonora state, which borders Arizona, turned himself to face allegations of illegal enrichment, which he denied.

Veytia was arrested while attempting to enter the United States through the official Otay Mesa border crossing to visit relatives, said his attorney in San Diego, Guadalupe Valencia. U.S. agents executed a sealed warrant for his arrest, authorities said.

The Mexican official remained in a federal lockup in San Diego awaiting transfer to U.S. custody in Brooklyn, the same Eastern District of New York jurisdiction where authorities are prosecuting Guzman. The two cases have been assigned to different judges and are not related, a court spokesman said.

The indictment provided few details but said that U.S. authorities may seek to seize up to $250 million in property allegedly linked to Veytias criminal activity. The defendant has yet to enter a plea.

The former state prosecutor was a close associate of Nayarit Gov. Roberto Sandoval Castaneda, a member of the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party of President Enrique Pena Nieto. The arrest was another embarrassment for a ruling party establishment that has seen a steady stream of former officials face corruption charges.

That the case emanated from the United States only deepened the widespread impression in Mexico that authorities there have turned a blind eye to official graft.

To be a politician in this country, be it governor or another post, gives a license of impunity, of never being punished, said Jose Antonio Crespo, a political analyst in Mexico City. The cases of the governors who are in jail or are accused are exceptional.

In Nayarit, where tourist flock to a stretch of Pacific coastline known as the Riviera Nayarit, between the resort cities of Mazatlan and Puerto Vallarta, Gov. Sandoval expressed surprise at the arrest.

We are trying to figure out what is behind this, because until now it is all just speculation, he said. There is nothing formal at this moment that would say he is guilty.

Despite the presence of various drug mafias, Nayarit has generally been spared the mayhem of other Mexican states enmeshed in trafficking. But there have been some notable violent incidents.

In February, a Mexican military helicopter rained down machine gun fire on a suspected traffickers hideout in a densely populated neighborhood in the state capital, Tepic. The attack, which happened at night, was captured in a cellphone video that soon went viral on the Internet. Eight suspects were killed, according to the Mexican military, which had to fend off harsh criticism that its risky tactics endangered civilians.

But states across Mexico have been caught up in the countrys escalating wave of drug violence and corruption.

Inquiries involving various former officials are under way, sapping public confidence in the Mexican state. Exasperation with official corruption is evident across a wide spectrum of Mexican society.

To transform this federation of kleptocrats into a functional democracy is the most important challenge of our times, wrote columnist Juan E. Pardinas in Mexicos Reforma newspaper. The solution is not to give civics classes or an ingenious communications program. What is needed is that the institutions of the Mexican State work together to fight impunity.

The drumbeat of graft cases has undermined the administration of President Pena Nieto, who returned the long-dominant Institutional Revolutionary Party to the presidency in 2012 on a good-government, anti-corruption platform. The president endures near-record low approval ratings and his party faces the very real prospect of losing the presidency next year.

Veytia, like the fugitive governors and many other officials enmeshed in corruption, was a ruling party stalwart.

In the press, commentators suggested that high-level Mexican officials must have been aware of the allegations against Veytia, because rumors of his involvement with traffickers had swirled for years.

In his official position, Veytia had access to high ranking Mexican officials and sensitive information. There was some speculation that his presence may have helped foster a narco-peace in his home state.

Writing in El Financiero newspaper, columnist Salvador Camarena likened the arrest to the notorious case of the late Army Gen. Jose de Jesus Gutierrez Rebollo  a Mexican anti-drug czar fired in 1997 and imprisoned for working for the then-dominant Juarez cartel, which he had been tasked to fight. The case remains a symbol of how corruption has permeated government institutions, including the military.

Veytia spent time with the majority of the actors who should provide security to the country, wrote Camarena in El Financiero. If the United States proves that he is a criminal, if it is proved that he was the fox in the henhouse, how ridiculous that would be.

Cecilia Sanchez of the Times Mexico City bureau contributed to this article.

patrick.mcdonnell@latimes.com

twitter: @mcdneville
As the U.S.-led coalition fighting Islamic State faces increasing criticism for killing civilians in airstrikes on the dense neighborhoods of west Mosul, a senior U.S. military officer in Iraq defended the procedures used to prevent such deaths.

We are very careful about how much collateral damage we are going to cause, Brig. Gen. Rick Uribe, who is responsible for approving strikes in many parts of Iraq, said Thursday.

Were here to defeat them, he said of the Islamic State militants, and were going to do it the moral way.

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To illustrate the procedures  and the difficulties Iraqi forces and their international backers face in targeting militants without hurting civilians  Uribe played two black-and-white surveillance videos for The Times during a visit to the coalitions joint operations center and strike cell in Baghdads Green Zone. Both were taken within the last month in west Mosul and show militants using people as shields.

In the first video, Islamic State militants can be seen forcing civilians into a house.

Theyre herding civilians and basically creating a hostage situation in Mosul, Uribe explained. See all the children?

The second video showed a man holding a small figure in front of him. Hes yanking a child along with him, Uribe said.

After identifying the man as an Islamic State militant, coalition and Iraqi forces considered launching an airstrike but decided against it because of the child, Uribe said.

The situation, he said, didnt meet our elements of a strike.

The question of whether to strike has become increasingly wrought since a Mar. 17 explosion leveled an entire city block and killed 200 or more people in the west Mosul neighborhood of Jadidah. Iraqi officials have said it was an airstrike, and a top U.S. military officer has acknowledged that was probably the case.

Survivors suggested that the militants engineered the destruction by herding people into their homes and stationing snipers on the rooftops to lure a strike and maximize civilian deaths. Islamic State uses the deaths in its propaganda to turn the population against the coalition.

Uribe said he could not discuss the incident, which the U.S. military is currently investigating. Its findings are expected in the next few weeks.

His territory does not include Mosul, so he did not approve that strike, he said.

Uribe said a strike can be initiated two ways: A coalition official in the field can do it based on direct observation of the target, or the strike cell can confirm at least two separate forms of intelligence from different sources.

We conduct scans  including surveillance videos such as the ones he shared  to determine that there are no civilians in the area, Uribe said.

The coalition is mindful of preserving mosques, schools, hospitals and other facilities where civilians may gather, he said.

Once a coalition commander approves a strike, Iraqi officials must sign off.

If they say no, and they have in the past, we dont strike, Uribe said.

The final decision to strike rests with the joint terminal attack controller responsible for firing the strike, who can cancel or redirect it  for example, if an unidentified person enters the scene. The procedure is known as shifting cold.

We do that all the time, Uribe said.

Lt. Gen. Stephen Townsend, the commander of the fight against Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, said this week that some minor adjustments have been made to the written rules of engagement under which the war is conducted. He would not say what the changes were, saying that they are classified and that they were not a factor in the Jadidah strike.

Strikes have become increasingly common in the effort to hunt down Islamic State militants in Mosul.

The coalition aircraft released more than 7,000 weapons against Islamic State in January and February, the most of any two-month stretch since the campaign began in 2014.

The coalition has acknowledged 220 civilian casualties in strikes in Iraq and Syria since 2014. But London-based Airwars, an independent monitoring group, put the death toll at 2,700.

We learn from those mistakes, Uribe said.

Human Rights Watch released a report this week calling on the coalition to investigate dozens of civilian deaths due to airstrikes, saying they raise concerns about the way the battle for west Mosul is being fought.

The report noted that more coalition forces have been empowered during the Mosul offensive to call in strikes without clearing them with a strike cell leader.

This change could account for rising civilian casualties as there are now less U.S. eyes on the target, said Sarah Margon, the groups Washington director.
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Nokia's return to the smartphone arena is the most anticipated news in the industry for a few years now. Reports suggest number of specs and features of Nokia 8. With the firm joining forces with HMD and creating Android-based designs, there's everything to play for, and fans are cheerful it will introduce a new era of unmistakable quality for Nokia. Up until this point, a flagship phone is the only missing key aspect for Nokia.

Gossipy tidbits recommend Nokia is for sure preparing a leader class gadget, the supposed Nokia 8 (also known as Nokia P1). A recent report from NokiaPowerUser recommends there might be more than meet's the eye with regards to Nokia's inevitable arrangements. There have been discussions of the Nokia 8 for some time now, and also the Nokia P1, and there's a lot of hypotheses that the two may be the same gadget. However, it's improbable that the names have been finalised, reports Value Walk.

However, NPU reported recently that in addition to Nokia 8, there will be a Nokia 7, and both will supposedly include a new metal unibody outline with ultra-thin display bezels. Also, both will supposedly keep running on the Qualcomm Snapdragon 660 CPU (the successor the SD 652 and 653 line).

Imperatively, that is not the Snapdragon 835 Nokia's lead is supposed to come with. Reports claim that fans are left with a conceivable number of situations, maybe the Nokia 7 and Nokia 8 will be distinct handsets from the Nokia P1 lead, for instance. Maybe the Nokia P1 will be the Nokia 9, reports Know Your Mobile.

However, following the NPU report, the Nokia 8 flagship or not is supposed to brandish a QHD display resolution, while the Nokia 7 will have a 1080p screen. Reports claim that the duo may have a similar back camera configuration, which will purportedly be unique in relation to what has been seen on Nokia's Android fleet. Reports added that it will accompany fingerprint scanners and quick charging, while the Nokia 8 may have Carl Ziess optics, despite late gossipy tidbits recommending something else.
Mar 31, 2017, 11:52am ET

Uber exec asserts Fifth Amendment rights in Waymo lawsuit

Anthony Levandowski\'s attorneys invoked the Fifth Amendment in declining to hand over relevant documents.

Uber executive Anthony Levandowski has reportedly asserted Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination in the lawsuit filed by Google's Waymo.

Waymo accused Levandowski -- the former head of Google's self-driving car project -- of stealing thousands of proprietary design files before creating his own startup, Otto, that was acquired by Uber for $680 million. The lawsuit claims he then used the files to replicate Waymo's important LiDAR technology for Uber.

Court transcripts obtained by The New York Times suggest Levandowski's lawyers broadly invoked the Fifth Amendment since there was a "potential for criminal action" related to the civil case.

The Fifth Amendment assertion is said to be focused on preventing "compelled disclosure that would identify the existence, location or possession of any responsive documents," though Uber's lawyers suggest the decision could change as the case proceeds.

Judge William Alsup of the US District Court in San Francisco is said to have noted that Uber could compel Levandowski to cooperate in the case or terminate his employment.

"We are very confident that Waymo's claims against Uber are baseless and that Anthony Levandowski has not used any files from Google in his work with Otto or Uber," Uber associate general counsel Angela Padilla said in a statement.
By Kurt Bresswein | For lehighvalleylive.com

"The president proposes, and the Congress disposes."

It was a phrase repeated by U.S. Rep. Charlie Dent during a Lehigh Valley town hall Friday morning, a mantra to calm those concerned about health care, budget cuts and other pitches from President Donald Trump.

Judging from the applause and occasional shouts from the audience of more than 300, those who made the town hall -- announced just Thursday afternoon -- are very concerned about the country's direction under Trump.

Dent, a moderate Republican whom Trump singled out for criticism following this month's collapse of an Obamacare overhaul, spoke for about 75 minutes inside the community center of Hanover Township, Northampton County.

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Edith Miller wears a so-called pussy hat, a symbol of opposition to President Donald Trump, as she writes out a question for U.S. Rep. Charlie Dent, a Republican whose 15th Congressional District in Pennsylvania covers Lehigh and parts of Northampton counties, before the start of his town hall meeting Friday, March 31, 2017, at the Hanover Township Community Center in Northampton County. (Kurt Bresswein | For lehighvalleylive.com)

Russian elephant in the room

"Does collusion have one L or two?" Sonja Walker, of Bethlehem, asked her husband as they wrote down questions for Dent on slips of paper.

"Pollution?" Clint Walker clarified over the din of the crowd filing in.

"Collusion."

From a makeshift stage, a trailer hauled into the gym and festooned in patriotic bunting, Dent addressed congressional investigations into potential ties between Trump's 2016 presidential campaign and Russian efforts to boost Trump's chances against Hillary Clinton.

The Senate Intelligence Committee, he said, is on the right track, while the House committee has become too "polarized" to be effective.

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'Russia has very specific objectives'

Dent, whose 15th Congressional District covers Lehigh and parts of Northampton counties, voiced support for continued sanctions on Russia over past international incidents and for legislation blocking any move from the president toward unilaterally lifting them.

"On Russia the only thing I'll say right now about that is I've always felt that under Vladimir Putin, Russia has very specific objectives and interests," Dent said. "One, they want to break up NATO. Two, they want more power in the European Union. Three, they want to very much interrupt and disrupt the democratic processes -- not only in this country but throughout western and throughout Europe.

"And they've been doing this for some time. ... But what's different this time is that they actually have tried to use their efforts to harm a candidate."

Dent continued: "And by harming one candidate you help the other."

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U.S. Rep. Charlie Dent fields a question Friday. (Kurt Bresswein | For lehighvalleylive.com)

Budget cuts to boost military

Turning to Trump's proposal to boost defense spending and cut from other spending, Dent said military might is only one way to project influence. There's also diplomacy and development, said Dent, who wants to hear Secretary of State Rex Tillerson's take on a 30 percent cut to his budget.

"The bottom line is we need a robust diplomatic presence," Dent said.

Two-thirds of the federal budget is fixed through entitlement spending, he said. Non-defense, discretionary spending amounts to less than 15 percent of the budget. It's not realistic to cut into that money to shift more to the military, he said.

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MORE: 29 businesses investing $1B in Lehigh Valley jobs

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A crowd of about 300 people gathers for Friday's town hall. (Kurt Bresswein | For lehighvalleylive.com)

'What about the rights of my uterus?'

Dent's popularity with the crowd seemed to hit rock bottom when he explained federal law prohibits funding for abortion.

"Booooo!" members of the crowd shouted, as applause grew.

"It's been the law of the land for decades," said Dent, who was responding to a question shouted from a woman in the audience about the Republican-controlled Congress and White House dictating health-care services available to women.

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Beyond abortion, he said he opposed a bill that would limit reimbursement on other care such as pap smears, cervical cancer screenings, breast exams and birth control.

On the larger issue of health care and the failed effort to repeal and replace the 2011 Affordable Care Act, Dent said he's not afraid to say no and to stand up to the president.

"I believe Congress is separate and equal," said Dent, who also said he works only for constituents. "I take that seriously. I don't work for the president of either party."

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Dent wears reading glasses to field a question written by an audience member. (Kurt Bresswein | For lehighvalleylive.com)

Climate change is real

Pressed by an audience member, Dent said he agrees human activity is contributing to climate change. He doesn't "argue with science," as he put it.

But he called for a realistic view on controlling emissions, one that doesn't make certain industries impossible.

He voiced support for a variety of energy sources that are comparatively low in carbon emissions: natural gas, nuclear and renewable.

Electricity reliability is a concern of Dent's. Americans are lucky to flip a switch and see a light turn on.

"We shouldn't assume that's going to be the case forever," he said.

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Dent addresses Friday's crowd from a trailer festooned with patriotic bunting. (Kurt Bresswein | For lehighvalleylive.com)

Dangers of nepotism

Dent waded into ethical concerns about Trump's daughter Ivanka and son-in-law Jared Kushner working in the White House, saying nepotism is a bad idea in that it limits the ability to say no when necessary.

But historically, Trump's not the only offender, said Dent, who questioned John F. Kennedy's decision to appoint his brother as attorney general.

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U.S. Rep. Charlie Dent is a Republican whose 15th Congressional District in Pennsylvania covers Lehigh and parts of Northampton counties. (Kurt Bresswein | For lehighvalleylive.com)

Refugees and combating terrorism

Dent opposed the president's push to limit immigration and refugees from select countries, saying there's a bigger problem: European citizens visiting the United States for up to 90 days with just a passport, not a visa that requires greater scrutiny.

It's a convenience that Americans enjoy in return, Dent said, but it circumvents vetting procedures that are good if, he allowed, "not perfect."

Dent also acknowledged the threat posted by, in one questioner's word, "homegrown white nationalist terrorists." He condemned a spate of threats against Jewish community centers and the shooting of two Indian nationals in Kansas that is being investigated as a hate crime.

"We've seen some ugly, ugly incidents in this country and they can't be tolerated," Dent said.

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Kurt Bresswein may be reached at kbresswein@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow him on Twitter @KurtBresswein. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook.
The 610 hosted the 805, and more, Thursday night during the Meeting of the Malts VI celebration of craft beer.

The digits are area codes, and also a kind of code among craft beer aficionados. Check out social media from any of the 10 member breweries of the Lehigh Valley Brewers Guild and you're liable to see the hashtag #drink610.

A bit more alien is the 805, area code of Paso Robles, California, home to Firestone Walker Brewing Co. They make a beer called 805, but it's only sold in four states, none of which is Pennsylvania.

Firestone Walker co-founder David Walker was among the craft brewers taking part in Meeting of the Malts VI, a production of Brewers of Pennsylvania. Joining him were Eric Wallace, co-founder of Longmont, Colorado-based Left Hand Brewing, and two big names in Pennsylvania brewing:

Dick Yuengling is owner and president of D.G. Yuengling & Son in Pottsville and Jim Koch is founder and brewer at Boston Beer Co., which makes its Samuel Adams line at three breweries including one in the Breinigsville section of Upper Macungie Township.

The four held a news conference followed by a panel discussion before an audience of 525 enjoying a beer-pairing dinner.

Craft brewing has a specific definition, including a cap on annual production of 6 million barrels of beer, according to the Brewers Association, based in Boulder, Colorado. Boston Beer is the United States' biggest craft brewer, producing 4.3 million barrels in 2015.

The nation's 5,300-plus craft brewers operating last year represent a 12.3 percent market share of the beer industry, which is otherwise largely dominated by the big two brewers: Anheuser-Busch InBev and MillerCoors.

Craft brewers collectively produced 24.6 million barrels, a 6 percent rise in volume compared to 2015, the Brewers Association said in releasing its 2016 statistics on Tuesday.

On store shelves, that translates to some 14,000 different packages of beer available to consumers, said Bump Williams, a 40-year veteran of retail and emcee of Thursday night's panel discussion.

"There's no such thing as brand loyalty anymore," he said.

If there's a saturation point, it'll be realized when a brewer goes bankrupt, Yuengling said.

The brewers described a friendly competition among themselves, in which they want to see each other succeed and are willing to offer assistance toward that end.

"Craft brewing is a very unusual industry in that people in it actually like each other, enjoy each other's company and are very supportive of each other" despite competing for shelf space and bar/restaurant taps, Koch said.

The increasingly competitive business fosters the need to stick together, in groups like the Pennsylvania Brewers Guild formed in 1996 and Brewers of Pennsylvania founded in 2010. The brewers described pushing for legislation as a key role of guilds.

Pennsylvania in 2016 saw the biggest overhaul of its laws on booze since Prohibition, said Daniel La Bert, executive director of Brewers of Pennsylvania. The group on Thursday honored lawmakers, including three with its first-ever Legislative Awards. They went to state House Speaker Mike Turzai, R-Allegheny; Rep Mike Tobash, R-Dauphin/Schuylkill, and Sen. Rich Alloway II, R-Adams/Cumberland/Franklin/York.

From left, Pennsylvania Republican lawmakers recognized at Brewers of Pennsylvania's Meeting of the Malts VI on Thursday, March 30, 2017, in Bethlehem: state Sen. Rich Alloway II, Rep. Mike Tobash and House Speaker Mike Turzai. (Courtesy photos | For lehighvalleylive.com)

Laws that took effect last year cemented six-pack sales in gas stations and beer distributors and made wine available to-go in supermarkets and eateries.

Gov. Tom Wolf also approved a Malt Beverage Tax Credit of up to $5 million annually to help brewers with equipment and facility costs, according to Brewers of Pennsylvania. Individual breweries can receive up to $200,000 a year.

Wallace fielded a question from emcee Bump Williams on whether Left Hand has seen any impact on business from sales of a competing legal inebriant; Colorado began selling marijuana for recreational use to adults on Jan. 1, 2014. Sales topped $1 billion last year.

The answer was pretty direct: Left Hand has not seen its sales diluted by cannabis, which it turns out people were smoking before it was legalized, Wallace quipped.

He described as key to successfully building a craft brewery the quality of the product and customer experience.

"We're making beer in sort of an artisanal way," Wallace said. "Our customers, we're happy to educate them and win them one by one. So we're a very mortal industry in some ways."

Summing up the state of craft brewing in Pennsylvania, Yuengling talked about challenges he faces, and said he'd like to see more job creation to boost the state's consumer population.

"We struggle in Pennsylvania, and I think everybody does," he said. "But we're doing OK."

Kurt Bresswein may be reached at kbresswein@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow him on Twitter @KurtBresswein. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook.
Kyle Gilbert didn't have a father growing up. He turned to drugs to deal with his depression.

And now the 29-year-old Easton man finds himself headed to state prison for six to 12 years. He was sentenced Friday for shooting at a car with teen passengers.

Police said he fired the shots because he didn't like where the car was parked.

"I would like to first start by apologizing to the court for my bad decisions and terrible decision-making and lack of good judgment," Gilbert told Northampton County Judge Craig Dally.

Gilbert pleaded guilty to two counts of aggravated assault for the shooting last May 21 in the 100 block of West Kleinhans Street in Easton.

He previously had two felony drug convictions. He said he started receiving treatment for bipolar disorder and depression so he won't self-medicate with drugs and alcohol.

He said his mother did the best she could raising him by herself, but "there are certain things she can't protect me from in bad neighborhoods."

Assistant District Attorney Patricia Fuentes Mulqueen pointed out that Gilbert apologized to the court, not the victims. Then Gilbert said he was sorry to them, too.

At his plea hearing in February he said his dispute was with the driver, not the 16-year-old and 17-year-old passengers.

Police found Gilbert about 15 minutes after the shooting in a shopping center parking lot nearby. Police recovered the gun Gilbert used to shoot the car.

Gilbert lives in the 100 block of West St. Joseph Street.

Rudy Miller may be reached at rmiller@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow him on Twitter @RudyMillerLV. Find Easton area news on Facebook.
Nadir Chandler may not be Northampton County's most-wanted man -- that title will likely forever belong to Stanley Obas, who is charged in the 1996 torture killing of 13-year-old Richezza Williams and hasn't been seen since.

Nadir Chandler, charged in Oct. 29, 2016, Forks Township Verizon store theft.(Courtesy photo | For lehighvalleylive.com)

But law enforcement officials were certainly very interested in talking to Chandler, the 25-year-old former Bethlehem man who was charged recently with theft and receiving stolen property in an Oct. 29 incident at the Verizon store on Town Center Boulevard in Forks Township.

That theft is connected to the late November killing of 25-year old store employee Michael Davis, 25, of Palmer Township, and abduction of store manager Michael DeRose, 42, also of Palmer, authorities have said.

Palmer Township police had Chandler in custody Thursday night after he was returned by county detectives to the region. On Friday morning, he was arraigned at Central Booking at Northampton County Prison on the theft and receiving stolen property charges. Bail was set at $500,000.

A task force headed by Northampton County Assistant District Attorney Patricia Mulqueen has been investigating five cellphone store robberies in Lehigh, Northampton and Warren counties as well as the killing and abduction. All the crimes are related, authorities have said.

One thing is clear. Chandler wasn't able to commit most of those crimes, because he was arrested Dec. 7 in Georgia on charges involving two stolen guns found in a car in which he was a passenger. He was jailed until Feb. 24, when in a plea deal that required him to testify against another person in the car, he was released after serving about 60 days.

Four other people face charges from some of the robberies or the subsequent selling of stolen merchandise.

Chandler was free for about three weeks until Forks police brought their charges on March 16 and he was returned to the Gwinnett County Detention Center in Georgia. He gave up his right to extradition more than a week ago and, until Thursday, was awaiting return to the Lehigh Valley.

A Northampton County Department of Corrections employee confirmed Chandler was booked early Friday and was initially being held without bail.

Deputy Warden David Penchishen later said Chandler was in jail on a bench warrant related to June possession of a small amount of marijuana and drug paraphernalia charges. Chandler was in jail in Georgia when his $1,500 unsecured bail was revoked Dec. 13 in Northampton County and the warrant issued Dec. 30 for failure to appear for a preliminary hearing. Several earlier hearing dates passed before the case was pushed to county court on Dec. 8, records show.

Court papers show Chandler was eventually arraigned at 7 a.m. on the Forks charges.

It was not immediately clear if Palmer police, who had access to Chandler until he was delivered to the prison, expected to add charges.

When asked on Friday morning about possible Palmer charges, Mulqueen said she couldn't comment because of the ongoing investigation.

District Attorney John Morganelli later praised Mulqueen's efforts with the multijurisdictional task force and said "We've made some progress" and a number of people have been taken off the street as a result of the investigation.

But as for the Palmer homicide, Morganelli added, "We still have it in the unresolved and unsolved column."

Court papers showing what police believe happened during the Forks crime were sealed by a county judge and remained that way on Friday, Mulqueen said.

A preliminary hearing on the Forks charges is tentatively scheduled 9:30 a.m. March 12 in District Judge Jacqueline Taschner's Palmer courtroom.

Tony Rhodin may be reached at arhodin@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow him on Twitter @TonyRhodin. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook.
Charity Bucey was celebrating her birthday with others early last year when things turned violent.

A man died after a brawl, and Bucey and another man made a run for Canada before they were apprehended at the border near Niagara Falls.

Bucey, 38, tearfully admitted her role in the fatal fight on Friday at New Jersey Superior Court in Belvidere, where she pleaded guilty to charges of hindering apprehension and simple assault.

A Mansfield Township man died following a fight Jan. 19, 2016, outside 94 Route 46 in White Township. (Steve Novak | For lehighvalleylive.com)

Bucey and Steven Segarra, also 38 and both from Mansfield Township, went to 94 Route 46 in White Township on Jan. 19, 2016. Another man, 39-year-old White Township resident John Ranallo, arrived to pick up his daughter when Segarra called him outside and a fight ensued, authorities previously said.

Ranallo was knocked to the ground and hit repeatedly, authorities said. He was reportedly able to get up and go back inside, where he collapsed and never regained consciousness.

The father of two died on the way to the hospital, investigators said. New Jersey State Police said Segarra's punches caused the fatal injuries.

On Friday, Bucey began crying as she recounted details about that day. She admitted that she had gotten into a fight with another woman, and that as she and Segarra left Warren County, they knew Ranallo had been severely hurt and police were looking for them.

Segarra was sentenced in October to five years in prison after pleading guilty to second-degree manslaughter.

Under Bucey's plea, prosecutors are recommending a sentence of probation.

A sentencing hearing is scheduled for May 12.

Steve Novak may be reached at snovak@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow him on Twitter @type2supernovak and Facebook. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook.
It's been a little while since we had to consider the concept of flooding in the Lehigh Valley and northwest New Jersey.

For the past couple of years, it's been warmer and dryer than normal.

But as the region enters a flood watch at noon Friday with rainfall of 2 to 3 inches -- with the possibility of a localized 4 inches -- projected by the National Weather Service, creeks could rise above their banks and rivers could reach into action levels and perhaps even hit flood stage, according to a WeatherWorks meteorologist.

The 18.3 inches of snow that fell in March in the Lehigh Valley "is kind of laying the foundation for the flood watch," Sam DeAlba said from the Hackettstown weather forecasting company. All that snow has melted and the Delaware River is above 10 feet in Easton -- although nowhere near its 22-foot flood stage. In the past year, the river has often struggled to break the 2-foot level.

For the month, 3.83 inches of precipitation has fallen, with another half-inch added Thursday night. March's total so far is about a half-inch above normal, according to weather service figures from Lehigh Valley International Airport.

The drought appears broken -- not necessarily a surprise because similar severe dry streaks have come and gone in Florida, Texas and California in the last 10 years, DeAlba said.

"Often times we do see these changes from a dry to a wet pattern," he said.

Friday's rain comes from a low pressure area that's working from west to east. It's expected to dump heavy snow on northern New England, likely extending the ski season a couple of weeks up there, DeAlba said.

The Lehigh Valley is experiencing a normally wet spring, but the late-season heavy snow and the subsequent melt created "almost kind of like a building-block scenario" toward flood concerns, DeAlba said.

The heaviest rain on Friday likely will be to the south and east of the Lehigh Valley, but 1 to 2 inches is not out of the question, he said. Normally, that wouldn't stress the bigger streams or rivers, but with the melt added in, the situation is somewhat changed.

More rain is expected Monday night into Tuesday, he added.

"This is looking like a standard spring where you get plenty of rain," he said. "If the (heavy rains) come in too quick -- you're going to run into these minor flooding events."

The weather service advises those in prone areas to "be prepared to take action should flooding develop." The watch points to the "potential for flooding based on current forecasts," according to the weather service.

Residents should monitor future forecasts and watch for possible flood warnings, the weather service said.

And, as if to put an exclamation point on the changing weather patterns, March will be the just second month in the past 25 with a below-normal average temperature.

Tony Rhodin may be reached at arhodin@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow him on Twitter @TonyRhodin. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook.
A Bulmers pint-glass labelled "prisoners' fund" was found in the converted shed of a man accused of IRA membership, the Special Criminal Court has heard.

David Murray (56), of Cappogue Cottages, Finglas, Dublin is pleading not guilty to membership of an unlawful organisation styling itself the Irish Republican Army, otherwise Oglaigh Na hEireann, on March 25, 2015.

Many IRA prisoners are currently incarcerated at Portlaoise Prison.

Today (Friday, March 31), Detective Garda Paul Mulcahy told prosecuting counsel Gareth Baker BL that at the back of Mr Murray's house was a shed converted into a bar, where he found a Bulmers pint glass containing a small amount of coins and labelled "prisoners' fund".

He also found a poster for the Irish Republican Prisoners' Welfare Association (IRPWA), the court heard.

Thomas Kerry, former detective sergeant at the Garda Technical Bureau, told the court that he examined a list of items found in Mr Murray's bedroom.

The court heard that three substances on the list, sulphur, potassium nitrate and charcoal, are the ingredients of black powder, a low-order explosive material, used since the 1970s by subversive groups as a propellant for bombs.

Mr Kerry said that other items on the list, including alarm-clocks, circuit-boards and flash-bulbs, were components used in improvised explosive devices.

Sergeant Kieran Regan told the court that in another bedroom in Mr Murray's house he found two black bags of military clothing and t-shirts.

The court also heard statements from members of the National Surveillance Unit (NSU), who cannot be named for legal reasons.

The detective garda stated that on September 3, 2014 he saw Mr Murray and another man, Stephen Hendrick, exit Power City in Finglas together.

Hendrick, with an address at Balbutcher Drive, Ballymun, Dublin 11, was sentenced last year by the non-jury court to eleven years in prison for possession of firearms, ammunition and explosives.

The trial of Mr Murray resumes on Tuesday in front of Mr Justice Tony Hunt, presiding, with Judge John O'Hagan and Judge Ann Ryan.
Two Laois secondary schools have been shortlisted in the Bord Gais Energy Student Theatre Awards, taking place on May 17.

Heywood Community School staged the musical 'Little Shop of Horrors' in the school last November and it impressed not just packed audiences for three nights running, but the judges in the competition.

It is shortlisted for Best Musical at the Bord Gais Energy Student Theatre Awards.

As part of the shortlisting, the school has been invited to perform an extract from their show in the Bord Gais Theatre in front of a live audience.

Only four schools nationwide made the shortlist and Musical Director and teacher Niall Mulpeter is overjoyed at the announcement.

It is a massive achievement for all the students involved and a testament to their hard work after producing an excellent show. To receive such national acclaim is wonderful. The students are very excited at the opportunity of performing in Ireland's most prestigious theatre, he said.

Also individually nominated is student Liam Oxley, as Best Male Performance in a Leading Role for his portrayal of the hapless shopkeeper Seymour Krelborn.

When I got the news I was overcome with shock. I never imagined that I would be shortlisted for such a prestigious award. I am delighted and so excited, he said, thanking all the cast and crew, as well as all the teachers involved.

A second Laois secondary school has also been nominated for an award, this time in the written category.

Thomas Dunne from 3rd year, St Mary's CBS Portlaoise, was nominated in the Best Short Scene Script category for his play titled The Wedding Van.

His teacher is Evelyn Quinlan, who trained and worked in theatre.

My students wrote scripts as part of classwork, and Thomas' was so good I told him to enter. He is an exceptionally creative student with a great vocabulary, I am delighted for him. It's great that these awards recognise arts for students, she said.

The finalists will all attend an Oscars style awards ceremony, on May 17 in the Bord Gais Energy Theatre, hosted by a special guest MC.

The judges include actress and Dancing With The Stars dancer Aoibhin Garrihy, actress/author Amy Huberman, and authors Sinead Moriarty and Dave Rudden.

All shortlisted schools will receive their own plaque and a group school photo at the ceremony in honour of their achievement.

The lucky winning school will be invited on stage to receive their trophy and prize.
The voluntary service, Rural Resettlement Ireland has been wound up in recent days.

Established in 1990 as a voluntary non-political, non sectarian and non-profit organisation, Rural Resettlement Ireland (RRI) has assisted over 800 families with their dream to leave the city and resettle permanently in rural areas.

Most recently RRI had helped two families move from Dublin to the Kiltyclogher area of north Leitrim, helping to stabilise numbers at the local national school and there are hopes that two more families will shortly move to the village as a result of the work of RRI.

Speaking to the Leitrim Observer this week, Cllr Sean McDermott expressed this disappointment at the loss of RRI.

Jim Connolly and his staff brought over 800 families to rural Ireland and many national schools have remained open as a result, he said.

15 years ago it brought families to Kiltyclogher when our school was facing low numbers and helped to save it. Now more families have been brought to Kiltyclogher by Rural Resettlement Ireland. This work is invaluable. it brings life back to areas like Kiltyclogher and also frees up accommodation in areas like Dublin for other families. It is a win-win situation.

He thanked Jim Connolly and everyone at RRI for their hard work over the last 27 years.

Cllr McDermott added news of a new Rural Lift daily bus route set to serve Kiltyclogher and the surrounding areas, has been instrumental in attracting families to come and live in areas like north Leitrim.
Well. We knew that the Lib Dem Press Office could raise a smile with its constant sass. Last year the Huffington Post cited 17 occasions when it was the most entertaining thing in British politics.

But last night, something extraordinary happened. Serious journalists heaped praise on our little press operation.

It started with a tweet from Sam Coates of the Times:

This. Every Lab MP should read this & be embarrassed. The Lib Dems do vg rebuttal, quotes and opposition research pic.twitter.com/Ts9OiXewPY  Sam Coates Times (@SamCoatesTimes) March 30, 2017

 while Labour aren't on the pitch. They aren't pitching opposition stories, bothered about getting into papers, or pushing message  Sam Coates Times (@SamCoatesTimes) March 30, 2017

Lib Dems provide material at speed, they are creative, know their way around government, and work hard. From where I sit Lab minimal effort  Sam Coates Times (@SamCoatesTimes) March 30, 2017

Not only that, but a whole five serious, reputable journalists then pitched in to agree!

Very true, Lib Dems have A-grade press operation. https://t.co/z5JqMCOMLs  George Eaton (@georgeeaton) March 30, 2017

Rudd internet summit prime example. Lib Dem (and Yvette Cooper as Home Affair Comm chair) had reactions out quickly. Nothing from D Abbott. https://t.co/xMkTgBqkar  Kevin Schofield (@PolhomeEditor) March 30, 2017

This is so true. It was a LibDem statement that got the Article 50/security trade-off story going https://t.co/QZytmsK4A9  Matt Wells (@MatthewWells) March 30, 2017

True from where I sit as well. Lib Dem press office cooking on gas atm. https://t.co/ll5rWiu1oW  Jennifer Williams (@JenWilliamsMEN) March 30, 2017

@PolhomeEditor Lib Dems had two press releases out last night reacting to front page stories within mins.

I doubt Labour read them @SamCoatesTimes  steve hawkes (@steve_hawkes) March 31, 2017

In the Politics Home memo, Schofield called our people pin sharp

Significantly, the Rudd statement posted on the Home Office website made no mention of her call for WhatsApp to end the encryption of its messages so that the intelligence services are able to have a gander at them. The pin-sharp Lib Dem press operation leapt on this omission, claiming the Governments obsession with undermining our security online has finally been put to bed for good.

Everyone was talking about the trade/security play off in Mays Article 50 letter. Id seen Tims early comment, which was:

It is shameful that Theresa May has threatened to withdraw security co-operation from our closest neighbours and allies. With growing terrorist threats from around the world, it is imperative that we work together with European allies for our mutual security. She is prepared to put the safety of British and European citizens on the line just so she can deliver her hard Brexit. Security is too important to be used as a bargaining chip and this will backfire in any negotiations, which rather than building up alliances will leave Britain even more isolated. Theresa May admits that we will lose influence over the very rules by which British firms exporting to our largest market will have to abide by. So much for taking back control. The Conservative Party used to be the party of business, but by going for this reckless hard Brexit she has thrown British business into a state of uncertainty and powerlessness. This is Theresa Mays choice to go for a hard Brexit. It wasnt on the ballot paper, and the Conservatives in their election manifesto said we should stay in the Single Market. That is why we will continue to fight to give the people a say on the final deal.

This work by the ace press team is really important. Back in 2004, the SNP was drifting along without making any progress. Between then and 2007, they got themselves into the sort of shape that enabled them to win an election. Part of that was investment in a very strong press operation. A good air war is essential to getting our message across.

So, our thanks today to a fabulous team of people who work ridiculous hours. Its good to see that their efforts are so highly thought of.

* Caron Lindsay is Editor of Liberal Democrat Voice and blogs at Caron's Musings
The Lib Dem Press Office has had its Weetabix this morning. Not only did it get its punchy analysis of the EUs statement about the Brexit negotiations out quickly, but it came up with a pretty eye-catching headline.

Heres what Tim Farron had to say about the EU statement  and it does not reflect well on Theresa May and her Brexiteers:
Shes done it. Mrs May has gone and linked Britains nuclear deterrent to Brexit trade negotiations.

I can honestly stick out my chest, jut out my chin and proclaim: I told you so. And I told you exclusively.

Alright, Mrs. May didnt actually use the n-word in her letter to the European Commission which triggered Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty and the start of Brexit negotiations. But in just one document she explicitly linked economic concessions with security issues nine times.

It requires only the smallest leap of imagination to realise that the British Prime Minister was talking about more than exchanges of DNA databases with continental police.

But be warned, the consequences of this link will be dire. Messing with the balance of strategic weapons capable of incinerating the world several times over is a dangerous policy.

Mrs May knows that, but the problem is that nuclear missiles are just about the only weapon the British have in their negotiating armoury. Their backs are against the wall.

There is, of course, a question mark, over whether or not the UK will be allowed to play the security card. German Chancellor Angela Merkel has made it crystal clear that she opposes negotiations on any future relationship until the terms of the divorce are settled. That means Britain has to cough up $60 billion, allow EU citizens to remain in Britain and accept that it will no longer be part of the European Single Market. All this before any talks on a future relationship which may or may not involve security. This is a direct contradiction of Mrs Mays tandem approach.

Assuming that Mrs Mays simultaneous approach wins the day, what are the possible repercussions? In short, tying trade to nuclear weapons is a dangerous precedent. Offering to strengthen Britains nuclear ties to Europe weakens the American link on which European security has been based for the past 60-plus years. And it turns Britain into a mercenary nuclear state.

It is an accepted truism that if a nuclear weapons state uses its nuclear weapons it has lost the war. The weapons are the ultimate deterrent and to be used ONLY in that capacity. Linking the nuclear umbrella to trade concessions creates an entirely new nuclear playing field.



Where does it stop? Does Britain strike a deal with Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States to protect them from Iran? The British have just reopened a permanent naval base in Bahrain. How about East Africa? The Americans lease Diego Garcia but the British still own it. London has great relations with Singapore, an excellent base for an Asian presence.

And what about other nuclear weapons states? What is to stop India, Pakistan, France, Russia, China, and the United States from using their nukes to extract trade concessions. It will cost more but the trade deals  or should I say protection moneyshould more than cover the costs. with a profitadding a new and dangerous element to the problem of nuclear non-proliferation.

A stronger nuclear Britain willing to flex its muscles fits in nicely with the Trump view of the world. During his campaign The Donald shocked defence analysts by floating the idea that America cut costs and commitments by supplying nuclear weapons to allies such as Japan and Saudi Arabia.

It is now making more positive noises about NATO, but the initial threats still rankle at the back of the minds of European leaders. Beefing up the British nuclear deterrent and tying it closer to Europe would save America money.

However, it would also put several more links in the defensive chain that ties the US to the protection of Europe.

The Trump Administration may favour such a change, but this is not in the interest of either side of the Atlantic. Two World Wars have proven that. In both of them America adopted a stand-off role at the start. However, the fact that their interests were clearly intertwined with the European democracies meant that Washington was eventually forced to intervene to protect its vital national interests.

If there is ever another war, the United States wont have the luxury of years to dither.

Mrs May has opened a Pandoras box and let loose a whole new set of evils.

* Tom Arms is foreign editor of Liberal Democrat Voice and the author of The Encyclopedia of the Cold War and the recently published America Made in Britain that has sold out in the US after six weeks but is still available in the UK.
Today is the annual Transgender Day of Visibility, a day when we are asked to take the time to learn and understand about transgender peoples lived experiences, where we celebrate our transgender and non binary friends and think about what we can do over the next year to make their lives easier.

If you just take a look at the #TDOV hashtag on Twitter, there is so much you can learn from people sharing their experiences. I want to point out just three of the days highlights.

Two of them involve Liberal Democrats. First is the amazing Maria Munir. Its almost a year since they came out as non binary to President Obama, a year in which they have done so much to raise the profile of non binary people and work for greater understanding and acceptance. Today they were on LBC talking about HSBCs decision to introduce ten gender neutral titles. Stuart, who leads HSBCs Pride network explains how difficult it was for him when he transitioned.

To celebrate #TDOV17, were pleased to announce we now offer ten gender neutral titles. pic.twitter.com/59YfMPmV0D  HSBC UK (@HSBC_UK) March 31, 2017

If you are looking for resources to help you understand about the lived experience of transgender people and the issues they face, the Scottish Trans Alliance has some really good suggestions .

I have a confession to make. Last year on Transgender Day of Visibility, I bought the book Transgender Warriors that it suggested. This year, I swear Ill actually read it and review it on here.

Transgender Warriors is 20 years old now. Its about time someone produced a book that brings us a variety of experiences of trans people in 21st century Britain, dont you think? Funny we should think that, because there is one  but its authors need some help to get the project off the ground so theyre using a crowdfunding publisher, Unbound. Pride, not Prejudice is a collection of 21 essays. Its edited by Helen Belcher, who has written for us several times on LDV. Last year she talked about why she had joined the Party just after the 2015 election. Shes been a fantastic addition to our ranks and is now PPC for Chippenham. I first met her when she gave a compelling speech in the Electing Diverse MPs debate at the 2016 Spring Conference. She wrote about that issue here.

So what is the Pride not Prejudice project all about?

With increasing misinformation in the media about transgender and non-binary issues, there has never been a more vital important time to hear from trans and non-binary people in their own words. In this ground-breaking anthology, Helen Belcher curates 21 essays from people who are re-defining the way we see and think about gender. Pride, Not Prejudice  the first book of its kind  brings together the works of trans and non-binary people from a wide range of backgrounds within the UK, as they share their real experiences, stories and expertise on what it means to not succumb to the socially-constructed gender binary. But its more than just coming out and transitioning stories. The varied essays will highlight the fact that that there isnt just one way to be a trans or non-binary person.

I have made a small contribution to help get this book off the ground. Find out more, including a video from Helen, here.

I think our job as liberals is to make a world thats inclusive and celebrates diversity so that everyone can go about their lives without having to deal with hostility, discrimination or worse. Maria and Helen do so much to make that happen. Their work will make it easier for the next generation. Thanks to both of them.

* Caron Lindsay is Editor of Liberal Democrat Voice and blogs at Caron's Musings
THE death has occurred of Timothy (Tadhg) McGrath, Glenosheen, Ardpatrick and Kilfinane, unexpectedly at his home.

Very deeply regretted by his brothers Tom, Edmond and Fergus, sisters, Margaret, Hannah, Nuala, and Rosaleen, brothers-in-law, sisters-in-law, aunts, uncles, nephews, nieces, grandnephews, grandnieces, cousins, relatives, kind neighbours and his many friends.

Reposing this Saturday evening from 6.30pm at Daffys Funeral Home, Kilmallock, until 8.00pm. Funeral to arrive for 11.00am Requiem Mass on Sunday morning to St Andrews Church, Kilfinane, with burial afterwards in the local cemetery.

The death has occurred of Sr. Kathleen O'Sullivan, Little Sisters of the Assumption, Mount Argus, Dublin and formerly Tournafulla, peacefully in the care of the Marlay Nursing Home.

Sister of the late Maureen, Aileen (Kelleher), Gretta (ORourke) and Fr Jerry C.S.S.p. Deeply regretted by her sister, Sr. Breda LCM, her brother William, her nieces, nephews, grandnieces, grandnephews, family, friends and her community of Little Sisters of the Assumption.

Reposing at the Community House, Mt Argus from 2.30pm to 5.00pm on Sunday. Funeral Mass at 11.30am on Monday in the Church of St. Paul of the Cross, Mt Argus followed by burial in cemetery adjoining St. Patricks Church, Tournafulla, Co. Limerick at approx. 5.30pm. Family flowers only please.

The death has occurred of Ann Cronin (nee O'Brien), Knockainey, Hospital, peacefully at University Hospital Limerick.

Predeceased by her husband Maurice and granddaughter Aisling. Deeply regretted by daughters Margaret, Betty, Mary and Patricia (Trish), sons James and Maurice, sister Elizabeth, grandchildren, nephews, nieces, relatives and friends.

Reposing in O'Leary's Funeral Home, Hospital on Saturday evening from 4pm with Removal at 6.30pm to St. Mary's Church, Knockainey. Requiem Mass on Sunday at 11am with burial afterwards in The Hill Cemetery, Knockainey. Family flowers only please. Donations, if desired, to The Alzheimer's Society.

The death has occurred of Margaret Ahern, Lower Main St., Glin, formerly of Drominbeesom, Newcastle West, peacefully at Milford Care Centre.

Partner of the late Jimmy Meade. Survived by son Michael, brothers, sisters, brothers-in-law, sisters-in-law, nephews, nieces, relatives and friends.

Reposing at Riedy's Funeral Home, Newcastle West on Sunday from 6pm to 8pm. Arriving at the Church of the Immaculate Conception, Newcastle West at 8:30pm. Requiem Mass on Monday at 11:30am. Burial afterwards in Calvary Cemetery. Family flowers only please. Donations, if desired, to Milford Care Centre.
A TEENAGER has been charged at Kilmallock Court with raping a girl in County Limerick.

The 18-year-old, who cannot be named for legal reasons, appeared before Judge Marian OLeary.

The rape is alleged to have occurred at a property on the Main Street of a village in County Limerick on March 29, 2016. The defendant would have been 17 at the time while the alleged victim would have been 16 years-old. It is further alleged the youth gained entry to the house and raped the girl in her bed.

He has been charged with rape contrary to Section 48 Offences Against the Person Act 1861 and Section 2 of the Criminal Law Rape Act 1981 as amended by Section 21 of the Criminal Law Rape Amendment Act.

Garda Edel Moloney gave evidence of arresting the young man at 9.55am on Friday, March 24 at an address in County Limerick.

He was conveyed to Kilmallock Court. He made no reply to the charge after caution, said the garda.

Sgt Michelle Leahy said the DPP has directed trial on indictment. There was no State objection to bail. John Herbert, solicitor, applied for legal aid. The case was adjourned back to Kilmallock Court on April 28 for service of the book of evidence.
THE Lime Tree Theatre welcomes Echo Echo Dance Theatre Company this Saturday night.

The Cove, a performance about the natural world, and the place of people in it, reflects on the experience of the beauty of the wild Irish coast and its embodiment in movement.

The piece is the result of a creative collaboration between Echo Echo Artistic Director Steve Batts, internationally acclaimed artist Dan Shipsides and musician Christopher Norby.

Created around a large scale installation made from heavy, strong, shiny blocks that reflect the light, like the surface of the sea or the shiny rocks, the setting is manipulated, with effort, and pleasure, into different configurations which provide the dancers with a changing environment with different opportunities and challenges.

The Cove takes to the Lime Tree stage this Saturday night at 8pm.

Meanwhile, Equinox Theatre Company bring their new production The M-House to the Belltable on April 4 at 8pm and April 5 at 11.30am.

Equinox, an inclusive theatre company that was founded in 2008 by eight graduates of the Theatre Performance course at KCAT, Kilkenny, present a relaxed performance which is suited to everyone, but the environment has been specifically adapted for audiences with an Autistic Spectrum Condition, individuals with sensory and communication disorders, those with learning disabilities and anyone who would benefit from a more relaxed environment.
Stories of how public officials get rich through corruption have kept one novelist writing furiously, Li Na and Wen Chihua report.

Zhou Meisen, a sharp dresser and an unconventional artist, once had many influential contacts in positions of power. Some of them are still in power. Some are in prison.

"They are in prison because there are no restrictions on the use of power. That has ruined a lot of officials," says the 62-year-old Zhou.

He is regarded as one of the three major writers of anti-corruption novels in China, the other two being Zhang Ping and Lu Tianming.

His newly published work In the Name of People and the 55-episode TV series of the same name present audiences with a picture of Chinese officialdom in the ongoing anti-corruption campaign.

"The novel not only unfolds the complexity, difficulty and versatility of the battle against corruption. Rather, Zhou makes a thorough inquiry of what makes a politician's soul twisted and strained," say the literary critic He Shaojun.

In the book, Zhou creates a crook, humble and low-profile. A man who eats mostly noodles every day.

"Who could image the amount of bribes he takes," Zhou says. "He takes a few hundred million yuan in bribes, and yet he dares not to spend a penny. Why? That's what I want to explore.

"Certainly, the characters all are drawn from real life," says Zhou.

His crooks are a combination of real deputy state leaders including Zhou Yongkang, who was a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee when arrested in 2014 for his severe disciplinary violations, and Xu Caihou, former vice chairman of China's Central Military Commission, who was expelled from the CPC in 2014 for graft.

At a cost of some 120 million yuan ($17 million), the TV series began airing on Tuesday. The program shows signs of the lifting of the ban on programs that deal with corruption and violent crimes. Over the past 10 years, the broadcast of such programs was prohibited during prime time, but this one sailed through the approval process and was widely praised.

In In the Name of the People, Zhou shows the political ecology of official circles. He notes that corrupt officials have their own speech codes. They speak differently in front of and behind the public. They use the term "for the people" repeatedly, and then actually harm people "in the name of people".

Gao Yuliang, a corrupt official in the series, is the secretary of the politics and law committee in a province where he has been in office for many years. The prototype of the character was an official Zhou is quite familiar with. When creating the character, he portrayed him just like one of his brothers: "Before he took bribes, we were intimate friends in private, drinking and talking about life together."

Zhou says there are various reasons for the corruption of an official, weakness of character, lures in an official career, traps set by other people, etc. "But actually, the ultimate reason is the unchecked development of human greed, with the power being not supervised effectively," he says.

As one of China's most celebrated political novelists, Zhou was close to power at one point in his life.

To gain some insight into official life for his writing, Zhou took a temporary post as a deputy secretary general in the city government of Xuzhou, Jiangsu province, in 1994. Although the job only lasted one year, he found that he enjoyed all kinds of privileges.

As a government official, he thought he would be a civil servant and should serve the citizens. But he found that he was treated like a master: Every task, from as trivial as opening doors to the completion of important assignments, would be done for him by his subordinates.

"I was just a common man before I took this job, and I had no idea of what privilege was like until I became a deputy secretary general in the city government."

At the moment, Zhou realized power was a magic wand.

"In the government, powerful officials can get whatever they want, and sometimes get it done in a minute, just by making a phone call."

Unrestrained power is like an aphrodisiac that could make a man easily addicted, and arouse his desire for more power.

Zhou's experience in Xuzhou became a turning point in his creation of political novels. He believes a personal perspective enables him to present to readers a true picture of officialdom today.

Zhou published his first novel, Perishing Land, in 1983. His early works were generally "digging historical materials from the humanistic angle and writing about history from the individual perspective".

In 1994 when Zhou was in office, China was busy building up the country's infrastructure. Xuzhou was planning on paving its third ring road. However, the local people did not understand the value of road construction and complained a lot. Some lodged lawsuits against major leaders of the city.

Zhou discovered that reform causes hardship at various levels. That changed his literary outlook, and he published his first realistic novel Right Road in the World inspired by this event.

The novel proved a sensation after it was adapted into series and broadcast on TV. But it also brought troubles to Zhou. Local officials tried to sue him jointly to force him to alter the novel. Zhou refused, arguing "What I wrote is a novel, not reportage. They can do whatever they want to do."

Zhou went on to create political novels such as Supreme Interest, Absolute Power and Public Prosecution of the State.

In the Name of People shows a deep reflection on the fight against corruption, such as the complicated relationship between combating corruption and fostering economic development as well as the traditional code of conduct.

"Chinese people like to say 'Don't forget old friends when you become rich and powerful'. This is an important view in our traditional culture. However, this translates to 'When a man gets to the top, all his friends and relations get there with him'."

Zhou Meisen's latest novel In the Name of People probes into what corrupts a politician's soul. In the Name of People has been adapted into a 55-episode TV series of the same title, featuring actors such as Wu Gang and Lu Yi. Photos By Li Na And Provided To China Daily

(China Daily 03/31/2017 page18)
Mar 31, 2017, 1 PM

This New Zealand stamp depicting HMS Vanguard escaped being incinerated after the set to which it belonged was canceled. Last sold in 1993, it set a record for a New Zealand issue when Mowbray auctioned it March 11 for $47,800.

Auction Roundup  By Matthew Healey, New York Correspondent

Every stamp, they say, tells a story. The most intriguing stories are often told by stamps that never saw the light of day.

Britains Queen Elizabeth II has reigned for so long now  65 years and counting  that the reign of her father, King George VI, seems poignantly brief by comparison. He reigned for a little more than 15 years, from Dec. 11, 1936, to Feb. 6, 1952.

The king was never a particularly healthy man to start with, and the stress of leading the Empire through World War II, combined with a heavy smoking habit, led to a steady deterioration in his health during his final years.

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One of the casualties of his poor health was the cancellation of his planned royal visit to New Zealand and Australia in 1949.

As Duke and Duchess of York, he and his wife Elizabeth had visited in 1927, but the new trip would have marked the first-ever visit of a reigning monarch Down Under.

The royal party was to comprise the king, queen, and their younger daughter, Princess Margaret. Princess Elizabeth (the future queen) and her husband Philip had just had a baby, Charles, and opted to stay home.

As they had done on their visit to South Africa in 1947, the royal family was to travel aboard HMS Vanguard, Britains largest and fastest battleship.

A great many souvenirs were prepared to mark the trip, including a set of four commemorative New Zealand stamps.

As soon as the trip was called off, the stamps were ordered incinerated. And for many years, everyone believed that was what had happened.

Then, in 1979, two damaged examples of a hitherto unseen blue New Zealand 3-penny stamp, depicting HMS Vanguard and inscribed Royal Visit 1949, appeared in two different auctions. They seemed to be long-lost survivors of the abandoned issue.

A few more came out of the woodwork over the years, and the tally now stands at seven examples. The stamp is footnoted, but not valued, in the Scott Classic Specialized Catalogue of Stamps and Covers 1840-1940 after New Zealand Scott 272.

On March 11 in Wellington, New Zealand, the firm of Mowbray Collectables offered what they called the finest of the seven known. This example was last sold in Australia in 1993.

The mint, lightly toned stamp seems largely unscathed for its close call with a furnace door. Including the 15 percent buyers premium added by Mowbray to all lots, it handily beat its presale estimate to sell for $67, 850 New Zealand dollars, the equivalent of US$47,800. The firm reported that the buyer lives in Asia.

That result represents a new world-record price for a New Zealand stamp. It more than doubles the previous record, which happened to be for another example of the same stamp sold by Mowbray in 2009.

No examples of the other stamps in the abandoned set have ever surfaced, although artist and die proofs of the designs have reached the market.

A 2d stamp pictured inset portraits of the king and queen over a view of Waitangi Treaty House, the site of a historic accord between Britain and the native Maori people in 1840.

A 5d denomination showed the king, queen and Princess Margaret, while a 6d stamp featured the British royal crown and scepter.

The 2d design was reproposed for an issue marking another royal visit, this time by Elizabeth and Philip in 1952.

That issue was likewise abandoned, however, because the 1952 tour got no farther than Kenya: the king died Feb. 6, and Elizabeth returned home, as queen, to mourn her father.

The 6d design from the 1949 series was resurrected as a 1-shilling-6d stamp commemorating Elizabeths coronation in 1953 (Scott 284).

A royal visit finally took place in 1954, when the young Queen Elizabeth II and her family made the historic first visit by a reigning monarch. Two stamps were issued to mark the trip (Scott 286-287).

As for the Vanguard, she would be the last battleship ever launched. Decommissioned a decade after the ill-fated stamp issue, she was scrapped in 1960.

Other lots in the Mowbray sale included a reconstruction of the full 240 positions of the Penny Black, the worlds first postage stamp, issued in 1840 (Great Britain Scott 1).

Every stamp in the sheet bore a pair of security check letters in the lower corners, with the left-hand letter signifying the row and the right-hand letter the column.

The letters on the top row therefore ran AA, AB and so on to AL, while those down the left side of the sheet ran AA, BA all the way down to TA.

The grouping covered a range of quality and grades, but did include five stamps from the scarce plate 11. The lot sold for US$54,300, which works out to an impressive $226-plus per stamp, well above the average price for a run-of-the-mill Penny Black.
Mar 31, 2017, 5 AM

Stamp Market Tips - By Henry Gitner and Rick Miller

Stamps of the Canal Zone, the roughly 10-mile strip of territory lying athwart the Panama Canal, which was administered by the United States from 1904 to 1979, remains very popular with U.S. collectors.

The most difficult part of a Canal Zone collection is the stamps of Panama overprinted for use in the Canal Zone. A good set to look for is the two surcharged postage due stamps issued in December 1919 (Scott J10-J11). The stamps were overprinted in carmine ink by the Panama Canal Press, Mount Hope, Canal Zone. The Canal Zone overprint is type III.

The 2017 Scott Specialized Catalogue of United States Stamps and Covers values the stamps in unused hinged condition at $30 (Scott J10) and $35 (Scott J11), and at $11 and $12.50, respectively, in used condition. Mint never-hinged examples bring a nice premium, but watch out for examples with gum damage from the humid climate. Stamps in true very fine grade are quite difficult to find and will bring a premium, because most of the issue was not well centered.

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Oct 8, 2020, 3 PM

Known as the Double Geneva, the first stamp of Geneva was denominated 5 centimes for city letters and 10c for cantonal mail between towns or cities.

Unveiling Classic Stamps  By Sergio Sismondo

For the past 15 or more centuries, Geneva has attracted streams of visitors and prospective residents. Many have settled there. Some might think the most pleasant lake and propitious weather in the valley were important inducements. This was probably part of the attraction, but when looking at the mix of migrants, it is possible to discern another set of factors.

Lake Geneva is surrounded by mountains and hills; it might have been more effectively defended against attackers than other, more open spaces. Geneva attracted moneyed folk seeking peace and security, for their property and for themselves. It attracted intellectuals, of all kinds  philosophers, playwrights, historians, mathematicians  seeking protection from thought police in other European countries.

Geneva also attracted religious leaders seeking freedom of speech, freedom of worship, and safety from those who would impose their brand by violent means. Geneva became a place of great prestige. To be a citizen of Geneva was something special. Economists and geographers would describe its principal characteristic to be its centrality  an intellectual and economic crossroads.

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The formal title of this city and its surroundings says that it is both a republic and a canton. It was proclaimed a republic in 1541, under the leadership of John Calvin, and was given a republican constitution (the Edits civils) two years later.

For a long time Geneva was seen as a partner and military ally of the Swiss Confederation, although it did not have the status of a canton. In 1815, having suffered the disasters of a French conquest and French revolutionary government, it chose to definitively become a canton, the 22nd in the Swiss Confederation, assuring the permanence of its ties to the others. Joining the confederation was Genevas proclamation of never again. Thus, its name continues to this date to be The Republic and Canton of Geneva.

Postal Reform

Great Britain was the first nation to introduce postage stamps for prepayment and to legislate the lowest possible rate of postage, uniformly applied to as many letters as possible, regardless of distance traveled.

The main foci of the British reforms were to aid businesses, to increase the number of letters written and posted, to eliminate certain frauds bothersome to the treasury, and to reduce the workload of postal employees.

Zurich was the second jurisdiction to introduce similar measures for essentially the same purposes. Postage stamps were issued March 1, 1843, as discussed in this Linns column posted online March 3.

Geneva, the most important and most advanced city in Switzerland, did not wish to lag behind its confreres of Zurich. Less than three months after Zurich stamps were issued to the public, a voice from Geneva was heard in the Grand Council speaking for postal reform, postage stamps, and prepayment of postage.

Professor Alphonse le Candolle had been a visitor in London in 1839 and had followed, of his own interest, the details of the governments efforts to reduce the rate of postage, introduce the prepayment, and simplify the system for the benefit of the public and the administration. He was most impressed by the commitment of the British authorities to go the distance for the benefit of small and large businesses.

On May 22 ,1843, le Candolle addressed the council with lengthy remarks regarding the functioning of the postal system in Geneva, as contrasted to the new postal system of Great Britain. His address is fully recorded in the annals.

Le Candolle made essentially three recommedations: (1) to grant selected businesses the franchise for selling postage; (2) to introduce postage stamps; (3) to do everything possible to simplify collection and delivery so as to make the mail system more convenient to the general public. In his estimation, these three measures would lead to a great increase in the volume of mail of the Geneva canton.

He concluded his lengthy remarks with the following summarizing paragraph, which conveys the motivation behind his suggestions, and some of the spirit of the time in Geneva.

The Petite Poste or Cantonal Post seems to me to be destined to receive twice or three times as many letters as at present; but in order to reach that probable increase, the reduction of the rates, which are already moderate, does not appear to me to be the chief means. The aim will be more certainly attained by accelerating the delivery of letters, and by enabling everybody to prepay them without going out of his way for the purpose. I hope the Administration will consider the suggestions I have had the honour of submitting. To facilitate their examination, I deposit specimens of the labels and envelopes in use in England. For these I have to thank Judge Prevost and his brother, Mr. L. Prevost, Swiss Consul in London. The last named gentleman is so placed that he can give all such information that may be desired, and this he would no doubt furnish with the enlightened zeal he brings to bear upon the business affairs of his own country.

The honorable member then deposited on the table two letter envelopes with the stamps used in England.

From there on, things moved rapidly. Within a day or two, the minutes of the meeting were forwarded to the Finance Department for their views.

On June 13, the Finance Department responded in detail with a document, still extant, that stated they disagreed with the granting franchises for selling stamps, but agreed wholeheartedly with the other objectives and the suggestions put forth for their achievement. Regarding issuing stamps for prepayment, they went so far as to say:

The Department, without judging it necessary to state the reasons for its opinion, sees nothing that is not most beneficial in this measure which is already in vogue in England and at Zurich.

On June 19, less than a week later, the Council of State held a meeting and issued the following orders:

(1) Recommends to the Grand Council to proceed with the production of postage stamps for prepayment of postage.

(2) That no changes of postal rates be made at this time.

(3) Recommends the Grand Council to commission the Administration to provide a detailed proposal for the production of stamps.

(4) It does not recommend the franchising for the distribution of postage stamps.

Accordingly, a contract for the printing of stamps was awarded to the firm Schmidt Lithographers, local printers in Geneva. The project moved rapidly.

On Sept. 26, the Council of State held a meeting and advised the Grand Council that the stamps for 5 centimes and 10c were ready and would be distributed through the post offices of Geneva and Carouge, and would be available to the public beginning Oct. 1, 1843.

On Wednesday, Sept. 27, posters were affixed in various locations throughout the city to inform the public of the new system of prepayment.

With characteristic Swiss efficiency, on Oct. 1, 1843, Geneva became the fourth nation-state in the world to issue postage stamps, after Great Britain, Zurich, and Brazil.

The Double Geneva

The first stamp issued by the canton was peculiar. It can be described as a 10-centime stamp that could be split to be used as two 5c stamps, or it can be described as two 5c stamps joined together so they could be readily used as a 10c stamp.

It made complete sense to create such a dual stamp because the postage rates remained unchanged by the executive edict: 5c for city letters and 10c for cantonal mail between towns or cities. The stamp (Scott 2L1) quickly became known as the Double Geneva, a name that it still has today.

The double function of the stamps is reflected in the design. Each stamp bears the value 5.C, and the pair is crowned by a cartouche with the insciption 10. PORT CANTONAL. Cent. Thus both functions are clearly stated.

Each stamp has in the center the citys shield divided into two halves. At right is the key, a symbol of the independence and security of the city; and at left is a large part of an eagle, which is awkwardly crowned.

Over the escutcheon is a ribbon with the inscription POST TENEBRAS LUX, which is a motto of the postal service (roughly: the post brings light to darkness). Above that is a tiny sunburst with the letters JHS, which is a reference to the Lord Jesus. Above and below are the inscriptions Poste de Geneve and Port Cantonal.

It was stated in the councils edict of September that 60,000 Double Geneva stamps were to be printed. Each sheet would contain 100 stamps arranged in 10 rows of 10. Thus 600 sheets were printed. It was stated by expert philatelists that approximately 90 percent of the stamps were split, for local use. If that is correct, only 6,000 pairs were used or remained in unused condition at the time.

We can assume that a 10 percent survival rate, calculated for many other classic stamps, also holds for this stamp. We can accordingly estimate that no more than 600 pairs of Double Geneva stamps exist today, including, unused, used, fine, and damaged examples. The author has seen examples utterly destroyed by the passage of time and carelessness of handling.

Four months later, the Finance Department considered the sale of stamps to be insufficient. The public was apathetic regarding the innovations implemented. Sending letters unpaid was a habit hard to shake.

This reluctance to adopt the new method also was found in Great Britain, and later in France. The solution favored by those countries was to impose higher rates of postage due for letters sent unpaid.

Genevas Finance Department, however, suggested a more conciliatory method: the reduction of the price of the stamps. A resolution of Feb. 6,1844, stated that the 10c stamps would be sold for 8c, and the 5c stamps would be sold for 4c. The rates for unpaid letters would continue to be 10c and 5c, respectively.

Sales improved. In 1844, a total of 5,383 letters were mailed bearing the double stamp of 8c. Numbers were pointing in the right direction. After the price reduction took place in March, the number of prepaid letters in the 8c category was 427; in September 1844, the number of prepaid letters had reached 647. Still, the proportion of letters that were prepaid was only about 7 percent, from a total of about 77,000 for the whole canton for the year.

The Small Eagle

The postal reform implemented in 1843 was moving along in the right direction but more slowly than thought. Still, progress made during 1844 was encouraging, and the Grand Council, Finance Department, and the post office were all three of one mind: full steam ahead, this needs to be done, and the sooner the better.

Pressure was mounting from the public to reduce postal rates. On March 6, 1845, the Finance Department decided to respond to the public sentiment and proposed to the Grand Council a new schedule of reduced postal rates, as follows:

Article I called for letters below 1 ounce to be charged 5c for the whole canton; letters between 1 ounce and 3 ounces to be charged 10c for the whole canton. The rate for each additional ounce was 10c.

Article II stated that stamps would be sold singly for 5c each and 4 francs for 100.

The Grand Council met again March 14, 1845, and accepted Article I, with modification of the second article.

Article II read: The Finance Department is authorized to order that 5 centimes stamps for the interior be sold at 4 centimes each.

Within the next two or three days, a second contract was signed with the printers. The same firm was chosen. Schmidt began work on a new stamp, following instructions from the postmaster and introducing a few artistic improvements of his own.

He worked feverishly: artwork, master die, intermediary transfers, making the stone, acquiring the paper, the inks, the gum, and printing. Before April 1, Schmidt was able to tell Postmaster Pasteur the stamps were ready and could be distributed to the public on April 1, 1845. A more dizzying speed of production cannot be found in the annals of classical stamp production.

The stamps (Scott 2L2) were printed by lithography in sheets of 100, 10 rows of 10 stamps each. There were a few differences in the design from the previous Double Geneva.

The denomination was 5 C, and there was no dot after the C. The inscription Poste de Geneve, instead of being placed at angles over the shield, was placed in a more seemly arch. The inscription JHC was replaced by IHC, which meant the same. The inscription below the shield now read Port Cantonal because the stamp was valid equally for city mail and cantonal mail. The eagle was drawn with more detail, and its wing did not touch the escutcheons border; more obvious yet, the bird was not crowned.

One more detail is important. This stamps layout on the stone left very little space between stamps. The average distance between stamps, both vertically and horizontally was about  millimeter; that means that a stamp with clear margins of about mm on all sides may be considered to be a very fine example. The only other classic stamps that come to mind with such narrow space between subjects are those of the first issues of Thurn and Taxis.

Schmidt printed 120,000 examples of this stamp. Because the Double Geneva was still available, the post office encouraged its use, in singles, of course, as the basic rate was now 5c.

Business was picking up for the post office. In December 1846, another order was placed with the lithographers. In about 21 months, the stock of 120,000 stamps was depleted. That means about 5,700 stamps, on average, were sold each month. Compare that with 500 to 700 stamps sold in late 1844.

There is little question that the Geneva experiment worked very well. The number of letters posted had increased steadily, and the number of letters bearing postage paid had increased tenfold in less than two years. The public paid less for their postage, and businesses were entirely satisfied with their post office and its workings.

There were two more stamps printed by Schmidt Lithographers in 1846 and 1848 (Scott 2L3 and 2L4). They differ in details from the two dealt with here, and I will discuss their history and characteristics in a future column.

Images are from the archive of Sergio and Liane Sismondo.
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Two sides should exchange staff to promote greater understanding among readers and viewers

The relationship between China and Africa is receiving a mixed reaction from the media. Despite a marked increase of reporting internationally on the growing contacts between the two countries, negative reports are also multiplying.

To change this situation, we should strengthen communication between the media of both sides.

Media from Africa, China and Western countries focus on different perspectives when reporting on China-Africa relations, making the partnership appear complicated and difficult to understand.

In particular, Western media often exaggerate worries about China's role on the continent, which may be misunderstood by the international community and adversely affect the perceptions of Africans, obstructing long-term development of the relationship.

Therefore, it is imperative that the two partners proactively promote interactions between media and expand and enhance cooperation in order to infuse vitality into the development of bilateral relations.

Generally speaking, the Chinese media are influenced by the West in reporting on China-Africa relations. Chinese people therefore lack a comprehensive knowledge of Africa. Their perception influences their decisions, restricting economic, trade and interpersonal exchanges.

However, the picture is totally different for those who have actually been to Africa and are enchanted by its wonderful landscapes.

Those who have worked and lived in Africa for a while have strong affection for the continent. It is commonly said in China that Africa is a place you are afraid to visit, but you will love it when you do and will miss it when you leave. The media play a significant role in setting an agenda that can have a great influence on public opinion and behavior.

On the other hand, Western media reporting has cast China in a negative way. Reports often imply a "Chinese threat" and "neocolonialism". Western observers report that Chinese enterprises fail to fulfill their social responsibilities and pollute the African environment. In recent years they have criticized China for importing African wildlife products. This has dominated the media, leaving no room for successes in China-Africa economic cooperation.

In this context, some China-invested enterprises have become overcautious when operating in Africa, which goes against the goal of deepening cooperation.

Western media turn a blind eye to the contribution of Chinese enterprises in providing services and creating jobs for local people, as well as their efforts to protect environment. For example, the Shandong Iron and Steel Group invested in an iron ore mining project in Sierra Leone. By the end of September 2016, the project employed 2,738 staff, 2,556 of who were locals, more than 93 percent of the total staff. In addition, nearly six percent were from 20 other countries and less than one percent from the Shandong mining company.

Meanwhile, a number of contractors are involved in the project and have additionally recruited more than 1,000 local people. According to estimates by the Sierra Leone government, the project has created jobs directly or indirectly for more than 5,000 people, giving an impetus to local commercial development.

African nations are similar to, or even the same as, Western countries in terms of ideologies, values, languages and cultures. Most official and commercial African media outlets are small in scale and lack sufficient journalists and editors. As a result, they often reprint news articles from Western media, which helps expand the influence of the West in Africa.

Negative reporting by the West has caused the Chinese government, its enterprises and even self-employed business people to be aware of problems in China-Africa relations. Rules and regulations have been or are being formulated to provide better guidance for enterprises and individuals, which will bring improvements and thus promote bilateral ties. For example, enterprises including PetroChina and Sinopec are making more contributions to the local population. They have become more aware of environmental protection. China itself suffers from pollution brought about by economic development but has promised it will never sully the blue skies of Africa in the same way.

It is evident that all media, including those from the West, also play the role of supervisor, pushing China and Africa to confront and solve problems.

Chinese media focus on positive reporting while Western media do just the opposite. On March 4, Bethany Allen-Ebrahimian published an article entitled "How China Won the War Against Western Media" on the website of Foreign Policy, an American bimonthly magazine. In the article, she said that American media tend to report negative and sensational news and focus on the dark side of events. As she wrote, "With a media environment like this, it's little wonder that Chinese officials and media workers can find what they present as evidence of Western media bias against China."

To improve Chinese and African reporting, we should strengthen cooperation and communication between media of both sides. More African journalists, editors and columnists should be invited to visit China, while more Chinese journalists should be encouraged to visit Africa. On-the-spot coverage will help create better understanding and show the real China and Africa to readers.

Practically, mainstream media of both sides should cooperate in selecting topics and doing joint interviews on major topics, such as the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation. Moreover, it is important to take advantage of new media such as the internet to share information resources, including texts, photographs, video and TV programs.

Also, we should pay attention to communication between scholars and the media. Specializing in particular areas, scholars can give objective explanations of the causes and effects of an event while conducting profound analysis, instead of simply judging between right and wrong. Their voices are convincing and can guide the international media toward taking a rational look at China-Africa relations.

When training media staff in China and Africa, we should inform them of the history, status quo and development direction of China-Africa relations, as well as teaching them about key areas such as economy, infrastructure, finance and production capacity cooperation. Media staff should keep abreast of the international situation and standpoints.

More important, China and Africa should exchange news staff - encouraging Chinese students to learn journalism in Africa at public or personal expense, and encouraging African students to go to China. In this way, we can cultivate journalists with a good knowledge of both sides.

Media play an important role in relations. We should place a high value on the role of media and strengthen cooperation between media on both sides.

The author is deputy editor-in-chief of Social Sciences in China Press under the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, a research fellow of the Institute of West-Asian and African Studies and a doctoral supervisor of the Graduate School at CASS.

The views on this page do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.

(China Daily European Weekly 03/31/2017 page13)
Editor's note: China is divided into as many culinary regions as there are different ethnic groups. Its geographical diversity and kaleidoscopic cultural profiles contribute to an unending banquet of flavors.

Chinese cuisine is an old game played through a revolving door of new players. For thousands of years, generations of cooks have labored anonymously behind kitchen doors to innovate and fine-tune one of the world's most intricate epicurean heritages.

Now, in the new-age era of the celebrity chefs, they are finally stepping out in style.

Menex Cheung, 34, is the Chinese executive chef of the Shangri-la Hotel Group's China World Summit Wing, Beijing, an imposing edifice on the Third Ring Road that eyeballs the iconic CCTV Building across the way.

Menex Cheung is the Chinese executive chef of the Shangri-la Hotel Group's China World Summit Wing, Beijing. Photos Provided to China Daily

The shiny steel and glass tower is a fitting backdrop for the chef, who would stand out anywhere with his spiky Mohawk hair and his preferred modes of transport, a remodeled Mini Cooper and a Segway.

I first met him when he was helming the kitchen of the best hotel in Hohhot, Inner Mongolia, where he was both shocking and delighting the locals with his dramatic innovations at the table.

And, yes, he was riding his Segway even then.

The young chef next moved to Beijing, where his talents blossomed for the opening of the Waldorf Astoria on Jinbao Street, and his dormant desire for adventure matured like a simmering stock pot.

Cheung experimented, ate and traveled, often representing China at international cooking exhibitions and contests. When he accepted his latest assignment, he was ready to show off what he could really do, as a chef, innovator and manager - essential in a Chinese kitchen.

He offers insights from the kitchen floor.

How do chefs of your generation bring a new perspective to such a time-honored cuisine?

I trained as a Chinese chef, so I should speak first from this angle. In my opinion, it's really hard to say what's good and what's not. The reason is: Individual tastes vary so widely.

It's an age-old problem, pleasing the palate of your diners. For me, innovation is to offer your diners something fresh, something they've never seen before, something to stimulate their senses, their tastebuds.

But it cannot be blind creativity, because diners must be pleased within a comfort zone.

I always make it a point to ask my diners: 'Did you enjoy the meal? Was it satisfying? Was it a comfortable experience?'

As a chef, I have to make sure the meal is a complete experience, that they leave the table with a full tummy and happy tastebuds. It's an ongoing mission and I'm still striving for perfection.

Modern logistics have widened the spectrum of ingredients to choose from. How has that affected Chinese cuisine?

As a chef in China, you already have a vast choice of local ingredients from almost an entire continent. At China World Summit Wing, I have the added advantage of an international purchasing system

This has given me the freedom to shrug off many die-hard traditions. For example, I may use Beijing's signature ceramic pot yogurt and combine it with traditional cat's-ear noodles for my version of lasagne, or use Spanish red prawns for a very Cantonese finely-diced ginger and Shaoxing steamed prawns.

What are the essential qualities for success in this age of intense competitiveness?

No matter which generation you come from, which profession you choose, it really boils down to hard work and passion.

If you are not willing to work hard, and don't love what you're doing, or if you cannot resist temptation and stay unwavering on the course, you'll never reach the top.

I want to share something with aspiring chefs: Don't be seduced by what you see on television, that's only the superficial glamour. You don't see the sweat and tears, you don't see the physical hard work. You have to really love what you're doing, or you'll never succeed.

Do you have a formula for success?

This is a tough one. As my wife often reminds me, I'm not as young as I used to be. I can hardly bear the weight of being labeled young and successful.

But I can share a little story: When I first started my apprenticeship in the Chinese kitchen, most of my fellow disciples would take advantage of our afternoon break to take a siesta, play video games or go for a cup of tea before returning in the evening.

This is normal practice, because the long hours in the kitchen can be truly tiring.

Only two boys ever stayed behind, resisting the calls of the brothers to go out and play. Instead, they practiced their wok-tossing skills and perfected their knife-work. They spent two-thirds of their waking moments in the kitchen.

I was one of those boys, the other is Lee Sheng, the executive Chinese chef of the Shangri-la Hotel in Paris.

You need to invest a lot of hard work and determination even if you have the talent, a glib tongue and creative hands. You have to have the desire to learn, either from a five-star chef or a cook at the dapaidang street food stall. Once you've learned these skills, no one can take them away from you.

You need to have the confidence to want to learn. Only a man with no self-confidence is afraid to open his mouth to ask.

Chef Menex Cheung certainly understands the hard work behind the glamour, but his creativity can be seen in the unique dishes offered to his diners.

Let his food speak for itself.

paulined@chinadaily.com.cn

Chef Cheung's new take on old classics:

Popcorn Rice in Lobster Stew

Every chef has a signature dish that testifies to his personal culinary journey. For Chef Menex Cheung, this popcorn rice is part of his evolution as a young cook experimenting with textures and flavors to his eventual confidence as a master chef who is totally in control of his presentation. This playful creation encapsulates all the best in Chinese cooking with a flavorful tomato-based lobster broth, a medley of sweet seafood and the pop and crackle of crisp popcorn rice

Crisp-Skinned Lamb with Cumin

The chef spent a few very interesting years in Inner Mongolia, where lamb is the main meat and cumin a major seasoning.Cheung embraced these unfamiliar flavors and made them his own, playing again on the contrasting textures and flavors to surprise the diner with an adventure in the mouth. His use of spring roll wrappers add an almost architectural interest.

Fire and Ice Little Egg Waffle

A delightful dessert and a meal in itself that is a nod to the chef's Hong Kong roots. These little egg waffles were every Hong Kong child's secret indulgence and favorite street food.Cheung piles ice cream and fresh berries on top of the piping hot waffle to create a contrast of hot and cold, crisp and juicy, and finally, popping candy adds the finishing touch to a dessert that dances on the palate.

(China Daily European Weekly 03/31/2017 page20)
Lounge Preview: Kindred Spirits Maithili Ahluwalia of Bungalow 8 brings a slice of Sri Lankan fashion to India /news/talking-point/lounge-preview-kindred-spirits-111646882954552.html 111646882954552 story

Its not just a surface fit. Its an ideological fit," says Maithili Ahluwalia, at her south Bombay concept store, Bungalow 8, about how she found the Fernandos" and managed to get them over to Mumbai.

The Fernandos are a Sri Lanka-based family with a string of properties that define hip Colombo: home store Paradise Road, the Gallery Cafe and Bentota Villa, both designed by famous modernist architect Geoffrey Bawa, and Tintagel hotel, among others. These have all been set up by Udayshanth Fernando, the family patriarch, who has established a modest empire with a distinct design bent over the last three decades. Annika Fernando, his daughter, runs a concept store called PR from where she retails her own clothing brand, Maus, defined by an effortlessly chic quality, and curates other designers works.

Now, Ahluwalia has collaborated with Annika for a three-day pop-up at Bungalow 8, presenting a collection of 200-plus piecesclothing, accessories, footwear and jewelleryby seven Sri Lankan designers.

Batik is a prominent theme for the clothing. Designer Sonali Dharmawardenas statement skirts give a glamour makeover to traditional Batik. No two pieces are the same," points out Annika. Dresses by Kanchana Thalpawilas label KT Brown flare beautifully and are crafted in such a way that there is only a single seam. Kanchana is fiercely passionate about the traditional dumbara weaving of Sri Lanka," adds Annika. KUR by Sri Lankan designer Kasuni Rathnasuriya presents lovely beeralu lacework, combined with Batik. Theres also handcrafted jewellerybox clutches in solid brass, statement cuffs with botanical motifsby Saskia Fernando, Annikas sister. And theres Maus, which showed at the latest Colombo Fashion Week.

An earthy colour palette with minimal embellishments, and geometry offset by abstract Batik patterns, all with a tropical undercurrentthe collection at Bungalow 8 is representative of emerging Sri Lankan fashion. Its a very exciting time for design in Sri Lanka. Someone like Kanchana is insistent on using clothing as a means of expressing identity. Or consider how brands all over the world play up the story of being ethical. All of Sonalis (Dharmawardena) work is produced by differently-abled women. But its not part of her story. She never puts a tag saying this was made by a differently-abled woman. Theres a confidence and individuality among designers thats coming through," says Annika.

Now, Ahluwalia has collaborated with Annika for a three-day pop-up at Bungalow 8, presenting a collection of 200-plus pieces.

Ahluwalia says thats one of the reasons why she felt so strongly drawn to the Fernandos. When I experienced the whole Fernando story during my visits to Colombo, I felt here is a brand taking tradition, history, the local, current context and giving it an up-to-date, contemporary relevance. We live in a world where every individual voice gets bought over by conglomerates and is then present in every single airport shop in the world, so its refreshing to find a singular family with a strong, independent voice that they have preserved. Thats really what resonated immediately, because thats what we hope we are as well at Bungalow 8".

The Bungalow 8 store, which moved from its older Colaba location to the Wankhede Stadium location two years ago, is a unique space. It has a stepped ceiling architecture since its within the Wankhede stadium premises. The interior has been done up in chatai and jute, and it puts together an eclectic mix of folk and tribal motifs set among minimal, modern lines. With help from designer Isla Maria Loulou" van Damme, it has been reinvented for the three-day exhibit to evoke a tropical forest, a very Sri Lankan association". Bungalow 8 has also tied up with Jhaveri Contemporary, an art and photo gallery in Walkeshwar, and borrowed rare photographs by Sri Lankan photographer Lionel Wendt, to exhibit at the event (Wendt is known for his stunning black and white portraits of Sri Lankan men, shot in the 1960s).

Annika and Ahluwalia complete each others sentences and reinforce each others perspectives. This is not a trunk show with leftovers from Annikas store that have now come to mine. There are collections designed especially for this show," says Ahluwalia. Annika adds: Its not just two people who think its fun to play in fashion. Its about loving what you do and working doggedly to continue that identity." The pop-up is on till Sunday, 11am-8pm at Bungalow 8, inside Wankhede Stadium, off Marine Drive, Mumbai. Prices, from Rs5,000-50,000.
Asghar Farhadis fractured cinema From 'About Elly' to 'The Salesman', the Iranian director has delivered one fraught, complex stunner after another /how-to-lounge/movies-tv/asghar-farhadi-s-fractured-cinema-111646883259823.html 111646883259823 story

Asghar Farhadis The Salesman (just released in select cities) takes its title from Arthur Millers best-known play. Death Of A Salesman is performed by a Tehran troupe in the film, and the first few shots are of an empty theatre, with stagehands at work and the cast warming up off-screen. Then, suddenly, were jolted from a world being constructed to one coming apart. In a chaotic, unbroken 2-minute sequence, we see a young married couple, Emad (Shahab Hosseini) and Rana (Taraneh Alidoosti), fleeing their collapsing building as it groans and shakes and cracks form in the windows.

Rana and Emads world will soon fracture further, but before that, Farhadi sketches their life in a series of deft strokes. Both are stage actors (they play the central couple in the Miller play); Emad is also a schoolteacher, popular with his students. They seem fairly well off, artistically minded; theyre considering starting a family, and are on the lookout for a new flat. Theyre pointed to one by a friend, and its only after they move in that they learn that the previous inhabitant was a prostitute.

One night when Emad is out, Rana is badly injured when a stranger enters their house and walks in on her in the bathroom (whether there was physical assault is left ambiguous). This shocking incident sets up the rest of the film, but a key scene some 20 minutes later has little to do with it. Emad, exhausted, puts on a film for his students and dozes off in the dark. As schoolchildren anywhere in the world might, they start fooling around, making a video of their teacher sleeping. Emad wakes and directs his frustration at a student with the phone. He threatens to involve his parents, only to be told by the others that the childs father is dead.

The emotional seesawing of this scene is pure Farhadi. We start the scene feeling terrible about Rana, but the children are undeniably funny. We crack a smile at Emad sleeping, then feel bad for him, then worry that hes being excessive. The same shifting of sympathies will happen under more challenging circumstances later in the film, as Emad becomes obsessed with finding the intruder. The unravelling of personalities pushed to extremes is a hallmark of this directors work. You identify with a Farhadi character at your own risk; theres always a moment of ugly, human failing waiting to happen.

This February, The Salesman won Farhadi his second foreign-language Oscar. He had earlier won the same award for A Separation, which put him on the global cinema map when it released in 2011. Viewers stunned by the films frenetic pace, intricate structure and psychological acuity dove into his back catalogue, discovering similarly accomplished works like Fireworks Wednesday and About Elly (which won Farhadi the Silver Bear for best director at the 2009 Berlinale). By the time The Past premiered at Cannes in 2013, the world had caught up with Farhadi.

Farhadi is from Iran, a nation that exploded on to the global cinema scene in the 1990s. The largely concurrent rise of Abbas Kiarostami, Jafar Panahi, Samira and Mohsen Makhmalbaf, and Majid Majidi signalled a new kind of cinematic language: intimate, rough-hewn, lyrical. It didnt matter that Kiarostami and Majidi made markedly different filmsthey were all grouped together under the broad banner of Iranian cinema", which was soon to become cinephile spinach, something you were supposed to appreciate whether or not you liked it.

If Farhadi stands apart from this group, its not just because he came to prominence in the 2000s but because his features didnt fit the popular perception of what Iranian films are like. Intricately plotted, masterfully edited, his films pushed the family drama into the realm of the psychological thriller. His narratives are often constructed around an incidenta disappearance in About Elly, an altercation in A Separationwhose implications then ripple outwards in surprising ways. As Ratik Asokan, writing for Guernica, put it: While conventional thrillers arrow towards their climax, Farhadis plots are widening gyres: they grow out, and often away from, a climactic event that occurs rather early on."

In 2012, Asghar Farhadi submitted his 10 choices for Sight & Sound magazines best films of all time poll. His list is eclecticthe selections range from Take The Money And Run to Tokyo Storyand while there might be a danger in reading too much into it, two entries strike me as significant. Nearly all of Farhadis films involve multiple, competing perspectives of a single event, and Akira Kurosawas Rashomonthe first title on his listis the urtext for this sort of stuff. Theres also Krzysztof Kieslowskis Three Colours: Red, a somewhat surprising inclusion until you think about how closely Farhadis films, with their fraught energy and moral complexity, resemble early Kieslowski films like Blind Chance and A Short Film About Killing (it would be fascinating if the Iranian, like the Polish master, takes a mid-career turn towards overt visual stylization).

Farhadi is shooting his next film with Javier Bardem and Penelope Cruz in Spain; this will be his second feature outside Iran after The Past, which was made in France. Shooting in another country holds the attraction of a brief holiday from the Iranian censors, whom Farhadi once compared to the unpredictable British weather in an interview. Though his anti-Trump statements in the wake of the travel ban might have secured him the temporary goodwill of the authorities, Farhadi will be aware how quickly this attitude can change. In 2010, during the making of A Separation, he spoke in favour of Panahi (then, as now, banned from directing) and Mohsen Makhmalbaf (who left the country to escape official restrictions). The government immediately placed a ban on the films production, lifting it only once Farhadi apologized.

Farhadi has said he will not make political or message" films. Whether or not this is a bit of misdirection aimed at the authorities, his films are, if not straightforwardly political, certainly immersed deeply in, and often critical of, Iranian society, particularly the position of women and the egos of men. We see this in The Salesman, where even a decent, broad-minded person like Emad cant help making his wifes assault about himself. Yetand this is where the Kieslowski comparison comes in againeven as his films reflect and confront society, they have no moral absolutes; no relationship is simple, and no one, whatever their actions, is shown as undeserving of sympathy. Its for this reason that Farhadis films are most deserving of the tag thats applied carte blanche to all of Iranian cinema: humanist.

The Salesman released in theatres in Delhi, Mumbai, Pune and Bengaluru on 31 March.

World View is a Lounge series which look at whats making waves on the global cinema scene.
This man is the India I was born in He is the India that I care to live in. An India that honours my choices and accepts me with love and respect. That cares for my opinion /news/talking-point/this-man-is-the-india-i-was-born-in-111646883413176.html 111646883413176 story

When I first spoke to my father-in-law, everyone else in the family was embarrassed on my behalf.

It was the first time Papa had visited our home in Delhi and I had finally got a moment with him when we were on our way to drop him back to the railway station. Everyone else in the car was quiet and seemed tense.

Did you enjoy yourself, Papa?" I asked him from the back seat. Ammi laughed at the silliness.

Papa does not enjoy himself in our company," his daughter said. He just puts up with us somehow. He will be back in his element when he reaches his home in the village."

No, I think Papa looks quite happy," I said, refusing to accept her version of him over my version of him.

Tell me, Papa," I asked again.

Yes, I enjoyed myself," he said from the front seat of the car.

Come again soon and stay with us."

Let me leave first. Then we shall see," he said.

Of all the Papas I have known, my husbands father is the most gentle, kindly version with small eyes that twinkle when he smiles.

Mirza Ashfaq Beg was a 17-year-old student in 1947 when India became independent and was partitioned to create Pakistan. His elder brother was working as a customs officer in Chittagong (now in Bangladesh). He chose to continue with his job and thus his family and he became Pakistanis. Papa went to study at Aligarh Muslim University and became a lecturer in an intermediate college in east Uttar Pradesh. He retired as a principal.

When we travel in the areas near his home, we invariably meet someone who recognizes us as the family of Principal Sahab. His students are everywhere. We are treated to stories of Papas glory. For 40 years he was re-elected as the gram pradhan of his village panchayat and is widely respected as a leader of the community.

I did not know who my father was till I travelled with him on his campaign trail," my husband Afzal had told me once. Papa had been a candidate in the 2002 legislative elections in Uttar Pradesh. His reputation and speeches laced with Urdu poetry would draw large crowds, but failed to get many votes.

He is a very good man, he has done so much for us, but you see, politics mein sharafat ki koi jagah nahi hai (there is no place in politics for civility)," people would echo.

Krishnanand Rai, the winning candidate from the same constituency, was shot dead in an ambush three years later. I was in the newsroom at work when the news broke. My hands went cold with dread. In my own amateur way, I realized the importance for Papa of losing that election.

When his wife, my mother-in-law, died 18 months ago, my friend Aneela sent me a cryptic message. Which one of you will become Ammi now, that is the question," she texted.

We discovered that the answer to Aneelas query was Papa. He seemed to have decided that no one was going to feel Ammis loss till he could help it. He began to fuss over everyone, worry about travel schedules and order favourite foods to be presented for each person in the family. His own grown children marvel at this side of him, unused to him as a nurturing parent.

Papas children and extended family take him very seriously as the patriarch of the family. He is surrounded by people trying to anticipate his needs.

The first person who smashed this hierarchy was Papas youngest grandchildour daughter, Naseem. In a house full of people, she would toddle up to her grandfather with her shoes and ask him to help her wear them and tie her shoelaces. She would insist that only he could read stories to her from her books. Ammi would laugh with embarrassment at the scene.

This is the only version of Papa that Naseem and I have ever known, and for us, this kind, attentive grandparent is his essential self.

My father-in-law has been in and out of hospital for two weeks now. He has suffered a spinal fracture from a fall and we brought him to our home to be able to take better care of him. He has been in acute pain and sometimes it disorients him, making him forget where he is or who he is with.

I have been holding and caressing his hand a lot. It is time to care for those who have taken care of others all their lives.

His son and grandson are his primary caregivers and often retreat from his room unable to feed or console him in the way they had hoped to do. Papa gets frustrated and sometimes scolds them.

When I enter the room, he always smiles, however feeble his strength may be.

Dont be anxious," he says to me. How are the children? Take care of yourself."

Papa, have some soup with a slice of bread," I say. He agrees with a nod.

For once I am the good cop and my husband is the bad cop in a family scene. I am loving this privilege.

When we got married in Delhi, Ammi and Papa had hosted a lavish wedding reception, a walima, in their village home. Over three days, approximately 5,000 people from surrounding villages had attended the feast.

Papa had got our wedding cards printed in Urdu, Hindi and English with my parents Hindu names next to his own Muslim family names.

This man, lying sick in bed today, is the India I was born in. He is the India that I care to live in. An India that honours my choices and accepts me with love and respect. That cares for my opinion. That reorganizes and reinvents itself to make place for my children.

What is the news," he asks me, as his pain subsides. I dont tell him about the viral video of the brutal assault on African students within a kilometre of where we live. I dont mention anti-Romeo squads humiliating young people in parks and streets in his beloved Uttar Pradesh. I dont bring up the controversy over the Finance Bill amendments.

I hold his hand in mine, searching for what to tell him.

Natasha Badhwar is a film-maker, media trainer and mother of three.
Ashokamitran: The invisible giant Unlike his contemporaries of comparable stature, Tamil writer Ashokamitran, who died last week, lived on the margins of the national literary establishment /news/talking-point/ashokamitran-the-invisible-giant-111646883228773.html 111646883228773 story

With the death of Ashokamitran on 23 March in Chennai, a unique chapter in the annals of Indian literature has come to an end. For readers everywhere, the special power of Ashokamitrans fiction derived from his exclusive focus on the experienced reality of individuals rather than on abstractions of ideology or intellect. In this way, his literary mode was very different from other eminent Indian writers who were his contemporaries. Even in the Tamil literary milieu, he stood apart from his peers, forging an inimitable style and language for his fiction, and remaining the engaged outsider in his voluminous output of essays and columns on a wide variety of subjects, ranging from literature and cinema to personalities and politics.

What were the factors that had engendered Ashokamitrans unique perspective and influenced his chosen literary mode? How different were they from the influences and circumstances that had shaped the work of his contemporaries like Mahasweta Devi, Nirmal Verma, U.R. Ananthamurthy and Sunil Gangopadhyay?

Also read: The poet who wasnt Shelley

Ashokamitran had many things in common with these writers. Like them, he too started writing seriously in the first decade of a newly independent former colony, packed with people who were desperately poor. Compared to the languages of Europe, the tradition of modern literature in the European sense was barely 70 years old in his language, Tamil. The situation was not vastly different in Bengali, Hindi and Kannada. It was a time when an overarching vision of a modernizing society had captured the imagination of all Indians, especially the artists and writers among them. But the thematic concerns, literary practice and, ultimately, the careers of these writers were shaped by many other factors that were largely related to each writers individual circumstance as well as talents and priorities.

Mahasweta Devi. Photo: Ernesto Ruscio/ Getty Images

The great Bengali writer, Mahasweta Devi (1926-2016), was born to literary parents. Close relatives of her parents generation were eminent achievers in the fields of cinema, fine arts and journalism. She grew up in an environment that was conducive to artistic pursuits. Over time, Mahasweta Devi became committed to writing about oppressed tribals in her fiction. She has said that the reason and inspiration for my writing are those people who are exploited and used, and yet do not accept defeat".

As her engagement with activism grew, activist writing came increasingly to supplant her output of creative fiction. Through both genres of writing, Mahasweta Devi sought out truth with passion and urgency. She saw her work as a kind of documentation that would make the reader face the truth of facts and feel duly ashamed of the true face of India".

Nirmal Verma. Photo: Hindustan Times

Nirmal Verma (1929-2005) was born in a stable, middle-class family which placed a high value on art and intellect. He earned a postgraduate degree in history from Delhi Universitys St Stephens College and was a card-carrying member of the Communist Party in his student days. He left the party after the Soviet invasion of Hungary in 1956.

Verma joined hands with well-established writers like Mohan Rakesh and Bhisham Sahni to found the Nayi Kahani or New Story movement in modern Hindi literature. The accent was on experimentation with themes and techniques. Verma largely eschewed the political in his fiction but his essays were always politically active, culturally alive. He had worked in every format of literature: short story, novel, travelogue, play and essay.

U.R. Ananthamurthy. Photo: Aniruddha Chowdhury/Mint

U.R. Ananthamurthy (1932-2014) was born in an orthodox Brahmin family on the west coast of Karnataka. A UK-educated professor of English, he used fiction to explore the persistence of tradition in the face of modernity and the conflict that individuals experience in that context. A follower of Ram Manohar Lohia, who had propounded a form of Gandhian socialism, another recurring theme in Ananthamurthys fiction was the choice made by individuals between acceptance of the status quo and political action to bring about social change.

Ananthamurthy believed in the importance of politics, insisting that change had to be brought about more through political action than creative writing. As a result of his intellectual explorations, conducted often in the medium of English and on national platforms, he was venerated as much for being a thinker as a writer.

Sunil Gangapadhyay. Photo: Indranil Bhoumik/Mint

Sunil Gangopadhyay (1934-2012) was regarded as one of Bengals most distinguished poets since Rabindranath Tagore. He was also productive in many other literary genresshort stories, novels, travelogues, essays and childrens fiction.

Like many Bengali writers of his generation, Gangopadhyay came under the influence of Communist ideology in his youth, and this was reflected in his work during the 1960s and 1970s. Well-known examples are Pratidwandi (adversary), Arjun and Aranyer Din Ratri (Days And Nights In The Forest). Aligned with the spirit of personal liberation that swept the world during the 1960s, he became almost the conscience of contemporary Bengali society, prompting his readers to question the morality, beliefs, double standards and hypocrisy of their society. He also explored the development and evolution of modern Bengali society in a celebrated trilogy of historical fiction. Sei Samay (Those Days), which dealt with the early phase of Bengal Renaissance during the middle of the 19th century, is the best known among them.

However, Ashokamitran (1931-2017) came from an entirely different socioeconomic background, one that determined his artistic trajectory. His father was one of 16 children born to a poor Brahmin schoolteacher from a village in the Cauvery delta, who died while three of his younger sons, including Ashokamitrans father, were still in school. All three sons completed their school education after an enormous struggle and migrated north to the erstwhile princely state of Hyderabad, becoming employees in the nizams railway. During his childhood in the railway colony in Secunderabad, at school and college, and in the world that lay beyond them in the twin cities, Ashokamitran learnt to live with a motley crowd of Anglo-Indians, Muslims, Dalits and even Parsis, developing an outlook that went beyond the identities of caste and religion and focused on the essentially human aspects of the social world. The condition of being uprooted from his native environment and the freewheeling contentiousness of urban living that cared little for communal boundaries must have contributed in no small measure to his way of seeing. Through his creative life of more than 60 years, Ashokamitran would return again and again to this formative environment and period, for which he harboured a lifelong affection.

Losing his father at the age of 20 and being forced to migrate along with his family to Madras (now Chennai) in 1952 entrenched him further in rootlessness, to coin a phrase, and anchored him in the human world in the widest possible sense. The forced migration was accompanied by a profound sense of loss. When a young editor from Penguin described Fourteen Years With Boss (2016) as a delightful story", he told me: No, its not a happy story at all. I shouldnt have uprooted myself from Secunderabad. I lost everything." He was 84 at the time.

It was perhaps this rootlessness that drew him to the existential agonies elaborated on by American writers Hemingway and Faulkner, and the documentary realism of an engage writer like John Dos Passos, in preference to the classical imagination of Shakespeare and Dickens. Through the power of his imagination and craft, Ashokamitran adapted this existential modernism to local conditions to produce an authentic and profound representation of the society around him, especially of those without the props of privilege and tradition.

As I wrote in the introduction to The Colours Of Evil (East-West Books, Madras, 1998): Ashokamitrans work fixes its wry, steady gaze on the urban landscape of Madras, without the comfort of inherited precepts, without the all-too-easy moral indignation, without the delusions and pretences that nevertheless seize and victimize his characters. No desolate sandstorm sweeps across his vision. For all that, his world remains quintessentially humanneither exalted for that reason, nor inexorably damned."

His time in the film industryat the time a frontier alliance between commercial art and industrial capitalmust have taught him even more about the treachery of human impulses, the vested interests of the privileged and the precarious lives of the working poor, depicted so exquisitely in his fiction. He was also acutely aware of the vulnerability of women, both within a traditional setting like the family and outside it, in the workplace, especially in the film industry. He wrote about the condition of women like no male Indian writer has done, before or since.

Even his decision to give up his day job at Gemini Studios to become a full-time writer can be seen as a refusal to submit to the conventional order of the world and the authority of institutions. It was also a necessary expression of solidarity with the oppressed and powerless humans who were to be the main focus of his writing. He was aware that there was nothing ordinary" about the ordinary people he was writing about. To quote again from the introduction to The Colours Of Evil, The grandeur of the ordinary, his work seems to assert, is the only kind that may yet bring true engagement to our lives."

On the practical front, the local Tamil milieu posed its own challenges. As a writer of literary" fiction, Ashokamitran had to survive on the fringes of a thriving popular fiction industry. Initially, there were very few takers for his modernist tales. He was nearly 40 before he could publish his first collection of short stories, titled, ironically, Vazhvile Oru Murai (Once In A Lifetime), since he wasnt sure there would be a second collection. During the 1970s, the audience for modernist literary fiction began to grow with the increasing popularity of the little magazine" movement. Over the next two decades, Ashokamitran made his mark on the national literary scene with a steady output of brilliant fiction that simply could not be ignored.

However, the mainstream literary milieu in Tamil Nadu, politicized to the core, was less than friendly to this writer who was born into the Brahmin caste. Lack of local recognition led to his gradual disappearance from the national scene during the 1990s, although he continued to be productive. The sheer literary merit of his works ensured that many of his works were translated into English during the translation boom that commenced in the 1990s. He received the Sahitya Akademi award in 1996, but without a set of prominent supporters and institutional backing, available to many of his contemporaries, there was little or no discourse at the national level on any of his works. This has led to an anomalous situation today, where young editors in publishing houses and those in charge of book-pages in newspapers and magazines havent even heard of him.

And so it was that Ashokamitran, in spite of being a pre-eminent writer in his native language, came to live on the margins of the national literary establishment. Unlike his contemporaries of comparable stature, he never became an activist who wanted to change the world through direct intervention, never wielded institutional power, never became a thinker" who dealt in abstractions like history and tradition, never formed alliances with other writers, locally or at the national level, never indulged in overt celebration of the sensuous life, and never enjoyed the respect and appreciation of the Anglophone literary elite, not even in his home town.

Yet, he has produced a body of work that is celebrated not only by several generations of readers in Tamil Nadu but also by a sizeable number of discerning readers across India and the world who have access to translations of his works.

Ashokamitran is the only one among the five great writers discussed here who did not receive the countrys highest literary honour, the Jnanpith award. I hope that the community of publishers, editors, critics, book journalists and intellectualsin Delhi and across the countrywill do their best to ensure that future generations will not only read his works but also have conversations about them. There can be no better way to honour this engaged outsider, a genius who graced our time and our lives.

N. Kalyan Raman is a Chennai-based translator who has published six volumes of Ashokamitrans fiction in translation.
Bounty of the sea and the sun Only those unfamiliar with dried fish claim that they smell. To me, the aroma is a reminder of life itself: summer, salt and the sea; big skies, blue water and fecund nature /news/talking-point/bounty-of-the-sea-and-the-sun-111646883172083.html 111646883172083 story

Must I pay tax to a Labbai who sells dried fish?" That dismissive response, probably made 303 years ago, irritated me.

The quote is from American professor Alf Hiltebeitels book Rethinking Indias Oral And Classical Epics: Draupadi Among Rajputs, Dalits And Muslims. It is attributed to Raja Desinga translocated Rajput who was master of Gingee Fort, deep in Tamil Naduas he dismissed a 12-year pending demand for tax from the nawab of Arcot, a vassal of the fading Mughal empire and a devotee of goddess Meenakshi.

The Labbai that Desing referred to are a Tamil-speaking Muslim group. The nawab, presumably, was a Labbai. But I was particularly interested in Desings derogatory reference to sellers of dried fish.

Desing was a Bundela, one of many Mughal-allied Rajput groups given jagirsfeudal land grantsin the south when a jagir shortage emerged in the north. Desings story is now legend: His 500 versus the nawabs 30,000, with Tamil ballads claiming the Bundela rode a flying horse. But the D-man clearly knew little about the power of those who dealt with dried fish.

Eventually, in 1714, Desing impaled himself on his sword in battle with the nawab, while the dried-fish sellers and eaters he derided flourished. Later that century, when the Maratha Confederacy made the Mughal emperor its vassal, one of the foods that fuelled the Maratha armieswhose empire once encompassed Gingeewas dried fish. Even after the Marathas had been subjugated by the British, Punes Shaniwar Wada palace, seat of the Peshwas, had nearly 50 stalls selling dried fish, according to an 1885 gazetteer issued by the Bombay Presidency.

To this day in Tamil Nadu, Labbai, Hindus and Christians sell dried fish, which for centuries has been air-dried, and is popular across the south, east and west coasts and the North-East. In short, everywhere but the north (save Kashmir), which explains Desings ignorant contempt, reflected in the attitudes of most northie friends who appeared stunned whenever they detect its long-lingering aroma in my kitchen.

Photo: Samar Halarnkar

My link to dried fish is intensely familial. I have eaten dried fish ever since I can remember: dried mackerel, prawn, kingfish, shark andmost intense and memorableBombay duck, its strong, salty flavour pervading modern Mumbai. For years it has been our comfort food, whipped out to enliven a vegetarian day. Many memorable meals consisted of bhakris (hand-flattened and flame-roasted bread made from millets or grain) or chapatis with dried fish, roasted or tossed with simple spicesred chilli and turmerickokum, garlic and onion. Last month, my aunt, once my prime supplier of dried prawns, jousted with my mother and me over which was better, sode or sukat, the former being larger dried prawns, the latter tiny shrimp.

These are important issues. Dried fish can also be a test of love. I knew I would be true to my vegetarian wife when she once cooked dried fish, standing at arms length from the pan, holding her nose and trying not to gag or be overwhelmed by the smoky, smelly intensity of it all.

Only those unfamiliar with dried fish claim that they smell. To me, the aroma is a reminder of life itself: summer, salt and the sea; big skies, blue water and fecund nature.

The big problem with dried fish in these days of eating healthy is their high salt content. So, today I have a recipe (below)from my motherwhere dried fish is not the centre of the entree but an ingredient.

You should also be careful while buying dried fish because it is dried in not-very-clean places, enduring raids by cats, dogs, flies and worse (dare I say it, rats). Some dried fish are toxic, laden with chemical preservatives, such as banned DDT and formalin, the stuff used to preserve bodies.

I get my supplies from the local ham shop, which sources dried fish from people they trustand I trust them.

Dried fish has also moved online (Giskaa.com), as Lounges editor pointed out to me, and you can get varietals from Nagaland to Karnataka delivered to your door. The North-East, particularly little Manipur, offers everything from smoked swamp eels to fermented varieties. Desing Raja would not have approved.

Spiced Flattened Rice Tossed With Dried Shrimp

Serves 6-8

Ingredients

K kg flattened rice (poha), wash, soak in water for 3 minutes and drain

4 onions, chopped

1 tomato, chopped

1 potato, boiled, peeled and chopped

6 green chillies, chopped

K tsp turmeric powder

15 curry leaves

2 tsp mustard seeds

2-3 tsp ginger, chopped

2 cups dried prawns, wash, soak in water for 15 minutes, drain. Add N tsp turmeric powder and K tsp red-chilli powder and keep aside

Juice of 3 limes

1 cup coriander, chopped

4 tsp vegetable or olive oil

Salt to taste (remember, the dried fish is salted)

Method

Heat oil in a non-stick wok. Splutter the mustard seeds, then add onions and saute for 3 minutes on medium heat. Add green chillies, ginger, curry leaves and saute till the onions are pink. Add tomatoes and potatoes and stir for a minute. Add the dried prawn and saute for 2 minutes. Reduce the heat. Add flattened rice, mix well and saute for 5 minutes. Add turmeric powder, lime juice, coriander and salt. Check for seasoning. Toss for 5 minutes; cover and cook for a further 5 minutes. Serve hot.

This is a column on easy, inventive cooking from a male perspective. Samar Halarnkar is the author of The Married Mans Guide To Creative CookingAnd Other Dubious Adventures.

The writer tweets as@samar11
What if there was no British Raj? What character might India have developed had the British never prevailed /news/talking-point/what-if-there-was-no-british-raj-111646883272075.html 111646883272075 story

The appearance recently of a series of books on India and the Raj shows that the history of empire is once again in fashion. There is Jon Wilsons magisterial India Conquered, which investigates the manufacturing of British power in India, and Ferdinand Mounts The Tears Of The Rajas, which explores its traumatic corollary. Shashi Tharoor delivers a withering review of colonial exploitation in An Era Of Darkness, while Walter Reid, in Keeping The Jewel In The Crown, exposes British perfidy in the closing chapter of Pax Britannica. Most of these books succumb, however, to sometimes painting history in black and whiteCurzon, as this column has argued before, earned points as a villain for partitioning Bengal, but it was also he who restored Indias monuments and preserved our historical heritage.

Its a slippery proposition, but what character might India have developed had the British never prevailed? Would the south have existed as an autonomous unit, possibly under French influence? After all, by the mid-18th century the French had booted the English even out of Madras, and established a robust peninsular presence. The chief of Pondicherry was dignified by the Mughal emperor as a nawab and managed to keep the Marathas at bay (apparently by plying the commanders lady with alcohol). Tipu Sultan was a friend of the French, and had it not been for revolutionary convulsions in the 1790s that preoccupied his allies overseas, he might have received the assistance he needed to vanquish the British. More endearingly, Tipu entertained plans to educate his sons in France, and given his interest in engineering, the fruits of the Industrial Revolution may well have found their way to Srirangapatna via Paris. As it happened, the French enterprise collapsed, and the English claimed supremacy.

It was the entrenchment of British power that made racism state policy; this could, perhaps, have been averted had Indians retained power, dealing with Europeans from positions of strength, confidently commissioning Western talent for indigenous purposesit was a German who commanded the Marathas at Assaye, and in Kerala it was a Dutchman who modernized Travancores armies. The nautch girl turned begum of Sardhana had tragic romances with a Frenchman and an Irishman. Such exchanges were a two-way streetin the early 19th century, Tamil devadasis performed in Europe and Kalidas won Western admiration when his Shakuntalam was staged in London as Sacontala. Racism reversed this, but if the politics behind racism had itself been avoided, things might have been happier.

Not everything, of course, would have emerged perfect even under Indian rulecaste, for instance, would have remained a deep-rooted obstacle to the dawn of any sense of nationalism. Politically, by the late 18th century, the Marathas dominated north India, from Lahore in the west to Bengal in the east, and a line of Shivajis family ruled in Tanjore, deep in Tamil country. But while the Marathas might have united much of India, had the last Anglo-Maratha War in 1818 not culminated in defeat, they would have had a long way to go before they could claim the loyalty of Indias diverse peoples. After all, it was raiding rather than governing that animated them, and as the Maharashtra Purana noted in the context of Bengal, When they demanded money and it was not given to them, they would put the man to death. Those who had money gave it, those who had none were killed"hardly a promising formula to inspire brotherhood and patriotism.

The irony, contested as it is, is also that it was a common hatred of the English that energized feelings of Indian unity. And that it was a foreign language that allowed a Mohandas Gandhi from Gujarat to mentor a Jawaharlal Nehru from Allahabad, collaborate with Tamil-speaking C. Rajagopalachari, and debate with the Bengali Subhas Chandra Bose. Indeed language would have been another interesting twist if the British had never reigned. English was imposed officially in 1837, before which it was Persian, now dead here, that served as the lingua franca of officialdom across much of the subcontinent. As one 1858 report noted, Persian was for 600 years the language of justicethe language of the Court(and indeed) it was much better known even than the English language is at present". It was used in Nepal and fragments of it were employed as far south as Kerala. If English had never picked up, Indias elite may still have been speaking to one another, across divides of region, religion and language, in an equally foreign tongue born in faraway Iran.

So instead of the succession of East India Company rule by the Raj under maharani Victoria, India might have come into the 20th century with a figurehead Mughal badshah, presiding over a Persian-speaking bureaucracy, supervised by the Marathas, with diplomatic dealings with a French-influenced south. Like foreigners before themfrom the Arabs and Jews to the Turks and Central Asiansthe British, Germans and French would have been absorbed into local society, through inducements of marriage and employment. Indian philosophy would have proudly travelled beyond its frontiers, and ideas from the rest of the world would have received a welcome in India too.

All this, of course, is one grand hypothetical proposition, fraught with perils. But while we increasingly investigate the impact of the Raj in shaping modern India, one hopes to be forgiven for wondering what the land might have looked like had the English never claimed dominion, and demeaned India as the jewel in a foreign monarchs crown.

(Disclaimer: Pillai works with Shashi Tharoor)

Medium Rare is a weekly column on society, politics and history. Manu S. Pillai is the author of The Ivory Throne: Chronicles Of The House Of Travancore. The author tweets as @UnamPillai
Coordination of Belt and Road, Eurasian Economic Union boosts development outlook for both countries

At the Europlastic factory in Vladivostok, the largest city in the Russian Far East, workers use Italian-built machinery to make plastic bottle caps out of raw materials imported from China.

It is a dynamic that largely reflects the current international business scene in Russia.

The name "Europlastic" highlights an ambition cherished by many Russian enterprises: to thrive in the European market. Yet the company has almost no business in Europe, with overall trade having plummeted since the European Union imposed sanctions on Russia in the wake of the 2014 Ukraine crisis.

Visitors to the China-Russia Expo in Harbin, Heilongjiang province, check goods from Russia in June. The province has close trade ties with Russia. Wang Jianwei / Xinhua

At the same time, the fact that the manufacturing plant uses only raw materials from China highlights the need for Chinese imports in Russia's light industry sector.

The situation has created an opportunity for China to foster greater economic cooperation with its large neighbor, especially through the Belt and Road Initiative. The strategy, which revolves around the Silk Road Economic Belt and 21st Century Maritime Silk Road, aims to improve connectivity through trade and infrastructure projects.

In May, President Xi Jinping and his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, signed a joint declaration to coordinate development of the Chinese initiative and the Russia-led Eurasian Economic Union, a bloc established in 2015 that comprises Russia, Kazakhstan, Armenia, Belarus and Kyrgyzstan.

During the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum in June, Putin told Chinese media that the Belt and Road was an interesting strategy that had come at a good time, and all five EEU members had agreed to cooperate under the framework of the Silk Road Economic Belt.

The positive signals from Moscow took some experts by surprise, since the projects were originally seen as potential competitors.

To support the initiative, China established the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, pledging $100 billion, and the $40 billion Silk Road Fund to provide low-interest, long-term loans for development projects.

"Regional connectivity is the main objective," Kamel Mellahi, a professor of strategic management at Warwick Business School in the United Kingdom, says of the Belt and Road Initiative. "There's little doubt it's a win-win project for all the countries involved."

Russia agrees. Now, more government officials and entrepreneurs are eager to participate in the Chinese strategy.

Europlastic, which has seven factories across Russia making polymers, plastics and chemicals products, invested 250 million roubles ($4.3 million; 3.99 million euros; 3.44 million) in the Vladivostok plant. Eugene Belokurov, the plant's general manager, says the facility has yet to turn a profit, but he believes that with technological support and financial investment from Chinese enterprises there is great potential.

Such expectations are common among Russian companies that have started businesses in the country's less-developed eastern areas - so much so that exploring cooperation with China has become a major task for local officials.

Alexander Galushka, minister for development of the Russian Far East, says his country will play a vital role in coordinating development of the Eurasian Economic Union and the Belt and Road Initiative. Investment projects in the Russian Far East have attracted $16.9 billion, according to the ministry's data. China accounts for 14.7 percent, with the money going toward cement plants, an oil refinery and road construction, as well as $1.2 million for a rivet manufacturing base in Khabarovsk, about 800 kilometers north of Vladivostok.

The opportunities created by closer ties between the Belt and Road Initiative and the EEU should also interest European countries, he says, but the ongoing sanctions against Russia mean it will be hard for them to share the benefits.

Joerg Wuttke, president of the European Union Chamber of Commerce in China, says Russian efforts to improve infrastructure along the Eurasian corridor would help Europe, not hurt it.

"The EU's relationship with Russia will not change. Members have made it clear that sanctions will remain," he says. "It's sad. There is a natural fit between Europe and Russia. For example, Europe has huge overcapacity in milk and Russia has a huge shortage of milk, but we cannot trade."

Wu Fei, a Russian studies researcher at the Center for China and Globalization, a think tank, says even though the European economy will be affected by the United Kingdom leaving the EU, the bloc could still have a strong influence on cooperation between the EEU and the Belt and Road Initiatve.

The two initiatives are complementary, he says. The biggest issue for the Chinese strategy is that there are not many investment projects along the Silk Road Economic Belt that can generate quick returns. However, there are plenty of opportunities in EEU countries.

Experts believe Moscow is also hoping the coordination will lead to further cooperation agreements, such as a pan-Eurasian partnership with European nations.

Chris Cheung, director of the EU SME Center, a think tank in Beijing, says China will be a key element if such a relationship is to be realized.

Despite China's economic slowdown, the EU's interest in the Chinese market is still growing, not least because of central government policies aimed at stimulating domestic consumption to fuel growth, he says.

China's industrial supply chain is also being transformed, Cheung adds, meaning new technologies will be required to support advanced processes, whether that is machinery or internet software, creating opportunities for innovative European businesses.

As an example of that, Wu cites investment projects in Yekaterinburg, such as a business park currently under construction that deliberately targets Chinese enterprises.

"If the Belt and Road Initiative and the EEU can establish dialogue mechanisms, as well as combine the manufacturing and consumption of several countries in an integrated strategic alliance, with China, Russia and Europe all involved, a real pan-Eurasian partnership could happen," he says.

renqi@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily European Weekly 03/31/2017 page25)
Prabhakar Pachphutes perspective The headless farmer, miners who have antennas, ploughs and whirring blades instead of headsthe artist's new solo at Kolkata's Experimenter gallery shows his spare, treeless vision of mining dystopia /news/talking-point/prabhakar-pachphute-s-perspective-111646882998023.html 111646882998023 story

Prabhakar Pachpute could have become a coal miner. Instead, he became an artist. But he has returned time and again to the dystopian landscapes of his childhood.

A Google image search of Sasti village, Maharashtra, where Pachpute was born, throws up nothing remotely idyllic. Instead, what one finds are images of high-tension wires, factory chimneys and cooling towers, sundry politicians, medicines and Google Earth and Wikimapia panels depicting areas of mininga smorgasbord, it would seem, of what describes Sasti today.

After he completed his masters in fine arts from Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda, Pachputes work as an artist has essentially been a study of mining and, to use a justifiable double entendre, its pitfalls. Continuing in the thematic vein of his earlier solo work, 2012s Canary In A Coalmine and 2013s The Land Eaters, Pachpute, 31, returns with Shadows On Arrival, a solo exhibition currently showing at Kolkatas Experimenter gallery: a revisiting of a bleak and bare, colourless world, and the consequent mutation of humans and machines.

Prabhakar Pachpute.

In his spare, treeless vision of mining dystopia, the artist returns with his Kafkaesque leitmotif of the metamorphosed man: the headless farmer; miners who have antennas, ploughs and whirring blades instead of heads; even the man in a jacket and necktie whose hollowed out arm has a coal-laden railway wagon entering the dark cavity. In Pachputes world, even machines sometimes have extensions that resemble human body parts; a two-way transmutation that summarizes the life of the miner and the land to which he belongs.

Pachpute knows this life personally. When the mining companies first arrived in Maharashtras Chandrapur district, Pachputes grandfather was coerced into selling his land and becoming a coal miner. In 1984, his brother sold off the familys remaining land and took up the compensatory job offered by Western Coalfields Ltd. In my opinion, there isnt any possibility of reviving the land, which had been mined, especially in the open-pit mining process. After digging so much, the earth automatically loses its biodiversity and the soil gets contaminated. It is really hard to grow anything there," he says on email from Hong Kong, where his work was being exhibited.

Shadows On Arrival poses questions on ecological sustainability that could be juxtaposed against the coal fires that have raged on for over a century in Jharia, a result of unchecked and unplanned mining. Using charcoal for its deep graphic quality and sense of temporality", the largest painting in Shadows On Arrival has a human figure looming in exaggerated fashion over the scene, multiplied in scale many more times than even the machinery and the quarried landscapethe menacingly oversized representation could well be a metaphor for human hunger for dominance over nature. At Experimenter, the long shadow of the viewer is cast on Pachputes clay installation of a pastiche of mining life in the middle of the gallery, symbolic of our own culpability.

Counter Table Of The Blackyard (2017) from Prabhakar Pachputes ongoing exhibition Shadows On Arrival. Courtesy Experimenter

Mining is one of the major activities tied to many other small and big businesses such as steel plants, thermal power plants, coke (fuel) plants. It is the same with other natural resources which have other businesses depending on them. Its all about the resources," he writes. Its true that the world is unable to wish mining away, but we do have a sad history of the leftover (land left fallow and unusable) from mining. My question is, how do we deal with these issues?"

He travelled to countries like Brazil, Colombia and Poland, often encountering people completely dehumanized by the mining industry, but it was in Germanys Ruhr valley that Pachpute found an open-pit mining zone transformed into a kind of amphitheatre and cultural public spacea transformation within the post-industrial gloom that impressed" him. Since then, I have started looking at mining with a different perspective," the artist says.

Shadows On Arrival is on till 29 April at the Experimenter gallery in Kolkata.
Kshama Fernandes: Finding credit for the worthy The MD and CEO of IFMR Capital on the challenges of financial inclusion, her childhood memories of a Goan village, and her love for adventure /news/talking-point/kshama-fernandes-finding-credit-for-the-worthy-111646883300393.html 111646883300393 story

Growing up in a coastal village in Goa can indelibly imprint the choices one makes. This is evident immediately; Kshama Fernandes, managing director and chief executive officer of non-banking financial company IFMR Capital, picks the Varqui Crablayers of crab meat and tandoori shrimp in filo pastryas an hors doeuvre for our lunch. We are at Varq, the Indian restaurant with its eclectic and often surprising preparations of familiar food, at the Taj Mahal Hotel on Delhis Mansingh Road. The seafood, she declares, is a much fancier version" of the fare that was dished out to her during a childhood spent in Cansaulim in South Goa.

I would wake up in the morning, go for a run on the beach, and sometimes chat with the fisherfolk as they pulled in their morning catchit seemed like a very beautiful world to me back then," says Fernandes, 48. Her life is now far removed from the pastoral setting of a Goan village. But her work, which involves connecting non-banking financial companies (NBFCs) and microfinance institutions (MFIs), also known as originators, to last-mile borrowers, who are excluded from the purview of mainstream finance, takes her back to the realm of those who live on the fringes of formal systemsthe disenfranchised. Im familiar with the trenches," she admits, and the last 10 years or so of my journey at IFMR Capital have been about building a financial institution that is a bridge between mainstream capital markets and the excluded sectors."

IFMR Capital, which works in sectors like micro-finance, housing finance, small business loan finance and commercial vehicle finance, is an articulation of the idealism and business acumen of people like Bindu Ananth and Nachiket Mor, who left ICICI Bank to set up the IFMR Trust in 2007 in Chennai. In 2008, when IFMR Capital was set up as an institution that would link small financial companies that lent to the underserved, to mainstream markets, Fernandes, who was professor and head of finance at the Goa Institute of Management, joined it as the chief risk officer. Those were the early days. IFMR Capital was built on the belief that at the grass roots there are many borrowers and enterprises worthy of credit. I often say that poor borrowers do not necessarily mean poor credit, but are classified as that, because we dont know how to evaluate them. And in some sense I feel that if there isnt much happening in the financial inclusion space, its because we havent found the ways to do it," she says.

Soup arrives at the table; Fernandes, predictably, has opted for the Lobster Rassa, a hearty shellfish broth. She speaks of Goa yet again, as her fount of perennial optimism in a life of constant movement and flux: My transition from academia to risk officer and then from risk officer to CEO has been fascinating. Working as an academic and then translating that knowledge into a lot of what we do today came very naturally to me," she says, adding, What Goa gave me was the positivity, the innocence and the ability to have a wide-eyed look at life. Cynicism would not have helped."

It is that wide-eyed" approach to capital markets that Fernandes also brought to her 2016 TEDxLeiden address in the Netherlands, interspersing it with stories of grit and resilience. There is, for instance, Anandi, who lives in a village in Odisha, and was denied a loan by a bank in the cityshe had no bank account, no income statement and no credit record because nobody had ever lent to her. She was finally given a loan of Rs50,000 in 2012. She used the money to lease a pond outside her hut and breed fish. She sold the fish and repaid the loan six months later. She availed a second loan, leased two ponds, and transformed from a helpless housewife to an organic aquaculturalist.

Fernandes talk also mentioned other borrowers like Paramesan Gowda, a 48-year-old who runs a sandwich stall outside the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE). Gowda too had no means to prove his creditworthiness, so before Essel Finance Business Loans, an NBFC, offered him a loan, the credit officer stood next to him for two days in a row and counted the number of sandwiches he delivered each day to all 24 floors of the BSE building. Based on this calculation, a balance sheet and profit and loss statement were created, and a two-year loan worth Rs30 lakh was sanctioned. He repaid the loan in 13 months.

Anandi and Paramesan are examples of what timely finance can doit can give a person control over his or her life," says Fernandes, as the main course arrives. We are having the pan-seared sea bass in a mango and coconut curry, with hints of basil and pine nuts. Her conversation veers to the past again. Back then, there were no tarred roads in Cansaulim. Village roads led to the beach. The big trucks that would arrive to collect the fish and take it to the market couldnt drive up to the beach. So the fisherfolk would carry baskets of fish to the trucks. As children, we would stand on the path from the beach to the trucks, and the fisherfolk would throw some fish in our direction," she recalls. The memory makes her smile, but she is quick to swerve to the here and now, to IFMR Capital: Weve done Rs40,000 crore of financing since inception. Thats not a small number for the sectors we work with."

The selection of originators, or high-quality local institutions that empathize with the financial needs of people like Anandi and Gowda who find it hard to access traditional capital markets, is key to building a sustainable ecosystem of inclusion.

Kshama Fernandes journey has been one of transitionsfrom coastal village to big city, from academia to the glitzy world of finance. While recognition is thrilling, it can hardly compare with the exhilaration of climbing Mount Kilimanjaro, or sailing the Atlantic, or riding a Royal Enfield Classic 500. She has always turned to the grand outdoors as a reminder of stillness and permanence amid the chaos.-

Fernandes elaborates upon the guidelines that IFMR Capital adheres to when picking an originator. If I were a capital market investor and wanted to invest in these originators, what are the things I would look at," she asks rhetorically. She explains that good governance, transparency and robust management information systems (MIS) are key to forging an alliance with an originator. Having high-quality auditors is also important, so one can make sure that the company is following best practices as far as reporting is concerned. A strong second line of commandensuring that the company has more than one visionary to execute strategiesis also vital. Maintaining very good operating standards and risk management are crucial as well."

She says the financial feasibility of the company isnt the only evidence of its worthiness. If the guidelines I have discussed are met, eventually the financials add up," she says, adding, When one builds a financial institution, then one is building a lot of credibilitythat is if one wants to be a financial institution thats going to be around for a very long time."

IFMR Capitals efforts have enabled it to lend to around 110 originators and serve around 24 million end borrowers, in a market worth Rs14 trillion. It has also invented new structures such as multi-originator securitization (Mosec)a pioneering product, not just in India but also in international markets, which brings together small originators to form a critical mass to draw an investor. Says Fernandes: When we launched the multi-originator securitization in around 2009-10, we were dealing with a class of very small to mid-sized originators. But we knew that we could never take them to the capital markets because they were too small. A mutual fund may not be interested in a Rs1 crore deal, and wont understand what a microfinance originator is, what a small business originator is, what an affordable housing finance originator is. So we did a few things. We put many small originators together to form a large portfolio, say Rs100 croresomething we could take to a capital markets investor."

It comes as no surprise that Fernandes won Accions Edward W Claugus Award in October, for her exceptional work in creating a financial ecosystem for the underserved. Accion is a global non-profit that has pioneered financial inclusion.

As the restaurants signature dessertapple kheeris placed before us (with additional helpings of jalebis wedged in a blob of rabri, and malpua stuffed with shredded carrot), Fernandes remarks that indulging in the sweets will mean an extra hour at the gym".

She is as committed to fitness as she is to financial inclusion. And she constantly seeks the electrifying adventures of the grand outdoors. Last year, despite a tail-bone fracture that made it impossible for her to sit down, she embarked upon an almost 10-hour jeep ride in the mountains, from Shimla to the base camp at a small village called Janglik, for the trek across Buran Pass. She undertook a vertical descent from an altitude of 15,000ft across an ice wall and rock face, using rope, axe and microspikes. If I didnt climb mountains and cross oceans, I wouldnt be as enthusiastic about my work as I am now," she says, spooning up her dessert. She proves that prudent risk-taking can spur one towards the unexplored, both indoors as well as outdoors.
President will go to Finland, then to US leader's Mar-a-Lago resort

Beijing confirmed on Thursday that President Xi Jinping will meet with his US counterpart next week in Florida, marking their first meeting since Donald Trump took office in January.

Xi will pay a state visit to Finland from Tuesday through Thursday and then meet with Trump at the Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida on Thursday and Friday, Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang said at a daily news briefing. The resort is owned by Trump.

Xi and Trump have spoken to each other twice by phone.

Their first meeting was announced amid media attention on the trade relations between the world's two largest economies. China and the US are each other's largest trading partners.

On China-US trade issues, Lu said Beijing is ready to "expand pragmatic cooperation in economic and trade areas, properly tackle economic and trade frictions through dialogue and communication and ensure the healthy, stable development of China-US economic and trade ties".

Lu referred to the fact that the bilateral commodity trade volume reached $519.6 billion last year, more than 200 times the figure in 1979, when the two countries forged diplomatic ties.

Lu said the economic and trade ties between China and the US are a win-win situation and the countries' interests are highly integrated.

Chen Mingming, a veteran Chinese diplomat, said Xi's meeting with Trump will be a major diplomatic move taken by Beijing and will "kick off a good start for the ties in the next few years".

"The meeting was made within three months after Trump took office on Jan 20, showing that both leaders prioritize having a face-to-face talk," Chen said. "This helps them better know each other and reaffirm pledges for deepening bilateral ties."

Su Ge, president of the China Institute of International Studies, said China and the US can expand interests and focus on cooperation, as they are both permanent members of the UN Security Council.

"They both benefit from and uphold the existing international order, and shoulder important and unique responsibilities for regional and international peace, security and prosperity," Su said.

On Xi's state visit to Finland, spokesman Lu said it will be Xi's first to a European Union country this year as well as Xi's first visit to northern Europe as China's top leader. It demonstrates the great importance China attaches to building a forward-looking partnership with Finland, Lu said.
Administration accused of seeking unlimited power through new bill

The British government was criticized by opposition parties after it revealed its plans for domestic legislation to facilitate the UK's withdrawal from the EU on Thursday.

The government published its discussion paper - Legislating for the United Kingdom's Withdrawal from the European Union- which proposed that it adopts sweeping powers to amend and change legislation without recourse to Parliament.

The document, known as a "white paper", is like a first draft of a legislative bill, which can be changed substantially before Parliament votes on it. The paper outlines that in order for the UK to leave the EU with the minimum chaos, the government has decided that all European laws and regulations - some 8,000 -have to be incorporated into British law. This would mean that all the same laws would apply in the UK the day before Brexit and the day after.

David Davis, the minister for the UK's withdrawal from the EU, said that government would need to take new powers to ensure the smooth transition from membership of the EU to non-membership but they would only be used for technical issues and would be time-limited.

He told Parliament on Thursday: "Given the scale of the changes that will be necessary and the finite amount of time available to make them, there is a balance to be struck between the importance of scrutiny and correcting the statute book in time."

Keir Starmer, speaking for the Labour Party, said the government planned a power grab.

He said: "In those circumstances one might expect some pretty rigorous safeguards to the use of these sweeping powers, but none are found in the white paper."

Caroline Lucas of the Green Party tweeted: "Far from being 'technical', #GreatRepealBill is huge attack on our democracy: Gov wants unlimited power to amend law. We will fight this."

The events of Thursday demonstrate that the British government faces complex challenges at home as well as abroad in its effort to leave the EU. The government has a majority of 17 and can be outvoted if anti-European or pro-European Conservative MPs vote with the opposition parties.

The Brexit legislation will provide hundreds of opportunities for government defeat in the next two years, any of which may persuade it to call an early general election.

According to current opinion polls, the Conservatives would likely increase their majority substantially in an election, but having one would disrupt its two-year timetable for leaving the EU. Also, an election could split and weaken the Conservatives as they dispute what kind of relationship they want with the EU.
Deep breaths can settle your nerves, and now scientists have discovered the neural pathway in the brain that controls this process.

In an experiment on mice, scientists identified a circuit of neurons  a tiny cluster of a mere 350 nerve cells, among millions in the mouse brain  that regulate the connection between breathing and the higher-order brain activity that affects how calmly or worked up the mice behaved.

When the scientists removed these cells, they found that the mice still breathed normally, but they were uncharacteristically calm. This discovery, the researchers said, may someday lead to therapies to help people who have anxiety, stress and panic attacks. [11 Tips to Lower Stress]

A paper describing the work was published today (March 30) in the journal Science.

Breathing is largely an unconscious, involuntary action that's among the most basic rhythms of life. It is the process in which most animals inhale oxygen to create energy at a cellular level and then exhale carbon dioxide, the byproduct of this cellular respiration.

Yet humans have known for millennia that taking long, slow, deep breaths can have a calming effect and reduce stress. Conversely, panic attacks can cause a person to take short, fast breaths, further exacerbating the sense of unease.

Researchers have known that neural circuits throughout the brain regulate breathing, but until now, they had not pinpointed the neural pathway that connects breathing to the emotional states of anxiety and calmness.

In the new work, a team led by Dr. Mark Krasnow, a biochemistry professor at Stanford University School of Medicine in Stanford, California, searched the main region of the brain that controls breathing rhythms  called the pre-Botzinger complex  which is nestled in a rudimentary section of the brain stem called the pons. In an experiment that was the culmination of years of work involving techniques such as neural mapping and genetically engineered mice, Krasnow's team zeroed in on the responsible circuitry.

The team found a subset of neurons in the pre-Botzinger complex that transmits signals to a region in the pons that moderates feelings of alertness, attention and stress. [10 Interesting Facts About Caffeine]

They also found that these neurons express two proteins, cadherin-9 (CDH9) and developing brain homeobox protein 1 (DBX1), which are controlled by the Cdh9 and Dbx1 genes, respectively.

The researchers then turned to genetically engineered mice, in which they could mute the Cdh9 and Dbx1 genes. This enabled the researchers to select and kill the approximately 350 neurons that are thought to connect breathing to arousal, yet leave all the other neurons untouched, according to the study's lead author, Dr. Kevin Yackle, an assistant researcher at the UCSF School of Medicine. Afterward, the researchers found that the mice spent more time in a calm state.

Although deep breathing is an easy and safe way to control anxiety and stress, Yackle sees potential for developing medicines that target these genes.

"In panic disorders, it may be nearly impossible for one to control breathing," Yackle told Live Science. "Therefore, a pharmacological approach may be critical for preventing these panic attacks triggered by hyperventilation."

Yackle also said that sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) may result when the brain doesn't sense a lack of oxygen while the infant is sleeping, and thus doesn't arouse the body. Some babies may be at higher risk for SIDS for reasons of genetics or because they were born prematurely. In these cases, babies at the highest risk for SIDS might benefit from a therapy that improves the neural signaling between oxygen intake and arousal, Yackle said.

Follow Christopher Wanjek @wanjek for daily tweets on health and science with a humorous edge. Wanjek is the author of "Food at Work" and "Bad Medicine." His column, Bad Medicine, appears regularly on Live Science.
Many teens now believe that everyone is better off if the man is the achiever outside the home while the woman takes care of domestic duties.

American teens have no problem with gender equality in the workplace, but home life is a different story.

A new report released today (March 31) by the Council on Contemporary Families (CCF) finds that modern high school seniors increasingly believe that everyone is better off if the man is the achiever outside the home while the woman takes care of domestic duties. In 1992, 58 percent of high school seniors disagreed that male-breadwinner arrangements were best. By 2014, the most recent year that survey data are available, that number had slipped to 42 percent.

"It's been a steady reversal," said study co-author Joanna Pepin, a doctoral candidate in sociology at the University of Maryland. [Top 12 Warrior Moms in History]

A complex relationship with gender

The findings reveal a complicated approach toward gender among the youngest millennials. They are based on repeated surveys of each year's high school seniors called the Monitoring the Future Project. Each year since 1975, a sample of seniors has answered the same questions, allowing comparisons between age cohorts.

Since the 1970s, large majorities of high school seniors have supported egalitarian workplaces: In 1976, 82 percent of seniors said women should be considered just as seriously as men in executive jobs and in politics. By 1994, agreement with that belief hit 91 percent, where it has stayed strong. Likewise, agreement that women should have the same job opportunities as men started at 76 percent in 1976 and rose to 89 percent by 1994, staying stable thereafter. Attitudes toward working mothers have also steadily improved.

And yet, when asked about the domestic sphere, high school seniors became more egalitarian between 1976 and 1994  and then started to slide in the other direction. In the same way as acceptance of the male-breadwinner model re-emerged after 1994, so did the notion of men as the head of the family. In 1976, 59 percent of high school seniors disagreed that men should make all the important decisions in the family. That disagreement peaked at 71 percent in 1994 and steadily eroded to 63 percent by 2014. [I Don't: 5 Myths About Marriage]

"We were really surprised to see this," Pepin told Live Science, because youth are typically thought of as more progressive than their elders.

Nika Fate-Dixon, a researcher at the Evergreen State College in Washington, analyzed data in an accompanying report for the Council on Contemporary Families and found that the picture is complex among 18-to-25-year-olds as well. Another long-running questionnaire, the General Social Survey, asks adults some of the same questions as youth are asked in the Monitoring the Future surveys. Since 1997, adults of all ages have increasingly disagreed that male-breadwinner families are best (70 percent of all adult women now disagree with that statement, as well as nearly 70 percent of men), that study showed.

However, when age was considered, the scientists found that 18-to-25-year-olds have similar ambivalence about gender roles as high school seniors, with some declines in positive attitudes toward mothers working outside the home. In addition, the percentage of people in this age group disagreeing that male breadwinners are best declined from 84 percent in 1994 to 75 percent in 2014.

More questions than answers

Much of the declining interest in gender egalitarianism at home came from men in the 18-to-25-year-old surveys, Fate-Dixon said. That wasn't the case for the high school seniors, though: Men have always been a bit less supportive than women of egalitarianism, but that gap hasn't grown, Pepin and co-author David Cotter of Union College in New York reported. Likewise, black youth have always been more egalitarian than white youth, but support has declined similarly among all races.

Pepin and Cotter suspect that young millennials have landed on an approach to gender that they call "egalitarian essentialism." The schism between egalitarianism in public life and traditionalism in private seems to suggest that youth believe men and women should be treated equally, but that their essential natures are inherently different from one another, Pepin said. [6 Scientific Tips for a Successful Marriage]

Dan Carlson, a sociologist at the University of Utah who wrote a response to Pepin and Cotter's report for the CCF, called this attitude the "supermom strategy."

"If you want to work, fine, but you can't skirt these traditional responsibilities at home," Carlson said, describing how youth accept working women if they're also taking on the brunt of domestic chores. Carlson argues that the root of these beliefs may be lack of supportive policies for families in the United States. High school seniors may see their parents struggling to achieve egalitarian relationships in an environment where paid maternity leave is rare and paid paternity leave is even rarer. A Pew Research Survey released March 23 found that only 14 percent of civilian workers in the United States had access to paid family leave. A second Pew study released March 27 found that of men who had taken parental leave (paid or unpaid) in the past two years, the median length of leave was one week (compared with 11 weeks for mothers).

"A lot of couples are forced into conventional arrangements" by the high cost of child care and lack of paid leave, Carlson told Live Science. "It would seem that children are taking cues from their parents in this regard and saying, 'Maybe a traditional setup at home is just better for everybody as opposed to trying to fight this tide.'"

Carlson's earlier research has also found that while many couples would prefer egalitarian relationships, a lot of working-class couples are seeing declines in men's employment opportunities and are being forced into female-breadwinner roles that they don't necessarily prefer.

"We're finding that families are having a hard time adapting to that," Carlson said.

Pepin agreed that lack of family support is "definitely not helping" to change gender attitudes. But economic pressure and workplace problems probably don't explain the whole decline in support of egalitarianism, she said. If working-class youth see their fathers struggling to pay the bills alone, she said, they might be more likely to value wages brought in by their mothers. Also, egalitarian relationships are valued by couples (a 2016 Pew Research Survey found that 56 percent say sharing chores is important to a successful marriage), and sociologists have found that egalitarian couples have the highest relationship satisfaction, Pepin said.

"Even though it's hard [to be egalitarian], it's getting easier," she said. "That is hard to reconcile" with backsliding egalitarianism among youth.

Even as they struggle to unravel why today's youth might not support gender equality at home and at work, sociologists aren't sure whether these attitudes will change with time. Today's high school seniors are much further from marriage and childbearing than the high school seniors of 1976, Carlson said  many might not marry for a decade or more. It's possible that their attitudes might change as they move through life.

"They might change their tune because they actually see what this all means, what a traditional relationship really portends and what egalitarianism really promises," Carlson said.

Original article on Live Science.
In the days following Chuck Berry's death, commentators have trampled over each other in a race to honor him as the "Father of Rock and Roll," the art form's lodestone and mastermind. They've marveled at his songs, not just because of how witty, influential and danceable they were, but because they were the work of Berry alone.

A few have mentioned a lawsuit involving Berry's longtime piano player Johnnie Johnson, where Johnson claimed he was Berry's co-writer, but which the court dismissed because he took too long to sue. And that's all they say.

As a St. Louis lawyer, teacher and music geek, I had heard about the case a few years back and wondered if there was more to the story than simply "Johnson sued too late."

I felt this case was still important, given the songs' seismic cultural influence, as well as Berry's notorious reluctance to discuss his creative process ("Talking to Chuck Berry about his music is a little like meeting God and finding out He doesn't remember making the Earth or care what people do there," author and MTV executive Bill Flanagan once wrote).

So I reached out to the attorneys, and they gave me access to the case file, which, until then, had been gathering dust in storage, unavailable for study. First, in 2015, I used it to explore authorship in copyright law. But now, as we reflect on Chuck Berry's life, I think the case of Johnson v. Berry has an even greater meaning: a search for truth in the fog of legend.

In a roundabout sense, I suppose he did'

On Aug. 21, 2002, sitting in a nondescript little conference room inside a St. Louis law firm, Chuck Berry was asked something that called into question not only his own legacy, but that of rock and roll itself.

Two years prior, Johnnie Johnson had sued Berry. In his suit, Johnson claimed he'd co-written, on his piano, nearly every song in Berry's remarkable 1950s and 60's run  "Roll Over Beethoven," "Back in the U.S.A." and "Nadine," among many others  classics that helped sow the seeds of a worldwide musical and cultural revolution.

Having gotten neither credit nor a dime of the millions in royalties those songs had generated, Johnson set out  nearly 50 years later  to rewrite history via the courts.

Though the case had started slow  lawyers jousting, sending letters, serving subpoenas  on that day in August 2002, inside that little conference room, Johnson's attorney had the chance to ask Chuck Berry, in person and under oath, the question that cut to the heart of the case:

"Do you believe as you sit here today, that Johnnie Johnson had any, played any part in creating the songs that we've said he did?"

"No" or even "Hell no" would have been perfectly acceptable (and, to Berry's lawyers, highly desirable) answers. But instead, Berry's response was profoundly equivocal:

"In a roundabout sense, I suppose he did. I don't know, but I suppose he did; but in a legal sense, no, because I consider myself having written any songs that is out now with Chuck Berry on it, because that's the way it went, I composed it and I did it."

A good trial lawyer could've made a lot of hay with that: "Mr. Berry has testified that Johnnie Johnson helped create these songs in a roundabout sensejust not in a legal sense," one can easily picture a jury hearing in closing argument, "but you, ladies and gentlemen, get to decide how the law applies here, not Mr. Berry."

A jury, however, would never hear the case. On Oct. 21, 2002, just two weeks before trial was set to begin, the judge ruled against Johnson. He decided that the statute of limitations had expired  Johnson had waited too many years to sue  and that was that. Or was it?

Father(s) of rock and roll?

In the course of Berry's sworn deposition, and Johnson's own, taken two months earlier, the two men spoke more expansively about their part in rock and roll's creation than they ever had before  or ever would again.

Interestingly, but perhaps not surprisingly, they spoke most freely when discussing how they worked together.

From Johnson:

"[T]hat's the way our teamwork came in together, whoever come up with the idea, it was tried by the both, he would try it, my piano part, which mostly I would do, I would try his guitar part, and together we collaborated on itand [would] find out which part worked the best, and that's the one that would be used."

And from Berry:

"[T]here was a harmonious understanding after a few recordings, that when I stop singing, Johnnie played this riff, or that riff, or that riff, and there are certain ones that I can namehe played it and played the da-da-da-da riff, I could implicate the rhythm and he would remember the thing that I liked so much, and the same thing would happen, turned around, when I would play the riff, that I'd ask him to play a certain thing, seemed like to me, he would just fall in."

They even played their instruments  Johnson on piano and Berry on guitar and piano  trying to show what they did and how they did it.

Neither man would bend on his respective legal position. On that, reasonable minds can disagree. It's not easy to mark the point at which a creative contributor becomes a co-author. But both men were candid about the creative process, itself, and how it was fueled by their musical interplay. That is what's most instructive for us today.

Most of us view Berry as the self-reliant father of rock and roll, the mastermind who created these amazing songs essentially from scratch. Others see Johnson as the jilted, true composer of the music that turned Berry's lyrics into classic songs.

But read what Berry and Johnson have said themselves, under oath, and you can see it was a collaboration  their unspoken musical bond  that gets closest to the truth of how these classic, wildly influential songs were born.

Society often constructs (and then fights to preserve) myths around individual genius. Collaboration  with past influences, as well as with present partners  isn't nearly as sexy. But it's how works of genius regularly get written, designed, sculpted, filmed and recorded. From the songs of Leiber and Stoller and Holland-Dozier-Holland, to the film "Casablanca," to the writings of Raymond Carver, collaborative creativity has produced many of our most prized cultural treasures, often without our knowing it.

And sometimes, perhaps, an individual genius finds a partner, one who helps him hit a creative zenith higher than he could've reached alone. Recognizing this in the story of Chuck Berry  or at least acknowledging its possibility  doesn't detract from his legacy; it honors it more deeply.

Near the end of the film "Hail! Hail! Rock 'n' Roll," director Taylor Hackford asked Berry how he wanted to be remembered.

"I tell you what," Berry replied. "Whatever it be, I just hope it's real and it's a fact, which will be the truth. That's it. I hope they'll just speak the truth be it pro, con, bad, good."

Amen, Chuck.

Tim McFarlin, Fellow, Elon University

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.
Is Australia's extinct thylacine  a striped, dog-like marsupial commonly known as the Tasmanian tiger  not extinct after all? Recent alleged thylacine sightings convinced scientists at James Cook University in Australia to investigate whether the species is still among the living.

The last wild thylacine was killed between 1910 and 1920, and in 1936, the last known thylacine died in captivity in Hobart, Australia. Since then, no conclusive evidence has emerged to suggest that Tasmanian tigers still exist in the wild, and the species was declared officially extinct in 1986, the Tasmanian Government's Department of Primary Industries, Parks, Water and Environment reported on the Tasmanian federal Wildlife Management website.

But rumors of thylacines in the wild have persisted. Recent reports from two people in North Queensland, Australia, provided "plausible and detailed descriptions" of animals that resembled thylacines. After those reports, researchers decided to launch a survey to determine whether any of the animals were alive in Australia, James Cook University (JCU) representatives announced March 24 in a statement. [6 Extinct Animals That Could Be Brought Back to Life]

Despite their "tiger" sobriquet, thylacines are not members of the cat family. Nor should they be confused with the Tasmanian devil (Sarcophilus harrisii), another carnivorous marsupial that is native to Australia and is still widespread in Tasmania.

Fossil evidence suggests that the modern thylacine  Thylacinus cynocephalus, whose name means "dog-headed pouched one"  emerged about 4 million years ago. Once widespread across Australia, the animal disappeared everywhere except Tasmania about 2,000 years ago, according to the National Museum of Australia (NMA).

When European settlers arrived in Australia in the early 19th century, the last remaining thylacines  an estimated 5,000 individuals  entered a decline, their numbers dwindling due to hunting, introduced diseases and habitat loss, the NMA reported.

Extinct or elusive?

The new investigation for the purported thylacines will survey sites on the Cape York Peninsula in Far North Queensland, Australia, based on accounts supplied by an employee of the Queensland Park Service, and by another observer. This individual was "a frequent camper and outdoorsman," study co-investigator Bill Laurance, a professor in the College of Science and Engineering at JCU, said in the statement.

All the observations of the animals thought to be thylacines were made at night, but were descriptive nonetheless, Laurance reported. In one instance, four animals were spotted at close range, lit up by a spotlight at a distance of about 20 feet (6 meters), and details in the descriptions strongly suggested that the observers had not misidentified a more common animal, Laurance said.

"We have cross-checked the descriptions we received of eye-shine color, body size and shape, animal behavior, and other attributes, and these are inconsistent with known attributes of other large-bodied species in North Queensland, such as dingoes, wild dogs or feral pigs," he explained.

Researchers will employ 50 camera traps, and their survey is expected to begin in April, once the researchers receive the necessary permits from private landowners. The hunt for thylacines will also offer the scientists an opportunity to investigate the status of other vulnerable or threatened wildlife in the area, Laurance added.

"Regardless of which species are detected, the survey will provide important data on the status of mammal species on Cape York, where wildlife populations have evidently been undergoing severe population declines in recent years," Laurance said in the statement.

Original article on Live Science.
The mound in the center of this image  which was captured by the HiRISE camera aboard NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter in April 2009  appears to have blocked the path of sand dunes as they marched across the scene.

NASA's sharp-eyed Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) has now circled the Red Planet 50,000 times.

The milestone came on Monday (March 27), about 11 years after MRO arrived at the Red Planet  and the spacecraft is still going strong, mission officials said.

"It's a marvelous vehicle that we expect will serve the Mars Exploration Program and Mars science for many more years to come," MRO project manager Dan Johnston, of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, said in a statement. [Latest Photos from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter]

The $720 million MRO mission launched in August 2005 and slipped into Mars' orbit in March 2006. The probe then spent some time refining its orbit before beginning science operations in November 2006.

MRO's work has been varied and voluminous. The probe has been searching for signs of past water activity on the Red Planet; scouting out possible landing locations for future robotic and crewed missions; studying the Martian climate and geology; and serving as a data-relay link for surface robots such as the Opportunity and Curiosity rovers, among other activities.

To date, MRO has beamed more than 300 terabits of science data back to Earth, NASA officials said.

MRO carries six science instruments, three of which are cameras. One of these imagers, the Context Camera (CTX), has taken about 90,000 photos covering 99.1 percent of the Martian surface  roughly equivalent to all of Earth's land area, NASA officials said.

"Reaching 99.1 percent coverage has been tricky because a number of factors  including weather conditions, coordination with other instruments, downlink limitations and orbital constraints  tend to limit where we can image and when," Context Camera team leader Michael Malin, of Malin Space Science Systems in San Diego, said in the same statement.

Map showing the footprints of images taken by the HiRISE camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter as part of advance analysis of the area where NASA's InSight mission will land in 2018. The final planned image of the set will fill in the yellow-outlined rectangle on March 30, 2017. (Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Arizona)

CTX has a resolution of about 20 feet (6 meters) per pixel. Another MRO camera, the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) can pick out features just 4 to 8 feet (1.2 to 2.4 m) across on the Martian surface. But this higher resolution results in more limited coverage; HiRISE has imaged about 3 percent of the Red Planet, NASA officials said.

Since November 2006, MRO has been flying in a near-polar, roughly 2-hour-long orbit whose altitude has ranged from 155 to 196 miles (250 to 316 kilometers).

On March 22, the probe performed a 45-second engine burn to help prepare for the Nov. 26, 2018, arrival of NASA's InSight Mars lander. MRO needs to be in the right position to relay data from InSight to its handlers during entry, descent and landing operations, NASA officials said.

InSight is currently scheduled to launch in May 2018.

Follow Mike Wall on Twitter @michaeldwall and Google+. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook or Google+. Originally published on Space.com.
Fans of the cheerful yellow Crayola color "dandelion" might be feeling a little blue right now.

Crayola announced today (March 31)  National Crayon Day  that it will be bidding farewell to dandelion, one of the mainstay colors in the company's 24-count crayon box. Crayola made the announcement in New York City's Times Square in a news conference that was streamed live on Facebook.

A bit of the announcement's thunder was stolen yesterday by a short video Crayola shared on Facebook, in which an animated "dandelion" crayon announced, "I think retirement's going to be my wildest adventure yet!" [How 8 Colors Got Their Symbolic Meanings]

Crayola plans to introduce a new color to take dandelion's place, Melanie Boulden, a senior vice president of U.S. and global marketing at Crayola, said at the news conference. Details will be formally released to the public in May; however, the new color "will be part of the blue family," and Crayola will invite fans to help find a name for the new shade, Boulden said.

In the days leading up to the announcement, Crayola urged its social media followers to name the color they "can't live without," under the #ShareYourFave hashtag on Instagram and Twitter.

About 4,000 people followed the Facebook stream, and the announcement of dandelion's retirement had many seeing red. The post quickly gathered nearly 1,000 comments, many expressing dismay about the decision. Comments included: "Why not a different color!?!?;" "Not Dandelion yellow!!! It color is so bright and vivid!!;" and "I'll tell you where I want Dandelion to go... Right back in the dang box where it belongs!!"

Responses showed that many people have distinct opinions about colors. And no wonder  historically, certain colors have been infused with cultural meaning or linked to superstitions, and many of these associations persist today.

For example, the color red signifies passion and power, and recent studies have shown that both men and women who wear red are often perceived to be sexier and more desirable.

But the color red has negative connotations, too  ask anyone who ever received a big, red "F" grade on a test. In another study, researchers found that exposing study participants to the color red before a test undermined their performance, as they associated the color red with failure, according to the study, published in October 2007 in the Journal of Experimental Psychology.

Another study, published in February 2010 in the journal BMC Medical Research Methodology, proposed using a color wheel to investigate the relationship between certain colors and moods. Researchers discovered that people were most drawn to colors in shades of blue and yellow, and that more saturated colors were associated with darker moods. The findings suggest that the shade of the color was as significant, if not more so, than the color itself, the study authors said.

If you need a new favorite color to grab from the 24-count box, here's how things are looking: It still contains rainbow hues: red, orange, yellow, blue, green, indigo and violet, as well as subtle variations on those shades: cerulean, apricot and scarlet. Other tints  such as carnation pink, yellow orange, yellow green, green yellow, blue green, blue violet, red violet, red orange, and violet red  round out the palette. Essential colors for outlining, shading and highlighting  black, brown, white and gray  are thrown in as well.

Original article on Live Science.
Thyroid cancer rates are rising faster than any other cancer in the United States, a new study found: Between 1975 and 2013, the number of thyroid cancer cases diagnosed yearly more than tripled.

The numbers have prompted many epidemiologists to caution in recent years that the increase in cases is really just a matter of doctors catching more cases. This includes cases that are slow-growing and that would be unlikely to cause symptoms that affect a person's life. Doctors refer to the diagnosis of cases like this as the "overdiagnosis" of a condition.

But in the new analysis, scientists argued that the alarming rise isn't just due to improvements in detecting thyroid cancer. [10 Do's and Don'ts to Reduce Your Risk of Cancer]

"While overdiagnosis may be an important component to this observed epidemic, it clearly does not explain the whole story," said Dr. Julie Sosa, one of the authors of the new study and the chief of endocrine surgery at Duke University in North Carolina.

Sosa, along with epidemiologists at the National Cancer Institute, acknowledged in their new study that better tools  from diagnostic ultrasound to fine-needle biopsies  have improved doctors' ability to detect thyroid cancers. But the study, published today (March 31) in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), said that thyroid cancer is a real, growing threat, as shown by the increasing cases of a type of thyroid cancer called advanced stage papillary thyroid cancer, along with a steady rise in deaths from the disease.

In the study, the team analyzed more than 77,000 cases of thyroid cancer documented in a National Cancer Institute (NCI) database between 1974 and 2013. Along with the tripling in cases over that period, the researchers noted that between 1994 and 2013, cases of advanced forms of thyroid cancer rose by about 3 percent each year, and deaths from the disease rose by about 1 percent each year.

In the period from 1974 to 1977, there were 4.6 cases of thyroid cancer per 100,000 people diagnosed yearly in the U.S. That number reached 14.4 cases per 100,000 people yearly in the period from 2010 to 2013.

Currently, more than 60,000 Americans are diagnosed each year with a form of thyroid cancer, according to the NCI. About 75 percent of these patients are women, and 82 percent are white, the researchers found.

That deaths from thyroid cancer are increasing, despite it being among the most treatable and least lethal forms of cancer, is worth noting, Sosa said.

"Overall, we are starting to win the war against cancer, but this is one of the few cancers where we're actually losing ground," Sosa told Live Science. "That means we have to now understand what the possible explanations are for the increased incidence of thyroid cancers."

What's causing the increase in cases?

In the study, the researchers offered several possible explanation for the increase in thyroid cancer cases. Rising obesity rates in the United States could be one factor, the authors said.

As cases of thyroid cancer rose in the United States, so did obesity. The number of obese U.S. adults tripled between 1960 and 2012, with the fastest rate of increase occurring between 1980 and 2010, according to the study. Previous research, including a 2012 study in the journal JAMA Surgery, has shown that as patients' body mass indexes (BMIs)increase, their risk of developing more aggressive forms of thyroid cancer also increases.

Another possible factor mentioned in the study may come as a surprise: a decrease in smoking.

Although smoking has been shown to increase risk for a host of other health problems  including cardiovascular disease, stroke, lung cancer and other cancers  it oddly has been linked to a decreased risk of developing thyroid cancer, the study said.

The researchers found that smoking was associated with a 30 to 40 percent lower chance of developing thyroid cancer.

"No one is suggesting that people start up smoking to avoid thyroid cancer," cautioned senior study author Cari Kitahara, an epidemiologist at the National Cancer Institute. "It's just an interesting association that we see in our data, and it provides some clues to what factors are involved in thyroid cancer development." [7 Cancers You Can Ward Off With Exercise]

Yet another factor could also play a role: exposure to a group of chemicals and pollutants known as polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs). These compounds are found in the environment, as well as in food and people's homes. PBDEs include flammable-resistant chemicals in clothing and furniture, certain pesticides, and some chemicals found in foods and plastics.

Studies have shown that PBDEs can interfere with the thyroid gland and other glands in the body's endocrine system. (This is the collection of glands that produce and regulate hormones.)

"Certain environmental pollutants could be a factor since we're receiving so much exposure to chemicals that could be endocrine-disruptive," Kitahara said.

The problem is that PBDEs are very widespread, so proving a link between exposure to the chemicals and an increase in thyroid cancer is a real challenge, Kitahara said.

As Kitahara told Live Science, "there is just very limited data."

Originally published on Live Science.
Dire environmental reports are seemingly everywhere, but today, there's a bit of good news: The roly-poly West Indian manatee (Trichechus manatus) is doing so well that the species is no longer considered endangered.

Significant increases in manatee population numbers and noted improvements to the animals' habitats convinced the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) to downgrade manatees' status from endangered to threatened, as defined by the Endangered Species Act (ESA), FWS representatives announced online today (March 31) in a statement.

Both subspecies of the West Indian manatee  the Florida manatee (Trichechus manatus latirostris) and the Antillean manatee (Trichechus manatus manatus)  will retain federal protections, as will the animals' vulnerable Florida habitats, according to the FWS ruling. [Image Gallery: Endangered & Threatened Wildlife]

Florida manatees were listed as endangered in 1967 under the Endangered Species Preservation Act of 1966, and officials added the Antillean manatee to the listing in 1970, the ruling reported.

While the manatees' revised status represents improvement in their prospects, a threatened species is still considered to be at risk, as it is "likely to become endangered within the foreseeable future throughout all or a significant portion of its range," according to the Endangered Species Act.

Conservation efforts by local governments, industries, businesses and private citizens contributed to the manatees' recovery, though challenges remain, FWS representatives warned.

Minimizing manatee interactions with boats, which are frequently lethal to the animals, will be a priority for FWS in collaboration with the U.S. Coast Guard and with coastal communities in Florida, the representatives added. Additional initiatives will regulate water pollution and the use of fishing gear in manatee habitats, and monitor the manatees' access to warm natural springs, which could help the animals survive winter cold snaps, FWS representatives said.

The FWS estimated that about 6,300 Antillean manatees live in the wild, in an area ranging from the Mexican Gulf Coast to northern Brazil and the Caribbean, while an estimated 6,620 T. manatus latirostris individuals call Florida home.

"Today, we both recognize the significant progress we have made in conserving manatee populations while reaffirming our commitment to continuing this species' recovery and success throughout its range," Jim Kurth, acting director of the FWS, said in the statement.

Original article on Live Science.
A dead five-foot-long bull shark was found in a floodwater puddle in the town of Ayr after Australia was hit by a tropical cyclone.

Forget about the "Sharknado" film series. A town in Australia experienced a real-life shark-cyclone of sorts when a shark washed up on the street after Cyclone Debbie hit the area, according to news reports.

The tropical cyclone hit the Australian state of Queensland this week, with heavy rainfall causing flash flooding in some areas along the coast, according to NASA. The rotating storm reached maximum sustained wind speeds estimated at over 115 mph (185 km/h), NASA reports, and drenched the ground with more than 20 inches (50 centimeters) of rain along much of its route. (Such storms are called hurricanes when they form in the Atlantic and Northeast Pacific oceans.)

Cyclone Debbie also deposited a shark on a road in the town of Ayr, in the north Queensland region of Burdekin, Queensland Fire & Emergency Services tweeted on Thursday (March 30). [On the Brink: A Gallery of Wild Sharks]

The 5-foot-long (1.5 meters) bull shark was found dead in a floodwater puddle, reported News.com.au. Bull sharks are common in the area, according to local journalist Philip Calder, who told the news agency that bull sharks live in the small waterways like the nearby Burdekin River close to communities.

With the heavy rainfall from the cyclone, the Burdekin River rapidly reached a peak of 31 feet (9.5 m), rising more than 16 feet (5 m) in just 5 hours late Wednesday (March 29), Ash Ryder, senior firefighter at the Ayr Fire and Rescue station, told The Courier Mail.

"He must've gotten caught in a torrent and [gotten] confused, beached himself on the side of the road," Calder told News.com.au. "We were pretty amazed, we were turning up to shoot a flooding road, we weren't expecting to see wildlife as well."

See more

Bull sharks will live in both freshwater and saltwater, John Carlson, a research biologist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Fisheries Service, previously told Live Science. They survive in freshwater by regulating the salt in their bodies, according to Carlson. Bull sharks have a special salt gland that keeps the salt concentration inside their bodies in balance with the concentration in the water  a process known as osmoregulation.

Original article on Live Science.
Scarlett Johansson has become the go-to actress for high concept sci-fi. In the past few years, she has starred in "Lucy," "Under the Skin" and "She" (her voice only, but it's more than enough), and she has the most prominent female role in the Avengers franchise.

That star power and fan appeal explain why she was cast as the lead in "Ghost in the Shell," even though her character, a cyborg government agent with killer skills and existential issues, is called Major Kusanagi in the original Japanese anime. (According to IMDB, she is just Major in the live-action movie.)

Protests accusing Hollywood of "whitewashing" an Asian character followed both the news of Johansson's casting and the initial release of photos of her in character.

Mamoru Oshii, who directed the 1995 movie, told the gaming site IGN that he approved of Johansson's casting.

"What issue could there possibly be with casting her?" Oshii told IGN. "The Major is a cyborg and her physical form is an entirely assumed one. The name 'Motoko Kusanagi' and her current body are not her original name and body."

Another hurdle for viewers may be just making sense of the movie.

Based on a popular manga title, "Ghost in the Shell" is like a riff on "Blade Runner" that casts doubt on the distinction between human and artificial consciousness and the reliability of memory, plus naked cyborgs and cool weapons. Explosive action scenes are intercut -- some might say undermined -- with philosophical discussions that raise more questions than answers.

Major, who is mostly machine, wonders if she has a "ghost," or soul. ("Blade Runner" fans can feel free here to revive the debate over whether the less self-conscious Deckard is human or a replicant, and hope it will be resolved in "Blade Runner 2049.")

The movie's climax is basically one computer program seducing another.

The new "Ghost in the Shell" appears to amp up the "Blade Runner" influence with a sleek, futuristic cityscape, as well as adding a backstory that may or may not make things clearer.

Read on to see what our movie critics think of "Ghost in the Shell" and the rest of this week's new movies, and click through the slideshow above for a look back on Scarlett Johansson's movie career.

Focus Features

"The Zookeeper's Wife" is based on Dianne Ackerman's nonfiction account of a Warsaw zoo that served as a refuge for Jews trapped in the Polish city after the Nazi invasion. Even if you think you never want to see another World War II movie, critic Mick LaSalle writes, "The Zookeeper's Wife" offers new insight into the terror of that war and the profound goodness humans are capable of. The title role, he adds, "crystallizes" what star Jessica Chastain "has been bringing to the screen since 'Zero Dark Thirty'  portraits of strength and heroism." ****

Read the full review

Watch the trailer

Paramount Pictures

Horrible movie visions of the future rarely hit home like they do in "Ghost in the Shell," LaSalle writes, maybe because it dredges up all of 2017's anxieties: fear of technology, loss of privacy and the end of civility. It's an action film, with Scarlett Johansson as a cyborg soldier with a human brain, but the action doesn't overwhelm the ideas the movie raises. "This is a thoughtful movie that's interesting now and will probably still be interesting in 100 years," LaSalle writes, "whichever way things go." ***

Read the full review

Watch the trailer

DreamWorks Animation

Talking babies can be funny, even if they're jerks. Think of those E-Trade commercials, or Stewie on family guy. "The Boss Baby," the latest animated feature from DreamWorks Animation understands that, critic Peter Hartlaub writes, and succeeds for a while as business-minded Boss Baby (Alec Baldwin) competes with older sibling Tim for control of their family. Soon, though, there are puppies and a plot to rule the world, and it's just too much. "With each baby step away from the domestic story," Hartlaub writes, 'The Boss Baby' loses its way." **1/2

See full review

Watch the trailer
The Thai Lao Orchid business in Leon Springs is for sale.

Owner Hip Wynn is asking $230,000, a price that would include everything: the business, furniture, lease, etc.

"I just want to move to a different business," Wynn said. "I've been in the restaurant business a little too long. The passion's no longer there, you know?"

Thai Lao Orchid, which is still in operation, is at 23535 W. Interstate 10, Suite 1104, 210-310-3919.

There is another Thai Lao Orchid in downtown San Antonio on Broadway. Wynn does not own that location, and it is not part of the sale.
Saratoga Springs

Was a classroom lesson featuring a political cartoon of Donald Trump, Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini a lesson in critical thinking or an attempt at liberal indoctrination?

That's a question Saratoga Springs parents debated at a school board meeting Thursday night after a pair of local moms appeared on Fox News last week to decry the teacher who delivered the lesson.

The lesson, delivered last month in a 10th grade social studies class, included a PowerPoint presentation containing two political cartoons that compared Trump to the 20th century dictators. According to Superintendent Michael Piccirillo, the students were asked to discuss and debate the concept of fascism, media portrayal of the president, and potential media bias that might be on display in the cartoons.

But that's not how parents from the group Saratoga Conservative Chicks saw it.

"Comparing our president to brutal dictators who killed millions of people, that is not OK," local mother Julie Tellstone told host Steve Doocy in a Fox and Friends segment titled "Trouble with Schools."

Since the segment aired, parents and residents of the Spa City have weighed in on the issue on social media. On Thursday night, roughly 75 members of the community flooded a school board meeting to express support or disdain for the lesson and the teacher who delivered it.

Kimberly Irish, whose son was in the classroom that day, said she was told the lesson included an introduction and open debate about media perception and portrayal of the president, and whether it's been fair or unfair.

"It was an opportunity for children to think openly about the media, and it asked them to think, interpret and use their brain before they just take things at face value," she said.

But for others in the audience Thursday, the lesson smacked of "total disrespect" for the country's highest office.

"My wife breaks her back paying school taxes here and so do I," said Melvin Winney, a longtime resident who graduated from the city school district in the 1970s. "I don't think our tax dollars should ever be used that way  to espouse fear about the leader of our country."

Parent Michelle King said the political views of most teachers in the district are obvious to students, and that it was clear the teacher was attempting to "plant a seed" in the students' minds.

"If this was to intentionally spark debate, where was the picture of Hillary compared to somebody of a dictatorship? Where was the picture of Hillary or Obama compared to Hitler? That's all I'm asking for  fairness, unbiased, nonpartisan education," she said.

A number of parents are calling for the teacher  who was not named at the meeting  to be disciplined. Resident David Chew, who spoke during Thursday's public comment period, said he was contacted by a national law firm that promised to take action if the teacher was not disciplined.

District officials have so far declined to discipline the teacher.

Supporters of the teacher said they worried the backlash could create a chilling effect in classrooms, with teachers afraid to teach current events or lead debates for fear of litigation or parental outcry.

"If my kids can't be taught about the media and the way things are portrayed throughout history, through satire, and be able to have those conversations in a modern context," said Deidre Chuckrow, a mother of two children in the district. "If that can't happen here in Saratoga then I don't want my kids in Saratoga schools."

bbump@timesunion.com  518-454-5387  @bethanybump
Colonie

The North Colonie school board will ask voters to approve a $106.2 million school renovation project, down $90 million from a proposition rejected in December.

"That would be doing substantial work on our elementaries to deal with enrollment," Superintendent D. Joseph Corr said.

The district estimates that within the next 10 years, the number of students will increase from 2,000 students to 2,200.

The Board of Education on Thursday night chose the less expensive of two options it had been considering for the revote. The other option was a $147.8 million proposal.

Voters defeated a $196.4 million project to renovate all the district's schools in December.

The district is sending a scaled-down version back to residents, with the May 16 vote being held on the same day ballots are cast on the annual school budget.

The proposal that will now go to voters focuses largely on improvements to the district's six elementary schools. The plan calls for moving sixth-graders from those schools to Shaker Middle School, requiring extensive renovations to Shaker Junior High School. Security upgrades also would be done.

Improvements to Shaker High School are largely dropped from the proposition, and Corr said that work will be taken up in a separate proposition in future years.

The district tried to time the work so that it can get enhanced state aid it is entitled to as a result of a 2008 merger with the Maplewood school district. That extra aid will expire if contracts are not signed by June 30, 2018. The state will cover 69 percent of the costs if that deadline is met, rather than the 50 percent aid rate districts normally receive for building projects.

Corr said the district won't be able to sign contracts and get state Education Department approval for all of the work in time for the enhanced aid. It is already too late for the high school work to be designed and approved in time, he said.

The district should be able to get the enhanced aid for work at the junior high school and at three of the six elementary schools, he said.

"They would be the ones it'd be easier to submit plans to get approval," he said.

If the proposal is approved, he said, it would save the district taxpayers $20 million. If the proposal is again rejected, he said, the district could not hold another vote until this coming December and there would be no chance for the enhanced aid.

tobrien@timesunion.com  518-454-5092  @timobrientu
John Alden Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution hosted a Vietnam War 50th Anniversary Commemoration event at its March meeting. Nearly 70 were in attendance, 15 Vietnam War veterans were honored. Veterans represented the Army, Navy and Marines. Those recognized were: Margaret Flatt, Mary Ann Jordan, Robert Hodges, William Alderson Jr., Rob Braddock, Allen Archer, William Caldwell, Jeff Grove, LaVern Klocke, Jim Marcoux, Ray Barta, Charles Smith, Mike Pnacek, Bill Pike and Jim McMahan. Each Vietnam veteran received a National Commemoration certificate and pin. Those who qualified served on active duty in the U.S. Armed forces at any time during the period of Nov. 1, 1955 to May 15, 1975, regardless of location. One Korean War vet, Dale Emeott, was also recognized for his service. The event was in conjunction with the United States of America Vietnam War Commemoration. For more information go to www.vietnamwar50th.com

The event speaker was Margaret Flatt, Ph.D., RN who presented Visions of War, Dreams of Peace.

Flatt shared her experiences as an Army nurse in Vietnam through pictures, stories and poems. She spoke of working in the Delta at the 36th Evacuation Hospital during the Tet Offensive. This hospital had patients from Army, Navy and from the Australian military. There was a radar site on a hill above the hospital which was taken by the Viet Cong. During the Tet Offensive, nurses had to ride from their quarters in a 2.5 ton truck for safety. They slept with a mattress over them in over 100 degree heat. Water was not safe so their barracks had a large tank outside for them to draw from. The nurses worked 12 days on and two off. On their days off, they would go into the villages and provide health care. During the Tet Offensive 400 wounded were admitted a day and 10,000 wounded a year. Soldiers who recovered in 30 days went back to their units. Those that needed more time were moved to Japan. Even weather conditions affected healing. The rainy season caused paper to rot, clothes would not dry, flies and maggots got into wounds. A bright spot was the Bob Hope show that came to entertain. However, instead of taking pictures of the entertainers, she found herself taking pictures of the men as it was so rare to see them smiling and laughing. Many nurses also left Vietnam with post traumatic stress disorder with symptoms still present today. Upon returning to the states, she and other nurses would go camping at Mt. Rainier to relax, help and support each other as they transitioned home. Flatt also spoke of the nurses who did not make it home, one being killed when their hospital was attacked. For more on women who served in Vietnam and other wars, go to www.vietnamwomensmemorial.org and to www.womensmemorial.org which is for Women in the Military Services of America.

Light refreshments were served, following the presentation, by hostesses Esther Emeott and Betsy Ward. The next chapter meeting will be Friday, April 7 to celebrate the Chapters 95th birthday. Michigan State Regent, Diane Schrift, will be speaking.
The Grim Reaper will be stalking the halls of Plainview High School on Thursday  collecting another young victim every few minutes as a grim reminder that on average a life is lost every 53 minutes to impaired driving.

The statistics are simply staggering, Plainview Fire Marshal Philip Mize explains. The cost of alcohol-related crashes are $44 billion annually in just the United States alone. And the total consumption of alcoholic beverages is equally astounding. In 2016, Americans consumed 3,571,694 gallons of distilled spirits and 46,092,256 gallons of beer.

Since 2004, the Shattered Dreams program has been staged every other year to bring to life to the PHS junior and senior classes the deadly consequences of distracted and impaired driving.

This years two-day event is set for April 6-7, with the wreck being staged at 10 a.m. Thursday at the corner of 13th and Smyth. The public is invited to watch, but asked to do so across the street from the school campus.

Sometimes we become desensitized about the dangers of drinking and driving. But when you see your friends gone and your parents hurting, it hits home, explains program co-organizer Joani Chapman Its a very intense time for these students, but if we can save just one life with this program its well worth it.

For the past 13 years, Shattered Dreams in Plainview has worked to combat the number of deaths by bringing education and awareness to the youth of the community. With a city-wide effort, volunteers stage an elaborate scene which brings to life the consequences of drinking and driving.

Its made as realistic as possible, right down to the victims being made up to show real injuries including broken bones sticking out, ambulances, police cars and the AeroCare helicopter, Mize explains. And to help drive it home, every 15 minutes during the rest of the school day the Grim Reaper pulls a student out of class and they arent seen again until an assembly the next day. Instead, the teacher reads their obituary to the class after they leave.

The crash scene, on the southwest edge of the campus, will be filled with realism. Local first responders will join with paramedics and EMS to treat the injured who are student volunteers. The Jaws of Life will be used to free victims from the crumpled wreckage, and victims will be taken from the scene by ambulances and an AeroCare helicopter.

Body bags and appropriate alternate transporation will be on hand for those who didnt make it.

At the hospital, doctors and nurses will treat injured students the way they would if it was an actual wreck.

Those fatally injured, whether they died at the scene to from injuries at the hospital, will have to lie motionless while they are identified by their grieving parents at either the hospital or the morgue.

Once those scenarios are complete, the dead and injured will have their phones taken away and not allowed to contact family and friends until the next day. Instead, they will be privately sequestered overnight inside the First United Methodist Churchs Cross and Flame youth center.

On Friday, the dead students reintroduced to their classmates during an assembly. At that time, the PHS audiovisual club will show a video from the day before, showing the drinking party, crash, anguish at the hospital and arrest and sentencing of the students charged with drinking and driving.

During the assembly, students who died during the event will share letters from their parents.

While heart wrenching, the program is extremely effective in driving home the realities associated with impaired driving.

Among the businesses and individuals who help stage Shattered Dreams each year are Plainview Fire Department and EMS, Plainview police, Hale County Sheriffs Office, Texas Department of Public Safety, Hale County constables, AeroCare, Dulaneys Auto Parts, Covenant Health Plainview, Central Plains Center and various restaurants who donate food to feed those participating in the two-day program.

We have a lot of businesses willing to donate goods and services, but what we really need is money, Mize says. We need to help pay for the DVDs we make for the students who participate as well as for TABC which oversees the program, and other expenses. With whats left, we give scholarships each year to some students who participate as either a junior or senior. In 2015 our scholarship went to Christopher Vega, and last year it went to Caitlyn Isaguirre. The recipients are screened and selected by the PHS Scholarship Committee.

Donations can be made to Plainview High School and are tax deductible. Contributions should be made payable and sent to Plainview Shattered Dreams, 1501 Quincy, Plainview, TX 79072. To schedule a program, contact Mize at 291-1251 or Joani Chapman at 291-4470.
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One man has been arrested for his suspected involvement in a weekend shooting that left two dead and four others in critical condition, including a former "America's Next Top Model" contestant, but authorities said late Thursday they are still searching for a second suspect.

Investigators Tuesday had charged Harvey Jones, 34, with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, according to court documents. Harvey Jones is currently being held in the Harris County Jail without bail.

BRANDY RUSHER: What you should know about the Houston 'Top Model' contestant

Initially, his brother, Jeremy Jones, 28, was charged with capital murder, but late Thursday charges were dismissed against him.

A spokesman for the Harris County District Attorney's office said that Jeremy Jones' alibi was credible, but he declined to elaborate any further.

The brothers turned themselves in to authorities late Wednesday night in connection with the shooting Sunday at the Haverstock Hills apartment complex, which has a history of being a breeding ground for crime and gang activity.

Sam Cammack, one of Jeremy Jones' attorneys for an ongoing and unrelated case, disputed witness' statements that led to the brothers' arrests.

CRITICAL CONDITION: Argument over people sitting on stairs sparked shooting that killed 2, wounded 'Top Model'

Jeremy Jones was 15 to 20 miles away from Haverstock Hills during the shooting, Cammack said. The sister of the Jones brothers, also listed in court documents as being at the complex at the time, was likely away at work, Cammack said.

"There are a lot of inconsistencies in there," Cammack said of the witness statements. "And rightfully so. There was a lot of chaos going on at that scene that afternoon."

Cammack has been contacted by the Jones family, he said. He and another attorney at his firm are considering representing at least one of the brothers for this case, Sam Cammack said.

Sunday's shooting began when Harvey Jones' common law wife who lives in the Haverstock Hills complex, Jacqueline Brown, got in a spat with the victims. She was angry that people were loitering outside of her apartment, according to court documents.

Christopher Beatty and Gary Wayne Rusher - the brother of the "Top Model" contestant - died in the gunfire. Arthur Larkin, Ty'bra Baptiste, "Top Model" contestant Brandy Rusher and her other brother, Isiah Rusher were wounded.

Beatty's brother, Sean Beatty, lived in the complex at the time of the shooting. Larkin, who was the Rushers' in-law, was also a resident.

The Jones brothers had remained at large for two days after their charges were filed Tuesday.

The sheriff's office declined to clarify whether the sister of the Jones brothers is also wanted in the case.

Brooke A. Lewis contributed to this report
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Hopes that Houston's firefighter pension board might agree to a compromise set of benefit reforms and end their opposition to Mayor Sylvester Turner's landmark reform package proved too optimistic, after the two sides passed a Thursday deadline without a deal.

The Houston Firefighters Relief and Retirement Fund had joined police and municipal worker groups in backing preliminary terms last fall, but did not join their counterparts in agreeing to final legislative language.

Fire pension chairman David Keller had been upbeat in his testimony before a state House committee on Monday, saying recent talks with Sen. Joan Huffman -- the Houston Republican whose committee approved the reform proposal last week -- had been productive and that he was "hopeful" his board could come on board.

Keller acknowledged he verbally agreed to a compromise Turner offered that included more than the estimated $800 million in benefit reductions the board had approved last October but less than the nearly $1 billion in cuts currently in the reform legislation.

But, after the final numbers were crunched, Keller said, the proposal cut too deep for his board to approve.

"There was an all-in number that the city gave us for benefit reductions that just proved to be a very difficult challenge," he said. "This thing has been punitive, it's been unfair and, even while we're trying to be conciliatory, we still couldn't get there. This whole thing from start to finish has been moving goalposts."

City officials have a similarly uncharitable view of Keller and his colleagues, saying the board has been dragging its feet through months of negotiations.

Turner said his staff, legislators and experts who've participated in negotiations, such as state Pension Review Board chairman Josh McGee, have given firefighters every opportunity to get on board and have watched firefighters blow every deadline.

"We are moving forward aggressively and will not be stopped by any one entity," Turner said in a Friday statement. "Never has there been a plan with this much support. It is a good plan and we are moving ahead to obtain legislative approval."
Longford Shopping Centre was a hive of activity on Wednesday last for the County Final of the Student Enterprise Programme, a competition sponsored and organised by the Local Enterprise Office, Longford.

Seven secondary schools - Cnoc Mhuire, Granard; Moyne Community School; Mercy Secondary School Ballymahon; Ballymahon Vocational School, Ardscoil Phadraig, Granard; St Mels College Longford and Mean Scoil Mhuire Longford - took part in this years mini-business award with 22 groups of transition students and one team in the Junior Category (1st years) showing a high degree of innovation and good commercial awareness.

A wide range of businesses products and services were displayed on the day including, craft & gift wares, beauty and skincare products, sports-wear and a number of very innovative new products.

Innovation stole the day with the winners in the Junior and Senior categories coming from the development of new products.

Mercy Secondary School Ballymahon, J & S Kitchen Aid, led by James Carroll, Cronan Flood and Sam Maxwell  designed and manufacture a very innovative knife top hand protector while first years students from Moyne Community School, Shauna Reilly and Emma Beirne have successfully designed and produced the Bin Belt, a strap device that keeps your wheelie bin lids securely closed.

These teams will now go on to represent Longford at the National Finals in Croke Park on Wednesday, May 3.

Runners Up on the day went to Snap Attack from Cnoc Mhuire, Granard who produce educational snap cards used to help children learn a variety of vocabulary of different languages.

Other notable winners on the day included, two teams from St Mels College, St Mels Bobble Hats and Rustic Reindeer, The Pamper Dolls from Mean Scoil Mhuire, Longford, Foodies from Ballymahon Vocational School and Wooden Wonders from Ardscoil Phadraig, Granard.

Many of the students identified market niches, not just within the school but across their local communities and were able to turn significant profits by successfully targeting these niches.

Michael Nevin, Head of Enterprise, Longford LEO congratulated all the students who participated and emphasised the important role the Enterprise Office has in introducing students to the world of enterprise as a means of fostering an enterprise culture in the County.

Mr Nevin added, The Enterprise Office is grateful to the management of Longford Shopping Centre for giving the students space to showcase their products. The successful implementation of the programme is dependent on the goodwill of teachers and the LEO office and is grateful for their support during the year.
A woman who appeared before Longford District Court last week charged under the Environment Act was convicted and fined 600 following a hearing into the matter.

Lynda Kenny, Killeenatnuan, Killoe, Co Longford appeared before Judge Seamus Hughes charged with depositing household waste so as to create litter at Creeve, Killoe, Co Longford on August 10, 2016.

Outlining the evidence to the court, litter warden Declan Murtagh, Longford Co Council said that on the date in question, he was on patrol in the area when he discovered a large volume of household waste at the side of the road.

I investigated the material and discovered documents identifying the defendant, said Mr Murtagh before pointing out that correspondence was then issued in respect of the matter.

I found an Airtricity bill with the defendants name and address on it.

The court was then informed that the defendant had made no contact with the local authority despite efforts on its part to correspond with her.

Mr Murtagh also pointed out to the court that the area in which the rubbish was dumped was regarded locally as a litter blackspot.

During his deliberations on the matter, Judge Hughes said dumping on the side of the road was totally unacceptable.

This court regards that kind of behaviour as totally unacceptable, he fumed before pointing out that it was something that was becoming more and more common in rural Ireland.

The Judge ubsequently convicted the defendant and fined her 600 in respect of the matter before him.

He also awarded costs of 500 against her.
Nature & Weather, Local News, Arts & Culture, Travel & Local Attractions, Health & Wellness

By Long Island News & PR Published: March 31 2017

DEC to Stock 2.2 Million Catchable Size Trout and Salmon in New York Waters in 2017.

Albany, NY  March 31, 2017  Governor Andrew M. Cuomo today announced that the 2017 trout and salmon fishing season begins tomorrow, April 1. Anglers can visit Governor Andrew M. Cuomo today announced that the 2017 trout and salmon fishing season begins tomorrow, April 1. Anglers can visit DECs website to view this springs planned trout stockings in 314 lakes and ponds and 2,850 miles of streams across New York State. Department of Environmental Conservation staff and partners have been monitoring New Yorks waterbodies and estimate that ample rain and snowfall during the winter months helped to fill depleted lakes and reservoirs and restored favorable stream flows for large parts of the state that were affected by drought during the fall of 2016.

"New York is home to world-class fishing in virtually every corner of the state," Governor Cuomo said. "From the Catskills to the Adirondacks, from the Finger Lakes to Lake Ontario, or a small stream or neighborhood pond, I encourage New Yorkers and visitors alike to get out and enjoy all the great fishing that New Yorks waters have to offer."

The best early season angling opportunities for trout are typically in lakes and ponds, with some of the best fishing found immediately after ice thaws. Long Island, where anglers can enjoy a year-round trout season, provides good early season trout fishing with warmer water temperatures and most waters receiving at least a portion of their annual stocking allocations prior to April 1.

DEC Commissioner Basil Seggos said, "Our fish stocking efforts ensure New Yorks lakes, rivers and streams provide extensive opportunities for New Yorks 1.8 million anglers to reel in a great catch. New York's sport fishing industry generates an estimated $1.8 billion in economic activity annually, supporting nearly 17,000 jobs statewide, and our fish stocking programs help restore native species populations to our waters."

Early-season fishing conditions on Upstate trout streams will improve as snow melts and temperatures rise. Anglers will have the best success using bait and lures such as spinners that can be fished slow and deep. Fishing will improve markedly once water temperatures move into the 60s later in the spring.

DEC operates 12 fish hatcheries in New York and plans to stock more than 2.2 million catchable-size brook, brown and rainbow trout in 314 lakes and ponds and roughly 2,850 miles of streams across the state, which over the course of the spring will include 1.6 million brown trout, 426,300 rainbow trout, and 160,200 brook trout. Thats in addition to the stocking of nearly 2 million yearling lake trout, steelhead, landlocked salmon, splake, Chinook salmon, and coho salmon that will grow over the years to become catchable size fish.

DECs stocking program traditionally starts in late March and early April with the stocking of catchable-size trout in the lower Hudson Valley, Long Island, and western New York. Stocking then proceeds, as weather and stream conditions permit, to the Catskills, Adirondacks and other portions of the state. Given this years mid-March snowstorm, some delays in the stocking schedule can be expected in the states hardest hit areas. Anglers are encouraged to contact the regional DEC office where they intend to fish for up-to-date stocking information.

For those who prefer a quieter, more remote setting in the Catskills or Adirondack Park, more than 316,000 brook trout fingerlings will be stocked in 342 lakes and ponds in those locations this spring and fall, providing unique angling opportunities. A complete list of waters stocked from 2011 to 2016 is also available through Open NY at https://data.ny.gov/Recreation/Fish-Stocking-Lists-Actual-Beginning-2011/e52k-ymww

Early season trout fishing recommendations by DEC staff in each region can be found in the 2017 Coldwater Fishing Forecast at www.dec.ny.gov/outdoor/63598.html . The DEC website also includes a map of recommended fishing locations at www.dec.ny.gov/pubs/42978.html and specific locations on streams where DEC has purchased fishing easements at www.dec.ny.gov/outdoor/9924.html . For a wealth of helpful information on suggested fishing locations and tips for beginning anglers, people are encouraged to visit the DEC website at www.dec.ny.gov/outdoor/fishing.html

As part of Governor Cuomos NY Open for Fishing and Hunting Initiative, which is aimed at increasing outdoor recreational opportunities in New York, the state is making significant improvements to DECs fish hatchery system and waterway access facilities. Since 2014, $11 million in NY Works funding has been budgeted for hatchery improvements. Projects completed in 2016 included the installation of fish-rearing raceways at Chateaugay Hatchery, pond renovations and a new emergency generator at the South Otselic Hatchery, cleaning of the major water supply line by pigging at Salmon River Hatchery, and new water and wastewater piping and valves at Rome Hatchery. Future hatchery projects and purchases under consideration include pond and raceway renovations at Catskill, Caledonia, and Randolph hatcheries, deep water well rehabilitation and a new feed storage building at Bath Hatchery, predator exclusion buildings at Bath and Cedar Springs Hatcheries, the installation of a single source discharge point for water at Caledonia Hatchery, upgrades/repairs to hatchery manager residences at numerous hatcheries, the purchase of two tank trucks for hauling fish waste, and the purchase of four flatbed fish stocking trucks for Adirondack, Chateaugay, Rome, and Van Hornesville Hatcheries.

Efforts to upgrade existing facilities or develop new boating and fishing access sites also continued in 2016. A new boat launch on Meacham Lake (Franklin County) will be open for use this spring. New universally accessible cartop launches and fishing piers were constructed on Esopus Creek (Ulster County) and Looking Glass Pond (Schoharie County). A newly refurbished fishing pier will also be open for early season trout anglers at Dunkirk Harbor (Lake Erie) in Chautauqua County. More than $6 million has been invested in boating and fishing access facilities over the past five years.

DEC also reminds anglers to be sure to take appropriate measures to stop the spread of aquatic invasive species in New York State. Adirondack anglers and boaters should be particularly vigilant. The Spiny Waterflea, a recent invader in the region, has slowly spread from its initial site of detection, Great Sacandaga Lake. This species can attach to fishing and anchor lines and downrigger cables and can also be found in the remnant water in a boats bilge, livewells, and bait wells. Boats, boating accessories, and fishing gear should be completely dried and/or disinfected with hot water before being used in a new body of water. Methods to clean and disinfect fishing gear can be found at www.dec.ny.gov/animals/50121.html

Fishing License Requirements

Anyone 16 years of age and older that wants to fish in New York must have a State fishing license. Anglers can purchase and print a license for immediate use on their home computer at www.dec.ny.gov/permits/6101.html . Anglers can also purchase a license by phone by calling 1-866-933-2257, or from the numerous license issuing agents across the state. Those purchasing by phone will receive a confirmation number that can be used as proof of purchase until receiving their license by mail. Fishing licenses are valid for 365 days from the date of purchase. DEC also encourages those purchasing a license to purchase a Habitat/Access Stamp to help fund important access and habitat projects. For more information on the Habitat/Access Stamp Program go to www.dec.ny.gov/permits/47452.html
School & Education, Local News, Community, Charity & Cause, Arts & Culture, Politics

By Long Island News & PR Published: March 31 2017

Assemblyman Andy Raia and Assemblyman Chad Lupinacci welcome the leadership of tomorrow to Albany.

Albany, NY  March 31, 2017  Assemblyman Chad A. Lupinacci (R,C,I,Ref-South Assemblyman Chad A. Lupinacci (R,C,I,Ref-South Huntington ) had the opportunity this week to meet with students from Walt Whitman High School in South Huntington participating in the Angelo Del Toro Puerto Rican/Hispanic Youth Leadership Institute. Each year, the group is invited to the floor of the Assembly Chamber to meet legislators, observe how government functions, and are officially extended the privileges of The Peoples House by the Speaker Pro Tempore. The students also host a mock legislative session and debate real issues facing New York today.

I was so pleased to congratulate South Huntingtons amazing students for their participation in this years mock session, said Lupinacci. Some of our students are participating for their second year and are certainly a model to others for their engagement in the legislative process. For the past five years, Ive been excited to participate in this event and share my insight on the issues facing our state. These students are a testament to the outstanding education and curriculum offered in the South Huntington schools, and Im proud to recognize them as members of our community and state.

The Angelo Del Toro Puerto Rican/Hispanic Youth Leadership Institute is an innovative collaboration with the NYS Assembly/Senate Puerto Rican/Hispanic Task Force in conjunction with the annual SOMOS El Futuro conference, Office of Bilingual Education and World Languages, the New York State City Board of Education, and other agencies as appropriate.

The overall purpose of the PR/HYLI is student empowerment. To this end, the Institute has the following goals for its student delegates:

The development of leadership skills in Latino/Hispanic Youth;

The creation of opportunities for Latino/Hispanic students to interact with positive role models such as Puerto Rican/Latino elected officials, educators, and business leaders;

The creation of partnerships and conversations among educators, business leaders and students, and

The development of an in depth knowledge of the state legislative process.
Local News, Crime

By Long Island News & PR Published: March 31 2017

The suspect fled in a 2006 red Dodge Durango with Tennessee license plates.

SCPD are seeking the publics help in identifying a suspect who assaulted a man in Port Jefferson Station.

Port Jefferson Station, NY  March 31, 2017  Suffolk County Crime Stoppers and Suffolk County Police Sixth Squad detectives are seeking the publics help in identifying and locating the man who assaulted a man in Suffolk County Crime Stoppers and Suffolk County Police Sixth Squad detectives are seeking the publics help in identifying and locating the man who assaulted a man in Port Jefferson Station earlier this month.

A man punched another man at Port Jeff Plaza, located at 542 Patchogue Road, on March 17 at approximately 4:45 p.m. The suspect fled in a 2006 red Dodge Durango, Tennessee license plate 987 NKN.
The US military announced today that a senior Islamic State (ISIS) propaganda official was killed in an airstrike on Mar. 25 in Al-Qaim, Iraq. The propagandist, Ibrahim al-Ansari, was killed along with four of his associates, according to Joe Scrocca, the public affairs director for Combined Joint Task Force  Operation Inherent Resolve (CJTF-OIR).

Al-Ansari was a leader in producing and disseminating propaganda to direct, encourage and instruct terror attacks, as well as to recruit foreign terrorist fighters, Scrocca said. He promoted terror attacks against US and Turkish citizens and was also responsible for the brainwashing of young children to perpetuate ISISs brutal message, Scrocca added.

The Islamic State is not only brainwashing children, but has also used dozens of them in suicide bombings, including during its defense of the city of Mosul. And the group openly boasts of using children in its vehicle-borne improvised explosive device (VBIED) attacks. See FDDs Long War Journal report, Islamic State uses improvised weapons of war in Mosul, Iraq, for two photos of children recently used in VBIED operations. The Islamic States propaganda machine regularly produces many more examples.

Some of the organizations gruesome videos also feature children performing executions on behalf of their elders.

Al-Ansaris propaganda encouraged ISIS followers to conduct knife attacks, vehicle attacks and arson attacks against American and other Western citizens, Scrocca explained. This strike will disrupt ISISs ability to create propaganda  propaganda to [incite] terror into the region as well as in our homeland, and has struck communications between other ISIS members.

The US and its coalition partners have repeatedly targeted the jihadists senior media personnel. This effort goes back to the height of the Iraq War, when al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) became a prolific producer of videos, photos and other media. AQI and its successor, the Islamic State, have repeatedly replaced these propagandists. But the targeted strikes do, at times, slow the groups ability to produce content.

Al-Ansari was not alone in promoting knife and vehicle attacks. This is one of the Islamic States long-standing themes.

For example, the groups first spokesman, Abu Muhammad al Adnani, implored followers to use such crude tools in the West. The best thing you can do is to strive to your best and kill any disbeliever, whether he be French, American, or from any of their allies, Adnani said in one speech (titled, Indeed Your Lord Is Ever Watchful). Adnani continued: If you are not able to find an IED or a bullet, then single out the disbelieving American, Frenchman, or any of their allies. Smash his head with a rock, or slaughter him with a knife, or run him over with your car, or throw him down from a high place, or choke him, or poison him.

Adnani was killed in a US airstrike near Al Bab, Syria in Aug. 2016. Another jihadist, known as Abu al Hassan al Muhajir, was announced as Adnanis successor in Dec. 2016. In his first message, al Muhajir promoted attacks Turkey and the West.

The Islamic State has continued to promulgate Adnanis guidance long after his death. The third issue of Rumiyah (Rome) magazine, which was released in Nov. 2016, included an article devoted to vehicle attacks that was entitled, Just Terror Tactics. The author wrote: Having a secondary weapon, such as a gun or a knife, is also a great way to combine a vehicle attack with other forms of attacks. Depending on what is obtained, the kill count can be maximized and the level of terror resulting from the attack can be raised.

The so-called caliphates followers have apparently followed through with this advice on multiple occasions, sometimes using knives, trucks, or both. Just weeks after Rumiyah was published last November, a Somali refugee named Abdul Razak Ali Artan drove his car into a crowd of people at Ohio State University before exiting the vehicle and using a knife to assault his victims. Eleven people were hospitalized as a result. Artan was quickly shot dead by a campus police officer. Amaq News Agency, the Islamic States main propaganda arm, claimed afterwards that Artan was a soldier of the caliphate.

On Mar. 22, Khalid Masood drove his car into a crowd near the British parliament in London and then jumped out and used a blade to assault others. Four people were killed and dozens more wounded. Amaq again claimed that Masood was a soldier of the caliphate. Still other Islamic State supporters have driven their vehicles into large gatherings elsewhere.

The Islamic State celebrates its media personnel as martyrs after they are killed either in combat, or in airstrikes by the US-led coalition. For instance, the two photos below purportedly depict members of the groups propaganda division who were recently killed. The first one was identified Abu Ibrahim al-Iraqi.

Thomas Joscelyn is a Senior Fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and the Senior Editor for FDD's Long War Journal.

Are you a dedicated reader of FDD's Long War Journal? Has our research benefitted you or your team over the years? Support our independent reporting and analysis today by considering a one-time or monthly donation. Thanks for reading! You can make a tax-deductible donation here.
Anjem Choudary (right)

Yesterday, the US Department of State added four jihadists linked to the Islamic State and another tied to al Qaeda to the list of specially designated global terrorists. The five terrorists come from Britain, Sweden, New Zealand, and Trinidad and Tobago.

The most infamous is Anjem Choudary, the British Islamist who is directly linked to Omar Bakri Muhammad, and who has formed several radical Islamist organizations, such as Al Muhajiroun, Al Ghurabaa, and Islam4UK, all which have been banned in Britain. He is currently serving a 66 month long prison sentence in Britain for providing support to the Islamic State. Choudary is one of the more prominent Islamists who operate with near-impunity in London.

Another terrorist mentioned, Sami Bouras, is very likely the same individual who, according to Mathias Vermeulen, was jailed twice in Tunisia, once in 2003 and again in 2010. Bouras is a Swedish citizen who originally is from Tunisia. He sought asylum in Sweden after being released from prison in 2006. State described him as a member of AQ and who has been involved with planning suicide attacks. However State did not indicate where Bouras was operating.

States brief descriptions of the five terrorists who were designated on March 30 is listed below.

El Shafee Elsheikh traveled to Syria in 2012, joined al-Qaidas (AQ) branch in Syria, and later joined ISIS. In May 2016, Elsheikh was identified as a member of the ISIS execution cell known as The Beatles, a group accused of beheading more than 27 hostages and torturing many more. Elsheikh was said to have earned a reputation for waterboarding, mock executions, and crucifixions while serving as an ISIS jailer. Anjem Choudary is a British extremist with links to convicted terrorists and extremist networks in the UK, including the proscribed Al-Muhajiroun group. In September 2014, Choudary was arrested for pledging allegiance to ISIS and for acting as a key figure in ISIS recruitment drive. He was sentenced to prison in September 2016. Choudary has stated that he will continue his recruitment activities from prison. Sami Bouras is a Swedish citizen of Tunisian descent who is a member of AQ and who has been involved with planning suicide attacks. Shane Dominic Crawford is a citizen of Trinidad and Tobago and is currently believed to be a foreign terrorist fighter in Syria carrying out terrorist activity on behalf of ISIS, including acting as an English language propagandist for the group. Mark John Taylor is a New Zealand national who has been fighting in Syria with ISIS since the fall of 2014. Taylor has used social media, including appearing in a 2015 ISIS propaganda video, to encourage terrorist attacks in Australia and New Zealand. Todays action notifies the U.S. public and the international community that Elsheikh, Choudary, Bouras, Crawford, and Taylor have committed or pose a significant risk of committing acts of terrorism. Designations expose and isolate organizations and individuals, and result in denial of access to the U.S. financial system. Moreover, designations can assist or complement the law enforcement actions of other U.S. agencies and other governments.

Bill Roggio is a Senior Fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and the Editor of FDD's Long War Journal.

Are you a dedicated reader of FDD's Long War Journal? Has our research benefitted you or your team over the years? Support our independent reporting and analysis today by considering a one-time or monthly donation. Thanks for reading! You can make a tax-deductible donation here.
The US military has been granted approval by President Donald Trump to target Shabaab, al Qaedas branch in East Africa, with additional precision fires. This now makes Somalia part of what the Obama administration had described as areas of active hostilities, where jihadist groups like al Qaeda, the Islamic State and other terrorist groups can be directly targeted by the US military with looser restrictions on the use of force.

The president has approved a Department of Defense proposal to provide additional precision fires in support of African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) and Somali security forces operations to defeat Shabaab in Somalia, Pentagon Spokesman Captain Jeff Davis said in a statement released by the Department of Defense.

This authority is consistent with our approach of developing capable Somali security forces and supporting regional partners in their efforts to combat Shabaab. Somali and AMISOM forces have already achieved significant success in recapturing territory from Shabaab, and additional US support will help them increase pressure on Shabaab and reduce the risk to our partner forces when they conduct operations, Davis continued.

The new directive to pursue Shabaab will deny it safe havens from which it could attack U.S. citizens or U.S. interests in the region.

The Pentagons desire to actively target Shabaab reflects the growing concern that al Qaedas branch in East Africa is gaining strength despite the presence of both AMISOM and US forces. Over the past year, Shabaab has regained control of some towns and rural areas in the south that it lost during an AMISOM offensive that began in 2011. In addition, Shabaab has stepped up suicide attacks and guerrilla operations in and around the capital of Mogadishu. Furthermore, Shabaab used a sophisticated laptop bomb in an attempt to down a Somali airline in 2016. This attack was cited by the US government as one of the reasons that electronics have been banned in the cabins of airplanes departing from 10 airports in the Middle East. [See Whats really behind Trumps laptopban.]

During the Obama administration, the US military was conducting raids against training camps and other operations in Shabaab-held territory which were clearly offensive in nature. US Africa Command [AFRICOM] described such operations as self-defense strikes in an effort to skirt restrictions on operations against Shabaab in areas outside of active hostilities. [For more information, [See AFRICOM masks military operations in Somalia as self defense strikes.]

AFRICOMs attempts to hide direct combat operations against Shabaab targets such as training camps and IED factories as advise and assist missions whitewashed the more than 10-year-old war that the weak Somali government, the African Union, and the United States has waged against al Qaedas branch in Somalia. In 2016, AFRICOM announced nine self-defense strikes and defensive fires missions in Somalia. The Department of Defense has even justified airstrikes on Shabaab training camps, such as the one in Raso on March 5, 2016, as defensive operations.

Under the Obama administration, areas of active hostilities included Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria, and in Libya for a brief period of time in 2016 when the military was directly supporting the offensive against the Islamic State in Sirte. In these areas, the US military was directly engaged in the fight against the jihadist group and can operate under looser restrictions in targeting the terrorist insurgent groups.

In the areas outside of active hostilities, which included countries such as Yemen, Somalia, and Libya, and though not stated by the US government, Pakistan, the US military was forced to operate under strict rules of engagement that insisted that any operation targeting terrorists include the standard of near-certainty of no civilian casualties. The strict rules of engagement has allowed jihadist groups to thrive and expand their insurgencies against weak central governments.

Bill Roggio is a Senior Fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and the Editor of FDD's Long War Journal.

Are you a dedicated reader of FDD's Long War Journal? Has our research benefitted you or your team over the years? Support our independent reporting and analysis today by considering a one-time or monthly donation. Thanks for reading! You can make a tax-deductible donation here.
Timothy S. Rausch Download Image: Web

Timothy S. Rausch, senior vice president and chief nuclear officer for Talen Energy, will discuss nuclear sustainability during a presentation a Lycoming College on April 11 at 7 p.m. The presentation, which will be held in the Mary L. Welch Honors Hall on the corner of 4th and Basin Streets, is free and open to the public.

Rausch will discuss the integral role nuclear energy plays in providing the clean and reliable energy needed for a sustainable economy. He will outline initiatives in various states to promote cleaner air and will examine nuclear energy as part of the energy mix with other fuel sources.

Responsible for Talen Energys 2,600 megawatt Susquehanna nuclear power plant, Rausch joined the staff in 2009 after 25 years of experience in virtually all the disciplines of the industry. He began his nuclear career with GPU Nuclear Corp. as an operator training instructor at the Oyster Creek plant in New Jersey. After moving to FirstEnergys Perry nuclear plant in Ohio, he served in leadership positions in operations, maintenance, engineering, training, quality and refueling outages before being named plant general manager in 2002. In 2004, he accepted a position with Exelon Nuclear Corp., where he served as design engineering director, engineering director for the Exelon fleet, and site vice president of the Oyster Creek plant.

A native of Ohio, Rausch earned a bachelor of science degree in nuclear engineering from the University of Cincinnati and a masters in business administration from Cleveland State University. Rausch is actively engaged in nuclear industry organizations and holds leadership positions with the Nuclear Energy Institute and the Electric Power Research Institute. He serves as Chairman of EPRIs Nuclear Power Council, an international advisory committee for nuclear power research. He also serves as Chairman of the Utilities Service Alliance board of directors. He is a member of the Ohio State University Nuclear Engineering Advisory Board and the Greater Lehigh Valley (Pa.) United Way Board.

The presentation is part of the Colleges semester-long colloquium on Our Energy Future and is sponsored by the Center for Energy and the Future, which will begin full operations later this year.

Lycoming Colleges Center for Energy and the Future (CEF) brings the Colleges interdisciplinary, liberal arts approach to the study of the complex and interconnected questions surrounding our energy future. CEF engages students, faculty, researchers, business and political leaders, and the general public in an ongoing and fair-minded conversation about energy systems of all types and their impacts at a local, national and global level.
Among the many things I find frustrating about the Apple TV experienceand yes, there are more than a fewthe Siri Remote is near the top of the list. The small slab of metal, glass, and plastic was billed as one of the marquee features of the new set-top box when it debuted back in fall 2015, but my experience with it has been largely underwhelming.

I was, at the time of its introduction, hopeful about the Siri Remotes potential. Apple went so far as to call it the only remote youll need.

After using itor mostly not using itfor the last two years, I feel pretty confident in saying that it most emphatically is not.

Function falls short of form

The Siri Remote is an example of Apples idealistic design. Were the Apple TV the only device connected to my TV, the remote might very well be fine. I would still have a bone to pick with its annoyingly symmetrical design, the fact that its small and easily misplaced, and the annoyance of trackpad scrolling, but there are aspects I wouldnt find wholly objectionable.

Unfortunately, the Apple TV doesnt exist in a vacuum. Ive easily used up all four HDMI ports on my HDTV, and the Xbox One and the Fire TV get a fair share of attention. Since the Siri Remote doesnt accommodate either, and their remotes dont work with the Apple TV, Im already in trouble.

So even though my Logitech Harmony universal remote may not be quite as attractive as the Siri Remote, it wins out on functions. Its comfortable to hold, and I can easily tell which way is up without looking at it. Mostly, it works with all of my connected devices, which is the biggest utility win of all.

Talking to the TV

The Siri Remote, however, does have some features I miss on my Harmony remote: the clicks on the edge of the trackpad to jump back or forward 10 seconds, for example. Scrubbing on the trackpad is also a lot easier than the fast-forward and rewind buttons used on other set top boxes, which are largely unchanged from what we used for VHS tapes.

Apple

I do find the Siri Remote preferable to using my iPhone as a remote, though obviously the Apple TV Remote app on iOS makes text entry far more pleasant and efficient than picking out letters one-by-one from an onscreen menu.

Then theres Siri itself.

The other week I was watching a Netflix series and found myself sick of the opening credits by episode two. So I picked up the Siri Remote and was about to scrub forward when I remembered Siri was supposed to be able to handle this. Skip forward one minute I said, and sure enough, it jumped to almost the exact end of the credits. (How great would it be if you could just ask it to skip the opening credits?)

But as much as I like the potential of Siri on the Apple TV, I would prefer it if it were built not into the remote but into the box itself. That way I wouldnt have to cast around for the remote when I want to use Siri, and it would be easier to replace the remote with a universal option for all the other times when I dont want to use Siri.

This would also potentially save on some of the cost of the Apple TV. Right now, replacing a Siri Remote costs $79more than half of the cost of the entire box. Perhaps it would make more sense to provide the Siri Remote as an upgrade option, and offer a cheaper remote for a more entry-level boxmaybe even the model that shipped with the previous Apple TV.

A Hey Siri option for the Apple TV would be quite welcome and, I believe, entirely doable. There are challenges, but if the Amazon Echo, Google Home, and even iPhone can listen for Hey Siri as theyre playing back audio, it seems to me an Apple TVwith the right microphone technologycould handle this as well.

As far as false positives go, Apples already made some movement in this direction with the voice-training it uses on the iPhone. Admittedly, it would have to be slightly more complex on something like a set-top box, which will get used by more than one person in a household, but I would be surprised if the company isnt investigating this already.

I dont think broadening Siris utility or replacing the remote will fix all of what ails the Apple TV, but I do think that theyre both critical pieces of how we interact with our TVs, which is different from how we interact with our phones, tablets, and computers. Theres no one-fits-all design approach here, and the Apple TV should get just as much thought as Apples other platforms.
According to German Patent Law the courts are bound by the grant of a patent by the respective Patent Office. In consequence thereof they cannot hold a patent as null and void: an action for declaration of non-infringement cannot be based on the lack of patentability of the patent. However, a defence against an infringement action is possible by pleading that according to the state of the art the infringing object is covered by that state of the art or an obvious derivation of it and therefore cannot fall under the scope of the patent if that patent (the claims) would otherwise be infringed only in an equivalent way. But such a defence is consequently denied if the claims would be infringed literally  because then that defence based on prior art is equivalent to a claim of nullity of a patent which the courts are not allowed to judge due to the concept of bifurcation. This sort of defence, namely that the infringing object is made according to prior art, is called in Germany Formsteineinwand after a decision of the German Supreme Court ruling on such a defence.

Austrian Patent Law also adheres to the concept of bifurcation. The Commercial Court in Vienna which hears all patent infringement cases has to judge the defence of nullity of the infringed patent first of all itself. If it is of the opinion that the nullity defence is not sufficiently substantiated it accepts the granted patent as it is and continues the infringement proceedings. If it however thinks that there is merit in the defence of nullity of the patent in question it has to stay its proceedings and sets a term for the defendant to institute nullity proceedings at the Patent Office. If within the term set the court is not informed about the commencement of such a procedure at the Patent Office it continues the infringement procedure accepting the grant of the patent as is and disregards the nullity defence. However, according to Austrian Patent Law the courts cannot hear declaratory actions for patent infringement or non-infringement. The Austrian Patent Office is competent as first instance tribunal for positive or negative declaratory actions concerning a patent. For such actions Austrian Patent Law states that the file wrapper and all prior art documents have to be taken into account. Second instance is the Higher Regional Court in Vienna.

Now that Higher Regional Court has handed down an appeal decision in a negative declaratory action (34 R 146/15p). In that case the claimant had pleaded the Formsteineinwand citing prior art which showed that the device in suit was constructed according to that prior art or an obvious derivation of it respectively and therefore could not be infringing since the scope of patent claims cannot cover what is already known. The defendant (patent owner) counter-argued that the claims are infringed literarily and, therefore, as shown by German text books and German case law the Formsteineinwand cannot be involved and if the claimant does not file timely a nullity suit the negative declaratory action has to be rejected.

The Appeal Court held that according to Austrian Patent Law in declaratory actions the granting authority (Austrian Patent Office) itself judges the case in first instance which is also the first instance in nullity actions and above that it has to consider all presented prior art by law. Therefore, it cannot be doubtful that it is not bound by the grant of the patent such as German courts so that there is no hindrance to find non-infringement also where literal infringement is pleaded so that the granted patent is deemed to be invalid for that suit between these specific parties.

That decision has far-reaching consequences. Since the courts in an infringement procedure are bound by the concept of bifurcation requiring separate nullity proceedings we have here in Austria through positive or negative declaratory actions starting before the Patent Office a combined procedure in which infringement and all nullity issues can be dealt with in one procedure. That makes that kind of action now much more attractive since bifurcation does not apply.

Helmut Sonn

SONN & PARTNER Patentanwalte

Riemergasse 14

A-1010 Vienna, Austria

Tel: +43 1 512 84 05

Fax: +43 1 512 98 05

office@sonn.at

www.sonn.at
Even James Bond can boast about having ridden on one. Hispano  Suiza was one of the world references of luxury and competition cars at the beginning of the 20th century and was affected by the Spanish Civil War  not being able to relaunch in the market despite its fame.

But this trade mark is still very present and it is back in the news. There has been a curious legal dispute over who is the owner of the trade mark and the Spanish Supreme Court has just resolved it after 70 years.

The founder's descendants have kept the trade mark under their ownership but focused on other markets, such as displaying old models or making miniature replicas. Therefore, they tried to prevent a company from registering the trade mark for manufactured automobiles, establishing that the action was looking for an appropriation of the reputation of the previous trade mark. But on February 8 2017, the decision was published and it established that they have lost exclusivity due to lack of use. The Supreme Court recognised that "the reputation associated with the 'Hispano-Suiza' sign is essentially historical, without a real link to the actual company".

In the different instances, it has been established that even though Hispano-Suiza is a well-known trade mark in the Spanish territory, it is not because of the use of the trade name Hispano Suiza, Automobile Factory, SA, but only because of the memory of the legendary cars, which stopped being manufactured more than 80 years ago.

Time has established that the lack of manufacturing activity, repair and sale of vehicles under the mark in question has caused the loss of the trade mark registrations and trade names in certain markets.

The sentences have decreed that there is no use of prestige or reputation that can associate the business activities developed by the heirs of the original trade mark with the activity that originates the entire real case.

In this case, the question is if the historical reputation of a trade mark is enough to cover different business activities even if it no longer develops the main activity that gave the brand its distinction. At present, the legislation is clear in regards to the loss of trade mark rights for lack of use: no use means you cannot live from the past.

Ramon Moreda

PONS IPGlorieta Ruben Dario, 428010  Madrid SpainTel: +34 917007600Fax: +34 913086103clientes@pons.eswww.ponsip.com
Cases of counterfeiting, IP infringement and low-standard goods handled by MSD

Vietnamese authorities have stepped up their efforts to enforce IP rights in recent years, particularly in 2016, and especially in the area of combating counterfeit goods.

According to the government's official statistics, all agencies are increasing their activities in IP protection. The Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST) Inspectorate, which typically handles the most complex cases in anti-counterfeiting and IP infringement, handled only about 70 cases in 2012, but last year handled nearly 300. Four years ago, the police only handled about 65 cases, but last year handled about 225. The Market Surveillance Department (MSD) under the Ministry of Industry and Trade (MOIT), which is still the core enforcement agency in anti-counterfeiting, tackled 2,282 cases of anti-counterfeiting and IP infringements in 2015. This number leapt to 4,874 cases in 2016. Customs also appears to have visibly strengthened their inspections and border control against counterfeits.

The sanctioning decisions are also becoming tougher. In addition to a move toward higher fines, such as several cases in which the maximum level of nearly $24,000 of fines was imposed, 2016 saw the authorities impose harsher sanctions, including a trend toward suspending the business licences of infringers for up to three months. This sanction was issued at least 25 times in 2016. Notably, there seems to be a trend away from slap-on-the-wrist types of fines that were common several years ago, with most fines now being two to three times higher, in the range of $500 to $1,000.

In recent years, rights holders have voiced concerns that Vietnam only applies criminal penalties in cases relating to potentially life-threatening goods such as fake liquor and fake pharmaceuticals. However, in 2016 the police took action against a wider range of counterfeit goods, including clothing, batteries, cosmetics and auto parts. One notable case that shows increased vigilance against counterfeit goods is a recent case in Ho Chi Minh City involving cosmetics that was handled by the police. In this case, the police intervened with a woman known to be trading in counterfeits and seized more than 3,500 items of fake lipstick, cream and lotion. The woman was charged with dealing in counterfeit goods, smuggling, and failure to register a business, and was fined a total of $11,000. The infringing items were ordered to be destroyed.

While the increase in anti-counterfeiting cases could, on one hand, be due to an increase in counterfeit goods, it also clearly reflects the government's decisiveness to address the problem. By early 2016, the enforcement authorities had received direction from the government to escalate and strengthen their anti-counterfeiting activities on a national scale.

Notably, the government has directed the Ministry of Finance, MOIT, MOST and Ministry of Public Security to jointly recheck and improve the relevant regulations in order to strengthen collaboration among the enforcement agencies in combating counterfeit goods and IP infringements. Getting all the enforcement agencies on the same page is a first but necessary step in being able to attack counterfeit goods and IP infringements at the root. Although the cooperation remains limited in some respects, it is the most visible effort of the enforcement authorities in anti-counterfeiting activities thus far.

As a result, there are prospects that anti-counterfeiting efforts will continue to increase in 2017. For example, the MOIT has recently requested the MSD to not only conduct inspections and raids against counterfeit goods across a wide range of consumer products, but also to focus on less visible counterfeit fertilizers and pesticides in the agriculture sector, given that the spread of counterfeit and low-standard goods in this sector was significantly noted in 2016. One other important future development to keep an eye on is potential improvements to the system of requesting preliminary injunctions for IP cases.

Thomas J Treutler Trung Nguyen

Tilleke & GibbinsHAREC Building, 4th Floor4A Lang Ha Street, Ba Dinh District, Hanoi, Vietnam Tel: +84 4 3772 6688Fax: +84 4 3772 5568vietnam@tilleke.comwww.tilleke.com
MARTINSVILLE  Every race fan knows that A.J. Allmendinger is fast on the racetrack, but he can also squeal the tires of a shopping cart.

On Thursday, Allmendinger and his No. 47 Kroger ClickList Chevrolet show car arrived at the Kroger grocery store in the Village of Martinsville. There, he greeted fans, signed autographs and took pictures. However, the NASCAR driver didnt just come to say hello  Allmendinger came to help.

Partnering with Kroger, Feeding America Southwest Virginia members came from Salem to race down the aisles with Allmendinger. Whatever groceries Colin Lee and Kathleen Herndon and racer Allmendinger put in a shopping cart, Kroger agreed to donate to Feeding America Southwest Virginias partner, Disaster Relief Food Ministry in Bassett.

There was only one catch to the shopping extravaganza  the three people only had five minutes total to fill a cart.

Feeding American Southwest Virginia helps 26 counties and nine cities in Virginia. Amanda Allen, the organizations marketing and communications coordinator, said theres a definite need in the Martinsville-Henry County area.

Theres about 154,000 people in Southwest Virginia who are food insecure, Allen said, adding that 50,000 of those are children. Martinsville is one of the local areas in our service region that has high food insecurity.

Striving to put good, nutritious food on the tables of Virginians, the organization partners with other nonprofits closer to the people that need help, like Disaster Relief Food Ministry.

Jimmy Willard, president and founder of Disaster Relief Food Ministry, started the 501(c)(3) out of his home.

We started with 15 little families, Willard said. Now, the nonprofit serves over 500 clients.

Looking for nonperishable items, meats and produce, Allmendinger, Lee and Herndon raced through the aisles, ready to help feed the hungry.

Also on the list, Allmendinger kept an eye out for a few specific products.

Ive got some food sponsors on my team, Allmendinger said. Bushs Beans, Hungry Jack. I grabbed that stuff and whatever stuff I could grab the quickest. The most important [objective] was to meet the need.

His hard work paid off, but sometimes, even people who work hard hit hard luck.

Kroger is a main sponsor of my race team, Allmendinger said. We want to feed the hungry.

Allmendinger said he and his team would do anything we can do to bring food to people who need it, adding, Helping is very important.

While the racer and Lee managed to fit $299 worth of groceries in one cart and Herndon placed $232 in her cart, No. 47 said he felt he couldve gotten even more groceries if he couldve modified his shopping cart.

Mine didnt turn really well, Allmendinger said. Im going to talk to my team about that. I got a little nose-heavy. Some bigger wheels would help.

Following the shopping spree, Kroger employees and store manager Rebecca Dunn raced to bag the items in both carts. Allmendinger emceed the race over the stores intercom.

In the humorous play-by-play of the action, the racer spotted one of his personal favorites.

Do not smash the Doritos, Allmendinger said as the teams bagged groceries at top speed. I like my Doritos consistent.

Finishing the bagging process only seconds before her competitors, Dunn emerged victorious.

However, it didnt matter who truly won the shopping spree, Allen said.

The real winners are the hungry people in the Martinsville area, Allen said.

Bystander William Hairston could hardly believe his eyes as he watched the action from start to finish.

That was a great thing for the people in Bassett, for A.J. Allmendinger to spend time to help people, Hairston said.

Hairston joked that Allmendinger flew through the aisles so quickly that he shouldve got a speeding penalty, man.

Speeding penalty or not, ending world hunger cant happen fast enough, and thats something Dunn tries to do in her store. Not only does she have pre-made boxes of food that community members can purchase at any time to donate to the hungry for $10, but the Commonwealth Boulevard location also donated all of the food Allmendinger, Lee and Herndon picked up and gave away two $100 gift cards to shoppers on Thursday.

Its a way to give back to our community, Dunn said, adding that the Kroger location had loyal customers. The community comes out and takes care of us and we want to give back to the community.

Kroger also paid for a family of Allmendingers choice to go grocery shopping.

Much to the Lawrence familys surprise, he chose them.

We knew in the paper that he was going to be here, Sheri Lawrence, mother of two, said. My girls were really hoping to be picked for the shopping contest. They said, We can do a song for him and everything!

Shopping for everything from pink ice cream to cucumbers, Allmendinger helped Lawrence, four-year-old Curren Lawrence and five-year-old Hermione Lawrence with their grocery needs.

While shopping, Curren helped herself to a cucumber, which she ate while strolling through the aisles. Likewise, Hermione enjoyed a loaf of bread.

The young girls held Allmendingers hand and even suggested playing Ring-Around-the-Rosie, which the NASCAR driver did in the meat and produce sections of Kroger.

When the shopping adventure ended, Hermione took her mothers hand as they walked out of the store.

It was the best day of my life, Hermione said to her mother.
South Africa is in turmoil. President Jacob Zuma has effectively carried out an overnight soft coup. By purging the opposing big business faction from the cabinet and replacing it with stooges from his own faction he has brought the ANC infighting to a head. The consequences will be monumental, not just for the factions involved but for the class struggle in general.

The night of long knives

Just after midnight on Thursday, after days of high drama in which former Finance Minister, Pravin Gordhan and his deputy, Mcebisi Jonas were unexpectedly called back from an investor roadshow in London, Zuma announced sweeping changes to his cabinet which effectively purged it of any opposition. ANC Deputy President, Ramaphosa and Secretary-General, Mantashe has publicly denounced Zumas decision, sparking pandemonium in the ANC and turmoil in the country

Zuma made twenty shifts and changes to the Executive. While the scale of the changes are significant and amount to a purge of those who were opposed to him, it is by and large a red herring. The real aim of Thursday nights manoeuvres is to get rid of Gordhan and Jonas and gain full control of the National Treasury. This has been Zumas intention all along. In December 2015 he fired Nhlanhla Nene who was Finance Minister at the time and replaced him with little-known backbencher, Des van Rooyen. At that time there was a market meltdown and a freefall of the Rand as big business went on an all-out strike of capital. This forced Zuma to reverse his decision four days later by removing Van Rooyen and replacing him with Gordhan who was the preferred candidate of big business.

Ever since then there has been open war between the two wings of the capitalist class for control of the Treasury. On the one hand there is the mainly white big business wing of which Gordhan is a representative, and on the other there is the emerging black bourgeoisie around Zuma and the Guptas. In this war state institutions were used to harass and hound the other faction. Gordhan became the subject of an investigation by the Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation, the Hawks. He was charged by the National Prosecuting Authority with fraud last year only for the NPA to drop the charges two weeks later after the Hawks completely bungled the investigation, exposing the political motives and manoeuvres behind it.

Gordhan became an impediment to the aspirations of the upstart black bourgeoisie around the Gupta family. He fought Zuma on a nuclear power programme with Russias state nuclear company Rosatom, in which the Gupta family had a significant interest through their Shiva Uranium mine. He was also central in the fight between the Guptas and four major banks which closed the accounts of Oak Bay, the Gupta familys holding company. The court case was being held this week, pouring more fuel onto the fire.

All of this does not mean that Gordhan was fighting Zuma and the Gupta wing on a principled basis. In fact there is an entire myth created by the mass media regarding the nature of this fight. This is not a good versus evil issue as the media portrays it but a matter of conflicting interests within the ruling class. Pravin Gordhan represents big business which, under the prevailing economic circumstances of a wide budget deficit, require a policy of austerity and cuts to living standards and therefore are against spending and a loose monetary policy. Zuma represents the aspirant parasitic upstart bourgeoisie with access to high political office, which is squeezed out of the main levers of the economy and thus needs access to National Treasury to continue their looting frenzy. This wing grew fat on looting state resources and needs access to the Treasury in the light of the declining economy. There is nothing progressive here. Both policies of both wings represent a frontal attack on the working class and the poor.

A leap into the dark

According to Cyril Ramaphosa, the Deputy President, and SACP Deputy General Secretary Solly Mapaila, Zuma approached them at an ANC and SACP bilateral meeting on Monday with a shoddy and fake intelligence report which alleged that Gordhan and Jonas were in London to plot the overthrow of the government. While rumours were swilling around, Mapaila became the first person to publicly confirm that Zuma proposed to replace Gordhan and Jonas based on the intelligence report: The removal has nothing to do with Gordhans performance as minister. It has to do with some shoddy report that casts suspicions This report is indeed part of the reason given why these comrades were brought back from the outside, he said.

Mapaila said the SACP were clearly not impressed with the alleged intelligence report: To believe the intelligence report and doubt Gordhan, a long-standing comrade and important Struggle activist, was pathetic. [In passing the fact that the SACP regards Gordhan, a big business representative, as a comrade should be noted.]

The SACP said it opposed the move by Zuma and ANC officials. The top six were divided with Ramaphosa, Mantashe, the Secretary-General and Zweli Mkhize, the Treasurer-General all opposed to Zumas move.

Zuma was not prepared for the resistance he received but once he had made his move he could not draw back. He was under enormous pressure from his own faction and any attempt to change his mind would have been seen as weakness. So he leapt into the abyss. He has now thrown everything on the line.

The hypocrisy of the Communist Party

However, on Friday morning, when it transpired that Zuma had not extended the purge to the Communists, Mapaila softened his tone and suggested that the politburo would discuss the issue further. This clearly exposed the SACPs hypocrisy. When there was a threat to their posts as ministers they forcefully came out in defence of their comfortable ministerial posts, but when it did not transpire they forgot what they said 24 hours before!

All of this is no surprise. Much of the blame for what is currently happening should be placed directly on the shoulders of these so-called Communists. After 2009 they joined Zumas government, giving it a left cover for the capitalist policies of Zuma. Since then they have been complicit in the rot which has subsequently set in. They stayed in government even while the government were killing mineworkers in Marikana. Later they completely failed to act even when the ANC made a vicious right-wing turn at its last congress at Mangaung. To cap it off, they actively participated in dividing the trade union movement when they drove the split of COSATU and the expulsion of NUMSA.

All of these actions have had the effect of weakening the organised resistance of the unions within the alliance and helped the Zuma wing to grow ever stronger, and in all cases the communists intentionally or otherwise played a decisive role.

Uncharted waters

Many of the so-called political analysts are baffled by Zumas perceived strength and his ability to outmanoeuvre his opponents. Within the narrow limits of the factional struggle this is true. But the real reason why Zuma has survived this long has nothing to do with his strengths or weaknesses. It lies in the fact that the big business faction of the ruling class is terrified of a split within the ANC.

For decades the ANC had the overwhelming support of the black masses. In the context of the rising radicalisation over the last period, a split in the ANC would mean that there would be nothing to hold the masses back. This was the role of the ANC over the last 23 years - to manage capitalism on behalf of the bourgeoisie.

But a split in the ANC now seems to be only a matter of time. If the ANC acts now and removes Zuma, his faction is likely to unleash a scorched-earth policy. The reason for this is that they will lose access to high political office, which is the source of their power. On the other hand, if they keep Zuma in office, his wrecking ball presidency could lead to the implosion of the ANC. One way or another the ANC will never be the same again.

This is a terrifying prospect for the ruling class. With the implosion of the ANC there would be nothing to prevent the masses from entering the political arena as active participants.

As we write these lines there are already protests at parliament in Cape Town and Pretoria. EFF leaders have announced that they now have no option but to take to the streets. They have also called for a no-confidence vote against Zuma in parliament and approached the Constitutional Court to force parliament to hold an impeachment hearing against Zuma.

In a statement the new trade union federation which is being formed in the wake of NUMSAs expulsion released a scathing attack against Zuma and identified the real issues that are at play. It is worth quoting in full:

The South African Federation of Trade Unions (SAFTU) is alarmed at continued reports that President Zuma is trying to dismiss Finance Minister, Pravin Gordhan, and his deputy, Mcebisi Jonas, on the basis of yet another 'intelligence report' from anonymous sources alleging that the minister is at the centre of a plot, Operation Checkmate, to overthrow the state and were using their overseas road show to turn international bankers against the South African government. "Such bogus 'intelligence reports' have already been used to try to discredit Zwelinzima Vavi, Thuli Madonsela, Julius Malema and Constitutional Court judges. "Reports suggest that Zumas desperation to find any such incredible excuse to sack the ministers is that his pay-masters, the Gupta family, face a crisis at the end of the month when the last bank in which they still have accounts is going to close them down, in line with other banks. They want Zuma to appoint a finance minister who will bend the rules and find ways to reopen bank accounts for them. "Zuma is thus handing over the fate of the country to a faction of corrupt, crony capitalists in league with corrupt political leaders, who are solely interested in looting the economy, and enriching themselves, at the expense of the people of South Africa. "This is the reality of the system of capitalism, a system which enriches an elite minority, who exploit their workers and leave the poor majority and humanity as a whole with a crisis of mass unemployment, hunger and ignorance, all of which will continue in perpetuity if this system remains in place. "The ANC government embraced the worst kind of cut-throat free-market capitalist fundamentalism. This arose from the negotiated settlement which led to the democratic breakthrough of 1994 but which also guaranteed the continuation of monopoly, white-owned capitalism and brutal austerity programmes. This neoliberal agenda has been spearheaded by successive presidents, ministers and cabinets, policed by the rating agencies, with their blackmail threats to downgrade the economy and thus dry up investment. "As a result we have become the most unequal society in the world with one of the worst levels of unemployment and 14 million facing hunger. This is at the heart of the ANC crisis of governance, made even worse by the domination of the Zuma/Gupta faction which is hell-bent on creating the worst possible type of corrupt and unaccountable capitalism. "The resultant factional battle within the ANC now threatens to hand over the whole country and liberation project to the most backward elements in society, reflected in the rise of racism, chauvinism, patriarchy, nyaope/wonga drug abuse and crime. "Allowing Zuma and his ANC faction to continue what they are doing will leave us with no future, when our country will have been mortgaged to the Guptas, or to the Russian/French/ Chinese or Americans capitalists through things like the nuclear deal. That is what is at stake now. "But as we fight let's be careful that our campaign is distinct from any campaigns by the very capitalists who are exploiting workers. We must not fight in defence of those implementing austerity measures and neoliberal programmes, which includes all ANC factions who are responsible for the worsening material conditions of the working class. "We are not acting in the interests of any individual but against an economic system which is taking us en route to a form of capitalism in which there is no accountability. "The beneficiaries of our campaign must be the working class and the poor majority. If we miss this chance to bring about real change then we would have acted in the interests of our class enemies. "The working class must lead and their new federation SAFTU is the only weapon workers have! If Zuma and his cronies pull the trigger tonight or tomorrow and any other day and carry through the sacking of Gordhan and Jonas our response will be to symbolically occupy the offices of the Treasury immediately, to block the Guptas from taking over those buildings and to remain until our demands are met.

"It then also said what needs to be done: SAFTU calls on all workers to be ready to act! Time for theorizing but doing nothing belongs to the past! Defend your country! Defend your children's future! Put on your running shoes and track suits - don't forget red shirts and red caps.

This is a correct step by SAFTU. Now more than ever the working class needs to rely on its own strength and fight both wings of the ruling class. Only the working class should be trusted to fight for the future. But we have to add to this: The only way to really fight the capitalist class - be it its Gupta wing or its Big Business wing - is to fight the system it represents. The only way to stop these parasites from further wrecking the lives of the masses is to mobilise the working class to expropriate all capitalists, ie. to take over the land, the mines, the banks and the main industries and to put these in the interests of the masses instead of that of a tiny degenerate minority.
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WESTFIELD -- With $15 million in bond money approved earlier this year, Westfield Gas + Electric plans to bring high-speed fiber-optic internet service to 75 percent of city addresses by the end of 2018.

"It's a pretty aggressive schedule," said Dan Howard, general manger for the municipal utility.

For residential customers, the Whip City Fiber service costs $69.95 a month with free standard installation and no contract. Businesses pay $84.95 with a three-year contract and $99.95 a month with a two-year contract. A standard installation is free for businesses as well.

Westfield Gas + Electric started offering high-speed internet in 2015 with just a few pilot areas, called "fiberhoods" in the utility's marketing material. Slowly it built out the plan and now is poised for expansion.

On an interactive map at the Whip City Fiber website, Westfield residents can plug in their address and find out if fiber service is available in their neighborhood.

And its not just Westfield. The utility is poised to take a role in bringing high-speed internet to the hilltowns on top of the the $15 million bond project in the city limits.

Towns have expressed interest in working with Westfield Gas + Electric on internet projects now that the administration of Gov. Charlie Baker has stripped the Massachusetts Broadband Institute of $20 million in grant-making authority.

Instead, towns looking for their slice of the $20 million will be able to apply for grants through the state Executive Office of Housing and Economic Development starting April 3.

Howard said Westfield the Gas + Electric is working with Otis on its fiber-optic network.

"First and foremost, the Whip City Fiber project in Westfield is in no way impacted by what the hilltowns are doing," Howard said, emphasizing that the hilltowns and the $15 million bond project are two separate things. "Other towns like our model and would like our help."

All of this is happening as KCST USA Inc., the operator of MassBroadband123, the state's "middle mile" internet provider, has field for bankruptcy and could shut down.

In 2010, the state's technology collaborative was provided $90 million in federal and state funding to build a 1,200-mile fiber-optic network.

Howard said this week that Whip City Fiber gets internet service, which it resells to customers, from sources other than the middle mile.

"It doesn't scare us one bit. We are independent of MassBroadband and of the middle mile," he said.

Howard said reliability is paramount. In 21st century America, high-speed internet service is as important to economic growth as electricity.

"It's a vital utility," Howard said. "And there are only a few communities that have done it on this scale. Chattanooga, Tennessee, is one."

Delcie Bean, founder of Paragus Strategic IT in Hadley, said high-speed internet like Westfield will offer is probably not enough on its own to lure a business or a person to this region. But if a business or potential homeowner is choosing among a number of towns here in Greater Springfield, Westfield's fiber might be enough to sway folks to the Whip City versus another area town.

"Especially for millennials who are so connected," Bean said. "I could certainly see that being a factor when people look at where to live."

Westfield Gas + Electric has said that, in real estate studies, the availability of high-speed internet like it offers can add $5,000 to the market value of a home.

Holyoke Gas & Electric offers fiber but only to businesses. Greenfield, meanwhile, is building its own fiber-optic network for residents and businesses.

High-speed internet is even more critical for business, said Paul Moulema, assistant professor of computer science information technology at Western New England University in Springfield.

"We are in the age of cloud computing," he said. "Businesses need more data capacity than they can afford to own, so they make use of dispersed networks of computers connected by the internet to process and store their data. You need a very fast link to update the data you are generating to the cloud and to bring that data back into your local network."

Also, fiber-optics work well over long distances, can be made very secure and the equipment lasts a long time.

Having access to high-speed internet will allow Westfield one day to take advantage of emerging "smart cities" technology. This is the "internet of things" where, for example, devices at bus stops are connected to parking meters, stoplights and 911.

Most places in Western Massachusetts don't have access to fiber, Moulema said. Most commercial operators don't see the immediate return on investment in a fiber system.

But how fast is Westfield's fiber?

It's a gigabit service, said Lisa Stowe, marketing and communications specialist at Westfield Gas + Electric. Gigabit service offers a data transfer rate of 1,000 megabits per second. Most people have cable with 25 to 100 megabits per second.

That's fast enough, the utility says, to download a two-hour high-definition movie in 25 seconds. With cable internet or DSL, that could take as long as 14 minutes.

Fiber is fast enough that many customers save money by getting rid of cable. Intent is not cable television. But fast internet lets people use services like Hulu, Amazon and Netflex online subscription services for most premium programming, as well as digital antennae, available from Westfield Gas + Electric, to watch the local broadcast affiliates.

Even the Red Sox are available on the internet through MLB and Playstation Vue, Howard said. HBO also has an online steaming service.

Stowe said people still pay to subscribe to Hulu, Amazon, Playstation Vue and the like, but they end up saving money even after paying for the internet.

Voice over internet protocol (VOIP) phone service is also available.
EASTHAMPTON -- It's the Valley's annual celebration of the printed word, and this year's lineup promises something for all.

Easthampton BookFest is set for Saturday, April 8, enlivening venues across the city. Now in its third year, the day-long festival celebrates the region's rich literary life.

All afternoon, a bustling "Lit Marketplace" inhabits the first floor of Eastworks at 116 Pleasant Street. Authors, publishers, poets, illustrators, comic book artists and craft printers will line the broad hallway.

Also at Eastworks are a 3 p.m. "adult story slam" and ten-minute plays at 5 p.m. Events throughout the Mill District include a Mediterranean cooking demo at the Paragon Arts & Industry building, and "poems and pints" at Abandoned Building Brewery.

The Cottage Street Cultural District will host its own scene. White Square Books plans readings and discussions with authors and poets; Luthier's Coop will stage a conversation about music festivals, and Big Wheel Press at One Cottage will hold a letterpress and bookbinding workshop.

If you're a history buff, the Emily Williston Library is your destination, with its "Postcards to Easthampton" exhibit and typewriter repair demonstration.



Two special guests will grace a children's book fair Saturday morning. Angela DiTerlizzi (Some Bugs, Some Pets, and Seeking a Bunny) and Tony DiTerlizzi,(Spiderwick Chronicles) will read and sign. The event at Easthampton High School is free, but pre-registration is essential. Tickets are available online.

The Old Town Hall at 43 Main Street -- home of Flywheel, Big Red Frame and the ECA Gallery -- will be home to a "ZineFest," collaborative art event, and an exhibit of fine monotypes and artist's books.

BookFest will actually be inaugurated Thursday evening, when two New York City arts and culture mavens will breeze into town. Nightlife journalist Michael Musto and Mickey Boardman, editor of PAPER Magazine, will appear at 122 Pleasant Street in the Boylston Room at 8 p.m.

Boardman "broke the internet" when he placed a Jean-Paul Goude photo of a naked Kim Kardashian on the cover of PAPER in 2014.



It's part of the new Grist for the Mill series launched by Easthampton City Arts under its new director, public artist Pasqualina Azzarello. Tickets are available online.

If you go:

What: Easthampton BookFest 2017

Where: Venues throughout Easthampton

When: Saturday, April 8

Info: Some events require tickets or registration; most are free. A full schedule is available on the Easthampton City Arts website.
C8M2Jh4XUAArsNa.jpg

Agawam High School senior David LeCours FaceTimed with reality TV star Khloe Kardashian.

(David LeCours)

Agawam High School senior David LeCours finally got an answer from his hopeful prom date -- reality TV star Khloe Kardashian.

Thursday night, LeCours received a message from Kardashian's assistant that she wanted to talk, "and then all of the sudden I got a FaceTime call and then there my girl was, I couldn't believe it," LeCours said.

Kardashian saw LeCours' tweets and videos back in January. She had sent him an answer: "maybe." Since then it's been a waiting game.

David!!! Why are you the cutest?!?!?! I am seeing if I can go! I won't know for a few weeks though. You are so bomb for this video!!  https://t.co/F7iJ1evfBP  Khloe (@khloekardashian) January 7, 2017

LeCours said he had been in talks with her assistant for awhile. But he never expected to FaceTime with the celebrity.

Unfortunately, Kardashian won't be able to make it. Still, she wants to make sure he can party in true Kardashian fashion. So, she'll be sending him a party bus and "gift."

"I'm not sure what the gift is, but I am so excited and couldn't be more thankful," LeCours said.

In 2016, LeCours asked Britney Spears to prom. But she never got back to him.

"I asked Khloe because I've always looked up to both her and Britney so much and I thought, why not give it another try and ask Khloe this year," LeCours said. "I truly am so lucky to have amazing role models like both of them. They are both amazing and strong women."

Even though Kardashian can't make it, this prom will be extra special.

"I am so excited for prom and although she can't make it, I know I am going to have an amazing time," LeCours said. "It was so surreal to get to have a conversation with her. I really couldn't believe it and I still can't even believe that it happened."

You can get a sneak peak of what it's like to be friends with a Kardashian when LeCours takes over MassLive's Snapchat on the day of his prom, April 28.
Each week, MassLive showcases pets available for adoption at shelters at rescue organizations across Massachusetts.

With the participation of the shelters listed below, many animals should be able to find a permanent home.

We also provide some pet-related news items that we hope you will enjoy.

Cause for Paws Radiothon to benefit the Berkshire Humane Society

The Republican Newsroom

The Berkshire Humane Society will host its 13th annual Cause for Paws Radiothon from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Live 95.9 and WHOOPEE radio stations.

Bella is available for adoption at the Berkshire Humane Society( BHS photo)

For a $20 donation, callers may dial 1-800-788-2147 to request a song. Listener giveaways and raffles will happen throughout the day, along with live interviews with Berkshire Humane Society and Purradise staff and stories from adopters about their wonderful BHS pets.

All proceeds benefit the Ken Freeburg Fund, which provides veterinary care to shelter animals with special medical needs. For more information, call 413 447-7878, ext. 131.

MASSACHUSETTS SHELTERS:

Dakin Pioneer Valley Humane Society

Address: 163 Montague Road, Leverett

Hours: Tuesday-Sunday, 12:30 to 4:30 p.m.

Telephone: (413) 548-9898

Website: www.dpvhs.org

Address: 171 Union St., Springfield

Hours: Tuesday-Sunday, 12:30 to 5:30 p.m.

Telephone: (413) 781-4000

Website: www.dpvhs.org



Thomas J. O'Connor Animal Control and Adoption Center

Address: 627 Cottage St., Springfield

Hours: Monday, Tuesday, Saturday, noon-4 p.m.; Thursday, noon-7 p.m.

Telephone: (413) 781-1484

Website: tjoconnoradoptioncenter.com

Westfield Homeless Cat Project

Address: 1124 East Mountain Road, Westfield

Hours: Adoption clinics, Thursday, 5-7 p.m.; Saturday, 11 a.m.-3 p.m.

Website: http://www.whcp.petfinder.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/westfieldhomelesscatprojectadoptions



Westfield Regional Animal Shelter

Address: 178 Apremont Way, Westfield

Hours: Monday-Friday, noon-5 p.m.; Saturday, 10 a.m.-4 p.m.

Telephone: (413) 564-3129

Website: http://www.petfinder.com/shelters/ma70.html

Franklin County Sheriff's Office Regional Dog Shelter and Adoption Center

Address: 10 Sandy Lane, Turners Falls

Hours: Monday-Thursday, 9 a.m.-2 p.m., Friday-Saturday, 9 a.m.-1 p.m.

Telephone: (413) 676-9182

Website: http://fcrdogkennel.org/contact.html

Polverari/Southwick Animal Control Facility

Address: 11 Depot St., Southwick

Hours: Monday-Friday, 8 a.m.-1 p.m.

Telephone: (413) 569-5348, ext. 649

Website: http://southwickpolice.com/chief-david-a-ricardis-welcome/animal-control/

Berkshire Humane Society

Address: 214 Barker Road, Pittsfield

Hours: Tuesday-Saturday, 10:00 a.m.-4 p.m.; Thursday, 5 p.m. to 8 p.m., Sunday, 1 p.m. to 4 p.m.

Telephone: (413) 447-7878

Website: http://berkshirehumane.org/

Purradise Feline Adoption

Address: 301 Stockbridge Road, Great Barrington

Hours: Monday and Tuesday: Closed; Wednesday, 10 a.m. - 4 p.m.; Thursday 10 a.m.- 6 p.m.; Friday,10 a.m. - 4 p.m.; Saturday, 10 a.m.-4 p.m.; Sunday, noon-4 p.m.

Telephone: (413) 717-4244

Website: http://berkshirehumane.org/contact-us/

Greyhound Options, Inc.

Address: 43 Sygiel Rd., Ware, MA. 01082

Telephone: 413-967-9088

Website: greyhoundadoptions.org



Animal Rescue League of Boston

Address: 10 Chandler Street, Boston, MA 02116

Telephone: (617) 426-9170

Fax: (617) 426-3028

Website: adoption@arlboston.org

Worcester Animal Rescue League

Address: 139 Holden St., Worcester, MA 01606

Telephone: (508) 853-0030

Hours: Open 7 days a week from noon to 4 p.m.

Website: www.worcesterarl.org
Edurio https://edurio.com/ is a software tool that collects and analyzes student feedback to provide deeper insights into classrooms and help those in charge of academics. The company is committed to contributing to higher quality of education around the world, and the technology makes student, family, and teacher feedback accessible.

The survey platform, which provides research-based questions, enables teachers to easily collect surveys. It also delivers data visualizations to make the information quicker to process. These insights help school districts, head teachers and teachers better understand how everyone in their program is doing.

It may support education funding bodies make decisions, create professional development programs and evaluate the impact of any new product or school-improvement initiatives. Edurio could also be used by publishers or EdTech companies that want to measure the impact of their initiatives.

Full Story: https://www.springwise.com/software-helps-educators-respond-just-students-grades/
Montana will be dead last in the nation for dollars spent on higher education per pupil if the state budget stands, according the Montana Office of the Commissioner of Higher Education.

And a tuition increase of nearly 18 percent for residents is on the table, according to the agency.

KEILA SZPALLER [email protected]

Full Story: http://helenair.com/news/education/officials-montana-would-be-last-in-nation-for-higher-education/article_7ccc0a6a-5c87-5077-b6e1-bd51f66cbaef.html
Awards season stretches into March in Montana when the Governor highlights the important contributions leaders in the tourism industry make for the state.

"Tourism is a crucial part of Montanas economy and supports thousands of Main Street businesses in the state," said Governor Bullock. "Im happy to recognize these businesses that show some of the amazing things that our state has to offer to visitors and residents alike."

Full Newsletter: http://us4.campaign-archive2.com/?u=0fa4df9a7bf724eb093fd27eb&id=c6cbfd6879&e=1cea16052c
Julia Stead, Director of Demand Generation at Invoca, shares how they use Tactile Marketing Automation as a centerpiece of their multi-channel campaigns. Their most successful campaign of the year so far delivered 33xROI, 35 new opportunities and more than 50 meetings completed (166% of goal).

Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mhEFMh2TPP4&t=2s
Les ministres ont pris note que le National Flag, Arms of Mauritius, National Anthem and Other National Symbols of Mauritius Bill sera presente ep premiere lecteure le 29 mars 2022 lors de la premiere seance parlementaire de 2022 ainsi que le Landlord and Tenant (Amendment) Bill

1. Cabinet has agreed to the introduction of the National Flag, Arms of Mauritius, National Anthem and Other National Symbols of Mauritius Bill into the National Assembly. The main object of the Bill is to consolidate and update the laws with regard to the national symbols of Mauritius, such as the Arms of Mauritius, the National Flag of Mauritius and the Seal of Mauritius.

The opportunity is being taken to give legal effect to the National Anthem of Mauritius (Motherland) and to the National Flower of Mauritius (Trochetia boutoniana) and to declare the Mauritius Kestrel (Falco punctatus) as the National Bird of Mauritius. The Bill provides for better protection and use of the national symbols of Mauritius. The Bill also provides that whenever Government intends to declare a new national symbol of Mauritius, a resolution to that effect shall be made by the National Assembly, following which the President, may, by Order, designate the national symbol. Thereafter, the Prime Minister may make such regulations with regard to the new national symbol so designated.

2. Cabinet has agreed to the introduction of the Landlord and Tenant (Amendment) Bill into the National Assembly. The object of the Bill is to amend the Landlord and Tenant Act so as to extend to 30 June 2022 the period up to which the Act shall continue to apply to business premises let on or before 01 July 2005.

3. Cabinet has agreed to the implementation of the recommendations of the final consultancy report on the Audit of Rivers and Watercourses. The implementation of the recommendations of the report would enable concerned stakeholders to address issues of riverine flooding in their respective jurisdictions in a timely manner for better protection of inhabitants and assets located in vulnerable areas.

4. Cabinet has taken note that the Civil Status (Fees for Marriages) (Amendment) Regulations 2022, would be promulgated to introduce new fees for the celebration of civil marriages by the Civil Status Division. The Civil Status (Fees for Marriages) (Amendment) Regulations 2022 would include fees for the celebration of civil marriages:

(a) in the newly set up Marriage Hall located at the Emmanuel Anquetil Building, Port Louis;

(b) in any private residence where both intending spouses are non-citizens;

(c) in any private residence where only one intending spouse is a non-citizen; and

(d) at premises other than a private residence or the Marriage Hall where one intending spouse is a non-citizen.

The Regulations would be effective as from 01 May 2022.

5. Cabinet has taken note that the Road Traffic (Amendment) Regulations 2022 would be made to provide for the extension of the deadline for the renewal of provisional driving licences from 01 March 2022 to 31 March 2022, to enable their holders to renew such licence so that it would be valid up to 31 March 2026. These amendments are applicable to the holders of a learners licence for autocycles/motorcycles obtained prior to March 2018. No further extension would be considered after 31 March 2022.

6. Cabinet has taken note of the promulgation of the Customs Tariff (Amendment of Schedule) Regulations 2022 which provide for the implementation of a second round of tariff cuts under the Comprehensive Economic Cooperation and Partnership Agreement between the Republic of Mauritius and the Republic of India. The Trade in Goods component includes a Preferential Trade Agreement with tariff elimination schedules agreed by both countries.

Implementation of respective market access commitments started on 01 April 2021 and a first round of tariff cuts was effected by Mauritius. The second round of tariff cuts is due on 01 April 2022.

7. Cabinet has taken note that, on 21 March 2022, the Minister of Health and Wellness made the Consolidated COVID-19 (Amendment No. 6) Regulations 2022 to align the sanitary protocols in Rodrigues with that of Mauritius.

Cabinet has also taken note that the Minister of Health and Wellness made the Consolidated COVID-19 (Amendment No. 7) Regulations 2022 to amend the definition of fully vaccinated and to include requirement for a health insurance for incoming foreign passengers and Novavax vaccine (Nuvaxoid and Covovax) as a recognised vaccine.

8. Cabinet has agreed to the ratification of the Accord entre le Gouvernement de la Republique Francaise et le Gouvernement de la Republique de Maurice relatif a la Cooperation en matiere de defense et au statut des forces, which was signed on 12 March 2018. The Accord provides an appropriate framework for cooperation between the two countries in the fields of defence and security matters, organisation and functioning of armed forces, peacekeeping and humanitarian operations and military training.

9. Cabinet has taken note of the status of implementation of the 390 recommendations of the Commission of Inquiry on Drug Trafficking as at March 2022, excluding those falling under the Task Force chaired by the Director, ICAC. Moreover, a Committee comprising concerned stakeholders has been set up to closely monitor the implementation of the recommendations requiring legislative amendments

10. Cabinet has taken note of a Scoping Mission by a team of two Consultants from the Climate Resilient Infrastructure Development Facility (CRIDF) to Mauritius from 28 to 31 March 2022, following a request for assistance in the water services sector. The CRIDF is a programme supported by the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office.

During the course of the Scoping Mission, the team would hold meetings with relevant stakeholders and effect site visits at Bagatelle Dam and Water Treatment Plant, La Nicoliere Reservoir and at a Containerised Pressure Filtration Plant.

11. Cabinet has agreed to the Agricultural Marketing Board being designated anew as the sole importer of potatoes and onions and to no import permits being issued to other importers for the year 2022. The retail price of potatoes and onions would also be revised to Rs50/kg, in view of the increase of freight costs for shipments by sea. The Consumer Protection (Price and Supplies Control) Act and the Consumer Protection (Control of Price Taxable and Non-Taxable Goods) Regulations 1998 would be amended.

12. Cabinet has taken note of the findings and recommendations of a Consultancy Study on Aggregates and other Construction Materials in Mauritius, commissioned by the Construction Industry Development Board. In view of the looming depletion of rocks and the resulting impact on production of aggregates, the Consultant has made various recommendations.

A High Level Committee would be set up under the chair of the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of National Infrastructure and Community Development to prepare a draft Masterplan on rock reserves and chart a roadmap for the implementation of the recommendations contained in the Consultancy Report.

13. Cabinet has taken note of the decisions reached and actions taken by the Steering Committee set up to look into the implementation of the recommendations contained in the Report of the Technical Committee on Medicinal Cannabis. There is a need to train medical specialists prior to them prescribing Medicinal Cannabis. The Society of Cannabis Clinicians from the USA has been identified to train a first team of specialists of the Ministry of Health and Wellness. A request had also been made to the World Health Organization for appropriate technical expertise to train the specialists in Mauritius for them to acquire relevant knowledge on the use of Cannabis for medical purposes. The following decisions have also been taken:

(a) a Therapeutic Committee on Medicinal Cannabis would be set up at regional level under the chair of the Regional Health Director;

(b) all prescriptions containing Medicinal Cannabis from both public and private specialists would have to be endorsed by the Therapeutic Committee;

(c) Medicinal Cannabis would be provided free of charge to all patients attending public hospitals and all private patients would be required to pay for their medication, as is currently applicable for other drugs dispensed at hospitals; and

(d) the use of Medicinal Cannabis would be started on a pilot basis at Victoria Hospital.

14. Cabinet has taken note of the situation of the COVID-19 pandemic prevailing across the world. Some 476.6 million cases have been reported globally, of which 412 million persons have been successfully treated.

With regard to Mauritius, as at 23 March 2022, there were 1,647 active cases of COVID-19, out of which nine were admitted at the New ENT Hospital. Over the period 17 March to 23 March 2022, 10 deaths were attributed to COVID-19.

Cabinet has also taken note of progress in the COVID-19 Vaccination Programme, including the administration of the booster dose in the Republic of Mauritius. As at 24 March 2022, 1,003,785 persons had received a first dose of vaccine (representing 79.3 percent of the population). 968,875 persons were fully vaccinated (representing 76.5 percent of the population). 582,364 persons had received a booster dose (representing 46 percent of the population). 76 percent of adolescents aged 12 to 17 years had received a first dose of vaccine and 68.9 percent had received a second dose.

Cabinet has further taken note that the Ministry of Health and Wellness carried out vaccination in Agalega from 14 to 23 March 2022.

15. Cabinet has taken note of the COVID-19 situation prevailing in Rodrigues. As at 23 March 2022, there were 176 active cases. There was no COVID-19 patient admitted at Mont Lubin Treatment Centre.

16. Cabinet has taken note of the outcome of the Indian Ocean Muaythai Championships and the Super 4 World Games Qualifiers held recently at Cote dOr National Sports Complex. Mauritius won three gold and two silver medals. The Mauritian representative for the Super 4 World Games, which would be held in Birmingham, USA from 12 to 18 July 2022 would be Veejaye James Agathe who competed in the -91 kg category. Based on the exceptional performance of the local athletes, the International Federation of Muaythai Associations has agreed on the spot to give a wild card entry to the World Games to Diksha Jeeloll in the 50 kg category.

17. Cabinet has taken note of the official visit of the President of the Republic of Mauritius, to the United Arab Emirates in the context of the participation of Mauritius in the Expo 2020 Dubai including the celebration of the National Day of Mauritius. The Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, visited the Mauritius Pavilion at the Dubai Expo, and he was welcomed by the President of the Republic. The National Day of Mauritius was celebrated at the Dubai Expo site on 15 March 2022. The Minister of Tolerance and Coexistence and Commissioner-General of the Expo 2020 Dubai, hosted the President for that event. A flag raising ceremony was held followed by statements on both sides.

Two Memoranda of Understanding were signed, namely:

(a) Joint Committee for Cooperation between the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Regional Integration and International Trade of the Republic of Mauritius and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation of the United Arab Emirates; and

(b) a Memorandum of Understanding on Care for the Elderly Welfare and Protection of People of Determination Persons with Disabilities between Ministry of Social Integration, Social Security and National Solidarity of the Republic of Mauritius and the Ministry of Community Development of the United Arab Emirates.

The Economic Development Board Office in Dubai was also inaugurated by the President of the Republic.

18. Cabinet has taken note of the outcome of the participation of the Minister of Land Transport and Light Rail, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Regional Integration and International Trade in the SADC Council of Ministers held recently in a hybrid mode in Malawi. The intervention of the Minister at the SADC Council of Ministers focused, inter alia, on the following main issues:

(a) the Maritime Security Conference to be held in Mauritius;

(b) the Food and Nutrition Security Update;

(c) an update on the COVID-19 pandemic; and

(d) the status on disasters in the Region.

The Council of Ministers also discussed, inter alia, the construction of the SADC Regional Logistics Depot and the Regional Indicative Strategic Development Plan (RISDP 2020-30) Costed Implementation Plan.

19. Cabinet has agreed to Mauritius hosting the annual meeting of FRATEL (Reseau francophone de la regulation des telecommunications) in November/December 2022. FRATEL is an informal network set up in October 2003 and regrouping institutions, from French speaking countries, responsible for regulating and controlling the telecommunications sector. The organisation comprises institutions from 50 countries around the world. The main objectives of the network are the promotion of information exchange among telecommunications regulators, supporting members capacity-building through trainings and technical co-operation, and carrying out studies on issues related to the legal framework of the telecommunication sector. The theme of the meeting for this year is Challenges and ways to improve the resilience of telecommunication networks.

20. Cabinet has taken note of the outcome of the participation of the Minister of Industrial Development, SMEs and Cooperatives in activities held in the margins of Expo 2020 Dubai in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. The Minister attended:

(a) the Retail Summit which is a global annual event aimed at bringing together key leaders in the retail community to share ideas, insights and debate on opportunities, challenges and the future of the global retail industry;

(b) the National Day Celebration of Mauritius;

(c) a Business Conference on Mauritius: Our Journey towards Sustainable Transformation, followed by a Fashion Show; and

(d) the International Conference on Sustainable and Innovative Design.

The Minister visited the Dubai Industrial City, one of the largest manufacturing and logistics hubs in Dubai, established in 2004 with the objective to accelerate the growth of the industrial sector in the UAE. He also visited an enterprise in the fish processing sector located in the Dubai Industrial City.

21. Cabinet has taken note of the activities being organised by the Ministry of Public Service, Administrative and Institutional Reforms to mark World Day for Safety and Health at Work 2022. The theme for this year is Act together to build a positive safety and health culture. The following activities would be organised to mark the event:

(a) Safety and Health Week  Each Ministry and Department would be called upon to organise at least one safety and health-related activity at their level from 21 to 28 April 2022 to sensitise public officers on the importance of instilling an Occupational Safety and Health (OSH) culture;

(b) focused activities by key players in Safety and Health, namely the Ministry of Agro-Industry and Food Security, the Ministry of Health and Wellness, the Mauritius Police Force, the Mauritius Fire and Rescue Service, the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Centre and the Traffic Management and Road Safety Unit; and

(c) a workshop on Occupational Safety and Health on 28 April 2022 to sensitise all Chairpersons of Safety and Health Committees/OSH Management Steering Committees on the importance of acting together in building a positive safety and health culture and effective OSH Management System.

22. Cabinet has taken note of the reconstitution of the Board of the Financial Intelligence Unit with Mr Dinay Reetoo, Assistant Parliamentary Counsel, as Chairperson.

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The North Carolina General Assembly recently introduced House Bill 409 State Agencies/Adjust Hiring Practices, a bill that aims to reduce barriers to state employment for people with criminal records. In North Carolina, 1.6 million people have an arrest or conviction that make it more difficult to find stable work and live reformed, self-sufficient lives. These barriers contribute significantly to a 68% recidivism rate across the state and cause the state to lose an estimated $1 billion in GDP annually due to the exclusion of people with criminal records from the work force.

The bill reads: The General Assembly finds that the ability to procure meaningful employment is essential to reinstating good citizenship for individuals who have a criminal record. The General Assembly declares that the State encourages the successful reintegration of people with a criminal history and recognizes that reducing barriers to employment for persons with a criminal history is a matter of statewide concern. The purpose of this section is to implement hiring practices that will increase employment opportunities and will reduce recidivism and improve community stability.

House Bill 409 aims to reduce barriers by moving inquiries into a persons prior arrests or convictions until after the interview, affording the applicant a chance to meet face-to-face with potential employers. State employers will still conduct background checks, but delaying initial inquiries offers them the opportunity to take into account an applicant's qualifications, skills, and rehabilitation efforts, as well as information on criminal history, before making a hiring decision.

We want people who truly desire to work hard and take care of their families to have an opportunity to do so, says Representative Rena Turner, the bills primary sponsor. By erecting lifelong barriers to employment for people with a past arrest or conviction, we are increasing the chances that they will turn to crime or public assistance to make ends meet. H409 will provide a better opportunity to find meaningful work, while at the same time respecting the rights of state employers to conduct background checks and keep their workplaces safe.

H409 applies only to state employers and excludes positions such as law enforcement, people who work with minors or the elderly, and other positions as required by law are also excluded. Private and local public employers will not be affected by H409, although ten counties and municipalities in North Carolina currently have policies that delay inquiries into criminal background for public employers: the cities of Asheville, Carrboro, Charlotte, Durham, and Spring Lake, and the counties of Buncombe, Cumberland, Durham, Mecklenburg, New Hanover and Wake.
by Fern Siegel , March 29, 2017

Remember Michael Scott from The Office? He was the worlds greatest dissembler.

Hes back  in the body of press secretary Sean Spicer, the White Houses greatest dissembler.

Recently, Spicer tried to explain to a stunned press corps that wiretapping wasnt wiretapping. The president wasnt accusing Obama personally of a felony when he tweeted:"Obama had my 'wires tapped' in Trump Tower" and accused Obama of being a "bad" or "sick guy."

His strange circular reasoning extends to news coverage. He often brings printouts of news stories, usually from right-wing or alt-right sources, to press briefings  using and misusing reports, per CNN  to prove his point. Yet when FBI chief James Comey denied the Trump wiretap claim under oath, Spicer insisted reading a story in a paper isnt vouching for it; its reading a story.

This dubious logic followed Conways infamous claim of alternative facts. The ones that said Trumps inaugural was the largest in history. Except it wasnt. Not even the largest Republican inaugural.

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As for Donald Trump? Its not clear his brain knows what his mouth is saying. He doubles down, pivots, denies, retracts and lies; the scorecard is forever changing.

Of course, political doublespeak isnt new. Ron Ziegler, President Nixons press secretary during Watergate, once said: This is the operative statement. The others are inoperative. He also uttered this gem: The President is aware of what is going on. That is not to say that something is going on.

Spicer is using his playbook. But Trump and his surrogates have upped the stakes, perpetuating the myth that the media is the enemy of the people. A free press is a hallmark of democracy. Denigrating it is the signature of authoritarian rule. Just ask Vladimir Putin or Recep Erdogan, the president of Turkey.

So how do journalists speak truth to power?

The New Yorker editor David Remnick is staging a series of talks at The Public Theater to address that issue.

On March 20, at the magazines Public Forum: Truth To Power. He was joined by Russian/American writer Masha Geesen, the author of numerous articles and books on Vladmir Putin and totalitarianism, Jelani Cobb of The New Yorker, former Daily Show comedian Aasif Mandvi and Brittany Packnett, VP of community alliance for Teach for America.

In our new political reality, or what Remnick calls a time of unprecedented political chaos, Trump wants us to think that our worst selves are our natural state. What alarms him is the fallout: Unmasking the lie doesnt alter reality.

Adds Mandvi: At The Daily Show, our job was to point out the hypocrisy. Thats changed. You cant shame them.

For Masha Gessen, a Russian-American journalist, the implications are ominous: The logical distance between truth and reality is huge. Believe the autocrat when he talks of his intentions.

Trump has made hatred mainstream and ridiculed seasoned policy pros, what Gessen calls a disdain for expertise. Such attitudes may be the new White House normal. But it is not the standard for responsible government  or responsible journalism, which exists as a watchdog to power. If you can't shame, you must alert.

One key takeaway, per Cobb, is the renewed strength and value of local media.

It plays an important, critical role, not just in reporting, but in helping to defeat conspiracy theory, he says. In smaller towns and cities, people know their reporters and publishers. As such, their credibility is heightened.

Let's also agree some issues are above partisan politics. The integrity of the presidency and the refusal to allow any foreign power to affect our elections impacts every American.

Which explains why members of both parties have asked Devin Nunes, former Trump transition team member and chairman of the House investigation into alleged Trump campaign ties to Russia, to recuse himself. Transparency is critical to truth.

In the past, demagogic elements were walled off, like George Wallace, notes Cobb. We need to remember that democracy, like serious, fact-based journalism, demands "a rigorous standard of belief.

After all, we cannot claim American exceptionalism  then dismantle the very government that exists as a beacon for justice worldwide.
by Steve McClellan @mp_mcclellan, March 31, 2017

Neal Davies, President and CEO of Effie Worldwide, known internationally for its annual Effectiveness Awards, is leaving the organization after three years in the role. He was the first agency and marketing veteran to lead the group.

As he prepares to leave this summerreturning with his family to his native UK--a newly formed Effie Board will begin the search for a successor.

Davies, who previously was a Co-Founder of Naked Communications, is credited with expanding the group on a number of fronts. In addition to growing membership, award categories and entrants globally he also led the groups expansion beyond awards to become a forum for the industry, with an increased focus on education and learning.

Neal put worldwide in Effie Worldwide, by partnering with our licensees to sharpen their programs, growing entries, and fueling an even greater brand purpose, said incoming board member Carolyn Everson, VP, Global Marketing Solutions, Facebook. He has served as an ambassador to our industry, spotlighting Effie Worldwide on the global stage. We are grateful for his leadership and vision, and are looking forward to nominating someone to drive this important work forward.

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As Davies prepares to leave, the organization is reconstituting its board with the recruitment of nearly two dozen new members that represent a Whos Who in the industry. In addition to Everson, new members, who will assume their roles in June include:

Jack Bamberger, SVP, Global Head of Agency Development, AOL

Torrence Boone, VP, Global Agency Sales & Services, Google

Wendy Clark, President & CEO, DDB North America

Jae Goodman, Chief Creative Officer & Co-Head of CAA Marketing, Creative Artists Agency

Pam Hamlin, Global CEO, Arnold Worldwide

Catherine Hayes, Executive Director, Wharton Future of Advertising Program

Dave Hohman, EVP & Managing Director, Agency Solutions, Nielsen

Tamara Ingram, CEO, Worldwide, J. Walter Thompson Company

Kristin Lemkau, Chief Marketing Officer, JPMorgan Chase

Vineet Mehra, EVP & Chief Marketing Officer, Ancestry.com

Nigel Morris, CEO, Dentsu Aegis Network

Michelle Peluso, Chief Marketing Officer, IBM

Bea Perez, Chief Sustainability Officer, SVP Global Partnerships, Marketing Assets & Innovation, Licensing & Retail Attractions Chair, The Coca-Cola Company

Ann Mukherjee, Global Chief Marketing Officer, SC Johnson

Carla Serrano, CEO, Publicis New York, Publicis North America

Keith Weed, Chief Marketing & Communications Officer, Unilever

Karina Wilsher, Partner, Global COO, Anomaly

Linda Yaccarino, Chairman of Advertising Sales and Client Partnerships, NBCUniversal

Daryl Lee, Global CEO, Universal McCann, who has served on the board since 2011 will become Board Chair of Effie Worldwide when the new board takes over in June. Past Board Chair Taylor Gray, Partner at Revlyst, will serve as Treasurer. Ellen Hyde-Pace, Global Client Leader of Red Fuse Communications, a board member and frequent North American Effie Awards Judging Chair will serve as Secretary.

Having spent the last year working with Carolyn and Daryl to assemble the new board, I know it would have been an incredible experience to have stayed on and worked with this stellar group of people, said Davies. I will stay involved from Europe and look forward to becoming a judge again. Wherever you are in the world, theres no better way of keeping our industry honest than the Effies.
On the heels of Facebook launching its own Stories service, Snap is clapping back with a new search feature for Stories.

The need for a search function is simply a product of Stories success, Snap said on Friday.

The number of Snaps that were created by our community and added to Our Story simply overwhelmed our curation team  and inspired us to create something new, the company notes in a new blog post.

Now, users can search over more than 1 million unique Stories on Snaps flagship Snapchat app.

Facebook added Stories to its flagship app earlier this week. Like Snapchats Stories, Facebooks new offering encourages users to share multiple photos and videos as part of a "visual collection" atop their News Feed. Like Snaps offering, Facebooks Stories will also disappear 24 hours after users post them.

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Facebook, of course, has a history of stealing right from Snaps playbook. Last summer, the tech titan added a Stories section to Instagram's app.

Despite such direct attacks from Facebook, Snapchat still is poised for explosive growth. This year, Snapchats domestic ad revenue will grow 157.8% to $770 million, eMarketer expects.

Snapchat officially joined the ranks of the Top 10 most popular apps in late 2016, according to comScore.

Snapchat  went from being a very popular app among the younger demographics to being one of the most popular apps among the general population, Adam Lella, senior analyst at comScore, recently toldMediaPosts Moblog.

Of particular note, Snapchats general popularity has yet to undercut its status among Millennials, according to comScore. At the end of 2016, a whopping 78% of U.S. consumers ages 18-to-24 -- and 48% of those 25-to-34 -- were using Snapchat.
An existing immunotherapy drug called pembrolizumab appears to be effective in the treatment of malignant pleural mesothelioma, a rare and aggressive lung cancer that is primarily caused by exposure to asbestos. Writing in The Lancet Oncology, researchers describe the first study to show a positive result from using the antibody drug against this rare cancer. Share on Pinterest Researchers say that the study results suggest that the immunotherapy drug shows promise as a second-line treatment for malignant pleural mesothelioma, a rare and aggressive lung cancer that can result from exposure to asbestos. Malignant mesothelioma  commonly referred to as mesothelioma  is a rare cancer that arises in the mesothelium, the thin lining of tissue that covers the inside of the chest, the heart, the abdomen, and most internal organs. Malignant pleural mesothelioma  in which tumors form in the pleura, the linings of the chest wall and lungs  is an aggressive cancer that accounts for 90 percent of malignant mesothelioma cases. Unfortunately, most patients do not survive for longer than a year. The main risk factor for malignant pleural mesothelioma is inhalation of asbestos, and most cases in the United States have been linked to work-related exposure to high levels of the material. Asbestos is a naturally occurring mineral that was once commonly used to make materials for a wide range of industries, including home and commercial construction. In the U.S., many buildings erected before 1980 contain asbestos, the fibers of which can become dislodged into the air through normal wear and tear. When asbestos is inhaled, the tiny fibers travel to the ends of the small airways and enter the pleura that line the chest wall and lungs. The fibers damage the mesothelial cells and cause scarring (asbestosis), cancer (mesothelioma), or both.

Poor prognosis and no second-line treatments One of the reasons that patients diagnosed with mesothelioma have such poor prospects is because the disease is often not spotted until it is well advanced. Fast facts about mesothelioma Around 3,000 new cases of mesothelioma are diagnosed in the U.S. each year.

of mesothelioma are diagnosed in the U.S. each year. Rates of mesothelioma have leveled off and even reduced slightly in the U.S. in recent decades.

However, rates are still increasing in many other countries. Learn more about mesothelioma The standard treatment is first-line therapy that includes chemotherapy. There are currently no approved second-line treatments. Researchers have looked at several other approved drugs, but the new study is the first to show promising results, as Dr. Evan Alley, lead author and chief of hematology and medical oncology at the Penn Presbyterian Medical Center of the University of Pennsylvania Health System in Philadelphia, explains: There have been a lot of studies looking at different drugs, but researchers have not seen positive results. But weve found this new class of drugs, checkpoint inhibitors, seems to be more effective than whats been available in the past. Checkpoint inhibitors are drugs designed to help the body fight cancer by defeating certain mechanisms that cancer cells use to avoid being attacked by the immune system. Some cancer cells have large amounts of a protein called PD-L1, which can bind to the checkpoint protein PD-1 on cancer-fighting T cells of the immune system. When this happens, it stops the T cell from attacking the cancer cell that the PD-L1 belongs to. Pembrolizumab  which in the U.S. has the brand name Keytruda  is a drug that targets PD-1 and improves the immune response against cancers that are positive for PD-L1. It is already used to treat non-small cell lung cancer, melanoma, and some head and neck cancers.
Virtual reality therapy is effective in significantly reducing pain for hospitalized patients, according to a new Cedars-Sinai study.

In the study, published online by JMIR Mental Health, a sister publication of the Journal of Medical Internet Research, investigators examined 100 hospitalized patients who reported pain scores of greater than 3 on the Numeric Pain Rating Scale from zero to 10.

Fifty patients received virtual reality therapy consisting of wearing virtual reality goggles to watch calming video content such as helicopter rides over scenic portions of Iceland, or imagery of swimming in the ocean with whales. Those patients reported a 24 percent drop in pain scores after using the virtual reality goggles.

Another 50 patients viewed a standard, two-dimensional nature video, depicting relaxing scenes with a calming music audio track, on a close-proximity screen. Although those patients also experienced a reduction in pain, the decrease of 13.2 percent was less dramatic.

"Results indicate virtual reality may be an effective tool along with traditional pain management protocols," said Brennan Spiegel, MD, director of Cedars-Sinai's Health Service Research. "This gives doctors and patients more options than medication alone."

While it remains unknown exactly how VR works to reduce pain, Spiegel attributes the benefit to what he calls "immersive distraction." In other words, when the mind is deeply engaged in an immersive experience, it becomes difficult, if not impossible, to perceive other stimuli, including pain.

"We believe virtual reality hijacks the senses, but in a good way," Spiegel said. "It creates an immersive distraction that stops the mind from processing pain, offering a drug-free supplement to traditional pain management."

Because the VR intervention was only 15 minutes long and included only one visualization, it is possible that pain could rebound after completion of the therapy session, Spiegel said adding that longer-term pain reduction might require sustained and repeated exposure to varied virtual reality content.

"Based on this study, we're now conducting a larger trial to measure the impact of virtual reality on the use of pain medications, length of hospital stay and post-discharge satisfaction scores," Spiegel said.

Article: Virtual Reality for Management of Pain in Hospitalized Patients: Results of a Controlled Trial, Brennan Spiegel, MSHS, MD et al., Journal of Medical Internet Research, doi: 10.2196/mental.7387, published 29 March 2017.
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enables doctors to make an informed decision about whether to deliver the baby or whether the mother can safely be discharged and just monitored for the problem

gives doctors the confidence to delay delivery, potentially saving the baby's life

could also reduce pressure on overstretched neonatal intensive care units

Shakila Thangaratinam et al. Prediction of complications in early-onset pre-eclampsia (PREP): development and external multinational validation of prognostic models. BMC Medicine; (2017) DOI: 10.1186/s12916-017-0827-3 Preeclampsia - (http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/preeclampsia/basics/definition/con-20031644)

Pre-eclampsia is a dangerous condition that occurs during pregnancy, characterized by high blood pressure.In many cases it is mild, but in its extreme form, the life of mother and baby is at risk, especially if left untreated.Delivering the baby immediately to save the mother is the only way to handle most severe cases. But if this problem strikes as early as 20 weeks, delivering the baby prematurely can pose a huge risk to the infant's health.A series of tests have been developed by doctors in London, which when analyzed with a computer program can tell with 84% accuracy whether a mother is at immediate risk.Professor Shakila Thangaratinam, a consultant in maternal health at Queen Mary University of London, said "Making these decisions are incredibly hard - you do not want to prolong the pregnancy if the woman will be at risk, but delivering a baby very early - say 24 weeks or 26 weeks - is a difficult decision to make because you know the outcomes are poorer for the baby."The program was tested in 50 hospitals in the UK on 946 women.The test relies on just 12 pieces of information, collected with blood tests, urine tests and medical history.These include mother's age, gestation at which pre-eclampsia was diagnosed, blood pressure, urine protein level, liver and kidney function, oxygen saturation and level of toxins and platelets in the blood and urine.This information when combined gives the doctor the percentage at which the patient is at risk of a severe health problem in the next 48 hours.If the chance of complication is high, the doctor will decide to deliver the baby, and if it is low the patient can be discharged and monitored.The program was tested on 634 women in Canada, and 216 women in the Netherlands, to make sure it worked on other populations and it is now to be turned into a smartphone app, enabling it to be widely used.Benefits of the test:Professor Hywel Williams, of the NHS National Institute for Health Research which funded the study, said "The NIHR is proud to have supported this independent research which should make a difference to the health of mothers and babies in the NHS."Marcus Green, chief executive of the Action on Pre-eclampsia charity, said "This devastating condition frightens patients, comes on quickly, is unpredictable and can kill. Knowing when to intervene and when to deliver is crucial and this work is very helpful in identifying the women who really need careful medical attention and to ensure they get the care they need."Professor Basky Thilaganathan, spokesman for the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, said "Although pre-eclampsia is usually mild, easily managed and has very little effect on pregnancy, it can sometimes develop into a more serious illness which can be life-threatening for both the mother and baby. Pregnant women should seek immediate advice from a healthcare professional if they experience symptoms of pre-eclampsia including severe headaches, problems with vision, and sudden swelling of the face, hands or feet. The prediction model has the potential to assist clinicians in managing women with early onset pre-eclampsia."The results are published in thejournal.Source: Medindia
Cristiano Ronaldos hometown of Funchal in Portugal renamed their local airport in his honour in a ceremony held on Wednesday. Madeira Airport is now officially the Cristiano Ronaldo Madeira International Airport.

 Twitter

Which is really great and all but a statue of Ronaldo was also unveiled during the ceremony.

 Twitter

And, lets just say somethings quite not right.

Like, come on is that supposed to be him ?

Obviously, this had to turn into a meme and people on Twitter had a lot to say.

Don't understand everyone saying the new Ronaldo statue looks nothing like him. It's identical! ? pic.twitter.com/JqQgPYYAci  Footy Memes (@FootyMemes) March 29, 2017

Bit weird of them to open the Cristiano Ronaldo Airport with a bronze head of Raoul Moat pic.twitter.com/mEcGGXFNXr  GeorgeWeahsCousin (@WeahsCousin) March 29, 2017

I don't know what you're talking about guys, I think the Ronaldo statue looks pretty good pic.twitter.com/JIUwQBuqUY  keewa (@keewa) March 29, 2017

I defy you not to feel better after viewing this picture of Cristiano Ronaldo alongside his portrait bust. pic.twitter.com/kBCc7RtoUC  Tom Sutcliffe (@tds153) March 29, 2017

Lol they did Ronaldo wrong with this Statue in Portugal ? pic.twitter.com/1RUdaEa7P6  mahmoud (@mxepippen) March 29, 2017

The Cristiano Ronaldo bust at the airport carrying his name. This is Art Attack... pic.twitter.com/tTVmQBMgms  Simon Peach (@SimonPeach) March 29, 2017

When you ask for Cristiano Ronaldo but end up with Raoul Moat... pic.twitter.com/VcuGoJjb7s  Matt Holt Tips (@MattHoltTips) March 29, 2017

Ronaldo with Direct TV verses Ronaldo with Cable. pic.twitter.com/PXbdWGIugp  US Soccer Feed (@ussoccerfeed) March 29, 2017

They've done Ronaldo so dirty with that statue. pic.twitter.com/XaTL1ldNSf  Michael (@MichoB93) March 29, 2017

You Vs. the guy she tells you not to worry about. pic.twitter.com/osUjC2UpfQ  Footy Memes (@FootyMemes) March 30, 2017

And this wasnt even the first time Ronaldo has had such bad luck with statues.

 Twitter

Umm, awkward.

 Twitter

We feel bad for you, Ronaldo. We really do.
Mr. Ciruli is the Director of the Crossley Center for Public Opinion Research at the University of Denvers Josef Korbel School of International Studies. He is an adjunct professor teaching public opinion and foreign policy. The Crossley Center conducts research and presents live and virtual programs on foreign policy, politics, public policy and public opinion.





Mr. Ciruli holds a law degree from Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. and a bachelors degree cum laude in political science from UCLA. He is a member of the American Association of Public Opinion Research (AAPOR), and is the past-president of the Pacific Chapter of AAPOR (PAPOR). Mr. Ciruli is a board member of the Social Science Foundation of the University of Denver Josef Korbel School of International Studies and past-president of the Georgetown Law Alumni Board and the Denver Athletic Club.




Alternate Foreign Minister Giorgos Katrougalos met on 29 March with the Belgian Ambassador to Athens, Luc Liebaut.

During the meeting, there was a discussion about European issues of mutual interest. In parallel, the excellent level of economic and bilateral relations between the two countries and interest in further deepening these relations were reaffirmed.
For more than five decades, Cuba was off-limits to many Americans due to tight travel restrictions. Now, the island nation located just over 200 miles from Miami, is quickly becoming a must-see among cruise passengers. In fact, three mainstream cruise lines now sail to Cuba from the United States: Royal Caribbean, Norwegian Cruise Line and Fathom, which is operated by Carnival Cruise Lines, and will offer sailings through June. These cruise lines offer a variety of Cuba-bound itineraries, with Royal Caribbean and Norwegian also offering overnight stays in Havana. If you're interested in cruising Cuba, U.S. News has rounded up your affordable vacation options for 2017.

[See: The 2017 Best Cruise Lines for the Money.]

If you've never sailed to Cuba before, keep in mind there are a few things that will increase the price of your cruise. First, all passengers are required to purchase a $75 travel visa in order to visit the country. This can be easily purchased through the cruise line, but isn't included in published fares. Second, trips to Cuba are legal for Americans only if they fall under one of 12 authorized categories for permitted travel. For most cruise passengers, this requirement is fulfilled with person-to-person exchanges. While you can arrange such exchanges yourself, they can easily be organized with an affiliated cruise line. Still, it's key to factor this extra cost into your vacation planning process.

With that in mind, here are four affordable Cuba cruise itineraries to book now.

A Royal Caribbean Cruise From Tampa, Florida

While there are plenty of cruises to Cuba, it's hard to rival Royal Caribbean's convenient and affordable four-night Cuba itinerary. The trip departs from Tampa aboard Royal Caribbean's Empress of the Seas, with a stop in Key West, Florida, before continuing to Havana. There are sailings offered every two weeks from late June through October, with the lowest rate for an interior room starting at $429.

Story continues

[See: 10 Underrated Cruise Destinations for 2017.]

A Norwegian Cruise Line Sailing From Miami (With an Overnight Stay in Havana)

If you're looking for a short cruise with plenty of time for leisurely exploration in Havana, consider booking a four-night trip aboard Norwegian Sky. The four-night itinerary includes an overnight stay in Havana, giving you more time to enjoy the city, experience memorable meals and take advantage of the area's famous nightlife scene. In addition, the trip includes a stop in Great Stirrup Cay in the Bahamas, before returning to Miami. Cruises depart every Monday from May through December. Interior cabin prices start at $529 per person.

A Royal Caribbean Cruise From Tampa

Most shorter sailings stop at only a couple of ports, but this five-night trip aboard Empress of the Seas packs three port days into a five-day trip. Stops include Key West, Cozumel and Havana before returning to Tampa. Interior rooms start at $449. But keep in mind, if you're looking to sail in the peak summer season, prices increase to $598 in July.

[See: The 5 Top Places to Cruise This Summer.]

A Royal Caribbean Cruise From Tampa (With an Overnight Stay in Havana)

If you're itching to visit Cuba, you'll likely want to carve out some time for exploring world-class art, lively streets and UNESCO World Heritage sites. Royal Caribbean has opened up overnight stays with this five-night voyage that includes only a single stop in Havana. That stay, however, lasts more than 30 hours, compared to just 10 hours or less for a typical port of call. Rates for the cruise, which departs on Sept. 18, start at $638 for an interior cabin.





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To the editor:

Huron County is familiar with harvesting crops. Wind is a crop that does well here just like sugar beets or dry beans  and every county resident is benefitting in some way from the development and presence of wind energy.

Huron County is leading the state in wind energy generation. Wind energy already supports 2,000 Michigan jobs each year, and has created $3 billion worth of Michigan investment  with most of those dollars coming right here to the Thumb, and more coming to Huron County than anywhere else.

In fact, Huron Countys tax base grew by 34 percent between 2011 and 2015, in large part because of the wind parks we host here.

Many areas similar to ours lack valuable resources like wind. Theyre struggling to attract industry and economic development.

Were fortunate to have an abundance of safe, renewable energy like wind that energizes our economy with millions of dollars every year for our families, businesses, schools, roads, public safety, community programs and much more. Wind energy helps create a positive economic cycle here that benefits everyone from the landowners who have wind turbines on their property to our schoolchildren to young adults trying to find jobs close to home.

We shouldnt stop now. Jobs, income, productivity and tax revenue all stand to increase if we keep Huron County at the leading edge of Michigans energy future.

So lets support wind energy here in Huron County, so we can create more jobs. Jobs like hotel industry jobs, restaurants, support services, and trucking to name just a few, we need to help our economy grow.

Dean Avola

Owner of Green Clean Bean

Bad Axe
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...
The death of a 25-year-old airman assigned to Air Force Space Command in Syria this week is tragic, but his presence downrange in support of the fight against the Islamic State is illustrative of the quiet role U.S. space forces play in ongoing fights, the head of U.S. Strategic Command said.

Staff Sgt. Austin Bieren, of Umatilla, Oregon, died March 28, reportedly of natural causes. A member of the 21st Space Wing at Peterson Air Force Base, Colorado, he had been deployed to northern Syria.

Speaking at the Military Reporters and Editors Association conference near Washington, D.C., Air Force Gen. John Hyten said it is far from unusual for space troops to be present in hot combat zones.

"It's one of the interesting things that's very misunderstood in our country, is that if you're conducting a military operation anywhere in the world -- anywhere in the world, space is fundamental to the execution of that military operation," he said. "I was the director of Space Forces [for Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom] in 2006 in Central Command. And when I was director of Space Forces, at that time, guess where I was -- I was in Iraq, Afghanistan, all through the Middle East."

The little-reported activities of Space Command and service-specific counterparts focus on satellite communications and activities, and information of tactical value to troops downrange, including satellite-based intelligence, weather and missile-warning systems.

Hyten said during the fighting in Fallujah in the early 2000s, there was a joint space support team, commanded by a Marine Corps lieutenant colonel and staffed with airmen and soldiers, who brought space capabilities to bear for Marines in combat.

"I can't tell you what the airman specifically was doing in Syria, but anywhere we have military operations, you will find space people deployed," Hyten said. "In the Army divisions, in the Army [brigade combat teams], in any ground maneuver unit, you'll find space people."

The perceived significance of space capability to the fight is underscored by the relative paucity of American military personnel in Syria.

There's a Pentagon-imposed troop cap of just over 500 troops, although the number of personnel in country is actually roughly 900, due to the authority of commanders on the ground to make temporary exceptions. Other personnel on the ground include advise-and-assist forces and special operations troops, among others.

"It's tragic that we lost that young man in kind of a strange way for a 25-year-old, but nonetheless space is embedded in everything we do," Hyten said. "So anywhere you have American military people, you're going to have space."

-- Editor's Note: Previous version incorrectly referred to "Space Command" as "U.S. Space Command."

-- Hope Hodge Seck can be reached at hope.seck@military.com. Follow her on Twitter at@HopeSeck.
Rob O'Neill, the Navy SEAL credited with killing Usama Bin Laden, fired back Friday at the Drexel University professor who claimed he wanted to "vomit" after a fellow airline passenger gave up his seat to a U.S. soldier.

George Ciccariello-Maher "lives in a bubble  he's never been in the real world," O'Neill, a Fox News contributor, told "Fox & Friends." "I'm not sure which course he teaches, it might be 'How to Grow Facial Hair Without Testosterone.'"

The professor lit up the Internet this week with this Sunday tweet: "Some guy gave up his first class seat for a uniformed soldier. People are thanking him. I'm trying not to vomit or yell about Mosul."

Ciccariello-Maher told Fox News' Tucker Carlson on Thursday that he aimed to call attention to the fighting in Mosul, Iraq, including a recent airstrike that may have killed more than 100 innocent people. U.S.-led coalition officials have said they're investigating.

The professor added: "I think U.S. troops need real support. They don't need symbolic gestures. What they need is not a first-class seat. What they need is health care support, psychological support. ... This is how we support the troops, not by sending them off into wars."

"That's just a bunch of nonsense," O'Neill responded. "He's going to use somebody just showing his support for one of the troops by giving a first-class seat, to try to make it something political, which is what he does. He doesn't know what the war effort is."

It was the latest controversy for the professor who tweeted last December: "All I Want for Christmas is White Genocide." He later added: "To clarify: when the whites were massacred during the Haitian Revolution, that was a good thing indeed."

Drexel University responded to his latest tweet: "The recent social media comments by George Ciccariello-Maher, Associate Professor of Politics and Global Studies at Drexel, were made outside the classroom, are his own opinion, and do not represent the University's views. Drexel is committed to and vigorously supports our ROTC students, student veterans, and alumni who have served in the military."

O'Neill put it a different way: "He's a blowhard."

The professor also defended his call to stop a speech by the controversial scholar Charles Murray at Villanova University earlier in the day. Part of a tweet from him read: "Please do what you can to make this impossible!"

Ciccariello-Maher told "Tucker Carlson Tonight," "Universities are actually spaces for rational ideas, for arguments that are based in fact and evidence. And the reality is that Charles Murray has never based his arguments in evidence or facts."

A small group of protesters did briefly halt the speech before police led them out of the hall. A planned speech at Middlebury College led to riots earlier this month. Murray has come under fire for his 1994 book, "The Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life," which examines links between intelligence and heredity. Critics have called it racist, which he's denied.

When Carlson asked Ciccariello-Maher why he protected his tweets, the professor responded: "Sometimes you need to protect your Twitter feed when people who like to go on and on about free speech decide that it's time to violently threaten people who are using that free speech."

Fox News' Lucas Tomlinson contributed to this report.
VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA--(Marketwired - Mar 30, 2017) - Africa Energy Corp. (TSX VENTURE:AFE) ("Africa Energy" or the "Company) announces that it has terminated the farmout agreement (the "Farmout Agreement") entered into on November 29, 2016 with a subsidiary of Pancontinental Oil & Gas N.L. ("Pancontinental"). Pursuant to the Farmout Agreement, the Company was to acquire a 10% participating interest in Petroleum Exploration Licence 37 offshore, Republic of Namibia ("PEL 37"). Africa Energy exercised its right to terminate the Farmout Agreement as a result of due diligence procedures performed by the Company which identified discrepancies in respect of certain agreed commercial terms of the farmout transaction.

About Africa Energy Corp.

Africa Energy Corp. is a Canadian oil and gas exploration company, the shares of which are listed on the TSX Venture Exchange under the symbol "AFE". The Company holds a 90% participating interest in Block 2B, offshore Republic of South Africa and is actively building an exploration portfolio in Africa.

Forward Looking Information

Certain statements contained in this press release constitute forward-looking information. These statements relate to future events or future performance. The use of any of the words "will", "expected" and similar expressions and statements relating to matters that are not historical facts are intended to identify forward looking information and are based on the Company's current belief or assumptions as to the outcome and timing of such future events. Actual future results may differ materially. Various assumptions or factors are typically applied in drawing conclusions or making the forecasts or projections set out in forward-looking information. Those assumptions and factors are based on information currently available to the Company. The forward-looking information contained in this release is made as of the date hereof and the Company is not obligated to update or revise any forward-looking information, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by applicable securities laws. Because of the risks, uncertainties and assumptions contained herein, investors should not place undue reliance on forward-looking information. The foregoing statements expressly qualify any forward-looking information contained herein.

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.

ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD

James Phillips, President and CEO
7 Methods To Boost Your Website Traffic

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1. Tag Your Key phrases

Applying appropriate tags for your keyword phrases will boost website traffic due to the fact it really is how search engines like google scan your pages. Make sure you insert your keyword phrases into you title tags, header tags and meta tags. Also use alt tags to provide a text description of a graphic or photo.

2. Add New Content material Frequently

Content is crucial for targeted traffic as well as a top rated search engine ranking. Give visitors and search engines like google a reason to check out and index your website. Present common, optimized content and youll enhance your website traffic.

3. Get Suitable Incoming Links

The a lot more sites which hyperlink for your web-site the much more vital search engines like google will apply to your site. But not all links will be the same. Search engines pay more attention to hyperlinks from web sites which are well-known and trustworthy.

4. Make use of the Social Networks

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5. Promote

Advertising, when handled smartly, might be used to showcase your content material and merchandise or services. Spend Per Click (PPC) advertising enables you to handle the marketing spending budget every day. When youve perfected your PPC advertisements the return on investment might be exceptional when it comes to website traffic and sales.

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Global Mobile App Revenue

This story was delivered to BI Intelligence Apps and Platforms Briefing subscribers. To learn more and subscribe, please click here.

An increase in app installs from the Google Play store as well as third-party Android app stores is projected to drive Android consumer spend to surpass iOS in 2017, according to app analytics firm App Annie.

Despite Android taking the larger share of overall app revenue via Google Play and third-party apps stores, the iOS App Store will continue to have the single-most lucrative app store. Total global consumer spend in apps reach more than $139 billion, and global app downloads are expected to exceed 128 billion, by 2021.

App Annies app revenue forecast encompasses only consumer spending, or revenue that routes through app stores. This includes in-app purchases, paid apps, and subscriptions, but not in-app advertising.

Here are the key findings from the report:

Games will remain the most lucrative segment, while subscription revenue will grow its share by 2021. In 2016, smartphone games revenue accounted for 81% of total global app revenue. However, by 2021, subscriptions for apps related to streaming, news, and dating, will grow at an annualized rate of 25% to reach roughly $34 billion in revenue. Both Google and Apple are pushing subscription apps primarily because they offer a more stable revenue stream than in-app purchases do.

While revenue continues to be centered in mature markets, emerging markets drive download growth. The top five markets, led by China and the US, represent a massive 75% of global app store revenue. Thats expected to increase to 85% by 2021, likely due to increased spending by users in mature smartphone markets. Meanwhile, emerging markets, including India, Brazil, and Indonesia, will help drive app downloads over the period. However, limited spending power will diminish their revenue potential.

Revenue growth in China is a sign of a maturing app market, a path India is in the early stages of. In 2016, China surpassed the US as the largest iOS app revenue market. This growth will likely continue through 2021 as users become increasingly comfortable spending money in-app. And while Indias users continue to drive high downloads, its unlikely the market will provide any meaningful app revenue growth over the period.

Story continues

Google is likely eyeing app revenue growth in China via third-party app stores. Although Android is the dominant smartphone OS in China, Google doesnt have a Google Play presence in the Chinese smartphone market since the company was banned in 2010. This void was filled by third-party app stores such as Tencents Myapp, 360 Mobile Assistant, and Baidu Mobile Assistant. But Google is reportedly working with Chinese internet company NetEase in a bid to re-enter the market.

App developers long considered the "pay once and play" model  in which users pay up front an app and aren't prompted to make in-app purchases  the best way to generate revenue. But as more "free-to-download" apps entered the market, users increasingly opted for these experiences. These apps offer microtransactions for in-app goods and services, and in-app ads.

As the app ecosystem expands further, it will become increasingly challenging for developers to compete in a crowded market. Overall, global gross app revenue will double to reach $102 billion by 2020, according to recent projections by App Annie. As a result, app monetization strategies need to shift at least as quickly as consumer trends and preferences in order for developers to capture a piece of this growing market.

Laurie Beaver, research analyst for BI Intelligence, Business Insider's premium research service, has compiled a detailed report on app monetization that explores the top app monetization strategies under user- and advertising-paid approaches, and the growing combination of both. We will also look at emerging trends that could help developers navigate the fiercely competitive app ecosystem, and address the potential barriers that developers will have to overcome to reap the benefits of the multi-billion dollar market.

Here are some of the key takeaways:

The app ecosystem is expanding quickly, and it's becoming increasingly challenging for app developers to compete in a crowded market.

To capture a piece of the growing market, app developers must adapt their strategies at least as quickly as consumer trends and preferences change.

Developers can choose a user-paid or an advertising-paid approach to monetizing their apps. Different monetization strategies work best with different apps.

There are a number of widespread challenges that developers must contend with both before and after they enter the app market.

In full, the report:

Provides key factors driving the expected growth of global app revenue

Evaluates the top app monetization strategies

Looks at emerging trends to help developers navigate the app ecosystem

Explains the challenges that developers face to compete in the app market

And much more

Interested in getting the full report? Here are two ways to access it:

Subscribe to an All-Access pass to BI Intelligence and gain immediate access to this report and over 100 other expertly researched reports. As an added bonus, you'll also gain access to all future reports and daily newsletters to ensure you stay ahead of the curve and benefit personally and professionally.  START A MEMBERSHIP Purchase & download the full report from our research store.  Purchase & Download Now





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DailyFX.com -

Talking Points:

Chinas official manufacturing Purchasing Managers Index staged a modest beat

However, in the process it made a less-modest high

The Australian Dollar often reacts to China data, but not this time

The Australian Dollar barely moved Friday despite an encouraging official snapshot of Chinas manufacturing sector.

The countrys Purchasing Managers Index (PMI) rose to 51.8 in March. That was only an incremental notch above both the 51.7 expected and Februarys 51.6. Still, it was enough to see the series make a new, near-five-year high. April 2012 was the last time weve been up here.

The report said that higher prices charged were boosting firms bottom lines, while demand related to Chinas property boom also helped.

The non-manufacturing PMI was released simultaneously, but tends to carry a lot less weight in the markets despite Chinas increasing reliance on that part of its economy. It came in at 55.1, well above Februarys 54.2.

PMIs originated in the US, but are now released worldwide and regarded as among the more timely economic indicators. In their logic, any reading above 50 signifies expansion for the sector in question. A sub-50 print means contraction.

The Australian Dollar can often act as the markets liquid China proxy bet, thanks to its home nations huge raw-material exports to the worlds number-two economy. It didnt do so obviously in this case though. AUD/USD continued to meander lower. It was at 0.76423 just after the numbers, from 0.76484 just before.

However, it was already retracing from the Asia/Pacific morning peak of 0.76538, stuck much earlier.

Heading Down Already: AUD/USD

Australian Dollar Keeps Slipping Despite Upbeat China PMI

While these latest PMIs certainly add to many we have seen out of the region suggesting that economic recovery has traction, the markets are keeping at least half an eye on the White Houses view. The administration of President Donald Trump has barked angrily at countries which run persistent trade surpluses with the US. Although it has yet to bite, investors still worry that it might and China has by far the highest.

Story continues

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--- Written by David Cottle, DailyFX Research

Contact and follow David on Twitter:@DavidCottleFX



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Bike makers may not have to buy back their unsold BS-III stock after end-of-the-day today as there may not be any two-wheelers left to buy back.

Almost every dealer, especially those in metros and its periphery and Tier-II cities, reported a sell-out of its BS-III inventory by noon today following unprecedented levels of discounting on motorcycle and scooters.

The stock clearance sales saw overcrowding at dealerships of Hero, Honda, Bajaj and TVS across Delhi, Mumbai, Pune, Ahmedabad, Bhopal, Gorakhpur and Guwahati.

Many dealers were putting signboards declaring a total sell-out of BS-III stock only a couple of hours after they opened their showrooms this morning. Not ready to lose out on the opportunity many buyers opted to pay in cash or cheque instead of going in for the lengthy procedure of bank loans.

Discounts, meanwhile, broke all boundaries. Not only were there company sponsored discounts which were advertised by them on social networks like Facebook and Twitter there were also additional offers from the dealers, too.

For instance, the Honda CBR 250, whose on-road cost is Rs 1.9 lakh in Mumbai, was carrying a discount of up to Rs 50,000 including the Rs 22,000 discount announced by Honda. Some dealers were reportedly even giving away the Navi, a gearless mini bike, free with the CBR 250 and CBR 150.

The Navi, which costs nearly Rs 50,000 on-road, was given away with a discount of Rs 20,000 or less than the price of the One Plus 3T mobile phone that costs Rs 30,000 on Amazon. While the Navi a slow-mover in the market other products like the Honda Activa and TVS Jupiter were off the shelf within minutes.

Buyers lined up even before we opened the showroom this morning at 9.00. We had limited inventory of BS-III Activa and some bikes. They all got over within 40 minutes, said a Honda dealer in Mumbai.

In many cases discounts reached a phenomenal 50 percent just hours after the showrooms were opened. For instance, dealers in Ludhiana, Chandigarh and Pune were giving away 40 percent discounts which climbed to 50 percent based on the negotiation skills of the buyers.

Chennai-based bike and scooter maker TVS Motors was giving away discounts of up to Rs 20,150. TVS was giving away one-fifth of the cost of its top-selling scooter Jupiter in the form of a discount. At Rs 10,000 company-sponsored discount on the BS-III Jupiter was lapped up within minutes this morning.

Today is the last day to buy BS-III stock of vehicles as per the directive given by the Supreme Court on Wednesday. Only BS-IV compliant vehicles will be allowed to be sold from April 1. However, the court has allowed the registration of such BS-III vehicles provided the buyer shows proof of purchase.

Dealers were thus desperate to liquidate such stocks, the discounting levels notwithstanding, as they would be stuck with them if the manufacturer refuses to buy them back after April 1. As per sources dealers were given a free hand over discounting by the manufacturers who are otherwise cautious about discounting as it would hurt brand image.
A worker repairs a motor at a market in Khartoum, Sudan January 14, 2017. REUTERS/Mohamed Nureldin Abdallah. - RTSVJ28

AfDB has asked Indian companies to invest in African power, infrastructure and farming sectors as it wants strong engagement with the country in terms of doing business in Africa.

African Development Bank (AfDB) would like to accelerate engagement with Indian government in terms of doing business in Africa, AfDB President Akinwumi Adesina said during his first official visit to India.

"Rapid urbanisation and rapid growth of middle class will lead consumption demand, which is going to make Africa the place to be. The most important area for investment is power. Electricity, infrastructure and agriculture are other key areas," he told reporters on sidelines of Exim Bank (India) interactive session with a visiting African delegation.

Almost 645 million people in Africa need to have access to electricity, suggesting huge business opportunity to investors from India, Adesina said.

AfDB annual general meeting is going to be held next month in Ahmedabad where the funding agency is expected to invite business community in order to attract private sector funding.

He said AfDB is working to minimise investment risks of overseas investors to pull-in more foreign direct investment.

For African continent, India is the fifth largest in terms of foreign direct investment.

India's exports to Africa grew from USD 7 billion during 2005 and 2006 to about USD 25 billion today. While Indian imports from Africa during the same time expanded from USD 5 billion to USD 31 billion, he added.

Exim Bank MD David Rasquinha said out of its line of credit of about USD 2.5-3 billion every year, almost half goes for development projects in Africa.

About USD 2.5 billion worth project developments are under pipeline for the continent, Rasquinha said.

"We have also formed a joint venture with AfDB for project development growth that works with companies to come up with projects so that Indian companies can finance those. Africa gets around USD 1.2 billion line of credit from Exim Bank every year," he further said.
Gateway Distriparks' Ahmedabad arm has been commissioned to handle container traffic for Western Railway.

Sachin Bhanushali, President, Gateway Rail Freight said the facility would help them to reduce cost and get more business in Gujarat.

Currently, the company pays a rail haulage of Rs 450 crore annually to Indian Railways, the above facility will be able to save about 2 percent that is it will reduce our cost by Rs 9-10 crore annually.

For the development of this facility, the company has already done an investment of Rs 100 crore and will do an incremental investment of Rs 15-20 crore.
Vinod Rai

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Banks Board Bureau, the autonomous body tasked with improving governance of public sector banks, has recommended five current executive directors of public sector banks for the upcoming vacancies of Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer in the next financial year.

These executive directors are Sunil Mehta, Enforcement Directorate at Corporation Bank; Dina Bandhu Mohapatra from Canara Bank; Rajkiran Rai G from Oriental Bank of Commerce; RA Sankara Narayanan from Bank of India, and R Subramaniakumar from Indian Overseas Bank.

The Banks Board Bureau recommends the selection of chiefs of government-owned banks and financial institutions and to help banks in developing strategies and capital raising plans.

Chairman Vinod Rai, former Comptroller and Auditor General of India, and members of the BBB have made the recommendations based on interactions held with eligible candidates from public sector banks, the BBB said on its website.

The government will take a final call on the appointments.

On Thursday, Rai told a gathering that the government is keen on bank consolidation, but not before building a strong balance sheet by addressing the bad debt problem, and in that case a merger may happen first between two large banks.
Even as the Supreme Court verdict on Wednesday banning sale of polluting BS-III vehicles was delivered, it has predictably led to a mad scramble among dealers to sell their old stock before April 1 deadline.

With only one day to go, desperate dealers are offering three to four fold higher discounts.

Honda Motorcycle and Scooters India, the second largest domestic two-wheeler seller, is offering discounts of up to Rs 22,000 on the CBR 250 and on CBR 150. On other bikes it is offering Rs 18,500. Honda has the second largest stock of unsold BS-III vehicles which could be around 150,000 units.

Here is a look at the various two-wheeler models and the attractive discounts they are being sold at.
HDFC Bank (Image: PTI)

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HDFC Banks track record of consistent earnings growth has given it a reputation of being predictable to the point of boring. But its top bosses and shareholders are not complaining. Having emerged unscathed from the bad loan mess roiling the banking sector, HDFC Bank is now looking to expand its corporate loan book.

This, at a time, when the loan books of its rivals are shrinking and credit growth in the system itself is at multi-year lows.

HDFC Banks corporate loan book (which accounts for a large part of the wholesale book) doubled to Rs 100,000 crore in FY16 in less than three years. In the December quarter, the bank reported a credit growth of 17.5 percent, well ahead of the single-digit growth across the industry. The growth was driven by higher corporate and retail loan disbursals in equal measure. Also, HDFC Bank is now looking at increasing focus on term loans  something it has shied away from for a long time.

We provided working capital loans when we started, but we dont just want to do that, Kaizad Bharucha, Executive Director, HDFC Bank told Moneycontrol in a freewheeling chat. We wanted to be a full service bank and bring in a fair level of customization to suit needs of corporates, he said.

Competitorsmainly public sector banksgripe that HDFC Bank has managed to boost its earnings by not lending to the infrastructure sector.

Bharucha says it was a well-thought strategy.

During the early 00s, when peers were busy growing both the retail and corporate loan books rather aggressively, HDFC Bank chose to stay away from funding large corporate projects. Instead, it focused on chasing profitable growth and concentrated on growing its retail franchise by deepening relationships and using technology to solve problems.

Everyone wanted to move into power and country was starved of power, said Bharucha.

Conceptually it was fine. We didnt fund them because the common sense was you can create industrial temples, but the linkage to coal and ability to move coal was not there. We did not see the ability to dump ash and have linkage to see offtake of power, he said.

So for years HDFC Bank only gave working capital loans even as it looked at ways to solve problems. And even in this period, few know that HDFC Bank stepped in to help Tata Motors when it was in the midst of concluding the acquisition of Jaguar Land Rover and the worlds financial system froze in the aftermath of the Lehman crisis.

In a matter of minutes, Rs 800 crore was released through its Bahrain branch of HDFC Bank. It was during this time that the bank was developing a platform for Tata Motors, which would enable it to do bill discounting digitally eliminating the need for paper. Today, senior officials in Tata Motors claim that the relationship is a fairly deep one with HDFC Bank.

In order to differentiate itself, yet help solve a problem, HDFC Bank has used technology to offer working capital loans to corporates and helped with vendor financing and dealer financing. So on the trade side, the bank introduced a technology platform that helped eliminate the use of paper completely. This helped improve efficiency for the entire supply chain and not merely for the corporate client. The treasury head at a large automobile company said the bank helped eliminate the paper trail by taking bill discounting on to the electronic platform.

Having taken their time to develop cutting-edge products for their clients, HDFC Bank wants its corporate banking vertical to become a one-stop shop for large and mid-sized corporates. Adds Bharucha, We have an end-to-end product vendor and dealer financing. We are among the largest movers of cash in the country today. We have had the volumes because of product diversity, ability to customize and provide superior MIS.

Rather than just lend to the corporates, HDFC Bank first created stickiness by offering simple solutions. For instance, the banks cash management solutions facilitate payments of all kinds from a centralized system. So be it payment of utilities for all facilities across the country or salaries, HDFC Bank facilitates this through a centralized system using the payments platform. The cash management solutions help corporates eliminate numerous departments across the country and duplication. It is basic business that the lesser the number of touchpoints, the lower is the cost.

Having understood the cash-flows of clients, the bank is now aggressively helping companies deal with balance sheet stress. While it continues to engage with customers through product customization, it is also looking at deepening the relationship across the value chain. HDFC Bank is among the few banks willing to even fund infrastructure projects now, especially in the roads segment.

Since fresh credit demand isnt picking up pace, HDFC Bank is looking at balance sheets and understanding the pain points so that it can offer a structure that solves problem for the corporate client. Explains K Balasubramanian, Group Head Corporate Banking, We have looked at a lot of refinance opportunities over the last year and a half. These are largely associated with projects completed and operational. This is one more avenue to reach out to new clients and it has aided growth.

The market believes that while HDFC Bank will be able to grow its loan book ahead of peers, it may not be as high as the previous few quarters as the demand for working capital loans has decelerated. But with interest differential between credit substitutes and bank loans narrowing, a revival in loan demand could boost the corporate loan book. The bank currently has a 4.5 percent market share in system loans. Analysts believe that as competitive intensity picks up in the retail segment, margins could come down. This explains HDFC Banks focus on the corporate loan book.
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Indoco Remedies on Friday said it got a warning letter from US FDA for two of its facilities in Goa, as the drug regulator wasn't fully convinced with the drug maker's response for its earlier observations.

The US FDA had inspected Indoco's manufacturing facilities Plant II and Plant III located in Verna Industrial Estate Area, Goa, between August 31 and September 4, 2016 and issued six observations in Form 483.

The Plant II manufactures ophthalmic and injectables, while Plant III makes tablets.

The observations were related to unexplained discrepancy in batch failures and not adhering to certain procedures related to quality control, prevention of microbial contamination, equipment and its maintenance.

The company said none of the observations were related to breaches of data integrity or data falsification.

"Based on the review of compliance response, (US) FDA accepted our response to 4 observations. However, (US) FDA remains concerned with respect to 2 observations, pertaining to one specific product, for which we are contract manufacturer, for one of our customers and consequently we have received a warning letter from USFDA dated 27th March 2017, today," the company said in a statement.

"We as a company are fully committed in resolving the issue and will respond at the earliest," Indoco added.

The company didn't specify the impact of warning letter on sales but said the company can continue to supply products from the above mentioned facility to meet its "obligations to customers and the patients in the United States of America."

The inspection was related to a ophthalmic product called Latanoprost solution which the company supplies to one of its client who was seeking US FDA approval to market the product in US.

Latanoprost is one of the key products for the company.

Indoco has four USFDA approved facilities in India with two formulation or finished dosage plants in Goa and two active pharmaceutical ingredient plants at Patalganga and Rabale in Maharashtra.

The US drug regulator conveys its concerns on manufacturing practices through Form 483. Companies that receive its observations must respond in writing with a corrective action plan and implement the same quickly. If the company fails to meet the regulators expectations, a warning letter may be issued.

The USFDA has been issuing Form 483 observations and warning letters to Indian drug makers for failing to meet good manufacturing practice (GMP) standards laid down by it.

The agency is particularly stringent when it comes to facilities related to sterile and injectable products that require higher degree of compliance due to danger of contamination.

Indoco had sales of 973.2 crore in FY16, of which domestic formulations constituted 54.4 percent, while the export formulations contributed 39.6 percent, the rest came from active pharmaceutical ingredient and contract research segments.

Indoco's announcement came after market hours. Shares of Indoco dropped 1.21 percent to close at Rs.249.95 on BSE, the benchmark Sensex declined 0.09 percent to end at 29,620.50 points.
Gurgaon-based online marketplace ShopClues has launched an 'Express Payout' service, which will allow merchants to get up to 80 percent of their pending payment in advance.

Ganesh Balakrishnan of Shopclues said, We have about half a million sellers, 80 percent of whom are MSMEs from Tier II and III cities and towns. A majority of the merchants on the platform sell unbranded products and usually are in need of regular cash flow to keep their business running. Through Express Payout we can provide these merchants access to working capital to ease their daily business requirements.

In last three weeks, it claims to have catered to over 2,000 payout requests.

Most online companies such as Flipkart, Snapdeal, Amazon and Shopclues take about 7-15 days to settle payments for sellers. Once an item has been sold, the money moves from a customer's account to the account of a marketplace, which deducts a commission and passes the rest of the payment to a seller. Sellers claim elongated periods of settlement make it difficult for them as they run out of cash flows.

"Even though RBI has mandated a three-day settlement for online payments, most marketplaces take much more time. It reduces our operating capital and impacts business," a seller from the All India Online Vendors Association, told Moneycontrol on condition of anonymity.

The service aims to benefit any merchant who requires advance payment before the scheduled payment date. The merchants can choose to receive any amount up to 80 percent of their due payment with a small service charge. The requested payment is processed within eight hours, as claimed by the company.

Started in 2011, Shopclues claims to have 5 crore listed products and over 5 lakh merchants. The company has been in recent controversy as one of the co-founders has filed a complaint against existing management of the company claiming that his voting rights were wrongfully taken away by the other two co-founders.
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SpiceJet has added three Bombardier Q400 planes to its fleet to fly on routes under the governments Regional Connectivity Scheme, an official from the listed airline told Moneycontrol.

With the latest induction, SpiceJet now has 33 Boeing B737 next generation planes and 20 Bombardier Q-400s.

The low-cost carrier, promoted by Ajay Singh, will fly on 11 routes covering four unserved and two underserved airports under the first phase of the governments Ude Desh ka Aam Nagrik (UDAN) scheme.

On Thursday, SpiceJet and four other airlines won the bids to operate under the first phase of the scheme with funding assistance from the Centre and state governments. The five airlines have been awarded 128 routes (most of them exclusive) connecting 43 airports. The companies will have a three-year exclusivity on the routes.

The regional connectivity scheme places a cap of Rs 2,500 on the fare for an hours plane journey of approximately 500-km and a 30-minute helicopter journey.

The Q400 planes are the latest in the Q series family of and carry fuel-efficient turboprop engines. Bombardier claims Q400 planes offer a 30 percent reduction in fuel burn over similar capacity older jets, thus also making it cost-efficient.

Its high-speed cruise is 160 kmph faster than conventional turboprops and its large propellers operate at a lower RPM (revolutions per minute), generating more power with less noise, according to the Canadian companys website.

SpiceJets purchase of three new Bombardiers comes after the airline placed the second-largest order in Indian aviation industry on January 13, seeking 150 B737-8 MAX planes from manufacturer Boeing.

In 2011, InterGlobe Aviation Ltd - the company behind IndiGo airline - had placed an order for 180 Airbus A320Neo planes.

SpiceJet will buy 100 B737-8 MAX planes with the deal handing the Ajay Singh-led airline purchase rights for another 50 B737-8 MAX and wide-body aircraft.

A SpiceJet official said 38 foreign banks had shown interest in funding the purchase of the Boeing planes. He said the company would take two to three months to decide on the modalities of the financing.
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Seventy two years after coming into being in Kerala, the curtains will come down on the State Bank of Travancore (SBT) tomorrow following its merger with parent State Bank of India (SBI).

Besides the State Bank of Travancore, the State Bank of Bikaner and Jaipur, State Bank of Mysore, State Bank of Patiala and State Bank of Hyderabad will also be merged with the State Bank of India, and the assets of these banks will be transfered to the parent bank tomorrow. "It is quite a matter of sentiment that after working for the past 35 years in SBT...we will work in another name from tomorrow," a senior SBT official said.

The branches of SBT will be renamed SBI from tomorrow.

The official, however, assured customers that they need not worry, adding that there would not be any change in their accounts, passbooks and cheque books. The State Bank of Travancore has about 14,000 employees on its payroll, he added.

In the honour of "Kerala's own bank", the state Postal Department will also release a post cover with pictures of SBT emblem. The merger has come into effect despite strong opposition from both ruling CPI-M led LDF and Congress-headed UDF Opposition in the state.

A 'Save SBT' forum with people drawn from different sections of society also held a state-wide campaign to put pressure on the Centre to avoid the merger.

The Kerala Assembly had passed a unanimous resolution asking the Centre and RBI to desist from the merger move. The resolution stated that SBT had played a major role in the economic growth of the state and that the new dispensation would adversely affect the state's economy.

State Bank of Travancore was established as Travancore Bank Ltd in 1945 and sponsored by the erstwhile Princely State of Travancore. It became an associate of the State Bank of India in 1959.
The total extent of defence land in the country is about 17.57 lakh acres, Minister of State for Defence Subhash Bhamre said today.

Bhamre said in Lok Sabha that of the total defence land, the largest chunk of 3,73,040 acres is in Rajasthan, followed by 1,02,257 acres in Madhya Pradesh, 67,464 acres in Punjab, 47,640 acres in Uttar Pradesh besides others.

"The total land acquired for defence purpose after independence in the country is about 8.38 lakh acres," he said during Question Hour.
Dalai Lama

For the second time in a month, China today warned India of "serious damage" to bilateral ties if it allows the Dalai Lama to visit Arunachal Pradesh as Beijing asked New Delhi to honour its "political pledges" on the Tibet issue.

"We are seriously concerned about the news. On the eastern section of the China-India border, China's position is clear and consistent," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang told media here today, responding to a question on the Dalai Lama's upcoming visit to Arunachal Pradesh.

China claims Arunachal Pradesh as part of south Tibet.

"The Dalai clique has long been engaging in separatist activities with inglorious record. India should be very clear with the true nature of the Dalai clique," Lu said.

"But despite this India still invited the Dalai Lama to visit the region. This will have serious damage on bilateral relations," Lu said.

The Dalai Lama will visit Arunachal Pradesh from April 4 to 13.

This is the second time this month Chinese Foreign Ministry has aired its objections to the Dalai Lama's visit to Arunachal Pradesh.

"China is gravely concerned over information that India has granted permission to the Dalai to visit Arunachal Pradesh," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang had said on March 3.

China has protested to India last year also when New Delhi cleared his visit to Arunachal Pradesh.

"Such visits will have deep damage on China India relations. We have asked India to stick to its political pledges and not to hurt China-India relations. It will come down to India to make a choice," Lu said.

"China firmly opposes the Dalai Lama carrying out any activities in the relevant region and we have expressed our concerns to the Indian side. We urge India to stick to its political statements, respect the consensus and avoid doing anything that might further complicate the matter," Lu said.

He said India should not provide any platform for the "Dalai clique and only that way can China-India relation can move forward in a sound and steady way".

"China and India are two major developing countries and we are close neighbors". It is very important for the two peoples to maintain sound and steady China India relations. But such relationship has to be built on certain foundation," Lu said.

Last year, China also protested the visit of then American Ambassador to India Richard Verma to the area.

The India-China border dispute covers the 3,488 km long Line of Actual Control (LAC).

While China claims Arunachal Pradesh as Southern Tibet, India asserts that the dispute covered Aksai Chin area which was occupied by China during the 1962 war.
A man processes tannery wastes to make poultry feed at Hazaribagh along the polluted Buriganga river in Dhaka June 5, 2014. Bangladesh's Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina warned the tannery owners at Hazaribag of serious consequence if they failed to relocate their tanneries in Savar within the stipulated time, during a World Environment Day observance program, local media reported. According to the United Nations Environment Programme website, World Environment Day is celebrated annually on June 5 to raise global awareness and motivate action for environmental protection. REUTERS/Andrew Biraj (BANGLADESH - Tags: ENVIRONMENT TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY BUSINESS EMPLOYMENT) - RTR3SDFL

The National Green Tribunal (NGT) took strong exception today to rampant incidents of waste burning in National Capital Region and summoned top officials to explain the reasons behind it.

A bench headed by NGT Chairperson Justice Swatanter Kumar said that fire at waste dumping sites produces harmful gases, hazardous to health and the environment.

The green panel directed sub-divisional magistrates concerned, Member Secretary of the Uttar Pradesh Pollution Control Board (UPPCB) and officials of the Noida Development Authority to be present before it on the next date of hearing and submit a comprehensive report on the issue.

"The counsel appearing for the applicant has brought before us photographs showing burning of leaves and waste along the Yamuna river and either side of Delhi-Noida Direct (DND) flyway.

"They have also filed photographs showing Bhalswa municipal solid waste site on fire. We direct the SDM concerned, Member Secretary of UPPCB and official from Noida Development Authority to be present before the tribunal on the next date of hearing," the bench, also comprising Justice R S Rathore, said.

The top environment watchdog also lambasted the municipal corporations in the national capital for not devising a mechanism for dumping dry leaves in pits so that these were not burnt.

It also directed the committee, constituted by the NGT and headed by the secretary of Delhi government's Urban Development Department, to inspect and file a report on indiscriminate burning of waste in dumping sites at Ghazipur and Bhalswa here.

The matter has been posted for hearing on April 20.

The green body had yesterday issued notice to the governments of Delhi and Uttar Pradesh on a plea alleging indiscriminate burning of municipal solid waste in Delhi and NCR despite a ban being in force.

It had sought response from the governments, Delhi Pollution Control Committee (DPCC), UP Pollution Control Board (UPPCB) on the issue.

"What is this going on? Issue notice to governments of NCT Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, DPCC, UPPCB," the bench had said.

The order came after advocates Sanjay Upadhyay and Saliq Shafique told the green panel that repeated incidents of waste burning were taking place in several areas across Delhi-NCR.

The lawyers, appearing for Vardhaman Kaushik who has filed a petition on deteriorating air quality in Delhi and NCR, said that despite various orders being passed by the NGT and undertaking given by the authorities concerned there was indiscriminate dumping and burning of municipal solid waste in various parks.

Imposing a complete ban on burning of waste in open including garbage, leaves, plastic and crop residues, the National Green Tribunal had earlier said violators will be fined Rs 5,000.
Barred from flying by domestic airlines and booked by police for assaulting an Air India staffer, Shiv Sena MP Ravindra Gaikwad has tried at least thrice to book a seat on the national carrier, using a new alias each time.

Earlier this week, a staff member of the Sena politician dialled Air India's call centre to book flight AI 806 from Mumbai to Delhi for the following day, i.e. Wednesday, and dictated the passenger's name as Ravindra Gaikwad. The ticket was promptly cancelled, an airline source said.

Thereafter, a seat was booked on flight AI 551 from Hyderabad to Delhi in the name of Professor V Ravindra Gaikwad. This ticket was cancelled too.

A third attempt was made the next day for travel from Nagpur to Delhi via Mumbai when the MP's staff contacted a travel agent to book a flight for "Professor Ravindra Gaikwad".

The travel agent immediately contacted the local station manager and the information was forwarded to Air India's headquarters here, the source said.

The airline had earlier issued a "non-acceptance order" to all its station managers and booking offices, instructing them to ensure that "restriction on acceptance and travel of potentially unruly and unsafe passengers is being followed on Air India flights for Mr Ravindra Gaikwad".

In an unprecedented step in Indian aviation history, the Sena MP was earlier barred from flying by all major domestic airlines for assaulting an elderly Air India employee last Thursday.

The MP was angry at not being given a business class seat though he had boarded an-economy flight.
Six new Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) and seven new Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) had been announced in the Budgets of 2014-15 and 2015-16. While they are yet to get their permanent campuses, the government has disbursed Rs 258.54 crore of funds to new IITs and Rs 133.65 crore for new IIMs.

Of this, IIT Jammu received Rs 69.34 crore from the Ministry of Human Resource Development (HRD) while IIM Vishakhapatnam received Rs 29.63 crore from MHRD. However, institute officials said that they will function in their full student strength once the campuses are constructed.

We are operating from a temporary location. Once the full campus is ready, the new IITs will be able to offer multiple undergraduate as well as postgraduate courses," said an associate professor at one of the new IITs.

Similarly, the newer IIMs will have to build the brand reputation so that during the placement process, top recruiters are able to visit the campus.

A placement coordinator at one of the new IIMs whose campus is under construction said that companies do prefer students from older IIMs (namely the ones at Ahmedabad, Bangalore and Calcutta) rather than the newer ones. Both the salaries offered and profiles are much better for those studying at the older IIMs.

Mahendra Nath Pandey, Minister of State (HRD) in a written reply to a Rajya Sabha question said that all these institutes are functioning from their temporary campuses with required infrastructures including hostel facility, till the construction of permanent campuses.

The two Budgets had announced IITs at Palakkad (Kerela), Tirupati (Andhra Pradesh), Jammu (J&K), Bhilai (Chhattisgarh), Dharwad (Karnataka) and Goa (Goa) and IIMs at Amritsar (Punjab), Sirmaur (Himachal Pradesh), Sambalpur (Odisha), Nagpur (Maharashtra), Bodhgaya (Bihar), Vishakhapatnam (Andhra Pradesh), and Jammu (J&K). Pandey had also said that sufficient funds for operationalisation from temporary campuses have been provided to these institutes.

Name of the institute Fund released (Rs cr) IIT Palakkad 68.84 IIT Tirupati 42 IIT Jammu 69.34 IIT Bhilai 21 IIT Dharwad 31.18 IIT Goa 26.18

Source: MHRD

Name of the institute Fund released (Rs cr) IIM Amritsar 17.85 IIM Sirmaur 15 IIM Sambalpur 15 IIM Nagpur 19 IIM Bodhgaya 15 IIM Vishakhapatnam 29.63 IIM Jammu 22.16

Source: MHRD
India today said it would export additional 145 MW electricity to Nepal via two newly-built cross-border transmission lines, days after Kathmandu requested New Delhi for more power to end chronic load- shedding.

"Export of power to Nepal is expected to increase by around 145 MW shortly through two 132 kV transmission lines," Indian Embassy said in a statement.

Construction of those two transmission lines (Katiya- Kusaha and Raxual-Parwanipur cross-border) was completed last month. Soon after the completion, Nepal requested India to provide electricity thorough these transmission lines.

Last week, Nepal's Ambassador to India Deep Kumar Upadhyay urged Power Minister Piyush Goyal to expedite the process.

A team of Nepal Electricity Authority will soon visit India to finalise the tariff and modality of power trade between the two countries, according to officials.

"In 2016, export of power to Nepal increased by around 145 MW with the commissioning of Muzaffarpur (India) and Dhalkhebar (Nepal) transmission lines," officials had said.

"For the first time, India has turned around from a net importer of electricity to net exporter of electricity," Power Ministry has said.

India was exporting around 190 MW power to Nepal over 12 cross border interconnections at 11kV, 33kV and 132kV level.

Ever since the cross border trade of electricity was established in the mid-80s, India has been importing power from Bhutan and marginally exporting to Nepal in radial mode at 33 kV and 132 kV via Bihar and Uttar Pradesh respectively.
FILE - In this Dec. 19, 2016, file photo, Chinese women wearing masks to protect themselves from air pollution walk through Ritan Park shrouded by dense smog in Beijing. China's government said on Wednesday, March 29, 2017, it will stick to its promises to curb carbon emissions after President Donald Trump eased U.S. rules on fossil fuel use that were meant to control global warming. A Chinese foreign ministry spokesman said Beijing is committed to the Paris climate agreement. (AP Photo/Andy Wong, File)

BEIJING (AP)  China promised Wednesday to stick to its climate commitments after President Donald Trump eased U.S. curbs on coal and oil use, opening the way for Beijing to assert itself as a leader in environmental policy.

China is the No. 1 emitter of climate-changing greenhouse gases but also the top investor in solar, wind and other renewable energy. It has promised to cap coal use and rein in growth of carbon dioxide emissions.

"As a responsible developing country, China's plan, determination and policy to tackle climate change is resolute," foreign ministry spokesman Lu Kang said.

Beijing's collaboration on climate with Trump's predecessor, Barack Obama, had been seen as a bright spot in a bilateral relationship with numerous strains.

Trump has called climate change a hoax created by China and promised to unwind Obama's measures to curb global warming. Trump's order Tuesday rescinded nearly a dozen measures enacted by Obama. Trump said he wanted to create more coal mining jobs, though industry analysts say demand is likely to decline as the price of solar, wind and other alternatives falls.

Asked about Trump's order at a regular news briefing, Lu didn't mention the United States or the American president but said Beijing was committed to carrying out its pledges under the Paris climate agreement negotiated in 2015.

Signed by 170 countries, the agreement calls for holding global temperature increases to no more than 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) in hopes of preventing sea level rise and environmental damage.

All signers should "fulfill their pledges and implement the agreement with positive actions," Lu said.

"We are willing to strengthen dialogue and cooperation with the international community to advance the global process of climate governance and promote the green, low-carbon and sustainable development so as to build a better future for next generations," he said.

Story continues

China long resisted binding emissions limits, citing its economic development needs. Its about-face began in 2014 when President Xi Jinping, in a joint declaration with Obama, set a 2030 deadline for emissions to stop rising.

Despite the lack of a formal commitment, China already is making faster progress than most countries due to official efforts to reduce reliance on steel production and other heavy industry and to promote technology and consumer spending.

China has spent heavily on solar, wind and hydro power to clean up smog-choked cities and curb surging reliance on imported oil and gas. Researchers say that means carbon dioxide emissions are likely to peak before 2025, well ahead of the official target.

China's 2015 spending of $103 billion was more than double the U.S. level of $44 billion, according to the U.N. Environment Program. China leads the world in wind and hydro generating capacity and is No. 2 behind Germany in solar.

Last year, Chinese coal consumption fell 4.7 percent, its third annual decline, according to official data. Coal's share of total energy consumption fell to 62 percent from 2015's 64 percent.

In a report last week, the environmental groups CoalSwarm, the Sierra Club and Greenpeace said an unexpectedly sharp decline in the number of new coal-fired power plants being built in China and India improved chances that climate targets could be met. The two countries have suspended construction of more than 100 power plants, though dozens more still are due to come online by 2020.

Beijing also sees renewable energy as a commercial opportunity. Its leading solar panel producers are among their global industry's biggest competitors and Chinese state-owned utilities are building or buying wind and solar farms in Europe and Latin America.

A plan released in January by the Cabinet's planning agency calls for spending another 2.5 trillion yuan ($360 billion) on renewable energy by 2020 in an effort to clean up smog-choked Chinese cities.

Still, the Cabinet says it expects at least 62 percent of China's power to come from coal in coming decades.

The development plan calls for doubling the share of China's energy from non-fossil fuels to 20 percent by 2030. But that will only bring China into line with today's global average.

Trump's order initiates a review of the Clean Power Plan, which restricts greenhouse gas emissions at coal-fired power plants.

The order also lifts a 14-month-old moratorium on new coal leases on federal lands. The Obama administration had argued the program must be modernized to ensure a fair financial return to taxpayers and address climate change.

The order covers a range of other Obama-era rules, including repeal of measures to consider the "social cost" of carbon emissions in all regulatory actions and crack down on methane emissions at oil and gas wells. It also eliminates a rule restricting fracking on public lands and another that requires energy companies to provide data on methane emissions at oil and gas operations.
Ramesh Nair



Integrated GST



Central GST



Union Territory GST, and



Compensation Bill.



The Lower House of Indias Parliament has cleared four bills in preparation of the upcoming rollout of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) regime:

This sets the stage for states to enact laws and implement the new tax regime from July. The tax rates applicable on products and services are expected to be announced by the government by April-end.

As widely reported, the Central GST (CGST) bill states that any tenancy, lease, license to occupy land, or easement will be considered as supply of service. Any lease or letting out of a residential, industrial or commercial building for commercial purposes  wholly or partly  will also constitute a supply of services.

Simultaneously, the sale of land or building (except the sale of under-construction buildings) will not be treated as either supply of goods or services. The sale of land and buildings will be out of the purview of GST, and such transactions will continue to attract stamp duty.

Therefore, once GST comes into effect from July, the leasing of land and buildings - as well as home loan EMIs paid by those who purchase under-construction apartments - will attract the applicable tax rate. Depending upon the tax rate that gets announced for real estate, the effect could be higher or lower than today.

Hoping against hope

The industry hopes that a lower tax rate of 12 percent be applied on real estate in the under construction stage, as it will help reduce the cost of homes and increase affordability for end-users. However, a higher rate of 18% would increase the cost of houses in under-construction projects. The Government must give clarity on the composition scheme (i.e. abatements for

However, a higher rate of 18 percent would increase the cost of houses in under-construction projects. The Government must give clarity on the composition scheme (i.e. abatements for cost of land) and on the service tax and value added tax (VAT) already paid by developers for their under-construction projects.

Under the service tax regime, developers and home buyers can obtain benefits under the abatement scheme. In the case of buying an under-construction flat, an abatement of 75 percent is allowed, subject to the flat being less than 2,000 sft and sold for less than Rs 1 crore, taking the effective tax rate from 15 percent to 3.75 percent. If the two conditions are not met, the abatement is reduced to 70% and the effective tax rate to be borne by the buyer increases to 4.5 percent. States also charge VAT on top of this service tax.

However, if the abatement rules do not apply under GST regime, the applicable tax rate would shoot up dramatically. Similarly, the final applicable tax rate would define whether those living in rented residential properties end up with much higher or slightly higher rental outgo, as the additional tax to be paid by the landlord will get passed onto the lessee. Under the current regime, service tax is levied on rents paid for commercial and industrial units, and not for residential units.

What happens to affordable housing?

According to reports, the Ministry of Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation (MHUPA) has suggested to the finance ministry that the current exemption of service tax on affordable housing should continue even under the GST regime. A decision on this is expected before July.

Given the Governments goal of Housing for All by 2022, this exemption is likely to continue under the new tax regime. MHUPA has also requested the states and union territories to consider waiver or rationalization of stamp duty on affordable housing projects.
Have a long-term outlook | Timing investment is logically impossible because the best entry and exit opportunities are known only in hindsight. No one can predict market movements with certainty. Therefore, it is important to allow your investments to compound over a long term.

Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak today asked investors from India to take advantage of the business opportunities offered by his country.

Najib, who began his six-day visit to India yesterday, met the captains of industry at a roundtable business meet here. In his address, Najib "urged investors to take advantage of the business opportunities offered by Malaysia as we aim to intensify and elevate our strategic partnership to greater heights," the Malaysian PMO said in its official Facebook page about the interaction.

Najib said that Indian investors could take advantage of Malaysia's strategic location to further consolidate their position in the south East Asian region. Malaysia, the Prime Minister said, remained a favoured destination for foreign investment.

Najib said his country's diversified economy and strong infrastructure, besides good connectivity, provided vast potential for further strengthening economic ties between India and Malaysia.

He urged the Indian industry to capitalise on the "wealth of opportunities" offered by Malaysia. Malaysia has introduced the Principle Hub scheme, that seeks to encourage international firms to better allocate resources, he said.

The round table discussion was organised by the Malaysian Associated Indian Chamber of Commerce and Industry. Bilateral trade between India and Malaysia stood at USD 16.93 bn in 2014-15, according to official estimates.

The main imports from Malaysia include palm oil and palm-based products, electrical and electronic products, crude petroleum, metal and chemical products. India exports petroleum, agricultural, metal, chemical products, machinery and equipments among other items to the South East Asian Nation.
Have a long-term outlook | Timing investment is logically impossible because the best entry and exit opportunities are known only in hindsight. No one can predict market movements with certainty. Therefore, it is important to allow your investments to compound over a long term.

Turkmenistan opened a $1 billion Belarussian-built potash plant on Friday, aiming to export 1.2 million tonnes of fertilisers to China and India a year as part of its drive to diversify away from natural gas exports.

The Central Asian nation has faced foreign currency shortages after its gas exports were hit hard by declining prices and volumes, and the government is banking on the start of potash production and other projects to make the economy more resilient.

As a potash exporter, Turkmenistan will compete with its former Soviet overlord Russia, home to the world's biggest producer Uralkali, and Belarus, also a major global player.

Belarussian companies have built the plant and Minsk has said it would help Turkmenistan market the product.

Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko attended the opening ceremony in eastern Turkmenistan and said most of the plant's production would be exported to China and India - the world's biggest potash importers.

"This is Central Asia's biggest potash plant, one can confidently say it will produce 1.5 million tonnes a year," Lukashenko said, adding that Berdymukhamedov had told him about plans to build two more potash plants.

Russia's Uralkali said this month it expected total global potash demand to rise by 1-2 million tonnes this year to 62 million to 63 million tonnes, driven by China.
Samsung Electronics Co Ltd said on Friday it paid Vice Chairman Jay Y. Lee, the third-generation leader of Samsung Group, 1.135 billion won ($1.02 million) last year, disclosing his compensation for the first time.

Lee is currently on trial for bribery, embezzlement and other charges amid a corruption scandal that has rocked South Korea.

Lee's compensation package includes 476 million won in wages equivalent to three months' pay as director. South Korean companies are required to disclose compensation for executives who sit on the board and are paid at least 500 million won on an annual basis.
Ahead of the Gujarat Assembly polls, the states legislature has passed a bill that makes cow slaughter punishable with a life imprisonment.

The state is tightening laws pertaining to cow slaughter with a bill that has stricter provisions for transport and sale of beef and related products.

The Gujarat Assembly on its last day of Budget session on Friday passed The Gujarat Preservation (Amendment) Bill which allows for a life term to those found guilty of cow slaughter in the Gujarat.

Cow slaughter can attract jail term between 7 and 10 years, according to the Bill, The Hindu reported on Friday. Besides, a Rs 1 lakh penalty will also be levied on the violators.

The passage of the amendment bill make Gujarat the first state to make cow slaughter punishable.

The government noted that it is considered necessary to provide for more deterrent punishment for offences committed by contravening the provisions of the Act and also to make the offences cognizable and non-bailable, the report stated.

Bharatiya Janata Party is targeting a 150-plus seat win in the assembly election slated in December.
The government may contest some of the conclusions of the World Banks Ease of Doing Business rankings that places India at a lowly 130 among 190 countries.

The government believes the methodology may not have truly reflected many reforms, particularly in tax rates and administration, hammering down the overall rankings and creating an impression that India continues to remain a dodgy place to do business in.

For instance, the World Bank placed India at 172 in the payment of taxes parameter in the latest report released in October 2016, according to which Indian businesses are required to pay an average of 25 number of taxes.

A survey-based report by the industry department, however, found that Indian businesses actually pay 9 (nine) number of taxes.

Likewise, the World Bank has given India a score of 4.3 out of 100 for the indicator post-filing index, which is based on components such as the time to comply with VAT or GST, corporate income tax audit.

The Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP) report says the methodology used for calculation of time taken to revise a corporate tax return appears to be incorrect, as in India filing of corporate returns and tax payments are fully electronic.

The report says that thisthe poor rankings on the 'post-filing index-- grossly overstated, needs to be contested and corrected by World Bank.

"The measurement based on the methodology adopted for calculation of time taken to amend/revise a corporate tax return appears to be incorrect...In India, filing of the corporate return and for tax payment is completely electronic. Therefore, this time is grossly overstated and needs to be corrected by World Bank," DIPP said.

Similarly, in case of labour taxes, it does not take 24 hours (as concluded by the World Bank), but 4 hours to collate data from accounting records to prepare details of Employee's Provident Fund (EPF).

The DIPP has asked survey respondents to carefully consider certain issues and analysis that will make India's ranking better in the parameters, particularly "payment of taxes", thereby, improving Indias overall ease of doing business rank.

April is crucial as contributors (such as lawyers, accountants, judges, who use government services) begin their survey for the making of the World Banks Doing Business report, which will be published later this year, a senior government official told Moneycontrol.

The Narendra Modi-government, which has vowed to remove red-tape, eliminate procedural delays and turn India into a sought-after investment destination, has set a target of leapfrogging to a rank of above 50 in the doing business report in the near future.

Business leaders often cite energy shortages and land problems to arbitrary tax laws and archaic labour rules as among the key hurdles that make investors shy away from India, which otherwise should count as one of the most attractive markets in size and scale.

The World Bank every year publishes its "Doing Business" report that ranks 190 countries on how easy it is for companies in terms of doing business, as well as following certain regulations based on ten parameters such as starting a business, getting electricity, dealing with construction permits, getting credit, paying taxes, protecting minority investors, resolving insolvency and more.

A high ease of doing business rank implies that the regulatory environment is more conducive in the country, for beginning as well as continuing operations of an organisation.

New Zealand bagged the top slot in the ease of doing business index last year, followed by Singapore and Denmark.
business Mount 10K not far off from here for Nifty; focus on EPC players: Dalton Capital Commenting on specific sectors, Bhat is positive on white good makers which have been consistent performers on a year-on-year basis.
Oil prices jumped for a third day on Thursday to their highest in three weeks after Kuwait backed an extension of OPEC production cuts to reduce a global glut.

Kuwait oil minister Essam al-Marzouq said his country was among several nations supporting the extension of a deal between the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and other exporters to limit output, state news agency KUNA reported.

Brent crude oil settled up 54 cents, or about 1 percent, to $52.96 a barrel after hitting $53.10. U.S. crude settled up 84 cents, or 1.7 percent, higher at $50.35 a barrel, after touching $50.47.

Both benchmarks reached their highest levels since March 9. In recent weeks, higher-than-expected inventory figures had prompted speculators to unwind long positions.

"There is a significant chance that a short-to-medium-term bottom has been found," said Tamas Varga, analyst at London brokerage PVM Oil Associates.

Yet concerns about the glut linger as OPEC grapples to tighten the oil market because inventories in many parts of the world are at, or near record highs and U.S. production has been rising.[EIA/S]

OPEC agreed to reduce oil production by 1.2 million barrels per day during the first six months of the year. Output has fallen for a third straight month and members have complied with 95 percent of their commitments. OPEC

"I see no sign from OPEC and Saudi Arabia that they will not roll over the cut into the second half of the year ... the market is about to go from supply surplus to deficit on crude " said Scott Shelton, energy futures broker with ICAP in Durham, North Carolina.

Other oil exporters outside OPEC, including Russia, have also gradually reined in production.

Russia has reduced its output by 200,000 bpd in March in accordance with the agreement, the ministry quoted Energy Minister Alexander Novak as saying in a TV interview.

Libya said production dropped by about a third or 250,000 bpd earlier this week due to armed protesters blocking western oilfields of Sharara and Wafa.

The start-up of a 500,000 bpd crude pipeline in North Dakota next month, despite opposition by environmental groups and Native Americans, is expected to hasten a revival in output from the Bakken region which fell sharply along with global oil prices during the past two years.

(Additional reporting by Christopher Johnson in London, Henning Gloystein in Singapore; Editing by Marguerita Choy and David Gregorio)
FY17 was a phenomenal year the Indian Equity market. Not only did it end at all-time highs but also absorbed global events like Brexit, Rexit, demonetisation and Trump win.

Domestic Institutional investors trumped over foreign institutional investors, while FIIs sold over Rs 30,000 crore (excluding block deals) post demonetisatin, DIIs bought Rs 35,000 crore and market rallied 12 percent in post that.

Harsha Upadhyaya, CIO Equity, Kotak MF says one should not expect the same performance from equity markets in FY18 but there is definitely reasonable amount of money to be made even from current levels. And if the market does perform to the levels of FY17 then it would be an added bonus.

According to him, the DIIs that supported the market during bad times will continue to invest in the market going forward too. "SIP for the whole industry which is about Rs 4000 crore a month is seeing 4 lakh additional folios on a monthly basis, which means that this money is not only going to sustain but can also increase as we move forward," he said.

However, he advises to tread with caution and not chase momentum. As a fund house, they would remain focused on few investment themes.

Consumption is a theme they like. Construction is another space which could see traction going forward once state governments start giving out orders, thinks Upadhyaya. The house is also positive on affordable housing space and more so post the policy changes, he adds.

Cement too is a sector to look forward to in next 12 months time, he adds.

The fund would look to invest into equity via a blend of midcaps and largecaps, says Upadhyaya.

In the same interview, Mitessh Thakkar of miteshthacker.com also shared his views on stock specific ideas like Equitas, Capital First, Rallis India, Indiabulls Real Estate, PTC India and Reliance Industries.

Below is the transcript of their interview

Anuj: Great year for fund managers. The index itself did so well. The midcap index was up 35 percent, the smallcap index was up 41 percent. And in that, of course, we saw how net asset values (NAV) of some of the funds including your funds did. Do you get a sense that FY18 would be as good?

Upadhyaya: It was a fantastic year for equity investors, I would say. We started the year with a lot of worries at the backdrop. There were worries on slowdown in Chinese growth, there was worry on emerging market currency fluctuations and that was the backdrop when we started the year. Through the year, we had many local and global negative events such as Brexit referendum, US elections results, US Fed policy, and our own demonetisation.

However, market continuously scaled some of these worries and we have seen fantastic returns at the index as well as even outside the index.

The funds have probably done much better by picking stocks which have done much better than the broader indices. Our belief is that we are just beginning to see earnings improvement in the country. If that were to come by, we should not be expecting a great year like FY17 once again in FY18. If it happens, it is a bonus. But still, there is a reasonable amount of money that can be made in equities even at current levels.

Latha: Let us pick some sectors. We are going to get into an earnings season now. Do you think April can deliver gains like March or do you think earnings, especially the early ones like IT companies, can jack the market's happiness?

Upadhyaya: We are not so positive on the exporters. There are policy headwinds that are expected. On top of that anyway, the business growth was sluggish across the board for exporters. On top of that, if you see the rupee movement, our rupee has actually appreciated about 4.5 percent in the first quarter of Calendar year which means that there is going to be pressure on topline as well as profitability for exporters on the whole. So, the exporters basket will definitely have a sluggish or muted set of numbers. But overall market will still deliver double digit earnings growth. That is what we have been hoping for. And if that comes by, markets will not be too nervous.

Anuj: It was a great year for investors as you pointed out and it was a great year for domestic investors who put in money. They managed buy stocks at 7,600 Nifty, 8,200 Nifty, 8,600 Nifty. Do you get a sense that this domestic institutional investor (DII) money, this deluge of funds that we have is here to stay in stock markets now?

Upadhyaya: Our opinion is it should continue and we also believe that it will only grow from here on. We have been seeing additional folios getting created on the systematic investment plan (SIP) side. SIP, for the industry as a whole is about Rs 4,000 crore a month as of now and there are about 4 lakh additional folios which are getting created on a monthly basis which means that this money is not only going to sustain, but can also increase as we move forward. If that were to happen, on the liquidity side at least, we should not have any worries.

Having said that, I should also point out, maybe until two months back, we were all worrying about what will be foreign institutional investor (FII) flows, whether domestic liquidity alone can move the market, etc. But if you look at FY17 numbers, the kind of money that they have put in in March, the foreign investors have more or less bought as much as domestic mutual funds.

Both domestic mutual funds as well as FIIs today have put in more than Rs 50,000 crore to work in the financial year 2016-2017 which is a huge number. So, both domestic as well as foreign liquidity seems to be abundant at this point of time. So, we do not see any concerns there.

Latha: Ahead of the earnings season, what would you stock up on?

Upadhyaya: In fact, we have been advising clients not to chase momentum. So, that is going to be the approach even at our fund management side. We are unlikely to chase any of the companies in terms of price levels. We are focusing on few investment themes and we will remain focused on those themes. For example, we are looking at operating leverage to play out in the domestic manufacturing side that we are going to focus on.

We also believe that the consumption revival that is expected to happen is going to gain pace with rural also supporting going forward. So, that is a space which we like. Then, we have already seen some pace in execution picking up on the construction side. We also believe that the order visibility will start to improve. With many of the state elections behind us there is enough reason for some of these governments to actually start giving out orders which means any construction related activity should see good momentum going forward. So, that is another space that we like.

And overall, if you are focusing on companies which are growing slightly better than market, that is where the money can be made.

Anuj: What could trip this rally? It has been a one-way rally and almost everyone believes that we are nearing a goldilocks scenario right now. Sometimes that can be a bit dangerous, so what do you thing is a major risk to this market?

Upadhyaya: Any unknown event can come and hit us. That apart, if liquidity is too strong and if we are forced to invest in the market even before the fundamentals actually start to turn around, then we will have a situation where market valuations or prices will be ahead of fundamentals which is happening at the margin already. So, that is a bit of a worry. So if earnings come through in terms of expectations or better than expectations then there is no worry for the market. But in case, earnings seasons disappoints and still the money keeps coming into markets then at some point of time, you will have valuation worries increasing.

Latha: One policy of the government has not yet played out, but sounds very promising is this affordable housing theme: big subventions announced and rules actually came out on March 11. So, not enough time now to play. Is that a theme and if it is, how will you play it?

Upadhyaya: Clearly, we are very positive on affordable housing policy of the government. In fact, even before the policy, there was enough demand on the affordable housing side from the consumers or the customers but the problem was most of the builders were not focusing on affordable segment because the better profitability was probably thereon the luxury segment. Now with the policy changes, there will be many builders, real estate companies who will start focusing on the affordable housing side.

So, there is a push both from supply side as well as from demand side. This is going to be a significant change that we will see during this financial year where a strong demand for housing, especially affordable housing will start to kick in. So, all the companies which are related to this will be beneficiaries. For example the housing loan companies will benefit, we will also have companies in sectors such as cement and home building material which also have significant growth because of this trend. So, overall this is definitely a good space to watch out going forward.

Latha: Three rapid fire questions. Debt, equity or balanced?

Upadhyaya: I would say equity.

Latha: Largecaps or midcaps this year?

Upadhyaya: A blend of largecaps and midcaps.

Latha: Which is the best sector over the next 12 months?

Upadhyaya: I believe cement can be one of the best sectors.

Anuj: Mitesh, I wanted your thoughts on how to approach Nifty and Bank Nifty at these elevated levels.

Thakkar: There are two things. One that the Nifty, on the hourly closing basis, the level to watch is around 9,180 and 9,200 of course was the level which we were watching in the March expiry when the call open interest was the highest and 9,218 was the highest intraday level being tested. So, around 9,200 you might say is some kind of a level which traders should look at. If we start getting past 9,200 and given the fact that the Bank Nifty and the Reliance stock is at all-time highs, that is certainly possible, then next week could be a story where we could see more momentum.

My initial view was that we might take some more days to consolidate and if that was to happen, the market still remains a long-bias market and we will buy on dips, but beyond 9,200 there could be a sudden burst to about levels of 9,350-9,400 on the upside.

So, trading should be level specific. I would watch 9,200-9,220 very closely and beyond that would definitely warrant a long trade with a 30-40 point kind of stop loss for a 150 point kind of a gain.

Latha: In the midcap space, Capital First was one of those outperforming stocks. Equitas Holdings did not do too badly either. Weekly gainers, these are big ones with 10 percent gains. Anything in the non-banking finance company (NBFC) space?

Thakkar: One, the entire space looks interesting. Time and again, you are getting momentum and breakout buys over here which do very well. We are seeing the sector enjoying some kind of good follow-up once the breakout takes place. Between the two stocks for the time being, I think Equitas looks like it has completed a correction and has given some kind of a reversal. So now can be a good buy with a stop loss at about levels of Rs 160 and the first target on the upside should be close to about Rs 190 and beyond that the highest ever levels of around Rs 205-208 could be revisited.

Capital First, the good part over here is that the stock has made a highest ever weekly closing. That is some kind of a swing breakout. So, keeping a stop loss at Rs 745, I would be a buyer here for targets of around Rs 860-875 and this is slightly a positional kind of a view.

Anuj: A lot of midcaps in your buy list.

Thakkar: In fact, all the three stocks which I recommend are from the midcap side. Rallis India was a stock which was buzzing, a stock which managed to break past a consolidation of about Rs 250 to about Rs 230 which the stock was doing for about seven weeks. It closed the week at about Rs 259, so I would be a buyer here with a stop loss at Rs 244 and Rs 290-295 is the first target.

Indiabulls Real Estate in the entire midcap real estate segment was also very good. It managed to have a big breakout above that Rs 83-84 zone on the weekly closing basis. So keep a stop loss at Rs 82.50 and Rs 95 should be the first target.

I have been bullish on PTC India. That is a buy as well. Keep the stop loss at Rs 89 for a first target of Rs 100.

Anuj: I also wanted your thoughts on Reliance because that becomes important from market's point of view. It made a fresh nine-year high.

Thakkar: I have been saying that the aggressive targets on the street are over Rs 1,600-1,650 and in the next few quarters, they will all be positively surprised. That view still remains. We will still look at Rs 1,800-2,000 kind of target in the next few months. But even on a short-term basis, what happened was that a very strong rally took place after the stock corrected to its 20-day average. Now it becomes a fresh buy. It has managed its highest ever closing as you rightly said, so keep a stop loss below Rs 1,300 and Rs 1,375-1,380 could be the first port of call.
Investors who had invested in mutual fund schemes via direct plans will be elated as these plans have delivered better gains than that of regular plans in the one-year period ended March 29.

Typically, when an investor who wishes to invest in a MF scheme, she has to go through brokers or intermediaries/distributors/advisors. The intermediaries charge a brokerage fee for their services.

The distribution charges, trail commission are paid to the intermediaries by the asset management companies from investors money. This shaves a fraction off the returns investors earn.

On the other hand, direct MF plans dont involve intermediaries. Hence, the expense ratio which includes all fees, commission, and fund management charges is lower, making the return higher than that of regular MF plans.

In the past one-year, direct schemes have given about 100 basis points of additional annual compounded return (a basis point is a hundredth of a percentage point).

Since direct plans have between 50 and 100 bps less of expense fees in the case of equity schemes and as there is no component of distributor commission, these tend to offer relatively more return to investors, on the back of a higher investible sum.

The varying returns are quite visible. For instance, top schemes like HDFC Top 200-Direct Plan gave 30.23 percent average returns while regular plan delivered 29.29 percent. Similarly, Reliance Equity Opportunities Fund-Direct Plan offered 19.65 percent vs 18.70 percent given under regular plan.

ICICI Prudential Dynamic Funds direct plan gave 32 percent average return as against 31 percent by regular plan.

Data Infographic by Ritesh Presswala

The Securities and Exchange Board of India has been pushing for availability of direct plans to investors for several years.

As on January-end, 65 percent assets by institutional and HNI investors were in direct plans. However, only 12 percent of investments by retail investors are through the direct plans.

Usually, HNIs and institutions opt for direct plans. There are very less retail participants who are aware about these direct plans, said Rajesh Krishnamoorthy, Managing Director, iFast Financial India, a platform provider for independent advisers and MF distributors.

He further said that these plans are yet to pick up momentum among investors in a widespread manner.

The primary reason is lack of financial literacy among potential investors, particularly non-wealthy individuals.
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On March 30, 2017 OSAG Enterprises LLP bought 1,884,217 shares of Bharat Wire Ropes at Rs 91.75 per share on the BSE. However, Visu Asssociates sold 1,884,217 shares at Rs 91.75 per share on the BSE.

Bharat Wire Ropes was quoting at Rs 94.60, up Rs 3.30, or 3.61 percent.

The share touched its 52-week high Rs 120.50 and 52-week low Rs 38.00 on 30 January, 2017 and 31 May, 2016, respectively.
you are here:
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The European Investment Bank (EIB) has okayed Rs 1,400 crore (EUR 200 million) loan to State Bank of India to fund solar power projects.

The long-term loan will support total investment of EUR 650 million in five different large-scale photo-voltaic solar power projects, EIB said in a statement.

This will contribute to India's National Solar mission and reduce dependence on fossil fuel power generation.

Four solar power projects at a generation capacity of 530 MWac have already been identified under this funding, it said.

"The new cooperation between the State Bank of India and the European Investment Bank will scale up investment in large scale solar power generation across India," said B Sriram, Managing Director, State Bank of India.

Close cooperation between technical and financial teams from both institutions will ensure that world class projects are supported, he said.

"This new project reflects the shared commitment of India and the European Union to tackle climate change and implement the Paris Climate Agreement," said Andrew McDowell, Vice President of the European Investment Bank.

The 20 -year long-term EIB loan will support individual projects. Projects in Tamil Nadu and Telangana are amongst those to be funded under this agreement.

This funding will be in addition to financing from Indian banks and project promoters.

One of the largest lenders in renewable energy investment, EIB has financed projects of EUR 1.7 billion (about Rs 11,900 crore) in India since 1993.

Owned by the 28 member states of the European Union, it is the world's largest international public bank.
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Kotak Mahindra Bank

CLSA has maintained an outperform rating on the stock with a target price of Rs 920. The research firm believes that the banks strong asset quality and healthy growth supports valuations and a clarity on strategic positioning will further support it.

The bank may look at mergers and acquisitions (M&A) among non-banking financial companies (NBFCs), insurance companies and asset reconstruction companies (ARCs), it said. On the lenders fundraising plan, it believes the amount is less with respect to expectations, but does not lower the chances of a big acquisition.

Cipla

Bank of America Merrill Lynch (BofA-ML) has downgraded the stock to underperform from neutral with a reduced target price of Rs 570. The rating is largely driven by likely delays in key product launches in the US and that regulatory delays are not factored in.

The brokerage house believes that the current valuation to peers is unjustified and has cut earnings per share (EPS) forecasts to 11-13 percent below Street expectations. It also sees margin expansion over the next two years to be lower than market expectations. The research firm prefers Torrent Pharma in the space over Cipla.

Yes Bank

Goldman Sachs has a buy rating on the scrip with an increased target price to Rs 1,700. The focus here on will turn to how quickly retail revenue mix changes. Analysts at the firm estimate 28 percent loan CAGR over FY16-19 highest among private banks that they cover.

Cadila Health

JPMorgan has initiated coverage on the stock with a neutral rating and a price target at Rs 475 per share. It believes that a catalyst for the stock is a recovery in US growth. The research firm sees improvement in earnings visibility, but approvals remain the key. Monetisation of much-delayed launches in the US are also key to estimates. While the premium valuation discounts strong underlying business mix and earnings growth.

Voltas

Nomura has maintained a reduce call on Voltas as rising competition could put margins at risk. However, the brokerage house has an increased target price to Rs 337 from Rs 323. Tier-II or III cities could have a continued impact from demonetisation, Nomura said.

Dr Reddy's

Credit Suisse has cut its target price to Rs 2,300 due to cuts in FY18 and FY19 earnings per share (EPS). It believes that the Srikakulam Plant clearance should remove a key hurdle for Copaxone, which is 20 percent Of FY19 EPS, but is not included in the target price.

Dabur

Bank of America Merrill Lynch has reiterated its underperform rating on the stock with a cut in the target to Rs 280. It sees weak recovery in Indian business and continued pressure in West Asian business.

Power Grid

Bank of America Merrill Lynch has reiterated a buy call on the stock with a cut in target price to Rs 227. The research firm sees opportunity for the stock to compound by 15 percent per year over three years. It believes concerns of investors on TBCB portfolio is misplaced. It believes that growth visibility is high despite likely cut in regulated RoEs. Furthermore, a re-rating is likely if it monetizes assets under InvIT .

Colgate

HSBC has maintained a buy call with an unchanged target price at Rs 1,110. The brokerage house believes lower GST and rural demand revival are the main drivers for the firm, while volume growth revival is the main catalyst. Rise of naturals emerged as a challenge to toothpaste volume growth, it said. Loss of market share remains a key risk for the stock, it said.

Media

CLSA believes the recently-launched tariff plans by telecom companies may boost subscriptions by 35 percent. It further believes that mobiles will complement TV viewership and estimates Indias high ARPU market to rise to 300 million by FY19. Currently, the market is at 170 million.
Copper cooking pots still in use today, some dating back to King George IV, sit on racks in the kitchens at Buckingham Palace in London March 25, 2011. Staff at Buckingham Palace have lifted the lid on preparations for Prince William's wedding next month, giving an insight into what guests can expect and the amount of work they have put in to make the event a success. REUTERS/Nick Ansell/POOL (BRITAIN - Tags: ROYALS ENTERTAINMENT POLITICS FOOD) - RTR2KJGP

Achiievers Equities' commodity report on Copper

Copper trading range for the day is 377.2-392.2.

Copper dropped tracking weakness in LME prices as immediate supply threats eased.

Workers at Peru's biggest copper mine, Freeport-McMoRan Inc's Cerro Verde, will resume work on Friday after voting to end a nearly three-week strike.

Copper output in world No. 1 producer Chile fell 16.7 percent in February, when a strike hit the huge Escondida mine.

SELL COPPER APR 2017 @ 385.00 SL 388.00 TGT 382.80-379.80.MCX.

Disclaimer: The views and investment tips expressed by investment experts/broking houses/rating agencies on moneycontrol.com are their own, and not that of the website or its management. Moneycontrol.com advises users to check with certified experts before taking any investment decisions.

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By Pritesh Mehta

The Nifty is back around the critical pressure point of 9,140-9,200. We have seen the index struggling around these levels on previous occasions. However, in Thursdays trade, it confirmed a move above three-digit Gann number of 9,160, follow-up buying above the same is required for an index to break through strong supply barrier of 9,140-9,200.

A pick-up in momentum was seen in the last 30 minutes ensured a record closing high for the index. In the process, it settled with gains for the consecutive third session and it also recorded a fourth consecutive series which ended in green (expiry to expiry basis).

Despite a topsy-turvy move in last two weeks, the recent trend of staging a recovery from the support of its 5-day EMA continues to remain intact. Since the last week of December 2016, the index has not registered a weekly close below its 5-day EMA, which undermines the strength in the recent phase of consolidation.

Meanwhile, divergence trend is seen between Nifty and Bank Nifty, wherein, Bank Nifty is trading into the uncharted zone; while Nifty is still hovering below the recent high of 9,218. It is imperative for Nifty to break above 9200 for projecting further levels on the upside.

Top four stocks to buy from IIFL Wealth & Asset Management based on various technical parameters

IOC: BUY above Rs 374| Target Rs 404| Stop Loss 360| Upside 8 percent

IOC went through a corrective phase since the first week of February 2017. However, it could be termed as a sideways correction as it managed to find support around 50 percent retracement mark of the entire rally from the previous breakout point of January 2017, providing an opportunity to enter the stock.

Stocks which are trending higher tend to find support at declines and also recover sharply from such corrective movement. Inability to sustain above the midpoint of three-digit Gann channel of 401 saw the stock retracing back to the lower-end of the channel.

Recent low of Rs 366 is also placed near the 45 degree by applying Gann square of 9 from the recent high of Rs 404. It suggests that downside move of the stock has come to an end and the stock is likely to resume its previous upmove.

On the weekly chart, the stock has bounced back from the support of its 13-WEMA. Traders can buy IOC above Rs 374 with a stop loss of Rs 360 and a target of Rs 404.

Cairn India: BUY above Rs 302| Target Rs 330| Stop Loss 289| Upside 10%

It is currently going through a phase of consolidation at the top of its rally. It is showing the trait of a stock which is in a strong uptrend. It is moving higher along with the support of its 13-WEMA since July 2016, wherein every pullback towards this critical moving average has resulted into buying opportunity.

Since the last five weeks, the sideways consolidation at the top of its trend can be termed as bullish consolidation. The outcome of such sideways movement are dealt positively during an uptrend.

Moreover, it continues to trade above the Gann number of Rs 289. Sustenance above the same for the last one month suggests that the stock has moved into a new orbit.

However, the fresh breakout from the recent sideways activity above Rs 302 would provide the much ammunition for the stock to ascend higher. Based on above parameters, we recommend a buy on Cairn India above Rs 302 with a stop loss of Rs 289 for a target of Rs 330.

Torrent Pharma: BUY| Target Rs 1,630| Stop Loss Rs 1,450| Upside 9.5 percent

For the last six months, the stock went through a sharp period of correction as it declined after making a peak of Rs 1,770 back in August 2016. It made a low of Rs 1,194 in November 2016 and thereafter it went into a period of consolidation.

The sideways movement from November 2016 to March 2017 has smoothly transitioned into a rectangular pattern. Such patterns in trading mean consolidation or indecision among the market participants.

In this particular case, after a long period of indecision, the price broke out from the upper barrier placed around Rs 1,450, suggesting bullish breakout.

Gann analysis suggests that the stock has entered into a new orbit on the upside above Rs 1,510. The midpoint of the current Gann channel i.e. Rs 1,450 would be the line of support.

The same coincides with the breakout point of the above-mentioned pattern. So, traders are advised to buy with a stop loss of Rs 1,450 and upside potential is seen till Rs 1,630.

Engineers India: SELL| Stop Loss Rs 151| Target Rs 130| Return 9 percent

The stock is underperforming against the market since January 2017. It made a high of Rs 172, however, inability to sustain above Gann number of 169 led to a strong reversal. During the second week of March 2017, it provided some respite from 50% retracement of the entire move from Rs 118 to Rs 172.

However, the recovery turned out to be short-lived as the stock made a high of Rs 157 and again resumed its earlier downtrend. In Thursdays trade, it gave a breakdown below the support of rising ascending trendline (which is in place since May 2016).

The overall structure since the peak of December 2016 is taking the form of a downward sloping channel, suggesting weakness in the medium term.

Moreover, it also confirmed a close below its 13-WEMA post the false breakout attempt as well as below the midpoint of current Gann channel. Short Engineers India Apr Futs below Rs 145 with SL of Rs 151 for a target of Rs130.

: The author is Head of Technicals Research  IIFL Wealth & Asset Management. The views and investment tips expressed by investment experts on moneycontrol.com are their own and not that of the website or its management. Moneycontrol.com advises users to check with certified experts before taking any investment decisions.
The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has attached assets worth Rs 21.29 crore of a firm owned by S P Singh, considered a close aide of Union Minister V K Singh, and others in connection with a money laundering case.

The case pertains to alleged financial irregularities in supply of high-altitude tents worth Rs 22 crore to intelligence agency Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) during 2009-13.

The agency said it has issued a provisional order against Shambhu Prasad Singh and others "under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act in a case of bank fraud."

Two factories, a commercial property in Noida, a residential property in Lucknow and agricultural land in Ballia have been attached, it said.

"Ms Dynamic Shells (India) Private Limited, a company owned by Singh, ran a network of shell companies to divert funds availed from financial institutions. The company siphoned off bank loan amount received from PNB by routing into the bank accounts of various firms and companies... which were formed or incorporated in the names his employees," the ED said in a statement.

It added that the "bank accounts of the said companies were opened in various banks in Delhi, particularly in Syndicate Bank, Nehru Place branch."

These companies were shown as the vendors of Ms Dynamic Shell Pvt Ltd and a large number of payments were made in favour of these firms from the loan accounts of Ms DSIPL which was further either withdrawn or diverted to the personal accounts of Singh and his wife, it said.

Calling these 13 firms "shell companies", the ED said they were "managed or owned by him (Singh), his family members and his employees."

"Therefore, funds so received in the loan account of the said company were diverted in contravention of loan terms agreed with the bank and used by Singh for his own benefit," it said.

The ED, a financial crime investigation agency, had booked a PMLA complaint in this case based on a CBI FIR.

"The investigation revealed that the loan funds were taken on the basis of forged documents of supply orders to the paramilitary forces and armed forces which were misappropriated and diverted by Singh for his personal use instead of utilising it for his business activities as provided under terms of loan," it said.

The case is related to alleged corruption in the supply of tents required by SFF, a covert unit operating under the external intelligence agency RAW, during 2009-13.

SFF was set up after the 1962 India-China war to carry out specialised operations.
maoists_soldiers_attack_terrorist_1280x720

Pakistan today accused India of interfering in its internal affairs and funding terrorism on its soil.

Foreign Office Spokesperson Nafees Zakaria, at his weekly briefing, said the arrest of alleged Indian "spy" Kulbhushan Jadhav in Pakistan was proof of New Delhi's support to militancy.

"The whole world is aware of India's interference in Pakistan and the fact that they are involved in funding terrorism in the country," he said.

Zakaria also expressed concern over the safety of 'Jinnah House', the residence of Pakistan's founder Mohammad Ali Jinnah in south Mumbai, after Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MLA Mangal Prabhat Lodha demanded that the building be demolished and a cultural centre built in its place.

Zakaria said that the Indian government should realise the importance of the building and show respect towards it.

"We have clarified our position on the Jinnah House matter to the Indian government," he said.

Zakaria said that the United Nations and the international community should take notice of "grave human rights violations" by Indian forces in Kashmir.

"We are deeply saddened, shocked and strongly condemn the continued bloodshed of innocent and defenceless Kashmiris", he said.

Talking about the killing of three civilians and a militant in Kashmir on Tuesday, Zakaria said the incident happened when the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation's Independent Permanent Human Rights Commission (IPHRC) was visiting PoK to "gather personal account of those Kashmiris who suffered from Indian brutalities".

"Members of IPHRC have taken note of the grave situation of human rights violations" in Kashmir, he said.
(Corrects to add dropped word hit to paragraph three)

By Maximiliano Rizzi

BUENOS AIRES, March 31 (Reuters) - Argentina's biodiesel exports could be devastated if the U.S. government imposed anti-dumping duties on the coutrtry based on a complaint by the U.S. National Biodiesel Board, the heads of two local industry chambers said.

The board last week asked the U.S. government to impose anti-dumping duties on imports of biodiesel from Argentina and Indonesia after two years of tension between U.S. and foreign producers over soaring imports.

"If a sanction is applied against Argentina in the U.S. market, our exports will no longer be viable. At this point, there is no alternative market," Claudio Molina, executive director of the Argentine Biofuels Association said on Friday in an interview.

The United States is Argentina's No.1 biodiesel export market and U.S. sanctions would hit large exporters such as Cargill, Bunge, Louis Dreyfus and COFCO Agri, part of China's state-run COFCO Group

Argentine biodiesel exports to its previous No. 1 client, the European Union, were suspended due to complaints and counter claims pending before the World Trade Organization. Peru, another buyer of Argentine biodiesel, has also placed tariffs on Argentine biodiesel based on dumping complaints.

The Argentine market, where biodiesel is mixed with diesel fuel, is not nearly big enough to absorb the excess should exports to the United States be blocked. Of the 1.6 million tonnes of biodiesel that Argentina exported in 2016, 90 percent went to the United States, according to Energy Ministry data.

A hearing will be held in the United States next month to evaluate the U.S. board's request, Molina said

Argentina taxes biodiesel at a variable rate, at 6 percent this month. But producers pay significantly less for soy oil, the main ingredient of biodiesel, than international competitors because they do not have to pay a 27 percent tax on exports. Local industry representatives say Argentina has an added advantage because its soy fields and crushing plants are located near the country's ports.

Story continues

"We have much more access to raw materials and we are more oriented toward exporting than the United States is," said Victor Castro, executive director of the Argentine Biofuels Chamber.

"The system (for resolving dumping complaints) is so bureaucratic and it takes so long that it can leave you out of the market for years without a ruling," Castro added.

The WTO ruled last year in favor of several claims by Argentina against anti-dumping duties imposed by the European Union but the adjudication continues and the duties remain. (Editing by Maximiliano Rizzi; Writing by Hugh Bronstein; Editing by Andrew Hay)
Ex-choir director in Bucks County pleads no contest to molesting two students, secretly filming another
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
CAIRO, March 31 (Reuters) - Egypt has received the second $500 million tranche of a $1.5 billion African Development Bank loan, Investment and International Cooperation Minister Sahar Nasr said on Friday.

The money will go towards a government economic reform programme, and specifically towards job creation and social spending, Nasr said in a statement. (Reporting by Ehab Farouk; Writing by Ahmed Aboulenein)
Checking your privilege is nothing to feel threatened by. Heres what checking your privilege really means, and why it matters.

It used to be that being called privileged was equated to being rich  but in todays society, privilege has a taken on a much broader meaning. Privilege is the understanding that some people benefit from unearned and largely unacknowledged advantages due to race, class, ability, sexual orientation or gender.

I am privileged. I am a white, middle class, able-bodied, cisgender, heterosexual woman. I have been provided multiple opportunities simply because of the descriptors mentioned above. Although I am a member of a marginalized group (women) and have been doing a lot of work on my mental health, I still benefit from various other privileges. Its crucial I recognize this  and that you recognize whatever privilege (if any) you may benefit from as well.

Why?

Because a life unaided by privilege can be frustrating. And dangerous.

What Privilege Translates To

In most cases, privilege means that many of the advantages we have go unnoticed  or taken entirely for granted. Since creating a comprehensive list would take considerable time, Ive decided to offer just a few examples of what living with privilege looks like.

If Youre Living With Privilege

Education isnt a struggle

Black, Native American, Native Alaskan students and students with disabilities are suspended at far higher rates than white and able-bodied students. 32% of LGBTQ students have missed a day of school because they felt unsafe or uncomfortable. 87% of transgender students have been verbally harassed (e.g. called names or threatened) in the past year at school because of their gender expression. Girls bodies are sexualized by administration, and they are subject to increasingly sexist dress codes.

Finding a well-paying job isnt difficult

Job applicants with stereotypically black-sounding names are less likely than their white-sounding counterparts to get called in for interviews. When a person of colour joins a company, people wonder if they were chosen to fill a diversity quota rather than assuming they are there based on their merits. The current pay gap between women and men is 20%. For women of colour, its far worse.

Products are catered to you

Flesh toned products match caucasian skin. A white person doesnt have to look for hair products in the ethnic section. Even in grocery stores, marginalized groups are constantly reminded that theyre lesser.

Mainstream media represents you

People of colour, LGBTQ, and disabled people are under or misrepresented on TV, in movies, in magazines, in books, and in the news. When they are shown, they are rarely presented as being well-rounded and successful. All too often, they are reduced to a stereotype or a punchline.

The police are there to protect you

People of colour rarely grow up viewing police officers as a source of safety. In fact, the very people meant to protect them, target them. Unarmed black Americans are more likely than their white counterparts to be shot by the police. People of colour are more likely to be stopped and searched by police  without consent. People of colour are more likely to be victims of police force. Even the police themselves arent safe, as 9 out of the 10 off-duty officers killed by other officers in the United States since 1982 were black or Latinx.

Why does this bias exist? Dr. Shea Cronin, assistant professor of criminal justice at Boston University, explains:We know from research that when officers hold very distrustful views of the community, when theyre more cynical  they tend to have more complaints against them.

These examples of everyday privilege tie into why acknowledging privilege is important, but they dont get to the crux of the matter. So lets go there.

Why You Need to Recognize Your Privilege

One of the quickest ways to get people up in arms is to tell them to check their privilege. The phrase is often misconstrued as an attack, but its really more of a gentle reminder. To check your privilege is simply to realize that you may not truly understand a marginalized groups experience  and to take time to educate yourself on their struggles.

Though privilege can manifest itself in abhorrent ways, the worst is to pretend the problem doesnt exist at all. Deliberate denial  as well as claiming the victimized are trying to persecute the majority  is not only despicable, it does nothing to help solve the problem. Yes, it may be more comforting to maintain that equal opportunity is a reality, but its not true. And when someone is the very embodiment of privilege, yet insists that they are the one being abused and stigmatized, they only serve to confirm their ignorance.

Recognizing your privilege is not meant to make you feel guilty. After all, its not your fault that you were born with these privileges. It doesnt invalidate any hardships you have faced and it certainly doesnt mean you dont lack privilege in certain areas. For instance, you may benefit from white privilege, but struggle with discrimination because you are trans. No form of privilege is exactly the same as another.

Recognizing your privilege means being aware that some people have to work much harder for the same opportunities you take for granted  and in truth, they may never experience them at all. It means educating yourself to the fullest extent possible, so you understand whats truly at stake. It means, as a person who benefits from privilege, you need to stand up, speak out, attend marches, rallies, and sit-ins. It means having empathy and taking active steps to do something about it.

Privilege Isnt About You. Its About Systems Of Oppression.

Every single day of my life, I experience privilege in thousands of little ways. I also experience discrimination and rampant sexism. Ill never truly be able to grasp what its like to be black, or trans, or queer, or disabled. I do know what its like to be treated differently due to something I have no control over (and something that in no way makes me less than). Tapping into that empathy can help me to be a better ally.

The most important thing to remember is that privilege isnt a personal attack  it isnt even about you at all. Privilege is the result of multiple systems of oppression at work. You can either choose to ignore this dark reality, or you can choose to accept it, and work to change it.

Suggested Reading

Photo credit: Johnny Silvercloud, CC 2.0
Summit Community Church has teamed up with the Morganton Housing Authority and the Morganton Department of Public Safety to revive a long-unused community center and launch an outreach effort to residents who live in the surrounding area.

The Stephen Andrade Community Center, located at 300 Wrighton St. in Morganton, was created in 2005 to honor the memory of 8-year-old Stephen Andrade Button, who was murdered on nearby Center Street, along with his mother, according to MDPS Chief Ronnie Rector.

The project was spearheaded by Capt. Jason Whisnant, who was a PSO assigned to the Special Operations Division at the time.

By partnering with the Morganton Housing Authority and various businesses, Capt. Whisnant was able to put together a community center where kids and community members could interact, play, study and have computer and internet access, Rector said.

He said the MHA and MDPS officers staffed the center over the intervening years, but eventually some of the equipment fell into disrepair, so the center was not used nearly as much.

Last summer, an SCC member approached pastor Mike Chandler about restoring the center and possibly establishing a regular community outreach there. Chandler and church members reached out to both the MHA and MDPS to make the necessary arrangements, and completed the renovations early this year.

We firmly believe, (as commanded) in Acts 1:8, that were to be Christs witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and to the ends of the earth, Chandler said. We know its a simultaneous call to be both here and around the world sharing the gospel and ministering to needs. Were very involved in ministry in Guatemala, and were very involved here in our community through local ministries and other events. We saw a big, legitimate need in that community (around the center), so we wanted to rise up and meet the need.

Church volunteers cleaned, painted and installed carpeting, shelving, storage cabinets, light fixtures and furniture at the center over several workdays in February and March. They also stripped, waxed and buffed all the flooring that was not carpeted. They eventually plan to install picnic tables outside.

The church and the MDPS held a grand re-opening of the center on Wednesday, March 22 from 6-8 p.m. Children from the community surrounding the center and students from Mountain Crest Elementary School were invited to enjoy a bounce-house, games, face-painting, access to game-tables, such as pool, ping-pong and foos-ball, in the center, and various refreshments, including pizza and treats from an ice cream truck. Several PSOs were on hand to interact with the children and make sure they had a good time.

Those guys (from the church) have done a phenomenal job restoring a lot of things inside, Officer Joey Belanger said.

Chandler said his congregation has committed to staffing the center each Wednesday from 6-8 p.m. for the foreseeable future. Thirty-six members divided into four teams will take turns providing a meal for community members, helping children with their homework and providing games and activities for them to enjoy. He said the volunteers received special training on ministering in this type of outreach.

Weve been talking a lot about what ministry actually looks like, and what poverty looks like, Chandler said. True poverty is really not lack of things like food, clothing and shelter. Thats what we see, but the real root of poverty is broken relationships with God, with self, with others and with creation. Our training was to help us realize that on some level, were all in poverty. We want to go in and establish and build relationships with these people to show them we care. Theres a need to utilize the center to walk beside these kids and their parents to encourage them.

Belanger said SCC members efforts make the MDPS officers jobs easier.

It engages the kids in this area, Belanger said. It gives them a place to go and receive help with homework, to build friendships and play and have fun. If they can attach those memories with a law-enforcement officer, or these fine volunteers through Summit Church, thats how you make an impact. Our hopes are to impact the community in a positive way and show the people who live here that we care just as much about this center as if it was our home.

Chandler said PSOs will stop by the center on Wednesday evenings as they are able to continue to support the churchs efforts.

What law enforcement brings as far as protection of us and the positive impact they make in the community is invaluable, Chandler said. We feel anytime we can walk beside them in a shared partnership to build trust and confidence in law enforcement, its a great thing.

Rector said he is thrilled to see the center come back to life.

I am elated that the Andrade Center is being refurbished, and it is my hope that the community will rediscover the center, Rector said. I envision PSOs once again participating with the community at the center, and on occasion showing movies and providing snacks and food for the children. I am appreciative of and commend Summit Community Church and the Morganton Housing Authority for their efforts.

We at Public Safety are committed to active community involvement and collaborative partnerships in an effort to build trust and provide a safe environment for all who live, work and play in our communities. Morganton Public Safety wants to extend a sincere thank you to all those involved.

Chandler said he would welcome anyone in the community who would like to partner with church members in their outreach at the center. Anyone interested in getting involved can contact the church at 828-437-2761.

Tammie Gercken can be reached at tgercken@morganton.com.
MARION  Downtown Marions taproom is ready to start pouring craft beer, local wines and hard cider.

Located at 13 N. Main St., Refinery 13 recently held its grand opening after months of work and renovation. Co-owner Sarah Jacobs said she hopes her business will help bring Marion and McDowell County more into the craft beverage scene of western North Carolina, which is one of the biggest and best in the nation.

Refinery 13 is a venture by Jacobs, her husband Ryan and her father Avery Barrier. Their new business has 13 taps for craft beer and hard cider, all from North Carolina.

The craft beers on tap come from Tar Heel breweries like Highland, Green Man, Hi-Wire and Wicked Weed in Asheville; Appalachian in Boone; Sugar Creek and The Unknown in Charlotte; Lazy Hiker in Franklin; Full Steam in Durham; The Duck Rabbit in Farmville; Nantahala in Bryson City and Olde Hickory in Hickory. They include IPAs, porters and stouts.

There is also a tap for Bold Rock hard apple cider in Asheville.

This will change but this is our starting lineup, said Jacobs.

Those who want to sample any of them, Refinery 13 has flight paddles crafted in the shape of North Carolina to hold the small glasses.

At the moment, the wines are from Lake James Cellars in neighboring Burke County but Jacobs said she plans to add some McDowell County wine as well. Nebo is home to both South Creek and Belle Nicho wineries.

We will expand our wine selection as we move forward, she said.

Refinery 13 is not a restaurant but food will be available there. Jacobs, who works as a health inspector, said she cannot be in the restaurant business. But customers at Refinery 13 will be able to eat hummus from Bruces Fabulous Foods and Leisas Kettlecorn, which are already prepared.

We want to support our other local businesses, she said.

In addition, patrons will be able to order food from other local eateries and bring them to Refinery 13 or have them delivered. There will be takeout menus at the taproom.

Even before it opened, Refinery 13 was getting some rave reviews on its Facebook page. A soft opening was held last weekend.

Great atmosphere! Can't believe we have something this cool in Marion! posted Chelsi Mentink Poteat.

The atmosphere is the best, posted Sarah Scoggins Siak. The owners are so welcoming. My husband loved the beer on tap, and I had the most amazing blueberry wine from Lake James winery. We can't wait to make this place a regular stop for date night!

I like to describe the feeling of this taproom as being as comfortable as my own living room, posted Joey Sacco. They have a great staff, and excellent selection of beer on tap! There were beers available that I had not heard of, and they were all great. They even let us order a pizza to eat there while we hung out and drank some beer!

This new business for downtown Marion is located in the space that used to be Hernandez Ice Cream parlor. But it looks nothing like what was in there before. Rarely has any building or space in Marion gone through such a transformation and improvement.

That is what everybody said during our soft opening that it looks like a place you would find in Asheville, said Jacobs.

The woodwork on the bar and the walls was handcrafted by Jacobs father Avery Barrier. Turtle Laboratories fashioned the metal legs for the tables and the impressive rusty sign out front. Refinery 13 will also feature artwork on its walls and patrons will be able to enjoy live music as well.

Many taprooms and breweries have trivia nights where teams compete against each other. Jacobs said she hopes to have the same.

I think that would be so much fun, she added.

And like the craft breweries in Asheville and other places, Refinery 13 is open and welcoming to families. For example, many folks who go to Highland Brewing in Asheville and other places often bring their children and activities are available for them. Refinery 13 has games for kids and adults.

We want it to be a family-friendly atmosphere, said Jacobs. We had a lot of families bring their kids here for the soft opening.

Refinery 13 will be open from 5-10 p.m. Thursday, Friday and Saturday. The business can be booked for private parties and special events during the rest of the week.

But one issue remains. Marion is still under a restriction where the only places allowed to sell beer on-premises are hotels, motels and restaurants. Refinery 13 will have to get around this HMR restriction by opening as a private club.

Last December, Sarah and Ryan Jacobs said they dont want their business to be a private club but rather have it as all inclusive. They asked the Marion City Council to call for a referendum on removing the HMR restrictions, adding neighboring towns and cities have done the same thing. Such a move requires a vote of the people.

Most recently, Morganton voted on this and they are seeing lots of economic growth and success specifically at a business like ours would be  Brown Mountain Bottleworks, said Jacobs to the council in December.

City Manager Bob Boyette said previously Brown Mountain Bottleworks in Morganton had to open first as a private club and then in 2015, voters there done away with the HMR restrictions.

The City Council voted unanimously to hold the special referendum to remove the HMR rule in Marion, which will be held in November.

For now, Refinery 13 is requiring patrons to fill out a form and pay a $1 fee, until the HMR rule is removed. And all of the money from the fees goes to support the Friendship Home operated by McDowell Mission Ministries.

We didnt want to profit off of that, said Jacobs.

Refinery 13 is the second in a series of other similar businesses that are expected to open in Marion during 2017 or early 2018. The store XYZ, which sells craft beer, wine and assorted spirits, opened for business on Monday, March 20. Keepers Cut Meadery should be open later in the year along West Henderson Street. Mica Town Brewery is planned for the small building on Brown Drive and it could be running by the end of this year or early 2018. There is also the possibility of a second taproom for Marion and this one would be a place for live music, according to city officials.

Theres definitely some plans for a second taproom that is a music venue, said Boyette on Wednesday.

Refinery 13 is located at 13 N. Main St. and has 13 taps. As she opens her new business, Jacobs said she, her husband and her father are not worried about that unlucky number.

Were tying it all together, she said. Im not too superstitious.
Two brothers from Morganton are close to making their dream of adding an Uber-type service to the area a reality.

Brothers Adam Eldin and Aiman Hussein have started a driver service called Go2Guy that will provide service to Morganton and some surrounding areas in a 20-mile radius starting April 7. Eldin said the inspiration for the company came both from his personal experiences with other services and his desire to see issues stemming from driving under the influence improved in Morganton.

I was sick of being in Morganton, being out at night when you cant drive and no one can pick you up, Eldin said. Ive lived in big cities and I live in Charlotte now. In both of those locations, Uber is so convenient. I was really excited once I heard Uber was coming (to Charlotte), but I went two weekends and I requested an Uber 15 times. Not one time could they send a driver.

It got to the point I was back visiting (in Morganton). I agreed to meet up with a couple friends. We went out and at 2 a.m., there was no way for me to get home. Either I walk four miles to go to my friends house or you get in your car and you drive, which is a huge problem. In a small town like Morganton, its substantially higher for charges like DUIs. Each time I come back, I hear of an acquaintance, a friend or someone I knew charged with a DUI. It has enormous cost. You can lose your job, go to jail, or (pay a large fine).

Eldin said the name of the new business was inspired by how his father, Dr. Diaa Hussein, always was reliable when Eldin needed a ride. But Eldin wished to no longer be dependent on his father, who will act as a consultant for the business, to help late at night when the need arose.

Where we got the name Go2Guy was (from how) my father was the go-to guy, Eldin said. Id call him and wake him and my father is 62 years old, so theres no need for him to pick up someone at 2 a.m. So, after calling him, he woke up and was able to pick me up in 15 minutes and I got home safely.

It was fortunate I had someone. Either Id call Aiman or Id call my father and usually, Id be able to get a ride. I noticed a lot of people are unable to get home from the bars. With the way beer has changed, like with double-hop IPAs, I can be 170 pounds and drink two and I could still blow over the limit and really screw up my life.

The specific idea for Go2Guy came after Eldin realized that Uber just wasnt a good fit for Morganton. Eldin said he wont only be focused on the companys bottom line, but on the customer and the employee.

So basically, we wanted a driving service, he said. I had tried bringing Uber here several times, but there isnt enough demand with the rates they charge for a driver to be driving four hours and get five calls and make enough money to even break even on gas. Uber is concerned with the company. Were more focused on the employee and the service we provide.

Our employees will be making money to support themselves. Well give them a platform for that as independent contractors through something called Transport Network Company. Its like Yellow Cab, but (better).

Aiman Hussein said that just like Uber or Lyft, Go2Guy will be an application-driven service. The customer will need to provide basic information and payment method on the app before Go2Guys closest driver is dispatched.

We have an app thats downloadable on any smart phone, Hussein said. Its called PickmeApp. What you do is go in and create a profile and you indicate name and credit card information. Its linked with your GPS on your phone. You request a driver and put in a destination.

On the drivers side, the driver has a similar app. They get a notification with your area and that driver puts his bid in and the closest driver will get the job.

Go2Guy has sifted through 50 applications to hire four drivers so far. The companys website, go2guy828.com, lists personality and skill requirements for its drivers as being 19 years of age or older, be a people person, owning a car that has four doors and is in good condition and having a smart phone with a valid email address. The website says drivers should be able to drive with confidence and safety, taking on the responsibility of accepting ride requests and understanding discretion when dealing with people.

Go2Guys drivers will be able to deny service based on level of intoxication, the smell of drugs or offensive behavior to the driver. Go2Guy customers will not be permitted to carry firearms in the vehicle. In addition to its normal radius, Go2Guy may offer rides to hotels and the Charlotte airport.

The business will have three rate levels. The Classic rate will entail a $5 flag-down fee, 20 cents per minute and $1.28 per mile for a minimum $10 ride and can be paid through the app. The Black Cab rate will have the same prices but can be paid in cash and will come with a cost estimate beforehand. Go2Guy also will offer a prepaid event ride service that can serve events like the Historic Morganton Festival for a $10 flag-down fee and a $15 minimum ride.

Eldin and Hussein expressed their desire to maintain a good business relationship and cooperation with the city and Morganton Department of Public Safety. City Manager Sally Sandy said that while the city is not responsible for permitting such businesses, she appreciated the way the business approached her office.

State law prohibits the city from regulating that type of business, Sandy said. It is actually regulated by the state of North Carolina. But certainly, they came and spoke with us about anything they would need to do to meet any kind of city requirements and certainly, we explained, Thank you, were excited you want to do the service and we hope that youre going to get a lot of usage.

The upstart for Go2Guy comes just a few weeks after the city committed to be part of fixed-route bus transportation. Sandy says that the more ways citizens can find reliable transportation, the better.

Obviously, I think more opportunities for transportation for folks is a good thing, said Sandy. I think itll remain to be seen how it takes off. Obviously, in larger places, this is already going on. So, well see. I suspect there will be a market for it.

We hear a lot about how folks dont want to drive. They want to live close by and they want to walk. They want to be able to have access to transportation they dont provide. I think thats more of a trend that is happening, so we certainly told them that we wish them well and we hope its something that takes off and works and is another added service within the community.

Justin Epley can be reached at jepley@morganton.com or 828-432-8943.
The UK Equity Income sector has long been a favourite place for investors to stash their cash  it offers the investment holy grail of growth and income. But as finding income has become increasingly difficult in recent years, the sectors numbers have dwindled.

Some 22 funds have been booted out of the sector because they have failed to meet the yield requirements, reducing the total number of funds in the sector by a fifth.

Among their number are the 1.3 billion Rathbone Income fund, the 1.7 billion Schroder Income fund and the Invesco Perpetual Income and High Income funds, which together hold more than 16.5 billion of investors money.

But many of these could now be set for a triumphant return after the Investment Association changed the requirements for the group. Currently funds must produce at least 110% of the yield of the FTSE All-Share over a three-year rolling period to make the grade. At the moment that means producing a meaty income of around 4%.

But the trade body has now slashed that yield requirement, meaning from April 3 funds will only have to match the index yield over a three-year rolling period rather than beat it. If a fund falls to 90% of the index yield over a 12-month period it will be relegated out of the sector.

What the Sector Promotion Means to Funds

Funds which were moved to the UK All Companies and other sectors will now be able to apply to rejoin the UK Equity Income sector. With more than a quarter of the typical DIY investors cash is in UK Income funds  some 57 billion  the change will make a real difference.

Income funds not in an income sector may be overlooked by investors looking for yield  and its far more difficult to compare funds with similar objectives if they are sitting in different sectors.

Reducing the income requirement also reduces the pressure on managers to invest in higher yielding stocks which they might otherwise not back  fewer than 30% of UK companies currently yield more than the market.

Yet, while some funds have already committed to applying to rejoin the sector, others are still to decide. The Evenlode Income fund, which currently yields 3.2%, was relegated from the sector in May 2016. The managers have not yet confirmed whether or not they will look to rejoin. Experts still recommend the fund, which has a five star performance rating from Morningstar.

Ben Yearsley, investment director at Wealth Club, says: This is a really interesting fund. The companies the managers like tend to be high quality, stable businesses with low debt, which can grow sustainably. They dont invest in banks and have firms including Microsoft, Johnson & Johnson, and Procter & Gamble in their top ten holdings.

The Schroder Income fund is also still yet to confirm. A spokesman said: Our early assessment of this review is that it contains some very sensible recommendations, although it is too early for a more detailed view.

The fund, which yields 3.45%, has a Morningstar Analyst Bronze Rating and a four-star performance rating.

Morningstar analyst Peter Brunt says the managers approach continues to impress. With a value focus, they are willing to invest in stocks which have cut their dividend if they think they are trading at a discount to their fair value. Currently the portfolio is overweight banks and food retailers.

While the value approach of the fund means performance can be erratic, Brunt says: For investors that can tolerate this extra volatility, the managers' resolute adherence to the strategy has seen them rewarded over the long term.

One fund which does plan to return to the Equity Income sector is Rathbones Income.

David Holloway, marketing director at Rathbones, says: Reducing the dividend yield measure to 100% of the market yield does at least give us a more sensible starting point.

The fund has a Morningstar Analyst Bronze Rating and four star performance rating. It yields 3.4%.

Brunt says the fund is a solid choice for capital growth and a rising income.

He says: Our conviction is growing in this fund. We like its cheap ongoing charge, long-standing manager, disciplined approach, and performance profile.

Manager Carl Stick runs a relatively concentrated portfolio of 40 to 50 stocks, aiming to pick quality companies which can grow their dividend each year.

Reducing Target Not the Answer

But some managers are concerned that lowering the yield requirement for the sector is missing the point. By reducing the target, there is the worry that investors will start accepting less from their funds and may not be able to produce enough income for retirement.

Managers including Robin Geffen of the Neptune Income fund and Richard Colwell of the Columbia Threadneedle UK Equity Income fund have promised to continue aiming to beat the original yield target of 110% of the index.

Geffen says: In todays low yielding environment a high and diversified income stream from equity income funds is a huge help to investors. I have long prioritised a high and rising income and will continue to do so.

Others think the change simplifies the problem too much; that equity income funds should not just be judged against an arbitrary yield target but the total return they produce including capital growth.

Laith Khalaf, senior investment analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown, says: The sector definition is only a very loose indication of what a fund does. If you really want to understand what a fund is about you need to take a look at its specific objective and how it has performed against that target.
The big investment news this month has been the proposed merger between Standard Life and Aberdeen Asset Management. But March has been a busy month, with a handful of fund launches and a wave of investment trust announcements. In addition, up to 20 equity income funds are expected to be re-admitted the Investment Associations Equity Income sector, after the organisation announced a long overdue rule change.

Standard Life and Aberdeen Asset Management a confirmed they are in merger talks. The current chief executives of each firm, Keith Skeoch and Martin Gilbert, would become co-chief executives of the new larger company.

This proposed consolidation follows similar moves by Henderson and Janus last year.

The merger is likely to mean job losses. Analysts have predicted that around 1,000 jobs could be at risk, mainly in the back-office, IT and sales teams.

Standard Lifes main business remains in the life and pensions market, but there is an overlap between the funds run by Standard Life Investments and Aberdeen Asset Management. Industry experts have speculated this could lead to further consolidation in the asset management sector.

Rule Change for Equity Income Funds

The Investment Association has announced it is relaxing the income requirements for funds in its UK Equity Income Sector. Currently funds have to achieve a yield in excess of 110% of the FTSE All-Share index. Funds that fail to do this over a three-year rolling period are booted out of the sector.

But from next month the yield requirement will fall to 100% of the FTSE All-Share. However if a fund fails to generate a yield of 90% of this index in any one year it will be automatically excluded. Funds must also have at least an 80% exposure to UK equities.

This rule changes comes after a number of large and highly regarded income funds were jettisoned from this sector. Among their number are the 1.3 billion Rathbone Income fund, the 1.7 billion Schroder Income fund and the Invesco Perpetual Income and High Income funds, which together hold more than 16.5 billion of investors money. There had been concerns that funds chasing this high yield to stay in this sector, could damage the longer-term investment returns on the fund.

It is expected that more than 20 funds which had failed to meet this target will be included in this sector again within the coming months.

Fidelity Closes Popular Asian Fund

Fidelity has announced they will soft close their Asian Smaller Companies fund on April 3 as it is at capacity.

The fund, which has a five star performance rating from Morningstar, has seen strong inflows from investors over the past year. As of the end of January, it had assets under management of 437 million. It has been managed by Nitin Bajaj since September 2013. Fidelity said it will stop marketing this fund. New investors may be added to a queue to invest at a later date.

A spokesman for the company said: Fidelity Asian Smaller Companies has experienced strong interest from investors on the back of strong performance.

We are keen to ensure that the rapid growth in the funds assets since April 2016 does not limit our ability to compound client money at our desired rate of return, and with it, the strong performance track record that it had achieved.

Scottish Mortgage Cuts Fees

Scottish Mortgage (SMT), the Gold Rated global investment trust, has entered the FTSE 100 for the first time. This is the first time an investment trust has appeared in the blue-chip index since Alliance Trust (ATST) crashed out six years ago. The trust is run by Baillie Gifford fund managers James Anderson and Tom Slater.

It is one of the top performing trusts, with shares up by 42% in the last year. It said that it will reduce its annual management charges to reflect that increased economies of scale that this change will bring. Its annual management charge will drop from 0.45% to 0.3% on the first 4 billion, then to 0.25% on any assets above this.

Alliance Trust Shareholders Approve Revamp

Alliance Trust shareholders have voted through proposed changes to the beleaguered trust, which will see it changes its investment mandate to a multi-manager structure. In addition, shareholders voted to buy back the shares of activist investors Elliot Advisor, which currently have almost a 20% stake in this trust. This month also saw Alliance Trust publish its annual results for the year ending December 2016.

Shareholders saw a total return of 21.5%, below the 29.4% delivered by its benchmark MSCI AC World Index. However, the dividend paid to shareholders increased to 12.774p, a 16% increase on the year before, and the 50th consecutive year that the trust has increased the dividend paid to its shareholders.

Morningstar fund analyst David Holder said regarding the new structure the proof of the pudding will be in the eating and in Alliance Trusts case, it has been jam tomorrow for too long.

The proposed best-in-class, concentrated global multimanager approach bears some similarity to that used at Witan and has merit if well executed, said Holder. However, we would dispute the chairmans view that this is an exciting and differentiated approach. Currently there is limited visibility on the performance of global strategies advised upon by Witan, and we await much greater detail as to the nature and implementation of the proposed new investment strategy.

Healthcare Trust Defers Wind-up

Polar Capital Global Healthcare Growth & Income Trust (PCGH) has proposed switching to a growth mandate, and deferring its winding-up date. It had been due to wind up in January 2018, but they have now added a further seven years until January 31, 2025.

At the same time it is proposing to a more growth-orientated focus. This will mean shareholders receive a lower dividend, and the name of the trust will change to Polar Capital Global Healthcare Growth.

As part of this transformation the trust will issue new shares, while also offering a tender for existing shareholders to buy back some or all of their holdings at current net asset value.

These changes are still subject to shareholder and regulatory approval.

New Emerging Market Debt Fund

Invesco Perpetual is launching an emerging market debt fund. It describes this as a natural extension to the fund managers current offering in this asset class. The fund will be managed by Stuart Edwards and Asad Bhatti.

Edwards already manages the Invesco Global Bond and the Invesco Perpetual Global Bond fund, which have strategies in developing and emerging market bonds. The fund will have an ongoing charge of between 0.65% and 0.95%, depending on share class. The minimum investment will be 500.

New Gender Diversity Fund

AXA Investment Managers have launched a gender-diversity focused fund, which invests in companies that promote best practice on this issue. The AXA World Funds MiX in Perspectives fund will be managed by Julie Lamirel.

This fund has a global remit. It will operate on an unconstrained basis and will look for companies which aim to create a positive social impact related to diversity and inclusion to generate long-term equity returns. The fund will have an ongoing charge of 0.77%.
Well done, everyone, for keeping the stock market alive and kicking while I took a three-month sabbatical, mostly spent cruising round South America with little scope for panic selling.

The FTSE 100 index hit a new peak on New Years Eve 2016. The last time it did that, in 1999, a three-year bear market followed. History has not repeated itself thus far and more record highs have been set. UK equities continue to offer a fantastic hedge against the fall in the value of the pound.

I returned to confront the signing of Article 50, starting the Brexit process. I will not add to the reams written on the subject except to express astonishment that some commentators seem surprised that markets have not reacted much to the event. Weve know about it for the past nine months, for heavens sake. If you are only just reacting, wake up at the back.

Brought to Booker I was slightly disappointed with the trading update from cash-and-carry expert Booker (BOK). Normally I take little interest in updates from a company that is being taken over, as Booker is by supermarket giant Tesco (TSCO), because the target companys share price, and therefore any decision whether to get out, is set by the bid terms. There was admittedly a glitch this week when two major Tesco shareholders, holding 9% between them, raised objections to the deal, arguing that Tesco is overpaying. That is a sizeable combined stake but it is not enough to block the deal and it is notable that other large shareholders have not offered public support. I think the deal will go ahead and that shareholders in both companies should work on that basis. Back to the Booker update. Once again sales are rising but two points bothered me. One was the decline in tobacco sales, which Booker blames on plain packaging and removing displays of tobacco products in retail outlets. Tobacco companies argued that these measures would not reduce consumption but would merely confuse smokers. There are serious implications here for all retailers and for the tobacco companies themselves. The second point was that the growth in sales has slowed in the latest quarter. Tesco is paying a heavy premium for taking over a highly successful company with excellent prospects. The big fear is that, in order to recover those costs, Tesco will destroy the very thing that it so covets. What makes anyone think that Tesco management can run Booker better than Booker management? If, indeed, Bookers growth is easing off already then the problem becomes all the greater. Admittedly Sainsbury (SBRY) secured a great deal by buying Argos, which is currently doing better than the supermarket side. I fear that Tesco chief executive Dave Lewis feels obliged to attempt a similar coup just to show whos boss. Thats not a valid reason. Booker shares have slipped back from a peak of 2.12 immediately after the deal was announced in late January to below 2. Well done if you sold at the top. If you stayed in, you may as well continue to hold. This company is still on an upward trend even if the Tesco deal unexpectedly falls through and I do not believe that Tesco is in any position to try to negotiate cheaper terms for the takeover. The downside for Booker is limited. Tesco shares were sliding even before the Booker deal was announced. I cannot see any case for buying them at this stage. I hold Sainsbury shares but if I were wanting to buy a supermarket now I would go for Morrison (MRW), although a lot of recovery is already factored into the share price.
President of the European Council Donald Tusk takes part in a joint news conference about Brexit with Malta's Prime Minister Joseph Muscat in Valletta, Malta, March 31, 2017. REUTERS/Darrin Zammit Lupi

By Robin Emmott and Alastair Macdonald

VALLETTA/BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The European Union offered Britain talks this year on a future free trade pact but made clear in negotiating guidelines issued on Friday that London must first agree to EU demands on the terms of Brexit.

Those include paying tens of billions of euros and giving residence rights to some 3 million EU citizens in Britain, the proposed negotiating objectives distributed by EU summit chair Donald Tusk to Britain's 27 EU partners showed.

The document, seen by Reuters, also sets tough conditions for any transition period, insisting Britain must accept many EU rules after any such partial withdrawal. It also spelled out EU resistance to Britain scrapping swathes of tax, environmental and labour laws if it wants to have an eventual free trade pact.

The guidelines, which may be revised before the EU27 leaders endorse them at a summit on April 29, came two days after Prime Minister Theresa May triggered a two-year countdown to Britain's withdrawal in a letter to Tusk that included a request for a rapid start to negotiations on a post-Brexit free trade deal.

"Once, and only once we have achieved sufficient progress on the withdrawal, can we discuss the framework for our future relationship," Tusk told reporters in Malta -- a compromise between EU hardliners who want no trade talks until the full Brexit deal is agreed and British calls for an immediate start.

"Starting parallel talks on all issues at the same time, as suggested by some in the UK, will not happen," Tusk said, while adding that the EU could assess as early as this autumn that Britain had made "sufficient progress" on the exit terms in order to open the second phase of negotiations, on future trade.

Brussels has estimated that Britain might owe it something of the order of 60 billion euros on departure, although it says the actual number cannot be calculated until it actually leaves.

What it does want is to agree the "methodology" of how to work out the "Brexit bill", taking into account Britain's share of EU assets and liabilities. Britain disputes the figure but May said on Wednesday that London would meet its "obligations".

Story continues

The Union's opening gambit in what Tusk said would at times be a "confrontational" negotiation with May's government also rammed home Brussels' insistence that while it was open to letting Britain retain some rights in the EU during a transition after 2019, it would do so only on its own terms.

Britain would have to go on accepting EU rules, such as free migration, pay budget contributions and submit to oversight by the European Court of Justice -- all things that drove last June's referendum vote to leave and elements which May would like to show she has delivered on before an election in 2020.

"Should a time-limited prolongation of Union acquis be considered, this would require existing Union regulatory, budgetary, supervisory and enforcement instruments and structures to apply," Tusk's draft guidelines stated in reference to a transition period that diplomats expect could last two to five years to smooth Brexit.

"NO DUMPING"

It also stressed that a future trade pact, allowing for not just low or zero tariffs on goods but also regulatory alignment to promote trade in services, should not allow Britain to pick and choose which economic sectors to open up. That would prevent London giving undue subsidies or slashing taxes or regulations -- "fiscal, social and environmental dumping", in EU parlance.

The negotiations will be among the most complex diplomatic talks ever undertaken and the EU guidelines are only an opening bid. EU officials believe they have the upper hand in view of Britain's dependence on exports to the continent, while British diplomats see possibilities to exploit EU states' differences.

Tusk and Maltese Prime Minister Joseph Muscat, who holds the Union's rotating presidency, warned against such efforts and insisted the EU would negotiate "as one", through their chief negotiator, former French foreign minister Michel Barnier. He expects to start full negotiations in early June.

Tusk spelled out priorities for the withdrawal treaty, which Barnier hopes can be settled by November 2018, in time for parliamentary ratification by Brexit Day on March 29, 2019:

- the EU wants "reciprocal" and legal "enforceable" guarantees for all EU citizens who find their rights to live in Britain affected after a cutoff on the date of withdrawal

- businesses must not face a "legal vacuum" on Brexit

- Britain should settle bills, including "contingent liabilities" to the EU

- agreement on border arrangements, especially on the new EU-U.K. land border in Ireland, as well as those of British military bases on EU member Cyprus.

(Writing by Alastair Macdonald; Editing by Catherine Evans)
While acknowledging that some measures to cool down Torontos runaway housing market need to be implemented, a national group of mortgage professionals expressed hesitation at the various proposals calling for a foreign buyers tax in the GTA.It is un-Canadian to blame foreigners for affordability concerns caused by lack of supply in the market, Mortgage Professionals Canada said recently, as quoted by BuzzBuzzNews.Imposing a foreign buyers tax does nothing to solve a lack of supply and could create adverse effects on the national, provincial and regional economies.The organization joins a wider coalition of voiceswhich includes developers, real estate agents, and current Ontario Real Estate Association president Tim Hudakagainst the imposition of such a tax.More importantly, an additional levy on residential property purchases in the GTA would make it difficult for the Ontario government to balance its 2017-18 budget if the tax ends up stifling sales activity. The provinces land transfer tax in 2016 added $514 million to its coffers.MPC pointed at Vancouver as a case study of what and what cant a foreign buyers tax achieve. B.C. imposed a 15 per cent levy on non-resident buyers of homes in mid-2016.A foreign buyers tax has not improved affordability and has instead simply reduced housing activity, MPC saidan assertion corroborated by the latest numbers from the Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver, which found that only 3,666 homes were listed for sale in Metro Vancouver, representing the lowest February supply since 2003.
In its latest statement, the Quebec Federation of Real Estate Boards (QFREB) hailed the housing tax provisions announced by Quebec Finance Minister Carlos Leitao, and at the same time called for more tangible measures to improve home ownership in the 2017-18 budget.The steps the QFREB is advocating for include the removal of the real estate transfer tax for first-time home buyers in the province, a levy known as the welcome tax.Concrete measures are needed in real estate given the fact that Quebec consumers are facing major mortgage tightening measures introduced by the federal government in recent years. Home ownership is more and more difficult for young families looking forward to building a family nest of their own, QFREB president Patrick Juaneda said.Other measures introduced in the budget were warmly received, including a new tax credit for residential wastewater treatment systems.This measure will financially assist homeowners up to $5,500 per taxpayer who must undertake repairs to their septic system. Although the amount awarded is small compared to the huge cost that homeowners must assume for the work, the QFREB recognizes the government's desire to lighten their financial burden.The QFREB welcomes the government's decision to maintain the RenoVert tax credit for renovations, which benefits both present homeowners and future home buyers, the organization added. The announcement of the construction of 3,000 new social housing units was also very favourably received by the QFREB and its members.
And provides his own idea about how to best manage the citys escalating real estate prices.Foreign buyer tax.Capital gains tax.Tighten access to credit.Build more homes.We could keep going, but you get the gist; there have been several potential policies floated that could address the seemingly impossible trajectory of Toronto housing prices and, therefore, affordability.Well, you can now add vacant house tax to the growing list.That appears to be Mayor John Torys preferred method.Vancouver recently implemented a vacant home tax, Tory said Thursday, following a roundtable housing discussion with industry experts. And I am open to exploring whether this would be the right measure for Toronto.Although there is a lack of sufficient data, Tory estimates there are around 65,000 vacant homes in the city.And those vacancies are increasingly on the industrys radar.A woman reached out to me and said, what about a vacancy tax? There are 50 vacant units in my building that arent taxed, Carl Langschmidt, president of Condos.ca, said. I never thought Toronto needed a vacant tax like Vancouver  I didnt think it was so much of an issue, but some people on the ground are reporting a fair amount, though not as much.Vancouvers vacancy tax went into effect January 1.The policy requires homeowners to lease their units for at least six months this year; failing to do so will result in a 1% tax on the homes assessed value.The goal of the Empty Homes Tax is to increase rental housing supply during a time of unprecedented low vacancy and high costs, Kathleen Llewellyn-Thomas, general manager of community services for the city of Vancouver, said earlier this month. "We are encouraging homeowners to become landlords rather than pay the tax. But they must take action or face a significant tax bill."
Mount Pleasant, SC (29464)

Today

Except for a few afternoon clouds, mainly sunny. High 73F. Winds NNE at 10 to 20 mph..

Tonight

Partly cloudy in the evening with more clouds for later at night. Low 53F. Winds NNE at 10 to 20 mph.
Posse saddles up to help children Russell Libby describes his golden palomino horse, Sonny, as the calmest, sweetest guy and his best friend for nearly two decades. Sonny is the reason Libby and his wife, Laura,...

Kris Kringle to support library programs The Moorpark Friends of the Library is offering the second annual Letter from Santa fundraiser. For a $25 donation to the Moorpark Friends of the Library, children will receive a...

Oakmont welcomes new executive director Ronda Wilkin, certified dementia practitioner and a senior living executive, joins Oakmont of Moorpark with more than three decades of experience in health and human services. During her 15 years...
Midland College professor Leslie Williams had quite a year in 2016. She and her husband moved back to Midland from Kerrville, she fell easily back into teaching at her former school, and she had two books published.

Im just thrilled how everything has happened, she said.

Williams Emblem of Faith Untouched: A Short Life of Thomas Cranmer is a biography of the first Anglican archbishop of Canterbury and the author of the Book of Common Prayer. As an Episcopalian, Williams was fascinated by the man who wrote something she hears almost weekly at church.

I love his book, and his story helped me appreciate what he went through for the faith that I have, she said. We dont think about the price people paid so that we could go to church and worship.

In her book, Williams looked at Cranmers association with Henry VIII to break from the pope, his forced recantation under Queen Mary and his death by burning at the stake.

That is such a striking image for me of this man who also wrote this beautiful book.

Williams other book has a far more casual approach. In When Anything Goes: Being Christian in a Post-Christian World, she explores the notions of Christianity in the fast-paced society of today.

Through stories that are personal and humorous, Williams shares her explanation of why and what Christians believe in. Or in her words, its a down-to-earth look at why it still works.

In conversations today, there are interesting perspectives. You cant make an argument about Scripture using Scripture, so I wrote this using other means of explanation, she said.

As times change, so has Christianity. Williams makes the analogy that the Christian culture is no longer the ocean we swim in, but now its rivers and streams and lakes that people choose.

She isnt working so much to convince non-believers to side with her, but to help them understand why she and other Christians find comfort and strength in their faith.

Williams welcomes questions and even congenial arguments to the books contents. Her work is less about division and more about conversation and sharing ideas.

Interested persons can do just that Saturday and Sunday at two book signings where Williams will discuss her works.

She will appear at noon Saturday at Barnes and Noble, 2617 W. Loop 250 N. She will sign books and speak at the monthly potluck at 11 a.m. Sunday at Episcopal Church of the Holy Trinity, 1412 W. Illinois Ave.
All companies that have personnel on Permian Basin roads should have transportation safety among their utmost priorities.

That was the sentiment shared by Dolores Vick of the Permian Road Safety Coalition, which held its spring safety session forum Thursday afternoon at the Horseshoe Education Building. More than 100 people attended the event to learn about how businesses and government agencies are working to improve vehicle safety in the Permian Basin.

The event used a poster-session format, where attendees would spend 15 minutes with each presenter to learn and ask questions. Phillip Crawley of insurance company Berkley Oil & Gas talked about the need to create a safe driving culture within organizations not only to protect lives, but to maintain viability.

Crawley said more than 40 percent of oil and gas industry work fatalities and one-third of worker compensation claims were motor vehicle-related. All of this can result in great financial costs for business, and he said judgments in these cases are typically millions to tens of millions of dollars.

More Information For more information about the Permian Road Safety Coalition and to keep up on future events, visit permianroadsafety.org. See More Collapse

There are indirect costs to motor vehicle accidents, as well. Crawley said poor safety records create bad reputations, which result in fewer people willing to work for a company because workers want to know theyll be able to go home to their families when the shift is done.

Crawley also noted that driving is largely unsupervised, though companies are taking steps to change that. Bartie Bray talked about what Shell is doing to help its drivers manage their journeys in the oil patch.

Shell first determines if the trip is actually necessary. If so, the company plans the route, taking into account the weather, road constructions, traffic, left turns across oncoming traffic, night driving, wildlife and other factors that could pose hazards. Shell also plans period rest breaks for every two hours of driving, conducts pre-trip vehicle inspections and attempts to mitigate in-vehicle distractions such as cellphones, food, loose items and cargo.

Bray also said Shell makes use of GoPro cameras in the cab. Video recordings of the trips help the company spot issues along routes for future use, such as low power lines and hidden hills. Its a time-intensive process but a valuable step in ensuring driver safety, he said.

Steve Mills of Chevron said his companys in-vehicle monitoring program is a major factor in driver safety. Instruments record various data such as vehicle speed, which can be compared with posted speed limits, and when hard braking is used, which can indicate a driver was too close to the vehicle in front of it.

One major scenario for crashes occurs when trucks enter and exit the roadway, and the Texas Department of Transportation is working on a solution. TxDOT Odessa District engineer Chad Windham and public information officer Gene Powell said the transportation agency is working on ways to reconstruct driveways, such as:

 Widening shoulders to improve access for larger vehicles entering and exiting a site.

 Creating a turning radius wide enough to prevent vehicles from leaving the roadway.

 Adding drainage culverts when necessary to avoid standing water.

 Using a coarse surface on entrances to mitigate tracking dirt and debris onto the roadway.

 Installing offset gates so vehicles can queue in a driveway instead of travel lanes.

 Laying down concrete or hot mix asphalt, which will help accommodate heavier vehicle loads.

There is also the construction of acceleration and deceleration lanes; however, this would be at the developers expense, not TxDOT.






Is There A Changing of the Guard? Shawn & Kevin Answer

Written by Team MD

31 March 2017

Is There a Changing of the Guard?

Shawn Ray & Kevin Levrone Give Their Views

The question we asked Shawn Ray and Kevin Levrone was, Do you think we are now witnessing a clear changing of the guard in the upper echelons of the pro ranks? Newer athletes like Ramy, William Bonac, Nathan De asha, Dallas McCarver and Josh Lenartowicz are on the rise, while many of the older stars are either moving down the ladder or being forced to take time off due to injuries or just being plain burned-out. How do you see the situation, in terms of things appearing to be undergoing a definite shift toward a newer, younger group of stars?

SHAWN RAY: Clearly, The Times They are A-Changin!

The only constant from 2016 is Dexter The Blade Jacksons miraculous Fountain of Youth, keeping him in and around the winners circle, year in and year out, at the ripe old age of 47. With respect to the young whippersnappers moving into the upper echelon of the pro bodybuilding elite, it is something that happens in every sport. This past Mr. Olympia showed us by way of Kevin Levrones return to competition that Father Time remains undefeated, and time catches up to even the most seasoned of bodybuilders, Dexter Jackson notwithstanding. Veteran pro Johnnie Jackson went on record earlier this year that he was retiring, and I wont be surprised in 2017 if we hear that his longtime training partner, Branch Warren, follows right behind him. We can see the emergence of the young guys like Dallas, Justin, Josh, Cody, William and Big Ramy, while slowly seeing chinks in the armor of Mr. Olympia runner-up Shawn Rhoden, as well as Roelly Winklaar and even Cedric McMillan. All three of them had flashes of brilliance, but I personally believe some of the decline is due to Father Time.

One name not mentioned here is former perennial top Olympian competitor, Kai Greene. Kai is no spring chicken in the age department, but seemingly chooses the right contests to compete in which strategically lands him in the winners circle, year in and year out, as he creeps closer to middle age. Currently, there is no real threat of Kais age being exposed as a declining factor, and his actual age seems to be a matter of debate. Dennis Wolf got injured early in 2016, rendering himself a non-factor on the contest stage. However, his recovery will have a definite impact on his return, depending on the severity of the injury. As it involved the cervical vertebrae of his neck, it could lead to a premature exit from the stage, leaving younger guys to move up the ranks.

The changing of the guard will be witnessed in full effect over the next three years. We will be talking about different individuals improvements, and the decline of others. Yet among these champion bodybuilders, one name should remain, if all things are equal and injury notwithstanding six-time Mr. Olympia winner, Phil Heath. Phil is 36 years young, and could retire from the sport as a nine- or 10-time Mr. Olympia champion, at or about age 40, should he choose to do so. This year, the gap between first and second place at the Mr. Olympia did not get closer, in my eyes. If anything, Phil made the distance even greater, while his challengers may have improved ever so slightly. Phil remains the King of the Beasts, and in 2017 should grab his seventh Sandow and celebrate the passing of yet another birthday, with little to no fanfare or resistance from the present guard. That is, unless The Predator, Kai Greene, decides that competing in the Mr. Olympia is more fun than watching the Mr. Olympia. Then we could see a contest for the ages!

Twitter: @sugarshawnray

Instagram: @shawnrayifbbpro

Facebook: Shawn Ray

KEVIN LEVRONE

If you look at the top five in the Mr. Olympia for the last two years now, the same three guys have been up there. All three of them have been doing this for a while now, and arent what you would call young. Phil is 36, which would have been considered old for a pro bodybuilder not so long ago. Arnold retired at 27 with seven Mr. Olympia titles, and came back at 32 to win one more. Lee Haney retired when he was just 31, with eight Sandows. I was 37 when I walked away from the stage after the 2003 Mr. Olympia contest. But you see guys competing much older these days, Dexter being the prime example. Hes 47, competing as a pro since 1999, and is still winning shows left and right. Shawn Rhoden is 41, but has only been competing as a pro since 2010. Even some of these newer pros like William Bonac arent that young hes 34. So lets just say newer pros rather than younger pros in this discussion about whether or not were seeing a changing of the guard.

Newer pros always bring excitement to the sport. Even the fans get tired of seeing the same guys win, over and over again, at all the shows. And when you have different judges in different countries, you can see how newer guys have opportunities to beat the more seasoned veterans, if they bring their A game and the veterans are even a little off. We saw it with Ramy beating Dexter in Kuwait, and Bonac beating both of them in Prague. I think if its close enough to flip a coin, judges and again, I feel its more so the case outside the USA might be inclined to give the nod to the newer guy.

You will always see periods of time in our sport when newer groups of pros rise up and the older ones fade away. In the mid to late 1980s, you had an awesome group dominating the IFBB that included Lee Haney, Rich Gaspari, Lee Labrada, Mike Christian, Berry de Mey and Gary Strydom. By the time you got to the early to mid-90s, all of them were gone, for the most part, and you had a whole new group with Dorian, myself, Shawn, Flex, Chris Cormier, Paul Dillett, Vince Taylor and Nasser. I will say that the changing of the guard happens less frequently these days, because so many guys continue competing long past their mid-30s. It was almost unheard of in the 80s or 90s to see a man over 40 still doing well in the sport. Now you have Dexter, Kai, Shawn Rhoden, Branch and Victor still at it. Granted, in a few years, some or all of them will probably be retired. Thats just the way it goes in any professional sport. Men like Ramy, Bonac, Dallas, Justin Compton, Nathan De asha and Josh Lenartowicz will most likely be the top men at the Olympia and the Arnold every year, for a while until more new blood comes along and the cycle repeats itself.

Twitter: @LevroneKevin

Instagram: kevinlevrone

Facebook: Kevin Levrone

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A Qatar Airways aircraft is seen after making an emergency landing at Ataturk International Airport in Istanbul, Turkey, August 18, 2016. The smoke seen at the aircraft's wheels is due to its landing. REUTERS/Stringer FOR EDITORIAL USE ONLY. NO RESALES. NO ARCHIVES.

DUBAI, March 30 (Reuters) - Qatar Airways and Etihad Airways are lending some passengers laptop computers and tablets to use on board following the U.S. ban on most electronics devices from being taken into the cabin on United States-bound flights.

On March 25 the U.S. authorities banned electronic devices larger than a mobile phone from being taken into cabins on direct flights to the United States from 10 airports in the Middle East, North Africa and Turkey, including Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.

Qatar Airways said on Thursday complimentary laptops would be available to business class passengers travelling to the United States from next week.

Business class passengers will collect the laptops just prior to boarding, where they will also be able to hand over their own devices to be stowed in the hold with checked-in luggage, the Doha-based airline said in a statement.

Chief Executive Akbar al-Baker said the service allowed the airline to offer a "business as usual" service, despite the restrictions.

Similarly, Etihad is lending tablets and offering unlimited wifi to business and first-class passengers travelling on U.S.-bound flights, according to an email seen by Reuters sent to frequent flyer members on Tuesday.

The Abu Dhabi-based airline previously said passengers could hand over prohibited devices at the gate in order to minimise the disruption.

Emirates is also considering loaning devices to passengers travelling to the U.S., President Tim Clark was quoted as telling Bloomberg on Monday.

The airline was the first of the major Gulf airlines to say its passengers could hand over devices immediately prior to boarding.

The restrictions, prompted by reports that militant groups want to smuggle explosive devices in electronic gadgets, state that electronics larger than a mobile phone - including laptops and tablets - must be stowed with checked baggage on U.S.-bound passenger flights.

Industry experts have warned the ban could weaken passenger demand for the Gulf carriers on U.S. routes.

Story continues

Gulf airlines rely on business-class flyers stopping over in places like Dubai or Doha for far-flung destinations and the ban risks pushing passengers to travel with airlines not affected.

Al-Baker said on Monday it was too early to tell if there had been an impact on demand.

Emirates said booking rates on U.S. flights fell 35 per cent after President Donald Trump's first travel ban which like the electronics ban only applied to Muslim-majority countries. (Reporting by Alexander Cornwell in Dubai, Tom Finn in London and Stanley Carvalho in Abu Dhabi; Editing by Greg Mahlich)
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Teacher Jamelia Jarrells says she and classmates of Branden Christian, Jr., are having a tough time after the eight-year-old died in Sanford Monday.

Police: 1 of 2 boys critical after shooting has died, police say

Youngest of 2 boys still in critical, as well as grandfather

Investigators: Allen Cashe shot and killed boys' mother

PREVIOUS STORY: 1 of the children critical after Sanford shooting dies

Jarrells says she was looking forward to Christians return after spring break.

"And he told me, I'm going to tell you all about it Ms. Jarrells, and I was like OK, said Jarrells. I was really interested in hearing him tell me about it."

The morning Christian was supposed to return to school, police say he and his younger brother were shot while sleeping on their mother's couch.

"I've never lost a student before, and it was heart-wrenching, very much so, heartbreaking," Jarrells said. "He was a good kid, beautiful smile, full of life.

Branden died just one day after Allen Cashe allegedly opened fire in Sanford, a shooting spree that left Branden's mother dead, his grandfather and seven-year-old brother critically injured. Two other people were also injured in the shootings.

Jarrells taught Christian at an after school program at Hamilton Elementary in Sanford. She says Christians classmates are now having a difficult time.

"They have a lot of burning questions as to where is he, why did this happen, how did this happen? said Jarrells.

Jarrells says at such a young age, Branden had a very specific dream of what he wanted to do when he grew up.

"I said, 'why do you want to be a police officer, why? And he said because I like to help people. And I understood that because he was always helping us, said Jarrells. And I said, 'police officers do help people so that would be perfect for you,' and he just kind of smiled.

"And I'm going to miss him very much, because that smile just lit up the room."

A GoFundMe page has been set up for the family.

This Gofundme.com site is not managed by Bay News 9/News 13. For more information on how the site works and the rules visit http://www.gofundme.com/safety.
Firefighters in Melbourne are keeping an eye on hotspots from a brush fire that forced temporary evacuations Thursday night.

9 homes ordered to evacuate

No cause on what started brush fire

RELATED story: Fire officials: No open flames in Seminole, Osceola counties

Firefighters across Central Florida are concerned about dry conditions going into the weekend.

Thursdays brush fire forced nine homes to be evacuated at a trailer park off John Rodes Boulevard.

Deena Pelosi rushed to her elderly friends home to help her evacuate.

"I went in, she was in straight panic mode, we had three or four people in there, trying to help her get what she needed, essentials. She didn't even know, she was like 'What are essentials? We were 'grab your purse, your money, let's go'" said Pelosi.

The fire started in a wooded area, where the homeless typically camp out.

Melbourne firefighters are still looking into the cause of the fire.

"I was asleep, just kind of sitting there and all of a sudden I came outside and there it was, smoke and everything, fire trucks, police and all," said Richard Payne.

It took seven engines and four brush trucks to get the fire contained.

One firefighter was treated for smoke inhalation.

Residents were allowed to return to their homes.

Burn bans are still in place in Osceola and Seminole counties because of the dry conditions.
The Olton ISD Board of Trustees will meet in special called session at 6 p.m. Friday, March 31, in the OISD Board Room.

Although most of the meeting will likely be held in closed session, the posted agenda makes it clear that trustees will be working on severing district ties with Superintendent Bub McIver.

For much of the past year, the relationship between board and McIver has been strained. In January, according to this weeks edition of the Olton Enterprise, trustees showed their lack of confidence in McIver, who was named superintendent in 2009, by delaying his routine annual evaluation. At that time, McIver expresses a desire to seek alternate employment.

The posted agenda for Fridays special session indicates that three topics will be considered behind closed doors:

--Consult with districts attorney on personnel matters

--Deliberate on entering into voluntary separation agreement and release between school district and current superintendent

--Deliberate on appointing an acting superintendent to fulfill duties of superintendent during the time school board is conducting the search for a new superintendent of schools.

Although the board will deliberate on those topics in closed session, the agenda acknowledges that trustees will return to open session before taking any formal votes or other action.

McIver came to Olton from Perryton in 2003 when he was selected Olton Junior High principal. He held that post for two years before becoming Olton High School principal in 2005. During his tenure at OHS, McIver successfully completed the training to receive his superintendents certification from the Texas Education Agency. In 2009, the Olton School Board named McIver acting superintendent upon the resignation of then-Superintendent Brad Lane.

After serving briefly in the dual role of high school principal and acting superintendent, McIver was named interim superintendent. McIver formally became Olton ISD superintendent on Dec. 1, 2009.
Wayland Baptist University celebrated the close of womens history month with a special forum focusing on women business leaders in Plainview. The luncheon was sponsored by Waylands Diversity Awareness Committee, Enactus and the Black Student Organization.

Sonia Medina, owner of Angels Touch Boutique; Ruth Gonzales, owner of RuRus Kloset; Gayle Willson, owner of Grand Hearing Center; and Audrey Sisemore, owner of Audrey Ellen Photography, were the featured panel members for the discussion.

Medina opened her business in 2005, originally selling goods from her vehicle. She now owns three building on Joliet Street where she sells goods and crafts, and rents equipment such as tables and chairs for special events. Gonzales is in her fifth year of operating a retail consignment shop. Willson opened her business in 2010 and now has a second store in Lubbock. Good Hearing Center sells devices to aid the hearing impaired. Sisemore, who is a senior at Wayland, graduating this May, officially started her photography business in January, born from her picture-taking hobby.

Moderated by Assistant Professor of History Dr. Rebekah Crowe, the group responded to questions addressing the challenges and hardships they have faced as business owners. Medina said starting a business was especially difficult for her as a Mexican immigrant who came to the United States years ago. She is now an American citizen, but said it is still difficult dealing with the language barriers she faces with English as her second language.

You have to be brave, Medina said. It is a risk and you have to take the risk.

Medina said her biggest hardship came when the building where her store was located sold. She thought about just closing her shop, but decided to step out in faith and purchase her current location. Using the additional properties for income, she was able to pay back her loan in five years.

Sisemore said her biggest challenge so far has been in finding the courage to start her business and having the confidence to know that she is qualified and that people will want what she has to offer. Willson agreed, saying she had difficulty believing that she was a professional and knew her business. She said, however, that through her business journey she has determined that having the knowledge isnt enough.

My dad used to tell me that people dont care how much you know until they know how much you care, Willson said.

When asked how they would define success, the group agreed that focusing on the customers and their needs is the key to running a business.

Its not about the money, Willson said, but where is your ministry?
LONDON (Reuters) - Iranian sovereign fund IFIC is targeting investments in the healthcare and high-tech sectors in the hope of improving the lives of Iranians, Vahid Sharif, an investment manager at the fund, said on Thursday.

The Iran Foreign Investment Company, set up in 1997 as a holding company to manage the state's assets and investments overseas, has around $5 billion under management, Sharif said. Revenues come from company dividends, and its mandate is to reinvest these in new opportunities abroad.

It is currently invested in 22 companies including banks, financial and credit institutions, mining and other industries.

Speaking to Reuters on the sidelines of the Global Sovereign Wealth Forum in London, Sharif said IFIC was focusing on opportunities in the healthcare industry -- such as pharmaceuticals to tackle cancer and Alzheimer's -- and innovative high-tech industries.

"We are ready to co-invest in the high-tech industry," he said, citing potential opportunities in the car industry around navigation, reducing accidents and cutting air pollution.

"How can we make Iranian roads safer? Can we develop electric cars to reduce pollution?" he said. "Also, Iran is number one in energy waste -- is there a way to reduce this?"

Investments could be made by taking minority stakes in companies or through joint ventures. "We want to transfer knowledge to Iranians," Sharif said.

Europe is a major focus for the fund, which is also working on a way to provide trade finance for Iranian and European companies wanting to do business with each other.

The European Union has lifted nuclear-related economic and financial sanctions on Iran though the United States voted earlier this year to extend sanctions, the latest of several such post nuclear-deal moves that have deterred western banks from financing trade or investment in Iran.

Sharif did not comment on the impact of sanctions on the fund's activities.

"We are also exploring South Korea and Japan," he said. "These countries have a good relationship in oil with Iranians, it means there is no concern over liquidity.

(Reporting by Claire Milhench)
PLAINVILLE  A Bristol man faces charges after police say he was found in a hotel room with another man who overdosed on heroin.



Jacob Shoplick, 22, of 169 Gridley St., Bristol, was charged with illegal sale of heroin, illegal possession of cocaine, first-degree reckless endangerment, tampering/fabricating evidence, illegal possession of fentanyl and possession of drug paraphernalia. He was released after posting $10,000 bond and is scheduled to appear in Bristol Superior Court on Monday.



Police were called to the Advance Motel, 124 New Britain Ave., on March 22 around 7:40 p.m. for a report of a man who had overdosed on drugs. Officers met with Shoplick, who said he went to visit a friend at the motel and found him in the room suffering from an overdose, according to a police report. The man regained consciousness after receiving two doses of naloxone.



Officers noticed empty wax folds that had contained heroin in the room, the report said. The man who overdosed told police he snorted one bag of heroin earlier in the day and then met with Shoplick, who he paid to purchase heroin for him, the report said.



Officers found 11 empty heroin bags in Shoplicks vehicle, according to the report. Shoplick told police the man gave him $80, which he used to buy heroin and cocaine. Police also found two bags of fentanyl in Shoplicks wallet.






WALLINGFORD  Friends and family of Michael Bisnov remember the former police sergeant as witty, smart and generous, qualities recently overshadowed by on the job misconduct allegations.



Bisnov, 34, died on March 19. He had been on paid leave from the Plainville Police Department since January 2016 after an internal affairs investigation alleged he stole prescription pills from the scene of a fatal drug overdose. The Plainville Town Council voted to fire him in February. Although no criminal charges were filed, state police were investigating the claims at the time of his death.



Bisnovs friends said being a police officer was his world.



He took a lot of pride in calling himself a sergeant in the police department, said Richard Abely, of Wallingford, adding that he did everything he could to be an upstanding, positive role model and great police officer.



A Wallingford native, Bisnov graduated from Sheehan High School in 2001 and earned a justice and law administration degree from Western Connecticut State University in 2005.



David Ballough, currently of Tampa, Florida, was his college roommate. He called Bisnov smart, methodical and a talented writer with a great sense of humor.



Every situation he could turn into something funny, Ballough said.



Among his interests, music and poetry ranked high. He had a tattoo of the last line of his favorite Robert Frost poem, Nothing Gold Can Stay.



Bisnov was captain of the colleges rugby team, and in 2005 the team ranked Number 3 in the nation, Ballough said.



Plainville police officials said that Bisnov joined the Plainville Police Department in 2006 and made sergeant in 2012.



In 2010, Bisnov received the Department Life Save Award, along with three other officers, recognizing their actions at the scene of a motorcycle accident in 2009 that saved the riders life. His mother, Devorah Bisnov, said they were extremely close. He was her only son whom she raised as single parent. Bisnov had two sisters on his fathers side.



While she was recuperating from cancer treatments at Skyview Center in Wallingford, she said Bisnov visited her several times a day for a year, cutting her food at mealtimes and attending to her care.



He didnt miss coming up there one day, she said.



Bridgeport Police Officer John J. Topolski attended Western with Bisnov, and requested that Bisnov be the one to pin his police badge to his uniform at his police academy graduation ceremony four years ago.



Anytime Id see him, it was like nothing had changed, Topolski said. In his last couple of months, it was tough to see another officer going through so many trials and tribulations, he said.



Bisnov was godfather to Abelys son, Eric. Despite their closeness, Abely said he feels like I didnt do enough to be there for him, he said. It really wasnt so much a deflation process. It was like somebody popped the balloon of our friendship when he died.



The internal affairs investigation stated Bisnov mishandled evidence when more than 200 prescription pills, including oxycodone, went missing from the scene of an apparent suicide by overdose of a man in Plainville. He was accused of taking the missing pills when the inventoried medication count at the scene did not match what officers found at the police station, where Bisnov brought the pills for disposal.



Bisnov also had been investigated by a Drug Enforcement Administration task force for illegally purchasing drugs in 2011 from an informant in Wallingford while wearing his police uniform.



The stick by which he measured himself as a man, and as a productive member of society, all those things were being eroded by this whole process, Abely said.



Friends denied Bisnov had a dependency issue. After the investigation became public, friends believe the stress contributed to his mental deterioration.



He took so much pride in being an officer, he felt like there was nothing (left), Ballough said.



Bisnovs cause of death was ruled suicide. His funeral services were Monday in Wallingford.



His career is the most important thing to him, his mother said, and he would never, ever do anything to disgrace himself, or me.



LTakores@record-journal.com 203-317-2212 Twitter: @LCTakores






Michael Flynn

One of Mike Flynn's old comments could come back to bite him after the former national security adviser for President Donald Trump offered to be interviewed by the FBI and congressional officials in exchange for immunity.

Flynn's offer, reported by The Wall Street Journal on Thursday, left unclear whether he was in actual legal jeopardy with respect to the FBI's investigation's into the Trump team's ties to Russia.

But back in September, Flynn made it clear how he felt about people who seek immunity.

"When you are given immunity, that means you have probably committed a crime," Flynn said during an interview with MSNBC commentator Chuck Todd.

Michael Flynn to NBC in September: "When you are given immunity, that means you have probably committed a crime." https://t.co/aoDmgQ5hxU  Allan Smith (@akarl_smith) March 30, 2017

At the time, Flynn was referring to the FBI probe into Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server. Five of Clinton's aides were granted some level of immunity in the investigation, which ended with FBI Director James Comey recommending against charging anyone in Clinton's camp.

However, Flynn's fate is yet to be determined. The former Army general resigned in February after less than a month of working for Trump, following reports that he misled Vice President Mike Pence and other US officials about his conversations with Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak. Flynn was allegedly involved in discussions about the possible lifting of Russian sanctions.

So far, Flynn's offer for immunity has attracted no takers, The Journal reported.

NOW WATCH: Trump appears to ignore requests for a handshake with Angela Merkel during their first meeting





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An oil and gas investment company owned by San Antonio billionaire B.J. Red McCombs is suing seven former executives, accusing them of taking trade secrets to launch a competing business and severing relationships that spanned four decades.

The group was driven by greed when they started F4 Resources in Houston using McCombs Energys confidential and proprietary information, according to the lawsuit filed this week in Bexar County district court.

The McCombs business is suing former President William Bill Forney Jr., Chief Financial Officer Ricky Haikin, vice president of operations Larry Wyont, vice president of land Charles Forney and vice president of geology Philip Forney.

William Billy Forney III and John Johnny Forney, who served as McCombs Energy vice presidents, also are named in the suit.

Some of the executives had worked with McCombs for decades. Bill Forney Jr. worked with McCombs for about 44 years. Haikin and Wyonts LinkedIn pages indicate they each worked at McCombs Energy, and apparently its predecessor, for 37 years.

McCombs formed Houston-based McCombs Energy in 1998 by merging his 50 percent interest in the partnership of Forney & McCombs with newly purchased assets of Forney Oil Co., the San Antonio Express-News reported at the time. McCombs also consolidated his other energy holdings into McCombs Energy.

Messages left with McCombs office and with five of the defendants were not immediately returned. Calls to two other defendants went unanswered.

Forbes magazine last week valued McCombs fortune at $1.6 billion, ranking him at No. 1,290 on a list of the worlds billionaires.

The lawsuit, filed Wednesday, says the ex-executives formed F4 Resources in 2015 while still employed by McCombs Energy. F4 Resources was intended to replicate McCombs Energys business model, the suit says.

This is plain from an October 2016 Financing Memorandum prepared by F4 Resources for use in raising a hoped-for $50,000,000.00 in capital, the suit alleges. The document is replete with references to McCombs Energy and its operations.

Included in the document was McCombs Energys proprietary information, such geological information, pricing data and business methods, the suit adds.

The executives betrayed their fiduciary duties by accessing McCombs Energys computer systems and data without effective consent, the lawsuit states. They also charged expenses related to F4 Resources formation to McCombs Energy, the suit says.

Any energy-related transactions which F4 Resources has engaged were corporate opportunities of McCombs Energy, the lawsuit claims.

McCombs Energy wants the court to order the defendants to forfeit any profits and compensation they received from F4 Resources, or have the money placed in a trust. McCombs Energy also says the defendants should be compelled to turn over all compensation they received from the company while they were breaching their fiduciary duties.

At the time McCombs Energy was formed, the Express-News reported McCombs bought more than 30 producing wells and about 10,000 acres of oil and gas leases from Forney & McCombs. McCombs said he would look for exploration opportunities and reserve acquisitions, particularly in the Midwest and the southeast.

McCombs Energy also says it was shortchanged on payouts on its investment in Houston-based GHI Energy, which purchases and sells energy-related credits and petroleum products.

McCombs Energy formed McCombs GHI in 2013 to invest in GHI Energy. McCombs Energy alleges its stake in McCombs GHI shrank when its interests were diverted to Bill Forney Jr. and his sons William Billy Forney III and John Johnny Forney. McCombs Energy says it ended up with a 30 percent ownership interest rather than full ownership in McCombs GHI.

The defendants seized an investment opportunity belonging to McCombs Energy and manipulated it so that McCombs realized a payout disproportionately smaller than its investments, the suit adds.

The lawsuit seeks more than $1 million in actual damages, as well as interest, attorneys fees and court costs.
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Former KENS-TV newscaster Chris Marrou, who retired from television news in 2009 after a highly successful San Antonio career that spanned more than 35 years, is anchoring again.

Marrou, who turns 70 in November, is lending his face, voice and journalism skills to a nonprofit digital-journalism outlet called The Texas Monitor.

"With so many readers now getting their news through social media, we'll be meeting them there with broadcast reports they aren't getting anywhere else," Marrou says in a press release.

RELATED: Chris Marrou delivered his final local newscast nearly 7 years ago

"Few people know what's happening at their statehouse or their city hall  Texas Monitor will fill that void and provide information that politicians don't always want you to know."

Marrou will serve as anchor for Texas Monitor's news desk.

He'll be part of a small team of journalism pros that includes former Dallas Morning News and Washington Times reporter Steve Miller and Trent Seibert, editor and founder of The Texas Monitor.

Seibert's background also is largely in print journalism. Previous jobs included reporting and editing for The Denver Post and the San Diego Union-Tribune. Most recently, he was the investigative producer for Houston's ABC affiliate KTRK-TV.

RELATED: You know you're from San Antonio if ...

"We've officially launched this week and Chris has already started some video work for us!" Seibert wrote in an email.

Videos can be found at texasmonitor.org.

"We are working on getting more produced by our reporting team so that he can really take on the role of anchor," he added.

Marrou is working out of his home in San Antonio, Seibert said. "He has a virtual studio."

"We had a soft launch starting in January that we didn't publicize so we could get the bugs worked out of the site."

The team, according to this week's press announcement, is dedicated to covering "public integrity in state and local government."

RELATED: Longtime S.A. anchorwoman gives surprising insight on 3 decades of S.A. news

"Deep-dive, investigative and enterprise journalism is more necessary than ever," Seibert says in the release. "We launched The Texas Monitor to investigate reports about improper actions of our government officials, and to expose breaches of the public trust."

jjakle@express-news.net
Considering the time Selena Quintanilla spent in town, San Antonio could easily be considered her second home.

The "Bidi Bidi Bom Bom" beauty made the trip from her Corpus Christi home to the Alamo City on a regular basis to either serenade jam-packed concerts at Tejano clubs like the now-shuttered T Town, tend to her budding boutique chain or run errands. She left footsteps around the city before her life was cut short 22 years ago.
If you had just 36 hours in San Antonio, where would you go?

The New York Times made a pit stop in the Alamo City and were able to stuff some of San Antonio's best features into a quick weekend getaway.
LAGOS, March 31 (Reuters) - Nigeria's dollar reserves fell to a two-week low of $30.29 billion on March 29, central bank data showed on Friday.

Nigeria's central bank has been intervening on the currency market this month to support the ailing naira after it effectively devalued it in a bid to narrow the spread with the black market rate.

Nigeria's reserves stood at $29.64 billion a month ago and have risen 16.1 percent since the start of the year but are still far off their peak of $64 billion, hit in August 2008. (Reporting by Oludare Mayowa; Writing by Chijioke Ohuocha; Editing by Andrew Roche)
A man has been arrested and charged for pawning merchandise stolen during multiple recent church burglaries in the Kingwood area.

The Houston Police Department Kingwood Division stated another suspect thought to have been involved was recently arrested and charged for five church burglaries in Tyler.

"The case is still moving forward, just in case there are other suspects involved, but progress is being made," said Officer D.P. Von Quintus. The police department has not released the identities of the two suspects arrested.

Pastor Barb Bartling, of the Holy Comforter Lutheran Church in Kingwood, confirmed two individuals were caught on a surveillance camera burglarizing the church school the morning of Friday, Feb. 10.

"The break-in was through a window in the church school office," Bartling said. "It was a window that was in a courtyard. They targeted primarily electronics: the church soundboard, TV and computer in the sanctuary area. They tried to get into a safe and did damage to the safe and the wall; they did not get the safe though. They went through the building looking for quick-sell items."

Bartling estimated the burglary's cost to the church was approximately $6,000.

"The soundboard itself was $3,000," Bartling said.

"I think it's just sad for any individual or group to be targeted," Bartling said. "It makes me wonder about the desperation of the individuals and/or the lack of guidance they have to commit the crime."

The Kingwood United Methodist Church was another church targeted in recent area church burglaries.

Joe Carbonaro, executive director of Kingwood United Methodist Church, said the break-in occurred Thursday, Feb. 9. The evidence of the burglary was discovered on Friday, Feb. 10.

"They came through a window," Carbonaro said. "They rummaged through desks, kicked open doors, broke into a safe. They stole money. In addition to cash, they did some damage to furniture."

He said the cost of the stolen money and damage also totaled approximately $6,000.

Kingwood United Methodist Church is working with the insurance company to recoup losses due to the burglary.

"To me, it's sad that someone would break into a church, but it's happened and it will not stop us from going forward," Carbonaro said. "It's not going to stop us from carrying out our mission."

The Kingwood First Baptist Church confirmed it was also one of the Kingwood area churches burglarized that weekend.
Following a short delay Thursday morning, Conroe attorney Steve Jackson quickly got to work questioning witnesses to try to prove a statute within The Texas Open Meetings Act is unconstitutional.

Visiting Judge Randy Clapp, sitting in for 221st state District Judge Lisa Michalk who recused herself from the case, scheduled the TOMA hearing after attorney Rusty Hardin filed a 20-page motion to dismiss a charge against Montgomery County Judge Craig Doyal, who is accused of conspiring to circumvent the act in regard to negotiations concerning the November 2015 road bond referendum. Precinct 2 Commissioner Charlie Riley and political consultant Marc Davenport also are on trial for the same Class B misdemeanor charge.

Jackson, who represents Davenport, along with Conroe attorney Doug Atkinson, who represents Riley, joined Hardin's motion to dismiss.

Clapp postponed the trial for the men in order to hear arguments on the constitutionality of the 551.143 statute in the act. The start of the criminal trial hinges on the outcome of the constitutionality hearing.

Section 551.143, which states "a member or group of members of a governmental body commits an offense if the member or group of members knowingly conspires to circumvent this chapter by meeting in numbers less than a quorum for the purpose of secret deliberations in violation of this chapter," is at the center of Hardin's argument that the statute is "vague and overbroad" and criminalizes lawful behavior protected under First Amendment rights to free speech.

Austin-based attorney Jennifer Scott Riggs, paid to testify for the defense, said Section 551.143 of the act has a "chilling" effect on governmental officials in restricting them from talking to other officials on the same board or council and even prevents them from speaking to constituents.

"When you don't allow them to talk about issues, you've gone too far," Riggs said. "They have a vital interest in talking to constituents."

Jackson called that issue "massive."

"So you are prohibiting elected officials from reaching out to constituents," he asked Riggs before asking if her opinion was that the statute is unconstitutional.

"I think it is unconstitutional," she said. "It prohibits an entire category of speech and it does not do so in a way narrowly tailored to affect a legitimate government purpose."

Special prosecutor Joe Larsen asked Riggs about intent and the statute specifically states that there has to be intent to circumvent the act to be in violation of Section 551.143.

She agreed.

The Courier obtained email communications involving Doyal, Riley and Davenport, among others, through an open records request in which the road bond was being discussed. It is unclear what other evidence, if any, regarding deliberations or communications was presented to a grand jury that led to their June 24, 2016, indictments on the charge.

Oak Ridge North Mayor Jim Kuykendall said the statute makes it difficult for him to do business. Kuykendall has been subpoenaed to testify in Doyal, Riley and Davenport's trial depending on Clapp's ruling on Doyal's motion to dismiss.

"It basically neuters everybody from my standpoint," said Kuykendall, noting the advice he is given by Oak Ridge North City Manager Vicky Rudy is to not talk about any issues with others.

However, when Atkinson asked if he was knowledgeable on the act, Kuykendall responded in light of the pending case with Doyal, Riley and Davenport, he has learned much more.

"From what I have learned about this case  I think I have probably been breaking the law, to be honest with you," said Kuykendall, adding that the statute forces the staff to "run the city" making him "just a figurehead."

Special prosecutor Chris Downey questioned Kuykendall about his training on TOMA. According to Kuykendall, he attends the Texas Municipal League meetings each year where city staff members and elected officials receive continuing education regarding the act.

"You have described this act as having a 'darn chilling' effect on how you conduct your daily business," Downey said. "Did you reach out to your city attorney about clarification."

However, Kuykendall said he has mostly only visited with Rudy about the act.

Downey showed Kuykendall Section 551.143 on large boards and asked him if he understood the language in the statute.

"If there is confusion about the (language), we can go find that in the definitions of the act," Downey said. "Sir, you as a mayor when meeting with a constituent to talk about research, your intent isn't to get around the Open Meetings Act, is it?

"Would you agree with me  when you are talking to one person, you aren't in violation of the statute, are you?"

Kuykendall agreed.

The hearing will continue at 9 a.m. Friday.
NEW CANAAN  If youre sailing on Narragansett Bay, are you in Ohio or Rhode Island? What kind of scientists study earthquakes? The Plateau of Tibet is on which continent? These are some of the questions facing local students as they gear up for the Connecticut State National Geographic Bee in New Britain on Friday.

About 10,000 students across the state participate in the bee, which is run by National Geographic. Students in grades four through eight compete in their schools and if they win, they take an online test for qualifying students across the state. The top 100 students from the online exam are invited to participate in the state geography bee.

Fairfield County will have plenty of representation at this years state bee, including four students from Fairfield and four from Darien. Eighth-grader Jackson Hart, a Darien resident, will be competing on behalf of St. Lukes School in New Canaan. Hart has made it to states six times, including twice when he attended Darien public schools.

Hart previously trained with Barbara Ivey, a part-time aide at Middlesex Middle School, when he was at Darien schools. But now trains on his own after school.

Hes very self-driven, Harts mother, Marijke, said. I have to say we dont push him at all.

Hart studies by reading articles from National Geographic. While he said question topics change from year to year, keeping up with the publication helps.

More Information Could you be a geography bee winner? Find out with some sample questions. To walk in Lisbon's Alfama district and to stay at a beach resort in the Algarve, you would travel to what country? A: Portugal The threatened Canada lynx, which has large feet adapted for walking on top of deep snow, lives near Lake of the Woods in which state -Georgia or Minnesota? A: Minnesota The first successful airplane flight, at Kill Devil hills, is commemorated on the quarter of which state - North Carolina or Iowa? A: North Carolina See More Collapse

I know the National Geogrpahic website and their magazines are super helpful, the 14-year-old said. A lot of time they have current events questions, so its helpful to read those to have a sense of whats happening in the world.

Hart said his knack for geography (hes particularly gifted at countries capitals) began by looking at place mats with maps on them when he was younger.

I was pretty fascinated with maps, he said. I found them quite interesting. I would basically pore over those, and it sort of stuck with me. We have place mats with maps on them and eating dinner would always be fun because I could look at maps while I was eating.

Hart said he often resorts to a mental map, a tip Ivey taught him when he was under her tutelage.

Easy questions have hints to give you a general viewpoint of where you are, he said. Having a mental map in your head can really help you to figure out where you are.

Ivey also trains students for the Quiz Bowl competition. Ivey, who has always worked in libraries, has a passion for trivia and has helped train Dariens eight former state geography bee champions. Since the bee began in 1989, Darien has sent students to states nearly every year and has had eight students win the statewide competition.

This year, Ivey is training four Darien students who qualified for the state bee: fourth-grader Rajiv Pujara, from Hindley School; fifth-grader Sophie Bickford, from Holmes; fifth-grader Jack Morningstar, from Tokeneke, and eighth-grader Finlay Kerli, from Middlesex.

Question categories for the bee vary from year to year. Some categories, like U.S. cities, continents and worldwide geography, stay consistent, but National Geographic adds categories based on what the company has highlighted in its recent publications. One year, the company published a book about strange facts that turned into a category for that years bee.

Its a wide variety of subjects, said Ivey, who is in her 27th year helping students train. Geography is hard because its in everything we do. ... Theres a lot to learn. If the kids are passionate about it, its easy.

ekayata@hearstmedia

ct.com; @erin_kayata
BAD AXE  Double the summertime population means the need for emergency services will soon also double in the Port Austin area.

The current Emergency Medical Technical (EMT) shortage in Huron County does not fit into that equation, which could mean the difference between life or death.

Hume Township and ambulance officials approached the Huron County Board of Commissioners about the dilemma Wednesday.

We just dont have the staff, said Julia Chaperon, office manager at Central Huron Ambulance,

Were trying to hire more people. Thats a big issue in all of Huron County, not just at Central Huron.

Central Huron Ambulance serves the City of Bad Axe, Colfax, Dwight, Hume, Kinde, Lincoln, Meade, Pointe Aux Barques, Sheridan, Sigel, Verona and Port Austin townships, and the Village of Port Austin.

The shortage, according to Hume Township Supervisor Jim Roland, is in Hume, Port Austin and Pointe Aux Barques townships, the village of Port Austin, south of Port Austin and Grindstone City.

Central Huron Ambulance has a location in Port Austin.

Were having a problem staffing there, and its just hard getting anyone to do it, Chaperon said. Its not enough money to go and sit there.

The problem is getting people to work 12-hour shifts at low pay  and possibly no pay if they do not go on runs, Roland said.

Chaperon told the Tribune that at the Central Huron Ambulance Port Austin location, EMT basics are paid $3 per hour stand-by pay, plus $37.74 per run.

Most EMTs work other jobs, and there are no benefits, Chaperon said. They often move on to work for hospitals in order to gain benefits, Chaperon said.

The day of ambulance volunteers are darned near over, Roland said.

Roland told the county board that he would like to see the county take over ambulance services and charge between 0.5 and 1 mill for it. A mill in Hume Township brings $60,000 in tax revenue.

That would allow an attractive pay increase, he said.

On weeknights, there is no service from Port Austin, he said, and the ambulance has to come from Bad Axe.

This takes 20 to 25 minutes more to get to patients, which can be costly in the case of stroke, heart attack and trauma.

It could be life or death for some people, Roland said.

Roland consulted the township attorney regarding liability, and said that Central Huron Ambulance would be liable.

Commissioner Steve Vaughan said that Hume Township should pay a special assessment for ambulance service.

You have an area that you cannot support your ambulance service, he said. So, therefore, you need to use your assets that you have there to create an environment where it is logical and to where it will work.

Board Chair Sami Khoury suggested that Hume Township band together with other nearby municipalities to apply for state funding.

Commissioner John A. Nugent said that the Huron County Planning Commission should be advised of the situation as they draft the Huron County Master Plan.

Commissioner Ron Wruble suggested a countywide ambulance board with members of each ambulance service.

Commissioner John L. Bodis said that the issue is that of the governing board of the ambulance service, rather than the board of commissioners.

Floyd Stroschein, board member for Central Huron Ambulance, was in the audience. He noted that Central Huron Ambulance serves nearly half the county. He said it would cost more to pay people full-time than what the service earns.

Officials also discussed contracting with Mobile Medical Response out of Tuscola and Sanilac counties.

Roland said that he would consult with Caseville-area ambulance services for coverage.

The responsibility lies with everybody, Roland said.
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STAMFORD  Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents trusted Carmelino Lopez Thursday to relinquish his home and drive to New York to meet them at John F. Kennedy International Airport.

There the agents planned to take Lopez to a private room, sparing him the indignity of removing his ankle monitor in public, before seeing him to the boarding gate.

It was, perhaps, a gesture of respect for the dutiful life Lopez has led since he entered the United States illegally when he was 25, a risk he considered worth escaping the poverty  and anarchy  of his native Guatemala.

ICE has known for nine years that Lopez, now 46, was an undocumented immigrant living in Stamford. But after Donald Trump became president in January, ICE began deporting not just criminals, as policy dictated for many years, but anyone living in the country illegally.

Shawn Neudauer, public affairs officer for ICE in New England, said Lopez has no criminal record but was deported because he has received all appropriate process through the immigration courts.

So Lopez headed back to Guatemala, where government corruption has grown worse, the economy is collapsed and murderous gangs terrorize citizens.

The gangs come for you. When they know you have been in America, they think you are rich, Lopez said through an interpreter at the offices of The Advocate last month. They use violence to steal from you and extort from your family.

People who have lived in such fear appreciate the rule of law in America, he said. In Stamford, he worked as a house painter for American employers, paid taxes and contributed to social security.

America is very beautiful. It has so much to offer, Lopez said. Once I was here, I followed all that the law commanded me to do, and trusted in God.

Chilling visit

For much of his time in this country, Lopez checked in twice a year with the ICE office in Hartford. The hour-long visits were always routine - until March 1.

That day ICE agents confiscated his passport and papers from the Guatemalan consulate, Lopez said. Then they led him to another office a few blocks away, where he was fitted with an ankle monitor.

He was instructed to return to Hartford on March 15 with a plane ticket to Guatemala dated no later than March 31.

Many people cut off the ankle monitor and run, Lopez said, but that was not his choice.

After living here so long, I am extremely saddened because I put everything into working. I felt strong and I was happy that I could provide for my family, he said. I wish I could stay to show the American government who I am.

Lopez paid a lawyer to investigate whether the U.S. government would consider him a refugee and grant him asylum. A petition was filed but it was denied.

Basically the immigration people said yes, we believe its true what you face in Guatemala, but its also true for hundreds of thousands of your countrymen, so the answer is sorry, no, said Lopezs friend, Gene Waggaman of Stamford.

The two met a dozen years ago, when Lopez was part of a crew hired to paint Waggamans house. Waggaman said he was impressed by Lopezs character and work ethic, and their families grew close.

So Waggaman was quick to help when, nine years ago, Lopez was pulled over one evening in New Canaan for having a broken tail light.

The police officer asked for a drivers license. Lopez didnt have one. The officer contacted ICE and Lopez was sent to a federal detention center in Massachusetts, where Waggaman drove to pay his bond and return him to Stamford.

Thats when the check-ins with ICE began. If he had not had a broken tail light, ICE might never have known he existed.

I understand why immigration is controversial, but this is the type of individual we want to keep, said Waggaman, a self-described card-carrying Republican. Yes, he snuck into the country, but since then he has done everything the U.S. government asked of him. For all that time, the one thing they have not asked is for him to leave.

Mixed message

The nations policies on undocumented immigrants have been ambiguous and contradictory, Waggaman said. Lopez, for example, was just issued a renewal of his workers permit.

I truly understand the term illegal. They are; they knew it when coming here, Waggaman said. But there is an injustice in allowing them to come and stay, and then suddenly saying, OK, now lets get them out.

Lopez arrived in the 1990s, when the number of undocumented immigrants began a rapid rise, peaking in 2007 at 12.2 million, or 4 percent of the U.S. population, according to the nonpartisan Pew Research Center.

Since then the number has fallen to 3.5 percent of the population, with most living here 10 years or more.

The nation has looked the other way because undocumented immigrants are a cheap source of labor for American employers, Waggaman said.

We allowed it for 30 years; that changed everything, he said. Of course illegal immigration is wrong. Of course we want to have control over our borders. But once you fail to do that, you have a question of humanity. Thats the part that becomes un-American.

Those who arrive illegally are particularly desperate, he said.

Visa beyond reach

When Lopez left the Republic of Guatemala, a small nation bordering southern Mexico, four decades of civil war had just ended. Military leaders had amassed significant power, and were using it to enrich themselves.

Their unscrupulous government left people desolate. Into the lawlessness stepped gangs that assaulted, kidnapped, maimed and murdered to get what they wanted.

You need a visa to come to America from Guatemala, but the people who give out the visas are corrupt. Even the police are involved, Lopez said. You have to own land to get one. You have to be wealthy. Our family was poor, so it was impossible.

Lopez and his mother saved $3,800 to pay a smuggler to take him to America, hoping he could provide for them all. Lopez set out with a group that alternately walked and caught bus rides into Mexico, entering the United States at Brownsville, Texas.

He made his way to Stamford, where a relative was living.

Here, there was always work, Lopez said, but that will not be so in Guatemala. He worries about the family members who depend on his earnings.

Waggaman said Lopezs lawyer offered bone-chilling advice when he left.

She told Carmelino that when he witnesses violence, make a video as evidence, and after he has a few, go to the Mexican border and contact her so she can file a new petition for asylum, Waggaman said.

For Lopez, one thing remains.

I trust that God has a purpose for me, he said.

The United States must find a fairer way to manage the fallout of long-ambiguous policies concerning law-abiding, undocumented immigrants, Waggaman said.

After years of  allowing those who came here to settle into productive lives, we round em up and ship em out? he said. Not in my America.

angela.carella@scni.com; 203-964-2296; stamfordadvocate.com/angelacarella
Highlighting an essential service that helps seniors across Illinois, state Rep. Katie Stuart, D-Edwardsville, delivered Meals on Wheels to residents throughout the community Friday, March 24, with volunteers from Main Street Community Center.

Meals on Wheels is a critical program that deserves support from the state and our local community, Stuart said.

Many seniors depend on these meals to survive and stay in their home, which is why we need to ensure funding for them.

Stuart dropped off meals to seniors Friday morning through Main Street Community Center, a non-profit based in Edwardsville that provides health screenings, educational seminars and other senior services.

The organization is in need of volunteers to assist with its various programs including Meals on Wheels.

Those interested in helping can call the Main Street Community Center at 656-0300 to learn more.

I encourage residents to contact the Main Street Community Center and schedule a time to lend a helping hand, Stuart said.

Its an opportunity to meet neighbors, provide an essential service, and give back to the community.

Stuart will also be hosting "Coffee with Katie" at Main Street Community Center Tuesday, April 18 from 10 a.m. to 11 a.m.

She will answer questions and lead a conversation about state and local issues.

For more information, contact Stuarts full-time constituent service office at 618-365-6650 or email repkatiestuart@gmail.com.
MONTREAL, QUEBEC--(Marketwired - Mar 31, 2017) - Oceanic Iron Ore Corp. (TSX VENTURE:FEO) ("Oceanic", or the "Company") is pleased to announce receipt of an Engineering Procurement and Construction proposal "EPC Proposal" originating from Power Construction Corporation of China's subsidiary company Power China Huadong Engineering Company. ("Power China"). Preparation of the EPC Proposal has been supported by SNC-Lavalin Inc.

Su Qian, Business Development Manager, Power China Americas indicated: "We are pleased to submit our proposal to Oceanic in respect of further development of the Hopes Advance project. The effort which has been supported in cooperation by SNC-Lavalin Inc. provides a vivid example of the potential for company to company and nation to nation bilateral cooperation envisioned by President Xi and Prime Minister Trudeau during the G20 summit that was held in Hangzhou during the fall of 2016. Power China remains committed to further development of Oceanic's Hopes Advance project."

The EPC Proposal's scope of work, construction methodology, and the proposed capital costs, are not materially different from the conclusions derived in the Company's previously announced pre-feasibility study. They however remain subject to further review, refinement, and optimization, as well as negotiation in respect of a future EPC contract. The EPC proposal recommends advancing the project to a Front End Engineering Design ("FEED") stage where additional detail can be undertaken and applied in support of the future requirements for project financing.

Alan Gorman, President CEO added: "Oceanic has been impressed with the technical depth of Power China applied to the preparation of its proposal, and the cooperative support provided by SNC-Lavalin Inc., which has validated the conclusions derived in the Company's pre-feasibility study and are appreciative of the preliminary discussions that have been ongoing in respect of future off-take and financing. We have growing confidence that the relationship that has been developing with Power China is one that has the potential to crystallize shareholder value as it expands further with additional development within a market context that has seen a significant improvement in the benchmark pricing for iron ore over the course of the past year."

During the latter half of March as the integration of the Power China and SNC-Lavalin work was completed, Power China and Oceanic have continued discussions commenced in January with additional major Chinese banking institutions, in order to introduce the Hopes Advance project to these organizations with a forward looking view aimed at project financing arrangements. Power China and the Company will undertake a cooperative effort to secure funding for the FEED stage, among the next steps required to develop the Hopes Advance project further as the project's profile continues to be brought into focus with potential investors, off takers, and financing institutions.

With the recent decision of the Canadian government to participate in the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank ("AIIB"), Power China has proposed the Hopes Advance project for consideration at the scheduled One Belt One Road summit occurring this May in Beijing PRC.

About Power China:

The Power Construction Corporation of China was founded in September 2011. It provides a comprehensive and full-range of services from planning, investigation, designing, consulting, civil works construction to M&E installation and manufacturing services in the fields of hydropower, thermal power, new energy and infrastructure. Its business also extends into real estate, investment, finance, and O&M services.

The vision of Power China is to become a top global enterprise in renewable energy and the development of hydropower resources, a key player in the infrastructure sector, and a driving force in China's power and water conservancy industries, as well as an important participant in real estate development and operations.

Power China boasts world-leading EPC services in the development of hydropower, water works, thermal power, new energy, and transmission and distribution projects, in addition to the achievements in the fields of infrastructure, equipment manufacturing, real estate and investment.

Power China has world-class construction capacity, including the annual capacity of 300 million m3 of earth and rock cutting, 30 million m3 of concrete placement, 15,000 MW of installation of turbine-generator units, 1-million-ton of metal fabrication works, 5-million m3 of foundation grouting as well as 540,000 m3 of construction of impervious walls.

Power China possesses state-of-the-art technology in dam engineering and construction, installation of turbine-generator units, foundation design, investigation and construction of extra-large underground caverns, investigation, engineering and treatment of high earth/rock slopes, dredging and hydraulic fill works, construction of runways in airports, design and construction of thermal and hydropower plants, design and installation of power grids, and related equipment and hydraulic machinery.

Power China also has first-class capacity of scientific and technological innovation in hydropower, thermal power, and power transmission and transformation.

By the end of 2015, Power China had total assets of USD 77.1 billion and 200,000 employees. The annual revenue in 2015 was USD 43.6 billion. By the end of 2015, Power China performed 1,863 overseas projects in 116 countries in the fields of engineering construction, design consultation and equipment manufacturing. Power China ranked 253rd in the Fortune 500 in 2015.

OCEANIC IRON ORE CORP. (www.oceanicironore.com)

On behalf of the Board of Directors

Alan Gorman, President and Chief Executive Officer

This news release includes certain "Forward-Looking Statements" as that term is used in applicable securities law. All statements included herein, other than statements of historical fact, including, without limitation, statements regarding potential mineralization and resources, exploration results, and future plans and objectives of Oceanic Iron Ore Corp. ("Oceanic", or the "Company"), are forward-looking statements that involve various risks and uncertainties. In certain cases, forward-looking statements can be identified by the use of words such as "plans", "expects" or "does not expect", "scheduled", "believes", or variations of such words and phrases or statements that certain actions, events or results "potentially", "may", "could", "would", "might" or "will" be taken, occur or be achieved. There can be no assurance that such statements will prove to be accurate, and actual results could differ materially from those expressed or implied by such statements. Forward-looking statements are based on certain assumptions that management believes are reasonable at the time they are made.

In making the forward-looking statements in this presentation, the Company has applied several material assumptions, including, but not limited to, the assumption that: (1) there being no significant disruptions affecting operations, whether due to labour/supply disruptions, damage to equipment or otherwise; (2) permitting, development, expansion and power supply proceeding on a basis consistent with the Company's current expectations; (3) certain price assumptions for iron ore; (4) prices for availability of natural gas, fuel oil, electricity, parts and equipment and other key supplies remaining consistent with current levels; (5) the accuracy of current mineral resource estimates on the Company's property; and (6) labour and material costs increasing on a basis consistent with the Company's current expectations. Important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from the Company's expectations are disclosed under the heading "Risks and Uncertainties " in the Company's MD&A filed February 23, 2017 (a copy of which is publicly available on SEDAR at www.sedar.com under the Company's profile) and elsewhere in documents filed from time to time, including MD&A, with the TSX Venture Exchange and other regulatory authorities. Such factors include, among others, risks related to the ability of the Company to obtain necessary financing and adequate insurance; the economy generally; fluctuations in the currency markets; fluctuations in the spot and forward price of iron ore or certain other commodities (e.g., diesel fuel and electricity); changes in interest rates; disruption to the credit markets and delays in obtaining financing; the possibility of cost overruns or unanticipated expenses; employee relations. Accordingly, readers are advised not to place undue reliance on Forward-Looking Statements. Except as required under applicable securities legislation, the Company undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise Forward-Looking Statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.
Charges against a former Uber driver charged with sexually assaulting a passenger in north Houston in December were dropped Friday, his lawyer said.

Qahtan Ghassan Talib, 35, was accused of groping an intoxicated woman as he took her home. A Harris County grand jury declined to indict him.
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Local authorities are searching for a 13-year-old girl who may be with a 22-year-old man and has been missing from her home on the far Northwest Side since Wednesday, Bexar County officials said.

Gabriella Sanders, 13, is believed to be with Logan Carter, a white male in a black Subaru with Vermont license plates reading GBT894.
A man who was fatally shot early Wednesday in a Northeast Side mobile home park was identified by authorities as Mark Authur Hughes.

Hughes, 29, was found with multiple gunshot wounds at 12:30 a.m. in the 6700 block of Walzem Road, according to the Bexar County Medical Examiner.
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Norma Rios of San Antonio claimed the $27.25 million jackpot prize won in the Lotto Texas drawing held on March 25.

Rios selected the cash value option and will receive $18 million, according to a press release from the Texas lottery.

The Texas Lottery announced Sunday that the winning ticket was sold at the H-E-B at 2130 Culebra Road on the West Side. The H-E-B is eligible for a $272,500 retailer bonus.

RELATED: Texas Lottery introduces new Spurs scratch ticket

The object of Lotto Texas is to pick six numbers between 1-54, with prizes ranging from $3 to the amount of the jackpot, in this case $27.25 million, depending on the number of correct picks. Saturday nights winning numbers were 21, 25, 27, 30, 36 and 48.

The Texas Lottery has raised more than $25 billion in revenue for good causes in the state of Texas since 1992, according to its official website.

qramirez@express-news.net

Twitter: @quixem
North Texas law enforcement is on the hunt for three masked bandits who they say robbed an unsuspecting elementary school early Monday.

Around 2 a.m. March 27, three middle- or high-school-aged boys broke into Freedom Elementary School in Fort Worth, police said.
House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi warned Republicans on Thursday against efforts to repeal or "sabotage" Obamacare, as House Speaker Paul Ryan said the GOP remained committed to repeal.

The dueling words at back-to-back news conferences came as Republicans remained unable  for now  to agree on a plan to repeal and replace key parts of the Affordable Care Act that would be able to survive a House vote.

Despite that lack of agreement, Ryan on Thursday flatly ruled out working with Democrats to pass a replacement for Obamacare.

"The Democrats aren't for repealing Obamacare," Ryan said. "We are."

Less than an hour earlier, Pelosi said: "They must take repeal off the table, and they must stop sabotaging the Affordable Care Act."

"We're going to resist repeal," Pelosi said.

The California congresswoman also accused the GOP of not sharing a belief that "health care is a right" for all Americans.

Pelosi said individual health plan premiums and deductibles could increase dramatically, by 35 percent to 40 percent above current levels, if the Republicans did two things to "sabotage" Obamacare.

One would be killing the ACA mandate that most Americans have insurance or pay a fine. The second would be if GOP lawmakers refuse to continue funding subsidies to insurers that lower out-of-pocket costs for millions of Americans.

Either move, warned Pelosi, would be "totally irresponsible."

"But they want it to be a self-fulfilling prophecy," she said.

Pelosi was referring to the fact that President Donald Trump and Republicans in Congress have repeatedly claimed that Obamacare is a failure and causing Americans harm.

Pelosi and other Democrats strongly dispute that claim, and say the ACA needs to be improved, not gutted.

Ryan, R-Wis., said Wednesday that Obamacare will cause a "collapse" of the American health-care system.



He pointed to double-digit percentage increases in premiums, insurance plans exiting the marketplace and the fact that one-third of Americans have just one insurer to choose from if they want an individual plan.

Story continues

"It's really important that we do something to fix this problem," Ryan said.

But he again said, "I'm not going to put some kind of artificial deadline" on getting a replacement plan done.



Ryan and the Trump administration suffered a humiliating setback in the House last week when they canceled, at the last minute, a vote on their replacement plan, the American Health Care Act.

The bill would have repealed Obamacare taxes, ended out-of-pocket cost subsidies, lowered federal funding of aid that reduces premiums for individual plan customers, and scaled back federal Medicaid spending.

The bill was headed to defeat because of opposition from around 30 Republicans. Some of them said the bill went too far, others not far enough in rolling back provisions in the Affordable Care Act.

Polls showed that the public overwhelmingly opposed the bill, which was projected to lead to 14 million more Americans becoming uninsured next year.

Pelosi on Thursday said Republicans had a "disastrous performance last week."

"The bill was dead. So the American people had spoken: they did not want to repeal the Affordable Care Act," Pelosi said.

Despite the fact that there were moderates among the GOP lawmakers who planned to vote against the bill, Trump has repeatedly blamed the House Freedom Caucus, a group of conservative Republicans, for the failure.

Trump did so again Thursday.

Asked about Trump singling out the caucus, Ryan said: "He's just expressing his frustration."

"You all know that he does that in various forms, including Twitter," Ryan said.

"I understand the president's frustration," Ryan said. "About 90 percent of our conference is in favor of our bill, and 10 percent" are not, he said.

"What I encourage our members to do is keep talking until we get this done, to pass this," Ryan said.

That talking has not gone well, so far.

On Wednesday, members of the moderate Tuesday Group were reportedly resentful that they were being prodded to meet with conservative Republicans to discuss how the repeal-and-replacement effort could move forward.

Axios.com reported that a planned meeting between the Tuesday Group and two groups of conservatives was supposed to occur, but never happened.

A White House source quoted by Axios said, "Welcome to my life the last two weeks. ... It's such a divided conference at the moment it's hard to get things done."
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Perennially judged by the Texas Department of Transportation as the most congested highway in Bexar County and one of the 100 worst in the state, U.S. 281 at Loop 1604 and its daily mass of 100,000 vehicles have come to symbolize both San Antonios stunning growth and lack of adequate urban infrastructure planning.

But relief is on the horizon.

Sitting on a stage in the parking lot of Mattress Firm, surrounded by Stone Oak suburban sprawl and morning traffic, Gov. Greg Abbott on Friday joined political leaders to celebrate the start of a $500 million, 5-year expansion of U.S. 281 north of Loop 1604.

The reason these roads behind me are clogged, said Abbott to a friendly crowd of supporters and neon-green vested TxDOT staff, is due to San Antonios dynamic economy. Lets give it up for the workers who built these roads.

Texas Transportation Commissioner Bruce Bugg drew applause when he said: San Antonio, this is what youve been waiting for, and youve been waiting for a very long time.

The expansion of U.S. 281 will come in two phases.

The first, costing $192 million and running from Loop 1604 to Stone Oak Parkway, will start in May and is scheduled to be completed in 2020.

The second, costing about $300 million and stretching from Stone Oak to the Comal County line, will start when the first phase finishes and last until about 2022, according to TxDOT.

The construction will create six primary lanes (three each going north and south) and six frontage road lanes (also three, north and south). Two of those primary lanes will be for High Occupancy Vehicles. TxDOT said the frontage roads will include bicycle and pedestrian facilities and that HOV lanes will connect directly to VIAs new 281 Park-and-Ride station being built at Stone Oak Parkway.

None of the roads will be tolled.

Bexar County Commissioner Kevin Wolff also attended and supports the U.S. 281 expansion, but he lamented privately that a half-billion dollars would be spent only on more traditional roads.

As a community we just havent matured into asking what other means of transportation there are, Wolff said. Not one word was mentioned about mass transit. It was a major fight just to get HOV lanes. A lot of people really fought them.

Christine Drennon, director of the urban studies program at Trinity University, said the massive highway project exemplified a 1950s mentality that is directed for a certain demographic and that the half-billion dollars could be better spent on the neglected inner-city neighborhoods of San Antonio.

Im concerned about where we put our resources as a city, Drennon said. Other cities like Houston and Dallas are trying transportation alternatives, and we still opt not to.

Abbott cited the enormous approval of Texas voters in 2015 for Proposition 7, a constitutional amendment that could direct at least $3-4 billion annually to the state highway fund for 10 to 15 years and partially funded the U.S. 281 project. None of the money, however, can go to toll roads, rail or mass transit.

TxDOT spends more than 95 percent of its $12 billion budget on highway planning, construction, maintenance and debt.

Local businesses and commuters are bracing for what they hope will not be five years of detours and angst.

Wow, wow, said Morgan Mehta, owner of Thyme for Lunch on Stone Oak Parkway. Ive just signed a three-year lease. I cant get out of it. I hope the construction doesnt impact us. Were only open for lunch.

TxDOT spokesman Josh Donat said: Im sure well have some major closures that run overnight or last through a weekend, but nothing lengthy that would bring traffic down to a single lane during construction. We are working hard to maintain the same level of service that exists today.

U.S. 281 in San Antonio opened for traffic in 1978. The federal highway runs from the Mexican border in the Rio Grande Valley to the Canadian border near Dunseith, North Dakota.

bselcraig@express-news.net
Police arrested a 55-year-old Central Texas man this week accused in the kidnapping and sexual assault of a woman and one of her children, according to a news release and media reports.

Danny Cude was initially arrested Tuesday on a charge of aggravated sexual assault and aggravated kidnapping.

RELATED: Witness: driver who hit church bus said he was texting

The Burnet Police Department said in a news release that Cude entered an apartment unit on Tuesday where a woman and her two small children were inside. He then allegedly sexually assaulted the woman several times and threatened to kill her and her children while placing a knife to the womans throat, the news release said.

When police arrived at the scene, the woman and her two children were standing at the front door with Cude standing behind them with the knife. He was arrested after police talked him down, according to the news release.

I am very proud of the officers on this call, BPD Chief Paul Nelson told the Burnet Bulletin. They were able to keep the crime scene secured and gather important information on the case for investigators.

The Burnet Bulletin reported Thursday that police investigating the case determined Cude had allegedly sexually assaulted one of the womans children. This led them to add two more felony charges to his case: Aggravated sexual assault of a child and burglary of a habitation with intent to commit aggravated sexual assault.

RELATED: SAPD: Fight, stabbing in moving vehicle on 410 spills over onto South Side street

Cude has been arrested on other criminal charges prior to this incident.

The Texas Department of Public Safety said Cude was previously charged with attempted to commit sexual assault on a 25-year-old woman in the 1990s. He was sentenced to seven years in prison and has since had to register as a sex offender.

The Burnet newspaper lists other charges from his criminal past, such as failure to register as a sex offender.

Text "Breaking" to 48421 for breaking news alerts from mySA.com

twhite@mysa.com

Twitter: @tylerlwhite
(Adds contract with Boeing)

By Lidia Kelly

WARSAW, March 31 (Reuters) - Poland expects to sign a deal worth up to $7.6 billion with U.S. firm Raytheon to buy eight Patriot missile defence systems by the end of the year, Defence Minister Antoni Macierewicz said on Friday.

Warsaw sees the deal as central to a thorough modernisation of its armed forces by 2023, in light of what Macierewicz called "growing aggression and a growing threat from the East."

NATO member Poland has sped up efforts to overhaul its military following Russia's annexation of Ukraine's Crimea peninsula in 2014 and in response to Moscow's renewed military and political assertiveness in the region.

"Those systems allow us to guarantee the security of the Polish state," Macierewicz told a news conference.

The contract still requires approval from the U.S. Congress, as it involves a purchase of advanced military technology for which special permission must be obtained.

"It's premature to say that it is all done," Bill Schmieder, Raytheon's head for Europe, told the same briefing. "But we have very high hopes that the process will proceed normally."

The Patriot mobile missile defence interceptors are designed to detect, track and engage unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), cruise missiles and short-range or tactical ballistic missiles.

Poland should receive the first of the Patriot systems within two years of signing the contract, Macierewicz said. All of the units would come with the Integrated Battle Command System (IBCS), designed to give commanders a better perspective of their operating environment to make better informed decisions.

Starting with the delivery of the third system, the Patriots will also be equipped with 360-degree surveillance radars.

Poland spends about 2 percent of its gross domestic product on defence, in line with NATO's target. But some military officials are pressing for more, saying nearly two-thirds of hardware dates from the era when the country was in the Moscow-led Warsaw Pact.

Later on Friday, the Defence Ministry said it had also signed a $523.6 million agreement with Boeing to supply three 737-800 airliners for the use of senior Polish state officials.

Two aircraft will be new and one used. The used aircraft will be delivered this year and the two new airplanes in 2020. (Additional reporting by Anna Koper; Writing by Lidia Kelly; Editing by Mark Trevelyan)
Re: Leonard outshines King again, Sports, Tuesday:

Mike Finger nailed it in this column!

However, it appeared to me that when the King  LeBron James  literally pushed Kawhi Leonard out of the way to drive to the basket, it so startled Leonard in its flagrant audacity that he instinctively grabbed the Kings jersey, as in You cant do that; come back here!

Look at the replay.

Bill Sims

Weary of politics

I am as fatigued by politics and public bickering as the next person.

However, how does an article about two guys redoing an old house (Historic, glamorous Monte Vista home getting a refresh, March 17) and a article on roller skating (A spin back in time, March 28) make for front-page news?

Possibly I answered my own question with the opening line.

Thomas Short

Same care for all

I have a foolproof way for Congress to write a health care bill everyone will approve. It should be mandatory that all senators and representatives be covered by the same medical health care bill that is passed. They certainly can afford it, and if they cannot, I am sure they can go on Medicaid in their respective states.

I cannot find any justifiable reason they should not be covered by the same health care as everyone else. If this stipulation was in force when Obamacare was passed, I can say unequivocally that Obamacare would have been a completely different bill.

I think it is up to each American citizen to contact his senators and representative and demand that they also be covered by the health care bill they pass!

Rita Downing

Walk in our shoes

I think it would be a good idea if we asked the House and the Senate, should they try again at new legislation, to repeal their health insurance and join the rest of us in whatever plan they replace the Affordable Care Act with.

Romy Vela, Sequin

Huge choke  sad

After another bitter election cycle, the GOP has clear majorities in the House and the Senate, as well as the presidency. Republicans can pass or repeal whatever laws they wish by a simple majority. And nobody can stop them  not the feared Democrats. Nobody. Except for themselves, it seems.

After screaming for repeal and replace of Obamacare for over seven years, the GOP failed to make it happen. Huge choke. The simple reason? They could not agree on how much their wealthy, white ruling class hates the working class of Americans. They could not agree on how big tax cuts for millionaires would be; how big tax cuts for corporations would be; to what level health services provided under Obamacare would be denied to people with no other options; and, of course, how many elderly and children who need Medicaid for basic health services would be tossed off the program. They could not agree on their desired level of greed. Sad! as President Trump tweets.

If the Mexican army that surrounded the Alamo with a supermajority had been Republicans, they would have shot themselves in the foot and back-stabbed themselves so many times that Jim Bowie, Davy Crockett and their fellow patriots would have won the battle and annexed all of Mexico.

Clark A. Roberts, Bulverde

Faith on the line

I am writing my first letter to the editor because, as a person of faith, I cannot remain silent. I have been a Christian since I was a child and have served the church in many ways. The last sentence was to demonstrate that I am not using my faith as a political stunt.

The past few months have been a roller coaster for human rights in our country. Immigrants, refugees, Muslims, Jews and undocumented people have all been targeted and ostracized by discriminatory policies like the refugee and Muslim ban. The U.S. has a rich history of welcoming immigrants and providing asylum for those at risk in their home countries. Now in Texas, women and children escaping violence in their homeland are being rejected at our border. As people of faith, we must speak out against such actions and live as we are called, to welcome the stranger.

There are two simple ways individuals can demonstrate their faith to those who are targeted. Support organizations standing with refugees and immigrants, such as the Interfaith Welcome Coalition, the Center for Refugee Services, RAICES and Catholic Charities. Call your senators and representatives to tell them you oppose the executive orders. Let them know you welcome refugees and immigrants in your community.

Staying silent is not an option  not when the safety of millions is on the line, as well as your faith.

Lenna Baxter

Use our money

Re: What did Jesus say? Your Turn, Tuesday:

All citizens want the government to reflect our specific values. That is the primary basis of our individual political views.

This Christian wants the government to care about the poor as Jesus did and directed.

The preamble to the Constitution states, as a reason for its existence, to promote the general welfare.

That is why I consider it appropriate that we use our money, not other peoples money to promote the general welfare.

Dave Searcey
Re: Thousands in Russia protest government corruption, Nation & World, Monday:

Its nice to see that Russia has as many crooks in their government as we have in ours.

Michael B. White

Improve Obamacare

The nation breathed a sigh of relief when Congress gave up (for now) on the Trump/Ryan effort to repeal and replace Obamacare. Now we should all take a deep breath and begin with steps to improve Obamacare.

A new Pew Research Poll found that 60 percent of Americans think it is the responsibility of government to guarantee affordable health care for all Americans. Im with them. The main problem with Obamacare is that the for-profit insurance companies have too much control. They set the sky-high premiums, deductibles and copays that many people cant afford.

We can gradually move away from this for-profit insurance system to a more sensible, efficient and cost-effective single-payer system that would be like Medicare or VA medical coverage.

The starting point would be a new public option, hopefully to begin in 2018 or soon after, that would give people a choice. The public option would be paid for in a way similar to Medicare. And the public-option coverage would be available in all counties in all 50 states, regardless of whether the private for-profit insurance companies offer coverage or not.

Obamacare has saved the lives of millions of Americans. We dont need to get rid of it. Just improve it. If this Congress wont do the job, we must elect a new Congress that will in 2018.

David Smith, Bulverde

Not patriotism

Re: Professional duty, Your Turn, March 27:

This letter writer either lives in a dark alternative world or is willfully blind to the harmful nonsense emanating from the White House. She accuses the Express-News of being biased because it truthfully depicts the inanity of Donald Trump instead of the right-wing propaganda she seemingly prefers. She likewise lambastes your paper for not promoting patriotism.

She must be reminded that patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel. Dont wrap yourself with the flag unless you have the well-being of all Americans as your goal. The minority-elected tweeter in chief himself stated that the media would print nasty things about him. That could be avoided if he would just stop being so openly nasty himself.

Carlos Valle Jr., Laredo

Mental indigestion

Re: Speech often sloppy, doncha think? Larry P. Johnson, Another View, March 25:

Thank you for singing my song! Im convinced we have lost the ability to pronounce many words correctly. Im convinced were in the midst of the era of foul vowels. We hear regularly that this is the biggest sell of the year. Did a get lost?

As if that werent bad enough, there is fir instead of for, and all pro words are pronounced per. Gracious, all my speech training is suffering from severe mental indigestion.

Keep up the good work, although we who care about such things are obviously in a very small minority.

Chester King
President Trump signed an executive order this week that he says will slash "job-killing" environmental regulations, and that's probably true in some cases. But many of those rules also helped keep our air and water clean, and they should not be discarded lightly.

That's especially true in places like Southeast Texas, which have made a lot of progress on reducing air and water pollution. Before the advent of modern environmental rules, the air here was often unfit to breathe and fish couldn't live in some waters.

Those conditions are a distant memory now. They need to remain in the past.

Trump's executive order was primarily designed to help the coal industry, but he has promised other changes for the Environmental Protection Agency that could affect petrochemical industries. His first federal budget proposes cutting 31 percent of the EPA's budget and 21 percent of its staff. If that budget is enacted, the agency would clearly be doing a lot less of its mission.

It goes without saying that petrochemical plants should not be burdened with regulations that don't really impact the environment or have wildly disproportionate costs. That just makes their products more expensive for consumers and fuels public cynicism about bureaucratic meddling.

But few industries welcome regulations, even sensible ones. Without firm but fair laws, our environment would be ravaged as it is in Third World counties that do not have these protections.

Whatever happens at the federal level, state and local regulators should not interpret the president's moves as a license to backslide.

Area plants should remain good corporate neighbors that care about the places where their workers live. Despite the slump in oil prices, area refineries remain profitable, and some are expanding aggressively. The completion of the Keystone XL pipeline from Canada to Port Arthur and Houston - cheers to Trump for that - will bring another boost.

As is so often the case, there is a logical balance that should be pursued. We don't have to choose between a modern economy or a clean environment. With sensible regulations and practices, we can have both.
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STAMFORD  More than four ounces of marijuana and a stolen pink gun were found during a raid of a West Side home last week, police said.

Marquette Wilson, 21, was charged with possession of marijuana, possession of marijuana with intent to sell, operating a drug factory, criminal possession of a firearm and theft of a firearm. He was held in lieu of a $100,000 court appearance bond.

Capt Richard Conklin said Narcotics and Organized Crime squad officers conducted the raid of the Chestnut Street Thursday afternoon following an investigation that spanned several weeks.

Conklin said police found 4.3 ounces of marijuana and a pink gun that had been stolen during a residential burglary in Maine last October.

The gun was a pink highlighted .22 Sig Sauer Mosquito semi-automatic pistol, Conklin said.

It was fully loaded and ready to go, Conklin said.

Police also seized a realistic-looking BB gun. Conklin said the BB gun looked exactly like a semiautomatic pistol.

Wilson was sentenced to two years in prison after stealing a car in 2014. Police said Wilson led them on two chases in two different stolen cars in a span of two days in July 2014. Wilson, who was convicted of a felony charge of first-degree larceny, has been on probation.

He was also convicted in 2014 of punching a firefighter in the face who was responding to a medical call for his sister. He was sentenced to a year in jail concurrent for that offense, court records show.

This was a very good job by the NOC officers after a several-week investigation, Conklin said. This home was the site of numerous neighborhood complaints.

jnickerson@stamfordadvocate.com;
In this March 28, 2017, photo, Mary Broecker, 76, speaks during an interview in LaGrange, Ky., at a coffee shop on Main Street, where trains run right through the middle of town. She is president of The Oldham County Republican Womens Club, and has unbending support for Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., who famously changed his vote against the AHCA from No to Hell No. Defying President Donald Trump on the Republican Partys promise to repeal and replace Obamacare sounds like political suicide, especially in the congressional districts Trump won handily. But some Republicans who blocked the legislation won praise from constituents for stopping what many saw as a flawed plan, either in the legislations substance or strategy. (AP Photo/Dylan T. Lovan)

BUCKNER, Kentucky (AP)  One of the House Republican rebels, Kentucky Rep. Tom Massie, wasn't just "no" on the GOP health care bill to replace Barack Obama's Affordable Care Act. Massie was "hell no."

That won over Mary Broecker, president of the Oldham County Republican Women's Club and a strong proponent of a full-blown repeal of the 2010 law.

"When he came out against this bill, I thought, 'I trust him so this must be the right way,'" the 76-year-old retired teacher said of Massie this week as she sat at a coffee shop near her LaGrange home.

Defying President Donald Trump on the seven-year Republican Party promise to repeal and replace "Obamacare" sounds like political suicide, especially in the congressional districts Trump won handily. Yet in Kentucky, North Carolina, Tennessee and Iowa in the bitter aftermath of the GOP's epic failure, Republicans who blocked the legislation have won praise from constituents for stopping what many saw as a flawed plan, either in the legislation's substance or strategy.

Trump initially faulted Democrats for rejecting the bill, but on several occasions since then, including Thursday morning, he lashed out at the hardline conservatives of the House Freedom Caucus.

"The Freedom Caucus will hurt the entire Republican agenda if they don't get on the team, & fast. We must fight them, & Dems, in 2018!" Trump tweeted.

Conservatives opposed the bill because it didn't go far enough in getting the government out of health care while moderates worried that tens of millions of Americans might be left without insurance. Trump's famed deal-making and power of persuasion faltered with his own party, a remarkable turn at a time when the GOP controls the White House, Senate and House.

Massie, who is not a member of the Freedom Caucus, answered Trump's tweet with one of his own.

"It's a swamp not a hot tub. We both came here to drain it. #SwampCare polls 17%. Sad!"

Story continues

Nationwide, an Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll released Wednesday found that 62 percent disapprove of the way Trump is handling health care, his worst rating among seven issues the poll tested, including the economy, foreign policy and immigration.

The same poll found negative views of five of the six changes Republicans envisioned for the bill, including allowing insurers to charge older customers higher premiums than is now allowed, reduced funds for Medicaid and denying federal dollars to Planned Parenthood.

Yet the same voters who backed their local lawmaker for opposing the bill showed patience with Trump.

"I think he's going to be a great president," Broecker said. "I think he'll figure it out."

In the districts of the bill's foes, Republican voters and activists faulted Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan of Wisconsin. Some argue he was too willing to accept pieces of "Obamacare."

"We've been hearing repeal-and-replace for seven years and finally we get control, and they say, let's just kind of fix it," said 31-year-old Justin Wasson of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, who runs a small business. "We gave them everything. Now, I want this thing gutted."

Shea Cox, a 21-year-old computer science major from Shelbyville, Tennessee, said the bill failed because Ryan rushed what Cox called a "complete hack job" that "looked almost exactly like "Obamacare" with a couple of things taken out." That's why he was happy to see Tennessee Rep. Scott DesJarlais oppose it.

With midterm elections coming next year, Wasson said he planned to vote again for his congressman, Rep. Rod Blum of Dubuque  a sentiment echoed by other voters whose representatives opposed the bill.

Gary French, a minister from Buckner in Massie's district, said it was a "piece-meal" bill and his representative was right in opposing it. "The issue's not dead, they'll return to it. Absolutely. I think they're going to have to do what the constituents want," he said.

Kelly Stanger of Lowell, Michigan, argued that conservatives were prevented from contributing to the bill, and said she'd vote again for Rep. Justin Amash who opposed it.

"He has no problem taking heat," the 50-year-old cafe waitress said. "I don't think just because you belong to a party that you have to agree."

She said she voted for Trump because "there needed to be change," adding, "It's not going to be easy."

The failure of the health bill in the House may have spared a couple GOP senators a tough vote as the legislation grew increasingly unpopular with the public. The two most vulnerable GOP senators in next year's midterms, Dean Heller of Nevada and Jeff Flake of Arizona, both represent states with large populations of older voters who would have been disproportionately impacted by higher premiums under the bill.

Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, far from dwelling on the bill's defeat or weighing plans to revive it, quickly moved on to other issues. The House bill had already divided GOP senators and would have required major changes to pass.

A leading opponent was the head of the Freedom Caucus  Rep. Mark Meadows. In Meadows' North Carolina district, 77-year-old Hendersonville retiree Don Lee said he voted for Trump to "bring Republicans together," but added that the president "needed to take some more time with this bill and try to find some unity."

___

Beaumont reported from Des Moines, Iowa. AP reporters Sheila Burke in Shelbyville, Tennessee, Chris Ehrmann in Ionia, Michigan, Jeffrey Collins in Hendersonville, North Carolina, and Erica Werner in Washington contributed to this report.
PROMINENT pro-democracy campaigner Briggs Bomba has urged Zimbabweans to stop treating President Emmerson Mnangagwa and his MDC rival, Nelson Chamisa as demigods.

Bomba, who is Citizens Manifesto convener, was speaking at the movements review of their National Peoples Conference the group held last month.

The civic leader said Zimbabweans were too preoccupied with misconceptions the leaders of the countrys two most dominant political parties were the beginning and end of Zimbabwes political, economic and social problems.

There is a misunderstanding that for us to move forward, the two should solve our problems.

Citizens must understand that there is nothing special about President Emmerson Mnangagwa and MDC President Nelson Chamisa, nothing at all.

At one time, they both walked barefoot, the other in Mberengwa and the other in Gutu there.

We should stop treating them as demigods and let them realise they are there to serve the interests of those who voted them into power; they serve us.

His comments follow growing calls by churches and ordinary Zimbabweans the two should meet and try to hammer out a lasting solution to the myriad problems affecting the country.

Bomba is expected to lead a diverse team of members from the Citizens Manifesto to meet Mnangagwa in the coming months.

He said there was need for the Zimbabwean electorate to introspect and realise the continuous mistakes they were making in voting for promises rather than results.

We cannot continue making the same mistake of voting for politicians who continue to promise I will do this for you.

We need to start voting for community leaders who have proof that they have done something for their communities, he said.

Bomba said his group shall also be meeting Chamisa after its discussion with Mnangagwa.

He added, We would really have loved to bring the two into a single room but we have decided not to push our luck and will be meeting ED, Chamisa and POLAD members separately.

POLAD, the so-called Political Actors Dialogue, is a forum created by President Mnangagwa for him and the 22 politicians who contested him in the 2018 presidential election.

The platform has often been dismissed as useless as it also brings together politicians with a very tiny following in the country.

 NewZimbabwe

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This is the sixth time the GR department has been honored with a Pollie.

ALEXANDRIA, Va.  The NACS Government Relations team has won its sixth Pollie Award, receiving a Gold designation for the Best Use of Social Media for its chip-and-PIN public awareness campaign. The Pollie Awards are the top award in the political communications and public affairs industries.

Previous Pollie Awards have been for best advertising in a newspaper, best advertising on radio, and for public affairs and in-store campaigns. Its always nice being recognized for the work that we do, but the real proof is whether we move the needle on Capitol Hill, said Lyle Beckwith, NACS senior vice president for government relations.

Over the last few years, the GR department has picked up more than 20 other lobbying awards for its efforts.
Yves here. I assume another option is to wipe your hard disk, although that supposedly makes the device police very unhappy. But if you smile and say it was a company laptop and its your employers policy because they have confidential client information, they might be less hostile since youd be depicting it as not your decision.

By Gaius Publius, a professional writer living on the West Coast of the United States and frequent contributor to DownWithTyranny, digby, Truthout, and Naked Capitalism. Follow him on Twitter @Gaius_Publius, Tumblr and Facebook. GP article archive here. Originally published at DownWithTyranny

It used to be that when most people crossed the U.S. border, their electronic devices  computers, smartphones, tablets  were not routinely searched. This is no longer the case. As Murtaza Hussain notes at The Intercept, searches are up sharply, from 5,000 in 2015  to 5,000 in just last February alone.

Its not just ICE agents whose jobs are fun again, its the men and women at the U.S. Border Protection service too.

Lawsuit Seeks Transparency as Searches of Cellphones and Laptops Skyrocket at Borders A lawsuit filed today by the Knight First Amendment Institute, a public interest legal organization based at Columbia University, seeks to shed light on invasive searches of laptops and cellphones by Customs and Border Protection officers at U.S. border crossings. Documents filed in the case note that these searches have risen precipitously over the past two years, from a total of 5,000 searches in 2015 to 25,000 in 2016, and rising to 5,000 in the month of February 2017 alone. Among other questions, the lawsuit seeks to compel the federal government to provide more information about these searches, including how many of those searched have been U.S. citizens, the number of searches by port of entry, and the number of searches by the country of origin of the travelers.

The obvious problem  that pesky Fourth Amendment aside  is, as the author puts it, the wealth of personal data often held on such devices. Seizure and search of these devices puts that highly personal treasure trove in the hands of the Trump-led, even-more-muscular government and its agents, to do with as they will. (And dont discount the possibility that Trojan horse software could be implanted. Not that our government would do that, mind you  that would be wrong  but still.)

Of course, the border agents cant order you to surrender your devices and unlock codes  not exactly  though intimidation and coercion is in their repertoire. How long, for example, are you willing to put your life on hold while you defy them and they wait you out  at the airport, with a flight to catch or a job to get to?

Hussain again:

A number of recent cases in the media have revealed instances of U.S. citizens and others being compelled by CBP agents to unlock their devices for search. In some instances, people have claimed to have been physically coerced into complying, including one American citizen who said that CBP agents grabbed him by the neck in order to take his cellphone out of his possession.

With that in mind, I thought Id offer a few suggestions, as a partial answer to questions Im seeing more and more, asked by people who have reason to believe they may be on the outs with the brave new world in Washington and its agenda.

How to Safeguard Your Data From Searches at the Border

The first set of suggestions comes from the New York Times. Brian Chen, the author of the piece, gives a nice introduction to the problems encountered by those who cross the U.S. border, closing with the admonition, Do not lie about your passwords. That would not only be wrong, it would be punishable.

That said, here are his suggestions. Note that many of them hinge on not crossing the border with your data to begin with  or not crossing the border with your passwords, even in your head. Chen:

Consider a cheap device The best way to prevent your information from being searched is to travel with a device that never had any of your data in the first place. Its a wise idea to invest in a so-called travel device, a cheap smartphone or computer that you use only abroad  So leave your fancy equipment  along with your photo album, Facebook, Snapchat and Twitter apps  at home. Which devices to buy? The Wirecutter, the product recommendations site owned by The New York Times, published a guide on budget Android phones, including the $100 Moto G4 Play that comes unlocked so that it can work with foreign SIM cards. For cheap computers, consider a $550 Acer laptop or a $430 Dell Chromebook.

When it comes to phones, you could even forego a local phone and, as an East London friend suggests, buy a cheap smartphone or even a dumbphone at your destination. Then load a pay-as-you-go SIM card into it and use it exclusively. You could even abandon it before leaving if youre feeling really bold. (Remember when travelers didnt feel incomplete if they didnt have a phone in their pocket? That could be you.)

If you want it back, Im sure a friend would be glad to mail it to you after you leave  or you could simply mail it to yourself before you depart.

Three more small pieces of advice before one major one:

Disable fingerprint readers [In] the United States, law enforcement agencies have successfully used warrants to compel people to unlock their cellphones with a fingerprint. But because of your right to remain silent, it would be tough (though not impossible) for the federal government to force you to share your passcode. So disabling your fingerprint sensor when traveling is generally a safer move.  Encrypt your devices Whether you are using a burner device or your own, always make sure to lock down the system with encryption, which scrambles your data so it becomes indecipherable without the right key. Desktop apps like BitLocker or Apples FileVault let you encrypt your hard drive, requiring a passphrase to decrypt your files. To avoid surrendering this passphrase, you could jot it down and hand it to a friend and contact that person for the passphrase after crossing the border. [emphasis added] Back up to the cloud, then wipe before you cross [To have access to your data while abroad] back up your data to a cloud service and then wipe, or erase, all the data from your device before arriving at the border, Mr. Zdziarski said. After passing through customs, you could then restore your information from the online backup.

I want to focus on the comment above about your passphrase for a moment. You cant surrender your passphrase (a more complex form of password) if you dont know it. So, when you encrypt your device, use a complex passphrase that you (1) dont memorize, and (2) give to someone not traveling with you.

If You Dont Know Your Passwords, You Cant Surrender Them

Which leads to the final piece of advice, a major one:

Dont memorize your passwords The best way to protect your passwords is to not know them. When resisting a data frisk, it is easier to say you didnt memorize your password as opposed to refusing to provide it to border agents, Mr. Grossman said. If you dont know them its hard to compel you to give them over if you dont know how, he said. Even if somebody put a gun to my head, I dont know it. Password management apps like 1Password and LastPass can automatically create strong, lengthy passwords for all your online accounts and keep them stored in a vault that is accessible with one master password. However, Mr. Grossman said you are better off traveling without your password management software loaded on your devices so that you wont be asked to hand over the master password to your vault. You could store a copy of the password vault on a cloud service like Dropbox and get access to your vault of passwords when you reach your travel destination, he said. An alternative to using a password-managing app is to write your passwords down and leave them with someone you trust. After getting through customs, contact that person and ask him or her to read off your passwords.

Whats really needed, of course, is for someone who can put her life on hold  and who has a great lawyer prepared to defend her  to challenge these searches and seizures in court. Some lawyers I spoke to dont think theyre legal  though note the strong objections to that opinion here.

Suggestions from the CIA

The other suggestions I want to offer come from the CIA. This isnt related to carrying electronic devices per se, but to how to comport yourself during screenings. WikiLeaks has leaked internal documents from the CIA that advise its own agents how to behave when they cross the border. After all, if youre a spy with a cover story, you dont want it blown by some border cop who pulls you out of line for a random secondary check and spots your nervousness.

Those documents are here:

Happy traveling.
Engineer patents waterlike polymer to create high-temperature ceramics (Nanowerk News) Ceramic textiles, improved jet engine blades, 3-D printed ceramics and better batteries may soon become a reality, thanks to a recently patented polymer from a Kansas State University engineer.

Using five ingredients -- silicon, boron, carbon, nitrogen and hydrogen -- Gurpreet Singh, Harold O. and Jane C. Massey Neff associate professor of mechanical and nuclear engineering, has created a liquid polymer that can transform into a ceramic with valuable thermal, optical and electronic properties. The waterlike polymer, which becomes a ceramic when heated, also can be mass-produced.

"This polymer is a useful material that really works," Singh said. "Of all the materials that we have researched in the last five years, this material is the most promising. Now we can think of using ceramics where you could never even imagine."

Predicted structure of SiBNC ceramic. This graphic shows the structure of a ceramic created from a Kansas State University-patented waterlike polymer. The ceramic has a random structure that provides stability at high temperatures. The silicon in the ceramic bonds to nitrogen and carbon but not boron; boron bonds to nitrogen but not carbon; and carbon bonds to another carbon to form graphenelike strings. (Image: Kansas State University)

Singh is the lead inventor of the patent, "Boron-modified silazanes for synthesis of SiBNC ceramics." Romil Bhandavat, 2013 doctoral graduate in mechanical engineering, is a co-inventer.

The engineers developed the clear polymer that looks like water and has the same density and viscosity as water, unlike some other silicon- and boron-containing polymers.

"We have created a liquid that remains a liquid at room temperature and has a longer shelf life than other SiBNC polymers," Singh said. "But when you heat our polymer, it undergoes a liquid to solid transition. This transparent liquid polymer can transform into a very black, glasslike ceramic."

Ceramics are valuable because they withstand extreme temperatures and are used for a variety of materials, including spark plugs, jet engines, high-temperature furnaces or even space exploration materials.

As a preceramic polymer, Singh said the liquid material has several important properties.

The polymer is low density and can create lightweight ceramics instead of the usual heavy ceramics. The polymer is scalable and can be mass-produced in grams or kilograms. The ceramic derived from this polymer can survive extreme temperatures as high as approximately 1,700 degrees Celsius. Yet the ceramic has a mass density three to six times lower than that of other ultrahigh-temperature ceramics, such as zirconium boride and hafnium carbide. The polymer can make ceramic fibers. If the polymer is heated to approximately 50 to 100 degrees Celsius, it becomes a gel similar to syrup or honey. During this gel state, the polymer can be pulled into strings or fibers to create ceramic textiles or ceramic mesh. The liquid polymer has processing flexibility. It can be poured into molds and heated to accurately make complex ceramic shapes. Because the polymer is a liquid, it is sprayable or can be used as a paint to make ceramic coatings. The ceramic can protect materials underneath or can create more efficient machinery that works in high-temperature environments, such as steam turbines or jet engine blades. The polymer also may be used for 3-D printing of ceramic parts using a benchtop SLA printer. When combined with carbon nanotubes, the polymer has even more applications. It can create a black material that can absorb all light -- even ultraviolet and infrared light -- without being damaged. The combined nanomaterial can withstand extreme heat of 15,000 watts per square centimeter, which is about 10 times more heat than a rocket nozzle. The polymer could be used to produce ceramic with tunable electrical conductivity ranging from insulator or semiconductor. The presence of silicon and graphenelike carbon in the ceramic can improve electrodes for lithium-ion batteries. The ceramic derived from this polymer has a random structure that is generally not observed in traditional ceramics. The silicon in the ceramic bonds to nitrogen and carbon but not boron; boron bonds to nitrogen but not carbon; and carbon bonds to another carbon to form graphenelike strings. This unique structure provides stability at high temperature by delaying reaction with oxygen.

"Often, researchers have only looked at high-temperature properties," Singh said. "We are among the few that looked at other properties -- such as electronic, electro-chemical, thermal and optical properties -- and exposed these properties in this material."

Singh's research has been supported by the National Institute of Standards and Technology radiometry team and the National Science Foundation. He is continuing to research the polymer's possibilities for making ceramic fibers and even battery electrodes.
'Fuzzy' fibers can take rockets' heat (Nanowerk News) To stand up to the heat and pressure of next-generation rocket engines, the composite fibers used to make them should be fuzzy.

The Rice University laboratory of materials scientist Pulickel Ajayan, in collaboration with NASA, has developed "fuzzy fibers" of silicon carbide that act like Velcro and stand up to the punishment that materials experience in aerospace applications.

The fibers strengthen composites used in advanced rocket engines that have to withstand temperatures up to 1,600 degrees Celsius (2,912 degrees Fahrenheit). Ceramic composites in rockets now being developed use silicon carbide fibers to strengthen the material, but they can crack or become brittle when exposed to oxygen.

Silicon carbide nanotubes attached to separate silicon carbide fibers, used by NASA, entangle each other in this electron microscope image. The material created at Rice University is intended for a ceramic composite that would make rocket engines stronger, lighter and better able to withstand extreme heat. (Image: Ajayan Research Group/Rice University) (click on image to enlarge)

The Rice lab embedded silicon carbide nanotubes and nanowires into the surface of NASA's fibers. The exposed parts of the fibers are curly and act like the hooks and loops that make Velcro so valuable - but on the nanoscale.

The result, according to lead researchers Amelia Hart, a Rice graduate student, and Chandra Sekhar Tiwary, a Rice postdoctoral associate, creates very strong interlocking connections where the fibers tangle; this not only makes the composite less prone to cracking but also seals it to prevent oxygen from changing the fiber's chemical composition.

The work is detailed in the American Chemical Society journal Applied Materials and Interfaces ("Velcro-Inspired SiC Fuzzy Fibers for Aerospace Applications").

The work began when Hart, who had been studying the growth of carbon nanotubes on ceramic wool, met Michael Meador, then a scientist at NASA's Glenn Research Center, Cleveland, at the kickoff reception for Rice's Materials Science and NanoEngineering Department. (Meador is now nanotechnology project manager at NASA's Game Changing Technologies program.)

That led to a fellowship in Cleveland and the chance to combine her ideas with those of NASA research engineer and paper co-author Janet Hurst. "She was partially converting silicon carbide from carbon nanotubes," Hart said. "We used her formulation and my ability to grow nanotubes and figured out how to make the new composite."

Back at Rice, Hart and her colleagues grew their hooks and loops by first bathing silicon carbide fiber in an iron catalyst and then using water-assisted chemical vapor deposition, a process developed in part at Rice, to embed a carpet of carbon nanotubes directly into the surface. These become the template for the final product. The fibers were then heated in silicon nanopowder at high temperature, which converts the carbon nanotubes to silicon carbide "fuzz."

A silicon carbide fiber enhanced with a carpet of 'fuzzy' carbide nanotubes created at Rice University is shown at left. The same fiber with fuzz intact appears at right after researchers burned it with a lighter. (Image: Ajayan Research Group/Rice University) (click on image to enlarge)

The researchers hope their fuzzy fibers will upgrade the strong, light and heat-resistant silicon carbide fibers that, when put in ceramic composites, are being tested for robust nozzles and other parts in rocket engines. "The silicon carbide fiber they already use is stable to 1,600 C," Tiwary said. "So we're confident that attaching silicon carbide nanotubes and wires to add strength will make it even more cutting-edge."

The new materials should also make entire turbo engines significantly lighter, Hart said. "Before they used silicon carbide composites, many engine parts were made of nickel superalloys that had to incorporate a cooling system, which added weight to the whole thing," she said. "By switching to ceramic matrix composites, they could take out the cooling system and go to higher temperatures. Our material will allow the creation of larger, longer-lasting turbo jet engines that go to higher temperatures than ever before."

Friction and compression testing showed the lateral force needed to move silicon carbide nanotubes and wires over each other was much greater than that needed to slide past either plain nanotubes or unenhanced fibers, the researchers reported. They were also able to easily bounce back from high compression applied with a nano-indenter, which showed their ability to resist breaking down for longer amounts of time.

Tests to see how well the fibers handled heat showed plain carbon nanotubes burning away from the fibers, but the silicon carbide nanotubes easily resisted temperatures of up to 1,000 C.
Open-source software unlocks 3-D view of nanomaterials (Nanowerk News) Now it's possible for anyone to see and share 3-D nanoscale imagery with a new open-source software platform developed by researchers at the University of Michigan, Cornell University and open-source software company Kitware Inc.

Tomviz 1.0 is the first open-source tool that enables researchers to easily create 3-D images from electron tomography data, then share and manipulate those images in a single platform.

The world of nanoscale materialsthings 100 nanometers and smalleris an important place for scientists and engineers who are designing the stuff of the future: semiconductors, metal alloys and other advanced materials.

Seeing in 3-D how nanoscale flecks of platinum arrange themselves in a car's catalytic converter, for example, or how spiky dendrites can cause short circuits inside lithium-ion batteries, could spur advances like safer, longer-lasting batteries; lighter, more fuel efficient cars; and more powerful computers.

"3-D nanoscale imagery is useful in a variety of fields, including the auto industry, semiconductors and even geology," said Robert Hovden, U-M assistant professor of materials science engineering and one of the creators of the program. "Now you don't have to be a tomography expert to work with these images in a meaningful way."

Tomviz solves a key challenge: the difficulty of interpreting data from the electron microscopes that examine nanoscale objects in 3-D. The machines shoot electron beams through nanoparticles from different angles. The beams form projections as they travel through the object, a bit like nanoscale shadow puppets.

Once the machine does its work, it's up to researchers to piece hundreds of shadows into a single three-dimensional image. It's as difficult as it soundsan art as well as a science. Like staining a traditional microscope slide, researchers often add shading or color to 3-D images to highlight certain attributes.

Traditionally, they've have had to rely on a hodgepodge of proprietary software to do the heavy lifting. The work is expensive and time-consuming; so much so that even big companies like automakers struggle with it. And once a 3-D image is created, it's often impossible for other researchers to reproduce it or to share it with others.

Tomviz dramatically simplifies the process and reduces the amount of time and computing power needed to make it happen, its designers say. It also enables researchers to readily collaborate by sharing all the steps that went into creating a given image and enabling them to make tweaks of their own.

"These images are far different from the 3-D graphics you'd see at a movie theater, which are essentially cleverly lit surfaces," Hovden said. "Tomviz explores both the surface and the interior of a nanoscale object, with detailed information about its density and structure. In some cases, we can see individual atoms."

Key to making Tomviz happen was getting tomography experts and software developers together to collaborate, Hovden said. Their first challenge was gaining access to a large volume of high-quality tomography. The team rallied experts at Cornell, Berkeley Lab and UCLA to contribute their data, and also created their own using U-M's microscopy center. To turn raw data into code, Hovden's team worked with open-source software maker Kitware.

With the release of Tomviz 1.0, Hovden is looking toward the next stages of the project, where he hopes to integrate the software directly with microscopes. He believes that U-M's atom probe tomography facilities and expertise could help him design a version that could ultimately uncover the chemistry of all atoms in 3-D.
'It wasn't meant to be': Chandler Smith comes up short in third Chandler Smith talks about what more was needed tonight and what could've been done differently as he puts a cap on the season.
rex tillerson

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has remained a mystery to some staffers at the US State Department, The Washington Post reported on Thursday night.

Citing people within the agency, The Post painted a picture of a reclusive diplomat who takes a private elevator to his office at the State Department and stays there, blocking out "several hours" to read.

The newspaper said Tillerson tended to interact with an "insular circle of political aides" and that some longtime staffers at the agency had yet to meet him.

President Donald Trump appointed Tillerson in December, pulling him out of an 11-year role as the CEO of ExxonMobil. Tillerson, who has no previous experience working in government, has had a rough first few weeks as America's top diplomat. He has largely eschewed media coverage, embarking on his first outings as secretary of state without a press pool.

Tillerson said in an interview with the Independent Journal Review last week: "I didn't want this job. I didn't seek this job." He also said he was stunned when Trump made the offer in December.

"I was supposed to retire in March, this month," Tillerson told the publication, whose reporter, Erin McPike, was the only journalist allowed to travel with Tillerson on a recent Asia trip. "I was going to go to the ranch to be with my grandkids."

Tillerson is set to travel to Belgium on Friday.

NOW WATCH: A hacker explains why Trump using his old Android phone for Twitter could be a huge security threat





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"The worst litter blackspot in the town" has been a problem for so many years now that residents in the area are "demoralised", the monthly meeting of Clonmel Borough District was told.

Cllr. Michael Murphy also said that the illegal dumping at Upper Heywood Road, Clonmel continued to be a source of significant and ongoing concern for the residents of nearby Ard Caoin, Ard Aoibhinn and Droimeala, as well as Clonmel Rugby Club.

He said the location of the dumping, directly below the halting site, was also a source of huge concern for visitors to Abbott Vascular and Boston Scientific, the healthcare companies in that area, as well as their employees.

Everything from a kitchen sink to bicycles were dumped there, while a mobile home had been abandoned on the embankment.

Cllr. Murphy wondered what it would be like if the Tidy Towns volunteers didn't clean the area once a month, and they were fortunate that the Tidy Towns judges didn't inspect that area.

The council was also constantly cleaning the road and he didn't know how much that cost.

They had a delegation from the residents highlighting the problem at a meeting of South Tipp County Council seven years ago, and here they were again complaining about it. If he was a resident he would say he bought his house and had made a contribution to the local infrastructure.

He described the extent of the illegal dumping on the HSE lands to the rear of this area as incredible.

Cllr. Murphy said he was very seldom critical of the council but this was one area where he felt a multi-functional approach from the housing and environment sections of the County Council, as well as Clonmel Borough District, was needed.

He acknowledged that the council hadn't dumped the rubbish but the residents who lived in permanent houses had to deal with it.

Cllr. Murphy suggested that the embankment at the side of the road would need to be redesigned because it was like a magnet for illegal dumping. Some residents suggested that it should be levelled, with gravel and boulders placed there. Something needed to be done, he said.

Cllr. Pat English said that litter had been a blight on the countryside for many years. If necessary an enforcement order should be used to ensure that people complied with the law.

Cllr. Marie Murphy said that people would continue to dump rubbish in that area because they knew it would be taken away.

This road was one of the routes taken by visitors to Boston Scientific and Abbott Vascular. These visitors might be creating jobs but this dumping didn't project a very good image of the area. She didn't know if cameras would work but said that something needed to be done.

Cllr. Richie Molloy said the residents were very frustrated about this and didn't know where to go. The council was involved in putting the halting site there and it might be an idea to remove the embankment from the side of the road.

People had stopped walking along that road because of all the dogs there and the dirt in the area.

District Mayor Andy Moloney didn't know if boulders would work because the embankment ran almost the length of the road.

He agreed that a different approach was needed and he was pleased to hear from the council that the rubbish on the embankment would be removed.

Borough District Engineer Eamon Lonergan said they would look at the possibility of doing something with the embankment, but it wasn't the source of the waste.

The council was taking the problem very seriously and the environment and housing sections might have better powers of enforcement.

The dumping in the adjacent field was on privately-owned lands, so this was a matter for the owners to address.

Mr. Lonergan, who has recently replaced Jonathan Cooney as Borough District Engineer, said they would identify all the blackspots in the town that needed clean-ups, and they were working closely with the housing and environmental sections.
Staff are the key to the success of any business and it was with great excitement that the team at the Clonmel Park Hotel were able to celebrate this mantra at the recent Irish Hotel Awards.

Being nominated and shortlisted in four categories at the annual Irish Hotel Awards, the team at the Clonmel Park Hotel were delighted to have got that far, but to walk away in winning two of these categories outright was just unbelievable and the icing on the cake  stated the hotels General Manager Maciek Szczepaniec

Laura Jones, Sales & Marketing Manager, stated that winning these awards was another way to express how the house-keeping team are valued so highly within the hotel.

Not only did the hotel's accommodation Manager Monika Czechowicz win the Munster Category, but she also won the All Ireland Category.

Laura stated that the accommodation team are the unsung heroes in the hotel who make our property a special place.

Winning both of these awards and especially being named All Ireland winners recognises the hard work of the housekeeping team particularly those who work behind the scenes and underpin the everyday running of our hotel.

Congratulations to Monika and the hard working team at the Clonmel Park Hotel.
On a day of massive celebrations the people of Aherlow and Killross marked the opening of a new community centre.

The event was the culmination of an incredible community effort spanning eleven years.

Its truly wonderful to see what a small community can do when they come together. Alan Kelly TD said, praising the people of Aherlow and Kilross at the opening of the newly developed Community Centre in Lisvernane on Saturday 25thMarch.

The opening ceremony commenced in fabulous sunshine with the Lisvernane NS band marching from the entrance of the GAA Field to the Community Centre with the Community Council and Guests.

The occasion marked an eleven year process which saw the Community Council renovate the 100 year old school to a modern, multifunction centre. They raised 175,000 through intense community fundraising and support which was matched by grants from Tipperary County Council, Leader and JP Mac Manus.

Chairman of Aherlow Kilross Community Council, Dave Conway welcomed all in attendance and introduced several speakers, Paddy OShea of the 2011 winning G Team (TG4) , Mattie Mc Grath TD, Mike Sweeney , President of Muintir Na Tire, Isabel Cambie , CEO of South Tipperary Development Company, and finally Alan Kelly TD who cut the green and gold ribbon.

Real Community Spirit

The project was conceptualised, supported and carried out by people and groups from all over the area, something which each speaker highlighted as a wonderful example of real community spirit.

They particularly emphasised the importance of community led projects to sustain our increasingly threatened rural areas. Deputies Alan Kelly and Mattie Mc Grath both praised the communitys work in the face of an increasing lack of investment outside Dublin. Mike Sweeney ex- chair of the community council and newly elected President of Muintir na Tire highlighted the work the organisation would be doing to help communities engage with similar projects in their own areas.

Commemorative Plaque

The occasion was used to celebrate achievement and people from across the community. Honor Flynn and Willie Perry unveiled a commemorative plaque for the victorious 2011 G Team (A TG4 competition in which the community came together to promote the Irish language).

The committee presented Alan Kelly TD with a beautiful Caitriona Kenny photograph of Christ the King with the Glen of Aherlow and the Galtees in the background.

Tree Planting Ceremony

Finally, two of the most esteemed and senior members of the community, Lil Coffey and Jackie Bourke planted a tree in the Community Centre grounds.

After Canon ONeill, Canon Talbot and Rev. Bronwen Carling blessed the community centre, the ceremony finished off with all present enjoying refreshments in the new community centre.
A fun, uplifting team building obstacle course event will remember much loved Cahir student Grainne ODonnell who passed away from meningitis earlier this year, aged 20.

Around 200 people have already signed up to take part in the Mayhem Tipperary challenge on April 15 which will honour the daughter of Maria and Colm O'Donnell from Clonmore South, Cahir, while also raising vital funds for Meningitis Research Foundation.

Many of Grainnes friends and family from the local area will take part in Mayhem, fondly recollecting their beloved friend:

Grainne's smile changed the lives of each and every one of us. In memory of her and to spread the happiness and light she brought to the world and everyone she came into contact with a large group of her family and friends will complete the Mayhem challenge to raise money and awareness for a very important cause.

The Mayhem challenge course is located at Kedrah Castle in Cahir, just off exit 10 of the M8 motorway. The challenging day out is open to all fitness levels ages 14 and over.

Participants can sprint, jog, crawl, roll, walk or drag themselves around the demanding obstacle trail - sliding through mud baths, swinging on Tarzan ropes and jumping through tyres.

Venue provider Pat Meagher encourages the local community to get involved. "It's a very worthy cause to support," Pat tells The Nationalist.

Meningitis Research Foundation works hard to combat meningitis and septicaemia in Ireland by funding research into prevention, detection and treatment, raising awareness of the diseases and their symptoms, and supporting people who have already been affected by them.

Monika Marchlewicz, Ireland manager of Meningitis Research Foundation, underlines that the non-Government funded organisation relies on the generosity of local communities, fundraising events and donations to continue its vital work. "We are extremely grateful to Grainnes friends and family for deciding to take part in the Mayhem challenge to raise money for our cause," she adds.

Click here to make a donation to Mayhem for Meningitis.

Contact Meningitis Research Foundation freephone helpline on 1800 41 33 44 and visit www.meningitis.org for more information.
(Natural News) The Environmental Protection Agency has been involved in a number of controversies over the years, such as the Gold King Mine spill or their silence on the use of fracking wastewater on farmland. Now, the federal agency is under fire for their collusion with one of the worlds most evil companies: Monsanto.

Monsanto has become infamous for their genetically modified seeds, and for manufacturing one of the most widely used herbicides, Roundup. Their star weed-killer has gained notoriety of its own, thanks to its toxic active ingredient, glyphosate. While the corporate behemoth claims that the product is safe, there is much evidence to the contrary; even the World Health Organization has declared that glyphosate is a probable carcinogen. But like all soulless corporations, Monsanto has been using their prowess to keep the lid on glyphosates carcinogenic nature. But all good times must come to an end, and a revealing letter from a now-deceased EPA scientist could hopefully be the beginning of Monsantos end. [RELATED: Keep tabs on the EPA latest misadventures at EPAWatch.org.]

USRTK, a non-profit working for accountability in our nations food system, originally uncovered a heart-breaking letter former EPA scientist Marion Copley, who passed away from cancer. In this letter, Copley begs fellow EPA employee Jess Rowland to protect the public from glyphosates toxic nature, rather than continue to cow-tow to Monsantos influence. For once in your life, listen to me and dont play your political conniving games with the science to favor the registrants. For once do the right thing and dont make decisions based on how it affects your bonus, Copley writes.

She went on to state that Rowland and another EPA employee, Anna Lowit, intimidated the staff on CARC (Cancer Assessment Review Committee) and altered the MI ARC and IIASPOC final reports to favor the industry. Lowit is still working for the EPA, and Copleys letter warns that other scientists within the EPA may also be taking bribes.

Your Nebraska colleague took industry funding, he clearly has a conflict of interest. Just promise me not to ever let Anna on the CARC committee, her decisions dont make rational sense. If anyone in OPP is taking bribes, it is her, Copley states.

The unsealed court documents also reveal that Monsanto has been working with scientists at the EPA to conceal the true nature of glyphosate. While the company has denied this, an email clearly shows that Monsantos toxicology manager William Heydens conspired to help ghostwrite the EPAs reports on glyphosate. Specifically, Heydens suggested that Monsanto would ghostwrite the Exposure Tox and Genetox sections of the documents, supposedly to keep the cost down.

Rowland also reportedly set out to kill another agencys investigation of glyphosates toxicity. The Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease was intending to conduct their own analysis of the chemical, but their report never did surface. A Monsanto employee relayed their conversation with Rowland via email, and quoted Rowland as saying, If I can kill this I should get a medal.

In her dying letter, Copley describes a number of mechanisms by which glyphosate could cause cancer. In fact, Copley states that with the evidence she describes, It is essentially certain that glyphosate causes cancer. Among the things she describes, Copley notes that glyphosate is genotoxic  a quality she says is essential for cancer formation, and that it induces free radical formation and causes damage to the bacterial populations of the gut. According to Copley, because glyphosate was initially formulated as a chelating agent, it produces many similar effects which can be toxic to humans, suppress the immune system, and cause cancer.

Copley couldnt have been the only person at the EPA to put all the pieces together and see the true toxicity glyphosate possesses  and its clear that Monsanto has done their best to obfuscate the facts on their cancer-causing chemical. But will they face punishment for their obvious crimes? Read more stories about glyphosate at Glyphosate.News.

Sources:

Glyphosate.news

NaturalNews.com

USRTK.org

Finance.Yahoo.com

NaturalNews.com
Friday, March 31, 2017 by: Gregory Van Dyke Tags: Ancient medicine , honey , manuka honey This article may contain statements that reflect the opinion of the author

(Natural News) Exotic honey can be used as a powerful alternative when treating one of the deadliest infections in the U.S. today. A report published in the International Journal of Antimicrobial Agents confirms that exotic honey can battle antibiotic-resistant infections, like Clostridium difficile. Interestingly, C.difficile is caused by an overdose of antibiotics.

Two researchers from Elisabeth-TweeSteden Hospitals Department of Gastroenterology and Hepatology discussed the therapeutic effects of a honey found in Australia and New Zealand. This exotic honey, known as Manuka, is being used for the treatment of Clostridium difficile. More severe cases of the Clostridium difficile infections are caused by the destruction of the gut flora associated with antibiotics. The overgrowth is harmful in what would otherwise be harmless bacteria.

An estimated 60-70 percent of newborns have Clostridium difficile without exhibiting any symptoms of the disease. However, when the microbiome is attacked with wide spectrum of antibiotics, this bacteria exhibit irregular growth, leading to serious problems. The new study describes the Clostridium difficile infection as an increasing health problem. Overgrowth of Clostridium difficile typically takes place throughout antibiotic therapy when the normal digestive flora is disturbed.

Clostridium difficile is known as one of the most troublesome infections in the U.S. Each year, there are about 453,000 reported cases of Clostridium difficile infections. In 2011 alone, 29,000 of these cases resulted in fatalities. (RELATED: Discover more news about natural remedies and medical breakthroughs at Remedies.news.)



How exotic honey helps fight Clostridium difficile

Honey has been used for centuries as food and medicine. The team of researchers performed in-vitro studies proving that unprocessed honey has antibacterial properties, which fight an array of pathogens, including Clostridium difficile.

Although the full therapeutic effect of honey has not yet been clarified, the study suggests that honey has an anti-inflammatory quality. Compared to normal honey, which derives its infection-fighting properties from its probiotic and hydrogen peroxide content, Manuka honey offers additional healing attributes. It makes this exotic honey one of the most extensively studied honeys today.

The study allowed a woman to be in full remission after the Manuka honey treatment

In the same study, a woman who had been resistant to any improvement following a plethora of antibiotics is now in full remission after receiving Manuka honey treatment. The 71-year-old woman was the first case of Clostridium difficile infection resistant to therapy. Nonetheless, she had full symptom withdrawal after bowel lavage with diluted honey.

The patient was experiencing fecal incontinence and frequent watery stools. She had Clostridium difficile infection as evidenced by colonoscopy and laboratory examinations. Initially, the patient was given vancomycin, but diarrhea persisted during the treatment. Subsequently, management with metronidazole gave way to serious side effects.

The patient was then given Manuka honey as an alternative therapeutic intervention. She received a 300-mL endoscopic lavage with diluted Manuka honey (eight percent) as the first lavage. It was administered throughout the colon. The patient did not experience any symptoms for five days following the endoscopic lavage with honey.

A second lavage was performed with 15 percent of the diluted honey introduced. After the second lavage, the patient experienced complete absence of watery stools. She did not experience any symptoms for 12 months. Furthermore, analysis did not find any traces of Clostridium difficile infection. This case confirms the therapeutic significance of lavage with Manuka honey for patients with Clostridium difficile infection resistant to therapies.

Honey is one of the most powerful healing foods on Earth. There are different studies that will support honey as a superfood and its important in fighting several diseases, offering a natural cure that chemical antibiotics cant replicate.



Sources:

GreenMedInfo.com

SOTT.net
Getting drunk just got more interesting. Mexico's tourist board, together with advertising agency Lapiz, just made all tequila lovers' dream come true as they revealed a cloud that rains tequila instead of water at a Berlin art gallery this week.

According to Telegraph, the magnificent invention is part of Mexico's tourism campaign, citing that it's a playful reminder to Germans that while it's damp and somber in Berlin, sunnier and temperate climate await in Mexico. Since Germans are the top two consumers of tequila in the world, the tequila cloud hopes to encourage and remind Germans to visit South of America.

So how did they do it?

As Ad Week reported, they used "ultrasonic humidifiers to vibrate tequila at a frequency that actually turned it into visible mist." The mist was then turned to liquid via condensation.

Read Also: Wine Secret Unlocked: Study Reveals Reason Behind Old Wines' Enticing Aroma

What makes it real is that the tequila cloud is programmed to rain only when it is really raining in Berlin. People who are at the exhibit can pull out their glasses and put it under the clouds for drops of tequila. Unfortunately, the cloud is contained by a plastic container to help it keep its fluffy cloud shape, Mashable said. This means it can only stay there.

Travel and Leisure notes that Mexico is not the first country to experiment with alcoholic vapor, citing that in 2015, visitors of Alcoholic Architecture in London were treated to a party when they were made to breathe alcohol from a cloud in the room.

Unlike in most parts of the world, in Mexico, tequila is is drank neat: without lime and salt. Huffington Post said tequila is made from a plant called blue agave or agave tequila. The heart of this plant contains honey water, which is used for syrup (and tequila) production.

A study conducted by physicists at the National Autonomous University of Mexico suggest you can make artificial diamonds out of tequila.

Read Also: Toilet Beer, Anyone? Breweries Experiment With Beer Made From Recycled Water
A second "Doomsday Vault" in Svalbard, Norway, now stores the world's most precious literature, ensuring its contents' survival even in the wake of extreme national disasters and war.

According to a report from NRK via the Sputnik News, representatives from Brazil and Mexico's National Archives are the first ones to save copies of their documents in the Doomsday Vault alongside Norway's Sogn og Fjordane County Council.

The archives will be deep inside Mine 3, which is a former coal mine that's been abandoned for two decades. It's chosen for its immunity to the different seasons with temperatures ranging from five to 10 degrees below zero inside.

Part of the draw of the World Arctic Archives is also the technology that's being used in the storage. The information will be stored using a new technology using film that's believed to offer a safe and impressively long lifespan of at least 500 years.

Piql, a company based in Norwegian city Drammen, is taking the lead of the World Arctic Archives with their expertise in using film as a storage medium. The team tweaked photosensitive film technology to enable it to store massive amounts of information in multiple layers. This method is a safe option, since the files can't be altered once its already inputed.

While the Doomsday Vault is officially estimated to last at least 500 years, the group has disclosed that their expectations of its lifespan is much longer.

"Actually, we believe that we can save the data using our technology for a whole 1,000 years," Piql's Katrine Loen Thomsen told NRK.

The technology isn't just reliably sturdy, but also thievery-safe. After all, there's no way to hack, damage or steal the information without actually being there.

"It is clear that in order to damage the files, you have to physically break into the vault and grab a roll of film," Thomsen added.

Furthermore, the archipelago of Svalbard, a sovereign of Norway, is a dimilitarized zone that's much safer from war and military conflict than many other parts of the world.

This is the second so-called Doomsday Vault in the area following the Global Seed Vault, which is also in Svalbard. The underground seed depository was opened in 2008 and acts as a master backup to the other seed banks around the world.
Bill Nye quit his day job 30 years ago to crusade for a more scientifically literate society. He started as the Science Guy on PBS, teaching kids about science through often wacky experiments while wearing his trademark bow tie and lab coat. Hes now on to a new chapter: host of a series on Netflix





nflx







called Bill Nye Saves the World, which premieres April 21. On the show, he will counter the rising tide of science deniers, fake news, and just about anything else.

FORTUNE: Why did you choose Netflix instead of a traditional TV network?



NYE: Although I should be king of the forest and be paid millions and millions of dollars, Im not king of the forest-and so you take the opportunities that are available.

How big a danger is fake science and science denial?



Science denial is a big concern right now. Carl Sagan wrote about this 40 years ago-that if you had a society that is increasingly dependent on technology and you have fewer and fewer people who know how it all works, thats a formula for a disaster. If we have people who refuse to get vaccinated, they become petri dishes for mutating germs. Soon we are going to have 9 or 10 billion people in the world, and those people are going to have to eat, they are going to have to get along, and they all are going to want clean water. And that depends on science-depends on technology thats derived from science. So if you have people who dont accept the process by which we create all this wonderful stuff, youre going to have trouble.

Regarding the matter of people wanting clean water, Im guessing youre not a fan of current efforts to pare down environmental regulations?



Ive pondered this continually. The new head of the Environmental Protection Agency, by any reasonable assessment, really, doesnt want to protect the environment. There is also a perception that any regulation is inherently bad. Its just an arbitrary claim that were going to eliminate two regulations for every one. Regulations of what? Of the Securities and Exchange Commission, of coal-fired power plant emissions, of which side of the street you drive on-we have to have that rule. I remember when you really couldnt see the mountains in Los Angeles. Now you go, Wow, those mountains are beautiful. There was this uproar over how government regulation is bad, but it turned out to be good for the air.

On the Netflix show, youre also exploring topics like videogames and sex. How do they fit in?



Societal issues can be approached from a scientific point of view. Videogames is a classic. There are people who believe that videogames are bad-that violent videogames make somebody violent. So we had a panel of experts: We have a woman who runs a recovery clinic for people who are believed to be addicted to videogaming, we have a guy from a scientific institute who says that is absolutely not true, and we have a woman who makes an extraordinary living playing videogames. Generally my point of view is that people have been playing games for at least 5,000 years. That is why we did a show on it. We did a show on climate change, a couple of shows on space exploration, and we did a show on vaccinations-and pseudoscience and alternative medicine.

Model Karlie Kloss and Nye in an episode from his new show.Eddy Chen - Netflix

Is there a media outlet that you would refuse to go on to talk about science?



No. Im a lions den guy.

I hear you are speaking at the March for Science in Washington D.C. as the Honorary Co-Chair on Earth Day (April 22).

I believe marches for causes can be effective. I am old enough to remember my hometown of Washington, D.C. being overrun a few times protesting the Vietnam War. I rode my bike downtown and joined the crowd for a few of the early Earth Days. The war was ended on account of the protests. The Environmental Protection Agency and the Clean Air and Clean Water Acts resulted from these demonstrations. The March for Science has the potential to remind us all, voters and taxpayers especially, of the great value of science to our society. Our public health, our food system, our space program, and the Internet all owe their existence and remarkable capabilities to the innovations made by our technically trained, scientifically literate citizens. Currently, there is an antiscience, anti-expert movement afoot in the U.S. and around the world. We will use our feet to remind our leaders that science drives our economy and is a key to our future. May the facts be with you!

Would you be willing to take a space flight with companies like Elon Musks SpaceX or Richard Bransons Virgin Galactic?



I applied to be an astronaut four times. I understand completely that space travel is risky, but Im not going to go on the first flight.

What do you think is the most exciting field of research or recent discovery or study?



Right now its Crispr-the modifying of genes. By way of example, my family has this gene repeat that leads to a condition called ataxia-you walk like youre drunk. My sister is just a couple years older than I am, and she uses a walker, and it affected my parents marriage. So it would be really exciting if we could introduce something to modify your genes so you didnt have defects-let alone make it so you could regrow a new liver or even a piece of bone.

Do you have any advice for children who dream of being scientists?



My advice to you is learn algebra. Algebra is the single most reliable indicator of whether or not you will pursue a career in math and science. Its not clear that its cause and effect, but algebra not only enables you to think abstractly about numbers, it enables you to think abstractly about all sorts of things. And heres what I say: It sucked for me too! You just have to practice.

A version of this article appears in the April 1, 2017 issue of Fortune with the headline Saving Science.

This article was originally published on FORTUNE.com
A newly discovered population of rare Indochinese tigers offer a glimmer of hope for the survival of the critically endangered species.

According to a report from BBC News, camera traps caught footage of a small population of the sub-species in a national park in eastern Thailand. At least six cubs were included, meaning the group is successfully breeding.

Wild cat conservation group Panthera and counter-trafficking organization Freeland conducted the survey that found the new population.

After poaching and loss of habitat obliterated the Indochinese tigers' population to less than 250 individuals, scientists only know of one other small breeding population before this discovery. This second population is a significant milestone in the sub-species' survival and conservationists credit the country's improved anti-poaching efforts for the achievement.

"The stepping up of anti-poaching patrols and law enforcement efforts in this area have played a pivotal role in conserving the tiger population by ensuring a safe environment for them to breed," Songtam Suksawang, director of Thailand's national parks, explained. "However, we must remain vigilant and continue these efforts, because well-armed poachers still pose a major threat."

Tigers are struggling for a foothold in the wild with a depleted current population of 3,900. A century ago, there were about 100,000 individuals roaming in the wild.

Jonathan Head, BBC's Southeast Asia correspondent, reported that Indochinese tigers are vulnerable as lost forests reduced their population to just a handful in their former habitats in Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam. They're now believed to be extinct in Cambodia, while Thailand's well-run national parks emerge as the last stronghold of the beautiful creature.

"Thailand has shown that you can protect tigers and bring them back," Alan Rabinowitz, the chief executive officer of Panthera, told The Guardian. "They can do this now in the eastern forest complex as they have done in the western forest complex."
The search is on for the extinct Tasmanian tiger or thylacine after an extremely detailed sighting in Far North Queensland. The legendary thylacine was declared extinct in 1936 when the last of its species died at Hobart Zoo in Australia.

According to Live Science, the recently reported Tasmanian tiger sighting in North Queensland piqued the interest of scientists as it provided detailed descriptions of what the thylacine looked like. In an excerpt released by ABC, Brian Hobbs, a former tourism officer, relayed how he saw what could be a family of Tasmanian tigers during a camping trip back in 1983.

Hobbs recalled how his dog, a German sheperd, was startled by something in the middle of the night. He put his dog on a leash and, using a spotlight, searched the ravine area of the camp.

"All of a sudden I had these sets of red eyes looking at me and there was a male, a female and two pups -- I got within 20 metres of them," he said, noting that he has never seen such creature in his life.

"They were dog-shaped -- I had a shepherd with me so I certainly know what dogs are about -- and in the spotlight I could see they were tan in colour and they had stripes on their sides," Hobbs added.

You can listen to Hobbs' thylacine sighting here:

After the detailed account of Hobbs, a team of scientists from James Cook University decided to conduct a search to study the extinct Tasmanian tiger.

"We have cross-checked the descriptions we received of eye-shine color, body size and shape, animal behavior, and other attributes, and these are inconsistent with known attributes of other large-bodied species in North Queensland, such as dingoes, wild dogs or feral pigs," Professor Bill Laurance, lead author of the study, told Live Science

The team will disperse 50 camera traps in the Cape York Peninsula in northeast Australia. Laurance said that even if they do not confirm the existence of thylacines, the study will still provide helpful data regarding the status of wildlife populations in Cape York.

Tasmanian tiger (Thylacinus cynocephalis) is a strange-looking creature that has a striped, tiger-like body, a wolf-like head and a backward pouch -- imagine a dog with a stiff, pointy tail, big head and striped fur, the Australian Government described on their website.

Extinction of the Tasmanian tigers began when the Van Diemen's Land Company and the Tasmanian government offered a bounty for the creatures in 1830 and 1888 respectively. The bounty was due to the Tasmanian tiger preying on sheep in the area. Since then, thylacines were only seen in zoos until the last one died in 1936.
Researchers from Ohio State University have found a way to recycle food waste, specifically eggshells and tomato skin, into car tires, replacing carbon black, a petroleum-based filler used in creating tires.

According to a press release from the university, the scientists created a new filler from a mixture of tomato skin and eggshells. By replacing carbon black with the said mixture, the scientist created a new type of rubber that's stronger and more flexible without sacrificing durability.

The natural rubber tire created from tomato and eggshells is different in color compared to normal tires. It has a reddish brown hue, depending on the amount of eggshell-tomato mix.

Dr. Katrina Cornish, Ohio Research Scholar and Endowed Chair in Biomaterials at Ohio State who has been working on the study, says that this food-based tire will hit three birds with one stone.

The technology will offer a possible solution to three environmental problems: making rubber manufacturing more sustainable, lessening landfill waste and reducing the United State's dependency on foreign oil.

The tire industry is growing very quickly, and we dont just need more natural rubber, we need more filler, too, Cornish said. "The number of tires being produced worldwide is going up all the time, so countries are using all the carbon black they can make. Theres no longer a surplus, so we cant just buy some from Russia to make up the difference like we used to."

Read Also: This New Home Appliance Could Grow Local Food in Your Own Kitchen

Treehugger notes that eggshells and tomato skin are two of the main sources of food waste in the country. Tomatoes distributed in the U.S. are modified to have thick skin to survive transportation. This skin is discarded in manufacturing tomato-based sauces as they are not easily digestible. Americans consume 13 million tons of tomatoes a year.

Meanwhile, egg, which Americans eat 100 billion a year, provides a sturdy material for fillers. Cindy Barrera, a postdoctoral researcher at Cornish's lab, noted that the eggshells' porous microstructure allows a larger surface area for rubber contact.

We may find that we can pursue many applications that were not possible before with natural rubber," Cornish said.

Other researchers involved in the study include Jessica Slutzky and Griffin Michael Bates.

Read Also: New Kitchen Gadget Can Turn Food Waste Into Fertilizer in 24 Hours
Tensions continued to rise Thursday at Albany High School in the East Bay after students who posted racist pictures of classmates online were allowed to return to class.

Hundreds of students staged a "sit in" to protest the inaction of school officials against the kids who posted the racist images of fellow students on an Instagram account.

The protesting students waited in the afternoon sun to confront those students allegedly responsible for the offensive posts.

"When we all confronted them, called out their names, they were covering their faces, and some of them were smiling and laughing," Albany High senior Nyella Jones said.

The posts included pictures of minority students next to nooses. Others images showed students next to apes.

The seven students accused in the racist cyberbullying ducked out back and side doors when school let out for the day. A number of students, including Jones, said they wished the accused would have shown remorse as they left school.

"They should have been able to sit and look at all of the people's faces who they affected," Jones said.

District Superintendent Valerie Williams said the district has a zero-tolerance policy against cyberbullying. She said she was proud of the way the students showed unity against such hateful behavior.

"What was made clear with these separate but related actions is that our student body stands together in this message that our school stands for inclusion," Williams said about Thursday's sit-in.

Earlier Thursday, students raised concerns about about a rope that was hanging in a park across the street and another at an adjoining park. First thought to be nooses, the ropes later were confirmed to be rope swings, district officials said.
A high school student from Connecticut has won the national Doodle 4 Google competition, earning prime real estate for her design on Google's homepage through 3 a.m. Saturday.

The theme for this year's annual event was "What I see for the future." Sarah Harrison, a sophomore at Bunnell High School in Stratford, depicted her vision of inclusion and acceptance in her artwork titled "A Peaceful Future."

My future is a world where we can all learn to love each other despite our religion, gender, race, ethnicity, or sexuality. I dream of a future where everyone is safe and accepted wherever they go, whoever they are, Harrison wrote in her Doodle submission.

Sarah will also receive a $30,000 college scholarship and visit Google's headquarters in Mountain View, California, to meet with the Doodle team. Her high school will receive a $50,000 Google for Education grant to spend on technology and advance STEM programs.

William Floyd, head of external affairs for Google, said in a statement that this years competition was meant to get students thinking about the future they want to create for the world and the submissions were nothing short of inspiring.

Ultimately, Sarahs doodle captured the best of everything we saw, representing values like diversity, inclusion, and respect in an inspiring and creative image, he said.

Harrison said she was thinking about the current state of the world when designing her artwork.

When I started, I was thinking of how theres a lot of animosity toward diverse communities of people in the world right now, Harrison said. So I wanted to draw something that I hoped would show that we can all get along well, and that its possible for us to be happy with each other. I want everyone try to be more open, accepting, and respectful to people. You dont know what theyve been through - and they dont know what youve been through - so we all deserve respect from each other.

The finalists from each of the different age groups between K-12 will receive a $5,000 college scholarship and a Chromebook, as well as a trip to the Googleplex to meet some professional Doodlers at Google.

Doodles are a regular feature on the Google.com search page. Google has often used the artwork to celebrate holidays, spotlight causes and honor people and places.

See the winning Doodle submissions from each state here.
Two sisters from Colombia who traveled to Massachusetts to visit their mother and stepfather were sent back to their home country Friday after being detained at a Boston airport earlier this week.

A lawyer for Laura and Dayana Gomez told NBC Boston Friday that the two girls have been sent back to Colombia. No reason has been given.

The two sisters had flown from Colombia into Boston's Logan International Airport Wednesday night and were detained by Customs and Border Protection agents and questioned upon their arrival.

The girls' mother, who lives in Lowell, said Thursday that she was extremely worried, and not just because of the lengthy detainment. Laura, who is only 11 years old, was hospitalized Thursday morning with severe stomach pains and then brought back to the airport where questioning continued.

"The detention of this eleven-year-old, who was not healthy, is the perfect example of how this administration's policy of inspecting everyone in search or reasons for deportation can go terribly wrong," immigration attorney Heather Yountz said.

Yountz said she's never seen anything like this case. She said the sisters, who are dual citizens of Colombia and Spain, have valid Spanish passports and had return tickets. She believed U.S. Customs and Border Protection might have been concerned that the girls would stay in the States with their mother and not go back home. Laura and her 20-year-old sister Dayana are both applying to become U.S. citizens.

"Alternative practices were available, and they should have been used," she said. "Deferred inspection, a process by which an individual can be paroled into the United States and allowed to return a few days later for questioning, would have made much more sense given this little girl's age and health situation."

U.S. Customs and Border Protection told NBC Boston it could not comment on a specific case because of privacy laws.

The agency did release a statement that reads in part, "It is important to note that issuance of a visa or a visa waiver does not guarantee entry to the United States. A CBP officer at the port of entry will conduct an inspection to determine if the individual is eligible for admission under U.S. immigration law."
Seven people were killed in three separate shootings within under 12 hours in the South Shore neighborhood on Thursday afternoon.

Shortly after noon, Patrice L. Calvin, a 26-year-old woman who was four months pregnant, was found unresponsive with a gunshot wound to the head in an apartment in the 7500 block of South Luella, authorities said. She was dead at the scene.

Late Thursday night, a 27-year-old man and an adult woman were shot to death in the same neighborhood, according to Chicago Police. They were passengers in a gray van heading south in the 2300 block of East 71st Street when a black Jeep pulled alongside and opened fire, police said. The man was shot in his side. And the woman was shot in the head.

About 3:30 p.m., a shooter walked into Nadia Fish and Chicken at the corner of 75th and Coles and opened fire, according to family members of the victims.

Two men, ages 21 and 28, were fatally shot inside the restaurant. The 28-year-old was identified as Emmanueel C. Stokes, and the 21-year-old was not identified Thursday night. [[417758873, C]]

Two other men, Dillon and Raheam Jackson, ran from the restaurant as gunfire erupted, but both were fatally shot in different parking lots within a block of the restaurant.

All four were pronounced dead at the scene, according to the Cook County medical examiners office.

On Thursday night, CPD spokesman Anthony Guglielmi tweeted that the shooting is believed to be gang related retaliation from another incident, though he did not offer further specifics of that incident. [[417759983, C]]

The Jackson brothers had gone to the restaurant to visit their mother, who has worked there for eight years, according to their grandmother, Georgia Jackson.

They were shooting at somebody, they say, inside the restaurant, Georgia Jackson said. My boys just got in the way, I guess.

The shootings came at the end of a month, which at the start of the day had seen a 43 percent drop in homicides year-over-year, according to Chicago Police. March 2016 saw 46 homicides, while March 2017 recorded 26 before the five homicides on Thursday in South Shore.

Dozens of onlookers gathered at the corner of 75th and Coles as police guarded the crime scene, which spanned several blocks. The bodies of the Jackson brothers could be seen lying under white sheets, much to the frustration of family members. [[417761033, C]]

A young woman screamed at officers to move the bodies of Raheam and Dillon  who she said were her brothers  out of the lightly misting rain.

Real talk, this is gonna make me go f       crazy, she said. Why they still on the ground?

Hours after the shooting, when most bystanders had left the crime scene area, Georgia Jackson vowed to stay at the scene until her grandsons bodies were removed.

Agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives were at the crime scene. An agency spokesman confirmed the ATF is assisting Chicago Police in the investigation.

Georgia Jackson said Dillon Jackson was shot in his back three years ago just a block away.

Dillon was a homebody, she said. I dont understand why he out here. Whats he doing here?

Family members said Dillon, 20, and Raheam, 19, were the youngest of five children. They had two older brothers and an older sister.

Raheam left behind one son who will turn 2 years old on April 2 and another 5-month old son, according to his sister-in-law, Shauna Jackson.

Dillon and Raheam Jackson were not the first grandsons Georgia Jackson has lost to gun violence in Chicago.

In December 2011, her 16-year-old grandson Jawan Ross, a Robeson High School student, was one of two teen boys killed when someone fired into a crowd at a Churchs Chicken in the 6600 block of South Halsted. The Chicago Sun-Times reported then that Ross and 17-year-old Dantril Brown were unintended targets.

I cant keep doing this, Georgia Jackson said. Im losing too many kids.

Last September, Arthur Chaney was found guilty of murder and attempted murder in the 2011 shooting.re

Thursday saw the first quadruple homicide of the year in Chicago. It came just a day after charges were filed in the citys last quadruple homicide, which occurred in Fernwood last December.

Chicago has seen more than 130 homicides through the first three months of 2017, according to records maintained by the Sun-Times. Seven other people were wounded in shootings across Chicago Thursday.
One man is dead and a woman is in the hospital after a man in a stolen pickup crashed into them in Groton while trying to get away from police on Thursday night, according to state police.

State police said a trooper was trying to stop 27-year-old Valery Labossiere, of Medford, Massachusetts, who was going 97 miles per hour in a 55-mile-per-hour zone on Interstate 95 North in a 2013 Chevy Silverado that was reported stolen from Vermont.

Labossiere was going east on Gold Star Highway, went through a red light at Kings Highway and hit a 2003 Mitsubishi Eclipse that was pulling out of the Walmart parking lot at 150 Gold Star Highway around 10:15 p.m., according to police.

Police said Taylor Marie Wilkinson, 20, of Groton, was driving the Mitsubishi Eclipse. Her injuries are not life-threatening and she is listed in fair condition as of Friday afternoon.

It took around eight people from the Poquonnock Bridge Fire Department more than 15 minutes to free Wilkinsons passenger, 22-year-old Deion Anthony Pittman, of Waterford, from the car with the Jaws of Life.

Lifestar transported Pittman to Hartford Hospital and state police said he succumbed to his injuries.

Pittman's family and friends said they are trying to cope with the loss of the 22-year-old, who had just passed the police exam.

Labossieres injuries are not life-threatening and he was taken to Lawrence & Memorial Hospital, according to police. They said troopers also found a small-caliber rifle in the vehicle that was also stolen from the Vermont home. In an investigation report, a trooper said he found a Republic of Haiti expired passport on Labossieres person. He also had a suspended license out of Massachusetts.

Police have taken Labossiere into custody and charged him with first-degree larceny of a motor vehicle, sixth-degree larceny, reckless driving, disobeying the signal of an officer, engaging police in a pursuit and operation of a vehicle without a license.

Bond was set at $150,000 for the first set of charges and $2,500 for additional charges. He is due in court today.
President Donald Trump's administration on Thursday appealed the latest court ruling against his revised travel ban to the same court that refused to reinstate the original version.

A day earlier, U.S. District Judge Derrick Watson in Hawaii handed the government its latest defeat by issuing a longer-lasting hold on Trump's executive order.

Watson's decision came after the Department of Justice argued for a narrower ruling covering only the ban on new visas for people from six Muslim-majority countries. The department urged the judge to allow a freeze on the U.S. refugee program to go forward.

Government attorney Chad Readler said halting the flow of refugees had no effect on Hawaii and the state has not shown how it is harmed by the ban. Watson disagreed.

The administration says the executive order falls within the president's power to protect national security and will ultimately succeed, while Hawaii Attorney General Douglas Chin likened the revised ban to a neon sign flashing "Muslim ban" that the government hasn't turned off.

Here's a look at Watson's ruling and what comes next:

THE RULING

Watson said Hawaii has shown that the ban will harm the state's universities and tourism industry as well as the imam of a Honolulu mosque, who joined the lawsuit. Ismail Elshikh said the ban would prevent his Syrian mother-in-law from visiting family in the U.S.

"These injuries have already occurred and will continue to occur if the executive order is implemented and enforced; the injuries are neither contingent nor speculative," the judge wrote.

Chin told The Associated Press on Thursday that a notable part of the ruling was that the court took into account 20 to 25 statements made by Trump as a candidate and as president and by his surrogates.

"The court will not crawl into a corner, pull the shutters closed, and pretend it has not seen what it has," Watson wrote.

The Department of Justice said it strongly disagrees with the ruling.

WHAT'S NEXT FOR HAWAII'S LAWSUIT?

Government attorneys filed documents appealing Watson's decision to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, a move Chin said he expected.

The judge said his ruling will stay in place until he orders otherwise and won't be suspended for an appeal.

The administration said in court documents that the appeal also applies to Watson's previous temporary block of the travel ban.

"The president's executive order falls squarely within his lawful authority in seeking to protect our nation's security, and the department will continue to defend this executive order in the courts," the Justice Department said in a statement.

HOW THE WHITE HOUSE REACTED

The White House believes Trump's executive order is legal, necessary for national security and will ultimately be allowed to move forward, spokesman Sean Spicer said Thursday.

Watson's indefinite hold is "just the latest step that will allow the administration to appeal," Spicer said.

CAN A DIFFERENT CASE AFFECT THE HAWAII RULING?

The president already is appealing a separate case in Maryland. A judge there blocked the six-nation travel ban but said it wasn't clear that the suspension of the refugee program was similarly motivated by religious bias.

The administration wants the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to put that ruling on hold while it considers the case. The Richmond, Virginia-based court will hear arguments May 8.

If the court sides with Trump, it would not have a direct effect on the Hawaii ruling, legal experts said.

"What a ruling in 4th Circuit in favor of the administration would do is create a split in authority between federal courts in different parts of the country," said Richard Primus, a professor of constitutional law at the University of Michigan law school. "Cases with splits in authority are cases the U.S. Supreme Court exists to resolve."
Someone is finally talking.

Alex Rodriguez appeared on "The View" Friday and opened up about his romance with Jennifer Lopez. "It's obvious," he said. "We've been having a great time."

The couple has been traveling together frequently, taking trips to the Bahamas, Miami, California and New York. "We're having a great time," he continued. "She's an amazing, amazing girl. One of the smartest human beings I've ever met and also an incredible mother."

As a woman who grew up in the Bronx, New York, Lopez is obviously a "big Yankees fan," the former Yankees player joked, adding on a more serious note that she's very caring. "She just likes simple things. I mean, she's a very, very simple person. Loves family. Is a great sister. Is a great daughter."

Jennifer Lopez &Casper Smart Romance Rewind
An Amber Alert has been discontinued for two children who were reported missing Friday afternoon from Haskell County.

Police in Haskell had requested the Amber Alert for 4-year-old Malakai Lara and 8-year-old Devonte McGee.

Officials said they believed the children were with 23-year-old Stephanie Wilson and 26-year-old Cody McGee

The Texas Department of Public Safety said at 4:30 p.m. that the Amber Alert was discontinued, but additional information was not released.
A cat missing from Denver since last June turned up at a construction site in Dallas this week.

It's been a long journey for Harvey the cat. A total of 794 miles, to be exact.

Construction workers found Harvey stuck in a 25-foot hole at their site in Highland Park, according to a post from the city of Dallas.

It took Dallas Animal Services about six hours to free the cat. He was caked in mud, but otherwise in good shape.

After being cleaned up, Animal Services found his microchip and located the owners in Denver.

No one knows how Harvey managed to travel so far, but his family is relieved to be reunited with him.

The owners are flying to Dallas this weekend to bring Harvey home.
After many months plotting, an Italian drug gang was finally ready to dig up the body of the founder of automaker Ferrari and hold it for ransom, NBC News reported.

But police swooped in Tuesday, arresting 34 people before they could raid the ornate tomb of Enzo Ferrari at San Cataldo cemetery in central Italy, the Italian carabinieri announced.

Officers were staking out Ferrari's tomb when the bandits arrived, after learning about the plot from an investigation of a legendary Italian kidnapper, police said.

"The gang had prepared everything in detail," said Col. Saverio Ceglie.
The Republican chairman of the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee on Wednesday promised a thorough investigation into any direct links between Russia and Republican Donald Trump during his successful 2016 run for the White House.

Committee Chairman Richard Burr and Mark Warner, its top Democrat, pledged at a joint news conference that they would work together, in contrast with the partisan discord roiling a similar probe by the House of Representatives Intelligence Committee.

Burr was asked if the Senate panel wanted to determine if there was anything suggesting a direct link to Trump, and responded: We know that our challenge is to answer that question for the American people.

Trumps young presidency has been clouded by allegations from U.S. intelligence agencies that Russia sought to help him win, while connections between his campaign personnel and Russia also are under scrutiny. Trump dismisses such assertions and Russia denies the allegations.

The Senate committee intends to begin interviewing as many as 20 people, including Jared Kushner, Trumps son-in-law and one of his closest advisers, beginning as early as Monday.

Burr served as a security adviser to Trumps campaign but said he had not coordinated with him on the scope of the committees investigation. He insisted he could remain objective.

Burr declined to go along with the White Houses denial of collusion between the campaign and Russian hackers, who U.S. intelligence officials believe favored Trump in last years campaign at the expense of Democratic challenger Hillary Clinton.

We would be crazy to try to draw conclusions from where we are in the investigation, Burr said. Let us go a little deeper into this before you ask us to write the conclusions. Thats clearly something we intend to do down the road.

Burr and Warner would not comment on the investigation in the House, where the chairman of theintelligence committee, Trump ally Devin Nunes, has been under fire over his handling of the matter.

Story continues

Many Democrats, including Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the House intelligence panel, called for Nunes to recuse himself from the investigation after he met last week with an unidentified source at the White House complex, accusing him of colluding with the White House.

For more on Russia, watch Fortunes video:

Before telling his committee colleagues, Nunes met with House Speaker Paul Ryan, and then Trump, and told reporters the source provided him with evidence that information on Trumps transition team had been collected during legal surveillance of other targets.

Both Republican and Democratic lawmakers have said the discord surrounding the House committee has made the Senate investigation more important than ever. Clearly in the Senate, it appears that both Democrats and Republicans are acting like adults and taking this matter seriously, Democratic Representative Jim McGovern told Reuters.

Paid Internet Trolls

Warner and Burr both stressed the importance of exposing the activity of Russian hackers, which Warner said included reports of upwards of 1,000 paid Internet trolls who spread false negative stories about Clinton.

Warner and Burr did disagree slightly, with Warner alluding to some difficulties getting particular documents from intelligence agencies, and Burr defending them.

The two senators also indicated they had communicated with Michael Flynn, Trumps former national security adviser, who was fired last month after misrepresenting meetings with the Russian ambassador.

It would be safe to say we have had conversations with a lot of people and it would be safe to say General Flynn is a part of that list, Burr said.

Neither Burr nor Warner gave a timeline for finishing the investigation.

This is one of the biggest investigations the Hill has seen in my time here, said Burr, who has been in Congress since 1995.

The senators said they also wanted to call attention to what they described as Russias attempts to influence upcoming elections in France and Germany.

This article was originally published on FORTUNE.com
After an NBC4 I-Team investigation revealed that some of California's medical marijuana supply was contaminated with potentially toxic pesticides, several local dispensaries have pulled pot products off their shelves. And, the California agency responsible for overseeing medical cannabis is promising that safety regulations, which would aim to prevent pesticide contamination, are coming by the end of the year.

"We literally just pulled them off the shelf. We don't feel comfortable giving that to our patients," said a manager at the Hollywood High Grade Dispensary. Tests commissioned by the I-Team found at least three products sold at Hollywood High Grade contained pesticides.

The changes came after the I-Team purchased 44 different products used for smoking and vaping marijuana from dispensaries across Southern California. Vaping is a technique that turns concentrated pot into vapor that can be inhaled. A nationally known laboratory tested the samples and found that 93 percent had pesticide levels that would exceed the safety limits in some other states, making them ineligible for sale due to safety concerns.

"I think the goal of California is to make sure the public and patients have safe cannabis and so I think it is important that we test the product and that we're testing for pesticides," said Lori Ajax, Director of California's Bureau of Medical Cannabis Regulation.

Ajax's agency is drawing up the state's first marijuana regulations including safety standards for pesticides and other contaminants. Some states, such as Oregon, Colorado and Nevada, already have strict limits regarding the use of pesticides when cultivating pot. Other states like Massachusetts ban the use of the chemicals outright.

"My main concern is to make sure the public and our patients have safe cannabis, so that's always going to be our main concern," said Ajax.

Patients like Todd Gullion of Orange County. Gullion thought medical marijuana would help his chronic back pain. He never expected that using it could actually lead to far worse health problems.

"Every morning you wake up and you've been hit in the head," explained Gullion. "It's affecting my balance a bit, my vision, my hearing literally shuts off."

Gullion says he began experiencing severe symptoms weeks after he began vaping marijuana daily for his back pain. Gullion blames the vaping cartridge for his medical problems but his doctors have not confirmed a connection between his symptoms and his pot use. Gullion says he had the product he used tested at a lab and the results came back positive for multiple pesticides, including one that can become hydrogen cyanide when heated--a dangerous substance once used in gas chambers.

And he says the dispensary that sold him the cartridges assured him the pot product was indeed pesticide free.

"I asked them if there were pesticides in it. They actually seem a little insulted when you ask that question," Gullion said.

When the NBC4 I-Team purchased medical marijuana across Southern California, most dispensaries also told us their pot products were pesticide free. But that's not what we found when we had our samples tested by nationally known Steep Hill Labs in Berkeley. Steep Hill found most of the samples contained several different pesticides that exceeded the safety limits in other states.

"I'm not anti-marijuana. I am anti-pesticides," Gullion said.

He wants California to make sure that the potentially toxic chemicals don't endanger the health of other pot patients.

Ajax says her agency is still finalizing their marijuana regulations but she promises that protecting the health of medical marijuana patients is one of her agency's top priorities. She says new regulations will be in effect by January 1, 2018. And she says they'll cover medical and recreational pot, which becomes legal in California in 2018.

"All cannabis will need to be tested before it is passed on the dispensary to be sold at retail," explained Ajax. "To make sure that we have safe cannabis like any other product a consumer would go into a store to buy."
One deputy was found guilty Thursday while two others would be retried in a controversial case over a man beaten after a horse pursuit in Southern California.

The three San Bernardino County deputies faced trial after they were caught on NewsChopper4's exclusive footage beating Francis Pusok after he led a car pursuit, then jumped on a horse.

Deputy Charles Foster was found guilty Thursday, while his fellow deputies Nicholas Downey and Michael Phelps were set to be retried -- their cases declared a mistrial.

As the juror read the verdict, Foster was clearly stunned, dropping his head. His family members were also visibly shaken.

Foster is seen in exclusive NBC4 video appearing to kick Pusok in the April 2015 chase in the high desert.

The prosecutor told the jury that the kick happened as Pusok was already restrained with handcuffs and his legs were bound with a device called a hobble.

Foster faces up to three years in county jail. He will be sentenced on April 28.

The jury was deadlocked eight to four: eight saying guilty, and four not guilty.

The three deputies were the first who encountered Pusok after he fell off the horse he allegedly stole during the pursuit. Those deputies are seen punching and kicking Pusok multiple times as he was face down with his arms and legs stretched out.

Those deputies will now face a new trial with a new jury starting next month.
In his first meeting with NATO Friday, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson set a deadline of two months for allies to present a plan to increase their military spending, NBC News reported.

Tillerson said it was "no longer sustainable" for the United States to pay for a "disproportionate share" of NATO's budget. America's top diplomat said fellow NATO members had until their summit on May 25 to formulate this plan.

NATO advises all its members to spend 2 percent of their GDP on defense. But most countries  all except United States, Britain, Estonia, Greece and Poland fall short of this target.

Tillerson said that by the end of this year they should be meeting this 2 percent target already, or have at least developed a detailed plan to do so.
A U.S. official said Friday that Secretary of State Rex Tillerson met with the wife of a jailed American pastor in the Turkish capital Ankara on Thursday night, NBC News reported.

"Secretary of State Tillerson wanted to make sure he met with [Norine] Brunson to share the more recent informaiton he had on [Andrew] Brunson's case," the official said.

Pastor Brunson and his wife were initially detained in Turkey on immigration violation charges in the beginning of October, and Norine was released later that month, according to news reports. Andrew has since been held in Turkey on charges of being part of a terrorist organization, a group Turkish media said is associated with an attempted coup in the country last July.

Tillerson was in Ankara to meet with Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan and other government officials.
Miami-Dade police identified a 21-year-old University of Miami student who was found dead at an apartment just across the street from the schools Coral Gables campus.

Nicolas De Lavalette was found dead at the Red Road Commons housing complex on Southwest 57th Avenue and 66th Street Wednesday.

Members of the Zeta Beta Tau fraternity told The Miami Hurricane student newspaper that the victim was a member of their organization.

Officials have initially called the death an accident and said no foul play is suspected.

Miami-Dade Police are investigating the cause of death.
What to Know Officials at Amnesty International are worried about El Chapo's living conditions at a New York federal jail

The human rights group is concerned that the conditions imposed on the drug lord are "unnecessarily harsh" and possibly inhumane

Guzman's lawyers complained about conditions in the Special Housing Unit, where prisoners spend 23 hours a day in 20-by-12-foot cells

An official with Amnesty International wants to interview Mexican drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman about allegations he's being mistreated in the high-security wing of a federal jail in New York that's housed mobsters and terrorists.

The human rights group is "concerned that the conditions imposed on (Guzman) appear to be unnecessarily harsh and to breach international standards for humane treatment," Justin Mazzola wrote in a letter to federal prosecutors in Brooklyn, where the U.S. case against Guzman was brought.

Mazzola is seeking access to the Metropolitan Correctional Center in lower Manhattan amid reports that Guzman's health has deteriorated since he was brought to the United States in January to face charges that he oversaw a multibillion-dollar international drug trafficking operation responsible for murders and kidnappings.

The U.S. attorney's office declined to comment Thursday.

Amnesty International's request follows complaints by Guzman's lawyers about conditions in the Special Housing Unit  known by its acronym, the SHU, pronounced like "the shoe"  where prisoners spend 23 hours a day in 20-by-12-foot (6-by-3.7-meter) cells, prohibited from communicating with one another. In the past, the unit has held other high-profile, high-risk inmates like Gambino crime family boss John Gotti and several former close associates of Osama bin Laden.

In court papers, the defense has claimed an anxiety disorder that began during Guzman's imprisonment in Mexico has worsened to the point where he "has difficulty breathing and suffers from a sore throat and headaches." It also said he's experiencing "auditory hallucinations, complaining of hearing music in his cell even when his radio is turned off."

The government has argued that the conditions are appropriate for someone who escaped twice from prison in Mexico, including once through a mile-long (1.6-kilometer-long) tunnel dug to the shower in his cell. Prosecutors said that even while he was behind bars in Mexico, Guzman used coded messages, bribes and other means to control his Sinaloa cartel and orchestrate his breakouts.

An examination by a jail psychologist, the prosecutors added, revealed that the defendant was hearing a radio played by a staff member. The back-and-forth over the radio continued in the latest defense filing, with lawyers responding that "unless that radio was playing Mexican music, Mr. Guzman is hearing non-existent sounds."

In a statement, Amnesty International called the request to see Guzman routine, given its history of advocating for the rights of prisoners held in solitary confinement.

"Under this line of work, we have monitored the situation of that Manhattan facility for years, and will continue to do so," it said.
A couple flying into New York's John F. Kennedy Airport from the Dominican Republican attempted to conceal $250,000 worth of heroin in a whiskey gift box and a large speaker, authorities say.

Andres Uribe Rebolledo and his girlfriend Yuly Valencia Sanchez, both Colombian citizens, landed at JFK from Punta Cana Sunday with a Glenmorangie-brand whiskey gift box and a Marshall-brand speaker, Customs and Border Protection says.

During an inspection, CBP officers found the whiskey box and speaker felt "unusually heavy," and escorted the couple to a private search room. A probe of the two items uncovered a brown substance that tested positive for heroin, authorities said.

In total, about nine pounds of heroin with an estimated street value of more than $250,000 were seized.

Rebolledo and Sanchez face narcotics smuggling charges and are being prosecutors by the city's Special Narcotics Prosecutor's Office. It wasn't immediately clear if they had attorneys.
What to Know Fidel Angel Cardona has been wanted for allegedly sexually abusing his ex-girlfriend's sleeping teen daughter in 2012

Bedford police and Westchester detectives recently tracked him to South Carolina

He was located in South Carolina and was transported to New York, where he's being held in Westchester County Jail

Police say they've captured a fugitive accused of breaking into his ex-girlfriend's home in Westchester and sexually abusing her sleeping 16-year-old daughter over four years ago.

Fidel Angel Cardona, 30, committed a lewd sex act that awoke the girl in her Katonah home on Dec. 6, 2012, according to Bedford police. He fled the scene, and a warrant was issued for his arrest in January 2013.

In late 2016, Bedford police detectives and Westchester District Attorney prosecutors tracked Cardona to a location in Virginia through social media, police say.

Bedford police, the Westchester County Police Fugitive Task Force and the U.S. Marshals worked together to track Cardona, who'd then moved to South Carolina.

He was located there and taken into custody. He was held in South Carolina pending extradition, and on March 17, Cardona was indicted by a Westchester County grand jury.

He waived extradition, and was transported to New York, where he was processed at Bedford police headquarters. Cardona is being held at Westchester County jail on charges of second-degree burglary, third-degree sex abuse, endangering the welfare of a child and second-degree criminal contempt.

It wasn't immediately clear if he had an attorney.
People living, working and walking in busy Union Square were rattled by at least two manhole explosions so powerful they shattered nearby building windows and damaged a fire truck Friday morning.

Firefighters first became aware of a smoking manhole at around 5 a.m., and Con Edison was called to the scene, according to fire officials.

About three hours later, another manhole began smoking around the corner, in front of the Strand Bookstore at East 12th Street and Broadway, officials said. Firefighters returned and checked out the bookstore, and found high levels of carbon monoxide inside.

They were evacuating the store -- only one person was inside -- when the manhole blew, officials said.

Due to multiple manhole fires, expect extensive traffic delays in the area of Broadway & E 12th Street in MN.  NYCEM - Notify NYC (@NotifyNYC) March 31, 2017

Windows in nearby buildings rattled, and some broke. At one apartment buildings, windows on the higher floors were cracked.

"I thought I was on the other end of the world with two bombs," said Liza O'Keefe. "It was so scary."

"It was really loud," said neighbor Eric Gonzalez. "It shattered windows in my building and across the street."

Mitchell Schneider

"It just made me wonder what had just blown up," said a neighbor named Mary, who lives on East 10th Street and University Place, adding that the burning smell permeated the streets.

Rima Abdelkader, who was on her way home from her overnight job as a reporter with NBC News, was on the Staten Island Express bus when she says all the passengers "heard this huge explosion."



"From what people heard, it sounded like a bomb. You felt it," Abdelkader said. "I was listening to music and I still heard it. My right ear is hurting."

One fire truck was damaged in the blast; a firefighter on the scene initially told Abdelkader the truck had been sitting on top of the exploding manhole, but it's not definitively clear how close the truck was to the manhole.

No one was seriously injured.

[NATL] Top News Photos: Pope Visits Japan, and More

A neighbor emailed News 4 to describe a "large orange fireball followed by a huge cloud at that corner."

"The fire truck actually moved and my window shook," said Mitchell Schneider. "A small white truck was driving on Broadway just as the explosion occurred and veered into a pole. The driver ran from the truck screaming. Others on the street also ran or hit the sidewalk."

Neighbor Joseph O'Hara, who lives in a building about 50 feet from the manhole, said he heard what "sounded like a bomb," and from his window could see a cloud of smoke coming toward his apartment.

"You could smell it. It's in all of our apartments," said O'Hara.

A fire official said the cause remains under investigation but is believed to be weather-related. Water and salt deteriorate cables underneath manholes and can spark fires.

Residents in the area say there has been ongoing nightly construction on roads in the area all week but it's not clear if that played any kind of role in the manhole fires.
A 13-year-old boy who was struck and critically injured by a car fleeing police on Staten Island Thursday evening was fighting for his life Friday as his family gathered at his bedside.

Quadell Lovelace has a fractured ankle, bruised lungs and is on a ventilator at Richmond University Medical Center. The teen was struck by the car as he was crossing the street with his 11-year-old brother.

Lovelaces mother, Lita Williams, says she knows 24-year-old Tyreek Wilson  the man police say hit her son with a car. Williams says she saw Wilson while at a nail salon minutes before the crash.

The boy that struck him was on Castleton at the time arguing with his daughters mother, Williams said. As he was arguing, the police approached, and when he saw the cops, he took off running and jumped in his vehicle.

Police say it was Wilson who jumped into a black Chrysler Concorde with officers giving chase. The officers had attempted to pull him over for a missing front license plate, according to police.

Wilson allegedly took a left at Henderson Avenue and Broadway as Lovelace and his younger brother were crossing the street, crashing into the young man before speeding off. Lovelace was sent flying by the impact.

My 11-year-old was like, Ma, the cops was chasing some guy and Quadell didnt see them as fast as I did, so he didnt have a chance to get out of the street, Williams said.

At some point Wilson lost control of the vehicle and crashed into a pole, police said. Video obtained exclusively by News 4 New York shows a man bolting from the Chrysler moments after it crashed.

Police were still searching for Wilson on Friday evening. Williams wants him to turn himself in.

These kids are raised together, Williams said, adding that Wilsons mom used to watch her kids in the past. Where is your conscious? You have a daughter.

Meanwhile, Williams and her family continue to hope Quadell will be able to breathe on his own soon. The sight of him in the hospital on a ventilator brings back painful memories of her 17-year-old son, who was shot and killed by a family friend just two years ago.
Two on-duty sanitation workers were beaten by three men who were overcome by road rage, police say.

The workers were making their usual rounds near Highland Place and Ridgewood Avenue in Cypress Hills Wednesday evening when a white van came to a halt near their truck, police said.

That's when the brazen trio hopped out of the van to confront the Department of Sanitation employees.

"Why the f--k did you cut me off?" yelled one of the men as the tree men began to beat the garbagemen, including with brass knuckles. The suspects then jumped back into the van and took off, authorities said.

A 53-year-old worker suffered cuts to his face and ear, while a 39-year-old was left with a split lip and a cut above his right eye, cops said.

Paramedics rushed the garbagemen to Jamaica Hospital Medical Center, where they were treated and released.

Department of Sanitation Commissioner Kathryn Garcia visited the victims in the hospital Wednesday night. She said she was "outraged" at the brutal attack.

"I am outraged that two dedicated Sanitation Workers who were only trying to make our city safe and clean were brutally attacked by several assailants who then fled the scene," she said in a statement. "I know that NYPD is actively pursuing the attackers and will prosecute them to the fullest extent of the law, which could result in felony charges."

No arrests have been made.
What to Know The man killed in the trooper-involved shooting off the New Jersey Turnpike Thursday has been identified as a 46-year-old Delaware man

The attorney general's office says state troopers were conducting an investigation when they spotted him apparently shooting up heroin

They tried to box him in and he took off, then drove straight toward a trooper; that's when he was shot, officials say

Police say the man shot and killed by a state trooper at a service area off the New Jersey Turnpike Thursday had barreled straight toward the officer after he was caught apparently shooting up heroin, authorities say.

The state attorney general's office says five members of the New Jersey State Police in four unmarked police vehicles were conducting an undercover operation targeting narcotics and other criminal activity at the Molly Pitcher Service Area in Cranbury when they spotted the man appearing to use drugs in an area of the parking lot away from other cars.

The troopers moved their unmarked cars closer to the man, identified as 46-year-old Christopher Angelo Pizzichetta of Lewes, Delaware, to try to observe him, but Pizzichetta drove away and parked in a remote area at the other end of the parking lot, the attorney general's office said.

The troopers implemented a plan to approach Pizzichetta's pickup truck and box it in using the three state police vehicles, which included a Chevy Silverado, according to the attorney general's office.

Pizzichetta took off, backing up and hitting one of the state police vehicles -- an SUV -- and then accelerating forward and hitting the Silverado, officials said. The police vehicles, with its lights and sirens on, pursued Pizzichetta as he sped toward the exit road of the service area.

Instead of driving to the ramp leading to the exit road, Pizzichetta cut across a median where another trooper was standing and sped directly toward him, according to officials. The trooper was wearing a holster and weapon and was "clearly identifiable" as a police officer, officials said, citing civilian witnesses.

The trooper fired multiple rounds from his service handgun through Pizzichetta's windshield, hitting the upper part of the driver's body. Pizzichetta's pickup truck continued a short distance across the exit road at a high speed and crashed into a concrete retaining wall along the far side of the road.

Pizzichetta was pronounced dead at the scene.

A syringe and empty glassine bag were found in his pickup truck, along with other glassines containing suspected heroin. None of the troopers was injured, but the trooper who fired his gun was taken to the hospital for evaluation, per procedure.

The attorney general's office says the shooting's still under investigation by the shooting response team, made up of deputy attorneys general, detectives of the Division of Criminal Justice and detectives of the State Police Homicide Unit.
The Brooklyn man accused of shooting a man to death with a revolver on a Bronx sidewalk had over 80 arrests prior to when cops cuffed him Wednesday.

Jamel Burney had been arrested 86 times before he shot 46-year-old Michael Vermong, the NYPD said. Arrests for forgery, drugs and weapons decorate the 32-year-old's lengthy criminal history, which authorities say comprises a mix of misdemeanors and felonies.

The Crown Heights resident was in and out of jail a whopping 32 times between October 2004 and October 2016 for various charges including criminal trespassing and sale of marijuana, records from the New York City Department of Corrections show.

He faced a judge Thursday morning and was remanded without bail.

Burney had one disorderly conduct and six petit larceny and theft of services cases between 2004 and 2005, according prosecutors from the Brooklyn District Attorney's office. The various sentences for each ranges from time served to up to 90 days in jail.

Brooklyn DA Eric Gonzalez said all were minor charges and convictions.

"It's not just about the severity of the crime, it's about the frequency of the crime," NYPD Commissioner James O'Neill said Thursday. "It's nothing the NYPD can do alone. We'll talk with the district attorneys to make sure there are consequences for their actions."

There was bad blood between Burney and Vermong, who was shot in point-blank range with a revolver over a long-running drug dispute, according to NYPD Chief of Detectives Robert Boyce. He said the two knew each another and were at odds for some time.

Detectives got Burney to confess to the crime, Boyce said. Police charged him Wednesday with second-degree murder, manslaughter and second-degree criminal possession of a weapon.

Authorities arrested Burney after officers found Michael Vermong with a gunshot wound in his chest in front of a money transfer store near East 205th Street and Bainbridge Avenue in Norwood early Wednesday morning.

Paramedics rushed him to Montefiore Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

Norwood residents were angry and saddened to hear that "Mike" is gone. Several people stopped to pray at the memorial created near Bainbridge Avenue, where Vermong lived and died. His name was spelled out in candle wax; two single roses, candles, photos and handwritten messages lay beside it.

Rosi Lopez laid a white rose at his memorial. To her and the other neighbors, losing Mike is like losing a family member. She was in disbelief after learning the man who killed him had been arrested 87 times in New York City.

"There is too much violence right now, it's sad," she said. "It really needs to stop. No one deserves to lose their life. Nobody."

Burney is due back in court April 4.
The fallout of alleged Russian election interference, already a major distraction for the President Donald Trump, grew more ominous for the White House Thursday, according to an NBC News analysis.

The story that House Intelligence Committee chairman Devin Nunes got secret intelligence information from a "whistleblower," partially backing Trump's claim that his predecessor wiretapped him, unraveled as two reports indicated Nunes received his information from White House officials.

Then, a lawyer for Trump's fired national security adviser, Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, announced he is seeking criminal immunity from Congress in exchange for testimony  Flynn "has a story to tell," the lawyer said.

"You're finally getting the intersection between the counterintelligence investigation and the cover up," said MSNBC contributor Naveed Jamali, a reserve Navy intelligence officer who went undercover for the FBI to help catch a Russian spy.
A simple hug made a Philadelphia womans final walk with her beloved family pet a little bit less difficult.

Maura Jones of the Graduate Hospital neighborhood turned to the Schuylkill Nextdoor community site to thank the random stranger that comforted her.

"To the stranger who saw me crying in the street this morning as I walked my dog one last time before I had to let her go  who hugged me and told me everything was going to be OK  thank you," Jones posted Monday.

The touching moment happened just in front of the home where Jones has lived for just the past six months but it touched a nerve with new and old residents of the Philadelphia neighborhood that is a short walk from both the Rittenhouse Square and Point Breeze neighborhoods.

"This is whats great about our neighborhood," read one reply.

Jones, a 31-year-old researcher, made the tough choice to put down Penny, a Corgi Chihuahua mix, after Penny stopped responding to medication to treat an August diagnosis of congestive heart failure, she told NBC10.

"I've lost family dogs before, but this was the first time I lost my dog," Jones said.

She took Penny for one last walk before saying goodbye. The family estimated Penny to be around 8 years old but the veterinarian who euthanized Penny estimated her age to be closer to 14 years old.

Penny came into Jones and her husbands life about five years ago when they lived in upstate New York. Penny was found abandoned on the side of a country road in Tennessee before giving Jones and her husband that "Im your dog" look at an adoption fair in New York, Jones said.

"She and my other dog were the only friends as we got used to our new lives here," Jones said. "She was there when we brought our baby home from the hospital, she reluctantly accepted the baby into our home and allowed my husband and I time to transition into parenthood. She was so sweet and appreciative of the life we gave her.

"She was my best friend. I miss her with every ounce."

The woman who hugged Jones told her she also recently lost a beloved dog and "understood the anguish involved with losing your dog," Jones said.

After her post to Nextdoor, Jones learned that the woman who comforted her is Bridget Clancey.

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"She understood the anguish involved with losing your dog  especially when you have to make that decision to let her go," Jones said. "She told me (Penny) was going to heaven, she just knew it. I couldn't say anything through my tears except thank you."

Jones appreciated the support she has received during a tough time for pet owners.

"Losing a dog is a common experience many people share," Jones said. "It hits everyone differently. It's so common and yet so isolating at the same time because not a lot of people share in your pain when you lose a pet. There are people out there who understand that loss all too well.

"I am so moved by her kindness to a stranger struggling with grief. I am also moved by the numerous people who have private messaged me their words of support and sympathy."
Narcotic drugs which are often prescribed for pain, like Vicodin or Percocet, can be highly addictive, so having alternatives can be critical to make sure addiction doesn't become a problem.

Elaine Lockhard's son Johnny took an alternative to narcotics when he had his wisdom teeth removed.

I feel that if there's an alternative for managing pain that's not an opioid, that's terrific, Lockhard said.

The rate of drug overdoses made her hesitant to have him treat his pain with prescription painkillers.

I think that in this area, there's such a huge epidemic, she said.

Opiates often can be a gateway to harder drugs, like heroin, which is much cheaper than pills, extremely addictive and hard to kick.

But some procedures are painful and require pain management and over-the-counter analgesics like Tylenol or ibuprofen may not be strong enough.

There's also ways to use local anesthetics so they don't feel pain at all, and one of them is the newer local anesthetic which is called Exparel, and its a long-lasting anesthetic, McLean, Virginia-area dentist Dr. Timothy Gocke said. It basically dissolves over 48 to 72 hours and it keeps the area numb so the patient doesn't really need the heavier narcotic pain pills.

Gocke started offering Exparel to his patients last year and gave it to Johnny Lockhard when he extracted his wisdom teeth.

I thought it was a great idea for my patients, Gocke said. I thought it would really help decrease the use of narcotics and opioids.

Last summer, in response to the drug crisis in this country, the American Dental Association president urged dentists to closely review patient prescriptions for painkillers, which means some are seeking safer pain relief alternatives.

Then there's also the potential for abuse, and that's very concerning, especially to parents of some of our young adult patients, Gocke said.

Although Johnny Lockhard had a prescription for 10 Percocet in addition to Exparel, he managed his pain with only Ibuprofen and extra strength Tylenol.

Elaine Lockhard has also tried Exparel and is spreading the word.

I think it's a great idea, she said. I told a few people in my Pilates classes and some people from my knitting classes, and people have asked for his name.
President Donald Trump threatened to defeat members of the House Freedom Caucus in the midterm elections in a tweet Thursday morning, continuing an inter-party spat that emerged after they helped scuttle his bill to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act.

Trump's tweet warned Republicans that the group of about 30 congressman congressmen will hurt the party's agenda if they don't get in line, and urged a fight against them, along with Democrats, in the midterms.

The Freedom Caucus will hurt the entire Republican agenda if they don't get on the team, & fast. We must fight them, & Dems, in 2018!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 30, 2017

The House Freedom Caucus' Twitter account responded Thursday afternoon by retweeting caucus member Rep. Jim Jordan's, R-Ohio, quote during an interview on the changing conventional Washington politics.

.@Jim_Jordan: "The Freedom Caucus is trying to change Washington & do what we told the voters we would do." https://t.co/SNsoFYzLKZ  House Freedom Caucus (@freedomcaucus) March 30, 2017

Within an hour of Trump's tweet, another member of the caucus Rep. John Amash, R-Mich., fired back on Twitter by saying Trump had already succumbed to the establishment in Washington, something the president railed against during his campaign.

It didn't take long for the swamp to drain @realDonaldTrump. No shame, Mr. President. Almost everyone succumbs to the D.C. Establishment. https://t.co/9bDo8yzH7I  Justin Amash (@justinamash) March 30, 2017

Later in the day, Rep. Raul Labrador reminded President Trump in a tweet of the support the Freedom Caucus lent during difficult times, without mentioning specific issues.

Freedom Caucus stood with u when others ran. Remember who your real friends are. We're trying to help u succeed.  Raul R. Labrador (@Raul_Labrador) March 30, 2017

A spokeswoman for the president, asked by NBC News if his tweet meant the president was pushing for primary challenges to members of his own party, said "the tweet speaks for itself."

In the evening, President Trump got back on Twitter and called out on Freedom Caucus members Reps. Mark Meadows, R-North Carolina, Jim Jordan, R-Ohio and Raul Labrador, R-Idaho, in back to back tweets.

If @RepMarkMeadows, @Jim_Jordan and @Raul_Labrador would get on board we would have both great healthcare and massive tax cuts & reform.  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 30, 2017

Amash was one of the rebels against the Republican plan to repeal President Barack Obama's signature health care bill, along with others in the Freedom Caucus and some moderates. House Speaker Paul Ryan pulled the bill, the American Health Care Act, from the floor Friday when it was clear he didn't have enough votes for it to pass. Even if it had, several Republican senators had expressed reservations about it.

While House Speaker Paul Ryan believes the American Health Care Act will have the votes it needs to pass the House, other Republicans are speaking out against the bill.

Defying President Donald Trump on the seven-year Republican Party promise to repeal and replace "Obamacare" could appear to be political suicide, especially in the congressional districts Trump won handily. Yet in Kentucky, North Carolina, Tennessee and Iowa in the bitter aftermath of the GOP's epic failure, Republicans who blocked the legislation have won praise from constituents for stopping what many saw as a flawed plan, either in the legislation's substance or strategy.

Conservatives opposed the bill because it didn't go far enough in getting the government out of health care while moderates worried that tens of millions of Americans might be left without insurance.

One of the House Republican rebels, Kentucky Rep. Tom Massie, who wasn't just "no" on the bill but a "hell no," tweeted to Trump Thursday that they both came to D.C. to drain the swamp.

His vote won over Mary Broecker, president of the Oldham County Republican Women's Club and a strong proponent of a full-blown repeal of the 2010 law.

Following the withdrawal of a Republican-backed health care bill, President Donald Trump on Friday urged Republican and Democratic lawmakers to work together on "a better bill."

"When he came out against this bill, I thought, 'I trust him so this must be the right way,'" the 76-year-old retired teacher said of Massie this week as she sat at a coffee shop near her LaGrange home.

Nationwide, an Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll released Wednesday found that 62 percent disapprove of the way Trump is handling health care, his worst rating among seven issues the poll tested, including the economy, foreign policy and immigration.

The same poll found negative views of five of the six changes Republicans envisioned for the bill, including allowing insurers to charge older customers higher premiums than is now allowed, reduced funds for Medicaid and denying federal dollars to Planned Parenthood.

Yet the same voters who backed their local lawmaker for opposing the bill showed patience with Trump.

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"I think he's going to be a great president," Broecker said. "I think he'll figure it out."

In the districts of the bill's foes, Republican voters and activists faulted Ryan, who on Thursday said it's understandable that the president was venting frustration with the tweet.

Some argue Ryan was too willing to accept pieces of "Obamacare."

"We've been hearing repeal-and-replace for seven years and finally we get control, and they say, 'Let's just kind of fix it,'" said 31-year-old Justin Wasson of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, who runs a small business. "We gave them everything. Now, I want this thing gutted."

With midterm elections coming next year, Wasson said he planned to vote again for his congressman, Rep. Rod Blum of Dubuque  a sentiment echoed by other voters whose representatives opposed the bill.

Kelly Stanger of Lowell, Michigan, argued that conservatives were prevented from contributing to the bill, and said she'd vote again for Amash.

"He has no problem taking heat," the 50-year-old cafe waitress said. "I don't think just because you belong to a party that you have to agree."
Laura and Dayana Gomez flew from Colombia Wednesday night into Boston's Logan International Airport, but they couldn't get far. The sisters, who live in Colombia and traveled to Massachusetts to visit their mother and stepfather, have been detained and questioned since their arrival.

Their mother, who lives in Lowell, is extremely worried, and not just because of the lengthy detainment. Laura, who's just 11, was rushed to Massachusetts General Hospital Thursday morning for severe stomach pains. She was then taken back to the airport, where the questioning has continued.

"Here we have an 11-year-old child who came here to see her mother and her stepfather, and she's had a serious medical condition and the tactics here are concerning," said immigration attorney Heather Yountz.

Yountz says she's never seen anything like this case. She says the sisters, who are dual citizens of Colombia and Spain, have valid Spanish passports and return tickets. She believes U.S. Customs and Border Protection may be fearful that the girls will stay in the States with their mother and won't go back home.

"My concern is that 11-year-old girls being treated in this manner are a result of what's happening right now in the world of immigration, and in airports in particular," said Yountz.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection told NBC Boston it could not comment on a specific case because of privacy laws, and offered the following general statement:

"U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers are thoroughly trained on admissibility factors and the Immigration and Nationality Act which broadly governs the admissibility and inadmissibility of travelers into the United States.

"All travelers arriving to the United States must possess valid travel documents. For foreign nationals, this includes a current passport and a valid visa or visa waiver issued by the U.S. Government. The foreign national must possess the appropriate visa for their intended purpose of travel.

"It is important to note that issuance of a visa or a visa waiver does not guarantee entry to the United States. A CBP officer at the port of entry will conduct an inspection to determine if the individual is eligible for admission under U.S. immigration law.

"As the agency charged with determining admissibility of aliens at ports of entry, under U.S. immigration law [Section 291 of the INA [8 USC 1361] applicants for admission bear the burden of proof to establish that they are clearly eligible to enter the United States. In order to demonstrate that they are admissible, the applicant must overcome ALL grounds of inadmissibility."

The girls are still being detained as of Thursday evening, and it's unclear if they will eventually be released or deported. Laura and Dayana, who's 20, are both applying to become U.S. citizens.
Police and the state fire marshal's office are investigating after a 2-alarm fire damaged a home in Tewksbury, Massachusetts, on Wednesday night.

Around 10 p.m. Wednesday, a raging fire broke out at the home. The conditions were so bad that firefighters were forced to attack the blaze from outside.

The blaze caused substantial damage to the building, and the cause remains unknown.

Tewksbury fire officials confirmed that the tenant or tenants had been evicted from the home earlier Wednesday. Police also responded to the home for some sort of a complaint.

Arson investigators and Tewksbury police were at the scene Thursday.

The homeowner did not immediately respond to a call seeking comment. It is unclear who the tenant or tenants may have been or where they are.

A friend of the tenants who did not want to be identified was at the home on Thursday and said only that "something bad happened here."
Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren have appealed to their supporters at a rally as liberals continue to mobilize against the agenda of Republican President Donald Trump.

The joint appearance Friday by the senators from Vermont and Massachusetts, respectively, had the feel of a campaign event at a downtown Boston theater.

The two hit familiar themes, including wealth inequality, the need to expand health care, help for the middle class, a $15 per hour minimum wage and guaranteeing free tuition at public colleges and universities.

Sanders also called for a "fundamental restructuring of the Democratic Party."

Warren, a Democrat, and Sanders, an independent who caucuses with the Democrats, are among the top voices in the Senate opposed to Trump.

The former presidential candidate and Warren are both up for re-election next year.
The owner of a Massachusetts farm and the 26 tenants who rent space on the property have been indicted on multiple animal cruelty charges after authorities say they found more than 1,400 animals in various levels of distress, the state's attorney general announced Friday.

Attorney General Maura Healey said the investigation into the Westport farm resulting in these charges is the largest of its kind in New England.

Thursday's indictment returned more than 150 counts of animal cruelty by a grand jury.

The investigation, which involved local and state law enforcement, animal advocacy groups and the state's agricultural department, started in July 2016 when Westport police were called to report animal cruelty allegations.

"Hundreds of animals on this farm were kept in deplorable and dangerous conditions, with inadequate food, water, or shelter, many of them suffering from severe health ailments that required them to be euthanized," Healey said in a statement.

The farm's owner, 83-year-old Richard Medeiros, was hit with the most indictments by the grand jury, with a total of 21 animal cruelty charges.

Twenty-six tenants who rented space on the property were also indicted on animal cruelty charges.

Eduardo Caetano, 51, of Fall River, with four counts

Messias P. Farias, 74, of Fall River, with one count

Luis Machado, 56, of New Bedford, with eight counts

Eddy DeAguiar, 37, of Fall River, with 10 counts

Joao Aguiar, 73, of Fall River, with 10 counts

Octavio Botelho, 51, of Fall River, with six counts

Luis Pacheco, 57, of Fall River, with three counts

Emmanuel DeSousa, 47, of Fall River, with four counts

Diana Magalhaes, 46, of Fall River, with four counts

Bruno Magalhaes, 32, of Fall River, with four counts

Jose Botelho, 64, of Fall River, with 11 counts

Joseph Rego, 40, of Fall River, with four counts

Jeffrey Brilhante, 36, of Fall River, with nine counts

Jose Aguiar, 66, of Fall River, with nine counts

Antonio Dias, 64, of Fall River, with five counts

Eduardo Vultao, 51, of Dighton, with four counts

John Melo, 45, of Fall River, with five counts

Arthur Arruda, 53, of New Bedford, with five counts

Rhonda Gadomski, 50, of Fall River, with three counts

Kenneth Bellevance Jr., 44, of Westport, with three counts

Scottie Medeiros, 31, of Fall River, with one count

Timothy Cabral, 32, of Fall River, with four counts

Jose Reis, 58, of Fall River, with four counts

Antonio Medeiros, 42, of Tiverton, with one count

Donald Rapoza, 61, of New Bedford, with eight counts

Emanuel Gaspar, 55, of Fall River, with one count


YMCA Norfolk staff are honoured for their work

YMCA Norfolk staff took part in plank racing, created heraldic shields and were honoured for their work and long-service at the annual Staff Awards Day, held at the Kings Centre in Norwich yesterday (March 30). Keith Morris reports.

Scores of staff and volunteers from right across Norfolk enjoyed a day of team challenges and presentations before seeing colleagues honoured during the annual awards ceremony.



Susie Knights and Martin Rye received 15-year long-service awards and Charlette Ewles, Julie Brown and Emmanuel Kouadria received ten-year awards.



The team from Throckmorton Yard and Barnards Yard in Norwich were named as Team of the Year for their professional attitude, embracing change and delivering great results.



Tony Gray was named Staff Member of the Year for his positive can-do attitude, willingness to thrown himself into anything and his care and respect for those he supports.



Outcome Star Worker of the Year was Emmanuel Kouadria and Fundraising Team of the Year was the HR team.



Marcus Tutt from Kings Church told staff that we often find real meaning in life by laying down our own lives and serving the needs of other people  as Jesus demonstrated.



David Elverson, from Deep, reported back on an Employee Engagement Survey saying: Engagement has increased and is higher than the average for all respondent companies and 4% higher than for other charities measured.



YMCA Norfolk CEO, Tim Sweeting, told his staff that they were aiming to transform young lives and it is their Christian ethos which makes them unique.



In all our work with young people in housing, schools and youth clubs and with families we are in prevention work to set them on a path for a different future  to make sure that they get the best start in life, he said.



We know that demand for our services is increasing. We can see that there is a perfect storm around the most vulnerable people in our society, squeezing them from every angle. But we are not going to run out on them. We will be there for the long-term to make sure that they get the services that they need, said Tim.



Against a background of funding fragmentation and decreases, he said: We are in a transition period but funding changes do not define us. The YMCA might look different in the future but we have been here since 1856 and we will still be here in another 160 years  the changes come and the changes go but the YMCA remains. We take a long-term view of things, not a quick fix.



Pictured above are the winners of the YMCA Norfolk Staff Awards. See below for a full picture gallery of the day.






FILM REVIEW: Black man in white nightmare: Jordan Peele's directorial debut Get Out

Get Out (15)

Running time 1hr 44mins

Rating: ****

THE work of Jordan Peele and Keegan-Michael Key is significantly better-known stateside, though the miracle of YouTube has ensured their comedy a small, mostly teenaged European audience. Their award-winning sketches put an irreverent bent on US racial politics and hot-button social issues; highlights of the (now-defunct) show included a war vet-turned-substitute teacher and Barack Obamas anger translator. The announcement of Get Out, Peeles directorial debut, suggested that one half of the duo was ready to take the shows signature silliness to the multiplex. The film is, in fact, a very different beast, an unsettling and highly relevant shocker that finds Peele at his most uncompromising and versatile.

Get Out defies straightforward categorisation  while there is comedy, its the furthest thing from the broad chutzpah of Key & Peele, served up with a bareknuckle frankness that will no doubt

traumatise many viewers. More than anything, its a startlingly ODD picture, a mash-up of satire, bloodsploitation, Hitchcockian suspense and offbeat Kevin Smith-esque fare. Initially, the movie sets us up for an observational domestic drama, a latter-day Guess Whos Coming to Dinner, as Chris (Daniel Kaluuya), an African-American photographer, accompanies his white girlfriend (Allison Williams) to the abode of her parents. The familys home life is a slice of liberal idyll, with a psychiatrist mother (Catherine Keener) and a father (Bradley Whitford) who, in his own words, wouldve voted for Obama a third time, though theres something up with the all-black ground staff, and with Jeremy (Caleb Landry Jones), the trainee surgeon son

The premise of Get Out has an edge over many recent race-themed screen efforts (even  dare we say?  one or two of the years Oscar nominees), in that its commentary is never anything but unique. This WASP-y, frequently charming clan bear no grudge against black people; if anything, their problems stem from liking them TOO much. Their friends, shipped in for a spectacularly uncomfortable luncheon, look upon Chris as an exotic animal; there are some fist-bitingly awkward sequences, and the tension is applied with surgical precision, as the protagonists alienation turns to puzzlement and, eventually, terror. Though theres material here to appease the gorehounds, its far more than the visceral horror-thriller promised by the trailers, an altogether fearless attack upon the myth of the post-racial society.

Having mostly settled for jump-scares, the movies final act takes a turn into absurd, bloody carnage. One might be hard-pressed to believe that anybody, least of all a first-time filmmaker with a background in Interweb-friendly farce, could carry this 21st-century comedy of manners in such a demented direction, but it all fits together solidly, taking its time on the characters and milking every little detail (a run-in with the police, a quiet family dinner) for its full potential. There are personal touches here that will no doubt reward repeat viewing, and its a strikingly original, very funny, exceedingly creepy piece of work  Peele has established himself, there can be no doubt, as a talent to watch.
Defendant removed vehicle's handbrake while a woman was being treated inside

A MAN who moved an ambulance to free up a parking space in Newbury  unaware that someone was being treated inside  was trying to be a Good Samaritan.

Alan John Dale, 67, (pictured courtesy of ITV Meridian) released the handbrake of the vehicle in Pelican Lane on December 29 last year.

But he was only trying to help a woman stuck in a car park, Reading Magistrates Court heard on Thursday.

Magistrates heard that an ambulance had been called to treat a woman suffering from vertigo and stroke-like symptoms.

The court heard how the ambulance had been parked to try and avoid causing any problems for other motorists.

Despite this, around four cars became blocked in.

A woman and her child tried to exit the car park, saying in a statement that they had been unable to leave for 20 minutes. A small crowd had also gathered, with some people offering advice to help her out of the space.

Prosecuting, Hasrat Ali told the court: Mr Dale arrived in his car and he decided that he would move the ambulance for that car to get out and he could then park his car in that space.

Mrs Ali said Mr Dale then got in the ambulance and removed the handbrake, causing it to jolt between one and two metres backwards.

As a result, the court heard, the patient jolted backward violently and suffered further anxiety.

Paramedics then rushed out telling Mr Dale that he had no right to move the emergency vehicle.

The result could have been fatal had they tried to inject the patient, Mrs Ali said, but as it was there were no further issues.

Mr Dale was fined 1,192, reduced to 795 because of his early guilty plea. He was also ordered to pay an 80 victim surcharge and costs of 85.

Charges of taking a vehicle without permission and driving without third party insurance were dropped.

Pick up a copy of this week's Newbury Weekly News, on sale now, for the full court proceedings.
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Area cordoned off after liquid petroleum gas leak creates gas cloud

AN ESTATE next to an Army barracks in Hermitage was evacuated yesterday (Thursday) evening, due to a liquid petroleum gas leak which created a potentially explosive and visible gas cloud.

Three fire engines, including two from Newbury and a third from Reading were called at 4.30pm, to Faircross - a road near Denison Barracks.

On arrival firefighters discovered a 1500 litre, bulk cylinder lorry was leaking liquid petroleum gas from a hose situated beneath the vehicle.

The leak had created a visible cloud of highly explosive gas.

No-one was hurt.

Firefighters evacuated about 50 people from living quarters next to the barracks, aided by police.

A 250m cordon was thrown around the area and roads around the area were closed.

All power serving the estate was turned off during the incident.

Firefighters wearing breathing apparatus and gas engineers made the vehicle and area safe.

Firefighters used gas monitoring equipment to measure the air quality during the incident before giving the all clear.

Those evacuated from the estate were not allowed back to their homes until 8pm, after the gas cloud had safely dissipated in the wind.

Firefighters left at around 8pm.

The commercial lorry had been making a delivery to the estate.

A large police presence was also at the scene.
VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA--(Marketwired - Mar 30, 2017) - Strongbow Exploration Inc. (TSX VENTURE:SBW) ("Strongbow" or the "Company") has successfully completed water treatment trials at its South Crofty tin project, located in Cornwall, UK and is now working on an application to the UK Environment Agency ("EA") for a mine waste permit.

The Company has hired WS Atkins, a leading global engineering and project management consultancy, to submit an application to the EA for a mine waste permit with water discharge consent. The application is expected to be filed within one month, and permits are anticipated to be issued before the end of summer this year.

Once the Company receives a mine waste permit with water discharge consent, the South Crofty project will be fully permitted, with the following in place:

a mining license valid to 2071;

planning permission to construct new surface process facilities; and

the ability to dewater the mine.

Richard Williams, CEO and President of Strongbow, commented:

"This is an important step forward as Strongbow works to bring the South Crofty mine back into operation. The South Crofty team worked closely with the UK Environment Agency throughout the process and I am very pleased that we were able to develop a system to treat the mine water which met their very high standards. We have resounding local support in Cornwall and I look forward to updating shareholders and the local community during the summer."

The water treatment trials were required by the EA to demonstrate that contaminated mine water could be treated, and dissolved metals and suspended solids collected prior to discharging mine water from the South Crofty mine workings into the Red River. The results of the trial successfully met all treated water target contaminant levels proposed by the EA.

The water treatment trials were undertaken by a leading UK mine water treatment company, Siltbuster Process Solutions ("Siltbuster"), utilising their High Density Sludge ("HDS") process and a temporary water treatment plant constructed for the trial period located at the South Crofty mine site. Siltbuster personnel also designed and built the nearby water treatment facility at the Wheal Jane mine, which has been in operation for over fifteen years.

Story continues

The proposed treatment process for the mine dewatering is a 6-stage system summarised as follows:

Hydrogen peroxide addition to oxidise As3+ ions to As5+; Lime dosing to increase the pH of the mine water from 6.5 to 10.5 and precipitate the soluble metals as hydroxides; Addition of polymer to flocculate the precipitated solids; Clarification of water and settlement of solids in a lamellar plate thickener; Re-circulation of settled solids through the reaction vessel to form a higher density sludge and promote more effective adsorption of soluble metals; and CO 2 addition to reduce the pH of the treated water below 9 prior to discharge.

Sludge collected in the water treatment process will initially be disposed of at a nearby tailings facility, and once in production will be mixed with tailings as backfill and deposited underground.

The mine waste permit application envisages an initial pumping / treatment rate of 25,000m3 / day over an 18-24 month period. After dewatering the mine is complete and then during production, a steady-state dewatering program of 5,500 to 6,500 m3/day will be maintained, subject to annual precipitation variations. The post-dewatering steady-state treatment rate is based on pumping records from when the mine was in production up to 1998.

The installation and operation of a permanent water treatment plant for the South Crofty tin project will provide a material improvement to the current status of the local environment which currently has untreated, contaminated mine water discharging into the Red River. The cost to construct the permanent water treatment facility is included as part of the estimated USD$118.7 million pre-production capital cost (incl. contingency) outlined in the Company's PEA announcement dated February 16, 2017 (see below).

About South Crofty

Strongbow acquired the South Crofty tin project from administration in 2016 (see news release dated July 12, 2016 for details). The main points that attracted Strongbow to the project are:

A mining history that dates back to the 1700s; One of the highest grade tin resources globally; A mine permit valid until 2071; Planning permission to construct new surface facilities; Strong local support for the mine to get back into production; and Excellent potential to significantly build upon the current NI 43-101 compliant mineral resource base.

The Company published the results of a Preliminary Economic Assessment ("PEA") on February 16, 2017, and the accompanying NI 43-101 technical report supporting the PEA will be filed on SEDAR before April 2, 2017. The PEA was completed by P&E Mining Consultants Inc. of Ontario, Canada in accordance with guidelines found in National Instrument 43-101 - Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects ("NI 43-101").

The PEA indicates that the project is potentially economically viable and technically feasible.

PEA Highlights (All amounts quoted are in USD unless specified otherwise)

After-tax Net Present Value ("NPV") of $130.5 million (CDN$170.7 million using an exchange rate of 1.308, at a 5% discount rate) and an Internal Rate of Return ("IRR") of 23.4%, at assumed metal prices of $10.00/lb Sn, $2.65/lb Cu, and $0.90/lb Zn;

Estimated pre-production capital cost, including contingency, of $118.7 million with payback of 3.8 years and Life of Mine ("LOM") sustaining capital costs of $83.8 million;

Average LOM total cash cost of $3.36/lb SnEq metal recovered and a LOM all-in sustaining cash cost ("AISC") of $4.44/lb.

Potential to create approximately 110 new jobs during the 24-36 month dewatering and construction period (excluding construction personnel and contractors);

A mine at South Crofty would have the potential to directly employ approximately 275 people in permanent positions;

South Crofty will be operated using modern, trackless, mechanized underground mining methods and best-in-class processing, based on over 40 years of experience processing South Crofty mill feed through both the former on-site and Wheal Jane mills. The thickened tailings from the process will be used to backfill part of an 8-million cubic metres void space currently in the mine as well as providing ground support for modern mining operations;

The mineralized material mined in the PEA is 2.575 million tonnes containing 88 million pounds of SnEq (tin equivalent) at an average grade of 1.55% SnEq;

Operating mine life is over an 8-year period using average process recoveries of 88% for tin, 85% for copper, and 70% for zinc;

Disclosure of a scientific or technical nature in this press release was prepared under the supervision of Owen Mihalop, CEng. MIMMM, the Company's Chief Operating Officer, and Eugene Puritch, P.Eng. and Andrew Bradfield, P.Eng., of P&E Mining Consultants Inc. Messrs. Mihalop, Puritch and Bradfield are "Qualified Persons" as defined in NI 43-101.

ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS

Richard D. Williams, P.Geo

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

This news release contains "forward-looking statements" including but not limited to statements with respect to Strongbow's ability to obtain an increase to the water discharge permit for the South Crofty tin project, the estimated time required to complete mine dewatering, the potential to increase the Mineral Resource Estimate, estimates related to the net present value and internal rates of return of the South Crofty tin project, estimates related to assumed metal prices, pre-production capital costs, sustaining costs, payback periods, cash costs, job creation, recovery rates, life-of-mine estimates and mining methods, in addition to the availability of financing for development and future cash payments, as well as ongoing maintenance costs, the Company's ability to commence commercial production from the South Crofty tin project and the success of exploration activities.

The Mineral Resource Estimate figures referred to in this press release are estimates and are therefore insufficient to allow meaningful application of the technical and economic parameters to enable an evaluation of the technical or economic viability and no assurances can be given that mining of the South Crofty project will be technically viable or that the indicated levels of tin will be produced. Such estimates are expressions of judgment based on knowledge, mining experience, analysis of drilling results and industry practises. Valid estimates made at any given time may significantly change when new information becomes available. While the Company believes that the resource estimates included in this press release are well established, by their very nature, resource estimates are imprecise and depend, to a certain extent, upon statistical inferences which may ultimately prove unreliable. If such estimates are inaccurate or are reduced in the future, this could have a material adverse impact on the Company.

Forward-looking statements, while based on management's best estimates and assumptions, are subject to risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to be materially different from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements, including but not limited to: risks related to receipt of regulatory approvals, the successful integration of acquisitions; risks related to general economic and market conditions; risks related to the availability of financing; the timing and content of upcoming work programs; actual results of proposed exploration activities; possible variations in Mineral Resources or grade; failure of plant, equipment or processes to operate as anticipated; accidents, labour disputes, title disputes, claims and limitations on insurance coverage and other risks of the mining industry; changes in national and local government regulation of mining operations, tax rules and regulations.

Although Strongbow has attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in forward-looking statements, there may be other factors that cause results not to be as anticipated, estimated or intended. There can be no assurance that such statements will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. Strongbow undertakes no obligation or responsibility to update forward-looking statements, except as required by law.
By PTI

NEW DELHI: The Environment Pollution Prevention and Control Authority (EPCA) today observed that auto dealers were resorting to "fake sales" of BS-III models to circumvent the ban on their registration from tomorrow.

The issue came up during a meeting of the Supreme Court-appointed body involving officials of Delhi and NCR states and representatives of the auto industry.

"Dealers are selling BS-III vehicles to their relatives in bulk. Basically these fake sales are being done to ensure that they can be registered when they are resold to customers," an EPCA member said.

However, the state governments assured the panel that circumventing the ban was difficult and that the existing registration mechanism was "nearly foolproof".

The Delhi government's Transport Department, in an order issued yesterday, asked the registering authorities and MLOs (motor licensing officers) to not register any vehicle which does not meet BS-IV standards.

"In case a vehicle is claimed to have been sold before April 1, the authorities shall obtain proof of that sale and will personally satisfy themselves about the correctness of that proof," the order says.

The registering authorities have also been asked to obtain details including chassis and engine numbers, type, model and name of vehicle, invoice number, details of payment made up to March 31; and address, details of PAN and Aadhaar card of the purchasers.

Any violation will lead to legal action, including cancellation of trade certificate against the dealer. The dealer concerned shall also be held liable of contempt of the Supreme Court, it said.

An Uttar Pradesh government official said, "Currently, after purchase of each vehicle, sales tax has to be paid and that has to be registered online. So in case of BS-III vehicles sold till March 31, the regional transport authorities will check whether tax was paid before registering it."

Delhi claimed it has a similar mechanism in place.

Haryana, which does not have any online mechanism, also assured the EPCA it would not allow any dodging of norms.

The EPCA also said the auto manufacturers will have to apprise the Supreme Court on what they have done to their BS-III inventories, which the industry claims stands at around 8 lakh.

The states were asked to submit a report on the registration done on or after April 1.

To exhaust their stock, two-wheeler majors are offering discounts of up to Rs 22,000 to sell as many units as possible before the deadline imposed by the Supreme Court comes into force.

The Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM) had earlier informed the apex court that the companies were holding stock of around 8.24 lakh vehicles, which are not BS-IV compliant, including 96,000 commercial vehicles, over six lakh two-wheelers and around 40,000 three-wheelers.

According to industry estimates, the total value of the impacted vehicles is between Rs 15,000 and Rs 20,000 crore.

NEW DELHI: The Environment Pollution Prevention and Control Authority (EPCA) today observed that auto dealers were resorting to "fake sales" of BS-III models to circumvent the ban on their registration from tomorrow. The issue came up during a meeting of the Supreme Court-appointed body involving officials of Delhi and NCR states and representatives of the auto industry. "Dealers are selling BS-III vehicles to their relatives in bulk. Basically these fake sales are being done to ensure that they can be registered when they are resold to customers," an EPCA member said. However, the state governments assured the panel that circumventing the ban was difficult and that the existing registration mechanism was "nearly foolproof". The Delhi government's Transport Department, in an order issued yesterday, asked the registering authorities and MLOs (motor licensing officers) to not register any vehicle which does not meet BS-IV standards. "In case a vehicle is claimed to have been sold before April 1, the authorities shall obtain proof of that sale and will personally satisfy themselves about the correctness of that proof," the order says. The registering authorities have also been asked to obtain details including chassis and engine numbers, type, model and name of vehicle, invoice number, details of payment made up to March 31; and address, details of PAN and Aadhaar card of the purchasers. Any violation will lead to legal action, including cancellation of trade certificate against the dealer. The dealer concerned shall also be held liable of contempt of the Supreme Court, it said. An Uttar Pradesh government official said, "Currently, after purchase of each vehicle, sales tax has to be paid and that has to be registered online. So in case of BS-III vehicles sold till March 31, the regional transport authorities will check whether tax was paid before registering it." Delhi claimed it has a similar mechanism in place. Haryana, which does not have any online mechanism, also assured the EPCA it would not allow any dodging of norms. The EPCA also said the auto manufacturers will have to apprise the Supreme Court on what they have done to their BS-III inventories, which the industry claims stands at around 8 lakh. The states were asked to submit a report on the registration done on or after April 1. To exhaust their stock, two-wheeler majors are offering discounts of up to Rs 22,000 to sell as many units as possible before the deadline imposed by the Supreme Court comes into force. The Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM) had earlier informed the apex court that the companies were holding stock of around 8.24 lakh vehicles, which are not BS-IV compliant, including 96,000 commercial vehicles, over six lakh two-wheelers and around 40,000 three-wheelers. According to industry estimates, the total value of the impacted vehicles is between Rs 15,000 and Rs 20,000 crore.
By PTI

NEW DELHI: The officers and staff of the Income Tax department here have contributed their one-day salary towards the Clean India mission. The contribution of Rs 52,75,183 was made by the Indian Revenue Service (IRS) Association, Income Tax Gazetted Officers Association and Income Tax Employees Federation.

A delegation representing these associations handed over the cheque to Minister of State for Finance, Santosh Gangwar yesterday. "We have embraced the call for cleanliness by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in all its aspects and have resolved not only to clean up the offices, but also to have 'clear and clean conduct' and contribute financially to give further impetus to the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan," Jayant Misra, General Secretary, IRS Association said.

All the three associations had been toiling for cleaning up the Income Tax offices in response to the call for cleanliness by the Prime Minister. The move has led to a marked improvement in the ambiance of various offices, he said. The delegation comprised Anchal Khandelwal, Joint Secretary, IRS Association; Ajay Goyal, General Secretary, and K Suresh, Additional Secretary of Income Tax Gazetted Officers Association.

Ashok Kanojia and Ajay Sharma, President and General Secretary, respectively of the Income Tax Employees Federation were also part of the delegation.

NEW DELHI: The officers and staff of the Income Tax department here have contributed their one-day salary towards the Clean India mission. The contribution of Rs 52,75,183 was made by the Indian Revenue Service (IRS) Association, Income Tax Gazetted Officers Association and Income Tax Employees Federation. A delegation representing these associations handed over the cheque to Minister of State for Finance, Santosh Gangwar yesterday. "We have embraced the call for cleanliness by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in all its aspects and have resolved not only to clean up the offices, but also to have 'clear and clean conduct' and contribute financially to give further impetus to the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan," Jayant Misra, General Secretary, IRS Association said. All the three associations had been toiling for cleaning up the Income Tax offices in response to the call for cleanliness by the Prime Minister. The move has led to a marked improvement in the ambiance of various offices, he said. The delegation comprised Anchal Khandelwal, Joint Secretary, IRS Association; Ajay Goyal, General Secretary, and K Suresh, Additional Secretary of Income Tax Gazetted Officers Association. Ashok Kanojia and Ajay Sharma, President and General Secretary, respectively of the Income Tax Employees Federation were also part of the delegation.
CHENNAI: A 15-year-old school-going girl set herself ablaze here on Wednesday after she was allegedly raped by her uncle who has started blackmailing her saying he would release the video clips.



Police said the accused, who is running a private school in the city, was absconding and the family members, despite being aware of the incident, kept quiet for fear of their family reputation getting damaged.



The girl had set herself on fire in her house after her parents left for work. The neighbours rescued her by breaking open the door. However, she died before reaching the hospital.



A suicide note left behind narrated the shocking tale of sexual abuse she faced within the family.

On September 5, 2016, the girl had visited her aunts house and when she was alone at home her uncle offered her a cool drink in which he had mixed some tablets. She soon fell unconscious after which he raped her. He had also threatened her that he would release the video he had taken if she spilled the beans, said a police officer who is privy to the victims suicide note.



Intimidated, the girl remained silent for more than five months. She suffered depression and had attempted suicide one-and-a-half months ago, but was rescued by her family.



Later, the girl opened up about the incident to her parents and relatives who warned the rapist and told her to remain silent to keep the family reputation intact, a police officer said.



But the uncle never stopped. He kept contacting the girl over phone and threatened her of releasing the videos if she did not have sex with him, he said, adding that the mans wife (sister of the girls father) too had threatened the girl once over phone for accusing her husband.



For the last two days, she had been facing continuous threats from her uncle that he would upload the videos. That finally drove the girl to end her life.



On Wednesday, the girls father, a vegetable vendor, had gone to work, and her elder brother had gone to drop her mother at work. The girl was alone at home when she set her self ablaze.



Hearing her screams, the neighbours broke open the door and saw the girl in flames. They rushed the girl to the Kilpauk Medical College Hospital where the doctors declared her dead on arrival, said the officer, narrating the incident.



A case has been registered under section 306 (abetment of suicide) of the Indian Penal Code and section 4 of The Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act. Police have launched a hunt for the girls uncle who has a 12-year-old daughter. Police are probing if the man had indulged in subjecting any of the students in the school he runs to similar harassment.

CHENNAI: A 15-year-old school-going girl set herself ablaze here on Wednesday after she was allegedly raped by her uncle who has started blackmailing her saying he would release the video clips. Police said the accused, who is running a private school in the city, was absconding and the family members, despite being aware of the incident, kept quiet for fear of their family reputation getting damaged. The girl had set herself on fire in her house after her parents left for work. The neighbours rescued her by breaking open the door. However, she died before reaching the hospital. A suicide note left behind narrated the shocking tale of sexual abuse she faced within the family. On September 5, 2016, the girl had visited her aunts house and when she was alone at home her uncle offered her a cool drink in which he had mixed some tablets. She soon fell unconscious after which he raped her. He had also threatened her that he would release the video he had taken if she spilled the beans, said a police officer who is privy to the victims suicide note. Intimidated, the girl remained silent for more than five months. She suffered depression and had attempted suicide one-and-a-half months ago, but was rescued by her family. Later, the girl opened up about the incident to her parents and relatives who warned the rapist and told her to remain silent to keep the family reputation intact, a police officer said. But the uncle never stopped. He kept contacting the girl over phone and threatened her of releasing the videos if she did not have sex with him, he said, adding that the mans wife (sister of the girls father) too had threatened the girl once over phone for accusing her husband. For the last two days, she had been facing continuous threats from her uncle that he would upload the videos. That finally drove the girl to end her life. On Wednesday, the girls father, a vegetable vendor, had gone to work, and her elder brother had gone to drop her mother at work. The girl was alone at home when she set her self ablaze. Hearing her screams, the neighbours broke open the door and saw the girl in flames. They rushed the girl to the Kilpauk Medical College Hospital where the doctors declared her dead on arrival, said the officer, narrating the incident. A case has been registered under section 306 (abetment of suicide) of the Indian Penal Code and section 4 of The Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act. Police have launched a hunt for the girls uncle who has a 12-year-old daughter. Police are probing if the man had indulged in subjecting any of the students in the school he runs to similar harassment.
Malini Mannath By

Express News Service

Director: K. V. Anand

Cast: Vijay Sethupathi, Madonna Sebastian, T. Rajhendherr

Set against the backdrop of a media house, Kavan's about how a simple man takes on the might of a powerful media baron. Along the lines of Ko, one of K. V. Anand's previous films, Kavan, however, lacks the focus and the tautness of the former. Here, it simply comes across as a hodgepodge of situations strung together loosely. Also, the main issue--about a factory's toxic waste polluting the environment--gets almost sidelined.

However, the opening potions are quite engaging. The dialogues sparkle with humour, and there are quite a few digs taken at the media and reality shows, which has been shown all too often in other films. Powerstar Sreenivasan and T. Rajhendherr serve to pep up the proceedings. The latter, especially, chams with his alliterative lines. It's a mark of his screen presence that he still holds his own even in the otherwise cumbersome second half.

During the earlier portions, Vijay Sethupathi is shown in a slightly different sophisticated look. Madonna, who plays his colleague and love interest, plays her role sincerely. The protagonist, Thilak, tries to expose a politician after the latter rapes an activist. However, his efforts are thwarted as he learns that his employer is in nexus with the corrupt politician. How he takes on the channel forms the rest of the story.

Some episodes are particularly entertaining, like a live interview on the channel going unplanned. But such moments don't come too often. Also, there are too many characters for K. V. Anand to do justice to.

In the second half, the narration becomes jerkier, and with songs getting thrust in, the director seems to lose his grip on the story. Also, Vikranth's character as an activist isn't entirely fleshed out. Ultimately, Kavan, at a draining length of 160 minutes, makes for a tedious watch.

Director: K. V. Anand Cast: Vijay Sethupathi, Madonna Sebastian, T. Rajhendherr Set against the backdrop of a media house, Kavan's about how a simple man takes on the might of a powerful media baron. Along the lines of Ko, one of K. V. Anand's previous films, Kavan, however, lacks the focus and the tautness of the former. Here, it simply comes across as a hodgepodge of situations strung together loosely. Also, the main issue--about a factory's toxic waste polluting the environment--gets almost sidelined. However, the opening potions are quite engaging. The dialogues sparkle with humour, and there are quite a few digs taken at the media and reality shows, which has been shown all too often in other films. Powerstar Sreenivasan and T. Rajhendherr serve to pep up the proceedings. The latter, especially, chams with his alliterative lines. It's a mark of his screen presence that he still holds his own even in the otherwise cumbersome second half. During the earlier portions, Vijay Sethupathi is shown in a slightly different sophisticated look. Madonna, who plays his colleague and love interest, plays her role sincerely. The protagonist, Thilak, tries to expose a politician after the latter rapes an activist. However, his efforts are thwarted as he learns that his employer is in nexus with the corrupt politician. How he takes on the channel forms the rest of the story. Some episodes are particularly entertaining, like a live interview on the channel going unplanned. But such moments don't come too often. Also, there are too many characters for K. V. Anand to do justice to. In the second half, the narration becomes jerkier, and with songs getting thrust in, the director seems to lose his grip on the story. Also, Vikranth's character as an activist isn't entirely fleshed out. Ultimately, Kavan, at a draining length of 160 minutes, makes for a tedious watch.
By Express News Service

NEW DELHI: Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi today accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of "disrespecting" the drought-hit farmers of Tamil Nadu by not initiating talks with them over their demands for relief package. He made the remarks during a visit to Jantar Mantar to express solidarity with the farmers from the southern state who are camping here for the 18th day in a row.

Gandhi also accused the Modi-led government of being "anti-poor and anti-farmer" which, he alleged, only panders to the demands of a select group of industrialists. "The farmers have been sitting here for so long. But neither the government nor the Prime Minister are listening to them. The people and farmers of Tamil Nadu deserve to be heard by the Prime Minister who is disrespecting them by not initiating any dialogue," he said.

"Over the last three years, debt worth Rs 1.4 lakh crore held by 50 industrialists have been written off. "Why the same is not being done in case of the farmers? Why are their debts not being waived? It is the Prime Minister's responsibility to do so," Gandhi said after interacting with the protesters and their leader P Ayyakkannu.

During the 15-minute interaction, he took note of all the demands of the protesters and assured them that the Congress will "fight for them" and raise their grievances "in Tamil Nadu as well as in Delhi and Parliament". The Centre needs to provide debt waiver, drought relief and better support price to the farmers. Also the Prime Minister should at least start talks with them, Gandhi said.

He was accompanied by Tamil Nadu Congress chief Su. Thirunavukkarasar and senior party leader Mani Shankar Aiyar. Farmers belonging to the Cauvery belt in Tamil Nadu are protesting here demanding a drought relief package of Rs 40,000 crore from the Centre, farm loan waiver and setting up of Cauvery Management Board.

The protesters today wore 'rudhraksha' (seeds traditionally used for prayer beads) indicating a life of saints who has given up all earthly needs. "We will die at the national capital instead of returning to our state empty-handed," Ayyakkannu said. It has not rained and ground water levels have gone down at many places in the state. The water bodies are also drying. The poor farmers, who depend on their crops, are the most vulnerable section of the society and they always become victims of various vagaries, the National Human Rights Commission had said.

NEW DELHI: Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi today accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of "disrespecting" the drought-hit farmers of Tamil Nadu by not initiating talks with them over their demands for relief package. He made the remarks during a visit to Jantar Mantar to express solidarity with the farmers from the southern state who are camping here for the 18th day in a row. Gandhi also accused the Modi-led government of being "anti-poor and anti-farmer" which, he alleged, only panders to the demands of a select group of industrialists. "The farmers have been sitting here for so long. But neither the government nor the Prime Minister are listening to them. The people and farmers of Tamil Nadu deserve to be heard by the Prime Minister who is disrespecting them by not initiating any dialogue," he said. "Over the last three years, debt worth Rs 1.4 lakh crore held by 50 industrialists have been written off. "Why the same is not being done in case of the farmers? Why are their debts not being waived? It is the Prime Minister's responsibility to do so," Gandhi said after interacting with the protesters and their leader P Ayyakkannu. During the 15-minute interaction, he took note of all the demands of the protesters and assured them that the Congress will "fight for them" and raise their grievances "in Tamil Nadu as well as in Delhi and Parliament". The Centre needs to provide debt waiver, drought relief and better support price to the farmers. Also the Prime Minister should at least start talks with them, Gandhi said. He was accompanied by Tamil Nadu Congress chief Su. Thirunavukkarasar and senior party leader Mani Shankar Aiyar. Farmers belonging to the Cauvery belt in Tamil Nadu are protesting here demanding a drought relief package of Rs 40,000 crore from the Centre, farm loan waiver and setting up of Cauvery Management Board. The protesters today wore 'rudhraksha' (seeds traditionally used for prayer beads) indicating a life of saints who has given up all earthly needs. "We will die at the national capital instead of returning to our state empty-handed," Ayyakkannu said. It has not rained and ground water levels have gone down at many places in the state. The water bodies are also drying. The poor farmers, who depend on their crops, are the most vulnerable section of the society and they always become victims of various vagaries, the National Human Rights Commission had said.
By Express News Service

NEW DELHI: Facing flak for multiple quarters of colonial era practice of having Sahayaks, the Indian army is working on a proposal to hire 29, 000 civilians, who will be replacing combat soldiers, working for menial household task for officers. New hiring is an attempt to do away with the Sahayaks in peace postings, which means only officers serving in field area will be entitled to have Sahayaks or Buddy at their disposal.

In this matter, the Armys Adjutant General Directorate has proposed to the ministry of defence to allowing army to make fresh recruitment of civilians. Besides appointing civilian for household work, the government is also working on proposal to reserve 15 per cent reservations in government jobs for war widows.

Recently, several jawans from Army and para-military forces have come out in public by posting their grievance on social media against ill treatment of combatants by officers, forcing them to do petty jobs. Lance Naik Yagya Pratap Singh posted a video complaining about the Sahayak system.

Government, while calling the Sahayak or Buddy system in the army by saying it promotes spirit de corps, has also issued exhaustive instructions to ensure that the sahayaks are not made to do menial tasks as they are combatant soldiers, the government clarified on any misuse of system.

The issue of sahayak system, a legacy of colonial British regime, has cropped up from time to time with even a Parliamentary panel slamming the government for not doing away with it. At present there are more than 30,000 sahayaks. The Navy and IAF do not have sahayaks.

The rapport between officers and the buddies has led to enhancement of the spirit-de-corps in a unit, which is vital during war and peace. As such, this is not expected to have any adverse impact on their morale,junior minister for defence Subhash Bhamre has last week informed the Parliament.

Minister said sahayaks are combatant soldiers and provide support to officers and Junior Commissioned Officers(JCO) when serving with units or Headquarters functioning. Thus, there is no separate category of sahayaks, he said.

A sahayak has clearly defined military duties and forms an integral part of the organisation structure of a unit and has specific functions during war and peace. In addition to their duties as soldier, they provide the essential support to authorized officers and JCOs, both in peace and war to enable them to fully attend to their assigned duties. The buddy also provides an alternate contact with the troops, whereby the officer is made aware of grass root issues, albeit through informal means, the minister said.

However, exhaustive instructions were issued from time to time stressing upon the need to ensure that sahayaks are not made to do menial tasks, being combatant soldiers, which are not in conformity with the dignity and self-respect of a soldier, he said.

Even the army Chief General Bipin Rawat in January announced setting up of a post box at the Army Headquarters here and in all the command centres. The aggrieved soldier can write directly to the Army Chief about his problems and Rawat assured the personnel that the senior leadership will never let down their juniors.

However, he cautioned that those soldiers taking to social media may face disciplinary action and said social media can act as a double edged weapon wherein it may be beneficial but also can prove to be detrimental.

NEW DELHI: Facing flak for multiple quarters of colonial era practice of having Sahayaks, the Indian army is working on a proposal to hire 29, 000 civilians, who will be replacing combat soldiers, working for menial household task for officers. New hiring is an attempt to do away with the Sahayaks in peace postings, which means only officers serving in field area will be entitled to have Sahayaks or Buddy at their disposal. In this matter, the Armys Adjutant General Directorate has proposed to the ministry of defence to allowing army to make fresh recruitment of civilians. Besides appointing civilian for household work, the government is also working on proposal to reserve 15 per cent reservations in government jobs for war widows. Recently, several jawans from Army and para-military forces have come out in public by posting their grievance on social media against ill treatment of combatants by officers, forcing them to do petty jobs. Lance Naik Yagya Pratap Singh posted a video complaining about the Sahayak system. Government, while calling the Sahayak or Buddy system in the army by saying it promotes spirit de corps, has also issued exhaustive instructions to ensure that the sahayaks are not made to do menial tasks as they are combatant soldiers, the government clarified on any misuse of system. The issue of sahayak system, a legacy of colonial British regime, has cropped up from time to time with even a Parliamentary panel slamming the government for not doing away with it. At present there are more than 30,000 sahayaks. The Navy and IAF do not have sahayaks. The rapport between officers and the buddies has led to enhancement of the spirit-de-corps in a unit, which is vital during war and peace. As such, this is not expected to have any adverse impact on their morale,junior minister for defence Subhash Bhamre has last week informed the Parliament. Minister said sahayaks are combatant soldiers and provide support to officers and Junior Commissioned Officers(JCO) when serving with units or Headquarters functioning. Thus, there is no separate category of sahayaks, he said. A sahayak has clearly defined military duties and forms an integral part of the organisation structure of a unit and has specific functions during war and peace. In addition to their duties as soldier, they provide the essential support to authorized officers and JCOs, both in peace and war to enable them to fully attend to their assigned duties. The buddy also provides an alternate contact with the troops, whereby the officer is made aware of grass root issues, albeit through informal means, the minister said. However, exhaustive instructions were issued from time to time stressing upon the need to ensure that sahayaks are not made to do menial tasks, being combatant soldiers, which are not in conformity with the dignity and self-respect of a soldier, he said. Even the army Chief General Bipin Rawat in January announced setting up of a post box at the Army Headquarters here and in all the command centres. The aggrieved soldier can write directly to the Army Chief about his problems and Rawat assured the personnel that the senior leadership will never let down their juniors. However, he cautioned that those soldiers taking to social media may face disciplinary action and said social media can act as a double edged weapon wherein it may be beneficial but also can prove to be detrimental.
By Express News Service

MUMBAI: Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis on Friday hinted at revoking the suspension of 19 opposition MLAs, who were suspended because of their unruly and irresponsible behaviour.



The government is of the view that the opposition is necessary for a healthy democracy and hence is positive about revoking the suspension, Fadnavis told the legislative council.



While the opposition members in the Legislative Assembly have been boycotting House proceedings over the issue, the Congress, NCP led opposition had been forcing the adjournment of the Legislative Council, demanding that the suspensions be revoked.



Suspensions have happened even in the past and have been revoked later. This time too we (ruling and opposition parties) had a positive discussion over the issue in the chairmans chamber, Devendra Fadnavis said.



Despite positive discussions, the revocation could not take place as some members, who were not privy to the discussions, had raked up other issues. However, we have decided to take a positive decision over the issue by Saturday, Fadnavis added.

MUMBAI: Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis on Friday hinted at revoking the suspension of 19 opposition MLAs, who were suspended because of their unruly and irresponsible behaviour. The government is of the view that the opposition is necessary for a healthy democracy and hence is positive about revoking the suspension, Fadnavis told the legislative council. While the opposition members in the Legislative Assembly have been boycotting House proceedings over the issue, the Congress, NCP led opposition had been forcing the adjournment of the Legislative Council, demanding that the suspensions be revoked. Suspensions have happened even in the past and have been revoked later. This time too we (ruling and opposition parties) had a positive discussion over the issue in the chairmans chamber, Devendra Fadnavis said. Despite positive discussions, the revocation could not take place as some members, who were not privy to the discussions, had raked up other issues. However, we have decided to take a positive decision over the issue by Saturday, Fadnavis added.
By ANI

The Supreme Court on Friday asked Calcutta High Court Justice C.S. Karnan, who has levelled allegations of corruption and caste discrimination against senior judges of the Madras High Court and the apex court, to file his reply within four weeks.

Justice Karnan, who today appeared before the apex court after a bailable warrant was issued against him, asked the top court to restore his judicial and administrative work before responding to the contempt notice.

Please permit me to perform my judicial and administrative work, Justice Karnan told an apex court bench headed by Chief Justice of India Jagdish Singh Khehar.

However, the apex court bench refused to pay heed to his plea and said, If you remain apologetic then the matter would be different.

Justice Karnan in his reply told the court that his statement should be recorded so that he does not have to appear during the next hearing.

After conclusion of the hearing, Justice Karnan told the media that he would pass on order against the seven judges of the bench to restrain their administrative power.

I ordered the registrar general of the Supreme Court that he deduct 50, 000 every month from the salary of these seven judges of the bench who defied to pay me the compensation of Rs. 14 crore which I have demanded through a letter dated 15/03/2017 for defamation, he said.

He alleged that these seven judges of the Supreme Court were operating on malafide intentions.

The attitude and the behavior was against Indian norms and construction. This sort of behavior will not only be known to Indians but the international community, he said.

Earlier this month, the Supreme Court had issued a bailable warrant against Justice Karnan to secure his presence in the court on March 31.

This is for the first time in the history of Indian judiciary that a sitting High Court Judge is personally appearing before the apex court and defending himself in a case.

The Supreme Court on Friday asked Calcutta High Court Justice C.S. Karnan, who has levelled allegations of corruption and caste discrimination against senior judges of the Madras High Court and the apex court, to file his reply within four weeks. Justice Karnan, who today appeared before the apex court after a bailable warrant was issued against him, asked the top court to restore his judicial and administrative work before responding to the contempt notice. Please permit me to perform my judicial and administrative work, Justice Karnan told an apex court bench headed by Chief Justice of India Jagdish Singh Khehar. However, the apex court bench refused to pay heed to his plea and said, If you remain apologetic then the matter would be different. Justice Karnan in his reply told the court that his statement should be recorded so that he does not have to appear during the next hearing. After conclusion of the hearing, Justice Karnan told the media that he would pass on order against the seven judges of the bench to restrain their administrative power. I ordered the registrar general of the Supreme Court that he deduct 50, 000 every month from the salary of these seven judges of the bench who defied to pay me the compensation of Rs. 14 crore which I have demanded through a letter dated 15/03/2017 for defamation, he said. He alleged that these seven judges of the Supreme Court were operating on malafide intentions. The attitude and the behavior was against Indian norms and construction. This sort of behavior will not only be known to Indians but the international community, he said. Earlier this month, the Supreme Court had issued a bailable warrant against Justice Karnan to secure his presence in the court on March 31. This is for the first time in the history of Indian judiciary that a sitting High Court Judge is personally appearing before the apex court and defending himself in a case.
By Express News Service

BHUBANESWAR: The Unified Command of the State on counter-Maoist strategies on Thursday decided that ex gratia for Odisha Police personnel killed during anti-Left Wing Extremist violence must be doubled.

The Command, represented by top police officers, senior officials from administrative departments as well as Central para military outfits, held its first meeting of the year where important issues were taken up for discussion. It was chaired by Chief Secretary Aditya Prasad Padhi.

The meeting decided that ex gratia compensation for police personnel, above the rank of Inspector, will be raised to Rs 20 lakh. For officers in Sub Inspector (SI) rank and below, it was raised to Rs 16 lakh.

At present, ex gratia for personnel up to SI rank stands at Rs 8 lakh and for Inspector and above ranks, it is Rs 10 lakh. It was last revised in 2008.

A proposal for enhancement of the ex gratia is pending with the State Government. In fact, such compensation awarded to next of kin of Odisha Police personnel killed in Maoist violence is less compared to neighbouring States like Andhra Pradesh and Chhattisgarh where it extends to Rs 25 lakh. Similar is the compensation structure in the Central armed police force like Border Security Force.

Besides the ex gratia, the next of kin of policemen attaining martyrdom in Naxal violence is also entitled to an insurance of Rs 10 lakh, another Rs 4 lakh from welfare fund besides other compensation. Last year, three security personnel were killed in Naxal violence whereas in 2015, the number was four.

Another important decision taken in the meeting was constitution of a Contingency Fund for meeting medical treatment expenses of policemen injured in anti-Naxal operations. Currently, such expenses are met from the Central Police Welfare Fund which is a fund pool created through contribution from every police personnel - from DGP to constable levels. The contribution is made annually by way of one day salary which is paid in two instalments. However, the treatment expense comes in form of a loan which can be repaid in easy interest-free instalments.

The issue had come to fore when eight police drivers were killed in a landmine blast near Sunki in Koraput in February. The Government had announced Rs 2 lakh towards treatment of each of the five injured.

The Unified Command also took stock of progress of Gurupriya Bridge that connects cut-off areas of Malkangiri. Padhi told mediapersons that the project is expected to be ready by July and would greatly benefit the locals.

BHUBANESWAR: The Unified Command of the State on counter-Maoist strategies on Thursday decided that ex gratia for Odisha Police personnel killed during anti-Left Wing Extremist violence must be doubled. The Command, represented by top police officers, senior officials from administrative departments as well as Central para military outfits, held its first meeting of the year where important issues were taken up for discussion. It was chaired by Chief Secretary Aditya Prasad Padhi. The meeting decided that ex gratia compensation for police personnel, above the rank of Inspector, will be raised to Rs 20 lakh. For officers in Sub Inspector (SI) rank and below, it was raised to Rs 16 lakh. At present, ex gratia for personnel up to SI rank stands at Rs 8 lakh and for Inspector and above ranks, it is Rs 10 lakh. It was last revised in 2008. A proposal for enhancement of the ex gratia is pending with the State Government. In fact, such compensation awarded to next of kin of Odisha Police personnel killed in Maoist violence is less compared to neighbouring States like Andhra Pradesh and Chhattisgarh where it extends to Rs 25 lakh. Similar is the compensation structure in the Central armed police force like Border Security Force. Besides the ex gratia, the next of kin of policemen attaining martyrdom in Naxal violence is also entitled to an insurance of Rs 10 lakh, another Rs 4 lakh from welfare fund besides other compensation. Last year, three security personnel were killed in Naxal violence whereas in 2015, the number was four. Another important decision taken in the meeting was constitution of a Contingency Fund for meeting medical treatment expenses of policemen injured in anti-Naxal operations. Currently, such expenses are met from the Central Police Welfare Fund which is a fund pool created through contribution from every police personnel - from DGP to constable levels. The contribution is made annually by way of one day salary which is paid in two instalments. However, the treatment expense comes in form of a loan which can be repaid in easy interest-free instalments. The issue had come to fore when eight police drivers were killed in a landmine blast near Sunki in Koraput in February. The Government had announced Rs 2 lakh towards treatment of each of the five injured. The Unified Command also took stock of progress of Gurupriya Bridge that connects cut-off areas of Malkangiri. Padhi told mediapersons that the project is expected to be ready by July and would greatly benefit the locals.
By PTI

CHENNAI: Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak and his family members today met Tamil superstar Rajinikanth at his residence here.

During their hour long "informal" meeting, they discussed among other things his film Kabali, a large part of which was shot in Malaysia.

"It was a goodwill visit and I had invited them to my house. I am thankful he accepted my invitation and joined me for tea. I could not meet the Malaysian Prime Minister during my shooting in that country as he was busy and had other engagements," Rajinikanth told reporters after his meeting with Razak.

He said the Malaysian authorities had cooperated a great deal during the shooting of his film Kabali and that Razak and his family members were also shown some clips from the film during today's meeting. Rajinkanth said he spent nearly two months in Malaysia for the shoot.

To a question on whether he was being made the tourism ambassador for Malaysia, Rajinkanth said it was not true.

Razak's wife Rosmah Mansor and other members of the delegation were also present during the meeting.

The Malaysian PM described the meeting with the veteran actor as "warm and friendly".

"Just had a very warm n friendly meeting with Mr Rajnikanth the Tamil superstar at his home (sic)," he wrote on Twitter.

"Who doesn't know @superstarrajini ? Happy to meet the superstar in person today," he tweeted.

CHENNAI: Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak and his family members today met Tamil superstar Rajinikanth at his residence here. During their hour long "informal" meeting, they discussed among other things his film Kabali, a large part of which was shot in Malaysia. "It was a goodwill visit and I had invited them to my house. I am thankful he accepted my invitation and joined me for tea. I could not meet the Malaysian Prime Minister during my shooting in that country as he was busy and had other engagements," Rajinikanth told reporters after his meeting with Razak. He said the Malaysian authorities had cooperated a great deal during the shooting of his film Kabali and that Razak and his family members were also shown some clips from the film during today's meeting. Rajinkanth said he spent nearly two months in Malaysia for the shoot. To a question on whether he was being made the tourism ambassador for Malaysia, Rajinkanth said it was not true. Razak's wife Rosmah Mansor and other members of the delegation were also present during the meeting. The Malaysian PM described the meeting with the veteran actor as "warm and friendly". "Just had a very warm n friendly meeting with Mr Rajnikanth the Tamil superstar at his home (sic)," he wrote on Twitter. "Who doesn't know @superstarrajini ? Happy to meet the superstar in person today," he tweeted.
SV Krishna Chaitanya By

CHENNAI: You may be complaining about the hot summer. But the weathermen say Tamil Nadu has been enjoying a much pleasant weather compared to the central and northern states where a heat wave is breaching the 43 degree Celsius mark consistently.



In contrast, Chennais maximum temperature has not yet crossed even the 35-degree Celsius. Why? Meteorologists say the easterlies (wind blowing from east) bringing moisture and the cloud cover over Tamil Nadu are saving it from the harsh heat wave.



The clouds and easterlies have saved Tamil Nadu and some of the other southern parts from heat wave, says D S Pai, head, climate prediction, Climate Research Division of Indian Meteorological Department.

The only place in Tamil Nadu that has so far recorded a temperature more than 40 degree Celsius is Karur. On Thursday, the Nungambakkam weather station at Chennai recorded a maximum of 33.7 degrees.



Meteorologists explain that the cause of heat waves sweeping central and northwest parts was strong high pressure system. The INSAT-3D satellite imagery, which is used by the Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) to forecast Outgoing Longwave Radiation (OLR) clearing, shows that the system is concentrated over central and northwestern parts and spared southern region, especially Tamil Nadu.



Pradeep John, a famous weather blogger, said the heat wave occurs when a system of high atmospheric pressure moves into an area. In such a high pressure system, air from upper levels of our atmosphere is pulled toward the ground, where it becomes compressed and increases temperature.

It also prevents clouds from entering the region; sunlight can become punishing, heating up the system even more. All of these factors come together to create the exceptionally hot temperature that we call a heat wave.



S Balachandran, director, Area Cyclone Warning Centre, told Express there is not just one factor that induces heat wave-like conditions.

The wind direction, clear sky, moisture, geographical dynamics etc., have their influence. In terms of climatology, Tamil Nadu doesnt fall in heat wave-prone regions. Only in April and May, temperatures briefly breach 40 degrees Celsius. Otherwise by and large they remain normal. Of course, there were instances in the past where heat wave-like conditions prevailed, but there is no such condition this year, he said and added that till April first week, the climate will remain dry.

CHENNAI: You may be complaining about the hot summer. But the weathermen say Tamil Nadu has been enjoying a much pleasant weather compared to the central and northern states where a heat wave is breaching the 43 degree Celsius mark consistently. In contrast, Chennais maximum temperature has not yet crossed even the 35-degree Celsius. Why? Meteorologists say the easterlies (wind blowing from east) bringing moisture and the cloud cover over Tamil Nadu are saving it from the harsh heat wave. The clouds and easterlies have saved Tamil Nadu and some of the other southern parts from heat wave, says D S Pai, head, climate prediction, Climate Research Division of Indian Meteorological Department. The only place in Tamil Nadu that has so far recorded a temperature more than 40 degree Celsius is Karur. On Thursday, the Nungambakkam weather station at Chennai recorded a maximum of 33.7 degrees. Meteorologists explain that the cause of heat waves sweeping central and northwest parts was strong high pressure system. The INSAT-3D satellite imagery, which is used by the Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) to forecast Outgoing Longwave Radiation (OLR) clearing, shows that the system is concentrated over central and northwestern parts and spared southern region, especially Tamil Nadu. Pradeep John, a famous weather blogger, said the heat wave occurs when a system of high atmospheric pressure moves into an area. In such a high pressure system, air from upper levels of our atmosphere is pulled toward the ground, where it becomes compressed and increases temperature. It also prevents clouds from entering the region; sunlight can become punishing, heating up the system even more. All of these factors come together to create the exceptionally hot temperature that we call a heat wave. S Balachandran, director, Area Cyclone Warning Centre, told Express there is not just one factor that induces heat wave-like conditions. The wind direction, clear sky, moisture, geographical dynamics etc., have their influence. In terms of climatology, Tamil Nadu doesnt fall in heat wave-prone regions. Only in April and May, temperatures briefly breach 40 degrees Celsius. Otherwise by and large they remain normal. Of course, there were instances in the past where heat wave-like conditions prevailed, but there is no such condition this year, he said and added that till April first week, the climate will remain dry.
By Associated Press

WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump urged his former national security adviser to strike an immunity deal Friday, even as congressional investigators rebuffed Michael Flynn's offer of cooperation in exchange for protection from prosecution.

Trump tweeted that Flynn, the adviser he fired in February, should ask for immunity because he's facing "a witch hunt."

The president weighed in the day after Flynn's attorney confirmed the immunity discussions with intelligence committees in both the Senate and House that are investigating Russia's meddling in the 2016 presidential election.

A congressional aide confirmed that preliminary discussions with the Senate intelligence committee involved immunity but that it was too early in the investigation to set terms. The aide was not authorized to discuss private conversations and spoke on condition of anonymity. The Justice Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

It was unclear from Trump's tweet whether he was advising the Justice Department or the congressional panels to give his former adviser immunity. The president is not supposed to direct ongoing investigations.

White House spokesman Sean Spicer said Trump just wants Flynn to testify, and there are no concerns that Flynn could implicate the president in any wrongdoing.

The top Democrat on the House intelligence committee, Rep. Adam Schiff of California, said committee leaders would be discussing the issue with their Senate counterparts and the Justice Department.

"We should first acknowledge what a grave and momentous step it is for a former national security adviser to the president of the United States to ask for immunity from prosecution," Schiff said in a statement.

Flynn's attorney, Robert Kelner, said no "reasonable person" who has a lawyer would answer questions without assurances that he would not be prosecuted, given calls from some members of Congress that the retired lieutenant general should face criminal charges.

Flynn seemed to have a different view last September when he weighed in on the implications of immunity on NBC's "Meet the Press," criticizing Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and her associates in the FBI's investigation into her use of a private email server.

"When you are given immunity, that means that you have probably committed a crime," Flynn said during the interview.

His own lawyer, Kelner, said Thursday, "General Flynn certainly has a story to tell, and he very much wants to tell it, should the circumstances permit."

Trump spokesman Spicer said the president "thinks he should go out and tell his story."

Flynn's ties to Russia have been scrutinized by the FBI and are under investigation by the congressional committees. Both panels are looking into Russia's meddling in the election and any ties between Trump associates and the Kremlin.

Since July, the FBI has been conducting a counterintelligence investigation into Russia's interference in the election and possible coordination with Trump associates.

In September, Flynn weighed in on the implications of immunity on NBC's "Meet the Press," criticizing Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and her associates in the FBI's investigation into her use of a private email server.

"When you are given immunity, that means that you have probably committed a crime," Flynn said during the interview.

A spokesman for Rep. Devin Nunes, the Republican chairman of the House intelligence committee, said the panel has not offered an immunity deal to Flynn.

The committee "had a preliminary conversation with Michael Flynn's lawyer about arranging for Flynn to speak to the committee," spokesman Jack Langer said. "The discussions did not include immunity or other possible conditions for his appearance."

Schiff, who has called for Nunes' recusal from the investigation because of his close ties to the White House, said the committee is interested in Flynn's testimony but is also "mindful" of the Justice Department's interests.

Congress has the authority to grant someone immunity, but doing so could jeopardize federal prosecutors' ability to use that person's testimony as the basis for any criminal case.

"When the time comes to consider requests for immunity from any witness, we will of course require a detailed proffer of any intended testimony," Schiff said.

Kelner released a statement late Thursday after The Wall Street Journal first reported that Flynn's negotiations with Congress included discussions of immunity.

Four other Trump associates have come forward in recent weeks, saying they would talk to the committees. As of Wednesday, the Senate panel had asked to interview 20 people.

Flynn was fired from his job as Trump's first national security adviser after it was disclosed that he misled Vice President Mike Pence about a conversation he had with the Russian ambassador to the U.S. during the transition.

In the weeks after he resigned, Flynn and his business registered with the Justice Department as foreign agents for $530,000 worth of lobbying work that could have benefited the Turkish government.

The lobbying occurred while Flynn was a top Trump campaign adviser.

WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump urged his former national security adviser to strike an immunity deal Friday, even as congressional investigators rebuffed Michael Flynn's offer of cooperation in exchange for protection from prosecution. Trump tweeted that Flynn, the adviser he fired in February, should ask for immunity because he's facing "a witch hunt." The president weighed in the day after Flynn's attorney confirmed the immunity discussions with intelligence committees in both the Senate and House that are investigating Russia's meddling in the 2016 presidential election. A congressional aide confirmed that preliminary discussions with the Senate intelligence committee involved immunity but that it was too early in the investigation to set terms. The aide was not authorized to discuss private conversations and spoke on condition of anonymity. The Justice Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment. It was unclear from Trump's tweet whether he was advising the Justice Department or the congressional panels to give his former adviser immunity. The president is not supposed to direct ongoing investigations. White House spokesman Sean Spicer said Trump just wants Flynn to testify, and there are no concerns that Flynn could implicate the president in any wrongdoing. The top Democrat on the House intelligence committee, Rep. Adam Schiff of California, said committee leaders would be discussing the issue with their Senate counterparts and the Justice Department. "We should first acknowledge what a grave and momentous step it is for a former national security adviser to the president of the United States to ask for immunity from prosecution," Schiff said in a statement. Flynn's attorney, Robert Kelner, said no "reasonable person" who has a lawyer would answer questions without assurances that he would not be prosecuted, given calls from some members of Congress that the retired lieutenant general should face criminal charges. Flynn seemed to have a different view last September when he weighed in on the implications of immunity on NBC's "Meet the Press," criticizing Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and her associates in the FBI's investigation into her use of a private email server. "When you are given immunity, that means that you have probably committed a crime," Flynn said during the interview. His own lawyer, Kelner, said Thursday, "General Flynn certainly has a story to tell, and he very much wants to tell it, should the circumstances permit." Trump spokesman Spicer said the president "thinks he should go out and tell his story." Flynn's ties to Russia have been scrutinized by the FBI and are under investigation by the congressional committees. Both panels are looking into Russia's meddling in the election and any ties between Trump associates and the Kremlin. Since July, the FBI has been conducting a counterintelligence investigation into Russia's interference in the election and possible coordination with Trump associates. In September, Flynn weighed in on the implications of immunity on NBC's "Meet the Press," criticizing Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and her associates in the FBI's investigation into her use of a private email server. "When you are given immunity, that means that you have probably committed a crime," Flynn said during the interview. A spokesman for Rep. Devin Nunes, the Republican chairman of the House intelligence committee, said the panel has not offered an immunity deal to Flynn. The committee "had a preliminary conversation with Michael Flynn's lawyer about arranging for Flynn to speak to the committee," spokesman Jack Langer said. "The discussions did not include immunity or other possible conditions for his appearance." Schiff, who has called for Nunes' recusal from the investigation because of his close ties to the White House, said the committee is interested in Flynn's testimony but is also "mindful" of the Justice Department's interests. Congress has the authority to grant someone immunity, but doing so could jeopardize federal prosecutors' ability to use that person's testimony as the basis for any criminal case. "When the time comes to consider requests for immunity from any witness, we will of course require a detailed proffer of any intended testimony," Schiff said. Kelner released a statement late Thursday after The Wall Street Journal first reported that Flynn's negotiations with Congress included discussions of immunity. Four other Trump associates have come forward in recent weeks, saying they would talk to the committees. As of Wednesday, the Senate panel had asked to interview 20 people. Flynn was fired from his job as Trump's first national security adviser after it was disclosed that he misled Vice President Mike Pence about a conversation he had with the Russian ambassador to the U.S. during the transition. In the weeks after he resigned, Flynn and his business registered with the Justice Department as foreign agents for $530,000 worth of lobbying work that could have benefited the Turkish government. The lobbying occurred while Flynn was a top Trump campaign adviser.
By PTI

PARIS: French President Francois Hollande said today that Britain must agree on the conditions of its exit from the EU before the bloc's members discuss other issues such as a trade deal. "First we must begin discussions on the modalities of the withdrawal, especially on the rights of citizens and the obligations arising from the commitments that the United Kingdom has made," Hollande said.

"On the basis of what progress is made, we could open discussions on the framework of the future relations between the United Kingdom and the European Union," he added. Hollande's approach echoes that of German Chancellor Angela Merkel who on Wednesday snubbed Prime Minister Theresa May's call for negotiations on the UK's exit from the EU to run alongside talks on defining the conditions of their future relationship.

Merkel said the negotiations "must first clarify how we will disentangle our interlinked relationship... and only when this question is dealt with, can we, hopefully soon after, begin talking about our future relationship". As the EU's major powers, Germany and France are expected to play a determining role in the negotiations over the relationship that Britain will have when it leaves.

PARIS: French President Francois Hollande said today that Britain must agree on the conditions of its exit from the EU before the bloc's members discuss other issues such as a trade deal. "First we must begin discussions on the modalities of the withdrawal, especially on the rights of citizens and the obligations arising from the commitments that the United Kingdom has made," Hollande said. "On the basis of what progress is made, we could open discussions on the framework of the future relations between the United Kingdom and the European Union," he added. Hollande's approach echoes that of German Chancellor Angela Merkel who on Wednesday snubbed Prime Minister Theresa May's call for negotiations on the UK's exit from the EU to run alongside talks on defining the conditions of their future relationship. Merkel said the negotiations "must first clarify how we will disentangle our interlinked relationship... and only when this question is dealt with, can we, hopefully soon after, begin talking about our future relationship". As the EU's major powers, Germany and France are expected to play a determining role in the negotiations over the relationship that Britain will have when it leaves.
By PTI

BEIJING: US President Donald Trump will host his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping at his Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida next week, the first meeting between the two leaders amid serious differences over trade, North Korea and the South China Sea dispute. "Xi will meet Trump at Mar-a-lago, Florida from April 6 to 7," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang announced at a daily press briefing in Beijing today.

This will be the first meeting between the top leaders of the world's two most powerful economies. The two leaders had spoken by phone on February 9 during which Trump had told Xi that he would honour the 'One China' policy on Taiwan. "China-US share trade and economic linkages which are highly complementary," Lu said. "China hopes to make joint efforts with the United States to expand trade cooperation, properly settle trade frictions through dialogues and maintain healthy and stable growth of trade and economic ties," he said.

In Washington, the White House confirmed the dates of the meeting and said, "the two leaders will discuss global, regional, and bilateral issues of mutual concern." In a statement, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer said Trump and the First Lady will also host President Xi and his wife Peng Liyuan at a dinner on April 6.

A host of contentious issues in bilateral relations, including Trump's claims about China's unfair trade practices, currency manipulation, curbing North Korea's nuclear ambitions and American concerns about Chinese military manoeuvres in the disputed South China Sea are expected to be discussed between the two leaders. China-US trade in goods amounted to USD 519.6 billion in 2016. China has large share in the bilateral trade with its exports to the US amounting to over USD 400 billion. The meeting will follow a recent trip to China by US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. Ahead of the summit with Trump, Xi will visit Finland and hold talks with his counterpart Sauli Niinisto, Lu said.

BEIJING: US President Donald Trump will host his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping at his Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida next week, the first meeting between the two leaders amid serious differences over trade, North Korea and the South China Sea dispute. "Xi will meet Trump at Mar-a-lago, Florida from April 6 to 7," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang announced at a daily press briefing in Beijing today. This will be the first meeting between the top leaders of the world's two most powerful economies. The two leaders had spoken by phone on February 9 during which Trump had told Xi that he would honour the 'One China' policy on Taiwan. "China-US share trade and economic linkages which are highly complementary," Lu said. "China hopes to make joint efforts with the United States to expand trade cooperation, properly settle trade frictions through dialogues and maintain healthy and stable growth of trade and economic ties," he said. In Washington, the White House confirmed the dates of the meeting and said, "the two leaders will discuss global, regional, and bilateral issues of mutual concern." In a statement, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer said Trump and the First Lady will also host President Xi and his wife Peng Liyuan at a dinner on April 6. A host of contentious issues in bilateral relations, including Trump's claims about China's unfair trade practices, currency manipulation, curbing North Korea's nuclear ambitions and American concerns about Chinese military manoeuvres in the disputed South China Sea are expected to be discussed between the two leaders. China-US trade in goods amounted to USD 519.6 billion in 2016. China has large share in the bilateral trade with its exports to the US amounting to over USD 400 billion. The meeting will follow a recent trip to China by US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. Ahead of the summit with Trump, Xi will visit Finland and hold talks with his counterpart Sauli Niinisto, Lu said.
By PTI

ABUJA: Amid attacks on Africans in India, the Indian community in Nigeria today voiced support for Nigerians living in the country saying such a trend was "disturbing" as Africans never mistreat foreigners. Asserting that the conception about Africa and Africans among many Indians is incorrect, the Indians living in Nigeria have strongly condemned the attacks on Nigerians in Greater Noida.

"I was deeply disturbed by the attacks on the Nigerian students in India. But I feel Indians mistreat the Africans anyway. Their conception about Africa and Africans is wrong. There has never been a case where an African has mistreated a foreigner in their country," said Arunraj Muruganandam, who is based in Lagos for the last 15 years.

"The whole fact that we somehow feel we are superior to them is very uncomforting. Even when I first went from Nigeria, there were racist jokes played on me...I feel the Indians apart from those who have lived in Africa will never treat the Africans well," he told PTI over phone. Asked if he ever felt discriminated or harassed in Nigeria, the 25-year-old mechanical engineer hailing from Chennai said, "Never. I have felt more at home here."

Resource-rich Nigeria is a major trading partner of India having footprints of many leading Indian companies including Tata and Bharti Airtel. While over 35,000 Indians live in the East African country, around 30,000 Nigerians travel to India for education, medical tourism and business.

Nigerian students were attacked by several people during a candle-light march for a 17-year-old Indian boy, who died of suspected drug overdose last week in Greater Noida. The boy's parents alleged that the foreigners had kidnapped him and given him drugs which led to his death.

51-year-old Sanjeev Purwar, who has been staying in Abuja, the Nigerian capital, for over two decades, said when Indians are troubled or assaulted due to apartheid in the US, the UK or Australia all countrymen raise their voice in unison. "But why don't we feel the same angst when such incidents take place in our own country against outsiders? Why we can't tolerate (the difference in race) and become violent? This is not our culture," said Purwar, an engineer.

"At a time when Indians are being accepted globally, why are we unable to lead with an example? Every society in the world has a different culture and we must learn to appreciate it," he said. Purwar, who hails from Kanpur in Uttar Pradesh and stays in Abuja with his wife, said incidents like these do not auger well for the image of the country and particularly its diaspora who may have to "pay the price" for it. He also called for the media to exercise caution in covering of such events, saying repeatedly showing pictures and videos of violence may not have an impact in India, but outside the country "it may create ripples".

"Nigerians are mostly good people. When you repeatedly show such pictures, some people who are short-tempered may react. The media should have a discussion on such incidents but should not show pictures," he said. Purwar recalled how Indians living in Nigeria were harassed back in 2013 after a Nigerian was reportedly killed in Goa. "It was one rare such happening here," he said.

Another Indian-origin man Gulrez Singh, who is based in Port Harcourt in the southern part of the country, said he has sympathy for the Nigerians and felt embarrassed over the unfortunate incidents taking place in India. Singh, whose family is based in Chandigarh, attributed such attacks to the "backwards mentality" of some people.

"The thinking of some Indians is backwards and racist...A random black man automatically becomes a drug lord. This needs to stop but how to make people aware of it I do not know," he told PTI. Nigeria had yesterday called in the Indian High Commissioner in Abuja to register its protest over the attacks on its nationals in India and sought "diligent prosecution" against the perpetrators.

External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj also assured Parliament of a fair probe into the assault on Nigerians. The Indian Cultural Association in Nigeria, in a letter to India's High Commissioner to Nigeria B N Reddy on Wednesday, categorically condemned the incidents.

"We bring to place on record our condemnation towards this incident which happened in Noida, Delhi (our national capital). Sir, we are staying in Nigeria for many years. Some of us have spent here over 50 years and we never faced this kind of problem any time," the letter said. "On behalf of the entire Indian community, we wish to convey our complete condemnation towards this incident. We expect that the same should be conveyed to Ministry of External Affairs vehemently and properly," the association said.

It has also called on the Ministry of External Affairs to issue an appropriate advisory to the schools, colleges and general public in India, stating that "your own countrymen are respected in these African countries always and such incidents and unruly behaviour may change their perspective towards us."

"And above all, taking the law into hands may not solve the problem. It should be tackled within the legal framework of the country," the letter said.

ABUJA: Amid attacks on Africans in India, the Indian community in Nigeria today voiced support for Nigerians living in the country saying such a trend was "disturbing" as Africans never mistreat foreigners. Asserting that the conception about Africa and Africans among many Indians is incorrect, the Indians living in Nigeria have strongly condemned the attacks on Nigerians in Greater Noida. "I was deeply disturbed by the attacks on the Nigerian students in India. But I feel Indians mistreat the Africans anyway. Their conception about Africa and Africans is wrong. There has never been a case where an African has mistreated a foreigner in their country," said Arunraj Muruganandam, who is based in Lagos for the last 15 years. "The whole fact that we somehow feel we are superior to them is very uncomforting. Even when I first went from Nigeria, there were racist jokes played on me...I feel the Indians apart from those who have lived in Africa will never treat the Africans well," he told PTI over phone. Asked if he ever felt discriminated or harassed in Nigeria, the 25-year-old mechanical engineer hailing from Chennai said, "Never. I have felt more at home here." Resource-rich Nigeria is a major trading partner of India having footprints of many leading Indian companies including Tata and Bharti Airtel. While over 35,000 Indians live in the East African country, around 30,000 Nigerians travel to India for education, medical tourism and business. Nigerian students were attacked by several people during a candle-light march for a 17-year-old Indian boy, who died of suspected drug overdose last week in Greater Noida. The boy's parents alleged that the foreigners had kidnapped him and given him drugs which led to his death. 51-year-old Sanjeev Purwar, who has been staying in Abuja, the Nigerian capital, for over two decades, said when Indians are troubled or assaulted due to apartheid in the US, the UK or Australia all countrymen raise their voice in unison. "But why don't we feel the same angst when such incidents take place in our own country against outsiders? Why we can't tolerate (the difference in race) and become violent? This is not our culture," said Purwar, an engineer. "At a time when Indians are being accepted globally, why are we unable to lead with an example? Every society in the world has a different culture and we must learn to appreciate it," he said. Purwar, who hails from Kanpur in Uttar Pradesh and stays in Abuja with his wife, said incidents like these do not auger well for the image of the country and particularly its diaspora who may have to "pay the price" for it. He also called for the media to exercise caution in covering of such events, saying repeatedly showing pictures and videos of violence may not have an impact in India, but outside the country "it may create ripples". "Nigerians are mostly good people. When you repeatedly show such pictures, some people who are short-tempered may react. The media should have a discussion on such incidents but should not show pictures," he said. Purwar recalled how Indians living in Nigeria were harassed back in 2013 after a Nigerian was reportedly killed in Goa. "It was one rare such happening here," he said. Another Indian-origin man Gulrez Singh, who is based in Port Harcourt in the southern part of the country, said he has sympathy for the Nigerians and felt embarrassed over the unfortunate incidents taking place in India. Singh, whose family is based in Chandigarh, attributed such attacks to the "backwards mentality" of some people. "The thinking of some Indians is backwards and racist...A random black man automatically becomes a drug lord. This needs to stop but how to make people aware of it I do not know," he told PTI. Nigeria had yesterday called in the Indian High Commissioner in Abuja to register its protest over the attacks on its nationals in India and sought "diligent prosecution" against the perpetrators. External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj also assured Parliament of a fair probe into the assault on Nigerians. The Indian Cultural Association in Nigeria, in a letter to India's High Commissioner to Nigeria B N Reddy on Wednesday, categorically condemned the incidents. "We bring to place on record our condemnation towards this incident which happened in Noida, Delhi (our national capital). Sir, we are staying in Nigeria for many years. Some of us have spent here over 50 years and we never faced this kind of problem any time," the letter said. "On behalf of the entire Indian community, we wish to convey our complete condemnation towards this incident. We expect that the same should be conveyed to Ministry of External Affairs vehemently and properly," the association said. It has also called on the Ministry of External Affairs to issue an appropriate advisory to the schools, colleges and general public in India, stating that "your own countrymen are respected in these African countries always and such incidents and unruly behaviour may change their perspective towards us." "And above all, taking the law into hands may not solve the problem. It should be tackled within the legal framework of the country," the letter said.
By AFP

SYDNEY: Australia said Friday it will increase security checks for flights from some Middle East airports, but stopped short of implementing the laptop ban introduced by the United States and Britain.

Britain and the US banned laptops and tablet computers in cabins on flights from some countries in the Middle East and North Africa earlier this month, citing fears of possible attacks.

"Explosive detection screening will be conducted for randomly selected passengers and their baggage. Checks may also include a targeted screening of electronic devices," Transport Minister Darren Chester said in a statement.

"Our changes are in line with the UK, which recently announced that people travelling from Doha, Abu Dhabi and Dubai will be subject to random explosive trace detection screening.

"There is no ban on the carriage of electronic devices on flights to Australia at this stage."

The airlines affected are Qantas Airways, Etihad Airways, Emirates, and Qatar Airways.

The increase security checks will hit passengers flying direct to Australia from Doha, Abu Dhabi and Dubai.

Chester said there was "no specific threat to Australia".

"In response to national security advice the federal government has made precautionary changes and instructed airlines to implement new protocols from next week."

US officials said their measure was intended to thwart possible attacks on airliners with small explosive devices hidden in consumer electronics.

Alexandre de Juniac, director-general of the International Air Transport Association, said Wednesday the American and British bans were not sustainable.

"Even in the short term, it is difficult to understand their effectiveness. And the commercial distortions they create are severe," he said in a speech in Canada.

The US ban affects nine airlines from eight countries -- Turkey, Morocco, Jordan, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait.

The British ban targets flights out of Egypt, Turkey, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia and Lebanon.

SYDNEY: Australia said Friday it will increase security checks for flights from some Middle East airports, but stopped short of implementing the laptop ban introduced by the United States and Britain. Britain and the US banned laptops and tablet computers in cabins on flights from some countries in the Middle East and North Africa earlier this month, citing fears of possible attacks. "Explosive detection screening will be conducted for randomly selected passengers and their baggage. Checks may also include a targeted screening of electronic devices," Transport Minister Darren Chester said in a statement. "Our changes are in line with the UK, which recently announced that people travelling from Doha, Abu Dhabi and Dubai will be subject to random explosive trace detection screening. "There is no ban on the carriage of electronic devices on flights to Australia at this stage." The airlines affected are Qantas Airways, Etihad Airways, Emirates, and Qatar Airways. The increase security checks will hit passengers flying direct to Australia from Doha, Abu Dhabi and Dubai. Chester said there was "no specific threat to Australia". "In response to national security advice the federal government has made precautionary changes and instructed airlines to implement new protocols from next week." US officials said their measure was intended to thwart possible attacks on airliners with small explosive devices hidden in consumer electronics. Alexandre de Juniac, director-general of the International Air Transport Association, said Wednesday the American and British bans were not sustainable. "Even in the short term, it is difficult to understand their effectiveness. And the commercial distortions they create are severe," he said in a speech in Canada. The US ban affects nine airlines from eight countries -- Turkey, Morocco, Jordan, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. The British ban targets flights out of Egypt, Turkey, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia and Lebanon.
By AFP

VALLETTA: The European Union has demanded that Britain make "significant progress" on its divorce from the bloc before talks on a trade deal can start, as it unveiled its tough Brexit negotiating guidelines on Friday.

EU president Donald Tusk rejected British Prime Minister Theresa May's demand for immediate parallel negotiations made in her historic letter triggering the Brexit process on Wednesday.

Taking a firm tone, Tusk said London must make headway on the bill for the split, safeguarding the rights of three million European citizens living in Britain and also the border in Northern Ireland.

The clash underscored the likely tensions in the wrenching divorce as Britain prepares to be the first country to leave the crisis-hit EU in its 60-year history.

The fallout from Brexit keeps coming for London, with Spain pressing its claim to Gibraltar and Scotland formally calling for a second independence referendum.

"The EU 27 does not and will not pursue a punitive approach. Brexit itself is already punitive enough," Tusk said as he revealed his plans in Malta, which currently holds the EU rotating presidency.

The draft guidelines set the tone for the coming two years of Brexit talks and will now be sent to the capitals of the 27 remaining EU countries ahead of a special summit in Brussels on April 29.

Tusk's guidelines appeared to offer a small compromise in saying that some trade talks could eventually be held at the same time, but he insisted on a "phased approach" during the Brexit process.

"Starting parallel talks on all issues at the same time as suggested by some in the UK will not happen," the former Polish premier said.

"Once and only once we have achieved sufficient progress on the withdrawal can we discuss the framework for our future relationship," Tusk said.

- 'Robust positions' -

EU big powers France and Germany have led opposition to the parallel talks that May had demanded.

But Britain is keen to get things moving as quickly as possible, fearing the 'cliff edge' of an exit from the EUs single market in March 2019 without a new deal.

London said it had expected a "robust" position in the EU guidelines.

"We've been clear for some time now we expected robust positions to be taken at the start. The negotiation will get under way and let's see where we end up," a spokesman for May said.

Brexit got off to a rocky start due to May's warning in her letter that failure to clinch a deal on trade would affect Britain's cooperation on terrorism and security.

British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, in Brussels as NATO ministers met US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, said London was committed to European security and that it was "not some bargaining chip" in the Brexit talks.

Tusk added he was sure that a "wise and decent" Britain would not do so.

Maltese Prime Minister Joseph Muscat meanwhile called for the fate of EU citizens in Britain not to be used in the same way.

Britain's very unity continues to be at stake in the negotiations.

The EU's guidelines state that Spain must have a say over whether any post-Brexit deal applies to the British territory of Gibraltar, over which London and Madrid have rowed for 300 years.

Scotland's government meanwhile made a formal request to London for a second vote on Scottish independence, given that a majority of Scots voted to stay in the EU.

"The people of Scotland must have the right to choose our own future," said First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, who has called for a new vote by early 2019.

- 'Prepared' if talks fail -

EU-UK talks could start as soon as May 22 when the bloc's Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier is expected to get a mandate from the EU 27, although "pre-negotiations" on the language and format of the discussions could begin sooner.

European officials suggested enough progress could be made on the divorce arrangements by the end of the year to begin trade talks, although EU leaders will have the final say.

But time will be short as France's Barnier has said that a draft deal is needed by October 2018 in time for it to be ratified by the European Parliament and member states.

The EU guidelines say they are also open to a transitional arrangement after Brexit as a "bridge" to a future deal some years down the line.

But the bloc insisted that it would have to be under EU rules and the European Court of Justice, likely to be politically toxic in Britain where national sovereignty was a key issue in the Brexit referendum.

The EU said meanwhile it would "prepare itself to be able to handle the situation also if the negotiations were to fail."

VALLETTA: The European Union has demanded that Britain make "significant progress" on its divorce from the bloc before talks on a trade deal can start, as it unveiled its tough Brexit negotiating guidelines on Friday. EU president Donald Tusk rejected British Prime Minister Theresa May's demand for immediate parallel negotiations made in her historic letter triggering the Brexit process on Wednesday. Taking a firm tone, Tusk said London must make headway on the bill for the split, safeguarding the rights of three million European citizens living in Britain and also the border in Northern Ireland. The clash underscored the likely tensions in the wrenching divorce as Britain prepares to be the first country to leave the crisis-hit EU in its 60-year history. The fallout from Brexit keeps coming for London, with Spain pressing its claim to Gibraltar and Scotland formally calling for a second independence referendum. "The EU 27 does not and will not pursue a punitive approach. Brexit itself is already punitive enough," Tusk said as he revealed his plans in Malta, which currently holds the EU rotating presidency. The draft guidelines set the tone for the coming two years of Brexit talks and will now be sent to the capitals of the 27 remaining EU countries ahead of a special summit in Brussels on April 29. Tusk's guidelines appeared to offer a small compromise in saying that some trade talks could eventually be held at the same time, but he insisted on a "phased approach" during the Brexit process. "Starting parallel talks on all issues at the same time as suggested by some in the UK will not happen," the former Polish premier said. "Once and only once we have achieved sufficient progress on the withdrawal can we discuss the framework for our future relationship," Tusk said. - 'Robust positions' - EU big powers France and Germany have led opposition to the parallel talks that May had demanded. But Britain is keen to get things moving as quickly as possible, fearing the 'cliff edge' of an exit from the EUs single market in March 2019 without a new deal. London said it had expected a "robust" position in the EU guidelines. "We've been clear for some time now we expected robust positions to be taken at the start. The negotiation will get under way and let's see where we end up," a spokesman for May said. Brexit got off to a rocky start due to May's warning in her letter that failure to clinch a deal on trade would affect Britain's cooperation on terrorism and security. British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, in Brussels as NATO ministers met US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, said London was committed to European security and that it was "not some bargaining chip" in the Brexit talks. Tusk added he was sure that a "wise and decent" Britain would not do so. Maltese Prime Minister Joseph Muscat meanwhile called for the fate of EU citizens in Britain not to be used in the same way. Britain's very unity continues to be at stake in the negotiations. The EU's guidelines state that Spain must have a say over whether any post-Brexit deal applies to the British territory of Gibraltar, over which London and Madrid have rowed for 300 years. Scotland's government meanwhile made a formal request to London for a second vote on Scottish independence, given that a majority of Scots voted to stay in the EU. "The people of Scotland must have the right to choose our own future," said First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, who has called for a new vote by early 2019. - 'Prepared' if talks fail - EU-UK talks could start as soon as May 22 when the bloc's Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier is expected to get a mandate from the EU 27, although "pre-negotiations" on the language and format of the discussions could begin sooner. European officials suggested enough progress could be made on the divorce arrangements by the end of the year to begin trade talks, although EU leaders will have the final say. But time will be short as France's Barnier has said that a draft deal is needed by October 2018 in time for it to be ratified by the European Parliament and member states. The EU guidelines say they are also open to a transitional arrangement after Brexit as a "bridge" to a future deal some years down the line. But the bloc insisted that it would have to be under EU rules and the European Court of Justice, likely to be politically toxic in Britain where national sovereignty was a key issue in the Brexit referendum. The EU said meanwhile it would "prepare itself to be able to handle the situation also if the negotiations were to fail."
By AFP

WASHINGTON: Michael Flynn has "a story to tell," his lawyer said Thursday, amid reports that the ousted US national security advisor has offered to testify in exchange for immunity about potential ties between Donald Trump's presidential campaign and Russia.

Flynn proposed his deal to the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the House and Senate intelligence committees, The Wall Street Journal reported late Thursday.

A close advisor of Trump's 2016 campaign, Flynn was forced to step down just weeks into the security job last month.

His resignation came after it emerged that he made misleading statements about talks he held with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak during the presidential transition concerning Washington's sanctions on Moscow.

Trump himself appeared to offer legal advice on the issue, tweeting: "Mike Flynn should ask for immunity in that this is a witch hunt (excuse for big election loss), by media & Dems, of historic proportion!"

The Journal said it wasn't clear what exactly Flynn had offered to discuss.

But it quoted one unnamed official as saying the retired army general's bid for immunity suggested potential "legal jeopardy" for him.

Robert Kelner, a lawyer for Flynn, said in a statement tweeted late Thursday that "General Flynn certainly has a story to tell, and he very much wants to tell it, should the circumstances permit.

"Out of respect for the committees, we will not comment right now on the details of discussions between counsel for General Flynn and the House and Senate intelligence committees, other than to confirm that those discussions have taken place," the lawyer added.

The New York Times quoted a congressional official as saying investigators are wary of cutting a deal with Flynn until they are further along in their probe and have a better idea of what information Flynn might offer.

The Times also quoted an expert as urging caution over Flynn's offer of testimony.

"At this early stage, I wouldn't read anything into this request beyond smart lawyering," Mark Zaid, a Washington lawyer specializing in national security cases, was quoting as saying by the Times.

"In such a politically charged, high-profile national security case, I couldn't imagine not first asking for immunity," he added.

"I would suspect both Congress and the FBI will first generate additional evidence from smaller players before deciding to immunize General Flynn," Zaid said, according to the Times.

At least four investigations are under way into allegations that Moscow tried to swing November's presidential election in Trump's favor, as questions swirl about whether some in the Republican's inner circle colluded with Russia.

The FBI, in an extraordinary admission, confirmed publicly this month that it was probing the possibility of such collusion.

A former US military intelligence chief, Flynn was generously paid to attend a gala of Russia's RT television in late 2015, where he sat with President Vladimir Putin, raising suspicions about his ties with Moscow.

His ouster came amid controversy over his discussions with Kislyak in late December, when the Obama administration was hitting Russia with retaliatory sanctions and expulsions for its election interference.

Trump has said he did not instruct Flynn to speak with the Russian ambassador. However, Trump defended the move, saying it was the kind of thing a national security advisor would do as part of his job.

Flynn's actions came before Trump's inauguration, when Barack Obama was still president. And a rarely-invoked US law bars private citizens from engaging in foreign policy on behalf of the government.

Soon after Flynn resigned, US Attorney General Jeff Sessions recused himself from any Russia-related inquiries, following the revelation that he, too, also met with Kislyak before Trump took office -- contrary to his testimony during his confirmation hearing before the Senate.

WASHINGTON: Michael Flynn has "a story to tell," his lawyer said Thursday, amid reports that the ousted US national security advisor has offered to testify in exchange for immunity about potential ties between Donald Trump's presidential campaign and Russia. Flynn proposed his deal to the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the House and Senate intelligence committees, The Wall Street Journal reported late Thursday. A close advisor of Trump's 2016 campaign, Flynn was forced to step down just weeks into the security job last month. His resignation came after it emerged that he made misleading statements about talks he held with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak during the presidential transition concerning Washington's sanctions on Moscow. Trump himself appeared to offer legal advice on the issue, tweeting: "Mike Flynn should ask for immunity in that this is a witch hunt (excuse for big election loss), by media & Dems, of historic proportion!" The Journal said it wasn't clear what exactly Flynn had offered to discuss. But it quoted one unnamed official as saying the retired army general's bid for immunity suggested potential "legal jeopardy" for him. Robert Kelner, a lawyer for Flynn, said in a statement tweeted late Thursday that "General Flynn certainly has a story to tell, and he very much wants to tell it, should the circumstances permit. "Out of respect for the committees, we will not comment right now on the details of discussions between counsel for General Flynn and the House and Senate intelligence committees, other than to confirm that those discussions have taken place," the lawyer added. The New York Times quoted a congressional official as saying investigators are wary of cutting a deal with Flynn until they are further along in their probe and have a better idea of what information Flynn might offer. The Times also quoted an expert as urging caution over Flynn's offer of testimony. "At this early stage, I wouldn't read anything into this request beyond smart lawyering," Mark Zaid, a Washington lawyer specializing in national security cases, was quoting as saying by the Times. "In such a politically charged, high-profile national security case, I couldn't imagine not first asking for immunity," he added. "I would suspect both Congress and the FBI will first generate additional evidence from smaller players before deciding to immunize General Flynn," Zaid said, according to the Times. At least four investigations are under way into allegations that Moscow tried to swing November's presidential election in Trump's favor, as questions swirl about whether some in the Republican's inner circle colluded with Russia. The FBI, in an extraordinary admission, confirmed publicly this month that it was probing the possibility of such collusion. A former US military intelligence chief, Flynn was generously paid to attend a gala of Russia's RT television in late 2015, where he sat with President Vladimir Putin, raising suspicions about his ties with Moscow. His ouster came amid controversy over his discussions with Kislyak in late December, when the Obama administration was hitting Russia with retaliatory sanctions and expulsions for its election interference. Trump has said he did not instruct Flynn to speak with the Russian ambassador. However, Trump defended the move, saying it was the kind of thing a national security advisor would do as part of his job. Flynn's actions came before Trump's inauguration, when Barack Obama was still president. And a rarely-invoked US law bars private citizens from engaging in foreign policy on behalf of the government. Soon after Flynn resigned, US Attorney General Jeff Sessions recused himself from any Russia-related inquiries, following the revelation that he, too, also met with Kislyak before Trump took office -- contrary to his testimony during his confirmation hearing before the Senate.
By AFP

BEIJING: France urged its citizens in China to be extra vigilant after a "violent" knife attack on a French national in Shanghai this week, the country's embassy said Friday.

The warning came after tensions flared in Paris in recent days with violent demonstrations over the killing of a Chinese national by French police.

A statement from the French embassy in China did not specify the severity of the injuries sustained by the man attacked in Shanghai on Wednesday, but said his attacker had been detained after a Chinese colleague intervened.

It said while the assault appeared to be an isolated incident, French nationals should "in the current context" take note of its advice on vigilance and security.

The message did not directly mention the incident in Paris, which has been heavily covered in the Chinese media.

Beijing on Tuesday called on France to protects its citizens after Sunday's shooting in Paris, which sparked a violent protest in the city's Asian community that led to 35 people being arrested.

Shanghai police said on Friday that a foreign national had received "a superficial neck wound" with a razor in Wednesday's attack.

A 27-year-old suspect from the city, thought to be suffering from mental health problems, had been apprehended, the police said on its Twitter-like Weibo account.

Authorities also released a picture of a young man of European appearance with a bandage on his neck talking to a police officer.

Attacks against foreigners are rare in China.

Shanghai has a population of around 24 million people, with around 12,000 French people officially registered at the consulate.

BEIJING: France urged its citizens in China to be extra vigilant after a "violent" knife attack on a French national in Shanghai this week, the country's embassy said Friday. The warning came after tensions flared in Paris in recent days with violent demonstrations over the killing of a Chinese national by French police. A statement from the French embassy in China did not specify the severity of the injuries sustained by the man attacked in Shanghai on Wednesday, but said his attacker had been detained after a Chinese colleague intervened. It said while the assault appeared to be an isolated incident, French nationals should "in the current context" take note of its advice on vigilance and security. The message did not directly mention the incident in Paris, which has been heavily covered in the Chinese media. Beijing on Tuesday called on France to protects its citizens after Sunday's shooting in Paris, which sparked a violent protest in the city's Asian community that led to 35 people being arrested. Shanghai police said on Friday that a foreign national had received "a superficial neck wound" with a razor in Wednesday's attack. A 27-year-old suspect from the city, thought to be suffering from mental health problems, had been apprehended, the police said on its Twitter-like Weibo account. Authorities also released a picture of a young man of European appearance with a bandage on his neck talking to a police officer. Attacks against foreigners are rare in China. Shanghai has a population of around 24 million people, with around 12,000 French people officially registered at the consulate.
Bob Corker

A top Republican senator subtly called out House Speaker Paul Ryan for saying he worried that President Donald Trump might turn to Democrats to get a bipartisan deal on a healthcare bill.

"We have come a long way in our country when the speaker of one party urges a president NOT to work with the other party to solve a problem," Corker tweeted Thursday morning, in an apparent swipe at Ryan.

Ryan had said earlier on Thursday in an interview with CBS "This Morning" that he worried Trump would "just go work with Democrats to try and change Obamacare, and that's hardly a conservative thing."

"This is a can-do president, who's a business guy, and he wants to get things done," Ryan said. "I know he wants to get things done with the Republican Congress, but if this Republican Congress allows the perfect to be the enemy of the good, I worry we'll push the president into working with the Democrats. He's been suggesting that as much."

Ryan also told reporter Norah O'Donnell that he and Democratic House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi "see things very differently" and that he has not reached out to get bipartisan support for the American Health Care Act, the legislation Ryan pulled from what looked to be a failed floor vote last week.

Trump told reporters Friday after the defeat of the AHCA that the bill did not have any Democratic support. Since, he has suggested that going forward, a bipartisan approach may be the best way to get a healthcare plan through Congress.

Corker also appears to favor bipartisan healthcare efforts. He said in a statement earlier this week that he's willing to work with both parties on the issue.

Ryan also told CBS that despite the initial failure of the AHCA, Republicans still want to repeal and replace Obamacare.

Bob Bryan contributed to this report.

NOW WATCH: Watch Trump's budget director explain proposed cuts for after-school programs that feed children





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By AFP

BERLIN: Berlin strongly protested Friday a move by the United States to slap punitive "anti-dumping" duties on steel plate products from companies in Germany and six other nations.

Germany said the EU should consider filing a complaint with the World Trade Organisation (WTO) in what threatens to turn into a major trade row under US President Donald Trump, who has promised protectionist measures to put "America First".

German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel said the step breached global trade rules and unfairly disadvantaged suppliers in Germany, as well as in Austria, Belgium, France, Italy, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan.

The former economy minister warned that to deliberately violate WTO rules "is a dangerous step" and that "Europeans cannot accept this".

He said he had noted "with utter incomprehension" the decision by the US Commerce Department on imports of carbon and alloy steel plate products that impacts German companies Salzgitter AG and Dillinger Huette.

"Despite our efforts and repeated interventions by the European Union, the US Commerce Department has applied calculation methods that contravene WTO rules with the aim of harming US competitors in the steel industry," he said.

The goal was "to protect US industry by placing the superior German steel industry at a disadvantage," he added.

US Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, formerly on the board of steel and mining giant ArcelorMittal, said Thursday the foreign producers were selling their products at unfairly low prices in the US market and that US customs could therefore impose duties on the imports.

The punitive duties ranged from 3.62 percent to 148.02 percent, targeting materials that are used in a range of sectors from construction, infrastructure and mining to ships, railway cars and machines.

Gabriel said the US move was "significant because it is the first anti-dumping procedure in the steel sector under the new administration".

"The US government is apparently prepared to provide American companies with unfair competitive advantages against European and other companies, even if this is contrary to international commercial law."

"The EU must now examine whether it will file a complaint with the WTO. I strongly support this," he said.

Salzgitter called the US decision "incomprehensible", while the Dillinger group said it has halted deliveries to the US since the punitive tariffs were announced.

"Due to the duties imposed and ahead of the final decision, Dillinger will examine how we can better serve our customers in the US in the future," it added in a statement.

Urging the EU to "clearly stand up to the US government" over the issue, Gabriel warned that "if the USA gets away with unfair competition, other industries will face the same threat."

BERLIN: Berlin strongly protested Friday a move by the United States to slap punitive "anti-dumping" duties on steel plate products from companies in Germany and six other nations. Germany said the EU should consider filing a complaint with the World Trade Organisation (WTO) in what threatens to turn into a major trade row under US President Donald Trump, who has promised protectionist measures to put "America First". German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel said the step breached global trade rules and unfairly disadvantaged suppliers in Germany, as well as in Austria, Belgium, France, Italy, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan. The former economy minister warned that to deliberately violate WTO rules "is a dangerous step" and that "Europeans cannot accept this". He said he had noted "with utter incomprehension" the decision by the US Commerce Department on imports of carbon and alloy steel plate products that impacts German companies Salzgitter AG and Dillinger Huette. "Despite our efforts and repeated interventions by the European Union, the US Commerce Department has applied calculation methods that contravene WTO rules with the aim of harming US competitors in the steel industry," he said. The goal was "to protect US industry by placing the superior German steel industry at a disadvantage," he added. US Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, formerly on the board of steel and mining giant ArcelorMittal, said Thursday the foreign producers were selling their products at unfairly low prices in the US market and that US customs could therefore impose duties on the imports. The punitive duties ranged from 3.62 percent to 148.02 percent, targeting materials that are used in a range of sectors from construction, infrastructure and mining to ships, railway cars and machines. Gabriel said the US move was "significant because it is the first anti-dumping procedure in the steel sector under the new administration". "The US government is apparently prepared to provide American companies with unfair competitive advantages against European and other companies, even if this is contrary to international commercial law." "The EU must now examine whether it will file a complaint with the WTO. I strongly support this," he said. Salzgitter called the US decision "incomprehensible", while the Dillinger group said it has halted deliveries to the US since the punitive tariffs were announced. "Due to the duties imposed and ahead of the final decision, Dillinger will examine how we can better serve our customers in the US in the future," it added in a statement. Urging the EU to "clearly stand up to the US government" over the issue, Gabriel warned that "if the USA gets away with unfair competition, other industries will face the same threat."
By PTI

NEW YORK: The husband of a 38-year-old Indian woman who was found murdered along with her six-year- old son in their home in the US, has not been charged with any crime and is expected to attend their funeral in India, media reports said.

Hanumantha Rao Narra also called "Hannu", found the bodies of his wife Sasikala Narra and son Anish Narra, on March 23 inside their residence at the Fox Meadow Apartments in Maple Shade in New Jersey's Burlington County.

Narra is expected to attend their funeral in India, the CBSPhilly reported.

He has not been charged with a crime and is free to attend a planned funeral for them in India, Joel Bewley, a spokesman for the prosecutor said.

"His movements are not restricted in any way by the criminal justice system," Bewley said.

He said he will not comment on whether Narra is a suspect and the office does not comment on past, present, or future suspects.

A source involved in the investigation was quoted by Eyewitness News as saying that Narra was involved in a relationship with another woman as of last week, an allegation that had been leveled by Narra's in-laws in India as well.

The source, however, said that Narra has a strong alibi in the case.

The bodies were autopsied and released to a funeral home in North Jersey where Narra is believed to be this week.

Police in Maple Shade continue to take tips, but the Burlington County Prosecutor's Office is the lead on the case.

According to a statement provided by Burlington County Prosecutor's Office shortly after the killings, law enforcement officials had strongly denied that the killings were linked to any hate crime or bias given the Indian-origin of the victims.

Preliminary investigation had disclosed that both the victims were stabbed multiple times.

The Telugu Association of North America, a group that assists Indian people here who speak the Telugu language had flown the victims' bodies to India yesterday.

NEW YORK: The husband of a 38-year-old Indian woman who was found murdered along with her six-year- old son in their home in the US, has not been charged with any crime and is expected to attend their funeral in India, media reports said. Hanumantha Rao Narra also called "Hannu", found the bodies of his wife Sasikala Narra and son Anish Narra, on March 23 inside their residence at the Fox Meadow Apartments in Maple Shade in New Jersey's Burlington County. Narra is expected to attend their funeral in India, the CBSPhilly reported. He has not been charged with a crime and is free to attend a planned funeral for them in India, Joel Bewley, a spokesman for the prosecutor said. "His movements are not restricted in any way by the criminal justice system," Bewley said. He said he will not comment on whether Narra is a suspect and the office does not comment on past, present, or future suspects. A source involved in the investigation was quoted by Eyewitness News as saying that Narra was involved in a relationship with another woman as of last week, an allegation that had been leveled by Narra's in-laws in India as well. The source, however, said that Narra has a strong alibi in the case. The bodies were autopsied and released to a funeral home in North Jersey where Narra is believed to be this week. Police in Maple Shade continue to take tips, but the Burlington County Prosecutor's Office is the lead on the case. According to a statement provided by Burlington County Prosecutor's Office shortly after the killings, law enforcement officials had strongly denied that the killings were linked to any hate crime or bias given the Indian-origin of the victims. Preliminary investigation had disclosed that both the victims were stabbed multiple times. The Telugu Association of North America, a group that assists Indian people here who speak the Telugu language had flown the victims' bodies to India yesterday.
By Associated Press

JERUSALEM: Israel's government approved the first West Bank settlement in two decades Thursday, creating the first serious test for U.S. President Donald Trump's new foray into Middle East peacemaking.

The White House pointedly avoided any specific condemnation of the announcement, although it said that further settlement activity "does not help advance peace" and that it expects Israel to show restraint moving forward. Still, the relatively tepid response was a far cry from the automatic condemnations voiced by the Obama's administration in reaction to Israeli settlement announcements. The White House statement even went so far as to "welcome" what appears to be a limited Israeli commitment to take Trump's concerns about settlements into "consideration," without any guarantees to avoid similar announcements.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office announced the decision late Thursday following a meeting of his policy making Security Cabinet.

Netanyahu has vowed to build a new settlement to compensate the residents of Amona, an illegal settler outpost that was demolished in February under the orders of Israel's Supreme Court. Thursday's announcement said the new settlement would be built near the existing settlement of Shilo, which is nearby to the Amona site. It also said the government had approved tenders to build 2,000 new apartments from previously approved settlement projects.

The Palestinians claim the West Bank and east Jerusalem, areas captured by Israel in 1967, as parts of a future state. In December, weeks before Trump was inaugurated, President Barack Obama allowed the U.N. Security Council to pass a resolution that declared all settlements in both areas to be illegal. Trump condemned the decision at the time.

On the campaign trail, Trump indicated he would be far more sympathetic to settlements than Obama and the international community, which consider Israeli construction on occupied land to be illegal. His platform made no mention of an independent Palestinian state, and his inner circle includes strong supporters of the settlement movement.

But since taking office, Trump has appeared to change his position, telling an Israeli newspaper last month that settlements "may not be helpful" and telling Netanyahu at the White House that he would like to see some restraint. Since then, Israel and the U.S. have been in talks over what kind of construction the White House would tolerate.

A White House official sought to play down Thursday's Israeli announcement, saying Netanyahu made his promise to the Amona settlers before Trump laid out his vision. But the official, who agreed to discuss the matter on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly about it, signaled that the White House would take a tougher line down the road.

"As the administration has made clear: While the existence of settlements is not in itself an impediment to peace, further unrestrained settlement activity does not help advance peace," the official said. "The Israeli government has made clear that going forward, its intent is to adopt a policy regarding settlement activity that takes the president's concerns into consideration. The United States welcomes this."

White House envoy Jason Greenblatt has already made two visits to the region, including attending an Arab summit in Jordan this week. In hopes of renewing peace talks for the first time since 2014, the official said the White House will continue to work with all sides "to create a climate that is conducive to peace."

"We hope that the parties will take reasonable actions moving forward that create a climate that is conducive to peace," he said.

Over 600,000 Israelis now live in settlements in the West Bank and east Jerusalem. But Israel has not built a full-fledged new settlement since the 1990s. Instead, construction during that period has expanded existing settlements or taken place in unauthorized outposts like Amona. Netanyahu's hard-line government, which is dominated by settler allies, recently passed legislation aimed at legalizing dozens of those outposts.

The Palestinians and the international community consider the settlements obstacles to peace because they gobble up territory where the Palestinians seek to establish their state.

Israel says the status of settlements as well as other issues, such as security, should be resolved in peace talks.

Palestinian official Hanan Ashrawi condemned the new settlement approval and called for international intervention.

"Today's announcement once again proves that Israel is more committed to appeasing its illegal settler population than to abiding by the requirements for stability and a just peace," she said. "It is time that all members of the international community serve the cause of peace and justice and bring Israel to cease and desist its unlawful settlement activities and illegal unilateralism once and for all."

JERUSALEM: Israel's government approved the first West Bank settlement in two decades Thursday, creating the first serious test for U.S. President Donald Trump's new foray into Middle East peacemaking. The White House pointedly avoided any specific condemnation of the announcement, although it said that further settlement activity "does not help advance peace" and that it expects Israel to show restraint moving forward. Still, the relatively tepid response was a far cry from the automatic condemnations voiced by the Obama's administration in reaction to Israeli settlement announcements. The White House statement even went so far as to "welcome" what appears to be a limited Israeli commitment to take Trump's concerns about settlements into "consideration," without any guarantees to avoid similar announcements. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office announced the decision late Thursday following a meeting of his policy making Security Cabinet. Netanyahu has vowed to build a new settlement to compensate the residents of Amona, an illegal settler outpost that was demolished in February under the orders of Israel's Supreme Court. Thursday's announcement said the new settlement would be built near the existing settlement of Shilo, which is nearby to the Amona site. It also said the government had approved tenders to build 2,000 new apartments from previously approved settlement projects. The Palestinians claim the West Bank and east Jerusalem, areas captured by Israel in 1967, as parts of a future state. In December, weeks before Trump was inaugurated, President Barack Obama allowed the U.N. Security Council to pass a resolution that declared all settlements in both areas to be illegal. Trump condemned the decision at the time. On the campaign trail, Trump indicated he would be far more sympathetic to settlements than Obama and the international community, which consider Israeli construction on occupied land to be illegal. His platform made no mention of an independent Palestinian state, and his inner circle includes strong supporters of the settlement movement. But since taking office, Trump has appeared to change his position, telling an Israeli newspaper last month that settlements "may not be helpful" and telling Netanyahu at the White House that he would like to see some restraint. Since then, Israel and the U.S. have been in talks over what kind of construction the White House would tolerate. A White House official sought to play down Thursday's Israeli announcement, saying Netanyahu made his promise to the Amona settlers before Trump laid out his vision. But the official, who agreed to discuss the matter on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly about it, signaled that the White House would take a tougher line down the road. "As the administration has made clear: While the existence of settlements is not in itself an impediment to peace, further unrestrained settlement activity does not help advance peace," the official said. "The Israeli government has made clear that going forward, its intent is to adopt a policy regarding settlement activity that takes the president's concerns into consideration. The United States welcomes this." White House envoy Jason Greenblatt has already made two visits to the region, including attending an Arab summit in Jordan this week. In hopes of renewing peace talks for the first time since 2014, the official said the White House will continue to work with all sides "to create a climate that is conducive to peace." "We hope that the parties will take reasonable actions moving forward that create a climate that is conducive to peace," he said. Over 600,000 Israelis now live in settlements in the West Bank and east Jerusalem. But Israel has not built a full-fledged new settlement since the 1990s. Instead, construction during that period has expanded existing settlements or taken place in unauthorized outposts like Amona. Netanyahu's hard-line government, which is dominated by settler allies, recently passed legislation aimed at legalizing dozens of those outposts. The Palestinians and the international community consider the settlements obstacles to peace because they gobble up territory where the Palestinians seek to establish their state. Israel says the status of settlements as well as other issues, such as security, should be resolved in peace talks. Palestinian official Hanan Ashrawi condemned the new settlement approval and called for international intervention. "Today's announcement once again proves that Israel is more committed to appeasing its illegal settler population than to abiding by the requirements for stability and a just peace," she said. "It is time that all members of the international community serve the cause of peace and justice and bring Israel to cease and desist its unlawful settlement activities and illegal unilateralism once and for all."
By AFP

BEIJING: The body of the assassinated half-brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un arrived in Pyongyang Friday, apparently accompanied by three men initially named by Malaysian police as suspects in his murder.

Kim Jong-Nam was attacked with the lethal nerve agent VX on February 13 in Kuala Lumpur airport, in an audacious Cold War style operation that triggered a diplomatic row between Malaysia and North Korea.

Malaysian national police chief Khalid Abu Bakar said three North Koreans wanted for questioning had finally been interviewed and allowed to leave on the same plane carrying Kim's body.

"We have obtained whatever we want from them... we are satisfied," Bakar said. The three had been holed up in the North Korean embassy in Kuala Lumpur for weeks.

China confirmed that the body had arrived in Pyongyang  after transiting through Beijing -- along with "relevant" North Korean nationals.

Both countries expelled each other's ambassadors and barred their citizens from leaving, in a bitter stand-off over the killing.

But late Thursday, Kuala Lumpur said it had agreed to send back the body to the North in exchange for nine of its citizens, who were returned to Malaysia early Friday.

Malaysia's police chief said the three North Koreans had been wanted for questioning because they were seen on CCTV near the airport attack.

"In the beginning we said we would like them to assist in the investigation and we have allowed them to go," Khalid told a news conference in Kuala Lumpur.

He said police still wanted to question four other suspects believed to be in North Korea.

Malaysia had been waiting for family to claim the body and Khalid hinted that the North's leader himself could have written the letter to claim the body.

"Legally, Kim Jong-Un is next of kin," he said.

China's foreign ministry spokesman Lu Kang told a regular press briefing that Beijing "offered necessary assistance to the transit of the body".

BEIJING: The body of the assassinated half-brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un arrived in Pyongyang Friday, apparently accompanied by three men initially named by Malaysian police as suspects in his murder. Kim Jong-Nam was attacked with the lethal nerve agent VX on February 13 in Kuala Lumpur airport, in an audacious Cold War style operation that triggered a diplomatic row between Malaysia and North Korea. Malaysian national police chief Khalid Abu Bakar said three North Koreans wanted for questioning had finally been interviewed and allowed to leave on the same plane carrying Kim's body. "We have obtained whatever we want from them... we are satisfied," Bakar said. The three had been holed up in the North Korean embassy in Kuala Lumpur for weeks. China confirmed that the body had arrived in Pyongyang  after transiting through Beijing -- along with "relevant" North Korean nationals. Both countries expelled each other's ambassadors and barred their citizens from leaving, in a bitter stand-off over the killing. But late Thursday, Kuala Lumpur said it had agreed to send back the body to the North in exchange for nine of its citizens, who were returned to Malaysia early Friday. Malaysia's police chief said the three North Koreans had been wanted for questioning because they were seen on CCTV near the airport attack. "In the beginning we said we would like them to assist in the investigation and we have allowed them to go," Khalid told a news conference in Kuala Lumpur. He said police still wanted to question four other suspects believed to be in North Korea. Malaysia had been waiting for family to claim the body and Khalid hinted that the North's leader himself could have written the letter to claim the body. "Legally, Kim Jong-Un is next of kin," he said. China's foreign ministry spokesman Lu Kang told a regular press briefing that Beijing "offered necessary assistance to the transit of the body".
By ANI

LAHORE: Several Pakistani rights activists have claimed that a prosecutor has asked members of the minority Christian community to renounce Christianity and embrace Islam to avoid conviction on terrorism charges.

Around 42 Christians have been charged for lynching two men after two suicide bombings targeted a Sunday Mass in two churches in the Christian neighbourhood of Youhanabad in Lahore on March 15, 2015.

Following the explosion, violent protests erupted with a mob lynching the two men, suspecting them of involvement in the blasts.

Taking advantage of their presence at ATC-1 Lahore, Deputy District Public Prosecutor Syed Anees Shah gathers the accused outside the courtroom and asks them to embrace Islam, The Express Tribune quoted a rights activist Joseph Franci, who was involved in providing legal assistance to the accused in the case, as saying.

He asks them if they embrace Islam, he can guarantee their acquittal in this case, he added.

Joseph said the accused remained silent and were dumbfounded.

A Pakistani advocate Naseeb Anjum said that the public prosecutors offer was not new and added that he had also given this offer to some of the accused about six months back, but they rejected it.

Syed Anees Shah, when contacted, at first said that he did not ask them to embrace Islam, but conceded that he offered them a choice when he was told that the accused have video recording of what he said. Later, he disconnected the call in an attempt to avoid discussing the issue, the Express Tribune report said.

LAHORE: Several Pakistani rights activists have claimed that a prosecutor has asked members of the minority Christian community to renounce Christianity and embrace Islam to avoid conviction on terrorism charges. Around 42 Christians have been charged for lynching two men after two suicide bombings targeted a Sunday Mass in two churches in the Christian neighbourhood of Youhanabad in Lahore on March 15, 2015. Following the explosion, violent protests erupted with a mob lynching the two men, suspecting them of involvement in the blasts. Taking advantage of their presence at ATC-1 Lahore, Deputy District Public Prosecutor Syed Anees Shah gathers the accused outside the courtroom and asks them to embrace Islam, The Express Tribune quoted a rights activist Joseph Franci, who was involved in providing legal assistance to the accused in the case, as saying. He asks them if they embrace Islam, he can guarantee their acquittal in this case, he added. Joseph said the accused remained silent and were dumbfounded. A Pakistani advocate Naseeb Anjum said that the public prosecutors offer was not new and added that he had also given this offer to some of the accused about six months back, but they rejected it. Syed Anees Shah, when contacted, at first said that he did not ask them to embrace Islam, but conceded that he offered them a choice when he was told that the accused have video recording of what he said. Later, he disconnected the call in an attempt to avoid discussing the issue, the Express Tribune report said.
By PTI

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan's controversial special military courts to try hardcore militants were revived today for a period of two years after President Mamnoon Hussain gave his assent to the bill amid a surge in terror attacks across the country. Hussain signed Pakistan Army Act 2017 and the 28th Constitutional Amendment Bill, which were passed separately by the National Assembly and Senate this month.

The military courts were set up in January 2015 after a Taliban attack on an army school killed 150 people, mostly children. The court's tenure initially set up for two years, expired on January 7, 2017. Since then, the Pakistani government was trying to convince the opposition for another two years term for the speedy trial of hardcore terrorists as they played an extremely important role to combat extremism.

The new laws provide that a militant on trial can hire a lawyer of choice and also appeal to the high courts against the decision of military tribunals. Rights bodies and legal fraternity have criticised the military courts as a violation of fundamental rights of the people.

"Military justice is justice denied and military courts have never been, nor will be, the answer to terrorism," said Rasheed Rizvi, president of Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA). Speaking at a ceremony held in honour of the superannuation of Justice Amir Hani Muslim, Rizvi recalled Cicero's 'maxim, summum ius summa iniuria', which literally means "extreme law, extreme injustice", the Dawn reported.

"My lords, it is with regret that we note that the two years of military courts have not proved enough," deplored the SCBA chief, who represents the country's most prestigious body of lawyers who practise in the Supreme Court.

Army had demanded to revive the courts for another two years to try more militants and punish them. The constitution amendment bill seeking an extension of military courts was presented in the National Assembly on March 20.

The primary concern of critics was the mystery surrounding military court trials: no one knows who the convicts are, what charges have been brought against them, or what the accused's defence is against the allegations levelled.

Proponents say the courts act as an "effective deterrent" for those considering violent acts. The court are run by the military officers and operate in secrecy due to fear of backlash by militants. The courts were given 275 cases during two-year and they sentenced 161 terrorists to death, whereas another 116 were given varying jail terms, mostly life sentences.

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan's controversial special military courts to try hardcore militants were revived today for a period of two years after President Mamnoon Hussain gave his assent to the bill amid a surge in terror attacks across the country. Hussain signed Pakistan Army Act 2017 and the 28th Constitutional Amendment Bill, which were passed separately by the National Assembly and Senate this month. The military courts were set up in January 2015 after a Taliban attack on an army school killed 150 people, mostly children. The court's tenure initially set up for two years, expired on January 7, 2017. Since then, the Pakistani government was trying to convince the opposition for another two years term for the speedy trial of hardcore terrorists as they played an extremely important role to combat extremism. The new laws provide that a militant on trial can hire a lawyer of choice and also appeal to the high courts against the decision of military tribunals. Rights bodies and legal fraternity have criticised the military courts as a violation of fundamental rights of the people. "Military justice is justice denied and military courts have never been, nor will be, the answer to terrorism," said Rasheed Rizvi, president of Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA). Speaking at a ceremony held in honour of the superannuation of Justice Amir Hani Muslim, Rizvi recalled Cicero's 'maxim, summum ius summa iniuria', which literally means "extreme law, extreme injustice", the Dawn reported. "My lords, it is with regret that we note that the two years of military courts have not proved enough," deplored the SCBA chief, who represents the country's most prestigious body of lawyers who practise in the Supreme Court. Army had demanded to revive the courts for another two years to try more militants and punish them. The constitution amendment bill seeking an extension of military courts was presented in the National Assembly on March 20. The primary concern of critics was the mystery surrounding military court trials: no one knows who the convicts are, what charges have been brought against them, or what the accused's defence is against the allegations levelled. Proponents say the courts act as an "effective deterrent" for those considering violent acts. The court are run by the military officers and operate in secrecy due to fear of backlash by militants. The courts were given 275 cases during two-year and they sentenced 161 terrorists to death, whereas another 116 were given varying jail terms, mostly life sentences.
By AFP

MADRID: Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy warned Friday that democracy could break down in Venezuela, joining other international leaders in condemning the country's Supreme Court seizing power from the opposition-led legislature.

Widely branded a coup, the court's move tightened socialist President Nicolas Maduro's grip after more than a year in which he has been locked in a political struggle with the centre-right opposition.

"If the separation of powers breaks down, democracy breaks down," Rajoy warned in a tweet.

"For freedom, democracy and the rule of law in Venezuela."

In a decision announced late Wednesday, Venezuela's Supreme Court -- whose judges have staunchly backed Maduro -- said it would directly assume parliamentary powers, accusing the National Assembly of being in contempt of court.

The ruling strips Maduro's opponents in the legislature of what little grip they had over a key pillar of government.

Hugo Chavez's successor now holds all state powers -- the executive, legislature, judiciary and army.

The Supreme Court on Tuesday also stripped parliamentary immunity from lawmakers in the assembly.

Critics said the move was an authoritarian turn for the South American oil-producing giant, where an economic crisis has caused food shortages, riots and an epidemic of violent crime.

The US State Department called it "a serious setback for democracy."

Regional powers Brazil, Mexico, Argentina, Peru, Chile and others also warned it was a threat to democracy in Venezuela.

Guatemala also denounced the court's action. But leftist-led Bolivia defended Maduro.

The hardest line came from the secretary general of the Organization of American States, Luis Almagro, who echoed Maduro's opponents' claims of a "coup d'Etat."

Meanwhile, the speaker of the National Assembly, Julio Borges, urged the army, which has thus far supported Maduro, to take a stand.

Spain, the main intermediary between Latin America and the European Union, has been a host nation for many Venezuelans fleeing the political and economic crisis in their country.

The conservatives in Spain openly support Venezuela's centre-right opposition, and Lilian Tintori, the wife of jailed opposition leader Leopoldo Lopez, makes regularly trips to the country.

MADRID: Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy warned Friday that democracy could break down in Venezuela, joining other international leaders in condemning the country's Supreme Court seizing power from the opposition-led legislature. Widely branded a coup, the court's move tightened socialist President Nicolas Maduro's grip after more than a year in which he has been locked in a political struggle with the centre-right opposition. "If the separation of powers breaks down, democracy breaks down," Rajoy warned in a tweet. "For freedom, democracy and the rule of law in Venezuela." In a decision announced late Wednesday, Venezuela's Supreme Court -- whose judges have staunchly backed Maduro -- said it would directly assume parliamentary powers, accusing the National Assembly of being in contempt of court. The ruling strips Maduro's opponents in the legislature of what little grip they had over a key pillar of government. Hugo Chavez's successor now holds all state powers -- the executive, legislature, judiciary and army. The Supreme Court on Tuesday also stripped parliamentary immunity from lawmakers in the assembly. Critics said the move was an authoritarian turn for the South American oil-producing giant, where an economic crisis has caused food shortages, riots and an epidemic of violent crime. The US State Department called it "a serious setback for democracy." Regional powers Brazil, Mexico, Argentina, Peru, Chile and others also warned it was a threat to democracy in Venezuela. Guatemala also denounced the court's action. But leftist-led Bolivia defended Maduro. The hardest line came from the secretary general of the Organization of American States, Luis Almagro, who echoed Maduro's opponents' claims of a "coup d'Etat." Meanwhile, the speaker of the National Assembly, Julio Borges, urged the army, which has thus far supported Maduro, to take a stand. Spain, the main intermediary between Latin America and the European Union, has been a host nation for many Venezuelans fleeing the political and economic crisis in their country. The conservatives in Spain openly support Venezuela's centre-right opposition, and Lilian Tintori, the wife of jailed opposition leader Leopoldo Lopez, makes regularly trips to the country.
By ANI

WASHINGTON: U.S. President Donald Trump is expecting a very difficult meeting with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping, which is scheduled next week.

The meeting next week with China will be a very difficult one in that we can no longer have massive trade deficits and job losses. American companies must be prepared to look at other alternatives, Trump tweeted.

Chinese President Xi Jinping will be meeting Trump next week in Florida, after paying a state visit to Finland.

"At the invitations of President Sauli Niinisto of the Republic of Finland and President Donald Trump of the United States of America, Chinese President Xi Jinping will pay a state visit to Finland from April 4 to 6, and will meet with President Trump in Mar-a-lago, Florida, from April 6 to 7," China's Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Lu Kang's said in a press conference.

Lu said, over the past 38 years after the establishment of diplomatic ties between China and the US, the two countries' economic and trade relations have grown exponentially, bringing tangible benefits to the business circles and consumers.

"We are willing to work with the US to expand areas of cooperation and to properly handle economic and trade frictions through dialogue and communication on the basis of mutual respect and win-win cooperation, so as to ensure the healthy and steady growth of Sino-US economic and trade ties," he added.

White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer said in a statement that President Trump will host his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping at Mar-a-Lago from April 6 to 7.

"The two leaders will discuss global, regional, and bilateral issues of mutual concern. The President and the First Lady will also host President Xi and Madame Peng Liyuan at a dinner on the evening of April 6," Spicer said.

This would be the first in-person meeting between Trump and Xi, amidst the heightened tensions in the region, particularly the increasing North Korean nuclear threat.

Trump had accused Beijing for not helping with efforts to contain North Korea.

China had then said that its efforts and contributions for the same are internationally acknowledged, adding all sides should avoid actions that may result in escalation of tensions.

During the presidential campaign, Trump repeatedly railed against the trade imbalance between the United States and China.

He even promised to formally label China as a currency manipulator on his first day in office, but is yet to do so.

U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, during his recent China visit, met President Xi and both agreed there are opportunities for greater cooperation between the two sides while acknowledging that there are, and will be in the future, differences between the two countries.

WASHINGTON: U.S. President Donald Trump is expecting a very difficult meeting with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping, which is scheduled next week. The meeting next week with China will be a very difficult one in that we can no longer have massive trade deficits and job losses. American companies must be prepared to look at other alternatives, Trump tweeted. Chinese President Xi Jinping will be meeting Trump next week in Florida, after paying a state visit to Finland. "At the invitations of President Sauli Niinisto of the Republic of Finland and President Donald Trump of the United States of America, Chinese President Xi Jinping will pay a state visit to Finland from April 4 to 6, and will meet with President Trump in Mar-a-lago, Florida, from April 6 to 7," China's Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Lu Kang's said in a press conference. Lu said, over the past 38 years after the establishment of diplomatic ties between China and the US, the two countries' economic and trade relations have grown exponentially, bringing tangible benefits to the business circles and consumers. "We are willing to work with the US to expand areas of cooperation and to properly handle economic and trade frictions through dialogue and communication on the basis of mutual respect and win-win cooperation, so as to ensure the healthy and steady growth of Sino-US economic and trade ties," he added. White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer said in a statement that President Trump will host his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping at Mar-a-Lago from April 6 to 7. "The two leaders will discuss global, regional, and bilateral issues of mutual concern. The President and the First Lady will also host President Xi and Madame Peng Liyuan at a dinner on the evening of April 6," Spicer said. This would be the first in-person meeting between Trump and Xi, amidst the heightened tensions in the region, particularly the increasing North Korean nuclear threat. Trump had accused Beijing for not helping with efforts to contain North Korea. China had then said that its efforts and contributions for the same are internationally acknowledged, adding all sides should avoid actions that may result in escalation of tensions. During the presidential campaign, Trump repeatedly railed against the trade imbalance between the United States and China. He even promised to formally label China as a currency manipulator on his first day in office, but is yet to do so. U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, during his recent China visit, met President Xi and both agreed there are opportunities for greater cooperation between the two sides while acknowledging that there are, and will be in the future, differences between the two countries.
By AFP

NEW YORK: The United Nations Security Council voted unanimously Friday to renew the mandate of the peacekeeping force in the Democratic Republic of Congo, but cut its numbers.

Members of the council paid tribute to two kidnapped UN researchers whose bodies were found this week, and voted to approve the MONUSCO mission for another year.

The resolution reduces the authorized size of the military component of the mission from 19,815 to 16,215 troops, but the force is already under-strength and in practice fewer than 500 will come home.

The United States, which will assume the presidency of the Security Council in April, has called for a deep review of the strategy behind all the United Nations' peacekeeping missions.

And Washington, which currently funds more than 28 percent of the peacekeeping budget, is seeking to cut costs and improve the efficiency of the missions.

In the Democratic Republic of Congo, UN members are pressing President Joseph Kabila's government to honor a power-sharing deal with the opposition ahead of elections later this year.

NEW YORK: The United Nations Security Council voted unanimously Friday to renew the mandate of the peacekeeping force in the Democratic Republic of Congo, but cut its numbers. Members of the council paid tribute to two kidnapped UN researchers whose bodies were found this week, and voted to approve the MONUSCO mission for another year. The resolution reduces the authorized size of the military component of the mission from 19,815 to 16,215 troops, but the force is already under-strength and in practice fewer than 500 will come home. The United States, which will assume the presidency of the Security Council in April, has called for a deep review of the strategy behind all the United Nations' peacekeeping missions. And Washington, which currently funds more than 28 percent of the peacekeeping budget, is seeking to cut costs and improve the efficiency of the missions. In the Democratic Republic of Congo, UN members are pressing President Joseph Kabila's government to honor a power-sharing deal with the opposition ahead of elections later this year.
By AFP

BRUSSELS: US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said Friday he would hold talks with NATO allies about "Russia's aggression in Ukraine", signalling a tougher stance toward Moscow from the Trump administration.

"We want to have a discussion around NATO's posture in Europe, most particularly in eastern Europe in response to Russia's aggression in Ukraine and elsewhere," Tillerson said upon arriving in Brussels for his first NATO talks.

Tillerson joined the talks listing the Trump administration's top priority as pushing NATO allies to meet their pledges to boost defence spending as Washington says it has borne a "disproportionate" share of the costs for too long.

State Department officials said Tillerson would work with NATO allies to press Russia to fulfil its obligations under the Minsk agreements to end the war in eastern Ukraine.

Tillerson's remarks appeared likely to ease concerns that US President Donald Trump is more interested in cultivating ties with Russian President Vladimir Putin than in shoring up the 28-nation alliance against a more assertive Moscow.

Allies have been alarmed at the prospect of Trump seeking to improve relations with the Kremlin at the expense of support for the pro-Western government in Ukraine and NATO allies in former Soviet parts of eastern Europe.

Their concerns were reinforced when Tillerson initially planned to skip the NATO meeting, citing various commitments including a trip to Russia.

But the former Exxon oil executive, who has friendly ties with Putin, agreed to attend when NATO rescheduled the meeting for Friday.

Russia in 2014 annexed Crimea from Ukraine and backed separatists in eastern Ukraine.

A senior NATO official told reporters on condition of anonymity that the Trump administration was now taking a more "mainstream" approach to the alliance and anxiety among allies had eased.

BRUSSELS: US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said Friday he would hold talks with NATO allies about "Russia's aggression in Ukraine", signalling a tougher stance toward Moscow from the Trump administration. "We want to have a discussion around NATO's posture in Europe, most particularly in eastern Europe in response to Russia's aggression in Ukraine and elsewhere," Tillerson said upon arriving in Brussels for his first NATO talks. Tillerson joined the talks listing the Trump administration's top priority as pushing NATO allies to meet their pledges to boost defence spending as Washington says it has borne a "disproportionate" share of the costs for too long. State Department officials said Tillerson would work with NATO allies to press Russia to fulfil its obligations under the Minsk agreements to end the war in eastern Ukraine. Tillerson's remarks appeared likely to ease concerns that US President Donald Trump is more interested in cultivating ties with Russian President Vladimir Putin than in shoring up the 28-nation alliance against a more assertive Moscow. Allies have been alarmed at the prospect of Trump seeking to improve relations with the Kremlin at the expense of support for the pro-Western government in Ukraine and NATO allies in former Soviet parts of eastern Europe. Their concerns were reinforced when Tillerson initially planned to skip the NATO meeting, citing various commitments including a trip to Russia. But the former Exxon oil executive, who has friendly ties with Putin, agreed to attend when NATO rescheduled the meeting for Friday. Russia in 2014 annexed Crimea from Ukraine and backed separatists in eastern Ukraine. A senior NATO official told reporters on condition of anonymity that the Trump administration was now taking a more "mainstream" approach to the alliance and anxiety among allies had eased.
The logo of Toshiba Corp is seen behind a traffic light at the company's headquarters in Tokyo, Japan March 29, 2017. REUTERS/Issei Kato

By Kentaro Hamada and Taro Fuse

TOKYO (Reuters) - Toshiba Corp will likely miss a third deadline to report its quarterly business results, two sources told Reuters, forcing the Japanese conglomerate to ask for a fresh extension or face a possible delisting from the Tokyo Stock Exchange.

A third postponement of the October-December earnings, past the latest deadline of April 11, looks necessary because Toshiba's auditor, PricewaterhouseCoopers Aarata LLC, has questions about results for the business year through March 2016, said the sources. One of the sources has direct knowledge of the delay and the other was briefed on the matter.

Toshiba also may not be able to decide the favored bidder or group for its semiconductor business by its general shareholder meeting in late June, said another person with direct knowledge of the matter. He had previously said the decision would be made in May, or at least before the shareholder meeting.

Toshiba and PwC officials could not be reached for comment in Tokyo outside business hours.

The Japanese conglomerate, which only recently emerged from a huge accounting scandal, has been dragged down by billions of dollars of cost overruns at its former U.S. nuclear unit, Westinghouse Electric Co.

Disagreements with auditors forced the company to postpone its earnings release in February and again in March. After April 11, Toshiba will have eight working days to publish its results for the three months that ended Dec. 31 unless it can persuade regulators at the Ministry of Finance to give it more time.

Despite some progress in tackling writedowns at Westinghouse, a new delay to the Japanese parent's earnings announcement would underscore the seriousness of the financial crisis that threatens the 144-year old company. For the business year ended Friday, Toshiba forecasts a net loss of 1 trillion yen ($9 billion).

Westinghouse on Wednesday filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection from creditors in New York, a move by Toshiba to fence off losses at the unit it bought in 2006 for $5.4 billion. The filing marks the start of what will likely be lengthy and complex negotiations with creditors and customers that could embroil the U.S. and Japanese governments.

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Toshiba's shareholders at an extraordinary meeting in Japan on Thursday agreed to split off the company's profitable NAND flash memory unit, green-lighting a plan to sell most or all of the business to raise at least 1 trillion yen to cover charges at Westinghouse.

The company received about 10 bidders in the first round, ended Thursday, with bids as high as 2 trillion yen, the semiconductor business source said.

A source earlier said Western Digital Corp and Micron Technology Inc in the United States, South Korea's SK Hynix Inc and financial investors were among those expressing interest.

The Japanese government-backed Innovation Network of Japan Corp and the Development Bank of Japan [DBJPN.UL] are also expected to submit bids as part of a consortium, sources have said.

(Reporting by Kentaro Hamada and Taro Fuse; Additional reporting by Makiko Yamazaki; Writing by Tim Kelly; Editing by William Mallard and Mark Potter)
By AFP

TAIPEI: The wife of a Taiwanese rights activist detained in China said Friday she would go to Beijing to "rescue" her husband in a case that has deepened cross-strait tensions.

China confirmed this week Lee Ming-cheh is under investigation for suspected activities "endangering national security", without revealing details of where he is being held.

It is the latest in a series of incidents that have strained relations between Beijing and Taiwan since China-sceptic president Tsai Ing-wen won the leadership last year.

NGO worker Lee, 42, was last heard from on March 19 after he entered the southeastern Chinese city of Zhuhai from the semi-autonomous enclave of Macau.

Taiwan has blasted China for the lack of explanation over his whereabouts, describing his disappearance as "deeply regrettable".

Rights group Amnesty International said the case sparked concerns that China is "broadening their attack against those carrying out legitimate activism".

Lee's wife Lee Ching-yu said Friday she had decided to travel to Beijing to demand answers.

She said she would not be using a lawyer.

"Any legal defence is useless in a country where rule of law has not kept up with international levels," she told reporters.

"I must act, I must make a declaration," she added.

"My husband is suffering every minute, every second," she said.

Lee, who works for a community college in Taipei, had been sharing "Taiwan's democratic experiences" with online Chinese friends and sent them books, according to a petition for his release led by the Taiwan Association for Human Rights.

He also told his friends to donate to the families of human rights lawyers detained by China, the petition said.

Taiwan's cabinet on Thursday called on China to engage in dialogue to handle the case and to arrange for a visit for Lee's family and a lawyer.

China has not commented further since confirming Lee's detention on Wednesday.

Beijing has severed official communications with Taipei since Tsai took office last May.

Chinese authorities deeply mistrust her Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), which is traditionally pro-independence.

Taiwan has been self-ruled since 1949 following a civil war on the mainland, but it has never formally declared independence and Beijing still claims it as part of its territory.

China has ratcheted up pressure on Tsai, stepping up military drills near Taiwan and seeking to bar the island from international events.

Beijing was incensed by Tsai's congratulatory call to then-US-president-elect Donald Trump, which upended decades of diplomatic precedent.

TAIPEI: The wife of a Taiwanese rights activist detained in China said Friday she would go to Beijing to "rescue" her husband in a case that has deepened cross-strait tensions. China confirmed this week Lee Ming-cheh is under investigation for suspected activities "endangering national security", without revealing details of where he is being held. It is the latest in a series of incidents that have strained relations between Beijing and Taiwan since China-sceptic president Tsai Ing-wen won the leadership last year. NGO worker Lee, 42, was last heard from on March 19 after he entered the southeastern Chinese city of Zhuhai from the semi-autonomous enclave of Macau. Taiwan has blasted China for the lack of explanation over his whereabouts, describing his disappearance as "deeply regrettable". Rights group Amnesty International said the case sparked concerns that China is "broadening their attack against those carrying out legitimate activism". Lee's wife Lee Ching-yu said Friday she had decided to travel to Beijing to demand answers. She said she would not be using a lawyer. "Any legal defence is useless in a country where rule of law has not kept up with international levels," she told reporters. "I must act, I must make a declaration," she added. "My husband is suffering every minute, every second," she said. Lee, who works for a community college in Taipei, had been sharing "Taiwan's democratic experiences" with online Chinese friends and sent them books, according to a petition for his release led by the Taiwan Association for Human Rights. He also told his friends to donate to the families of human rights lawyers detained by China, the petition said. Taiwan's cabinet on Thursday called on China to engage in dialogue to handle the case and to arrange for a visit for Lee's family and a lawyer. China has not commented further since confirming Lee's detention on Wednesday. Beijing has severed official communications with Taipei since Tsai took office last May. Chinese authorities deeply mistrust her Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), which is traditionally pro-independence. Taiwan has been self-ruled since 1949 following a civil war on the mainland, but it has never formally declared independence and Beijing still claims it as part of its territory. China has ratcheted up pressure on Tsai, stepping up military drills near Taiwan and seeking to bar the island from international events. Beijing was incensed by Tsai's congratulatory call to then-US-president-elect Donald Trump, which upended decades of diplomatic precedent.
The logo of Toshiba Corp is seen behind a traffic light at the company's headquarters in Tokyo, Japan March 29, 2017. REUTERS/Issei Kato

TOKYO (Reuters) - U.S. private equity firm Silver Lake Partners LP [SILAK.UL] and U.S. chipmaker Broadcom Ltd have offered Toshiba Corp about 2 trillion yen ($17.9 billion) for its chip unit, the Nikkei business daily reported on Friday.

About 10 potential bidders are interested in buying a stake in the NAN flash memory maker, a source with knowledge of the planned sale told Reuters earlier.

Suitors include Western Digital Corp which operates a chip plant with Toshiba in Japan, Micron Technology Inc, South Korean chipmaker SK Hynix Inc and financial investors.

Toshiba wants to make at least 1 trillion yen from the sale of part or all of the business to cover writedowns at its Westinghouse nuclear unit. It says it expects investors to value its chip operations at about 2 trillion yen.

Toshiba is also asking potential bidders whether they intend to resell their stakes and wants to make a decision on the sale before a shareholders meeting in June, the Nikkei said, without saying where it obtained the information.

Toshiba shareholders on Thursday agreed to split off its prized chip unit, paving the way for the sale.

(Reporting by Kaori Kaneko; Editing by Stephen Coates)
PM Modi greets people of Rajasthan on state foundation day

New Delhi, Mar 30 : Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday greeted the people of Rajasthan on their state foundation day.





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A land of rich culture and brave warriors, greetings to the people of Rajasthan on their state foundation day, the Prime Ministers tweet in Hindi read.The name Rajasthan literally translates into the place or abode of the kings.Rajasthan gained statehood in 1956, with Jaipur as its capital.
Delhi witnessing 23 degree temperature in wee hours is unusual in Mar.: IMD

New Delhi , Mar. 30 : The Meteorology Department on Wednesday said Delhi has been witnessing an unusual temperature of 23 degree in the wee hours, which is already six degree more than the normal.





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The Indian Meteorology Department scientist Charan singh told ANI, "Delhi has been witnessing temperature of 23 degree in the wee hours which is very unusual in the month of March."He further said that the maximum temperature is expected to reach 38 degree which is recorded to be higher compared to last five to six years.Meanwhile, the department has issued warning of heat wave in parts of North Maharashtra for next 48 hours.The department has forecasted that Delhi has not witnessed heat-wave condition but the temperature in the national capital might increase till the month of May which is currently 37 degree, five degree more than what it should be.He further said that heat wave condition is likely to continue in states like Rajasthan, Gujarat, west Madhya Pradesh for next three to four days."We can witness heat wave in Rajasthan Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh for next two to three days and it has already spread in South Haryana and South Uttar Pradesh.Most parts of India will come under heat wave temperature by mid of May," Singh added.Day temperatures continue to rise across most parts of India, especially in Rajasthan, Gujarat and Maharashtra.Mercury has been settling in higher 40AC over almost every place.Presently, Bhira in Maharashtra tops the list of hottest cities in India with a maximum temperature of 46.5AC.
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Parliament passes Finance Bill as Lok Sabha rejects RS amendments

New Delhi, Mar 30 : : Backed by the dominant BJP and allied party members in the Lok Sabha, Parliament on Thursday approved the Finance Bill 2017 after the lower house rejected five amendments by the Rajya Sabha with regard to curbing more powers to taxmen and a cap on donation by companies to political parties.





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Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said the amendments cannot be accepted by the Government, but all parties are welcome to come up with suggestion to make electoral funding more clean and transparent.The Lok Sabha rejected the Rajya Sabha amendments by a voice vote, thus passing the Finance Bill 2017 and completing the budgetary exercise for 2017-18.Defending the budget proposal, Jaitley said it is not possible for the Government to accept the amendment as it would limit the number of donors to political parties.The harsh reality is we continue to do politics on the basis of undeclared money, because if we do it on the basis of declared money... Somebody will write an editorial and will have a problem with every solution we offer, he said.Today we have given the option of receiving donations by cheque -- there is total transparency, it is clean money. Small donations by cash less than a2,000. You can receive donations online too. And do it by bonds which is clean money, Jaitley said.
Centre constitutes committee for extension of industrial package for hill states

New Delhi , Mar.30 : Union Minister Of State for Commerce and Industry Nirmala Sitharaman told Shimla Member Parliament Virender Kashyap that a Committee of Secretaries under the Chairmanship of NITI Aayog has been constituted for formulating new industrial policy for hill states like Himachal Pradesh , Uttrakhand and Jammu and Kashmir.





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The committee will consider extension of an industrial package for hill states to generate employment opportunities by setting up industries in hilly States/regions of the country.Sitharaman informed that committee of secretaries met on February 23 in New Delhi to deliberate upon a new industrial policy and consultations between different stakeholder are being held by the committee.She told that Himachal Pradesh has demanded extension of Capital Investment Subsidy Scheme for further period of five years in order to give boost to investment in the State of Himachal Pradesh, while Jammu and Kashmir has requested for extension of the package on the pattern of north eastern states.During the current financial year, an amount of Rs. 24.96 crore had been released to these special category states under industrial package which includes Rs.10.17 crore for Jammu and Kashmir, Rs. 9.08 crore for Himachal Pradesh and Rs. 5.71 crore for Uttarakhand for promoting industrializations in these states, she added.The Government of India had announced a package of industrial incentives for promoting industrialisation in Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand on January 7, 2003 which was implemented initially for a period of 10 years till January 6,2013.It was further extended for four years from January 7, 2013 to March 31, 2017 with certain modifications.She told that for Jammu and Kashmir, the modified special package scheme is valid upto June 14, 2017.
Mauricio Macri Michel Temer Brazil Argentina president

It's not going be easy. But with President Donald Trump digging in his heels on his misguided antipathy to international trade, Latin American countries may have little choice but to look toward one another for greater commercial integration.

Indeed, it may be an opportunity, even if an awkward one, for the region's largest economies to begin looking at one another more as allies than as rivals.

Already, Mexico has entered talks with Argentina and Brazil for a possible deal on duty-free corn imports, a preemptive response to the Trump administration's promise to rip up the North America Free Trade Agreement and to impose tariffs on goods produced in Mexico.

The presidents of Brazil and Argentina have reaffirmed a commitment to regional integration, with Argentine President Mauricio Macri saying the South American trading bloc Mercosur would seek closer links with Mexico, along whose border Trump has threatened to build a security wall.

"This change in scenario will make Mexico turn to the South with more conviction," Macri said in a recent statement. Trump has already affirmed his antipathy to free trade by abandoning the long-fought Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement among 12 nations that included Mexico, Canada, and Japan.

At the same time, Chile is courting Argentina to enter its own Pacific alliance.

A new report from the International Monetary Fund emphasizes the potential benefits of closer relations among nations of the Americas minus the US.

"Latin American and the Caribbean can reap important growth benefits from further trade integration," the IMF report says. "With trade integration below that of other regions, there is scope for the region to increase trade as an engine of growth and help offset the weaker economic outlook without adversely affecting overall income inequality."

Story continues

The IMF also emphasizes, perhaps having learned from the sometimes troubled experience of richer nations, that "strengthened social safety nets can help lessen adjustment costs linked to further integration and promote an equitable distribution of gains from trade."

A new book from the World Bank comes to a similar conclusion. It points to the more integrated experience of East Asia and the Pacific as an example for Latin America, which has often had more fractured and protectionist commercial relations internally.

"This book proposes a renewal of 'open regionalism' in Latin America and the Caribbean aimed at achieving the region's goals of high growth with stability," the authors write. "The forces of geography imply that pro-growth global integration cannot be achieved without building a strong neighborhood. The regional economic integration agenda needs to go well beyond the current spaghetti bowl of preferential trading arrangements."

Brian Winter, the editor-in-chief of Americas Quarterly, also believes "a more insular United States may push Latin American countries to seek greater trade with each other."

He added: "That could mean a deepening of the Mercosur trade bloc, for example  or an eventual deal between Mercosur and the Pacific Alliance."

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Axis Bank, Wells Fargo enter into bilateral arrangement to offer remittance facility to US-based NRI customers

New Delhi , Mar 30 : Axis Bank, India's third largest private sector bank, has announced a strategic partnership with Wells Fargo and Company to offer seamless remittance facility to their NRI customers from The United States of America (USA). USA is one of the key corridors to receive remittances to India, which contributes to more than 30 percent of total remittance volume to India.





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The arrangement marks the first bilateral retail remittance relationship with Bank in USA for Axis Bank thereby providing a further edge to the bank's NRI Proposition in the region. With this arrangement in place, Axis Bank's NRI customers can send remittances to their accounts in India 24x7 through Wells Fargo's "ExpressSend Service", after due enrolment in the service. The customer can send remittances either at Wells Fargo's branches, on phone or online at www.wellsfargo.com.Besides the seamless nature of the facility, the service would be economical and convenient as well. Customers can send money at competitive exchange rates for low transfer fees with the Wells Fargo 'ExpressSend' Service while the online-savvy can send money online via the Wells Fargo Phone Bank, or at a Wells Fargo branch location.Commenting on the arrangement, Himadri Chatterjee, President & Head, Transaction Banking, Axis Bank, said "We are delighted to partner with Wells Fargo to launch a service which addresses not only business opportunities but the needs of a wide and evolving diaspora. We are confident that this expansion of network will make it even more convenient for our NRI customers to send money from USA and give them another reason to choose Axis Bank as their Banking partner of choice""We know that our ExpressSend customers have a choice of remittance providers, and they choose our service because it is economical, dependable, and convenient for both the customer and their family and friends back home," said Daniel Ayala, executive vice president and head of Wells Fargo's Global Remittance Services. "By adding Axis Bank to our network in India, this expansion will make it even more convenient for beneficiaries in India to receive their money, and give our customers another reason to feel good about sending money back home."Beginning April 8, 2017 customers can send money directly to their beneficiary account at Axis Bank a $0 transfer fee. Meanwhile, in December 2016, Wells Fargo added more than 2,500 Axis Bank locations and 12,300 ATMs to its ExpressSend payout network in India.
ICC signs MoU with Anyang Chamber Of Commerce

Kolkata, Mar 30 : In the Anyang City and New Town City Co-operation Seminar in Kolkata on Thursday, a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was signed between the Indian Chamber of Commerce and Anyang Chamber of Commerce and Industry, South Korea.





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The aim is to promote, strengthen and develop trade, investment as well as economic, scientific and technological collaboration between the two cities.Phil Woon Lee, Honorable Mayor, Anyang City stated that the similarities between Kolkata and Anyang are striking and give both the cities immense opportunities to collaborate and move to a path of strong trade ties. Anyang city has witnessed growth in every domain and Kolkata can utilize this to develop close trade and investment conglomeration going ahead. This would not only drive economic growth for the two cities but also development of the two nations at large.He felt that the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between the Indian Chamber of Commerce (ICC) and Anyang Chamber of Commerce and Industry will be the platform for achieving this goal.Dae Young Lee, Chairman, Anyang City Council felt that Kolkatas potential in various sectors like IT, Telecom etc. has driven its economic growth.The MoU will serve as the platform for business relation between two cities and will also boost exports for tapping the global market. Additionally, it would serve as the platform for exchange of knowledge and expertise between the two nations which will likely lead to better economic integration.Sang Ho Lee, Chairman, Anyang Chamber of Commerce and Industries stated that Indias economy has developed rapidly and drawn worldwide attention.He felt that India has the potential to exceed to other superpowers and Kolkata will play a key role in this regard. Over the last two years, a strategic partnership has evolved between Korea and Kolkata, and both have a long way to go. According to him, the MoU will harness the distinctive characteristics of the two cities that will lead to technological, trade and economic growth. It would lead to the development of a local economy between the two cities and rapid economic growth of the two nations.Sanjay Budhia, Past President, ICC Managing Director, Patton International Ltd. stated that Kolkata, West Bengal is the gateway to the North-Eastern part of India and plays a significant role in the GOIs Act East Policy. The city is endowed with significant opportunities for trade and investment. Anyang and Kolkata collaboration can benefit both the cities in terms of establishing a strong relation in areas of Agro-processing, IT, plastics etc. In this regard, the Indian Chamber of Commerce can play a significant role by extending its support to South Korea in forging such partnership between both the cities.
Sanskrit should be made MP's official language: BJP minister

Sagar (Madhya Pradesh) , March 30 : Madhya Pradesh minister Vijay Shah on Thursday urged that Sanskrit should be made the state language, adding that the 'dev-bhasha' should be taught in schools from class one onwards.





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Vouching for Sanskrit to be made as the state language, the minister further said that Madhya Pradesh does not have its official language and hence the ancient lingo can fill that space."Sanskrit is our dev-bhasha. It has its own importance in Tamil and Telugu also. Madhya Pradesh does not have its official language apart from Hindi," Shah said."In Maharashtra, people speaking Marathi get job. Similarly in Gujarat, ones speaking Gujarati get job," he further added.Uttar Pradesh Deputy Chief Minister Dinesh Sharma earlier on Wednesday said that implementation of Sanskrit Board in Uttar Pradesh education system will enlighten students ethically and therefore develop their mindset."Yoga Guru Baba Ramdev said that Sanskrit Board should be built up. He also suggested for the inclusion of Yoga which will be introduced as a different subject other than physical education," Sharma told ANI.He further said the matter will be discussed with Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath to come to a conclusion as the education system of the country needs a change."People will get to know about Sanskrit language. These steps should have been taken earlier," he added.Meanwhile in Gujarat, demanding an independent "State Sanskrit Education Board", the state wing of Sanskrit Bharati has launched a campaign for the "development and revival" of the ancient language in Gujarat.Sanskrit Bharati, the RSS-affiliated organisation dedicated to the language, has launched a "21-point" signature campaign and roped in general public and Sanskrit experts and educationists in each district.
Meerut: Minority corporators refuse to sing 'Vande Mataram', Mayor asks to leave

Meerut, March 30 : The year long controversy of nationalism in the country reached a new height as Mayor of Meerut Municipal Corporation asked minority members to leave the meeting following their refusal to sing 'Vande Mataram', on Thursday, media reports.





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Mayor of Meerut said that the members of Corporation who were present but not singing the national song wont get the attendance.The mayor ordered us to sing Vande mataram and threatended that he will not let us sit in the Sadan (House) if we do not follow his directive. It is up to us whether we will sing it or not. The orders were delivered rudely, so we decided to boycott the proceeding, Afzal Saifi, one of the members who refused to sing said.However, the Mayor refused to accept such allegations and said that the decision to ask unwilling members to leave was a collective decision.Meerut Mayor Harikant Ahluwalia told The Indian Express that We have almost 90 corporators, of whom 18 are Muslims. Only a handful of people have an issue with Vande Mataram, rest sing it.Mayor even stated that he would not allow this to happen again in the House.
Canada: CIBC Toronto staff lose jobs to workers in India

Toronto, Mar 30 : CIBC's decision to eliminate up to 130 jobs in its Toronto finance department and outsourcing the work to India has caused great concern among the employees losing their jobs, media reports said.





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Another sad situation was that the staff losing their positions were required to train other local CIBC employees, who in turn would train the workers in India who will be taking over the jobsThe replacement workers in India were registered with the global consulting and outsourcing firm, Accenture, which was partnering with CIBC.Although CIBC said that it had found jobs for a few displaced staff and was trying to find work for others, the employees that CBC News spoke with said they felt the bank was more interested making profits rather than helping them out.When asked why its outsourcing the work, CIBC suggested its a common practice.Like most large companies, we selectively outsource, spokesperson Caroline Van Hasselt said in an email, CBCNews reports said.CIBC currently has 43,000 employees and has created almost 2,500 jobs in Canada over the past five years, she added.Many Canadian corporations outsource work to other countries, said Ron Babin, with the Ted Rogers School of Management at Ryerson University. He added that this helps the companies to cut down the costs and be competitive but when people lose their jobs it generates negative attention.How are we supposed to make a living? says one employee who worries about not being able to land a comparable job. We have family, we have expenses to take care of, CBCNews reports said.(Reporting by Asha Bajaj)
UN refugee agency stresses importance of search missions after latest shipwreck in Europe

New York, Mar 30 : With nearly 150 people dead or missing in another shipwreck off the Mediterranean coast, the United Nations refugee agency on Thursday stressed the importance of saving lives at sea.





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This latest tragedy comes as a stark reminder of the vital importance of robust search and rescue capacities, said Volker Trk, UNHCRs Assistant High Commissioner for Protection.A 16-year old boy is believed to be the only survivor of the boat that sunk with 147 passengers, including five children and several pregnant women, UNHCR said.The 16-year old survivor said their boat left two days ago from Sabratha, in Libya, and started taking on water after a few hours of navigation, the UN agency said after interviewing the boy in Lampedusa.He survived the shipwreck by hanging to a fuel tank, until he was rescued by a Spanish ship operating under Operation Sophia, UNHCR noted in reference to the European Union Naval Force Mediterranean (EUNAVFOR MED) operations launched after the April 2015 Libya migrant shipwrecks.In the statement, Trk expressed deep sadness at the news of the deaths.He commended the action of the Italian Coast Guard in coordination with Frontex, the European Border and Coast Guard Agency.The senior UN official also noted the importance of non-governmental organizations, which provide additional and much needed rescue capacity. According to UNHCR figures, NGOs performed 26 per cent of rescue operations in the central Mediterranean in 2016.Saving lives at sea must remain the key priority for all, Trk said.In September 2016, when Member States adopted the New York Declaration for Refugees and Migrants, Governments committed to intensifying international cooperation on strengthening search and rescue.Photo UNHCR/Alfredo DAmatoSource: www.justearthnews.com
Toronto named one of Canada's best diversity employers

Toronto, Mar 30 : Mediacorp Canada Inc. announced that City of Toronto has been named one of Canada's best diversity employers for the second consecutive year for its workplace diversity and inclusion programs among the 100 winners of 2017 best diversity employers in a Globe and Mail magazine.





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City of Toronto tweeted, #CityofTO has been named one of Canadas best diversity employers. News release: http://bit.ly/2mMX4LD .Mediacorp Canada Inc. is Canadas largest specialty publisher of quality employment periodicals and manages the Canadas Top 100 Employers project and the Eluta.ca job search engine, now used by more than 5.4 million Canadians annually.The criteria for the inclusion in the competition is the creation of inclusive workplaces and programs for employees from five groups: women, members of visible minorities, persons with disabilities, aboriginal people and lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered (LGBT) people.As a leading organization that offers many diverse programs and initiatives, the City of Toronto is very deserving of this award, said Mayor John Tory. Diversity is our strength, and I commend the members of the Toronto Public Service, whose work helps make Toronto an inclusive and welcoming city that is a model for the rest of the world, www1.toronto.ca reports said.Tory tweeted, Extremely proud that the City of Toronto has been named one of Canadas Best Diversity Employers. Info: http://ow.ly/qiSG30al5We .The City of Toronto leads the way in championing diversity, access, inclusivity and producing equitable outcomes for City employees and the people we serve, said City Manager Peter Wallace. As one of Canadas top employers, we must continue to create an environment that reflects our diverse communities and where everyone is treated equally and equitably, www1.toronto.ca reports said.Determination of this years winners was based on editors review of the criteria of diversity and inclusiveness initiatives from employers who applied for the Canadas Top 100 Employers project. A short list of employers was compiled and the candidates programs were compared to programs of other employers in the same field. The finalists chosen represented the diversity leaders in their industry and their region of Canada.The full list of winners and the reasons the City was selected are available athttp://www.canadastop100.com/diversity.(Reporting by Asha Bajaj)
(Adds Schiff comments after document review, Spicer quote)

By Mark Hosenball

WASHINGTON, March 31 (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump on Friday backed a decision by his former national security adviser to seek immunity in congressional investigations of possible ties between his election campaign and Russia, but there was no immediate sign a request would be granted.

Retired General Michael Flynn, who resigned only 24 days after becoming national security adviser, wants protection against "unfair prosecution" if he testifies before the intelligence committees of the U.S. Senate and the House of Representatives, his lawyer, Robert Kelner, said on Thursday.

Testimony from Flynn could help shed light on the conversations he had last year with Sergei Kislyak, Russian ambassador to the United States, while national security adviser for Trump's presidential campaign.

U.S. Representative Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the House of Representatives intelligence committee, said it was too soon to consider immunity requests.

"As with any investigation - and particularly one that grows in severity and magnitude by the day - there is still much work and many more witnesses and documents to obtain before any immunity request from any witness can be considered," he said in a statement.

Schiff said the House intelligence panel would discuss any request with the Justice Department and the Senate Intelligence Committee, describing such a request "a grave and momentous step."

Schiff on Friday was allowed to see documents at the White House that previously had been seen only by the Republican chairman of the intelligence committee.

Trump, a Republican, said in a tweet that Democrats were instigating the congressional investigations because they were upset about his Nov. 8 victory over their party's candidate, Hillary Clinton.

"Mike Flynn should ask for immunity in that this is a witch hunt (excuse for big election loss), by media & Dems, of historic proportion!" Trump said.

Story continues

Trump would not comment further when asked about Flynn during a White House meeting with U.S. manufacturers.

White House spokesman Sean Spicer was asked at a news briefing if he was concerned that Flynn could provide information that could be harmful to the administration and replied, "Nope."

He said Trump wanted Flynn to testify to "get this matter behind us" but declined to say specifically that he should be granted immunity.

"The president is very clear that he wants Mike Flynn to go and be completely open and transparent with the committee, and whatever it takes to do that he is supportive of," Spicer said.

DOCUMENT REVIEW

Schiff and an aide went to the White House on Friday at the administration's invitation to review documents that it said support Trump's contention he and his team were subjected to surveillance by the Obama administration during the presidential campaign.

The Republican chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Devin Nunes, has been criticized by his colleagues on the panel for his handling of the investigation of possible Russian connections, including going to the White House complex independently to review documents on the purported surveillance.

"While I cannot discuss the content of the documents," Schiff said, "if the White House had any concern over these materials, they should have been shared with the full (House and Senate intelligence) committees in the first place as a part of our ordinary oversight responsibilities."

He said the material should now be given to both congressional intelligence committees.

FBI Director James Comey has said there is no evidence of wiretapping at Trump Tower in New York but that the agency is investigating whether the Trump campaign colluded with Russia.

Senator Angus King, a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, also said it was too soon to discuss immunity.

A government official with direct knowledge of the case told Reuters that lawyers for Flynn raised the immunity request roughly 10 days ago with representatives of the Senate panel.

Officials told them the committee was not interested in any immunity discussions at that time.

The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday that Flynn had also sought immunity from the Federal Bureau of Investigation in exchange for testimony.

Flynn was forced to resign on Feb. 13 for failing to disclose talks with Kislyak about U.S. sanctions on Moscow and misleading Vice President Mike Pence about the conversations, which occurred before Trump took office.

Congressional committees and the FBI are looking into allegations by U.S. intelligence agencies that Russia meddled in the 2016 U.S. election campaign.

The Russian government has denied the allegations and denied that it hacked emails of Democratic groups and released information to tip the election toward Trump, who has called for better U.S. relations with Moscow.

King, an independent who caucuses with the Democrats, defended the investigations in a CNN interview.

"This is not a witch hunt," he said. "This is an effort to get to the truth of some very important questions.

"There is no doubt whatsoever that the Russians were behind an effort to interfere in our elections," he said. "To continue to deny that - it just flies in the face of all of the reality."

(Reporting by Susan Heavey, Doina Chiacu, Mark Hosenball, Steve Holland and Patricia Zengerle; Writing by Steve Holland and Bill Trott; Editing by Lisa Von Ahn and Grant McCool)
In Baghdad, UN chief Guterres pledges solidarity with Iraqi government and people

New York, Mar 31 : On what he called a visit of solidarity with Iraq, Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Thursday welcomed the commitment of the country's leaders to civilian protection and national dialogue, and pledged the ongoing support of the United Nations as the Government seeks to bolster aid delivery to needy populations and rebuild Iraq institutions.





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This is a visit of solidarity with the Iraqi people; solidarity with Iraqi Government and institutions; solidarity in what I believe is an historic moment for Iraq, the Secretary-General said during a press encounter in Baghdad, with Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi.Noting that Iraq is in the final stages of its fight against terrorism, Guterres said the UN is strongly hopeful that the liberation of Mosul form the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL/Daesh) will soon be complete.At the same time, I was extremely encouraged by the commitment expressed by the Prime Minister, both in relation to the protection of civilians, in the conduct of the operations and the full respect of international humanitarian law, said the UN chief.He said he was also encouraged by the Iraqi leaders commitment to a national dialogue and an effective process of reconciliation. This, he said, would allow after the liberation of Mosul for Iraq to progressively create the conditions for, a normal life of a State; a State in which all communities can feel they belong; a State in which all communities respect each other and reconciliation becomes something natural.Guterres went on to express the total support of the UN to the Iraqi Governments efforts in humanitarian aid to the populations that have been affected by terrorism. At the same time, he appealed to the international community to support Iraq both in relation to the relief to the victims but also in relation to the stabilization, reconstruction and build-up of national institutions.As for his talks with the Prime Minister, the Secretary-General said the two felt it was important that the Daesh is held accountable for the crimes committed by the terrorist group.Those crimes need to be well known, need to be punished, he said, stressing that it is important that the international community is fully of the terrible sacrifices of all the populations of Iraq Sunni and Shia, Muslims and Christians that were victims of the cruelty of Daesh. This is something that needs to be known and that needs to find the adequate mechanism of effective accountability.The UN chief said the worlds young people must understand that terrorism is not the way to express their anger [] even if in some moments they might be angry or anxious in relation to the events that take place. Indeed, the fight against terrorism must be accompanied by the fight to tackle its root causes, and by making it very clear the horrendous nature of the crimes committed by organizations like Daesh.the Secretary-General expressed to the Prime Minister, his total solidarity, and our total commitment to work together with your Government. Iraqs leaders have a very important task ahead with the full liberation of the country and with the full reconciliation of Iraqis for a future of democracy and prosperity.While in Baghdad, he also met with the Iraqi President, Foreign Minister and Speaker of the Parliament, before heading later in the day to Erbil. Guterres has been in the region since Monday, when he began his visit in Jordan. Yesterday, he addressed the Summit of the League of Arab States.UN PhotoSource: www.justearthnews.com
More must be done to place Syrian refugees; conflict sees worst violence in months - UN

New York, Mar 31 : The world's attention has moved away from Syria following the battle for Aleppo, despite the fact that the last few months have been some of the worst for civilians, the United Nations humanitarian chief on Thursday told the Security Council, reiterating calls for an end to the six year conflict.





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Violence continues to rear its ugly head in various parts of the country, even if it largely disappeared from the worlds TV screens since the evacuation of East Aleppo, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator Stephen OBrien told the Council.The last months have been some of the worst yet for civilians inside Syria, he added. For Syria, that is saying something.On Thursdays humanitarian discussions in the Security Council come as political discussions are underway in Geneva, assisted by UN Special Envoy Staffan de Mistura. The latest discussions started on 23 March and will last through the week.In on Thursdays comments, OBrien reiterated the importance of the intra-Syrian talks saying he cannot emphasize enough how high the stakes are, and voicing support for de Mistura.Civilians threatened in Raqqa and GhoutaAs the conflict enters its seventh year, hundreds of civilians are believed to have been killed in the past weeks alone, with tens of thousands displaced and continued attacks on medical facilities and schools.OBrien expressed deep concern about the safety and protection of more than 400,000 civilians threatened by military operations in Raqqa governorate, which includes the de facto capital of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL/Daesh).As the fighting moves closer to Raqqa city, concerns about the fate of civilians will only grow, OBrien said.I urge all parties to do everything in their power to protect and spare civilians from the effects of the hostilities as required, not just requested, under international humanitarian law.The UN and partners have been prepositioning stocks to enable a rapid response access permitting.In addition, OBrien also said he was extremely worried about the deteriorating security and humanitarian situation in the besieged parts of eastern Ghouta in Rural Damascus, where some 400,000 people are trapped by Government forces.The tightening of the siege has started a time bomb for the people of eastern GhoutaNo UN humanitarian convoy was allowed access since October 2016 to eastern Ghouta, with some areas cut off since June prior.In the past 10 days, Government forces have also reportedly prevented commercial trucks from entering, hiking up prices of staples and cutting informal trade.This tightening of the siege has started a time bomb for the people of eastern Ghouta, OBrien said, calling for immediate access.Delivery of humanitarian aid has been difficult throughout the country, the senior UN official lamented. He said that despite hopes that 2017 would lead to greater entry to besieged and hard-to-reach areas, the bottom line is, however, that with a quarter of the year gone, our current levels of access are no better than this time last year.His comments come just days before an international pledging conference is due to be held in Brussels on 5 April. Entitled Supporting the future of Syria and the region, the conference is co-chaired by the UN.OBrien thanked donors for going above and beyond this year, but stressed the critical needs in Syria and the neighbouring countries.The UN and its humanitarian partners have released the 2017 Humanitarian Response Plan for Syria which outlines requirements of some $3.4 billion to undertake a comprehensive humanitarian response in Syria, including saving lives, enhancing protection and building peoples resilience.Urging Governments to make good on promises of homesMeanwhile, new figures show that fewer Syrian refugees were resettled in the past year than originally planned, even as the total number of people fleeing the violence surpasses five million.Despite the call during that meeting in Geneva on 30 March 2016 to resettle and facilitate pathways for 500,000 refugees, to date 250,000 places have been made available, said Filippo Grandi, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees. His remarks reference the High-level Meeting on Syria, held in March 2016, where participating Governments agreed to resettle 10 per cent of all Syrian refugees by 2018.UNHCR, the agency that Grandi heads, said that while 250,000 locations have been pledged, some have not yet been made available for the people who need them.Grandi called on Governments to make good on their promises to find new homes for the most vulnerable refugees: We still have a long road to travel in expanding resettlement and the number and range of complementary pathways available for refugees.Photo: UNHCR/James ParkSource: www.justearthnews.com
Colombia: UN receives 7,000 weapons from FARC-EP as hunt for hidden caches continues

New York, Mar 31 : The United Nations Mission in Colombia is set to register some 7,000 weapons this weekend, but the search for other caches of weapons hidden by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia-People's Army (FARC-EP) continues, the Mission's chief has said.





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Jean Arnault, the head of the Mission, said yesterday: As for registration, we are at 85 percent of the weapons in the camps. This weekend we will reach a figure of approximately 7,000 registered weapons. On these weapons there are concerns: many are new and are short and long weapons, high calibre. It is a record that covers the range of FARC-EP weapons.The weapons hand over has been in place since the beginning of the month and the UN hopes to possess 60 per cent of all FARC-EP arms by April 1. However, in a press conference on the topic yesterday, Arnault said accessing hidden and hard to reach caches could delay the process.A further 1,000 weapons are set to be received from FARC-EP members participating in peace promotion or, pedagogia de paz, bringing the number of arms collected by the UN to 8,000.It was also reported at the press conference that commitments made at the Cartagena meeting of the Follow up, Promotion and Implementation Commission (CSIVI) to make progress on preparation of registration zones and camps, security and legal guarantees and provision of health services would further accelerate the laydown of arms process.In November last year, the Colombian Government and FARC-EP, the largest rebel group in the South American nation, signed a peace deal, ending a 50 year conflict.Photo: UN Mission in ColombiaSource: www.justearthnews.com
PM Modi reviews progress of Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchai Yojana

New Delhi , Mar 30 : Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, on Thursday reviewed the progress of the Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchai Yojana (PMKSY) - Centre's flagship irrigation programme.





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The meeting was attended by senior officials from various concerned Ministries, besides PMO and NITI Aayog.Officials stated that out of 99 priority irrigation projects, 21 projects, with a total irrigation potential of 5.22 lakh hectares are likely to be completed by June 2017.An additional 45 priority projects in the States of Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh and Odisha, are progressing well, and are likely to be completed ahead of schedule.The Prime Minister in the meeting urged the officials to give maximum attention to drip and micro-irrigation, in these upcoming irrigation projects.He called for synergy between various Government Departments, Krishi Vigyan Kendras and Agricultural Universities to work out efficient cropping patterns and water-use mechanisms in the command areas of these projects.The Prime Minister also exhorted the officials to work with a comprehensive and holistic vision for PMKSY and called for using latest available technology, including space applications, to monitor the progress of irrigation projects.
PM Modi to dedicate India's longest road tunnel on April 2

New Delhi , Mar. 31 : India's longest highway tunnel at Chenani-Nashri, between Udhampur and Ramban in Jammu and Kashmir is all set to be inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on April 2.





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The tunnel on NH-44 which connects Jammu with Srinagar, will reduce travel time between the two cities by upto two hours. It achieves a distance-reduction of 31 kilometres, bypassing snow-bound upper reaches. The estimated daily fuel savings are to the tune of Rs. 27 lakhs.Besides avoiding large scale deforestation and tree-cutting, the tunnel will provide a safe, all-weather route to commuters travelling from Jammu and Udhampur, to Ramban, Banihal and Srinagar.The tunnel is equipped with world-class security systems, and is expected to boost tourism and economic activities in the State of Jammu and Kashmir.Key Features of the tunnela It is a single-tube bi-directional tunnel, with a 9.35 metre carriageway, and a vertical clearance of 5 metres.a There is also a parallel escape tunnel, with "Cross Passages" connecting to the main tunnel at intervals of 300 metres.a It also has smart features such as an Integrated Traffic Control System; Surveillance, Ventilation and Broadcast Systems; Fire Fighting System; and SOS call-boxes at every 150 metres.a The project has been completed at a cost of over Rs. 2500 crore.
(Adds details about case of Aya Hijazi, background on bilateral relationship)

By Roberta Rampton and Steve Holland

WASHINGTON, March 31 (Reuters) - President Donald Trump will seek to rebuild the U.S. relationship with Egypt at a Monday meeting with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi focused on security issues and military aid, a senior White House official said on Friday.

"He wants to use President Sisi's visit to reboot the bilateral relationship and build on the strong connection the two presidents established when they first met in New York last September," the official said, briefing reporters on condition of anonymity.

Egypt has long been one of Washington's closest allies in the Middle East, receiving $1.3 billion in U.S. military aid annually. The country is fighting an Islamist insurgency in Sinai, and hundreds of Egyptian soldiers and police have been killed fighting insurgents.

The bilateral relationship was strained when former President Barack Obama criticized Sisi for cracking down on the Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt's oldest Islamist group.

Sisi does not make a distinction between the Brotherhood, which says it is peaceful, and Islamic State militants. Egypt considers the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist group.

Obama froze aid to the country for two years after Sisi, then a general, overthrew President Mohamed Mursi in mid-2013 after mass protests against Mursi's rule. Mursi, a Muslim Brotherhood member, had been elected the previous year.

Human rights groups have estimated that at least 40,000 political prisoners have been detained by Sisi's government.

Trump's relationship with Sisi got off to a good start when they met last September in New York while Trump was running for president, the White House said.

Trump supports Sisi's approach to counterterrorism, which includes both military and political efforts, his efforts to reform Egypt's economy, and Sisi's calls for "reform and moderation of Islamic discourse," the official said.

Story continues

Asked whether the United States would designate the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist group, as Egypt has, the official said Trump was interested in hearing Sisi's views during the meeting.

"We, along with a number of countries, have some concerns about various activities that the Muslim Brotherhood has conducted in the region," the official said.

'MORE DISCREET WAY'

Sisi's visit comes as the Trump administration has proposed massive cuts to U.S. foreign aid, the details of which are still to be determined. The White House anticipates aid to Egypt will continue but provided no details on Friday.

"We're in the budget process right now and those discussions are ongoing as to how it will be broken out," the official told reporters.

Some U.S. lawmakers have opposed loosening restrictions on aid to Egypt because of concerns about human rights in the country. The Trump administration intends to address human rights issues behind closed doors, the White House official said.

"Our approach is to handle these types of sensitive issues in a private, more discreet way. We believe it's the most effective way to advance those issues to a favorable outcome," the official said.

The official would not say whether Trump would discuss with Sisi the case of Aya Hijazi, an Egyptian-American who works with street children and was arrested in May 2014 on human trafficking charges. Rights groups have called for her release.

Hijazi has been held in custody for 33 months in violation of Egyptian law, which states that the maximum period for pretrial detention is 24 months.

A verdict was set to be read in a March 23 court session, but was postponed with no reason stated by the judge until April 16. The maximum possible jail sentence in her case is 25 years.

The White House is aware of Hijazi's case "at the most senior levels," the official told reporters.

"We are going to address this with Egypt in a way that we think maximizes the chances her case will be resolved in a satisfactory way," the official said.

(Additional reporting by Ahmed Aboulenein in Cairo; Editing by Will Dunham)
Rajinikanth rebuffs reports of becoming Malacca's brand ambassador

Chennai (Tamil Nadu) , Mar. 31 : Superstar Rajinikanth on Friday dubbed as rumours reports suggesting that he would replace Bollywood actor Shah Rukh Khan as Malacca's ambassador.





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"I was shooting a movie in Malaysia sometime ago. I could not meet him then, so I met him now. Malaysia extended extremely good cooperation. It happened that he is here in Chennai. He accepted my invitation. He saw the 'Kabali' clips also for 15-20 minutes. He liked it. He offered me to do more pictures in Malaysia. It was a goodwill meet," he told the media after meeting Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Rajak here.Earlier in 2016, Rajinikanth was in Malaysia for the shoot of his gangster flick 'Kabali'.Ever since his announcement to visit Sri Lanka was made, Rajinikanth's name has been constantly hitting the headlines.The actor was upset with a few political leaders in Tamil Nadu for opposing his decision to visit Sri Lanka and cancelled his plans.
There is no celebrity, non-celebrity in Parliament: Govt.

New Delhi , Mar. 31 : Asserting that Parliament is the highest forum for discussion, Union Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ananth Kumar on Friday said there is no celebrity or non-celebrity when a person is a nominated MP.





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"Parliament is the highest forum for discussions and welfare of the people. It is the foundation of our democracy. We are servants. There is no celebrity or non-celebrity. I think all should participate," Kumar said.Meanwhile, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MP Hema Malini advised her colleagues to take up the job properly and not half-heartedly."I cannot say why they are not coming. But as far as I am concerned my friend who is in Rajya Sabha...I have been inspiring a lot to come. But she has mentioned that she comes. I don't know whether you people have seen or not. But I think she is coming," she added.Samajwadi Party leader Naresh Agrawal yesterday questioned the continued absence of sportspersons and Bollywood stars, nominated to the Rajya Sabha, from the House even as he cited the case of Sachin Tendulkar for not being present during the session.Raising the issue during Zero Hour, Agrawal said, "There are 12 nominated members in RS according to provisions of the Constitution. The Council of Ministers recommends their names after which President nominates them. These people have been nominated to represent Parliament but we don't see them (in the House)."Without taking names, Agarwal said that a Bollywood actress has also not been attending Parliament and had not come to the House during the session."If they are not interested, shouldn't they resign," he asked.Agrawal had raised the issue through a 'point-of-order' when the House met for the day.Deputy chairman P. J. Kurien said that this was not a point of order, adding Agarwal could use his good offices to convince the nominated members to be present in the House.The Samajwadi Party leader said if the chair so suggests then he would write to the members on the issue.Besides Tendulkar and Rekha, other nominated members include Anu Aga, Sambhaji Chhatrapati, Swapan Dasgupta, Roopa Ganguly, Narendra Jadhav, M. C. Mary Kom, K. Parasaran, Gopi Suresh, Subramanian Swamy and KTS Tulsi.
Pocket Aces announces tie-up with Ola Play for wide digital content

New Delhi , Mar 31 : Taxi aggregator Ola on Friday announced its tie-up with Pocket Aces to provide a wide range of digital content to Ola's connected ridesharing platform, Ola Play.





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The premium content from Pocket Aces will include short videos from their flagship channel FilterCopy, hugely popular web series Little Things and Not Fit from Dice Media, and food videos from Gobble. Not Fit was also the first web series to play on television - it did three successful runs on NDTV Prime earlier this year.Pocket Aces is the creator of some of the most popular content for Indian audiences on the internet today. The company reaches 25 million people on a weekly basis across its social properties, and the most recent report by video analytics firm Vidooly states that FilterCopy amassed over 29 million video views in the month of February alone."We're excited to be an early partner with Ola Play and enable audiences to consume high quality content on-the-go without exhausting their data plans. Our goal is to give our content and our brand partners as much reach as possible and are in conversations with several global OTT players and television channels to syndicate our content," said co-founder Pocket Aces, Aditi Shrivastava."We are extremely excited to partner with Pocket Aces to enable Ola Play users' access to high quality content," said Sr. Director and Head Ola Play, Ankit Jain.Ola Play allows partners such as Apple Music, Sony LIV, AIB, TVF, Audio Compass and Fynd, to build a high quality interactive experience for users.It is available to all Prime Play customers in Bengaluru, Mumbai and Delhi and now in Hyderabad and will soon be rolled out to all Ola's offerings in Tier I cities.




Republicans launched an internecine Twitter war on Thursday morning that, as trivial as it sounds, could signal real problems for President Trumps policy agenda -- particularly the effort to avert a government shutdown that will begin in less than a month unless agreement on a new spending bill is reached.

It began early in the morning, when CBS broadcast an interview with House Speaker Paul Ryan. Asked about the Republicans failure to pass their plan to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act last week, Ryan expressed concern about driving Trump into compromise with the Democrats.

Related: How Trump and the GOP Are Handing Congress Back to the Democrats

What I worry about ... is that if we don't do this, then hell just go work with Democrats to try and change Obamacare, and that's hardly a conservative thing, he said.

For more news videos visit Yahoo View, available now on iOS and Android.

He later added, I know he wants to get things done with the Republican Congress, but if this Republican Congress allows the perfect to be the enemy of the good, I worry we'll push the president into working with Democrats.

Ryans apparent opposition to bipartisan cooperation drew a sharp rebuke from Tennessee Sen. Bob Corker, a fellow Republican who chairs the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

We have come a long way in our country when the speaker of one party urges a president NOT to work with the other party to solve a problem.

 Senator Bob Corker (@SenBobCorker) March 30, 2017

Related: Looks Like Trump Wont Be Getting Any Money to Build His Wall This Year

But that wound up being a sideshow after the tweeter-in-chief stepped into the center ring. A little past 9 a.m., Trump lashed out at both Democrats and the House Freedom Caucus, the hard-right element in the House of Representatives that helped defeat the American Health Care Act last week.

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The Freedom Caucus will hurt the entire Republican agenda if they don't get on the team, & fast. We must fight them, & Dems, in 2018!

 Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 30, 2017

Trumps call to fight against part of his own party in 2018 -- an election year -- was extraordinary even for him, and one member of the Freedom Caucus quickly hit back. Michigan Congressman Justin Amash, a Freedom Caucus member tweaked Trump on Twitter, suggesting that the president has already been corrupted by the D.C. Establishment.

It didn't take long for the swamp to drain @realDonaldTrump. No shame, Mr. President. Almost everyone succumbs to the D.C. Establishment. https://t.co/9bDo8yzH7I

 Justin Amash (@justinamash) March 30, 2017

Again, this all seems trivial on its face, but heres why it could have some real consequences as the country approaches the expiration of the continuing resolution currently allowing the federal government to keep operating.

Related: Trump Takes Another Swing at Controversial Budget Cuts

To pass a spending bill Trump and Ryan are going to need the cooperation of either the Freedom Caucus or a significant number of House Democrats -- the two factions that the speaker and the president appeared to be working hard to alienate on Thursday morning.

Dont forget, it was less than a week ago that Trump tried to blame Democrats for the failure of AHCA. Trump bemoaned the fact that when it came time to vote on the bill, which had been negotiated exclusively by the House Republicans and the administration, with no input sought or accepted from the other side of the aisle. We had no Democratic support ... They werent going to give us a single vote, Trump complained.

To have Paul Ryan just days later suggesting that it would be a terrible thing for the President to work with Democrats doesnt exactly prepare the ground for a useful dialogue with the people whose help he may need in the near future to avoid a government shutdown.

The reason he may need Democrats to pass a funding bill is that the other group President Trump antagonized on Thursday has more than enough votes to block one if they choose to do so.

Related: Tax Reform: A Must Win for Trump and the Republican Party

Legislation to fund the government creates a sort of choke point in the legislative process, because when federal agencies have to shut their doors, not much else gets done in Washington. For that reason, spending bills tend to attract controversial riders that extreme elements in the Congress such as the House Freedom Caucus want to try to muscle through. In the recent past, Republicans have tried to use them to defund the Affordable Care Act or Planned Parenthood.

House leaders will want to avoid attaching riders that Democrats in the Senate would consider poison pills, because they know they would be subject to the filibuster in the upper chamber.

After handing Trump an embarrassing defeat on health care, Freedom Caucus chairman Rep. Mark Meadows of North Carolina seemed last weekend to be ready to work with the president on funding the government, promising that he did not expect there to be any problems.

Even then, there were serious doubts about whether Meadows would be able to bring along his caucus without some sort of major legislative prize attached to the bill. But now that Trump has vowed to work against them in the next Congressional election, its hard to see how sparing the president another embarrassment will be much of a concern to them.

Related: Now Its Democrats Turn to Make a Health Care Push: Medicare for All

And if the Freedom Caucus breaks from Paul Ryan and the rest of the House GOP, the only way the Speaker gets to a majority on a spending bill that can pass the Senate is by attracting the votes of Democrats, the same people that on Thursday morning he said a Republican president shouldnt work with.

With less than a month to go, theres a lot of fence-mending thats going to have to happen on Capitol Hill if theres to be any chance of avoiding a shutdown.

Top Reads from The Fiscal Times:
Mixed reactions to UK triggering Article 50 of Lisbon Treaty for Brexit

London [United Kingdom], Mar.31 : There have been mixed reactions to Britain's decision to trigger Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty for moving out of the European Union.





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Mr Sarosh Zaiwalla - Founder and Senior Partner, Zaiwalla & Co. Solicitors, on the British Prime Minister Theresa May triggering Article 50 and its impact on India - UK relations."The British Prime Minister Theresa May has now undertaken the biggest peacetime decision by any modern postwar government in the world as she invoked the Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty to formally notify Brussels to exit the European Union, about nine months after the referendum was held in June 2016. Over the period leading to this very moment, the Prime Minister had been very clear - she wants to prioritise immigration control over the access to the single market - a Hard Brexit, much against the wishes of the financial service industry and businesses which want access to the common economic area. This is because the UK has a serious shortfall of skilled and unskilled labour which it needs to keep its economy and business buoyant. Under such a scenario where EU immigration restrictions might occur, the UK government will be forced to review its immigration policy to fill the gap in the market. Already, the number of EU citizens looking for work in Britain has collapsed by nearly 18% since the beginning of 2017 - an indication that Britain is up for a shortfall in the skilled business market.This would mean that Britain will have to rely on the one country which always delivers - India. India has been one of the largest contributors of skilled labour with doctors, scientists, engineers and IT specialists filling the vital market gap here and helping the country run. Over the past few years, there have been a slew of restrictions making it very difficult for Indians to immigrate and work in the UK, including with the scrapping of post study work permit. However, this may soon change and the UK will be forced to implement a point based immigration system like Canada or Australia.Secondly, Prime Minister Theresa May and the UK Foreign & Commonwealth Office have been looking to expand on trading partners beyond the EU in preparation of a post Brexit scenario, and have already embarked on a charm offence with countries including India and Australia at the top of the list. With a market of over a billion people, and as the fastest growing economy in the world, India holds pivotal importance for Britain to establish a bilateral trading agreement. India also has exceptional potential to build on the works of existing investments in Britain by companies such as the Tata group, Bharati Airtel and HCL among many others. Already, Indian companies invest more in the UK than they do in the rest of the EU combined, and employ over 110,000 people.Building a bilateral trade investment relation between India and the UK would be of the best interest of both countries. Post Brexit, Britain and India have a lot to benefit from each, and we are certainly in an interesting period."Indian origin British businesswoman and the CEO of Sterling Group, the business and communication consultancy working with India Inc and governments, Natasha Mudhar said, "London is the central nervous system of the world, connecting the Americas to Asia, and this is one of the reasons why everyone is carefully watching the developments surrounding Britain's exit out of the European Union. There is currently a period of uncertainty over the future of the UK's Political and business relations with the heartland of Europe, but the country continues to maintain that exiting the EU does not amount to leaving Europe or the common values they share, but is instead a measure to take back their autonomy. While there is a shadow of doubt over the UK's future with Europe, there is equally a sense of optimism for Britain to renew and expand ties with countries including India, China, Australia and Canada among others. Brexit also provides ample opportunity for India to capitalise on its bilateral relations with Britain and to seek to address important concerns, including on immigration and investments."Speaking about the concerns of business in the UK, Mihir Kapadia, the CEO & Founder of Sun Global Investments said, "With growing indications of a Hard Brexit from the Prime Minister Theresa May, any loss of passporting rights would be a big problem for the City of London. The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) said earlier this year that 5,500 UK companies rely on passporting rights, and if the UK cedes these rights, rival financial centres in the EU will step up efforts to woo banks and firms out of the city. While it would be expensive to move operations out of the UK and into cities such as Dublin, Frankfurt and Paris, banks and firms many undertake such moves in the next two years as sensible contingency planning and to de-risk their businesses going forward. Given the sheer complexity and scope of the negotiations, it will be very difficult for detailed agreements to be reached within the two year timetable."The UK government kick started the Brexit process for Britain to formally leave the European Union (EU) in two years time by triggering Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty on March 29.Britain's EU ambassador Tim Barrow handed over the Brexit notification letter (Article 50) to Donald Tusk, President of the European Council, beginning the legal process.Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty allows a member state to notify the EU of its withdrawal and obliges the EU to try to negotiate a 'withdrawal agreement' with that state. It involves five points:1. Any Member State may decide to withdraw from the Union in accordance with its own constitutional requirements.2.A Member State which decides to withdraw shall notify the European Council of its intention. In the light of the guidelines provided by the European Council, the Union shall negotiate and conclude an agreement with that State, setting out the arrangements for its withdrawal, taking account of the framework for its future relationship with the Union. That agreement shall be negotiated in accordance with Article 218(3) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union. It shall be concluded on behalf of the Union by the Council, acting by a qualified majority, after obtaining the consent of the European Parliament.3.The Treaties shall cease to apply to the State in question from the date of entry into force of the withdrawal agreement or, failing that, two years after the notification referred to in paragraph 2, unless the European Council, in agreement with the Member State concerned, unanimously decides to extend this period.4.For the purposes of paragraphs 2 and 3, the member of the European Council or of the Council representing the withdrawing Member State shall not participate in the discussions of the European Council or Council or in decisions concerning it. A qualified majority shall be defined in accordance with Article 238(3)(b) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union.5.If a State which has withdrawn from the Union asks to rejoin, its request shall be subject to the procedure referred to in Article 49.Agreements or any extension to Article 50 will have to be approved by all 27 member states and will likely require ratification by national parliaments.Addressing the House of Commons, British Prime Minister Theresa May said that leaving the EU presents the UK with a unique opportunity, adding that it is this generation's chance to build a better future."The Article 50 process is now underway, and in accordance with the wishes of the British people, the United Kingdom is leaving the European Union.This is an historic moment from which there can be no turning back. Britain is leaving the European Union. We are going to make our own decisions and our own laws," she said.The Guardian quoted May as saying that she wants a "new, special and deep partnership with the European Union".She confirmed that the rights of EU nationals will be an early priority of her administration.May said that in the months ahead she will represent every person in the United Kingdom, including EU nationals.May said she wants to deliver a smooth and orderly Brexit, adding that it is in the interests of both the UK and the EU that there is as little disruption as possible.However, May said she wants the UK to continue trading with the EU.Reacting to Britain's triggering of Article 50, Tusk said he has received a six-page letter to start the negotiations on Britain leaving the EU and there is no reason to pretend this as a happy day in Brussels or in London."We regret that the United Kingdom will leave the European Union, but we are ready for the process that we now will have to follow.For the European Union, the first step will now be the adoption of guidelines for the negotiations by the European council. These guidelines will set out the overall positions and principles in light of which the union, represented by the European commission, will negotiate with the United Kingdom," said a statement issued by European Council.
Prime Minister to address participants of Smart India Hackathon 2017

New Delhi, Mar 31 : Prime Minister Narendra Modi will address the students participating in Smart India Hackathon 2017 on Saturday through video conferencing.





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The Smart India Hackathon is intended for promoting innovation, out-of-the-box thinking in young minds, especially engineering students.It is focused on the problems of social importance as identified by 29 Ministries/Departments of Govt of India.It is worth mentioning that the starting point of the Smart India hackathon is the Digital India, Start up India andMake in India campaigns, which need skilled and innovative workforce. With more than 10,000 programmers participating, this would be largest Hackathon anywhere in the world, read a government statement.The Grand Finale of Smart India Hackathon will start at 8 a.m. on Apr 1 and would end at 8 p.m. on Apr 2 in 26 different locations in the Country with each location handheld by one department/Ministry of Govt of India.Minister for Human Resource Development Prakash Javadekar is the Chief Patron of the campaign. Ministry of Human Resource Development spearheaded the campaign through AICTE as the main anchor.Various departments and Ministries of the Government of India have identified 598 problems to which 7,531 teams of approximately 42,000 students responded.In this 1266 teams of 10000 participants from 28 States were shortlisted for the finale. Some of the problems identified by the Ministry of Railways are such as the condition of Railway track is critical for safety of train operations.The condition of tracks needs to be monitored proactively. A software solution which keeps track of the condition of the track and allied infrastructure and generates auto warning messages about the need of urgent maintenance can help in preventing untoward incidents.As per statistics of World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO), India registers 40 patents per million population, so considering the intellectual capability of Indians, there is a lot that can be done in the field of innovation.The Smart India Hackathon is an effort in the direction to improve innovation.This can be done by encouraging students to apply knowledge to the real-life situations, and to find innovative solutions to the day-to-day problems.
Rahul needs to be questioned what Congress has done so far: Jitendra Singh

New Delhi , Mar 31 : Union Minister of State in the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) Jitendra Singh on Friday asked Rahul Gandhi what his party has done so far.





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"Jammu and Kashmir have been given much priority, time to time special packages have also been given to them. Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has been dedicated enough in doing our work socially for the people. Rahul Gandhi needs to be questioned on this as to what did his party do so far," Singh told ANI.Singh further stated that those who are opposing the move taken up by Prime Minister Narendra Modi are in a way exposing themselves."After BJP coming to power, the plan and action has been taken up by Modi and we support him for it. The Kashmir tunnel project is a good initiative taken up by him, those who are opposing the moves, are in a way exposing themselves in bad light," Singh said.On March 30, PM Modi announced India's longest highway tunnel at Chenani-Nashri, between Udhampur and Ramban in Jammu and Kashmir which is all set to be inaugurated on April 2.The tunnel on NH-44 which connects Jammu with Srinagar, will reduce travel time between the two cities by upto two hours. It achieves a distance-reduction of 31 kilometres, bypassing snow-bound upper reaches. The estimated daily fuel savings are to the tune of Rs. 27 lakhs.Besides avoiding large scale deforestation and tree-cutting, the tunnel will provide a safe, all-weather route to commuters travelling from Jammu and Udhampur, to Ramban, Banihal and Srinagar.The tunnel is equipped with world-class security systems, and is expected to boost tourism and economic activities in the State of Jammu and Kashmir.
Miffed over 'negative public statements of leadership', Pak boycotts IPU Assembly in Dhaka

Islamabad [Pakistan], Mar. 31 : Pakistan has boycotted the 136th Inter Parliamentary Union (IPU) Assembly, which is due to begin from April 1 in Dhaka.





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Pakistan has cited continued malicious and uncalled for propaganda and unfriendly attitude of the Bangladesh Government against the people and the state behind this move.A 10-member parliamentary delegation from Pakistan was due to participate in the international parliamentary moot under the leadership of National Assembly Speaker Ayaz Sadiq.In his statement, Sadiq said that members of the National Assembly have noted with dismay and disappointment the continuing actions and negative public statements of the leadership, public officials and media of Bangladesh despite Pakistan's restraint and overtures to the country, reports the Express Tribune."I have, therefore, decided not to travel to Bangladesh as a visit at this point will not serve the purpose," he said.Recalling positive actions of friendship from Islamabad, Sadiq said it was in this spirit that Pakistan's parliamentary delegation had unanimously voted in favour of Bangladesh Speaker Dr Sharmeen Chaudhary for the post of the chairperson of the Executive Committee of Commonwealth Parliamentary Association in Cameroon in 2014.Dr Chaudhary had won this election with a narrow margin of 82 votes in favour and 78 against with 10 votes of Pakistan going in her favour.These positive actions of friendship were again repeated when Bangladesh's candidate Abdul Sabour Chaudhary was voted by Pakistan to become Inter Parliamentary Union's President in 2014 while the same level of cooperation was extended through the platforms of Parliamentary Union of Islamic Countries and the Asian Parliamentary Assembly, he added."However, it is noted with much regret that the friendly gestures were never reciprocated in the same coin. The speaker of Bangladesh did not visit Pakistan despite repeated invitations," the speaker noted.Bangladesh also boycotted all international parliamentary moots, organised by the parliament of Pakistan during the last two years despite personal requests by the highest parliamentary leadership to the speaker of Bangladesh.This includes the SAARC Young Parliamentarians Conference in August 2016, the International Women Parliamentarians Conference 2017 and the Asian Parliamentary Assembly in 2017."All such dedicated efforts, unfortunately, went in vain and Pakistan was time and again targeted and maligned. Such hostile environment would not promote the interest of any side. It was, therefore decided, with a heavy heart, not to undertake a visit to Bangladesh at this time," he added.
Pak news channel banned for five days for airing 'objectionable content'

Islamabad [Pakistan], Mar. 31 : The Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (PEMRA) on Friday handed a five-day ban and a Rs. one million fine to Geo News for airing objectionable/indecent content.





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"Geo Pakistan is banned from broadcasting, re-broadcasting, fresh, old or repeat content on Geo News from 9am Monday 3rd April till 12am April 7th 2017," The Express Tribune quoted a statement issued by the media regulatory authority as saying.The show was banned following a number of complaints from citizens and senior journalists, it added. A showcause notice was also issued to the channel earlier on March 15, asking them to explain their position."In case of non-compliance, a process for suspension of licence, under Section 30 of Pemra Ordinance 2002 as amended by Pemra (Amendment) Act 2007 shall be initiated," said the statement.This comes after the regulatory body banned TV anchor Amir Liaquat for hate speech and derogatory remarks on Bol News. He was then asked to "apologise unconditionally to the viewers for airing the hate-speech".
President Mukherjee inaugurates Namami Brahmaputra festival in Guwahati

Guwahati, Mar 31 : : President Pranab Mukherjee on Friday said that Assam is emerging as an economic hub of East India and South East Asia, while inaugurated the Namami Brahmaputra festival, biggest ever river festival in India in Guwahati.





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President Mukherjee inaugurated the festival by lighting lamp at a mega function held on the banks of the Brahmaputra river at Kacharighat in the capital city of Assam.Speaking on the occasion, President Mukherjee said that it is the gateway and most effective location to put into effect the Prime Ministers Act East policy.South East Asia is an important destination for Indias investment and trade. India will soon celebrate 25 years of its association with ASEAN. Assam has immense potential. It is rich in natural resources and its people are hard working. What is needed is strong drive, right policies and effective implementation, President Mukherjee said.Referring to the diverse and distinctive culture of Assam, the President said that Indias strength was its ability to manage diversity and forge unity in divergence.It was not just the elites but also the common people who were firmly committed to trust, mutual understanding and harmony. Indians were argumentative but never intolerant. Our traditions, including the teachings of Assams great scholar and social reformer Shankaradev never allowed the practice of intolerance, Mukherjee said.The President said that Brahmaputra River is the lifeline of Assam and the region.It is intertwined into the economy, culture and day-to-day life of the people of the area through which it flows, Mukherjee said.President Mukherjee complimented the Assam government for having started Namami Brahmaputra as an annual festival to showcase Assams culture as well as potential.Bhutan Prime Minister Tshering Tobgay, Assam governor Banwarilal Purohit, Assam Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal, state ministers Himanta Biswa Sarma, Chandramohan Patowary, ministers of Uttar Pradesh guest from Japan were also attended in the inaugural function.The five-day long festival is celebrated on the banks of the Brahmaputra river covering 21 districts of the state.On the other hand, Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama will present in the mega river festival on Apr 2.Yoga guru Baba Ramdev is likely to present in closing ceremonial function of the festival on Apr 4.Union ministers Nitin Gadkari, Uma Bharati, Mahesh Sarma and several prominent personalities including 40 VVIPs would likely to present in the river festival.The mega river festival will showcase the culture, indigenous sports, arts, craft, skill industry, tourism, livelihood of tribes, traditional foods of the region.(Reporting by Hemanta Kumar Nath)
PM Modi to address 'Smart India Hackathon' through video conferencing tomorrow

New Delhi , Mar. 31 : Prime Minister Narendra Modi will address Smart India Hackathon on Saturday through video conferencing.





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More than 10,000 programmers would participate in the World's Largest Hackathon.The event is intended to promote innovation, out-of-the-box thinking in young minds, especially engineering students, focused on the problems of social importance as identified by 29 Ministries/Departments of Government of India.The Grand Finale of the Hackathon will start at 8 a.m. tomorrow and would end at 8 p.m. on April 2nd in twenty-six different locations in the country with each location handheld by one department/Ministry of Government of India.During the finale, the selected groups would sit locked in for 36 hours continuously from 8 am on April till 8 pm on April 2 and complete digital solutions for the problem statements through programming to create computer software or a mobile app.The software so created would be evaluated by judges drawn from the respective ministry and industry experts and the best solutions would be awarded with Rs. 1 lakh, Rs. 75,000 and Rs. 50,000 for top three teams respectively.The awarded software would be used by the Ministry/Departments for improving their governance systems, if necessary, with suitable up gradation. All the prize winners would be connected to form a Community of Innovative Minds.
Wait is over, 'Game of Thrones' official season 7 trailer is out!

Washington D.C. [USA], Mar. 31 : For the hardcore fans of 'Game of Thrones', their long walk to watch season seven has already begun!





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HBO unveiled a new trailer for the highly-anticipated seventh season, which features three of our favorite characters - Jon Snow, Daenerys Targaryen and Cersei Lannister.The teaser highlights the top three rivals for the Iron Throne each take a seat at their respective thrones: Cersei Lannister (Lena Headey) is at the Red Keep, Jon Snow (Kit Harington) is at the Great Hall of Winterfell and Daenerys Targaryen (Emilia Clarke) is at Dragonstone. And, an ominous Night King, head of the White Walkers, isn't too far behind.As Cersei exhales, her breath visible in the fresh winter air, the camera pulls out to reveal the crystal blue eye of the Night King.'Game of Thrones' returns for season seven on July 16.
FILE PHOTO - A man arrives at the Uber offices in Queens, New York FILE PHOTO: A man arrives at the Uber offices in Queens, New York, U.S., February 2, 2017. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid/File Photo

By Jonathan Stempel

(Reuters) - Uber Technologies Inc has reached a settlement with Pennsylvania's taxi regulator to end the ride-sharing company's appeal of a record $11.4 million fine for operating illegally.

A notice posted on Tuesday with the Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania said Uber and the state's Public Utility Commission had reported an agreement in principle to settle the case, which involved the largest fine imposed by that regulator.

The appeal was put on hold so a formal agreement between Uber and the PUC could be worked out.

Uber spokesman Craig Ewer confirmed the substance of the notice, but declined to provide details about the accord. PUC spokesman Nils Hagen-Frederiksen said: "The matter is under review by the commission."

The PUC fined Uber last April after finding that the San Francisco-based company had from February to August 2014 provided 122,998 rides in Pennsylvania without prior approval, and obstructed a state probe into its operations.

Though the $11.4 million fine was six times larger than any prior fine imposed by the PUC, it had been reduced from the $49.9 million ordered earlier by two administrative law judges.

The PUC rejected Uber's bid to reconsider the fine on Sept. 1. Uber appealed that decision to the commonwealth court four weeks later.

On March 8, Uber said it would stop using its so-called "Greyball" technology, which helped identify and avoid regulators seeking evidence that drivers were evading local laws governing taxi services.

It is unclear whether that decision was a factor in resolving the Pennsylvania case.

The case is Uber Technologies Inc et al v Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission, Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania, No. 1617 CD 2016.

(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; Additional reporting by Heather Somerville in San Francisco; Editing by David Gregorio)
Ayushmann obliges his fans in Delhi

Mumbai, Mar 31 : Ayushmann Khurrana was paired with Bhumi Pednekar in her debut film, Dum Laga Ke Haisha (2015), which earned the pair much praise and acclaim. Now, the two are back together in Shubh Mangal Saavdhan, a remake of the Tamil comedy Kalyana Samayal Saadham (2013).





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The film is currently being shot in Delhi, and according to a source, the crew has been having quite a few visitors on the sets.A source says, Ayushmann and Bhumi are shooting in various parts of Delhi. Since they do not have a set and are shooting in real locations, a lot of people gather to watch the shoot. While the crew has made sure that the crowds do not disrupt the schedule, youngsters have dropped by to meet Ayushmann. In fact, the actor ended up singing a few songs for the audience after the shoot wrapped up.RS Prasanna, the director of the film, says, When we needed a reaction from the crowd when we were in the Paharganj [neighbourhood], Ayushmann helped us get a reaction. He promised the people around that he would sing for them if they helped the crew get a good shot. The crowd was more than willing to oblige, and Ayushmann kept his word too. He sang a few songs and everyone was absolutely thrilled to hear him sing live.
VIA Rail Special 150 passes sold out amid high demand

Toronto, Mar 31 : Via Rail, Canada's flagship railway corporation, issued 1867 unlimited travel passes to commemorate the 150th anniversary of Canadian confederation.





(Posted on 31 March 2017, 1667885506 173O212O198O32) https://www.newkerala.com/world-news.php  (Posted on 31 March 2017, 1667885506 173O212O198O32)

This special 150 Youth Pass Program allows youths between 12 to 25 years to enjoy an unlimited travel this year.According to a press release, VIA claims this exciting new offer will add a new edge for the Canadian youths in Canada to celebrate the countrys 150th year of confederation by travelling from coast to coast of Canada.This luxury of unlimited travelling by rail for young people during the month of July costs only $150. The interest in this offer was unprecedented.VIA Rail, originally planned to make 1,867 passes available but due to the incredible demand, they extended the offer past the original commitment. More than 4,000 Canadians purchased passes and all these passes will be honored to travel across Canada claims VIA.The unprecedented flow of net traffic which is more than five times of the normal volume to avail the once in lifetime offer crashed the site, causing extended wait times for their customers.There was also a scramble among the customers to correlate between unlimited passes and the number of trips as unlimited, admits VIA.Finally, Via Rail tweeted around 3:30 a.m. on Thursday morning saying all available passes had been sold.Canadas Transport Minister Marc Garneau said,VIA Rail allows Canadians to discover the country and travel to celebrate Canadas 150th anniversary. The Government of Canada is proud to participate in initiatives that contribute to making 2017 an exceptional and memorable year!(Reporting Suman Das)
Indian student attacked in Poland is alive, confirms Sushma Swaraj

New Delhi , Mar. 31 : External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj on Friday confirmed that the Indian student who was beaten in Poland is alive, contrary to what earlier reports suggested.





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"There was an incident of beating. Fortunately, he has survived. We are inquiring into all aspects of the incident," Swaraj tweeted.Meanwhile, Swaraj has sought report from the Indian Ambassador in Poland over the attack on the students in Poland's Poznan city."I have just spoken to the Indian Ambassador in Poland and asked for a report. @IndiaPoland," Swaraj tweeted.Further details about the incident are awaited.
The Moving Film will Help Bring Awareness and Support to the Humanitarian Issues that are Facing the People of Mozambique, Africa

LOS ANGELES, CA / ACCESSWIRE / March 31, 2017 / Carla and Ted Chandler are pleased to announce the upcoming launch of their film VALUE/ABLE, a documentary on Mozambique.

To watch a short video about VALUE/ABLE and learn more about the Chandlers and their reason for creating this poignant and educational documentary, please check out https://goo.gl/8VQMSU at any time.









As a spokesperson for VALUE/ABLE noted, the Chandlers are devoted to creating a documentary that shows the issues Mozambique is currently facing, as well as offer solutions that will lead to real change.

"This is a story of resilience, compassion and dedication to the human spirit. It will not be your typical, brow-beating, condescending 'look at all the poor children in Africa' films we have all seen growing up," the spokesperson said, adding that while Mozambique is one of the poorest countries in the world and people do live with poverty, hunger and HIV, the Chandlers also want to tell the story of the country's vast amount of human resilience.

As a daughter of missionary parents, Carla has been involved with Mozambique for over four years; she has personally travelled to Africa and has seen the needs of its people with her own eyes. Since Carla's first visit, she has devoted her life's work to helping the people of Africa by raising thousands of dollars in funds and hundreds of items in donations such as clothes, blankets and basic living necessities.

Ted is an Emmy award winning filmmaker and winner of the best short film at the prestigious New York Film Festival. With over 20 years of making quality television, short films and feature documentaries, he is uniquely qualified to tell the story of the people in Mozambique.

Working together, Carla and Ted have the experience, interest and passion that are necessary to create a moving and impactful documentary about Mozambique.

Story continues

In order to help pay for the many costs associated with filming VALUE/ABLE, the Chandlers recently launched a fundraiser on Kickstarter. There, they hope to raise $60,000 through crowdfunding.

"We want to provide a tool through this film to educate and motivate change for these people," the Chandlers said.

About VALUE/ABLE:

VALUE/ABLE is an upcoming documentary on Mozambique, Africa. The film will tell a moving story about resilience, compassion and dedication to the human spirit. For more information, please visit https://goo.gl/8VQMSU.

Contact:

Essie Clayton

admin@rocketfactor.com

(949) 555-2861

SOURCE: VALUE/ABLE
A new restaurant has plans to move into the former Carmella's Pizzeria
Reporter/Columnist

Julie Wurth is a reporter covering the University of Illinois at The News-Gazette. Her email is jwurth@news-gazette.com, and you can follow her on Twitter (@jawurth).
Once Rafael Duran, ophthalmology technician, positions patient Maria Cortez Orozco just right in front of the high-optic retinal scan camera, he turns off the lights and waits for Orozco's eyes to dilate. After a swipe of a touch-screen command, the machine whirls, shifts and centers itself on the right eye. Another swipe; and the camera takes similar high-resolution images of the left eye.

The process takes only a few minutes. However, those images to trained experts at Harris Health System yield vital information about a patient's vision. In particular, signs of diabetic retinopathy, as well as other eye problems including macular degeneration, glaucoma, cataracts and retinal pathology. Diabetic retinopathy is the leading cause of preventable blindness in the U.S., and one of the most common disabilities tied to diabetes.

In 2013, Harris Health became the first healthcare system in Texas to feature a cutting-edge combination screening and software technology to detect diabetic retinopathy. Intelligent Retinal Imaging Systems (IRIS) offers an auto-read function that has a better-than-97-percent positive detection rate. However, it's techs like Duran who contribute greatly to a successful screening.

"You have to take your time and do it right for the ophthalmologist to have good images to examine," says the four-year Harris Health employee at El Franco Lee Health Center. "We take pride in getting the best images and making sure our patients get the best service."

For Orozco, the eye exam is a relief to find out her vision is healthy.

"Most people don't know that diabetes can affect your eyesight," she says. "I'm glad the doctors are able to make sure my vision is doing well."

Duran and the team of ophthalmology techs at El Franco Lee boast one of the best production rates of readable retinal scans at 99 percent (meaning the quality of scans is near perfect 99 percent of the time). They're also first in customer service among the 13 Harris Health screening locations.

IRIS uses software that highlights disease seen in the retina using a computer algorithm to detect suspicious areassimilar to how geologists map the earth to drill for oil. Any abnormal image is examined by ophthalmologists and results are available in a few days.

"Some patients don't understand the importance of the screenings and that it takes only a few minutes to get results quickly," Duran explains. "After we tell them what to expect, they go ahead and get the scans done. We just want them to have good eyesight."

All people with diabetes  type 1 and 2  are at risk. In fact, the longer someone has diabetes, their chance of getting diabetic retinopathy rises between 40-45 percent, according to the National Eye Institute of the National Institutes of Health. Diabetic retinopathy is caused by changes in the blood vessels of the retina, the light-sensitive tissue at the back of the eye.

Harris Health treats about 50,000 patients with diabetes. Because diabetic retinopathy can show no symptoms in early stages, doctors recommend people with diabetes get a retinal exam at least once a year. The screening program allows staff to detect disease earlier to prevent vision loss. If detected early, people can have successful treatments including medications, laser and microsurgery that can stop or slow vision loss. Treatments have a higher success rate if treated early, however, there is no cure for diabetic retinopathy.

"We try to move quickly to serve our patients and make sure they have a good experience," Duran says of his customer service approach. "We also educate them on how to take care of their eyes. If a patient takes our advice and we see them next time and they're doing well, it makes us feel happy to know that we've helped them take care of themselves."
Boca Raton based Doctors Studio, an integrative wellness practice led by sexual wellness expert and leading author Dr. Lisbeth Roy, is proud to announce they have become the exclusive area provider of the GAINSWave, a drug-free, noninvasive medical procedure designed to treat Erectile Dysfunction.

The GAINSWave therapy, sometimes referred to as shock wave therapy, uses high-frequency acoustic pulse waves to improve any man's sexual performance. As a man ages, the blood vessels that supply the blood needed for good erectile function, begin to collapse or become clogged. Basically, the pulsating waves improve blood flow by opening existing blood vessels and stimulating the growth of new blood vessels. Increased blood flow results in improved sexual performance. Along with repairing age-worn blood vessels, it stimulates the creation of new blood vessels and the rejuvenation of erectile tissue.

There's over 40 clinical studies on the therapy showing significant improvement and in many cases reversal of erectile dysfunction. "The GAINSWave is ideal for men who cannot take Viagra, or who have tried oral ED drugs and have been disappointed with the results," says Lisbeth Roy, DO of Doctors Studio. It has proven to be a safe and effective alternative to Viagra and other oral ED medications. GAINSWave has over an 80% improvement rate with men reporting improved function and quality of erections, increased sensitivity, decreased refractory time between orgasms, more powerful erections which has yielded in many men seeking this treatment for sexual performance in addition to erectile dysfunction.

Dr. Roy went on to say that the treatment is particularly effective when it is used in conjunction with other alternative male procedures such as the P-shot, which harnesses the power of platelet rich plasma (PRP). "These two procedures are what we call 'synergistic,' meaning that each one enhances the effect of the other. When we combine PRP and GAINSWave therapies together, we deliver a `one-two punch,' that results in even better results!"

While very new in the US, this has been used successfully in Europe for years. Doctors Studio is now treating men with the GAINSWave in their offices at 2300 Glades Road, Suite 260W Boca Raton, FL. Schedule your consult today! 561-444-7751.
Experts will present diverse advances in neuromodulation from May 27 to June 1, 2017 at the 13th World Congress of the International Neuromodulation Society (INS) in Edinburgh, Scotland. The INS congress will draw more than 1,400 scientists, clinicians and engineers to the Edinburgh International Conference Centre.

Since the first report of spinal cord stimulation for chronic pain 50 years ago, neurostimulation has become one of the fastest-growing fields in medicine.

"The overall event signifies the explosion in knowledge that brings specialists of diverse disciplines to the congress," noted INS President Timothy Deer, M.D. "We are looking forward to welcoming delegates to Edinburgh, a World Heritage site and center of neuroscience breakthroughs.

"The congress theme, 'Neuromodulation: Technology Changing Lives,' underscores how neuromodulation relieves suffering, improves functioning, and increases quality of life. Importantly, neurostimulation offers a non-drug alternative to painkillers for chronic pain."

For the first time, the congress will offer a preconference that focuses solely on noninvasive brain stimulation (NIBS). The May 27 NIBS preconference includes a special abstract competition.

The next day, May 28, the INS offers its popular Innovations Day preconference. The daylong event brings together more than 200 innovators, entrepreneurs, and venture capitalists to network, see emerging company presentations, and learn from expert panelists about commercialization pathways. Several previous early stage company presenters have entered the commercial marketplace since the first Innovations Day in 2011.

The 3.5-day scientific program from May 29 to June 1 includes plenary lectures and parallel-track sessions.

An opening-day plenary session will highlight the latest neuromodulation guidelines about safe, appropriate use of implanted neuromodulation therapies. The guidance by the Neurostimulation Appropriateness Consensus Committee and Polyanalgesic Consensus Conference appeared in the INS journal, Neuromodulation: Technology at the Neural Interface, in January and February 2017.

Neuroscience eBook Compilation of the top interviews, articles, and news in the last year. Download a copy today

At a general assembly of members May 31, colleagues will honor pain physician Michael Stanton-Hicks, M.D. as a Giant of Neuromodulation. His contributions helped catalyze a modern understanding of one of the best indications for neurostimulation, the rare, challenging condition complex regional pain syndrome.

A special program of particular interest to local researchers and physicians the afternoon of May 31 will feature "Pain Research & Neuromodulation in Scotland", organized by the local INS chapter, the Neuromodulation Society of the United Kingdom and Ireland.

Topics to be covered during the INS 13th World Congress 3.5-day scientific program include:
A new study indicates that the success of a kidney transplant may rely in part on a kidney donor's weight and sex, factors that are not typically considered when choosing a recipient for a deceased donor kidney. The findings, which appear in an upcoming issue of the Clinical Journal of the American Society of Nephrology (CJASN), suggest that changes may be needed to current immunology-based protocols that match donors and recipients.

Previous research has shown that there may be a higher risk of kidney transplant failure if a kidney donor is smaller than the recipient, perhaps due to increased strain on the relatively smaller transplanted kidney. Very few studies have investigated outcomes associated with donor and recipient weight mismatch, however. There is also a suggestion that sex mismatch between kidney donor and recipient may lead to worse outcomes post-transplant, but studies have generated conflicting results.

To investigate these issues, a team led by Amanda Miller, MD and Karthik Tennankore, MD (Dalhousie University and the Nova Scotia Health Authority, in Canada) examined whether receiving a kidney transplant from a smaller donor of the opposite sex would impact a recipient's transplant outcomes. The researchers analyzed information on a cohort of US deceased donor recipients between 2000 and 2014 who were listed in the Scientific Registry of Transplants Recipients. Over a median follow-up of 3.8 years, 21,261 of 115,124 kidney transplant recipients developed transplant failure.

After accounting for other transplant variables, the researchers demonstrated that if a kidney transplant recipient was >30 kg (66 pounds) heavier than the donor, there was a 28% higher risk of transplant failure compared with equally weighted donors and recipients. If the kidney was from a smaller donor of the opposite sex, the relative risk of transplant failure was further elevated to 35% for a male receiving a kidney from a female donor and 50% for a female receiving a kidney from a male donor. This risk is similar to that observed when a recipient receives a kidney transplant from a donor who has diabetes, a known risk factor for kidney failure.

"This study is extremely important because we have shown that when all else is considered, something as simple as the combination of a kidney donor's weight and sex is associated with a marked increase in kidney transplant failure," said Dr. Miller. "While more research is required before including these variables in a recipient matching strategy, this study highlights the importance of donor and recipient matching above and beyond current immunology-based protocols."

In an accompanying editorial, Bethany Foster, MD, MSCE and Indra Gupta, MD (McGill University) noted that while matching for sex and body size in organ allocation algorithms deserves consideration, this idea must be approached with a great deal of caution. It would require complex matching, and special care would have to be taken to avoid disadvantaging larger recipients. "Restricting transplant options by prioritizing sex matching may also lead to longer waiting times," they wrote. "Females with a large body size would be particularly disadvantaged by an approach that favoured allocation of sex- and body-size matched kidneys."
LIMA, March 30 (Reuters) - Workers at Peru's biggest copper mine, Freeport-McMoRan Inc's Cerro Verde, will resume work on Friday after voting to end a nearly three-week strike, the union said on Thursday.

The union reached an agreement for better benefits with the company late on Wednesday, union leader Jesus Revilla said. (Reporting by Marco Aquino; Editing by Lisa Von Ahn)
The Lupus Research Alliance announced today the Novel Research Grant Class of 2017. The Lupus Research Alliance Novel Research Grants, the proven platform for innovation, make discovery and scientific progress possible. This year's grantees push science out in front and ahead of the curve to deliver 10 innovative approaches seeking results that can transform the lives of people with lupus.

"Standing on a 16-year foundation of documented success, the Novel Research Grants bring new insight and untried directions to the complexities of lupus," said Lupus Research Alliance Co-CEO Margaret Dowd. "The program works because we create a space where scientists are encouraged to explore at the frontiers of current knowledge and to imagine without limits."

Finding the Flaws That Lead to Lupus

When we have a cold or the flu, our immune system fights back against the bug that's making us miserable. In lupus, however, that same immune system mistakenly takes aim at the wrong target -- patients' own organs and tissues. Four 2017 grant recipients are exploring dramatically different approaches to correcting the immune system's critical mistakes.

Mridu Acharya, PhD, Benaroya Research Institute at Virginia Mason, has found a new pathway in lupus, having identified proteins that normally work together to prevent B cells, a type of immune cell that releases disease-fighting molecules, from targeting patients' cells. Working with human B Cells, she will investigate why these proteins fail to put on the brakes in lupus and potential new treatments to get them working properly again.

Shaun Jackson, MD, PhD, Seattle Children's Hospital, is also taking a fresh look at an old B cell problem, zeroing in on two recently identified molecules that may act as signals to promote immune attacks. Identifying the specific signals responsible for activating B cells and producing dangerous autoantibodies will inform development of potential targeted lupus treatments.

Christian Lood, PhD, University of Washington, is exploring a new treatment approach by examining whether people with lupus do not properly remove excess energy-producing structures, known as mitochondria, thus sparking inflammation. This highly novel project is likely to lead to new targets for therapy and new biomarkers for evaluating disease progression and response to treatment.

Zhiqiang Zhang, PhD, The Methodist Hospital Research Institute, is testing whether the protein he just discovered, APEX1, is responsible for sounding a distress call that stimulates our defensive cells - an impressive discovery that would allow researchers to develop new ways to prevent this false alarm.

Getting the Immune System Back on Track

Like a guard dog that bites its owner instead of a burglar, the cells that normally protect us from infections attack the wrong target in lupus. Three of this year's grant recipients are exploring state-of the-art approaches to induce the immune system to leave the body's cells alone.

Guo-Ping Shi, DSc, Brigham and Women's Hospital is investigating the enzyme Cathepsin S in controlling regulatory T cells, which rein in the immune system, from malfunctioning and to restore their ability to control other defensive cells. Testing in human cells, Dr. Shi's novel and important study has the potential to lead to the development of a novel therapy to prevent and treat lupus.

Natalia Giltiay, PhD, University of Washington plans to teach the immune system to tolerate the body's own cells in much the same way that allergy shots curb abnormal reactions to allergens. This novel approach to inducing immune system "tolerance" has never been applied to lupus before and may lead to a new effective treatment.

Anthony Rongvaux, PhD, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center is using state-of-the-art technology to study a newly discovered process that may cause or worsen lupus and whether molecules involved in this process are potential targets to validate and advance new treatments that may reverse symptoms.

Testing Old Drugs for New Treatments

Developing new drugs is difficult, expensive, and takes years. But sometimes researchers find that existing drugs work against diseases they weren't designed to treat. Two of this year's grant recipients are asking whether the next lupus treatment is already on pharmacy shelves.

Vipin Kumar, PhD, University of California, San Diego, is testing a novel hypothesis backed by his preliminary data; he will explore a drug used to fight tropical parasites as a potential oral medication to prevent and treat kidney damage in lupus.

John Zhang, DVM, PhD, Medical University of South Carolina, is confirming initial findings and now testing in human cells whether the chemotherapy topotecan could offer an effective treatment to reduce inflammation in lupus. Topotecan blocks Fli-1, a protein Dr. Zhang and his team have determined worsens lupus symptoms.

Improving the Lives of Young People with Lupus

Up to 50% of children with lupus develop neuropsychiatric disorders, but they often don't receive the right mental health care. One 2017 grant recipient is asking whether technologies such as magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) can change that.

Andrea Knight, MD, The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, is developing a new biomarker to better detect and diagnose neuropsychiatric disorders like depression and anxiety that are common in pediatric patients so they can receive treatment and get relief sooner.

The answers to these 10 scientific questions hold breakthroughs that can transform lupus treatment and help advance toward prevention and a cure. With your continued support, we can bring more brilliant minds and new scientific talent to lupus research for pivotal discoveries that make a real difference.
Researchers from UPM and CSIC have employed waste from the agri-food industry to develop biomaterials that are able to act as matrices to regenerate bone and cartilage tissues, which is of great interest for the treatment of diseases related to aging.

A team of researchers from the Centre for Biomedical Technology at Universidad Politecnica de Madrid (CTB-UPM), in collaboration with Instituto de Ciencia de Materiales (ICMM-CSIC) and Institute of Catalysis and Petrochemistry (ICP-CSIC) from Spanish Council for Scientific Research (CSIC), have produced biocompatible materials from waste of the agri-food industry, specifically from the apple pomace resulting from the juice production.

These materials con be used as 3D matrices for the regeneration of bone and cartilage tissues, being useful in regenerative medicine for diseases such as osteoporosis, arthritis or osteoarthritis, all of them of great economical impact due to the increasing average age of the population.

Apple pomace is an abundant raw material. The world production of apples was more than 70 million tons in 2015, of which the European Union contributed with more than 15%, while half a million tons of which came from Spain. About 75% of apples can be converted into juice and the rest, known as apple pomace, that contains approximately 20-30% dried matter, is used mainly as animal feed or for compost. Since apple pomace is generated in vast quantities and contains a large fraction of water, it poses storage problems and requires immediate treatments to prevent putrefaction. An alternative of great environmental interest is its transformation into value added commodities, thus reducing the volume of waste.

The procedure of the multivalorization of apple pomace carried out by the UPM and CSIC researchers are based on sequential extractions of different bioactive molecules, such as antioxidants or pectin, to finally obtain the waste from which they prepare a biomaterial with suitable porosity and texture to be used in tissue engineering.

The primary extraction of antioxidants and carbohydrates constitutes 2% of the dry weight of apple pomace and pectin extraction is 10%. The extracted chemical cells have a recognized value as nutraceuticals and pectin is a material of great utility in different medical applications, given its high biocompatibility and being part of antitumor drugs or in the treatment of coetaneous wounds.

Furthermore, it has been found that the materials remaining after antioxidant and pectin removal from apple pomace can still be designed with adequate structure, texture and composition to grow diverse types of cells. In this particularly case, the chosen cells were osteoblasts and chondrocytes, both of them related to the regeneration of bone and cartilage tissues because of their application in regenerative medicine in diseases such as osteoporosis, arthritis or osteoarthritis.

Today, there are products in the market with the same applications, however they have a high price reaching over 100 per gram, while waste used in this work hardly reaches 100 per ton. For this reason, there are consistent incentives to convert this waste into final products of great added value.

According to Milagro Ramos, a female researcher of the study, "with this approach we achieve a double goal, firstly using waste as a renewable raw material of high value and chemical diversity, and secondly, to reduce the impact of such waste accumulation on the environment".

Thanks to the new materials obtained in this work, researchers are developing new technological applications that allow them to structure customized biomaterials through 3D printing techniques.
A patient's confidence in their ability to schedule, plan for and properly conduct their part in colorectal screening methods is a key factor that predicts whether they intend to be tested, according to new research from Penn State College of Medicine. The findings suggest that educating patients could improve screening rates.

Although it's recommended that adults between the ages of 50 and 75 undergo screening for colorectal cancer, only 65 percent of Americans were screened in 2010 according to the most recent data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

"We all know that screening for colorectal cancer makes a difference, but we're really failing to get people adequately screened for it," said lead researcher Dr. Mack T. Ruffin, chair of family and community medicine at the College of Medicine.

To improve screening rates, Ruffin worked with colleagues at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and Michigan State University to understand the factors that influence a patient's intent to be tested. The study included 570 men and women from 15 primary care practices in Detroit between 2012 and 2014. The researchers published their results in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.

Self-efficacy - a patient's belief that they can schedule the screening, plan for it and properly conduct their part in it - emerged as the most important factor.

"If you have high self-efficacy, you're far more likely to intend to get screened," Ruffin said. "It reflects knowledge experience, or understanding of the testing options. If you're not sure how to do the test or get it done, you're less likely to intend on getting it."

A patient's confidence may be particularly important for colorectal cancer screening. Both tests for colorectal cancer - colonoscopy and stool blood testing - involve a patient's planning and preparation outside of their doctor's office.

Self-efficacy explained associations between such factors as race, attitudes about the importance of the test and worries about the test.

One goal of the study was to look at how race is associated with intent to be screened. More than a third of study participants were African American, making this one of the largest studies to look at colorectal screening intent in this population.

"The African-American population in our study had higher intent to get screening and felt like they were more able to do it than the white population, which is unique for colorectal cancer screening," Ruffin said.

The racial finding is unexplained, and the researchers plan to explore it further.

Another finding was more expected. Compared to men, women were less likely to think they were at risk of colorectal cancer - a common misconception.

"Women often will say, in focus groups or interviews or surveys, 'It's a man's disease,' when, in fact, it equally impacts men and women," Ruffin said.

This, he explained, could influence how much women know about the tests, which might lower their self-efficacy around screening. Women in the study had lower self-efficacy around colorectal cancer screening than men.

Ruffin pointed out that women have more "competing demands" when it comes to staying on top of their health.

"They've got to worry about breast cancer, heart disease, ovarian cancer, menopause and getting a Pap smear," he said.

Still, colorectal cancer must be presented as a women's health issue, too, he emphasized.

The findings on perceived risk, self-efficacy, and intent to screen point to the importance of better patient education. "But that takes a lot of time," Ruffin said.

Ruffin and collaborators are working on a way to streamline the decision-making process for colorectal cancer screening with an interactive tool. This could free up time for doctors to explain the tests and answer questions that may hinder patients from actually getting screened.

The new study is part of a larger one on the computerized decision aid. The researchers are investigating whether the tool improves screening rates and why. The tool also helps patients and their doctors decide between colonoscopy and stool blood testing, and the researchers will be looking to see if physicians follow this preference in their recommendations to patients.
Prof Dr Dorothea Kolossa and Mahdie Karbasi from the research group Cognitive Signal Processing at Ruhr-Universitat Bochum (RUB) have developed a method for predicting speech intelligibility in noisy surroundings. The results of their experiments are more precise than those gained through the standard methods applied hitherto. They might thus facilitate the development process of hearing aids. The research was carried out in the course of the EU-funded project "Improved Communication through Applied Hearing Research", or "I can hear" for short.

Specific algorithms in hearing aids filter out background noises to ensure that wearers are able to understand speech in every situation - regardless if they are in a packed restaurant or near a busy road. The challenge for the researchers is to maintain high speech transmission quality while filtering out background noises. Before an optimised hearing aid model is released to the market, new algorithms are subject to time-consuming tests.

Researchers and industrial developers run hearing tests with human participants to analyse to what extent the respective new algorithms will ensure speech intelligibility. If they were able to assess speech intelligibility reliably in an automated process, they could cut down on time-consuming test practices.

New algorithm developed

To date, the standard approaches for predicting speech intelligibility have included the so-called STOI method (short time objective speech intelligibility measure) and other reference-based methods. These methods require a clear original signal, i.e. an audio track that's been recorded without any background noises. Based on the differences between original and filtered sound, the value of speech intelligibility is estimated. Kolossa and Karbasi have found a way to predict intelligibility without needing a clear reference signal, which is still more precise than the STOI method. Consequently, Kolossa and Karbasi's findings might help reduce test processes in the product development phase of hearing aids.

The RUB researchers have tested their method with 849 individuals with normal hearing. To this end, the participants were asked to assess audio files via an online platform. With the aid of their algorithm, Kolossa and Karbasi estimated which percentage of a sentence from the respective file would be understood by the participants. Subsequently, they compared their predicted value with the test results.

Research outlook

In the next step, Kolossa and Karbasi intend to run the same tests with hearing-impaired participants. They are working on algorithms that can assess and optimise speech intelligibility in accordance with the individual perception threshold or type of hearing impairment. In the best case scenario, the study will thus provide methods for engineering an intelligent hearing aid. Such hearing aids could automatically recognise the wearer's current surroundings and situation. If he or she steps from a quiet street into a restaurant, the hearing aid would register an increase in background noises. Accordingly, it would filter out the ambient noises - if possible without impairing the quality of the speech signal.
About half of all women will experience urinary tract infections in their lifetimes, and despite treatment, about a quarter will develop recurrent infections within six months of initial infection.

A new study at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis has uncovered a trigger of recurrent UTI infections: a type of vaginal bacteria that moves into the urinary tract.

The research, in mice, is published March 30 in PLOS Pathogens.

UTIs most often occur when bacteria that live inside the bowel make their way into the urinary tract. The infections can occur anywhere along the urinary tract but commonly develop in the bladder. UTIs are treated with antibiotics, but each time a UTI comes back makes it even more likely the infection will recur yet again.

In young, sexually active women, about 80 percent of UTIs are caused by E. coli. Conventional thinking holds that recurrence occurs when E. coli is reintroduced into the urinary tract. But the new research suggests another way for a subsequent UTI to develop: The vaginal bacterium Gardnerella vaginalis triggers E. coli already hiding in the bladder to cause another UTI. G. vaginalis also may be a contributor to more serious - and potentially deadly - kidney infections, the study suggests.

"We found that a particular vaginal bacterium, Gardnerella vaginalis, did not cause infection during exposure to the urinary tract, but it damaged the cells on the surface of the bladder and caused E. coli from a previous UTI to start multiplying, leading to another bout of disease," said the study's senior author, Amanda Lewis, PhD, an assistant professor of molecular microbiology and of obstetrics and gynecology at Washington University.

Previous studies already had established that E. coli bacteria can create dormant hiding places for E. coli in the bladder and later be reactivated to cause infection. But this is the first study to identify a plausible trigger.

The reasons why UTIs recur is not fully understood, but the researchers, including obstetrics and gynecology instructor Nicole Gilbert, PhD, and graduate student Valerie O'Brien, saw a clue in bacterial vaginosis, which is caused by an overgrowth of harmful bacteria, resulting in vaginal odor and discharge. The condition is associated with UTIs.

As part of the study, the researchers infected the bladders of female mice with E. coli, initiating UTIs, and then let them recover. One month after infection, no E. coli was detected in the animals' urine. However, previous studies had shown that a small population of E. coli can persist in the bladder at levels undetectable in the urine.

Next, the researchers introduced into the bladders of the mice either Lactobacillus crispatus, a normal vaginal bacterium; G. vaginalis, which is associated with bacterial vaginosis; or sterile saltwater, as a control. Both kinds of vaginal bacteria were eliminated from the bladder within 12 hours, but this short sojourn in the bladder was enough for E. coli to reappear in the urine of more than half of the mice exposed to G. vaginalis, indicating a recurrent UTI. Mice given the normal vaginal bacteria or sterile saltwater were about five times less likely to develop another UTI compared with those given G. vaginalis.

"The mice are not being reinoculated with E. coli," O'Brien said. "Instead, the bacterial reservoirs already in the bladder emerge out of the tissue, multiply and cause another infection."

Moreover, in some of the mice with G. vaginalis, bacteria traveled from the bladder up the urinary tract to the kidneys. In women, kidney infections are rare - just 1 percent of women with bladder infections go on to develop one - but serious. Kidney infections involve back pain, fever, nausea and vomiting, and can be deadly.

"When we looked, we could see that this severe kidney damage was almost exclusively happening in the G. vaginalis group," Lewis said.

All of the mice that had either G. vaginalis or E. coli in their urinary tracts showed some degree of kidney damage. But of the mice that had both species, 6 percent showed severe kidney damage, high levels of E. coli in the kidney and signs that E. coli had moved from the kidney to the bloodstream, a form of UTI that can kill. In other words, the presence of G. vaginalis made E. coli more likely to cause severe kidney disease.

The researchers said G. vaginalis is not normally a concern for women with UTIs but that perhaps it should be.

"If a clinical lab finds G. vaginalis in a UTI sample, perhaps they shouldn't assume it's just a contaminant from the vagina," Gilbert said. "Our results suggest it could be contributing to the disease."

The researchers suggest that new clinical studies are needed to inform doctors treating women for UTIs - especially kidney infections - to look at whether bacterial vaginosis may put some women at greater risk for this severe form of UTI. Both UTIs and bacterial vaginosis are treatable with antibiotics, but different kinds are required. Standard UTI antibiotics will not rid a patient of G. vaginalis.

The findings also may explain why some women experience recurrent UTIs after having sex.

"A lot of women swear that every time they have sex they get a UTI, and obviously that's a huge burden," Lewis said. "We don't doubt that re-infection with E. coli is partly responsible, but we think we've found another pretty compelling reason why the connection between sexual activity and recurrent UTI might exist: Vaginal bacteria like G. vaginalis are moved into the urinary tract during sex."
Five simple medical tests together provide a broader and more accurate assessment of heart-disease risk than currently used methods, cardiologists at UT Southwestern Medical Center found.

Combined, results from the five tests - an EKG, a limited CT scan, and three blood tests - better predict who will develop heart disease compared with standard strategies that focus on blood pressure, cholesterol, diabetes, and smoking history, researchers reported.

"This set of tests is really powerful in identifying unexpected risk among individuals with few traditional risk factors. These are people who would not be aware that they are at risk for heart disease and might not be targeted for preventive therapies," said Dr. James de Lemos, Professor of Internal Medicine.

The five tests, and the information they provide:

A 12-lead EKG provides information about hypertrophy, or thickening of the heart muscle.

A coronary calcium scan, a low-radiation imaging test, identifies calcified plaque buildup in the arteries of the heart.

A blood test for C-reactive protein indicates inflammation.

A blood test for the hormone NT-proBNP indicates stress on the heart.

A blood test for high-sensitivity troponin T indicates damage to heart muscle. Troponin testing is regularly used by hospitals to diagnose heart attacks, but high-sensitivity troponin fine-tunes that measure, pointing to small amounts of damage that can be detected in individuals without any symptoms or warning signs.

Four of the five tests are currently readily available and the fifth - high-sensitivity troponin T - will be available soon.

Researchers used data from two large population studies, including the Dallas Heart Study, that each followed a large group of healthy individuals for more than a decade. Their study, which appears in the journal Circulation, was partly funded by NASA to develop strategies for predicting heart disease in astronauts.

The new study focused on a broader spectrum of cardiovascular disease events rather than only those related to cholesterol plaque buildup, as traditional risk assessment does.

"A major focus of this study is to expand the scope of risk prediction beyond just heart attack and stroke. We believe that people are interested in the whole portfolio of heart problems that can develop including heart failure and atrial fibrillation," said Dr. Amit Khera, Professor of Internal Medicine and Director of UT Southwestern's Preventive Cardiology Program.

5 tests to better predict heart disease risk:

A 12-lead EKG provides information about hypertrophy, or thickening of the heart muscle.

A coronary calcium scan, a low-radiation imaging test, identifies calcified plaque buildup in the arteries of the heart.

A blood test for C-reactive protein indicates inflammation.

A blood test for the hormone NT-proBNP indicates stress on the heart.

A blood test for high-sensitivity troponin T indicates damage to heart muscle.

The set of five tests not only expanded risk prediction to include the likelihood of heart failure and atrial fibrillation, but also proved to be a better predictor of heart attack and stroke than currently recommended approaches. Heart failure is a chronic condition in which the heart progressively weakens and atrial fibrillation is a heart rhythm problem. Both conditions have been increasing as the population ages.

"There has been a real need to bring modern science to the problem of heart disease risk prediction, which has relied on traditional risk factors for decades" said Dr. de Lemos, who holds the Sweetheart BallKern Wildenthal, M.D., Ph.D. Distinguished Chair in Cardiology. "We wanted to determine whether advances in imaging and blood-based biomarkers could help us to better identify who was at risk for heart disease."

The added value of the test panel results from the careful selection of tests that were complementary but not redundant, Dr. Khera said.

"These five tests have all stood on their own already. And they each tell us something different about potential heart problems - they're additive. As a result, we are getting a good look at global cardiovascular disease risk," said Dr. Khera, who holds the Dallas Heart Ball Chair in Hypertension and Heart Disease.

The tests were combined in a simple scoring system with one point for each abnormal result. Compared with those with no abnormal tests, those with five abnormal results had more than a 20-fold increased risk of developing heart complications over the next 10 years.

The study was funded in part by a research grant from the National Space Biomedical Research Institute, a NASA-related consortium studying the health effects of long-term space flight.

"NASA is considering long-term missions, for example to Mars. Astronauts are highly trained people and there's a heightened investment in long-term missions. If someone has a cardiovascular event, that would be catastrophic," said Dr. Khera.

And what's useful for predicting astronauts' heart health is useful for the public.

"We're interested in taking the principles used by NASA and applying them to healthy people. An individual who is interested in obtaining a lot of information about his heart risk over the next 10 to 20 years can get a lot of useful information from these five tests," Dr. de Lemos said.

Both researchers emphasized, however, that these tests aren't for everyone and should only be done in collaboration with a physician with expertise in heart disease prevention, to help interpret the results.

Researchers used data from the Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis (MESA), which included a population of 6,621 individuals, and the Dallas Heart Study, which included 2,202 individuals. Both studies include large numbers of minorities and women among their participants, and both studies involve individuals who were healthy at the onset of the study.

The landmark Dallas Heart Study, a multiethnic, population-based study begun in 2000, has led to more than 200 published scientific studies, and most notably identified a mutation in a gene called PCSK9 that resulted in extremely low levels of cholesterol. The Dallas Heart Study was established with funding provided by the Donald W. Reynolds Foundation.
The Global Health Innovative Technology Fund (GHIT Fund), a unique Japanese public-private partnership formed to battle infectious diseases around the globe, today announced 11 new investments totaling US$23 million that could help deliver a range of new innovative therapies for a host of debilitating conditions.

This latest round of targeted support includes funding for a Phase 3 clinical trial testing a pediatric formulation of a drug considered the gold standard for treating schistosomiasis, a water-borne parasitic disease linked to an assortment of acute and chronic health problems. Young children are most at risk, but the existing drug is so bitter and hard to swallow that kids often go untreated, leading to serious lifelong health and learning problems.

This clinical trial is one of the most advanced partnerships invested by the GHIT Fund, an organization that combines Japans historic leadership in global health and innovation with groundbreaking research from across the globe. The GHIT Fund also is making new investments in two malaria vaccine candidates, while accelerating work to find new drug treatments for malaria, dengue, Chagas disease, cryptosporidiosis and leishmaniasis.

Were reaching an exciting phase where GHITs approach to partnerships and drug and vaccine development is starting to produce tangible progress towards product deployment that could eventually lead to revolutionary breakthroughs, said BT Slingsby, MD, PhD, MPH, who is CEO of the GHIT Fund. We knew that combining Japans wealth of biomedical research talent and pharmaceutical capabilities with leading infectious disease experts near and far was likely to be a winning combination, and thats been validated by the progress we are seeing across a rich diversity of projects.

A Snail Fever Drug Thats Easy to Swallow

Schistosomiasis, sometimes called snail fever because its found in freshwater snails, leads to both acute and chronic disease. Its caused by parasitic worms known as blood flukes and is usually transmitted through contact with infested water. The disease is endemic in 78 developing countries and, according to the World Health Organization, more than 261 million people, including 100 million children, were infected with schistosomiasis in 2015. Some 90 percent of infections occur in Africa, where safe water is often scarce. While rarely fatal, left untreated, the disease can cause anemia, stunted growth, impaired learning ability and chronic inflammation of vital organs.

GHIT Funds investment of US$4.7 million, with co-funding from its partners, will support a Phase 3 clinical trial in Africa to evaluate a pediatric formulation of praziquantel (PZQ) in children aged three months to six years. Since the 1970s, the gold-standard of treatment for the disease has been a single oral dose of PZQ used to treat adults and school-aged children. But children under age five who are infected with schistosomiasis are not treated with PZQ under the current policy. And data on the treatment of these children has been sparse and insufficient to define and confirm the best dosing. In addition, the current tablets have a severe bitter taste and the large size of the existing pill makes it difficult or just impossible for small children to swallow. A smaller, more palatable pill that could be administered to children as young as three months old is being developed by the Pediatric Praziquantel Consortium, a nonprofit international public-private partnership involving Astellas Pharma Inc. (Japan), Lygature (The Netherlands), Merck KGaA (Germany), the Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute, Simcyp Limited (UK), Farmanguinhos (Brazil) and the Schistosomiasis Control Initiative (SCI, UK).

Previous GHIT Fund investments for this project took the formulation through a Phase 2 clinical trial in 2015 and 2016. If successful, the Phase 3 trial will pave the way for regulatory review and prequalification by the World Health Organization (WHO) that would deliver an affordable, effective, child-friendly formulation of PZQ to young victims around the globe.

Biting Back at Malaria

GHIT also announced today a new investment of US$600,000 to develop a unique vaccine for malaria that prevents the malaria parasite from being transmitted from an infected person to a mosquito. Although it wont protect individuals from malaria, the formulation enables the vaccinated person to become a sort of human shield that breaks the vicious cycle of disease, which depends on the malaria parasite being able to move from mosquito to human and then back to mosquito. Known as a transmission-blocking vaccine, a successful formulation would be a significant weapon in the global push to eliminate malaria, which killed 438,000 people in 2015, most of them young children in sub-Saharan Africa.

Researchers from the PATH Malaria Vaccine Initiative (US) and Ehime University (Japan) will evaluate a protein (called Pfs230) found in the deadly P. falciparum malaria parasite that appears to produce antibodies that can block disease transmission from humans to mosquitos. The investment from GHIT allows the team to examine small regions of the extremely complex protein via an innovative research tool known as wheat germ cell-free protein synthesis technology. The goal is to harness the transmission-blocking features of the protein to drive development of new vaccine candidates.

GHIT Fund also is investing US$2.8 million to continue work on a promising malaria vaccine candidate being developed by researchers from Japans Research Institute for Microbial Diseases and the Medical Center for Translational and Clinical Research at Osaka University, the Germany-based European Vaccine Initiative (EVI), the Centre National de Recherche et de Formation sur le Paludisme (CNRFP, Burkina Faso), and Nobelpharma Co., Ltd. (Japan). Their formulation, called BK-SE36, has produced encouraging results in early testing, generating an immune response in Japanese adults and in Ugandan volunteers aged 6-32 years. Currently, it is being tested in a Phase 1b clinical trial with young children aged 1-5 years in Burkina Faso, where malaria is rampant. This new investment from the GHIT Fund will enable researchers to evaluate a different formulation of the vaccine in healthy African adults and children, one that contains an additional substance known as an adjuvant that has shown promise in boosting the immune response to the vaccine.

GHIT will also continue to support four projects that are pursuing new malaria drugs, which are urgently needed to fight the spread of parasites that have become resistant to existing therapies. Over the last few years there has been an emergence of P. falciparum malaria parasitesfirst in Southeast Asia and just recently in Africathat can survive an assault from previously powerful antimalarial drugs. Researchers are now racing to develop new treatments that can kill the parasite in a single dose. GHITs investments in this work include:

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US$750,000 for an HTLP partnership (Hit-To-Lead Platform) between Eisai Co. Ltd. (Japan) and Medicines for Malaria Venture (MMV, Switzerland) to further explore a series of hits that emerged from screening 20,000 compounds in Eisais library for potential activity against malaria. MMV and Eisai have been evaluating potential activity against different stages of the malaria parasite to identify compounds that could be lead candidates for antimalarial treatments. This new investment will allow further investigation of one of these hits while supporting hit-to-lead work with a new series of compounds.

US$483,000 for a second HTLP partnership, this one between Takeda Pharmaceutical Company Limited (Japan) and MMV, to examine a new series of compounds in Takedas chemical library that might have the potential to fight malaria.

US$2 million to the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard (US), Eisai and MMV to build on promising work to identify a series of compounds that can quickly defeat drug-resistant strains and prevent their spread by blocking transmission of the parasite. The new funding will allow researchers to narrow their focus and identify two or three compounds that warrant further study.

US$4.5 million to the University of Kentucky (US), Eisai and MMV for a Phase 2a study of an antimalarial compound called SJ733, which is intended for use in combination with other malaria medicines to provide a fast-acting treatment that also prevents relapse. In addition to supporting a Phase 2a study in adults, this investment will allow researchers to investigate potential drug formulations and conduct challenge trials, in which healthy volunteers are given malaria under controlled circumstances and then treated with the drug to see if it is effective. This work will set the stage for further Phase 2 studies in children and pregnant womenpopulations most at risk for malaria.

Going After the Worlds Most Overlooked Diseases

In its latest round of investments, GHIT is continuing to confront some of the most neglected diseases in the worlddiseases that burden more than 1 billion of the worlds poorest people and keep them impoverished by causing a range of chronic mental and physical problems. Fighting these overlooked diseases has been a long-time priority for Japan, and for GHIT, which officially endorsed the London Declaration on Neglected Tropical Diseases in 2014, pledging ongoing funding to defeat them once and for all.

GHIT announced today the following investments in neglected diseases:

US$5.3 million for Chugai Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd. (Japan) and A*STAR's Singapore Immunology Network (SIgN) to pursue pre-clinical development of a therapy that could treat the symptoms associated with the four types of dengue virus, as well as prevent lethal and severe cases of the disease. The global burden of this mosquito-borne disease is increasing, with about half of the worlds population now at risk of contracting dengue. Dengue causes flu-like symptoms, extreme joint pain and can progress to a deadly hemorrhagic fever.

US$780,000 to support a hit-to-lead collaboration between the Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative (DNDi) and Daiichi Sankyo in the areas of leishmaniasis and Chagas disease. The project aims to progress promising hit series, all of which were previously identified through a GHIT-supported screening venture, into potential treatment leads for these diseases.

US$550,000 in continued funding to DNDi, Eisai, Shionogi & Co. Ltd. (Japan) and Takeda for continued work with the Neglected Tropical Diseases Drug Booster programa groundbreaking initiative committed to accelerating early-stage drug discovery for treatments for leishmaniasis and Chagas disease. Visceral leishmaniasis (VL) causes fever, weight loss, enlargement of the spleen and anemia. If untreated, it is almost always fatal. Chagas disease, which kills more people in Latin America than any other parasitic disease, causes severe heart damage and intestinal problems. This new investment will allow partners to continue the work of the booster program, which seeks to overcome early-stage intellectual property barriers and enable DNDi to search for new leads by evaluating thousands of unique compounds simultaneously.

US$980,000 for an effort to identify novel drug targets for a group of deadly parasitic diseases: malaria, Chagas disease and leishmaniasis, and also for cryptosporidiosis, which is a major cause for severe diarrhea in infants and toddlers. This work will be led by the RIKEN Center for Sustainable Resource Science (Japan), the Structural Genomics Consortium at University of Toronto (Canada), the University of Melbourne (Australia), McGill University (Canada), MMV and DNDi.

Source: https://www.ghitfund.org//about/mediacenter/pressdetail/detail/172
Careful maintenance of precision pipettes is essential in the highly regulated pharmaceutical and clinical diagnostics industries. Kevin Orf, Senior Manager of Validation and Metrology at a specialty pharmaceutical and diagnostic company based in San Diego, California, explained:

In our line of work, accurate pipetting is vital to avoid any errors in test results. As an ISO 13485 and CAP accredited laboratory, we must be able to demonstrate the accuracy and precision of our pipettes, as well as adherence to a regular maintenance schedule.

I chose Rainin to service our pipettes  single and multichannel pipettes, as well as Liquidator 96 systems  because the company is focused on quality. Rainins facility has humidity and temperature control, and is equipped with high quality METTLER TOLEDO balances, and the company can demonstrate NIST traceability, which is important. The Rainin service department is very proactive, and the maintenance and calibration of our pipettes is excellent. As a result, our failure rate is incredibly low. The company recognizes the importance of listening to its customers and providing on-site training, and goes beyond simply selling pipettes. The Rainin team makes the effort to help staff familiarize themselves with different pipette types and pipetting techniques, creating a good customer support environment that has long-term benefits for both parties. In my view, Rainin is a leader in the field.
Corneal diseases are among the most common causes of visual impairment and blindness, with Fuchs endothelial corneal dystrophy (FECD), a gradual swelling and clouding of the cornea, being the most common reason for eventual corneal transplants.

Writing in the March 30 online issue of Nature Communications, researchers at University of California San Diego School of Medicine, with colleagues at Case Western University, Duke University, the National Institutes of Health and elsewhere, have identified three novel genomic loci  distinct stretches of genetic material on chromosomes  linked to FECD, which often clusters in families and is roughly 39 percent heritable.

"Previously, there was one known FECD locus. We've expanded that number to four," said the study's first author Natalie A. Afshari, MD, professor of ophthalmology, Stuart Brown MD Chair in Ophthalmology in Memory of Donald Shiley and chief of cornea and refractive surgery at Shiley Eye Institute at UC San Diego Health. "These findings provide a deeper understanding of the pathology of FECD, which in turn will help us develop better therapies for treating or preventing this disabling disease."

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FECD affects the innermost layer of cells in the cornea (the transparent front cover of the eye), called the endothelium. The endothelium is responsible for maintaining the proper amount of fluid in the cornea, keeping it clear. FECD is a progressive disorder in which the endothelium slowly degrades, with lost clarity, pain and severely impaired vision. It affects 4 percent of the U.S. population above age 40 and worsens with age. Women are two to four times more affected than men. While there is symptomatic treatment in early stages, surgery  often a corneal transplant  is the only remedy after significant vision loss occurs.

The research team conducted a genome-wide association study, an analytical approach in which scientists look for genetic variants in individuals associated with a particular disease. This study involved 1,404 patients with FECD and 2,564 controls of European ancestry.

The results confirmed the known role of the TCF4 gene, but also revealed associations with three other loci: KANK4, LAMC1 and LINC009970/ATPB1. Researchers also found some genomic markers that were more associated by gender, with LAMC1 increasing FECD risk in women while TCF4 increased risk in men.

"While more work must be done to precisely elucidate what these proteins do," said Afshari, "the results suggest they have essential roles in sustaining and maintaining the health of the corneal endothelium. This knowledge improves our understanding of the genetic risk factors for FECD and gives us new therapeutic targets."
For the ninth consecutive year, Rush University Medical Center has been designated a "Leader in LGBTQ Healthcare Equality" in the Healthcare Equality Index, an annual survey of how health care facilities in the United States treat lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer/questioning patients and their families, as well as their own LGBTQ employees. The report on the 2017 survey was released today.

The Medical Center has been named a Leader in LGBTQ Healthcare Equality in every year that the HEI formally has recognized health care institutions. The Healthcare Equality Index (HEI) is administered annually by the Human Rights Campaign Foundation, the educational arm of the HRC, the largest LGBTQ organization in the United States, and is intended to encourage equal care of LGBTQ patients.

Medical Center, Rush Oak Park Hospital meet raised standards

Rush University Medical Center and its partner institution, Rush Oak Park Hospital (Oak Park, Illinois), are among a select group of 302 health care facilities nationwide to be named a leader in the report, which rated about 1,500 health care facilities in all. The Medical Center met all of the criteria of the HEI survey, as it has for each of the nine years that it has participated in the survey. Rush Oak Park Hospital also met all the criteria again in its fourth consecutive year as an LGBTQ leader.

This year's HEI survey criteria were more stringent than in the past, and Rush in turn furthered its LGBTQ efforts. For the first time ever, HEI participants were given scores in four criteria that represent how many policies and best practices they have implemented from each section: foundational elements of LGBTQ patient-centered care; LGBTQ patient services and support; employee benefits and policies; and LGBTQ patient and community engagement. Participants that received the maximum score in each section for a total score of 100 points earned the coveted status of 2017 Leader in LGBTQ Healthcare Equality.

"Rush is deeply committed to a culture of respect, inclusion and equal treatment of all our patients, employees and students, regardless of their race, religion, sexual orientation or sexual identity," said Dr. Larry Goodman, Rush CEO. "This commitment is an essential part of our mission to provide the very best health care for the individuals and diverse communities we serve.

"That the Medical Center and Rush Oak Park Hospital again have received Leader in LGBT Health Equality even as the HEI raised its standards for this designation is an important confirmation that we are fulfilling that commitment."

LGBTQ commitment includes transgender health benefits, social workers

Rush's commitment to a welcoming environment for LGBTQ patients, students, employees and visitors includes the 2014 creation of the LGBTQ Leadership Council (formerly the LGBTQ Health Committee) of Rush's Diversity Leadership Council, which provides guidance to Rush University Medical Center, Rush University and Rush Oak Park Hospital about diversity issues and initiates events throughout the year to promote diversity.

Due in part to the council's efforts, at the beginning of 2016 Rush became the first health system in the state of Illinois to offer comprehensive transgender health benefits to employees and students alike. In addition, in 2016, Rush University Medical Center implemented the following LGBTQ initiatives:

 Dedicating two clinical social workers to assisting employees, students and patients with any LGBTQ needs

 Development of a comprehensive LGBTQ policy statement detailing Rush's commitment to the LGBTQ community

 A dedicated LGBTQ section on the Medical Center's website

 Incorporating entries for sexual orientation and gender identity into the electronic medical records system used at the Medical Center and Rush Oak Park Hospital, and providing training in the entry and use of this patient information

 Development of an institutional LGBTQ logo, which was displayed on more than 2,000 lapel pins distributed to individuals at the Medical Center and a banner carried by Rush participants in Chicago's annual LGBT Pride Parade

"It is very exciting to see that Rush is once again at the forefront for LGBTQ inclusiveness in the health care space. This year the survey was much more robust, and to continue to be a leader we had to commit to doing more, and many individuals throughout the system worked to achieve this important designation." says Christopher Nolan, manager, community benefit and population health and chairperson of the Rush LGBTQ Leadership Council.

"Rush has clearly made a point to let all of our community members  employees, students, and patients alike  know that not only is everyone welcome here, but that Rush is truly committed to a diverse and inclusive culture and equity for the LGBTQ community. I am especially proud in a time when this commitment means more than ever before"
By Laila Kearney

NEW YORK, March 31 (Reuters) - The New York State Senate could vote as early as Friday night on whether to stop automatically prosecuting and imprisoning offenders as young as 16 years old as adults.

If passed, the "raise the age" measure would increase the age of adult criminal responsibility to 18, eliminating New York as one of only two U.S. states still trying 16- and 17-year-olds as adults regardless of the crime.

North Carolina, the other holdout, is also considering measures to raise the age of criminal responsibility.

Republican and Democratic senators clashed on Friday over the measure, which has been proposed as part of the state's $152 billion budget. Some Republicans proposed separating it from the rest of the budget, while many Democrats said they would only pass a budget if it included the measure.

"We will not vote on the budget without raise the age," Democratic Senator Velmanette Montgomery said in a statement. "Our children deserve more than a slogan. They deserve comprehensive reform."

It was not immediately clear which details they disagreed on, and the latest version of the measure has not been made public.

Under one recent proposal, juveniles accused of misdemeanors and nonviolent felonies would be tried in family court, while those charged with more serious crimes would go to a special criminal court for youths. Juveniles would also be barred from adult jails and prisons.

Critics of the proposal say it could threaten public safety.

Ulster County District Attorney Holley Carnright said this week it would make it harder to prosecute violent gang members, many of whom are under 18. The "raise the age" initiative would also make it more difficult to interview underage witnesses of crimes, Carnright said.

The effort is part of a larger trend to safeguard juvenile offenders.

In January 2015, former President Barack Obama banned solitary confinement for juveniles in federal prisons. Announcing the change, Obama cited the case of Kalief Browder, a 16-year-old held in solitary confinement for nearly two years at New York's troubled Riker's Island penitentiary.

Browder, who was wrongly arrested on suspicion of stealing a backpack, attempted suicide multiple times while imprisoned. He took his own life after being released.

Riker's Island officials last year said they would stop using solitary confinement to punish 16- and 17-year-olds. (Additional reporting by Hilary Russ; Ediring by Daniel Wallis and James Dalgleish)
Honda Motorcycles and Scooters India (HMSI) is offering heavy discounts on their products. (Image Courtesy: Screenshot/Honda two wheelers website)

Starting April 1, 2017, only vehicles which comply with BS IV emission norms will be allowed to be sold in India. This may not be as big of a problem for four-wheeler manufacturers because most of the cars do comply with the norm whereas when it comes to two-wheeler manufacturers, they have been under pressure to clear their BS III stock. This has resulted in almost every two-wheeler manufacturer handing out lucrative deals unlike ever before and one of the most interesting ones is being given out by Honda Motorcycles and Scooters India (HMSI).As per their website, the company is offering discounts of up to Rs 22,000 on their products.According to reports, Honda two wheeler dealers have informed that the Navi is being sold at a discount of Rs 20,000 on its on-road price which is around Rs 50,000 depending on which city you live in. This makes the Honda Navi available at an on-road price of around Rs 30,000, making its ex-showroom price lower than some popular smartphones like the OnePlus 3T. That's not it, some dealers are also offering the Honda Navi as complimentary, in other words for free, if you purchase a Honda CBR 150 or a CBR 250.Keep in mind, though, these discounts are being offered just for today since it is the last day that allows BS III compliant motorcycles to be sold.There are several other discounts to look at too, you can check them all out here And if you want to understand what this 'Bharat Stage', or BS in short, is all about and how does this impact you, click here
Name Discount Hero Maestro Edge Rs 12,500 Hero Splendor Pro Rs 5,000 Hero HF Deluxe Rs 5,000 Hero Glamour Rs 7,500 Hero Super Splendor Rs 7,500 TVS Apache RTR 200 4V Rs 10,000 TVS Apache RTR 160 Rs 5,000 TVS Victor Rs 5,000 TVS Jupiter Rs 10,000 Triumph Tiger 800 XR Rs 1.5 lakh Triumph Tiger 800 XCx Rs 60,000 Triumph Thunderbird Storm Rs 3 lakh Triumph Thunderbird LT Rs 3 lakh Triumph Rocket III Rs 3 lakh Triumph Daytona 675 Rs 90,000 Ducati Monster 821 Rs 2.7 lakh Ducati Diavel Rs 2 lakh Ducati Scrambler Urban Enduro Rs 1.7 lakh Honda Navi Rs 20,000 Honda Activa-i Rs 14,500 Honda Dio Rs 13,500 Honda Aviator Rs 13,500 Hona CB Shine SP Rs 18,300 Honda CB Shine Rs 18,300 Honda Dream Yuga Rs 18,500 Honda Livo Rs 18,500 Honda CBR 150R Free Honda Navi offered Honda CBR 250R Free Honda Navi offered

Name Discount Mahindra Bolero Rs 1 Lakh Mahindra Bolero Pik-Up Rs 70,000 Mahindra Thar Rs 1 Lakh Tata Sumo Rs 1.5 Lakh Tata Indigo eCS Rs 1 Lakh

The recent order by the Supreme Court of India has banned the sale of vehicles from April 1, 2017, which do not comply with the BS IV emission regulation. This has resulted in a huge stock of vehicles which are lying unsold with automakers and since today is the last day which allows them to clear them, there are discounts being offered by dealerships and automakers unlike ever before.Hence, we decided to put together a list comprising of all BS III cars and motorcycles that are currently being offered with heavy discounts.Keep in mind, though, that these discounts are only available for today and also depend on the availability of these units near your dealership and the city you live in.While the two-wheeler industry has been relatively more impacted by the new emission norms kicking in, four-wheeler automakers also have been offering a few BS III models with discounts.If you want to understand what this 'Bharat Stage', or 'BS' in short, is all about, what does it mean and how does this impact you, click here
However, Swamy said that his faith is being affected, therefore it should be heard at the earliest.

Reacting to the Supreme Court observation, Swamy told CNN-News18, I told the court that I am not party to this dispute. I told them that this matter should be listed for early hearing. They want an order by the SC they have lost it in Allahabad. This property has belonged to us for 500 years.

In a setback to BJP leader Subramanian Swamy, the Supreme Court on Friday refused urgent hearing in the Ayodhya land dispute case, questioning his locus standi and stated that Swamy had led the court to believe that he was a party to the dispute."What is your locus standi in the case? We don't have time to hear you now, the Supreme Court bench told Swamy.On Thursday, the son of one of the main litigants in the Ram Janam Bhumi-Babri Masjid land dispute case had objected to Swamys plea. Mohammad Hashim Ansari's son had written to the Secretary General of the apex court saying the Rajya Sabha MP mentioned the matter before the Chief Justice of India without even informing the Advocate On Record, including the lawyer who has been appearing for his father.Ansari, one of the oldest litigants in the Ayodhya dispute, had died in July last year due to heart-related ailments at the age of 95. He was first to file the suit in the court of civil judge of Faizabad on the matter.On March 21, the top court had suggested an out-of-court settlement of the lingering dispute at Ayodhya, observing that issues of "religion and sentiments" can be best resolved through talks.Chief Justice JS Khehar had also offered to mediate even as the bench headed by him suggested that the parties to the dispute adopt a "give a bit and take a bit" approach for a meaningful and sincere negotiations to resolve the issue.The observations were made after Swamy mentioned the matter seeking urgent hearing, saying that it has been over six years after the High Court decided the civil appeal and that it needed to be heard at the earliest.The BJP Parliamentarian had told the court that he had approached the Muslim community members who favoured judicial decision in the contentious matter.The Lucknow bench of Allahabad High Court, in 2010, had ruled for a three-way division of the disputed 2.77 acres area at the site in Uttar Pradesh.The three-judge bench, by a majority of 2:1, had said the land be partitioned equally among three parties, Sunni Waqf Board, Nirmohi Akhara and the 'Ram Lalla'.
In a desperate act to reach New Delhi, Shiv Sena MP Ravindra Gaikwad on Saturday tried tweaking his name while booking his air tickets. In the last seven days, the MP tried to book four times through Air India and on all occasions the airline cancelled his ticket.The clever MP tried to circumvent a ban on flying by booking flights with different honorifics and spellings of his name. Ravindra Gaikwad, Professor Ravindra Gaikwad and Professor V Ravindra Gaikwad were a few names he used.Top Air India sources told News18 that the MP tried to book, Mumbai-Delhi, Hyderabad-Delhi, Nagpur-Delhi and Mumbai-Nagpur. Every time Gaikwad used his coupon issued by the parliament to book the ticket, the airline was alerted, thus swinging into action to cancel it immediately.However, another BJP MP Sunil Gaikwad, who unfortunately shares the same last name as the Sena MP, was repeatedly stopped at security check points before boarding a flight. Irked by this, the BJP MP said, I have conveyed this to the MoS Civil Aviation Jayant Sinha. Is having Gaikwad surname a crime?It's been few days since Sena MP has remained absent in Lok Sabha. Meanwhile, Shiv Sena condemned the stance taken by airline and said the airlines were not right in banning the MP. The party MPs have approached the speaker and asked her to intervene.The airline had earlier issued a "non-acceptance order" to all its station managers and booking offices, instructing them to ensure that "restriction on acceptance and travel of potentially unruly and unsafe passengers is being followed on Air India flights for Mr Ravindra Gaikwad".In an unprecedented step in Indian aviation history, the Sena MP was earlier barred from flying by all major domestic airlines for assaulting an elderly Air India employee last Thursday.The MP was angry at not being given a business class seat though he had boarded an-economy flight.
Hyderabad: In Satyam Babu's case, justice was delayed, not denied. Babu, a dalit, was sentenced to life imprisonment in the Ayesha Meera rape and murder case of 2007 in Vijayawada. He breathed a sigh of relief on Saturday after the Andhra Pradesh High Court acquitted him of all charges.



The accused's family had appealed in the High court against the order of sessions court in 2010, and it bore fruit in 2017. By then, Babu had lost 8 valuable years of his life in jail, for a crime he never committed.



The High court ordered Satyam Babu's acquittal after no evidence was found against him. The court even directed Andhra Pradesh government to pay Rs 1 lakh as compensation and ordered departmental proceedings against officers, who investigated the case in a false manner.



The acquittal of Satyam Babu has also come as a slap in the face of the state police who bungled in the case. They had first tried to show another person as the culprit, but it boomeranged. Eventually, Satyam Babu was shown as the culprit.



Ayesha Meera (17), a first year B Pharmacy student, was raped and murdered in her hostel room on December 27, 2007, and a special sessions court in Vijayawada had awarded 14 years jail to the lone accused in the case under section 302 of IPC for murder and 10 years of rigorous imprisonment under section 376 of IPC for rape on September 29, 2010. In addition, the court ordered Babu to pay a fine of Rs 1,000 or undergo six months jail.



Ayesha's murder had sparked an outrage in the country.
The Army in Kashmir has faced numerous challenges in the almost three-decade long insurgency but what they are encountering today is perhaps among the most demanding.

The district administration must declare prohibitory orders, roads to the encounter site blocked, and local mobile communications snapped. Mobilisation of crowds is being done through mobile messages and any delay in this mobilisation would be of immense help in completing the operation.

Finding answers to the second question is more important: why are the crowds gathering at encounter sites. There is a definite group of overground workers who are paid to instigate and mobilise the youth.

General Rupert Smith, in his book The Utility of Force: The Art of War in the Modern World, argues that in future conflicts the military will fight amongst the people, not on the battlefield. These are the exact scenes that are playing out in the Kashmir valley today.Stone-pelting crowds surround security forces, even as the latter are engaged in operations to neutralise active terrorists. There are injuries on both sides and some deaths, as happened at Chadoora. Massive funeral processions and provocative statements by separatists fuel anger and a continuing cycle of violence. The security forces are also not immune to frustration and anger. They have the right to defend themselves and their comrades from violent mobs and if guns have to be fired, so be it.Frankly, there are no easy solutions but, in my view, a search for answers to two questions could help mitigate the difficult situation being faced by our soldiers and policemen. The first question is how to deal with the crowds. Robust Standard Operating Procedures have to be put in place in which the Army, CRPF and police work in coordination to keep civilians away from the place where operations are underway. These procedures are already in place but any shortfalls, based on the experiences gained, must be speedily overcome.The Army could also review its pattern of counter-terrorist operations in a semi-urban setting. Encounters last for hours, sometimes days. Breaking news flashes on media channels and crowds swell. I know this is a tricky predicament for the commander as any attempt to hasten the operation could lead to army casualties. Better equipment will provide more alternatives. Full-body armour and ballistic helmets for self-protection backed up by drones, through-wall radars and microphones, and surveillance robots would provide confidence to soldiers and a much better understanding of the target profile. Some of this equipment is available but not in sufficient numbers.These people need to be identified and dealt with in the harshest manner. This includes the separatists. However, it would be too simplistic to pass off everyone in the crowd as a paid stone-pelter and inspired only by money. A sixth standard student losing one eye cannot be explained away by his being paid Rs 4,000 a month. This is a generation of youth which has grown up in conflict and is increasingly being radicalised. Social and cultural values have been impacted and frustration is clearly visible. This is now spilling out on the streets.The answer to the second question clearly lies in government actions. Sympathetic communication and youth engagement is the key. Some programmes for the youth are already in place but delivery must be strengthened. Return of locals who have picked up the gun to the mainstream should be encouraged. This will require an innovative rehabilitation scheme. In internal conflicts, impressions play a strong role and the state must be seen as concerned and caring. I think a singular iron glove approach will not help. The security forces are in a difficult position  damned if you do and damned if you don't. Politics must step up to support the soldiers.
Bhopal: Madarsa Board in the BJP-ruled Madhya Pradesh is preparing a course on the patriotism's place in Islam.



Lessons on life stories of prominent leaders including the Prime Minister Narendra Modi would also be a part of syllabus.



"The Board is preparing a syllabus on the topic `Vatan Se Mohabbat Ka Islam Dharam Me Kya Mahatva Hai' (what is the importance of love for one's country in Islam) so that students learn what a high status the religion they follow (Islam) has given to those who love their country and to the loyalty to the country," Madhya Pradesh Madarsa Board Chairman Syed Imad Uddin said here.



"We are also including lessons on the lives of Narendra Modi, Shivraj Singh Chouhan, Abul Kalam Azad who himself was a product of Madarsa, APJ Abdul Kalam, Pandit Deendayal Upadhyaya and others to educate Madarsa students about their life struggles and their achievements," he told PTI.



The ongoing Narmada river conservation programme `Namami Devi Narmade' would also be a part of syllabus, he said.



"It (love for the country) is not something new, it is already there and one should not construe that those studying in Madarsas are not aware of it as it is already there in the

religion," he clarified.



A committee would soon submit its report on these new topics in the syllabus to the Rajya Shiksha Kendra (RSK) for approval, and after getting the nod, these new lessons would be taught in Madarsas, he said.
Around 70 students of a residential school in Muzaffarnagar were stripped naked by a warden to check for menstrual blood, triggering protests by the girls families.The concerned students at the Kasturba Gandhi Girls Residential School said the female warden rounded them up and ordered them to strip and allegedly threatened them with a beating if they disobeyed.Some blood was found in the bathroom. The warden ordered us to remove our clothes. It was very humiliating for all of us. We want action against her, one of the students told CNN-News18.The warden, who was suspended, denied the incident. Nothing of the sort happened. Some blood was found on the floor and wall of the bathroom. I wanted to check if everything was all right with the girls. Such young girls are sometimes unable to express... I just asked them if anything was wrong, she said.I am strict when it comes to studies. That is why the girls dont like me. They are being provoked by other staff members who want me to leave, she added.Local education department authorities initiated an inquiry into the matter.
New Delhi: Nearly 500 arrests have been made in the crackdown on drugs by the new government in Punjab in the past fortnight, Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh said in New Delhi on Friday.



"The anti-drugs campaign kick-started by the government is yielding results. With 240 tip-offs received in just two days since the Punjab Police re-activated and advertised its 181 helpline for drugs, the number of arrests in drugs cases has gone up to nearly 500," he told the media in New Delhi.



An official spokesperson from the Chief Minister's Office (CMO) said that from March 16 to March 29, 497 drug traders and peddlers had been booked, with 449 cases registered under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act (NDPS) Act.



Giving the break-up of the drugs seizures made during this period, the spokesperson said 4.034 kg heroin and 0.605 kg smack were recovered from those arrested.



Other seizures included 2.22 kg of charas, 24.46 kg of opium, 715.31 kg of poppy husk and 1.879 kg of bhang. The police have also recovered 12.519 kg of intoxicant powder, 1,576 injections, 1,11,893 pills/capsules, 72.78 kg of ganja and 133 syrup bottles.



The Amarinder Singh government has set up a Special Task Force (STF) under Additional Director General of Police (ADGP) Harpreet Sidhu to check the drug menace.



Amarinder said he had directed the police and intelligence departments, which are involved in the crackdown on drugs, to reach out to the people even more aggressively in the coming days to take their support in realising his government's goal of wiping out the drugs menace from the state in four weeks.



The new government assumed office on March 16.



The government has assured that the identity of anyone reporting any drugs related crime on the helpline would be protected, which has instilled confidence among the members of the public, who are coming out with information without fear, the Chief Minister said.



"The tip-offs received so far were being verified and stern action would be initiated in cases where the information is verified. Majority of the tip-offs received are related to information about sale points and people involved in drug trade. No drug user would be harassed by the police or other agencies," he added.



Amarinder Singh, in the run up to the Punjab Assembly elections, had vowed to end the drugs menace in Punjab within four weeks of coming to power.
New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi will address through video conferencing over 10,000 students at 'Smart India Hackathon' aspiring to be young innovators.



The hackathon, a first-of-its kind initiative by the HRD Ministry at such a large scale is intended at promote innovation, out-of-the-box thinking among young minds especially the engineering students.



According to HRD Ministry officials, the PM will address the innovators tomorrow at 10 PM through video conferencing.



"The grand finale of Smart India Hackathon will start at 8 AM tomorrow and would end at 8 PM on April 2 at 26 different locations in the country with each location handheld by one department or Ministry," an official statement said.



"For the preparations of the finale, online trainings were given to students by approximately 2110 mentors appointed for the purpose. During the finale, the selected groups will be locked-in for 36 hours continuously and complete digital solutions for the problem statements through programming to create computer software or a mobile app," it added.



The software created will be evaluated by judges drawn from the respective ministry and industry experts and the best solutions will be awarded with cash prizes of Rs 1 lakh, Rs 75,000 and Rs 50,000 for the top three teams respectively.



The awarded software will also be used by the concerned ministry or department for improving their governance systems, if necessary, with suitable upgrade.



"All the prize winners would be connected to form a Community of Innovative Minds," the statement said.



In order to engage the youth in coming up with digital solutions to common problems, the All India Council for Technical Education under the aegis of HRD ministry launched this hackathon.



Twenty-nine departments under various ministries presented 598 problem statements for which they don't have digital solutions and due to which there has been inefficiency, revenue loss and corruption.



7,531 teams of approximately 42,000 students responded with solutions to the problems from which 1,266 teams of 10,000 participants from 28 states were shortlisted for the finale.



Maximum interest was shown in solving road and transport problems with 84 teams out of the 674 in this sector making it to the finals.
For Immediate Release

Chicago, IL  March 31, 2017  Zacks Value Investor is a podcast hosted weekly by Zacks Stock Strategist Tracey Ryniec. Every week, Tracey will be joined by guests to discuss the hottest investing topics in stocks, bonds and ETFs and how it impacts your life. To listen to the podcast, click here: ( https://www.zacks.com/stock/news/254594/do-you-have-what-it-takes-to-be-a-value-investor )

Do You have What It Takes to Be a Value Investor?

Welcome to Episode #35 of the Value Investor Podcast.

Every week, Tracey Ryniec, the editor of Zacks Value Investor portfolio service , shares some of her top value investing tips and stock picks.

There has been a sharp sell-off in several sectors in 2017, but investors seem too scared to jump in and invest in them.

It takes a lot of guts to be a value investor. Controlling emotions isnt easy.

Do you have what it takes?

Being a value investor means running in to buy when everyone else is fleeing. It usually means that the company is being overlooked by the Street. That can happen for any number of reasons even including the results of an election or a vote like the Brexit vote.

For example, look at the Mexican stocks. After the US election results in November 2016, Mexican stocks sold off sharply on fears about building the wall and re-negotiations of NAFTA. But in 2017, the stocks, including the Mexico ETF (NYSEARCA:EWW  Free Report ), have bounced back.

Did you think to buy on the 2016 panicked sell off?

If you did, you may be a value investor at heart.

Tracey discusses several industries you may want to keep an eye on for values, as they are struggling in 2017.

She also discusses 3 values stocks that have rising earnings estimates. These are Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy) stocks AND they are cheap.

Do you have the guts to dive in?

3 Zacks #1 Rank Value Stocks

1. Best Buy (NYSE:BBY  Free Report ) is able to compete with Amazon. All retailers arent going under. Shares are cheap as retail is out of favor. It has a forward P/E of just 12.5.

Story continues

2. Dycom Industries (NYSE: DY  Free Report ) has employees in 500 field offices and provides services in construction and engineering. If there is a big infrastructure program, this could be a company to watch. It has a forward P/E of 16.6.

3. PulteGroup (NYSE:PHM  Free Report ) is one of the largest home builders in America. The home builders have been out of favor since 2012. Its cheap, with a forward P/E of just 10.5.

These three stocks also have P/S ratios under 1.0, which usually means a company is undervalued.

What else should you know about being a value investor?

Tune into this weeks podcast to find out.

Want more value investing insights from Tracey?

Check out her weekly Value Investor service to receive more in-depth analysis on value companies and see which stocks Tracey thinks are the best bargains now.

It holds between 20 and 25 value stocks for the long haul.

Click here to learn more.

Tracey Ryniec is the Value Stock Strategist for Zacks.com. She is also the Editor of the Insider Trader and Value Investor services. You can follow her on twitter at @TraceyRyniec and she also hosts the Zacks Market Edge Podcast on iTunes.

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New Delhi: Delhi University's Ramjas College, which saw violent protests last month, is once again in the news as four plays themed on nationalism were not allowed to be performed during its annual street play fest on Friday.



While the members of Ramjas' drama society claim the college administration decided to cancel the plays as their subjects were "sensitive", the principal maintained it was students' decision and not the authorities'.



The drama society's annual street play festival 'Mukhatib' held on Friday also witnessed silent protest by Ramjas' students who wore black hand bands and sealed their mouths with black tapes protesting against the cancellation of the plays.



The cancelled performances are: SGTB Khalsa college's play 'Trump Card', Dyal Singh college's 'Jokistaan'; Guru Gobind Singh College of Commerce's 'sawal to uthega (questions will be raised)'; and Gargi College's 'Main, Kashmir aur aap? Main Manipur' (I'm Kashmir, and you? I'm Manipur).



"Seven teams were scheduled to take part in the street play festival and perform on their respective subjects. However, our administration asked us to present the scripts to them, which has never happened before.



"After presenting the scripts, we were asked to cancel performances of four plays as their subject was related to nationalism, freedom of speech and the evergreen issue of Kashmir," a member of the drama society said on the condition of anonymity.



College principal PC Tulsiyan said it was student's decision to cancel the plays.



"The administration did not cancel the plays but Ramjas students who are members of the drama society did it themselves. We had just advised them to not include anything which may hamper the peaceful atmosphere at the college," he said.



From the three teams that were allowed to participate, Lady Shri Ram college refused to perform in protest against the decision while Miranda House and Kirori Mal college went ahead with their performances "Hadsa-e-paidaish" and "The Accidental Death of an Anarchist" respectively.



Ramjas College had last month witnessed large-scale clashes between members of Left-affiliated All India Students Association (AISA) and RSS-backed Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) members and its supporters.



The clashes took place after an invite to JNU students Umar Khalid and Shehla Rashid to address a seminar titled 'Culture of Protests' was withdrawn by the college authorities following ABVP's opposition.
I am innocent and I have not done anything wrong. I am a fair judge and I have never committed any mistake. Allow me to start my judicial work. I am answerable to the general public, said Justice Karnan, adding the contempt proceedings were issued against him on a suo moto basis and that he was in no way a contemnor.

In a first in Indian judicial history, sitting High Court judge C Karnan appeared before a seven member bench of the Supreme Court on Friday to answer charges of contempt levelled against him.Justice Karnan offered to give an unconditional apology provided his judicial work was restored but the SC refused this offer and gave the judge another four weeks to file a reply in the contempt notice.On March 10, the Supreme Court had issued a bailable warrant against Justice Karnan to ensure his presence before it on March 31 in a contempt case. A seven-judge bench headed by Chief Justice JS Khehar had taken strong note of Justice Karnan's non-appearance, despite being served with the contempt notice and had asked the Director General of West Bengal Police to execute the warrants on the judge to ensure his presence.Following the warrant, not only did Justice Karnan state that he was directing the Director of Central Bureau of Investigation to file a case against the seven judges of the apex court but also issued an "order" of registration of a case under the appropriate sections of the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989 on Chief Justice of India Justice JS Khehar and six other judges.On Friday, though Justice Karnan submitted his defence with utmost respect to the bench, contrary to the public perception he had created about himself, he maintained he would not appear before the court for the next hearing on May 1 if his judicial powers are not restored.In a much heated courtroom drama, Justice Karnan submitted that he was fighting for general welfare and not for any personal gain. After repeating his allegations of corruption against judges, Justice Karnan drew the attention of the court to his fight. Although Justice Karnan did not play the Dalit card till the end, he said that his complaints were never addressed.However, the seven judge bench felt the unconditional apology rendered by Justice Karnan was not unconditional per se because Justice Karnan stated that he would offer apology provided he is not stripped of his judicial power.What you have written is contrary to what you are saying. Do you want to unconditionally apologize or do you wish to re-think? You want to apologize or you want to re-affirm your allegations? If you unconditionally apologize then the case will take a different turn but if you reiterate then there will be a trial, said Justice Dipak Misra, as Justice Chelameshwar advised Justice Karnan to seek help of a lawyer if he is too personally involved in the case.But Attorney General submitted that the contempt proceedings against Justice Karnan must be continued saying there was no question of non-comprehension on part of Justice Karnan and that he was aware of what he was doing.There are conditions in his apology letter and this is not possible. In contempt no conditions can exist, said Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi.Even the letter written by Justice Karnan seeking resignation of seven judges was read out in the court. However SC maintained that the bailable warrant was issued only because he did not appear for the earlier hearings and not because he was a terrorist.But Justice Karnan maintained that his dignity in public was tarnished. I am a respectable person and the police can go to an accused but not to the office of a constitutional person, he said.The apex court allowed Justice Karnan to respond to the contempt notice within four weeks by filing an affidavit.He should not be permitted to discharge his judicial or administrative work, the court said .
Bengaluru: Two people were killed on Friday afternoon after a massive fire broke out at a residential complex in Vinayak Nagar at Hosa Guddadahalli, Bengaluru.



The deceased were identified as Mehtab, 27, a resident of Delhi, who worked in a chair factory and 35-year-old Abdul Hafiz, who was working as a cleric in a madrasa (Muslim seminary).



Ten persons including four children and three women were rescued from the building by the Karnataka fire department officials, said Anucheth, DCP West.



The victims were rushed to the nearby hospital. The residential complex belonged to one Ibrahim Kaleemullah.



The actual cause of the fire is not known yet but some eyewitnesses claim the fire caused by a cylinder blast in the building.



According to reports, the building houses a foam based chair making factory on the ground floor and another floor served as storerooms.



The building also houses a madrasa on the first and the third floor.



Fortunately, today being Friday, not many students were present in the madrasa otherwise the tragedy could be much bigger.



Karnataka fire department officials along with the local police and volunteers helped residents from the building to shift to a safer place.



Around 12 fire engines were pressed into service to get the massive fire under control.



An FIR has been filed by the police and a probe has been ordered.
Dior has once again chosen a natural woman, a chic but stylish woman, in touch with her own style as the focus of the brand's Fall 2017 collection designed by Maria Grazia Chiuri. Jennifer Lawrence, an ambassador of the French fashion house for five years, fronts the campaign for the fall collection.



French photographer Brigitte Lacombe, who also shot the brand's spring/summer 2017 campaign has captured key pieces from the Dior Fall 2017 collection, modeled by American actress Jennifer Lawrence in a new advertising campaign. Looking natural and relaxed, the "Silver Linings Playbook" star shuns glitter, sequins and cocktail dresses for a chic but laid-back look.



Shot in black and white, the campaign shows Jennifer Lawrence in a simple, minimalist decor, modeling the collection in relaxed, natural poses. She can be seen sitting nonchalantly on a chair, a bench, a piece of furniture and a bean bag, or leaning against a white wall.



Brigitte Lacombe has captured the "authentic" Jennifer Lawrence, wearing clothes perfectly in tune with her personality: laid-back and chic. The actress wears the iconic Bar jacket over slogan T-shirts ("We should all be feminists," "J'Adior") matched with jeans and heels or flats.



Jennifer Lawrence also shows off the label's accessories, with various combinations of rings, as well as lucky charm necklaces featuring stars or birds. Dior's iconic bags feature in the campaign too, including the "Lady Dior," reinterpreted with charms and a wider cross-body strap, the "C'est Dior," a vintage-style model inspired by a bag from the Dior archives, and the "Dioraddict," finished with a woven motif.



Jennifer Lawrence has been a Dior brand ambassador since 2012. She has notably fronted campaigns for the "Miss Dior" bag, for Dior Beauty makeup and for the label's accessories collections.
Although she showed up only for a brief cameo, most notably facing off against a terrorist in a Kathmandu hotel room, Tapsee Pannus ass-kicking special agent Shabana Khan was easily one of the best things in the Akshay Kumar starrer Baby. The prospect of revisiting that character in a film that puts her front and centre of its story is an appealing one no doubt. But as it turns out Naam Shabana  never mind how you describe it; as a prequel, a spin-off, or an origin story  is a plodding bore of a film.Its a shame because theres so much potential here. What there isnt, unfortunately, is an adequately fleshed out plot.Tapsee returns to play Shabana, a solemn-faced Muslim girl with a dark past. We first meet her as a college student and martial arts enthusiast living with her mother in Mumbai. Since the film is set a few years before the events of Baby, we learn why and under what circumstances she is recruited by a top-secret, off-the-grid intelligence agency that has been tracking her for some time.The first half of the film moves at a snails pace, as writer Neeraj Pandey and director Shivam Nair spend way too much time on set up and backstory. Tapsee is terrific in the action sequences; her kicks and blows feel real. The film is on solid ground when shes throwing punches, but little else is as compelling.Midway through the film it becomes your standard espionage thriller about a crack team tasked with pinning down a most-wanted international arms dealer. Shabana, yanked out even before shes completed training, is embedded in the mission because presumably the agency doesnt have anyone more experienced or more skilled to do the job. It all makes very little sense.But looking for logic or common sense is setting yourself up for disappointment. A big twist involving the identity of the chief bad guy can be spotted from a mile away. And while you can always count on Akshay Kumar to bring some flair, unexpected humor even, to dull proceedings, his presence as a safety net for our more-than-capable protagonist is both puzzling and a little insulting.The problem at the root of this film is that it literally offers nothing new, other than the idea of a woman who knows her way around a fight. The plot is predictable from the word go, and yet it unfolds over an excruciating two-and-a-half hours.Familiar faces from Baby  Manoj Bajpai, Danny Denzongpa, Anupam Kher  show up to pad out the narrative, and cast in a negative role Malayalam star Prithviraj Sukumaran brings an appropriately menacing presence.The star attraction though is Tapsee, but strictly when shes in action-heroine mode, letting her fists and her feet do the talking. Her performance through the rest of the film is strictly one-note.Im going with two out of five for Naam Shabana. Ive seldom been this bored.What's your reaction to Naam Shabana?Write your review of Naam Shabana.
Just had a very warm n friendly meeting with Mr Rajnikanth the Tamil superstar at his home pic.twitter.com/ICmWGV1ICI  Mohd Najib Tun Razak (@NajibRazak) March 31, 2017

Actor Rajinikanth on Friday rejected speculation of him being made the brand ambassador of Malaysian Tourism.Talking to media, the superstar said that he met the Malaysian PM Najib Razak as he couldn't meet him during the shooting of Kabali.Rajinikanth said,"I shot Kabali in Malaysia and couldn't get to thank him and express my gratitude to them so he came and we had a cordial meet."He added,"I wasn't offered to become brand ambassador. All these are rumors.""Meeting on 2nd was long due as fans wanted photographs. Nothing political about that and no major announcement. 2nd April the fans are meeting and 11th to 16th I will be meeting them," he said.Reacting on the furore over his Sri Lanka visit, Rajinikanth said, "I have given my statement. I am disappointed but It's all over and we will sort it out."The actor has been in news since he announced his plans to visit Sri Lanka, which he had to cancel following opposition by few political leaders from Tamil Nadu.
New Delhi: An Income Tax department investigation into Hawala deals allegedly made by Delhi Health Minister Satyendra Jain might land him in big trouble.



The department has recommended the case to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) after it found that he was holding benami properties.



I-T has attached assets of companies allegedly owned by Jain and his close associates under the Prohibition of Benami Property Transactions Act.



According the I-T department, Jain used unaccounted income of Rs. 16.38 crore in shares of Indo Metal Impex, Akinchan Developers, Paryas Infosolutions and Mangalyatan Projects. Jain and his family have majority stake in these companies.



I-T also found that most of the companies had no source of income.



Apart from this, the department found that Jain purchased 123.16 bigha (49.33 acre) and 36.07 biswa (295.64 acre) land in Delhi with the same income.



A closer look at the money trail shows that cash was first handed over to Kolkata-based Hawala dealers. The money was allegedly further infused into 56 shell companies and then channelled into companies controlled by Jain and his family members.



During the investigation, it was also found that Jain had allegedly purchased more than 80 acres in Karala, Auchandi, Nizampur, Budham north and north-west area of Delhi in close vicinity of unauthorised colonies.



The department also found that though Jain tried to camouflage transactions by using Kolkata-based Hawala dealers and shell companies, he, however, got the registered deed done in his name.



The land purchased by Jain (in Karala Village) falls in the planned development framework where more than 89 villages will be sooner or later urbanised under the Land Pooling Policy (LPP).



The LPP proposes a partnered development model wherein landowners are made stakeholders in developing the housing units with the Delhi Development Authority (DDA).



The agency classified land by ownership into two categories with different stake share. The first category includes land of 20 hectare or more. In this category, the developer keeps 60% share while the DDA retains 40% share. In the second category, which has land between 2-20 hectares, the developer keeps a 48% share while the DDA keeps 52%.



Though a talk on LPP has been in existence since 201011, the policy is taking final shape now. The Union Urban Development Ministry has been notified and DDA has given its nod. A final notification from the Delhi government is awaited.



The AAP government has been taking a part of the decision-making and was sitting on the final decision for a while now.







Thus, the role of Jain can be looked with suspicion/conflict of interest as he occupies the position of Urban Development Ministry and can be seen as a direct beneficiary in case the prices of land increases due to policy decision.



One of the companies owned by Jain has admitted before the I-T Department that the land was purchased keeping in mind the decision of the government to announce housing projects.



The company said, The current prices of the agricultural land in hand was perceived to go high in view of the fact that government may at anytime go ahead with the policy of declaring these areas of agricultural land lying in the border areas of Delhi as residential areas to promote new housing requirements of NCR. The expected change in the prices of such land upon the announcement being made by the government was expected in the range 2 to 4 times of the current price.



The Income Tax Department is also closely looking at transactions between Jain and his wife. Bank statements shows that his wife transferred huge amounts which do not match with the Income tax returns filed.
Lucknow: The Yogi Adityanath-led government on Friday issued guidelines to Uttar Pradesh police on anti-Romeo squads after reports emerged that police were resorting to blackening the faces of those caught eve-teasing women.



Clearing the air, the government also said in the name of protecting women, police shouldn't make eve-teasers stand in "stress position".



The move comes amidst growing outrage over the way anti-Romeo squads have been carrying out vigilantism and penalising loitering men with severe punishments.



The Allahabad High Court, on Thursday, had asked the government to ensure that guidelines were followed by the police teams, and action was taken as per the law.



There should be no shaving of heads, blackening of faces or "murga pose" (a stress position used as a corporal punishment where sit-ups are done holding the ears), said a senior official, listing out the dos and donts.



The BJP, in its manifesto, had announced the formation of the anti-Romeo squads "to ensure the safety and security of women", should they come to power in Uttar Pradesh.



Over the past week, a number of instances have been reported, where the anti-Romeo squads committed excesses by blackening the faces and shaving the heads of those at fault; at times, even punishing the eve-teasers by making them stand in the stress position.


New Delhi: Congress members of the Rajya Sabha reacted sharply to the presence of Goa Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar in the house on Friday.



They raised slogans against him and even trooped into the well of the House in protest.



Parrikar, who was sworn in as the Goa chief minister earlier this month, walked in during the Zero Hour when Congress member Rajni Patil was about to ask a question.



Immediately, several members including Digvijaya Singh, Congress general secretary in-charge of Goa, and B K Hariprasad, were up on their feet shouting slogans. In response, some BJP members too stood up and shouted slogans.



Congress has accused the BJP of using unfair means to attain a majority in Goa. The BJP has rejected the charges saying the Congress did not have the numbers and was only creating hype.



As the shouting continued, Deputy Chairman P J Kurien stood up to bring order in the House. After that, Congress MPs piped down.



After that, Parrikar stood up for a moment but instantly several Congress members were back to sloganeering.



Several party leaders inlcuding Rajeev Gowda, Hussain Dalwai as well as Patil, reached the Well of the House raising slogans against the former defence minister.



Union Minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi took a dig, sarcastically saying that Parrikar had expressed a "special thanks" to Digvijay Singh. Several BJP members thumped the tables to express support for Parrikar.



(with PTI inputs)
New Delhi: Manohar Parrikar, who has been accused by the opposition of becoming Goa Chief Minister through "manipulation", today taunted Congress leader Digvijaya Singh in the Rajya Sabha as he made a brief appearance there.



He said he wanted to thank Singh, who is in-charge of the Congress party's affairs in Goa, "because he was roaming around in Goa and I was able to form the Government in Goa."



The remarks came during the Zero Hour in the Rajya Sabha, where Parrikar is still a member and had gone to thank other members for their cooperation during his stint as the Defence Minister.



Parrikar spoke amid the din created by the Congress members who started protesting as soon as he entered the House.



"Sir, we cannot allow him. He killed democracy in Goa," Singh shouted pointing towards Parrikar.



Several other Congress members also shouted slogans while the BJP members thumped their tables to support Parrikar.



"I thank Deputy Chairman (P J Kurien) and others for supporting me as Raksha Mantri," Parrikar said.



However, Singh and other Congress members continued to protest, saying, "Sir, he has stolen the mandate of Goa. We will not allow him to speak."



As the Zero Hour made way for the Question Hour, Singh was heard saying, "Sir, he has stolen the mandate of the people of Goa. You have murdered democracy in Goa. He has no right to speak in this House," he said.



Many Congress members, including Rajiv Gowda, Rajni Patil and Husain Dalwai even rushed to the Well of the House to protest against Parrikar.



Meanwhile, Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi quipped that Parrikar had covnveyed his special thanks to Digvijay Singh.



In Goa, the Congress had emerged as the largest party after the recently held polls but the BJP led by Parrikar managed to form the government with the support of other parties.
New Delhi: The Election Commission on Friday issued a show cause notice to the O Panneerselvam faction for allegedly peddling the 'electric pole' symbol as the AIADMK's original symbol of 'two leaves'.



The Commission's notice came after complaint from the AIADMK's V K Sasikala faction which alleged that the Panneerselvam camp was projecting its electric pole symbol as two leaves symbol to mislead voters.



The Commission had itself carried out investigations before issuing the notice.



"Now, therefore, the Commission has decided to afford you an opportunity to explain your position in the matter," the notice said. It has sought a reply by April 3 morning.



Rival AIADMK factions were alloted new symbols and names after the poll panel had barred them from using the undivided party's "two leaves" symbol for the Chennai's R K Nagar assembly bypoll.



While Sasikala camp will contest on the "hat" symbol as AIADMK (Amma), the O Panneerselvam camp is using the 'electric pole' symbol and will be called AIADMK (Puratchithalaivi Amma).



E Madhusudhanan of the OPS camp today filed his nomination at R K Nagar.T T V Dinakaran of the Sasikala faction and Maruthu Ganesh of DMK will also be contesting the bypoll.
Comfortable victories in both seats could ensure that North pole and South pole, as the deceased founder of PDP Mufti Mohammad Saeed called the coalition, stick to each other for another three years. Defeat in one or both seats could shake the alliance and the government.

But according to sources, the state BJP overturned its decision after a closed-door meeting with them was chaired by Ram Madav.

Within the next 10 days is scheduled perhaps the most significant event of the year in Kashmir  parliamentary bypolls. Two seats  Srinagar on April 9 and Anantnag on April 12  will go to polls right after the bloody 2016 unrest and just before, what is looking like, the beginning of another lengthy cycle of violence.News18 spoke to candidates and leaders from all the big parties in the state and some other people, to get an idea of what the elections mean for the Valley, whos promising what and what is at stake.The elections happen to be placed right in the middle of the PDPBJP governments six-year tenure. For this reason, the bypolls will be a mid-term reality check for the ruling coalition.The Opposition  National Conference and Congress  will hope that three years of anti-incumbency and resentment against the PDP and the BJP will help them sail through. The NC and Congress have forged a stopgap coalition just for these polls. Both are anxious to win in the hope of staying relevant in Kashmir.The big question is will the association of the PDP, which rode on an anti-BJP sentiment in 2014 Assembly elections, with the BJP, which is being identified for its aggressive Hindutva, prove to be the undoing for both?You cannot generalise some perceptions about our alliance with the BJP. You cant say our association with the BJP will be our only challenge. But it is one of those things that may be a challenge for us in coming times, says Tasaduq Mufti, brother of Chief Minister and PDP chief Mehbooba Mufti.Even before the elections, PDPs alliance partner did come close to becoming not just a challenge but a challenger. A few days ago, the state BJP chief announced that they would field their own candidate in Srinagar, where the PDP had already fielded their own candidate.Yes, it is true that we wanted to fight it alone in Srinagar. We have a good support base there and are confident of winning elections on our own. But the Centre prevailed on us since these are central elections. Anyway, Im sure now that things are clear, people will come out and vote for our alliance partner, said Satpal Sharma, BJPs state president in J&K.Given the situation on the ground, people coming out and voting for any party at the moment seems a distant possibility. This is one, and perhaps the only, reason why PDP cadre are upbeat about elections. The party knows that low voter turnout usually favours the ruling party.In a recent rally held in South Kashmir, Tasaduq Mufti reportedly told his audience, To cast your vote is your right, not duty. Obviously, there are safety concerns. These sort of campaigns are not really helping the Oppositions cause.The situation on the ground is absolutely not conducive to polls. People have to be assured of their safety. Our campaigners movements have to be facilitated. These people have in fact withdrawn security, said GA Mir, the state Congress chief and Tasaduq Muftis rival candidate in Anantnag.ALSO READ | Those Rushing to Encounter Sites are Committing Suicide: J&K Top Cop He added, Everyone knows that vote percentages in these elections will be low. But we are still going to the people and urging them to get out and vote. I dont need to tell you how angry people are with the current establishment.The Congresss alliance partner for these elections, the National Conference, has fielded none other than its party patriarch Farooq Abdullah from Srinagar. The NCs choice of candidate, or rather Abdullah putting his prestige on the line, shows the seriousness with which the party is fighting for the Srinagar seat.There is a wave of resentment and a strong emotion of anti-incumbency that we are hoping to tap into. Plus, there is this very muscular Hindutva agenda which locals are angry about. We are putting in whatever resources we have in this poll. But lets also understand that the atmosphere is not conducive to elections, said Junaid Matto, NC spokesperson.Last year was one of the bloodiest in Kashmir. Security forces lost 87 personnel, 95 civilians were killed, thousands were injured and some blinded forever by pellet guns. In a sharp contrast to his predecessor, the new Army chief Bipin Rawat issued a stern warning to protestors in February this year.Those who obstruct our operations during encounters and are not supportive will be treated as over-ground workers of terrorists, Rawat had said.More civilians have lost their lives this year. Three of them died earlier this week in Budgams Chadoora, the highest toll of civilian in the Valley deaths this year.Senior security officials on ground say that militants are quite likely to use this situation to further widen the growing mistrust between state and the people.It is quite likely that militant activities are linked to the upcoming elections, though we have yet to observe any new pattern in their attacks. Winters had ended so we were expecting something like this. With Hurriyat also calling for election boycott and bands we can see a slight dip in voting percentages but political activities and campaigns are not getting affected at all, said a senior CRPF officer posted in Srinagar.Noor Ahmed Baba, political science professor at Kashmir University, however, begs to differ.There is very little political activity on ground this time. Everyone is scared. Elections should have ideally not been conducted in the Valley at this time. I can see vote percentages dipping well below those seen in 2014 elections.In 2014 general elections, Anantnag saw a voter turnout of 28% and Srinagar 26%.Though to Baba, the ruling coalition should have been automatically at a disadvantage, the Opposition too has been subdued this time.Recurrence of violence and degree of alienation is quite high at this time. And its not just the violence. The PDP hasnt been able to achieve much of what it promised in the manifesto in 2014 and there is a palpable anti-BJP sentiment here. Normally, this should have given enough ammo to the Opposition, but with a low voter turnout, Im not sure what theyll be able to achieve.Apart from finding out which party holds sway over others, the elections in Kashmir will also give an indication of the distance between Delhi and Kashmir. A voter turnout lower than that registered in 2014 could indicate and angrier and more isolated Kashmir.At stake in Kashmir parliamentary bypolls are not just political fortunes but, in a small way, the immediate future of Kashmir.
New Delhi: With less than a month left for the all-crucial Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) elections, a battle for the heart of Delhi, the three major parties are busy chalking out their strategies. Charged after landslide victories in Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh, the BJP is hoping to ride the momentum to win the polls for the third consecutive time. News 18s Uday Singh Rana caught up with Delhi BJP chief Manoj Tiwari, the man in-charge of scripting the saffron partys comeback, in a discussion on the upcoming civic polls.



Would you say youre confident going into the MCD polls?



I would say I am confident but not over-confident. We have started touching the lives of people from all sections of society, especially people from poor backgrounds. That has led to the peoples faith in us and we have faith in our work. People have a lot of hope from BJP and they want to give us full control of Delhi. For the last ten years, it has been the misfortune of the MCD that other parties have been in power in the state government. First Congress was in power and then it was Aam Aadmi Party (AAP). If you ask me, the MCD has been a victim of politics by Congress and AAP.



Since your elevation to the post of BJP state president, this is the first major election in Delhi. What is at stake for you and your party? You were reduced to a bad position in the 2015 elections. Will you recover?



The BJP has never been in a bad position. The other party (AAP) rode to power on false promises. Today, the people of Delhi feel cheated. You will see the result of that in this election.



The 2016 bypolls did not bring good news for you. You were reduced to third position after polling was held in 13 wards. Should that be seen as an indication of how things will go in 2017?



We need to remember something about last years bypolls. While the BJP did not manage to win most of the seats, we got the highest vote share of all the parties that contested the polls. There are many reasons why we could not convert the vote share into seats. However, the important thing is that the AAP, which had 44% vote share and 67 seats in 2015, had a much lower vote share than ours.



Delhi has faced a sever sanitation crisis recently. Over the last two years, the East Delhi Municipal Corporation (EDMC) has gone on strike five times. Arvind Kejriwal has said they have given you more money than ever before. How do you battle this anti-MCD sentiment?



Let me just inform everybody that the MCD is owed Rs 9,000 Crore by the Delhi government. Arvind Kejriwal should tell us why that money has not been paid to us yet. There are many roads in Delhi that are the responsibility of the Delhi government. If those roads are unclean, it is not the MCDs fault. I am not saying that MCD has done the best work. I am not saying MCD is perfect, but it is far better than Delhi government. MCD has been saving Delhi while AAP has been ruining it. We have built stadiums, parks and 40 new schools all over Delhi.



Delhi Congress chief Ajay Maken contends that the turf wars between AAP and BJP have stalled governance in Delhi. Congress claims that you are playing a fixed-match of sorts at the expense of the people of Delhi.



Ajay Maken has a lot of tough questions to answer. His party ruled Delhi for 15 years. Have unauthorized colonies been regularized? Why did the water-tanker mafia come up in Delhi? All of Delhis problems are created by the Congress and perpetuated by AAP. They say we are playing a fixed-match with AAP but who formed government with them in 2013? Maken Ji should think about all these questions.



You recently made a shocking announcement that none of the sitting councilors would get tickets this time. Is this an admission of anti-incumbency?



No, it is not fair to say we have admitted anything of the sort. These people (sitting councilors) have been working with us and for the people of Delhi for 10 years. They have done a good job. This year, we have taken a decision. There is a new rule that we wanted to bring out fresh faces. Many of those councilors have been given important positions in the party organization.



If this leads to infighting over ticket distribution, wont it jeopardize the partys chances?



It wont lead to infighting. These are people who believe in the values of the BJP and the party has shown faith in them. If it hadnt, they wouldnt have gotten important posts in the party organization. They will now stand with the new faces and guide them. BJP leaders dont haggle for power. Our aim is to work for Delhi and win power in both MCD and government.



So have you already started preparing for the 2020 assembly polls?



Absolutely, you can say that. The AAP wants to do politics at the expense of the people. For example, they stop the MCDs funds; they stop us from doing work. We have to start planning from now on.



The AAP announced its candidates weeks ago, giving them a head start. They have already started going from door-to-door. You have not yet announced candidates. Are you giving your candidates enough time to campaign?



Announcing candidates earlier wont change the nature of their leadership. They have fake degree holders, rapists and Hawala traders. As far as we are concerned, it is taking time because we have received over 33,000 applications for 272 wards. It takes time to sift through so many applications. Besides, we dont want any confusion. Our list will be final. AAP, on the other hand, has changed their candidates multiple times.



Arvind Kejriwal had recently raised questions on Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) after the Punjab verdict and you had attacked him. However, he never demanded that the verdict be overturned or elections held again. He simply asked that the paper trail be tallied with the EVM votes. Is that so unfair?



When a storm is coming, how does an ostrich react? It buries its head in the sand. Arvind Ji suffered a huge loss in Punjab and Goa, so I can understand why he is upset. He has to come up with some explanation for his loss, so he is inventing tales.



Recently, a video of you allegedly misbehaving with a school teacher had gone viral. Why didnt you simply apologize to the teacher so the matter could end there?



The matter had ended there itself. I had pointed out something wrong that she had done, she realized it and apologized. That was the end of it. The AAP used a selective video clip and circulated it on social media. I never took any action against her. I am the sort of person who admits his mistake instantly.



There are 272 wards in Delhi and three civic bodies. What is your prediction? How many seats will you win?



I have only one promise to make to my party. Ab ki baar, 220 paar (This time, we will cross 220). I ask the people to give Delhi to BJP and we will make it beautiful.


Caracas: Venezuela on Friday rejected accusations that a Supreme Court move to seize the powers of the opposition-majority legislature amounted to a coup, lashing out at its critics as "imperialists."



International condemnation poured in after the high court's decision late Wednesday, which effectively dissolved the legislature and tightened socialist President Nicolas Maduro's grip on power.



The United States, the European Union, the head of the Organization of American States (OAS) and a host of Latin American countries all condemned the move.



Venezuela accused its neighbors of being beholden to the United States, which Maduro accuses of plotting to oust him.



"Venezuela repudiates this onslaught by intolerant, right-wing and pro-imperialist governments in Latin America under the orders of the US State Department," the foreign ministry said in a statement.



"It is false that there has been a coup d'etat in Venezuela. On the contrary, its institutions have adopted corrective legal measures to halt the deviant, coup-mongering actions of opposition lawmakers."



Condemnation meanwhile continued to pile today. Colombia and Spain became the latest to oppose the court's move, joining Brazil, Mexico, Argentina, Peru, Chile and others.



Colombia recalled its ambassador to Venezuela, while Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy warned on Twitter that "when you break the division of powers, you break democracy."



OAS Secretary General Luis Almagro called for the regional organization's permanent council to hold crisis talks on the situation.



UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein also voiced "grave concern."



"The separation of powers is essential for democracy to function, and keeping democratic spaces open is essential to ensure human rights are protected," he said in a statement.




Beijing: For the second time in a month, China on Friday warned India of "serious damage" to bilateral ties if it allows the Dalai Lama to visit Arunachal Pradesh as Beijing asked New Delhi to honour its "political pledges" on the Tibet issue.



"We are seriously concerned about the news. On the eastern section of the China-India border, China's position is clear and consistent," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang told media here today, responding to a question on the Dalai Lama's upcoming visit to Arunachal Pradesh.



China claims Arunachal Pradesh as part of south Tibet. "The Dalai clique has long been engaging in separatist activities with inglorious record. India should be very clear with the true nature of the Dalai clique," Lu said.



"But despite this India still invited the Dalai Lama to visit the region. This will have serious damage on bilateral relations," Lu said.



The Dalai Lama will visit Arunachal Pradesh from April 4 to 13.



This is the second time this month Chinese Foreign Ministry has aired its objections to the Dalai Lama's visit to Arunachal Pradesh.



"China is gravely concerned over information that India has granted permission to the Dalai to visit Arunachal Pradesh," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang had said on March 3.



China has protested to India last year also when New Delhi cleared his visit to Arunachal Pradesh. "Such visits will have deep damage on China India relations. We have asked India to stick to its political pledges and not to hurt China-India relations. It will come

down to India to make a choice," Lu said.



"China firmly opposes the Dalai Lama carrying out any activities in the relevant region and we have expressed our concerns to the Indian side. We urge India to stick to its political statements, respect the consensus and avoid doing anything that might further complicate the matter," Lu said.



He said India should not provide any platform for the "Dalai clique and only that way can China-India relation can move forward in a sound and steady way".



"China and India are two major developing countries and we are close neighbors". It is very important for the two peoples to maintain sound and steady China India relations.



But such relationship has to be built on certain foundation," Lu said.



Last year, China also protested the visit of then American Ambassador to India Richard Verma to the area.



The India-China border dispute covers the 3,488 km long Line of Actual Control (LAC).



While China claims Arunachal Pradesh as Southern Tibet, India asserts that the dispute covered Aksai Chin area which was occupied by China during the 1962 war.
Sarajevo (Bosnia-Herzegovina): Bosnia's war crimes court has convicted a former Bosnian Serb army officer of aiding genocide over his role in the executions of Srebrenica Muslims during the country's 1992-95 war.



Ostoja Stanisic, former commander of a Bosnian Serb army battalion in the eastern village of c, was sentenced Friday to 11 years in prison for ordering soldiers under his command to guard Muslim Bosniak prisoners despite knowing that they were brought to the village to be executed.



He also ordered his soldiers to assist with burial in a mass grave of over 800 bodies of killed prisoners and with the cleaning of execution sites in and around the village.



The victims were among more than 8,000 Bosniak men and boys who were killed in and around Srebrenica in just a few days in July 1995.
Islamabad: For the first time, a high-level Russian military delegation has visited Pakistan's restive tribal region along the Afghan border to get first-hand information of the situation in the former strongholds of the militants.



The delegation yesterday visited Miranshah in North Waziristan Agency, and Wana in South Waziristan Agency, the army said.



"The delegation of the Russian army, the first ever to visit the conflict-stricken areas, was led by Deputy Chief of General Staff Col General Israkov Sergi Yuryevich," it said.



The military delegation's visit came amid growing ties between Pakistan and Russia after decades of mistrust and animosity during the Cold War.



In September, Russia held its first-ever military exercises with Pakistan and has also started selling weapons to Islamabad.



Commander Peshawar Corps Lt Gen Nazir Ahmed Butt accompanied the delegation which was briefed about Pakistan Army's efforts to clear FATA from terrorists, it said.



"The delegation acknowledged and appreciated Pakistan Army's achievements in the fight against terrorism and efforts to bring stability in the region," the army said.



It said the delegation was also briefed about the Pakistan-Afghanistan border management and socio-economic development projects in the area for enduring stability.
Brussels: US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said on Friday he would hold talks with NATO allies about "Russia's aggression in Ukraine", signalling a tougher stance toward Moscow from the Trump administration.



"We want to have a discussion around NATO's posture in Europe, most particularly in eastern Europe in response to Russia's aggression in Ukraine and elsewhere," Tillerson said upon arriving in Brussels for his first NATO talks.



Tillerson joined the talks listing the Trump administration's top priority as pushing NATO allies to meet their pledges to boost defence spending as Washington says it has borne a "disproportionate" share of the costs for too long.



State Department officials said Tillerson would work with NATO allies to press Russia to fulfil its obligations under the Minsk agreements to end the war in eastern Ukraine.



Tillerson's remarks appeared likely to ease concerns that US President Donald Trump is more interested in cultivating ties with Russian President Vladimir Putin than in shoring up the 28-nation alliance against a more assertive Moscow.



Allies have been alarmed at the prospect of Trump seeking to improve relations with the Kremlin at the expense of support for the pro-Western government in Ukraine and NATO allies in former Soviet parts of eastern Europe.



Their concerns were reinforced when Tillerson initially planned to skip the NATO meeting, citing various commitments including a trip to Russia.



But the former Exxon oil executive, who has friendly ties with Putin, agreed to attend when NATO rescheduled the meeting for today.



Russia in 2014 annexed Crimea from Ukraine and backed separatists in eastern Ukraine.



A senior NATO official told reporters on condition of anonymity that the Trump administration was now taking a more "mainstream" approach to the alliance and anxiety among allies had eased.
San Francisco: The US Justice Department on Thursday appealed a ruling by a federal judge in Hawaii extending a suspension of President Donald Trump's revised restrictions on travel from some Muslim-majority countries.



The appeal will be considered by the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, which last month upheld a suspension of Trump's first travel order.



Trump signed the revised ban earlier this month in a bid to overcome legal problems with a January executive order that caused chaos at airports and sparked mass protests before a Washington judge stopped its enforcement in February.



Trump has said the travel ban is needed for national security.



US District Judge Derrick Watson on Wednesday turned an earlier temporary restraining order into a preliminary injunction in a lawsuit brought by the state of Hawaii.



The case challenged Trump's travel directive as unconstitutional religious discrimination. Hawaii and other opponents of the ban claim it is based on Trump's election campaign promise of "a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States."



"The court will not crawl into a corner, pull the shutters closed, and pretend it has not seen what it has," Watson wrote on Wednesday.



The Justice Department on Thursday also asked a Seattle federal judge to suspend separate litigation filed by Washington state against Trump's travel restrictions until after the 9th Circuit rules on the Hawaii appeal.



In addition, the Justice Department earlier this month appealed a ruling from a Maryland judge against Trump's revised executive order. That case will be heard by the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Virginia.






New York: The United States' diplomatic policy on Syria for now is no longer focussed on making the war-torn country's president, Bashar al-Assad, leave power, the US ambassador to the United Nations said on Thursday, in a departure from the Obama administration's initial and public stance on Assad's fate.



The view of the Trump administration is also at odds with European powers, who insist Assad must step down. The shift drew a strong rebuke from at least two Republican senators.



"You pick and choose your battles and when we're looking at this, it's about changing up priorities and our priority is no longer to sit there and focus on getting Assad out," US Ambassador Nikki Haley told a small group of reporters.



"Do we think he's a hindrance? Yes. Are we going to sit there and focus on getting him out? No," she said. "What we are going to focus on is putting the pressure in there so that we can start to make a change in Syria."



In Ankara on Thursday, US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said Assad's longer-term status "will be decided by the Syrian people."



The Obama administration, in its later years, was focussed on reaching a deal with Russia that would eventually see Assad go, though it also shifted its focus to the fight against Islamic State militants, who captured swathes of territory in Iraq and Syria in 2014.



As presidential nominee, Donald Trump said defeating Islamic State was a higher priority than persuading Assad to step down.



"We can't necessarily focus on Assad the way that the previous administration did," said Haley, a former governor of South Carolina. "Our priority is to really look at how do we get things done, who do we need to work with to really make a difference for the people in Syria."



On Wednesday, Haley accused Russia, Iran and the "Assad regime" of committing war crimes. She has also said the United States supports the U.N.-led Syria peace talks, that Syria could no longer be a "safe haven for terrorists" and that it was important "we get Iran and their proxies out."



A senior Trump administration official told Reuters that Haley's remarks reflected "a measure of just realism, accepting the facts on the ground. ... Assad is never going to have sufficient force to reassert control over the whole country. ... Our focus is on defeating ISIS and al Qaeda and preventing Syria from being used as a terrorist safe haven.



But Republican Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham, in separate, strongly worded statements, denounced the shift in the US stance.



McCain, who chairs the Senate Armed Services Committee, said Tillerson's statement "overlooks the tragic reality that the Syrian people cannot decide the fate of Assad or the future of their country when they are being slaughtered" by Assad's military, Russia's air force and Iranian-backed militias.



"I hope President Trump will make clear that America will not follow this self-destructive and self-defeating path," McCain said, adding that US allies could fear a bargain with Assad and Russia "sealed with an empty promise of counterterrorism cooperation."



Graham, who like McCain is a foreign policy hawk and a member of the Armed Services Committee, said it would be a "grave mistake" to drop the removal of Assad as an objective, and would be crushing news to the Syrian opposition and US allies in the region.



In addition, leaving Assad in power is "a great reward for Russia and Iran," Graham said.



CONTRADICTORY MESSAGES



Syrian opposition member Farah al-Attasi said the State Department and the White House were sending contradictory messages on Syria and should start leading and not focus exclusively on fighting Islamic State.



Britain and France reinforced their stance on Assad earlier on Thursday.



French U.N. Ambassador Francois Delattre told reporters: "Assad is not and cannot be the future of his country."



Robert Ford, who resigned in 2014 as US ambassador to Syria over policy disagreements, said the US government's policy since late 2014 had been to focus more specifically on the fight against Islamic State as well as al Qaeda, "even if it never acknowledged that its focus on Syria had shifted."



"Ambassador Haley's remarks just confirm that the Trump administration is following the same path," said Ford, who is now a fellow at the Middle East Institute and senior fellow at Yale.



Since the uprising that led to the six-year-long civil war in Syria, the Obama administration had insisted Assad must go.



But in mid-2014 as Washington increased support to moderate rebels to fight Assad's regime, US officials privately conceded Assad was not going anywhere soon and admitted the difficulty in removing him.



By September 2015, then-Secretary of State Kerry said Assad had to go but the timing of his departure should be decided through negotiation.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement revealed Thursday two Salvadoran men have been transferred to its custody and are now held at a detainment facility in Farmville, after they were picked up by the Bedford County Sheriffs Office.

On March 28, ICE arrested 19-year-old Victor Arnoldo Rodas and 23-year-old Lisandro Posada-Vazquez, both citizens and nationals of El Salvador. They are currently detained at Farmville Detention Center in Farmville, Virginia, Carissa Cutrell, Public Affairs Officer with ICE said in an email Thursday.

According to the Bedford County Circuit and General Court websites, neither face charges in Bedford; Maj. Ricky Gardner, of Bedford County Sheriffs Office, said Thursday night he knows of no charges pending against Rodas and Posada-Vazquez.

The detainment comes amid a string of notable law enforcement activity in Bedford and Lynchburg this week, leaving anxious residents seeking answers following the death of 17-year-old Raymond Wood.

On Tuesday, Jose Coreas-Ventura, 21, believed by Maryland law enforcement to be a MS-13 gang member, was arrested by Bedford County authorities, according to a warrant of arrest for extradition. According to the FBI, criminal gang MS-13, also known as Mara Salvatrucha, is mostly made up of Salvadoran nationals or first generation Salvadoran-Americans, as well other Central and South American immigrants.

The Bedford County Sheriffs Office would not answer questions about Coreas-Venturas arrest, including if it is connected with Woods death. Online court information lists one fugitive charge for Coreas-Ventura in Bedford County courts.

Coreas-Ventura is wanted in connection to a June 17, 2016 homicide of an 18-year-old male named Cristian Antonio Villagran Morales in Montgomery, Maryland.

He is the fifth person arrested in the connection with the case.

According to a Montgomery County Police Department news release, detectives considered the homicide to be gang-related and believe that all five suspects were associated with MS-13.

The FBI website states the Southeast and Northeast are seeing the largest increase in MS-13 membership.

Stepped-up police activity in a neighborhood near Peaks View Park in Lynchburg Wednesday night has added to some residents concerns.

The Lynchburg Police Department assisted the Bedford County Sheriffs Office in executing a search warrant on an apartment in the Woodbine Village area just before 8 p.m.

Sgt. Gary Fink, with the Lynchburg Police Department, said the warrant was for 1422 Tunbridge Road, Apartment 3.

Sarah Norman, who lives with roommates close to the searched residence across Tunbridge Road, said she heard loud sirens that kept blaring just before 8 p.m. She and her roommates went outside to watch, along with many other neighbors. She described seeing two tank-like vehicles, many uniformed men surrounding the residence, hearing police dogs constantly barking and seeing handlers needing to yank their leads.

There was like 10 of the men, and they just sat there and smashed all [of] the door out and all the [window] out and then they all went inside really slowly, she said.

Norman said the investigators were in the residence 30 minutes or more, followed by other men in suits. She said no residents left the apartment.

Some neighbors noted a lack of official information on the incident.

In search of answers, Norman said she looked online into the death of 17-year-old Raymond Wood, whose body was discovered in Bedford County late Monday in what officials have announced is a homicide investigation.

Theres barely any information, like theres none about the way that they found him or his death, she said.  I was really fearful when I found out all this stuff is happening, but we dont need to be fearful, we dont need to live in fearbecause if we have that information, then I think people would be more apt to feel more safe and more comfortable.

On Thursday, the Roanoke Medical Examiner said the autopsy of Woods remains to determine cause and manner of death was complete. The office of the Chief Medical Examiner referred questions to the Bedford County Sheriffs Office, which has released no information about the death.

Speculation on the circumstances of Woods death has angered his family.

Michael Wood, who claims on his Facebook page to be the brother of Raymond Wood, said he was tired of all the rumors flying around in a post Wednesday.

In a post Thursday, he told Heritage High School students to stop sharing pictures of my brother holding drug money or smoking marijuana.
Friday is the last day of operations for the Altavista EMS department, which can no longer operate after the resignation of its medical director, an action effective as of 5 p.m. Friday.

Until the agency can find a new operational medical director, Campbell County Public Safety will be answering all calls of service in an area that includes the town of Altavista into Campbell County and parts of Pittsylvania County, and the public will see no difference in service, according to a statement from Campbell County Public Safety Director Tracy Fairchild.

Campbell County Public Information Officer Sherry Harding said the public safety department received notice of the Altavista EMS closure this week.

Altavista EMS Deputy Chief Hope Meeks, who has been a volunteer with the agency since 1990 and became a career staff member in 2010, said she learned Wednesday the agency would need to shut down.

Its not only a career thing; I cant tell you how proud I am of the staff. They will continue to run every call until 5 p.m. tomorrow, Meeks said Thursday.

Were devastated. Number one, our income is gone; number two, we love this community. Its a somber occasion.

Meeks said the closure results in 10 lost jobs. The agency has 10 full-time employees and about 30 volunteers.

The state office of EMS Division of Regulations and Compliance said it was notified a couple days ago the agencys operational medical director, Leonard Cohen, had resigned and was no longer affiliated with the agency. He has served as the medical director for more than 10 years. He is also the medical director for nearly a dozen local rescue squads and businesses.

Cohen did not respond to requests for comment Thursday.

Altavista EMS Board Chairman and acting President James Kent said they are in the process of looking for a new medical director.

We will try to get an OMD and get back to business, Kent said.

Virginia State Code requires all EMS agencies to have an operational medical director (OMD) who is a licensed physician holding endorsement as an EMS physician from the Office of EMS.

The agency has not lost their license but [it] will be temporarily suspended until they are under contract with an endorsed EMS physician, said Tristen Graves, public relations assistant with the state EMS office.

Under the existing Campbell EMS policy, calls will be routed to the next closest agency.

The county has two paid crews operating continuously in Rustburg and a third in Brookneal. It also uses two volunteer agencies  Campbell County Rescue Squad and Citizens Emergency Crew. Concord Rescue Squad utilizes both paid staff and volunteers. Altavista EMS responded to an average of 200 calls per month, Meeks said.

Campbell County Rescue Squad has stations in Timberlake and Evington. Gretna Rescue and North Halifax Fire and Rescue also are nearby and will assist with calls.

The Campbell County Department of Public Safety is and always has been committed to ensuring the health and safety of the citizens in the area that Altavista EMS serves, Fairchild said in the statement.

County Attorney David Shreve said the county has made plans to fully cover the area. In providing that service, all citizens will be served by EMS, he said.

Allan Casper, 53, who lives near the Staunton River on the Pittsylvania County side, said the agencys closing means he would get a quicker response time.

His house was under the Altavista EMS coverage area, which is 17 miles from its rescue building.

We will now be covered by North Halifax Rescue. Thats about nine miles from my home. Im actually getting an agency eight miles closer than I have, Casper said.

Almost a decade ago, Casper was captain of Altavista EMS, and he said Thursday they are a great bunch of folks.

Altavista EMS, a nonprofit organization, received $35,000 in an annual contribution from Campbell County this budget year. Because this is considered a temporary closure, the board plans to hold onto its equipment and donations for the time being, Kent said.

Altavista EMS operates separately from the county and uses a different medical framework, rate structure and billing system. Their fees are used for any transports from the Altavista area or if an Altavista crew responds to a call in a different part of the county.
Con artists and their easy marks

There can be no doubt but that Ryancare/Trumpcare (whose main feature was a sizable tax cut for the wealthy) has been a huge fiasco. If we are smart, and I realize that that is an issue worthy of debate, we will learn from this royal mess so that it doesnt happen again.

What lessons can we take from this situation?

 For about 20 years, Republicans in Congress (con artists) have promised their voters (suckers) the moon. Yet, year after year, they have delivered only for their special interests (corporations and the extremely wealthy) while thousands of their supporters in Central Virginia and elsewhere get nothing.

 Republicans in Congress not only do not know how to govern responsibly but they also fail to demonstrate any ability to craft reasonable legislation. They had seven years in which to develop a plan, but they have shown that they couldnt. Ryancare could have been crafted by a group of average high school students.

 President Trump has maintained his stellar record of being our Liar-In-Chief. While he promised that his plan would not touch Medicare and Medicaid and that everybody would have health insurance, he broke these promises in no time flat.

 Regarding our area representatives, Bob Goodlatte and Tom Garrett, it is criminal, cruel, and downright evil of them to either support Ryancare/Trumpcare or believe that it was not sufficiently draconian. These gentlemen, who have such a high regard for human life, have no qualms whatsoever about denying health insurance to people and sending people to their deaths due to the lack of adequate medical care, even those voters who supported them. Why do they feel that health care is a privilege? When partisan ideology trumps the countrys best interests, we need to elect new representatives.

Now I know that all you Republican supporters out there will not change your opinions and that you will continue to vote for Goodlatte and Garrett. However, if its any consolation, at least it can be said that you are willing suckers. And a willing sucker is a happy sucker.

CHRISTOPHER MILLSON-MARTULA

Altavista

Davis for lieutenant governor

As a student of Liberty University, I am constantly exposed to the world of politics. I have had the privilege to hear some truly incredible speakers at our weekly convocation. All of the speakers are great, but so far the only one who as stood out from among the rest is Del. Glenn Davis, whos running to be the Republican nominee for lieutenant governor.

When most politicians speak, their speeches quickly go downhill turning into a long list of why their opposition is terrible and we should vote for them over their opponent. However, Davis simply shared his life story. He did not sink to the level of immaturity that most politicians are stuck at. He spoke with respect and confidence. He candidly shared how his family came seeking the American Dream and found it. I was so moved with is elegance in storytelling I was ready to cast my vote then and there.

Davis is an honest and hardworking man who has the peoples interests in his heart. It is encouraging to see men like him in our government.

ANDREW BLACKMORE

Lynchburg
Revisit the founding of the JSA and foreshadow its future in The New Golden Age #1 preview

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UWI books finalists for Foreword Indies Award

The titles are The First Black Slave Society: Britains Barbarity Time in Barbados, 1636-1876 by Hilary McD. Beckles; Tell My Mother I Gone To Cuba: Stories of Early Twentieth-Century Migration from Barbados by Sharon Milagro Marshall; and The UWI Gender Journey: Recollections and Reflections by Joycelin Massiah, Elsa Leo-Rhynie and Barbara Bailey .

Foreword Reviews is an independent media company that hosts its annual awards programme as part of its mission to discover, review and share the best books from small, university, and indie publishers (and authors). Finalists represent the best books published in 2016 based on reviews from Forewords editors of over 2,200 individual titles spread across 65 categories, said a media release Choosing finalists for the Indies is always the highlight of our year, but the choice was more difficult this time around due to the high quality of submissions, Victoria Sutherland, publisher of Foreword Reviews said in the release .

Each new book award season proves again how independent publishers are the real innovators in the industry. According to Joseph B Powell, general manager of the UWI Press, These books represent important social issues and also symbolise the type of publishing that we at UWI Press want to encourage and foster for public discourse. Indies finalists move on to final judging by an expert panel of librarians and booksellers selected specifically for each genre .

The judges determine which books will be awarded Foreword Indies Book of the Year in each category .

Winners in each genre, along with Editors Choice winners and Forewords Indies Publisher of the Year, will be announced during the 2017 American Library Association Annual Conference in Chicago on June 24 .
Being fired, like a death sentence

He spoke on Wednesday at a seminar organised by the Employers Solution Centre, a division of the Employers Consultative Association (ECA), at the Trinidad Hilton, St Anns.

Rousseau said another issue that would arise when the matter reaches the Industrial Court was whether charges listed in the dismissal letter were sufficient to warrant dismissal. He said it was one thing to find a worker guilty but there is an emerging view in industrial relations that the length of an employees service should be considered when deciding on disciplinary action.

The seminar was one in the ECAs series on Landmark Court Judgements and its theme was, Compensation for Emotional Distress. Rousseau said wherever possible, companies should have an investigation as well as a properly organised disciplinary hearing. He said the two are not interchangeable and in many instances where the Industrial Court has found that the dismissal of the worker was harsh, oppressive and contrary to the principles and practices of good industrial relations, it was in the absence of such hearings and where there were procedural errors.

He stressed that another important factor was the issue of the right of the worker to be heard before disciplinary action was taken, delighting the audience of industrial- relations practitioners with the biblical story of Cain and Abel.

He said even God, who knew everything and knew that Cain was guilty, nevertheless asked him for an explanation of why he had killed his brother Abel, before passing sentence.

The seminar examined the case of Dr Jacqueline Shafe, who was dismissed as a specialist medical officer with the North West Regional Health Authority on March 21, 2011. The matter was taken to the Industrial Court by the Banking Insurance and General Workers Union.

Industrial relations officers at the seminar heard presentations from attorney Keith Scotland, who represented the union in the matter; Senior Counsel Seenath Jairam; Rousseau; attorney Newton George and attorney and industrial-relations consultant Aisha Kujifi.
PoS pays tribute to Monica Randoo

He said Randoo understood the capital city more than even its custodians as a mystical place, sacred and powerful, and that she also understood forces at work in the cosmos. The council observed a minute of silence for Randoo and two members of staff of the corporation who died recently.

Deputy Mayor Hillan Morean chaired the meeting as Mayor Joel Martinez is visiting Sao Paolo, Brazil on council business. Also present was Minister of Local Government Kazim Hosein, councillors from the Sangre Grande Regional Corporation led by chairman Terry Rondon, Tunapuna/Piarco Regional Corporation councillor Aaron Thomas, and former Port of Spain mayor Murchison Brown.

Hosein advised councillors to always stay humble and to sacrifice towards betterment.
Tom Brady Just Became

First NFL Player to Do This
The New Yorker casts a light on an unusual malady in Sweden known as uppgivenhetssyndrom, or resignation syndrome. It's unique not only to Sweden but to a particular group: the children of immigrants. The syndrome plays out like this: The kids learn their family is being deported and fall into a coma-like state, with the typical patient described in one medical journal as totally passive, immobile, lacks tonus, withdrawn, mute, unable to eat and drink, incontinent and not reacting to physical stimuli or pain. It can last weeks, months, and in a few cases, for four years. Cases began cropping up about a dozen years ago, around the time the nation tightened its definition of political refugees. In fact, children tend to come out of it only if their families are granted permission to stayand, bringing things full circle, the Migration Board sometimes allows families to stay because a child is suffering from the syndrome.

So what's going on? While the physical ailments have been authenticated by medical professionals, the story by Rachel Aviv questions whether the power of suggestion and perhaps something akin to national guilt are factors. Aviv follows one leading specialist, Dr. Elisabeth Hultcrantz, as she visits patients and finds that the doctor "seems to inadvertently reinforce their symptoms." Hultcrantz, for example, encourages families to get feeding tubes quickly when a child begins exhibiting symptoms, the better to make an impression on immigration officials. She's like an old-school "medicine man" in that sense, with "the authority to shape peoples beliefs about their own biology," writes Aviv. It results in "a nocebo effect: the families expect that unless they are granted residencythe only medicinetheir children will waste away." Click to read the full story. (Read more Sweden stories.)
Congress has decided Americans' web browsing history isn't private, so Americans are now trying to turn the tables on Congress. Per the Washington Post, hundreds of thousands of dollars have been raised via various crowdfunding effortsincluding more than $73,000 by Supernatural star Misha Collins and more than $173,000 by a Tennessee "privacy activist"to buy browsing data for President Trump and members of Congress who voted for SJR34. As CNET notes, even Cards Against Humanity co-creator Max Temkin got into the act, tweeting on Monday: "If this s--- passes I will buy the browser history of every congressman and congressional aide and publish it." But some say everyone should hold off on writing a check. First, Trump still hasn't officially signed off on the bill (though he's expected to) that would keep things status quo, making such data free game for ISPs.

But also, per the Verge and Heavy.com, sharing individual browsing histories isn't legal except in rare cases, though sharing aggregate customer data is (and some worry these rules could one day be loosened). Taylor Hatmaker also writes for TechCrunch the crowdfunding efforts are "hypocritical," considering everyone's ostensible concern for privacy. Quartz notes even Temkin is walking things back, noting the bill hasn't been signed (he's now "skeptical" of any current GoFundMe efforts) and that it will be difficult to acquire Congress' web-browsing history even if the bill is signed. He asks people to donate for now to the Electronic Frontier Foundation. "If and when any data becomes available, myself and Cards Against Humanity will do whatever we can do [to] acquire it and publish it," reads his Reddit postwhich still doesn't seem to sync with current legalities. (One tip: Use a VPN.)
A tractor-trailer carrying 75,000 pounds of mulch struck and killed two children who ran into the road to meet their approaching school bus in Virginia on Thursday, state police said. State police spokesperson Corinne Geller said six children were standing at the bus stop on a private road off US Route 15 in Dillwyn when two of them saw their bus approaching and ran across the northbound lanes, the AP reports. Geller said the tractor-trailer was traveling northbound at the time; the driver was coming down a hill and tried to stop but struck the children. Police say the children died at the scene. They were identified as 5-year-old Tori Perez and 6-year-old Jaiden Bartee. Geller said no charges will be brought against the truck driver.

The school bus had its yellow lights flashing but hadn't come to a complete stop when the children ran across the road, Geller said. She said the school bus driver motioned to the children to try to get them to go back to the side of the road. Sabrina Green, Perez's mother, told the Richmond-Times Dispatch that she ran to the scene after hearing the crash. Green said Perez was lying on the side of the road and Bartee was under the truck. The newspaper reports that the two were cousins. Buckingham County Public Schools superintendent Cecil Snead said grief counseling will be available to help students and employees process the tragedy. Snead would not provide any further details about the children or the incident. "All I'm asking is everyone keep Buckingham in your prayers in the upcoming days," he said. (Read more school bus stories.)
"This is about as serious a transportation crisis as we can imagine," Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed said Thursday night after a massive fire caused an elevated section of Interstate 85 to collapse. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution sees a "traffic mess" for Friday and the foreseeable future, with alternate routes quickly clogging in the aftermath. The interstate carries an estimated 250,000 cars a day in both directions, and there's no word on when it might reopen, notes the AP. Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal declared an emergency as firefighters extinguished the huge blaze, which does not appear to have caused any deaths or injuries, reports WSB-TV. The cause of the blaze is unknown, but "the speculation I've heard is that there are some PVC products that caught fire," Deal says. Officials say there is no indication that the blaze is connected to terrorism.

The fire burned for at least an hour after starting around 6:30pm on the highway, which is a major north-south thoroughfare for Atlanta and the whole Southeast. Atlanta Fire Department spokesman Cortez Stafford says a crew returning from another fire spotted smoke coming from under I-85. Soon, "there was a 40-feet or higher wall of fire. Power lines were falling and arcing heavily and falling in the street," he tells CNN. Firefighters managed to shut the highway down and got out of the way just before a bridge section up to 100 feet long collapsed. Transportation authorities were scrambling to put together alternate routes for drivers, while encouraging them to carpool and take mass transit. (Read more Atlanta stories.)
Investigators haven't gone public with any new info about Sherri Papini's alleged kidnapping since Nov. 30but the Sacramento Bee has done some digging. After filing several California Public Records Act requests, it obtained a December 2003 police report that's just two sentences long. What it says: Papini's mother called the Shasta County Sheriffs Office claiming Papini, then 21, was harming herself but blaming her mother for the injuries. The report doesn't specify if that was found to be true, and a rep for the department says Papini's mother was given advice in a phone call at the time. The Bee is careful to note that the official police line remains that there is no indication her abduction was a hoax, but the paper quotes a criminology professor as saying while the report is no smoking gun, "it makes her story even more suspicious."

It's not the only incident report connected to Papini. Her father in 2003 told police that his daughter had withdrawn funds from his bank account. Three years earlier, he had said she also burglarized his home, while Papini's sister suspected Papini had kicked in her back door. Authorities say they followed up on each report and no charges were laid, per People. "This really doesn't have any bearing on her case," says Lt. Pat Kropholler, noting the alleged withdrawals were the result of a simple misunderstanding. Though Papini's husband has described her harrowing ordeal, authorities have revealed little about Papini's disappearance on Nov. 2, citing an ongoing investigation. The California mom was found on a roadside on Thanksgiving, claiming she'd been taken at gunpoint by two Hispanic women, who have not been found. (Read more Sherri Papini stories.)
Israel's government approved the first West Bank settlement in two decades Thursday, creating the first serious test for President Trump's new foray into Middle East peacemaking. The White House pointedly avoided any specific condemnation of the announcement, although it said that further settlement activity "does not help advance peace" and that it expects Israel to show restraint moving forward. Still, the relatively tepid response was a far cry from the automatic condemnations voiced by the Obama administration in reaction to Israeli settlement announcements, the AP reports.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office announced the decision late Thursday following a meeting of his policy making Security Cabinet. Netanyahu has vowed to build a new settlement to compensate the residents of Amona, an illegal settler outpost that was demolished in February under the orders of Israel's Supreme Court. Israel has not built a full-fledged new settlement since the 1990s. Instead, construction during that period has expanded existing settlements or taken place in unauthorized outposts like Amona. (Read more West Bank settlements stories.)
Elizabeth Marie Rodriguez says she knows that a home burglary she's accused of taking part in earlier this week was "stupid" and "wrong"and she doesn't blame a 23-year-old Oklahoma man for killing three of her alleged partners at the scene of that crime, ABC News reports. The 21-year-old is accused of being the getaway driver for the Broken Arrow break-in on Monday, which resulted in the deaths of 19-year-old Maxwell Cook, 17-year-old Jacob Redfearn (spelled Redfern in some reports), and 16-year-old Jaykob Woodruff. The shooter: Zachary Peters, the son of the homeowner who opened fire on the three teens with an AR-15 rifle. He has not been charged, and authorities say his actions may fall under the state's "stand your ground" law.

Heavy.com has audio of the 911 call Peters made after he turned his gun on the suspects. "I shot two of them and now I'm barricaded in my bedroom," he says. "You need to get here now." Rodriguez, who fled the scene but later turned herself in, says that she was the one who picked which house to burglarize and that she gets why Peters had to use his weapon. "I don't blame him. ... I understand why he did what he did  to an extent," she told ABC from jail. A friend of the four suspects says Rodriguezwho Wagoner County Deputy Nick Mahoney said chose Peters' home because she thought it would have cash and other pricey items, per the Tulsa Worldcalled him in a panic after the shooting, saying she'd thought the home would be empty and "freaked out" and sped away after she heard gunshots inside. (Read more Oklahoma stories.)
Japan's annual Antarctic whale hunt killed 333 whales this year, the AFP reports. The five-ship whaling fleet set out in November and returned to port Friday with the minke whale carcasses. The country's Fisheries Agency says the mission was necessary for "research for the purpose of studying the ecological system in the Antarctic Sea," but critics say Japan is simply hunting whales for meat, even though the practice of eating whale meat has dropped off sharply in the country. Environmentalists and animal rights groups are once again calling for an end to the whaling practice.

Japan is a signatory to the International Whaling Commission, which put a moratorium on hunting whales starting in 1986, but Tokyo claims that because whales are allowed to be killed for scientific research purposes, its hunts are legit; the country justifies the consumption of whale meat by explaining that the meat is simply a byproduct of the research and must be used. An International Court of Justice ruling ordered Tokyo to end the practice, leading to Japan killing no whales in the 2014-15 season, but 333 whales were killed during the 2015-16 season after Japan "re-tooled" the program, per Reuters. The EU has officially come out against Japan's whale hunt, and the US Congress is preparing a resolution calling for its end, reports the Telegraph. (Read more whaling stories.)
How do you sell people on the world's "most pointless artist"? That's a problem to be worked out by Borg & Owilli's next account manager. The Swedish marketing agency is looking to fill the post and has come up with a test for applicants: "Sell us James Blunt," or more specifically, "convince the entire office that James Blunt's new album should be played through the speakers on repeat," the job ad reads, per the Local. Partner David Borg explains that the stunt speaks to the challenges of the job: "The key to success is to sell his pointless emptiness as really being deep poetry," he says. "That wont be easy." Blunt, it should be noted, has a sense of humor about his reputationhe apologized for the song "Beautiful" being overplayed, and sends out tweets likes this. (Read more James Blunt stories.)
Even the FBI chief struggles with online privacy. After James Comey mentioned during a speech that he had a secret Twitter account, Ashley Feinberg of Gizmodo did some internet sleuthing and appears to have found it. Behold: https://twitter.com/projectexile7. It took her all of four hours. Oh, and she appears to have found his secret Instagram account, too. Feinberg lays out the breadcrumbs she followed: Comey mentioned during a speech that he had private Twitter and Instagram accounts, and he dropped an inadvertent clue: He said the Instagram account had nine followers. From there, Feinberg searched for social media accounts of friends and family and eventually found son Brien's Instagram account. (Telltale clue: Someone offered congratulations when his dad got the FBI post.) One of Brien's followers was Reinhold Niebuhr, with nine followers of his own.

Could it be? Feinberg discovered through a Google search that Comey wrote his senior thesis in college on theologian Niebuhr. From there, she searched Twitter user names that used Neibuhr and found the account believed to be Comey's. It has "Project Exile" in its handle, which is the name of a federal program Comey developed as a federal attorney. There are no bombshells to be had in the account itself, which follows 27 others, mostly reporters. It had only one follower when Feinberg found itBenjamin Wittes of the Lawfare blog, who happens to be a personal friend of Comey's. The FBI politely declined comment. A blogger at Motherboard notes that Comey made several mistakes if he truly wanted to keep his accounts private, including using names that provided clues to his identity. "Compartmentation" is key, writes Joseph Cox. (Read more James Comey stories.)
A judge on Friday approved an agreement for President Donald Trump to pay $25 million to settle lawsuits over his now-defunct Trump University, ending nearly seven years of legal battles with customers who claimed they were misled by failed promises to teach success in real estate. US District Judge Gonzalo Curiel's ruling settles two class-action lawsuits and a civil lawsuit by New York AG Eric Schneiderman, the AP reports. Trump had vowed never to settle but said after the election he didn't have time for a trial, even though he believed he would've prevailed. Under terms of the settlement, he admits no wrongdoing. The lawsuits alleged that Trump University gave nationwide seminars that were like infomercials, constantly pressuring people to spend more and, in the end, failing to deliver.

Attorneys for ex-customers have said their clients will get at least 90% of their money back, based on the roughly 3,730 claims submitted. The Trump U case dogged the GOP businessman throughout the campaign as rivals used it to portray him as dishonest and deceitful. Trump brought more attention by repeatedly assailing Curiel, insinuating the Indiana-born judge's Mexican heritage exposed a bias. The judge rejected requests by two ex-students who objected to the settlement. Court docs unsealed last year revealed strategies for enticing people to enroll even if they couldn't afford it, outlining how employees should guide people through "the roller coaster of emotions" and telling employees to be "very aggressive." Trump acknowledged in depositions that he played on people's fantasies and couldn't recall names of employees, despite saying he'd hand-picked them. The White House didn't immediately respond to a request for comment on the ruling. (Read more Trump University stories.)
A new study reveals that cats love humans than food. The cats prefer human interaction and are more interested in it than their food.

According to a report, scientists from Oregon State University examined cats' behavior when given a choice of stimuli. These cats used in the study were given different choices. They had to choose between food, toys, scent, and social interaction with humans.

The study revealed that most of the preferences for the sheltered cats and the pets were social interaction with humans. The results also indicated that food was the second choice. It seems that cats love their owner.

A report indicated that 50 percent of the cats chose human interaction. The study has recently been published in the journal Behavioural Processes. The researchers noted that the preferences may have been due to the cat's breed or how the pets were raised.

Cats were known to be unloving and unresponsive to human interaction. However, this new study may change the way cats are being looked at. It can be a possibility that the felines can be trained in the future.

Meanwhile, it is reported that domestic cats have more human interaction. The belief that cats do not interact may be because one does not know what stimuli cats prefer. This study is the latest one done in order to see cats on a different level.

The researchers hope that this study will help cat owners train their pets. It is likely that if cats are being trained and loved just the way that the dogs are treated, then it may be that cats will be more loyal to the human.

Dogs have always been the preferred pet by many. There are cat lovers also and this study will be useful in order to treat and train the pet cats for them to get used to more human interaction.
A recent report confirmed that the opioid epidemic was taking the life of a significant number of Americans from 1999. It has estimated that the overdose of opioid has taken the lives of as many as 183,000 people, mostly white-Americans, from 1999 to 2015. Now, President Donald Trump wanted a control on it and appointed Gov. Chris Christie to fight the crisis.

The study published by economists Angus Deaton and Anne Case last week showed the relation between overdose of opioid and death rate of the whites without any college graduation, in the recent years. It was a case that was not very common before 1990, then how is there a sudden change in the stream that took place especially after 2000?. The answer lies with some of the major drug firms, and their profits over the years by selling potentially addictive painkillers to the customers would tell the complete story. It is reported that one such drug called OxyContin from Purdue Pharma accrued $35 billion revenue from 1995 - the year the product came to market.

The success of the OxyContin has encouraged Purdue to come with similar kind of drugs, and even other pharma firms came with the same type of drugs. Though there were prosecutions by Justice Department in 2007, only three top executives were found guilty and fined for it. But, none of the Sackler family members, the owning family of the pharma firm, was found guilty or prosecuted. There were questions raised then, why such a drug with false marketing was allowed by FDA for more than ten years, but it was not answered.

Gov. Chris Christie of R-N.J would chair a special inquiry and action commission on the abuse. The panel would come under the Office of American Innovation - a new White House Office. Christie said the panel would look for options to fight for anti-addiction and will assist Center for Disease Control.
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New Delhi:

March 31 is the last day of discounts offered by major motorcycles firms like Hero MotoCorp, HMSI, Bajaj Auto, TVS, Honda Motorcycle, Scooter India and Suzuki Motorcycle up to Rs 22,000 on BS-III models to liquidate stocks.

In its order on March 29, the Supreme Court banned sales and registration of BS-III vehicles and observed that the health of people is "far, far more important" than the commercial interest of manufacturers.

With 6.71 lakh two-wheelers, out of over 8 lakh BS-III vehicles impacted by the ban, dealers said the immediate effort is to sell as many units as possible before the deadline by offering "unheard of discounts" in the industry.

Two and three wheeler major TVS Motor has joined other manufacturers in offering discounts on BS III models to liquidate stocks.

The company has announced discounts "upto Rs 20,150" across its models in BS III variants which is valid for one day (March 31,2017), company sources said.

Hero MotoCorp and Honda Motorcycle and Scooter India had earlier announced discounts of upto Rs 12,500 on BS III models following the Supreme Court order.

Also read: SC ban on BS3 vehicles: What is BS-III, BS-IV? All you need to know about emission norms

TVS Motor Company has asked its over 4,000 dealers to strictly comply with the Supreme Court order banning on BS III vehicles from April 1 and asked dealers to sell all the remaining stock of such vehicles before March 31.

The company is a responsible corporate citizen and is fully supportive of a better environment for its customers, and society at large, it added.

The Chennai-based company said it is fully geared up to meet the new emission guidelines and had already commenced manufacture and sale of BS IV compliant vehicles to the dealers.

The automobile firms have declined to take "sufficient pro-active steps" despite being fully aware that they would be required to manufacture only BS-IV compliant vehicles from April one, 2017, the apex court had said.

Honda Motorcycle and Scooter India (HMSI), which had initially offered a flat discount of Rs 10,000 on its BS-III scooters and motorcycles increased it to Rs 22,000 later in the day.

The company said it is offering cash back offer of Rs 22,000 on its BS-III scooters and motorcycles models Activa 3G (priced Rs 50,290), Dream Yuga (Rs 51,741), CB Shine (Rs 55,799 to Rs 61,283) and CD 110DX (Rs 47,202 to Rs 47,494).

Market leader Hero MotoCorp offered discounts of up to Rs 12,500 on its BS-III two-wheelers.

Also read: We respect SC verdict, will see if some legal recourse can be taken to help automakers: Nitin Gadkari on BS-III ban

According to dealers, the company is offering rebate of Rs 12,500 on its scooters, Rs 7,500 on premium bikes and Rs 5,000 on entry level mass market motorcycles.

The models on which discounts are offered include scooters Duet (priced Rs 49,480) and Maestro Edge (Rs 51,030), motorcycles Glamour (Rs 59,755) and Splendor 125 (Rs 55,575).

Another two-wheeler maker Suzuki Motorcycle India also announced offers on its Let's scooter and Gixxer motorcycle.

On the scooter, Let's priced (Rs 47,272 to Rs 53,766), the company offered a discount of Rs 4,000 plus a free helmet, while on Gixxer (Rs 77,452 to Rs 90,421) the benefit is up to Rs 5,000 with exchange benefits of up to Rs 2,000. All prices are ex-showroom Delhi.

Bajaj Auto also offered discounts and free insurance on its different models, starting from the entry level Platina to Pulsar RS200 in the range of Rs 3,000 to Rs 12,000 along with free insurance.

"If there are any unsold inventory left, we have the possibility to export as we are a big exporter to around 70 countries across the world," Bajaj Auto President (Business Development & Assurance) S Ravikumar told PTI.

The companies said the offer will be valid till stocks last or up to March 31.

"These are unheard of discounts ever in the two-wheeler industry," Federation of Automobile Dealers (FADA) past president and Director-International Affairs Nikunj Sanghi said.

When asked about what actions were dealers taking following the apex court verdict, he said: "Our energy is focused on selling as much stock as possible before the deadline. Our people are calling up potential customers informing them about the offers."

He said the dealership community was hoping for some relief from the court in the form of more time to sell their stocks but with that not happening, the focus has shifted to liquidating the stocks.

Afterwards, it will have to be discussed with the manufacturers what to do with the unsold inventories, if at all any are left, he added. On the commercial vehicles front, Ashok Leyland said it wasn't offering discounts on any of its vehicles.

"Our products are in good demand and we will not be offering any price discounts," a company spokesperson said. Mahindra & Mahindra said it is working on various options to work within the framework provided by the court order.

It is "even trying to liquidate as much of the company's and its dealers' BS III inventory as possible by March 31, 2017 and will make every attempt to minimise the one time impact of this order on the company's financials", without sharing details of the steps.

Comments from Tata Motors could not be obtained.

Observing on Thursday that health of the people is "far, far more important" than the commercial interests of the manufacturers, the Supreme

Court said that automobile firms have declined to take "sufficient pro-active steps" despite being fully aware that they would be required to manufacture only BS-IV compliant vehicles from April 1, 2017.

(With inputs from PTI)

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New Delhi:

New Delhi: Following Supreme court order to ban the sale and registration of BS III vehicles from April one, two-wheeler manufacturers like Hero MotoCorp, HMSI, Bajaj Auto, Suzuki Motorcycle, TVS Motor and superbike brands like Ducati and Triumph are offering heavy discounts on BS-III complaint models to liquidate stocks. Heavy sales and huge discounts on two-wheelers are awaiting for you.



With 6.71 lakh two-wheelers out of over 8 lakh BS-III vehicles impacted by the ban, dealers said the immediate effort is to sell as many units as possible before the deadline.



Honda Motorcycle and Scooter India (HMSI), which had initially offered a flat discount of Rs 10,000 on its BS-III scooters and motorcycles increased it to Rs 22,000 later.

Also Read : We respect SC verdict, will see if some legal recourse can be taken to help automakers: Nitin Gadkari on BS-III ban



The company said it is offering cash back offer of Rs 22,000 on its BS-III scooters and motorcycle models naming Activa 3G (priced Rs 50,290), Dream Yuga (Rs 51,741), CB Shine (Rs 55,799 to Rs 61,283) and CD 110DX (Rs 47,202 to Rs 47,494).



Market leader Hero MotoCorp offered discounts of up to Rs 12,500 on its BS-III two-wheelers. According to dealers, the company is offering rebate of Rs 12,500 on its scooters, Rs 7,500 on premium bikes and Rs 5,000 on entry level mass market motorcycles. The models include Duet (priced Rs 49,480) and Maestro Edge (Rs 51,030), motorcycles Glamour (Rs 59,755) and Splendor 125 (Rs 55,575).



Another two-wheeler maker Suzuki Motorcycle India also announced offers on its Let's scooter priced (Rs 47,272 to Rs 53,766) also offered a discount of Rs 4,000 plus a free helmet, while on Gixxer (Rs 77,452 to Rs 90,421) the benefit is up to Rs 5,000 with exchange benefits of up to Rs 2,000.



Bajaj Auto also offered discounts and free insurance on its different models, starting from the entry level Platina to Pulsar RS200 in the range of Rs 3,000 to Rs 12,000 along with free insurance.



Superbike brands such as Ducati and Triumph are also offering heavy discounts, up to almost Rs 2 lakh discount on certain models which are not BS IV compliant. The most discounts are being offered on cruisers from Triumph in Mumbai - a whopping Rs 3 lakh discount on the cruiser range which includes the Triumph Thunderbird Storm, Triumph Thunderbird LT and Triumph Rocket III.



The Mumbai Triumph dealership is also offering Rs 1 lakh off on the BS 3 supersport Daytona. In Delhi, Triumph's best-selling adventure bike, the Triumph Tiger 800 XR is being offered at Rs 80,000 discount, with an additional Rs 66,000 worth of accessories thrown in. The Triumph Tiger 800 XCx is also being offered at a discount of Rs 60,000. The Triumph Daytona is also being offered at discounted rates, with Rs 90,000 off on the ex-showroom price.



Ducati dealers are also in a rush to clear out existing stock of motorcycles by before the new emission regulations come into effect. The maximum discount is being offered on the Ducati Monster 821 (Rs 2.7 lakh). Ducati Mumbai is offering the Monster 821 at an on-road price of Rs 11 lakh, down from Rs 13.7 lakh.

The Ducati Scrambler Urban Enduro is also being offered at Rs 2.5 lakh discount, and is now available at Rs 8.3 lakh (on-road Mumbai), down from Rs 10.8 lakh (on-road Mumbai). The base Ducati Scrambler Icon is already sold out after the discounts were announced.In Delhi too, the Ducati dealership is offering a massive Rs 2 lakh discount on the Ducati Diavel, which now costs Rs 15.7 lakh (ex-showroom Delhi). The Ducati Scrambler Urban Enduro is being offered at Rs 6.8 lakh (ex-showroom Delhi), at a discount of Rs 1.7 lakh.



Harley-Davidson is offering over Rs 30,000 discount on its most popular model - the Harley-Davidson Street 750. The other Harley bikes, dealers say are all BS IV compliant.



"If there are any unsold inventory left, we have the possibility to export as we are a big exporter to around 70 countries across the world," Bajaj Auto President (Business Development & Assurance) S Ravikumar told.



The companies said the offer will be valid till stocks last or up to .



However, due to the huge rush following the discounts, 2-wheelers in many showrooms have been sold out.



"These are unheard of discounts ever in the two-wheeler industry," Federation of Automobile Dealers (FADA) past president and Director-International Affairs Nikunj Sanghi said.



When asked about what actions were dealers taking following the apex court verdict, he said: "Our energy is focused on selling as much stock as possible till 31st March. Our people are calling up potential customers informing them about the offers."

Also Read : Supreme Court reserves verdict on plea seeking ban on BS III vehicles from April 1



Dealer sources also say that in many geographies, particularly non-metros, the RTOs have offered the dealers an option to prepare the invoice and pay taxes on the unsold stock and fill up customer details over the next one week.



Two-wheeler marketers including Hero Motocorp, TVS, Bajaj say that the stock that remains unsold or stuck at factory gates may be exported to markets where BS-III vehicles are legally roadworthy.



On the commercial vehicles front, Ashok Leyland said it wasn't offering discounts on any of its vehicles. "Our products are in good demand and we will not be offering any price discounts," a company spokesperson said.



Mahindra & Mahindra said it is working on various options to work within the framework provided by the court order. Observing that health of the people is "far, far more important" than the commercial interests of the manufacturers, the Supreme Court said that automobile firms have declined to take "sufficient pro-active steps" despite being fully aware that they would be required to manufacture only BS-IV compliant vehicles from .



(With PTI inputs)
New Delhi:

In connection with fake UGC notice to JNU for the closure of schemes for the study of social exclusion on a complaint by the body a case has been registered, police said on Thursday.



Delhi Police will probe who sent the forged letter ordering closure of JNU's Centre for the Study ofDiscrimination and Exclusion, a senior police officer said.

Also Read: Income-Tax dept offices to accept declaration under PMGKY till March 31 midnight

After the letter surfaced, the University GrantsCommission conducted an internal inquiry and it was found that the letter has forged signature and was faxed from somewhere in Mumbai, he said. However, the Commission doesn't have any center inMumbai. It is being probed from which number the letter was faxed, said the officer.
New Delhi:

National Building Construction Corporation is going to sign an agreement to provide funds for renovating Delhi's Purana Qila under its CSR activities.

NBCC will provide up to Rs 14.35 crore in phases over the next five years for conservation and development of the fort.

The Archaeological Survey of India (ASI), National Culture Fund (NCF) and NBCC on Friday inked a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for the purpose, an official release said.

The funds will be provided under NBCCs Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) initiatives.
New Delhi:

Four plays themed on nationalism were not allowed to be performed during the Ramjas College's annual street play fest on Friday. While the members of Ramjas' drama society claim the college administration decided to cancel the plays as their subjects were "sensitive", the principal maintained it was students' decision and not the authorities'.



The drama society's annual street play festival 'Mukhatib' also witnessed silent protest by Ramjas' students who wore black hand bands and sealed their mouths with black tapes protesting against the cancellation of the plays.



The cancelled performances are: SGTB Khalsa college's play 'Trump Card', Dyal Singh college's 'Jokistaan'; Guru Gobind Singh College of Commerce's 'sawal to uthega (questions will be raised)'; and Gargi College's 'Main, Kashmir aur aap? Main Manipur' (I'm Kashmir, and you? I'm Manipur).



"Seven teams were scheduled to take part in the street play festival and perform on their respective subjects. However, our administration asked us to present the scripts to them, which has never happened before.



"After presenting the scripts, we were asked to cancel performances of four plays as their subject was related to nationalism, freedom of speech and the evergreen issue of Kashmir," a member of the drama society said on the condition of anonymity.



College principal PC Tulsiyan said it was student's decision to cancel the plays. "The administration did not cancel the plays but Ramjas students who are members of the drama society did it themselves. We had just advised them to not include anything which may hamper the peaceful atmosphere at the college," he said.



From the three teams that were allowed to participate, Lady Shri Ram college refused to perform in protest against the decision while Miranda House and Kirori Mal college went ahead with their performances "Hadsa-e-paidaish" and "The Accidental Death of an Anarchist" respectively.



Ramjas College had last month witnessed large-scale clashes between members of Left-affiliated All India Students Association (AISA) and RSS-backed Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) members and its supporters.



The clashes took place after an invite to JNU students Umar Khalid and Shehla Rashid to address a seminar titled 'Culture of Protests' was withdrawn by the college authorities following ABVP's opposition.
New Delhi:

Bollywood actor Deepak Tijori made it to the headlines after he was thrown out his Goregaon house by his wife Shivani.

The actor, who is known for his role in Aamir Khan's superhit movie 'Jo Jeeta Wahi Sikander, reportedly had a fallout with wife post which Shivani kicked him out of the house and even filed a divorce petition against him.

As per the media reports, the couple had an argument over Deepak's alleged extra-marital affair.

"Shivani suspects that Deepak is having an affair with a yoga instructor, who is much younger than him," a source reportedly told a web portal.

Reportedly, Shivani has filed for maintenance under 125 CrPC (Code of Criminal Procedure) saying, "I am a deserted wife. I cannot maintain my expenses. My husband is liable to do the needful for me and my daughter Samara."

This is not all.

The lady is also reportedly torturing hubby in every possible sense.

"Deepak barely manages to enter his house. Shivani allows him to use only one room. Worse still, Shivani has strictly told the servants that they should neither give him food nor clean his room," a source was quoted as saying.

While the incident has got the tinselvile buzzing, Deepak's troubled marriage has another twist as well.

The media reports suggest Deepak and Shivani isn't valid in terms of law.

Yes! It's true as Shivani hasn't divorced her first husband yet.

"Shivani's marriage to Deepak is null and void if she hadn't divorced her first husband. So why should Deepak maintain her cost of living? I am a deserted wife. I cannot maintain my expenses. My husband is liable to do the needful for me and my daughter," the source added.

Well, indeed Deepak is shocked to know about this fact about his wedding and has reportedly filed a case of 'nullity' against Shivani.





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New Delhi:

Superstar Rajinikanth on Friday had an unlikely visitor. Malaysian Prime Minister Mohammad Najib bin Tun Haji Abdul Razak visited South Indian sensation at his residence. According to reports it was a courtesy visit and did not have an official purpose.A



Thalaivar took to Twitter to share the news and a selfie with the Mayalasian leader. "I am extremely happy to have met an excellent, friendly and warm person today ... The Honourable Prime Minister of Malaysia @NajibRazak ji," he tweeted.A



According to reports, Rajnikanth was supposed to meet the Malaysian leader during his one-month long visit to Malaysia for the shooting of his film Kabali. But the PM's schedule did not allow, so when he came visiting India, Rajnikanth extended an invitation.A



Sharing the news of the visit on his Twitter page, Razak wrote: aJust had a very warm and friendly meeting with Rajinikanth, the Tamil superstar at his home.a Latha Rajinikanth and daughter Aishwarya Dhanush were also at home to welcome Razak whose meeting lasted approximately an hour.



Incidentally, the visit fuelled the rumour that Rajnikanth may be replacing Shah Rukh Khan as coutry's brand ambassador, of Malaysia Tourism, but, Thalaivar quashed all the rumours.



Rajinikanth said, "I was not offered to become brand ambassador for Malaysia. These are all rumours."



Meanwhile, Rajinikanth, who's been in the spotlight over the last few days, is wrapping up the shoot of his much-anticipated sci-fi thriller 2.0.



Made on a lavish budget of Rs 400 crore, the film starring Akshay Kumar, Amy Jackson, Sudhanshu Pandey and Adil Hussain will hit the screens on Diwali this year.

I am extremely happy to have met an excellent, friendly and warm person today ... The Honourable Prime Minister of Malaysia @NajibRazak ji pic.twitter.com/5Ui4oQaS6c a Rajinikanth (@superstarrajini) March 31, 2017

Just had a very warm n friendly meeting with Mr Rajnikanth the Tamil superstar at his home pic.twitter.com/ICmWGV1ICI a Mohd Najib Tun Razak (@NajibRazak) March 31, 2017

Who doesnat know @superstarrajini ? Happy to meet the superstar in person today. pic.twitter.com/zGmnyeckrt a Mohd Najib Tun Razak (@NajibRazak) March 31, 2017

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New Delhi :

Swami Aseemanand was released from Chanchalguada prison at 7 pm on Friday after a court granted him bail in the 2007 Mecca Masjid bomb blast case on March 23.

On the other hand, the Telangana government had resolved to take steps to get the bail of 2007 Mecca Masjid bomb blast accused Swami Aseemanand "cancelled", the state's Home Minister N Narasimha Reddy had said on Tuesday.

The local court had already granted bail to three others in the blast case.

Swami Aseemanand released from Chanchalguda Central Jail, Hyderabad pic.twitter.com/A2kmGtmWLv  ANI (@ANI_news) March 31, 2017

The court of Fourth Metropolitan Sessions Judge also had granted bail to Bharat Mohanlal Rateshwar alias Bharat Bhai, a co-accused in the case.

Also Read | Ajmer blast 2007: Swami Aseemanand acquitted, 3 others found guilty by special NIA court

Special Judge Ravinder Reddy granted bail to both Aseemanand and Rateshwar with the direction to produce two local sureties of Rs 50,000 each.

Also Read | Will soon take steps to get Aseemanand's bail cancelled: Telangana government

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New Delhi:

A student body which was seeking NEET examination in Urdu language has accused the central government of being communal.

The Supreme Court has been told the same by the Solicitor General on Friday.



Solicitor General Ranjit Kumar made the submission while referring to the affidavit filed by Students Islamic Organization of India (SIO) through its national secretary Thouseef Ahamad.



"The affidavit has been filed by one Thouseef Ahamad in which they have alleged that the Union government is communal and thinks on communal lines. I need to file a reply to the said affidavit.



"Please give me three days for filing the reply," the solicitor general told a bench of Justices Kurian Joseph and R Banumathi.



Advocate Ravindra Garia, appearing for SIO, however, refuted the contention of the senior law officer and said that they have not accused anyone and they just wanted that the NEET should be conducted in Urdu language.

The bench then perused the affidavit filed by Ahamad and allowed the solicitor general to file the reply to it.



The court was informed that in a matter relating to NEET, another bench has removed the age cap of 25 years and has allowed filling up of the forms through online portal of the CBSE till April 5.



"It will be better if the bench which is hearing the NEET matters shall hear this case also. List the matter before the apropriate bench on April 10," the bench said.

Ahamad in the first paragraph of his affidavit has said it is "deliberate and intentional on the part of the health ministry of the Government of India to not include Urdu as a medium for the NEET exam because of the discriminatory perception of the government functionaries in viewing the language as not a part of cultural heritage and composite culture of India.



"As the language is associated with Muslim religion...,the government functionaries are prejudiced and biased and have deliberately excluded the Urdu language as medium for the NEET exams," the affidavit said.

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New Delhi:

The Delhi High Court on Friday dismissed Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh and his wifes plea seeking quashing of the disproportionate assets case filed against them by the CBI.

Justice Vipin Sanghi also vacated the Himachal Pradesh High Courts interim order of October 1, 2015 restraining the CBI from arresting, interrogating or filing a charge sheet in the case without the courts permission. The writ petition is dismissed. Stay is vacated, the court said.

Singh has sought directions from the court to quash the FIR registered against him and his wife under Sections 13(2) and 13(1)(e) of the Prevention of Corruption Act and Section 109 of IPC by the CBI on September 23, 2015 here and urged the court to summon records of the preliminary inquiry and the FIR.

ALSO READ | Naddas statements show BJPs ill-intention to destabilize Virbhadra Singhs govt

Virbhadra and his wife Pratibha Singh have claimed in their plea that there was no order, direction or judgment by any court that had authorised the CBI to inquire, investigate or register regular cases and exercise jurisdiction in the territory of Himachal Pradesh.

The chief minister has contended in his plea that the raids on his private residence and other premises were conducted with malafide intentions and political vendetta by the central investigating agency.

He has alleged that CBI had overstepped its jurisdiction in filing the case as the cause of action did not arise in the territory of Delhi.

Singh has also claimed that the permission of the state government and Home Department were not taken before raiding the residence of a sitting chief minister.

The CBI had contended that the allegations against Singh in the case are very serious as a huge amount of money was involved and the state government has shown over anxiety in protecting him.

The agency had said it had jurisdiction to register and investigate the case in Delhi as the disproportionate assets were allegedly acquired by the Congress leader from the income generated here when he was a Union minister during UPA regime.

Singh had on October 1, 2015 got an interim order from the Himachal Pradesh High Court restraining the CBI from arresting, interrogating or filing a charge sheet in the case without the courts permission.

ALSO READ | Himachal Pradesh's growth rate likely to be 6.8% in 2016-17: State economic survey

The matter was transferred by the Supreme Court to the Delhi High Court, which on April 6, 2016 had asked CBI not to arrest Singh and had directed him to join the probe.

On November 5 last year, the apex court had transferred Singhs plea from Himachal Pradesh HC to Delhi HC, saying it was not expressing any opinion on the merits of the case, but simply transferring the petition in interest of justice and to save the institution (judiciary) from any embarrassment.

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New Delhi:

Congress leader Digvijaya Singh once again raised the issue of his pending substantive motion on the conduct of Goa and Manipur Governors on Friday and sought to know when Leader of the House Arun Jaitley will find time to decide on the date of a discussion on the matter.

When the House met for the day, Singh said he has become a laughing stock as people and journalists keep asking him about what happened to the substantive motion he gave two weeks ago.

Till today, Leader of the House (and Finance Minister) Arun Jaitley has not taken any decision, he said, adding that hardly six sittings of the Rajya Sabha are left of the ongoing Budget Session.

Please assure that the motion will be taken before the session ends, he said. Chairman can call the Leader of the House and me and decide on the time and date. Singh has been raising the matter in the House almost on a daily basis.

ALSO READ | Motion on Goa Governor's conduct sought to be changed into a short-duration discussion: Digvijaya Singh

Originally, Singh had moved a notice under rule 267 seeking suspension of business to discuss conduct of the Goa and Manipur governors in not inviting Congress, which emerged as the single largest party after assembly elections, to form the government.

But Kurien had disallowed a discussion saying conduct of a high office like Governor can be discussed only under a substantive motion. Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi too had stated that the government will respond to a substantive motion.

He had then moved the substantive motion which was admitted by the Chairman but a time for discussion on it has not yet been allocated.

If Leader of the House has to violate the Chairmans decision, it is not acceptable to us, Singh said. Kurien said, we will come back to you. Singh said the Chair as well as the Rajya Sabha Secretariat has been kind to him, but not Jaitley. Tapan Sen (CPI-M) supported Singh saying the government is dodging the matter.

ALSO READ | Goa Govt dispute: Digvijaya Singh says 'Modi is not god', raises issue in Rajya Sabha

Kurien said the Chair has accepted the substantive motion and it is pending business. Chair will come back to you on the time of discussion, he said.

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Mumbai:

Two people lost their lives Maharashtra as the first heat wave of the year hit the state on Friday. In fact, the Met department warned of a "moderate heat wave" in some parts.

"The sudden rise in temperature has claimed lives of two persons. Both were above 60 years. One is from Aurangabad while another is from Solapur district," Health Minister Deepak Sawant told PTI.

As per the India Meteorological Department, many districts in Maharashtra recorded maximum temperatures of 40 degrees Celsius or above in the last two days.

"The Health Ministry has issued instructions to all the state-run hospitals to open centres for sunstroke patients. Government-run hospitals, primary health centres and district health officers have been categorically asked to sensitise people about 'heat therapy' and avoiding exposure to the scorching sun," Sawant said.

Last summer nine persons had died in the state due to sunstroke, as per the government data.

IMD officials said this afternoon that North-Central Maharashtra will face "a moderate heat wave" for the next 48 hours. This area comprises Dhule, Nandurbar, Jalgaon, Nashik and some districts from Marathwada.

"We have issued an alert of moderate heat wave for this region. It means the temperature during the day would be higher by 2-3 degrees Celsius than normal," V K Rajeev, director, IMD, western region, told PTI.

Northerly winds were pushing up the temperatures in Maharashtra, said K S Hosalikar, deputy director, IMD Mumbai.

He added that "wind discontinuity" in Karnataka and Tamil Nadu could result in some showers in Marathwada on April 1 and 2.(Reopens BES 23)

Meanwhile, IMD has sent an official to Bhira in the Raigad district of coastal Maharashtra to investigate the staggeringly high temperature recorded there two days ago.

The observatory at Bhira recorded maximum temperature of 46.5 degrees Celsius on Tuesday.

IMD, which expressed doubts about the finding yesterday, has sent an official to check whether the observatory at Bhira meets the set parameters.

"It is a part-time observatory and we are going to find out why it is reporting such a high temperature. We also need to check the condition of the equipment which is in use for several years," an IMD official said here.

The village is surrounded by a dense forest cover and Sahyadri hills, and a "part-time observatory" was set up there mainly for rain mapping but it also records temperatures, the official said.

IMD was sceptical about Tuesday's finding, as Bhira and neighbouring areas, being in the coastal region, have never reported such a high temperature.

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New Delhi:

The Income tax department on Friday served summons against Aam Aadmi Party minister Satyendra Jain over money laundering and recommended the case to the Central Bureau of Investigation.

He is accused of making black money white and making millions of rupees as an anonymous property through hawala transactions.

On April 6, the Income Tax Department has asked Jain to bring together those documents in which he has been a partner between 2010 and 2016. According to the information received, Jain has issued summons on March 27 under section 19 (1) of Anonymous law. This summon was done on March 27.

Jian's assets have been attached under Prohibition of Benami Property Transactions Act. Assets attached include Shares and Properties in the name of companies allegedly owned by Satyendra Jain and his family.

Earlier investigation of the Income Tax department had found Jain using Kolkata-based three Hawala operators to infuse money in various companies. IT had found most of the companies had no source of income.

Delhi minister Satyendar Jain asset misappropriation, Income Tax attach Satyendar Jain properties, Satyendar Jain's assets attached by Tax authorities.

Tax authorities have attached more than 100 bighas of land in the capital as well as shares in companies allegedly linked to Delhi minister Satyendar Jain, under the law against benami property  a move that's likely to further strain relations between the Centre and the AAP government. Sources said the investment value of the land was estimated at around Rs 17 crore while shares were worth around Rs 16 crore. The market value is seen to be much higher.

Notices for provisional attachment were served on February 27 with four companies receiving them. In the notices issued to Indo Metalimpex, Akinchan Developers, Prayas Infosolutions and Mangalyatan Projects, the initiating officer under the Prohibition of Benami Probition of Benami Properties Transactions Act has accused Jain of getting irregular book entries to acqui re shares in the company in return for cash payments.

Around 69 bighas of farm land belonging to Indo Metalimpex alone has been attached. Jain is one of the most powerful ministers in the Delhi government and in-charge of several key portfolios such as PWD, transport and health.

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New Delhi:

An Indian student was beaten in Poland on Wednesday. However, the matter came to light only after External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj sought a report from the ministry on Friday.



"I have just spoken to the Indian Ambassador in Poland and asked for a report. @IndiaPoland," Swaraj replied to a tweet with information on the attack.

According to reports in Polish media, the Indian student was beaten on Wednesday evening at the Market JeAyckim in Poznan. The case was reported to police but could not be investigated till Thursday as English speaking staff was not available.

The student, an Erasmus student living in Poznan, was out with a friend when he was attacked by an unknown assailant. "Attacker shouted something, but the victim did not understand," the Polish report said.

I have just spoken to the Indian Ambassador in Poland and asked for a report. @IndiaPoland https://t.co/tywhkJFSPq  Sushma Swaraj (@SushmaSwaraj) March 31, 2017

This is from Mr.Ajay Bisaria, Indian Ambassador in Poland. @amit02A https://t.co/pjDLfpv6vo  Sushma Swaraj (@SushmaSwaraj) March 31, 2017

@SushmaSwaraj @IndiaPoland Prelim enquiry suggests student attacked in Poznan tram on Wed. Thank God, he survived. Getting details. @IndianDiplomacy @ndtv  Ajay Bisaria (@Ajaybis) March 31, 2017

There was an incident of beating. Fortunately, he has survived. We are inquiring into all aspects of the incident. https://t.co/uO9hJ171aB  Sushma Swaraj (@SushmaSwaraj) March 31, 2017

Read | Another incident of 'racial' assault in Australia; Indian man stabbed, abused at restaurant

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Guwahati:

President Pranab Mukherjee on Friday said that if it is said Indians are argumentative, he would agree but if someone says Indians are intolerant, he would refuse to agree.

We are one nation. This mutual co-existence, mutual understanding is our strength. Managing this diversity is our greatest strength. If it is said Indians are argumentative, I will agree. But if it is said Indians are intolerant, I refuse to agree. Intolerance has never been allowed, he said.

Indias traditions never allowed the practice of intolerance as unity in diversity with mutual coexistence and understanding is the strength of the country. Speaking at the inaugural ceremony of the Namami Brahmaputra festival here, Mukherjee said he does not agree when people label Indians as intolerant.



There are 200 languages spoken in India across its length and breath. All major seven religions are practised in India. Nowhere in the world is found so much ethnic diversity, he said, adding despite this, India is one nation having one Constitution, living under one flag, one system maintaining regional identity.



Mukherjee said Assam, which is an emerging economic hub of India, is perfectly positioned to become the corridor of the country to the ASEAN nations as the Act East policy takes forefront.

ALSO READ | No place for hate and intolerance on educational campuses, says President Pranab Mukherjee



He said India would soon celebrate 25 years of its link with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).



The President said South East Asia is an important destination for Indias investment and trade.



Stating that Assam has immense development potential, Mukherjee added that inland water transport system in the National Waterways can change its economic scenario.



The development of this national waterway can give Assam access to international ports like Chittagong in Bangladesh. This will give Assam an exposure to international trade and commerce. With the Act East Policy taking forefront, Assam is perfectly positioned to become the corridor of the country to the ASEAN nations, he said.



Mukherjee hailed Assams richness in natural resources and its hardworking people to underline that all it needed was strong drive, right policies and effective implementation.

ALSO READ | No room in India for intolerant people but allow legitimate dissent: President Pranab



We have to join hands to make the dream of Bharat Ratna Gopinath Bordoloi - first Chief Minister of Assam becoming a front runner in the field of socio-economic progressa reality, he said.



The President said Assam has overcome a prolonged spell of insurgency and the central government is supportive in rebuilding the state.



However, he added that it was now time for Assam to emerge as a business hub and take centre stage in the socio-economic scenario of the country.



It is time for this state to establish its enduring mark in the international economic domain as the link between the North Eastern part of the country and the ASEAN nations, he remarked.

ALSO READ | Tolerance essential for India's pluralistic & diverse society, says President Pranab Mukherjee



He said the Brahmaputra river is the lifeline of Assam and the region and is intertwined into the economy, culture and day-to-day life of the people of the areas it flows through.



He also complimented the state government for having started Namami Brahmaputra as an annual festival to showcase Assams culture as well as potential.



Starting of Namami Brahmaputra as an annual festival will popularise the natural beauty and holy character of this river, he said.

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New Delhi:

Former Gujarat Minister Maya Kodnani has moved in an application to seek issuance of summons to 13 persons, including BJP president Amit Shah to alibi her in connection with the Naroda Gam massacre case linked to 2002 post-Godhra riots.

The special designated court has asked Kodnanis lawyer Amit Patel to show how this plea was relevant in the case at this stage. The matter will be heard next Monday.

This application will help Kodnani to prove before the court that she was somewhere else on February 28, 2002 when the day riots broke out in Naroda Gam.

ALSO READ | Gujarat High Court judge recuses himself from 2002 Naroda Patiya riot case

Kodnani was accused of leading a mob of thousands while inciting violence during the riots. The court had held her as the kingpin of the riots. She has been out on bail since July 2014 on the orders of the Gujarat High Court.

Kodnani is among 82 accused facing trial in the Naroda Gam riots case in which 11 persons from the Muslim community were killed on February 28, 2002.

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New Delhi:

President Pranab Mukherjee inaugurated on Friday the river festival 'Namami Brahmaputra', which is aimed at promoting trade, tourism and cultural aspects linked to the mighty river.

Mukherjee, while addressing a gathering said all the old civilisations grew on the banks of rivers - be it Egyptian, Babylonian, the Indus Valley civilisation or the Aryan civilisation. "North East's culture, economy and essential ingredients flourished on the bank of mighty Brahmputra," the President said, adding that festivals like this boosts tourism and economy. Praising the greatness and the kindness of the people of Assam, the President said he did not face any problems even at the height of tension in the state.



Prime Minister Narendra Modi too congratulated people on the occasion saying that the Brahmaputra is the lifeline of Assam and the northeast and is the source of livelihood for people in the region.

Read | Namami Brahmaputra festival: Indians may be argumentative, but not intolerant, says President Pranab Mukherjee

"It is a matter of great pride that the #NamamiBrahmaputra festival is being launched by the Assam Government. Best wishes for the festival," Modi tweeted.

"Rivers occupy a central role in India's history & culture. Let us keep working together to ensure clean rivers for India's growth," he said in another tweet.

The Brahmaputra is the lifeline of Assam & the Northeast and is the source of livelihood for people in the region. https://t.co/Tfv4RPUWdv pic.twitter.com/FwuUwdw4Q9  Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) March 31, 2017

Rivers occupy a central role in India's history & culture. Let us keep working together to ensure clean rivers for India's growth.  Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) March 31, 2017





The event began with a grand opening and will witness business meets, trade seminars and symposiums and events like boat racing, a laser show a tea festival and much more. Here is all you need to know about the festival:

# The 'Namami Brahmputra' festival is being organised across 21 districts of Assam

# The festival will serve as a platform to showcase Assams potential as a state brimming with trade, tourism and culture opportunities

# The event is being touted as the brainchild of Assam chief minister Sarbananda Sonowal

# The event took off in the form of a spectacular opening ceremony on Friday at the riverfront of Bharalumukh

Read | Centres North-East policy starts shaping up as Manipur economic blockade ends after five-month



# The event will include a soulful veneration of river Brahmaputra along with other attractions like indigenous sports, local food, exhibition of organic tea, display of handloom and handicraft



# Cultural evenings, film festival, business meetings and symposium will also be organised during the five-day festival



# The event will end with a grand ceremony on April 4



# The 'Namami Brahmaputra' is being dubbed as the biggest river festival in the country



# The festival is a clear indication of Centre's 'Act East Policy' to strengthen its presence in the South Asian markets.



# Assams life and culture are deeply influenced by the rejuvenating splashes of Brahmaputra, Indias only male river and one of the most powerful rivers of the world.

(With inputs from PTI)

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New Delhi:

Aspirants can now appear for The National-Eligibility-cum-Entrance-Test (NEET) for only three times, as new criteria for NEET exam has been introduced. Also, aspirants age limit that was set in order to appear for the examination has been now changed. On Friday, Supreme Court has taken a decision on allowing candidates above 25 years to appear for NEET examination. Date for filling of forms extended till 5th April.



Earlier, the minimum age to appear for NEET exam was 17 years, the maximum age for open category students wass 25 years and 30 years for the reserved category. On the other hand, the age limit for the reserved category has been set to 30 years and ST, SC can also appear for the exam for only three times.



This has been introduced in the examination criteria to bring down the number of older candidates competing with young aspirants.

Also Read: NEET increases exam centres number from 80 to 103 to help students location nearest venue

The decision was taken at a University Grants Commission (UGC) meeting in Delhi.



Up to date, there has never been a maximum age defined to take NEET, nor has there been a limit on the number of attempts.



The NEET information brochures contain this information and will be distributed soon.

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New Delhi:

Shiv Sena MP Ravindra Gaikwad, who has been barred from flying by domestic airlines after he assaulted an Air India staffer, made three failed attempts to book a seat on the national carrier, using a new alias each time. However, Gaikwad could not succeed in his bids.



Earlier this week, a staff member of the Sena MP dialled Air India's call centre to book a seat in the flight AI 806 from Mumbai to Delhi for the following day, i.e. Wednesday, and dictated the passenger's name as Professor V Ravindra Gaikwad. But the booking was promptly cancelled, an airline source said.



Thereafter, a seat was booked on the flight AI 551 from Hyderabad to Delhi in the name of Professor Ravindra Gaikwad. This ticket was cancelled too. A third attempt was made the next day to book tickets to travel from Nagpur to Delhi via Mumbai when the MP's staff contacted a travel agent to book a flight for him.

Read | Allow police to act without interference against Sena MP Gaikwad: RTI Activist urges Modi Govt



However, the travel agent immediately contacted the local station manager and the information was forwarded to Air India's headquarters in Delhi, the source said, adding they have cautioned their teams to prevent any such attempts.



The airline had earlier issued a "non-acceptance order" to all its station managers and booking offices instructing them to ensure that "restriction on acceptance and travel of potentially unruly and unsafe passengers is being followed on Air India flights for Mr Ravindra Gaikwad".

Read | Terrorists, underworld dons can fly in your airlines, but not an MP? asks Shiv Sena



In an unprecedented step in Indian aviation history, the Sena MP was earlier barred from flying by all major domestic airlines for assaulting an elderly Air India employee last Thursday. The MP was angry at not being given a business class seat though he had boarded an economy flight.

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Lucknow:

The Yogi Adityanath Government of Uttar Pradesh on Friday directed the state police to ensure that no inhumane measure was adopted in the name of ensuring security to women.



After Allahabad High Court's order, the Uttar Pradesh's BJP government has asked the anti-Romeo squads of Uttar Pradesh Police to strictly follow the guidelines.



There should be no shaving of heads, blackening of faces or "murga pose" (sit-ups while holding ears), a senior official said in Lucknow.



The guidelines have been issued after the intervention of Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath amidst reports of harassment by anti-Romeo squads.



These special squads of UP Police were formed after the Yogi Aditynath government assumed office this month, fulfilling one of the poll promises of the BJP.

Also Read | UP CM Yogi Adityanath asks officials to ensure no unnecessary harassment by anti-Romeo squads



The Allahabad High Court had yesterday directed the Uttar Pradesh government to ensure that guidelines were followed by anti-Romeo squads and action was taken as per the law.



The court's Lucknow bench of justices Amreshwar Pratap Sahi and Sanjay Harkauli had given the order on a PIL that alleged that police were not following the guidelines during the drive, aimed at checking eveteasing, and was harassing couples.



The chief minister has also directed administrative and police officials in districts to regularly review the steps being taken for women security and inform senior officials on a regular basis, the official said.

Anti-Romeo squads: Don't criticise UP govt from day one, says guv Ram Naik



Stressing that his government was firm on upholding the security and dignity of women, he said a state-wide drive has been launched to free public places of anti-social elements and check incidents of eve-teasing, indecent behaviour and passing of lewd comments at women and girls.



The UP Home department has issued fresh directives to identify those involved in misconduct at schools, colleges, bus stations, railway stations, malls and markets.



The government is also firm on checking unnecessary harassment of girls and boys merely in the name of curbing eve-teasing in public places like coffee shops, markets and parks.



The government has also made it clear that vigilantism of any sort in this regard will not be tolerated.

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Peshawar:

At least 25 people were killed and 65 others sustained serious injuries on Friday in a powerful bomb blast at a crowded market outside a Shiite imambargah in Pakistan's restive northwest tribal region. The Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack.



A car bomb went off near the main gate of the imambargah in the central bazar of Parachinar, Kurram Agency where a large number of people were shopping for fruits and vegetables.



The condition of the majority of those injured was stated to be critical. Of those critically wounded, 27 were airlifted to Peshawar hospitals.



Scores of vehicles were also damaged in the blast. An eyewitness told The Express Tribune that security personnel at the Imambargah were busy checking devotees at the central Imambargah's entrance for women, when an unidentified person parked a car next to the building which exploded.

Read | Pakistan Nobel laureate Abdus Salam's cousin killed in Lahore



Jamaat-ul-Ahrar, a breakaway faction of the Pakistani Taliban, claimed responsibility for the attack. Security forces cordoned off the area while emergency services were dispatched to the site.



The administration has declared an emergency at all hospitals in the area. An Army medical evacuation helicopter has also been flown to Parachinar for evacuation of the injured, an Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) statement said.



Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif expressed grief over the blast and condemned the attack. "It is our responsibility to continue the war against terrorists," he said.

Sharif reiterated his government's resolve to eliminate the menace of terrorism from the country at all costs. "The network of terrorists has already been broken and it is our national duty to continue this war until the complete annihilation of the scourge of terrorism from our soil," he said.

Pakistan: 3 NGO workers injured in gunfire



The Prime Minister directed the relevant authorities to extend all possible assistance to the local administration.



Interior minister Chaudhry Nisar ordered an inquiry into the blast. Pakistan has been rocked by a slew of terror attacks that have claimed scores of lives. A wave of suicide attacks across Pakistan last month, including one in Lahore and another on the Lal Shahbaz Qalandar shrine in Sindh, killed more than 125 people and wounded over 300 others.



Pakistani forces retaliated with a crackdown, killing dozens of terrorists and hitting militant hideouts along the border with Afghanistan. Pakistan army also launched a nationwide military operation 'Radd-ul-Fasaad' to eliminate terrorists and consolidate gains of its counter-terrorism operations.

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London:

All eyes are on Britain as the country prepares for its exit from the European Union. In wake of the historical Brexit, India is also hoping big and consider the event as a great moment.

Speaking to the members of the Indian Journalists Association in London last evening, Indian High Commissioner to UK, Y K Sinha referred to several high-level visits from India to the UK including that of Finance Minister Arun Jaitley.

He also referred about the proposed visits of Britains Chancellor of Exchequer Philip Hammond, Defence Secretary Michael Fallon, Energy Secretary Greg Clark, Minister of State for Culture Karen Bradley and Secretary of State for International Development Priti Patel to India?in the next couple of months and said it reflected the vibrant and robust relations we have.

Also Read: UK PM Theresa May signs letter that will trigger Brexit

Describing Brexit as a great moment, Sinha said, it is an opportunity and challenge for India - in the post-Brexit era.

Emphasizing that no formal discussions could be held till Brexit becomes a reality sometime in March 2019, the High Commissioner said we will be monitoring what will be happening.

Sinha said, there is a political will on both the sides to reach an agreement on trade and other issues.

Answering questions, he said both the sides will have their wish-list. As far as India is concerned the question of free movement of Indian professionals in the UK is a priority. Our expectation is that Indian IT professionals come here freely and return.

Noting that the number of Indian students coming to study in the UK has gone down considerably, he said one of the reasons is that Britain has restricted post-study work visa to four months as against two years in the US.

Another reason is closing down of some of the bogus colleges.

The number of Indian students studying in other countries like the US, Canada and Australia has gone up.

Since the UK is boasting of having some of the best higher learning institutions, it is a matter of concern for them as well, Sinha said.

Read More: Scotland likely to go ahead with independence vote on eve of Brexit

He said that the next couple of years are going to be particularly exciting.

The Commonwealth Heads of Government (CHOGM) will be taking place in the UK in April next year and India will be the flavour of the year this year as it is celebrating the Year of Culture here.

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Beijing:

Reacting on Dalai Lamas upcoming visit to Arunachal Pradesh, China on Friday warned India of series damage if it allows the spiritual leader to visit the border state. Beijing urges New Delhi to honor its political pledges on Tibet issue.

This is the second time in a month China showed its concern over Dalai Lamas visit ot Arunachal Pradesh.

We are seriously concerned about the news. On the eastern section of the China-India border, Chinas position is clear and consistent, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang told media in Beijing on Friday.

China claims Arunachal Pradesh as part of south Tibet.

The Dalai clique has long been engaging in separatist activities with the inglorious record. India should be very clear with the true nature of the Dalai clique, Lu said.

But despite this India still invited the Dalai Lama to visit the region. This will have serious damage on bilateral relations, Lu said.

The Dalai Lama will visit Arunachal Pradesh from April 4 to 13.

This is the second time this month Chinese Foreign Ministry has aired its objections to the Dalai Lamas visit to Arunachal Pradesh.

China is gravely concerned over information that India has granted permission to the Dalai to visit Arunachal Pradesh, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang had said on March 3.

China has protested to India last year also when New Delhi cleared his visit to Arunachal Pradesh.

Such visits will have deep damage on China India relations. We have asked India to stick to its political pledges and not to hurt China-India relations. It will come down to India to make a choice, Lu said.

China firmly opposes the Dalai Lama carrying out any activities in the relevant region and we have expressed our concerns to the Indian side. We urge India to stick to its political statements, respect the consensus and avoid doing anything that might further complicate the matter, Lu said.

He said India should not provide any platform for the Dalai clique and only that way can China-India relation can move forward in a sound and steady way.

China and India are two major developing countries and we are close neighbors. It is very important for the two peoples to maintain sound and steady China India relations. But such relationship has to be built on certain foundation, Lu said.

Last year, China also protested the visit of then American Ambassador to India Richard Verma to the area.

The India-China border dispute covers the 3,488 km long Line of Actual Control (LAC).

While China claims Arunachal Pradesh as Southern Tibet.

India asserts that the dispute covered Aksai Chin area which was occupied by China during the 1962 war.

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Washington:

US President Donald Trump high-profile summit with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping will be a "very difficult" one. Donald Trump has said that US can no longer afford massive trade deficits and job losses.

Given that the United States has a massive trade deficit with China, American companies must be prepared to look at other alternatives, Trump tweeted.

Trump is scheduled to meet Xi at his Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida on April 6 and 7.

Also Read: Donald Trump set to meet Xi Jinping at Mar-a-Lago

This would be the first summit meeting between the two leaders.

The meeting next week with China will be a very difficult one in that we can no longer have massive trade deficits...  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 30, 2017

...and job losses. American companies must be prepared to look at other alternatives.  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 30, 2017

Earlier, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer told reporters that Trump looks forward to meeting President Xi and exchanging views on each other's respective priorities and to chart a way forward for bilateral ties.

Also Read: Nikki Haley: Trump's travel ban aims about keeping terrorist out

"They will discuss the issues of mutual concern, including North Korea, trade, and regional security," he said. Noting that Trump has spoken to Xi over the phone a few times, Spicer said this was an opportunity for the President to develop a relationship in person with his Chinese counterpart.

"But we have big problems, and -- I mean, everything from the South China Sea, to trade, to North Korea. There are big issues of national and economic security that need to get addressed, and I think there's going to be a lot on the table when it comes to that over the two days that they will talk," Spicer said in response to a question.

Also Read: Federal judge in Hawaii extends his order blocking President Donald Trump's travel ban

There are a lot of big things that the US needs to accomplish with China, and it will work on them, he said.

China-US trade in goods amounted to USD 519.6 billion in 2016. China has a large share in the bilateral trade with its exports to the US amounting to over USD 400 billion.

The meeting will follow a recent trip to China by US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.

Ahead of the summit with Trump, Xi will visit Finland and hold talks with his counterpart Sauli Niinisto.

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Islamabad:

Pakistan said it will boycott an international meeting of parliamentarians scheduled in Dhaka from Saturday, alleging a "malicious propaganda" by Bangladesh against it.

A 10-member delegation led by National Assembly SpeakerAyaz Sadiz was due to participate in the 136th Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) Assembly in Dhaka from Saturday.

But the government decided to boycott the meeting because of the "continued malicious and uncalled for propaganda and unfriendly attitude of the Bangladesh government against the people and the state of Pakistan."

The IPU is the focal point for world-wide parliamentary dialogue and works for peace and co-operation among peoples and for the firm establishment of representative democracy. Sadiq in a statement said the National Assembly members have noted with disappointment the actions and "negative public statements" coming out of Bangladesh despite Pakistan's"restraint and overtures" to the country.

"I have, therefore, decided not to travel to Bangladesh as a visit at this point will not serve the purpose," he was quoted as saying by The Express Tribune.

Also Read: Show respect to Jinnah House, Pak tells India days after BJP MLA demanded to demolish the building

The boycott of the IPU in Dhaka is another sign of strain in Pakistan-Bangladesh ties. Pakistan has previously commented on the sentencing and hanging of Jamaat-e-Islami leaders for war crimes committed during the 1971 Liberation War.

Bangladesh has said Pakistan's reactions to the judicial verdicts were tantamount to meddling in its internal affairs and also said Islamabad was yet to apologise for atrocities committed by its army.

However, Speaker Sadiq said the parliament had sincerely laboured to harness good ties with Bangaldesh. "It was in this spirit that Pakistan's parliamentary delegation had unanimously voted in favour of the speaker of Bangladesh Sharmeen Chaudhary for the post of the Chairperson of the Executive Committee of Commonwealth Parliamentary Association in Cameroon in 2014."

Also Read: Exclusive: Pak high commissioner Abdul Basit says India is not providing concrete evidence against Saeed

Chaudhary had won the election with a narrow margin of 82 votes in favour and 78 against. Sadiq cited another instance when Pakistan voted aBangladeshi candidate to become the president of the IPU in2014.

"However, it is noted with much regret that the friendly gestures were never reciprocated in the same coin," he said. Bangladesh, too, has boycotted all international parliamentary meets organised by Pakistan in the past two years, including the SAARC Young Parliamentarians Conference in August 2016, the International Women ParliamentariansConference 2017 and the Asian Parliamentary Assembly in 2017.

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Islamabad :

The government of Pakistan has showed its concern over the safety of 'Jinnah House'. The grand 'Jinnah House' built by Muhammad Ali Jinnah is located in Malabar Hill area in south Mumbai.



Pakistan demanded that India should show respect towards 'Jinnah House', days after a BJP MLA demanded that the building be demolished.



Foreign Office Spokesperson Nafees Zakaria, at his weekly briefing, said, "We have clarified our position on the Jinnah House matter to the Indian government."



He expressed concern over the safety of 'Jinnah House', the residence of Pakistan's founder Mohammad Ali Jinnah in south Mumbai, after Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MLA Mangal Prabhat Lodha last week demanded that the building be demolished and a cultural centre built in its place.



Zakaria said that the Indian government should realise the importance of the building and show respect towards it.

Also Read | Cross-border terrorism by Pak affecting India's vision of peaceful neighbourhood: Sushma Swaraj



Lodha, speaking in Maharashtra's Legislative Assembly on the budgetary demands of the Public Works Department (PWD), said, "The Jinnah residence in south Mumbai was the place from where the conspiracy of partition was hatched."



"Jinnah House is a symbol of the partition. The structure should be demolished," he had said.

Also Read | Exclusive: Pak high commissioner Abdul Basit says India is not providing concrete evidence against Saeed

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Taipei, March 31 (CNA) With Taiwan being regarded as one of the sources of the huge U.S. trade deficit, a senior official at the Bureau of Foreign Trade (BOFT) said Friday that Taiwan and the U.S. are not competitors, because over 80 percent of Taiwan's exports to the U.S. are intermediate goods.
Washington:

US President Donald Trump on Friday anticipated that his first summit with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping next week is going to be very difficult one as the nation can no longer afford job losses and massive trade deficits with the Communist nation.

Given that the United States has a massive trade deficit with China, American companies must be prepared to look at other alternatives, Trump tweeted ahead of his meeting with Xi at his Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida on April 6 and 7.

This would be the first meeting between the two leaders in what many argue is the most important bilateral relationship in the world.

The meeting next week with China will be a very difficult one in that we can no longer have massive trade deficits and job losses, Trump said.

Earlier, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer told reporters that Trump looks forward to meeting President Xi and exchanging views on each others respective priorities and to chart a way forward for bilateral ties.

They will discuss the issues of mutual concern, including North Korea, trade, and regional security, he said.

Trump has said in recent weeks that North Korea is one of the biggest security challenges he faces as president and has called on China to rein in Pyongyang, which US officials believe is preparing for another nuclear test.

Territorial disputes in the South China Sea and Chinas continued building of man-made islands are also likely to be raised.

Noting that Trump has spoken to Xi, also General Secretary of the ruling Communist Party of China, over the phone a few times, Spicer said this was an opportunity for the President to develop a relationship in person with his Chinese counterpart.

But we have big problems, andI mean, everything from the South China Sea, to trade, to North Korea. There are big issues of national and economic security that need to get addressed, and I think theres going to be a lot on the table when it comes to that over the two days that they will talk, Spicer said in response to a question.

There are a lot of big things that the US needs to accomplish with China, and it will work on them, he said.

In Beijing, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang underlined the need to see the big picture while fostering mutual interests in trade relations.

The market dictates that interests between our two countries are structured so that you will always have me and I will always have you, he told a regular briefing.

Also Read: Donald Trump to sign executive orders to inspect cause of trade imbalances in countries including India and China

Both sides should work together to make the cake of mutual interest bigger and not simply seek fairer distribution, he said.

China-US trade in goods amounted to USD 519.6 billion in 2016. China has a large share in the bilateral trade with its exports to the US amounting to over USD 400 billion.

Despite Trumps fiery attacks on the campaign trail accusing China of raping the US economy and stealing millions of American jobs, among other thingshis administration has taken a relatively hands-off approach in dealing with Beijing so far, CNN commented.

Trump has not followed through on campaign promises to label China a currency manipulator on day one of his presidency or to impose steep tariffs on all Chinese imports.

He also endorsed the One China policy on Taiwan, which has governed the fragile relations between the US, China and Taiwan for decades, after questioning its legitimacy shortly after his election.

Also Read: Federal judge in Hawaii extends his order blocking President Donald Trump's travel ban

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North Korea could kill 90% of all Americans by dropping EMP nukes from orbiting satellites

North Koreas Kim Jong-un could easily wipe out 90 percent of the American population, two U.S. intelligence experts warned.

In a joint article, former CIA director Robert James Woolsey Jr and US Congressional EMP Task Force director Dr. Peter Vincent Pry refuted the mainstream medias allegations that North Korea may not be able deliver on its repeated threats to launch a nuclear strike against the U.S. False reassurance is given to the American people that North Korea has not demonstrated that it can miniaturise a nuclear warhead small enough for missile delivery, or build a reentry vehicle for an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) capable of penetrating the atmosphere to blast a US city, Woolsey and Pry stated.

The two experts noted that technological dilemmas such as warhead miniaturization and reentry vehicle design would be simple enough matters to address for countries that have already developed nuclear weapons and long-range missiles like North Korea. In a photograph that circulated last year, the North Korean dictator can be seen inspecting an alleged nuclear warhead that was purportedly small enough to be mounted on ballistic missiles.

The experts have also confirmed that North Korea indeed has two classes of intercontinental ballistic missile  the road mobile KN-08 and KN-14  both of which seemed to be equipped with cutting-edge reentry vehicles. The experts also warned that North Korea could still land a huge blow in the U.S. defense even if their alleged nuclear weapons are yet to materialize.

According to Woolsey and Pry, the country could easily deliver an atomic bomb concealed in a freighter going to the U.S., or hire terrorists to launch a nuclear suicide mission across the unguarded Mexican border, which may affect densely-populated port cities and areas closest to the border. The experts said detonating a Hiroshima-type A-bomb with a yield of 10-kilotons would result in about 200,000 casualties.The experts confirmed that North Korea has tested a nuclear weapon with estimated yields of 20 to 30 kilotons. According to the Defense Department, the country may have tested H-Bomb components in January last year. H-bombs are more powerful than A-bombs and may result in much larger casualties.

Disturbing details on North Koreas alleged nukes

CIAs top East Asia analyst publicly announced in 2008 that North Korea was successful in developing miniaturized nuclear warheads to be deployed on its Nodong medium-range missile. According to the analyst, the missile was able to strike Japan and South Korea, and may even reach the U.S. it delivered through a freighter.

In 2011, Lt. General Ronald Burgess, Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, testified that North Korea has already weaponized its nuclear devices into warheads. Burgess made his testimonies before the Senate Armed Services Committee.

In early 2015, former senior national security officials cautioned that North Korea might have the capacity to use satellites to launch a small nuclear warhead specifically developed to make a high-altitude electromagnetic pulse attack against the U.S. The Congressional EMP Commission warned that such an attack could potentially blackout the national electric grid and other infrastructures essential for sustaining life. This may result in subsequent societal collapse and starvation, which in turn may kill nine out of 10 Americans.

Two North Korean satellites  KMS-3 and KMS-4  currently orbit over the U.S. These satellites trajectories appear consistent with surprise EMP attack, Woolsey and Pry said.

During a Pentagon press conference in April 2015, former North American Aerospace Defense commander Adm. William Gortney warned that North Koreas KN-08 mobile ICBM also has the capacity to launch a nuclear warhead against the U.S. Gortney repeated this warning in October 2015 during an Atlantic Council event. I agree with the intelligence community that we assess that they [North Koreans] have the ability, they have the weapons, and they have the ability to miniaturize those weapons, and they have the ability to put them on a rocket that can range the [U.S.] homeland, Gortney said.

Follow more news about U.S. national security at NationalSecurity.news.

Sources:

TheHill.com

BBC.com

Express.co.uk

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DANBURY - A man accused of pressuring mentally troubled young men into paid sex with wealthy male clients told police he didnt know I was causing any harm.

My crime was trying to help people, Robert King insisted in an interview with police recounted in an affidavit filed Friday in Superior Court.

King, 51, was charged Friday with human trafficking, a felony punishable by up to 40 years in prison. He is expected to appear again in court April 26.

King had previously been charged with prostitution and witness-tampering and was being held on $250,000 bond. The bond was raised to $1 million during his arraignment Friday before Judge Dan Shaban.

Two men authorities have identified as Kings main clients, William Trefzger, a previously convicted sex offender from Westport, and Bruce J. Bemer of Glastonbury, were arrested earlier this week.

Police have said that King targeted mentally disturbed young men, most in their early 20s, befriending them, getting them hooked on drugs and then coercing them into prostitution in order to pay off their drug debts. Most of Kings victims had been diagnosed with a variety of mental illnesses including schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.

One victim told police that the only reason he got into prostitution (was) his psychiatric issues, King providing him with an abundance of heroin, and the debt he owed to King because of the drug use, the affidavit states.

When interviewed by police, King admitted to delivering the boys to men throughout the state, but said he was just a gay guy trying to help people.

Investigators, however, said King showed extreme indifference to the young men, including one who overdosed shortly after stopping to buy drugs in Waterbury. King drove the man to Torrington before seeking medical help, court documents state, which nearly resulted in the mans death.

Police believe another victim who crashed during a car chase with police eight years ago deliberately killed himself. King kept a shrine to the man in his home that included a note the man had written.

I felt so angry at Bob at myself guilty ashamed and discusted[sic], the note states, according to court documents. What hapened[sic] as an act of survival I was minibilated[sic] and taken advantage of. It wasnt my falt[sic].
TORONTO, March 31, 2017 /CNW/ - 01 Communique Laboratory Inc. (ONE:TSX-V) today announced results for its first quarter fiscal 2017, which ended January 31, 2017. The loss and comprehensive loss for the quarter was $97,763 (2016 - $455,506). The adjusted loss, which excludes non-cash expenses for stock-based compensation and depreciation, was $46,352 (2016 - $314,171). The Company completed the period with $116,477 of cash and cash equivalents.

"We remain committed to our plan of continuing operations as well as pursuing the matter with Citrix Systems Inc. ("Citrix") until its conclusion," said Andrew Cheung, President and CEO for 01 Communique. "With respect to the lawsuit with Citrix, on March 21, 2017 the District Court presiding over the proceedings issued its order denying our motion for judgment as a matter of law and for a new trial. On March 30, 2017 we filed a Notice to Appeal this order with the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. We remain confident in the merits of our appeal."

An Update on the Company's Operations follows:

In addition to moving forward with the appeal process in its patent lawsuit against Citrix the Company plans to continue and work with Hitachi Solutions Create Ltd. to maximize potential revenue from the Japanese market. The Company reduced operating expenses significantly last year while still maintaining sufficient resources to meet these objectives. To assist in achieving this expense reduction the Company's executive management and board of directors continue to not draw a salary.

Operating expenses for first quarter 2017 were $91,359 (2016 - $452,214). Excluding non cash expenses for stock based compensation and depreciation the cash operating expenses for first quarter 2017 were $37,770 (2016 - $307,769) a reduction of $269,999. In addition the Company paid $10,000 (2016 - $10,000) interest on its debenture.

Background on the Company's patent lawsuit against Citrix:

In February 2006, the Company commenced a lawsuit in the United States District Court, Northern District of Ohio, Eastern Division, against Citrix alleging infringement by their GoToMyPC product line of the '479 Patent. On January 11, 2016 a jury trial commenced in the lawsuit with the jury reaching and returning a unanimous verdict on January 19, 2016. The Court entered Judgment as follows:

Defendants Citrix have not infringed claims 24 or 45 of 01 Communique's patent (United States Patent No. 6,928,479); Claims 24 and 45 of United States Patent No. 6,928,479 are not invalid; Plaintiff 01 Communique takes no damages from Citrix; Except as set forth above or adjudicated through Summary Judgment, all other claims and counterclaims in this matter were dismissed; On March 7, 2016 the Company filed post-trial motions with the District Court that presided over the trial. These included motions for renewed judgment as a matter of law and for a new trial. On March 21, 2017 the District Court issued its order denying the Company's motion for judgment as a matter of law and for a new trial. On March 30, 2017 the Company filed a Notice to Appeal the District Court's Order with the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. The Company is now working through this process and while the Company is confident in the merits of its appeal there can be no assurance that the Company will be successful in its appeal.

Neither TSX Venture Exchange ("TSX-V") 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.

About 01 Communique

Established in 1992, 01 Communique Laboratory Inc. (TSX-V:ONE) offers a suite of remote access services designed for small-medium sized business, mobile professionals and IT service providers. 01's software as a service offerings are deployed on-demand and include functionality enabling on-line meetings, remote computing and IT support. 01's suite of products includes its remote access offering I'm InTouch (www.imintouch.com), its online meeting offering (www.imintouchmeeting.com) and its remote support offering I'm OnCall (www.imoncall.com) products are protected in the U.S.A. by its patents #6,928,479 / #6,938,076 / #8,234,701 and in Canada by its patents #2,309,398 / #2,524,039 and Japan by its patent #4,875,094. For more information, visit www.01com.com or call (905) 795-888 or (800) 668-2185 (North America only).

Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-looking Statements.

Certain statements in this news release may constitute "forward-looking" statements which involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause the actual results, performance or achievements of the company, or industry results, to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. When used in this news release, such statements use such words as "may", "will", "expect", "believe", "plan", "intend", "are confident" and other similar terminology. These statements reflect current expectations regarding future events and operating performance and speak only as of the date of this news release. Forward-looking statements involve significant risks and uncertainties, should not be read as guarantees of future performance or results, and will not necessarily be accurate indications of whether or not such results will be achieved. A number of factors could cause actual results to differ materially from the results discussed in the forward-looking statements, including, but not limited to, the factors discussed under "Risk Factors" in the company's Annual Information Form filed on SEDAR. Although the forward-looking statements contained in this news release are based upon what management of the Company believes are reasonable assumptions, the company cannot assure investors that actual results will be consistent with these forward looking statements. These forward-looking statements are made as of the date of this news release, and the company assumes no obligation to update or revise them to reflect new events or circumstances.

01 Communique Laboratory Inc.

SELECTED FINANCIAL INFORMATION

Consolidated Statements of Financial Position

(Unaudited)











31-Jan-17

31-Oct-16







Assets





Current assets







Cash and cash equivalents $ 116,477

$ 173,424

Accounts receivable 24,648

27,696

Prepaid expenses and other assets 7,688

6,975

148,813

208,095







Plant and equipment 2,875

3,965

$ 151,688

$ 212,060







Liabilities & Shareholders' Equity













Current liabilities







Accounts payable and accrued liabilities $ 504,197

$ 522,119

Deferred revenue 10,845

12,075

515,042

534,194







Liability portion of Debenture 378,519

374,476







Shareholders' equity







Share capital 40,832,777

40,832,777

Contributed surplus 5,363,655

5,311,155

Equity portion of Debenture 47,111

47,111

Deficit (46,985,416)

(46,887,653)

(741,873)

(696,610)

$ 151,688

$ 212,060

01 Communique Laboratory Inc.

SELECTED FINANCIAL INFORMATION

Consolidated Statements of Operations and Comprehensive Income

For the 3 month periods ended January 31, 2017 and 2016

(Unaudited)



for the 3 months ending



31-Jan-17

31-Jan-16







Revenue $ 7,631

$ 9,494 Expenses (income):





Selling, general and administrative 86,034

263,761 Patent litigation and re-examination expenses -

- Research and development 5,325

188,453 Interest (8)

(704)

91,351

451,510 Loss before interest and accretion on liability





component of debenture $ (83,720)

$ (442,016)







Interest on debenture 10,000

10,000 Accretion on liability portion of debenture 4,043

3,490







Loss for the period and comprehensive loss $ (97,763)

$ (455,506)















Loss per common share





Basic $ (0.00)

$ (0.01) Diluted $ (0.00)

$ (0.01)







Weighted average number of common shares



Basic 66,543,807

66,344,894 Diluted 66,543,807

66,344,894

01 Communique Laboratory Inc.

SELECTED FINANCIAL INFORMATION

Consolidated Statements of Cash Flows

For the 3 month periods ended January 31, 2017 and 2016

(Unaudited)



three months ending





31-Jan-17

31-Jan-16 Cash provided by (used in):













Operating activities:







Loss for the period $ (97,763)

$ (455,506)

Adjustments to reconcile the loss for the period





to net cash flows from operating activities







Depreciation 1,089

1,555

Stock-based compensation 52,500

142,890

Accretion on liability portion of debenture 4,043

3,490

Interest paid on debenture 10,000

10,000

Interest income (8)

(704) Change in non-cash working capital (16,816)

12,806

(46,955)

(285,469) Interest income received 8

704

(46,947)

(284,765)







Financing activities:







Issue of common shares -

123,000

Interest paid on debenture (10,000)

(10,000) Investing activities:







Purchase of capital assets -

(655) Increase (decrease) in cash (10,000)

(172,420)







Cash and cash equivalents, beginning of period 173,424

551,205 Cash and cash equivalents, end of period $ 116,477

$ 378,785

SOURCE 01 Communique Laboratory Inc.

For further information: INVESTOR CONTACT: Brian Stringer, Chief Financial Officer, 01 Communique, (905) 795-2888 x204, [email protected]

Related Links

http://www.01com.com


OTTAWA, March 31, 2017 /CNW/ - On March 31, National Aboriginal Languages Day, Assembly of First Nations (AFN) National Chief Perry Bellegarde released results of a national survey showing that the majority of Canadians support legislation to preserve, protect and revitalize Indigenous languages in Canada.

"It is important and encouraging that the majority of Canadians understand the need to promote and revitalize Indigenous languages," said National Chief Bellegarde. "Under the Indian Act and through the residential schools, Canada deliberately tried to eradicate Indigenous languages. We must undo the damage done. Our languages are national treasures spoken nowhere else. They are a shared part of our history and an essential element of our right to self-determination. We can work together to support and strengthen our languages, and we must start now."

There are currently more than 50 Indigenous languages being spoken in Canada, but only three are predicted to survive unless there is drastic action. The survey, conducted by Nanos Research, found that nearly three quarters of Canadians (74%) support the creation of an Indigenous Languages Act with the goal of ensuring the preservation, protection and revitalization of Indigenous languages in Canada. The most common reason given for this support was that language is important to culture and identity.

Following strong advocacy by the AFN and National Chief Bellegarde, the Prime Minister stated at the AFN Special Chiefs Assembly in December 2016 that he would commit to co-developing an Indigenous Languages Act with Indigenous peoples to ensure the "preservation, protection, and revitalization of First Nations, Metis, and Inuit languages in this country." Budget 2017 included funding to support Indigenous languages.

National Chief Bellegarde stated: "I want to hear our Elders whisper the ancient words of the ancestors into the ears of our babies. I want to see our young people speaking our languages on school playgrounds. To Indigenous people, wherever you are, I encourage you to seek out our fluent speakers and learn from them. Insist on your right to have your local languages taught in the schools systems and keep working at being able to speak your language."

National Aboriginal Languages Day was established by AFN Chiefs-in-Assembly in 1989 to create awareness across Canada of the languages of the First Peoples, and to build support for their preservation.

Nanos conducted an RDD dual frame (land- and cell- lines) hybrid telephone and online random survey of 1,000 Canadians, 18 years of age or older, between February 25th and 28th, 2017. The margin of error for a random survey of 1,000 Canadians is 3.1 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.

The AFN is the national organization representing First Nations citizens in Canada. Follow AFN on Twitter @AFN_Updates.

SOURCE Assembly of First Nations

For further information: For media requests or more information, please contact: Alain Garon, Bilingual Communications Officer, 613-241-6789 ext. 382, or cell: 613-292-0857, [email protected]
TORONTO, March 30, 2017 /CNW/ - A suggestion from the operators of Pearson International Airport that they would be open to selling airport land to private investors should be rejected immediately by the federal government, Unifor National President Jerry Dias says.

"Handing over public assets to private investors so they can jack up fees does little to help Canadians or to encourage traffic through our airports," Dias said. "The people who end up paying for that sort of strategy are workers at the airports and the traveling public."

Dias noted that last weeks' federal budget made no mention of privatizing airports, despite speculation in financial circles that it might, and that other airport authorities such as Calgary, Ottawa and Vancouver are decidedly against the idea.

"Unifor does not support the privatization of airports or other public assets, particularly when they generate significant revenue that helps fund the government services we all rely on," Dias said.

The Pearson suggestion to sell airport land in order to fund Pearson's transformation into a mega-hub are contained in a briefing note from the Greater Toronto Airport Authority to the federal government earlier this year, and only made public this week.

As not-for-profit operations, every penny airports raise is re-invested in their own operations. Requiring some of that money to be syphoned off to cover profits would only take money away from serving the flying public and do nothing to improve safety or quality of service, Dias said.

As well, Unifor and other unions have been forced to fight back against contract-flipping and other practices that have hurt airport workers. This would only worsen in the pursuit of profit, he said.

"We get a good deal from our airports. Privatization puts that at risk," Dias said. "Growth at Pearson is a good economic strategy, and we need to make sure that all stakeholders benefit."

Unifor is Canada's largest union in the private sector, representing more than 310,000 workers, including 12,000 in the air transportation sector and 46,000 in transportation as a whole. It was formed Labour Day weekend 2013 when the Canadian Auto Workers and the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers union merged.

SOURCE Unifor

For further information: Unifor Communications National Representative Stuart Laidlaw at [email protected] or (cell) 647-385-4054.
MONCTON, March 31, 2017 /CNW/ - Canadians are building a world-leading innovation economy. One way to do this is by making improvements to Express EntryCanada's flagship skilled-worker immigration application management system.

Programs managed through the Express Entry system attract high-skilled foreign workers and former international students who want to live in Canada permanently and whose in-demand skills are needed by employers across the country to help build businesses and grow the economy.

Starting on June 6, 2017, additional points will be awarded to candidates who have strong French language skills. These additional points represent an important change that will contribute to the growth, vitality and prosperity of Francophone minority communities across Canada.

Other changes to the Express Entry system planned for June include points for candidates with siblings in Canada and voluntary registration with Job Bank.

Quotes

"Increasing Francophone immigration and growing Francophone communities across Canada remains a priority for the Government of Canada. Canada's greatest strength is its skilled, hard-working, creative, and diverse workforce. I am pleased that with my announcement today, Canada will welcome more French speakers and others with skills and experience that will help our economy and communities grow".

 The Honourable Ahmed Hussen, Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship

"With these changes to Express Entry, I am pleased that Canada will welcome many more high-skilled Francophone immigrants. They will help grow Francophone minority communities across Canada and strengthen the economy as they build their new lives here."

 The Honourable Melanie Joly, Minister of Canadian Heritage

Quick facts

Since the launch of Express Entry in January 2015 , Canada has welcomed over 43,000 economic immigrants through the Express Entry system. Express Entry attracts highly skilled immigrants, with many having studied in fields related to science, technology, engineering and mathematicsskills that are linked to innovation, prosperity and growth.

Associated links

Follow us

SOURCE Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada

For further information: Contacts for media only: Camielle Edwards, Minister's Office, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, 613-954-1064; Media Relations, Communications Branch, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, 613-952-1650, [email protected]

Related Links

http://www.cic.gc.ca


VAUGHAN, ON, March 30, 2017 /CNW/ - Cara Operations Limited (TSX: CARA) today announced the timing of its 2017 first quarter earnings release and conference call.

The Company will release its 2017 first quarter earnings results on SEDAR (www.SEDAR.com) after the close of markets on Thursday, May 4, 2017. In conjunction with the news release, Cara has scheduled a conference call to discuss 2017 first quarter results at 9:00 am Eastern Time on Friday, May 5, 2017.

To access the call, please call (647) 427-7450 or 1-888-231-8191, five to ten minutes prior to the start time. Conference ID 99226122. A telephone replay of the call will be available until midnight on June 5, 2017. To access the replay, please dial (416) 849-0833 or 1-855-859-2056 and enter passcode 99226122.

About CARA

Founded in 1883, Cara is Canada's oldest and largest full-service restaurant company. The Company franchises and/or operates some of the most recognized brands in the country including Swiss Chalet, Harvey's, St-Hubert, Milestones, Montana's, Kelsey's, East Side Mario's, Casey's, New York Fries, Prime Pubs, Original Joe's, State & Main, Elephant & Castle, Bier Markt and Landing restaurants. As at December 25, 2016, Cara had 1,237 restaurants, 1,183 of which were located in Canada and the remaining 54 locations were located internationally. 83% of Cara's restaurants are operated by franchisees and 55% of Cara's locations are based in Ontario. Cara's shares trade on the Toronto Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol CARA.TO. More information about the Company is available at www.cara.com.

SOURCE Cara Operations Limited

For further information: INVESTOR RELATIONS: Cara Operations Limited, Ken Grondin, (905) 760-2244, Chief Financial Officer, Email: [email protected] or [email protected]

Related Links

http://www.cara.com


TORONTO, March 31, 2017 /CNW/ - Centennial College's innovative Paint the Town Green celebration won the "Best Event Produced for a Corporation by an In-house Team" award at the Canadian Event Industry Awards Gala in Vaughan last night.

To boldly mark Centennial's 50th anniversary last fall, the college released its students, faculty and staff to take part in its Paint the Town Green environmental initiative. Thousands of volunteers fanned out across the city on September 27 to lend a hand in 11 major City of Toronto parks by planting trees, spreading mulch, removing trash from waterways and nature trails, painting fixtures and beautifying public areas.

With Centennial's growing international reputation, its partner schools in China, Korea, India, Turkey, Panama, Brazil and other countries released their students to make meaningful contributions in their own communities. In one example, the president of Suzhou Centennial College near Shanghai, China, was thrilled to join his students and collect litter in the beautiful canal city of Suzhou.

At home and abroad, Paint the Town Green  the college's principal corporate colour  was Centennial's way of giving back to the communities that helped Ontario's first college to grow into one of Canada's most innovative institutions. With photos of volunteers working all over the world rapidly accumulating on social media, Centennial garnered considerable attention by the news media.

Centennial's 50th anniversary event was judged against the best in the business in its category, which this year included Providence Healthcare Foundation, WestJet Airlines, Canadian Tire Corporation, McMaster University and Economical Insurance. The Canadian Event Industry Awards were established in 1997 as a platform for event and meeting professionals to be recognized for their talent, hard work and success.

About Centennial College www.centennialcollege.ca

Established in 1966, Centennial College is Ontario's first public college primarily serving the eastern portion of the Greater Toronto Area. It has a record of exemplary teaching, innovative programming and extensive partnership building. With enrolments of 21,000 full-time students and 20,000 part-time learners, Centennial is recognized as one of the most culturally diverse post-secondary institutions in Canada. It offers more than 250 diploma, certificate and degree programs in business, media, community and consumer services, culinary arts, engineering technology, health care and transportation.

SOURCE Centennial College

For further information: Media contact: Mark Toljagic, Communications Officer, Centennial College, 416-289-5000 ext. 7142, [email protected]

Related Links

http://www.centennialcollege.ca


OTTAWA, March 31, 2017 /CNW/ - Their Excellencies the Right Honourable David Johnston, Governor General of Canada, and Mrs. Sharon Johnston will attend the 46th annual JUNO Awards at the Canadian Tire Centre in Ottawa, on Sunday, April 2, 2017, and walk the Red Carpet at 5:15 p.m.

"We are very pleased to be attending the JUNO Awards this year, especially during Canada's sesquicentennial, to celebrate Canadian artists and music," said the Governor General. "Every year, these awards give us the opportunity to honour excellence, to encourage the next generation of artists and to demonstrate our commitment to the arts in Canada. There is no doubt that this year's nominees have inspired Canadians and enthralled audiences worldwide."

About the JUNO Awards

The 46th annual JUNO Awards are being held in Ottawa this year as one of the Capital's major events in celebration of Canada's 150th anniversary. The JUNO Awards were created to celebrate and promote Canadian music and artists. These awards have evolved from an industry event to a week-long festival that travels city to city across the country each year. It encompasses both public-facing fan events and industry/networking opportunities featuring a diverse array of Canadian artists and emerging talent. For more information, visit www.junoawards.ca.

Follow GGDavidJohnston and RideauHall on Facebook and Twitter.

SOURCE Governor General of Canada

For further information: Media information: Melanie Primeau, Rideau Hall Press Office, 613-993-2569, 613-618-2691 (cell), [email protected]
Vector Institute Aims to Produce World's Largest Number of Deep Learning AI Graduates

TORONTO, March 30, 2017 /CNW/ - Vector Institute, a new independent research facility for artificial intelligence (AI), opened its doors at the MaRS Discovery District in downtown Toronto today with the aim of producing, attracting and retaining the finest talent in the world as part of a Canadian-rooted economic supercluster that will generate future discovery, opportunity, jobs and growth.

Vector will be dedicated to cutting-edge exploration of AI, specializing in the transformative fields of deep learning and machine learning. Collaborating with academic institutions, incubators, accelerators, start-ups, scale-ups and established companies, it will advance AI research and drive the adoption and commercialization of AI technologies across Canada.

"The Vector Institute is an unprecedented answer to an unprecedented opportunity and represents an exceptional partnership between independent researchers, academic institutions, government, private industry and entrepreneurs," said Ed Clark, Chair of the Vector Institute Board of Directors. "The Vector Institute will confirm Canada's world-leading position in the field of deep learning artificial intelligence. Consequently, it will spur economic growth in Canada by attracting talent and investment, supporting scale-up firms and enabling established firms to be best-in-class adopters of artificial intelligence."

Vector intends to produce more masters, applied masters, PhDs and post-doctoral graduates in deep learning and machine learning AI than any other institution in the world, attracting top talent, investment, and researchers from around the world and contributing to a more vibrant start-up and spin-off ecosystem.

Its founding scientists, including world-renowned researcher Dr. Geoffrey Hinton, are affiliated with the University of Toronto. Vector is also actively engaging with other universities across Ontario and Canada to attract, train and keep the world's best minds in Canada. It serves as a key pillar to a pan-Canadian AI leadership strategy.

"The opportunities for new discoveries in the field of deep learning are very exciting, and the applications are endless," said Hinton, who will serve as Vector's Chief Scientific Advisor. "Now is the time for us to lead the research and shape the future of this field, putting neural network technologies to work in ways that will improve health care, strengthen our economy and unlock new fields of scientific advancement. And with the Vector Institute collaborating with institutes in Montreal and Edmonton we can do that here in Canada."

Vector Institute launches with a substantial partnership between government and industry. The Province of Ontario has committed $50 million to support the Institute. In addition, as part of the Government of Canada's $125 million Pan-Canadian AI Strategy announced in the 2017 budget, the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIFAR) will work with the Vector Institute - a key partner in the initiative - to support the core activities of the Institute, the Canada CIFAR Chairs in AI Science, graduate training, and the participation of the Chairs and trainees in national AI activities.

In addition, more than 30 companies have committed a combined total of over $80 million over ten years to support the Vector Institute, reflecting the transformational potential of deep learning and machine learning in fields as diverse as health care, finance, insurance, education, retail, advanced manufacturing, construction and transportation.

To learn more about Vector Institute, visit: vectorinstitute.ai

Twitter: @vectorinst

For additional information, contact:

Cathy Mallove

416-822-5169

[email protected]



Vector Institute

MaRS Centre, Heritage Building

101 College Street, Suite HL30B

Toronto, ON M5G 1L7

About Vector Institute  Backgrounder

The Vector Institute is an independent, non-profit research institution dedicated to the transformative field of artificial intelligence, excelling in machine and deep learning  an area of scientific, academic, and commercial endeavour that will shape our world over the next generation.

Collaborating with Ontario's academic institutions, other institutes across Canada and companies in every sector of the economy, we will conduct research and drive the adoption and commercialization of AI technologies across Canada. Our goals are to: 1) be a world-leading centre for AI research; 2) graduate the most deep learning and machine-learning PhDs and masters students globally; and 3) become the engine for an AI super cluster that drives the economy of Toronto, Ontario and Canada. Over the next few years it is expected that Vector will grow to include approximately 400 researchers, faculty, students, engineers and others.

Launched in March 2017 with generous support from the Government of Canada, Government of Ontario, and private industry, and in partnership with the University of Toronto and others, Vector represents an unprecedented answer to an unprecedented opportunity: the transformative potential of AI in fields as diverse as health care, finance, insurance, education, retail, advanced manufacturing, construction and transportation.

The inaugural sponsors of the Vector Institute reflect a highly diverse range of companies of all sizes and sectors:

Platinum: $5 million commitment

Accenture

BMO Financial Group [FR: BMO Groupe financier]

Google

Loblaws Companies Limited

Magna International

NVIDIA

RBC

Scotiabank [FR: Banque Scotia]

Shopify Inc.

TD Bank Group [FR: Le Group Banque TD]

Thomson Reuters

Gold: $2.5 million commitment

Air Canada

CIBC

Deloitte

EY

Georgian Partners

Intact Financial Corporation [FR: Intact Corporation financiere]

KPMG

Manulife

PwC Canada

Sun Life Financial [FR: Financiere Sun Life]

TELUS

Silver: $500,000 commitment

EllisDon Corporation

Linamar Corporation

Bronze: Renewable $20,000/year commitment

Chan Zuckerberg Initiative

Clearpath

Deep Genomics

FreshBooks

Helpful.com

integrate.ai

Layer 6 AI

Thalmic Labs

Vector Institute is governed by a highly accomplished volunteer Board of Directors drawn from the private sector, public sector, academic and research communities:

Ed Clark (Chair)

(Chair) Scott Bonham

Vivek Goel

Mary Jo Haddad

Chaviva Hosek

Jordan Jacobs

Stephen Lake

Nadir Mohamed

Michael Serbinis

Pearl Sullivan

Terrence Sullivan

Shivon Zilis

SOURCE Vector Institute

For further information: visit us at www.vectorinstitute.ai or email [email protected]
Two billionaires, Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos, are leading companies that are creating new space flight capability. However, adventurous billionaires could be very important to the first manned flights to Mars.

NASA has so far been unwilling to divert the $4 billion per year going to the Space Launch System into Spacex Mars mission plans.

Spacex would be in a stronger financial position when NASA and the US military decide they should start more efficiently spending about ten billion dollars per year of launch and mission related budgets.

Two currently unknown wealthy individuals are apparently willing to pay $200-400 million each for Apollo 8 like flights on a Spacex Falcon heavy. This would be a lunar orbiting mission that could fly in 2018.

It could take many years before NASA and the US military and intelligence space agencies change their budgets.

Pioneering Mars missions may depend upon more billionaires being willing to make big space trips.

In 2017, Forbes has found 2043 billionaires in the world. Forbes estimates their collective net worth at about $7.7 trillion. This is an undercount, since Forbes is only listing billionaires with enough public financial information for Forbes to verify.

In 2013, Dennis Tito has already indicated that he was interested in a 501 day Mars flyby.

On 27 February 2013, the Inspiration Mars Foundation held a press conference in the National Press Club to announce their plan to procure space hardware, launch vehicle services, and select a two-person married couple as crew, and then attempt to raise the funding necessary to launch a mission to Mars in 2018. Dennis Tito said he was going to fund the foundation with $100 million for the first years of operation.

At the 2013 conference, however, Dennis Tito indicated that the plan was impossible without significant investment from NASA and the use of NASA spacecraft. NASA, however, was an unwilling partner.

The total cost of the mission was projected to be between US$1 and US$2 billion. Tito planned to fund the foundations cost for the first two years. Then, the foundation planned to raise funds from industry and individuals.

However, in testimony before congress in November 2013, Tito indicated that he expected private donors to only provide around $300 million, leaving the need for an additional investment of $700 million from the US government. NASA responded that whilst they were willing to share technical and programmatic expertise with Inspiration Mars, they were unable to commit to sharing expenses with them

Other public or private world billionaires may also be willing to pay for Mars flybys or even Mars landings.

Elon Musk and Spacex seem willing to fund a couple of unmanned missions to Mars. Elon seems to have indicated a willingness to subsidize or significantly contribute to the early Mars missions.

It seems more billionaires will need to pass a large hat around to close the $1-2 billion cost.

Free Return manned Flyby of Mars

New space Journal has more info

The mission would involve a flyby of Mars with a free return back to Earth, without stopping. That type of low-energy trajectory requires a special set of orbital circumstances: The presentation says those circumstances exist for the 2018 opportunity but wont repeat until 2031. Two astronauts living in spartan conditions could make the 501-day trip in a modified SpaceX Dragon capsule, launched by SpaceXs yet-to-be-flown Falcon Heavy rocket.

Feasibility Analysis for a Manned Mars Free Return Mission in 2018 (paper to be presented March 3, 2013) written by John Carrico; Dennis Tito; Grant Anderson; Michel Loucks; Taber Mac Callum; Thomas Squire; Jonathan Clark

Free Return from Mars

Here is a 30 page NASA paper from the 1990s that discusses free return Mars flyby trajectories

Tito, a former rocket engineer, made his fortune as the founder of Wilshire Associates, a multibillion-dollar investment firm based in California. He made history in 2001 when he paid a reported $20 million for a ride aboard a Russian Soyuz spacecraft to the space station. At the time, the eight-day round trip was highly controversial and required changes in the policies governing space station operations. Since then, six other high-net-worth individuals have taken similar flights with little or no controversy. The current published price for such flights is upwards of $40 million.
Taipei, March 31 (CNA) The Taipei District Court ruled on Friday that the main leaders of the 2014 student-led Sunflower Movement -- during which protesters occupied the Legislature for weeks in opposition to a trade-in-services pact with China -- were not guilty of inciting others to commit a crime nor of obstruction of official business or other crimes.
Alabukun, one of the oldest drugs in Nigeria and even is still very relevant and popular today.

Alabukun, one of the oldest drugs in Nigeria and even is still very relevant and popular today. However, not many know the Jacob Odulate aka Blessed Jacob, a Nigerian pharmacist, inventor and entrepreneur and the brain behind the brand that has remained relevant selling in all parts of Nigeria, Benin republic, Cameroon, Ghana and some parts of Europe.We bring you 8 previously unknown facts about him1.Jacob Sogboyega Odulate aka Blessed Jacob was born into a polygamous family in 1884.2.He was originally from Ikorodu in Lagos State but later moved to the neighbouring Ogun State.3.At age 14, he trekked for three months from Ikorodu before reaching Abeokuta to establish himself.4. Blessed Jacob managed to create a brand from what served as his consulting room and workshop in Abeokuta. His modest headquarters was at the Sapon Area, not far from where he later built his famous three-storey building in Ijemo Agbadu.5.In 1918, he invented the legendary Alabukun powder which is now a hit in the worlds most populous nation and in other West African nations.6.He sent his children to study at some of the best universities in Durham, Newcastle, United States of America and London. e.g Mrs. Folake Odulate (later to become Chief. Mrs. Folake Solanke) who is the first female lawyer in Nigeria to wear the silk and she also became the first female Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN). In 1966, she established the first law firm by a Nigerian female at Ibadan, Oyo State and named it Alabukun Chambers in honour of her great father.7. Apart from making the drugs, the energetic Blessed Jacob also produced other brands like Alabukun mentholine, other preparations and an annual journal called Alabukun Almanac which was widely distributed in Abeokuta and eventually all over Nigeria between the 1920s and 1950s.8.He died in 1962 at age 78.
Femi Falana, human rights lawyer, says President Muhammadu Buhari is empowered by the constitution to appoint Ibrahim Magu as acting chair...

Femi Falana, human rights lawyer, says President Muhammadu Buhari is empowered by the constitution to appoint Ibrahim Magu as acting chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) for as long as possible.Speaking on Sunrise Daily, a Channels TV programme, on Friday, Falana said it was incorrect to say that Ibrahim Magu could not remain as the acting chairman of the EFCC because he was rejected by the senate.The lawyer said that according to section 171 of the constitution, the president does not need to ask for confirmation of some appointments.He explained that the senate could only confirm ambassadors and heads of foreign mission as provided for in section 171 subsection 2 of the constitution.The senior advocate of Nigeria (SAN) said the executive is not on the receiving end of sound legal counsel while adding that the 8th senate may expose the national assembly to unfathomable ridicule.To be honest with you, I sympathise with the senate because if care is not taken, these set of senators will have the end of the day expose the national assembly to such unfathomable ridicule, Falana said.It will be unfortunate, a tragedy to the country, every public officer has his or her power defined by the constitution. The moment you go outside that you have engaged in impunity. Section 171 of the constitution has vested the power in the president to appoint any person to that office or act in that office and the duration is not specified.Of all the positions listed there, positions to be occupied by public officers without any reference to the senate  secretary to the government of the federation, permanent secretaries, head of service and heads of extra-ministerial departments like the EFCC and the ICPC.With profound respect, in sending the letter to the senate for confirmation, the president relied on section 2 subsection 3 of the EFCC Act but that section has to be read subject to the constitution.So if you do that, section 171 takes precedence over section 2 subsection 3 of the EFCC Act. So does the president need to ask for confirmation? No.Unfortunately, the executive is not exposed to sound legal advice on this matter, with profound respect. In that section 171, subsection 2, you also have position of ambassadors and heads of our foreign missions. But that subsection says they shall be confirmed by the senate.He said since the national assembly was already working on an alteration of the constitution, the senators could effect amendments to the limitations of their powers under the constitution.Falana said after such amendments had been effected, the senators could then refuse to entertain a rejected nominee.But in the case of the others, there is no provision for confirmation. So assuming that interpretation is even wrong, once you refuse to confirm, that does not annul the acting capacity of an officer, he said.
The Federal High Court Abuja, on Friday granted former Interior Minister, Abba Moro, permission to travel abroad for medical checkup. Moro...





The Federal High Court Abuja, on Friday granted former Interior Minister, Abba Moro, permission to travel abroad for medical checkup. Moro was granted similar permission on July 14, 2016 to travel for medical treatment.The former minister is standing trial over alleged N676 million Nigeria Immigration Service recruitment scam. When the matter was called up for hearing, counsel to Moro, Mr Akinlolu Kehinde (SAN) told the court that the application for leave to travel again was to follow up on the earlier treatment.There is an urgent need for him to go for a follow up checkup on his health as he was given an appointment for April 26.Kehinde said to achieve this, his client was praying the court for an order permitting him to travel to Dubai for three weeks and an order directing the release of his international passport.The lawyer said that he attached a 24- paragraph affidavit in support of his application.He said that the last time the court granted his client leave to travel, he promptly returned to face his trial on completion of his treatment. Although the prosecuting counsel, Mr Steven Odiase did not oppose the application, he urged the court to attach conditions since Moro was granted bail on self-recognition.The judge, Justice Nnamdi Dimgba, granted Moro the permission to travel, but ordered him to provide a letter of undertaking from a surety with landed property in Abuja. Alternatively, the court asked his counsel to guarantee him, that he would come back to face his trial.I am disposed to granting the application in favour of the applicant because the reason is a follow up to the earlier treatment. However, considering the concerns raised by the complainant, I will impose some conditions, Dimgba said. He adjourned the case till May 18 and 19 for resumption of trial.Moro alongside two others are on trial over alleged N676 million Nigeria Immigration 2014 recruitment fraud.
Nigerias most successful conglomerates, the Dangote Plc, has signed a Memorandum of Understanding, MoU, with Bontus Group of Companies ba...

Nigerias most successful conglomerates, the Dangote Plc, has signed a Memorandum of Understanding, MoU, with Bontus Group of Companies based in Onitsha for the supply and distribution of all Dangote products in the commercial city.Director in charge of Dangote in the South East, Mr. Tunde Mabogunje signed for his company, while the chairman of Bontus Group, Chief Uche Okafor, signed for his company.Okafor said at the signing ceremony that with the agreement, all Dangote products, including sugar, cement, noodles, rice and tomato, would soon flood the eastern part of the country at very competitive prices.The South East director of Dangote, Mr. Mabogunje, said in addition to sugar, salt, cement and other products, his company would launch its brand of rice before December 2017, just as Dangote tomato would soon be in the market.
The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, Ibadan zonal office, Oyo State, on Thursday said a herbalist had been arrested by its operat...

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, Ibadan zonal office, Oyo State, on Thursday said a herbalist had been arrested by its operatives for falsely obtaining N45m from a victim under the pretext of offering herbal and spiritual healing.A statement from the EFCC Head of Public Affairs in the zone, Ayo Oyewole, said the suspect, Aminat Okiribiti, 34, committed the crime with two other accomplices at large, one of who is said to be her husband.The statement said, Aminat (Okiribiti) was arrested for an alleged case of conspiracy and obtaining money under false pretences. In a rehash of the old infamous advance fee fraud tactic of spiritual help and solution to all problems, a victim recounted her ordeal in the hands of a syndicate to our operatives, signalling a warning to the public.Aminat, alongside other three cohorts still at large, conspired, using the decoy of providing cure and spiritual solution to the health challenges of the victims children and fleeced her of the sum of N45m.Aminat, who is married to one Wande Okiribiti, 47, who is still at large, confessed that some of the money obtained from the victim was collected through her (Aminats) bank account domiciled in one of the new generation banks located in Ibadan.The statement said Aminat and the victim met sometime in October 2014, at Utako, Abuja, adding that the suspect would be charged to court at the end of investigation.
Some suspected fraudsters, who specialised in cloning phone numbers of ministers, politicians and aides to President Muhammadu Buhari, hav...

Some suspected fraudsters, who specialised in cloning phone numbers of ministers, politicians and aides to President Muhammadu Buhari, have been apprehended by the police.The suspects were identified as Chief Ovie Ogogo, 47; Abdulazeez Eragbe, 40; Babatunde Oshamoto, 49; and 25-year-old Samuel Idah.Fourteen phones with SIM cards allegedly registered with names of top government officials were reportedly recovered from the suspects.Among those impersonated by the syndicate, according to the police, are Chief of Staff to the President, Abba Kyari; the National Security Adviser, Babagana Moguno; the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Ibeh Kachukwu; and the Minister of Finance, Mrs. Kemi Adeosun.They were also accused of impersonating a national leader of the All Progressives Congress, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu; the Senate President, Bukola Saraki; the Minister of Transport, Rotimi Amaechi; and the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Babachir Lawal.It was ro learnt that operatives of the Inspector-General of Police, led by ACP Abba Kyari, trailed the syndicate to a hotel in Kaduna State on Tuesday, after receiving complaints from some victims.A police source disclosed to one of our correspondents that the suspects impersonated Moguno to collect N13m from a Ghanaian, who wanted to get an oil block in Nigeria, and posed as Lawal to swindle one Nnamdi Udo of N4m under false pretences of helping him to get a federal appointment.They also posed as the Chief of Staff to the President and collected N2.5m from one Mr. Bishop, who was looking for a contract, and another N700,000 from one Shehu Dan Yahaya, who was seeking a federal appointment.Ogogo, a native of Omoku Rivers State, impersonated prominent citizens from the South-South and South-East; Eragbe impersonated prominent persons from the North; Oshamoto posed as prominent citizens from the South-West and North-Central; while Idah supplied them SIM cards registered with the names of the top government officials.They were arrested in a luxury hotel in Kaduna and had confessed to impersonating several prominent citizens, the source added.Another senior police officer disclosed to newsmen that the suspects confessed to have realised N20m in six months from their criminal activities.He added that the mastermind of the gang was based in the United Kingdom.He said, Ogogo is their leader; but they mentioned one Prince Maurice, based in the UK, as their gang leader. Fourteen different phones, several registered SIM cards, and a diary containing phone numbers of several top government officials, were recovered from the suspects.Ogogo further confessed that they had made over N20m from their criminal activities within the last six months.Parading the suspects on Thursday in Abuja, the police spokesman, Jimoh Moshood, said all the suspects confessed to the crime.He said, On March 23, 2017, the Intelligence Response Team arrested these notorious criminals who posed as top government functionaries.The four-man syndicate, led by one High Chief Ovie Ogogo, was arrested in a hotel in Kaduna State. All the suspects confessed to the crime and admitted to have impersonated several prominent citizens and made over N20m within the last six months.The police said other suspects would soon be arrested, while those in custody would be arraigned in court at the conclusion of investigation.
Former Presidential Aide, Reno Omokri in a Facebook post explains how former President Goodluck Jonathan ruined Nigeria.

Former Presidential Aide, Reno Omokri in a Facebook post explains how former President Goodluck Jonathan ruined Nigeria.Omokri wrote, "They keep saying Dr. Goodluck Jonathan ruined Nigeria for five years, but in those five years Nigerians had affordable food, fuel, dollars and regular salary at the federal level.''Moreover, Jonathan did not spend unspecified sums of money on his health abroad neither did he write letters to the National Assembly defending members of his cabinet caught red handed in corruption.''Perhaps Jonathan ruined Nigerian by reviving our previously moribund railways and made it possible for you to travel by rail from Lagos to Kano at a cost of 1500. Perhaps he ruined Nigeria by building the ONLY standard gauge modern railway that makes it possible for you to live in Kaduna and work in Abuja.''In fact, I am sure Jonathan ruined President Muhammadu Buhari's home state of Katsina, by building the ONLY federal university in that state. If ruining is what Jonathan did for five years, then what will you call what President Buhari has done to Nigeria in the last two years?"
Ibrahim Magu, the acting Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, has asked publisher of the Sun Newspaper in Abuja...

Ibrahim Magu, the acting Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, has asked publisher of the Sun Newspaper in Abuja to pay him N5 billion naira damages over a report concerning ownership of mansions in Abuja.Wilson Uwujaren, EFCC Head of Media in a statement Thursday said Magu was seeking the compensation for libelous imputations and statements made against him in a story published on the March 25, 2017 edition of the Saturday Sun.It said the publication was captioned Magu Under Fresh Probe over 2 Abuja Mansions.Magus solicitor, Wahab Shittu, in the letter complained that the authors  Fred Itua, James Ojo and Lawrene Enyoghasu, wilfully and maliciously made false, destructive, and defamatory statements.Magu said that the writers of the report maliciously alleged that Magu owned two mansions on different streets in highbrow Maitama area of Abuja.This is a case which they could not substantiate, and which in fact was false, and nothing but the figments of their imaginations.Magu further reiterated that neither himself nor his wife owned any property in Maitama.Magu, in addition to the demand for N5 billion compensation, wants the publishers to issue a public apology and immediate retraction in writing of these false libelous statements, within the next seven days.Magu also demanded that it must be published on the front page of the newspaper.Failure of which, legal remedies including monetary damages, injunctive reliefs, and an order that you pay necessary costs including solicitors fees for your defamation will be taken, the letter reads.It added that the publishers were also to provide written assurance within seven days, that they would cease and desist from further defamation of Magus name, integrity, and reputation.
There are no plans to fly in doctors from the United Kingdom (UK) to treat President Muhammadu Buhari at the Presidential Villa in Abuja...

There are no plans to fly in doctors from the United Kingdom (UK) to treat President Muhammadu Buhari at the Presidential Villa in Abuja, the Presidency said yesterday.The Presidents Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity, Mallam Garba Shehu, said the plan for the President to return to his doctors in the UK for follow-ups has not changed.On his return on March 10 after a 49-day medical vacation in the UK, President Buhari said he would return to London after few weeks for further checks on his treatment.There have been insinuations that instead of going back to London for the follow-up, the President had decided to bring his doctors to Abuja.But Mallam Shehu debunked the report in a chat with reporters in Abuja yesterday.According to him, it was not true that Buhari had decided to bring his doctors to Nigeria instead of returning to London.His words: It is false news (that Buhari is no longer going to London). We are not aware of the reported advance movements. The last time the President spoke about this, he said he would return to his doctors after some time. We are not aware that this has changed.
A Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Mr Mike Ozekhome, has stated that the Senate has the right to summon its members to order at anytime.

A Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Mr Mike Ozekhome, has stated that the Senate has the right to summon its members to order at anytime.The Committee of the House or the House, can summon any person. it says any person, and it didnt say some people.It didnt say whether those elected or not elected. Any person; to bring papers, memos, come with evidence, and that if such a person is summoned to come and testify or to come and answer questions and he refuses to come, under Section 5, the Branch of the National Assembly can order the Police to arrest and bring such a person.He added that the Senate President or the Speaker of the House of Representatives if satisfied that the person has entered into recognizance, they can release the person but if not satisfied, they can tell them to keep the person there.He made his position known while speaking on Channels Televisions Breakfast show, Sunrise Daily.Mr Ozekhomes view was however in contrast to that of his colleague, Mr Femi Falana, who believes that the Senate has no power to suspend a member even for a single day.The lawyers made the comments while addressing the Senates recent suspension of one of its members, Senator Ali Ndume, for allegedly bringing the House to disrepute, as well as the investigation and summoning of some of its members.In matters regarding some of the distinguished Senators, the court has made definitive judicial pronouncements. No legislative House in Nigeria, can suspend a member for one single day and we have a plethora of authorities on this, Mr Falana stressed.
route4-grand.jpg

The fatal accident occurred on Route 4 near Grand Avenue on Jan. 16, 2016. (Google Maps)

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ENGLEWOOD - The passenger in a car in which a driver was killed in a crash last year has filed suit against the estate of the dead driver, claiming he was inattentive and reckless, according to court documents.

Tori Williams of Englewood claims she was seriously injured in the Jan. 16, 2016 wreck, which occurred when Bevon L. Senior Jr. lost control along Route 4 near Grand Avenue, according to a lawsuit filed March 23 in Bergen County Superior Court.

Senior, 21, of Englewood, operated his Acura Integra in an "inattentive, negligent, careless and reckless fashion so as to (strike) a guard rail and utility pole, resulting in severe and permanent injuries to plaintiff," the suit states.

According to news reports, Senior was thrown from his car and struck by a westbound vehicle. He was pronounced dead at the scene.

Williams was taken to Hackensack University Medical Center and released, but continues to suffer from her injuries, according to the suit.

The suit states Williams' hospital treatment cost her more than $3,600 and that she will continue to incur medical expenses in the future.

Also named as defendants are the City of Englewood, Bergen County and the state of New Jersey for negligent upkeep and for failing to maintain, repair and inspect the roadway, the suit alleges.

Anthony G. Attrino may be reached at tattrino@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @TonyAttrino. Find NJ.com on Facebook.
SHAMONG -- A local man pleaded guilty Thursday to aggravated assault and other charges for seriously injuring a woman on a motorcycle while under the influence of alcohol, the Bucks County, Pa., district attorney said in a statement.

Timothy Babbitt, 39, also pleaded guilty to recklessly endangering another person, driving under the influence and reckless driving in connection with the Oct. 12 accident.

Timothy Babbitt (Bucks County District Attorney)

Vicky Mazzocca, 67, of Warminster, Pa., was riding south on Rt. 611 in Doylestown when she was struck from behind by Babbitt's Ford van. Mazzocca was thrown from the motorcycle and pinned under the bumper of the van. Babbitt continued to drive after the collision.

Mazzocca suffered a concussion, multiple fractures and pulmonary edema.

Babbitt was later found to have a blood-alcohol content of .269 percent, more than three times the legal limit in Pennsylvania. Investigators also found a large Gatorade bottle containing alcohol in Babbitt's van as well as a receipt from a bar in Otisville for six drinks, including three double-vodkas. Babbitt left the bar less than a half-hour before the 3 p.m. crash.

Sentencing was deferred pending the outcome of a presentencing investigation, authorities said.

Paul Milo may be reached at pmilo@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter@PaulMilo2. Find NJ.com on Facebook.
LINDENWOLD -- Authorities said the 7-month-old twins who were found dead March 22 died from natural causes.

Detective Andrew McNeil of the Camden County prosecutor's office confirmed Friday the medical examiner's ruling on the manner of death.

He did so shortly after NJ Advance Media learned from staff at the funeral home handling the babies' arrangements that Jessenia and Juliana Rodriguez-Garnett died from natural causes.

While officials gave the manner of death, Prosecutor Mary Eva Colalillo said the exact cause of death will not be released "out of respect for the deceased."

The twins were discovered in the apartment in The Pines by their mother, Alexandria Garnett, who called 911 around 8:15 a.m. She sobbed to the dispatcher that the babies were in their cribs, not breathing despite CPR, and appeared purple.

The autopsies were performed last week, but the Camden County prosecutor's office had not released the causes of death earlier because it had not yet received the results of toxicology tests.

A staff member at Ora L. Wooster Funeral Home, who declined to give his name, did not say what the specific cause of death was.

He did say the medical examiner had "checked a box" for natural causes. He also said that the cause was not sudden infant death syndrome, or SIDS.

The funeral home, where the twins' funeral will be held Saturday, received the paperwork from the medical examiner because it is necessary to obtain the death certificates, he said.

An obituary for Jessenia and Juliana Rodriguez-Garnett said that they leave behind four siblings, as well as their mother and father, Daniel Rodriguez. The family has declined to comment to NJ Advance Media.

According to a post on the twins' grandmother's Facebook page, they were born more than two months premature on Aug. 18, 2016.

Markia Conover, a friend of Garnett, told Philly.com that they were premature and one needed heart surgery, but she didn't know if those were factors in their deaths.

She told the news site that Garnett was a great mother and said the twins had a strong bond, sometimes holding hands while they slept.

When medical examiners determine the manner of death, they are deciding which of the following categories the death falls under: natural, accident, suicide, homicide or undetermined.

The cause of death is more specific, such as a heart attack or stroke.

For an article last week, Dr. Kathryn McCans an emergency room pediatrician at Cooper University Hospital and the chairwoman of the state's Child Fatality and Near Fatality Review Board, said that there are many natural causes that could kill two babies in the same night, but it is a rare occurrence.

"A natural cause is something that is not preventable or caused by an outside factor," she said. "It could be something you're born with or developed, anything that's a medical issue."

The natural manner of death means the medical examiner concluded that no external factors, including foul play, an accident or any kind of poisoning, led to the deaths.

It encompasses many possible causes of death, including various illnesses or a condition. That could mean the children were born with a condition that killed them, or made both of them more susceptible to an illness.

McCans said a virus like RSV can in rare cases kill a child before the symptoms even appear serious. Or, babies can get severe infections like meningitis and show few symptoms.

She said it would be normal for twins to both come down with the same illness within a day or two of one another, but for them to die at roughly the same time is unusual.

Rebecca Everett may be reached at reverett@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @rebeccajeverett. Find NJ.com on Facebook.

This story was updated with confirmation from the prosecutor's office and additional information about what constitute's a natural manner of death.
PRINCETON -- Princeton University joined 30 other colleges Friday in a legal brief criticizing the Trump administration's revised executive order.

The colleges filed a friend-of-the-court brief supporting a federal judge's preliminary injunction against the administration's 90-day ban on travelers from Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen.

The latest executive order, like its predecessor, threatens colleges' ability to attract the most talented people from around the globe, the brief says.

More than one million international students were enrolled in U.S. universities during the 2015-16 academic year, including 640 (12.2 percent) of Princeton's undergraduates and 1,168 (42 percent) of its graduate students, according to the university.

Princeton has more than 50 students and employees from the six affected countries, and its graduate school received approximately 150 applications for fall 2017 from students from those nations.

In the past five years, Princeton's graduate school received more than 700 applications from those countries.

The brief said universities "take extremely seriously the safety and security of their campuses." However, they believe those concerns can be addressed in a way that is consistent with the values America has always stood for, "including the free flow of ideas across borders and the welcoming of immigrants to our universities."

Princeton previously filed a brief in support of the plaintiffs challenging Trump's initial travel bad.

In February, Princeton President Chris Eisbruber signed a letter from university president's asking Trump to rescind his executive order.

Adam Clark may be reached at adam_clark@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on twitter at @realAdamClark. Find NJ.com on Facebook.
Assad: No one invited US to Manbij, all foreign troops in Syria without permission are invadersAny foreign troops coming to Syria without our invitation or consultation or permission, they are invaders, whether they are American, Turkish, or any other one, Assad told Chinese PHOENIX TV, as cited by the Syrian state-run SANA news agency.When a journalist asked the Syrian president if Damascus had opened doors for American troops in Aleppo provinces city of Manbij, Assad said No, we didnt.What are they [foreign troops] going to do? To fight ISIS [Islamic State, formerly ISIL]? The Americans lost nearly every war. They lost in Iraq, they had to withdraw at the end. Even in Somalia, let alone Vietnam in the past and Afghanistan.According to Assad, the US didnt succeed anywhere they sent troops, they only create a mess; they are very good in creating problems and destroying, but they are very bad in finding solutions.The Pentagon confirmed earlier in March that US troops had been sent to Manbij to prevent conflict between US-backed Kurdish forces and rebels backed by Turkey.Without foreign intervention, the Syrian war will take a few months to bring to an end, Assad noted.The complexity of this war is the foreign intervention. This is the problem, he said.Why are the US REALLY in Syria?
Alexei Abrikosov Biographical

I was born in 1928, June 25, in Moscow, USSR (now Russia). My parents were physicians. I graduated from high school in 1943 and was accepted as student of the Institute for Power Engineers. In 1945 I transferred to the Physics Department of the Moscow State University, from which I graduated in 1948 with a diploma (M.Sc. degree). After that I was accepted, as a Postgraduate (Ph.D. student) to the Institute for Physical Problems (now P.L. Kapitza Institute). My scientific adviser was L.D. Landau. After I defended in 1951 a thesis on thermal diffusion in completely and incompletely ionized plasmas, I got the Candidate of Science (Ph.D.) degree and was taken to the staff of the Institute, as Junior Scientist.

In 19511952 I worked with the experimentalist of the same institute, N.V. Zavaritskii on the experimental verification of the predictions of the recently published Ginzburg-Landau theory of superconductivity on the critical magnetic field of thin films. This resulted in our discovery of the superconductors of the second group (now Type II superconductors). After that I started to work on the magnetic properties of bulk Type II superconductors, and came to the conclusion that the transition from superconducting to the normal state happens gradually in increasing field with two limiting critical fields. Between these two values the field gradually penetrates the superconductor forming thin threads of magnetic flux surrounded by vortex currents. The array of these quantum vortices forms a regular structure (now referred in the literature, as Abrikosov vortex lattice). I compared my results with the magnetization curves obtained experimentally in the 1930s for superconducting alloys, and there was a perfect fit. The experimentalist explained their data, as due to inhomogenity of their samples. My paper was published in 1957 but the experimentalists accepted the vortex lattice only 10 years later, after it was demonstrated by decoration experiments.

In the middle of 1950s I worked also on the transition from the insulating molecular phase into the atomic metallic phase in hydrogen and on the structure of hydrogen planets. Another my topic was quantum electrodynamics at high energies. The latter works became my Doctor of Science thesis (this degree is similar to Habilitation in Germany), which I defended in 1955.

In the end of 1950s  beginning of 1960s we worked with L. Gorkov on the microscopic theory of superconductivity. We constructed the theory of superconductors in a high-frequency field (with I.M. Khalatnikov) and the theory of superconductors with magnetic impurities, where we discovered the possibility of the so-called gapless superconductivity. We also solved the mystery of the finite Knight shift at zero temperature, taking into account the spin-orbit scattering. Simultaneously we worked with I.M. Khalatnikov on the theory of nonsuperfluid He3: thermodynamics, kinetics, sound dispersion, light and g -ray scattering, etc. These works were based on the theory of a Fermiliquid by L. Landau. I worked also during this time on the theory of strongly compressed matter.

In 1961 we published a book with L. Gorkov and I. Dzyaloshinskii Quantum field theory methods in statistical physics. Originally written in Russian, it was translated into English, German, Chinese, Japanese, and became (and still is) the main textbook on the subject.

In 196263 with my postgraduate L. Falkovsky we constructed the theory of semimetals of the Bi type. These substances have a very small number of charge carriers (in Bi ~ 10-5 per atom) and a very peculiar crystalline lattice differing from a simple cubic lattice by two small deformations. The resulting lattice has two atoms per unit cell, and in principle it could be an insulator. However, a simple cubic lattice has one atom per unit cell, and should be a good metal with the number of carriers of the order of one per atom, and small deformations cannot transform it into an insulator. This paradox can be resolved by constructing an artificial phase, which at zero deformation has an energy higher than a conventional metal but the energy decreases with deformation, so that eventually this phase becomes energetically favorable. This gives the opportunity to approach the (almost) insulating phase continuously. In this series of papers the energy spectrum was calculated, and the metalinsulator transition with the vanishing of the energy gap was predicted. The infrared properties were analyzed and the transparency thresholds in the frequency were established. All this was confirmed by experiments.

In 1962 our dear teacher, L.D. Landau, got in a car accident and suffered heavy injuries. His life was saved but his brain was damaged, and he never returned to science after that. He died in 1968 from remote consequences of the accident. After the accident the attitude towards theorists at the Institute for Physical Problems changed, and the Landau Group started to think about leaving.

In 1964 I was elected Corresponding Member of the Academy of Sciences, USSR (now Russian Academy of Sciences). In 1966 I was awarded the Lenin Prize together with V.L. Ginzburg and L.P. Gorkov for the theory of superconductivity in strong magnetic fields.

In 1965 I became the head of the Condensed Matter Theory Department in the newly organized Institute for Theoretical Physics (later named L.D. Landau Institute). I was one of its organizers.

In 196568 I published several papers on the Kondo effect at low temperatures, where I established the appearance of a resonance in the scattering amplitude of an electron from a magnetic impurity atom (now Abrikosov-Suhl resonance).

In 1971 I published a book Introduction to the Theory of Normal Metals, which was translated into English. In 1972 I was awarded the International Fritz London Award for my works on low-temperature physics.

In 197075 I constructed the theory of gapless semiconductors, where I showed, that in substances of the type of HgTe, a strong interaction region close to the band matching point exists where the dependencies of various quantities on temperature and magnetic field are described by nontrivial power laws. At the same time I worked on the theory of an excitonic transition in Bi in strong magnetic fields. The predictions were in complete agreement with experimental data.

In 1975 I was awarded the title Doctor of Sciences Honoris Causa by the University of Lausanne (Switzerland).

In 197781 with my postgraduate, I.A. Ryzhkin we constructed the theory of one-dimensional and quasi-one-dimensional metals. The main results were a) the probability distribution function of resistivity of a one-dimensional wire, where due to mesoscopic effects there was no self-averaging, and b) the conclusion that suppression of superconductivity in (TMTSF) 2 PF 6 by nonmagnetic defects was an evidence of triplet pairing. Later this was confirmed. During the same years I worked on the theory of spin-glasses with short-range interaction, including semiconductor-based spin-glasses.

In 1982 with a group of experimentalists I was awarded the State Prize of USSR, for the works on semimetals and gapless semiconductors. In 1987 I was elected Full Member of the Academy of Sciences. In 1988 I published the book Fundamentals of the Theory of Metals on which I worked three years. It was translated into English and Japanese. The same year I was elected Director of the High Pressure Physics Institute in Troitsk, Moscow District. In 1989 L. Gorkov, I. Dzyaloshinskii and myself were awarded the L.D. Landau award of the Academy of Sciences, USSR, for our book Field Theory Methods in Statistical Physics.

In 1991 I accepted the offer of the Argonne National Laboratory, USA, and became Distinguished Argonne Scientist. Since then I continue to work at the same position. In the same year, together with V.L. Ginzburg and L.P. Gorkov I was awarded the International John Bardeen Award and was elected as Foreign Honorary Member to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 1992 I was elected Fellow of the American Physical Society.

Being at Argonne I became interested by the high-T c layered cuprates. This interest resulted in a theory which was based on the Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer approach but took into account the specific features of the electron spectrum, namely the quasi-two-dimensionality and the existence of the extended saddle point singularities, or flat regions, which made the motion of quasiparticles in some regions of the Fermi surface quasi-one-dimensional. At the same time these regions had the maximal density of states. Another idea was the resonant tunneling mechanism of the electron transport between the CuO 2 planes. On the basis of these ideas I was able to explain almost all the unusual behavior of the high-T c layered cuprates, including the isotope effect, neutron scattering, pseudogap and the metal-insulator transition.

In 1998 in connection with the experiments performed at Argonne and the University of Chicago I introduced a new phenomenon: Quantum Linear Magnetoresistance. The analysis of experimental data showed that it was first discovered experimentally by Piotr Kapitza, as early as 1928, but was confused with a different phenomenon. During these years in connection with experiments I studied also the effects of quantum interference on the magnetoresistance of layered substances and constructed a theory of an s-type superconductivity in UGe 2 .

In 1999 I became a naturalized US citizen. In 2000 I was elected member of the National Academy of Sciences USA, and in 2001, as Foreign Member of the Royal Society of London, UK. In 2003 I received the title Doctor of Sciences Honoris Causa from the University of Bordeaux (France) and together with V. Ginzburg and A. Leggett was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for pioneering work on the theory of superconductivity and super-fluidity.

Apart from research, almost all my life I was teaching. First I was assistant, associated, full Professor at the Moscow State University, 19501969, then Professor at the Gorky (now Nizhniy Novgorod) University, 197072, and eventually Chair for theoretical physics at the Moscow Institute for Steel and Alloys (Technical University), 19761991. In USA I am Adjunct Professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago and the University of Utah. In addition I am a Leverhulm Adjunct Professor at the University of Loughborough, UK.

I am married and have two sons and one daughter.

From Les Prix Nobel. The Nobel Prizes 2003, Editor Tore Frangsmyr, [Nobel Foundation], Stockholm, 2004

This autobiography/biography was written at the time of the award and later published in the book series Les Prix Nobel/ Nobel Lectures/The Nobel Prizes. The information is sometimes updated with an addendum submitted by the Laureate.

Alexei Abrikosov died on 29 March 2017.

Copyright  The Nobel Foundation 2003

To cite this section

MLA style: Alexei Abrikosov  Biographical. NobelPrize.org. Nobel Prize Outreach AB 2022. Tue. 8 Nov 2022. <https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/physics/2003/abrikosov/biographical/>
Press release

7 October 2003

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has decided to award the Nobel Prize in Physics for 2003 for pioneering contributions to the theory of superconductors and superfluids jointly to

Alexei A. Abrikosov

Argonne National Laboratory, Argonne, Illinois, USA,

Vitaly L. Ginzburg

P.N. Lebedev Physical Institute, Moscow, Russia, and

Anthony J. Leggett

University of Illinois, Urbana, Illinois, USA.

Flow without resistance

This years Nobel Prize in Physics is awarded to three physicists who have made decisive contributions concerning two phenomena in quantum physics: superconductivity and superfluidity. Superconducting material is used, for example, in magnetic resonance imaging for medical examinations and particle accelerators in physics. Knowledge about superfluid liquids can give us deeper insight into the ways in which matter behaves in its lowest and most ordered state.

At low temperatures (a few degrees above absolute zero) certain metals allow an electric current to pass without resistance. Such superconducting materials also have the property of being able to displace magnetic flows completely or partly. Those that displace magnetic flows completely are called type-I superconductors and a theory explaining them was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1972. This theory, which is based on the fact that pairs of electrons are formed proved, however, to be inadequate for explaining superconductivity in the technically most important materials. These type-II superconductors allow superconductivity and magnetism to exist at the same time and remain superconductive in high magnetic fields. Alexei Abrikosov succeeded in explaining this phenomenon theoretically. His starting point was a theory that had been formulated for type-I superconductors by Vitaly Ginzburg and others, but which proved to be so comprehensive that it was also valid for the new type. Although these theories were formulated in the 1950s, they have gained renewed importance in the rapid development of materials with completely new properties. Materials can now be made superconductive at increasingly high temperatures and strong magnetic fields.

Liquid helium can become superfluid, that is, its viscosity vanishes at low temperatures. Atoms of the rare isotope 3He have to form pairs analogous with pairs of electrons in metallic superconductors. The decisive theory explaining how the atoms interact and are ordered in the superfluid state was formulated in the 1970s by Anthony Leggett. Recent studies show how this order passes into chaos or turbulence, which is one of the unsolved problems of classical physics.

Alexei A. Abrikosov, born 1928 (75 years) in Moscow, the former Soviet Union, American (and Russian) citizen. Doctors degree in physics in 1951 at the Institute for Physical Problems, Moscow. Distinguished Argonne Scientist, Argonne National Laboratory, Argonne, Illinois, USA.

Vitaly L. Ginzburg, born 1916 (87 years) in Moscow, Russia (Russian citizen). Doctors degree in physics at the University of Moscow. Former Head of the Theory Group at the P.N. Lebedev Physical Institute, Moscow, Russia.

Anthony J. Leggett, born 1938 (65 years) in London, England (British and American citizen). Doctors degree in physics in 1964 at the University of Oxford. MacArthur Professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA.

Prize amount: SEK 10 million, will be shared equally among the Laureates.

Contact persons: Jonas Forare, Science Editor, phone +46 8 673 95 44, +46 703 27 72 00, jonas@kva.se and Eva Krutmeijer, Head of Information, phone +46 8 673 95 95, +46 709 84 66 38, evak@kva.se

To cite this section

MLA style: Press release. NobelPrize.org. Nobel Prize Outreach AB 2022. Tue. 8 Nov 2022. <https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/physics/2003/press-release/>
Since February, Fremont Nazarene Church has been offering a Hispanic service on Sundays for area residents.

We wanted to reach out to our Hispanic community, said the Rev. Aaron Horton, lead pastor.

Horton said the churchs vison and values translate into welcoming everyone and reaching as many people as it can with the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Hortencia Villasenor, the churchs new Hispanic community pastor, began her duties in January. Villasenor has lived in the community for 25 years and felt a calling to begin a work of reaching out to the Hispanic community.

We recognized her and gave her a ministers license from our church, Horton said.

Since February, the church has had whats called a soft launch of the service. Services, in Spanish, have taken place at noon each Sunday in the church at 960 Johnson Road. About 20 people have attended. This public is invited to these services.

Beginning this weekend, the church also will offer a Naz Kids ministry during this time.

Were very excited, Horton said.

An official launch of the Hispanic service is planned at noon on April 16  Easter Sunday.

The church has several other types of services. It has a 6 p.m. Saturday worship service. On Sundays, the traditional worship service starts at 8:30 a.m. with a second worship gathering at 10:30 a.m.

At 7 p.m. Mondays, it offers a Celebrate Recovery worship gathering. Celebrate Recovery is a Christ-centered recovery program for all types of hurts, hang-ups and habits.

The Elevate Youth Worship  for sixth through 12th grade  takes place at 7 p.m. Wednesdays.
As a nurse in Vietnam, Cheryl Feala carried many things in her pockets.

She had bandages, gauge, a writing pen, safety pins on a pair of scissors and a package of cigarettes and a lighter. Back in 1968, soldiers brought into the field hospital at Chu Lai often asked for a cigarette. It was something she could give the soldiers to help them calm down.

One soldier, who knew he was going back into the field, had lost his lighter.

Here, take this lighter, Feala said. Ill get another one.

He took the lighter  and returned it when he came back a few months later.

It was so banged up, she said. You knew it had seen a little bit of territory.

Fifty years after she joined the U.S. Army as a nurse, Feala is a wife, mother and grandmother who lives in rural North Bend. On May 1, she will be part of the largest group of Vietnam veterans from any single state to go to the Vietnam Wall in Washington, D.C. Four charter planes will fly 650 Vietnam veterans from Nebraska in whats called The Final Mission.

Looking back, Feala remembers the sound of helicopters that brought the wounded, the long days, the soldiers and civilians.

Certain things will spur your memory and at other times youre busy with your life  then youll think about it again, she said. Its always part of you. Its always got a grip on you somewhere.

Feala graduated from Nelson High School in 1964 and went to nursing school at St. Elizabeths in Lincoln. In her senior year of nurses training, she joined the U.S. Army in 1967. At that time, the war was at one of its heights and Feala wanted to help the troops.

You want to do something, she said. You want to be of help to someone. I knew guys that had gone and in my mind it was like: Whos going to take care of them?

Little did Feala know how close shed be to combat.

Feala was 21 years old when she arrived in Vietnam in the fall of 1968.

I was still older than a lot of the people we took care of, she said.

She was stationed near the village of Chu Lai on the eastern side of the country near the ocean. The hospital where she worked was situated in between Highway 1, a major route, and a military airstrip. A prisoner of war compound could be seen in the distance. Beyond the village was an area where fighting took place.

Unlike World War II, there were no front lines.

In Vietnam, the enemy was everywhere, she said. They might trade in the village or be traveling on Highway 1. They might be in the waters.

Feala worked in the emergency room and minor surgery. Others worked in major surgery.

Wounded soldiers were brought in by helicopters which landed on a pad near the hospital. They could bring in six wounded soldiersor 25.

Thats why everybody stormed to the emergency room when the helicopters came in because you didnt know how many (wounded) you were going to get or how much help was going to be needed, she said.

Corpsman would go out to bring wounded soldiers from the helicopters to the ER. Sometimes Feala and others went out, too, depending on how many wounded were coming into the hospital.

Doctors told where soldiers were to go, to surgery or a waiting area. If doctors were in surgery, medical staff triaged the wounded soldiers. Almost every soldier needed an IV, because they were dehydrated or had lost blood and body fluids. It wasnt uncommon to give IVs in the soldiers necks, due to damage in other places on their bodies.

If the soldiers had been treated on the field, a medic would put a letter M on their foreheads, indicating that theyd been given morphine  in case they were separated from their paperwork. That way, they wouldnt be given additional morphine too early at the hospital, which could kill them.

We didnt always trust the dog tags (identification) if they were in the field for a while, Feala said, noting that Viet Cong (enemy) soldiers sometimes took them. Most of the time, these guys could tell you who they were  but you really wanted to be sure.

Soldiers were prepared for surgery. Some were hurt badly enough that they were stabilized enough to be taken to a larger Evac hospital and then to the United States.

There are stories Feala doesnt share. They are too gruesome.

I dont tell a lot of things about soldiers, she said. Its a private matter for them and its a private matter for me.

Sometimes, soldiers came in body bags if theyd died in the field. They had to be pronounced dead by a doctor. There was a morgue east of the helipad.

Besides U.S. soldiers, the hospital saw other patients.

Interpreters were needed when South Vietnamese soldiers came in and, occasionally, a Viet Cong soldier. The enemy soldiers were stabilized until they could be taken elsewhere.

Sometimes, they treated civilians, particularly children, injured by shelling or for a medical issue.

We werent set up to take care of children, she noted.

But theyd improvise.

An oxygen tube would put through the bottom of a paper Dixie cup. The cup then could be put over a childs face if the little one needed oxygen.

Doctors delivered babies in cases of a breach delivery.

Feala remembers the long days.

We worked 12-hour days, seven days a week in the beginning, she said. Toward the end, we got a day off and by the last couple of months I was there, we had a day off.

There were 30 or more nurses and 10-12 doctors at the heaviest times.

Four nurses would live in one hooch, which Feala said compares to a corn crib. These were wooden structures with slated sides for ventilation and a door. They had a front foyer, behind which was a large room with four cots. They had a small college refrigerator where they kept cold drinks  and their makeup which otherwise would have melted in the heat. They used a community bathroom.

The shower consisted of an enclosure with a large drum that collected rain water or had water pumped in and heated by the sun. Feala recalls the geckos she saw on the shower walls.

Soldiers and people at the hospital came from every religion and background.

Things like that didnt matter, because you had everybodys back, she said. I wish it was that way today here.

At Christmas, they traded names and exchanged gifts bought at the military PX (post exchange) store. Perfume was about the only thing available for women. They formed Christmas trees from plaster of Paris.

A Jewish corpsman gave Feala her gift, perfume, noting this was the first Christmas gift hed ever given.

Feala also recalls movie nights, taking a soldier to see a Bob Hope USO show and swimming at the beach. In the evening, a helicopter would fly along the shore and fire into the water to keep back the sharks so it would be safe for swimmers.

After her one-year tour of duty, she returned and worked at her hometown hospital and, like many others Vietnam vets, didnt talk about her experience. She worked in Lincoln before marrying her husband, Larry. The Fealas have four children; she would stay home for a time to raise her family. When her children were older, Feala worked in obstetrics in Fremonts hospital, then at an orthopedic clinic until she retired. She and her husband have seven grandchildren.

She enjoys spending time with family and looks forward to the Patriotic Productions Honor Flight.

If she had to do it again, would she still have gone to Vietnam?

Id do it again in a heartbeat, because thats what God made me for, she said, adding something shes learned, I guess I felt better probably because I knew something I did brought somebody home.
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.
A habitual sexual offender was sentenced to the maximum year-long sentence for a misdemeanor crime Thursday in Dodge County Court.

Zachary L. Person, 29, of Norfolk was sentenced to prison by Dodge County Judge Kenneth Vampola for third-degree sexual assault, a Class I Misdemeanor. Under Nebraska state law, a year-long sentence is the maximum.

Under the Good Time Law of Nebraska, Person could be eligible for release in six months, however, Person is suspected of sexual misconduct in numerous other jurisdictions, including Sioux City, Iowa, and Vermillion, South Dakota.

Person gained state-wide and national attention in early March after allegedly fondling a female clerk working at Home2 Suites, a West Omaha hotel located near 179th and Chicago Streets.

Person allegedly entered the hotel wearing a ski mask, groped the woman and attempted to drag her into a hallway. A surveillance video shows the woman fought back and Person ultimately left.

A similar incident recently occurred at Morningside College in Sioux City where a man exposed himself in a womens shower room. The mans appearance, vehicle description and partial license plate numbers in the Sioux City incident matched the Omaha case, making Person a key suspect.

In the Omaha incident, Person was charged with second-degree sexual assault and false imprisonment  a Class IIIA Felony.

In December 2015, Person was arrested in Fremont after purchasing a bottle of Mountain Dew from a clerk while allegedly exposing his penis. An arrest affidavit says he told officers hes had problems with exhibitionism but didnt know his genitals were exposed on the night of said incident.

The convenience store clerk was also fondled by a person in the convenience store parking lot following work by a man matching the defendants description. He inappropriately touched the clerk in numerous areas over the clothing.

An arrest affidavit shows that Person admitted to sexually assaulting the clerk.

In addition, Person is awaiting sentencing in several other cases involving attacking or knocking down female victims and molesting them, exposing himself and violating students and gas station employees from 2007 through 2017.

Person has previous convictions of public indecency in 2008, burglary in 2010, third-degree sexual assault in 2013, felony stalking in 2013 and operating a motor vehicle to escape arrest in 2013. He was sentenced to 30 days in jail in 2008, 3-5 years in 2010 and more than a year in prison on the three 2013 charges, court records show.
Homeowners and renters can take action against cigarette-smoking neighbors.

Non-smoking laws in public places have swept the nation, but until recently, if the smoke wafting into your house, condominium, or apartment from your neighbor's cigarette bothered you, all you could do was move out. The situation is changing, however, and non-smokers bothered by their neighbors' smoking may find that they can now take action.

Enforce a No-Smoking Lease

If the smoke that disturbs you comes from someone who rents, find out if the rental agreement contains a no-smoking clause; these clauses are becoming more common. If it does, then the tenant is violating the lease and you may be able to convince the landlord to enforce the clause (that is, tell the smoker to stop or move out). If the smoker refuses to honor the clause, it's up to the landlord to take the next step (evict the smoker). When a lot of neighbors complain, the landlord may be more motivated to take action.

Even if the lease does not prohibit smoking, the landlord may have grounds to evict the smoking tenant if the cigarette smoke is truly troublesome and interferes with your ability to enjoy living in your own apartment unit. All tenants enjoy the right to "quiet enjoyment," a quaint-sounding legal principle that gives tenants the right to occupy their apartments in peace and also imposes upon them the responsibility of not disturbing their neighbors. (Some leases and rental agreements include a clause that spells out this principle, but it applies to everyone even if it's not in the rental documents.)

It's the landlord's job to enforce both sides of this bargain. If the neighbor's smoking makes your own apartment reek of cigarettes to a degree that seriously disturbs you on a daily basis, the smoking tenant is probably interfering with your right to quiet enjoyment. Again, you'll have to convince the landlord to take action, by asking the smoker to stop or face eviction. For more information on evictions, see How Evictions Work: Rules for Landlords and Property Managers.

Enforce a No-Smoking CC&R

If the troublesome smoker lives in a planned development or a condominium with covenants, conditions, and restrictions ("CC&Rs") prohibiting smoking, then either you or the homeowners' association may take legal action against the smoker. See Understanding Homeowners' Associations & CC&Rs.

Sue Your Neighbor

Even if the smoker doesn't live under a no-smoking restriction, you may find a court to be sympathetic if you sue the smoker for creating a private nuisance (interfering with your ability to use and enjoy your property).

Example 1: A Florida court awarded $1,000 to a nonsmoker after she successfully argued that her condominium neighbor's smoking was trespass, a nuisance, and violated her right to quiet enjoyment. The nonsmoker and her family suffered health problems as a result of the smoking and sometimes had to sleep elsewhere when the smoke from the neighboring condominium was particularly dense. ( Merrill v. Bosser, No. 05-4239 COCE 53 (Broward County Ct., June 29, 2005).)

Example 2: A jury in Boston decided that a heavy-smoking couple could be evicted from their rented loft, even though smoking was allowed in their lease. The landlord gave them seven days' notice to move out after several neighbors complained about smoke smells wafting into their apartments. The couple fought the eviction by arguing that the smoke from their apartment spread due to faulty air-conditioning systems, but the landlord prevailed. ("Jury Finds Smoking Grounds for Eviction," Boston Globe, June 16, 2005, p. B1.)

Check Your State's Laws

At least one state -- Utah -- now includes tobacco smoke in its statute defining a private nuisance. Specifically, second-hand smoke is a nuisance in Utah if it drifts into any residential unit from a home or business more than once a week for at least two consecutive weeks, and if it interferes with the neighbor's "comfortable enjoyment of life or property." The protection doesn't apply if the neighbor signed a lease, restrictive covenant, or purchase agreement waiving his right to sue a neighbor for causing a nuisance by smoking. Under Utah's law, an annoyed neighbor may sue the smoker directly and may sue the landlord in some cases if the smoker is a renter. (Utah Code Ann.  78-38-1.)

In California, second-hand smoke is considered a toxic contaminant by the state's Air Resources Board.

Start your research into your state's laws at Nolo's Legal Research Center.

For the legal and practical information you need to deal with your landlord and other tenants, see Every Tenant's Legal Guide, by Janet Portman and Marcia Stewart (Nolo).
The Omaha Public Power District distributed nearly $33.1 million in 2016 in-lieu-of-tax payments to 11 Nebraska counties on Friday.

Dodge County received $136,956 from OPPD, last year the county received $129,821 from the public power district.

This payment goes toward the budgets of local schools, government entities and other agencies. Im proud to be able to present it on behalf of the utility, Mick Mines, who represents Dodge County on the OPPD Board of Directors, said in released information.

In-lieu-of-tax payment amounts are based on 5 percent of OPPDs gross revenues from the previous years retail electricity sales in incorporated cities and towns, taking the place of property taxes. County treasurers distribute the funds to school districts, cities and other entities to fund needed services and improvements.

The payment to Dodge County will be distributed amongst towns with in the county as well as public schools.

Dodge County Treasurer Cathy Dill will distribute the payments to each entity including $18,947.52 to the county.

The City of Hooper will receive $20,529.85 and Hooper Public Schools will receive $16,162.53 of the payment.

North Bend will receive $23,855.48 and North Bend Public Schools will get $39,793.95, and the Village of Nickerson will be distributed $4,775.89, with Nickerson Public Schools receiving $8,416.83.

The Village of Winslow will also receive $3,363.59 and Winslow Public Schools will get $1,110.19 of the total amount of in-lieu-of tax payments from OPPD.

Surrounding counties will also receive large sums with Washington County getting $652,146 and Saunders County receiving $311,244.

Were deeply committed to all of the communities we serve, from big cities to smaller towns and everywhere in between, Mines said.

In addition to in-lieu-of-tax payments, the district pays general sales taxes, gasoline taxes, wheel taxes, motor vehicle license fees and permit fees like any other business.

A full list of the payments made to each county follows:

Douglas: $26,690,438

Sarpy: $4,937,491

Washington: $652,146

Saunders: $311,244

Cass: $264,596

Dodge: $136,956

Nemaha: $40,051

Johnson: $14,267

Richardson: $13,651

Otoe: $4,264

Colfax: $3,755
When North Dakota state law and federal law give you the right to have an animal in housing or public places.

Under North Dakota's service animal law and the federal Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), people with disabilities may bring service animals to all "public accommodations," including stores, businesses, motels, restaurants, theaters, schools, and more. Public accommodations in North Dakota must comply with both state and federal law. Below, we explain which public accommodations are covered, which animals qualify as service animals, and some rules you may need to follow with your service animal.

What Are Public Accommodations?

In North Dakota, you may bring your service animal into any public accommodation, health care facility, transportation service, or any other place to which the public is generally invited. For example, restaurants, shops, hotels, service establishments, office buildings the public enters (such as an accountant or lawyer's office), hospitals, and arenas all fall within this definition.

Under the ADA, the definition of public accommodations is both broad and detailed. It includes all sorts of establishments to which the public has access, including stores, theaters, gyms, zoos, parks, schools, and homeless shelters.

Which Animals Are Covered?

In North Dakota, service animals include signal dogs (for the hearing-impaired), guide dogs (for the sight-impaired), and other animals trained to perform tasks, work, or provide assistance to people with disabilities. The law lists some examples of these tasks, including retrieving dropped items, providing support for balance, assisting in a medical crisis, or providing protection to someone with a disability.

Under the ADA, a service animal is a dog that has been trained to perform disability-related tasks for the benefit of a person with a disability. In some cases, a miniature horse may also qualify as a service animal. In addition to hearing dogs and guide dogs, here are some examples of service animals that must be allowed into public accommodations under the ADA:

psychiatric service animals, which help their handlers manage mental and emotional disabilities by, for example, interrupting self-harming behaviors, reminding handlers to take medication, checking spaces for intruders, or providing calming pressure during anxiety or panic attacks

seizure alert animals, which let their handlers know of impending seizures, and may also guard their handlers during seizure activity, and

allergen alert animals, which let their handlers know of foods or other substances that could be dangerous (such as peanuts).

Neither the ADA nor North Dakota's service animal law includes what some people call "emotional support animals": animals that provide a sense of safety, companionship, and comfort to those with psychiatric or emotional disabilities or conditions. Although these animals often have therapeutic benefits, they are not individually trained to perform specific tasks for their handlers. Under the ADA and North Dakota law, owners of public accommodations are not required to allow emotional support animals, only service animals.

Rules for Your Service Animal

Under the ADA, a public accommodation may not ask you questions about your disability or demand to see certification, identification, or other proof of your animal's training or status. If it is not apparent what your service animal does, the establishment may ask you only whether it is a service animal, and what tasks it performs for you.

The ADA and North Dakota law prohibit public accommodations from charging a special admission fee or requiring you to pay any other extra cost to have your service animal with you. However, you may have to pay for any damage your animal causes.

Under the ADA, your service animal can be excluded from a public accommodation if it poses a direct threat to health and safety (or example, if your dog is aggressively barking and snapping at other customers, the facility can kick the dog out). Your animal may also be excluded if it is not housebroken, or if it is out of control and you are unable or unwilling to effectively control it.

Service Animals in North Dakota Housing

Both the federal Fair Housing Act and North Dakota law prohibit discrimination in rental housing accommodations against those who use service animals. You must be allowed full and equal access to all housing facilities, and your landlord may not be charge you extra for having a service animal (although you may have to pay for damage your animal causes).

If your lease or rental agreement includes a "no pets" provision, it does not apply to your service animal. Your landlord, however, can ask you to provide reliable documentation of your disability and the relationship between your disability and your need for an accommodation in the form of a service or assistance animal. This documentation may be provided by a physician or other medical professional. However, your landlord may not ask you for documentation if your disability and need for a service or assistance animal are readily apparent or the landlord already knows about them. If, for example, you are blind and use a guide dog for navigation, your landlord probably can't request documentation.

Pursuant to the federal Fair Housing Act, housing facilities must allow service dogs and emotional support animals, if necessary for a person with a disability to have an equal opportunity to use and enjoy the home. To fall under this provision, you must have a disability and you must have a disability-related need for the animal. In other words, the animal must work, perform tasks or services, or alleviate the emotional effects of your disability in order to qualify. (For more information, see the Department of Housing and Urban Development's guidance on service animals.)
When it comes to early childhood education, Iowa families have a number of options available.

Research shows that quality preschool programming is the best way to prepare children for success in life, and area experts agree that the sooner a child is exposed to education, the better off that child will be.

One of the largest area public preschool programs offered in southwest Iowa is through the Council Bluffs Community School District.

Council Bluffs offers preschool in 10 of its 11 elementary schools. Crescent Elementary is the only school that doesnt currently offer a preschool program, though community members are examining the option as the school looks to boost enrollment.

Serving more than 600 children, the Council Bluffs district offers 22 full-day programs and six half-day programs, with a 16student maximum per classroom. Most 4-year-olds in the program attend all day. However, a combination of 3- and 4-year-olds also attend the half-day program.

Children enrolled in the program are able to develop social and emotional skills as well as skills in literacy, communication and mathematics, said Joan Crowl, preschool administrator.

If you would walk into our classrooms, our children are actively engaged throughout the entire day with very rich language experiences either through conversations or the communication from child to child or adult to child, small groups or the whole class, Crowl said.

College View Elementary preschool teacher Danielle Philmon said students enrolled in the program are learning vital skills every day.

During center time they are learning through play because they have the opportunity to interact with one another based on their interests, Philmon said. They are allowed to be creative, learn problem solving skills, attend and engage in conversations with one another.

Currently a mix of funding from the federal and state levels, along with the Iowa West Foundation and other grants, helps pay for the districts preschool program.

Because of the volume of families interested in the program, criteria have been established by the state and the district to help determine which families qualify for the program.

While the district screens year round by appointment for children who are 3-years-old, it offers district-wide screenings only a few times a year for its 4-year-old classrooms.

This district will hold its next screening from noon to 6 p.m. on Monday. The district-wide screening is for children turning 4 by Sept. 15 this year. No appointment is necessary, and parents can show up to any of the districts elementary schools to screen their children.

Information gathered during the hourlong screening is only one aspect used to help determine where and if a child will be placed in the program.

Eligibility also depends on family income and other risk factors for falling behind academically, including low birth weight, parents without high school diplomas, single parent homes, drug use or abuse by parents or family members who have been incarcerated.

At the current funding level, the Council Bluffs district isnt able to offer a place to every student thats interested, so theres a waiting list.

The Lewis Central Community School District also offers three full-day programs and four half-day programs serving 91 students with 13 students in each classroom.

The L.C. program is funded through a number of different federal and state-level grants, like Council Bluffs, but  because theres not enough money  theres also a waiting list.

We typically have too many families to serve, said Barbara Grell, Kreft Elementary principal.

The district will hold another screening May 5 and will screen both 3- and 4-year-olds.

Preschool is very important, Grell said. Its the foundation for their kindergarten year, and kids get that little bit of understanding of the structure of school, which is helpful as they transition into kindergarten.

Outside of the K-12 school preschool options, Iowa families may also qualify for the Head Start program, which promotes school readiness to children from low-income families from age 3 to 5. An extension to the Head Start program, Early Head Start is also available in Iowa, which serves pregnant women through children aged 3.

The federally funded program is operated locally by the nonprofit organization West Central Community Action, which serves Monona, Crawford, Harrison, Shelby, Pottawattamie, Cass, Mills, Montgomery, Fremont and Page counties.

Pottawattamie County currently offers three Head Start sites and two early Head Start sites.

While a formal preschool program focuses on developing the student, Head Start also focuses on supporting the family as a whole by offering a range of free services and resources to help get a family to be as successful as they can.

Those services could include adult education, workforce training, parenting classes, dual-language classes, crisis intervention and support for homeless families.

If you want healthy children you need a healthy family, said Tom Rendon with the Iowa Department of Education. We cant and shouldnt just focus our attention on children in isolation because a family is so influential on the child.

While theres currently a chronic shortage of open infant and toddler slots in the program, Rendon said the program was recently offered additional money under the last years of Obama administration.

Patricia Crombie, a home-base educator for the Early Head Start program, said because of that funding, the organization is looking to hire more teachers in order to grow the Head Start program to be able to offer more open spots in the program.

Children from birth to 5, who are from families with incomes below the poverty guidelines, are eligible for Head Start and Early Head Start services. More information on the poverty guidelines can be found online at aspe.hhs.gov/poverty-guidelines.

A child facing homelessness or placed in the foster care system could also qualify for the program. The program is required to enroll at least 10 percent of students with disabilities.

Parents and families wanting a different option can also consider sending a child to a parent-paid, private preschool.

Beginning Memories Preschool, opened in 2012 by Memory Bleth, currently serves 35 students.

While a student who qualifies for state aid can also attend the preschool, most parents pay out of pocket.

Unfortunately, a lot of parents do pay out of pocket, Bleth said. I wish there were more grants available because I think everyone deserves a free education.

Currently, parents pay $600 a month, or $30 a day. Its five days a week from 7 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.. School is in session from 9 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.

While space is limited at the preschool, Bleth said she doesnt hold screening days and accepts everyone as long as space is available. She said she currently has open spots for her summer and fall programs.

Organizations like Iowa Child Care Resource and Referral are available as a free resource to help families determine which preschool to select.

We help families looking for childcare or preschool, said Kelsey Smith, a ICRR child care consultant. We help determine how much they can afford to pay and, depending on their needs, can help them find what theyre looking for.
Before the week ends, wed be remiss if we didnt acknowledge the Mercy Hospital Heritage Awards dinner and this years recipients.

Proceeds from the annual event support professional development opportunities for Mercy employees, according to Christine Gochenour, manager of volunteer services.

Proceeds from the event support professional development opportunities for employees, and in many cases continuing education helps employees earn certification in their particular specialty.

This years event, held on Saturday at the Mid-America Center, honored six southwest Iowans for their contributions to the area.

The event went extremely well, Gochenour said. We had about 500 people that attended.

The event was a fun-filled time that offered a chance to highlight six wonderful award recipients. The honorees were:

 Arts and Humanities: Rob Gilmer and the late Rene Orduna, owners of Dixie Quicks and RNG Gallery, Council Bluffs.

 Business: John Jerkovich, Heartland Properties, Council Bluffs.

 Health and Human Services: Dr. Joe Hoagbin, chief medical officer, CHI Health Mercy Hospital, Council Bluffs.

 Education: Ron and Jan Elliott, Minden, retired educators in the Tri-Center Community School District.

Continuing education is important in health care, Gochenour said.

The medical field is always changing and, with that changing, you have to be able to adapt and bring back new techniques and programs to make sure your patients are getting the best  and thats what we strive to do, she said. Weve had people go in and get masters, bachelors or certifications so they can move forward in their careers.

The dinner is also an opportunity for the hospital to show its appreciation to the community.

Tom Hanafan, a Pottawattamie County supervisor and retired Council Bluffs mayor, served as master of ceremonies, while event cochairs were Dr. Don and Beth Van de Water and Dr. Christopher and Bridget Elliott.

The event was a chance for the hospital to say thank you and a chance to recognize six people who have had an outsized impact on southwest Iowa. Kudos to those honorees, and kudos to Mercy on another successful event.
Qatar Airways is the only airline to offer passengers a replacement laptop on all flights to the US in response to the Electronics Ban

Laptop Loan service ensures business travellers can continue to work as they travel on Qatar Airways flights

Wi-Fi special offer allows all passengers to benefit from unlimited connectivity

30 Mar 2017

DOHA, Qatar  Qatar Airways has announced a unique solution to the recently imposed Electronics Ban by offering passengers a laptop loan service that takes their award-winning five-star reputation to new heights. Showing true commitment to travellers affected by the ban the Doha-based airline has taken the notable step to purchase laptops available for loan on all of their US flights; meaning uninterrupted productivity and service throughout their journey.

Qatar Airways Group Chief Executive, His Excellency Mr. Akbar Al Baker, said; As an award-winning and global airline we truly appreciate the importance of being able to work on board our aircraft and that is why I have insisted on offering only the best possible solution for our customers. By providing this laptop loan service we can ensure that our passengers on flights to the US can continue to work whilst on-board. This unique ability to offer business as usual, above and beyond the competition, is yet another example of Qatar Airways justification for being the Worlds Best Business Class.

Whilst other airlines have relied on their existing on board offering to comfort passengers we have not rested until we could offer a true solution to our passengers. Our constant innovation and ability to react to changes in the industry is something I am very proud of. The launch of Qsuite, our new business class product just this month, and other announcements soon to come, are testament to our ongoing passion for providing the absolute best for our customers.

The complimentary laptops will be available to Business Class passengers travelling on all US-bound flights from next week and can be collected after boarding. Customers will be able to download their work on to a USB before stepping on board to pick up where they left-off. Qatar Airways is offering a special service at the gate for all passengers, whereby any electronic items prohibited by the new ban will be collected and securely packaged. These will be tagged, loaded as check-in baggage and returned safely to the customer on arrival to the US.

Once on board passengers have a choice of over 3,000 entertainment options on the award-winning in-flight entertainment system, dedicated kids activity packs in partnership with Hasbro, luxury amenity kits, a seasonal menu and snack bar, are able to browse the on board magazines and newspapers, enjoy the lie-flat beds in Business Class and utilise the complimentary Wi-Fi on all flights.

In another move to guarantee the comfort and productivity of all passengers on board US-bound flights Qatar Airways is providing one hour of free Wi-Fi for all passengers and a special Wi-Fi package of US$5 to stay connected for the duration of the whole flight. When most peoples smart phones will be the only device they can take on-board this generous offer will ensure passengers can stay connected and stay entertained.

Qatar Airways, the national carrier of the State of Qatar, this year celebrates 20 years of Going Places Together with travellers across more than 150 business and leisure destinations. The worlds fast growing airline will continue to add a number of exciting new destinations to its growing network in 2017, including Dublin, Nice, Skopje and many more, flying passengers on board its modern fleet of 195 aircraft.
Metropolitan Community College will be offering a new program aimed at providing high school students a chance to learn a high-demand skill.

MCC, in partnership will the Greater Fremont Development Council, has started the new Diesel Technology Career Academy. The initiative will help high school students develop skills that are in high demand by employers across the region.

There is a workforce shortage of diesel technology technicians and so several community members thought it would be a good idea to start a high school academy to get high school students interested in the career, Todd Hansen, Director of MCCs Fremont Area Center, said.

Classes for the program will begin in July and can also serve as dual college credit upon completion.

There will be what I would call a two week orientation that begins in the middle of July and the classes actually start the week after labor day, Hansen said.

Courses for the program will be held at Butler Ag Equipment, 2831 N. County Rd. 20th Avenue in Fremont.

We volunteered to help out on occasion and it morphed into using our facility for full time classes, but were more than happy to help them in the interim until they can find a full time facility, Tad Dinkins, of Butler Ag, said.

Butler Ag provides a good environment for diesel technician courses as they have a large training room for classroom work, and a shop for hands on learning.

We have a training room on our second floor that will serve as the classroom. As far as lab space they will either utilize a corner in our shop, or if we are full up, we have some room in our parts department that they can use to work on engines, Dinkins said.

Classes will be held on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 1:15 to 5:15 p.m.

and MCC is looking for high school students who will be juniors and seniors for the 2017-18 school year.

If students are interested I would encourage them to talk to, and work with, their guidance counselor at their local school and to fill out the paperwork to apply, Hansen said.

The creation of the program is a public and private partnership, creating a 50:50 funding agreement. For more information or to register, visit mccneb.edu/diesel or call 531-MCC-2400.

MCC has the largest enrollment out of six community colleges in Nebraska and is the second largest postsecondary institution in the state. MCC serves more than 40,000 unique credit and noncredit students.
Subject turned himself in to Colo. authorities

A teen sought in connection with an Ogallala homicide turned himself in to authorities in Denver on Thursday evening.

Keith County Attorney Randy Fair said Amadeus Leroux, 15, was charged with second-degree murder and use of a weapon to commit a felony.

According to a press release from the Nebraska State Patrol, Leroux will be extradited to Ogallala.

Authorities believe Leroux stabbed John Fratis, 25, in a Tuesday morning altercation.

According to an arrest affidavit, Fratis shared a residence with Larry Derrera, 32, and Raylynn Garcia, 28. The three and Leroux were drinking, doing drugs and watching television in front of Garcias two young children Tuesday, when Fratis and Leroux got into the altercation. When Garcia found Fratis bleeding, he told her he was stabbed by someone named Chris. He later died of his injuries at Ogallala Community Hospital.

Garcia told authorities that before Fratis was taken to the hospital, she met Chris at a gas station. With her children in the car, she took him to Holyoke, Colorado.

Fair said authorities believe Leroux was who Garcia meant by Chris, though it was unclear why he was called that, according to the arrest affidavit.
The late team changes, injury news and rumours heading into the fifth round of the 2017 Telstra Premiership season.





Match Draw Widget

[2017] Telstra Premiership - Round 5: Roosters vs Sea Eagles

Roosters: Kane Evans is out with a calf injury, while centre Blake Ferguson (ribs) is a good chance of making his return to the side after being named on the extended bench.

Sea Eagles: No late changes expected.



Match Draw Widget

[2017] Telstra Premiership - Round 5: Cowboys vs Rabbitohs

Cowboys: Lachlan Coote is set to return from injury as named, with Kalyn Ponga to play in the Holden Cup.

Rabbitohs: No late changes expected.



Match Draw Widget

[2017] Telstra Premiership - Round 5: Sharks vs Knights

Sharks: No changes expected.

Knights: Former Shark Anthony Tupou is set to come into the side on the bench, in place of Jacob Saifiti.



Match Draw Widget

[2017] Telstra Premiership - Round 5: Raiders vs Eels

Raiders: Hooker Josh Hodgson is in doubt with a sternum injury and will be given until game day to prove his fitness.

Eels: Should be 1-17.



Match Draw Widget

[2017] Telstra Premiership - Round 5: Storm vs Panthers

Storm: Suliasi Vunivalu is a chance of returning from a shoulder injury on the wing, in place of Young Tonumaipea. Christian Welch is in some doubt with concussion.

Panthers: Should be 1-17.



Match Draw Widget

[2017] Telstra Premiership - Round 5: Warriors vs Titans

Warriors: Kieran Foran remains in some doubt with a hamstring injury, with Ata Hingano on standby.

Titans: Konrad Hurrell is in doubt with an ankle injury, with Anthony Don on standby.



Match Draw Widget

[2017] Telstra Premiership - Round 5: Wests Tigers vs Dragons

Wests Tigers: Jamal Idris has been named in the starting side with Michael Chee-Kam moving to the bench. Hooker Matt Ballin has also been named in the 17.

Dragons: No late changes expected for Paul McGregor's in-form side.
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MERRILLVILLE  NiSource Inc. Chief Operating Officer Jim Stanley will retire from the company on June 1, and two other executives will be promoted.

Stanley, who was hired in 2012 to head up NiSource's NIPSCO utility, is an executive vice president and has been a top-level executive at a time of great change for the Merrillville-headquartered utility. He has worked more than 40 years in the utility industry, having served as an executive at Duke Energy before coming to NIPSCO.

Jim's legacy of leadership experience and true dedication to customer and community service have set standards of excellence that will serve NiSource stakeholders for years to come, said NiSource President and CEO Joe Hamrock .

Hes built a team prepared to continue delivering on our well-established programs and enhancing our services to our customers.

Stanley was promoted to the chief operating officer position when NiSource split off its natural gas pipeline business in 2015, positioning NiSource as a regulated utility operating in seven states.

Stanley will receive a lump sum payment of $550,000, the equivalent of 52 weeks pay, as he goes out the door, according to a document filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. He also will receive a payout under the company's short-term incentive plan to the extent 2017 performance goals are achieved.

With the announcement of Stanley's retirement, Pablo Vegas has been named executive vice president, gas segment and chief customer officer, effective May 1. He will assume the additional responsibilities for leading field operations across NiSources seven natural gas companies.

Pablo's demonstrated vision and commitment to excellence in customer service and operations, driven by high engagement and collaboration with employees and stakeholders, provide the leadership to build on our successful execution and set the course for continued growth, Hamrock said.

Vegas joined NiSource in 2016 as executive vice president and president, Columbia Gas Group, after serving in various leadership roles in the utility industry.

Along with Vegas enhanced role, Mike Finissi will become executive vice president, safety, capital execution and technical services. He will be responsible for capital programs, engineering, safety, environmental, technical training and shared services.

Finissi has been instrumental in installing more than $800 million in environmental safeguards at NIPSCO's Schahfer Generating Station, in Wheatfield, and the Michigan City Generating Station. Both of those are coal-fired electric generating plants, with the utility mulling the partial retirement of Schahfer in the future.

Mike's track record of sustained execution of our capital programs, built on his deep experience in operations and safety leadership, makes him ideally suited to sustain our performance while driving continued gains in safety, training and infrastructure programs, Hamrock said.

NiSource has 3.5 million natural gas customers and 500,000 electric customers across seven states through its local Columbia Gas and NIPSCO brands.
A new coffee shop has replaced the Blue Room Cafe, a coffee shop that closed in downtown Hammond after 10 years and that had been a popular hangout place in Highland before that.

Stella V.ie Cafe has moved into the glass storefront in the Indiana Building at 5246 Hohman Avenue. The coffee shop serves soups, salads, sandwiches and Dagger Mountain-roasted coffee during the week, and it's looking to grow its catering business.

"Our soups and sandwiches are well thought-out," owner and operator Virginette Fitzpatrick said. "It's unique and good comfort food. We don't have normal anything. We offer items that have wide appeal, but with a twist."

Fitzpatrick had been working on a business plan for a food trailer at The Hub of Innovation NWI Business Incubator right across the street when the opportunity emerged to open a new coffee shop.

"It almost fell into my lap, not to say it was easy or to be ungrateful," she said. "But it came out of nowhere, and it was an opportunity that fit what I wanted to do."

Downtown Hammond also is home to Mare Eats Oats, a coffee shop and bakery, and the new EAT restaurant, which El Taco Real Restaurant owner Raymundo Garcia hopes to open soon.

The name Stella V.ie Cafe is a play on the French phrase "c'est la vie," meaning "such is life," with a reference to Fitzpatrick's old nickname "Stella" from the movie "How Stella Got Her Groove Back."

The menu includes lattes, espresso drinks, banana bread, biscuits and gravy, and a spinach bacon breakfast wrap. Top sellers are a Cuban sandwich with slow roasted pork shoulder, ham and Carolina Gold mustard sauce and a roast beef sandwich with provolone and arugula.

The small 16-seat cafe has inspirational word art on the wall and big glass windows where one can watch life flow by along Hohman Avenue. It's only open during weekdays, catering to a business crowd such as employees from Franciscan Health Hammond and all the law offices clustered around the downtown Hammond courthouses.

Take-out business is brisk with grab-and-go salads, and it's retained many of the regulars who used to frequent the Blue Room Cafe, Fitzpatrick said. She's working on marketing to nearby schools and businesses to build up a clientele and is looking for a kitchen where she can launch a catering service.

Stella V.ie is open from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Thursday, and from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Friday.

For more information, call (219) 802-5009, or visit www.facebook.com/stellav.iecafe/.
The spark for his second novel stems from what it means to be an adopted child from a land very far away, says Boris Fishman, author of "Dont Let My Baby Do Rodeo" (Harper/HarperCollins 2016 $26.99). The book recently was named as one of the 100 best books of 2016 by the New York Times.

Fishman, who was born in Minsk, Belarus, and immigrated to the United States at age 9 in 1988, knows the intense feelings of searching for where he belongs both emotionally and psychologically. Its the theme he explores in his humorous and touching story about Maya Shulman, a Ukrainian exchange student who marries Alex Rubin, a somewhat spoiled son of Russian immigrants.

The two adopted Max, whose biological mothers parting words were, Dont let my baby do rodeo and up until age 8, Max has not been a problem. But then suddenly his behaviors become somewhat bizarre and indecipherable to the couple. Max begins acting somewhat feral-like. He consumes grass, sits face down in the river and hangs around wild animals.

Their own lives also have reached a point where they need to redefine things. Alex and Maya decide to take Max and hit the road to find his biological parents, who live in Montana.

Its a physical and spiritual quest told from Mayas point of view. But for Fishman it also represents what many immigrants go through, including his own family.

The patriarchal roles for both men and women that many immigrants brought with them from their homeland change, particularly for the next generation.

Im of their blood but not of their psychology, says Fishman, who graduated with a degree in Russian literature from Princeton University and a MFA in fiction from New York University.

Fishman says that half way through writing his novel, he realized he was like Max.

I was really feeling it, he says about the catharsis of writing about Max. You basically realize that neither of the places  the U.S. or Russia  are home. And so you have to find a third place.
CROWN POINT  A 37-year-old man faces several charges in connection with a boat crash that occurred on Lake Michigan last July.

Tony Gibson, of Lake Village, was booked into Lake County Jail on two counts of operating a motor boat while intoxicated resulting in death, two counts of reckless homicide, two counts of criminal recklessness, operating a motorboat while intoxicated, speeding and exceeding the nighttime speed limit of 10 mph, according to the Indiana Department of Natural Resources.

Officials said Gibson turned himself in Friday morning. The charges against Gibson comes after an investigation that began following a boat crash that occurred on Lake Michigan between July 22-23. State conservation officials say Gibson was operating his 42-foot Fountain Powerboat, when it collided with the break wall near Arcelor Mittal Steel Mill in East Chicago.

Richard A. Wade, a retired firefighter from Hammond, and Timothy P. Dunlap, of Lynwood, were passengers on Gibsons boat and both died as a result of the crash. The mens bodies were located and recovered near the crash site on the morning of July 23, according to officials.

The Indiana State Police and the United States Coast Guard assisted state conservation officers in the investigation.
LAPORTE  A video depicting a LaPorte High School student being sexually abused is being shared across social networking websites, including Facebook, investigators announced late Thursday as they launched an investigation.

Investigators believe that this "may possibly be one of the worst cases" of sex extortion, a form of blackmail, to be investigated in this area, LaPorte County Sheriff's Capt. Mike Kellems said in a news release.

The LaPorte County Sheriff's Department warned anyone who possesses the video or further distributes the video may be found guilty of possession and/or dissemination of child pornography, a felony offense. School officials sent out robocalls to high school parents informing them of the investigation and the penalty if anyone is found in possession of the video.

Late Thursday afternoon, LaPorte High School administrators and the deputy sheriff assigned as the school's resource officer were informed that a video depicting the child sexual abuse had been linked to numerous local accounts and was being viewed and shared by a number of people, according to the news release.

LaPorte County Prosecuting Attorney John Espar responded immediately by mobilizing all members of the newly formed Internet Crimes Against Children Unit, Kellems said. Espar alerted the Indiana ICAC Task Force in Indianapolis and counterparts at the FBI.

Espar stated in the release that initial efforts "were directed at stemming further distribution of the images which will be followed by a high-tech investigation to trace the origins of the video and the individual responsible for its production."

LaPorte County Sheriff John Boyd and Espar expressed concern for the child and the child's family who appear to have been victimized by a particularly heinous crime.

"Both of the county's two leading law enforcement officials urge everyone to refrain from jumping to conclusions in the matter and avoid the kind of speculation that can only further victimize the family and impede the investigation," the release stated.
INDIANAPOLIS  Gov. Eric Holcomb again called on state lawmakers Friday to enact a 20-year vision for meeting Indiana's comprehensive infrastructure needs.

But the Republican said decisions about how to pay for the entire package can be put off for another day, so long as the plan includes enough funding to address the state's ongoing demand for road maintenance.

The first-year governor cautioned that uncertainty over what the federal government might do to support state road projects, be it a $1 trillion funding infusion or legalizing widespread highway tolling, should prompt Hoosier policymakers to take a wait-and-see approach on long-term funding decisions.

However, Holcomb also endorsed the fuel tax and vehicle fee increases proposed by the Republican-controlled Indiana House and Senate as an appropriate way to pay for needed road and bridge improvements in the years ahead.

"We have in place with the House and Senate a robust 20-year maintenance plan that can cover our needs and get us working on our major priorities," Holcomb said. "When you look long-term, we're going to need to seek some additional revenue."

Speaking with reporters at the Governor's Residence, Holcomb declined to wade too deeply into the specifics of each chamber's version of House Bill 1002, sponsored by state Rep. Ed Soliday, R-Valparaiso.

However, he did appear to favor the Senate plan, which no longer dedicates all gasoline sales tax revenue to roads and gets rid of the $1 per pack cigarette tax hike needed to make the state's main spending account whole after accounting for the road funding shift.

"Cigarette taxes, in my mind, have more to do with public health," Holcomb said. "I want to focus the discussion on infrastructure on how we're going to pay for our roads and bridges."

He said he sees his role as building consensus between the House and Senate as lawmakers decide whether to go forward with plans to hike the gasoline tax by 10 cents per gallon, increase vehicle registration fees, impose new fees on hybrid and electric vehicles and enact a $5 tax on new tire purchases.

As for tolling Indiana's interstate highways, which requires federal approval in addition to the General Assembly, Holcomb said that may be the answer for the state's long-term road funding needs, but is unlikely to be a relevant revenue source anytime soon.

Holcomb also announced that he opposes tolling routes traveled by regular commuters, such as highways that loop around major cities, and wants any future tolling program to focus on charging motorists traveling through Indiana who otherwise might not pay anything for using the state's roads.

The Senate is set to vote next week on whether to approve its revised version of the road funding legislation.

If successful, the measure then will go to a House-Senate conference committee, where a small group of lawmakers will craft a compromise proposal that again must pass both chambers to advance to Holcomb for his signature or veto.
Local volunteer fire departments are putting out their own calls for assistance as more personnel is needed to help respond to burning buildings, vehicle crashes and other emergencies in their communities.

Northwest Indiana fire officials say it's not a trend specific to this area. Departments from across the country are facing the same dilemma of volunteer numbers dwindling.

Merrillville Fire Chief Ed Yerga said nearly 80 percent of the fire departments in the state are completely volunteer.

According to the Indiana Volunteer Firefighter's Association website, there are nearly 840 fire/rescue organizations in the state that are eligible to join the association. Of those, Lake County has the most and LaPorte County comes in second, according to the IVFA.

The major presence of volunteer fire departments makes the need for new recruits important.

Hebron Fire Chief Chad Franzman said his department has 24 volunteers, and he would like to have the crew up to 30.

Even with fewer volunteers than desired, the department still gets a truck out of the door in a timely fashion. The problem Hebron and other volunteer departments face is the uncertainty of how many volunteers will respond to calls.

If there aren't enough personnel available, it requires the use of mutual aid to ensure there is sufficient manpower at a scene.

We all work together because we couldn't manage without them, Franzman said of collaborating with other departments.

Response times could be longer

Compared to career fire departments, the response times of volunteer stations could be a few minutes longer, Franzman said.

Full-time firefighters can leave for calls more quickly because they are already at a fire station. Volunteers must assemble before heading to service calls.

The Merrillville Fire Department was once completely staffed by volunteers, but the Town Council and Ross Township Board in 2011 decided to form a fire protection territory, a separate taxing district, which resulted in additional funding for that fire department. That allowed it to hire 12 full-time firefighters, upgrade equipment and complete fire station remodeling.

Adding the full-time staff hasn't reduced the need for volunteers, and Merrillville also is seeking new recruits to serve the community.

But Yerga said forming the fire protection territory has brought enhancements in fire service to the town, and he encourages other volunteer departments to explore it.

Franzman said he has contemplated the funding method, but it isn't something Hebron is pursuing at this time. He said forming a fire territory will put an additional financial burden on taxpayers, and it might not receive a strong reception.

Bob Uryga, a retired volunteer firefighter with the Michiana Shores Fire Department in LaPorte County, said transitioning to a full-time department also increases the expenses to operate the entity.

Reasons for drop in manpower numerous

As area fire organizations seek more volunteers, it seems the reasons for the drop in manpower are numerous. Among those are the small wages available.

Franzman said the state minimum for volunteer pay is $200 annually for clothing and vehicle costs.

That's what is provided to Hebron's volunteers, but there are other local departments that also issue funding for each call to which volunteers respond.

Uryga, the District 3 chairman for the IVFA, said the association has long pursued state legislation that would provide a tax exemption to those serving as volunteer firefighters, and he believes offering that incentive would attract more recruits and retain current volunteers. District 3 includes LaPorte and Starke counties.

The training recruits must have before joining departments also could make it unappealing to become a volunteer because it's the same as that for career firefighters. Courses available locally can take about six months to complete.

Lake Station Fire Chief Chuck Fazekas said that's a major commitment for many people while working full-time jobs to support their families.

Fazekas said Lake Station almost reached its capacity of about 90 volunteer firefighters in the early 1990s. The force gradually has fallen since, and is now around 40.

Age is another factor, Fazekas said, that has his department low on volunteers.

It's a physically demanding job, he said.

A number of volunteers in Lake Station have more than 30 years of service.

For many pursuing retirement, it's not a situation in which they want to leave the department, but they're finding their bodies can't do it anymore, Fazekas said.

He said Lake Station hopes to draw in younger recruits by starting a cadet program in the city.

Through the initiative, the department would work with high school students to teach them about fire service and help them decide if they want to become firefighters.

Strong devotion to community needed

A strong devotion to the community and helping others is needed to become a volunteer firefighter, Uryga said. Although it can be challenging at times, the work can be an extremely rewarding experience.

It makes you feel good when you help other people, Uryga said.

He also believes volunteer firefighters don't always receive the proper recognition for their efforts, and he thinks giving them a pat on the back goes a long way.

It's an awful nice thing to go on a fire call and to get a thank you, Uryga said.
Civility will be celebrated, but also honed, on World Civility Day on April 13. Indiana Attorney General Curtis Hill will be the keynote speaker for that evening's gala awards dinner and celebration.

But that's just part of the celebration that day.

Community Civility Counts has put together a full slate of workshops for its second World Civility Day on April 13. These workshops will be held at the Indiana Welcome Center in Hammond.

Having incorporated workshops that will be conducted by subject experts in their respective fields not only heightens the awareness of civility, but also educates us on the value of being civil," said Chuck Hughes, executive director of the Gary Chamber of Commerce.

These workshops will share best practices for fostering and spreading civility within your sphere of influence.

Heres the tentative schedule for the Indiana Welcome Center:

World Civility Day Ambassadorship (Dr. Clyde Rivers), 8:45 to 9:45 a.m.

Stop the Bleed (Methodist Hospitals), 9:50 to 10:20 a.m.

Civility in the Community (National Civility Center), 10:30-11:15 a.m.

Civility Books and Publishing (Propriety Publishing), 11:20-11:40 a.m.

One Approach to Providing Ethics Training to Public Employees (Shared Ethics Advisory Commission, Cal Bellamy), 11:40-noon

Where Do We Go From Here  Chaos or Community? (Urban League of NWI), 12:15 to 1 p.m.

The Business Case for Civility at Work (Lew Bayer of Civility Experts of Canada), 1:15 to 2:15 p.m.

Stand Up, Speak Up, Stop Bullying (Edgewater Systems), 2 to 2:45 p.m.

Civility in the Classroom (Teachers, Summer Moore), 2:30 to 3:20 p.m.

Cyber Bullying (Cathie Bledsoe of Indiana State Police), 3:30 to 4 p.m.

The cost of $25 per person includes lunch as well as access to all of these workshops. Register by calling the Gary Chamber of Commerce at 219-885-7407.

World Civility Day will end with a gala awards dinner and celebration at Avalon Manor in Merrillville starting at 6 p.m. the same day. Register by calling the chamber. Tickets are $60 apiece or $550 for a table of 10.

Celebrate World Civility Day by attending these events, but also by putting into daily practice the techniques taught at these workshops.
If youre pessimistic about the younger generation, take a closer look at what young people in Northwest Indiana have been doing.

Musicians have been competing for awards in individual and group Indiana State School Music Association contests.

The 64th Annual Northwestern Indiana Science and Engineering Fair last weekend allowed students to show their best work, including growing potatoes in Martian soil and using solar power to recharge hearing aid batteries.

Robotics teams are competing to design the best high-tech robots.

A recent regional spelling bee will send Grace Jones, 12, to the nationals in Washington, D.C.

Scouts and other young people helped the Izaak Walton League clean trash from the banks of the Little Calumet River last weekend.

Local students from Thomas Jefferson Middle School won the state Science Olympiad  again.

Debate teams from Chesterton and Valparaiso high schools squared off on the merits of the carbon tax at a recent public forum.

These stories, and many others like them, show young people are working to improve their lives and their communities.
The Manhattan district attorney is aiming to wipe out thousands of court summonses.

Cyrus Vance Jr. says there are 1.5 million open cases. More than half are more than a decade old, and most cases involve minor misconduct.

His goal is to erase at least 200,000 summonses by next month.

"The problem is that many of these folks are now afraid to deal with police, theyre afraid to apply for jobs that have a public agency aspect, and at the end of the day, we do not want to put resources devoted to these old cases that we believe dont effect public safety," Vance said.

Vance says the NYPD supports the measure.
An NY1 investigation has found that the operator of a proposed homeless shelter in Crown Heights has a somewhat checkered past. Courtney Gross filed the following exclusive report.

A nonprofit called CORE Services Group wants to open a 104-bed men's shelter in Crown Heights. The community is suing to stop them.

Last week, Jack Brown of CORE Services Group said, "We want to maintain and develop a positive working relationships with the community." But a look at what CORE has done elsewhere shows it has a mixed record accomplishing that.

For years, it has run a halfway house just three miles away from the proposed shelter.

The group has earned millions of dollars in a federal government contract. And it did so, at least initially, under a different name: Community First Services.

The halfway house was the subject of a damning report in The New York Times in 2012, which said inmates were not getting services and drugs were present. That was when the group decided to change its name, becoming the nonprofit known today as CORE Services Group.

But controversy followed. A 2015 report from the Justice Department's inspector general found the group didn't meet its contract conditions. Employment verification for inmates was missing, and drug testing wasn't completed. Inmates were not properly being signed in and out of the facility.

All along, CORE claimed the report lacked context and had a prejudicial tone. It was repeating allegations CORE officials said were untrue.

Members of the community NY1 spoke to said the facility has not caused any problems since.

"I spoke with the local police precinct, the 84th Precinct, and the president of the Vinegar Hill Neighborhood Association, and asked them if they had any complaints, and they said they did not," said Robert Perris, district manager for Community Board 2.

CORE has continued to get millions of dollars in city business.

It operates a family shelter in Brooklyn where city records show the group has a good or fair record of meeting its contract obligations.

Several months ago, it started running a men's homeless shelter out of a Brooklyn motel. Here, clients seem satisfied.

"It's safe. It's clean. And hopefully, they are going to help me get a place," said one client.
LOS ANGELES  The first of five community meetings the California High-Speed Rail Authority has planned on its Los Angeles-to-Anaheim section gave Southern California residents insight Thursday, March 30, ahead of an environmental report later this year.

The section, running about 30 miles from Los Angeles Union Station to the Anaheim Regional Transportation Intermodal Center along the existing Los Angeles-San Diego-San Luis Obispo rail corridor, is slated for passenger service in 2029.

Rail authority staff provided about 30 people at the open house at the Southern California Institute of Architecture with an update on refinements to the section since a preliminary environmental study last April.

It really is a needed alternative with all our existing infrastructure being maxed out, said Melissa de la Pena, project manager. Its an all-electric rail line, so it helps to address our air quality issues and because this is technology that we dont currently have here, (and) it will spur job growth across the state as well.

The staff-recommended alignment features two electrified tracks for the bullet train and up to three main line tracks within the existing rail corridor that would be used by other passenger and freight trains.

The designs were refined to accommodate the shared corridor with other trains, keeping the high-speed rail within the existing railroad right-of-way to the greatest extent possible and minimizing potential impacts on adjacent properties, de la Pena said.

There is enough room so that we can add track onto the existing corridor  as we move through the environmental document, she said.

Staff also discussed 11 new grade separation projects aimed at improving safety and efficiency in the corridor for riders, motorists and pedestrians. The open house allowed attendees to use interactive maps to zero in on below-grade, elevated and surface-level sections of the train throughout the entire proposed alignment.

Los Angeles resident Tom Williams, a retired environmental specialist for Parsons Corporation, said he was fully supportive of the bullet train concept but this aint the way to do it.

High-speed means over 200 miles per hour, Williams said, advocating for underground tracks from Fullerton to Anaheim. New York Citys Grand Central station  tell me where you see trains. You dont see trains.

Harry Boxler, environmental manager for the section, said staff will continue to refine the alignment.

Its a very iterative process between the environmental process and what engineers do to ensure that the best project moves forward, he said.

Rowland Heights resident Jin Yan, who attended with her young son, expressed concern over impacts to people living along the railway, but said the train would benefit the next generation.

At first we thought it was just a bubble dream, she said, but its very exciting that its coming true.

Fares are estimated to average $89 from San Francisco to Los Angeles or Anaheim and $30 for a trip from Los Angeles to Anaheim, based on the authoritys 2016 business plan in 2015 dollars. The final environmental impact report for the section is expected in mid-2018.

For Los Angeles resident Freddie Hanns, 64, who owns H&F Constructors and for years has been bidding for work with the rail authority, the meeting was a reality check.

Im questionable right now if theyll ever complete this and in this time frame. Its moving a lot slower than they said, Hanns said. I put all this time in it, so I guess Ill keep attending these events and hopefully something positive will come out of it.

Four more community meetings will take place in Santa Fe Springs, Buena Park, Anaheim and Montebello from April 4 to 8. For information, go to hsr.ca.gov.
FRESNO  Rep. Devin Nunes, who is heading an investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election, avoided a crowd of angry protesters in a visit to his home district in Fresno.

Nunes spoke Friday to the Ag Lenders Society at a private gathering. He was ushered in and out of the building, also avoiding the media.

About 300 people protested on the sidewalk outside with signs saying Nunes is more interested in protecting President Donald Trump than them.

Nunes is under fire for going to Trump after a secret intelligence briefing before reporting his findings to his committee.

Guests who attended the luncheon say the talk mostly focused on water but the Russian investigation came up at least once. Veterinarian Joseph Butterweck says he supports Nunes and believes the congressman did nothing wrong.
Former Orange County GOP Chairman Scott Baugh recently was repeatedly mentioned in the media, which reported that he recruited two chief engineers of Brexit to help split California in two  a Democratic coastal state and a Republican inland state.

Just one problem: Baugh says its not true.

While Baugh noted considerable enthusiasm in some Republican circles to break California into multiple states, the participation of the Brexit leaders was wildly mischaracterized.

He didnt recruit the two, they didnt raise $1 million in Orange County for the effort and there is no two-state plan in the works, all of which was stated as fact on the websites of the San Diego Union-Tribune, the San Jose Mercury News, the San Francisco Chronicle, Aol News, Salon, the Washington Times, Englands Daily Mail and the Sunday Times of London in articles running March 26, 27 and 28.

At the center of the stories are Brits Nigel Farage and Arron Banks, two of the Bad Boys of Brexit who led the charge for the successful ballot measure that is resulting in the United Kingdom breaking away from the European Union.

Baugh says he met Farage at President Donald Trumps inauguration and learned that Farage and Banks would be in his hometown, Huntington Beach, on March 17 to accept an award from the American Association of Political Consultants.

So he asked Farage if he would be interested in talking to some of the countys GOP movers and shakers.

I thought they would enjoy hearing Nigels story, Baugh said. Nigel Farage is one of the most entertaining politicians Ive ever met.

Brits in H.B.

Baugh arranged meetings with the countys two most prominent groups of wealthy Republican business people  a luncheon with the New Majority and a reception with the Lincoln Club  as well as taking them to a standing Friday GOP get-together at the Gulfstream restaurant in Newport Beach.

At the New Majority event, the issue of California splitting into two or more states didnt even come up, Baugh said. The two guests spoke almost entirely about Brexit.

At the Lincoln Club, the idea came and there was robust enthusiasm from club members, he said. But Farage and Banks had no formal plan to present and the events were not fundraisers, he said.

Baugh said the only ongoing effort to break up the state is that of Silicon Valley venture capitalist Tim Draper, who fell short in his signature drive to place a measure on the 2016 ballot. That proposal was to divide California into six states.

Draper may again try to place a measure on the ballot. If approved in California, it would then need the blessing of Congress. The process has happened several times before, including West Virginia separating from Virginia, Tennessee from North Carolina and Maine from Massachusetts.

In the March 28 edition of the the Sacramento Bee, Draper discussed his evolving plan and noted that hed heard from Farage and expected some help from the Brits. He gave no indication that there was any ongoing cooperation.

The reported two-state solution?

Draper thinks two states would be too few, said Baugh, who is among those who like Drapers idea.

Then on March 31, Farage  a former U.K. Independence Party leader  was on Fox News. While he expressed interest in splitting the state into separate pieces, he minimized his current involvement.

To remove any doubt, it is not me trying to break up California, Farage said, acknowledging that Draper was leading the charge.

Sources say

While at least six established U.S. news sites erroneously reported the story, they all cited either the Daily Mail or the Sunday Times  or both  as their source. The only direct source in the Daily Mail was the Sunday Times story of March 26.

The Sunday Times is a major Sunday paper in the United Kingdom and has a record of groundbreaking investigative reporting. So it may be understandable that some in the U.S. would be comfortable sourcing the story to the paper.

Inappropriately comfortable, apparently.

The Sunday Times quoted Banks in a way indicating a deeper level of involvement than Baugh, Draper or Farage subsequently described. He said money was pledged.

Our role was to show them how to light a fire and win, to show them its possible, Banks said to the paper. A lot of people said, This isnt possible, it can never happen.

The only other person quoted in the story was a spokesman for Farage and Banks.

Baugh said that some have pledged money to Draper  who is in the research stage but that as far as he can tell it has nothing to do with Farage and Banks.

Part of the problem may have been the Sunday Times giving too little scrutiny to an unusual and still developing plan in a faraway state too little scrutiny.

I think there was too (loose) of an interpretation of facts, Baugh said. Almost like fake news.

Contact the writer: mwisckol@scng.com
We dont always see things from the same perspective.

And, sometimes, we dont see things too well at all.

I never saw this concept so beautifully expressed than in a column written years ago by a pastor.

In his column, the pastor shared an ancient story about a group of blind men who are brought to an elephant  to touch the animal and learn what its like.

One man feels the elephants massive side and figures an elephant must be like a wall.

Another touches the tail and thinks an elephant is like a rope. The man who feels the animals leg believes it must be like a pillar, while the one who touches the trunk assumes it is like a branch.

From their perspectives, each man was right, but obviously none of them had the complete picture.

Arent we like this sometimes?

We make judgements based on how we think things are  or ought to be  when we really dont have the whole picture. Were only seeing things from one perspective.

Its so easy to do.

About four years ago, I remember asking God why hed allowed my husband, Chuck, to die.

From my perspective, it didnt seem fair. Chuck wasnt that old. Wed had so many dreams and plans and he had family members and friends who depended on him.

What were you thinking? I asked God.

I believe Chuck is in heaven with the Lord.

But in the midst of deep grief, it was hard to see how any good could have come from Chucks death for those of us still left on this earth.

All I could see and feel was the empty, aching hole that was left behind.

I didnt  and still dont  see the whole picture.

And I may never see the entire picture during my lifetime.

What Ive learned on my grief journey is to put one foot in front of the other and take one day at a time, trusting the God who sees the future that I do not.

For whatever reason, God seems to have more things for me to do in this world. There are more chapters ahead in the story of my life and Im praying, trusting and believing for better ones ahead.

God already has shown himself to be so faithful  providing people to help me in times of need.

I saw this again after my recent surgery.

My son, Mike, and daughter-in-law, Rachel, got me to and from the hospital. Rachel, whos a registered nurse, spent the night with me and made sure I had groceries. Friends brought food and flowers. I got cards and phone calls from family and friends.

It was humbling and  instead of telling people I didnt need anything  I had to learn to let them do things for me.

Ive been very grateful and blessed.

That said, I know it can be tough when you cant see the whole picture.

You wonder why certain things happen in life.

I think about a young Hebrew man, named Joseph, who was sold into slavery by his jealous and hateful brothers.

If you read the book of Genesis, you learn that Joseph ended up in the house of a man named Potiphar in Egypt. God gave Joseph great success there, but then the young man was sent to prison for a crime he didnt commit.

From Josephs perspective, life in the place hed call the land of my affliction probably seemed terrible.

Finally, it looked like Joseph would get a break after he correctly interpreted the dream of a fellow prisoner  who was being sent back to his old job of serving the Egyptian king.

Joseph asked the soon-to-be-released inmate to tell the Egyptian ruler about how he had been wrongly imprisoned.

I have done nothing that they should put me into this pit, Joseph said.

But the former inmate forgot about Joseph for two years until the king needed to have some dreams interpreted.

Joseph would be brought out of prison, taken to the king and  after giving the correct interpretation  was made second in command in Egypt. God would use Joseph to save Egypt and, eventually, the young mans own family from starvation during a famine.

Its interesting how God helped Joseph gain a new perspective on his hardships after he was reunited with his now-repentant brothers.

When their father died, the brothers worried that Joseph might want to pay them back for the evil they did to him. They sought his forgiveness.

And the Scriptures record that Joseph wept when they spoke to him.

Then Joseph said something thats comforted untold numbers of Bible readers throughout the centuries.

You meant evil against me, Joseph said. But God meant it for good for whats happening now, the saving of many lives.

It took years for Joseph to see the bigger picture.

And actually, he didnt see the whole thing.

Remember Josephs brothers? One was named, Judah.

And centuries later, Judah would have a descendant named Joseph, who married a woman named Mary, who gave birth to our Savior Jesus.

It was this Joseph who hurried Mary and baby Jesus away from the evil King Herod, an evil ruler intent on destroying the Christ child. I find it interesting that they fled to Egypt.

Im also amazed when I think about how many other people in the Bible didnt have the whole picture.

How could Moses have known  after he fled for his life into the desert  that he would return to bring his people, the Israelites, out of slavery in Egypt?

How could an Israelite king named David imagine that the Psalms he wrote would encourage people centuries later?

How could the Apostle Paul know that letters he wrote to the early church would be read and studied and loved by generations of Christians?

I believe the only one who ever did  and still has  the bigger picture is Jesus.

As he died on the cross, Jesus sought forgiveness for those who put him there saying, Father forgive them, for they dont know what theyre doing.

The son of God has not only an uncommon, but a complete perspective.

Hes not blinded by sin, doubt or fear. And the Savior who can restore physical and spiritual sight also can bring us comfort and peace as we go through dark and trying times.

In Pauls letter to the Philippians, we get a hope-filled perspective and picture of Christ.

As Paul writes: God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

Thats a picture I long to see.
Is there an American sound in classical music?

Thats a huge question  as huge as the question, What is an American? Theres no single, definitive answer, of course, said composer Peter Boyer, whose Ellis Island: The Dream of America is the centerpiece of Pacific Symphonys American Composers Festival. Since 2000, the festival has examined the richness and complexity of American concert music with a themed concert series. This year the festival celebrates the immigrant experience with the work of three American composers: Boyer, John Adams and Frank Ticheli.

Boyers Ellis Island drew from that iconic entry point in New Yorks harbor for its inspiration and source material. Boyer selected the words of seven people who came to America through Ellis Island between 1910 and 1940, creating a 45-minute work that interweaves projected photos; monologues taken from actual recordings of immigrants and performed live by actors; and musical interludes, a prologue and an epilogue played by an orchestra.

Ellis Island has become one of the most frequently performed pieces by an American composer since its 2002 premiere, and it was nominated for a Grammy award. Boyer estimates it has been programmed more than 166 times by orchestras throughout the U.S.

While he expressed deep admiration for American mavericks and originalists such as Stephen Albert, Joseph Schwantner, John Cage and Alan Hovhaness, Boyer acknowledged that he identified most strongly with composers whose work has become emblematic of the American sound, perhaps because their influence spread to the worlds of ballet, musical theater and the movies: Aaron Copland, Leonard Bernstein and John Williams.

They represent a broad river that has many tributaries, Boyer said. One cant really write a piece about an American subject without acknowledging them in some way, especially Copland.

Coplands A Lincoln Portrait is a clear precursor to Ellis Island. Its texts are excerpts from some of the 16th Presidents speeches, set to an elegiac, often brass-dominated score. But Boyer pointed out that the differences between the two works are significant.

A Lincoln Portrait is told in the third person. I wanted my piece to be closer to a theatrical creation, so its in the first person. And I wanted the first story to bring us immediately into the immigrants world. During my research I found this wonderful line, I was dreaming to come to America, which I immediately knew would be the perfect way to start the piece.

Boyer is excited that Pacific Symphonys performance of Ellis Island will include many more projected images than previous ones. Ive always envisioned a full-length, elaborate multi-media presentation, but Ive never had the opportunity before, he said. The reason for the enhanced visuals is another source of excitement for Boyer: the Pacific Symphony production is being filmed for the Great Performances series on PBS. The Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the Pacific Symphony Board of Directors and the National Ethnic Coalition of Organizations are helping to underwrite the broadcast, which will receive its national broadcast debut in the 2017-18 season; additional broadcasts are planned over the next three years.

9-11 didnt change Boyers message

Boyer, 47, a native of Providence, R.I., is a frequently commissioned mid-career composer whose works for the concert hall, film and television have been widely praised, and he often addresses overtly American themes, such as his musical portrait of the Kennedy brothers for the Boston Pops Orchestra in 2010. But creating Ellis Island was a daunting challenge unlike anything else he has done, the composer recalled.

The piece took on a life of its own over the course of the year that I worked on it, he said. Creating the script took about five months  almost as much time as it took to compose the music. Boyer tapped sources from the Ellis Island National Museums Ellis Island Oral History project, which since its formation in 1973 has worked to preserve the first-hand recollections of immigrants who passed through the Ellis Island immigration station between 1892 and 1954.

Boyer made two research trips to Ellis Island. The biggest was just before Sept. 11, 2001. I took another trip after 9/11 and reflected then on how the New York skyline had changed, and how so much else had changed as well. At that point I was about one-third of the way through the music. He received a sensitive question from the works commissioning organizations, the Bushnell Center for the Performing Arts and the Hartford Symphony Orchestra. They said, Do you think the piece needs to change in some way? Do you think 9/11 needs to be reflected? I thought a lot about it and said, No. I dont think what has happened should change what the piece should be.

Looking for right balance

At first, Boyer wanted to tell 10 stories, allotting two minutes for each one. But as I worked on it, I realized I couldnt do justice to any of these stories in just two minutes. Its not enough time.

As Boyer delved into the interviews, he realized the details and tone of each one would dictate length and structure. They had such narrative and cultural diversity. They had heartwarming moments, humorous moments, poignant moments. Balance was his byword. I always tried to find the proper balance; I didnt want the music to ever step on the story. Boyer kept the orchestration light and transparent during the spoken-word sections.

During his research, Boyer filled in some blanks in his own familys Ellis Island story, using the governments detailed records to pin down the exact date of his maternal great-grandfathers entry to the U.S. from Italy in May 1912. My grandfather was delighted, he said.

Boyer was taken aback by the success of Ellis Island, but has come to understand the reason for its success: a combination of universality and intimacy that prompts many people to see their ancestors in other peoples tales.

Ive attended many of the performances. Ive gotten to observe peoples reactions and talk to them. Its been one of the most gratifying experiences of my life. Many people come up to me profoundly moved. Theyre in tears; Im in tears. They say, Thank you for telling my familys story.
Supporters of President Donald Trump are calling on authorities to investigate violence against them under state civil rights laws, after clashes erupted over the weekend at pro-Trump rallies in Hollywood and Huntington Beach.

They threw bottles at us, Matthew Woods, a Hollywood rally organizer, said Thursday. We were surprised at the violence directed against us  and were not going to take it anymore.

Woods claimed some of the Trump supporters were victims of hate crimes when they were confronted by angry counter-protesters Saturday on Hollywood Boulevard and at Bolsa Chica State Beach in Huntington Beach.

The rallies coincided with a series of nationwide Make America Great Again  or MAGA  marches in support of the Trump administration.

But the California events turned ugly.

In Orange County, what was dubbed as a family friendly gathering, devolved into a violent brawl between marchers and counter-protesters for about 30 minutes.

Videos have since surfaced of angry counter-protesters punching and cursing at marchers, leaving those who were assaulted asking why police didnt step in to stop to the violence.

Authorities charged three males with felony illegal use of pepper spray and one woman with misdemeanor assault and battery.

Meanwhile in Hollywood, as Trump supporters marched from the Pantages Theatre to the presidents star on the Walk of Fame, they were met by counter-protesters shouting anti-Trump expletives. The event never fully descended into chaos, but it had its moments, including a fist fight that broke out on the sidewalk when a man grabbed a Trump supporters hat. Woods said someone also spat on a woman during the march.

Los Angeles police officers on bicycles detained two men for possible assault after the fist fight. It was unclear if they were charged.

Ahead of a news conference Thursday in Hollywood, Woods called on the district attorneys in Orange and Los Angeles counties to enforce the Ralph Civil Rights Act and the Bane Civil Rights Act, which protects people from continued violence or the threat of violence based on grounds such as race, color, religion, ancestry, national origin, political affiliation, sex, sexual orientation, age, disability or position in a labor dispute, according to state law.

The Los Angeles Police Department defines a hate crime as any criminal act or attempted criminal act directed against a person or persons based on the victims actual or perceived race, nationality, religion, sexual orientation, disability or gender.

Woods praised the LAPD for preventing the Hollywood march from getting out of control.

While he welcomed the debate in a nation divided under Trumps presidency, he said some counter-protesters went too far, and the Trump supporters were victims.

Anyone can be subject to a hate crime, he said.
FRIDAY, MARCH 31

The Siegel: By Michael Mitnick; directed by Casey Stangl. Ethan Siegel is in love. Tonight hes going to ask Alices parents for permission to marry her. Timing is everything, though, and Alice is reeling from working on a lost election  not to mention they broke up two years ago and shes seeing someone else. But Ethan is undaunted. His journey makes for a comedy about modern love, uncertain times and the need to go back in order to move forward. 8 p.m. Thursdays-Saturdays, 2:30 p.m. Saturdays-Sundays, 7:30 p.m. Sundays & Tuesdays-Wednesdays through April 23 at South Coast Repertory, Segerstrom Stage. Tickets are $79. 655 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa. 714- 708-5555 or scr.org

The Wizard of Oz: Take this classic musical journey with Dorothy Gale from Kansas through the Haunted Forest to Emerald City with her friends the Scarecrow, Tin Man, Lion and of course, Toto. The Wicked Witch from the West threatens to hurt Dorothy and her Friends as they all try to find their way home in this all new Laguna Playhouse Youth Theatre production, directed by Donna Inglima. 7 p.m. Fridays, 1 & 6 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays through April 9 at Laguna Playhouse. $15-$25. 606 Laguna Canyon Road, Laguna Beach. 949-497-ARTS or lagunaplayhouse.com

SATURDAY, APRIL 1

8th Annual Summer Camp & Activities Fair: Featuring more than 40 local camps and organizations offering summer activities. With live performances and free activities for kids. 9 a.m.-3 p.m. at the Irvine Market Place. Admission is free. 13782 Jamboree Road. A list of participating sponsors and camps and event details is available at ocregister.com/go/campfair

21st Annual Bubblefest: Artistry of bubbles combined with the awe of real science in a laser and lighting show. This years Bubblefest features performances by bubble artist Deni Yang in the Mega Bubblefest Laser Show. The performance artist leads a viscous variety stage show, which combines music, lasers, lighting effects, and bubble artistry. 10 a.m.-5 p.m. through April 16 at Discovery Cube Orange County. Tickets are $10-$15. 2500 N. Main St., Santa Ana. oc.discoverycube.org

Doktor Kaboom: Live Wire!: This interactive, one-man science variety show creatively blends theater arts with the wonders of scientific exploration, Doktor Kabooms supercharged (and super safe!) science experiments will have audiences erupting with laughter and bubbling with curiosity. 1 p.m. Saturday-Sunday at Samueli Theater, Segerstrom Center for the Arts. $20. 600 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa. 714-556-2787 or scfta.org

Re-opening of the Ride 7D: New ride Werewolves also launching within: Its the year 2156 and pollution, famine and war has brought civilization to an end. An evil group affected by the high level of radiation have been spared and are now fighting for their lives and to find food. Dont let them be your destruction. 10 a.m.-11 p.m. Fridays-Saturdays & 10 a.m.-9 p.m. Sundays-Thursdays at Irvine Spectrum Center. $10 or $20 for the three rides. 630 Spectrum Center Drive. squareup.com/store/the-ride-7d

TUESDAY, APRIL 4

Brain Candy Live!: Adam Savage of MythBusters fame has joined forces with Michael Stevens, one of YouTubes biggest stars. Together, the two are bringing along more than three tons of their crazy toys, incredible tools and mind-blowing demonstrations for a celebration of curiosity thats been described as a cross between TED Talks and the Blue Man Group. 7:30 p.m. at Segerstrom Center for the Arts, Segerstrom Hall. Tickets start at $39. 600 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa. 714-556-2787 or scfta.org

William Singe with Alex Aiono: Singe started his career as a member of the Collective, an Australian boy band which was formed during the fourth season of the X Factor Australia in 2012, finishing in third place. Aiono is most well known for his videos on YouTube which have amassed more than 52.5 million views and his social media presence with upwards of 1.8 million followers. Aiono released his first single on a major label with Interscope Records, Work The Middle, in February. 8 p.m. at the Observatory. $25. 3503 S. Harbor Blvd., Santa Ana. observatoryoc.com

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 5

Max Raabe and his Ensemble: From Berlin, the theatrical and charismatic baritone, Raabe, leads his 12-piece Palast Orchester in the high-style popular music of the 20s and 30s. 8 p.m. at Irvine Barclay Theatre. Tickets are $40-$100. 4242 Campus Drive. 949-854-4646 or thebarclay.org

THURSDAY

Chapman University Wind Symphony: Christopher J. Nicholas, music director and conductor. This concert ensemble of brass, woodwind, double bass and percussive musicians will perform standard classical and popular symphonic works by some of the worlds great composers. 7:30 p.m. at Musco Center for the Arts. Tickets are $10-$15. One University Drive, Orange. 844-OC-MUSCO or muscocenter.org
Want to dress like a Disney character when visiting Disneyland but cant because of the parks rules? Then Disneybounding is the answer, according to a panel at Wondercon 2017 on Friday.

The term Disneybounding was invented around 2011 as the Disneyland Resort tightened its rules on people wearing costumes to look just like the walk-around characters.

So instead of dressing just like Snow White, which would be termed cosplay, Disneybounders dress in the same dress styles, but in more modern attire.

Its a really fashionable way to visit Disneyland, said Erica Espejo, 32, of Villa Park.

The panelists said that it is dressing to personify a character, but not dressing exactly like the character.

If you asked me to help you find your Disneybound outfit, I would start by looking in your closet, said panel moderator Crystal Schaefer, 22, of Riverside.

According to Schaefer, it could be as simple as finding clothes that closely resemble the colors and style of a Disney character, such as a modern dress that looks like the one of the character of Aurora in Sleeping Beauty wore when living in the forest with the fairies.

It also means finding the right shoes.

It took me months to find the right yellow high-heel shoes, said Jenny Navin, 28, of Santa Cruz.

Ruzenka di Benedetto, 28, of Los Angeles echoed that sentiment adding, You can also learn to paint shoes the right color.

All the panelists said Disneybounding is not limited to dressing in a Disney character style. Many of them said they visit Universal Studios Hollywood, and dress in a manner fitting in with Harry Potter or other Universal characters, but they said Disney is the one they prefer.

Its really a way to be a closet Disney cosplayer, di Benedetto said.
ANAHEIM  More than three years since it opened, the Anaheim Regional Transportation Intermodal Center, better known as ARTIC, continues to operate deep in the red, though officials expect new advertising and tenants that opened this week to chip away at that deficit now paid from city funds.

Hopes for additional funding help from the citys resort district have fallen through.

For the citys fiscal year ending in June, the transportation hub  once hailed by Mayor Tom Tait as Orange Countys Grand Central Station  is operating an estimated $2.5 million short of its $3.9 million annual budget, city officials said.

Ridership has shown some growth, averaging about 2,800 people weekdays, and is expected to pick up to 4,300 once the Angels begin to play. Ducks games also provide some uptick. Additionally, Tres Estrellas de Oro, a bus that transports visitors to and from Tijuana and Guadalajara, Mexico has increased the centers use.

Still, the station is far short of the 10,000 riders officials projected when they planned the hub, which opened in 2014.

From recent comments, the City Council appears to have waved the white flag on the transportation hub being particularly profitable. Now, they just want to break even.

The citys general operating budget is covering the shortfall this year, but to make up for what officials expect will be future operating deficits, the City Council asked the Anaheim Tourism Improvement District, a collection of hotel properties in the resort district, to once again fund the gap in ARTICs budget. The tourism district collects 2 percent on room rates  on top of the 15 percent bed tax the city collects on a night stay.

But last week, the districts three-person executive board, which includes a representative from Disneyland and of the 80 or so hoteliers, wouldnt vote to cover the shortfall.

Board member Kris Theiler, a vice president of operations at Disneyland, said the districts spending needs to go to transportation projects directly benefiting the businesses of the resort district that pay into the fund. For example, the board recently committed more than $1 million to fund shuttles to bring passengers from the train station to the resort area.

In ARTICs first two operating years, the tourism district contributed $4 million toward covering operations.

A spokeswoman for Theiler later said the district had initially covered the deficit on a premise the resort district would serve as the main advertising sponsor of the transportation center, but the facility lacks the ad space and infrastructure expected. The council scrapped initial plans to build an 84-foot-tall electronic billboard that could have been seen from the 57 freeway.

Additionally, in the first two years of operation, the city was still considering a $300 million streetcar project that would have ferried passengers on a three-mile trek between ARTIC and Disneyland, the Convention Center and the 2.2-square-mile resort district. The City Council has since opposed a streetcar.

If the hotels in the district dont contribute, the money to cover the shortfall has to come from the citys general operating budget, where it will compete will police, fire and parks, Tait said previously when suggesting the district be asked to help with funding.

Its unfortunate its operating on such a loss, Tait said, but the primary beneficiaries of the train station is the resort district.

The city is working with Orange County Transportation Authority, Metrolink and Amtrak to expand service, city spokesman Mike Lyster said.

The city also struck an deal earlier this month with Anaheim Arena Management, the operators of the Honda Center, to sell advertising on the two electronic video display boards outside the massive 120-foot tall, 67,000-square-foot transportation center  which glows at night with multi-colored LED lights.

The city will receive at least $80,000 a year for the advertising contract, plus 25 percent of additional revenue if the Anaheim Arena Management hits a set threshold.

Inside, an Auntie Annes pretzel and Pinkberry yogurt kiosk opened Monday. A coffee shop, The Lost Bean, is slated to open this summer, and another restaurant has leased space in the center and is in the design process. Officials hope the eateries joining The Oyster Bar, which opened last year, will drive more traffic to the station  even locals just going there to eat.

Joseph Taylor, 27, of San Diego, uses the ARTIC station three to four times a year when he travels for vacation. He said the new kiosks will give people a convenient quick bite to eat.

This is a beautiful building, Taylor said as he waited in line at the Auntie Annes. People have needed something like this here.

In the long-term, Lyster said officials are looking at naming rights for the center to help us fill the gap.

Well soon have new advertising and tenants, he said, adding the center also generates revenue from television and commercial productions. Showtimes Ray Donovan, True Detective season two, and commercials for Boeing, Audi and CNN have all filmed at ARTIC.

All of this helps as we continue to manage our expenses, Lyster said.

Councilwoman Lucille Kring said shes still hopeful the transportation center will make it.

Nothing starts out great, Kring said. Everything has to build up. Sometimes it takes a little bit more energy. Eventually, its going to be very successful.
The labor movement is mourning a giant following the death last weekend of Mike Garcia, the longtime president of SEIU 1877 and United Service Workers West who spent his life standing with workers for social and economic justice, particularly low-wage and immigrant workers most vulnerable to exploitation.

Mike started his career in the 1980s relentlessly organizing janitors, instilling the support and encouragement each worker would need to claim a voice on the job and in the community. He led successful efforts to unionize janitors working in major tech corporations, such as Oracle and Apple. In 2000, he led a historic three-week strike in the city of Los Angeles that shut down streets and ultimately led to meaningful gains for thousands of workers.

Mike built power for low-wage workers. His encouragement helped people stand up, make their voices heard, and believe in their own dignity and strength. He helped build a movement in Southern California that required elected officials, CEOs and anyone with power in our communities to take notice when the janitors walked into a room.

Those efforts bled into Orange County, where many of our communitys organizers cut their teeth mapping corporate high rises in Fashion Island, Anaheim, Irvine and throughout Orange County where janitors would ultimately join the union.

I was only fortunate enough to meet Mike a handful of times.

But along with workers across the country, I feel like I know him because of the legacy hes left and the people he has touched and inspired.

Mike was a national labor leader, served on the California Labor Federations executive council, and led a union representing more than 40,000 workers. But he didnt lead from a board room, rather he led by standing alongside janitors and security guards in the workplace, at their homes and in the streets fighting for fairness.

His example has influenced and elevated the labor movement. Art Pulaski, secretary treasurer of the California Labor Federation, called him the most committed organizer of a generation.

Countless workers and activists throughout Southern California carry with them stories about learning what they could accomplish because Mike led them, pushed them, believed in them. Marisol Rivera was a 19-year-old mom when Mike convinced her to become a strike captain in 2000. Now she is the leader of SEIU-USWWs Orange County chapter.

Everyone from Senate Pro Tem Kevin de Leon to SEIU International President Mary Kay Henry paid tribute to Mikes life and legacy this week.

I am blessed to have walked with and learned from Mike Garcia, wrote Mary Kay Henry. The union is better, bolder and stronger thanks to his tireless efforts and Si Se Puede Leadership.

Today is Cesar Chavez Day  a day when we find inspiration and motivation in the history of those workers who came before us struggling to make our nation more fair and just. Today, the memory of Mike Garcia joins the chorus of leaders like Cesar Chavez. And his legacy lives on in everyone who continues asking themselves, as he demonstrated throughout his life, How can I do more? How can I do better? How can I push on for workers?

Mike is survived by his wife Gloria, daughters Suzanna and Estrella and son Henry and his grandchildren, as well as his brothers and sisters in the labor movement.

Jennifer Muir Beuthin is general manager of the Orange County Employees Association.
Federal legislators are working on a cluster of proposed laws aimed at easing the growing conflict between state and federal marijuana laws, with a number of protections and new regulations that could impact cannabis consumers and businesses in California.

Cannabis remains illegal at the federal level, though medical marijuana is now legal in 28 states and recreational cannabis is allowed in eight. So even though state law says Californians can now smoke weed and give some to a friend, they still risk criminal prosecution by federal authorities and can be denied benefits such as subsidized housing. People who own cannabis-related businesses also face federal raids and cant access most banking services or claim standard tax deductions. And researchers also have a tough time getting access to study cannabis because the plant remains illegal under federal law.

Oregon Democrats Sen. Ron Wyden and Rep. Earl Blumenauer aim to change all of that in one fell swoop with the Path to Marijuana Reform, a package of bills introduced Thursday in both houses.

Also included in the package is the reintroduction of legislation from Rep. Jared Polis, D-Colorado, to regulate marijuana like alcohol.

The bills would remove marijuana from a national registry of controlled substances and add a slew of new protections for consumers and industry workers. Wyden said the new rules could spur industry growth and investment, which have been hampered by the looming threat of a federal crackdown  a threat thats gained traction since long-time marijjuana opponent Jeff Sessions became Attorney General.

The bills would also create a new federal tax on all cannabis products that would start at 10 percent and escalate to 25 percent. And marijuana businesses would be required to get federal permits to operate, with new rules on advertising, labeling and more.

The proposed bills drew quick praise from supporters of marijuana legalization, who argued that such reforms will bring federal marijuana laws more in line with public opinion and state policies.

States are clearly realizing the benefits of regulating marijuana, and we are glad to see a growing number of federal policy makers taking notice, said Aaron Smith, executive director of the National Cannabis Industry Association.

Opponents of legal marijuana expressed concern about Wyden and Blumenauers legislation, claiming the emerging industry is focused on profits and not public health.

We need to end, not expand, the special interest big marijuana lobby, said Kevin Sabet, a former White House drug policy senior adviser who now heads Smart Approaches to Marijuana.

Most policies in the bills have been proposed previously in some form, though theyve never gotten past initial committee hearings. And that was before Republicans controlled both the House and the Senate.

But Wyden and Blumenauer pointed out in a joint statement that public support for cannabis legalization has never been higher, with the Democrats package of bills drawing early support from both sides of the aisle.

Here are six ways the federal bills would impact Californians and residents in other legal weed states if they become law.

1. Add criminal protections: Federal agents could no longer arrest people who are complying with their states cannabis laws and slap them with fines or jail time. The feds also couldnt raid state-legal pot shops and seize their assets. No one could be deported or denied entry to the country for consuming weed in state where its legal. And Native American tribes would be protecting from punishment under federal marijuana laws.

2. Open bank access: Banks and credit card companies that handle marijuana funds would get immunity from federal criminal charges. That should help the industry move away from operating all in cash, since financial institutions would no longer have to worry about being penalized for money laundering if they take on cannabis clients.

3. Remove obstacles for research: A new process would make it easier for researchers to study medical marijuana by reducing approval wait times, costly security measures and layers of review that experts say stifle the number and quality of studies now taking place. And once researchers get approval, it would be easier for them to access marijuana for use in their studies. That should increase the volume of rigorous trials involving cannabis.

4. Eliminate tax restrictions: Marijuana retailers would be able to claim tax deductions and credits like any other business. Thats because the bills would make an exception for marijuana in IRS tax rule 280E, which says businesses dealing in Schedule I or II substances cant write off common expenses such as rent, utilities or advertising. That should save businesses significant money each year.

5. Clear criminal records: Anyone with a federal charge for a marijuana-related activity that was legal in their state at the time or who was charged with possessing an ounce or less of marijuana could petition to have their records cleared. Californias Proposition 64 included a similar provision, though it could only apply to state charges.

6. Allow for federal benefits: People in legal weed states could no longer be drug tested for marijuana when applying for a federal job or denied access to subsidized housing. College students couldnt be turned down for financial aid because they have minor marijuana offenses on their record. And health care workers at Veteran Affairs clinics could recommend medical marijuana to veterans.

Staff writer Alicia Wallace contributed to this report.




WASHINGTON  Former national security adviser Mike Flynn has told investigators that hes willing to be interviewed as part of inquiries into alleged contacts between the Trump administration and the Russian government in return for immunity from prosecution.

A congressional official confirmed on condition of anonymity that Flynn made the offer. The Wall Street Journal reported that Flynn made the offer to the FBI and two congressional committees.

Gen. Flynn certainly has a story to tell, and he very much wants to tell it, should the circumstances permit, Robert Kelner, a lawyer for Flynn, said in statement late Thursday. We will not comment right now on the details of discussions between counsel for Gen. Flynn and the House and Senate intelligence committees, other than to confirm that those discussions have taken place.

Flynn, a retired lieutenant general, was forced out of the Trump administration after it was revealed that he had misled Vice President Mike Pence about his contacts with the Russian ambassador to the U.S. after Donald Trumps victory.

FBI Director James Comey has told Congress that the bureaus probe includes investigating the nature of any links between individuals associated with the Trump campaign and the Russian government and whether there was any coordination between the campaign and Russias efforts.

The House and Senate intelligence committees are also investigating allegations of Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. election, including any contacts between Trump associates and Russia.

Flynns lawyer suggested immunity is justified because his client is the target of unsubstantiated public demands by members of Congress and other political critics that he be criminally investigated. Kelner, a partner at Covington and Burling LLP in Washington, said: No reasonable person, who has the benefit of advice from counsel, would submit to questioning in such a highly politicized, witch-hunt environment without assurances against unfair prosecution.

Jack Langer, a spokesman for the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, said Flynn has not offered to testify to HPSCI in exchange for immunity.

Flynn, who ran the Defense Intelligence Agency under President Barack Obama, was one of Trumps closest advisers during the campaign and briefly held one of the most sensitive jobs in the administration, which carries the highest-level security clearance. He has been at the top of the list for Democrats and others investigating the possible Russia connections.

In the weeks after Flynn left the administration, new details emerged about his business ties with Turkeys government and Russian entities.

Flynn retroactively registered as a foreign agent with the Justice Department for work that his firm, Flynn Intel Group, did for a Dutch consulting company, Inovo BV, which has ties to President Recep Erdogan of Turkey. Flynns filing showed that his company received $530,000 from Inovo between Sept. 9 and Nov. 14.

Kelner wrote in a letter accompanying the filing that Flynn had previously registered with Congress under the Lobbying Disclosure Act, but made the new filing because the work could have been interpreted as benefiting the government of Turkey. Lobbying on behalf of a foreign government requires registration with the Justice Department.

The top Democrat and Republican on the House Oversight Committee are seeking documents related to Flynns security clearance applications and contacts and payments from Russian, Turkish and any other foreign sources including the Kremlin-backed media outlet RT, dating from Flynns 2014 retirement from the Defense Intelligence Agency to the present. They also want documents connected to Flynns vetting for the national security post, his work with a speakers bureau and any documentation that Flynn sought U.S. approvals for payments from foreign sources.

Democrats on the House committee last week released documents showing Flynn received more than $45,000 from RT for taking part in a December 2015 gala where he sat at President Vladimir Putins table.

Other documents showed that Flynn, who received $11,250 for a 2015 speaking engagement in Washington for Kaspersky Government Security Solutions, Inc., a U.S. subsidiary of a Russian cybersecurity firm; and an $11,250 payment from Volga-Dnepr Airlines.

Price Floyd, a spokesman for Flynn, said the retired lieutenant general both informed and fully briefed the Defense Intelligence Agency about his Russia trip beforehand and when he returned.
A Laguna Beach doctor who pleaded guilty in 2015 to diverting $8 million to an overseas bank can no longer practice medicine.

Baruch Fogel, an obstetrician and gynecologist, agreed to surrender his medical license in a settlement with the California Medical Board, effective this week. The board had accused Fogel of dishonesty and unprofessional conduct stemming from his conviction.

According to the U.S. Department of Justice, Fogel willfully failed to report on his taxes that he had an account in Luxembourg. He was sentenced to two years probation and ordered to pay restitution and a fine.

To view a doctors disciplinary record, visit mbc.ca.gov.

Contact the writer: cperkes@scng.com 714-796-3686
WASHINGTON  A pair of White House officials played a role in providing Rep. Devin Nunes of California, the Republican chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, with the intelligence reports that showed President Donald Trump and his associates were incidentally swept up in foreign surveillance by U.S. spy agencies.

The revelation that White House officials assisted in the disclosure of the intelligence reports  which Nunes then discussed with Trump  is likely to fuel criticism that the intelligence chairman has been too eager to do the bidding of the Trump administration while his committee is supposed to be conducting an independent investigation of Russias meddling in the last presidential election.

Nunes has also been faulted by his congressional colleagues for sharing the information with Trump before consulting with other members of the intelligence committee.

The congressman has refused to identify his sources, saying he needed to protect them so others would feel safe coming to the committee with sensitive information. He disclosed the existence of the intelligence reports March 22, and in his public comments he has described his sources as whistleblowers trying to expose wrongdoing at great risk to themselves.

Several current U.S. officials identified the White House officials as Ezra Cohen-Watnick, the senior director for intelligence at the National Security Council, and Michael Ellis, a lawyer who works on national security issues at the White House Counsels Office and formerly worked on the staff of the House Intelligence Committee.

A White House spokesperson declined to comment.

Cohen-Watnick is a former Defense Intelligence Agency official who was originally brought to the White House by Michael T. Flynn, the former national security adviser. The officials said that this month, shortly after Trump wrote on Twitter about being wiretapped on the orders of President Barack Obama, Cohen-Watnick began reviewing highly classified reports detailing the intercepted communications of foreign officials.

Officials said the reports consisted primarily of ambassadors and other foreign officials talking about how they were trying to develop contacts within Trumps family and inner circle in advance of his inauguration.

The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe the intelligence, and to avoid angering Cohen-Watnick and Ellis. Officials say that Cohen-Watnick has been reviewing the reports from his fourth-floor office in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, where the National Security Council is based.

But the officials description of the intelligence is in line with Nunes own characterization of the material, which he has said was not related to the Russia investigations when he first disclosed its existence in a hastily arranged news conference.

According to Nunes, he received a phone call from a source the night before, and then rushed to meet the person on the grounds of the White House. He has explained the choice of location by saying he needed access to a secure place where people with security clearances could legally view classified information, though such facilities can also be found in the Capitol building and at other locations across Washington.

The next day, Nunes gave a news briefing at the Capitol and then returned to the White House to brief Trump on the information.

Nunes and Rep. Adam Schiff of California, the top Democrat on the committee, have held dueling news conferences in the days since Nunes revelations, fueling criticism that the committee is unable to conduct a serious, bipartisan investigation.

The chaotic situation prompted the leaders of the Senate intelligence committee, which is running its own investigation, to state bluntly Wednesday that their work had nothing to do with the House inquiry. And television news programs have been dominated by arguments about whether the incidental intelligence gathering of Trump and his associates was the real issue or simply a distraction from the Russia investigations.

Nunes has acknowledged that the incidental intelligence gathering on Trump associates last year was not necessarily unlawful. U.S. intelligence agencies typically monitor foreign officials of allied and hostile countries, and they routinely sweep up communications linked to Americans who may be taking part in the conversation or are being spoken about.

The real issue, Nunes has said, was that he could figure out the identities of Trump associates from reading reports about intercepted communications that were shared among Obama administration officials with top security clearances. He said some Trump associates were also identified by name in the reports. Normally, intelligence agencies mask the identities of U.S. citizens who are incidentally present in intercepted communications.
JERUSALEM  Israels government on Thursday approved the establishment of a new settlement in the West Bank for the first time in more than two decades, and also laid the groundwork for further expansion despite a request from President Donald Trump to hold off on settlement activity.

It was not immediately clear whether Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had received a green light from the White House for Thursdays announcement. Trumps public request to hold off on settlements came during a meeting between the two leaders at the White House last month, after a series of moves by the Israeli leader to approve thousands of new housing units in the occupied West Bank.

In a carefully calibrated statement issued two weeks before the meeting, the White House said, While we dont believe the existence of settlements is an impediment to peace, the construction of new settlements or the expansion of existing settlements beyond their current borders may not be helpful in achieving that goal.

Previous administrations viewed the settlements as an obstacle to peace, and the Palestinians and much of the world consider them a violation of international law.

But it was not immediately clear whether the approval of the new settlement was meant to be a provocative move to scuttle the prospect of a revival of peace talks. Netanyahu said he was following through on a pledge he made a few weeks ago to 40 settler families who were evacuated from the illegal Amona outpost in the West Bank. That outpost was removed by court order because it was built on privately owned Palestinian land.

I promised at the outset that we would build a new community, Netanyahu said earlier Thursday. I believe that I first gave that promise back in December, and we will uphold it today.

Some analysts have speculated that the move could be a one-off gesture meant to appease settlement advocates before Netanyahu acquiesces to the Trump administrations call for restraint, part of its push to revive long-stalled peace talks.

Todays announcement once again proves that Israel is more committed to appeasing its illegal settler population than to abiding by the requirements for stability and a just peace, Hanan Ashrawi, a member of the Palestine Liberation Organizations executive committee, said in a statement.
Attorney General Jeff Sessions recently rescinded a Department of Justice memo issued last fall that had called on the Bureau of Prisons to phase out its use of private prisons. While Sessions reversal only affects some federal prisons, it is nonetheless a good thing for Californias ability to continue to address its own prison capacity and recidivism challenges.

While the Bureau of Prisons utilizes just one federal private prison in this state (the Taft facility outside of Bakersfield), Californias Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation sends 4,400 inmates to privately operated prisons in other states, while also housing nearly 2,000 people in privately operated community corrections facilities within the state.

With California still dealing with the 2011 Supreme Court ruling that ordered the state to reduce its prison overcrowding due to serious constitutional violations and inmate conditions that were below the standard of decency, the Department of Justices private prison policy is particularly important to the state. Through improvements to inmate education and re-entry programs, private prisons are helping develop solutions aimed at reducing recidivism rates and thus the prison population.

Government contracts with private prisons are evolving and starting to connect payments to prisons to recidivism rates  how often people re-offend after theyve been released from prison. With these contract requirements, the private prisons are incentivized to provide training and education intended to help those released make it in society. For example, in 2013, Pennsylvania revoked and rebid the contracts on all 42 of its community corrections centers, tying compensation paid to the prison operators to reductions in recidivism rates. Between July 2014 and June 2015, Pennsylvania reported an impressive 11 percent drop in recidivism in those centers.

Locally, Orange County has recently started to experiment with two privately operated day reporting centers in Santa Ana, which are tasked with managing former inmates experiences as they transition back to living in the community. Think of these centers as one-stop shops offering access to the sorts of social services and other offerings needed to help people get back on their feet.

The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitations most recent Outcome Evaluation Report found Orange County had the second lowest recidivism rate in the state, ahead of every county except Los Angeles County. However, 39 percent of inmates released in Orange County were back in prison within three years, slightly lower than the statewide three-year return-to-prison rate of 44.6 percent. And Orange County had the smallest decrease in recidivism rates among the top 12 counties, meaning other counties were reducing their re-offender rates and theres still a lot of room for Orange County to improve.

The programs being tested in Orange County  and in private prisons  are designed to help correctional facilities develop best practices meant to reduce the number of people who return to prison after being released. As a result, private prisons should be viewed as important tools that can develop ideas and plans that help prepare offenders to re-enter society, reduce recidivism and continue the trends of a shrinking prison population in California.

As governments at every level continue to face financial pressures and challenges delivering basic services, contracting provides a tool that enables corrections agencies to better manage costs, while also delivering better outcomes. Performance-based contracts for private prisons, especially contracts tied to reducing recidivism rates, have the possibility of delivering significant improvements that, over the long-term, reduce the overall prison population and help those who are released from jail stay out for good.

The recent innovations in performance contracting are good reminders that the private sector is usually very responsive to financial incentives, whereas government-run prisons are much less reactive to those types of motivations. The Department of Justices decision to continue using private prisons could help California and the country discover best practices that deliver long-term societal benefits.

Austill Stuart is a policy analyst at Reason Foundation.
SAN DIEGO  A judge said Thursday he will issue a ruling at a later time on whether to accept an agreement for President Donald Trump to pay $25 million to settle lawsuits over his now-defunct Trump University.

U.S. District Judge Gonzalo Curiel made the announcement during a hearing in San Diego. He did not say when he would make his decision.

Curiel gave preliminary approval to the deal in December.

The agreement is intended to end nearly seven years of legal battles with customers who claimed they were misled by failed promises to teach success in real estate.

It would settle two class-action lawsuits and a civil lawsuit by New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman.

Trump had vowed never to settle but said after the election that he didnt have time for a trial, even though he believed he would have prevailed. He acknowledged no wrongdoing.

Attorneys for the customers have said thousands of people would get at least 80 percent of their money back, based on the roughly 3,730 claims submitted.

When attorneys reached a deal 10 days after Trumps election, Curiel said he hoped it would be part of a healing process that this country very sorely needs. A month later, he granted the preliminary approval.

But two customers have objected, and Curiel will also decide whether to allow one of them to opt out and sue the president individually.

Trump has paid $25 million into escrow to settle the cases.

The lawsuits allege that Trump University gave nationwide seminars that were like infomercials, constantly pressuring people to spend more and, in the end, failing to deliver.

Sherri Simpson, a Fort Lauderdale, Florida, attorney, said she and a partner paid $35,000 in 2010 to enroll in Trump Universitys Gold Elite program to be paired with a mentor who would teach them Trumps secret real estate investment strategies.

Simpson, who appeared in two anti-Trump campaign ads, said they got little for their money  the videos were 5 years old, the materials covered information that could be found free on the internet, and her mentor didnt return calls or emails.

I would like an admission that he was wrong, an admission that, Oops, maybe I didnt handle it as well as I should have, I didnt set it up as well as I should have, that I didnt maintain it or oversee it as well as I should have,' Simpson told The Associated Press on Wednesday.

Attorneys for Trump and those suing him say the deadline to opt out was in November 2015 and Simpson missed her chance. Thirteen people opted out before that date, none of whom have shown a desire to sue the president.

Another customer, Harold Doe, objected to the settlement because he wants more money, according to court filings by attorneys for Trump and the plaintiffs.

Trump University dogged the Republican businessman throughout the campaign as rivals used Trumps depositions and extensive documents filed in the lawsuits to portray him as dishonest and deceitful.

Trump brought more attention by repeatedly assailing Curiel, insinuating that the Indiana-born judges Mexican heritage exposed a bias.

The settlement was reached 10 days before a trial was set to begin, sparing Trump what would have been a major distraction. The trial would have been pinned on whether a jury believed Trump misled customers by calling the business a university when it wasnt an accredited school and by falsely advertising that he hand-picked instructors.
Less than a year after opening at Kaleidoscope mall in Mission Viejo, seafood restaurant Anchor Hitch announced plans to close this weekend.

We regret to inform you that due to unforeseen circumstances Anchor Hitch will be closing its doors on April 1 after dinner service, the restaurant said in a statement released late Thursday.On behalf of the ownership, management, and staff we thank you for your patronage and appreciate your consideration during these tough times.

The full-service restaurant is part of Union Market Mission Viejo. The food hall, like its sister food court in Tustin, got off to a slow start when it opened last year with a handful of eateries.

The concept and the community were out of sync, restaurant spokesman Niyaz Pirani said Friday.

Pirani said owner Kyle Tomita adjusted the refined seafood menu in recent weeks by making dishes more approachable with entrees priced under $20.

But, this week, Tomita made the call to close the restaurant and return with a new concept in the same space that will better fit the community, Pirani said.

Chef Michael Pham, born and raised in Fountain Valley, might be part of the new concept, Pirani said.

The 27,800-square-foot Union Market space is operated by Andrea and Russell Young. As the master leaseholders, they curate tenants to fill the food hall space. Other tenants include Portola Coffee Roasters, Milk Box, Japanese hot-pot restaurant Oyu Shabu, craft cocktail bar Dry Society, pasta and salad restaurant Market 2 Plate and taco and beer joint Mole.

Last year, as Union Market Mission Viejo was set to open, the owners of the mall had added new escalators, a modern glass atrium and free Wi-Fi as part of a renovation of the troubled center.

Contact the writer: nluna@ocregister.com and follow the Fast Food Maven on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.
SILVERADO  Members of the Trabuco Trailblazers 4-H Club discovered this week that eight of their prized pygmy goats had been killed by a mountain lion sometime late Monday night, according to news reports.

One goat survived the attack, but was injured, said Winston Vickers, a wildlife veterinarian who was called out to investigate the area Tuesday.

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Vickers, who has been studying mountain lions in the Santa Ana Mountains since 2002, said the mountain lion likely got into the pen where the goats were held through holes and gaps along the perimeter or roof. And that could have led to a frenzy, he said.

Theyre trapped, Vickers said. A common characteristic of cats in that situation is to go into a frenzy of grabbing every animal that runs by. Its not unusual to have animals killed, its a behavioral characteristic.

The Trailblazers 4-H, a youth development club, raise the goats and show them off annually at the O.C. Fair.

The goats were being held at private property south of Silverado Canyon, Vickers said.

I feel very sorry for the kids that lost their animals, he said, but they seem to recognize the reality of the situation.

The mountain lion did not feed on the goats following the attack, Vickers said, adding that it may have been spooked by a car. It did not touch other animals in neighboring pens, NBC News reported.

Members of the Trailblazers went out to see the goats one final time. They also patched up the holes in the pen on Tuesday.

I wanted to come out here to see them because I knew Id regret it if I didnt come out here one last time, which was hard to see them that way, 4-H member Maddie Cota told NBC News on Wednesday.

Vickers set up cameras on Tuesday and the footage caught the mountain lion attempting to get into the pen by jumping onto the roof, which proved unsuccessful.

The camera was kept up Wednesday night, but the mountain lion did not show. Vickers doesnt believe it will return.

The expectation would be, since he did not have a meal either night, that he would move on and go somewhere else, he said.

The mountain lion was a male, Vickers said, which is common in the Santa Ana Mountains. When young male mountain lions migrate, they tend to stay along human developments while the more mature males head for open spaces.

In 15 years of tracking mountain lion activity and feeding sites through GPS collars, Vickers said at least half of the big cats have killed a domestic animal. He said the animals dont pose a threat to humans unless they try to protect a pet or other livestock.

Members of the 4-H club have 10 days from the date of the attack to ask for a depredation permit, which would allow for the mountain lion to be hunted.

Contact the writer: npercy@scng.com
WASHINGTON  President Donald Trump has relaxed some of the rules for preventing civilian casualties when the U.S. military carries out counterterrorism strikes in Somalia, laying the groundwork for an escalating campaign against Islamist militants in the Horn of Africa.

The decision, according to officials familiar with internal deliberations, gives commanders at the U.S. Africa Command greater latitude to carry out offensive airstrikes and raids by ground troops against militants with the Qaida-linked Islamist group al-Shabab. That sets the stage for an intensified pace of combat there, while increasing the risk that U.S. forces could kill civilians.

Trump signed a directive on Wednesday declaring parts of Somalia an area of active hostilities, where war-zone targeting rules will apply for at least 180 days, the officials said.

The New York Times reported the Pentagons request for the expanded targeting authority on March 12, and Gen. Thomas D. Waldhauser, the top officer at Africa Command, publicly acknowledged that he was seeking it at a news conference on March 24.

Its very important and very helpful for us to have little more flexibility, a little bit more timeliness, in terms of decision-making process, Waldhauser said. It allows us to prosecute targets in a more rapid fashion.

In a statement issued several hours after The New York Times first published news of the directive, Capt. Jeff Davis, a Pentagon spokesman, acknowledged that Trump had approved the Pentagons proposal to expand its targeting authority to defeat al-Shabab in Somalia in partnership with African Union and Somali forces.

The additional support provided by this authority will help deny al-Shabab safe havens from which it could attack U.S. citizens or U.S. interests in the region, he said.

Previously, to carry out an airstrike or ground raid in Somalia, the military was generally required to follow standards that President Barack Obama imposed in 2013 for counterterrorism strikes away from conventional war zones, like those in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Those rules, known as the Presidential Policy Guidance, required high-level, interagency vetting of proposed strikes. They also said that the target must pose a threat to Americans and that there must be near-certainty that no civilian bystanders would die.

Under the new guidelines, Africa Command may treat Somalia under less-restrictive battlefield rules: Without interagency vetting, commanders may strike people thought to be al-Shabab fighters based only on that status as suspected members of the group, without any reason to think that the individual target poses a particular and specific threat to Americans.

In addition, some civilian bystander deaths would be permitted if deemed necessary and proportionate. Trumps decision to exempt much of Somalia from the 2013 rules follows a similar decision he made for parts of Yemen shortly after taking office.

The new directive for Somalia is another example of how the U.S. military is accelerating the ways it carries out combat missions under the Trump administration, reducing constraints on the use of force imposed by the Obama administration.

As the fight against the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria has recently moved into the city of Mosul, civilian casualties have spiked. One U.S. strike on March 17 may have killed scores of civilians, and human rights groups have questioned whether the rules of engagement were to blame.

While U.S. commanders say the formal rules of engagement have not changed in Iraq, they acknowledge that the system for calling in airstrikes there has been accelerated. Gen. Joseph L. Votel, the commander of U.S. Central Command, said on Wednesday that the new procedures made it easier for commanders in the field to call in airstrikes without waiting for permission from more senior officers.

The loosening of the rules in Somalia comes against the backdrop of a broader, continuing Trump administration policy review about whether to scrap the 2013 rules altogether. The decision was described by officials familiar with the new directive who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss military planning.

Luke Hartig, a former senior director for counterterrorism at the National Security Council during the Obama administration, said greater action could be helpful in dealing with a threat, pointing to the Obama administrations decision last year to temporarily declare the region around Sirte, Libya, an active-hostilities zone. That decision similarly permitted airstrikes that helped Libyan forces root out Islamic State militants.

But it also increases certain risks, he said.

The downside is you risk potentially greater civilian casualties or potentially killing militants who are not part of our enemy, Hartig said. He warned that such deaths could make local partners turn against the United States and fuel terrorist recruitment.

Trumps decision to relax targeting limits in Somalia comes at a time of famine, which has increased the frequency of groups of people moving around, often while armed, in search of food and water  increasing the risk of mistaking civilians as Islamist fighters.

Waldhauser said at the news conference that Africa Command had war-gamed the significant issues raised by that factor.

Its our responsibility to make sure that we dont have any catastrophes and we dont take out a group of people who is moving to find water or food, he said. So, we are very, very conscious of that.

Defense Secretary Jim Mattis first presented the proposal to relax targeting limits in Somalia at a dinner with Trump about five days after his inauguration, according to officials familiar with internal deliberations.

At that same dinner, Mattis also presented proposals to similarly remove swaths of Yemen from the Obama-era targeting limits and carry out a raid against Yemens Qaida branch. Trump, the officials said, immediately approved the two proposals for Yemen, while the National Security Council began reviewing the Somalia proposal.

The review for Somalia was slowed, officials have said, by criticism of the raid in Yemen, which resulted in numerous civilian deaths, the death of a member of the Navy SEALs and the loss of a $75 million aircraft. Still, the Central Command, which oversees military operations in Yemen, has carried out a fierce campaign of airstrikes in Yemen.

The United States campaign against al-Shabab in Somalia has been expanding over the last several years. That Islamist group is complex, with some factions focused on controlling Somalia, while others want to participate in external terrorist operations in line with al-Qaidas global war.

In 2013, the group carried out the attack at the Westgate mall, in Nairobi, Kenya, that killed more than 60 people and wounded more than 175. Since then, it has adopted more sophisticated forms of terrorism, including nearly bringing down a Somali airliner in February with a bomb hidden in a laptop computer.

To counter al-Shabab, the United States has increasingly used Special Operations forces, airstrikes, private contractors and African allies. Hundreds of U.S. troops now rotate through makeshift bases in Somalia, the largest military presence since the United States pulled out of the country after the Black Hawk Down battle in 1993. They have served as trainers and advisers to African Union and Somali government forces, and have sometimes participated directly in combat.

Against that backdrop, Trumps escalation is less a break with his predecessor than an intensification of a trend that dates to Obamas last year in power.

Last year, the Obama White House permitted the military to increase airstrikes in Somalia without always going through the high-level vetting process detailed in the 2013 rules. Instead the military justified some strikes under an expansive interpretation of an exception for self-defense  including some that defended partner forces combating al-Shabab even if no Americans were under direct threat.

And as The Times reported in November, the Obama administration  after years of internal debate  decided to designate al-Shabab an associated force of al-Qaida. That shored up the executive branchs authority to wage war in Somalia by bringing al-Shabab under Congresss authorization to use military force against the perpetrators of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

Even before the new relaxations of the rules, 200 to 300 U.S. Special Operations forces have been working with soldiers from Somalia and other African nations like Kenya and Uganda to carry out more than a half-dozen raids every month, according to senior U.S. military officials. The Navys classified SEAL Team 6 has been heavily involved in many of these operations.

The Pentagon has acknowledged only a fraction of these missions. But even the publicly available information shows a marked increase in recent years. The Pentagon announced 13 ground raids and airstrikes in 2016, up from five in 2015, according to data compiled by New America, a Washington think tank. Those strikes killed about 25 civilians and 200 people suspected of being militants, the group found.
ARKHANGELSK, Russia  Breaking five days of silence  and a virtual Soviet-style blackout on state media  over the biggest protests in Russia in years, President Vladimir Putin responded publicly Thursday to the nationwide anticorruption demonstrations with a familiar message: apres moi, le deluge.

Speaking in the northern port of Arkhangelsk at an international forum on Arctic issues, Putin defended his record on fighting corruption and warned that such outbursts, if uncontained, could lead to chaos akin to that spawned by the Arab Spring uprisings.

Putin did not mention Aleksei A. Navalny, the opposition leader who called for the demonstrations and who would like to oppose the president in the March 2018 election. But Putin left little doubt to what, or to whom, he was referring when he called the marches part of a presidential campaign.

After accusing unidentified political forces of using public concern about corruption to promote their own selfish interests, Putin said this would only end in chaos if allowed to continue.

We well know, and I want to direct your attention to the fact, that this instrument was used in the beginning of the so-called Arab Spring. We know very well what this led to, to what bloody events it led to in this region, he said. We likewise know very well that this was one of the inciting motives and pretexts for the coup detat in Ukraine. We also know well into what chaos these events sunk our neighbor, Ukraine.

Presiding over what some critics portray as a Mafia-like government that has conferred vast riches on a select few friends and associates of the president, Putin presented himself as a stalwart corruption fighter.

Personally, I am in favor of having questions about the fight against corruption always at the center of public attention, Putin said in answer to questions by Geoff Cutmore of CNBC, who moderated the closing session of the forum.

Putin is expected to win a fourth term handily, even though he has yet to confirm that he will run for re-election. Navalny has vowed to run against him despite a conviction on fraud charges  widely dismissed as politically motivated  that would technically disqualify him.
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP)  Police say the suspect accused of killing four people in Sacramento initially confessed to his cousin.

KCRA-TV reports (http://bit.ly/2nPamGK ) that Sacramento Police Capt. Dave Peletta says 56-year-old Salvador Vasquez-Oliva called his cousin last week to admit to the slayings. The cousin then called police and repeated what he learned.

Investigators found 45-year-old Angelique Vasquez, her 14-year-old daughter Mia, her 11-year-old son Alvin and her 21-year-old niece Ashley Coleman dead on March 23. Vasquez-Oliva was Angelique Vasquezs husband and the father of the two children.

Vasquez-Oliva has been charged with four counts of murder and is being held in the Sacramento County Jail.

His attorney was not immediately available for comment Thursday.
LOS ANGELES  A former Newport Beach physician who faked his own death to dodge an insurance fraud case and hid out in Russia and Egypt for 14 years was sentenced Thursday, March 30, to more than two years in federal prison for fleeing the district to evade justice.

Tigran Svadjian, 58, was sentenced to 29 months behind bars and ordered to spend one year on supervised release  including four months of community service  following his prison term.

He was greedy and he was selfish, U.S. District Judge Michael Fitzgerald said. He got in a spiral and panicked. He has only himself to blame.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Bryant Y.F. Yang said Svadjians efforts to escape prison  including the bribery of a foreign official in exchange for a false death certificate which was then provided to the U.S. Embassy in Moscow  were extraordinary.

In 2002, Svadjian was facing federal health care fraud charges in Sacramento for bilking the state Medi-Cal program out of about $2.4 million in fraudulent insurance billings.

After agreeing to cooperate with the governments investigation  and indicating he would plead guilty  Svadjian was allowed to travel to Moscow to visit his ailing mother. But in October 2002, federal officials were notified that Svadjian died of pneumonia while in Russia and his remains had been cremated. The fraud charges were eventually dismissed.

Svadjian was arrested last summer while trying to travel to Russia with a fake Lithuanian passport so he could visit his girlfriend who was pregnant with his second child. He had been living in Egypt for more than a decade and working part-time as a scuba instructor.

He was escorted back to the U.S. by federal agents 14 years after he fled.

Svadjian told FBI agents in Egypt that a police officer in Russia had helped him fake his death in exchange for $200.

Fitzgerald said the defendant truly deserves a five-year prison sentence. The judge said he has sufficient evidence that Svadjian would have been convicted of stealing $2.4 million of the governments money if the original health care fraud case had gone forward.

Apparently, there is a Swiss bank account, the judge said. He stole an extremely large sum from Medi-Cal.

But defense attorney Andre Townsend said it was unfair for the judge to assume that his client was guilty of insurance fraud.

The attorney said Svadjian fled in 2002 because he was afraid he would be sent to prison.

With his back against the wall, he reverted to survival tactics and fled the country, Townsend told the judge.

A naturalized U.S. citizen originally from Armenia, Svadjian left his estranged wife and children behind in Newport Beach when he first traveled overseas.

He didnt merely flee from prosecution, Yang told the court. He did a whole host of things in a scheme to obstruct justice.

In the original fraud case, Svadjian faced up to 10 years in prison, but the charges had a five-year statute of limitations. Its unclear whether the statute was suspended after he vanished.

Additionally, federal authorities discarded the evidence against him, thinking he was dead, court papers show. Prosecutors indicated that the fraud charges would not be reinstated.

Svadjian pleaded guilty in November in Los Angeles to a single federal count of unlawful flight to avoid prosecution, a felony which carries a five- year maximum sentence.

Svadjian apologized to the court, promising that he was now a different man.

I would just like to go to my family, he said. I dont have much time to see my children grow up.

Fitzgerald had the last word.

Really, he deserves 60 months, the judge said. Did he get away with something? To a very large degree, yes.
From a list of 77 nominees, the following 10 students have been named finalists for the 2017 Artist of the Year in theater. The students were chosen by a panel of teachers from based on applications, performance videos and artistic resumes.

Included are the facets of theater they engage in as well as quotes about how they relate to their craft.

Theater artists include comedic and dramatic actors, musical theater performers, directors, designers, playwrights and technicians.

The final round of adjudication will take place over the next few weeks, during which the students will be interviewed by a panel of distinguished artistic professionals and faculty members from Southern California universities as well as a few representative high school teachers. Interviews will include a live presentation by the students followed by a question-and answer-session. One student from each of the seven disciplines  theater, dance, instrumental music, vocal music, film, 2D visual art and 3D visual art  will then be named a 2017 Artist of the Year.

The Artists of the Year will be announced Thursday, April 20, with full profiles appearing Sunday, April 23, in The Orange County Register.

Matt Davies-Morris, senior, Tesoro High School

comedic/dramatic acting

When I was in fourth grade, a girl that I had a crush on told me that she was joining the school musical. Naturally, I decided to join as well. Although, instead of falling in love with her, I fell in love with performing. I was only the ensemble in that show, but I decided to return the next year. As the years continued, I couldnt help but find whatever audition I could in or outside of school.

Yoomi Kim, senior, Orange County School of the Arts

comedic/dramatic acting, musical theater performance

I want to focus on impacting the audience and the people through my work. The extravagance and luxury of Broadway are all great, inspiring aspects, but my goal is to make people feel something through my work. Being an artist means developing your own artistry and identity for yourself. You have so much freedom as an artist to create and change things as you see fit. I want to make a difference in the world, as crazy as that sounds, through my art. I want to make people feel what I feel through how I express myself.

Brayden Martino, senior, Orange Lutheran High School

comedic/dramatic acting, musical theater performance, directing

Theater has taught me to not care what other people think about me, and to just be myself. Ever since I realized that, I have been a more carefree person and I have taken more risks in life because I havent let my insecurities stop me from having fun and doing the things I love. As an actor in musical theater, I put myself in a lot of situations that could be weird or embarrassing, but because of these things, I have become a stronger person and I am more confident in who I am. Im not afraid to put myself out there in life, and I know that if I step out of my comfort zone, I will experience new and better opportunities in life.

Cassidy McCleary, senior, San Clemente High School

comedic/dramatic acting, musical theater performance, directing

When I was cast as the lead in our summer intensive, I had to realign my outlook on life. If I was to play an important part of a musical, I needed to find the confidence to believe in myself like the director had believed in me when she cast me. Luckily I found a way to tap the confidence I had cultivated from performing, and this new attitude carried over into the rest of my life. I spoke up in school with more regularity. I made friends with all of my peers in drama. I even had better posture. My mom even noticed a change in the way I interacted with the world. She told me she was proud of the confident, well-spoken person I have grown up to be, and I am too.

Katherine Paladichuk, senior, Northwood High School

comedic/dramatic acting, musical theater performance

My goal as a performer is to make people feel, react, question and explore. Theater can reveal our fears, our quirks and our aspirations, and can touch on subjects that are controversial and thought-provoking. With every character I inhabit, I hope to relate to at least one audience member so that they can explore new perspectives. I consider it a gift to be able to affect an audience in this way.

Ashley Patrick, senior, Dana Hills High School

comedic/dramatic acting, musical theater performance, directing

While theater can be a personal experience, it is just as much as a team sport. It takes all different and talented people to produce a piece of art. This has taught me to ensure that all people feel included and taken care of. I have been able to bring this ability into my religious work with my churchs youth ministry. It is vital to make all youth members longing to build a closer relationship with God feel as if they matter and have the support needed to establish those connections with the Lord. Theater is a sport that is beneficial on and off stage, helping not only those involved in the art but those outside as well.

Vicente Saintignon, senior, Mater Dei High School

comedic/dramatic acting

I want people to see me, a multicultural, multilingual, gay Buddhist boy who has been rich, poor, insecure, secure, happy, sad, helpless, empowered, but most importantly one who pursued his dreams despite the circumstances around him. And I want to be able to spread the message of tolerance, love and passion. I want to show people that it doesnt matter where you come from or how well-off you are, all you need is a dream and the passion to push through all the obstacles to get there.

McCallister Selva, senior, Mater Dei High School

comedic/dramatic acting, musical theater performance, directing, sound design, projection design, publicity

Over the past few months, I have been really examining the purpose of theater in our world today, and what I have resonated with most this year is the theaters role in inspiring empathy in the hearts of all who take part in it. I have made the conscious choice to dedicate my life to theater because I believe that theater can change the world by helping us appreciate and celebrate our humanity. Theater gives us the opportunity to experience life through someone elses eyes, lending us a chance to truly gain insight into the world of another. I believe that theater can be an act of political or social rebellion, a playground for expression and a place with endless possibilities, but mostly, I believe that theater is a gift given to humanity to inspire empathy.

Ryane Zipstein, senior, Laguna Beach High School

comedic/dramatic acting, directing, playwriting

In my artistic endeavors I am always aware of a canon. I allow myself to delve into subjects that delight me  I am young and am in a constant state of discovery, and am excited about the things that I discover, and want to express those things, that excitement. But I am also conscious of what has already been said  the givens laid before me, the cliches that have already been tired, the revelations already made. I believe that art is the result of something like humanitys youthful discovery of itself, the artists purpose being to explore and to share with others what we have found and to always move forward.

Daniel Zolghadri, junior, Orange County School of the Arts

comedic/dramatic acting, playwriting

The kind of work I want to do would be things that I value and would say are important stories that often dont see the light of day. I want to work in both theater and film. I think the strongest feeling I, personally, could have after watching a film or play would be me knowing that I am not alone. I think thats why we tell stories, personal stories, to be more specific. We want people to know that they are not alone.

Contact the writer: 714-796-2258 or varsityarts@ocregister.com
Source of U.S. electrical generation in 2015

66 percent of the nations electricity was produced by burning fossil fuels.

THE NEW POLICYS GOAL

Jobs by fuel sector:

The primary goal of President Trumps Energy Independence Policy is to increase jobs and lower energy prices by taking away the rules President Barack Obama put in place to limit greenhouse gas emissions.

The jobs listed on the right are total jobs tallied by the Environmental Protection Agency for the first quarter of 2016.

VIEWS ON CLIMATE CHANGE American opinions vary on the topic of climate change. On average, most Americans worry about global warming, but those who do not are predominantly in states that elected President Trump. Overall, Americans agree that renewable energy sources are well worth researching. The maps below were released in 2016 and show the estimated percentages of how the nation feels about global warming issues, according to surveys conducted by the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication and the George Mason Center for Climate Change Communication. The following maps show estimates for each county. View the full survey here Do you worry about global warming?

58 percent of Americans said they are worried about it. Most of those not worried are in the Midwest. Every county in California was 50 percent worried or greater.

Trust in science

71 percent of Americans said they trust climate scientists about global warming. The county with the highest percentage who responded yes was Alameda, 79 percent.

Limits on coal

At least 50 percent of respondents in every California county were in favor of stricter limits on coal-fired power plant emmissions. Areas of the Midwest were more opposed to restricting use of coal.

Bad for the future

70 percent of Americans believe that global warming will harm future generations, compared with 19 percent who believe the effects will have little or no harm.

We want renewable energy options

82 percent of Americans said they are in favor of funding for research into renewable energy sources.

Dont want to discuss it

Americans dont want to talk about it or hear about it much. When asked if they should discuss it occasionally, 31 percent said never. When how often they needed to hear about it, 76 percent of Americans said once a month or less.
Elaine Werner-Hudson stares into the distance, her minds eye seeing her beautiful boy growing up, facing struggles, proudly working a variety of jobs.

She glances down and says the week before marked the 10th anniversary of her sons death. If he hadnt been ensnared in the grip of this nations opioid epidemic, become addicted to prescription painkillers, overdosed on heroin, Josh would be 37 years old.

Werner-Hudson shakes her head to shake away the tragedy she faces every day, a tragedy that tens of thousands of families across this country face as well.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports an out of control opioid epidemic in stark language: Prescription opioids and heroin killed more than 33,000 people in 2015, more than any year on record. Nearly half of all opioid overdose deaths involve a prescription opioid.

I reviewed more than 6,000 Orange County coroner records from last year. With more toxicological results still coming in, I documented a 20 percent increase in accidental overdoses from prescription opioids.

In total, I found 211 opioid-related deaths  an average of four accidental overdoses a week. One young man was 18 years old; one woman was 74.

But Werner-Hudson offers hope. She has devoted the last decade to battling the epidemic, gone back to college, been named student of the year, helped found a support group called Solace that meets in Mission Viejo on Wednesday nights, moved to Italy to study successful addiction programs, even been named employee of the year in 2016 at College Hospital in Costa Mesa for her efforts helping addicts.

But its not about accolades for Werner-Hudson. Its about understanding what for many families is a problem of denial, enabling, hopelessness.

Gift of life

Werner-Hudson is like many parents  and sons, daughters, cousins, aunts, uncles  in Orange County who mourn the loss of a loved one because of easy access to highly addictive drugs.

Six years after Josh died, Werner-Hudson realized, This is a pain youll have for the rest of your life. She confides, The longing just gets worse.

There are two typical paths to opioid addiction. One, a teenager steals pills from the medicine cabinet, shares with friends at a so-called pharm party and someone winds up an addict. Two, a patient is prescribed opioids for pain and cant climb out.

In Orange County, the concentration of addiction is along our golden coast and inland in south county. Werner-Hudson reports addicts include doctors, lawyers, children of privilege. Shes not exaggerating. I have talked to young addicts who once lived in ocean-view homes, powerful entrepreneurs, even a physician  now clean.

When addicts cant obtain or cant afford pills, many turn to less expensive heroin. Some live for years. Others die quickly, often after a relapse when their body can no longer tolerate former drug levels.

Many, Werner-Hudson says, have lost hope of getting better.

There is no single path to recovery  at least not in the United States. But there are successes.

When I see someone getting clean and sober, Werner-Hudson says, its the most amazing thing in the world. Thats a gift.

Life-long learning

Part of the fault lies with this nations pharmaceutical companies. More opioid pills are manufactured than are needed to help reduce pain. Yes  for you readers in pain  pain is crippling and opioid medications have value. But more regulation is arguably needed, and the CDC and the Food and Drug Administration are far apart on enforcement.

The CDC warns, From 2000 to 2015 more than half a million people died from drug overdoses; 91 Americans die every day from an opioid overdose.

Deaths from prescription opioids  drugs like oxycodone, hydrocodone, and methadone  have more than quadrupled since 1999.

A year ago, the CDC released a detailed and exhaustive series of recommendations for prescribing opioids. Today, the recommendations remain just that  rather than FDA regulations.

Werner-Hudson echoes CDC reports and my own findings. I see a lot of heroin and a lot of pills. I see adolescents and moms in their mid-60s. If anything, its getting worse.

Understandably, Werner-Hudson leaves policy to lobbyists and focuses on treatment. She would like to see the United States pattern rehab centers on something like the one she studied in Italy.

At first glance, the place sounds pie in the sky. But Werner-Hudson is a grounded and thoughtful woman and spent 10 days at San Patritano where 1,300 addicts are treated.

To ensure addicts are serious about rehab, the facility requires a five-month waiting period. But heres the kicker:

In the U.S., most rehab periods are 30 to 90 days. At San Patritano, addicts stay for four years. Along with coping skills, they are taught culinary arts and farm and cook to ensure the facility remains self-supporting.

They have to learn how to live, Werner-Hudson explains, because they are frozen with an emotional maturity from whey they started using.

After the patients leave, they are required to return every six months for hair sample tests.

The addiction counselor pauses, distilling complex human processes to their essence: When youre using drugs, the drug is your identity.

Werner-Hudson asks, How long does it take for the body to heal, for the brain to rewire? Then she answers her own question: It can take years. This is a disease you have for life.

Today, Werner-Hudson works as a counselor at College Hospital, offering love, understanding, blunt honesty. Like smart addicts, she takes things a step at a time. Her website is ProjectJosh.org.

If one person is still alive, she says, then its worth it.

In the coming months, I will report more about addiction, people who struggle, the effects on families  and people like Werner-Hudson who are making a difference.

Together, we can save lives.

Contact the writer: dwhiting@scng.com
Its a sad sight and, in recent years, a common one.

Whales wrapped and trapped so tightly in fishing lines that the animals cant move quickly or dive deep for food.

In the best-case scenarios, the whale eventually free themselves or are untangled by whale rescue groups.

But sometimes the end is more cruel  illness or a slow death through starvation.

Last year, 71 whales were caught up off the West Coast after being tangled in lines used by people trapping lobster and crab, and other fishing lines, according to a report released this week by the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration. Of those, 66 were seen off the California coast, including 13 in Southern California.

The West Coast figure is the highest since NOAA fisheries started keeping records in 1982, and up from 62 in 2015.

These (fishing) lines can be very problematic, whether its in the long term or short term, said Justin Viezbicke, coordinator of NOAAs Long Beach-based California Stranding Network.

If theres enough drag, (the line) can pull off the flesh of the whale, Viezbicke added.

Its a concern about the individual animal and all the suffering that is going on, and (for) the population. How many can be taken out without affecting the entire population?

The 71 entanglements included 48 that were confirmed with documentation and follow-up sightings reported to the NOAA Fisheries West Coast Marine Mammal Stranding Network. Unconfirmed reports are received from a variety of sources with varying levels of credible information, but the reports cant be confirmed because no documentation exists, the report reads.

Dana Wharf Whale Watching manager Donna Kalez, part of the NOAA Stranding Network, said the use of drones that capture images of entangled whales, combined with more education and coordination on how to report entangled whales, could contribute to the increased numbers.

Now that were documenting everything we see, I think that people have the awareness to report it more. Youre getting private boaters who never knew how to report a whale in need of assistance, now youre getting the report, Kalez said.

Theres still a lot of unknowns about whale entanglements, she said.

How often does a whale get untangled? And if (the line) is on the tail, does it untangle itself? she asked.

Does man need to intervene? How many whales are dead because of them?

Often, the whale sightings resulted in human intervention.

When an entangled whale is spotted off the coast, the NOAA network issues a group text to whale watch charter operators and others, describing the whales location, its species, and other information used to determine if a rescue team should be dispatched. Often, charters are first responders, and those boats typically stay with the whale until help arrives.

Rescue efforts typically are on a tight deadline, as whales often disappear if the sun sets before rescuers can untangle the animal or tag it with a satellite tracking device.

The network coordinates with other groups depending on where the whale was spotted and what direction it was heading. A charter captain in Redondo Beach or Long Beach might see an entangled whale heading south and ask charters in Orange County and San Diego to be on the lookout.

In some cases, rescuers can get close enough to the whale to free it. In others, its wrapped so tightly around a fin or tail that a rescue attempt is deemed too dangerous  entangled whales can behave erratically and working close to them can be life-threatening.

Last year, Dana Wharf charters saw everything from a blue whale, fin whale, humpback and grays all wrapped in line.

According to the report, humpback whales were again the predominant species reported as entangled, with 54 separate entanglement cases reported in 2016.

There were also four entangled blue whales reported.

In addition to the 66 reports off the California coast, there was one report in Oregon, two off Baja, and one off Canadas coast. But the location of where the whales were observed doesnt reflect where and when the entanglement happened, according to the report.

Most of the reports, 52 total, came from Central California, with about 30 of those from Monterey County. About 18 percent, or 13 reports, came from Southern California from Santa Barbara to San Diego.

Migrating whales frequently visit preferred sites, and there may be a greater likelihood of an entangled whale being seen and reported off the coast of California even when the entanglement may have originated somewhere else, the report reads.

While entanglements can greatly deteriorate a whales heath, the animals sometimes can remain entangled in gear for long periods of time and still be capable of traveling great distances.

The report also shows an increase in entanglements caused by Dungeness crab commercial trap fisheries when compared to 2015. Last year, there were 22 reported entanglements by these types of traps, the majority involving humpback whales, compared to 11 the previous year.

NOAA Fisheries is working closely with the fishing industry and fishery managers to increase knowledge of fixed gear fisheries and promote improved marking of gear to make it easier to identify the specific sources of entanglements, the report reads.

The California Department of Fish and Wildlife issued a letter last year informing all California Dungeness crab fishermen of an increased concentration of entangled whale reports in the central California region, with several recommendations to reduce the risk of entanglements.

There have been no humpback entanglements reported so far this year, but there have been four gray whales entangled, including one this week off of Newport Beach.

Were only seeing the tip of the iceberg, Viezbicke said. We know were not seeing all of them.

Contact the writer: lconnelly@scng.com
Dwight Yoakam felt a little bit under the weather on Thursday night  third round of bronchitis in five months, he cheerfully complained at one point  but other than touch of hoarseness every now and then that didnt make a whit of difference to the power of the show the 60-year-old country and roots rock star delivered in Los Angeles on Thursday.

Despite his ailments Yoakam and his tight band blazed through 35 songs  35!  in a show that ran more than two hours at the Hollywood Palladium, pulling hits and covers from throughout his career as a musician and a music fan, and sharing stories between songs about his earliest days in L.A. in the 80s when his kind of raw country landed him in the middle of the citys punk rock scene.

Its been a pleasure to come back and play a couple of shows again with X after all these years, Yoakam said of that seminal L.A. band that celebrated punk through roots music and made a perfect opener for him at the Palladium. They let me open for them when I was just starting out, a tiny little fella.

Yoakam opened the show with a stinging take on the late Chuck Berrys Little Queenie, arriving on stage in his signature attire  pale Stetson shading his eyes, tight jeans that hung past the heels of his cowboy boots, a denim jacket with just a touch of rhinestone bedazzlement across the bottom of the back.

A pair of his own tunes followed, The Big Time and Please, Please Baby, before he slipped in another complementary cover, Elvis Presleys Little Sister. And that pattern pretty much set the course for the next few hours, though as signaled by the Chuck Berry number that kicked off the set Yoakam seemed particularly reflective about his past heroes whove shuffled off to that golden honky tonk in the sky.

Merle Haggard and Buck Owens, two legendary purveyors of the Bakersfield style of hard country, each got multi-song tributes during the show, with Streets of Bakersfield, a song that Yoakam and Owens did as a duet in 1988, giving Yoakam his first hit, seguing into four Haggard classics including Mama Tried and Okie From Muskogee.

Carmelita, a Warren Zevon song popularized by Linda Rondstadt led to Good Time Charlies Got The Blues, the classic Danny OKeefe song covered by many, which Yoakam said John Doe of X had asked him to play when they were shooting the breeze before the show.

Yoakams always loved that Western honky tonk sound, and he dipped into that bag often on Thursday, be that with an original such as It Wont Hurt, a classic in the drinking-to-kill-the-misery number, or a cover like Always Late (With Your Kisses), the Lefty Frizzell number Yoakam recorded early in his career.

Other highlights include his mini-set of Buck Owens songs, and a final run of fast-paced country rockers that started with Liar, a song Yoakam noted would have been right at home during the cow-punk days in L.A. in the 80s, including covers of Ring Of Fire and Honky Tonk Man, and after Guitars, Cadillacs, one of Yoakams greatest tunes, Fast As You.

All that took Yoakam and the band past midnight  earlier hed noted how often hed drive by the Palladium in decades past and see a crowd leaving at 1:30 a.m. or so  but he had one last song in him, Suspicious Minds, which wrapped up a night made of memories old and now new.

X, which got its start in L.A. a few years earlier than Yoakam, opened for him on Thursday with a 50-minute set that found John Doe, Exene Cervenka, Billy Zoom and D.J. Bonebrake as passionate and energetic as ever, even if Billy now sits on a stool to play his effortless guitar licks.

Unlike Yoakam, X no longer recordS new material so fans got nothing but vintage classics, some of them among the bands best-loved songs (The New World, Los Angeles, Johnny Hit And Run Paulene), but also less common numbers, what Doe introduced as deep cuts, which included numbers such as Dancing With Tears In My Eyes and I Must Not Think Bad Thoughts, before racing to their usual closing number, a cover of the the Doors Soul Kitchen.

Playing before both X and Yoakam was King Leg, whose Western style Americana went down smoothly with the early bird crowd, thanks to a mix of originals and covers such as Im Down To My Last Cigarette, which k.d. lang had a hit with as well as Roy Orbisons Running Scared.
Los Alamitos senior pitcher Ryan Denhart scattered three hits, struck out six batters and silenced the Huntington Beach bats after allowing a first-inning run to guide the top-ranked Griffins past the Oilers, 6-1, Thursday afternoon in a Sunset League game at Los Alamitos High.

After reclaiming the lead with a pair of runs in the bottom half of the first inning, Los Al extended its advantage with a pair of solo home runs from Andrea Gonzalez and Caitie Ladd in the third and fourth innings to go up 4-1. Gonzalez finished with three RBI on the afternoon. Senior Allison Englant stole two bases and scored two runs, as did junior Kaitlin Parsons.

Huntington Beachs Jadelyn Allchin scored Huntington Beachs lone run of the afternoon, scoring on Ivy Davis first-inning sacrifice fly.

In opening league play with a victory, Los Alamitos improved its overall record to 11-2. Huntington Beach dropped its third in a row and now sits at 3-5 overall.

Also in the Sunset League:

Edison 2, Fountain Valley 1: Chargers senior Danielle Votendahl broke a seventh-inning stalemate with a walk-off homerun, opening up league play with exciting home victory. Riley Wester finished with four hits for the Chargers (8-2, 1-0).

Marina 10, Newport Harbor 0: Emily Rush went 2-for-3 at the plate with a pair of RBI and pitched four shutout innings as the Vikings (2-6, 0-1) rolled past the visiting Sailors (4-10, 0-1). Sage Malvin also finished with a pair of base hits and two RBI for Marina.

In nonleague:

Yorba Linda 4, No. 5 Villa Park 2 (12 innings): Mustangs junior pitcher Allison Gardiner struck out 16 batters and held the Spartans (10-5) to just two runs in a complete game, 12-inning outing. Yorba Linda (10-4) freshman Sarah Sung knocked in the eventual game-winning run in the top of the 12th.

Foothill 2, Brea Olinda 1: Knights senior pitcher Janea Brannen fanned 14 batters and allowed just three hits, and Foothill (7-4) scored runs in the final two frames to edge out the host Wildcats (9-3). Zela Chahbazians RBI single to left proved to be the difference in the top of the seventh, scoring home Alyssa Brito from third.

El Dorado 7, El Modena 1: The Golden Hawks (10-3-1) scored six runs in the bottom half of the first inning in cruising to a victory over the Vanguards (7-7). Jordan Matthews went 2-for-4 with a double, while four different El Dorado players finished with RBI.

No. 7 Pacifica 9, Santiago 3: Mariners (7-5) sophomore pitcher Julia Cabral surrendered just three hits and no earned runs in a complete-game victory over the visiting Sharks. Hannah Martinez doubled and finished with a pair of RBI in the win.
They say claw machines are rigged to prevent users from actually catching a prize, but one Chinese man seems to have learned their secret. In just one year, Chen Zhitong has amassed a collection of over 15,000 plush toys from claw machines.

When we first heard about Chen Zhitong, about a year ago, he was making headlines in China for his ability to control claw machines in his home city of Xiamen. He had already collected over 3,000 toys at the time, which is a lot more than most people catch in a lifetime. But our boy has been very busy this past year, and now his collection of claw machine toys stands at a whopping 15,000. That has to be some kind of record!

Chens reputation as a claw machine master has now transcended Chinese borders, and he was recently featured in a short documentary by Great Big Story. In it, he talks about how he chooses the claw machines he plays at, his relationship with claw machine operators and what he does with all the toys he wins.

Photo: Great Big Story

As we mentioned in our original article on the claw machine maestro, Chen Zhitong first played claw machine a couple of years ago, as a way to kill time at the local shopping mall. He liked it, and whenever he visited the Xiamen mall, he would play a few rounds of claw machine. In just a few months, he got so good at it that he cleared one of the machines of toys, and people started gathering around whenever they saw him play.

Chen says that he has become the bane of claw machine operators at Xiamen mall, but since they cant legally keep him from using their machines, they often take him out to dinner and politely ask him to stop using their devices.

Photo: Netease

The 35-year-old IT worker says that there are two types of claw machines  ones that actually requires skill to beat, and others that are programmed and are impossible to beat, no matter how good you are. Obviously, he only uses the former, but even then he keeps an eye out for certain factors that influence the chances of successfully catching a toy.

First is the claws holding capacity. It needs to be tight enough, Chen says. Second is the angle of claw rotation. Third is the layout of toys. These parameters decide whether you are able to get a toy out.

Photo: Netease

Zhitong realized early on that he had a gift, and after comparing his achievements to those of other claw machine enthusiasts around China, he is convinced that he is the king of claw machines, at least in the Asian country. I once saw a university student put online a picture of his collection, saying claw machine owners are already crying their hearts out! I saw it and laughed it off, it wasnt even one-tenth of my collection, thank you very much.

Even when he had just 3,000 toys collected from claw machines, Chen Zhitong complained about lack of storage space in his home, but now, with over 15,000 prizes under his belt, things are really getting serious. Luckily, he has found a way to clear up some space and bring joy to kids who nee it most, at the same time.

Having gained so many toys has become a problem for me, they have filled up my apartment and become a real burden,  the claw machine master told Great Big Story. I realized that I should give these lovely toys to people who need them, so last year I donated about 1,000 toys to schools for the deaf and the blind.


GMI Celebrates 100th Birthday of Scrantons Real Paper Company Fri., May 27, 2022 Who knew that there is a real paper company, Pennsylvania Paper & Supply, inside the iconic building seen at the opening of every episode of The Office? Tom Goodman, CEO of Goodman Media International, certainly does.
Thousands of commuters, including many in Offaly, are affected by this morning's escalation of the Bus Eireann dispute. Secondary pickets have been set up at bus and rail depots around the country, meaning most services, including Intercity, commuter rail and DART services, are non-operational. Bus and rail staff are refusing to pass the pickets. Dublin Bus are also affected, although Luas services are running as normal today.

Tullamore train station is affected as Irish Rail have confirmed that services between Galway and Heuston Station, which usually stops at Tullamore, are not running in either direction.

General Secretary of the NBRU, Dermot O'Leary has called for these new pickets to be removed and said he had no prior warning of the pickets and does not condone unofficial picketing.

Mr O'Leary added, however, that the way in which Bus Eireann drivers are being treated in "a disgrace" and said they were frustrated with the company.

SEE ALSO: Offaly commuters to be affected as Bus Eireann strike hits



2,600 Bus Eireann staff have been on strike since last Friday in a dispute over cuts to pay and conditions, something the company has said is essential to avoid the prospect of insolvency.

Speaking on RTE's Morning Ireland, Mr O'Leary said he had warned for some time about the potential of the strike to spread to other parts of the CIE group, but hoped that people would get back to work in the next few hours.

Minister for Transport Shane Ross said he regrets the impact of this "new unofficial and unjustified protest" on passengers.

In a statement, he said he is "actively monitoring developments," and went on to urge both parties to get back to the Labour Court to resolve their differences. Minister Ross said it would be "illegal" for him to give State aid to Expressway and "utterly inappropriate" for him to use taxpayers' money to sort out the dispute.

Workers remain on picket lines this morning.

For information regarding the affected stations and possible services re-opening around the country, you can visit www.irishrail.ie or www.buseireann.ie.
Approaching its fourth decade, and embracing 31 resorts, hotels, residences and expeditions in 20 destinations, Aman will continue under the leadership of Chairman, Vladislav Doronin, his executive team is committed to strengthening and safeguarding the iconic brand. A robust development strategy is in place, and having firmly established itself in Asia, Aman is now focusing on further expanding the collection within the Western Hemisphere.

Recent additions to the collection include Amanera (Dominican Republic), Amandayan (China), custom-built Phinisi cruiser, Amandira (Indonesia), Amanemu (Japan), and Amanyangyun the brands most ambitious project to date, which opens in autumn 2017 on the outskirts of Shanghai.

Eleven new hotels and resorts, each with a residential component, were signed in 2016 and are in development, and as such, will see South America introduced as a destination for the first time with further resorts in South East Asia, the USA and Europe, and a continued journey in Japan.

Mr. Doronin, Chairman of the Aman Group, said Our strategy continues to place emphasis on seeking out new and outstanding destinations, as well as a continued commitment to curate resorts of architectural distinction by commissioning new and up-and-coming architects. We do not have plans to radically transform the brand. He added that The continued integration of Aman Wellness, as well as the recent introduction of Nama, a new culinary concept which celebrates the tradition of Japanese cuisine, known as washoku, are both natural progressions for our brand and further enrich our guests experience, which remains our number one priority.

Joining Mr. Doronin in guiding Aman into its next decade is recently appointed Chief Operating Officer, Roland Fasel, who is overseeing all facets of Amans intricate hotel, resort and private residence operations. A healthy pipeline together with a dynamic executive team, will propel the brand forward and enable it to continue to set the benchmark with its uncompromisingly bespoke approach and rigorous attention to detail which is applied to every aspect of the Aman experience.

Aman was founded in 1988 with the vision of building a collection of intimate retreats with the unassuming, warm hospitality of a gracious private residence. The first, Amanpuri in Phuket, Thailand, introduced the concept, and since then, Aman has grown to encompass 31 hotels and resorts located in Bhutan, Cambodia, China, Dominican Republic, France, Greece, Indonesia, India, Italy, Japan, Laos, Montenegro, Morocco, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Turkey, the Turks & Caicos Islands, the USA, and Vietnam.
Rikers Island To Close In The Next 10 Years Dimas Sanfiorenzo Dimas Sanfiorenzo is the Managing Editor for Okayplayer. He specializes

Rikers Island, one of the most notorious New York City jails ever, is on its way to being obsolete. New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio has announced the closing of Rikers Island on Friday, March 31 st during a press conference.

@NYCMayor Bill de Blasio just announced the city will close Rikers Island. pic.twitter.com/qFHrmJoeW7  NYC Mayor's Office (@NYCMayorsOffice) March 31, 2017

An independent commission has spent the last year studying Rikers Islands many many issues. Now, according to the New York Post, the 27-person panel, lead by New York State Chief Judge Jonathan Lippman, recommended closing Rikers Island.

The plan called for a replacement of the infamous jail with a series of jails that will be spread throughout the five boroughs. The recommendation will also come up with a plan which will allow a large portion of inmates to return to society under supervised release.

The plan was to share this conclusion with Mayor Bill De Blasio and City Hall on Sunday, but the Mayor made his announcement two days early.

Rikers Island has been known as a disaster for years, with high levels of violence, corruption and terrible conditions for its population of 10,000 prisoners. Eighty percent of prisoners on the Island are awaiting trial.

Kalief Browder was 16 when he was charged with stealing a backpack he did not in fact steal. Browder never went to trial, but he spent three years on Rikers Island, with two of those years spent in solitary confinement.

It was a traumatizing experience, which led to Browder killing himself in June 2015. After the news was announced, Jay Z, who produced a six-part documentary about Browder called Time: The Kalief Browder Story, sent out this tweet:

Kalief is a prophet. His story will save lives . You guys watching and your compassion made this happen. Thank you . pic.twitter.com/Vvnt9tDBeR  Mr. Carter (@S_C_) March 31, 2017

John Legend, who has done a lot of important social justice work, also sent out his support of the news:

In closing Rikers, New York City takes a crucial step towards ending #massincarceration. Now the hard work begins.  John Legend (@johnlegend) March 31, 2017

Also sending their support was Russell Simmons and Questlove.



There wont be Island on Rikers Smilin https://t.co/pixvowSlME  Questlove Gomez (@questlove) March 31, 2017

H/T: New York Post
Agricultural News

Dr. Kim Anderson Says USDA Acreage and Stocks Reports Suggest Move Towards Historical Prices

Friday marked one of the most highly anticipated days of the year for commodity markets, with the United States Department of Agriculture's scheduled release of the 2017 Prospective Planting and Grain Stocks reports. Radio Oklahoma Ag Network Associate Farm Director Carson Horn reached out to Dr. Kim Anderson, extension grain market economist at Oklahoma State University, for his reaction to the numbers in today's reports. You can listen to Anderson's breakdown of USDA's report with Horn, by clicking or tapping the LISTEN BAR below at the bottom of this story.





"Trade had a good handle on these reports, maybe a little more negative information than expected," Anderson said," but a neutral report overall."





According to Anderson, corn was the major focus of these reports with corn acres coming in with a positive outlook of just under 90 million acres, compared to expectations of near 91 million. Stocks were estimated at a little over 8.5 million bushels but in fact came in at just over 8.6 million. With some conflicting information coming out of the USDA today about corn, Anderson is calling corn a wash for now, suggesting it will simply take time to see how the markets weigh out the positive from the negative.





For wheat, Anderson reports that the numbers were fairly comparable to estimates made of 46.2 million acres, with an actual 46.06 million reported. Stocks were slightly above expectations at 32 million bu. Anderson says price wise, the report was "equal to positive" for wheat.





However, there is room for movement in soybeans Anderson notes. Soybeans came in well above expectation at 89.5 million, above the expected total of 88.2 million acres. Stocks were expected to be at 1.7 billion bu., but came in above that.





"I think soybean prices will go down," Anderson predicted, and added another warning as well. "I think our cotton producers need to look at planted acres for cotton. The planted acres for cotton was 12. 2 million acres, up 21 percent from last year, and I think that's going to be negative for cotton prices."





While overall, Anderson says this report has only minimal if not neutral tones, he says it could change the way the commodity markets are looking at soybeans and corn.





"There has been a move or talk of planting more soybeans and less corn," he said. "I think this report may change some of that. Because, I think we're going to have that soybean and corn price come more in line with the historical line."





To review the Prospective Plantings report from the USDA, click here.





To review the Grain Stocks report from the USDA, click here.



















You can listen to Anderson's breakdown of USDA's reports with Horn, by clicking on the LISTEN BAR

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Congressman Frank Lucas Says the Contents of the Next Farm Bill at the Mercy of the Budget

In a recent phone interview, Oklahoma's 3rd District Congressman and former House Agriculture Committee Chairman Frank Lucas, told Radio Oklahoma Ag Network Farm Director Ron Hays that he has been impressed with the aggressive talk of current House Ag Committee Chairman Mike Conaway, in regards to crafting the 2018 Farm Bill in a timely, cost-efficient and effective manner. You can listen to Hays speaking with Congressman Lucas about talks surrounding the 2018 Farm Bill, by clicking or tapping on the LISTEN BAR below at the bottom of this story.





"He's been very aggressive in the hearing schedule," Lucas said referring to Conaway. "Not only looking at what has gone on in the aftermath of the 2014 Farm Bill but discussing the health of rural American agriculture right now and laying the groundwork for a set of hearings about where we should go."





The Congressman believes that currently there are several issues weighing on the agricultural industry - namely the record low commodity prices, but also in areas such as dairy and cotton, that for producers would make a lot of sense to get the Farm Bill process started this year, rather than waiting around until the next year. But he says on the flip side of the coin, Conaway's hands are somewhat tied until he has an idea of what budget confines he will be working within.





This is a subject of contention as the chance of increase cuts in the Farm Bill budget could be at stake. According to Lucas, the House Ag Committee that put the 2014 Farm Bill together, included measures in the policy designed to save money. Apparently, though, the effects of the legislation significantly outperformed expectations. An accomplishment like that is something one would think worth rewarding. Alas, that is not the case in Washington, Lucas derides. In fact, it has had quite the opposite effect. With a demonstration that the bill can operate with less funding, the threat of imposed belt-tightening is now within the realm of possibility.





When asked about what changes will be made in the 2018 Farm Bill compared to the 2014 edition, Lucas simply replied, "The question comes down to how much money will be available to us."





However, pride is still felt by the Congressman for the effectiveness of the current Farm Bill, that has demonstrated the importance of safety net programs within the legislation, which have often been subject to criticism. He says as ARC has become less effective and PLC more promising - he believes given the chance to renew their coverage, producers will be shifting their policies from ARC to PLC.





"I don't necessarily feel vindicated," he said about the assistance provided to producers through the crop insurance programs in the Farm Bill. "I'm just proud to know that we put together a package that we are able to help our neighbors get through the toughest of times."























You can listen to Hays speaking with Congressman Lucas about talks surrounding the 2018 Farm Bill

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Agricultural News

Cimarron County's Hal Clark Recognized by Governor for Outstanding Environmental Stewardship

After experiencing the extreme drought conditions suffered through the 1950s in Oklahoma, cow/calf operator Hal Clark of Cimarron County, spent much of his life working to ensure other farmers avoided the practices that decades before, eventually led to Oklahoma's Dust Bowl. Earlier this week during Ag Day at the State Capitol, Clark, surrounded by his family and friends, was honored by Governor Mary Fallin who presented him with the Governor's Agriculture Environmental Stewardship Award. Radio Oklahoma Ag Network Associate Farm Director Carson Horn was there to get his reaction upon receiving his award. You can listen to Horn interviewing Clark at the Ag Day awards presentation, by clicking or tapping on the LISTEN BAR below at the bottom of this story.





"Well I'm very honored," he said with humble astonishment. "I'm flattered to have even been listed. We just through the years have done what we thought was best for the environment and our local area."





The ranch, operated by Clark, was originally settled by his grandfather's family in 1877. Once the torch was passed to him though, Clark recognized early on the importance of conserving the physical integrity of the soil and set out implementing a soil health program that involved rotational grazing and the establishment of permanent vegetation for erosion control.





His leadership in environmental stewardship quickly led him to a position on the Cimarron County Conservation District Board of Directors, which he remained active with for 17 years and contributed to the installment of many programs still in place today.





"That was quite an experience for being able to travel all around the state and learn what producers are doing all over the state and it was enlightening for me," Clark recalled. "It helped me go home with a lot of thoughts about what we could implement out there for our producers, both for grassland and crop producers."





Today, there is a strong emphasis being made within the industry to practice sustainability on the farm. Clark says he is glad to see such a movement being made proactively by producers around the country.





"Sustainability is a catch word a lot of people are using now, but it's hard to define," he said. "When it comes to sustainability, you need to endure but you don't want to take away opportunities from the future generations."





















Listen to Horn interviewing Clark after recieving his award from the Governor Fallin during Ag Day

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The MOXY Vienna Airport was ceremoniously opened on Wednesday March 29, 2017, by Gunther Ofner, Member of the Management Board of Flughafen Wien AG, Petra Bierwirth, Managing Director of B&K Hotelmanagement GmbH, and Michael Dorfer, MOXY Captain.

The MOXY Vienna Airport is the first Austrian-wide hotel of the young Marriott lifestyle brand and its largest in the world to date. Accordingly, the Airport City Vienna has a new partner at the business location, expanding its offering for travelers.

We are very proud to open the MOXY Vienna Airport and its 405 rooms, which is the largest hotel to date of the MOXY brand launched by the Marriott hotel chain, explains Petra Bierwirth, Managing Director of Bierwirth & Kluth Management GmbH, which operates the MOXY Vienna Airport.

MOXY is pure hotel fun, vibrant and in tune with the times. I am pleased that I and my crew are able to offer guests such a fine time with us in our hotel. Our goal is that hotel guests and visitors feel at home here, states MOXY Captain Michael Dorfer.

MOXY Vienna Airport

The first hotel in Austria of the trendy Marriott lifestyle brand opened its doors at the Airport City Vienna. The central location directly behind Office Park 1 makes it possible to conveniently reach airport terminals by using the passenger tunnel. On an area of 14,000 m, the MOXY Vienna Airport conveys a joy in living, lifestyle and young freshness. In the lounge featuring an urban-industrial design, guests will have small meals and drinks available to them on a 24/7 basis. Facilities include a comfortable food and beverage area, a library, two meeting rooms and a fitness room. The 405 guest rooms have modern furnishings and also boasts extremely fast WLAN, USB connections and a 42-inch flat-screen TV. The Marriott box spring beds ensure restful sleep. The MOXY staff consisting of about 50 employees focus on ensuring the well-being of the hotel guests. The MOXY Vienna Airport hotel is operated by Bierwirth & Kluth Management GmbH.

The transformation of Vienna Airport as a real estate location to a multifunctional airport city is a key component of the airports business strategy. Vienna Airport offers ideal conditions as a location for companies to base their business operations, such as commercial space of more than 140,000 m, office park facilities with approx. 110,000 m of office and conferencing space in the future (including Office Park 4), various local shops and service facilities such as supermarkets, a pharmacy, fitness studio, a 24/7 postal partner office and much more. Moreover, Vienna Airport has established optimal transport and traffic connections. The Airport City Vienna is continuously growing, and is expanding its service offering for passengers with the opening of the MOXY Vienna Airport hotel.
Detective Ryan Templeton, a 12-year-veteran of the Omaha Police Department, was named the 2016 Crime Stoppers officer of the year at a luncheon Friday at the Doubletree Hotel in Omaha.

An investigation by Templeton led to the indictment of 11 suspects on federal charges of criminal conspiracy and bank robbery, according to information provided by the police department.

Templeton has been a member of the Criminal Investigation Bureau since March 2009 and specifically assigned to the burglary unit since March 2015.

He became aware of a series of ATM thefts and his work led to the arrest and conviction of a suspect connected to ATM thefts in the Omaha area.

Templeton was able to help multiple agencies in Nebraska and neighboring states with similar ATM theft cases, leading to the indictment of the suspects, according to information from the police department.
LINCOLN  Two representatives of University of Nebraska-Lincoln fraternities stayed positive Friday while conveying alumni concerns about the future of fraternities on campus.

In light of recent fraternity suspensions at UNL, some alumni have questioned whether the Greek system has a future or whether fraternities are being nudged out.

UNL Chancellor Ronnie Green said after Fridays Board of Regents meeting that he not only supports the Greek system, but he wants it to grow.

Omahans Bill Barna and Jerry Woodward told the regents that when they raise funds for their fraternities, alumni ask whether UNL has a commitment to the Greek system for the long haul. Several fraternities, including Phi Gamma Delta and Phi Kappa Psi this year, have been suspended over the past few years at UNL. The reasons typically involve hazing, alcohol abuse or sexual harassment.

Barna, vice president of the board of UNLs chapter of Sigma Alpha Epsilon, said there is a feeling of gloom about the relationship between the UNL administration and fraternities.

Were committed to changing that gloom to optimism, Barna said.

Woodward, representing Sigma Nu, made similar observations. We do have our challenges, he said, but we hope the commitment together is strong.

Juan Franco, vice chancellor for student affairs at UNL, announced late this week that he would step down from that post and take a faculty position.

Franco, who has been in his administrative position for more than a decade, has been at the center of fraternity disciplinary actions.

Green said after the meeting that all of the worries expressed about fraternities at UNL are voiced on campuses across the nation.

Its just an ongoing concern about hazing behavior, alcohol abuse, Green said.

But there is no bias against fraternities at UNL, Green said.

Green said that he belonged to Alpha Gamma Rho at Virginia Tech and that his four children were in the Greek system at UNL.

Students in sororities and fraternities typically outperform the general student population academically, he said.

Its true that some fraternities have run afoul of the UNL student code over the past 10 years, Green said, and have been disciplined or suspended.

It seems to them that there is a heavy hand, theres some kind of bias, he said. And thats not true.

Green said he and other UNL administrators had a town hall meeting with Greek advisers and alumni early this year and tried to make that point clear.

I very much want the Greek system to grow at UNL, Green said. Nevertheless, when fraternity members misbehave, they must be held accountable, he said, and when theres a problem, UNL will deal with it.
It turns out, real-life court scenes arent quite as dramatic as an episode of Law & Order.

Thats what Omaha South High senior Nancy Cruz Reyes found out Thursday, when students at South got a glimpse of the inner workings of the Nebraska Supreme Court.

The court, which regularly visits Nebraskas law schools, has started holding oral arguments on high school campuses. Last year, the court visited Central High and Norfolk High.

Thursday, they convened, black robes and all, on the stage at the South High auditorium.

Nancy is an aspiring lawyer who got bit by the legal bug at age 12, when she helped her father conduct research and line up witnesses for a small claims court case.

Watching the court Thursday, she soon realized that lawyers dont always pound their fists on a table, or angrily yell Objection!

Its different from TV, she said. Its more serious, its more civil. And if youre an attorney, you have to be prepared.

The court, made up of seven judges, held another oral argument earlier in the day at the Creighton University School of Law as part of the courts outreach efforts.

Our court recognizes that the law is complex and can be confusing, Chief Justice Mike Heavican said in a press release. We want the students to understand the role of Nebraskas highest court and how the court system works to ensure that justice is served.

About 250 students from South watched the court scene unfold, including students from National Honor Society, junior ROTC, business law and law and government classes. Teachers, who had prepped students on the case, stressed the seriousness of the event. Students had to pass through metal detectors and were reminded beforehand to remove their hats and put their cellphones away.

Before the arguments started, students got to see a demonstration of how court interpreters translate complicated legal concepts for defendants or plaintiffs who dont speak English. They also heard from South alumni who now work in the criminal justice field, including Omaha Police Department officers, attorneys and a gang specialist.

Mark Martinez, a former OPD deputy chief who now serves as the U.S. marshal for the district of Nebraska, told students he was once in their shoes.

Im a South Omaha guy, raised very close to South High School, and when I was in your seat, I never thought Id be a deputy chief of police or a U.S. marshal, he said. People helped me along the way. It can be done.

Principal Ruben Cano said its crucial to show students alumni success stories.

It doesnt matter who you are, what your parents do, what part of town you live in, he said. Theres no limitation to what you can do.

The Supreme Court spent about 20 minutes listening to arguments for an appeals case involving allegations of theft and financial elder abuse.

Appellant Eddie H. Dehning was convicted last year on charges of theft and exploitation of a vulnerable adult. He was sentenced to 60 months in prison for the theft charge, and five to 10 years for the exploitation charge.

Dehning was accused of taking roughly $32,000 from his mother, Cora Bell Dehning, who reportedly suffered from dementia. Dehning, who held power of attorney for his mother, allegedly withdrew money from her bank account to buy things such as guns, electronics and a backyard shed after she moved into an assisted living facility.

In his appeal, Dehning says there was insufficient evidence to convict him, namely no one testified that his mother hadnt given him permission to use her money. He also argues that his mother may not qualify as a vulnerable adult, as her dementia diagnosis was made only by a physicians assistant. He also believes that the sentence handed down by a judge was too harsh.

Judges also opened up for a Q&A session with students, who peppered them with questions about topical issues such as net neutrality, how they came to serve on the Supreme Court and what types of cases the court presides over.

One student asked whether personal biases or opinions influence judges decision-making.

Everyone has grown up a certain way in life ... everyone has certain values or beliefs, Judge Max Kelch said. When you become a judge ... for the most part, you set those aside. Maybe some will filter in from time to time, but you have to follow the law.

Another student asked how the court would handle a police brutality case.

We would handle it the same way we would handle any other cases, Judge Stephanie Stacy said. You look carefully at the facts and apply the law. Some people have the impression the courts are here to solve societys problems. We are here to solve societys disputes.

South senior Uriel Reyes Vazquez said students asked interesting questions and got grounded, detailed answers from the judges in turn.

Its certainly not an ordinary event, he said. Its piqued my interest in the judicial system, for sure.
LINCOLN  For now, a state liquor agency can continue its efforts to determine whether four beer-only stores should continue to operate in Whiteclay, Nebraska.

A judge on Friday declined to rule on a request to grant an injunction halting administrative hearings next week for the four liquor stores, saying he needed more time to review arguments that a state liquor board was overstepping its powers.

That means the Nebraska Liquor Control Commission can proceed with hearings next Thursday and Friday in Lincoln to determine whether the licenses for the controversial outlets will be renewed.

The beer stores had asked for an injunction to halt those hearings, as well as others expected to be scheduled in June, arguing that the liquor board was exceeding its authority.

Andrew Snyder, a Scottsbluff attorney retained by the Whiteclay stores, argued Friday that the renewal of a liquor license is virtually automatic, unless the location of an outlet changes or a location becomes unsuitable for the sale of alcohol.

He also maintained that store owners were not notified or given an opportunity to comment at a November meeting when the liquor commission decided to force them to undergo a lengthy and expensive long form process to keep their licenses.

Snyder said Gov. Pete Ricketts was behind a politically motivated effort to end beer sales at Whiteclay, a village blamed for exacerbating alcohol-related problems on the adjacent Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota.

Theres no question the governor is behind this and the Attorney Generals Office has to contort the statutes and case law to figure out a way to do it, Snyder said.

Requests for comment from Ricketts were not answered Friday afternoon.

In recent weeks the first-term Republican has said little about the liquor commissions actions or Whiteclay. But in 2015 he wrote a letter stating: I am determined to address this important set of problems during my administration.

Fridays court hearing was in reaction to an unprecedented move by the liquor commission to order the four Whiteclay stores to justify why their liquor licenses should be renewed.

The liquor board cited concerns about the lack of law enforcement in Whiteclay, an unincorporated village of about a dozen residents that has no village government or police force.

Typically liquor licenses are automatically renewed, unless a tavern or liquor store has committed multiple violations of state liquor laws.

On Friday, attorneys for the liquor commission and a group of Sheridan County residents seeking to close the stores said the court action by the liquor stores was an improper end run to avoid the hearings before the liquor agency.

Ryan Post, an assistant attorney general, said the proper procedure is for a liquor license holder to appeal to the liquor commission. If dissatisfied with its decision, they then can appeal to court, he said.

Trial attorney Dave Domina, who is representing the Sheridan County residents, said the liquor store owners want to make the courts the enforcer, not the adjudicator of state liquor rules.

We feel thats wrong, Domina said.

Lancaster County District Judge Robert Otte said he would do my best to have a ruling soon.

That left unclear whether he would rule before the liquor commissions hearings next week, or let those hearings proceed and rule later. The attorneys involved in Fridays arguments all said they hoped a ruling would come before those proceedings.

Whiteclays liquor stores have been in the spotlight for almost two decades. They sell the equivalent of about 3.5 million cans of beer a year, and almost all sales go to residents of the Pine Ridge Reservation, where alcohol possession is banned. Despite that, the reservation has epic rates of alcoholism and related problems, such as fetal alcohol syndrome.

Defenders of the liquor stores say they are legal businesses and shutting them down will do little to address the alcohol woes.

Besides questioning the adequacy of law enforcement, the liquor commission has cited the Whiteclay stores with multiple violations of state liquor rules. Those allegations came too late to be considered in next weeks hearing but are scheduled to be taken up in June.

In addition, a street preacher in Whiteclay has launched an effort to buy out the four stores, using donations from people and organizations. Bruce BonFleur said recently he still is moving ahead with that effort.

Last year Ricketts formed a task force of Whiteclay-area businesses and officials to determine locally what needs to be done there.

That group mainly asked for increased law enforcement and some help with removing abandoned buildings.
MACY, Neb.  Sgt. Curtis Blackbird was descended from a long line of chiefs of the Omaha Nation. His ability to use authority effectively and compassionately was part of what made him a great police officer, a tribal leader said.

He gave himself completely to the welfare of our people, said Michael Wolfe, tribal council chair of the Omaha Tribe. He had the authority to push governmental (power) around but he had compassion. ... He took the time to listen.

Blackbird, 59, died on duty early Sunday morning. His funeral took place Thursday at the gymnasium of the Omaha Nation Public School in Macy.

The officer was traveling to a call in Walthill. As he drove in dense fog through a work zone on Nebraska Highway 94, his vehicle struck a construction crane.

More than 300 people attended his funeral, including about 100 police officers from various agencies who made the trek to Macy, a community on the Omaha Reservation, about 70 miles north of Omaha.

Vehicles from agencies such as the Omaha Police Department, the Lincoln Police Department and the Council Bluffs Police Department lined the streets outside the school.

Law enforcement is a brotherhood, said Officer Mark Kiley of the Omaha Police Department. Its important that we show support for his department and the community here. Help them mourn their loss.

Blackbird had served in the Army as a young man before receiving a medical discharge. An Army flag and an American flag were on either side of his open casket, which was also draped with the American flag.

Much of the service consisted of those close to Blackbird talking about how important the fallen officer was to them, the tribal police and the community. It also consisted of a meal, including fried chicken, potato salad and baked beans, and mourners passing by the open casket to pay their respects, first the women, then the men.

He was really kind. He was really a joyful person ... a real hero, Vestina DeCoteau, 35, of Englewood, Colorado, a niece, said before the service. Its really hard when nothing is wrong with the person, they are healthy ... and then all of a sudden he is gone.

Blackbird had been talking about going back to school to be a nurse, she said. He was still trying to help people.

His wife, Ardetta Morris Blackbird, said her husband did not like to be the center of attention.

He was a person who never wanted to be up front, she said. He was a humble person.

She said she was grateful to the members of the tribe and other police officers who had shown support since her husbands death.

Blackbird first served as a tribal police officer in the early 1980s, though there had been some breaks in service. He had continuously served as a tribal police officer for the past 17 years, officials said.

Wolfe also said many years ago he was on the wrong path and drinking too much, but Blackbird and others helped set him straight.

I always wanted to be like Officer Blackbird, but the choices I was making didnt allow me to be in the position he was in, he said. There is hope for all of us.
Omaha City Council candidate Paul Anderson says he regrets his choice of words in a radio ad that criticized construction of a mosque on the tri-faith campus in west Omaha.

He said late Friday afternoon that he was stung by the backlash he received over the ad and a statement on his campaign website that there should be no mosques in the city.

Anderson, 63, who is seeking the District 1 seat, faced strong rebukes Friday from his two opponents in the election and from many on social media.

He said he has been hurt by the phone calls and other negative feedback, some of which was not repeatable and four letters long.

The radio ad links the mosque to the Muslim Brotherhood.

Omaha, are you listening? The mosque that is part of the Tri-Faith Initiative has ties to the Muslim Brotherhood in America, the ad states.

His two opponents in the race, incumbent Councilman Pete Festersen and UNO student Grant Sturek, and the Tri-Faith Initiative weighed in Friday.

Mr. Andersons comments attacking the project are false, divisive and discriminatory and have no place in our city election, Festersen said in a statement.

All three men are on the ballot for Tuesdays primary; two will advance to the general election on May 9.

On Andersons campaign website, he said his goal was that there will be no mosque in the city of Omaha!

Anderson said Friday morning that he recently had learned that the city already has mosques.

The Tri-Faith Initiative, in a statement, condemned any suggestion of a ban on Muslim worship in Omaha.

The U.S. Constitution states very clearly that we do not permit religious discrimination, according to the statement, which doesnt mention Anderson by name. The Jewish, Christian, and Muslim members of the Tri-Faith Initiative encourage our members and friends to stand against stereotypes, bigotry and religious discrimination.

Dr. Syed Mohiuddin, founder of the Tri-Faith Initiative and a Creighton University cardiologist, has denied that the group planning the mosque is connected to the Muslim Brotherhood.

They probably have never heard of us. If they were here, the Muslim Brotherhood would dislike us intensely because we believe in cooperation and sharing, he told The World-Herald in 2014.

By Friday afternoon, Anderson said the ad had backfired. He said he wished he had consulted with more people or sources or posed his concern as a question rather than a statement.

Anderson said he wasnt anti-immigrant or anti-Muslim. He said he cared for Muslim people, especially those who come to this country for a better life.

Asked if he thinks mosques should be allowed in Omaha, Anderson said, Thats a hard one to answer.

The message they got was this: Paul Anderson does not want them in this country or in this city, he said. Thats not the message from my heart that I was conveying.

The Tri-Faith Initiative is using donated funds to build a $60 million campus south and east of 132nd and Pacific Streets, with a synagogue, a church and a mosque. The mosque is set to open in late May or early June.

Anderson said he had a deep concern about putting a mosque on the campus given the generations of hate and war among the religions.

I question are they truly going to be able to mingle, Anderson said, and accept each others beliefs.

Anderson, a retired carman for BNSF railroad, also thinks taxes in Omaha are too high, wants to see the restaurant tax abolished and wants to spend more tax dollars on high-quality materials to build and repair streets. He also expressed opposition on his website to same-sex marriage and transgender rights.

Sturek called on Anderson to withdraw from the race and said diversity is what makes the country great and the community stronger.

Andersons hate speech will only serve to further divide our community and cause Muslims in Omaha to live in fear of their neighbors, Sturek said.

Anderson said he would leave it up to voters to decide Tuesday whether he should remain in the race.

Anderson is running for elected office for the 10th time. Recently, he tried for a seat on the Metropolitan Community College Board.

Anderson has said he plans to keep running for office until he gets elected. After the fallout Friday, Anderson said he was reconsidering that stance.
President Donald Trump said his former national security adviser, Mike Flynn, should seek immunity from prosecution, calling investigations into alleged contacts between the Trump administration and the Russian government a political "witch hunt."

"Mike Flynn should ask for immunity in that this is a witch hunt (excuse for big election loss), by media & Dems, of historic proportion!" Trump said Friday in a Twitter post, using shorthand for Democrats.

While it's unclear if Trump was coordinating with his former adviser, Flynn has told investigators that he's willing to be interviewed in return for immunity from prosecution. A congressional official confirmed on condition of anonymity that Flynn made the offer.

"General Flynn certainly has a story to tell, and he very much wants to tell it, should the circumstances permit," Robert Kelner, a lawyer for Flynn, said in a statement late Thursday. "We will not comment right now on the details of discussions between counsel for General Flynn and the House and Senate Intelligence Committees, other than to confirm that those discussions have taken place."

Flynn's lawyer suggested immunity is justified because his client is "the target of unsubstantiated public demands by Members of Congress and other political critics that he be criminally investigated." Kelner, a partner at Covington and Burling in Washington, said: "No reasonable person, who has the benefit of advice from counsel, would submit to questioning in such a highly politicized, witch hunt environment without assurances against unfair prosecution."

Flynn, a retired lieutenant general, was forced out of the Trump administration after it was revealed that he had misled Vice President Mike Pence about his contacts with the Russian ambassador to the U.S. after Trump's victory.

FBI Director James Comey has told Congress that the bureau's probe into Russian hacking of last year's presidential election "includes investigating the nature of any links between individuals associated with the Trump campaign and the Russian government and whether there was any coordination between the campaign and Russia's efforts."

The Wall Street Journal reported that Flynn made the offer to the FBI and two congressional committees. Trump has repeatedly said that allegations he's tied to the Russians are "fake news."

The House and Senate Intelligence committees are also investigating allegations of Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. election, including any contacts between Trump associates and Russia.

Jack Langer, a spokesman for the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, said "Flynn has not offered to testify to HPSCI in exchange for immunity."

Flynn, who ran the Defense Intelligence Agency under President Barack Obama, was one of Trump's closest advisers during the campaign and briefly held one of the most sensitive jobs in the administration, which carries the highest-level security clearance. He has been at the top of the list for Democrats and others investigating the possible Russia connections.

In the weeks after Flynn left the administration, new details emerged about his business ties with Turkey's government and Russian entities.

Flynn retroactively registered as a foreign agent with the Justice Department for work that his firm, Flynn Intel Group, did for a Dutch consulting company, Inovo BV, which has ties to President Recep Erdogan of Turkey. Flynn's filing showed that his company received $530,000 from Inovo between Sept. 9 and Nov. 14.

Kelner wrote in a letter accompanying the filing that Flynn had previously registered with Congress under the Lobbying Disclosure Act, but made the new filing because the work could have been interpreted as benefiting the government of Turkey. Lobbying on behalf of a foreign government requires registration with the Justice Department.

The top Democrat and Republican on the House Oversight Committee are seeking documents related to Flynn's security clearance applications and contacts and payments from Russian, Turkish and any other foreign sources including the Kremlin-backed media outlet RT, dating from Flynn's 2014 retirement from the Defense Intelligence Agency to the present. They also want documents connected to Flynn's vetting for the national security post, his work with a speaker's bureau and any documentation that Flynn sought U.S. approvals for payments from foreign sources.

Democrats on the House committee last week released documents showing Flynn received more than $45,000 from RT for taking part in a December 2015 gala where he sat at President Vladimir Putin's table.

Other documents showed that Flynn, who received $11,250 for a 2015 speaking engagement in Washington for Kaspersky Government Security Solutions, Inc., a U.S. subsidiary of a Russian cybersecurity firm; and an $11,250 payment from Volga-Dnepr Airlines.

Price Floyd, a spokesman for Flynn, said the retired lieutenant general "both informed and fully briefed" the Defense Intelligence Agency about his Russia trip beforehand and when he returned.

Bloomberg's Toluse Olorunnipa contributed.
Imagine a voter registration system that would automatically register eligible citizens to vote while protecting against fraud.

Participating in elections would be more convenient for Nebraskas farmers, ranchers and rural residents. Voting would be more efficient for young people and others who move within the state. The integrity and security of our elections would be better than ever. Our government would be more efficient, and fewer taxpayer dollars would be spent on election administration.

If the Nebraska Legislature enacted automatic voter registration  as proposed by Legislative Bill 290  they would accomplish all of the above and help bring Nebraskas elections into the 21st century.

I have reviewed countless measures that relate to the way that we administer elections. This proposal is the best I have seen to modernize our elections with a commonsense upgrade.

Automatic voter registration would be a small technical change that uses pre-existing technology to modernize the way that we administer elections. It would be a simple upgrade to our system with far-reaching benefits for Nebraskas voters, clerks and election officials.

The Legislature should also consider this an easy way to cut costs. Last November, Nebraska counties spent more than $412,000 processing provisional ballots, at a cost of $33.36 each. Automatic voter registration would greatly reduce the need for provisional ballots, which are usually issued due to avoidable mistakes such as an address discrepancy.

Under this bill, eligible voters who interact with state agencies would be asked to provide their name, address, birthdate, political party, affirmative oath of eligibility and electronic signature. They would then choose to register, update or affirm their registration. They could opt out at any point.

The voter data would then be sent through a secure system to their county election official, who would review each record for eligibility. The election official would register only those who were eligible and update address information for voters that have had a change of address.

Registrants would get a confirmation card in the mail.

At first, this process would take place only at state Department of Motor Vehicles offices, but the bill would provide structure for implementing automatic voter registration at other state agencies.

The Department of Motor Vehicles has demonstrated that it has the infrastructure and capacity to implement this policy. Last year, the department moved to an electronic application model, which streamlines its process and helps keep data secure. The department has also incorporated a voter registration application into its drivers license application, including a method to collect electronic signatures from eligible parties. If Nebraska legislators approve of the measure, the department would be ready to put its system into action.

I support automatic voter registration because it would be the best way to maintain the safety and integrity of our voter rolls while increasing government efficiency and participation in the democratic process.

LB 290 is a commonsense measure with meaningful, positive results for Nebraskas elections. Our state legislators should prove they are serious about maintaining the integrity of Nebraskas elections by supporting automatic voter registration.
The skill requirements to get a well-paying job in the modern economy are steep and getting steeper. Academic study or job training beyond high school is more important than ever.

A new report raises concern for Nebraska on this score. Only one other state has a bigger gap between the percentage of minority and white residents who have at least a two-year degree beyond high school.

The disparity for the 50 states as a whole is 16.4 percent, the Nebraska Coordinating Commission for Postsecondary Education reports. In Nebraska, the gap is 26.3 percent.

That is, 52.8 percent of whites in the 25-to-44 age group in Nebraska had an associate degree or higher. The figure for the states minority residents is 26.5 percent.

In Iowa, the disparity is 15.6 percent, a bit less than the national average.

Mike Baumgartner, the coordinating commissions executive director, is right to point out that the way forward doesnt lie only through action by Nebraskas colleges, universities and community colleges. The effort needs to start far earlier, ensuring that minority students know from an early age about the opportunities that open up through education.

Among the many encouraging efforts on that front is Morton Magnet Middle Schools AVID college-prep program, a partnership between Morton and the University of Nebraska at Omahas Service Learning Academy.

Students in the AVID program can see, yes, this is somewhere I could be. This could be me, a college student, the teacher, Lisa Thompson, said in a recent World-Herald article.

Metropolitan Community College has long made strong efforts to serve low-income and minority students. As reporting by The World-Heralds Rick Ruggles recently noted, those efforts include dual-enrollment programs with many area school districts, as well as services for single parents and free area bus services for students traveling to most Metro campuses.

UNOs minority student population currently is 3,336, up considerably from 1,382 in 2006. Nearly a third of current UNO freshmen are students of color.

The Thompson Learning Community, which provides supports to UNO students from diverse backgrounds, has grown from 65 participants in 2008, its first year, to 954 now.

The University of Nebraska-Lincoln also is actively supporting minority students. The campus earned national recognition following a 2015 report that found UNL had done better than 255 other colleges in narrowing the gap between white and black graduation rates over the past decade.

From 2003 to 2013, those institutions of higher learning as a whole reduced that gap by less than 1 percent. By comparison, UNL reduced its gap by 15.2 percentage points.

Still, a major challenge remains in working to improve the graduation rate.

UNLs minority graduation rate in 2013 was 56.2 percent, and the national rate was 50.1 percent. Some of UNLs fellow members of the Big Ten Conference had considerably higher minority graduation rates in 2013  74.2 percent at Ohio State and 68.3 percent at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

One positive step by NU is its Commit to Complete initiative to help students get on a practical path toward graduation.

Creighton University, with students of color making up 26 percent of the current freshmen class, has a variety of programs to support minority students.

Creightons Intercultural Center promotes a culture of inclusion, outreach and respect. Minority students receive encouragement and support to explore health career options through the Health Sciences Multicultural and Community Affairs Office. And Creighton is the only post-secondary Jesuit institution to offer a Native American studies program.

The more progress that Nebraska can make in helping minority residents achieve higher-ed success, the stronger the future for those Nebraskans and for the state as a whole.
William Safire said that as a speechwriter for Richard Nixon, he would sometimes urge the president, Take the easy way! Nixon could then give a speech saying he had rejected advice from his aides to take the easy way, preferring to do what was right.

Politicians may pretend to make hard choices, but they rarely do. Those in office now wont be inspired to heroic deeds by the failure to repeal Obamacare. Just the opposite.

The lesson of this episode is that its hard to reach agreement on taking things away from the voters. The corollary is that its easy to reach agreement on giving things to the voters.

The obvious next step is a fiscal binge that serves the selfish interests of everyone except posterity.

Heres how it may play out: Congressional Republicans pass tax cuts. Democrats join them on a big infrastructure bill. President Donald Trumps proposed spending cuts come to little or nothing. The deficit balloons, and not many people in Washington care.

Having lost on overhauling health care, Trump indicated he is ready to move on to tax reform. This choice evoked chortles from skeptics, who say a major revision of the Internal Revenue Code will be an even harder challenge.

But why assume Republicans will balk at anything short of a comprehensive overhaul? If they cant get that, they will almost certainly settle for tax cuts, even if it means bigger budget deficits. Thats been their default option for decades.

Trump couldnt care less about the deficit. So GOP members will meet no resistance from him if they want to cut rates, scrap the estate tax or the alternative minimum tax, or increase the standard deduction.

House Speaker Paul Ryan has in mind a border adjustment tax, which would bring in enough revenue to make up all or most of what the other changes would lose. But neither Trump nor congressional Republicans are likely to approve a measure that would raise consumer prices and be hard to explain.

The path of least resistance involves dropping the proposal and not bothering to pay for the tax cuts.

Paying for them holds little allure because it would mean either killing tax breaks cherished by millions of people or curtailing outlays. Trump has proposed some $54 billion in spending reductions, taken from agencies ranging from the Environmental Protection Agency to the National Endowment for the Arts, but those couldnt be used to offset tax cuts. The money saved is supposed to go for Trumps military buildup.

But rest assured, it wont be saved in the first place. Some of Trumps closest allies said his budget has virtually no chance in Congress, reported the Washington Post. Even those fiscal conservatives who do want to cut spending dont necessarily think slashing major domestic programs is the answer.

The only other place where spending could be cut much is in the biggest entitlements  Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. But Trump the candidate promised not to go after Social Security and Medicare. Leaving Obamacare alone means Medicaid escaped the ax.

The president should have more luck boosting outlays. He envisions a $1 trillion program aimed at revitalizing our countrys ruined roads, crumbling bridges and outdated airports, press secretary Sean Spicer explained.

Trump told the New York Times he intends to prime the pump to some extent. In other words: Spend money to make a lot more money in the future.

Its a classic Keynesian formula with a long Democratic pedigree. Getting bipartisan support should not be a heavy lift.

The website Axios reports that House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi wants Trump to move quickly on a big jobs bill that includes some corporate and middle income tax cuts coupled with government spending to stimulate growth.

The problem with all this is that it would squander money we dont have, further enlarging our national debt and loading more burdens onto our children and grandchildren.

Thats not the responsible way, but it is the easy way. And politicians will be eager to take it.
At UNSC, US calls on world to tell Russia to stop its nuclear threats

GODAVARI Celebrates Ugadi with Expansion

Business

oi-Oneindia

By Oneindia Staff Writer

USA, Mar 31st 2017: Godavari Group - A Fastest Growing Indian Restaurant in USA wishes all the Telugu, Kannadiga and Marathi friends on the planet a Prosperous New Year and a new Beginning on the occasion of Ugadi/Gudi Padva.

On this New Year, Godavari is expanding its Head Quarters in Woburn, MA making it one of the largest Indian restaurant in the entire New England Area joining Godavari Hartford.

Godavari Woburn expanded with a Banquet Hall called "Pushkara". It's Authentic Village Ambience will make the food lovers Spell Bound while giving the feel of having food at your Grand Parent's Village. "Pushkara" will sure be the ideal place to celebrate your special event while satisfying your Taste-Buds.

Celebrating both the occasions of Ugadi and Grand Expansion, Godavari is serving a Grandeur Buffet this Weekend in Woburn and all Other Locations across the Country with some tongue popping recipes like "Avakai Dosa", "Simbu Sambar Biryani", "Ratthalu Royyala Pulusu", "Pakodi Pulao", "Telugu Kodi kabab" and a lot more to excite the Godavari food lovers.

We Sincerely Thank, "All our Food Lovers across the country for supporting us in more than 15 locations within just 2 years of our inception. We could only reciprocate them, Serving Authentic Food with different recipes every day." Says Teja Chekuri, Co-Founder of Godavari.

"We are soon starting Dinner Specials like "Vetagadu Combo", "4G Annam" & More.... with Every Month Special Menu across all our locations that will sure satisfy your Appetite" Says Jaswanth Reddy, Chief of Operations.

Godavari Group is all set to cook in Kansas City, Detroit, Columbus, Houston, Nashville, Harrisburg, Houston, Atlanta in next few months while Pursuing many potential locations across the World.

Team Godavari is also venturing into "Food Trucks" in Boston this April with a brand named as "Spicy Salaa". They will soon be driving to our other locations & other potential places across the country.

This Ugadi, Come and Enjoy our Grandeur Buffet across all our Kitchens of "Godavari".

www.GodavariUS.com

Press note released by: Indian Clicks, LLC

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Story first published: Friday, March 31, 2017, 17:15 [IST]
After being brought on track, desperate Gaikwad tries to fly under different names

India

oi-Anusha

After Air India refused to allow Shiv Sena MP Ravindra Gaikwad on any of their flights, the MP is adamant on proving a point. So much so, that Gaikwad is attempting to book tickets under different names. Sources of Air India told the media that Ravindra Gaikwad has attempted booking tickets under names of 'Ravindra Gaikwad', 'R Gaikwad', 'Prof V Ravindra Gaikwad' and 'Prof Ravindra Gaikwad'. Air India has, however, foiled each of his attempts.

The Shiv Sena MP was unanimously put on the 'no-fly' list by airlines including Air India after he assaulted a crew member. Air India has now alerted its booking staff of his attempts at altering the spellings of his name for tickets. Apart from attempting different combinations of his name, designation and surname, Gaikwad has also reportedly tried tweaking spellings.

Air India first cancelled Gaikwad's Mumbai-Delhi ticket and then another ticket that he had booked from Hyderabad to Delhi on Tuesday. His attempt to book another ticket on a Nagpur-Mumbai-Delhi flight on Wednesday was also foiled.

Air India is scanning all the details since bookings are made through coupons issued by Parliament. Gaikwad had an open ticket with Air India and had booked a flight for Wednesday morning. He blocked a seat on a morning flight from Mumbai to Delhi, which was booked through the Air India call centre. When the airline realised who the passenger was, they cancelled the ticket.

Air India has so far cancelled three bookings after realising that the passenger was none other than Gaikwad. One of the tickets were booked through an agent. Air India is adamant on not letting the MP fly without him tendering an apology while the MP has remained defiant with his party backing him.

OneIndia News

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Story first published: Friday, March 31, 2017, 13:52 [IST]
All work and no play for SC judges as they brace for a long summer

India

oi-Vicky

By Vicky

At least 19 out of the 28 judges of the Supreme Court will not take a vacation. For the first time in the history of the SC, a constitution bench will sit during the summer vacation to hear the triple talaq matter. Apart from this the SC would also hear two other crucial petitions relating to WhatsApp sharing with Facebook and also a plea relating to Bangladeshi migrants.

When Chief Justice of India, J S Khehar came out with the schedule,the same was objected to by many lawyers including the Attorney General of India Mukul Rohatgi. They felt that simultaneous hearing would affect these cases. The consent of the lawyers ought to be taken into consideration, rules and traditions demand, the AG pointed out.

The CJI was however firm on his decision and said, " if we do not hear the matter now, it would be pending for years. If you do not feel like cooperating then let us know. Later on do not come back to us and say that the matter has been pending for so long," the CJI further said.

Former law minister of India and senior counsel Kapil Sibal however expressed reservations and said that he may have to withdraw from one of the matters. The CJI shot back by saying, " you withdraw from all." The CJI said that all these matters were important and the special benches were ready to hear the matter even on Saturdays and Sundays.

The SC goes on a 90 day summer vacation every year. Ideally only four judges hear matters on the vacation bench. The Prime Minister of India had questioned this practise and said that there was a huge backlog of cases.

OneIndia News

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Story first published: Friday, March 31, 2017, 6:49 [IST]
Assam's progress will impact Bhutan: Tshering Tobgay

India

ians-IANS

By Ians English

Guwahati, March 31: Bhutan's Prime Minister Tshering Tobgay on Friday said the progress of Assam and India's northeast region will impact neighbouring countries like Bhutan and Bangladesh.

He also recalled the over a century-old cooperation between the people of Assam and Bhutan.

Tshering said this while addressing as guest of honour a huge gathering on the occasion of the opening ceremony of the five-day-long Namami Brahmaputra river festival.

"I am wearing a special fabric today. It is made of cotton which is grown in Assam and woven by women in Bhutan. This is a symbol of cooperation between the people of Bhutan and Assam," Tshering said while pointing out to the traditional dress he was wearing.

"We have 266 km of border with Assam and people interact freely with each other on both sides of the border. This is the relation between Assam and Bhutan," he said.

The Bhutanese Prime Minister, who had arrived in Assam to participate in the Namami Brahmaputra from Paris, further said that at least 10 rivers from his country flow into the Brahmaputra.

He said that the cooperation between the people of Assam and Bhutan could be taken further for mutual benefit of people living on both sides of the border.

Calling Assam Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal a 'spiritual brother', Tshering appealed to the Indian government to arrange for the opening of a Bhutan consulate in Guwahati.

"I am going to visit Kamakhya temple after this programme. I am going to pray that Namami Brahmaputra also becomes the most powerful river festival in the world," said the Bhutanese Prime Minister.

IANS
Ayesha Meera muder case: Andhra HC acquits youth sentenced to life

India

oi-IANS

By Ians English

Hyderabad, March 31: The Hyderabad high court on Friday acquitted Pidatala Satyam Babu, who was sentenced to life in 2010 in the sensational rape and murder case of a student in Andhra Pradesh.

The court also directed the Andhra Pradesh government to pay Rs 1 lakh compensation to the youth, who spent eight years in jail without any evidence of his involvement. It also ordered action against the police officers, who investigated the case.

The Mahila Sessions Court in Vijayawada in 2010 had sentenced Satyam Babu to life imprisonment for the rape and murder of Ayesha Meera. The B. Pharmacy student was raped and murdered in a private women's hostel in Ibrahimpatnam near Vijayawada on December 27, 2007.

Satyam Babu was arrested in a cellphone robbery case on August 17, 2008 and police had said he confessed to her murder during interrogation. The youth has been suffering from GB Syndrome, which had badly affected his nervous system and his two legs were paralysed.

The arrest had created a sensation in the state as the girl's parents had claimed that the Dalit youth is being made a scapegoat to save the real culprits. Dalit organisations and human rights activists had also protested the arrest of Satyam Babu, claiming that he is innocent.

Meera's parents Shamshad Begam and Iqbal Basha alleged that relatives of a then state Minister Koneru Ranga Rao were involved in the rape and murder and to mislead the investigations, Satyam Babu was arrested.

Following Friday's court order, Meera's parents said Rs.1 crore should be given compensation for Satyam Babu and demanded that the government set up a fast-track court to try and punish the real culprits.

IANS
BS-III vehicle ban: Here are the two-wheelers going cheap

India

oi-Vicky

By Vicky

The offers are raining and discounts are smashing the ceilings. Heavy discounts are being offered on BS-III vehicles as companies are trying to liquidate stocks. The Supreme Court had banned the sale and registration of such vehicles from April 1 onwards.

The SC had said that buyers can register the BS-III vehicles after April 1 2017 provided they show proof of purchase dated before April 1. The SC was told that there are over 600,000 two-wheelers, 95,000 commercial vehicles and around 30,000 three-wheelers on unsold BS-III stock lying with manufacturers and dealers.

Here is a list of the motorcycles that can be purchased dirt cheap. These vehicles can be purchased only till March 31 2017 following which sales of BS-III vehicles are banned.

Hero MotoCorp is offering discounts of up to Rs 12,500 on Duet which is priced at Rs 49,480. The Maestro Edge priced at Rs 51,030 and Glamour priced at 59,755 are also on discount. The Splendor 125 which falls under this category is priced at Rs 55,575 before discount.

Honda Motorcycle and Scooter India increased the discount up to Rs 22,000. It is offering a rebate of Rs 12,500 on its scooters and Rs 7,500 on its premium bikes and Rs 5,000 on its entry level mass market motorbikes.

Further Honda is also offering cash back of Rs 22,500 on its BS-III scooters and motorcycles models Activa 3G, Dream Yuga, CB Shine and CD 110DX.

Suzuki Motorcycle India has announced offers on its Let's scooter and Gixxer motorcycle. For the Let's a discount of Rs 4,000 has been offered while on Gixer the discount is at Rs 5,000.

Bajaj has offered discounts and free insurance on the entry level Platina to Pulsar RS200 in the range of Rs 3,000 to Rs 12,000 along with free insurance.

There is heavy discount being offered on trucks and buses as well. Discounts of up to 4 to 12 per cent are being offered. This is approximately Rs 50,000. The discounts are likely to shoot up higher by tomorrow where dealers are making a mad rush to sell the vehicles by April 1.

OneIndia News
UP ATS picks up two more accused in Al-Qaeda radicalisation case

Congress lashes out at BJP over Vande Mataram row in Meerut

India

oi-Vikas

By Vikas

With protests breaking out in the Meerut Municipal Corporation for making Vande Mataram mandatory in its meeting, the Congress on Friday said it is wrong to force someone to sing the patriotic song.

Senior Congress leader Oscar Fernandes told news agency ANI that one cannot be held guilty for not singing Vande Mataram as there is no law mandating it.

Another Congress leader P L Punia said, "I would like to say it would be wrong to force someone to sing."

The Meerut Municipal Corporation has declared that it would not let councillors unwilling to sing the patriotic song 'Vande Mataram' to attend its meetings. This led to a protest by seven corporators who cited a Supreme Court order that says singing of Vande Mataram is not mandatory.

Mayor Harikant Ahluwalia, who from BJP leader, on Tuesday passed a resolution by voice vote to make the singing mandatory for all members

Reports say that the Meerut Municipal Corporation is also mulling a proposal to terminate the membership of those councillors who do not sing the patriotic song.

During the protest, BJP councillors are said to have shouted slogans like, "Hindustan mein rehna hai to Vande Mataram kehna hoga (If you want to live in India, you have to sing Vande Mataram)."

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Story first published: Friday, March 31, 2017, 10:30 [IST]
The Worlds 50 Best Restaurants has announced the 2017 list of restaurants ranked from 51 to 100 ahead of its annual awards event, which is taking place in on Wednesday, April 5th in Melbourne. Located at the top of Istanbul's The Marmara Pera Hotel, Mikla Restaurant is ranked at 51st place by The Worlds Best Restaurants.

Opened in October 2005, Mikla is on the top two floors of The Marmara Pera Hotel located in the historic Pera region, with its outstanding view of Istanbul, including a birds eye view of the historical peninsula, the Golden Horn and the Bosphorus.

Mikla Restaurant ranked at 51st place in the World's Best Restaurants list. The 51-100 list originates from the votes of The Worlds 50 Best Restaurants Academy as part of same process that creates the 1-50 ranking. For 2017, the Academy was expanded to include 1,040 voters worldwide, with each member casting 10 votes for their best restaurants (up from 7 in 2016). Of these 10 choices, at least 4 must be for restaurants outside of the voters home region.

51-100 list includes restaurants from 24 countries across six continents and USA leads with nine restaurants.

Reflecting the breadth of the global gastronomic scene, the 2017 list includes debuts from Mexico (Sud 777, No.75), USA (Atelier Crenn, No.83), Russia (Selfie, No.88), South Korea (Mingles, No.89), Denmark (Kadeau, No.94), Japan (Sushi Saito, No. 97 and Florilege, No.99) and Brazil (Olympe, No.100).

Hisa Franko in Kobarid, Slovenia, is also among the first-time entries. Fronted by Ana Ros, named The Worlds Best Female Chef 2017, Hisa Franko emerges at No.69.

New Yorks Momofuku Ko makes the most significant climb, rising 39 places. Among the nine USA restaurants in the 51-100 list, Momofuku Ko claims the highest ranking at No.58.

William Drew, Group Editor of The Worlds 50 Best Restaurants, said: In anticipation of The Worlds 50 Best Restaurants awards ceremony in Australia on April 5th, were thrilled to share the 51-100 list. As well as showcasing emerging talent and highlighting new culinary trends, this group also features perennial favourites that demonstrate enduring quality. Overall, the list reflects of the diversity, promise and excitement surrounding global gastronomy.

See the World's 50 Best Restaurants of 2017 ranked from 51st to 100th.
Bharat Jodo Yatra will proceed to Srinagar, come what may, says Rahul Gandhi as march enters Maharashtra

More grief for Congress after 26 dump party for BJP in Himachal

Digvijaya accuses MP govt of causing loss to exchequer

India

oi-PTI

New Delhi, March 31: Congress member Digvijaya Singh on Friday accused the Madhya Pradesh government of renting 'Point of Sale' machines instead of buying them and thus causing a loss of around Rs 10 crore to the public exchequer.

Raising the issue during Question Hour, he alleged that Madhya Pradesh government has spent Rs 16.90 crore by paying rent on 22,403 POS machines installed to check malpractices and pilferage at fair price ration shops in the state.

He said if the machines would have been purchased, the state would have spent only Rs 6.71 crore instead.

"Will the central government seek a clarification from the state of Madhya Pradesh for causing Rs 10 crore loss in doing so," Singh asked.

Food and Civil Supplies Minister Ram Vilas Paswan said the Centre has to have faith in states and believe in what they do while implementing the Centre's policies.

"If all states are doing like this, then a Pandora's box will open," he said, adding that he will look into the issue.

Paswan said that 50 per cent of the cost was shared between the states and the Centre for installing POS machines at fair price ration shops.

As Singh insisted and kept on asking if the Centre would conduct a probe on this, Chairman Hamid Ansari intervened to say, "that is a matter to be dealt with in state's audit.

There is a process of audit in the country and there are audit procedures in place to take care of this."

Paswan, however, did not make a commitment of probing the matter and said states should be trusted.

According to the written reply, a sum of Rs 884 crore has been provided for the entire country to ensure that all fair price ration shops in the country have POS machines installed to stop any diverstion in subsidised ration stocks.

PTI

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Story first published: Friday, March 31, 2017, 18:25 [IST]
Naxalism is down, but it is still Indias greatest challenge: Rajnath Singh

No documents will be asked or biometric taken for NPR: Home Ministry

Wonder why home minister chose not to go to AIIMS but to private hospital: Shashi Tharoor

HM appeals to people of J-K to not be influenced by Pak forces

India

oi-Vikas

By Vikas

Expressing concern over the rising number of incidents of stone pelting on the security forces, Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh on Friday appealed to people in the valley to not be influenced by Pakistan's propaganda.

Speaking in the Lok Sabha, Singh accused the Pakistan of using the social media to mislead people and gather crowds at the encounter sites.

New trend to pelt stones on security forces during anti-terror ops, I appeal to them to not get influenced by Pak forces: HM Rajnath Singh  ANI (@ANI_news) March 31, 2017

He said India's security forces know how to deal with terrorism and would continue to do so.

On Thursday, rise in civilian casualities during operations against the terrorists in Jammu and Kashmir had prompted Director General of Police SP Vaid to appeal youngsters to stay away from the encounter sites.

[Those coming to encounter sites are 'committing suicide', says J&K DGP]

Vaid said a 'bullet does not see who it is going to hit', adding that those coming to encounter sites were 'committing suicide'.

The DGP also said that some people are misleading the youths and provoking them to reach encounter sites and pelt stones.

One terrorist and three civilians were killed in an encounter that took place at Budgam in Jammu and Kashmir on Tuesday. As the encounter began, scores of locals came out on the streets and began pelting stones at the security forces. In the clashes, two civilians were killed.

Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti has also appealed to the youth to not indulge in stone pelting. Army Chief Bipin Rawat had earlier warned civilians who prevent the army from doing its job by reaching encounter sites and said that strict action would be taken against them. OneIndia News

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Story first published: Friday, March 31, 2017, 13:19 [IST]
How India took Amazon to task over the sale of mats with Tricolour

India

oi-Vicky

By Vicky

India had taken strong exception to Amazon selling door mats and shoes with the Indian National Flag on it. External Affairs Minister, Sushma Swaraj had threatened in January to rescind the visas of Amazon employees if these products were not removed from its Canadian website.

Reuters reported that as per the documents the Indian government went a step ahead in private asking its US and Canadian embassies to raise the matter very strongly with the top officials of Amazon.

The matter was escalated to the CEO of Amazon, Jeff Bezos. A global audit was prompted to ensure that no such products are listed on any of its websites around the world.

Amazon now has Indian laws that govern the use of the National Flag and other emblems. These laws have been made as an integral part of the global compliance process. Amazon has also informed India that it has strengthened its in-house compliance units that monitor products sold by third-party vendors on its websites.

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Story first published: Friday, March 31, 2017, 8:16 [IST]
Kannur rape case: DNA test confirms that Catholic Priest fathered infant

India

oi-Anusha

Weeks after he was arrested for raping a minor and impregnating her, DNA tests have proved that Father Robin Vadakkumchery is indeed the biological father of the newborn child, media reports from Kerala said. DNA samples of the priest, the minor survivor and the child were sent to the Forensic laboratory in Thiruvananthapuram and the reports have been sent to the police.

Robin Vadakkumchery was arrested earlier this year, days after the minor rape survivor delivered an infant which led the child helpline officials to take up the matter. Reports said that while the police have refused to make the results of the test officially public, the same will be submitted to the court as evidence against the catholic priest. Sources from the police department, however, confirm that the DNA test confirms that the protest was the infant's biological father.

The Priest of Catholic Diocese of Mananthavady is accused of raping a minor who was a school student and attempting to destroy evidence of the crime. The case had become a challenge for the investigating authorities with even the parents of the survivor refusing to give a statement against the priest.

While the main accused along with others who helped him cover up the crime have been arrested, two more nuns surrendered before the police on Thursday but were let off on bail.

OneIndia News
Man rapes 8-year-old to use her blood for removing obstacles to his marriage

Kin of Kolkata flyover collapse victims demand demolition of bridge

India

ians-IANS

By Ians English

Kolkata, March 31: Over a hundred people, including family members of victims of the north Kolkata flyover collapse, participated in a series of walks on the ghastly accident's first anniversary on Friday demanding the demolition of remnants of the "murder bridge".

On March 31, 2016, around 12.30 p.m. the world came crashing down for hundreds of commuters and residents of Ganesh Talkies in north Kolkata when a 100-metre portion of the Vivekananda flyover sheared off and fell, killing 27 persons and injuring over 100 others.

Kusum Dutta, who lost her husband in the tragedy, said she trembled slightly at the sight of the structure.

"I can't erase the memory of that day. Everytime I look up, I can feel a shadow of doom overhanging the road. I don't want a repeat," Dutta said placing a candle on a small marble shrine built in the memory of the victims close to the flyover.

Her views were echoed by Abhishek who lost his parents in the accident.

"I don't want anyone to go through what I experienced. There should be strict legal action. Why is the state government quiet," asked a teary-eyed Abhishek.

The tragedy was caught in a 14-second CCTV video footage. It showed the collapse flattened vehicles and trapped over a 100 persons underneath it. The same visual was shared by many on social media on Friday.

The incident triggered a political slugfest over corruption in the then assembly poll-bound West Bengal.

Over the past one year, police have arrested engineers from Hyderabad-based construction company IVRCL -- responsible for constructing the Vivekananda flyover -- and two officials of the state-run Kolkata Metropolitan Development Authority that had been tasked with monitoring the project.

A series of ongoing scientific inspections have been conducted, but a decision on what to do with the remnant bridge is yet to be taken.

A senior official of the construction company had claimed the disaster was "an act of God" which was swiftly dismissed by engineering experts, who pointed to the lack of proper planning, delays, lacunae in design and bad tendering as the major reasons for the tragedy.

In the aftermath, citizens united under the "Flyover Hatao Abhiyaan" have repeatedly protested against letting the structure remain there in a precarious position. They have been demanding demolition of the "murder bridge".

"Our demand is that the remaining bridge should be demolished. I nearly lost my life that day (March 31, 2016) and it is traumatising to look at the rest of it," said Anil Sonkar, who had just crossed the street beneath the bridge, when it fell.

The long-delayed 2.5-km flyover was expected to tackle congestion in the Burra Bazar area -- the location of one of the largest wholesale markets in Asia -- up to Howrah station, the gateway to the city.

The flyover's foundation was laid in 2008 (during the Left Front regime) and work on the Rs 164 crore project began on February 24, 2009.

It was scheduled to be ready in 2012 but land acquisition issues delayed completion. The implementing agency too ran into financial troubles.

IANS
Last day to deposit old notes today: Here are the RBI offices which you must visit

India

oi-Vicky

By Vicky

Today is the last date to deposit demonetised or old notes in the Reserve Bank of India. While the government has said that today or March 31 would be the last day, there is confusion that has been prevailing since the rules are not clear.

From April 1 onwards those found in the possession of old notes will be liable for criminal action as per the new law of the government. Many have complained that the RBI stopped accepting old notes much before the deadline of March 31. Those Indians who were abroad between November and December 2016 have been given time by the RBI to deposit old notes. In the case of the NRIs, the deadline is June 30 2017. The facility available for NRIs and eligible resident Indians would be at the RBI offices in Delhi, Kolkata, Chennai, Nagpur and Mumbai only.

Eligible resident Indians would have no limit for exchange of old notes. In case of the NRIs they would need the custom authorities at the airport to certify the amount to be deposited.

Several complaints have been made about people not being able to deposit old notes in the RBI. The law states that if the RBI turns down your request then a representation can be made at the Central Board of the Bank within 14 days.

The minister of state for finance had said that it is the ineligible people who are responsible for the long queues outside the RBI.

The Supreme Court is seized off a matter in which a petition seeks to extend the time to deposit old notes. The SC had sought an answer from the government whether the time could be extended beyond March 31. The government had allowed citizens to deposit old notes in banks till December 30 2016. It had also allowed a window for deposit at some RBI offices.

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Story first published: Friday, March 31, 2017, 7:26 [IST]
Malaysian PMs fan moment: Selfie with Tamil superstar Rajinikanth

India

oi-Oneindia

By Oneindia Staff Writer

Chennai, March 31: Millions across the world love Tamil superstar Rajinikanth. However, the veteran actor also has several VIP fans. One is non-other than Malaysian Prime Minister Mohammad Najib Tun Razak.

The Malaysian Prime Minister, who is currently in Chennai, met Rajinikanth at his house on Friday. And like a typical fan, Razak took a selfie with Rajinikanth. Talking about his VIP guest, Rajinikanth told reporters, "I was shooting a movie in Malaysia some time ago. I could not meet him then, so I met him now."

"I was not offered to become the brand ambassador of Malaysia. These are all rumours," Rajnikanth added.

The Malaysian Prime Minister and his wife Datin Paduka Seri Rosmah Mansor landed in Chennai on Thursday as a part of their five-day-long India visit. Both the Malaysian Prime Minister and his wife are big Bollywood and Tamil movie-buffs and they are die-hard fans of Rajinikanth.

Reports say that Razak and his wife became fans of Rajinikanth after the actor shot his blockbuster film, Kabali, in Malaysia. Earlier, the Malaysian authorities had put in a request with the actor's team to fix an appointment between Rajinikanth and his VIP fan.

The Malaysian Prime Minister is scheduled to stay in Chennai for two days, after which he and his entourage will visit Delhi. Then, he will visit Delhi and meet his counterpart Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the national capital. "I'll be travelling to India for a 5-day visit. A country that's been our friend since 1957. Looking forward to meeting PM @narendramodi again," Razak tweeted.

Responding to this, PM Modi tweeted, "India is delighted to welcome you, Prime Minister. Your visit will further boost India-Malaysia ties." Modi and Razak will hold substantive talks on April 1 which are expected to cover a range of issues, particularly focusing on enhancing business ties.

OneIndia News
Mayhem in March: Heat wave across India; 5 dead due to sunstroke

India

oi-Oneindia

By Oneindia Staff Writer

New Delhi, March 31: Imagine, we are yet to welcome April and the entire nation is in the grip of a heat wave. Temperature in several states like Odisha, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and Gujarat have touched above 40 degrees Celsius. According to reports, five persons have died of sunstroke in Maharashtra on Thursday.

The Indian Meteorological Department on Thursday has issued warning of a heat wave in several parts of the country for the next 48 hours.

"Hot conditions, including heat waves, are likely to continue till Saturday (April 1), after which temperatures may drop by a degree or two," M Mohapatra, DGM of IMD's National Weather Forecasting Centre, said.

The IMD issued heat wave warnings for Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Maharashtra, south Uttar Pradesh, south Haryana, Chandigarh and interior Odisha. On Tuesday, because of its high temperature, Bhira became the second hottest place in the world.

Maharashtra's Bhira town recorded a searing 46.5 degrees Celsius on Tuesday.

As per the IMD, many districts in Maharashtra recorded maximum temperatures of 40 degrees Celsius or above in the last two days. "The Health Ministry has issued instructions to all the state-run hospitals to open centres for sunstroke patients. Government-run hospitals, primary health centres and district health officers have been categorically asked to sensitise people about heat therapy' and avoiding exposure to the scorching sun," said Maharashtra health minister Deepak Sawant.

In Maharashtra, Akola recorded 44.1 degrees Celsius and Wardha, Nagpur and Chandrapur have recorded 43 degrees on Thursday.

Several parts of India are witnessing record temperatures at the beginning of summer. Barmer in Rajasthan recorded a high of 43.4 degrees Celsius while Narnaul in Haryana sizzled at 42 degrees, nine degrees above normal. The temperature in Ludhiana in Punjab is seven degrees above normal.

In Uttar Pradesh, the maximum temperature crossed 40 degrees in Varanasi, Allahabad, Hamirpur and Agra. It is the hottest day of the year yet in Delhi, with the temperature six degrees above normal at 38.2 degrees Celsius.

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Story first published: Friday, March 31, 2017, 9:32 [IST]
Modi govt has not responded, DMK on plight of protesting Tamil farmers

India

oi-Oneindia

By Oneindia Staff Writer

New Delhi, March 31: It has been 18 days since a group of farmers from drought-hit Tamil Nadu are protesting at Jantar Mantar in the national capital. These 80-odd farmers from Tamil Nadu are demanding financial relief as they have lost their crops and savings in the ongoing drought in the state. The peaceful agitation has brought a lot of attention as the farmers are protesting with skulls.

Apart from regular media attention, because of the unique way of their protest, a couple of film personalities, including Prakash Raj, and leaders of ruling All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagham in Tamil Nadu met the farmers at the protesting site.

However, till date none from the Centre met these farmers. On Friday, Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam Member of Parliamnet Kanimozhi met these farmers and attacked the Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led government at the Centre for ignoring the plight of the drought-hit poor farmers.

"They are protesting for more than 18 days demanding loan waiver. Crops have dried and there is no water. Tamil Nadu has not seen such a drought. The Central Government has not responded so far. The farmers are not being assured from the Centre," Kanimozhi told reporters.

The skulls are the remains of Tamil farmers who committed suicide due to severe drought in the state, say protesters. There are at least eight skulls at the protest site, reminding onlookers how drought forced several farmers in Tamil Nadu to commit suicide as they failed to pay back their loans taken from the banks and private money lenders.

According to an estimate, the crisis in the agriculture sector in Tamil Nadu has reached a mammoth proportion. Since October last year, every day, two farmers are committing suicide in the state, say reports.

The protesters clad in green dhotis and white shirts look distraught and tired as their agitation is continuing for the last 18 days. But they are adamant to sit in dharna till all their demands are met by the Centre.

Speaking to reporters, an elderly farmer said, "Our main demand is financial relief. We also want our loans to be waived off as we have lost all our crops and savings in the drought."

"We are going to continue the protest indefinitely until the Centre fulfils all our demands. The state government has sought Rs 39,565 crore as drought relief from the National Disaster Response Fund. But the central team has recommended a paltry sum of Rs 2,096.80 crore as drought relief. It is grossly inadequate. The state has witnessed an unprecedented drought in the last 150 years and the whole state has been declared drought-hit," South Indian Rivers Inter-Linking Farmers Association president P Ayyakannu who is leading the protest, said.

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Story first published: Friday, March 31, 2017, 13:24 [IST]
Muzaffarnagar: Warden humiliates, strips 70 girls naked

India

oi-Anusha

The warden of a residential school in Muzaffarnagar allegedly stripped 70 girls naked to 'check for menstrual blood' sparking outrage. The girls and their families have accused the warden of subjecting the students to humiliation. The families have now demanded action against the woman warden.

Students of Kasturba Gandhi Girls Residential School told the media that the warden rounded them up and ordered them to strip. They also claimed that she threatened to thrash them if they disobeyed.

"Some blood was found in the bathroom. The warden ordered us to remove our clothes. It was very humiliating for all of us. We want action against her," said one of the students. Following the protests by the students and their families, the warden was suspended.

The woman, however, denied the incident and said that her actions stemmed out of concern. "What the students are alleging never happened. Some blood was found on the floor and wall of the bathroom. I only wanted to check if everything was all right with the girls. Such young girls are sometimes unable to express what problems they are facing and I only asked them if anything was wrong," she said.

The warden also alleged that her strict nature made the students dislike her and they were being provoked by other staff to make allegations against her. The education department officials have ordered an inquiry into the matter.

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Story first published: Friday, March 31, 2017, 12:44 [IST]
Naxalites did it says NIA probing Kuneru train accident in AP

India

oi-Vicky

By Vicky

The First Information Report registered by the NIA in connection with the Kuneru rail accident in Andhra Pradesh points to the role of naxalites. While this is not conclusive, the NIA says that all angles are being explored. The area in which the accident had taken place is naxal prone and hence this angle is being probed, NIA officials also said.

On January 22 a train derailed at Kuneru in AP following which over 40 people had been killed. An initial assessment of the accident suggested that the accident could have taken place due to a problem on the track. However further investigations pointed to sabotage.

The centre had said that the accident was suspected to be the handiwork of Left Wing Extremists while handing over the probe to the NIA which is also probing other train accidents.

Hirakhand Express derailment: NIA scanner now on naxalites

NIA officials say that naxalites targeting trains is not new. In 2010, naxalites had removed the fish plates on the track as a result of which a goods train crashed into the Gyaneshwari Express in which 100 people were killed. The incident took place near Jhargam in West Bengal. In 2005 Naxalites had looted a train Kuneru. Three security personnel were killed in that incident before the Naxals looted Rs 15 lakh from a train.

The NIA has booked a case against Left-wing extremists under Section 150 of the Railways Act. A case under Sections 16 and 18 of the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act too has been booked.

Kuneru, where the accident occurred is situated in Komrada Mandal of Vizianagaram district, 10 kilometres away from the Andhra-Odisha border. The area is known for Naxal activitiy. Intelligence Bureau officials had pointed out at the time of the accident that there was no Naxal activity in this zone for the past year. However officials also did not rule out the return of such activity.

NIA officials suspect that Naxalites may have tampered with the track to cause the derailment. There was a 15-inch gap on the track that had led to the derailment. Apart from probing the possible involvement of Naxals, a probe to find out if the track had been damaged due to rust is also being conducted.

It may be recalled that following a probe by the Bihar police, it was suspected a module of the ISI was behind train accidents in India. It was learnt by the Bihar police that the Kanpur Express derailment was the handiwork of an ISI module that gave orders from Nepal. Even the Kuneru incident was suspected to be the handiwork of the ISI. However, now the NIA feels that it may have been the doing of the Naxalites.

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Story first published: Friday, March 31, 2017, 8:54 [IST]
No attack on Kenyan student: Woman withdraws complaint

India

oi-Madhuri

Kenyan woman who was identified as Maria Burendi on Thursday withdrew her complaint after several loopholes were found in her statement.

According to the Nigerian Citizen Welfare Association, the woman was under distress due to personal issues and that she cooked up this story. They further apologised to the police and people.

Charles Kennedy, vice-president, Nigerian Citizen's Welfare Association said, "We investigated the matter later in the evening, and found that the woman was under distress due to personal issues. She had cooked up this story and we would like to offer our apologies to the police and people".

Maria Burendi had claimed to be assaulted by locals in Greater Noida on Wednesday. However, the Uttar Pradesh Police refuted her claims and said that all the electronic evidence proves that she lied about the assault.

The cab driver who was taken for interrogation said that the woman was drinking in the car. The cab driver had dropped her safely at her location and denied any attack on her.

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Story first published: Friday, March 31, 2017, 11:11 [IST]
No end to confusion outside RBI as people queue up to exchange old notes

India

oi-Vicky

By Vicky

People have been waiting in queues since 4 am at the Reserve Bank of India offices to exchange demonetised currency, but a majority of them have been turned today. Today, March 31, Friday is the last date to deposit demonetised currency and many have wondered why they have been turned away at the RBI offices.

There is confusion and chaos outside the RBI offices. At Delhi, the chaos was the highest. The government had said that domicile residents who were outside the country between the demonetisation period of November 8 and December 30 2016 were eligible to exchange old currency. The deadline was extended to them till March 31. In the case of Non-Resident Indians the deadline was extended to June 30. However people falling both these categories have not been allowed to exchange the notes. Instead they have been allowed to deposit the cash into their accounts.

Delhi: People queue outside Reserve Bank of India as deadline for exchange of demonetised notes ends today pic.twitter.com/r2c526n44l  ANI (@ANI_news) March 31, 2017

Many have alleged that the RBI had not been clear about the norms. Many were turned away due to want of documentation. For instance those who were outside the country were not aware that they had to get a letter stamped by the customs that the money was brought from abroad. Several such persons landed up at the RBI offices with documents to prove that they were outside India during the demonetisation period. However they were unaware that they needed a letter from the customs as well.

For all those people who have failed to exchange their notes, hope lies for them with the Supreme Court. A batch of petitions are currently being heard in which the actions of the RBI have come under question. It is alleged that despite the government saying that old notes could be exchanged at the RBI till March 31, the RBI was not allowing the same.

OneIndia News
No relief for Himachal CM Virbhadra Singh in DA case

India

oi-Madhuri

The Delhi High Court on Friday dismissed Himachal Pradesh CM Virbhadra Singh's plea challenging CBI's FIR against him in disproportionate assets case.

Virbhadra and his wife Pratibha Singh have claimed in their plea that there was no order, direction or judgment by any court that had authorised the CBI to inquire, investigate or register regular cases and exercise jurisdiction in the territory of Himachal Pradesh.

Singh had already got an interim order from the Himachal Pradesh High Court on October 1, 2015 restraining CBI from arresting, interrogating or filing a charge sheet in the case without the court's permission.

Singh has sought directions from the court to quash the FIR registered against him and his wife under Sections 13(2) and 13(1)(e) of the Prevention of Corruption Act and Section 109 of IPC by the CBI on September 23, 2015 here and urged the court to summon records of the preliminary inquiry and the FIR.

OneIndia News (with inoputs from agencies)
Now, Engineering institutes includes 'transgender' column

India

oi-Madhuri

The admissions in engineering institutes will now have transgender as third gender as a separate column, besides male and female, from the 2017-18 academic year.

The All India Council for Technical Education has notified transgenders as the third gender to enable them to avail all the benefits in engineering institutes. The AICTE included this new column for educational institutions in its 2017-18 approval process handbook, which prescribes norms and standards for grant of approvals to technical institutions. And this has to be introduced in every engineering institutes. There are more than 3,000 registered engineering institutes under the AICTE.

Anil Sahasrabudhe, AICTE chairman, said that the core objective of admitting transgender students to pursue technical courses will make it easier for them as they will face no discrimination since they are forced to identify themselves as either male or female.

A senior official said that they had earlier talks with the HRD ministry regarding this and now they have included it in the approval handbook so that there is no discrimination to the transgenders. All the institute now have to maintain data of male, female and transgender students separately.

Also, the University Grants Commission (UGC) has taken several steps to address the various issues and problems faced by the transgender community in higher educational institutions.

In 2014, the Supreme Court said that the third gender will be considered as the OBC, directing the government to provide them with education and employment reservation under this category.

OneIndia News
'PM gives debt relief to the rich but not farmers', Rahul Gandhi at Jantar Mantar

India

oi-Anusha

Vice president of AICC, Rahul Gandhi met agitating farmers from Tamilnadu at Jantar Mantar on Friday. Accepting a green shawl handed over by the protesting farmers, Rahul Gandhi sat with the agitators who displayed skulls of other farmers who committed suicide due to debts. Accusing the government of failing the poor of the country, Rahul Gandhi questioned relief offered to the rich and influential.

"Neither the Indian government nor the Prime Minister hears their voices. It is the Prime Minister's responsibility to hear them out," he said. Accusing the government of being anti-poor and anti-farmer, Rahul Gandhi asked why relief could not be extended to the agitating farmers when the rich of the country were extended loan waivers. "The Prime Minister has given debt relief to the richest of the country, why not for the farmers who have built this country?" he asked.

Earlier in the day, DMK MP Kanimozhi also joined the protests in solidarity with the farmers. Farmers from Tamil Nadu have been protesting with skulls for almost three weeks demanding loan waiver from nationalised banks and apt drought relief from the centre. Many attempts to pacify the protesters have yielded no results. More farmers from the state are expected to join protests while students back in Tamil Nadu have also taken to protests to extend their support to the farming community.

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Story first published: Friday, March 31, 2017, 14:51 [IST]
No comment on Pranab Mukherjee book before reading it: Former Union Minister

After controversial excerpt, Pranab Mukherjees family feuds over his memoirs

PM Modi did not discuss demonetisation: Pranab Mukherjee in memoir

Pranab memoirs: PM Modi must speak more often in Parliament

Pranab Mukherjee inaugurates Namami Brahmaputra festival in Assam

India

ians-IANS

By Ians English

Guwahati, March 31: President Pranab Mukherjee on Friday inaugurated a five-day Namami Brahmaputra river festival here in Assam and suggested that the state government make it a regular event.

Mukherjee inaugurated the programme by lighting a ceremonial lamp at the Kachamari Ghat near Fancy Bazar in Guwahati.

"Assam is emerging as an economic hub of East India and South East Asia, which is an important destination for India's investment and trade. India will soon celebrate 25 years of its association with Asean," the President said.

Terming Assam rich in natural resources and its people hard working, the President said a "strong drive, right policies and effective implementation" was needed.

Referring to the diverse and distinctive culture of Assam, Mukherjee said India's strength was its ability to manage diversity and forge unity.

Inauguration ceremony Bhutan's Prime Minister Tshering Tobgay also participated in the inauguration ceremony besides Assam Governor Banwarilal Purohit, Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal and senior Assam ministers. Photo credit: PTI. Assam's culture to be showcased Assam's culture, heritage, history, music, food, tourism potential and other aspects would be showcased during the festival which will continue till April 4. Photo credit: PTI Namami Brahmaputra is an annual festival President complimented the state government for having started "Namami Brahmaputra" as an annual festival to showcase Assam's culture as well as potential. Photo credit: PTI Brahmaputra River is the lifeline of Assam The President said the Brahmaputra River is the lifeline of Assam and the region. It was intertwined into the economy, culture and day-to-day life of the people. Photo credit: PTI Priests offering Arati Priests offering Arati during opening ceremony of Namami Brahmaputra River Festival at Rajaduar Ghat in Guwahati, Assam. Photo credit: PTI



IANS
R K Nagar bypoll: EC transfers poll and police officers

India

oi-Anusha

The Election commission of India has asked for two police officers and two poll officials ahead of bypoll in R K Nagar constituency. Following complaints of officials acting in favour of specific parties, the EC has asked for four officials to be transferred with immediate effect.

Ramesh Babu and N Balakrishna Prabhu, both inspectors of police along with Tahsildar M Sekar who is also the assistant returning officer and Vijayakumar, the electoral registration officer have been transferred ahead of the bypoll. The election commission claimed that the transfers were being made to ensure free and fair polling in the bypoll. The election commission had earlier transferred Chennai police Commissioner George following a complaint by the DMK.

Meanwhile, the election commission has appointed five observers for the bypoll, the highest in the country's electoral history. Following complaints by parties, including the DMK and the CPI(M), of money being distributed to the voters, the EC had appointed two Special Observers to monitor expenditure in addition to the three deployed earlier.

More than a dozen Income Tax officials have been assigned to look into complaints of money distribution. Deputy Election Commissioner, Umesh Sinha who held a meeting on Thursday directed deputation of two IAS and IPS officers on night rounds in the constituency, deploying micro-observers in all the 256 polling stations and webcasting in all the booths. There are more than 25 flying squads and static surveillance teams.

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Story first published: Friday, March 31, 2017, 14:36 [IST]
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

Rajnath, Jaitley discuss militancy, youth protests in JK

India

oi-PTI

New Delhi, March 31: Militancy and protests by locals at encounter sites in Jammu and Kashmir came up for intense discussions at a high-level meeting chaired by Home Minister Rajnath Singh and attended by Defence and Finance Minister Arun Jaitley besides others.

During the hour-long meeting, top intelligence brass gave presentation on the prevailing situation in the state, which has seen spurt in militancy-related incidents in the past, and how to deal with it, official sources said.

Protests by locals at encounter sites, radicalisation of youths are other key issues which were deliberated at the meeting, also attended by National Security Advisor Ajit Doval, Union Home Secretary Rajiv Mehrishi.

The meeting took stock of Pakistan's attempt of using social media to incite youths in Kashmir Valley to storm encounter sites to help holed-up militants.

Director General of Jammu and Kashmir Police S P Vaid yesterday had said youths who storm the encounter sites in the Valley to hurl stones at security personnel are committing suicide.

Last month, Army Chief General Bipin Rawat had said that local Kashmiri people creating hurdles by throwing stones at the security personnel during anti-terror operations will be dealt as anti-nationals and will face "harsh" actions.

The Rs 80,000-crore package for Jammu and Kashmir announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in November 2015 also came up for discussion and the two Ministers expressed satisfaction over the progress of work in this regard.

So far Rs 17,000 crore has been released to the state government by the Centre as the first instalment of the package.

PTI

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Story first published: Saturday, April 1, 2017, 2:34 [IST]
RK Nagar bypoll: TTV Dinakaran supporter arrested for bribing voters

India

oi-Anusha

The Chennai police on Friday arrested a man for distributing money to voters of R K Nagar constituency. The man identified as Karunamurthy is said to belong to AIADMK Amma faction. Karunamurthy was detained for violating the model code of conduct.

The TTV Dinakaran supporter was caught red-handed while distributing money to voters while campaigning for the AIADMK Amma faction's candidate. The arrest comes days after both factions of the AIADMK filed complaints with the election commission that voters were being bribed by either party. Karunamurthy has been remanded to judicial custody till April 13.

With multiple complaints of money being used to woo voters in the constituency, the election commission has appointed a record number of five observers.

OneIndia News
Saseendran 'sleaze talk' was a sting op, channel apologies

India

oi-Anusha

A Malayalam channel that aired the audio clipping of former minister Saseendran's lewd conversation, confessed that it was a sting operation and offered an unconditional apology. The channel's CEO Ajithkumar's apology was telecast on Thursday night. Mangalam channel also claimed that it was a 'mistake' and would not be repeated again. The audio clipping that was made public led to the resignation of Saseendran who was the transport minister.

The CEO while offering the apology said that an eight-member team was involved in the sting operation where a woman journalist of the channel had "voluntarily" come forward to trap the minister. The apology came a day after a former employee took to Facebook to criticise the channel for unethical behaviour. The police had also started tracking the woman with who the minister is said to have had the inappropriate conversation.

NCP wants Saseendran back in cabinet

Saseendran who returned to his home town on Thursday was accorded a hero's welcome. The former transport minister had resigned from his post on moral grounds after the audio controversy broke out. While the NCP had been pushing Thomas Chandy to be appointed as the transport minister, the channel's confession has changed their plans. They have now demanded that Saseendran be reinstated as a cabinet minister.

OneIndia News
SC refuses early hearing into Ramjanmabhoomi case

India

oi-Vicky

By Vicky

The Supreme Court on Friday refused to hear the Ram Janmabhoomi matter early. The submission was made by senior BJP leader and Rajya Sabha MP, Subramanian Swamy.

The Bench while hearing the submission said that it did not have the time right now to hear the matter. The Bench also refused to fix a date for the hearing. Swamy had sought an early hearing into the matter concerning the title suits of Ramjanmabhoomi and Babri Masjid.

It may be recalled that on the last date of hearing, the Supreme Court had suggested both parties to go in for an out of court settlement. It had advised the parties that the matter should be sorted out through negotiations. Further the court had also said that a judge of the Supreme Court could mediate between the two parties.

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Story first published: Friday, March 31, 2017, 11:55 [IST]
Sena MP Gaikwads SLAPGATE effect: BJP MP Gaikwad faces discrimination at airports

India

oi-Oneindia

By Oneindia Staff Writer

Mumbai, March 31: Sharing the same name or surname could court trouble at times. This has been proven right as Bharatiya Janata Party Member of Parliament Sunil Baliram Gaikwad alleges that he has been facing 'discrimination' at airports because of his surname--Gaikwad.

The BJP MP from Latur, Maharashtra, alleged that he was repeatedly being stopped at airports because of his surname. "I was stopped at security points at the airport repeatedly because of my surname and as I am an MP," said Sunil Gaikwad. "I have conveyed this to Minister Jayant Sinha. Is having the Gaikwad surname a crime?" asked the BJP MP.

The BJP MP is courting trouble at airports in the aftermath of an assault on an Air India official by Shiv Sena MP Ravindra Gaikwad. The Shiv Sena MP has been barred from flying by various airlines, including AI, after the assault case was reported against him.

Perhaps the authorities at airports mistook the BJP MP as the Sena MP because both of them share the same surname and are MPs too. Clearly, it's a case of mistaken identity that is giving some serious trouble to the BJP MP for no fault of his own.

Although two FIRs have been filed against Sena leader Gaikwad by AI, till now he is free. After several days of the incident, Gaikwad recently revealed that he had slapped the AI official as his 'victim' was abusing Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

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Story first published: Friday, March 31, 2017, 8:39 [IST]
Santa Claus goes down on knees in busy shopping mall to salute a World War II veteran

Soldier found dead on LoC

India

ians-IANS

By Ians English

Jammu, March 31: A soldier was killed on Friday in a mysterious incident of firing on the Line of Control in Jammu and Kashmir's Poonch district.

Police sources said Sepoy Kulwant Singh was found dead with a bullet wound in Balakot sector in the morning.

"It is not known whether the soldier's death was a suicide or due to firing from across the LoC," an official said.

The LoC divides Jammu and Kashmir between India and Pakistan.

IANS
Take money from Congress but vote for BJP: Eshwarappa's golden advise

India

oi-Vicky

By Vicky

BJP leader K S Eshwarappa had an interesting piece of advise. Take money from the Congress, but vote for the BJP, he suggested to voters in Karnataka. He made the statement while alleging that the Congress is distributing Rs 4,000 each per vote.

The statements were made during an election rally where the BJP is locked in a tough fight with the Congress at the Gundlupet assembly constituency. Eshwarappa who is also the leader of opposition in the Karnataka Legislative Council alleged that Congress minister D K Shivakumar is distributing Rs 4,000 per vote. Voters must take the money, but vote for the BJP instead he said.

He also took a dig at the Chief Minister of Karnataka, Siddaramaiah and called him an expert in spinning lies. If there is a Nobel Prize for the best liar, it should go to Siddaramaiah he said.

He expressed confidence that the BJP would emerge victorious in the by-polls being held at Gundlupet and Nanjangud. He said that the BJP was also certain of a victory in the forthcoming assembly elections to be held in 2018.

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Story first published: Friday, March 31, 2017, 8:35 [IST]
Why the bungalow on 6 Kalidas Marg in Lucknow spooks ministers

India

oi-Vicky

By Vicky

6 Kalidas Marg in Lucknow Uttar Pradesh is a coveted bungalow thanks to its proximity to the Chief Minister's official residence. However there are no takers for this bungalow today as legend has it that none who have occupied this house have had their share of good luck.

It has fallen upon bad days many in the government circles of UP say. This was a bungalow that was occupied by the person who held the number 2 position in the government. It is the bungalow next to the CM's residence and any minister would like to be close to the head of government.

The likes of Amar SIngh, Babu Singh Khushwaha among others have occupied this bungalow. However luck has not been kind of any of them. Around 20 years back this residence was occupied by officials before it was turned into an official minister's residence.

Bad luck of mere co-incidence let us take a look at why none want to occupy this bungalow. Khushwaha a minister in the BSP led government had occupied this house, but ended up in jail in the National Rural Health Mission scam.

Amar Singh who also resided here went to jail in the cash-for-vote scam. Another resident of this house, Waqar Ahmed Shah slipped into coma and is in hospital for the past five years. A former minister Rajendra Chaudhary vacated this bungalow after he lost three important portfolios.

Lady luck has not been too kind on the bureaucrats too who have lived in the bungalow. Former chief secretary Neera Yadav was jailed in the Noida plot scam. Another bureaucrat, Pradeep Shukla went to jail in the NRHM scam. Former chairman of the UP pollution control board Javed Abdi who lived in this house was dismissed from his post.

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Story first published: Friday, March 31, 2017, 8:46 [IST]
Yogi, Mulayams son Prateek bonhomie over cow and stray animals

India

oi-Oneindia

By Oneindia Staff Writer

Lucknow, March 31: If reports are to be believed the new chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, Adityanath Yogi, is all set to meet Samajwadi Party patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav's son Prateek and his wife Aparna on Friday.

According to News18, the chief minister will visit Kanha Upvan, a shelter home for cows and stray animals run by Prateek and his wife Aparna on Friday. Prateek is the second son of Mulayam. He is the step-brother of former chief minister of Uttar Pradesh Akhilesh Yadav.

Recently, Prateek and Aparna went and met Yogi at the VVIP Guest House after he was sworn-in as the chief minister of the state. During the brief meeting between the chief minister and the couple, the latter gifted the state head a bouquet of flowers.

However, the regular meeting between the members of Samajwadi Party and the Bharatiya Janata Party's top man in Uttar Pradesh is raising several eyebrows. Although, Prateek had earlier said that he was not interested in joining politics, sources indicated that his mother want Prateek to take active interest in politics.

Prateek's wife Aparna contested the recent assembly polls as a Samajwadi Party candidate from the Lucknow Cantonment constituency. But she lost the elections with a huge margin.

While Akhilesh has been critical about the BJP, his younger brother and his wife want to break the bridges between the rival camps. Or, is it something more than meets the eye?

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Story first published: Friday, March 31, 2017, 10:40 [IST]
12-year-old Indian in Guinness World Record for identifying most aeroplane tails in UAE

Watch: Four Indian women racially abused in Texas in most horrific manner

Indian student beaten up in Poland

International

ians-IANS

By Ians English

Warsaw, April 1: An Indian student was beaten up on a tram in Poland in an apparent racist attack. The Indian government said it is enquiring into all aspects of the incident.

External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj asked Indian ambassador in Poland Ajay Bisaria for a report after an Indian, Amit Agnihotri, tagged her and the ministry to a media report that said an Indian student was beaten to death in Poznan city of Poland.

Sushma Swaraj tweeted: "There was an incident of beating. Fortunately, he has survived. We are inquiring into all aspects of the incident."

There was an incident of beating. Fortunately, he has survived. We are inquiring into all aspects of the incident. https://t.co/uO9hJ171aB  Sushma Swaraj (@SushmaSwaraj) March 31, 2017

Earlier, she tweeted: "I have just spoken to the Indian Ambassador in Poland and asked for a report. @IndiaPoland"

I have just spoken to the Indian Ambassador in Poland and asked for a report. @IndiaPoland https://t.co/tywhkJFSPq  Sushma Swaraj (@SushmaSwaraj) March 31, 2017

The Indian envoy replied: "Prelim enquiry suggests student attacked in Poznan tram on Wednesday. Thank God, he survived. Getting details."

Agnihotri then posted: "Racist issue similar to USA, the person shouted at him and then start hitting."

IANS
Imran Khan discharged from hospital, to resume long march from same point where he was shot

This cop from Pakistan became a millionaire overnight: Here is how

Pakistan: 22 killed in blast outside Shia Mosque

International

oi-Vikas

By Vikas

At least 22 people were killed and over 50 wounded in a powerful blast outside an imambargah at a market in Parachinar area of Pakistan on Friday.

According to reports, the blast took place as people started gathering for Friday prayer near the entrance of a Shia mosque in central bazaar.

DAWN quoted government administrator Zahid Hussain as saying that Shias were the target of the blast, which took place 250 kilometers from Peshawar.

An emergency has been declared in all hospitals of the city while the blast site has been cordoned off by the forces. The army has been pressed into service for evacuation of the injured.

No one has claimed the responsibility for the blast so far.

In January this year, at least 25 people were killed and 65 others were injured in a blast in Kurram Agency's Parachinar area.

The January attack was claimed by Lashkar-i-Jhangvi al-Alami along with Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan splinter Shehryar Mehsud.

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Story first published: Friday, March 31, 2017, 14:18 [IST]
Trump describes upcoming meeting with Chinese President as 'difficult'

International

ians-IANS

By Ians English

Washington, March 31: The US President Donald Trump predicted a 'very difficult' meeting with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping, whom he has invited to his mansion in Florida in early April.

"The meeting next week with China will be a very difficult one in that we can no longer have massive trade deficits and job losses. American companies must be prepared to look at other alternatives," Donald Trump said in two Twitter messages.

The meeting agenda will have a strong economic and commercial nature, Xinhua news agency reported on Friday.

During his campaign and also as President, Trump has blamed China -- in addition to Mexico -- for the US trade deficit and job losses due to offshore outsourcing, a trend that he has promised to change.

However, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lu Kang said that '40 per cent of China's trade surplus with the United States came from US companies in China'.

Lu also argued that bilateral trade has created 2.6 million jobs in the US and said the two countries 'are highly complementary'.

IANS
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An explosion in a mainly Shiite area of Pakistan's northwestern tribal belt has killed at least 22 people and wounded dozens of others, reports say.

Government administrator Zahid Hussain said the March 31 blast was caused by a bomb that exploded near a Shiite mosque in the city's central market.

Eyewitnesses said up to eight people died in the blast in Parachinar, the capital of the Kurram tribal district on the Afghan border.

No group has yet claimed responsibility for the bombing, which comes after a January 21 bomb explosion in Parachinar killed 24 people and wounded dozens of others.

The Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility for that attack.

Parachinar is the capital of the Kurram tribal district on the Afghan border. The area is known for sectarian clashes between Sunnis and Shi'a, who make up around 20 percent of Pakistan's population of 200 million.

With reporting by AP and Reuters
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Habanero, a leading online casino games developer, has started 2017 with plenty of promise. The company reported strong growth of late and revenues are up, on average 15% (M-o-M). As one of the leading gaming suppliers in the Asian markets, Habanero is now looking west to Europe for further expansion. To date, Habanero has inked several deals with European clients including iSoftBet (a content aggregator), platform, SKS365 in Austria, and planetwin365.

Habanero has successfully developed new sales growth while pursuing organic growth with its existing client base. The company has been actively pursuing its strategic expansion plans which are now coming into line with its profitability objectives. The head of corporate communications, Toni Karapetrov alluded to the positive start to 2017, and he relayed top-management's satisfaction with the new deals signed by Habanero. The company's game offerings are fully compatible with a range of desktop, tablet and mobile products.

Strong Growth in Asia Expected to Continue in Europe

Habanero Systems features an impressive portfolio of online casino games, with some 130+ titles already available. The company caters to 140 sites globally with Asian and European language support encompassing 21 languages. As one of the foremost online casino games suppliers, Habanero is confident that it can successfully export its brand to Europe in 2017. Some of the most popular online casino games available at Habanero include Roman Empire, Koi Gate, Fenghuang and Jugglenaut.
Bailey McCann, Opalesque New York: With Article 50 officially triggered, market observers are keeping a close eye on how the Anglo economies will weather their divorce from the European Union. After the Brexit vote, there were some initial questions about whether banks in Britain would pull back or decamp entirely to nearby EU member states. While some staffing changes are in the cards, one alternative lender in London - Omni Secured Lending - the private debt arm of Omni Partners, says banks haven't stopped lending. They expect local activity will stay strong barring some big Brexit surprise. "Just after the vote we were concerned that banks would retrench and smaller loans would be the first to go," says Elissa Kluever, Partner, Credit and Lending Funds at Omni Partners. In addition to its event driven hedge fund, Omni has approximately $500 million in two vintages of direct lending funds. The firm's strategy focuses on making smaller market UK real estate loans. Loans typically fund refurbishment projects or the acquisition of buy-to-let, or other investment properties. Because of the nature of these loans, they tend to be short-term and borrowers typically repay within several months after refinancing through a traditional bank. In the UK's overheated real estate market, these short term loans enable landlords and single-property developers to update apartments or transform unused office space into living spaces quickly. However, local banks and b...................... To view our full article Click here
Opalesque Industry Update - PIMCO, a leading global investment management firm, has hired Gregory Hall as Managing Director, Head of Private Strategies. In his new role, Hall will manage PIMCO's private strategies, which include a number of real estate, distressed, opportunistic and credit strategies in private equity vehicles. He will work with the firm's senior leadership in the portfolio, product and client management groups to identify investment opportunities and solutions which serve the needs of PIMCO clients. Mr. Hall will start May 1. He will split his time between PIMCO's Newport Beach and New York offices. Emmanuel Roman, PIMCO's Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director said: "Greg is an exceptional executive who is a tremendous addition to PIMCO's outstanding team of product managers, portfolio managers, analysts and others focused on our private strategies. His leadership skills and industry expertise will be invaluable as PIMCO continues to capitalize on opportunities for investors who are increasingly looking for expertise in private strategies to meet their investment goals." Hall has 18 years of investment experience and was most recently at The Blackstone Group, where he played a leadership role in the development of several investment businesses, each of which focused on identifying highly-skilled portfolio managers and helping them to achieve their investment, organizational, and commercial ambitions. Over the last year, PIMCO has hired more than 210 new employees including more than 40 investment professionals across private strategies, client analytics, emerging markets, mortgages, real estate and macroeconomics. The firm will continue to hire the best talent globally in the investment management industry.
Country Decor Fever Has Made It To Rhode Island

Handmade Country Wreath

The popularity of country decor in homes has steadily been growing across the United States. People are infatuated with the welcoming look of country and farmhouse decor. No longer do you find it just in country homes either! People living in apartment houses in major cities are following this latest interior decorating craze.To keep up with this craze, Lil Touch Of Homemade has opened a store inside the Bargain City Galleria.In the near future we plan to include products from local craftsman. Co-Owner Domenic Marchetti said Our goal is to become a central hub that customers can visit to find a variety of handmade crafts.In addition to their physical store, they have an online store and blog you can find at liltouchofhomemade.com.Lil Touch Of Homemade is a Mom & Son owned store with a strong focus on handmade country decor products. We provide a convenient place to shop for all the great items to help people complete the perfect farmhouse look.Lil Touch Of Homemade28 Church StWest Warwick, RI 02893Domenic Marchetti
Brazil 3PL Market: Governments Push on Infrastructure Development Stokes Growth

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Demand for Cards and Payments in Switzerland to Gain Traction as Consumers Shop More from Overseas Retailers

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"The Report The Cards and Payments Industry in Switzerland: Emerging Trends and Opportunities to 2020 provides information on pricing, market analysis, shares, forecast, and company profiles for key industry participants. - MarketResearchReports.biz"MarketResearchReports.biz has announced the addition of a report, titled, The Cards And Payments Industry In Switzerland: Emerging Trends And Opportunities To 2020 to its offering. The 54-page report deals with the recent trends in the cards and payments market of Switzerland. Volumes and values for check payments, credit transfers, direct debits, and payment cards between 2011 and 2015 are also revealed.View Report @The growing popularity of ecommerce is a major catalyst of the market for cards and payments in Switzerland. As more number of Swiss online shoppers buy clothing, shoes, food, and consumer electronics, the market will witness considerable opportunities. Furthermore, a majority of these shoppers use invoice payments, credit card payments, and payments via PayPal. Therefore, the growing use of card payments is likely to have a positive impact on the growth of the market.The reduction of interchange fees of MasterCard and Visa credit cards is a key trend that is likely to induce growth. Under the new regulation of the Swiss Competition Commission (Comco), the interchange fee has been reduced from 0.95% to 0.75% in August 2015. This fee is expected to be further reduced to 0.44% by August 2017. Although the reduction of interchange fee will benefit card holders, the profitability of card issuers will be reduced.Another key trend in the Swiss market for cards and payments is the adoption of alternative payment modes such as Sofort and PayPal due to a plethora of available options. Introduction of new payment solutions, a key business strategy of market players, will take the competition among vendors to the next level.Get Sample Copy Of This Report @For instance, in February 2017, the WIR Bank launched a new payment service for medium and small enterprises, wherein the card holders can make payments to merchants who are not customers of the WIR Bank. The features of the existing WIRcard and those of the internationally valid Visa V Pay debit card have been combined in this new service. This development is expected to have a significant impact on the market because Swiss consumers are increasingly spending more from foreign ecommerce websites, finds a new study.The espousal of contactless technology is gaining traction amongst Swiss consumers recently. The findings of the Swiss National Bank suggest that the number of contactless cards in 2015 was 7.1 million. This figure is projected to double by the end of 2020, with greater popularity of contactless cards promoted by card issuers and banks. Almost every major bank in Switzerland has been offering contactless functionality in their payment cards. Retailers such as Coop, Jumbo, Migros, IKEA, and kkiosk have also been accepting payments via contactless cards.View Press Release @SIX payment Services, 2Checkout, NETbilling, GoCoin, Mondido Payments, PayPal Express Checkout, ePay, QuickPay, WorldPay, MultiSafepay, Checkout.com, and BitPay are some of the major companies operating in the market for cards and payments in Switzerland.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.ContactMr. NachiketState Tower90 Sate Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207Tel: +1-518-621-2074Website:E: sales@marketresearchreports.biz
Global Cryptococcosis Industry Trends and Research Report 2016 - 2024

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Market Research Hub (MRH) has recently announced the addition of a fresh report, titled Cryptococcosis Market - Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends, and Forecast 2016 - 2024 to its report offerings. The cryptococcosis market report comprises an elaborate executive summary, which includes market snapshot that provides information about various segments. It also provides information and data analysis of the global market with respect to the segments based on treatment, distribution channel, and geography.Request for Sample Report:Global Cryptococcosis Market: OverviewThis report on the global cryptococcosis market analyzes the current and future scenario of the global market. Cryptococcosis disease burden is rising due to increase in susceptible patient population such as HIV-infected patients, solid organ transplantation recipients, and other immunosuppressive hosts. In addition, the huge patient base in Sub-Saharan countries fuels the growth of the cryptococcosis market. For instance, According to CDC, it is estimated that around 1 million cryptococcal meningitis cases occurs globally. Also, it is also seen that cryptococcosis mortality burden is very high which results in around 625,000 deaths every year. In addition, rise in private and public funding for creating awareness, and favorable regulatory scenario for new product launch are boosting the growth of the global cryptococcosis market.A detailed qualitative analysis of drivers and restraints, and opportunities has been provided in the market overview section. Additionally, the section comprises clinical trial analysis and key industry event analysis to help understand the competitive landscape in the market. This section also provides market attractiveness analysis in terms of geography and market share analysis by key players, thus presenting a thorough analysis of the overall competitive scenario in the global cryptococcosis market.Global Cryptococcosis Market: Scope of the StudyBased on treatment, the market is segmented into Amphotericin B, Flucytosine, Fluconazole, and other antifungals. Amphotericin B further segmented into Amphocin, Fungizone and other products. Flucytosine further segmented into Ancobon and other products. Fluconazole includes Diflucan and other products. In treatment type, Flucytosine was the largest segment of the global cryptococcosis market in terms of revenue in 2015, driven by its increasing adoption in U.S. The market segments have been analyzed based on cost-effectiveness of the drugs, prevalence of the diseases, and growing diagnosis rate of cryptococcosis across the globe. The market size and forecast for each of these segments have been provided for the period from 2014 to 2024, along with their respective CAGRs for the forecast period from 2016 to 2024, considering 2015 as the base year.Based on distribution channel, the global cryptococcosis market is segmented as hospital pharmacies, retail pharmacies, drug store, and mail order pharmacies. Retail pharmacy was the largest segment of the global market in terms of revenue in 2015 and is expected to continue to dominate the market by 2024, which is attributed to the increasing contribution of long term medication required for cryptococcosis treatment. Online purchase of drugs has been highly popular in most of the developed economies such as the U.S. and Japan.Geographically, the global cryptococcosis market has been categorized into five major regions and the key countries in the respective region: North America (U.S. and Canada), Europe (U.K., Germany, France, Spain, Italy, and Rest of Europe), Asia Pacific (India, Japan, China, Australia and Rest of Asia Pacific), Latin America (Brazil, Mexico, and Rest of Latin America) and Middle East & Africa (South Africa, GCC Countries, and Rest of Middle East & Africa).Global Cryptococcosis Market: Competitive LandscapeThe report also profiles major players in the global cryptococcosis market based on various attributes such as company overview, financial overview, product portfolio, business strategies, SWOT analysis, and recent developments. Major players profiled in this report include Bristol-Myers Squibb Company, Janssen Biotech, Inc. (Johnson & Johnson), Abbott Laboratories, Novartis AG, Pfizer, Inc., Valeant Pharmaceuticals, Inc., Glenmark Pharmaceuticals and Sigmapharm Laboratories LLC.The global cryptococcosis market has been segmented as given below:Global Cryptococcosis Market, by Treatment, Amphotericin B Amphocin Fungizone Other Flucytosine Ancobon Other Fluconazole Diflucan Other Others (Voriconazole, surgery treatment, etc.)Global Cryptococcosis Market, by Distribution Channel Hospital Pharmacies Retail Pharmacies Drug Store Mail Order Pharmacies OtherGlobal Cryptococcosis market, by Region North America U.S. Canada Middle East & Africa GCC Countries South Africa Rest of Middle East & Africa Europe Germany U.K. France Italy Spain Rest of Europe Asia Pacific India China Japan Australia & New Zealand Rest of Asia Pacific Latin America Brazil Mexico Rest of Latin AmericaRead Full Report with TOC:About Market Research Hub:Market Research Hub (MRH) is a next-generation reseller of research reports and analysis. MRHs expansive collection of market research reports has been carefully curated to help key personnel and decision makers across industry verticals to clearly visualize their operating environment and take strategic steps.MRH functions as an integrated platform for the following products and services: Objective and sound market forecasts, qualitative and quantitative analysis, incisive insight into defining industry trends, and market share estimates. Our reputation lies in delivering value and world-class capabilities to our clients.Contact Details:90 State Street,Albany, NY 12207,United StatesToll Free: 866-997-4948 (US-Canada)Tel: +1-518-621-2074Email: press@marketresearchhub.comWebsite:Follow Us on:Twitter:LinkedIn:Facebook:
Global Toy Market  Share, Size, Growth, Trends and Forecast 2017-2025

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IndexBox has just published a new report "World: Dolls And Toys - Market Report. Analysis and Forecast to 2025" (This report has been designed to provide a detailed analysis of the global toy market. It covers the most recent data sets of quantitative medium-term projections, as well as developments in production, trade, consumption and prices. The report also includes a comparative analysis of the leading consuming countries, revealing opportunities opened for producers and exporters across the globe. The forecast outlines market prospects to 2025.Countries coverage: WorldwideProduct coverage: Dolls, whether or not dressed; toys representing animals or non-human creatures, stuffed or other.Data coverage: Toy market size and volume; Toy market trends and prospects; Global toy production and its dynamics; Per capita consumption; Breakdown of production by region and country; Medium term outlook; Toy trade (exports/imports); Prices for toy; Profiles of the main manufacturers.The report will help you: Get a bigger picture of the market; Rewire your business around market trends; Devise your marketing strategy; Operate with increased effectiveness.TABLE OF CONTENTS1. INTRODUCTION1.1 REPORT DESCRIPTION1.2 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY2. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY2.1 KEY FINDINGS2.2 MARKET TRENDS3. MARKET OVERVIEW3.1 MARKET VOLUME AND VALUE3.2 CONSUMPTION BY COUNTRY3.3 MARKET OPPORTUNITIES BY COUNTRY3.4 MARKET FORECAST TO 20254. PRODUCTION4.1 PRODUCTION IN 2007-20154.2 PRODUCTION BY COUNTRY5. IMPORTS5.1 IMPORTS IN 2007-20155.2 IMPORTS BY COUNTRY5.3 IMPORT PRICES BY COUNTRY6. EXPORTS6.1 EXPORTS IN 2007-20156.2 EXPORTS BY COUNTRY6.3 EXPORT PRICES BY COUNTRY7. PROFILES OF MAJOR PRODUCERSDownload a free sample of the report now!You can also find a template on SlideShareIndexBox is a leading market research publisher in the world. We conduct market research and publish reports.You can find more than 25,000 research reports in our web store, which cover global industries and regional markets. All the worldwide marketing data you need is at your fingertips.We collect this data from hundreds of highly reliable sources, verify it and carry out market analysis, uncovering new business opportunities and empowering you with actionable insights.The structure of our reports is intuitive and clear. We do our best to allow you to make strategic decisions and take immediate action. If you want to go further and be a step ahead of the market, just tell us your goals and we will tailor a report to your needs.Company Name: IndexBoxContact Person: Kirill BezverhiEmail: kirill.bezverhi@indexbox.co.ukPhone: +44 20 3239 3063Adress: United Kingdom, 44 Main Street, Douglas, South Lanarkshire, Scotland, ML11 0QWWebsite:
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United States, EU, Japan, China, India and Southeast Asia X-Ray Angiography System Market Size, Status and Forecast 2021

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Qyresearchreports include new market research report "X-Ray Angiography System" to its huge collection of research reports.The research report on the X-Ray Angiography System market includes an evaluation of all critical aspects underlying it. The report is intended to be a guidance document for readers, so they may learn of the markets key trends and dynamics, current as well as future ones. This report was compiled with the intention of aiding the readers to make well-informed business and strategic decisions for their benefit, while moving towards a prosperous tomorrow. The reports overview of the X-Ray Angiography System market includes brief descriptions, definitions, classifications, and terms that are used in the report henceforth. This lets the users gain a better understanding of the data provided in the report.Enter your information below to receive a sample copy of this report @The research report classifies the X-Ray Angiography System market on the basis of multiple relevant categories, including a complete regional assessment. The segmentations let users completely acknowledge and understand the magnitude of each of the markets drivers, restraints, threats, and opportunities. It also analyzes the X-Ray Angiography System market on a macroscopic level to help analyze the various sources influences in each region, thereby revealing the diverse nature of the market.The research report also incorporates a chapter-wise study specifically dissects the competitive landscape of the X-Ray Angiography System market. This chapter examines the scenario of the X-Ray Angiography System market in terms of political influence and thus assesses the various effects of the regulatory pressure exerted by the government. It also profiles some of the key companies in the X-Ray Angiography System market and also shares details of their financial statuses, progress in research and development efforts, mergers and acquisitions and their strategic importance, and outlook of the X-Ray Angiography System market in terms of investments for the coming years.Fill the form to gain deeper insights on this market @Table of ContentsUnited States, EU, Japan, China, India and Southeast Asia X-Ray Angiography System Market Size, Status and Forecast 20211 Industry Overview of X-Ray Angiography System1.1 X-Ray Angiography System Market Overview1.1.1 X-Ray Angiography System Product Scope1.1.2 Market Status and Outlook1.2 Global X-Ray Angiography 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 X-Ray Angiography System Market by End Users/Application1.3.1 Head part angiography1.3.2 Chest angiography1.3.3 Abdominal angiography1.3.4 Extremity angiography1.3.5 Heart angiography2 Global X-Ray Angiography System Competition Analysis by Players2.1 X-Ray Angiography 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 Future3 Company (Top Players) Profiles3.1 TOSHIBA MEDICAL SYSTEMS CORPORATION3.1.1 Company Profile3.1.2 Main Business/Business Overview3.1.3 Products, Services and Solutions3.1.4 X-Ray Angiography System Revenue (Value) (2011-2016)3.1.5 Recent Developments3.2 SIEMENS AG3.2.1 Company Profile3.2.2 Main Business/Business Overview3.2.3 Products, Services and Solutions3.2.4 X-Ray Angiography System Revenue (Value) (2011-2016)3.2.5 Recent Developments...4 Global X-Ray Angiography System Market Size by Application (2011-2016)4.1 Global X-Ray Angiography System Market Size by Application (2011-2016)4.2 Potential Application of X-Ray Angiography System in Future4.3 Top Consumer/End Users of X-Ray Angiography System5 United States X-Ray Angiography System Development Status and Outlook5.1 United States X-Ray Angiography System Market Size (2011-2016)5.2 United States X-Ray Angiography System Market Size and Market Share by Players (2015-2016)6 EU X-Ray Angiography System Development Status and Outlook6.1 EU X-Ray Angiography System Market Size (2011-2016)6.2 EU X-Ray Angiography System Market Size and Market Share by Players (2015-2016)7 Japan X-Ray Angiography System Development Status and Outlook7.1 Japan X-Ray Angiography System Market Size (2011-2016)7.2 Japan X-Ray Angiography System Market Size and Market Share by Players (2015-2016)8 China X-Ray Angiography System Development Status and Outlook8.1 China X-Ray Angiography System Market Size (2011-2016)8.2 China X-Ray Angiography System Market Size and Market Share by Players (2015-2016)9 India X-Ray Angiography System Development Status and Outlook9.1 India X-Ray Angiography System Market Size (2011-2016)9.2 India X-Ray Angiography System Market Size and Market Share by Players (2015-2016)10 Southeast Asia X-Ray Angiography System Development Status and Outlook10.1 Southeast Asia X-Ray Angiography System Market Size (2011-2016)10.2 Southeast Asia X-Ray Angiography System Market Size and Market Share by Players (2015-2016)About UsQYReseachReports.com delivers the latest strategic market intelligence to build a successful business footprint in China. Our syndicated and customized research reports provide companies with vital background information of the market and in-depth analysis on the Chinese trade and investment framework, which directly affects their business operations. Reports from QYReseachReports.com feature valuable recommendations on how to navigate in the extremely unpredictable yet highly attractive Chinese market.Contact Us1820 AvenueM Suite #1047Brooklyn, NY 11230United StatesToll Free: 866-997-4948 (USA-CANADA)Tel: +1-518-621-2074Web:Email: sales@qyresearchreports.com
Oleate Esters Industry Analysis, Trends and Forecast Report 2016  2024

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Market Research Hub (MRH) has recently announced the addition of a fresh report, titled Oleate Esters Market - Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends, and Forecast 2016  2024 to its report offerings. The report estimates and forecasts the Global Oleate Esters market on the global and regional levels. The study provides forecast between 2016 and 2024 based on volume (kilo tons) and revenue (US$ Mn) with 2015 as the base year. The report comprises an exhaustive value chain analysis for each of the segments. It provides a comprehensive view of the market. Value chain analysis also offers detailed information about value addition at each stage. The study includes drivers and restraints for the Global Oleate Esters market along with their impact on demand during the forecast period.Request for Sample Report:Global Oleate Esters Market: OverviewOleate Esters are known as the esters or salts of oleic acids. Esters are synthesized by the reaction between alcohol and oleic acids in presence of catalysts. They are obtained from natural sources such as animal fats and vegetable oils, most preferably palm oil, canola oil, soybean oil, etc. As they are obtained from natural raw materials, they are preferred over other chemical compounds.Generally, oleate esters are manufactured using natural resources such as vegetable oils and animal fats as their raw materials. Besides, the demand for oleate esters is expected to rise in future as well due to rapid rate of industrialization as well as awareness among the consumers regarding the benefits of using them. Due to these reasons, manufacturers are looking for alternative raw materials which can be used as substitutes instead of the conventional natural raw materials. By utilizing chemicals it would be easier to obtain oleate esters at a large scale.The market is expected to experience constant change as a result of improvement in the techniques involved in the manufacturing processes. Due to the constant changes in the market, there can be improvements in the standard and quality of oleate esters, which in turn would change the dynamics of the market. The market players operating are investing large amount of their revenues in the development of new and better products by carrying out R&D activities. This would eventually bring about change in the overall market of oleate esters.Global Oleate Esters Market: Scope of the StudyThe report estimates and forecasts the Global Oleate Esters market on the global and regional levels. The study provides forecast between 2016 and 2024 based on volume (kilo tons) and revenue (US$ Mn) with 2015 as the base year. The report comprises an exhaustive value chain analysis for each of the segments. It provides a comprehensive view of the market. Value chain analysis also offers detailed information about value addition at each stage. The study includes drivers and restraints for the Global Oleate Esters market along with their impact on demand during the forecast period.The study also provides key market indicators affecting the growth of the market. The report analyzes opportunities in the Global Oleate Esters market on the global and regional level. Drivers, restraints, and opportunities mentioned in the report are justified through quantitative and qualitative data. These have been verified through primary and secondary resources. Furthermore, the report analyzes substitute analysis of Global Oleate Esters and global average price trend analysis.The report includes Porters Five Forces Model to determine the degree of competition in the Global Oleate Esters market. The report comprises a qualitative write-up on market attractiveness analysis, wherein end-users and regions have been analyzed based on attractiveness for each region. Growth rate, market size, raw material availability, profit margin, impact strength, technology, competition, and other factors (such as environmental and legal) have been evaluated in order to derive the general attractiveness of the market. The report comprises price trend analysis for Global Oleate Esters between 2016 and 2024.Global Oleate Esters Market: SegmentationThe study provides a comprehensive view of the Global Oleate Esters market by dividing it into product, application and geography segments. The products have been segmented into ceramics, glasses, polymers, composites and metals & alloys (M&A). The applications are segmented into medical devices, automotive, aerospace, electricals & electronics (E&E), industrial, power and others. These segments have been analyzed based on historic, present, and future trends.Regional segmentation includes the current and forecast consumption of Global Oleate Esters in North America, Latin America, Europe, Asia Pacific, and Middle East & Africa (MEA). Market segmentation includes demand for consumption in all the regions individually.Global Oleate Esters Market: Competitive AnalysisThe report covers detailed competitive outlook that includes market share and profiles of key players operating in the global market. Key players profiled in the report include Procter & Gamble, Wilmar International Ltd., and Croda International Plc. and Others. Company profiles include attributes such as company overview, number of employees, brand overview, key competitors, business overview, business strategies, recent/key developments, acquisitions, and financial overview (wherever applicable). Secondary research sources that were typically referred to include, but were not limited to, company websites, financial reports, annual reports, investor presentations, broker reports, and SEC filings. Other sources such as internal and external proprietary databases, statistical databases and market reports, news articles, national government documents, and webcasts specific to companies operating in the market have also been referred for the report.In-depth interviews and discussions with a wide range of key opinion leaders and industry participants were conducted to compile this research report. Primary research represents the bulk of research efforts, supplemented by extensive secondary research. Key players product literature, annual reports, press releases, and relevant documents were reviewed for competitive analysis and market understanding. This helped in validating and strengthening secondary research findings. Primary research further helped in developing the analysis teams expertise and market understanding.The Global Oleate Esters market has been segmented as follows:Oleate Esters Market  Product Analysis Methyl Oleate Ethyl Oleate Butyl Oleate Tri-methylolpropane Trioleate (TMPTO) OthersOleate Esters Market  Application Analysis Agrochemical Cosmetics Lubricant Plasticizer Absorbent OthersOleate Esters Market  Regional Analysis North America U.S. Canada Latin America Brazil Mexico Rest of Latin America Europe Germany France U.K. Italy Spain Rest of Europe Asia Pacific China India Japan ASEAN Rest of Asia Pacific Middle East & Africa GCC Egypt South Africa Rest of Middle East & AfricaRead Full Report with TOC:About Market Research Hub:Market Research Hub (MRH) is a next-generation reseller of research reports and analysis. MRHs expansive collection of market research reports has been carefully curated to help key personnel and decision makers across industry verticals to clearly visualize their operating environment and take strategic steps.MRH functions as an integrated platform for the following products and services: Objective and sound market forecasts, qualitative and quantitative analysis, incisive insight into defining industry trends, and market share estimates. Our reputation lies in delivering value and world-class capabilities to our clients.Contact Details:90 State Street,Albany, NY 12207,United StatesToll Free: 866-997-4948 (US-Canada)Tel: +1-518-621-2074Email: press@marketresearchhub.comWebsite:Follow Us on:Twitter:LinkedIn:Facebook:
Virtual Retinal Display Market by Components, Applications, Verticals- Global Forecast to 2025 |The Insight Partners

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Latest market study on Virtual Retinal Display Market to 2025 - Global Analysis and Forecasts by Components, Applications, Verticals, the report include key understanding on the driving factors of this growth and also highlights the prominent players in the market and their developments.Browse market data tables and in-depth TOC of the Virtual Retinal Display Market to 2025 @The virtual retinal display market is a bussing market as it was commercialized recently in the market. It is also referred as retinal projector or retinal scan display, which induces a raster display directly over the retina of the eye, which makes a conventional display appear to be floating in air in front of the user.The report aims to provide an overview of Global Virtual Reality Display Market along with detailed segmentation of market by Component, Application, Vertical and five major geographical regions. Global Virtual Reality Display market is expected to witness high growth during the forecast period due to rapidly growing application of AR/VR technology in multiple industries.Request Sample Copy @The objectives of Virtual Retinal Display Market report are as follows: To provide overview of the global Virtual Reality Display market To analyze and forecast the global Virtual Reality Display market on the basis of Components, application and verticals. To provide market size and forecast till 2025 for overall Virtual Reality Display market with respect to five major regions, namely; North America, Europe, Asia Pacific (APAC), Middle East and Africa (MEA), and South America (SAM), which are later sub-segmented across respective major countries To evaluate market dynamics effecting the market during the forecast period i.e., drivers, restraints, opportunities, and future trend To provide exhaustive PEST analysis for all five regions To profiles key Virtual Reality Display players influencing the market along with their SWOT analysis and market strategiesInquire about discount on this report @Segmentations Covered in the Virtual Retinal Display Market Component: Video Electronics, Light Source & Modulator, Scanner, Holographic Optical Element Application: Surgery, Radiology, Communication, Production, Aerospace, Military, Others Verticals: Engineering, Sports, Training & Simulation, Medical, Aviation & Tactical, Others Geographical Analysis: North America, Europe, Asia Pacific (APAC), Middle East & Africa (MEA), South America (SAM)Some of the leading players in Virtual Retinal Display Market Report Google Inc. Texas Instruments Human Interface Technology Laboratory Microvision Inc. and Avegant CorporationWhy Buy Virtual Retinal Display Market Report? Highlights widely used product offerings thereby allowing organizations to gain revenues by focusing majorly on select products The key findings and recommendations highlight crucial progressive industry trends in the Virtual Retinal Display market, thereby allowing players across the value chain to develop effective long term strategies Get reliable information about the strategies manufacturers in this market use to drive revenue Gain insights into the competitive landscape, to strengthen market competitiveness and positioning Highlights key business priorities in order to assist companies to realign their business strategies Develop/modify business expansion plans by using substantial growth offering developed and emerging markets Scrutinize in-depth global market trends and outlook coupled with the factors driving the market, as well as the those hindering it Enhance the decision-making process by understanding the strategies that underpin commercial interest with respect to client products, segmentation, pricing and distribution Examine the current and future impact of the five forces namely: bargaining power of suppliers, bargaining power of buyers, threat of substitutes, threat of new entrants and degree of competitionAccess Full Report @About The Insight Partners:The Insight Partners is a one stop industry research provider of actionable intelligence. We help our clients in getting solutions to their research requirements through our syndicated and consulting research services. We are a specialist in Technology, Media, and Telecommunication industries.Contact Us:Call: +1-646-491-9876Email: sales@theinsightpartners.comThe Insight Partners is a one stop industry research provider of actionable intelligence. We help our clients in getting solutions to their research requirements through our syndicated and consulting research services. We are a specialist in Technology, Media, and Telecommunication industries.505, 6th floor, Amanora Township,Amanora Chambers, East Block,Kharadi Road, Hadapsar, Pune-411028
Emerging Evolution Power Rental Industry Analysis, Market Share, Size, Growth, Trends And Forecast, 2012 - 2018

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Many companies that deal in a wide variety of industries are using power rentals to fulfill their temporary power requirements. These companies hire a wide range of power equipment and power services from rental companies to fulfill their power needs without investing huge amounts for such equipment and services. This helps these companies in reducing their overall cost of initial investment and saves them from making long term investments.Many companies are now coming forward to supply power on rent, thereby increasing the quality of service in power rentals, which is ultimately enhancing the confidence of buyers in purchasing energy on rent. Power rentals also help buyers in arranging their specific power equipment at a faster rate and at a very competitive price compared to purchasing the power equipment.Due to the significant shortage of power supply in developing regions and due to the lack of infrastructure and grid stability, companies are choosing power rental based solutions. Many companies have at present very old distribution grids which need to be changed and this also provides an opportunity for power rentals to replace these old distribution grids, thereby increasing its market share.At present, North America is the largest segment for power rental revenue, followed by the Middle East and the Asia-Pacific region. Power rentals are primarily used in construction, utility, oil and gas, quarrying, mining, and in the events industry.Download Sample Copy Of This Report:In the construction industry, where there is a requirement for continuous power, power generators play an important role when grid power is not available due to the location or due to specific requirement constraints or when it is very expensive. On the basis of application, power rentals can be divided into base power, standby power, and seasonal peak.Some of the companies which deal in the power rental market include Caterpillar Inc., Aggreko, Cummins Inc., Kohler Power, Rental Solutions & Services, APR Energy, Hertz, Power Electrics, Worldwide Power Products LLC, Speedy Hire, and Bredenoord Exploitatiemij B.VThis 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 segmentsMarketResearchReports.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
Specialty Zeolites Market Analysis, Trends and Research Report 2024

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Market Research Hub (MRH) has recently announced the addition of a fresh report, titled Specialty Zeolites Market - Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends and Forecast 2016 - 2024 to its report offerings. The report estimates and forecasts the specialty zeolites market on the global, regional, and country levels. The study provides forecast between 2016 and 2024 based on volume (tons) and revenue (US$ Mn) with 2015 as the base year. The report comprises an exhaustive value chain analysis for each of the end-use segments. It provides a comprehensive view of the market.Request for Sample Report:Global Specialty Zeolites Market: OverviewSpecialty zeolites are types of zeolites that require specialty synthesis, primarily high-pressure synthesis. Some specialty organic additives are also added during crystallization/synthesis. Small quantity of specialty zeolites are used for adsorption purposes in paints & coatings, plastics, personal care, and construction materials.The study includes drivers and restraints for the specialty zeolites market along with their impact on demand during the forecast period. The study also provides key market indicators affecting the growth of the market. The report analyzes opportunities in the specialty zeolites market on the global and regional level. Furthermore, the report analyzes substitutes of specialty zeolites. It also provides the global average price trend analysis.Global Specialty Zeolites Market: Research MethodologiesThe report includes Porters Five Forces Model to determine the degree of competition in the specialty zeolites market. The report comprises a qualitative write-up on market attractiveness analysis, wherein end-use and countries have been analyzed based on attractiveness for each region. Growth rate, market size, raw material availability, profit margin, impact strength, technology, competition, and other factors (such as environmental and legal) have been evaluated in order to derive the general attractiveness of the market.The study provides a comprehensive view of the specialty zeolites market by dividing it into end-use and geography. In terms of end-use, the specialty zeolites market has been segmented into plastics, paints & coatings, construction materials and personal care. End-use segments have been analyzed based on historic, present, and future trends, and the market has been estimated in terms of volume (tons) and revenue (US$ Mn) between 2016 and 2024.Global Specialty Zeolites Market: Regional OutlookRegional segmentation includes the current and forecast demand for specialty zeolites in North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Latin America, and Middle East & Africa (MEA). Additionally, the report comprises country-level analysis in terms of volume and revenue for end-use segments. Key countries such as the U.S., Canada, Germany, France, the U.K., Spain, Italy, Japan, India, China, Argentina, South Africa, and Brazil have been included in the study. Market segmentation includes demand for individual end-use in all the regions and countries.Global Specialty Zeolites Market: Competitive AnalysisThe report covers detailed competitive outlook that includes market share and profiles of key players operating in the global market. Key players profiled in the report include Tosoh Corporation, Arkema Group, BASF SE, Clariant, W. R. Grace & Co., Albermarle Corporation, Zeochem AG, Zeolyst International, Eurecat and Honeywell UOP. Company profiles include attributes such as company overview, number of employees, brand overview, key competitors, business overview, business strategies, recent/key developments, acquisitions, and financial overview (wherever applicable).Global Specialty Zeolites Market: Scope of the StudyIn-depth interviews and discussions with wide range of key opinion leaders and industry participants were conducted to compile this research report. Primary research represents the bulk of research efforts, supplemented by extensive secondary research. Key players product literature, annual reports, press releases, and relevant documents were reviewed for competitive analysis and market understanding. This helped in validating and strengthening secondary research findings. Primary research further helped in developing the analysis teams expertise and market understanding.Secondary research sources that were typically referred to include, but were not limited to company websites, financial reports, annual reports, investor presentations, broker reports, and SEC filings. Other sources such as internal and external proprietary databases, statistical databases and market reports, news articles, national government documents, and webcasts specific to companies operating in the market have also been referred for the report.The report segments the global specialty zeolites market as follows:Specialty Zeolites Market: End-use Analysis Plastics Paints & Coatings Construction Materials Personal CareSpecialty Zeolites Market: Regional Analysis North America U.S. Canada Europe Germany Spain Italy France U.K. Rest of Europe Asia Pacific China Japan India ASEAN Rest of APAC Latin America Brazil Argentina Rest of LATAM Middle East & Africa GCC South Africa Rest of Middle East & AfricaRead Full Report with TOC:About Market Research Hub:Market Research Hub (MRH) is a next-generation reseller of research reports and analysis. MRHs expansive collection of market research reports has been carefully curated to help key personnel and decision makers across industry verticals to clearly visualize their operating environment and take strategic steps.MRH functions as an integrated platform for the following products and services: Objective and sound market forecasts, qualitative and quantitative analysis, incisive insight into defining industry trends, and market share estimates. Our reputation lies in delivering value and world-class capabilities to our clients.Contact Details:90 State Street,Albany, NY 12207,United StatesToll Free: 866-997-4948 (US-Canada)Tel: +1-518-621-2074Email: press@marketresearchhub.comWebsite:Follow Us on:Twitter:LinkedIn:Facebook:
2017-2022 Management Consulting Services Report on United States and Global Market, Status and Forecast, by Players, Types and Applications

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This report studies the Management Consulting Services on United States and global market, focuses on the top players in US market and also the market status and outlook by type and application.Geographically, this report is segmented into several key regions, with sales, revenue, market share (%) and growth Rate (%) of Management Consulting Services in these regions, from 2012 to 2022 (forecast), coveringNorth AmericaEuropeAsia-PacificSouth AmericaMiddle East and AfricaThe major players in United States Management Consulting Services market include Deloitte Consulting, PwC, EY, KPMG, McKinsey, Booz Allen Hamilton, The Boston Consulting Group, Bain & Company.Enter your information below to receive a sample copy of this report @The On the basis of product, the Management Consulting Services market is primarily split intoOperations AdvisoryFinancial AdvisoryTechnology AdvisoryStrategy AdvisoryHR AdvisoryOn the basis on the end users/applications, this report coversClient's Market Capitalization: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.QYResearchReportsContact Us1820 AvenueM Suite #1047Brooklyn, NY 11230United StatesToll Free: 866-997-4948 (USA-CANADA)Tel: +1-518-621-2074Web:Email: sales@qyresearchreports.com
Angiography Catheters Market Forecast Showing 4.36% CAGR to 2021: Analysis of Key Players, Trends, Drivers, & Challenges

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Market Research Report on Global Angiography Catheters Market is a professional and in-depth research report. The Report include basic information like definitions, classifications, applications and industry chain overview, industry policies and plans, product specifications, manufacturing processes, cost structures and so on. The Report Spread Across 70 Pages with Tables and Figures in It.The Report Announces the Publication of its Research Report  Global Angiography Catheters Market 2017-2021Marketsizeforecasters.com adds new global angiography catheters market report that lists top active companies as Boston Scientific, C. R. Bard, and Medtronic.Global Angiography Catheters Market Other Prominent Vendors in the market are: Aachen Resonance, Abbott Laboratories, Abiomed Acrostak, AdvanSource Biomaterials, AGA Medical, Allium Medical, Alvimedica, AMG International, AngioDynamics, Angioslide, Arstasis, Arthesys, Asahi Intecc, Atrium Medical, AV Medical, B. Braun Melsungen, Beijing Puyishengji Medical Technology, Biophan Technologies, Biosense Webster, Biotronik, BrosMed, Cardiac Science, CardiacAssist, Dextera Surgical, Cardio-Flow, Cardionovum, Claret Medical, Contego Medical, Cook Group, Cryolife, Edward Lifesciences, Endocor, Essential Medical, GaltNeedleTech, Innovative Cardiovascular Solutions, InSeal Medical, JOTEC, Kaneka Medix, Keystone Heart, Lepu Medical, Medeon Biodesign, Medinol, Transluminal Technologies, Transverse Medical, US Endovascular, Vascular Closure Systems, Vasorum, Vivasure Medical, and Volcano.The Report analysts forecast the global angiography catheters market to grow at a CAGR of 4.36% during the period 2017-2021.Request a sample copy of Global Angiography Catheters Market Research Report @Commenting on the Global Angiography Catheters Market report, an analyst team said: One trend in market is emergence of digital cath labs in hospitals. Cath labs or cardiac catheterization laboratories in hospitals conduct both diagnostic and therapeutic procedures. These laboratories used to conduct conventional procedures such as the monitoring of blood flow and heart pressure. Advances in technology in the area of catheterization, such as robot-assisted catheterization for PCI, has advanced the digital imaging system.This system helps improve the detection and intervention of cardiac diseases. This has led physicians to perform coronary-related procedures in digital cath labs. These laboratories use flat panels that have superior image quality and are developed by vendors such as GE Healthcare, Toshiba America Medical Systems, Siemens Medical Solutions, and Philips Medical Systems. Innova 2100 IQ and Innova 4100 systems by GE Healthcare are widely used in hospitals due to their improved image quality for most cardiovascular and peripheral catheterization procedures quality.According to the Global Angiography Catheters Market report, one driver in market is venture capitals for market entry of start-ups. New players approach venture capitalists to enter into niche markets such as the area of angioplasty balloons. These capitalists have started realizing the significant potential of start-ups that develop innovative technologies and products in the area of CVDs. This has increased the financial flow support from venture capitalists, which is accelerating the development of embolic protection devices and is leading to the market entry of start-ups. Post registration and market approvals, venture capitalists take a share from the total revenue generated by the start-ups.Enquiry Discount for Global Angiography Catheters Market Research Report @Further, the Global Angiography Catheters Market report states that one challenge in market is high cost of angioplasty balloon and stents. Physicians use stenting, a traditional PCI procedure, to treat CADs. Cardiologists perform angioplasty using angioplasty balloon catheters to widen the arteries for conventional blood flow. However, the demand for and use of these catheters and embolic protection devices is low in many countries due to the high cost of stenting. The overall cost associated with stenting (for angioplasty balloon and embolic protection) varies among hospitals based on the stent procedure, patient care, and duration of hospital stay.The overall cost associated with stenting can be $12,000-$38,000, with the average price of stents being $2,000-$4,500. The price of stents may further increase depending on the type of technology used. The stenting procedure costs $7,000-$28,000. Apart from these, the procedure also includes the use of coronary wires, balloons, injecting devices, embolic protection devices, and catheters and handling charges in cath labs, which are available in the form of procedural package and charged accordingly.The study was conducted using an objective combination of primary and secondary information including inputs from key participants in the industry. The Global Angiography Catheters Market report contains a comprehensive market and vendor landscape in addition to a SWOT analysis of the key vendors.Browse full table of contents and data tables for Global Angiography Catheters Market Report @Related Reports: -2017-2022 Global Top Countries Inulin Market ReportThis report studies Inulin in Global market, especially in United States, Canada, Mexico, Germany, France, UK, Italy, Russia, China, Japan, India, Korea, Southeast Asia, Australia, Brazil, Middle East and Africa, focuses on the top Manufacturers in each country, coveringMarketSizeForecasters.com, a Skyline Market Research LLP brand, is an online aggregator of market research reports. MarketSizeForecasters.com offers a comprehensive collection of full length reports on global and regional markets in 100+ industry verticals. We have partnered with some of the leading business and market research publishing houses and regularly update our online library to offer wide range of reports to our customers.Market size forecastersThe Green Suite #4594,Dover, DE 19901United StatesPhone: 1-201-355-0868US Toll Free: 1-866-764-2150Email: sales@marketsizeforecasters.comWebsite:Connect with us: LinkedIn | Twitter
Global Cement Sales Market 2017 Covering Top Players : Cemex, Taiwan Cement, Italcementi, UltraTech Cement, Dalmia Bharat

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Global Cement Sales Market 2017, presents a professional and in-depth study on the current state of the Cement Sales market globally, providing basic overview of Cement Sales market including definitions, Classifications, Applications and Industry chain Structure, Cement Sales Market report provides development policies and plans are discussed as well as manufacturing processes and cost structures. Cement Sales market size, share and end users are analyzed as well as segment markets by types, applications and companies.Download Free Sample Report @The report on the Cement Sales market offers a broad overview of the dynamics at play on both the buy side and sell side. In order to deepen readers understanding of the Cement Sales market, the report provides brief historical highlights that have influenced developments herein. Furthermore, the report segments the Cement Sales market on the basis of fundamental yet critical parameters such as: Applications, Product/Technology types, and Geographical regions. Given that the value chain is an inextricable part of the Cement Sales market, the report analyzes the same in great detail.Factors that are external to the Cement Sales market, yet influence its future course are discussed by the team of analysts working on this report. A number of other analytical essentials such as the present and projected economic situation and macroeconomic environment form an integral part of the report.Access Full Report @The report also provides recommendations for growth based on the present regulatory environments, focusing on regions that will hold future growth opportunities. Key factors such as the availability of alternatives to Cement Sales , The threat from emerging competitors, and buying power of customers are assessed to provide strategic insights. The report on the Cement Sales market lays emphasis on the competitive landscape, with a detailed evaluation of the current market leaders, their revenues, strategic collaborations and plans, and pricing tactics.The findings of this Cement Sales report will prove valuable in formulating new market entry plans, financial models and competition tracking. The Cement Sales market research study has been composed using key inputs from industry experts. Furthermore, the extensive primary and secondary research data with which the report has been composed helps deliver the key statistical forecasts, in terms of both revenue and volume. In addition to this, the trends and revenue analysis of the global Cement Sales market has been mentioned in this report. This will give a clear perspective to the readers how the Cement Sales market will fare globally.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.Mark StoneSales Manager2566, Lincoln StreetPrinceton,New Jersey 08540USAPhone: (201) 465-4211Email: sales@fiormarkets.comWeb:Blog:
United States, EU, Japan, China, India And Southeast Asia Big Data In Manufacturing Market Size, Status And Forecast 2021

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This report studies the global Big Data in Manufacturing market, analyzes and researches the Big Data in Manufacturing development status and forecast in United States, EU, Japan, China, India and Southeast Asia. This report focuses on the top players in global market, like1010Data Inc.Actian CorporationAmazon Web ServicesBosch Software Innovations GmBHCiscoCloudera Inc.Cloudwick Inc.Computer Sciences Corp. (CSC)CRAY Inc.Dell SoftwareEMC CorporationHPHortonworks Inc.MongoDBOracle CorporationPivotal Software IncPSSC LabsSilicon Graphics International Corp. (SGI)Teradata CorporationTIBCO JasperSoftMarket segment by Regions/Countries, this report coversUnited StatesEUJapanChinaIndiaSoutheast AsiaMarket segment by Type, Big Data in Manufacturing can be split intoHardware InfrastructureSoftware and PlatformsBig Data Security SoftwareManaged Services for Big DataMarket segment by Application, Big Data in Manufacturing can be split intoApplication 1Application 2Application 3Download Sample Copy Of This Report:Table of ContentsUnited States, EU, Japan, China, India and Southeast Asia Big Data in Manufacturing Market Size, Status and Forecast 20211 Industry Overview of Big Data in Manufacturing1.1 Big Data in Manufacturing Market Overview1.1.1 Big Data in Manufacturing Product Scope1.1.2 Market Status and Outlook1.2 Global Big Data in Manufacturing 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 Big Data in Manufacturing Market by Type1.3.1 Hardware Infrastructure1.3.2 Software and Platforms1.3.3 Big Data Security Software1.3.4 Managed Services for Big Data1.4 Big Data in Manufacturing Market by End Users/Application1.4.1 Application 11.4.2 Application 21.4.3 Application 32 Global Big Data in Manufacturing Competition Analysis by Players2.1 Big Data in Manufacturing 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 FutureBrowse More ICT Market Research Reports:3 Company (Top Players) Profiles3.1 1010Data Inc.3.1.1 Company Profile3.1.2 Main Business/Business Overview3.1.3 Products, Services and Solutions3.1.4 Big Data in Manufacturing Revenue (Value) (2011-2016)3.1.5 Recent Developments3.2 Actian Corporation3.2.1 Company Profile3.2.2 Main Business/Business Overview3.2.3 Products, Services and Solutions3.2.4 Big Data in Manufacturing Revenue (Value) (2011-2016)3.2.5 Recent Developments3.3 Amazon Web Services3.3.1 Company Profile3.3.2 Main Business/Business Overview3.3.3 Products, Services and Solutions3.3.4 Big Data in Manufacturing Revenue (Value) (2011-2016)3.3.5 Recent Developments3.4 Bosch Software Innovations GmBH3.4.1 Company Profile3.4.2 Main Business/Business Overview3.4.3 Products, Services and Solutions3.4.4 Big Data in Manufacturing Revenue (Value) (2011-2016)3.4.5 Recent Developments3.5 Cisco3.5.1 Company Profile3.5.2 Main Business/Business Overview3.5.3 Products, Services and Solutions3.5.4 Big Data in Manufacturing Revenue (Value) (2011-2016)3.5.5 Recent Developments3.6 Cloudera Inc.3.6.1 Company Profile3.6.2 Main Business/Business Overview3.6.3 Products, Services and Solutions3.6.4 Big Data in Manufacturing Revenue (Value) (2011-2016)3.6.5 Recent Developments3.7 Cloudwick Inc.3.7.1 Company Profile3.7.2 Main Business/Business Overview3.7.3 Products, Services and Solutions3.7.4 Big Data in Manufacturing Revenue (Value) (2011-2016)3.7.5 Recent Developments3.8 Computer Sciences Corp. (CSC)3.8.1 Company Profile3.8.2 Main Business/Business Overview3.8.3 Products, Services and Solutions3.8.4 Big Data in Manufacturing Revenue (Value) (2011-2016)3.8.5 Recent Developments3.9 CRAY Inc.3.9.1 Company Profile3.9.2 Main Business/Business Overview3.9.3 Products, Services and Solutions3.9.4 Big Data in Manufacturing Revenue (Value) (2011-2016)3.9.5 Recent Developments3.10 Dell Software3.10.1 Company Profile3.10.2 Main Business/Business Overview3.10.3 Products, Services and Solutions3.10.4 Big Data in Manufacturing Revenue (Value) (2011-2016)3.10.5 Recent Developments3.11 EMC Corporation3.12 HP3.13 Hortonworks Inc.3.14 MongoDB3.15 Oracle Corporation3.16 Pivotal Software Inc3.17 PSSC Labs3.18 Silicon Graphics International Corp. (SGI)3.19 Teradata Corporation3.20 TIBCO JasperSoft4 Global Big Data in Manufacturing Market Size by Type and Application (2011-2016)4.1 Global Big Data in Manufacturing Market Size by Type (2011-2016)4.2 Global Big Data in Manufacturing Market Size by Application (2011-2016)4.3 Potential Application of Big Data in Manufacturing in Future4.4 Top Consumer/End Users of Big Data in Manufacturing5 United States Big Data in Manufacturing Development Status and Outlook5.1 United States Big Data in Manufacturing Market Size (2011-2016)5.2 United States Big Data in Manufacturing Market Size and Market Share by Players (2015-2016)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
Department Stores in Germany 2016-2020 | Now Available at Researchmoz.us

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Researchmoz added Most up-to-date research on "Department Stores in Germany 2016-2020" to its huge collection of research reports.The retail industry can be divided into two broad segments on the basis of the channel of operation: brick-and-mortar retail format (or, store-based retail formats/offline retail format), and online retail format. Online retail is a part of B2C e-commerce and typically refers to commercial activities over the Internet. The retail industry is also classified into traditional retail and organized retail, on the basis of the business structure and retail space formation. Major retail formats of the organized retail sector are specialized stores, department stores, supermarkets, and hypermarketsTechnavios analysts forecast the department stores in Germany to grow at a CAGR of 0.69% during the period 2016-2020.Covered in this reportThe report covers the present scenario and the growth prospects of the department stores in Germany for 2016-2020. To calculate the market size, the report considers the revenue generated from the retail sales of products to individual customers by the department stores in Germany.To Get Sample Copy of Report visit @Technavio's report, Department Stores in Germany 2016-2020, has been prepared based on an in-depth market analysis with inputs from industry experts. The report covers the market landscape and its growth prospects over the coming years. The report also includes a discussion of the key vendors operating in this market.Key vendorsBreuningerC&AGALERIA KaufhofKarstadt WarenhausWoolworthOther prominent vendorsGaleries LafayettePeek & CloppenburgHemaLudwig BeckMllerAproposMarimekkoZaraMitsukoshiManufactumStrauss InnovationMarket driverFavorable micro-location and concept of having everything under one roofFor a full, detailed list, view our reportMarket challengeChanging buying behavior due to increasing internet retailing and e-commerceFor a full, detailed list, view our reportMarket trendOmni-channel capabilities to support department storesFor a full, detailed list, view our reportKey questions answered in this reportWhat will the market size be in 2020 and what will the growth rate be?What are the key market trends?What is driving this market?What are the challenges to market growth?Who are the key vendors in this market space?What are the market opportunities and threats faced by the key vendors?What are the strengths and weaknesses of the key vendors?Make an Enquiry of this report @About ResearchMozResearchMoz is the one stop online destination to find and buy market research reports & Industry Analysis. We fulfill all your research needs spanning across industry verticals with our huge collection of market research reports. We provide our services to all sizes of organizations and across all industry verticals and markets. Our Research Coordinators have in-depth knowledge of reports as well as publishers and will assist you in making an informed decision by giving you unbiased and deep insights on which reports will satisfy your needs at the best price.Mr. NachiketState Tower,90 State Street,Suite 700,Albany NY - 12207United StatesEmail: sales@researchmoz.usWebsite @Tel: 866-997-4948 (Us-Canada Toll Free)Tel: +1-518-621-2074Follow us on LinkedIn @
Alzheimers Disease - Pipeline Review, H1 2017 | Now Available at Researchmoz.us

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Researchmoz added Most up-to-date research on "Alzheimers Disease - Pipeline Review, H1 2017" to its huge collection of research reports.Global Markets Direct's latest Pharmaceutical and Healthcare disease pipeline guide Alzheimer's Disease - Pipeline Review, H1 2017, provides an overview of the Alzheimer's Disease (Central Nervous System) pipeline landscape.Alzheimer's disease is a progressive, degenerative condition causing damage to the memory and behavior due to the attack on the neurons. These neurons are responsible for the synthesis of neurotransmitter acetylcholine which is further responsible for the transmission of signals. Predisposing factors include age, heredity, cardiovascular diseases or diabetes and environmental factors. Symptoms include depression, anxiety, social withdrawal, irritability and aggressiveness.Report HighlightsGlobal Markets Direct's Pharmaceutical and Healthcare latest pipeline guide Alzheimer's Disease - Pipeline Review, H1 2017, provides comprehensive information on the therapeutics under development for Alzheimer's Disease (Central Nervous System), complete with analysis by stage of development, drug target, mechanism of action (MoA), route of administration (RoA) and molecule type. The guide covers the descriptive pharmacological action of the therapeutics, its complete research and development history and latest news and press releases.To Get Sample Copy of Report visit @The Alzheimer's Disease (Central Nervous System) pipeline guide also reviews of key players involved in therapeutic development for Alzheimer's Disease and features dormant and discontinued projects. The guide covers therapeutics under Development by Companies /Universities /Institutes, the molecules developed by Companies in Pre-Registration, Filing rejected/Withdrawn, Phase III, Phase II, Phase I, IND/CTA Filed, Preclinical, Discovery and Unknown stages are 1, 1, 23, 40, 62, 1, 251, 90 and 5 respectively. Similarly, the Universities portfolio in Phase II, Preclinical and Discovery stages comprises 1, 109 and 46 molecules, respectively.Alzheimer's Disease (Central Nervous System) pipeline guide helps in identifying and tracking emerging players in the market and their portfolios, enhances decision making capabilities and helps to create effective counter strategies to gain competitive advantage. The guide is built using data and information sourced from Global Markets Directs proprietary databases, company/university websites, clinical trial registries, conferences, SEC filings, investor presentations and featured press releases from company/university sites and industry-specific third party sources. Additionally, various dynamic tracking processes ensure that the most recent developments are captured on a real time basis.Scope- The pipeline guide provides a snapshot of the global therapeutic landscape of Alzheimer's Disease (Central Nervous System).- The pipeline guide reviews pipeline therapeutics for Alzheimer's Disease (Central Nervous System) by companies and universities/research institutes based on information derived from company and industry-specific sources.- The pipeline guide covers pipeline products based on several stages of development ranging from pre-registration till discovery and undisclosed stages.- The pipeline guide features descriptive drug profiles for the pipeline products which comprise, product description, descriptive licensing and collaboration details, R&D brief, MoA & other developmental activities.- The pipeline guide reviews key companies involved in Alzheimer's Disease (Central Nervous System) therapeutics and enlists all their major and minor projects.- The pipeline guide evaluates Alzheimer's Disease (Central Nervous System) therapeutics based on mechanism of action (MoA), drug target, route of administration (RoA) and molecule type.- The pipeline guide encapsulates all the dormant and discontinued pipeline projects.- The pipeline guide reviews latest news related to pipeline therapeutics for Alzheimer's Disease (Central Nervous System)Reasons to buy- Procure strategically important competitor information, analysis, and insights to formulate effective R&D strategies.- Recognize emerging players with potentially strong product portfolio and create effective counter-strategies to gain competitive advantage.- Find and recognize significant and varied types of therapeutics under development for Alzheimer's Disease (Central Nervous System).- Classify potential new clients or partners in the target demographic.- Develop tactical initiatives by understanding the focus areas of leading companies.- Plan mergers and acquisitions meritoriously by identifying key players and its most promising pipeline therapeutics.- Formulate corrective measures for pipeline projects by understanding Alzheimer's Disease (Central Nervous System) pipeline depth and focus of Indication therapeutics.- Develop and design in-licensing and out-licensing strategies by identifying prospective partners with the most attractive projects to enhance and expand business potential and scope.- Adjust the therapeutic portfolio by recognizing discontinued projects and understand from the know-how what drove them from pipeline.Make an Enquiry of this report @About ResearchMozResearchMoz is the one stop online destination to find and buy market research reports & Industry Analysis. We fulfill all your research needs spanning across industry verticals with our huge collection of market research reports. We provide our services to all sizes of organizations and across all industry verticals and markets. Our Research Coordinators have in-depth knowledge of reports as well as publishers and will assist you in making an informed decision by giving you unbiased and deep insights on which reports will satisfy your needs at the best price.Mr. NachiketState Tower,90 State Street,Suite 700,Albany NY - 12207United StatesEmail: sales@researchmoz.usWebsite @Tel: 866-997-4948 (Us-Canada Toll Free)Tel: +1-518-621-2074Follow us on LinkedIn @
Global 3D Printing in Education Market 2016-2020 - Features Key Market Vendors ( 3D Systems, EnvisionTEC, ExOne, Stratasys )

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Albany, NY, March 31, 2017: 3-D printing is an evolving technology that caters to sectors such as automotive, education, healthcare, and aerospace. In the automotive and aerospace sectors, the use of 3-D printing enables manufacturers to make complex parts such as gears and fuel nozzles with high efficiency. This technology is expected to also find new applications in other sectors. For instance, in the medical sector, researchers are attempting to discover and identify ways to use this technology to make prosthetic parts with biological materials such as cartilage, bone, and skin.The global 3-D printing market in education to grow at a CAGR of 28.57% during the period 2016-2020. The report covers the present scenario and the growth prospects of the global 3-D printing market in education for 2016-2020. To calculate the market size, the report presents the vendor landscape and a corresponding detailed analysis of the top-four vendors operating in the market.The market is divided into the following segments based on geography:- Americas- APAC- EMEAGet a Sample Research PDF with TOC:Technavio's report, Global 3-D Printing Market in Education 2016-2020, has been prepared based on an in-depth market analysis with inputs from industry experts. The report covers the market landscape and its growth prospects over the coming years. The report also includes a discussion of the key vendors operating in this market.Key vendors- 3D Systems- EnvisionTEC- ExOne- StratasysOther prominent vendors- Graphene 3-D Lab- Materialise- Organovo Holdings- Ultimaker- VoxeljetMarket driver- Ability to enhance learning process- For a full, detailed list, view our reportMarket challenge- Low penetration of 3-D printing technology- For a full, detailed list, view our reportMarket trend- Development in IT infrastructure for education- For a full, detailed list, view our reportEnquiry at:Key questions answered in this report- What will the market size be in 2020 and what will the growth rate be?- What are the key market trends?- What is driving this market?- What are the challenges to market growth?- Who are the key vendors in this market space?- What are the market opportunities and threats faced by the key vendors?- What are the strengths and weaknesses of the key vendors?ResearchMoz is the worlds fastest growing collection of market research reports worldwide. Our database is composed of current market studies from over 100 featured publishers worldwide. Our market research databases integrate statistics with analysis from global, regional, country and company perspectives. ResearchMozs service portfolio also includes value-added services such as market research customization, competitive landscaping, and in-depth surveys, delivered by a team of experienced Research Coordinators.Albany NY - 12207United StatesTel: +1-518-621-2074Tel: 866-997-4948 (Us-Canada Toll Free)Email: sales@researchmoz.usFollow us on LinkedIn at:
Infection Control Market: Growing Healthcare Awareness among the Population and Poor Sanitation Conditions in Underdeveloped Countries Expected to Boost the Market

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The various types of treatment options that are commercially available in the market for cancer include traditional surgery, chemotherapy, radiation therapy, targeted therapy, immunotherapy, photodynamic therapy, stem cell transplant therapy, etc. Among these above-mentioned treatment options, the patients who are receiving chemotherapy are more prone to get infections through their daily activities. One out of every 10 patients who are treated with chemotherapy gets an infection, which needs a hospital visit.Microbes or microorganisms that enter into body of a cancer patient usually acquire these infections and results in illness. The main type of microorganisms causing these infections includes viruses, bacteria, protozoa and some fungal organisms. The infections that are developed in cancer patients can be more harmful than those infections developed in healthy individuals.Obtain Report Details @According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), it was estimated that approximately 1.5 million new cases of cancer patients were diagnosed in the United States in year 2010. With improvements in cancer treatment therapies and number of geriatric population in the U.S., the total number of cancer patients is expect to increase in coming years. Even though there is various advancements oncology treatment, infections associated with these therapies remain a major cause of mortality and morbidity in cancer patients. Several factors those are responsible to developing infections in cancer patients including immunosuppresion from their primary cancer and drug therapy treatment.As cancer patients often require the placement of intravascular devices as implanted ports to provide ease with drug therapy infusion for linger period, there is chance of direct portal entry of microorganisms in to the patient body. Thus, proper cancer prevention practices are essential to minimize the risks and complications associated with various cancer treatment therapies. Some of the standard precautions to control the infections associated with cancer therapy include usage of personal protective equipments, hand hygiene procedures, injection safety, proper medication storage and cleaning devices.The infection control market in cancer therapy is expected to have a huge growth potential in next few years. The contributing factors behind such an assessment include rise in base of geriatric population, increasing number of cancer patients globally and advancements in cancer treatment technologies. Additionally, growing healthcare awareness among the population and poor sanitation conditions in underdeveloped countries further expected to boost the market.For more information on this report, fill the form @Geographically, North America accounts for the largest share of the infection control market in cancer therapy followed by the European region. The dominance of North America in this market is seen due to rapidly aging population, which can afford high cost cancer treatment and presence of various market leaders that allows easy penetration in the North America region.European infection control market in cancer therapy follows the North America market due to extensive promotion and funding for cancer treatment by the European government such as Germany and the U.K. Asia-Pacific region is expected to witness fastest growth rate in the near future due to rising population base and increasing awareness about the cancer treatment.Some of the major players operating in this market includes 3M Healthcare Company, Advanced Sterilization Products Services, Inc, Nordion, Inc., Steris Corporation, Synergy Health, Plc, Getinge Group, Ahlstrom Corporation, Honeywell International, Inc., Sakura Global Holding Company, Kimberly Clark Corporation, Cisa S.P.A., Sterigenics International, Inc. and others.About UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is a global market intelligence company providing business information reports and services. The companys exclusive blend of quantitative forecasting and trend analysis provides forward-looking insight for thousands of decision makers. TMRs experienced team of analysts, researchers, and consultants use proprietary data sources and various tools and techniques to gather and analyze information. Our business offerings represent the latest and the most reliable information indispensable for businesses to sustain a competitive edge.Contact UsTransparency Market ResearchState Tower,90 State Street, Suite 700Albany, NY 12207United StatesTel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Global Mobile Operators Industry Regional Leaders Overview and Statistics | Researchmoz.us

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Researchmoz added Most up-to-date research on "Global Mobile Operators - Regional Leaders - Overview and Statistics" to its huge collection of research reports.International expansion has strengthened the operations of many mobile operatorsIn 2017 the global mobile market has its sights firmly set on the opportunities offered through mobile data as well as looking for potential new revenues streams presented by the enterprise sector, data mining, 5G and international expansion.Mobile saturation has occurred in many of the developed markets and this has forced some of the operators to look for new opportunities  particularly those offered by expanding regionally or internationally. This has occurred in most regions of the world  and as a result some operators have become powerful and dominant regional leaders.In Latin America, for example, the mobile market continues to be dominated by a small number of operators which each have businesses in multiple countries. These include Telefonica Group; Mexicos America Movil, trading as Telcel in its domestic market and as Claro in the remaining 16 markets in the region; Telecom Italia, AT&T Mexico and Millicom International. The dominance of these operators is being gradually eroded however as a result of efforts by a number of national regulators to facilitate the entry of MVNOs and to encourage the participation of smaller players in spectrum auctions.To Get Sample Copy of Report visit @In the more developed markets of Asia, growth is shifting away from a focus on subscriber numbers and towards the expansion of new generation platforms and increased data usage driven by value-added services and increased ARPUs. There are those companies such as SingTel, Vodafone, and Axiata (formerly Telekom Malaysia International) that have built a substantial presence around the Asian region beyond their own domestic market through their shareholdings in operators in multiple other markets.In the Pacific region; the Australian mobile market is dominated by the three major mobile network operators Telstra, Optus, and Vodafone (VHA), though there are numerous MVNOs which have a significant market share. These have been able to offer LTE services on a wholesale basis since early 2016, thus encouraging growth in the LTE sector and cementing the role which MVNOs play in the overall market.Fiji is one of the telecoms leaders in the South Pacific region, along with Papua New Guinea. Similar to many developing nations, it is heavily reliant on mobile technologies rather than fixed lines. The percentage of unique mobile subscribers in Fiji sits at around 69%. Vodafone Fiji Limited (VFL) and Digicel Fiji are the major mobile operators and the only MVNO is Australian company, Inkk Mobile which operates on VFLs network.Three mobile service operators provide services in Papua New Guinea including Digicel, Bmobile (Vodafone), and Citifon (Telikom PNG). However, in February 2017 it was announced that Dataco, Bmobile and Telikom PNG would be merged together to form Kumul Telikom. The three entities would be able to share resources and infrastructure, making it potentially more cost effective and competitive.Although there are a large number of network operators across the African continent, and also smaller niche MVNO players, there are also a small number of pan-regional network operators. These include Millicom, Orange Group, Vodacom and Bharti Airtel. Some rationalisation of their operations continues as these players adjust their strategies to fit in with market positions and expectations.There are a number of companies which have a large presence in the Middle East. Zain, Ooredoo and MTN are three examples of companies operating in multiple markets and the international players of Orange and Vodafone also operate in region.As with Latin America and Africa, the European region is notable for having half a dozen pan-European operators with interests in several key markets. These main players include Deutsche Telekom, Telefonica, Vodafone Group, Hutchison and TeliaSonera. There has been much jostling among these operators as they seek to strengthen their presence in particular markets. This has in turn caused some disquiet among national regulators and European competition authorities, which are keen to preserve a quorum of key players (generally four) within a given market.This BuddeComm publication provides a global overview of the mobile market, supported by statistics as well as an overview of the mobile markets for each major region of the world. Country case studies for each region are also included, along with identification of the major MNOs and MVNOs operating in each region/country.Key developments:- Data mining will be the next driver of mobile revenue;- Mobile operators need to rethink their business models;- For new ideas, the industry should look towards the OTT players;- Operators in Latin America will need to invest in LTE infrastructure and enhance their mobile data and broadband offerings in a bid to secure revenue growth;- Whilst there are still developing markets in Asia which are continuing to grow their mobile subscriber base at high annual rates, total market growth in the region has eased considerably in the last few years. This is not surprising given that a significant number of markets have well and truly saturated over the last year or so.- Digicel, which has an expanding business across Samoa and Fiji in the Pacific, built a $500 million mobile network in PNG, becoming the countrys largest non-mining investor;- Although ARPU remains relatively low for operators, considering the level of disposable income in the region, Africa remains a key area for investment among players;- There are several dozen MVNOs in the US market, most of them small and with a regional focus;- While population increases across Europe mean that there is a steady influx of new mobile subscribers, the market has a sufficiently high penetration rate that growth is largely lateral, in that subscribers are migrating from 2G to 3G and LTE networks. As a result, the proportion of 2G subscribers is falling sharply, and while there remains steady, if slow, growth in the 3G sector this will also begin to fall from late 2017 or 2018 as subscribers shift to LTE networks. This movement is being encouraged by network operators which hope to capitalise on revenue derived from greater take-up of mobile broadband and data services;- Although MVNOs were late to arrive in the Middle East, several have launched services and captured market share. FRiENDi and Virgin Mobile MEA are two notable MVNOs which operate in several markets and there are a number of domestic players as well.Make an Enquiry of this report @About ResearchMozResearchMoz is the one stop online destination to find and buy market research reports & Industry Analysis. We fulfill all your research needs spanning across industry verticals with our huge collection of market research reports. We provide our services to all sizes of organizations and across all industry verticals and markets. Our Research Coordinators have in-depth knowledge of reports as well as publishers and will assist you in making an informed decision by giving you unbiased and deep insights on which reports will satisfy your needs at the best price.Mr. NachiketState Tower,90 State Street,Suite 700,Albany NY - 12207United StatesEmail: sales@researchmoz.usWebsite @Tel: 866-997-4948 (Us-Canada Toll Free)Tel: +1-518-621-2074Follow us on LinkedIn @
Public Safety LTE Devices Market Global Size, Share, Trend Split by Application, Regions, Capacity 2017-2022

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In our aim to provide our erudite clients with the best research material with absolute in-depth information of the market, our new report on Global Public Safety LTE Devices Market is confident in meeting their needs and expectations. The 2017 market research report on Global Public Safety LTE Devices Market is an in-depth study and analysis of the market by our industry experts with unparalleled domain knowledge. The report will shed light on many critical points and trends of the industry which are useful for our esteemed clients. The report covers a vast expanse of information including an overview, comprehensive analysis, definitions and classifications, applications, and expert opinions, among others. With the extent of information filled in the report, the presentation and style of the Global Public Safety LTE Devices Market report is a noteworthy.Request a sample of this report @The Global Public Safety LTE Devices Industry report provides key information about the industry, including invaluable facts and figures, expert opinions, and the latest developments across the globe. Not only does the report cover a holistic view of the industry from a global standpoint, but it also covers individual regions and their development. The Global Public Safety LTE Devices Industry market report showcases the latest trends in the global and regional markets on all critical parameters which include technology, supplies, capacity, production, profit, price, and competition. The key players covered in the report provide a detailed analysis of the competition and their developments in the Global Public Safety LTE Devices Industry. Accurate forecasts and expert opinion from credible sources, and the recent R&D development in the industry is also a mainstay of the Public Safety LTE Devices Market report.The report also focuses on the significance of industry chain analysis and all variables, both upstream and downstream. These include equipment and raw materials, client surveys, marketing channels, and industry trends and proposals. Other significant information covering consumption, key regions and distributors, and raw material suppliers are also a covered in this report.Browse the complete report @Finally, the Public Safety LTE Devices Market report ends with a detailed SWOT analysis of the market, investment feasibility and returns, and development trends and forecasts. As with every report on Orbis Research, the Public Safety LTE Devices Industry is the holy grail of information which serious knowledge seekers can benefit from.If you have any enquiry before buying a copy of this report @Major Points from Table of Content:Chapter One: Public Safety LTE Devices Market OverviewChapter Two: Global Public Safety LTE Devices Market Competition by ManufacturersChapter Three: Global Public Safety LTE Devices Capacity, Production, Revenue (Value) by Region (2012-2017)Chapter Four: Global Public Safety LTE Devices Supply (Production), Consumption, Export, Import by Region (2012-2017)Chapter Five: Global Public Safety LTE Devices Production, Revenue (Value), Price Trend by TypeChapter Six: Global Public Safety LTE Devices Market Analysis by ApplicationChapter Seven: Global Public Safety LTE Devices Manufacturers Profiles/AnalysisChapter Eight: Public Safety LTE Devices Manufacturing Cost AnalysisChapter Nine: Industrial Chain, Sourcing Strategy and Downstream BuyersChapter Ten: Marketing Strategy Analysis, Distributors/TradersChapter Eleven: Market Effect Factors AnalysisChapter Twelve: Global Public Safety LTE Devices Market Forecast (2017-2022)Chapter Thirteen: Research Findings and ConclusionChapter Fourteen: AppendixList of Figure:Figure Picture of Public Safety LTE DevicesFigure Global Public Safety LTE Devices Production (K Units) and CAGR (%) Comparison by Types (Product Category) (2012-2022)Figure Global Public Safety LTE Devices Production Market Share by Types (Product Category) in 2016Figure Product Picture of Commercial Cellular NetworksTable Major Manufacturers of Commercial Cellular NetworksFigure Product Picture of Dedicated Public Safety SystemsTable Major Manufacturers of Dedicated Public Safety SystemsFigure Global Public Safety LTE Devices Consumption (K Units) by Applications (2012-2022)Figure Global Public Safety LTE Devices Consumption Market Share by Applications in 2016Figure Communication ExamplesFigure Electronics ExamplesFigure Other ExamplesFigure Global Public Safety LTE Devices Market Size (Million USD), Comparison (K Units) and CAGR (%) by Regions (2012-2022)Figure United States Public Safety LTE Devices Revenue (Million USD) and Growth Rate (2012-2022)Figure EU Public Safety LTE Devices Revenue (Million USD) and Growth Rate (2012-2022)Figure China Public Safety LTE Devices Revenue (Million USD) and Growth Rate (2012-2022)Figure Japan Public Safety LTE Devices Revenue (Million USD) and Growth Rate (2012-2022)Figure South Korea Public Safety LTE Devices Revenue (Million USD) and Growth Rate (2012-2022)Figure Taiwan Public Safety LTE Devices Revenue (Million USD) and Growth Rate (2012-2022)Figure Global Public Safety LTE Devices Revenue (Million USD) Status and Outlook (2012-2022)Continued..About Us:Orbis Research (orbisresearch.com) is a single point aid for all your market research requirements. We have vast database of reports from the leading publishers and authors across the globe. We specialize in delivering customized reports as per the requirements of our clients. We have complete information about our publishers and hence are sure about the accuracy of the industries and verticals of their specialization. This helps our clients to map their needs and we produce the perfect required market research study for our clients.Contact Us:Hector CostelloSenior Manager  Client Engagements4144N Central Expressway,Suite 600, Dallas,Texas - 75204, U.S.A.Phone No.: +1 (214) 884-6817; +912064101019Email at: sales@orbisresearch.com
Field Service Management Platform Market Synopsis and Outlook Based on Domain and End User Application- Forecast to 2022

Field Service Management Platform Market

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Synopsis of Field Service Management Platform MarketMarket HighlightsFSM or Field Service Management Platform is a solution which helps in managing companys resources which is directly associated with clients. Managing the workers activity or scheduling the work or billing are few solutions which field service management platform provides. Increasing size and operation of business organizations is one of the key factor which is driving the market of FSM.Field Service Management Platform Market Key players:The key players in the market of Field Service Management Platform are- ServicePower (UK) ClickSoftware Technologies (U.S.) Astea International (U.S.) Infor (U.S.) GenieBelt (Denmark) Intacct (U.S.) Sage Software (UK) Epicor (U.S.) ServiceNow (U.S.) Coresystems AGRequest a Sample Report @Industry News In August 2016, ServicePower Technologies PLC announced the partnership with Westbrook International Ltd. which will help in implementation services. In August 2016, ServicePower Technologies PLC announced the partnership with Bolt Data where Bolt Data will be providing sales, implementation and support services.Market Segmentation Segmentation by Deployment: On Premise & On Cloud. Segmentation by Domain: SMEs & Large Business Units. Segmentation by Industry: Telecommunication, Healthcare, Manufacturing, Construction, Transportation & Logistics, Oil & Gas among others.Access the market data and information presented through data tables and figures spread 102 pages of the project report Global Field Service Management Platform MarketBrowse Report Details @Intended Audience FSM Platform providers Cloud Service Providers Software Developers System Integrators Manufacturing Industry Government organizations.Regional AnalysisNorth America is leading the market of FSM. Presence of global players and technology advancement are the key factor which is driving the market. Europe stands as second biggest market for the FSM. Developed countries such as France, Germany and Italy are few leading countries in Europe Region. Asia-Pacific has emerged as fastest growing market currently. Growing economy of Asian countries such as India and China are inviting global companies which lead to the heavy demand for the FMS platform.Get In-depth Table of Contents (TOC), List of Figures and Tables @About Market Research Future:At Market Research Future (MRFR), we enable our customers to unravel the complexity of various industries through our Cooked Research Report (CRR), Half-Cooked Research Reports (HCRR), Raw Research Reports (3R), Continuous-Feed Research (CFR), and Market Research & Consulting Services.MRFR team have supreme objective to provide the optimum quality market research and intelligence services to our clients. Our market research studies by products, services, technologies, applications, end users, and market players for global, regional, and country level market segments, enable our clients to see more, know more, and do more, which help to answer all their most important questions.In order to stay updated with technology and work process of the industry, MRFR often plans & conducts meet with the industry experts and industrial visits for its research analyst members.Contact:Akash Anand,Market Research FutureOffice No. 528, Amanora ChambersMagarpatta Road, Hadapsar,Pune - 411028Maharashtra, India+1 646 845 9312Email: akash.anand@marketresearchfuture.com
Osteoarthritis Market Analysis 2016-2022: Key Players Analysis and Forecast Model Based on Medications and Therapies

Osteoarthritis Market

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Market Highlights:Globally the market for osteoarthritis is increasing rapidly. The major factor that derives the growth of osteoarthritis is the increasing growth in aging pollution. Furthermore increasing growth in degenerative disorder and development in osteoarthritis drugs & treatment is growth of osteoarthritis market. Globally the market for osteoarthritis market is expected to grow at the rate of about XX% CAGR from 2016 to 2022.Market Segments:Global Osteoarthritis Market has been segmented as follows: On the basis of Therapies include non-pharmacological therapy, pharmacological therapy, surgical treatment and others. On the basis of Drugs includes acetaminophen and non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs.Request a Sample Report @Key Players for Osteoarthritis Market:Some of the key players in this market are: Abbott (U.S) Johnson & Johnson (U.S) Novartis AG (Switzerland) Pfizer (U.S) Eli Lilly and Company (U.S)Intended Audience Osteoarthritis treatment centers Contract Research Organizations (CROs) Research and Development (R&D) Companies Government Research Laboratories Independent Research Laboratories Government and Independent Regulatory Authorities Market Research and Consulting Service Providers Medical Research Laboratories Academic Medical Institutes and UniversitiesAccess the market data and information presented through data tables and figures spread 100 pages of the project report. Avail in-depth table of content (TOC) & market synopsis on Global Osteoarthritis Market Research Report- Forecast To 2022Access Report Page @Table of Contents for Global Osteoarthritis Market1. Report Prologue2. Introduction2.1 Definition2.2 Scope of the Study2.2.1 Research Objective2.2.2 Assumptions2.2.3 Limitations2.3 Market Structure2.4. Market Segmentation3. Research Methodology3.1 Research Process3.2 Primary Research3.3 Secondary Research3.4 Market Size Estimation3.5 Forecast Model4. Market Dynamics4.1 Drivers4.2 Restraints4.3 Opportunities4.4 Mega Trends4.5 Macroeconomic Indicators5. Market Factor Analysis5.1 Value Chain Analysis5.2 PORTERS Five Forces5.3 demand & supply: gap analysis5.4 Pricing Analysis5.5 Investment Opportunity Analysis5.6 Merger and Acquisition Landscape5.7 UP-Coming trends in Osteoarthritis Market5.7.1 Market trends5.7.2 Technological trends5.7.3 Insurance & Regulations5.7.4 Others6. Global Osteoarthritis Market by Medications7. Global Osteoarthritis Market by Therapies8. Global Osteoarthritis Market by RegionCONTINUEDGet In-depth Table of Contents, List of Figures @Regional Analysis of Osteoarthritis Market:Globally North America is the largest market for Osteoarthritis. Europe is the second-largest market for osteoarthritis. Furthermore Asia pacific market is expected to be the growing market for osteoarthritis market.About Market Research Future:At Market Research Future (MRFR), we enable our customers to unravel the complexity of various industries through our Cooked Research Report (CRR), Half-Cooked Research Reports (HCRR), Raw Research Reports (3R), Continuous-Feed Research (CFR), and Market Research & Consulting Services.MRFR team have supreme objective to provide the optimum quality market research and intelligence services to our clients. Our market research studies by products, services, technologies, applications, end users, and market players for global, regional, and country level market segments, enable our clients to see more, know more, and do more, which help to answer all their most important questions.In order to stay updated with technology and work process of the industry, MRFR often plans & conducts meet with the industry experts and industrial visits for its research analyst members.Contact:Akash Anand,Market Research FutureOffice No. 528, Amanora ChambersMagarpatta Road, Hadapsar,Pune - 411028Maharashtra, India+1 646 845 9312Email: akash.anand@marketresearchfuture.com
United States, EU, Japan, China, India and Southeast Asia IoT Procurement Market Size, Status and Forecast 2021

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Qyresearchreports include new market research report "United States, EU, Japan, China, India and Southeast Asia IoT Procurement Market Size, Status and Forecast 2021" to its huge collection of research reports.This research report accounts for all the most recent and relevant dynamics of the IoT Procurement to create an all-encompassing database for users of all types. An important part within the given dynamics of the market is the information surrounding the profiles of all leading players and the relative competitive landscape of the market, as it is very likely for these key players to have their fair share of influence over it. Additional dynamics of the IoT Procurement as mentioned in the report include its key drivers, restraints, and opportunities that have already affected a majority of the players in it, along with the ones that are likely to continue impacting the market over the given forecast period.To Get Sample Copy of Report visit @To fully elaborate the competitive landscape of the market, a SWOT analysis is penned out in a manner fit for players of all caliber. This allows for a clearer projection for the market for the foreseeable years. Other aspects analyzed in the report, in terms of the individual player profiles, are their financial profiles and their current planning and market strategies that have so far been visible.The IoT Procurement is further analyzed on the basis of its supply and demand chains, which is a part of the passage that employs past analytics and current information pertaining to usage and production capacities. This section of the report additionally includes product descriptions and cost structures of the market. The report also presents a descriptive analysis of the market in order to calculate its characteristic traits in upstream and downstream demand cycles for raw materials, imports, and exports.Browse Complete Report with TOC @Table of Contents1 Industry Overview of IoT Procurement1.1 IoT Procurement Market Overview1.1.1 IoT Procurement Product Scope1.1.2 Market Status and Outlook1.2 Global IoT Procurement 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 IoT Procurement Market by End Users/Application1.3.1 Application 11.3.2 Application 21.3.3 Application 32 Global IoT Procurement Competition Analysis by Players2.1 IoT Procurement 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 Future3 Company (Top Players) Profiles3.1 AT&T3.1.1 Company Profile3.1.2 Main Business/Business Overview3.1.3 Products, Services and Solutions3.1.4 IoT Procurement Revenue (Value) (2011-2016)3.1.5 Recent Developments3.2 Vodafone3.2.1 Company Profile3.2.2 Main Business/Business Overview3.2.3 Products, Services and Solutions3.2.4 IoT Procurement Revenue (Value) (2011-2016)3.2.5 Recent Developments3.3 Nokia3.3.1 Company Profile3.3.2 Main Business/Business Overview3.3.3 Products, Services and Solutions3.3.4 IoT Procurement Revenue (Value) (2011-2016)3.3.5 Recent Developments3.4 HPE3.4.1 Company Profile3.4.2 Main Business/Business Overview3.4.3 Products, Services and Solutions3.4.4 IoT Procurement Revenue (Value) (2011-2016)3.4.5 Recent Developments3.5 Cisco3.5.1 Company Profile3.5.2 Main Business/Business Overview3.5.3 Products, Services and Solutions3.5.4 IoT Procurement Revenue (Value) (2011-2016)3.5.5 Recent Developments12 IoT Procurement Market Dynamics12.1 IoT Procurement Market Opportunities12.2 IoT Procurement Challenge and Risk12.2.1 Competition from Opponents12.2.2 Downside Risks of Economy12.3 IoT Procurement Market Constraints and Threat12.3.1 Threat from Substitute12.3.2 Government Policy12.3.3 Technology Risks12.4 IoT Procurement Market Driving Force12.4.1 Growing Demand from Emerging Markets12.4.2 Potential Application13 Market Effect Factors Analysis13.1 Technology Progress/Risk13.1.1 Substitutes13.1.2 Technology Progress in Related Industry13.2 Consumer Needs Trend/Customer Preference13.3 External Environmental Change13.3.1 Economic Fluctuations13.3.2 Other Risk FactorsList of Tables and FiguresFigure IoT Procurement Product ScopeFigure Global IoT Procurement Market Size (2011-2016)Table Global IoT Procurement Market Size and Growth Rate by Regions (2011-2016)Figure Global IoT Procurement Market Share by Regions in 2015Figure United States IoT Procurement Market Size and Growth Rate by Regions (2011-2016)Figure EU IoT Procurement Market Size and Growth Rate by Regions (2011-2016)Figure Japan IoT Procurement Market Size and Growth Rate by Regions (2011-2016)Figure China IoT Procurement Market Size and Growth Rate by Regions (2011-2016)Figure India IoT Procurement Market Size and Growth Rate by Regions (2011-2016)Figure Southeast Asia IoT Procurement Market Size and Growth Rate by Regions (2011-2016)Figure Global IoT Procurement Market Share by Application in 2015Figure IoT Procurement Market Size and Growth Rate in Applications 1 (2011-2016)Figure IoT Procurement Market Size and Growth Rate in Applications 2 (2011-2016)Figure IoT Procurement Market Size and Growth Rate in Applications 3 (2011-2016)Table IoT Procurement Market Size (Value) by Players (2015-2016)Figure IoT Procurement Market Size Share by Players in 2015Figure IoT Procurement Market Size Share by Players in 2016Read More @QYReseachReports.com delivers the latest strategic market intelligence to build a successful business footprint in China. Our syndicated and customized research reports provide companies with vital background information of the market and in-depth analysis on the Chinese trade and investment framework, which directly affects their business operations. Reports from QYReseachReports.com feature valuable recommendations on how to navigate in the extremely unpredictable yet highly attractive Chinese market.1820 AvenueM Suite #1047Brooklyn, NY 11230United States
Demands On Global Coffee Market Trends, Segments, Forecast And Opportunities (2016-2020)

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The report titled Global Coffee Market: Trends & Opportunities (2016-2020) provides an in-depth analysis of the global coffee market with detailed analysis of market sizing and growth, market share and economic impact of the industry. The report also provides the production and consumption analysis of the market. The report provides detailed market analysis of the global retail coffee market by value and volume along with the segments of the market.The report provides detailed regional analysis of Western Europe, Eastern Europe, North America, Asia Pacific, Latin America Middle East & Africa and Australasia for the coffee market. Regional analysis includes market sizing by value along with the production and consumption analysis. It also provides the retail sales value of each region.The report also includes the country analysis of Brazil, Vietnam, Indonesia, Ethiopia and India. It provides the production and consumption analysis along with the export-import trends in each of the above mentioned countries.Request To Get Sample Copy Of This Report:Furthermore, the report assesses the key opportunities in the market and outlines the factors that are and will be driving the growth of the industry. Growth of the global retail coffee market has also been forecasted for the period 2016-2020, taking into consideration the previous growth patterns, the growth drivers and the current and future trends. The competition in global coffee market is stiff and dominated by the big players like Nestle. Further, key players of the coffee market The J.M. Smucker Company, Mondelez International Inc. and Strauss Group Ltd. are also profiled with their financial information and respective business strategies.Regional CoverageWestern EuropeEastern EuropeNorth AmericaAsia PacificLatin AmericaMiddle East and AfricaAustralasiaCountry CoverageBrazilVietnamIndonesiaEthiopiaIndiaCompany CoverageThe J.M. Smucker CompanyMondelez International Inc.Strauss Group Ltd.Executive SummaryGlobal coffee market increased at a significant CAGR during the span of 5 years i.e. 2011-2015 and projections are made that the market would rise in the next five years i.e. 2016-2020 tremendously. The market can be segmented on the basis of end-users as retail coffee market and food services market, of which global retail coffee market displayed an increase, driving the global coffee market. The increasing consumption of coffee led by the westernization trend in India, China and Latin America drive the market in the positive direction.Browse More ICT Market Research Reports:The growth drivers for the global coffee market are: rise in disposable income, rapid urbanization and increase in the population along with the emergence of caf culture and new consumer base. Despite the market is governed by various growth drivers, there are certain challenges faced by the market such as: aging of coffee trees, lack of government support, negative impact of climate change, price volatility and increase in production cost.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
First Comes Change, Then Comes Growth: NEW CHILDRENS BOOK EXPLORES GROWING THROUGH CHALLENGE, FINDING BEAUTY IN THE WORLD AROUND US

Otis Grows: Cover

As much as wed like to, theres no way to completely shield our children from all change, conflict, and grief. The truth is, theres so much beauty in the world often overshadowed by the scary that its more important than ever that we teach our kids how to confidently grow in the face of challenge.In the beautifully crafted new childrens book Otis Grows by Kathryn Hast, were introduced to young Otis, a red onion who is forced to question his origin and allegiancesgiven that his mom, a yellow chicken, is part of the Nuh-Uhs, and his dad, a blue flower, stems from the Yes-Chums. Struggling to find answers, Otis runs away, only to encounter more colors and cultures than he could ever imagine. Rooted in the challenges of family conflict, this book still appeals to any child  or adult  who knows that growing up can be tough, that there is the odor of growing older, but that, ultimately, love and wonder will win.The author, a mother of (and frequent reader to) two young children has an MFA in writing, and was inspired to create a truly entertaining yet meaningful story that resonates with all families, especially in this time of turbulence. As a child of divorce, Hast knows that shifts in families can have long-lasting effects on kids and hopes to teach them how to navigate through it, and even see the beauty in it.Otis Grows is a kids book that looks at adult problems. It playfully engages us all to consider: whats tough, whats inherent, but most of all, whats possible, Hast says.With its bright, whimsical illustrations and lyrical style, Otis Grows touches on:*The inherent nature of conflict, especially current day: How we can acknowledge and address it*Theres still more good than bad in the world: Why we should delight in it*Bigger conversations that children and parents can share together about conflict and more*The importance of reading together as a family*And much more!Kathryn Hast has a Masters of Fine Arts degree in writing and a Masters degree in Education. She is from York, Pennsylvania, and she lives in Asheville, North Carolina with her husband and two children. She has one dog named after a Beatles song, and one that barks at the television. Otis Grows is her first published work of fiction, and her next book Batty Betty is forthcoming.LuJu Books believes in providing children with unique, finely crafted literature. We believe books should create conversations, encourage curiosity, and nurture mindfulness.We believe in the captivation of playful words and whimsy.We believe parents can find reflection and meaning in the books they read their children.LuJu Books:Little Kids. Big Ideas.Alexander GomesLuJu BooksP.O. Box 9451Asheville, NC 28815
United States Fast Casual Restaurants Market Will Reach At A CAGR Of 10.38% For The Period 2017 - 2020

Market Research Report

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ResearchMoz presents this most up-to-date research on "United States Fast Casual Restaurants Market Will Reach At A CAGR Of 10.38% For The Period 2017 - 2020".A fast casual restaurant is a fresh and rapidly growing concept. It is a combination of quick service restaurants and casual dining restaurants. It serves healthier food that is fresh and costs more than the food served in quick service restaurants. The increase in health consciousness has pushed the demand for this segment. Consumers are willing to pay more for the healthy, fresh, and low-calorie food served at fast casual restaurants. Chipotle Mexican Grill, Panera Bread, and Five Guys are the top restaurants in this category.Technavios analysts forecast the fast casual restaurants market in the US to grow at a CAGR of 10.38% during the period 2016-2020.Covered in this reportThe report covers the present scenario and the growth prospects of the fast casual restaurants market in the US for 2016-2020. To calculate the market size, the report considers the revenue generated through sales of food and beverages by fast casual restaurants in the US.Technavio's report, Fast Casual Restaurants Market in the US 2016-2020, has been prepared based on an in-depth market analysis with inputs from industry experts. The report covers the market landscape and its growth prospects over the coming years. The report also includes a discussion of the key vendors operating in this market.Key vendorsChipotle Mexican GrillFirehouse RestaurantFive GuysPanda ExpressPanera BreadMake an Enquiry of this report @Other prominent vendors&pizzaBlaze PizzaDickeys Barbecue PitGodfathers PizzaMOD PizzaNoodles & CompanyPie Five PizzaPizzaRevPotbelly Sandwich WorksShake ShackSmashburgerSweetgreenUncle Maddio's Pizza JointMarket driverDemand for innovation and customization in food menusFor a full, detailed list, view our reportMarket challengeThreat of contamination of ingredients and raw materialsFor a full, detailed list, view our reportMarket trendGrowing focus on social media marketing and promotional activitiesFor a full, detailed list, view our reportKey questions answered in this reportWhat will the market size be in 2020 and what will the growth rate be?What are the key market trends?What is driving this market?What are the challenges to market growth?Who are the key vendors in this market space?What are the market opportunities and threats faced by the key vendors?What are the strengths and weaknesses of the key vendors?To Get Sample Copy of Report visit @About ResearchMozResearchMoz is the one stop online destination to find and buy market research reports & Industry Analysis. We fulfill all your research needs spanning across industry verticals with our huge collection of market research reports. We provide our services to all sizes of organizations and across all industry verticals and markets. Our Research Coordinators have in-depth knowledge of reports as well as publishers and will assist you in making an informed decision by giving you unbiased and deep insights on which reports will satisfy your needs at the best price.Mr. NachiketState Tower,90 State Street,Suite 700,Albany NY - 12207United StatesEmail: sales@researchmoz.usWebsite @Tel: 866-997-4948 (Us-Canada Toll Free)Tel: +1-518-621-2074Follow us on LinkedIn @
FileCalendar for iPhone and iPad will be offered for free for two weeks

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https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/filecalendar-manage-calendar-events-add-files/id976927698?mt=8

https://filecalendar.com

FileCalendar will be available on the App Store free of charge for two weeks from April 1, 2017 in cooperation with the german computer science magazine Computer Bild. The app is a combination of file manager and calendar. FileCalendar stores files and contacts to appointments on iPhone or iPad. The app accesses the default calendar of the Apple devices. So you continue to use your default calendar and have all the necessary documents at hand for each appointment.In FileCalendar, files are stored device-based to appointments. In order for the files to be used on other devices or exchanged with other people, an easy-to-use file sharing function was integrated. All files can be transferred individually or together to other devices as well as different apps (eg. cloud storage apps). It is also possible to post photos to well-known social networks as well as forwarding files via e-mail. In addition, files between the FileCalendar and the computer can be exchanged with AirDrop.With the new-designed and completely revised version 1.6, the app has received new features. It has a built-in camera function and a file manager equipped with basic functions. The FileCalendar works with over 20 common file formats and unpacks zip files.The app is ideal for everyone who wants to store files, mail attachments, and documents such as tickets or papers for meetings on iPhone or iPad. The integrated camera function can also be used for expert activities because movies and photos can be directly added to appointments on the respective device.The App has been offered by a Wiesbaden-based company in the App Store since 2015 and is being continuously developed further. For the next release the provider plans to introduce a new note function.FileCalendar is available for download on the following link:###Apple, AirDrop, iPad and iPhone and are trademarks of Apple Inc., registered in the U.S. and other countries. App Store is a service mark of Apple Inc.FileCalendar has been developed by Homburg & Schmidt UG (haftungsbeschrankt). The company was founded 2015 and is located in Wiesbaden (Germany).Homburg & Schmidt UG (haftungsbeschrankt)Geisbergstr. 2165193 WiesbadenGermanyarmin.homburg@filecalendar.com
Fleet Management Market is Expected to Cross US$ 34 Billion by 2022

Fleet Management Market

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New York, March 31: Market Research Engine has published a new report titled as Fleet Management Market By Deployment Type (Hybrid, On premises, Cloud); By Solution Type (Driver management, Asset management, Operation management) and By Service Type (Managed services, Integration and deployment service, Managed services)  Global Industry Analysis and Forecast 2016 - 2022How Big is the Fleet Management Market?The fleet management market is expected to reach US$ 34 Billion by 2022; Growing at a CAGR of more than 23.50% in the given forecast period.Browse Full Report:Fleet Managements task is a set of duties which is required to keep fleet of vehicles running efficiently. The principal responsibility of any fleet administrator is to comprehend what is really in their fleet at any given time. This will not only just implies that the fleet administrator ought to have a record of all vehicles additionally but also should have in a perfect world that they ought to have a record of all the serial quantities of the different key parts which identify with each of their vehicles. This will stop any false messing with them. It will likewise compose a proper support plan.In the feeling of fleet administration, monitoring a vehicle has two implications. The primary significance is keeping full and an exact record of everything which worries that vehicle, from fuel stops to any upkeep, whether it's a driver fitting another fan belt out and about in a crisis or a full administration. This is fundamental so peculiarities can be recognized and questioned. The second significance essentially knows where vehicles are. This obligation has been made much simpler since the innovation of GPS and discharging it for open use.The major driving factors of fleet management market are as follows:Falling connectivity and hardware costEcological concernsExecution of Eld mandateRequire for operational effectivenessThe restraining factors of fleet management market are as follows:Price sensitivity of fleet possessorsThe fleet management market is segmented on the lines of its deployment, solution, service, connectivity, vertical and regional. Based on deployment segmentation it covers hybrid, on premises and cloud. Under solution segmentation it covers driver management, asset management and operation management. The fleet management market is segmented on the lines of its service like managed services, integration and deployment service and managed services. The connectivity segmentation contains cellular system and satellite system. Based on vertical segmentation it covers construction, retail, energy and utilities, transportation and logistics, government and manufacturing. The fleet management markets geographic segmentation covers various regions such as North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Latin America, Middle East and Africa. Each geographic market is further segmented to provide market revenue for select countries such as the U.S., Canada, U.K. Germany, China, Japan, India, Brazil, and GCC countries.Download Free Sample Report:This report provides:1) An overview of the global market for fleet management and related technologies.2) Analyses of global market trends, with data from 2013, estimates for 2014 and 2015, and projections of compound annual growth rates (CAGRs) through 2022.3) Identify the new market opportunities and targeted promotional plans for fleet management.4) Discussion of research and development, and the demand for new products and new applications on the data available.5) Comprehensive company profiles of major players in the industry to explore further possible profits.REPORT SCOPE:The scope of the report includes a detailed study of global and regional markets for Fleet Management with the reasons given for variations in the growth of the industry in certain regions.The report covers detailed competitive outlook including the market share and company profiles of the key participants operating in the global market. Key players profiled in the report include AT&T Inc. (U.S.), Verizon Communications (U.S.), Zonar Systems (U.S.), Fleetmatics Group (U.S.), Trimble Navigation Ltd. (U.S.), Telogis (U.S.), ID Systems Inc. (U.S.), Workwave LLC (U.S.), Eresource Infotech Pvt. Ltd. (India), Magellan (U.S.), and CarTrack Technologies Co. Ltd. (SA). Company profile includes assign such as company summary, financial summary, business strategy and planning, SWOT analysis and current developments.The Top Companies Report is intended to provide our buyers with a snapshot of the industrys most influential players.The Fleet Management Market has been segmented as below:By Deployment TypeHybridOn premisesCloudBy Solution TypeDriver managementAsset managementOperation managementBy Service TypeManaged servicesIntegration and deployment serviceManaged servicesBy Connectivity TypeCellular systemSatellite systemBy Vertical AnalysisConstructionRetailEnergy and utilitiesTransportation and logisticsGovernmentManufacturingBy Regional AnalysisNorth AmericaEuropeAPACRest of the WorldReasons to Buy this Report:1) Obtain the most up to date information available on all fleet management globally.2) Identify growth segments and opportunities in the industry.3) Facilitate decision making on the basis of strong historic and forecast of fleet management data.4) Assess your competitors refining portfolio and its evolution.About MarketResearchEngine.comMarket Research Engine is a global market research and consulting organization. We provide market intelligence in emerging, niche technologies and markets. Our market analysis powered by rigorous methodology and quality metrics provide information and forecasts across emerging markets, emerging technologies and emerging business models. Our deep focus on industry verticals and country reports help our clients to identify opportunities and develop business strategies.Media ContactCompany Name: Market Research EngineContact Person: John BayEmail: john@marketresearchengine.comPhone: +1-855-984-1862, +91-860-565-7204Country: United StatesWebsite:Address: 3422 SW 15 Street, Suite #8942, Deerfield Beach, FL 33442, United States
Flexible Packaging Market is Expected to Cross US$ 324 Billion by 2022

Flexible Packaging Market

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New York, March 31: Market Research Engine has published a new report titled as Flexible Packaging Market By Material Type, By Product Type and By Application Type - Global Industry Analysis and Forecast 2016 - 2022How Big is the Flexible Packaging Market?The flexible packaging market is expected to exceed more than US$ 324 Billion by 2022; Growing at a CAGR of more than 5% in the given forecast period.Browse Full Report:Flexible packaging is growing fast in the field of prime packaging. Development in material science has permitted manufacturers to produce flexible packaging for the food and beverage business superior than before. This packaging can maintain the main role of protecting its contents as to provide the advantages of better performance, lower weight and lower scope of contamination. Flexible packaging makes easier to store and handle transportation of goods lots smoother.The flexible packaging market is segmented on the lines of its material type, product type, application and regional. Based on material type it covers cellulosic, aluminum, paper and polymer. Polymer segmentation is further classified into poly styrene, ethylene vinyl alcohol, poly vinyl chloride, polyamide, biaxially oriented polyethylene terephthalate, cast polypropylene and polyethylene. Polyethylene is further segmented into LLDPE, HDPE and LDPE. Under product segmentation it covers squeezable bottles, laminated tubes, wicketed bags, gusseted bags, converted roll stock, retort pouches and stand up pounchs. Based on application segmentation it covers industrial and institutional and consumer applications. Consumer segmentation is further classified into tobacco, pharmaceutical, personal care and food and beverages. Food and beverage covers dairy, bakery and confectionery, tea, frozen and chilled food, ready to eat food and others. The flexible packaging markets geographic segmentation covers various regions such as North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Latin America, Middle East and Africa. Each geographic market is further segmented to provide market revenue for select countries such as the U.S., Canada, U.K. Germany, China, Japan, India, Brazil, and GCC countries.This report provides:1) An overview of the global market for flexible packaging and related technologies.2) Analyses of global market trends, with data from 2013, estimates for 2014 and 2015, and projections of compound annual growth rates (CAGRs) through 2022.3) Identifications of new market opportunities and targeted promotional plans for flexible packaging.4) Discussion of research and development, and the demand for new products and new applications.5) Comprehensive company profiles of major players in the industry.Download Free Sample Report:REPORT SCOPE:The scope of the report includes a detailed study of global and regional markets for Flexible Packaging Market for variations in the growth of the industry in certain regions.The report covers detailed competitive outlook including the market share and company profiles of the key participants operating in the global market. Key players profiled in the report include AkzoNobel N.V., Asian Paints Ltd., Deutsche Amphibolin-Werke Von Robert Murjahn Stiftung & Company, Diamond Vogel, DowCorning, Helios Group, KCC Corporation, Masco Corporation, PPG Industries etc. Company profile includes assign such as company summary, financial summary, business strategy and planning, SWOT analysis and current developments.The Top Companies Report is intended to provide our buyers with a snapshot of the industrys most influential players.The Flexible Packaging Market has been segmented as below:By Material Type AnalysisCellulosicAluminumPaperPolymerPoly styreneEthylene vinyl alcoholPoly vinyl chloridePolyamideBiaxially oriented polyethylene terephthalateCast polypropylenePolyethyleneLLDPEHDPELDPEBy Product Type AnalysisSqueezable bottlesLaminated tubesWicketed bagsGusseted bagsConverted roll stockRetort pouchesStand up pounchsBy Application AnalysisIndustrial and institutionalConsumerTobaccoPharmaceuticalPersonal careFood and beveragesDairyBakery and confectioneryTeaFrozen and chilled foodReady to eat foodOthersBy Regional AnalysisNorth AmericaEuropeAsia-PacificRest of the WorldReasons to Buy this Report:1) Obtain the most up to date information available on all flexible packaging.2) Identify growth segments and opportunities in the industry.3) Facilitate decision making on the basis of strong historic and forecast of flexible packaging data.4) Assess your competitors refining portfolio and its evolution.About MarketResearchEngine.comMarket Research Engine is a global market research and consulting organization. We provide market intelligence in emerging, niche technologies and markets. Our market analysis powered by rigorous methodology and quality metrics provide information and forecasts across emerging markets, emerging technologies and emerging business models. Our deep focus on industry verticals and country reports help our clients to identify opportunities and develop business strategies.Media ContactCompany Name: Market Research EngineContact Person: John BayEmail: john@marketresearchengine.comPhone: +1-855-984-1862, +91-860-565-7204Country: United StatesWebsite:Address: 3422 SW 15 Street, Suite #8942, Deerfield Beach, FL 33442, United States
Global Light Therapy Market Assessment 2017-2021

http://www.sa-brc.com/Global-Light-Therapy-Market-Assessment--Forecast-2017-2021/up48

http://www.sa-brc.com/Global-Light-Therapy-Market-Assessment--Forecast-2016--2020/upcomingdetail48

www.sa-brc.com

Light therapy market is gradually making its way from being popular in skin and aesthetic treatment, to treatment of depression and sleep related disorders. Light therapy or photo therapy has been used for treatment of skin disorders such as psoriasis, acne vulgaris, atopic dermatitis and others. Certain studies have also shown that exposure to ultraviolet light has been beneficial in treatment of skin cancer. Light therapy for diabetic retinopathy has also been found beneficial in improving retinal blood flow which further helps in vision correction.The global light therapy market has been segmented on the basis of application as follows:DepressionSleep disordersRetinal disordersSkin disordersOthersRequest Free Report Sample@Majority of the market for light therapy has been dominated by generic product manufacturers. China has become a home for low-cost photo therapy lamp, and other products manufacturers. Turnkey products are exported from China to companies in western countries, which further engage in branding and product promotion. Products are available for home use, as well for commercial applications in therapy centers. Various light therapy clinics have also evolved in the recent past for treatment of depression, and skin rejuvenation and acne treatment. Noctura 400 sleep mask manufactured by PolyPhotonix Medical Ltd. a U.K. based company is claimed to show positive results in 66% of the diabetic retinopathy patients. The CE market product reduces retinal thickness and intra-retinal cysts within three months of use.Light therapy market is mainly driven by growing tendency to opt for drugless therapy, mainly to avoid drug effects. Psychological treatment of depression, and sleep disorder through exposure to bright light has although not been fully supported by scientific data. Phototherapy has been beneficial in treatment of jaundice in neonatal. It helps in conversion of bilirubin in the body into water soluble byproducts, which can be easily excreted from the body. Publication of more studies on effect of phototherapy on treatment of depression and sleep related disorders would help the market grow rapidly in other parts of the world. Increasing disposable income and rising trend for cosmetic treatment has provided necessary traction for light therapy products in this segment. Light of varied colors such as red, blue, green and yellow have shown effective acne reduction and improved skin tone. Currently U.S., Europe and countries in South-East Asia such as Korea, Thailand and China are leading geographies in light therapy market. The Middle East and Africa contribute minimally to the market and also represent sluggish growth.Request For TOC@NOTE: This report is currently under research and will be made available to clients on request.About UsSpearhead Acuity Business Research & Consulting Private Limited (SA-BRC) is a premium Life Science business intelligence and data analytics firm. SA-BRC team offers a wide range of business intelligence services to multiple stakeholders such as Medical Device Manufacturers, Service Providers (Hospitals, Payers, etc.), Suppliers, Group Purchase Organizations, Distributors and all other individuals in the entire value chain of healthcare industry. Our research and consulting capabilities extend across several sub-domains within the sphere of Life Sciences such as Biotechnology, Healthcare IT, Medical Devices, Veterinary Sciences, Wellness Products and Pharmaceuticals.Contact UsJohn WhitmoreOffice No. 14,Hermes Kunj, Mangaldas Road,Pune, 411001IndiaPhone: +91-02041210872Email: support@sa-brc.comWebsite:
DW Simpson Names Dave Benton Chief Human Resources Officer

Dave Benton, Partner & Chief Human Resources Officer

www.dwsimpson.com

www.dwsimpson.com/team/dave-benton

Chicago, IL  March 31, 2017  DW Simpson Global Actuarial and Analytics Recruitment has promoted Partner Dave Benton to Chief Human Resources Officer.As DW Simpson's CHRO, Benton will oversee all aspects of the company's human resources management including performance management, employee relations, recruitment, training, benefits, policies, and organizational structure. He originally began his career with DW Simpson in 1996 as a Recruiter.In 2002, Dave joined CNA in Chicago as a Recruiting Consultant specializing in actuarial hiring. After three years with CNA, Dave joined Ernst & Young as its Experienced Hire Recruiter for the Life & Health and Property & Casualty National Actuarial Practice. Dave re-joined DW Simpson Global Actuarial Recruitment in 2007 as Director  Retained Search Services and was promoted to Senior Director in 2011 and Partner in 2012.Dave currently serves as DW Simpson's representative on the International Association of Black Actuaries (IABA) Corporate Advisory Council. Additionally, he has written industry articles such as, The How-To of Hiring Top Actuaries published on the SOAs Riskpertise blog as well as Get Your Offers Accepted, which was published in the Actuary of the Future.ABOUT:DW Simpson has been specializing solely in the recruitment of actuaries since 1989. We work on an international basis and at all levels of experience, from Actuarial Student to Fellow. This encompasses Actuaries with expertise in Life, Health, Pension, Property & Casualty, and, increasingly, non-traditional areas such as Risk Management, Catastrophe Modeling, Predictive Modeling, Financial Modeling and Analytics. With a professional staff of over 50, we are the largest of the firms who exclusively place Actuaries.For more information about DW Simpson, visit our website at. To view Dave Bentons bio, visitDW Simpson Global Actuarial & Analytics Recruitment4121 N. Ravenswood AvenueChicago, IL 60613MEDIA CONTACTGenevieve ShannonDigital Media Manager, DW SimpsonPH: 312-867-2300EM: genevieve.shannon@dwsimpson.com
Panda Security's Adaptive Defense Eases the Transition to the GDPR

http://partnernews.pandasecurity.com/uk/src/uploads/2017/03/1703-WHITEPAPER-GDPR-UK.pdf

http://www.pandasecurity.com/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/mrneilmartin

https://www.facebook.com/PandaSecurityUK

http://twitter.com/PandaSecurityUK

http://www.youtube.com/PandaSecurity1

Pandas objective is to address the need to adapt data security practices and thereby give its clients a competitive advantage. Disregarding the requirements of the GDPR could lead to fines of up to 20,000,000 euros, or for some even more costly data sanctions.Panda Securitys Preparation Guide to the New European General Data Protection Regulation introduces the new legislation to businesses before its application in 2018.With the focus on protecting the fundamental rights and freedoms of natural persons and their right to the protection of personal data, the regulation establishes obligations for organizations processing citizens data.How will the GDPR affect businesses?One of the main points of the white paper is that taking action only when an infringement has already occurred is insufficient as a strategy, since such a failure can cause irreversible damage to interested parties and can be very difficult to compensate.Here are some sanctions and other potential problems stemming from non-compliance with the GDPR:. Direct or indirect economic repercussions.. PR damages.. The loss of current or potential clients due to non-compliance.. The risk of data-processing limits or bans imposed by supervisory authority.. The possible suspension of your service for your clients.. Claims from natural persons involved in infringement.. Costly fines that could reach up to 20,000 or 4% of global revenue.Panda Security, a partner in compliance with the new lawFor organizations dealing with data, prevention is the core element of the regulation. Working with vision and anticipation of the GDPR can provide a competitive advantage.Businesses that have put their trust in Adaptive Defense are already well on their way to complying with the GDPR. It offers:. Prevention: Adaptive Defense features an internal audit system to verify the security status of the IT infrastructure at any given time, checking for malicious processes.. Protection of personal data processed on a businesss systems, stopping, for example, any untrusted process from running.. Risk reduction, key activity indicators, and endpoint status, which helps keep administrators aware of vulnerable devices and anomalous internal & external network activity.. Control mechanisms and data management for the DPO, who will be notified in real time not only of security incidents, but also whether or not these incidents involve data files.. Forensic tools to notify authorities of security incidents within the first 72 hours of breach awareness.Preparation Guide to GDPR -About Panda SecurityFounded in 1990, Panda Security is the worlds leading provider of cloud-based security solutions. With head offices in Spain, the company has direct presence in over 80 countries, products translated into more than 23 languages and millions of customers around the world. The companys mission is to simplify complexity, creating new and improved solutions to protect users digital lives.For more information, visitNeil Martinneil.martin@uk.pandasecurity.comTel. 0844 335 3791Direct Tel: 01344 398983Linkedin -Facebook -Twitter -Youtube -LAvenirOpladen WayBracknellBerkshireRG12 0PH
Global ERP Software Market by Manufacturers, Regions, Type and Application, Forecast to 2022

http://www.marketintelreports.com/report/gir0579/global-erp-software-market-by-manufacturers-regions-type-and-application-forecast-to-2022

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Global ERP Software Market by Manufacturers, Regions, Type and Application, Forecast to 2022Enterprise resource planning (ERP) is a method of efficiently utilizing people, hardware and software to increase productivity and profit, thus simplifying a companys business processes. ERP systems merge each of the companys key operations, including the manufacturing, distribution, financial, human resources and customer relations departments, into one software system. It is widely used in all industries.Browse our 112 Pages of Recent Research on Global ERP Software Market @An ERP may consist of many different business modules, including: Manufacturing Human Resources/Payroll Sales Inventory Supply Chain/Partners Finance and Accounting CRMAt present, in the foreign industrial developed countries the ERP Software industry is generally at a more advanced level, the world's large enterprises are mainly concentrated in the Germany, American. Meanwhile, foreign companies have more advanced equipment, strong R & D capability, the technical level is in a leading position. But foreign companies manufacturing cost is relatively high, compared with Chinese companies, the manufacturing cost is competitive disadvantage, with the Chinese ERP Software production enterprise technology continues to improve, their share in the international market is increasing, competitiveness in the international market gradually increase .Chinas ERP Software industry has developed into a national industry with certain research and production capacity, industry product mix has gradually improved, currently China has become international ERP Software large consumption country, but the production technology is relatively laggard, currently can only produce some low-end product. Visibility and competitiveness is low.Scope of the Report:This report focuses on the ERP Software 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 coversSAP, Oracle, Sage, Infor, Microsoft, Epicor, Kronos, Concur (SAP), IBM, Totvs, UNIT4, YonYou, NetSuite, Kingdee, Workday, Cornerstone, DigiwinMarket 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 (Brazil, Argentina, Columbia etc.) Middle East and Africa (Saudi Arabia, UAE, Egypt, Nigeria and South Africa)Market Segment by Type, covers On-premise ERP Cloud ERPMarket Segment by Applications, can be divided into Manufacture Logistics Industry Financial Telecommunications Energy TransportationAvail more information from Sample Brochure. Get a copy @There are 15 Chapters to deeply display the Global ERP Software market.Chapter 1, to describe ERP Software Introduction, product scope, market overview, market opportunities, market risk, market driving force;Chapter 2, to analyze the top manufacturers of ERP Software, with sales, revenue, and price of ERP Software, in 2017 and 2017;Chapter 3, to display the competitive situation among the top manufacturers, with sales, revenue and market share in 2017 and 2017;Chapter 4, to show the global market by regions, with sales, revenue and market share of ERP Software, for each region, from 2012 to 2017;Chapter 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9, to analyze the key regions, with sales, revenue and market share by key countries in these regions;Chapter 10 and 11, to show the market by type and application, with sales market share and growth rate by type, application, from 2012 to 2017;Chapter 12, ERP Software market forecast, by regions, type and application, with sales and revenue, from 2017 to 2022;Chapter 13, 14 and 15, to describe ERP Software sales channel, distributors, traders, dealers, Research Findings and Conclusion, appendix and data sourceProcure this Report @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
Data Center Energy Management Solutions Market - Forecasts From 2016 To 2021

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Knowledge Sourcing Intelligence announces its new report titled Data Center Energy Management Solutions Market - Forecasts From 2016 To 2021.The report segments the data center energy management solutions market based on solution type (hardware, software, and services), and geographical region (North America, South America, Europe Middle East and Africa, and Asia Pacific). Data Center Energy Management Solutions (EMS) Market is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 18.52% from 2016 to 2021.Need to manage data center energy to reduce operational costs is the major driving factor for this industry. EMS are expected to gain prominence over the forecast period with new Data Centers implementing these solutions.Some of the major data center energy management solution providers covered as part of the report are Blue Pillar, Cisco, Vigilent, SkyFoundry, and Honeywell among others.Sample request or complete report can be purchased through the link below:Purchase directly by clicking:This 92 pages report contains a wide range of figures and data tables for the forecasted period based on the segmentations listed above.Brief TOC is as below: Market Dynamics Segmentationo By Solution Type Hardware Cooling Solutions Monitoring and Control Solutions Intelligent Lightening Controls Solutions Others Software BEMS DCIM Services Consulting Installation Supporto By Geography Americas US Canada Brazil Mexico Others Europe Middle East and Africa UK Germany France Saudi Arabia Others Asia Pacific Japan China India Russia Australia Others Competitive Intelligence Profiles of key companiesAbout Knowledge Sourcing IntelligenceKnowledge Sourcing Intelligence is a market research and consulting firm based out of India. Driven by industry experts, the company provides syndicated reports, custom research, and consulting services. Our proprietary data analytics model blended with quality primary and secondary research data assists in generating quality reports providing crucial insights to managers and decision makers. The services offered by us help companies to gain required competitive edge. Our expertise across 10 industries such as ICT, Chemicals, Semiconductors, Healthcare among others caters to diverse client needsKnowledge Sourcing IntelligenceAscent Business CenterH-38, Sector 63NOIDA, IndiaContact: +1-866-714-4587
Cylinder Head & Cylinder Block 2017 Global Key Players  Nemak, Toyota, Montupet, Volkswagen, Hyundai, Honda Market Analysis and Forecast to 2022

Cylinder Head & Cylinder Block Market

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Cylinder Head & Cylinder Block Market 2017Wiseguyreports.Com Adds Cylinder Head & Cylinder Block Market -Market Demand, Growth, Opportunities, Manufacturers, Analysis of Top Key Players and Forecast to 2022 To Its Research Database.Geographically, this report is segmented into several key Regions, with production, consumption, revenue (million USD), market share and growth rate of Cylinder Head & Cylinder Block in these regions, from 2012 to 2022 (forecast), coveringUnited StatesEUChinaJapanSouth KoreaIndiaRequest for Sample report @Global Cylinder Head & Cylinder Block market competition by top manufacturers, with production, price, revenue (value) and market share for each manufacturer; the top players includingNemakToyotaMontupetVolkswagenHyundaiHondaCumminsMitsubishiMahleIsuzuScaniaPerkinsFairbanks MorseHuayuFawDongfengChanganGreat WallWeichaiTianchangZhonglianHongqiYongyuLeylandYanmarKomatsuOn the basis of product, this report displays the production, revenue, price, market share and growth rate of each type, primarily split intoCylinder BlockCylinder HeadOn the basis on the end users/applications, this report focuses on the status and outlook for major applications/end users, consumption (sales), market share and growth rate of Cylinder Head & Cylinder Block for each application, includingBelow Six Cylinder Engine with Single-Row TypeGenerally Used for More Than 8 Cylinder EngineTo get complete report visit@Key Points in Table of Content:Global Cylinder Head & Cylinder Block Market Research Report 20171 Cylinder Head & Cylinder Block Market Overview1.1 Product Overview and Scope of Cylinder Head & Cylinder Block1.2 Cylinder Head & Cylinder Block Segment by Type (Product Category)1.2.1 Global Cylinder Head & Cylinder Block Production and CAGR (%) Comparison by Type (Product Category) (2012-2022)1.2.2 Global Cylinder Head & Cylinder Block Production Market Share by Type (Product Category) in 20161.2.3 Cylinder Block1.2.4 Cylinder Head1.3 Global Cylinder Head & Cylinder Block Segment by Application1.3.1 Cylinder Head & Cylinder Block Consumption (Sales) Comparison by Application (2012-2022)1.3.2 Below Six Cylinder Engine with Single-Row Type1.3.3 Generally Used for More Than 8 Cylinder Engine1.4 Global Cylinder Head & Cylinder Block Market by Region (2012-2022)1.4.1 Global Cylinder Head & Cylinder Block Market Size (Value) and CAGR (%) Comparison by Region (2012-2022)1.4.2 United States Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.4.3 EU Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.4.4 China Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.4.5 Japan Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.4.6 South Korea Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.4.7 India Status and Prospect (2012-2022)1.5 Global Market Size (Value) of Cylinder Head & Cylinder Block (2012-2022)1.5.1 Global Cylinder Head & Cylinder Block Revenue Status and Outlook (2012-2022)1.5.2 Global Cylinder Head & Cylinder Block Capacity, Production Status and Outlook (2012-2022).7 Global Cylinder Head & Cylinder Block Manufacturers Profiles/Analysis7.1 Nemak7.1.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base, Sales Area and Its Competitors7.1.2 Cylinder Head & Cylinder Block Product Category, Application and Specification7.1.2.1 Product A7.1.2.2 Product B7.1.3 Nemak Cylinder Head & Cylinder Block Capacity, Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)7.1.4 Main Business/Business Overview7.2 Toyota7.2.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base, Sales Area and Its Competitors7.2.2 Cylinder Head & Cylinder Block Product Category, Application and Specification7.2.2.1 Product A7.2.2.2 Product B7.2.3 Toyota Cylinder Head & Cylinder Block Capacity, Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)7.2.4 Main Business/Business Overview7.3 Montupet7.3.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base, Sales Area and Its Competitors7.3.2 Cylinder Head & Cylinder Block Product Category, Application and Specification7.3.2.1 Product A7.3.2.2 Product B7.3.3 Montupet Cylinder Head & Cylinder Block Capacity, Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)7.3.4 Main Business/Business Overview7.4 Volkswagen7.4.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base, Sales Area and Its Competitors7.4.2 Cylinder Head & Cylinder Block Product Category, Application and Specification7.4.2.1 Product A7.4.2.2 Product B7.4.3 Volkswagen Cylinder Head & Cylinder Block Capacity, Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)7.4.4 Main Business/Business Overview7.5 Hyundai7.5.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base, Sales Area and Its Competitors7.5.2 Cylinder Head & Cylinder Block Product Category, Application and Specification7.5.2.1 Product A7.5.2.2 Product B7.5.3 Hyundai Cylinder Head & Cylinder Block Capacity, Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)7.5.4 Main Business/Business Overview7.6 Honda7.6.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base, Sales Area and Its Competitors7.6.2 Cylinder Head & Cylinder Block Product Category, Application and Specification7.6.2.1 Product A7.6.2.2 Product B7.6.3 Honda Cylinder Head & Cylinder Block Capacity, Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)7.6.4 Main Business/Business Overview7.7 Cummins7.7.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base, Sales Area and Its Competitors7.7.2 Cylinder Head & Cylinder Block Product Category, Application and Specification7.7.2.1 Product A7.7.2.2 Product B7.7.3 Cummins Cylinder Head & Cylinder Block Capacity, Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)7.7.4 Main Business/Business Overview7.8 Mitsubishi7.8.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base, Sales Area and Its Competitors7.8.2 Cylinder Head & Cylinder Block Product Category, Application and Specification7.8.2.1 Product A7.8.2.2 Product B7.8.3 Mitsubishi Cylinder Head & Cylinder Block Capacity, Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)7.8.4 Main Business/Business Overview7.9 Mahle7.9.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base, Sales Area and Its Competitors7.9.2 Cylinder Head & Cylinder Block Product Category, Application and Specification7.9.2.1 Product A7.9.2.2 Product B7.9.3 Mahle Cylinder Head & Cylinder Block Capacity, Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)7.9.4 Main Business/Business Overview7.10 Isuzu7.10.1 Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base, Sales Area and Its Competitors7.10.2 Cylinder Head & Cylinder Block Product Category, Application and Specification7.10.2.1 Product A7.10.2.2 Product B7.10.3 Isuzu Cylinder Head & Cylinder Block Capacity, Production, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2012-2017)7.10.4 Main Business/Business Overview7.11 Scania7.12 Perkins7.13 Fairbanks Morse7.14 Huayu7.15 Faw7.16 Dongfeng7.17 Changan7.18 Great Wall7.19 Weichai7.20 Tianchang7.21 Zhonglian7.22 Hongqi7.23 Yongyu7.24 Leyland7.25 Yanmar7.26 Komatsu...Continued...Buy this report @Contact Us:NORAH TRENTSales@Wiseguyreports.ComPh: +1-646-845-9349 (US)Ph: +44 208 133 9349 (UK)Follow on LinkedIn @ABOUT US:Wise Guy Reports is part of 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Offshore Support Vessel Market worth 20.15 Billion USD by 2022

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The report "Offshore Support Vessel Market by Type (Anchor Handling Tug Supply, Platform Supply Vessel, Multipurpose Support Vessel, Standby & Rescue Vessel, Crew Vessel, Chase Vessel, Seismic Vessel), Depth (Shallow & Deepwater), and Region - Global Forecast to 2022", The offshore support vessel market is expected to grow from an estimated USD 15.85 Billion in 2017 to USD 20.15 Billion by 2022, at a CAGR of 4.92%. Despite a steep decline in revenue post 2015, the global market is set to witness growth after 2018 due to continuing offshore activities across North America, Asia-Pacific, Brazil and, the North Sea, as well as increasing focus on deepwater fields. Offshore exploration and production investments in the Middle East and the Asia-Pacific regions will also help market growth.Browse 71 market tables and 41 figures spread through 194 pages and in-depth TOC on "Offshore Support Vessel Market by Type (Anchor Handling Tug Supply, Platform Supply Vessel, Multipurpose Support Vessel, Standby & Rescue Vessel, Crew Vessel, Chase Vessel, Seismic Vessel), Depth (Shallow & Deepwater), and Region - Global Forecast to 2022"Download PDF Brochure @Early buyers will receive 10% customization on reports.Anchor handling tug supply (AHTS) vessels: The largest segment of the offshore supply vessel market, by typeThe offshore supply vessel market has been segmented into vessel type, depth, and region. The market has been further segmented, by vessel type, into anchor handling tug supply vessels, platform supply vessels (PSV), multipurpose support vessels (MPSV), standby and rescue vessels, crew vessels, chase vessels, seismic vessels, and others. The AHTS vessels segment accounted for the largest share of the market in 2016, while the MPSV segment is projected to grow at the fastest pace among all the vessel types. AHTS vessels are principal support vessels used for towing, anchoring, and supplying equipment to drilling rigs and production platforms, making them the largest segment of the offshore support vessel market. Demand for offshore drilling is projected to recover slowly, particularly in deepwater fields as oil prices stabilize, thus, helping the AHTS market.The shallow water subsegment is estimated to have the highest growth rate in the offshore support vessel market, by depth.On the basis of depth, the market has been segmented into shallow water and deepwater segments. The application of offshore support vessels in shallow water projects is estimated to lead the market, both in terms of market value and growth. The shallow water basins in the Middle East, Asia-Pacific, Europe, and North America will play a major role in driving the offshore support vessel market. Shallow water operations are typically less expensive compared to deepwater operations. Thus, recovering oil prices will lead to a faster increase in offshore activity in shallow water basins compared to deepwater ones.North America: The largest market for offshore support vesselsThe North American market was the largest market, by value, for offshore support vessels in 2016, driven largely by the U.S. and the Gulf of Mexico. Stabilizing oil prices have already led to oil & gas operators increasing exploration and production spending in the U.S. offshore market, with capital expenditures allocations estimated to resume steadily. Other fast-growing regions for the offshore vessel market include Asia-Pacific and the Middle East, with a growing focus on developing offshore reserves to replace maturing onshore fields.To enable an in-depth understanding of the competitive landscape, the report includes the profiles of some of the top players in the offshore support vessel market. These players include Bourbon SA (France), Farstad Shipping ASA (Norway), Seacor Marine, LLC (U.S.), Swire Group (U.K.), Tidewater, Inc. (U.S.), Gulfmark Offshore, Inc. (U.S.), Havila Shipping ASA (Norway), Hornbeck Offshore (U.S.), The Maersk Group (Denmark), REM Maritime AS (Norway), Siem Offshore, Inc. (Norway), Solstad Offshore ASA (Norway), Vroon Group (The Netherlands), Edison Chouset Offshore (U.S.), Harvey Gulf International Marine, LLC (U.S.), and Island Offshore Management AS (Norway). The leading players are trying to make inroads into markets with tight cabotage rules, such as Brazil, while also taking advantage of the comparatively liberal policies in regions such as the Middle East and Asia-Pacific, to increase their market presence.Inquiry Before Buy @About MarketsandMarketsMarketsandMarkets provides quantified B2B research on 30,000 high growth niche opportunities/threats which will impact 70% to 80% of worldwide companies revenues. Currently servicing 5000 customers worldwide including 80% of global Fortune 1000 companies as clients. Almost 75,000 top officers across eight industries worldwide approach MarketsandMarkets for their painpoints around revenues decisions.Our 850 fulltime analyst and SMEs at MarketsandMarkets are tracking global high growth markets following the "Growth Engagement Model  GEM". The GEM aims at proactive collaboration with the clients to identify new opportunities, identify most important customers, write "Attack, avoid and defend" strategies, identify sources of incremental revenues for both the company and its competitors. MarketsandMarkets now coming up with 1,500 MicroQuadrants (Positioning top players across leaders, emerging companies, innovators, strategic players) annually in high growth emerging segments. MarketsandMarkets is determined to benefit more than 10,000 companies this year for their revenue planning and help them take their innovations/disruptions early to the market by providing them research ahead of the curve.MarketsandMarketss flagship competitive intelligence and market research platform, "RT" connects over 200,000 markets and entire value chains for deeper understanding of the unmet insights along with market sizing and forecasts of niche markets.MarketsandMarkets INC.701 Pike StreetSuite 2175, Seattle,WA 98101, United StatesUSA : 1-888-600-6441UK : 44-800-368-9399sales@marketsandmarkets.com
North America Emerges as Largest Nuclear Imaging Equipment Market

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The global nuclear imaging equipment market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 4.8%, during 2017 - 2023.Increasing geriatric population drives the global marketAccording to the study, the global nuclear imaging equipment market is likely to grow significantly during the forecast period, due to rising prevalence of cancer and cardiovascular diseases, increasing geriatric population and increasing prevalence of neurological disorders. In addition, rising healthcare expenditure and launch of technologically advanced products contribute to the growth of the overall market. High cost of imaging techniques is the key factor restraining the global market growth.Access Report Overview:Insights on market segmentsAs per the findings of the research, based on products, the SPECT is the largest category, in the global nuclear imaging equipment market. Hybrid SPECT, further forms the larger part of the global market for SPECT. Oncology has been the largest application of the global market, followed by cardiology, neurology and others. Hospitals has been the largest end user of nuclear imaging equipment, followed by diagnostic centers, research institutes and others.Request for Report Sample at:North America stands as the largest nuclear imaging equipment marketGeographically, North America has been the largest market for nuclear imaging equipment, with the U.S. being the largest contributor to the regional market. Increasing prevalence of cancer and cardiovascular diseases and presence of technological advanced products has been driving the growth of the North American market for nuclear imaging equipment. In Europe, Germany has been the largest contributor to the market for nuclear imaging equipment, followed by France and the U.K. The market is expected to witness the fastest growth in Asia-Pacific, during 2017 - 2023, owing to increasing cases of cancer, cardiovascular diseases, neurological disorders and increasing geriatric population.Browse Other Related Report at:Key players in the nuclear imaging equipment marketSome of the key players in the global nuclear imaging equipment market include Siemens AG, GE Healthcare, Philips Healthcare, Digirad Corporation and Neusoft Medical Systems Co., Ltd., Cannon Inc., DDD Diagnostics, CMR Naviscan Corporation, SurgicEye GmbH and Mediso Medical Imaging Systems Ltd.About P&S Market ResearchP&S Market Research is a market research company, which offers market research and consulting services for various geographies around the globe. We provide market research reports, industry forecasting reports, business intelligence, and research based consulting services across different industry/business verticals.As one of the top growing market research agency, were keen upon providing market landscape and accurate forecasting. Our analysts and consultants are proficient with business intelligence and market analysis, through their interaction with leading companies of the concerned domain. We help our clients with B2B market research and assist them in identifying various windows of opportunity, and framing informed and customized business expansion strategies in different regions.Contact:AbhishekExecutive  Client Partner347, 5th Ave. #1402New York City, NY - 10016Toll-Free: +1-888-778-7886 (USA/Canada)Email: enquiry@psmarketresearch.comWeb:347, 5th Ave. #1402New York City, NY - 10016
KATE BROWN10.JPG

"I feel strongly that I needed to bring on some folks with more technical expertise and diverse voices," the governor said.

(Oregonian file photo)

An Environmental Quality Commission member fired by Gov. Kate Brown this week has alleged that the governor purged three members of the commission because they didn't follow her direct orders about who to hire as executive director.

Brown has denied that the decision to hire her former adviser Richard Whitman led to the dismissal of the three commissioners -- Colleen Johnson, Melinda Eden and Morgan Rider.

But Johnson said she was directly told by the governor that if the commission didn't hire her preferred candidate there would be ramifications.

Johnson said she was walking to dinner with friends one night in January when her phone rang. On the other end was Brown with a message.

"The governor was pretty clear to me in that phone call that she was in favor of somebody other than Richard," Johnson said.

Johnson had just been reappointed to the state's Environmental Quality Commission, which had been searching for almost a year for a new Department of Environmental Quality leader. The previous director had resigned amid a toxic air pollution crisis in Portland that Brown said made clear the agency had lost the public trust.

After what Johnson described as a $65,000 national search, the commission had announced two finalists to be the next department leader: A Missouri bureaucrat and Brown's own former natural resources adviser, Whitman.

Brown was clear, Johnson said: Don't hire Richard Whitman.

Brown said hiring Whitman would make it difficult to get the agency's budget through the Legislature, Johnson said. And hiring a Salem insider would not address the public perception issues laid bare by the Portland air scare, Johnson said she was told.

Whitman, a carry-over adviser from Gov. John Kitzhaber's tenure, once lamented to a timber industry group that the Northwest is "a breeding ground for litigators, unfortunately," feeding what he characterized as an incorrect perception that Oregon had a water quality problem.

Oregon was just sued for ranking second-to-last in the country for keeping water pollution permits up to date.

Just more than two weeks later, Johnson and her fellow commissioners unanimously picked Whitman to be the department's next leader. And on Wednesday, Brown fired Johnson and the two other commissioners.

Brown on Wednesday said through a spokesman that she had no problem with Whitman's hiring. She instead took issue with the pool of candidates, her spokesman said. The national search that cost state taxpayers $65,000 yielded just two finalists, and just one from outside the state.

But Johnson said she believes she was fired because she picked Whitman, calling her dismissal "political payback."

"That's mean and vindictive, quite frankly, on her part," Johnson said of the governor. "And it's counter-productive. I don't think the agency needed any more chaos thrown into the mix, and I think that's what she's done."

Brown spoke about her rationale Thursday after two Republican lawmakers said the public was owed a clearer explanation.

In an interview with The Oregonian/OregonLive, the governor said there were several strong candidates being considered and had urged commission members to fully weigh all of them.

The governor said she is committed to moving the department beyond criticism that has long dogged the agency -- that it cares more about serving polluters than protecting the public.

"I feel strongly that I needed to bring on some folks with more technical expertise and diverse voices," Brown said. "They're accountable to me and Oregonians for ensuring that we're doing a better job driving toward cleaner air and cleaner water."

The governor endorsed Whitman, saying she is "very confident in his ability and his knowledge and expertise to implement my vision of Cleaner Air Oregon." That's the regulatory program being designed to address toxic air pollution sources across the state.

Johnson said recruiting a new director was a challenge, because the agency is underfunded, understaffed and has been "coming under the media fire."

That media scrutiny has drawn attention to repeated instances in which the department has prioritized business interests over public health, failed to aggressively pursue polluters and erected barriers to transparency.

Johnson said she and other commissioners clearly understood that the agency needed to change. The department must become more effective and focused on human health, she said.

"The commission we had was ready and willing to start tackling those issues," she said. "Unfortunately, sometimes it takes the kind of crisis that came about with Bullseye (Glass) and the air toxics to jolt people into awareness."

-- Rob Davis

rdavis@oregonian.com

503.294.7657
Idaho Hatchery Sockeye

In this photo provided by Idaho Fish and Game, Idaho Fish and Game crews load adult sockeye salmon at the Eagle Fish Hatchery Thursday, March 30, 2017, in Eagle, Idaho. About 4,000 endangered Snake River sockeye salmon have been evacuated from a flood-threatened hatchery in southwestern Idaho. The fish were loaded into four trucks to be transported to a hatchery in eastern Idaho. (Roger Phillips/Idaho Fish and Game via AP)

(Roger Phillips)

About 4,000 endangered Snake River sockeye salmon have been evacuated from a flood-threatened hatchery in southwestern Idaho.

The Idaho Department of Fish and Game on Thursday loaded the fish at the Eagle Fish Hatchery west of Boise into four trucks for transportation to the Springfield Fish Hatchery in eastern Idaho.

The 4,000 fish are broodstock that produce future generations of sockeye. Officials say the primary fear was that floodwater would reach the hatchery's electrical pumps that keep oxygenated water circulating.

"I'm relieved," said Dan Baker, Fish and Game's Eagle Fish Hatchery manager. "I know they're in a safe environment over there and we can focus on some critical buildings here."

Snake River sockeye teetered on the brink of extinction in the early 1990s. They've been the focus of an intense recovery program centered at the Eagle Fish Hatchery after being listed for federal protection in 1991.

The Boise River is expected to remain high for two months as the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers releases water from upstream dams to make room for snowmelt in the mountains.

Sandbags have been protecting the Eagle Fish Hatchery, but Baker said there are weak spots in the bank, and moving the fish to a different facility seemed prudent.

The evacuated include 1-year-olds, 2-year-olds and 3-year-old fish. The two older age classes have special tags so they can be individually identified to track the genetics of the population.

The Eagle Fish Hatchery has a lab to make sure its sockeye have genetic diversity so future generations can eventually sustain a wild population in Idaho, the ultimate goal. Adult fish returning from the ocean travel 900 miles up the Columbia, Snake and Salmon rivers to high-elevation Sawtooth basin lakes in central Idaho. The hope is that the hatchery-raised fish and the returning fish will spawn.

As a safety net to the Eagle Fish Hatchery, another 4,000 sockeye salmon are used as broodstock at NOAA Fisheries' Manchester Research Station in Port Orchard, Washington, Baker said.

Eggs produced by that hatchery and Eagle Fish are sent to the Springfield Fish Hatchery to be raised into young fish that are released into the wild. Fish and Game expects to release about 735,000 young sockeye into Idaho's Redfish Lake Creek in about a month.

Gary Byrne, who oversees Idaho Fish and Game's hatcheries, said moving the broodstock will not interfere with artificial spawning in the fall. He said the broodstock will likely be back at the Eagle Fish Hatchery by then, and if not, they can be artificially spawned at the eastern Idaho facility.

The goal of a self-sustaining wild population took a hit in 2015 when warm water in the Columbia River Basin killed 99 percent of returning adult fish, with only 55 completing the journey. A trap at a Snake River dam captured another 35 sockeye salmon. Of the 90 total fish, five were released to spawn naturally and 85 went to the Eagle Fish Hatchery for artificial spawning.

The fish rebounded in 2016 when 567 sockeye returned to the Sawtooth Valley.

-- The Associated Press
The development of what would be Oregon's second-largest dairy received approval from state agencies Friday, despite an unprecedented amount of controversy and public concern about effects on business and the environment.

The Oregon Department of Agriculture issued a permit with more stringent groundwater monitoring requirements than ever before, but environmental and small-farm advocacy groups say that the requirements don't go far enough to protect the environment.

Lost Valley Ranch will eventually house 30,000 cows, grow crops to feed them and process a huge amount of manure on 7,288 acres where an iconic poplar tree farm currently sits near Boardman. The ranch's owner bought the land in January 2016 from GreenWood Resources for $65 million. Lost Valley Ranch is planned to be second in size to Threemile Canyon Farms, which has 70,000 animals on land about 30 minutes away.

More than 4,000 comments poured into the Agriculture Department and the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality. People are concerned the dairy would hurt the already nitrate-laden groundwater area, affect the Columbia River, spew methane into the atmosphere and signal a change in Oregon's agriculture landscape from small and mid-size family farms to large-scale factory farms.

In response, the permit forbids activities the state has allowed for other dairies -- such as spreading manure over snow-covered or frozen ground -- and requires the most groundwater monitoring wells ever,

--

seven more than the proposed four, for a total of 11.

"We have worked to incorporate many of those comments into the permit where they were applicable to the agencies," said Lisa Hanson, deputy director of the Agriculture Department.

Oregon's groundwater quality standards have been a focus during the application, boosted by The Oregonian/OregonLive's investigation on how the state's water resources are systemically over-allocated and violators often avoid penalties.

Officials emphasized they listened seriously to concerns about the impact of the dairy on groundwater and the river.

"These are rather extraordinary protections," said Don Butcher, the Department of Environmental Quality's eastern region water quality section manager.

Lost Valley Ranch owner Greg te Velde, who is already running a version of the dairy on land leased from Threemile Canyon Farms, said he wants to continue working with local governments and groups as the dairy opens for business.

"We believe that a well-run dairy should proactively implement environmental protections and earn its place in the community," te Velde said in a statement. "We have agreed to all requirements of the confined animal feeding operation permit issued today, and remain committed to protecting the quality and quantity of water in the critical groundwater area."

However, one of the largest complaints went unaddressed: the amount of ammonia and methane dairy and cattle operations release into the air. Oregon has no rules about air pollution for confined animal feeding operations, Lost Valley Ranch's regulatory category.

Methane is a leading cause of global climate change, and beef and dairy operations are large contributors to the greenhouse gas' release. Ammonia and nitrogen already create a haze over the Columbia River Gorge and are causing acidification of gorge ecosystems, which prompted the U.S. Forest Service to ask for the dairy to disclose emission rates for harmful gases.

In 2008, a state-appointed task force produced several recommendations to reduce air pollution from dairies. It was designed to help the Department of Environmental Quality comply with the federal Clean Air Act. A task force published a report that laid out a seven-year plan that would ease dairies into reducing emissions.

The report went nowhere until the current legislative session, when many of the recommendations are now in a bill before the Oregon Senate's Committee on Environment and Natural Resources. It has received one hearing, but has not passed out of committee.

"Oregon has a gaping loophole that really came to light in the agency's decisions today in that we have no laws on our books in monitoring air pollution," said attorney Lauren Goldberg, with the environmental group Columbia Riverkeeper. "The Oregon Legislature has the opportunity to fix that loophole. Today's decision underscores the importance of action and standing up to the 'Big Ag' lobby that's working hard to maintain the status quo as our agricultural industry changes in Oregon."

Those changes also have some farmers concerned. Some worry that Oregon will become more attractive to farmers the size of Lost Valley and Threemile Canyon because of loose environmental regulations.

Oregon is dominated by small to midsize family farms, and larger operations can imperil that local economy, said Ivan Maluski, head of advocacy group Friends of Family Farmers.

In an Oregon Employment Department report, the state lost an average of nine dairies a month between 2002 and 2007. During that period, the remaining dairies nearly doubled in size -- outpacing the national average. Lost Valley Ranch's owner started leasing land from Threemile Canyon Farms in 2002, which Maluski points to as evidence of the shift being spurred by larger dairy operations.

"What happens is these extremely large dairies are able to flip the market with lower prices," Maluski said. "Family farms can't stay in business with these large dairies."

However, te Velde and state officials say Lost Valley will have a positive impact on employment in the region. They estimate the dairy will provide up to 150 jobs through the United Farm Workers union. Some of the milk from the dairy will be sold to local companies, such as Tillamook County Creamery Association.

Te Velde also contends that Lost Valley Ranch will be less water intensive than the tree farm it is displacing.

The dairy's permit says it will recycle 75 percent of the water it uses. Te Velde also requested a transfer of water rights with a neighboring farmer, which a spokeswoman for the ranch said would result in less water being used than the current water rights allow.

Lost Valley Ranch bought 5,000 acres of irrigation water rights from the tree farm. The water was pulled from the Columbia River and then used seasonally. Lost Valley Ranch will use some of those water rights to grow irrigated crops that will feed the cows.

The rest would be traded with a neighbor who holds groundwater rights, and Lost Valley Ranch would use those groundwater rights year-round for dairy operations. Then the neighbor would stop using his own groundwater rights and only use the ones he received in the trade.

If the transfer is approved, Lost Valley Ranch would be allowed to pull 1,037 acre feet of water per year from three basalt wells. As a backup plan, the Port of Morrow agreed to sell the dairy that same amount of water, as it does other farm and dairy operations in the area. The water would then be trucked and piped to Lost Valley Ranch.

That trade is already being challenged by some of the groups who submitted comments to the Agriculture and Environmental Quality departments. The dairy would pull from a groundwater area with restrictions on its use because of a high amount of nitrate in the water.

"People are working hard to restore streamflows for salmon and protect groundwater aquifers," said Brian Posewitz, staff attorney for environmental group WaterWatch of Oregon. "Adding 30,000 cows to an overtaxed system undermines hard work to protect limited water resources."

The Oregon Water Resources Department approved the transfer in a preliminary evaluation. The challenge will likely go before an administrative law judge who will decide after hearing arguments from both sides.

Right now, the ranch is allowed to pump 450 gallons per minute of water for construction. That temporary permit expires April 10.

-- Molly Harbarger

mharbarger@oregonian.com

503-294-5923

@MollyHarbarger
supreme court2.JPG

The U.S. Supreme Court, in a file photo

(AP Photo/File)

By Noah Feldman

The state of Georgia is refusing to allow a couple to give their baby the last name Allah -- not because it's sacrilegious but because the state requires a baby's last name to be the same as one of its parents' or a combination of the two. That's arguably unconstitutional, although it's not an open-and-shut question. It also raises the broader question of what it means to name a child legally, and what rights parents have in relation to the government.

It's critical to keep a distinction in mind: The government has no right to tell you what name or nickname you should use when speaking to your child. That falls within free speech, and probably within your rights to shape your intimate, private associations under the due process clause of the Constitution.

What's at issue in the Allah case is a subtly different question: How may the state limit the name you can officially register on your child's birth certificate?

It could be argued that name registration falls outside the constitutional protections of free speech or privacy. Yes, it's written down on a piece of official paper, but no one necessarily uses it except the government. If that were correct, the state of Georgia could limit last names, provided it had a nondiscriminatory reason to do so.

Some support for this view comes from a 1986 U.S. Supreme Court decision called Bowen v. Roy. In that case, Stephen J. Roy and Karen Miller wanted to get food stamps for their family. As part of that bureaucratic process, they had to obtain a Social Security number for their 2-year-old daughter, whom they had (incidentally) named Little Bird of the Snow.

For religious reasons, Roy didn't want to apply for Social Security number for his daughter. As the Supreme Court described it, Roy, of Abenaki Native American descent, sincerely thought that "the uniqueness of the Social Security number as an identifier, coupled with the other uses of the number over which she has no control, will serve to 'rob the spirit' of his daughter and prevent her from attaining greater spiritual power."

Frankly, I think Roy was onto something. Bureaucratization through an assigned identification number is a key mechanism of state regulation and control in the modern era.

But the Supreme Court rejected Roy's argument, for a reason relevant to Georgia's name restriction. It held that "the Free Exercise Clause simply cannot be understood to require the Government to conduct its own internal affairs in ways that comport with the religious beliefs of particular citizens." In essence, the court was saying that the Social Security number assigned to a person is the government's business, not a private person's. Drawing an analogy, the court said that Roy's "objection to the Government's use of a Social Security number for his daughter" was no different from "a sincere religious objection to the size or color of the Government's filing cabinets."

Arguably, registration of an official name for bureaucratic purposes resembles the assignment of a Social Security number -- a government function rather than an individual one.

To be sure, various government and nongovernment actors, from schools to health-care organizations to banks, might require you to write down the name that appears on a child's birth certificate. But that's true of the Social Security number as well.

The difference is that the government assigns the number, while the parent traditionally chooses the name. That makes naming more like an individual right, even if the name exists only on paper.

The best argument in favor of a constitutional right to choose your child's name has been made by professor Carlton Larson of the University of California at Davis School of Law. Larson reviewed baby naming laws in various states, some of which not only require the last name to derive from the parents', but also prohibit child names that are too long, nonsensical or obscene.

Larson thinks free speech and due process protect baby naming, and that laws limiting names are therefore constitutional only if they can pass strict scrutiny, meaning they meet a compelling state interest and are narrowly tailored to achieve that interest. He argues forcefully and convincingly that states that prohibit diacritical marks in baby names -- like Jose or Maria -- are violating parents' rights, especially because the same states don't prohibit names like O'Keefe.

But Larson, in a research paper, tentatively supports a restriction that doesn't currently exist in U.S. law: a statutory requirement barring names when there's an "overwhelming likelihood that the name will pose serious and lasting harm to the child's emotional well being and social development."

I think that's probably too difficult a line for states to draw. Would it be harmful to a child to be named Allah? That depends entirely on the context in which the child is raised. It might be seriously dangerous in a majority Muslim country -- or in an Islamophobic one. Elsewhere, it might not matter at all.

The upshot is that states should be allowed to restrict baby names on any rational, nondiscriminatory basis or they shouldn't be allowed to restrict them at all. The state doesn't really have a compelling interest in prohibiting any name -- even long names made of random strings of characters can be just as easily accommodated in the computer era as any other name.

If the Constitution requires a thousand baby names to bloom, then Georgia doesn't have a compelling reason to restrict children's last names to those of their parents. In today's mixed families, plenty of children have different last names from their parents. ZalyKha Graceful Lorraina Allah should have her day in court -- and win.

(c) 2017, Bloomberg View

Noah Feldman is a Bloomberg View columnist and professor of constitutional and international law at Harvard University.
A sobering portrait of less-educated middle-age white Americans emerged recently with new research showing them dying disproportionately from what one expert calls "deaths of despair"  suicides, drug overdoses and alcohol-related diseases.

The new paper by two Princeton University economists, Anne Case and Angus Deaton, concludes that the trend is driven by the loss of steady middle-income jobs for those with a high school diploma or less.

The economists also argue that dwindling job opportunities have triggered broader problems for this group. They are more likely than their college-educated counterparts, for example, to be unemployed, unmarried or suffering from poor health.

"This is a story of the collapse of the white working class," Deaton said in an interview. "The labor market has very much turned against them."

Those dynamics helped fuel the rise of President Donald Trump, who won widespread support among whites with only a high school diploma. Yet Deaton said his policies are unlikely to reverse these trends, particularly the health care legislation now before the House that Trump is championing. That bill would lead to higher premiums for older Americans, the Congressional Budget Office has found.

"The policies that you see, seem almost perfectly designed to hurt the very people who voted for him," Deaton said.

Case and Deaton's paper, issued by the Brookings Institution, follows up on research they released in 2015 that first documented a sharp increase in mortality among middle-aged whites.

Since 1999, white men and women ages 45 through 54 have endured a sharp increase in "deaths of despair," Case and Deaton found in their earlier work. These include suicides, drug overdoses, and alcohol-related deaths such as liver failure.

In the paper released Thursday, Case and Deaton draw a clearer relationship between rising death rates and changes in the job market since the 1970s. They find that men without college degrees are less likely to receive rising incomes over time, a trend "consistent with men moving to lower and lower skilled jobs."

Other research has found that Americans with only high school diplomas are less likely to get married or purchase a home and more likely to get divorced if they do marry.

"It's not just their careers that have gone down the tubes, but their marriage prospects, their ability to raise children," said Deaton, who won the Nobel prize in economics in 2015 for his long-standing work on solutions to poverty. "That's the kind of thing that can lead people to despair."

The issues identified by Case and Deaton are likely contributing to a slight reversal in a decades-long trend of improving life-expectancy data. It's not entirely clear why these trends have affected whites much more than they have African-Americans or Hispanics, whose death rates are improving.

Case and Deaton note that many Hispanics are "markedly better off" than parents or grandparents who were born abroad, enabling a greater sense of optimism. African-Americans, they add, may have become more resilient to economic challenges given their long-standing disadvantages in the job market.

Other researchers have said that whites may have an easier time obtaining painkillers that are behind an epidemic of drug overdoses.

The data is clear, though: In 1999, the death rate for high school-educated whites ages 50 through 54 was 30 percent lower than the death rate for all African-Americans in that age group. By 2015, it was 30 percent higher.

The educational split is also growing. Even while the death rate for whites without a college degree is rising, the rate for whites who are college graduates is falling, Case and Deaton found.

The trends cut across diverse regions of the country, the researchers found. While the worst-hit spots include Appalachian states such as West Virginia and Kentucky, they also include such areas as Maine, Baltimore and eastern Washington state. The patterns are evident in rural sections and smaller cities as well as in some large metro areas, the research found.

Americans with less education are also faring much worse when compared with adults in other countries, Case and Deaton concluded. Death rates in Europe for people with limited education are falling  and in most countries, they're falling faster than death rates for those with more education.

For those reasons, Case and Deaton discount the notion that government disability benefit programs are responsible for some of these problems by enabling more Americans to stop working. Social welfare programs in Europe are typically more generous yet haven't caused a rise in death rates.

Given the long-running nature of these trends, many of which stem from the 1970s, reversing them could take years, Case and Deaton write. But there are immediate steps that could be taken, Deaton said in the interview. Routine prescriptions for opioids should be cut back.

And, "Europe has a much better safety net than we do, and they're not seeing the same sort of problems as we are," he said.
Popularity-minded readers beware: The moniker bestowed on you by your own parents may be on the outs with newer and prospective moms and dads.
DES MOINES  Gov. Terry Branstad and legislative majority Republicans arent done enacting their prolife agenda, the governor told the Rally for Life at the Capitol Thursday.

The rally that packed the rotunda came on the heels of the House Human Resources Committee approving a ban on abortions after the 20th week of pregnancy Wednesday night. A similar ban has been approved in the Senate.

Ive been fighting for life since 1972 when I was elected to the Legislature for the first time, and I will not stop now, Branstad told the prolife activists. He also thanked them for their tireless work over so many years advancing the prolife movement.

Branstad and Senate Majority Leader Bill Dix, R-Shell Rock, reminded them that progress, like the legislation being considered by lawmakers, can take time. The Senate-passed legislation would ban abortion after 20 weeks rather than the current 26 weeks, Dix said.

I know its not as much as everybody would like, Branstad said, but this is an incremental, ongoing effort.

He noted that abortions in Iowa have decreased by 26 percent since 2010 and there have been no Medicaid-funded abortions in Iowa in the past four years.

So long as I have the honor of serving you I will continue to be a strong advocate for the unborn, said Branstad, who expects to resign as governor this spring to become ambassador to China.

We have more work to do, he said, but assured the activists his successor, Lt. Gov. Kim Reynolds, is as steadfast in her support for prolife legislation and policy.

Reynolds said it was an honor for her to be part of the most prolife administration in the history of the state of Iowa.

Given the progress lawmakers have made on the 20-week abortion ban and prohibiting taxpayer dollars to be used for abortion and abortion providers, Reynolds said 2017 is looking pretty bright for the prolife movement in Iowa.

Were on our way, she said. This year, as life issues come before our legislators, the power and united voice of individuals like you is undeniable. We must continue to work together to change hearts and minds, to return to a culture once again that respects all human life, not just the planned and the perfect, but all human life.
Shelterhouse of Midland and Gladwin counties has received a grant of $40,000 to implement a new service, non-acute medical examinations for children and teens who have been sexually assaulted. This is an extension of the agencys Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner service, in which a nurse and advocate respond to care for a sexual assault victim within 120 hours of the incident. These new, non-acute examinations will allow youth under 18 to get specialized medical care and emotional support if the timeline of the assault is unknown, difficult to discern, or beyond the 120 hour limit for a SANE examination.

This project will benefit children and teens who have been sexually abused and their non-offending caregivers. Midland and Gladwin counties are comprised of approximately 110,000 people, of which an estimated 20 percent are under the age of 18. Child sexual assault is not specific to a race, gender or socioeconomic class. Child sexual assault can happen to any child in any environment. Some research indicates that as many as one in three girls and one in six boys will be sexually assaulted, so the potential number of victims in this area is significant. Shelterhouse estimates that two to four children will be served by this project each month.
The Michigan Small Business Development Center Great Lakes Bay Region will host a Starting a Business seminar at the Grace A. Dow Memorial Library, located at 1710 W. St. Andrews in Midland, at 2 p.m. Thursday, April 6.

This seminar will also be offered at the Alice and Jack Wirt Library in Bay City at 1 p.m. Wednesday, April 12 and at the Hoyt Public Library, located at 505 Janes Ave. in Saginaw, at 5 p.m. Thursday, April 27. There is no cost to attend. Registration is required.
DES MOINES | Rep. Zach Nunn, R-Bondurant, and Senate Minority Leader Rob Hogg, D-Cedar Rapids, were named recipients of the 2017 Herbert Hoover Uncommon Public Service Award on Thursday.

The Hoover Presidential Foundation presents the award to lawmakers who exemplify Iowa native President Herbert Hoovers humanitarian efforts and commitment with uncommon service.

Nunn served in the Air Force with three deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan, served on Sen. Chuck Grassleys staff and received the National Intelligence Service Medallion for his service on the White House National Security Council as director of cybersecurity.

Hogg, a third-term senator with two terms in the House, is active in the Cedar Rapids community, engaging citizens in advocacy for climate solutions through Ecumenical Ministries of Iowa, Iowa Power & Light, Iowa Climate Advocates, Cedar Wapsie Sierra Club, I-Renew and Citizens Climate Lobby.

He is the author of Americas Climate Century: What Climate Change Means for America in the 21st Century and What Americans Can Do About It.

DASH FOR THE STASH: Iowans are invited to join the DASH for the STASH, a consumer education program launched by the Iowa Insurance Division and the nonprofit Investor Protection Institute during Financial Literacy Month in April.

The program will provide investor education in a gamelike setting. Participating Iowans can win prizes to open or add to an individual retirement account in 2017.

By equipping Iowans with information to help spot and avoid investment scams, we can help stop fraud before it happens, Iowa Insurance Commissioner Doug Ommen said.

By bringing investor education to libraries and other community locations, we are ensuring that it is relevant to the lives of people and integrated directly into their lives. said Don Blandin, president and CEO of the Investor Protection Institute.

DASH for the STASH events will be held at public libraries, colleges, high schools, workplaces and community organizations across Iowa.or more information, go to iinvest.org/programs/dash-for-the-stash.

TRANSPORTATION PLAN: Iowans have until April 7 to submit comments on the states long-range transportation plan, Iowa in Motion 2045.

The Iowa Department of Transportation and Iowa Transportation Commission are seeking comment on the plan that provides a framework for how future investments should be made to Iowas multimodal transportation system.

The plan can be viewed at iowadot.gov/iowainmotion/index.html.

To comment, contact the DOT Office of Systems Planning, 800 Lincoln Way, Ames, IA 50010, or email Iowa.Motion@iowadot.us.

QUOTE OF THE DAY: Nothing evers really, really dead in the Legislature.  House Speaker Linda Upmeyer, R-Clear Lake, on the second funnel deadline for legislation to remain eligible for debate.

 Submitted by the Globe Gazette Des Moines Bureau
NORMAL  "The ball is scary," pediatric physical therapist Jillian McGriff said as she sat Hunter Trefzger, 5, on an exercise ball.

She steadied him as he reached, one by one, to grab rings held out by his mother, Sarah, and then tossed them one at a time toward a ring stand.

"This is easy," Hunter said, surprising McGriff.

"Thank you for being brave," she responded.

"This is my favorite thing now," Hunter said.

Hunter's "favorite thing" is a challenge for any child, let alone one with dwarfism.

Hunter, of Bloomington, is a little person. For Hunter, that means he's 36 inches tall, his arms and legs are short (he has a 10-inch inseam), his center of gravity is lower, he's not physically proportionate and his speech is slightly impaired.

Thanks to therapy, his mother and his therapist at Marcfirst in Normal  where he was receiving physical therapy on March 20  think he will be ready for kindergarten in August.

That almost didn't happen. He was without therapy for six months after Easterseals Central Illinois cut ongoing physical, occupational and speech therapy for children on Medicaid and Medicaid managed care because of increasing state mandates and low Medicaid reimbursement; about 100 children lost services.

"I wasn't necessarily mad at Easterseals," Sarah Trefzger said. "I was mad at the state of Illinois. How could people leading the state of Illinois let it get so bad? How could the state let it get so bad for people who are fragile?"

Trefzger doesn't care which politicians are at fault. She cares that her son and others on Medicaid and medically fragile are among those paying the price.

Hunter resumed physical therapy in February at Marcfirst's SPICE (Services for Parent Infant and Child Education) program. But he's on a waiting list to resume occupational and speech therapy.

"It's not just about Hunter," Trefzger said. "It's also about the hundreds of other kids being affected because they need services and aren't getting them."

Marcfirst's SPICE program has added 60 to 65 children for therapy services (bringing the caseload of children receiving ongoing services up to 212) and hired two physical therapists (including McGriff), a feeding therapist, three speech pathologists and a licensed clinical social worker, in part because of the cut at Easterseals, said Marcfirst CEO Laura Furlong and SPICE Director Christy Kosharek. Some of the therapists are full time, some are part time, and some, like McGriff, had been with Easterseals, Furlong said.

The other children may be getting therapy elsewhere or may be going without services for the time being.

"We have about 50 kids now waiting for services and about half had been receiving services at Easterseals," Kosharek said.

"We want all children to receive services, regardless of the family's ability to pay," Kosharek said. "We are pleased to provide services but it's placing a financial strain on us."

Hunter was born on Nov. 3, 2011, with achondroplasia  the most common form of dwarfism  a genetic condition that results in disproportionately short arms and legs.

He has had 40 surgeries. A major one, when he was 5 months old, was a tracheostomy  a tube inserted into his windpipe to open the restricted airway and enable breathing.

When he was a year old, he had spinal decompression surgery so he wouldn't be paralyzed from the neck down. At 3, he had surgery to pull his tongue forward so it wouldn't block his airway while he was sleeping.

"That allowed them to remove the trach," his mother said.

When he began physical, occupational, speech/feeding and developmental therapy at the Easterseals Bloomington center, 2404 E. Empire St., Bloomington, at 9 months of age, "he needed 100 percent support," his mother said. "He couldn't sit up. He couldn't roll. He couldn't hold his head up."

"He couldn't control his own body," said McGriff, who has been Hunter's physical therapist since then. "We worked with him to hold his own head up, to sit independently, to crawl and to walk."

"They were phenomenal," Trefzger said. "Hunter would not be the person he is today if he didn't receive therapy."

But last May 25, Easterseals Central Illinois announced the cut, scheduled to take effect within 90 days.

"The reason was because the state changed the requirement regarding the amount of administrative work required for reimbursement," President Gina Mandros explained. "The amount of reimbursement didn't reflect the additional administrative operational costs."

Medicaid reimbursement already was low, Mandros said. "It is, at best, 30 percent reimbursement," she said.

"It's very frustrating that there are rules beyond our control and they affect kids like Hunter," Mandros said. "Hunter is a wonderful kid and was making amazing progress here. He was among many kids we had to let go off our caseload. It was a difficult time for everyone."

The move resulted in a "substantial cost savings," said Mandros, who didn't have a dollar figure available. Easterseals Central Illinois eliminated 14 positions earlier this year.

But Easterseals retained children on Medicaid and Medicaid managed care for physical, occupational and speech therapy evaluations; for periodic check-ins and reassessments; for post-operative therapy; and for autism and cortical visual impairment services, Mandros said.

"Easterseals remains strong in our community," Mandros said. "Our demographics may be different but we're helping children to live, learn and thrive in our community."

Some families called Marcfirst, which is continuing to take children on Medicaid.

Furlong said "The state budget continues to be an ongoing challenge for us." She cited stagnant reimbursement for therapy for 10 years.

"But we're committed as an organization to identify alternative sources of income to support all our services," Furlong said.

Hunter lost services in late August and his mother tried to keep him active.

"For the next six months, it was sad for Hunter," his mother recalled. "He'd ask when he could go to Easterseals to see his friends."

In late January, McGriff was let go at Easterseals but was hired at Marcfirst SPICE and called Trefzger.

Hunter resumed physical therapy Feb. 8. "He's making a lot of progress," McGriff said.

"Since he resumed services, there is a marked improvement in Hunter," his mother said.

He remains on a waiting list for occupational and speech therapy. Trefzger hopes those services resume soon. "His speech has regressed," his mother said. "He doesn't put his tongue in the right spot when he's speaking. It's difficult for him to articulate certain sounds so sometimes it's harder for people to understand him."

Short-term, Trefzger hopes that Hunter  who attends early childhood education at Sugar Creek Elementary School  will thrive in kindergarten.

Long-term, Trefzger wants to return to school to become an aromatherapist and wants Hunter  who will be no taller than 4 feet 6 inches  to do anything he wants to do.

"Hunter makes this a heck of a lot easier because he's happy," Trefzger said.

After the March 20 therapy session, Hunter was asked what he thought of therapy.
CLINTON  A 20-year-old Shirley man charged with child pornography in McLean County was charged Thursday with criminal sexual assault in DeWitt County.

Austin Graf is accused of sexually assaulting a minor girl during a Nov. 11 incident at Weldon Springs State Park in Clinton. The felony carries a possible penalty of four to 15 years with a requirement that the defendant serve 85 percent of the sentence, if convicted.

DeWitt County State's Attorney Dan Markwell said a bond has not been requested yet for Graf, who will be transported to Clinton from the McLean County jail for an arraignment.

The Illinois State Police investigation of the incident in Clinton resulted in the discovery of more than 800 images of child pornography on the suspect's cell phone, according to Assistant McLean County State's Attorney Jacob Harlow.

During an interview with police, Graf admitted to having more than 300 photos of girls, including some minors, said Harlow. Police found the images hidden on a calculator app on Graf's phone, according to a statement read in court by the prosecutor.

Graf remains in the McLean County jail in lieu of $50,035. An April 7 arraignment is scheduled on the pornography charges.
The Normal Town Council on Monday will consider an ordinance for the 2022 property tax levy estimated to be $13,381,652, which is the same as last year's levy.
Pamela Anderson is a really big fan of Julian Assange. If her decision last October to hand deliver "a nice vegan lunch and some vegan snacks" to the WikiLeaks founder at the Ecuadorian embassy in London, where he's been trapped for the past four years, didn't convince you  a decision that resulted in her being the subject of a large murder conspiracy theory, mind you  then her formal call for his release in December (where she labeled him a "hero) should have clued you in.

Now, the famous star is elaborating on her feelings. Earlier today, the Baywatch star posted a long blog entry to her Pamela Anderson Foundation website. The strange post seems to work as an extended musing on the model's thoughts about modern day "dating culture." Anderson comments that she "believe[s] in female empowerment" and is in "support of women's rights," but also mentions that the current dating world also presents "big risks for men that no-one wants to talk about.

This exploration of modern dating turns into a slight teaser for her upcoming book (which she describes as being "about sensuality  a sexy kindness") before she then steers the conversation toward Julian Assange. "My relationship with Julian  it's no secret," she begins. "He is one of my favorite people and he might be the most famous, most politicized refugee of our time. Famous for being persecuted. Famous for being persecuted is not a position of power but a position of vulnerability."

Then, Ms. Anderson called out the entire country of Sweden on behalf of Julian Assange. To be clear, the country currently has an arrest warrant out for Assange, who is wanted for questioning in response to rape allegations charged against him in 2010. Allegations aside, it's still clear that Pamela is #TeamAssange. Referring to Sweden as a "progressive country," Anderson urged the country to "help Julian by building a better public understanding." After all, "It is only fair that Julian is set free and compensated and live the life he deserves as the UN ruling suggests. He's a good person who cares about the world. Everyone can see what has been done to him is wrong."

As a simple yet confidently assured ending to this wild journey, the former Playboy "Playmate of the Month" centerfold signed off on her blog post with a hashtag: #standwithassange. Well, okay.

Read the whole blog post here.

[h/t The Cut]

Splash photo via Angela Pham/BFA.com


Last night, New York's party people made the trek out to Brooklyn to celebrate Adidas Originals by Italia Independent's newest eyewear collection. At Pioneer Works in Red Hook, guests sipped champagne and tried on sunnies inspired by '70s New York that balance innovation and tradition (the line is available starting today at the Adidas flagship in Soho). After taking plenty of sunglass selfies, everyone moved to the dance floor, where DJ Little Louie Vega spun the entire night. Among the attendees were London Zhiloh, Gianni Lee, Diana Veras, K$ACE, Kiki Barnes, Emmanuel Matos, Evan Kim, Rox Brown, Dusty Doe, Ian Mellencamp, and DJ Wavy. Check out some shots of the scene below.

Photos: Getty Images for Italia Independent


North Dakota senators approved its highly-debated shared parenting bill Wednesday. By a vote of 28-19, the approval paved the way for amendments to the North Dakota Century Code when it comes to parenting time and responsibility.

Rep. Tom Kading introduced HB 1392 on the floor in January 2017. The bill went through a series of readings and deliberation among the House and the Senate.

The House approved HB 1392 by a vote of 71 to 21 last February. With senators doing the same thing, then the bill will soon go to a conference committee, as per Bismarck Tribune.

Under HB 1392, each divorced or separated parent can have between 35 to 50 percent of the time with their children. If one of the parents will seek shared parenting privileges from a judge, the law requires the court "articulate in its decision the rationale for either awarding or denying the request."

Kading received opposition when he introduced HB 1392 because many said his proposal was nothing but Measure Six. North Dakota voters rejected this in the ballot in 2014.

Measure Six was a pro-parent proposal. Kading defended he devised the policies of HB 1392 for the best interest of the child and not the mom or dad.

Shared parenting advocate Sean Kasson on HB 1392 and why he says it is beneficial for North Dakota's children. https://t.co/gr8166oJM4  Chris Berg (@chrisbergPOVNOW) March 16, 2017

Experts discussed the effects of this law on families via Valley News Live. Sean Kasson, a proponent of HB 1392, said conflict filled the current status quo among divorced parents battling custody in court and lawyers gained from this arrangement.

"You pit two parents against each other, so when you do that, you create conflict, you create competition," he said. "The money flows."

With HB 1392, however, its North Dakota children of divorces or separation who win and the lawyers won't be able to "cash in" on the conflict anymore. Kasson sees the shared parenting law as a way for parents to truly focus on the kids by citing why they deserve 50 percent custody than fighting the other side in court.
DES MOINES  Kim Reynolds, Iowas governor-in-waiting, has a big decision to make.

Who will be her second in command?

Reynolds will succeed Gov. Terry Branstad as Iowas chief executive for the remainder of his term when Branstad is confirmed as the next U.S. ambassador to China sometime in the coming weeks. No official date for Branstad's move has been announced.

Reynolds plans to choose a new lieutenant governor, even though there is a difference of opinion on whether that should be permitted  more on that later.

The selection is critical for multiple reasons, starting with the fact the lieutenant governor is first in line should the governor become unable to fulfill the duties of the office.

The chosen individual also will play a critical role in the 2018 election, assuming Reynolds runs. And although Reynolds has not yet officially said she will run for election in 2018, it is widely expected she will.

Branstad has been grooming Reynolds to be his successor since his return to the office in 2011, giving her an increasingly public role in the administration.

Soon, Reynolds will choose someone to fill that role.

Political and geographical considerations could enter Reynolds equation. For example, it may be prudent she choose someone who is well known in one of Iowa's bigger cities. It also could prove wise to pluck someone from Iowa's more conservative western portion.

But a few veteran Iowa Republicans said those qualities may not be as important as finding a partner with whom to work.

At the end of the day I think the pick is going to be just something in her gut that she thinks feels right, said Jeff Boeyink, Branstad's former chief of staff who oversaw Branstads selection of Reynolds as his running mate. Quite honestly, my advice to her has been dont worry about checking boxes on ideology and geography. ...

Ive never been a believer in that. At the end of the day, people vote for the governor, not the lieutenant governor. ... Because you are in the furnace together, it has to be someone who you trust and will have your back at all times.

John Stineman, a Republican strategist with campaign experience, also said he thinks Reynolds will value a personal relationship over a political checklist.

I dont think theres any reason to believe that (Reynolds) wouldnt be approaching it the same way that Gov. Branstad did when he approached her, Stineman said. And that means looking for someone who is a partner in it, someone that is not just capable of taking over if something goes wrong ... but is somebody that you have a shared vision, that you want to work closely and collaboratively with, that you want to see very involved, that they would one day be prepared to be governor, not just somebody to just put behind glass and say you break in case of emergency.

Jimmy Centers, a former spokesman for the administration who works for a bipartisan public affairs business, said he expects Reynolds to choose someone who can work with her in the same way she has worked with Branstad.

Lt. Gov. Reynolds is likely looking for someone to operate in same framework as she has been in as lieutenant governor: a full partner in governing, crafting the budget, messaging, developing policy, and come 2018, campaigning, Centers said in an email. This type of experience and partnership would allow her lieutenant governor to be fully prepared should he or she ever be put in a position to assume the office.

Reynolds reportedly has spoken with many individuals about the position. Reynolds has not said when she will name her first mate.

In working for Lt. Gov. Reynolds, I can tell you that she has an eye for talent. She visits all 99 Iowa counties each year and meets with countless strong leaders in their local communities, Centers said. By engaging with those types of leaders, and due to the success of the Republican Party of Iowa since 2010, there is a lot of talent for her to consider for the job. I suspect that she is likely talking to a wide range of people and I wouldn't expect a decision to be revealed until the official transition is imminent.

Still, there remains a question of whether Reynolds should be able to choose a lieutenant governor.

The Iowa Constitution and state law are not clear on whether a replacement governor should select a new lieutenant governor. The governor is given clear authority to fill a vacancy for lieutenant governor, but the disagreement is over whether a promoted lieutenant governor becomes a full-fledged governor or just an acting governor.

The Branstad administration contends Reynolds will gain all the authority of a governor and thus have the ability to name a lieutenant governor. The offices of the state attorney general and secretary of state are in agreement.

But Iowa Sen. David Johnson, a former Republican turned independent from Ocheyedan, has written the Attorney Generals Office asking for further clarification.

Johnson said his concern is that if Reynolds is allowed to name her lieutenant governor and something were to happen to her, an individual who was not elected by Iowans could become governor.

The next position in Iowas line of succession is the president of the Senate, a position held by state Sen. Jack Whitver, a Republican from Ankeny.

It raises the prospect of an unelected official theoretically becoming governor, Johnson said. You could have somebody whos never been in an election. Plus, the political implications of setting that person up for a future run for governor.
A Florida high school came under fire for releasing a prom dress reminder. Students complained its dress code was sexist and the reminder also came out a little too late. The school issued an apology to students following the uproar.

Stanton College Prep in Jacksonville Florida will hold its prom on Friday, March 31. The school released the prom dress reminder via posters and flyers on Monday, March 27. By then, however, most of the girls already have their dresses prepared.

The reminder featured photos of four types of prom dresses. Three of those photos featured girls wearing revealing clothes. Its caption read: "Going to Stanton Prom? No, you're not," as per Huffington Post.

One prom dress, on the other hand, featured a girl showing little skin or cleavage. This photo was captioned: "Going to Stanton Prom? YES, you are. Good girl."

Good thing they told us a week before prom it's not like everyone has their dress already....... pic.twitter.com/3nOKhSTu4R  Lily (@LILwillingham) March 27, 2017

Students stormed social media to complain about the prom dress reminder that went viral. Some said it was a form of slut-shaming. The label "good girl" also reinforced a damaging stereotype, as per Cosmopolitan.

One student said her prom dress' doesn't pass the standards because its backside was open. But the student said she is still planning to wear the dress, which she bought this three weeks ago for $500, on Friday night.

Another student said the prom is one of the few times girls get to dress up in high school. Some girls draw confidence from the dresses they wear even if this means showing some skin.

Following the complaints, Stanton College Prep administrators issued an apology. "Our intent is to make sure prom is enjoyable and memorable," the principal said in a statement, as per Action News Jax. The school district also said they did not approve the photos used in the poster and flyer, hence the notices were taken down.
Italy's parliament is reportedly considering a law that could soon legalize paid menstrual leave for female workers. If approved in the coming months after deliberation, the European nation will be the first to offer period leave among western countries. Opposers of the bill, however, say this might not be a good idea.

The bill covers 60 to 90 percent of women experiencing debilitating menstrual cramps monthly. These women will have to present a medical certification if they want to avail of the paid leave benefit once the law takes effect.

Those who oppose the bill, however, raised a point that the law could promote a bias against women. Employers might choose to hire more men than women workers to avoid paying for paid menstrual leave, as per Washington Post.

Italian lawmakers want to implement paid menstrual leave https://t.co/R70rDIQGrX  TIME (@TIME) March 29, 2017

As it is, Italian women struggle in the workplace as only 61 percent of women are currently employed. The rest of Europe averagely employ 72 percent of female workers, the Independent reported.

At least a quarter of pregnant women also experiences no job security in Italy. Their employers either fire them or no longer take them back after giving birth even as there are labor laws that protect these women of their rights, Business Insider reported.

The menstrual leave law is not a new concept in some Asian countries such as Japan that passed this policy in 1947 and South Korea passed their period law in 2001. Taiwan, Indonesia and certain provinces in China also have set similar laws. Meanwhile, multinational companies like Nike and Coexist established its own menstrual leave policy without waiting for the government to do so.

As an option, women with debilitating menstrual cramps usually use their paid sick leaves or take a day off from work without pay and many have been doing this for decades. Once a menstrual leave option becomes a law, then employers are mandated to apply it.

What do you think of this proposal? Would women in the U.S. also benefit from having a paid menstrual leave law? Share us your thoughts in the comments!
Authorities found a child from Hickman, Nebraska to have THC in her system, a substance commonly found in marijuana. They said a child care provider might be responsible.

The staff of a hospital called Bryan East Campus in Lincoln called Lancaster County Sheriff's Office to report a child, a two-year-old female, about being lethargic. The parents of the girl took her there due to being sleepy and not acting normally earlier this week, Washington Post shared.

Doctors told them she suffered from exposure to the substance. Due to this, the day care provider who took care of the child, Michelle Nicklas, underwent investigation. Sheriff Terry Wagner said after interviewing Nicklas, they found out she baked marijuana brownies over the weekend for the birthday party of a friend. She then used the same pan to bake cookies for the kids.

They charged Nicklas of misdemeanor child abuse. The Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services also issued the closure of the day care for an unknown period of time. The department issued her licenses to operate in the past.

Police said they do not know if Nicklas washed the pans before using them again. They urged parents of the children under her care to have their kids tested for the presence of THC in their system. In the day care, Nicklas had 10 children under her care. Eight of them are preschool and tow are school-age children. They believed one more child showed signs of THC exposure, Lincoln Journal Star said.

The investigation continued as authorities took some of the cookies the kids ate. They did not find marijuana at the home that served as a day care. State health and human services investigators worked to determine if she violated state child care regulation.

The child's parents did not comment on the matter. Do you think the child care provider violated any state child care regulation? Let us know what you think. Meanwhile, below is another news report about marijuana plants found behind a day care center and it happened six months ago.
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Today, Apple Officially announced the opening of its App Accelerator in Bengaluru that will provide specialized support for developers to build tools for the iOS platform, giving its India growth strategy a fresh impetus. Each week, Apple's team will guide developers to design best practices and refine their skills to create iOS apps.

Apple first announced the App Accelerator project back in July 2016. At the time, Apple's CEO Tim Cook said in a press statement that "With the opening of this new facility in Bengaluru, we're giving developers access to tools, which will help them created innovative apps for customers around the world."



Today Philip Schiller, senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing at Apple, said in a statement that "We are impressed by the great entrepreneurial spirit in India and are excited to provide a platform for these developers to share their innovations with customers around the world. In just the first few weeks, we've already seen some incredible developers here at the App Accelerator Bengaluru, including Practo and Reliance Games, create innovative apps that can meet the needs of customers in India and around the world."

Shashank ND, Founder of CEO of Practo commented that "The Accelerator has really helped us make the best use of iOS technologies to rapidly digitize and improve the healthcare experience for millions of consumers in India."

The App Accelerator is now open to iOS developers in India through a sign-up process on the App Accelerator Bengaluru website.

About Making Comments on our Site: Patently Apple reserves the right to post, dismiss or edit any comments. Those using abusive language or behavior will result in being blacklisted on Disqus.
The war between a group of top Australian banks and Apple over Apple Pay began last August. Our original report on this was titled "Apple Tells Australian Commission that Three Top Banks are in a Cartel to Dictate Terms for Apple Pay." We covered the ongoing war over at least six reports (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6) since then covering various phases and angles playing out in the press. The Australian Fintech war encouraged South Korea's Fintech industry to attempt the same tactic against Apple to force them to open up their Apple Pay APIs. So there was a lot riding on the Australian Commission's ruling. Today the ruling came down in Apple's favor.

According to Reuters Australia, "Australia's competition regulator on Friday said it would bar a group of the country's largest banks from bargaining collectively for access to Apple Inc's contactless payment function, potentially setting a global precedent.

The decision, the first of its kind, will stop the banks from introducing their own mobile applications on devices like the iPhone and Apple Watch that could be used for contactless payments instead of the Apple Wallet.

That would have enabled banks to circumvent transaction fees and get customers to engage more frequently with their own apps, potentially unlocking more of Australia's contactless payment market.

Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) Chairman Rod Sims said in a statement that "While the ACCC accepts that the opportunity for the banks to collectively negotiate and boycott would place them in a better bargaining position with Apple, the benefits would be outweighed by detriments." For more on this read the full Reuters report here.

About Making Comments on our Site: Patently Apple reserves the right to post, dismiss or edit any comments. Those using abusive language or behavior will result in being blacklisted on Disqus.
SIOUX CITY | A Sioux City man has been arrested after he allegedly stabbed a female multiple times Thursday morning during a robbery over $80 worth of marijuana.

Police say the two involved were both injured in the struggle at about 1:30 a.m. in the 800 block of 15th Street, according to a news release from police.

Court documents say, Colten Stroman, 21, agreed to buy six grams of marijuana for $80 from a female on social media. When the female arrived at the 15th Street meeting place, she was escorted to the back porch of the residence where she was instructed to stay by an acquaintance of Stroman.

Shortly after, Stroman -- dressed in dark clothing and a handkerchief concealing his face -- confronted the female displaying a small folding knife. Stroman demanded the female to give him the drugs and a scuffle ensued between them.

The female was stabbed multiple times in the hand and eyebrow area, the documents said.

Officers were called to UnityPoint Health--St. Luke's Thursday morning after the female had arrived for treatment of the wounds.

Stroman also showed up at Mercy Medical Center for treatment of a knife wound he received in the altercation.

Neither the victim's nor Stroman's injuries are considered to be life-threatening, and both were released from the respective hospitals, police said.

Officers located and interviewed Stroman later after he arrived at Mercy where he confessed to his involvement in the incident.

Stroman was arrested for first-degree robbery Thursday morning. His bond has been set at $75,000 and his first court date will be on April 10.
Iran, Russia closely cooperating on fighting terrorism: President Rouhani

03/28/17

Source: Press TV

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani says the Islamic Republic and Russia have been working closely together to fight terrorism and promote stability in the region. "Relations between Iran and Russia are aimed at promoting regional stability and the two countries' main objective is to promote regional peace and tranquility," Rouhani said in a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin at the Kremlin, Moscow, on Tuesday. He added that Tehran-Moscow ties would never be against the interests of any third country.



Iranian President Hassan Rouhani (R) with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin

during their meeting at the Kremlin in Moscow on March 28, 2017.

(Photo by president.ir)



Rouhani said Iran attached importance to strengthening relations with Russia, adding that the two countries had taken steps to bring about positive developments in mutual ties over the past three and a half years.



The Iranian chief executive emphasized that mutual relations had entered "a new phase," saying, "In this new phase, we can speak about sustainable and long-term ties."



Rouhani expressed hope that the two sides would manage to take more steps to further deepen ties.





(photo by Islamic Republic News Agency)



The Russian president, for his part, said Iran was a good neighbor and a stable and reliable partner for his country.



Putin added that Moscow and Tehran worked very effectively together in all areas, including on global issues and the resolution of major and very grave international problems.



He also commended major achievements made by the two countries in recent years, particularly in the economic sector, saying that trade volume between Iran and Russia increased 70 percent in 2016 in comparison with the year before.

Iran, Russia sign 14 documents for cooperation

Meanwhile, Iran and Russia signed 14 documents for the expansion of cooperation in various political, economic, judicial, legal, scientific and cultural fields.



The documents were signed by senior Iranian and Russian officials in the presence of Rouhani and Putin following their talks.



Meanwhile, Iranian and Russian economic entrepreneurs and businesspeople held several rounds of talks and signed agreements to boost cooperation between the two countries' private sectors.



Heading a high-ranking politico-economic delegation, the Iranian president arrived in Moscow Monday evening for a two-day official visit at the invitation of his Russian counterpart.



In a meeting with Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev on Monday, Rouhani said mutual relations were "growing" and stressed that relations would play an effective role in promoting regional and international stability and security.





Iranian President Hassan Rouhani (L) with Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev

(photo by Islamic Republic News Agency)



Before the current meeting, Rouhani and Putin had held eight meetings over the past four years. Tehran and Moscow enjoy strategic relations with senior delegations from the two countries regularly exchanging visits.



The two presidents have also held several phone conversations and discussed the available avenues for the continuation of bilateral cooperation on the crisis in Syria and the fight against international terrorism.
The unfathomable soul of Iran

03/31/17

By Katya Bohdan, Tehran Times



Photos of Tehran by Katya Bohdan on her facebook page



The very first time I travelled to Iran, I was absolutely amazed at how open and inclusive its community was, how safe the country was and how astonishingly beautiful. Sadly, it is blatantly misrepresented in most Western media, a tendency I would gladly counter as a journalist in the making.



So far I have been to Iran twice and both times I have been embraced by the Iranian community, famous for its unfaltering and sincere hospitality. Iran is an unusual, incomparable place. From a vibrant metropolis like Tehran to the ruins of Persepolis, one of the greatest civilizations of the past, Iran is a true mystery, a riddle that can't and shouldn't be solved.



One of my Iranian friends in Belgium once warned me that Iran is a dangerous place. "You see, when you go there for a first time, you will come back for a second time, and then a third, and then a fourth, and then a hundredth. It just keeps calling you back. You can't stay away". I guess he was right, because here I am once again, and I still recall his words vividly, like a mantra.



I'm only in my twenties, but I can't say I've ever been to a more compelling place than Iran. It's highly unusual for a stranger, a foreigner, to feel completely at home in a country that is not their own. But not once have I felt unwelcome or even homesick. Iranians whom I have encountered here are wonderful people. They're open and outgoing, and at the same time they're humble and generous. They adorn and contribute to the inimitable beauty of the country more than any impressive mosque or attraction.



And this is just my personal, subjective experience, of my encounters with Iranian people, of places I've visited and things I've seen. Iran has left me slightly stupefied; its modern cities and remnants of ancient civilizations, the magnificent kaleidoscope of colors in mosques all across the country; the dazzling, crowded bazaars; the vertigo of patterns in the hand-woven, famous Persian rugs; the fleeting scents of colorful spices; the warm sun and varying landscapes, from snowcapped mountains to deserts under a scorching hot sun.



Iran manages to completely amaze in its magnificent grandeur and elegant beauty around very corner. From traditional Islamic architecture and every subtle detail in the handmade mosaic to splendid constructions dating back to 2,500 years ago, to modern tall buildings and roads of a vibrant metropolis.



For me, Iran has been a collision of sensations, an eye-opening experience that has made me more open-minded and left my blood boiling with energy and determination. Its people emboldened me with their kindness and acceptance, their pride and dignity in the face of numerous setbacks and changes. I feel like this world doesn't deserve Iranian people.



Iran has a strong, powerful, warm, beautiful and enigmatic soul; it's the cradle of civilization with a history so old that it's almost impossible to perceive, were it not for tombs of ancient kings and ruins of Persepolis for us to stare in awe at.



I will greatly miss it when I will return home to Belgium. Briefly travelling or even working in a country, you never expect to establish lasting friendships as a fleeting passerby. But it's different in Iran. Not only have I made friends for life here, I even feel part of a family now.



We can never really tell when will be the very last time we see a place or a person. I genuinely hope this time won't be the last time I will see Iran.



About the author:

Katya Bohdan is a journalism student from Belgium who picked her internship with the Tehran Times. Our Politics Desk had the privilege of her company for the past two months.
Iran's President Rouhani Orders Investigation Into "Suspicious" Pre-Election Arrests After MPs Ask Him for Explanation

03/31/17

Source: Center for Human Rights in Iran

A little over a week after reformist members of Parliament asked Iranian President Hassan Rouhani to attend to a spate of arrests ahead of the country's upcoming elections, the president asked for the same thing from his interior minister.



Iranian President Hassan Rouhani

In his first cabinet meeting after the Iranian New Year on March 21, 2017, Rouhani publicly asked for an explanation from Interior Minister Abdolreza Rahmani Fazli for the "suspicious arrests of a number of media activists on the eve of the elections," and asked him to prevent "security violations."

The arrests of several activists and journalists since January have not been confirmed or denied by any authority in the country.

"It is necessary to guarantee the security of all the people... and prevent unlawful actions by institutions that have no right to interfere in the elections," said Rouhani while addressing his cabinet on March 26.

Iran will hold elections for president as well as for city and village councils on May 19.

On March 17, four reformist members of Parliament demanded an explanation for the arrests from Rouhani in an open letter.

"Foremost we expect your excellency to resolve this problem, but if no action is taken, we will invite the four ministers involved, namely the ministers of intelligence, justice, interior and Islamic guidance... to Parliament and pursue this matter until the truth becomes clear and the rights of the detainees are restored, even by impeaching the relevant ministers if need be," said the letter, signed by Elias Hazrati, Abdolkarim Hosseinzadeh, Bahram Parsaie and Mohammad Ali Vakili.

"It is not clear which agencies carried out the arrests, although in reality you (the president) are accountable whether it was the Intelligence Ministry or any other organization because there was no due process," said the letter.

"These individuals have been arrested at a time when our country is on the verge of important political events, as elections are to be held for the presidency, national councils and in some cases for members of Parliament," added the letter. "What's needed at this time are peace, security and lawful actions in every manner."

Conservative Deputy Parliament Speaker Ali Motahari warned on March 15, "If the Intelligence Minister (Mahmoud Alavi) does not provide a reasonable explanation for the arrests of the 12 Telegram (messaging application) channel admins, Parliament would pursue the course of impeachment."

Since December 26, 2016, more than 22 journalists and rights activists-nearly all of them believed to be supporters of Rouhani-have been arrested by security agents working either for the Intelligence Ministry, which answers to Rouhani, or the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), which answers only to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.

Those arrested include journalists Tahereh Riahi, Zeinab Karimian, Ehsan Mazandarani, Morad Saghafi, Ramin Karimian, Mahsa Rojati, Mona Moafi and Mehrak Karimpour Andalibi, along with political activist Hengameh Shahidi and film producer Saleh Deldam.

Between March 14-16, 12 admins of reformist-aligned Telegram network channels were also arrested by security forces who deleted the channels' content and changed their names.

A court in Tehran meanwhile sentenced former reformist MP and rights activist Faezeh Hashemi to six months in prison for "spreading falsehoods," "disturbing public opinion" and "propaganda against the state."

While she appeals that decision, Hashemi will also face another trial on April 16 on unspecified charges brought by the IRGC and Tehran Prosecutor Abbas Jafari Dowlatabadi.
A Temecula neighborhood is sheltering-in-place after a gas main ruptured and began leaking Friday, March 31.

Firefighters were called to the intersection of Monte Verde Road and Via Puebla just before 1 p.m. after a 4-inch gas main was ruptured by construction equipment, said Cal Fire/Riverside County Fire spokeswoman Tawny Castro.

Firefighters asked residents to shelter-in-place until the leak was resolved.

Castro said the gas company arrived around 1:15 p.m., but there was no expected time for the shelter-in-place orders to be lifted.

This story is developing. Check back for updates.
Inland residents can get ready for another major freeway closure.

The 15 Freeway in northern Fontana will be closing 55 hours this weekend and the next as workers build a drainage project.

Traffic is expected to be snarled on the route thats heavily used by thousands of trucks and Southern California weekend travelers to and from Las Vegas.

Its just going to be backed up and congested all weekend, Caltrans spokeswoman Terri Kasinga said.

Starting 9 p.m. Friday, March 31, all southbound 15 lanes at Duncan Canyon Road will close until 4 a.m., Monday, April 3.

The situation will be reversed next weekend, when the northbound lanes close from 11 p.m. Friday, April 7, until 6 a.m. Monday, April 10.

Vehicles moving through the area will find the Duncan Canyon ramps have been temporarily re-striped to two lanes so traffic can be directed off and on the ramps through the construction area, Caltrans spokesman Philip Havins said.

Still, Caltrans is suggesting that motorists avoid the area if possible and saying they may face hours-long delays if they dont.

I think its going to be extremely difficult to get through there, Kasinga said.

On Sunday afternoon, April 2, when travelers head home from Las Vegas, may be particularly bad, she said. Kasinga recommended drivers take alternate routes or leave earlier or later than usual.

The recommended detour for southbound vehicles is the 215 Freeway through Devore and then connecting to the 210 Freeway or the 10 Freeway in San Bernardino. Those going northbound can take the 210 or 10 to get to the 215 and then take the 15 at the Devore interchange.

Detours will also be in place on city streets in Fontana, where Duncan Canyon will be closed.

Caltrans has been warning motorists with electronic message signs /on freeways/ and by using social media to get the word out, Kasinga said. The agency has also alerted trucking companies.

Fontana Mayor Acquanetta Warren said shes been telling city residents to find activities both weekends that keep them out of the area.

This is going to be major, she said. Were really trying to get the word out to people.

She and Kasinga compared the impact to the weekend-long shutdown of the 91 through Corona in February 2016 that was dubbed Coronageddon. That 91 closure was part of a three-year, $1.4 billion, project to add toll lanes and widen bridges that ended last week.

Drivers on the 15 have already experienced delays in recent weeks because of a storm repair project in Devore that workers completed this month. More than a decade ago, a Caltrans repaving project through seven miles of the Cajon Pass caused major back-ups on the 15 over several weeks.

The latest closure is part of a $3 million city-funded project to install a new storm drain running underneath the freeway.

Construction crews will be cutting through the roadway, installing the 10-foot-by-12-foot concrete culvert, filling it back up with construction material and putting in place rapid-setting concrete, Havin said.

Fontana already completed work on the storm drain on either side of the freeway and is partnering with Caltrans for the section under it, said Kevin Ryan, the citys transportation manager.

Ryan said doing the work while keeping the freeway open with limited closures would have taken four months.

It was decided we can get in and out of there in a 55-hour closure and just be done with it, he said.

City officials say the new drain will allow for better flow of storm waters from the east side of the 15 to the west side.

Meanwhile, Fontana and Caltrans officials are asking drivers to be patient.

Its unfortunate were all going to be inconvenienced, but its not going to last as long as the 91, Warren said.

Reach the reporter:

951-368-9558, ighori@scng.com or @ImranGhori1 on Twitter
In an interview Wednesday, March 29, Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Alpine denied breaking any laws but wouldnt say who is responsible for tens of thousands of dollars in charges to his campaign account that spurred an ongoing criminal probe by the Justice Department.

In what may be his first in-person public comments since news of the investigation broke last week, Hunter, who represents most of Temecula, told POLITICO: I was not involved in any criminal action. Maybe I wasnt attentive enough to my campaign. Thats not a crime.

Since last year, Hunter has faced increasing scrutiny over his campaign expenses, from charges from online video games  he said his son mistakenly used a campaign credit card  to expenses for an oral and facial surgeon, money that went toward tuition for his childrens private school to grocery bills, fast food meals, costs tied to purchases in Italy and Disneyland and charges made at a surf shop and repairs to a garage door at his home.

Federal law forbids spending campaign money on personal expenses. Hunter, who commissioned an outside audit of his campaign account, later took out a personal loan to repay about $49,000 in expenses and has reimbursed his campaign to the tune of $60,000 total.

While the charges were primarily authorized by the campaign, the buck stops with me and I take full responsibility  including the responsibility to determine and implement other structural changes to ensure errors are not repeated, he said last November.

Last week, the House Ethics Committee announced it was postponing its own look at Hunters campaign finances at the Justice Departments request. The Office of Congressional Ethics recommended the ethics panel look into the matter.

Hunter told POLITICO this week: I didnt make any of those charges. None. None of those expenditures.

When asked who did  if it was his wife, Margaret, who was listed as his campaign manager  Hunter would not say, POLITICO reported.

Im not saying that. Im saying that I didnt make any of those charges, Hunter said. Thats for an investigation. Im just telling you that I didnt make any of those charges.

Also from POLITCO:

Hunter, though, would not admit that campaign funds were used to pay his familys expenses, despite campaign records and news reports stating that, and repeated that he had no knowledge of any such actions.

According to POLITICO, Hunter said that neither he, nor his wife or staff, have been contacted by the Justice Department and he believes he will be cleared.

At some point, the justice system will work. Ive got faith in that, he was quoted as saying.
AURORA  A rural Waterloo man has been arrested for allegedly crashing into the Aurora library while intoxicated Tuesday.

Jerod Joseph Siebel, 28, of 11804 Kimball Ave., was arrested for first-offense operating while intoxicated, first-degree criminal mischief, domestic assault and prohibited acts involving prescription drugs. He also was cited for open container and running a stop sign.

The Aurora Comet Center, 401 Woodruff St., suffered more than $10,000 damage. The building, which houses the library and a gym and hosts city council meetings, has been closed since the crash. The impact knocked a hole in the wall, tossed books from a shelf and snapped a water line, which caused damaged to equipment and carpeting.

The hole has since been covered with a sheet of metal.

According to authorities, Siebel had been at a home on Auroras Alice Avenue and attempted to leave. His girlfriend tried to stop him from driving because he was intoxicated, and he allegedly pushed her into a chair.

Siebel allegedly climbed into his Chrysler Town and Country van and sped away but slammed into the Comet Center while turning on Woodruff Street, according to court records.

He backed out of the building while bystanders watched and then left town, records state. At some point he allegedly sent a text message to the girlfriend informing her of the crash, records state.

As Buchanan County sheriffs deputies were headed to the scene, Delaware County authorities stopped his van about 10 miles away on 210th Street and Washburn Avenue near Masonville. He allegedly failed a field sobriety test and refused others, and deputies found a pill organizer in his vehicle with three different prescription pills.
The throngs of people flocking to Southern Californias deserts to see one of the most spectacular wildflower blooms in years now are being asked to show a bit more caution and respect for nature.

Joshua Tree National Park officials this week issued a somber plea for visitors to do a better job watching out for wildlife after vehicles ran over and killed at least three desert tortoises within seven days.

At the same time, officials with the Metropolitan Water District announced they were closing the popular Wildflower Trail above Diamond Valley Lake for two days to install signs asking hikers to stay on the trail.

Too many people were going off the trail to pose for photographs with the California poppies, blue dicks, and other blooming annuals that are unusually abundant this spring because of this winters drenching rain storms. Some of the plants got trampled.

The water district expects the trail to be re-opened the morning of Friday, March 31.

The wildflower bloom has been both beneficial and hazardous to the desert tortoise, which has been listed as threatened with extinction.

In the higher altitude Mojave Desert, the combination of warmer temperatures and abundant greenery have brought desert tortoises out of their underground burrows to feast on desert dandelions and other annuals before those leafy plants dry up during the approach of summer.

The tortoises at Joshua Tree National Park are eating so much now that their beaks are stained green, said Michael Vamstad, a wildlife biologist for the park.

They are eating and foraging like crazy, Vamstad said. Theyre putting on weight and getting the nutrition they need.

Meanwhile, thousands of people are visiting the park, many attracted to the colorful flower blooms. The park had 2.4 million visits last year, but is now on track for about 3 million visits this year, Vamstad said.

But the combination of tortoise activity and crowds of visitors became tragic this month when three of the reptiles were killed by cars. The popular park normally gets about one such tortoise death in a year.

Two of the tortoises were killed in the Indian Cove campground area and the other was hit on Pinto Basin Road.

Three in a period of a week was unprecedented, Vamstad said. So we are saying people have to slow down and start looking for wildlife. I think it was an aberration. At least I hope it was an aberration.

Desert tortoises also are foraging at the Mojave National Preserve, which is bisected by Kelbaker Road and other paved roadways, said Debra Hughson, a park service wildlife biologist.

About five tortoises a year are reported as killed by vehicles there, said Hughson, adding the number of deaths is likely higher because not all are reported.

She cautioned that tortoises sometimes crawl under parked cars for the shade.

We always tried to educate people to look under your car before you get in, start it and move it, Hughson said.

The Joshua Tree National Park and Mojave National Preserve are increasingly becoming more important habitat for the desert tortoise.

In the past decade, the reptile has lost habitat in the Mojave Desert because of the expansion of military training area at Fort Irwin and the development of large-scale solar plants in Ivanpah Valley, which straddles the California-Nevada border.

The United States Marine Corps will soon move about 1,500 tortoises out of 137 square miles of the Johnson Valley that was added to the Twentynine Palms training base in 2013. The move will allow the area to be used for live ammunition training missions.
Intelligence information regarding government surveillance of White House officials provided by Rep. Devin Nunes to President Donald Trump had nothing to do with Russia, a senior Republican congressman said Friday, March 31.

In a Facebook Live interview with The Press-Enterprise/Southern California News Group, Rep. Ken Calvert, R-Corona, addressed the controversy surrounding Nunes, R-Tulare, who chairs the House intelligence committee, and Nunes handling of the committees investigation into Russian interference in last years election.

Devin has a lot of contacts. Hes receiving information, said Calvert, the head of the California GOP delegation to the House of Representatives. Calvert also serves as the appropriations committees liaison to the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.

Well get back on track. I hope we get back on track next week, Calvert said. I think (Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Burbank, the intelligence panels ranking Democrat), and Devin had a long meeting yesterday, and I think they worked a lot of things out. So Im hoping next week well be making some announcements on some hearings that were going to be having.

Regarding Nunes White House interactions, Calvert said: Either way, the information that he shared had nothing to do with Russia. I cant really get into what that information was, but I can tell you it had nothing to do with Russia. So thats separate from the Russia investigation.

Calvert did not say how he knew the topic was not Russia.

Reached afterward, Calverts spokesman, Jason Gagnon, said theres nothing more the congressman can add. Gagnon referred to what he said were Nuness previous statements published on the intelligence committees website, including: To be clear, none of this surveillance was related to Russia or any investigation of Russian activities or of the Trump team.

Schiffs office did not respond to a request for comment Friday afternoon.

Their operandi

After Trump made unfounded claims that President Barack Obama had Trump Tower wiretapped, Nunes, a member of Trumps transition team, said intelligence agencies had collected information about the Trump teams communications as part of their surveillance of foreign agents.

Nunes shared his information with Trump, leading to criticism that he bypassed Democrats on the intelligence committee. While Nunes has declined to reveal where he got his information, The New York Times reported his sources were two White House officials.

Nunes comments were seen by Trump as vindication of his wiretapping statements. But the controversy has called into question Nunes ability to lead an impartial investigation.

Schiff, who frequently appears on cable TV shows as the Democratic voice on the Russia probe, has asked Nunes to recuse himself. Calvert on Friday said he did not think Nunes should do so.

Russian interference in other countries elections is nothing new, Calvert said.

Lets face it. The Russians did interfere in our election, he said. Theyre interfering right now in Frances election. Theyre interfering in Russias election. Theyve been interfering in elections since Russias been in business. Thats their operandi.

The Russians did not change the U.S. elections outcome, Calvert said.

Not even the most zealous Democrat would agree with that, he said. Nevertheless, the Russians have done some terrible things. We need to look into that.

Theres no need for an independent Russia probe, Calvert said. In the FBI, We do have an independent commission, he added.

Other topics

>Calvert also addressed health care, immigration and other topics in the Facebook Live interview.

Regarding Republicans failure thus far to repeal Obamacare, Calvert said something must be done. The system were operating under is not working. Its imploding, he said.

On immigration, Calvert said no one should object to efforts to deport undocumented immigrants who commit crimes. He seemed open to finding a way to help immigrants brought here as children.

Ive always been sympathetic to the so-called DREAMers, said Calvert, referring to undocumented immigrants who came here as children and are covered by an Obama-era program that delays deportations. And I would hope in the process of doing the things that were doing on immigration that we can work out a reasonable compromise.

I dont think youre going to see any activity to deport children from the United States, he said. Right now were focusing on criminal aliens here in the United States. And by the way, thats a lot of people.

Calvert wishes Trump would avoid Twitter. Hes now the president of the United States, Calvert said. I dont think he needs that platform as much as he did when he wasnt president of the United States.

RELATED

House panel wants any evidence Trumps phones were tapped

Mark Takano wants Devin Nunes to recuse himself from Russia investigation

 Social Media Digital Director Samantha Valtierra Bush contributed to this report.
Members of a Corona church who fell ill on a weekend retreat at Oak Glen Christian Conference Center near Yucaipa have recovered, but the cause remains a mystery.

Connecting Point Community Church Pastor Greg Pounds said Thursday, March 30, that the 42 members of his church who reported food poisoning-like symptoms are fine now, including 13 who were taken to hospitals as a precaution.

Only one person was seriously ill and had to be treated for dehydration, Pounds said. The church brought 151 members to the camp.

The San Bernardino County Health Department shut down the retreat center to investigate on Saturday, March 25, after guests reported nausea, vomiting and diarrhea.

The center has since reopened, but officials have not determined what caused the sickness, county health education specialist Claudia Doyle wrote in an email.

Health officials have said they were looking into whether food, environmental factors or a communicable disease caused the illnesses.

Groups from three Southern California churches were at the conference center, but Pounds said hes not aware that anyone from the other two churches became ill.

Connecting Point members arrived at Oak Glen Thursday, a day before the other church groups, Pounds said. They also were served meals first, often finishing off the buffet, which was restocked for the other guests.

Pounds said the first few people became sick in mid-afternoon, several hours after lunch, and more began experiencing symptoms through the evening. Fire officials were called around 8:30 p.m.

Between 4 oclock in the afternoon and midnight, thats when we (saw) everybody dropping like flies from the illness, Pounds said.

County health officials are still investigating and brought in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Pounds said.

Reach the reporter:

951-368-9461, arobinson@scng.com or @arobinson_pe on Twitter
Government has expressed its commitment to the implementation of Ghanas Beneficial Ownership Disclosure (BOD) project to help save the country from the scourge of widespread corruption and money-laundering.



At a stakeholders workshop yesterday in Accra to establish a framework on the implementation of BOD in the Amended Companies Act, Ken Ofori-Atta, Minister of Finance, in a speech read on his behalf, emphasized that our government is committed to transparency and accountability both within government and in the private sector. We are committed not just to tackling corruption, but preventing revenue leakage at all levels.



The Minister stated that there was a lot more work to be done in order to ensure that the model developed for Ghanas beneficial ownership regime meets the objectives of stakeholders.



He said though some level of progress had been made in Ghana compared to other countries, it seemed the rate at which the process was moving was slower than expected, hence the need for all to help quicken the implementation process.



Last year, Parliament passed three important pieces of legislation  the Companies Act (as amended) (Act 919), which makes some of the necessary provisions for beneficial ownership disclosure; the Minerals Development Fund Act (Act 920) and the Public Financial Management Act (Act 921) with the aim of strengthening transparency and accountability.



There are a host of issues to consider, including compatibility with the current companies register, as well as with the global data register, a regime for ensuring data security and privacy, all towards making sure that the architecture of the register is fit for purpose.



Emmanuel Kuyole, Africa Deputy Director, Natural Resource Governance Institute (NGRI), in a presentation on theAnalysis of the Company Amendment Act  Gap Analysis, said oil and gas companies that bid, operate, invest and trade in extractives projects in their countries must publish names of their real owners.



This, he mentioned, should include the identity of the owner i.e. their name, nationality and country of residence.



Companies are also encouraged to publish further details such as the date of birth, national identity number, residential address, etc.



According to Transparency International, global money laundering is now worth $2 trillion annually and half of this amount is coming from developing countries such as Ghana, who need these monies to undertake social investments into their health services, education systems or to build and maintain the roads and infrastructure needed to alleviate poverty.



According to the World Economic Forum and World Bank, about $1.25 trillion is paid in bribes annually, and 5 percent of global annual GDP (about $2.5 trillion) is lost through corruption.



Oxfam also indicated that poor countries lose up to $170 billion yearly to tax evasion.



They concluded that a fraction of this amount could fund health services that could save the lives of 150 million children.

Source: Daily Guide









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

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The Chief Executive Officer of Prime Hedge Investments Limited, Richard Appiah, has been sentenced to 20 years imprisonment by a Financial and Economic division of the High Court, for defrauding 154 persons and companies under the pretext of investing their monies for them.



Appiah is said to have collected over GHc 5 million and other amounts in foreign currencies from his clients to invest for a period of six months to one year, with the promise of 4 to 10 percent interest on the monies deposited.



In the judgment delivered today [Friday], Justice Efia Serwaa Asare Botwe said the prosecution proved beyond every reasonable doubt that the accused, who pleaded not guilty, perpetuated the act.



According to the prosecution, led by Winifred Sarpong, during the trial, the accused, whose company was located at Sakumono in Accra, had no licence to operate banking business.



He is alleged to have collected monies as deposits and paid interest between four to 10 per cent in six to 12 months.



The prosecution further added that, Appiah paid interest promptly when he commenced business, and as such won the confidence of his clients.



However, a client who deposited his GH 16,000 cedis with the institution could not be paid his principal and interest, and therefore lodged a complaint with the Police which led to the arrest of Appiah.



Following his arrest, 154 people also lodged complaints claiming that he had collected monies between GHc 1,000 and GHc 250,000 from individuals and companies, but failed to refund their monies.



Several Ghanaians have fallen victim to such scams with the most criticized one being the DKM Microfinance scandal.





Source: citifmonline.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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A 36-year-old unemployed woman has been arrested by prison wardens at Ankaful Maximum Security prison at Cape Coast in her bid to smuggle dried leaves suspected to be Indian hemp into the male section for an inmate.



The suspect one Felicia Asamoah a resident of Kumasi, is reported to have concealed the contraband product in a rubber sandals meant for one Kwame Adu who is serving 65 years imprisonment for robbery.



According to prison officials, Felicia on arrival at the check point was mandated to go through screening before whatever she was holding could be handed over to the inmate.



In the process, it was uncovered that the pair of bathroom of sandals she was bringing to the inmate had been tampered with. Security officers at the gate cut open the slippers and found quantities of the wrapped substance embedded in them.



Upon interrogation, she claimed she was sent by her husband, George Kumah, who is a brother to the inmate to deliver the consignment.



She has since been handed over to the Elmina Police to assist in investigations.

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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As Ghanaians clamour about the disturbing effect of illegal mining to our land, Kwame Baffoe has suggested that foreigners mainly Chinese nationals, who are behind the act, should be arrested and later deported.



The Brong Ahafo Regional Youth of the New Patriotic Party noted on ATVs Asem Yi Di Ka show that Ghanaians shouldnt put all their energy into political matters but rather concentrate on how to preserve our land from people who are harming it.



Kwame Baffoe who is popularly known as Abronye indicated that the menace was becoming difficult to deal with due to the role some chiefs and politicians play in the illegal mining business.



He particularly singled out the Chinese illegal miners and cautioned our authorities to deport such nationals when caught engaging in the galamsey business. This he said must be done to save our lands and rivers from degrading.



I will do what it takes to help fight illegal activities in Ghana and I will strike any Chinese who refuses to stop galamsey in Ghana, he said.

Source: ATV









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 Joe Ghartey Committee has asked Member of Parliament for Bawku Central to apologize to his colleagues in Parliament for leveling allegations against the Energy Minister, Emmanuel Boakye Agyarko and Chairman of the Parliamentary Appointments Committee (PAC), Joe Osei-Owusu.



The Joe Ghartey Committee was set up by the Speaker of Parliament, Mike Oquaye, to probe the allegations and make a report on the case to ascertain the truth in the issue.



Following the Committee's report, it has been established that the Bawku Central MP and a member of the PAC made unsubstantiated and unfounded allegations, and therefore is being directed to render an unqualified apology before Parliament.



Peace FM's Parliamentary Correspondent, Emmanuel Akorli filed the report on the news bulletin at 6 pm.



The Committees report, which was laid before Parliament yesterday [Wednesday] recommended that Mr. Ayariga be reprimanded by the Speaker of the House in accordance with Section 35 of the Parliament Act 1965 (Act 300).



The report also recommended that Mr. Ayariga renders an unqualified apology to the House, explaining that this would purge him of contempt.





More details soon . . .

Source: Ameyaw Adu Gyamfi /Peacefmonline.com/Ghana









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

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International supermodel and winner of the Nobel Prize for Achievements in Cheekbones*, Andreja Pejic, has become the first trans model in history to be photographed for the cover of GQ.

*were working on getting this recognised as a category

She appears in full ice-blonde smoulder on the cover of the April edition of GQ Portugal. Pejic also won Female Model Of The Year at the GQ Portugal Awards in October 2016, making her the first trans woman to take the title.

The cover shoot and six-page spread in the magazine were photographed by Branislav Simoncik, and provides an opportunity for Pejic to talk about her experiences as a trans woman and model.

To be honest, I never expected this moment. GQ is such a classic and respected mens magazine and, while I am very proud of everything Ive achieved, my modelling career has been everything but classic. So, in a way, this is a meeting of two different worlds and it represents progress.

A post shared by Andreja Pejic (@andrejapejic) on Feb 21, 2017 at 9:19am PST

This is only the latest in a string of firsts for Pejic: she was the first trans model to be profiled in Vogue, to front a major beauty campaign, and to join Taylor Swifts infamous #GirlSquad. Shes also a muse for a number of fashion designers, the owner of her own line of unisex jewellery, and generally an all-round ultrababe, inspiration and Fashion Icon.

Really, the only surprise is that she hasnt landed a GQ cover sooner.

Image: Instagram / @gqportugal.
WAVERLY | A federal prisoner who died after being found unconscious in his cell at the Bremer County Jail committed suicide, according to the pathologist who conducted his autopsy.

Daniel Alan Wildman, 27, was pronounced dead at a Waverly Health Center after he was found in his cell March 20.

A March 23 autopsy determined Wildmans death was suicide by hanging, said Dr. Dennis Klein, state medical examiner. Further details werent available.

The Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation is assisting in the investigation into Wildmans death.

Wildman, formerly of Cresco, had been detained at the Bremer County Jail where he was waiting to be returned to federal prison after he was found to have violated the terms of his supervised release following an earlier prison stint for firearm charges.

The order returning Wildman to the Federal Bureau of Prisons for 14 months was issued March 7 following a February hearing where he was found to have used drugs, failed to comply with drug testing and failed to comply residential reentry center rules while on supervised release.

Wildman hadnt challenged the violations, but his attorney had filed papers indicating he planned to appeal the sentence.

This wasnt the first time Wildman had been accused of violating supervised release. In August 2016, a judge ordered he undergo inpatient drug treatment and serve up to 180 days at a residential re-entry center in Cedar Rapids following allegations he had violated release conditions.

Wildman was initially arrested in October 2012 after he allegedly fired a shotgun during an argument in Calmar. He was sentenced to three years and 10 months in prison for federal weapons charges and was placed on supervised release following his prison time.
The destruction wreaked by the weather system formerly known as Tropical Cyclone Debbie has been monumental, but this a step too fucking far. Its not right, its not okay, and its absolutely a case of kicking a man when hes down.

Queensland, we regret to inform you that your beloved Yatala Pies has flooded.

Images of the underwater pie shop (found just off the Pacific Motorway halfway from the Gold Coast to Brisbane) were captured by 7 News.

Its like a lake down there, one motorist told AAP. Its really, really flooded.



Quite.

Just hours ago, Yatala Pies posted pictures of their flood preparations to Facebook.

The river is rising, set to peak at lunchtime, said the Facebook post, which is inarguably cruel when lunchtime is the second best time of day to consume a gravy-topped curry pie (the first being anytime that falls between the pub and your bed).

They also posted pics of the flood waters rising, a worrying sign of things to come.

And now here we are: a once-glorious pie shop stranded against its will. No man is an island, but Yatala bloody well is now.

They say that tragedies always bring out the best in people, and this is now exception. Yatalas post has been  er  flooded with messages of support, with one person even offering to give em a hand cleaning up.

Weve reached out to Yatala Pies for comment, but were well aware that our request is the least of their worries right now.

Photo: 7 News.
On April 11, 1992, a man walking his dog found the body of a full-term baby girl in a plastic bag floating along the bank of the Mississippi River off 17th Street in Moline.

The girl, dubbed Baby Girl April, died from a combination of suffocation and hypothermia.

"What the man found still haunts police and has them wondering why someone would discard a healthy full-term baby 24 hours or less prior to the discovery," Moline Police Detective Scott Williams told the Quad City Times in April 2014.

Twenty-five years later, her killer has not been found. However, her case is still very much on the minds of police and prosecutors.

We have a job as prosecutors to do what we can to solve these cold cases, Rock Island County States Attorney John McGehee said. Its an issue that just hangs over our head and we dont like to have open cases like this.

Five days after the discovery of her body, Baby Girl April was buried at Riverside Cemetery in Moline.

Over the year, police have worked to identify the mother of the baby, but with no success.

In December 2014, McGehee announced that he had filed a first-degree murder charge against a DNA profile of an unknown female. The DNA was found at the crime scene.

McGehee said that although a suspect has not been identified, a DNA profile is specific enough to file a criminal charge under Illinois law.

The charge also was meant to let the community know that the case is still being investigated.

McGehee and Moline Police Detective Michael Griffin, the lead investigator in the case, said in 2014 that they were in the process of submitting more DNA evidence to the University of North Texas to conduct mitochondrial DNA analysis, which can help determine the family lineage of Baby Girl April.

McGehee said Thursday that there have been no hits yet on the DNA. He said Griffin periodically checks in to make sure were not forgotten here in Moline.

McGehee said it is frustrating that the case has not been solved.

There are cases that are considered to be cold cases and we have them from time to time where theres nothing new that happens, he said. And law enforcement, its frustrating to them, too, because they put a lot of time and a lot of effort and energy into these cases and they really do want to try to get them solved. Its open on their books and its open on ours as well.

Between 1988 and 2003, a total of 18 babies were found either abandoned or dead in the Quad Cities.

Both Iowa and Illinois passed safe-haven legislation in 2001 to try to prevent such cases. In Illinois, a parent can take a newborn to a hospital, fire or police station, or an emergency medical center and leave in complete privacy without fear of prosecution. In Iowa, a baby can be taken to a hospital, health clinic or nursing home without fear of prosecution.

Were not seeing nearly as many cases as we did in the past because of the law, as well as the social agencies and what they have done to create and environment where if someone cannot care for their baby, there are services out there for that individual," McGehee said. "I think that message is out there now and so we just dont see it nearly as much as in the past.

McGehee is hopeful that justice will come one day for Baby Girl April.

I have to remain hopeful that at some point there will be a hit from the DNA, he said, "that we will be able to get some answers to what happened and why it happened. Until then, I dont think we can give up. We have to continue to push for and try to get this case solved.

Anyone with information on the Baby Girl April case may contact Moline police at 309-797-0401 or Crime Stoppers of the Quad Cities at 309-762-9500.
MASON CITY | Cerro Gordo County has slipped from 52nd to 70th in health outcomes among Iowa's 99 counties, according to a report released this week.

Two other North Iowa counties, Butler and Mitchell, ranked in the top 10, according to the eighth annual County Health Rankings report from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute.

Butler County ranked eighth on this year's list. It was 12th in the health outcome rankings in 2016 and 34th in 2015.

"We are really thrilled to be in the top 10," said Jennifer Becker, director of the Butler County Department of Public Health.

She said communities in the county have made an effort to educate people about health issues "and it is paying off."

Mitchell County, which ranked second last year, is now in 10th place.

Becker said there wasn't much difference between the counties in the top 10 as far as how they scored.

Franklin County ranks 29th, Winnebago County 32nd, Kossuth County 44th, Hancock County 66th, Worth County 67th, Floyd County 73rd and Wright County 77th.

Kara Vogelson, organizational development and research manager at the Cerro Gordo County Department of Public Health, said premature death appears to be a main cause for the county's drop in rank on health outcomes.

The county ranked 73rd in this category, which measures the potential of death before age 75.

County residents younger than 75 have been dying due to heart disease, cancer, chronic respiratory disease, accidents and suicides, according to Vogelson.

"A lot of (premature deaths) can be prevented through behavior changes or mental health treatment," she said.

She noted one person dying at age 25 can affect a county's premature death ranking a lot.

The county ranked 64th in quality of life, which includes the percentage of residents in poor or fair health and the prevalence of low birth weights.

It wasn't all bad news for Cerro Gordo County. Its health factors ranking went up from 35th to 30th.

Health factors include clinical care, social and economic factors and health behaviors.

Cerro Gordo County ranked 3rd in Iowa for clinical care, the same as in 2016.

The clinical care ranking takes into account the ratio of primary care physicians, dentists and mental health providers to residents, as well as diabetic monitoring and mammography screening.

Cerro Gordo County ranked 58th in health behaviors, which include smoking, obesity, excessive drinking and physical inactivity.

The obesity rate in the county "continues to stick out year after year," Vogelson said.

In this year's health rankings report, the county's adult obesity rate is listed at 33 percent. The state average is 31 percent.

Health officials in the county are working on lowering the obesity rate, Vogelson said.

Eighty-eight percent of county residents had access to exercise opportunities, compared to 76 percent in the state overall. However, the rate of physical inactivity in the county was 27 percent, compared to 24 percent statewide.

Cerro Gordo County ranked 50th in physical environment, which takes into account air pollution, drinking water violations, severe housing problems, driving alone to work and having a long commute.
The sunken ferry Sewol sitting on a semi-submersible transport vessel arrive at a port in Mokpo, South Korea. Friday, March 31, 2017. The corroding 6,800-ton ferry raised from the bottom of the sea last week arrived at a South Korean port Friday, where it will be searched for the remains of nine missing passengers from a 2014 sinking. (Yonhap via AP) KOREA OUT
Election explainer: How Michigan's university boards are determined

Michigan's process for determining the members of university governing boards is unique. The state is just one of four that uses a statewide vote.
Pemex to launch coking plant tender for Tula refinery

MEXICO CITY

Petroleumworld.com 03 31 2017

Mexican state oil company Pemex expects to launch a tender in the next few weeks to find a partner to develop and operate a new coking plant at its Tula refinery, a $2.1 billion project designed to boost output of gasoline, a company source said.

Japan's Mitzui & Co, South Korea's SK, Italy's Eni , China's PetroChina Co Ltd and Sinopec , and international oil majors Royal Dutch Shell Plc and Chevron Corp have all expressed interest, the source said.

Two years of sagging oil prices and mounting debt have forced the Mexican oil firm to seek equity partners to help fund key projects.

The new plant will be located adjacent to Pemex's existing Tula refinery, in the central state of Hidalgo.

The facility, Pemex's second largest among six domestic refineries, can process 315,000 barrels per day (bpd) of crude, but is currently processing just 195,000 bpd, or only 62 percent of its capacity, according to the latest Pemex data.

Tula, like two other Pemex refineries, lacks coking capacity, which boosts production of higher-value fuels like gasoline from Mexico's increasingly heavy crude production.

In 2015, Pemex said it signed a contract with ICA Fluor for engineering, procurement and construction for an initial phase of projects to boost gasoline and diesel output and reduce fuel oil output by building a coking plant. Reuters was not able to confirm the status of the project with ICA Fluor, a joint venture between construction firm ICA and Fluor Corp .

In 2016, the state-owned oil company presented a business plan that included the "Tolling coker Tula Alliance" project, as well as partnerships to improve operations and/or reconfigure the Tula, Salamanca and Salina Cruz refineries.

Pemex has often said it is looking for partners to improve the performance of its refineries, which currently process about 915,000 bpd of crude, well below their combined capacity of 1.6 million bpd.




MASON CITY | One of three masked men who reportedly entered a Mason City home and stole a safe earlier this week has been arrested, police say.

A second suspect is still being sought by police.

Devon Reckner, 19, of Mason City, was booked Friday afternoon at the Cerro Gordo County Jail on a charge of felony first-degree robbery.

He was arrested at Mason City police headquarters after questioning.

Police say theyve also obtained an arrest warrant for a second suspect, Austin Mitchel Hasfjord, 18, of Clear Lake. The warrant is for first-degree robbery.

Reckner and and Hasfjord are two of the suspects who broke into a home on the 1000 block of East State about noon Monday, investigators say.

The perpetrators allegedly assaulted an occupant, held him down and stole a safe containing money.

The occupant of the home was taken to a local hospital by private vehicle.

Police wont say what they believe motivated the alleged incident.

Reckner was being held without bond Friday afternoon until his first court appearance Saturday morning.

Anyone with information about Hasfjords whereabouts can contact their local law-enforcement agency or the Mason City Police Department at 641-421-3636.
China says Toshiba's Westinghouse bankruptcy won't have big impact on nuclear plans

SHANGHAI

Petroleumworld.com 03 31 2017

China's State Power Investment Corp said Westinghouse's bankruptcy filing would not have a "substantial impact" on the country's nuclear plans and the two sides would ensure a key AP1000 reactor project would be completed on schedule this year.

The project is the world's first Westinghouse-designed AP1000 reactor project, being built at Sanmen on China's eastern coast, and is one of four reactors planned with State Power.

"The two sides were fully aware of the importance of the Chinese AP1000 project and agreed to continue to make the project a common priority and increase investment to ensure that the target of putting the reactor into operation this year is met," it said in a statement on Thursday.

The first AP1000 was due to be completed in 2014, but construction was subject to delays as a result of design problems as well as a nationwide review of the nuclear industry following the Fukushima disaster in 2011.

Westinghouse hoped the AP1000 would become the centrepiece of China's ambitious nuclear strategy, and expected to win dozens of new projects.

But industry sources said the Pittsburgh-based firm underestimated China's ability to develop its own home-brand third-generation designs, with China's own "Hualong 1" reactor selected over the AP1000 for a number of domestic nuclear projects.

A senior Chinese nuclear industry official said earlier this month that the reactor was still scheduled to go into full operation in the second half of 2017.

The restructuring application by Westinghouse will not have a substantial impact on third generation reactor work such as the construction of the AP1000, the subsequent construction of a batch of CAP1000 reactors or the CAP1400 demonstration project, the company said, referring to its homegrown third-generation reactor designs.

Westinghouse, owned by Japanese conglomerate Toshiba , filed for bankruptcy on Wednesday as a result of billions of dollars of cost overruns at four reactors under construction in the United States.




YPF, Total, partners to invest $500 mln in Vaca Muerta

BUENOS AIRES

Petroleumworld.com 03 31 2017

Argentina's state-run oil company YPF SA will make a joint $500 million shale gas investment with Pan American Energy LLC, Total Austral SA and Wintershall Energia SA in the Vaca Muerta formation, according to a Thursday securities filing.

The companies were already operating in the Aguada Pichana area and are now asking regulators to split it in two.

"If approved, Total will be in charge of the (eastern area) and Pan American Energy will take over the western area," YPF said in the filing.

YPF would reduce its stake in the areas while also making a $52.3 million investment, the statement said.

The statement did not say how much the other companies would invest. Total Austral SA is part of French energy firm Total while Pan American Energy LLC is a unit of BP.

President Mauricio Macri's government is trying to encourage investment in Vaca Muerta, one of the world's largest shale formations, in hopes of ending Argentina's energy deficit.

Tecpetrol, part of Techint Group, said last week it would invest $2.3 billion in the area through 2019, the largest oil and gas announcement in Argentina in years.




Cuba with gasoline shortages due to PDVSA fuel crisis

HAVANA

Petroleumworld.com 03 31 2017

Cuba will stop selling premium grade gasoline except to tourists starting Saturday due to a fuel crunch affecting Venezuela, its oil-rich ally and key trading partner.

Cuba's leadership has yet to announce the measure publicly, but a government source confirmed the contents of an official memo that has circulated on social media outlets this week.

The memo has already been "sent by official means to those implicated," said the source, who was unauthorized to speak to about the matter and requested anonymity.

Cuba has become increasingly reliant on Venezuela for refined oil products, even as the latter wrestles with shortages of those products at home. Last week, Venezuela faced its first nationwide shortage of motor fuel in five years.

The OPEC nation has one of the world's largest crude reserves but must import components for motor fuels and products crucial to dilute its extra heavy oil. Payment delays to providers have delayed deliveries.

Cuba cannot easily replace Venezuelan supplies as these are subsidized and the Communist-ruled island is strapped for cash.

Most vehicles in Cuba, including its vintage American cars and Soviet-era Ladas, use regular fuel. But modern cars, belonging to state and joint ventures as well as diplomats and other foreigners, run on higher-octane, so-called special fuel or premium.

"CUPET will not be delivering special fuel throughout April," said the memo, circulating on social media.

"The special fuel remaining in stock at the gas stations from April 1 will only be sold ... to tourists, until the inventory is depleted," added the memo, using the acronym of the state oil monopoly CubaPetroleo.

One diplomat based in Havana said embassy workers had been advised to stock up on special fuel now and to carpool.

"Special fuel is going to disappear," said Victor, a worker at a gas station in the business district of Vedado. "We have a small reserve left, but we aren't supplying any."

The government memo suggested motorists replace premium with regular grade fuel. But a worker at a joint venture, which received the memo through official channels, said an auto service provider had recommended against using regular in its Mercedes-Benz cars.

"It is bad for the engines," she said. "But what can you do, if there is no special fuel?"




Trinidad ready to refine Guyana's oil

Petrotrin



Petrotrin said it has the capacity to refine Guyana's crude oil to bring it up to a standard that would allow it be compared to the West Texas Intermediate valuation standard.

GEORGETOWN

Petroleumworld 03 31 2017

Trinidad and Tobago will be able to refine Guyana's oil although the quality is different, contrary to a former Energy Minister of that twin-island country, a senior official of that Caribbean nation's oil company.

Vice President (Refining and Marketing) at the Petroleum Company of Trinidad and Tobago (Petrotrin), Astor Harris told Demerara Waves Online News that Guyana's oil can be blended and refined in that twin-island country.

The oil to be produced by Guyana can be refined in Trinidad. Even if it's a bit light, we can blend it with other crudes because we purchase a range of crudes and then we blend them to get the products that we need, he said moments before the opening of the Guyana Oil and Gas Conference (GOGC) at the Marriott Hotel on Sunday. The event has been organised by the Guyana Oil and Gas Association (GOGA).

Harris stated categorically that there is a viable market for Guyana's oil at Petrotrin located at Pointe-a-Pierre. The Petrotrin official said his country's refinery has the capacity to refine Guyana's crude oil to bring it up to a standard that would allow it be compared to the West Texas Intermediate valuation standard.

The Petrotrin Vice President said his company is very interested in Guyana's success as a Caricom (Caribbean Community) member. We have a stake in that for the development of Caricom. That's a major interest for us, he said.

Harris said if Guyana's oil is refined in Trinidad, it would allow Petrotrin to use its excess capacity. Currently, Petrotrin has a refining capacity of approximately 168,000 barrels per day and currently it refines 150,000 barrels per day so there is room for Guyana's oil.

On the issue of Petrotrin currently having remaining capacity of 18,000 barrels per day, the Petrotrin official said we can vary our intake by reducing the amount of international oil. There is room for the Guyanese oil. We will just reduce and optimize how much we take from the international market, he said. Harris said it is not about giving up existing sources of crude oil in favour of Guyana's, saying it's a business proposition, strategic alliance and what is best for Caricom.

Petrotrin currently processes about 42,000 to 53,000 barrels of oil being produced by Trinidad and Tobago.

That country's former Energy Minister, Kevin Ramnarine had said that Petrotrin might be more able to use Guyana's oil to dilute heavy crude.

his address at the opening of the GOGC, Minister of Natural Resources, Raphael Trotman said government was still studying whether it is feasible to build an oil refinery here.

Guyana's official oil deposit is estimated at 1.6 billion barrels, with the prospect of that figure growing as ExxonMobil continues to drill more wells successfully. The company is currently evaluating the find at the Payara well even as it drills another exploratory well at Snoek.






Doug Rozendaal has been flying airplanes for more than four decades, but when he took off from Mason City Airport on Friday it was a first for
MASON CITY | Longtime Forest City High School Band Director David Rutt and Mason City Street Superintendent Bob Berggren are honorees for this year's North Iowa Band Festival.

Rutt will receive the Band Masters Award given to a retiring band master in recognition of outstanding work with young musicians over the years.

Berggren will receive the Klempnauer Award, named for the late Dan Klempnauer, and given in recognition for years of service to the Band Festival.

This year's Grand Marshal Award, usually given to an individual, will go to Henkel Construction Co. for its years of service in helping with the festival.

The festival will be May 25-29 in downtown Mason City with a theme of "Music. Family. Fun!"

Berggren has worked for the city for 28 years and has been the city's Band Festival liaison for the past 15 years.

Berggrens crews work as event support during Band Festival weekend. They are responsible for ensuring street closures are clearly marked, keeping the parade route and downtown tidy and providing electrical service to the festivities downtown, along with countless other items.

Rutt has taught instrumental music for 35 years, including 24 at Forest City High School.

His marching bands have received numerous Division 1/Superior ratings at state competitions and set the school record of 33 consecutive Division 1 ratings. The concert band received Division 1 ratings in 22 of Rutts 24 years with the district.

Rutt currently serves as the exhibits chair for the Iowa Music Educators State Conference. He has been involved with the Iowa All-State Music Festival for 10 years, including the past six years as chairperson of the Iowa All-State Band.

He has also served on the Iowa High School Music Association's executive board.
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TITONKA | Clara C. Mayland, 100, of Titonka, died Tuesday, March 28, 2017, at the Titonka Care Center.

A funeral service will be held at 10:30 a.m. on Saturday, April 1, at Immanuel Lutheran Church, Titonka.

Visitation will be from 4 to 7 p.m. on Friday, March 31, at Oakcrest Funeral Services, Titonka.

Interment will be in Immanuel Lutheran Cemetery.

Oakcrest Funeral Services are in charge of arrangements.
CRESCO | Jene Lockie, 91, of Cresco, Iowa, died Tuesday, March 28, 2017, at the Evans Memorial Home in Cresco, Iowa.

Funeral services will be held at 11 a.m. on Saturday, April 1, at the United Methodist Church in Cresco.

Friends may call one hour prior to services at the church.

Burial will be in Oak Lawn Cemetery.

Lindstrom Funeral Home in Cresco is handling the arrangements.
Red Bull X-Alps 2017 route announced

31.03.2017 by by Planetmountain

The route for 8th edition of the Red Bull X-Alps 2017 has now been announced. Considered the worlds toughest adventure race, the +1000km traverse across the Alps by paraglider or on foot will begin on 2 July 2017 at Salzburg in Austria.

The new route has been revealed for the 2017 Red Bull X-Alps, which will be the longest and hardest in the events 14-year history. Racing a straight-line distance of 1,138km from Salzburg to Monaco, 32 world class athletes from 21 countries will hike and fly via 7 turnpoints in 7 different countries - including Austria, Germany, Italy, Switzerland, France and for the first time; Slovenia. This exciting new development will make the world's toughest adventure more challenging and more unpredictable than ever before.

As if that wasnt enough, the new Slovenian turnpoint will lead the participants to race along Europes largest mountain range and traverse it four times between the northern and southern fringes. The race will also feature 3 turnpoints fewer than in 2015. Race director Christoph Weber says; The distances between the turnpoints will be longer than in the last seven editions. Such a wide variety of potential routes comes with a whole new world of strategic possibilities that will push rookies and veterans alike to their very limits; both mentally and physically.

The race starts at the historic Mozartplatz in Salzburg, Austria. From there, the athletes will run through the city and up the Gaisberg to Turnpoint 1. The scenic view above the Salzburger Land region will attract thousands of fans from far and wide, all of whom will be there to support the competitors as they set up their paragliders and embark on their first flight of the contest.

A grueling 157km straight-line journey south through Austria will take them to Turnpoint 2, the Mangart paragliding launch pad on the edge of Triglav National Park in Slovenia. Triglav is the first Slovenian turnpoint to appear in the race and is the countrys highest mountain at 2,864m above sea level. Ulrich Grill, organizer of Red Bull X-Alps explains; The new terrain around the Triglav Turnpoint will require some innovative new strategies that could make all the difference in the early stages of the race.

Traveling northwest from Slovenia, the competitors will traverse the Austrian Alps for a second time to reach Turnpoint 3; Aschau-Chiemsee in Germany. Located at the foot of the Kampenwand in the picturesque municipality of Aschau im Chiemgau, the athletes will decide whether to continue west on foot, or climb upwards and take to the air.

Turnpoint 4 is the second Austrian turnpoint in the race and can be found in the village of Lermoos. Situated in the shadow of the Zugspitze, the almost 3000m mountain connects Austria to Germany and offers the athletes huge flying potential. The right thermals at the right time could give them a serious boost onto the next leg of their exhausting journey.

Pushing back south through the Alps to Italy, the athletes will find themselves at Turnpoint 5, nestled closely to Lake Garda by Monte Baldo. At this point, the competitors will have successfully passed the halfway mark; but with tired feet, aching muscles and 499km still to go, anything could happen. Who will hike around the lake and who will be brave enough to fly across it?

Turnpoint 6 lies 251km west at the Matterhorn in southern Switzerland, making it the longest stretch between two consecutive turnpoints in the race. If getting there isnt hard enough, navigating around one of the highest summits in Europe certainly will be. The region is also a key strategic point in the race, as the athletes set off on the last quarter of their journey.

In a final push, the hungry competitors will battle it out over the remaining 246km to reach Turnpoint 7 in Peille, southeast France. Finally, the timer will stop, leaving the athletes to make the 2km victory flight over Monaco to the warm, blue waters of the Mediterranean Sea. Here, they will touch down in style on a landing float to celebrate the accomplishment and relief of completing the worlds toughest adventure race.

The new route for Red Bull X-Alps 2017 will be the most demanding in the races 14-year history. From now, the athletes have just three months to prepare for the enormous journey that lies ahead. Studying the geography of the route will go a long way, but to emerge victorious will take a whole new caliber of endurance and determination. Theres no telling who will take the title, but with some of the greatest athletes in the world, it will certainly be an adventure to remember.

To meet the athletes and learn more about the race, head over to redbullxalps.com and facebook.com/redbullxalps.



RED BULL X-ALPS

Red Bull X-Alps 2017 will start on July 02, 2017 and will be the eighth edition of the worlds toughest adventure race. It's a bold claim  but one it surely deserves. It's difficult to think of another race that demands such a high level of fitness and technical skill  or lasts so long. The combination of trekking and paragliding is one of the most exciting hybrids to emerge from the ongoing convergence of mountain sports.

The rules are simple. Athletes must race across the Alps, by foot or paraglider via set Turnpoints, usually a straight-line distance of over 1,000km. Over the years, the race has attracted and tested to the limit some of the world's top adventurers. It demands not only expert paragliding skills but extreme endurance. Some athletes will hike over 100km and 1000's of meters in altitude in a day.

Each team consists of one athlete and one supporter. The supporter is there to help with logistics, strategy, food, medical support and provide psychological assistance. The role of the supporter is hugely important  they truly are the unsung heroes of the race.

Athletes race between the hours of 05:00 to 22:30. Since 2013, athletes have been able to pull a Ledlenser Night Pass that allows them to push-on through the night on foot, normally a mandatory rest period.

The 2015 edition saw 19 of the 32 athletes make the goal  a record number since the first race in 2003. Incredibly, 12 rookies crossed the finish line in Monaco, including athletes from the US, Korea, New Zealand and elsewhere for the first time in history.

New to the 2015 edition was the one-day Powertraveller Prologue race. Fans were close to the action as the athletes raced from Fuschl am See, past the Zwolferhorn and Schafberg turnpoints, and back. In 2017 this successful one-day race will return as Leatherman Prologue! The first three athletes each gain an additional Ledlenser Nightpass and a five-minute headstart on the main race start. In 2015, Paul Guschlbauer (AUT) won the Powertraveller Prologue in 2h 21m.

Swiss athlete Christian Maurer, however, won the Red Bull X-Alps 2015 race in the time of 8 days, 4 hours and 37 minutes. It was his fourth successive win  and a new record. Could 2017 see athletes like Sebastian Huber or Paul Guschlbauer end Maurers reign as Red Bull X-Alps champion? Only one thing is certain  anything could happen!

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MASON CITY | The Seder Meal will be celebrated at 5:30 p.m. on Holy Thursday, April 13, at Epiphany Parish.

The event will take place at the Holy Family Center.

The Seder is a traditional meal of lamb, matzoh, charoset and wine shared in a community to commemorate the Passover meal that Jesus celebrated with the apostles at the Last Supper.

A short program explaining the symbolic meaning of the menu items will be read by a family from the parish.

The cost is $8 for adults and $4 for children 12 and younger. Reservations can be made by calling the parish office at 423-5001 between 9 a.m. and 3 p.m. The deadline to make a reservation is noon on April 10.
Officer Thomas Wagstaff

Investigators are trying to determine if a suburban Kansas City, MO, police officer who was critically injured when he responded to a reported robbery was struck by a bullet from two suspects or from a fellow officer, authorities said Thursday.

Four men were charged after a confrontation Wednesday that injured Officer Thomas Wagstaff, 42, a 15-year veteran of the Independence, MO, Police Department. Wagstaff underwent surgery and remained in critical condition Thursday, reports the Associated Press.

Joseph Wyatt, 28, and Ronar Santiago-Torres, 27, were charged with assault on a law enforcement officer, robbery and kidnapping, armed criminal action, burglary and kidnapping.

Prosecutors said the two men forced their way into an Independence home Wednesday and assaulted the man who lived there while trying to get into a safe. When officers responded, the suspects allegedly fled by driving the victim's vehicle through the garage door. Wagstaff was shot in the ensuing confrontation.

Jackson County Prosecutor Jean Peters Baker on Thursday also charged two other men who prosecutors say took Wyatt and Santiago-Torres to the home to commit the robbery.

"The individuals who are responsible for the injuries to Officer Wagstaff have been charged," Peters Baker said. "I hold them accountable in every possible way for his injuries and I will continue to do so."
The Tennessee Supreme Courts message Wednesday to murderers condemned to die was simple: It doesnt have to be pain-free or quick and you dont get a second shot at life if the first attempt doesnt do the job, reports the Tennessean.

The intended result of an execution is to render the inmate dead, wrote Chief Justice Jeffrey Bivins in an opinion upholding the states latest procedure to execute the condemned via one shot of pentobarbital.

The decision puts to rest a yearslong battle, led by the federal defenders for Union County killer Stephen Michael West and nearly three dozen more death row inmates, over the way the men should be put to death.

Wednesdays decision will prompt a new date with death for each of the defendants involved in the challenge to lethal injection, but attorneys vowed an appeal, so no executions are on the horizon.

Kelley Henry, a member of the legal team representing the inmates and a supervisory assistant federal public defender in Nashville, said the inmates will seek an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, which does not have to accept it.
Brevard County Deputy Barbara Pill was murdered in 2012. (Photo: Brevard County Sheriff's Office)

The Florida Supreme Court on Thursday threw out the death penalty for the man convicted of killing Brevard County Deputy Barbara Pill, reports the Orlando Sentinel.

The high court ruled that because the jury did not unanimously vote for the death penalty, the defendant must be resentenced.

A Brevard County jury in 2014 convicted Brandon Lee Bradley of murdering Pill. A hotel employee had called 911, complaining that Bradley had stolen an air conditioning unit and linens, and Pill spotted his SUV and pulled him over.

She walked to the door of his vehicle and repeatedly asked him to get out, but he refused and began to inch the SUV forward. When Pill reached into the vehicle to pull the keys from the ignition, he opened fire. She was shot five times.

The jury recommended the death penalty by a vote of 10-2.

The Florida Supreme Court in November ruled that for any death sentence to be constitutional, all 12 members of a jury must vote for it.

On Thursday, it upheld Bradley's murder conviction but ruled that he is entitled to a new sentencing hearing.
BELMOND | The superintendent of Belmond-Klemme Schools has resigned after less than one year in his position.

The School Board during a special session Monday night accepted Abe Maskes immediate resignation, Interim Superintendent Sara Keehn said Thursday.

He was not asked to resign, according to Keehn, and was not accused of doing anything improper or illegal.

Maske, 42, was granted administrative leave  with full pay and benefits  through June 30 due to a serious health issue, according to School Board President Lynn Loux.

Loux on Thursday said paid leave was something the board decided to offer Maske, whose salary is $130,000.

Earlier this month, a March 20 board meeting was cut short due to Maske having a medical problem, Loux said.

Im not sure I can say what happened, Loux said, referring to the March 20 meeting.

Loux asked to defer questions regarding the incident to Maske, who did not return two phone messages Tuesday and Thursday from the Globe Gazette.

School Board members during Mondays special session appointed Keehn as interim superintendent.

Keehn, who is also the districts elementary principal, is a former superintendent of United Schools in Boone and was a finalist for Belmond-Klemmes superintendent position in 2016.

During the boards April 10 meeting, Loux said members will discuss whether to hire an interim or a permanent superintendent.

Its late in the year to be looking, he said, noting superintendent searches typically begin in January.

As for Keehn, Loux said the board is appreciative she was willing to step in and help out.

It came on real quick, he said of Maskes resignation.

Maske began working in Belmond July 1 and was under a three-year contract.

He was previously a principal at West Fork and the former Rockwell-Swaledale school district before becoming Postvilles superintendent in 2013.

He told the Globe Gazette in July 2016 he wanted to stay in Belmond-Klemme beyond his three-year contract.

You know, I moved from Postville here back to North Iowa for a reason, he said. I would like to stay. I would like to make Belmond-Klemme my home and be here for a long time.

Maske was Belmond-Klemme's fifth superintendent since 2005, according to district records, with his predecessors each typically working there about three years.
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Its not a newsflash that Republicans oppose equal and civil rights for all Americans and it is particularly true when they can sate the hate of the religious right. Although there are equal and civil right protections enshrined in the U.S. Constitution, President Barack Obama had to implement special protections in 2014 for LGBT employees of federal contractors, and he had to use an executive order because the religious Republicans in Congress failed to act. On Monday, Trump rescinded that order, the Fair Pay and Safe Workplaces order (Executive Order 13673) and it wasnt to save the government money, create jobs or make America great; it was to give religious employers legal grounds to discriminate against the gays.

The Executive Order 13673 was already blocked from being implemented by a religious right judge in Texas because it required companies that contract with the federal government to document that they complied with federal non-discrimination employment laws and that they abide by existing laws dealing with discrimination. In fact, President Obama had to issue an accompanying executive order, 13672, prohibiting federal contractors from discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity.

The reality is that enforcement of any LGBT protections should not have required Executive Order 13672, but as Zack Ford at ThinkProgress noted, those protections would have been stronger with the order in place. Now Trump has signaled that the LGBT community is in for evangelical-sanctioned discrimination because they comprise the only group not specifically afforded employment protection.

President Obamas Executive Order was the only legal force protecting over a million workers because other demographics were kind of protected by various other presidential orders and federal laws. The President, Barack Obama, simply amended previous presidential orders that protected employees of federal contractors on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, national origin, disability and age. Plus, those groups were afforded limited protection under the Civil Rights, Americans with Disabilities, and Age Discrimination in Employment Acts. The LGBT community only enjoyed nondiscrimination protections on the federal level because, without President Obamas amendment, less than half the states provide employment discrimination protections to the LGBT community.

The Senior Counsel at Lambda Legal, Camilla Taylor, immediately raised the alarm at Trumps revocation of President Obamas order and said the change will impact the LGBT community by verifying to religious employers that under Trump, evangelicals can violate discrimination laws with impunity. Ms. Taylor told Keen News Services that:

Its sending a message to these companiesthat the federal government simply doesnt care whether or not they violate the law.

That sentiment was echoed by the National Center for Lesbian Rights Executive Director, Kate Kendell who issued a statement saying:

 Trumps quiet take-down of federal safeguards against employment discrimination for millions of LGBT Americans is yet another example of why our elected officials, advocates, and our community must remain vigilant and continue working together to stop this administrations regressive and harmful policies.

Trump cannot claim that removing discrimination protections is going to create jobs, grow the economy, reduce the debt, raise tax revenue, rebuild infrastructure or combat terrorism. He revoked those protections to satisfy the evangelical hate permeating the religious right extremists in his administration like Mike Pence and Jeff Sessions. The Trump move is a portent of the so-called religious freedom executive orders Press Secretary Sean Spicer promised were going to be announced sooner rather than later.

It is noteworthy that Trump promised specifically, as recently as late January, that he would not rescind President Obamas 2014 executive orders [13672 and 13673] protecting the LGBT employees of federal contractors. Not only was he lying then, he just verified what many pundits and columnists have been warning was on the horizon with an administration steeped in evangelical extremism; government sanctioned discrimination founded on religion that will not stop at targeting the LGBT community.
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Rachel Maddow pointed out the obvious. None of the excuses that Vice President Mike Pence is giving for his lack of knowledge about the Russia scandal make sense. As the head of Trumps transition, Vice President Pence is not clean and will go down with Trump for the events that happened during the 2016 election.

Video:

Maddow said:

Mike Pence had been the head of the Trump transition. As such, he would have been intimately involved with the selection and vetting process for a job as important as national security adviser. Nevertheless, Vice President Mike Pence has professed absolute ignorance of any of the scandals of any of the foreign payments, contacts and all the rest of it surrounding Mike Flynn. Pence was the leader of the transition. As leader of the transition, he was notified in writing by members of Congress about Flynns apparent financial ties to the government of Turkey. The transition was also apparently notified twice by Flynns own lawyers about his financial relationship with the government of Turkey, but nevertheless, Vice President Mike Pence says he has no idea about any of that.

.

Vice President Mike Pence claims he had absolutely no idea about that despite him being notified about on the record multiple times and it being a matter of considerable public discussion. Mike Pences role in the Mike Flynn scandal is flashing like a red beacon for anyone who sees him as the normal Republican in this setting.

The most common statement that I hear from readers when Trump impeachment is discussed is always some version of, Yeah, but then Mike Pence will be president.

As I have been writing for months, there is no way that Mike Pence didnt know what was going on with Russia. The White Houses attempts to firewall off Pence from the rest of the scandal make no sense and will not hold up under investigation.

If Donald Trump leaves office under a cloud of scandal, the investigations, criminal and political, will continue. The Russia scandal wont go away after Trump is gone. Mike Pence sold himself to Donald Trump when he became his running mate. Pence is deeply involved in this administration.

The political career of Mike Pence will be over when the Russia scandal blows up.
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Michael Flynn was like a shooting star across Donald Trumps firmament. Short and not so sweet. Seems like just yesterday when Trump was calling him an invaluable asset to me and my administration.

In fact, he has left a sour taste in everyones mouth, showing that you can spend 33 years in the military and still come out smelling like a jerkweed.

As George Takei quipped, Flynn hopes to win the Immunity Challenge, but in Survivor: White House America gets to vote all those bastards off the island.

If there are five takeaways from this whole deplorable mess, I would like to offer up these for consideration:

1. SINGING LIKE A CANARY

There is so much to say about Michael Flynn suddenly asking for immunity in exchange for singing like a canary.

Oh, and speaking of canaries, Flynns act gave George W. Bushs ethics lawyer, Richard Painter an idea:

Renaming my kids' pet canary bird General Flynn.  Richard W. Painter (@RWPUSA) March 31, 2017

Ouch.

2. WHEREs YOUR FAKE NEWS NOW, DONALD TRUMP?

Ted Lieu (D-CA), meanwhile, couldnt resist sticking to Donald Trump asking,

Dear @realDonaldTrump: If Russian collusion is fake news, why is Mike Flynn ASKING FOR IMMUNITY? https://t.co/o7mlbk65Ex  Ted Lieu (@tedlieu) March 31, 2017

Yeah. Wouldnt wanna be Donald Trump now. Hes definitely hitting the links this weekend.

3. FAMOUS LAST WORDS

Hey, remember when Michael Flynn said, When you are given immunity, that means that you have probably committed a crime?

Here's that videoMike Flynn in September 2016: "When you are given immunity, that means that you have probably committed a crime." pic.twitter.com/HqzmQrUPGy  Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) March 31, 2017

Oh dear. And hes right. As the House Intelligence Committees Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA) told MSNBC last night, Innocent people dont ask for immunity.

4. LOCK HER UP! DONT LOCK ME UP!

And AM Joys Joy Reid also found herself making a trip down memory lane:

I'm old enough to remember Mike Flynn leading chants of "lock her up!" at the RNC convention  https://t.co/gyM5c98bU3  Joy Reid (@JoyAnnReid) March 30, 2017

If immunity is offered, the deal should include that Michael Flynn must watch this video at least 5 times per day for the rest of his life. pic.twitter.com/fddLfjVMYB  Brian Klaas (@brianklaas) March 31, 2017

5. PUTINS SOLUTION FOR NO-LONGER-USEFUL TOOLS

Of course, hypocrisy  even guilt  are not Michael Flynns most pressing worries right now, given Putins habit of disposing of no-longer-useful tools:

Screen-cap of Mike Flynn's current computer screen: pic.twitter.com/R3N7cG35gh  Mrs. Betty Bowers (@BettyBowers) March 31, 2017

No. Really wouldnt wanna be Michael Flynn right now. Flynn told that RNC crowd if hed done a tenth of what Hillary Clinton did I would be in jail today.

Well

Bowers joked that Mike Flynn went from Lock her up! to DONT LOCK ME UP!!!! with head-spinning rapidity but with Putins agents toting a good supply of Polonium-210 he might come to realize there are worse things than jail.

Honestly, from working with the Russkies to get his boss elected to denying he even talked to the Russkies to potentially being hunted by the Russkiesits hard to imagine a better end to the career of a conspiracy theorist.

Photo: Screen capture, RNC
Charleston, SC (29403)

Today

Except for a few afternoon clouds, mainly sunny. High 74F. Winds NNE at 10 to 20 mph..

Tonight

Partly cloudy in the evening with more clouds for later at night. Low 53F. Winds NNE at 10 to 20 mph.
A week ago, I anonymously introduced two women who are preparing to open a business and were experiencing negative feedback and little support. For some, the negative reactions might cause them to throw in the towel. To others, such as these two women, it only meant they needed to step it up and make it a success to prove their naysayers wrong.

In doing so, these gals are burning the candle at both ends. Although I commend them for their perseverance and stick-to-it-ness, they also need to take heed to the warning signs lack of sleep can cause.

According to the National Sleep Foundation, many business owners and workers don't get proper sleep and feel tired throughout the day. Chronic drowsiness and sleep deprivation cause issues at work, and many say they believe their work is subpar because of it.

A 2008 Sleep in America poll discovered 29 percent of employees polled admitted to falling asleep or becoming "very sleepy" at work during the previous month. An additional 12 percent said sleepiness caused them to be late to work within the last month.

Swing shift workers, those who juggle multiple jobs and people with irregular work hours seem to be the hardest hit by sleep issues. Chronic sleep deprivation also is tied to an increased risk of type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, obesity and depression.

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Chronic Issue

Sleep often is the first thing people give up when faced with heavy workloads, parenting responsibilities, irregular work schedules and time-consuming challenges.

The same NSF poll of sleep habits and the workplace found that while workers said they needed an average of seven hours and 18 minutes of sleep per night to be at their best the next workday, they reported an average of six hours and 40 minutes.

Even modest amounts of sleep loss accumulate over time, so a few nights of poor sleep can have a major effect on daily functioning, according to the NSF.

Loss of sleep isn't just an inconvenience either. In high-risk fields such as medicine, the NSF discovered that when on-call residents work overnight, they have "twice as many attention failures, commit 36 percent more serious medical errors and report 300 percent more medical errors that lead to death than those who work a 16-hour shift."

Tell-tale signs

Sleep deprivation can lead to "tremendous emotional problems," according to Dr. Steven Feinsilver, the director of the Center for Sleep Medicine at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City.

Signs that employees are suffering from sleep problems include increased hunger, weight gain, memory problems, difficulty in making decisions, reduced motor skills, emotional fluctuations, poor vision and frequent illness.

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These symptoms can lead to consequences that have a major effect on your career.

Quick tips for more sleep

Employees who have these symptoms or think lack of sleep is hurting their performance can take steps to reverse the trend.

 Get evaluated by a physician to identify or rule out a treatable medical condition.

 Take advantage of sleep diaries and other resources from the American Academy of Sleep Medicine and the National Sleep Foundation.

 Ask a physician to refer you to a sleep specialist or center.

 Evaluate your career and priorities. Ask to reduce irregular hours or consider a job that does not require shift work.

 Have an honest conversation with a supervisor about how lack of sleep is affecting your performance and try to find a mutually beneficial solution.

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 Stick to a sleep schedule in which you go to bed and wake up at the same time every day, even on days off.

 Keep electronics out of the bedroom.

 Limit stress by engaging in relaxing activities before bed, such as meditation, reading or taking hot baths.

Although everyone has the occasional sleepless night, chronic sleep problems should be taken seriously before they negatively effect both you and your career.
As the Earth continues on its never-ending journey, orbiting the sun year after year, our evening view into the heavens is always changing.

In April, the nighttime side of the Earth is turning away from the bright winter constellations and toward the less-awesome spring star patterns. The bright winter constellations are still hanging in there in the evening western sky, but not for long. Next month, most of them will already be below the western horizon as evening begins and we won't see them in the evening again until late next fall. To be truly honest with you, many amateur astronomers, including myself, agree that until the summer constellations, like Cygnus and Scorpio, make their appearance we are officially in the spring doldrums of stargazing.

Without a doubt, the best thing to gaze at through your telescope this month is the planet Jupiter. It's by far the brightest star-like object in the post twilight evening sky. You can't miss it in the low eastern sky.

This month the Earth and Jupiter are at their minimum distance from each other in 2017. Astronomers call this opposition. This month, Jupiter is less than 415 million miles away, which, believe or not, is close for the Jovian planet. Even with a smaller telescope you can see up to four of Jupiter's brighter moons, depending on where they are in their individual orbits around the big guy of the solar system. You might also see a few cloud bands on Jupiter. I'll have much more on Jupiter in a column later this month.

In the early evening this month, the Big Dipper is as high in the northern sky as it can be and it's upside down. Have you heard the old lore that claims we get more rain in spring because the Big Dipper is unloading on us? It's easy to see how that rumor got started in the days of old because, at least in the Upper Midwest, we get most of our rainfall in the late spring and early summer.

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The Big Dipper isn't considered an actual constellation though, but rather the rear end and tail of Ursa Major, the Big Bear. Using the adjacent star map, see if you spot the entire beast. It's easier than you think!

Use the "pointer stars" on the pot section of the Big Dipper opposite the handle to find Polaris, the North Star. Polaris is about three fist-widths at arm's length down from the pointer stars. The North Star is the star at the end of the handle of the much dimmer Little Dipper. Polaris is also a very important star in our sky because it shines directly above the Earth's North Pole, making all of the stars in our sky appear to revolve around the stationary North Star once every 24 hours as the Earth rotates on its axis.

Over in the eastern sky, there's a celestial kite on the rise. It's the constellation Bootes, which according to the Greeks is supposed to be a farmer hunting down the neighboring constellation Ursa Major. Seeing Bootes as a farmer takes one heck of a sense of imagination. I prefer the sideways kite.

There's a bright orange-tinged star at the tail of the kite. That's Arcturus, the brightest star in that part of the sky and the second-brightest nighttime star. A fun little trick you can use to make sure you're seeing Arcturus is to extend the arc made by the Big Dipper's handle beyond the end of the handle and you'll run right into Arcturus. Arc to Arcturus!

Mark your calendars and make your plans for the big solar eclipse this summer on Aug. 21. It'll be a deep partial eclipse in Rochester with more than 80 percent of the sun's disk covered by the moon. You need to wear specialized eclipse glasses to watch any partial eclipse. It's not safe staring at the sun without them. You could do great harm to your eyes.

It will be total eclipse, through, in a narrow strip that crosses the contiguous 48 state from Oregon to South Carolina. I've seen a total solar eclipse back in 1979, and believe me, if you have chance to travel and see it, do so! I guarantee it will be worth it.
CHASKA  The former principal of Rochester's Mayo High School appeared in court Thursday in Carver County District Court after picking up 10 more counts of possession of child pornography.

Timothy Scott Dorway, 44, of Victoria, was originally arrested Dec. 13 at his home after search warrants were executed there and at his office in Chanhassen High School, where he'd been principal. He was fired from that district in January.

Dorway was charged Dec. 15 with seven counts of felony possession of child pornography, and was released from custody Dec. 29 after posting $100,000 conditional bond. His next court appearance is set for April 10.

According to the amended criminal complaint, authorities discovered more videos Dorway had uploaded, bringing the number of child pornographic videos and images in his possession to 127.

Dorway has admitted to investigators that he viewed child porn, and "his primary interest is in pornography involving 11- to 13-year-old girls," the complaint says; the videos included girls in the 11-14 age range performing sexual acts; five included an adult male in the video.

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Angella Erickson, the prosecutor in the case, has alleged Dorway has been engaging in the behavior for 10 years.

The investigation began when the Minnesota Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force received a tip from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. The information revealed a Dropbox user had uploaded child pornography to a private account.

By using a Dropbox account, people may upload and save data to the account, then access the files from anywhere, on any device, and share them with anyone else by sending links to the data.

A special agent with the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension learned the Dropbox with the pornography was accessed several times from Internet addresses registered to Dorway, the complaint says.

The same account was also accessed by an Internet address owned by Eastern Carver County School District 112, which includes Chanhassen High School, where Dorway has been principal since 2010. Officials with the district said the case involves none of its students.

He took the job there after serving as principal at Mayo High School from 2007 to 2010.

"There were no complaints against Mr. Dorway while he was employed by the district," Heather Nessler, executive director of communications, marketing and technology for Rochester Public Schools, said in a statement in December.

The videos included girls in the 11-14 age range performing sexual acts; five included an adult male in the video, the complaint says.

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Dorway began his career in 1995 at Park High School in Cottage Grove as an English, journalism and speech teacher, while also supervising students with the school newspaper and yearbook.

He was an assistant principal at Owatonna High School from 2002 to 2006, before taking the job in Rochester.
At first blush, the proposal by Iowa Rep. Chip Baltimore might seem like an overreaction.

Baltimore, a Republican from Boone, has introduced legislation that would prohibit public schools from awarding students extra-credit points for providing classroom supplies such as paper towels and Kleenex.

"Frankly, we didn't know this was a problem," says Melissa Peterson, an Iowa teachers union lobbyist. "I can never imagine a teacher saying, 'I'll give you extra credit (for purchasing supplies),' because there's plenty of families who can't."

Yes, the practice is hard to imagine. But this sort of thing is fairly widespread and in recent years has proved to be a source of controversy in Florida, California, New York and other states. At some schools, teachers have actually handed out lists of classroom supplies  erasers, tissues, disinfecting wipes, etc.  at the beginning of the semester and promised that students who helped stock the supply closet will see their final letter grade bumped up one level.

Just last year, area teachers told a Des Moines Register reporter they could recall times when students earned enough extra-credit points by "donating" boxes of Kleenex to the classroom that they were able to squeak by with a passing grade.

So, regrettably, this does happen. While it's the sort of practice best addressed by school boards, it appears that some of them have yet to act.

To his credit, Baltimore admits he'd rather not spend his time on this issue. "I hate legislation like this  because I think it's stupid  but sometimes you have to legislate common sense," he says. "If it gets some attention and schools stop doing it, maybe it has the intended purpose. Maybe we don't have to put it in the law."

That would be the ideal outcome, but if school districts don't act, Baltimore would be justified in pursuing the matter.

This editorial appeared in the March 23 edition of the Des Moines Register.
PRESTON  A Rochester woman faces multiple felony charges after authorities say she spent nearly $7,000 of someone else's money.

Sandra Jean Munger, 53, will make her first appearance Monday in Fillmore County District Court, where she's been charged with six felony counts and three gross misdemeanor counts of financial exploitation of a vulnerable adult.

The investigation began in November, when a care center in Fillmore County reported an account that was "months delinquent," despite the resident receiving enough monthly funds to stay current, the complaint says.

Munger has power of attorney duties for the victim, court documents say; she was responsible for paying for the care of two people. A review of the nursing home statements from Feb. 1, 2016 through Nov. 1 indicated a combined bill of $31,407 for the pair; the payments, however, totaled $22,755.67.

That left an outstanding total balance of $8,651.33.

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When the investigator reviewed the victim's bank account, he found a total of $6,929.70 taken from the account via checks written to "cash" and cash withdrawals, the report says, adding "there are no indications that this money was used to meet the needs of either" person in the care center.

Munger acknowledged she was behind on the nursing home bill and allegedly admitted she wrote checks from the account to "cash," but said she used it to provide for the victims' needs. She told the investigator she could provide receipts for the cash purchases, but would need some time to gather them, the document says.

She didn't show up at the arranged meeting with the proof, and hasn't been in contact with authorities since, the complaint says.

If convicted, the felony charges carry a maximum penalty of five years in prison, a $10,000 fine, or both. The gross misdemeanors are punishable by up to a year in jail, a $3,000 fine, or both.
As the nation's energy policy shifts, Rochester and Destination Medical Center recently strengthened efforts aimed at efficiency.

Kevin Bright has joined the DMC Economic Development Agency staff to oversee efforts to reach energy goals defined in the DMC plan.

The recent hire of a sustainability coordinator is funded by a two-year McKnight Foundation grant, as well as city funding. As a result, Bright works for both the EDA and the city, spending about 80 percent of his time working on DMC goals supported by the grant.

Lisa Clarke, executive director of the DMC EDA, said the unique collaboration offers an exciting model that she hopes will prove worthwhile and provide resources that last beyond the grant funding.

In August, a pair of graduate students working the the Environmental Defense Fund's Climate Corps recommended the city hire its own full-time sustainability coordinator, saying the position could eventually be funded through cost savings and potential grant writing.

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The Rochester City Council, however, was hesitant about adding the new staff member amid other needs. The collaborative effort was the result with the council agreeing to commit approximately $25,000 for salary and benefit expenses.

"It's like putting your toe in the water," Clarke said.

Bright said he collaborative effort provides a chance to build on existing goals, which include ensuring new development meets DMC's energy efficiency goals and finding public infrastructure improvements anticipated in the city's energy plan.

He said the first steps are reviewing the goals and plans, defining the most immediate objectives and setting a course with EDA and city staff. As a result, he's been spending his first weeks reviewing existing documentation and getting to know the people involved.

Several of those people have said they are impressed and see promise in Bright's first weeks.

"He has that collaborative mentality that is very helpful," said Anna Richey, the chairwoman of Rochester's Energy Commission, noting Bright appears to be committed to meeting the goals of the city and EDA.

Mitzi Baker, director of the Rochester-Olmsted Planning Department, said she also sees promise in the collaboration. Noting her department frequently works with efforts aimed at efficiency, she said working with Bright will offer new opportunities.

Additional efforts will also likely build on existing Rochester Public Utility efforts, and RPU spokesman Tony Benson said the utility's staff is ready to work with Bright.

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Assistant City Administrator Aaron Reeves said he's working with Bright to determine how the cooperative position will be implemented as Bright's work ramps up, but noted he expects to see beneficial overlap in EDA and city efforts. As a result, he expects Bright will likely define the next steps aimed at energy efficiency and sustainability in the city.

"We're kind of looking at Kevin to set some priorities," he said.

Bright, who has taken on similar tasks at Colby College in Waterville, Maine, said he sees a variety of interesting projects ahead for the city, including tackling streetlight efficiency and energy efficiency in city buildings, as well as creating ways to increase awareness of sustainability efforts.

"The benefit is there has been a lot of good planning up to this date, so things have already been documented and the goals included are pretty aggressive," he said. "Pulling it off will be a great thing to stand behind and something for the city to be proud of.

"Really, the tough work is just living up the the planning that has been done."
A "staffing crisis" is overwhelming Minnesota organizations that work with the disabled, and they are looking to the state legislature for help with wage increases.

"We are literally in the fight for our lives," said Bruce Remme, executive director of Rochester's Ability Building Center.

Eight Rochester groups held a news conference Thursday at ABC to spotlight their situation.

They say they are struggling with recruiting and retaining direct care staff to work with physically and/or mentally disabled clients. Hiawatha Homes, which manages 22 local residential homes and offers support services, saw a staff turnover rate of 65 percent in 2016.

A big reason for that spike in turnover and current crisis, according to local officials, is static starting hourly wages ranging from $11 to $12.07.

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Employees at agencies, like Ability Building Center and PossAbilities, are paid through Medicaid funding controlled by the state. Best Life Alliance, a state coalition of organizations and individuals that work with people with physical and/or mental disabilities, is asking the state approve a 4 percent wage increase in 2017 and another in 2018 to help them recruit and retain employees.

A similar push failed last session. The last time the legislature approved a wage increase for these direct service providers was in 2014 with a five percent increase, which followed compensation cuts in the two preceding years.

"Many of our workers have two jobs just to get by. They have to choose between doing these difficult jobs and feeding their families," said PossAbilities Executive Director Eileen Wallace.

They acknowledge finding workers is difficult in every industry today, but these groups say their lack of staffing hurts the state's most vulnerable people.

ABC currently has 20 open jobs. Bear Creek Services has 21, and Hiawatha Homes has 40. All of the Rochester organizations say they have many employees working overtime, just to cover the basic shifts.

The local groups, part of a statewide Best Life Alliance coalition, point to the state's $1.65 billion budget surplus as way to raise wages for direct service providers.

"There are an enormous number of people that do this in Minnesota, because there a lot of people with disabilities  It (wage increase) does cost a lot of money," said DFL Rep. Tina Liebling, who is on the House Health and Human Services Reform Committee. "But we've got to do it."

The current House Health and Human Services funding bill does not include the wage increase.

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Liebling stressed that at the current wages workers at places such as Bear Creek Services and The Wing House can take fast-food jobs for similar pay without the difficult difficult and stressful work

She said the Republican priorities favor tax cuts over wage increases for people work with the disabled.

However, Rochester GOP Rep. Nels Pierson said he is pushing for a funding boost as part of a final health care funding package.

"I'm on their side. We're advocating on their behalf as well and we continue to work towards that," said Pierson, R-Rochester.

Gail Bishop of Rochester, whose 28-year-old disabled daughter has received local services since she was 16, says lawmakers are always sympathetic. Though that has not resulted in any increases in recent years.

"With budget surplus, we can fund both tax cuts and wage increases," she said.

Bishop said staff turnover is particularly disturbing for clients like her daughter, who thrive on routine and consistency. It makes clients anxious and cause them lose to gains they had made.

The staffing crunch is becoming so desperate that the Hiawatha Homes has openings in its residential facilities that it could easily fill with people on a waiting list. However, they need more to hire more staff before they can bring in new clients.

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"If we don't have the staff, we'll be forced to close homes," said Cindy Ostrowski, CEO of Hiawatha Homes.
MANTORVILLE  Even though the project appears to have been shelved, Dodge County officials still express their continuing opposition to the high-speed, or Zip Rail, proposal.

The Dodge County Rail Authority restated its 2014 resolution during a March 14 meeting, with members expressing their disapproval for Zip Rail after a brief discussion on where the proposed project now stands.

County Administrator Jim Elmquist presented a resolution for the authority's consideration regarding the Zip Rail Scoping Study prepared by the Minnesota Department of Transportation. The study pertained to two different routes for the high-speed rail line, on which trains can travel up to 220 miles per hour.

Dodge County officials noted that the study was never completed and was instead "shelved" in 2015, when there appeared to be low political support at the state Legislature for the rail project.

Commissioner Tim Tjosaas, chairman of the authority, said that concerns about Zip Rail are that the project would split Dodge County in half, potentially restricting many roads and farms and causing "undue hardship" on residents and farmers.

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"We see little economic benefit to Dodge County, for as it stands today, there are no stops nor stations that would be in the county allowing people to access the rail," he said. "Today, all we would have is a rail line that restricts the uses of the land and roadways near it."

Olmsted County suspended work on Zip Rail in February 2016. In its place, a private company, the North American High Speed Rail group, expressed interest in building a $4.2 billion rail line connecting Rochester and the Twin Cities.

The company later renamed itself the Minnesota Corridor Project.

What's going on now

For now, a measure that is part of the House Republicans' tax bill calls for a rail funding ban. That measure has advanced through the House and was halted in the Senate. This legislation prohibits use of any public funds on the rail project. Its author is Rep. Steve Drazkowski, a Mazeppa Republican.

The measure also prohibits use of eminent domain for the rail line, and requires developers of projects estimated to cost more than $1 billion to purchase environmental insurance.
Two terrific articles to bring to your attention today, and then an event announcement/invitation for East Bay Power Line readers.

First up is Robert Boyers, a professor of English at Skidmore College and editor of Salmagundi, a literary journal not widely known beyond the halls of academe, writing this week in the Chronicle of Higher Education about The Academys Assault on Intellectual Diversity. Very much worth reading the whole thing, but heres a good sample:

[A] great many contemporary liberals subscribe to the belief  however loath they may be to acknowledge it  that certain ideas are heretical or divisive and that those who dare to articulate them must be, in one way or another, cast out. The burning desire to paint a scarlet letter on the breast of those who fail to observe the officially sanctioned view of things has taken possession of many ostensibly liberal people in academe, which has tended more and more in recent years to resemble what the Yale English professor David Bromwich calls a church held together by the hunt for heresies. . . . What does such a total cultural environment look like? In the university it looks like a place in which all constituencies have been mobilized for the same end, in which every activity is to be monitored to ensure that everyone is on board. Do courses in all departments reflect the commitment of the institution to raise awareness about all of the approved hot-button topics? If not, something must be done. Are all incoming freshmen assigned a suitably pointed, heavily ideological summer-reading text that tells them what they should be primarily concerned about as they enter? Check. Does the college calendar feature carefully orchestrated consciousness-raising sessions led by human resources specialists trained to facilitate dialogues leading where everyone must agree they ought to lead? Check. Is every member of the community primed to invoke the customary terms  privilege, power, hostile, unsafe  no matter how incidental or spurious they seem in a given context? Essential. . .

Boyers concludes by calling this state of academic affairs tyranny.

Next up, dont miss Heather Mac Donald in the Wall Street Journal today, writing on Does Harvard Consider Oscar Wilde Marginalized? It seems Harvards English department has decided to throw in its lot with the grievance mongers:

Starting next fall, English majors at Harvard will be required to take a course in authors marginalized for historical reasons. Those reasons include racism, patriarchy and heteronormativity, the English Departments chairman, James Simpson, told the Harvard Crimson. . . A student who has been taught to see bias rather than beauty in literature has lost the chance of opening herself to bygone worlds, where she could experience real diversity. Told that literature is one long process of marginalization, she is less likely to lose herself in the shady groves of pastoral poetry, being instead on the hunt for patriarchy. She has also been unfitted for adulthood. The narrative of curricular oppression bleeds ineluctably into the narrative of personal oppression. Every place a college student looks today, she has been primed to see marginalization, usually her owneven, hilariously, at regally privileged Ivy League colleges. That is a delusion, but one that will distort a students perception of reality for the rest of her life.

Like Boyerss article above, very much worth reading the whole thing.

And this leads me to my event announcement. On Monday. Im hosting Heather and Jonathan Rauch of the Brookings Institution and the National Journal on campus at Berkeley for an event on The Future of Free Speech on Campus, where well air out a number of aspects of this issue. (See the complete flyer below.) The panel will go off from 12:30 to 2 pm in the Library at Moses Hall, right smack in the middle of campus. If youre interested in coming, please RSVP to Whitney Mello ([email protected]) so we can know how many seats well need, and also how much food to order up (yesfree lunch will be served!).
Wall Street Journal reporter Jay Solomons new book is The Iran Wars: Spy Games, Bank Battles, and the Secret Deals that Reshaped the Middle East. Solomon has broken many stories on the Iran beat for the Journal. His new book is must reading on the critical national security challenge presented by the regime of the mad mullahs that is on a glide path to the acquisition of nuclear weapons with the invaluable assistance of the Obama administration.

Solomons new book is reviewed in the current issue of the Jewish Review of Books, which I just received in the mail yesterday. I think I have attentively followed the news regarding Iran, but I somehow failed to absorb the details of the story with which Jordan Chandler Hirsch opens his review:

In April 2009, a young Iranian, Shahram Amiri, disappeared in Medina, Saudi Arabia. Ostensibly there to perform the hajj, Amiri had in fact brokered a deal with the CIA to provide information on Irans nuclear program. Leaving his wife and child behind in Iran and a shaving kit in an empty Saudi hotel room, Amiri fled to America, received asylum, pocketed $5 million, and resettled in Arizona. Formerly a scientist at Malek Ashtar University, one of several institutes harboring Irans nuclear endeavors, Amiri conveyed the structure of the program and intelligence about a number of key research sites, including the secret facility at Fordow. The story might have ended there. But according to Jay Solomon, chief foreign affairs correspondent for the Wall Street Journal and author of The Iran Wars, what happened next emerged as one of the strangest episodes in modern American espionage. A year after Amiri defected, he appeared on YouTube, claiming that the CIA had drugged and kidnapped him. In fact, Iranian intelligence had begun threatening his family through their intelligence assets in the United States [Ed. note: Solomon reports in the book that Iranian threats against Amiris wife and son left in Iran had been conveyed to Amiri through a sophisticated network of assets maintained in the United States]. Buckling under that pressure, Amiri demanded to re-defect. In July 2010, he returned to a raucous welcome in Tehran, claimed he had been working for Iran all along, and reunited with his son. Of course this was not the end of the story. Amiri soon disappeared, and in August 2016, shortly after Solomons book was published, he was hanged.

Solomon reported on Amiri for the Journal in a 2010 article that is accessible online here. This past August David Sanger reported on Amiris execution for the New York Times in How an Iranians spy saga ends, 6 years later: Hes executed.

Hirschs JRB review of Solomons book is posted online here.

Via Mosaic Editors Picks.
The Democratic Party press is salivating at the Wall St. Journals report that General Michael Flynns lawyers are in discussions with Congressional committees investigating the criminal leaking of alleged information about Flynn by Obama administration holdovers in the intelligence agencies or the White House. The word is that Flynn has offered to testify in return for immunity. Is this a blockbuster story? Likely not.

Via ZeroHedge, this is the complete statement issued by Flynns lawyers at Covington & Burling, one of Washingtons top firms:

General Flynn certainly has a story to tell, and he very much wants to tell it, should the circumstances permit. Out of respect for the Committees, we will not comment right now on the details of discussions between counsel for General Flynn and the House and Senate Intelligence Committees, other than to confirm that those discussions have taken place. But it is important to acknowledge the circumstances in which those discussions are occurring. General Flynn is a highly decorated 33-year veteran of the U.S. Army. He devoted most of his life to serving his country, spending many years away from his family fighting this nations battles around the world. He was awarded four Bronze Stars for actions in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere in the war on terror. He received the Legion of Merit twice, and the Defense Superior Service Medal four times. He is a recipient of the Defense Departments Distinguished Service Award and the Intelligence Community Gold Seal Medallion for Distinguished Service, as well as numerous other decorations. Notwithstanding his life of national service, the media are awash with unfounded allegations, outrageous claims of treason, and vicious innuendo directed against him. He is now the target of unsubstantiated public demands by Members of Congress and other political critics that he be criminally investigated. No reasonable person, who has the benefit of advice from counsel, would submit to questioning in such a highly politicized, witch hunt environment without assurances against unfair prosecution.

I agree with that. If Flynn were paying me for advice, I would tell him to bargain for immunity and then let the Democrats have it with both barrels. Time will tell, but the fact that Flynn wants immunity, in the present crazed environment, tells us nothing about whether he actually has anything to hide.
Does it make sense for St. Cloud to have commuter rail service?

Knock on some legislative wood, but it appears an answer to that question may finally be delivered.

Gov. Mark Dayton announced March 16 he supports spending $3 million to create a short-term test aimed at providing that answer, which has been sought since the day in 2009 when the Northstar commuter rail line first stopped in Big Lake, 11 miles short of the 100,000-plus residents of the immediate St. Cloud metro area .

Dayton's idea  somewhat similar to a proposal authored last year by St. Cloud Rep. Jim Knoblach  calls for one trip a day, leaving St. Cloud in the morning for Target Field in Minneapolis and returning from there in the evening. A March 17 Times news report said several area legislators like the idea and want to learn more.

Good plan

This board championed such a test as a compromise at the end of the 2016 legislative session, when DFLers and Republicans couldn't agree on a plan that fell between Knoblach's desire for cost-neutral testing and Dayton's vision that an extension would cost $43 million plus operating expenses and rail access charges.

From the March 4, 2016, Times Our View: "... So the key here is compromise. Determine what it will cost to do a short-term experiment. Perhaps the compromise needs to be a few million dollars to cover some expenses and operating costs for a one-year experiment. Not $43 million plus operating costs permanently. No, just a couple of million for a one-year test."

Granted, $3 million won't cover a full year, but a six-month test  held ideally to cover fall, winter and spring  should answer the question.

Kudos to the Dayton administration for its proposal. Similarly, kudos to local legislators and constituents for keeping the issue alive this session in St. Paul.

Define success

Because this test will likely determine the long-term future of commuter rail service beyond Big Lake, it's absolutely critical all sides work together now to identify what factors will determine whether the test is considered successful.

Obviously, ridership numbers will be the biggest key. How many local people will use this train?

That's a fair question in part because current Northstar service includes several stops along the way, plus service that is not necessarily for work/commuting purposes. Witness the number of people traveling to events like Twins and Vikings games.

This test should be a nonstop run during weekday commuting hours. As appealing as it might be to provide rail service for leisure travelers to the Twin Cities, that was not the origin of Northstar. And given costs, that should not be its primary mission.

Costs are critical

Finally, yes, money is a huge factor. Remember, the initial 40-mile line cost $320 million to build a decade ago. For perspective, that was about the original cost estimate in the late 1990s to build the line all the way to St. Cloud. Almost 30 years later, it's certain to cost tens of millions more to extend the line 11 miles, plus pay BNSF for track access and cover operating costs.

Please also remember Northstar is heavily subsidized. In its best years, Northstar's fare revenues have covered not even 20 percent of operating costs. The rest are picked up by taxpayers.

And not to be overlooked, ridership numbers have never really come close to meeting original projections. On average, Northstar trains see 2,534 weekday boardings.

How much one roundtrip a day raises that number certainly is important. But given the costs and complexities experienced to this point with Northstar, legislators and the governor need to define now if that alone will be used to judge the success of this much-needed test.

This editorial appeared in the March 24 edition of the St. Cloud (Minnesota) Times.
Pretty much everyone on the right has praised President Trumps appointments, and what we have seen of his spending proposals looks good, too. Here in Minnesota, we are seeing a good example of the difference between the Trump administration and the Hillary administration we avoided. The subject is light rail transit.

Briefly, the powers that be have been trying to jam light rail transit down our throats for years. The cost is in the billions, and the trains hardly carry any riders, operating at huge losses. The latest proposed line is called Southwest Light Rail Transit (SWLRT). If it comes into being, it will only be because of nearly a billion dollars in federal funding, without which the project would be a non-starter. Which would be a good thing, since fixed rail transit is an obsolete technology that does nothing to relieve the Twin Cities highway congestion problems.

Just about everyone had given up, and was resigned to the idea that the SWLRT project would go forward. My organization, however, has continued to fight it, and it looks now as though our efforts may be successful. Tom Steward reports:

The Met Council always expected the Southwest Light Rail Transit line to be on the short list in Washingtonthe short list for $895 million in federal funding for construction. Instead, the controversial $1.9 billion project has suddenly popped up on a different list of transit projects that the Washington Post warns could be out of luck under the Trump Budget. President Trumps budget proposal zeroes out the New Starts program that funds light rail transit projects like SWLRT. Future investments in new transit projects would be funded by the localities that use and benefit from these localized projects, according to the budget blueprint.

What a radical idea!

As a result, a project that once seemed all but inevitable suddenly appears vulnerable, even to the rail lines staunchest proponents at the Met Council.

***

The opening has led both state and federal elected officials to contact U.S. Secretary of Transportation Elaine Chao to support the administrations proposal to defund the New Starts program and SWLRT by extension. For years Congress has funded DOT programs like New Starts and, unfortunately, these funds have sometimes gone to projects with little merit, Rep. Jason Lewis, R-Minn., wrote in a March 24 letter to Chao. One such project was the Southwest Light Rail Transit (SWLRT) system in Minneapolis, MN. Chao also received a lengthy letter signed by 84 Republican Minnesota state legislators, blasting the Met Council for attempting to ram the controversial line through without broad public support.

Incredibly, the SWLRT project was slated to go through without ever having been authorized by the states legislature, and without any appropriation of state funds.

This is, in considerable part, why we elect Republicans: to kill foolish, money-wasting projects. Newspaper headlines, of course, are consumed with other matters. But quietly, under the radar, there are no doubt many similar examples of improved governance coming from the administration.
Weather is becoming more extreme. And spring is the busy season.

According to a piece yesterday on ThinkProgress, U.S. communities have been hit by 203 extreme weather and climate disasters that have each caused at least $1 billion in damages since 1980.

When it comes to extreme weather, Texas is a hot spot. Not only does it frequently see storms, but it is the site of at least two of the top 10 most damaging weather events since 1900.

Back in 1900, Galveston, Texas, was hit by a hurricane that killed more than 6,000 people and leveled every structure on the island. There was a 15-foot storm surge and 120 mile per hour winds. Galveston set records again in 2008 during Hurricane Ike, which claimed 100 lives and brought 100 mile per hour winds.

Given Texas is such a popular spot for storms, local officials and utilities work to help citizens plan ahead for extreme weather. For example, Texas-New Mexico Power recently has been encouraging its customers to have plans in place should a power outage occur.

It suggests customers have the power companys number in a convenient location;

report outages and keep abreast of updates at the utilitys 800 number; check flashlights and lanterns to make sure theyre in good working order, and install new batteries in them; charge mobile devices before storms are expected to hit;

keep the cupboard  but not the refrigerator  stocked; have a plan on how to cope if someone at home depends upon powered medical equipment for their well being; and invest in a backup power solution.

Even when we have all hands on deck, it still can take a while to safely restore power to everyone after a big storm, TNMP President Neal Walker recently told The Lewisville Texas Journal. Thats why we encourage customers to have plans in place to help them get by if the power is out for an extended period of time.

Edited by Maurice Nagle
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Inne oferty, ktore mogy byc w kregu Twoich zainteresowan:
European financial authorities have launched a probe into funds that were hidden from tax authorities in accounts at a Swiss bank, Dutch prosecutors said on Friday in Zurich.

It also announced the seizure of paintings, gold and jewellery.

While they did not name the bank, Swiss banking giant Credit Suisse said that its offices in Amsterdam, London and Paris had been searched on Thursday as part of investigations into clients tax matters.

The prosecutors said that in the Netherlands, dozens of people are suspected of having concealed many millions of euros, the Dutch Public Prosecution Service said in The Hague.

It said that homes of clients and the banks offices were searched in the Netherlands as well as in Germany, Britain, France and Australia.

The Dutch prosecutors said that they had acquired information about thousands of account holders.

We are cooperating with authorities, Credit Suisse said in a statement from Zurich.

The bank stressed that it has been complying with Dutch, French and British tax rules, and that it has severed its ties with clients who do not pay their taxes.

Dutch fiscal investigators arrested two suspects.

They seized administrative records as well as the contents of bank accounts, immovable properties, and jewellery, an expensive car, expensive paintings and a gold bar, prosecutors said.

Britains tax authority said it had launched a tax-evasion and money-laundering probe against an international financial institution, some of its senior employees and a number of its customers.

The international reach of this investigation sends a clear message that there is no hiding place for those seeking to evade tax, Her Majestys Revenue and Customs said.

Frances financial prosecution office said that about 25 customs investigators had carried out searches and questioned people across the country as part of an internationally coordinated investigation.

The probe had revealed several thousand bank accounts opened in Switzerland and not declared to French tax authorities.

In the next few weeks, more operations will be carried out, the Dutch prosecutors office said without naming any financial institution.

However, the office of the Swiss Attorney General criticised the fact that other countries had made a conscious decision not to inform Switzerland about the probe.

(dpa/NAN)

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The Kwashabawa community, a border town between Nigeria and Niger Republic in Zamfara, said there has been no government project in the area for over 30 years.

A resident of the community, Shamsuddeen Danturai, told the News Agency of Nigeria in Gusau on Friday that the community had been neglected by local, state and federal government.

Mr. Danturai, who described the situation as sad, said the community, located in Zurmi Local Government Area of the state, has serious infrastructure problems.

For over 30 years, no single project was executed in the area by federal, state or local government, it is a very sad and terribly bad situation.

Even though we have been reporting this problem to both local and state governments nothing has been done up till now.

Our primary school has been dilapidated for over 20 years and there is no single teacher, our clinic is facing also similar challenge.

We dont have good roads that connect us to Zurmi, the local government headquarter, and other neighbouring communities.

In fact, we dont even have a feeder road that links us with other communities, he said.

Mr. Danturai lamented that Kwashabawa, which has a rich history, had been totally forgotten by the government.

Nothing was done or is being done to improve our lives. It is very disheartening the way our people are facing daily life challenges while government keeps silent, he said.

When contacted, the lawmaker representing the area in the State House of Assembly, Mannir Gidan-Jaja, said he was aware of the plight of Kwashabawa residents.

As representative of the area in the state assembly, I am making efforts to convince the state government to site some projects in the area.

You know that democracy is an on-going process; it is in my blueprint to execute meaningful development projects in the area.

I am therefore calling on them to exercise patience, he said.

(NAN)

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Seventy days into his administration, President Donald Trump has issued his first order for military operation in Africa.

On Thursday, Mr. Trump approved a mission proposal from the Pentagon which will allow the U.S. Africa Command, AFRICOM, to strike at any part of Somalia designated area of active hostility.

A one paragraph statement from Pentagon spokesperson, Jeff Davis, stated that The president has approved a Department of Defense proposal to provide additional precision fires in support of African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) and Somali security forces operations to defeat al-Shabaab in Somalia.

This change is an uptick from the Obama administration authorisation which only allowed strikes in self-defense and in defense of AMISOM.

News outlets in the U.S. reported earlier this month that the head of AFRICOM, Thomas Waldhauser, requested additional authority to give the command more flexibility and timeliness in terms of making decisions to prosecute targets. This is generally understood to mean that the Command wants authority to strike at will, to conduct operations without recourse to the White House for each mission. It is not clear if such authority will be limited to Somalia or cover all parts of the continent that AFRICOM focuses on including Libya and North-east Nigeria.

The statement from the Pentagon did not indicate that the administration has given AFRICOM the authority to strike at will.

However, the approval for additional strikes against al-Shabaab came a day after the administration relaxed preventive rules against rampant civilian casualties. Mr. Trump signed a directive on Wednesday, that designated part of Somalia area of active hostilities, thereby making war-zone rules which mean less protection for civilians to be imposed on such places. This is raising alarm given recent reports of civilian casualties in Mosul, Iraq.

In a testimony before the United States Senate on March 9, Mr. Waldhauser, a general, re-stated U.S. commitment to the fight against Boko Haram.

In West Africa, our primary focus is containing and degrading Boko Haram and ISIS-West Africa, he said.

With forces from Benin, Cameroon, Chad, Niger, and Nigeria, we are working with the Multinational Joint Task Force (MNJTF) to enable regional cooperation and expand partner capacity to ensure Boko Haram and ISIS-West Africa do not further destabilise the region.

There is no likelihood of direct operation by AFRICOM in the Lake Chad Basin in the foreseeable future. Mr. Waldhauser declared at the Senate hearing that the MNJTF has been successful in enabling multinational cooperation and coordinating multinational operations and has placed significant pressure on Boko Haram and ISIS-West Africa.

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States in the north-eastern part of the country still struggling to recover from the devastating effects of Boko Haram insurgency, are recording bumper harvests in rice cultivation.

In a recent survey by News Agency of Nigeria, NAN, rice farmers, millers and dealers attributed the development to the pragmatic agricultural policies put in place by the Federal Government.

They also ascribed the development to the positive lessons learnt from harrowing situation brought about by the economic recession in the country.

They observed that apart from the enhanced patronage of local rice, which had boosted the economic status of rice farmers, the price of the produce had stabilised and might even fall drastically due to massive production.

Baba Kaye, Chairman Rice Dealers Association in Gombe State, noted that the intervention of the Federal Government had stabilised the price of rice for some time now.

The price has remained stable without fluctuating; we are grateful to the Federal Government for encouraging dry season farming and this has impacted positively on us, he said.

Tasiu Kuri, a rice farmer in Kuri village of Gombe State, attributed the increase in rice production to the decision of Federal Government to ban the importation of foreign rice through the countrys land borders.

Yahaya Yusuf, Chairman, Rice Farmers Association of Nigeria, RIFAN, in Bauchi State, projected that the state alone would cultivate about one million tonnes of rice in 2017, as against the 600,000 tonnes it cultivated in 2016.

Musa Takari, a rice farmer in Gashua, Yobe, said that the ban on importation of rice had also provoked an increase in the consumption of local rice, thereby triggering massive production.

Before now, the market has been very bad and discouraging but the increased patronage has made us to produce more rice, he said.

The story has been similar in other parts of the country, as there has been dramatic increase in quantity of rice produced by rice farmers across the country.

In Abakaliki, for instance, the state government said that it had met the target of producing 350,000 tonnes of rice, which it set for the 2016 farming season.

The Commissioner for Agriculture and Natural Resources, Uchenna Orji, told NAN in Abakaliki, that the state was able to achieve that feat because the state government invested massively in rice production in 2016.

He stressed that the governments determination to revolutionalise rice production in Ebonyi was due to its comparative advantage over other states in the area of rice farming.

Mr. Orji said that efforts were underway to ensure that Ebonyi reclaimed its position as the highest rice producing state in West Africa.

In spite of the claims on massive production of rice across the country, NAN observed that the rice milling capacities of the states differed and this, coupled with the different distribution patterns, could explain the scarcity of local rice in the markets.

In Sokoto State, the rice millers, however, said that they were producing below capacity.

Nura Attajiri, the Chairman, Small and Medium Enterprises, SME, Rice Millers Association in the state, said that the rice millers produced only about 150 tonnes per annum.

Although there are 255 millers, with machines having installed capacity of producing about 350 tonnes of milled rice per annum, in the state, their output is just about 150 tonnes per annum.

This shortfall is caused by the various challenges facing the millers; these include poor electricity supply and inadequate funds to procure paddy for processing, among others.

As such, we have been campaigning and looking into how the state government and other relevant agencies can boost the rice production capacity of millers through various intervention programmes.

Moreover, the Federal Governments Anchor Borrowers Programme, launched in Kebbi State, did not include SME millers but only integrated millers, while Sokoto State has no integrated millers.

Although the state government is putting in more efforts to assist us to improve production, we need more government intervention, particularly in the area of rice processing.

However, the zonal chapter of RIFAN in Daura, Katsina State, said that the absence of rice milling plants in Daura had been a major limitation to efforts to produce rice.

Nura Baure, the zonal chairman of the association, said that although there were rice milling plants in Batagarawa and Funtua, those areas are very far from our farmers and the transportation cost is a burden to our farmers.

I dont even know the capacity of those rice milling plants, he added.

Mr. Baure, nonetheless, said that there was a subsisting agreement between the association and an off-taker company, ZIL Nigeria Ltd. that rice produced in the Daura and its environs would be milled by the company.

In Port Harcourt, Awotien George of Department of Fisheries and Aquatic Environment, Rivers State University of Science and Technology, RSUST, Port Harcourt, said that the few rice mills in the state were non-functional.

He recalled that the dearth of functional rice mills in the state compelled Port Harcourt Glorious Cooperative Society to transport the rice, which was produced during 2016 planting season, to Ebonyi for milling.

He, therefore, urged the state government to be actively involved in agricultural production.

Also, plans are underway by the Adamawa Government to establish three giant rice milling centres in the state, according to Umar Bindir, Chairman, State Project Management Team of Anchor Borrowers Programme.

He said that the state government, through its agency, Agricultural Development and Investment Ltd., had concluded arrangements to establish the rice milling centres.

Bindir, who is also the Secretary to Adamawa Government, said that the centres would also serve as marketing boards, which would purchase paddy directly from farmers before processing it and selling it to consumers across the country.

Nevertheless, Abbo Jiddere, the state AFAN Chairman, said that the association was consulting with other stakeholders on how to establish rice mills in the state.

The situation is somewhat different in Kebbi, a major rice producing state in the country, as the state is home to large rice mills such as WACOT Rice Mill and Labana Rice Mill.

Abdullahi Zuru, the General Manager of Labana Rice Mill, said that the mill, which was established at the cost of N5 billion, had the capacity to process and package 16 tonnes of rice within an hour.

He said that the mill, which had 2,000 employees, had three different means of obtaining paddy.

Mr. Zuru said that the mill acquired paddy from 6,000 rice farmers and 3,000 farmers who were registered with the CBN Anchor Borrowers Programme, as well as paddy merchants from other states and countries like Benin Republic, Niger Republic and Burkina Faso.

Labana Rice Mill has a well-established distribution chain, from the factory to major towns in the state like Birnin Kebbi, Zuru, Yauri, Argungu, and towns in other states such as Kano, Jos, Kaduna, Sokoto, Gusau, Lagos, Abuja, Port Harcourt and Aba, he said.

Mr. Zuru said that Labana Rice Mill had played a prominent role in the success of the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) existing between Lagos and Kebbi States with regard to the processing and packaging of Lake Rice.

Labana Rice Mill has processed and packaged over 2,000 tonnes of `Lake Rice, which had been supplied to Lagos State, as part of the MoU, he said.

As regards Lake Rice  the product of the joint venture between Lagos and Kebbi states, some residents of Lagos State, however, complained about its scarcity in the market.

For instance, Temitope Ajayi, a resident of the Abule-Egba area of the state, said that she had not heard of the rice sales or anybody buying the commodity since early January.

She said that the rice was not in the market, adding that those, who were able to buy Lake Rice in December, however, admitted that its quality was good.

However, Sanni Okanlawan, Special Adviser on Food Security to Governor Akinwumi Ambode, told NAN that Lagos State Government still had enough consignment of Lake Rice for distribution to interested members of the public, out of the stock that was produced last December.

He said that more distribution centres would be opened so as to ensure that the commodity was available to more Lagos residents.

The special adviser said that part of the rice, which was delivered to Lagos State in December, was still stocked at the Imota Mill Plant.

Mr. Okanlawon said that at intervals, the rice would be distributed to centres across the states local government areas where people could buy it at the price of N12,000 per 50kg. bag and N6,000 per 25kg. bag.

He said: `Lake Rice is still available at our 2.5-metric-ton rice milling plant in Imota, from the December consignment from our partner state, Kebbi.

All the same, Manu Sandamu, an agricultural extension officer in Daura, Katsina State, bemoaned the absence of regulated channels of rice distribution between farmers, millers, marketers and consumers across the country.

Definitely, there is increasing patronage for our local rice but that, in essence, means that the rice distribution chain should no longer rely on patchwork methods, he added.

(NAN)

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A member of the Nigerian House of Representatives, Abdulmumini Jibrin, has called on President Muhammadu Buhari to resign from office on health grounds.

Mr. Jibrin, a member of the ruling All Progressives Congress, said the presidents ill health has affected governance in the country badly.

PMB should opt for or encourage to accept a negotiated exit. The country can not afford a sort of part time president at this time, Mr. Jibrin tweeted Friday evening.

The president I see on camera needs full home care not office, moderately quiet life, enough rest and quality time with his family.

Life and health belongs to God but the more I see pictures of Mr President, the more Iam convinced he needs to go and rest. He needs it!

Mr. Jibrin is currently on suspension. He was sanctioned last year by the House of Representatives after accusing the speaker, Yakubu Dogara, his former ally, of budget fraud.

Mr. Buhari recently returned from the United Kingdom where he stayed for more than a month for medical treatment for an undisclosed illness.

Mr. Jibrin, who posted 30 tweets Friday evening, started by saying PMB, TIME TO LET GO: So many issues are left unattended even small issues that a presidential cough can deal with are left hanging.

The lawmaker represents Kiru/Bebeji Federal constituency of Kano State.



See Mr. Jibrins tweets below:

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The Borno State Governor, Kashim Shettima, and some other Northern traditional and political leaders have approached Senate President Bukola Saraki and other lawmakers, asking them to upturn the suspension of Ali Ndume, PREMIUM TIMES can authoritatively report.

Mr. Shettima led a team, described as Borno elders by our source, to the residence of Mr. Saraki, Thursday night, seeking to end the feud between the estranged allies and ensuring the suspension slammed on Mr. Ndume is lifted.

The purpose of the visit, disclosed the source who is knowledgeable about the development, was for mediation.

They went to meet other leaders in Senate as well, the source, a Senate insider, added.

Mr. Ndume was suspended from legislative activities for six months, after the Senate, on Wednesday, upheld the report of its committee on ethics, privileges and public petitions chaired by Samuel Anyanwu, PDP-Imo.

Mr. Ndume had, at plenary last week, raised the bullet proof car scandal involving Mr. Saraki, and the certificate scandal involving another senator, Dino Melaye.

The two matters, Mr. Ndume said, had made the Senate subject of public ridicule. He then asked the Senate to investigate Messrs. Saraki and Melaye, two persons he had aligned with in 2015 in subverting the will of the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC, in electing the Senate leadership.

Mr. Anyanwus ethics committee, tasked to conduct the investigation, convened an investigative hearing on Monday, attended by parties concerned with the cases regarding Messrs. Saraki and Melaye.

The Vice-Chancellor of the Ahmadu Bello University, Ibrahim Garba, confirmed Mr. Melaye graduated from the school, while Lanre Shittu, a car dealer, absolved Mr. Saraki of culpability in respect of the fake documents with which the bullet proof car was imported.

In its report, the committee cleared Messrs. Saraki and Melaye, and recommended one-year suspension for Mr. Ndume alleged to have demeaned the reputation of the Senate with the issues he brought against his colleagues without conducting proper Investigation.

However, there was plea for a lighter punishment, and the suspension was reduced to six months.

But beyond the matters raised by Mr. Ndume, he has had broken relationship with Mr. Saraki over his support for Ibrahim Magu, embattled acting chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission.

Mr. Ndume had disagreed with the Senate resolution on Mr. Magu, when the EFCC acting chair was first rejected in December last year.

He also faulted a resolution of the upper chamber indicting the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Babachir Lawal, over what has come to be known as grass-cutting scandal.

It was majorly on the basis of his open disagreement with the two resolutions of the Senate that Mr. Ndume was removed as Senate Leader.

He had told PREMIUM TIMES Mr. Saraki masterminded his removal.

But the Borno State Governor, Mr. Shettima, has commenced efforts to reconcile Mr. Saraki and Mr. Ndume with a view to ensuring the latters suspension is lifted.

Mr. Shettimas spokesperson, Isa Gusau, declined comment on Friday. But he did not deny that the meeting between his principal and Mr. Saraki held.

However, PREMIUM TIMES gathered from lawmakers that Mr. Shettima also met with Danjuma Goje (APC-Gombe) and even Dino Melaye and that he is determined to meet and persuade as many Senators as possible over Mr. Ndumes suspension.

Mr. Shettimas concern, PREMIUM TIMES understands, is that Mr. Ndume is key to Bornos efforts at recovering and rebuilding after years of devastation caused by Boko Haram insurgency.

Borno cant afford not to have a Senator like Ndume in the Senate for six months, said a source, because Borno is a peculiar case.

More so, some of the worst hit areas, like Gwoza, Damboa, fall within Mr. Ndumes constituency and therefore he has to be there to push their interests as he is also part of the presidential committee on north east, one source said.

But apart from Mr. Shettima, there are other Northern leaders, including emirs, retired generals, former governors and ex-senators, who are prevailing on Mr. Ndume that he should submit to a process of political solution which will see Mr. Saraki and other lawmakers agree to lift the suspension slammed on the Borno politician, PREMIUM TIMES can authoritatively report.

In fact, a team of Northern leaders arrived Abuja after the suspension, seeking to resolve the crisis.

When contacted and told what we gathered on Friday, Mr. Ndume said: what you heard is correct.

He however refused to provide further details other than saying Im still consulting.

A source close to Mr. Saraki said Ndumes suspension is mostly likely to be lifted following the efforts being made by Mr. Shettima and other Northern leaders.

When contacted, the Senate Presidents spokesperson, Yusuph Olaniyonu, said he was not authorised to speak on the matter.

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The Nigerian police, Thursday, paraded four men in Abuja said to belong to a notorious syndicate that specialised in impersonating high profile public officers in order to swindle unsuspecting members of the public.

Police said they recovered from the suspects, 14 mobile telephone handsets, with SIM cards registered with the names of top government officials and other prominent Nigerians.

Several other registered SIM cards and a diary containing phone numbers of several top government officials and prominent persons in the country were also recovered, according to the police.

Forty-seven-year-old Ovie Ogo, said to be a high chief from Ekpan in Ethiope East Local Government Area of Delta state, was among the suspects paraded by the police.

The Force spokesperson, Jimoh Moshood, told journalists that Mr. Ogo holds a traditional title of Eze Ireoma of Omoku, Rivers state.

Police said the high chief has confessed that he had some time ago posed as Nigerias National Security Adviser in order to dupe a Ghanaian who was anxious about getting oil block in Nigeria.

Mr. Ogo, who was the leader of the syndicate, swindled the Ghanaian of N13 million, the police said.

He and three of the suspects, according to the police, were arrested March 28 in a hotel in Kaduna State.

The three other suspects are Abdullazeez Eragbe, 40, from Ikabigbo, Esako West Local Government Area, Edo State; Babatunde Oshamoto, 49, from Iyamoye, Ijumu Local Government Area, Kogi State; and Samuel Idah, 25, from Uromi, Esan North  East Local Government Area, Edo State.

A fourth suspect, Prince Attah, otherwise known as Maurice, is said to be based in the United Kingdom. Police said he is at large.

The gang also posed as the Secretary to the Government of the Federation and collected four Million Naira from one man, name withheld, who is seeking for a federal appointment, the police spokesperson, Mr. Moshood said, adding that the syndicate was bust by the IGP Intelligence Response Team (IRT), following several complaints about their alleged criminal activities.

They equally posed as Chief of Staff to the President and collected N2.5 million from another individual who is looking for a contract.

The suspects again posed as the Chief of Staff to president and collected Seven Hundred Thousand Naira from one young man name withheld, who is also seeking for federal appointment, said Mr. Moshood, a chief superintendent of police.

The police said they were intensifying their investigation and also making effort to arrest other suspects who are at large.

The general public is advised to be careful and verify the identity of whosoever they may wish to transact business or relate with, Mr. Moshood said.

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The Federal High Court, Uyo, on Friday struck out the application for stay of execution filed by Bassey Akpan of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, representing Akwa Ibom North.

Mr. Akpan filed the suit for the court to stay execution of its February 27 judgment, which was in favour of Bassey Etim, also of the PDP.

The judge, Fatun Riman, said that since there was an appeal on his judgment of February 27, his court has no jurisdiction to entertain the same matter.

The judge, therefore, struck out the case and awarded N50,000 cost in favour of Mr. Etim, the defendant.

The court in the February 27 judgment had ordered the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, to immediately issue certificate of return to Mr. Etim.

The court faulted the primary that produced Mr. Akpan as the flag bearer of the PDP.

Speaking to journalists after the judgment, counsel to the defendant, Taiwo Abe, described the judgment as excellent.

He said that the application was brought by the appellant, PDP and Mr. Akpan.

The record shows that the appellant had already filed an appeal at the Court of Appeal, Calabar.

His Lordship said that only the Court of Appeal can entertain stay of execution, since the case had been transmitted from the Federal High Court, Uyo, to Court of Appeal, Calabar, since March 10, 2017.

I made the application that the court should strike out the case and award me a cost, the judge today has agreed with me and even granted cost of N50, 000.

Also speaking, counsel to Mr. Akpan, Godswill Umoh, said that he was satisfied with the judgment.

Actually, that is the rule of practice, since we have filed an appeal before the Court of Appeal; the lower court cannot adjudicate on the same matter. Earnestly, the rule of practice is we withdraw the case, which I did.

Despite the court ruling, Mr. Akpan will remain a senator until the Court of Appeal, or eventually the Supreme Court, rules on the matter.

(NAN)

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The acting Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, Ibrahim Magu, has accused the Sun Newspaper of libel, and is demanding a N5 billion naira compensation.

Wilson Uwujaren, Head Media and Publicity, EFCC, said this on Thursday in a statement in Abuja.

He said Mr. Magu was seeking the compensation for libellous imputations and statements made against him in a story published in the March 25, 2017 edition of the Saturday Sun.

The publication was captioned Magu Under Fresh Probe over 2 Abuja Mansions.

The spokesman said that Mr. Magus solicitor, Wahab Shittu, noted in a letter that the authors of the story willfully and maliciously made false, destructive, and defamatory statements against him.

He said that the paper quoted unidentified sources.

Mr. Uwujaren said the writers of the offensive report, had maliciously alleged that Mr. Magu owned two mansions on different streets in highbrow Maitama area of Abuja.

This is a case which they could not substantiate, and which in fact was false, and nothing but the figments of their imaginations.

Mr. Magu denied owning a property in Maitama.

The Sun said it would inform its lawyers to examine the veracity of Mr. Magus case.

Theres nothing I want to say about that other than that if theres any letter from Mr. Magu the company will invite its lawyers who will look at the issue, Femi Babafemi, editor of Saturday Sun whose title was responsible for the story, told PREMIUM TIMES by telephone Friday afternoon.

When asked, specifically, if the newspaper stood by its report, Mr. Babafemi said, Ive just told you what I need to tell you.

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Nigeria and France will continue to deepen the buoyant diplomatic, economic and military relationships between the two countries, even as both the Federal Government and the French Republic are now exploring new ways to confront and defeat the ideologies fueling terrorism.

This was the highlight of the bilateral meeting between Vice President Yemi Osinbajo and French Prime Minister, Bernard Cazeneuve, in Paris after the Vice President attended and spoke at the just concluded global forum on Anti-Corruption and Integrity hosted by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, OECD.

While recalling the tremendous progress made by the Buhari administration in degrading Boko Haram and suppressing the insurgency significantly, Mr. Osinbajo explained to the French Prime Minister that the need to break the ideological underpinnings of terror is now important.

One thing left for us to deal with is deradicalisation, defeating the ideology behind the mindless killing and violence. This is now what we have to deal with,  according to the Vice President.

Continuing, he observed that there is the view that some of the issues involved in the fueling of terrorism is governance related, and economic, but added that it goes beyond that to ideological, and we are now focusing on the challenge, and on how to deal with it.

The Vice President stated that the Federal Government would be happy to work with France, and others among its diplomatic partners who may also have to deal with such problems as the challenge of deradicalisation.

Mr. Osinbajo conveyed through the Prime Minister, the warm greetings of President Muhammadu Buhari to the French President Francois Hollande, noting the commitment and demonstrated support of the French President to Nigerias fight against Boko Haram, including on the issue of military purchases, and also French contributions against terrorism in the entire Sahel region.

According to the Vice President, we are thankful for the work you are doing with Nigeria. President Hollande has been to Nigeria twice and his support against terrorism in the countries in the region is by words and action, showing that the French is committed and standing side by side with us.

He added that generally, the stemming of the spread of terrorism in the Sahel is much due to Frenchs role, and we thankful for that contribution.

In his own remarks, Prime Minister Cazeneuve recalled recent terror attacks in France, saying we know the consequences of terror attacks on populations. We are aware of the problem and we know it cannot be solved by countries working alone.

He also noted that the French government has a process of deradicalisation, involving teams working with families, stressing however that its a very difficult job. The French government, he added will be focusing on how to enhance and deepen relationship with Nigeria, including on issues of counter terrorism and sharing information when it comes to deradicalization.

The Prime Minister also congratulated the Nigerian President and military over the degrading of Boko Haram. He asked the Vice President at the Thursday afternoon meeting to convey to President Buhari our message of admiration of his efforts to modernize your country.

He then commended the Nigerian Vice President on how he is supporting the President, especially by holding the fort as Acting President while President Buhari was away.

You played a significant role for your country while holding forth for your country. Also you play an important role in relaunching the Nigerian economy,  the Prime Minister observed, adding that French investors will take advantage of the opportunity the Nigerian economy offers.

Vice President Osinbajo welcoming the idea added that the recently released FGs Economic Recovery and Growth Plan is private sector led, adding that governments role is to facilitate and make life easier for investors where we can.

While appreciating the French government for its hospitality to him and members of his delegation in France, the Vice President commiserated with the government and people of France on the French school children injured in the recent Westminster terror attack in London.

He then congratulated the Prime Minister who was appointed to the position in December.

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Two friends, Chidiebere Ejide (18) and Chidi Amadi (22), who allegedly conspired and gang-raped their female friend, appeared before an Ebute Meta Chief Magistrates Court in Lagos on Friday.

The News Agency of Nigeria reports that Amadi is to stand trial on a charge for conspiracy, while Ejide is facing a three-count charge of conspiracy, rape and stealing.

The duo, however, pleaded not guilty to the charges.

The Prosecutor, Cousin Adams, told the court that the offences were committed on March 27, between 4.00 p.m. and 10.00 p.m., at Haile Selassie Hotel, Aguda, Lagos.

He said that the complainant, Aduke Solanke, had followed Amadi, her childhood friend, to the hotel.

According to the prosecutor, Amadi had connived with Ejide and another person, who is presently at large, to rape her.

NAN reports that during investigation, Solanke claimed that she woke up in the hotel room and discovered she had been drugged and gang-raped.

Adams also told the court that the accused stole Solankes N150, 000 cash, which she kept in her bag.

The offences contravened Sections 260 of the Criminal law of Lagos State, 2011.

Section 260 provides that any person who attempts to commit the offence of rape or sexual assault by penetration is guilty of a felony, and is liable to imprisonment for 14 years.

The Magistrate, Helen Omisore, admitted the duo to bail in the sum of N50, 000 each, with two sureties in like sum.

The case was then adjourned until April 24 for mention.

(NAN)

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A Nigerian soldier, Sunday Umaru, has been dragged before a Barkin-Ladi High Court in Plateau, for allegedly killing his lover, Charity Thomas, over a phone call.

Mr. Umaru, a married man, was a private in the Nigerian Army and on posting at the Special Task Force (STF), sector 7, Barkin-Ladi, at the time of the incident, on January 23, 2016.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the hearing, scheduled for March 30, could not hold due to the absence of Justice Samson Gang.

Mr. Umaru was first arraigned on July 14, 2016 on a one-count charge of culpable homicide.

He was accused of killing his lover Ms. Thomas by stabbing her with a knife in the stomach and slaughtering her thereafter. Mr. Umaru attacked the woman who had arrived from Kaduna to visit him.

According to the prosecutor, W.T Awe, of the Plateau State Ministry of Justice, the accused person committed the crime on January 23, 2016 in Barkin-Ladi.

Mr. Awe, during the arraignment, told the court that the Nigeria Army had court-martialed the accused, dismissed him after they found him guilty, and handed him over to the police for prosecution.

He said the accused person had told the police, in a confessional statement, that the deceased visited him sometime in January 2016, after which they had a misunderstanding which led to her death.

In the statement, the accused alleged that the deceased used a kitchen knife to stab herself after which he (accused), removed the knife and `helped her to complete the act by slaughtering her, Mr. Awe stated.

Mr. Awe further quoted the accused as saying that he was in the sitting room while Ms. Thomas was in the kitchen at about 7 p.m. when the womans phone rang and he picked the call.

The accused, in the statement, said that a mans voice insisted on speaking with Ms. Thomas, but that he (accused) demanded to know who he (caller) was.

He claimed that instead of answering his inquiries, the voice rained insults on him.

Mr. Umaru, according to the statement, dropped the call, went to the kitchen and asked Ms. Thomas who the caller was, but the woman refused to provide answers to his questions, instead reminding Mr. Umaru that he was a married man.

The accused further claimed that Ms. Thomas, in a fit of anger, called off the relationship and declared that she was no more interested, especially since her parents had consistently warned her against the affair.

Umaru said that he got angry and slapped her, which angered Charity, who quickly picked a knife and stabbed herself in the stomach, Mr. Awe told the court.

The statement further indicated that Charity failed down thereafter, with the accused removing the knife from her stomach and slaughtering her to complete the job she started.

Mr. Umaru thereafter took her body outside, left it there and reported for duty at 8 p.m.

The prosecutor said the accused, from his duty point, went to see his family at the Maxwell Kobe Cantonment, Rukuba Barracks, after telling his boss that his wife wanted to see him over a very pressing issue.

Charitys lifeless body was found the next day by neighbours, while military men, who came to evacuate the body, trailed the blood marks to the accused persons house.

Friends of the accused also recognised the girl as Umarus lover, who was seen with him the previous day, Mr. Awe told the court.

He said a team of military men, mobilised to go after the accused, arrested him at his home in the barracks, while in the company of his family.

According to Mr. Awe, the accused was court-martialed by the military and dismissed, after which he was handed over to the police for prosecution.

He said during investigation, police discovered several gory pictures and videos of the deceased that the accused took in his phone, immediately after the murder.

The accused has, however, pleaded not guilty to the charge.

NAN reports that at his first appearance in July 2016, Mr. Umarus counsel, David Adudu, prayed the court to grant his client bail, citing section 36(5) of the 1999 constitution which says that an accused is presumed innocent until otherwise proven.

Mr. Adudu had added that if the bail was granted, his client would neither jump bail nor interfere with police investigation.

Justice Samson Gang admitted the accused to bail in the sum of N200, 000 and two sureties in like sum.

Mr. Gang, who ordered that the sureties must reside within the jurisdiction of the court, said they must submit two copies of their recent passport photographs, copies of their national ID cards, GCE certificates and copies of their Rights of Occupancy.

He thereafter adjourned the matter to March 30, for hearing.

NAN reports that with the judge not available to hear the case, the matter was adjourned to May 25. (NAN)

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Some medical experts have advised Nigerians to seek early attention when ill especially if they are suspicious of meningitis because the disease is curable if presented early.

The meningitis outbreak across several states has caused the death of over 282 people in the past two months.

Adefunke Babatola, a paediatrician, told PREMIUM TIMES that parents should take their children early to hospitals for diagnosis because the treatment is more successful if detected early.

She said symptoms to look out for in children include high body temperature, irritability, excessive crying, headaches for those old enough to know what they are experiencing, photophobia (not able to look at lights) convulsion and falling into coma, which she said is common in children.

Some predisposing factors are upper respiratory problems, abnormal posturing, aching at the back, stiffness of the neck, poor feeding, bulge in the soft spot on top of a babys head (fontanel) and stiffness in a babys body and neck, among others.

The diagnosis is not too difficult but care needs to be taken because it sometimes exhibits symptoms similar to cerebral malaria, she added.

Also, Adeseye Akintunde, a consultant physician cardiologist at Ladoke Akintola University of Technology said there is a slim chance of meningitis spreading to the south-western part of the country because of what is referred to as the meningitis belt.

Meningitis is common in the north because of the weather, he said. There is what is called a meningitis belt and the disease rarely spreads further than the belt. The outbreak of the endemic is likely to be contained in the north and the new strain of meningitis stereotype C detected is not really different from the other form of meningitis strain. It is just a likely mutation of the organism or similar organism because organisms too change from time to time.

They also mutate for survival and that means they get resistant to the existing antibiotics. But there is no cause for alarm because there are available antibiotics that can combat the newly detected strain and we have enough doctors with medical experience to diagnose and treat if presented early, he told PREMIUM TIMES.

In order to prevent the spread of the disease, a public health expert, Humphrey Okoroukwu, advised Nigerians to live in ventilated environments during hot seasons as the disease is seasonal and common during the hot dry season.

Mr. Okoroukwu, a Deputy Director Public Health, Health and Human Services in Abuja, said meningitis is one of the diseases that is associated with hot weather and normally occurs between November and April annually.

Ventilation is key, keeping the environment clean is very important and prompt visit to the hospital, access the facilities being provided like vaccination which is ongoing. People should avail themselves of the ongoing opportunity.

There are some people who are healthy carriers of the disease, they spread it, they look healthy, but they do not know they have it, he explained.

Mr. Okoroukwu explained that the disease has incubation period of three to four days or two to 10 days in some people. He said though research has proven that everybody is at risk of the disease, considering their environment, the illness is most common in people aged one to 29.

He, however, urged the public to report to the nearest hospital on noticing any health challenge during this period.

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The Speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara, has said that his open conflict with the governor of his home state of Bauchi, Mohammed Abubakar, is because the governor is failing to fulfill promises made to the people of the state.

Mr. Dogara stated this in a chat on Tuesday with journalists in Abuja.

He said he was one of those who supported Mr. Abubakar to be governor, but that the governor is not delivering the goods.

The speaker said he is also distancing himself from the governor now because he knows the political sophistication of the people of the state and would not want to be affected when the governor begins to receive the backlash of his underperformance.

What bothers me is the people that we sold this agenda to, and I know how politically sophisticated Bauchi State is, it is one of the most politically sophisticated states in Nigeria. Since 2007 you can hardly rig elections in Bauchi, if you win elections in Bauchi, you have won it.

You can imagine the sitting 2007 governor who wanted to be a senator and he didnt win. He won in only one local government out of seven.

So, for us who are members of the political class, that is like a red flag warning that you must perform. Even though I will never engage in confrontation towards the governor; I will never support a situation where we are not delivering the goods, he said.

Mr. Dogara said he has no personal problem with Mr. Abubakar, but he will not risk his political future by siding with a failure.

That is just where the problem is, it doesnt matter. Anybody who is delivering, who is fulfilling is my wonderful person, but if you are not doing that, I cannot be party to it, so that when the destruction comes as it is certain to come, Ill be excluded, so that you know that it was not with your consent that this thing happened, he said.

Mr. Abubakar had on Thursday reacted to the position of Mr. Dogara by saying that the speaker is actually on political exile from his home state.

The governor said Mr. Dogara hardly visits Bauchi and is therefore, not in a position to discuss happenings there.

In an interview with Daily Trust, the spokesperson to the governor, Sabo Mohammed, said top government officials in the state are now convinced that Mr. Dogara was the brain behind the poor relationship between Governor Abubakar and members of the National Assembly.

How can somebody who absconded from his home state comment on happenings there?

We are really not surprised because the governor has been saying for a long time that most of these legislators (from Bauchi) are not in touch with the reality and theyre not in touch with their respective constituencies. Im happy the speaker has said this unequivocally.

If the speaker and the rest of his co-travellers are in tune with whats happening in Bauchi, they would not have the moral ground to criticise the governor in his effort to redeem the lost glory of Bauchi, he said.

Mr. Dogara, however, denied being on political exile, saying I can go home any day, anytime that I like. I went home in December and very soon I am going home.

So, I want to use this medium to announce to everybody that I am going home; so, those who think I am already on political exile, that is not the case at all.

Mr. Dogara said as speaker, he has a busy schedule attending to lawmakers functions while attending to his constituency.

You need to fulfil your obligations to members and work closely with your constituency, but its something that is always in my mind.

My constituents are very close to me and I am close to them even though I cant be there every day. Otherwise I wont be the Speaker, the Speaker has so many other responsibilities, he said.

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The family of Timothy Kalio, who died some days ago, has appealed to the Inspector-General of Police and Rivers State government to investigate the mystery surrounding his death.

Mr. Kalio, 58, reportedly died in an undisclosed hospital in Port-Harcourt, Rivers State, where he was taken to for an undisclosed sickness.

The deceaseds family said after his death, Mr. Kalios body was deposited in a morgue without the knowledge of any of his children.

Belema Uduje, the deceaseds daughter, who spoke about the development, said the family suspects foul play in Mr. Kalios death.

This was a man full of life without any complaint, said Mrs. Uduje, a medical doctor.

And a week before we were told of his death, all efforts to reach him on phone and Facebook were futile, as his phone was switched off and his Facebook account deleted.

But few days after his death his phone was on, this was extremely puzzling. Why would someone deliberately switch off his phone and delete himself from social media?

Mrs. Uduje said they were told her father had complained of a headache and was rushed to a hospital where a CT scan was done.

The scan result showed bleeding from both sides of the brain which was caused by trauma, she said.

We were also told that a neurosurgeon requested that surgery be done to drain the blood, which we were told that our father consented to, and he died after the surgery was done.

Even after he died, his body was taken to the mortuary. All these happened without us being informed. He had no life threatening medical condition. He was a healthy fun loving man.

Mrs. Uduje said efforts to seek answers to questions surrounding the cause of death from the deceaseds second wife were also unsuccessful.

We also pleaded with his family to ask questions but the family says they are not interested in knowing what happened to their brother they just want to bury him, she said.

Circumstances surrounding his death are suspicious. It is very impossible for a healthy individual to bleed in the brain. The deceased just retired from Shell Petroleum Development Company less than a year, and he was paid gratuities and benefits in full. I am asking the appropriate authorities to seek justice for my father.

It is on this premise that we are appealing to the Inspector-General of Police (IGP), and the Rivers State Governor, Barr. Nyesom Wike, to investigate the circumstances surrounding the death of our father, and ensure that all those involved in his death be brought to book.

She also called on the Nigerian Medical Association, Port-Harcourt branch, to assist her and members of her family in Investigating the cause of her late fathers death.

Equally, two of the deceaseds daughters, who are lawyers, also appealed to the Port-Harcourt branch of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), to join in the investigation to unravel the death of their father.

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The Board of Directors of Sika has decided on changes in Group Management to align the organization with Sika's Growth Strategy and its targets 2020. The following management changes are effective as of April 1, 2017.

Thomas Hasler, currently Chief Technology Officer, is appointed Head Industry. The Target Market Industry serves the markets automobile and commercial vehicle industry, automotive aftermarket, renewable energies, and facade engineering. The new position will also include responsibility for the two global business units Automotive and Tooling & Composites. With sales of CHF 1.2 billion in 2016, Industry is the largest Target Market of Sika. The appointment of Thomas Hasler will strengthen the customer focus and ensure further growth of this successful global business.

Yumi Kan, currently Head Building Systems & Industry, is appointed Head Construction which will include the six Target Markets Concrete, Waterproofing, Refurbishment, Sealing & Bonding, Flooring and Roofing. Combining all Target Markets related to the construction sector under one leadership will enable Sika to further strengthen its services for global customers and key accounts as well as for large construction projects with cross-selling potential.

Ernesto Schuemperli, currently Head Concrete & Waterproofing, has decided to step down from his Group Management position. Ernesto Schuemperli has more than 40 years of experience in the construction industry, especially in underground construction, and will now take over the new position as Head Infrastructure & Mining directly reporting to the CEO. He will also support the change to the new organization of the Target Markets.

Frank Hoefflin, currently Technology Head Thermoplastic Systems, is appointed Chief Technology Officer and Member of Group Management. He will succeed Thomas Hasler. Frank Hoefflin joined Sika in the USA over 13 years ago and has worked in both the USA and Switzerland in various R&D functions. He holds a PhD from the University of Freiburg in Germany and is a US and German citizen.

Heinz Gisel, currently Regional Manager Asia/Pacific, has decided to step down from his position in order to take time for a sabbatical leave. Heinz Gisel has spent more than ten successful years in Asia/Pacific having held the positions General Manager Singapore and Greater China before he took over the responsibility for the regional management. He will return in the second half of this year and assume a new position within Sika.

Mike Campion, currently Head of Area Greater China, is appointed Regional Manager Asia/Pacific and Member of Group Management. He will succeed Heinz Gisel. Mike Campion joined Sika in the USA over 18 years ago and has held several management positions in the USA and China. He holds a degree in Science from Villanova University, Pennsylvania, and is a US citizen.

Jan Jenisch, CEO: "The changes in Group Management are an important step in driving our Growth Strategy. I am proud of Sika's excellent Executive Team and look forward to working together with each member. I am convinced that with the new structure and our experienced management we will achieve our strategic targets 2020."

CONTACT

Dominik Slappnig

Corporate Communications & Investor Relations

+41 58 436 68 21

slappnig.dominik@ch.sika.com

SIKA CORPORATE PROFILE

Sika is a specialty chemicals company with a leading position in the development and production of systems and products for bonding, sealing, damping, reinforcing and protecting in the building sector and automotive industry. Sika has subsidiaries in 97 countries around the world and manufactures in over 190 factories. Its more than 17,000 employees generated annual sales of CHF 5.75 billion in 2016.

The media release can be downloaded from the following link:
The Nigerian Navy on Friday said it had discovered and destroyed an illegal refinery that contained 1.59 million litres of illegally refined diesel during a mop-up operation in Port Harcourt.

Speaking at the destruction exercise, Williams Kayoda, the Commander of Nigerian Navy Ship, NNS, Pathfinder, however, said no arrest was made during the raid.

Mr. Kayoda said the navy deployed troops to the site after it got intelligence report about the illegal refinery situated around Iwofe, Rumuolumeni area of Port Harcourt.

Troops arriving at the site discovered 24 metallic tanks with each containing 60,000 litres of petroleum product suspected to be illegally refined diesel.

Similarly, we discovered wooden boats with 150,000 litres of diesel believed to be stolen diesel.

The petroleum product was evacuated to a safe location before troops destroyed the illegal refinery using a Swamp Buggy machine which completely crushed the metallic tanks.

This new strategy is part of our efforts to end current air pollution in Port Harcourt while making it difficult for oil thieves to revive illegal refineries after it was destroyed, he said.

The commander said the use of Swamp Buggy was part of tactics which involved complete crushing of metal tanks rather than setting both storage tanks and petroleum products ablaze.

The News Agency of Nigeria reports that the new strategy was adopted following reports that burning of illegal refineries was partly responsible for current air pollution in Port Harcourt.

The Swamp Buggy strategy adopted by the navy replaces a former approach which involved setting ablaze illegal refineries and illegal bunker sites with its petroleum products.

Mr. Kayoda said the navy was committed to protecting the environment and health of residents and assured that it would carry out its mandate in line with standard practice.

The Nigerian Navy will sustain this strategy until we bring this menace to a stop because the economic prosperity of the nation cannot be compromised to criminal individuals and groups.

Operation Rivers Sweep which was concluded in February and being consolidated with ongoing Operation White Valentine are part of efforts to stop illegal bunkering and oil theft, he said.

Also speaking during destruction exercise, Roseline Konya, the Rivers Commissioner of Environment, said the Rivers Government had setup a task force which was mandated to discover and stop the source of the air pollution.

She said that Governor Nyesom Wike had given the task force a matching order to locate the source of the air pollution which causes lung infection and cancer.

We have seen that the military were in the past burning illegal refineries partly because they had no alternatives.

We are glad to witness that they no longer burn illegal refineries; but destroy the sites by removing illegally refined petroleum products before they crush storage tanks with Swap Buggy machines.

The Rivers government is pleading with individuals, organisations such as the Army and Navy to assist us locate and eradicate the source of the soot, she said.

Ms. Konya, a professor and chairperson of the task force, commended the navy on the new Swamp Buggy strategy.

(NAN)

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Danish English

March 31, 2017

NORDIC SHIPHOLDING A/S

Company Announcement: 01/2017



Published via NASDAQ OMX on March 31, 2017

Nordic Shipholding A/S  Annual Report 2016

Chairman Knud Pontoppidan comments:



Nordic Shipholdings 2016 performance was in line with the revised guidance disclosed in Q3 2016. Despite the weak freight market which stretched over mainly the last 3 quarters, the Group posted a modest profit of USD 0.3 million for 2016. However, a one-time recognition of an impairment of

USD 5.1 million  being part of the USD 5.8 million impairment reversed in 2015  led to a loss of

USD 4.8 million for the year.

Summary

Nordic Shipholding A/S incurred a net loss after tax of USD 4.8 million in 2016 due to a weakening in the market that started in Q2 2016 continued through the rest of the financial year and a one-off impairment of USD 5.1 million on the handysize vessels deployed in the various pools. The result was in line with the revised expectations as indicated in Q3 2016 Interim Report. Excluding this one-off impairment of USD 5.1 million (2015: reversal of impairment of USD 5.8 million), the Group generated a modest profit of USD 0.3 million for 2016 (2015: USD 7.8 million).

The Board of Directors of Nordic Shipholding A/S has approved the Annual Report for 2016 on

March 31, 2017.

2016 in brief:

The Group with its six vessels, continues to be a tonnage provider in the product tanker segment in 2016. The five handysize tankers were successfully and without any loss of time transferred to the UPT Handy Pool (Nordic Agnetha, Nordic Amy and Nordic Ruth) and Hafnia Handy Pool (Nordic Pia and Nordic Hanne). The 73,000 dwt LR1 Nordic Anne is fixed on a 3-year time-charter which will expire in November 2017.

Gross revenue earned by the 6 vessels reached USD 35.7 million, which resulted in a TCE revenue of USD 27.7 million and an EBITDA of USD 10.8 million. Equity totalled USD 39.4 million and equity ratio reached 32.7%.

The weaker performance as compared to FY2015 was primarily due to lower than forecasted daily TCE income from the vessels deployed in the various handysize pools. The TCE revenue from the 3-year time-charter locked in for Nordic Anne tracked the forecasted daily rate.





After accounting for depreciation and financial income and expenses, the Group generated a modest profit of USD 0.3 million. However, an impairment of USD 5.1 million recognised in Q3 2016 resulted in an after tax loss of USD 4.8 million for the full year.

In the first quarter of 2016, the cash sweep mechanism under the loan agreement was activated. Excess cash amounting to USD 2.7 million was used to pay down the loan in addition to the USD 5.0 million regular loan amortisation.

The actual financial performance for 2016 was in line with revised expectations of the Board, as indicated in Q3 2016 Interim Report.

Forecast for 2017:

Based on current estimates and barring unforeseen circumstances, the Group is forecasting to breakeven or to post a modest profit (not taking into account any reversal or write-down of impairment).

The 5 handysize vessels will remain commercially deployed in the UPT Handy Pool and Hafnia Handy Pool respectively. The current time charter for the LR1 vessel will expire in November 2017 (if the charterer does not exercise its one-year extension option). The current plan is to continue deploying the vessel in the time charter market. The projected TCE revenue from the 5 product tankers in the pools and the income from the LR1 vessel are expected to be in the region of USD 25.5  USD 28.5 million.

After accounting for operating expenditure budgeted by the respective technical managers, the Group expects EBITDA (earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation) to be in the range of USD 8.0  USD 11.0 million.

The result before tax is expected to be between USD -1.0  USD 1.0 million. This outlook for 2017 does not take into account any write-downs of vessels carrying values.

The Group is expected to meet the various covenants imposed under the loan agreement during this period.

The Board will look at growth and consolidation opportunities that are accretive to the Company. The Company believes that the experience and expertise of the Board, coupled with the financial strength of the majority shareholder will result in compelling opportunities.

For further information please contact:

Knud Pontoppidan, Chairman of the board, Nordic Shipholding A/S: +45 39 29 10 00
Editor's note: This article first appeared in August 2011.

The brass door in the foyer, its hinges offset a few inches from the jamb, is the first of many luxuries the builders of the Knife and Fork Inn afforded a century of customers.

Its unique design has allowed the likes of Bert Parks and Betty Grable, Duke Ellington and Bob Hope, better leverage against the ocean winds howling down Albany Avenue.

"Truth be told, it works better than the front doors we have now," said Frank Dougherty, the establishment's owner since 2005.

How do legendary South Jersey restaurants stay at the top for so many years? The restaurant biz is a tough game. Even if you make a great lasagna, it can be difficult to

Located at the Atlantic City end of U.S. Route 40, a highway that once stretched all the way to San Francisco, the Knife and Fork Inn is a cultural and architectural landmark, one of the few touchstones in a city that's always changing.

Originally conceived as a gentleman's club for the city's political elite, it was the pet project of William Riddle. The building was completed in 1912, the same year Riddle became the first mayor appointed under the commission system of government.

A prior Knife and Fork Inn appears on a 1908 tax map, according to historian Allen "Boo" Pergament, owned by the corporation of Riddle's mother, real estate mogul Mary Riddle.

Little is known about that previous incarnation, but it's clear Riddle spared no expense ensuring the comfort of the Knife and Fork Inn's powerful clientele. His influence has endured in everything from the brass door to the hardwood floors, imported from Belgium.

According to one oft-told tale, which appears in the 1978 oral history of former owner James Latz, Riddle insisted the builders use rust-proof copper nails, even in places where that level of detail would be hidden from diners.

"Somewhere in the middle of the building process, he was checking the work out and he saw this copper paint," said Latz, who died in 2009.

Latz said Riddle was furious to discover the workmen had been painting the end of their steel nails to cut corners.

"He had this whole section of the building torn down again and made sure that all the nails were copper," he said.

The building itself - with stucco walls, stepped gables and a terra cotta roof modeled after the Flemish architecture Riddle saw in Belgium and the Netherlands - has always been something of an anomaly in Atlantic City.

"You look at all the older buildings existing in the city and there isn't any style like that - and that's probably what they wanted," said Atlantic City-based architect Martin Blumberg.

At the time, Blumberg said the burgeoning resort town's architecture was dominated by Victorian beach homes and public buildings that harkened back to the columns and porticos of Greek and Roman architecture.

Janet W. Foster, associate director of urban planning and historical preservation at Columbia University, said the Knife and Fork Inn's old-fashioned "eclectic revival" style was a conscious reflection of the wealth of its builders.

One of the building's most striking features is its intricately detailed leaded windows and stained glass, she said.

"They took a lot of trouble to consciously recreate old technology in a brand new building," she said. "That level of detail speaks of a very nice budget."

But while the architecture recalls a simpler time prior to the mass industrialization of the late 19th century, Foster said the structure still features all the comforts of the modern age.

"Nobody wanted to turn back the hands of time to have a peat-fired fireplace or no sanitation," she said.

The placement of the building at what would become one of the busiest intersections in the city - which, in 1910, also featured trolley tracks - is similarly impressive.

"It's about asserting power and authority," Foster said. "They must be powerful people to pick up a prime commercial location, without giving it over to another commercial use, like a department store or a law office."

"They own the center of that town," she added.

Record of the club's operations during Riddle's time are sparse, but it continued to operate a bar even as Prohibition made the sale of alcohol illegal.

Dougherty said the club operated "in plain sight." When he renovated the building in 2005, he said construction crews never found any signs of the subterfuge often associated with speakeasies.

"The founding members were as tied-in and connected as anyone, so there were no trap doors or hidden bottles or anything like that," he said.

But according to Latz and newspaper reports from the time, the authorities stopped turning a blind eye to the club's free-flowing liquor sometime in the late 1920s.

"They were closed several times by the agents, so Mr. Riddle was looking around for some new operator when my father and mother came on the scene," Latz said in the oral history.

Milton and Evalyn Latz, who had previously operated the upscale Alamac Hotel on the Boardwalk, took over the lease in 1927, eliminated the bar and continued running the Knife and Fork Inn as a restaurant. According to a 1957 profile of the family business - which was passed down to James and his brother, Mack - the Latzes officially purchased the property in 1944.

During their seven decades running the Knife and Fork Inn, the Latz family added their own touches to the restaurant.

On the ground floor, they built an enclosed patio area in the 1960s that became the new meeting place for the city's elite and high-profile guests. A scene between Burt Lancaster and Susan Sarandon was shot there for the 1980 Louis Malle film, "Atlantic City."

The second floor was decorated with an Old English hunting motif and the private booths - serviced through a system of bells, which are now deactivated, but still in place - were replaced with tables.

The family converted the third and fourth floors, which had previously been rooms for private parties and storage, into an apartment where they lived for several decades.

As the seaside hotels and mansions were replaced by casinos and condominiums in the '70s and '80s, the Knife and Fork Inn remained as one of the last vestiges of Atlantic City's first boom years.

"It's a charming building, so maybe it's led a charmed life," Foster said of its longevity.

She said its whimsical architecture makes it easier to convince people that the Knife and Fork Inn is worthy of preservation.

"Every kid had a storybook with this in it, so it's not hard to convince a buyer or developer this is historic," she said.

But Blumberg, who eats at the restaurant once per year, said the reason for its survival is simple.

"I think it was just a successful business and that's why it survived," he said. "It always had a very excellent reputation."

Dougherty, who also owns the 1897-established Dock's Oyster House on Atlantic Avenue, became the caretaker for two of the city's oldest establishments when he purchased the Knife and Fork Inn from the Latz family in 2005.

Before reopening in July 2005, he undertook a five-month renovation to repair the building's aging systems and bring the establishment closer to the way it looked during the Prohibition era.

Lynn Gaffney, a Sharon, Conn.-based architect who worked on the renovation, said she used plans and photographs of similar period gentlemen's clubs to recreate the atmosphere at the Knife and Fork Inn.

Because of the age and exclusivity of the club, she said there was little documentation about how the inside looked in the 1920s.

"We tried to make it a very workable space for both the staff and the customers, while enhancing the lore and story of the original building," she said.

The fabrics, finishes and paints were all chosen with an eye toward what would have existed during that time, Gaffney said. At transition points, such as the main stairs, drapes were used to add a little "drama" to the visitor's entrance.

"That idea of drama is something we tried to bring back to the place," she said

One of Dougherty's favorite rooms is the "ladies' lounge" on the second floor, where women waited as the men drank or gambled in the main dining area. The room's broad stained-glass windows overlook the ocean.

Although the age of segregating men from their female companions is long over, Dougherty said it's an interesting piece of the establishment's history.

"There's a lot of history in the building, and a museum-type feel as well," he said. "People feel like they're stepping back in time to a different era."
ATLANTIC CITY  After almost 40 years, no one messes with Bessie Watson as the supervisor of the citys school crossing guards.

It comes with the job for a woman who has helped keep schoolchildren safe crossing the street for so long.

If you dont love kids and you dont want to see them be safe, you dont need this job. Thats the top priority, said Watson, 70, who spent 35 years as a crossing guard and the past five years as a crossing guard supervisor. I love the kids. Thats the bottom line.

She and the citys crossing guards were honored as one of the resorts Hometown Heroes at the end of February.

Watson said she regards the children as her babies, protecting them in a world of cars, buses and cyclists.

Watson is one of 5,800 crossing guards in New Jersey, which has the third most guards in the U.S., according the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Crossing guards do more than help children safely get to and from school. They can be role models for children, helping them understand traffic safety even at times when there are no guards, according to the National Center for Safe Routes to School.

An Atlantic City resident, Watson trained some other city guards on how to protect the children.

Watson started as a crossing guard in 1977, when the youngest of her three children was attending the Indiana Avenue School. She was one of the trainers of the new crossing guards from 1980 to 2012.

The first corner where Watson was stationed was at New Jersey and Mediterranean avenues at the now defunct New Jersey Avenue Elementary School, before moving over during the 1980s to Indiana and Baltic avenues.

During the 1990s, Watson was at the corner of Indiana and Ohio avenues. She finished her stint as a crossing guard at the intersection of Ohio and Marmora avenues.

Crossing guards have to be stationed at their post from 7:30 a.m. to 8:45 a.m. and again from 2:30 p.m. to 3:15 p.m.

When Watson first started as a crossing guard, she would take her children with her.

They would take a cab from her post to the Indiana Avenue School and vice versa during the afternoon, so she could be where she was needed at the right time.

She still recognizes faces of schoolchildren, even now when they are adults.

Ill tell them, Your faces still look the same. You just got taller than me because Im the shortest one now, Watson said.

Judy Tracy, a city crossing guard, said her fellow crossing guards respect Watson. Crossing guards are the eyes and ears of whats going on in the city, she said.

She used to get us together at her house for a barbecue before she was a supervisor, Tracy said. Bessie is a good supervisor and a fair person.

There are times when a car will keep moving around a stopped bus, but Watson tells the crossing guards to avoid confrontations with drivers.

Some crossing guards have had to jump out of the way (of cars), Watson said. Most of the drivers are pretty good.

Most crossing guards put in 30 years of service and keep serving long after their own children have finished with the city public schools, Watson said.

But the job is more than just a job.

We button their coats, Watson said.

We are family.
LINWOOD  Its no joke. Helen Turner, of Linwood, is turning 110 on April 1.

You never think about having any fun after you get to be 100, here I have fun every day, Turner said at Brandywine Living at Brandall Estates. Its just a wonderful place to be, and of course, Im the oldest, so they make so much fuss over me.

At 110, the retired schoolteacher keeps busy. She plays bingo and is a prolific knitter, making more than 140 scarves for staff and friends.

On Fridays, she has a glass of white zinfandel to get her feet tapping during happy hour.

With the help of staff, Turner is active on social media now, too. Her Facebook page is Helen Graham Turner 109 and Counting. She spreads her slogan, Have you hugged anybody today? in video updates.

The page that chronicles her day-to-day life has photos of her birthday splurges, including her ride Wednesday in a 1919 Model T Ford provided by Claytons Self Storage.

Turner gets a lot of birthday swag.

Hersheys Chocolate, which created the Hershey Kiss the year she was born, sends her gifts.

Other years, she received gifts from Disney, a plaque from The Plaza Hotel in New York City, where she always wanted to dance, and letters from admirers across the country.

For her 109th birthday, Neiman Marcus sent her 109 wrapped chocolate-chip cookies after Kelly Oliver, concierge at Brandywine, looked up all the significant events of 1907 and reached out to the Dallas luxury store founded that year.

For the past five years, Turner said, staff has helped throw her a party. This year, her family, including her grandchildren and great-grandchildren, will be in town to celebrate.

Shes inspirational. Shes everything I want to be when I get older, said Amber Mansfield, escapades producer at Brandywine, who helps Turner with her social media and reads Turner the greetings on Facebook. Her birthday gets bigger and bigger every year. Thats why we made her a Facebook.

With more than 1,200 likes, Mansfield said followers from all over, including former students, comment.

She made an impact on people. Thats the whole point in life  to leave an impact on peoples lives  and she really has, she said.

Born when Theodore Roosevelt was president, Turner rode a horse and buggy to school as a girl and remembers lived through the Great Depression and both world wars.

Raised on a farm in Maryland, Turner yearned to travel, but her father was serious about her earning an education and thought traveling was a waste of money. To satisfy them both, she began hopping to different universities across the country.

The first summer, I didnt do anything. I went back to the farm, and I was bored to tears, Turner said.

After that, said Turners daughter, 71-year-old Nancy Mellon, of Florida, Turner went to summer school at different universities across the country. Eventually, Turner graduated from Columbia University in New York City.

Maybe you want to do one thing, and fate pushes you one way and you do another thing, but in the end, it turns out to be the best thing, Turner said. I couldnt have done anything better than get a teaching degree, teach and come up here. Everything I did seemed to be the right thing to do. I really have had a very, very wonderful life.

In 1928, she moved to South Jersey and taught first-graders in Margate for 37 years. Turner married her husband, Arthur, in 1938. Her children were born during World War II.

Weve always had very, very special relationship, Mellon said of Turner. She was never a mother that was critical.

Turner lived alone for 30 years after her husband died in 1986. But her good outlook on life, something she attributes to her mother, led Turner to make a new life for herself traveling around the world.

I really had two lives. I had my other life and marriage, and now Ive had my life after he died, she said. But I couldnt see just sitting around and moaning, because you know when he died I thought my life was over. Then all of a sudden, I realized that my life was what I made it, and if I wanted a life, I had to make it.

Her biggest piece of advice she shares with friends:

Work through things, she said. Dont let them bother you.
MIDDLE TOWNSHIP  Adults and children went to Ronnie P. Erricsons home in Cape May Court House thinking they were seeing a licensed psychologist.

They were not, according to the Cape May County Prosecutors Office.

Erricson, 49, was arrested and charged Thursday with practicing psychology without proper licenses or certifications, endangering the welfare of a child and falsification of record. He was released pending a court date.

The Prosecutors Office said Erricson saw patients out of his Fairway Drive home and claimed to have a doctorate degree in psychology and a license to practice in New Jersey. Authorities said he does not hold either title.

An investigation began after the Prosecutors Offices Economic Crime Unit was contacted by someone who believed Erricson was not licensed.

According to the Division of Consumer Affairs license verification system, Erricson held a practical nurse license, which expired in 2004.

Erricson could not be reached Thursday.

Cape May County Prosecutor Robert Taylor said Erricson could face as many as 11 years in state prison if convicted on all the charges.

The state Board of Psychological Examiners licenses and regulates psychologists in New Jersey.

The board, which is a part of the Division of Consumer Affairs, ensures licensed psychologists meet state requirements and can investigate those who may have violated regulations practicing psychology, according to its website.

Anyone with further information is asked to contact Cape May County Crime Stoppers at 609-465-2800 or the county sheriffs tip line at cmcsheriff.net
Cape May County sheriff candidate Richard Harron, a former warden at the correctional center, is running as a Democrat after failing to capture the Republican nomination.

Undersheriff Rob Nolan won the nod 121 to 44 at the county GOPs annual convention March 13.

The Democratic Party reached out to Harron a few days later and asked him to run, he said.

Harron said he accepted because he believes Sheriffs Office responsibilities are outside typical political lines.

Our sheriff must be someone who believes in the oath of office they take to support and defend the constitution of this state and of the United States as well as perform the duties of sheriff faithfully, impartially and justly to the best of their ability, Harron wrote in a statement.

Sheriff Gary Schaffer announced in December he will not seek re-election.

The department was recently sued by a former employee alleging nepotism and negligence and has come under fire for its interest in entering a controversial agreement with federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

 Steve Hughes
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The Annual General Meeting of Aker ASA will be held on Friday 21 April 2017 at 09:00 CET, at Oksenyveien 10, Building B, Grand Hall, 1366 Lysaker, Norway.Please find attached the following documents:* The annual general meeting notice* The notice of attendance/proxy form* The board of directors' proposed resolutions* Guidelines for remuneration of senior executives of the company* Proposal from the nomination committeeAll the documents to be processed at the general meeting, including an updated corporate governance report, are available on the company's website www.akerasa.com
Two men were sentenced to state prison Friday for their roles in a 2014 armed robbery at Caesars Casino.

Aaron Evans, 26, of Atlantic City, was sentenced to eight years in state prison. He pleaded guilty Dec. 12, 2016, to second-degree theft. Nathaniel Greenlee, 23, of Bear, Delaware, was sentenced to seven years in prison. He pleaded guilty to second-degree theft June 13, 2016.

Early on July 21, 2014, former Caesars security guard Izyiah Plummer, 22, of Atlantic City, and Evans went to the casino in a car driven by Greenlee, with Donavon Jackson, 23, of Delaware, in the passenger seat.

Plummer and Evans entered the casino wearing masks and gloves and approached a security guard and another casino employee who were loading full cash boxes onto a trolley, according to a State Police investigation.

Plummer pointed a handgun at the two employees while Evans removed three cash boxes from the trolley. As the two fled, they dropped one box and left it behind. The two escaped with cash boxes containing about $181,200. Greenlee drove to Plummers apartment in the Venice Park where they divided up the cash.

A State Police investigation led to search warrants for several homes. In Plummers apartment, police found a black ski mask, bullets for a .38 special handgun and $43,900 in cash. At Evans home, police found $4,300 in cash. Detectives found a handle from one of the cash boxes in the street in front of Evans home.

On Jan. 6, 2017, Plummer was sentenced to 11 years in prison with more than nine years of parole ineligibility for his leading role in the armed robbery. He pleaded guilty to all of the charges against him in an Aug. 20, 2015, indictment, including first-degree armed robbery, conspiracy, aggravated assault and weapons offenses. Jackson was sentenced March 17, 2017, to seven years in state prison. He pleaded guilty June 17, 2016, to second-degree theft.
For several years, many New Jersey families have been able to choose schools for their children other than the ones determined by their residential locations. Choice schools sometimes offer programs not available elsewhere or what parents consider a better overall education.

School choice was very popular, so much so that the states dubious formula for funding both the chosen district and the one left behind became too costly. Rather than rationalize the formula so state aid remained about the same for what is an unchanged number of students, state officials limited how many choice students schools could accept.

Some families, unable to secure one of the limited enrollment slots, would like to fund their childrens education at choice schools themselves by paying tuition. No, says the state, not only are choice schools not allowed to accept as many students as they and families want, but families arent allowed to pay for their childrens enrollment either.

Thats not fair.

To begin with, plenty of other public schools accept students from outside their districts on a tuition basis. In this region, for example, Northfield, Avalon and Stone Harbor schools do so. Their schools have room for the additional students, and the tuition helps support their academic programs overall.

Existing law allowed tuition students to be grandfathered in as choice students the first year the program expanded, but then prohibited choice districts from accepting new tuition students so they would not have an admissions advantage the next year. That was fine as long as choice districts were allowed to accept more choice students. But with the program frozen, the rules should change.

When there arent enough choice openings to accommodate all of the families who want to use the program, choice schools are required to hold a lottery to award the openings. Simply changing the law so that existing tuition students would have to win the school choice lottery just like any other applicants would solve that issue.

If state officials want to continue preventing too many families from helping their children get what they consider to be a better education, a compromise is available. They could limit tuition placements at choice schools to the number of choice openings originally authorized, before the state reduced the program in 2013.

But why wouldnt the state want to encourage New Jersey families to seek better schools and, in doing so, help public education improve overall? We hope state Sen. Jeff Van Drew, who is pursuing a legislative solution, proposes allowing choice schools the same ability to accept tuition students as nonchoice districts.

And as weve said before, the state should be working toward fixing its choice funding formula and giving families the liberty to try for better educational outcomes for their children.
Treat addicts in hospitals

Fifty years ago, young blacks were dying from overdoses in the Atlantic City area. Few people, including in city hall, the police and medical profession, gave it much care or concern.

Heroin addiction and its use then were considered to be criminal behavior, and since it was being indulged primarily by the black population and whatever they did really did not matter, it stood unaddressed. These days, heroin addiction is a cheaper alternative to the more expensive oxycontin and is considered to be a disease. In the old days, John Brooks and the late Dr. Charles Wilson, among others, struggled with little help to bring a modicum of hope to those caught up in the maelstrom of addiction. The disease now is in suburbia, as seen in local obituaries.

This is Americas home-brewed epidemic. If it is a disease, then treat it as such where diseases are taken seriously, namely hospitals  in the open, not in some back alley far from the general population.

Treatment does not come cheap. It takes time and therapy but also there needs to be in place a support system. Solutions will come when the community gets involved and the fallacies of the uninformed are exposed to the light of day.

Donal J. Sheahan

Egg Harbor Township

Backs Guardian, allies

Im glad to see that Mayor Don Guardian is campaigning for re-election and that he is in support of individuals who will bring more diversity to City Council and the type of vision Atlantic City needs in order for the city to move forward.

Residents need people who can find a way to reduce the property taxes for those who have been forced to pay the brunt of such high property taxes since some members of City Council put themselves, their friends and family members first along with at least one former mayor. They need a City Council that invites entertainers and musicians from all backgrounds, not insult entertainers and drive them away.

City residents need to come together and look out for their neighbors and this will lead to a safer community for all.

David Barsky

Atlantic City

LoBiondo hasnt delivered

Rep. Frank LoBiondo, not President Donald Trump, is why we still have Obamacare. For the past six years, LoBiondo and the Republican congressional leaders that he supported voted for some 60 bills to repeal Obamacare. They did this knowing that Democratic President Barack Obama would veto them.

LoBiondo and Republican leaders can introduce any of those same bills right now, but they refuse. They know Republican President Trump would sign them into law. What hypocrisy!

LoBiondo promised term limits and balanced budgets to get elected. He has been in office 22 years. LoBiondo had Republican control of the House for 18 of those years, and the House, Senate and White House for six. The U.S. Constitution gives the House of Representatives control of taxes, borrowing and spending. Yet U.S. government debt increased from $4.6 trillion in 1994 to $20 trillion today.

Before LoBiondo went to Congress, he worked his familys small business near Vineland. He is paid $174,000 per year, plus a generous Membership Representational Allowance to fund his congressional office.

When he leaves office, he will get 80 percent of his highest salary, yearly cost-of-living increases and VIP health care for life.

Voting career congressmen like LoBiondo out of office is not enough. People must also strip them of the pensions and benefits they gave themselves, while they gave unsustainable debt and taxes to everyone else  and their grandchildren. Trump cant drain that swamp. Only the people can.

Seth Grossman

Somers Point

LoBiondo good protector of 2nd District, its people

Critics and detractors of Rep. Frank LoBiondo typically are people who have no clue about him, his district or his loyal supporters.

From his first term in Congress in the mid-1990s until today, LoBiondo has been a fierce defender and protector of South Jersey and the state  on the environment, beach replenishment, the FAA Tech Center and the Coast Guard base. Remember how he helped clear the path for disaster relief after Hurricane Sandy?

LoBiondo has fought to protect district interests without looking for credit. A humble man. Go to a function at a VFW, American Legion, fire hall, a parade and LoBiondo is there. And not just during election time like many politicians.

I dont always agree with his votes. But I certainly agree with his fierce loyalty to the people of his district, his constant battle to make sure South Jersey is not forgotten.

Those who want to criticize LoBiondo should do so on facts, not innuendo. They should spend some time with the people of the 2nd District and truly find out about loyalty, passion and hard work. It will point to LoBiondo.

Alfredo D. Terpolilli

Hammonton
EGG HARBOR TOWNSHIP  Organizers and racers at the BMX track couldnt have asked for a better day to kick off their 2017 season.

The course at Veterans Park hosted the 23rd annual Jack Frost Classic on Saturday. Despite the winter theme in the name, this years event featured sunny, clear skies and temperatures in the 80s that drew record turnouts.

The bright sun beat down on a track that underwent major renovations and upgrades during the offseason. The asphalt curves were replaced. Bumps and hills were made steeper, and an extra turn was added, extending the track by about 100 feet.

This is the best weather weve had for this event, track operator Dave Dorofee said. Were showing off our new track, and this is a record turnout for us. We have 599 racers from age 2 to 55. We couldnt ask for a better way to start off the year.

The track is one of just three in the state and the only one in southern New Jersey. The others are located in Howell and Hunterdon County.

When Dorofee wanted to improve the course, he turned to Elite Trax, the company that designed the courses for the Olympic Games in Beijing in 2008 and in Rio de Janiero in 2016, to bring EHTs track up to speed with others around the world.

Racers in EHT are divided into groups by age, gender and skill level. Each group has preliminary heats, eliminating the slower racers before the final. The biker who navigates the track the fastest in the final is the winner for the category.

Dorofee, a 39-year old EHT resident, raced when he was a kid and knew he had to get back into the scene when he had kids of his own. His children competed among the hundreds of racers last weekend.

The sport is growing little by little in South Jersey, and we expect to see that continue with more people getting involved every race, Dorofee said.

In EHT, BMX racing relies on volunteers to help coordinate races and events throughout the year. Dorofee says that business model has built a family.

We have great people that come out to help us, Dorofee said. We see each other at different events, and everyone is always willing to help one another. Thats what makes this all possible.

And it continues for much of the year, the last race scheduled for Dec. 2. Races are held Saturdays. When schools are out, the track runs twice a week, adding Thursday races.

The EHT BMX scene consists of families like the Vosses. P

atrick Voss, a 39-year-old husband and father of two has decades-long roots in the sport and introduced the sport to his family.

Patrick started in BMX when he was a teenager. He introduced our son, Patrick Jr., into racing when he was 4 years old, said Danielle, Patricks wife. He grew up on the track, and once our daughter Lilly was old enough, she started on the track, too.

Patrick Jr., 8, and Lilly, 5, now race alongside their father up and down the East Coast.

It was always my dream to get the kids into BMX, Patrick Voss said. Ive been biking for so long, so to be able to bring my kids and my wife into it and make it our family event is amazing.

That family component is what keeps the wheels of BMX turning here.

Its the most family-oriented sport I can think of, Danielle Voss said. If anyone is looking for something that their small children, father, teenager or mother can do, this is it. Anyone can do this. You dont need to be able to do a back flip or need to have a special bike. My daughter started on her Dora the Explorer bike. You just need to want to come out and ride.

Danielle, 40, hopes more exposure will help the BMX sport and family grow in her home state.

Once people know about this sport, they fall in love with it, she said. We want new people to come out and see what this is about, and we are all here to help one another. We will lend anyone whatever they need if they just show up with the desire to try. Thats what makes it such a great family sport.
English Swedish Finnish

Fiskars Corporation

Stock Exchange Release

March 31, 2017 at 12:00 a.m. EET

Fiskars appoints Paul Tonnesen as President, SBU Functional and member of the Executive Leadership Team

Fiskars has today appointed Paul Tonnesen, MBA, B.Sc. (Marketing) as President, SBU Functional and a member of the Executive Leadership Team. Paul Tonnesen will report to Fiskars Interim President and CEO Teemu Kangas-Karki. Paul Tonnesen has been with Fiskars since 2007, and in addition to his new role, he also continues as President, Functional Americas.

Fiskars has two Strategic Business Units - Living and Functional - that operate globally. Paul brings to the position years of knowledge of the North American market, a strong customer focus and passion for Fiskars to succeed. He has a proven track record in driving the business in the North American market and is well positioned to lead the SBU Functional and accelerate our global growth, said Teemu Kangas-Karki, Interim President and CEO of Fiskars Corporation.

Fiskars has established an SBU-led organizational structure and a global supply chain with the aim to leverage the full potential of its strong brands, build company-wide capabilities and increase speed and alignment. From January 2017 onwards, SBU Functional is comprised of the Fiskars, Gerber and Gilmour brands. Teemu Kangas-Karki previously held the position of President, SBU Functional in addition to his role as the President and CEO as well as Chief Operating Officer.

Our brands are present in peoples everyday lives, helping in tasks in and around the home. Im honoured to start leading SBU Functional, and continue to build our strong brands, said Paul Tonnesen. We have a great opportunity to expand our market share, increase competitiveness and work together across regions to make the everyday extraordinary, continued Paul Tonnesen.

A CV and a photo of Paul Tonnesen is available at:

https://www.fiskarsgroup.com/investors/corporate-governance/management/executive-leadership-team and https://www.fiskarsgroup.com/media/image-bank



FISKARS CORPORATION



Teemu Kangas-Karki

Interim President and CEO



Media and investor contacts:

VP, Corporate Communications and Sustainability Maija Taimi, tel. +358 204 39 5031, communications@fiskars.com





Fiskars  Making the everyday extraordinary

Fiskars serves consumers and customers around the world with globally recognized brands including Fiskars, Gerber, Iittala, Royal Copenhagen, Waterford, and Wedgwood. Building on our mission to create a family of iconic lifestyle brands, Fiskars vision is to create a positive, lasting impact on our quality of life. Please visit www.fiskarsgroup.com for more information.
DUBLIN, Mar 31, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --

Research and Markets has announced the addition of the "Global Optical Coherence Tomography Market 2017-2021" report to their offering.

The global OCT market to grow at a CAGR of 8.16% during the period 2017-2021.

The report, Global OCT 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.



According to the report, the growing acquisition of small hospitals has helped increase wound care, which has indirectly impacted the growth of the peripheral vascular diagnostic market positively. Tier-1 hospitals acquire small specialized hospitals, which helps to train the healthcare staffs, including the physicians and nurses. As small hospitals get acquired by larger ones, it helps meet patient needs by providing a range of patient monitoring equipment. Owing to the brand name of large hospitals, many people opt to receive healthcare services from them, which increases the need of patient monitoring equipment. Hence, to provide better care at lesser time, these hospitals purchase more equipment in bulk.

Further, the report states that optical imaging systems are low-cost instruments, but the investment involved in laboratories setup and additional renovation cost of medical facilities acts as a constraint for market growth. Countries such as Mexico and South Africa where hospital infrastructure is in the developmental stage require huge investment to setup imaging modalities. The healthcare sector is now focusing on integrated operating rooms, which also referred as hybrid operating rooms, for efficient diagnosis process. The average cost of setting up hybrid operating rooms with optical imaging and other medical imaging systems is about $3-5 million. The setting up of optical imaging systems is not enough for medical facilities as the healthcare sector is undergoing a transition. These optical imaging systems find huge application in the cancer screening process. Investments in cancer hospitals and screening centers are higher owing to the sensitivity of the procedure and the installation cost of medical imaging.



Key vendors



Carl Zeiss

Heidelberg Engineering

Leica Microsystems

Topcon



Other prominent vendors



Agfa HealthCare

Agiltron

DermaLumics

Insight

Michelson Diagnostics

Moptim

NinePoint Medical

Others



Key Topics Covered:

PART 01: Executive summary



PART 02: Scope of the report



PART 03: Market research methodology



PART 04: Introduction



PART 05: Market landscape



PART 06: Market segmentation by product



PART 07: Market segmentation by application



PART 08: Market segmentation by end-users



PART 09: Geographical segmentation



PART 10: Market drivers



PART 11: Impact of drivers



PART 12: Market challenges



PART 13: Impact of drivers and challenges



PART 14: Market trends



PART 15: Vendor landscape



PART 16: Key vendor analysis



PART 17: Appendix

For more information about this report visit http://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/95d2f8/global_optical

Media Contact:

Laura Wood, Senior Manager

press@researchandmarkets.com



For E.S.T Office Hours Call 1-917-300-0470

For U.S./CAN Toll Free Call 1-800-526-8630

For GMT Office Hours Call +353-1-416-8900



U.S. Fax: 646-607-1907

Fax (outside U.S.): +353-1-481-1716

Related Links

http://www.researchandmarkets.com



SOURCE Research and Markets
MONTREAL, March 31, 2017 /PRNewswire/ - Tangerine Software Inc., a Business Intelligence (BI) software developer and ERP provider, proudly celebrates 25 years of successful business innovation, thanks to its dedicated employees, customers and business partners. What began as a small ERP consulting firm has grown into a world-class enterprise serving over 1,000 customers with Infor System21, Sage X3 and their proprietary BI solution, Nectari, also distributed globally by Sage  the market and technology leader for integrated accounting, payroll and payment systems  as Sage Enterprise Intelligence (SEI).

Tangerine has sold and implemented ERP solutions to over 300 customers and won many top performance awards. They are most proud, however, of their company's reputation for excellence. From their first big ERP deal in 1992, Tangerine has always been 100% committed to every project, from the initial sales cycle to well beyond implementation. "We take our customer's needs and wants very seriously, and focus on whatever is necessary to make sure they get every possible business advantage from their enterprise software," says co-founder & President Greg Brown. "Our company philosophy has been facilitated by the fact that we've always been very fortunate to have highly skilled and dedicated consultants who truly care about their work and the outcome."

From that spirit, Nectari was born. In 2001, based on a wealth of ERP and BI experience, Tangerine Software decided to develop its own Business Intelligence software solution and launched the first version of Nectari within two years. "This was a great moment in our company's history," says Benoit Trottier, co-founder and VP of Operations. "We became owners of something we knew would be very special, and we were right."

Nectari features state of the art data analysis and reporting capabilities and is an all-in-one BI offering that is easy to use for everyone. "Our R & D team are constantly developing innovative ways to advance the product in order to meet the needs of our clients and bring Nectari to the highest possible level. We are always looking for that next WOW factor," enthuses Guy Girouard, Director of Product Development.

In 2013, the company signed an OEM agreement with Sage for the global distribution of Nectari/SEI by Sage and its business partners. Since then, Sage Enterprise Intelligence integrates naturally with Sage X3  Sage's newest Cloud business management solution for the enterprise  and a number of other Sage solutions, to provide Sage customers with deep insight into their data across finance and operations, in real-time. To date, there are over 800 customers benefiting from Nectari and SEI in over 20 countries.

Looking to the future, Tangerine will continue to expand and build their already very successful ERP practice while gaining exponential market share with Nectari. "Over 25 years, we have had many highs as well as character building lows," states Greg. "But at this point, Benoit and I are very excited about the future. It's going to be a fun ride for many years to come."

About Tangerine Software

Tangerine Software is a leading provider of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software solutions, including Infor System21 and Sage X3, and is the author of Nectari, a world-class Business Intelligence product. Located in St. Laurent Quebec, Canada, Tangerine currently has more than 70 employees and services and supports over 1,000 customers. For additional information on the company, its products and services, visit www.tangerinesoftware.com.

SOURCE Tangerine Software
PHILADELPHIA, March 30, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Aberdeen Australia Equity Fund, Inc. (the "Fund") (NYSE: IAF) held its Annual Meeting of Shareholders (the "Meeting") on March 30, 2017. At the Meeting, shareholders of the Fund voted to re-elect three Class II Directors to the Board of Directors.

As of the record date, February 6, 2017, the Fund had outstanding 22,742,326 shares of common stock. 80.3% of outstanding common stock were voted representing a quorum.

The description of the proposal and number of shares voted at the Meeting are as follows:

To elect three Class II Directors to the Board of Directors:



Votes For Votes Against Votes Withheld P. Gerald Malone 17,372,937 564,500 331,988 Peter D. Sacks 17,352,160 575,886 341,379 Hugh Young 17,381,612 544,808 343,005

Directors whose term of office continued beyond the Meeting are as follows: Neville J. Miles, Moritz Sell, William J. Potter and John T. Sheehy.

Closed-end funds are traded on the secondary market through one of the stock exchanges. The Fund's investment return and principal value will fluctuate so that an investor's shares may be worth more or less than the original cost. Shares of closed-end funds may trade above (a premium) or below (a discount) the net asset value (NAV) of the fund's portfolio. There is no assurance that the Fund will achieve its investment objective.

If you wish to receive this information electronically, please contact [email protected]

aberdeeniaf.com

SOURCE Aberdeen Australia Equity Fund, Inc.
PHILADELPHIA, March 30, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Aberdeen Emerging Markets Smaller Company Opportunities Fund, Inc. (the "Fund") (NYSE MKT: ABE) held its Annual Meeting of Shareholders (the "Meeting") on March 30, 2017. At the Meeting, shareholders of the Fund voted to re-elect one Class I Director to the Board of Directors.

As of the record date, February 6, 2017, there were 9,559,274 outstanding shares of the Fund. 89.83% of the outstanding shares were voted at the Meeting representing a quorum.

The description of the proposal and number of shares voted at the Meeting are as follows:

To elect one Class I Director to the Board of Directors:



Votes For Votes Against Abstain James J. Cattano 4,377,578 4,099,697 109,996

Directors whose term of office continued beyond the Meeting are as follows: Enrique R. Arzac, Steven N. Rappaport and Alexander Zagoreos.

Closed-end funds are traded on the secondary market through one of the stock exchanges. The Fund's investment return and principal value will fluctuate so that an investor's shares may be worth more or less than the original cost. Shares of closed-end funds may trade above (a premium) or below (a discount) the net asset value (NAV) of the fund's portfolio. There is no assurance that the Fund will achieve its investment objective.

If you wish to receive this information electronically, please contact [email protected]

aberdeenabe.com

SOURCE Aberdeen Emerging Markets Smaller Company Opportunities Fund, Inc.

Related Links

http://www.aberdeen-asset.com


OneSavings Bank plc

(the Company)

NOTICE OF ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING

The following regulated information, disseminated pursuant to DTR6.3.5, comprises the Notice of Annual General Meeting for 2017 which was sent to shareholders of OneSavings Bank plc on 31 March 2017. A copy of the Notice of Annual General Meeting is available at www.osb.co.uk.

Enquiries:

OneSavings Bank plc

Nickesha Graham-Burrell

Deputy Company Secretary

t: 01634 835 796

Brunswick

t: 020 7404 5959

Robin Wrench / Simone Selzer

Notes to Editors

About OneSavings Bank plc

OneSavings Bank plc ('OSB') began trading as a bank on 1 February 2011 when the trade and assets of Kent Reliance Building Society were transferred into the business. OSB is a specialist lending and retail savings group authorised by the Prudential Regulation Authority, part of the Bank of England, and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority and Prudential Regulation Authority.

OSB focuses on selected sub-sectors of the lending market in which it has established expertise, platforms and capabilities, and where opportunities have been identified for both high returns on a risk-adjusted basis and strong growth. These include Buy-to-Let/SME (comprising Buy-to-Let, Commercial, Residential development and Funding lines), Residential Mortgages (comprising First charge, Second charge and Funding lines), and Personal Loans. OSB originates organically through specialist brokers and independent financial advisors.

OSB is predominantly funded by retail savings originated through the established Kent Reliance franchise, which includes a network of branches in the South East of England, as well as online and postal channels. Diversification of funding is currently provided by securitisation and OSB joined the Funding for Lending Scheme in early 2014 and the Term Funding Scheme in November 2016.

THIS DOCUMENT IS IMPORTANT AND REQUIRES YOUR IMMEDIATE ATTENTION. If you are in any doubt as to what action you should take, you are recommended to seek your own personal financial advice immediately from your stockbroker, bank manager, solicitor, accountant or other independent financial adviser who, if you are taking advice in the United Kingdom, is duly authorised under the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000, or an appropriately authorised independent financial adviser if you are in a territory outside the United Kingdom.

If you have sold or transferred all of your ordinary shares in OneSavings Bank plc, please send this document and any other documents that accompany it as soon as possible to the purchaser or transferee or to the stockbroker, bank or other agent through whom the sale or transfer was effected for transmission to the purchaser or transferee. If you have sold or otherwise transferred only part of your holding, you should retain this document and its enclosures.

Notice of Annual General Meeting

OneSavings Bank

(incorporated and registered in England and Wales under number 7312896. Registered office: Reliance House, Sun Pier, Chatham, Kent, ME4 4ET)

Notice of Annual General Meeting

on Wednesday, 10 May 2017 at 11 am

at the offices of Addleshaw Goddard LLP, Milton Gate,

60 Chiswell Street, London EC1Y 4AG

LETTER FROM THE CHAIRMAN

31 March 2017

Dear Shareholder

2016 ANNUAL REPORT AND ACCOUNTS AND 2017 ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING

I am pleased to inform you that the 2016 annual report and accounts and the notice of the 2017 annual general meeting of OneSavings Bank plc (the 'Company') have now been published. A copy of the 2016 Annual Report and Accounts for the year ended 31 December 2016 is enclosed with this document, together with a proxy form to enable you to exercise your voting rights.

This year's annual general meeting ('AGM') will be held at the offices of Addleshaw Goddard LLP, Milton Gate, 60 Chiswell Street, London EC1Y 4AG on Wednesday, 10 May 2017 at 11 am. Information on how to get to Addleshaw Goddard is included on the attendance card attached to the proxy form.

The formal notice of AGM is set out on pages 2 to 5 of this document and contains the proposed Resolutions. Explanatory notes to the business to be considered are set out from page 6 of this document.

VOTING AT THE AGM

This year I will once again be inviting you to vote on all Resolutions at the AGM by way of a poll rather than on a show of hands. Poll voting is in line with practice increasingly adopted by UK public companies and provides a more transparent method of voting. It will result in a more accurate reflection of the views of shareholders by ensuring that every vote is recognised, including the votes of those shareholders who are unable to attend but who have appointed a proxy for the meeting. On a poll each shareholder has one vote for every share held. I would encourage shareholders to exercise their right to vote.

ACTION TO BE TAKEN

If you would like to vote on the Resolutions to be proposed at the AGM but you are unable to attend in person, you can appoint another person as your proxy to exercise all or any of your rights to attend, vote and speak at the AGM by using one of the methods set out in the Notes section on page 10.

Whether or not you propose to attend the AGM, please complete and return the enclosed proxy form so that it is received by the Company's Registrar, Equiniti, by no later than 11 am on Monday, 8 May 2017. If you are a member of CREST, you may submit a proxy appointment electronically through the CREST voting service. Further details are set out in the Notes section on page 10. The appointment of a proxy will not stop you from attending the AGM and voting in person should you so wish.

The results of voting on the Resolutions will be posted on the Company's website following the conclusion of the meeting.

RECOMMENDATION

The Directors recommend shareholders to vote in favour of each of the Resolutions at the AGM. The Board considers that the Resolutions are in the best interests of the Company's shareholders as a whole and will promote the success of the Company for their benefit. The Directors intend to vote in favour of the Resolutions in respect of their own beneficial shareholdings in the Company (save in respect of those Resolutions in which they are interested).

Finally, as I will be stepping down at the conclusion of the AGM, I would like to thank you for your support over the years.

I look forward to seeing you at the AGM.

Yours faithfully

Mike Fairey

Chairman

NOTICE OF ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING

Notice is hereby given that the Annual General Meeting of OneSavings Bank plc (the 'Company') will be held at the offices of Addleshaw Goddard LLP, Milton Gate, 60 Chiswell Street, London EC1Y 4AG on Wednesday, 10 May 2017 at 11 am to consider and, if thought fit, pass the following Resolutions.

All Resolutions will be proposed as ordinary resolutions, save for Resolutions 10 to 14 inclusive which will be proposed as special resolutions.

1. To receive the audited financial statements and the Auditor's and Directors' reports for the year ended 31 December 2016.

2. To receive and approve the Annual Statement by the Chairman of the Remuneration Committee and the Annual Report on Directors' Remuneration for the financial year ended 31 December 2016.

3. To declare a final dividend of 7.6 pence per ordinary share in respect of the year ended 31 December 2016.

4. Election and re-election of Directors

To elect by separate resolutions each of the following as an independent non-executive Director of the Company:

(a) Andrew Doman

(b) Margaret Hassall

To re-elect by separate resolutions each of the following as a Director of the Company:

Independent non-executive Directors

(c) John Graham Allatt

(d) Eric Anstee

(e) Rodney Duke

(f) Mary McNamara

(g) Nathan Moss

Non-executive Director

(h) Timothy Hanford

Executive Directors

(i) Andrew Golding

(j) April Talintyre

5. To re-appoint KPMG LLP as the Auditor of the Company.

6. To authorise the Audit Committee to agree the remuneration of the Auditor.

7. That the Directors are generally and unconditionally authorised pursuant to and in accordance with section 551 of the Companies Act 2006 (the 'Act') to exercise all the powers of the Company to allot shares in the Company and to grant rights to subscribe for, or to convert any security into, shares in the Company ('Rights'):

a. up to a maximum aggregate nominal amount of 810,274; and

b. comprising equity securities (within the meaning of section 560 of the Act) up to a further maximum aggregate nominal amount of 810,274 in connection with an offer by way of a rights issue:

(i) to ordinary shareholders in proportion (as nearly as may be practicable) to their existing holdings; and

(ii) to the holders of other equity securities, as required by the rights of those securities or as the Directors otherwise consider necessary,

and subject to such exclusions or other arrangements as the Directors may deem necessary or expedient to deal with treasury shares, fractional entitlements, record dates or legal, regulatory or practical problems arising under the laws or the requirements of any regulatory body or stock exchange in any territory or by virtue of shares being represented by depositary receipts or any other matter.

This authority shall expire at the conclusion of the next annual general meeting of the Company, or, if earlier, at the close of business on 30 June 2018, save that the Company shall be entitled to make offers or agreements before the expiry of such authority which would or might require shares to be allotted or Rights to be granted after such expiry and the Directors shall be entitled to allot shares and grant Rights pursuant to any such offer or agreement as if this authority had not expired; and all authorities vested in the Directors on the date of the notice of this meeting to allot shares and grant Rights that remain unexercised at the commencement of this meeting are hereby revoked.

8. That, in addition to the authority contained in Resolution 7 in the notice of this meeting, the Directors are generally and unconditionally authorised pursuant to and in accordance with section 551 of the Companies Act 2006 (the 'Act') to exercise all the powers of the Company to allot shares in the Company and to grant rights to subscribe for, or to convert any security into, shares in the Company:

a. up to a maximum aggregate nominal amount of 291,698 in relation to the issue of Regulatory Capital Convertible Instruments; and

b. subject to applicable law and regulation, at such conversion prices (or such maximum or minimum conversion prices or conversion price methodologies) as may be determined by the Directors of the Company from time to time.

This authority shall expire at the conclusion of the next annual general meeting of the Company or, if earlier, at the close of business on 30 June 2018), save that the Company shall be entitled to make offers or agreements before the expiry of such authority which would or might require shares to be allotted or rights to be granted after such expiry and the Directors may allot shares and grant rights to subscribe for or to convert any security into shares, in pursuance of any such offer or agreement as if the authority had not expired.

9. That, in accordance with sections 366 and 367 of the Companies Act 2006 (the 'Act'), the Company and all companies that are its subsidiaries, at any time up to the conclusion of the next annual general meeting or, if earlier, up to the close of business on 30 June 2018, are authorised to:

a. make political donations to political parties and/or independent election candidates;

b. make political donations to political organisations other than political parties; and

c. incur political expenditure;

up to an aggregate total amount of 50,000, with the amount authorised for each of heads (a) to (c) above being limited to the same total.

For the purposes of this authority the terms 'political donation', 'political parties', 'independent election candidates', 'political organisation' and 'political expenditure' have the meanings given by sections 363 to 365 of the Act.

10. That, subject to the passing of Resolution 7 in the notice of this meeting, the Directors are empowered pursuant to sections 570 and 573 of the Companies Act 2006 (the 'Act') to allot equity securities (within the meaning of section 560 of the Act) for cash either pursuant to the authority conferred by Resolution 7 in the notice of this meeting or by way of a sale of treasury shares as if section 561(1) of the Act did not apply to any such allotment or sale provided that this power shall be limited to:

a. the allotment of equity securities and the sale of treasury shares in connection with an offer of or invitation to acquire equity securities (but in the case of the authority granted under sub-paragraph (b) of Resolution 7 in the notice of this meeting by way of a rights issue only):

(i) to the holders of ordinary shares in proportion (as nearly as may be practicable) to their existing holdings; and

(ii) to the holders of other equity securities, as required by the rights of those securities or as the Directors otherwise consider necessary,

and subject to such exclusions or other arrangements as the Directors may deem necessary or expedient to deal with treasury shares, fractional entitlements, record dates or legal, regulatory or practical problems arising under the laws of or the requirements of any regulatory body or stock exchange in any territory or by virtue of shares being represented by depositary receipts or any other matter; and

b. the allotment (otherwise than pursuant to sub-paragraph (a) of this Resolution 10) to any person or persons of equity securities or sale of treasury shares up to a maximum aggregate nominal amount of 121,541.

Such power shall expire on the revocation or expiry (unless renewed) of the general authority conferred on the Directors by Resolution 7 in the notice of this meeting, save that the Company shall be entitled to make offers or agreements before the expiry of such power which would or might require equity securities to be allotted after such expiry and the Directors shall be entitled to allot equity securities pursuant to any such offer or agreement as if the power conferred hereby had not expired.

11. That, subject to the passing of Resolution 7 in the notice of this meeting and in addition to the power contained in Resolution 10 in the notice of this meeting, the Directors are empowered pursuant to sections 570 and 573 of the Companies Act 2006 (the 'Act') to allot equity securities (within the meaning of section 560 of the Act) for cash pursuant to the authority conferred by Resolution 7 in the notice of this meeting or by way of a sale of treasury shares as if section 561(1) of the Act did not apply, provided that this power is:

a. limited to the allotment of equity securities or sale of treasury shares up to an aggregate nominal value of 121,541; and

b. used only for the purposes of financing (or refinancing, if the power is to be exercised within six months after the date of the original transaction) a transaction which the Directors determine to be an acquisition or other capital investment of a kind contemplated by the Statement of Principles on Disapplying Pre-Emption Rights most recently published by the Pre-Emption Group prior to the date of the notice of this meeting.

Such power shall expire on the revocation or expiry (unless renewed) of the authority conferred on the Directors by Resolution 7 in the notice of this meeting, save that the Company shall be entitled to make offers or agreements before the expiry of such power which would or might require equity securities to be allotted after such expiry and the Directors shall be entitled to allot equity securities pursuant to any such offer or agreement as if the power conferred hereby had not expired.

12. That, subject to the passing of Resolution 8 in the notice of this meeting and in addition to the powers contained in Resolutions 10 and 11 in the notice of this meeting, the Directors are empowered pursuant to sections 570 and 573 of the Companies Act 2006 (the 'Act') to allot equity securities (within the meaning of section 560 of the Act) for cash either pursuant to the authority conferred by Resolution 8 in the notice of this meeting or by way of a sale of treasury shares as if section 561 of the Act did not apply to any such allotment or sale.

Such power shall expire on the revocation or expiry (unless renewed) of the authority conferred on the Directors by Resolution 8 in the notice of this meeting, save that the Company shall be entitled to make offers or agreements before the expiry of such power which would or might require equity securities to be allotted after such expiry and the Directors shall be entitled to allot equity securities pursuant to any such offer or agreement as if the power conferred hereby had not expired.

13. That the Company is generally and unconditionally authorised for the purpose of section 701 of the Companies Act 2006 (the 'Act') to make market purchases (within the meaning of section 693(4) of the Act) of ordinary shares of 0.01 each in the capital of the Company on such terms and in such manner as the Directors may from time to time determine, provided that:

a. the maximum aggregate number of ordinary shares hereby authorised to be acquired is 24,308,209;

b. the minimum price (excluding expenses) which may be paid for any such share is 0.01;

c. the maximum price (excluding expenses) which may be paid for any such share is the higher of (i) an amount equal to 5% above the average of the middle market quotations for an ordinary share in the Company as derived from The London Stock Exchange Daily Official List for the five business days immediately preceding the day on which such share is contracted to be purchased; and (ii) the higher of the price of the last independent trade of an ordinary share and the highest current independent bid for an ordinary share in the Company on the trading venues where the market purchases by the Company is carried out);

d. the authority hereby conferred shall expire at the conclusion of the next annual general meeting or, if earlier, at the close of business on 30 June 2018 unless previously renewed, varied or revoked by the Company in general meeting; and

e. the Company may, before this authority expires, make a contract to purchase its ordinary shares which would or might be executed wholly or partly after the expiry of this authority, and may purchase its ordinary shares pursuant to it as if this authority had not expired.

14. That a general meeting of the Company, other than an annual general meeting, may be called on not less than 14 clear days' notice.

By Order of the Board

Jason Elphick

Group General Counsel and Company Secretary

31 March 2017

Registered Office:

Reliance House

Sun Pier

Chatham

Kent ME4 4ET

EXPLANATORY NOTES

Information about the business to be considered at the AGM is set out below.

These explanatory notes should be read in conjunction with the 2016 Annual Report and Accounts. This Notice of AGM and the Annual Report and Accounts are available at www.osb.co.uk. For the purpose of this Notice, the issued share capital of the Company with voting rights on 24 March 2017, being the latest practicable date prior to the printing of this document, was 243,082,091 ordinary shares of 0.01 each.

RESOLUTION 1: 2016 Annual Report and Accounts (ordinary resolution)

The Directors of the Company present the Directors' reports, the Auditor's report and the audited financial statements of the Company for the financial year ended 31 December 2016 (the '2016 Annual Report and Accounts') to the AGM as required by the Companies Act 2006. In accordance with the UK Corporate Governance Code, the Company proposes, as an ordinary resolution, a resolution on the 2016 Annual Report and Accounts and shareholders may raise any questions on the 2016 Annual Report and Accounts under this Resolution.

RESOLUTION 2: Annual Statement by the Chair of the Remuneration Committee and the Annual Report on Directors' Remuneration for the period ended 31 December 2016 (ordinary resolution)

In accordance with the Companies Act 2006, shareholders are invited to approve the Annual Statement by the Chair of the Remuneration Committee and the Annual Report on Directors' Remuneration for the financial year ended 31 December 2016. The Annual Statement and to Report, which may be found on pages 77 to 84 of the 2016 Annual Report and Accounts, give details of your Directors' remuneration for the year ended 31 December 2016 and set out the way in which the Company implemented its policy on Directors' remuneration. The Auditor has audited those parts of the Annual Report on Directors' Remuneration capable of being audited and its report can be found on pages 94 to 98 of the 2016 Annual Report and Accounts, which can be accessed on the Company's website at www.osb.co.uk. The vote on Resolution 2 is advisory only and the Directors' entitlement to remuneration is not conditional on it being passed.

The Companies Act 2006 requires the Directors' Remuneration Policy to be put to shareholders for approval annually unless the approved policy remains unchanged, in which case it need only be put to shareholders for approval at least every three years. The Company is not proposing any changes to the Directors' Remuneration Policy approved at the annual general meeting in 2015.

RESOLUTION 3: Final dividend (ordinary resolution)

A final dividend of 7.6 pence per ordinary share has been recommended by the Board for the year ended 31 December 2016 and, if approved by shareholders, will be paid on 17 May 2017 to all shareholders on the register at the close of business on 31 March 2017.

RESOLUTIONS 4 (a) to (j) Election and Re-election of Directors (ordinary resolutions)

Resolutions 4 (a) to (j) relate to the retirement and election or re-election of the Company's Directors. The Company's articles of association require a Director who has been appointed by the Board during the year to retire at the annual general meeting next following his or her appointment. Both Andrew Doman and Margaret Hassall have been appointed since the last annual general meeting. Consequently, both will retire from office at the AGM and are seeking election as independent non-executive Directors.

The Company's articles of association also require any Director who has not been elected or re-elected by the Company's shareholders at either of the two preceding annual general meetings to retire at the next annual general meeting. Notwithstanding the provisions of the Company's articles of association, the Board has determined that, in line with best practice recommendations of the UK Corporate Governance Code for FTSE 350 companies, each of the remaining Directors shall retire from office at the AGM and each shall stand for re-election by the shareholders, with the exception of Mike Fairey who shall step down from the Board at the conclusion of the AGM.

The Board has confirmed, following a performance review, that each of the Directors standing for election or re-election continues to be an effective member of the Board, to make a positive contribution and to demonstrate commitment to his or her role. The Board believes that the considerable and wide-ranging experience of the Directors will continue to be invaluable to the Company. The biographies of Directors can be found in the Appendix to this document and also on the Company's website www.osb.co.uk.

Resolutions 4 (a) to (g) (inclusive) relate specifically to the election and re-election of those Directors that the Board has determined are independent for the purposes of the UK Corporate Governance Code (the 'Independent Non-Executive Directors'). Under the Financial Conduct Authority's Listing Rules, a company that has a controlling shareholder (being any person who exercises or controls, on their own or together with any person with whom they are acting in concert, 30% or more of the votes able to be cast on all or substantially all matters at general meetings of the Company) must, for the purposes of the election or re-election of an independent non-executive director, pass both an ordinary resolution of all shareholders and a separate ordinary resolution of all shareholders other than the controlling shareholders.

As at 24 March 2017, OSB Holdco Limited held 53.78% of the Company's issued share capital and is therefore considered to be a controlling shareholder of the Company. As such, this year the election and re-election of the Company's seven Independent Non-Executive Directors must be approved in each case by a majority vote of both: (a) the Company's shareholders as a whole; and (b) the Company's shareholders entitled to vote on the election and re-election of Directors other than OSB Holdco Limited or any of OSB Holdco Limited's associates (the 'Independent Shareholders'). Resolutions 4 (a) to (g) (inclusive), are therefore being proposed as ordinary resolutions on which all shareholders may vote. When they have done so, the separate Independent Shareholder vote will be obtained by excluding from the result of the vote on each resolution, the votes of the controlling shareholder of the Company. The Company will, on announcing the result of the AGM, announce the result of both the vote of all the Company's shareholders and the vote of the Independent Shareholders. If the ordinary resolution to approve the election or re-election of an independent non-executive director is passed, but the separate approval by the independent shareholders is not given, a further ordinary resolution may be put forward to be approved by the shareholders as a whole at a general meeting which must be held more than 90 days after the date of the first vote but within 120 days of that first vote. Accordingly, if any of Resolutions 4 (a) to (g) (inclusive), is not approved by a majority vote of the Independent Shareholders at the AGM, the relevant Independent Non-Executive Director will be treated as having been re-elected only for the period from the date of the AGM until the earlier of (i) the close of any general meeting of the Company, convened for a date more than 90 days after the AGM but within 120 days of the AGM, to propose a further ordinary resolution to re-elect him or her; (ii) the date which is 120 days after the AGM; and (iii) the date of any announcement by the Board that it does not intend to hold a second vote. In the event that the Independent Non-Executive Director's re-election is approved by majority vote of all shareholders at a second meeting, the Independent Non-Executive Director in question will be re-elected until the Company's next annual general meeting.

As required by the Listing Rules, the Company confirms the following:

1. Andrew Doman holds office as Chairman of Castle Trust Capital plc (Castle Trust), a company controlled by J.C. Flowers & Co which is a significant shareholder in the Company. Tim Hanford, a non-executive Director of the Company nominated by J.C. Flowers & Co, is also a director of Castle Trust. Tim Hanford is not considered by the Board to be independent and is not subject to the separate approval of the Independent Shareholders. Otherwise, there are no existing relationships, transactions or arrangements between any of the Independent Non-Executive Directors and the Company, any of the Company's Directors, OSB Holdco Limited or any of OSB Holdco Limited's associates.

2. There are no previous relationships, transactions or arrangements between the Independent Non-Executive Directors and the Company, any of the Company's Directors, OSB Holdco Limited or any of OSB Holdco Limited's associates.

3. The effectiveness of all the Company's Directors is assessed as part of the Board performance evaluation process. Each of the Independent Non-Executive Directors possesses a wide range of skills and expertise (as noted in the Appendix to this document) that is highly valued by the Board. The Independent Non-Executive Directors continue to contribute effectively to the operation of the Board and to demonstrate commitment to their roles.

4. The Company assesses the independence of its Non-Executive Directors in accordance with the recommendations of the UK Corporate Governance Code. The Company determined that the Independent Non-Executives Directors were independent on their appointment to the Board and ensures that they remain independent by periodically reviewing their character, judgment and the various relationships referred to above. In particular, at the time of Andrew Doman's appointment to the board of Castle Trust, the Board assessed the relationships between the Company and Castle Trust, between Andrew Doman and Tim Hanford and between Andrew Dorman and J.C. Flowers & Co and determined (and remains satisfied) that Andrew Doman is able to apply objective, unfettered and independent judgment and to act in the best interests of the Company.

5. The Nomination and Governance Committee of the Company's Board is responsible for keeping the size, structure and composition of the Board under review. By reference to the Company's requirements, the Nomination and Governance Committee is responsible for identifying, evaluating and recommending candidates for appointment to the Board. The selection process involves establishing the criteria for any new Director appointment, the briefing of an independent recruitment consultancy that is engaged to provide a shortlist of suitable candidates, the consideration by the Nomination and Governance Committee of potential candidates, followed by interviews with Non-Executive Directors and senior management. The Nomination and Governance Committee will then make any appointment recommendations to the Board. This procedure was followed in the recruitment of both Andrew Doman and Margaret Hassall during the year.

RESOLUTIONS 5 AND 6: Appointment and remuneration of the Auditor (ordinary resolutions)

The Company is required to appoint the Auditor at each general meeting at which accounts are laid before the Company, to hold office until the conclusion of the next such meeting. Resolution 5 proposes the re-appointment of KPMG LLP as the Auditor of the Company and Resolution 6 authorises the Audit Committee to agree the remuneration of the Auditor.

RESOLUTION 7: Directors' authority to allot shares (ordinary resolution)

The Directors currently have a general authority to allot new ordinary shares in the capital of the Company and to grant rights to subscribe for, or convert any securities into, shares. This authority is, however, due to expire at the AGM and the Board would like to renew it to provide the Directors with flexibility to allot new shares and grant rights up until the Company's next annual general meeting within the limits prescribed by The Investment Association.

The Investment Association's guidelines on Directors' authority to allot shares state that the Association's members will regard as routine any proposal at a general meeting to seek a general authority to allot an amount up to two-thirds of the existing share capital, provided that any amount in excess of one-third of the existing share capital is applied to fully pre-emptive rights issues only. Accordingly, if passed, this resolution will authorise the Directors to allot (or grant rights over) new shares in the Company: (i) under an open offer or in other situations (including a rights issue) up to an aggregate nominal amount of 810,274 (representing approximately 33 per cent. of the Company's issued ordinary share capital); and (ii) under a rights issue only, up to a further aggregate nominal amount of 810,274 (representing approximately 33 per cent. of the Company's issued ordinary share capital. In each case, the reference to the Company's issued ordinary share capital is to the issued ordinary share capital as at 24 March 2017 (being the latest practicable date prior to publication of this document).

If passed, this authority will expire at the conclusion of the annual general meeting in 2018 or, if earlier, at the close of business on 30 June 2018. The Directors have no present intention of exercising this authority, however the Board considers it prudent to maintain the flexibility that it provides to enable the Directors to respond to any appropriate opportunities that may arise. The Company did not hold any shares in treasury as at 24 March 2017.

RESOLUTION 8: Directors' authority to allot shares in relation to the issue of Regulatory Capital Convertible Instruments (ordinary resolution)

This Resolution renews the Directors' authority to allot shares or grant rights to subscribe for or convert any security into ordinary shares up to an aggregate nominal amount of 291,698 in connection with the issue of 'Regulatory Capital Convertible Instruments'. Regulatory Capital Convertible Instruments are any securities to be issued by the Company or any member of the Group, or by a Company outside of the Group with the consent of the Company or a member of the Group and which are intended on issue to form all or part of a type or class of securities the terms of which are eligible to meet any Regulatory Capital Requirements and which are:

a) convertible into or exchangeable for ordinary shares of the Company; or

b) issued together with share warrants relating to ordinary shares of the Company,

and in each case, which grant to, or require, the holder of such security and/or its nominee a right or obligation (as applicable) to subscribe for such ordinary shares following a specified event relating to an actual or prospective adverse change in the capital position or viability of the Company, any member of the Group or the Group as a whole or any other event specified in the Regulatory Capital Requirements and otherwise on such terms as may be determined by the Directors of the Company or a committee thereof upon issue.

The Board believes it is in the best interests of the Company to have the flexibility to issue Regulatory Capital Convertible Instruments at any time and from time to time. The authority sought in this Resolution will be used as considered desirable to comply with or maintain compliance with such Regulatory Capital Requirements or targets applicable to the Company. Regulatory Capital Requirements are specified by the Prudential Regulation Authority or other such authority having primary supervisory authority with respect to the Company from time to time in relation to the margin of solvency, capital resources, capital, contingent capital or buffer capital of the Company, a member of the Group or the Group taken as a whole.

The Company intends to seek to renew authority for the issuance of such Regulatory Capital Convertible Instruments on an annual basis.

The amount of this authority is, in aggregate, equivalent to approximately 12% of the issued ordinary share capital of the Company as at 24 March 2017 (being the latest practicable date before the publication of this document). No ordinary shares were held in treasury as at that date.

Resolutions 8 and 12 are intended to provide the Directors with the flexibility to authorise the issue of Regulatory Capital Convertible Instruments which contain contractual debt to equity conversion features. The Resolutions are not intended to provide authority for any future UK statutory conversion requirements as may become part of UK national law in the future, for which such authority would not be required.

This is separate and distinct from the authority sought in Resolution 7 which is the usual authority sought on an annual basis in line with guidance issued by the Investment Association.

Conditional upon the passing of Resolutions 8 and 12, the Directors would not expect to make use of Resolutions 7 and 10 to issue Regulatory Capital Convertible Instruments, although these Resolutions may be used for other purposes and, if so used, would have the effect of diluting the interests of ordinary shareholders.

RESOLUTION 9: Authority to make political donations (ordinary resolution)

Neither the Company nor any of its subsidiaries made any political donations during 2016. It is not proposed or intended to alter the Company's policy of not making political donations, within the normal meaning of that expression. However, some of the Company's activities may potentially fall within the wide definition of a political donation in the Companies Act 2006 and, without the necessary statutory authorisation, the Company's ability to communicate its views effectively to political audiences and to relevant interest groups could be inhibited. Such activities may include briefings at receptions or conferences - when the Company seeks to communicate its views on issues vital to its business interests - including, for example, conferences of a party political nature or of special interest groups in specific areas.

Accordingly, the Company believes that the authority contained in this Resolution is necessary to allow it and its subsidiaries to fund activities which it is in the interests of shareholders that the Company should support. Such authority will enable the Company and its subsidiaries to be sure that they do not, because of any uncertainty as to the bodies or the activities covered by the Companies Act 2006, unintentionally commit a technical breach of the statutes. Any expenditure which may be incurred under authority of this Resolution will be disclosed in next year's annual report and accounts.

RESOLUTIONS 10 and 11: Disapplication of statutory pre-emption rights (special resolutions)

Resolutions 10 and 11 are special resolutions which, if passed by shareholders, will enable the Directors to allot ordinary shares in the Company, or to sell any shares out of treasury, for cash, without first offering those shares to existing shareholders in proportion to their existing holdings.

In March 2015, the Pre-Emption Group published a revision of its Statement of Principles. In addition to restating the customary five per cent. limit on the issuance of shares for cash on a non pre-emptive basis, the 2015 Statement of Principles introduced greater flexibility for companies to undertake non pre-emptive issues for cash in connection with acquisitions and specified capital investments. This relaxation allows companies the opportunity to finance expansion opportunities as and when they arise.

The 2015 Statement of Principles provides that a company may now seek power to issue on a non pre-emptive basis for cash shares representing:

(i) no more than five per cent of the company's issued ordinary share capital in any one year; and

(ii) no more than an additional five per cent. of the company's issued ordinary share capital provided that such additional power is only used in connection with an acquisition or specified capital investment.

The 2015 Statement of Principles defines a "specified capital investment" as "one or more specific capital investment related uses for the proceeds of an issuance of equity securities, in respect of which sufficient information regarding the effect of the transaction on the listed company, the assets the subject of the transaction and (where appropriate) the profits attributable to them is made available to shareholders to enable them to reach an assessment of the potential return." Items that are regarded as operating expenditure rather than capital expenditure will not typically be regarded as falling within the term "specified capital investment".

At the annual general meeting in 2016, the Company sought, through a single special resolution, power to disapply pre-emption rights in accordance with the flexibility permitted by the 2015 Statement of Principles. The Company intends to seek such power again at the AGM. This year, in line with best practice, the Company intends to structure its pre-emption disapplication request as two separate resolutions.Resolution 10 is proposed as a special resolution. If this resolution is passed by shareholders, it will permit the Directors to allot ordinary shares on a non pre-emptive basis and for cash (otherwise than in connection with a rights issue or similar pre-emptive issue) up to a maximum nominal amount of 121,541. This amount represents approximately five per cent of the Company's issued ordinary share capital as at 24 March 2017 (being the latest practicable date prior to publication of this document). This resolution will permit the Directors to allot any such shares for cash in any circumstances (whether or not in connection with an acquisition or specified capital investment).

Resolution 11 is also proposed as a separate special resolution. If this resolution is passed by shareholders, it will afford the Directors an additional power to allot ordinary shares on a non pre-emptive basis and for cash up to a further maximum nominal amount of 121,541. This amount also represents approximately five per cent of the Company's issued ordinary share capital as at 24 March 2017. The Directors shall use any power conferred by Resolution 11 only in connection with an acquisition or a specified capital investment which is announced contemporaneously with the issue, or which has taken place in the preceding six month period and is disclosed in the announcement of the issue.

The Directors confirm their intention to follow the provisions of the 2015 Statement of Principles regarding cumulative usage of authorities within a rolling three year period. Those Principles provide that a company should not issue shares for cash representing more than 7.5% of the company's issued share capital in any rolling three year period, other than to existing shareholders, without prior consultation with shareholders. This limit excludes any ordinary shares issued pursuant to a general disapplication of pre-emption rights in connection with an acquisition or specified capital investment.

RESOLUTION 12: Disapplication of statutory pre-emption rights in relation to the issue of Regulatory Capital Convertible Instruments (special resolution)

Resolution 8 renews the Directors' authority to allot shares or grant rights to subscribe for or convert any security into ordinary shares up to an aggregate nominal amount of 291,698 specifically in connection with the issue of Regulatory Capital Convertible Instruments. Resolution 12 proposes that the Directors be empowered to allot equity securities pursuant to that authority for cash, without first offering those equity securities to existing shareholders in proportion to their existing holdings. 291,698 is equivalent to approximately 12% of the issued ordinary share capital of the Company as at 24 March 2017 (being the latest practicable date before the publication of this document).

Renewing this Resolution will permit the Company the flexibility necessary to allot equity securities pursuant to any proposal to issue Regulatory Capital Convertible Instruments and, by virtue of such disapplication, without the need to comply with the pre-emption requirements of the UK statutory regime.

RESOLUTION 13: Authority to purchase own shares (special resolution)

Resolution 13 gives the Company authority to buy back its own ordinary shares in the market as permitted by the Companies Act 2006.

The authority limits the maximum number of shares that could be purchased to 24,308,209 (representing approximately 10% of the Company's issued ordinary share capital as at 24 March 2017) and sets minimum and maximum prices at which shares may be purchased.

This authority will expire at the conclusion of the annual general meeting of the Company in 2018 or, if earlier, at the close of business on 30 June 2018. A listed company purchasing its own shares may hold those shares in treasury and make them available for re-sale as an alternative to cancelling them. Accordingly, if this Resolution is passed, the Company will have the option of holding, as treasury shares, any of its own shares that it purchases pursuant to the authority conferred. This would give the Company the ability to sell treasury shares quickly and cost-effectively and provide the Company with additional flexibility in the management of its capital base. No dividends are paid and no voting rights are attached to shares held in treasury. The Company did not hold any shares in treasury as at 24 March 2017 (being the latest practicable date before the publication of this document). As at 24 March 2017, there were 1,468,338 options to subscribe for ordinary shares in the capital of the Company, representing 0.60% of the Company's issued ordinary share capital. If the full authority conferred by this Resolution were to be exercised in full, these options would represent 0.67% of the issued ordinary share capital of the Company. The Directors have no present intention of exercising the authority to purchase the Company's ordinary shares for cancellation, but may purchase shares to be held in treasury.

The Directors have no present intention of exercising this authority, but wish to have the flexibility to do so in the future. Shares would only be purchased if the Directors believed that to do so would result in an improvement in earnings per share and would be in the interests of shareholders generally. Any purchases of ordinary shares would be by means of market purchases on a recognised investment exchange.

RESOLUTION 14: Notice of general meetings (special resolution)

Changes made to the Companies Act 2006 by the Shareholders' Rights Regulations increase the notice period required for general meetings of the Company to at least 21 clear days unless shareholders approve a shorter notice period, which cannot however be less than 14 clear days (annual general meetings will continue to be held on at least 21 clear days' notice). At last year's annual general meeting, shareholders passed a resolution enabling the Company to call general meetings, other than an annual general meeting, on at least 14 clear days' notice. This approval must be renewed at each annual general meeting, so, in order to preserve this ability, Resolution 14 seeks such approval. It is intended that the shorter notice period would not be used as a matter of routine for such meetings but only where the flexibility is merited by the business of the meeting and is thought to be in the interests of shareholders as a whole. If given, the approval will be effective until the Company's next annual general meeting, when it is intended that a similar resolution will be proposed.

NOTES

1. Only persons entered on the register of shareholders of the Company at 6.30 pm on Monday, 8 May 2017 (or, if the AGM is adjourned, at 6.30 pm on the date which is two business days prior to the adjourned meeting) shall be entitled to attend and vote at the AGM or adjourned meeting. Changes to entries on the register after this time shall be disregarded in determining the rights of persons to attend or vote (and the number of votes they may cast) at the AGM or adjourned meeting. Shareholders who are deemed to be controlling shareholders (as defined in LR 6.1.2AR of the Financial Conduct Authority's Listing Rules) as at 6.30 pm on Monday, 8 May 2017 shall not be entitled to vote in respect of the separate approval of Resolutions 4 (a) to (g) (inclusive) by shareholders who are not controlling shareholders in accordance with LR 9.2.2ER (2) of the Listing Rules.

2. A shareholder entitled to attend and vote at the AGM may appoint another person as her/his proxy to exercise all or any of her/his rights to attend, speak and vote at the AGM. A shareholder can appoint more than one proxy in relation to the AGM, provided that each proxy is appointed to exercise the rights attached to a different share or shares held by that shareholder.

3. A proxy does not need to be a shareholder of the Company but must attend the AGM to represent you. Your proxy could be the Chairman or another person who has agreed to attend to represent you. If you wish for a proxy to make any comments on your behalf at the AGM, you will need to appoint someone other than the Chairman of the meeting and give them the relevant instructions directly. The valid appointment of a proxy does not prevent you from attending the AGM and voting in person.

4. A shareholder who wishes to appoint a proxy should complete the Form of Proxy which accompanies this notice and includes full details of how to appoint a proxy. If you do not have a Form of Proxy and believe that you should have one, or if you require additional Forms of Proxy, please contact Equiniti's helpline on 0371 384 2701 (+44 121 415 7047 if calling from overseas) (Lines are open between 8.30 am and 5.30 pm Monday to Friday). Shareholders who hold their shares in uncertificated form may use "the CREST voting service" to appoint a proxy electronically, as explained below.

5. In order to be valid, a proxy appointment must be returned (together with any power of attorney or other authority under which it is executed or a copy of the authority certified in ink by a bank, a stockbroker or a solicitor) by one of the following methods:

 in hard copy form by post, by courier or by hand to the Company's registrar at the address shown on the Form of Proxy; or

 in the case of CREST members, by utilising the CREST electronic proxy appointment service in accordance with the procedures set out in note 8 below.

The appointment of a proxy in each case must formally be received by the Company's registrar no later than 11 am on Monday, 8 May 2017.

6. To change your proxy instructions you may return a new proxy appointment using the methods set out above. Where you have appointed a proxy using the hard copy Form of Proxy and would like to change the instructions using another hard copy Form of Proxy, please contact Equiniti at Aspect House, Spencer Road, Lancing, West Sussex BN99 6DA. The deadline for receipt of proxy appointments (see above) also applies in relation to amended instructions. Any attempt to terminate or amend a proxy appointment received after the relevant deadline will be disregarded. Where two or more valid separate appointments of proxy are received in respect of the same share in respect of the same meeting, the one which is last sent shall be treated as replacing and revoking the other or others. If the Company is unable to determine which is last sent, the one which is last received shall be so treated. If the Company is unable to determine either which is last sent or which is last received, none of them shall be treated as valid in respect of the relevant share(s).

7. A copy of this notice has been sent for information only to Nominated Persons (that is, a person who has been nominated by a shareholder to enjoy information rights under section 146 of the Companies Act 2006). The rights to appoint a proxy cannot be exercised by a Nominated Person; they can only be exercised by a shareholder. However, a Nominated Person may have a right under an agreement with the shareholder by whom s/he was nominated to be appointed as a proxy for the AGM or to have someone else so appointed. If a Nominated Person does not have such a right or does not wish to exercise it, s/he may have a right under such an agreement to give instructions to the shareholder as to the exercise of voting rights.

8. CREST members who wish to appoint a proxy or proxies by utilising the CREST electronic proxy appointment service may do so by utilising the procedures described in the CREST Manual, which can be viewed at www.euroclear.com. CREST personal members or other CREST sponsored members, and those CREST members who have appointed a voting service provider(s), should refer to their CREST sponsor or voting service provider(s), who will be able to take the appropriate action on their behalf. In order for a proxy appointment made by means of CREST to be valid, the appropriate CREST message (a 'CREST Proxy Instruction') must be properly authenticated in accordance with Euroclear's specifications and must contain the information required for such instructions, as described in the CREST Manual. The message regardless of whether it constitutes the appointment of a proxy or an amendment to the instruction given to a previously appointed proxy must, in order to be valid, be transmitted so as to be received by the issuer's agent (ID number RA19) by 11 am on Monday, 8 May 2017 (the latest time(s) for receipt of proxy appointments specified in this notice). For this purpose, the time of receipt will be taken to be the time (as determined by the timestamp applied to the message by the CREST Applications Host) from which the issuer's agent is able to retrieve the message by enquiry to CREST in the manner prescribed by CREST. The Company may treat as invalid a CREST Proxy Instruction in the circumstances set out in regulation 35(5)(a) of the CREST Regulations.

9. CREST members and, where applicable, their CREST sponsors or voting service providers should note that Euroclear does not make available special procedures in CREST for any particular messages. Normal system timings and limitations will therefore apply in relation to the input of CREST Proxy Instructions. It is the responsibility of the CREST member concerned to take (or, if the CREST member is a CREST personal member or sponsored member or has appointed a voting service provider(s), to procure that his CREST sponsor or voting service provider(s) take(s)) such action as shall be necessary to ensure that a message is transmitted by means of the CREST system by any particular time. In this connection, CREST members and, where applicable, their CREST sponsors or voting service providers are referred, in particular, to those sections of the CREST Manual concerning practical limitations of the CREST system and timings.

10. Voting on all Resolutions will be conducted by way of a poll rather than a show of hands. This is a more transparent method of voting as shareholders' votes are to be counted according to the number of shares held. As soon as practicable following the AGM, the results of the voting will be announced via a Regulatory Information Service and also placed on the Company's website: www.osb.co.uk on the 'Shareholder Information' page.

11. Please note that the Company takes all reasonable precautions to ensure no viruses are present in any electronic communication it sends out but the Company cannot accept responsibility for loss or damage arising from the opening or use of any email or attachments from the Company and recommends that the shareholders subject all messages to virus checking procedures prior to use. Any electronic communication received by the Company, including the lodgement of an electronic proxy form, that is found to contain any virus will not be accepted.

12. A shareholder of the Company, which is a corporation, may authorise a person or persons to act as its representative(s) at the AGM. In accordance with the provisions of the Companies Act 2006, each such representative may exercise (on behalf of the corporation) the same powers as the corporation could exercise if it were an individual shareholder of the Company, provided that they do not do so in relation to the same shares.

13. Shareholders satisfying the thresholds in section 527 of the Companies Act 2006 can require the Company to publish a statement on its website setting out any matter relating to the audit of the Company's accounts (including the auditor's report and the conduct of the audit) that are to be laid before the AGM that the shareholders propose to raise at the AGM. The Company may not require the shareholders requesting the publication to pay its expenses. Any statement placed on the website must also be sent to the Company's auditor no later than the time it makes its statement available on the website. The business which may be dealt with at the AGM includes any statement that the Company has been required to publish on its website.

14. Under section 319A of the Companies Act 2006, the Company must, subject to limited exceptions, answer any question relating to the business being dealt with at the AGM which is put by a shareholder attending the AGM. Information relating to the AGM which the Company is required by the Companies Act 2006 to publish on a website in advance of the meeting may be viewed at www.osb.co.uk on the 'Shareholder Information' page. You may not use any electronic address provided in this notice to communicate with the Company for any purposes other than those expressly stated.

15. As at 24 March 2017 (being the latest practicable date before the publication of this document), the Company's issued share capital consisted of 243,082,091 ordinary shares, carrying one vote each. The Company did not hold any shares in treasury at that date. Therefore as at 24 March 2017 the total voting rights in the Company were 243,082,091.

16. The doors will open at 10.30 am and you may wish to arrive by 10.45 am to enable you to take your seat in good time.

17. If you have any special needs or require wheelchair access to the AGM venue, please contact Melissa Davies, melissa.davies@osb.co.uk or 01634 888 210 in advance of the AGM.

APPENDIX

Director Biographies

Appointment Committee

membership Key skills Experience &

qualifications Andrew Golding

Chief Executive

Officer Andy was appointed to the Board in December 2011. None.



Andy has over 30 years' experience in financial services. Andy was previously CEO of Saffron Building Society, where he had been since 2004. Prior to that he held senior positions at NatWest, John Charcol and Bradford & Bingley. He is a Non-executive of Kreditech Holding SSL GmbH and currently holds a number of posts with industry institutions including membership of the Council of Mortgage Lenders Executive Committee. He is also a Director of the Building Societies Trust and has also served as a Non-Executive Director for Northamptonshire NHS. April Talintyre

Chief Financial

Officer April was appointed to the Board in May 2012.



Member of the Risk Committee.



April has broad financial services experience. She has been a member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales since 1992. April was previously an Executive Director in the Rothesay Life pensions insurance business of Goldman Sachs and worked for Goldman Sachs International for over 16 years, including as an Executive Director in the Controllers division in London and New York. April began her career at KPMG in a general audit department. Timothy Hanford

Non-Executive

Director Tim was appointed to the Board in February 2011. Member of the Nomination and Governance Committee. Tim has over 25 years' experience in banking and investment, including in credit strategies, risk management, mergers and acquisitions. Tim is Managing Director of J.C. Flowers & Co. UK Ltd. Previously, he was Head of Private Equity at Dresdner Bank and a member of the Institutional Restructuring Unit's Executive Committee. Tim has also served as a Board Director of Schroders, based in Hong Kong and Tokyo, where he was responsible for structured finance. Margaret Hassall*

Non-Executive

Director Margaret was appointed to the Board in July 2016. Member of the Risk Committee. Margaret brings a broad range of experience developed across various industry sectors including manufacturing, utilities, and financial services. Margaret spent seven years working for Deloitte and Touche as a consultant and led the financial services consulting business for Charteris Plc. More latterly Margaret has been engaged as chief operations officer or chief information officer for divisions within some of the world's largest banks, namely Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Barclays and RBS. Margaret is a Non-Executive director for Ascension Trust (Scotland). Rodney Duke*

Senior Independent Non-Executive

Director



Rod was appointed to the Board in July 2012 and was appointed Senior Independent Director in 2014. Chair of the Nomination and Governance Committee and member of the Remuneration Committee.



Rod has extensive experience in operations, investments, risk management and corporate finance across retail and commercial banking. Rod was previously Group General Manager, HSBC with responsibility for UK distribution - branches, call centres and internet banking - for both personal and commercial customers. Rod was with HSBC for 33 years. Previous directorships include VISA (UK), HFC Bank plc and HSBC Life. He also served on the Board of Alliance & Leicester plc until its takeover by Santander. Rod is a Fellow of the Institute of Financial Services. Andrew Doman*

Non-Executive

Director



Andrew was appointed to the Board in July 2016. Member of the Risk and Audit Committees.



Andrew is an experienced financial services executive. Andrew is currently Chairman at Castle Trust Capital plc and was previously CEO of Premium Credit Limited and CEO, President and later Chairman of Frank Russell Company. He was also a senior director of McKinsey & Company, management consultants, based in the London office. He focused on the financial services sector, serving a number of leading banks, insurance companies and asset managers across a wide range of topics including strategy, performance improvement and risk. He was formerly a Non-Executive director of The Wesleyan. Mary McNamara*

Non-Executive

Director Mary was appointed to the Board in May 2014. Chair of Remuneration and member of Risk and Nomination and Governance Committees. Mary has broad senior management experience in the banking and finance sectors. Mary is a Non-Executive Director of Dignity plc and Motorpoint plc. She was previously CEO of the Commercial Division and Board Director of the Banking Division at Close Brothers Group plc. Prior to that, Mary was COO of Skandia, the European arm of Old Mutual Group and prior to that, Mary spent 17 years at GE Capital, running a number of businesses including GE Fleet Services Europe and GE Equipment Finance. John Graham Allatt*

Non-Executive

Director



Graham was appointed to the Board in May 2014.



Chairman of the Risk Committee and member of the Audit Committee. Graham has significant banking and credit risk experience and financial services experience. Graham was previously Acting Group Credit Director at Lloyds TSB and Chief Credit Officer at Abbey National. Prior to this he spent 18 years in the NatWest Group culminating in the role of Managing Director, Credit Risk at NatWest Markets. A Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants, Graham is Deputy Chairman of the Friends of the British Library and was involved in housing associations for nearly 30 years as Treasurer and Board member in the North of England and in London. Nathan Moss*

Non-Executive

Director



Nathan was appointed to the Board in May 2014. Member of Remuneration, Audit and Nomination and Governance Committees. Nathan is a business development and marketing specialist and has worked extensively in the banking sector. Nathan was previously Group Strategy Director at Friends Life from 2010 to 2013 and Prior to that Nathan was Managing Director of Wealth Management at Lloyds TSB Group having joined Scottish Widows in 2002 as Managing Director, Marketing & Distribution. Prior to this he spent 18 years with HSBC Group including four years as General Manager, Personal Financial Services and culminating as COO of Merrill Lynch HSBC. Nathan is a Non-Executive Director of Homeserve Membership Ltd and Canada Life Group (UK) Ltd. Eric Anstee*

Non-Executive

Director



Eric was appointed to the Board in December 2015.



Chairman of the Audit Committee and member of the Risk Committee. Eric has extensive corporate finance and Mergers & Acquisitions experience over a broad range of business sectors.



He is a member of the Takeover Panel Appeals Board and Visiting Professor, London Metropolitan University Business School. Eric was Chairman of CPP Group plc from 2014 to 2015. Prior to this he was Chief Executive of the City of London Group plc, the first Chief Executive of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales and Group Finance Director of Old Mutual plc. Eric was also Group Finance Director at The Energy Group plc and advisor to Lord Hanson on the Demerger of Hanson plc. Prior to this Eric spent 17 years at Ernst & Young. Eric is also a Non-Executive director of Sun Life Financial of Canada Limited, Insight Asset Management and Vocalink Limited.

OneSavings Bank plc

Reliance House

Sun Pier

Chatham

Kent ME4 4ET

+44 (0)1634 838973

www.osb.co.uk
PHILADELPHIA, March 30, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Aberdeen Israel Fund, Inc. (the "Fund") (NYSE MKT: ISL) held its Annual Meeting of Shareholders (the "Meeting") on March 30, 2017. At the Meeting, shareholders of the Fund voted to re-elect two Class II Directors to the Board of Directors.

As of the record date, February 6, 2017, there were 3,963,785 outstanding shares of the Fund. 85.96% of the outstanding shares were voted at the Meeting representing a quorum.

The description of the proposal and number of shares voted at the Meeting are as follows:

To elect two Class II Directors to the Board of Directors:



Votes For Votes Against Abstain James J. Cattano 3,219,257 127,165 60,937 Steven N. Rappaport 3,242,254 122,887 42,218

Directors whose term of office continued beyond the Meeting are as follows: Enrique R. Arzac and Lawrence J. Fox.

Closed-end funds are traded on the secondary market through one of the stock exchanges. The Fund's investment return and principal value will fluctuate so that an investor's shares may be worth more or less than the original cost. Shares of closed-end funds may trade above (a premium) or below (a discount) the net asset value (NAV) of the fund's portfolio. There is no assurance that the Fund will achieve its investment objective.

If you wish to receive this information electronically, please contact [email protected]

aberdeenisl.com

SOURCE Aberdeen Israel Fund, Inc.

Related Links

http://www.aberdeenisl.com


PHILADELPHIA, March 30, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Aberdeen Latin America Equity Fund, Inc. (the "Fund") (NYSE MKT: LAQ) held its Annual Meeting of Shareholders (the "Meeting") on March 30, 2017. At the Meeting, shareholders of the Fund voted to re-elect one Class II Director to the Board of Directors.

As of the record date, February 6, 2017, there were 7,448,517 outstanding shares of the Fund. 90.33% of the outstanding shares were voted at the Meeting representing a quorum.

The description of the proposal and number of shares voted at the Meeting are as follows:

To elect one Class II Director to the Board of Directors:



Votes For Votes Against Abstain James J. Cattano 3,527,299 3,185,312 15,444

Directors whose term of office continued beyond the Meeting are as follows: Enrique R. Arzac, Lawrence J. Fox and Steven N. Rappaport.

Closed-end funds are traded on the secondary market through one of the stock exchanges. The Fund's investment return and principal value will fluctuate so that an investor's shares may be worth more or less than the original cost. Shares of closed-end funds may trade above (a premium) or below (a discount) the net asset value (NAV) of the fund's portfolio. There is no assurance that the Fund will achieve its investment objective.

If you wish to receive this information electronically, please contact [email protected]

aberdeenlaq.com

SOURCE Aberdeen Latin America Equity Fund, Inc.

Related Links

http://www.aberdeenlaq.com


LONDON, March 31, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Actis, a leading growth markets investor, today announced a significant investment in GHL Systems ("GHL"), a prominent South East Asian payments company, headquartered in Kuala Lumpur and listed on Bursa Malaysia (GHLS: MK).

Actis becomes the largest shareholder in GHL, having acquired an initial 44.4% stake from private equity firm Creador and Simon Loh, Executive Vice Chairman of GHL, who is also retaining a 19.1% stake in GHL. Actis will work alongside Simon and the remaining shareholders to support management to further scale and enhance GHL's position as a leading regional payments business. Actis has also extended a mandatory take-over offer on the remaining GHL shares.

The GHL Group provides integrated end-to-end payment services and solutions encompassing physical, internet and mobile payments on a sale, rental or transactional basis. Other than serving the traditional banking and financial sector, the Group also serves major telecommunications companies, retailers and airlines in ASEAN. The Group manages more than 150,000 points of sale in ASEAN that enable credit card, debit card, prepaid contactless payment, loyalty, prepaid top up and bill payment collection services. Its largest markets are Malaysia, the Phillipines and Thailand.

Actis has extensive experience in growth markets payments, having invested in and helped build out leading payments platforms that have spanned more than 50 countries.

Commenting on the investment, Hossam Abou Moussa, Partner at Actis, said: "Investing in market leading businesses in the sectors we understand is a core pillar of our growth markets investment strategy. We are extremely excited by the opportunity to partner with Simon and the management team and bring what we have learned in other markets to help GHL to scale and cement its position as a regional leader."

Simon Loh, Excutive Vice Chairman of GHL, added: "I am very excited to welcome Actis as a partner. They bring an impressive track record in the payments sector, especially in emerging markets. Together, we are fully aligned in our ambition to become the leading end-to-end payment service provider in ASEAN by deploying world-class payment infrastructure, technology and to further expand our growing footprint into new ASEAN markets."

Ali Mazanderani, Actis's Fintech lead added: "Investing in South East Asia and in GHL is a continuation of Actis' strategy to be integral to and support the buildout of landmark payments platforms across our markets. It follows on from our investments in Emerging Market Payments in Africa and the Middle East, PayCorp in Africa and DLP Payments in Latin America."

For more information:

John Thompson

[email protected]

+44 (0)20 7234 5107

Notes to editors:

About Actis:

Actis is a leading investor in growth markets, delivering consistent competitive returns, responsibly. It has a growing portfolio of investments across Asia, Africa and Latin America and has raised over US$12bn since inception.

The firm invests through insights gained from trusted relationships and local knowledge, deep sector expertise and an unparalleled heritage, set within a culture of active ownership.

Applying developed market disciplines to growth markets, an established team of c. 100 investment professionals in ten countries identify investment opportunities in response to two trends: rising domestic consumption and the need for sustained investment in infrastructure across private equity, energy and real estate asset classes.

Actis is a signatory to the United Nations backed Principles for Responsible Investment (UNPRI), an investor initiative developed by the UNEP FI and the UN Global Compact. Actis targets consistent superior returns across asset classes over the long-term, bringing financial and social benefits to investors, consumers and communities. It calls this the positive power of capital.

www.act.is

About GHL:

GHL Systems Berhad ("GHL") is ASEANS's leading payment service provider with key operations in Malaysia, Philippines, Thailand and Australia.

GHL provides world-class payment services and solutions encompassing physical, Internet and mobile payments on a sale, rental or transactional basis and is one of the top merchant acquirers in the region.

GHL manages more than 150,000 point of sales in ASEAN that enables credit card, debit card, prepaid contactless payment, loyalty, prepaid top up as well as bill payment collection services. As part of our Beyond ASEAN strategy, GHL has also successfully established a client base in more than 20 countries.

GHL has been listed on Bursa Malaysia since 2003. The groups market capitalization as at 30 March 2017 was RM752 million.

For more information on GHL Group kindly visit www.ghl.com

About Creador:

Creador is a private equity firm focused on long-term investments in growth-oriented businesses in South and Southeast Asia. More information on Creador can be found at www.creador.com.

SOURCE Actis

Related Links

http://www.act.is


TALLINN, Estonia, March 31, 2017 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- An AJC leadership delegation met with Estonian President Kersti Kaljulaid and Prime Minister Juri Ratas during a two-day visit to the Baltic nation's capital.

The latest AJC visit to Estonia, which concluded yesterday, came immediately after AJC Central Europe, the global advocacy organization's fifth and newest office in Europe, was launched at a gala in Warsaw attended by more than 500 government officials, senior diplomats, media representatives, and AJC leaders from across the U.S and Europe.



Estonia is one of the seven countries in the region that AJC Central Europe is engaging. The others, in addition to Poland, are the Czech Republic, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, and Slovakia. AJC delegations are visiting those countries as well, after a series of meetings in Poland, where the office is based, prior to and the morning after the gala.



"AJC Central Europe enables us to deepen our engagement with Estonia and other significant countries in this region," said Harriet Schleifer, Chair of AJC's National Board of Governors, and Steven Zelkowitz, a member of AJC's Executive Council, who co-chaired the AJC delegation. "This set of countries is vitally important to the Jewish people, as it is to both the United States and Israel. In our meetings, we welcomed Tallinn's close relations with both Washington and Jerusalem, and were heartened to hear various officials affirm these strategic partnerships."



During the visit, the AJC delegation also met with Secretary-General of the Foreign Ministry Rainer Saks, U.S. Ambassador James Melville, and Israeli Ambassador Dov Segev-Steinberg.



Moreover, the group held a festive dinner with the leadership of the Jewish Community of Estonia, an AJC partner. In attendance at the meal were members of the AJC delegation; leaders of the Jewish community; and ambassadors from Austria, the Czech Republic, Germany, Hungary, Israel, Lithuania, the Netherlands, and Poland. Alla Jakobson, President of the Jewish Community of Estonia, joined the delegation throughout the visit.



Among the principal topics discussed during the visit were: (a) Estonian-U.S. relations in the new political era, (b) Estonian-Israeli bilateral and multilateral ties, (c) developments in the European Union and the Estonian identity therein, and (d) significant threats to national and regional security.



AJC engages with Estonian diplomats across the U.S. and Europe, and the global Jewish advocacy organization meets with senior Estonian officials each year on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly.



In August 1991, AJC became the only Jewish organization in the world to call for American recognition of the reestablishment of Baltic independence for Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. Several weeks later, President George H.W. Bush took that historic step. Moreover, AJC later helped in the effort to expand NATO membership to include the three nations, and welcomed their full integration into the EU in 2004.





SOURCE American Jewish Committee

Related Links

http://www.ajc.org


ST. LOUIS, March 31, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Ameren Corporation (NYSE: AEE) announced today the launch of Ameren Accelerator, an innovative public-private partnership with the University of Missouri System, UMSL Accelerate and Capital Innovators, that will assess, mentor and invest in energy technology startup companies.

The unique partnership, one of the first of its kind in the United States, is also the St. Louis region's first to focus on energy technologies.

Leveraging the expertise of all of the partners, the goals of this program are to better position Ameren to meet its customers' future energy needs and expectations, create new jobs through these start-up companies and provide university students opportunities to be more engaged in the energy business.

Five to seven startup companies are expected to be chosen, and each will receive $100,000 in seed capital to participate in the Ameren Accelerator program, which will be located in Cortex, St. Louis' innovation and technology district.

Warner Baxter, chairman, president and CEO of Ameren Corporation, said the program is a key component of Ameren's focus on innovative technologies to make the energy grid smarter, more reliable, resilient, and secure while also transforming how customers manage and use energy to power their lives in the future.

"As new energy technologies rapidly advance, it is critical that we take bold steps today to better position Ameren to meet our customers' future energy needs and expectations," Baxter said. "This forward-thinking initiative is expected to draw innovators, entrepreneurs and business startups from around the world to St. Louis and to provide us with important insights and technologies to deliver long-term value to our customers and the communities we serve. At the same time, this initiative will enhance St. Louis' already robust innovation and entrepreneurship community, attract top-level talent, educate university students and create jobs. This is a tremendous opportunity for the St. Louis region."

As part of the program, the selected startup companies will each receive intensive mentoring, technical assistance, facilities and networking connections from the Ameren Accelerator partners.

"The Ameren Accelerator will be a transformative public-private partnership to create new technologies and workforce training for the future," said Dr. Mun Choi, University of Missouri System president. "Collaborating with innovative partners such as Ameren and Capital Innovators will enable the faculty, students and staff of the University of Missouri System to directly contribute to economic development in the state. I am proud that UMSL spearheaded this project because these activities are strongly aligned with our mission as a top public research university."

Beginning today through May 12, applications will be accepted from interested entrepreneurs and energy technology companies. Information and requirements may be found at amerenaccelerator.com.

In July, the selected startup companies will receive seed funding and hands-on support throughout the 12-week program. Senior-level executives from a variety of companies will provide mentorship. Subject matter experts in the areas of energy, sales, marketing, pricing, technical development, operations, talent development and finance will also provide guidance. Based out of the [email protected] Building in Cortex, participants will be able to network with like-minded individuals focused on innovative thinking and collaboration. CIC is one of the most cutting-edge high-tech facilities in the country and a prime destination for business creativity.

At the conclusion of the program, participants will be invited to showcase their efforts to both the mentoring teams and potential third-party investors during Accelerator Demo Day this October. Ameren may select the most promising projects for ongoing mentoring and engagement beyond the Accelerator program.

"The Ameren Accelerator is our first corporate initiative through UMSL Accelerate  which is designed to foster entrepreneurism and innovation in and outside the classroom," said Dr. Tom George, chancellor of the University of MissouriSt. Louis. "We look forward to tapping into our strong contingent of faculty, student and alumni connections to make this program a success for all involved."

"Capital Innovators is excited to lead the movement through this partnership for the next level of accelerator programs to focus on the world's most pressing issues, such as energy," said Judy Sindecuse, CEO of Capital Innovators. "We look forward to engaging a new group of fresh thinkers on a variety of energy-related challenges and cultivate necessary innovations that can provide extreme value to the energy sector."

"We are excited about the prospects of this unique public-private partnership," Baxter said. "Ameren Accelerator is one way we are demonstrating our vision of 'Leading the Way to a Secure Energy Future' and our mission 'To Power the Quality of Life.'"

To apply or to learn more about Ameren Accelerator, visit amerenaccelerator.com.

About Ameren Corporation

St. Louis-based Ameren Corporation powers the quality of life for 2.4 million electric customers and more than 900,000 natural gas customers in a 64,000-square-mile area through its Ameren Missouri and Ameren Illinois rate-regulated utility subsidiaries. Ameren Illinois provides electric distribution and transmission service, as well as natural gas distribution service, while Ameren Missouri provides vertically integrated electric service, with generating capacity of over 10,200 megawatts, and natural gas distribution service. Ameren Transmission Company of Illinois develops regional electric transmission projects. Follow the company on Twitter @AmerenCorp. For more information, visit Ameren.com.

About the University of Missouri System

The University of Missouri System is the State of Missouri's largest public university, with four campuses serving more than 76,000 students, a health care system, an extension program, and more than 500,000 alumni worldwide. The UM System was created in 1963 when the University of Missouri (founded in 1839 in Columbia) and the Missouri School of Mines (now the Missouri University of Science and Technology, founded in 1870 in Rolla), were combined with the formerly private University of Kansas City (now University of MissouriKansas City, founded in 1933), and a newly created campus in suburban St. Louis (University of MissouriSt. Louis).

About the University of Missouri-St. Louis and UMSL Accelerate

The University of MissouriSt. Louis is the largest public research university in eastern Missouri with the greatest concentration of alumni in the region. Their UMSL Accelerate initiative fosters entrepreneurism and innovative thinking in and outside the classroom and helps bring concepts from mind to market. For more information, visit http://umsl.edu/accelerate/.

About Capital Innovators

Capital Innovators is an innovation engine that creates practical solutions across industries that can shape the future of organizations. Capital Innovators provides innovation consulting, entrepreneurial-based programs, acts as a liaison between Corporations, Universities and Startups and investment into attractive early-stage businesses. Capital Innovators has in-depth knowledge into the most cutting-edge solutions through the Accelerator division of its business, which has been ranked as a Top 10 Accelerator in the country for three years in a row and has invested in and guided 70 companies to date. Capital Innovators model is simple and effective: Innovation, Iteration, and Implementation.

SOURCE Ameren Corporation

Related Links

http://www.ameren.com


NEW YORK, March 31, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Antigua and Barbuda is celebrating the success of their dynamic new Antigua Barbuda Romance Facebook page launched on Valentine's Day by announcing the winners of their first sweepstakes: Miami couple, Brandi George Arcos and Carlos Arcos. As part of the official launch of this exciting new platform, The Antigua and Barbuda Tourism Authority with the Pineapple Beach Club Antigua, ran a month-long sweepstakes for one couple to win an all-inclusive getaway to Antigua and Barbuda. The Arcos', are celebrating their 15th wedding anniversary this year, and are looking forward to experiencing the most romantic destination first-hand. The all-inclusive prize, includes a 3 night-stay at Pineapple Beach Club Antigua, the destination's most laid-back, adult's only resort, located in a tropical hideaway where the beach curves in a perfect quarter-mile arc of brilliant, powdery white sand.

The Arcos' are looking forward to their upcoming trip, sharing, "Wow! We are so excited to finally get a real honeymoon after 15 years of marriage. It really is never too late for a honeymoon and Antigua and Barbuda look like the perfect place to have it. We have also decided to renew our vows in paradise to celebrate this wonderful blessing. We cannot thank the Tourism Authority and Pineapple Beach Club Antigua enough for this amazing prize."

Antigua Barbuda Romance is a first: a digital social media channel purely focused on the lucrative romance market. This interactive new platform cements Antigua and Barbuda's position as the 'Most Romantic Destination in the Caribbean,' an award that was won for the second consecutive year in 2016. Antigua and Barbuda Romance is dedicated towards building on this recognition, and attracting new visitors by highlighting the various services, and businesses that appeal to the romance market including those planning a destination wedding. Antigua Barbuda Romance features include: logistics on how to plan the perfect destination wedding, honeymoon tips, favorite activities, top restaurants, and popular beaches. Resources include listings for local romance vendors including wedding planners, photographers and island guides.

To find out more, visit the 'Antigua Barbuda Romance' platform at www.facebook.com/AntiguaBarbudaRomance

ABOUT ANTIGUA AND BARBUDA

Antigua (pronounced An-tee'ga) and Barbuda (Bar-byew'da) is located in the heart of the Caribbean Sea. Voted the World Travel Awards 2015 and 2016 Caribbean's Most Romantic Destination, the twin-island paradise offers visitors two uniquely distinct experiences, ideal temperatures year-round, a rich history, vibrant culture, exhilarating excursions, award-winning resorts, mouth-watering cuisine and 365 stunning pink and white-sand beaches - one for every day of the year. The largest of the Leeward Islands, Antigua comprises 108-square miles with rich history and spectacular topography that provides a variety of popular sightseeing opportunities. Nelson's Dockyard, the only remaining example of a Georgian fort a listed UNESCO World Heritage site, is perhaps the most renowned landmark. Antigua's tourism events calendar includes the prestigious Antigua Sailing Week, Antigua Classic Yacht Regatta, and the annual Antigua Carnival; known as the Caribbean's Greatest Summer Festival. Barbuda, Antigua's smaller sister island, is the ultimate celebrity hideaway. The island lies 27 miles north-east of Antigua and is just a 15-minute plane ride away. Barbuda is known for its untouched 17 mile stretch of pink sand beach and as the home of the largest Frigate Bird Sanctuary in the Western Hemisphere. Find information on Antigua & Barbuda at: www.visitantiguabarbuda.com

For information about Antigua & Barbuda visit www.visitantiguabarbuda.com or visitantiguabarbuda.us and follow us on Twitter. http://twitter.com/antiguabarbuda Facebook www.facebook.com/antiguabarbuda; and www.facebook.com/AntiguaBarbudaRomance Instagram: www.instagram.com/AntiguaandBarbuda

SOURCE Antigua and Barbuda Tourism Authority

Related Links

http://www.visitantiguabarbuda.com


BASKING RIDGE, N.J., March 31, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Arla Foods (Arla) today announced it is celebrating National Grilled Cheese Month with 12 days of social giveaways and activities. The celebration kicks off tomorrow (April 1) and leads up to National Grilled Cheese Day on April 12 when one lucky Arla follower will receive a grand prize giveaway of a year's worth of cheese.

The celebration is the ideal way to introduce Arla's new Medium Cheddar slices, perfect for melting in a grilled cheese sandwich. Medium Cheddar joins Arla's family of grilled cheese-ready sliced varieties, including Havarti, Gouda, Fontina and Muenster. Available at grocery retailers nationwide, Arla's fewer-ingredient offerings continue the company's mission to provide American consumers with dairy products free from added rBST growth hormones*, artificial flavors and artificial preservatives.

"American's eat more than 2 billion grilled cheese sandwiches each year1," said Don Stohrer Jr., CEO of Arla Foods. "We want to support that  and celebrate this holiday  by having fun with our 12-day countdown and by introducing new, great-tasting grilled cheese recipe ideas."

Arla is encouraging a proper homage to cheese by celebrating National Grilled Cheese Day in deliciously cheesy ways:

12 Days of Grilled Cheese

The 12-day countdown to National Grilled Cheese Day (April 12) consists of all things grilled cheese, from a grilled cheese party pinata, to grilled cheese lockets and cheesy holiday sweaters. Social media giveaways will be awarded to participating Arla social media followers. A selection of the planned giveaways include:

Grilled cheese locket of love

Do you love grilled cheese sandwiches with all your heart? Then you better follow along. Arla will be giving away golden lockets that feature a photo of the winner on one side, and a grilled cheese on the other. Many will enter, five will win!

Cheesy sweater giveaway

Who says tacky holiday sweaters are just for December? Arla believes National Grilled Cheese Month deserves them too! One lucky winner will receive a tacky grilled cheese holiday sweater featuring a hand-knitted grilled cheese sandwich. Merry National Grilled Cheese Month!

365 days of grilled cheese

The grand finale of our countdown to grilled cheese day will see one Arla follower win enough cheese to make a grilled cheese sandwich every day for a year. To win, followers simply have to share how much they love grilled cheese and how they are celebrating for Grilled Cheese Day  creativity will be rewarded!

Follow Arla USA on Facebook and Instagram to celebrate National Grilled Cheese Month. Arla products are available at grocery stores nationwide. For more information or to find a retailer near you, visit ArlaUSA.com.

About Arla Foods

Arla, the fourth largest dairy in the world, is a Denmark-based cooperative owned by dairy farmers and a true farm-to-fridge company. It is 100 percent farmer-owned by more than 14,000 farmers  with products sold in more than 100 countries. Arla cream cheese is produced in Arla's Holstebro dairy in Denmark. Arla Havarti, Gouda, Muenster and Fontina products are all produced at the Hollandtown Dairy in Kaukauna, WI. All Arla cheese is naturally good, free of added hormones*, artificial flavors and preservatives and crafted with quality, natural ingredients. From breakfasts to afternoon snacks and everything in between, Arla is the better-for-you cheese families will love.

*No significant difference has been shown between milk derived from rbST-treated and non-rbST-treated cows.

1 Source: NPD Group

Contact:

Katie Ruesgen

Carmichael Lynch Relate

[email protected]

212-494-8607

SOURCE Arla Foods

Related Links

http://www.arlausa.com


WASHINGTON, March 31, 2017 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- While President Trump is going to host Chinese President Xi Jinping at Mar-a-Lago on April 6-7, Falun Gong practitioners and supporters will gather near the White House to ask President Trump to urge President Xi to end the 18-year long persecution of Falun Gong and to bring the architect of the persecutionformer Communist Party chief Jiang Zeminto justice.

Falun Gong is a traditional Chinese spiritual discipline which consists of moral teachings, meditation, and qigong exercises based upon the principles of truthfulness, compassion and tolerance. Initially supported by the Chinese government for its health benefits and moral teachings, Falun Gong's popularity rose to 70 million practitioners by early 1999 and outnumbered the Communist Party membership. Its revival of traditional values was perceived by some communist hardliners as a threat to the Party's ideology. In July 1999, former Communist Party leader Jiang Zemin single-handedly launched an intensive, nationwide campaign to eradicate Falun Gong, reflecting the Party's long-standing intolerance of independent, civil society groups.

As a result, hundreds of thousands of Falun Gong practitioners have been detained extra-legally in labor camps, detention centers, black jails and prisons, where torture and abuse are routine and death often occurs. According to Freedom House, the U.S. State Department and Congressional-Executive Commission on China reports, Falun Gong practitioners constitute the largest group of prisoners of conscience in China.

Last June, the U.S. House of Representatives unanimously passed H.Res.343, a resolution that condemned the Chinese Communist regime for harvesting the organs of living Falun Gong practitioners and other prisoners of conscience. A recent February 2017 Freedom House report "found credible evidence suggesting that beginning in the early 2000s, Falun Gong detainees were killed for their organs on a large scale."

President Xi inherited this persecution from his earlier predecessor. Amid his anti-corruption campaigns, President Xi sacked several key perpetrators of the persecution, though ostensibly on corruption charges. While they were steps in the right direction, the persecution still continues. In 2015, 200,000 Chinese filed legal complaints charging former President Jiang Zemin with crimes against humanity. We hope President Xi can follow the will of the people to bring Jiang Zemin to justice and end this 18-year brutal persecution. President Trump can play a key role in helping to bring that to fruition.

Victims of the persecution will be available for on-site interviews.

Sponsor and source of information: Falun Dafa Association of Washington, DC.

TIME: Tuesday, April 4, 11:30 am to 2:00 pm

LOCATION: 17th Street NW between Penn Ave. and G St. NW

SOURCE Falun Dafa Association of Washington, DC
ATLANTA, March 31, 2017 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Home Depot co-founder and Atlanta community leader and philanthropist Bernie Marcus today endorsed pro-jobs candidate Judson Hill in the race for Georgia's 6th Congressional District.

"America's job creators, particularly small businesses, need relief from healthcare mandates, relief from high taxes and relief from overregulation," Marcus said. "Judson Hill has demonstrated he can bring thoughtful and determined leadership on these pressing issues. Voters sought change in the last election for one reason: They want better job opportunities. Judson has worked with other state leaders to make Georgia the No. 1 place in the nation for business, and he's the best candidate in this race to get our nation's job engines humming again."

In Congress, Judson Hill will work to remove the job-killing mandates in the Affordable Care Act and to cut taxes on small businesses that create two-thirds of new jobs but haven't fully recovered from the devastation of the Great Recession.

"I'm honored to receive the support of internationally renowned business leader, entrepreneur and devoted civic leader Bernie Marcus," Judson said. "Bernie Marcus has created hundreds of thousands of jobs. As a job creator, he knows better than anyone else how to foster an environment that puts Americans back to work, and allows entrepreneurs to succeed. As a member of Congress, I look forward to partnering with him to put in place real solutions to the problems we face. The American Dream is still possible, and I will work every day to make sure that Georgians are able to realize their full potential without government overregulation stifling economic growth. The taxes and regulations that piled up during the last eight years have hurt job growth. This is our chance to fix it, and I'm ready to get to work."

For more information on Judson Hill's Campaign for Congress, visit www.JudsonHill.com.

SOURCE Judson Hill's Campaign for Congress

Related Links

http://www.JudsonHill.com


STAMFORD, Conn., March 31, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Cenveo, Inc. (NYSE: CVO) today announced that its Annual Meeting of Shareholders will be held at its corporate headquarters, 200 First Stamford Place, 2nd Floor in Stamford, Connecticut on Thursday, April 27, 2017 at 8:00 a.m. Eastern Time.

The Company also notes that on March 28, 2017, it received notice (the "Notice") from the New York Stock Exchange, Inc. (the "NYSE") that the Company does not presently satisfy the NYSE's continued listing standard requiring the average market capitalization of the Company to not be less than $50 million over a 30 trading-day period while its stockholders' equity is less than $50 million. The Notice has no immediate impact on the listing of the Company's common stock and does not affect the Company's ongoing business operations or its Securities and Exchange Commission reporting requirements. In accordance with the NYSE rules, the Company intends to respond to the Notice within 45 days of its receipt with the submission of a business plan demonstrating how the Company intends to return to compliance with the market capitalization standards within 18 months of receipt of the Notice (which period may be truncated by the NYSE). The NYSE will review that plan and, within 45 days of its receipt, determine whether we have made a reasonable demonstration of an ability to achieve compliance on the market capitalization standard. If the NYSE accepts the plan, the common stock will continue to be listed and traded on the NYSE during that specified period. The Company believes that its previously announced two-year $50 million profitability improvement plan will meaningfully present to the NYSE the demonstration necessary to achieve compliance in the appropriate period of time.

Cenveo (NYSE: CVO), world headquartered in Stamford, Connecticut, is a leading global provider of print and related resources, offering world-class solutions in the areas of custom labels, envelopes, commercial print, content management and publisher solutions. The company provides a one-stop offering through services ranging from design and content management to fulfillment and distribution. With a worldwide distribution platform, we pride ourselves on delivering quality solutions and service every day for our more than 100,000 customers. For more information please visit us at www.cenveo.com.

Statements made in this release, other than those concerning historical financial information, may be considered "forward-looking statements," examples of which include statements relating to our 2017 outlook and future financial condition and operating results, as well as any other statement that does not directly relate to any historical or current fact. These forward-looking statements are based upon current expectations and involve a number of assumptions, risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from such forward-looking statements. In view of such uncertainties, investors should not place undue reliance on our forward-looking statements. Such statements speak only as of the date of this release, and we undertake no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. Factors which could cause actual results to differ materially from management's expectations include, without limitation: (i) our substantial level of indebtedness could materially adversely affect our financial condition, liquidity and ability to service or refinance our debt, and prevent us from fulfilling our business obligations; (ii) our ability to pay the principal of, or to reduce or refinance, our outstanding indebtedness; (iii) the terms of our indebtedness imposing significant restrictions on our operating and financial flexibility; (iv) additional borrowings available to us could further exacerbate our risk exposure from debt; (v) United States and global economic conditions have adversely affected us and could continue to adversely affect us; (vi) our ability to successfully integrate acquired businesses with our business; (vii) a decline in our consolidated profitability or profitability within one of our individual reporting units could result in the impairment of our assets, including goodwill and other long-lived assets; (viii) the industries in which we operate our business are highly competitive and extremely fragmented; (ix) a general absence of long-term customer agreements in our industry, subjecting our business to quarterly and cyclical fluctuations; (x) factors affecting the United States postal services impacting demand for our products; (xi) the availability of the Internet and other electronic media adversely affecting our business; (xii) increases in paper costs and decreases in the availability of raw materials; (xiii) increases in energy and transportation costs; (xiv) our labor relations; (xv) our compliance with environmental laws; (xvi) our dependence on key management personnel; (xvii) any failure, interruption or security lapse of our information technology systems and (xviii) there can be no assurances that our profitability plan will satisfy the NYSE or result in achieving compliance with its listing standards. This list of factors is not exhaustive, and new factors may emerge or changes to the foregoing factors may occur that would impact our business. Additional information regarding these and other factors can be found in Cenveo, Inc.'s periodic filings with the SEC, which are available at www.cenveo.com.

Inquiries from analysts and investors should be directed to Ayman Zameli at (203) 595-3063.

SOURCE Cenveo, Inc.

Related Links

http://www.cenveo.com


FORM 8.3

PUBLIC OPENING POSITION DISCLOSURE/DEALING DISCLOSURE BY

A PERSON WITH INTERESTS IN RELEVANT SECURITIES REPRESENTING 1% OR MORE

Rule 8.3 of the Takeover Code (the "Code")

1. KEY INFORMATION

(a) Full name of discloser: HARGREAVE HALE LIMITED (for Discretionary Clients) (b) Owner or controller of interests and short positions disclosed, if different from 1(a):

The naming of nominee or vehicle companies is insufficient. For a trust, the trustee(s), settlor and beneficiaries must be named. N/A (c) Name of offeror/offeree in relation to whose relevant securities this form relates:

Use a separate form for each offeror/offeree GALLIFORD TRY PLC (d) If an exempt fund manager connected with an offeror/offeree, state this and specify identity of offeror/offeree: N/A (e) Date position held/dealing undertaken:

For an opening position disclosure, state the latest practicable date prior to the disclosure 30 MARCH 2017 (f) In addition to the company in 1(c) above, is the discloser making disclosures in respect of any other party to the offer?

If it is a cash offer or possible cash offer, state "N/A" YES

If YES, specify which: Bovis Homes Group Plc

2. POSITIONS OF THE PERSON MAKING THE DISCLOSURE

If there are positions or rights to subscribe to disclose in more than one class of relevant securities of the offeror or offeree named in 1(c), copy table 2(a) or (b) (as appropriate) for each additional class of relevant security.

(a) Interests and short positions in the relevant securities of the offeror or offeree to which the disclosure relates following the dealing (if any)

Class of relevant security:



ORDINARY 50p



Interests Short positions Number % Number % (1) Relevant securities owned and/or controlled: 2,194,031 2.6471 (2) Cash-settled derivatives:



(3) Stock-settled derivatives (including options) and agreements to purchase/sell:



TOTAL: 2,194,031 2.6471

840 of the above shares are not controlled by Hargreave Hale Nominees Ltd.

The holdings were reduced by a further 375 shares due to a client mandate change on 30/03/2017.

All interests and all short positions should be disclosed.

Details of any open stock-settled derivative positions (including traded options), or agreements to purchase or sell relevant securities, should be given on a Supplemental Form 8 (Open Positions).

(b) Rights to subscribe for new securities (including directors' and other employee options)

Class of relevant security in relation to which subscription right exists: Details, including nature of the rights concerned and relevant percentages:

3. DEALINGS (IF ANY) BY THE PERSON MAKING THE DISCLOSURE

Where there have been dealings in more than one class of relevant securities of the offeror or offeree named in 1(c), copy table 3(a), (b), (c) or (d) (as appropriate) for each additional class of relevant security dealt in.

The currency of all prices and other monetary amounts should be stated.

(a) Purchases and sales

Class of relevant security Purchase/sale



Number of securities Price per unit ORDINARY SALE 964 1496.72p

(b) Cash-settled derivative transactions

Class of relevant security Product description

e.g. CFD Nature of dealing

e.g. opening/closing a long/short position, increasing/reducing a long/short position Number of reference securities Price per unit NONE





(c) Stock-settled derivative transactions (including options)

(i) Writing, selling, purchasing or varying

Class of relevant security Product description e.g. call option Writing, purchasing, selling, varying etc. Number of securities to which option relates Exercise price per unit Type

e.g. American, European etc. Expiry date Option money paid/ received per unit NONE

(ii) Exercise

Class of relevant security Product description

e.g. call option Exercising/ exercised against Number of securities Exercise price per unit

(d) Other dealings (including subscribing for new securities)

Class of relevant security Nature of dealing

e.g. subscription, conversion Details Price per unit (if applicable) NONE

4. OTHER INFORMATION

(a) Indemnity and other dealing arrangements

Details of any indemnity or option arrangement, or any agreement or understanding, formal or informal, relating to relevant securities which may be an inducement to deal or refrain from dealing entered into by the person making the disclosure and any party to the offer or any person acting in concert with a party to the offer:

Irrevocable commitments and letters of intent should not be included. If there are no such agreements, arrangements or understandings, state "none"



NONE





(b) Agreements, arrangements or understandings relating to options or derivatives

Details of any agreement, arrangement or understanding, formal or informal, between the person making the disclosure and any other person relating to:

(i) the voting rights of any relevant securities under any option; or

(ii) the voting rights or future acquisition or disposal of any relevant securities to which any derivative is referenced:

If there are no such agreements, arrangements or understandings, state "none"



NONE





(c) Attachments

Is a Supplemental Form 8 (Open Positions) attached? NO

Date of disclosure: 31 MARCH 2017 Contact name: DAVID CLUEIT

HARGREAVE HALE LTD Telephone number: 01253 754739

Public disclosures under Rule 8 of the Code must be made to a Regulatory Information Service.

The Panel's Market Surveillance Unit is available for consultation in relation to the Code's disclosure requirements on +44 (0)20 7638 0129.

The Code can be viewed on the Panel's website at www.thetakeoverpanel.org.uk.
HOUSTON, March 31, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Cheniere Energy Partners, L.P. ("Cheniere Partners") (NYSE MKT: CQP) today announced that Substantial Completion of Train 3 of the Sabine Pass liquefaction project in Cameron Parish, Louisiana (the "SPL Project") was achieved on March 28, 2017. Commissioning has been completed and Cheniere Partners' EPC partner Bechtel Oil, Gas and Chemicals, Inc. is turning over care, custody, and control of Train 3 to Cheniere Partners.

Under a sale and purchase agreement ("SPA") with Korea Gas Corporation, the date of first commercial delivery ("DFCD") for Train 3 of the SPL Project is expected to occur in June 2017, upon which the SPA's 20-year term commences.

With the achievement of Substantial Completion, financial results of LNG sales from Train 3 going forward will be reflected in the statement of operations of Cheniere Partners and its affiliates.

Cheniere Partners, through its subsidiary, Sabine Pass Liquefaction, LLC ("SPL"), is developing, constructing and operating natural gas liquefaction facilities at the Sabine Pass LNG terminal adjacent to the existing regasification facilities. Cheniere Partners, through SPL, plans to construct over time up to six liquefaction trains, which are in various stages of development, construction and operations. Trains 1, 2, and 3 have achieved Substantial Completion, Train 4 is in the commissioning process, Train 5 is under construction, and Train 6 is fully permitted and being commercialized. Each liquefaction train is expected to have a nominal production capacity, which is prior to adjusting for planned maintenance, production reliability and potential overdesign, of approximately 4.5 million tonnes per annum ("mtpa") of LNG. SPL has entered into six third-party LNG SPAs that in the aggregate equate to approximately 19.75 mtpa of LNG and commence with DFCD of Trains 1 through 5 as specified in the respective SPAs. For additional information, please refer to the Cheniere Partners website at www.cheniere.com and Form 10-K for the period ending December 31, 2016, filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Forward-Looking Statements

This press release contains certain statements that may include "forward-looking statements." All statements, other than statements of historical or present facts or conditions, included herein are "forward-looking statements." Included among "forward-looking statements" are, among other things, (i) statements regarding Cheniere Partners' business strategy, plans and objectives, including the development, construction and operation of liquefaction facilities, (ii) statements regarding expectations regarding regulatory authorizations and approvals, (iii) statements expressing beliefs and expectations regarding the development of Cheniere Partners' LNG terminal and liquefaction business, (iv) statements regarding the business operations and prospects of third parties, (v) statements regarding potential financing arrangements, and (vi) statements regarding future discussions and entry into contracts. Although Cheniere Partners believes that the expectations reflected in these forward-looking statements are reasonable, they do involve assumptions, risks and uncertainties, and these expectations may prove to be incorrect. Cheniere Partners' actual results could differ materially from those anticipated in these forward-looking statements as a result of a variety of factors, including those discussed in Cheniere Partners' periodic reports that are filed with and available from the Securities and Exchange Commission. You should not place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date of this press release. Other than as required under the securities laws, Cheniere Partners does not assume a duty to update these forward-looking statements.

SOURCE Cheniere Energy Partners, L.P.

Related Links

http://www.cheniere.com


Stolen from the Grant family's Cherry Hill, New Jersey, home in 1976, the family submitted a claim to Chubb, their insurance provider at the time. Upon claim payment, Chubb acquired the painting's title.

"The theft of Boy Asleep with Hoe remained one of the art world's greatest mysteries for over four decades. In partnership with the FBI, we're pleased to return it to the Grant family," said Fran O'Brien, Senior Vice President, Chubb Group, Division President, North America Personal Risk Services.

According to recent news stories, the value of the recovered painting is estimated to be between $600,000 to $1,000,000, which is significantly more than its value at the time of the theft.

"Recovered art is often valued at a greater amount than a similar piece, given its unique provenance. While many often assume a piece is out of harm's way upon recovery, its newfound high-profile status and value can invite new exposures," added Ms. O'Brien. "Existing insurance coverage based on an outdated appraisal, for example, may not provide sufficient protection moving forward. Fine art customers can turn to Chubb for deep expertise, keen marketplace insight and underwriting knowledge to properly protect their most valued possessions."

The Grant family returned the claims payment to Chubb in exchange for the painting. Chubb will donate the funds to the Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge, Massachusetts. Stockbridge was Rockwell's home for more than 25 years, where he created some of his most iconic work.

"We so greatly appreciate the generous donation to the Museum by Chubb," notes Norman Rockwell Museum Director/CEO Laurie Norton Moffatt.

About Chubb

Chubb is the world's largest publicly traded property and casualty insurance company. With operations in 54 countries, Chubb provides commercial and personal property and casualty insurance, personal accident and supplemental health insurance, reinsurance and life insurance to a diverse group of clients. As an underwriting company, we assess, assume and manage risk with insight and discipline. We service and pay our claims fairly and promptly. The company is also defined by its extensive product and service offerings, broad distribution capabilities, exceptional financial strength and local operations globally. Parent company Chubb Limited is listed on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE: CB) and is a component of the S&P 500 index. Chubb maintains executive offices in Zurich, New York, London and other locations, and employs approximately 31,000 people worldwide. Additional information can be found at: chubb.com.

SOURCE Chubb

Related Links

https://www2.chubb.com/us-en


"The essence of the Crayola brand is color, creativity and fun and our mission is to spark the creative spirit in children," said Smith Holland, President and CEO of Crayola. "With Dandelion retiring, we are very excited to celebrate this day and to share these unique creative experiences with our fans."

Joining the event was the Pentatonix, the three-time Grammy Award-Winning and Multi-Platinum selling a cappella group, who colored the event with their one-of-a-kind arrangements and unparalleled harmonies celebrating creativity and honoring the color Dandelion.

Erik Wahl, an internationally recognized graffiti artist and #1 best-selling author, helped Crayola further celebrate by creating his signature and inspiring "Art of Vision" artwork, and by talking about the power and importance of creativity.

To celebrate the color Dandelion, Crayola will be sending the Dandelion crayon character on a retirement tour around the country. Consumers can keep track of his whereabouts by visiting an interactive map at www.Crayola.com/Tour.

There will also be a surprise tour stop along the way that consumers can influence  By tagging a post with #CelebrateDandelion along with a geotagged location on Instagram, Dandelion might just show up in your backyard!

"As we celebrate National Crayon Day and Dandelion, we are also extremely excited to share what color comes next," said Melanie Boulden, Senior Vice President, US & Global Marketing at Crayola. "Not only are we introducing a new Blue to the world to take Dandelion's place, but we will invite our fans to be a part of Crayola history by naming it."

For more information on Dandelion, visit www.Crayola.com/Retirement. To see a highlight reel of Dandelion's top moments, www.Crayola.com/Tour.

Dandelion crayons will continue to appear in Crayola crayon boxes while supplies last

Stay tuned for the announcement in May, when Crayola will ask fans to help them name this new shade of Blue. For more details, visit www.Crayola.com/NewColor.

About Crayola

Crayola LLC, based in Easton, Pa. and a subsidiary of Hallmark Cards, Incorporated, is the worldwide leader in children's creative expression products. Known for the iconic Crayola Crayon first introduced in 1903, the Crayola brand has grown into a portfolio of innovative art tools, crafting activities and creativity toys that offer children innovative new ways to use color to create everything imaginable. Consumers can find the wide array of Crayola products in the "Crayola Aisle" at all major retailers. For more information visit www.crayola.com or join the community at www.facebook.com/crayola.

Dandelion crayons will continue to appear in Crayola crayon boxes while supplies last.

About Pentatonix

In just five years, Pentatonix has sold more than 6 million albums in the U.S. alone, won 3 Grammy Awards, are currently nominated for a Daytime Emmy and performed for hundreds of thousands of fans at their sold-out shows across the globe. Their YouTube channel boasts close to 13 million subscribers, yielding over 2 billion video views, and their 2015 self-titled album has been certified gold after debuting #1 on Billboard's 200. In October 2016, Pentatonix released their third holiday album - A Pentatonix Christmas - which has been certified platinum, spending two consecutive weeks atop Billboard's 200 Chart as well as became the 5th best-selling album of 2016. The album includes a cover of the Leonard Cohen classic "Hallelujah," which reached #2 on the iTunes singles chart and has been certified gold. The group's newest release - PTX Vol. 4 - Classics (out April 7th) - features their Grammy Award-winning performance of "Jolene" with Dolly Parton, as well as an arrangement of the John Lennon classic "Imagine."

About Erik Wahl

Erik Wahl is an internationally recognized artist and No. 1 bestselling business author. His breakthrough experience as an artist has translated into making him into one of the most sought-after speakers on the corporate lecture circuit today. His breakthrough strategies has earned praise from top influencers in the realms of both art and business. Erik's bestselling business books, THE SPARK AND THE GRIND, and UNTHINK, have been hailed by Forbes Magazine as THE blueprint to actionable creativity, and by Fast Company Magazine as "provocative with a purpose." His sought-after artwork has raised millions of dollars for charity and can be seen hanging prominently in executive offices all over the world.

Erika Merklinger

Crayola

[email protected]

(610) 253-6272 ext. 4625

Jackie Miller

Golin for Crayola

[email protected]

(212) 373-6042

SOURCE Crayola
Immunovia has announced final top-line data of the IMMray platform from a retrospective study in autoimmune diseases. The study showed that the IMMray biomarker platform could differentiate blood samples from patients with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) from other autoimmune diseases with 96% accuracy. This is an important first step to show the versatility and potential expansion of the IMMray technology to other indications. Immunovia's main focus continues to be pancreatic cancer in high-risk individuals and newly diagnosed diabetic patients. Additionally, the company has reported full year 2016 financial results. Cash at end 2016 was SEK259m; we have updated our valuation to SEK151 per share.

(Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20130417/608168 )



We are updating our valuation to SEK151 per share (vs SEK155 per share), mainly for the FY16 net cash position of SEK259m and our expenses forecast. The rest of our assumptions remain the same: we assume a penetration rate of 35% in patients at high risk of pancreatic cancer and 5% in newly diagnosed diabetic patients, targeting total peak sales of c SEK2.1bn in both groups. We look to include SLE in our valuation when Immunovia discloses its plans for this indication.



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SOURCE Edison Investment Research
LAKEWOOD, CO, March 31, 2017 /PRNewswire/ - Energy Fuels Inc. (NYSE MKT: UUUU; TSX: EFR) ("Energy Fuels" or the "Company"), a leading producer of uranium in the United States, is pleased to announce that, effective July 1, 2017, Mr. Mark S. Chalmers will become the President, as well as Chief Operating Officer ("COO"), of Energy Fuels. Mr. Chalmers is currently the Company's COO, a position he has held since July 1, 2016. Mr. Stephen P. Antony, who is currently the President and Chief Executive Officer ("CEO") of the Company, will continue in his role as CEO after July 1, 2017. This action is being completed in accordance with the Company's long-term succession plans.

Stephen P. Antony, Energy Fuels President and CEO stated: "Mark Chalmers has done an exceptional job over the past year as the Company's Chief Operating Officer, focusing on the optimization of the conventional side of our business. Under his management, the Company has discovered large areas of high-grade uranium and copper mineralization, and completed the production shaft, at the Canyon mine. He has also been the driving force behind several key initiatives at the White Mesa Mill, including the review of existing operating practices, the recovery of uranium from process water pond returns, and seeking new sources of revenue through participation in the clean-up of historic uranium mines in the region. I look forward to continuing to work with Mark in his new role as President."

About Energy Fuels: Energy Fuels is a leading integrated US-based uranium mining company, supplying U 3 O 8 to major nuclear utilities. Energy Fuels holds three of America's key uranium production centers, the White Mesa Mill in Utah, the Nichols Ranch Processing Facility in Wyoming, and the Alta Mesa Project in Texas. The White Mesa Mill is the only conventional uranium mill operating in the U.S. today and has a licensed capacity of over 8 million pounds of U 3 O 8 per year. The Nichols Ranch Processing Facility is an ISR production center with a licensed capacity of 2 million pounds of U 3 O 8 per year. Alta Mesa is an ISR production center currently on care and maintenance. Energy Fuels also has the largest NI 43-101 compliant uranium resource portfolio in the U.S. among producers, and uranium mining projects located in a number of Western U.S. states, including one producing ISR project, mines on standby, and mineral properties in various stages of permitting and development. The Company also produces vanadium as a co-product of its uranium production from certain of its mines on the Colorado Plateau, as market conditions warrant. The Company's common shares are listed on the NYSE MKT under the trading symbol "UUUU", and on the Toronto Stock Exchange under the trading symbol "EFR".

Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements: Certain information contained in this news release, including any information relating to: the Company being a leading producer of uranium in the U.S.; Mark Chalmers assuming the role as President effective July 1, 2017; the Company's expectations with regard to mineralization and development at the Canyon Mine; the Company's expectations with regard to its review of existing operating practices, recoveries from pond returns and new sources of revenue at the White Mesa Mill; and any other statements regarding Energy Fuels' future expectations, beliefs, goals or prospects; constitute forward-looking information within the meaning of applicable securities legislation (collectively, "forward-looking statements"). All statements in this news release that are not statements of historical fact (including statements containing the words "expects", "does not expect", "plans", "anticipates", "does not anticipate", "believes", "intends", "estimates", "projects", "potential", "scheduled", "forecast", "budget" and similar expressions) should be considered forward-looking statements. All such forward-looking statements are subject to important risk factors and uncertainties, many of which are beyond Energy Fuels' ability to control or predict. A number of important factors could cause actual results or events to differ materially from those indicated or implied by such forward-looking statements, including without limitation factors relating to: the Company being a leading producer of uranium in the U.S.; Mark Chalmers assuming the role as President effective July 1, 2017; the Company's expectations with regard to mineralization and development at the Canyon Mine; the Company's expectations with regard to its review of existing operating practices, recoveries from pond returns and new sources of revenue at the White Mesa Mill; and other risk factors as described in Energy Fuels' most recent annual report on Form 10-K and quarterly financial reports. Energy Fuels assumes no obligation to update the information in this communication, except as otherwise required by law. Additional information identifying risks and uncertainties is contained in Energy Fuels' filings with the various securities commissions which are available online at www.sec.gov and www.sedar.com. Forward-looking statements are provided for the purpose of providing information about the current expectations, beliefs and plans of the management of Energy Fuels relating to the future. Readers are cautioned that such statements may not be appropriate for other purposes. Readers are also cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, that speak only as of the date hereof.

SOURCE Energy Fuels Inc.

Related Links

http://www.energyfuels.com


LAS VEGAS, March 31, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- EnterpriseDB (EDB), the database platform company for digital business, today announced that Lenley Hensarling, Senior Vice President, Strategy and Product Management, will deliver a presentation at COLLABORATE17  IOUG Forum.

Hensarling will deliver his presentation, titled Leveraging Open Data Management Solutions in Oracle Shops, on Tuesday, April 4, at 11 am at the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino in Las Vegas.

As Senior Vice President, Hensarling contributes to EnterpriseDB's corporate vision and technology roadmap, while also guiding the delivery of new product releases. Lenley has more than two decades of experience driving products in large enterprise technology organizations. Prior to joining EnterpriseDB, Hensarling worked at Oracle as the Group Vice President and General Manager of Oracle's JD Edwards ERP business.

EnterpriseDB will be exhibiting at COLLABORATE17  IOUG Forum at Booth No. 1203. To schedule a meeting with EnterpriseDB executives, please contact [email protected].

To learn more about Postgres, attend Postgres Vision, June 26-28, 2017 at the Royal Sonesta Boston. Find details at www.PostgresVision.com.

About EnterpriseDB (EDB) Corporation

EnterpriseDB (EDB), the database platform company for digital business, delivers the premier open source-based data platform for new applications, cloud re-platforming, application modernization, and legacy migration. EnterpriseDB integrates with enterprise technologies and infrastructures for hybrid cloud management, data integration, and data warehousing. Our customers benefit from the most reliable, high-performing, flexible, open, and cost-effective data management platform available. EnterpriseDB is based in Bedford, Massachusetts. For more information, visit www.EDBPostgres.com.

EnterpriseDB is a registered trademark of EnterpriseDB Corporation. EDB and EDB Postgres are trademarks of EnterpriseDB Corporation. Other trademarks may be trademarks of their respective owners.

MEDIA CONTACTS

Nancy Scott

EnterpriseDB

+1 781.357.3090

[email protected]

Cairbre Sugrue

Sugrue Communications

+44 (0)1932 429 779

[email protected]

SOURCE EnterpriseDB

Related Links

http://www.EDBPostgres.com


SALT LAKE CITY, March 31, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Extra Space Storage Inc. (the "Company") (NYSE: EXR) announced today it will release financial results for the three months ended March 31, 2017 on Wednesday, April 26, 2017 after the market closes. The Company will host a conference call at 1:00 p.m. Eastern Time on Thursday, April 27, 2017 to discuss its financial results. Hosting the call will be Extra Space Storage's CEO, Joe Margolis. Joining him will be Scott Stubbs, Executive Vice President and CFO.

During the conference call, company officers will review operating performance, discuss recent events, and conduct a question-and-answer period. The question-and-answer period will be limited to registered financial analysts. All other participants will have listen-only capability.

To Participate in the Telephone Conference Call:

Dial in at least five minutes prior to start time.

Domestic: 855-791-2026 International: 631-485-4899

Conference ID: 2211675

Conference Call Playback:

Domestic: 855-859-2056 International: 404-537-3406

Conference ID: 2211675

The playback can be accessed beginning on April 27, 2017 at 4:00 p.m. Eastern Time through May 2, 2017 at 4:00 p.m. Eastern Time.

The conference call will also be available on the Company's website under Investor Relations at www.extraspace.com. To listen to a live broadcast, go to the site at least 15 minutes prior to the scheduled start time in order to register, download and install any necessary audio software. A replay of the call will also be available for 30 days on the Company's website.

Full Text of the Earnings Report and Supplemental Data

The full text of the earnings report and supplemental data will be available at the Company's website at www.extraspace.com immediately following the earnings release to the wire services after the market close on Wednesday, April 26, 2017.

For those without Internet access, the earnings release will be available by mail or fax, on request. To receive a copy, please call Extra Space Storage Investor Relations at (801) 365-1759.

About Extra Space Storage Inc.

Extra Space Storage Inc., headquartered in Salt Lake City, is a fully integrated, self-administered and self-managed real estate investment trust. As of December 31, 2016, the Company owned and/or operated 1,427 self-storage properties in 38 states, Washington, D.C. and Puerto Rico. The Company's properties comprise approximately 960,000 units and approximately 107 million square feet of rentable storage space offering customers conveniently located and secure storage units across the country, including boat storage, RV storage and business storage. The Company is the second largest owner and/or operator of self-storage properties in the United States and is the largest self-storage management company in the United States.

For more information, please visit www.extraspace.com.

SOURCE Extra Space Storage Inc.

Related Links

http://www.extraspace.com


AUSTIN, Texas, March 31, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- In late 2016, FirstCare Health Plans received word from the Texas Diabetes Council (TDC) and the Texas Department of State Health Services (DSHS) that it was being honored for performing above the Texas average for Healthcare Effectiveness Data and Information Set (HEDIS) performance measures for blood glucose control (A1c), blood pressure and cholesterol treatments related to diabetes care in 2015 for our Abilene and Waco service areas.

This award marks the third consecutive year of FirstCare's recognition by the TDC and DSHS for performing above the Texas average for HEDIS performance measures related to diabetes care. FirstCare was recognized in 2015 for our 2013 performance in the Amarillo service area and again in 2016 for our 2014 performance in both the Abilene and Waco service areas.

"This recognition demonstrates our commitment to improving the health of people with diabetes in Texas," said FirstCare CMO Adolfo Valadez, M.D. "Our focus has been on improved health outcomes for our membersidentifying the best ways to reach those with diabetes, or even those who could be considered pre-diabetic, and working with their doctor and our clinical team to improve their health."

On Thursday, January 26, 2017, FirstCare Clinical QI Analyst Robin Fletcher, RN, MPH, was presented with the 2016 TDC recognition award for FirstCare at the TDC meeting held at the DSHS offices in Austin, Texas. Ms. Fletcher attends the TDC meetings and related TDC Advocacy and Outreach Committee sessionsproviding input on their work from the HMO perspective and also as a diabetes advocate.

TDC's visiona Texas free of diabetes and its complicationsand its mission to effectively reduce the health and economic burdens of diabetes align with FirstCare's core values that everything we do is because we believe that all Texans and our communities should be healthy.

About FirstCare Health Plans

Our mission is to provide access to high quality, affordable health care through strong partnerships in the communities we serve. Since 1985, we've been serving the health care needs of members across North, West, and Central Texas. Today, our service area includes 143 counties, with local offices in Abilene, Amarillo, Lubbock, and corporate offices in Austin, Texas. We offer a wide range of HMO, PPO, HSA, and ASO products through a variety of programs, including small and large employer plans; state, federal and teacher plans; government programs; and the Health Insurance Marketplace. With the support of our owners, Covenant Health in Lubbock and Hendrick Health System in Abilene, we serve over 186,000 members. For more information, please visit www.FirstCare.com.

SOURCE FirstCare Health Plans

Related Links

http://www.firstcare.com


"When we first conceived the project, we knew we had to make it a priority. The market is just there for this right now and Martin UAV immediately understood that. Beyond tactical closed networks for DoD at huge cost savings over what is currently being fielded, the marriage of unmanned systems with LTE core networks is representative of what Google was trying to do with their Loon program. We beat Google at something, for very little money, and that feels great."  Dave Peterson, Fenix Group's President & CEO

While Fenix Group's focus is in providing technology & direct support to DoD and partner forces worldwide, the utility for a flying cell phone tower  complete with subscriber database & billing functionality, means connectivity in the most remote parts of the world. In addition to providing a coverage area on the ground, the payload is also able to stream encrypted video from the drone's camera system to anyone on the network. In the future, soldiers, search and rescue teams, and first responders will have access to drone video from their phones. The Fenix team even went so far as to enable Internet access so that command centers could access the feed from anywhere in the world.

"The technical challenges we faced to get all of the components to play nicely and not cause the aircraft to crash were very real. We were on a shoestring budget to do this safely. Power constraints, FAA & FCC authorities, getting the overall payload weight down, and a myriad of problems we didn't expect all had to be overcome. Working with Martin allowed us to get the right aircraft into play with the right characteristics for this project to be successful."  Stefan Schaner, Fenix Group's Chief Innovation Officer

While Fenix Group plans to issue its first production units to DoD & first responders, the Virginia startup anticipates high demand from telecom providers, oil & gas companies, and crisis response units worldwide. For more information, visit the company's website at www.fenixgroupsolutions.com.

SOURCE Fenix Group, Inc.

Related Links

http://www.fenixgroupsolutions.com


ALICE, Texas , March 31, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Forbes Energy Services Ltd. (OTC Pink:FESLQ) (the Company or Forbes) today announced that the plan of reorganization (the Plan) under Chapter 11 of the United States Bankruptcy Code (the Bankruptcy Code) of Forbes and its domestic subsidiaries (collectively, the Debtors) has been confirmed by the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Texas-Corpus Christi Division. The Debtors, which filed for Chapter 11 on January 23, 2017, anticipate that the Plan will become effective in mid-April 2017 (the Effective Date).



Through the restructuring process and upon emergence, the Debtors will achieve a net reduction in their debt by approximately $230 million.

The Plan anticipates that, among other things, on the Effective Date (i) all existing Equity Interests (as defined in the Plan and which include Forbess common stock, Forbess preferred stock, awards under Forbess prepetition incentive compensation plan and the preferred stock purchase rights under Forbess rights agreement) of Forbes will be extinguished without recovery; (ii) Forbes 9% senior notes due 2019 (the Senior Notes) will be cancelled and each holder of the Senior Notes will receive such holders pro rata share of (a) $20 million in cash and (b) 100% of the new common stock of reorganized Forbes, subject to dilution only as a result of the shares of new common stock of reorganized Forbes issued or available for issuance in connection with a proposed management incentive plan (the Management Incentive Plan); (iii) certain holders of the Senior Notes will make available to the reorganized Debtors a $50 million new first lien term loan facility (the Exit Facility) which is being backstopped by certain holders of the Senior Notes; (iv) the Debtors existing loan and security agreement, dated as of September 9, 2011 (the Loan Agreement), with Regions Bank will be terminated and a new letter of credit facility entered into with Regions Bank (the New Regions Facility); (v) Regions Bank, as the sole lender under the Loan Agreement (the Lender) will (a) receive cash to satisfy all outstanding obligations with respect to the Revolving Advances (as defined in the Loan Agreement), including, without limitation, all outstanding Revolving Advances and all interest, fees, and other charges due and payable under the Loan Agreement relating to the Revolving Advances, and (b) as to the Issuer and Bank Product Provider (as each term is defined in the Loan Agreement), continue to hold the cash pledged by Debtors to collateralize all outstanding letters of credit and Bank Product Obligations under the Loan Agreement that will be covered by the New Regions Facility; and (vi) holders of allowed creditor claims, aside from holders of the Senior Notes, will either receive, on account of such claims, payment in full in cash or otherwise have their rights reinstated under the Bankruptcy Code.

The Plan and other information related to the Chapter 11 cases are available at a website administered by the Debtors claims agent, Kurtzman Carson Consultants, LLC, at http://www.kccllc.net/forbes.

Pachulski Stang Ziehl & Jones LLP is acting as legal restructuring counsel, Winstead PC is acting as corporate and securities counsel, and Alvarez & Marsal North America, LLC and Jefferies LLC are acting as financial advisors for the Company. Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson LLP is acting as legal counsel and FTI Consulting, Inc. is acting as financial advisor to those holders of the Senior Notes party to the Restructuring Support Agreement dated as of December 21, 2016 among the Debtors and such holders.

About Forbes Energy

Forbes Energy is an independent oilfield services contractor that provides a broad range of drilling-related and production-related services to oil and natural gas companies, primarily onshore in Texas and Pennsylvania. More information on the Company can be found by visiting www.forbesenergyservices.com.

Forward-Looking Statements and Regulation G Reconciliation

This press release includes certain forward-looking statements within the meaning of the federal securities laws. Forward-looking statements can generally be identified by the appearance in such a statement of words like anticipate, believe, continue, could, estimate, expect, intend, may, plan, potential, predict, project or should or other comparable words or the negative of these words. When you consider the Companys forward-looking statements, you should keep in mind the risk factors it describes and other cautionary statements it makes in its Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2015 and in Part II, Item 1A of its Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the period ended June 30, 2016. The Companys forward-looking statements are only predictions based on expectations that it believes are reasonable. The Companys actual results could differ materially from those anticipated in, or implied by, these forward-looking statements as a result of known risks and uncertainties set forth below and in its Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2015 and in Part II, Item 1A of its Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the period ended June 30, 2016. These factors include or relate to: the Companys ability to consummate the Plan; the effects of the filing of the chapter 11 cases on the Companys business and the interests of various constituents; the Bankruptcy Courts rulings in the chapter 11 cases, as well the outcome of all other pending litigation and the outcome of the chapter 11 cases in general; the length of time that the Company will operate under chapter 11 protection and the continued availability of operating capital during the pendency of the chapter 11 cases; risks associated with third party motions or objections in the chapter 11 cases, which may interfere with the Companys ability to consummate the Plan; the potential adverse effects of the chapter 11 cases on the Companys liquidity or results of operations; the Companys ability to execute its business and financial reorganization plan; and increased advisory costs to execute the Companys reorganization.

In addition to the above factors, actual operating results directly impact the Companys ability to effect a capital restructuring and could continue to be impacted by the following: the effect of the industry-wide downturn in energy exploration and development activities; continuing incurrence of operating losses due to such downturn; oil and natural gas commodity prices; market response to global demands to curtail use of oil and natural gas; capital budgets and spending by the oil and natural gas industry; the ability or willingness of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) to set and maintain production levels for oil; oil and natural gas production levels by non-OPEC countries; supply and demand for oilfield services and industry activity levels; the Companys ability to maintain stable pricing; the Companys level of indebtedness; possible impairment of the Companys long-lived assets; potential for excess capacity; competition; substantial capital requirements; significant operating and financial restrictions under the Companys indenture and revolving credit facility; technological obsolescence of operating equipment; dependence on certain key employees; concentration of customers; substantial additional costs of compliance with reporting obligations, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act and indenture covenants; seasonality of oilfield services activity; collection of accounts receivable; environmental and other governmental regulation, including potential climate change legislation; the potential disruption of business activities caused by the physical effects, if any, of climate change; risks inherent in the Companys operations; ability to fully integrate future acquisitions; variation from projected operating and financial data; variation from budgeted and projected capital expenditures; volatility of global financial markets; and the other factors discussed under Risk Factors in the Companys Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2015 and in Part II, Item 1A of its Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the period ended June 30, 2016. The Company undertakes no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise. To the extent these risks, uncertainties and assumptions give rise to events that vary from the Companys expectations, the forward-looking events discussed in this press release may not occur. All forward-looking statements attributable to the Company are qualified in their entirety by this cautionary statement.
HARRISON, N.Y., March 30, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Garnet Capital Advisors, LLC is announcing the launch of a sale of $100 million of consumer loans on behalf of the National Credit Union Administration (NCUA).

The portfolio contains approximately 3,500 accounts across all levels of performance. The loans are being offered in pools for bidding based on performance level.

The data room for due diligence information opened the week of March 20, 2017. The NCUA is simultaneously providing on-site file review for qualified bidders in Austin, TX. Bids are due on April 11, 2017.

According to Lou DiPalma, Managing Partner at Garnet Capital, "As in past NCUA sales, Garnet has done a deep dive to reveal key portfolio attributes and expects keen investor interest by value-add buyers in the differing asset classes. We look forward to another successful transaction for the NCUA."

For additional details regarding the offering or to schedule a due diligence appointment, please contact your Garnet representative at 914.909.1000 or visit www.garnetcapital.com.

About Garnet Capital Advisors

Contact

Sherri Feldman: 914-909-1000 or [email protected]

Related Links

http://garnetcaptial.com

This content was issued through the press release distribution service at Newswire.com. For more info visit: http://www.newswire.com

SOURCE Garnet Capital Advisors

Related Links

http://www.garnetcapital.com


NEW YORK, March 31, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Harwood Feffer LLP ( www.hfesq.com) is investigating potential claims against the board of directors of TRC Companies, Inc. ("TRC" or the "Company") (NYSE: TRR) concerning the proposed acquisition of the Company by affiliates of New Mountain Partners IV, L.P., an investment fund managed by New Mountain Capital, LLC ("New Mountain").

Pursuant to the terms of the transaction, shareholders of TRC will receive $17.55 per share. Our investigation concerns whether the TRC board of directors is fulfilling its fiduciary duties, maximizing the value of the Company, disclosing all material benefits and costs, and obtaining full and fair consideration for Company stockholders.

If you own TRC shares and wish to discuss this matter with us, or have any questions concerning your rights and interests with regard to this matter, please contact:

Robert I. Harwood, Esq.

Daniella Quitt, Esq.

Harwood Feffer LLP

488 Madison Avenue

New York, New York 10022

Phone Numbers:

(877) 935-7400

(212) 935-7400

Email: [email protected]

Website: http://www.hfesq.com

Follow us on Twitter: @HarwoodFeffer

Harwood Feffer has been representing individual and institutional investors for many years, serving as lead counsel in numerous cases in federal and state courts. Please visit the Harwood Feffer LLP website (http://www.hfesq.com) for more information about the firm.

Attorney Advertising. The law firm responsible for this advertisement is Harwood Feffer LLP (www.hfesq.com) . Prior results do not guarantee or predict a similar outcome with respect to any future matter.

SOURCE Harwood Feffer LLP

Related Links

http://www.hfesq.com


"The reach and impact of "What A Beautiful Name" has been encouraging and truly humbling," says Brooke Fraser about the success of the single. Adding, "We seek to bring songs that can genuinely connect the hearts of believers with the heart of God through worship, and the connection this song seems to have made can only be by the grace of God. With the release of the "What A Beautiful Name" EP this week we are hoping churches from across denominations and stylistic sensibilities can discover a version that uniquely speaks to their context and can equip them to lead this song whatever their setting, whether they have a full gospel choir at their disposal, a DJ set up or simply an acoustic guitar."

The dedicated EP "What A Beautiful Name" features six versions of the hit single off Billboard No. 1 album Let There Be Light, including a gospel version and the original live recording from Hillsong Conference in Sydney.

"What A Beautiful Name" Track Listing:

What A Beautiful Name What A Beautiful Name (Live) What A Beautiful Name (Alternate Acoustic) What A Beautiful Name (Orchestral Selah) What A Beautiful Name (Gospel Version) What A Beautiful Name (Hillsong Young & Free Remix)

Hillsong Worship's "What A Beautiful Name" EP is available today on iTunes, Spotify and anywhere music is digitally sold.

About Hillsong Worship:

With a catalog sung by an estimated 50 million people worldwide each week, Hillsong Worship is passionate about equipping and mobilizing believers everywhere with Christ-centered songs of God-glorifying worship for the building of the Church. For almost three decades Hillsong Worship has served people across nations and generations, travelling the world leading diverse expressions of the Church in the worship of Jesus. By God's grace its "local church" worship songs such as "Shout To The Lord," "Mighty To Save," "Hosanna," "Cornerstone," "Forever Reign," "Broken Vessels" and "This I Believe (The Creed)" have become the songs of churches all over the globe, in addition to finding a place in the personal devotion of individual believers everywhere. Their latest, Let There Be Light, is available now.

PRESS CONTACTS:

Rogers & Cowan

Janice Lee/ [email protected]

Tracy Cole/ [email protected]

SOURCE Hillsong Worship
Hujiang EdTech's Global Teaching Center director, Yingchun Yue, led the team that attended the convention. Through seminars and exhibitions, Hujiang presented its services to more than 6,000 educators from around the world. The company's Hujiang Class ("HJCLASS") and the Hu+ Project were crowd favorites.

HJCLASS is an online learning platform. Launched in 2009, it offers an extensive range of educational resources including original English courseware developed by Hujiang EdTech and other online language courses, as well as professional training courses. To offer the highest quality education, Hujiang has also acquired a large number of copyrights from Cambridge University Press, Coursera, Harper Collins Publishers, and more.

Hujiang's technology development matches courses to students based on their knowledge and capacity. "With these intelligent courses, it's much like the scenario of one-to-one, student-teacher learning. This is what we are proud of about HJCLASS and what makes Hujiang a leading player in China's online education industry," says Jason Song, Partner & Vice President of Hujiang EdTech.

While the platform offers opportunities for global teaching professionals to come up with their own classes and create value, HJCLASS also gives students who are not from top universities in China access to top learning resources. This is part of Hujiang's efforts to improve education equality in China, according to Jason.

Hujiang's Hu+ Project was launched in 2015 to provide a free online education platform and other resources for elementary and middle schools in rural and underdeveloped areas in China. The project has reached 500,000 students from over 1,000 schools in 30 provinces and attracted many educators, institutions, and non-profit organizations to join forces.

"We hope that by attending events like the TESOL convention, more educators will join us to serve more people in China through our platforms, and professionals from around the world will find more teaching opportunities, help local Chinese students, and create social value. For both the teachers and students, we will offer everything we have to help them reach their dreams," says Arnold(Cairui) Fu, the founder and CEO of Hujiang EdTech.

About Hujiang EdTech

Founded in 2001, Hujiang EdTech stands out from the booms and busts of the tech scene in China by offering solid answers to the two questions: How can technology change the education industry? What is an educational technology platform, really? Started as an online BBS community offering online courses and now China's leading online education company, Hujiang EdTech strives to make high-quality education more accessible and enjoyable through mobile learning applications, online courses, and interactive online teaching platform. Serving over 140 million users (including 110 million mobile users) in China, Hujiang EdTech offers a wide range of online educational programs, including international & domestic examination preparation, foreign language learning, professional skills training, and more.

SOURCE Hujiang EdTech
The owner and operator ILHC is working in collaboration with developer and manager The Goodman Group LLC, a Chaska-based, 50-year privately held senior living and health care management company, with a focus on creating innovative person-centered lifestyles for healthy aging and wellbeing. The co-real estate developer of the project is Northland Real Estate Group, LLC, a Twin Cities-based commercial real estate investment and development company focused on senior living housing, multifamily, and commercial properties in the Midwest.

The Goodman Group team has researched the formerly proposed Croix Bay development history in detail to assure that the comments of the City Council and surrounding neighborhood are well reflected in the forward planning of the future site. The company plans to construct an approximately $70 million mixed-unit senior living community over three development phases. Phase one is a 139-unit independent, assisted living and memory care community. Phase two will include 30 independent living villas that will be accompanied by 70 apartments for active adults in the third phase of the project.

The Lakes at Stillwater will be a vibrant senior living community inspired by the natural beauty of the surrounding scenic lakeside landscape, offering a healthy aging lifestyle, hospitality services and amenities, intergenerational programming and exceptional care services.

This scenic site has been part of a "Forest Stewardship Plan" and was recently reforested with thousands of DNR-raised seedlings. The Goodman Group has a longstanding senior care management philosophy recognizing the healthy aging benefits associated with access to nature and intend to protect the green space by continuing with the reforestation stewardship program. The design and architecture will complement the heritage of the site and surrounding community.

"We are inspired by the beauty of this Stillwater nature sanctuary offering rolling hills, streams, Northwood forests, wildlife and gorgeous lake views. Our organization hopes to create a Twin Cities destination for a senior living community that welcomes the surrounding neighborhood of all ages," said Craig Edinger, CEO of The Goodman Group. "This unique landscape will wonderfully complement our commitment to the wellbeing, health and healing of all residents."

For more information, visit www.thelakesatstillwater.org, email [email protected], or call Robyn at 952-361-8978.

INTERGENERATIONAL LIVING & HEALTH CARE, INC.:

Intergenerational Living & Health Care, Inc. is a nonprofit organization pioneering interactive programming to bring children and seniors together in order to cultivate understanding, support, and purpose, and share the inherit wisdom between generations. Based in Minneapolis, the organization has health care, assisted living and residential communities in several states, as well as a unique early childhood center located in Eagan, Minn. Visit www.iglhc.com.

THE GOODMAN GROUP, LLC:

The Goodman Group LLC, a Chaska, Minn.-based company, is a leader in developing and managing senior living communities, residential communities and commercial properties. The Goodman Group is a privately held company with 50 years of experience, overseeing communities with more than 13,800 residents and 4,300 team members in 10 states. Platinum Service is the centerpiece of The Goodman Group's promise to deliver an unparalleled service experience. We specialize in the development of proprietary programs and services to encourage residents' optimal wellbeing. Recipient of the 2014 Performance Excellence Advancement Level Award, based on Malcolm Baldrige Criteria. First long-term care and residential management company in Minnesota to be proclaimed a Yellow Ribbon Company. Visit www.thegoodmangroup.com.

NORTHLAND REAL ESTATE GROUP, LLC:

Northland Real Estate Group, LLC is a Twin Cities-based commercial real estate investment and development company focused on investing in and developing senior housing, multifamily, and commercial properties around the Midwest. Strong local connections, creativity, and perseverance give Northland a competitive advantage in sourcing new opportunities and meeting partner and community objectives.

SOURCE The Goodman Group

Related Links

http://www.thegoodmangroup.com


NEW YORK, March 31, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- ETF Securities, the largest global provider of Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) tracking the Bloomberg Commodity Indices1, has launched a suite of commodity ETFs that are the lowest cost in their respective categories on the NYSE Arca.

The ETFS Bloomberg All Commodity Strategy K-1 Free ETF (BCI) range is among the most diversified commodity ETF suites in the US and is available in a K-1 free, '40 Act structure.

The range includes:

Name Ticker Total Expense Ratio ETFS Bloomberg All Commodity Strategy K-1 Free ETF BCI 0.29% ETFS Bloomberg All Commodity Longer Dated Strategy K-1 Free ETF BCD 0.29% ETFS Bloomberg Energy Commodity Longer Dated Strategy K-1 Free ETF BEF 0.39%

Key Highlights:

Lowest cost diversified commodity ETFs in the US

Offers access to the world's leading commodity index in an ETF format for the first time 2

Provided by one of the most experienced commodity Exchange Traded Product (ETP) managers in the world, including the largest provider of Bloomberg commodity products (over $4.34 billion USD 3)

The three funds in the suite offer exposure to commodities that were previously out-of-reach for many investors or only available through costly structures with cumbersome K-1 tax form4 filing requirements. The new, more investor-friendly format not only eliminates the K-1 tax issue by relying on a '40 Act structure, but fundamentally alters the entire commodity ETF landscape.

"We have listened to investors' needs and responded by offering inexpensive, tax-efficient ETFs that deliver broad commodity exposure in a simplified and modernized product," said Steven Dunn, Executive Director and Head of U.S. Distribution. "As the third largest ETP commodity provider in the world, it only made sense that ETF Securities spearhead the development of these funds, building on our long history of innovation, and democratizing access to commodities for investors."

The ETFs will track the Bloomberg Commodity Indices (BCOM), a family of liquid and diversified indices, giving investors access to global commodities.

BCOM is the world's leading benchmark for commodities, currently tracked by approximately $62 billion USD in assets. The benchmarks covers 22 commodity contracts weighted based on their liquidity, production value and economic significance. The benchmarks sets a cap on sector exposure at 33%, meaning the allocation to energy is less than other indices, creating a more diversified investor experience.

"Investors are increasing their exposure to commodities as we reach the longest commodity rally in five years. They need access to quality data that tracks where prices are moving and the subsequent impact to their portfolios," said Alan Campbell, Global Product Manager, Bloomberg Indices. "We're pleased to extend our relationship with ETF Securities in the U.S. to help provide efficient access and diversified exposure to the commodities market."

In 2003, ETF Securities listed the world's first physically-backed gold exchange-traded commodity (ETC). Two years later, ETF Securities created Europe's first oil ETC and in 2006 established the world's first commodities ETC platform.

More information about the Bloomberg Commodity ETF suite can be found by visiting www.etfsecurities.com/us.

1 Bloomberg as of March 2, 2017

2 Bloomberg as of March 2, 2017 based on assets tracking the Bloomberg Commodity Index family globally

3 Bloomberg as of March 2, 2017

4 K-1 tax form similar to a partnership, S corporations must file an annual tax return on Form1120S.The S corporation provides a schedule K-1s that reports each shareholder's share of income, losses, deductions and credits.

About ETF Securities

ETF Securities U.S. is a specialist commodity ETP provider, backed by a global track record of innovation. Our approach is built on understanding investors' changing needs to construct accessible solutions, enabling them to diversify their portfolios beyond traditional asset classes and strategies. We produce timely and impactful market insights to support advisors, and their clients, in reaching informed investment decisions.

For further information, please visit: www.etfsecurities.com/us.

Disclosure:

An investor should consider the investment objectives, risks, charges and expenses of the ETFs carefully before investing. To obtain a prospectus containing this and other important information, call 1-646-846-3130 or 844-ETFS-BUY (844-383-7289) or visit www.etfsecurities.com. Read the prospectus carefully before investing.

Fund Risk: There are risks associated with investing including possible loss of principal.

Commodities generally are volatile and are not suitable for all investors. There can be no assurance that the Fund's investment objective will be met at any time. The commodities markets and the prices of various commodities may fluctuate widely based on a variety of factors. Because the Fund's performance is linked to the performance of highly volatile commodities, investors should consider purchasing shares of the Fund only as part of an overall diversified portfolio and should be willing to assume the risks of potentially significant fluctuations in the value of the Fund.

Actively managed ETFs do not necessarily seek to replicate the performance of a specified index. Actively managed ETFs are subject to risks similar to stocks, including those related to short selling and margin maintenance. The Fund's return may not match the return of the index.

Through holding of futures, options and options on futures contracts, the Fund may be exposed to (i) losses from margin deposits in the case of bankruptcy of the relevant broker, and (ii) a risk that the relevant position cannot be close out when required at its fundamental value. In pursuing its investment strategy, particularly when rolling futures contracts, the Fund may engage in frequent trading of its portfolio of securities, resulting in a high portfolio turnover rate.

As a "non-diversified" fund, the Fund may hold a smaller number of portfolio securities than many other funds. To the extent the Fund invests in a relatively small number of issuers, a decline in the market value of a particular security held by the Fund may affect its value more than if it invested in a larger number of issuers. The value of Shares may be more volatile than the values of shares of more diversified funds.

During situations where the cost of any futures contracts for delivery on dates further in the future is higher than those for delivery closer in time, the value of the Fund holding such contracts will decrease over time unless the spot price of that contract increases by the same rate as the rate of the variation in the price of the futures contract. The rate of variation could be quite significant and last for an indeterminate period of time, reducing the value of the Fund.

Changes in the laws of the United States and/or the Cayman Islands, under which the Fund and the Subsidiary are organized, respectively, could result in the inability of the Subsidiary to operate as intended and could negatively affect the Fund and its shareholders.

To the extent the Fund is exposed directly or indirectly to leverage (through investments in commodities futures contracts) the value of that Fund may be more volatile than if no leverage were present.

In order to qualify for the favorable U.S. federal income tax treatment accorded to a regulated investment company ("RIC"), the Fund must derive at least 90% of its gross income in each taxable year from certain categories of income ("qualifying income") and must satisfy certain asset diversification requirements. Certain of the Fund's investments will not generate income that is qualifying income. The Fund intends to hold such commodity-related investments indirectly, through the Subsidiary. The Fund believes that income from the Subsidiary will be qualifying income because it expects that the Subsidiary will make annual distributions of its earnings and profits. However, there can be no certainty in this regard, as the Fund has not sought or received an opinion of counsel confirming that the Subsidiary's operations and resulting distributions would produce qualifying income for the Fund. If the Fund were to fail to meet the qualifying income test or asset diversification requirements and fail to qualify as a RIC, it would be taxed in the same manner as an ordinary corporation, and distributions to its shareholders would not be deductible by the Fund in computing its taxable income.

Investors buy and sell shares on a secondary market (i.e., not directly from the Trusts).

Only market makers or "authorized participants" may trade directly with the Trusts, typically in blocks of 50k to 100k shares.

The ETFs are new products with a limited operating history.

Please see the current prospectus (https://www.etfsecurities.com/etfsdocs/USProspectus.aspx) for more information regarding the risk associated with an investment in the Funds.

Steven Dunn is a registered representative of ALPS Distributors, Inc.

ALPS Distributors, Inc. is the distributor for the ETFS Trust. ALPS is not affiliated with ETF Securities.

EFS 000227 1/31/2018

For media inquiries, please contact:

JConnelly

James Doyle

T: (973) 850-7308

E: [email protected]

SOURCE ETF Securities

Related Links

http://www.etfsecurities.com


BOSTON, March 31, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- John Hancock Hedged Equity & Income Fund (NYSE: HEQ) (the "Fund"), a closed-end fund managed by John Hancock Advisers, LLC (the "Adviser") and subadvised by Wellington Management Company LLP (the "Subadviser"), announced today sources of its quarterly distribution of $0.3760 per share paid to all shareholders of record as of March 13, 2017, pursuant to the Fund's managed distribution plan. This press release is issued as required by an exemptive order granted to the Fund by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

Notification of Sources of Distribution

This notice provides shareholders of the John Hancock Hedged Equity & Income Fund (NYSE: HEQ) with important information concerning the distribution declared on February 23, 2017, and payable on March 31, 2017. No action is required on your part.

Distribution Period: March 2017 Distribution Amount Per Common Share: $0.3760

The following table sets forth the estimated sources of the current distribution, payable March 31, 2017, and the cumulative distributions paid this fiscal year to date from the following sources: net investment income; net realized short term capital gains; net realized long term capital gains; and return of capital or other capital source. All amounts are expressed on a per common share basis and as a percentage of the distribution amount.

Source

Current Distribution ($)

% Breakdown

of the Current

Distribution

Total Cumulative

Distributions for

the Fiscal Year to

Date ($)1

% Breakdown

of the Total

Cumulative

Distributions

for the Fiscal

Year to Date1 Net Investment Income

0.1388

37%

0.1388

37% Net Realized Short- Term Capital Gains

0.0000

0%

0.0000

0% Net Realized Long- Term Capital Gains

0.0000

0%

0.0000

0% Return of Capital or Other Capital Source

0.2372

63%

0.2372

63% Total per common share

0.3760

100%

0.3760

100%

















Average annual total return (in relation to NAV) for the 5 years ended on February 28, 2017

7.93%





Annualized current distribution rate expressed as a percentage of NAV as of February 28, 2017

8.69%





Cumulative total return (in relation to NAV) for the fiscal year through February 28, 2017

2.79%





Cumulative fiscal year-to-date distribution rate expressed as a percentage of NAV as of February 28, 2017

2.17%































1 The Fund's current fiscal year began on January 1, 2017, and will end on December 31, 2017.





You should not draw any conclusions about the Fund's investment performance from the amount of this distribution or from the terms of the Fund's managed distribution plan.

The Fund estimates that it has distributed more than its income and net realized capital gains; therefore, a portion of your distribution may be a return of capital. A return of capital may occur, for example, when some or all of the money that you invested in the Fund is paid back to you. A return of capital distribution does not necessarily reflect the Fund's investment performance and should not be confused with "yield" or "income."

The amounts and sources of distributions reported in this Notice are only estimates and are not being provided for tax reporting purposes. The actual amounts and sources of the amounts for tax reporting purposes will depend upon the Fund's investment experience during the remainder of its fiscal year and may be subject to changes based on tax regulations. The Fund will send you a Form 1099-DIV for the calendar year that will tell you how to report these distributions for federal income tax purposes.

The Fund has declared the March 2017 distribution pursuant to the Fund's managed distribution plan (the "Plan"). Under the Plan, the Fund makes fixed quarterly distributions in the amount of $0.3760 per share, which will continue to be paid quarterly until further notice.

If you have questions or need additional information, please contact your financial professional or call the John Hancock Investments Closed-End Fund Information Line at 1-800-843-0090, Monday through Friday between 8:00 a.m. and 7:00 p.m., Eastern Time.

Statements in this press release that are not historical facts are forward-looking statements as defined by the United States securities laws. You should exercise caution in interpreting and relying on forward-looking statements because they are subject to uncertainties and other factors which are, in some cases, beyond the Fund's control and could cause actual results to differ materially from those set forth in the forward-looking statements.

An investor should consider a Fund's investment objectives, risks, charges and expenses carefully before investing.

Wellington Management Company LLP is an independent and unaffiliated investment subadviser to John Hancock Hedged Equity & Income Fund.

About John Hancock Investments

John Hancock Investments provides asset management services to individuals and institutions through a unique manager-of-managers approach. A wealth management business of John Hancock Financial, we managed more than $135 billion in assets as of December 31, 2016 across mutual funds, college savings plans, and retirement plans.

About John Hancock Financial and Manulife Financial

John Hancock Financial is a division of Manulife Financial, a leading Canada-based financial services group with principal operations in Asia, Canada and the United States. Operating as Manulife Financial in Canada and Asia, and primarily as John Hancock in the United States, the Company offers clients a diverse range of financial protection products and wealth management services through its extensive network of employees, agents and distribution partners. Funds under management by Manulife Financial and its subsidiaries were C$977 billion (US$728 billion) as of December 31, 2016. Manulife Financial Corporation trades as 'MFC' on the TSX, NYSE and PSE, and under '945' on the SEHK. Manulife Financial can be found on the Internet at manulife.com.

The John Hancock unit, through its insurance companies, comprises one of the largest life insurers in the United States. John Hancock offers and administers a broad range of financial products, including life insurance, annuities, fixed products, mutual funds, 401(k) plans, college savings, and other forms of business insurance. Additional information about John Hancock may be found at johnhancock.com.

SOURCE John Hancock Investments
BOSTON, March 31, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Two funds in the John Hancock Investments family were honored at the 2017 Thomson Reuters Lipper Fund Awards event held last week in New York City. John Hancock Fundamental Global Franchise Fund won for its performance over a 3-year period in the Global Large-Cap Growth Fund's category, and John Hancock International Value Fund won for its 10-year record among funds in the International Multi-Cap Value Fund's category.

The Thomson Reuters Lipper mutual fund awards honor funds and fund management firms that have excelled in providing consistently strong risk-adjusted 3-, 5-, and 10-year performance relative to their peers, based on Lipper's proprietary methodology.

"We are honored to receive these awards. Recognition from Thomson Reuters Lipper is an important measure of how well we are achieving our number one goal as asset managers: to consistently deliver strong risk-adjusted performance to our fund shareholders," said Andrew G. Arnott, president and CEO of John Hancock Investments.

"Attaining these performance milestones is also a testament to the strength of our multimanager approach, where we seek to hire the very best specialized managers from around the world, and then we carefully oversee them on a daily basis."

John Hancock Fundamental Global Franchise Fund is managed by a team of portfolio managers at John Hancock Asset Management, led by Jonathan White, CFA, and Emory W. (Sandy) Sanders, Jr., CFA. The fund is available in Class I (JFGIX), Class A (JFGAX), and Class R6 (JFGFX) shares.

John Hancock International Value Fund is managed by a team of portfolio managers at Franklin Templeton, led by Tucker Scott, CFA, Cindy L. Sweeting, CFA, and Peter A. Nori, CFA. This fund is one of several that are on John Hancock Investments' asset allocation platform.

About John Hancock Investments

John Hancock has helped individuals and institutions build and protect wealth since 1862. Today, we are one of the strongest and most-recognized financial brands. We serve investors globally through a unique multimanager approach: We search the world to find proven portfolio teams with specialized expertise for every strategy we offer, then we apply robust investment oversight to ensure they continue to meet our uncompromising standards and serve the best interests of our shareholders. Our approach to asset management has led to a diverse set of investments deeply rooted in investor needs, along with strong risk-adjusted returns across asset classes.

Past performance does not guarantee future results.

For additional information on Lipper methodology, please see http://lipperfundawards.com/

About John Hancock Financial and Manulife

John Hancock Financial is a division of Manulife, a leading Canada-based financial services group with principal operations in Asia, Canada, and the United States. Operating as Manulife in Canada and Asia, and primarily as John Hancock in the United States, our group of companies offers clients a diverse range of financial protection products and wealth management services through its extensive network of employees, agents, and distribution partners. Assets under management and administration by Manulife and its subsidiaries were $977 billion (US$728 billion) as of December 31, 2016. Manulife Financial Corporation trades as MFC on the TSX, NYSE, and PSE, and under '945' on the SEHK. Manulife can be found at manulife.com.

The John Hancock unit, through its insurance companies, comprises one of the largest life insurers in the United States. John Hancock offers and administers a broad range of financial products, including life insurance, annuities, investments, 401(k) plans, long-term care insurance, college savings, and other forms of business insurance. Additional information about John Hancock may be found at johnhancock.com .

A fund's investment objectives, risks, charges, and expenses should be considered carefully before investing. The prospectus contains this and other important information about the fund. To obtain a prospectus, contact your financial professional, call John Hancock Investments at 800-225-5291, or visit our website at jhinvestments.com. Please read the prospectus carefully before investing or sending money.

MF359793

SOURCE John Hancock Investments
BOSTON, March 31, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- John Hancock Premium Dividend Fund (NYSE: PDT) (the "Fund"), a closed-end fund managed by John Hancock Advisers, LLC and subadvised by John Hancock Asset Management a division of Manulife Asset Management (US) LLC, announced today sources of its monthly distribution of $0.0975 per share paid to all shareholders of record as of March 13, 2017, pursuant to the Fund's managed distribution plan. This press release is issued as required by an exemptive order granted to the Fund by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

Notification of Sources of Distribution

This notice provides shareholders of the John Hancock Premium Dividend Fund (NYSE: PDT) with important information concerning the distribution declared on February 23, 2017, and payable on March 31, 2017. No action is required on your part.

Distribution Period: March 2017



Distribution Amount Per Common Share: $0.0975

The following table sets forth the estimated sources of the current distribution, payable March 31, 2017, and the cumulative distributions paid this fiscal year to date from the following sources: net investment income; net realized short term capital gains; net realized long term capital gains; and return of capital or other capital source. All amounts are expressed on a per common share basis and as a percentage of the distribution amount.

Source

Current Distribution ($)

% Breakdown of the Current Distribution

Total Cumulative Distributions for the Fiscal Year to Date ($)1

% Breakdown of the Total Cumulative Distributions for the Fiscal Year to Date1 Net Investment Income

0.0351

36%

0.4875

100% Net Realized Short- Term Capital Gains

0.0000

0%

0.0000

0% Net Realized Long- Term Capital Gains

0.0093

10%

0.0000

0% Return of Capital or Other Capital Source

0.0531

54%

0.0000

0% Total per common share

0.0975

100%

0.4875

100%

















Average annual total return (in relation to NAV) for the 5 years ended on February 28, 2017

11.88%





Annualized current distribution rate expressed as a percentage of NAV as of February 28, 2017

7.29%





Cumulative total return (in relation to NAV) for the fiscal year through February 28, 2017

3.81%





Cumulative fiscal year-to-date distribution rate expressed as a percentage of NAV as of February 28, 2017

3.04%

1 The Fund's current fiscal year began on November 1, 2016, and will end on October 31, 2017.

You should not draw any conclusions about the Fund's investment performance from the amount of this distribution or from the terms of the Fund's managed distribution plan.

The Fund estimates that it has distributed more than its income and net realized capital gains; therefore, a portion of your distribution may be a return of capital. A return of capital may occur, for example, when some or all of the money that you invested in the Fund is paid back to you. A return of capital distribution does not necessarily reflect the Fund's investment performance and should not be confused with "yield" or "income."

The amounts and sources of distributions reported in this Notice are only estimates and are not being provided for tax reporting purposes. The actual amounts and sources of the amounts for tax reporting purposes will depend upon the Fund's investment experience during the remainder of its fiscal year and may be subject to changes based on tax regulations. The Fund will send you a Form 1099-DIV for the calendar year that will tell you how to report these distributions for federal income tax purposes.

The Fund has declared the March 2017 distribution pursuant to the Fund's managed distribution plan (the "Plan"). Under the Plan, the Fund makes fixed monthly distributions in the amount of $0.0975 per share, which will continue to be paid monthly until further notice.

If you have questions or need additional information, please contact your financial professional or call the John Hancock Investments Closed-End Fund Information Line at 1-800-843-0090, Monday through Friday between 8:00 a.m. and 7:00 p.m., Eastern Time.

Statements in this press release that are not historical facts are forward-looking statements as defined by the United States securities laws. You should exercise caution in interpreting and relying on forward-looking statements because they are subject to uncertainties and other factors which are, in some cases, beyond the Fund's control and could cause actual results to differ materially from those set forth in the forward-looking statements.

An investor should consider a Fund's investment objectives, risks, charges and expenses carefully before investing.

About John Hancock Investments

John Hancock Investments provides asset management services to individuals and institutions through a unique manager-of-managers approach. A wealth management business of John Hancock Financial, we managed more than $135 billion in assets as of December 31, 2016 across mutual funds, college savings plans, and retirement plans.

About John Hancock Financial and Manulife Financial

John Hancock Financial is a division of Manulife Financial, a leading Canada-based financial services group with principal operations in Asia, Canada and the United States. Operating as Manulife Financial in Canada and Asia, and primarily as John Hancock in the United States, the Company offers clients a diverse range of financial protection products and wealth management services through its extensive network of employees, agents and distribution partners. Funds under management by Manulife Financial and its subsidiaries were C$977 billion (US$728 billion) as of December 31, 2016. Manulife Financial Corporation trades as 'MFC' on the TSX, NYSE and PSE, and under '945' on the SEHK. Manulife Financial can be found on the Internet at manulife.com.

The John Hancock unit, through its insurance companies, comprises one of the largest life insurers in the United States. John Hancock offers and administers a broad range of financial products, including life insurance, annuities, fixed products, mutual funds, 401(k) plans, college savings, and other forms of business insurance. Additional information about John Hancock may be found at johnhancock.com.

SOURCE John Hancock Investments

Related Links

http://www.johnhancock.com


"Educators need content that keeps children engaged and administrators need data to show student progress," said Monarch CEO and President Bob Gephart. "VizZle offers both and this investment from JumpStart will help us build the sales and marketing infrastructure we need to reach our next level of growth."

Monarch was founded in 2005 to develop visual learning software for the treatment of children and adolescents with autism. This software, which became VizZle, has since been adapted for use by schools, clinicians and parents of children with all sorts of other special education needs as well.

"VizZle is a truly unique and innovative product," said Rem Harris, JumpStart's senior partner in charge of investing. "The software offers an intuitive user interface and a large quantity of high-quality content developed by education experts. The combination of high-quality content and ease of use allows curriculum to be customized for each student, enabling them to learn on an individual basis. The content also aligns to specific state education standards and tracks progress against individualized education plansmaking it a valuable product for teachers and school administrators."

Monarch's move from Shaker Heights to MidTown Cleveland will make them one of more than 170 tech companies located in the Health-Tech Corridora rapidly growing 1,600-acre district that links Downtown Cleveland to University Circle on the city's east side.

"Many of these businesses locate in the corridor because it offers such quick, easy access to four world-class research and clinical institutions and four colleges and universities, all of which actively seek partnerships with small businesses," said HTC Director Jeff Epstein. "There is also a wealth of affordable and flexible office and lab space in the HTC and an ever-growing entrepreneurial community in the surrounding vicinity that is eager to collaborate and learn from one another."

"We were very attracted to the overall vibe of innovation and collaboration in the HTC," added Gephart. "There are also so many great sources of support and new talent for a company like ours. From that perspective, it makes a lot of sense to set up shop next to the universities and organizations like JumpStart and Tech Elevator."

JumpStart's Evergreen Fund invests seed capital in high-potential companies across the 21 counties of Northeast Ohio. To date, the fund has invested more than $31 million in 82 portfolio companies. The Evergreen Fund also contains a special $2 million carve-out dedicated to providing financial capital for businesses that meet the Evergreen Fund investment criteria and relocate to the HTC. This "Health-Tech Corridor Attraction Fund" is supported by the City of Cleveland, the Cleveland Foundation and the Ohio Third Frontier.

"The City of Cleveland is supporting JumpStart's investment in Monarch Teaching Technologies, Inc., who will be opening new offices in the Health Tech Corridor," said Mayor Frank G. Jackson. "The City has invested $200,000 in the $2 million JumpStart Health Tech Corridor Attraction Fund to encourage economic development, job retention and job creation."

JUMPSTART INC. unlocks the full potential of diverse and ambitious entrepreneurs to economically transform entire communities. For more information, visit www.jumpstartinc.org and follow @JumpStartInc on Twitter.

THE CLEVELAND HEALTH-TECH CORRIDOR connects Cleveland's vibrant Downtown to its cultural hub of University Circle, offering companies access to everything they need to grow and thrive. For more information, visit www.healthtechcorridor.com and follow @CleveHealthTech on Twitter.

MONARCH TEACHING TECHNOLOGIES, INC. is the maker of VizZle, easy-to-use special education software for autism and special needs that provides individualized, visuals-based interactive instruction for diverse needs. For more information, visit www.monarchtt.com and follow @govizzle on Twitter.

THE CITY OF CLEVELAND DEPARTMENT OF ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT enhances the lives of the citizens of Cleveland by catalyzing investment, development and growth in the community, ensuring a vibrant economic future for the City. For more information, visit www.rethinkcleveland.org and follow @CLE_EconDev on Twitter.

THE CITY OF CLEVELAND is committed to improving the quality of life of its residents by strengthening neighborhoods, delivering superior services, embracing diversity and making Cleveland a desirable, safe city in which to live, work and play. For more information, visit www.city.cleveland.oh.us and follow @cityofcleveland on Twitter and City of Cleveland on Facebook.

SOURCE JumpStart Inc.

Related Links

http://www.jumpstartinc.org


NOT FOR RELEASE, PUBLICATION OR DISTRIBUTION INTO OR IN THE UNITED STATES, CANADA, JAPAN OR AUSTRALIA, OR ANY OTHER JURISDICTION IN WHICH THE RELEASE, PUBLICATION OR DISTRIBUTION WOULD BE UNLAWFUL. THIS ANNOUNCEMENT DOES NOT CONSTITUTE AN OFFER TO SUBSCRIBE OR PURCHASE ANY OF THE SECURITIES DESCRIBED HEREIN

Reference is made to the stock exchange announcements dated 28 February 2017 and 1 March 2017 respectively regarding the private placement (the "Private Placement") in Archer Limited ("Archer" or the "Company) by way of allocation of 84,000,000 new shares (the "Private Placement Shares") and the decision to carry out a subsequent offering (the "Subsequent Offering") of up to 16,800,000 new shares (the "Offer Shares") for gross proceeds of up to NOK 168.0 million (approximately USD 20.0 million) (equal to up to 20% of the size of the Private Placement).

Shareholders as of 28 February 2017 (the date of the Private Placement), as registered in the VPS on 2 March 2017, who were not invited to participate, or applied for but were not allocated shares in the Private Placement and who are not resident in a jurisdiction where such offering would be unlawful or, for jurisdictions other than Norway, would require any prospectus, filing, registration or similar action, will receive 0.312973 non-transferable allocation rights per share held in the Company. Each allocation right grants the owner the right to apply for and be allocated one Offer Share. Oversubscription and subscription without allocation rights will not be permitted. Upon expiry of the application period, the allocation rights will expire.

On 31 March 2017, the Financial Supervisory Authority of Norway approved the prospectus for (i) the listing of the Private Placement Shares, and (ii) the Subsequent Offering and listing of up to 16,800,000 Offer Shares (the "Prospectus").

The application period in the Subsequent Offering commences 3 April 2017 at 09:00 (CET), and expires on 19 April 2017 at 16:30 (CET). The offer price per New Share is NOK 10.00, equal to the subscription price per Private Placement Share.

The Private Placement Shares will be listed on Oslo Brs on 3 April 2017. The shares will change ISIN number to ISIN BMG 0451H1170 and commence trading under the trading symbol "ARCHER".

For more information, please refer to the Prospectus. The Prospectus will be available at www.archerwell.com, www.abgsc.com, www.arctic.com/secno and at the offices of Archer, ABG Sundal Collier ASA and Arctic Securities AS.

ABG Sundal Collier ASA and Arctic Securities AS (collectively the "Managers") are acting as Joint Lead Managers and Bookrunners for the Subsequent Offering. Advokatfirmaet BA-HR DA is acting as legal advisor to the Company in connection with the Subsequent Offering-.

For further information, please contact:

Dag Skindlo, CFO and EVP Strategy

+ 47 98 22 66 24

dag.skindlo@archerwell.com

Important information:

The release is not for publication or distribution, in whole or in part directly or indirectly, in or into Australia,

Canada, Japan or the United States (including its territories and possessions, any state of the United States and the District of Columbia) or any other jurisdiction in which the release, publication or distribution would be unlawful. This release is an announcement issued pursuant to legal information obligations, and is subject of the disclosure requirements pursuant to section 5-12 of the Norwegian Securities Trading Act. It is issued for information purposes only, and does not constitute or form part of any offer or solicitation to purchase or subscribe for securities, in the United States or in any other jurisdiction. The securities mentioned herein have not been, and will not be, registered under the United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the "US Securities Act"). The securities may not be offered or sold in the United States except pursuant to an exemption from the registration requirements of the US Securities Act. The Company does not intend to register any portion of the offering of the securities in the United States or to conduct a public offering of the securities in the United States. Copies of this announcement are not being made and may not be distributed or sent into Australia, Canada, Japan or the United States or any other jurisdiction in which such distribution would be unlawful or would require registration or other measures. The issue, exercise, purchase or sale of subscription rights and the subscription or purchase of shares in the Company are subject to specific legal or regulatory restrictions in certain jurisdictions. Neither the Company nor the Managers assumes any responsibility in the event there is a violation by any person of such restrictions.

The distribution of this release may in certain jurisdictions be restricted by law. Persons into whose possession this release comes should inform themselves about and observe any such restrictions. Any failure to comply with these restrictions may constitute a violation of the securities laws of any such jurisdiction. The Managers are acting for the Company and no one else in connection with the Private Placement and will not be responsible to anyone other than the Company for providing the protections afforded to their respective clients or for providing advice in relation to the Private Placement and/or any other matter referred to in this release.

Forward-looking statements:

This release and any materials distributed in connection with this release may contain certain forward-looking statements. By their nature, forward-looking statements involve risk and uncertainty because they reflect the Company's current expectations and assumptions as to future events and circumstances that may not prove accurate. A number of material factors could cause actual results and developments to differ materially from those expressed or implied by these forward-looking statements.



This information is subject to the disclosure requirements pursuant to section 5-12 of the Norwegian Securities Trading Act.


(Logo: http://mma.prnewswire.com/media/484915/Lamor_Logo.jpg )

(Photo: http://mma.prnewswire.com/media/484916/Fred_Larsen_Andrey_Shishkin.jpg )

The partnership will evaluate prospects of localizing production of oil spill response (OSR) equipment and machinery in Russia for the Arctic region. Localization of production is forecasted to be at least 70% by 2025, and the equipment will be manufactured at a Rosneft shipbuilding facility. The parties aim to establish joint production of specialized floating crafts, equipment for oil spill recovery at sea and on land, oil containment booms, as well as other equipment and components.

"We are very pleased to team up with Rosneft. As long-standing partners, we have been supplying OSR equipment for Rosneft's production assets for the past 20 years," stated Fred Larsen, President and CEO of Lamor Corporation.

"We have service centers in Russia to provide maintenance and support for OSR equipment, Ecoshelf in Sakhalin and Ecoshelf-Baltika in St. Petersburg, that have been in operation for 18 years. Joint production with Rosneft takes our presence in the Russian market to another level," said Larsen.

Rosneft is the largest license holder on the continental shelf of the Russian Federation. The company holds 55 licenses (28 of them at the Arctic shelf) that cover a total area of more than 1 million square kilometers. Preservation of a favorable environment and biological diversity of fragile marine ecosystems is a fundamental principle of the company's operations. Geological exploration is preceded by a series of detailed environmental studies on weather, ice conditions, ice flow, characteristics of the fauna, and related fields. Rosneft has a system approach to environmental safety aiming primarily at prevention of emergency situations.

In accordance with the agreement, Lamor and Rosneft will manufacture equipment for Rosneft projects as well as third-party customers.

For more information, please contact:

Fred Larsen, President & CEO, Lamor Corporation, [email protected], tel: +359-400-906-311, http://www.lamor.com

Rosneft Information Division, tel: +7-499-517-8897, http://www.rosneft.com

SOURCE Lamor Corporation
LOS ANGELES, March 31, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Lost Spirits Technology LLC (Lost Spirits) is pleased to announce that the United States Patent and Trademark Office has awarded the company two key patents governing its revolutionary distilled spirits maturation process.

US patent applications 14/594,944 and 14/795,841 have been issued notices of allowance by USPTO. They describe processes for maturing distilled spirits involving heat driven esterification and photocatalytic polymer degradation of oak barrel staves. Lost Spirits has shown that its patented process creates chemical reactions in distilled spirits similar to those that take place in oak barrels over the course of decades.

Bryan Davis, the inventor named on both patents, has published data demonstrating that the new technology can nearly identically match the chemical signature of a 20-year-old rum, but do so in under a week's time.

The awarding of these patents enables Lost Spirits to commercialize, protect and further develop its revolutionary technology. This includes designing and marketing unique matured spirits that are impossible to produce via conventional spirits-making techniques -- in effect creating a new spirits growth platform.

First applied successfully to rum, Lost Spirits' technology has since been proven effective in other spirits categories. Utilizing its patented process and associated THEA reactor, Lost Spirits Distillery recently released its "Abomination" line of whiskies*. Abomination whiskies benefit from combining Islay spirit with charred and toasted oak staves seasoned with California late harvest Riesling. These unique whiskies have received a stellar critical reception.

A sampling of third party Lost Spirits whiskey reviews can be read here:

http://scotchnoob.com/2017/02/20/lost-spirits-abomination/

https://www.drinkhacker.com/2017/03/04/review-lost-spirits-distillery-abomination-the-sayers-of-the-law/

https://robbreport.com/wine-spirits-cigars/lost-spirits-abomination-may-be-future-american-whiskey

https://whiskyarch.com/2017/01/30/what-you-should-be-drinking-right-now-abomination/

About Lost Spirits: Headquartered in the Los Angeles Arts District, Lost Spirits Technology LLC operates as an Intellectual Property licensing company focused on commercializing the firm's revolutionary IP. Though they are operated by the same team, the company is distinct from Lost Spirits Distillery LLC, which is a celebrated boutique distillery principally engaged in the research, design, and development of new culinary experiences within distilled spirits.

Contact: Joanne Haruta: [email protected]

Website: www.lostspirits.net

* "Whiskies" are described as such within this release in order to help writers understand what to expect from these products in terms of their chemical composition and flavor profiles. Abomination brand products are labeled as a Heavily Peated Malt, a descriptor approved by the US government (TTB) specifically for this product.

SOURCE Lost Spirits Technology LLC

Related Links

http://www.lostspirits.net


SACRAMENTO, Calif., March 31, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- McClatchy (NYSE: MNI) today announced 11 President's Awards for journalists who uncovered corruption in local government, held leaders and institutions accountable and told human stories in compelling and original ways.

Reporters Beth Hundsdorfer and George Pawlaczyk of the Belleville News-Democrat won for the second straight year  this time for a series of stories that led to the conviction of one East St. Louis Township city official and criminal charges against a number of others. Hundsdorfer and Pawlaczyk won last year for stories on local law enforcement's failure to prosecute sexual assault cases.

The staff of The Charlotte Observer was honored for its extraordinary breaking news reporting on a police shooting that sparked days and nights of protests in Charlotte. The Observer team used every platform available to the modern journalist  including video and social media  to keep the community and the country informed as the news unfolded.

Reporter Wesley Muller and photographer John Fitzhugh of the Sun Herald in Biloxi, Miss., won for "Fostering Secrets," a series of powerful stories that shined a light on a government agency that took children from their families based on falsified records and exaggerated claims.

The Miami Herald, McClatchy's Washington Bureau and McClatchy's Video Lab were honored for their work on the Panama Papers, a joint project with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists and other media organizations.

The McClatchy President's Awards, now in their 17th year, recognize the best work of 2016 by the company's 30 newsrooms, with particular emphasis on digital accomplishments, innovation and exemplary reporting, writing, photography and videography.

"The President's Awards confirm what I see every day: That across the country, McClatchy journalists are producing compelling and essential work that makes our communities better," said Craig Forman, McClatchy's president and CEO. "It's never an easy time to be a journalist -- these days especially -- but the reporting honored by these awards is an excellent reminder that our work is more important than ever before."

Judging this year's competition were Richard Just, former editor of Newsweek, The New Republic and National Journal and soon-to-be editor of The Washington Post's Sunday magazine; Kristin Roberts, executive editor of McClatchy Washington and a veteran of Politico, National Journal and Reuters; and Tim Grieve, McClatchy's vice president for news.

Here is a complete list of this year's President's Award winners, together with comments from the three judges:

Belleville News-Democrat

East St. Louis Township Public Corruption

Beth Hundsdorfer and George Pawlaczyk, reporters

Through what the judges called "dogged" and "impressive" reporting, Hundsdorfer and Pawlaczyk uncovered that an East St. Louis Township supervisor had misused thousands of dollars in government money meant to help the poor. Federal law enforcement officials used the reporters' work as a roadmap for their own investigation  and for the criminal charges that followed.

(Biloxi) Sun Herald

"Fostering Secrets"

Wesley Muller, reporter, and John Fitzhugh, photographer

Muller started asking questions when he heard that the county he covers has Mississippi's highest percentage of children in foster care. The answers he found were alarming: evidence that children had been taken from their families based on forged or falsified records and unsubstantiated claims of child abuse. Muller and Fitzhugh presented their work in a six-part multi-media report that included what the judges called the "wrenching personal tales of the mothers and fathers whose children were taken." State lawmakers responded immediately to Muller and Fitzhugh's work with a flurry of bills meant to prevent further incidents.

The Charlotte Observer

Keith Lamont Scott shooting and protests

The protests following the police shooting of Keith Lamont Scott offered every challenge a newsroom can face: fast-moving news, dangerous and chaotic conditions, and a police department reluctant to release body-cam videos that documented the events leading up to the shooting. The Observer's staff met the challenge  covering the breaking news via Twitter, video and its own stories and organizing a coalition of media organizations to push for the release of police videos. "It's hard to imagine a newsroom covering a crisis in its city any better than The Charlotte Observer team did," the judges said.

The (Hilton Head) Island Packet

"Propping up Paradise"

The Island Packet unveiled a looming crisis for Hilton Head: The local tourist industry's difficulty finding workers was threatening the quality of life on the island and its reputation as a world-class destination. Through words, pictures and video, The Island Packet team documented the reasons for the staff shortage  including low pay and the high cost of local housing  and told the remarkable stories of people who commute by bus several hours each way to clean hotel rooms, landscape resort grounds and scrub pots in restaurant kitchens. The judges cited "excellent" writing that told "moving" stories  and lauded The Island Packet's courage in taking on a project that hit so close to home.

The Kansas City Star

"Fatal Echoes"

Mike Hendricks and Matt Campbell, reporters

In the wake of a fire that killed two firefighters in Kansas City, Hendricks and Campbell unraveled a tragic truth: All across the country, firefighters die preventable deaths because their departments haven't learned from the mistakes of others. Through a sobering series of stories, Hendricks and Campbell "put the fire service on notice," the judges said, "and their work will save lives."

Lexington Herald-Leader

"Harvesting Tax Breaks"

Linda Blackford, John Cheves, reporters; John Stamper, editor; Deedra Lawhead, interactive map/data

The judges cited "Harvesting Tax Breaks" as "an impressive example of identifying an outrageous problem that's hiding in plain sight." Reporters Blackford and Cheves explained how a little-known tax break under Kentucky law that was intended to save family farms was instead being used to subsidize suburban real estate and retail developments. The investigation relied on intense document and data research, and used new tools, including explanatory video and interactive mapping, to put the story in context for readers. The report prompted a state legislative investigation and major changes by local property-valuation authorities.

Miami Herald

Opa-locka: City for Sale

Jay Weaver, staff writer; Michael Sallah, senior investigative reporter; Jose Iglesias, videographer; Kara Dapena, designer; Sohail al-Jamea, senior motion graphics producer (McClatchy Video Lab)

Tipped off about a pending federal investigation, the Miami Herald dug deep to discover that Opa-locka was hopelessly broke and on the verge of bankruptcy  and that local officials had concealed the problems by filing false financial statements and tapping into highly restricted funds to keep the money flowing for lavish parties, employee bonuses and pet projects -- including an outdoor digital display with water fountains to promote their political campaigns. The Herald team was soon one step ahead of law enforcement, prompting the FBI at one point to threaten to charge witnesses criminally if they spoke to reporters. The Herald's work prompted action by the governor to put an end to the spending in Opa-locka. The judges called it a "truly impressive example of accountability journalism."

El Nuevo Herald

"Condos de Pesadilla (Condo Nightmares)"

Enrique Flor and Brenda Medina, reporters

In a multi-part series, the team from El Nuevo Herald uncovered and documented widespread and systematic fraud facing the residents of condo communities in Miami-Dade County. This fraud involved state regulators, whose job it is to protect condo owners, as well as election monitors and even notaries. Together with its partner, Univision 23, El Nuevo Herald found at least 84 fraudulent votes and a fraudulent bidding process. The impact was swift: Condo owners through South Florida staged protests and marches, and a grand jury launched an investigation. Just last month, that grand jury decided the state agency has failed its mission.

The Sacramento Bee

Linda Katehi Investigation

Diana Lambert and Sam Stanton, reporters

In work the judges called "impressive," "important" and "on mission," Lambert and Stanton delivered revelation after revelation about the chancellor of the University of California, Davis  including that she had spent hundreds of thousands of dollars in public funds to bolster her reputation and scrub the internet of negative references to her. Their work prompted student protests, legislative hearings and, ultimately, an investigation by the president of the University of California that cost the chancellor her job.

The (Tacoma) News Tribune

Klara Bowman: Teacher, daughter, alcoholic

Matt Driscoll, columnist and Debbie Cafazzo, reporter

The internet had its fun when school officials in Tacoma fired a young kindergarten teacher for being intoxicated in class. The News Tribune's Matt Driscoll responded with a powerful column recounting his life growing up with an alcoholic father and challenging readers to treat alcoholism as a societal scourge, not a source of jokes. Three months later, Klara Bowman committed suicide. Remembering Driscoll's column, her friends encouraged him to reach out to Bowman's parents and tell the story of her struggle. The judges called the resulting work "haunting and powerful." And as Driscoll's editor notes, "Today, when you Google 'Klara Bowman,' the top result is not a sordid recounting of her worst day, but Driscoll's retelling of her life in full, with all the pain and joy it included."

McClatchy Washington Bureau, McClatchy Video Lab, Miami Herald,

Panama Papers

Kevin G. Hall, national correspondent; Tim Johnson, correspondent; Nick Nehamas, reporter; Jim Wyss, Bogota bureau chief; Kyra Gurney, reporter; Sohail Al-Jamea, senior motion graphics producer and Ali Rizvi, videographer

In possibly the largest collaborative journalism project ever undertaken, the Miami Herald and McClatchy teamed with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists and media organizations worldwide to produce the Panama Papers  an extraordinary investigation into how money moves secretly around the globe. It was a difficult and complicated story to tell, and the Miami Herald-McClatchy team did it in pieces that brought the news home not just in Miami but elsewhere in the United States. A video produced by McClatchy's Video Lab made a complicated subject clear. The project has already won a number of national reporting prizes, and the President's Award judges lauded it as "truly excellent reporting on a global scale."

About McClatchy

McClatchy is a publisher of iconic brands such as the Miami Herald, The Kansas City Star, The Sacramento Bee, The Charlotte Observer, The (Raleigh) News and Observer, and the (Fort Worth) Star-Telegram. McClatchy operates 30 media companies in 29 U.S. markets in 14 states, providing each of its communities with high-quality news and advertising services in a wide array of digital and print formats. McClatchy is headquartered in Sacramento, Calif., and listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol MNI.

SOURCE McClatchy

Related Links

http://www.mcclatchy.com


"Miami Beach fosters an inclusive community and embraces visitors from all walks of life, as demonstrated by our Travvy Award for Best LGBTQ Destination earlier this year," says Peggy Benua, Chair of the Miami Beach Visitor and Convention Authority (MBVCA). "An acclaimed haven for the LGBT community, Miami Beach is like no other place in the world."

Welcoming visitors from around the world, Miami Beach Gay Pride is one of the most festive celebrations of its kind. The annual week-long festival is taking over the city from April 3-10, bringing together members of the LGBT community and their allies. This year, in a show of solidarity, Miami Beach will be paying tribute to the victims, families and friends of the PULSE Nightclub shooting by orchestrating "Pride Lights the Night". Buildings, retail locations, and homes throughout the Miami Beach area will light up awash in the colors of the Pride rainbow flag.

On April 9, with Ross Mathews as its celebrity Grand Marshall, The Pride Parade, drawing more than 130,000 participants each year, will travel along Ocean Drive. The fun doesn't end after the final float is gone; from Friday, April 21 to Sunday, April 30, the MiFo LGBT Film Festival continues the party and returns to Miami Beach. Guests can catch special screenings of films dedicated to diversity in cinema, offering contemporary perspectives on the LGBT experience, playing at the Regal Cinemas South Beach.

In addition to the exciting annual events, there are many mainstay LGBT-friendly activities year-round, including BRUNCHIC at the spectacular Palace South Beach. Every Sunday, both visitors and locals enjoy delicious food, bottomless mimosas, and the lively Drag Brunch performances that the Palace is famous for. The center of gay nightlife in Miami Beach for over 20 years, Twist South Beach offers Ladies Happy Hour and nightly dance parties, a popular "must-do" experience. For accommodations, Hotel Gaythering, Miami Beach's premier hotel catering to the gay traveler, is a top choice.

"Miami Beach is a world-renowned travel destination for the LGBT community", says Grisette Roque, Executive Director of the MBVCA. "The city strives to ensure guests and residents feel secure and entertained in our beautiful city with programs such as 'The Hub' LGBT Visitor Center and the newly launched safe-space initiative. Miami Beach remains a leading example for LGBT inclusiveness."

For more information about LGBT events, offerings, and things to do, download the Miami Beach Information App at www.MiamiBeachAPI.com.

Must-Do April LGBT Events Include:

Miami Beach Gay Pride

Since 2009, Miami Beach Gay Pride has brought together the LGBT community and allies by organizing free events open to all. Main attractions this year include:

Rainbow Flag Raising Ceremony, April 3 : Join city officials and Miami Beach Gay Pride Board members to officially kick off the "Week of Pride".

: Join city officials and Miami Beach Gay Pride Board members to officially kick off the "Week of Pride". Miss Miami Beach Gay Pride Pageant & Silent Auction, April 3 : More than just a pageant, the event is a fundraiser to help benefit the local LGBT community and youth.

: More than just a pageant, the event is a fundraiser to help benefit the local LGBT community and youth. A Different TWIST on Fun: Ladies Happy Hour, April 6 : Twist South Beach isn't only for the boys! Ladies take over on April 6th from 8-11 p.m. for a special women's happy hour with drink specials, prizes, entertainment, and much more!

: Twist South Beach isn't only for the boys! Ladies take over on from for a special women's happy hour with drink specials, prizes, entertainment, and much more! Miami Beach Gay Pride Parade and Festival, April 9 : Celebrity parade marshals include Ross Matthews and "Uncle" Johnny Pool from Elvis Duran and The Morning Show. Miami Beach will also host a two-day, free beach party festival with international DJs, exhibitors, community booths, family fun zone, food vendors and cash bars. This year, the Miami Beach Pride Festival will feature fireworks and a surprise performance tribute to Prince.

MiFo LGBT Film Festival

The largest LGBT cultural arts event in South Florida, the MiFo LGBT Film Festival will be hosting events across Miami Beach from April 21-30. Highlights include multiple film showings at Regal Cinemas South Beach and specialty events like:

Palace South Beach

An integral part of Miami Beach's LGBT scene, the Palace's top events this month include:

Annual Rock the Block Free Block Party, April 9 : Hosted by Missy Meyakie Lepaige and Joanna James , the annual block party is celebrating Miami Beach Gay Pride with Danny Verde and DJ Carlos Rojas. Guests with reservations can watch the Pride Parade right on Ocean Drive at the center of all the action.

: Hosted by Missy Meyakie Lepaige and , the annual block party is celebrating Miami Beach Gay Pride with and DJ Carlos Rojas. Guests with reservations can watch the Pride Parade right on Ocean Drive at the center of all the action. BRUNCHIC: Reoccurring every Sunday, enjoy entertainment fit for a queen while sipping on bottomless mimosas and feasting on brunch fare.

LGBT Visitor Center "The Hub"

The epicenter of LGBT activity in South Beach, "The Hub" offers weekly support groups, special workshops and an array of social events year-round open to all:

Gay Chamber Spotlight Mega-Mixer Benefitting Miami Beach Gay Pride, April 4 : A special Miami Beach Gay Pride edition of the bi-monthly Spotlight Mega-Mixer event hosted by the Miami-Dade Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce at the Shore Club South Beach. Kick off Pride celebrations by mingling and networking with over 200 Chamber members and guests.

: A special Miami Beach Gay Pride edition of the bi-monthly Spotlight Mega-Mixer event hosted by the Miami-Dade Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce at the Shore Club South Beach. Kick off Pride celebrations by mingling and networking with over 200 Chamber members and guests. INVISIBLE, April 14  May 31 : An exhibit presented at "The Hub" consisting of portraits and written testimonials of participants from Warrior of Hope and I Still Remember, both projects aimed at raising awareness on HIV/AIDS and pressing social issues in society.

About Miami Beach

Recently named the World's Leading City Tourist Board in 2016 and 2016 North America's Leading Tourist Board by the World Travel Awards, first place in the 2017 and 2016 edition of the Travvy Awards, presented by travAlliancemedia in the categories of "Best LGBTQ Destination" and "Best Wedding Destination, U.S. & Canada" and a winner in the 2014, 2015 and 2016 Magellan Awards by Travel Weekly in the categories of "Destinations | Mobile App", "Overall Spa Destinations| U.S and Canada" and "Overall Beaches Destinations| U.S and Canada" respectively, Miami Beach is a favorite destination among travelers worldwide. Renowned for its unparalleled culinary offerings, extravagant nightlife, rich culture, luxe shopping and plush hotels, Miami Beach is home to unique museums, the New World Symphony, Miami City Ballet, Miami Beach Convention Center, international festivals and art exhibitions, boat and auto shows, over 187 boutique and resort hotels and 12 public parks; it is no wonder the beautifully diverse city is one of the world's most popular vacation destinations. Boasting seven miles of breathtaking beaches, Miami Beach is easily accessible from the Port of Miami and Miami International Airport. The City of Miami Beach has been named one of the top cities worldwide for 'walkability' and is equally easy to navigate by bike or boat. Known for its year-round sunny skies, the vibrant destination has been ranked by TripAdvisor as a Top Winter Sun Vacation Rental Getaway Destinations, Top Romantic Destinations, Top 25 Beaches in the World and Top 25 Destinations in the U.S. Miami Beach is like no other place in the world!

Visit MiamiBeachAPI.com for more information and to download the Miami Beach Information App. You may also contact Grisette Roque at [email protected]

SOURCE Miami Beach Visitor and Convention Authority

Related Links

http://www.miamibeachapi.com


BOSTON, March 31, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- In another step towards fulfilling its obligations under its February 11, 2016, mortgage settlement agreement with the State of New York, Morgan Stanley has received conditional approval for nearly $200 million of additional credit for consumer-relief activities performed in recent months, according to Eric D. Green, independent Monitor of the settlement agreement.

The amount of cumulative credit conditionally validated now totals $309.1 million, or 77 percent of the $400 million worth of credited consumer relief in New York State required under the agreement, which settled claims that Morgan Stanley had violated New York State law in connection with residential mortgage-backed securities.

"With these actions, Morgan Stanley has continued to provide consumer relief to New York communities in need of housing assistance," Professor Green said today in his third report on the bank's consumer-relief activities. Professor Green is a Boston-based professional mediator and a retired Boston University law professor.

In its March 24 credit submission, Morgan Stanley listed 14 grants to counties and municipalities to support certified land banks, 75 grants to municipalities and eligible agencies to support housing quality improvement and enforcement programs and four actions to fund critical-need housing developments. Morgan Stanley claimed total credit of $198,430,440 in the submission, broken out as following:

$28,458,763 for certified land banks,

for certified land banks, $28,229,506 for housing quality improvement and enforcement programs,

for housing quality improvement and enforcement programs, $141,742,171 for affordable rental housing.

Today's report is available at the Monitor's website at: http://morganstanley.mortgagesettlementmonitor.com. The website provides further details about the settlement, plus contact information for Morgan Stanley, New York State Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman's office, and agencies that provide legal or tax advice to consumers.

The Monitor's mailing address is: Monitor of the Morgan Stanley Mortgage Settlement, P.O. Box 10300, Dublin, OH 43017-5900, and the e-mail address is [email protected].

SOURCE Eric D. Green, Monitor of the Morgan Stanley Mortgage Settlement

Related Links

http://morganstanley.mortgagesettlementmonitor.com


The ceremony was held in Xinzheng, Zhengzhou City, central China's Henan province, where the capital of Huangdi's Huaxia Empire was located after he united all the other tribes in China 5,000 years ago.

Ceremonies were also held in Macao, Hong Kong, Taiwan, San Francisco and Sydney to worship Huangdi and pray for the Chinese nation's rejuvenation.

The theme of the ceremony is "Chinese with the same roots praying for peace and harmony".

Since 2006, the ceremony has attracted tens of thousands of Chinese across the world to look for their roots every year and has become an influential event for the overseas Chinese. Xinzheng thus becomes a sacred place and a spiritual homeland for the Chinese.

Huangdi was believed to be born, start his career and establish the capital in Xinzheng. He was regarded as the common ancestor of all the Chinese people around the world. The worship activities towards the ancestor date back to ancient China and had become a ritual since the Tang Dynasty and lasted for a millennium.

As the homeland of Huangdi and an important origin of Chinese civilization, Zhengzhou has witnessed fast development in the past decades. It is one of China's transportation hubs and a window of opening-up in the hinterland. It is also an important intersection on the Euro-Asia Continental Bridge and is on the way to build a National Central City.

SOURCE zynews
NEW YORK, March 31, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- "Teledentistry is a rising trend in our profession that is here to stay," Dr. Ronald Riggins was quoted in a recent American Dental Association (ADA) article on the acceptance of teledentistry dental codes by the ADA. Dr. Riggins added: "More and more dentists are using teledentistry to provide access to care."

While studies are showing the wider health connections between oral health and overall health, Americans' access to dental care is facing increased challenges.

"After fits and starts over the last 2 decades, the time is finally right for teledentistry to take off. Dentists, health programs, and perhaps a new category of 'telehygienists' need a simple-to-set-up, cost-effective, easy to integrate, low learning-curve solution to make teledentistry really applicable to the challenges of improving oral health and widening access to care," explains MouthWatch CEO, Brant Herman.

"That's where MouthWatch TeleDent comes in. We designed TeleDent to elegantly meet practical needs for teledentistry pioneers across a diverse field of applications from private practice, to public health programs, to new career models for hygienists. And for those programs that already have telehealth infrastructure, our intraoral dental camera easily integrates for oral health evaluations and screenings."

MouthWatch will be meeting and discussing the opportunities and challenges of teledentistry with telehealth advocates, pioneers, and solution seekers at the TeleHealth 2017 Summit organized by the Mid-Atlantic Telehealth Research Center (MATRC) this April 24 in Leesburg, Virginia.

"Telehealth technologies," the Summit organizers points out, "offer the promise of improving what we are currently doing, but also opens the door for finding new and better ways to do it." MouthWatch is inviting you to see how this is true for their new turnkey teledentistry solution, TeleDent.

MouthWatch can be contacted for a personalized demonstration of TeleDent at mouthwatch.com or by calling (877) 544-4342.

Media Contact:

Brant Herman

[email protected]

917.533.3462

SOURCE MouthWatch, LLC

Related Links

https://www.mymouthwatch.com


CAMBRIDGE, Mass., March 31, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- IBM (NYSE: IBM) Security today announced new research from IBM X-Force, revealing that cybercriminals scaled their most successful financial malware tools globally in 2016. The leading malware tool Zeus and its variants Neverquest and Gozi, kept their global rankings as the top three malware from the previous year, as cybercriminals retooled them to operate in new countries and regions.

The report, "The Shifting Panorama of Global Financial Cybercrime," leverages data from the nearly 300 million protected endpoints across the globe monitored by IBM Trusteer and IBM X-Force. The report reveals top financial malware in countries including: The United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Japan, New Zealand, Australia, Brazil, Germany, Asia, and the United Arab Emirates.

IBM X-Force found that cybercriminals expanded their reach into new regions by establishing networks and partnerships with local crime factions. These new relationships gave them access to new target email lists, an understanding of local banking credential requirements, and regional money laundering operations. For example, the cybercriminals operating TrickBot, which emerged in August 2016, launched the malware during a testing and development period to turned it into a banking Trojan and worked out the bugs before its actual deployment in the U.K. and other English-speaking countries. It then promptly moved to Germany.

"The level of cooperation between organized crime rings marks a significant shift in strategy," said Limor Kessem, Executive Security Advisor, IBM Security. "While the sharing of tools and services was common in forums on the dark web, this deeper collaboration outside that environment demonstrates that to scale globally, deeper cooperation between criminals is required."

Financial-focused cybercrime proved to be worth the investment of resources for cybercriminals in 2016. According to the recent 2017 IBM X-Force Threat Intelligence Index, IBM X-Force revealed that the Financial Services industry experienced a resurgence with cybercriminals as it became the most targeted industry by cyberattacks in 2016 after dropping to third in 2015. Interestingly, while Financial Services was targeted the most by cyber-attacks last year, data from the X-Force report shows it was only third in compromised records.

Geographic Trends and Malware Crosses Borders

While the U.S. and the U.K. were the most targeted with financial malware attacks in 2016, some new markets began to emerge as targets of cybercriminals. For example, Japan which historically remained isolated from cybercrime due to a lack of local tools and its complex language, saw new malware families target the country. The leading financial malware targeting Japan included Gozi, URLZone, and Shifu, which are operated by well-known Eastern European cybercrime gangs. Their presence in the region marked an evolution of the fraud infrastructure in Japan.

Brazil also saw itself in the sights of cybercriminals globally in 2016 as the country hosted the 2016 Summer Olympics. Notably, the Zeus Trojan was not often seen in Brazil until 2016 due to a lack of local technical skills required to operate the advanced botnet operation needed to deploy the malware. Zeus's code was the basis of three commercial malware iterations, Zeus Panda, FlokiBot, and Zeus Sphinx, which were adapted to target Brazilian banks and payment platforms.

To learn more about the financial malware landscape and its global evolution in 2016, download the IBM X-Force report "The Shifting Panorama of Global Financial Cybercrime" at http://ibm.co/2oiWi5N.

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.

Contact:

Kelly Kane

IBM Security, External Relations

413-297-2668

[email protected]

SOURCE IBM

Related Links

http://ibm.com


OSLO, Norway, Mar. 31, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --

The Board of Directors of A/S hereby gives notice of the annual general meeting to be held on April 25 2017 in Aalborg, Denmark.

The notice convening the general meeting, the agenda, and the full text of all proposals can be downloaded from www.asetek.com/AGM2017.

On the day of the notice of the general meeting there are 25,457,752 shares and 25,457,752 voting rights in Asetek A/S.

The following documents will be submitted to the general meeting:

Annual report 2016

CONTACT:

For further information, please contact:

Peter Dam Madsen

Chief Financial Officer

Mobile: +45 2080 7200

e-mail: [email protected]

This information was brought to you by Cision http://news.cision.com

http://news.cision.com/asetek/r/notice-of-annual-general-meeting-april-25-2017,c2229294

The following files are available for download:

http://mb.cision.com/Main/6758/2229294/651356.pdf PDF http://mb.cision.com/Public/6758/2229294/afb4ba1bfe9437ed.pdf Proxy - Postal Vote - AGM - 25 April 2017 http://mb.cision.com/Public/6758/2229294/bb334a8889a7fddd.pdf Notice of annual general meeting 2017

SOURCE Asetek
SAN FRANCISCO, March 31, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Today RISMedia and REAL Trends, the nation's leading real estate industry media organizations, ranked Pacific Union International, Inc. the eighth-largest residential real estate brokerage in the U.S., with 2016 sales volume of $10.15 billion. The RISMedia and REAL Trends rankings cap a year of outstanding expansion for Pacific Union. Posting an impressive 23 percent growth rate over last year's sales volume, the California-based brokerage led by CEO Mark A. McLaughlin moves up the list from ninth place in 2015.

Pacific Union International jumped to eighth largest residential real estate brokerage in the U.S. with 2016 sales volume of $10.15 billion in part due to a strong independent global digital advertising campaign.

Propelling this jump is Pacific Union's newly expanded reach into the white-hot Los Angeles market through its December 2016 merger with luxury brokerage John Aaroe Group. With more than 400 real estate professionals, John Aaroe Group's current operation is comparable in size to Pacific Union in 2009 when McLaughlin acquired the San Francisco-based brokerage. Pacific Union expects to execute a similarly aggressive growth trajectory with John Aaroe Group throughout Southern California.

The combined California brokerages support over 1,100 elite real estate professionals spanning the state, including a stellar team at The Mark Company, the premier sales and marketing firm for new luxury urban developments in the Western U.S. Pacific Union acquired The Mark Company in 2015, and the company drives sales and marketing efforts for landmark developments, including Los Angeles' $1 billion Oceanwide Plaza Residences and San Francisco's ultraluxurious 181 Fremont Residences.

Beyond growth through acquisition, Pacific Union's gain is fueled by the success of a record-shattering global digital marketing campaign launched in the summer of 2016, which resulted in a remarkable 171 percent increase in traffic to the brokerage's website. The campaign was created as McLaughlin accelerated efforts to establish Pacific Union's independence and preeminence in leading real estate capitals of the world.

"The results of our Pacific Union digital advertising campaign in The United Kingdom, China, India, and Brazil are stunning," McLaughlin says. "We are seeing exponential increases in our website's global user sessions that are driven directly by this campaign.

Conceived for Pacific Union by advertising powerhouse, Ogilvy & Mather Worldwide, the campaign's results exceed past international outreach efforts, including those delivered by Christie's International Real Estate, an affiliation that was formerly a driver for Pacific Union's global reach. On Jan. 1, 2017, Pacific Union and John Aaroe Group increased 2017 investments to extend these independent digital campaigns in Brazil, India, China, and the U.K. The year-to-date campaign results have delivered more than 60 million global impressions and 245,000 international site visits to www.PacificUnion.com

About Pacific Union

Founded in San Francisco in 1975, Pacific Union International, Inc. is the West Coast's premier luxury real estate brand. With sales volume of $10.15 billion, real estate industry media leaders RISMedia and REAL Trends rank Pacific Union as the eighth-largest brokerage in the U. S. Through its 2015 acquisition of The Mark Company, the nation's leading sales and marketing firm for new urban luxury developments, Pacific Union expanded its brand to development projects from San Diego to Seattle. In 2016 Pacific Union merged with Los Angeles-based brokerage John Aaroe Group, extending the Pacific Union brand to become the ultimate California real estate company. The strategic alliance of these three powerhouses creates combined 2016 production of $10.15 billion supporting over 1,100 elite real estate professionals in 38 offices throughout the Pacific coast. Extending Pacific Union's international reach, in 2013 the brokerage established an award-winning Beijing-based China Concierge program that fully supports its Chinese investors on the mainland. Additionally Pacific Union offers a full range of personal and commercial real estate services, including buying, selling, and relocation in addition to operating joint-venture businesses that provide rental and commercial property management and insurance services. Locally owned, Pacific Union executes with a vision for the future, an entrepreneurial mindset and unwavering commitment to deliver exceptional service and expertise. For more information, please visit us at www.PacificUnion.com.

SOURCE Pacific Union International, Inc.
AUSTIN, Texas, March 31, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- SmallCapVoice.com, Inc. (SCV) and Rocky Mountain High Brands, Inc. (OTCQB:RMHB), a fully reporting consumer goods company specializing in hemp-infused food and beverage products and a naturally high alkaline water, announced today that a new audio interview with the Companys Founder, Jerry Grisaffi, is now available. The interview can be heard at in its entirety at http://smallcapvoice.com/blog/3-29-17-smallcapvoice-interview-with-rocky-mountain-high-brands-inc-rmhb.



Jerry Grisaffi, Founder of Rocky Mountain High Brands, recently spoke to Stuart Smith at SmallCapVoice.com, Inc. to review the recent news and developments at the Company. Mr. Grisaffi explained for the shareholders and listeners the big impact that Mrs. Lily Li and her group, LSW Holdings, LLC have already had on the Company since they have acquired controlling interest at the end of February. Recently, RMHB announced that they are in the process of finalizing the acquisition of a 200-plus acre property in Catskill, New York through LSW Holdings, LLC. The property will be repurposed into a Bottling and Canning Plant for Rocky Mountain High Brands. The acquisition will be a significant increase to the Companys asset base and will bring us a step closer to achieving our goal of being listed on a national exchange.

Another move motivated by Mrs. Li was for the officers and directors to voluntarily return 25,000,000 shares of the Companys common stock to the treasury, which will take the shares out of circulation during a critical growth phase. Finally, RMHB will produce an additional 10,000 cases of its 16 ounce hemp-infused beverages next week and, since Mrs. Li loves the original leaf can design and has a market for it in New York, RMHB has scheduled a production run of 20,000 cases of our original 12 ounce leaf design cans for the month of April.

In the interview, Jerry Grisaffi stated, The best thing that this Company has done was to find Mrs. Lily Li and her group. They took a liking to our product well over a year ago. Early on she wanted to make and distribute our product in China. At the time, I was not in favor of somebody taking our product to China that was not in control of our Company. So, she bought my control block and things started to bloom from there. They have such great plans for this Company and it is really getting fun now!

About SmallCapVoice.com:

SmallCapVoice.com is a recognized corporate investor relations firm, with clients nationwide, known for its ability to help emerging growth companies build a following among retail and institutional investors. SmallCapVoice.com utilizes its stock newsletter to feature its daily stock picks, audio interviews, as well as its clients' financial news releases. SmallCapVoice.com also offers individual investors all the tools they need to make informed decisions about the stocks they are interested in. Tools like stock charts, stock alerts, and Company Information Sheets can assist with investing in stocks that are traded on the OTC BB and Pink Sheets. To learn more about SmallCapVoice.com and their services, please visit http://smallcapvoice.com/blog/the-small-cap-daily-small-cap-newsletter/.

About Rocky Mountain High Brands:

ROCKY MOUNTAIN HIGH BRANDS, INC., is a consumer goods company specializing in brand development of health conscious, hemp-infused food and beverage products. The Company currently markets a lineup of four naturally flavored hemp-infused beverages (Citrus Energy, Black Tea, Mango Energy and Lemonade) and a low calorie Coconut Lime Energy drink. Rocky Mountain High Brands also offers hemp-infused 2oz. Mango Energy Shots and Mixed Berry Energy Shots. The Company recently launched a naturally high alkaline spring water, Eagle Spirit Spring Water.

Interested investors, our stock symbol is RMHB.

For ordering information please visit: www.RockyMountainHighBrands.com

For Rocky Mountain High Distribution Contact:

Chuck Smith: (972) 955-0964



chuck@rockymountainhighbrands.com

Visit us at our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/rockymountainhighbrands?fref=nf

Visit us on Twitter: #GetYourHempOn https://twitter.com/search?q=%23getyourhempon&src=typd

Visit us at Investors Hangout: http://investorshangout.com/Rocky-Mountain-High-Brands-Inc-RMHB-69150/

Investors Hangout is the only authorized Investors blog page for Rocky Mountain High Brands, Inc.

Safe Harbor Act: This release includes forward-looking statements made pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 that involves risks and uncertainties including, but not limited to, the impact of competitive products, the ability to meet customer demand, the ability to manage growth, acquisitions of technology, equipment, or human resources, the effect of economic business conditions and the ability to attract and retain skilled personnel. The Company is not obligated to revise or update any forward-looking statements in order to reflect events or circumstances that may arise after the date of this release.
MELBOURNE, Fla., March 31, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Dallas-based residential mortgage originator PrimeLending, a PlainsCapital company, announces the addition of Bentley Smith as a senior loan officer at the PrimeLending branch located at 7341 Office Park Place, Suite 204, Melbourne, FL 32940.

Bentley brings more than 17 years of mortgage industry experience to PrimeLending. He comes to PrimeLending after working previously at EverBank as a senior loan officer.

In his new role, Bentley will work with residents in the community on purchase and refinance mortgage loans needed throughout the greater Brevard County, with a focus on Viera, Suntree and the Barrier Island areas.

"We are excited to have Bentley on our team," said Melbourne PrimeLending branch manager Kelli Beckel. "He is a true reflection of our company culture and core values. Bentley brings a wealth of knowledge, experience and energy to our branch. We are confident he will provide extraordinary service to his clients by leveraging his lending knowledge with PrimeLending's exceptional operations and product platform."

About PrimeLending

PrimeLending, a PlainsCapital Company, is a residential mortgage originator with locations across the nation and the ability to originate loans in all 50 states. PrimeLending has listed in the top 10 for three consecutive years as a top mortgage lender in the nation in purchase units.1 Offering fixed, adjustable rate, FHA, VA, USDA and jumbo loans, refinancing and relocation programs, PrimeLending is licensed to originate and close loans in all 50 states. Founded in 1986, PrimeLending is a member of the PlainsCapital Corporation family of companies. PlainsCapital Corporation is a wholly owned subsidiary of Hilltop Holdings (NYSE:HTH). Find more information at PrimeLending.com. Equal Housing Lender.

Source: 1As Ranked by Marketrac for purchase units nationally for Jan.-Dec. 2012-2016.

All loans subject to credit approval. Rates and fees subject to change. Mortgage financing provided by PrimeLending, a PlainsCapital Company. Equal Housing Lender.  2017 PrimeLending, a PlainsCapital Company. PrimeLending, a PlainsCapital Company (NMLS: 13649) is a wholly owned subsidiary of a state-chartered bank and is an exempt lender in FL. V021216.

SOURCE PrimeLending

Related Links

http://www.primelending.com


SOUTHFIELD, Mich., March 31, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- The families of nine victims and four survivors of the ISIS inspired shooting at the Pulse Nightclub in Orlando, Florida in June 2016, filed a lawsuit naming Google, Facebook and Twitter as defendants for providing material support to the terrorist group, ISIS.

Six grieving families joined a lawsuit that was filed in December 2016 by the families of three victims of the Pulse Nightclub shooting, Tevin Crosby, Juan Guerrero and Javier Jorge-Reyes. The amended complaint, filed Friday, March 31, 2017 in the eastern district of Michigan, includes the families of the late Stanley Almodovar III, Jason Josaphat, Christopher Leinonen, Jean Carlos Mendez Perez, Christopher Sanfeliz, and Luis Vielma, as plaintiffs. Four survivors of the attack, Asael Abad, Jillian Amador, Christopher Littlestar and Nicholas Perez, also joined the lawsuit. Representing the families and survivors are Keith Altman and Ari Kresch of 1-800-LAW-FIRM of Southfield, Michigan.

The lawsuit asserts that the defendants knowingly permitted ISIS to use their platforms for recruiting purposes, spreading propaganda and raising funds to carry-out terror attacks. The use of Facebook, Twitter and YouTube (Google) enabled ISIS in acquiring over 30,000 foreign recruits, countless donations from supporters and a level of prosperity that would have been unachievable.

The gunman, Omar Mateen, an American ISIS recruit, is responsible for perpetrating the deadliest mass shooting in U.S history, leaving 49 dead and 53 wounded. Mateen identified himself as an Islamic soldier and pledged his allegiance to the Islamic State while on a call with police negotiators during the attack. Mateen was later gunned down by police officers at the scene of the attack.

"Social media companies continue to allow terrorists to operate, despite reasonable steps that could be undertaken to stop them. Google, Twitter and Facebook not only continue to let terror groups like ISIS use their sites to recruit and plan these attacks, they also profit from it," said Altman. Each of the defendants place advertisements on ISIS content, profiting directly from their postings. In at least the case of Google's YouTube, advertising revenue is shared with ISIS.

SOURCE 1-800-LAW-FIRM

Related Links

http://1800lawfirm.com


This 20th anniversary commemorates Ranger's long history of excellence in the aerospace private equity field. Since its inception in March 1997 as a "kitchen table start-up," Ranger's previous large-scale multi-year and multi-acquisition successes have included ASIG, Keystone Helicopter, Skytanking GmbH, Composite Technology, Ranger Rotorcraft Group, Ranger International, the Keystone HeliPlex, and related ventures under Ranger's quality-centered management style. Each large platform with a successful exit was sold to huge strategic buyers, who then kept growing the business. Ranger Aerospace stemmed from Ranger Partners Group, was first formed as a "C"-Corp, and later shifted to a Delaware "LLC" following a divestiture in 2001.

Steve Townes, Ranger Aerospace founder and CEO of Ranger Airshop Holdings, referring to the large new Air Cargo platform, said: "We intend to at least double ACL Airshop's service network in the next five years on behalf of its many airlines clients." Townes added: "We will do this steadily like we have before, pacing ourselves carefully through strategic investments and organic growth, entering new lines of technical capacity, fostering deep and continuous operational improvements, expanding geographically, and possibly acquiring complementary companies. The flywheel is already accelerating ."

Ranger Aerospace has been the management stewardship team for over $400 Million in various buying, selling, and investing transactions over the past two decades. Investment returns in each of Ranger's successful large-scale divestitures have been superior for the sector, with "IRR" on its strongest exit slightly over 60%, plus commensurate cash-on-cash multiples. Townes said: "Our excellent results, value creation, and sustained performance are due to outstanding teams of people. We manage for QualitySafetyFAA Compliance, and we have always strived to be a positive, principled employer for motivated aviation professionals with the Right Stuff. Our quality awards and workforce expansions are as important to us as financial kudos, because it is those fundamentals that create lasting and growing enterprises. " Ranger has created several thousand new jobs over the past twenty years by aggressively expanding the large enterprises it has owned.

For Editors:

Ranger Aerospace is an aviation-specialized holding company that partners with institutional co-investors to acquire, grow, and positively transform aerospace services companies. Its founder, Steve Townes, an engineering graduate of West Point, has been Ranger's CEO for 20 years. He is also Chairman of a statewide public/private partnership called "South Carolina Aerospace." Ranger's history also includes a successful "Junk Bond" offering in its early years, a tumultuous takeover attempt of a publicly traded medium-sized aerospace company, and deliberately hiring veterans as an organizational preference when and where feasible. Ranger's name, logo, distinctive lightning-bolt crest, and tag-line are trademarked worldwide for exclusive usage in the aerospace/aviation sectors.

For more information, visit www.rangeraerospace.com, www.aclairshop.com, www.intechaero.com, and www.scaerospace.com.

Forward Looking Statements: The Company from time to time may discuss forward-looking information. Except for factual historical information, all forward looking statements are estimates by the Company's management and are subject to various risks and uncertainties that are beyond the Company's control and may cause actual results to differ materially from management's expectations.

SOURCE Ranger Aerospace

Related Links

http://www.rangeraerospace.com


VANCOUVER, March 30, 2017 /PRNewswire/ - Rapier Gold Inc. (TSX-V: RPR) (the "Company") announces the election of a new board of directors following its annual general meeting (the "Meeting") held earlier today. The new board, comprised of Darren Blasutti, Paul Parisotto, David Lotan and Lorie Waisberg (the "Board"), consists entirely of directors nominated by Delbrook Capital Advisors Inc., which holds approximately 17% of the Company's outstanding common shares. For further information in respect of the results of voting at the Meeting, please refer to the Company's Report of Voting Results, which can be accessed at www.sedar.com.

Immediately following the Meeting, the Board held its first meeting of directors, at which, among other items, David Lotan was appointed as interim Chief Executive Officer of the Company, replacing Roger Walsh.

In the near term, the Board intends to conduct a detailed review of the Company to determine what changes, if any, would be desirable in light of such review and existing circumstances. The Board looks forward to working constructively with all of the Company's shareholders to drive value creation going forward.

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this news release.

This news release does not constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy nor shall there be any sale of any securities in any jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful. The securities have not been and will not be registered under the United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the "U.S. Securities Act") or the securities laws of any state of the United States and may not be offered or sold within the United States or to, or for the account or the benefit of, any person in the United States unless registered under the U.S. Securities Act and applicable state securities laws or pursuant to an exemption from such registration requirements.

Cautionary Note Regarding Forward Looking Statements: Certain disclosure in this release constitutes forward-looking statements. In making the forward-looking statements in this release, the Company has applied certain factors and assumptions that are based on the Company's current beliefs as well as assumptions made by and information currently available to the Company, including that the Company is able to procure personnel, equipment and supplies required for its exploration activities in sufficient quantities and on a timely basis and that actual results of exploration activities are consistent with management's expectations. Although the Company considers these assumptions to be reasonable based on information currently available to it, they may prove to be incorrect, and the forward-looking statements in this release are subject to numerous risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause future results to differ materially from those expressed or implied in such forward-looking statements. Such risk factors include, among others, that actual results of the Company's exploration activities will be different than those expected by management and that the Company will be unable to obtain financing, or will experience delays in obtaining any required government approvals or be unable to procure required equipment and supplies in sufficient quantities and on a timely basis. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. The Company does not intend, and expressly disclaims any intention or obligation to, update or revise any forward-looking statements whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by law.

SOURCE Rapier Gold Inc.
DALLAS, March 31, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Riata Capital Group ("Riata") today announced the formation of Acuity Eyecare Holdings ("Acuity" or the "Company"), a company that will own and operate leading North American eyecare groups and optometry practices. Acuity launches with a strong platform following the simultaneous acquisition of three regional eyecare groups:

Crown Vision Center, based in St. Louis , which was ranked by Vision Monday as the 26 th largest eyecare group in the United States based on locations;

, which was ranked by Vision Monday as the 26 largest eyecare group in based on locations; Eyetique, based in Pittsburgh , which was ranked the 30 th largest eyecare group in the United States based on locations; and

, which was ranked the 30 largest eyecare group in based on locations; and International Eyecare Center, based in Quincy, Illinois , which serves rural communities in Missouri , Illinois and Iowa .

Acuity begins operations with 61 locations across five states. Acuity will also own a large, full-service digital lab operation, The First Look Lab, that is located just outside of St. Louis.

Riata intends to expand Acuity into a market-leading eyecare platform through the acquisition of additional regional eyecare groups and independent eyecare professionals. The formation of Acuity is the second platform investment of the Riata principals in the eyecare sector. From 2011 to 2015, certain of the principals organized and led the very successful acquisition of Vision Source, a market-leading network of independent optometry practices across the United States. Under the leadership of a very seasoned management team, Vision Source grew from 2,300 to over 3,150 locations, making its network of member optometrists second only to Walmart in terms of number of locations. Vision Source was sold to Essilor USA in late 2015, generating strong returns for its investors.

Jeff Fronterhouse, Co-Managing Partner of Riata, said, "We are excited to build upon our strong network of relationships, experience, and track record in the eyecare industry to create Acuity Eyecare. We understand the pressures, as well as the opportunities, for optometrists as the industry continues to evolve. As such, we see the formation of larger and vertically integrated corporate entities leading some smaller and mid-sized providers to consider partnering with groups like Acuity that can provide capable business, financial, and commercial support, allowing optometrists and their staffs to focus on meeting the eyecare and product needs of their patients."

Mr. Fronterhouse continued, "The combination of these three successful eyecare groups, that together have experienced higher rates of sales growth than the overall market, provides Acuity with a strong initial base of operations in the Midwest region. Our focus going forward will be to support these groups, as well as others that join Acuity, with the tools and resources necessary to provide their patients with full-scope professional eyecare and the highest quality product assortment and value."

Acuity is led by an experienced and successful management team, including Chief Executive Officer Matt Matthews, the former CEO of Crown Vision; Chief Financial Officer Doug Shepard, the former CFO of Eye Care Centers of America, Chief Merchandising Officer George Gebhardt, the former CMO of Visionworks, Vice President of Corporate Development Bret Davis, the former SVP of Business Development for Vision Source; and other senior executives from the leadership teams of Crown Vision, Eyetique and International Eyecare. Additionally, Acuity has assembled a board of directors consisting of experienced and very successful executives from the industry that will bring valuable insight as Acuity looks to expand.

Mr. Matthews noted, "We are excited to be a part of the Acuity platform, which is well-positioned for success with the support of Riata, an experienced capital partner that brings a deep set of industry relationships. In addition to the existing leadership teams at each of the three businesses, we have an impressive team at Acuity that brings substantial experience in important areas including medical eyecare, digital manufacturing and lab management, merchandising, supply chain, finance, and IT. We look forward to the exciting growth opportunities ahead for Acuity."

Glenn Askew, a Riata Partner, commented, "Acuity is well-positioned for growth, and we will look to further expand the Company's footprint in the Midwest and other regions organically and through the acquisition of additional market-leading eyecare groups and independent optometrists in attractive markets."

In connection with the transaction, HPC Puckett & Co. provided financial advice to Crown Vision Center, Eyetique and International Eyecare Center.

About Riata Capital Group, LLC

Riata Capital Group is a leading Dallas-based private equity investment firm that partners with seasoned management teams to invest in growing, profitable, privately-held companies across North America with a focus on four core industry sectors: consumer, energy, healthcare, and business solutions. The firm takes a selective approach to investing in high-potential businesses whose owners and management teams want an investment partner with the capital, experience, and record of successful collaboration required to achieve their liquidity and value-creation objectives. Over the course of their careers, the principals of Riata have sponsored over 55 platform investments and 75 add-on acquisitions representing over $4 billion in transaction value. With significant investment experience, a balanced team with financial and operating expertise, a strong team of seasoned operating partners, and significant experience in the firm's core sectors, Riata provides a compelling value proposition to business owners and entrepreneurs.

About Crown Vision Center

Founded in 1961, Crown Vision Center is a St. Louis-based eyecare group with 28 full-service eyecare centers. Crown offers affordable vision services and a wide variety of designer eyeglasses, sunglasses, and contact lenses to more than 60,000 patients in the St. Louis area each year. Additionally, Crown Vision Center owns a full-service digital lab, The First Look Lab, which surfaces, finishes, and AR coats lenses for Crown customers and third parties. Crown is also a provider of integrated medical eyecare services including LASIK, and the full range of Ophthalmology services and surgery. For more information, please visit www.crownvisioncenter.com or call 800.EYECARE.

About Eyetique

Founded in 1979 by Norman Childs, Eyetique is a Pittsburgh-based eyecare group with 21 eyecare centers, operating under the brands Eyetique, 3 Guys Optical Center, Norman Childs Eyewear, and Chromos Eyewear. The Eyetique brand is a long-established, high-end eyecare group selling premium third-party brands and its own Norman Childs Eyewear Collection, which is handcrafted in the USA. 3 Guys Optical, which was purchased and rebranded by Eyetique in 2010, is an accessible, value-oriented eyecare retailer offering a wide selection of eyeglasses and contact lenses. Comprehensive eyecare services are offered across all Eyetique and 3 Guys Optical locations. For more information, please visit www.eyetique.com or call 800.422.5320.

About International Eyecare Center

Founded by Dr. Jack McDougall in 1981, International Eyecare Center has grown from a single location in Quincy, Illinois, to 12 locations serving Illinois, Iowa, and Missouri. For over 30 years, IEC has provided its customers with the latest in eyecare, contact lens innovations, fashion eyewear, and comprehensive eye exams for the entire family. IEC is also a provider of integrated medical eyecare services, and the full range of Ophthalmology services and surgery. Standing behind its promise to its customers that "Your Vision is Our Focus," IEC takes pride in its commitment to its patients, as well as every community that it serves. For more information, please visit www.iec2020.com or call 877.457.6485.

Media Contact:

Mark Semer or Ross Lovern

Kekst

(212) 521-4800

SOURCE Riata Capital Group
AUSTIN, Texas, March 31, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Robert Allen, former Deputy Chief of Staff to Governor Greg Abbott, will serve as the new President and CEO of Texas Economic Development Corporation.

Sanjiv Yajnik, Chairman of the Board of Texas Economic Development Corporation and President of Financial Services at Capital One, made the announcement of the appointment by the Board of Directors.

"I'm thrilled to announce the appointment of Robert Allen as the President and CEO of Texas Economic Development Corporation," said Yajnik. "Allen's direct experience managing economic development for the Office of Governor Greg Abbott, combined with his in-depth knowledge of the Texas economy and our unique business advantages makes him an ideal fit for this position."

During his time at the Governor's office, Robert worked closely with the Executive Director of the Economic Development and Tourism Division to further Governor Abbott's mission to position Texas as a global leader in economic development and as the best state for business innovation, job creation and continuing economic expansion. Prior to his role at the Office of the Governor, Allen served as Deputy Chief of Staff at the Office of the Attorney General, where he assisted with the administration of the more than 4,000-employee agency. A native Texan, Robert earned a bachelor's degree from The University of Texas at Austin. He and his wife, Rachel, live in Austin with their two children.

"It's an honor to have been selected to lead Texas Economic Development Corporation as President and CEO," said Robert Allen. "Texas is well-recognized around the world as an ideal place for business and a leader in economic development. This role allows me the opportunity to accelerate future business investment and job creation in my home state, in addition to the opportunity to lead an organization that I helped to plan, develop and organize for the Office of Governor Abbott."

Allen, who will begin work with the Texas Economic Development Corporation on Monday, April 3, 2017, follows Tracye McDaniel, who announced her departure from the organization earlier this month, with plans to launch a specialized consulting firm.

About Texas Economic Development Corporation and TexasOne

Texas Economic Development Corporation is an independently funded and operated 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, whose mission is dedicated to economic development, business recruitment and job creation in the State of Texas. TexasOne is a public-private partnership of the Texas Economic Development Corporation, which coordinates efforts with the Office of the Governor to market Texas globally as a premier business destination. For more information about Texas Economic Development Corporation and TexasOne, visit www.texaswideopenforbusiness.com.

SOURCE Texas Economic Development Corporation

Related Links

https://texaswideopenforbusiness.com


Robolliance , a forum for technology partners and industry experts in robotics, surveillance and security, created to advance the understanding and awareness of the Autonomous Robotics marketplace, is one of the four primary supporters of the Unmanned Security Expo. Robolliance sponsors, comprised of technology companies, security integrators and industry thought leaders, will be on hand April 5 th -7 th to welcome attendee inquiries and address the greater questions of "Why Robotics? Why Security? Why Now?".

Robolliance welcomes anyone curious about robotics for security to visit Booths 3135 and 4136. Unmanned Security Expo Booth 3135 will feature all the Sponsors of Robolliance, who have come together to share their resources and shine a light on the importance of unmanned systems to augment current security technology and human guarding. Directly across from the Robolliance Sponsor Showcase in Booth 4136 will be the Expert Corner. Experts will be available all three days to talk one-on-one with attendees and address their questions. Robolliance experts will also be participating in Security Industry Association ("SIA") education panels that some include an attending charge. Topics and session times are:

Robolliance expects to have 10-15 experts there throughout the three-day event. The slate of experts has been curated by founding Robolliance Sponsor, Sharp Electronics Corporation, who will also be on hand in the Sponsor Showcase as well as in their Booth #3137 that features the Sharp INTELLOS Automated Unmanned Ground Vehicle (A-UGV).

Here is what some of the Robolliance experts have to say about this inaugural Unmanned Security Expo at ISC West 2017:

Todd Kleperis  CEO of Hardcar Security

"Hardcar was pleasantly surprised to find Robolliance in the unmanned industry. The entire industry is growing rapidly and we are thrilled to be part of the team. What you get when you add experts in a field together is a powerhouse ability to radically change markets. Robolliance is built to do just that."

 CEO of Hardcar Security "Hardcar was pleasantly surprised to find Robolliance in the unmanned industry. The entire industry is growing rapidly and we are thrilled to be part of the team. What you get when you add experts in a field together is a powerhouse ability to radically change markets. Robolliance is built to do just that." Chris Peckham - SVP, CTO & Special Projects at Kratos Public Safety & Security Solutions

"As robotic platforms continue to develop and improve, we anticipate that they will be leveraged in a variety of new and exciting applications. The development of autonomous and semi-autonomous vehicles will bring greater opportunity for both unmanned aerial and ground vehicles to be used as a larger part of a complex surveillance and security system. Robolliance allows interested parties to connect to experts in the field and increase awareness of the technology and its use. The new Unmanned Security Expo @ ISCWest 2017 will bring these new systems together in one location where attendees can view and interact with many in this growing field."

- SVP, CTO & Special Projects at Kratos Public Safety & Security Solutions "As robotic platforms continue to develop and improve, we anticipate that they will be leveraged in a variety of new and exciting applications. The development of autonomous and semi-autonomous vehicles will bring greater opportunity for both unmanned aerial and ground vehicles to be used as a larger part of a complex surveillance and security system. Robolliance allows interested parties to connect to experts in the field and increase awareness of the technology and its use. The new Unmanned Security Expo @ ISCWest 2017 will bring these new systems together in one location where attendees can view and interact with many in this growing field." Brian Higgins , CPP, CSSP  President of Group 77 Security Consulting

"The Unmanned Security Expo, held @ ISC West 2017, will be the first significant step in the adoption of Unmanned Vehicles as a standard business practice in the security and public safety sectors. It is exactly this kind of "meeting-of-the-minds" event that Robolliance encourages. I expect more ideas on how best to use unmanned vehicles and robotics because of this event."

, CPP, CSSP  President of Group 77 Security Consulting "The Unmanned Security Expo, held @ ISC West 2017, will be the first significant step in the adoption of Unmanned Vehicles as a standard business practice in the security and public safety sectors. It is exactly this kind of "meeting-of-the-minds" event that Robolliance encourages. I expect more ideas on how best to use unmanned vehicles and robotics because of this event." Mark Brodie  Director of MiB Mediaworks

"Through the development and design of UAV's and UGV's, dramatic changes have encouraged film makers to find new ways of story-telling, and have allowed us to capture images never before possible. That ability to capture images transcends not only the work I do, but the need for improved visual surveillance in security. This conference is the perfect incubator for sharing ideas between our industries. As a Robolliance sponsor, I am grateful to be participating as a panelist and an expert in my field."

 Director of MiB Mediaworks "Through the development and design of UAV's and UGV's, dramatic changes have encouraged film makers to find new ways of story-telling, and have allowed us to capture images never before possible. That ability to capture images transcends not only the work I do, but the need for improved visual surveillance in security. This conference is the perfect incubator for sharing ideas between our industries. As a Robolliance sponsor, I am grateful to be participating as a panelist and an expert in my field." John Nagy - Co-President of NagyHeller Solutions, Inc.

"The Unmanned Security Expo provides a venue for us to share our expertise in security operations and the associated financial aspects. Robotics will alter the landscape of the industry, and I am proud to participate in conversations that articulate the momentous opportunity robotics brings to the security industry from both an efficacy and cost efficiency perspective."

- Co-President of NagyHeller Solutions, Inc. "The Unmanned Security Expo provides a venue for us to share our expertise in security operations and the associated financial aspects. Robotics will alter the landscape of the industry, and I am proud to participate in conversations that articulate the momentous opportunity robotics brings to the security industry from both an efficacy and cost efficiency perspective." BG William J. Marshall III, USA (Retired)  AVP for Govt & Military Relations at New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT)

"When we launched Robolliance a year ago at PSA TEC 2016, I said the early adopters of this advanced autonomous technology (namely integrators) would reap the benefit of getting in before robotics for security skyrocketed. Now the market for security robots is here as demonstrated by the Unmanned Security Expo. It's time to get onboard or look in your rearview mirror at the missed opportunity."

To foster awareness and understanding about UGVs for security, visit Robolliance.com.

About ISC West

ISC West is the security industry's premier event for new products, solutions and technologies. Each year, ISC West hosts over 1,000 international and domestic security product manufacturer companies, making ISC West the largest exhibition in North America for Security. The show provides over 29,000 security professionals from all segments of the industry with the latest products, solutions and insights. ISC West 2017 will take place April 5-7 at the Sands Expo in Las Vegas, NV. SIA [email protected] will kick off a day prior to the exhibits, on April 4. Interested exhibitors, speakers and sponsors can learn more at http://www.iscwest.com/For-Exhibitors/Interested-in-Exhibiting/ or may contact Sherida Sessa at 203-840-5831 or [email protected].

About Sharp Electronics Corporation

Sharp Electronics Corporation is the U.S. subsidiary of Japan's Sharp Corporation. Sharp is a worldwide developer of one-of-a-kind home appliances, networked multifunctional office solutions, professional displays, robotics and energy systems. For more information, visit SharpUSA.com.

Contact: Alice DiSanto, SRBD Director of Marketing

Telephone: 914-582-8464

Email: [email protected]

SOURCE Sharp Electronics Corporation
COLCHESTER, Vt., March 31, 2017 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Saint Michael's College is hosting an online information session to showcase the benefits of its Accelerated Summer College (ASC), established for college students to take courses at significantly reduced tuition.

Through the ASC, students can complete one course or up to an entire semester in just one summer. Kellie Campbell, director of the Accelerated Summer College, explains, "St. Mike's created the Accelerated Summer College as a way for students to graduate on time  no matter if they study abroad, double major, or have difficulty in some classes. Ambitious students who take full advantage of it can even graduate early, thereby saving significant money."

Colleges like Saint Michael's are finding ways to help families address the significant cost of college. With so many incoming students arriving with some college credits already, the time is right for providing a real path to a possible 3-year degree. Even one semester less can mean significant savings for families, Campbell said.

The innovative program is made up of two semesters. The first six-week semester, students can stay in the residence halls, eat in the dining hall, and take two blended learning, online/in-class courses of four credits each for only $4,200. They can also participate in student life activities that get them off campus to enjoy the area  all included in the cost. The second semester is entirely online and allows students to complete the courses from home. It is priced at $3,400.

Campbell said, "We welcome students from nearly any college. Our summer catalog has popular courses that are typical requirements at most institutions, so credits are commonly transferable - though students are advised to check with their home institution's Registrar." She added, "The Burlington, Vermont area is such a fun and beautiful place to spend time in the summer. And if it means saving more than you would make working at home in the summer, why not take some courses?"

The upcoming online information session is scheduled for Wednesday, April 5 at 12:30 p.m. ET. Interested students and families can register to attend here.

About Saint Michael's College

Saint Michael's College, founded on principles of social justice and compassion, is a selective, fully residential Catholic college in Vermont's beautiful Green Mountains. Our closely connected community delivers internationally-respected liberal arts and graduate education near Burlington, one of the country's best college towns. To prepare for fulfilling careers and meaningful lives, young adults here grow intellectually, socially, and morally, learning to be responsible for themselves, each other and their world.

For more information, contact:

Mark Tarnacki

802.654.2795

[email protected]

SOURCE Saint Michaels College
Question 1: How much has Securus directly invested in products for inmates and friends/family members?

Response 1: "I estimate that we have invested over $200 million in products and services that have directly positively impacted inmates and friends/family members."







Question 2: What type of investments did you make?

Response 2: "We invested in increasing interactions between inmates and others  video communications, completing more audio calls, email, making funding easier and faster, reducing costs of making calls, improving the speed of answer in our Call Center, getting inmates access to music, books, education, religious books, access to legal libraries, access to tablet technology, and many more."







Question 3: What do you charge for this?

Response 3: "Our average usage based rate for audio calls is $.18 per minute, and for video calls, the rate is $.24 per minute. In short term facilities (jails), the average amount for an 18-day stay is $24.37 between booking and release paid to Securus. For longer term facilities (prisons), that rate is $40.63 per month. These include all fees and are extremely low for the breadth of services that we provide."







Question 4: Do these rates include the safety and security features that you provide  are they all-in costs?

Response 4: "Yes, we provide over 500 safety and security features that keep inmates, friends, family members, corrections officers, law enforcement officers, victims, witnesses, and all of society safe."







Question 5: Have rates for audio calling trended up or down historically?

Response 5: "In 2008, the average rate per audio call was $3.25. In 2016, that same rate was $2.01  that represents a 38% decrease, which is a substantial reduction for a call of the same duration. Investments in better/faster technologies and call storage capabilities allow us to charge less  that is a good thing for inmates and friends/family members."







Question 6: Commissioner Clyburn of the Federal Communications Commission has indicated that you charge up to $14.00 per minute for audio calls. Is that accurate?

Response 6: "No, we have indicated to Commissioner Clyburn in the past that our average is only $.18 per minute but she continues to use inaccurate information. Perhaps that is not deliberate, but clearly not correct."







Question 7: Who sets the rates for inmate calling?

Response 7: "We negotiate rates with officials who manage prisons and jails. Ultimately, they make the decision on rates that we can charge."







Question 8: Is it true that there is no competition for inmate telecommunications services?

Response 8: "That is not correct. There are approximately 58 competitors that provide inmate calling services in the United States. So for any Request for Proposal (RFP) that is issued for a contract, there are many providers who would bid on that RFP. Sometimes we hear that there are no choices for inmates on telecom services  that is technically true, but the facility officials have multiple providers and the choice is theirs, i.e., they choose the best option for them and the inmates that they are responsible for. This is the same process that they use for facility mattresses, food, commissary, and health care, i.e., those who manage the facility have multiple sources of products and they choose 'the best' from the vendors available. That is typical for government contracting."







Question 9: If the provision of inmate telecom was a monopoly, would your rate per call have trended down in a significant way over the last eight (8) years?
SAN FRANCISCO, March 31, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- SEPHORA brings its innovative BEAUTY TIP (Teach, Inspire, Play) WORKSHOP concept store to Manhattan with the reopening of two landmark locations, including 34th Street, now SEPHORA's largest store in North America. Manhattan's 34th Street and 5th Avenue stores, the latter which opened on March 24th, join San Francisco's Powell Street, Boston's Prudential Center, Chicago's Michigan Avenue, Santa Clara's Valley Fair and Toronto's Yorkdale locations in helping define the next generation of experiential retail, focused on immersive and unbiased beauty services, the most educated and passionate consultants and a vast product assortment that aims to meet all beauty needs, desires and goals. With the reopening of these two Manhattan stores, SEPHORA continues to dominate the Manhattan beauty retail landscape with 15 freestanding stores in New York City.

At 11,300+ square feet, SEPHORA's 34th Street BEAUTY TIP WORKSHOP anchors one of the busiest shopping destinations in New York City. The store is the ultimate beauty destination, containing more than 13,300 products and a pioneering store environment rooted in discovery, with over 26 seats for instore learning at the Beauty Workshop, Beauty Studio and Skincare Studio. Beauty education and consultation offerings at SEPHORA 34th Street feature a wide array of services and classes for all skill and interest levels, that will make a visit to the store a one-of-a-kind, individualized experience, every time.

"Sephora opened in the US 19 years ago with our first store in Soho. It's fitting that as we round out almost two decades, we return to New York City to celebrate our largest and most unique beauty experience with the opening of our new 34th Street store," said Calvin McDonald, President and CEO of SEPHORA Americas. "Our innovative Beauty TIP Workshop concept encourages and supports a thriving beauty community, one that's focused on inclusiveness, promotes self-expression, celebration and education through our unparalleled service experiences, designed to teach and inspire our New York-based clients to play and discover beauty."

In addition to 34th Street, SEPHORA 5th Avenue is now open to the public. At 9,000+ square feet, the new store design features SEPHORA's exclusive physical and digital tools for play and discovery, including an Anastasia Brow Studio on the second floor.

Exclusive Merchandise Assortment Enhances TIP Experience

Sephora is the destination for iconic, cult and emerging prestige beauty brands. SEPHORA 34th Street is the first store in North America to carry La Mer and Jo Malone and has the largest assortment and brand offerings, next to Sephora.com. Other exclusive brands only found at SEPHORA include, Atelier Cologne, Belif, BITE Beauty, Black Up, Cover FX, Drunk Elephant, Erborian, IGK, Kat Von D Beauty, Madam C.J. Walker Beauty Culture, Nest, Ouai, The Estee Edit by Estee Lauder and Too Cool For School and SEPHORA COLLECTION makeup, skincare, tools and accessories.

Innovative TIP Service Experiences at 34th Street and 5th Avenue

The Beauty Workshop is the striking "heart" of each store's design, and an integral part of the TIP experience. The sleek table acts as a central workstation where clients come together to learn via group beauty classes with Sephora's educated facilitators, to leverage tutorials and Sephora Virtual Artist technology on integrated iPad stations, or to gather inspiration from The Beauty Board, Sephora's own shop-able gallery showcasing user-generated content via a large digital screen. Each station is equipped with its own product, iPad, USB port and wifi, so clients can play, browse and share looks on the digital screen and online, right from their seat.

Each store will also feature two Sephora Beauty Studios centered in the middle of the store to serve as the place for one-on-one makeovers with Sephora experts. At the Beauty Studio, clients will enjoy large stations featuring Sephora + Pantone Color IQ touchscreens for foundation, lip and concealer shade matching, and new mirror and canopy lighting fixtures for maximum light exposure. SEPHORA 34th Street will also debut Moisture Meter, an exclusive new digital tool that accurately measures the amount of moisture in the skin to aid in the selection products prior to services. The Beauty Studio is staffed with trained Senior Artists, and to ensure the makeover is the most convenient, clients can drop by to check makeover availability or book a premium service at one of the 12 beauty studio seats before they come in using Sephora's client reservation system available through www.sephora.com, Sephora mobile web, the Sephora app, and Sephora Reservation Assistant on Facebook Messenger.

A completely new Fragrance Studio experience will also be available to clients and features Fragrance IQ enhanced with the first-to-market sensory technology, InstaScent. Developed in partnership with 5th Screen Digital, and available exclusively at Sephora, InstaScent allows clients to explore 18 scent families through an innovative, dry air delivery system. Clients can now explore scent families before trying individual fragrances with our fragrance experts. As clients move through the Fragrance Studio, they can choose to sample favorites, have their purchases gift wrapped, and even customize their bottle with complimentary engraving.

Additionally, skincare consultations will take place at The Skincare Studio, which features a working sink and four well-lit seated stations to ease facilitation of Sephora's client-favorite Mini Facial service. A touchscreen station is also affixed to the area for instant access to Sephora's exclusive Skincare IQ diagnostic, helping clients determine the best products based on their skin concerns and demystifying the wide range of highly effective product choices Sephora offers.

Interactive Virtual Experiences at 34th Street and 5th Avenue

Located on two endcap displays at SEPHORA 34th Street and 5th Avenue stores, clients can leverage the SEPHORA Innovation Lab's newest technology advancement called "Tap and Try", which lets you pick up any lip or lash product on that endcap and immediately try it on using Sephora Virtual Artist's technology combined with RFID scanning.

The SEPHORA BEAUTY TIP WORKSHOP also boasts digital signage throughout the store, as well as brighter lighting, a larger cash wrap, additional mobile POS stations, easier-to-shop fixtures, enhanced gifting stations, and more impactful brand imagery.

To learn more about SEPHORA, please visit www.Sephora.com, or follow along @Sephora and #BeautyTogether

Sephora 5th Avenue Sephora 34th Street 580 5th Avenue 112 West 34th Street New York, NY 10036 New York, NY 10001 212-980-6534 212-629-9135 Store Hours: Mon-Fri: 9 am to 9 pm Store Hours: Mon-Thurs. 8-10pm Sat: 9 am to 8 pm Fri: 8am-11pm Sun: 10 am to 7 pm Sat: 9am-11pm

Sun: 10am-9pm

About Sephora

Sephora is a leader in global prestige retail, teaching and inspiring clients to play in a world of beauty. Sephora has earned its reputation with its expertise, innovation, and entrepreneurial spirit, and has been a pioneer in an unbiased approach to experiential retail since its debut in Paris in the early 1970's. A year after its acquisition by luxury group LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton in 1997, Sephora expanded to North America with a revolutionary store model that broke the beauty experience mold, and continues to evolve today. Now with more than 430 stores in the Americasincluding US, Canada, Mexico, and Brazilplus nearly 600 inside JCPenney, Sephora has become a leading international beauty destination with over 2,400 locations in 33 countries, plus an award-winning website, and intuitive mobile apps. At Sephora, whether beauty is an obsession or part of a routine, clients have the opportunity to play with 14,000 products from 200 carefully curated brands, featuring indie darlings, emerging favorites, trusted classics, and Sephora's own, SEPHORA COLLECTION. In store, the client can access personalized recommendations at the Beauty Studio through interactive technology like the IQ systems, and garner a new look with makeovers, complimentary classes, hands-on events, and one-on-one consultations, all assisted by Sephora's expertly trained beauty advisors who offer unbiased advice on every brand, in every beauty category. Online clients interact with an inclusive beauty community on the award-winning Beauty Board, interactive Beauty Talk, and through social media @Sephora. On their mobile device, clients can get inspired to try new looks through groundbreaking digital innovations, like Sephora Virtual Artist, and access one-of-a-kind, mobile-first experiences, like The Beauty Uncomplicator and Swipe It Shop It. And Sephora Beauty Insider clients feed their beauty addiction with unique rewards and customized on-of-a-kind experiences. Sephora offers endless ways to explore beauty. With Sephora Stands, Sephora's multi-pronged social impact program, the retailer continues to support its community and its people via Sephora Accelerate, Classes for Confidence and Sephora Stands Together. For the latest, visit Sephora.com

SOURCE SEPHORA

Related Links

http://www.sephora.com


31 March 2017

LSE Code: 3EUS

BOOST ISSUER PUBLIC LIMITED COMPANY

(a public company incorporated with limited liability in Ireland)

BOOST EURO STOXX 50 3X SHORT DAILY ETP SECURITIES

PROPOSED AMENDMENT TO THE PRINCIPAL AMOUNT OF THE AFFECTED SECURITIES

ADJOURNMENT OF MEETING OF THE ETP SECURITYHOLDERS

THIS DOCUMENT IS IMPORTANT AND REQUIRES YOUR IMMEDIATE ATTENTION. If you are in any doubt about what action you should take, you are recommended to consult your independent financial adviser.

If you have sold or transferred all of your Boost EURO STOXX 50 3x Short Daily ETP Securities (the "Affected Securities") of Boost Issuer Public Limited Company (the "Issuer"), please send this document, together with the accompanying form of proxy, at once to the purchaser or transferee or stockbroker, banker or other agent through whom the sale or transfer was made, for onward transmission to the purchaser or transferee.

Boost Issuer Public Limited Company (the "Issuer") wishes to announce that the Meeting of the holders of Boost EURO STOXX 50 3x Short Daily ETP Securities (the "Affected Securities", with ISIN IE00B8JF9153) scheduled for today at 11:00 a.m. (the "Original Meeting") has been adjourned, in accordance with paragraph 20 of Schedule 7 of the Trust Deed, for lack of a quorum. The adjourned meeting will be reconvened on 11:00 a.m. on 18 April 2017, being a date not more than 30 days after the Original Meeting, and will be held at the offices of Capita International Financial Services (Ireland) Limited in 2 Grand Canal Square, Grand Canal Harbour, Dublin 2, Ireland (the "Adjourned Meeting").

The Adjourned Meeting is being held to consider certain amendments to documentation, made under the powers set out in clause 2 of schedule 7 of the master trust deed of the Affected Securities, required to effect a reduction in the principal amount of the Affected Securities from EUR 2.00 to EUR 0.20. This follows the price of the Affected Securities falling below 500 per cent. of its current principal amount on 2 March 2017, and is designed to maintain the normal trading and operations of the Affected Securities. Full details of the Proposal and Extraordinary Resolution are set out in the notice dated 3 March 2017.

Holders of the Affected Securities will receive a form of proxy by post, allowing them to vote on the matters being considered at the Meeting by proxy. Under article 11.5 of the Issuer's Articles of Association, no further notification is required for the Adjourned Meeting. Holders of the Affected Securities are therefore directed to the original notification posted to them on 3 March 2017, and also available on the website of the Issuer, at www.boostetp.com/Content/Regulatory-Documents.

Holders of the Affected Securities should note that a duly completed form of proxy deposited in respect of the Original Meeting will continue to be valid for the Adjourned Meeting unless previously revoked or suspended by a further form of proxy prior to the Meeting.

In accordance with normal practice, The Law Debenture Trust Corporation p.l.c., as trustee, expresses no opinion as to the merits of the Proposal, the terms of which were not negotiated by it. It has however authorised it to be stated that, on the basis of the information contained in the original circular and in this document (which it advises holders of Affected Securities to read carefully) it has no objection to the form in which the Proposal and Notice of Meeting are presented to holders of Affected Securities for their consideration.

Holders of the Affected Securities will be notified of the outcome of the Adjourned Meeting shortly thereafter.
NEW YORK, March 31, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Faruqi & Faruqi, LLP, a leading national securities law firm, reminds investors in USANA Health Sciences, Inc. ("USANA" or the "Company") (NYSE: USNA) of the April 14, 2017 deadline to seek the role of lead plaintiff in a federal securities class action lawsuit filed against the Company and certain officers.

The lawsuit has been filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Utah on behalf of all those who purchased USANA securities between March 14, 2014 and February 7, 2017 (the "Class Period"). The case, Rumbaugh v. USANA Health Sciences et al, No. 2:17-cv-00106 was filed on February 13, 2017, and has been assigned to Judge Brooke C. Wells.

The lawsuit focuses on whether the Company and its executives violated federal securities laws by making false and/or misleading statements and/or failing to disclose that: (i) the Company's BabyCare subsidiary had engaged in improper reimbursement practices in China; (ii) the aforementioned constituted violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act; (iii) consequentially, the Company's China revenues were, in part, the product of unlawful conduct and unlikely to be sustainable; (iv) the aforementioned conduct, when it became known, was likely to subject the Company to significant regulatory scrutiny; and (v) as a result, USANA's public statements were materially false and misleading at all relevant times.

Specifically, after-market close on February 7, 2017, the Company disclosed that "[t]he Company is voluntarily conducting an internal investigation of its China operations, BabyCare Ltd. . . . focus[ing] on the compliance with the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act . . . and certain conduct and policies at BabyCare, including BabyCare's expense reimbursement policies." Furthermore, USANA advised investors that it retained outside counsel to conduct the investigation and had notified both the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Department of Justice of the investigation.

After the announcement, USANA's share price fell from $62.65 per share on February 7, 2017 to a closing price of $55.40 on February 8, 2017 a $7.25 or a 11.57% drop.

Request more information now by clicking here: www.faruqilaw.com/USNA . There is no cost or obligation to you.

Take Action

You can also contact us by calling Richard Gonnello toll free at 877-247-4292 or at 212-983-9330 or by sending an e-mail to [email protected].

Faruqi & Faruqi, LLP also encourages anyone with information regarding USANA's conduct to contact the firm, including whistleblowers, former employees, shareholders and others.

The court-appointed lead plaintiff is the investor with the largest financial interest in the relief sought by the class that is adequate and typical of class members who directs and oversees the litigation on behalf of the putative class. Any member of the putative class may move the Court to serve as lead plaintiff through counsel of their choice, or may choose to do nothing and remain an absent class member. Your ability to share in any recovery is not affected by the decision of whether or not to serve as a lead plaintiff.

Attorney Advertising. The law firm responsible for this advertisement is Faruqi & Faruqi, LLP (www.faruqilaw.com). Prior results do not guarantee or predict a similar outcome with respect to any future matter. We welcome the opportunity to discuss your particular case. All communications will be treated in a confidential manner.

SOURCE Faruqi & Faruqi, LLP

Related Links

http://www.faruqilaw.com


WASHINGTON, March 31, 2017 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Federally mediated negotiations between more than 360 mechanics represented by the International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT) and ExpressJet subsidiary Atlantic Southeast Airlines (ASA) ended on Thursday, March 30. The carrier told the union that it had provided all of the wage increases it was able to, and that further bargaining on economics would be fruitless.

Under the Teamsters Constitution, such a "last, best and final" offer must be voted upon by the membership. The IBT is planning to ask its membership to vote on the carrier's proposed contract in the coming weeks, with a final result likely to be announced in May.

The Teamsters first won the right to represent the mechanics at ASA in October 2010, when it was a stand-alone regional carrier. It was purchased by SkyWest and merged with ExpressJet shortly thereafter. Bargaining on a first contract commenced shortly after the mechanics' vote, but has failed to produce a contract after more than six years of negotiations, several of those years with the help of a federal mediator with the National Mediation Board.

"The Teamsters Airline Division is very disappointed that the company could not meet what we feel are reasonable wage proposals. Mechanics are leaving ASA to go to better paying airlines. Our Teamster mechanics at United and UPS make more in their first year than ASA mechanics make after 10 or 15 years. That's a reflection of how this airline treats it workers. We're disappointed, and we think our membership will be too when they vote in upcoming weeks," said Capt. David Bourne, Director of the Teamsters Airline Division.

ASA merged with ExpressJet Airlines in 2011. Its shrinking fleet of regional aircraft flies as a feeder for Delta Airlines and American Airlines. ASA flies more than 20 percent of Delta's regional routes.

"The poor morale, rapid attrition of mechanics and inability to attract new mechanics will inevitably have an impact on their performance as a carrier," Bourne said.

Founded in 1903, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters represents 1.4 million hardworking men and women throughout the United States, Canada and Puerto Rico. Visit www.teamster.org for more information. Follow us on Twitter @Teamsters and on Facebook at www.facebook.com/teamsters.

Contact:

Kara Deniz, (202) 624-6911

[email protected]

SOURCE International Brotherhood of Teamsters

Related Links

http://www.teamster.org


MALVERN, Pa., March 31, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- TELA Bio, Inc., a surgical reconstruction company leading the development and commercialization of OviTex Reinforced BioScaffolds (RBSs) for soft tissue repair, announced today that the company will participate in the 16th Annual Needham Healthcare Conference to be held April 4-5, 2017 at the Westin NY Grand Central Hotel in New York City.

Antony Koblish, president and CEO of TELA Bio, will present an overview of the company's OviTex portfolio of products for use in hernia repair and abdominal wall reconstruction at 9:40am ET on Wednesday, April 5th.

The Annual Needham Healthcare Conference is a forum for institutional investors and venture capital firms to hear the latest updates from senior management teams of both leading public and private companies in the biotechnology, specialty pharmaceuticals, medical technology & diagnostics and services sectors. For more information visit http://www.needhamco.com/Default/InstitutionalSalesAndTrading/Conferences.aspx.

About TELA Bio, Inc.

TELA Bio, Inc. is a privately-owned company focused on bringing innovative, cost-effective, surgical reconstruction solutions to surgeons, hospitals and patients. The company's OviTex Reinforced BioScaffolds (RBSs) products, designed for hernia repair and abdominal wall reconstruction procedures, integrate polymer and biologic materials in a uniquely embroidered construction using novel engineering design principles. The OviTex portfolio is supported by high-quality, data-driven science and extensive pre-clinical research that has consistently demonstrated the advantages of an RBS over commercially available products. OviTex is commercially available in the U.S., and TELA Bio plans to launch OviTex in the European Union. The company is collaborating with leading surgeons to drive rapid product development and establish TELA Bio as a leader in surgical reconstruction. To learn more about TELA Bio visit http://www.telabio.com.

Contacts

Adam Daley

Berry & Company Public Relations

212-253-8881

[email protected]

SOURCE TELA Bio, Inc.

Related Links

http://www.telabio.com


CULVER CITY, Calif., March 31, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- After expansion from Santa Monica to Times Square to all over the globe, The Counter, a full-service create-your-own burger concept and pioneer in the upscale premium burger movement since 2003, is now opening in the Roppongi district of Tokyo, Japan today, March 31st. On top of The Counter's newest upcoming opening in Tokyo, the restaurant's rapid growth in U.S. markets and abroad will continue with a second location in Mexico City, Northern California, Arizona and abroad in Glasgow, Scotland, with more expansion plans on the forefront.

"We often found that international travelers took a special interest in our US locations, so it only made sense to bring that excitement of the build-your-own burger concept to their markets," says Jeff Weinstein, founder and co-CEO of The Counter, who intends on focusing their efforts on International expansion.

Whilst the international expansion of The Counter, the team has been honing in on the quick service space since launching BUILT in Los Angeles in 2013, its "fast casual" incarnation featuring The Counter's best-selling create-your-own burgers, fries, shakes and more, only in a speedier setting. BUILT has just set up shop with its fourth location in Toronto Pearson International Airport, giving travelers a convenient and quick spot to dine, all while being able to watch and create the high-quality burger right before their eyes in a "build-as-you-go" setting. BUILT is also coming soon with multi-unit locations in Florida, Boston, North Caroline, Colorado, Texas, Arizona, and internationally, opening Ilford, London and more expansion planned in Ghana and Spain.

Whether dining in or taking to-go, The Counter and BUILT are constantly delivering the most unique items using only the best of humanely-raised and handled, antibiotic and hormone-free, vegetarian-fed, 100% natural beef, all-natural chicken and turkey and vegan veggie burgers made fresh daily from 11 different ingredients, all hand-formed and grilled to order. Guests can then pair the custom-built burgers with tantalizing shakes, flavorful fries, and tater tots, plus craft beer.

Weinstein continues with "It's about creating burgers our customers are going to crave and want to come back for, as well as introducing them to new proteins and topping combinations like they've never had before. We are offering a new Chicken Parm Burger launching next month and it's a game-changer. We want to stay fresh, forever-evolving and innovative with our food and our offerings."

Experience fast casual BUILT at www.builtcustomburgers.com or create endlessly with the original The Counter at www.thecounterburger.com.

About The Counter

Founded in 2003 by Jeff Weinstein, The Counter's mission was to challenge the traditional burger joint. In partnership with Craig Albert, the Culver City, California-based brand grew into more than 40 domestic and international locations. The Counter offers a fresh, unconventional approach to creating the ultimate burger, offering over a million possible burger combinations with a choice from seven proteins, 13 distinct cheeses, 34 signature toppings, 21 unique sauces and 11 types of buns or fresh greens. The Counter offers a full-service, casual dining experience in an inviting space with industrial decor and upbeat music. For more information, visit www.thecounterburger.com.

Contact: Rachel Krupa, Krupa Consulting

[email protected] /323-656-6995

SOURCE The Counter

Related Links

http://www.thecounterburger.com


"We are very excited to join forces with ST Unitas," said Kate Eberle Walker, CEO of The Princeton Review. "Both of our organizations have built our businesses with a commitment to delivering quality educational content, innovative online learning tools and an exceptional student experience. ST Unitas' technology expertise combined with the unparalleled quality and heritage of The Princeton Review's content and teaching methods will result in a truly world class, global education leader."

For over 35 years, The Princeton Review has helped millions of students and families achieve their educational goals and dreams. Annual publications such as The Best 381 Colleges and additional student-driven rankings anchor the essential information for college and grad school admissions sought out by millions of students.

The Princeton Review's headquarters will continue to be located in New York City.

About The Princeton Review:

The Princeton Review is a leading tutoring, test prep and college admission services company. Every year, it helps millions of college- and graduate school-bound students achieve their education and career goals through online and in person courses delivered by a network of more than 4,000 teachers and tutors, online resources, and its more than 150 print and digital books published by Penguin Random House. Its Tutor.com brand is the largest online tutoring service with a community of more than 3,000 expert tutors and more than 14 million one-to-one tutoring sessions completed. The Princeton Review is headquartered in New York, NY and is an operating business of ST Unitas. For more information, visit www.princetonreview.com. Follow the company on Twitter @ThePrincetonRev.

The Princeton Review is not affiliated with Princeton University.

SOURCE The Princeton Review

Related Links

http://www.princetonreview.com


TOKYO, March 31, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- With an eye to the Tokyo 2020 Olympic and Paralympic Games and beyond, the Tokyo Metropolitan Government (TMG) is promoting diverse tourism attractions in Japan by creating sightseeing routes linking Tokyo and other regions such as Tohoku, Chugoku and Shikoku.

TMG has recently invited foreign media and travel bloggers to experience the promoted sightseeing routes. We are happy to announce that their travel reports are now available at the webpage listed below, and in line with the website, a 360-degree VR movie is now ready to help anyone who would like to travel to experience these recommended routes in an immersive way on YouTube or Youku.

In addition, to promote foreign tourists visiting Kumamoto and Oita prefectures as well as Tokyo, we have started to make efforts with both prefectures. We also would like to inform you that we have opened a website to introduce tourist information such as festivals and pilot shops in Tokyo where you can touch the appeal of food and sightseeing in various parts of Japan.

- Recommended route

SENDAI x TOKYO: HISTORY IN CITY

After exploring Nihombashi, an area that prospered as the center of feudal capital Edo, visit Sendai, the gateway to Tohoku. Here, you will visit the vibrantly colored Zuihoden, which is dedicated to the legendary feudal lord Date Masamune, once the ruler of this land. Follow the footsteps of history still left in the city.

For further details: http://www.tohokuandtokyo.org/route_16/

(Photo1: http://prw.kyodonews.jp/prwfile/release/M102813/201703240258/_prw_PI1fl_Hb3vgg1x.jpg)

AOMORI x TOKYO: STONE & WATER

After enjoying a stroll around Meiji Jingu Shrine, a spot surrounded by nature despite its location in central Tokyo, travel to the Oirase Stream in Aomori and take in the colorful scenery of majestic nature within the gentle passing of time.

For further details: http://www.tohokuandtokyo.org/route_8/

(Photo2: http://prw.kyodonews.jp/prwfile/release/M102813/201703240258/_prw_PI2fl_5aJW0hmH.jpg)

- 360-degree VR channel

Please enjoy and experience with virtual reality technology the charms of Tokyo as a modern city and the beautiful scenery of the Tohoku region as well as its history living in nature.

http://www.tohokuandtokyo.org/virtualtour/?language=en

The themes published this time are: Onsen (hot springs), fruit, autumn foliage, airborne imagery and the digest version for an autumn series; local foods, city illumination, winter ports, shopping and the digest version for a winter series.

- Official Website for U.S. visitors

To promote tourist information in various parts of Japan:

http://www.tourism-alljapanandtokyo.org/?lang=en

To promote the diverse charms of Tokyo and Tohoku region:

http://www.tohokuandtokyo.org/

To promote the diverse charms of Tokyo and Chugoku and Shikoku regions:

http://www.chushikokuandtokyo.org/

To promote the diverse charms of Tokyo and Kumamoto and Oita:

http://www.kyushuandtokyo.org/

SOURCE Tokyo Convention & Visitors Bureau
Dr. Ring brings significant expertise to Vencerx that includes CNS drug discovery and development, translational research and patient advocacy. His distinguished career spans pharma, non-profit, venture philanthropy and academia, with leadership roles at Pfizer, Wyeth Pharmaceuticals and Autism Speaks among others.

"Rob is a recognized leader in the field of autism research and brings years of experience working at the forefront of therapeutics development for related neurodevelopmental disorders such as Fragile X. We are pleased to have someone with Rob's experience spearheading our efforts to advance treatments for Fragile X Syndrome and related conditions," said David Malpass, a founder of Vencerx. "We are also thrilled that Jeff Stevenson will join as Chairman of the Board. He brings strong leadership, a stellar investment career and nearly two decades of involvement in advancing the treatment of Fragile X."

Regarding Dr. Ring, Mr. Stevenson noted: "Rob is an experienced R&D leader with a unique background in the emerging field of neurodevelopmental disorders that makes him ideally suited to lead our ground-breaking efforts ahead at Vencerx." Adding further, "Ring also brings to Vencerx a deep understanding of the diverse unmet medical needs of patients and their families, the complexities of developing therapeutics for these unique populations, and firsthand experience working collaboratively with patient groups to achieve success."

"I am absolutely thrilled to be joining the team at Vencerx at a moment in time when the field of therapeutics development for rare neurodevelopmental disorders like Fragile X is poised to take off," said Dr. Ring. "The past decade of CNS drug development field has quietly ignored what I see as a massive opportunity to address the diverse unmet needs of families across the autism and neurodevelopmental disorder communities by leveraging the rich diversity of targets and clinical assets pursued, and in many cases abandoned, for other indications."

Continued Dr. Ring: "In a short period of time, Vencerx has identified potential partnerships that will quickly establish its initial pipeline around two exciting therapeutic opportunities, both for neurodevelopmental indications like Fragile X. We look forward to sharing more about these lead assets in the coming months."

"By applying our understanding of the pathophysiology of Fragile X Syndrome, FXS, we have been able to identify promising innovative and potentially disease-modifying therapeutics," said Michael Tranfaglia, M.D., a Vencerx founder, Board member and Chief Scientific Officer of FRAXA, a non-profit dedicated to supporting individuals affected by FXS.

Dr. Ring most recently served as Chief Science Officer of the global nonprofit science foundation Autism Speaks, where he oversaw a science mission credited with over $300 million of funding investments across the autism research community. His leadership tenure was highlighted by the launch of MSSNG, a ground-breaking genomics partnership with Google (now Verily) and the Hospital for Sick Children that has established the field's largest database of genomic sequence information from 10,000 individuals with autism and their families. Ring was also instrumental in starting up DELSIA LLC, the foundation's innovative venture arm that expanded the foundation's philanthropic mission to include innovative investments in commercialization activities by entrepreneurs and small companies. Prior to Autism Speaks, Ring headed the Autism Unit at Pfizer Global Research and Development, considered one of the industry's earliest research divisions dedicated exclusively to the discovery and development of medicines for autism and related neurodevelopmental disorders such as Fragile X. Ring's leadership extended from basic target identification to phase 2 proof-of-concept trials, and he was instrumental in helping shape the commercial strategy for this new therapeutic area. Before Pfizer, Ring worked for over a decade at Wyeth Research in Princeton heading Mood Disorders Research and serving as program leader for numerous drug development programs. A neuroscientist by training, Ring also maintains adjunct faculty appointments in the departments of Psychiatry at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, and Pharmacology & Physiology at Drexel University College of Medicine in Philadelphia. In 2014, Ring was appointed by then HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius to serve on the Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee (IACC), and continues his service on the committee after reappointment by Secretary Sylvia M. Burwell in 2015.

Mr. Stevenson is Managing Partner of VSS, a leading private equity investment firm that invests in the information, business services, healthcare and education industries. Mr. Stevenson has been the senior member of the investment committees of all VSS buyout funds and structured capital funds. He joined the Firm in 1982, shortly after its formation, and has been the head of its private equity business since its first investment.

About Fragile X Syndrome

Fragile X Syndrome (FXS) is a genetic disorder caused by a mutation in the DNA structure within the X chromosome. It results in a wide range of developmental, physical and behavioral issues and is the most common known cause of inherited developmental disability. It affects about 1 in 4,000 males and 1 in 8,000 females and occurs in all racial and ethnic groups. There are no current treatments for Fragile X Syndrome. For more information, visit the FRAXA Research Foundation website at http://www.fraxa.org/fragile-x-syndrome/.

About Vencerx Therapeutics

Vencerx is a drug development company focused on bringing innovative medicines to patients with rare neurodevelopmental disorders such as Fragile X Syndrome and associated conditions. Headed by an experienced team of life sciences leaders, the company has assembled an extensive academic and clinical network to maximize efforts to be a leading catalyst for Fragile X drug development efforts. The company is identifying development programs focused on distinct, first-in-class, disease-modifying mechanisms backed by substantial proof-of concept data. For more information, visit www.vencerx.com

Contact:

Julie Rathbun

Rathbun Communications

[email protected]

206.769.9219

SOURCE Vencerx Therapeutics

Related Links

http://www.vencerx.com


VANCOUVER, British Columbia, March 31, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Web copywriters are recognized as one of the sexiest professions worldwide, according to a recent international poll.*

It marks the start of a new era, suggests Rick Sloboda, Senior Web Copywriter and Content Strategist at Webcopy+. While Sloboda wasn't selected as one of the sexiest content writers, he says he's proud of his industry's milestone and recognition.

The world's #1 sexiest web content writer: London, England's Chisel Smith.

"Firemen, athletes and TV personalities  these selections are predictable and they've grown tired," he stated during a phone interview from the copywriting agency's headquarters in Vancouver, Canada. "Web copywriters, on the other hand, combine sensitivity, curiosity, creativity, artistic angst, grit to tackle deadlines, and nose-bleeding IQs to comprehend and infiltrate the human psyche."

The World's Top 5 Sexiest Web Copywriters

While sources could not be verified, the following individuals are reportedly the world's sexiest content writers, spanning the US, Canada and England:

1. Chisel Smith (London, England)

2. Dr. Olaf Vulvaloopski (San Francisco, USA)

3. Gorgeous George (New York, USA)

4. Ashley White (Toronto, Canada)

5. Vladimir Smirnov (Vancouver, Canada)

According to poll results, the world's sexiest professions are:

1. Entrepreneurs

2. Musicians

3. Fire fighters

4. Athletes

5. Pilots

6. Chefs

7. Doctors

8. TV Personalities

9. Police Officers

10. Web copywriters

"It's refreshing to see a shift from celebrating physical traits and feats like travelling in space to writing good content  it's hard work," said Sloboda. "Content writers now deservedly share the stage with people like Dwayne Johnson, Richard Branson and Jennifer Lopez. It's about time."

How will this change life for Sloboda and other content writers around the globe? "Like other celebrities, we might have to start using aliases when booking appointments at the Apple Genius Bar or attending content conferences," he said. "Web copywriters will need to take the necessary steps to protect themselves from paparazzi and gossip magazines."

Sloboda also verified the rumour that his content agency is considering launching a web copywriter calendar later this year. "We don't want to take the limelight away from firefighter calendars," he said, "but it's something we are discussing behind closed doors, and I think there's enough room in the market for both entities to thrive."

*The noted poll was conducted during March of 2017 and has a substantial margin of error.

Established in 2006, Webcopy+ is a Vancouver, Canada-based web copywriting agency that helps designers and businesses around the globe increase leads and sales with optimized content. Clients range from start-ups to some of the globe's largest service providers. To request interviews or explore smart content, visit www.webcopyplus.com.

MEDIA CONTACT:

Rick Sloboda

[email protected]

604.295.0100

Related Files

Webcopy+ logo - Final-White.jpg

This content was issued through the press release distribution service at Newswire.com. For more info visit: http://www.newswire.com

SOURCE Webcopy+

Related Links

http://www.webcopyplus.com


COLUMBIA, S.C. and TAMPA, Fla., March 31, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- To help the fight against our nation's number one killer, cardiovascular disease, WellCare of South Carolina, a subsidiary of WellCare Health Plans, Inc. (NYSE: WCG), is sponsoring the American Heart Association's (AHA) 2017 Midland Heart Walk, on Saturday, April 1.

"Heart disease, stroke and other cardiovascular diseases claim more than 787,000 lives every year," said Dr. Robert London, WellCare of South Carolina's senior medical director. "This is one of the most important public health concerns in the United States and disproportionately impacts the members WellCare serves."

Individuals with Medicaid coverage are more likely to have cardiovascular conditions than those who have other types of health insurance coverage. Recent data shows that 53 percent of all adults with Medicaid coverage  more than 16 million individuals  have a history of some type of cardiovascular illness.

The Midlands Heart Walk, beginning at the Colonial Life Arena in Columbia, South Carolina, is a non-competitive walk (1-mile or 3-mile routes available) designed to promote physical activity and heart-healthy living. All funds raised will help the AHA's fight against heart disease and stroke.

"We're proud to support the AHA's Midlands Heart Walk and share our commitment to the health of our members, our associates and the communities we serve, through physical activity," said Kathy Warner, WellCare's state president in South Carolina.

For more information about AHA's Heart Walks, visit http://www.heartwalk.org.

As of Dec. 31, 2016, WellCare serves approximately 87,000 Medicaid members, 11,000 Medicare Prescription Drug Plan members and 4,000 Medicare Advantage members in South Carolina.

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. WellCare 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


Lithuanian English

Vilnius, Lithuania, 2017-03-31 14:26 CEST (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- NOTIFICATION FOR IKKB OMX BALTIC BENCHMARK FUND ORDINARY SHAREHOLDERS MEETING AND DRAFTS DECISIONS

By the decision of UAB Orion Asset Management, code: 111707985, office address: A.Tumeno g. 4 (hereinafter  Management Company), Vilnius, ordinary shareholders meeting shall be convened of IKKB OMX Baltic Fund, code: 111713358, office address: A.Tumeno g. 4, Vilnius (hereinafter  the Company). The meeting of shareholders will take place at the Management Companys registered office on 20 April 2017. Meeting record date: 14 April 2017.

The right to participate in the meeting and to vote may be exercised only by those who are registered as shareholders or other persons mandated by shareholders, or other persons who has the right to vote according to the agreement between the parties.

A. Agenda of the meeting:

1. Approval of the Companys financial statements for the 2016 year.

2. Appropriating the Company`s profit (loss) for the year ended 31 December 2016.

B. Drafts decisions

1. To approve Companys financial statements for the 2016 year.

2. To appropriate the profit (loss) of the Company after expiration of the financial year (ended on 31 December 2016) as follows:

a. Retained result  profit (loss) at the end of the previous fiscal year  loss of 219 586 EUR;

b. Net result of the fiscal year  profit loss of  343 241 EUR;

c. Unrecognised profit (loss) in the account  none.

d. Transfers from the reserves  none.

e. Shareholders contributions to cover losses  no indications.

f. Distributable result  profit (loss) at the end of fiscal year  none.

g. Part of profit assigned to the legal reserve  none.

h. Part of profit assigned to the reserve for own shares  none.

i. Part of profit assigned to the other reserves  none.

j. Part of profit assigned for dividends payments  none.

k. Part of profit assigned for annual payments  none.

l. Retained result  profit (loss) at the end of fiscal year  none.

C. Voting procedure

Initiator of shareholders meeting does not allow to participate and vote in the meeting through electronic communication instruments. Draft decisions, agenda of the meeting, documents which will be submitted to the meeting and the information related with shareholders subjective rights, shall be published on the website at www.am.orion.lt. Select general menu, column on the left Funds management, item OMX Baltic Benchmark Fund. Also, this specific information for shareholders is available at the Management Company office, on working days from 11.00 until 12.00 and from 14.00 until 16.00.

By registering to participate at the meeting, shareholders or other persons mandated by shareholders must provide identification cards. Persons mandated by shareholders must present mandate (power of attorney). Mandate which was issued by natural person, must be approved by notary. Mandate which was issued in a foreign country must be translated into Lithuanian language and legalized according to the legislation. Mandated person can be authorized by more than one shareholder and can vote separate due to indication of the shareholder.

Shareholder can mandate natural or legal person to participate and vote in the name of shareholder at the meeting via electronically means of communications. There is no obligation to approve such mandate by notary.

Mandate which was issued using electronic communication instruments must be confirmed by shareholder electronic signature (using certified software) which one is confirmed as safe. Shareholder must inform initiator of the meeting about mandate which was issued using electronic communication instruments by email, this information must be sent to oam@orion.lt, no later than one day before shareholders meeting 04.00 pm.

Mandate and notification must be of the written form. Mandate and notification must be signed by shareholders electronic signature (not only the email should be signed). Shareholder which provides notification must indicate internet address where software which may be used to inspect the validity of electronic signature can be downloaded.

There is no specific form of mandate approved.

Shareholder or other mandated person can vote by correspondence (filling and signing voting ballot).

If shareholder requires, initiator of the meeting must send general voting ballot by registered mail or personally serve it, no later than 10 days before shareholders meeting. General voting ballot must be signed by shareholder or other mandated person. If ballot was signed by mandated person, additional document proving the right to vote must be attached.

Filled and signed general voting ballot must be submitted to the initiator of the meeting. It must be sent by registered mail or presented directly. Completed ballot will have power only if it will be received until shareholders meeting.

On the website www.an.orion.lt, column on the left Funds management, item OMX Baltic Benchmark Fund, News shall be indicated following information:

- Notification about shareholders meeting;

- Drafts of the decisions due to agenda issues and other related documents which will be submitted to the meeting;

- General voting ballot.

D. Procedure of submission of questions and sumplements of agenda

Shareholders whose shares are carrying voting rights at least 1/20 of the all votes, has the right to propose to add items to the agenda of the meeting. In order to supplement the agenda, shareholders must draft the project of decision due to additional proposals. When there is no obligation to take a decision, shareholders must draft the project of clarification. Proposals of the agenda must be submitted in written or must be e-mailed. Proposals which are submitted on paper must be presented on working days to the initiator office or must be sent by registered mail. Proposals which are submitted by email must be sent to oam@orion.lt. Proposals must be presented no later than 14 days until shareholders meeting, i.e. until 4 April 2017. If agenda of the meeting will be supplemented, all modification that was made by initiator, will be notified no later than 10 days before shareholders meeting in the same way as this notification regarding shareholders meeting.

Shareholders whose shares are carrying voting rights at least 1/20 of the all votes, have the right to propose new projects of decisions, which are included in the agenda of the meeting. Proposals must be submitted on paper or must be e-mailed.

Proposals which are submitted on paper must be presented until 09.00 am to the initiator office or can be sent by registered mail. Proposals which are submitted on paper can be presented to the chairman of the meeting after the announcement of agenda, but no later than before shareholders will start to consider issues which are indicated in the agenda. Proposals which are submitted by email must be sent to oam@orion.lt. Shareholders meeting will considerate all decisions projects proposals (due to questions indicated in the agenda) which would be sent no later than on 20 April 2017, 09.00 am.

Shareholders have the right to submit additional questions regarding the item included in the agenda of the meeting. Questions submitted on paper must be presented to the initiator office or must be sent to oam@orion.lt, no later than 3 working days before shareholders meeting.

Annex.

1. General voting ballot.

2. Consolidated Companys financial statements for the 2016 year.

Respectfully,

UAB Orion Asset Management

CEO

Ramunas Baranauskas
GRAPEVINE, Texas, March 31, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- United Development Funding IV (UDF IV or the Trust) announced that it has filed a Schedule 14D-9 with the Securities and Exchange Commission in response to an unsolicited tender offer. The Letter to Shareholders of the Trust, which was filed as an exhibit to the Schedule 14D-9, is set forth below in its entirety:



Dear Shareholder:

As you may be aware by now, SCM Special Fund 3, LP, Lemon Creek Advisers, LP and MacKenzie Capital Management, LP (the Offerors) initiated an unsolicited tender offer to buy up to 1,550,000 common shares of beneficial interest (the Shares) of United Development Funding IV (the Trust) for $1.25 per share in cash (the Tender Offer). You should be aware that the Trust is not in any way affiliated with the Offerors and the Trusts Board of Trustees (the Board) makes no recommendation, expresses no opinion and remains neutral regarding whether you should accept or decline the Tender Offer.

As stated in the Offerors letter, the Offerors are making this offer with the intention of making a profit from the ownership of the Shares. Further, the Offerors state that they are motivated to establish the lowest price which might be acceptable to [you] consistent with the [Offerors] objectives.

The Trust is required by the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, and the rules and regulations under it, to inform you of the Boards position, if any, with respect to the Tender Offer. As a result, the Board: (1) reviewed the terms and conditions of the Tender Offer; (2) considered other information relating to the Trusts historical financial performance, portfolio of assets, current financial condition and future opportunities; and (3) evaluated various other factors it deemed relevant in light of its knowledge of the Trusts business, financial condition, portfolio of assets and future prospects.

The following are the material factors considered by the Board in evaluating the Tender Offer:

The Offerors are making the offer for investment purposes and with the intention of making a profit from the ownership of the Shares by purchasing them at a low price, and shareholders who tender their Shares pursuant to the Tender Offer may be deprived of the potential opportunity to realize the long-term value of their investment in the Trust.



Specifically, the Tender Offer price of $1.25 per share is significantly less than the 30-day OTCMarkets.com price range of $2.25 to $2.85 per share referenced in the Offerors Tender Offer materials. Therefore, the Offerors acknowledge that the Tender Offer price was established based on the Offerors own objectives (i.e., to make a profit) and not based on what is in the best financial interest of you and the other shareholders;





Specifically, the Tender Offer price of $1.25 per share is significantly less than the 30-day OTCMarkets.com price range of $2.25 to $2.85 per share referenced in the Offerors Tender Offer materials. Therefore, the Offerors acknowledge that the Tender Offer price was established based on the Offerors own objectives (i.e., to make a profit) and not based on what is in the best financial interest of you and the other shareholders; The Offerors acknowledge that they have not made an independent appraisal of the Shares or the [Trusts] assets and are not qualified to appraise real estate;





The Trust was unable to timely complete its annual financial statements for the years ended December 31, 2015 and December 31, 2016 or its quarterly financial statements for the quarters ended March 31, 2016, June 30, 2016 and September 30, 2016 because its independent accounting firm elected not to stand for reappointment in November 2015;





In June 2016, the Trust announced that it engaged EisnerAmper LLP as its independent accounting firm, and the Trust intends to file its required financial statements as soon as possible. The Trust is not currently able to indicate when the audit of its financial statements will be completed or when the Trust will file periodic reports with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for periods subsequent to September 30, 2015;





In December 2016, the Trust announced the total owed by the Trust to institutional lenders and commercial banks under lines of credit and notes payable had been reduced from approximately $170.9 million at September 30, 2015 to approximately $18.4 million as of December 30, 2016.





The Trust and certain trustees and members of management have received a Wells Notice from the staff of the SECs Division of Enforcement stating that the SEC staff has made a preliminary determination to recommend that the SEC file an enforcement action against the Trust and certain individuals alleging violations of certain specific provisions of the Securities Act of 1933 and the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. A Wells Notice is not a formal allegation or a finding of wrongdoing, but is a preliminary determination by the SEC staff that it may recommend to the SEC that a civil enforcement action or administrative proceeding be brought against the recipient. The Trust responded to the Wells Notice in December 2016 and requested that the SEC reject the staffs recommendation and not authorize an enforcement action against the Trust, as the Trust continues to believe that it has complied with all applicable laws and regulations. The Trust is unable to predict how long the SEC process will last, the outcome of the SECs investigation or any action that the SEC may ultimately decide to pursue, or any impact on the Trust as a result of the proposed or any actual enforcement action.





The Offerors have engaged an affiliated depositary for the Tender Offer. As a result, there is no independent third party holding funds for the Offerors for payment of the Tender Offer price that can independently verify that such funds are available for payment, and the Offerors may have access to the Shares tendered by shareholders before all conditions to the Tender Offer have been satisfied and tendering shareholders have been paid;





There is no guarantee that the Tender Offer can or will be completed as quickly as the Offerors contemplate in the Tender Offer. The Tender Offer does not initially expire until May 5, 2017 and this date may be extended by the Offerors, subject to compliance with applicable securities laws, in their sole discretion;





In light of the Tender Offer, it is possible that in the near future other bidders may emerge and make offers to purchase the Shares at prices that may be higher than the price offered by the Offerors. In addition, the Offerors may choose to make one or more tender offers for the Shares in the near future at prices that may be above the current $1.25 per share offered in the Tender Offer. It is important to note that late last year certain affiliates of the Offerors filed documents for a tender offer for the Shares at a purported price of $1.50 per Share. Subsequently, the offer was amended to reduce the price to $1.00 per share. It is possible that the Offerors, or their affiliates, may in the future make additional tender offers at prices above $1.25 per share, or the Offerors may even amend the terms of this Tender Offer to substantially reduce the price payable to you. However, no assurances can be given at this time as to what actions the Offerors or third parties may take, including whether any other tender offers will be made or what prices the Offerors, their affiliates, or other bidders may offer in the future; and





The Offerors statement that [t]he lack of any public market for the sale of Shares means that Shareholders have limited alternatives if they seek to sell their Shares may be intended to capitalize on recent events relating to the Trust and pressure shareholders into making hasty investment decisions without taking adequate time to consider all of the facts relating to the Tender Offer and the Trust.

The Trust notes that the Tender Offer expires May 5, 2017. Shareholders can only withdraw their tender of Shares until May 5, 2017 or, if the Offerors have not agreed to accept payment for Shares tendered pursuant to the Tender Offer, after May 19, 2017 until such time that the Offerors accept payment for such Shares. Except under these limited circumstances, the tender of Shares is irrevocable.

After evaluating the Tender Offer and information regarding the Trust as discussed above, because the Trust does not have current financial information available, the Board determined it is not in a position to express an opinion regarding whether shareholders should accept or reject the Tender Offer at this time. The Board urges each shareholder to make its own decision regarding the Tender Offer based on all of the available information, including the adequacy of the Tender Offer price in light of the shareholders own investment objectives and liquidity needs, individual tax and other circumstances as well as the shareholders own views as to the Trusts prospects and outlook and the factors considered by the Board, as described above. Shareholders are urged to consult with their own financial, tax, accounting and legal advisors, and to exercise caution with respect to tender offers.

Please be aware that you are not required to tender your Shares to the Offerors. To reject the Tender Offer, simply ignore it; you do not need to respond to anything. If you have already agreed to tender your Shares pursuant to the Tender Offer, you can withdraw any tender of Shares up until May 5, 2017 (as described in the Tender Offer materials).

Sincerely,

United Development Funding IV

By: /s/ Hollis M. Greenlaw

Name: Hollis M. Greenlaw

Title: Chief Executive Officer

This correspondence contains forward-looking statements relating to the Tender Offer and United Development Funding IV that are based on the Trusts current expectations and estimates, and are not guarantees of future performance or future events. Such forward-looking statements generally can be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology such as may, will, expect, intend, anticipate, estimate, believe, or other similar words. Readers of this correspondence should be aware that there are various factors, many of which are beyond the Trusts control, that could cause actual results to differ materially from any forward-looking statements made in this correspondence. Accordingly, readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date of this correspondence. A number of important factors could cause actual results or events to differ materially from the forward-looking statements contained in this correspondence. Forward-looking statements in this document speak only as of the date on which such statements were made, and we undertake no obligation to update any such statements that may become untrue because of subsequent events.
Charlotte, NC, March 31, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The XOOM Energy family of energy retail companies, that provides natural gas and electricity services to homes and businesses across the U.S., Canada, and Japan has been recognized as the 2016 Retail Energy Provider of the Year. The award was presented by Energy Marketing Conferences, LLC at their 7th Semi-Annual Energy Marketing Conference in Houston, Texas on March 1st, 2017. As the leading event for the competitive energy industry, the EMC is proud to recognize XOOM Energy as the Retail Energy Provider of the Year based on their many accomplishments during 2016, said Larry Leiken, EMC Co-Founder.

The year 2016 was another year full of achievements for XOOM Energy due to new markets and new products. It was the second year in a row XOOM Energy appeared on the Inc. 5000 list and was recognized as part of the 2016 North Carolina Mid-Market Fast 40 presented by the North Carolina Business Journal. It was also the third year in a row XOOM Energy was awarded the Grant Thornton North Carolina 100 award.

Expansion has been key in XOOM Energys progressive and successful year, launching in seven new utility markets across the United States, in Maryland, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, and launching for the first time internationally with a new entity in Alberta, Canada. Expansion continued when XOOM Energy, through XOOM Energy Japan, GK, became the first foreign energy retailer licensed to provide electricity to residents in Japan and began offering service to residential customers in Tokyo in December 2016. Expanding into two countries in one year took a lot of hard work and dedication from our team, and because of them, both launches were very successful, stated Thomas Ulry, Chief Executive Officer. We are excited to see what this year has in store for XOOM Energy, he added.

In addition to expansion internationally in 2016, the XOOM Energy family also introduced new innovative products through new relationships. These products included RescueLock, a fixed rate plan that donates 5% of the customers energy charges to PetSmart Charities, the leading funder of animal welfare in North America, to help end pet homelessness, and FilterSnap which offers customers the opportunity to have their air filters delivered right to their door on an auto-fill basis.

With the combined efforts of launching new markets, and creating new products, XOOM Energy has continued to build upon past success, striving to be at the forefront of the energy retail industry. We are honored to have been recognized for our achievements by being named 2016 Retail Energy Provider of the Year, expressed Ulry.

About XOOM Energy

Based in Huntersville, North Carolina, XOOM Energy is a progressive family of independent energy retail companies that supply natural gas, electricity and renewable energy to residential, small business and large commercial customers in deregulated energy markets. XOOM Energy offers service through its wholly owned subsidiaries in 18 states, plus the District of Columbia, Alberta, and Ontario, Canada, in 90+ utility markets across North America. To find out more, visit xoomenergy.com.

About the Energy Marketing Conference

The mission of the Energy Marketing Conference is to provide the competitive energy industry with exciting conferences in premium locations  at very affordable prices. The goal of the conference is to bring together hundreds of energy companies, utilities, marketers, vendors and suppliers in the competitive energy industry to network and learn more about our industry. We are the largest gathering of retail energy executives in the country  twice a year: Houston, Texas in March and New York City in September.
Srinagar, March 26 : A wanted commander of the Hizbul Mujahideen was among the two militants shot dead in Jammu and Kashmir's Pulwama district after a brief gunfight on Sunday, police said.

"The militants, travelling in a vehicle, were challenged at a 'naka' (checkpost) set up by security forces in Padgampora area of Pulwama, but instead of giving themselves up, started firing at the security personnel triggering a brief gunfight in which both were killed," a police officer said here.

"The two slain militants have been identified as Rayees Kachroo of Rajpora in Pulwama and Farooq Hurra of Nazneenpora in Shopian district. Kachroo was on top of the security forces' wanted list of militants operating in south Kashmir areas.

"He was wanted in connection with attacks on security forces. His killing is a major setback to militancy in south Kashmir," the officer said.

Security forces had set up the checkpost in Padgampora area following information about the movement of militants.
Danish English

Release no. 10/2017

With reference to release no. 8 of 31 March 2017, the capital increase has now been registered at the Danish Business Authority. Hereafter, the share capital of Columbus A/S amounts to DKK 149,832,040 (nom.) divided into 119,865,632 shares of DKK 1.25. The total number of votes is 119,865,632.

New Articles of Association are attached.

Ib Kune

Chairman

Columbus A/S

Thomas Honore

CEO & President

Columbus A/S For further information, please contact:

CEO & PresidentThomas Honore, T: +45 70 20 50 00.
Hyderabad, March 26 : A larger-than-imagination showbiz extravaganza unraveled in Ramoji Fim City, Hyderabad yesterday during an epic Pre-release event of 'Baahubali 2: The Conclusion'. All the who-is-who of the epic movie could converge at the single event. Here's what the stars had to say at the epic conclusion of an epic movie, their 5 years of hard work and imagination:

Filmmaker Karan Johar thanked the makers of "Baahubali" for letting him being a small part of the project. He also said he doesn't even have ten percent of director S.S Rajamouli's gumption.

Johar, who had acquired the theatrical rights of the Hindi version of "Baahubali" franchise which he will present under the banner of Dharma Productions, called it "probably the greatest film ever made".

At the pre-release event of "Baahubali 2: The Conclusion" at Ramoji Film City here, he said: "This is the biggest movie event in the history of Indian cinema and I have to say I'm amazed. This is pure dedication, pure strength and this is what I want to go back and teach."

At the event, a special audio-video on Johar's career was screened. He said he was "stumped".

"'Baahubali', 67 years later, has beaten the magic created by 'Mughal-e-Azam' on screen. Rajamouli's cinema has soul, his personality has gumption and I don't think I even have ten percent of it," he said.

Producer Shobu Yarlagadda thanked Johar for helping them conquer one of the toughest industries (Bollywood) with "Baahubali".

"We went to Karan Johar to take 'Baahubali' out of Tollywood. When he saw the film, he could see the potential in it. Since he believed in the film and put his name on it, we could conquer Bollywood market. Thank you, Karan Johar, for being a part of this journey," Yarlagadda said, and added that the film wouldn't have happened if everybody didn't stick together for five years.

Starring Prabhas, Rana Daggubati, Tamannaah Bhatia, Anushka Shetty, Ramya Krishnan and Sathyaraj, the film will release worldwide in IMAX on April 28.

With Prabhas and Rana as warring brothers fighting for an ancient kingdom, "Baahubali 2" will finally shed light on why the character Kattappa killed Baahubali.

The trailer released a few days ago has received 100 million views across four languages- Telugu, Tamil, Hindi and Malayalam. It has become the most viewed Indian film trailer on video sharing site YouTube.

Veteran Tamil actor Sathyaraj, who plays Kattappa in the franchise, finally revealed why he killed Baahubali.

"Producer Shobu paid me very well to kill Prabhas. My director Rajamouli asked me to kill Baahubali, and I obliged. Why would I kill Prabhas otherwise?" he asked, with laughter.

Sathyaraj also said that though he has starred in over 250 films, the world knows him as Kattappa.

"The second part has the stellar distinction of being shot entirely in India. A major part of the movie was shot in the Ramoji Film City. Over 5=400 people toiled day and night to build an ancient Kingdom. The forest scenes were shot in Kerala. Trees in Andhra Pradesh are short stubby, but the lushness and diversity of Kerala forests made an ideal backdrop", said Sabu Cyril, the art Director of this period cinema.

Tamannaah, who plays princess Avantika in the film, said it's once in a lifetime experience to be part of "Baahubali".

She thanked Rajamouli for giving her the opportunity.

"Though it's been two years since the release of first part, people are still excited as though it released last week," she said.

At the event, the film's audio was also launched. Composer M.M. Keeravani explained the music behind the trailer of "Baahubali 2: The Conclusion", which has clocked over 100 million views.

Anushka said that each and every one of them got to learn something from each other while working on the project.

"While all of us put in so much of effort in the film, Prabhas dedicated five years of his life. All of us are proud of him," she said.

Rana, who plays Bhallala Deva in the film, said every minute of the last five years was close to his heart.

He said that he will miss working on the project and that he would like to work as Prabhas' co-star in all the films.

Veteran actor Krishnam Raju said he would like to ask Steven Spielberg, who has made certain comments on Indian cinema, whether he has watched "Baahubali".

When Rajamouli finally arrived on stage, he had a lot of people to thank. From policemen who helped the conduct the event smoothly to his crew members, he extended heartfelt gratitude.

He also thanked his wife Rama for being his support and keeping his grounded.

-- With inputs from IANS
New Delhi, March 29 : Delhi Lt. Governor Anil Baijal has asked the Delhi government to recover Rs 97 crore it spent on certain advertisements from the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), officials said on Wednesday.

Sources in the Lt. Governor's office said the order was issued on recommendations of the Committee on Content Regulation in Government Advertising (CCRGA) which found that the advertisements were used to promote the party instead of the government.

"The committee had directed the Delhi government to assess the expenditure incurred by it on certain categories of advertisements and get it reimbursed from the political party concerned," the source said.

The Lt. Governor asked the government to issue a notice to the AAP for the recovery of amount already paid as well as the amount yet to be released by the government within 30 days, the source added.

Last month, a report of the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) had revealed that the Delhi government spent 86 per cent of the total budget for its media campaign celebrating completion of AAP's one year in power on full-page ads, TV clips and advertorials outside the national capital.

It also pulled up the government for using the name of the party in the advertisements.
Washington, March 31 : The US Senate Intelligence Committee on Thursday began its public hearings to analyse possible Russian interference in last November's elections.

The probe, according to its key lawmakers, will be extremely rigorous, given the presumed partiality of the corresponding committee in the House of Representatives.

"The committee will go wherever the intelligence leads us," Efe news agency quoted committee Chairman Richard Burr as saying during a press conference.

The House Intelligence Committee several days ago began investigating the matter, but the apparent lack of impartiality by its chairman, Republican Devin Nunes, has called that probe into question.

Nunes revealed last week that he had received information confirming that the communications of President Donald Trump may have been the object of "incidental" monitoring by intelligence agencies during the final months of the Barack Obama administration, but he refused to reveal his sources or to detail what occurred to his committee colleagues.

According to The New York Times on Thursday, the secret sources of Nunes were two officials with Trump's current White House team, raising even further the doubts about the credibility of the information.

Trump claimed early in March that Obama ordered telephone calls at New York's Trump Tower intercepted, but both the FBI and the National Security Agency have denied having any evidence supporting that accusation.

However, amid the process of interviews to determine what happened, Nunes insinuated that the president was monitored, although not directly, thus supporting -- to a certain degree -- Trump's claim, although without any proof.

The efficacy of the House committee, which to date had led the congressional investigations into Russian election meddling, has thus been thrown into doubt, whereupon the senators decided to intensify their own probe.

Although neither of the two lawmakers wanted to comment on the questionable conduct of Nunes, they made clear that their investigation will be completely independent.

If the lawmakers politicise the process, their efforts will probably fail, said Burr, one of the first lawmakers to support Trump during the campaign, regarding the need for a bipartisan and transparent investigation.

The Republican acknowledged that his committee's big challenge is to clarify for the public whether Trump's campaign colluded with the Russian government to interfere in the election, given that the Kremlin's efforts to influence the election have been confirmed by US intelligence agencies.

Warner said Thursday that he had been informed that Moscow hired about 1,000 hackers to spread fake news on the social networks about then-Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, whom Trump defeated in the November vote.
Washington, March 31 : US has shifted its priorities in Syria and no longer considers the removal of President Bashar Assad as a condition for ending the civil war, a top official said on Thursday.

According to a report in RT.com, US ambassador UN Nikki Haley said that after the new administration, "our priority is no longer to sit there and focus on getting Assad out."

"Our priority is to really look at how do we get things done, who do we need to work with to really make a difference for the people in Syria," Haley said.

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who was in Ankara meeting with his Turkish colleague Mevlut Cavusoglu, also said that the future of President Assad "will be decided by the Syrian people."

Since the beginning of Syrian conflict, US has continuously insisted that Assad must go for the sake of peace in the region.

US has also supported the moderate anti-Assad rebels in Syria.

According to the former Secretary of State John Kerry, Obama administration planned to oust Assad's government by supporting the rebels, but "that whole ball game changed when Russia intervened in September 2015."
Washington, March 31 : The US President Donald Trump predicted a "very difficult" meeting with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping, whom he has invited to his mansion in Florida (Mar-a-Lago) in early April.

"The meeting next week with China will be a very difficult one in that we can no longer have massive trade deficits and job losses. American companies must be prepared to look at other alternatives," Donald Trump said in two Twitter messages.

The meeting agenda will have a strong economic and commercial nature, Xinhua news agency reported on Friday.

During his campaign and also as President, Trump has blamed China -- in addition to Mexico -- for the US trade deficit and job losses due to offshore outsourcing, a trend that he has promised to change.

However, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lu Kang said that "40 per cent of China's trade surplus with the United States came from US companies in China."

Lu also argued that bilateral trade has created 2.6 million jobs in the US and said the two countries "are highly complementary."
Srinagar, March 31 : Authorities made heavy deployments of security forces on Friday to prevent separatist-called protests here and in other parts of Jammu and Kashmir.

Police said deployments of police and Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) have been made in sensitive places to prevent any untoward incidents.

"No curfew has been imposed anywhere in the valley. But adequate security deployments have been made for the day," a senior police officer said.

The separatists have called for protests after the Friday congregational prayers.

The protests have been called against the killings of three civilians in clashes with the security forces in Budgam district on Tuesday.

Authorities have placed senior separatist leaders, Syed Ali Geelani and Mirwaiz Umer Farooq under house arrest in Srinagar while Muhammad Yasin Malik has been lodged in the central jail.

No untoward incident was reported from anywhere in the Kashmir Valley on Friday morning .
Kolkata, March 30 : The Kolkata Municipal Corporation has ordered an investigation into the alleged sale of "artificial eggs" made of "plastic" in the city's markets, the KMC mayor said on Thursday.

Acting on a police complaint by Anita Kumar, who discovered "artificial eggs" once she cracked a couple open, the civic body has asked police and municipal officials to check all municipal markets.

"These eggs are being sold in the Tiljala market. As soon as I got to know about the complaint, I let the police know so that we can carry out checks of all municipal markets. I have also received some documentary evidence," KMC Mayor Sovan Chatterjee said.

According to Anita Kumar, the "fake egg" had a strange "plastic-like quality" when it was spread out on a pan.

"I tested my suspicion by putting a match to it and it caught fire. The shell also looked plastic. I was sure that this was not natural and, being a mother, I felt I should alert the public," Anita said.

-- With inputs from IANS
New Delhi, March 31 : Till a decade ago, the barley that farmers grew in semi-arid Haryana and Rajasthan due to water scarcity would mostly be used as animal feed. Now, with international beer manufacturers keen to source barley locally, these farmers could see their coffers swelling.

"Our annual requirement of barley grain is about 15,000 tonnes, of which just 1,000 tonnes is procured locally and the rest is imported. We can fulfil our requirement by encouraging barely cultivation in India. We have found the climate in this region (Haryana, Rajasthan) suitable for malt-grade grain," Pedro Aidar, President of Business Unit India of Belgium-based AB InBev, told IANS.

To this end, the company, which owns the iconic beer brand Budweiser, recently held a grand event for farmers in Gurugram -- a satellite town of the national capital -- promising them good returns if they opted for contract farming for cultivating malt-grade barley.

Under contract farming, a grower agrees to provide a pre-decided quantity of a specific agricultural product.

According to the Indian Institute of Wheat & Barley Research (IIWBR), barley could become a cash crop in arid and semi-arid areas, especially in Haryana and Rajasthan, if farmers succeed in producing standard quality malt-grain.

"Barley needs a similar temperature as wheat. However, the water requirement is less than half, which makes it suitable for dry areas. It is good if the farmers are going to secure an assured income through contract farming. Anyway, contract farming of barley has been picking up recently," IIWBR Director Gyanendra Singh told IANS.

Traditionally, barley is grown in Haryana, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh, but it is mostly used as animal feed.

Increasing urbanisation and changing food habits in recent years have shown significant increase in demand for beer, causing increase in imports and cultivation of barley locally.

While farmers are mostly looking at the breweries' offers with great hope, they have their own concerns to raise.

Kamlesh Kumar from Khariyan village of Sirsa district of Haryana said: "A similar event was held at Sirsa last year when I thought I must try this. So I replaced wheat with barley and I produced 5,000 quintals (500 tonnes) this year. I received MSP (Minimum Support Price) of Rs 1,525 per quintal. However, I have to make sure that the grain quality is standard and as per the requirement."

In the Gurugram event, a common concern was evident on the faces of all the farmers of what would happen if their grain quality is below the expectations of the breweries and the expenses they have to incur for buying seeds, fertilisers and machinery.

Gulab Singh, a farmer from Jhajjar district of Haryana, said: "Since we cannot grow any major crop other than barley or sometimes wheat due to scarcity of water, the option of contract farming seems attractive. However, we are concerned about the expenses of seeds, fertiliser and machinery we will have to buy. And what if breweries reject small-sized grains that are not suitable for malt?"

AB InBev has partnered with French grain cooperative group Axereal to provide high quality seeds, agronomist support and advanced machinery to farmers and to carry out crop procurement.

Sudhanshu Jangir, head of Axereal's India unit, told IANS: "Farmers need not worry as the price of our high-quality seeds will not be more than the other seeds in the market. In addition, we will mostly pay higher than the MSP."

Jangir said that the selling of seeds and procurement will be carried out in accordance with the policies of the state and Central governments.

At the Gurugram event, Axereal experts told farmers that theoretically, barley can be harvested two to three times a year -- an indication of huge returns but the issue of water availability in such cases remained a question mark.

The legislator from Pataudi, Bimla Chaudhary told IANS: "We are welcoming brewery companies so our framers should earn. However, problem of water is still there. We hope we will get our share of water soon (from the rivers in Punjab). Let us see."

The total area under barley cultivation last season was about 1.2 million hectares against 31 million hectares under wheat, as per the IIWBR. In 2015-16, total production of barley was 1.44 million tonnes.

(Saurabh Katkurwar can be contacted at saurabh.k@ians.in)
Brussels, March 31 : European Council President Donald Tusk on Friday set out the fundamental guidelines for the two-year Brexit negotiations.

Tusk received the UK's formal request to leave the European Union (EU) on Wednesday in the form of a six-page letter signed by British Prime Minister Theresa May, Efe news reported.

Tusk said: "Our duty is to minimise uncertainty and disruption caused by the UK's decision to withdraw from the EU."

"The UK is now on the other side of the negotiating table."

Going into the two-year negotiation period triggered by Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty (official process to leave the EU), the EU would think of the people first, Tusk said.

The residential rights of EU citizens living in the UK would be one of the main focuses.

EU companies in the UK would need to be safeguarded against losing the protection of the 27-member bloc's law and regulation.

He said the EU would honour all its commitments, and stressed that the UK would have to as well.

Talks would be difficult, complex and, at times, confrontational, but the EU would not take a punitive approach in the negotiations, Tusk said.

"Brexit in itself was punitive enough," he added.
New Delhi : Private education could cost 2-3 per cent more if taxed at the lowest slab of 5 per cent under the Goods and Services Tax (GST), according to our analysis of the bill's provisions.

The GST bill passed by the Lok Sabha (lower house of Parliament) on March 29, carries a provision that says certain services provided by the government or local authority would not be liable to tax.

Financial experts believe that the provision was inserted to exempt education and health services, in addition to a list of other services, when provided by the government or the local authority.

The provision could be extrapolated to mean that private education in India would be liable to tax once GST becomes law.

Tax exemptions have been granted to both public and private institutions engaged in providing education. Extending exemption benefits to private schools, considering their commercial success, has not always been an idea that found mass support.

"Charitable purpose", as defined by law, includes relief to poor, education, medical relief, and the advancement of any other object of general public utility. The words "not involving the carrying on of any activity of profit" were omitted by the Finance Act, 1983.

Continuing in the same vein, a circular was issued by the Central Board of Direct Taxes in 2008, clarifying that an institution providing relief to the poor, education and medical facilities, would be allowed exemption even when it has incidental commercial activities.

The GST regime is now set to disrupt the status-quo, including educational activities.

GST is an indirect tax -- a tax on consumption of goods and services. An inherent feature of indirect tax is that the burden of the tax, rather than being borne by the industry (i.e., the manufacturers or traders or service providers), is passed to the consumers.

So, GST on private education, if it is implemented, would be borne by those looking to avail education services. Therefore, the issue of whether education is the place for disruptions, which might otherwise be a good thing, merits consideration.

Education, once viewed largely as a philanthropic activity, has now metamorphosed into a $100 billion (Rs 6.5 lakh crore) industry, with the private sector balancing investor returns and social responsibility, while the public sector is struggling with inadequate faculty and outdated curriculum.

Greece, for instance, imposed a 23 per cent value added tax (VAT) on private educational establishments in 2015.

"It looked like a double win that would simultaneously please creditors and demonstrate the government's commitment to helping the underprivileged. Unsurprisingly, it did neither," The Economist reported on October 30, 2015.

Within months, reasonably priced private schools were forced to shut down. Those who suffered as a consequence were not just the rich but also middle- and lower-income groups.

Private schools located in working class areas charged affordable tuition fees and attracted working class parents who were keen their children receive a good education. The VAT also strained an already overheated state education system.

In India, as in Greece, the demand for private schooling is not just reflective of elite preferences but also a show of trust in affordable private schools, thereby making the demand cut across income spectrums.

For instance, about 31 per cent of children in India in 2015-2016 were enrolled in private schools, while about 11.5 per cent were enrolled in private institutions partly aided by the government, according to data from the Unified District Information System for Education.

Even in some poorer states such as Uttar Pradesh (51.37 per cent) and Rajasthan (49.23), half of all children enrolled were in private educational institutions.

Further, private school enrolment is not only an urban phenomenon. In rural areas of Madhya Pradesh 24.7 per cent of students aged 6-14 years were enrolled in private schools, as were 52.1 per cent in Uttar Pradesh, according to data from the 2016 Annual Status of Education Report.

Private schooling, in several parents' minds, has come to be associated with quality, with some low-income families enrolling their children in private schools, which suggests that a tax on education could be regressive in nature.

Though parents believe private schools offer higher quality education, government schools in some states have also improved over the last two years.

Further, a 2014 study suggested that children who study in private schools were more likely to have educated parents (which could result in better learning outcomes), have fewer siblings and thus receive more parental attention, and be part of families richer than those who study in government schools.

If the government chooses to tax private education at the lowest slab rate (about 5 per cent), while also considering the tax already paid on inputs such as furniture and services (like rent), the effective tax rate would be even lower.

Careful framing of the law, i.e. the rate of tax and allowance of input tax credit with respect to education, could mitigate the impact of taxing education, and result in an increase in cost of education to the consumer by just about 2-3 per cent.

(In arrangement with IndiaSpend.org, a data-driven, non-profit, public interest journalism platform. Rishika Pardikar is a chartered accountant based in Bengaluru. The views expressed are those of IndiaSpend. Feedback at respond@indiaspend.org)
KLEINBURG, Ontario, March 31, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- On April 3, 2017, internationally respected art historian Ian A. C. Dejardin officially joins the McMichael Canadian Art Collection as its new Executive Director. Dejardin, 61, was selected following an extensive global search conducted by the McMichael Canadian Art Collection last spring. He joins the McMichael fresh from his 12-year leadership of the renowned Dulwich Picture Gallery in London, England.

A photo accompanying this announcement is available at http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/32f19954-f114-44bc-9606-dd7cec2f834e

While at the Dulwich, Dejardin launched the critically acclaimed Painting Canada: Tom Thomson and the Group of Seven exhibition, which set record attendance at the 200-year-old gallery before equally successful stops at the National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design in Norway and the Groninger Museum in the Netherlands, finishing to similar acclaim at the McMichael in 2013. The global interest and fervour for Canadian art is alive and well, said Ian Dejardin. Im excited to share my personal passion for The Art of Canada* to the world as Executive Director at the McMichael.

Like many new Canadians, Ian was born outside Canada, but has a natural affinity for all things Canadian. He shares his deep expertise in a casual, collaborative way, and his quirky, self-deprecating sense of humour and unassuming but enthusiastic style make him literally the perfect leader for the McMichael right now, said Andrew W. Dunn, Chair of the McMichaels Board of Trustees. Ians international perspective brings a sense of confidence about The Art of Canada* and its world-class stature that many Canadians accept only when acknowledged outside Canada. We are excited to have Ian take on the leadership of the Gallery as we embark on our second fifty years, surprising our visitors with contemporary art, international comparisons, sculpture, and music, while celebrating and showcasing our outstanding collection of Group of Seven and historical art and Inuit and First Nations art, which we call collectively and inclusively, The Art of Canada*.

Dejardins fascination with Canadian art began decades ago when he stumbled upon a book featuring images of works by members of the Group of Seven and Tom Thomson. When he became director of the Dulwich in 2005, Dejardin took it upon himself to assemble the first big Group of Seven and Tom Thomson exhibition outside of Canada in almost 100 years, beginning a multi-year collaboration with the McMichael, which culminated in the record-breaking Painting Canada exhibition. Two years later, Dejardin co-curated From the Forest to the Sea: Emily Carr in British Columbia. He is currently collaborating with Sarah Milroy on a 2018 exhibition featuring the works of Canadian master David Milne, which will show at the McMichael in 2019.

Dejardin holds a Master of Arts degree in the History of Art from the University of Edinburgh, and a postgraduate diploma in Art Gallery and Museum Studies from Manchester University.

Dejardin succeeds Nathalie Mercure, who took on the Interim Executive Director role in September 2015.

Nathalie has been an outstanding contributor to the McMichael in her 18 months of leadership. Her positive attitude, collaborative leadership style, and methodical attention to detail have created a strong foundation for future growth, with a talented and engaged management team, an excellent exhibition schedule masterminded by Dr. Sarah Stanners, our Chief Curator, and a pervasive sense of optimism across our staff, our volunteers, and our visitors and patrons. We are forever grateful to Nathalie for her efforts and very happy that she has agreed to join our Board in the fall to capture her expertise and energy for the McMichael, added Dunn.

The McMichael Canadian Art Collection, located at 10365 Islington Ave. in Kleinburg, Ontario, is a Category A museum that holds over 6,000 artworks by Canadian artists in its permanent collection. It is the foremost venue in the country showcasing the Group of Seven and their contemporaries, Inuit and First Nations and Indigenous art. The gallery is an agency of the Government of Ontario. *The Art of Canada is an official mark of the McMichael Canadian Art Collection. For more information, visit www.mcmichael.com. To arrange an interview, contact Simona Panetta at 905-893-1121 ext. 2210 / spanetta-kerr@mcmichael.com.
Tokyo, March 31 : Japan is considering a "more aggressive" military stance for the first time since World War II, to strike overseas targets, a media report said on Friday.

The proposal from the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) advocates adopting new measures to address missile threats from North Korea, including ramping up Japan's missile defence capabilities and developing the "capacity to counter-attack enemy bases" in the event of a missile attack on the country, the CNN report said.

Hiroshi Imazu, chair of the Research Commission on Security for the LDP, and former Defence Minister Itsunori Onodera, submitted the proposal to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Thursday.

Onodera, who led the panel, told the media after the meeting that Japan's current systems might not be able to cope with a barrage of attacks.

"There are limitations (of our) ballistic missile defence (BMD) if several missiles are fired," he said.

"Neutralising an enemy base (and preventing the launch of) the second and third missiles is within the range of self-defence. It is not a pre-emptive strike," he added.

Tensions in Japan follows a string of North Korean missile tests, the CNN report said.

Earlier this month, Pyongyang fired four intermediate-range ballistic missiles, three of which landed less than 200 nautical miles off the Japanese coast.

Abe said that his government would seriously consider the proposal.

"We assess that the threat (from North Korea) has advanced to a new stage, we take it seriously. This assessment is shared by the US," CNN quoted the Prime Minister as saying.

Japan has not launched an attack on foreign soil since World War II.

Currently, any Japanese counter-attack on North Korea would need to come from US forces because Tokyo does not have all the equipment needed to carry out long-range strikes, according to analysts.
New Delhi, March 31 : India on Friday accused Pakistan of using social media to incite trouble and mobilise youth to throw stones at security forces during counter-insurgency operations in Jammu and Kashmir.

"Social media platforms like Facebook and WhatsApp are being used to mobilise youth to provoke them for stone pelting," Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh told the Lok Sabha after Trinamool Congress member Saugata Roy raised the issue of stone-pelting on security forces in the Kashmir Valley.

The security forces fighting militants in the valley have been facing a new challenge of stone-pelters who come in groups to obstruct soldiers engaged in military operation against insurgents. The problem has been raging particularly since the July 2016 killing of Hizbul Mujahideen militant Burhan Wani that led to one of the deadliest series of street protests across the valley.

Earlier this week, three civilians were killed when security forces allegedly opened fire at a group of protesting stone-pelters trying to help a besieged militant escape from the security cordon in a central Kashmir village.

Rajnath Singh said it was "a new trend (that) has begun in Kashmir".

"When our security forces go to villages in search of terrorists, the youths of the locality start pelting stones."

He said those indulging in stone-pelting were doing so at the behest of the neighbouring country and "the group which operates the (social media) accounts (to incite stone-pelting) are based in Pakistan".

The minister said the security forces would continue to give a befitting reply to terrorists and infiltrators in Jammu and Kashmir and also expressed confidence that India would defeat all forms of terrorism.

He said Pakistan was trying to destabilise India by sponsoring terrorism.

"Not only Jammu and Kashmir, the terrorists are trying to destabilise the whole country through their cowardly acts. The whole country is aware of this act of Pakistan. Our security forces are retaliating against them in their own language," he said.
London, March 31 : The leader of the Scottish government on Friday sent a letter to the British Prime Minister formally requesting permission to stage a second independence referendum.

First Minister Nicola Sturgeon sent the notice to Theresa May just days after she received the backing of Scotland's devolved Parliament, Holyrood, to ask Westminster for permission to once again put the nation's UK membership to a vote, reported Efe news.

"As you are aware, the Scottish Parliament has now determined by a clear majority that there should be an independence referendum," read the letter signed by Sturgeon.

"The purpose of such a referendum is to give people in Scotland the choice of following the UK out of the EU and single market on the terms you negotiate, or becoming an independent country," it continued.

May confirmed that Britain will leave the EU single market as part of the process of untangling over 40 years of cohesion with the continental bloc.

But while voters in England and Wales narrowly supported Brexit during the June 2016 referendum, the Scottish electorate overwhelmingly voted to remain a member of the European Union, with only 38 per cent opting to sever ties with Brussels.

With a fresh mandate, Sturgeon's Scottish National Party (SNP) has reignited an independence campaign that had sat dormant since the 2014 referendum after 55 per cent voters opted to remain a devolved nation within Britain.

The Conservative Party government, however, with its eyes firmly set on the Brexit negotiations with the EU, has come out against proposals for a second Scottish independence vote.

The PM publicly went on record to argue that "now is not the time".

Nonetheless, Sturgeon announced that the Scottish government would seek to hold an independence ballot between autumn of 2018 and spring of 2019, before Britain had finalised its EU withdrawal, according to the report.

Sturgeon accused the British government of failing to consult the devolved administrations in Edinburgh, Cardiff and Belfast.

May set Brexit in motion on Wednesday with the triggering of Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty, meaning it must be out of the EU within two years with or without a final deal.

In the note, Sturgeon said she wished May well in that negotiation period.
Kolkata, March 31 : Over a hundred people, including family members of victims of the north Kolkata flyover collapse, participated in a series of walks on the ghastly accident's first anniversary on Friday demanding the demolition of remnants of the "murder bridge".

On March 31, 2016, around 12.30 p.m. the world came crashing down for hundreds of commuters and residents of Ganesh Talkies in north Kolkata when a 100-metre portion of the Vivekananda flyover sheared off and fell, killing 27 persons and injuring over 100 others.

Kusum Dutta, who lost her husband in the tragedy, said she trembled slightly at the sight of the structure.

"I can't erase the memory of that day. Everytime I look up, I can feel a shadow of doom overhanging the road. I don't want a repeat," Dutta said placing a candle on a small marble shrine built in the memory of the victims close to the flyover.

Her views were echoed by Abhishek who lost his parents in the accident.

"I don't want anyone to go through what I experienced. There should be strict legal action. Why is the state government quiet," asked a teary-eyed Abhishek.

The tragedy was caught in a 14-second CCTV video footage. It showed the collapse flattened vehicles and trapped over a 100 persons underneath it. The same visual was shared by many on social media on Friday.

The incident triggered a political slugfest over corruption in the then assembly poll-bound West Bengal.

Over the past one year, police have arrested engineers from Hyderabad-based construction company IVRCL -- responsible for constructing the Vivekananda flyover -- and two officials of the state-run Kolkata Metropolitan Development Authority (KMDA) that had been tasked with monitoring the project.

A series of ongoing scientific inspections have been conducted, but a decision on what to do with the remnant bridge is yet to be taken.

A senior official of the construction company had claimed the disaster was "an act of God" which was swiftly dismissed by engineering experts, who pointed to the lack of proper planning, delays, lacunae in design and bad tendering as the major reasons for the tragedy.

In the aftermath, citizens united under the "Flyover Hatao Abhiyaan" have repeatedly protested against letting the structure remain there in a precarious position. They have been demanding demolition of the "murder bridge".

"Our demand is that the remaining bridge should be demolished. I nearly lost my life that day (March 31, 2016) and it is traumatising to look at the rest of it," said Anil Sonkar, who had just crossed the street beneath the bridge, when it fell.

The long-delayed 2.5-km flyover was expected to tackle congestion in the Burra Bazar area -- the location of one of the largest wholesale markets in Asia -- up to Howrah station, the gateway to the city.

The flyover's foundation was laid in 2008 (during the Left Front regime) and work on the Rs 164 crore project began on February 24, 2009.

It was scheduled to be ready in 2012 but land acquisition issues delayed completion. The implementing agency too ran into financial troubles.
Islamabad, March 31 : The Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (Pemra) on Friday imposed a fine of Rs one million on Hum TV for airing "objectionable clips" in one of its drama series.

According to the Pemra press release, after a number of complaints from the public, a show-cause notice was sent to Hum TV on February 20, 2017, seeking an explanation within seven days.

After hearing Hum TV's representatives, analysing their written reply and reviewing the objectionable clips, a personal hearing committee unanimously agreed that the content was in violation of the clauses 3(1)(a), 3(1)(e), 12 and 17 of the Electronic Media (Programmes and Advertisements) Code of Conduct, 2015.

"On account of the airing of the episode "Chew Gum" in the drama serial "Kitni Girhein Baqi Hein" having indecent content... a fine of Rs 1,000,000 (rupees one million) is imposed on Hum TV, payable within three weeks from the issuance of this decision," said the press release.

It added that the channel was also warned to be more vigilant in the selection of the theme of its dramas or soaps, keeping in view the provisions of the Electronic Media (Programmes and Advertisements) Code of Conduct 2015, socio-cultural norms and values of the country.

Earlier on Friday, Pemra handed Geo News a Rs one million fine and also put a five-day ban on its morning show "Geo Pakistan" for airing objectionable/indecent content.
Gandhinagar, March 31 : Amid the ongoing nationwide debate over triple talaq, a BJP legislator on Friday moved a motion in the Gujarat Assembly advocating the need to promulgate a law or initiate administrative measures to protect the marital rights of Muslim women.

Referring to the triple talaq issue, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) legislator, said that "injustice is meted out to them (Muslim women), though Islam does not validate" this practice.

Moving the resolution on the last day of the budget session of the assembly, BJP's Jagrupsinh Rajput said the legislation was a necessity "to protect the social and individual rights of Muslim women to ensure they live a life of dignity".

Rajput went on to say that the Indian Constitution stands for protecting the rights of all its citizens and does not make any distinction on the basis of religion and caste.

"If distinction is being done on the basis of religion, then it becomes primary duty of the state to contain, stop and punish (such acts)," he said.

Rajput further said that Islam or its ideology has nothing to do with the practice of triple talaq.

"Quran clearly states that before giving divorce, all efforts need to be made to arrive at an amicable solution.

"In the given context, one needs to accept that divorcing women by just pronouncing the word 'talaq' thrice is sheer injustice. This is not a question of tradition or religion," Rajput said.

Reacting strongly to such a proposal in the state assembly, veteran Congress legislator Gyasuddin Sheikh described it as the BJP's move to polarise the electorate.

"BJP is showing a farcical sense of empathy towards Muslim women, and by wrongly talking about human rights, it is trying to defame Islam. This is first step by BJP to enforce Uniform Civil Code in the country by interfering in personal law," he said.

In a press release, Sheikh also said that he was strongly against the practice of triple talaq and pointed out that neither the Quran nor Hadis supported the practice.

However, he said the BJP should stop interfering in Muslim Personal Law, as it is "unconstitutional".
New Delhi, March 31 : Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Friday claimed that with a view to hike electricity and water rates, a conspiracy was being hatched to transfer the Ppower and Water Departments to the municipal corporations if the BJP or the Congress came to power in the civic bodies.

He appealed to the people to give the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) a 2015 Delhi assembly election-like mandate in the civic polls too, so that the rates of electricity and water are not increased.

"A senior Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) leader told me that if Congress or BJP comes to power in municipal corporations, then the power and water departments of the Delhi government will be transferred to the corporations as was before 1998.

"This was being done to increase the rates of electricity and water in Delhi," he said while addressing a public meeting in Burari area of north Delhi.

Seeking a huge mandate so that "corruption in municipal corporations could be abolished and Delhi could be cleaned", he said: "If AAP comes to power in municipal corporations, it will not let the electricity and water rates increased even if both the departments are transferred to civic bodies.

"If AAP will be in power in MCD as well, then both the Delhi government and the civic bodies will work together to make Delhi clean and developed."

Elections for 272 municipal wards in Delhi will be conducted on April 23 and the results will be declared on April 26.

Listing the achievements of the AAP government, Kejriwal said that his government reduced electricity rates and provided free water to every household as promised.

"We did whatever we promised. We will also abolish residential house tax if we come to power in municipal corporations. We will turn the civic bodies from loss-making and corrupt organisations to profit-making and corruption-free organisations," he said to huge applause.

Kejriwal said that municipal corporations were one of the most corrupt departments and so much that their councillors, who used to commute on scooters, buy big houses and expensive cars by the end of their tenure.

"BJP-ruled MCDs turned the city into a garbage dump. We will eradicate corruption from the civic bodies and within one month, we will make Delhi a clean and tidy city, if we are voted to power," Kejriwal promised.

Citing other achievements, Kejriwal said that the primary healthcare was strengthened by constructing Mohalla Clinics in the city and the standard of education was also improved at government schools.

"We did a lot in health and education sectors. We made all kinds of tests free at government and at most private hospitals. We raised minimum wages for the labourers in Delhi and also raised the amount of pensions for various segments," he said.

He also challenged Bharatiya Janata Party President Amit Shah to debate with him over works done by both the governments their respective states.

"No government did in 20 years whatever we did in two years. BJP's government is in Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat for a long time now... I challenge Amit Shah to debate over the works done by my government in Delhi and his government in other states," he said.
Mumbai, March 31 : Hindi film "Mukti Bhawan", which has been screened in various international film festivals and received appreciation from the audience, will be released in theatres in the the Middle East, producer Sanjay Bhutiani said on Friday.

"After receiving huge appreciation from various film festivals in different countries we are planning for a theatrical release of 'Mukti Bhawan' internationally. So far, it is confirmed that the film will be released in Middle Eastern countries.

"We are also in talk with other countries like Korea, some of the European and south east-Asian countries. We will confirm the release date within coming three weeks," he told the media here.

The film, directed by Shubhashish Bhutiani and featuring Adil Husain and Lalit Behl, revolves around an interesting relationship between a father and son after the former decides to die in the Hindu holy city of Varanasi and his son forced to join his journey.

Since the film is in Hindi, Bhutiani, asked about if the exhibitors are planning to dub the film in local language, said: "This is their call but so far they are planning to subtitle the film in their respective local language."

The film has already premiered in Venice Film Festival, won the UNESCO award for peace and human rights and screened in Dubai International Film Festival among others.

As the film is releasing in India on April 7, Bhutiani said they were mainly focusing on multiplexes "as they are our primary audience" but also releasing the film in cities like Nagpur, Jodhpur, Indore, Lucknow, Chandigarh along with metro cities.
Washington, April 1 : A US federal judge in California on Friday gave final approval to an accord requiring President Donald Trump to pay $25 million to settle lawsuits against now-defunct Trump University.

The decision by US District Judge Gonzalo Curiel puts an end to seven years of litigation on behalf of former students who paid as much as $35,000 for courses that purported to share Trump's formula for success in real estate, Efe news agency reported.

During the 2016 presidential campaign, Trump leveled accusations of bias against Curiel, the US-born son of Mexican immigrants, claiming that the judge was hostile to him because of the mogul's harsh anti-Mexican rhetoric.

The agreement, which was announced 10 days after Trump won the November 8 election, covers two federal class-action cases in California and a separate suit brought by the New York attorney general against the university, a for-profit entity that opened in 2004 and closed in 2010.

New York prosecutors said the university never had the necessary operating licenses and that students were bilked out of thousands of dollars.

Trump said before winning the Republican nomination that he was unwilling to settle the lawsuits "out of principle," insisting that many of the students were satisfied with the quality of the instruction.

After reaching the settlement, he said that he decided to offer compensation to resolve the matter so he could concentrate on his task as president.

Lawyers for the 3,730 student plaintiffs said their clients stand to recoup as much as 90 per cent of the tuition and fees they paid.

"Today's final approval by a judge of our Trump University settlement will provide relief -- and hopefully much-needed closure -- to the victims of Trump's fraudulent university," New York state Attorney General Eric Schneiderman said in a statement.
Washington, April 1 : Hillary Clinton on Friday criticised US President Donald Trump for his plan of budget cuts to health, development and particularly diplomacy.

Clinton, who has kept a low profile since January, launched several barbs at Trump in a speech at Washington's Georgetown University during a ceremony for bestowing Hillary Rodham Clinton Awards on participants in Colombia's peace process.

"We are seeing signals of a shift that should alarm us all. This administration's proposed cuts to international health, development and diplomacy would be a blow to women and children and a grave mistake for our country," Efe news agency quoted Clinton as saying.

Trump sent Congress this month his proposed budget for fiscal year 2018, which includes sizeable cuts to the State Department (31 per cent), the Environmental Protection Agency (31 per cent) and the Department of Health (23 per cent).

"Turning our back on diplomacy won't make our country safer, it will undermine our security and our standing in the world," said Clinton, who was US secretary of state between 2009-2013.

Clinton also referred several times to what members of her party see as the current White House's contempt for the truth, an impression fostered by presidential adviser Kellyanne Conway's unconcerned use of the term "alternative facts."

"Here I go again, talking about research, evidence, and facts," Clinton said, adding that when women are included in peace talks, they're less likely to fail,

"Women are not inherently more peaceful than men. That's a stereotype. That belongs in the alternative reality," Clinton said.

Though Clinton has maintained a low profile since her election defeat, she now says she is "ready to come out of the woods."
Danish English

31 March 2017

Company announcement no 04-17

The Annual General Meeting was held in accordance with the agenda issued.

The management commentary was presented, and the Annual Report for 2016 was adopted.

Group revenue reached DKK 881 million in 2016, and loss for the year was DKK 63.7 million.

In his report, Kare Staus Wigh stated that, as expected, 2016 realised an operating loss for the Group, and EBIT before special items totalled a negative DKK 26.3 million. Seen in isolation, this years financial performance is not satisfactory, however, it reflects the continuance of heavy investments in activities to better prepare the Group to deal with the on-demand-driven demand increasingly experienced by the media market.

For 2017, Group EBIT before special items is expected to range from a negative DKK 5 million to a negative DKK 30 million.

At 31 December 2016, the Groups net interest-bearing cash position was DKK 106.9 million. This is DKK 6.9 million less the balance at year-end 2015 when the net interest-bearing cash position stood at DKK 113.8 million.

The Board of Directors and the Executive Board believe that the Group has a solid balance sheet and strong financial resources ensuring and supporting the long-term development of the business. Strong financial resources are considered a key competitive parameter.

Kare Staus Wigh stated that this is the reason why the Board of Directors recommends that no dividend be paid for the financial year 2016. He also stated that the Board of Directors maintains its objective and expectation of achieving a profit performance that can enable distribution of dividend as an annually recurring event.

The Board of Directors believes that the Group is well prepared to cope with the challenges and to ensure that recent years decline in earnings will end in 2017.

The Annual General Meeting granted discharge to the Board of Directors and the Executive Board and approved the proposed distribution of loss for the year as disclosed in the Annual Report, including the Board of Directors recommendation not to distribute dividend.

The Annual General Meeting adopted the Board of Directors proposal to renew the authorisation granted to the Board of Directors to increase the share capital one or several times by up to DKK 25,000,000.00. The authorisation was granted for a period until 31 March 2022.

Richard Bunck, Peter Rasztar, Steen Gede and Ulrik Holsted-Sandgreen were re-elected to the Board of Directors. The Board of Directors is now made up of Richard Bunck, Peter Rasztar, Steen Gede and Ulrik Holsted-Sandgreen.

Immediately after the Annual General Meeting, the Board of Directors elected Richard Bunck as Chairman and Peter Rasztar as Vice-Chairman.

As proposed by the Board of Directors, Deloitte Statsautoriseret Revisionspartnerselskab was re-appointed as company auditor.

For further details, please contact Kare Staus Wigh, Group Executive Director & CFO, at +45 25 65 21 45.

Yours faithfully

North Media A/S

Richard Bunck

Chairman of the Board

This Company announcement has been prepared in Danish and English.

The Danish text shall be the governing text for all purposes, and in case of any discrepancy the Danish wording shall be applicable.
Given the health risks like Zika that are increasing in our country, its important to remain vigilant in mosquito prevention techniques."

As new cases of Zika continue to pop up across the United States, its more essential than ever to take proper precautions to avoid contact with biting mosquito populations. Mosquitoes are vector pests and can transmit other harmful diseases such as West Nile virus and Chikungunya, in addition to Zika. With warm weather rolling in, Bug Busters is urging the public to take extra precautions when spending time outdoors and when getting their homes and property in shape for spring.

Prime mosquito season is fast approaching and it is important for people to be aware and to know how to protect themselves from these potentially dangerous insects, says Bug Busters Chief Operating Officer Court Parker. Given the health risks like Zika that are increasing in our country, its important to remain vigilant in mosquito prevention techniques, which include eliminating breeding grounds around the yard, understanding these pests behaviors and correctly applying insect repellent.

To prevent the health risks that can potentially accompany an already-pesky mosquito bite, be sure to follow these mosquito prevention tips:



When spending time outdoors, apply an insect repellant containing at least 20% DEET, picaridin or oil of lemon-eucalyptus, and reapply as directed on the label. People who are spending long amounts of time outdoors should also consider wearing long pants, long-sleeved shirts and closed-toe shoes to limit exposure to mosquitoes. The main type of mosquito that carries Zika is a daytime biter, so taking preventive measures at all times of the day is crucial.

Anyone traveling outside of the United States should be aware of travel advisories currently in effect. Pack plenty of insect repellant and protective clothing. If a person falls ill upon returning home, seek prompt medical attention.

Mosquitoes need only about a half an inch of water to breed, so homeowners should eliminate areas of standing water such as flowerpots, birdbaths, baby pools, grill covers and other objects where water collects.

Even childrens toys like buckets and sandboxes can collect water and become a breeding ground for mosquitoes right in the backyard, so be sure to keep these objects water-free.

Screen all windows and doors, and patch up even the smallest tear or hole on screens.

If there are concerns about mosquito activity on the property, contact a licensed pest control company or the local mosquito abatement district.

For further details on scheduling an interview with a Zika expert or to obtain infographics and photography, please contact court(at)bugbustersusa(dot)com or 1-800-210-6262. For more information on pest prevention for all seasons, please visit bugbustersusa.com.

###

Bug Busters has been family owned and operated since 1984 and is committed to providing top-notch residential and commercial pest control services in the Southeast. While offering the most effective pest control services available, Bug Busters is dedicated to doing so with respect for the environment. The company focuses on the control, removal and monitoring of all types of crawling and flying pests including mosquitoes, rodents, bed bugs, termites, spiders and more. Bug Busters stresses the importance of knowing customers personally and offering thorough and tailored service with a vow to excellence in the products and services that it provides.
We wanted to capture this inspiration and put them in one place. We wanted to create something that people can wear proudly and become part of the soul of Boston.

IM Boston wanted to highlight the small business owners of Boston; to create a space where people can go and find things that are unique to New England and truly become part of its heart and soul.

Online magazine startup IM Boston announces the release of an online marketplace inspired by the small businesses in Boston and around New England. The marketplace currently features vendors with products that are rich in both detail and quality.

IM Boston was founded with the mission to start a tribute to the people of Boston. Readers are encouraged to discover interesting people around the neighborhood, learn more about the city, and have the chance to build connections with those who are close by and share the same passions. These items are another way for readers to connect with the stories they're reading and the people in their community who tell them.

Walking the streets of Boston, you dont have to look very far to find inspiration. Its around every corner in the city. The statues, the history, the streets and the people, says Oz Ahmad, Co-Founder of IM Boston. We wanted to capture this inspiration and put them in one place. We wanted to create something that people can wear proudly and become part of the soul of Boston.

On the website you can find everything from t-shirts to leggings, bowties and kimonos. IM Boston's own clothing line, IMB Clothing can also be found in the shop and includes shirts that come in both men and womens styles and sizes. Each custom designed shirt has a name and a design inspired by Boston as well as their own unique inspirational story printed inside the shirt. Another vendor, IGoVille, contributes totes and bucket bags as well as sunglasses that are a fresh and eco-friendly take on classic styles. Irina Gorbman Fashions can also be found in the marketplace and provide a vibrant addition to your wardrobe. Each item is the garment version of one of her original paintings, making them wearable pieces of art. These items are ones that will help define your personal style. IM Boston encourages everyone to shop these styles and more at https://imboston.com/shop.

IM Boston is a Boston centric online magazine highlighting and sharing stories of people around the city. It was born from the idea that everyone has a voice that should be heard. IM Boston strives to bring the community together by discovering inspiring stories, participating in charity programs, hosting networking events, and more. To learn more about the magazine and how to participate, please visit their website at https://imboston.com.
An epic journey of survival, courage and life lessons from Africa to America, Game Changers is a true-life depiction of the authors life story that saw him looking for the meaning of life everywhere in the world, only to find it has always resided within. Gatsha Conco, the author, wields a tale of one who finds himself from an early age, facing harsh realities that many would consider fate of doom. Through the resilience of his spirit and faith, he overcomes sexual violation, attempted suicide, substance abuse, social discrimination and ultimately has to come face to face with his mortality.

Society long counted me out, right to a point I believed that even I, bought into that narrative. When the universe counts you out, you only have two options: to shrivel into oblivion and disappear into the sunset; or you choose your path and pace and keep on keeping on. I chose the latter and it has been a glorious ride that people now believe is the revolutionary self-actualization many thrive for, cites Gatsha Conco confidently..

Published by New York City based Page Publishing, Game Changers promises the reader a front row seat to the resilience of the human spirit, as Gatsha Conco tells intimate details of how easy one can lose faith, direction and will to live by allowing other people to choose the colors that make up the tapestry of our lives. He epitomizes the adage that how you start in life might not be in your hands but how you finish, is a choice you make even by not choosing. Follow his escapades from his birth country of South Africa to the lessons he has come to learn about self and life during his stay in America, where he currently resides.

Readers who wish to experience this inspiring work can purchase Game Changers: Decades of Dream Later at bookstores everywhere, or online at the Apple iTunes store, Amazon, Google Play or Barnes and Noble.

To keep abreast of what Gatsha Conco is working on, follow him on:

Twitter: @ConcoGatsha

Facebook: Gatsha Conco

Instagram: gatsha

For additional information or media inquiries, contact Page Publishing at 866- 315-2708.

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Managing Partner Sam Pond was featured as guest speaker at the recent Injured Workers' Advocacy Program (IWAP) board meeting in Philadelphia. IWAP is a non-profit organization created to provide services and support for injured workers and to advocate for their rights.

Mr. Pond called upon the Board to take action against House Bill 18 (HB-18) a bill proposed by PA State Representative Ryan Mackenzie that, if passed, would harm an injured workers right to adequate health care. Masquerading as an attempt to reduce opiate usage, HB-18 would ultimately allow insurance companies to profit at the expense of injured workers pain, suffering, and decreased quality of life.

The bills provisions would allow insurance companies to control the medical care of injured workers by mandating a specific drug list, or formulary, that severely limits doctors ability to prescribe necessary medications, thus preventing workers from receiving the treatment they need to get better.

Mr. Pond addressed questions from the audience and gave an in-depth review of the short and long-term implications of this dangerous legislation. He urged Board members to do everything within their power to ensure that House Bill 18 is not signed into law.
There are dozens of cities curious at looking at this. People are starting to recognize how necessary this is.

Optimum Seismic, Inc. Founder and President Ali Vahdani published an article in this month's issue of Apartment Age Magazine, describing the growing trend of cities adopting increasingly sweeping earthquake retrofit ordinances in California.

His article, Santa Monica Earthquake Ordinance Prompting New Frontier for Earthquake Safety, is reprinted below, with permission from the Apartment Association of Greater Los Angeles, publishers of Apartment Age Magazine. To view the article, click on Page 74 in the magazine.

Santa Monica Retrofit Ordinance Prompting New Frontier for Earthquake Safety

The Los Angeles Times recently proclaimed the start of a New Frontier for earthquake safety: a phenomenon kicked off by the city of Santa Monica, which this month is expected to adopt the most comprehensive seismic retrofit ordinance in the nation.

Santa Monicas law is much more comprehensive than the ordinance adopted in 2015 by the city of L.A. But perhaps even more notable is the fact that there are untold numbers of cities poised to do the same. Its only a matter of time.

Famed seismologist Dr. Lucy Jones told the Times it is remarkable to see how the political winds have changed for elected officials considering seismic retrofit laws.

There are dozens of cities curious at looking at this, she said. People are starting to recognize how necessary this is.

The City of Los Angeles retrofit law, which took effect last year, requires the stabilization of some 15,000 pre-1978 wood-frame, soft-story buildings and non-ductile concrete buildings. Soft-story structures have parking or open space on the ground floor, and apartment or office units built above. Non-ductile buildings are pre-1977 concrete structures with a roof and/or floor supported by a concrete wall or concrete column.

Santa Monicas ordinance, which received an initial and unanimous vote of the City Council on Feb. 14, includes not only soft-story and non-ductile concrete buildings, but unreinforced masonry and steel moment frame structures. The council is scheduled to return for a final vote of adoption sometime this month, and the law will take effect 30 days after it is adopted.

A Slow-Growing Trend That Has Taken Off

San Francisco, Berkeley and other Bay Area cities were among the first to mandate earthquake retrofits for soft-story buildings. That was in 2013. Los Angeles sparked the trend in Southern California with the nations most sweeping seismic retrofit law, adopted in 2015.

Since then, the movement to retrofit buildings at risk of collapse in a large earthquake has taken a major step forward as cities in both Northern and Southern California start planning for retrofit laws of their own. A short list of cities that have adopted or are considering earthquake retrofit laws includes: San Francisco, Berkeley, Richmond, Fremont, San Jose, Alameda, Santa Clara County, Los Angeles County, Los Angeles, Beverly Hills, Santa Monica and West Hollywood.

The Structural Engineers Association of California estimates there may be as many as 100,000 buildings in Southern California alone facing retrofit mandates as other cities and counties consider adopting retrofit laws like those already enacted in other parts of the state.

Why Its Important to Cities

In 1994, Southern California suffered one of its deadliest and most destructive earthquakes: a 6.7 magnitude jolt in Northridge that killed more than 60, injured more than 9,000 and caused as much as $25 billion in widespread damage, most notably from the collapse of freeway overpasses and buildings, including the Northridge Meadows Apartments which crushed 16 residents and flattened cars in the ground-level parking tucked under the soft-story structure.

Five years earlier, a magnitude 6.9 earthquake shook Loma Prieta and the surrounding Bay Area to the core: freeways crumpled, storefronts toppled, and soft-story buildings fell, taking the lives of 63 people and causing some $10 billion in damage.

Here in California, we know: Its just a matter of time until the next Big One strikes.

Preventing lives from being lost is without a doubt the largest motivating factor in implementing these laws, but city officials are also extremely concerned about the potential chaos that could ensue if another major quake hits California and we arent ready for it.

The Northridge Example

The massive numbers of dead and injured resulting from the Northridge quake was shocking. Hospitals were overloaded, and as many as 125,000 people were temporarily or permanently displaced because of damage to their houses or apartments, according to the Interagency Committee on Seismic Safety in Construction headed by the National Institute of Standards and Technology.

Power and water were unavailable in many areas for several days and many streets and freeways were impassable.

The quake created a situation of chaos that cities now are wanting to do their utmost to avoid.

When somebody walks into a building in the city of Beverly Hills, no matter when theyre there, I want them to feel totally safe, Councilwoman Nancy Krasne was quoted in the Times as saying. I think everyone needs to feel safe when they go to sleep.

Cost Benefits of a Retrofit

You cant put a price on the cost of death or injury, and the loss of property resulting from earthquake damage can be much more than what a building is worth.

That alone should be enough to prompt owners of at-risk buildings to look into making their structures safer. In many cases, these buildings represent a persons total assets and retirement plan. Studies show it pays to protect that.

Researchers at Caltech recently performed a general benefit-cost analysis on several types of residential structures including a soft-story apartment building. They found that for every dollar spent on retrofitting, owners could expect to save up to $7 in repairs, and their calculations did not include the possibility of death or injury or the loss of contents within the structures themselves.

Retrofits help to guard against liability, claims of negligence and are beneficial for insurance purposes, too. In fact, many insurance carriers no longer insure soft-story structures built before 1978 against earthquakes. Carriers are becoming more discriminating and will either stop coverage or increase premiums to compensate for the added risk.

Fortunately, many of the cities that have adopted or are considering retrofit ordinances have put financing models in place to help owners cover the costs of the retrofits.

These programs are designed to help. Contact your city or feel free to give us a call at 323-582-2465 for information on one of our upcoming AAGLA-supported earthquake retrofit seminars if you have any questions.

Ali Vahdani, a State of California Licensed Professional Engineer, has more than 35 years of experience in building and structural retrofits. He is president and founder of Optimum Seismic, a leading seismic engineering and construction firm serving all of California.
Prometheus Home Page We gave future neighbors the perfect combination of inspiration and assistance to find their new home.

Cibo announced today the launch of Prometheus Real Estate Groups web site http://www.prometheusreg.com. The site showcases Prometheus groundbreaking luxury apartments and communicates the companys unique brand experience.

As the leading developer of apartment communities on the West Coast, Prometheus has long pioneered a different standard of experience for those interested in apartment living. Every aspect of what Prometheus calls the Neighbor Experience has been carefully considered, from the design of the neighborhoods themselves, to the many services and amenities available to neighbors, to the smallest details of the place they call home.

Since the majority of Prometheus current and future neighbors work in the high-tech industry, the company has always placed a great importance on its digital brand experience. The new Prometheus web site showcases the companys carefully designed and considered neighborhoods in the San Francisco Bay Area, Portland and Seattle while also demonstrating the many small details that make these properties and the people who staff them so unique.

We worked hard to ensure that the brand personality came through in every element of the design, says Cibo Creative Director Tom Sieu. There needed to be a sense of life and a sense of style in the layout and interactions without sacrificing our ability to both clearly tell the Prometheus story and help people find the apartment of their dreams.

Cibo conducted in-context research at several Prometheus neighborhoods, yielding pertinent insights into both the companys culture, and the needs of current and prospective neighbors. These insights drove a significant overhaul to the web sites user experience and visual design, focusing on better showcasing each neighborhood, clearer calls to action to make an appointment or lease online, and telling the story of what makes Prometheus so unique.

Cibo both designed and developed the fully responsive web siteimplementing a custom CMS in conjunction with technology partner Code Refactoryand collaborating with Prometheus on the sites content. In addition to providing an ideal experience for exploring and ultimately renting a new apartment online, the site describes the history and culture of Prometheus in more depth than ever before, with an eye to attracting the kind of candidates that might fit into the organization.

Its always a pleasure to work with a client who understands the value of a great experience, says Alder Yarrow, Cibos Chief Experience Officer. Together we were able to spend time making sure we gave future neighbors the perfect combination of inspiration and assistance required to find their new home.

About Cibo

Cibo (http://www.cibosf.com) is a brand experience agency that helps ambitious brands build innovative customer experiences that drive increased loyalty, advocacy, and sales. Founded in San Francisco in 2010, Cibo brings deep capabilities in traditional marketing and advertising together with cutting-edge expertise in digital experience design, emerging marketing technologies and cross-platform brand storytelling. Cibos work propels some of the worlds top brands, including Tesla, Salesforce, Volcom, Subaru, Twitter, Lenovo, Union Bank/MUFG, Gymboree and Disney.
Dr Steven Shoshany (second from left) at the Chiropractic Media Summit I always try to get the the root of a patients problem. Sometimes it turns out that a chronic condition was being aggravated by the type of chair a person used in their office between treatments, or how they were sleeping...

Dr. Steven Shoshany recently lent his media expertise as a presenter at the Chiropractic Omni Media Summit. He presented as part of a Superstar Chiropractic Panel that focused on training chiropractors to take charge of their online media presence. Dr. Steven Shoshany was invited to speak because he is among the most famous chiropractors in America, having many news and syndicated daytime talk show appearances under his belt.

Dr. Shoshany has appeared as the Chiropractic expert on the Dr. Oz show nine times. He has also consulted for television shows, broadway musicals, as well as appearing in person as a guest and presenter. His appearance on NBC morning television as a certified provider of Kinesio Taping therapy, during the 2008 summer Olympics helped popularize the use of the now ubiquitous treatment. Dr. Shoshany has been a go-to expert for morning talk shows for nearly a decade.

The Seminar was hosted by Drs. Theresa and Stuart Warner from March 23 to the 25th in New Jersey. Also appearing on the panel were Dr. Alex Vidan, and Dr. Jason Deitch, the founder of AmpLIFEied.com, and best-selling author of Discover Wellness. The attendees learned how to harness the power of social media and content optimization in order to offer their patients and communities the best possible message about their services and practice. Without a concise and properly executed social and online media presence, it's almost impossible to properly run a business, especially one that also relies on patient education and lifestyle changes, like chiropractic. Dr. Steven Shoshany commented, Its important for a physician that uses a holistic approach to treatment, like us chiropractors do, to engage and educate their patients on the benefits and the process of treatment. I always try to get the the root of a patients problem. Sometimes it turns out that a chronic condition was being aggravated by the type of chair a person used in their office between treatments, or how they were sleeping. I write blogs and make videos about these issues all the time, and I think more people should engage their communities through the power of online media.

Dr. Shoshany is the chiropractic component of a cutting edge chiropractic and physical therapy practice in downtown Manhattan. His integrated approach to treating pain and injuries has been providing unparalleled results for almost 20 years. A lifelong New Yorker, he is aware of the unique demands the city can place on the body, and credits his patient centered, individualized approach. Dr. Shoshany prides himself on his exemplary track record of non-surgical non-drug pain treatment. His practice is located at 632 Broadway, and more information about his methods, and techniques can be found on his website drshoshany.com.
The beauty of Arizona Gives Day is that anyone can be a philanthropist by donating on April 4... Its an excellent opportunity to support local nonprofits that help our communities thrive.

Arizona Gives Day is a grassroots, statewide day of giving that invites Arizonans to support their favorite causes. Donations can be scheduled in advance (to be processed on Tuesday, April 4) at azgives.org or can be submitted day-of on April 4.

Hosted by the Alliance of Arizona Nonprofits and Arizona Grantmakers Forum, and presented by FirstBank, Arizona Gives Day has raised more than $7.4 million for Arizona nonprofits since its founding in 2013.

On April 4, the public will be asked to invest in Arizona by giving to organizations that are doing important work to improve the well-being of our state. Participating nonprofits include large and small organizations dedicated to arts and culture, children and youth, community development, health services, animal welfare and more. Each one works to better our community, and all are in need of community support.

The beauty of Arizona Gives Day is that anyone can be a philanthropist by donating on April 4, said Laurie Liles, president and CEO of Arizona Grantmakers Forum. Its an excellent opportunity to support local nonprofits that help our communities thrive.

For participating nonprofits, Arizona Gives Day offers an opportunity to raise awareness about their work, connect with new donors and win prize money to supplement individual donations. Last year, Arizona nonprofits raised $2.84 million through the generosity of 16,450 donors, with many giving to multiple organizations.

Arizona Gives Day continues to introduce brand new donors to our participating nonprofits, says Kristen Merrifield, CEO of the Alliance of Arizona Nonprofits. We are leveraging our statewide outreach to maximize exposure for our nonprofits, helping them expand their year-round fundraising strategy.

In the past, donations large and small have combined to make life-changing advancements possible throughout our state, and this year, the event is poised to be bigger than ever. The number of nonprofits who received donations on Arizona Gives Day grew by 25 percent from 2015 to 2016. And Arizona Gives Day 2017 is on track to make an even larger impact.

Its amazing to think that in four short years Arizona Gives Day has raised more than $7.4 million for Arizona nonprofits, and were excited to see charitable organizations, businesses and community members rally together for the fifth annual Arizona Gives Day, said Bryce Lloyd, President-Phoenix Metro, FirstBank. We believe youre only as strong as the community you live in, so supporting our nonprofit sector isnt just a right, its a responsibility. We hope others take some time on April 4 to strengthen our local community and give to causes they care about, too.

ARIZONA GIVES DAY 2017 FAST FACTS

1,000+ organizations are participating from across the state

300+ organizations are joining Arizona Gives Day for the first time

$175,000 in prize pool money is up for grabs

ARIZONA GIVES DAY 2017 MEDIA OPPORTUNITIES

Greater Phoenix:



Save the Family: YOGA for Save the Family, Surya Yoga, Phoenix; Saturday, April 1, 1-2:30 p.m.

Duet: Duet Open House, Duet, Phoenix; Tuesday, April 4, 10 a.m.  2 p.m.

Mindfulness First (all events are on April 4):

MOD Pizza, Scottsdale Rd / Shea Blvd, Scottsdale; present the Arizona Gives Day flier on April 4, and 20% of your order will be donated to Mindfulness First.

Floo-id Yoga, Phoenix, 6 a.m. - 7 p.m., all classes are free with a $10 donation to Mindfulness First.

The Mindfulness Life Center, Scottsdale, 6-6:45 p.m., the meditation class will be donation-based to Mindfulness First.

Rooted Community Yoga Project, Garage East, Agritopia, 6-7 p.m., the yoga class will be donation-based to Mindfulness First.

Tucson / Southern AZ:



The Humane Society of Southern Arizona: World Record Attempt for Most Dogs in a Photo, Tucson; Saturday, April 1, 9-11 a.m.

Sky Island Alliance: Arizona Gives Day Happy Hour, Sentinel Peak Brewing Company, Tucson; Tuesday, April 4, 5-8 p.m.

GAP Ministries: Arizona Gives Day Open House, GAP Ministries, Tucson; Tuesday, April 4, 3-6 p.m.

Watershed Management Group: Arizona Gives Day Tucson Hop Shop Percentage Night, Tuesday, April 4, 6-9 p.m.

Tu Nidito: Happy Hour in Celebration of Arizona Gives Day, Madaras Gallery, Tucson; Tuesday, April 4, 5-7 p.m.

Flagstaff / Northern AZ:



Shadows Foundation: Arizona Gives Day with Shadows Foundation & Elevated Shredding, Flagstaff Mall, Flagstaff; Tuesday, April 4, 3-6 p.m.

Flagstaff Youth Chorale: A Taste of Music: AZ Gives Day Celebration, Single Speed Coffee Cafe, Flagstaff; Tuesday, April 4, 5-7 p.m.

About the Alliance of Arizona Nonprofits

The Alliance of Arizona Nonprofits is an action-oriented group of partners across Arizona  both nonprofits and those in the community who support them  dedicated to uniting, strengthening and advancing Arizonas nonprofit sector. The Alliance envisions an Arizona where all nonprofits are valued, empowered and thriving, with support from grassroots efforts like Arizona Gives Day. For more information, visit http://www.azgives.org, or email azgives(at)arizonanonprofits(dot)org.

About Arizona Grantmakers Forum

Arizona Grantmakers Forum is the regional association serving Arizonas philanthropic community. Its mission is to empower members to transform Arizona through leadership and meaningful philanthropy. Member organizations make financial grants to nonprofit organizations throughout the state and represent the interests of private foundations, trusts, endowed community foundations, corporations, government agencies and individuals with organized charitable gift programs. For more information, visit http://www.arizonagrantmakersforum.org.

About FirstBank

FirstBank, the nations third largest privately-held bank with multiple banking locations in Arizona, operates more than 120 locations in Colorado, Arizona and California, and serves more than 650,000 customers. Since 2000, FirstBank has contributed more than $55 million and thousands of volunteer hours to charitable organizations. FirstBank is unique in that a majority of its stock is owned by management and employees. For more information, visit http://www.efirstbank.com.

Sponsors

Presenting: FirstBank

Platinum: Arizona Community Foundation

Gold: Thunderbird Charities

Silver: BHHS Legacy Foundation, Freeport McMoRan, Tucson Electric Power / UniSource Energy Services, SRP, Hickey Family Foundation, Intel, Vitalyst Health Foundation
A unique aspect of this conference is the ability to meet with industry-leading MSPs and senior client buyers at the same table.

Open Systems Technologies will be attending this years VMSA Live Conference April 5-7 at the JW Marriott Desert Ridge in Phoenix, Ariz. This annual event allows staffing professionals to network and collaborate with the leaders of major enterprises and MSP (managed service providers) channel partners. Rick Ryan, Senior Vice President of Strategic Accounts will be representing Open Systems Technologies during the event, to connect with thought leaders in enterprise procurement and talent acquisition.

This years attendee list played a major role in Open Systems decision to participate in VMSA Live, said Rick Ryan. I am excited about the opportunity to collaborate with some of the most successful leaders in their respective fields and to learn more about their businesses and buying processes. A unique aspect of this conference is the ability to meet with industry-leading MSPs and senior client buyers at the same table. The opportunity to workshop with the most influential people on both sides will prove incredibly valuable to me personally, as well as to Open Systems.

VMSA Live is an internationally renowned networking event, established in 2011. The schedule will include various discussions and workshops, addressing topics such as Buyers of Contingent Workforce Services, Buyer to Supplier Strategy, and Staffing Companies and How to Grow the Business. For more information about attending or to sign up, visit https://www.eventbrite.com/e/vmsa-live-phx-2017-registration-24812554017. To schedule a meeting with Rick Ryan, please find his contact information below.

About Open Systems Technologies, Inc.

Open Systems Technologies is one of the largest, privately held staffing companies in North America, with more than 25 years of proven industry experience. Adhering to the highest levels of ethical and professional recruiting standards, Open Systems Technologies provides contract, contract-to-hire, and permanent placements for financial services, insurance, retail, healthcare, energy, telecommunications, government, and payroll administration. Open Systems Technologies ensures client, consultant and candidate success through its relationship-driven business approach, providing unique staffing solutions with an emphasis on personalized service.

For more information or to search open positions, visit http://www.opensystemstech.com.

###

Contact:

Rick Ryan

SVP, Strategic Accounts

609-297-4002

rryan(at)opensystemstech.com

Emilie Erwin

Public Relations Manager

215-239-6207

eerwin(at)opensystemstech.com
31 March 2017 - Reference is made to American Shipping Company ASA's ("ASMC" or the "Company") stock exchange notice dated 29 March, 2017 where AMSC announced its intent to purchase 25,000 treasury shares in connection with its incentive scheme for employees. AMSC has today purchased 11,500 shares in the Company on Oslo Brs at an average price of NOK 28.0783 per share, which implies a total consideration of NOK 322,900. The purchase of treasury shares was carried out in accordance with an authorization granted by the Annual General Meeting of the Company held on April 27, 2016.

Following the purchase, AMSC holds a total of 25,000 treasury shares, constituting approximately 0.04% of the Company's shares and votes. The shares will be sold to MB Capital AS, a company controlled by the Company's CFO, Morten Bakke.

***
Data from the monitoring carried out by IDDD were presented at an event held yesterday (30), attended by the President of STF and CNJ, Minister Ricardo Lewandowski

The event "THE AUDITS OF CUSTODY IN THE CITY OF SAO PAULO: Advances and Challenges" was held at the headquarters of the Sao Paulo Lawyers Association (AASP), in which the Institute for the defense of the right of defense (IDDD) released the report "Monitoring Custody Hearings in Sao Paulo.

Approximately 500 people were present, among lawyers, public defenders, estate judges, academics, students and representatives of class entities honored in the solemnity, which had the distinguished presence of the President of the Federal Supreme Court (STF) and the National Justice Council (CNJ) Minister Ricardo Lewandowski.

During the event, Augusto de Arruda Botelho, President of IDDD, presented the main results of the monitoring carried out by the Institute between February and December 2015 at the Criminal Forum of Barra Funda, in Sao Paulo. Augusto celebrated the achievements of the "Audience of Custody Project", conceived by the CNJ with the support of the IDDD: "The custody audience is an absolutely new institute in the country and we will still go through a long phase of growth. There are some challenges to be overcome, including compliance with the 24-hour deadline for presenting the arrested person and combating and preventing torture and ill-treatment. Therefore, we will continue our monitoring to contribute to the improvement of the custody hearings."

Speaking on the implementation of the project, Minister Ricardo Lewandowski recalled: "When we take over the CNJ we are faced with an intolerable reality, a shame for the country which has 600,000 inmates in our prison system. We are the fourth country that holds the most people in the world. We had to take action: to change the culture of incarceration through unorthodox measures. An unusual measure was to implement the Pact of San Jose, Costa Rica, and to require that detainees in flagrante be presented to a judge within 24 hours.

"Custody hearings are a breakthrough not only in the criminal process, but also a breakthrough for Brazilian civilization. Because the idea that any citizen prisoner has the right to be interviewed by a judge quickly is a huge step in human rights in Brazil and that will greatly improve the criminal process. It is a step towards using less prison as a social response, said Leonardo Sica, President of AASP.

At the end of the event, a tribute was paid to Minister Lewandowski for his commitment and dedication in the national implementation of the Project. "The advances made by the custody hearings would not be possible without the work of Minister Ricardo Lewandowski. In a few years, when we analyze the practical results of the "Hearing of Custody Project" and the gradual change of the punitive culture we live in today, the name of your excellence will stand out as the pioneer of this conquest," said the IDDD President.

Data.

The report "Monitoring Custody Hearings in Sao Paulo" presents the main aspects observed by IDDD during a ten-month follow-up of the project at the Barra Funda Criminal Forum, where the Institute was present from the first day of these hearings (February 24 2015). In total, procedural data were collected for 588 people who attended custody hearings, as well as interviews with judges, prosecutors and public defenders who are present at those hearings.

The analysis of the socioeconomic profile of the population monitored by the project shows that the majority of the accused caught in the custody hearing are men (90%), young (42% aged 18-24), low education (61%), low income (47% declared income between one and two minimum wages), most of them accused of robbery (37%). 61% were converted into custody after the custody hearing, 27% were granted provisional release without bail and with another protective measure, 6% of the prisons were relaxed, 5% received provisional release on bail. It was also observed that the rate of pre-trial detention is higher for black people (69% compared to 55% for white people).

The implementation of custody hearings in the capital of Sao Paulo was an important step towards the expansion of individual rights and guarantees, but in order for the potential of these hearings to be fully realized, there are some structural and technical challenges to be faced, which are pointed out in the IDDD: a deepening of debate on the deadline for immediate presentation to the judge (24 hours) and the need to ensure effective defense; use of handcuffs during the hearings and the presence of the Military Police in the place; issues of workflows, such as the match between custodial person and documents produced at the police headquarters, and the preparation of a hearing list to allow the organization of the professionals involved; defense in a non-reserved location without guaranteeing the custodian's privacy; attention to cases which police violence is reported; constant care with the production of information and transparency; integration between the public institutions involved and civil society participation.

CNJ Partnership and Ministry of Justice

The Term of Technical Cooperation signed by IDDD, CNJ and Ministry of Justice in 2015 combine efforts to implementation of the "Custody Hearing Project". At the national level, cooperation gives IDDD, as a civil society organization, the task of monitoring, analyzing the development of the project, evaluating results, collecting data and signaling impact on the Brazilian criminal justice system.

It is hoped that the information gathered in this monitoring will contribute to the consolidation and improvement of the custody hearings and, above all, to the transformation of the criminal justice system and professionals in the area, so that these are always based on respect for the Federal Constitution and International human rights treaties ratified by Brazil.

At the same time, since 2011 IDDD has been working for the approval of PLS 554/2011, which proposes to amend the Criminal Procedure Code to institute custody hearings. The bill is currently awaiting a vote by the Senate floor.
We are not only supporting a 100-year Indianapolis tradition, but also donating to an industry we have very close ties with. Well be printing everything from event invites and tickets to the cool new die-cut milk bottles for social media sharing.

Fineline Printing Group, a strategic printing partner for healthcare and hospitals, gives back to an Indianapolis tradition and Methodist Health Foundation as key print sponsor for its healthcare fundraising REV event.

Methodist Health Foundations REV event will take place Saturday, May 6th at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, and kicks off an entire month of racing activities leading up to the Indianapolis 500. As Indianapolis premier culinary event with sponsors like The Food Network, each restaurant pairs with an IndyCar driver or racing legnd to prepare inspiring menus. Funds raised will support Indiana University Health statewide trauma programs. These funds provide care for drivers and patrons at the Indiana University Health Emergency Medical Center of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and for patients recovering from critical injuries across Indiana.

Fineline has been the premier print sponsor for REV for the past 2 years. As an organization focused on corporate social responsibility, Fineline became involved with REV through its aligned values and mission  giving back to the healthcare industry in which Fineline serves through a variety of print services, and its continued commitment to give back to the community and its residents.

We are not only supporting a 100-year Indianapolis tradition, but also donating to an industry we have very close ties with. Well be printing everything from event invites and tickets to the cool new die-cut milk bottles for social media sharing during the event. This is a fun opportunity for Fineline to showcase our work, and to give back as a socially conscious business to a cause we care about  the State of Indiana and the care of its residents, noted Lisa Young, COO at Fineline Printing Group.

For the full 2017 Rev restaurant list, ticket information and sponsorship information, visit the REV website.

About Fineline Printing Group

Fineline is one of the largest providers of commercial print, fulfillment and marketing services in the Midwest. Founded in 1981, Fineline has grown to fill a 71,000 square-foot manufacturing facility in northwest Indianapolis with over 60 employees and state-of-the-art production equipment in offset, digital and large format printing. Fineline is a privately-held, minority-owned business certified by numerous local, state and regional agencies. Fineline is ISO 9001:2008 compliant, HIPAA compliant and G7 Master qualified. Learn more on Fineline's website.

About Methodist Health Foundation

Methodist Health Foundation champions the mission of Indiana University Health by supporting the adult hospitals of the Indianapolis Academic Health Center that are dedicated to improving the health of patients and community through innovation and excellence in care, education, research and service. For more information, visit methodisthealthfoundation.org.
Our event is rare for the aviation community in that we offer on-site camping for our guests. Lazydays is acclaimed for its RV offerings and outstanding customer service, and our guests always benefit greatly from having the Lazydays team here with us.

Lazydays, The RV Authority and worlds largest RV dealership, is teaming up once again with SUN N FUN for the organizations 43rd Annual International Fly-In and Expo. Hosted on the SUN N FUN campus in Lakeland, Fla., the six-day event will take place April 49, 2017, and it will benefit the Aerospace Center for Excellence (ACE). Proceeds will support ACEs aviation-related science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) education program and related community activities.

This years Fly-In and Expo features the return of the U.S. Navy Blue Angels flight demonstration team, as well as the largest assembly of P-51 Mustangs in nearly a decade. It also marks the first-time appearance of the Patrouille de France, the French Air Forces jet aerobatic team, who will be flying in on April 4 to commemorate the 100th anniversary of Americas air support entry into WWI. An estimated 200,000 participantsincluding pilots, aviation enthusiasts, exhibitors and RVersare expected to attend.

As the events official RV sponsor, Lazydays will provide RVs to serve as hospitality stations and mobile offices for SUN N FUN event staff. The Tampa RV dealership will display a selection of RVs for sale and will also feature an RV Rentals booth. Lazydays RV experts will be on hand at the displays on April 8 and 9 from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. to discuss RV models, service, repairs, accessories, and the Lazydays RV Resort in Tampa, which is an easy half-hours drive from the Fly-In.

We are happy to have Lazydays returning to join us at SUN N FUN for the aviation worlds season opener, said Greg Gibson, Director of Operations for SUN N FUN. Our event is rare for the aviation community in that we offer on-site camping for our guests. Lazydays is acclaimed for its RV offerings and outstanding customer service, and our guests always benefit greatly from having the Lazydays team here with us.

Our RV customers love the thrill of travel and adventure, from highways to the open skies, said John Lebbad, Chief Marketing Officer for Lazydays. Lazydays is proud to be a sponsor of the SUN N FUN International Fly-In and Expo and serve as an on-site RV resource for the more than 1,500 RVers and campers attending the event.

About Lazydays

Lazydays, The RV Authority and worlds largest RV dealership, caters to every RV need. Lazydays offers the largest selection of RV brands in the nation featuring more than 2,500 new and pre-owned RVs, over 300 service bays and two onsite campgrounds with over 700 RV campsites. Based on 126 acres outside Tampa, FL, Lazydays also has a dealership located in Tucson, AZ as well as three dealerships located in Loveland, Denver and Longmont, CO.

Lazydays RV Accessories & More offers more than 40,000 accessories online for your shopping convenience. Shop us online or visit one of our store locations in Florida, Arizona and Colorado. Lazydays also has RV Rental fleets in Florida, Arizona and Colorado.

Since 1976, Lazydays has built its reputation on providing an outstanding customer experience with exceptional service and product expertise, and as a place to rest and recharge with other RVers. More than a half-million RVers and their families visit Lazydays every year, making it their home away from home. Lazydays has been recognized as a Top 50 RV Dealer by RV Business and as one of Tampa Bays Top Work Places. The Lazydays Employee Foundation, supported by payroll contributions from Lazydays employees, has contributed more than $1.5 million to make many historic changes for at-risk children in the Tampa Bay, Tucson and Colorado communities.

For most people, Lazydays isn't just the beginning of their journey; it's very much a part of their ride. To learn more, visit http://www.lazydays.com.

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Cuban-born Teresa Lawrence is owner of Delta Personnel, Inc. in Metairie, Louisiana In America, we live as one people, on one body of land that we share collectively, learn to build bridges on when our views differ, and pull together, when needed, to ensure that our country exemplifies unity and liberty for everyone.

In 1973, Teresa Lawrence, owner of Delta Personnel Inc. in Metairie, Louisiana, arrived in Miami on the last Freedom Flight from Cuba in search of a better life. After taking up residence in New Orleans with her mother, grandmother and brother, Lawrence, who spoke no English, learned that the road to U.S. citizenship would not be easy. At that time, federal immigration policy required that her family reside within the state of Louisiana for eight consecutive years before applying for citizenship. After many years of patiently waiting and working hard to embrace the American dream, Lawrence and her family earned their citizenship and a chance to build a life in the U.S.

As a first-generation immigrant, Lawrences road to business success was paved with the same persistence and dedication she and her family demonstrated during their journey to become American citizens. Lawrence, a staunch advocate for Latina and womens rights, helps to build bridges of opportunity for minorities within a country she prides with being founded on the aspirations and ideology of inclusiveness and acceptance.

In America, we live as one people, on one body of land that we share collectively, learn to build bridges on when our views differ, and pull together, when needed, to ensure that our country exemplifies unity and liberty for everyone, said Lawrence.

Earning a seat at the table for women and Latina business owners is a mission Lawrence has championed since becoming the sole owner of Delta Personnel in 2000. Transforming the company, which opened its doors in 1968, into a multi-million-dollar staffing solutions agency with more than 900 employees is only one of the many accomplishments she has achieved. Next year, the company will celebrate 50 years in business - a milestone she will honor with a new and reinvigorated mission to expand Delta Personnel nationwide.

"We are working to open two new locations, to offer additional services and to provide temporary and permanent employees for industries we haven't serviced in the past," said Lawrence. "During this process, we will partner with minority businesses and lend our voice to issues important to advocating for diversity in business."

Her dedication to the New Orleans community and advocacy for womens rights and diversity has led her to a national platform focused on ensuring that Hispanics and women receive and retain their rightful place at the table of business and economic opportunity. Lawrence, who served as the New Orleans Regional Director for Womens Business Enterprise Council South (WBEC South) and held a seat at the Womens Business Enterprise National Council (WBENC), has won several top women in business awards and has a reputation for hiring skilled women and minorities to work in Deltas in-house staff, temporary and permanent positions.

I want my staff to be reflective of my belief in diversity and inclusiveness, said Lawrence. At Delta, our mission is to hire the best talent, to provide exceptional customer service to our clients and to ensure that all workers have the opportunity to join the workforce at a fair wage.

On a recent trip to Washington D.C. for a U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce meeting, Lawrence and other accomplished Latina business women were unexpectedly invited to participate in a round table discussion hosted by Ivanka Trump, daughter of President Donald Trump. Representing industries ranging from healthcare to technology to non-profit organizations, the attendees were given a rare opportunity to engage with the Trump Administration about issues pertinent to minority and Hispanic business ownership.

Lawrence acknowledges the hard work of Javier Palomarez, U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce president, Nina Vaca, Pinnacle Group chairman and chief executive officer and Mayra Pineda, Hispanic Chamber of Commerce of Louisiana president for, continuing to blaze a path for Hispanic businesses to grow, prosper and lead the way in building a solid foundation for Latina and U.S. economic growth.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, Hispanics contribute to over 50% of the U.S. population growth. Between 2007 and 2016, the number of Latina owned firms increased by 137% versus 45% for overall women-owned firms. This growth trend also aligns with the demographic shifts and growth Hispanics represent.

As women, we face similar challenges around equal pay, access to capital and juggling of work and family. As a Latina woman business owner, we face issues particularly concerning to the economy, job growth for our community and backlash from policies that will strain the growth of minority businesses across the board, said Lawrence. It is our job to provide our leaders, regardless of the politics, with as much information about who we are, why our needs are important and what we envision the country to look like and to exemplify to us and to the next generation.

Lawrence is committed to add her voice to conversations within the business community about fairness and diversity. According to the recently released, New Americans in Greater New Orleans report, in 2014, foreign-born residents of Greater New Orleans  7.4% of overall population  contributed greatly to the federal, state and local taxes. Foreign-born households contributed $7.6 billion to the gross domestic product (GDP) of the Greater New Orleans metro area. Immigrant-owned businesses generated $174 million in business income.

It takes a village to drive growth and ignite change, said Lawrence. As an immigrant, Latina and business owner, I will not forget where I came from, and I will not take for granted the opportunities I have been afforded as an American. Lending my voice to constructive discussions about diversity and inclusiveness is an intricate part of my personal and professional goals.
Our Short Term Major Medical product was designed to fill the gap until permanent major medical insurance can be secured. More importantly, it protects the insured from the devastating financial burden of not having any health insurance

United Security Health and Casualty Insurance (USH&C) recently obtained state approval to offer its Short Term Major Medical product in the states of Arkansas, Illinois, Indiana, Missouri and Nebraska.

No one ever thinks that they will be subject to an unforeseen hardship such as an accident or sudden illness. But the truth is, it only takes a moment for an injury or illness to strike, began Robert Dial, Vice President, USH&C. Our Short Term Major Medical product was designed to fill the gap until permanent major medical insurance can be secured. More importantly, it protects the insured from the devastating financial burden of not having any health insurance

USH&Cs Short Term Major Medical plan is the perfect solution for:



Young adults no longer covered by their parents plan

Individuals between jobs or laid off, including those who cannot afford the high cost of a COBRA plan

Individuals & families who are looking for an alternative to the ACA Exchange Plans

Individuals & families who need coverage until the next Open Enrollment Period

Individuals waiting for group or individual major medical coverage to begin

Dial remarked, USH&Cs Short Term Major Medical plan has several distinct customer advantages. For example, although the use of network providers is not required in this plan, insureds can maximize benefits and save money by receiving care from a provider in the PHCS PPO network. The insured may also visit any out-of-network doctor or hospital of their choice without incurring an out-of-network penalty. In addition, prescription drug coverage is included. The insured is allowed to select the deductible amount, $500, $1,000, $2,000 or $5,000, that best aligns with their budget. Along with a single pay or monthly payment plan, this product was designed to ensure all aspects of the insureds needs were addressed.

The USH&C Short Term Major Medical plan does not cover pre-existing conditions, preventative or wellness doctor visits, or optical and dental treatments. A full list of other exclusions are listed in detail in the plans Policy and can be reviewed by a USH&C agent or one of the companys multi-lingual representatives.

Founded in 1973, USH&C is licensed to sell its products in Arizona, Arkansas, Illinois, Indiana, Missouri and Nebraska through a network of independent insurance agents. Along with Short Term Medical, USH&C also offers Dental Plus Vision & Hearing, Critical Illness, Cancer, Disability Income, Accident Hospital Indemnity, and Fixed Indemnity products. USH&C specializes in providing insurance coverage to individuals and families. The companys headquarters is in Bedford Park, 6640 S. Cicero Ave., Bedford Park, IL 60638, http://www.ushandc.com 1-800- 875-422 or 1-708-475-6100
Westchester Power staff members Jenna Amundsen, Dan Welsh, and Virginia Steinberg Our objective in launching this campaign is to educate the Westchester consumer on who we are, what we do and the role the CCA can play in creating positive, local economic activity and achieving environmental goals.

Westchester Power, a community-based bulk energy purchasing program designed to increase the use of renewable energy and lower costs throughout Westchester County, has announced the launch of a consumer education campaign to help residents and municipal leaders understand and take advantage of new energy options enabled by this ground-breaking initiative.

The campaign, emPowering Green Energy, aims to promote Westchester Powers mission of creating stable energy prices for consumers and building a robust platform for a transition to sustainable local energy for municipalities and their residents. Founded in 2016, Westchester Power is New Yorks first Community Choice Aggregation (CCA). The CCA leverages the exceptional buying power of its large customer base to secure competitive fixed rates and renewable energy products for customers in participating municipalities. Westchester Power is one of a number of programs provided to the 41 cities, towns and villages that comprise Sustainable Westchester, a non-profit 501(c)(3) membership organization that seeks to turn environmental challenges into community-benefitting opportunities.

Since the programs inception in May 2016, Westchester Power has provided power to approximately 110,000 county residents and small businesses across 20 municipalities, saving residents over $1.5 million.

CCA is a brand new concept in New York and the public is overwhelmed with offers from ESCOs (Energy Service Companies), some not as transparent as they seem, said Westchester Power Program Director Dan Welsh. Our objective in launching this campaign is to educate the Westchester consumer on who we are, what we do and the role the CCA can play in creating positive, local economic activity and achieving environmental goals.

Under the CCA format, Westchester Power becomes the default energy provider for consumers and small business owners in the participating municipality. While energy delivery, line maintenance and billing remain the responsibility of the state-designated utilities Con Edison and NYSEG, Westchester Power acts on behalf of the communities to procure energy at the most attractive rates and conditions, allowing consumers to utilize an open market without having to sort through an array of offers alone.

In addition to standard (or basic) energy supply, Westchester Power also offers customers option to opt-up into a 100% renewable energy supply. When people hear, right from the start, that we have 14 of 20 participating towns opting for the 100% renewable supply, they are inspired by this leap forward. This is leverage to drive Westchester Power and Sustainable Westchesters combined goal of increasing the countys quality of life through green power, Welsh said. Were looking to get all 41 Sustainable Westchester municipalities signed on in the next contract round.

The simple process of switching to green energy through Westchester Power has been met with approval from customers and municipality officials alike.

Here in Ossining, we know that it is critical for us to do our part to combat climate change, said Dana Levenberg, Town of Ossining Supervisor. As greenhouse gases continue to threaten the well-being of our planet, we are pleased that the Westchester Power CCA has offered us a way to take effective, local actionit has given Westchester residents a significant path forward to go green easily and affordably.

Westchester Powers local presence and on-the-ground, day-to-day operations have been heralded by participating residents who note that a key differentiator is the personalized customer service they receive from the local Westchester Power Office.

Im happy that Lewisboro has teamed up with neighboring towns to create this program. It makes me feel like were all pulling together, and thats more and more important these days, said Lewisboro resident Elizabeth Meyer Gross. I called the office in Mount Kisco and the staff there helped me switch from our default standard supply to the 100% renewable. It was nice to know that they are local as opposed to an automated line or remote call center who doesnt know what I, as a Lewisboro resident, am talking about.

As part of the consumer education program, Westchester Power plans to continue setting up meetings with municipal boards, local sustainability committees and environmental groups, as well as host consumer-based workshops and lectures. Westchester Power representatives will also be participating at local town events, library presentations and school-based programs to get residents aware at an early age about the importance of sustainable energy and its impact on the environment.

For more information about Westchester Power, visit http://www.westchesterpower.org/.

About Westchester Power:

Established in May 2016, Westchester Power is a community-based bulk energy purchasing program providing residents and small business electric customers a locally chosen alternative to the state-mandated utility for energy supply. As New Yorks first Community Choice Aggregation (CCA), Westchester Power contracts with power suppliers to offer consumers fixed and competitive energy rates. Westchester Power is a program of Sustainable Westchester. For more information, visit http://www.westchesterpower.org/.

About Sustainable Westchester:

Sustainable Westchester is a 501(c) (3) non-profit consortium of forty-one (41) Westchester County local governments, representing 800,000 county residents. It was formed to take advantage of the efficiencies of a shared service approach to implementing energy efficiency, conservation, and sustainability efforts by and among residents and local governments in Westchester County, New York. The core target areas for the organization are energy, materials management, food, transportation & land use and water. Sustainable Westchester is actively involved with county-wide projects including solar programs, aggregated electric vehicle purchase, and the development of the Westchester Power program. For more information, visit http://sustainablewestchester.org/.
Hwacheon HiTech450 Horizontal Turning Center In todays competitive environment, manufacturers know they should automate but they need to understand how. This open house is intended to show them some options.

Technical Equipment will hold an open house at its Brecksville, OH location in May, giving local manufacturers a chance to see cutting demonstrations on several of the latest machine tools from leading builders.

The company, which celebrates its 65th anniversary this year, provides sales, service and support for Hwacheon, Makino, Hermle, Murata and Tsugami machine tools throughout Ohio, Indiana and Kentucky with additional support for Hwacheon users in Michigan.

The open house will focus on automation, Technical Equipment Sales Manager Joe Petkovic said. People often think of automation as just a means of reducing part handling, he explained, but it accomplishes so much more. When you add robotic loading and unloading you increase the versatility of a machine.

A prime example is the new, next generation Tsugami B0205-III Swiss style CNC Lathe, one of five Tsugami models that will be on display. The 20 mm, 5-axis machine will feature integrated robot loading and unloading systems. The loading systems allows operators to load shaped, headed blanks or pre-machined shaped parts, Petkovic said. The unloading robot facilitates parts washing, gaging and palletizing. Robotic integrations like these increase the machines flexibility.

The focus on automation will continue with the introduction of the new M08SY-II with Gantry, also from Tsugami. The robot-fed multitask lathe comes equipped with a parts conveyor and catcher. This machine allows users to machine finished parts from slug stock or cast blanks, Petkovic noted, with the same level of productivity as if they were machining from bar stock.

Three other Tsugamis on display include the B038T Gang/Turret Turning Center and the B0328 and S206 Opposed Gang Tool Lathes.

The open house will also feature five machines from Koreas leading machine tool builder, Hwacheon. Machines will include the Vesta 1000 Vertical Machining Center, HIT 400 Tapping & Drill Center, and the Cutex 160B-MC, HiTech 450B YSMC and HiTech 230 ALYMC Horizontal Turning Centers.

Hwacheon builds auto-monitoring systems into its machines, Petkovic said. The OPTIMA cutting feed optimization system, for example, uses an adaptive control method to regulate feed rates in real time. This protects the cutting tools and reduces machining time. Other Hwacheon machine monitoring systems include thermal displacement controls, tool load detection systems and high-efficiency contour control systems.

Halter CNC Robotics (http://www.haltercncautomation.com) will also be on hand, demonstrating its HALTER LoadAssistant robotic loading system. The company specializes in plug-and-play robotic loading solutions for all types of CNC machines.

In todays competitive environment, manufacturers know they should automate, Petkovic said, but they need to understand how. This open house is intended to show them some options.

Technical Equipments open house will be held May 9th and May 10th at 6900 Southpointe Pkwy., Brecksville, OH. Admission is free and lunch will be served. Attendees can register on the companys website at http://www.techequip.com.

About Technical Equipment

Technical Equipment (http://www.techequip.com) is a division of Morris Group, Inc. The company is the exclusive distributor for Hwacheon, Makino, Tsugami, Hermle and Murata machine tools in Ohio, Indiana and Kentucky, with additional support in Michigan for Hwacheon users. In addition to new machine tools, Technical Equipment provides engineered solutions, replacement parts, service, preventative maintenance and more. Services also include financing, installation, training, service and disposition of retired machines.

About Morris Group, Inc.

Morris Group, Inc. (http://www.morrisgroupinc.com) is one of the largest machine tool distribution networks in North America. Based in Windsor, Connecticut, the family-owned and operated company has 14 business units in the United States.
We recommend that passengers do not bring large personal electronic devices while traveling if possible and would encourage customers to check in their hand luggage and bring only items that are essential on board.

The Trump administrations new ban that became effective Tuesday March, 22, prohibits all personal electronic devices larger than a mobile phone on flights from the Middle East. Passengers traveling to the U.S. from 8 countries in 10 airports will be required to place all personal electronic devices larger than a cell phone into checked bags. That includes laptops, iPads, electronic games, e-readers, cameras, tablets, printers, and portable DVD players.

Airlines flying direct flight from Morocco, UAE, Kuwait, Egypt, Jordan, Turkey and Saudi Arabia to the United States are all affected. The British government quickly followed suit also placing the ban for all airlines flying direct from Turkey, Tunisia, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Lebanon to the UK. The airline companies were given 96 hours to implement these new rules, and many travelers are seeking advice on what they should do with their items going forward.

Travel Insured International, a leading travel protection provider recommends that passengers do not bring large personal electronic devices while traveling if possible and would encourage customers to check in their hand luggage and bring only items that are essential on board. A travel protection plan does not always cover all lost, stolen, or damaged electronics, so it is extremely important that you carefully look over all of your plan documents and reach out to your travel protection provider with any questions on coverage.

Will my electronic device be covered if it is confiscated?

Unfortunately, benefits specific to Travel Insureds Worldwide Trip Protection, Baggage and Personal Effects are not payable for any loss caused by confiscation or appropriation by order of any government or customs rule.

Will my electronic device be covered if it is lost or stolen in my checked bag?

The Baggage and Personal Effects benefit can help provide reimbursement up to the Maximum Benefit Amount of your plan if your luggage is lost or stolen. A combined maximum of $500 with a limit of $250 per article will be paid for cameras and their accessories and related equipment, computer, digital or electronic equipment or media.

How can I be prepared to file a claim?

In case loss, theft, or damage does in fact occur, you must follow these steps in order to successfully submit a claim:



Take all reasonable steps to protect, save or recover the property.

Promptly notify, in writing, either the police, hotel proprietors, ship lines, or airlines who has custody of your property at the time of the loss.

Produce records needed to verify the claim and its amount and permit copies to be made.

Send proof of loss as soon as reasonably possible after date of loss, providing date, time, and cause of loss, and a complete list of damaged/lost items

Allow the company to examine baggage or personal effects, if requested.

Visit http://www.travelinsured.com or call 1-800-243-3174 for more information on the plans provided.

About Travel Insured:

Founded in 1994 by Peter Gehris, Travel Insured International is one of the leading travel insurance providers, offering the highest quality worldwide travel protection for over 20 years. Travel Insured maintains relationships with specialty travel providers and tour operators, as well as provides 24/7 customer assistance, every day of the year. In 2015, Travel Insured was acquired by Crum & Forster, whose parent company is Fairfax Financial Holdings Ltd. The financial strength and core values of the companies give Travel Insured the best position in the market to continue its commitment of helping travelers protect their travel plans to travel relaxed, travel secure, and travel insured.

The plans contain insurance benefits underwritten by the United States Fire Insurance Company. C&F and Crum & Forster are registered trademarks of United States Fire Insurance Company. The Crum & Forster group of companies is rated A (Excellent) by AM Best Company 2016. The plans also contains non-insurance Travel Assistance Services that are provided by an independent organization, and not by United States Fire Insurance Company or Travel Insured International. Coverages may vary and not all coverage is available in all jurisdictions.

Travel Insured International

855 Winding Brook Drive

Glastonbury, CT
Wellas Hairdressers at Heart has awarded its 2017 Master Color Expert (MCE) Scholarships to Wella Colorist, Anca Moldoveanu of CK Salon in Chicago, Ill., and Wella School Instructor, Tamara Spivey-Lane of Ogle School-Denton and Spivey Lane Salon in Fort Worth, Texas. These scholarship recipients were chosen from a group of six finalists and notified of their winnings in person earlier this week.

The Wella Master Color Expert Program is recognized as one of the industrys highest achievements in advanced color education. Each scholarship covers program expenses, valued at $3,750, in addition to $2,000 for travel and stay.

Wella Colorist, Anca Moldoveanu, expressed much excitement for the award when she was named a winner onstage at the Wella Regional TrendVision Chicago event. She said the Master Color Expert certification will provide her with the technical expertise to elevate her career, as well as an opportunity to expand and enhance her creativity.

I want to learn more because I want to give more, she said. I think in this kind of career education is for life.

Tamara Spivey-Lane, an instructor at Ogle School in Denton, Texas, joined the industry just four years ago and has since opened her own salon and earned her Cosmetology Instructor Certification. For Spivey-Lane, the Master Color Expert program is an opportunity to expand her skills as a colorist and extend this knowledge to her students at Ogle.

I have both students and staff members who want to know the why behind the technical pieces, she said. I want to pass on what I learn to enhance their confidence as colorists.

This is the first year Hairdressers At Heart has offered a Master Color Expert scholarship to a colorist and an instructor. The expansion of the MCE Scholarship program reflects Hairdressers at Hearts continual commitment to education and mentorship throughout the careers of both educators and hairdressers behind-the-chair.

At Hairdressers At Heart we are continually impressed by our educators and the critical role they play in the lives of their students, said Sal Mauceri, Senior Vice President North America Professional Beauty and Global Nail at Coty Beauty. The entries for this years Master Color Expert Scholarships showcased the kind of passion and curiosity we find unique to our industry, and were honored to present this life-changing opportunity through our advanced program to Tamara and Anca.

The Wella Master Color Expert course is a signature, 10-day seminar offered at Wella Studios. With classes spanning from color theory to technical and creative skills, it is focused on giving students an expert-level understanding of color. MCE graduates have been found to grow their personal revenue up to 30 percent more than non-graduates.

To enroll in the next Wella Master Color Expert course and other Wella Professional education opportunities, please visit http://www.WellaEducation.Tumblr.com/Calendar.

For more information about Wellas Hairdressers at Heart scholarship opportunities, please visit http://www.HairdressersAtHeart.com, and join the conversation on our social channels including Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.

About Hairdressers At Heart: Stylists are committed to being the best, perfecting their craft with every cut. Wella is here to advance the salon industry, one stylist at a time. Hairdressers At Heart is a program created to help stylists develop their talents throughout their career. Our goal is to be a vital partner to salons, empowering individual stylists and our entire industry. For more: http://www.hairdressersatheart.com

About Coty Inc.: Coty is one of the worlds largest beauty companies with approximately $9 billion in revenue, with a purpose to celebrate and liberate the diversity of consumers beauty. Its strong entrepreneurial heritage has created an iconic portfolio of leading beauty brands. Coty is the global leader in fragrance, a strong number two in professional salon hair color & styling, and number three in color cosmetics. Coty operates three divisions  Coty Consumer Beauty, which is focused on color cosmetics, retail hair coloring and styling products, body care and mass fragrances sold primarily in the mass retail channels with brands such as COVERGIRL, Max Factor and Rimmel; Coty Luxury, which is focused on prestige fragrances and skincare with brands such as Calvin Klein, Marc Jacobs, Hugo Boss, Gucci and philosophy; and Coty Professional Beauty, which is focused on servicing salon owners and professionals in both hair and nail, with brands such as Wella Professionals, Sebastian Professional, OPI and ghd. Coty has approximately 20,000 colleagues globally and its products are sold in over 130 countries. Coty and its brands are committed to a range of social causes as well as seeking to minimize its impact on the environment.

For additional information about Coty Inc., please visit http://www.coty.com.

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ThunderCat Technology announced today that CRN, a brand of The Channel Company, has named ThunderCat Technology to its Tech Elite 250 list for the fourth time. This annual list honors an exclusive group of North American IT solution providers that have earned the highest number of advanced technical certifications from leading technology vendors, scaled to their company size.

To compile the annual list, The Channel Companys research group and CRN editors work together to identify the most customer-beneficial technical certifications in the North American IT channel. Solution providers that have obtained these elite designationswhich enable them to deliver premium products, services and customer supportare then selected from a pool of online applicants.

Keith McMeans, Director of Strategy and Partner Development noted, We have been fortunate to be nominated and earn many awards. But this one in particular we are extremely proud of. The job of any quality reseller, or solutions provider is to create value through expertise and insights into the overall architecture of their clients and prospects. In order to give objective and independent advice you need knowledge across multiple technologies and multiple vendors. To make this list you need to have proven expertise. That requires many people - both sales and engineers - to spend countless hours studying, working hands on with, and certifying through rigorous exams. We consider this list a measuring stick to that commitment we have to our clients, to our partners, and to ourselves. We are honored to be on this list for the fourth time and will strive to continue to improve our knowledge for our clients each and every day.

This exclusive, ambitious group of solution providers boasts some of the most advanced IT certifications available from top technology suppliers, said Robert Faletra, CEO, The Channel Company. They have adapted impressively to major changes in the IT channel, especially the shift to a more services-driven market, by expanding their skill sets and sharpening both their technical and customer service expertise. Congratulations to our 2017 list, whose robust investment in their organizations has earned them yet another elite designationthe CRN Tech Elite 250.

Coverage of the Tech Elite 250 will be featured in the April issue of CRN, and online at http://www.crn.com/techelite250.

About ThunderCat Technology

Currently ranked #66 on the Solution Provider 500, the award winning ThunderCat Technology is a Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Business (SDVOSB) that delivers technology services and solutions to the federal government and fortune 500 companies. Specifically, ThunderCat is a systems integrator that brings an innovative approach to solving customer problems in and around the data center by providing strategies for Data Storage, Networking, Security, and Applications. ThunderCat represents, distributes, integrates, and provides technologies from best of breed manufacturers. Clients include DHS, USACE, HHS, DLA, DFAS, FBI, NIH, Navy, Army, and VA. http://www.thundercattech.com

About The Channel Company

The Channel Company enables breakthrough IT channel performance with our dominant media, engaging events, expert consulting and education, and innovative marketing services and platforms. As the channel catalyst, we connect and empower technology suppliers, solution providers and end users. Backed by more than 30 years of unequaled channel experience, we draw from our deep knowledge to envision innovative new solutions for ever-evolving challenges in the technology marketplace. http://www.thechannelco.com
NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN that the 2017 Annual General Meeting of the Company will be held at Burnaby Building, 16 Burnaby street, Hamilton, HM11, Bermuda on 21 April 2017 at 13.00 Bermuda Time. Please find attached the complete notice and proxy form.

The 2016 Annual Report, including financial statements and auditor's report, will be distributed through the Hugin InPublic distribution system and made available on the Company's webpage www.romreal.com and on www.osloaxess.no by Friday 14 April 2017 16.00 CET at the latest.

For further information, please contact:

Harris Palaondas,

Investor Relations

Mob: +40731123037

E-mail: investors@romreal.com
Hanover Research (Hanover), a leading provider of market intelligence and related analytics, has announced the release of its annual K-12 Education Industry Trend Report. The report contains an analysis of more than 700 research projects completed in 2016 on behalf of more than 300 K-12 education organizations to predict the top research trends for 2017.

Our experience completing customized research for a broad cross-section of school districts, regional education agencies, state departments of education, and private independent schools gives us unique perspective into the concerns and priorities facing these organizations, said Anil Prahlad, chief content officer, Hanover Research. This years analysis revealed many pressing challenges for school administrators, including pressure to improve student achievement, the need to accomplish more with fewer resources, and concerns with recruiting and retaining high-quality teachers.

Key trends forecasted in the report include:



Continued teacher shortages drive states to rethink recruitment and retention strategies.

Dynamic and complex social issues focus attention on fostering positive school climates.

Employer demand for computer programing skills drives further integration of Computer Science into K-12 curricula.

Heightened attention on English Learners encourages development and accountability.

The analysis also revealed that K-12 administrators are increasingly focused on curricula quality, with every department included in the analysis prioritizing that area more than any other. The report found that departments most frequently address the issue of curricula quality by either examining instructional integrity or analyzing ways to bolster curricula quality through the efficient use of resources.

Were finding that superintendents, heads of schools, and other senior-level administrators are being confronted by a unique combination of challenges and this environment of extreme uncertainty is coupled with increasing accountability, from local, state, and federal viewpoints, said Sid Phillips, chief growth officer, Hanover Research. The good news is that, because many districts are experiencing similar challenges, there is an opportunity for them to learn from one anothers approaches or take full advantage of data they are collecting through different programs and initiatives intended to support student growth. By analyzing the research priorities that Hanover was asked to help drive across the last year and forecasting upcoming trends, this report provides much needed guidance to district leaders who are responsible for navigating new and unprecedented challenges.

About Hanover Research:

Founded in 2003, Hanover Research is a global research and analytics firm that delivers market intelligence through a fixed-fee model to more than 1,000 clients across all sectors. Headquartered in Arlington, Virginia, Hanover employs high-caliber market researchers, analysts, and account professionals to provide a service that is revolutionary in its combination of flexibility and affordability. Hanover was named a Top 50 Market Research Firm by the American Marketing Association in 2015 and 2016, and a Washington Business Journal Top 50 Fastest Growing Company in 2014 and 2015. To learn more about Hanover Research, visit http://www.hanoverresearch.com.
Johannesburg born recording artist, Ross Jack, is set to unleash his unique brand of hip-hop in North America with the release of his new album, Self Medicated, which is due out Friday, April 28th, 2017 on Radikal Records. After establishing himself in the industry as a prodigious beat-maker and producer for up and coming acts, Ross Jack decided to step out from the background and in front of the mic, releasing his mix-tape album, Notes from the Wild in 2013. The album took the South African music scene by storm as single after single topped the national radio charts, with six singles in rotation making it into the 5FM Top 5 and two of them hitting the #1 spot. Now, Ross Jack returns with his strongest work to date, Self Medicated.

Self Medicated is a perfect blend of Ross Jacks influences, taking the best sounds of Rap, RnB, Soul, Trip-Hop, and Pop to produce a unique style he refers to as Stoner Pop. Each track sees Ross Jack taking his creativity to the next level as his charismatic performance on the mic adapts to the albums wide-range of production styles. From the chilled-out haunting vibes of Fall, to the irresistible high energy pop-rap anthem Gold Plated, followed up with the dancehall reggae vibes of Burning Man, the albums diverse beats and production allow Ross to tackle a variety of emotions applying his own exciting sound.

One of the albums musical highlights is its opener and lead single, entitled Fear The Rush. The single was co-written by Arrow Benjamin, the co-writer and artist on Naughty Boys 2015 Top 10 smash hit Runnin (Lose It All) which also featured pop icon Beyonce, and produced by Pete Boxsta (Petite Meller, James Arthur). Fear the Rush combines soulful vocals with brooding instrumentals that showcases the melodic hip-hop that propelled Ross Jack top the charts in South-Africa. When speaking to South Africas People Magazine about the track, Ross stated It is one of my favorite tracks because it just feels it so different! I love the almost out bass line and the mood. Feels like gospel rap to me. The singles music video is set to premiere next month. Watch the trailer for the Fear The Rush music video on YouTube.

Ross Jack succeeds by continuously blurring the lines between musical genres, creating an album that would appeal to fans of the electro-pop sounds of The Weeknd, and the smoked out swagger-filled bars of Mac Miller alike. Backed by lush production and massive hooks, Self Medicated establishes Ross Jack as an artist to watch in 2017.

Self Medicated is available for pre-order on iTunes. The album will be available for digital purchase on all major platforms on Friday, April 28th. It will also be available for physical purchase at music retailers nationwide, on Amazon, Bandcamp and in the Radikal Records web-store. Self Medicated will available to stream on all major streaming platforms.

Preview Ross Jacks Self Medicated on YouTube

About Radikal Records:

Established in 1990, and based just outside of NYC, Radikal Records is one of the United States leading independent record labels. In business for more than 25 years, they are focused on marketing, promoting, and distributing artists  not only to audiences in the USA, but also on a global basis to partners world-wide. Artists included on their roster over the years include: Kristian Nairn, Salt Ashes, 2 Unlimited, Zombie Nation, ATB, Yello, Schiller, Sinead OConnor, Ayah Marar, and many others. For more information, visit: http://www.radikal.com
If you are a small merchant or one of the biggest players in retail, this conference is for you.

Flourish: The Growth of Branded Currency Conference is slated to bring retail payment technology experts from around the world to Omaha, April 10-12, 2017. Over 40 National merchants and their representatives, 50+ payment technology service providers and numerous fintech and media organizations will be will be in attendance. Tickets are still available for the conference taking place at The DoubleTree Hotel in downtown Omaha, Nebraska at http://www.flourishomaha.com.

The conference will feature content targeted at the branded currency industry, which includes: gift card, promotional value, point-based programs, point of sale systems, loss prevention, fraud, and those who utilize these tools and programs. If you are a small merchant or one of the biggest players in retail, this conference is for you. We are going to tackle the issues all merchants deal with: chargebacks, accepting new forms of tender, and understanding how to use forms of payment, like gift card and points, as marketing tools, says show producer Holly Glowaty.

Flourish will kick-off with a Women in Payments reception on April 10th at 5pm. The reception is open to the public with purchase of a $17 ticket. Food, drinks and live music from Natalie Thomas are all included. Over 50 women have registered for the reception, and show producers only expect that to grow.

Conference content begins at 9:00am on Tuesday, April 11th with keynote Kate Vitasek: International authority on transformation and innovation through highly collaborative and strategic partnerships. We are excited to start the conference off with a speaker who can really set the tone for the next 2 days. This industry requires great partnerships to create real innovation, says Kristen Thiry, producer of Flourish. After the keynote, 2 full days of panel discussions, exhibits and one-on-one meetings begin. We designed this show with 2 goals in mind. First, that all the content be useful and actionable. Second, that we create an environment where people can have productive meetings. We encourage anyone interested in attending to check out our agenda at flourishomaha.com and see all the exciting topics that will be covered.

Full show passes can be purchased online now. One day tickets and special rates are available for small businesses, students and startups by emailing info(at)flourishomaha(dot)com.

About K+H Connection:

K+H Connection is a Chicago-based consulting company, focused on helping FinTech companies overcome the specific challenges of retailer adoption. Please visit http://www.khconnection.com for more information.

About Flourish: The Growth of Branded Currency:

Flourish: The Growth of Branded Currency is a new conference serving the Branded Currency Community. Design and Marketing for Flourish is done in partnership with the Gift Card Network. For more information on registration, sponsorship opportunities, accommodations and agenda topics please visit http://www.flourishomaha.com for Women in Payments reception tickets please visit http://www.flourishomaha.com/wip.
A noted economist will visit Hood College on April 5 to discuss the economic implications of the new administrations policies.

Anirban Basu, J.D., will give his talk, Markets, He Wrote: Looking for Clues into the Economys Direction, at 5:30 p.m. in Hodson Auditorium in Rosenstock Hall. His presentation will provide detailed discussions of global, national and regional economies using the most up-to-date data available. He will give special attention to critical elements of economic life, including the performance of financial, labor, and real estate markets.

Basu is chairman and CEO of Sage Policy Group, Inc., an economic and policy consulting firm headquartered in Baltimore, Maryland, with offices in Pennsylvania and Indonesia. The firm provides strategic analytical services to energy suppliers, law firms, medical systems, government agencies and real estate developers among others.

Basu is chair of the Maryland Economic Development Commission and the Baltimore County Economic Advisory Committee. He is also the chief economist to Associated Builders and Contractors and chief economic adviser to the Construction Financial Management Association. He lectures at Johns Hopkins University in global strategy. In both 2007 and 2016, the Daily Record newspaper selected him as one of Marylands 50 most influential people. The Baltimore Business Journal named him one of the regions 20 most powerful business leaders in 2010.

He earned his bachelors degree in foreign service at Georgetown University, a masters in public policy from Harvard Universitys John F. Kennedy School of Government, a masters in economics from the University of Maryland, College Park, and a juris doctorate at the University Of Maryland School Of Law.

Basus lecture is the latest installment of the La Fleur Management Lecture Series, sponsored by Bruce La Fleur, a Hood College MBA alumnus. This event is sponsored by the Hood Department of Economics and Business Administration. For more information, please contact Anita Jose at ajose(at)hood.edu or 301-696-3691.
Carly Sorensen LAc is a practicing acupuncturist and herbalist in Manhattan Now that cupping is coming to mainstream attention thanks to the recent olympic games, and Guasha is also better known, I needed to have these techniques available in-house.

Chiropractor Dr. Steven Shoshany has been utilizing acupuncture on and off for over 20 years, as a provider and a patient. He has experienced first hand the results of acupuncture and Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), especially when combined with other treatments and techniques. He has made the decision to offer acupuncture and TCM therapies as a permanent part of his integrated chiropractic and spinal decompression center.

This month, Dr. Shoshany is excited to welcome Carly Sorensen LAc. Carly is a Certified Acupuncturist and Herbalist. While traveling through China, Carly was intrigued by the methods used in Chinese medicine that went back hundreds of years, so she decided to pursue a path in biology and medicine. Carly received her Bachelors of Science at Long Island University in Brooklyn, and then went on to become a graduate of the prestigious Pacific College of Oriental Medicine in New York City. Carly Sorensen does not only provide acupuncture therapy, but also cupping, Reiki, along with being well versed in the application of herbal liniments, oils and balms to further the bodys natural healing process.

Over the years, Dr. Shoshany has made it a point to seek out and constantly evaluate new and re-emerging therapies for treating often difficult to treat issues, like chronic neck pain and sciatica. For hundreds of years acupuncture has been the featured technique of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM). However, Dr Shoshanys practice is well aware of the many other components of TCM, like gua sha, tui na, qigong, and massage.

Dr Shoshany states that In the past it has been difficult to expand beyond acupuncture, since it is often the only TCM therapy that people are aware of. Now that cupping is coming to mainstream attention thanks to the recent olympic games, and Guasha is also better known, I needed to have these techniques available in-house. I dont like making patients wait, and run around with referrals. We have chiropractors, massage therapists, physical therapist, and now an acupuncturist all working together in the same practice.

Dr Shoshany is certain that the addition of in-house acupuncture, tui na, qigong, and cupping therapy will allow an even better tailored, individualized program to help even more of his NYC patients. For more information on Tradional Chinese Medicine, acupuncture, cupping, or qigong please visit drshoshany.com
After an extensive evaluation process of many products and companies Pioneer was the clear choice for our County.

The installation of Landmark will add efficiency to the internal processes in the Clerks and Recorders office utilizing scan first technology and electronic document stamping. The public searchers that regularly rely on the documents and information maintained by the Clerk and Recorder will have more advanced tools and the ability to access all they need online through a subscription service in real time.

"After a thorough evaluation of competing vendors we are happy to have been chosen by Adams County," said Ryan Crowley, Executive Vice President of Sales & Marketing for Pioneer Technology Group. "Adams County is Pioneers eighth customer in the great state of Colorado. Im excited to see the western region continue to grow. The Adams County Clerk and Recorder is clearly focused on the future for the citizens of the County and we look forward to the partnership."

Stan Martin, Adams County Clerk and Recorder had this to say about the selection: "As the Clerk and Recorder I have a duty to the citizens of Adams County to continue to move the County forward. After an extensive evaluation process of many products and companies Pioneer was the clear choice for our County. The product, Landmark, exceeded all of our needs and more importantly the team at Pioneer is committed to the long term success of Adams County."

The Pioneer team has over 100 years of combined experience in technology as it relates to real estate records. The Pioneer team will be using this experience to convert all the historical data and images out of the current aging recording system. Adams County is expected to bring Landmark live in late 2017.

About Pioneer Technology Group

Pioneer Technology Group (Pioneer) is a leading developer of software solutions and services to Governments and the private sector. The company is headquartered in Sanford, Florida and recently opened a location in Wooster, Ohio. Offerings include: Benchmark court case management system, the Landmark official records system, the YourDox title document system, and tax processing systems for counties and municipalities. PTG also provides content management systems and a scanning services bureau for transitioning paper or film to digital images through its subsidiary, Pioneer Records Management. For more information about the company, please visit Pioneer's website at http://www.ptghome.com
Atlantic Shores Executive Chef Bryan Haines Everything centers on pride

Atlantic Shores Retirement Community in Virginia Beach, Virginia, has extended its reputation as culinary leader in their industry and region with the recent addition of Executive Chef Bryan Haines.

In his position, Bryan oversees every culinary aspect of Atlantic Shores three on-site restaurants, developing original, delicious dishes for daily meals, as well as all private events and catered functions for the 100-acre communitys 600 residents and their guests.

Chef Haines fresh, inventive dishes have earned a host of awards, including: Peoples Choice at the Virginia Foodbanks Tastefully Yours competition; Most Creative Recipe in the Seton Youth Shelter Derby; and three awards at the Mariners Museum's History Bites competition -- Judge's Choice, Peoples Choice, and Iron Clad for Most Authentic.

His distinguished culinary career includes positions at top hospitality organizations in Virginia and New Jersey, including serving as Executive Sous Chef at The Founders Inn & Spa in Virginia Beach, where he ran all food service operations for the hotel, resort and conference center. He also expertly served as Chef at The Bistro at Atlantic Shores, followed by two years as Chef de Cuisine at The Historic Chamberlin in Hampton, where he oversaw two restaurants and all banquet functions.

Since re-joining Atlantic Shores as Executive Chef, Bryan expresses his creativity daily for Atlantic Shores foodie community, who are looking for a taste of the good life, in more ways than one. His unique style of nouveau-senior cuisine re-invents traditional dishes with a twist, while also exploring entirely new flavors and presentations to match residents discerning palates.

Bryans talents are also at the forefront at regional events sponsored by Atlantic Shores, where the communitys cuisine is showcased, as well as in area competitions against premier local restaurants. His innovative approach has already garnered industry attention, including Best Stew award at the MOCA House of Blues, Brews & Stews competition.

Atlantic Shores history of award-winning culinary excellence includes the Peoples Choice and Chefs Choice awards at the March of Dimes Signature Chefs Event, where their dishes were selected for technique and artistry most appreciated by other culinary professionals. Celebrity and media judges also selected Atlantic Shores for the Most Creative Recipe award at the prestigious Taste of Hampton Roads competition. And their recipes have also been selected for inclusion in premier cookbooks, including the Taste of Hampton Roads Cookbook.

Chef Haines works alongside an exceptional culinary team of 100 food and beverage professionals whose talents consistently achieve local, regional and national attention -- most recently including Atlantic Shores Pastry Chef Tara Nieves cake artistry, featured in the Spring/Summer 2017 edition of Coastal Virginia Bride.

Alongside Atlantic Shores Food and Beverage Director Eric Doarnberger, Bryan also continues the Atlantic Shores tradition of encouraging the next generation of chefs, by overseeing sponsored competitions at the Culinary Institute of Virginia. Featuring student teams creating wildly inventive dishes with Atlantic Shores residents serving as judges, these cross-generational events give students the chance to compete for real world diners, with Atlantic Shores supporting culinary careers by awarding cash scholarships to the winners.

Chef Haines style and personality shine during monthly resident Chefs Table events, where he creates a three-course meal personally prepared in front of guests, paired with specialty wines chosen by a Sommelier. He also shares his creative recipes and thoughts on the culinary creative process with the world as contributing blogger on the popular WHRO/PBS Lets Eat blog.

According to Bryan, My philosophy always centers on pride. Everything should revolve around it, from the appearance of staff, to communication among co-workers, and producing esthetically pleasing, delicious food. Pride also extends to all the details. I plan my meals around seasonal availability, incorporating as much fresh local seafood and produce as possible. Whether within our neighborhood or in the greater community, my goal is for our residents to be as proud of our cuisine as our team is.

Whether creating inventive, original dishes, or inspiring upcoming chefs to create avenues of new cuisine, Atlantic Shores remains on the forefront of reinventing retirement cuisine for future generations.

To explore the Atlantic Shores lifestyle, visit: http://www.atlanticshoresliving.com.

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Atlantic Shores is Virginias only resident-governed cooperative community for 55 and Better, offering equity ownership with a vibrant lifestyle. Set on a beautifully landscaped 100-acre campus ten minutes from Virginia Beachs famed oceanfront and boardwalk, Atlantic Shores features over 400 independent living units, ranging from apartment homes to freestanding villa homes, a 53 apartment-home assisted living facility, a 50-bed skilled nursing facility and a 14-bed Memory Care unit. Featuring a comprehensive range of services, social activities, amenities, award-winning cuisine, and a full continuum of on-site medical services including a full-time Medical Director, Atlantic Shores offers an exceptional lifestyle for more than 600 active residents, who live by the motto  Live for Today With a Plan for Tomorrow. For more information, visit: http://www.atlanticshoresliving.com, http://www.facebook.com/atlanticshoresliving
MedVet Ophthalmologist, Dr. Terah Webb, was happy to pose with Airport Police Detection Dog "Adler" and his handler Dave Knepper after providing a complimentary eye exam. Its an honor to give back to dogs that help people every day, says Dr. Terah Webb, the Ophthalmologist at MedVet Columbus.

MedVet Medical & Cancer Centers for Pets is providing complimentary eye exams the entire month of May to service dogs during the 10th Annual ACVO/StokesRx National Service Dog Eye Exam Event. Four of MedVets medical centers are providing these screenings  Columbus, Cincinnati, and Dayton, Ohio plus Lexington, Kentucky. These screenings are by appointment only. Over 52,000 service animals throughout the U.S. and Canada have been examined since the program launched. There were approximately 7,400 dogs examined in 2016 and almost 60% of those were service animals, with the remainder being therapy animals. More than 150 of those service dogs are examined at MedVet each year.

MedVets three board-certified ophthalmologists provide free eye exams the entire month of May to service dogs who dedicate their lives to serving the public. This includes search and rescue dogs, detection dogs, guide dogs, hearing dogs, therapy dogs, police dogs, and handicapped assistance dogs. Its an honor to give back to dogs that help people every day, says Dr. Terah Webb, the Ophthalmologist at MedVet Columbus. Whether its a search and rescue dog helping a community or a disabled persons life-line for independence, I love to interact with these dogs. Its rewarding to detect a potential problem early that may limit their service or their comfort if left untreated.

In addition to weekday exams the entire month of May, MedVet Columbus & Cincinnati will also be holding a special screening event to facilitate multiple specialty exams to service dogs. The events will be held on Sunday, May 7th at MedVet Columbus and on Sunday, May 21st at MedVet Cincinnati. On this day, service dogs will receive more than just an eye exam from the ophthalmology department. Their appointment will include being examined by doctors from MedVets other specialty departments and will include a general physical exam. These screenings are by appointment only.

How to Register:

Online registration for these exams is open April 1-30. To qualify, dogs must be active working dogs that were certified by a formal training program or organization or currently enrolled in a formal training program. The certifying organization could be national, regional, or local in nature. Before calling MedVet to schedule an appointment, first go online to register at http://www.ACVOeyeexam.org. Specific service groups are also listed on the website.

Once registered, please call MedVets ophthalmology department to schedule your appointment  Columbus, OH (614) 846-5800, Cincinnati, OH (513) 561-0069, Dayton, OH (937) 293-2714, or Lexington, KY (859) 276-2505. Complimentary eye screenings are held the entire month of May at these four MedVet locations. MedVet is joining more than 270 board-certified veterinary ophthalmologists across the U.S and Canada to provide free sight saving eye exams to improve the health and avert potential diseases for thousands of service animals.

About MedVet:

MedVet Medical & Cancer Centers for Pets, with headquarters in Columbus, Ohio, is a widely recognized and growing group of emergency and specialty referral veterinary hospitals for companion animals. MedVet, whose mission is leading specialty healthcare for pets, is employee owned and veterinary led. MedVet provides specialty referral services for in-depth patient care, as well as emergency services 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. More than 100,000 dogs and cats are treated annually at MedVets expanding network of medical centers across the country. MedVet hospitals were named the American Animal Hospital Association (AAHA) Accredited Referral Practice of the Year in 2014 and 2016, the only group of practices to receive this award twice. For more information on MedVets network of medical centers, visit http://www.medvetforpets.com.

Media Inquiries:

For photos and interviews contact:

MedVet Columbus: Tami Adcock, (614) 431-4400, tami.adcock(at)medvetforpets(dot)com

MedVet Cincinnati: Joe DeFulio, (513) 561-0069, Joe.defulio(at)medvetforpets(dot)com

MedVet Dayton: Heidi Hill, (937) 293-2714, Heidi.hill(at)medvetforpets(dot)com

MedVet Lexington: Skye Bricarello, (859) 276-2505, skye.bricarello(at)medvetforpets(dot)com
We are honored to begin our sales efforts in one of the most dynamic aesthetic markets in the world. The Brazilian plastic surgeon is known for their skill, expertise and innovative surgical techniques.

Establishment Labs, a global medical device company focused on breast surgery technologies with a strong emphasis on product development and innovation, announced today that it has received regulatory approval from the Brazilian National Health Surveillance Agency (ANVISA) to market Motiva Implants and Puregraft.

According to a survey by the International Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgery (ISAPS), there were over 166,000 breast augmentation procedures performed in Brazil in 2015, the worlds second largest market after the United States. Having more than 5,500 board certified plastic surgeons, Brazil is also one of the largest markets for fat grafting with more than 110,000 procedures performed in face, breast and body contouring in 2015.

"Regulatory clearance to market Motiva Implants and Puregraft in Brazil is an exciting milestone for Establishment Labs," said Juan Jose Chacon Quiros, Chief Executive Officer of Establishment Labs, Brazilian surgeon interest and support has been very high pre-launch, and weve seen enough demand to validate our commercialization strategy for Motiva Implants and Puregraft through our own direct sales network.This commitment to Brazil should position our company as a leader in the Brazilian market."

Establishment Labs had already received the GMP (Good Manufacturing Practices) certification from Brazils National Health Surveillance Agency (ANVISA) following an inspection and audit of its manufacturing facility in San Jose, Costa Rica. Brazils GMP regulations, which closely resemble the internationally recognized ISO 13485 standard, require medical device manufacturers to have a quality system for the design, manufacture, packaging, labeling and storage of their products. We are pleased with the successful completion of the ANVISA clearance for our products and GMP certification, which is evidence of our commitment to produce innovative products in strict adherence to our quality system, said Salvador Dada, Chief Operating Officer of Establishment Labs.

According to Eddie de Oliveira, Vice-President of Sales for Latin America, "We are honored to begin our sales efforts in one of the most dynamic aesthetic markets in the world. The Brazilian plastic surgeon is known for their skill, expertise and innovative surgical techniques. We hope to win their confidence with our advanced line of surgical products."

About Establishment Labs:

Establishment Labs is a global, privately held, breast implant and medical technology company that designs, develops, manufactures and markets an innovative product portfolio consisting of advanced silicone-filled breast and body shaping implants (http://www.motivaimplants.com). Its CE-marked Motiva Implants line of silicone breast implants utilizes medical-grade silicone and is subject to rigorous quality assurance testing throughout the manufacturing process. Motiva Implants are sold in more than 60 countries worldwide. Puregraft's FDA cleared and CE-Marked technology provides plastic surgeons with purified fat for reinjection on the sterile field. The Puregraft technology is used in hospitals and clinics around the world and provides physicians with confidence and convenience in fat grafting surgical procedures.
OKLAHOMA CITY, March 31, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Today, Smithfield Foods Helping Hungry Homes initiative, a program focused on alleviating hunger and helping Americans become more food secure, joined forces with Homeland Stores to donate more than 35,000 pounds of protein to the Regional Food Bank of Oklahoma. The donation, equivalent to more than 140,000 servings, will help Oklahomans affected by recent wildfires across Oklahomaan area with hundreds of Smithfield employees. This donation helps fight hunger across the state, where one in six Oklahomans has inconsistent access to food.

A photo accompanying this announcement is available at http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/3a16eba3-2d4c-4db2-b9d9-d94fff535c23.

Protein is a resource that is always in high demand and low supply, but during a time of disaster it becomes even more vital, said Katie Fitzgerald, chief executive officer of the Regional Food Bank of Oklahoma. We are grateful to Smithfield and Homeland for todays donation, which will feed thousands of families in need across our area in the coming weeks.

Smithfield and Homeland representatives presented the donation to the Regional Food Bank at the event this morning. Members from all three organizations discussed food insecurity in the local community, the impact of recent wildfires on the livelihood of Oklahoma families and the significance of this donation in helping the more than 126,000 children, families and seniors who are served each week by the Regional Food Bank.

Today, we are proud to partner with Smithfield and deliver this much-needed donation to our Oklahoma neighbors in need of food assistance, said Marc Jones, CEO of Homeland. We hope this donation will provide a comforting meal to the many people in this area who have suffered a great deal of loss in the past few weeks.

Smithfields donation to the Regional Food Bank was a part of the Helping Hungry Homes 2017 nationwide donation tour. Throughout the annual tour, Smithfield will provide large-scale protein donations to more than 50 food banks across the country. This donation adds to the more than 65 million servings of protein donated since 2011.

At Smithfield, we value our responsibility to provide food to those in need, especially when its our people during a time of disaster, said Dennis Pittman, senior director of hunger relief for Smithfield Foods. We are proud to stand with Homeland and provide the food bank with protein to serve thousands in need throughout Oklahoma as our neighbors continue to recover from this destruction.

Following todays event, Helping Hungry Homes will visit Lincoln and Omaha, Nebraska next week. For more information about Helping Hungry Homes and a list of upcoming donation events, visit helpinghungryhomes.com.

About Smithfield Foods

Smithfield Foods is a $14 billion global food company and the world's largest pork processor and hog producer. In the United States, the company is also the leader in numerous packaged meats categories with popular brands including Smithfield, Eckrich, Nathan's Famous, Farmland, Armour, John Morrell, Cook's, Kretschmar, Gwaltney, Curly's, Margherita, Carando, Healthy Ones, Krakus, Morliny and Berlinki. Smithfield Foods is committed to providing good food in a responsible way and maintains robust animal care, community involvement, employee safety, environmental and food safety and quality programs. For more information, visit www.smithfieldfoods.com.

About Oklahoma Regional Food Bank

The Regional Food Bank of Oklahoma is the states largest private, domestic hunger-relief organization and a member of Feeding Americas network of Food Banks. The nonprofit provides enough food to feed more than 126,000 hungry Oklahomans each week through a network of more than 1,300 schools and charitable feeding programs in 53 central and western Oklahoma counties. Since its inception in 1980, the Regional Food Bank has distributed more than 587 million pounds of food to feed Oklahomas hungry. For more information, visit http://www.regionalfoodbank.org; find us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/regionalfoodbank or follow us on Twitter at www.twitter.com/rfbo.

About Homeland Stores

HAC, Inc. is a grocery chain headquartered in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. As of 2017 HAC operates 73 grocery stores in four states: Oklahoma, Texas, Kansas and Georgia. HAC operates under several banners including United, Cash Saver and Homeland.

Homeland is HACs largest banner as well as Oklahomas largest locally-owned grocery store chain with 31 locations statewide. Homeland has been 100% Employee Owned since 2011. Homelands mission is to serve its community by providing exceptional customer service, competitive prices and the freshest meat and produce available. For more information, please visit http://www.homelandstores.com/ or http://hacretail.com/.
Dr. Brandon B. Ryans, Trident University International Dr. Ryans' impressive credentials and extensive online teaching experience will certainly serve Trident's students well. - Dr. Mickey Shachar, Dean of the College of Health and Human Services

Trident University Internationals (Trident) College of Health and Human Services today announced Dr. Brandon B. Ryans has been appointed full-time instructor, effective immediately.

Prior to joining Trident, Dr. Ryans served as online healthcare management program chair and associate professor at Minnesota School of Business/Globe University. Hes also held teaching posts at American Sentinel University and Ohio University in Athens, OH.

Dr. Ryans holds a Bachelor of Science in Health Care Administration from the University of Central Florida, as well as a Master of Science in Health Care Administration and Doctor of Health Education (DHEd) from A.T. Still University. He is also a Certified Health Education Specialist (CHES).

We are pleased to welcome Dr. Ryans to the Trident team, stated Dean of the College of Health and Human Services, Dr. Mickey Shachar. His impressive credentials and extensive online teaching experience will certainly serve our online students well.

His research interests include healthcare policy, elderly healthcare and preventative care, universal healthcare, and health informatics.

Trident is a 100% online university that has been in operation since 1998 and is regionally accredited by the WASC Senior College and University Commission (WSCUC). Active duty military, veterans, National Guard, and military dependents make up 79% of the Universitys student population, and Trident is proud to employ many veterans at its faculty, staff, and management levels.

About Trident University

Founded in 1998, Trident University International (Trident) is a leading online postsecondary university serving adult learners. Trident developed the Trident Learning Model, which employs case-based learning in an online setting to teach real-world relevant critical thinking skills to enhance the lives and careers of students. Trident offers high-quality bachelors, masters, and doctoral degree programs, led by a qualified faculty team, over 80% of whom have doctoral degrees. Visit http://www.trident.edu, Tridents Facebook page, or call at (855) 290-0290 to learn more about Trident's wide range of bachelor's, master's, and doctoral programs.
Center for Autism and Related Disorders (CARD) today announced Sensory Sensitive Sundays, a collaboration with the Chuck E. Cheeses location in Las Vegas, NV, to provide children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and their families an opportunity to experience the fun of Chuck E. Cheeses in a sensory-friendly environment. Sensory Sensitive Sundays is scheduled for the first Sunday of each month.

Chuck E. Cheese's has been a great partner in CARD's effort to expand opportunities for children with special needs and their families to have fun in a supportive, safe environment, said Doreen Granpeesheh, PhD, BCBA-D, CARD founder and CEO.

Offered two hours before the restaurant opens to the general public, the sensory-sensitive program provides the opportunity for families in the autism community to enjoy Chuck E. Cheeses with smaller crowds, dimmed lighting, the show and music turned down or off, and limited appearances of costumed characters, all of which makes for an environment more suitable for children who face sensory challenges.

CARD Henderson is excited to team up with Chuck E. Cheeses in Las Vegas to host a sensory-friendly event for those in the autism community, said Briar-Rose Jacobson, administrative coordinator for CARD Henderson. Families will be able to enjoy games, pizza, and fun in an environment tailored to their needs."

Sensory Sensitive Sundays will take place on the first Sunday of every month, beginning Sunday, April 2, from 9:00-11:00am at 9230 S Eastern Ave, Space 100, Las Vegas, NV 89123. For more information, please visit https://www.chuckecheese.com/storedetails/nv/las-vegas/311. The event in Las Vegas is part of a series of partnerships between Chuck E. Cheese's and CARD across the country. A list of the 351 locations participating in the program can be found by visiting http://chuckecheese.com/sensory-sensitive-sundays.

About Center for Autism and Related Disorders (CARD)

CARD treats individuals of all ages who are diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) at treatment centers around the globe. CARD was founded in 1990 by leading autism expert and clinical psychologist Doreen Granpeesheh, PhD, BCBA-D. CARD treats individuals with ASD using the principles of applied behavior analysis (ABA), which is empirically proven to be the most effective method for treating individuals with ASD and recommended by the American Academy of Pediatrics and the US Surgeon General. CARD employs a dedicated team of nearly 2,000 individuals across the nation and internationally. For more information, visit http://www.centerforautism.com or call (855) 345-2273.

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Vinitaly International is all about connecting the dots

On Saturday 8 April, Vinitalys signature event OperaWine is back in the heart of Veronas city centre in the beautiful Palazzo della Gran Guardia in Piazza Bra. This sixth edition will feature a magnificent showcase of the finest Italian wines across all regions with 104 of their producers, including also +40 new entries, both a testament to OperaWines consolidated success and to the thriving Italian wine sector. OperaWines 2017 theme, the Silk Road, pays homage to economic and cultural ties between Italy and China. OperaWine will also celebrate Vinitaly Internationals recent partnership with 1919, the Chinese leaders for O2O liquor distribution, since a delegation from 1919 including its Founder Bob Yang and the General Manager of 1919s purchasing subsidiary Shanghai 1919 Global procurement CO. LTD Andrew Tan will also be attending.

OperaWine is organized by Vinitaly International in collaboration with Veronafiere, Vinitaly and Wine Spectator. It is the first event that Wine Spectator decided to co-host outside the United States. In a similar way to its New York Wine Experience event, Wine Spectator is responsible for the selection of influential producers. However, at OperaWine, the selected wines are not solely competition winners, but also are also particularly significant for their territory and for the American market.

OperaWines commitment to promote and communicate Italian wine combines the attention to the local with a global outlook. The Silk Road theme celebrates Italian connections with China, following the recent success of the Vinitaly Internationals event in Chengdu, where Italian producers showcased their wines at the International Wine and Spirits Show. The Silk Road was a caravan route, which connected the ancient European empires with China for the silk trade for centuries, promoting commercial and cultural exchanges. As is well known, the Venetian merchant Marco Polo also travelled along this route in the 13th century. In the 21st century, the so-called New Silk Road is a priority for Chinas foreign policy and for Chinese president Xi Jinping. The One Belt, One Road project aims to foster economic and cultural connections between peoples and countries in four different continents through economic investments and bilateral exchanges. Italys interest in China was also stressed during the official visit of president Sergio Mattarella to China last February and in a recent art exhibition mounted at the Quirinale Palace in Rome entitled From the Old to the New Silk Road.

Hence, China is in both Italys and Vinitaly Internationals agendas. Stevie Kim, Managing Director of Vinitaly International, comments about OperaWines global outlook: Vinitaly International is all about connecting the dots. As Steve Jobs once said You can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. With OperaWine, we continue to keep our focus on the American wine market, but also entrust the US market experience to strengthen Italian wine in China. Even if this is only a small dot at the moment, we are hopeful that it will become very important in the future.

On April 8th, OperaWine will commence at 11:30am with the press confer-ence followed by the annual group picture. 1919 founder Bob Yang and manager Andrew Tan will also speak at the press conference. After lunch at 2:45pm the Opening Ceremony will kick off the Grand Tasting from 3:00pm to 6:00pm. During OperaWine, wine writer Monty Waldin will be recording a new series of Italian Wine Podcast, the new podcasting project dedicated to the uniqueness of the Italian wine tradition. The first series with interviews recorded during OperaWine 2016 is available on SoundCloud, iTunes, and Facebook.

In addition to the presence of the 1919 group at OperaWine, during Vinitaly on April 10th, 1919 manager Andrew Tan will join Italian wine producers and the press during an exclusive breakfast meeting organized at wine2digital, Vinitaly Internationals new headquarters. On April 12th, a Vinitaly International Academy seminar will also illuminate the distinctive features of Chinese wines from the Ning-xia region. In September, Vinitaly International will travel again to China to host VIA Certification Courses. In China, Vinitaly International will also participate to a popular B2C event, the Shanghai Wine and Dine Festival.

OperaWine is an event by invitation only. Vinitaly International would like to thank institutions, businesses, and sponsors, which continue to make OperaWine a premier event. A special mention goes to Electrolux Home Appliances, Asiago Formaggio D.O.P., Levoni Cold Cuts, Surgiva Mineral Water, and Be Board Fashion Men Sportswear.

About:

Veronafiere is the leading organizer of trade shows in Italy including Vinitaly (http://www.vinitaly.com), the largest wine and spirits fair in the world. During its 50th edition Vinitaly counted more than 4,100 exhibitors on a 100,000+ square meter area and 130,000 visitors from 140 different countries. The next edition of the fair will take place on 9 - 12 April 2017. The premier event to Vinitaly, OperaWine (http://www.operawine.it) Finest Italian Wines: 100 Great Producers, will unite international wine professionals on April 8th in the heart of Verona, offering them the unique opportunity to discover and taste the wines of the 100 Best Italian Producers, as selected by Wine Spectator. Since 1998 Vinitaly International travels to sev-eral countries such as Russia, China, USA and Hong Kong thanks to its strategic arm abroad, Vinitaly International. In February 2014 Vinitaly International launched an educational project, the Vinitaly International Academy (VIA) with the aim of divulging and broadcasting the excellence and diversity of Italian wine around the globe. VIA this year launched the second edition of its Certification Course and to-day counts 55 Italian Wine Ambassadors and 6 Italian Wine Experts.
Completed integration leverages Bold's ManitouNEO with 3xLOGICs Cloud-based video platform The solution deploys easily and gives customers the opportunity to increase revenues through video monitoring and verification services. We're excited to have 3xLOGIC as one of Bold's premier strategic partners. Rod Coles, President/CEO, Bold Technologies Past News Releases RSS

3xLOGIC, Inc., a leading provider of integrated intelligent security solutions, today announced that Bold Technologies, a leading provider of alarm monitoring and PSIM software, has recently completed the integration of its ManitouNEO with the 3xLOGIC VIGIL video platform. The integration leverages all aspects of the ManitouNEO Video Control Center (VCC) and the 3xLOGIC VIGIL software and Multi-Sensor NVR solution.

ManitouNEO is the newest alarm monitoring software from Bold Technologies and was designed to meet the changing needs of the modern central station. The improved ManitouNEO VCC integrates alarm handling and video into one system for efficient monitoring. The integration with the 3xLOGIC video platform is full-featured and highly intuitive. Events triggered from 3xLOGIC devices are delivered to ManitouNEO as intrusion events.

Using ManitouNEOs Enhanced Action Patterns, central station dispatchers are provided clear instructions on how to handle the video alarmsaving time and ensuring operator consistency. The integration supports live and recorded video on the same screen, and offers full PTZ control. Other features of the integration include bi-directional audio, and the ability to save reference images and event images for end-users to view. The integration offers advanced features to Bold Technologies and 3xLOGICs shared customers, and helps central station dispatchers accurately gauge alarm situations and reduce false alarms.

Charlie Erickson, SVP Product Marketing for 3xLOGIC, stated, Both 3xLOGIC and Bold have an ambition to satisfy the fast-growing demand for world-class verified video. Bold is a major player with over six million subscribers, and we want our combined VIGIL software and Multi-Sensor NVR solution, integrated into Bolds central station software, to be the preferred solution for those Bold customers who value verified alarms and priority law enforcement response.

The integration fully leverages 3xLOGICs cloud infrastructure, providing ease of installation and a simplified deployment. Customers have the added benefit of increased IT security as 3xLOGICs NVR and cameras do not require open inbound ports at the customers router. Rod Coles, President and CEO of Bold Technologies, commented, This integration supports the growing demand for Cloud-managed video. The solution is easy to deploy and gives customers the opportunity to increase revenues through video monitoring and verification services. We are excited to have 3xLOGIC as one of Bolds premier strategic partners.

About 3xLOGIC

3xLOGIC Inc. has been a leading innovator in server and cloud-based security technology for 15+ years. The company is recognized for providing easy-to-use surveillance and business intelligence solutions that seamlessly integrate video, access control, and disparate data such as ATM, Point-of-Sale, analytics, and more.

3xLOGICs video surveillance solutions are engineered for ease of installation, scalability and affordability combined with a managed services portfolio that enables integrators to effectively evolve from dealers to high-value strategic partners. For more information about 3xLOGIC, please visit our website http://www.3xlogic.com.

About Bold Technologies

Bold Technologies is a leading provider of alarm monitoring and PSIM software. For over three decades, we have been a leader in contemporary alarm monitoring by introducing faster and more sophisticated software innovations. Our flagship product, ManitouNEO, is a fully expandable, web-based platform. With installation available on-premises or in a hosted, Cloud-based environment, and open standards for easy integration of new technologies, ManitouNEO increases efficiency, profitability and security for our customers. Bold Technologies is a privately held company with US offices in Colorado and Texas, and a European office in Valencia, Spain. For more information on Bold Technologies, visit http://www.boldgroup.com or call 1-800-255-BOLD.

For 3xLOGIC Media Queries:

Bruce J. Doneff

Public Relations

843.476.3022

doneff(at)verizon(dot)net

For Bold Media Queries:

Tiffany Coles

Bold Technologies

(719) 358-4719 (direct)

(719) 213-2502 (fax)

tiffanyc(at)boldgroup(dot)com

http://www.boldgroup.com

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We consider it an honor to recognize these distinguished leaders and organizations for the positive impact each of them make, said retired Air Force Lt. Gen. Dana T. Atkins

The Military Officers Association of America (MOAA) will present its top awards for 2017 to a member of Congress, one nonprofit foundation, one private-sector company, and one congressional staff member for their support of the military community. The ceremony will be held April 4 at 5:15 p.m. on Capitol Hill in the Dirksen Senate Office Building.

Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.) will receive the Col. Arthur T. Marix Congressional Leadership Award. The MOAA Distinguished Service Award will go to both The Elizabeth Dole Foundation and Werner Enterprises Inc., and professional congressional staff member Jeanette James will receive the Col. Paul W. Arcari Meritorious Service Award.

MOAA is the nations largest officers association with more than 355,000 members from every branch of service, including active duty, retired, National Guard, Reserve, and former officers and their families and survivors. The association annually recognizes individuals or organizations that strongly support servicemembers and their families.

The Col. Arthur T. Marix Congressional Leadership Award will be given to Isakson for his leadership in the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee and being the stalwart voice of veterans and uniformed members in Congress, demanding fair treatment and accountability from government agencies. Marix founded MOAA in 1929 and served as the association's first president until 1944.

The Elizabeth Dole Foundation and Werner Enterprises Inc. each will receive MOAA's Distinguished Service Award, which honors individuals or organizations that are not members of Congress but have been consistently strong supporters of national defense and the uniformed services community.

James, a professional staff member for the House Armed Services Committee, will be recognized with MOAA's Col. Paul W. Arcari Meritorious Service Award for her efforts in support of a variety of legislation to help servicemembers and military spouses and survivors. Arcari was MOAA's director of Government Relations for 14 years, retiring in 2001.

We consider it an honor to recognize these distinguished leaders and organizations for the positive impact each of them make, in their own way, on the lives of so many within the uniformed services community, said retired Air Force Lt. Gen. Dana T. Atkins, MOAAs president and CEO.

MOAA has awarded the Marix and Distinguished Service awards since 1997. The Meritorious Service Award began in 2000. For more information about MOAA, please visit http://www.moaa.org.
Menasha, the industrys largest independent, retail-focused packaging and merchandising solutions provider, took home 15 Outstanding Merchandising Achievement (OMA) awards at the annual Shop! Association OMA Awards at GlobalShop 2017 in Las Vegas, Nev.

This year, the Wisconsin-headquartered company won one gold, one silver, 12 bronze, and one budget award for various types of displays. The winners were announced on March 29, 2017 at the Shop! Assocation OMA Awards celebration during GlobalShop 2017.

At Menasha, we strive to be a leader in providing creative, innovative solutions to help our consumer packaged goods customers achieve success, said Dennis Bonn, Menasha vice president of marketing. We are so honored to be recognized with 15 of these achievement awards and among the best-of-the-best from around the world.

Shop! Associations OMA Awards Competition is a premier award show recognizing the most innovative and effective in-store and point of purchase displays. Since 1958, this competition, held alongside the industrys largest tradeshow, GlobalShop, has recognized in-store marketing programs that lift sales, make products memorable, and entice consumers to purchase products.

GlobalShop is the worlds largest annual trade show and conference dedicated to store design, visual merchandising, and shopper marketing.

Menashas 2017 gold-winning display was its Frito-Lay Pumpkin Perimeter in the snack products, temporary category.

Menasha also took home a budget award in the temporary category for their Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Too Cool For School Counter Unit. The budget award is designed to recognize greatness in retail merchandising solutions while being conscious of budget.

About Menasha

Menasha Packaging Company, LLC, based in Neenah, Wisconsin, is a subsidiary of Menasha Corporation and has more than 3,300 employees at locations across North America. The company is a leading provider of graphic consumer packaging, merchandising solutions, corrugated packaging, food packaging, shipping containers, material handling solutions, pack- out and fulfillment services. With a network of design, sales service centers, corrugated and paperboard manufacturing plants, and fulfillment facilities located throughout the United States and Canada, Menasha's mission is to help its customers protect, move, and promote their products better than anyone else. For more information, visit http://www.menasha.com. Follow Menasha on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and LinkedIn.

About Menasha Corporation

Menasha Corporation is a leading corrugated and plastic packaging manufacturer and supply chain solutions provider specializing in retail merchandising packaging and displays, plastic reusable containers and pallets, protective packaging interiors, and packaging supply chain and fulfillment services. Menasha Corporations products and services are used by major food, beverage, consumer products, healthcare, pharmaceutical, industrial, and automotive companies. Established in 1849, Menasha Corporation is one of Americas oldest privately held, family-owned manufacturing companies. Headquartered in Neenah, Wisconsin, the company employs approximately 5,200 employees in more than 80 facilities in North America, Europe and Asia. For more information, visit http://www.menashacorporation.com.

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Photos for media use available by request.
Regardless of who wins the Presidency, the first year of a new President is a time of anxiety for the business community as new regulations and laws are passed that impact businesses.

Safe Harbor LLP, long considered one of the leading accounting firms in the San Francisco Bay Area and in California for businesses, corporations, and startups, is proud to announce ten new posts to its news feed. The company's blog and news feed are landmark resources for businesses in San Francisco to learn about the turbulent tax and regulatory environment as the United States embarks on a new President.

Regardless of who wins the Presidency, the first year of a new President is a time of anxiety for the business community as new regulations and laws are passed that impact businesses. 2017 is certainly no exception, explained Chun Wong, Managing Partner at Safe Harbor LLP. For this reason, we have recently updated our news feed with ten timely posts that touch on issues of concern to San Francisco businesses and high net worth individuals.

To read the posts, visit http://www.safeharborcpa.com/category/news/. There, in addition to posts on San Francisco business tax issues, one can also see issues of concern to self-employed and high net worth issues, such as possible changes to the Affordable Care Act and the corresponding tax compliance requirements. Businesses can also click up to a specific page on business tax issues at http://www.safeharborcpa.com/business-tax/. Interested parties are urged to reach out to the accounting firm, as no two individuals or businesses face the same situation.

A Focus on Businesses and High Net Worth Individuals in the San Francisco Bay Area

The reality of taxes is that, generally speaking, taxes are of most concern to those who have assets and income. Very low income individuals, of course, don't have significant tax exposure, as their primary financial problem is to generate income. High net worth individuals, in contrast, have crossed the worry threshold by having enough income; now, however, they have to worry about how to minimize taxes. Similarly, many corporations and businesses in San Francisco have to worry about tax and regulatory requirements, such as those impacting international businesses. With the new Presidency of Donald Trump and new Republican majorities in Congress, all eyes are on Washington as accounting firms and other tax professionals await possible legislation. High net worth individuals and businesses would do well to forge relationships with accountants, now, so that they are aware of possible regulator requirements and opportunities. The ten new posts to the Safe Harbor news feed, plus an alert to interested parties to bookmark the feed are easy ways for those with an interest in tax matters to stay informed. 2017 is on track to be a very interesting year in tax issues, but whether 'interesting' is an asset or a liability to a business or high net worth individual will depend on his or her situation and the tax skill of their affiliated accountant.

About Safe Harbor LLP  a Professional CPA Firm in San Francisco

Safe Harbor LLP is a CPA firm that specializes in accounting and tax services for individuals and businesses throughout the San Francisco Bay Area and greater California. Safe Harbor CPAs helps both individuals and businesses with tax preparation, IRS audit defense, and audited financial statements. The firm prides itself on friendly yet professional service and utilizes state-of-the-art Internet technology to provide quality customer service.

Safe Harbor CPA

http://www.safeharborcpa.com

Tel. 415.742.4249
Designations aside, however, what really counts is the commitment that each lawyer has towards his or her clients in estate, probate, and trust disputes and litigation under Texas law

Burdette & Rice, a Dallas, Texas law firm specializing in probate, trust, and estate disputes and litigation, is proud to announce a trifecta, in that three of its attorneys have achieved the prestigious designation as Texas Rising Star Super Lawyers by SuperLawyers.com. Eighteen attorneys, total, achieved this designation in Texas in 2017.

"We are very proud of our three attorneys, namely Ellen Bennett, Brian Thomas, and Mark Caldwell, who garnered this prestigious designation and helped us achieve this 'trifecta' on SuperLawyers.com," explained Elliott Burdette, Managing Director of Probate Litigation at Burdette & Rice. Designations aside, however, what really counts is the commitment that each lawyer has towards his or her clients in estate, probate, and trust disputes and litigation under Texas law."

To learn more about each attorney, interested parties are urged to visit the firm's website at http://www.dallasprobateattorneys.com/ and scroll up to the navigation under "The Team." To learn more about the firm's probate, estate, and trust litigation services under Texas law, visit http://www.dallasprobateattorneys.com/trust-disputes-litigation/ (trust disputes), and/or http://www.dallasprobateattorneys.com/probate-estate-disputes/ (estate disputes). With a headquarters in Dallas, Texas, and a satellite facility in Plano, Texas, Burdette & Rice is reachable via the Internet, phone, and in-person consultations concerning estate, trust, and probate disputes and litigation under Texas law.

Teamwork and Success in Estate, Trust, and Probate Litigation

The firms attorneys work together as a team in finding efficient and powerful solutions for the benefit of the firms clients in will contests, cases involving breach of fiduciary duties and other Texas trust, estate, and guardianship disputes. In today's complex society, many people are unaware of problems until the unfortunate death of a loved one. At that time, poor planning or poor preparation of trust and estate documentation coupled with significant assets and disagreements among apparent heirs can lead to a dispute. In many cases, with the guidance of skilled attorneys who know Texas law and can advise on client's rights and responsibilities, litigation can be avoided. In others, litigation is unavoidable. The designation by SuperLawyers.com as Texas Rising Star Super Lawyers is validation of Burdette and Rice's reputation as one of the best probate litigation law firms in all of Texas.

About Burdette & Rice, PLLC

Burdette & Rice, PLLC is a top Dallas probate law firm, with lawyers dedicated to listening to their clients, being fully present to them, and advocating their clients positions in the simplest and most persuasive way possible. The law firm employs some of the top probate and estate lawyers in Dallas, Texas. Clients come to Burdette & Rice to contest a will in Texas, work on complex inheritance litigation and disputes, and to litigate disputes over powers of attorney, guardianship and trustee issues all based on Texas law.

Burdette & Rice, PLLC

Media Relations

http://www.dallasprobateattorneys.com/

972-991-7700
Top Brochure Design Firms

10 Best Design is honored to present the winners of its Best Brochure Design Firm awards, selecting Drawing from Memory as the leader in this category for March 2017.

With the modern market moving toward an entirely online infrastructure, it is nearly impossible for brands to survive without some sort of web-based presence. However, that doesn't necessarily mean the older formats have completely lost their efficiency at advertising and increasing brand recognition and visibility. Perhaps the best way this is exemplified is through digital marketing and graphic design agencies that still offer amazing brochure and print design services to supplement their digital services. There are so many agencies out there that offer such services, but which ones are the best?

That is the question 10 Best Design is constantly trying to address, and they aim to find the answer by offering comprehensive monthly awards that rank the very best agencies in the field of brochure design and print. These awards are released at the beginning of every month, and the winners for March 2017 have already been selected. The top three winners are provided in detail below, and the rest of the ten winners can be seen online.

Drawing From Memory is well-deserving of the Best Brochure Design Agency award for March 2017. Being a leading brochure design firm, Drawing From Memory has successfully differentiated itself in the marketplace. The firm was created by two graduates from the Rhode Island School of Design in 2008. They operated under a philosophy that says creativity requires production without a reference point, just like drawing from memory for an artist. It is only fitting that they have won the honor of being this month's top brochure design firm.

Ranking as the second best brochure design agency is Hartford Design. Hartford Design is an exceptional agency that is headquartered in Chicago, Illinois. They work with some of the most well-known brands in the world, and they are proud to serve both large enterprise businesses as well as nonprofits and new startups. Their team is made up of some of the most talented individuals in marketing and print design.

The third-place winner on this months list of top brochure design firms is Rivington Design House. One of the most influential agencies in New York City, the company has a professional team that features young professionals from a variety of fields. Rivington Design House offers a number of comprehensive marketing services that go beyond print brochure design.

For more information about the winners for the month of March, please visit http://www.10bestdesign.com.
WEST CHESTER, Pa., March 31, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- This morning, President & CEO of Key Financial Inc., Patti Brennan CFP, CFS, was officially named to the 2017 Financial Times Top 400 Financial Advisors. This ranking places Brennan among the elite advisors at national, independent, regional and bank broker dealers across the U.S--an impressive feat, as the average FT 400 advisor manages 1.7 billion in assets.

A photo accompanying this announcement is available at http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/69e7241f-3b7d-4498-a0a0-029150d40e94

The vetting process begins by selecting advisors from the largest broker dealers in the nation with a minimum 10+ years experience, and $300 million or more in assets under management. From there, advisors are scored based on a variety of standards including AUM, AUM growth, and compliance records. Financial Times selection process is completely independent and objective, taking over a half a year to arrive at the Top 400.

When asked about the accomplishment, Brennan was quick to note, When it comes down to it, its all about teamwork. The whole is only as good as the sum of its parts, and I am blessed to have such a talented and dedicated team of professionals who are committed to the highest standards. I am honored to be placed in such a ranking, and consider this a team win.

On a local level, Brennan proudly serves on the Board for the YMCA of Greater Brandywine and Cuddle My Kids. She has formerly served on the Boards of the Chester County Economic Development Council, SEEDCO and Penn Medicine Chester County Hospital. As the President and CEO of Key Financial for more than 28 years, Brennan provides comprehensive wealth management with integrated strategies that are unique to each client. Known for her ability to see the impact of the little details on the big picture, Brennan is known for communicating complex financial concepts in simple, understandable and meaningful terms.

Key Financial, Inc. provides comprehensive financial planning and wealth management services and is located at 1045 Andrew Drive Suite A West Chester, PA. For information about the firms planning services or to speak with Patti Brennan, call (610) 429-9050 or visit www.keyfinancialinc.com.




Drug Rehabilitation and Alcohol Treatment Center Continuing education and community outreach are two pillars of our strategy as one of Canada's leading drug rehab and alcohol treatment program.

Sunshine Coast Health Centre (https://www.sunshinecoasthealthcentre.ca/), one of the top drug rehabilitation and alcohol treatment programs in British Columbia, Canada, is proud to announce its participation in the 2017 NIDA (National Institute on Drug Abuse) Forum to be held June 16-19, 2017, in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Centre psychotherapist, Tatiana Tsarouk, has been selected for poster presentation at this important industry event.

Continuing education and community outreach are two pillars of our strategy as one of Canada's leading drug rehab and alcohol treatment program, explained Casey Jordan, Chief Marketing Officer. We are so proud that Tatiana has been selected for the Poster Session at the event.

To learn more about the upcoming Poster Session, visit https://www.drugabuse.gov/international/2017-nida-international-forum#PosterSession. To learn more about Tatiana Tsarouk, visit https://www.sunshinecoasthealthcentre.ca/staff/tatiana-tsarouk-phd/. Dr. Tsarouk joined the clinical team at Sunshine Coast in 2008 and has an impressive list of accomplishments that includes 20 years as a psychiatrist working with addicted and mentally ill individuals in Russia and 4 years at the University of Washington on a National Institute of Drug Abuse (NIDA) addiction research grant.

Since emigrating to Canada, Tatiana has been employed as a child and youth counsellor for the Interior Health Authority in 100 Mile House prior to joining Sunshine Coast. Tatiana is a graduate of the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences in Moscow.

An Innovative Methodology for Drug Rehabilitation and Alcohol Treatment

While the most commonly known methodology for drug rehab and alcohol treatment is the "12 Step" methodology, Sunshine Coast Health Centre uses alternative methodologies that are non-12 step and based on the "Logos" therapy popularized by Viktor Frankl. (To learn more about the Centre's philosophy, visit https://www.sunshinecoasthealthcentre.ca/about-us/). By participating in industry events such as the NIDA Forum, Sunshine Coast and its key employees are able to share their insights with others and gain information as well from alternative viewpoints. Assisting clients to free themselves from drugs and/or alcohol is a process that is based in psychology. Therefore, a continued openness to new ideas and new methodologies as well as an education based in factual evidence, and methodologies that are evidence-based, is critical to effective treatment strategies.

About Sunshine Coast Health Centre

Sunshine Coast Health Centre is a 36 bed drug and alcohol rehabilitation facility exclusively designed for men, officially opened on the 15th of March, 2014. The Centre has a philosophy of care that goes beyond just addiction to include personal transformation based on three key therapeutic principles: interpersonal relatedness, self definition (autonomy & competence), and intrinsic motivation. The Centre offers both drug rehabilitation and alcohol treatment near Vancouver, BC, but serving patients across Canada, particularly British Columbia and Alberta and cities such as Calgary, Edmonton and Red Deer. Sunshine Coast Health Centre uses a form of drug rehabilitation based on the methodology of Viktor Frankl, namely 'Meaning Centered Therapy'.

Website. http://www.sunshinecoasthealthcentre.ca
We are thrilled to expand our presence in the great state of Ohio with such an outstanding school.

Endeavor Schools announced the recent acquisition of Montessori Academy of Cincinnati, a leading Montessori school that has served the Greater Cincinnati area for over 30 years. Montessori Academy of Cincinnati offers extraordinary education beginning with early childhood programs and extending through middle school.

Founded in 1987 by Ken and Pat Elder, Montessori Academy of Cincinnati was initially called The Childs Place. The school opened its doors with one pre-primary classroom and has grown exponentially ever since, changing their name in 1999 after establishing an elementary program. The Montessori Academy of Cincinnati has developed extensively over the years, expanding into elementary school and middle school while maintaining their original infant and toddler programs. The school currently serves students ranging from 18 months of age through 8th grade.

We are thrilled to expand our presence in the great state of Ohio with such an outstanding school, said Danny Kawas, Vice President of Corporate Development at Endeavor Schools. The Montessori School of Cincinnati has an exceptional academic program and a long track record for being one of the top schools in the area. It will be a phenomenal member to our growing family of schools across the US.

Accredited by The Department of Education (DOE), Montessori Academy of Cincinnati offers education programs based on the renowned Montessori philosophy and teaching method. The diverse curriculum assures excellence in mathematics, language arts, social studies, and the sciences. In addition to these core courses, the school also offers vast enrichment opportunities through art, computer, music, physical education, Spanish, research-based Full Option Science System (FOSS) curriculum, and more.

The mission of Montessori Academy of Cincinnati is to promote the growth and development of its students by instilling a deep love of learning that will help each child reach their full potential. The experienced staff is well-trained to provide students with the opportunity to learn, grow, and develop. Educators at the Montessori Academy of Cincinnati go the extra mile to guide students in assimilating values, and relating peacefully and respectfully to other people and to the natural world.

About Endeavor Schools

Endeavor Schools is a leading education management company with a family of unique, well-established private schools that serve as pillars to their respective communities in a growing number of markets across the US. Each school subscribes to proven, research-based curricula that is delivered by seasoned educators, and is encouraged to embrace their own uniqueness and tradition. Endeavor Schools supports each schools academic excellence by providing the necessary tools and resources required.

Founded in 2012, Endeavor Schools is headquartered in Miami, Florida. For more information, visit http://www.endeavorschools.com and follow the company on LinkedIn.
San Mateo Home Care Senior care is one of the most popular conceptual frameworks in which people think about securing home care for themselves or loved ones.

NuevaCare, a leading home care agency based in San Mateo, California, but serving Bay Area cities as diverse as Millbrae, Belmont, and Palo Alto, is proud to announce two lively and important new posts to its blog on the topic of senior care. With the aging of the population, more and more families are seeking to secure home care services, known as "Senior Care," to help loved ones stay in their homes and stay independent as long as possible. The new posts bring a local angle to the "Senior Care" with a focus on San Mateo and Redwood City, respectively.

"Senior care is one of the most popular conceptual frameworks in which people think about securing home care for themselves or loved ones," explained Kamran Nasser, CEO of NuevaCare. "Our lively, informative blog is meant to help Bay Area locals understand their options when it comes to senior care, whether they reside in or near San Mateo or Redwood City."

Interested persons, including journalists or bloggers, can visit the new blog posts at http://nuevacare.com/benefits-senior-care-in-redwood-city/ ("4 Big Benefits of Senior Care in Redwood City") and http://nuevacare.com/4-ways-to-support-joint-health/ ("4 Ways to Support Joint Health for Seniors in San Mateo"). Those interested in Senior Care, in general, should visit http://nuevacare.com/senior-care/.

Senior Care and the Aging Bay Area Population

Californians, perhaps more than other Americans, are known for their healthy lifestyles. Many residents of the San Francisco Bay Area aim to stay active well into their 60s and 70s, and even perhaps their 80s, and are loathe to give up the freedom that living at home can bring. According to one of these new blog posts, for example, "It's common for seniors to resist the idea of senior care from a professional caregiver. They dont like the idea of a stranger coming into their home, or they value their independence." Unfortunately, many Seniors and their families may not realize that a local caregiver agency such as NuevaCare can help bridge the service gap between staying at home, and assisted living or a less-independent service facility up to and including a nursing home. The first post, accordingly, outlines many of the advantages of Senior Care, especially its ability to help a Senior maintain his or her sense of independence. The second post focuses on a specific issue: joint health. Many Seniors suffer from arthritis and other degenerative bone conditions. Accordingly, there are some things that can be done to extend bone health into one's later years. In conclusion, interested parties should read these two important blog posts. Those who are looking to learn more about Senior Care in San Mateo, Redwood City, or other Bay Area communities, should reach out to NuevaCare for a consultation.

About NuevaCare

A premier technology based home care company based in San Mateo and servicing the San Francisco Bay Area, NuevaCare delivers responsive, quality, and affordable in-home care to those who need care due to old age or recovering from surgery or illness. NuevaCare services clients in diverse Bay Area cities from Burlingame to Santa Clara, San Mateo to Palo Alto, Foster City to Hillsborough and everywhere in between. NuevaCare provides hourly, live-in, overnight, and 24/7 care. Recognized as one of the best home care agencies in the Bay Area, NuevaCare can be found at http://nuevacare.com/. NuevaCare is licensed by California Department of Social Services, Home Care Services Bureau, license #: 414700022.
Fixing the glass screen on a cell phone is not the same as fixing a glass window on a property, yet different languages interpret things differently

Express Glass & Board Up, Boca Ratons most popular sliding glass door repair service, is proud to announce a new bilingual blog post on the topic of glass repair, especially with respect to sliding glass doors. Glass repair can be interpreted in different ways depending on the language. Residents searching for emergency sliding glass door repair may need to understand the differences for a quicker response time.

Fixing the glass screen on a cell phone is not the same as fixing a glass window on a property, yet different languages interpret things differently, commented Yani Santos, general manager of Express Glass. We have many Spanish speakers in the Florida area and have received calls confusing the services. We thought a new blog post explaining the differences would be helpful.

To review the new blog post about differences in glass repair services please visit - http://www.expressglassfl.com/blog/glass-repair/boca-raton-iphones-no-boca-raton-glass-repair-si/. Clear distinctions between glass repair for cell phones or cars and glass repair for houses has been explained. For information about sliding glass door repair in Boca Raton and the surrounding Florida area, please go to http://www.expressglassfl.com/boca-raton-fl/.

Boca Raton Finds No Language Barrier for Sliding Glass Door Repair

Floridas multicultural and vibrant community can be used to seeing English to Spanish translations on signs around town. Signs in two languages can offer the English and Spanish version to help the larger population. If the language has not been deciphered correctly, a confusing message can be the result. Many funny language translation fails can be found online for amusement. It may not be amusing if a Boca Raton resident has a broken patio door and needs emergency sliding glass door repair service. If English is a second language, typing glass repair into an online search may bring up the wrong type of service. Wasting time trying to locate the best sliding glass door repair in Boca Raton could become frustrating.

Express Glass, a top-rated sliding glass door repair service in Boca Raton has released a new blog post. The new post translates what glass repair can mean and the confusion caused by a cultural barrier. Broken glass at a home or the office can be a danger and should be repaired quickly. Searching for glass repair online may not be enough. Several types of glass repair could be the result such as auto glass or cell phone screen replacement. Specific words such as sliding glass door repair or emergency home window replacement may help. Experts in auto glass or cell phone screen repair may not be the right choice for a shattered home window. Express Glass has helped Boca Raton clear up a language barrier to fixing a sliding glass door repair problem.

About Express Glass - Boca Raton

Express Glass and Board Up Service Inc. is a family owned and operated glass repair business with more than 20 years of experience. Their professional technicians and the large variety of inventory make Express Glass the top sliding glass door repair service. If customers are looking for Boca Raton glass repair, please reach out to the company for a free estimate. If customers need a 24/7 sliding glass door repair service in Boca Raton, technicians are standing by. The company specializes in glass door repair and window glass repair; technicians will handle any glass replacement situation efficiently. Home or business glass repair is the company's main priority.

Express Glass & Board Up

http://www.expressglassfl.com/

Tel. 561-470-6002
Charles and Rosalyn have been valuable additions to my Firm," stated Mr. Rotolo. They are wholeheartedly committed to protecting the legal rights of our clients as the Firm's top priority.

Victor A. Rotolo, founder of The Rotolo Law Firm of Lebanon, NJ, has been named to the 2017 New Jersey Super Lawyers list. This marks the 12th consecutive year Mr. Rotolo has been included on this list, having first been selected in 2006. Charles C. Rifici, a three-year associate with the Firm, has been named to Super Lawyers list of New Jersey Rising Stars for 2017. Additionally, Rosalyn A. Metzger, Of Counsel to the Firm, has been named to the 2017 New Jersey Super Lawyers list and to the 2017 Pennslvania Super Lawyers list.

Both the Super Lawyers and the Rising Stars lists are generated by Thomson Reuters, which employs the methodology and set of standards set forth under the Super Lawyers Selection Methodology.

Charles and Rosalyn have been valuable additions to my Firm," stated Mr. Rotolo. They are wholeheartedly committed to protecting the legal rights of our clients as the Firm's top priority," Rotolo continued.

Mr. Rotolo founded The Rotolo Law Firm in 1992. Since then he has focused his practice on personal injury, divorce and family law, and criminal defense. Prior to beginning his career as an attorney, Mr. Rotolo served for two years as an officer on the Elizabeth, NJ police force.

Mr. Rifici has been an associate with the Firm since 2014. He focuses on family law matters, including estate planning and probate issues, civil litigation, and criminal defense. A 2009 graduate of Rutgers University  New Brunswick, Mr. Rifici received his law degree from Rutgers University School of Law  Camden in 2013. Prior to joining The Rotolo Law Firm, Mr. Rifici completed a family law clerkship with the Honorable Anthony F. Picheca, Jr., J.S.C., in Somerset County, NJ. Mr. Rifici is admitted to practice in New Jersey and Pennsylvania and is a member of both the Hunterdon County and New Jersey Bar Associations. This year is the first in which Mr. Rifici was named to the New Jersey Rising Stars list.

Ms. Metzger, Attorney Of Counsel at The Rotolo Law Firm, focuses on the processes of family law mediation, parenting coordination and collaborative divorce. A 1994 graduate of Seton Hall University School of Law, Ms. Metzger became a solo practitioner in 1997, concentrating on matrimonial law. Ms. Metzger then became a collaborative law practitioner in 2009, the same year in which she received the Professional Lawyer of the Year award from the Hunterdon County Bar Association. She was later selected as the Associations nominee for the 2014 James B. Boskey ADR Practitioner of the Year award. This is the third year Ms. Metzger has been named to the New Jersey Super Lawyers list, having also been selected in 2015 and 2016, and 2017 is the first year Ms. Metzger has been named to the Pennsylvania Super Lawyers list.

Additional Background on Victor Rotolo

In addition to being named to the New Jersey Super Lawyers list, Mr. Rotolo is a member of the Million Dollar Advocates Forum since 2002 and of the Multi-Million Dollar Advocates Forum since 2016. Membership in these forums is restricted to attorneys who have won verdicts or reached settlements in the amount of one million dollars and above.

Mr. Rotolo maintains an AV rating from Martindale-Hubbell, having first achieved that rating in 1996. Martindale-Hubbell, the oldest nationally recognized legal reference company in the U.S., uses the methodology and set of standards set forth in Martindale-Hubbell Peer Review Ratings Methodology, to determine these ratings.

Mr. Rotolo is certified by the Supreme Court of New Jersey as a Civil Trial Attorney having met the criteria for certification set forth under Rule 1:39: Specialty Certification of Attorneys. He was appointed by the New Jersey Supreme Court to serve on the Supreme Court of New Jersey District XIII Ethics Committee for the years 2009 through 2011, during which time he served as both Chair and Vice Chair of the Committee.

Admitted to practice in all New Jersey Courts, as well as the U.S. District Courts, the Third Circuit Court of Appeals, and the U.S. Tax Court, Mr. Rotolo holds membership in both the Hunterdon County and Somerset County Bar Associations.

For more information on Victor Rotolo and his legal team at The Rotolo Law Firm, visit the Firms website at http://www.rotololawfirm.com.

[No aspect of this advertisement has been approved by the New Jersey Supreme Court.]
LISLE, Ill., March 31, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Eckrich, the makers of naturally hardwood smoked sausage and savory deli meats, partnered with WinCo Foods and Operation Homefront to honor a local military family on Friday. Eckrich surprised the Wayment family at WinCo Foods in Layton, Utah to honor and thank the family for their service.



A photo accompanying this announcement is available at http://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/9854df18-a9dd-4a72-8285-1ede45c55e62

When they arrived to the WinCo store, Eckrich surprised them with a grocery shopping spree. Then, at checkout, Eckrich provided the Wayment family with another surprise: free groceries for a year to WinCo Foods, a gift valued at more than $10,000.



Braden Wayment, a sergeant in the United States Army Reserves, served for 10 years. He was deployed during Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom, earning several medals and awards. He and his wife, Tiffany, have been married for six years and have two children. Tiffany is a member of Operation Homefront's Hearts of Valor program, a network of more than 3,000 caregivers of wounded service members which provides annual retreats, support groups, and online communities.

"We are so humbled by this gift," said Braden Wayment. "It has been a difficult transition back to civilian life, and this gift of groceries will make things easier on our family. We would like to thank Eckrich, WinCo Foods, and Operation Homefront for their support."

The surprise is part of the ongoing campaign by Eckrich to honor, thank, and support military families through its partnership with Operation Homefront. Eckrich, in its sixth year of partnership with Operation Homefront, has donated more than $2.5 million to the organization since 2012. Operation Homefront is a national nonprofit whose mission is to build strong, stable, and secure military families so they can thrive in the communities they have worked so hard to protect.



Eckrich is proud to continue to support military families across the country, said Jennifer Zmrhal, Smithfield Foods senior director of marketing. We appreciate the partnership from WinCo Foods and we are honored to present the Wayment family with a year of free groceries.

For more information about Eckrich, please visit www.eckrich.com or follow Eckrich on Facebook and Twitter.

Eckrich is a brand of Smithfield Foods.

About Eckrich

Founded by Peter Eckrich in 1894, Eckrich has a rich heritage starting from a small meat market in Fort Wayne, Ind. Through it all, Eckrich meats have been recognized for their great taste and supreme quality, craftsmanship, care and pride. For more information, visit www.eckrich.com.

About Smithfield Foods

Smithfield Foods is a $14 billion global food company and the world's largest pork processor and hog producer. In the United States, the company is also the leader in numerous packaged meats categories with popular brands including Smithfield, Eckrich, Nathan's Famous, Farmland, Armour, John Morrell, Cook's, Kretschmar, Gwaltney, Curly's, Margherita, Carando, Healthy Ones, Krakus, Morliny, and Berlinki. Smithfield Foods is committed to providing good food in a responsible way and maintains robust animal care, community involvement, employee safety, environmental and food safety and quality programs. For more information, visit www.smithfieldfoods.com.

About Operation Homefront

Founded in 2002, Operation Homefront is a national nonprofit organization whose mission is to build strong, stable, and secure military families so that they can thrive  not simply struggle to get by  in the communities they have worked so hard to protect. Recognized for superior performance by leading independent charity oversight groups, 92 percent of Operation Homefront expenditures go directly to programs that support tens of thousands of military families each year. Operation Homefront provides critical financial assistance, transitional and permanent housing and family support services to prevent short-term needs from turning into chronic, long-term struggles. Thanks to the generosity of our donors and the support from thousands of volunteers, Operation Homefront proudly serves Americas military families. For more information, go to www.OperationHomefront.org.
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TORONTO, March 31, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Mandalay Resources Corporation ("Mandalay" or the "Company") (TSX:MND) announces that it has filed its Annual Information Form for the year ended December 31, 2016. The Annual Information Form can be accessed under the Companys profile at www.sedar.com and on the Companys website at www.mandalayresources.com.

Mandalay has also filed updated National Instrument 43-101 ("NI 43-101") compliant technical reports documenting its recent work at its Costerfield gold-antimony mine in Australia and its Cerro Bayo silver-gold mine in Chile. These technical reports can be accessed under the Companys profile at www.sedar.com and on the Companys website at www.mandalayresources.com.

The Costerfield Technical Report was prepared by SRK Consulting (Australia) Pty Ltd., authored by Peter Fairfield, Principal Consultant, BEng (Mining), FAusIMM (No: 106754); Simon Walsh, BSc (Extractive Metallurgy), MBA Hons, CP, MAusIMM, GAICD and Danny Kentwell, MSc Mathematics and Planning (Geostatistics), FAusIMM, Principal Consultant, all independent Qualified Persons under NI 43-101, and filed on March 31, 2017.

The Cerro Bayo Technical Report was prepared by Roscoe Postle Associates Inc., authored by Normand L. Lecuyer, P.Eng. and Rosmery Julia Cardenas Barzola, P.Eng, both independent Qualified Persons under NI 43101, and filed on March 31, 2017.

Annual General and Special Meeting

Mandalays Annual General and Special Meeting will be held in Toronto at The Park Hyatt Hotel, 4 Avenue Rd, Toronto, on Thursday, May 11, 2017 at 9:00 am.

About Mandalay Resources Corporation:

Mandalay Resources is a Canadian-based natural resource company with producing assets in Australia, Chile, and Sweden, and a development project in Chile. The Company is focused on executing a roll-up strategy, creating critical mass by aggregating advanced or in-production gold, silver, and antimony projects in Australia, the Americas, and Europe to generate near-term cash flow and shareholder value.
Many readers may have an image of the Pied Piper of Hamelin conjured from the folktale made famous by the Brothers Grimm, or the popular poem by Robert Browning. But that image is surely nothing like the mysterious protagonist in Piper, the spooky graphic-novel retelling by Jay Asher (13 Reasons Why) and Jessica Freeburg and illustrated by Jeff Stokely (Razorbill, Oct.). We have an exclusive first look at the books cover and an interior scene.

In Asher and Freeburgs take on the German legend, a lonely deaf girl named Maggie, who dreams of finding her true love, falls hard for the Piper, who turns out to have a magical dark side. That darkness is largely what inspired the authors to develop this project.

They met roughly five years ago when Freeburg was a volunteer with the SCBWI chapter in her home state of Minnesota and Asher was invited to speak at one of the organizations conferences. They struck up a friendship and learned they had lots of common interests. We had a similar idea about the kinds of stories we were attracted to, Asher recalls, and we both like creepy stories. Freeburgs fascination with all things creepy even extends beyond writing to her paranormal research/ghost-hunting group Ghost Stories, Inc.

Over time, the duo hatched the idea of co-writing a screenplayindulging one of Ashers passions. Both authors were intrigued by the Pied Piper legend, especially when they started researching its rich history. We wanted to do a scary version, says Freeburg, and also incorporate a love story. And according to Asher, The more we dug into the history, it prompted more story ideas. There were things in the legend that were unexplained. How does he know to play the tunes he does? Why doesnt the town want to pay him? That left room for developing more of a story. We didnt want to change the legend, but wanted to fill in the gaps and expand on it.

According to Freeburg, they finished a screenplay version in just a few months. But upon completion, Asher says they both thought, Lets try something more in line with what we both do, and they shifted gears to recast it as a book.

Asher had previously co-written a novel, The Future of Us (Razorbill, 2011), with Carolyn Mackler. That project came in the wake of the massive success of his bestselling 2007 debut, Thirteen Reasons Why (Razorbill). It was a great experience working with a co-author, and it was a way to distance myself from my first novel, he says. The advent of the Piper project offered him not only a new writing partner, but a new format altogetherthe graphic novel. Freeburg says, Thats what made it fun; it was something we hadnt done before. It was really cool and less intimidating to work on this because it was new to both of us and we were figuring it out together. Asher adds, I was not embarrassed sharing bad ideas and having them shot down.

Taking on a graphic novel was also a new venture for Razorbill, as Piper is the imprints first foray into the format. The idea made perfect sense to executive editor Jessica Almon. Were always eager to work with Jay Asher, she says. He spends a lot of time talking to and listening to teens all over the country and is deeply in touch with what they want in a story. When he came to us with the idea for Piper, we were struck by the strength and clarity of his vision. He had all the pieces assembled: Jessica Freeburgs wonderfully dark sensibility, Jeff Stokelys lush yet accessible illustration style, the fresh take on an age old tale, and the hot new format. We were sold! Looking ahead, Almon notes that Razorbill is open to expanding in this arena. Theres no question that Jay has tapped into something with his venture into the graphic novel format, she says. Its a growing area for childrens books especially and we do hope to publish more down the road.

A Collaborative Trio

The actual co-writing process for the authors involved many hours talking on the phone, according to Asher, and a fluid division of labor. We would divvy up scenes so that whoever was most excited about it, or had a better handle on it, would start writing and then pass it off to the other person. They had some face-to-face working sessions, too, when Asher returned to Minnesota for a few speaking engagements along the way.

Because they had originally envisioned Piper as a film, Freeburg says she had very definite ideas of what the characters and setting would look like. We imagined Tim Burton-style, like Sleepy Hollow, she notes. To that end, the authors created a private Pinterest page where they could share ideas about the appearance of the costumes, musical instruments, and buildings of the era. Those saved images also served as a reference point for illustrator Stokely. Jeff was always our first choice to illustrate this, Asher says. Hes very creative in the way he lays out the pages; its extremely exciting. And he told me hes always wanted to do something with Germanic folklore. Freeburg is impressed with Stokelys interpretations, as well. Its been so amazing to see how closely [the illustrations] match what is in my brain, without Jeff having been in my brain!

As they wait for the world to see their new project this fall, Asher says Piper is not a one-off in terms of co-created endeavors with Freeburg. There are a couple of projects were working on, he says. Its been such a fun experience writing together and sharing ideas about storytelling. Freeburg concurs, adding, I pulled him over to the dark side. He likes to go ghost hunting now!

And Asher is also eagerly awaiting the March 31 premiere of the Netflix series adaptation of 13 Reasons Why. Ive seen the whole thing and its turned out incredibly; it really honored the book, he says, noting that the head writer was a fan of the novel. I hope thats the same case when Piper becomes a movie! he says.
A new bookstore will replace closed Booksellers at Laurelwood in Memphis; Dallas's Deep Vellum looking for second storefront; Casa Norberto Libros to open soon in Puerto Rico; and more.

Memphis to Get a Replacement for Closed Booksellers at Laurelwood: A group of investors will open a new bookstore on the site of the former Booksellers at Laurelwood. The space will be smaller, but employ much of the same staff. Opening is slated for mid-August.

Dallas' Deep Vellum Seeks Second Site, Wild Detectives Shifts Strategy: Deep Vellum Books is looking to open a new location in nearby Denton, Tex. this summer and Wild Detectives is shifting to a more tightly curated stocklist.

New Bookstore to Open in Puerto Rico: The Casa Norberto Libros & Cafebar bookstore will open on April 28. The 5,683 square-foot sell both Spanish and English language titles.

Taylor's Books in Charleston, W.V. Burglarized: A thief broke in at night and stole $1,500 worth of silver jewelry from the West Virginia store.

Martha's Vineyard's Bunch of Grapes Bookstore to Move: The bookstore is moving further up Main Street, where it has occupied several locations since it opened in 1964.
The first title published by the University of Regina Press became a bestseller and was named one of the most influential Canadian books of the past 25 years. Clearing the Plains: Disease, Politics of Starvation, and the Loss of Aboriginal Life by James Daschuk has sold 22,000 copies and helped put the Saskatchewan press on the map. URP was formed in June 2013 out of the ashes of the decades-old Canadian Plains Research Center Press, the University of Reginas former publisher.

Though URP is an upstart publisher, in the parlance of Bruce Walsh, Reginas publisher since its founding, that hasnt stopped it from publishing six Canadian bestsellers. In addition to Clearing the Plains, other bestsellers include The Education of Augie Merasty: A Residential School Memoir by Joseph A. Merasty, which sold 10,000 copies, and David Carpenter and Children of the Broken Treaty: Canadas Lost Promise and One Girls Dream by Charlie Angus, which has sold more than 7,000 copies. Both books were published in 2015, but they both continue to sell as if they are new, Walsh said.

More recently, the press had hits with Firewater by Harold Johnson, which looks at the destructive impact alcohol has had on indigenous communities and has sold nearly 10,000 copies. Speaking in Cod Tongues, which looks at Canadas multicultural culinary heritage, garnered a starred PW review and hit #1 in a range of categories on Amazon.ca.

A big part of our mission is to give voice to people who are often marginalized in our society, Walsh said. We are serious about this and have, for example, nearly 20 indigenous authors at this point on our roster. Indigenous issues are a big political issue: our history has been censored, and its now our job to tell the censored history of Canada.

Though publishing books about First Nations issues is still a focus for the press (it inherited a backlist of about 200 titles from CPRCP, including many indigenous-related titles), Walsh wants to expand URPs publishing profile. In particular, he has been vocal about his effort to establish a new model for academic publishing. Walsh believes that too much academic writing remains opaque to general readers: We are trying to change that by publishing academic books with more accessible language. We use a heavier editorial hand that, hopefully, helps them translate to a broader market, just as one would do in the trade.

To broaden URPs list,Walsh hasnt shied away from books that might be universal in subject matter but not to everyones taste. That has led URP to release books such as Reading from Behind: A Cultural Analysis of the Anus by Jonathan Allan and Virgin Envy: The (In)Significance of the Hymen by Allan, Cristina Santos, and Adriana Spahr. Walsh said these titles have attracted some of the strongest foreign rights interest, from Japan and the U.K., respectively.

Walsh is now on a mission to attract Canadian academics who have been publishing with American university presses to URP. In his frequent meetings with U.S. publishers, Walshs pitch is that if American university presses sell URP their Canadian rights, everyone will benefit. Many Canadian scholars publish with American university presses, but in doing so are missing out on the opportunity to advance their careers in their native land, he said. By publishing with us, as Canadians they are then eligible to apply for more awards, it will get them more references, and it will get them read, because they can take advantage of a truly local sales and marketing operations. We are able to sell 10 times as many books in Canada as an American publisher can.

Walsh pointed to Metis and the Medicine Line: Creating a Border and Dividing a People by Michel Hogue. Originally published by the University of North Carolina Press, the book sold only 200 copies in the U.S. When the book was republished by the URP in Canada, it was shortlisted for the Canada Prize (for a top book in the humanities), won the Clio Prize, and sold 1,200 copies.

The two publishers have plans for another collaboration, and Walsh said there are other titles in development with other publishers. Ultimately, were out to prove that you can do fantastic, amazing publishing from anywhereeven little Regina, Walsh said. There is a sense among many people that you have to be in Toronto or New York to be at the heart of publishing. We are publishing books that speak to our region, our country, and the entire world.
How ironic that I got to see the new National Geographic documentary, "Extreme Weather," on Tuesday  the same day President Trump signed an executive order to roll back former President Obamas climate-change efforts and revive the coal industry.

Though the phrases "climate change" or "global warming" are not uttered in the powerful film showing at the Putnam Museum's Giant Screen, director Sean Casey clearly intends to show us the devastating results wreaked by planet-warming carbon dioxide pollution. And coal plants have historically been a big source of that pollution.

Mr. Trump has made it clear that creating jobs is far more important than environmental protection. "Extreme Weather" does a stunning job of showcasing heroic efforts to fight forest fires, and understand the intensity and growth of glacier melts and tornadoes. It leaves for others to educate on why climate change happens and what we can do to slow it.

The gripping 40-minute film, narrated by Michael C. Hall ("Dexter"), brings audiences up close to the fury of Mother Nature at her most dangerous. It notes the earth's average temperatures have risen 1.5 degrees Fahrenheit during the last century, and even "seemingly small steps" have a "far-reaching impact."

More heat and humidity across lands and seas cause longer droughts, bigger forest fires, melting glaciers, more intense storms and contribute to rising sea levels and flooding. One hundred fifty million people lost their homes to extreme weather events (such as floods, fires, typhoons, tornadoes and hurricanes) worldwide in the past decade, the documentary says.

Eleven of the world's 15 largest cities are along an ocean coast. "Millions of people are affected by even modest increases in water levels," the film says.

We see how rising seas happen from colossal chunks of ice falling into the water in Alaska, making thunderous splashes and waves, creating small tsunamis. What's unusual is to see this happening more often, the film notes, and the aerial shots of the aqua-blue glaciers are breathtaking.

"Extreme Weather" shows National Geographic explorer Erin Pettit working with a team to calculate the rate of melting and estimate how much sea levels are rising.

We follow Oklahoma tornado researcher Justin Walker and his partner in a Tornado Intercept Vehicle, risking their lives to capture data as deadly tornadoes bear down toward them. We see dark, menacing clouds spreading across stormy skies and relentless, swirling tornadoes approaching.

Mr. Walker is in their terrifying midst, putting down "pods" on the side of roads, to measure the storm's biblical strength. The small town of Moore, Okla., has had the misfortune of suffering from four large tornadoes between 1999 and 2013, with winds more than 150 miles per hour, and we see people sifting the rubble after one such storm.

On the other extreme, lack of water hastens dry winds that can carry burning embers for miles, starting more fires, and dead, dry wood is ready to ignite. "Extreme Weather" is there on the edge of massive blazes in California, which firefighters battle in vain. Forest fires can create giant clouds called "pyro-cumulus" that even make their own lightning and spark more fires, the film says,

The film aims to link these three extreme weather events, demonstrating how a small change in one place can have effects elsewhere. "The more we learn about how earth's natural forces are interconnected, the better we can respond to our planet's extreme weather," Mr. Hall says.

"Extreme Weather" reflects Mr. Casey's lifelong immersion in the world of giant-screen nature documentaries.

I've always had a fascination with weather, he said in a promo release. We wanted to go into the field and capture incredible imagery. The 150-foot flames, the 400-foot wall of ice falling, the tornadoes  there's a majesty to all of that. The way I see it, 'Extreme Weather' lives at the crossroads of beauty and destruction.

Mr. Casey was at the Putnam last weekend, and the Tornado Intercept Vehicle he designed (and is featured in the film) will be in the Grand Lobby (you can climb inside) until April 19.

Movie admission is $8.50 for adults and $7.50 for youth (3-18 years). Members, seniors, college students, and military with ID get $1 off documentary admission. Giant Screen admission also can be added to a general-admission museum ticket for $5.

For more information on tickets and showtimes, call 563-324-1933 or visit Putnam.org.
The U.S. Navy Concert Band will perform Sunday at 2 p.m. at Centennial Hall, 3703 7th Ave., Rock Island  one of just 23 cities to host the band during its 2017 tour.

The Navy Concert Band, the premier wind ensemble of the U.S. Navy, presents a wide array of marches, patriotic selections, orchestral transcriptions and modern wind ensemble repertoire, according to a tour release. The band has been performing public concerts and participating in high-profile events for nearly 90 years.

One of the U.S. Navy Band's primary responsibilities is touring the country, the release said, noting all the band's primary performing units embark each year on concert tours  allowing the band to reach out to audiences in areas of the country that do not have opportunities to see the Navy's premier musical ensembles on a regular basis.

"For many years, Navy bands have been where it matters, when it matters, just like the rest of our Navy," Capt. Kenneth Collins, U.S. Navy Band commanding officer, said in the release. "Today, we have sailors performing around the world, improving relations with our allies abroad as well as telling the Navy story here at home."

The U.S. Navy Band is based at the Washington Navy Yard in Washington, D.C.

.

Sunday's concert is free, but to avoid overfilling the auditorium, tickets are required, with a limit of six per request. Tickets are available at the Augustana Ticket Office, 3703 7th Ave., Rock Island, from 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Friday, and 10 a.m.-2 p.m. Saturday.
IRVINE, Calif., March 31, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Khang & Khang LLP (the Firm) announces a class action lawsuit against USANA Health Sciences, Inc. (USANA or the Company) (NYSE:USNA). Investors who purchased or otherwise acquired shares between March 14, 2014 and February 7, 2017 inclusive (the Class Period), are encouraged to contact the Firm in advance of the April 14, 2017 lead plaintiff motion deadline.



If you purchased shares of USANA during the Class Period, please contact Joon M. Khang, Esquire, of Khang & Khang, 18101 Von Karman Avenue, 3rd Floor, Irvine, CA 92612, by telephone: (949) 419-3834, or by e-mail at joon@khanglaw.com.

There has been no class certification in this case. Until certification occurs, you are not represented by an attorney. You may choose to take no action and remain a passive class member.

The complaint alleges that during the Class Period, USANA made materially false and/or misleading statements and/or failed to disclose that: the Companys BabyCare Ltd. subsidiary engaged in improper reimbursement practices in China; that these practices constituted violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act; that the Companys China revenues were in part the product of unlawful conduct and unlikely to be sustainable; that the foregoing conduct was likely to subject the Company to significant regulatory scrutiny; and that as a result of the above, USANAs public statements were materially false and misleading at all relevant times. On February 7, 2017, USANA announced that [t]he Company is voluntarily conducting an internal investigation of its China operations, BabyCare Ltd. The investigation focuses on compliance with the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act...and certain conduct and policies at BabyCare, including BabyCares expense reimbursement policies. When this news was announced to the public, shares of USANA declined in value.

If you wish to learn more about this lawsuit, or if you have questions concerning this notice or your rights, please contact Joon M. Khang, a prominent litigator for almost two decades, by telephone: (949) 419-3834, or by e-mail at joon@khanglaw.com.

This press release may constitute Attorney Advertising in some jurisdictions.
CHICAGO (AP)  A federal judge has sentenced a Chicago-area man to 57 years behind bars for leading a crew of armed robbers that stole cellphones from multiple suburban stores in 2013.

Prosecutors say Eric Curtis led a spree of takeover-style robberies where they'd force workers and customers to back of stores at gunpoint. One government filing said victims could "suffer from the trauma" of the heists for as long as any sentence Curtis serves.

Jurors in Chicago convicted the 32-year-old from Park Forest last year on a range of counts, including conspiracy to commit robbery. A U.S. district judge sentenced Curtis Thursday. Seven other members of the crew have also pleaded guilty.

The robberies happened at stores in Addison, Norridge, Deerfield and Woodridge.
Id like to address the elephant in the room. That elephant being the Republican Party and their refusal to represent the majority of their constituents. Lets begin with stricter gun control (something that would help lessen the fears parents have when sending their children off to school), 53% of Americans favor this (Pew Research) yet the elephant in the room refuses to consider any such thing. Over 70% of Americans want stricter background checks yet again; the elephant in the room refuses to represent them. 61% of Americans say abortion should be legal. Again, the elephant in the room pushes laws that do the opposite. 74% of Americans do not want social security reduced in any way. But the elephant in the room pushes to do just the opposite, cut social security. 63% of Americans now prefer Medicare for all, but the elephant in the room fights it with all its might. 67% of Americans feel more needs to be done to reduce climate change, but not the elephant in the room. The elephant sides with the fossil fuel industry claiming its not a big concern. Given these few statistics (there are more like them) its obvious that the Republican Party is the party of minority rule, quite the opposite of what our founding fathers envisioned. The Republican Party has become a power cult, not a party that represents the majority of Americans. Remember this while you mark your ballot in this midterm election. Save Democracy! Vote Democratic!
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G'day! It's Murray here. I've put together a little quiz to test your musical knowledge. Think you can score top marks in Murray's Magic Music Quiz? Give it a go now!
CHARLOTTE, N.C., March 31, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- SmartSky Networks, LLC (SmartSky) announces the closing of over $170 million in a multi-tranche Series B financing, completing the equity funding for the deployment of its nationwide network. With this financing, the Company has raised approximately a quarter of a billion dollars in equity capital. Goldman, Sachs & Co. acted as exclusive placement agent on the transaction.



SmartSky is deploying the nations first 4G LTE-based broadband high speed wireless air-to-ground data network dedicated to providing airborne internet connectivity. At aviation industry conferences and in private meetings, SmartSky has conducted inflight demonstrations allowing partners and flight departments to experience a level of connectivity fully comparable to the internet experience in their office or home  a first for the industry. The nationwide network rollout is underway, with the vast majority of sites expected to be operational this fall.

We are pleased to have accomplished the threshold technical and business milestones needed to close on this major capital formation step, said Chairman and CEO Haynes Griffin. As a result, we are moving rapidly with the deployment of our coast-to-coast national network to bring users fast, seamless connectivity in the air.

Griffin added, A significant number of customers joined our Early Bird waiting list to secure their spot at the head of the line. SmartSky and its partners have already begun the process of obtaining a Supplemental Type Certification (STC) needed for installation on each aircraft model type. We expect Early Bird customer installs of our patented technology to commence next quarter, immediately following completion of the first few STCs.

A veteran of the telecommunications industry and past president of the Cellular Telephone Industry Association, Griffin, who has built cellular networks in locations across the United States, commented Cellular has built out everywhere. Now its time to build up.

ABOUT SMARTSKY NETWORKS

Headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina, SmartSky Networks was formed in 2011 by senior aviation and telecommunications executives seeking to transform aviation using disruptive communications technologies. Working with leading aerospace and technology partners, SmartSky is rolling out its innovative, air-to-ground network, SmartSky 4G LTE, later this year. The network takes advantage of patented spectrum reuse and advanced beamforming technologies combined with 60 MHz of spectrum for significantly enhanced connectivity. SmartSky 4G LTE delivers data to the aircraft with speeds comparable to next generation satellite solutions and provides unmatched speeds when getting data off the aircraft. A real-time bidirectional link without the latency of satellite systems means SmartSky 4G LTE is a key enabler for new and enhanced apps, services, and hardware.

HIGH-RESOLUTION IMAGES

May be downloaded at http://www.gretemangroup.com/press/smartsky-networks-financing/
Through the National Negotiation on Housing and Infrastructure, the Swedish government has been negotiating with Stockholm City Council, Stockholm County Council, and five municipalities in the city since February 2016 on how to sustainably accommodate future population growth.

Under the agreement, 100,370 apartments will be built by 2035 in parallel with a SKr 30.2bn ($US 3.4bn) investment in the public transport network, including SKr 5.1bn for rolling stock and depots. The funding includes grants from the state based on local commitments to housing and tackling congestion. Co-financing from municipalities is linked to the increase in the value of housing and finance from Stockholm County Council will be based on reduced travel times.

Rail projects include:

- a new six-station north-south metro line from Fridhemsplan to Alvsjo (SKr 12.6bn)

- a new southern light rail line from Alvsjo to Flemingsberg via Masmo, Skarholmen, and Fruangen (SKr 4.2bn)

- extension of the Roslagsbanan to Odenplan and T-Centralen station in the city centre (SKr 7.1bn), and

- an extra station at Tapiola on the new metro Yellow Line from Arenastaden to Hagastaden (SKr 1.2bn).

Work will begin on all four projects by 2026.

For detailed data on rail projects around the globe subscribe to IRJ Pro.
Siemens was awarded a 1.7bn contract by Rhine-Ruhr Transport Authority (VRR) in March 2015 to supply 82 of the four-car EMUs and maintain the fleet for 32 years.

The Desiro HC trains combine single-deck driving cars with double-deck intermediate vehicles. According to Siemens, the 105m-long RRX Desiro HC set with two double-deck cars will seat up to 420 passengers.

The five-line RRX network will introduce a consistently high-quality fast regional rail service to Germany's most densely-populated region, with trains running at 15-minute intervals on the core Dortmund - Cologne line at a maximum speed of 160km/h.

Delivery of the Desiro HC fleet is due to start next year and the trains will enter service when the RRX Concession begins in December 2018.

According to the tender, 71 trains will be required to operate the full timetable with the remaining sets covering maintenance.
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Imagine that the United States is hit by a cyberattack that takes down much of the U.S. financial infrastructure for several days. Internet sites of major banks are malfunctioning. ATMs are not working. Banks' internal accounting systems are going haywire. Millions of people are affected.

The first question that policymakers might debate is whether such an attack deserves a military response. But several problems immediately arise. First, would the U.S. governmentand specifically the National Security Agencyknow for certain who had conducted the attack?

Without being able to attribute the attack, or if there were some uncertainty about who was responsible, it would be very hard to strike back. Unlike conventional attacks, cyberattacks can be difficult to attribute with precision to specific actors. In the event of a major cyberattack, pressure to respond would be immediateand probably intense. But if a country strikes back and the forensics are erroneous, then the retaliation will have unnecessarily and inadvertently started a war.

Mostalthough not allanalysts agree that cyber will be a key domain in the conflicts of the future.

Russia's alleged meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential elections has brought the issue of cyberwar again to the top of the news, but the possibilities it raises are only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the role of cyber operations in modern warfare. Mostalthough not allanalysts agree that cyber will be a key domain in the conflicts of the future. Exactly how cyber will impact these future conflicts, however, is hard to say with any certainty. Cyber weapons are not like missiles or tanks; because their initial impact is in the information domain, their effects are much harder to judge.

Even in cases where an attack is linked to one specific countrysay, Russiait could be hard to know for sure whether it was directed by the Russian government.

This is because governments like the Russian government appear to rely heavily on third parties to develop their cyber weapons and conduct their attacks. This offers them many benefitsdeniability being one of thembut it also offers them less control over what their cyber warriors actually docreating a so called principle agent problem.

In other words, an attack that originates from within the Russian cyber world might be the work of the Kremlinor it might not. This further complicates the choice of response.

Sometimes, the culprit will be clear, of course. But in these cases, the question is how, specifically, to respond.

Some advisors might push for a cyber counter-attack that inflicts equal damage on the guilty party. But this isn't always possible. If the perpetrator is a party like North Korea, then there is no equivalent financial system to target. But should the United States instead use conventional military weapons like a cruise missile, perhaps on Pyongyang's cyber training facilities? A strike like that would clearly risk serious escalation of the conflict. It might be seen as disproportionate if the U.S. financial system had recovered in the interim with relatively minimal real damage.

Imagine, however, that the attack is against the U.S. power grid or oil and gas infrastructure. This kind of attack could easily have military consequences if it were extensive. The U.S. military has backup power generation capability as well as stocks of fuel reserves, but these stores are not infinite. If such an attack on U.S. infrastructure has military consequences, the case for a cyber retaliationor even a Tomahawk cruise missile strikestarts looking a lot stronger.

Even if the U.S. power grid were seriously affected by a cyberattack, however, and the United States knew with a high degree of confidence who the guilty party was, there would be reasons for cautionespecially if the attack was an isolated incident and there were no other signs of aggression or malign intent.

This is because cyberattacks can have unanticipated consequences. With any military strike, collateral damage is always possible, but with most conventional attacks, methods of assessing and avoiding collateral damage are well-developed, and based on well-established physics principles and observational experience.

But cyber weapons don't operate like missiles or tanks. They attack the underlying network or computer systems. The possibility of unexpected effects in the cyber world is much greater.

For example, a cyberattack on an electrical grid might be intended to knock out the lights in a specific location, but end up affecting a whole region's energy supply. The world saw this potential with the Stuxnet worm: Apparently intended for a very specific, isolated network (an Iranian control system), the worm was discovered precisely because it spread beyond its intended target into other related networked systems. Stuxnet did not attack other control systems, but only because the designers programmed in a self-destruct date. If the designers had been less cautious, its effects would have been much more widespread.

Therefore, before targeting a cruise missile at that (hypothetical) cyber hub in Pyongyang, the U.S. president would want to have at least some knowledge of both the intentions of the attacker and the consequences (including secondary effects) of the responseotherwise the United States might be starting a war by accident.

But a desperate foreign leader might miscalculate that he can get away with a surreptitious attack on U.S. infrastructure for exactly these reasonsand that in and of itself is cause for concern.

It's relatively easy to assess the damage done by an attack on America's infrastructure, but less easy to assess the intent of that attack.

This is why context will make a big difference. It's relatively easy to assess the damage done by an attack on America's infrastructure, but less easy to assess the intent of that attack. If the U.S. power grid is seriously disrupted by a cyberattack during an ongoing war with a known aggressor it will be much easier to strike backwith kinetic (i.e. physical) force or with cyber weaponssimply because it will be easy to assume the attack was intentional.

Alternatively, a fearful foreign leader might lash out at the United States if she or he fears the United States is on the verge of conducting a devastating cyberattack. The hostility might come in the form of a massive, pre-emptive cyberattack, a conventional attack, or in the extreme, even a nuclear salvo.

Since the ability to mount cyberattacks depends on keeping targeted vulnerabilities secret, both sides may fear that their adversaries possess capabilities that have far-reaching destructive potentialeven when they don't. This fear in turn could increase the tendency toward pre-emptive action and hence escalation.

Cyber adds new and significant uncertainty to warfare, making it difficult both to deter and respond. It will take time and a great deal more research and analysis before the problem is fully understood.

Christopher S. Chivvis is associate director of the nonprofit, nonpartisan RAND International Security and Defense Policy Center. Cynthia Dion-Schwarz is a senior scientist and the Manager of Cyber and Data Sciences Programs at the nonprofit, nonpartisan RAND Corporation.

This essay is part of an Inquiry, produced by the Berggruen Institute and Zocalo Public Square, on what war looks like in the cyber age.

Commentary gives RAND researchers a platform to convey insights based on their professional expertise and often on their peer-reviewed research and analysis.
LOS ANGELES, March 31, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Lundin Law PC, a shareholder rights firm, announces a class action lawsuit against Omega Protein Corporation ("Omega" or the "Company) (NYSE:OME). Investors who purchased or otherwise acquired Omega shares between August 3, 2016 and March 1, 2017 inclusive (the "Class Period"), are encouraged to contact the firm in advance of the May 1, 2017 lead plaintiff deadline.



To participate in this class action lawsuit, click here, or call Brian Lundin, Esquire, of Lundin Law PC, at 888-713-1033, or e-mail him at brian@lundinlawpc.com.

No class has been certified in the above action yet. Until certification occurs, you are not represented by an attorney. You may choose to take no action and remain a passive class member.

According to the Complaint, during the Class Period, Omega made false and/or misleading statements and/or failed to disclose that: the SEC is requesting information for an investigation relating to the Company subsidiary's compliance with its probation terms and Omega's protection of whistleblower employees; that it is possible that the foregoing matter could have a material adverse effect on Omega's business, reputation, results of operation and financial condition; and that as a result of the above, the Company's statements about its business, operations and prospects were materially false and misleading and/or lacked a reasonable basis at all relevant times.

Lundin Law PC was established by Brian Lundin, a securities litigator based in Los Angeles dedicated to upholding shareholders' rights.

This press release may be considered Attorney Advertising in some jurisdictions under the applicable law and ethical rules.
Investigators press charges against suspects in Russian Presidents residence fraud

MOSCOW, March 31 (RAPSI)  Investigators have officially brought charges against Andrey Kaminov, director of the state-run enterprise Atecks, and his alleged accomplices in a case over embezzlement of 225 million rubles (about $4 million) allocated for the construction of the Presidential residence in Novo-Ogaryevo (Moscow Region), RAPSI learnt from lawyer Alexey Kasatkin on Friday.

Kaminov is charged with a large-scale fraud committed by an organized criminal group.

Russias Investigative Committee has initiated and is currently investigating a criminal case against a criminal gang over a large-scale embezzlement of state funds allocated for the execution of various construction projects of federal importance.

Atecks former first deputy director Stanislav Kyuner, former head of Stroyfasad contractor Sergey Litvinov and head of another contractor firm Dmitry Torchinsky were charged with participation in an organized criminal group and committing a large-scale fraud. Entrepreneurs Sergey Perevalov and Alexander Rodionov were charged with committing a large-scale fraud.

The case is investigated by the Investigative Committee in collaboration with the Federal Security Service (FSB) and the Federal Guard Service (FSO). All six defendants in this case have been detained by the Basmanny District Court until May 21.
Ex-police officer charged with taking bribe from notorious Russian gang goes on trial

MOSCOW, March 31 (RAPSI)  Former police officer from the Moscow Region Vadim Shavlokhov will stand trial on charges of receiving $100,000 in bribes from members of a gang allegedly involved in multiple murders, Alexander Kurennoy, a spokesman for Russias Prosecutor Generals Office, told journalists on Friday.

Indictment has been approved in the case against Shavlokhov and sent to the Zamoskvoretsky District Court of Moscow for hearing, according to Kurennoy.

Shavlokhov has been charged with abuse of office and taking a large-scale bribe. According to investigation, in 2013, Shavlokhov, then major case detective of the Interior Ministrys Criminal Investigation Department, gave Aslan Gagiyev, an alleged leader of the organized-crime syndicate, a document containing information on his criminal gang for $100,000.

Russian investigators claim that Georgian-born Aslan Gagiyevs gang has been operating since 2004 and includes over 50 members.

Members of the gang have reportedly committed more than 60 murders in Moscow and North Ossetia, including murders of officials, law enforcement officers and businessmen.

Eighteen members of the gang have already received long prison terms; two of them have been sentenced to life.

Gagiyev who was arrested in Austria in January 2015 faces life sentence in Russia. On March 3, 2016, the Austrian court released him on bail of EUR 100 because hearing of extradition cases against him ran over time.
NEW YORK, March 31, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Pomerantz LLP announces that a class action lawsuit has been filed against INSYS Therapeutics, Inc. (Insys or the Company) (NYSE:INSY) and certain of its officers. The class action, filed in United States District Court, Southern District of New York, and docketed under 17-cv-01954, is on behalf of a class consisting of all persons or entities who purchased or otherwise acquired Insys securities between February 23, 2016 and March 15, 2017 both dates inclusive (the Class Period), seeking to recover compensable damages caused by defendants violations of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934.

If you are a shareholder who purchased Insys securities during the Class Period, you have until May 16, 2017 to ask the Court to appoint you as Lead Plaintiff for the class. A copy of the Complaint can be obtained at www.pomerantzlaw.com. To discuss this action, contact Robert S. Willoughby at rswilloughby@pomlaw.com or 888.476.6529 (or 888.4-POMLAW), toll free, ext. 9980. Those who inquire by e-mail are encouraged to include their mailing address, telephone number, and number of shares purchased.

[Click here to join this class action]

Insys, a specialty pharmaceutical company, develops and commercializes supportive care products. The Company markets Subsys, a sublingual fentanyl spray for breakthrough cancer pain in opioid-tolerant cancer patients in the United States. Its lead product candidate is Syndros, an orally administered liquid formulation of dronabinol. The Company is also developing Cannabidiol Oral Solution, a synthetic cannabidiol for childhood catastrophic epilepsy syndromes; and other product candidates, including other dronabinol line extensions and sublingual spray product candidates.

The Complaint alleges that throughout the Class Period, Defendants made materially false and/or misleading statements, as well as failed to disclose material adverse facts about the Companys business, operations, and prospects. Specifically, Defendants made false and/or misleading statements and/or failed to disclose that: (i) Insys had overstated its 2015 net revenue; (ii) Insys had misstated its sales allowances for 2016; (iii) accordingly, the Company lacked effective internal controls over financial reporting; and (iv) as a result of the foregoing, Insyss public statements were materially false and misleading at all relevant times.

On March 15, 2017, post-market, Insys announced that it would delay the release of its financial results for the quarter and year ended December 31, 2016. Insys advised investors that [t]he Audit Committee of the Companys Board of Directors has been conducting an independent review of the Companys processes related to estimation of, and increases to, certain sales allowances recorded during 2016, with a potential reduction of 2015 net revenue and pre-tax income not expected to exceed $5 million, as well as extended payment terms offered to certain customers during the third quarter of 2016.

On this news, Insyss share price fell $0.49, or 4.64%, to close at $10.06 on March 16, 2017.

The Pomerantz Firm, with offices in New York, Chicago, Florida, and Los Angeles, is acknowledged as one of the premier firms in the areas of corporate, securities, and antitrust class litigation. Founded by the late Abraham L. Pomerantz, known as the dean of the class action bar, the Pomerantz Firm pioneered the field of securities class actions. Today, more than 80 years later, the Pomerantz Firm continues in the tradition he established, fighting for the rights of the victims of securities fraud, breaches of fiduciary duty, and corporate misconduct. The Firm has recovered numerous multimillion-dollar damages awards on behalf of class members. See www.pomerantzlaw.com
U.S. President Donald Trumps first budget blueprint proposes deep funding cuts for the United States Agency for International Development, the largest provider of U.S. economic foreign aid. Trumps stated objective is to save money and do more good for those who need help most. If the president wants to reach his goal of allowing the United States to retain its current status as top donor while saving taxpayer dollars, a prudent diplomatic goal, he should eliminate tied aid, scale back the number of aid recipients, and cut ties with countries that violate human rights.

First, the president should eliminate all tied foreign aid -- assistance that must be spent by the recipient country on goods and services supplied by the donor country. Such rigidity drastically increases the cost of foreign aid, by as much as 30 percent -- especially when it comes to food. For example, current law states that 50 percent of all U.S. food aid must be carried by U.S. flagged shipping vessels. In 2015, the Government Accountability Office estimated that this restriction increased the cost of shipping food by $107 million between 2011 and 2014. In other words, tied aid means the donor -- U.S. taxpayers, in this case -- has to spend more on aid to accomplish the same goal that untied aid could accomplish.

Second, the president should support distributing foreign aid only to countries in true economic need. This would dramatically reduce the number of countries receiving economic aid, allowing USAID to focus its resources where they can do the most good. If the United States focused its foreign aid on countries classified by the World Bank as low-income economies, it would distribute aid in 31 countries, rather than the 158 countries were sending aid to today. For example, USAID is sending $295 million to South Africa, an upper-middle-income country, and only $49 million to Chad, a country stuck in desperate poverty. And while USAID is spending $59 million in Mexico, another upper-middle-income country, it sends only $17 million to nearby Nicaragua, a country of far less prosperity.

Lastly, Trump should insist on a Leahy-style amendment for foreign aid. The Leahy Amendment prohibits any military assistance to parties who are guilty of human-rights violations. The same standard should apply to foreign aid, which is designed to promote human development and humanitarian purposes. Adopting this type of restriction on who can receive aid encourages accountability, both in terms of who is eligible for aid and how USAID distributes the aid. The loss of aid, which for some countries would be substantial, would be a powerful incentive for better behavior. For example, in 2015, South Sudan received $618 million in economic aid, about 7 percent of their total gross income, even though ethnic cleansing remains an ongoing problem.

While these reforms would improve how the United States distributes aid, there are many special interests who benefit from the status quo. Former presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama both tried to reform foreign-aid practices, only to meet a wall of opposition. Eliminating tied aid will probably be the most controversial of the above reforms because the benefits would be felt widely -- mostly by foreign aid recipients -- while the costs would be concentrated domestically. U.S. shipping interests in particular are sure to complain if the law were changed to allow more foreign shipping of food aid. But cronyism is cronyism, and its even worse if it comes at the expense of the worlds poorest individuals.

Despite the potential opposition, President Trump has the opportunity to reform U.S. aid practices that will save money for American taxpayers and make aid more beneficial to those who need the most help. Thats a win-win both sides of the political aisle should be able to get behind.
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NEW YORK, March 31, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Pomerantz LLP announces that a class action lawsuit has been filed against The Toronto-Dominion Bank (TD Bank or the Company) (NYSE:TD) and certain of its officers. The class action, filed in United States District Court, District of New Jersey, and docketed under 17-cv-01735, is on behalf of a class consisting of all persons or entities who purchased or otherwise acquired TD Bank securities between December 3, 2015 and March 9, 2017 both dates inclusive (the Class Period), seeking to recover compensable damages caused by defendants violations of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934.



If you are a shareholder who purchased TD Bank securities during the Class Period, you have until May 11, 2017 to ask the Court to appoint you as Lead Plaintiff for the class. A copy of the Complaint can be obtained at www.pomerantzlaw.com. To discuss this action, contact Robert S. Willoughby at rswilloughby@pomlaw.com or 888.476.6529 (or 888.4-POMLAW), toll free, ext. 9980. Those who inquire by e-mail are encouraged to include their mailing address, telephone number, and number of shares purchased.

[Click here to join this class action]

The Toronto-Dominion Bank conducts a general banking business through banking branches and offices located throughout Canada and overseas. The Bank and other subsidiaries offer a broad range of banking, advisory services, and discount brokerage to individuals, businesses, financial institutions, governments, and multinational corporations.

The Complaint alleges that throughout the Class Period, Defendants made materially false and/or misleading statements, as well as failed to disclose material adverse facts about the Companys business, operations, and prospects. Specifically, Defendants made false and/or misleading statements and/or failed to disclose that: (i) the Companys wealth asset growth and increased fee-based revenue was spurred by a performance management system that led to its employees breaking the law at their customers expense in order to meet sales targets; (ii) the Company illicitly increased customers lines of credits and overdraft protection amounts without their knowledge; (iii) the Company illicitly upgraded customers to higher-fee accounts without permission; (iv) the Company lied to customers as to the risk of the Companys products and services; and (v) as a result of the foregoing, TD Banks public statements were materially false and misleading at all relevant times.

On March 6, 2017, CBC News published a report based on interviews with several TD Bank Group employees, who spoke about the incredible pressure to squeeze profits from customers by signing them up for products and services they dont need.

On March 10, 2017, CBC News published a more detailed second report, where it reported that hundreds of current and former employees had responded to the first CBC report with additional stories of pressure to upsell customers.

On this news, TD Banks share price fell $2.74, or 5.29%, to close at $49.03 on March 10, 2017.

The Pomerantz Firm, with offices in New York, Chicago, Florida, and Los Angeles, is acknowledged as one of the premier firms in the areas of corporate, securities, and antitrust class litigation. Founded by the late Abraham L. Pomerantz, known as the dean of the class action bar, the Pomerantz Firm pioneered the field of securities class actions. Today, more than 80 years later, the Pomerantz Firm continues in the tradition he established, fighting for the rights of the victims of securities fraud, breaches of fiduciary duty, and corporate misconduct. The Firm has recovered numerous multimillion-dollar damages awards on behalf of class members. See www.pomerantzlaw.com




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It's not exactly the EM-50 Urban Assault Vehicle and not precisely the A-Team van, but it's getting close.

RECOIL guest contributor Sara Liberte has been updating and upgunning her as-yet-unnamed 2017 GMC Savana. She'll be using to conduct not even remotely clandestine, high-speed-low-drag special video-photographic operations across the country. Her previous vehicle, the Dodge Mahal (a 2003 Dodge Ram) was beginning to show the wear of traveling from East coast to West coast, from Canada to Mexico, and all the side jaunts between.

Our partners at OFFGRID reported on this not too long ago here, probably because they (like we) are going to be helping her out.

From a shooting deck on top to its grid-down comms, the Liberte Battle Van (a temporary name only) is going to be one hell of a ride.

The rebuild began with a window tint job (black, to deter peeping perverts) by West Virginia's Pro Tint, then moved to Clever Crow Fab in Stillwater, Oklahoma (Go Pokes!) to sort the interior. CCF's David Adams is currently working emplacing a complete Design Engineering Boom Mat interior to improve interior sound quality (it absorbs unwanted noise and soundwaves). This will drastically improve audio performance during production efforts (and travel) by eliminating road noise, mitigating engine sounds, and dampening vibrations that tunnel and surround audio output.

Says Liberte,

The DEI mat will aid in filtering the distortion caused by audio waves from both low and high decibel frequencies or from bass vibrations, road rattle and engine noise that can disrupt the sound waves we would rather hear, ya know like some Hank 3 as I'm tearin' ass down the road. Speakers? Oh, we we'll get to that!

Some other companies involved in the build:

Aluminess  Off-road bumpers, roof racks, ladders

Design Engineering  Insulation and noise-dampening

Norcold  Mobile refrigeration

ShotLock  Locking gun storage

Truck Vault  Storage for valuable photo equipment and other gear

Zamp Solar  Power for Saras laptop, cameras, and electronics

We'll keep you to date as our build progresses (as will OFFGRID) but you can follow her progress on Instagram if you'd care to, @saralibertephotography. There's a lot left to do, including the sourcing and installation of an exterior awning for when she goes firm at a location, LED lighting, closed system wench, a water purifier, backup generator, weapon storage, and maybe a 4 x 4 conversionplus whatever other ideas we can scrounge up watching Garage Monkey TV, Dirt Every Day, and the WARN channel, or just stalking Joe on Instagram.

At this point there are no plans for hillbilly armor or a crew-served weapon cupola (since we're not entirely sure we need to make it apocalypse-proof), but the build is young!

More as we get it.

Cover image by Jens Fielder.
Porterville, CA (93257)

Today

Partly cloudy this evening followed by increasing clouds with showers developing after midnight. Low near 50F. Winds ESE at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 40%..

Tonight

Partly cloudy this evening followed by increasing clouds with showers developing after midnight. Low near 50F. Winds ESE at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 40%.
Agra, Shimla, Nanded, Kanpur and Jamshedpur are among the many airports that would see connectivity under Udan.

The government on Thursday said it was close to resolving a dispute with major Indian carriers over levying regional connectivity charges.

It also unveiled a list of successful bidders and routes under the scheme, called Udan.

Five operators will operate on 128 routes and connect 70 airports, most of which are not well connected by airlines now.

This is a unique scheme, which is completely market-driven, Jayant Sinha, minister of state for civil aviation, said.

Through a corpus of only Rs 205 crore, we will create around 1.3 million seats, which will kick-start the underdeveloped regional aviation market.

Agra, Shimla, Nanded, Kanpur and Jamshedpur are among the many airports that would see connectivity under Udan. Experts have said the scheme has good business propositions.

Successful bidders

Alliance Air

SpiceJet

Air Deccan

Air Odisha

TruJet (Turbo Megha)



On the flightpath

No. of routes: 128

Total airports: 70

Prime routes: Delhi-Kanpur; Delhi-Shimla; Delhi-Agra; Mumbai-Porbander; Kolkata-Jamshedpur

Major established players such as Alliance Air (subsidiary of state-owned Air India) and Ajay Singh-owned SpiceJet emerged as successful bidders, along with lesser known players such as Air Odisha and Truejet.

G R Gopinaths (known as Captain Gopinath) Air Deccan, which pioneered low-cost travel in India, made a comeback through the scheme to connect 15 airports.

Civil aviation secretary Rajiv Nayan Choubey said Udan would leapfrog Indias aviation sector. From a rate of one airport annually, we have leapfrogged to connecting 33 airports in a single year, Choubey said, adding the routes have a uniform spread across the country.

The process saw intensive bidding for prime routes. For instance, SpiceJet outbid Alliance Air for the Delhi-Kanpur route, which Air India was operating till today. Its a great day for Indian aviation, said Amber Dubey, India head of aerospace & defence at global consultancy KPMG.

This will give a huge fillip to investments, tourism and job creation in the interiors of India.

Good to see that the regional connectivity scheme routes are spread out across all corners of the country. Operators should try and synchronise their schedules and enter into code-share agreements with larger carriers.

The Udan scheme offers 50 per cent subsidy to airlines on these routes, route monopoly for three years and a host of other concessions at landing airports. It expects the airlines to cap fares at Rs 2,500 a seat an hour rate on regional flights.

On the tussle with airlines over levying regional connectivity charges, the minister said: We are very close to a solution over this matter. We had multiple rounds of discussion with the airlines and the issue will be resolved soon.

The Federation of Indian Airlines - which consists of IndiGo, SpiceJet, Jet Airways and GoAir, and has around 80 per cent market share - had moved court contesting that the government had no authority to impose a levy in the nature of tax on air services.

Major airlines opposing the governments move had put a question on the viability of the scheme and the government found it difficult to mop up fund to set up a corpus for Udan.

Photograph: Andrew Winning/Reuters
The company currently controls over 30 per cent of the online smartphone market in the country, but says that isn't enough.

China's Xiaomi is struggling to meet India's fast growing demand for smartphones even as its second local manufacturing facility set up in partnership with Foxconn will go online in the next few months.

While Xiaomi's new manufacturing plant will help it boost local production to 95 per cent of all smartphones it sells in India, it says the demand for its affordable devices will still outstrip supply in the near term.

"In the next one year, we need to solve the supply issue. I think two factories are not enough, we need to start working on the third. That might take another year or two, so we need to start working on it early," said Lei Jun, co-founder and chief executive of Xiaomi.

While Jun boasted of the company's success in India, he said being able to sell devices only once a month in sales that last as little as four minutes was hurting the company.

While millions of Indians are using Xiaomi devices, millions of other customers are disgruntled by the lack of devices.

Xiaomi sells 90 per cent of its devices in India via its own e-commerce website and in partnership with Flipkart and Amazon. The company currently controls over 30 per cent of the online smartphone market in the country, but says that isn't enough.

"Online we still don't have a super-dominant market share. Both Flipkart and Amazon wants stocks from us and we're in severe shortage. Even though the numbers are huge, we're not there yet. In China at one point of time we were more than 50 per cent of the online market share," added Jun.

However, unlike in China, the company isn't waiting as long to make its devices available offline in India.

Competitors Oppo and Vivo have beaten Xiaomi in China by largely executing more robust offline strategies. Like Xiaomi, those companies have also set their eyes on India and are largely looking to replicate their Chinese strategy to win here.

In order to get an upper hand, Xiaomi says it will open its first offline stores in India this year deploying its Mi Home concept that it is still experimenting with in China.

The company say Mi Home, which serves as experience centres for all Xiaomi products, will allow it to match the efficiency of online sales while still making products available offline.

"India's traditional offline costs are very high and efficiency is very low. You need to hire a lot of promoters, you need to give stores big margins, you need to hire Bollywood stars and advertise everywhere.

Users are buying phones and not advertising, so don't you think that's wrong?" said Jun.

He wants to avoid charging customers double the money for phones if sold offline and was focused on bringing in efficiency to lower costs.

Apart from this, the company is also working with offline smartphone vendors and is investing heavily in scaling up its own distribution as it looks to save money in doing business offline.

While Xiaomi will only begin sinking its teeth into India's offline smartphone market this year, it's confident it can grow sales by 100 per cent close to $2 billion in India this year.

Photograph: Pichi Chuang/Reuters
Besides the polarisation in favour of the BJP, there could be other reasons for the under-representation of Muslims in the UP assembly, says Shafeeq Rahman.

Image: Muslim voters at a polling booth in Varanasi. Photograph: Adnan Abidi/Reuters.

The absence of Muslim names from the Bharatiya Janata Partys candidates list and allocation of 100 tickets to Muslims by the Bahujan Samaj Party had foretold well before the election results that these parties performance would determine the shape of Muslim representation in the new Uttar Pradesh assembly.

The BJPs massive victory, winning 321 seats, has obviously reduced Muslim representation to its lowest level in the state after the year 1991. The division of votes between the Samajwadi Party-Congress alliance and BSP further marred the prospects of adequate representation for the community.

The newly-elected assembly has only 24 Muslims, marking a 5.9% representation in a house of 403, much lower than their 19% composition of the states total population.

The last assembly had 69 Muslim members (a 17% representation, close to their share of population). The representation of Muslim women is also at its worst; not a single member despite their 9% share in the states population.

Muslim representation in the western region (10%) is above the states mean, but Awadh and the eastern region have only 4% representation each. Bundelkhand has a negligible presence of Muslims (7%), so no Muslim was elected from the region.

Interestingly, some districts with a lower population ratio have succeeded in sending more Muslim MLAs. The Muslim share in Azamgarh district is only 15.6% but their representation level is 30%, with the election of three Muslim MLAs from the district.

Bareilly and Balrampur are among the most disappointing districts, with both not electing a single Muslim representative in this election despite having a Muslim population of 38% and 35% respectively.

Literacy and awareness could have played an important role towards political empowerment, as Azamgarh with 77% literacy rate is among the top Muslim literate districts in the state, whereas the Muslim literacy rate in Bareilly and Balrampur are 47% and 48% respectively, according to the 2011 estimates.

Moradabad and Rampur, with a literacy rate of under 50%, achieved an appropriate representation for the community.

The highest number of Muslims (17) was from the Samajwadi Party, constituting a 36% share of the partys 47 MLAs. The BSP, which put 100 Muslim contestants, was able to win only 5 seats for them, a poor strike rate of 5%. Out of seven Congress winners, two are Muslim. In spite of mounting a hyped-up campaign, Muslim parties like the All India Majlis e Ittihadul Muslimeen, Peace Party and Muslim League failed to secure a single seat.

Besides the polarisation in favour of the BJP, there could be other reasons for the under-representation of Muslims too, like intra-caste tussles in the community, mainly in the western region; multiple Muslim candidates in areas with a concentration of the community; low poll percentage among Muslims; the poor performance of sitting Muslim MLAs; and the lack of universal acceptability of Muslim candidates among other communities.

The positive from this election is that most of the elected members are grass-root leaders who have won due to their own image. Hopefully, they would perform well, ensure the welfare of their constituency and try to fulfil the communitys expectations.

Heres an analysis of the level of their representation in the last two assembly elections, across districts and regions of the state with a Muslim population above 20%:

Representation of Muslims in THE last two UP assembly elections District Muslim

population % No of seats Seats won by

Muslims Muslim

representation % 2017 2012 2017 2012 Rampur 50.6 5 3 3 60.0 60.0 Moradabad 47.1 9 5 6 55.6 66.7 Bijnor 43.0 8 1 3 12.5 37.5 Saharanpur 42.0 7 1 0 14.3 0.0 Muzaffarnagar 41.3 9 1 3 11.1 33.3 Ilyotiba Phule Nagar 40.8 4 1 3 25.0 75.0 Balrampur 37.5 4 0 2 0.0 50.0 Bareilly 34.5 9 0 3 0.0 33.3 Meerut 34.4 7 1 2 14.3 28.6 Bahraich 33.5 7 1 2 14.3 28.6 Shrawasti 30.8 2 1 1 50.0 50.0 Siddharthnagar 29.2 5 0 1 0.0 20.0 Baghpat 28.0 3 0 0 0.0 0.0 Ghaziabad 25.4 8 1 2 12.5 25.0 Pilibhit 24.1 4 0 1 0.0 25.0 Sant Kabir Nagar 23.6 3 0 1 0.0 33.3 Barabanki 22.6 6 0 1 0.0 16.7 Bulandshahr 22.2 7 0 2 0.0 28.6 Budaun 21.5 7 0 2 0.0 28.6 Lucknow 21.5 9 0 1 0.0 11.1 Kheri 20.1 8 0 0 0.0 0.0 Mau 19.4 4 1 1 25.0 25.0 Sultanpur 17.1 8 1 1 12.5 12.5 Kanpur Nagar 15.7 10 2 1 20.0 10.0 Azamgarh 15.6 10 3 4 30.0 40.0 Allahabad 13.4 12 1 3 8.3 25.0 Western Region 27.0 136 14 33 10.3 24.3 Awadh Region 18.5 118 5 15 4.2 12.7 Bundelkhand 7.2 19 0 0 0.0 0.0 Eastern Region 13.6 130 5 21 3.8 16.2 Uttar Pradesh 19.3 403 24 69 6.0 17.1

Shafeeq Rahman is a Delhi-based researcher. He can be contacted at rahman.shafeeq@gmail.com.
A public blacklist that bars you from flying for a certain period -- based on the severity of your offence -- could in fact deter others from behaving badly, says Anjuli Bhargava.

Illustrations: Uttam Ghosh/Rediff.com

I dont know how many readers remember Jitender Mohla who managed, a few years ago, to create a commotion both in the air and on the ground with his antics on-board an IndiGo flight.



Mohla claimed he belonged to an unheard of terrorist group, said he was armed and that he was carrying a pouch of needles that had the power to sedate those pricked.

He said he planned to hijack the flight and claimed to have accomplices on board.

In a situation like this -- where no chances can be taken -- things swung into action on the ground.

The then prime minister, home minister and others in charge of security were informed.

The cabinet secretary held an emergency meeting.

Besides the panic it spread among the crew and passengers, a lot of time, effort and money was wasted for something that turned out to be a false alarm.

Mohlas may have been an extreme instance but incidents of unruly behaviour on flights are a common problem both in India and overseas.

More recently, GoAir offloaded a female passenger who for some inexplicable reason threw her handbag on another passenger and pushed others to enter the aircraft first. She claimed to be a celebrity -- perhaps to justify her actions.

While this may seem like a minor misdemeanour, in a highly repressed society as ours, these incidents quite often have a sexual overtone, making them even more unpalatable.

More recently, an Air India hostess suffered at the hands of a passenger who went so far as to touch her and passed lewd comments. There have been at least two or three instances of passengers performing lewd acts in front of stewardesses while airborne.



At times, incidents have turned quite ugly, involving more than one passenger and have frightened the crew and passengers on board.

I remember one instance a few years ago when all hell broke loose on an IndiGo flight when five men molested, abused and misbehaved with four air hostesses, after being refused alcohol -- something that is not served as a rule on domestic flights. The fact that it involved a group of men instead of a single passenger made it all the more intimidating and harder to control.

Its not as if such incidents are restricted to India.

The International Air Transport Association has reported a worrying rise in unruly flyers globally.

According to its latest data, airlines across the world reported 10,854 cases of unruly passenger incidents in flights in 2015. This equates to one incident for every 1,205 flights, up from one in every 1,282 flights in 2014.

In India, too, aviation ministry officials say that there has been an increase in the sheer number of cases -- even if the percentage is roughly the same.

More Indians are flying now than ever before and several of these are first-time fliers.

In all these years of covering the airline industry -- and having witnessed some of the bad behaviour crew has to contend with myself -- I have often argued that one of the toughest jobs to do is that of a flight attendant.

While not all incidents are ugly, passengers often tend to take their frustration out on crew who they see as an easy target unlikely to retaliate.

Readers may remember the case of Steven Slater, a JetBlue steward who made a dramatic exit from the aircraft -- and his career -- by letting himself out through the emergency chute. Hed had enough!

Thats why I think the aviation ministrys idea of some kind of no-fly list is a good idea.

In a country with our numbers, expecting the police and other security agencies to deal with these kinds of cases would be unreasonable; they have plenty to do as it is.

Imposing financial penalties would result in further burdening in an already highly litigative society. Getting passengers to pay would be a herculean task -- often not worth the effort.

Yet, theres no reason why people should be allowed to get away with murder, so to speak.

A public blacklist that bars you from flying for a certain period -- based on the severity of your offence -- could in fact deter others from behaving badly.

If you cant maintain the etiquette most others manage to observe -- like a child relegated to a corner -- you can be grounded for bad behaviour.
India's silence on this week's troubles in the Maldives is puzzling, says Rajeev Sharma.

Embattled Maldivian President Yameen Abdul Gayoom, who narrowly survived a no-confidence motion against the parliament speaker on Monday, March 27, is practising the age-old dictum: Attack is the best defence.

President Yameen was pushed to the wall by a grand alliance of four major parties last Friday which included his half-brother, former president Maumoon Abdul Gayoom.

After all, Maldivian politicians follow Indian politics closely and are well aware of how the coming together of all major parties had humbled the Bharatiya Janata Party in the Bihar assembly polls in November 2015 and how the failure of anti-BJP parties to sew up a Bihar-type grand alliance in the assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh led to the BJP's unprecedented victory.

Yameen is determined to ensure that his arch enemy former president and leader of the Maldives Democratic Party Mohammed Nasheed and his new rivals don't take a leaf out of the book of the Indian Opposition and do a Bihar unto him.

Maldives is due to hold local civic polls soon which have already been deferred thrice.

These elections assume importance as they come ahead of next year's presidential election.

Coming events cast their shadow before.

This was demonstrated last Monday when the Ppposition, bolstered by the four parties' grand alliance of last week, proved to the world that President Yameen's majority in parliament collapsed during the March 27 no-confidence motion.

Yameen, who routinely enjoyed support from some 60 MPs in the 85-member House till recently, saw this number coming down to 48, virtually hanging to the throne by the skin of its teeth.

President Yameen has launched a crackdown on the entire Opposition, including his half-brother Gayoom.

Maumoon Abdul Gayoom's case is quite interesting.

On March 30, a civil court issued an enforcement order instructing the police to stop former president Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, leader of the ruling Progressive Party of Maldives, from using the PPM logo, flag or name.

The court also ordered the police to disband Maumoon's office, thereby obstructing political activity led by Maumoon's faction of the PPM.

Maumoon's intimidation didn't stop here.

Hours after the parliamentary vote on Monday, the Yameen faction of the PPM expelled Maumoon from the party.

This despite the fact that the PPM committee that expelled Maumoon has no legal standing because it was suspended last year.

The PPM was founded and led by Maumoon since 2011.

President Yameen reserved even nastier treatment for Nasheed and slapped new charges of terrorism against him, which relate to Yameen's brief isolation by the Maldives national defence force in 2010.

A third Opposition leader, Qasim Ibrahim, an MP and leader of the Jumhooree Party, was summoned to the police headquarters on March 29 evening and questioned for over four hours on charges of 'attempting to offer bribes', 'influencing the official conduct of a public official' and 'intimidating, improperly influencing a voter.'

He was also questioned over a speech he gave in which he invited parliamenterians to join the Opposition movement and vote to remove the parliament speaker.

Qasim has also been banned from travelling outside the Maldives.

The bank accounts of his business, Villa Shipping Company Private Ltd, were frozen days before the parliamentary vote.

Yet another Ppposition leader, parliamentarian Abdulla Riyaz, deputy leader of the Jumhooree Party, was also summoned by the police on March 27 and questioned on charges of 'spreading false rumours' and attempting to influence the police.

Then there is the case of Faris Maumoon, an MP who has been coordinating the Opposition's efforts from within the ruling party, who was summoned five times by the police prior to Monday's vote.

Faris was also questioned over an audit report from 2008 in connection with a case that has hitherto not been linked to him.

Former defence minister Colonel Mohamed Nazim, a leading critic of President Yameen, was taken from house arrest back to jail on March 30.

This is despite the fact that the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention recently ruled Nazim's incarceration illegal under international law and called for his immediate release.

MDP spokesperson Hamid Ghaffoor said his party's secretary general, Anas Abdul Sattar, was also summoned to the police on March 30 evening and wasn't even informed of the charges against him.

Now have a look at how prominent Opposition leaders have reacted to Yameen's increasing authoritarianism.

Minority Leader Ibrahim Mohamed Solih, MP: 'Time and again, whenever the president feels threatened, he unleashes a campaign of intimidation against Opposition leaders and critics. Now, Yameen's tactics are becoming more flagrant and only signals the extreme levels of insecurity affecting President Yameen and his regime.'

Qasim Ibrahim MP, Jumhooree Party leader: 'The targeting of the Opposition's leadership appears to be a knee-jerk reaction to the Opposition gaining ground. We will not cower, we will not be intimidated.'

Faris Maumoon, MP, Progressive Party of Maldives: 'Maldivians must see this renewed crackdown for what it is: A test for democracy. We must remain steadfast in supporting each other. We will remain steadfast until we set the country on the path to democracy.'

Anara Naeem, MP, Adhaalath Party: 'Adaalath Party will work for the betterment of the Maldivian people. We will work with our partners, to achieve the reforms Maldivian people want.'

In the middle of this deteriorating political crisis in the Maldives, the most astonishing thing is India's complete silence.

Why is India keeping silent?

Why isn't there even a single line statement from the ministry of external affairs on a highly strategic neighbour like the Maldives?

Rajeev Sharma, an independent journalist and strategic analyst, tweets @Kishkindha

IMAGE: Maldives President Abdulla Yameen Abdul Gayoom with Prime Minister Narendra Modi in New Delhi, April 11, 2016; Photograph: Press Information Bureau
'The government that is talking all the time about national security and national interests should be concerned.'

'When national interests are jeopardised by their own project, they should pause and listen.'

'Whether it is the BJP or the Congress, they all want control over the people.'

'They don't give a damn if anything happens to the people of the country; they are only interested in what they can get out of the data.'

Illustration: Uttam Ghosh/Rediff.com

Dr Usha Ramanathan, an independent legal researcher, has been writing, campaigning and debating the social, legal and economic aspects of the Aadhar card project from 2009 onwards.

Dr Ramanathan, below, left, tells Rediff.com's Shobha Warrier why Aadhar is not going to help India or its people in any way, rather how it is a security threat.

You have been a strong critic of the Aadhar card from the time it was introduced by the Manmohan Singh government. The way the Narendra Modi government is making it an all-encompassing identity card, do the people of India have to be worried?

You have to remember that this is not just a project of the government; it is a project of corporate interests which is working with and through the government.

Increasingly, it has become clear that this isn't just about India, the Indian government and the Indian State.

We now know that the curiosity of the American establishment is very high in what is happening in various parts of the world.

We also know that with the kind of economic development that is happening, there are many countries that are interested in India, interested in the various kinds of data points which would help them decide where they want to intervene and where they don't want to.

From what's happening around the world, we know that the curiosity is more than we can tolerate.

We also know that the UPA (Dr Singh's United Progressive Alliance) government wanted us to believe that they were at least dealing with terrorism.

We have been saying from the beginning that when you are creating a data base of this kind of the entire population, it is a national security threat.

I don't understand how the government does not see it.

We had breaches happening to data bases all over the place.

The craziness of the data base is that they say you put the number in every data base, which is what the corporates want.

They want to make data out of all of us.

'Data is the new oil and corporates want to be in total control of the whole pipeline of data.'

They are asking us to put three numbers everywhere: Bank account number, UID number and mobile number.

These are the ways you identify yourself in various places and now you make that completely insecure because it's all over the place.

Now they want to put biometrics also everywhere. So, it's a system without a system.

Nandan Nilekani, then the chairman of the Unique Identity Authority of India, had said it was an identity platform, but now it has become an identity itself...

It was never meant to be an identity. It was meant to be an identity platform and he doesn't care what happens to the identity of the person.

He just wants numbers that can track various kinds of data which they are interested in.

That's why Nilekani says privacy is not an issue, surveillance is not an issue, and India, from being a data poor country is becoming a data rich country.

What he says will happen because everybody will have to leave their digital footprints in different places for different service providers, and that's his plan.

His is a complete corporate plan where data is the new oil and he wants to be in total control of the whole pipeline of the data.

When Aadhar was first introduced Nilekani had said that biometric data would not be given to anybody. Now, even a private telephone company is using the same biometrics to identify you.

How dangerous is it going to be?

First of all, you have to understand that Nilekani has been misinforming throughout.

'If you are a woman rescued from prostitution and rehabilitated, they ask her to give her UID number which is completely contradictory because the first thing such a rehabilitation needs is anonymity.'

For instance, he says UIDAI does not give biometric information as it does not have much information, so it's not unsafe.

Yes, UIDAI might not give biometric information, but in the process of accessing their authentication service, they are handing over to people whatever is in their data base.

Now they are using biometrics to be the authenticator by all kinds of people which means you have no control over it.

There is no monitoring system to verify that they are not retaining the biometric, there is no monitoring system to ensure that the consent is being got. Nothing.

The only conclusion I can draw is that they don't give a damn if anything happens to the people of the country; they are only interested in what they can get out of the data.

Is it necessary for every citizen of a country to have a unique ID number?

If you look at the various uses for which they are going to put it, we see two kinds of users.

One is, private companies want to use it so that they KYC will become simpler.

By creating such a data base with so much resources, putting all people at risk so that your KYC becomes simpler is completely disproportionate to my mind.

Then they say the government will be able to deliver services, but if you see, so far they have used it only to cut people out of services and not to deliver services.

If you look at all the notifications that are coming now, it is impossible to understand what possible purpose there can be.

For example, if you are going to have a toilet in your house and they are going to give money for that, you have to give your UID number before you get the money.

If you are a Bhopal gas victim from 1984 and for rehabilitation, today you have to give your UID number, or else, you get dis-entitled for rehabilitation.

If you are a woman rescued from prostitution and rehabilitated, they ask her to give her UID number which is completely contradictory because the first thing such a rehabilitation needs is anonymity.

When a manual scavenger is rehabilitated, he doesn't want to carry the identity with him. But it appears nobody cares.

They only want you to have a UID number and put it on every data base.

It's one way of coercing people to enrol for this. That's contrary to the orders of the court, but it appears the government doesn't give a damn what the court is saying or anybody's saying or what even their own lawyers are saying.

Even the law says only two kinds of use is possible; one is authentication which means you give a fingerprint, but nobody can retain the data but that's not what is happening.

'The HRD ministry says they can give the data of children to employers later.

Are they going to give information to an employer what a child went through on his way to adulthood?'

The second thing is, they have added e-KYC, an app created on the platform to give information which is against what they said when it was created.

The most important thing is, they are asking us to put the number in every database.

Show me the provision in the law that allows them to do so.

The law says you cannot retain the information. They don't have a provision which says you can ask for the number anywhere.

Actually it is contrary to the law the government itself has made in a hurried way calling it a Money Bill.

Forget about the court, they are breaking their own law.

Is it not in a way intruding into the lives of people?

Obviously. If you are a Bhopal gas victim, or a prostitute or a manual scavenger, you are able to track them and this is something that intrudes into the lives of people.

The HRD ministry said they are going to put the UID number with the school from the time the child enters school till he leaves.

Sociologically this is the age they pass through many conflicts and problems in life and emerge into adulthood.

Now, they are saying they would add the number to everything.

The HRD ministry says they can give the data (of children) to employers later. Are they going to give information to an employer what a child went through on his way to adulthood? Who is this employer?

Like you said earlier, is it like the corporates and the market matter more than the individuals?

For people like Nilekani, they are only interested in the market as they want to have more start-ups and they want to outsource. This is the only agenda they know.

For the government, they have found a convenient tool to put people under surveillance and tracking people across time and activities.

Why is the Bill Gates Foundation coming and sitting with the RBI every day asking them to make everything cashless?

And they have not tested any of these systems and wherever they have tested, the system has failed. But they are refusing to say what the tests have shown.

To me, there seems to be concerted plan to attack our various systems and one of the central systems is the monetary system.

We see a lot of irresponsibility here.

Nilekani and his people create whatever apps they want and they say they evangelise them to the government.

The government is not listening to other people, calling us anti-UIDAI.

This is not about anti-UIDAI; this is a stupid system.

In 2010, we had said, please pause before you carry on. Get the feasibility report done as this is what we anticipate.

Now what we had anticipated has happened; coercion, illegality and exclusion.

When you give it to companies of all kinds, it becomes a national security threat too.

The government that is talking all the time about national security and national interests should be concerned.

Who is Paytm? Why do we have to reveal everything, all our financial transactions to Paytm?

'You created multiple electronic data bases. Do you think other countries are not going to dig into this?'

The idea that people are irrelevant and relevant only as data points will lead us down to very dangerous paths.

How is it useful for the government to expose every single person?

What does the government want?

If the government wants to administer, this is not the way to do it.

If the government wants to track and profile people, this can, to quite an extent, be a good surveillance.

But the government has to be concerned about national security and national interests.

When national interests are jeopardised by their own project, they should pause and listen.

You have created multiple electronic data bases now. Do you think other countries are not going to dig into this? How can they be so naive?

They said UIDAI numbers were issued to 80 crore people and 8 crore enrolments were rejected, which is 10 per cent of the enrolment.

When we asked why they were rejected, they said there were duplicates. But they do not know how many were duplicates and for what other reasons they were rejected.

They were not bothered to go back and check.

'There is no comparison between the US social security number and Aadhar.'

'In the US, the social security number is linked to social security, but here this ID is linked to all and sundry; from the mid-day meal scheme to everything.'

You ask the biometric experts, they would say it won't take much time to create fake numbers. The enrolment is done by some agency, not even monitored well.

Creating multiple fake identities is so easy in this process.

What is the value of something when 30 per cent people in Rajasthan cannot get ration because their fingerprints are not there?

I can understand Nilekani being irresponsible because for him, he only wants to control this as it is a corporate interest. But how can the government be doing this?

The supporters of the unique number say that in countries like the US, there is a unique ID number for everyone and they ask, why is it that in India people want to criticise it...

First of all, what the US has is a social security number and there is no comparison between the US social security number and this (the way the government want to use the Aadhar ID).

In the US, the social security number is linked to social security, but here this ID is linked to all and sundry; from the mid-day meal scheme to everything.

'If you look at the past 15 years, where have all the scams happened? Within the government and between the governments and corporates. But they want to check us and see whether we are corrupt or not.'

Here, the State is saying, 'if I give you something, if I pay you a salary, you are the beneficiary of the State, and therefore, you have to be subservient to the State.'

It's demeaning for a population.

In the US, they will allow it to be used only for limited purposes and they advise you not to use it everywhere.

They have the privacy law, the non-discrimination law and they have a system by which you can complain if you have a problem. And it's not based on biometrics.

Now that the government plans to connect all the details of a person like income tax, driving license, etc to the Aadhar card, do you feel it's going to be like Big Brother watching us all?

Obviously. What does the government say? All of you are corrupt unless you prove otherwise.

They even say they will cancel you PAN card if you don't have an Aadhar card. How absurd is that?

'There is an ambition in the government that everyone should be in every data base to be completely visible to the State.

That is the biggest threat to the democracy you can have.'

If you look at the past 15 years, where have all the scams happened? Within the government and between the governments and corporates. But they want to check us and see whether we are corrupt or not.

This has nothing to do with corruption, efficiency, inclusiveness, etc. All these myths are busted by now.

Why do you have a Constitution?

Because you want to recognise your rights and you want the State to be restrained.

It's not about making the State all powerful; it's about controlling the power of the State.

Now the State says, I am above the law and I will do whatever I want.

If you want to be recognised as a human being in this territory, you better do what I ask you to do.

They have the power to disable and omit any number.

The Manmohan Singh government started it with the intention of cutting down on subsidies because the World Bank was asking them to cut it down to the maximum.

This government which in Opposition wanted the project to be dropped because it was insecure, is going on with it.

'The court has to understand that people depend upon the court to protect them from the absolute power of the State.'

'If the court abandons that role, people will have to find other means which is not a good thing.'

They said the first thing they would do when they come to power would be to scrap the project.

After they came to power, they want power over people.

It's tragic that two governments that follow different ideologies, are doing the same.

This is like keeping the RTI upside down.

RTI was about the State visible to people, but this is about making people visible to the State.

There is an ambition in the government that everyone should be in every data base to be completely visible to the State.

That is the biggest threat to the democracy you can have.

That is Big Brother watching...

Yes, Big Brother watching.

The State has the power and not the people.

People have to worry about the State having too much power.

This is a clear case of moving towards absolute power with the State.

The State wants each individual to come and prove at regular intervals that s/he is not corrupt.

It is like, I as the State need to see you whenever I want to.

When in power, whether it is the BJP or the Congress, they all want control over the people.

It is the job of the court to see that they don't get the control over people.

Because this is not an anarchic country; the government is taking advantage of it.

The court also has to realise that the State is not the protector of civil liberties; it is the court.

Our fundamental rights are not protected by the State, but by the court.

The court has to understand that people depend upon the court to protect them from the absolute power of the State.

If the court abandons that role, people will have to find other means which is not a good thing.
Barred from flying by domestic airlines and booked by police for assaulting an Air India staffer, Shiv Sena MP Ravindra Gaikwad has tried at least thrice to book a seat on the national carrier, using a new alias each time.

Earlier this week, a staff member of the Sena politician dialled Air Indias call centre to book flight AI 806 from Mumbai to Delhi for the following day, i.e. Wednesday, and dictated the passengers name as Ravindra Gaikwad. The ticket was promptly cancelled, an airline source said.

Thereafter, a seat was booked on flight AI 551 from Hyderabad to Delhi in the name of Professor V Ravindra Gaikwad. This ticket was cancelled too.

A third attempt was made the next day for travel from Nagpur to Delhi via Mumbai when the MPs staff contacted a travel agent to book a flight for Professor Ravindra

Gaikwad.

The travel agent immediately contacted the local station manager and the information was forwarded to Air Indias headquarters in New Delhi, the source said.

The airline had earlier issued a non-acceptance order to all its station managers and booking offices, instructing them to ensure that restriction on acceptance and travel of potentially unruly and unsafe passengers is being followed on Air India flights for Mr Ravindra Gaikwad.

In an unprecedented step in Indian aviation history, the Sena MP was earlier barred from flying by all major domestic airlines for assaulting an elderly Air India employee last Thursday.

The MP was angry at not being given a business class seat though he had boarded an-economy flight.
If it is said Indians are argumentative, I will agree. But if it is said Indians are intolerant, I refuse to agree, said the president at the inaugural ceremony of the Namami Brahmaputra festival in Guwahati.

IMAGE: President Pranab Mukherjee waves at the crowd as he is being presented with a traditional hat during inauguration of five-day Namami Brahmaputra festival in Guwahati. Photograph: PTI Photo

President Pranab Mukherjee on Friday said Indias traditions never allowed the practice of intolerance as unity in diversity with mutual coexistence and understanding is the strength of the country.

Speaking at the inaugural ceremony of the Namami Brahmaputra festival in Guwahati, Mukherjee said he does not agree when people label Indians as intolerant.

There are 200 languages spoken in India across its length and breath. All major seven religions are practised in India. Nowhere in the world is found so much ethnic diversity, he said, adding despite this, India is one nation having one Constitution, living under one flag, one system maintaining regional identity.

We are one nation. This mutual co-existence, mutual understanding is our strength. Managing this diversity is our greatest strength. If it is said Indians are argumentative, I will agree. But if it is said Indians are intolerant, I refuse to agree. Intolerance has never been allowed, he said.

Mukherjee said Assam, which is an emerging economic hub of India, is perfectly positioned to become the corridor of the country to the ASEAN nations as the Act East policy takes forefront.

He said India would soon celebrate 25 years of its link with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.

IMAGE: President Pranab Mukherjee shakes hands with Prime Minister of Bhutan Tshering Tobgay. Photograph: PTI Photo

The President said South East Asia is an important destination for Indias investment and trade.

Stating that Assam has immense development potential, Mukherjee added that inland water transport system in the National Waterways can change its economic scenario.

The development of this national waterway can give Assam access to international ports like Chittagong in Bangladesh. This will give Assam an exposure to international trade and commerce. With the Act East Policy taking forefront, Assam is perfectly positioned to become the corridor of the country to the ASEAN nations, he said.

Mukherjee hailed Assams richness in natural resources and its hardworking people to underline that all it needed was strong drive, right policies and effective implementation.

We have to join hands to make the dream of Bharat Ratna Gopinath Bordoloi -- first chief minister of Assam becoming a front runner in the field of socio-economic progress -- a reality, he said.

The President said Assam has overcome a prolonged spell of insurgency and the central government is supportive in rebuilding the state.

However, he added that it was now time for Assam to emerge as a business hub and take centre stage in the socio-economic scenario of the country.

IMAGE: resident Pranab Mukherjee with Assam Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal, Governor Banwarilal Purohit and Bhutan Prime Minister Tsering Tobgay during the inaugural ceremony. Photograph: PTI Photo

It is time for this state to establish its enduring mark in the international economic domain as the link between the North Eastern part of the country and the ASEAN nations, he remarked.

He said the Brahmaputra river is the lifeline of Assam and the region and is intertwined into the economy, culture and day-to-day life of the people of the areas it flows through.

He also complimented the state government for having started Namami Brahmaputra as an annual festival to showcase Assams culture as well as potential.

Starting of Namami Brahmaputra as an annual festival will popularise the natural beauty and holy character of this river, he said.
An Indian student, who was allegedly brutally assaulted in Poland and was claimed to have died, has survived the attack, according to External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj.

Swaraj on Friday night spoke to the Indian ambassador to Poland Ajay Bisaria regarding the assault on an Indian student in Poznan city whose name was not disclosed.

Swaraj sought a report from the envoy after she was approached by a netizen who informed her about a news item in Polish media regarding the death of an Indian student after being severely beaten up.

There was an incident of beating. Fortunately, he has survived. We are inquiring into all aspects of the incident, she tweeted.

Bisaria had earlier tweeted, Prelim enquiry suggests student attacked in Poznan tram on Wed. Thank God, he survived. Getting details.

This development comes nearly a month after a spate of hate crimes against Indians in the United States of American, including the killing of Srinivas Kuchibhotla, who was shot dead in a racially motivated incident Kansas City.
Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak and his family members on Friday met Tamil megastar Rajinikanth at his residence in Chennai.

During their hour long informal meeting, they discussed among other things his film Kabali, a large part of which was shot in Malaysia.

It was a goodwill visit and I had invited them to my house. I am thankful he accepted my invitation and joined me for tea. I could not meet the Malaysian prime minister during my shooting in that country as he was busy and had other engagements, Rajinikanth told reporters after his meeting with Razak.

He said the Malaysian authorities had cooperated a great deal during the shooting of his film Kabali and that Razak and his family members were also shown some clips from the film during Fridays meeting.

Rajinkanth said he spent nearly two months in Malaysia for the shoot.

To a question on whether he was being made the tourism ambassador for Malaysia, Rajinkanth said it was not true.

Razaks wife Rosmah Mansor and other members of the delegation were also present during the meeting.

The Malaysian PM described the meeting with the veteran actor as warm and friendly.

Just had a very warm n friendly meeting with Mr Rajnikanth the Tamil superstar at his home (sic), he wrote on Twitter.

Who doesn't know @superstarrajini? Happy to meet the superstar in person today, he tweeted.

IMAGE: Malaysian PM Najib Razak with actor Rajinikanth at the latter's residence in Chennai on Friday. Photograph: @NajibRazak/Twitter
The Pakistani Taliban on Thursday targeted a Shiite imambargah with a powerful car bomb, killing at least 24 people and injuring nearly 100 others at a crowded market in northwest Pakistans restive tribal region bordering Afghanistan.

The blast struck the womens entrance of the imambargah in the remote Parachinar in Kurram Agency, sending the large number of people gathered for Friday prayers near the market into a frenzied run for safety.

The blast -- the latest in a series of attacks targeting the minority Shias in the Sunni-majority Pakistan -- was so powerful that it completely shattered the car in which the bomb was planted and damaged several vehicles parked nearby.

The site was littered with mangled vehicle parts and blood-stained clothes, TV footages showed.

An eyewitness told The Express Tribune that security personnel at the Imambargah were busy checking devotees at the central Imambargahs entrance for women, when an unidentified person parked the car close to the building, and it then exploded.

Security forces have cordoned off the site and emergency services were assisting local authorities. The administration has declared an emergency at all hospitals in the area.

Authorities said the death toll has now been revised to 24 and a majority of the nearly 100 injured were stated to be critical. And 27 of the critically wounded had to be airlifted to hospitals in Khyber Pakhtunkhwas provincial capital Peshawar.

An army medical helicopter has been sent to Parachinar to evacuate the injured, said a statement from the Inter-Services Public Relations statement.

Hours after the blast, Jamaat-ul-Ahrar, a breakaway faction of the Pakistani Taliban, claimed responsibility for the attack in the tribal region, which was once a stronghold of the group and has witnessed several sectarian attacks in the past.

Pakistans Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has condemned the attack and reiterated his governments resolve to eliminate the menace of terrorism from the country at all costs.

It is our responsibility to continue the war against terrorists, he said. The network of terrorists has already been broken and it is our national duty to continue this war until the complete annihilation of the scourge of terrorism from our soil.

Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan has ordered authorities to investigate the attack.

Pakistan, a country of nearly 200 million, has lately been rattled by a number of deadly terrorist and sectarian attacks.

Last month, more than 125 people were killed and another 300 injured in a series of suicide attacks across the country, including the one in Lahore and another on the popular Lal Shahbaz Qalandar shrine in Sindh.

Pakistani security forces retaliated with a crackdown, killing dozens of terrorists and destroying militant hideouts along the border with Afghanistan.

Pakistan army has launched operation Radd-ul-Fasaad (elimination of discord) to defeat terrorists and consolidate the gains of its counter-terrorism operations across the country.
The Sony World Photography Awards, an annual competition hosted by the World Photography Organisation, has announced the winners of its Open categories and National categories for 2017.

This years contest attracted 227,596 entries from 183 countries.

Scroll down for a sensational selection of open winners and runners-up from the Sony awards.

(Please click on the image for a larger view)

-- Check out the shortlisted images from the Sony World Photography awards
A busy yet highly industrious weekend awaits Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who has a smorgasbord of activities on his plate ranging from infrastructure, justice and diplomacy to spirituality and technology.

On April 1, Prime Minister Modi will be hosting his visiting Malaysian counterpart Najib Razak for bilateral talks at Delhis Hyderabad House.

The very next day he will dedicate to the nation, Indias longest road tunnel, the strategically crucial Chenani-Nashri Tunnel, which will significantly improve connectivity between Jammu and Srinagar.

After a visit to the state-of-the-art tunnel, he will also address a public meeting at Udhampur, sources state.

Later in the day, Prime Minister Modi will be at Allahabad to attend the closing celebrations of the 150th anniversary of the Allahabad high court.

This weekend comes in the midst of the Chaitra Navratra -- a nine-day period of fasting and spiritual importance for the prime minister.

Despite rigorous fasting and hectic schedule, Prime Minister Modi will take time out to address some of Indias sharpest young tech brains, who are taking part in the final round of the Smart India Hackathon that will take place over two days from 8 am on Saturday to 8 pm on Sunday.

It will focus on social issues and problems identified by 29 ministries and departments of the Union government. About 10,000 participants have qualified for the final round.

Prime Minister Modi will address the participants at 10 pm on Saturday. The address, expected to last for about 45 minutes, will be followed by an interaction with the participants across multiple locations.

The hackathon is scheduled for a 36-hour period from 8 am on Saturday to 8 pm on Sunday. As 10,000 youth put their brains together to find innovative solutions to problems in the same 36-hour period, Prime Minister Modi will be focusing on a diverse range of topics from diplomacy to infrastructure, justice, technology and spirituality.
Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi on Friday accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of disrespecting the drought-hit farmers of Tamil Nadu by not initiating talks with them over their demands for relief package.

He made the remarks during a visit to Jantar Mantar to express solidarity with the farmers from the southern state who are protesting in New Delhi for the 18th day in a row.

Gandhi also accused the Modi-led government of being anti-poor and anti-farmer which, he alleged, only panders to the demands of a select group of industrialists.

The farmers have been sitting here for so long. But neither the government nor the prime minister is listening to them. The people and farmers of Tamil Nadu deserve to be heard by the prime minister who is disrespecting them by not initiating any dialogue, he said.

Over the last three years, debts worth Rs 1.4 lakh crore held by 50 industrialists have been written off.

Why the same is not being done in case of the farmers? Why are their debts not being waived? It is the prime ministers responsibility to do so, Gandhi said after interacting with the protesters and their leader P Ayyakkannu.

During the 15-minute interaction, he took note of all the demands of the protesters and assured them that the Congress will fight for them and raise their grievances in Tamil Nadu as well as in Delhi and Parliament.

The Centre needs to provide debt waiver, drought relief and better support price to the farmers. Also the prime minister should at least start talks with them, Gandhi said.

He was accompanied by Tamil Nadu Congress chief Su. Thirunavukkarasar and senior party leader Mani Shankar Aiyar.

Farmers belonging to the Cauvery belt in Tamil Nadu are protesting here demanding a drought relief package of Rs 40,000 crore from the Centre, farm loan waiver and setting up of Cauvery Management Board.

The protesters on Friday wore rudhraksha (seeds traditionally used for prayer beads) indicating a life of saints who has given up all earthly needs.

We will die at the national capital instead of returning to our state empty-handed, Ayyakkannu said.

It has not rained and ground water levels have gone down at many places in the state.

The water bodies are also drying.

The poor farmers, who depend on their crops, are the most vulnerable section of the society and they always become victims of various vagaries, the National Human Rights Commission had said.

IMAGE: Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi meets farmers from Tamil Nadu seeking drought relief from the Centre, sitting in protest at Jantar Mantar in New Delhi on Friday. Photograph: @OfficeofRG/Twitter
The Supreme Court on Friday refused to accord an early hearing on a batch of civil appeals pertaining to the Ayodhya Ram Temple-Babri Masjid case.

During the hearing, a bench headed by Chief Justice J S Khehar told Bharatiya Janata Party leader Subramanian Swamy that the court was made to believe that he was a party to the ongoing litigation.

This had led to the Chief Justice of India offering to mediate between the parties to the litigation, the court said.

You did not tell us that you were not a party to the case, we only got to know that from the press, the bench said.

Swamy, however, said that he had made it clear that he was on the issue of his Fundamental Right to worship.

My right to pray is affected by the pending case and I had filed an intervening application, Swamy said.

The bench then said that it was not going to fast track the matter.

Earlier on March 21 the apex court had suggested an out-of-court settlement to the lingering Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid land dispute at Ayodhya, observing that issues of religion and sentiments can be best resolved through talks.

Chief Justice Khehar had also offered to mediate even as the bench headed by him suggested that the parties to the dispute adopt a give a bit and take a bit approach for a meaningful and sincere negotiations to resolve the vexatious issue.

The Lucknow bench of the Allahabad high court had in 2010 ruled for a three-way division of the disputed 2.77 acres area at the site in Uttar Pradesh.

The three-judge bench, by a majority of 2:1, had said the land be partitioned equally among three parties, Sunni Waqf Board, Nirmohi Akhara and the Ram Lalla.

On February 26 last year, the apex court had allowed Swamy to intervene in the pending matters relating to the Ayodhya title dispute with his plea seeking construction of Ram temple at the site of the demolished disputed structure.

The BJP leader had moved the plea for a direction to allow construction of the Ram temple at Ayodhya at the disputed site and claimed that under the practices prevalent in Islamic countries, a mosque could be shifted to any other place for public purposes like constructing A road, whereas a temple once constructed cannot be touched.

He had also sought directions to expedite the disposal of several petitions challenging the Allahabad high court verdict of three-way division of the disputed site at Ayodhya on September 30, 2010.

The dispute before the court was whether the 2.7 acres of disputed land on which the Babri Masjid stood before it was demolished on December 6, 1992, belongs to the Sunni Central Waqf Board or to the Akhil Bharat Hindu Mahasabha.

IMAGE: Posters demanding the construction of the Ram temple in Ayodhya put up in Lucknow. Photograph: Sandeep Pal
President Donald Trump has said that the next weeks high-profile summit with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping will be a very difficult one as the United States can no longer afford massive trade deficits and job losses.

Given that the United States has a massive trade deficit with China, American companies must be prepared to look at other alternatives, Trump tweeted.

Trump is scheduled to meet Xi at his Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida on April 6 and 7. This would be the first summit meeting between the two leaders.

'The meeting next week with China will be a very difficult one in that we can no longer have massive trade deficits and job losses,' Trump said.

Earlier, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer told reporters that Trump looks forward to meeting President Xi and exchanging views on each others respective priorities and to chart a way forward for bilateral ties.

They will discuss the issues of mutual concern, including North Korea, trade, and regional security, he said.

Noting that Trump has spoken to Xi over the phone a few times, Spicer said this was an opportunity for the President to develop a relationship in person with his Chinese counterpart.

But we have big problems, and -- I mean, everything from the South China Sea, to trade, to North Korea. There are big issues of national and economic security that need to get addressed, and I think there's going to be a lot on the table when it comes to that over the two days that they will talk, Spicer said in response to a question.

There are a lot of big things that the US needs to accomplish with China, and it will work on them, he said.

China-US trade in goods amounted to $519.6 billion (Rs 33 lakh crore) in 2016. China has a large share in the bilateral trade with its exports to the US amounting to over $400 billion (Rs 26 lakh crore).

The meeting will follow a recent trip to China by US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.

Ahead of the summit with Trump, Xi will visit Finland and hold talks with his counterpart Sauli Niinisto.
Two Indian petroleum engineers who were abducted in South Sudan have been released, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj said on Friday.

I am happy to inform about the release of two Indian nationals Midhun and Edward who were abducted in South Sudan. They have reached the Indian embassy in Khartoum.

I appreciate the efforts of Indian Ambassador in South Sudan Srikumar Menon for the release of Indian nationals, she said in a series of tweets.

Indians Midhun Ganesh and Edward Ambrose along with a Pakistani, Ayaz Hussein Jamali, were abducted by rebels from near their workplaces earlier this month in oil-rich Upper Nile state. Jamali has also been reportedly released.

Following requests from Indian and Pakistani governments, the Sudanese and Ethiopian governments coordinated together to secure the release of the three oil workers, Sudans National Intelligence and Security Service said in a statement.

However, it did not specify when the hostages were released.

Image: The two Indians who were abducted in South Sudan. Photograph: ANI
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.
Greece: Victory for strawberry pickers, trafficked into forced labour and shot

Publisher Amnesty International Publication Date 30 March 2017 Cite as Amnesty International, Greece: Victory for strawberry pickers, trafficked into forced labour and shot, 30 March 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/58ddfe944.html [accessed 8 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.

Following today's victory in the European Court of Human Rights by a group of Bangladeshi strawberry pickers shot by employers for demanding unpaid wages, Amnesty International's Deputy Europe Director Gauri van Gulik said:

"Today's judgment is an important vindication for these people and their families, and will hopefully help prevent future abuses.

"Amnesty International met the migrant workers in 2013 and interviewed them about the exploitation they were subjected to. We saw for ourselves their appalling living conditions. Four years have passed since the horrendous incident, and action is long overdue to ensure forced labour and human trafficking is prevented and identified, and that perpetrators are brought to justice."

Background

In today's judgment in Chowdury and others v. Greece, the European Court of Human Rights found that 42 Bangladeshi migrant workers had been subjected to forced labour and human trafficking while working in a strawberry farm in Manolada, southern Greece. The Court also found that Greece has failed in its obligations to prevent human trafficking, protect the migrant workers, conduct an effective investigation into the offences committed and punish those responsible.

In April 2013, armed guards in the farm where they were working opened fire, seriously injuring 30 of the workers, including 21 of the applicants in the case, after they demanded their unpaid wages. Amnesty International visited the strawberry farm shortly after the incident and observed horrendous conditions where migrant workers - some in their early teens - lived in crowded sheds without access to clean water and sanitation.

Copyright notice:  Copyright Amnesty International
China: Callous guilty verdicts against supporters of Hong Kong pro-democracy protests

Publisher Amnesty International Publication Date 31 March 2017 Cite as Amnesty International, China: Callous guilty verdicts against supporters of Hong Kong pro-democracy protests, 31 March 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/58de00c14.html [accessed 8 November 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

The Chinese authorities' relentless attack on human rights activists continues as two supporters of Hong Kong's 2014 pro-democracy protests became the latest to be convicted, Amnesty International said, as it called for their immediate and unconditional release.

A court in Foshan city, southern China, on Friday sentenced women's rights activist Su Changlan to three years in prison for "inciting subversion of state power". The court also sentenced fellow activist Chen Qitang to four-and-a-half years in prison on the same charge. Both have been detained since October 2014 after they expressed support for Hong Kong's pro-democracy protests, and time served will count towards their sentences.

"It is completely callous for the Chinese authorities to condemn Su Changlan and Chen Qitang to even one more day in jail," said Patrick Poon, China Researcher at Amnesty International.

"The authorities have already tormented both them and their families over the past two and a half years of their unjust an unlawful detention. It is reprehensible they have been convicted solely for peacefully expressing their views."

The prosecutor's indictment makes clear Su Changlan is being persecuted for her online criticism of the Communist Party and the government, which she posted on overseas websites, on social media, and via Skype and Gmail.

The pair were targeted as part of a nationwide crackdown in mainland China between September and November 2014, which saw at least 100 people detained for expressing support for Hong Kong's pro-democracy Umbrella Movement. Four others detained at the time - Wang Mo, Xie Wenfei, Zhang Shengyu and Sun Feng - have already been convicted for "inciting subversion of state power" and sentenced to between four - five years each.

"Terrible" conditions

Su Changlan has said she is being held in "terrible" conditions. At Nanhai District Detention Centre, southern China, she and 50-70 other inmates were crammed into an 80-square-metre cell, with a sleeping space a little more than 50cm wide, well below the acceptable international standard.

The former primary school teacher's prolonged and unnecessary detention in such dreadful conditions has taken a toll on her health, and according to her lawyer she has been denied adequate medical treatment. The authorities have also prevented Su's family from visiting her in detention.

Copyright notice:  Copyright Amnesty International
Malaysia: Reject Security Bill Extension

Publisher Human Rights Watch Publication Date 31 March 2017 Cite as Human Rights Watch, Malaysia: Reject Security Bill Extension, 31 March 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/58de02144.html [accessed 8 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 Malaysian government's proposal to extend its authority to detain security suspects for 28 days violates the right to prompt judicial review, Human Rights Watch said today. The provision of the 2012 Security Offenses (Special Measures) Act (SOSMA) that allows senior police officials to detain people without charge to investigate "security offenses" will lapse on July 31, 2017, if not renewed by parliament.

"Since 2012, Malaysian authorities have repeatedly used the security offenses law to pursue a political agenda of detaining outspoken activists without charge," said Phil Robertson, deputy Asia director. "Parliament should recognize the harm this detention provision causes both for ordinary Malaysians and for Malaysia's reputation abroad, and reject it before further damage is done."

Section 4(5) of SOSMA, which the government is seeking to reauthorize for another five years, permits detention for 28 days without any judicial oversight, violating international human rights standards for prompt judicial review. Although the law provides that no one is to be arrested "solely for his political belief or political activity," it defines "political activity" narrowly, leaving room for authorities to arrest and detain people for other forms of peaceful political activity.

Various cases in recent years show the ease with which the law can be abused. Authorities arrested Khairuddin Abu Hassan in Kuala Lumpur on September 18, 2015, for alleged "activity detrimental to Parliamentary democracy," to prevent him from flying to the United States after he gave information about the 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) corruption scandal to authorities in France, Switzerland, Singapore, Hong Kong, and Britain.

When the court ordered him released on September 23, he was rearrested and ordered detained under SOSMA for 28 days pending investigation into alleged "sabotage against the state." Police Inspector General Khalid Abu Bakar asserted that soliciting foreign investigations into 1MDB was an act of sabotage and a danger to Malaysia's economy and sovereignty, and therefore a security offense. Authorities arrested Khairuddin's lawyer, Matthias Chang, in Kuala Lumpur under the same provision on October 8, 2015.

The High Court rejected the government's argument on November 18, 2015, ruling that banking and financial cases were not security offenses within the meaning of the law. The judge ordered the release of both men on bail. By that time, Khairuddin had been detained for eight weeks. A three-judge panel at the Court of Appeals unanimously affirmed the High Court decision on December 14, 2016. The government indicated that it would appeal.

In another case, authorities arrested Maria Chin Abdullah, chair of the Coalition for Clean and Fair Elections (Bersih), under SOSMA on November 18, 2016, the eve of a major Bersih rally. She was ordered detained for 28 days, thus missing the rally. The police claimed the detention was necessary to investigate alleged activity detrimental to parliamentary democracy related to Bersih's receipt of funds from the foundation headed by philanthropist George Soros. Maria Chin was held in solitary confinement for 11 days before being released on November 28, the day before a judicial hearing on a habeas corpus petition filed by her lawyers. She has not been charged with any crime.

The authorities also used SOSMA to detain Siti Noor Aishah, a student arrested on March 13, 2016, for possessing 12 books that were considered "terrorist material." None of the books, which she said she was using for her master's degree research, were banned in Malaysia. On September 29, the High Court acquitted her of all charges without requiring her to present a defense. As soon as she was released, the authorities rearrested her under the draconian Prevention of Crime Act and detained her for another 60 days, then released her under house arrest with electronic monitoring. After the Court of Appeal ordered the case sent back to the High Court for entry of her defense this week, the authorities again arrested her under SOSMA.

"Malaysian officials evidently view SOSMA as a shortcut to harass and silence human rights activists and anti-corruption campaigners with prolonged detention without charge," Robertson said. "Parliament should uphold basic rights and let these detention provisions lapse, then follow up with revisions or repeal of the entire abusive law."

Copyright notice:  Copyright, Human Rights Watch
Rwanda: Government Repression in Land Cases

Publisher Human Rights Watch Publication Date 31 March 2017 Cite as Human Rights Watch, Rwanda: Government Repression in Land Cases, 31 March 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/58de04944.html [accessed 8 November 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

Military and civilian authorities in western Rwanda have arrested, beaten, or threatened people who challenged recent government decisions to force residents off their land, Human Rights Watch said today.

One case involves a long-standing land dispute in Nyamyumba, Rubavu district, where local authorities have begun forcing residents off their agricultural land in favor of another family with a disputed claim to the land. The other involves the construction of a new so-called "model village" in Kivumu, Rutsiro district, where some residents who will be forced to leave their land raised concerns about what they see as insufficient compensation.

"Threats, arrests or beatings are no way to handle a situation in which people are losing their land and livelihoods," said Ida Sawyer, Central Africa director at Human Rights Watch. "The government's goals to settle land disputes and modernize villages are legitimate, but trampling on the rights of those most affected who express their fears for their land and their livelihood is not."

Between January and March 2017, Human Rights Watch interviewed more than 20 residents of Kivumu and Nyamyumba and others knowledgeable about the cases, and observed and analyzed court proceedings relating to the cases.

The government intimidated, threatened, or, on some occasions, beat the few residents who criticized the government, even moderately. Officials arrested prominent community members and charged them with inciting insurrection, warning other residents not to speak out and generating a chilling effect throughout the community.

Many people who work their land for a living fear that the government-imposed solution would threaten their livelihoods. In the two cases in Nyamyumba and Kivumu, the local government imposed a solution without the full informed consent or participation of residents, and without the involvement of any judicial or otherwise independent authority to provide a fair process for adjudicating disputes, Human Rights Watch found.

In Nyamyumba, although a powerful family had longtime claims to the land, residents who farmed the land had in recent years been given land titles. One of them won a court case against the family. But in November 2016, the mayor of the district of Rubavu ordered 30 families to leave their land. Several meetings were held in the area, in which residents were threatened and prevented from speaking out. Local civilian and military authorities accused farmers who fled their villages in fear of arrest of being rebels.

When a community leader, Oscar Hakundimana, objected to the mayor's decision, he was arrested on December 7 and charged with rebellion and inciting insurrection. Residents who protested his arrest were beaten. His trial started on March 28, 2017.

In Kivumu, preparations have begun to construct a "model village," a centralized settlement in which four families will share a modern home that is provided with basic amenities, such as water and electricity. Residents in the area will be forced to leave their homes and farms to make way for the model village, with varying amounts of compensation. The government plans to create a model village in each of the country's 30 districts.

While Kivumu residents have welcomed some aspects of the plan to build a modern village, many say that their rights have not been respected during the expropriations process, including the right to free expression, fair compensation, and public participation, and that they fear serious negative consequences for their food security and income when they have to leave their land. Others are not comfortable with the idea of sharing a home with other families, in a grouped settlement. Several residents who attempted to ask questions or raise concerns about the process told Human Rights Watch that local authorities intimidated or threatened them and told them to keep quiet.

A student and political activist from the region suspected of opposing the plan, Leonille Gasengayire, was arrested in August 2016, and charged with inciting insurrection. Residents who tried to testify on her behalf at her trial were intimidated. A court acquitted and released her on March 23, 2017.

The Rutsiro district mayor told Human Rights Watch that she was not aware of any criticism of the expropriations. The Justice Ministry and other local officials did not respond to repeated requests from Human Rights Watch to discuss its research findings on these two cases.

Rwanda is the most densely populated country in continental sub-Saharan Africa. Land is a scarce resource and has been a cause of tension throughout the country's history. In 2001, Human Rights Watch published a report on a government policy to regroup Rwandans in government-created villages, employing coercion against those who resisted, resulting in many human rights abuses. Land was often expropriated without due compensation or consultation with the residents, and many Rwandans who spoke openly against the policy or refused to obey were punished by fines or arrest.

"The Rwandan government's intolerance for dissent goes beyond political opposition leaders, journalists, or human rights activists who dare to report on government abuses," Sawyer said. "The government can demonstrate its genuine commitment to the basic rights of its people, rights such as freedom of opinion and expression and fair process, by releasing Oscar Hakundimana immediately. It should stop harassing others who have spoken out against the government's land decisions."

Land Dispute in Nyamyumba

The land dispute in Rubona cell, Nyamyumba sector, Rubavu district, is intertwined with Rwanda's history. Following violence and large migrations into and out of Rwanda since the so-called "revolution" in 1959, when ethnic Hutu took over leadership positions after waves of ethnic violence, ownership of the land in the area has been disputed and alternated between the Munyegomba family, whose claim originates prior to 1959 and is currently supported by local authorities, and a group of 140 families who have occupied and farmed the land for many years.

Copyright notice:  Copyright, Human Rights Watch
Jailed Eritrean journalist awarded UNESCO press freedom prize

Publisher Reporters Without Borders Publication Date 30 March 2017 Cite as Reporters Without Borders, Jailed Eritrean journalist awarded UNESCO press freedom prize, 30 March 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/58de053b4.html [accessed 8 November 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) hails UNESCO's decision, announced today, to award its Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize to Dawit Isaak, a journalist with Swedish and Eritrean dual nationality who has been imprisoned in Eritrea for 15 years without every talking to a lawyer or seeing a judge.

The prize will be formally awarded at a ceremony on 3 May, World Press Freedom Day.

"The decision to award Dawit Isaak this year's prize is an encouraging signal," said Clea Kahn-Sriber, the head of RSF's Africa desk. "It sends a strong message of denunciation of regimes that obliterate the media and journalism because they communicate democratic values. We reiterate our call to the Eritrean government to free all the journalists it has arbitrarily imprisoned for so many years."

Isaak found a refuge in Sweden in 1987. In 1993, two years after Eritrea finally obtained its independence from Ethiopia, he returned to the country of his birth to open Eritrea's first independent newspaper, Setit, in the capital, Asmara.

In 2001, his newspaper published an open letter calling for elections and the implementation of the promised constitution. The ensuing crackdown was terrible. Isaak and ten other journalists were arrested in September of that year and have remained in prison ever since.

RSF has received information that seven of these eleven journalists have died in detention. The fate of Isaak and the other three - Emanuel Asrat, Temesgen Gebreyesus and Seyoum Tsehaye - is unclear.

Tsehaye's two daughters, who live in France, have had no news of him since his arrest. When, aged 12 and 14, they tried to see the Eritrean ambassador in Paris, he called the police in order to have them removed from the embassy. In June 2015. RSF filed a complaint against persons unknown on their behalf with the French judicial authorities but it was deemed inadmissible.

International advocacy for Isaak

Isaak's younger brother, Essayas Isaak, and three lawyers backed by RSF wrote to the Eritrean supreme court in Asmara in 2011 seeking a writ of habeas corpus for Isaak. They requested information about the place where he was being held and his conditions of imprisonment. The supreme court never responded, claiming it did not receive the letter.

In the absence of any response from the Eritrean supreme court, the lawyers turned to the African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights (ACHPR) in 2013, when Isaak was 48 and had just completed his 12th year in prison. In Communication 428/12 of February 2016, the ACHPR called on Eritrea to set up a mechanism for effectively locating missing persons and for passing the information to their families.

The ACHPR also stressed the importance of taking immediate measures to allow independent media to operate, to bring relevant laws into line with international standards and to protect journalists from arrest and arbitrary treatment. Eritrea has still not complied with these obligations.

RSF also made a written submission to the United Nations Human Rights Council in 2015 about Isaak's fate.

According to RSF's tally, at least 15 journalists are currently detained in Eritrea, which means that Isaias Afewerki's dictatorship is Africa's biggest prison for media personnel.

Thousands of Eritreans, including dozens of journalists, have had no choice but to flee the country to escape the indiscriminate repression. RSF tries to follow as many of the cases of Eritrean exile journalists as possible. RSF also supports Radio Erena, an independent Eritrean radio station based in Paris that broadcasts to Eritreans in Eritrea and the diaspora.

Eritrea is ranked last, 180th out of 180 countries, in RSF's 2016 World Press Freedom Index.



The UNESCO/Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize was created in 1997 by UNESCO's executive council to honour a person, organization or institution that has made an outstanding contribution to the defence and/or promotion of media freedom anywhere in the world, especially when this has been achieved in the face of danger.
Georgia Readies Itself for New Constitutional Changes

Publisher Jamestown Foundation Author Vasili Rukhadze Publication Date 31 March 2017 Citation / Document Symbol Eurasia Daily Monitor Volume: 14 Issue: 44 Cite as Jamestown Foundation, Georgia Readies Itself for New Constitutional Changes, 31 March 2017, Eurasia Daily Monitor Volume: 14 Issue: 44, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/58de06104.html [accessed 8 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.

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On March 18, Georgian parliamentary speaker Irakli Kobakhidze stated that the country's Constitutional Reform Commission (CRC) is readying to present to the public the draft of new constitutional changes by April 30, 2017. Among those planned changes, the most important clause affects the office of president of Georgia. Specifically, according to the proposed amendments, the Georgian president will no longer be elected via popular vote. Instead, the head of state will be chosen by a convention of 300 delegates, made up of 150 members of parliament and 150 representatives of municipal councils (Civil Georgia, March 21).

Modern-day Georgia has a long history of near-constant constitutional gerrymandering. Every post-Soviet Georgian ruler has tried to tailor the constitution to his own political needs. Georgia's current parliamentary system is a result of the changes implemented in 2009, which transferred most political power from the president to the prime minister, thus effectively turning the country into a parliamentary republic (Parliament.ge, accessed March 27).

In the aftermath of the 2009 constitutional changes, a commonly voiced concern was that the amended constitution would enable then-president Mikhail Saakashvili to become a similarly powerful prime minister after his second and final presidential term expired in 2013 (Resonance, June 10, 2010). However, Saakashvili's party, United National Movement (UNM), lost the 2012 parliamentary elections and along with it political power. Georgia's new constitution and the parliamentary system quickly started to show other negative sides. Although, the newly ruling Georgian Dream (GD) party's candidate for president, Giorgi Margvelashvili, won the election in 2013, Margvelashvili quickly broke away from GD, thus provoking the wrath of the governing party's political establishment (see EDM, March 24, 2014; Amerikis Khma, March 20, 2014). Vaguely defined and often overlapping constitutional powers of the head of state and head of government, as well as Georgia's inexperience with a parliamentary system, have triggered near chronic political bickering between President Giorgi Margvelashvili and Prime Minister Irakli Gharibashvili on almost every issue, ranging from who should represent the country on the international stage to who should be appointed as the president's advisor (see EDM, September 18, 2014; Newposts.ge, January 16, 2014).

Although, the new prime minister, Giorgi Kvirikashvili (in power since December 2015), has taken a more conciliatory approach toward the president, GD never gave up on the idea of further weakening the institution of the Georgian head of state in general and President Margvelashvili in particular. The newly proposed constitutional changes are the latest attempt in this direction, as they shift the process of selecting a president from the electorate to the GD-controlled parliament. Even though parliamentary speaker Kobakhidze took pains to emphasize that the changes would not go in effect until 2023 (when Margvelashvili would no longer be allowed to run for another term), he later suggested that they might, in fact, be implemented by 2018, if President Margvelashvili continues to oppose constitutional changes and "disrespect the parliament" (Radiotavisupleba.ge, March 9, 2017).

And Margvelashvili has, indeed, tried to oppose those changes. First, he demanded to co-chair the 73-member CRC, established by the parliament in December 2016 to draft the new constitutional amendments. When GD refused and instead appointed Kobakhidze as its chairman, the president boycotted the CRC process (Civil Georgia, December 12, 2016). Moreover, on March 13, he launched a campaign dubbed "The Constitution Belongs to Everyone," in which Margvelashvili vowed to engage the wider public in drafting constitutional changes, instead of having the matter monopolized by the commission (News.ge, March 13). It is yet to be seen, however, if the president, who lacks his own political base, will manage to turn this campaign into a formidable movement and steer the direction of the constitutional alterations.

Nevertheless, if the intention is to truly address deficiencies in the Georgian political system, both the ruling party and the president are perhaps focusing on the wrong constitutional clause. Certainly, it is important whether a president will be elected by direct popular vote or selected by a convention of 300 delegates, as the latter undoubtedly decreases a president's political authority and concentrates the process of selecting a president in the hands of the ruling party. However, the current problem of the Georgian parliamentary system is arguably not a question of the president's authority, but the vaguely defined and overlapping constitutional powers of a head of state and a head of government. Paradoxically, neither the CRC nor anyone from the ruling or opposition parties has addressed this problem so far.

An even larger question is whether the existing parliamentary system is working for Georgia at all. These last three years strongly suggest that it is not. This system of governance injected even more political instability into an already profoundly unstable and fragile Georgian political system. Since the country switched to the parliamentary system in 2013, Georgian political life has been a scene of constant political bickering between the president and the prime minister. About two dozen vetoes by a GD president have tried to strike down various bills passed by the GD parliamentary majority. As long as one party (in this case GD) held a clear constitutional majority in the parliament, it managed to override the vetoes and keep some degree of effective decision making within government. However, if future elections fail to produce a clear majority in the legislature, the Georgian parliamentary system could become embroiled in political chaos. The country's complex political and socioeconomic problems need effective and coherent decision making, instead of more uncertainty. In this light, upcoming constitutional changes seem out of touch with the country's political reality and its needs. Moreover, it is equally important that amendments are conclusive and final in order to end Georgia's never-ending cycle of constitutional gerrymandering. So far, it does not seem that the government will be addressing either of these two problems, which means that Georgia will likely see many more constitutional changes in the future.

Copyright notice:  2010 The Jamestown Foundation
Cossacks Fighting Moscow's Expanded Efforts to Make Them Ethnic Russians

Publisher Jamestown Foundation Author Paul Goble Publication Date 28 March 2017 Citation / Document Symbol Eurasia Daily Monitor Volume: 14 Issue: 42 Cite as Jamestown Foundation, Cossacks Fighting Moscow's Expanded Efforts to Make Them Ethnic Russians, 28 March 2017, Eurasia Daily Monitor Volume: 14 Issue: 42, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/58de06d14.html [accessed 8 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

From the Russian Empire through the Soviet Union to the Russian Federation today, the central government of that country has always viewed Cossacks as part of the Russian nation, something the current rulers are even more interested in maintaining given Russian demographic decline (Nr2.lt, February 27). If the Cossacks are counted as a separate nation, the Russian share of the population would decline by as much as 2 percent. But many Cossacks, especially since the collapse of Soviet power, view themselves as a separate nation and are taking active measures to resist Moscow's efforts to assimilate them into Russians.

The history of Cossackry in Russia is complicated and has become even more so in recent years. In imperial times, there were 13 Cossack hosts, ranging from those in the Don, Kuban and Terek, which most people are familiar with, to the Transbaikal Cossacks, who were predominantly Buryat and Buddhist. But such ethnic and religious differences were only part of the issue. The first Cossacks emerged as an autonomous movement, but later the Russian government organized Cossack units both to guard the borders of the empire and to suppress popular opposition.

Because of that role, Vladimir Lenin's government launched a heavy-handed program of "de-cossackization" early on. Soviet rulers worked to suppress Cossack institutions and traditionsexcept as historical background for novels and films and except when Moscow was desperate for their support, as during World War II.

But the real complexity of the Cossack world emerged in 1991, with the end of Soviet power. The number of surviving Cossacks was smallthe overwhelming majority had been killed by the Sovietsbut the idea and ideals of Cossackry remained very much alive. Many people with little claim to Cossack roots chose to identify and organize as new Cossack communities throughout the Russian Federation, including in areas where there had never been Cossacks in the past. Indeed, some specialists on Cossacks, like Moscow's Tatyana Tabolina, estimate that there may be as many as three to five million Cossacks and neo-Cossacks in Russia today (Tatyana Tabolina, Vozrozhedniye Kazachestva, Moscow, 1994, chapter 1).

In some places, officials welcomed this development and even put Cossacks to work as a force to supplement the police. Even in Moscow, the authorities deployed Cossacks to guard a variety of institutions and to provide a show of force (The Moscow Times, December 1, 2015). But the post-Soviet government did this on one condition: that the Cossacks identify as ethnic Russians and give up any hopes of autonomy based on their distinctive ethno-cultural background. In the chaotic 1990s, clashes over these identities arose; but until Moscow began conducting censuses again, in 2002 and 2010, they were relatively unimportant. And with the enumerations showing the share of ethnic Russians falling, Moscow began to more actively oppose Cossack movements (see EDM, July 13, 2016).

Not surprisingly, although not yet garnering much outside attention, Cossacks have responded by organizing movements to demand recognition as a separate nation with its own rights to autonomy and self-rule. Perhaps the most important of these is the "Restored Stanitsas" group. Set up in 2014, it is pursuing three goals, according to its chief chronicler, Aleksandr Dzikovitskywho incidentally was arrested in Moscow on Sunday, March 26, for taking part in the anti-corruption demonstrations (Nr2.lt, March 26; see EDM, March 27).

In a recent article entitled "The Cossacks in Russia Are Resisting Assimilation," Dzikovitsky says that his group and others like it among Cossacks across Russia have three demands: first, that Moscow recognize the Cossacks as a separate people and not part of the Russian nation; second, that the Russian state restore the Cossack national-state formations, which the Soviets liquidated in the 1920s; and third, that the central authorities allow the Cossacks to organize their lives in these "historical territories" on the basis of Cossack traditions, rather than according to any cookie-cutter model of Russian administration (Nr2.lt, February 27).

What almost certainly is most offensive to Moscow is that the Cossacks are pursuing these goals under the terms of the Russian law "On the Rehabilitation of Repressed Peoples," a measure that Moscow has honored more in the breach than in reality. Indeed, the central government has sought to restrict the application of this legislation to cover only those peoples Joseph Stalin deported immediately before and during World War II. Focusing on Lenin's earlier systemic repression of the Cossacks opens questions that Vladimir Putin's regime does not want anyone to discuss.

Nonetheless, in areas of Russia far from Moscow, the Cossacks have made progress in organizing their communities, sometimes with the support of sympathetic Russian officials but more often in the face of serious resistance. An institutional network of Cossack organizations now exists, whereby these groups share information and ideas about how to go about this. Dzikovitsky suggests that, in at least some places, this has set the stage for another round of demands by newly energized Cossacks (Nr2.lt, March 23).

But the real crunch is likely to come in 2020, when Russia is scheduled to conduct its next census. If the Cossacks refuse to identify as Russians, they will give encouragement to others, like Siberians and Pomors, to do the sameMoscow does not recognize either of these as distinct ethnic communities. And if the census returns are at all honest, that could mean that the ethnic-Russian share of the country's population could fall below 75 percent or even lower as non-Russians continue to grow more rapidly than Russians and as some of those Moscow thinks are Russians decide they are something else.

Copyright notice:  2010 The Jamestown Foundation
Iran Builds Soft Power in Georgia to Foster Tighter Nexus With Russia

Publisher Jamestown Foundation Author Devi Dumbadze Publication Date 31 March 2017 Citation / Document Symbol Eurasia Daily Monitor Volume: 14 Issue: 43 Cite as Jamestown Foundation, Iran Builds Soft Power in Georgia to Foster Tighter Nexus With Russia, 31 March 2017, Eurasia Daily Monitor Volume: 14 Issue: 43, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/58de07644.html [accessed 8 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

"I appreciate that Georgia has [a governmental] agency that directly works on religious affairs and with religions. I am very pleased that thanks to the efforts of Georgian government representatives, different religions and ethnic groups peacefully coexist here. That is exactly how it is also in Iran," said the Islamic Republic's Ayatollah Kazem Seddiqithe Temporary Friday Prayer Imam of Tehranduring his recent meeting with the head of Georgia's State Agency on Religious Affairs, Zaza Vashakhmadze (GPB, March 21). Seddiqi assured local media that the main purpose of his three-day visit in Georgia is nothing less than "to promote the fight against terrorism and violence, and for peace and culture in our societies"a statement that contrasts sharply with the United States Secretary of Defense James Mattis' recent reiteration of Iran's status as the "number one terrorist state" in the Middle East (PressTV, February 6).

Seddiqi is only the latest in a string of top Iranian religious leaders to visit Georgia since the Iran nuclear deal was reached in 2015. In May 2016, Ayatollah Sayyid Jawad Sahrestanithe Iranian representative of Iraq's highest Shia cleric, al-Uzma Sayyid Sistaniattended the opening of a new mosque and a hospital for the Shia Islamic community in the southeastern Georgian city of Marneuli. These were largely subsidized by the foundation operating in Georgia under Ayatollah Ahrestani's name (iPress.ge, May 13, 2016). The Sahrestani Foundation, which cooperates with the Governing Body of All Muslims of Georgia, also actively funds other facilities, events and cultural projects for Georgia's predominantly Azerbaijani Shia minority. This month, Seddiqi, who came to international renown in 2010 after claiming that earthquakes are caused by women, also visited Marneuli, met with the Patriarch of the Georgian Orthodox Church Ilia II, and attended a sponsored conference on "Healthy FamilyHealthy Society" (Amag.ge, March 20). For several years now, Iran has been combining a successful strategy of cash infusions to interest organizations with a comprehensive media and charity blitz to accumulate soft power in Georgia. The westernmost South Caucasus country increasingly finds itself one of the focal points of interest in Tehran's foreign policy in the region.

Last year, the Center for Development of Georgia-Iran Business promised "100,000 new tourists from Iran in 2016" (Commersant.ge, February 10, 2016). Reality outperformed predictions: 147,915 Iranian tourists actually visited Georgia in the past year (For.ge, March 20). This growth was facilitated by Georgia lifting visa requirement for Iranian citizens on February 15, 2016 (see EDM, July 20, 2016). The further 438 percent increase of the number of Iranian entries in January and February 2017, in comparison to the same months in 2016, indicates a strong overall upward trend of cooperation in the domain of tourism (Economy.ge, March 1). Other economic sectors are also looking to catch up. The Georgian-Iranian Technology Transfer Center opened in the Scientific Technological Park of the Iranian city of Yazd in order to attract new, more diverse and innovative investors from Iran to Georgia (Info9.ge, March 10).

Shortly before Seddiqi's visit, Tbilisi Mayor Davit Narmania met with the new ambassador of the Islamic Republic in Georgia, Seyed Javad Ghavam Shahidi to discuss joint urban projects between Tbilisi and Tehran (Accent.ge, March 17). Notably, Ambassador Shahidi also met with Minister of Defense Levan Izoria, who underscored that "developing friendly relations with Iran is an important foreign policy priority for Georgia" (Accent.ge, March 16). This may indicate that possible cooperation in security matters could once again resurface on the bilateral agenda. At the same time, Georgian Foreign Minister Mikheil Janelidze visited his counterpart Mohammad Javad Zarif, in Tehran, in January, focusing on bilateral "regional transportation and energy projects" (Mfa.gov.ge, January 11); the same issues were raised at a follow-up meeting of the deputy foreign ministers in Tbilisi (Mfa.gov.ge, March 20). However, the volume of direct investment to Georgia from Iran has dramatically declined from $92.3 million in 2015. The full extent of this shrinking investment is unclear as Iran does not even appear on the list of the nine largest foreign direct investment (FDI) countries to Georgia in 2016: according to preliminary data, Azerbaijan tops the chart with $578 million in FDI last year, while the ninth-largest country, Cyprus, invested just $38 million (Geostat.ge, March 23).

This drop in Iranian FDI may stem from the general lack of industrial diversification in Georgia's foreign investment economy, with only 7 percent of overall FDI flowing into manufacturing, while transportation and communications (39 percent) and the energy sector (12 percent) top the list. It seems that Iran, too, is now shifting its emphasis to tourism, education, transportation and energy, especially given the mutual plan with Russia and Armenia to establish the first free trade zone in Armenian Meghri, which would boost commerce of the Eurasian Economic Union with the Islamic Republic (Commersant.ge, March 19). This agreement is expected to be signed during Iranian President Hassan Rouhani's visit with Vladimir Putin in Moscow this week (March 2829) (PressTV, March 28). In light of this plan, Georgia and Armenia's initially undisclosed aspirations to grant Russia new transportation routes via the breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia would fit into a larger strategy of forging closer economic and political ties between Russia and Iran (see EDM, March 7). Tehran can use Georgian territory as a corridor to counteract Washington's efforts to drive a wedge between it and Moscow (see EDM, February 14).

Hamed Kazemzadeh, of the Center for East European Studies, at the University of Warsaw, believes that "Iran does not oppose Georgia's efforts to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization [NATO]" (Accent.ge, March 13). While Tornike Sharashenidze, of the Georgian Institute of Public Affairs, views the current developments as part of "normalization" with Iran that, he claims, began already after 2008 (Author's interview, March 23). Indeed, thus far, the Islamic Republic does not seem to have a reason to go beyond an application of soft power to enlarge its sphere of influence in Georgia; it encounters only fertile soil on both ends of the Georgian political spectrum, the ruling party and the opposition. Yet, the new US administration is apparently seeking to isolate Iran anew. And if, in alliance with Israel and its other regional partners, the US is ultimately successful in undercutting Iran's efforts at dominance in the Middle East, Tehran may easily counteract by utilizing its accrued soft power in Georgia. The Islamic Republic could then potentially transform this soft power capital into hard power by actively fomenting religious unrest and destabilizing violence among Georgian minority communities.

Copyright notice:  2010 The Jamestown Foundation
Kyiv Stops Trade With Occupied Donbas, Slaps Sanctions on Russian Bank Subsidiaries

Publisher Jamestown Foundation Author Oleg Varfolomeyev Publication Date 29 March 2017 Citation / Document Symbol Eurasia Daily Monitor Volume: 14 Issue: 43 Cite as Jamestown Foundation, Kyiv Stops Trade With Occupied Donbas, Slaps Sanctions on Russian Bank Subsidiaries, 29 March 2017, Eurasia Daily Monitor Volume: 14 Issue: 43, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/58de07d24.html [accessed 8 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.

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President Petro Poroshenko has banned cargo traffic between the areas held by Moscow-backed militants in the Donbas area and slapped sanctions on the Ukrainian subsidiaries of Russian state-owned banks. This appears logical, given the continuing Russian occupation of Crimea and assistance to the rebels. However, Poroshenko acted only reluctantly, three years after the start of the war, finally acceding to pressure from populist and far-right groups. As such, it may signal his growing weakness two years ahead of the next election campaign. Moreover, the traffic ban and the sanctions will be damaging to the domestic economy, which resumed growing last year after a deep recession in 20142015.

Groups of self-identified veterans backed by controversial Ukrainian people's deputies began blocking railways in Donbas in January. The government was afraid of the economic consequences of this blockade, but police did not interfere, apparently fearing a nationalist backlash across the country (see EDM, February 28). The Russia-backed authorities in occupied Luhansk and Donetsk regions responded by "nationalizing" the firms that, although located in the areas they control, continued to pay taxes to Kyivnotably the steel mills and coal mines of Ukraine's richest businessman, Rinat Akhmetov. Poroshenko used the "nationalization" as a pretext to officially ban trade with the "rebel"-held areas, thereby breaking one of the last links between occupied Donbas and the rest of Ukraine.

Explaining his decision at a meeting of the National Security and Defense Council, on March 15, Poroshenko said the ban would be in place until the enterprises seized by the "rebels" are returned to their Ukrainian owners. At the same time, Poroshenko blamed the populist parties Fatherland and Self-Help for the blockade and even claimed that they were in cahoots with the "rebels"; thereby, the president implicitly admitted political defeat on the blockade issue (President.gov.ua, March 15).

The ban prompted Ukraine's main creditor, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), to again delay the $1 billion fourth tranche of its Extended Fund Facility loan, which Kyiv has been expecting since December. The IMF board was scheduled to approve the tranche on March 20, but the Ukrainian Ministry of Finance announced, on March 19, that the board meeting would be rescheduled because of the need to revise Ukraine's economic forecasts due to the cargo traffic ban (Minfin.gov.ua, March 19). The central bank promptly revised its GDP growth forecast for this year downward to 1.9 percent, from the 2.8 percent expected before the blockade (Bank.gov.ua, March 21).

The IMF board has not yet made a decision, probably due to another serious economic action by Kyiv. Following the Kremlin's order for Russian banks to recognize the identity papers issued by the Donbas authorities, Ukraine's powerful Interior Minister Arsen Avakov called on the country's central bank to adopt sanctions against the Ukrainian subsidiary of Russia's state-controlled bank Sberbank (Facebook.com, March 7). The local subsidiaries of various Russian banks operating in Ukraine have openly stated they did not intend to accept the IDs given out by the unrecognized authorities in Donetsk and Luhansk. And yet, members of the Ukrainian far-right party National Corpswhose leader, people's deputy Andry Biletsky, is reportedly linked to Avakov (liga.net, September 16)began to vandalize Sberbank's outlets across Ukraine. In Kyiv, they bricked up the entrance to the bank's head office (UNIAN, March 13). Avakov's subordinates from the police stood by, as they have in previous such incidents, and watched as this took place. Ultimately, Poroshenko yielded to this political pressure. On March 16, he slapped sanctions on all the local subsidiaries of Russian state-controlled banksSberbank, Prominvestbank (VEB subsidiary), VTB and BM Bank (both owned by VTB), as well as VS Bank (Sberbank). These financial entities are no longer legally allowed to transfer funds to their mother banks, and Ukrainian state-owned entities are forbidden from dealing with them (President.gov.ua, March 16).

While almost half of locally owned Ukrainian banks sank amid recession and the national currency collapse in 20142016, Russian banks injected enough funds into their local subsidiaries to keep all of them afloat. As a result, Russian banks became the main investors in the Ukrainian economy last year (Ukrstat.gov.ua, accessed on March 28), thereby contributing to the central bank's efforts to stabilize the national currency.

More radical voices in the country, nevertheless insisted that locally operating Russian bank subsidiaries should be banished from Ukraine ever since 2014. But the central bank argued that they abided by its rules, gave jobs to Ukrainians, and were relatively stable. Now, the top state bank has obeyed Poroshenko and agreed to the sanctions, which may raise questions among international creditors such as the IMF about the Ukrainian central bank's independence. The new sanctions are likely to cause more economic damage to Ukraine itself than to the Russian banks. They have been looking for buyers anyway, cutting their share in the local market to 8 percent from the pre-war 45 percent (Interfax, February 7; Radiosvoboda.org, March 9); the sanctions will likely only speed up their exit. Incidentally, Sberbank announced already, on March 27, that it was selling its Ukrainian subsidiary. The buyers, although linked to Russia, are private entities from Latvia and Belarus, so the new sanctions should not apply once the deal is closed (Interfax, March 28).

Meanwhile, Moscow continues to destabilize Ukraine politically. While it keeps supporting the Donbas militants, torpedoing the peace process, and integrating the annexed Crimean peninsula into Russia, a former Russian people's deputy who fled to Ukraine last year and testified about the Russian invasion, Denis Voronenkov, was shot dead in downtown Kyiv on March 23. Another Russian defector and former people's deputy, Ilya Ponomarev, said Russian Federal Security Services (FSB) General Oleg Feoktistov was responsible for the murder (Pravda.com.ua, March 23). Under the circumstances, an unpopular and weak Poroshenko is arguably left with no options but to jump on the bandwagon with the nationalists and act tough.

Copyright notice:  2010 The Jamestown Foundation
Russia Rocked by Massive Protest Demonstrations

Publisher Jamestown Foundation Author Pavel Felgenhauer Publication Date 30 March 2017 Citation / Document Symbol Eurasia Daily Monitor Volume: 14 Issue: 44 Cite as Jamestown Foundation, Russia Rocked by Massive Protest Demonstrations, 30 March 2017, Eurasia Daily Monitor Volume: 14 Issue: 44, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/58de08334.html [accessed 8 November 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

Link to original story on Jamestown website

On Sunday, March 26, tens of thousands of protesters gathered in the center of Moscow and in 80 other Russian regions to protest corruption in the top levels of government (see EDM, March 27). In some cities, the anti-corruption rallies and marches were allowed by the authorities; while in Moscow, St. Petersburg and elsewhere, officials declared those demonstrations illegal. In all cases, the gatherings were absolutely peaceful and nonaggressive, but still their participants were routinely viciously attacked by riot police. Some 1,030 people were arrested in Moscow; over a hundred were detained in St. Petersburg and Makhachkala. Most were released the next day, pending possible further sentencing by administrative courts, which could level fines against them of up to 20,000 rubles ($350). Opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who called for the anti-corruption protests, was arrested moments after appearing in downtown Moscow, on March 26; he was fined 20,000 rubles the next day and handed a 15-day prison sentence. A number of other activists and Navalny supporters were fined and given prison sentences of 424 days (Ng.ru, March 27).

On March 2, Navalny's Anti-Corruption Foundation (Fond Borby s KorruptsyeyFBK) released an investigative video that went viral and has had over 14 million hits in Russia. The video alleges Dmitry Medvedev (current prime minister and former president from 2008 to 2012) has secretly amassed a multi-billion-dollar real estate empire of lucrative country residencies and spacious mansions, some of which were allegedly provided as gifts by Russian oligarchs. These residencies and other real estate holdings are controlled by a network of charitable foundations, but Navalny alleges Medvedev is the true beneficiary and owner (YouTube, March 2). The authorities and the Kremlin ignored the anti-Medvedev video, dismissing it as lowly propaganda. Navalny called on the public to demonstrate on March 26 to demand a reply from Medvedev. The massive public response was surprisingly robust, with thousands all over Russia ready to brave the brutal riot police, arbitrary arrests and possible prison sentences. A sizable part of the protest crowds was made up of teenagers and people just over 20 years olduniversity and high school students, who have lived all or most of their lives under President Vladimir Putin (in power since 2000). These young people had heretofore been considered politically inert and under the influence of massive pro-Putin state propaganda. Of course, older opposition supporters also gathered in downtown Moscow for the march. Some teenagers came together with their parents. In response to the rally, the police apparently started grabbing pedestrians at random: several foreigners and journalists were arrested and spent many hours on police buses or in precincts before being released (Mk.ru 1 & 2, March 27).

The Russian authorities are visibly struggling to formulate a coherent policy in response to the March 26 rallies and the active involvement of young people in the revived protest movement. Navalny was arrested and his FBK office was raided by the political policethe internal ministry's (MVD) "Tsenter E," or anti-extremist force. All computers and other electronic FBK equipment was seized, while all Foundation activists were arrested on bogus charges of resisting police and promptly handed fines and prison sentences of up to 25 days (Ng.ru, March 28). With Navalny behind bars and the FBK effectively shut down, the authorities apparently hope no one else is left to organize any immediate follow-up mass protests, giving the government time to consider further moves. It is also possible that this time the authorities may put Navalny behind bars permanently. Navalny has earlier been convicted on fraud and embezzlement charges in trumped-up politically-motivated cases, though his sentence has been suspended. This allows the authorities to lock him up anytime they wish. Navalny may face additional criminal charges for organizing the March 26 protests.

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov has accused "the organizers of the protests [i.e. Navalny]" of "provocation and deceit that lured children into the streets." Peskov also added a ridiculous accusation that Navalny had offered "the children" money to encourage them to protest (Interfax, March 27). As on previous instances when faced with an unpleasant or potentially threatening situation, President Putin kept silent for several days before speaking publicly on the subject. On March 30, the Russian leader finally publicly denounced the protesters' use of anti-corruption slogans to achieve political goals. Putin angrily pushed back against Western criticism of Russian police actions to suppress the absolutely peaceful public protests by asserting that Western police forces also use violence to counter demonstrations. Putin recalled the events of the so-called "Arab Spring" (a mass popular uprising that rocked the Middle East in 2011) and the overthrow of corrupt Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych in 2014 (in the so-called EuroMaidan), which were, indeed, both largely motivated by anti-corruption sentiments. "We all know the bloody outcomes of these events," concluded Putin with obvious dread (Interfax, March 30).

The Kremlin is apparently responding to the March 26 protests with a combination of mounting repression, prosecutions and vicious propaganda. Putin declared that he is, of course, against fraud and would like the population to join the government's anti-corruption fight. But then he added something no one in Russia is likely to believe: "The problem of corruption in Russia has recently decreased, and the people see that" (Interfax, March 30). The Russian prime minister seems to have turned into a political liability, but Putin will hold his ground against the likes of Navalny and defend Medvedev against all odds. Navalny's video is almost certainly not going to initiate any kind of official investigation; the authorities will ignore it, as before, to their peril.

Russia has seen some 25 consecutive months of slow, but relentless economic decline. Production, investments, household incomes, and retail sales of everything have been declining. The price of oilRussia's main commodityhas fallen dramatically. The country has locked horns with the West and is on the receiving end of punitive sanctions. Russia has engaged in increasingly costly conflicts in Syria and with Ukraine, while trying to finance an ambitious multi-trillion-ruble rearmament program. The vastly corrupt ruling super-rich elite is keeping up its overtly lavish lifestyle, while the population struggles. Young Russians, ready to enter the job market, are especially hard-hit by the economic slumpa college education does not guarantee a good job. Some 14 percent of the country's security guards and retail salespeople in low-income dead-end jobs are college (university)educated Russians (Dengi, December 5). Putin may be right to be nervousthere are indeed similarities with the Middle East just before the Arab spring.

Copyright notice:  2010 The Jamestown Foundation
Conflict Escalates Again in Eastern Ukraine: Possible Causes and Consequences

Publisher Jamestown Foundation Author Ihor Kabanenko Publication Date 31 March 2017 Citation / Document Symbol Eurasia Daily Monitor Volume: 14 Issue: 44 Cite as Jamestown Foundation, Conflict Escalates Again in Eastern Ukraine: Possible Causes and Consequences, 31 March 2017, Eurasia Daily Monitor Volume: 14 Issue: 44, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/58de09d24.html [accessed 8 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 first quarter of 2017 was marked by a renewed escalation of the armed conflict in eastern Ukraine. The increased military confrontation began in the vicinity of Donetsk, at the end of January, when saboteur-reconnaissance groups of Russia-backed militants made an attempt to seize the Avdiivka Coke Plant (ACP)the largest coking enterprise in Europe. Severe fighting around the area continued during FebruaryMarch. Moscow-backed guerrillas heavily shelled Ukrainian troop positions; on one day, as many as 117 instances of heavy weapons fire were recorded coming from the occupied side (Segodnya.ua, March 1). By mid-March, the Russian-supported forces initiated a fight in the direction of the Ukrainian port city of Mariupol (Mariupil) (Hromadskeradio.org, March 19; Censor.net.ua, March 20).

It should be noted the heavy weapons used extensively against Ukrainian regular forces in the battles near Avdiivka and Mariupol include multiple rocket launched systems (MRLS), which in accordance with the Minsk Agreements were supposed to have been withdrawn beyond 70 kilometers from the line of contact. Shelling was also carried out by Russia-backed militants using 122-millimeter (mm) and 152 mm artillery systems, 120 mm and 82 mm mortars, as well as tanks and combat vehicles. Grenade launchers, small arms and sniper fire intensified during these battles as well. In addition, there has been a marked increase in the use of 14.5 mm weapons with greater range and lethality than small arms. The relentless nature of these attacks has caused unusually high levels of injuries. In both areas, MRLS systems fired by the Russia-backed militants caused indiscriminate destruction of residential buildings (UNIAN, March 18; Delovaya Stolica, March 27). The intense use of heavy weapons damaged the infrastructure connected to the ACP, and on January 30 the coke plant's industrial cycle had to be stopped (Epravda.com.ua, February 6). A bit over a month later, coke production was restarted, but new damage to high-voltage cables caused by an artillery bombardment forced the shutdown of the Avdiivka plant's production again (Korrespondent.net, March 6). On January 31, Ukrainian authorities introduced an emergency situation in Avdiivka in response to the city's electricity and water supply having been disrupted by separatist militants' attacks (Donbass.ua, January 31). A partial evacuation of residents from this area took place in early February (5.ua, February 3).

Observers attribute this recent escalation of the conflict to several factors. One of them could reflect the Russia-backed militants' continuation of systematic combat actions of varying intensity meant to exhaust the Ukrainian forcesdescribed by the British military expert Glen Grant as "waves coming to shore" tactics. When a military force pursues such an approach, phases of intensive armed confrontation are interposed by phases of relative calm.

Yet, experience shows that periods of escalation in the Donbas conflict zone are often directly linked to the Kremlin's political-diplomatic effortsi.e., a desire to "raise the stakes" in its negotiations with leaders of European countries and the United States concerning the situation in eastern Ukraine. A similar increase in hostilities took place in earlier years, during key consultations within the framework of the Minsk ceasefire process and on the eve of meetings of the Normandy format (Ukraine, Russia, Germany and France). The current heightened periods of violence, therefore, may at least in part be connected to Washington having recently imposed new sanctions against Russia, as well as in response to the Ukrainian Parliament's (Verkhovna Rada) request that the US Congress grant Ukraine "ally" status outside the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) (Unn.com.ua, March 22). With the Kremlin showing no genuine political will to implement its obligations under the Minsk agreements, Russian actionsboth overt and concealedto maintain the conflict in eastern Ukraine and to create zones of "controlled instability" continue (Segodnya.ua, March 27).

Meanwhile, the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine has linked the intensification of the military confrontation to consequences of the trade blockade of the separatist Donetsk and Luhansk "People's Republics" (DPR, LPR), first initiated by groups of Ukrainian veterans acting without the government's consent (Strana.ua, February 18; see EDM, February 28). In the aftermath of this blockading of railroads linking DPR-LPR territory with the rest of Ukraine, additional representatives of the Russian Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU) popped up in the separatist regions. Moreover, a "humanitarian convoy" arrived in Donbas from Russia, which may have disguised the shipment of additional military equipment (Unian.net, March 1).

Notably, in the second half of March, sabotage-reconnaissance groups, sniper teams and other units from DPR-LPR completed training in Russian military training centers and in facilities in occupied Donbas organized by Moscow (Depo.ua, March 18). In this regard, attention should be drawn to a series of blasts, which occurred on March 23 at the 65th Arsenal of the Ukrainian Armed Forcesthe largest Ukrainian ammunition depot, located near the northeastern town of Balakliia. Given the fact that the housed munitions exploded simultaneously in several places at the arsenal facility, most experts agree this incident was the result of sabotage (Censor.net.ua, March 25). For safety reasons, the Ukrainian authorities evacuated local residents living within 10 kilometers of the arms depot (Censor.net.ua, March 23).

It is also worth noting the correlation between the mentioned areas where the fighting has escalated. In particular, Mariupol's main metallurgical enterprises (Mariupol Metallurgical Combine "Ilyich" as well as the "Azovstal" plant) are the main consumers of coke from Avdiivka. But irregular coke supplies caused by months of artillery bombardment have had a serious negative impact on Mariupol's iron and steelproducing enterprises (Apostrophe.ua, January 31). Experts believe that if the ACP remains offline for much longer, Ukrainian metallurgists could expect up to a 25 percent reduction in crude iron and steel production. Such cuts may cost the Ukrainian budget at least $2 billion in foreign currency earnings per year (Delovaya Stolica.ua, January 31). Moreover, these enterprises employ around 47,000 workers, so the social and economic consequences for the region due to jobs losses could be significant.

Taken together, the escalation in fighting near Avdiivka and Mariupol is, therefore, most likely connected to the Russian strategy of fomenting "controlled instability." Tactically, it looks like the center of gravity for the Russian-separatist combined forces is near Avdiivka; but operationally, it is more focused on Mariupolthe key Ukrainian defensive point on the way to creating a "land corridor" from the Russian Federation to Crimea. This is why reinforcements of the latest upgraded T-72B3 tanks on the Russian border near Mariupol must be taken seriouslyparticularly in the context of possible Russian offensive scenarios (112.ua, March 24; Donbass.ua, March 27).

Copyright notice:  2010 The Jamestown Foundation
UN body slams ongoing violations of civil and political rights

Publisher International Federation for Human Rights Publication Date 31 March 2017 Related Document(s) Under Siege: Violations of civil and political rights under Thailand's military junta Cite as International Federation for Human Rights, UN body slams ongoing violations of civil and political rights, 31 March 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/58de14a24.html [accessed 8 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.

Thailand's military junta must take immediate steps towards the implementation of key recommendations made by a United Nations (UN) human rights body, FIDH and its member organizations Union for Civil Liberty (UCL) and Internet Law Reform Dialogue (iLaw) said today.

"During the recent review of Thailand's human rights record, the Thai government delegation boasted that the military brought 'a breath of fresh air' to the country. In fact, the UN body's conclusions show that the junta is suffocating human rights."

On 28 March 2017, the UN Human Rights Committee (CCPR) issued its Concluding Observations on Thailand following the review of the country's second periodic report on 13-14 March 2017 in Geneva, Switzerland. The CCPR monitors state parties' compliance with their legal obligations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). In its Concluding Observations, the CCPR expressed concern and made recommendations on a wide range of issues related to civil and political rights.

"The UN's fair and objective assessment of the civil and political rights situation in Thailand stands in stark contrast with the government's empty rhetoric of its commitment to democracy and human rights. An immediate repeal of the junta's abusive orders and policies and the return of democratic rights are the only ways the government can signal its commitment to its international human rights obligations."

Many of the CCPR's concerns and recommendations echoed those made by FIDH, UCL, and iLaw in their joint report "Under siege - Violations of civil and political rights under Thailand's military junta." The report, released ahead of the CCPR review, documented how military rule has had a wide-ranging, negative impact on the country's human rights situation since the 22 May 2014 coup d'etat.

"The litany of concerns expressed by the UN shows that, in many respects, the human rights situation in Thailand has not improved since the country's previous review 12 years ago. It's time for Thailand to stop ignoring UN recommendations and take human rights reviews seriously."

Within one year of the adoption of the Concluding Observations, Thailand will have to provide information on the implementation of the recommendations made by the CCPR concerning: 1) The constitution and the country's legal framework; 2) Extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearances, and torture; and 3) Conditions of detention.

Below is a summary of the CCPR's concerns and recommendations on selected human rights issues.

Interim constitution, NCPO orders, and derogations from the ICCPR

The CCPR found that Articles 44, 47, and 48 of Thailand's interim constitution limit access to effective remedies and "may lead to immunity" of the ruling military junta, the National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO), for serious human rights violations. The CCPR also stated that Article 44 had often been used to issue orders restricting rights under the covenant. The CCPR called for a review of all measures adopted under Articles 44, 47, and 48 of the interim constitution.

In addition, the CCPR regretted that derogations from Articles 12(1), 14(5), 19, and 21 of the ICCPR, issued by the Thai government as a result of the Declaration of Martial Law in May 2014, did not seem to comply with the rationale and the scope of the provisions established by Article 4 of ICCPR and the CCPR's General Comment No. 29.

Death penalty

The CCPR said that Thai laws that punish with the death penalty crimes relating to corruption, bribery, and drugs are not in compliance with Article 6(2) of the ICCPR, which, in countries that retain the death penalty, allows the imposition of capital punishment only for the "most serious crimes". The CCPR expressed concern over the large number of cases in which the death penalty has been imposed. The CCPR recommended Thailand ensure that the death penalty is limited to "the most serious crimes involving intentional acts of killing." It also called on Thailand to consider abolishing the death penalty and acceding to the Second Optional Protocol to the ICCPR, aiming at the abolition of the death penalty.

Torture, extra-judicial killings, and enforced disappearances

The CCPR said it was "particularly concerned" about reports of torture and other ill-treatment, extra-judicial executions, and enforced disappearances against human rights defenders. The committee was also concerned over widespread impunity for those crimes and the slow progress in the investigations. The CCPR called on the government to ensure that impartial and thorough investigations are carried out into all allegations of torture, enforced disappearances, and extrajudicial killings, and that perpetrators are prosecuted and, if convicted, punished with appropriate sanctions.

Arbitrary detention

The CCPR expressed its concern over reports of the arbitrary detention of hundreds of individuals for "attitude adjustments" for merely exercising their right to peaceful assembly and/or expression after the 2014 coup. Such individuals were reportedly often detained without charge, held incommunicado at undisclosed places of detention for periods of up to seven days, with no judicial oversight or safeguards against ill-treatment, and without access to a lawyer. The CCPR called for the immediate release all victims of arbitrary detention and for authorities to "provide them with full reparation."

Right to a fair trial and military courts

The CCPR expressed its concern over reports that: 1) Hundreds of ongoing cases against civilians remain to be tried by military courts; 2) Civilians who were convicted by military courts did not enjoy the right of appeal; and 3) All guarantees of fair trial provided for by Article 14 of the ICCPR are not implemented during trials by military courts. The committee called for the transfer of trials for offenses committed prior to 12 September 2016 to civilian courts and for authorities to provide the opportunity for the appeal in civilian courts of cases involving civilians already tried by military tribunals.

Conditions of detention

The CCPR highlighted the high levels of overcrowding and poor conditions in many places of detention, including: poor sanitation and hygiene conditions; lack of access to healthcare; and lack of adequate food and water. It also expressed its concern over reports of the excessive use of restraining devices, such as shackles, and sexual harassment. The CCPR called on the government to ensure that conditions of detention in all of the country's prisons are compatible with the UN Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners (the Nelson Mandela Rules).

Freedom of expression and lese-majeste

The CCPR underlined the severe and arbitrary restrictions imposed on the right to freedom of opinion and expression by Thailand's legislation, including the Criminal Code, the 2007 Computer Crimes Act, and NCPO Order 3/2015. The committee said it was concerned about criminal proceedings, especially criminal defamation charges, brought against human rights defenders, activists, journalists, and other individuals, and about reports of the suppression of debate and campaigning, and criminal charges brought against individuals during the run-up to the 2016 constitutional referendum.

The CCPR recommended Thailand take all necessary measures in order to guarantee the enjoyment of the right to freedom of opinion and expression in all their forms. The committee also recommend Thailand consider decriminalizing defamation and, in any case, the application of criminal law only in the most serious of cases. The committee further recommended that Thailand refrain from using its criminal provisions, including the Computer Crimes Act and Article 116 of the Criminal Code ('sedition') to suppress the expression of critical and dissenting opinions.

With regard to the increase in the number of prosecutions under Article 112 of the Criminal Code (lese-majeste), the CCPR expressed concern over the "extreme sentencing practices" for those found guilty of this offense. The CCPR recommended Thailand review Article 112 to bring it into line with Article 19 of the ICCPR and reiterated that the imprisonment of persons for exercising their freedom of expression violates this provision.

Freedom of peaceful assembly

The CCPR criticized the "excessive restrictions" imposed on the right to freedom of peaceful assembly since the 2014 military coup, including the "strict" ban on public gatherings of more than five people and political gatherings of more than four people, and the arrest of hundreds of people for organizing or participating in peaceful gatherings. The CCPR expressed concern over the provisions of the 2015 Public Assembly Act that established criminal penalties for failing to provide prior notification to authorities regarding the organization of peaceful assemblies.
Colombia: UN receives 7,000 weapons from FARC-EP as hunt for hidden caches continues

Publisher UN News Service Publication Date 30 March 2017 Cite as UN News Service, Colombia: UN receives 7,000 weapons from FARC-EP as hunt for hidden caches continues, 30 March 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/58de22d54.html [accessed 8 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 United Nations Mission in Colombia is set to register some 7,000 weapons this weekend, but the search for other caches of weapons hidden by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia-People's Army (FARC-EP) continues, the Mission's chief has said.

Jean Arnault, the head of the Mission, said yesterday: "As for registration, we are at 85 percent of the weapons in the camps. This weekend we will reach a figure of approximately 7,000 registered weapons. On these weapons there are concerns: many are new and are short and long weapons, high calibre. It is a record that covers the range of FARC-EP weapons."

The weapons hand over has been in place since the beginning of the month and the UN hopes to possess 60 per cent of all FARC-EP arms by April 1. However, in a press conference on the topic yesterday, Mr. Arnault said accessing hidden and hard to reach caches could delay the process.

A further 1,000 weapons are set to be received from FARC-EP members participating in peace promotion or, pedagogia de paz, bringing the number of arms collected by the UN to 8,000.

It was also reported at the press conference that commitments made at the Cartagena meeting of the Follow up, Promotion and Implementation Commission (CSIVI) to make progress on preparation of registration zones and camps, security and legal guarantees and provision of health services would further accelerate the laydown of arms process.

In November last year, the Colombian Government and FARC-EP, the largest rebel group in the South American nation, signed a peace deal, ending a 50 year conflict.
Conflict now eroding food security in 'stable' areas of South Sudan  UN Mission

Publisher UN News Service Publication Date 30 March 2017 Cite as UN News Service, Conflict now eroding food security in 'stable' areas of South Sudan  UN Mission, 30 March 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/58de23384.html [accessed 8 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 ongoing conflict in South Sudan is affecting food security in some of the country's more stable states, the head of United Nations peacekeeping operation there has said.

Dwindling provisions arriving in the town and skyrocketing food prices have meant that places like Aweil, which are generally peaceful, have suffered the effects of the conflict taking part in other parts of the country, said David Shearer, the head of the UN Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS), during a visit to Aweil in the country's north.

It is imperative that fighting stops, so the citizens of the world's newest nation can live in peace and enjoy the benefits of independence, he added.

The insecurity has directly affected the cost of goods in greater Aweil. Mr. Shearer heard from UN humanitarian agencies working in the region how many families had migrated north to Sudan because they could either not produce crops or could not afford the high price of staple foods in the market.

Those agencies have stepped in to provide emergency humanitarian aid in a region where the UN Food and Agriculture Agency (FAO) says 52 per cent of people are food insecure.

The Governor of Aweil state, Ronald Ruay Deng, told Mr. Shearer that his administration was doing all it could to move our people from dependency on emergency food aid to a more resilient rural agricultural model of production, including the piloting of a new community farming approach to feed the most vulnerable people.

Mr. Shearer also heard about the efforts under way to build peaceful understanding between communities, particularly pastoral communities who arrive on a seasonal basis from Sudan to share water and grazing land with the residents of greater Aweil.

UNMISS is facilitating improved inter-communal understanding through dialogue.

Meanwhile, the World Food Programme (WFP) today began to move food assistance to reach famine-hit and food-insecure people in South Sudan by using a newly opened humanitarian corridor announced by the Government of Sudan earlier this week.

This new route will allow WFP to regularly reach famine-affected people in South Sudan with food assistance and help to avert the consequences of starvation, said WFP Sudan Representative and Country Director Matthew Hollingworth.

Today, the first convoy of 27 trucks carrying an initial 1,200 metric tons of sorghum started moving from El Obeid in central Sudan towards Bentiu in South Sudan. The convoys will take at least five days to complete the 500 kilometre journey.

In the next few weeks, WFP plans to deliver 11,000 metric tons of sorghum  including 1,000 metric tons donated by the Government of Sudan  in seven convoys of 30 to 40 trucks. This is enough food to feed 300,000 people for three months.
More must be done to place Syrian refugees; conflict sees worst violence in months  UN

Publisher UN News Service Publication Date 30 March 2017 Cite as UN News Service, More must be done to place Syrian refugees; conflict sees worst violence in months  UN, 30 March 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/58de37044.html [accessed 8 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 world's attention has moved away from Syria following the battle for Aleppo, despite the fact that the last few months have been "some of the worst" for civilians, the United Nations humanitarian chief today told the Security Council, reiterating calls for an end to the six year conflict.

"Violence continues to rear its ugly head in various parts of the country, even if it largely disappeared from the world's TV screens since the evacuation of East Aleppo," Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator Stephen O'Brien told the Council.

"The last months have been some of the worst yet for civilians inside Syria," he added. "For Syria, that is saying something."

Today's humanitarian discussions in the Security Council come as political discussions are underway in Geneva, assisted by UN Special Envoy Staffan de Mistura. The latest discussions started on 23 March and will last through the week.

In today's comments, Mr. O'Brien reiterated the importance of the intra-Syrian talks saying he "cannot emphasize enough how high the stakes are," and voicing support for Mr. de Mistura.

Civilians threatened in Raqqa and Ghouta

As the conflict enters its seventh year, hundreds of civilians are believed to have been killed in the past weeks alone, with tens of thousands displaced and continued attacks on medical facilities and schools.

Mr. O'Brien expressed deep concern about the safety and protection of more than 400,000 civilians threatened by military operations in Raqqa governorate, which includes the de facto capital of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL/Daesh).

As the fighting moves closer to Raqqa city, "concerns about the fate of civilians will only grow," Mr. O'Brien said.

"I urge all parties to do everything in their power to protect and spare civilians from the effects of the hostilities as required, not just requested, under international humanitarian law."

The UN and partners have been prepositioning stocks to enable a rapid response "access permitting."

In addition, Mr. O'Brien also said he was extremely worried about the deteriorating security and humanitarian situation in the besieged parts of eastern Ghouta in Rural Damascus, where some 400,000 people are trapped by Government forces.

The tightening of the siege has started a time bomb for the people of eastern Ghouta

No UN humanitarian convoy was allowed access since October 2016 to eastern Ghouta, with some areas cut off since June prior.

In the past 10 days, Government forces have also reportedly prevented commercial trucks from entering, hiking up prices of staples and cutting informal trade.

"This tightening of the siege has started a time bomb for the people of eastern Ghouta," Mr. O'Brien said, calling for immediate access.

Delivery of humanitarian aid has been difficult throughout the country, the senior UN official lamented. He said that despite hopes that 2017 would lead to greater entry to besieged and hard-to-reach areas, "the bottom line is, however, that with a quarter of the year gone, our current levels of access are no better than this time last year."

His comments come just days before an international pledging conference is due to be held in Brussels on 5 April. Entitled "Supporting the future of Syria and the region", the conference is co-chaired by the UN.

Mr. O'Brien thanked donors for going "above and beyond" this year, but stressed the critical needs in Syria and the neighbouring countries.

The UN and its humanitarian partners have released the 2017 Humanitarian Response Plan for Syria which outlines requirements of some $3.4 billion to undertake a comprehensive humanitarian response in Syria, including saving lives, enhancing protection and building people's resilience.

Urging Governments to make good on promises of homes

Meanwhile, new figures show that fewer Syrian refugees were resettled in the past year than originally planned, even as the total number of people fleeing the violence surpasses five million.

"Despite the call during that meeting in Geneva on 30 March 2016 to resettle and facilitate pathways for 500,000 refugees, to date 250,000 places have been made available," said Filippo Grandi, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees. His remarks reference the High-level Meeting on Syria, held in March 2016, where participating Governments agreed to resettle 10 per cent of all Syrian refugees by 2018.

UNHCR, the agency that Mr. Grandi heads, said that while 250,000 locations have been pledged, some have not yet been made available for the people who need them.

Mr. Grandi called on Governments to make good on their promises to find new homes for the most vulnerable refugees: "We still have a long road to travel in expanding resettlement and the number and range of complementary pathways available for refugees."
In Baghdad, UN chief Guterres pledges solidarity with Iraqi government and people

Publisher UN News Service Publication Date 30 March 2017 Cite as UN News Service, In Baghdad, UN chief Guterres pledges solidarity with Iraqi government and people, 30 March 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/58de37624.html [accessed 8 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 what he called a "visit of solidarity" with Iraq, Secretary-General Antonio Guterres today welcomed the commitment of the country's leaders to civilian protection and national dialogue, and pledged the ongoing support of the United Nations as the Government seeks to bolster aid delivery to needy populations and rebuild Iraq institutions.

"This is a visit of solidarity with the Iraqi people; solidarity with Iraqi Government and institutions; solidarity in what I believe is an historic moment for Iraq," the Secretary-General said during a press encounter in Baghdad, with Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi.

Noting that Iraq is in the final stages of its fight against terrorism, Mr. Guterres said the UN is "strongly hopeful" that the liberation of Mosul form the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL/D'aesh) will soon be complete.

"At the same time, I was extremely encouraged by the commitment expressed by the Prime Minister, both in relation to the protection of civilians, in the conduct of the operations and the full respect of international humanitarian law," said the UN chief.

He said he was also encouraged by the Iraqi leader's commitment to a national dialogue and an effective process of reconciliation. This, he said, would allow after the liberation of Mosul for Iraq to progressively create the conditions for, "a normal life of a State; a State in which all communities can feel they belong; a State in which all communities respect each other and reconciliation becomes something natural."

Mr. Guterres went on to express the total support of the UN to the Iraqi Government's efforts in humanitarian aid to the populations that have been affected by terrorism. At the same time, he appealed to the international community to support Iraq both in relation to the relief to the victims but also in relation to the stabilization, reconstruction and build-up of national institutions.

As for his talks with the Prime Minister, the Secretary-General said the two felt it was important that the Da'esh is held accountable for the crimes committed by the terrorist group.

"Those crimes need to be well known, need to be punished," he said, stressing that it is important that the international community is fully of the terrible sacrifices of all the populations of Iraq -Sunni and Shia, Muslims and Christians - that were victims of the cruelty of Da'esh. "This is something that needs to be known and that needs to find the adequate mechanism of effective accountability."

The UN chief said the world's young people must understand that "terrorism is not the way to express their anger [] even if in some moments they might be angry or anxious in relation to the events that take place." Indeed, the fight against terrorism must be accompanied by the fight to tackle its root causes, and by making it very clear the horrendous nature of the crimes committed by organizations like Da'esh.

Finally, the Secretary-General expressed to the Prime Minister, his "total solidarity, and our total commitment to work together with your Government." Iraq's leaders have a very important task ahead with the full liberation of the country and with the full reconciliation of Iraqis "for a future of democracy and prosperity."

While in Baghdad, he also met with the Iraqi President, Foreign Minister and Speaker of the Parliament, before heading later in the day to Erbil. Mr. Guterres has been in the region since Monday, when he began his visit in Jordan. Yesterday, he addressed the Summit of the League of Arab States.
Germany, the G20, and Inclusive Globalization

.



BERLIN  Globalization is getting increasingly bad press in the West nowadays. Populist movements allege that it does not benefit the average citizen very much, if at all. Instead, they tout protectionism and unilateralism. National policies, whether with respect to trade or financial regulation, are seen as the surest way to restore national greatness.

But this populist agenda is based on the deeply flawed premise that international cooperation and international trade are zero-sum games, producing only winners and losers. In fact, cooperation and trade can deliver benefits to all countries. For many years now, they have increased global security and certainly global prosperity, with hundreds of millions of people lifted out of poverty, both in the developed and the developing world.

To be sure, globalization needs rules and a recognized framework to ensure that it benefits everybody, delivering sustained and inclusive economic growth. As with national legislation, it is a framework that requires constant adjustments. But to abandon it altogether and retreat from globalization is the wrong answer. On the contrary, we should be seeking ways to deepen and broaden international economic cooperation.

In my view, the G20 is the best forum for increased and inclusive cooperation. Of course, the G20 is not perfect, but it is the best institution we now have for achieving a form of globalization that works for everyone. Through it, the worlds main industrialized and emerging countries have worked together toward constructing a shared global order that can deliver increasing prosperity. Indeed, the G20 is the political backbone of the global financial architecture that secures open markets, orderly capital flows, and a safety net for countries in difficulty.

The G20 has achieved much in recent years, including better coordination on financial regulation and international taxation. And, as the country that holds the G20 presidency this year, Germany is committed to continuing the important work begun under our most recent predecessors in China and Turkey.

For example, more needs to be done to strengthen the global economys resilience against sudden shocks. So one of the G20s top priorities this year will be our work to prevent a recurrence of a global financial and economic crisis like that of 2008-2009, which stemmed from a myopic, debt-based growth model.

But, in order to tackle the gulf between the richest and the poorest countries, we need to go beyond the G20. In particular, the G20  indeed the entire world  must reach out to Africa at this critical moment in the continents development.

Beyond the moral question of raising Africans living standards, the continents development is crucial to reducing geopolitical risks. But investment in Africa is still low, depriving people in African countries of opportunities to improve their lives.

For these reasons, the G20 during the German presidency is working to intensify its partnership with Africa. A central pillar of this effort is the Compact with Africa, which provides a framework for supporting private investment, including in infrastructure. We propose that, with the G20s political backing, African governments, international organizations, and bilateral partners prepare comprehensive, country-specific investment compacts to encourage private-sector investment. Each country is to implement a bespoke package of measures to decrease its investment risks.

Essentially, the Compact with Africa is a contribution to implementing the African Unions Agenda 2063 blueprint for economic development. That AU agenda provides guidance for improving macroeconomic, business, and financial frameworks across the continent.

While the Compact with Africa is open to all African countries, five have already committed to pioneering this new approach: the finance ministers of Cote dIvoire, Morocco, Rwanda, Senegal, and Tunisia want to work on compacts and have expressed this in writing. I have invited them to attend the G20 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors meeting on March 17-18 in Baden-Baden.

At that meeting, my G20 peers and I will offer these countries an international platform to present their plans. We want to discuss with them, and the heads of the African Development Bank, the World Bank, and the International Monetary Fund, what the elements of country-specific investment compacts could be.

Afterwards, these five countries, together with international organizations and bilateral partners, will select the specific measures and instruments to be included in each individual investment compact. The G20 will provide high political visibility, helping to raise investors awareness of these changes. I am confident that significant progress can be achieved when all partners involved work together closely and on an equal footing.

International cooperation is the only way to achieve strong, sustainable, balanced, and inclusive global growth. Germany is committed to do its best as an honest broker within the G20 and beyond to ensure that globalization truly does benefit all.
Civilian protection, aid access at risk as violence flares in Central African Republic  UN

Publisher UN News Service Publication Date 30 March 2017 Cite as UN News Service, Civilian protection, aid access at risk as violence flares in Central African Republic  UN , 30 March 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/58de37c84.html [accessed 8 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.

With a new outbreak of violence erupting in the Central African Republic (CAR), a senior United Nations humanitarian official today urged warring parties to protect vulnerable civilian populations as a matter of priority and ensure free movements of relief aid workers.

"The new violence and exactions against civilians is worrisome as they jeopardize the gains obtained at the highest price to help those whose vulnerability has been exacerbated. This situation is critical as the means of protection tend towards their limit," said the Interim Humanitarian Coordinator for CAR, Michel Yao, in a news release from the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

The release said that the prefectures of Ouaka, Haute Kotto and Mbomou fell prey to the fresh waves of violence resulting from clashes between the armed groups.

OCHA said this new deterioration comes at a time when the consequences of the violence which studded the CAR between September 2016 and February 2017 are still heavily felt. In this short period, more than 100,000 newly displaced people have been registered.

Mr. Yao expressed his great concern about the protection of civilians and the systematic targeting of vulnerable communities. "This dangerous trend blurs the nature of the conflict and is highly reprehensible under international law," he warned.

He called on all parties to the conflict to put the protection of vulnerable civilian populations above all other considerations and to give priority to political dialogue in order to reduce the suffering of populations affected by the upsurge of violence.

Mr. Yao also urged the parties not to infringe the freedom of movement of humanitarian actors so that they can help those in need.

"The Central African Republic runs the risk of becoming a chronic crisis ignored and neglected by the rest of the world at a time when the humanitarian community and the government have decided to pool efforts to mobilize the funds for life saving activities," he said.

He recalled that at the end of the first quarter of 2017, only five per cent of $399.5 million in funding for humanitarian needs was received.
Yemen: UN envoy urges Security Council to pressure warring parties to discuss peace proposal

Publisher UN News Service Publication Date 30 March 2017 Cite as UN News Service, Yemen: UN envoy urges Security Council to pressure warring parties to discuss peace proposal, 30 March 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/58de38104.html [accessed 8 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 United Nations envoy for Yemen has urged the members of the Security Council to put pressure on the warring parties in that country to engage constructively in discussing the peace process framework he had presented.

The Government of Yemen should agree to engage in talks based on the framework, and Ansar Allah and the General People's Congress must end their long-standing refusal to undertake serious discussions on security arrangements, Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed, the United Nations Special Envoy for Yemen, told the Council during a closed-door meeting, according to a note issued overnight by the office of spokesperson for the UN Secretary-General.

The Special Envoy had presented to the parties a framework that included a set of sequenced political and security measures which were designed to ensure a rapid end to the war, withdrawals of military formations and disarmament in key areas, and the creation of an inclusive transitional government.

The note also stated that the Special Envoy expressed his deep concern about the rapidly deteriorating humanitarian and economic situation amidst a worrying escalation of military operations.

The only real way to prevent a worsening of the situation is to reach a peaceful resolution to this tragic conflict which has been going on for too long. It is my firm belief that further military escalation and humanitarian suffering will not bring the parties closer together, the envoy told the Council.

Presenting a bleak picture of the current situation, he warned that the impact of the conflict on the economy and food security will be felt long into the future and jeopardise attempts to restore stability, and reiterated his call to the international community to speak with a unified, consistent and bold voice to the parties now more than ever, the note stated.

The Special Envoy concluded his remarks by urging the Council to use all of its diplomatic weight to push for the relevant parties to make the concessions required to reach a final agreement before more lives are lost. We must give peace another chance, the note said.
X. and X. v. Belgian State

Publisher Council of Europe: European Court of Human Rights Publication Date 7 March 2017 Citation / Document Symbol ECLI:EU:C:2017:173; C638/16 Cite as X. and X. v. Belgian State, ECLI:EU:C:2017:173; C638/16, Council of Europe: European Court of Human Rights, 7 March 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/cases,ECHR,58de42b54.html [accessed 8 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.

JUDGMENT OF THE COURT (Grand Chamber)

7 March 2017 ( )

(Reference for a preliminary ruling  Regulation (EC) No 810/2009  Article 25(1)(a)  Visa with limited territorial validity  Issuing of a visa on humanitarian grounds or because of international obligations  Concept of 'international obligations'  Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union  European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms  Geneva Convention  Issuing of a visa where a risk of infringement of Article 4 and/or Article 18 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights is established  No obligation)

In Case C638/16 PPU,

REQUEST for a preliminary ruling under Article 267 TFEU from the Conseil du Contentieux des Etrangers (Council for asylum and immigration proceedings, Belgium), made by decision of 8 December 2016, received at the Court on 12 December 2016, in the proceedings

X and X

v

Etat belge,

THE COURT (Grand Chamber),

composed of K. Lenaerts, President, A. Tizzano, Vice-President, L. Bay Larsen, T. von Danwitz, J.L. da Cruz Vilaca and M. Berger (Rapporteur), Presidents of Chambers, A. Borg Barthet, A. Arabadjiev, C. Toader, M. Safjan, E. Jarasiunas, C.G. Fernlund, C. Vajda, S. Rodin and F. Biltgen, Judges,

Advocate General: P. Mengozzi,

Registrar: V. Giacobbo-Peyronnel, Administrator,

having regard to the written procedure and further to the hearing on 30 January 2017,

after considering the observations submitted on behalf of:

 X and X, by T. Wibault and P. Robert, avocats,

 the Belgian Government, by C. Pochet and M. Jacobs, acting as Agents, and by C. L'hoir, M. Van Regemorter and F. Van Dijck, experts, and by E. Derriks and F. Motulsky, avocats,

 the Czech Government, by M. Smolek, acting as Agent,

 the Danish Government, by N. Lyshj and C. Thorning, acting as Agents,

 the German Government, by T. Henze, acting as Agent,

 the Estonian Government, by N. Grunberg, acting as Agent,

 the French Government, by E. Armoet, acting as Agent,

 the Hungarian Government, by M. Feher, acting as Agent,

 the Maltese Government, by A. Buhagiar, acting as Agent,

 the Netherlands Government, by M. de Ree, acting as Agent,

 the Austrian Government, by J. Schmoll, acting as Agent,

 the Polish Government, by M. Kamejsza, M. Pawlicka and B. Majczyna, acting as Agents,

 the Slovenian Government, by V. Klemenc and T. Mihelic Zitko, acting as Agents,

 the Slovak Government, by M. Kianicka, acting as Agent, and by I. Pistova, G. Hepalova, L. Szlobodova and D. Markova, experts,

 the Finnish Government, by J. Heliskoski, acting as Agent,

 the European Commission, by C. Cattabriga and G. Wils, acting as Agents,

after hearing the Opinion of the Advocate General at the sitting on 7 February 2017,

gives the following

Judgment

1 This request for a preliminary ruling concerns the interpretation of Article 25(1)(a) of Regulation (EC) No 810/2009 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 13 July 2009 establishing a Community Code on Visas (Visa Code) (OJ 2009 L 243 p. 1), as amended by Regulation (EU) No 610/2013 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 26 June 2013 (OJ 2013 L 182, p. 1) ('the Visa Code'), and of Articles 4 and 18 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union ('the Charter').

2 The reference has been made in proceedings between, on the one hand, X and X, and, on the other, the Etat belge (the Belgian State) concerning a refusal to issue visas with limited territorial validity.

Legal context

International law

3 Article 1 of the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, signed at Rome on 4 November 1950 ('the ECHR'), headed 'Obligation to respect Human Rights', provides:

'The High Contracting Parties shall secure to everyone within their jurisdiction the rights and freedoms defined in Section I of this [c]onvention.'

4 Article 3 of the ECHR, headed 'Prohibition of torture', which is in Section I thereof, provides:

'No one shall be subjected to torture or to inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.'

5 Article 33(1) of the Convention relating to the Status of Refugees, signed at Geneva on 28 July 1951 (United Nations Treaty Series, Vol. 189, p. 150, No 2545 (1954)), as supplemented by the Protocol relating to the Status of Refugees, concluded in New York on 31 January 1967, which entered into force on 4 October 1967 ('the Geneva Convention'), that article being headed 'Prohibition of expulsion or return ("refoulement")', provides:

'No Contracting State shall expel or return ("refouler") a refugee in any manner whatsoever to the frontiers of territories where his life or freedom would be threatened on account of his race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion.'

EU law

The Charter

6 Article 4 of the Charter, headed 'Prohibition of torture and inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment', provides:

'No one shall be subjected to torture or to inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.'

7 Under Article 18 of the Charter, headed 'Right to asylum':

'The right to asylum shall be guaranteed with due respect for the rules of the [Geneva Convention] and in accordance with the Treaty on European Union and the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union '

8 Article 51(1) of the Charter, that article being headed 'Field of application', provides:

'The provisions of [the] Charter are addressed to the institutions, bodies, offices and agencies of the Union with due regard for the principle of subsidiarity and to the Member States only when they are implementing Union law '

The Visa Code

9 Recital 29 of the Visa Code states:

'This Regulation respects fundamental rights and observes the principles recognised in particular by the [ECHR] and the [Charter].'

10 Article 1(1) of the Visa Code, that article being headed 'Objective and Scope', states:

'This Regulation establishes the procedures and conditions for issuing visas for transit through or intended stays on the territory of the Member States not exceeding 90 days in any 180-day period.'

11 Article 2 of that code provides:

'For the purpose of this Regulation the following definitions shall apply:



2. "visa" means an authorisation issued by a Member State with a view to:

(a) transit through or an intended stay on the territory of the Member States of a duration of no more than 90 days in any 180-day period;

(b) transit through the international transit areas of airports of the Member States;

'

12 Article 25 of the Visa Code, headed 'Issuing of a visa with limited territorial validity', provides:

'1. A visa with limited territorial validity shall be issued exceptionally, in the following cases:

(a) when the Member State concerned considers it necessary on humanitarian grounds, for reasons of national interest or because of international obligations,

(i) to derogate from the principle that the entry conditions laid down [by Regulation (EC) No 562/2006 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 15 March 2006 establishing a Community Code on the rules governing the movement of persons across borders (Schengen Borders Code) (OJ 2006 L 105, p. 1)] must be fulfilled;

(ii) to issue a visa despite an objection by the Member State consulted in accordance with Article 22 to the issuing of a uniform visa; or

(iii) to issue a visa for reasons of urgency 

or

(b) when for reasons deemed justified by the consulate, a new visa is issued for a stay during the same 180-day period to an applicant who, over this 180-day period, has already used a uniform visa or a visa with limited territorial validity allowing for a stay of 90 days.

2. A visa with limited territorial validity shall be valid for the territory of the issuing Member State. It may exceptionally be valid for the territory of more than one Member State, subject to the consent of each such Member State.



4. When a visa with limited territorial validity has been issued in the cases described in paragraph 1(a), the central authorities of the issuing Member State shall circulate the relevant information to the central authorities of the other Member States without delay 

5. The data  shall be entered into the [Visa Information System] when a decision on issuing such a visa has been taken.'

13 Article 32(1)(b) of the Visa Code, that article being headed 'Refusal of a visa', provides:

'Without prejudice to Article 25(1), a visa shall be refused:



(b) if there are reasonable doubts as to  [the applicant's] intention to leave the territory of the Member States before the expiry of the visa applied for.'

Regulation (EU) 2016/399

14 Article 4 of Regulation (EU) 2016/399 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 9 March 2016 on a Union Code on the rules governing the movement of persons across borders (Schengen Borders Code) (OJ 2016 L 77, p. 1, 'the Schengen Borders Code'), headed 'Fundamental Rights', is worded as follows:

'When applying this Regulation, Member States shall act in full compliance with relevant Union law, including the [Charter], relevant international law, including the [Geneva Convention], obligations related to access to international protection, in particular the principle of non-refoulement, and fundamental rights. In accordance with the general principles of Union law, decisions under this Regulation shall be taken on an individual basis.'

15 Article 6 of the Schengen Borders Code, headed 'Entry conditions for third-country nationals', provides:

'1. For intended stays on the territory of the Member States of a duration of no more than 90 days in any 180-day period , the entry conditions for third-country nationals shall be the following:

(a) they are in possession of a valid travel document 

(b) they are in possession of a valid visa, if required 

(c) they justify the purpose and conditions of the intended stay, and they have sufficient means of subsistence 

(d) they are not persons for whom an alert has been issued ... for the purposes of refusing entry 

(e) they are not considered to be a threat to public policy, internal security, public health or the international relations of any of the Member States 



5. By way of derogation from paragraph 1:



(c) third-country nationals who do not fulfil one or more of the conditions laid down in paragraph 1 may be authorised by a Member State to enter its territory on humanitarian grounds, on grounds of national interest or because of international obligations '

Directive 2013/32/EU

16 Article 3 of Directive 2013/32/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of 26 June 2013 on common procedures for granting and withdrawing international protection (OJ 2013 L 180, p. 60) provides:

'1. This Directive shall apply to all applications for international protection made in the territory, including at the border, in the territorial waters or in the transit zones of the Member States, and to the withdrawal of international protection.

2. This Directive shall not apply to requests for diplomatic or territorial asylum submitted to representations of Member States.

'

Regulation (EU) No 604/2013

17 Article 1 of Regulation (EU) No 604/2013 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 26 June 2013 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 (OJ 2013 L 180, p. 31), headed 'Subject matter', provides:

'This Regulation lays down 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 thirdcountry national or a stateless person '

18 Article 3(1) of Regulation No 604/2013 provides:

'Member States shall examine any application for international protection by a third-country national or a stateless person who applies on the territory of any one of them, including at the border or in the transit zones '

The dispute in the main proceedings and the questions referred for a preliminary ruling

19 The applicants in the main proceedings  a married couple  and their three young, minor children are Syrian nationals and live in Aleppo (Syria). On 12 October 2016 they submitted, at the Belgian Embassy in Beirut (Lebanon), on the basis of Article 25(1)(a) of the Visa Code, applications for visas with limited territorial validity, before returning to Syria on the following day.

20 In support of their visa applications, the applicants in the main proceedings stated that the purpose of the visas they were seeking to obtain was to enable them to leave the besieged city of Aleppo in order to apply for asylum in Belgium. One of the applicants in the main proceedings claimed, inter alia, to have been abducted by a terrorist group, then beaten and tortured, and finally released following the payment of a ransom. The applicants in the main proceedings emphasised, in particular, the precarious security situation in Syria in general and in Aleppo especially, and the fact that, being Orthodox Christians, they were at risk of persecution on account of their religious beliefs. They added that it was impossible for them to register as refugees in neighbouring countries, having regard, inter alia, to the closure of the border between Lebanon and Syria.

21 By decisions of 18 October 2016, which were communicated to the applicants in the main proceedings on 25 October 2016, the Office des Etrangers (Immigration Office, Belgium) rejected their applications. The Immigration Office stated, inter alia, that the applicants intended to stay more than 90 days in Belgium, that Article 3 of the ECHR did not require States that are parties to the convention to admit into their respective territories 'victims of a catastrophic situation' and that Belgian diplomatic posts were not among the authorities to which a foreign national could submit an application for asylum. According to the Immigration Office, authorising the issue of an entry visa to the applicants in the main proceedings in order for them to be able to lodge an application for asylum in Belgium would amount to allowing such an application to be submitted to a diplomatic post.

22 The referring court, before which the applicants in the main proceedings challenge those decisions, explains that the applicants requested the implementation of those decisions to be suspended under the so-called 'emergency' national procedure. Since it is unclear whether that request is admissible under the applicable national provisions, the referring court decided to bring the matter before the Cour constitutionnelle (Constitutional Court, Belgium) for a ruling on that issue. Pending an answer from the Cour constitutionnelle (Belgian Constitutional Court), consideration of the main proceedings by the referring court continues under the emergency procedure.

23 Before the referring court, the applicants in the main proceedings claim, essentially, that Article 18 of the Charter imposes a positive obligation on the Member States to guarantee the right to asylum and that the granting of international protection is the only way to avoid any risk that Article 3 of the ECHR and Article 4 of the Charter will be infringed. In the present case, since the Belgian authorities have themselves taken the view that the applicants in the main proceedings are in a situation that is exceptional from a humanitarian point of view, the latter assert that, having regard to the international obligations of the Kingdom of Belgium, the conditions for applying Article 25(1)(a) of the Visa Code were satisfied, and they conclude therefore that they should have been issued, on humanitarian grounds, with the visas that they were seeking to obtain.

24 For its part, the Belgian State is of the opinion that it is under no obligation, whether on the basis of Article 3 of the ECHR or that of Article 33 of the Geneva Convention, to admit a third-country national into its territory, and that its only obligation in that regard is to refrain from deportation.

25 The referring court argues that it is apparent from Article 1 of the ECHR, as interpreted by the European Court of Human Rights, that the applicants in the main proceedings may rely on Article 3 of the ECHR only if they are within Belgian 'jurisdiction'. However, the referring court asks whether the implementation of the visa policy may be regarded as the exercise of jurisdiction in that sense. Moreover, the referring court asks whether a right of entry could follow, as a corollary to the obligation to take preventative measures and to the principle of non-refoulement, from Article 3 of the ECHR and, mutatis mutandis, Article 33 of the Geneva Convention.

26 In addition, the referring court notes that the implementation of Article 4 of the Charter, unlike Article 3 of the ECHR, does not depend on the exercise of jurisdiction but on the application of EU law. However, it does not follow either from the Treaties or from the Charter that that implementation is territorially limited.

27 With regard to Article 25 of the Visa Code, the referring court notes that it provides, inter alia, that a visa must be issued when a Member State 'considers' it to be necessary because of international obligations. The referring court, however, questions the extent of Member States' discretion in that respect and is of the opinion that, having regard to the binding nature of international obligations and those arising from the Charter, any such discretion can be ruled out in that respect.

28 In those circumstances, the Conseil du Contentieux des Etrangers (Council for asylum and immigration proceedings, Belgium) decided to stay the proceedings and to refer the following questions to the Court for a preliminary ruling:

'(1) Do the "international obligations" referred to in Article 25(1)(a) of the Visa Code cover all the rights guaranteed by the Charter, including, in particular, those guaranteed by Articles 4 and 18, and do they also cover obligations which bind the Member States, in the light of the ECHR and Article 33 of the Geneva Convention?

(2) (a) Depending on the answer given to the first question, must Article 25(1)(a) of the Visa Code be interpreted as meaning that, subject to its discretion with regard to the circumstances of the case, a Member State to which an application for a visa with limited territorial validity has been made is required to issue the visa applied for, where a risk of infringement of Article 4 and/or Article 18 of the Charter or another international obligation by which it is bound is established?

(b) Does the existence of links between the applicant and the Member State to which the visa application was made (for example, family connections, host families, guarantors and sponsors) affect the answer to that question?'

The urgent procedure

29 The referring court has requested that the present reference for a preliminary ruling be dealt with under the urgent preliminary ruling procedure provided for in Article 107 of the Rules of Procedure of the Court.

30 In support of its request, the referring court relied, inter alia, upon the serious armed conflict in Syria, the young age of the children of the applicants in the main proceedings, their particular vulnerability, associated with their belonging to the Orthodox Christian community and, in any event, the fact that the matter was brought before it in the course of an 'emergency' suspension procedure.

31 The referring court explained, in that respect, that the present reference for a preliminary ruling had the effect of staying the proceedings before it.

32 In that regard, it should be noted, in the first place, that the present reference for a preliminary ruling, which concerns the interpretation of Article 25(1)(a) of the Visa Code, raises questions in the areas covered by Title V of Part Three of the TFEU, which relates to the area of freedom, security and justice. It may therefore be dealt with under the urgent preliminary ruling procedure, in accordance with Article 107(1) of the Rules of Procedure.

33 In the second place, it is not disputed that, at least at the time when the request that the present reference for a preliminary ruling should be dealt with under the urgent preliminary ruling procedure was examined, the applicants in the main proceedings were facing a real risk of being subjected to inhuman and degrading treatment, which must be regarded as an element of urgency justifying the application of Article 107 et seq. of the Rules of Procedure.

34 Taking the foregoing into account, the Fifth Chamber of the Court decided, on 15 December 2016, acting on a proposal from the JudgeRapporteur and after hearing the Advocate General, to grant the referring court's request that the present reference for a preliminary ruling be dealt with under the urgent preliminary ruling procedure. It also decided to request that the Court assign the case to the Grand Chamber.

Consideration of the questions referred

The jurisdiction of the Court

35 The Court's jurisdiction to answer the questions put by the referring court is disputed, in particular, by the Belgian Government on the ground that Article 25(1) of the Visa Code, in respect of which interpretation is sought, does not apply to the applications at issue in the main proceedings.

36 Nevertheless, it is plain from the order for reference that the applications at issue were submitted on humanitarian grounds on the basis of Article 25 of the Visa Code.

37 As to whether that code applies to applications, such as those at issue in the main proceedings, that are intended to enable third-country nationals to lodge applications for asylum on the territory of a Member State, that question is inextricably linked to the answers to be given to the present request for a preliminary ruling. In those circumstances, the Court has jurisdiction to answer that request (see, to that effect, judgment of 10 September 2015, Wojciechowski, C408/14, EU:C:2015:591, paragraph 26 and the case-law cited).

Consideration of the questions referred

38 By its first question the referring court asks, in essence, whether Article 25(1)(a) of the Visa Code must be interpreted as meaning that the international obligations referred to in that article include compliance by a Member State with all the rights guaranteed by the Charter, in particular, in Articles 4 and 18 thereof, by the ECHR and by Article 33 of the Geneva Convention. By its second question it asks, in essence, whether, depending on the answer given to its first question, Article 25(1)(a) of the Visa Code must be interpreted as meaning that the Member State to which an application for a visa with limited territorial validity was made is required to issue the visa applied for, where a risk of infringement of Article 4 and/or Article 18 of the Charter or another international obligation by which it is bound is established. If necessary, the referring court also seeks to ascertain whether the existence of links between the applicant and the Member State to which the visa application was made has any bearing in that regard.

39 It should be recalled at the outset that the Court has consistently held that the fact that a question submitted by the referring court refers only to certain provisions of EU law does not mean that the Court may not provide the national court with all the guidance on points of interpretation that may be of assistance in adjudicating on the case pending before it, whether or not that court has referred to those points in its questions. It is, in this regard, for the Court to extract from all the information provided by the referring court, in particular from the grounds of the decision to make the reference, the points of EU law which require interpretation in view of the subject matter of the dispute (see, inter alia, judgment of 12 February 2015, Oil Trading Poland, C349/13, EU:C:2015:84, paragraph 45 and the case-law cited).

40 In the present case, it is important to note that the Visa Code was adopted on the basis of Article 62(2)(a) and (b)(ii) of the EC Treaty, pursuant to which the Council of the European Union is to adopt measures concerning visas for intended stays of no more than three months, including the procedures and conditions for issuing visas by Member States.

41 As set out in Article 1 of the Visa Code, the objective thereof is to establish the procedures and conditions for issuing visas for transit through or intended stays on the territory of the Member States not exceeding 90 days in any 180-day period. In Article 2(2)(a) and (b) of the code the concept of 'visa' is defined, for the purpose of the code, as meaning 'an authorisation issued by a Member State' with a view, respectively, to 'transit through or an intended stay on the territory of the Member States for a duration of no more than 90 days in any 180day period' and to 'transit through the international transit areas of airports of the Member States'.

42 However, it is apparent from the order for reference and from the material in the file before the Court that the applicants in the main proceedings submitted applications for visas on humanitarian grounds, based on Article 25 of the Visa Code, at the Belgian embassy in Lebanon, with a view to applying for asylum in Belgium immediately upon their arrival in that Member State and, thereafter, to being granted a residence permit with a period of validity not limited to 90 days.

43 In accordance with Article 1 of the Visa Code, such applications, even if formally submitted on the basis of Article 25 of that code, fall outside the scope of that code, in particular Article 25(1)(a) thereof, the interpretation of which is sought by the referring court in connection with the concept of 'international obligations' mentioned in that provision.

44 In addition, since, as noted by the Belgian Government and the European Commission in their written observations, no measure has been adopted, to date, by the EU legislature on the basis of Article 79(2)(a) TFEU, with regard to the conditions governing the issue by Member States of long-term visas and residence permits to third-country nationals on humanitarian grounds, the applications at issue in the main proceedings fall solely within the scope of national law.

45 Since the situation at issue in the main proceedings is not, therefore, governed by EU law, the provisions of the Charter, in particular, Articles 4 and 18 thereof, referred to in the questions of the referring court, do not apply to it (see, to that effect, inter alia, judgments of 26 February 2013, Akerberg Fransson, C617/10, EU:C:2013:105, paragraph 19, and of 27 March 2014, Torralbo Marcos, C265/13, EU:C:2014:187, paragraph 29 and the case-law cited).

46 The foregoing conclusion is not called into question by the fact that, under Article 32(1)(b) of the Visa Code, the existence of 'reasonable doubts as to  [the applicant's] intention to leave the territory of the Member States before the expiry of the visa applied for' is a ground for refusal of a visa and not a reason not to apply that code.

47 Indeed, the defining feature of the situation at issue in the main proceedings is not the existence of such doubts, but the fact that the purpose of the application differs from that of a short-term visa.

48 It should be added that, to conclude otherwise, when the Visa Code is intended for the issuing of visas for stays on the territories of Member States not exceeding 90 days in any 180-day period, would be tantamount to allowing thirdcountry nationals to lodge applications for visas on the basis of the Visa Code in order to obtain international protection in the Member State of their choice, which would undermine the general structure of the system established by Regulation No 604/2013.

49 It is also important to note that to conclude otherwise would mean that Member States are required, on the basis of the Visa Code, de facto to allow third-country nationals to submit applications for international protection to the representations of Member States that are within the territory of a third country. Indeed, whereas the Visa Code is not intended to harmonise the laws of Member States on international protection, it should be noted that the measures adopted by the European Union on the basis of Article 78 TFEU that govern the procedures for applications for international protection do not impose such an obligation and, on the contrary, exclude from their scope applications made to the representations of Member States. Accordingly, it is apparent from Article 3(1) and (2) of Directive 2013/32 that that directive applies to applications for international protection made in the territory, including at the border, in the territorial waters or in the transit zones of the Member States, but not to requests for diplomatic or territorial asylum submitted to the representations of Member States. Similarly, it follows from Articles 1 and 3 of Regulation No 604/2013 that that regulation only imposes an obligation on Member States to examine any application for international protection made on the territory of a Member State, including at the border or in the transit zones, and that the procedures laid down in that regulation apply exclusively to such applications for international protection.

50 In those circumstances, the Belgian authorities were wrong to describe the applications at issue in the main proceedings as applications for short-term visas.

51 In the light of the foregoing, the answer to the questions referred is that Article 1 of the Visa Code must be interpreted as meaning that an application for a visa with limited territorial validity made on humanitarian grounds by a third-country national, on the basis of Article 25 of the code, to the representation of the Member State of destination that is within the territory of a third country, with a view to lodging, immediately upon his or her arrival in that Member State, an application for international protection and, thereafter, to staying in that Member State for more than 90 days in a 180-day period, does not fall within the scope of that code but, as European Union law currently stands, solely within that of national law.

Costs

52 Since these proceedings are, for the parties to the main proceedings, a step in the action pending before the national court, the decision on costs is a matter for that court. Costs incurred in submitting observations to the Court, other than the costs of those parties, are not recoverable.

On those grounds, the Court (Grand Chamber) hereby rules:

Article 1 of Regulation (EC) No 810/2009 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 13 July 2009 establishing a Community Code on Visas (Visa Code), as amended by Regulation (EU) No 610/2013 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 26 June 2013, must be interpreted as meaning that an application for a visa with limited territorial validity made on humanitarian grounds by a third-country national, on the basis of Article 25 of the code, to the representation of the Member State of destination that is within the territory of a third country, with a view to lodging, immediately upon his or her arrival in that Member State, an application for international protection and, thereafter, to staying in that Member State for more than 90 days in a 180-day period, does not fall within the scope of that code but, as European Union law currently stands, solely within that of national law.

[Signatures]

Language of the case: French.
Title R (on the application of Ali) (Appellant) v. Secretary of State for the Home Department (Respondent) and R (on the application of Bibi) (Appellant) v. Secretary of State for the Home Department (Respondent)

Publication Date 18 November 2015

Country United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland

Citation / Document Symbol [2015] UKSC 68

Cite as R (on the application of Ali) (Appellant) v. Secretary of State for the Home Department (Respondent) and R (on the application of Bibi) (Appellant) v. Secretary of State for the Home Department (Respondent), [2015] UKSC 68, United Kingdom: Supreme Court, 18 November 2015, available at: https://www.refworld.org/cases,UK_SC,58de46ed4.html [accessed 8 November 2022]
Afghan Women Denied Identity Cards

Publisher Institute for War and Peace Reporting Author Zamzama Publication Date 27 March 2017 Cite as Institute for War and Peace Reporting, Afghan Women Denied Identity Cards, 27 March 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/58de4c184.html [accessed 8 November 2022] Disclaimer This is not a UNHCR publication. UNHCR is not responsible for, nor does it necessarily endorse, its content. Any views expressed are solely those of the author or publisher and do not necessarily reflect those of UNHCR, the United Nations or its Member States.

A full 70 per cent of women in the eastern province of Nangarhar do not hold Afghan identity cards and thus are denied access to a wide range of services, IWPR has discovered.

The documents, known as tazkira, are vital to access basic facilities from medical care, education and banking to employment and voting.

But many women told IWPR that their family had refused them permission to apply for ID cards.

Aisha, 28, said that ID cards were only obtained for women in a narrow set of circumstances.

"IDs are taken out for women in order to get passports when they go on the hajj pilgrimage or toother countries. Otherwise women do not get IDs. I myself don't have an ID so far."

Women being denied permission to obtain ID cards are a problem nationwide. Across Afghanistan, 56 per cent of women do not have tazkira. But the figure in Nangarhar is much lower.

The director of the provincial population registration office, Haifzullah Pahlawan, told IWPR, "Seventy percent of women in Nangarhar do not have IDs."

Pahlawan said that only women who had jobs, travelled abroad or had graduated took out ID cards, and this only applied to women living in urban areas. In more remote parts of the province, men deemed it shameful for female family members to obtain such documents.

He explained that they distributed 300,000 IDs in 2015 and 400,000 IDs in 2016 with nearly 20 per cent of them for women, adding, "In the past we held public awareness programmes with the help of UNICEF over this issue, but the process has stopped in the past six months."

Gulalay, a resident of the Majburabad area who said that she was around 30 years old, said that male family members had a responsibility to obtain IDs for their sisters, mothers and wives but this simply did not happen.

"There are 14 women in our family, including my mothers, five sisters, three sisters-in-law, and four nieces, but none of them has an ID," she said.

Marhaba, who said she did not know how old she was but appeared to be in her mid-30s, explained that she only realized she needed an ID after she became ill and her family decided to take her to India. When they applied for a passport, they were told they needed to obtain an ID card first.

Marhaba said that the other six women in her family have no IDs.

Nangarhar's director of women's affairs, Anisa Emrani, told IWPR that they were had received no complaints of women lacking access to tazkira.

"This is new for us," she said. "We will try to provide public awareness about this to encourage women to get IDs."

But Hashima Sharif, the head of women's affairs at the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC) in the east, said that she was well aware of the problem.

In a male-dominated society such as Afghanistan, women were routinely denied such basic rights, she told IWPR.

Hashimi explained that when women approached them or other agencies for help they were asked to produce their ID cards. This meant that those without the documents faced a long period of limbo waiting for their cases to be dealt with by the relevant offices.

"If women have no national IDs, we cannot call them Afghans. But families do not take IDs out for them," she continued, adding that AIHRC workshops and seminars in both the provincial capital and the regions had failed to change attitudes.

Some community leaders say that they are trying to spread the word that tazkira were important for both men and women. Tribal elder Mohammad Wayez Zahirzai said that he and his fellow leaders were informing people about the benefits of tazkira and encouraging everyone to obtain one.

"If one is talking about honour and shame, there is nothing involved in this to harm their honour. This actually determines that they are Afghans. If one does not have an ID, he should not call himself an Afghan, because he is not."

A religious scholar, Mawlawi Imaduddin, also said that obtaining an ID card was necessary.

"Every person's identity must be known," he said. " Taking out an ID means registering one's background as well."

But attitudes are taking a long time to change. Jalalabad city resident Asad Khan, 42, agreed that men had should help their female relatives obtain ID cards and said that he believed more and more were doing so.

However, when asked how many women in his family had tazkira, he smiled shamefacedly and said, "Why should I lie to you? There are nine women in the family and none has an ID."

This report was produced under IWPR's Promoting Human Rights and Good Governance in Afghanistan initiative, funded by the European Union Delegation to Afghanistan.

Copyright notice:  Institute for War & Peace Reporting
Afghanistan's Silent Killer

Publisher Institute for War and Peace Reporting Author Marzia Husseini Publication Date 29 March 2017 Citation / Document Symbol ARR 569 Cite as Institute for War and Peace Reporting, Afghanistan's Silent Killer, 29 March 2017, ARR 569, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/58de4c724.html [accessed 8 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 a dark, narrow hallway at the Herat breast cancer treatment centre, women with anxious faces wait for their diagnose.

Nafas Gul (not her real name), a woman in her forties, said that she had been in pain for a long time but the cost of seeing a doctor meant that she had not sought medical advice. She also said that she had not realised that the problem might be cancer.

"My right breast has been painful for the past two years," she told IWPR. "It has grown very swollen. I had an ultrasound and I'm waiting for the result. I hope I don't have cancer."

Alongside her in the waiting room, Fatima is weeping, apprehensive about the fate of her daughter-in-law.

"My daughter-in-law's breast has recently become very painful. At first we didn't pay any attention to it, we didn't know [it could be dangerous]. We came to the centre today to find out the diagnosis. Let's pray that the result is negative."

Officials at Herat's only breast cancer clinic say that patient numbers are soaring, although they have few diagnostic resources and no treatment facilities.

Breast cancer is the second most common cause of death for women in Afghanistan after maternal mortality. But there is little public awareness around the issue, including encouraging women to be vigilant for signs which include breast lumps, swelling, changes in colour or texture and a nipple that is inverted or bleeding. There are no routine screenings or treatment available at the primary health care level.

The Herat centre's head of mammography, Sayyida Sayyid, said that her clinic had seen more than 1,100 women since the beginning of the last solar year ten months ago.

Of these, she said, "300 women have been diagnosed with breast cancer, out of whom 40 have been sent abroad for treatment as they were in a critical condition."

Although the existence of the clinic was little known outside the provincial centre, Sayyid said that numbers of patients were rising year on year.

"We had 58 visitors in 1393 [2014/15], out of which nine of them were diagnosed with cancer. In 1394[2015/16], we had 1,053 visitors with 384 people diagnosed with cancer, out of which 31 were sent abroad [for treatment]."

However, she noted that the clinic was only equipped with ultrasound and mammography devices and had no surgery or chemotherapy facilities, although there were plans in process to create a pathology service and send doctors to Italy for further diagnostic training.

There were no other facilities in Herat to treat breast cancer, and only limited resources for treatment in the capital, Kabul.

Afghan ministry of public health figures show that 3,500 women are diagnosed with breast cancer in Afghanistan each year. The minister of public health, Ferozuddin Feroz, told a national workshop on breast cancer five months ago that the disease was fatal in 1,700 of these cases.

The minister stressed that breast cancer could be treated if diagnosed in time.

"Based on the national health programme, the ministry of health has pledged to lower the level of breast cancer through awareness for women, using simple methods for diagnosis of the disease, training of health personnel, and establishing of diagnosis and treatment centres for the disease," he said.

In Herat, provincial council members say that the local department of public health should itself take the initiative to raise awareness about the disease.

"I can say without hesitation that the women who have sought treatment at the centre found out about it through personal contacts, otherwise, nothing would have been done," said Sakina Husseini, who sits on the council.

She conceded that she herself was yet to pay an official visit to the centre, adding, "I have only seen its sign and that's all."

Local health officials said that they were doing their best to boost both diagnostic capacity and train more specialists.

Asif Kabir, deputy director of public health, said, "The work done by the department on this issue so far has been to prepare the mammography facility. We have coordinated with partners in Germany and a number of doctors will be sent there for pathology training. The association of surgeons has also promised to cooperate."

Mahbuba Jamshidi, the director of women's affairs in Herat, said that her department hoped to launch its own educational programmes about the disease.

She said that her own department were happy to work with women's rights' defenders to raise awareness, but said that they needed the support of the local department of public health to begin.

And she stressed that even if women understood the warning signs of breast cancer, there was no hope of treatment within the province.

"Unfortunately, we do not have a specific unit to treat the disease in Herat," she said. "Some facilities have been planned but only in the capital."

This report was produced under IWPR's Promoting Human Rights and Good Governance in Afghanistan initiative, funded by the European Union Delegation to Afghanistan.

Copyright notice:  Institute for War & Peace Reporting
Tajikistan's Abandoned Wives

Publisher Institute for War and Peace Reporting Publication Date 30 March 2017 Citation / Document Symbol RCA 810 Cite as Institute for War and Peace Reporting, Tajikistan's Abandoned Wives, 30 March 2017, RCA 810, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/58de4cc24.html [accessed 8 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.

Adolat's story is a familiar one amongst many Tajik women. She has been on her own ever since her labour migrant husband took a new wife while in Russia.

The 40-year-old mother-of-three from the Bokhtar district of Khatlon region said her husband Muhamad had been working in Russia for many years, but used to visit often and send money home.

But the last time he came to Tajikistan was nine years ago, for his eldest daughter's wedding. He brought his new "wife" to the event, and Adolat says that she hasn't seen him since.

While in Russia, Muhamad had married another Tajik labour migrant in a religious wedding ceremony known as a nikoh. He then stopped sending any money home to his first family in Tajikistan.

Both their daughters are now married and their son is a teenager. With her parents dead and no brothers or sisters of her own, Adolat had to rely on the charity of her father-in-law, who guaranteed her a place to live.

But he recently died and Adolat's future remains uncertain.

"I am afraid that his sons will reconsider his decision," she told IWPR, weeping. "My husband is the eldest son of the family, but did not visit his parents for a long time. His brothers can turn nasty and take away the property [where I live now] because [Muhamad] has not been helping his parents."

Adolat's experience is not unusual in a country where vast swathes of the population leaves to find work abroad.

The number of Tajik labour migrants is estimated at between 800,000 to two million people, depending on the time of year. That amounts to almost a quarter of a population of 8.2 million, and most migrants are male.

Tajiks began working abroad in the early 2000s, mostly in Russia. Following the Russian economic crisis of 2015, there was a short-term drop in numbers, but many of the workers who temporarily went back to Tajikistan quickly returned.

Sharafmo Akobirova, 55, is a Tajik living in Magnitogorsk, an industrial city in Russia. She told IWPR in a telephone interview that many men, both single and married, form partnerships with Tajik and Russian women while working in Russia.

"There are many such cases," she said. "If a man does not return home for a long time, you can be sure that he has a wife here. Many marry according to religious tradition [in a nikah ceremony], while others just live together with a new parter in what they call a civil marriage. It's tolerated, society accepts this fact," Akobirova said, adding that she personally did not approve.

Veteran activist Oinikhol Bobonazarova, who heads the Perspektiva Plus human rights NGO, called the state of Tajik women abandoned by their migrant husbands "a national tragedy".

"Even during the second world war, women's lives were not as hard as they are now," Bobonazarova told IWPR.

The most recent large-scale study carried out by the Tajik State Agency on Social Protection, Employment and Migration, in partnership with local research centre Sozservis, was in 2009.

It found that 40.5 per cent of migrants divorced after leaving the country, and only 10.4 said that migration had no negative impact on their family.

A 2012 study of Tajik migrants by UN Women also found that up to 50 per cent of married men engage in extramarital affairs while abroad.

Tajik civil society groups have called for measures to tackle the problem of men living abroad who fail to support their families.

In 2013, politician Saodat Amirshoeva proposed a bill that would set up a database of emigrants, allowing maintenance payments to be tracked. But the same year, the government rejected the proposed law.

Mavdzhuda Azizova, a lawyer with the International Organisation for Migration in Tajikistan, noted that women were frequently left at the mercy of their in-laws if their husband decided to take another partner.

According to local tradition, parents choose their son's wives. After marriage, a Tajik woman joins her husband's extended family and relies on the protection of his relatives.

"It is often the case that Tajik families have several wives living in one building or even in one apartment. The house often belongs to the husband's father. What do we have as a result? When a husband leaves his wife, she is simply turned out of home with no other option," Azizova said.

In Tajikistan, bigamy and polygamy are criminal offences, punishable by fines of up to 80,000 somoni (10,000 US dollars) or a term of imprisonment up to five years. Bigamy was outlawed in 1999 and polygamy was banned in 2008.

Criminal cases have since been initiated against some 100 men, who mostly were made to pay a fine.

However, human rights defenders say that this number of prosecutions is insignificant compared to the real scale of the problem. Moreover, bigamists who live abroad can easily avoid the payment of fines.

In early 2017, the State Committee on Religious Affairs recommended that only senior imams at a few select mosques be allowed to perform the nikah ceremony. Again, this cannot be applied to Tajiks living abroad.

Dushanbe-based social affairs reporter Galim Fashutdinov said that the Tajik state should impose fines on labour migrants who fail to support their families.

Although Fashutdinov said that "one could understand those men, marrying while working abroad" he said that their responsibility for supporting wives and children at home had to be the priority.

"The authorities may use financial penalties. That's the most effective method. If sons do not help their families, then the parents of these men should pay," Fashutdinov suggested.

Azizova said that a pre-nuptial agreement, currently very rare in Tajikistan, could be a good means of protecting women's rights.

"If there is a pre-nuptial agreement that outlines the rights of spouses and obliges a husband to provide for his wife and children with a property to live in, then men and their parents will become more concerned and care about their wives and daughters-in-law," Azizova said.

In an absence of such an agreement, the most obvious way for a woman abandoned by a migrant husband is to seek work. However, this is not straightforward either, given the current state of the Tajik economy.

Fashutdinov said there were hardly any professional training courses aimed at women, meaning that many were forced to take menial, low-paid work to support their families.

That has been the experience of Nisso, now 35.

After divorcing her first husband in Tajikistan, she went to Moscow to find work and married another Tajik man. When Nisso got pregnant, her partner forced her to go back to Tajikistan and divorced her over the phone by saying the word "talok [I divorce you]" three times.

Back home, Nisso could only get find work as a cleaner.

"I clean the houses of rich people, clean carpets and toilets. I don't turn down any work - I have to earn money to feed my children," she told IWPR.

"We have a tough life. Now I live in my father's house. We argue every day; my brothers want me and my children to leave. They don't want to see us, even though I earn money [of my own]," Nisso said. "My son is my only hope. He will grow up and go to Russia to earn money. Maybe my life will improve then."

Copyright notice:  Institute for War & Peace Reporting
New York City had just about a year to get all the pirate hooker jokes out of its system before Stay Classy, the Will Ferrell-themed bar on the LES, closed for business. At the time, co-owner Zach Neil told Gothamist they would return stronger in the new year to "pay tribute to a time period in the coolest way possible!"

That time period is the 1980s, Neil told us this morning. GB85 is currently in soft-open mode at 174 Rivington, in the former Stay Classy space, which has been updated with murals of '80s icons including Madonna, Michael, Prince, Bowie and those lovable Ghostbusters ghouls.

"The entire inside of the building is a living and evolving piece of art in tribute to the '80s and especially the NYC '80s," Neil explained. "We had some of the biggest and best street artists from NYC such as hektad, Nicholai Khan [and] Charlie Doves come and cover the placefloors, walls, and ceilingsin murals and artwork representing the '80s icons including some of our own New York icons such as Keith Haring."



Also not '80s: Ziggy Stardust-era Bowie jfc (courtesy Stay Classy)

Navigate the website with cautiona certain red-headed crooner may pop up at any momentbut you'll get an idea of the scene they're trying to create, though it's a bit scattershot. GremlinsMemba Those?!are on the nose, but they erroneously attribute Crystal Pepsi to the '80s, (that's the '90s, baby) and Ziggy Stardust-era Bowie is straight '70s.



The space when it was Stay Classy (Alycia Kravitz/Gothamist)

The '80s weren't known for the best judgement when it comes to things like hairstyles; as such, a lot of these cocktails sound like recipes for barfing one out. If you can keep down the Stay Puft, a "ghostly blend of Whipped Vodka, Rum chata, cream, and a hefty scoop of nutella, topped with toasted marshmallows and graham cracker crumbs" then you have a stronger constitution than I.

Neil and co. also run a bar dedicated to Tim Burton's oeuvre and previously stereotyped an entire nation with their sort-lived 'Merica restaurant.
Russian Federation: Detained members of corruption watchdog are prisoners of conscience and should be freed immediately

Publisher Amnesty International Publication Date 31 March 2017 Reference EUR 46/5998/2017 Cite as Amnesty International, Russian Federation: Detained members of corruption watchdog are prisoners of conscience and should be freed immediately, 31 March 2017, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/58de4e6c4.html [accessed 8 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.

Arrests and other reprisals against employees and volunteers of the Anti-Corruption Foundation (ACF) are part of the latest clampdown on the rights to peaceful assembly and expression in Russia. They are facing administrative arrests and harassment by the Russian authorities for organising a live broadcast of the anti-corruption protests that swept across Russia on 26 March, while the state-run media largely ignored this significant political event. The detention of the ACF's staff and volunteers also allowed the authorities to search its office and remove computers and documents containing valuable, and possibly confidential, information. The ACF members were found guilty of "administrative offences" after unfair and politically motivated trials on 27 and 28 March. Twelve individuals, who have been arrested, are prisoners of conscience and should be immediately and unconditionally released. The Russian authorities should respect the rights to freedom of expression, association and peaceful assembly, and abstain from any further attempts to prevent ACF employees and volunteers, from the legitimate exercise of these rights.

On 26 March 2017, in what turned out to be the biggest protest in Russia for years, peaceful street rallies took place across Russia calling for investigation of allegations of corruption against senior government officials. In most places the rallies were not pre-authorised by the authorities, as the unduly restrictive Russian law requires, which deemed them "unlawful" in the authorities' eyes. In just 21 of the 99 cities where activists requested such authorisation from the authorities the permission was granted. In many places, the peaceful rallies were dispersed by the police, often with the use of excessive force.

The ACF has been instrumental in organising and covering the protests in the media. The call for official investigation of the allegation of corruption among government officials was prompted by a report published by the ACF alleging that the Prime Minister, Dmitry Medvedev, had unlawfully accumulated enormous personal wealth. The ACF's earlier publications alleged high-scale corruption among President Vladimir Putin's close friends and associates and members of the ruling United Russia party. The ACF's founder and leader, anti-corruption campaigner and political activist, Aleksei Navalny, appealed to his numerous supporters to take to the street on 26 March, and used the opportunity to rally support for his presidential bid ahead of the 2018 election.

During the rallies, the ACF organised a live internet broadcast from their office in Moscow covering the protests. According to the ACF, it was watched live by 170,000 internet users, and its recoding was watched 3.75 million times. Twice during the broadcast, law enforcement officers came to the office, forcing the broadcast to stop. The first time, they searched the ACF's premises for explosives. Two ACF members, who were present at the time, stated during their trails that they were not informed that the alleged purpose of the police officers' visit and the search of the ACF's premises was a bomb threat. Nonetheless, like every member of the ACF, they complied with the law enforcement officers' request and allowed police officers with a dog to search the office for explosives. The police did not find any explosives and left the office. However, later the same day, police officers returned to the ACF office accompanied by members of the fire brigade, and ordered everyone to leave the premises claiming there had been a fire alarm. During the trial ACF members explained that everybody obeyed and went out into the corridor. It was in the corridor where, contrary to what would be expected during a genuine fire alarm when people are required to leave the building, their passport details were checked and recorded by police officers in the corridor (this can be seen in publicly available video footage of the event(1). Having recorded their personal details, police arrested all 14 members of the ACF present, and took them to the local police station where they spent the night before being delivered to court the following day to stand trial. The office was sealed by police, and at the time of writing it remains sealed.

Members of the ACF believe that, following their detention, law enforcement officers searched the ACF's office during the nights of 27 and 28 March, removing computers and documents.

There is publicly available video footage showing plain-clothed men and two uniformed police officers taking computers and boxes from the ACF offices on the night of 26 to 27 March.2 The men are being followed by reporters, but refused to explain who they are.

All of the arrested ACF employees and volunteers were charged with "disobeying police

officers' legitimate orders" under Article 19.3 of the Code of Administrative Offences. Each of them stood trial individually and was found guilty.

Oksana Baulina, editor-in-chief of streaming Web channel NavalnyLive, together with the ACF's staff and volunteers Ruslan Ablyakimov, Vladimir Buzin, Anton Glembo, Sergei Gorkayev, Ekaterina Kenareva, Aleksei Lapyshev, Ekaterina Melnikova, Vladislav Mosin, Anna Revonenko and Konstantin Shirokov, were each sentenced to administrative detention, ranging from five to seven days. Leonid Volkov, the ACF's project manager and head of Aleksei Navalny's presidential campaign, was sentenced to 10 days of administrative detention. Aleksei Bakhrushin and Maria Zakharova were spared detention, possibly on account of their health conditions, and fined RUB 1,000 (approximately US$18) each instead.

The trials were conducted over two days, the 27 and 28 March. A representative of Amnesty International was present in court on 27 March, during one of the trials and spoke with defendants and lawyers of several other cases, and witnessed considerable delays. The defedants and their lawyers argued convincingly, including with reference to the circumstances fo their arrest described above, that their detentions were groundless and that the purpose of the two police raids on the ACF office was not a response to a bomb threat or fire alarm but a deliberate attempt to disrupt the ACF's work. However, the court failed to take their arguments into consideration.

Also, according to the lawyers representing the ACF staff and volunteers, the office searches had been carried out as purported "incident site examinations". The law generally requires that examination of an organisation's premises regarded as the site of an incident should be conducted in the presence of the organisation's representative and limits the reasons for which any objects may be removed from the site. The searches of the ACF's office did not follow these legal requirements.

Amnesty International believes that the arrest of ACF employees and volunteers was arbitrary, and their subsequent trials and conviction for the administrative offence of "disobeying police officers' legitimate orders" were marred by several procedural violations. In particular, contrary to Russian legal requirements, following their arrest, they were held in custody for several hours before their purported "offense" was officialy documented (before they were provided with so-called protokols of administrative offence). By law (Article 28.5 of the Code of Administrative Offences), this should have been done immediately after the purported offence took place. In reality, the protokols were issued several hours later. Moreover, copies of these initial protokols were later unlawfully taken from them by police and replaced with new ones. Just one of the ACF defendants was able to preserve both a copy of the original protokol and the new one, and presented them both in court. The judge agreed to include both of these in the case file during the trial, but nonetheless passed a guilty verdict.

Contrary to the legal requirements, the "protokols" did not explain the reason why police officers asked everyone to leave the ACF office. The second version of the "protokols" contained a different description of the reasons for the police visit to the ACF visit (one relating to bomb threat and the other to fire alarm). In at least two of the trials held by different judges, the court refused defence requests to present evidence and to have named witnesses examined, in direct violation of their right to a fair trial.

At least one of the arrested individuals, Ekaterina Kenareva, has serious health problems, and she required emergency medical services during her court hearing on 27 March. However, she was not allowed to be seen by paramedics until after her sentence was delivered. After the paramedics administered some medicines, she was left in custody to serve her sentence.

All those who have been detained are prisoners of conscience who have been deprived of their freedom for their media and investigative work. Moreover, the confiscation of their computers and documents may be intended not only to undermine the ACF's work, but also to uncover their sources, putting them, in turn, in danger of criminal prosecution for exposing corruption.

Amnesty International calls on the Russian authorities to release all detained members of the ACF immediately and unconditionally, and end reprisals against any peaceful protesters, investigative journalists and political activists in Russia.

Copyright notice:  Copyright Amnesty International
Mayor de Blasio is on board with a soon-to-be-released plan to close Rikers Island, he announced at a City Hall press conference this afternoon. The New York Times obtained a draft of the plan drawn up by an independent commission, headed by retired New York state Chief Judge Jonathan Lipmann and assembled at the request of the City Council last year.

De Blasio met with Lipmann and Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito on Thursday evening. At the press conference Friday, he claimed not to have seen a copy of the report, which he said would be published Sunday. Instead, he said, he and Mark-Viverito had reached an agreement on the benchmarks that would need to be met to phase out the use of Rikers over the next 10 years, replacing some of that jail capacity with new facilities around the city. He stressed that he does not know what potential locations are under consideration for placing new jails.

The hastily organized press conference came without the kind of written materials that typically accompany a major City Hall announcement.

Between yesterday evening and this morning, according to de Blasio, "We said, 'Wait this is the combination of factors that would actually make this work.' We thought, its time to go ahead and make the announcement that we had an agreement on how this would work."

He said that the aim is to get the city jail population, currently at around 9,300, to 5,000 in the next decade. By the time the population reaches 7,000, he said, new jails would have to be sited and moving towards construction for the transition to work.

Our pals over at DNAinfo broke the news of the plan, and the mayor's involvement in looking into it, a year ago. At the time, de Blasio denied the existence of a search for an alternative to Rikers and called it a "noble concept" that couldn't be done.

The Times reports that the nearly-finished study calls for phasing out the use of Rikers over 10 years as the city further slashes the jail population through bail reforms, expanded diversion programs for drug offenders and the mentally ill, and changing state law so that some low-level offenses such as fare evasion and "gravity knife" possession are handled in civil court. In the place of the island jail complex, the city would build new jails in each of the boroughs to hold as many as 5,500 prisoners, as compared to the 9,000-10,000 in the system currently.

Advocates for closing Rikers have long argued that such an arrangement would lower costs by moving inmates closer to the courts, and make it easier for prisoners' families and attorneys to visit. However, the prospect is an extremely heavy lift politically, requiring billions of dollars in construction, laying off thousands of members of the politically influential Correction Officers Benevolent Association, and instigating fights with NIMBY activists and local politicians in districts across the city.

Department of Correction Commissioner Joseph Ponte claimed, improbably, that jailers and their union reps would not oppose the plan, saying, "I dont think anybody would argue with a safer, more humane correctional system."

A spokesman for the union did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment.

Mark-Viverito has been a strong backer of the proposal as Council speaker.

"After decades of a system that wants to strip away the dignity of human beings that happen to have an interaction with the criminal justice system," she said this afternoon, citing the suicide death of Kalief Browder, who spent three years on Rikers, most of the time in solitary, before having his charges of stealing a backpack dropped. "We finally have someone who wants to give some back."

One of many outstanding questions is whether it would make sense to build a new facility on Rikers in the interim. The Bloomberg administration approved and designed a $660-million new facility on the island. Its future is now in question, but de Blasio said, "Nothing's off the table" until the 5,000-inmate mark is reached.

The city currently has jails in lower Manhattan and Downtown Brooklyn that together hold around 2,400 people.

Asked whether he wasn't setting up arbitrary benchmarks to avoid blame when he's out of office and the plan doesn't work out, de Blasio told a reporter, "That's your interpretation. That's not what I feel."

He continued, "Political benefit would be saying were closing Rikers next year and the Mexicans are paying for it. You think this is pandering, but I know real pandering. Real pandering would be saying Im closing rikers next year and its not going to affect you at all. What i said was to give everyone a sense of the trajectory that must be met."

Mark-Viverito and de Blasio praised themselves for enacting various reforms, including ending solitary confinement for people under 21 and providing video visitation for inmates. They also claimed that hiring 2,000 extra cops to engage in "neighborhood policing" has helped contribute to the crime rate decline of the last three years. The mayor said that the last year's, and even the last month's crime numbers helped convince him that the closure was possible. The drop continues a two-decade-long trend.

Robert Gangi, outgoing director of the Police Reform Organizing Project and soon-to-formally-announce long-shot mayoral candidate, said that closing Rikers wouldn't require building new jails if city leadership reformed the police department's use of Broken Windows policing.

"They address the conditions on the back end, as opposed to the front end, which is whats causing mass incarceration," he said, noting that the Queens House of Detention has been decommissioned but could be renovated for less than what it would cost for several new jails. "There are ways to reduce the citys jail population [that] the city is not willing to undertake, which are discriminatory policing practices. They drive the citys jail population more than any other thing."

De Blasio has been an ardent defender of the strategy, which overwhelmingly is carried out against black and Latino men and is a signature of former police Commissioner Bill Bratton. The NYPD Inspector General's Office found in a study last year that there is no meaningful statistical correlation between concerted low-level enforcement and decreases in felony crime. Bratton disputed the report's findings but did not offer any substantive critiques of its methods. The NYPD has refused to make most of the reforms called for by the report to better assess the effectiveness of the methods.

Post-jail-demolition, Rikers Island would make a good spot for a LaGuardia runway expansion or some other infrastructure facility, the report reviewed by the Times said. The noise and height restrictions related to the nearby airport would make it unfeasible for housing.

"We fully intend to reutilize Rikers Island for purposes other than jailing people," de Blasio said. "Government facility, private-sector enterpriseswhatever it may be, theres going to be a second life for Rikers Island."

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Cambodias top electoral body on Friday threatened legal action against any organization that conducts an opinion poll prior to upcoming local elections, prompting blowback from civil society groups who called the surveys key to fine-tuning political platforms for contending parties.



Speaking at a workshop on media preparation for the June 4 commune election, National Election Committee (NEC) spokesperson Hang Puthea said the NEC is in discussion with the Ministry of Information to release a statement legally banning opinion polls within a month of the ballot.



[The decision] rests on regulations and legal procedures that we want to further stipulate in detail so as to ensure that even when there is election, Cambodia remains stable, he told attendees.



Surveys predicting which political party will win the election create confusion and chaos in society, Hang Puthea said, adding that only the NEC is authorized to announce the official results of the vote.



Past opinion polls caused an irregular environment in society, he said.



The NEC is paying great attention to preparations for the election and to ensuring that the daily lives of our citizens remain unaffected.



Once the NEC issues its prohibition on opinion polls, any institution violating the ban will face legal action, Hang Puthea said, without elaborating on what punitive measures might be taken.



The NEC announcement followed an opinion poll recently published by local media that claimed the opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP) would win up to 60 percent of commune chief positions up for grabs in this years election. Ruling Cambodian Peoples Party (CPP) spokesperson Sok Ey San has called the survey a trick meant to confuse public opinion and discredit the CPP.



Pov Pisith, the deputy director-general of the Audiovisual Department under the Ministry of Information, who was also in attendance at Fridays workshop, said the ministry will not permit the broadcast of any opinion poll prior to the election to avoid social insecurity.



Each political party will have its own observers at all polling offices, so we will know who will win and who will lose because everything is transparent, he said, suggesting there is no need for surveys ahead of the vote.



But Sam Kuntheamy, executive director of the civil society group Neutral and Impartial Committee for Free and Fair Elections in Cambodia (NICFEC), took issue with the idea that opinion polls foment chaos, instead calling them a crucial tool for parties in gauging how effective their political platforms are ahead of a vote.



They help parties make further efforts [to refine their campaigns], he told RFAs Khmer Service.



Any parties lacking support can further improve their political platforms so that they can attract more votes.



Twelve political parties are competing for 1,646 commune council seats in the June 4 ballot that many see as a bellwether for general elections in 2018.



The CPP won more than 70 percent of the vote and secured 1,592 of 1,633 communes in Cambodias 2012 local elections, held before the CNRP was formed. The opposition party won nearly half of the vote in the general election the following year.



Observers say the CNRP could give the CPP, which has ruled Cambodia for more than 35 years, a run for its money in June, and the opposition has warned that the ruling party seeks to prevent it from standing in the elections through a variety of different measures.



The CNRP on Friday filed official documents informing the Ministry of Interior of amendments to its party by-laws after the ministry recently declared the oppositions appointment of Kem Sokha as president illegitimate, throwing its participation in the upcoming election into question.



The ministry had claimed that the appointment during a March 2 extraordinary congress ran afoul of the CNRPs statute, based on documentation the party filed in 2013, requiring a moratorium on electing a new president for 18 months after the post was vacated. The CNRP had amended the statute at the congress before appointing new leadership.



Ny Chakrya (R) is brought to the Supreme Court by police in Phnom Penh, Sept. 5, 2016. Credit: RFA RFA Bail denied



Also on Friday, Cambodias Supreme Court denied an appeal for bail by Ny Chakrya, the NECs deputy secretary-general who has been in pre-trial detention for 337 daysalong with four officials from local civil society group ADHOCin an alleged case of bribing an alleged mistress of CNRP president Kem Sokha.



Ny Chakryas attorney Sam Sokong told RFA that presiding Judge Khim Ponns decision to uphold an appeal courts March 24 ruling that his client be denied bail was baseless.



The rulings of the Appeal Court and the Supreme Court were based on the grounds of the charge made against my client over a criminal case, [as an alleged] accomplice in bribing a witness, he said.



But in legal principle, allegation of criminal offense or non-criminal offense shall not be served as the basis for pretrial detention because the freedom and rights of the accused are protected by law.



Sam Sokong said that his argument to the Supreme Court should have been sufficient to win Ny Chakryas freedom.



We raised the issue of laws concerning freedom [of the accused], the [exorbitant] bail amount, the role of my client as deputy secretary-general of the NEC, [the needs of] his residence and family, and particularly that he is sick right now, the lawyer said.



Sam Sokong said his hopes now rest with the Phnom Penh Municipal Court, where he submitted a petition calling for a prompt conclusion of the case against his client so that the trial maybe proceed. He has also requested the courts investigating judges to drop all charges against Ny Chakrya or to grant him temporary bail.



Ny Chakrya has been charged with accessory to bribery, while the four ADHOC officialsLim Mony, Nay Vanda, Ny Sokha, and Yi Soksanwere accused of bribery for attempting to keep Kem Sokhas alleged mistress quiet in a wide-ranging probe by Prime Minister Hun Sens government into the supposed affair.



While the court case against them continues, Kem Sokha and a local CNRP official were granted royal pardons in the case.



On Friday, Ny Chakryas wife, Yem Chantha, told RFA her husband is not a flight risk and intends to cooperate with the court during his trial.



He has no intention to fleethe same with the four ADHOC officials, she said.



We all have proper residences, families and work. We are cooperating with the court. Why would we have to flee?



She stressed that Ny Chakrya is truly sick, adding that life in detention had been difficult for his health.



Rights groups and even the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) representative in Cambodia have called on Cambodia to release the five, dismissing their pre-trial detention as arbitrary.



Reported by Sothearin Yeang, Maly Leng and Moniroth Morm for RFAs Khmer Service. Translated by Sovannarith Keo. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.
A court in the southern Chinese province of Guangdong on Friday sentenced two rights activists to jail for subversion for using the internet and social media to attack the socialist system."

Su Changlan, who has campaigned for the land rights of local farming communities, including the right of rural women, was jailed for three years after being found guilty of "incitement to subvert state power" by the Foshan Intermediate People's Court after a more than two years in pretrial detention.

Fellow Foshan rights activist Chen Qitang was jailed for four years and six months on the same charge.

The court judgement found that Su and Chen had "used the internet and social media to spread rumors and defamation, and repeatedly published or forwarded articles and posts containing attacks on the socialist system."

"Their actions constitute the crime of incitement to subvert state power," the court said.

Defense attorney Liu Xiaoyuan said the sentencing hearing lasted just three minutes, and judges hadn't inquired whether or not the defendants would appeal.

"This was unexpected, and went against the expectations of the defendants," Liu said.

"Today's sentencing hearing took just three minutes, and they didn't even allow time to read the judgement or hear opinions, nor did they ask if there would be appeals, or their opinions on the judgement," he said.

"Then they took them away," Liu said, adding that he would file a procedural complaint.

"They are definitely supposed to read out both the judgement and the opinions of the defense counsel," he said. "They are also supposed to ask the defendants if they plan to appeal."

Fellow defense attorney Wu Kuiming said the authorities had likely deliberately curtailed the hearing for security reasons.

"It's not usual for attorneys to have to go through security checks, but they told us that today was special and that we would have to do this, and the escorted us through in person," Wu told RFA.

"Then I found out that none of the other courts in the building were in operation that day," he said.

He said Su and Chen's hearings had been treated as separate cases, with Su's starting at 9 a.m. and Chen's at 10.30 a.m.

"We didn't get our copy of the judgement for a long time; I don't even think they had it ready. I don't know why," Wu said.

Tight security

Security outside the court building was tight, with large numbers of plainclothes police mingling with passers-by outside, and preventing anyone from taking photos, fellow activists said.

"It was raining today. I got there at about 8.45 a.m. at the east gate. I couldn't see the prisoner vans," Guangdong-based activist Liao Jianhao said. "There were plainclothes police all around meyoung people with earpieces."

"One of our group got out his phone to take pictures but he was immediately surrounded by three or four of these young people who said the pictures had to be deleted; then they told us to leave," Liao said.

"They had sealed off the road to the east of the court building, and they were forcing everyone to cross over to the south side of the road," he said, estimating that around 50 people had shown up to support Su and Chen, mostly from Guangdong.

Guangdong activist Wang Aizhong said the authorities are keen to stamp out any signs of nonviolent resistance among activists.

"These are baseless charges, whether we are talking about Su Changlan or Chen Qitang, which the authorities have pinned on them as a political offense," Wang said.

"Actually, they want to suppress anyone who fights for the rights and interests of ordinary people, and any form of disobedience to the dictatorship," he said.

Activists in Hong Kong staged a protest against the sentences, saying that some of the posts made by Su and Chen had been in support of the 2014 pro-democracy Occupy Central movement.

"Just a peaceful action like posting a few words or photos in support of Hong Kong's Umbrella movement is enough to get you a few years in jail," rights activist and lawyer Albert Ho told the protest.

Demonstrators chanted "Free Su Changlan! Free Chen Qitang! Release all political prisoners!" outside Beijing's representative office in the city.

Others chanted: "Supporting the Umbrella movement is not a crime!"

The Occupy Central movement saw hundreds of thousands of people pour onto the streets in a campaign for full democracy, using umbrellas to protect themselves from sun, rain, and pepper spray, which gave the demonstration the nickname Umbrella Movement.

But the movement ended with no political victory, and amid accusations from the ruling Chinese Communist Party that the civil disobedience campaign was being orchestrated by "hostile foreign forces" behind the scenes.

Detention judged arbitrary

Earlier this month Su, 45, became the third recipient of the Cao Shunli Memorial Award for Human Rights Defenders, in honor of her work "promoting human rights at the grassroots level in China."

There have been growing concerns for her health after a prolonged period in police detention with no medical treatment for her heart arrhythmia and hyperthyroidism, rights groups say.

Su's detention has been judged "arbitrary" by the United Nations, which has called on Beijing to release and compensate her. She is still being held in the Nanhai Detention Center in Foshan.

Chen Qitang, better known by his pseudonym Tian Li, stood trial last April at the Foshan Intermediate Peoples Court, where the charges against him focused on six online posts by Chen, three of which were penned by him.

Chen pleaded not guilty, and his defense team argued that none of his actions constituted a crime under Chinese law. But the prosecution case said the articles represented a "harsh attack" on the ruling Chinese Communist Party.



Reported by Yang Fan and Ding Wenqi for RFA's Mandarin Service, and by Hai Nan for the Cantonese Service. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
A court in the southwestern Chinese province of Sichuan on Friday handed down a four-year jail term to a veteran rights activist detained after visiting the grave of a 1989 Tiananmen massacre victim in 2015, finding him guilty of a public order offense.



The Wuhou District People's Court in Sichuan's capital Chengdu jailed Chen Yunfei after convicting him of "picking quarrels and stirring up trouble," a charge that is increasingly used to target peaceful dissent and criticism of the ruling Chinese Communist Party.



Chen, who appeared at the one-day hearing in his pajamas in a satirical reference to President Xi Jinping's slogan "the Chinese dream," rejected the verdict and sentence, his lawyer told RFA.



"Chen Yunfei smiled and made a victory sign ... [he] wore pajamas in court today," defense attorney Sui Muqing said. "He said it was easier that way to dream the Chinese dream."



"He said the police, prosecution and court had persecuted him and shown contempt for ideas."



Sui said Chen, who was initially detained on subversion charges on March 25, 2015 near after visiting the grave of Tiananmen massacre victim Wu Guofeng near Chengdu, is innocent.



"All he did was to exercise his rights as a citizen under the constitution," Sui said. "The core problem with his case is that it is an attack on freedom of expression; it's a form of political persecution."



"He was actually pursuing a glorious ideal; the dream of the citizen to exercise their rights ... He is innocent."



Sui said in an earlier interview that Chen had been hoping to get a longer sentence, of five or even 10 years.



"His aim is to become China's last political prisoner," he said. "He would rather keep on serving other people's jail time for them."



Police stand guard outside of Chen Yunfei's trial in Chengdu, March 31, 2017. Credit: RFA listener RFA listener Tight security



Security was tight outside the court buildings, where around a dozen of Chen's supporters gathered in the hope of attending the hearing.



But they were detained by police for questioning at the local police station instead, according to Chengdu-based petitioner Wang Rongwen.



"I went there today with my wife and a few friends," Wang said. "The area was partially sealed off, although not as tightly as [for Chen's trial]."



"We were able to get to a point opposite the court buildings, but we couldn't cross over. The road had been sealed off halfway across," he said.



"I stood there a while, and then the state security police came over and dragged me away as far as the intersection."



Fellow Chengdu rights activist Huang Xiaomin said Chen is a bit of a legend in the human rights community.



"He is a key figure, full of ideas and legendary actions," Huang said. "More than 20 years ago, from the time he was a university student during the 1989 pro-democracy movement, he has matured into an independent social critic and satirist who takes aim at all that is wrong with our society to try to get more people to wake up and push for social change and progress."



"I have collaborated with him many times, and I think there isn't anyone to match him in China today."



Target of harassment



Chens human rights advocacy and environmental activism have made him a frequent target of police harassment, violent assaults, and arbitrary detention.



In 2007, he was held under six months' residential surveillance after placing an advertisement in the Chengdu Evening News commemorating the relatives of those who died in the Tiananmen massacre, on charges of "incitement to subvert state power."



In 2014, the authorities launched a nationwide crackdown on activists and family members of victims of the 1989 military crackdown on the Tiananmen Square student-led pro-democracy movement in the run-up to the 25th anniversary on June 4.



The government bans public memorials marking the event, and has continued to ignore growing calls in China and from overseas for a reappraisal of the 1989 student protests, which it once styled a "counterrevolutionary rebellion."



The number of people killed when People's Liberation Army tanks and troops entered Beijing on the night of June 3-4, 1989, has never been confirmed.



Reported by Qiao Long for RFA's Mandarin Service, and by Hai Nan for the Cantonese Service. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
Foreign Minister Anifah Aman (left) greets Mohd Nor Azrin Md Zain, the counselor at Malaysias embassy to North Korea, at Kuala Lumpur International Airport after Md Zain and eight other Malaysians arrived on a flight from Pyongyang, March 31, 2017.

Malaysias police chief gave an assurance Friday that a probe into the murder of the half-brother of North Koreas leader had not been compromised by the homeward return of three North Korean suspects under a diplomatic deal worked out by both countries.

The three men had arrived in Pyongyang on Friday via Beijing along with the body of Kim Jong Nam, who was poisoned to death by the VX nerve agent at a Kuala Lumpur airport on Feb. 13, in an audacious operation that triggered a diplomatic row between Malaysia and North Korea.

Malaysian Police Inspector-General Khalid Abu Bakar said the men, who had been hiding in the North Korean embassy for weeks, were allowed to leave because they no longer were needed for the investigation into the murder.

No, no, on my criminal investigation, it has not been compromised. I still state that the investigation on the murder of KJN is ongoing, Khalid told reporters in Kuala Lumpur.

He said that the trio had been interviewed by investigators and, We have recorded their statements and we are satisfied with it.

Malaysian officials had said that the three  Hyon Kwang Song, the second secretary at the North Korean embassy in Kuala Lumpur, Kim Uk Il, an employee of North Korean state airline Air Koryo, and Ri Ji U (also known as James)  had been caught on a CCTV camera at Kuala Lumpur International Airport 2, where Kim was assassinated.

Prosecutors have charged two women  an Indonesian and a Vietnamese  with killing Kim Jong Nam, but officials in South Korea and the United States had viewed them as pawns in an operation carried out by North Korean agents.

Khalid stressed that police were still looking for four other North Koreans, whom they had identified among suspects named in Kims death.

Police said they think the four returned to North Korea after fleeing Malaysia on the day of Kims assassination.

We need the four to complete our investigation. And I believe that if North Korea wants a transparent investigation, they should cooperate with us and hand over to us the four, Khalid said.

Swap resolves crisis

The Malaysian government had allowed the three suspects to return and permitted Pyongyang to take custody of Kims body, in exchange for nine Malaysians who had been blocked from leaving North Korea for more than three weeks.

The body of the DPRK citizen who died in Malaysia and relevant people from the DPRK have returned to the DPRK today via Beijing, Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesman Lu Kang told a daily press briefing.

Based on international customary practices and humanitarian considerations, the Chinese side offered necessary assistance to the bodys transit through China.

The issue of who would have custody of the body of the estranged half-brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un was a flashpoint in the diplomatic row. The crisis saw both countries, which have maintained bilateral ties since 1973, expel their respective ambassadors and impose exit bans on each others citizens.

At the height of the crisis, Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak accused North Korea of being behind the assassination.

On Thursday evening, Najib announced the crisis was over after his government had granted North Korea permission to take custody of the body. North Koreans who had been blocked from leaving Malaysia were free to go, and the nine Malaysians headed home on a flight out of Pyongyang.

Bilateral relations were intact, Najib said Friday during a visit to Chennai, India.

[W]e hope North Korea will no longer raise such problems as this could jeopardize diplomatic relations between the two countries, the state-run Bernama news agency quoted him as saying.

At Fridays press conference, reporters pressed Khalid about which member or members of Kims family had authorized, in a letter to the coroner, the body to be released, but he declined to say.

Kim Jong Nam had been living with his wife and children in exile in Macau and was estranged from his half-brother, Kim Jong Un, who reportedly had issued a standing order for his execution.

However, the police chief did not discount the possibility the North Korean leader had claimed custody of the body.

The next-of-kin [wrote the letter]. Legally speaking, Kim Jong Un is Jong Nams next-of-kin, Khalid said.

Reported by BenarNews, an RFA-affiliated online news service.
Rohingya Muslim women, sheltered in a house at Kutupalang Rohingya camp in Bangladesh, talk about the abuse they endured during security operations in western Myanmar's Rakhine state, Jan. 27, 2017.

Authorities in Rakhine states Maungdaw township have granted permission to three Rohingya Muslims to file complaints against government soldiers whom they have accused of raping them during a recent crackdown, a local administrator said Friday.

Three women from Kyargaung Taung village said they want to file charges against the soldiers who attacked them during a four-month security sweep of the townships Rohingya communities following deadly attacks on local border guard stations in Maungdaw and neighboring Rathedaung township last October.

Officials blamed the attack on Rohingya militants, and conducted the crackdown to find those who were involved in planning and carrying out the raids during which nine border police officers were killed.

They told media that they want to file charges against the soldiers for raping them, said Ye Htut, Maungdaws district administrator. Thats why village authorities and community leaders are helping them file it.

One woman couldnt come because she is pregnant, so we went to her village and helped her to file the complaint against the soldiers, he said.

Though scores of other Rohingya women have accused security forces of raping them during the crackdown, which ended in February, only three other cases have been filed against soldiers in Maungdaws U Shay Kyar village.

Myanmar has four internal commissions investigating the alleged atrocities by security forces in northern Rakhine townships during the crackdown, but they have been criticized as not being truly independent and having a negative bias toward the country's Muslim minority group.

The United Nations Human Rights Council last week said it will dispatch an independent, international fact-finding mission to investigate the alleged recent human rights violations.

The mission will be looking into reports of murder, rape, torture, and arson by security forces in Rohingya Muslim communities in the northern part of the state during a four-month security sweep that ended in February.

About 1,000 people died during the operation, and more than 77,000 Rohingya fled, mostly to neighboring Bangladesh where they are living in refugee camps.

Reported by Waiyan Moe Myint for RFAs Myanmar Service. Translated by Khet Mar. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.
A Tibetan monk jailed for over five years after surviving a self-immolation protest in Sichuans Ngaba county was released from prison this week after serving his full sentence, Tibetan sources in the region said.



Lobsang Konchok, a monk belonging to Ngabas Kirti monastery, was freed on March 28 and was immediately taken by police to a nomadic area far from his family home in Ngaba, a local source told RFAs Tibetan Service.



His relatives were not informed of the date of his release, and no one was allowed to go to welcome him, RFAs source said, speaking on condition of anonymity.



The authorities are not permitting him to visit his home in Ngabas Meruma township and are keeping him secluded from the public in a nomadic place far away, he said.



Konchok had completed his term at Sichuans Deyang prison earlier this month, but his release was delayed owing to tensions in the Ngaba area during the anniversary of a failed March 10, 1959 Tibetan uprising against Chinese rule.



Though authorities had hoped to keep news of Konchoks release from spreading, one of his friends from Kirti monastery heard about it and went to see him on March 29, and then word quickly spread to others, a second local source said, also speaking on condition he not be named.



Konchok had lost a leg during treatment for the burns suffered in his protest and was subjected to torture and other kinds of harassment during his time in prison, RFAs sources said.



In a Sept. 26, 2011 protest, Konchok had set himself ablaze at a major intersection in Ngaba countys main town after shouting slogans calling for Tibetan freedom and the return of exiled spiritual leader the Dalai Lama, sources told RFA in earlier reports.



Surviving his burns after being overpowered by police, he was quickly taken to a hospital in Sichuans Barkham (in Chinese, Maerkang) county for treatment and was later jailed, sources said.



Kirti monastery and Ngabas main town have been the scene of repeated self-immolations and other protests in recent years by monks, former monks, nuns, and other Tibetans opposed to Chinese rule in Tibetan areas.



Reported by Kunsang Tenzin for RFAs Tibetan Service. Translated by Karma Dorjee. Written in English by Richard Finney.




The gastropub specialists behind neighborhood gems like Sweet Afton, The Bonnie and The Penrose debut the next in their fleet of charming yet sophisticated cocktail bars and restaurants with The Spaniard, opening Monday in the West Village. The team already operates a spot near and dear to me (I'll let you guess why) called Wilfie & Nell up West 4th Street, and now they're taking over the former Boxers/Oliver's City Tavern space just a few blocks away. Deep green leather banquettes look like the ideal spot to camp out on a lazy Saturday, while the cheery barstools beckon for a quick pint before heading home.

Craft cocktails have been the focus of the group's ventures since opening Bua in 2004. While the name of this new pub might lead you to think riojas and vermouths, the main thrust of the spirits program is scotchwith some Irish whiskey and bourbon, toothough cocktails branch out into other territories. To wit, the Second Serve ($13) employs fino sherry, Montenegro and lime.

True to the gastropub format, the food offerings innovate on humble dishes like Buffalo Wings (made with duck here, $14) while sticking close to tried-and-true classics that go very well with drinking. Plump Oysters Rockefeller ($18) eat like a meal with spinach and bacon, Lobster Roast ($14) riffs on the roll with creme fraiche on filone bread, and they're also doing a Patty Melt ($16) with dry aged beef, cheddar and McClure's pickles.

190 West 4th Street; thespaniardnyc.com

The Spaniard Food Menu by Nell Casey on Scribd

The Spaniard Whiskey Menu by Nell Casey on Scribd

The Spaniard Cocktail Menu by Nell Casey on Scribd
Vietnamese blogger and former political prisoner Pham Thanh Nghien has been named a finalist for the Front Line Defenders Award for Human Rights Defenders at Risk, honoring activists who jeopardize their own safety to benefit their communities.



Nghien, who is known for her work publicizing violations against and defending the rights of relatives of fishermen killed by Chinese patrols in the South China Sea, was one of five finalists selected for the 2017 award, Ireland-based Front Line Defenders said in a statement.



Also selected were Ukrainian rights lawyer Emil Kurbedinov, South African land and environment campaigner Nonhle Mbuthuma, imprisoned Kuwaiti minority activist Abdulhakim Al Fadhli and Nicaraguan anti-canal crusader Francisca Ramirez Torres.



These five defenders demonstrate the tenacity and will to persist in the face of severe, often life threatening risks, the statement said, citing executive director of Front Line Defenders Andrew Anderson as he announced the finalists in Dublin on March 30.



Human rights defenders tell us that international visibility is vital to their work, particularly as governments and corporations work to defame, slander, and delegitimize their peaceful struggle for rights  Their struggle has not gone unnoticed and we in Ireland support their fight for rights.



The 2017 finalists and their families have faced attacks, defamation campaigns, legal harassment, death threats, prison sentences, and intimidation, according to Front Line Defenders, which works to promote the visibility and protection of activists it says are critical to rights movements in their countries and communities.



A recipient of the 2009 Human Rights Watch Hellman/Hammet award for writers targeted with political persecution, Nghien was arrested in August that year and sentenced in 2010 to a four-year prison term, followed by three years probation under the charge of conducting propaganda against the state.



Her home has since been raided, she has been blocked from attending medical appointments, had a padlock placed on her door from the outside, and been refused a marriage certificate.



During her probation, Nghien spearheaded several rights campaigns and co-founded the Vietnamese Bloggers Network along with jailed blogger Nguyen Ngoc Nhu Quynhalso known as Mother Mushroom (Me Nam). On Wednesday, Quynh was honored in absentia by the U.S. Department of State with the International Women of Courage Award for her work highlighting rights abuses in Vietnam.



Speaking to RFAs Vietnamese Service Friday, Nghiens friend and fellow activist Kim Chi said that despite the bloggers petite size, she is very brave and always willing to speak out about her beliefs, noting that she had even suffered a severe beating by police in 2015 that left her covered in bruises.



Today, she and her husband continue to be harassed [by the government], but she continues to write important articles that everybody should read, Chi said.



She has never stopped working for noble causes.



The recipient of the 2017 Front Line Defenders Award for Human Rights Defenders at Risk will be announced at a ceremony in Dublin on May 26.



Reported by RFAs Vietnamese Service. Translated by Viet Ha. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.
A court in the southern Chinese province of Guangdong on once more weighed in on the side of a woman who last year won a sex discrimination lawsuit against a restaurant chain, but who has yet to receive her public apology as ordered by the court.



The Guangzhou Intermediate People's Court found in favor of would-be trainee chef Gao Xiao's discrimination lawsuit on appeal last September, ordering the Guangdong Huishijia Economic Development Co. to pay a fine of 2,000 yuan and issue a public apology in a newspaper.



But the company failed to comply, so the court printed part of a compulsory enforcement notice in 's Southern Metropolis Daily newspaper, ordering the company to make its apology, and to pay the cost of publication of the notice.



Gao, 28, had initially applied for 48,000 yuan in compensation, arguing that her failure to even be invited for interview as a trainee chef in 2014 was evidence of gender discrimination on the part of the company.



The company had told her the job was filled, before readvertising it for "male applicants only," she told the court.



Gao welcomed 's move, saying that while it wasn't the same as a genuine apology from the company, it showed that attitudes to gender discrimination are slowly changing in China.



"This is a step-by-step process," she said. "The first case was referred for arbitration, while the second and the third actually found there to be gender discrimination."



"Of course I was hoping for a legal breakthrough, to send the message to everyone, to women, that there is such a thing as gender discrimination in 's society," she said.



"Recruitment should be done on the basis of ability, not gender."



Guangzhou-based women's rights activist Zhang Leilei said the order to make a public apology is significant in a labor market where women frequently face gender-selective recruitment processes, whether explicit or implicit.



"Previous cases have never resulted in an order to apologize," she said. "I think there are more and more people who are concerned about this, as more and more women, college graduates are experiencing such treatment."



"And quite a lot of feminists are willing to stand up and sue; they now have the awareness to stand up and protest," she said, adding that there are precedents for sex discrimination cases.



In 2012, Shanxi college student Cao Ju successfully sued the Beijing Giant Global Education Technology for sex discrimination, winning 30,000 yuan in compensation after mediation, Zhang said.



And in 2014, job applicant Huang Rong sued her employer in the eastern province of Zhejiang, in the first case of its kind, she added.



Gao filed her initial lawsuit with Guangzhou's Haizhu District People's Court last April, after being rejected as an apprentice chef by the Haoxuan Hotel kitchen, which operates a "no women in the kitchen" policy, she told RFA.



The court's verdict was upheld by the Guangzhou Intermediate People's Court on appeal.



Reported by Ding Wenqi for RFA's Mandarin Service. Translated and written in English by Luisetta Mudie.
Amnesty International says Uzbekistans government is carrying out unlawful surveillance of its citizens domestically and outside of the country.

The watchdog said in a report published on March 31 that the Uzbek government's actions are "fostering a climate of fear and uncertainty" for Uzbeks throughout Europe.

The report "reveals the far-reaching effects of mass surveillance, not only on the human rights of people in Uzbekistan, but on [Uzbek] people in Europe," said Joshua Franco, a technology and human rights researcher at Amnesty International.

The authorities "have designed a system where surveillance and the expectation of surveillance is not the exception, but the norm," he said.

Within the Central Asian country, he said, authorities have "created an environment of suspicion where surveillance, or the perceived threat of it, is an ever-present fact of life for human rights defenders, journalists and political activists.

"But even outside the country, the effects of surveillance are being severely felt. Fear is driving a wedge between families, with refugees too afraid to contact their loved ones at home due to the terrible risk it can expose them to," the report added.

Amnestys report cited the cases of Uzbeks living in the country and abroad, including a refugee living in Sweden and a journalist forced to flee to France after being watched by Uzbekistan's secret service.

Human rights activists, opposition critics, and independent journalists have been forced to leave the former Soviet republic to escape arrest or harassment and intimidation by security forces and local authorities, the report said.

Uzbekistan was ruled with an iron fist since before the Soviet collapse by President Islam Karimov.

Upon his death last September, Shavkat Mirziyaev, moved into the presidency and quickly consolidated power.

He has spoken of instituting reforms in the country of some 30 million people since taking office, but critics say the moves fall far short of real reform.


MINSK -- Belarusian police have searched the headquarters of the popular Belsat TV station, a subsidiary of Poland's Telewizja Polska S.A.

The Minsk City Police said on March 31 that computers, audio, and video equipment were confiscated as part of an ongoing preliminary investigation.

The probe was triggered by a complaint filed by an individual who owns the right to use the Belsat name for his/her company, it said.

No more details were given.

Earlier in September 2014, Belarus's Supreme Court barred Telewizja Polska S.A. from using the name Belsat TV for its Belarusian-language broadcast and on-line programs.

The court said such use violates the rights of a Belarusian satellite and cable TV equipment company called BELSATplus.

Belsat TV continued to use its name despite the ruling, saying its trademark does not fall under Belarusian jurisdiction as it is registered in Poland and operates from that country.

Rights advocates say President Alyaksandr Lukashenka's government has restricted independent media as part of efforts to suppress dissent during his almost 23-year rule.


Reports out of Belarus indicate that two people who were detained on March 21-22 on suspicion of planning illegal protests have been released.



Activist Nina Shydlouskaya told RFE/RL on March 31 that Syarhey Barstok, a former member of the disbanded nationalist Bely Lehiyon (White Legion) organization, was released and has returned home.



The other detainee who was reportedly released has not been identified.



At the same time, Shydlouskaya said five people had been formally charged with "training and preparing to carry out mass riots."



Those charged include Zmitser Dashkevich, leader of the Malady Front (Youth Front) movement; Ivan Kavalchuk, a student at the National Technical University; former student Yauhen Paltarzhytski, Malady Front activist Syarhey Strybulski, and Alyaksey Abramau.



The Belarusian KGB security service could not be reached for comment.



In all 28 people are believed to have been arrested, including former Bely Lehiyon members, members of the Patriyot (Patriot) military club in Babruysk, and members of the Malady Front youth group.



State security agencies claimed that weapons and military equipment -- some of which seemed to be traceable to Ukraine -- were seized in the raids.



Belarusian President Alyaksandr Lukashenka said on March 21 a that "fifth column" was trying to destabilize the country and that some of its alleged members had been trained in "camps," probably in Lithuania and Poland.



About 130 other people were detained during protests on March 25 against a controversial unemployment tax.



Activists have been working to establish the identities of all those detained.

With reporting by Belpan and Interfax
Lawmakers in Russia's Muslim-majority, North Caucasus region of Chechnya have voted to allow schoolgirls to wear traditional Islamic head scarves, or hijabs.

The Chechen parliament announced that the amendments to the regional law on education were adopted on March 30.

The legislature asserted that the amendments do not contradict Russia's federal laws and regulations and that they secure the rights of students to wear clothes or symbols in line with their traditions and faith on the condition that such clothes do not harm their health or violate the rights and freedoms of other people.

Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters in Moscow on March 31 that the Kremlin did not have a unified stance on Chechnya's move, adding that the issue was being resolved in different areas differently.

The issue of hijabs for schoolgirls has been a matter of heated debate for some time.

In January, Education Minister Olga Vasilyeva faced harsh criticism from the head of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov, and Russia's Islamic clerics for her call to ban hijabs in schools across Russia, asserting that it is a secular state.

Based on reporting by TASS and Interfax
On March 27, Georgian President Giorgi Margvelashvili signed into law a package of legislation intended to formalize mechanisms to preclude abuse of the technical capacity to monitor and record electronic communications for security purposes, and which he had vetoed one week earlier.

The Georgian parliament promptly overturned that veto, whereupon the Constitutional Court rejected Margvelashvili's rationale that certain provisions of the various bills are unconstitutional. Margvelashvili refuses to admit defeat, however: according to his parliamentary secretary Ana Dolidze, he will continue to liaise with those groups that are determined to have the law amended.

The ruling Georgian Dream coalition inherited a toxic legacy when it came to power in late 2012: thousands of illicit recordings made by the security services under the previous government. Accordingly, one of the priorities of the new parliament was the passage of legislation that would put an end to that practice. The standoff between Margvelashvili and the parliament, in which Georgian Dream has a constitutional majority, focuses primarily on how to guarantee the independence of the agency responsible for conducting electronic eavesdropping.

The signing of the legislative package marks the culmination of almost three years of disagreement during which Margvelashvili has consistently sought to block successive bills drafted by Georgian Dream. In May 2014, the Georgian parliament passed in the first reading a package of bills intensifying the oversight of electronic surveillance by the Interior Ministry, which under former President Mikheil Saakashvili is widely believed to have routinely violated the law in its surveillance and harassment of suspected political opponents. That package nonetheless preserved the security services' unfettered access to telecommunications service providers' networks.

Georgian Public Defender Ucha Nanuashvili appealed that provision in the Constitutional Court as incompatible with the right to inviolability of private life. At the same time, a group of NGOs including the Georgian Young Lawyers Association and Transparency International -- Georgia drafted an alternative bill stripping the Interior Ministry of its right of access to telecom operators' servers and introducing a so-called "two-key system" under which that right of access would separately be granted by the telecoms operators themselves and by the judiciary.

Professor of information policy and technology law Joseph Canatacci, who advised on the drafting of that alternative bill, was quoted by the news portal Civil.ge as saying that while such a model was not a 100 percent guarantee against unauthorized phone-tapping, it was better than the existing system. He explained that "there should be more than one 'key'; the second key should be held by somebody else other than the Ministry of Interior, and the second key should be used [for] a verification of the judicial warrant. So the way the system would work is: when a judicial warrant is issued, authorizing surveillance, then the Ministry of Interior uses its first key and then the second ['key' holder] institution -- that could be a private [telecom] service provider, or an oversight agency -- would use the second 'key."'

Then-Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili, himself a former interior minister, nonetheless opposed that model on the grounds that Georgia's three largest telecoms operators are all foreign-owned and to empower them to grant access posed an unnecessary threat to national security.

Parliament duly voted in late October 2014 to extend until February 28, 2015, the deadline for deciding on the access question. It then came up with an amended bill incorporating the "two-key" proposal, with one "key" being activated by the Interior Ministry and the second by the Personal Data Protection Inspector's office.

Parliament passed that bill in the first reading in late November 2014, voting down an alternative model drafted by the Republican Party (a member of the Georgian Dream coalition) under which the second "key" would have been held by the Georgian National Communication Commission, instead of the data-protection authority. Margvelashvili promptly vetoed the government-sponsored bill, but lawmakers overrode his veto on November 30.

In response to Nanuashvili's appeal and a second one by NGOs, the Constitutional Court ruled in April 2016 that preserving the Interior Ministry's unrestricted access to telecoms operators' networks was indeed unconstitutional. The court therefore called on the legislature to draft new surveillance regulations by March 31, 2017.

It was only in January 2017, however, that the parliament established an ad hoc working group , which included representatives of the NGOs that had lobbied against the existing model, that was tasked with doing so. Contrary to the United National Movement's prediction that Georgian Dream would never condone depriving the Interior Ministry of its surveillance function, that working group duly proposed establishing a new Operative-Technical Agency subordinate to the State Security Service. That new agency would be empowered to monitor telephone and Internet communications and to conduct audio and video surveillance. Its head would be appointed by the prime minister, and the parliament, the Supreme Court, the Personal Data Protection Office and the Prosecutor-General's Office would jointly oversee its operations.

The NGOs continued, however, to argue that the new proposal did not meet the Constitutional Court's stipulation insofar as the new agency would not be independent, but subordinate to the State Security Service. Disregarding that criticism, parliament passed the package of draft laws on March 1 by a vote of 87 in favor and two against.

Following consultations in early March with the three opposition parliament factions (the Alliance of Patriots and the two groups into which the United National Movement parliament deputies split late last year), Margvelashvili announced he would veto the bills. His objections, as set out in a 164-page document, focused on two key points. First, he argued that counter to the Constitutional Court's requirement, the new Operative Technical Agency will not be independent, insofar as it will be subordinate to the State Security Service. He therefore proposed it should be subordinate to the prime minister -- although it is not clear how that would guarantee its greater independence. And second, he claimed that the provisions will impose an "unjustified" considerable financial burden on the telecom operators which would be required to pay for installation of the requisite equipment.

Those objections angered some Georgian Dream lawmakers. Vano Zardiashvili advised fellow lawmakers to ignore what he termed "a veto simply for the sake of vetoing," while Eka Beselia, who headed the ad hoc working group that authored the new wording of the bill incorporating the third "key," asked Dolidze outright whether or not Margvelashvili trusted the State Security Service and the Personal Data Protection Inspector, and whether he considered legal the outcome of the October 2016 parliamentary ballot, InterpressNews reported on March 21.

The overturning of the presidential veto by a vote of 86 in favor and 22 against, and Margvelashvili's subsequent signing of the bill, do not signify the end of the legal battle, however. Transparency International -- Georgia's executive director, Eka Gigauri, has already announced her intention to appeal the law to the Constitutional Court and then, if need be, to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.

The views expressed in this blog post do not necessarily reflect those of RFE/RL
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As of March 28, people from Georgia no longer required a visa to travel to most European Union countries. Two days after visa requirements were lifted, a group of Georgian ballet dancers arrived in the Czech Republic, and they couldn't hide their joy. (RFE/RL's Current Time TV)
BISHKEK -- A pro-government lawmaker in Kyrgyzstan has been charged with corruption, becoming at least the sixth high-profile figure to face such charges in the Central Asian country in the last two months.



The State Committee for National Security (UKMK) said on March 31 that Muzaffar Isakov, a lawmaker representing the pro-presidential Social Democratic Party, had been ordered not to leave Bishkek while investigations against him are under way.



Isakov is accused of having been involved in an illegal property-distribution scheme while governing a town in the southern region of Jalal-Abad between 2010 and 2015.



Although six people have been charged with corruption in recent weeks, Isakov is the first from a party included in Kyrgyzstan's ruling coalition.



In the last five weeks, the leader of the opposition Ata-Meken (Fatherland) party, Omurbek Tekebaev, and at least four of members of the party were charged with corruption as well.



Tekebaev's supporters believe the investigation is aimed at preventing him from running for president in November.



President Almazbek Atambaev is barred from running for another term because the constitution only allows presidents to serve one seven-year term.



Opponents accuse Atambaev of seeking to maintain his hold on power by means of constitutional changes that were approved in a referendum in December. Those amendments shifted key powers from the president to the prime minister.
Legislators in the U.S. state of New Hampshire have defeated a bill that could have suspended or banned Russian vodka in retaliation for Russia's interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

State senators on March 30 rejected the bill by the legislature's Democratic minority leader, Jeff Woodburn.

The bill would have established a commission to study the proposal on vodka, along with reconsidering and the state retirement system's investments in Russian companies.

Some Republicans called the proposal "crazy," saying Democrats were just angry because they lost the 2016 election.

New Hampshire's Liquor Commission has said it sold $6.4 million worth of Russian liquor in 2016.

Based on reporting by AP and NECN
An explosion in a mainly Shiite area of Pakistan's northwestern tribal belt has killed at least 22 people and wounded dozens of others, reports say.

Government administrator Zahid Hussain said the March 31 blast was caused by a bomb that exploded near a Shiite mosque in the city's central market.

Nearby shops and vehicles were damaged in the powerful explosion.

A Pakistani Taliban breakaway faction, Jamaat-ul-Ahrar, claimed responsibility for the attack, which comes after a January 21 bomb explosion in Parachinar killed 24 people and wounded dozens.

Parachinar is the capital of the Kurram tribal district on the Afghan border.

The area is known for sectarian clashes between Sunnis and Shi'a, who make up around 20 percent of Pakistan's population of 200 million.

With reporting by AP and Reuters
Tens of thousands take to the streets in scores of Russian cities.

Unusual rumblings of dissent in the regions.

Growing anger about official corruption.

A new generation finding its political voice.

And in the middle of it all is Aleksei Navalny.

Revolution is not in the air. The regime is not about to fall. Navalny is not about to storm the Kremlin. And 2017 is certainly not the new 1917.

But these were also not your father's anti-Kremlin demonstrations, and a new chapter in Russian politics appears to have commenced.

On this week's Power Vertical Podcast, we take a look at Navalny's chances of maintaining his momentum and at where Russia may be headed in the aftermath of last weekend's protests.

Joining me are co-host Mark Galeotti, a senior research fellow at the Institute of International Relations in Prague, a visiting fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, and author of the blog In Moscow's Shadows; and journalist Anna Arutunyan, author of the book The Putin Mystique: Inside Russia's Power Cult.

Enjoy...

Listen to or download the podcast above or subscribe to The Power Vertical Podcast on iTunes.
Michael Flynn, who was dismissed as President Donald Trump's national security adviser, has told officials that he is willing to answer questions from congressional committees in return for immunity from "unfair prosecution" in the investigation over the Trump campaign's potential ties to Russia.

Flynn's attorney, Robert Kelner, on March 30 said his client "certainly has a story to tell, and he very much wants to tell it, should the circumstances permit."

The comments follow a report by The Wall Street Journal that Flynn was willing to talk to FBI and congressional investigators in exchange for immunity from prosecution.

In his comments, Kelner did not mention whether Flynn was offering to talk to the FBI as well as the committees.

The FBI and the House and Senate intelligence committees are investigating Flynn's ties to Russia.

The congressional committees are probing Russia's interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election and any links between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin.

The Wall Street Journal reported that the FBI and the intelligence committees have not yet not granted immunity to Flynn.

The report said it wasn't clear what Flynn had offered to testify about.

It quoted one official as saying, however, that the fact he was seeking immunity suggested he believes he may be in legal jeopardy.

Flynn was forced out as national security adviser on February 13 after revelations that he misled Vice President Mike Pence about discussing sanctions with Russia's ambassador to the United States, Sergei Kislyak, during the transition period before Trump was inaugurated.

Documents also show that Flynn was paid more than $67,000 by Russian companies before the U.S. presidential election.

Based on reporting by CNN, Reuters, and AP
A supporter of opposition leader Aleksei Navalny says that the Russian Prosecutor-General's Office has asked state media regulator to block several social-media accounts that have issued calls for street protests on April 2.

On March 31, Vladislav Zdolnikov, an IT consultant for Navalny's Anticorruption Foundation, posted scans of what appeared to be letters from prosecutors demanding that Roskomnadzor block access to two videos on YouTube, two publications on the Russian social network VKontakte, and one on LiveJournal.

The videos and posts called for people to gather in downtown Moscow on April 2 for an antigovernment protest with several demands including the resignation of Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, an end to military operations in Syria and Ukraine, the exoneration of Navalny, and the payment of compensation to activists detained by police during a large protest in Moscow on March 26.

It was unclear who was behind the calls for a protest on April 2 and whether they were genuine. There was no immediate comment from the Prosecutor General's Office.

Police detained more than 1,000 people in Moscow during the March 26 protest, which was organized by Navalny and his foundation. Tens of thousands of people took part in the anticorruption demonstrations in dozens of other cities across Russia on that day.

Navalny was detained as well and is serving a 15-day jail sentence on an administrative charge of disobeying police. He was also fined 20,000 rubles ($350) for organizing what the authorities say was an illegal protest.

Navalny is planning to run for president in a March 2018 election, in which President Vladimir Putin is widely expected to seek a new six-year term, but Russian authorities say that a financial-crimes conviction bars Navalny from seeking office.

Navalny has been convicted in two trials that he says were politically motivated punishment for his opposition activity and his group's reports alleging corruption among senior allies of Putin.


In the late 1990s, Aleksandar Vucic stood behind President Slobodan Milosevic as rump Yugoslavia's information minister. Now he is poised to become Serbia's most powerful leader since the late strongman relinquished power in 2000.

Serbian voters will cast their ballots on April 2 in a presidential election, and opinion polls show Vucic, currently prime minister, with about 55 percent support, enough for a first-round victory.

With his closest rivals, including a parody candidate whose only platform is to mock the country's political establishment, trailing far in his rearview mirror some 35 percentage points behind, Vucic's lead appears unassailable and a tricky second round of balloting on April 16 unlikely.

Victory would give the 46-year-old and his Progressive Party, which has a majority in parliament, control over the entire legislative and governing process, and some critics warn that could push the Balkan country back into the autocracy Milosevic symbolized during his decade in power.

A government led by his party could end up answering directly to Vucic instead of parliament, critics warn, adding that Vucic may even end up in a strong enough position during a five-year term to try to push through constitutional changes in his favor.

"If Vucic succeeds, he will be in a position to select a prime minister of his choice, [and] control the judiciary, and the election apparatus -- eliminating all checks and balances in the Serbian government," Robert Creamer, a political consultant at Democracy Partners, wrote in an editorial comment published by the Huffington Post on March 28.

Creamer argued that Vucic dominated the news media through state institutions and the control of major media assets through his allies.

That appears to be backed up by a recent survey showing that Vucic received almost 120 times more news coverage than his three most prominent presidential rivals combined.

Once an ultranationalist, Vucic's rise to prominence in recent years came after he reinvented himself as a reformer who is committed to Serbia's drive toward European Union membership.

He has craftily strengthened his party's position through the ballot box, calling and winning two early elections since 2014. While he once opposed integration with the 28-country bloc, he now pledges to prepare the nation of 7.3 million people for EU accession by 2019.

Simultaneously, however, Vucic is also is pushing for deeper economic and diplomatic ties with longtime ally Russia, and he has condemned Western sanctions against Russia for its actions in Ukraine, including the occupation and annexation of Crimea.

Vucic even visited Moscow in the waning days of the campaign, reportedly emerging from a meeting with Vladimir Putin with a promise of the Russian president's signature for delivery of six MiG-29 warplanes, 30 battle tanks, and military vehicles to Serbia in a move that exacerbates fears of an arms race in the Balkans.

With tensions simmering between ethnic Serbs and Albanians in Kosovo, an ethnically charged political stalemate in Macedonia, and accusations of Russian interference in Montenegros move toward NATO and the EU, concerns have grown over Serbias direction and how it could reignite the Balkan powder keg.

The West has decried what it calls attempts by Moscow to exploit tensions in the Balkans to hinder progress toward integration in structures such as the EU and the NATO security alliance.

The Kremlin has denied playing any role in the Serbian election campaign, even though Putin said on March 27 that he wished "success to the current authorities" amid "a certain deterioration" of the situation in the region.

Moscow has also long curried favor in Serbia with its staunch opposition to the 1999 NATO bombing campaign to drive Milosevic's forces from Kosovo. The Kremlin, like Serbia itself, still does not recognize an independent Kosovo.

For his part, Vucic has played down the notion that a victory in the balloting this weekend is a power grab.

"I am going from the most powerful position to one which hasn't got a 10th of that power, only to ensure continuity and stability," Vucic said on state television last month after being nominated as his party's candidate for the election.

The scenario in Serbia is similar to what was seen in the run-up to Britain's vote to leave the European Union and the mood in the United States last year that launched Donald Trump from a fringe candidate to the White House.

Vesna Pesic, a sociologist and one of the former leaders of the civil protests against Milosevic during the '90s, says Vucic's popularity is based in part on the breakdown of Serbian society in the face of a struggling economy and fragmented opposition that has him running against 10 other candidates.

"Serbia, as a society, has collapsed to the extent that it no longer produces either parties or political pluralism," Pesic says.

Nonetheless, Vucic's campaign and its central theme of strong leadership has struck a chord among Serbian voters.

Slavica Djokic, a pensioner from Belgrade, admits his pension has declined during Vucic's time in power but says it's not the prime minister's fault and that he still supports him.

"Vucic is the strongest politician in Serbia, mainly because he is smart. He is capable of establishing relationships with people around the world and he is able to protect Serbia from attacks, first and foremost, attacks from our neighbors," Djokic says.
ON MY MIND

Tens of thousands take to the streets in scores of Russian cities, taking the Kremlin by surprise.

Unusual rumblings of dissent in the regions, suggesting that Vladimir Putin's base is getting restless.

Growing anger across Russia about official corruption.

And a new generation finding its political voice.

Revolution is not in the air. The regime is not about to fall. Aleksei Navalny is not about to storm the Kremlin. And 2017 is certainly not the new 1917.

But these were also not your father's anti-Kremlin demonstrations.

And a new chapter in Russian politics appears to have commenced.

On this week's Power Vertical Podcast, we'll take a look at where Russia may be headed in the aftermath of last weekend's protests.

Joining me will be co-host Mark Galeotti, a senior research fellow at the Institute of International Relations in Prague, a visiting fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, and author of the blog In Moscow's Shadows; and journalist Anna Arutunyan, author of the book The Putin Mystique: Inside Russia's Power Cult.

It should be a good show, so be sure to tune in later today!

IN THE NEWS

U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has arrived in Brussels to attend a March 31 NATO meeting where he is expected to push alliance members to increase their defense spending and press Russia to abide by the Minsk agreement to end the crisis in Ukraine.

NATO representatives have told Russia that the situation in Ukraine is of "deep concern" at the first session of the Russia-NATO Council to be held this year.

U.S. senators took a deep look into Russias alleged meddling during the 2016 presidential election, with outside experts testifying that, without a strong U.S. response, Moscow will do more of the same in the future.

Legislators in the U.S. state of New Hampshire have defeated a bill that could have suspended or banned Russian vodka in retaliation for Russia's interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

Michael Flynn, who was dismissed as President Donald Trump's national security adviser, has told officials that he is willing to answer questions from congressional committees in return for immunity from "unfair prosecution" in the investigation over the Trump campaign's potential ties to Russia.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has dismissed criticism over a police crackdown on protesters, saying anyone who breaks the law will be punished.

Putin's annual live question-and-answer session, which is usually held in April, will be postponed until later this year, Kremlin spokes Dmitry Peskov said.

Slovakia's state News Agency of the Slovak Republic (TASR) says it will initiate proceedings to withdraw from a controversial contract with Russia's state news agency Sputnik.

Russian media reports say a fire truck struck several people near Moscow's Domodedovo airport on March 30, killing one person.

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg has defended plans to open a liaison office in Moldova, saying it can help facilitate a practical partnership between the two sides.

Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has ordered the military to implement a cease-fire and weapons pullback in the conflict region in eastern Ukraine beginning on April 1.

Ukraine says one of its top regional security officers has been killed in a car explosion in the southeastern Ukrainian city of Mariupol.

LATEST POWER VERTICAL BLOG

In case you missed it, my latest Power Vertical blog post looks at how many were experiencing "Bolotnaya Deja Vu" this past week, and looks at what might happen next.

WHAT I'M READING

Active Measures in Central Europe

Emily Tamkin has a report in Foreign Policy on Russian active measures in Central Europe.

Russia And The French Far Right

Peter Kreko of the Political Capital Institute in Hungary and Alina Polyakova of the Atlantic Council have a piece explaining why Putin's courtship of the French far right may backfire.

Russia's Info War On The United States

In The Daily Beast, Clint Watts of the Foreign Policy Research Institute outlines Russia's information war against the United States since 2014. The piece is based on Watts' testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee.

Ilves On Russian Cyberwar

Medium has published excerpts from former Estonian President Toomas Hendrik Ilves testimony on Russian cyberwarfare before the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime and Terrorism

Reviving The Opposition

The Economist has a piece on how Aleksei Navalny has brought Russia's opposition back to life.

Political War In The Classroom

In her column for Republic.ru, political analyst Tatiana Stanovaya takes a look at recent conflicts between students and teachers over Russia's protests.

The Coming Crackdown

In a piece in BNEIntellinews, Natalia Antonova argues that a renewed crackdown is coming against dissent in Russia.

Dima's Troubles

Olga Irisova has a piece in Intersection magazine on why Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev may be on thin ice.

Russia's Alaska Regrets

The New York Times has a piece on how the 150th anniversary of Russia's sale of Alaska to the United States, Moscow is having second thoughts.

The War In The Courts

In his column for Bloomberg, political commentator Leonid Bershidsky argues that "when Russia and Ukraine battle in court, the West wins."

A Tale Of Two Assassinations

Rosbalt has a piece speculating about similarities between the assassinations of Boris Nemtsov and Denis Voronenkov.

Getting Ukraine Wrong

Taras Kuzio of the Canadian Institute for Ukrainian Studies at the University of Alberta has released a video on why pro-Russia scholars often get Ukraine wrong.

An 'Arc Of Iron'

Andrew Rettman has a report in EUObserver on how Russia's Middle East adventures are affecting European security.
Ukraine says one of its top regional security officers has been killed in a car explosion in the southeastern Ukrainian city of Mariupol.

The Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) cited its chief Vasyl Hrytsak as saying that Colonel Oleksandr Kharaberyush was killed in the car blast in the port city on the morning of March 31.

"The SBU will do all it can to locate and punish those involved," Hrytsak said.

Donetsk regional police chief Vyacheslav Abroskyn wrote on Facebook that an investigation has been launched into the car blast.

He wrote that investigators do not exclude that it was conducted by pro-Russian separatists who are controlling parts of Donetsk and Luhansk regions.

The government-controlled city of Mariupol is about 30 kilometers from the front line in the conflict between the Ukrainian Army and separatists that has killed more than 9,900 people in eastern Ukraine since April 2014.

On March 30, President Petro Poroshenko ordered the military to implement a cease-fire and weapons pullback beginning on April 1, but said he was "not very optimistic" that the separatists would abide by the truce agreement reached in Minsk the previous day.


Ukraine's Tedis Ukraine tobacco giant has been accused of tax evasion and financing Russia-backed separatists that control parts of the eastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk.

Ukrainian Interior Minister Arsen Avakov and Prosecutor-General Yuriy Lutsenko told journalists in Kyiv on March 31 that some 1,000 law enforcement officers are conducting about 100 searches at the firm's offices in Kyiv, Odesa, and Dnipro.

Tedis Ukraine is suspected of tax evasion and of large-scale illegal money transfers to Russia -- some of which might have been used to support the Russia-backed separatists, Avakov and Lutsenko said.

The officials said Tedis Tobacco's actual owner is Russian citizen Igor Kesayev, who was officially banned by Ukraine's National Security and Defense Council from transferring finances abroad.

Despite the ban, the company transferred at least 2.5 billion hryvnyas ($91.7 million) to Russia in 2015-17, Lutsenko charged.

Lutsenko also said that Tedis Ukraine was led by people linked to the Degtyaryov Armaments Factory -- a Russian firearms-producing company in Vladimir Oblast that is believed to provide the separatists with weapons.

The offices of the Antimonopoly Committee in Kyiv are being searched as well, as it is suspected of assisting Tedis Ukraine to evade taxes and carry out other financial misdeeds.

Tedis Ukraine is a monopoly company controlling Ukraine's tobacco-distribution business.

Based on reports by UNIAN and Lb.ua
U.S. President Donald Trump has backed an offer by his former national security adviser to testify about his contacts with Russia in exchange for immunity from criminal prosecution.

In a post on Twitter on March 31, Trump wrote, "Mike Flynn should ask for immunity in that this is a witch hunt (excuse for big election loss), by media & Dems, of historic proportion!"

Earlier, Flynn's lawyer, Robert Kelner, said that his client wanted protection against "unfair prosecution" in exchange for testifying before the intelligence committees of both houses of Congress.

"Flynn certainly has a story to tell, and he very much wants to tell it, should the circumstances permit," Kelner said.

Kelner did not mention whether Flynn was offering to talk to the FBI as well as to the committees.

Kelner also called the Russia probes a "witch-hunt."

Meanwhile, Senator Angus King (independent-Maine), of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said it was too early to talk about granting Flynn immunity.

"This is not a witch-hunt," King said on CNN. "This is an effort to get to the truth of some very important questions."

King said that "there is no doubt whatsoever" that the Russians sought to interfere in the election.'

Speaking in the northern Russia city of Arkhangelsk on March 30, Russian President Vladimir Putin vehemently denied the allegations, saying in response to a question about whether Russia carried out any such actions, "Read my lips: No."

A spokesman for the Senate committee was quoted as saying the body had held a discussion on the immunity issue, while a spokesman for the House committee said they had not received any offer from Flynn.

According to AP, four other people associated with the Trump campaign have offered to speak to the committees in recent weeks. The Senate Intelligence Committee has invited 20 people to testify.

Flynn, a retired U.S. Army general, resigned under pressure from his post as national security adviser in February after it was revealed that he misled the administration, including Vice President Mike Pence, about the extent of his contacts with Russian Ambassador Sergei Kislyak.

The Congressional committees and the FBI are investigating alleged Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election campaign.

Documents also show that Flynn was paid more than $67,000 by Russian companies before the U.S. presidential election.

During an interview in September 2016 with the Meet The Press television program, Flynn was asked about the possibility that Trump's Democratic rival, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, or her associates might seek immunity in connection with an FBI investigation into her use of a private e-mail server.

"When you are given immunity, that means you have probably committed a crime," Flynn said.

With reporting by AP and Reuters
9 First lady Jacqueline Kennedy and her sister, Lee Radziwill, meet camel driver Bashir Ahmad. Ahmad had formed a friendship with U.S. Vice President Lyndon Johnson the year before after Johnson stopped to shake the camel driver's hand on his own trip to Pakistan. After Johnson casually invited Bashir to "come see me sometime," Bashir accepted the invitation. He became a media spectacle after he traveled to the United States to meet with Johnson and the Kennedys.
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We did a lousy job.

Doubtless, there are journalists who would disagree with that assessment of how news media performed during the 2016 campaign, but Ive never met one. The consensus among those I know is that coverage of that campaign represents journalisms biggest fail since the run-up to the Iraq War.

The culprit, of course, is our handling of the unconventional candidate who became president. Among our sins: failure to take him seriously enough early enough; relying too heavily on flawed polling; spending more time covering personality than policy, providing him untold hours of free advertising on certain cable news networks, and not even requiring him to show up in person to collect it.

Perhaps most critically, we embraced a false equivalence. We behaved as if Hillary Clintons shifting explanations for the use of a private email server  troubling though they were  were somehow as ominous and potentially consequential as Donald Trumps mendacity, crudeness, incompetence, and overall unfitness.

In our defense, though, we had never seen anything like him and had no idea how to cover him.

Going on three months into his presidency, we are still figuring it out. But there is reason to be encouraged. Or does it not seem that news media are more willing to frankly confront Trumps constant lying now than they were just a few short months ago? The whopper about Barack Obama bugging Trump Tower seems to have been the proverbial bridge too far.

Suddenly, Time magazine is out with a cover asking Is Truth Dead?

And when Trumps White House cites Andrew Napolitano of Fox News as a source for his ludicrous contention that the British helped Obama wiretap him, Fox admits it cannot substantiate Napolitanos claim and he is summarily disappeared from the air. Given how often in the past Fox pundits have blithely asserted the reckless and bizarre without a twitch of response from the network, this feels seismic.

Thats also a good word for last weeks Wall Street Journal editorial that describes Trump as clinging to the wiretap assertion like a drunk to an empty gin bottle. That visceral image of the president of the United States would be noteworthy from any newspaper. It is especially so from a conservative paper whose editor made news just a few months ago in defending the papers refusal to label Trumps falsehoods as lies.

While it did not cross that self-imposed barrier, The Journal certainly left no doubt what it thinks of Trumps credibility.

If there is to be a silver lining in the historical dark cloud that is Donald Trump, its that we might someday look back and say that he forced journalism to re-invent itself or, perhaps more accurately, to re-embrace itself, to remember what it is supposed to stand for. Maybe well someday say that he forced us to abandon the fantasy that there is no moral component, no human judgment, involved in reporting the news.

Thats the kind of thinking under which Clintons email troubles are treated as equivalent to Trumps grab-them-by-the-pudenda video or any of his many other epic transgressions of taste and truth. Trump has dragged journalism into a back-alley brawl, and weve been trying to fight it by the Marquess of Queensberry rules.

This era, though, will not allow us the luxury of such delusional niceties. It will require of us the guts to remember that truth matters. You see, our job is not to be anti-Trump, but, rather, anti-bovine excreta. Yes, you might say that has become a distinction without a difference.

But that is neither our fault nor our problem. Its his.
A new crew of 32 conservation police officers (CPOs) is headed to the woods and waters of Virginia after graduating from the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries (DGIF) training academy Wednesday.

Of the 32 officers, 20 are first-timers, while 12 had been sworn officers previously in other positions.

There has been a tremendous need to fill open positions for CPOs for some time, and this graduating class will help in that regard.

Their presence in the field will provide a great relief to our current officers and an even greater service to the landowners and outdoor enthusiasts in their counties of assignment, said major Bryan Young, who is responsible for the operations of the academy and for recruiting CPOs at DGIF.

The new recruits didnt waste much time after graduation. After spending the past 26 weeks at the live-in academy, they headed straight to the field in their respective counties around the state, just in time for spring gobbler season and increased angling activity as fishing on many lakes and rivers starts heating up.

These young men and women are doing a tremendous service for Virginias anglers and hunters and for anyone recreating outdoors.

While some may look at those in leadership roles or positions of power skeptically, perhaps even a little fearfully, my experience has shown, particularly when dealing with CPOs in Virginia, that if one knows the rules and abides by them, he or she doesnt have anything to worry about. In fact, there are few out there with a better pulse on hunting and fishing than CPOs, and they are generally more than willing to share a little inside scoop when checking licenses or inspecting watercraft.

My suggestion is to take the opportunity to get to know these new officers in the areas where you hunt and fish the most.

Landowners know a CPO can be ones best friend when it comes to helping monitor trespassing, poaching and other issues that occasionally occur on private land.

We are very excited to have these new officers ready to make their presence in the woods, fields and waters of the commonwealth, said Bob Duncan, executive director of DGIF. These officers represent a 25 percent increase in the number of officers that will be on patrol across the state and gets us closer to operating levels we have had in past years. I am very proud of their hard work and dedication they have shown through the rigorous training they have received. I am also very proud of all the conservation officers and agency employees that provided instruction to these new officers to prepare them for the various important duties they undertake every day.

On another note, DGIFs Facebook page had some heavy traffic early in March when it posted a photo of a 12-pound, 5-ounce largemouth pulled from the Chickahominy River while electro sampling.

Significant droughts in the late 1990s and early 2000s sent bass numbers plummeting in the Chick.

This fish, along with angler surveys and results from monitoring data, seems to indicate that the Chickahominy is back as one of Virginias top bass fishing destinations.

This can be attributed to major efforts from the Concerned Bass Anglers Group, which first stocked additional largemouth fingerlings in the Chick in 2004, and extensive stocking from DGIF, which has been ongoing since.

Most of the fish stocked by DGIF have been F1 hybrid bass or tiger bass. They are a cross between the northern strain and the Florida strain.

The northern strain is better adapted to the northern latitudes in Virginia, while the Florida strain is known to grow larger.

While its not certain that this 12-pound fish had hybrid genetics, it is certainly likely.
A tornado struck Virginia Beach around 6:24 p.m. on Friday according to numerous reports relayed to the National Weather Service in Wakefield from the public and law enforcement.

Forecast:

For the Richmond area, the weather will be mostly dry on Friday evening, but isolated showers or rumbles of thunder may occur before midnight.

Saturday will be dry and mild with mid 50s in the morning and upper 60s or lower 70s in the afternoon.

Sunday will be clear and slightly cooler with mid and lower 40s in the morning and mid 60s in the afternoon.

Rain will return on Monday night and Tuesday.

Here is how the weather played out on Friday afternoon and evening:

6:55 p.m. - All of the severe weather threat has shifted into southeast Virginia. The tornado watch has been cancelled early for areas west of Interstate 95.

6:35 p.m. - The line of severe storms has now cleared east of Interstate 95 so Emporia and the Tri-Cities are now in the clear. The rain moving through Richmond does not pose a threat for severe weather.

Virginia Beach is under a tornado warning until 7:00 p.m. Law enforcement confirmed a tornado near Indian River Road.

Another tornado warning has been posted for southern Suffolk and southern Chesapeake.

6:00 p.m. - A line of severe storms is moving east across Interstate 95 near Emporia and Sussex County. This storm is capable of damaging wind gusts and quarter-sized hail.

The rain moving across Richmond and the Tri-Cities does not pose a threat for severe weather.

A tornado likely touched down southeast of Suffolk, and the storm continues to rotate as it moves across Chesapeake.

5:30 p.m. - The severe thunderstorm in Brunswick County has an area of rotation along Interstate 85 near Alberta, which may be the precursor to a tornado. This rotation will stay north of Lawrenceville.

5:10 p.m. - A severe thunderstorm near South Hill is moving east towards Dinwiddie and Brunswick Counties at 40 mph. The storm is capable of quarter-sized hail and 60 mph, but has a history of larger hail. If it stays on its current course, the worst of it will stay south of the Tri-Cities, but severe conditions may eventually affect Emporia and Waverly.

There is no severe weather threat for the Richmond metro at this time, but rain is approaching Powhatan and Chesterfield Counties, and should arrive in Richmond during the next hour.

4:45 p.m. - Two severe thunderstorms are moving east through southern Virginia. One storm in Southampton County is moving towards the City of Franklin and it may be producing 70 mph winds and ping pong ball-sized hail. There continues to be weak rotation within this storm. If that rotation strengthens, a tornado may form.

Another line of storms in Lunenburg and Mecklenburg Counties is moving east towards Interstate 85. It has a history of producing hail up to 1.75 inches between South Boston and Charlotte Court House.

Both of these storms will stay south of the Richmond metro, but the chance for rain and thunder isn't over. More rain may move in between 5:00 p.m. and 6:00 p.m., but it will not last as long as the morning rain did.

3:55 p.m. - A tornado watch is posted until 10 p.m. for much of southern Virginia and northeastern North Carolina, but the Richmond area is not included in the watch.

Locally, the areas in the watch include Petersburg, Colonial Heights, Hopewell, Dinwiddie, Nottoway, Prince George, and Surry. This does not mean that a tornado is imminent, but severe storms may produce a tornado somewhere in that region over the next few hours.
A Place for All Conservatives to Speak Their Mind.
FRIDAY

The Shack Band

With The Devyl Nellys

Richmond rockers of The Shack Band return to their Blacksburg roots.

Beccan Call

Roanoke quartet covers songs in multiple genres.

SATURDAY

Fat Catz

Floyd-based jam rockers are picking up gigs statewide and beyond.

Details: 8 p.m. Dogtown Roadhouse. $3. fatcatzmusic.com

London Underground Wakeup Call: Black Wax Rebellion

Check out a Blacksburg rock n roll quartet whose members engage in general misanthropy, inappropriate rants and habitual curmudgeonry, according to its Facebook page.

Details: 10 a.m. London Underground Pub, Blacksburg. Free (venue encourages donations to performers). 552-9044, facebook.com/LondonUndergroundPub, facebook via bit.ly/2nwXV1q

MONDAY

Lil Uzi Vert

Young Uzis career was boiling up through videos, social media and the single Money Longer when his collaboration with Migos on Bad and Boujee hit the top of the pops last year. The kid has dance moves, too.

Details: 8 p.m. Dedmon Center, Radford University. $32, $20 for students advance, and $32 day of show for all. 831-5420, radfordactivities.universitytickets.com, liluziofficial.com
BLACKSBURG  After six sexual violence incidents were reported by Virginia Tech police in a little more than a week, the university community reacted Thursday.

Students, faculty and staff rallied at the annual Take Back the Night event Thursday night, after Virginia Tech President Timothy Sands sent out a statement to the university community late Wednesday after the latest disclosure of the most recently reported sexual battery. On Thursday night, he addressed a large crowd who gave him a raucous round of applause for what he said seemed like the obvious thought, but still needed to be said.

Sexual assault has no place on our campus or our civil society, Sands told the crowd of hundreds gathered in the Graduate Life Center Auditorium. We have zero tolerance for sexual assault in all its forms.

He vowed that Blacksburg and Virginia Tech police would do all they could to investigate allegations of sexual violence.

The event aimed to reduce sexual violence and make people in Blacksburg aware that if theyre experiencing sexual violence, they arent alone, according to Susan Anderson, Virginia Tech senior instructor and Womanspace faculty adviser.

It featured speeches from multiple men and women who expressed the importance of preventing sexual violence. Several sexual assault survivors also shared their stories in a show of unity.

At the culmination of the speeches, students and others marched through campus and around downtown Blacksburg. They chanted phrases like no more silence, stop the violence, well fight back.

Someone reported a sexual battery at Squires Student Center on Sunday afternoon, according to a university news release issued late Wednesday night.

It was the third sexual battery reported by the university since March 19. There have also been three separate sexual assaults  for a total of six incidents  reported by the university in that same time period, though some of the cases allegedly occurred earlier.

Sands open letter to the Tech community late Wednesday urged people to work to end sexual violence.

Although increased reporting does not necessarily indicate an increase in crime, these reports serve to remind us that we are not immune from criminal activity, Sands wrote. Despite the fact that our campus and community are statistically safer than most, one crime is too many, and no crime should go unanswered.

Sands cited Clery Act statistics for his statements. In 2015, the most recent year available of Clery Act data, Tech reported six rapes, which was higher than the national average for all four-year colleges with housing, but lower than the average of such colleges with more than 10,000 students. In 2013 and 2014, Tech also reported higher than average forcible sex offenses.

Sands referred specific numbers questions to Virginia Tech Police Chief Kevin Foust. Foust responded via email with a hyperlink to Techs Clery Act data and an explanation for why Virginia Tech is safer than the average community.

While the numbers are what they are, I believe safety and security goes beyond simple statistics, Foust wrote in an email. Here at Virginia Tech, the safety and security of our community is a major priority That not only includes the efforts of law enforcement, emergency management, DSA, Title IX personnel, Student Conduct and many, many other partners across campus intimately involved in the safety and security of our community through different ways such as resources, support for victims of crime, and education, to name a few.

But it also includes the community itself. In speaking with many of my colleagues across the country, I am confident that our community not only takes safety and security very seriously, but I have been impressed with the manner in which they are willing to communicate with all of us involved in safety and security when they have questions, concerns, thoughts and ideas, or simply want to report something.

Sands wrote that he wants to create a safe campus climate. He also noted that when a community feels safe, theyre more apt to report crime.

This may mean more public notices and I am fine with that, he wrote. If there is more that we can do to make our community safer, we will do it.

Foust said that his department is not currently pursuing criminal charges in any of the cases because the survivors didnt want to press charges. He also noted the department wouldnt pursue charges in one case because it allegedly occurred in South Carolina over Techs spring break. However, theyre still being investigated by university officials under federal Title IX requirements.
Roanoke Countys school nurses will remain part-time employees for at least another year under a budget approved by the Roanoke County School Board.

The board was divided on the $189 million budget, which provides a 1.5 percent salary increase for teachers. The budget was approved Thursday night on a 4-1 vote, with veteran board member Jerry Canada opposed.

Canada voted against the budget for the first time in his 25 years on the board. Canada, who isnt running for re-election this fall, said the safety of students should be the boards top priority.

The Hollins representative has pushed to make the school districts nurses full-time for years but acknowledged Thursday hed leave the board without this becoming reality.

Most of you whove been around a long time know this is an annual thing with me, Canada said. For me personally, the only thing Ive got on this board is my voice and my vote.

Other board members said they hope a newly formed committee to evaluate nursing needs will result in recommendations the board can use to consider the issue again next year.

To a standing ovation from about 10 school nurses who attended Thursdays meeting, Canada said he was unhappy to see the issue again passed off to another year.

Weve got to stop saying next year, or whenever, he said.

Roanoke Countys school nurses are contracted part-time for a portion of the day. For about 30 minutes at the beginning and end of the school day, nurses arent on call at schools. Health emergencies that happen during that uncovered time are handled by other school staff.

Catawba representative Don Butzer said he was also concerned about the gaps in coverage when school nurses arent employed. He said the district was lucky that a serious emergency hasnt happened yet during a time when nurses arent on call.

Butzer encouraged the board to look again at the issue next year.

At the end of the day, a school systems priorities are really measured by one thing: what it funds, he said.

This years budget was one of the toughest the district has had to prepare, even more so than some during the recession, said Penny Hodge, the districts assistant superintendent of finance and operations.

This is hard stuff. Im not happy that we cant do it all, Hodge said.

The district will receive about $1.6 million more from the state and largely level funding from the county, its two biggest sources of revenue.

A mandatory Virginia Retirement System rate increase ate up about $1.3 million of the budget this year, and the districts health insurance costs rose by $342,986.

Employees who keep their current health care plans will see their monthly costs increase. Those on the high-deductible, employee-only plan will see their costs increase by about $19.

Those on the districts other plan will see their monthly employee-only costs increase by about $60, but they have the option of switching to the higher-deductible plan and saving money.

Superintendent Greg Killough thanked the board for approving the proposed budget, saying he knew their decision was a difficult one.

Its hard to try and meet all the needs while working with our limited resources, he said.
Exciting classical arrangements, burning jazz standards and the best of original brass compositions are part of an evening at the Bondurant Auditorium when Boston Brass comes to Radford University on Friday, April 7.

The quintet features five accomplished musicians. Jeff Conner and Jose Sibaja are trumpet players. Chris Castellanos instrument is the horn. Domingo Pagliuca is a trombonist and Sam Pilafian plays the tuba.

Conner is the only original member of the group. Thirty years ago he started Boston Brass with fellow students from Boston University.

It was around this time when Radford University music instructor Jeffrey Kresge met Conner. The former was working on his masters degree at Boston Conservatory and performed with Conner in the symphony orchestra and wind ensemble for three years.

Over the years Jeff and I have maintained a friendship, which has allowed me to observe the success he has achieved professionally with the quintet, Kresge said. The members of Boston Brass are world-class musicians as well as experienced educators.

During the groups visit to RU, they will offer two master classes to students and musicians who pre-registered for a special Brass Bash weekend.

Kresge hopes that by bringing Boston Brass to Radford, students will benefit from the one-on-one interaction with quintet members. Students will not just study music and practice techniques with these seasoned musicians, but they have the opportunity to acquire entrepreneurial skills needed to become professional performers.

For the April 7 concert, Boston Brass brings together a program that bridges classical music formality with great music and boisterous fun.

The philosophy of Boston Brass is to provide audiences with a wide selection of musical styles in unique arrangements, provided in a friendly and fun atmosphere, their website reads.

This fits in with the University Performance Series goal to offer audiences diverse performing arts productions. Boston Brass is the last event in the 2016-17 season.

The concert is $15 for the general public, $7.50 per child and free for those with Radford University identification.

Tickets are available online at radfordactivities.com or at the Hurlburt Hall Information Desk. For information, please call 831-5420.

Submitted by Leslie King
Letters 11-4-22 A Vote For Tom Sullivan Dear Editor: On Election Day, I will be proudly voting for Colonel Thomas P. Sullivan for State Assembly. A proven leader, and financial professional. A vote for Tom Sullivan is...

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The break taken since August is long enough. It's time to come out of the block and start churning for the General Election. It is not for lack of mater...

1 week ago
A MAN who was found collapsed in the street near Rotherham Interchange was arrested after attacking a police officer.

The 38-year-old was taken to hospital in ambulance after police officers provided first aid after finding him at around 2.45pm on Friday.

A police spokesman said he became increasingly aggressive and assaulted a police officer and damaged a patrol car.

He was arrested on suspicion of shoplifting and assaulting a police officer.
Jordan Magnall, pictured in her Jaded Heart shop

ENTREPRENEUR Jordan Mangnall has backed Rotherham Borough Councils plans for the town centre by opening an aromatherapy shop and insisted: Rotherham wont die because Primark is leaving.

Jordan (20) opened the doors of Jaded Heart on Moorgate Street with the help of the Mayor of Rotherham, Cllr Lyndsay Pitchley, last month.

The former Oakwood School student said she had not thought twice about setting up in the town centre despite Primark announcing it was closing its High Street store for a move to Parkgate Shopping.

Jordan, who runs the shop with the help of mum Tracey (46), said: I am from Rotherham, have always lived in Rotherham and it just feels like home to me.

There was no point in travelling somewhere else.

The number of people in Rotherham willing to come to independent businesses rather than the bigger brands is amazing.

Jordan, of East Herringthorpe, officially opened the store on February 24 after quitting a social media and marketing apprenticeship.

She said: Its going well and a lot of people are being really supportive.

I was expecting it to be quieter than it is, but there hasnt been a quiet day since we opened.

There are complaints that people dont come to town but weve had lots.

If you have great products and great service then they will come.

Rotherham is not going to die just because Primark is leaving. There are a lot of independent retailers and thats the way forward.

Jordan launched the business through a desire to offer affordable aromatherapy and relaxation products.

She began selling bath bombs and candles at markets in Sheffield, Barnsley, Leeds and Sleaford.

She had help through Rotherham Youth Enterprise and the borough council to get the business off the ground.

She said: My advisor, Darren McDool, has been a great support and helped me to prepare a business plan, win a grant from Tata Steel and secure my first business property.

My mum has also been an integral part of this whole journey.

Without her support, I wouldnt be where I am today, opening my first store at 20.
The 28-page plan

SPEAKERS spelled out a positive future for the borough at the launch of the Rotherham Plan 2025.

Figures from the public, private and voluntary sectors detailed achievements and aims at an event at New York Stadium on Wednesday (29).

The 28-page plan sets out five themes  called game changers  to focus on to make the borough a better place to live, work, study, visit and invest.

These priorities are the town centre, building stronger communities, skills and employment, integrated health and social care and a place to be proud of.

Partnership chairman Cllr Chris Read, leader of Rotherham Borough Council, said a past flaw had been keeping our heads down too much.

He said: If you were in my class at school, you probably thought you had to move away to find work.

Cllr Chris Read speaking at the event.

That was changing, he added, and more people were becoming proud of living and working in Rotherham.

He said: This is a unique moment. The plan sets out a number of game changers that will change lives of people in the borough.

What do you think of the plans? Are the priorities correct and will the aims be achieved? Click here to send us your thoughts, or leave a comment below.

The game changers

Building stronger communities

Rotherham Ethnic Minority Alliance explained a project being carried out with partnership cash to battle hate crime.

Policy officer Emma Sharp said: Weve had harrowing tales of hate crime. I dont think anyone can understand how that damages somebodys life, living in fear.

Proudly, we have seen several ladies going to lots of volunteer opportunities and paid employment because of the confidence they got from the course.

Hate crime co-ordinator Safina Khatoon added: Some wouldnt leave their houses for fear of hate crime, they just didnt want to go out.

We challenged some of those fears. Its an amazing journey and something we are going to continue doing.

The new Rotherham Compact is a document which aims to foster partnerships between organisations.

Members of the audience pictured at Wednesday's event.

Cllr Taiba Yasseen, the councils Cabinet member for culture and neighbourhoods, said: None of us in this room could do what we say we will without partnerships. For a partnership to exist, its got to be thoughtful and respectful. The Rotherham Compact is a tool which allows us to do this.

Cllr Read said 250 residents have signed up to the councils Love Where You Live neighbourhoods cleaning campaign, which launched in February.

Measures of success: More residents feeling safe and satisfied where they live, more community involvement

Skills and employment

The biggest change will be Rotherham Colleges university centre planned for the former hospital site at Doncaster Gate.

It is expected to open in 2018 and will allow 1,000 more people to study in Rotherham.

Only 23 per cent of residents here have higher education qualifications, compared to 36 per cent nationally.

Phil Sayles, deputy principal of RNN Group, which runs the college, said it was important to close that gap.

An artist's impression of Rotherham College's university centre.

A target of 10,000 new jobs in the ten years to 2024 had already passed the 7,000 mark, said Paul Woodcock, the councils planning, regeneration and culture director.

He added: Thats a really good start in terms of our economy. The Advanced Manufacturing Park is the jewel in the crown, not just for Rotherham, but for the city region, the northern powerhouse and UK plc.

Thats what we need to build on. Its not just talk, its happening now.

Measures of success: Increase in higher level skills, reduced unemployment

3. Integrated health and social care

Combining resources amid shrinking budgets is a key theme in the health sector, with an aim to support more people to live independently in the community.

An example of bringing together services is the Urgent and Emergency Care Centre, which will open at Rotherham Hospital on July 6.

This will combine A&E with the walk-in centre on one site, with the aim of reducing the number of patients who currently attend the wrong place.

Chris Edwards, Rotherham Clinical Commissioning Group's chief officer, said: It should be the best facility by far in the region.

Measures of success: Fewer unscheduled hospital admissions, better support for children and patients with long-term needs

A place to be proud of

Julie Kenny, chairman of Wentworth Woodhouse Preservation Trust, told of her delight at securing the 7 million deal to buy the mansion last Friday  to applause from delegates.

Its been a four-year battle, she said. It was hard work but the really hard work is now going to begin.

Ms Kenny said the trust now needed to raise between 40 million and 50 million over ten to 15 years for the restoration, with some parts of the building in dire need of repair.

Mr Woodcock said the borough would be back on the tourism map with Wentworth Woodhouse in the north and theme park Gullivers Valley in the south.

Weve not been on that map for some time, he added.

Measures of success: More investment from businesses, more people proud to be live in Rotherham

Town centre

The plan acknowledges residents reluctance to visit the town centre, with criticism of the night-time offer, fear of crime and lack of retail options.

Sandra Pilson, from Rotherham Business Growth Board said it was important to create a different experience from rival centres like Meadowhall and Parkgate Shopping.

One aim is to entice ten per cent of the visitors to Clifton Park  more than one million a year  into town.

Mrs Pilson said: I like action. I dont like talks about talks. I truly believe that we have a great opportunity for an interesting, exciting, activity-filled alternative to Meadowhall. Its just a shopping centre.

Measures of success: Better leisure offer (including cinema), more town centre housing, fewer vacant shops

What do you think of the plans? Are the priorities correct and will the aims be achieved? Click here to send us your thoughts, or leave a comment below.
Gem Diamonds has made applications to the Financial Conduct Authority and the London Stock Exchange for a block listing of 400,000 ordinary shares of $0.01 each in the company.

It said in a statement that these shares, when issued pursuant to the company's obligations under its Long Term Incentive Plan 2007, shall rank equally with the existing issued shares of the company.

These would be admitted to the official list and to trading on the main market of The London Stock Exchange.

The admission was expected to become effective on or around 3 April 2017.

Gem Diamonds owns 70 percent of the Letseng mine in Lesotho and 100 percent of the Ghaghoo mine in Botswana.



Mathew Nyaungwa, Editor in Chief of the African Bureau, Rough&Polished




Kashmir-like' sapphires from Madagascar are entering the gem trade in large sizes and quantities.

Recently, the Swiss Gemmological Institute (SSEF) analysed a significant number of sapphires from a new deposit at Bemainty, near the small town of Ambatondrazaka in Madagascar, which was submitted to the lab by several reliable independent sources.

The sapphires have a 'Kashmir-like' visual appearance, characterised by a subtle and fine milkiness, which results in a velvety blue colour typical of top-quality Kashmir sapphires.

Unfortunately, many of these new sapphires were accompanied by gemmological reports describing them as being of Kashmir origin. But, the lab having recently tested such 'Kashmir-like' sapphires weighing 5 to 50 cts, has concluded that they originated from the new deposit near Bemainty/Ambatondrazaka in Madagascar. The lab's meticulous microscopic observations, and also on an array of sophisticated scientific methods, including Raman micro-spectrometry was used while testing the sapphires.

The arrival of large quantities of new sapphires of 'Kashmir-like' appearance is challenging for the gem market and gemmological laboratories alike, especially as some of these Madagascar sapphires are being purposely introduced into the gem market with fraudulent claims of historic Kashmir provenance.



Aruna Gaitonde, Editor-in-Chief of the Asian Bureau, Rough & Polished




North Arrow Minerals Inc. announced it has sold its 100% interest in the Contwoyto Project, Nunavut, Canada, including the Butterfly gold prospect, to Crystal Exploration Inc.

Under the terms of the purchase and sale agreement, Crystal will acquire North Arrow's 100% interest in the project in exchange for consideration of $100,000 in cash and 1,000,000 shares of Crystal, of which $50,000 cash will be paid and 500,000 shares issued at closing of the transaction.

As additional consideration, North Arrow will retain a 1.0% gross overriding royalty on diamonds and a 1.0% net smelter returns royalty on precious and base metals.

The Contwoyto Kimberlite was discovered in 1998. During 1999 and 2000, it underwent detailed and regional till sampling to identify potential sources of diamonds.



Theodor Lisovoy, Rough&Polished, Moscow




(ria.ru)  Yakutia has not changed its plans and does not intend to privatize its shares of ALROSA, the head of Yakutia Yegor Borisov said on the sidelines of the international forum Arctic-Territory of Dialogue.

"As for ALROSA, the fact that it remains under the control of the state, because there is an agreement under which the controlling stake remains for the state in joint jurisdiction of the government of Russia and the government of Yakutia. Our 25% plus one share stake is protected by law, so we do not plan to privatize it. We do not plan to privatize our part. Districts (of Yakutia) are also tied to this law, (their share is) 8%, so it is very difficult," - Borisov said.

At the beginning of July 2016, 10.9% of ALROSA's shares were placed for privatization.

The forecast privatization plan for 2017-2019 approved earlier by the government involves a reduction of the state's stake in ALROSA to 29% plus 1 share. The sale, if conducted, will include the sale of shares owned by the Republic of Yakutia and shares in municipal ownership.




De Beers is said to have predicted a lower available supply for sightholders in the upcoming intention to offer (ITO) period, compared to what it forecast for the 2016-2017 ITO year.

Rapaport reports that sightholders had estimated that allocations would be up to 20 percent lower under the new ITO arrangement  which begins at the next sight in April  than they were in the previous one.

De Beers had about 80 core clients at its international sights, which take place 10 times a year in Botswana.

The impact has been biggest in the international ITOs, as our producer country beneficiation commitments have seen a greater share of our availability being allocated through these channels, De Beers spokesperson David Johnson was quoted as saying by Rapaport.

The decline was said to have been caused by De Beers new commitments to Namibia and a similar arrangement already in place in Botswana, where the government takes 15 percent of local production to sell via Okavango Diamond Company.

The diamond giant inked a sales and marketing agreement last May with Windhoek that paved way for the allocation of 15 percent of its annual output to state-owned company Namdia.

Under the deal, De Beers also increased the amount of goods it provides its Namibia-based sightholders.

Johnson said the decline in rough supply to sightholders would varydepending on the clients location and whether it was a participant in the programmes aimed at keeping manufacturing within Botswana, South Africa or Namibia.

Mathew Nyaungwa, Editor in Chief of the African Bureau, Rough&Polished






Government of Canada

The government of Canada will provide CA$1.8 billion (US$1.35 billion) to the GO Transit Regional Express rail (GO RER) project in the Greater Golden Horseshoe Area.

The funds are being provided through the New Building Canada Fund and the announcement was accompanied by news that more than 300 additional projects in Ontario have been approved under the Public Transit Infrastructure Fund.

The federal government noted that the investment is being provided as the benefits of public transitare well understood. So too is the cost of inaction.

More families are choosing to settle in communities like Etobicoke  communities that allow parents to work in the big city and allow kids to ride their bikes on the street. These communities are growing at a rapid rate, and investment in public transit needs to keep pace. That is why were investing in the GO rail network and over 300 additional projects in Ontario to reduce commute times, decrease air pollution, and improve the lives of millions of Ontarians, said Canada Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

Along with the province of Ontarios contribution to the GO RER, this commitment will be the single largest transit project in which the federal government has ever invested.

The project is building new track, stations and facilities in order to provide two-way, all-day regional transportation service to the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area (GTHA).

GO RER will deliver fast, electric trains as frequently as 15 minutes in both directions, serving communities in the GTHA and beyond, including the Waterloo Region and Barrie. It will add new stops and cut down travel times. It will mean that people can spend less time commuting and more time doing what they love. Over the last few years the province has made significant progress towards modernizing the entire GO network, allocating CA$13.5 billion (US$10.1 billion) towards GO RER and another CA$7.8 billion (US$5.8 billion) to upgrade and extend the GO network to include regular service to Niagara and Bowmanville. At CA$21.3 billion (US$15.9 billion), the GO capital program is the largest commuter rail program in Canada. It is great that the federal government is now investing in this transformation. We welcome the government of Canadas partnership as we build modern and seamless transit options for the people of Ontario, said Premier of Ontario Kathleen Wynne.

For more information on Canadian railway projects subscribe to IRJ Pro.
Diana Mendes, HNTB Corporation transit/rail practice leader and senior vice president, was named 2017 Training Professional of the Year Award by the National Transit Institute (NTI). HNTB also welcomed Robert James to the firm's Parsippany, N.J. office as a senior project manager for electrical engineering.

Mendes was awarded at the NTI 2017 Transit Trainers Workshop in Nashville, Tenn. She has provided training nationwide for the NTI and the Federal Transit Administration for more than 15 years. She has aided personnel from transit agencies, state departments of transportation and metropolitan planning organizations to better manage the environmental review process for federal transit projects. Mendes has reached more than 1,200 participants through more than 40 course offerings.

In her role as HNTBs transit/rail practice leader, Mendes is responsible for strategic planning and implementation, industry representation, business development, service delivery and client satisfaction. She is based in the firms Arlington, Va., office and works with transit clients across the country.

In his new role, James is responsible for design and inspection of electrical power, control and communications systems for infrastructure and intelligent transportation system projects.

James holds a patent for connected automated vehicles, and he is recognized for being among the first in the United States to propose using connected vehicles and connected infrastructure to automate vehicles to improve safety. He is a founder of the Smart Road at Virginia Tech and the first to design the facility for testing automated vehicles and concepts.

Bob brings in-depth knowledge and experience implementing customer-facing intelligent transportation systems, said Stephen Dilts, HNTBs New Jersey office leader and vice president. New technologies are increasingly important. Our transportation clients in New Jersey recognize that emerging technologies can enhance safety and improve mobility for travelers throughout the region.
Italian sweet giant Ferrero International SA announced that CEO Giovanni Ferrero is stepping down. The company has appointed Ferrero veteran Lapo Civiletti as its first nonfamily Chief Executive.

Civiletti, who currently leads the central and eastern European operations, will take over reins of the company on September 1, the company said on Thursday.

Meanwhile, Giovanni Ferrero, the grandson of founder Pietro Ferrero and son of the late chairman Michele Ferrero, will become executive chairman focusing on long term strategy.

"I am very confident that Mr Lapo Civiletti will ensure continuity in reaching goals and effectively support the group in its growth objectives. He has been chosen for his business acumen, vision, and mission-driven orientation while truly fostering the Ferrero culture and core values", Ferrero said in a statement.

Italy-based Ferrero owns Tic Tac, Ferrero Rocher brands, Kinder Eggs as well as Nutella hazelnut spread.

"This is a momentous time for the group, and we are ready to capitalise on the new opportunities available to our company. I am absolutely dedicated to pursuing Mr Ferrero's strategic direction, side-by-side with him, with a very talented leadership team and in collaboration with all my Ferrero colleagues around the world," Lapo Civiletti said.

For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com

Business News
AstraZeneca PLC (AZN.L,AZN) announced the US FDA has granted full approval for Tagrisso (osimertinib) 80mg once-daily tablets, for the treatment of patients with metastatic epidermal growth factor receptor T790M mutation-positive non-small cell lung cancer whose disease has progressed on or after an EGFR tyrosine kinase inhibitor therapy. The company said the full approval in the US is based on data from the randomised, Phase III AURA3 trial, in which Tagrisso significantly improved progression-free survival versus platinum-based doublet chemotherapy.

Separately, AstraZeneca announced it has completed the agreement with TerSera Therapeutics LLC for the commercial rights to Zoladex in the US and Canada. Zoladex is an injectable luteinising hormone-releasing medicine, used to treat prostate cancer, breast cancer and certain benign gynaecological disorders. AstraZeneca has received a payment of $250 million from TerSera for the commercial rights to the medicine in the US and Canada. AstraZeneca will receive future sales-related income through milestones totalling up to $70 million, as well as recurring quarterly sales-based payments at mid-teen percent of sales. AstraZeneca will also manufacture and supply Zoladex to TerSera.

For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com

Business News
Editors Pick

Facebook parent Meta Platforms Inc. is planning to begin large-scale layoffs this week, mostly starting Wednesday, the Wall Street Journal reported citing people familiar with the matter. The layoffs are likely to impact many thousands of employees, and the social media platform is preparing to notify employees of the job cuts, the report said. Employees already have been informed to cancel nones

German biotechnology company BioNTech SE reported Monday sharply lower profit in its third quarter reflecting weak revenues. Looking ahead, BioNTech has raised the lower end of its fiscal 2022 COVID-19 vaccine revenue estimate. In pre-market activity in Nasdaq, BioNTech shares were losing around 3.2 percent.

Irish ultra low-cost carrier Ryanair Holdings reported Monday a strong growth in second-quarter profit with strong demand and increase in average fares. Looking ahead for fiscal year 2023, Ryanair expects an adjusted profit, and also raised traffic view. For fiscal year 2023, Ryanair expects that it will minimize its winter losses.
President Donald Trump has warned that a meeting next week with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping will be "very difficult."

Trump commented about the upcoming meeting at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida in a series of posts on Twitter on Thursday.

"The meeting next week with China will be a very difficult one in that we can no longer have massive trade deficits and job losses," Trump tweeted. "American companies must be prepared to look at other alternatives."

The meeting at Mar-a-Lago on April 6th and 7th will be the first between to the leaders since Trump became president.

A statement from the White House said Trump and Xi will discuss global, regional, and bilateral issues of mutual concern.

The president and First Lady Melania Trump will also host Xi and his wife Peng Liyuan at a dinner on the evening of April 6th, the White House said.

Trump repeatedly attacked U.S. trade relations with China on the campaign trail and has criticized China for failing to do more to deal with North Korea.

For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com

Political News
A provincial government in Argentina has ordered Barrick Gold Corp. (ABX,ABX.TO) to suspend some activities at the Veladero gold and silver mine after the Canadian mining company reported its third spill at the mine in two years.

On Wednesday, Barrick said that the government of San Juan province in Argentina temporarily restricted the addition of cyanide to the Veladero mine's heap leach facility pending the verification that its remedial works have been completed. The company is working to complete this remediation as quickly as possible.

Barrick said that on the evening of March 28, a pipeline at its Veladero mine had sprung a leak, spilling liquid used in the mining process. The monitoring system at Veladero detected a rupture of a pipe carrying gold-bearing solution on the leach pad.

However, Barrick added that all solution was contained within the operating site and no solution reached any diversion channels or watercourses. The company then promptly notified San Juan provincial authorities and they inspected the site.

"The safety of people and the environment remains Barrick's top priority. The incident did not pose any threat to the of employees, communities, or the environment," Barrick said.

Further, Barrick said it currently does not anticipate a material impact to its 2017 production guidance.

In September 2016, Barrick said that the government of San Juan province announced a temporary suspension of operations at the Veladero mine after a pipe carrying process solution in the heap leach area was damaged when it was struck by a large block of ice. Normal operations were resumed at the mine in early October.

One year prior to that, Barrick reported a spill of cyanide solution at the mine after an equipment failure.

For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com

Business News
Discussions on the European Union's future relationship with the United Kingdom can be held only after sufficient progress is made on the country's exit, European Council President Donald Tusk said Friday.

The EU stance is in contrast to the British Prime Minister Theresa May's proposal that talks on the UK withdrawal and future relationship with the EU, covering areas such as trade and citizens rights, be held simultaneously.

EU27 leaders will discuss the draft guidelines for Brexit talks, to be proposed by Tusk, at a European Council meet in Malta on Friday.

"Once, and only once we have achieved sufficient progress on the withdrawal, can we discuss the framework for our future relationship," Tusk said at a joint press conference with Maltese Prime Minister Joseph Muscat.

"Starting parallel talks on all issues at the same time, as suggested by some in the UK, will not happen."

The EU also shares the UK's desire to have a close partnership between both, the top EU official said.

"Strong ties, reaching beyond the and including security cooperation, remain in our common interest," he added.

Talks with the UK, which are about to start, "will be difficult, complex and sometimes even confrontational", Tusk said.

The EU27 does not and will not pursue a punitive approach, he said, adding that Brexit in itself was already punitive enough.

Tusk also noted that both parties were responsible to do everything to make the separation as smooth as possible.

He said he will visit May in London before the European Council meet scheduled for April 29.

The draft guidelines proposed by Tusk will focus on minimizing the uncertainty and disruption due to Brexit for EU citizens, businesses and members.

"In essence it is about damage control," Tusk reiterated.

He stressed on the importance of settling the status and situations of EU citizens working and studying in the UK with "reciprocal, enforceable and non-discriminatory guarantees".

The EU27 will also strive to prevent a legal vacuum for European companies as after Brexit the EU laws will no longer apply to the UK.

Tusk asserted that the EU will also make sure that the UK honors all financial commitments and liabilities it had taken as a Member State.

"It is only fair towards all those people, communities, scientists, farmers and so on to whom we, all the 28, promised and owe this money," Tusk said.

"I can guarantee that the EU, on our part, will honor all our commitments."

The EU leader also emphasized on the importance of supporting the peace process in Northern Ireland, saying that the EU will seek flexible and creative solutions aimed at avoiding a hard border between Northern Ireland and Ireland.

For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com

Forex News
Former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn wants to be granted immunity before testifying in front of the Congressional committees investigating alleged Russian meddling in the presidential election.

A statement from Flynn's lawyer Robert Kelner said the former Army General is seeking protection against unfair prosecution.

"No reasonable person, who has the benefit of advice from counsel, would submit to questioning in such a highly politicized, witch hunt environment without assurances against unfair prosecution," Kelner said.

Kelner claimed the media is "awash with unfounded allegations, outrageous claims of treason, and vicious innuendo directed against [Flynn]."

Flynn was forced to resign earlier this year after he misled Vice President Mike Pence about his communications with Russian ambassador to the U.S. Sergey Kislyak.

"General Flynn certainly has a story to tell, and he very much wants to tell it, should the circumstances permit," Kelner said.

Flynn's attorney indicated he is in discussions with the House and Senate Intelligence Committees but would not comment on the details.

President Donald Trump backed Flynn's demand for immunity in a post on Twitter, calling the investigation a "witch hunt."

"Mike Flynn should ask for immunity in that this is a witch hunt (excuse for big election loss), by media & Dems, of historic proportion!" Trump said.

Responding to Trump's tweet, Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said the public should learn a lot more about why Flynn wants immunity when former acting Attorney General Sally Yates testifies.

"The question for you, Mr. President, is why you waited so long to act after you learned Flynn (through your VP) had misled the country?" Schiff tweeted.

The investigation has become increasingly politicized amid a dispute between Schiff and House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes, R-Calif., over the sharing of information.

Amid questions about Nunes' handling of the investigation, the leaders of the Senate Intelligence Committee vowed Wednesday to conduct a thorough inquiry.

(Photo: Gage Skidmore)

For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com

Political News
Hillary Clinton offered harsh criticism of President Donald Trump's budget proposal in remarks at Georgetown University on Friday.

Clinton, the Democratic presidential nominee, specifically targeted Trump's call for sharp reductions in spending on the State Department and foreign aid.

"We are seeing signals of a shift that should alarm us all," Clinton said. "This administration's proposed cuts to international , development and diplomacy would be a blow to women and children and a grave mistake for our country."

The former Secretary of State cited a letter signed by more than 120 retired generals and admirals last month warning the White House of the negative impacts of cutting funding for the State Department and diplomacy programs.

"These distinguished women and men who have served in uniform recognize that turning our back on diplomacy won't make our country safer," Clinton said. "It will undermine our security and our standing in the world."

The comments from Clinton mark the second time she has recently waded back into after delivering remarks earlier in the week critical of the Republican healthcare bill.

(Photo: Lorie Shaull)

For comments and feedback contact: editorial@rttnews.com

Business News
Montanas Senate and House passed similar bills Friday to fund construction of the proposed Montana Heritage Center in Helena.

Democratic lawmakers Rep. Jenny Eck of Helena, and Sen. Jill Cohenour of East Helena, saw their bills pass to raise taxes on accommodations and campgrounds by 0.5 percent with revenues going to construction of the center and historic preservation grants that could be used statewide.

The Montana Historical Society has pushed for a decade for remodeling and expansion of the existing facility. Advocates point to the conditions in the current building as potentially jeopardizing historic artifacts and artwork due to lack of temperature and humidity control. Expanding space to display collections is also a major inspiration for the project.

Were at risk of losing it if we dont do something to update this facility, Eck said on the floor, calling the solution creative as she advocated for House Bill 660.

The combined new and renovated facility, which would be called the Montana Heritage Center, would be a boon to tourism, she said.

If you want to save your history and you want to save your heritage, vote for this bill, Rep. Bradley Hamlett, D-Cascade, said in support.

HB660 and Cohenours Senate Bill 376 would have the same fiscal impact, generating more than $19.3 million in the next four years with more than $17 million for the center, according to the fiscal notes. The 0.5 percent tax increase would sunset in 2027.

Gov. Steve Bullock earlier proposed including $27.6 million for the construction project  a measure stripped by the Republican-majority Legislature as the parties and chambers wrangle over infrastructure spending.

An infrastructure bill that failed to pass the 2015 Legislature by one vote would have given $25 million to the project.

The latest bills drew enough bipartisan support Friday to advance to the other chambers, with final votes of 55-45 on HB660 and 28-22 on SB376.

The most stringent opposition came in the House Wednesday, when Republicans Barry Usher of Billings and Nancy Ballance of Hamilton blasted the bill for coming as Montana faces budget cuts in other areas.

This session, we dont have money, weve cut funds to seniors, the disabled and our children. I find it appalling that this would come up for a vote, Usher said.

Weve been trying to find funds to fund critical issues in this state as impassioned pleas came from the other side of aisle day after day after day, Ballance said.

So we find a funding source, a source for new money, and the priority becomes clear, a new museum, a building to be built in Helena. That is the priority were willing to put our names on evidently. So as we vote on this bill, just think about where this money couldve gone.

The bill also saw an amendment voted down that would have moved the heritage center to Lewistown.

In the Senate, Cohenour on Thursday argued that the center is an important part of infrastructure funding and said the museum is important for the state as a whole.

Sen. Eric Moore, R-Miles City, stood to give reluctant support of the bill, calling debate around the center politically toxic, citing strong disagreement about bonding to pay for construction.

Moore said his vote came out of concern that future Legislatures could see fit to finance the museum with bonding or general funds, and SB376 would tap a larger percentage of tourism dollars.

Independent Record state house reporter Holly Michels contributed to this story.
Crowds around the Capitol building are a common sight with the Legislature in session, but the men and women who gathered on a nearby street corner werent there for politics.

Some of the men and women were old enough to be the mothers and fathers of the uniformed soldiers and sailors who joined them Thursday for the Welcome Home Vietnam Veterans Day walk.

Their journey would take them around the Capitol building before ending at the Department of Justice building where a ceremony would be held in its atrium.

Larrey Lattin, 71, is an Army veteran who served in the Central Highlands of Vietnam from 1965 to 1968. He was a crew chief on a two-engine airplane, a Caribou, that supplied remote Special Forces camps.

No greeting awaited him when he returned to the United States after his three-year tour of duty.

I was looked at pretty much with disdain, he said.

Nobody actually said anything to me, but I could see the looks, he recalled of the glances and stares he received as a soldier in uniform.

Even still, he was happy to be home and rejoin his wife and their new baby.

I got home in one piece and was happy to be here, he said.

Mike Collins, 70, spent his time from 1966 to 1970 off the southern coast of Vietnam as a radar man on the USS Corry, a destroyer.

He returned to Helena, where he was born and raised, after his tour of duty and thought for a moment before he said he assessed his reception as OK.

There were other, larger cities  it wasnt good for my fellow veterans and shipmates, said Collins, who explained he was just happy to be home.

People in Montana werent as negative about those who served in the war, he said.

Military service runs in his family. Two of his three brothers served, as did two of his three sons. An uncle died during World War II and his father served in the Army. After returning to the United States from the South Pacific, he stayed in Helena.

Steve Cook, 67, is a Marine Corps veteran who served in Vietnam from 1968 to 1969. He spoke as he walked. He was an amphibian tractor crewman serving near the dividing line between North and South Vietnam and brought supplies to two of the Marine Corps northern compounds.

Originally from Portland, Oregon, hes been a Helena resident since 1983. He sums up how he felt when he returned with a single word: lonely.

It just wasnt a welcoming environment, he said.

This years walk was about half the size of last years event, the first since it was authorized in 2011 by the Montana Legislature.

That event drew veterans from across the state. Even though there were fewer participants this year, Ray Read, Montana Military Museum director who helped organize it, wasnt disappointed.

Some of those who participated last year felt vindicated and didnt need to come, Read said.

It needs to happen in Billings, in Valier, wherever theres Vietnam veterans, he said.

Our ultimate goal was not to have a major Montana event in Helena but to have an event in Helena.

Some of the walkers were alone. Others walked in twos and threes. This was a time of silence for many, broken with a bit of light banter by others.

Daniel Pocha, part of the Little Shell Chippewa Tribe, greeted walkers outside the atrium with a burning twist of dried plants. The line of people passed through a smoke of what Pocha said were sacred plants: cedar, sweet pine, sage, sweet grass and tobacco.

It cleanses you, he said. It brings your hopes and prayers to the Creator.

Inside the atrium, the veterans and those who accompanied them sat or stood. Perhaps 40 or more people filled the chairs that were reserved for them with white slips of paper.

Forty-four years ago is that day that marked the return home of our nations Vietnam veterans, Gov. Steve Bullock said as he addressed the crowd.

Unfortunately these combat veterans didnt receive the welcome home that generations of Americans did in previous wars. We owe all these brave soldiers, sailors, Marines and airmen a debt of gratitude that indeed we can never truly repay.

The experience of those who served was unique and made all the more difficult when they returned home to a country in turmoil and no services to honor them, Bullock continued.

Montana has the highest proportion of veterans in the nation, he said.

While calling for the sacrifices of those who served in Vietnam to never be forgotten, he asked that the sacrifices of those who have served elsewhere also not be forgotten.

Last years walk was the first time that many Vietnam veterans were told welcome home, Bullock said before adding, its something that we must not do just once a year but indeed every day to ensure that our warriors understand that we appreciate the sacrifices that they made then and the continued sacrifices that so many carry on their shoulders even today.

Maj. Gen. Matthew Quinn, the adjutant general of the Montana Army National Guard, disregarded his prepared remarks when he spoke.

The night before the event, he walked alone through the Carroll College campus before retracing his steps, he said.

He said he thought of the solitude of being a veteran and I thought back to May of 1991 when I returned to Germany from Desert Storm and there was a great crowd there -- family, other citizens.

He also recalled his return from duty in 2004 when he arrived in Kalispell. School had been dismissed for the day. The street, from the airport to the old armory, was lined with people welcoming them home.

As he walked through the college campus, he thought about how it would have been to return to what awaited Vietnams veterans: solitude, no greeting or scorn.

Among those who greeted the returning soldiers in 1991 and 2004 were the Vietnam veterans, Quinn said.

They turned that scorn, that pain into a commitment of never again.

You are why America is saying never again and lets never forget. My personal thanks to what you have done to improve this nation for our veterans, Quinn said.

Lattin appreciated the welcome.

Overall, the mood of the country has changed. Iraq and Afghanistan, they were treated much better, he said.

In retrospect, Im proud of my service but theres 58,000 dead boys and ladies that should have never been there, Lattin said and added, it was a mistake.

This event was a recognition of the veterans for Collins who said this was also a time to join other veterans in recognizing the war.

I had a lot of friends that gave their lives, he said.

And the wars legacy continues to claim those who fought there, Collins added and explained a veteran who was exposed to the herbicide and defoliant Agent Orange died last week.

It just continues. Some of them have just gone through a lot.

The acknowledgement of the Vietnam era has become a lot broader, a lot better known, a lot better accepted, said Cook.

There was a time when it was something that you never really admitted to, being a Vietnam veteran."

Its changing, Cook said. Theres more appreciation expressed from civilians  as opposed to the way it was immediately after the conflict.
By SA Commercial Prop News

SA Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan replaced with Home Affairs Minister Malusi Gigaba at a time the country is facing weak economy growth.



President Jacob Zuma on Thursday dismissed respected finance minister Pravin Gordhan and deputy Mcebisi Jonas as part of a major Cabinet reshuffle  a move that has tumbled South Africa's markets and currency.

Gordhan was replaced with Home Affairs head Malusi Gigaba.

Political worries are once again nibbling at the South African rand, after President Zumas latest unorthodox government appointment raised investor fears that he could try to unseat the countrys internationally-respected finance minister.

Zuma said he made the changes to improve efficiency and effectiveness.



The changes bring younger MPs and more women into the National Executive to benefit from their energy, experience, and expertise, said Zuma.

Economic worries

Peter Attard Montalto, Nomura analyst, adds the market will struggle to digest Gigaba. Someone who has been effective at home affairs but is clearly being put in a role to do a particular job by Zuma and viewed as loyal to Zuma. Similarly with Buthalezi.

MMI economist Sanisha Packirisamy adds Gordhan and Jonas removal will be a key concern to markets. In their previous capacity, they had played a crucial role in improving SAs fiscal position and had put in place measures to curb corruption. They had also opposed unaffordable projects, such as the procurement of a nuclear fleet deemed to be unnecessary according to the latest Integrated Resource Plan, based on more realistic domestic growth assumptions.

Packirisamy adds rand volatility is expected to remain high given the unpredictable moves in SAs political setting currently.

At its worst point, the rand sold off against the US dollar by over 6 percent relative to its firmest point the afternoon prior to the cabinet reshuffle, but it remains stronger than levels seen at the beginning of the year.

Cronje notes the new ministers, who will be sworn in at 6pm on Friday, come in at a time of very weak economic performance as debt levels have increased, the budget deficit remains under pressure, and the government's tax take as a proportion of gross domestic product is projected to reach a record level.

The government also knows that ratings agencies and investors are watching its next moves closely and it will be interesting to see how the government now responds to investor concerns.

Cronje adds the Institute expects Zuma's political enemies to launch a ferocious fight back over the next year. This is far from the end of infighting and uncertainty in the government and the ANC  quite a number of years of instability may lie ahead.

Packirisamy notes rating agencies will be evaluating SA shortly, Moodys by April 7 and S&P on June 2. A downgrade to sub-investment grade status would likely have a negative effect on SAs near and longer-term economic outlook.

Ratings Agency

Fitch has reacted to Zuma's Cabinet reshuffle, saying it signals a change in policy direction and will raise political tensions within the African National Congress (ANC) and its traditional allies, potentially weakening public finances and standards of governance.

The ratings agency is warning the move will increase political instability as the party focuses on its policy conference in June and leadership contest in December.



Continued political instability that adversely affects standards of governance, the economy or public finances, was one of the ratings sensitivities Fitch highlighted in November when it revised the outlook on South Africas BBB- rating to negative from stable.

The Rand Currency

The rand continued its free fall against major currencies on Friday morning as the nation awoke to the news that Gordhan had been axed.

In a fall reminiscent of that witnessed in the wake of Nenegate in December 2015 when Zuma replaced then finance minister Nhlanhla Nene with the relatively unknown Des van Rooyen the rand plummeted overnight losing almost 3% against the dollar pound and euro in opening trade.

The local currency reached intraday worst levels of R13.6282 to the dollar R14.5501 against the euro and R17.0017 against the pound before managing to claw back some of the losses.

At 8.16am the rand was at R13.4656 to the dollar from an overnight close of R13.2644. It was at R14.3850 against the euro from R14.1566 previously and at R16.7961 against the pound from R16.5395.
DECATUR  Caterpillar Inc. plans to move about 500 jobs to Decatur following the closure of its Aurora plant, the company said Friday.

The company, which announced it was considering the move in January, plans to move production of large wheel loaders and compactors to Decatur. It will move production of its medium-wheel loaders to an Arkansas facility.

"Out of about 800 production positions, about 500 positions would likely be added to Decatur and about 150 positions would be added in North Little Rock," spokeswoman Lisa Miller said in a statement Friday afternoon. "We anticipate some will move to various suppliers and some positions would also be eliminated."

The transitions are expected to be complete by the end of 2018.

Moving production from Aurora to other existing facilities allows Caterpillar to efficiently leverage manufacturing space while still preserving capacity for an upturn, said Denise Johnson, Caterpillar group president of Resource Industries. Supporting impacted employees through this transition is a top priority, as we know these actions are difficult for our talented and dedicated people.

The company does plan to maintain an Aurora office for engineering and product support work.

The move is a testament to the quality of employees already in Decatur and a sign that the city can supply the needed additional workers, said Ryan McCrady, president of the Economic Development Corp. of Decatur and Macon County.

It could send a positive ripple effect across the community. A manufacturing job in Decatur supports three-and-a-half other jobs in the economy, McCrady said. Increased wages in a community bring more attention from retailers, too.

Though the news is exciting, McCrady offered sympathy to the Aurora workers and community that would be affected.

We like to win but we're respectful of the fact that people's lives are impacted here, he said. Decatur's a great place and we'll welcome them, and welcome the opportunity to help Caterpillar.

As the company ramps up its staff, McCrady said the EDC would stand ready to provide support, along with city staff, Workforce Investment Solutions, the Greater Decatur Chamber of Commerce, Richland Community College, Millikin University and other entities.

Caterpillar, without a doubt, has been a significant part of Decatur's history, McCrady said. We'll be glad to have them as a significant part of our future too.

City Manager Tim Gleason echoed that sentiment. He said the city has extended an open-ended offer to help the company with recruitment, workforce development and even incentives if there was a possibility for plant expansion.

No incentives were part of the decision to bring the Aurora jobs to Decatur, he added.

We are really fortunate that Caterpillar wants to expand their footprint here in this community, he said. We must be doing something right.

The news brought mixed emotions for Toby Short, an employee of Decatur's Caterpillar plant. He felt empathy for the workers in Aurora, whom he considers brothers and sisters through their shared union membership, and hoped the best for them.

That's our sister facility, he said. We're all affiliated together.

At the same time, Short has enjoyed a 17-year career at Caterpillar in several different positions, and his father has been with the company for almost 52 years. He knows the opportunities those jobs will create for young people in a city that has experienced so many manufacturing job losses.

"We've just seen the decline, the decline, the decline, since the mid '90s, and honestly it's kind of an upturn for Decatur to get this kind of work and this kind of workload, said Short, 42. That's a lot of decent-paying union jobs, and all you can think about is hopefully more growth.

The move is part of Caterpillar's ongoing efforts to save money in the face of a four-year-old slump in sales.

The company, founded in 1925, has had several rounds of layoffs in recent years. In 2015, it announced 10,000 positions would be reduced and 20 facilities shuttered nationwide by 2018. Cuts and restructuring would save an estimated $2 billion per year.

This month, it was announced the Caterpillar plant in Elkader, Iowa, was closing, cutting 75 jobs. The plant makes excavator buckets, wheel loader buckets and blades for heavy machinery. Operations are being moved to a facility in Wamego, Kansas.

In January, Caterpillar announced plans to move its global headquarters and about 300 top jobs to the Chicago area after decades in Peoria.

Friday's announcement comes days after United Auto Workers members from 11 Caterpillar facilities across Illinois and Pennsylvania approved a six-year-contract with the company.

The company also has been under fire in recent weeks for issues relating to Caterpillar SARL, a Swiss parts subsidiary, and tax-saving practices that have prompted a Senate investigation, shareholder lawsuits and proposed penalties totaling $2 billion.

Federal authorities raided the Peoria offices earlier this year. Former U.S. Attorney General William P. Barr was named outside counsel for the company in mid-March, charged with sorting out the issues related to the government investigation.

The companys chairman and former CEO, Doug Oberhelman, also was among two dozen manufacturing CEOs who met with President Donald Trump at the White House in early March, committing to restoring factory jobs lost to foreign competition. Trump is proposing a $1 trillion plan to shore up the nation's roads, bridges and airports as part of an infrastructure improvement effort.

The company could be stripped of its ability to bid for federal contracts as part of the Caterpillar SARL matter.

Caterpillar in January reported a fourth-quarter loss of $1.17 billion on revenue of about $9.6 billion.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
CLINTON  A 20-year-old Shirley man charged with child pornography in McLean County was charged Thursday with criminal sexual assault in DeWitt County.

Austin Graf is accused of sexually assaulting a minor girl during a Nov. 11 incident at Weldon Springs State Park in Clinton. The felony carries a possible penalty of four to 15 years with a requirement that the defendant serve 85 percent of the sentence, if convicted.

DeWitt County State's Attorney Dan Markwell said a bond has not been requested yet for Graf, who will be transported to Clinton from the McLean County Jail for an arraignment.

The Illinois State Police investigation of the incident in Clinton resulted in the discovery of more than 800 images of child pornography on the suspect's cellphone, according to Assistant McLean County State's Attorney Jacob Harlow.

During an interview with police, Graf admitted to having more than 300 photos of girls, including some minors, said Harlow. Police found the images hidden on a calculator app on Graf's phone, according to a statement read in court by the prosecutor.

Graf remains in the McLean County jail in lieu of $50,035. An April 7 arraignment is scheduled on the pornography charges.
Got a late-night craving for a Jumbo Jack or Munchies Meal? No longer will you have to head to the nearest drive-through, thanks to a new partnership between Jack in the Box and DoorDash.

The San Diego-based chain has joined a growing number of fast-food venues and restaurants that are satisfying consumers appetites with on-demand delivery services.

The debut of Jack in the Box delivery follows a test run that began last fall in the San Francisco Bay area and was so well received that DoorDash and the fast-food chain decided to expand it to more than 830 outlets in 229 U.S. cities. There are more than 2,200 restaurants in the San Diego chain.

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For the first month, Door Dash will waive its $4.99 delivery fee for Jack in the Box restaurants in the San Diego area. In some markets, deliveries will be available as late as 3 a.m., but in San Diego, closing time will be 1 a.m.

We had a lot of customers asking for Jack in the Box. Its hugely popular, their food is great, and they have their late-night menu thats super popular, said Prahar Shah, head of business development for San Francisco-based DoorDash. And when you think of whats available on their menu, its part of the reason theyre open all hours of the day.

Fast food partnerships arent exactly new to DoorDash, which started out with Taco Bell in 2015 and has since added KFC, Carls Jr. and Dunkin Donuts to its growing inventory of delivery destinations.

The explosion of food-delivery apps like Postmates, GrubHub and UberEats has opened the door for more participation by quick-service eateries. GrubHub, for example, delivers food from El Pollo Loco and Rubios, and McDonalds is looking to finally launch home delivery as well.

After a two-month test run in Florida, McDonalds said earlier this month it planned to start meal delivery in the United States. For the pilot, it partnered with UberEats, although it is not known yet who the fast-food giant will use for broader home delivery.

Although value always has been the hallmark of fast food chains, consumers with a hankering for burgers and fries will have to fork over a DoorDash delivery fee and in some cases pay a bit more for menu items than they would if they had placed their order at the drive-through.

Both Jack in the Box and DoorDash executives declined to identify which menu items might be priced higher, although the popular Munchies Meals, which pair burgers and chicken sandwiches with tacos, curly fries and a drink, will be the same as in the stores.

Yes, fast food outlets offer value in terms of consumer spending; however, the convenience element of the delivery has proven important to our consumers as well, said Jen Kennedy, director of product marketing for Jack in the Box. ...We want to make our brand even more accessible for our customers by bringing them the delivery option so as to not limit their ability for instant gratification brought to their doorstep.

As is customary with food-delivery partnerships, Jack in the Box will be sharing an unspecified share of its revenues with DoorDash. Despite that, the chain says it sees the economic value of moving into the delivery market.

We want to bring Jack in the Box customers the best experience possible anytime, anywhere, Kennedy added. With on-demand delivery now a major player in the food service industry, we want to make sure we are keeping up with consumer demands.

Jack in the Box plans to heavily market its foray into delivery and has created a special TV ad that plays off gamers in need of an energy boost after hours in front of a console.

Saving the universe is hard, says Jack, which is why I make ordering late night easy.

Not surprisingly, late at night was the single most popular delivery time during the San Francisco pilot period.

Business

lori.weisberg@sduniontribune.com

(619) 293-2251

Twitter: @loriweisberg
Researchers typically keep two microscopes in the lab  a traditional upright device for viewing dry slides and an inverted microscope to examine live samples.

San Diego start-up Echo has created a new hybrid microscope that switches from upright to inverted in one device, saving life science companies money and space. On Thursday, Echo said it has raised $7.5 million in venture capital to expand its manufacturing and sales operations, as well as develop new products.

Echos Revolve microscope also replaces traditional eye pieces with high-resolution tablet computers.

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The company was founded in 2013 but didnt begin selling the Revolve until last year. Chief Executive Eugene Cho said 2016 revenue exceed forecasts by 180 percent.

This year, the 22-employee firm hit half of its annual sales goal by the end of February. The science communitys response to Echo has exceeded anything we could have predicted, said Cho.

Customers include the National Institutes of Health, Stanford University, UC San Francisco, Pfizer, DNA testing firm 23andME, Harvard and Yale. Cho declined to disclose exact revenue figures.

The microscope market worldwide is expected to reach $6 billion by 2021, according to consulting/research firm MarketsandMarkets.

Cho started Echo after working for more than a decade for a research grade microscope maker. He said much of the innovation in the industry is focused on the very sophisticated devices that can cost $250,000 or more.

We have found a market opportunity in the core workhorse microscope, so our price point for the Revolve is $15,000 to $40,000, said Cho. That market seemed like it was somewhat neglected.

Like an all-in-one copier, Revolve is two microscopes in one. Its a traditional upright microscope, and it converts into an inverted configuration to provide views from underneath the petri dish or slide.

Inverted microscopes are often used on live samples, where gravity and fluids can hinder overhead magnification.

Revolve also replaces eye pieces with iPads, which connect wirelessly to the microscope. Users control the Revolve using the high-resolution touch screen. They can zoom in or out on images, photograph and share them, and perform basic analysis using Echos iPad app.

I dont have to make an argument to my customers about how great the (iPad) Retina display is, said Cho. So today you can get rid of the eye piece and get just as good, if not better, performance out of these displays.

Dolby Family Ventures and Tech Coast Angels led the round. Echo previously raised $5 million from individual investors.

The company has four patents issued and two pending, said Cho. There are a handful of rival microscope makers, mostly in Japan and Europe. Echo aims to stand out with the hybrid capability of the Revolve.

We are the first and only hybrid microscope that has existed, he said. This is the first of its kind.

Business

mike.freeman@sduniontribune.com;

Twitter:@TechDiego

760-529-4973
A regional construction project thats adding a second track along San Diego Countys coastal rail line will bring the low-key Cardiff community some artistic attention and name recognition.

Under the proposed plan, Cardiffs name will be spelled out on the posts of a new railroad trestle bridge, which will replace a 60-year-old wooden structure across San Elijo Lagoon, and a proposed retaining wall along San Elijo Avenue will showcase a public art project that reflects the communitys beachy vibe.

The Encinitas Art Commission will work with the San Diego Association of Governments and the North County Transit District to design the art for the retaining wall, the Encinitas City Council decided last week.

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Mayor Catherine Blakespear, a Cardiff resident, said shes envisioning a design featuring giant waves to reflect Cardiffs surfing culture. Art commissioners will need to think big, she said, so the project is visible to passing motorists along the nearest roadway  Coast Highway 101  west of the railroad tracks.

Its going to be seen from a big distance away, so it has to be a broad (image) ... not a little tiny .... design with little fish or something, she said. It has to be big and dramatic , so you can see it.

Blakespear and Councilman Tony Kranz met with SANDAG officials recently to discuss design options for the proposed wall after receiving a request from the Cardiff 101 Main Street business association. The association had learned that the wall was originally proposed to be a very Caltrans-looking, freeway-style wall and wanted that replaced with a living wall with space for plants, Blakespear said.

SANDAG officials have informed the city that they cant tweak the design and replace the concrete wall with a fully plantable option because of engineering issues related to the slope of the hillside and the space needed for the two sets of railroad tracks. However, they have offered to give their proposed wall a beautification treatment.

The city will need to get cracking on the proposed design quickly because work has already started on the double-tracking and time is of the essence, said Joe Britton, SANDAG a senior public information officer.

Initial construction activity  silt fencing, temporary signage and project area vegetation clearing  on the $75 million San Elijo Lagoon Double Track project began earlier this year. A roughly two-year project, the construction work will add 1.5 miles of double tracking from Cardiff to the southern border of San Elijo Lagoon, as well as improving a railroad crossing point at Chesterfield Drive in Cardiff and adding a pedestrian under crossing on the south side of the lagoon.

The new concrete replacement bridge thats proposed to go across the lagoon will have just the right number of support posts so that each one can hold one letter of the word Cardiff, Blakespear said. The design for that artwork is already done.

The truth is, the people who will see this are surfers  the people on the water  but its cool, she said as she looked at the bridge design, which also will feature silhouette images of diving pelicans.

Blakespear said she hopes that city art commission members will create the actual design thats used for the proposed retaining wall, saying she believes there are several people on the commission who might be able to draw a design.

Kranz said he thought the commission might decide to obtain the services of an outside artist, saying having the commission create the work rather than simply approving a proposed design would be fairly challenging.

Henry is a freelance writer in Encinitas.
Gang violence and how to prevent it was the focus of a town hall meeting in Escondido on Thursday night, just three weeks after a woman was killed by what police say was random gang gunfire in the eastern part of town.

We cant arrest our way out of the gang problem, Escondido police Chief Craig Carter told the crowd of about 60 people who attended the event. We are going to need intervention programs, prevention programs and a community behind us to solve this problem.

A spike in gang violence, including the March 7 slaying of 55-year-old Cathy Kennedy, prompted the town hall, held at Del Dios Academy of Arts and Sciences.

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Many of the parents in attendance  some with middle-school-aged children in tow  said they came specifically to find out how protect their kids.

Diana Cruz brought her five children, ages 2 to 13, to see how she could help us, said her daughter, Maria Suaruz.

The meeting was a joint effort between EGRIP  an Escondido task force geared toward preventing and reducing gang crime  and the North County Gang Commission, which is aimed at disrupting and dismantling gangs and their activity in the region.

Police and prosecutors say gang violence has been on the rise over the past few years in Escondido, which has roughly 450 documented gang members.

The problem came into full focus this month when Kennedy was struck and killed by a stray bullet about 9 p.m. March as she drove down Grand Avenue, heading home from church. Two suspected gang members have been charged with her murder.

The accused gunman is 24-year-old Dionicio Crespin Torrez Jr., who police say was shooting at two rival gang members. A 16-year-old boy is also charged. Both have pleaded not guilty.

Speakers at Thursdays forum included Detective Nick Rodelo from the police departments gang unit, Alicia Espinoza from Coalition for Drug-Free Escondido, and Sebastian Ortega, a former gang member who now works with at-risk kids in the city.

How do we prevent gang violence? Often times we focus a lot on suppression, Ortega said. But in order to (end) this, we need to focus on prevention, to be able to provide necessary resources for youth to engage in positive activities.

Rodelo gave parents warning signs that could indicate their kids are being recruited by gangs, such as changing the way they dress, ditching school, or writing graffiti on notebooks.

He and others asked for the community to help, even just by reporting tagging or truancy when they spot it.

In the current climate, they (gangs) are trying to create fear in the community, Rodelo said. We are all here because we have a common goal to combat gang violence.  Everybody has to get involved, we 100 percent cannot do it by ourselves.

teri.figueroa@sduniontribune.com

Twitter: @TeriFigueroaUT
In a glass-walled room at Prager Brothers Artisan Bread in Carlsbad, customers lining up for loaves of sourdough and sunflower rye can see the bakerys newest technology at work  an old-fashioned stone mill that grinds flour in prehistoric fashion.

The slow-moving mill, which crushes grains of whole wheat between two 250-pound granite discs, is just the latest way the bakerys co-founders  Carlsbad-raised brothers Louie and Clinton Prager  are taking the art of bread-baking back in time.

Seven days a week, the siblings and their baking crew turn out hundreds of loaves of hand-formed, naturally leavened, organic whole-grain bread. Their Old World breads are made without yeast, sugar or commercial mixing machines. It takes about 36 hours to produce a loaf of Prager sourdough bread, compared with four hours at a commercial bakery.

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1 / 10 Prager Brothers Artisan Breads co-owner Clinton Prager lines up loaves of bread. (Eduardo Contreras / San Diego Union-Tribune) 2 / 10 Prager Brothers Artisan Breads co-owner Clinton Prager uses a razor blade to cut the tops of the bread. (Eduardo Contreras / San Diego Union-Tribune) 3 / 10 Prager Brothers Artisan Breads co-owner Clinton Prager cleans the oven. (Eduardo Contreras / San Diego Union-Tribune) 4 / 10 Prager Brothers Artisan Breads co-owner Clinton Prager lines up proofed breads for baking. (Eduardo Contreras / San Diego Union-Tribune) 5 / 10 Prager Brothers Artisan Breads. (Eduardo Contreras / San Diego Union-Tribune) 6 / 10 Prager Brothers Artisan Breads workers prepare scones for baking. (Eduardo Contreras / San Diego Union-Tribune) 7 / 10 Prager Brothers Artisan Breads. (Eduardo Contreras / San Diego Union-Tribune) 8 / 10 Prager Brothers Artisan Breads co-owner Clinton Prager (right) and baker Cervando Tapia (left) prepare pretzels. (Eduardo Contreras / San Diego Union-Tribune) 9 / 10 Prager Brothers Artisan Breads co-owner Clinton Prager uses a razor blade to cut pretzels. (Eduardo Contreras / San Diego Union-Tribune) 10 / 10 Prager Brothers Artisan Breads co-owner Clinton Prager (left) ad baker Cervando Tapia (right) load pretzels into an oven. (Eduardo Contreras / San Diego Union-Tribune)

Louie, who holds a degree in plant biology, said the companys goal isnt just to make good bread. Its goal is to educate the public on the history and traditions of growing, milling, fermenting and baking breads with traditional techniques.

Our mission is to restore the craft of artisan breads, he said. We want people to appreciate the time, care and work that goes into this.

Since opening their first industrial bakery in 2013, the Prager brothers have been buying flour from organic mills, like Camas Country Mill in Oregon. That limited the varieties of grain they could buy, since most mills are large commercial operations that cant afford to slow down their production cycle to grind small-batch heirloom organic mixes for little independent bakeries like Prager Brothers.

So, six months ago, the brothers ordered their own 26-inch electric-powered mill from North American Stone Mills in North Carolina. Only about a dozen independent bakeries in the U.S. have their own in-house mills.

The $12,000 mill was custom-built and delivered three months ago, and ever since its been churning out all sorts of organic flours, including California-grown Yecora Rojo red wheat, Tibetan purple barley and organic cornmeal.

Louie delights in showing customers how the grains are fed into a hole between the rotating stones, pressed out the sides and swept down a steel chute. It takes about an hour to grind 50 pounds of whole grain into a light flour thats then hand-sifted to separate out the bitter bran (outer shell) of the crushed wheat kernels.

The machine, which runs all morning and most afternoons, isnt producing enough yet to supply all of the bakerys needs. But Louie said its been invaluable in helping him and his brother explore a variety of new red, white and half-size wheat grains.

Its also helped them customize some flour blends and experiment with the size of the flour granules. Using a different type of flour, more water, hand-folded dough and a slow fermentation process results in a better flavor, a more open crumb (bigger air holes inside), a chewier, more multicolored crust and a longer shelf life.

The brothers sell their breads, pastries and sandwiches from a retail shop that fronts the 3,300-square-foot bakery, which is visible through a wall-sized glass window. At any hour of the day, customers can watch the Pragers and their dozen-plus kitchen staff milling grain, kneading dough, hand-shaping pretzels, cookies and croissants, and moving trays of fresh-baked loaves into cooling racks.

Though baking is now their shared lifes work, the brothers came to it from different directions and at different times. Louie, 30, studied birds in the Peruvian rain forest before pursuing his bread-baking passion in 2011. Clinton, 29, is a classically trained guitarist who set aside his music career four years ago to help his brother as the business began to take off.

Louie started out making pizzas in the first of several homemade wood-fired ovens in their family backyard when he was in high school. While studying biology at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, he trained in artisan breadmaking at 3rd Corner Bakery in Los Angeles.

Then, when he couldnt find work as a biologist after college, he decided to become a full-time baker. At first he sold loaves baked in a borrowed restaurant oven to friends and family. Then in 2012, he opened a booth at the Encinitas Farmers Market, and sales exploded.

By that time, Clinton had earned a music degree from UC Santa Cruz and was working as a musician and teacher. But when Louie asked him to come into the business as a partner in 2013, he learned the craft by his brothers side.

They arrive at their bakery every morning at 3 a.m. to get all their supermarket deliveries out before dawn. They rarely head home  Louie lives in Carlsbad, Clinton in Oceanside  before 9 p.m.

Over the past two years, the business has more than doubled in size. Besides the onsite shop, their breads are now sold at six farmers markets from Escondido to Little Italy; natural foods markets including Cardiffs Seaside Market, Jimbos and O.B. Peoples Market; and organic cafes like Baker & Olive.

The Pragers make a dozen types of bread, including nine varieties of sourdough. The top-seller is the miche country loaf, a whole wheat sourdough, as well as a walnut whole-grain, olive rosemary, rye sunflower, sesame semolina, raisin walnut and whole-grain sprouted spelt. There are also yeast-risen baguettes, flatbreads and pretzels, and a variety of European-style pastries and cookies.

In December 2015, the Pragers moved into a larger space in the Carlsbad Gateway Center, a 16-acre light industrial park on Palmer Way. Since 2013, the park has established a niche as a makers space for several food businesses that make and sell their products onsite.

Besides Prager Brothers, theres Happy Pantry, a live-culture kitchen making fermented vegetables; Leap Coffee, an artisan coffee roaster and cafe; and Oh! Juice, which makes and sells cold-pressed organic juices.

All four businesses have education programs where the public can watch the products being made, and most do private tastings. Prager Brothers will soon open another small space a few doors down where Louie said he hopes to develop the companys community outreach program.

He hopes to offer demonstrations and classes on baking, milling, sourdough fermentation, sustainable farming, crop rotation and more.

Toni Adamopoulos, property manager for the Carlsbad Gateway Center, said these and other onsite-maker businesses are building a growing buzz among customers who like a one-on-one, interactive experience with the food products they buy. The Prager brothers, in particular, have benefited significantly from this sort of open-doors concept.

Theyre very passionate about their work and they want people to know about how their bread is made, not just eat it, Adamopoulos said. Theres a really supportive network between these businesses, and theyre creating something really unique here.

Prager Brothers Artisan Bread

Hours: 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Mondays-Fridays. 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturdays. 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. Sundays.

Where: Carlsbad Gateway Center, 5611 Palmer Way, Suite C, Carlsbad

Phone: (760) 703-1904

Online: pragerbrothers.com

pam.kragen@sduniontribune.com
School officials locked down Westview High in San Diego for almost two hours Friday out of an abundance of caution after someone reported seeing a gun, officials said.

A search turned up nothing and classes resumed in the afternoon, although some students were released early to their parents after the lockdown ended.

San Diego Police Department Officer Tony Martinez said someone reported at 11:20 a.m. that a male with a gun in a backpack had been seen in a school restroom. Officers were sent to the school to investigate.

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Principal Todd Cassen was on the school grounds to help search the campus, a school official said. An all-clear was issued a little after 1 p.m.

The school is in the Poway Unified School District.

philip.diehl@sduniontribune.com

Twitter: @phildiehl
California Attorney General Xavier Becerra was taught, as many youngsters are, to think of the glass as half full instead of half empty.

But his parents put a twist on that saying.

My parents always taught me the glass is only half full. You get to fill it up, he told an audience of more than 500 people at the Cesar E. Chavez Community Breakfast, held Friday morning in downtown San Diego.

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This is the 19th year the local commemoration committee has held the event to honor the late social justice activist and co-founder of United Farm Workers.

You see, for someone who had so very little, even whether (it was) my parents or Cesar Chavez, the glass was always on its way up, Becerra said. Yet too many people in America feel like the glass is on its way down. And maybe its because Im the son of immigrants, but for me I dont have a right not to be optimistic.

Becerra delivered the keynote address to a packed ballroom at the Westin San Diego Gaslamp Quarter hotel. As the states top law enforcement officer, he acknowledged the many men and women in uniform who attended the event as well as several elected officials, including San Diego City Attorney Mara Elliott.

When introducing Becerra, Elliott noted she had many things in common with the new attorney general, who was appointed to the office in January after his predecessor, Kamala Harris, became a U.S. senator.

Elliott said they both had mothers who were born in Mexico, both grew up in working-class families and were the first in their families to graduate from college.

We both became lawyers and have committed our careers to public service, Elliott said. And were both first in our respective positions. Im the first woman and the first Latina to be San Diegos city attorney and he is our states first Latino attorney general.

She didnt say this, but both are both Democrats.

Becerras legal career began in 1984, when he worked for a legal services agency representing the mentally ill. He later became a deputy attorney general in California and was elected to the state Assembly in 1990. He served more than 20 years in Congress, most recently as the House Democratic Caucus chairman.

1 / 9 The 19th annual Cesar E. Chavez Community Breakfast, celebrating the birth and legacy of the iconic civil rights and labor movement leader, and Cesar Chavez Day, was held at the Westin Gaslamp Hotel in downtown. (Howard Lipin / San Diego Union-Tribune) 2 / 9 Elena Izcalli Medina performs a tribute to Ramon Chunky Sanchez, the local musician and cultural leader who died last year. She performed during 19th annual Cesar E. Chavez Community Breakfast, celebrating the birth and legacy of Chavez, the iconic civil rights and labor movement leader, and Cesar Chavez Day. (Howard Lipin / San Diego Union-Tribune) 3 / 9 California Attorney General Xavier Becerra was the keynote speaker at the 19th annual Cesar E. Chavez Community Breakfast, celebrating the birth and legacy of the iconic civil rights and labor movement leader, and Cesar Chavez Day. (Howard Lipin / San Diego Union-Tribune) 4 / 9 The service staff at the Westin Gaslamp Hotel in downtown was brought on the stage and given a standing ovation of thanks at the end of the 19th annual Cesar E. Chavez Community Breakfast, celebrating the birth and legacy of the iconic civil rights and labor movement leader, and Cesar Chavez Day. (Howard Lipin / San Diego Union-Tribune) 5 / 9 Paul Chavez, grandson of Cesar Chavez was one of the speakers at the The 19th annual Cesar E. Chavez Community Breakfast, celebrating the birth and legacy of the iconic civil rights and labor movement leader, and Cesar Chavez Day. (Howard Lipin / San Diego Union-Tribune) 6 / 9 The 19th annual Cesar E. Chavez Community Breakfast, celebrating the birth and legacy of the iconic civil rights and labor movement leader, and Cesar Chavez Day, was held at the Westin Gaslamp Hotel in downtown. (Howard Lipin / San Diego Union-Tribune) 7 / 9 Attendees at the 19th annual Cesar E. Chavez Community Breakfast, celebrating the birth and legacy of the iconic civil rights and labor movement leader, and Cesar Chavez Day, lower their heads during the benediction. (Howard Lipin / San Diego Union-Tribune) 8 / 9 Adriana Chavez and her husband, Paul, the grandson of Cesar Chavez, look over photos she took during the 19th annual Cesar E. Chavez Community Breakfast, celebrating the birth and legacy of the iconic civil rights and labor movement leader and Cesar Chavez Day. (Howard Lipin / San Diego Union-Tribune) 9 / 9 Alfonso and Karla Corona, and Michael Clack hold hands while singing De Colores at the end of the 19th annual Cesar E. Chavez Community Breakfast, celebrating the birth and legacy of the iconic civil rights and labor movement leader, and Cesar Chavez Day. (Howard Lipin / San Diego Union-Tribune)

During his speech, Becerra made several references to his parents, both immigrants from Mexico. His father Manuel, who was born in Sacramento but raised in Tijuana, picked crops up and down the state of California before beginning a construction career that lasted 30 years. His mother, Maria Teresa, who left Guadalajara when she married, was a clerical worker and later purchased rental properties.

The family raised four children in Sacramento.

Ive been given the privilege to fill the glass, and working with you, thats exactly what I intend to do, said Becerra, a married father of three daughters. I intend to fill it for every single person and every single family in America and in California who is working hard. Whether they have documents or not, they deserve to have a chance to believe in their children.

After his speech, Becerra explained to reporters that an unauthorized immigrant who gets pulled over in the state for a broken tail light on a vehicle isnt likely to be turned over to federal authorities. But someone who commits a serious offense such as rape or murder would be subject to detention by Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

I dont think anyone in America is trying to protect people who are trying to do us harm, Becerra said. And that is what we have decided in the state of California. If youre here to hurt people, you dont belong here.

The theme of Fridays event was, Honoring Sacrifices. Building for the Future, a nod to the choices Chavez made to lead marches, call for boycotts and go on hunger strikes with a goal of improving compensation and labor conditions for farm workers. The event was held on March 31  Chavezs birthday  which is recognized as a state holiday in California.

Several groups and individuals were honored at the breakfast for the work they had done for others, including the volunteer organization Gay For Good San Diego, artist Armando Nunez and Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez Fletcher.

High school and community college students were recognized as winners of an essay contest, with Gustavo Gutierrez of Southwest High School in San Diego securing the grand prize  a $1,000 scholarship and laptop computer.

Paul R. Chavez, president and CEO of the Chavez Institute for Law and Social Justice, said he and other family members were proud to attend events around the country to honor his grandfather, the civil rights leader. He said his grandfather was a man about social justice, but within that idea he stressed acceptance and tolerance.

I think his message today would be that this country was built on diversity and inclusion, not on exclusion and homogeneity, he said.

dana.littlefield@sduniontribune.com

Twitter: @danalittlefield
UPDATE, Thursday, April 4: Read the happy news here!

Original story:

Ray Tenzer and his support dog, Tilly, moved to San Diego a month ago to settle in a retirement home near his son.

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Tilly has been Tenzers emotional support dog for four years. But she has become especially important to the 89-year-old veteran of two wars since Tenzers wife passed away last year.

On Monday, Tilly figured out how to push open the door of their new home. She disappeared, believed to be last seen at Rancho Bernardo Community Park nearby, where they often walked.

Shes very important to me, Tenzer said Thursday. My wife passed away last May, and Tilly has been a very, very important comfort to me.

Tilly wasnt wearing her usual red service animal vest, but she has a collar with a tag bearing her name. The 40-pound brown Boxer also carries a microchip in her neck or head area.

At their old home in the Bay Area, Tilly had an acre to run around in. Tenzer said the dog likely strayed too far and doesnt know how to refind their new address.

Shes very friendly if Im with her, he said. Youre not supposed to pet a service dog, but everyone does. People cant resist.

Tenzer enlisted in the Army in 1945 after high school but didnt ship out because the war was ending. He returned to uniform, this time as an Air Force officer, during the Korean War.

Tenzers son, Randy, said the family is still expecting Tilly to return to her master.

My father has faced a lot of challenges, Randy Tenzer said. But, We are the kind of people who dont give up hope.

If you see Tilly, the Tenzers can be reached at (858) 432-4101 or (619) 807-7234.

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After a brief period when the number of killings in Tijuana declined measurably, the border metropolis has seen a steady rise in killings and is the second-most violent city in Mexico.

An annual report on violence in Mexico issued Thursday by the University of San Diegos Justice in Mexico program shows 2016 was the third most deadly year in Tijuana in the past decade.

A total of 871 homicides occurred in the city, the report says. Only the resort city of Acapulco had more, recording 918 murders last year.

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Tijuana, with a population of 1.4 million, had a homicide rate of 62 per 100,000 people, the third highest in the country last year. Ranking ahead of Tijuana were Acapulco, with a population of 714,738 and a homicide rate of 128 per 100,000 people, and Chuilpnacingo in the state of Guerrero, with 203,327 people and a rate of 115 per 100,000.

The USD report, now in its eighth year, collects data on homicides from Mexican government entities and other sources to detail ebbs, flows and trends in drug-related violence and organized crime. It uses data from the countrys National Institute of Statistics, National Security System and other sources to measure the state of violence in the country.

(Homicide numbers in Mexico vary depending on the source of the data. The Baja California Attorney Generals Office, for example, reported that Tijuana had a record 910 homicides in 2016, a higher number than the sources used by USD.)

Overall, the report said that homicides in Mexico spiked 22 percent in 2016 over the previous year  from 18,650 nationally to 22,932 last year.

This followed a three-year decline in homicides from 2012 to 2014, before rising again starting in 2015.

David Shirk, director of USDs Justice in Mexico program, said the increase can largely be attributed to a well-known cause: violence among drug cartels.

The biggest factor driving increased violence in Mexico is conflicts among organized crime groups, Shirk said. If we are going to solve this problem, we have to deal with organized crime.

He estimated that 30 percent to 50 percent of all homicides appear to be related to violence among drug gangs and organized crime.

We have tried to point out that violence tends to take place in very specific geographic locations and tends to target individuals that are inside and are in some way connected to organized crime, Shirk said.

The report also suggested that the apprehension and extradition of Joaquin El Chapo Guzman helped to fuel a portion of the violence as rival gangs struggled for control of his lucrative empire.

Guzman, onetime boss of the lethal Sinaloa cartel, was captured by Mexican authorities in February 2014. In July 2015, he escaped from his supposedly high-security prison cell through a remarkable mile-long tunnel, embarrassing the government of President Enrique Pena Nieto.

He was recaptured in January 2016 and then extradited this year to the U.S. to face charges in New York. The report noted that killings had begun to edge upward in early 2015, when Guzman was in custody, dipped slightly when he escaped, and then rose noticeably with his recapture and extradition.

Shirk and his co-authors conclude that a significant portion of Mexicos increase in violence over the past two years can be attributed to lethal conflicts among top Sinaloa cartel figures vying for control over Guzmans empire, and a broader conflict with rival cartels seeking to move in on Sinaloa territory.

In Tijuana, data from the past five years shows both the numbers of homicides and the rates of killings fell for two of those years. In 2011, there were 418 recorded homicides, which fell to 320 in 2012.

In both years, that placed Tijuana seventh among the 10 most violent cities in the nation and marked a sharp decline from the 1,250 homicides in 2010 and the 1,094 in 2009, according to the report.

Yet the sharp dip ended in 2013, when 492 homicides occurred. Tijuana jumped to second place for the highest number of homicides among Mexican cities that year and has remained there, the report said. The city recorded 462 homicides in 2014 (a slight decrease from the previous year), then 612 in 2015 and 871 last year.

What does 2017 hold? The first few months have seen a surge in killings throughout Mexico  including about 2,000 people killed in January alone, according to the Mexican federal government.

The emergence of a new cartel, the Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generacion, over the past couple of years could portend trouble as it aggressively moves to claim territory and assert itself, Shirk said.

He said there is another scenario: the possibility of an agreement among the cartels later in the year that would lower the levels of violence. That kind of temporary peace has occurred in the past including when the Sinaloa cartel under Guzman consolidated its power, leading to the declines in killings from 2012 to 2014.

Any potential truce among the cartels could also dissolve. And Guzman is a wild card  potentially able to provide information to authorities about other cartels and their leaders to help his case. Other kingpins brought to justice in the U.S have done the same.

Such a move could destabilize the situation, Shirk said. And if that scenario plays out, things could continue to get ugly for sometime to come.

Twitter: @gregmoran

greg.moran@sduniontribune.com
Adam Christianson makes no bones about helping federal immigration agents nab people for deportation.

The three-term sheriff of Stanislaus County, east of the Bay Area, gives agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement unfettered access to his jails, where they interview inmates and scroll through computer databases. The information allows the agents to find and take custody of people they suspect of living in the country illegally before they are released from jail.

There is a line, however, Christianson wont cross.

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ICE officials routinely ask local jailers and state prison wardens to keep inmates behind bars for up to two days longer than they would otherwise be locked up. Christianson refuses to honor the requests  detainers in ICE parlance.

He is hardly alone. None of the sheriffs in Californias 58 counties is willing to hold inmates past their release dates for ICE, The Times has found.

The refusal to comply has drawn fire from the Trump administration, which sees detainers as a key component to carrying out its aggressive plan to find and remove millions of people living in the country illegally.

Last week, the Department of Homeland Security started issuing a weekly report that aims to identify and publicly shame law enforcement agencies that released people from custody despite an ICE detainer request. And U.S. Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions went a step further this week, promising to withhold federal funding from law enforcement departments that dont get in line with ICE.

But several sheriffs said their defiance is not rooted in ethical or political opposition but legal concerns. Federal court rulings, including one in Oregon where a judge found that police violated a womans constitutional rights by keeping her in jail at ICEs request, have left Californias law enforcement officials worrying that they could expose themselves to legal troubles for doing the same.

Sheriffs arent going to come close to a 4th Amendment violation that is going to expose them to liability, Christianson said.

The same is true throughout the U.S., where a majority of sheriffs departments have stopped honoring ICE hold requests, according to the National Sheriffs Assn.

The increasing friction over detainers is just one story line in a larger battle over the Trump administrations deportation plans, which, on paper at least, dramatically expand the number and type of immigrants targeted for deportation. While the focus under President Obama was on deporting serious offenders, new immigration guidelines take aim at anyone in the country illegally who is convicted, arrested or simply suspected of any crime.

Sheriffs arent going to come close to a Fourth Amendment violation that is going to expose them to liability  Stanislaus County Sheriff Adam Christianson

For the most part, Californias sheriffs are law-and-order types who do not always agree with calls from some local politicians and activists to fully resist ICE or declare immigrant sanctuaries. But they also are flummoxed that the Trump administration is coming down so hard on them  and in such public fashion  while not addressing their concerns about the legality of detainers.

No one cooperates with ICE as much as we do, said Sacramento Sheriff Scott Jones, who, like Christianson, allows ICE agents to work inside his jails and shares inmate information with them.

Jones expressed confusion over why his department was included in ICEs first Declined Detainer Outcome Report for allegedly releasing two inmates for whom ICE had issued detainers.

I dont even know what that means, since we dont honor any detainers, Jones said.

The states most serious criminals  such as murderers, rapists and violent gang members  serve their sentences in state prisons, which do hold inmates for immigration agents for up to 48 hours after their release, according to the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. A department spokeswoman said prison officials believe the legal concerns over detainers are limited to local lockups.

The county jails, meanwhile, are largely filled with lower-level felony offenders, those convicted of misdemeanors and inmates awaiting trial, who either serve relatively short sentences or might be eligible for release on bail. In such cases, immigration agents might receive short notice of an impending release, if they receive any warning at all.

When people are arrested and booked into local custody  a process that often occurs in a jail facility operated by one of the states county sheriffs  their fingerprints and other identifying information are typically transmitted electronically to federal databases. ICE checks the arrest data against internal databases of people believed to be in the country illegally.

ICE lacks the manpower to take custody the moment each inmate is released. Holding inmates for an additional two days gives agents the ability to schedule regular visits to jails in their territory to take custody of inmates to be released.

The large territory ICE agents cover in California exacerbates the challenges. The Los Angeles field office, for example, is responsible for an area that includes seven counties that span more than 35,000 square miles. David Marin, the head of the L.A. offices Enforcement and Removal Operations, declined to say how many agents work in the area, but said agents frequently are forced to choose between going to one jail or another.

Passed in 2013, the states Trust Act limited cooperation with detainers, but still allowed law enforcement to honor the requests for a long list of cases.

Then, in 2014, the ruling by a federal magistrate judge in Oregon upended the use of detainers. The case involved a woman who sued Clackamas County after she was arrested on suspicion of violating a domestic violence restraining order and ICE issued a detainer while agents investigated whether she was in the country illegally. County jailers informed her she would not be released even though a court said she could be let out on bail.

The magistrate found the womans extended detention violated the Fourth Amendments protections against unreasonable searches and seizures. The detainers, the magistrate ruled, were mere requests, not mandatory orders.

Jones, the Sacramento sheriff, said sheriffs in California pleaded unsuccessfully with the Obama administration to challenge the ruling. Civil liberty groups sent letters to the states sheriffs threatening lawsuits if they continued to honor detainers, Jones said.

The use of inmate hold requests from ICE peaked in August 2011, when nearly 28,000 were issued nationwide, according to data from Syracuse Universitys Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse. Since then, the numbers have declined steadily and were down to about 6,000 in December 2015, the last month for which figures were available.

The declines came as the Obama administration tightened restrictions on who could be targeted for deportation and, in some cases, as ICE gave up issuing the requests to local authorities that refused to comply with them.

In the years since the Oregon ruling, ICE officials have continued to insist that detainers serve as a legally authorized request, upon which a law enforcement agency may rely, according to an ICE spokeswoman.

Such assurances have carried no weight among many sheriffs. Kern County Sheriff Donny Youngblood, president of the California State Sheriffs Assn., as well as Jones, Chriastianson, several other sheriffs and ICE officials said they were unaware of any sheriff in California today who honors ICEs detainers.

Jones and others said they have traveled to Washington, D.C., repeatedly to press federal officials on the legality of detainers. Those efforts have continued since Trump took office.

At a meeting with the president in February, senior officials from the National Sheriffs Assn. raised concerns about detainers, said Jonathan Thompson, the groups executive director.

San Bernardino Sheriff John McMahon did the same in February when he and other California sheriffs met with Sessions in Washington the day before he was confirmed as U.S. attorney general.

The association, Thompson said, has been clear that the more than 3,000 sheriffs around the country would, for the most part, eagerly comply with ICEs detainers if they had the clear legal authority to do so.

Since then, the group has been working closely with ICE to identify a path forward that is constitutional, that is administratively viable and [that] assures were holding the right person for the right reason for the right amount of time, he said.

We want to make sure that sheriffs...arent being put in a position where theyre being asked to violate the constitution.

Some sheriffs officials said they want Sessions to give them legal cover by declaring the detainers constitutional. Others said they are looking to the attorney general to take the issue to court in search of an unambiguous legal determination.

In comments this week, Sessions indicated he believes detainers are legal. Lashing out at local governments that have implemented policies designed to frustrate the enforcement of our immigration laws, the attorney general highlighted detainers specifically and said, such policies cannot continue.

Another solution, many sheriffs said, would be to have a federal judge review each detainer request  although some acknowledged that was not realistic given the number of requests ICE issues.

ICE officials released a new detainer form last week that, in part, was an attempt to make the process more legally sound. However, it did nothing to assuage sheriffs concerns.

In the meantime, many sheriffs have found other ways to help ICE, while ignoring detainer requests. Several departments  including those in Orange, San Bernardino, Riverside, Santa Barbara and Alameda  often notify immigration agents when a person flagged by ICE is set to be released from jail, but ICE isnt always around when an inmate goes free.

Like Christianson in Stanislaus, Youngblood, who has been vocal in his opposition to sanctuary policies that aim to thwart deportation efforts, goes out of his way to assist immigration agents in Kern County. They have access to the departments records, know when inmates are to be released, and take custody of people when that happens. Hes even given agents office space in the jails.

I made the decision that it was probably economically not a good decision to honor detainers, Youngblood said, referring to the potential for costly verdicts in lawsuits. The way he sees it, given everything the department does to make sure released inmates are available to ICE, there is no purpose in them issuing detainers to us.

Regardless, Kern County found itself listed this week on ICEs report of agencies that restrict cooperation.

joel.rubin@latimes.com

paloma.esquivel@latimes.com

For more Southern California news, follow us on Twitter: @joelrubin and @palomaesquivel

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In remarks to reporters and in sworn statements, the officials who run Orange County jails have repeatedly denied or downplayed the existence of an organized informant program.

But such a program has operated for decades and appears likely to encompass well over a thousand informants, the attorney representing mass shooter Scott Dekraai said in court papers Thursday.

The Orange County Sheriffs Department recently released 5,653 pages of records to Dekraais defense team, including memos showing that high-level department officials knew about the program, the attorney said. The trove of documents has not been made public.

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Superior Court Judge Thomas Goethals, frustrated by officials failure to divulge evidence to Dekraais attorneys, threw the district attorneys office off the case in 2015. The state attorney generals office, which has inherited the case, wants to put Dekraai on death row.

Dekraai, a former tugboat captain, has pleaded guilty to murdering his ex-wife and seven others at a Seal Beach salon in 2011. But the penalty phase of his case  in which jurors will be asked to decide whether he should be executed or sent to prison for life  has been indefinitely delayed by litigation probing the misuse of jailhouse informants.

The judge recently ordered a new round of hearings in the case in hopes of finding answers. Dekraais attorney, Assistant Public Defender Scott Sanders, said he hopes to put sheriffs officials on the stand, including Sheriff Sandra Hutchens herself.

Sanders contends that jailhouse informants and their handlers have violated the rights of inmates for years by coaxing information from defendants who are represented by lawyers.

Asked to clarify the departments history regarding the use of jailhouse snitches, the sheriffs recently appointed spokesman, Lt. Lane Lagaret, declined to comment.

In reference to anything to do with that case, we are not making a statement about any portion of it from here on out, said Lagaret, referring to the pending Dekraai matter. Were gonna let this thing play out.

Many in the department knew of the program, including Lagaret, who once supervised the so-called Special Handling unit that oversaw informants, and whose name appeared in informant logs nearly four dozen times, the Dekraai team contends.

The case has triggered investigations by the California attorney generals office and the U.S. Department of Justice.

My great interest is to move this case forward, Goethals said at a hearing Thursday, though he added: Were in waters that we dont swim through very often, in this case.

Goethals has ordered the Sheriffs Department not to destroy relevant evidence in the case, and on Thursday he warned  as he has before  that people are gonna go to jail if his order is violated.

Relatives of Dekraais victims appeared at the hearing. Bethany Webb, who lost her sister Laura Elody in the salon massacre, stood up to denounce the attorney generals decision to pursue the death penalty.

The attorney general is not speaking for my family, she said. They are not doing this for my family. They are doing this to my family.

There would be no relief if her sisters killer is sent to death row, where  considering the way the death penalty operates in California  he would die of natural causes anyway, Webb said.

After the hearing, Webb said that if authorities broke the rules in the case against her sisters killer, where evidence of guilt was overwhelming, she wondered how far they would go in lower-profile, hard-to-prove cases.

If they cheated on this, where its an open-and-shut case, what do they do when theres a gang-banger? Webb said.

christopher.goffard@latimes.com

Twitter: @LATchrisgoffard

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Osmar Epifanio Gonzalez-Gadba left his home in Matagalpa, Nicaragua, last October without saying goodbye to his mother.

Five months later, on Tuesday, she got word that he had died from injuries sustained in a suicide attempt at a Southern California immigration detention center.

Through tears, she told Nicaraguas TN8 news that she hadnt known where her son was until she was told of his death.

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He was going to run an errand in Managua and didnt return, his sister Estela Gonzalez-Gadba told the news outlet.

She told another media outlet in Nicaragua that he had left home without a suitcase or any other belongings.

Gonzalez-Gadba, 32, was found hanging in his cell March 22 by an employee during a routine evening check. After cutting Gonzalez-Gadba down, the employee alerted medical staff at the Adelanto Detention Facility and the inmate was taken to the nearby Victor Valley Global Medical Center.

(At least one media outlet in Nicaragua spelled his name Gonzalez Gadea).

He died after almost a week on life support. His is the first detainee death connected to the facility since December 2015 and he is the fifth detainee to die in the custody of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement this fiscal year.

Adelanto is the largest ICE facility in California, with a daily population averaging more than 1,900 detainees, said ICE spokeswoman Virginia Kice.

Kice said Gonzalez-Gadba requested to be placed in segregation but declined to say why or when pending further investigation. ICE facilities have administrative and punitive segregation. According to the agencys detention standards, detainees can be placed in administrative segregation for their safety or the safety of others, for medical reasons or other factors related to security.

Detainees typically request protective custody if they are victims of assault by other detainees, are informants or witnesses, are sexual predators, are victims of alleged intimidation, appear to be in danger or claim to be former law enforcement officers. They can also decline to provide a reason.

Kice said Gonzalez-Gadba had no criminal history.

ICE statistics show that Nicaraguans make up less than half of 1% of all deportations. Last fiscal year, 795 people were deported to Nicaragua, compared with 149,821 who were deported to Mexico. Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador held the second-, third- and fourth-highest removal rates, respectively.

Despite the surge of Central Americans at the U.S. border in recent years, Nicaraguans have migrated in much tinier numbers. The country does have many of the same problems as other Central American countries, including extreme poverty, joblessness, violence and government repression.

But the brutal gangs and drug traffickers that control large swaths of Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala and Mexico havent permeated Nicaragua. The country is also next to Costa Rica, the most stable Central American nation, and many Nicaraguans have emigrated there for better-paying jobs.

Gonzalez-Gadba was arrested by U.S. Border Patrol agents Dec. 29, 2016, while attempting to reenter the country. He was just north of the U.S.-Mexican border in the Otay Mesa neighborhood of San Diego. He had previously been deported to Nicaragua in April 2016, according to the Department of Homeland Security.

He made three attempts to enter the U.S. without documents, according to the TN8 report. Before that, he had been self-employed in Nicaragua.

After his death, ICE officials asked Nicaraguan consular representatives for help notifying his family. Reached by phone, a consulate representative declined to provide any information about Gonzalez-Gadba.

But his mother and other family members expressed their gratitude to the government for their help, according to the TN8 story. The news outlet reported that Gonzalez-Gadbas repatriation is in process.

andrea.castillo@latimes.com

@andreamcastillo
A San Diego federal judge on Friday morning finalized the $25-million settlement in the Trump University litigation, dismissing the objection of a Florida woman and finding in favor of the 3,700 others who stand to recoup the vast majority of what they spent on the real estate barons investment program.

The ruling ends six years of litigation that got nasty from the start  including an early countersuit by Donald Trump that failed  and became political fodder in his race for the White House.

The written ruling from U.S. Judge Gonzalo Curiel still leaves open the possibility of an appeal, which could tie up the three class-action lawsuits  and the settlement funds  for years to come.

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Curiel heard arguments Thursday from an attorney representing Sherri B. Simpson, the lone class member who officially objected to the settlement. The attorney, Gary Friedman, said the 2015 notice sent to potential class members clearly stated that participants would be able to opt out of the lawsuit at a later date in case of a settlement and preserve their rights to sue Trump individually.

Lawyers for the plaintiffs disagreed, saying the language in the notice when read in the correct context stated that participants could only opt out of receiving a portion of the settlement, not leave the case entirely.

Curiel declined to issue a ruling from the bench Thursday, but released his decision Friday.

His final approval allows more than 3,700 class members to recover an estimated 90% of what they spent on Trump University, attorneys said. The exact amount is still being calculated as claims are verified.

The judge said the amount of the settlement should not be a major factor in determining if it is fair, but he applauded the high number, calling it exceptional.

The lawsuits claimed that Trump University misled students into spending thousands of dollars on real estate seminars and a yearlong mentorship program that didnt live up to promises. Students were falsely told that instructors and mentors were handpicked by Trump and were led to believe the program was an accredited university.

Until the very end, Trump had insisted he would not settle with the plaintiffs. But days after he captured the White House, and just as the first of the cases was set to go to trial in San Diego, the two sides reached agreement to end the litigation.

Davis writes for the San Diego Union-Tribune.

kristina.davis@sduniontribune.com

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One of three men accused of breaking into a San Carlos home last year looking for drugs and money, then fatally shooting one of the residents, was convicted this week of murder and other charges.

A San Diego jury on Tuesday found Elliott Scott Grizzle, 45, guilty of first-degree murder, robbery and burglary in connection with the May 11 incident that killed 33-year-old Brent Adler.

Grizzle, who has previous convictions for assault and manslaughter, faces a sentence of 198 years to life in prison at a hearing scheduled for April 26.

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Two other men  Lawrence Johnson, 28, and Toren Eric Nieber, 32, face charges stemming from the incident. Their cases have not yet gone to trial.

Deputy District Attorneys Amy Maund and Steven Schott argued in trial that Grizzle was among a group of people who entered the home on Tommy Drive near Bisby Lake Avenue, and then bound and blindfolded two people inside.

The robbers demanded money and marijuana.

When Adler arrived at the house about 2:30 p.m., the robbery was already in progress. Investigators said he put up a fight in the driveway and was shot in his upper body.

Grizzle and the others fled after the shooting. Prosecutors said Grizzles DNA was on several items found at the house, including a drug pipe and a glove recovered outside the home.

Deputy Public Defender Melissa Tralla argued to the jury that the evidence indicated Grizzle and others were invited into the house, most likely for a drug transaction. For example, she said, the alleged robbers brought no supplies with them, like rope to tie up the victims, indicating there was no plan ahead of the event to rob or kill anyone.

Being present and failing to prevent a crime is not proof of a conspiracy, Tralla argued.

She also contended there were problems with the investigation and that some of the witnesses who testified were untrustworthy.

Johnson and Nieber each face charges of murder, robbery and burglary. They are scheduled to go to trial in Superior Court on July 31.

dana.littlefield@sduniontribune.com

Twitter: @danalittlefield
Drinking fountains at two Southcrest schools had more than twice the acceptable lead level set by the state, according to tests by the City of San Diego.

San Diego Unified School District on Thursday released the results of the tests, which showed elevated lead levels at two drinking fountains at Co-Operative Charter School 2 and one fountain at Emerson-Bandini School, which share the same campus on Newton Avenue.

Some students at Co-Operative Charter had become nauseous and vomited after drinking water at the school, according to an e-mail from a consultant involved in the tests.

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The city will begin testing water systems at all San Diego Unified properties beginning on Tuesday following concern that unsafe water may be present at other schools. Results of the tests will be posted by the district online at https://www.sandiegounified.org/watersampling. The results of the Emerson-Bandini and Co-Cooperative Charter tests already are posted and can be found by clicking on sample results on the page.

Doug Campbell, a senior chemist in the citys Public Utilities Department, said the state set the acceptable level of lead with a formula based on micrograms per liter, which translates to a maximum of 15 parts per billion. In tests of five sites at each school, one water fountain at the charter school had a level of 38.6 and another had a level of 22. A single water fountain at Emerson-Bandini had a level of 29. The others were below the acceptable level.

Campbell said that as a chemist and not a physician, he could not comment about what health concerns could be related to that specific level of lead in water. He also said the level fluctuates, depending on how long the water was stagnant before testing, as flowing water reduces the level.

The lead levels could be high because of old lead soldering in the fountains, Campbell said. The fixtures will be fixed or replaced, and the city will test them again to see if the problem has been remedied, he said.

For perspective, Flint, Mich., has a much more serious problem because the source of lead in its water comes from corroded city pipes, not bad fixtures.

A Washington Post story last year reported that a group of Virginia Tech researchers studying water in Flint said levels as low at 5 parts per billion could be cause for concern. Their research found level leads of 27 parts per billion in most Flint homes studied, with 10 percent of the houses having 158 parts per billion,

Researchers took extensive tests at one house, studying water at various flow levels, and found the lowest level was 200 parts per billion and the highest was 13,000 parts per billion, according to the Washington Post story.

Before City of San Diego testing for lead began at the two schools, the district said it was already was testing water at the campus because of a suspicion that something was wrong.

On Jan. 26, a teacher at the charter school noticed her therapy dog would not drink from a bowl filled with water from a sink in her classroom. After seeing a sheen on the waters surface, she alerted others at the school, which launched the initial testing.

Andrew Sharp, public information officer for the district, said bottle water was ordered to be sent to the campus that same day, and students and faculty members since have repeatedly been told not to drink from water fountains.

The district hired Forensic Analytical to do the first tests. E-mails between the company and the district were obtained by NBC 7 through a California Public Records Act request.

An e-mail from Forensic Analytical dated Feb. 21 said nurses had reported several charter school students experienced nausea and vomiting after drinking water. While the e-mail was dated weeks after the district suspected there was something in the water, it does not say when students got sick.

Attempts at reaching the person who wrote the e-mail were unsuccessful, and Sharp said he does not know when students got sick. He insists, however, that the district began supplying bottled water to the school as soon as there was an indication of tainted water on campus, and that students were repeatedly told not to drink from faucets there.

On March 24, a notice sent to parents and staff members at Emerson-Bandini recapped the tests that were conducted after the Jan. 26 incident and reported that later tests had detected lead at some sites on campus.

The notice said numerous water outlets had been sampled after Jan. 26, and tests revealed contaminants greater than states standards. The district then met with a consultant and the city, its water provider, to determine what to do next.

More tests indicated the contamination appeared to be isolated to portable classrooms used by the charter school. Flexible water lines leading to the classrooms were replaced and a PVC pipe that also could have been a problem was removed from the supplying line. Another round of tests found no contamination.

The district then decided to also test for lead and requested help from the city. A new program by the the State Water Resources Control Board Division of Drinking Water requires water suppliers to provide free tests if requested by K-12 school districts.

Ive had lots of meeting with San Diego Unified, and theyve been very proactive, Campbell said. In my opinion, theyre doing a great job.

In February, elevated levels of lead were detected in three schools in the San Ysidro School District, and lead was discovered in a drinking fountain at San Marcos Middle School in recent weeks.

On Wednesday, Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez Fletcher, D-San Diego, sent letters to school superintendents in her district urging them to ask for water tests available through the state program.

Letters were sent to San Diego Unified, National School District, San Ysidro School District, Sweetwater Union High School District and Chula Vista Elementary School District.

gary.warth@sduniontribune.com

Twitter: @GaryWarthUT

760-529-4939
San Diego police installed audio sensors that detect gunfire in four neighborhoods last November, and the first batch of data shows only one in four shootings are reported to police.

Of 61 shootings, 26 percent were called in by residents, according to data collected by the system called ShotSpotter.

The sensors were installed in Valencia Park, Lincoln Park, Skyline and OFarrell. Most of the activations between Nov. 26 and March 27 included multiple gunshots, and nearly all of them happened at night  many between 9 p.m. and midnight.

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San Diego police Chief Shelley Zimmerman said the early data seems to confirm what officers have heard from residents: Theyre afraid of the constant gunfire, and they feel they cant reach out to police for fear of retaliation.

ShotSpotter has given a voice to the voiceless, she said.

But community leaders critical of the system said the network has done little to give voice to residents, most of whom werent included in any talks about the technology.

Its almost like (this technology) is being shoved down the communitys throat. said Bishop Cornelius Bowser of Charity Apostolic Church.

It tells the community, We know whats best for you rather than letting the community tell (the department) what they need, he said.

The audio equipment is placed at least 30 to 40 feet above street level to determine when and where shootings take place. Once the sensors pinpoint where the gunshots came from, the sound is sent to a review center where a specialist determines if it was gunfire.

The review center is staffed by employees of SST, Inc., the company that sells ShotSpotter, not the police department.

If the sound is determined to be gunfire, the incident is forwarded to police. Officers in the field get the location, time of the shooting, and the number of rounds fired. They also can get information such as how many shooters are present and if theyre on the move.

The technology is used in more than 90 cities worldwide including New York, Oakland and Miami.

Zimmerman said the system has informed officers of shootings they never would have known about, and allowed them to respond more quickly and accurately to ones the community did call in.

Theyre able to swoop in on evidence left at the scene and, in one case, it led officers to a weapon used in a murder and several home invasion robberies.

In another instance, officers got to the scene so fast a teenager who fired his gun didnt have time to get rid of it and was arrested.

What we want to be is proactive, Zimmerman said, and send a message that if youre going to fire a gun in our neighborhoods, were going to do everything that we possibly can to prevent that.

And if we cant prevent it, to take you into custody as quickly as we can.

When the technology was first unveiled, San Diego community leaders were concerned that it was installed with little to no input from residents living in those neighborhoods. They also worried it would contribute to the over-policing of communities of color.

Those concerns persist, said Bishop Bowser, who is also a member of the Black Advisory Board to the San Diego Police Department.

Bowser partnered with the department to combat gang violence nearly a decade ago, and he helped shape the Community Assistance Support Team to stop retaliatory gang violence.

Over the years, he said, he has seen how effective community policing initiatives can be in trying to diminish violence and create strong ties with the community.

Unlike the support team (CAST), Bowser doesnt feel ShotSpotter is a system that will help build partnerships, in part because of how little the community was involved in the implementation, he said.

This should have been something the community wanted, not just something the police wanted, Bowser said.

Invasion of privacy is also a concern, he said.

While the system isnt designed to pick up conversation, there have been instances where conversations immediately following shootings have been used in court.

In one case, an Oakland mans dying words were used as evidence against his suspected killer.

Chief Zimmerman said it was too early to say whether the department will keep or expand the year-long program. It cost $245,000 and was paid for through asset forfeiture funds.

Over the next week, the U-T is planning on taking a closer look at ShotSpotter and the data thats been collected so far.

We want to hear from you. Is there something specific that you want to know or better understand? Let us know. Do you live in one of the neighborhoods where the technology is in place? We want to hear from you.

You can contact me, Lyndsay Winkley, at (619) 293-1546 or at lyndsay.winkley@sduniontribune.com.

Twitter: @LAWinkley

(619) 293-1546

lyndsay.winkley@sduniontribune.com
Before answering a question, Rep. Adam B. Schiff pauses as if mentally reviewing what he can say.

On Capitol Hill over the last month, he has become President Trumps public prosecutor, and  soft-spoken, deliberate, a little stiff  he is nearly the presidents polar opposite.

In seemingly daily appearances on cable television or before the microphones at news conferences, Schiff eschews the usual Washington hyperbole and snarky sound bites. The slow, relentless precision with which he speaks reflects his six years at the U.S. attorneys office in Los Angeles. It also reveals the weight of handling national security secrets for the last two years as the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee and a member of the so-called Gang of Eight, the bipartisan group of House and Senate leaders who, alone among 535 members of the Congress, are privy to the countrys most sensitive intelligence.

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Even when Schiff calls the president a liar, he manages to do it with the somber admonishment of a dad schooling an unruly child, as if to say hes not mad, just disappointed.

Cherish the trust and hope that was placed in you by virtue of your office, Schiff, 56, recently advised Trump in a speech, by never again advancing claims that you know  or should know  are simply not true.

His suddenly high-profile perch on the House committee looking into possible collusion between Russia and Trumps presidential campaign has given Schiff a national platform that few can match  both for opportunity and peril.

As one of the Democratic elected officials with the most access to intelligence about Russias efforts to influence the election, Schiff has become his partys most visible spokesperson on the investigation.

Adam Schiff is the adult in the entire Congress right now on foreign policy and intelligence, said Rep. Jared Huffman (D-San Rafael).

This is a president who has shown a willingness to live in his own factual world, and whats more, to misrepresent what the intelligence community has to say.  Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Burbank)

In recent weeks, Schiff has offered a steadily more dire description of the evidence. Last month, he declared that the intelligence showed circumstantial evidence of collusion between Russia and Trump associates and direct evidence of deception. By last week, that assessment had escalated to more than circumstantial evidence of collusion  the sort that would prompt a prosecutor to begin working with a grand jury, Schiff said in interviews.

He laid out that case in the committees first, and so far only, public hearing on Russia. Schiff asked for and got triple the amount of time normally allowed for opening statements, and for 15 minutes he set forth the circumstantial evidence of collusion. His recitation was replayed on cable news and liberal-leaning news sites for days.

You almost get goosebumps when you listen to it, said fellow committee member Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Dublin), a former prosecutor. He laid out pretty powerful evidence.

Schiffs words, delivered in his careful, measured tones, have made him a hero to many Democrats who almost desperately hope that the Russia investigation will be Trumps downfall. In the end, however, if the evidence doesnt back him up, then going out there and being aggressive is definitely risky, said UC Berkeley political science professor Eric Schickler.

It takes nothing away from the seriousness of Schiffs approach  or the subject matter  to note that his position also provides an unexpected, priceless opportunity for a middle-aged, moderate, white male congressman with statewide ambitions to win support from California Democrats who in recent years have increasingly favored more liberal, minority and female candidates.

Already the committees inquiry has turned Schiff, once little known outside his Burbank-area district, into one of the most visible members of Congress. Dozens of profiles and articles have been written about him in the last month.

A Stanford- and Harvard-educated attorney, Schiff won notice as a federal prosecutor in 1990 for convicting a former FBI agent, Richard W. Miller, of spying for Moscow, a fact particularly notable in light of current events. Six years later, he won election to the California Senate, where he chaired the Judiciary Committee. In 2000, he was first elected to Congress, winning what had been a Republican-controlled district in what was, at the time, the most expensive House race on record. But his path beyond the House has seemed difficult to discern.

Two years ago, he considered a bid for Sen. Barbara Boxers seat but decided not to run against the favorite, and eventual winner, Kamala Harris. He is widely expected to try to succeed Sen. Dianne Feinstein if she decides to step down in 2018. Like nearly all his colleagues in Californias huge congressional delegation, however, he has struggled to stand out in a crowd of 53.

Now, he may inadvertently have landed on a springboard to higher office.

Schiff speaks to the media about the White Houses invitation for him to review classified material in the U.S. Capitol on Thursday. (JIM LO SCALZO / EPA)

The opportunity provided by the Russia hearings could not have been planned. Not only was Trumps victory in the election unforeseen, but intelligence committees are rarely good vehicles for gaining attention; they deal heavily with classified material, often in closed-door hearings, and the backlash can be fierce for appearing to politicize such matters.

Schiff need look no further than across the committee dais for an object lesson: Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes (R-Tulare) has struggled to balance his party loyalties with the panels mandate and has received widespread criticism, mostly from Democrats, but increasingly from some fellow Republicans as well.

By contrast, even Republican politicians have had few harsh words for Schiff, although some conservative media sites are having a field day.

Roger Stone, Trumps friend and former lawyer and strategist, who has often figured on lists of Trump associates with possible ties to Russian election meddling, quipped to ABCs This Week that the congressman was largely full of Schiff.

White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer recently lambasted what he called Schiffs diatribe and mistruths during a recent committee hearing.

They represent exceptions, however. More typical is the view of Rep. Peter T. King (R-N.Y.), an Intelligence Committee member.

I know that right now theres the dispute with him and Devin, and I support Devin, King said. Having said that, Ive always gotten along with Adam. Im not trying to duck it, hes just an easy guy to get along with. I dont think youll find much antagonism toward Adam. Hes not that sort of person.

Nunes has acknowledged that he and the ranking Democrat dont always agree, but he too has not been publicly critical of Schiff. The men have known each other for decades, including the last two years as the top Republican and Democrat on the committee. They share a love of the Oakland Raiders.

As the investigation continues and frustrations rise, however, it remains to be seen whether that accord can last.

Like it or not, I find myself thrust in the role of having to be a sort of guardian against the worst abuses, potentially, of the administration, but as well a voice on national security issues, because the Republicans are still trying to find their voice, Schiff said.

That role has included repeated warnings about the danger of Trumps penchant for falsehoods. The president is squandering his credibility with the American people, and thats a national security risk, Schiff has often said. As he has framed it, crises will happen and at some point, the president is going to need to be believed by the country,

This is a president who has shown a willingness to live in his own factual world, and whats more, to misrepresent what the intelligence community has to say, Schiff said more recently in a meeting with Los Angeles Times reporters and editors. When the intelligence community issued its public report about Russias efforts to influence the election, the first thing the president said was, See? This report shows that there was no impact on the election. Of course, that was not at all what the report said.

Focused on national security from his early days in Congress, Schiff has long advocated that the U.S. recognize as a genocide the deaths of 1.5 million Armenians at the hands of Ottoman Turks more than 100 years ago, a stand that has endeared him to the Armenian community in his district.

Then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi asked him in 2008 to serve on the Intelligence Committee as it investigated the destruction of CIA tapes of often-brutal interrogations during the George W. Bush administration. After former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden disclosed widespread collection of data on American telephone calls, Schiff took on greater prominence as an advocate of revising the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Among other things, he advocated for more transparency for the secret court that rules on the governments national security wiretapping requests.

In 2014, Pelosi named Schiff to the House Select Committee on Benghazi, giving him a front-line role in the most partisan of congressional exercises. Americans turned on the nightly news to see Chairman Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) and ranking Democrat Elijah E. Cummings (D-Md.) and other members yelling at one another and slinging personal attacks.

Cummings said the acrimony displayed in the Benghazi committee tainted how Americans saw its results.

In order to have credibility, I think you had to lay your party hat at the door, Cummings said.

Schiff will avoid that trap, Cummings predicted. He knows what to do, he said.

Schiff had an initial victory as Nunes agreed to early public hearings with major witnesses, something the Senate Intelligence Committee has been more reluctant to do.

Schiff, left, and Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Tulare), the committee chairman. (J. Scott Applewhite / AP)

His attention-grabbing opening argument, coupled with the headline-making confirmation from FBI Director James B. Comey that the bureau is indeed investigating potential collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign, may have garnered more public attention than the GOP expected.

The next day Nunes took his now famous early evening trip to the White House to examine intelligence reports that he said indicated possibly improper surveillance of Trump transition officials.

As the evidence mounted that Nunes had gotten his information from White House staff members  and as questions multiplied about whether the documents showed what Nunes had suggested  Schiff called for him to step aside from the investigation. Nunes and House Republican leaders have largely brushed off that demand, but the House investigation has essentially stalled.

Schiff, however, has stopped short of his final option, pulling Democratic support for the investigation, which might end the inquiry  and the platform it provides both for the partys case against Trump and for his own political future.

Schiff, who spends much of his time in Washington in the Intelligence Committees secure, windowless rooms three floors below the Capitol visitors center, said hes too busy to think about next political steps.

I frankly am just trying to tread water with everything that is going on right now, and its hard for me to think about anything beyond the immediate responsibility, he said. Im at the moment trying to drink from the fire hose coming out the administration, and its hard to focus on much else.

Its hard for voters to focus on much else either.

The national spotlight is really fixated almost obsessively on Trump and all things Trump, said California political strategist Sean Clegg, who worked on Harris Senate campaign. Its smart politics and its smart PR to be pushing off of Trump. Its where all the voltage is right now.

Or as Schickler said: In a state like California, being the Democrat who held Trumps feet to fire is a pretty good place to be.

sarah.wire@latimes.com

Follow @sarahdwire on Twitter

Read more about the 55 members of Californias delegation at latimes.com/politics

ALSO:

How Trump supporters survive in blue California: You kind of keep your head down

Under fire over Russia investigation, White House officials choose to change the subject

Intelligence panel leaders try to avoid partisan rifts that sank other congressional inquiries

Updates on California politics
A counselor at the School of Creative and Performing Arts who left the campus last year after accusations that he sexually harassed students is returning to the campus, according to a legal claim against the San Diego Unified School District.

The claim, filed last week by the mother of a student at the school, accuses counselor Hector Escalante of repeated sexual harassment of students for at least the past three years.

SDUSD and its employees, administrators and agents knew or should have known that Mr. Escalate was sexually harassing students yet continued to employ him in reckless disregard for the rights and safety of students, the claim alleges.

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District officials said they cannot comment on current or pending litigation.

According to claimant Corinne Peterson, her daughter reported inappropriate comments and behavior by Escalante in October.

Among other things, he allegedly passed her a note complimenting her looks and stating there is so much more he would like to tell her but they are at school.

The complaint also alleges invitations to his house and plenty of compliments.

Peterson said she filed a formal complaint with San Diego police, who advised her to report the incident to school police.

Escalante was apparently removed from the school at that time. The claim said the student saw him at school last week and felt unsafe. Escalante did not respond to a request for comment, sent to his district email address and left on his voicemail at the Paradise Hills school.

I received a phone call with my daughter in great fear and wanted to come home immediately, Peterson wrote in her claim. I was highly disappointed that I was not notified that my daughters safety would be at risk again.

The claim, which seeks damages of more than $10,000 as well as past and future medical expenses, also says Peterson confronted the principal, who told the parent there was nothing he could do.

It was the decision made by the San Diego City Schools human resources department, the claim states.

A legal claim is often a precursor to a lawsuit.

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jeff.mcdonald@sduniontribune.com (619) 293-1708 @sdutMcDonald
Rep. Duncan Hunter says he did not make any of the tens of thousands of dollars in apparently personal expenditures of his campaign funds that have come into question.

I was not involved in any criminal action, Hunter, R-Alpine, said in an interview this week with Politico. Maybe I wasnt attentive enough to my campaign. Thats not a crime.

Hunters campaign spending is under review by the Department of Justice amid allegations that contributions were used for personal purposes including family vacations, dance recitals, theme parks and groceries.

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Such spending is prohibited to guard against undue influence by donors such as defense contractors who stand to benefit from Hunters actions in Congress.

Hunters campaign funds paid for expenses including oral surgery, jewelry, garage door repair and $600 in airline fees for in-cabin transportation of his familys pet rabbit.

The U.S. House Committee on Ethics announced last week that it was deferring its own review of Hunters campaign spending at the request of the Justice Department, a move that typically suggests a criminal investigation is underway.

The matter was referred to the committee by the Office of Congressional Ethics. According to a summary report of its own investigation, released by the committee last week, the office found substantial reason to believe that Rep. Hunter converted campaign funds to personal use to pay expenses that were not legitimate and verifiable campaign expenditures attributable to bona fide campaign or political purposes.

Attorneys representing Hunter released a statement after the announcement that said he intends to cooperate fully with the government on this investigation, and maintains that to the extent any mistakes were made they were strictly inadvertent and unintentional.

Hunter denied in the interview with Politico that he made any of the charges in question.

I didnt make any of those charges. None. None of those expenditures, Hunter told Politico.

He would not say whether his wife, Margaret, who was his campaign manager at the time, was responsible for any of the spending, Politico reported.

Im not saying that (she made the charges), Hunter said. Im saying that I didnt make any of those charges. Thats for an investigation. Im just telling you that I didnt make any of those expenditures.

Since the Federal Election Commission and The San Diego Union-Tribune began asking about the spending in April 2016, Hunter has repaid his campaign some $62,000 in charges it identified as personal, mistaken or insufficiently supported, dating back to July 11, 2014.

Hunter told the Union-Tribune in April that he and his wife were the only two holders of the campaign credit card  and that he would be the only cardholder going forward.

Almost all of the itemized expenses for which Hunter repaid the campaign were charged before April 2016, according to the Union-Tribunes review of spending reports filed with the FEC.

Specific reimbursed charges the campaign made after April 2016 included a $33.24 payment to Target on Aug. 25, 2016, for office supplies, and four payments totaling $217.88 for gas between July 17, 2016 and Oct. 14, 2016, FEC records show.

Politico reported Wednesday that Hunter said he wasnt aware of the expenditures before the media reported on them. News reports about the improper expenditures began in April, with the Union-Tribunes coverage.

Hunter has publicly stated that he was not aware of any of the potentially improper expenses until he saw news reports about them, the Politico article said. Hunter said he then ordered an audit and immediately repaid any charge that didnt seem legitimate.

Hunters chief of staff, Joe Kasper, told Yahoo News a different version of events in January.

Yahoo reported that Kasper said it was irritating to see media reports suggesting that Hunter was caught doing something wrong because he self-reported a list of questionable expenditures to the Federal Election Commission, which regulates campaign finance, in February 2016.

Kasper went on to tell Yahoo News, All this stuff had been self-identified and self-reported by Hunter.

As for the federal criminal investigation, Hunter told Politico that he was confident no charges would be filed, and he would be cleared of any wrongdoing.

At some point, the justice system will work. Ive got faith in that, Hunter told Politico.

He said the Justice Department had not contacted him, his wife or his staff.

Hunter rejected any comparisons to Jesse Jackson Jr., a Democrat and former congressman from Illinois, and his wife, Sandi. Both Jacksons pleaded guilty in 2013 to crimes connected to their illegal diversion of hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign money for personal expenditures including school tuition, a Rolex watch and fur coats.

Both Jacksons went to prison.

Hunter told Politico his situation was different because Jackson didnt try to repay back what he thought were accidental expenditures, or incidental expenditures.

Hunters office did not respond Thursday to the Union-Tribunes requests for comment. Hunters office has declined repeated interview requests from the Union-Tribune.

The last time the congressman spoke with U-T Watchdog was during reporting of the initial stories about his spending, when he explained some of the charges resulted from a mix-up because his campaign credit card is blue, like the family card.

Watchdog Videos On Now Sexual misconduct accusers worry deputy is being protected 6:16 On Now City funded $2-million waterfront bathroom 1:26 On Now Public water district charges customer for legal work, response to records request On Now Video: Tiny homes won't be reused amid housing, homeless crisis On Now Attorney General seeks documentation for Miss Middle East On Now Rep. Hunter probe covers possible fraud On Now Video: SDG&E delaying solar credit for some low-income housing tenants On Now Video: Former San Diego Junior Theatre teacher sentenced for sex with teen girl 0:24 On Now Video: Shelter volunteers believe they were fired for finding a dog a home 0:49 On Now McKamey Manor is leaving San Diego 3:35

morgan.cook@sduniontribune.com
Many parents considering a college major steer their kid away from the liberal arts and toward the hard sciences to be sure they get a real job. At least thats what they say.

Today, we are discovering that the path to success in the new economy, an economy that highly values creativity and innovation, is found in the marriage of the liberal arts and hard sciences.

Not surprisingly, the liberal arts is the magic bullet to learning STEM (science, technology, engineering and math). Fortunately more universities are figuring out how to marry the two.

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As U.S. New and World Report discovered, when you ask the employers at huge corporations and technology companies what they need in their new employees, they want people who can communicate and learn quickly outside of their comfort zone, both traits fostered better by a liberal arts education than a solely technical degree.

And Fast Company Magazine also reported that many tech CEOs actually prefer employees with liberal arts degrees, as the liberal arts train students to thrive in subjectivity and ambiguity, a necessary skill in the tech world where few things are black and white.

Sure people are scared that machines may someday reduce the size of the workforce and require a different skill set.

This is not a new concern.

According to the MIT Technology Review, we are witnessing, Tectonic Shifts in Employment (where) information technology is reducing the need for certain jobs faster than new ones are being created.

The Second Machine Age by Erik Brynjolfsson, director of the Center for Digital Business at MITs Sloan School of Management and Andrew McAfee, its principal research scientist, concluded, that nearly half of all jobs are vulnerable to machines  to applications using information technology.

While, the new jobs, the jobs we havent yet identified all require new thinking skills, and according to the U.S. Department of Education, some college. One of the skills most in demand says the Conference Board is creativity. Art based learning helps.

Recently a National Science Foundation research firm, the Art of Science Learning, found a strong causal relationship between arts-based learning and improved creativity skills and innovation outcomes in adolescents, and between arts-based learning and increased collaborative behavior in adults.

The National Science Teacher Association (NSTA) in a report released two years ago said: Teachers of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) are discovering that by adding an A the arts  to STEM, learning will pick up STEAM. Students remember science learning situations that contain multisensory, hands-on activities or experiments, which the arts can bring to science lessons.

Edutopia, created by the George Lucas Educational Foundation, found that Arts integration has been shown by several rigorous studies to increase student engagement and achievement among youth from both low and high socioeconomic backgrounds.

The social skills, the importance of history and literature are well known if not always appreciated. The economic imperative is not as well known. Nor, the urgency of rethinking the vital role of the arts, the liberal arts, as a pathway to success and survival in the new, truly global, economy and society.

But saying a college is going to create a new core where the liberal arts and all the sciences are realigned and doing it are two different things. A criticism of traditional general education programs is that they are created as menu options  one from column A; one from column B. The choices may reflect the dominance of one discipline over the other or they may reflect the internal politics of an institution. They most often reflect a competition over resources as the actual courses general funds and a large general education course filled by hundreds of students each semester generates a large number of dollars for an academic department.

A common core presents students with a shared set of courses or a shared set of options to take outside of the major. While not a new notion, it is regaining its momentum. Often interdisciplinary in design, these courses present students the opportunity to gain just the sort of skills needed in todays economy and beyond.

In the American Association of Colleges and Universitys annual survey on General Education for 2016, 94 percent of the respondents reported having integrative or project based learning requirements as an option for their students, and yet only one of four report this as a requirement for all students.

If the integration is truly across disciplines and reflect STEAM or arts-based learning, our students will find themselves prepared for tomorrows world.

Eger is Van Deerlin Endowed Chair in Communications and Public Policy Director, Creative Economy Initiative, SDSU School of Journalism and Media Studies. Shultz is associate vice president for Academic Affairs and Student Achievement at SDSU.
Scientists are deeply concerned about what the administration of Donald Trump will mean for science, especially that related to global warming, climate change and the environment. Immediately after Trumps inauguration, the climate change link on the White House website disappeared.

Posted in its place was An America First Energy Plan that said President Trump is committed to eliminating harmful and unnecessary policies such as the Climate Action Plan. Trumps recent Energy Independence executive order that annuls many Obama era regulations to combat global climate change, especially those related to coal as an energy source, demonstrates his disdain for science.

Trump has released a first draft 2018 budget proposal that recommends a 31 percent cut in funding for EPA that includes eliminating research on climate change and global warming. Mick Mulvaney, Trumps director of the Office of Management and Budget stated, We are not going to fund this anymore. We consider that to be a waste of money.

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The Senate approved Scott Pruitt as the new director of the EPA even though both he and Trump had stated they wanted to eliminate the agency. With respect to carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels and the affect on the planet, Pruitt recently stated, I would not agree that its a primary contributor to the global warming that we see and theres tremendous disagreement about the degree of impact. Really? What about the overwhelming majority of the worlds leading scientists who strongly disagree with this statement?

Pruitt used his Oklahoma attorney general position of try to roll back and negate regulations on behalf of the fossil fuel industry. He sent verbatim letters completely written by fossil fuel executives, but on official Oklahoma attorney general letterhead, to sue the EPA (13 times!) over the fossils fuel regulations. Sounds like plagiarism to me. And whatever happened to conflict of interest issues?

Pseudoscience stands for the irrational, the nonsensical, utter waste of time. Not only is it not good science, it does not even get to count as bad science.  Princeton historian Michael D. Gordin

Neither Trump nor Pruitt nor Mulvaney have any background in science. The ascendance of politics into the field of science is reminiscent of the Lysenko affair in the former Soviet Union. In the 1930s, Trofim Lysenko, a poorly educated peasant working at the Kiev Agricultural Institute, began a series of studies on how to improve the yield of wheat and other crops that were the staple of Soviet Union society.

He rejected the genetic inheritance theory of Gregor Mendel, the cornerstone of modern genetics (Lysenko called Mendelian genetics bourgeois science), and in its place advanced his own theory. He claimed that exposing winter wheat seeds to cold temperatures would induce the seeds to sprout and grow in the spring and this trait could be passed on to the next generation. Lysenko argued this treatment greatly enhanced crop yields.

This gained wide acclaim in the Soviet Union and as a result Josef Stalin promoted Lysenko to president of the Lenin Academy for Agricultural Sciences (1938) and director of the Department of Genetics at the USSR Academy of Science (1940).

Lysenko reigned as one of the most powerful scientists in the Soviet Union. Anyone who disagreed with him was purged, executed or sent to the Gulag where because of the deplorable conditions most died. Consequently, Soviet agriculture took off in a clamorous direction that had severe financial and scientific consequences.

After Stalins death in 1953, Lysenko still remained a powerful voice in Soviet science. He only met his demise when Nikita Khrushchev was ousted from power in 1964.

In the same year, the renowned Soviet physicist Andrei Sakharov, in an address to the General Assembly of the Russian Academy of Sciences, said Lysenko was responsible for the shameful backwardness of Soviet biology and of genetics in particular, for the dissemination of pseudoscientific views, for adventurism, for the degradation of learning, and for the defamation, firings, arrests, even deaths of many genuine scientists.

This era of Lysenkoism is now considered to be a prime example of pseudoscience: Pseudoscience stands for the irrational, the nonsensical, the utter waste of time. Not only is it not good science, it does not even get to count as bad science, wrote Princeton historian Michael D. Gordin in 2012. As Martin Gardner so eloquently wrote in his 1952 book, Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science, Let us hope that Lysenkos success in Russian will serve for many generations to come as another reminder to the world of how quickly and easily science can be corrupted when ignorant political leaders deem themselves competent to arbitrate scientific disputes.

We should all remember these statements because with the Trump administration, politics appear to be more important than mainstream science!

Bada is distinguished research professor of marine chemistry at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego.
Next week, San Diego and the state of California will bid a fond farewell to the aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan (CVN 76), which has been a prominent part of the San Diego Bay skyline for the past 11 years.

As the namesake ship representing the former U.S. president and California governor, the Ronald Reagan has truly been embraced by the residents of this city and the state as their ship. Ronald Reagan will sail west and eventually take up station as part of the U.S. Navys Forward Deployed Naval Force (FDNF) in Japan.

Not only does the Ronald Reagan have strong ties to San Diego and California but also to the people of Japan. In 2011, the ship was one of the first responders to assist in the aftermath of the earthquake and tsunami that devastated the east coast of Japan. The strong ties that were established between ship and host nation over four years ago will continue.

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Ronald Reagan, one of our youngest aircraft carriers, recently completed a maintenance period during which many of her systems were upgraded, making her the Navys most modern West Coast-based aircraft carrier.

Forward deploying Ronald Reagan to Japan demonstrates the United States commitment to the security of the Indo-Asia-Pacific region and our allies by delivering our newest capabilities to that critically important region of the world.

The air wing that embarks Ronald Reagan, Carrier Air Wing 5 (CVW-5), has been our forward deployed air wing for years and will also be comprised of our most capable aircraft.

Our first E-2D Advanced Hawkeye squadron, VAW-125, is currently on her maiden voyage with USS Theodore Roosevelt, after which she will replace VAW-115 as the newest addition to Carrier Air Wing 5. So our commitment to delivering our most capable platforms to the Pacific and to our Forward Deployed Naval Forces will continue.

Today more than ever, often unpredictable geopolitical dynamics and global threats require that we maintain a maneuverable and visibly persuasive Navy that can accomplish a number of missions. To meet those threats requires the speed, endurance, flexibility and autonomous capabilities that the U.S. Navys Carrier Strike Group (CSG) brings to bear.

The aircraft carrier is the centerpiece of the CSG, and with its embarked air wing and assigned escort ships, the Carrier Strike Group is the only maritime force capable of executing the full range of military operations necessary to protect our national interests.

The CSG provides the national command authority with options, access, and forward presence that allows for rapid response.

When operating in contested waters and airspace, the composition, maneuverability, and integrated capabilities of a CSG enables the U.S. Navy to maintain its role as a key guarantor of peace and stability.

The value of forward presence is not only important as a deterrent, but also enables rapid response to natural disasters, bringing humanitarian relief where needed.

As demonstrated numerous times over the last decade, CVNs can transit to a disaster quickly, produce and deliver potable water, airlift tons of food and supplies ashore, conduct search and rescue operations, and provide medical assistance as needed.

Aircraft carriers and their embarked air wing continue to prove their value and necessity for our nation, and are able to respond to a range of contingencies on a moments notice.

By forward deploying the USS Ronald Reagan and other aircraft carriers around the world, we provide a visible deterrent presence and maritime security that enables the free flow of goods and services that are absolutely critical to sustaining the global economy.

To the citizens of San Diego, thank you for your continued support of our sailors and their families in this premier fleet concentration area and especially to the crew of USS Ronald Reagan. USS Theodore Roosevelt is not too far behind as her replacement on the skyline!
Gov. Jerry Brown and Democratic legislative leaders have proposed a 10-year, $52 billion program to fix state roads and, to a lesser extent, upgrade transit systems. They want to pay for it by increasing gasoline excise taxes by 12 cents a gallon, raising registration fees on a sliding scale and imposing a $100 annual fee on emission-free vehicles whose owners now bear less burden for road upkeep. The diesel excise tax would also rise from 16 cents to 36 cents per gallon and the diesel sales tax from 5.75 percent to 9.75 percent. All of this would require a two-thirds vote of both the Assembly and Senate.

In a telephone interview Thursday with two San Diego Union-Tribune Editorial Board members, the governor and state Transportation Secretary Brian P. Kelly had an easy time articulating the need for road improvements. National studies have long shown Californias roads are among the worst in maintenance and, in rural areas, in road quality. As Brown said, providing decent roads is governments most core function. Their case appears strong, especially if Kelly can assuage Republicans concerns about waste and inefficiency in Caltrans by showing what he told us: that its support staff has been reduced every year under Brown to a 23-year low. Most importantly, Brown has included a constitutional amendment in the proposal to ensure new revenue would go only to transportation projects.

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But Browns argument collapses if he and Kelly cant document the restriction is as strong as legally possible and new dollars couldnt be diverted to ease pressure on the general fund during one of the states periodic revenue recessions. In Thursdays interview, the governor deferred to Kelly when asked about taxpayer protections, and Kelly wasnt as unequivocal as taxpayers should hope.

The fact is past state leaders have shown they  and constitutional guarantees  cant be trusted on this issue. In 2002, voters overwhelmingly passed Proposition 42, a constitutional amendment meant to ensure that motor vehicle sales taxes be used only for transportation purposes. The requirement could only be suspended on a two-thirds vote of the Legislature. After such suspensions happened twice, in 2006, voters by an even bigger margin approved Proposition 1A, a constitutional amendment modifying Proposition 42. It strengthened protections against diverting motor vehicle sales taxes for general-purpose spending and added the requirement that if these revenues were diverted during a period of state financial hardship, this would be treated as a loan that eventually had to be repaid to the transportation fund.

Public sentiment was obvious  and soon after ignored. In 2010, then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and the Legislature sharply reduced the sales tax on gasoline  the revenue covered by Propositions 42 and 1A  while sharply increasing the excise tax charged per gallon. Having the changes end up being revenue-neutral made it be easier to enact legally. Since there are weaker protections for what gas excise taxes can be used, this allowed about $1.8 billion in these taxes to be diverted to repaying transportation-related bonds instead of using the general fund to do so.

Kelly said new gas-tax revenue couldnt be diverted to repaying previous bonds. But until the fine print of the governors proposal has been thoroughly vetted for loopholes allowing new creative diversions, it is impossible to embrace.

Twitter: @sdutIdeas

Facebook: UTOpinion
I read that models for Trumps unnecessary and expensive border wall will be displayed in San Diego (Border wall: Final models to be displayed in San Diego, March 22). We must refuse this. The wall is just a giant, exorbitantly priced hate symbol.

As residents of San Diego, we need to speak up locally against hate  and to clarify that refugees and immigrants actually enrich our community. Our diversity makes us strong! No new Hate Wall in our backyard!

Mica Pollock

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San Diego

Firms policies protect U.S. military families

In response to Chinese pursuit of MoneyGram raises espionage fears (March 24), having served in the U.S. military, we know how important peace of mind and security are for our service members. That is why at MoneyGram, we make protecting U.S. and military families data a priority.

We have implemented stringent data protection policies and practices that protect consumer privacy while adhering to state and federal laws. These safeguards would remain in place under the proposed acquisition of MoneyGram by Ant Financial, and our commitment to security and the U.S. would not change. Our company will continue to be headquartered in Dallas and our information technology infrastructure and compliance functions would remain stateside. Under the acquisition terms, all U.S. data will continue to be stored in our secure IT facility in Minneapolis.

For over 75 years, MoneyGram has been proud to serve military families  remaining a trusted resource for reliable money transfer services that connects friends and families in over 200 countries.

Wayne McGurk

Chief Information Officer, MoneyGram

Rob Lawrence

Head of Infrastructure & Operations, MoneyGram

Who should get blame for health bill failure?

Paul Evans says that we dont blame Trump for the failure of the health care bill (Health care setback came amid triumphs, Letters, March 28). Trump stated as recently as January that Were going to have insurance for everybody. There was a philosophy in some circles that if you cant pay for it, you dont get it. Thats not going to happen with us.

If he had brought forward a bill that followed that commitment, Democrats would have joined with moderate Republicans to pass the bill. Instead, he brought forth a bill that would leave 24 million fewer Americans insured, which neither Democrats, moderate Republicans, conservative Republicans or about 90 percent of the populace could support. So who else than Trump is Mr. Evans suggesting is to blame?

Ben Thurston

La Mesa

Trump has brought real changes to America

Mr. Evans might want to add two more triumphs to the Trump resume: We have declared ourselves to be a racist, hateful country, and we have declared war on the environment.

Philip J. Fickling

San Diego

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. You can email letters@sduniontribune.com or leave a comment below.
The historic launch of a partially recycled SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket into space on Thursday drew cheers from Americans who celebrated what could be the beginning of a new era of space travel, a field thats quickly become more commercialized and competitive in and outside the U.S.

News of the successful rocket launch and its subsequent return to Earth on a landing platform in the Atlantic traveled fast around the world, striking up reactions from space enthusiasts and more down-to-earth Americans. Speaking for the sky-minded, Jerry Hendrix, a senior fellow and a director at the national defense think-tank Center for a New American Security, noted the achievement on Twitter.

Headlines around the world celebrated the feat as a breakthrough. One French news headline read, SpaceX definitely enters the fabulous history of space conquest. A Latin American news outlet used this headline, SpaceX revolutionizes space travels with recycled rocket.

All eyes also turned to Elon Musk , the man who founded SpaceX and decided the company would use and re-use rockets so as not to turn multi-million dollar vehicles into space debris. Musk is also the co-founder of the all-electric vehicle company Tesla.

SpaceX is hardly the only private company in the U.S. racing its way to a more accessible and sustainable form of space travel. Other companies like Jeff Bezos Blue Origin and the Boeing-Lockheed Martin partnership called United Launch Alliance.

Even in China, space exploration is becoming big business. The Chinese government is beginning to invest hundreds of millions of dollars into space science with sights set on Mars as soon as 2021, Bloomberg reported.

SpaceXs historic launch also drew attention from Russia, which could be considered a space rival and a partner aboard the International Space Station. A Kremlin spokesman told reporters that Russia is working on its own space technology and that it has the capacity to compete with SpaceX, the Moscow Times reported.

We have every reason to believe that we can compete, spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Friday.

SpaceXs historic launch also signals a shift in funding priorities in the space and science scene once dominated by the U.S. government. In the 1960s, NASA had almost 5 percent of the federal budget, but these it has less than 0.5 percent of the federal budget.

Whats next on SpaceXs agenda? On Thursday, Must said he wants to aim for reflight within 24 hours.

Have some thoughts to share?

Join me in a conversation: Shoot me a private email with your thoughts or ideas on a different approach to this story. As always, you can also send us a tweet.

Email: luis.gomez@sduniontribune.com

Twitter: @RunGomez
SAN DIEGO (CNS)  A report of a student carrying a gun in a backpack prompted a 90-minute lockdown at Westview High School Friday while police searched the Torrey Highlands campus, finding no firearm.

Authorities got word of the purported weapon violation at the Camino del Sur secondary school shortly before 11:30 a.m., according to San Diego police.

Teachers kept all students secured in their classrooms while officers performed a room-by-room sweep of the campus, SDPD Officer Tony Martinez said.

Police completed their search and issued an all-clear about 1 p.m., according to Poway Unified School District officials.
A judge has denied San Diego Country Estates Associations request to dismiss a complaint filed by a homeowner earlier this year regarding a short-term vacation rental in the neighborhood.

Tammy Rozelle and Sean Studley, who are plaintiffs in the complaint, live two doors away from the vacation rental owned by Cheryl Williams at 15115 La Plata Court. Their lawsuit, which also lists Williams as a defendant, says the vacation rental violates the Estates Covenants, Conditions, and Restrictions (CC&Rs) with excessive noise and disturbances, traffic, and harassment by some of the guests.

The 4,195-square-foot house is listed on Vacation Rentals By Owner (VRBO) as having five bedrooms and sleeping 10 people. The complaint states that it has been rented to large groups of people for periods of three to 10 days.

One of the claims in the complaint is that allowing Williams to operate a business out of the house is in violation of the CC&Rs.

SDCEA board members have said, however, that the CC&Rs do not have distinct rules addressing this issue as they were written 40 years ago when the Estates was built.

It would take a vote of the residents to change the CC&Rs, said SDCEA General Manager Mario Trejo.

Heres the challenge. It takes 75 percent positive vote from homeowners for the CC&Rs to be amended, he said. It would take a huge amount of money and effort.

Judge Ronald Frazier of San Diego Superior Court denied SDCEAs motion on March 17 and required the associations attorneys to file an answer to the complaint by March 27.

Rozelles attorney, John Simpson of Simpson Delmore Greene LLP in San Diego, said Williams filed an answer and denied all allegations. She had taken the house off vacation rental sites for a period of time, he said, but recently re-listed it. The property is for sale, he added.

My understanding is at least two other residents of the cul de sac have complained, maybe three, said Simpson.

Trejo said there have not been any residents at recent homeowner association meetings complaining about the rental. In late 2015 two residents objected to the short-term rental at a meeting, Trejo had previously reported.

According to the suit, Williams started operating the vacation rental in summer 2015.

Simpson said they are probably about a year away from a trial date, taking court proceedings into consideration.

Were just going to press forward with my clients claims, he said.

VRBO and Airbnb show several rentals in the southeast section of Ramona but Trejo said he is not aware of any other homes in the Estates listed as short-term rentals.
Indivisible Ramona, a divisive group

I have been reading with great interest these past few weeks the letters from and about this new group called Indivisible Ramona. I have to admit I dont quite get the name.

Having read their 26-page manifesto and personally witnessed their abhorrent behavior at the town hall meeting for Congressman Hunter, Ive never encountered a more divisive group of rude, angry, obnoxious, hateful, and boorish people my entire life. Theyve lost all civility and public decency and portray a mob mentality.

I was one of the volunteers who helped set up the venue on Friday evening, usher attendees to their seats, and afterward reset the Mainstage Theatre to its original format. As a thank you to those of us that did all the work, we met early Saturday morning for breakfast. I was saddened by the nefarious implication by Susan Conrad that we did something that was illegal.

I would also like to take this opportunity to add that contrary to Ms. Conrads claim of reaching out to the Republican Womens club in town, I personally, as its president, never heard from her. I would be curious to know who it was she claimed to have contacted to meet with the goal of forming a mutual respect and an understanding.

If her groups behavior represented at the town hall is her idea of respect, then Im afraid I personally am not interested in any further engagement.

When they temper their tantrums and can carry on a mutual discourse, I may reconsider.

Sandy Hurlburt

Ramona

Indivisible Ramona, part of a democracy in action

Rebuttal to Dr. Gary B. Myers.

Mr. Myers, I am more than happy to sit down with you and tell you all about Indivisible Ramona. Since I didnt have permission from others for you to tape our meeting, it was inappropriate. When I asked you to please stop, you became very hostile in my opinion.

Hands in the cookie jar? Im not sure what you are getting at. Indivisible is non-partisan and open to anyone who wishes to challenge the Trump agenda when it violates civil liberties, endangers the planet, and threatens American values. And yes, the goal is to flip Congress in 2018 and the White House in 2020. Thats what the tea party did years ago. The U.S. Constitution allows us to gather and speak our minds. We call Congress, send emails, send tweets, attend rallies and town halls, and support each other. People are finally feeling like they can stand up and speak out. If residents in Ramona cannot voice their political opinion, then we live in a very un-American town. Please sir, dont take a patriotic act and turn it into something wrong. Thats just not right.

The Daily Signal, as you quote, is a conservative publication with mixed reviews regarding accuracy. I would love to make money in addition to my modest paying teaching job. But no sir, we are not being paid; we did not bus people in for the town hall; and no, as mentioned by some, we are not influenced by Lucifer. Please sir, check your sources. Just email indivisibleramona@gmail.com for real and accurate information. We have nothing to hide. You are welcomed to attend, but please come with respect for everyone there.

Susan Conrad

Ramona

Baby boomers are called to action

Local and vocal, several hundred involved and engaged citizens took to the streets, Saturday, March 25, to rally against Duncan Hunters ethics violations. Large banners and signs were displayed on Via Rancho Parkway near the Westfield Mall entrance in Escondido. Participants chanted, Duncan Hunter has to go, while passing drivers honked their horns in approval, giving us a thumbs up.

Im proud to say my Baby Boomer generation was well-represented at the rally, emerging from our pre-election apathy. Several of my Ramona friends were present, no longer willing to go silent into their golden years. We are being called to action, bringing to light injustices from local to federal levels.

Having attended the Hunter town hall in Ramona earlier this month, I felt dismissed by Hunter as one of his constituents. Questions on his ethics violations were glossed over by his saying they have been taken care of with corrective action or paid back. Many petitions citing Hunters ethics violations were signed by concerned local citizens the day of the Ramona town hall and sent to the Department of Justice.

We will no longer remain silent and allow abuse and misappropriation of funds by Hunter or any other representative. We are local, vocal, and unpaid.

Janice Reich

Ramona

Trump needs therapy for his and our sanity

Donald Trump is in a deep mental crisis and is in urgent need of an emergency intervention. His outrageous claims that his Trump Tower telephones were bugged by direct order of former President Obama are indeed both ludicrous and insane.

The textbook definition of schizophrenia with paranoia is defined as a psychosis where the mind cannot distinguish the difference between reality and ones wild imagination, which for him knows no bounds. Trumps psychotic episodes are becoming increasingly common and ever more erratic and incredulous.

Trump is becoming even more polarizing. His poor White House press secretary, Sean Spicer, on a daily basis has to clean up the mess Trump has left the day before. Luckily for Trump, Spicer is being enabled by an emasculated press corp. He occasionally looks like like a deer caught in the headlights as he tries to profusely apologize and rectify Trumps many wacky pronouncements, frequently delivered via twitter.

This man holds the keys to Armageddon and could conceivably launch a global thermonuclear war.

For this reason, this unbalanced president needs extensive therapy for HIS SANITY, AND especially for ours.

Peter W. Quercia

Ramona

Trumps admiration source of confusion

I am getting older and more easily confused. When I was very young, I joined the Army and fought in the Vietnam War. In fact, I was wounded in action and received a Purple Heart.

I thought the purpose of that war was to stop the spread of Communism. Now we have a president who openly admires the most prominent leader of the Communist World. Very confusing.

Jeremiah F. Reid

Ramona
Baja Californias tourism sector is celebrating its most heavily traveled Easter vacation period in five years, a welcome boost as the state gears up for the summer high season.

From Rosarito Beach to San Felipe, beach destinations were packed during the four-day Easter weekend (Thursday through Sunday), when many Mexican families traditionally hit the road. Statewide, about 338,000 people were traveling, a 13 percent increase over the same period last year, said state tourism secretary Juan Tintos.

About two-thirds were domestic tourists, many of them Baja California residents traveling to other parts of the state, Tintos said. The remaining third were from the United States, mostly from California, as many Latinos with cross-border relatives and other ties visited the region.

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Were not at the levels we once had, but certainly are better than the past five years, Tintos said.

The large groups of U.S. college students on spring break are a thing of the past, but Baja Californias culinary and wine offerings are among the niches drawing growing interest from domestic and international visitors.

Baja Californias tourism sector has been battered in recent years by a decline in U.S. visitors, a drop attributed to various factors, including lengthy northbound border waits, a new passport requirement, the Great Recession and reports of drug-related violence.

Tintos credited the rise in Holy Week travelers to several reasons: It was a combination of the weather, coming out with better tourism offers, more discounts and much more presence through the media.

Xavier Rivas, Ensenadas director of international affairs, expressed hope for further momentum. We feel the economy is turning around, the safety issue is not as sensitive as before. Were really encouraged by whats happening, he said.

The mood in San Felipe was equally upbeat.

Ive been going to San Felipe for 40 years and Ive never seen it this packed, said Omar Dipp, director of Mexicalis Conventions and Tourism Committee. I think its nice weather, and we could be coming out of the economic crunch.

Recent improvements to the San Felipe Highway also could be a factor, Dipp said.

Hotel occupancy rates during the four-day Easter weekend were a key indicator. In Rosarito Beach, occupancy rates rose from 69 percent in 2011 to 77 percent, according to state tourism figures. In Ensenada, they went from 86 percent to 91 percent, while San Felipes increased from 97 percent to 100 percent and San Quintins rose from 65 percent to 70 percent.

Though not traditional Easter destinations, Tijuana and Mexicali also registered a rise in occupancy rates over 2011. Tijuanas figure climbed from 34 percent to 40 percent, while Mexicalis rose from 38 percent to 44 percent.

Tourism authorities also kept crowd counts throughout the state, with the largest numbers registered in Rosarito Beach, San Felipe and at La Bufadora south of Ensenada, with 50,000 each. By the U.S. border fence, some 15,500 people cooled off during the weekend at Playas de Tijuana, according to state figures.

In the state capital of Mexicali, attendance at the recreational center and zoo known as the Bosque de la Ciudad was 43,700, the tourism secretariat reported. Tijuanas parks were also well attended, with 23,000 in Parque Morelos and 16,500 people in Parque de la Amistad.
Dub-huh? Skrill-who? How many BPM in your EDM? Say what? If youre new to the electronic dance music scene, the terminology may seem like a riddle of genres, sub-genres and cryptic abbreviations. In honor of the Electric Daisy Carnival taking over Las Vegas this weekend, we invite you to explore the many sides of EDM, and weve drafted some local music experts to help guide you in the right direction.

San Diego DJs + music pros break down EDM terminology.

EDM

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Anthony Ross: The umbrella of dance music, made up of 20 or so genres and 1,000 or so blog-made-up-sub-genres.

Cheyenne Giles: Electronic Dance Music (The Future of Music)

Nicole Novak: Technically electronic dance music. Its an umbrella term used to encompass the vast variety of sub-genres in the electronica world.

DJ Kurch: Electronic Dance Music. Basically all music made electronically, which ironically all hip-hop nowadays is electronic and people dance to it, so is that EDM?

BPM

Anthony Ross: Just musical tempo, think of your piano lessons as a kid with that swinging metronome.

Cheyenne Giles: Beats per minute -- house music is usually around 126- 130 BPM and Dubstep is about 70 BPM.

Lavelle Dupree: Beats per minute how fast the music is playing! Which is the difference between a headache and a groove.

Nicole Novak: Beats per minute. Used to categorize the speed and tempo of a particular track or genre. I.E: Moombahton is essentially always between 108 and 112 bpm, anything much faster or slower may be categorized as something else.

Dubstep

Anthony Ross: No comment.

Cheyenne Giles: Bass music that originated in South East London. Made popular by artists like Rusko and most recently the Heavyweight Dubstep Juggernaut himself Skrillex.

Ayla Simone: Electronic beats usually in the 70 bpm range. A fusing of electro synths and heavy hitting basslines. In other words, the love child of electro- drum n bass- and hip hop.

Lavelle Dupree: Drum & bass reworked with cooler, fresher sounds!

Nicole Novak: To me, its basically new school drum and bass. A very bass-heavy style of electronica that originated in England. Its typically very dark, sometimes with haunting vocals. Similar to 2step, garage, and grime. Its heavy, not for the faint-of-heart, or new electronica-listeners.

DJ Kurch: A newer form of electronic music that is almost half the speed of typical house music. Usually around 70 BPM, so the snare drums hits about half the time as a traditional house song.

Techno

Anthony Ross: Tough, industrial but with a flare of funk for the dance floor.

Cheyenne Giles: Most commonly mistaken genre of music. Mainstream crowds commonly mistake this for House music. ITS NOT! Techno is at a much higher BPM at 140 and is more common in clubs overseas.

Ayla Simone: Unst unst unst

Lavelle Dupree: The most popular sound of seasoned EDM fans! Which means music with no words!

Nicole Novak: Also an umbrella term in the way that EDM is, but now it can be considered a dirty word in the same way that mash-ups is considered a dirty word. For some reason people heard too much of this word in reference to sounds that maybe werent sophisticated enough, and over the years it became a joke of a term. Eminems famous quote from his song, without me, in reference to Moby, nobody listens to techno, didnt particularly help. Mobys music isnt technically considered techno and at the time electronica became a booming industry, while Eminem basically ceased to exist, so one can argue there was little truth to that statement at all.

DJ Kurch: To me techno is a form of electronic music that doesnt use samples, but instead noises and sounds. Usually sounding futuristic because all the noises are generated on the computer or synthesizer. So you wouldnt really ever have a techno remix of a classic track, whereas lots of house takes samples of old songs. Hence, techno rarely has lyrics, and if anything just a phrase or a couple words.

House

Anthony Ross: Rooted in disco, now made cross over by the likes of Stuart Price (producer for Madonna, Lady Gaga, Killers, etc).

Cheyenne Giles: There are so many different sub-genres under this label. But, in general, house music is music that frees your mind, moves your body and lifts your soul higher. Its music that, as soon as you hear the opening riff, a smile begins, the hips want to sway, and everything seems a little bit brighter.

Ayla Simone: Dance music with a 4/4 rhythm in the 125-130 bpm range. Usually using electronic synths and percussion instruments.

Lavelle Dupree: The oldest and one of the most important genre of EDM but most house heads dont like other genres! The snobs of the EDM world

Nicole Novak: House is perhaps the oldest form of electronica, and from it most other styles of electronica were born. Its an American style of music that is said to have originated in Chicago in the 80s. Its a bit more electronic than disco, which was its predecessor. The words house music have since been bastardized to a certain extent, and people seem to categorize lots of types of dance music as house, while they in fact are far from it. Steer clear from using the term to describe a track unless youre sure it feels housey, house aficionados dont like to hear this term thrown around if its incorrect, and there is a certain amount of snobbery associated with knowing which is which.

DJ Kurch: Hmmm...Its important to note that most songs can fit into multiple genre categories. Its very rarely black and white. Even within House there are several subgenres - Funky House, Progressive House, Latin House, Deep House - the list goes on and on. House is usually around 128 BPM, uses lots of samples, and has a 4/4 beat where the kick drum hits on every beat.

Acid

Anthony Ross: Really tied around a single keyboard/synthesizer called the Roland 303 which produces a sound that was really influential in 80s house music. Some years its popular, others its not. Very identifiable sound (take a listen to Armand Van Helden- Witch Doktor (Eddie Thoenick Remix).

Cheyenne Giles: Funk-based electronically edited disco music with spoken words and sound fx instead of lyrics. Hippies love that stuff.

Nicole Novak: The acid house genre came after house music originated (obviously), but only shortly after and has some similar characterizations. The difference tends to be that acid house is a bit more psychedelic sounding, is a bit more electronic, and became instantly popular in the raves because its very conducive to drug use. Its a trip, literally. From this came sounds like goa (from india), and psy-trance (from europe and israel), and those sounds are all still popular.

Electro

Anthony Ross: This genre has changed over the last 20 years, at the moment it means heavy bassline-driven music with epic builds & drops.

Cheyenne Giles: Electro House music is definitely an upbeat and dance-oriented style of music. Characteristic of Electro House is that it features big Drops (meaning that the music will be progressing fairly slowly and then all of a sudden it will drop into a powerful, unpredictable beat).

Ayla Simone: Has similar makeup of house music but uses harder electronic synthesizers, 125 bpm - 130 bpm.

Lavelle Dupree: The Bob Dylan of EDM! It started out cool and underground and then, by no choice of its own, went commercial!

Nicole Novak: Electro has begun to gain the reputation of a dirty word as well, but Id say only within the past year. from 2008-2011 electro was very hot in the clubs, it had influences of rock music and electronica and was an interesting fusion of the two worlds. It had a very dance-rock feel to it, and artists like Le Castle Vania and the Disco Villains became instantly popular and toured around the world for these few years playing and producing these styles. Since its not as hot anymore, these electro artists have evolved their sound a bit, and have moved into genres like tech-house and deep-house. Electro tends to be hot among young clubbers. Its still around and still gets played, but electro nights and electro parties have dwindled considerably.

DJ Kurch: Very similar to house, but has a harder and grimier sound to it. Think of the sound a chainsaw makes.

Drum & Bass

Anthony Ross: One of the fastest forms of EDM in terms of musical tempo but also has yielded some of the best producers in all of dance music. D&B artists in 2007 started to make Electro which oddly enough has made them 1000 x more famous than they ever were as a D&B artist (think Feed Me, Treasure Fingers, etc).

Cheyenne Giles: Dubstep, old school breakbeat, bumping house and lashings of electro and rock, all brought together in a taut collection that could only be made in the 21st century!

Nicole Novak: Not nearly as popular as it once was in the days of AK1200, Dieselboy, etc. All raves and electronic music festivals used to have drum n bass rooms, now that harder-style room has changed to being a dubstep room with artists like Skream, Nero, Caspa, and the like. Its characterized by very dark, heavy sounds, and LOTS of bass.

DJ Kurch: The older cousin of dubstep, but instead of being about half the bpm of house, its about twice the bpm of house. Been around forever and still has a solid underground following.

For more lifestyle tips in real time, follow @MichelleScene
Mongolias parliament on Thursday confirmed one of the countrys wealthiest men as the new prime minister of the impoverished but resource-rich nation.

Batbold Sukhbaatar, a former foreign minister, pledged in his acceptance speech to continue the pro-business policies of his predecessor Bayar Sanjaa, who stepped down as prime minister this week after seeking treatment for liver problems.

The current coalition government will continue and complete the efforts started by Bayar, and I will do my best to make all Mongolians employed, educated people, said Batbold, who the day before won the backing of all but one of the 180 members of the leadership of the Mongolian Peoples Revolutionary Party.

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The changeover comes just weeks after the signing of a long-awaited deal between Mongolia and partners Rio Tinto and Ivanhoe Mines to develop a $4 billion gold and copper mine after a heated national debate over how to exploit the countrys mineral wealth.

The agreement on the Oyu Tolgoi mine in the Gobi desert was renegotiated repeatedly after opponents complained it shortchanged Mongolia, which lies wedged between Russia and China and has long been wary of foreign domination. Parliament had to repeal a windfall profits tax in August before London-based Rio and Canadas Ivanhoe would agree to go ahead.

Batbold will likely continue his partys broadly pro-mining policy, the political risk consultancy Eurasia Group said in a research note.

However, he may also be more inclined to balance growing Russian and Chinese interests in the sector by accommodating Western investors, the note said.

Batbold made his fortune between 1992 and 2000 as head of the trading company Altai Trading Co. Ltd., which formed a gold mining joint venture with Canadian Centerra Gold Inc. Altai Trading is now being managed by Batbolds wife.

Following President Elbegdorj Tsakhias approval, Batbold was overwhelmingly confirmed by the Mongolian parliament, called the State Great Khural.

The MPRP, which ran Mongolia as communists until 1990, holds 46 seats in the 76-seat parliament, with another 27 held by Elbegdorjs opposition Democratic Party of Mongolia.
A teachers explanation to parents of a womens history project planned for her third-graders contained these words: If your child is a young man, he does not have to wear a dress or skirt.

That didnt stop a parent and a blogger from complaining that little boys were being asked to cross-dress as part of the gay agenda. From there, the Maude Wilkins Schools project about the evolution of womens clothing quickly took on a life of its own - and now its been called off completely.

In hindsight, Superintendent Michael Livengood said Wednesday, maybe a different activity could have been chosen that was a little bit more relevant to history.

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Its the second time in six months that a New Jersey school program has attracted wide attention for something officials say was planned innocently. About 70 protesters visited a Burlington County school in October, upset about a song in which students praised President Barack Obama.

In both cases, administrators say, the ensuing uproar was due to blogs that spread the word but got the intent wrong.

The latest saga began this month when teacher Tonya Uibel sent a letter home with her pupils announcing that all third-graders at Maude Wilkins were required to participate in a Womens History Month project examining how womens fashion has changed over time.

The letter said, in part: If your child is a young man, he does not have to wear a dress or skirt, as there are many time periods where women wore jeans, pants and trousers. However, each child must be able to express what time period their outfit is from. Most of all, your child should have fun creating their outfit and learning about how womens clothing has changed!

Janine Giandomenico, a mother of a boy in the class and a frequent user of online social networks, posted a complaint on Facebook. By Monday, her concerns had worked their way to Warner Todd Huston, an opinion writer and editor of the Publius Forum site.

He skewered the school and suggested that the timing of the event, scheduled for Friday, was designed to coincide with a national Day of Silence to protest harassment of gays.

Pushing the gay agenda while feminizing our young boys through a cross-dressing day? This isnt your parents grade school celebration, for sure, he wrote.

On Monday, as the Web traffic swelled and national media outlets picked up on the story, principal Beth Norcia decided to cancel the fashion show. She wrote in a new letter to parents that instead, students would draw how womens fashion had evolved.

One third-grader, Elizabeth Heisler, said as school let out Wednesday that none of her classmates had seemed confused about whether boys were supposed to wear dresses. The cancellation of the fashion show means she doesnt get to wear her red and black can-can dress to school on Friday.

The episode confounded her mother, Andrea Heisler.

I would never think my son was going to come to school in an 1800s dress and petticoat, she said.

Livengood, who leads the Maple Shade Township school district, acknowledged that the initial letter could be misunderstood.

But he said the school wasnt trying to make anyone uncomfortable - and wasnt even aware of the gay rights protests scheduled the same day.

Its unbelievable to me that the wording of a letter to a group of third-graders has caused this, he said. Do they really think that our little group of third-grade teachers has conspired to try to get boys to cross-dress?

The district hasnt heard complaints from any parents besides Giandomenico, Livengood said.

She told The Associated Press via Facebook message that she would be available for an interview, but has not responded to subsequent requests. On her Twitter account, she had this to say: WE WON-CANCELLED! THANKS 4 YR SUPPORT!

Still, Livengood said, hes learned a lesson - to make sure communications from teachers to parents are reviewed before they go out.

(This version CORRECTS Corrects name of childs mother in graf 13, Andrea, sted Amanda.)
Frankfort, KY -- (SBWIRE) -- 03/31/2017 -- Stephen Hopkins was from Hampshire, England. He married his first wife, Mary, and resided in the parish of Hursley, Hampshire. They had three (3) children: Elizabeth, Constance, and Giles; all baptized there. It has long been claimed that the Hopkins family was from Wortley, Gloucester, but this was disproven in 1998 with the discovery of his true origins in Hursley.



http://mayflowerhistory.com/hopkins-stephen/



Stephen Hopkins went with the ship Sea Venture on a voyage to Jamestown, Virginia in 1609 as a minister's clerk, but the ship wrecked in the "Isle of Devils" (Bermuda). Stranded on an island for ten months, the passengers and crew survived on turtles, birds, and wild pigs. Six months into the castaway, Stephen Hopkins and several others organized a mutiny against the current governor. The mutiny was discovered and Stephen was sentenced to death. However, he pleaded with sorrow and tears. "So penitent he was, and made so much moan, alleging the ruin of his wife and children in this his trespass, as it wrought in the hearts of all the better sorts of the company." He managed to get his sentence commuted. Eventually the castaways built a small ship and sailed themselves to Jamestown. How long Stephen remained in Jamestown is not known. However, while he was gone, his wife Mary died. She was buried in Hursley on 9 May 1613, and left behind a probate estate which mentions her children Elizabeth, Constance and Giles.



Stephen was back in England by 1617, when he married Elizabeth Fisher, but apparently had every intention of bringing his family back to Virginia. Their first child, Damaris, was born about 1618. In 1620, Stephen Hopkins brought his wife and children Constance, Giles, and Damaris on the Mayflower (child Elizabeth apparently had died). Stephen was a fairly active member of the Pilgrim group shortly after arrival, perhaps a result of his being one of the few individuals who had been to Virginia previously. He was a part of all the early exploring missions, and was used as an "expert" on Native Americans for the first few contacts. While out exploring, Stephen recognized and identified an Indian deer trap. And when Samoset walked into Plymouth and welcomed the English, he was housed in Stephen Hopkins' house for the night. Stephen was also sent on several of the ambassadorial missions to meet with the various Indian groups in the region.



Stephen was an assistant to the governor through 1636, and volunteered for the Pequot War of 1637 but was never called to serve. By the late 1630s, however, Stephen began to occasionally run afoul of the Plymouth authorities, as he apparently opened up a shop and served alcohol. In 1636 he got into a fight with John Tisdale and seriously wounded him. In 1637, he was fined for allowing drinking and shuffleboard playing on Sunday. Early the next year he was fined for allowing people to drink excessively in his house: guest William Reynolds was fined, but the others were acquitted. In 1638 he was twice fined for selling beer at twice the actual value, and in 1639 he was fined for selling a looking glass for twice what it would cost if bought in the Bay Colony. Also in 1638, Stephen Hopkins' maidservant got pregnant from Arthur Peach, who was subsequently executed for murdering an Indian. The Plymouth Court ruled he was financially responsible for her and her child for the next two years (the amount remaining on her term of service). Stephen, in contempt of court, threw Dorothy out of his household and refused to provide for her, so the court committed him to custody. John Holmes stepped in and purchased Dorothy's remaining two years of service from him: agreeing to support her and child.



Stephen died in 1644, and made out a will, asking to be buried near his wife, and naming his surviving children.



BAPTISM: 30 April 1581 at Upper Clatford, Hampshire, England, son of John and Elizabeth (Williams) Hopkins.

FIRST MARRIAGE: Mary, possibly the daughter of Robert and Joan (Machell) Kent of Hursley, co. Hampshire, prior to 1604.

SECOND MARRIAGE: Elizabeth Fisher on 19 February 1617/8 at St. Mary Matfellon, Whitechapel, co. Middlesex, England.

CHILDREN (by Mary): Elizabeth, Constance, and Giles.

CHILDREN (by Elizabeth): Damaris, Oceanus, Caleb, Deborah, Damaris, Ruth, and Elizabeth.

DNA HAPLOGROUP: R1b-M269



Contact Adam Green!

c: 801-809-7766

e: g3president@comcast.net



Master Christopher Jones and several business partners purchased the ship Mayflower about 1607. Its origins prior to that remain uncertain. Its first documented voyage of record was to Trondheim, Norway, in 1609. Andrew Pawling hired the ship to take a cargo of London goods to Norway, sell them off, and buy Norway goods (lumber, tar, and fish) to return back to England. Unfortunately on the return voyage, the Mayflower encountered a severe North Sea storm and the master and crew were forced to toss most of Pawlings goods overboard to lighten the ship. The home of Master Christopher Jones: Harwich, co. Essex, England.



http://mayflowerhistory.com/



Following that, Christopher Jones seems to have stuck with safer trading routes. The Mayflower made numerous trips primarily to Bordeaux, France, returning to London with cargoes of French wine, Cognac, vinegar, and salt. The Mayflower could freight about 180 tons of cargo. The Mayflower also made occasional voyages to other ports, including once to Malaga, Spain, and twice to Hamburg, Germany.



Upon returning from a voyage to Bordeaux, France, in May 1620, the Mayflower and master Christopher Jones were hired to take the Pilgrims to Northern Virginia. This was the first recorded trans-Atlantic voyage for both ship and master, though Christopher Jones had several crewmembers, including pilot and master's mates John Clarke and Robert Coppin, who had been to the New World before.



The Mayflower was supposed to accompany another ship, the Speedwell, to America, but the Speedwell proved too leaky for the voyage so the Mayflower proceeded alone. Departing on 6 September 1620, the ship was at sea for 66 days, arriving November 9. The ship and crew overwintered with the Pilgrims and departed back for England on 5 April 1621, arriving back to England on May 6.



Christopher Jones took the ship out for a few more trading runs, but he died a couple of years later in March 1621/2. The ship was appraised for probate purposes in May 1624, and was referred to as being "in ruins." It was only valued at 128 pounds sterling, and was almost certainly broken up and sold off as scrap.



Frankfort Kentucky General Society of Mayflower Descendant, Adam Paul Green (Ancestor Stephen Hopkins / Gen.No. 86,723) Reveals New Geneology Resource Website for Local Enthusiasts http://www.ImAdamGreen.com



Adam Paul Green was born to a multi-talented beauty queen Mother and a Father who, in addition to being a US Army Spy and a Counter-Intelligence Special Agent, was also a highly accomplished entrepreneur. Adam was taught at a young age that, in both life and business, loyalty is a requirement for success. He's had the honor of working directly with his father in several of the family businesses. In fact, this is where he learned crucial entrepreneurial skills and honed his talents with international business strategies and venture capitalism. http://www.AdamPaulGreen.com, http://www.ImAdamGreen.com



Adam earned his Bachelors of Science Degree in International Business and Marketing from the University of Utah. He was hand-picked by the President of the University's renowned School of Business to compete with dozens of other ambitious nationwide-graduates for the opportunity to secure a lucrative job within a prestigious Fortune 100 company. http://www.Twitter.com/AdamPaulGreen



http://www.ImAdamGreen.com



Adam's hard work and creativity helped him land this job of a lifetime. He obtained incredible business experience there and spent years innovating, improving processes and setting sales records. Although this dream job in Traditional Corporate America was a fun challenge for him, and something he truly enjoyed mastering, Adam's natural entrepreneurial spirit kept nudging him to do something more significant with his time and talents. http://www.MyChocolatePod.com, http://www.Facebook.com/AdamPaulGreen



Since 2001, Adam has been involved in the Health and Wellness Industry as a successful Entrepreneur, Broker, Product Developer and Manufacturer of Cosmeceutical products. During his career, he has worked with some of the most recognizable Fortune 500 businesses along with many top international Network Marketing companies. Adam has consistently proven his unique ability to help his clients achieve their goals through creative Distribution-Channel Placement, innovative Product Development and custom Manufacturing. Adam currently owns three profitable businesses.



http://www.ImAdamGreen.com



Admittedly, Adam was not initially a fan of Network Marketing. He did not understand the business model because it was new to him. However, once he learned that the REAL focus of Direct Sales is to help average people get a taste of entrepreneurialism --- with minimal risk and at a low cost --- Adam was absolutely convinced of the potential with Multi-Level Marketing.



http://www.ImAdamGreen.com



About MayflowerHistory.com

MayflowerHistory.com, the Internet's most complete and accurate website dealing with the Mayflower passengers and the history of the Pilgrims and early Plymouth Colony. The website was first created back in 1994 (when the web was still mostly text!) as a simple, but complete, passenger list of the Mayflower. It has grown over the past twenty years as the author, historian Caleb Johnson, has researched and compiled material.



http://mayflowerhistory.com
What happened

Shares of FMC Corp (NYSE: FMC) leapt over 17% this morning after the company announced that it will pick up a significant portion of the crop protection business of DuPont (NYSE: DD) while selling its own health and nutrition division to the larger peer. Essentially, the two companies are swapping divisions, although FMC Corp will also make a $1.2 billion payment to DuPont. As of 12:21 p.m. EDT, the stock had settled to a 13.6% gain.

So what

Why the deal? Well, earlier this week European regulators gave a conditional approval for a megamerger between DuPont and Dow Chemical (NYSE: DOW), but only if they divested significant parts of their crop protection businesses to alleviate concerns about a lack of competitiveness within the industry. The newly announced "swap" will be a win-win for all companies and investors involved. That's especially true for FMC Corp, which until now had a relatively modest crop protection business.

This may seem rushed, but for the last two years Dow Chemical and DuPont have been aware that divestments were likely needed to get their merger approved. Peers and competitors knew that, too, and many had a presence at regulatory hearings leading up to the preliminary decision announced earlier this week in the European Union. The world's leading chemical manufacturer BASF was considered to be the favorite to step in and make a last-minute deal, but FMC Corp beat it to the punch.

Purchasing most of DuPont's crop protection business -- heavily concentrated in insecticides -- will immediately make FMC Corp the fifth-largest crop protection specialist in the world ranked by annual sales, which are expected to be just shy of $4 billion. The assets in the acquisition alone are expected to contribute $1.5 billion in revenue and $475 million in EBITDA in 2017. That includes three of the world's leading insecticide products that generate over $1 billion in annual sales combined.

The long-term aspects of the deal are also attractive. The acquisition includes a significant portion of DuPont's crop protection R&D capabilities including a promising pipeline of 15 synthetic compounds, a library of over 1.8 million compounds that can be screened for commercial potential, 14 regional labs, an array of regulatory response capabilities, and hundreds of employees.

Now what

FMC Corp made a huge splash to become a top tier ag company overnight. Shareholders now have two major growth opportunities supporting their investment thesis: 1. a leading lithium production platform, and 2. a leading crop protection business. Given the immediate impact the acquisition will have on the company's business in 2017, investors may expect today's gains to have staying power.

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Neanderthals cognitive abilities are a hotly debated topic, but a bird bone fragment found at a Middle Paleolithic site in Crimea, Ukraine, features two notches that may have been made by our extinct cousins intentionally to display a visually consistent pattern, according to a new study.

The bone fragment of a common raven (Corvus corax) was found at the Crimean multilayered site of Zaskalnaya VI, also known as Kolosovskaya or the site of Kolosov, near the village of Vishennoye, Belogorsk district.

The object comes from an archaeological level attributed to a Micoquian industry dated to at least 38,000 years ago.

The artifact  18.14 mm long, 7.06 mm wide, and 2.49 mm thick  bears a set of evenly spaced notches that cannot be explained as resulting from butchery activities.

It was analyzed by Ana Majkic, an archaeologist at the University of Bordeaux and CNRS, and her colleagues from the University of Cambridge in UK, the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa, the NASU Institute of Archaeology and the I.I. Schmalhausen Institute of Zoology in Kiev, Ukraine.

The team conducted a mixed-methods study to assess whether the two extra notches on the Zaskalnaya raven bone were made by Neanderthals with the intention of making the final series of notches appear to be evenly spaced.

First, the researchers conducted a multi-phase experiment where recruited volunteers were asked to create evenly spaced notches in domestic turkey bones, which are similar in size to the raven bone.

Morphometric analyses reveal that the equal spacing of the experimental notches was comparable to the spacing of notches in the raven bone, even when adjusted for errors in human perception.

Archeological specimens featuring aligned notches from different sites were also analyzed and compared with the Zaskalnaya specimen.

The archaeologists concluded that the two extra notches on the Zaskalnaya raven bone may have been made by Neanderthals intentionally to create a visually consistent, and perhaps symbolic, pattern.

A series of recent discoveries of altered bird bones across Neanderthal sites has caused many researchers to argue that the objects were used for personal ornaments, as opposed to butchery tools or activities. But this study is the first that provides direct evidence to support a symbolic argument for intentional modifications on a bird bone.

This research was presented in a paper published in the journal PLoS ONE on March 29, 2017.

_____

A. Majkic et al. 2017. A decorated raven bone from the Zaskalnaya VI (Kolosovskaya) Neanderthal site, Crimea. PLoS ONE 12 (3): e0173435; doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0173435
[MANILA] Oncolytic viruses (viruses that preferentially infect and kill cancer cells) can be genetically modified to attack tumour cells without affecting healthy tissue, says a new study.



There are several oncolytic viruses under development, but there is one approved by the Food and Drug Administration for the treatment of metastatic melanoma, one of the deadliest cancers, Cristina Fillat, scientist at IDIBAPS and co-leader of the study published (16 March) in Nature Communications.

Current treatments provide limited benefit, thus, there is the need for new treatments. Cristina Fillat, IDIBAPS

What makes our approach different is the mechanism by which the virus acquires the oncoselectivity, Fillat explains to SciDev.Net.



In the study, researchers from IDIBAPS and the Institute for Research in Biomedicine (IRB), both in Barcelona, focused on the different expressions of a type of protein, CPEBs, in normal and tumour tissues. While CPEB4, is highly expressed in cancer cells and necessary for tumour growth, CPEB1 is expressed only in normal tissue.



The researchers took advantage of this double imbalance to make a sophisticated oncoselective virus that only attacks cells with high levels of CPEB4 and low levels of CPEB1, meaning that it only affects tumour cells while ignoring healthy tissues.



This approach was studied in the most common type of pancreatic cancer, which, according to Fillat, is the fourth leading cause of cancer deaths worldwide. Recent estimates indicate that pancreatic cancer will become the second leading cause of cancer-related mortality by 2030.



Current treatments provide limited benefit, thus, there is the need for new treatments, says Fillat.



While preliminary data suggests that the new approach may also work in glioblastoma (aggressive brain tumour) and colorectal cancer, it could be applied to any cancer that displays a tumour imbalance in CPEB4/CPEB1, says Fillat. Ultimately, the approach will be for adults, but the eligibility criteria should be determined once clinical trials start, says Fillat. We are not there yet.

Alan Melcher, team leader of translational immunotherapy at The Institute of Cancer Research, UK, welcomes the new strategy. The Barcelona researchers have found a clever way to make viral immunotherapy more targeted, which may ultimately allow cancer treatments that harness a wider range of viruses, some of which might otherwise not be suitable, he tells SciDev.Net.But, Melcher warns, its still early stage research in mice. So, its important we see further developments in the science and evidence of how this might work in people, before we get too excited, he says.This piece was produced by SciDev.Nets Asia & Pacific desk.
The Dead Sea, one of the places in the world which have the most controversial origin. But recently, scientists have found evidence of a drought that happened hundred thousand years ago.

A 30-meter-thick crystalline salt has been brought by the drillers to the surface from the depths of 300 meters below the landlocked basin. The crystalline salt which was dated to be 120,000 years old has the evidence that 10,000 years ago, there had been a rainfall of only about a one-fifth of the modern rainfall levels today.

Based on the article published by The Guardian, humans living in the region of the Dead Sea already experienced the worst drought 900 years before. "All the observations show this region is one of the most affected by the modern climate change and it is predicted to get drier," Yael Kiro, a geochemist at Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory in U.S., said. She also added that what they showed in their models can become much drier than predicted even under natural conditions.

The Dead Sea is the deepest hypersaline lake in the world bordered by Jordan to the east and Israel and Palestine to the west. It is one of the saltiest bodies of water. With 34.2 percent salinity, it is 9.6 times as salty as the ocean. Its surface and shores are 430.5 meters below sea level which make it the Earth's lowest elevation on land and it is the best site to study the past brought events in the Earth's history.

In 2010, a team of International researchers drilled almost 500 meters below the deepest part of the Dead Sea to look for evidence of past droughts that happened thousands of years ago. They gathered samples from the trapped water evaporated to precipitate deep and dense beds of salts.

Likewise, according to the Weather Network, the Middle East continues to dry and warm again with raising temperatures. Researchers feared that it could cause the scientific community to rethink the impact of such event and how much worse drought conditions could become.

The research team also suggest that at some point the drought happened between the Ice Ages roughly 115,000 years ago. During this time, Earth's average atmospheric temperature reaches to 7.2 degrees Fahrenheit or 4 degrees Celsius compared to the average temperature in the 20th century. Scientist predicts that this increase in temperature will be roughly the same to happen if humans continue to burn fossil fuels at the same rate.
Paleontologists reconstructed the best-ever look of the tyrannosaur's face with "sixth sense" based on the 75-million-year-old fossils found in northern Montana and southern Alberta during the Late Cretaceous. They dubbed the new species as Daspletosaurus horneri.

The findings of the discovery were printed in the journal Scientific Reports. The study was led by Thomas Carr, a paleontologist from Carthage College, and other colleagues, according to Ars Technica.

The new species was described by the researchers as having a face covered in flat scales that could be sensitive to touch just like the modern crocodiles. It was about 9 meters long and 2.2 meters tall. It had a large skull covered in bony ridges and various skin types.

The researchers discovered that the lower jaw of tyrannosaur had a neuro vasculature that could also be found in birds. This means that it has a trigeminal nerve that could be found in the faces of animals, which is highly sensitive to vibration, electricity, infrared radiation and even magnetic fields. Jayc Sedlmayr, one of the researchers from the Louisiana State University, said that this nerve could develop into wildly different "sixth senses" in various animals.

Carr explained that trigeminal nerve is evolutionarily significant and notable in scientific studies. He further explained that the public does not ponder that individual nerves or organ systems have each evolutionary history. On the other hand, in their study, it focuses on the evolution of the trigeminal nerve and how it could provide information on how archosaurs, which include the dinosaurs and crocodilians, traversed and intermingled with each other.

Carr placed the D. horneri in the family of tyrannosaur dinosaurs. These also include more than a dozen species that inhabited during the Late Cretaceous period about 66 to 94 million years ago. The name Daspletosaurus horneri is derived from paleontologist Jack Horner, as an honor. The name is practically translated to "Horner's Frightful Lizard," according to Gizmodo.
MYRTLE BEACH, S.C.-- Congressman Tom Rice (R-S.C.) today announced he will be hosting multiple Coffee with Your Congressman events to meet with residents of the Seventh District of South Carolina.

This will allow citizens to meet with Congressman Rice to discuss upcoming legislation and current events affecting the nation, state and district.

Congressman Rice frequently holds these events throughout the Seventh District as a key part of his constituent outreach. These events are free and open to the public and press.

Locally, on Wed., April 12, he will be at Crema Coffee on 136 136 W. Carolina Ave. Hartsville, SC 29550.
FLORENCE, S.C.  Florence County: your county, my county, our county is in wonderful shape, physically and financially.

County Council Chairman Kent Caudle told hundreds of Florence business leaders and government officials gathered for the Greater Florence Chamber of Commerces annual outlook luncheon on Thursday that this county is seeing more progress now than ever.

Ive lived here all my life and Ive never been more excited about whats going on than I am now, Caudle said. Our economic development, our transportation and infrastructure improvements, and our quality of life and safety investments are all heading the right direction.

Caudle homed in on multimillion-dollar projects in the county, such as the $16 million spent by the city and county to expand the civic center and the $32 million judicial center near downtown, which are under construction.

He coupled that with the major infrastructure projects realized under both penny sales taxes, including hundreds of miles of local road repairs and a six-acre lake finally being dug in Lake City.

The countys unified fire district expanded even more in 2016, reaching its goal of having a fire station or substation within five miles of every home in Florence County and upgrading outdated equipment.

We have over 400 volunteer firefighters in our county and this gives them the proper tools they need to safely perform their task to save lives and property, he said. It has also led to lower insurance rates in some area and will lead to more savings in others.

Caudle also praised the public-private partnership that drives economic and social growth.

Weve gone through some rough times lately but were on the cusp of unheralded success, Caudle said. Florence is sounding its trumpet as a business and community mecca, not only in South Carolina but in the entire Southeast region, he said.

Caudle said the momentum here is unparalleled and he doesnt foresee an end anytime soon.

I always say we dont want to give any person or business any reason to turn down Florence, he said.
FLORENCE, S.C.  Twelve dance couples put on their boogie shoes and danced for education and The School Foundation at the Dancing for Our Future Stars competition on Thursday at Florence-Darlington Technical Colleges SiMT Building.

Celebrity Yancey Stokes and dancer Erin Hayes received the Mirror Ball Award for technical skill.

She did it all, Stokes said. She taught me all of it, worked me hard, but it paid off. She was a great instructor and kept it fun.

Celebrity Chris Handley and dancer Brandi Williamson received the Most Entertaining Award. Celebrity Carl Humphries and dancer Meggie Baker received the Social Status Award. Celebrity Rebecca Smith and dancer Tyler Jordan received the Peoples Choice Award for earning the most votes during the night. Celebrity Will Malambri and dancer Katelyn Rodgers received second in Peoples Choice, and Humphries and Baker received third in Peoples Choice.

Debbie Hyler, executive director of The School Foundation, said the event is a collaboration of the community.

Its just exciting seeing everybody come in with a big smile on their face and are excited about seeing the person that theyre coming to support, Hyler said.

Courtney Cribb, a School Foundation board member, said that each seat that the SiMT Building could offer was filled.

This is a huge event, Cribb said. All the tables are sold out before they even reach the public. Its nice to know that people care enough about the kids and Florence School District One and support them in the way that they do.

Francis Marion Universitys president, Dr. Fred Carter, said he rooted for Humphries. Carter said its important that the community supports education.

Its a wonderful night that supports the schools, supports a lot of innovative programs for the schools, Carter said. The Foundation does a good job in that regard.

Florence School District One board member Porter Stewart said its important for the community to support education.

It helps us with the cutting edge as far as what we can look at and get into as far as technology and learning techniques in the classroom, Stewart said. An event like this is a wonderful opportunity for the community to come out to celebrate education and the community and everything that goes with it. Kudos to The School Foundation.

Stokes said the self-pep-talks started early in the day.

The Stokes is stoked, Stokes said. Im ready to go; at least thats what Ive been telling myself all day to pump me up for this.

Smith sported a flashy gold jacket, inspired by Bruno Mars, who performed the song she danced to.

You know what? Im just going to keep it simple, Smith said. I watched the video numerous time, and I thought its a throwback. Brunos outfits are loud and obnoxious, and I thought Well, why not?

Pat Carnell and Cherry Gerrald represented Pee Dee Kiwanis.

I watch Dancing with the Stars, and I love it, Garrald said. This is for The School Foundation, so its a great cause.

Malambri supporters Faye and Emery Higgs said they come every year because they have personal connections with the students in Florence.

We have two grandchildren in the public school, and all of our children have gone through

Florence District One schools. We want to do all we can to support The School Foundation, Faye said.

The other dancers were celebrity David Copeland and dancer Cheyanne Beck; celebrity Barnette Greenberg and dancer Meghan Burgess; celebrity Andrew Imbeau and dancer Hannah Yarborough; celebrity Ashleigh McIntyre and dancer Cole Davis; celebrity Chad Patterson and dancer Morgan Schoolfield; celebrity Dr. Christy Prose and dancer Chris Mixon; and celebrity J. Lawrence Smith and dancer Georgeanna Kelley.

The School Foundation is the largest private endowment for grades K through 12 in South Carolina. Since is began in 2002, it has donated $1.2 million to Florence School District One schools.
FLORENCE, S.C. -- Carolinas Medical Alliance welcomes David Culpepper, M.D. to Carolinas Medical Practice.

Culpepper was born and raised in Greenville, South Carolina and received his medical degree from the University of South Carolina School of Medicine. He completed his residency in Internal Medicine at Richland Memorial Hospital/Dorn VA Hospital in Columbia.

Culpepper said he is looking forward to continuing to serve Florence and the surrounding areas.

"I truly enjoy the relationships and friendships with patients and their families that develop over the years of caring for internal medicine patients," Culpepper said. "Im looking forward to meeting new patients and advancing their healthcare here in the Pee Dee."

He will be joining the practice of Eduardo Donato, M.D.

David Culpepper, M.D. and the medical staff of Carolinas Medical Practice are accepting new patients. To schedule an appointment, please call 843-679-4221 or visit CarolinasMedicalPractice.com and submit an appointment request.
Among the five itineraries is the 10-night 'Alaska Intensive, between Seward and Vancouver, BC, which visits Hubbard Glacier, Icy Strait Point (until 10 p.m.), Sitka, Juneau (until 10 p.m.), Skagway (until 11 p.m.), Haines, Ketchikan and Victoria, BC (until 11 p.m.).

The eight-night 'Alaska Adventure' between Vancouver and Seward, visits Ketchikan, Juneau (until 11 p.m.), Skagway, Sitka (until 10 p.m.), Icy Strait Point and Hubbard Glacier.

'Alaska Showcase,' 10 nights, sails round-trip Vancouver. Ports are Seattle (overnight), Ketchikan, Juneau (until 11 p.m.), Skagway, Sitka and Nanaimo, BC (until 11 p.m.)

The included AzAmazing Evenings will feature local, authentic experiences, and optional shore excursions in small groups of 20 to 25 are planned.

For example, 'Haines off the Beaten Path' visits the artists enclave of Mud Bay with a tour of Extreme Dreams Art Studio, a handcrafted timber-frame gallery filled with creations by local artisans. The excursion ends with a guided visit to the quirky yet fascinating Hammer Museum.

In Icy Strait Point, travelers can taste fresh seafood in a rustic setting hosted by an Alaskan fisherman who'll give an expert filleting demonstration.

And from Skagway, a trip in the White Pass & Yukon Routes luxurious Legacy Club Car features a private guide.

Azamaras Land & Sea Experiences include pre- and post-voyage land programs of two to six nights. 'Untamed Alaska, Native Villages,' for example, involves a traditional community gathering, riverboat cruising or an afternoon at a dog handler kennel to learn about the famed Iditarod Dogsled race and meet Alaskan huskies.
In Puerto Rico, Crowley Maritimes Isla Grande Terminal at the port of San Juan has received three new STS. This was the first order to Puerto RicoThe cranes incorporate the latest technology including semi-automatic mode which maximises the efficiency of container handling, commented Gerry Bunyan, sales and marketing manager at Liebherr Container Cranes.

A new MHC type LHM 600 was delivered to Kingston Wharves multipurpose terminal at the port of Kingston, Jamaica. It is the biggest crane operated in the Caribbean with a maximum outreach of 58 metres able to handle 19 rows across ship, and in Mexico, Liebherr is assembling two new mobile cranes 9MHCs) type LHM 420 for the company Bredero Shaw International, at the port of Altamira, in the Gulf of Mexico.

The next delivery was at Freeport Container Port, which is operated by Hutchison Port Holdings, in the Bahamas, which had suffered the ravages of the category 4 hurricane Matthew. Liebherr provided in only four weeks time an LHM 550 and LHM 600 to keep the business going.
According to 2014 data, more than 90% of the more than 14,000 Indonesian-flagged vessels are not built locally.

We need to keep market [demand] going, starting with SOEs, which dont buy a significant number of locally made ships, Indonesian Shipbuilding Association (Iperindo) chairman Eddy Logam was quoted as saying.

Government agencies such as the Transportation Ministry, which has ordered about 150 coastal, navigation and transfer ships, and the Maritime Affairs and Fisheries Ministry, which has ordered more than 1,000 fishing ships this year, make up the bulk of orders from local yards while the number of ships ordered by SOEs is insignificant, he added.

Eddy said SOEs should set an example and follow government guidelines to use locally-made ships. President Joko Widodo has committed to revamping the local shipbuilding industry and instructed government ministries to procure only from local yards.

Incentives have also been given, with shipbuilders benefitting from tax breaks such as zero-value added tax and lower income tax.

Meanwhile, the local industry got a boost from the recent launch of Indonesia's first locally-made electric-powered vessel. The 9,300 dwt cement carrier Iriana was launched at the yard of Sumber Marine, in Tanjung Ucang, Batam.

The 117 m vessel was ordered by shipping service provider Pelayaran Andalas Bahtera Baruna. It has a service speed of 10 knots.

This proves that we should no longer doubt local capability to build international standard vessels. There are many examples of them, Eddy said.

The Iriana named after Indonesian First Lady Iriana Joko Widodo.

The building of the Iriana took one year and involved 800 workers. Most of the steel came from Krakatau Posco.
"Britain and Hong Kong are as much joined at the hip as they ever have been; partners, friends, dependents, the two ends of the Belt and Road initiative, each a primary gateway to the great markets of Europe and Asia," Dingle told a lunch meeting held by HKSOA.

He also emphasised the strong belief that both parties have in free trade and investment and their resistance to protectionism and economic nationalism.

"We have so much in common, most obviously our shared maritime heritage," he said. This is a heritage that should be vigorously carried forward into the future, Dingle reiterated as Hong Kong works towards its ambitious goals to be pre-eminent in maritime business in Asia while Britain aims to protect and build on its areas of world leadership and to ensure that it is unquestionably the place to conduct all forms of maritime business especially in Europe.

Dingle acknowledged that while both Hong Kong and Britain are equally ambitious in taking market share, rather than being competitors, "we recognise the strength of working as partners to deliver the best long term benefits for each of us".

The Maritime UK chairman was passing through Hong Kong after a visit to Shanghai as part of a Maritime UK and UK government trade mission aimed at boosting maritime ties between the UK and China.
MIDDLE EAST

Syria

Expected Council Action

In April, Council members expect to receive briefings on the humanitarian and political situation in Syria, as well as on chemical weapons.

Key Recent Developments

The fourth round of the intra-Syrian talks was held between 23 February and 3 March in Geneva. Following the parameters set out in resolution 2254, Special Envoy Staffan de Mistura proposed to discuss three baskets of issues in parallel: governance, constitution and elections. Following a request by the Syrian government delegation to add a fourth basket to discuss counter-terrorism, de Mistura proposed that this also tackles issues related to security governance and confidence-building measures. The Council welcomed this announcement in a press statement as a clear agenda for future negotiations. The fifth round of the intra-Syrian talks started on 23 March with the intention of discussing all four baskets with all delegations.

Russia, Turkey and Iran established a joint group as a trilateral mechanism to observe and ensure full compliance with the ceasefire. Efforts to operationalise the ceasefire received a setback when the opposition delegation refused to participate in a meeting in Astana, Kazakhstan, on 14 March, citing repeated violations of the ceasefire by the Syrian military.

Despite a new ceasefire announced by Russia, the ongoing military offensive by the government against besieged areas east of Damascus intensified and further worsened the living conditions for civilians by cutting off informal routes used to smuggle in basic items. Two suicide attacks in Damascus in early March, claimed by Tahrir al-Sham (a grouping that includes the latest iteration of the Al-Qaida-affiliated Al-Nusra Front), left dozens of people killed. After years of besiegement, in mid-March the last rebel-held enclave of Homs, Al-Waer, started its evacuation following a local truce. (The opposition has repeatedly referred to such deals as forced population transfers.) In mid-March, the towns covered by the September 2015 four towns agreement (two besieged by armed opposition and two by government and Hezbollah militias) received some humanitarian aid after six months without access to basic items. On 29 March a truce allowing for their evacuation was reportedly brokered by Iran and Qatar. At press time, OCHA head Stephen OBrien was scheduled to brief the Council on 30 March.

On 2 March, the Syrian military took control of Palmyra, which had been under the control of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) since December 2016. On 21 March, armed opposition groups, fighting alongside Tahrir al-Sham, launched an offensive against government-held areas north of Hama. During March, several US strikes targeting ISIL resulted in a heavy toll of civilian casualties in Syria as well as in Iraq. In a significant development, Israeli jets that were conducting operations against a convoy of military supplies for Hezbollah in Syria were attacked on 17 March by Syrian anti-aircraft missiles.

In northern Syria, a spate of violence between the forces of Turkeys Operation Euphrates Shield and the Peoples Protection Units (YPG), a Kurdish militia that is part of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), resulted in the killing of 71 YPG soldiers in the first week of March according to Turkeys military. On 22 March, a Turkish soldier was killed by a YPG sniper. Efforts to defuse tensions included the handover of some towns from the SDF to the Syrian government to act as a buffer zone, and the deployment of Russian forces and US marines to SDF-held positions in Afrin and Manbij to prevent attacks by Turkish military. On 8 March, the US announced the deployment of several hundred marines to participate in the SDF-led offensive towards ISILs stronghold Raqqa.

On 28 February, a draft resolution establishing a sanctions regime, a committee and a panel of experts to ensure accountability for the use and production of chemical weapons in Syria, with an appended list of individuals and entities to be targeted, was vetoed by China and Russia, also receiving the negative vote of Bolivia and the abstentions of Egypt, Ethiopia and Kazakhstan. The draftpresented by France, the UK and the USwould have imposed sanctions on a number of individuals and entities associated with the Syrian government linked to cases where responsibility was established by the OPCW-UN JIM: in Talmenes on 21 April 2014 and in Qmenas and Sarmin on 16 March 2015. In explaining its veto, Russia reiterated previously expressed concerns regarding the conclusions presented by the JIM and questioned the body of evidence on which they were based. China questioned the timing for the draft as the Geneva talks were under way. On 20 March, the EU imposed bilateral sanctions on four senior Syrian officials involved in the use and production of chemical weapons in Syria.

Human Rights-Related Developments

On 14 March, the Human Rights Council (HRC) held a high-level panel discussion on the human rights situation in Syria. In a statement, the High Commissioner for Human Rights labelled the conflict in Syria and its consequences the worst man-made disaster the world has seen since World War II, in which the country has become a torture-chamber for its population. The High Commissioner criticised repeated vetoes in the Security Council as holding back efforts to end the conflict and to refer crimes to the International Criminal Court (ICC), adding that his office was moving as fast as possible to set up the International, Impartial and Independent Mechanism, as stipulated by the General Assembly resolution 71/248. A number of other panelists emphasised that a lack of political will was the main issue preventing progress. On the same day, the HRC also held an interactive dialogue with the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Syria to discuss its latest report on Aleppo (A/HRC/34/64), which covers the period from 21 July to 22 December 2016. The report concluded that serious violations of international human rights law and war crimes were committed by all parties in the battle for Aleppo, including daily airstrikes by Syrian and Russian forces, the use of chlorine bombs by Syrian forces in residential areas, indiscriminate attacks on civilians by Syrian and/or Russian forces through the pervasive use of cluster munitions, and indiscriminate attacks by armed groups. The report attributed the 19 September airstrike on a humanitarian convoy, which killed 15 aid workers and destroyed much-needed aid supplies, to the Syrian military. It characterised it as one of the most egregious attacks and an attempt by Syrian forces to deliberately obstruct the delivery of humanitarian aid. On 24 March, the HRC adopted by 27 votes to 7 (with 13 abstentions) resolution 34/37 on the human rights situation in Syria, extending the mandate of the Commission of Inquiry for one year. The resolution recommended that the General Assembly submit the Commissions reports to the Security Council and that the Commission continue to brief members of the Security Council.

Key Issue

Six years since the start of a war that has exacted a death toll approaching half a million, left 640,000 living under siege, and displaced half of the Syrian population, including almost 5 million refugees, the essential issue for the Council is to exert effective leadership in enforcing the ceasefire and promoting efforts to reach a political solution.

Options

The Council has many tools at its disposalsuch as imposing an arms embargo or targeted sanctions, referring Syria to the ICC or authorising a no-fly zone to deter the Syrian government from using its aerial capacitybut P5 divisions have made it impossible for the Council to fulfill its role in maintaining international peace and security in the case of Syria.

Council members could, both individually and collectively, step up efforts to ensure that the government guarantees humanitarian access to besieged and hard-to-reach areas.

Council members could also hold an Arria-formula meeting with the HRCs Commission of Inquiry on Syria.

Council and Wider Dynamics

Council members welcomed the fourth round of the Geneva talks, where de Mistura succeeded in keeping the parties engaged throughout and reaching agreement on an agenda based on resolution 2254. Language regarding the fragility of the ceasefire and examples of continuous violations by the government were not included in the 10 March press statement given the opposition of some Council members, including Russia. Briefing Council members on 8 March, de Mistura appealed to the guarantors of the ceasefire to urgently address spoiler acts and escalatory steps in contested areas. Failure to deliver on the ceasefire commitments could have a negative impact on the intra-Syrian talks.

Despite the public display of divisions in the 28 February vote, and the criticism repeatedly expressed by some Council members, especially Russia, the JIM is still expected to investigate instances of the use of chemical weapons as identified by the OPCWs fact-finding mission. Furthermore, in a briefing on non-proliferation on 16 March, Russia reiterated a proposal that the JIM investigates reports of non-state actors gaining access to chemical weapons also in Iraq. Resolution 2118, adopted on 27 September 2013 and drafted by the US and Russia, decided to impose measures under Chapter VII of the UN Charter in the event of non-compliance, including any use of chemical weapons in Syria. Nevertheless, Russia has continued to oppose any punitive action against the government. On the 24 March HRC vote, Bolivia and China voted against and Egypt and Ethiopia abstained.

On 23 March, at a meeting of the Global Coalition to counter ISIL, US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said that the US will work to establish interim zones of stability through ceasefires, to allow refugees to return to Syria and Iraq. However, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Filippo Grandi, and other humanitarian actors have stressed that the situation on the ground does not allow for the planning of zones safe enough for the protection of civilians and the return of refugees.

UN DOCUMENTS ON SYRIA

Welcomed efforts by Russia and Turkey to end violence in Syria and jumpstart a political process. Renewed the mandate of the UN-OPCW Joint Investigative Mechanism for a further year. This resolution was adopted unanimously by the Council and required the verification and destruction of Syrias chemical weapons stockpiles, called for the convening of the Geneva II peace talks and endorsed the establishment of a transitional governing body in Syria with full executive powers. This was the first resolution focused exclusively on a political solution to the Syrian crisis. It was adopted unanimously. This was on the humanitarian situation in Syria. This was a draft resolution on chemical weapons. This was a report by the OPCW on progress in the elimination of the Syrian chemical weapons programme. This was the meeting at which Russia and China vetoed a draft resolution establishing a sanctions regime for the use and production of chemical weapons in Syria. This welcomed announcement by de Mistura of a clear agenda for future negotiations as indicated by resolution 2254. This was a report of the HRCs Commission of Inquiry on Aleppo.
AMERICAS

Haiti

Expected Council Action

This month the Security Council is due to extend the UN Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) before the current mandate expires on 15 April. Ahead of the renewal, the Council is expected to convene a meeting with troop-contributing countries and hold a debate with a briefing by Special Representative and head of MINUSTAH Sandra Honore, who will present the Secretary-Generals latest MINUSTAH report.

Key Recent Developments

On 20 November 2016, Haiti held presidential and partial legislative elections. The elections were originally scheduled for 9 October but were postponed because of the damage caused by Hurricane Matthew, which struck Haiti on 4 October. The Council held its semi-annual debate on Haiti shortly thereafter, on 11 October, with the impact of the hurricane as a main theme. On 13 October, the Council renewed MINUSTAHs mandate for six months with no changes in its authorised military and police strength. It urged Haitis political actors to complete the electoral process without further delays.

The November elections took place in a generally calm atmosphere with no major violent incidents, but voter turnout was only just over 20 percent. Following the release of preliminary tallies that showed Jovenel Moise, the candidate of former president Michel Martellys party Parti Haitien Tet Kale (PHTK) with more than 50 percent of the votes, the main opposition candidatesJude Celestin, Jean-Charles Moise and Maryse Narcissechallenged the results. (Moise also topped the poll in the presidential elections held on 25 October 2015, which were later annulled in response to allegations of irregularities and voter fraud.) The new challenges were rejected by the Provisional Electoral Council, which on 3 January announced the final results, confirming that Moise had obtained 55.6 percent of the vote, thus removing the need for a second round. In a 4 January press statement, Council members welcomed the announcement and urged all political actors to accept the results, refrain from violence and work together to build a stable and prosperous Haiti.

On 29 January, the second round of the remaining parliamentary seats and the single round of local elections were held, giving PHTK a majority in parliament. Following both the 20 November and 29 January elections, the electoral observer mission of the Organization of American States concluded that no major irregularities had been observed that could have changed the outcomes.

Moise was inaugurated on 7 February, as foreseen when the Council renewed MINUSTAHs mandate in October. On 22 February, Moise announced the selection of Jack Guy Lafontant, a medical doctor, to serve as his prime minister. As required by the constitution, parliament confirmed Lafontants 18-minister cabinet and his government programme on 21 March. In his inaugural speech, Lafontant stressed the seriousness of the challenges Haiti faces and called for national unity as he outlined the governments new priorities.

On 16 March, the Secretary-General submitted his report to the Council with recommendations for the future reconfiguration of MINUSTAH based on the strategic assessment mission to Haiti conducted from 6 to 11 February. The mission concluded that despite recent positive developments on the political front, Haiti is still in a delicate period of political transition. It would be important to avoid a security vacuum and to not repeat the failures of past transitions, such as the closing in 2000 of the previous UN operation in Haiti, which was followed by an electoral crisis and large-scale public unrest. The mission emphasised the importance of a strong UN political and good offices role.

Based on the findings of the mission, the Secretary-General recommended a final six-month extension of MINUSTAH involving the gradual withdrawal of the military component. He further recommended the establishment of a smaller successor peacekeeping mission focused on the rule of law and police development, which would retain seven of the current 11 formed police units, while the number of individual police would be reduced from 1,001 to 295. In an annex, the report provided an update on progress in achieving the mandated tasks identified in the Secretary-Generals initial consolidation plan as outlined in his 8 March 2013 report to the Council.

On 25 November 2016, the Secretary-General submitted a report to the General Assembly that provided more details on the UNs new approach to cholera in Haiti. It was first signalled on 19 August when the UN spokesperson said the Secretary-General regretted the suffering of the Haitian people resulting from the cholera epidemic and that the UN had a moral responsibility to the victims. As outlined in the report, the UN will work along two tracks. Track one involves intensifying the UNs support for efforts aimed at reducing and ultimately ending the transmission of cholera, improving access to care and treatment, and addressing the longer-term issues of water, sanitation and health systems in Haiti. Track two involves developing a package of material assistance and support to Haitians most directly affected by cholera, drawing on contributions from member states.

During a General Assembly meeting on 1 December 2016, the Secretary-General estimated that the new approach would require additional funding of $400 million and called on member states to make contributions to the UN Haiti cholera response multi-partner trust fund already established. The General Assembly adopted a resolution on 16 December welcoming the new approach, calling on member states and other stakeholders to support it, and requesting the Secretary-General to submit another report during the General Assemblys current session. According to a letter from the Secretary-General sent to member states in February, however, the voluntary contributions that had been received as of 8 February amounted to only 2 percent of the total amount sought.

Human Rights-related Developments

On 21 March, the Human Rights Council held an interactive dialogue during its 34th session with the Independent Expert on the situation of human rights in Haiti, Gustavo Gallonwho visited the country from 28 February to 11 Marchto discuss his most recent report. The report, which covers the period from 24 March 2016 to 25 January 2017, welcomed the completion of Haitis electoral process and its insufficient but encouraging progress on womens rights. However, the report also highlighted the extremely inhuman, cruel and degrading detention conditions in Haitian prisons and expressed concern at the lack of progress in the trial of former president Jean-Claude Duvaliers associates. Gallon reiterated his recommendations to set up a truth, justice and reparations commission to address past human rights violations and a similar commission to provide remedies to the victims of cholera.

Key Issues

A key issue for the Council in April is the renewal of MINUSTAHs mandate and whether to endorse the Secretary-Generals recommendations. Related issues include the continued need to develop the capacity of the Haitian National Police and address the lack of progress in the areas of rule of law and human rights-related reforms, in particular with regard to criminal justice and ensuring accountability for past abuses, as noted in the Secretary-Generals report.

A further issue is the lack of funding for the new cholera approach and the implications for the UNs standing in Haiti.

Options

The main option for the Council is to adopt a resolution extending MINUSTAH for a final six-month period and authorising a smaller successor mission, as recommended by the Secretary-General, with a strong rule of law and human rights monitoring mandate. It could also urge member states to make contributions to the cholera trust fund.

Council Dynamics

According to established Council practice, draft resolutions on MINUSTAH are normally negotiated and agreed among the Group of Friends of Haiti, which comprises Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, France, Guatemala, Peru, the US and Uruguay, before being circulated to all 15 Council members by the US, as the penholder. At press time, it seems members of the Group of Friends were close to reaching agreement on a draft endorsing the Secretary-Generals recommendations.

While some members apparently advocated a 12-month extension of MINUSTAHs mandate in discussions with the Secretariat ahead of the issuance of the Secretary-Generals recommendations, there was no push-back in the Group of Friends on the proposed six-month renewal. Negotiations this time have instead focused on whether to include more language on the humanitarian situation, human rights and peacebuilding and add references to the new approach on cholera. It seems that France and the US have pushed for a shorter text and have reservations about including proposed language on cholera, while Brazil and other Latin-American countries feel it is important to reflect some of the observations on human rights and humanitarian challenges and the importance of peacebuilding contained in the Secretary-Generals report. Other Council members seem supportive of the Secretary-Generals recommendations and are expected to go along with the draft agreed by the Group of Friends without any major changes.

UN Documents

This was a resolution renewing the mandate of MINUSTAH for six months while maintaining its authorised troop strength at 2,370 military personnel. This was Secretary-Generals Report on MINUSTAH. This was Secretary-Generals report on the new approach to cholera in Haiti. This was a report on MINUSTAH. This was a debate on Haiti. This statement welcomed the announcement of the final presidential results from the 20 November 2016 elections in Haiti. This was the report of the Independent Expert on the situation of human rights in Haiti. This was the General Assembly resolution welcoming the new cholera approach.
Israel/Palestine

Expected Council Action

In April, the Council is expected to hold its regular quarterly open debate on the Middle East, with a focus on Israel/Palestine.

Key Recent Developments

On 24 March, Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process Nickolay Mladenov briefed the Council in the regular monthly meeting. The briefing included the first report on the implementation of resolution 2334, adopted on 23 December 2016 with 14 votes in favour and an abstention by the outgoing administration of US President Barack Obama. The resolution condemned Israeli settlement building and reaffirmed that the establishment of settlements in Palestinian territory that Israel has occupied since 1967, including East Jerusalem, has no legal validity and constitutes a flagrant violation under international law. The resolution requested the Secretary-General to report on its implementation every three months.

Mladenov reported that there had been a significant uptick in statements, announcements and decisions by the Israeli government to increase settlement expansion, as well as large-scale demolitions of Palestinian and Bedouin structures in Area C of the West Bank and East Jerusalem. He reported that no steps were taken to comply with the resolution and that the rate of settlement activity during the reporting period was far higher than in the year preceding it. He also addressed the so-called regularisation law adopted by the Knesset on 6 February that enables the use of privately owned Palestinian land for Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank without the owners consent, which he stated contravenes international law.

Mladenov also addressed compliance with other aspects of resolution 2334, including the call on both parties to refrain from provocative actions, incitement and inflammatory rhetoric, reporting that leaders on both sides were found to be in violation, and cited in particular several instances of dangerous rhetoric by Hamas leaders. Mladenov also said an increase in rockets fired from Gaza toward Israel was a worrying development and described it as regrettable that Palestinian Authority (PA) officials had not condemned attacks against Israelis. He noted that during the reporting period there were no significant developments pertaining to the call on all States to distinguish, in their relevant dealings, between Israeli territory and the territories occupied since 1967.

On 15 March, the UN Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA), which comprises 18 Arab states, published a report accusing Israel of being an apartheid state and racially discriminating against the Palestinian people. The report elicited strong criticism from Israeli ambassador to the UN Danny Danon and US ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley. UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said that the report as it stands does not reflect the views of the Secretary-General and said that Executive Secretary of ESCWA, Under-Secretary-General Rima Khalaf, had been asked to remove the report from the Commission website not because of what it said but because no one at headquarters had been consulted prior to its release. On 18 March, Khalaf submitted her resignation to Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, saying that in the space of two months he had instructed her to withdraw two reports produced by ESCWA due to the political pressure by member states who gravely violate the rights of the people of the region. She said she could not withdraw yet another well-researched, well-documented UN work on grave violations of human rights and the only solution would be for her to step down.

The US boycotted a 20 March session at the Human Rights Council (HRC) that focused on Palestine and other Arab-occupied territories. Referring to the agenda item regarding Israel and the Palestinian territories, Haley said, The United States will not participate in discussions under Agenda Item 7 at the Human Rights Council in Geneva, other than to vote against the outrageous, one-sided, anti-Israel resolutions.

On 23 March, Gazas Administrative Court overturned a decision by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to establish a Palestinian Supreme Constitutional Court, saying the decision is based on the fact that President Abbas four-year [presidential] term expired in 2009 and that Abbas lacks the legal authority to issue such a decision. Abbas abruptly announced his decision to establish a Palestinian constitutional court in April 2016, and Hamas at that time opposed the decision, saying the court would be dominated by members of Abbas Fatah movement.

Human Rights-Related Developments

During its 34th session, the HRC held an interactive dialogue on 20 March with the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967, Michael Lynk, to discuss his latest report (A/HRC/34/70). The report concluded that Israels occupation has been profoundly corrosive to human rights and that the Israeli governments treatment of human rights defenders is contrary to the basic guarantees of international human rights law. The HRC also considered the Secretary-Generals reports on the human rights situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT), including East Jerusalem (A/HRC/34/38), and on Israeli settlements in the OPT, including East Jerusalem, and in the occupied Syrian Golan (A/HRC/34/39). The Secretary-Generals report, which covers the period from 1 November 2015 to 31 October 2016, concluded that chronic human rights violations by all parties have persisted, highlighting the devastating impact of the Israeli occupation on Palestinian rights, while also expressing concern at international law violations by the Palestinian Authority, the authorities in Gaza and Palestinian armed groups. The report on Israeli settlements, which covers the same period, concluded that Israeli settlement activity is incompatible with Israels obligations under international law and is a key driver of humanitarian need and a range of human rights violations. On 24 March, the HRC adopted four resolutions on human rights in the OPT: on the human rights situation in the OPT, including East Jerusalem; on the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination; on ensuring accountability and justice for violations of international law in the OPT, including East Jerusalem; and on Israeli settlements in the OPT, including East Jerusalem, and in the occupied Syrian Golan. All four resolutions were adopted with two membersthe US and Togovoting against and some abstentions.

Key Issues

The overarching issue is determining how the Council can encourage the resumption of direct negotiations between the parties to achieve a two-state solution, including promoting compliance with resolution 2334 to salvage prospects for a two-state solution.

Options

Given the difficult Council dynamics on this issue and the objection of the new US administration to much of the Councils engagement on Israel/Palestine, the most likely option will be to merely receive the briefing and hold the open debate with no outcome.

Council and Wider Dynamics

While the new US administrations approach to resolving the conflict is as yet unclear, it has made it known that it plans to staunchly defend Israel at the UN, and that it fiercely opposes resolution 2334 and what it deems to be a pervasive anti-Israel bias by the UN. Therefore, it is likely to prevent any Council action regarding the resolutions implementation as well as other efforts to produce outcomes in the Security Council and elsewhere in the UN system.

Several other Council members are attempting to bring the parties back to the negotiating table. France held the second meeting of its international conference on the conflict on 15 January, which brought together more than 70 foreign ministers and culminated in the adoption of a statement proclaiming support for a two-state solution. Also, Russia last year announced its intention to host direct talks between the parties. Among elected members, Egypt has voiced its willingness to act as a broker between the parties and is likely to play a leading role in any implementation of the Arab Peace Initiative. Incoming member Sweden appointed an envoy in February to address the conflict.

Israel remains staunchly opposed to international initiatives on the issue, including involvement by the Council, preferring direct negotiations with the Palestinians, while the PA favours international participation.

UN DOCUMENTS ON ISRAEL/PALESTINE

This was a resolution that condemned Israeli settlements and was adopted with 14 votes in favour and a US abstention. This was Mladenovs briefing on the implementation of resolution 2334.
AFRICA

Libya

Expected Council Action

In April, the Council is expected to receive a briefing from the Special Representative of the Secretary-General and head of the UN Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL), Martin Kobler. The Council also expects a briefing by the chair of the 1970 Libya Sanctions Committee, Ambassador Olof Skoog (Sweden).

The mandates of the Panel of Experts of the 1970 Libya Sanctions Committee and UNSMIL expire on 31 July and 15 September, respectively.

Key Recent Developments

Efforts to reach an inclusive and sustainable political settlement in Libya continue to falter. Kobler told the Council in a briefing on 8 February that, as a response to the political deadlock, visions from the east, south and west of Libya have started to converge on possible amendments to the Libyan Political Agreement (LPA). In January, a letter to the Security Council from the President of the House of Representatives, Agila Saleh, advocated that the Presidency Council be reduced from nine members to three, and that its decision-making processes be restructured. Agila Saleh also called for the composition of the State Council to be reconsidered and for article 8 of the LPA, regarding the authority of the supreme commander of the armed forces, to be amended. In late January, members of the Libyan Political Dialogue held a consultative meeting to discuss this proposal. Even though the delegation of the House of Representatives was recalled to Tobruk and did not participate, those present issued a communique after the meeting, identifying key challenges to the implementation of the LPA and agreeing in principle on some of the House proposals. So far, divisions among members of the House have led to the failure to appoint a new delegation, and a 7 March vote rejected the LPA. The Libyan Political Dialogue has not met since January.

Several initiatives involving regional actors, such as Algeria, Egypt and Tunisia, have taken place over the last two months to try to address the political stalemate. On 14 February, Egypt attempted to convene a meeting between the head of the Presidency Council, Faiez Serraj, and General Khalifa Haftar. At the last minute, however, Haftar refused to participate in direct talks, and both leaders spoke separately with General Mahmoud Hegazy, the chief of staff of the Egyptian army. In March, the EU joined the UN, the League of Arab States, and the African Union (AU) to form a Quartet to mobilise support for a political settlement in Libya.

Despite diplomatic efforts, violence has escalated. In March, the Benghazi Defense Brigades temporarily took over two key ports in Libyas Oil Crescent (Ras Lanuf and Es-Sidr) that were, and remain, under the control of Haftars Libyan National Army (LNA). In Benghazi, the LNAs renewed offensive to take over the eastern district of Ganfouda has resulted in war crimes, according to human rights organisations. In the south, the LNA has repeatedly clashed with Misrata-based militias.

The Presidency Council continues to have limited capacity to deliver on the ground and relies heavily on the loyalty of militias, some of which are from the western city of Misrata. In Tripoli, these militias clashed with rival ones supporting Khalifa Gwell, the self-appointed prime minister of a so-called national salvation government announced in 2015, until a ceasefire was agreed on 15 March. However, tensions among Misrata-based militias resulted in the toppling of the Misrata municipal council on 20 March. On 23 March, the Appeals Court of Tripoli temporarily suspended a Memorandum of Understanding between the Presidency Council and Italy on migration, questioning the legitimacy of the Presidency Council to sign such agreement.

The situation of migrants and refugees in Libya, which was characterised in December 2016 as a human rights crisis by UNSMIL and the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, continues to be critical. A 28 February report by the UN International Childrens Emergency Fund (UNICEF) detailed how migrant and refugee women and children who are trying to reach Europe through Libya are being beaten, raped and starved in detention centres run by militias that are described as living hellholes.

Human Rights-Related Developments

On 21 March, the Human Rights Council (HRC) held an interactive dialogue at its 34th session to discuss the report of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, prepared in cooperation with UNSMIL, on the situation of human rights in Libya (A/HRC/34/42). The report concluded that armed groups, some of whom act on behalf of the state, are primarily responsible for grave violations and abuses of human rights. These included unlawful killings, sexual abuse, and abduction of children; torture, abduction for ransom, extortion, forced labour, and killing of migrants; and the abduction and murder of media professionals, activists, and human rights defenders. The report said that it was critical that the Government of National Accord move to establish a professional army, police and other security forces; prioritise disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration programmes; and implement the justice and rule of law provisions of the LPA. While acknowledging it as the most prominent effort to bring accountability for past crimes, the report argued that the trial of Saif al-Islam Gaddafi and 36 other members of Muammar Gaddafis regime raised serious concerns, including regarding the right to be informed promptly and in detail of the charges, the right to a public trial, the right to call and examine witnesses, and the right not to be compelled to confess guilt or incriminate oneself. In a statement on 21 February, the High Commissioner had described the trial as a missed opportunity for justice.

On 24 March, the HRC adopted resolution 34/18 requesting the High Commissioner to provide an oral update, along with the Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Libya (a previous such joint briefing took place in September 2016), at its September session, and to present a written report during at its 37th session in 2018.

Key Issues

The overarching issue is to ensure that the parties agree on a consensual solution to end the political deadlock that addresses the issues raised by those refusing to support the LPA.

Related issues are maintaining the relevance of UN mediation efforts, and pressing external actors to exercise leverage to encourage engagement in the political process and to ensure the coherence of their mediation efforts with a Libya-led process under the aegis of the UN.

Options

Options for the Council include holding an unscripted and frank discussion to re-assess and seek agreement on a political strategy for Libya.

As soon as the strategic assessment review of the UN presence in Libya is completed, the Council could adopt a resolution prioritising a limited set of tasks that UNSMIL can realistically achieve to align the missions mandate with the political, security and operational realities on the ground.

Council members could also organise a visit to Libya and the region to hold discussions with the parties, including spoilers, and regional stakeholders to help overcome the political deadlock.

Council Dynamics

Council members generally support UNSMILs mediation efforts but have arguably failed to set a clear direction to reach and support a political settlement. Some Council members have engaged with parallel institutions, including providing various degrees of support to Haftars forces. In response to the current deadlock, there seems to be a consensus among Council members about the need to amend the LPA. In his 1 December 2016 report, the Secretary-General suggested a review of the international communitys approach to the Libyan democratic transition process, should efforts to adopt a new constitution and establish democratically elected institutions within a reasonable timeframe fail. Although it renewed UNSMILs mandate in December, the Councilwhich includes key actors regarding Libya, such as Egypt and Italy, as well as the permanent membershas yet to have such a strategic discussion.

Following the US decision to block the appointment of Salam Fayyad, former prime minister of the Palestinian Authority, as head of UNSMIL on 11 February, the Secretary-General has yet to appoint another candidate.

The UK is the penholder on Libya and Skoog chairs the 1970 Libya Sanctions Committee.

UN DOCUMENTS ON LIBYA

This was a resolution extending UNSMILs mandate until 15 September 2017. This was on the proposed amendments to the LPA. This was a meeting on the situation in Libya.
AFRICA

Mali

Expected Council Action

In April, the Council expects to receive a briefing on Mali from the Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations, Jean-Pierre Lacroix.

The mandate of the UN Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA) expires on 30 June 2017.

Key Recent Developments

Despite some recent signs of progress, the implementation of the 2015 Agreement for Peace and Reconciliation in Mali continues to be marked by obstacles and delays. Briefing the Council on 18 January, then Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations, Herve Ladsous, conveyed to the Council a sense of urgency about the worrying state of the peace process in Mali. Tensions among the coalitions of armed groups (the Coordination and the Platform) and within them (particularly the fragmentation of the Coordination) have significantly impeded progress. In December 2016, the Coordination suspended its participation in the Comite de Suivi de lAccord (CSA)the main follow-up mechanism to the agreement, chaired by Algeriaand some of its members did not attend a meeting of the CSA on 30 January. The Coordination officially resumed its participation following a 10 February high-level meeting of the parties. However, key issues, such as the participation and status of splinter groups in the implementation of the agreement, remain unresolved.

As the end of the two-year interim period stipulated by the agreement approaches in June, key measures for this period remain unimplemented. In early March, the interim authorities responsible for regional administration were installed in three of the five northern regions. However, some armed groups have opposed the installation of the authorities and the appointment of interim presidencies in Taoudeni and Timbuktu. Efforts to deploy joint patrols persisted despite the 18 January terrorist attack that killed more than 50 participants in the Operational Coordination Mechanism in Gao; the first such patrol was deployed in Gao on 23 February.

Among the outstanding issues are the cantonment as well as the disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration of armed combatants. A national reconciliation conference, which was provided for in the agreement but has been repeatedly postponed, started on 27 March. On 19 March, however, the two coalitions of armed groups criticised the government for choosing the dates of the conference unilaterally and for insufficient cooperation regarding the preparations, including the conferences terms of reference. Even though the Coordination did not attend the inaugural session, it joined the conference the next day.

Resolution 2295 of 29 June 2016 expressed the Councils readiness to consider targeted sanctions against those undermining the implementation of the agreement, those violating the ceasefire and those who attack MINUSMA and other international presences. In his 30 December 2016 report, the Secretary-General called on the Council to consider imposing targeted sanctions on those who obstruct the implementation of the agreement. Although the issue was brought up in consultations on 18 January, some Council members questioned the appropriateness and timeliness of establishing a sanctions regime, which at the time was also opposed by the Malian government.

Security threats continue to undermine the political process and impose operational constraints on MINUSMA. Since the mission was established in 2013, at least 72 peacekeepers have been killed as a result of hostile acts. Terrorist groups have carried out attacks against MINUSMA and French and Malian forces, including in the centre and south of Mali. Given that the mission uses a substantial part of its resources to protect itself and that most of the additional personnel and capabilities for the mission authorised by resolution 2295 have not been deployed, the Secretary-General urged the Council to actively engage with member states to ensure that the mission has the equipment, personnel and resources that it needs. In early January, Germany announced the deployment of 350 additional troops to MINUSMA, as well as combat and transport helicopters. At the initiative of the Councils president for the month, Sweden, an extraordinary meeting with current and prospective troop- and police-contributing countries was held on 27 January. However, the operational capabilities of MINUSMA remain unchanged. Beyond the north, inter-ethnic violence persisted in central Mali. On 22 March, at least 10 people were killed as a result of clashes between Fulani and Bambara communities in Segou.

In February, the Group of Five Sahel (G5)Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania and Nigerannounced in Bamako the creation of a regional force to combat terrorism and transnational crime. Given that G5 countries make up for more than 30 percent of MINUSMAs military and police personnel, it is unclear whether the deployment of a new operation would imply the reassignment of some MINUSMA contingents and a negative impact on an already under-resourced mission.

Human Rights-Related Developments

On 21 March, the Human Rights Council (HRC) held an interactive dialogue with the Independent Expert on the situation of human rights in Mali, Suliman Baldowho visited the country from 26 February to 8 Marchto discuss his latest report (A/HRC/34/72). The report, which covers the period from 1 April to 30 November 2016, concluded that the fragile security situation in central and northern Mali has led to the deterioration of the human rights situation in the country, and that the absence of Malian security forces outside Bamako and the main towns remains a concern. The report stressed the need to end impunity for both past and current human rights violations in order to ensure a lasting peace. On 24 March the HRC extended the Independent Experts mandate for one year.

Key Issues

Three months before the end of the interim period and the renewal of MINUSMAs mandate, identifying key priorities for the mission is an important issue for the Council. The gap between MINUSMAs current mandate and its implementation, given the insufficient capacities and resources of MINUSMA, is a related issue.

An overarching issue is the slow implementation of the agreement and the potential for a relapse into conflict. Bridging divisions within the armed groups and between the parties, including by bringing on board new splinter groups and realistically adapting the timeline, are related issues.

The deterioration of the security situation in northern and central Mali and the spate of inter-ethnic violence are urgent issues for the Council. Addressing the grievances and frustrations of different communities that are not benefiting from the peace agreement in their daily lives, including youth at risk of being recruited by violent groups, is a related issue.

The frequent terrorist attacks and their reach, the deliberate targeting of MINUSMA and the safety concerns of troop- and police-contributing countries are further issues for the Council.

Options

The Council could:

discuss the challenges of implementing the agreement in an informal interactive dialogue with the participation of the foreign minister of Algeria, Ramtane Lamamra, given his countrys chairmanship of the CSA, and Mahamat Saleh Annadif, the Special Representative of the Secretary-General and head of MINUSMA, in order to enhance a common political strategy;

establish a sanctions regime targeting those violating the ceasefire and undermining the implementation of the agreement;

request that the Military Adviser for Peacekeeping Operations brief Council members on force generation efforts to supply key capacities and personnel that the mission is lacking; and

request the Monitoring Team of the 1267/1989/2253 ISIL (Daesh) & Al-Qaida Sanctions Committee to report on ways to curb the terrorist threat in Mali, including from non-listed terrorist groups.

Council and Wider Dynamics

Overall, Council members have expressed concerns about the slow pace of implementing the agreement. Despite threatening to impose sanctions in resolution 2295, Council members have so far failed to reach a common position on following up on that threat. France, as the penholder, continues in its efforts to obtain support for sanctions from the government of Mali and other Council members.

Announcing the establishment of a new regional force, G5 member states implied that Council authorisation would be requested. Although a request has officially not been made, Council members are likely to have differences over the political, operational and financial implications of such a deployment.

The participation of Ambassador Sabri Boukadoum (Algeria) in the 18 January meeting was the first time that an Algerian official briefed the Council, formally or informally, on efforts to implement the agreement. However, the public format of the meeting did not allow for a more interactive and frank discussion of the issues faced by Mali.

France is the penholder on Mali.

UN DOCUMENTS ON MALI

This resolution renewed MINUSMAs mandate for a year. This was a presidential statement that strongly condemned repeated ceasefire violations in Mali over the last few months and urged the parties to expeditiously carry out all their commitments under the 2015 Agreement on Peace and Reconciliation. This was the Secretary-Generals report on MINUSMA. Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations Herve Ladsous briefed the Council on the situation in Mali. This was a statement condemning the attack against a MINUSMA camp in Aguelhoc that caused the death of a Chadian peacekeeper. This statement condemned the attackclaimed by the terrorist group Al-Mourabitounagainst the camp of the Operational Coordination Mechanism in Gao which caused the deaths of dozens of persons.
Overview

The US will have the presidency in April and has planned a briefing on UN peacekeeping where the Secretary-General is expected to be the main speaker. Members are likely to focus on whether current peacekeeping operations are able to meet the needs on the ground and the Councils political objectives, or if changes are needed. It seems that the US is also interested in holding a debate on human rights and maintenance of international peace and security, which at press time, had yet to be agreed on. This would be the first ever Security Council thematic debate on human rights.

The mandates of the UN missions in Haiti (MINUSTAH) and in Western Sahara (MINURSO) will be renewed in April. Ahead of the renewal of MINUSTAH, the Council is expected to convene a meeting with troop-contributing countries (TCCs) and hold a debate. There will also be a TCC meeting and consultations ahead of the renewal of MINURSO at the end of the month.

There are a number of Sudan/South Sudan issues on the programme of work. The Council will discuss developments in relation to UNAMID in Darfur, UNMISS in South Sudan, and UNISFA in Abyei, and will receive the quarterly briefing from the chair of the 1591 Sudan Sanctions Committee.

Other African issues the Council will consider in April include:

Great Lakes Region , a briefing on the implementation of the DRCs Peace, Security and Cooperation Framework Agreement;

, a briefing on the implementation of the DRCs Peace, Security and Cooperation Framework Agreement; Mali , the activities of MINUSMA; and

, the activities of MINUSMA; and Somalia/Eritrea, discussion of the 751/1907 Sanctions Committee on Somalia and Eritrea.

Regarding Middle East issues, members are expecting briefings on the humanitarian and political situations in Syria, as well as on chemical weapons.

There will also be the regular quarterly open debate on the Middle East, with a focus on Israel/Palestine.

An update on developments in Colombia is expected in early April.

Finally, Council members will be watching developments in Iraq, and meetings may be scheduled if the situation in Mosul deteriorates further.
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PEACEMAKING, PEACEKEEPING AND PEACEBUILDING

Reviewing Peacekeeping Operations

Expected Council Action

In April, at the initiative of the US, the Council is expected to hold a briefing on reviewing peacekeeping operations. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres will brief.

Background

A concept note circulated ahead of the meeting stresses the important role that political foundations play in the success of peacekeeping missions. One of the conclusions of the 2014-2015 review by the High-Level Independent Panel on Peace Operations (HIPPO) was the primacy of politics, which implied the need for the Council to bring its collective leverage to bear in support of political solutions. In a 25 November 2015 presidential statement, the Council underlined the significant impact its statements and actions can exert in situations of armed conflict or in support of peace processes. However, the Council has often failed to agree on a political strategy in support of peace operations for many reasons, including decision-making processes that do not prioritise the emergence of strategic or collective thinking, divergent political priorities, inadequate Secretariat analysis and planning, and host state hostility.

The concept note encourages Council members to review missions and identify areas where mandates no longer match political realities, asking whether it is advisable or possible to operate a mission without the strategic consent of the host government. Even though the Council resolved in 2016 to send a regional protection force to Juba in South Sudan, and a police component to Burundi, these decisions have not been implemented promptly, if at all, in part due to the resistance of host states. The fact that the resolutions adopting these decisions were non-consensual testifies to the divisions among Council members faced with host state resistance. However, host state hostility has also featured in situations where the Council has continued to unanimously extend mandates of long-standing missions in Darfur and in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

The achievability of Council mandates and the need to bridge the gap between expectations and resources have been a key element in the discussions related to peace operations reform since at least 2000. The HIPPO report observed how, in recent years, mandates have become lengthier and more specific, and at times less realistic, manageable or achievable. It maintained that too often, mandates and missions are produced on the basis of templates instead of tailored to support situation-specific political strategies. This is particularly relevant in missions facing conflict management situations for which the concepts, tools, mission structures and doctrine originally developed for peace implementation tasks may not be well suited. The Secretariat and the Council have been unable to escape the so-called Christmas tree mandates, where template language for many tasks routinely appears in mission mandates. This is influenced by the lack of restraint on the part of Council membersand those lobbying themin pressing specific issues, and internal Secretariat negotiations reflecting an arbitrage of interests rather than prioritisation. Although the 25 November 2015 presidential statement stated that the Council will consider sequenced and phased mandates, where appropriate, when evaluating existing UN peace operations or establishing new ones, so far this agreement in principle has had little impact on the Councils mandating patterns. Prioritised and sequenced mandates, geared towards the achievement of clear objectives, could also provide a framework for clearer exit strategies. The concept note asks what the Council should do in situations where missions serve a valuable protection role, but without any conceivable conclusion to this role, and quotes the HIPPO reports injunction that protection mandates must be realistic and linked to a wider political approach.

One of the issues raised in the concept note is the need for the Council to re-examine the value of a mission where there is no political process or the political process breaks down. In Council practice, most mandates are reviewed at the end of their cycles, irrespective of developments, unless these are especially dramatic, as in South Sudan in December 2013. Even though the conditions on the ground might change (for example, an increase in asymmetric attacks, a change in the nature of threats to civilians or the unravelling of the political process), Council members are often reluctant to reassess the appropriateness of mandates in light of bad news in the hope that tactical changes within the existing mandates can mitigate the new threats. The HIPPO report recommended that independent evaluations of peace operations should be commissioned at key decision points to provide objective assessments of progress in mandate implementation and overall context. The Secretariat has conducted several strategic reviews of peace operations, sometimes at the request of the Council, but these have had no independent element.

Some recent dynamics show increased attention to the political context of peace operations: Council members are now regularly inviting regional actors, including mediators, to engage with them, formally and informally; and despite political divisions, Council members are increasingly striving to deliver unified messages after private meetings or during visiting missions. At the meeting, Council members are expected to discuss the range of options at the Councils disposal to exert its political leverage.

The US decision to hold this discussion follows Ambassador Nikki Haleys statement, in her Senate confirmation hearing, regarding the need for a mission-by-mission review of peacekeeping as well as the intention of the US administration to reduce its peacekeeping funding. The case for a close re-examination of the assumptions underpinning Council mandates throughout the life spans of peace operations challenges the past management of mandates by the Council, dominated by the P3 as penholders, as well as by the Secretariat. Other Council members may resist an approach which appears budget-driven, while recognising that these are issues which have not been sufficiently addressed since the HIPPO report. Council negotiations regarding the reduction of the troop ceiling in the renewal of the UN Organization Stabilization Mission in the DRC (MONUSCO) have already seen divisions. The briefing constitutes an opportunity for the Secretary-General to lay out his approach to greater effectiveness of peace operations reform and for the Council to have a candid discussion about the way it establishes and oversees mandates.

UN DOCUMENTS ON PEACEKEEPING OPERATIONS

The Council took note of the recommendations of the HIPPO report and the Secretary-Generals implementation report. This was the report of the High-level Independent Panel on Peace Operations.

USEFUL ADDITIONAL RESOURCE

The Security Council and Peace Operations: Reform and Deliver, Security Council Report, May 2016
AFRICA

Somalia and Eritrea

Expected Council Action

In April, the Chair of the Somalia and Eritrea 751/1907 Sanctions Committee, Ambassador Kairat Umarov (Kazakhstan), will deliver his 120-day briefing to the Council. The Council also expects to receive the midterm update of the Somalia Eritrea Monitoring Group (SEMG). The mandate of the UN Assistance Mission in Somalia (UNSOM) expires on 16 June.

Key Recent Developments

The most recent Council action on Somalia and Eritrea sanctions took place last November. On 8 November 2016, the outgoing chair of the 751/1907 Somalia and Eritrea Sanctions Committee, Ambassador Rafael Dario Ramirez Carreno (Venezuela), briefed Council members on the final reports of the SEMG. On 10 November, the Council adopted resolution 2317, renewing until 15 November 2017 the partial lifting of the embargo set out in resolution 2142, the humanitarian exemption, and the authorisation for maritime interdiction. The resolution also extended the SEMGs mandate until 15 December 2017.

During negotiations on resolution 2317, China proposed language requesting the SEMG to present a report within 120 days to the Committee on recommendations for lifting sanctions imposed on Eritrea, including benchmarks and a timeframe. (The report of the SEMG had found for the third year in a row that Eritrea was not supporting the Al-Shabaab terrorist group.) However, the proposal was not accepted by the penholder, the UK, in a draft placed under silence on 8 November. Angola, China, Egypt, Russia and Venezuela all broke silence when this proposal was not incorporated into the draft. As a compromise, text was included in the draft in blue expressing the Councils intention to review measures on Eritrea in light of the upcoming midterm update by the SEMG due by 30 April 2017 and taking into account relevant Security Council resolutions. Some members believed that this compromise had the benefit of not prejudging the review of the sanctions on Eritrea, which in their view was the case with the Chinese proposal. However, Angola, China, Egypt, Russia and Venezuela all abstained, and the resolution was adopted with only ten affirmative votes.

Meanwhile, Somalia is in the grip of an intense drought. More than six million people are in need of humanitarian assistance, and half of those need urgent life-saving measures, according to UNSOM. Newly elected President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed Farmaajo declared the drought situation a national disaster on 28 February and has pledged to use all available platforms in the coming weeks and months to highlight it, including a forthcoming high-level partnership meeting on Somalia scheduled to be held in London on 11 May. In attempting to facilitate the delivery of much-needed humanitarian aid, the government has reportedly provided tax exemptions on imports of critical humanitarian supplies that still carry any form of taxes; temporarily lifted taxes and levies on NGOs to enable them to scale up the delivery of humanitarian assistance; strengthened security at critical areas of humanitarian delivery, including the removal of illegal roadblocks; and imposed firm measures to prevent and penalise diversion of humanitarian assistance. The UN Humanitarian Coordinator has appealed for $825 million to prevent the crisis from deteriorating into a famine. More than $400 million has been pledged by donors to support an escalation of the drought response, and the Humanitarian Coordinator urged donors to expedite disbursement of these funds to allow partners to scale up their work. On 7 March, Secretary-General Antonio Guterres visited Somalia to highlight the crisis and appeal for assistance.

Al-Shabaab militants have reportedly been distributing food to drought-stricken Somalis. During the last famine, in 2011, Al-Shabaab blocked aid deliveries, burned food, and killed humanitarian workers. More than 260,000 people died in that famine. Meanwhile, the group continues to launch asymmetrical attacks, such as the 22 March deadly car bomb attack targeting a security checkpoint near the presidential palace in Mogadishu that killed at least five people and wounded several others.

The Council was last briefed on the situation in Somalia on 23 March, when Special Representative Michael Keating, African Union (AU) Special Representative to Somalia Francisco Madeira, and President Farmaajo addressed the Council, the latter two by video teleconference. Also on 23 March, the Council adopted resolution 2346, which extended the mandate of UNSOM until 16 June. The Council is awaiting recommendations from the Secretary-General on the UNs role in Somalia in the post-election period, and for that reason opted for a rollover of UNSOMs mandate until those recommendations can be duly considered. The report is expected in mid-May.

Key Issues

On sanctions, a key issue in April will be assessing the Federal Government of Somalias management of arms and ammunition and implementation of maritime interdiction measures regarding arms and charcoal.

Considering the findings of the midterm report of the SEMG and determining whether to consider altering or ending the Eritrea sanctions regime, as advocated by some Council members, will be a major issue.

Regarding Somalia more generally, the pressing issue is the drought and looming famine and ensuring an appropriate humanitarian response.

Ensuring that progress is made towards the constitutional review process and completion of the federal state formation, with support from UNSOM, continues to be a concern.

Regarding security concerns, a main priority is strengthening the Somali national security forces and enhancing their ability to work with the AU Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) in the fight against Al-Shabaab, particularly in light of AMISOMs plan to begin transitioning out of Somalia in October 2018.

Options

The most likely option in April will be merely to receive the briefing by the chair, and waiting until after the receipt of the midterm report at the end of the month before determining whether to take any further action concerning the Eritrea sanctions regime.

Council Dynamics

Regarding sanctions, the Council is divided between those members who believe it should reconsider sanctions measures against Eritrea, such as China, Russia and Egypt, and those who remain concerned about Eritreas other activities in the region and seem to view cooperation with the SEMG as a precondition for any changes in the sanctions regime. Ethiopia is likely to oppose the easing or lifting of sanctions on Eritrea advocated by some members.

On Somalia more generally, Council members are united in supporting state-building processes and in their support for AMISOM, as demonstrated by unified messages conveyed during the Councils visit to Somalia in May 2016 and the uncontentious adoption of several recent Council outcomes on Somalia.

The UK is the penholder on Somalia, and Kazakhstan is the chair of the 751/1907 Somalia and Eritrea Sanctions Committee for 2017.

UN DOCUMENTS ON SOMALIA AND ERITREA

This was a technical rollover of UNSOMs mandate until 16 June 2017. This was a resolution on Somalia and Eritrea sanctions with ten votes in favour. This was the Secretary-Generals report on Somalia. This was a briefing by Keating, Madeira and Farmaajo. This was the report on Eritrea of the Monitoring Group on Somalia and Eritrea. This was the report on Somalia of the Monitoring Group on Somalia and Eritrea.
AFRICA

South Sudan

Expected Council Action

In April, the Council will consider the Secretary-Generals 30-day assessment focusing on the deployment and future requirements of the Regional Protection Force (RPF), obstacles to setting up the force and impediments to the UN Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) in carrying out its mandate. A briefing is expected by Special Representative of the Secretary-General for South Sudan and head of UNMISS David Shearer.

The mandate of UNMISS expires on 15 December 2017.

Key Recent Developments

A security and humanitarian disaster continues to grip South Sudan, amidst a flagging political process. Fighting continues to be reported in various parts of the country between government and anti-government forces. Food insecuritybrought on by conflict, high prices and poor harvestsaffects some 4.9 million people in the country. Starvation faces 100,000 people in Leer and Mayendit counties in Unity State, while an additional 1 million South Sudanese are on the verge of famine. In addition to the 1.9 million internally displaced persons in South Sudan, approximately 1.6 million refugees have fled to neighbouring states, including nearly 200,000 since the beginning of 2017.

On 6 March, Thomas Cirillo Swaka, the former Deputy Chief of the General Staff for Logistics of the Sudan Peoples Liberation Army (SPLA, the South Sudanese army), announced that he was forming a rebel group called the National Salvation Front (NSF) to oust President Salva Kiir from power. Swaka, an Equatorian from the Bare ethnic group, resigned from the SPLA on 11 February, accusing it of being a partisan and tribal army that had committed rape and murder and served the interests of Kiirs Dinka ethnic group. The NSF is one of several new anti-government militias that have formed since the July 2016 fighting in Juba between forces loyal to Kiir and opposition leader Riek Machar, who fled the country as a result of the violence.

The operating environment for UNMISS and humanitarian organisations remains very difficult. The freedom of movement of UNMISS personnel continues to be significantly hindered, and in February more than 200 peacekeepers attempting to enter the country faced delays in receiving government clearances. The South Sudanese government announced in early March that it would charge up to $10,000 for work permits for foreign aid workers; fees had been $100 per person. This has raised concerns that the exorbitant fees will decrease the ability of humanitarian workers to serve in South Sudan.

In a 21 March press conference in Juba, outgoing Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations Herve Ladsous said that during his visit to South Sudan he had spoken about the impediments to the operations of UNMISS and of humanitarian actors with President Kiir, who told him that this is not going to happen further. Despite similar assurances in the past, violations of the Status of Forces Agreement have been a consistent problem. Ladsous further affirmed that he believed the first units of the RPF would be deployed in the next few weeks.

On 10 March, the Japanese government announced that it would withdraw the 350 members of its Self-Defence Forces, who conduct engineering tasks as a part of UNMISS, by the end of May. Japan has contributed peacekeepers to UNMISS since 2012.

During the 21 February meeting of the Transitional National Legislative Assembly, Kiir announced that the national dialogue that he proposed in late 2016 was a government priority in 2017. He has appointed a steering committee for the dialogue that includes 26 peopleincluding parliamentarians, religious leaders and retired military officialswhich is expected to create an agenda and timetable for the process.

While visiting Yei in South Sudans Central Equatoria State, African Union (AU) High Representative for South Sudan Alpha Oumar Konare spoke on 7 March about the envisioned national dialogue process announced by President Kiir. He said the dialogue should be led by independent personalities accepted by the people and that all parties to the conflict, including Machar, should be included. Concerns have been expressed about whether an enabling environment exists in South Sudan for a national dialogue, given restrictions on freedom of speech.

Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Stephen OBrien briefed the Council on 10 March on the humanitarian situations in Yemen, South Sudan, Somalia, Kenya, Nigeria and the Lake Chad region. Referring to his 4-5 March visit to South Sudan, OBrien said the situation is worse than it has ever been. He added that active hostilities, access denials and bureaucratic impediments continue to curtailefforts to reach people whoneed help, while aid workers have been killed and humanitarian compounds and supplies have been attacked, looted and occupied by armed actors.

On 23 March, Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, Joint Monitoring and Evaluation Commission Chairman Festus Mogae and Betty Sunday, the Coordinator of the Womens Monthly Forum on Peace and Political Processes in South Sudan, briefed the Council in a meeting chaired by UK Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs Boris Johnson. A presidential statement was adopted during the meeting in which the Council called on the parties to adhere to a permanent ceasefire and underscored the need for a political solution to the crisis in South Sudan.

Sanctions-Related Developments

The South Sudan Sanctions Committee was briefed on 21 March by the Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Sexual Violence in Conflict, Zainab Bangura, and the Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict, Leila Zerrougui. Bangura described the widespread sexual violence in South Sudan, indicating that soldiers in the armed forces were a major source of this problem. Zerrougui said that child soldiers continued to be recruited by government and opposition forces. On 29 March, the Sanctions Committee met to discuss the final report of its Panel of Experts. In the report, yet to be publicly released at press time, the panel reportedly advocated an arms embargo on South Sudan.

Human Rights-Related Developments

At its 34th session, the Human Rights Council (HRC) held an interactive dialogue with the Commission on Human Rights in South Sudan on 14 March to discuss the Commissions latest report (A/HRC/34/63), which covers the period from July 2016 to February 2017. The report recommended the immediate establishment of an international, independent investigation, under the auspices of the United Nations, into the most serious crimes committed in South Sudan since December 2013. The report also concluded that there had been a massive increase in gross human rights violations and abuses since the outbreak of violence in July 2016 and that a process of ethnic cleansing was underway in South Sudan. Tackling impunity was emphasised as being key to the viability of South Sudan as a nation state, with the report noting that human rights violations have mainly been committed by government and government-aligned forces. In her statement to the HRC, the chair of the Commission, Yasmine Sooka, also briefed members on a number of worrying developments since the report was written, including the serious escalation of fighting in parts of Greater Upper Nile and the Greater Equatoria region, government obstruction of humanitarian assistance and UNMISS access, and the increase in the cost of work permits for foreigners following the declaration of the famine. On 24 March, the HRC extended the mandate of the Commission for one year.

Key Issues

The key issue is how the political process in South Sudan can be revitalised and what role the Council can play in supporting this process. The splintering of the opposition would appear to complicate mediation efforts. The Council has emphasised the need for a credible and inclusive national dialogue; however, it needs to determine how it can exert leverage on the government to ensure that this happens.

A further important issue is how to allay the devastating impact on civilians of the ongoing fighting and the acute humanitarian crisis.

Another issue for the Council is how effectively the RPF will be able to fulfil its mandate to facilitate safe and free movement into, out of and around Juba; to protect the airport and other key facilities in Juba; and to provide security for civilians, humanitarian actors, and UNMISS staff. This is a relevant concern given the restrictions the government has consistently imposed on the freedom of movement of UNMISS and given that the government has expressed concerns with the RPFs activities at the airport, previously indicating that the force should only be permitted to protect the UNMISS terminal and installations.

Options

One option would be for Council members to meet with the UN Special Envoy for Sudan and South Sudan, Nicholas Haysom, and AU High Representative for South Sudan Konare, to hear their views on how the UN and the AU are collaborating with one another and with the Intergovernmental Authority on Development in pursuit of a political solution to the conflict, and to ask for their input on how the Council could most effectively support their efforts. Neither has yet briefed the Council on South Sudan.

Another option would be for the Council to impose an arms embargo on South Sudan, given the continued fighting in the country. In late 2016, a draft resolution pursuing targeted sanctions and an arms embargo did not receive the requisite support from the Council to be adopted; however, an effort to pursue an arms embargo separately from targeted sanctions has not been attempted.

A further option would be to authorise the establishment of an independent investigatory mechanism to collect and preserve evidence of violations of international humanitarian and human rights law that could be used by the Hybrid Court for South Sudan envisioned in the August 2015 peace agreement. This proposal was endorsed by the HRC-mandated Commission on Human Rights in South Sudan in its March report to the HRC.

Council Dynamics

All Council members are concerned about the security and humanitarian crisis in South Sudan, which has been marked by ongoing conflict in various parts of the country, famine in some areas, and large-scale displacement. Members are further disturbed by restrictions on the freedom of movement of UNMISS staff and government impediments to the work of humanitarian personnel.

However, while there is general agreement on the gravity of the situation and the need for a political solution to the crisis, there does not seem to be a unified strategy for how to exert leverage on the parties. Tools such as targeted sanctions and an arms embargo have long been controversial in the Council. The failed draft resolution in December 2016 that sought to pursue these measures received only seven affirmative votes along with eight abstentions. (A resolution requires nine votes to be adopted, assuming a veto is not cast by one or more of the permanent members of the Council on a matter that is not procedural.) It is unclear whether a similar resolution regarding an arms embargo and targeted sanctions, or a resolution to impose an arms embargo alone, would now garner enough support to be adopted. In the 23 March briefing, France, Ukraine, the UK and the US mentioned an arms embargo and targeted sanctions as tools available to the Council, while Egypt and Russia reaffirmed their opposition to sanctions against South Sudan.

The US is the penholder on South Sudan, while Senegal chairs the South Sudan Sanctions Committee.

UN DOCUMENTS

This extended the mandate of UNMISS for one year and reauthorised the Regional Protection Force. This resolution authorised the Regional Protection Force. This statement emphasised the need for a political solution to the conflict in South Sudan. This was a high-level briefing on South Sudan. This was a briefing on humanitarian situation in South Sudan, Somalia, Yemen and Lake Chad Basin. This was Secretary-Generals report on UNMISS. This was the draft resolution on an arms embargo and targeted sanctions that failed to receive the necessary support to be adopted. It received seven affirmative votes (France, New Zealand, Spain, Ukraine, Uruguay, the UK and the US) and eight abstentions (Angola, China, Egypt, Japan, Malaysia, Russia, Senegal, and Venezuela).
Status Update

Visiting Mission

Council members undertook a visiting mission to the countries of the Lake Chad Basin region from 2 to 7 March travelling to Cameroon, Chad, Niger and Nigeria, where the terrorist group Boko Haram continues its insurgency. Members sought to assess the threat posed by Boko Haram and signal their support to the four countries in confronting the group, as well as to understand better the scale of the humanitarian crisis created by the conflict, and the underlying root causes. In addition to meeting with government leaders and the UN country and humanitarian teams in the four countries, Council members traveled to Maroua, in Cameroons Far North region and to Maiduguri in Borno State to meet displaced persons and refugees, local authorities and military commanders. On 9 March, the three co-leads, France, Senegal and the UK briefed the Council on the visiting mission. Discussions then proceeded among some members, initially on a follow-up presidential statement, that was eventually made into a draft resolution, which at the end of March, the full Council membership had just started negotiations on.

DPRK (North Korea)

In a 7 March press statement, Council members condemned the ballistic missile launches conducted by the DPRK on 5 March. In a 23 March press statement, they condemned the DPRKs ballistic missile launch of 21 March and the ballistic missile engine test of 19 March. Both statements noted that such activities contribute to increasing tension in the region and beyond as well as the risk of a regional arms race, and emphasised the importance of the DPRK showing sincere commitment to denuclearisation. The statements also called on member states to redouble their efforts to implement the sanctions measures imposed by the Council. On 23 March, in resolution 2345, the Council renewed for another 13 months the mandate of the Panel of Experts assisting the 1718 DPRK Sanctions Committee.

Burundi

On 9 March, the Council was briefed by Jamal Benomar, Special Adviser to the Secretary-General, on his latest report on the situation in Burundi.Benjamin William Mkapa, East African Community facilitator of the Inter-Burundian Dialogue, and Ambassador Jurg Lauber (Switzerland), Chair of the Burundi configuration of the Peacebuilding Commission, also briefed the Council. The briefing was followed by consultations. On 13 March, Council members issued a press statement expressing their concern about the humanitarian and human rights situation in the country and the slow progress in the Inter-Burundian dialogue.

Iraq

On 10 March, Council members met in consultations on the situation in and around Mosul, Iraq. The meeting had been requested by Russia in order to discuss the deteriorating humanitarian situation in Mosul and the alleged use of chemical weapons in eastern Mosul. Head of OCHA Stephen OBrien and High Representative for Disarmament Affairs Kim Won-soo briefed Council members on the humanitarian situation and alleged chemical weapons use, respectively. On 24 March, Russia requested the meeting under any other business on the situation in Mosul in light of the reports of the alleged use of chemical weapons by ISIL. During the meeting China and Russia circulated a draft resolution which sought to extend the mandate of OPCW-UN Joint Investigative Mechanism to Iraq.

Afghanistan

On 10 March, Tadamichi Yamamoto, Special Representative of the Secretary-General and head of UNAMA briefed the Council on the latest UNAMA report. Sima Samar, Chair of the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission, also briefed the Council. On 17 March, the Council adopted resolution 2344, renewing the mandate of UNAMA until 17 March 2018.

Yemen

On 10 March, following a request by Russia, the Council was briefed by OCHA head Stephen OBrien, who had travelled to Yemen from 26 February to 2 March. OBrien highlighted that Yemen was the worlds largest humanitarian crisis, with 18 million people in need of assistance, and was at risk of famine, while he also addressed the humanitarian crises of South Sudan, Somalia and the Lake Chad Basin Region. The following week, 17 March, following a Russian request, members discussed in consultations under any other business a planned attack against the port city of Hodeidah by the Coalition and Yemeni government. Political Affairs Under-Secretary-General Jeffrey Feltman provided a briefing. On 29 March, the Secretary-Generals Special Envoy for Yemen, Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed, and Ambassador Koro Besho (Japan), Chair of the Yemen 2140 Sanctions Committee, briefed Council members in consultations. Ahead of this meeting, on 23 March, the Informal Experts Group on Women Peace and Security met on Yemen. Participants included Swedish Foreign Minister Margot Wallstrom, Special Envoy Ahmed, the UNs Resident/Humanitarian Coordinator in Yemen, Jamie McGoldrick and the Executive Director of UN Women, Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka.

Modern Slavery, Forced Labour and Conflict

On 15 March, the UK held a ministerial-level debate on modern slavery, forced labour and conflict. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres; Yury Fedotov, Executive Director of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime; Ilwad Elman, a Somali human rights activist; and Kevin Hyland, Independent Anti-Slavery Commissioner of the UK briefed the Council (Fedotov and Elman by video teleconference, from Vienna and Mogadishu, respectively). In addition to Council members, more than 50 representatives of member states and international organisations participated in the debate. The Human Rights Councils Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, including its causes and consequences, Urmila Bhoola, also participated in the debate. The aim of the debate was to call attention to the extent of the phenomenon of conflict-related modern slavery and the links between trafficking in persons, organised crime and terrorism (21 million people are estimated to be victims of forced labour, generating $150 billion a year in illegal profits). In its concept note, the UK posed questions regarding ways in which the Council and the UN system can be more effective in addressing the scourge, how to ensure a proper law enforcement response, and how to ensure accountability of those who enslave, engage in trafficking in persons, or utilise forced labour in conflict.

Non-Proliferation (1540 Committee)

On 16 March, the chair of the 1540 Committee, Ambassador Sacha Sergio Llorentty Soliz (Bolivia), briefed the Council on the work of the Committee. He said the Committee intended to build on the momentum generated by resolution 2325 adopted on 15 December 2016, which endorsed the 2016 comprehensive review of the implementation of resolution 1540, and that its programme of work for 2017 (S/2017/126) would enable significant progress towards more effective implementation.

Central African Republic

On 16 March, Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations Herve Ladsous and the CAR President Faustin Archange Touadera briefed the Council on the situation in the CAR. The Panel of Experts assisting the 2127 CAR Sanctions Committee was to meet with the Committee to present its programme of work to the Committee on 31 March. Council members held an informal interactive dialogue on 13 March with the Special Representative of the Chairperson of the AU Commission and Head of the AU Mission for Central Africa and the Central African Region, Mohamed El Hacen Lebatt.

Lebanon

On 17 March Special Coordinator for Lebanon Sigrid Kaag and the Assistant Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations, El Ghassim Wane, briefed Council members in consultations on the Secretary-Generals 8 March report on the implementation of resolution 1701. On 9 March, the Council received the Secretary-Generals strategic review of the UN Interim Force in Lebanon, which was requested by resolution 2305 of August 2016.

Myanmar

On 17 March, Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs Jeffrey Feltman briefed Council members on the situation in Myanmar during informal consultations under any other business. Hui Lu, Deputy head, Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (New York) was also present and responded to questions during the session. The main focus of the briefing was the situation in Rakhine, including the humanitarian challenges. Feltman also covered recent political developments and the efforts of the UN and regional organisations. Members expressed concerns about human rights violations and the humanitarian situation and were interested in how the UN could support the peace process.

Democratic Republic of the Congo

On 21 March, the Special Representative and head of MONUSCO, Maman Sidikou, briefed the Council on the latest MONUSCO report . President of the National Episcopal Conference of the Congo Marcel Utembi and Marie-Madeleine Kalala of the NGO the Common Cause Network, also briefed the Council. At press time, the Council was set to adopt a resolution on 31 March, renewing the mandate of MONUSCO, including that of its Force Intervention Brigade, until 31 March 2018. On 29 March, Council members condemned the killing of two experts from the DRC Sanctions Committees Group of Experts who were on mission in the Kasai-Central region and expressed concern over the unknown status of the four Congolese nationals accompanying them.

Protection of Cultural Heritage in Armed Conflicts

On 24 March, the Council unanimously adopted resolution 2347 on the protection of cultural heritage in armed conflicts (S/PV.7907). Drafted by Italy and France, this was a first-ever resolution specifically on the issue of protection of cultural heritage in armed conflicts. The resolution, among other things, condemned destruction, looting and trafficking of cultural heritage in armed conflicts. Furthermore, the resolution calls on the member states to implement necessary measures to advance the protection of cultural heritage on their territory and, if requested, with the assistance of relevant UN agencies. At the meeting following the adoption the Council was briefed by Jeffrey Feltman, Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs; Irina Bokova, Director-General of the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization; Yury Fedotov, Executive Director of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (via video teleconference); and General Fabrizio Parrulli, head of the Italian Carabinieri Command for the Protection of Cultural Heritage.

UNDOF (Golan Heights)

On 28 March, Council members held consultations on UNDOF. Herve Ladsous, Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations, briefed on the latest developments. Council members called on all parties to adhere to the Disengagements Forces Agreement. Furthermore and welcomed UNDOFs return to the Bravo side as well as the UNs efforts to ensure security.

Georgia

On 28 March, following the consultations on UNDOF the Council members discussed under any other business the situation in Georgia. Ukraine initiated the meeting because of concerns regarding the parliamentary elections on 12 and 26 March in Abkhazia, plans for the referendum on 9 April in South Ossetia, and the ongoing militarisation in breakaway territories in Georgia. Furthermore, Ukraine wanted to use the meeting to express support for the territorial integrity of Georgia. Ukraine also proposed a press statement following the meeting but its adoption was blocked by Russia.

Hybrid Warfare

At press time, Ukraine planned to hold a 31 March Arria-formula meeting on hybrid warfare as a threat to international peace and security. The main objective was to generate the discussion within the UN and the Security Council on possible responses to hybrid warfare. The meeting was to be chaired by Ambassador Volodymyr Yelchenko (Ukraine), with: Patrick Cullen, Senior Research Fellow at the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs; Erik Reichborn, Research Fellow at the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs; Taras Berezovets, Head of the Fund for National Strategies (Ukraine); and Alexander Motyl, Professor of Political Science at Rutgers University, as briefers.
AFRICA

Sudan and South Sudan

Expected Council Action

In April, Council members are expected to hold consultations on the UN Interim Security Force for Abyei (UNISFA) and on Sudan/South Sudan issues. Incoming Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations Jean-Pierre Lacroix is expected to brief on the Secretary-Generals report on the implementation of UNISFAs mandate, as well as on a separate report focusing on a strategic review of the mission that is expected to include findings and recommendations for how UNISFA should be optimally configured and streamlined as appropriate, as per resolution 2318. Special Envoy for Sudan and South Sudan Nicholas Haysom is scheduled to brief on Sudan/South Sudan issues.

The mandate of UNISFA expires on 15 May 2017.

Key Recent Developments

Immersed in their own domestic problems, Sudan and South Sudan have made no progress in addressing the final status of Abyei, the disputed territory along the Sudan-South Sudan border. Sudan continues to maintain police around the Diffra oil facility in contravention of several Security Council resolutions, which have called for the demilitarisation of Abyei with the exception of UNISFA peacekeepers and the envisioned but yet-to-be-agreed Abyei Police Service. Temporary administrative units envisaged by the 20 June 2011 agreement between Sudan and South Sudan to provide stability in the region until its final status can be determinedincluding the Abyei Area Legislative Council and the Abyei Area Administrationhave also not been established. In addition to Abyei, no progress has been made on other outstanding differences related to border demarcation and the status of disputed areas.

In recent months, Sudan and South Sudan have reportedly been responsible for delays in approvals for aerial and ground patrols needed for the effective operation of the Joint Border Verification and Monitoring Mechanism (JBVMM) along their mutual border. The Council first authorised this mechanism in December 2011 through resolution 2024.

UNISFA held a public ceremony on 19 January at which it destroyed 13 small arms that its peacekeepers had confiscated. Since opening a facility in November 2015 to manage weapons and ammunition, UNISFA has destroyed more than 100 small arms and light weapons and more than 6,800 rounds of ammunition.

President Omar al-Bashir of Sudan, while addressing female parliamentarians on 13 February, stated that Abyei is part of Sudan, reiterating a claim he has made in the past. Ngok-Dinka Paramount Chief Bulabek Deng Kuol criticised al-Bashirs assertion.

More than 80 female representatives of the Misseriya and Ngok-Dinka communities convened in the Todacha village in the northern part of Abyeifor the Open Day for Women, Peace and Security on 14 February. Senior UNISFA personnel and Misseriya and Ngok-Dinka community leaders attended the meeting. The women from these communities discussed ways to promote peacebuilding in Abyei. The Ngok-Dinka group, which considers Abyei their ancestral homeland, and the Misseriya, who migrate through the area to graze their cattle, have in the past clashed with one another.

Secretary-General Antonio Guterres announced on 23 February the appointment of Major General Tesfay Gidey Hailemichael of Ethiopia as the new UNISFA force commander. Most recently, he has served as the head of the Ethiopian Armed Forces Defence Logistics Department.

In early March, the Sudan Peoples Liberation Movement-North (SPLM-N), a rebel group fighting the Sudanese government in South Kordofan and Blue Nile States, released 127 prisoners apprehended during fighting with government forces. Ahmed Khalifa al-Shami, a spokesman for the Sudanese army, called the releases a positive step toward achieving peace. The SPLM-N has been engaged in conflict with the government of Sudan in South Kordofan and Blue Nile since 2011.

Key Issues

The key issue is to ensure that the Abyei region stays peaceful and that UNISFAs efforts to promote cooperation and mitigate tensions between the Misseriya and Ngok-Dinka continue, given longstanding concerns that conflict between these two groups could be a flashpoint for wider conflict that draws in Sudan and South Sudan.

Another important issue is to improve the cooperation of Sudan and South Sudan with the operations of the JBVMM.

Options

The Council could request that its president for the month, the US, makes a demarche on behalf of the Council to the Sudanese and South Sudan missions, urging prompt approvals for aerial and ground patrols as a part of JBVMM.

Another option could be holding an open Arria-formula meeting in the near future on the humanitarian and security situation in South Kordofan and Blue Nile states to ensure that attention to the impact of the conflict in these areas does not wane.

Council Dynamics

Council members have for some time recognised that both Sudan and South Sudan are consumed by their own domestic crises, decreasing the time and energy focused on addressing their differences over Abyei and other border-related issues. The Councils focus on Abyei has been limited in recent years, largely overshadowed by its ongoing and intensive engagement on South Sudan and, to a lesser extent, on Darfur. Concerns expressed by some Council members in the years immediately following UNISFAs 2011 deployment that a mission meant to be an interim force was becoming a much longer deployment gain increasing relevance with each year, as no progress has been made by the parties in resolving the final status of the region or even in establishing temporary administrative bodies.

The US is the penholder on Abyei.

UN DOCUMENTS ON SUDAN/SOUTH SUDAN

This was a resolution renewing the missions mandate for six months. This resolution added a border-monitoring support role to UNISFAs mandate. This was the report of the Secretary-General on the situation in Abyei.
AFRICA

Sudan (Darfur)

Expected Council Action

In April, the Security Council will hold a briefing on the quarterly report of the Secretary-General on the AU/UN Hybrid Operation in Darfur (UNAMID). The Acting Joint Special Representative, Jeremiah Mamabolo, is expected to brief. The quarterly briefing of the chair of the 1591 Sudan Sanctions Committee, Ambassador Volodymyr Yelchenko (Ukraine), on the work of the Committee is also expected in April in consultations.

The mandate of UNAMID expires on 30 June.

Key Recent Developments

The Sudanese government scored major military successes in 2016 against the one major rebel movement still fighting in Darfur, the Sudan Liberation Movement/Army-Abdul Wahid (SLM/A-AW), in the Jebel Marra region. According to the government, no more than 300 SLM/A-AW fighters were still in Darfur as of early 2017. The most recent final report of the Sudan Sanctions Committees Panel of Experts indicated that the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) and the Sudan Liberation Army-Minni Minnawi (SLA-MM) rebel group are now mainly based in Libya and South Sudan, engaging in mercenary activities and, allegedly, in criminal activities (such as looting, kidnapping for ransom and trafficking). While fighting between government forces and rebels has not occurred in recent months in Darfur, attacks against internally displaced persons by militia and criminal groups remain a problem.

On 8 March, Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir issued a decree pardoning 193 imprisoned Darfuri rebels and removing death sentences that had been imposed on 66 other rebel prisoners. In a press statement, UNAMIDs Acting Special Representative Mamabolo welcomed the decision, saying that all parties to the conflict should capitalize on this gesture with a view to end hostilities and bring about a permanent and lasting peace for the people of Darfur. The decree did not extend to the Sudan Peoples Liberation Movement-North (SPLM-N), which has been engaged in conflict with the government since 2011 in the South Kordofan and Blue Nile states. Notwithstanding these latest developments, the government continues to be criticised by human rights organisations for detaining and intimidating political prisoners.

The political process continues to falter. In recent months, the governments of Chad, Uganda and Qatar have engaged with the Sudanese government and Darfuri rebel groups in an effort to support the mediation by the AU High-Level Implementation Panel (AUHIP). The current impasse concerns the role of the Doha Document for Peace in Darfur (DDPD) in the negotiations, with the government of Sudan insisting on using the DDPD as the basis for the talks and the rebels requesting further discussion of the DDPDs provisions. (The DDPD focuses on seven areas: human rights; power-sharing; wealth sharing; justice and reconciliation; compensation of refugees and internally displaced persons; ceasefire and security arrangements; and internal dialogue and consultation.)

The Council was last briefed on UNAMID on 12 January. During the meeting, Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations Herve Ladsous said that the joint working group on an exit strategy for UNAMIDconsisting of representatives of Sudan, the AU and the UNhad met in October and November 2016 in Khartoum, although they were unable to reach consensus on specific modalities for the reconfiguration of the mission. Following Ladsous briefing, Thabo Mbeki, the chair of the AUHIP, spoke with members about the political process in Darfur, which has been unsuccessful in ending a conflict now in its 14th year. He said that fulfillment of several of the provisions of the DDPDincluding those related to compensation and justice and reconciliation, among othershas not occurred. In press elements read out by Ambassador Olof Skoog (Sweden), the Council President in January, members underlined their support for Mbekis mediation efforts.

On 13-14 March, UNAMID, the UN Development Programme, Oxfam America and local officials held a conference in El Sereif, North Darfur, with members of the Beni Hussein, Northern Rezeigat and other communities to promote intercommunal reconciliation. According to UNAMID, participants called for the establishment of joint mechanisms between Beni Hussein, northern Rezeigat, Zaghawa and Bediat tribes to manage pastoralists movement and shared natural resources in Abo-Jidad Area, and the need to establish early warning systems to prevent intercommunal conflicts.

In March, a joint AU-UN team visited Darfur for one week, undertaking a strategic review of UNAMID that will be submitted to the Council in May.

Human Rights-Related Developments

On 22 February, the Independent Expert on the situation of human rights in the Sudan, Aristide Nononsi, released a statement following his third mission to the country from 10 to 22 February in which he called on the Sudanese government to protect the rights of civilians in Darfur. Nononsi highlighted the precarious conditions of displaced people at Sorotony Camp in northern Darfur, with residents speaking of living in a state of insecurity due to armed elements and criminality in and outside the camp. Sexual and gender-based violence was also a serious concern in the camp. Nononsi urged the government to conduct investigations and bring perpetrators to justice, as well as to abide by the Security Councils call for enhanced cooperation with UNAMID in efforts to protect civilians.

Key Issues

The key issue for the Council is to support efforts to break the ongoing impasse in the negotiations between the government and Darfuri rebel movements, leading to a durable cessation of hostilities and a final settlement.

Another issue is the need to promote intercommunal reconciliation, given the high levels of intercommunal fighting in Darfur in recent years.

Options

The Council could consider adopting a resolution or a presidential statement:

urging the SLM/A-AWthe one major rebel group that is not currently participating in the peace talksto join the political process;

reiterating support for the mediation efforts of the AUHIP led by Mbeki and urging a return to negotiations;

welcoming Bashirs pardoning of rebel figures while expressing concern about the regimes detention of civil society activists; and

condemning recent attacks against internally displaced persons.

Another option moving forward is for the Council to consider seeking an African member as co-penholder on Darfur to share the pen with the current penholder, the UK, in order to enhance African involvement on this issue in the Council.

Regarding the Sudan Sanctions Committee, the chair of the Committee might consider holding the briefing in an open session, rather than in closed consultations, to enhance the transparency of the Committees work.

Council Dynamics

There is sharp division in the Council regarding Darfur. On the one hand, some members, notably China and Russia, tend to emphasise the importance of upholding the sovereignty of Sudan, point to improvements in the security situation in Darfur and refer to efforts by the government to bring peace to the region. These states are critical of the International Criminal Courts (ICC) work on Darfur, particularly its efforts to pursue President al-Bashir, whom the Court has indicted for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide. Among the African members of the Council, while Senegal is a state party to the ICC, Egypt and Ethiopia are not, and Egypt has argued in the Council that ICC proceedings against President al-Bashir should be suspended.

On the other hand, other members of the Councilincluding the P3have consistently been highly critical of the government of Sudan for committing human rights violations, for restricting the operations of UNAMID and for fostering a culture of impunity in Darfur.

The UK is the penholder on Darfur, while Ukraine chairs the Sudan Sanctions Committee.

UN DOCUMENTS ON DARFUR

The Council renewed the mandate of the 1591 Sudan Sanctions Committee Panel of Experts until 12 March 2018. The was a resolution that renewed UNAMIDs mandate for one year. This was a report on UNAMID. This was a UNAMID briefing. This was the Sudan Sanctions Committee final report.
AFRICA

Western Sahara

Expected Council Action

In April, the Council is expected to adopt a resolution extending the mandate of the UN Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO). The Council will receive the report of the Secretary-General on the situation in Western Sahara and will be briefed on the situation ahead of MINURSOs renewal.

Key Recent Developments

There were some significant developments concerning the situation in Al-Guergarat, in the southern part of Western Sahara within the buffer strip, where Morocco had since August 2016 been attempting to build a road connecting its position at the berm with the Mauritanian border. In reaction to Moroccos presence in the strip, Polisario Front forces also entered, rendering both parties in violation of the September 1991 ceasefire agreement.

On 25 February, Secretary-General Antonio Guterres issued a statement expressing deep concern about the increased tensions in the vicinity of Al-Guergarat, where armed elements of both Morocco and the Polisario Front remained in close proximity to each other. Guterres called on both parties to take all necessary steps to avoid escalation and stressed that no action should be taken that might constitute a change in the status quo of the buffer strip. In addition, he called on the parties to adhere to their obligations under the 1991 ceasefire agreement and to respect both the letter and the spirit of the agreement. This statement followed a phone conversation between Guterres and Moroccan King Mohammed VI and a reported meeting between Guterres and the Polisarios UN representative, both on 24 February.

On 26 February, Morocco announced that it would unilaterally withdraw its forces from Al-Guergarat. The UN welcomed the pull-out of Moroccan security forces and called on the Polisario to also withdraw its fighters.

On 7 March, it was announced that the Secretary-Generals Personal Envoy to Western Sahara, Christopher Ross, had offered his resignation after serving in the position for eight years. Mohamed Khaddad, the Polisarios coordinator with MINURSO, claimed that Rosss resignation was the result of Moroccos obstruction of the negotiations in 2012 and that the UN is also responsible for the resignation as it did not react to Moroccos dismissal of the UN Mission for Western Sahara. In 2012, Morocco had declared Ross persona non grata following accusations he made concerning abuses by Morocco in Western Sahara. Guterres is expected to appoint a new personal envoy in April.

On 31 January, Morocco became the 55th member state to join the African Union (AU). Thirty-nine countries reportedly supported Moroccos bid for admission, while nine voted against it. Morocco left the AUs predecessor, the Organisation of African Unity, in 1984 after the organisation admitted the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR).

On 20 March, the AU Peace and Security Council (PSC) held a meeting on Western Sahara. In response to an invitation to attend, Morocco sent a letter saying that the question of Western Sahara is in the hands of the UN Security Council instead and that The organs of the African Union are invited to support this process in line with the United Nations mandate. The day after the PSC meeting, Western Sahara Foreign Minister Mohamed Salem Ouldsalek called on the AU to sanction Morocco. On 23 March, the PSC issued a communique on the meeting that regretted Moroccos absence and called on Morocco to extend the necessary cooperation in conformity with the provisions of the AU Constitutive Act and the PSC Protocol. It also regretted the resignation of Ross and noted with deep concern that four decades after the onset of the conflict, all efforts aimed at finding a solution have so far failed. The PSC expressed the urgency of renewed efforts to achieve a resolution to the conflict and took several steps, including deciding to strengthen the mandate of former president Joaquim Chissano of Mozambique, as AU High Representative for Western Sahara, to facilitate direct talks between the two member states, reactivating the Ad Hoc Committee of Heads of State and Government on the conflict, and requesting the AU Commission immediately to take steps for the re-opening of the AU Office in Laayoune.

Concerning the upcoming MINURSO mandate renewal, the PSC urged the UN Security Council to take the necessary steps to restore the full functionality of MINURSO and to provide the mission with a human rights mandate.

On 24 March, Morocco demanded the exclusion of the SADR from a meeting between the AU and the UN Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) on the grounds that the SADR is not a member of the ECA. As a result, the ministerial meeting had to be postponed.

The last resolution on MINURSO, resolution 2285, adopted on 29 April 2016, renewed MINURSOs mandate for one year. The resolution garnered only ten votes in favour, with two against (Uruguay and Venezuela) and three abstentions (Angola, New Zealand and Russia). The lack of consensus reflected deep divisions over the process leading up to the adoption, and regarding how the Council ought to address the dispute between Morocco and then Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and Moroccos expulsion of most of MINURSOs civilian staff. The resolution requested the Secretary-General to brief the Council within 90 days on whether MINURSO had returned to full functionality and expressed the Councils intention, if it had not done so, to consider how best to facilitate achievement of this. Shortly before the 90-day briefing, Morocco agreed to allow 25 staff members to return, and although full functionality was not resumed, the Council took no action. Currently, a year after the expulsion of the staff, only those 25 staff members have been reinstated.

Resolution 2285 also emphasised the importance of the parties commitment to continue the process of preparing for a new round of negotiations, and called upon the parties to continue to show political will in order to enter into a more intensive and substantive phase of negotiations. The Council affirmed its full support for the commitment of the Secretary-General and his Personal Envoy towards a solution and called for renewed meetings and strengthening of contacts. It also called upon the parties to continue negotiations under the auspices of the Secretary-General without preconditions and in good faith with a view to achieving a just, lasting, and mutually acceptable political solution, which will provide for the self-determination of the people of Western Sahara. However, Ross had since been unable to facilitate the fifth round of negotiations.

Key Issues

The underlying issue is that the parties to the conflict remain deadlocked and the political process has stalled because the parties proposals for the basis of a political solution as outlined in 2007 are mutually exclusive. Ascertaining what the Council is willing to do to break the deadlock between the parties is therefore a key issue.

Another issue is MINURSOs staffing. The 2016 report of the Secretary-General said that the expulsion of most of MINURSOs international civilian component in March of that year had resulted in the de facto alteration of the mandate of MINURSO and that the issue of immediate concern then was to ensure that MINURSO resumed full functionality, as was later requested by the Council in resolution 2285. A year later, MINURSO has still not resumed full functionality.

Another key issue is that the resumption of armed conflict cannot be ruled out, and the Council may need to focus on how best to mitigate that threat.

Options

On the mandate renewal, one option is for the Council to renew the mandate of MINURSO for a period of 12 months, as has been common practice. The Council could use the opportunity to convey political messages to the parties, perhaps on the situation in Al-Guergarat and on the importance of resuming direct negotiations in good faith, and to reiterate the request for MINURSO to resume full functionality.

Another option would be to heed the recommendation of the AU and add a human rights monitoring mechanism to the mandate of MINURSOan option that has in the past been attempted, but never gained the support of all Council members.

Given the failure to bring the parties to negotiations, a further option would be for the Councilas recommended by the Secretary-General in his 2014 reportto engage in a comprehensive review of the framework that it provided for the negotiating process in 2007, with a renewed sense of urgency to resolve the political stalemate.

Council Dynamics

Deep divisions have rendered the Council largely impotent on Western Sahara through successive recent crises. Following Moroccos expulsion of MINURSOs civilian component in March and the crisis in Al-Guergarat in August 2016, the Council remained mostly silent due to the insistence of some members, notably permanent member France, which staunchly supports the Moroccan position concerning Western Sahara.

The African members of the Council do not have a common position. Egypt and Senegal have in the past year worked to protect Moroccos interests in the Council. The new A3 member, Ethiopia, recognises an independent Western Sahara and is expected to advocate the positions of the AU.

Among other members, Uruguay has attempted to enhance the Councils role and oversight of the situation by requesting ad hoc briefings. New member Bolivia also recognises an independent SADR and this is likely to be reflected in their contributions in the Council. While the parliament of another new member, Sweden, voted to recognise Western Sahara in 2012, this has not been implemented by the Swedish government.

The US is the penholder on Western Sahara, and the resolution will initially be discussed among the Group of Friends (France, the UK, the US, Russia and Spain).

UN DOCUMENTS ON WESTERN SAHARA

This resolution renewed the MINURSO mandate. This was the report of the Secretary-General on the situation concerning Western Sahara. This was a report of the Secretary-General on Western Sahara. This was a letter from South Africa to the Council transmitting the Polisario plan. This was a letter from Morocco to the Council transmitting the Moroccan plan.
A Baraboo man accused of attempting to shoot and kill several people  including an officer  while high on drugs reached a deal with prosecutors Thursday.

Prosecutors dismissed five charges against Kenno Marcus Solesby-Funmaker, 19, of Baraboo, in exchange for his guilty plea to three felonies. He is scheduled to be sentenced in June.

Witnesses told authorities that Solesby-Funmaker had purchased marijuana and prescription drugs in Madison shortly before he caused a disturbance at his girlfriends Bluffview Estates apartment in the town of Sumpter. During the October 2015 incident, the teenager allegedly pointed a loaded pistol at his girlfriend and her mother and pulled the trigger.

The weapon did not fire. Witnesses told investigators that Solesby-Funmaker used the wrong ammunition, so the weapon did not fire every time the trigger was pulled.

Shortly after that incident, Solesby-Funmaker allegedly caused another dispute in which he fired a round at the ceiling of a Baraboo apartment building. One witness said the bullet could have injured his granddaughter or son, who were upstairs.

Solesby-Funmaker is then alleged to have returned to the town of Sumpter where he rummaged through his girlfriends apartment, yelling and breaking things as she hid in a nearby apartment and listened.

A Sauk County Sheriffs Department sergeant who responded to the scene alleged that Solesby-Funmaker pointed the pistol at him and pulled the trigger before he ran away. The teenager was taken into custody with the help of a police dog and Taser. He allegedly threatened to kill his girlfriend and her mother, and to blow up the police station, as he was being detained.

About a month prior to that October incident, the girlfriend told authorities she had received death threats from Solesby-Funmaker by cell phone text message.

While officers were on scene, Solesby-Funmaker arrived at the apartment and fled in a vehicle after authorities tried to speak with him, according to the complaint. In that case, he was charged with making phone threats, fleeing an officer and bail jumping.

To resolve both cases Thursday, Sauk County District Attorney Kevin Calkins filed an amended complaint regarding the October 2015 incidents that eliminated the attempted homicide charges. Solesby-Funmaker pleaded guilty to two counts of first-degree reckless endangerment and one count of bail jumping.

Sauk County Circuit Court Judge Guy Reynolds ordered that the Wisconsin Department of Corrections to complete an investigation of Solesby-Funmakers life history to inform him prior to sentencing. He scheduled a sentencing hearing for June 12.

The reckless endangerment convictions each carry a maximum possible penalty of 12 years in prison and $25,000 in fines. Solesby-Funmaker could face an additional six years in prison and $10,000 in fines for the bail jumping conviction.
On a recent visit to the Presidio, Melissa Ayumi Bailey timidly entered the former military headquarters building now housing the private Bay School of San Francisco with an almost apologetic request: She wanted to see Gen. DeWitts office.

She expected she might be shown the exit instead, but soon was directed upstairs and down a long hall, past any number of students with backpacks, to Room 201, an empty corner office. Once inside, Bailey was possessed of a sensation shed never felt before.

The order that came out of this room irrevocably changed the course of my family, she said. Within the Japanese American community, were four or five generations in and were still seeing the effect of the incarceration.

The incarceration Bailey referenced was the imprisoning of people of Japanese descent during World War II, the result of the Civilian Exclusion Order issued by Lt. Gen. John L. DeWitt from this very room 75 years before.

President Franklin D. Roosevelts infamous Executive Order 9066, issued in Washington, D.C., on Feb. 19, 1942, is what is remembered by historians. But it was DeWitts order, issued from the Western Defense Command at this former Army base in the following weeks, that put it into effect. Baileys maternal grandparents were among 120,000 Japanese and Japanese Americans relocated by the government to wait out the war in crude and humiliating internment camps in the countrys desolate interior.

Those in the northern part of San Francisco, including the Presidio, were affected by Civilian Exclusion Order No. 5, which was carried from the Presidio by military police and posted on area telephone poles on April 1, 1942.

Saturday, the 75th anniversary of its posting, is being marked by the opening of Exclusion: The Presidios Role in World War II Japanese American Incarceration, an installation at the Heritage Gallery at the historic Presidio Officers Club.

The free, yearlong exhibit marks the first time the role of the Presidio in the sad affair of Japanese relocation will be spotlighted by the Presidio itself.

Were really trying to help people confront what the exclusion order meant in their everyday lives, said Eric Blind, director of the Presidio Heritage Program. What would it have felt like if you were walking to the bus one day and you saw this order on the telephone pole on your street?

Two sawed-off phone poles have been dragged into the gallery and stapled with copies of DeWitts boldfaced order: Instructions To All Persons of Japanese Ancestry.

The names of all 120,000 people put on buses and trains within 60 days of DeWitts order are stenciled in glass outside the gallery. Among them are the names of Baileys grandmother, Harue Okamoto, who was 20 and living in Watsonville (Santa Cruz County), and her grandfather, Hiroshi Kobata, 22, from Toppenish, Wash.

Bailey, 27, knows they arrived at the camp at Heart Mountain, Wyo., in summer 1942 and were not released until fall 1945. She also knows they met in camp and were married in Ogden, Utah, after the war, before moving to San Francisco.

For any questions shes had beyond that, she has never gotten answers.

A lot of the nisei just didnt talk about what happened because it was very shameful, she said, using the Japanese term for her grandparents generation. You didnt talk about being sent to prison. Im trying to find documentation for what their story really was, because nobody knows.

Another thing she did not know until she started investigating is that at the outbreak of World War II, her paternal grandfather, James Curtis Bailey, a 22-year-old Army private, was stationed at the Presidio.

With my family there were always a lot of questions, Bailey said. My goal is to answer these questions.

She has an advantage in her search; she works in the Presidio for the National Japanese American Historical Society. Searching online, she found her grandfather Bailey in the 1940 census report: occupation soldier, residence the Presidio. She took this information to Presidio Trust archivist John Bertland, who was able to identify Bailey as a private attached to either a quartermaster regiment or an infantry regiment.

She is still trying to determine whether Pvt. Bailey was in any way involved in carrying out the order that exiled his own future in-laws.

DeWitts order was issued in what is now Building 35. Pvt. Baileys barracks was just up the post, in Building 39, now home of the San Francisco Film Centre.

I cant tell you how many times I have hung out on the grass in front of this building, she said, and not known until now that my grandfather lived here.

Blind, of the Presidio Heritage Program, has heard a lot of stories while putting together Exclusion, but hes never heard one like Baileys, with both sides of her family affected in such opposite ways, and both ending up in San Francisco.

Bailey never knew her paternal grandparents. Her father, San Francisco attorney Patrick Bailey, died young. The only thing he told her is my grandfather ended up in San Francisco after the war because thats where the boat dropped him off.

Bailey still lives in the Sunset District house she grew up in, with her mother, Cheryl Kobata Bailey. Her grandmother, Harue Okamoto Kobata, lived there until she died when Bailey was 16. But she never talked about her three years in the Wyoming camp beyond confirming that she had been in one.

All Bailey has to go on are a few pictures she carries that were smuggled out of Heart Mountain, where cameras were forbidden.

One image shows her grandfather in his high school letter sweater and his hair in a pompadour against a bleak backdrop. Another shows her grandmother in a pea coat with her name embroidered on the chest, standing in front of a tar paper wall.

When she looks at the pictures she thinks of all the euphemisms she has heard or read that aimed to soften the impact.

Words like evacuation, for forced removal, and for their own protection, she said. If they were being protected, why was there barbed wire and why were the guns pointing in?

There is no sugarcoating of this history in Exclusion. Internment, for instance, has been replaced by incarceration. Internment applies to enemy aliens, not to citizens, said Blind. Two-thirds of these people were citizens who were incarcerated.

A central object in the exhibit is a vintage wooden Army desk meant to evoke the seat of power where you would encounter a man like DeWitt making decisions that affect millions of Americans, Blind said.

As part of Exclusion, the room that was once DeWitts office, at the Bay School, will be open to public tours starting at noon Saturday. In a year, when Exclusion closes at the Heritage Gallery, the exhibit will move permanently to the Bay School.

Until then, Room 201 is empty, but it still has a powerful presence for people like Bailey who need to feel this moment in history at its source.

Her grandparents on both sides were born in America and she is a second-generation San Franciscan. None of that would have helped if she had been alive on April 1, 1942. She would have been among 5,000 San Franciscans directly affected by the orders posted on the phone poles. Within a month, she would have been in the Assembly Center at Tanforan Racetrack in San Bruno, soon to begin a long train ride to parts unknown.

If you were one-twelfth or greater Japanese you were sent to the camps, and Im one-half, she said. My Caucasian last name would not have made a difference. I still would have been incarcerated for three years.

Sam Whiting is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: swhiting@sfchronicle.com Instagram: @sfchronicle_art

Video: Melissa Ayumi Bailey tours her grandfathers Presidio A rmy barracks at: http://bit.ly/Baileyswar

Exhibit: Exclusion: The Presidios Role in World War II Japanese American Incarceration opens Saturday, April 1, and runs through March, 2018 in the Presidio Officers Club, Heritage Gallery, 50 Moraga Ave., San Francisco. Open 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Tuesday through Sunday. Free. (415) 561-4400. www.presidio.gov/exclusion
In the latest legal action against the owner and operators of Oaklands Ghost Ship, lawyers for the family of one of the 36 people who perished in a fire at the warehouse in December invoked the two words that have become all too familiar to the loved ones of the dead: death trap.

A lawsuit, filed March 24 in Alameda County Superior Court by the Los Angeles law firm Baum, Hedlund, Aristei & Goldman, charges that a confluence of avoidable circumstances killed Edmond Lapine II and the others in the Dec. 2 fire.

The suit seeks unspecified damages on behalf of Lapines father, Bob Lapine. The younger Lapine, who grew up in Utah, loved all things about music  playing, listening and just jamming  his father told The Chronicle.

Using specific numbers regarding the loss of someones family is almost an impossible ask, said Timothy Loranger, one of the familys lawyers.

An Oakland resident, Lapine, 34, was grooving at a music event inside the Ghost Ship warehouse, with its exposed wiring, jury-rigged electrical system and handmade rickety wooden staircase, when the fire broke out late in the evening.

His body was found inside the building two days later.

Like more than half a dozen others, the complaint alleges that Derick Ion Almena and his wife, Micah Allison, as well as building owner Chor Ng, were well aware of the fire hazards inside the Ghost Ship and did nothing about them.

Almena and Allison could not be reached for comment, and an attorney for Ng did not immediately return a request for comment.

The suit also names an event promoter, the performer playing at the warehouse the night of the blaze and representatives of a business next door that shared electricity with occupants of the Ghost Ship.

The 10,000-square-foot interior of the Ghost Ship, which contained a maze of makeshift rooms, alcoves and partitions, lacked adequate prevention mechanisms like overheard sprinklers and sufficient smoke alarms, the lawsuit alleges.

Michael Bodley is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: mbodley@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @michael_bodley
While announcing that this weeks deadly blaze at a West Oakland halfway house was accidentally ignited by a candle, city officials released records Thursday that suggest three or more years passed between fire inspections of the building  reviews that are required annually under state law.

A city spokeswoman, Karen Boyd, confirmed that an unattended candle was the suspected culprit in Mondays fire on San Pablo Avenue that killed four people and displaced more than 80, but did not release further information about the investigation, saying a report will be completed soon.

Meanwhile, the city Fire Department released a list of inspections at the property dating to 2007. However, the documents were muddled and incomplete  and officials, after releasing them in the evening, did not explain them or respond to questions about them.

Previously, the city revealed that the building had failed an inspection last Friday, three days before the fire, because of a raft of problems including a lack of smoke detectors and fire extinguishers and a fire sprinkler system that needed servicing.

The owner, who was in the middle of an ugly eviction fight with the nonprofit halfway house operator and its clients, was given 30 days to address the violations. He has not responded to requests for comment.

The new records say the three-story building at 2551 San Pablo Ave. was compliant in five fire inspection from 2007 to June 2012, and that inspectors made contact with the property in November 2014 and September 2015. But there is no evidence in the records that the building was fully inspected and cleared in the last two cases.

According to the records, the 2014 inspection was done after a nonprofit aid group applied to use a 400-square-foot room in the building as a warming center for up to 20 people.

The group paid a $158 fee for the inspection, and the building was added to a list of places that homeless people could go to get out of the cold. But the records do not say the rest of the building was deemed safe.

Then, in September 2015, someone referred the property to the Fire Department, but there are no records indicating that an inspection found the building to be compliant with city codes.

One entry in the list of inspections indicates that a resident had complained about malfunctioning smoke detectors and smoke fires in the kitchen. But the entry is undated, and theres no information about whether the Fire Department took action.

Erica Terry Derryck, a spokeswoman for Mayor Libby Schaaf, said late Thursday, We are trying to release information as we get it in real time, but we dont completely know yet what records exist or dont exist.

A Fire Department source familiar with the records said there appeared to be gaps, despite the state mandate for yearly inspections. The bottom line is they did not do annual inspections, said the source.

But the source cautioned about blaming inspectors, saying that department staffing is not adequate for the number of inspections they are supposed to do ... these people are working their asses off, and there are not enough people to get the job done.

Oakland is under pressure to ensure large buildings are safe in the aftermath of Decembers Ghost Ship fire, which killed 36 people attending an unsanctioned music event in an unpermitted live-work warehouse.

The Ghost Ship  which was a maze of electrical cords, makeshift stairs and funky sleeping quarters  was never given a fire inspection in recent years, with officials saying it had been listed as vacant.

Mondays fire was reported at 5:30 a.m. Among the four people who died, two have been identified: Edwarn Anderson, 64, and Cassandra Robertson, 50.

The building has been owned since 1991 by Mead Avenue Housing Associates, which is run by Keith Joon Kim, a Piedmont entrepreneur with a colorful and controversial past. He was once owner and chief executive of the now-defunct Granny Goose potato chip company, but later filed for bankruptcy and was convicted of lying to the Securities and Exchange Commission amid a probe into insider trading.

In 2012, Kims building was rented by Urojas Community Services, a nonprofit founded in 1996 by the Rev. Jasper Lowery. It offered transitional housing and services including mental health and addiction counseling. It has received at least $25,000 in public funding but has not filed nonprofit tax disclosures since 2010.

Before the fire, Kim was seeking to evict Urojas and its clients for failing to pay rent, but Urojas refused to leave, and City Councilwoman Lynette Gibson McElhaney, who represents West Oakland, was acting as a mediator in the fight.

McElhaney said she had hoped to improve the conditions in the building while heading off evictions. She said she didnt recall what led her to get involved and that she didnt notice major fire-safety problems during a tour of the property.

The building recently came to the attention of fire inspectors, city officials said, when an engine company referred the property to them after a Feb. 25 service call. Inspectors did not immediately review the structure because, they said, they couldnt reach the landlord to get the required permission.

On March 18, fire inspectors got another referral, city officials said, which resulted in last weeks visit and the discovery of a litany of urgent safety hazards.

While the city could have legally cleared the building, Schaaf said in an interview that the problems did not warrant more severe action because they did not amount to an imminent life safety threat.

Records released earlier by the citys building department show a history of complaints about conditions at the building. Twenty code enforcement complaints were lodged in the past 10 years over leaky pipes, holes in the walls, rodents and lack of heat. Most of the problems were addressed by the property owner, city officials said, though seven complaints remained open.

J.K. Dineen is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: jdineen@sfchronicle.com

Twitter: @sfjkdineen
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Two years ago, when state water managers trekked into the High Sierra to measure snowpack at its typical springtime peak, they found what would become a lasting image of one of Californias bleakest moments: barren earth.

But Thursday, as surveyors made the same hike to the same spot, the state could hardly be more removed from the darkest days of the drought.

Long-dry mountainsides are buried in as much as 20 feet of snow. Icy summits have begun filling rivers and reservoirs with enough runoff to ensure water supplies for years. The ski season, according to reports from the slopes, is likely to extend through the Fourth of July.

The astonishing recovery was confirmed by the state surveyors who measured snowpack at Phillips Station, south of Lake Tahoe in El Dorado County, at a whopping 183 percent of average for the date.

Justin Sullivan / Justin Sullivan / Getty Images

More important, if a little less impressive, the Sierra-wide snowpack was determined to be one of the biggest in decades, at 164 percent of average, according to the states system of automated sensors.

That compares with a dismal 5 percent just two years ago when surveyors found virtually no snow at the 6,873-foot-elevation Phillips Station.

Its a dramatic turnaround, said Mike Anderson, state climatologist with the California Department of Water Resources. Weve spent a lot of time at the low end of the distribution, so its nice to get one back on the other end.

The state measurements, which dont gauge the depth of the snow but its water content, are critical this time of year. Thats because the peaking levels allow water managers to forecast the spring and summer melt. The runoff provides about a third of Californias water.

Already, many of the reservoirs that stood half full, or less, for years during the drought are brimming with water as the state has benefited from a near-constant barrage of storms this winter.

San Francisco water managers expect to soon fill their system of lakes and reservoirs, putting away enough water to make it through a theoretical 8-year dry period. In 2015, there were just three years worth of water  when strictly rationed  in reserve.

Most water agencies had even less. The shortages set off a wave of mandatory conservation rules that forced Californians to watch their lawns turn brown and shorten their showers. In farm country, those who couldnt turn to groundwater had to fallow fields, and crop yields fell.

Now, almost all water suppliers, including the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission, are having to release water from behind their dams to make room for the incoming runoff. Without enough space in the reservoirs, communities downstream are threatened with uncontrolled outflows.

Its a balancing act, said Charles Sheehan, spokesman for the San Francisco water agency, which has lowered its Hetch Hetchy Reservoir in Yosemite National Park to 83 percent of capacity. We need to stay ahead of all that snowmelt.

Drought Map Track water shortages and restrictions across Bay Area Updated to include drought zones while tracking water shortage status of your area, plus reservoir levels and a list of restrictions for the Bay Areas largest water districts.

Thursdays snow level for the Sierra ranks as the seventh largest in the key spring reading since 1950. Its just below the measurement from 2011, the last wet year before California descended into drought.

Most of this years cold storms came in January and February, when snowpack accumulation was even greater. Blizzards closed mountain highways, ski resorts were at times forced to close, and hurricane-force winds were recorded.

The storm track shifted away from California during March, but we still have a very substantial snowpack, particularly in the higher elevations in the central and southern Sierra, said Frank Gehrke, chief of the snow survey program for the Department of Water Resources, who led the survey in Phillips Station as flurries came down.

The site along Highway 50 near the Sierra-at-Tahoe ski resort is one of hundreds of places the state surveys throughout the winter. The electronic readings come from 95 points.

While Gov. Jerry Brown has not rescinded a statewide emergency drought declaration issued in January 2014, which ushered in the unprecedented period of water rationing, his office has said it will probably drop the order if the spring snow measurements run high.

Kurtis Alexander is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: kalexander@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @kurtisalexander
SACRAMENTO  Gov. Jerry Brown and legislative leaders are betting that Californians will not revolt over their proposed increase to the vehicle license fee, the way voters did 14 years ago when then-Gov. Gray Davis tripled the price motorists paid to register their cars.

Political experts say the Democrats pushing a $52 billion transportation plan appear to be on safe ground because the economic climate in 2017  more robust and lower gas prices  is much better than it was in 2003, when enraged voters threw Davis out of office and replaced him with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who promptly eliminated the car tax.

Davis himself said he expects voters wont react the same to the new fee as they did when he  after years of lowering the vehicle license fee to get Republicans to sign the state budget  then hiked it without a legislative vote to help close a budget gap.

It was a substantial increase, it was about triple what they paid the year before, Davis said Thursday. This fee even for cars that cost $60,000 or more is a maximum of $175. So, I dont think that the sticker shock is anywhere near as from 2003. And you can argue that 14 years have passed.

Still, a UC Berkeleys Institute of Governmental Studies poll found in 2015 that Californians overwhelmingly opposed higher gas taxes or vehicle registration fees.

GOP strategist Rob Stutzman said, however, that theres a big difference between this weeks proposal and Davis stumble.

Back then, the vehicle license fee (increase) was used to fund a deficit, said Stutzman, who served as spokesman for Schwarzenegger during the recall election. There wasnt a nexus to improving the roads like they are talking about today.

Brown and state legislative leaders unveiled their plan Wednesday to repair the states aging roads and bridges and improve public transportation. The plan, which needs two-thirds support in the Senate and the Assembly, would raise $5.2 billion a year for 10 years by increasing the vehicle registration fee by $25 to $175, depending on the value of the vehicle, hiking gas and diesel taxes, and creating an annual $100 fee on zero-emission vehicles.

Brown and legislative leaders went to Concord on Thursday to promote their proposal, and the governor acknowledged the plan would be a heavy lift for some motorists.

If we dont do it, the roads will crumble, Brown said during a news conference on an unused Concord road where he was flanked by a sea of orange-vest-clad construction workers and more formally dressed politicians, including state Senate President Pro Tem Kevin de Leon, D-Los Angeles, and Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon, D-Paramount (Los Angeles County). If we dont do it this year, I predict it wont happen for a long time.

The proposal would increase the vehicle license fee on a sliding scale depending on the value of the car, with the highest increase of $175 being paid by people whose cars are worth more than $60,000.

Currently, California drivers pay a vehicle licensing fee of 0.65 percent of the value of a car. Under the transportation proposal, the vast majority of Californians would pay $25 or $50 more to register their vehicle since 87 percent of vehicles are valued at less than $25,000.

The states gas excise tax, currently 18 cents, would increase by 12 cents per gallon to 30 cents. The excise tax on diesel fuel would increase by 20 cents a gallon to 36 cents, and the diesel sales tax also would rise to 5.75 percent from the current 1.75 percent. Electric and hybrid-vehicle drivers, meanwhile, would pay a new $100-per-year fee beginning in 2020.

The Institute of Governmental Studies poll in 2015 found Californians strongly opposed (74 percent) to increasing vehicle registration fees. They also opposed (63 percent) raising the gas tax. Those voters disapproved of the increases even when told they would fund road repairs.

Steve Maviglio, a Democratic strategist who was a spokesman for Davis during the recall, said the vehicle licensing fee today doesnt carry the same weight it once did.

Timing is everything, Maviglio said. When that was a major issue (in 2003) we were in a recession and gas prices were high. We are in a recovery now and gas prices are low. ... The roads are so bad. Voters get that you have to spend money to fix things.

Republicans have widely criticized the plan pushed by Democrats, which could be voted on as early as next week. Republicans argue that the state already has more than enough funding and should reprioritize how it spends that money.

For example, the state will increase the base vehicle registration fee of $43 by $10 on April 1, in part to pay for increased salaries and pension costs at the California Highway Patrol. Republicans say that should go toward fixing roads.

And, says former Rep. Doug Ose, the state should prioritize fixing its roads instead of spending billions on the high-speed rail project championed by Brown.

The $52 billion plan is a hard sell in swing districts, Ose said Thursday. This may very well cost Democrats their two-thirds supermajority.

San Francisco Chronicle staff writer Michael Cabanatuan contributed to this report.

Melody Gutierrez is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: mgutierrez@sfchronicle.com. Twitter: @MelodyGutierrez
Rallies and protest events are a part of political life in the Bay Area. Heres a roundup of whats happening.

Friday

Transgender Day: The Asian Pacific Islander Wellness Center will host a free event to commemorate Transgender Day of Visibility. The event will begins at 5:30 p.m. at SOMArts, 934 Brannan St. in San Francisco.

Saturday

Supreme Court protest: A rally against U.S. Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch, from 9:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. at Justin Herman Plaza, 1 Market St. in San Francisco. For information: www.facebook.com/events/1248973351886503/.

Russian discussion: The Russians Are Coming! The Russians Are Coming?  a forum hosted by the Peace and Freedom Party. The free event is from 2 to 4:30 p.m. at the Starry Plough Pub, 3101 Shattuck Ave. in Berkeley. For information: www.peaceandfreedom.org.

Sunday

Connecting with activists: Take Back America with Rep. Jackie Speier, D-Hillsborough, who will discuss the California congressional picture and host a fair where attendees can connect with activist and advocacy groups. The event is from noon to 3 p.m. in Fiesta Hall at the San Mateo County Event Center, 1346 Saratoga Drive in San Mateo. To register: www.eventbrite.com/e/take-back-america-tickets-32982865639

Author series: Arlie Russell Hochschild will discuss her new book, Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right. The event starts at 9:30 a.m. at Grace Cathedral, Gresham Hall, 1100 California St. in San Francisco. For information: www.gracecathedral.org/events/arlie-russell-hochschild.

Monday

Panel on nuclear weapons: Morality of the Nuclear Age discussion, featuring Richard Rhodes, Ira Helfand and Martin Hellman. The event is from 7 to 9 p.m. at the Sacred Heart Schools, Harman Auditorium, 150 Valparaiso Ave. in Atherton. For more information: www.tech4gs.org/morality_and_geopolitics_of_the_nuclear_age.

Wednesday

Political discussion: Fixing the Bay Areas Growth Politics, a conversation on issues affecting the Bay Area, including environmental quality and social justice. The free event is at 6 p.m. at SPUR Oakland, 1544 Broadway. For information: www.spur.org/events/2017-04-05/fixing-bay-area-s-growth-politics.

Discussion on Medicare: Medicare for All in California presented by Dr. Paul Song, co-chair of Campaign for a Healthy California, at the San Mateo County Democracy for America meeting. The event begins at 7 p.m. at Woodside Road United Methodist Church, 2000 Woodside Road in Redwood City. Admission is free. For information: www.smcdfa.org/.

April 8

Immigration seminar: Know Your Rights, a presentation and training for pro bono attorneys and others to help immigrant communities. The event, hosted by Canal Alliance Communication, is from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. at Guzman Hall, Dominican University, 50 Acacia Ave. in San Rafael. For information on tickets, contact Sara Matson at SaraM@canalalliance.org or (415) 306-0429.

Flash mob: A flash mob at at 1 p.m. at the cable car turnaround, 1 Powell St. in San Francisco, to sing the song I Cant Keep Quiet by MILCK. For information: http://bit.ly/2oazyIG.

April 10

Comedy: Benefit performance at the Punch Line Comedy Club for NARAL Pro-Choice America, an organization that promotes abortion care, birth control and paid parental leave. Tickets are $20. The event is at 7:30 p.m. at 444 Battery St. in San Francisco. For tickets: http://bit.ly/NARALPunchLine.

April 13

Education discussion: The Lamorinda Democratic Club hosts a conversation on how federal funding will affect public education. The event is at 7 p.m. at the Lafayette Library and Community Center, 3491 Mount Diablo Blvd. in Lafayette. For information: www.ldclub.org.
San Franciscos favorite pot party has finally gotten the official go-ahead from the city.

The Recreation and Park Department is issuing its first-ever permit for next months 4/20 marijuana-smoking blowout on Hippie Hill in Golden Gate Park. For years, the event has drawn tens of thousands of weed aficionados to the park and the city has been stuck with the costs, including paying for hauling away tons of trash that the crowds leave behind.

This year, a handful of Haight Street merchants and local cannabis businesses, including the Diamond Supply Company, Cookies SF and the Green Door dispensary, have taken on the job of sponsoring the festival. They will pay for fences and gates, portable toilets, and traffic and emergency plans for the formerly unsanctioned celebration April 20. The permit fee will also help cover policing and trash-removal costs.

The way it used to be was a free-for-all, said Alex Aquino, a sponsor who owns Black Scale, a clothing shop on Haight Street. He declined to say how much the sponsorship cost, only that it was very expensive. A typical permit for an event of 4/20s size costs around $100,000, according to Rec and Park figures.

Im just a guy in the neighborhood trying to do my part, Aquino said. The partys not going anywhere. Its not going away. I think building infrastructure will keep it safe and clean. It will preserve the park and keep our neighbors happy. How can we not benefit from that?

Last year, revelers left behind 22,000 pounds of trash, including a childrens wagon loaded with a keg. The garbage pickup alone cost the city $50,000, and with police, transit and other expenses, the total bill came to more than $80,000.

The marijuana party was also a buzz kill for nearby merchants and residents whose streets were crammed with cars with out-of-state plates and whose doorways were used as bathrooms.

This is an event that I, like most people in the neighborhood, dread every year, said Ted Loewenberg, president of the Haight Ashbury Improvement Association. When its all done, there is an enormous amount of garbage, and there are traffic jams. Im delighted that somebody has come forward to sponsor this event and take some responsibility for keeping it organized and absorb the cost so it doesnt impact taxpayers.

Although it is technically still illegal to light up in public parks, California voters decision to legalize the recreational use of marijuana has made city officials change their stance.

Love it or hate it, the 4/20 festival is not going away, and it has a significant impact on our city, on our district and on the park system, said Board of Supervisors President London Breed, whose district borders Golden Gate Park. Every year, the event leaves the park and surrounding neighborhood a mess. Its not safe to allow people to party in the park without adequate security, facilities and medical aid.

Breed acknowledged that the mass smoke-in was still illegal and said City Hall didnt want to sanction the event. But she added that it was irresponsible to ignore it.

Rec and Park officials agreed.

Drought Map Track water shortages and restrictions across Bay Area Updated to include drought zones while tracking water shortage status of your area, plus reservoir levels and a list of restrictions for the Bay Areas largest water districts.

We are trying to be creative and nimble and understand that people are going to keep doing this no matter what, said department spokeswoman Sarah Madland. The goal is to try and see if we can increase public safety. Its not about saving money in year one. The hope is that if this provides the necessary stability, then there may not be as much of a burden to all of the city departments.

Violence and use of hard-core drugs have also plagued the event. Last year, eight people were arrested, and two teenage boys were robbed by a man wearing brass knuckles. In 2015, an assailant smashed a bottle on a park rangers head, and two groups of men violently robbed people in Golden Gate Park. Five people were arrested that year. In 2014, 11 people were arrested.

Madland hopes the sponsorship will lessen that kind of trouble.

The intention is that the actual event will be controlled by the organizers, she said. No one under 18 will be allowed in. Its exciting that this is happening and we can manage the impacts on the neighborhood and the park.

Lizzie Johnson is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: ljohnson@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @LizzieJohnsonnn
Decades before Donald Trump and Steve Bannon stormed the White House, it was Richard Nixon who complained to his aides, Never forget, the press is the enemy. The press is the enemy. The press is the enemy. ... Write that on the blackboard 100 times and never forget it. And much like our current overweening president, Nixon trafficked in conspiracy theories, suffered the opprobrium of the political establishment, won the presidency on the promise of restoring law and order, and governed under a cloud of political scandal.

That, though, may be as far as the parallels go. For whereas Trump entered office at age 71, Nixon got started at 33. Whereas Trump professes a measure of pride in reading fringe media, when reading at all, Nixon was a voracious consumer of history. And whereas Trump lunges from issue to issue, Nixon, a tactician, plotted some of the most important foreign policy achievements of the mid-20th century.

In his beautifully written and deeply insightful biography, Richard Nixon: The Life, John A. Farrell, a former White House correspondent for the Boston Globe, offers a bracing portrait of a man untethered from principle and ideology, driven throughout his life to win at any cost and thereby palliate his deep-seated insecurities.

Nixon grew up in Whittier, in Los Angeles County, the son of a grocer, born with a good deal more ambition than early opportunity. Perennially awkward and withdrawn, Nixon also could be single-minded and savage. From the very start of his political career, Nixon did whatever it took to vanquish his opponents. In his first congressional race against longtime Democratic incumbent Jerry Voorhis, he pulled out all the stops, accusing the man  with only the thinnest of evidence  of being socialist, communist and un-American. It worked, and the newly elected congressman punched his ticket to political stardom.

As a two-term member of the House, then short-time senator before being called up (or, perhaps more accurately, called over) to serve as Dwight Eisenhowers vice president, Nixon cultivated a reputation as a stalwart foe of communism. In Congress, he gained national notoriety for his dogged persecution of the Soviet spy Alger Hiss. In the years that followed, Nixon joined the chorus of voices led by that Wisconsin senator and demagogue Joseph McCarthy, inveighing against a creeping communism within the U.S. government.

Having lost his bid for the presidency in 1960, and then for the California governorship in 1962, Nixon resuscitated his political career in 1968 by decrying a decade of perceived excess. He banked his resurrection on the belief that burning cities, a sexual revolution and expanded rights for blacks and women were more than many Americans could stand. And he was right. Rallying what he called the great Silent Majority, Nixon won the presidential election and assumed office on a promise to withdraw the military from Vietnam and reassert the nations moral commitments at home.

Just as it had done to Johnson, Vietnam hung like a yoke around Nixons neck. The newly elected president could not see a way to withdraw with the nations interests intact. And so, instead, Nixon escalated the fight against the North Vietnamese, and when that proved insufficient, he subsequently launched a secret and illegal bombing campaign against supporters of the Hanoi regime in Cambodia. As Farrell recounts, Nixons war was hardly worth the price paid in blood or treasure. The terms of the final peace deal, after all, were no better than the negotiated terms of a 1968 agreement, which Nixon scuttled for his own political gain in the notorious, if not treasonous, Chennault Affair.

The fight for traditional morals also defined Nixons presidency. It reoriented the identity of the Republican Party and, via the so-called Southern Strategy, expanded the partys electoral reach into formerly Confederate states that until then had kept exclusive company with Democrats. Nixon never stopped complaining about societys miscreants: blacks, Jews, protesters, homosexuals and whores. As he confided to his longtime aides H.R. Haldeman and John Ehrlichman, caught on a White House taping system that would eventually bring down his presidency, Homosexuality, dope, immorality generally  these are the enemies of strong societies. The upper class of San Francisco is that way. ... I dont even want to shake hands with anybody from San Francisco. Decorators. Theyve got to do something ... but goddamn it we dont have to glorify it.

Blinded by self-righteousness and fury, Nixon became consumed by the possibility that he might lose his re-election bid in 1972. And so he began to cavort with a bumbling band of sycophants who engaged in all manner of shenanigans and crimes  bugging offices, paying bribes, hiring the Mafia, burglarizing offices and then, of course, going to great lengths to cover it all up.

We know how all this ended. But infamy isnt all there is to Nixons legacy. In his measured and melodious prose, Farrell also reveals just how confounding Nixon could be. A politician who spent much of the 1940s and 50s fighting communism as president in the 1970s opened up China to the Western world. This deeply troubled man who harbored all kinds of hatred also played an instrumental role in the enactment of the 1957 Civil Rights Act. While president, this lifelong Republican increased the amount of federal funds for integrating public schools, created the Environmental Protection Agency by executive order, and signed the Clean Air Act of 1970. He appointed to Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackmun, who would write the majority opinion in Roe. vs. Wade. He eliminated the draft and supported the reduction of the voting age from 21 to 18.

Nixon was not an easy man to understand. And even now, his failures and accomplishments are not easy to classify. In Farrells capable hands, however, we see Nixon in his entirety  and we cant help but wonder what he means for our politics today.

William Howell is the Sydney Stein Professor in American Politics at the University of Chicago. Email: books@sfchronicle.com

Richard Nixon

The Life

By John A. Farrell

(Doubleday; 737 pages; $35)
Ariel Levys 2013 national-award-winning essay Thanksgiving in Mongolia is the foundation for her new memoir, The Rules Do Not Apply, and it remains the best essay Ive ever read. The essays keen, keening investigation of the stillbirth of her son, whose heart didnt stop until Levy herself removed their shared placenta from her body in a hotel room in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, is marvelously, rigorously rendered tragedy.

The memoir built around that essay never reaches the same heights as the original manifestation. It takes us swiftly through Levys childhood, teen years and the decades she relished as a journalist in New York City, then into her life after the stillbirth shook the cords that anchored her sense of self.

About a third of the way into her memoir, Levy is living her own version of having it all. Her talent, impatience and ambition are rewarded, and she becomes a staff writer at the New Yorker. Her romantic impetuousness is rewarded, too, and the woman she loves, Lucy, leaves her partner and her West Coast home to marry Levy. Levy says, I had managed to solve the Jane Austen problems that women have been confronting for centuries  securing a provider for your children, finding a mate to pass the time with, and creating a convivial home  in an entirely unconventional way. But infidelity, insecurities and addiction slip into Lucy and Ariels home on Shelter Island. Add in Levys increasingly undeniable desire for a child, and a storm begins to brew.

In her introduction to The Best American Essays 2015, Levy writes, An essay must have an idea as its beating heart. The question driving The Rules Do Not Apply is if the author has expected too much out of life, was too entitled and therefore brought down the slings and arrows of fortune upon her own head. She asks, What did I believe? That I could be gay and straight? That I could be married and unhindered? A wanderer and a mother?

The heart of a memoir is not usually an idea, but a story. Were drawn to memoirs because they reassure us with a sense of destiny. Memoirists give shape and purpose to the vicissitudes they encounter. It might take the shape of confession (St. Augustine), or self-help (Elizabeth Gilbert), but memoir is essentially a map from the past to the present.

This is an essayists memoir, not a novelists. Levy presents scenes from her life like a series of loosely related studies of a feminist version of Macbeths oerweening ambition. The books approach can be frustrating. Explanations and through lines are replaced by considerations of subjects as they crop up in her life: womanhood, the struggle between autonomy and companionship, and life continuing after a hail of heartbreaks.

Like any memoirist, Levy is still drawn to making sense through hindsight. But when the platitude Everything happens for a reason is tossed at her as a salve, the realization strikes her that as a storyteller, she unthinkingly has believed both in reasons and in destinations. Only with that faith can we think we are in control, captains of our own ships. Levy susses out instead that life owes her nothing. We are as mortal as Icarus, and our desires must run up against limits.

As a journalist, Levy has mastered critical distance, that element that eludes too many memoirists who seem to set out thinking, Finally I get to tell my side of the story! When Levy applies her practiced, detached observation to her life, she turns it in her hands like a jeweler examining a gem. About her affair, she is unflinchingly direct: Every time, it was transcendent. But then I started not wanting to leave after I put my clothes on. And then I was destroyed. The most agonizingly beautiful language of the book is reserved for Levys too-early birth, when her eye for detail is at its most hawk-like. Back in New York, bereft of her unborn son, she writes, I saw him under my closed eyelids like an imprint from the sun.

However, this objectivity escapes her time and again when regarding her marriage. Her deep disappointment drags us too close to a still sore wound. Her spouse is drinking herself into a stupor, and Levy asks, But what about me? Me me me me me? Levy is not an author who thinks women have to be likable in order to be the hero of their own story.

Levy seems to mourn most the loss of her vision of her future. In offering the backstory of a marriage gone sour and the tumultuous aftermath of coming home unpregnant, the encapsulated shriek of Levys original essay becomes muted and dispersed. She is now a woman whose plans have become sand spilling through her fingers, still learning that loss is neither something you deserve nor can escape.

Marthine Satris is an editor and a writer in Oakland whose reviews have appeared in the Rumpus and the Millions. Email: books@sfchronicle.

The Rules Do Not Apply

By Ariel Levy

(Random House; 207 pages; $27)
MAYVILLE  Mayville Police Chief Christopher MacNeill may have altered police records, according to a letter Mayor Rob Boelk sent Feb. 9 when MacNeill was put on paid administrative leave.

Mayville City Council met in closed session for 30 minutes Thursday night and, in an unanimous vote, accepted MacNeills resignation effective March 31.

The police department will continue to be headed by Capt. Ryan Vossekuil who has been in charge since MacNeills absence, Feb. 9. Boelk said the Mayville Police and Fire Commission will begin looking at candidates for chief.

Boelk said that the city is still in discussions with MacNeills attorney. He didnt comment on the terms of the resignation.

After a closed session March 6, the council authorized Mayor Rob Boelk to file a formal complaint with the Mayville Police and Fire Commission against MacNeill and to request the attorney generals office to bring a charge of misconduct in office against MacNeill. Misconduct in public office is a Class I felony.

As of Thursday, the Wisconsin Attorney Generals Office had not filed any charges.

An initial investigation of MacNeill was conducted by the Watertown Police Department. The results of that investigation have not been made public.

Dodge County District Attorney Kurt Klomberg said that as soon as he became aware of the direction of the investigation, he asked the attorney generals office to handle the matter. Such investigations are typically handled by the Division of Criminal Investigation.

MacNeill has been on leave since Feb. 9 after city officials learned of allegations against him on Feb. 6. MacNeill has served as Mayvilles police chief since 2011. He has worked in the department since 2000.
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There is renewed faith in the Believer.

The arts and culture magazine, whose youthful and idiosyncratic spirit reflects its San Francisco roots, has a new owner.

Black Mountain Institute, a literary center at the University of Nevada Las Vegas, has acquired the publication, which had been struggling for years. Beset by financial difficulties that have afflicted much of the publishing industry, the magazine has not published an issue since the summer of 2015. It has 5,600 subscribers.

The Believer will now be based in Las Vegas. Kellen Braddock, deputy director of Black Mountain Institute, will be the bimonthly magazines publisher.

The acquisition price was not disclosed.

We raised a sum that felt right, said essayist Joshua Wolf Shenk, the institutes executive director, who will edit the Believer. This is a magazine that, in just 14 years, assembled some of the most prodigious and memorable content in literary publishing  not to mention an identity that really stands for something distinct and meaningful in a crowded marketplace of ideas.

The Believers Issue No. 114, to be edited by Shenk, will be published Aug. 1.

Vendela Vida founded the Believer in 2003 with fellow writers Heidi Julavits and Ed Park. (Park left the magazine in 2011.) Based in the Mission District and staffed with a small, young crew, the magazine had been published by McSweeneys, the independent press founded by Dave Eggers, Vidas husband.

Vida and Julavits will serve as consultants to the Believer.

"For a number of years now, Heidi and I have been wanting to devote more time to writing books," Vida wrote in an email. "We realized the Believer and BMI worked well together and had a lot of shared values. They have a passion for discovering and nurturing new voices, for celebrating unsung artists."

Getting to know the institute, Vida added, "was a little like discovering a long-lost twin, and finding out that they lived in Vegas. Doesn't everyone have one of those? Or want to have one of those?"

In its early years, the Believer quickly attracted prominent writers with its mix of the silly and the cerebral, and its positive-minded editorial mission. Julavits criticized a culture of snark in a much-talked-about 2003 essay, Rejoice! Believe! Be Strong and Read Hard!

Among those who have contributed to the magazines pages with an assortment of long-form interviews, essays and reviews are Hilton Als, Anne Carson, Daniel Handler, Nick Hornby, Zadie Smith and William T. Vollmann. The Believer also helped launch the careers of other writers, including Eula Biss, Gideon Lewis-Kraus and Leslie Jamison.

Air Quality Tracker Check levels down to the neighborhood Ratings for the Bay Area and California, updated every 10 minutes

The Believers look is also like no other magazines. Almost square in shape, its non-glossy pages have featured such whimsical elements as temporary tattoos. Graphic artist Charles Burns drew many of its distinct covers in his muted palette.

In its relatively short history, the Believer has been a finalist for the National Magazine Award five times.

The Black Mountain Institute was formed in 2006. Board member Beverly Rogers recently donated $30 million to it.

The goal is to make the Believer central to everything we do, including residential fellowships, Shenk said in a statement. It may seem audacious, but we want to make Las Vegas the best place in the world to be a young nonfiction writer.

John McMurtrie is the San Francisco Chronicle books editor. Email: jmcmurtrie@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @McMurtrieSF
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A former director of three Oakland charter schools was arrested Thursday in North Carolina and charged with fraud, federal prosecutors said.

Benford Ben Chavis, 59, who ran the American Indian Model Schools in Oakland, faces six felony counts of mail fraud and money laundering, according to the U.S. attorneys office in San Francisco.

Chavis allegedly applied for and received more than $1 million in federal grant funding from 2006 to 2012 that he said would be used for the charter schools. The money was instead used for lease payments on properties Chavis owned, according to a grand jury indictment.

Chavis faces up to 20 years in prison for each of the three counts of mail fraud and 10 years for each count of money laundering, federal officials said. The Lumberton, N.C., resident was released on personal recognizance bond and ordered to appear in federal court in Oakland by April 14.

Chavis had been under investigation since at least 2013, when FBI and Internal Revenue Service agents raided his Oakland home and the three schools, seizing computers, documents and other records.

The Oakland school board voted earlier that year to close the charter schools over concerns of financial impropriety. A 2012 California audit uncovered $3.8 million in allegedly improper payments to Chavis and his wife through real estate deals they struck when they operated the charter schools.

The schools challenged the decision in court and staved off closure. They are still open, under new leadership.

Chavis maintained his innocence after the federal raid and defended the charter schools.

If you didnt do anything, why be upset? he said at the time. If I stole money, I need to be put in jail, but the schools need to stay open. Chavis could not be reached for comment Thursday.

The announcement of his arrest surprised local school leaders.

It affirms for me that the decision we made to revoke the charter was absolutely the right decision, said school board member Jody London.

Chavis was a controversial figure at the American Indian charter schools, known for using foul language, enforcing rigid rules and meting out harsh discipline.

Students were often publicly humiliated and forced to attend Saturday school and detention. Chavis drew both national scorn and praise for his tactics. The schools, which at the time enrolled predominantly Asian American students, had among the highest test scores in the state.

Chavis no longer has any official association with the organization, although his children still attend the schools, said Maya Woods-Cadiz, superintendent of the American Indian Model Schools.

Our board years ago put out a statement that did not allow any of us to have contact other than that as a parent, she said. Chavis arrest, she said, doesnt affect American Indian Model Schools because were not connected to him.

Chronicle staff writer Michael Bodley contributed to this report.

Jill Tucker is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: jtucker@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @jilltucker
After the Republicans withdrew their health care bill last week, social media mocked President Trump. On Facebook, someone gleefully commented: Thats karma.

Karma reflects the sum of your actions, in your existences past and present, which in turn determines your future. Yet in pop culture, karma has become an insult tinged with the German word schadenfreude  delight in the misfortune of others. In this view, theres a sense of bitterness, a focus on how misdeeds will return to punish you. In a country so divided, I understand that reaction  I too rejoiced when the Affordable Care Act remained in place  but I started thinking about how ones actions can affect the future in a brighter way.

It seemed the perfect opportunity to visit Karma Kitchen in Berkeley, founded a decade ago by volunteers to spread the spirit of generosity. Diners, who arent charged a cent, are told, Your meal was a gift from someone who came before you. To keep the chain of gifts alive, we invite you to pay it forward to those who dine after you.

Since its inception, Karma Kitchen spin-offs have appeared around the world, from Washington, D.C., to Dubai. In Berkeley, its held at Taste of the Himalayas on the last Sunday of the month, from 11 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. I invited two families who are also grappling with how to teach our young children about kindness and activism.

After warmly greeting us, the host seated us at a corner table. Almost immediately, another guest strolled in with a bag of exquisite, handcrafted stuffed animals and offered them to us.

My friends 8-year-old daughter cuddled a beautiful quilted rabbit. I love this place! she said. She read aloud from a deck of cards, which offered suggestions such as Write a thank you note to a teacher who inspired you and Give away something important to you.

The dishes were served family style: a creamy tofu saag, vegetable korma in coconut gravy, allo matara green peas and potatoes cooked in tomato, basmati rice, dal soup, crispy butter naan, milky chai, and tart and sweet mango lassis. Dessert included rice pudding, vegan tofu lime pie, a vegan chocolate mousse cake and mango or vanilla ice cream.

We ate the delicious meal with gusto, mindful not to waste food, as can happen at a buffet when you want to get your moneys worth and your eyes outmatch your appetite. The volunteer server  thank you, Divya!  was cheerful, solicitous and patient with us as we corralled our boisterous boys.

The restaurant, the air scented with spices, grew crowded with other blissful diners. I felt cared for, taken care of and inspired, too. The check arrived  Your bill total: $0.00  and noted that each mealtime takes 100 volunteer hours and $650 in food costs to pull off, and that collective trust and support is necessary to perpetuate the cycle of generosity. Sometimes organizers make cost; sometimes they dont.

A study of how people behave when told to pay what you want (in which you pay for yourself) compared with pay it forward suggest that were more generous when paying on behalf of someone else. Field experiments were conducted at the Cartoon Art Museum in San Francisco and at a gourmet coffee vendor.

People may feel pressured to follow the behaviors of others in an effort to behave appropriately, wrote the researchers from UC Berkeley and UC San Diego. People like to be seen as generous by others and by themselves. They also want to save their money.

Researchers also ran a pilot experiment at the restaurant, in which customers either received a card that said, Someone who came here earlier paid for your meal as a gift or Now you have a chance to pay for the meal as a gift for someone who will come later.

On that day, customers paid more when the card emphasized giving, $20.42, compared with when it highlighted receiving, $11.09.

I hadnt yet read the study when we paid; by the middle of the meal, before getting our check, wed already decided what wed pay. Each family donated $40; for our table of eight, we paid $120.

It feels good, my friend, a father, said afterward. It feels like we went to church  without going to church.

The volunteers gave up their Sunday morning to make sure we enjoyed ourselves, another friend, a mother of two, explained to her kids. How does that make you feel?

I asked the same of my twins, but couldnt tell if they understood. Does it make you want to be nice to other people? What are some good deeds you could do?

They stared blankly at me. Finally, Gege said, We love each other. Thats why we are friends. He grabbed his friends hand and off they went, the kind of love, the kind of karma that also goes round and round.

Vanessa Huas column appears Fridays in Datebook. Email: datebook@sfchronicle.com
Three weeks ago, Dorothy DeBose was given 10 minutes to vacate the house shes lived in for most of her life.

The 76-year-old retired phone company employee was slow gathering what she needed because she kept thinking about the cat she feeds in the backyard. She called her nephew, Omar Taylor, who lives in the unit attached to the house.

Taylor was confused. He called the eviction specialist the family had hired to delay DeBose losing her home until the eviction could be challenged in court.

DeBose left without her medication, wallet and financial documents. The locks were changed. Her furniture and clothes  just about everything  are still inside the white house with a gabled roof on Bancroft Avenue in East Oakland.

Taylor tried to calm her, but she kept worrying about the cat.

Thats her only solace to go feed her cat out there, Taylor said. Her health is deteriorating. It was a very big shock on her system.

Oaklands housing crisis is more than skyrocketing rental prices. DeBose, who was trapped by a risky pay-option mortgage, fell behind in payments and had her house snatched so quickly that she didnt learn the house had been foreclosed and sold until the eviction process began.

A predatory loan cost an elderly woman her home.

She inherited the house from her mother, who died in 2009. DeBose paid the mortgage for seven years as the loan changed banks through acquisitions  from Oaklands World Savings Bank to Wachovia to Wells Fargo Bank.

It was DeBoses mother who had taken out a pick-a-pay loan, which allows borrowers to choose among several payment options, including a minimum that doesnt cover interest. And once the principal reaches a certain level, the mandatory payment jumps. The adjustable-rate mortgages have left many homeowners vulnerable to defaults, and the lending practice has produced high foreclosure rates.

Between 2007 and 2011, there were more than 10,500 completed foreclosures in Oakland, according to the Urban Strategies Council, an organization focused on eliminating poverty.

Foreclosures that lead to evictions havent stopped.

When her sister died in early 2016, DeBose, who never married and has no children, paid for the funeral. That led her to miss a few months of payments. When she resumed paying, the checks were returned. The house was auctioned on Oct. 31, according to Redfin, a real estate database. It was purchased for $347,100 by a property management company in San Leandro. (More about that in another column.)

On Wednesday afternoon, the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment, a tenant activist group, protested the eviction on the front lawn of DeBoses house. Neighbors stopped by to offer support.

Taylor, 44, first learned about the eviction in December. I asked him if DeBose had sought or gotten relief from the December 2010 agreement for Wells Fargo to make $2 billion in loan modifications for California homeowners with pick-a-pay mortgages that Wells had purchased from other banks. He said no.

Hes still trying to put the pieces together.

There is so much that we have to iron out, but this house should never have been in a position where it could be foreclosed, he said as he flipped through a tattered folder bursting with crimped paper.

DeBose has moved in with Taylor. Because he had a lease agreement with DeBose that established him as a tenant, he gets to stay in the attached unit  for now. The property management company is taking him to court, and hell find out next month if he can continue renting the space.

DeBose spends most of her time in a room. The belongings she managed to grab are stuffed into plastic bags at the foot of the bed. As I talked to Taylor, she ambled into living room wearing a teal cardigan, a loose paisley blouse and beige trousers.

She sat quietly, rolling her reading glasses in her hands. She spotted a speck of dirt on the wood floor and crouched to wipe it away with the tissue she had balled up in her hand. Then she went outside to feed the cat. There are two, but only one cat eats because the other is so independent.

The cats dont have names.

He or she doesnt have one, she told me, laughing. They come under the back fence when they were babies.

Before he spoke to protesters, Taylor draped his arm around DeBoses shoulder and asked if she was OK.

No, but Im standing, DeBose said.

It wasnt long before she went inside to sit down.

San Francisco Chronicle columnist Otis R. Taylor Jr. appears Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Email: otaylor@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @otisrtaylorjr
A program to screen kids in the Bayview for signs of trauma. Therapy for victims of domestic violence who have nowhere to live. Housing for homeless young adults in a special program to have their criminal records expunged. Money to purchase body cameras for police officers.

Those are among the Bay Area initiatives that benefit from U.S. Department of Justice grants, money that Attorney General Jeff Sessions said on Monday he would claw back from sanctuary states and cities that limit their cooperation with federal immigration authorities.

In response, San Francisco City Attorney Dennis Herrera filed a legal brief arguing that the city does, in fact, comply with the federal law as part of his lawsuit challenging President Trumps executive order to strip that funding.

Lea Suzuki / Lea Suzuki / The Chronicle

At stake is money for an array of programs that touch on different facets of the criminal justice system, none of them connected to immigration. San Francisco and Richmond could each lose more than $2 million annually, while Oakland could lose more than $5 million.

We are concerned that a lot of these innovative programs that are important to reforming the criminal justice system are on the chopping block, said Max Szabo, a spokesman for San Francisco District Attorney George Gascon.

In San Francisco, an innovative court program that helps young adults facing criminal charges or who have already been convicted pull their lives together began in 2015 with the help of a Justice Department grant. A team of city employees helps the defendants find jobs, housing and enroll in school. If a defendant meets the goals  about a third graduate  they earn a reduced criminal record or even no record at all.

Lea Suzuki/The Chronicle

In weekly hearings at San Francisco Superior Court, Judge Bruce Chan questions the participants on their progress, offering words of encouragement mixed with warnings to do better. In a hearing this week at the Hall of Justice, he called participants to the podium one at a time. He gave a childrens book to one 24-year-old woman with an 8-month-old baby.

Chan asked another participant who had been convicted of stealing a car where he was living. The defendant said he lived in Stockton, with his grandmother.

If this were to happen to your grandmother, then how would you feel? Chan asked. Mad, the defendant responded quietly.

Chan told the defendant: You have to be able to see other people in the way you see yourself and your family.

Justice Department grants provide $438,000 annually that covers the salaries of the court reporter and clerk, public defender, a coordinator from the District Attorneys Office, a deputy probation officer and aide for the probation officer. It also pays for housing for some of the defendants.

Emily Fox, a data analyst with the Department of Children, Youth and Their Families who oversees administration of the grant, said she had no idea what would happen if the funding was cut.

I have these rose-colored glasses that tell us maybe our agencies would be willing to eat it, and Im just not sure that is true, Fox said. The truth is if we lost this funding, my assumption is we wouldnt be able to figure out how to cover it all because we would be hurting in other places.

San Francisco Superior Court presiding Judge Teri Jackson said these alternative courts improve public safety.

These courts provide life-changing services together with judicial oversight to monitor and motivate clients to move toward productive, law-abiding lives to benefit themselves, their families and our city, she said.

The San Francisco District Attorneys Office received a $1 million grant in 2013 spread over four years to provide services like therapy and help navigating the court system for people affected by crime and violence in the Bayview neighborhood.

Lea Suzuki/The Chronicle

The district attorney distributed that money to five nonprofits, one of which, the Third Street Youth Center and Clinic, receives $125,000 annually. It used some of the grant funds, which are set to expire in December, to create an app that is used to identify signs of undetected trauma, which can range from witnessing violence to being a victim themselves.

It also hired a social worker trained in mental health to provide culturally appropriate counseling to people in the neighborhood, a challenge given that many people in the Bayview resist the idea of traditional therapy, said Joi Jackson-Morgan, the organizations executive director.

The clinic has begun partnering with the Rafiki Coalition for Health and Wellness, which receives $50,000 annually from the same Justice Department grant and leads group support sessions for people in the Bayview who have experienced trauma.

Its been so helpful to get funders to see how important screening and training for trauma is, Jackson-Morgan said. For it to be in jeopardy feels like all the help we did to help these communities might be undone.

In Richmond, a $150,000 Justice Department grant helped outfit more than 100 police officers with body cameras.

Several Bay Area cities have gone on the offensive to make sure they can still qualify for the grants. Richmond, San Francisco, Santa Clara and Oakland are challenging in court Trumps executive order to strip funding from sanctuary cities.

Herreras brief, filed Wednesday, argues that San Francisco already complies with the federal immigration law Sessions accused sanctuary cities of breaking. That law prevents local governments from in any way restricting what information its officials share with with the federal government about an individuals immigration status.

What San Francisco doesnt allow  and Herrera maintains the law doesnt require  is holding inmates beyond their release date without a court order because Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials want to pick them up for questioning. The city also prevents its employees from releasing information to ICE about an individuals release date from jail, except in limited circumstances.

San Franciscos lawsuit received some state backing on Wednesday. California Attorney General Xavier Becerra filed a friend-of-the court brief, as did a group of 13 current and former police chiefs and sheriffs, including police chiefs in Houston and Salt Lake City.

The Justice Department has declined comment beyond Sessions announcement.

Emily Green is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: egreen@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @emilytgreen
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Priscilla Chan, the U.S.-born child of Chinese refugees from Vietnam, worked as a volunteer tutor and then as a science teacher, where she saw children with health problems that slowed their education. She took up medicine and became a pediatrician, encountering youngsters whose woes often exceeded the conditions she could treat. And as the mother of a 15-month-old daughter, with another child due this fall, she has personal reasons to be preoccupied with childrens health.

So shortly before her daughters birth, Chan and her husband set an ambitious goal: to cure, treat or prevent all known human diseases within their childs lifetime. To that end, they committed $3 billion over the next 10 years, and over their lifetimes 99 percent of their shares in Facebook, headed by Chans husband, Mark Zuckerberg.

Chan is also chief executive of a project in East Palo Alto called the Primary School, an experiment in bringing together health care and education under one roof. And in her spare time, she remains a practicing pediatrician at San Francisco General Hospital, in a building named for her and Zuckerberg in recognition of their $75 million gift to the hospital.

For Chans philanthropy and dedication, she received the third annual Visionary of the Year award announced by The San Francisco Chronicle at a Thursday evening gala at the War Memorial Opera House in San Francisco.

The award honors Bay Area leaders who work to create social change and carries a $25,000 grant from The Chronicle and a $10,000 scholarship in the winners name from St. Marys College School of Economics and Business Administration in Moraga, The Chronicles partner in creating the award.

Chan, with her husband standing by her side, said she will donate the $25,000 to the Hamilton Foundation, a nonprofit that helps homeless children and their families in San Francisco.

The 32-year-old spoke cheerfully as she accepted the award.

San Francisco, she said, gave me the technical skills to do my work, as well as the culture where we have the audacity to see that anythings possible.

I feel so grateful to have the opportunity to give back, she said. I will spend the rest of my career trying to make San Francisco and the world a little bit better.

The audience of about 200 from the Bay Areas social, financial and political scene included San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee, Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf  a member of the nominating committee for the award  and former Secretary of State George Shultz along with his wife, Charlotte Shultz.

Chan was among six finalists for the Visionary award. The others were Eric Weaver, founder and CEO of the Opportunity Fund, a nonprofit micro-loan program to help underserved small-business owners; Sarah Krevans, CEO of Sutter Health, which under her leadership has expanded its outreach to the homeless; Raj Jayadev, co-founder of Silicon Valley De-Bug, an advocate for changes in criminal laws to help the poor; Angela Blackwell, founder and president of PolicyLink, which works with community groups to help the disadvantaged; and Kimberly Bryant, founder of Black Girls Code, a nonprofit dedicated to improving gender diversity in the tech industry.

Each of the nominees received a certificate from House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-San Francisco, in recognition of outstanding and invaluable service to the community.

Previous winners were Evan Marwell, founder and chief executive of Education Superhighway, a nonprofit that provides high-speed Internet to public schools, and, Chase Adam, creator of Watsi, a crowd-funded medical care platform for people in impoverished nations.

Ive been awed by the genius and commitment of the visionaries who have emerged as nominees in the past three years. They are products of, and contributors to, the blend of idealism, intellect and resolve that pervades so many sectors in the San Francisco Bay Area, said John Diaz, The Chronicles editorial page editor, who chaired the nominating committee. This years class deserves our congratulations and encouragement in their six very distinct and very impressive efforts to change the world for the better.

In an interview this month, Chan said shes probably being naive to set a cure-everything goal and expects decades of failures along with successes. But the idea behind the project called the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, she said, is to create a mind-set  lifting all boats  to generate breakthrough research.

It feels very urgent and personal, not only because of my daughter, but because of how universal that must feel, she said.

Drought Map Track water shortages and restrictions across Bay Area Updated to include drought zones while tracking water shortage status of your area, plus reservoir levels and a list of restrictions for the Bay Areas largest water districts.

Bob Egelko is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: begelko@sfchronicle.com

Twitter: @egelko

How the 6 finalists were selected

The Chronicles third annual Visionary of the Year award was presented in collaboration with St. Marys Colleges School of Economics and Business Administration and City National Bank. The honor salutes leaders who strive to make the world a better place and drive social and economic change by employing new, innovative business models and practices. The six finalists were nominated by a distinguished committee that included Chase Adam, co-founder of the nonprofit Watsi and winner of the 2016 award; Greg Becker, president and CEO of Silicon Valley Bank; Emmett Carson, founding CEO of the Silicon Valley Community Foundation; Ron Conway, angel investor and philanthropist; Zhan Li, dean of the School of Economics and Business Administration at St. Mary's College; Libby Schaaf, mayor of Oakland; Jennifer Siebel Newsom, a documentary filmmaker; and Michael Walker, executive vice president and regional executive of City National Bank.

The winner, Priscilla Chan, was selected by Chronicle Publisher Jeff Johnson, Editor in Chief Audrey Cooper and Editorial Page Editor John Diaz.
Rallies and protest events are a part of political life in the Bay Area. Heres a roundup of whats happening.

Saturday

Supreme Court protest: A rally against U.S. Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch, from 9:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. at Justin Herman Plaza, 1 Market St. in San Francisco. For information: www.facebook.com/events/1248973351886503.

Town halls: Hosted by Reps. Jimmy Panetta, D-Carmel Valley, and Anna Eshoo, D-Palo Alto, from 10 to 11:30 a.m. at the New Brighton Middle School, Performing Arts Center, 250 Washburn Ave. in Capitola. For information: http://bit.ly/2mW7dFQ.

Rep. Mike Thompson, D-St. Helena, will host a town hall from 1 to 2:30 p.m. at Kelseyville High School in the Tom Aikin Student Center, 5480 Main St. For information: http://bit.ly/2nSRre7.

Immigration meeting: A strategy session on how to strengthen local protections for immigrants, from 10 to 11:30 a.m. at Redbud Library, 14785 Burns Valley Road in Clearlake. For information: https://go.peoplepower.org/event/action_attend/3996.

Health march: An event in support of affordable access to health care, from noon to 3 p.m. at 100 Santa Rosa Ave. in Santa Rosa. For information: http://bit.ly/2nHZZUu.

Russian discussion: The Russians Are Coming! The Russians Are Coming?  a forum hosted by the Peace and Freedom Party. The free event is from 2 to 4:30 p.m. at the Starry Plough Pub, 3101 Shattuck Ave. in Berkeley. For information: www.peaceandfreedom.org.

Sunday

Cesar Chavez march: Farmworkers march in protest of President Trumps anti-immigration agenda. The march begins at 10 a.m. at Roseland Village Shopping Center, 777 Sebastopol Road in Santa Rosa. For information: https://www.facebook.com/events/270650016701606.

Connecting with activists: Take Back America, a fair where attendees can connect with activist and advocacy groups. Noon to 3 p.m. in Fiesta Hall at the San Mateo County Event Center, 1346 Saratoga Drive in San Mateo. To register: www.eventbrite.com/e/take-back-america-tickets-32982865639

Author series: Arlie Russell Hochschild will discuss her new book, Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right. The event starts at 9:30 a.m. at Grace Cathedral, Gresham Hall, 1100 California St. in San Francisco. For information: www.gracecathedral.org/events/arlie-russell-hochschild.

Monday

Panel on nuclear weapons: Morality of the Nuclear Age discussion, featuring Richard Rhodes, Ira Helfand and Martin Hellman. The event is from 7 to 9 p.m. at the Sacred Heart Schools, Harman Auditorium, 150 Valparaiso Ave. in Atherton. For more information: www.tech4gs.org/morality_and_geopolitics_of_the_nuclear_age.

Wednesday

Growth politics: Fixing the Bay Areas Growth Politics, a conversation on issues affecting the Bay Area, including environmental quality and social justice. The free event is at 6 p.m. at SPUR Oakland, 1544 Broadway. For information: www.spur.org/events/2017-04-05/fixing-bay-area-s-growth-politics.

Discussion on Medicare: Medicare for All in California presented by Dr. Paul Song, co-chair of Campaign for a Healthy California, at the San Mateo County Democracy for America meeting. The event begins at 7 p.m. at Woodside Road United Methodist Church, 2000 Woodside Road in Redwood City. Admission is free. For information: www.smcdfa.org.

April 8

Immigration seminar: Know Your Rights, a presentation and training for pro bono attorneys and others to help immigrant communities. The event, hosted by Canal Alliance Communication, is from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. at Guzman Hall, Dominican University, 50 Acacia Ave. in San Rafael. For information on tickets, contact Sara Matson at SaraM@canalalliance.org or (415) 306-0429.

Flash mob: A flash mob at at 1 p.m. at the cable car turnaround, 1 Powell St. in San Francisco, to sing the song I Cant Keep Quiet by MILCK. For information: http://bit.ly/2oazyIG.

April 10

Comedy: Benefit performance at the Punch Line Comedy Club for NARAL Pro-Choice America, an organization that promotes abortion care, birth control and paid parental leave. Tickets are $20. The event is at 7:30 p.m. at 444 Battery St. in San Francisco. For tickets: http://bit.ly/NARALPunchLine.

April 13

Education discussion: The Lamorinda Democratic Club hosts a conversation on how federal funding will affect public education. The event is at 7 p.m. at the Lafayette Library and Community Center, 3491 Mount Diablo Blvd. For information: www.ldclub.org.

April 15

Tax march: Protesters will march to demand that President Trump releases his tax returns. A San Francisco march will start at 1 p.m. at 11th and Market streets. For information: http://bit.ly/2m5xWOA. In San Jose, a march is from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Details are being confirmed. For information: http://bit.ly/2nSMxO7.

Pro-Trump rally: The event is to promote free speech. Noon to 4 p.m. in Berkeley. Details are being confirmed. For information: https://www.facebook.com/events/185364111955870/?active_tab=discussion.

Anti-Trump protest: Afamily-friendly event where attendees will use their bodies to spell out an enormous challenge to our current president. The exact message has not been finalized. The event begins at 10:30 a.m. and attendees are asked to meet 300 yards south of the Cliff House Restaurant, 1090 Point Lobos Ave., in San Francisco. For information: www.facebook.com/events/214702565673803.
Bill Hutchinson / The Chronicle / /

A man sustained life-threatening injuries when he was beaten by a young acquaintance in the Tenderloin neighborhood of San Francisco on Wednesday night, police said.

The 50-year-old victim, whose name was not released, got into an argument with the 22-year-old suspect near Turk and Leavenworth streets around 10 p.m., according to the San Francisco Police Department.
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TIJUANA, Mexico  The North American Free Trade Agreement has transformed this sprawling border town from gritty party spot to something quite different: a world capital of medical devices.

Trucks choke boulevards lined with factories, many bearing the names of U.S.-run companies: Medtronic, Hill-Rom, DJO Global and Greatbatch Medical. Inside, Mexican workers churn out millions of medical devices each day, from intravenous bags to artificial respirators, for the global market.

Nearly everyone in the United States  even the world  who has a pacemaker walks around with parts from Tijuana.

When President Trump threatens to redo trade deals and slap steep taxes on imports in an effort to add more manufacturing jobs, he focuses largely on car companies and air-conditioner makers. But the medical devices business makes a particularly revelatory case study of the difficulties of untangling global trade.

The United States imports about 30 percent of its medical devices and supplies. The trouble is, these jobs are among the most difficult to relocate to the United States. To ensure the safety of products that often end up inside the human body, medical devices are strictly regulated and require lengthy approvals from the Food and Drug Administration and other inspectors.

If the companies do keep major operations outside the country, new taxes on imports would most likely increase the cost of their products  a change that could jolt not only the devices industry in coming years, but also health care nationwide.

In Tijuana, the factories are bound to stay put for years, at least. During that time, health executives say, a border tax could fracture the industrys sophisticated global supply chain and force U.S. hospitals to pay more for vital necessities  or worse.

The real danger is the supplies wont be available at all, said Dr. John Jay Shannon, CEO of the Cook County Health and Hospitals System in Chicago.

U.S. hospitals rely on heaps of bandages and surgical gloves from China, suturing needles and artificial joints from Ireland, and defibrillators and catheters from Mexico. The value of imports of medical devices annually more than tripled from 2001 to 2016, when they reached $43.9 billion, according to BMI Research, a unit of the Fitch Group.

Mexico is the leading supplier, ahead of Ireland, Germany and China. And few places illustrate this changing landscape, or help explain the complexity of the industry, as well as Tijuana, 20 miles south of San Diego.

The city houses the highest concentration of Mexicos medical device firms, 70 percent of which are U.S.-owned, according to the local development group. Companies have invested heavily in Tijuana, constructing long, low-slung factories tucked into the hilly terrain. Giant banners hanging from manufacturing plants plead for workers to join them.

Those hired pass through imposing security gates to begin shifts operating advanced machinery or delicately sewing pig tissue onto stents for heart valves, and trucks zip in a steady line across the border in fast-track lanes into California.

But the possibility of new protectionist trade policies is looming over this buzz of activity. The question for many of the people is whether it will upend the economic incentives that led U.S. companies to invest in the city in the first place.

Trump has argued that a border tax is needed to keep well-paying jobs in the United States and dissuade companies from relying on Mexican workers who earn a fraction of U.S. wages. Technicians at medical device factories in Tijuana make about $14 an hour, compared with about $25 an hour for technicians at U.S. factories.

Now, even the citys unflappable longtime entrepreneurs are unsettled by the shift in trade talk.

U.S. companies draft plans to build new plants  or expand existing ones  years in advance, said Miguel Felix Diaz, vice president of the Baja California Medical Device Cluster, an organization that represents 63 medical device manufacturing plants that employ 60,000 Mexican workers.

For that reason now, he said, you dont know if you start some operation tomorrow how its going to be affected.

If the United States does approve a border tax, Felix Diaz added, the final customer is going to pay.

The final tally of just how much U.S. customers  hospitals, clinics, nursing homes and doctors offices  would pay is unclear.

The price on many medical devices is negotiated by group-purchasing organizations, which harness the purchasing power of hospitals and others and would try to mitigate price increases.

Mike Alkire, chief operating officer at Premier, which negotiates for some 3,750 U.S. hospitals, said that while prices would initially rise if the Trump administration hit countries like Mexico or China with tariffs, weve got enough diversity in the way we source products, we think we can manage the costs.

Over the long term, Alkire added, we do think the market will stabilize and the most efficient place to produce products will occur.

But CEOs at some of the largest hospitals in the United States are nervously watching the gathering legislative, economic and geopolitical storm.

A border tax, experts say, would ricochet back and forth across the U.S.-Mexico border  and around the world  in unintended ways.

Mexicos medical device industry buys much of its raw materials and capital machinery from U.S. suppliers. The U.S.-owned Integer plant in Tijuana, for example, buys 90 percent of its raw materials, essentially duty-free, from the United States: stainless steel to be stamped into cups used for hip replacements and plastic to be molded into catheters. Then half of the factorys output is shipped back to the United States and much of the rest to U.S.-owned companies in Puerto Rico, Switzerland and Singapore.

If Mexico imposes tariffs on raw materials from U.S. suppliers, a likely response to any border tax imposed by the United States, production costs in Mexico would spike.

The damage wouldnt just to be to the Mexico operation, it would be to U.S. suppliers, said Christopher Wilson, deputy director of the Mexico Institute at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.

People need to understand this relationship we have goes both ways, said David Mayagoitia, president of the board of the Tijuana Economic Development Corp.

Sarah Varney is a Kaiser Health News writer. This story was produced in collaboration with the New York Times.
Bottled water is starting to seem more like soda, and sometimes taste like it, too.

As bottled water surges in popularity, Coke, Pepsi and other companies are using celebrity endorsements, stylish packaging and fancy filtration processes like reverse osmosis to sell people on expanding variations of what comes out of the tap. Theyre also adding flourishes like bubbles, flavors or sweeteners that can blur the lines between what is water and what is soda.

For this years Super Bowl, PepsiCo even ran an ad for its new Lifewtr, promoting the drink in a spotlight typically reserved for sodas. Also running their first Super Bowl ads were Fiji and Bai Brands, which sell enhanced waters made with fruit juice and stevia sweetener.

Michael Simon, Bais chief marketing officer, says its drinks give people that healthy profile theyre looking for, but now they no longer have to sacrifice on taste with the neutrality of water.

Bottled water has been gaining ground for years, and overtook soda as the No. 1 drink in the U.S. by sales volume last year, industry tracker Beverage Marketing Corp. said. Some of the fizzy, sweetened drinks are considered water by the companies, or industry trackers in some cases, as the distinctions between them lose meaning. Companies arent as interested in the big, economy packs of plain bottled water that have been fueling the growth, says Ali Dibaj, a Bernstein analyst who covers the industry, since those are less profitable than sodas and are a horrible business to be in.

So Coke and Pepsi are focusing on pricier options that compete with brands like Evian and Perrier. And theyre introducing fizzy and fruity varieties to get a better foothold in an increasingly crowded marketplace where options like LaCroix and others are gaining popularity. Showing just how blurry the lines are getting, PepsiCo released a drink last week that it describes as sorta juice, sorta soda, sorta sparkling water. Such options can capture people looking to cut back on sodas or juices, and may get people who might buy lower-priced waters to upgrade.

You can get up the ladder in terms of water and get out of the categories that dont drive a lot of value, Coca-Colas incoming CEO James Quincey said in September.

Quincey cites Smartwater, which has enjoyed sales growth in North America, as a way for Coke to profitably expand its water business. The brand is billed as vapor distilled and features actress Jennifer Aniston in its ads.

He also said that in the crowded Chinese market, Coke is upgrading people to a water brand it markets as socially responsible with a different blend of minerals, which costs twice as much.

Exactly what makes water seem like its worth the extra money varies, but image is key.

PepsiCo had toyed with names like Qua and Om before settling on Lifewtr. The company points to the artwork featured on its bottles, and the reverse osmosis filtration the water undergoes, with electrolytes added for taste. This is where consumers are heading, said Todd Kaplan, vice president of marketing at PepsiCo, about lower-calorie drinks like Lifewtr.

Both Lifewtr and Smartwater, which account for a small portion of the overall packaged water market, are made with municipal water and were selling for $2.79 for a 1-liter bottle at a 7-Eleven in New York City. The convenience store chains private label brand was selling for $1.50 for the same size bottle.

The challenge for Coke and Pepsi is people like Andrew Allen. The New York City resident said he is trying to drink more water, but isnt loyal to a particular brand and buys whatever he can get a deal on.

I just wanted to stop drinking soda  just give it up, Allen said.

Julie McKnight, who also lives in New York City, said the distinctions made by some bottled waters are not worth the extra price. It doesnt seem any different, she said. Mostly, McKnight said, she uses reusable bottles that she fills with filtered tap water.

To help address peoples concerns about the environment as well as paying for a variation of what they could get from the faucet, companies like Nestle have been light weighting the packaging to use less plastic and keep prices down.

In addition to the unflavored versions, Cokes Dasani and Pepsis Aquafina have been rolling out sparkling and flavored extensions. Such options are making it trickier to define drinks that may be fizzy and sweet, yet marketed as water. Beverage Digest, another industry tracker, counts flavored sparkling varieties in its water category, as well as Sparkling Ice, which is made with artificial sweeteners.

Someone could argue with a straight face that maybe those belong with sodas, executive editor Duane Stanford noted. But, he said, people drink Sparkling Ice with the mind-set that it is water.

Candice Choi is an Associated Press writer.
A series of surveillance photos of a thief who stole $100,000 worth of jewelry from a store in San Franciscos Chinatown were released by police on Friday in hopes that someone will recognize him and tip them off.

The robbery occurred about 3 p.m. on March 24 at a store on the 100 block of Waverly Street, an area bustling with cafes, markets and shops, police said.
Some high school juniors go for debate. Others for volleyball. Jinyuan (Buffy) Li, who's in her next-to-last year at Kirby Preparatory School in Santa Cruz, is spending her after-school hours looking for $4 million in seed funding.

Li, along with business partners Wilson Li (not related), 21, and Zhang Cai, 31, have already raised $280,000 in funding to date to build TagDat, a restaurant review app they are pitching as a competitor to Yelp.

Li got her first taste of extracurricular start-ups last summer working for her mother, who has been developing a social lifestyle app for Chinese women. There, she met Wilson Li, who is now a senior at Carleton College in Minnesota. The two, both food lovers, decided they could improve on review sites Yelp and TripAdvisor, by reducing the impact of users' biases and avoiding the pressure that these companies may put on restaurants to advertise. "We stared an app that would eliminate that issue and be a lot more convenient when you're searching," Li says.

TagDat users primarily appear to read and communicate their preferences through symbols, keywords and emoji instead of words, though the newest iteration permits a small amount of text. '' If you want to find an authentic Japanese restaurant, you can enter the tag and it will show areas where you might want to go," she says.

The third member of the management team, Cai, is currently completing a postdoctoral astrophysics fellowship. Li says that Cai's work helps TagDat sift through, cluster and visualize vast amounts of data. The app then learns the user's preferences based on past searches to make more accurate recommendations.

Of course, TagDat is only in beta to date, available through the Apple app store as of March 31. Still, the idea alone was enough for Li, Li and Cai to secure $30,000 from an angel investor in Shanghai and develop a prototype that earned them $250,000 in pre-seed funding from one of the investor's contacts. (Side note: When this reporter was 17, "pre-seed funding" meant the $5 he begged off his parents to buy books between the slim paychecks he received from his after-school job.)

The quarter-million dollars has allowed the three cofounders to hire five developers and, now, to set off in search of an incubator and big money.

Buffy Li, whose title is chief commercial owner -- again, this reporter's job title at age 17: "library page" -- says she is leaving the day-to-day oversight to Wilson Li while she attends daily classes and applies for college. "It's hard and has been quite busy, especially this past three weeks," she says. "But it's something I love and have a passion for. It's just a lot of work. But it's worth it and it's entertaining for me."

If TagDat does go viral, it won't be Buffy Li's first success attracting attention online. Her cat, Bailey, has 27,000 followers on Instagram (@baileyragdoll).

On TagDat's Facebook page, Bailey has already been recruited into doing some influencer marketing.

Jonathan Kauffman is a staff writer for The Chronicle. Email: jkauffman@sfchronicle.com. Twitter: @jonkauffman.
OREGON  Gary Gorman recognized that for the development company bearing his name to continue without him someday, he needed a leadership transition plan to ensure its future.

In mid-March Gorman & Co., which he built from a one-man operation from a basement office in summer 1984 to a company with about 250 employees and operations in five states, announced that plan. Gorman will transition the daily management of the company to Brian Swanton, the Arizona market president who will take over as CEO on Jan. 1. Gorman will still be involved with the business as chairman of its board.

Gorman, who has not determined a retirement date, said announcing a leadership succession plan now was the responsible thing to do.

Ill still be very involved in the company, but Ill be less involved in the day-to-day side of things starting Jan. 1, said Gorman, 61. I dont consider this retiring at all, but when you grow a business to a certain level, and when (the owner) gets over 60 years old, people do start to ask, Whats next?

I wanted to get ahead of that question. I wanted to have input on (the future of the business) as opposed to someone else making that decision somewhere down the line.

In the beginning

Gorman & Co. specializes in housing developments from affordable housing to upscale condominiums, and does more than $100 million in business annually. It has operations in Milwaukee, Phoenix, Chicago, Miami and Denver.

Gorman & Co. also has been very active in Madison.

The companys recent projects include the Union Corners development continuing to rise at East Washington Avenue, Milwaukee and Winnebago streets. The company also was involved in converting space at the Bishop OConnor Catholic Pastoral Center, a former seminary and home to the diocesan headquarters, to apartments now referred to as Holy Name Heights.

Before he got into housing development, Gorman practiced law for about four years.

The basement office where I started my business was torn down long ago, he said. When I look back on it, I never expected the company to grow to the size it is today.

Tom Capp, the current chief operating officer who will become vice chairman of the board on Jan. 1, joined Gorman about 22 years ago and led the companys expansion outside Wisconsin, most recently to Illinois.

We have deep roots in Wisconsin and well always be a Wisconsin-based company, Gorman said.

He said Swanton, who has grown Gorman & Co.s business in Arizona for the past eight years, is ready for a larger role.

Gorman said establishing the future leader of the company well before his retirement also ensures to future investors the firm will be around to see projects through and it also helps in the recruitment of new employees as it looks to expand into new markets.

Yes, I want to ensure the company continues after Im gone, but what its really about when a company actively is recruiting young people that have options and they see the CEO of our company is a guy in his 60s, they may not consider us, Gorman said.

Gorman said moving the company forward will take new thinking.

It took a certain skill set to grow the company from zero to $100 million, he said. To get to that next level, it will take someone who may be better at systems and monitoring metrics, and I think Brian has the skills to continue growing the business.

The future

Implementing a transition plan while an owner still will be involved in the business is a sound strategy, said Sherry Herwig, director of the Family Business Center at UW-Madison.

It lets employees know that during the transition there will be some consistency and continuity, she said. When the new leader takes over, the employees can take comfort knowing the person who had been leading the company all along will be there and be part of the decision-making process.

Gorman said his companys success has been built through recruiting good people who could develop markets familiar to them.

What I hope to see is the company experience steady but not rapid growth because companies that are the highest risk are start-ups and those that grow too rapidly, he said. In terms of the transition and working with Brian, I plan to work with him so he understands what hell have to do to be the CEO versus just being a market president.

Gorman said once the companys daily management is transitioned to Swanton, he will focus on special projects including finding ways to approach building projects more cost-effectively.

Im feeling good and Im healthy, Gorman said. Im still really interested in this business and frankly, I dont want to retire.
1 Charleston massacre: Convicted South Carolina church shooter Dylann Roof is set to plead guilty to state murder charges to avoid a second death sentence. Solicitor Scarlett Wilson said Friday that Roof is scheduled to enter a guilty plea during a hearing April 10 in Charleston. She said he will enter the plea in exchange for a sentence of life in prison. Roof has been awaiting trial on state murder charges for the deaths of nine black parishioners at Charlestons Emanuel AME Church in June 2015. The deal wont save Roof from a possible execution. Earlier this year, a federal jury sentenced him to death on charges including hate crimes.

2 Deadly crash: A witness to a deadly Texas wreck involving a church minibus says the driver of a pickup truck that crossed the center line apologized and acknowledged he had been texting while driving. Jody Kuchler told the Associated Press on Friday that he was driving behind the truck before the collision on a rural road about 75 west of San Antonio. Kuchler said he spoke with the driver  Jack Dillon Young, 20  as he was pinned in his truck Wednesday moments after the collision. Thirteen people on the bus were killed and the lone survivor remained hospitalized Friday.
WASHINGTON  Senate Democratic opposition to President Trumps Supreme Court nominee swelled Friday as Democrats neared the numbers needed for a filibuster, setting up a showdown with Republicans who have the votes to confirm Neil Gorsuch.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York warned Republicans against changing Senate rules, which could prove momentous for the chamber and would allow all future Supreme Court nominees to get on the court regardless of opposition from the minority party. He says Trump should just pick a new nominee if Gorsuch is blocked.

Sens. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, Brian Schatz of Hawaii and Claire McCaskill of Missouri became the latest Democratic senators to announce their opposition to Gorsuch, a federal appeals court judge in Denver whose conservative rulings make him an heir to the justice he would replace, the late Antonin Scalia.

Blumenthal, a Senate Judiciary Committee member who questioned Gorsuch on judicial independence and other topics in last weeks hearings, complained that the judge didnt give straightforward responses.

We must assume that Judge Gorsuch has passed the Trump litmus test  a pro-life, pro-gun, conservative judge, Blumenthal said in a statement. In question after question, Judge Gorsuch had an opportunity to distance himself from right-wing groups. His refusal to answer only deepens the doubt that he is not a neutral follower of the law  an umpire who just calls balls and strikes  but instead an acolyte of hard-right special interests.

There are now at least 36 Senate Democrats who oppose Gorsuch and have pledged to block him with a filibuster, just six shy of the number that would be required to mount a successful filibuster. All of the Senates 52 Republicans are expected to support him. The vote is expected next week.

Republicans are furious at the Democrats plans, arguing that filibusters of Supreme Court justices have been exceedingly rare, and accusing Democrats of responding to political pressures from a liberal base that still hasnt accepted Trumps election win. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., is expected to respond to a Democratic filibuster by unilaterally changing Senate rules to lower the threshold for Supreme Court justices from 60 votes to a simple majority in the 100-member Senate.

Although such a change might seem procedural or obscure, it is known on Capitol Hill as the nuclear option because it would amount to a dramatic departure from Senate norms of bipartisanship and collegiality.

Schumer warned against the rules change in an interview Thursday, arguing that Republicans would be the ones to blame if it does occur.

Senate Republicans are acting like if Gorsuch doesnt get 60 votes they have no choice but to change the rules, Schumer said. That is bunk.

Mary Clare Jalonick and Erica Werner are Associated Press writers.
A day after a federal judge in Hawaii refused to reinstate President Trumps latest travel ban, the administration took its case Thursday to the federal appeals court in San Francisco.

The Justice Department filed an appeal with the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals challenging the injunction issued Wednesday by U.S. District Judge Derrick Watson, maintaining a nationwide freeze on Trumps March 6 executive order. That order would impose a 90-day ban on U.S. admission of anyone from six nations whose populations are almost entirely Muslim and a 120-day ban on all U.S. admission of refugees.

The appeals court had rejected Trumps previous order, which had been blocked by a federal judge in Washington state a week after Trump issued it Jan. 27. While in effect, it caused turmoil at airports at home and abroad and the suspension of an estimated 60,000 to 100,000 travelers visas

The Ninth Circuit upheld the judges decision in a 3-0 ruling Feb. 9, saying the executive order was likely to be found unconstitutional. The court rejected the administrations argument that judges had no authority to second-guess presidential decisions on immigration and national security.

Trumps second order is narrower than the first. It reduced the countries from seven to six by dropping Iraq, leaving Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen covered by the 90-day ban. It maintained the 120-day ban on all U.S. admission of refugees, but removed a provision giving future preference to refugees from minority religions, which Trump had said was intended to help Christians from Muslim nations.

But Watson, and a judge in Maryland, ruling separately, said there was ample evidence that the revised order, like the earlier one, was motivated by bias against Muslims.

They cited Trumps advocacy, as a presidential candidate, for a halt to immigration by Muslims, and post-election statements to the same effect by the president and others. In particular, former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, a Trump adviser, told an interviewer Jan. 28 that Trump had asked him to form a commission to find a legal way to enact a Muslim ban.

Watson also cited Trumps remark at a March 15 rally that the new travel ban was a watered-down version of the first one.

The history of the revised executive order is full of religious animus, invective and obvious pretext, Watson said in a ruling Wednesday that transformed his previous temporary restraining order into a preliminary injunction, blocking Trumps order indefinitely.

While the Justice Department wants the courts to ignore that evidence, the judge said, the court will not crawl into a corner, pull the shutter closed, and pretend it has not seen what it has.

The three judges on the panel that will consider the departments appeal have not yet been named, but under the courts usual procedures, they will not be the same ones who rejected the earlier order.

The Justice Department has already asked another appeals court to overturn the Maryland ruling blocking just the 90-day ban on U.S. admission from the six mostly Muslim nations. That court has scheduled a hearing May 8.

Even if the government won that case, Watsons order would remain in effect unless a higher court overruled it.
The Trump administration will seek modest  but numerous  changes to the North American Free Trade Agreement, according to a draft of a letter sent last week to Congress, displaying a much more conventional approach to trade negotiation than the dramatic changes President Trump had suggested he planned to seek.

The draft letter, first reported by the Wall Street Journal, suggests a much more diplomatic tone than President Trump has threatened to use during NAFTA renegotiations. It says, among other things, that the White House would look to strengthen cooperation under the World Trade Organization, an international group that the Trump administration had suggested in the past it might not abide by.
Five developers have delivered details on how they'd redevelop Madison Area Technical College's Downtown campus block, each reusing all or part of existing buildings and adding new construction to the prime, two-acre site just off Capitol Square.

The developers -- the Alexander Co., Baum Revision/Gardner Capital, CD Smith/HKS Holdings, Hovde Properties and Sherman Associates -- are offering unique proposals that could bring hotels, housing, space for offices, shops, restaurants and artists, and underground parking to the block.

The proposals differ in cost, number of hotel rooms and housing units, amounts of retail and office space, parking, and land lease and property tax revenue.

Alexander, of Madison, is proposing a new eight-story, 252-room hotel and reusing the existing MATC buildings for housing.

Baum Revision/Gardner Capital, of Chicago, is proposing to reuse the existing buildings for youth arts-oriented nonprofits and other organizations and affordable housing for artists. It would include a new 10-story, mixed-use building.

CD Smith/HKS Holdings, of Fond du Lac and Milwaukee, has offered two options. The first would construct an eight-story hotel with 206 rooms and a seven-story office building and reuse the existing 1920s building for housing. The second would demolish all existing buildings and build new a hotel, office space and housing.

Hovde Properties, of Madison, would reuse the existing buildings with two added floors for a 197-room hotel and construct a new, 10-story building with grocery store, retail and office space.

Sherman Associates, of Minneapolis, would build a six-story hotel with 164 rooms and retail space and reuse the existing buildings for affordable housing.

"We feel really good," Mark Thomas, MATC vice president of administrative services, said, noting the proposals would reuse structures, bring new construction and energize a full city block with desirable uses. "There's no water park. There's nothing outlandish or shocking."

The projects cost from $41 million to $132 million, Thomas said, declining to reveal financial specifics as the college negotiates with the developers.

Process is on track

Staff are still doing analysis, but officials believe they will be able to recommend a project with a ground lease generating $500,000 to $900,000 annually, as officials discussed last year, Thomas said.

The college will further analyze the proposals, narrow the field and bring some of the suitors in for interviews with the hope of making a recommendation to the college's board of trustees on May 3.

"We need certainty about ownership structure and certainly about viability of a business plan to make sure it's in the best long-term value for the college," Thomas said.

MATC is leaving its Downtown campus to expand on the city's historically underserved South Side. The college will keep programs at the Downtown campus through at least the 2017-18 school year.

Ideas 'well thought out'

Madison City Council President Mike Verveer, whose district includes the site, said he is saddened that MATC will be leaving its Downtown campus but has good feelings about the general direction of the proposals.

Verveer said he has taken no position on the applicants, but said that, if doable, the Baum/Gardner plan would be the most exciting for the community because of its emphasis on serving nonprofit arts organizations geared toward youth.

The neighborhood has not had any substantive conversations about the proposals and "I know there will be great interest among Downtown stakeholders on the future of this prime Downtown real estate," he said.

The selected developer still must go through the regular city planning review process.

Susan Schmitz, president of Downtown Madison Inc., said, "They're different ideas. I think they all have been well thought out. They take into consideration things the Downtown needs, like hotel rooms and affordable housing."

Aging buildings on site

The five developers were selected in January from a pool of 11 companies that responded to MATC's request for plans to ground-lease its Downtown property, 211 N. Carroll St., and either renovate or replace the existing building.

One of those not selected as a finalist, Beitler Real Estate Services, submitted a proposal anyway, but college officials refused it.

The site includes a four-story structure built in the 1920s, a four-story structure added in the 1950s and increased to six stories in the 1960s and an atrium area built in the 1980s. The structures currently function as one building.

Four of the five development proposals preserve the iconic arch that remains from the Cass Gilbert-designed Madison Central High School building on the block that was demolished in 1986 for a MATC parking lot. The proposals generally relocate the arch to central courtyard areas amid the buildings. The Baum proposal does not specifically suggest plans for the arch, MATC officials said.

The college's board of trustees is expected to enter a ground lease for the parcel starting in 2019.

Baum Revision/Gardner Capital, of Chicago, is proposing to reuse the existing buildings for youth arts-oriented nonprofits and other organizations and affordable housing for artists. It would include a new 10-story, mixed-use building.
The Good Food Low Carb Cafe on Cottage Grove Road, an offshoot of the two popular Good Food carts -- one on the Capitol Square, the other on Library Mall -- will open Monday, right on schedule.

It's been a little stressful getting ready to open, but besides being shipped an oven that didn't work, everything has gone smoothly, said Melanie Nelson, who is opening the restaurant with her fiance, Kory Seder. The couple plan to marry in May.

The cafe's menu will be similar to the carts, but not identical. It will offer salads, wraps, lettuce tacos, homemade soups and hot "zoodle" bowls, where the "zoodles" will be made from spiraled vegetables, such as zucchini, summer squash and carrots.

Appetizers will include pasture-raised chicken wings from Nami Moon Farms in Custer; Asian meatballs; bacon-wrapped jalapeno poppers; and something Nelson is calling Fathead flatbread, made with a gluten-free, grain-free pizza crust. Versions will include margherita, buffalo chicken and blue cheese, and Greek.

"We are embracing the healthy fats here and getting rid of the grains in our flatbread crust," she said.

The cafe will offer a couple dessert options, coffee from Just Coffee, and cold drinks.

Heritage Bakery Cafe at the same location, 4674 Cottage Grove Road, closed last September, the victim of road construction and the big Metro Market grocery store that went in nearby.

Nelson said she's not too worried about the somewhat under-the-radar location.

"It is a little bit hidden," she said, noting that the cafe's signage is not real visible from the road. "I know a lot of people are excited for us to open so I'm hoping we will drive some traffic despite the location, but we're going to have to wait and see how it goes."

Heritage made it six years, Nelson said, pointing out that the former bakery and cafe was crushed by the major construction on Cottage Grove Road last year. "That really hurt them. That's over now, so I'm hoping it will be OK. We'll have to wait and see."

Nelson was using a commercial kitchen on the West Side to prepare food for the carts and for catering. But now that work is taking place in the new cafe.

The Good Food Low Carb Cafe will mainly be a lunch and dinner spot, open from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. weekdays. It will also be open for brunch Saturday and Sunday from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.

The cafe won't be entirely gluten-free as originally planned. They are keeping the wheat tortillas for the wraps which are a popular option at the carts.

The Good Food cart on the Capitol Square has routinely come in on top of the city's annual food cart review, and in 2016 and 2014 it was No. 1.
Madison middle school students will be facing off Saturday in the 23rd annual African American History Challenge Bowl, with the winning team going on to the nationals.

The quiz show style contest starts at 9 a.m. at the Madison School District's Doyle Administration Building, 545 W. Dayton St.

The contest is a presentation of the 100 Black Men of Madison and the school district.

"The 100 Black Men of Madison African American History Challenge Bowl is an educational program designed to enhance the appreciation and study of African American history," said Dr. Floyd Rose, president of the 100 Black Men of Madison.

The contest is open to all middle school students in the district, with the goal of encouraging pride, self worth and an appreciation of African American history, the school district said in a news release.

The middle school teams have been studying and working with their teachers to get ready for the Challenge Bowl.

The winning team in Madison will advance to the national finals June 7-10 in New Orleans.
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Attorney General Jeff Sessions and the head of homeland security rebuked the chief justice of the California Supreme Court for asking federal immigration agents to quit stalking local courthouses as a strategy to arrest people who are in the country illegally.

As the chief judicial officer of the State of California, your characterization of federal law enforcement officers is particularly troubling, read the letter, which was dated Wednesday and signed by Sessions and John F. Kelly.

In March, Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye wrote to Sessions and Kelly saying she was concerned about reports from the states trial courts that federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents appeared to be stalking unauthorized immigrants to make arrests.

Her comments were echoed by San Francisco District Attorney George Gascon, Public Defender Jeff Adachi and City Attorney Dennis Herrera, who said such arrests could jeopardize public safety. Policies that could drive victims of crime from courthouses, they said, undermine the administration of justice.

Sessions and Kelly said in their letter, which was first reported by Politico, that the state of California and many counties had enacted laws designed to prohibit or hinder ICE from enforcing immigration law by denying federal agents the ability to take custody of deportable people in county jails.

Californias Trust Act limits the situations in which jails can hold individuals wanted by immigration agents longer than their release date. In San Francisco, a criminal warrant is required.

Such policies threaten public safety, rather than enhance it, Sessions and Kelly wrote. As a result, ICE officers and agents are required to locate and arrest these aliens in public places, rather than in secure jail facilities where the risk of injury is higher.

Courthouses, on the other hand, give agents a place where visitors are screened for weapons and decrease the risk to officers and the people being arrested, the Trump administration officials wrote.

Sessions and Kelly asked Cantil-Sakauye to express your concerns to Gov. Jerry Brown and local officials that enacted policies that occasionally necessitate ICE officers and agents to make arrests at courthouses and other public places. State and local leaders have made clear in public statements that they oppose the administrations immigration plans.

Cantil-Sakauye responded Friday by saying she appreciated the letter and the admission from the administration officials that they are in state courthouses making federal arrests. She continued her criticism of the practice.

Making arrests at courthouses, in my view, undermines public safety because victims and witnesses will fear coming to courthouses to help enforce the law, she said in a statement. I am disappointed that despite local and state public safety issues at stake, courthouses are not on ICEs sensitive areas list that includes schools, churches, and hospitals.

Advocates for immigrants have maintained that local jail officials who are asked to honor immigration holds have many good reasons to deny the requests  including increased costs, the possibility of wrongly detaining U.S. citizens, and legal liability related to incarcerating people beyond their release dates.

Gascon said Friday that the idea that local policies were hindering immigration agents was spectacular. Referring to federal requests to hold inmates, he said, The nations top law enforcement officer is effectively advocating for an end run around the Constitutions due process protections. Three words: Get a warrant.

Gascon said the tactic of coming to courthouses was born from xenophobia, and not a genuine concern for public safety, and could backfire by setting free criminals whose victims may be scared to come to our courthouses to testify against defendants because ICE is waiting for them.

Sessions and Kelly said federal agents would improve their operations  including handling challenges such as local policies  while continuing to take prudent and reasonable actions within their lawful authority to achieve their mission.

Hamed Aleaziz is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: haleaziz@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @haleaziz
TAWILA, Syria - Late last year, two American Marxists traveled to northeastern Syria with the goal of experiencing firsthand the egalitarian utopia Syria's Kurds are seeking to build.

Instead, they found themselves fighting on the front lines of a war, against the Islamic State and alongside the agents of imperialism their political convictions have taught them to despise.

For Brace Belden, 27, a florist from San Francisco, and Lucas Chapman, 21, a Georgetown University history graduate, a journey intended to deepen their understanding of how socialism works turned into much more of an adventure than they had anticipated. They fired guns, got shot at, and as they prepared to head home, have learned from news reports that a movie is going to be made about them, starring Jake Gyllenhaal.

Belden and Chapman are among hundreds of Westerners who have made the journey to northeastern Syria over the past two years to volunteer with the Kurds, which is not illegal in the United States. Many of them are U.S. veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan who want to get into the fight.

Some, however, like Belden and Chapman, are idealists, intrigued by the new society the Syrian Kurds claim to be building. The two men, who did not know each other until they arrived in Syria, say they had intended to immerse themselves in the community structures being established by the People's Democratic Union, the Marxist-inspired political party that controls northeastern Syria.

After an arduous trek through the mountains to circumvent controls on the border between Syria and Iraq, they completed an obligatory, month-long training course in ideology, language and basic military skills.

Then they were given uniforms, assigned to the heavy weapons unit of the party's military wing - known as the YPG, or People's Protection Units - and dispatched to the front line outside Raqqa, the Islamic State's self-proclaimed capital. There they became part of the ongoing, U.S.-backed offensive aimed at encircling the city that is expected soon to lead to a final assault on the Islamic State's most symbolically important possession.

It wasn't always as exciting as it sounds. When we met them in late November at an abandoned farmhouse in a pinprick of a village north of Raqqa, they were sipping tea in the bright winter sun, smoking cigarettes and waiting for something to happen. A chicken slurped on the remnants of their previous round of tea, discarded on a tray nearby. A couple of mortars exploded, too far away to be of concern.

"It's fairly boring," said Chapman, who had been living in Washington until he graduated in history from Georgetown last summer.

"It's really boring," said Belden, who sold potted plants and flowers in San Francisco before deciding he wanted to witness the practice of his Marxist beliefs. "It's true what they say about war - that it's 10 percent action and 90 percent waiting for something to happen."

At least in the early stages of the Raqqa operation, now in its fifth month, the Islamic State put up little resistance, choosing instead to plant booby traps and fire mortars to slow the advance of their enemies, but avoiding direct confrontation.

As novices to war, both men seemed relieved that this was the case. Though they had not met before showing up together at the training course last October, they had since bonded over their shared lack of experience in all things military, and their befuddlement at finding themselves riding into battle equipped with weapons they barely knew how to use. Their unit possessed some truck-mounted guns known as "Dushkas," a makeshift armored vehicle and some light artillery, which it wasn't their job to fire.

"Anyone can learn it, if they want to. A life of floristry has definitely prepared me for this," Belden said, meaning the opposite.

They had, however, fired the AK-47 automatic weapons that were issued to them. "If ISIS are being shot at by a weedy guy like me, they must be losing," said Belden, who doesn't think he killed anyone but can't be sure.

Chapman said he had nearly opened fire on an ISIS fighter, a man with a big beard who looked suspicious from a distance of about 800 yards, but his commander ordered him not to, so he didn't.

The growing U.S. military presence in northeastern Syria is one of the reasons Belden and Chapman have decided to head home soon, despite intentions expressed earlier this year to stay for the final Raqqa offensive. The YPG has forged a close military alliance with the United States, which has about 1,000 troops serving alongside Kurdish and Arab forces and is expected to send 1,000 more.

Though they rarely encountered the U.S. forces, the American presence was disconcerting for committed Marxists dedicated to the overthrow of the Western capitalist system.

"As a Marxist, I have to get used to contradictions. It's more a case of two interests aligning temporarily," said Belden, who does not believe the alliance will last. But, he said, he wouldn't fight alongside U.S. ground troops. "I do oppose all American presence in Syria. The U.S. Army and Marines represent something totally reprehensible to me."

Chapman fears the United States will eventually abandon the Kurds and their socialist experiment after using them to conquer Raqqa. "They've betrayed the Kurds before, and I wouldn't be surprised if they do it again," he said. "They're occupiers and imperialists."

Other aspects of their experience jolted the assumptions they had come with. They were perturbed by the relish with which the YPG greeted the U.S. presidential election of Donald Trump, who is being hailed within the secularist group as an enemy of Muslims. Chapman is an observant Jew, and one of his hopes was to find a way to bridge the gulf between Muslims and Jews by demonstrating his solidarity with Islam. Instead, he found himself fighting alongside people who denounced Muslims.

"There's a lot about it that's not utopia," he said. "It's disappointing when people say things like 'All Muslims must leave.' "

After their spell on the front lines together, he and Belden parted ways. Chapman joined a medical unit, which he said he found more rewarding than fighting. Belden teamed up with a different militia, called the United Freedom Forces, or BOG, founded by Marxist Leninist Kurds from Turkey. With them, he said, he found some of the socialist kinship he had been seeking, as well as more action on the battlefield.

They have now reunited for the journey home. Chapman, who has learned to speak Kurdish, hopes to work with Kurdish organizations in the United States. Belden wants to marry his girlfriend and return to Syria with her - to join a Marxist-Leninist political organization, not to fight.

He also has another wish - to halt production of the planned movie, which is based on an article in Rolling Stone called "The Anarchists vs. the Islamic State." The proposal for a film to be directed by Daniel Espinosa and starring Gyllenhaal as Belden was recently announced by the Hollywood Reporter. Belden, who says he is not an anarchist, was as surprised as all of his friends when he found out about it.

"I've got to stop this movie. It'll probably be exploitative and orientalist. It will taint everything I do," he said in a message as he prepared to leave Syria this week. "I'm a communist. I don't want fame."
The battle of the pole barn is set to resume.

First of all, because sometimes I get emails: Where I come from, a pole barn is a shed constructed of corrugated steel nailed to a framework of poles and rafters. We have two big ones. They were here when we bought the place, left over from when it was a fully operational dairy farm. One was intended to shelter large machinery; the other to store giant piles of shell corn.

Another pause for definition: While some will lobby for shelled corn out of a didactic sense of descriptive specificity, if you wish to blend in down at the feed mill, I guarantee you want to go with shell corn.

First thing that happened the moment I laid eyes on those pole barns a decade ago was I had a vision, and the vision was this: My old pickup truck, my mother-in-laws tractor, some miscellaneous mowing and tilling equipment, a smattering of lumber stacks, and my tools, all arranged as neatly as a museum display, with broad paths of access to and between everything.

Well, sure. Allow me to present a proposal having to do with universal physics: The junk-sucking vacuum created by an empty outbuilding is directly proportional  nay, exponentially proportional  to the size of that outbuilding and in fact may exert a pull equivalent to that of a black hole capable of causing the earth to collapse inward upon itself.

Now imagine you have two of those right out there in the yard.

About three years into our residence both pole barns were stacked, wedged and cluttered to the walls with all manner of treasure and detritus. After failing to locate the battery charger that winter, come warm weather I attacked the problem with broom, shovel, and shelving. Such a deep, contented sigh I let go as I stepped back to admire the neatness, the museum restored. Four years later, unable to reach the shelving and return the Christmas tree stand to its off-season place, come warm weather I rented a dumpster the size of a New York garbage scow and filled it to the max.

Another three years have passed. The warm weather isnt come full force yet, but the snow is gone. Even as I type this I swear I just saw the disrepaired chicken tractor over behind the corn crib creep a foot nearer the pole barn, drawn by the specific gravity inherent in the structure. The last time I went down there it was to get the chainsaw, a process which required a combination of excavation, sideways walking, and general spelunking. Come warm weather, it is once more unto the breach.

It occurs to me just now that based on the formula I have proposed above, the cleaner those pole barns get, the greater the danger that I may be struck by incoming objects  our trash can, the neighbors combine, a dwarf star. As a precaution I will wear a hard hat and leave a couple of busted lawn mowers, a roll of unusable fencing, and several half-empty cans of 10W-30 motor oil in the corners as a buffer against the implacable forces already at work even as you toss the busted lamp toward the dumpster but feel it bending slowly back toward you on an arc of light and time.
Tom Zinnen is a big fan of former UW President Charles Van Hises 1904 speech in which he articulated what would famously become the Wisconsin Idea.

Van Hise said he would never be content until the beneficent influence of the university reaches every family of the state.

Today, the UW can use its beneficent influence to teach science savvy, so Wisconsin residents are able to use science to their advantage, said Zinnen, a UW-Madison scientist organizing the large science open house this weekend on campus.

Thats also the idea behind Science Expeditions, UW-Madisons 15th annual free scientific open house, taking place Friday through Sunday at 21 locations on the UW-Madison campus.

The weekend will feature demonstrations, hands-on activities, tours, shows and films.

Science Expeditions is geared towards all, but tends to draw families with preschool- to middle school-aged children because most events take place on Saturday and Sunday, the days science-minded parents and grandparents routinely bring children to campus for science events.

Those events include the popular monthly Saturday Science sessions and the celebrated six-year-old Wisconsin Science Festival held in October.

Theres nothing I can think of that is more valuable that we as scientists have to share with the general public than the ways that we view and do science as exploring the unknown, said Zinnen, a UW-Extension specialist with the UW-Madison Biotechnology Center.

While the bulk of activities and events happens Saturday, Science Expeditions kicks off at 6:30 p.m. Friday with a Joy of Origami workshop led by Wisconsin Public Radio host Ruthanne Bessman. Visitors will learn the art and science of paper folding in Room 1360 of the Genetics Biotechnology Center, 425 Henry Mall.

From 7 to 9 p.m. Friday, geophysicist Bob Schneiker will give a presentation on the geologic history of the Egyptian Sphinx.

On Saturday, Zinnen is particularly looking forward to Science Scinema, when a number of short documentaries from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute will be shown from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. in Room 1111 of the Genetics Biotechnology Center.

At 7 p.m. Saturday, two UW-Madison alumni from the studio that produced the films, Dennis Liu and Laura Helft, will discuss how they made them.

For me, I think the big thing is, not only do people get to watch the movies, but they get to talk to producers about what it takes to make a compelling story about researchers in the field, Zinnen said.

Also on Saturday, visitors will have an easier time getting into the big, popular, UW science presentations Science is Fun, and The Wonders of Physics, where normally the free tickets get snatched up well in advance. For Science Expeditions, tickets for both shows are handed out on a first-come, first-served basis.

The Science is Fun Spectacular will take place at 3 p.m. in the Chemistry Building, Room 1351, at 1101 University Ave. The Wonders of Physics will explore the physics of plasma, at 10:30 a.m. and again at noon in Chamberlin Hall, 1150 University Ave.

An hour-long chemistry show presented by students takes place at 1 p.m. Saturday in Room 1351 of the Chemistry Building.

Chemistry professor Bassam Shakhashiri made Science is Fun a blockbuster and physics professor Clint Sprott did the same for The Wonders of Physics.

Shakhashiri, 77, has presented his well-known Once Upon a Christmas Cheery, In the Lab of Shakhashiri, every December for 47 years. Hell be in San Francisco giving lectures Saturday, but said his well-trained and experienced Science Is Fun group will carry on without him.

Meanwhile, Max Turner, outreach coordinator for The Wonders of Physics, will be emceeing the plasma show for Sprott on Saturday for the first time.

Sprott, 74, an emeritus professor who retired in 2008, also will be out of town on Saturday, and not present for the show. Still, he is very much involved in The Wonders of Physics and hosts the big annual shows every February. He only rarely participates in the many other presentations of The Wonders of Physics done throughout the year, he said.

The show just completed its 34th season with the 297th show in the series.

The Science Expeditions are merging with Saturday Science  held in the Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery the first Saturday of the month  just for April, and thats by design, Zinnen said. The WID building, 330 N. Orchard St., will be a hub of activity, with four dozen exploration stations for all ages from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday.

Also on Saturday, the UW Planetarium will show a 20-minute film, Chasing the Ghost Particle, which offers views of the galaxies around us, and a peek inside IceCube, which is looking for traces of neutrino collisions at the South Pole. The film runs on the hour from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., at the Sterling Hall Planetarium, 475 N. Charter St.

Since 2001, UW-Madison researchers have been involved in the search for a cosmic particle, which could be a key in discovering the origin of dark matter and other secrets to the universe.

For a full schedule of events, visit: www.science.wisc.edu/events-science-expeditions.htm

The events are expected to draw between 2,500 and 3,000 people on Saturday, and about half that number on Sunday. A free trolley will run between venues on Saturday and Sunday.

The point of having an open house is to give people a chance to connect to the remarkable constellation of scientists, programs and venues on their public, land grant research university, Zinnen said.

He emphasized that the connection should really last more than just the three days of the open house.

Its connecting to these resources for the other 362 days out of the year, and how can you do this in person by coming to campus or connecting to websites and things you can watch on Wisconsin Public Television, like Wednesday Night @ the Lab,  he said.
School districts that have saved on health care costs by through Gov. Scott Walker's signature 2011 law curtailing collective bargaining would likely get a share of the hundreds of millions in new school funding proposed by Walker, his office said Friday.

The comments come after Kim Eparvier, superintendent of the Peshtigo School District, told the Wisconsin State Journal that Walker's proposal tie the proposed $649 million in new funding to a fixed percentage of employee health care contributions diminishes school administrators' and school boards' power in crafting benefit packages for their employees.

Walker, who visited Eparvier's district this week to promote his record increase in funding for public schools, has characterized that requirement as ensuring districts are compliant with Act 10, the 2011 law that curtailed collective bargaining abilities for public school teachers while letting districts shift more pension and health insurance costs to employees.

But Eparvier, who contacted the office of Rep. John Nygren, R-Marinette, earlier this week, said Friday that the proposed requirement takes away the flexibility Act 10 gave school district officials. Walker's proposal requires districts to make their staff pay at least 12 percent toward health care costs, which Eparvier's district staff does.

Tom Evenson, spokesman for Walker, said the majority of school districts will likely get the new funding if passed as proposed.

"The Governor's public education funding increases were designated for all the districts that have used tools to put more money into the classroom, which we believe is the overwhelming majority," Evenson said. "If the Peshtigo School District has used the tools to achieve savings, then we believe it is meeting the spirit of the provision and will work with the Legislature to ensure it would benefit from such increases."

Evenson noted that State Superintendent Tony Evers said during testimony on the 2017-19 state budget on Thursday that he believes only a couple school districts wouldn't meet the 12 percent threshold.

At the time the budget proposal was released, Walker's indicated it was aimed at the Madison School District by saying it was the only district they had identified that wouldn't be eligible for the new funding. The district for years after Act 10 was enacted didn't require staff to pay any portion of their health insurance costs.

The district does now require employees to pay something toward their monthly health insurance premiums, but the contributions do not reach the 12 percent threshold Walker proposed. The contribution levels in Madison range from 1.5 percent for lower-paid staff to 10 percent for school district administrators.

Eparvier said Friday that at the time the Act 10 law took effect, "school administrators were promised by legislators that local districts now had the flexibility and 'tools' to do as they wished relative to benefit packages," he said in an email. "Now, this new proposed legislation requiring the 12% is just another mandate and broken promise."

He said districts around the state are offering benefit packages that include health reimbursement accounts, high deductible plans, higher co-pays and on-site health clinics in partnership with health insurance companies and providers that can help reduce costs to taxpayers.

"Essentially, my call to John Nygren's office was my way of advocating for local control and for other districts that currently don't contribute the 12%," Eparvier said. "By paying a greater portion of health insurance premiums, some districts use this as a strategy to attract and maintain quality employees in rural schools."
The Madison Dental Initiative, a clinic for people who are homeless or have low incomes, cleaned teeth 115 times last year and pulled 761 teeth.

The goal is to provide an equal number of both services, said Curtis Henderson, executive director. But an obstacle stands in the way: Wisconsin requires dental hygienists to be supervised by dentists in most settings, but hygienists often cant volunteer at the clinic the same time dentists can.

A bill in the Legislature would remove the barrier. It would allow hygienists to work without dentists at dental programs for the indigent, medical clinics, nursing homes, hospitals, day care centers, group homes, correctional facilities and home care agencies  in addition to schools and health departments, where they can work independently now.

Wed be able to provide more preventive services to more patients, Henderson said.

Dentists in Wisconsin have opposed letting hygienists provide more services, such as fillings. Theyve also opposed creating mid-level providers, known as dental therapists, that exist in a few states. But the Wisconsin Dental Association supports the new bill, authored by state Rep. Kathy Bernier, R-Lake Hallie.

This isnt expanding the things that hygienists do, said Dr. David Clemens, a Wisconsin Dells dentist who is president-elect of the dental association. Its just expanding the places where they can go out and do what theyre so good at.

Several other health care groups support the measure, which has bipartisan support, and no groups have registered as opposed.

Thirty-nine states, including Wisconsin, let hygienists work independently in at least one setting. Eight have laws somewhat similar to what the bill in Wisconsin would allow, said Ann Lynch, government affairs director for the American Dental Hygienists Association.

In Wisconsin, a program called Seal-A-Smile brings dental hygienists into schools to place protective sealants on childrens cavity-prone molars, apply fluoride varnish and sometimes clean teeth. The program helped reduce untreated decay among third-graders from 31 percent in 2002 to 17 percent in 2013, said Matt Crespin, associate director of the Childrens Health Alliance, which runs the program.

But other groups of people continue to have significant unmet needs, Crespin said. About 36 percent of 3-year-olds in Head Start programs have had cavities, and 42 percent of nursing home residents have untreated decay, according to the state Department of Health Services.

The bill would let the Childrens Health Alliance bring hygienists into pediatricians offices, where they could clean teeth, apply fluoride varnish and provide sealants for underserved kids.

Children go to the physician more often before age 3 than they do the dentist, Crespin said.

The measure would also allow expansions of programs for the elderly like one run by Angie Stone, a hygienist from Edgerton.

Stone brushes and flosses the teeth of nursing home and assisted living residents weekly, and checks their mouths for problems, for families who pay through her company, HyLife Oral Health Alliance, which started in 2014.

Under the bill, she could also do teeth cleanings and fluoride treatments. When her grandmother lost more than half of her teeth in a nursing home and her mother-in-law died in a nursing home from lung disease that may have been caused by gum disease, Stone was frustrated she couldnt treat them.

Due to Wisconsin laws, my hands were tied, she said during testimony for the bill this month before the Assembly Committee on Health, which approved the measure Wednesday.

Nursing homes could especially benefit from hygienists because fewer residents have dentures than in the past, said Linda Jorgenson, advocacy chair for the Wisconsin Dental Hygienists Association.

Nowadays, theyre more likely to have all of these teeth when they come in, but nursing home staff hasnt changed to adapt to that, Jorgenson said.

The bill would help Wisconsins 17 community health centers, which include Access Community Health Centers in Madison, provide preventive dental care more easily, said Lisa Davidson, government relations director of the Wisconsin Primary Health Care Association, which represents the centers.

Laura Rose, a vice president of the Wisconsin Hospital Association, said the measure could reduce emergency room visits for preventable dental conditions. There were more than 33,000 such visits in 2015, more than half paid by Medicaid, the state-federal health plan for the poor.

At the Madison Dental Initiative, inside the Salvation Army on East Washington Avenue, the bill would allow more volunteer hygienists to help out, Henderson said. The clinic sees low-income patients from Dane County who have Medicaid or no dental insurance.

The bill would also let Jodi Manske, the clinics only staff hygienist, work more hours. Currently, she works Tuesdays and Thursdays, when a dentist is present. Shed like to add Wednesdays and Fridays.

Not everybody can come on a Tuesday or Thursday, Manske said, referring to patients.

On a recent day, she cleaned the teeth of Osman Musse, 61, of Verona, who hadnt been to a dentist for three years.

Dr. Peter Hill, a dentist at the clinic, said Musse, who has decay and broken teeth, needs a filling and should have two teeth pulled.

Musse agreed to the filling but said he wasnt sure about having the teeth pulled. It hurt to have his teeth cleaned, he said, but he was grateful for the clinic and its staff.

My mouth feels much better, he said afterward. Theyre wonderful.
A Madison seventh-grader is among the top five finalists in this years nationwide Doodle 4 Google competition, a student design challenge sponsored by the search-engine giant Google.

Alyssa Anderson, 13, a student at Wright Middle School, was recognized for her stylized colored pencil drawing of six extinct animals whose shapes spelled out the letters in Google.

Entrants in this years Doodle 4 Google contest were asked to design a doodle for the Google homepage using the theme What I See for the Future . Alyssas fanciful design imagined how extinct animals such as the woolly mammoth, the passenger pigeon and the saber-toothed cat might be brought back to life in the future with the help of cloning technology.

In February she was named Wisconsins top Doodle 4 Google winner for 2017, placing her among 53 finalists, one from each U.S. state and territory.

As one of the contests top five artists, Alyssa will receive a $5,000 college scholarship, a trip to Google headquarters in California, a Chromebook and an Android tablet as her prize.

The national winner, announced just before noon Friday, was Sarah Harrison of Connecticut. Her artwork went up on the Google homepage.

Judges for the contest included a flight systems engineer, a writer and several celebrities including comedian Jimmy Kimmel, world champion gymnast and Olympic gold medalist Simone Biles and five-time Grammy award-winning singer/songwriter Sia.
Congressional Republicans failed to unite around a passable health care bill, and must now brace for the political consequences.

The preponderance of that burden falls on the House, where the more moderate and wonky leadership has to recognize that the conservative caucus is not going away, and substantive reforms will have to involve real trade-offs.

The problem began when Speaker Paul Ryan and company put forward a bad bill undeserving of support. A period of debate and tweaking is a natural part of any typical legislative process, but the rush toward passage that the House leadership pushed for belied the extraordinary character of this particular bill. Rather than just another routine piece of legislation, it was emblematic of the whole GOPs standing vow to repeal and replace Obamacare, a malfunctioning and cronyistic law with shaky constitutionality that didnt deliver on its basic promises.

Yet instead of a bold alternative, or even just an effort to reset the clock, the House bill offered what many perceived as the worst of both worlds: watered-down Obamacare with an added layer of complexity. Such a bill could not be tweaked and debated without embarrassment.

But this is President Donald Trumps failure as much as Ryans. The presidents seemingly halfhearted argument to secure votes boiled down to a harsh judgment of the House. Ryan is your leader, the White House suggested; let him lead. But repeal and replace was a promise that helped get Trump elected, too. A president known for his deal making surely could have mustered a better defense for a cornerstone piece of legislation of his administration. Instead, he shrunk from battle, preferring to let Obamacare explode.

Fear of being punished at the ballot box was partly reasonable, too. But if a few voters might have lost out on entitlements under the new system, lots of Republicans now see their representatives as having betrayed them.

To be sure, some aspects of Obamacare are almost universally supported, such as rules on preexisting conditions, but that one positive does not in any way diminish the damage this bill has otherwise done. Its difficult to imagine how the GOP could have taken control of the legislative and executive branches without Obamacare to run against. And now, its difficult to see how congressional Republicans can survive the next election cycle undiminished.

The president and GOP lawmakers must craft a new bill. Obamacare has driven up premiums too frequently. From 2013 to 2015, monthly costs per member jumped 70 percent, according to the S&P Global Institute. Middle-class families are now more apt to pay more and get less than before. As a Kaiser study determined, in 2015, 46 percent of uninsured couldnt find an affordable plan.

The solution is an entitlement for catastrophic injury and pre-existing conditions, a hold on Medicare expansion, and a repeal of whats left of the Affordable Care Act. This is a plan that could even attract some support from Democrats, especially if it included some cost controls. After all, about half of health care in the United States is now paid with public dollars.

The biggest beneficiaries of Obamacare have been the biggest insurance companies and hospital systems. But Republicans need to do more than run against that kind of state-managed crony capitalism.
GENEVA  European authorities are investigating dozens of people suspected of tax evasion and money laundering involving Swiss bank Credit Suisse, officials said Friday, with Dutch authorities in particular detaining two people and seizing assets including luxury cars, paintings and even a gold bar in the multicountry sweep.

Credit Suisse issued a brief statement Friday saying that local authorities had made visits to its offices in Amsterdam, Paris and London in connection with unspecified client tax issues. A person familiar with the case said it involved Credit Suisse, but bank officials and authorities did not officially confirm a link pending the investigations.

Eurojust, the European Unions judicial cooperation agency, said authorities in Britain, France, Germany, the Netherlands and Australia took part in an action day Thursday against companies and individuals in an operation begun by Dutch prosecutors and tax authorities following a Dutch probe opened last year.

The undeclared assets hidden within offshore accounts and policies are estimated in the millions of euros, Eurojust said. It said questioning of witnesses was continuing, that more actions were expected in coming weeks, and that international cooperation will be intensified.

The operations, coming just days before Credit Suisse in April begins a program of automatic information exchange with European countries, will again train a spotlight on the Swiss banking industry, which for years has had a reputation as ensuring secrecy for tax evaders.

The Dutch tax administration said authorities detained two suspects and seized a gold bar, luxury cars, dozens of paintings, real estate, jewelry and bank accounts as well as data from thousands of account holders. The probe involved the same Swiss bank in all five countries, it said.

Credit Suisse said Friday it is cooperating with authorities and emphasized its strategy of full client tax compliance. Bank officials declined to comment further.

Patrick Teuscher, a spokesman for the Swiss Federal Tax Administration, said it had not been contacted by foreign authorities in the case.

Switzerland has in recent years changed its rules on banking secrecy for foreigners after a U.S. led effort to crack down on tax cheats uncovered large-scale evasion assisted by Swiss banks.

In December, the Paris-based Financial Action Task Force said Switzerland had achieved good results in fighting money laundering and terrorism financing, but called on it to strengthen compliance controls, boost scrutiny on the use of cash, and share information more with foreign authorities.

Swiss banks wont accept untaxed assets, and dont want to manage them, said Sindy Schmiegel, a spokeswoman for the main Swiss bankers association. Swiss banks in 2018 will start providing data on accounts to tax officials in countries that meet standards set by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

Jamey Keaten is an Associated Press writer.
BAGHDAD  Islamic State and al Qaeda-linked militants are quickly moving to drum up outrage over a sharp spike in civilian casualties said to have been caused by U.S. air strikes in Iraq and Syria, posting photos online of a destroyed medical center and homes reduced to rubble. This is how Trump liberates Mosul, by killing its inhabitants, the caption reads.

The propaganda points to the risk that rising death tolls and destruction could undermine the American-led campaign against the militants.

During the past two years of fighting to push back the Islamic State, the U.S.-led coalition has faced little backlash over casualties, in part because civilian deaths have been seen as relatively low and there have been few cases of single strikes killing large numbers of people. In Iraq  even though sensitivities run deep over past American abuses of civilians  the countrys prime minister and many Iraqis support the U.S. role in fighting the militants.

But for the first time anger over lives lost is becoming a significant issue as Iraqi troops backed by U.S. special forces and coalition air strikes wade into more densely populated districts of Iraqs second-largest city, Mosul, and U.S. -backed Syrian fighters battle closer to the Islamic States Syrian stronghold of Raqqa.

That has the potential to undercut victories against the militants and stoke resentments that play into their hands.

At least 300 civilians have been killed in the offensive against Islamic State in the western half of Mosul since mid-February, according to the U.N. human rights office  including 140 killed in a single March 17 air strike on a building. Dozens more are claimed to have been killed in another strike last weekend, according to Amnesty International, and by similar air strikes in neighboring Syria in the past month.

In Syria, as fighting around Raqqa intensified, civilian fatalities from coalition air strikes rose to 198 in March  including 32 children and 31 women  compared to 56 in February, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which documents Syrias war. Over the course of the air campaign, from September 2014 through February, an average of 30 civilians were killed a month, according to the Observatory.

The U.S. military is investigating what role the U.S. played in the March 17 air strike in Mosul, and American and Iraqi officials have said militants may have deliberately gathered civilians there and planted explosives in the building. The blast left an entire residential block flattened, reducing buildings to mangled concrete.

Among those who lost loved ones, resentment appears to be building toward the U.S.-led coalition and the ground forces it supports.

How could they have used this much artillery on civilian locations? asked Bashar Abdullah, a resident of the neighborhood known as New Mosul, who lost more than a dozen family members in the March 17 attack. Iraqi and American forces both assured us that it will be an easy battle, thats why people didnt leave their houses. They felt safe.

U.S. officials have said they are investigating other claims of casualties in Syria and Iraq.

Some Syrian opposition factions allied with the U.S. have also criticized the strikes, describing them as potential war crimes.

Susannah George and Zeina Karam are Associated Press writers.
1 Israeli settlements: A day after approving the construction of a new settlement in the West Bank for the first time in more than 20 years, Israel announced a new, if ambiguous, settlement policy Friday out of consideration for the positions of President Trump and, it said, to enable progress in the peace process with Palestinians. Israel said it was taking steps to significantly rein in the footprint of the settlements, allowing construction within all its existing settlements in the occupied West Bank but limiting, wherever possible, their expansion into new territory. How the new policy might translate on the ground was largely left open to interpretation. The Palestinians, like most of the rest of the world, oppose any Israeli construction in the occupied territories.

2 Russian submarines: Russian submarines have increased combat patrols to the level last seen during the Cold War, the navy chief said Friday. Adm. Vladimir Korolyov said that Russian submarine crews spent more than 3,000 days on patrol last year, matching the Soviet-era operational tempo. The military has revived its military strength thanks to a sweeping arms modernization program amid tensions with the West over Ukraine. The navy plans to commission seven submarines that are armed with torpedoes and long-range cruise missiles, which for the first time have been tested in combat during the Russian campaign in Syria.
BRUSSELS  Britain must agree to pay its bills and to protect millions of Europeans living in Britain before reaching a new trading relationship with the European Union, Donald Tusk, the president of the European Council, said Friday.

Side-by-side divorce and trade talks will not happen, Tusk said at a news conference in Malta. Divorce has to come first, he said, and he warned that the negotiations could be confrontational.

Tusk also wrote on Twitter: Our duty is to minimize uncertainty, disruption caused by Brexit for citizens, businesses & Member States. Its about damage control. He added that the European Union would not pursue a punitive approach, because Brexit in itself is already punitive enough.

He also wrote: After more than 40 years of being united, we owe it to each other to make this divorce as smooth as possible.

The words were tough, but unsurprising: For months, since Britain voted in a June 23 referendum to leave the bloc, Brussels has insisted that the terms of a future trade agreement would not be negotiated until the terms of the divorce were clear.

Britain formally began the withdrawal process on Wednesday, and Tusks statement on Friday essentially made official the EUs stance.

That was in keeping with the tough talk coming from Germany, the blocs most influential member, this week. On Friday, the finance minister, Wolfgang Schaeuble, told a newspaper in the country that, while both sides should strive to minimize the damage, there are no rights without obligations and that Britain would have to leave the single market if it refused to abide by the EUs principles.

That followed a statement on Thursday by Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany that rejected a demand put forth by Prime Minister Theresa May of Britain that talks on the withdrawal be conducted in tandem with discussions about economic relations.

The negotiations must first clarify how we will disentangle our interlinked relationship, Merkel said. Only when this question is dealt with can we  hopefully, soon after  begin talking about our future relationship.

In laying out the EUs terms for the exit negotiations  which still must be approved by the leaders of the 27 remaining nations  Tusk essentially presented the blocs response to Mays opening move.

Tusk said the 27 leaders would determine when there had been sufficient progress to start discussing Britains future trade arrangements.

The terms, nonetheless, represent an early setback for Britain. The draft guidelines outline a phased approach that the EU will require Britain to follow before talks about any deal on access to the European single market of more than 500 million consumers.

Merkel and President Francois Hollande of France have insisted that London first agree on how to protect the rights of more than about 3 million expatriates in Britain, and more than 1 million British nationals living in Continental Europe, and on the amount of money Britain owes to cover its commitments as a member of the bloc.

James Kanter is a New York Times writer.
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MOSCOW  Russian prosecutors moved Friday to block calls on social networks for more street protests in Moscow and other Russian cities after a wave of rallies that have cast a new challenge to the Kremlin.

Tens of thousands of demonstrators turned out in Moscow and other cities Sunday to rally against official corruption in the largest outpouring of discontent in years.

The prosecutor generals office confirmed Friday it has requested the state communications watchdog to block pages on social networks calling for more protests in Moscow and elsewhere in Russia coming Sunday.

Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who organized Sundays unsanctioned protest, is serving a 15-day sentence on charges of resisting police.

More than 1,000 protesters have been arrested in Moscow, and many of them also have been sentenced to brief jail terms and fines. A dozen people working for Navalny are among those serving jail time.

The U.S. and the European Union have criticized the crackdown and urged Russia to release all detainees, but President Vladimir Putin has rejected the criticism as meddling in Russias internal affairs.

Without naming Navalny, Putin, who faces re-election in March 2018, has denounced those protest organizers who try to use anticorruption slogans in narrow selfish political goals.

Navalny has declared his intention to run for president and vowed to appeal a conviction that bars him from the race, which he denounced as politically driven.

Putin pledged to fight corruption but also warned that the government wouldnt allow any breach of law. He drew parallels with the Arab Spring uprisings in Africa and the Middle East and protests in Ukraine that toppled a Russia-friendly president in 2014.

Vladimir Isachenkov is an Associated Press writer.
GIANLUIGI GUERCIA/AFP/Getty Images

PRETORIA, South Africa  South Africa faced political and financial turmoil Friday after President Jacob Zuma fired the finance minister in a Cabinet reshuffle, intensifying a rift in the party that took power after the 1994 end of white minority rule as well as concerns about corruption at top levels of government.

The currency slipped, and people protested outside parliament and the national treasury against the dismissal of Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan, the widely respected steward of one of Africas biggest economies and a bulwark against perceived efforts to raid state coffers for personal gain.
PESHAWAR, Pakistan  A powerful car bomb exploded near a minority Shiite Muslim place of worship in the northwest town of Parachinar on Friday, killing at least 24 people and wounding more than 100, officials said.

Mushtaq Ghani, a spokesman for the provincial government, said the attack took place near Parachinars Shiite mosque, which is located near the Noor Market. TV footage showed people transporting the victims in ambulances and private vehicles.
CARACAS, Venezuela  Venezuelas chief prosecutor broke with the government Friday and rebuked a Supreme Court decision stripping congress of its last vestiges of power, showing a crack in the embattled administration of socialist President Nicolas Maduro amid a torrent of international condemnation over what many decried as a major step toward dictatorship.

In a shocking pronouncement, long-time government loyalist Luisa Ortega Diaz said it was her unavoidable historical duty as the nations top judicial authority to denounce what she called a rupture of the constitutional order in the court ruling against the opposition-controlled National Assembly.

We call for reflection so that the democratic path can be retaken, she said to the loud applause of aides gathered around her.

The statement gave a major boost to the opposition, some of whom spent the day sparring with riot police and gearing up for what they hope will be nationwide protests Saturday.

A defiant Maduro defended the Supreme Court in an appearance on state television and said the opposition would be left with their cold champagne, uncorked.

But he also called for renewed dialogue between the government and opposition as the only way to resolve Venezuelas political crisis. Im ready with whoever is willing, he said.

The Supreme Court ruled late Wednesday that as long as lawmakers remained in contempt of earlier court rulings that nullified all legislation passed by congress, the high court can assume the constitutionally assigned powers of the National Assembly, which has been controlled by the opposition for nearly a year and a half.

The United States and governments across Latin America condemned the ruling, which the head of the Organization of American States likened to a self-inflicted coup by the leftist Maduro. The United Nations top human rights official expressed grave concern and called on the high court to reverse its decision.

Opposition leaders, long-marginalized the past 17 years of socialist rule, called on other public officials to follow Ortega Diazs example. They also urged the military, the traditional arbiter of political disputes in Venezuela, to break its silence and defend the constitution drafted by late President Hugo Chavez to which it swore allegiance.

Fabiola Sanchez and Joshua Goodman are Associated Press writers.
NPT chairman Tony Sewell says Salt Funds Management's dissenting view on a proposed deal with Kiwi Property Group is out of line with other major shareholders and he will take it up directly with the fund manager.

Salt Funds principal Matt Goodson yesterday urged his fellow NPT shareholders to reject the deal, where NPT would buy two buildings from Kiwi Property for $230 million and sell its management contract and issue shares to the larger property firm, saying it was "an unacceptable transfer of value from NPT shareholders to KPG".

In an emailed statement, Sewell he was "disappointed" with Salt Funds' action and that the fund manager, which owns 16.9 percent of NPT, had been regularly consulted on the deal along with other major shareholders which had been the basis of the board pursuing the transaction.

"The views expressed are at odds with the weight of independent advice we have taken and inconsistent with the feedback we have received from the market - including other major shareholders," Sewell said. "We will take up the matter directly with Mr Goodson, but remain confident in the strength of the Kiwi Property proposal and the benefits it provides for shareholders and the longer term future of NPT."

NPT has called a special meeting on April 21 to be held in Auckland where the Kiwi Property deal will be put to shareholders with the blessing of the board. A rival bid by Augusta Capital, which owns 9.3 percent of NPT, wont be discussed at the meeting but Augustas resolutions to dump the board and install its own directors will still be voted on.

Sewell joined the NPT board in August last year, having previously been in charge of Ngai Tahu Holdings' property division, overseeing a 20-year portfolio expansion to $600 million from $50 million. He replaced John Anderson as chair earlier this month and is joined on the board by former chair Jim Sherwin and former Ernst & Young partner Carol Campbell. The three directors are judged to be independent.

NPT shares fell 1.7 percent to 58 cents, matching the forecast price the firm would sell shares at in a $100 million entitlement offer to fund the acquisition.

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NZME chief executive Michael Boggs was the second highest-paid employee at the radio network operator and newspaper publisher last year, with a mystery million-dollar staffer taking the top pay packet.





The Auckland-based company's highest paid employee was in a salary band of between $1.02 million and $1.03 million in calendar 2016, more than the $865,111 Boggs received in his first year in charge of the company, NZME's annual report shows. The salary bands for staffers earning more than $100,000 include fixed remuneration, Kiwisaver and medical contributions, bonuses and commissions, settlements and redundancies, however chief marketing officer Liza McNally said the company doesn't comment on individual employment terms when asked whether the top earner was still at the company.





Media companies are often criticised for paying too much for top talent, most recently when Television New Zealand's annual report raised questions as to whether chief executive Kevin Kenrick or Seven Sharp frontman Mike Hosking, who also hosts NZME's flagship NewstalkZB morning show, was the state-owned broadcaster's top earner with $1.2 million. Kenrick was later confirmed as holding the highest the salary band.





Talent showcased for shareholders in NZME's 2016 annual report include photos of New Zealand Herald investigate reporter Jared Savage, business editor at large Liam Dann and Viva managing editor Amanda Linnell, NewstalkZB's Hosking, Radio Hauraki's Matt Heath and Jeremy Wells, ZM's Carl Fletcher, Vaughan Smith and Megan Sellers, The Hits' Stacey Morrison and Paul Flynn and Flava's Sela Alo, Pua Magasiva and Tarsh Ieremia.





NZME's former chief executive Jane Hastings also left during in 2016, departing after 18 months in the job to "pursue other opportunities". She was an internal appointment having run The Radio Network before taking over the broader operation. In 2015 Hastings' total pay packet was A$1.22 million, up from A$980,000 a year earlier.





The media group paid $67 million to 426 employees on salaries of $100,000 or more, accounting for about 41 percent of the company's annual wage bill of $161.6 million. Of that senior management were paid $5.7 million in 2016, including just $52,000 of termination benefits, and up from $4.8 million a year earlier. That was in a year when the overall wage bill shrank 1.8 percent as a round of redundancies totalling $6 million in 2016 and $7.2 million the year earlier, helped reduce labour costs due to the integration of the print, radio and e-commerce units, chief financial officer Mike Moran said in the annual report. He also said greater automation in the printing process would further reduce the people costs.





A graph on the length of service of NZME staffers indicates it employs about 1,700 people, however McNally said 18 percent of the workforce are casuals meaning total staff numbers were fluid and that NZME wouldn't release that number. The company employed 1,863 full-time equivalents as at December 2015, excluding casuals and contractors, according to documents when NZME was carved out of APN News & Media as a standalone entity.





NZME's annual report said the company works hard "to ensure everyone at NZME understands and is aligned with our company's strategic goals (what needs to be achieved) and our values (how these should be achieved)" and that senior leadership was tasked with " translating our strategic goals and providing support to ensure all employees are engaged".





The company is trying to convince the Commerce Commission to approve a merger with rival Fairfax New Zealand to let a combined entity sack staff and spread their coverage, shoring up their balance sheet and putting them on a stronger footing to compete more aggressively for digital ad revenue against the likes of Google and Facebook.





NZME shares rose 3.3 percent to 94 cents, the highest since August last year.





(BusinessDesk)

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Government-owned farmer Landcorp was rebuffed by State-Owned Enterprises Minister Todd McClay from changing its name to align its business with its new 'Pamu' brand, amid claims it was "a waste of time and money", according to documents released under the Official Information Act.

The company was initially called Land Corporation when it was created as an SOE from the Department of Lands and Survey in 1987, and the name was later changed to Landcorp Farming in 2001. In September 2014 the company wrote to McClay and then Finance Minister Bill English asking to change its name to 'Pamu Farms of New Zealand', to better reflect its new strategy of moving away from producing large volumes of mass agricultural commodities and toward developing more specialised high-value contracts.

"The (Landcorp) name implies land ownership and corporate farming, neither element of which is popular nor is consistent with the image Landcorp is seeking to develop," chair Traci Houpapa said in a September 2014 letter to ministers requesting approval for the name change. "It is a decidedly '1980s' name from a particular period of New Zealand corporate history. We believe that the name is out of place in a modern commercial environment and detracts from the company."

Houpapa said Landcorp had assessed more than 700 options before settling on 'Pamu', which means "to farm" in Maori, and it believed the new name was simple, clear, and reflected the company's position as the largest farmer in New Zealand.

"It is authentic to New Zealand and to the company, yet speaks to a fresh, new approach to farming," she said. "It is conservative on one hand, yet courageous on the other."

However the documents show that there were doubts about the value of changing the company's name from the outset, with Treasury officials noting they were sceptical about how value would be gained from a change in company name to justify the cost and resources needed to implement it. Before formally requesting the change, Landcorp was told by the ministers that it must be done "at the lowest possible cost".

Landcorp appeared to take on this feedback, advising that the cost of making the name change was "relatively minor", involving stationery, a sign on each farm and in Wellington, and a refreshed website.

Despite its misgivings, Treasury didn't formally oppose the move, saying it had "no explicit view on the proposed new name of the company", and recommending McClay approve the change, which required cabinet's approval for an Order in Council to update 10 relevant pieces of legislation.

"Whilst we are sceptical that a change in the company's name will result in improved financial returns to the company or the Crown, we do not see value in trying to block the proposal at this point in the process," Treasury manager, governance and performance, Fiona Chan said in her October 2014 report to Ministers on the issue. Any risk that the move would be seen as the first step towards privatising Landcorp could be mitigated by reiterating the government's policy that it had no intention of selling Landcorp, she said.

However, McClay shot down the plan, disagreeing with the Treasury's recommendation, with a handwritten note on a proposed cabinet committee paper: "I think this a waste of time and money!! and efforts could better be spent focusing on core business."

Landcorp hasn't paid a dividend to the Crown for the past two years, as it took on more debt to convert forestry land to dairy farms amid a milk price slump, causing some friction with the government which wants regular payments. It's since pulled back on dairy farm conversions, is selling non-core properties to reduce debt, and is focused on lowering its operating costs and bolstering its brand.

In a letter to BusinessDesk when releasing the documents, McClay said that while he declined to approve the name change, he agreed with Landcorp that branding is an operational decision for the board, and he understood that Landcorp is using Pamu as part of its branding.

Landcorp confirmed it launched Pamu as a product brand in 2015. The company told BusinessDesk that while Landcorp Farming is the legal entity and formal name of the company, it uses Pamu as its promise of quality and product brand to differentiate its products and the way it farms.

"We are continuing to build value in the Pamu brand and will increasingly use it to showcase our farms, people and organisation as well as our niche products," the company said.

Landcorp official corporate correspondence now prominently features the Pamu Farms of NZ name, with its official Landcorp name in a smaller font as part of its contact details. The Pamu Farms of NZ name also features prominently on the company's website.

In a briefing paper to the government, Landcorp had said the change was aimed at "shifting us from a faceless government-owned corporate to a clear industry leader, redefining the sector for the benefit of the whole country."

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NEW DELHI: India is fast becoming a global hotspot for cruise tourism with its five major ports witnessing a significant rise in passenger footfall, Parliament was informed today.



A leading European cruise operator has also made Mumbai Port, one of the top 12 major ports in the country, a home port for a cruise ship for several voyages.

"India is fast emerging as a cruise tourist destination. In 2014-15, a total of 1,04,125 cruise passengers were handled at five major ports which increased to 1,25,838 during 2015-16, achieving a growth of 20.85 pct over the previous year," Minister of State for Shipping Pon Radhakrishnan told the Lok Sabha in a written reply.



He said in 2016-17, up to January, major ports had handled 1,22,093 cruise passengers and added that during the current fiscal "Costa Neo Classica cruise ship made Mumabi port as home port for seven voyages."



Radhakrishnan said to attract cruise lines/ships as a part of cruise tourism in India, the government has developed cruise terminals at at four major ports - Mumbai, Marmugao, New Mangalore and Cochin.



A mew cruise terminal is under develoment at Chennai Port and is scheduled to be completed by April 2017.



Incentives to attract cruise liners to make major ports as homeports include a rebate of 25 pct in vessel related charges for coastal cruise movement, in addition to existing 40 pct rebate for coastal vessel.

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NEW DELHI: India held foreign office consultations with Zimbabwe and Zambia, discussing a gamut of issues ranging from high-level political exchanges to matters related to economic and commercial matters.



The External Affairs Ministry said foreign office consultations have also enabled to lay a roadmap for further enhanced cooperation in view of India's outreach to Africa post the India Africa Forum Summit (IAFS)-III Summit.



Led by Neena Malhotra, Joint Secretary (East and Southern Africa), the first round of foreign office consultations with Zimbabwe and second round with Zambia were held on March 20 and March 24, respectively.

The Zimbabwean side was led by Ambassador Jonathan Wutawunashe and the Zambian side was led by Ambassador Chalwe Lombe, Permanent Secretary in the Zambian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.



During the meeting, the two sides discussed a gamut of issues including high-level political exchanges, development cooperation programmes, projects under India Africa Forum Summit (IAFS) mechanism.



Discussion on cooperation in the multilateral fora and trade, economic and commercial matters were also held.



"Both sides exchanged views on issues of regional and global importance while acknowledging the commonality of positions on matters of reform of international institutions and cooperation in regional grouping," a statement by the Ministry of External Affairs said.

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NEW DELHI: India is planning to enter into Social Security Agreements (SSAs) with China and Russia and is also holding informal consultations on a similar pact with the US, the government said today.



As on date, India has signed and operationalised SSAs with 18 countries including Australia, Austria, France and Grmany, Minister of State for External Affairs V K Singh said in a written reply in Lok Sabha.



The minister said the MEA is the "competent authority"" for negotiating the SSAs and is planning to enter into SSAs with several other countries like China, Russia, South Africa, Thailand, Mexico, Peru and Cyprus.

Informal consultations on SSA are ongoing with the US, Singh said.



Noting that bilateral SSAs protect the interests of Indian professionals, skilled workers working abroad, he said it exempts the Indian worker from making double social security contribution.



Replying to a separate question, he said there are over 1.16 crore non-resident Indians abroad as per the data compiled in December 2016.

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UPDATE: Police say the boy is now in stable condition, with two broken legs. He is expected to make a full recovery.

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- A 13-year-old boy is in critical condition Thursday night after he was struck by a motorist who fled the scene in West Brighton, police said.

The boy was crossing the intersection of Broadway and Henderson Avenue at approximately 5:46 p.m. when he was struck by a black Chrysler Concord, police said.

He was transported to Richmond University Medical Center in West Brighton where he is listed in critical condition, sources said.

The male driver of the sedan fled on foot to parts unknown, police said. The car could be seen at the intersection with significant damage to its front bumper.

Police were searching for the male in the area of the incident Thursday night.

A Collision Investigation Squad was brought to the scene, and the incident is under investigation, police said.

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CITY HALL -- Mayor Bill de Blasio said Assemblywoman Nicole Malliotakis "loves to spew right-wing rhetoric" after she questioned his "sanctuary city" policies.

Malliotakis (R-East Shore/Brooklyn) said earlier this week that the city losing millions in federal funding for failing to comply with federal immigration authorities would be de Blasio's fault.

"I don't know if they will comply with the law, they just want to play this political game where they get to blame you know the federal government and blame Jeff Sessions and blame President Trump for withholding funds," Malliotakis said on WNYC's "The Brian Lehrer Show" Wednesday. "If this is going to be up to the mayor, it's on him if we lose the money."

De Blasio was defensive when asked about her comments during his weekly appearance on the same show Friday.

"Assembly member Malliotakis, who loves to spew right-wing rhetoric, obviously has not spoken to Police Commissioner O'Neill, who is the individual who gave the instruction to our police officers not to ask for documentation status, not to participate with ICE except under situations dedicated by local law regarding those 170 offenses," de Blasio said.

The mayor added that the city is more safe when undocumented immigrants aren't afraid to call the police or other authorities if they have problems, witness a crime or are victims of domestic violence.

"So much for the Assembly member who's just playing a political game of her own and doesn't understand policing, making that kind of claim," de Blasio said.

DEBATE OVER 2014 LAW

Seeing a few of de Blasio's remarks about her on Twitter, Malliotakis tweeted a quote attributed to the Greek philosopher Socrates: "When the debate is lost, slander becomes the tool of the loser." (There's reportedly no evidence to suggest Socrates ever said this, however.)

"Mayor de Blasio is jeopardizing both funding and the safety of our citizens by refusing to cooperate with the federal government and turn over illegal immigrants who have committed crimes such as grand larceny, sexual abuse, criminal sale of prescription drugs and patronizing a minor for prostitution," Malliotakis said later. "Only to this mayor would complying with the law be considered 'right wing rhetoric.'"

The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency issues requests for police and other local law enforcement authorities to keep undocumented immigrants detained longer so they can be deported.

The city doesn't honor those "detainer" requests from ICE anymore without a warrant from a federal judge.

The legislation passed in 2014 stipulates that even with a judicial warrant, the NYPD and the Department of Correction will only comply with detention requests if an immigrant is a possible match on the terrorist watch list or was convicted of a "violent or serious crime" within the last five years.

De Blasio has previously told Malliotakis in Albany that he may be open to expanding the list of 170 crimes where the city would comply with ICE detainer requests. He said on the radio Friday that the city is looking into potentially amending the law to add more crimes, but that would have to go through the City Council.

Under the original law, ICE officers were also kicked out of Rikers Island and correction officers aren't able to assist federal authorities with enforcement.

FUNDING RISKS

Attorney General Jeff Sessions said Monday that the Justice Department will stop giving grants to cities like New York that don't comply with federal immigration enforcement.

The city received an average of $43 million in funding from the federal Justice Department between fiscal years 2012 and 2016, according to the mayor's office.

About $52.7 million was allocated to various agencies in the current fiscal year, City Hall said. The NYPD received the most -- $17.5 million -- followed by nearly $11.2 million for the Department of Correction.

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BROOKLYN, N.Y. -- A Clifton man who along with his brother dominated the drug scene at the Park Hill Apartments for two decades will be sentenced Friday in Brooklyn federal court.

In October 2014, Harvey (Black) Christian, 44, was convicted of trafficking crack cocaine, murder conspiracies, racketeering and fire arms possession.

His brother, Anthony (Nitty) Christian, 43, was sentenced to life last year.

A jury in Brooklyn federal court convicted Anthony Christian of racketeering -- including the 1999 murder of Jerome Estrella, 17, and three murder conspiracies -- as well as gun possession and crack cocaine trafficking, said authorities.

Federal prosecutors said Anthony and Harvey Christian established control of the crack-dealing activities around the Park Hill Apartments in 1991 and fought to maintain their turf.

They ran the operation until their arrests in 2011, authorities said.

Using the building at 55 Bowen St. as their home base throughout their reign, they began waging war in the mid-1990s on Park Hill Avenue to win control of more buildings, prosecutors said.

They engaged in massive gun battles for months.

In 1999, Anthony Christian and Paul (Uncles) Ford sent their enforcer, Brian Humphreys, to kill rival drug dealer Corey (Shank Bank) Brooker, prosecutors said.

Brooker escaped death, but Humphreys killed Estrella, with Anthony Christian's blessing, so he wouldn't warn Brooker about the murder plot. Christian gave Humphreys the gun used to kill the victim, said prosecutors.

Humphreys and Ford both testified for the prosecution at the Christian brothers' trial.

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By PAUL LIOTTA

and MAURA GRUNLUND

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- Just days after a New Dorp Beach landlord hung a large sign outside her home proclaiming "Beware! Drug Dealers Downstairs," authorities conducted a raid and arrested two sisters on drug-sale charges.

Linda and Christine Genise, both 52, are being arraigned in Manhattan Criminal Court on Friday after they were apprehended on Thursday afternoon in the vicinity of their apartment on the 100 block of Roma Avenue by the NYPD Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Strike Force.

The sisters both are charged with various counts of criminal sale of a controlled substance and criminal possession of a controlled substance, according to the city Office of the Special Narcotics Prosecutor.

Authorities allege that the duo peddled drugs that included oxycodone and heroin to an undercover officer on three occasions in February and earlier this month from their first-floor apartment.

A search of their apartment on Thursday yielded heroin and methadone, according to the prosecutor's office.

The development comes as a relief to their landlord, who said she felt helpless as she tried to get the women out of her home due to the alleged drug activity.

The sisters' landlord, Donna, who declined to have her full name published, this week put two warning signs outside her Roma Avenue home -- one in front of the house, and one above the entrance to the apartment.

"Beware! Drug Dealers Downstairs. Stay Away!" the signs drawn with red marker on white poster board said.

The photos began to go viral on several Facebook watch groups devoted to Staten Island.

"I took matters into my own hands," the landlord said.

When authorities showed up on Thursday afternoon and took the women away, Donna said she removed the signs.

"I'm a lot more relieved," the landlord said. "I feel like I got a whole bunch of stuff off my shoulders, I can tell you that much."

OUT OF OPTIONS

Donna was unsure about putting the signs up in the first place -- her lawyer even advised her to take them down, but she felt like she was out of options, she said.

The suspects moved into the house four years ago after Hurricane Sandy, Donna said.

They had been living at a hotel in Midland Beach after their home was wiped out in the storm, and Donna said she invited them to rent out the downstairs apartment.

"I like helping people," she said.

The first few years the family lived in the house were ideal, Donna and her husband said, but then things started to go downhill.

Donna has images from a surveillance system set up at her house that show people coming and going from the downstairs apartment at all hours of the day.

"The whole neighborhood calls my house 'the heroin house,'" Donna said. "That's not fair to my family."

Her worries don't end at what her neighbors call her house, Donna said.



On several occasions she's had to worry about the safety of her eight-year-old daughter, and her two-year-old son, who has Down syndrome.

Several incidents when her family was put in danger stuck out in Donna's mind.

A fire in November started downstairs, and a person came to the house with a sledgehammer and damaged walls in the apartment, she said.

After spending several hours at the 122nd Precinct stationhouse in New Dorp Tuesday night to see what could be done, Donna said she needed to go to the hospital, because she was having heart palpitations.

"I think it's from the stress of dealing with everything," she said.
CITY HALL -- NYPD "hot teams" will be tasked with investigating opioid, heroin and fentanyl deaths on Staten Island and beyond.

Chief of Detectives Robert Boyce described the new strategy to curb the epidemic during a City Council budget hearing Thursday.

"Heroin, opioid and fentanyl investigative teams...we're going to call them 'hot teams," Boyce said. "This will allow the NYPD to more effectively investigate, track and identify opioid use and patterns."

Thirteen officers will be assigned to Staten Island as part of this effort, Boyce said, out of 64 across the five boroughs.

"The teams will work with the district attorney's offices, special narcotics court and federal prosecutors to incarcerate dealers and their associates," Boyce said.

Police Commissioner Jimmy O'Neill told Council members that the NYPD is already rolling out the plan.

"This is something we're doing right now," O'Neill said.

RISE IN OPIOID DEATHS

There's been 162 opioid deaths so far this year citywide, a 29 percent increase compared to the same time in 2016, according to the NYPD.

"We have seen an increase in heroin coming out of Mexico into the United States from two of the cartels there," Boyce said.

Officials believe there were between 107 and 119 overdose deaths on Staten Island last year, according to the district attorney's office. That's well over the 69 confirmed deaths in the borough in all of 2015.

THE 'HOT TEAMS'

The "hot teams" will work between 8 and 1 a.m., with other night officers responding to all overdoses during the seven off hours.

"Working as one team they'll be tasked to identify the source of the opioid, the purity of the product, the dealers and distribution networks throughout the city," he said. "They will have to gather intelligence, identify stamps and utilize full capacities of the forensic investigative team."

The NYPD Criminal Enterprise Division will expand by 20 officers and is tasked with investigating both fatal and nonfatal overdoses.

"They will provide tracking for all these incidents so we can better manage this," Boyce said.

The "hot teams" will emphasize interviewing surviving overdose victims as well as the friends and family of addicts.

"The survivors and the families will become partners with us to further assist the investigation to identify the source of the opioid," Boyce said.

Each team will have a liaison officer charged with working alongside community affairs cops and coordination police to distribute information to the public and engage with communities to get more intelligence. They'll also connect addicts and others affected by the scourge with rehabilitation, counseling and more social services.

"The outreach by these units will ensure that resources and social programs will be made known to their communities," Boyce said. "They will provide info on naloxone, rehab centers, and identify at-risk persons."

$35M OPIOID PLAN

Earlier this month Mayor Bill de Blasio announced the city plans to spend $38 million more annually to reduce fatal opioid overdoses by 35 percent over the next five years.

There were 1,075 opioid overdoses across the five boroughs last year, so the "HealingNYC" plan aims to bring that number down to 699 by 2021.

That's still more than the number of opioid deaths during de Blasio's first year in office.

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Life Lately: Im feeling high on life at the moment! Weve had some great news recently, our holiday was wonderful and now spring is in the air!! Another month has simply flown by and its time for another round up!

I visited some amazing restaurants this month including:

A seafood banquet at J Sheekey.

One if the highlights of today! A super shellfish platter at @sheekeys #sheekeysundays ? A post shared by Angie Silver (@angiesilverspoon) on Feb 28, 2017 at 1:19pm PST

A tequila-fuelled feast at Peyotito.

Tequila to wake the livingMezcal to wake the dead! Read all about my lunch at @peyotitolondon in Notting Hill on the blog today A post shared by Angie Silver (@angiesilverspoon) on Mar 7, 2017 at 1:30am PST

Bottomless bellinis at Le Pont de la Tour for Laurens birthday.

Birthday doughnuts for @lauren.a.hudson today at her bottomless brunch at @lepontdelatourldn A post shared by Angie Silver (@angiesilverspoon) on Mar 4, 2017 at 12:03pm PST

And Spring, a restaurant thats both beautiful and serves incredible food.

Its one of those days when you cant stop smiling! Spring is finally in the air, the sky is blue and Ive just had the most amazing lunch with a group of lovely bloggers! I loved everything about the appropriately named @spring_ldn , not only was the food great, this place is serious #interiorgoals A post shared by Angie Silver (@angiesilverspoon) on Mar 25, 2017 at 11:21am PDT

Last night I headed to the Montague hotel for dinner with the South African Tourist board. Its my favourite country so Im really hoping to go back, meanwhile Ill just enjoy these fab leopard print cocktails from the hotel!

How adorable is the signature Leopard cocktail at the @montague_hotel ? Ive just spent the evening at this adorable boutique hotel meeting with @visitsouthafrica_uk and taking a trip down memory lane from when I visited two years ago! #shareyourwow A post shared by Angie Silver (@angiesilverspoon) on Mar 30, 2017 at 2:50pm PDT

I also popped to luxury country house hotel Coworth Park for a chocolate afternoon tea and tried the tasting menu at Sexy Fish that same evening  reviews of both to come.

I managed to squeeze three countries into the month of March. I discovered Turin on a road trip with Ford cars and met some wonderful people along the way!

Enjoying beautiful Italian wine with an incredible view! I loved my road trip through the Italian country side with @forduk A post shared by Angie Silver (@angiesilverspoon) on Mar 2, 2017 at 10:22am PST

We stayed in the three beautiful hotels in Dubai, each very different:

The One&Only Royal Mirage was a vast hotel with a kilometre of beach!

Beach and city break perfection at @ooroyalmirage @ooresorts A post shared by Angie Silver (@angiesilverspoon) on Mar 10, 2017 at 4:52am PST

The Four Seasons Hotel Dubai International Financial Centre is a city-chic boutique hotel.

The incredible views of the the Burj Khalifa from the stunning Sky bar at @fsdubaidifc @fourseasons A post shared by Angie Silver (@angiesilverspoon) on Mar 17, 2017 at 8:01am PDT

The Four Seasons Resort Dubai at Jumeirah Beach was a gorgeous beach-front property with incredible personal service.

Fresh coconuts by the pool! Does it get any better? @fsdubai @fourseasons A post shared by Angie Silver (@angiesilverspoon) on Mar 18, 2017 at 2:39am PDT

If you were following my trip on Instagram and Instagram Stories youll see that I stayed in two incredible properties in the Maldives.

Gili Lankanfushi is an eco-friendly rustic luxury hotel:

Welcome to our home away from home in The Maldives! @gili.lankanfushi A post shared by Angie Silver (@angiesilverspoon) on Mar 13, 2017 at 12:38am PDT

And uber luxury resort Velaa which couldnt have been more different.

Purple skies and an Maldives dream room ? A post shared by Angie Silver (@angiesilverspoon) on Mar 15, 2017 at 3:59am PDT

My Maldives posts start next week and I simply cannot wait to tell you about everything we got up to at these two hotels.

Easter is chocolate time right? And I highly recommend getting your eggs from Pierre Marcolini Haute Chocolaterie.

For something a little different the master of chocolate has made chocolate eggs into Japanese dolls. My Hand Fan Doll came with 16 miniature eggs like pearls in the base and I also got three drawers full of macarons! You should have seen the look on my nephews face when I gave him this!

We took my mum to one of new local faves, Hai Cenato for Mothers Day, and she absolutely loved it! I also contributed to a collective ebook with other bloggers celebrating our mums on mothers day. As part of this project, Im attending an event with Raymond Blanc and the Chelsea Flower Show on the 27th May. If you want to come to I have a 10% discount code for my readers. Just quote MOTHER10.

The best train buddy!! Weve had the most amazing time, bucket list item ticked!! @belmond @belmondbritishpullman @redletterdaysuk #MakingMemories #DiscoverBelmond @lauren.a.hudson A post shared by Angie Silver (@angiesilverspoon) on Mar 5, 2017 at 4:51am PST

One of the highlights of my month was our trip on the Belmond British Pullman Train a huge tick off the bucket list for me!

And what does the future hold? This weekend Im off on a very special trip, Ill be celebrating Aftabs birthday with Emma and Binnybut shh.dont tell himits a surprise. All will be revealed on Sunday! Ive got no other big travel plans for April, though on Wednesday I will be heading to airport  follow me on Instagram Stories to find out why. Ive just booked a few exciting UK staycations, including going away with my family for Easter. We havent had a family holiday in years so I cant wait!!

Whats your news?
The way of the empty hands The Simi Valley Shotokan Karate Dojo recently hosted a two-day seminar at Rancho Simi Recreation and Park District headquarters featuring a trio of karate experts. The Oct. 22 seminar was...

Slide into winter fun at SnowFest The Rancho Simi Recreation and Park District is bringing snow to Simi Valley. SnowFest will be held from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Sun., Nov. 6 at Rancho Madera Community...


Caption goes here Caption goes here

Many ingredients of todays Western civilization came from classical Greece and Rome, which had themselves picked up flavors from all around the Mediterranean and beyond. Greece and Ethiopia: Visiting the Farthest of Men will be explored in this years David H. Porter Classical World Lecture on Wednesday, April 5, at 6 p.m. in Davis Auditorium. The speaker is Elizabeth Fisher, a professor at Randolph-Macon College who spent 201516 on a Fulbright grant at Aksum University in Ethiopia.

Fisher points out that from the very beginning of Greek literatureearly in Homers OdysseyEthiopia figured as a very special place. Her talk will detail particular landscapes and archaeological finds confirming that pictorial and literary references from as far back as preclassical, Bronze Age Greece are not to some mythical land but to a real place that is still part of modern Ethiopia. As Leslie Mechem, of Skidmores classics faculty, explains, The exotic monkeys and incense depicted in the beautiful frescoes in Minoan houses were in fact reflections of Ethiopia.



Archaeologist Beth Fisher Archaeologist Beth Fisher

With a PhD in Aegean archaeology from the University of Minnesota, Fisher joined the Randolph-Macon faculty in 1988. She teaches classics courses ranging from art history to archaeology, and she has led students on travel seminars to Ethiopia, Israel and Egypt.

This lecture honors the late David Porter, Skidmore president emeritus and professor emeritus of both classics and English. It is sponsored by the Classics and Art History departments.
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context: ... 21: </%method> 22: 23: % foreach my $c (@categories) { 24: <%perl> 25: my $category_id = $c->get_id(); 26: my @stories = Bric::Biz::Asset::Business::Story->list ( { element_type_id=>1148, category_id=>$category_id , Order=> 'cover_date', publish_status => 't' , OrderDirection=> 'DESC' , Limit=>10 } ); 27: </%perl> 28: <table width="90%" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0"> 29: <tr> ... code stack: /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/dhandler.html:25

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The ACT government will advertise on Friday for experts to fill 10 spots on its new land-development boards.

The Land Development Agency is being disbanded and will be replaced on July 1 with two agencies - a City Renewal Authority and a Suburban Land Agency.

ACT Chief Minister Andrew Barr: Looking nationally for 10 people to make up two new board in charge of new land development boards in Canberra. Credit:Jamila Toderas

The government is appointing five board members to each, and is looking nationally for the expertise.

The government will introduce legislation on Thursday to disband the Land Development Agency and set up the new groups, and Chief Minister Andrew Barr has confirmed that recruitment has begun. The government was casting a nationwide net and national advertisements would run from Friday.
"As part of this new RFP, Transport Canberra has been able to broaden the scope and we are now seeking tenders for alternative fuel buses, with a particular focus on electric buses."

"As a result, we decided that the best approach would be to terminate the current contract and announce a new Request for Proposal (RFP)," Ms Fitzharris said.

While three electric buses were scheduled to be delivered by February 28 for the 12-month trial, transport minister Meegan Fitzharris said it became apparent that the contractor, Avass Bus Manufacturing, would not meet the delivery deadline.

The ACT government's electric bus trial has had a temporary setback, with Transport Canberra forced to find a new manufacturer after the contract fell through.

The government now expects the bus trial to start in the later half of this year.

But Avass chief executive Allen Saylav said their buses would have been ready by now had the government had granted them the three-month extension they requested.

"They would have by now had the buses if they'd given us this extension but obviously because they cancelled the contract we haven't emphasised that project, so they're not ready now, but they would have been," Mr Saylav said.

While he would not disclose how much the contract was worth, he said no money had exchanged hands. It would have been the company's first fleet order.

"We were actually producing world class products for them as a flagship so they could demonstrate a bus that had never been seen on Australian roads, with all of the features and performance and everything we'd put into it to make it something that was going to stand out so they could showcase and do whatever they were going to do with it but they chose that path, which is fine," Mr Saylav said.
It was April 2015 and Mr Hoyle had invited the students to his office to discuss their semester one business law papers. There was media publicity at the time about cheat sites, and one lecturer had found the business law question uploaded on a site where essays could be bought.

In his evidence on Friday Mr Hoyle denied all allegations against him. In cross-examination he was challenged by prosecutors on why he had created a PowerPoint slide with an image from a pornographic website and shown it to a student.

Arthur Marshall Hoyle, the former lecturer who is facing trial accused of touching students and raping one, took the stand on Friday, denying to the jury the accusations against him.

Mr Hoyle, who was a senior lecturer in law and technology at the University of Canberra, and had taught at the university for 21 years, told an ACT Supreme Court jury on Friday he was "extremely concerned" about what he had found while looking into possible plagiarism in the students' papers.

Under questioning by his defence barrister Liesl Chapman SC, Mr Hoyle said he had met with 11 or 12 students in his office to discuss their work. He said he had been referred to some by another lecturer but identified other papers of concern himself.

He had done this by looking at student's papers, academic history and also tutorial attendance. Three of the complainants had attended one, two and zero tutorials respectively, he said.

Mr Hoyle said of the first complainant that the paper she had submitted to the university's plagiarism software URKUND was a different paper to the hard copy she had submitted. The online version had an unusually low URKUND score, he said, and had also produced links to pornography sites.

Mr Hoyle admitted he had shown the woman an image of a pornography site in a PowerPoint slide, but denied the picture included any pornography and said the slide was part of a "brief of evidence" he was preparing for the dean of education.
Public servants working at Geoscience Australia in Canberra are reportedly not keen on an open-plan office that's been proposed as part of their $17.5 million building refurbishment.

Nearly 600 employees are housed at the facility on the corner of Jerrabomberra Avenue and Hindmarsh Drive.

A $17.5 million refurbishment is planned for the Geoscience Australia building in Canberra. Credit:Michael Gorey

The Public Works Committee met Friday to review submissions on the project, including one from the main public sector union.

A letter signed by CPSU deputy secretary Beth Vincent-Pietsch recommends reconsidering the open-plan office.
Murder victim Sabah Al-Mdwali's Australian citizenship certificate was found torn in half inside the Gordon house where her husband allegedly stabbed her to death, a court has heard.

Maged Mohommed Ahmed Al-Harazi, 36, was charged after the bloodied body of his wife was found on a bed inside their Gordon home in the early hours of March 17, 2015.

Flowers at the Gordon house where Maged Mohommed Ahmed Al Harazi, 36, is accused of murdering wife Sabah Al-Mdwali, 28, in March 2015. Credit:Jeffrey Chan

Prosecutors say he inflicted 57 knife wounds as Ms Al Mdwali, 28, nursed their 10-month-old son. He then drove to Tuggeranong police station with the pair's three children and bashed on the door, telling officers his wife had been killed.

Al-Harazi pleaded not guilty to her murder. He maintains he left his wife at home with her father and brother that night and when he returned she was dead.
North Charleston: The Dreamliner 787-10  Boeing's newest and largest commercial airliner  took off on its first flight on Friday, kicking off a flight test program for the high-tech jet.

The plane, which sells for $407 million and rounds out a family of three carbon-fibre composite Dreamliners, is being built exclusively at Boeing's factory in North Charleston, South Carolina. The facility is Boeing's only jetliner assembly factory outside of Washington state and, in contrast to the others, it is not unionised.

Boeing employees watch the new Boeing 787-10 Dreamliner as it taxis down the runway at Charleston International Airport in North Charleston on Friday. Credit:AP

The same plane provided a dramatic backdrop for President Donald Trump's visit to the Boeing factory on February 17, when he promised to boost US manufacturing and punish companies for moving jobs overseas.

Companies in Japan, China, Italy, Sweden, France and Britain produce many of the 787's major components, such as wings, fuselage sections and the rudder. Airlines can choose engines from American maker General Electric or Britain's Rolls-Royce.
At 80 years old, Annie McQuisten doesn't spend much time online, nor on the phone.



In the month of February she made exactly 10 mobile calls, two landline calls and used three gigabytes of data.

And yet her Telstra bill for that same month was $142.70, roughly the amount she has been paying every month for the past 10 years.

"I was shocked," said Ranui Young, Ms McQuisten's neighbour who looked at her bill when she asked for some advice.

"I'm a tech savvy IT professional, and I don't even pay that much."
Tesla billionaire founder Elon Musk's private space company Space Exploration Technologies flew and landed the same orbital rocket a second time in less than a year, a significant milestone in Musk's mission to make space travel cheaper.

A Falcon 9 rocket carrying a customer's communications satellite rumbled aloft on Thursday from a NASA space centre in Florida, a livestream of the mission on SpaceX's website showed. The spacecraft carried a communications satellite from Luxembourg's SES that will provide coverage to Latin America.

Phil Larson, a space policy adviser to former US President Barack Obama who worked for SpaceX and is now at the University of Colorado, has called the mission a "Wright Brothers moment for space."

Much of the expense of space travel lies in building engines, capsules and other equipment only to be used once and then discarded. Billionaires including Musk and Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos are racing to make rocket reusability - once derided as a crazy idea - into a reality that will dramatically lower costs.
The sale of a freestanding office building in Hornsby by the Abacus Property Group for $22 million, on a yield of 5.6 per cent, reflects the increasing demand for suburban offices, according to agents.

The freehold property at 22-28 Edgeworth Avenue was sold to a private investor after having received strong interest due its fully leased nature and future residential development potential.

Strong result: Abacus sold a Hornsby office building to a private investor for $22 million.

The sale was managed by Knight Frank's Tyler Talbot, Richard Garland, and Brett Burridge on behalf of Abacus Property Group, in conjunction with Savills.

Knight Frank's director, institutional sales, North Sydney Tyler Talbot brokered the deal and said the property received strong interest from local and offshore investors due to its future residential potential.
Large-scale pharmacies in the $16 billion industry are stepping up their presence in the retail sector to become a major "disruptor" as they compete for space in malls and neighbourhood strips.

While family-run chemists remain key retailers in suburban strips, the arrival of the larger-scale businesses that offer not just prescriptions but higher-margin cosmetics, a wide range of discounted vitamins and gifts has created competition for space and revenue, with a focus on shopping centres.

Chemist Warehouse is looking at more expansion opportunities across the country. Credit:Bradley Kanaris/Getty Images

The smaller chemists have been hit by the changes to the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme, to rein in the government costs, which has led, at the property end, to the closure of smaller stores and the rise of the big-box discount formats.

According ro research house IBIS World, while the traditional pharmacy once derived as much as 85 per cent of its revenue from dispensary sales "this could potentially fall to as little as 50 per cent over the next five years".
An expression used over and over in this cyclone "event" from the Premier down is bunker down, writes Shelley Thomson, Flaxton. "Surely one hunkers down in a bunker not bunkers down in a bunker. Will we ever get back to just having weather, rain, storms etc without having 'event' and 'impacting' attached to every word." From soggy Queensland, Shelley Thomson, Flaxton.

From Matt Petersen of Randwick. "Following complaints in C8 about the term "rain event", I have decided to embrace the new terminology and extend it into other parts of my life. Some examples: Attending a buck's night  a gent event; having a small dingle in the car park  a dent event; paying the landlord  a rent event; undergoing some vascular surgery  a stent event; abstaining from coffee prior to Easter  a Lent event; collapsing onto the lounge after getting the kids to bed  a spent event; going camping  a tent event; rescuing a kitten from a tree  a Clark Kent event; getting into Column 8  a comment event; and reading A Matter of Principle by my favourite 60 Minutes reporter  a Jana Wendt event."

"A 244-word item in C8 (Taxi, Debbie Mundell). Is this a record? As a result, only three items in total. Is this another record?" Steve Cornelius C8PhD, Brookvale.

Also: "Deb's taxi driver should be paid more than the CEO of Australia Post? He seems to be more adept at arranging timely delivery in any case." Arnold Henry, Armidale.

Peter Steele, Kings Langley, writes: "This Friday I celebrate one and possibly two major milestones. The first is 50 years since obtaining my driver's licence, without suffering any traffic infringement notices or major accidents. Could the second be my first Column8 published letter? I imagine there will be other C8ers who can better this."
The ACT's Community Services Directorate must, as a matter of urgency, review its policy on strip searching detainees at the Bimberi Youth Justice Centre with a view to ending the practice.

Canberrans are entitled to an explanation as to why, almost seven years after the ACT Human Rights Commission recommended "routine" strip searches be abandoned, the practice is allowed to continue.

Given the images that have come out of the Northern Territory's Don Dale facility and many of the concerns that have been raised by the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Abuse it is a mystery why practices such as "squat and cough" have been allowed to continue for so long.

This entails a young person, in some cases a 10-year-old, stripping naked, squatting with their back to a youth worker and then coughing on command.
The battle of Waterloo is shaping up to be a doozy. "I don't want to be empowered," hollers an elderly resident at the action group meeting. "I just don't want this development. I refuse to be evicted. Ever."

Of course he will be, evicted. Governments have power, people have none. All public housing is now up for private redevelopment. But what if, instead of eviction (and possible rehousing, "if we're even alive by then", five years on) the residents took charge? What if they co-designed and co-owned the place? Is that even possible?

In a word, yes. Although the community land trust, or CLT, is still a minority animal in Australia it figures more strongly in, for instance, the US, where reclaim-the-city movements have had more impetus, for longer. On this scenario, a non-profit organisation would own, design and  this is important  manage the housing, making it self-determining in perpetuity.

Of course, it would also involve government acting like it wanted to help people, even treating public land as if it were, in fact, public. Then again, what's wrong with that?
Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and Opposition Leader Bill Shorten help with clean-up efforts in Bowen, Queensland on Thursday. Credit:Pool/Gary Ramage "I know," Shorten might have replied. "Your Treasurer was the one who said he wanted to get rid of some of the excesses in negative gearing. That is, until we announced a policy that would have actually done that." "Okay, so we'll pick up part of your policy," a problem-solving prime minister would have said, "but you have to come partway with me on the company tax rate. I'm worried that we really do have a shortfall of corporate investment after the mining boom, and my plan to cut the company tax rate will help fix that. "I know," a problem-solving opposition leader would rejoin. "That's why it used to be our policy, too. All the way back to Hawke and Keaing. But we can't go the whole hog here, Malcolm. We can't be seen to be helping the bastard banks." "Fair enough, I can't stand the banks either. Let's leave ScoMo and Bowen to work out some details. I have some wine in the office. Why don't we have a glass before we go back to pretending to hate each other tomorrow?"

The net effect would be some progress on housing affordability, investment and jobs growth. Possible? Absolutely. Imaginable? Absolutely not. The two parties continue to go at each other in the conviction that winning political advantage for the tribe is more important than improving living conditions for all. Federal politics is our national problem-solving mechanism. If it's not working, problems don't get solved. Problems build, the people's frustrations mount. Despairing voters seek alternatives. Labor's policy to put sensible limits on negative gearing could be a real basis for a part of the solution to housing affordability; the Liberals' company tax cut plan could be a useful beginning to generate investment and, from that, jobs. The political vanity of each will not allow the recognition of either. Their pig-headedness hands power to the minor parties in the Senate. Pauline Hanson's One Nation and the Nick Xenophon Team, made relevant only by the intractability of the main parties, become the arbiters of outcomes. That's what has been happening for the last few days with Turnbull's corporate tax cut, for instance. An entrepreneur recently gave a speech about how two competing companies will become so preoccupied with their rivalry that they are blind to a larger threat looming above them in the form of technology-driven disruption. The disruption is about to devastate both, but they don't see it coming. He might well have been talking about the two-party political system.

"In Game of Thrones terms," said Richard Bootle of Lawlab, "I think we're all a bit Lannister-and-Starkish," referring to to warring clans in the hit TV series. "We're all warring over this little patch of ground oblivious to the white-walkers heading towards us, about to put their cold, freezing hands on our shoulders, riding their dead horses through our villages." It's still some two years to the next election, but the white walkers of One Nation are on the move. The Turnbull government, after weeks of procrastinating, this week suddenly announced its solution to the Queensland sugar industry impasse. Why? Because Hanson had demanded action on the problem before she'd consider the government legislation before the Senate. One Nation is not a solution to Australia's problems. But it is an alternative voting option. If voters are convinced that Labor and Liberal aren't solving their problems, then they'll turn to an alternative. Even if it's just to express frustration. This is the story of the advance of the nationalist populists in the US, UK and Europe in the past year. While the major parties concentrate on their parlour games, winter is coming.

While this week gave us a fleeting illustration of the potential best in Australian politics, it also gave us a cameo to help explain the obliviousness of the worst. Labor has a frontbench politician named Brendan O'Connor. You'll be forgiven for never having heard of him, although he's been in the federal parliament for 16 years and carries the title of shadow minister for employment. Although Labor often presents him to the cameras as the face of the party, it's a face that few remember. No one has ever learnt anything important or interesting by listening to him. On Thursday, he called a media conference in one of the parliamentary courtyards, as he often does. The TV cameras, lifeblood of the politician, duly turned out and started to roll. But no reporters were on hand to ask questions. Of the 200-odd journalists in the media bureaux a few metres away in the press gallery, not one came. As this realisation struck him, the disbelief on O'Connor's face soon turned to disgust. "What's happening to mainstream media?" was his accusatory response. "Honestly."

It seems that there was a delay in an email server, meaning the notice of his media conference didn't go out as intended. Whatever the cause, it is a fitting metaphor for the times. A great many Australians have stopped listening to the political mainstream, but, confronted with this lack of an audience, the mainstream politician blames the media. He cannot accept that no one is interested in him. And why would anyone be interested? He called the media together so as to allow them to relay to the people his whining and moaning about how dreadful his political opponents are. This is the televisual version of the caricature positioning of an opposition politician, "the angry last paragraph" in a political news story. Brendan O'Connor puts on his serious face and whines and moans about the government year in and year out. Is it any surprise that nobody really cares what a cardboard-cutout opposition spokesman's latest gripe may be? Perversely, the media conference that was not attended by the media ended up attracting quite a bit of attention for exactly that reason. O'Connor should heed the sage observation of a former British politician, Enoch Powell: "For a politician to complain about the press is like a ship's captain complaining about the sea." Rough handling by the press, or no handling at all, is simply a condition of doing business. The mainstream parties should brace for rougher conditions ahead.
Elderly men are especially prone to suicide, with Australian men over 85 having the highest rate. They kill themselves at the rate of 39.3 per 100,000  compared with the overall rate for men of 19.4 per 100,000. Many of these men are lonely (they may have recently lost a partner), they are sometimes incontinent and unable to care for themselves and they don't have the money to pay for care. Others  and some elderly women come into this category too, although their suicide rate is a lot lower  will do literally anything to avoid going into a retirement home.

Chronic pain also drives people to end their lives. You would think that modern medicine could alleviate pain but this is not always the case and there is plenty of evidence that some people decide they just cannot deal with it any more.

Writer Nikki Gemmell has written about her mother's suicide, a lonely act that shocked her and her family even though their mother had complained constantly of the pain and had foreshadowed that she might end her life. This death evokes another suicide-related issue: euthanasia. Had her mother been legally able to end her life, with her family around her, might it have been a better death? asks her anguished daughter. As it stands, Gemmell does not know whether her mother's final act was one of empowerment or despair. But, as she acknowledges, even the legalisation of euthanasia would not have helped her mother because Australian parliaments seem willing to contemplate only doctor-assisted euthanasia legislation for people with terminal illnesses. Gemmell's mother's condition was chronic but not terminal. As a society we do not allow mature people the right to doctor-assisted suicide. Instead, we force them to illegally import the drugs that guarantee a quick and peaceful end, or else to use the violent methods of self-harm that are the preponderant methods of suicide in this country.

Of course, these arguments do not apply to the vast majority of suicides by those who are younger and whose motivation for wanting to kill themselves can be known for sure only if their attempt fails and we can try to talk to them.

The Way Back, a one-on-one program being trialled by beyondblue with people who have attempted suicide is, I am told, finding that economic distress, loneliness and the desire to escape pain are among the reasons people give for having tried to end their lives. Just as we should not automatically brand a person who survives a suicide attempt as mentally ill, nor should we assume that depression and anxiety, crippling as they can be, are the sole causes of suicide in Australia.
The small park, if you can call it that, where I walk my dog is perhaps the nucleus of my surrounds. There are usually at least two homeless people sleeping rough there any night of the week and if they stay around, I usually get to know them as friends.

Let me preface my encounter by declaring I love my neighbourhood. I moved here for a reason. I wanted to be amongst the madness, to live in a microcosm of society at its best and worst. I am not afraid of sharing space with the disadvantaged and distressed. It is important to me that that I do, lest I forget and all of that.

I realised the living dead are here amongst us last week when walking my dog. Credit:Arsineh Houspian

No, I haven't been bingeing on too many episodes of The Walking Dead or watching Simon Pegg films, as I have been known to do. Nope, I realised the living dead are here amongst us last week by simply walking my dog.

There is usually someone smoking some weed who is harmless enough along with a dishevelled duo sucking on a bottle of cheap booze. And sometimes junkies will furtively convene around a heating spoon, twitching in anticipation, but they rarely interact (this is a blessing as they can be conniving and manipulative liars and thieves  this I know, sadly first hand).

But lately I haven't been feeling as comfortable in my 'hood and I am looking at my park sharers differently. And it's because of them.

Yes, I've known they're close for a while. I've heard the screams and yelling late at night and clang and thud of garbage bins being kicked. But it took encountering one in the middle of the day recently that has made me realise the apocalypse is real and we should all be alert, alarmed and bloody terrified.

It was about 2pm and I'd been typing away all morning, much to my beloved bulldog Iggy's annoyance. After nuzzling me one too many times only to be ignored, he jumped up on the lounge and physically sat on my keyboard to say it was time for a walk and a ball toss.

So, we set out as we do several times a day. The sun was shining, Iggy was off lead and I was enjoying the break. Then, out of nowhere, it sprang.
To Google or not is an issue doctors admit to grappling with. In an Australian survey, when doctors were asked if it was appropriate for doctors to look up publicly available information about a patient, almost 43% said no and around 40% were unsure. Breaching trust When a doctor searches online for information about a patient without consent, their role changes from someone who works with the patient to someone who observes and spies on them. From a patients viewpoint, this is likely to destroy trust between the two, as it shows a lack of respect. Patients can also be directly harmed when doctors act on information they find online. If a doctor sees an online photo of a patient waiting for a liver transplant drinking alcohol when they shouldnt be, patients risk missing out on receiving a new liver. Then theres the issue of whether the information is recent or relevant. In the case of the liver transplant dilemma, we might not know when the photo of the liver transplant patient was taken; it is not proof the patient is drinking now.

Doctors, like the rest of us, also cannot be sure online information is accurate. For instance, more than 50% of adolescents admit posting false information on social media. To act or not to act? Deciding to search for information about their patients online is not the end of the matter. Doctors also need to decide whether to admit Googling and whether to act on the information they find. Doctors are legally required under mandatory reporting laws to report information they have viewed relating to child abuse and neglect. But if they act on inaccurate information, that can harm the patient and others. If they dont act on the information they find, they could be liable for not trying to protect the patient. In the end, doctors need to satisfy themselves that they have good reason to take action (or not take action) based on weighing up the likely benefits and harms.

While there may be some justification for looking at patient information online when it relates to child safety, for adult patients, its a different matter. For adults, it would be easier and more respectful to just ask them. What can we do? Regardless of any ethical concerns, how realistic is it for doctors to stop Googling their patients? Using Google is so common (globally, we use it to make 3.5 billion searches a day) that it has become the default way we find out information online. Many doctors also dont think Googling a patient is an invasion of privacy. Patients should be aware that their doctor can see and use the information they put online. To safeguard their privacy, patients can adjust their privacy settings and be careful of what they post. Perhaps there should be policy on the need for doctors to be open about Googling their patients. And, before they act on any information, patients should have an opportunity to refute or explain that information.
Strap into your seats, viewers, we're all going to outer space. Specifically, we're going to outer space with astrophysicist Brian Cox, Julia Zemiro and some prominent space boffins as they host an Australian first and train the cameras over three nights at the mysterious reaches of the universe. Kicking off tonight (Tuesday) with the Milky Way, on Wednesday the focus shifts to the planets and Thursday is  yay!  aliens (raising the question: has Michelle Guthrie uncovered a Roswell-type incident at our beloved Aunty and cunningly decided to monetise it?) Following each night's Stargazing Live will be Stargazing Live: Back to Earth, a 30-minute special on ABC2 in which viewers can put questions directly to Cox  and to Zemiro, too, if you really want to test her knowledge of black holes. Larissa Dubecki

SBS Viceland, 8.30pm

Everything you ever wanted to know about the body art scene in South Korea is contained in these 25-odd minutes, including its status as a mark of reprobate criminality and its illegality. But  hang on  it's not actually illegal, although officially it requires a doctor's licence to perform. Host of this new Viceland series, London-based tattooist and Instagram star Grace Neutral, is happy to bury the reality under a tear-sodden victimhood narrative. And while socially conservative South Korea is clearly not the well-inked paradise that Australia now is, there are several scenes that contradict her persecution plotline, including a father and daughter happily getting tattoos together at a parlour with neon signage (in broad daylight  call the cops!). Only at the end does she admit that the law is only a formality, but why be boring when you can be subversive? Larissa Dubecki

pay Wentworth

Showcase, 8.30pm

Can there even be a Wentworth without Bea Smith? Sure, why not? After all, Neighbours survived after Greg Fleet killed Daphne all those years ago. Which isn't to say that the wonderful Danielle Cormack won't be missed. But now that she's gone to become a giant seahorse in the sky (don't worry, it's a Wentworth thing) there are still plenty of big characters capable of dragging the melodrama onward. Chief among those is Joan "The Freak" Ferguson (Pamela Rabe), who is now back inside on account of the astronomically improbable success of Bea's plan to frame her for murder. Tonight she has a tense appointment with new top dog Kaz Proctor (Tammy Macintosh) down where the steam presses sound like Darth Vader. On the outside Franky Doyle (Nicole da Silva) is about to have her new life shattered in ludicrous fashion. Fans will love it. Brad Newsome
The Vatican has urged US President Donald Trump to listen to "dissenting voices" and reconsider his position on climate change, saying the United States risked losing its environmental protection leadership to China.

Pope Francis has made defence of the environment a key plank of his papacy, strongly backing scientific opinion that global warming is caused mostly by human activity.

Cardinal Peter Turkson, the Pope's point man for the environment, immigration and development, has warned Donald Trump over climate change. Credit:AP

"This is a challenge for us," said Cardinal Peter Turkson, the Pope's point man for the environmental, immigration and development, when asked on Thursday about Trump's executive order dismantling Obama-era climate change regulations and his immigration policies.

"Fortunately, in the United States, there are dissenting voices, people who are against Trump's positions," said Turkson, who is from Ghana and was one of the driving forces behind the Pope's 2015 encyclical letter on environmental protection.
The federal government's failure to ratify the China-Australia extradition treaty has sparked open warfare between supporters of Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and Tony Abbott, with the ex-prime minister unloading on his "cowardly" colleagues for briefing against him and botching the treaty deal.

Foreign Minister Julie Bishop delivered a slap to Liberal MPs, who on Monday threatened to revolt and cross the floor rather than back the treaty, which was signed by the Howard government in 2007 but never ratified.

She accused those dozen MPs - including Eric Abetz, Kevin Andrews, Andrew Hastie, Trent Zimmerman, James Paterson, Dean Smith and Tim Wilson - of effectively not trusting Australia's own legal and political system to block extradition to China when a person set to be sent there faced, for example, torture or the death penalty.

Mr Abbott on Friday intervened in the debate over the treaty, which has been shelved, much to the embarrassment of the Turnbull government, providing News Corp details of a briefing note from his former Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, dated December 19, 2014.
When Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull rose for the last question time before the budget to say Australia has some of the highest corporate tax rates in the world, he was right, as he was the dozens of times before that, but the determined logic only moved the Senate crossbench to pass the $20 billion deal after weeks of negotiations.

The thinking goes that lower corporate tax rates encourage investment, boost productivity, and employment, and therefore result in higher standards of living.

But as with all things tax, it's a delicate balancing act.

The Coalition believes our globally high tax rates are stymieing investment. Labor has repeatedly flip-flopped on its position since moving between government and opposition but now believes corporates should be paying the current rate of tax to help pay for schools and hospitals.
A lot of free speech is being exercised around our nation right now, and if there were a law against insulting and offending the political class, a lot of my mates and acquaintances would be in strife.

An electrician fixing a fried circuit at my house last weekend was in despair at what he considered was a political system that couldn't make a serious decision about anything at a time when the future felt perilous.

"This country needs to know where it's going, and all we get are these buggers arguing the toss," he said. "I don't reckon we've ever seen it this bad. Don't any of them know how stupid they look to the rest of us?"

He was getting so worked up I became concerned he'd stick a screwdriver into the wrong socket and set his hair on fire, but he knew what he was doing, which is more than he'd say for Canberra's alleged decision-makers.
I love Disney. A lot. I have gone to countless films on the day of release to emerge at the end, jittery with joy. I do a killer rendition of A Whole New World (both parts, obviously). There truly is no happier place on earth to me than Disneyland.

Of course, I'm aware of how problematic Disney can be, especially when it comes to gender. As I grew older and more politically aware, I began to notice glaring issues in the films I'd grown up loving  none more so than Beauty and the Beast, essentially a bestial tale of emotional abuse behind the pretty yellow ball gowns and twee, sentient crockery.

Much has been written of the 1991 animated film's normalisation of domestic violence, from the Beast's physically aggressive actions to his refusal to let Belle eat at all unless she dines with him. But the makers of the 2017 reboot  as well as star and noted celebrity feminist Emma Watson  are adamant that their heroine is not a damsel in distress. "[Belle] has none of the characteristics of someone with Stockholm Syndrome because she keeps her independence; she keeps that freedom of thought," Watson said of her character. Indeed, the film has been widely praised as a feminist win for Disney.

Watching the new version, it's clear that the filmmakers have tried to fashion Belle into a more independent woman  she's an inventor, she teaches young girls to read, she wears practical boots and she's not afraid to be mouthy. But giving the character a feminist makeover doesn't negate the troubling nature of her relationship with the Beast  in fact, many women who do suffer in abusive or manipulative relationships are headstrong feminists.
A donation of $2.86 billion or $3.50. Two amounts sitting at radically different ends of the wealth spectrum. But giving away $2.86 billion or $3.50 has a similar effect  the hit of happiness that comes from helping someone else.

In 2006, billionaire Warren Buffett famously pledged to gradually give all his Berkshire Hathaway stock to philanthropic foundations and he has since said he "couldn't be happier with that decision".

Whether it is a little or a lot, studies show that donating to charity will boost your own happiness. Credit:Andrew Quilty

In 2016 his yearly philanthropic stock donation was the highest yet, $2.86 billion. Moving the dial a little closer to an amount more of us can afford, a Melbourne cafe encourages diners to donate a $3.50 bowl of soup to feed a local sleeping rough.

Whether you're cashed up or cash strapped, research shows it's possible to boost our own happiness by giving away sums as small as $1 if we follow these three criteria for prosocial spending:
A parliamentary inquiry has been swamped by the former patients, and their families and friends, of Dr Kiran Phadke, the clinical oncologist and haematologist under investigation for practising outside clinical guidelines.

Dr Phadke - a senior staff specialist at St George and Sutherland Hospitals - told an inquiry hearing on Friday that he was the target of a vexatious investigation instigated by professional rivals and was "thrown under the bus" by then health minister Jillian Skinner.

Dr Kiran Phadke (right) was supported by roughly 180 former patients and community members as he gave evidence to a parliamentary inquiry into off-protocol chemotherapy dosing. Credit:Kate Geraghty

The South East Local Health District (SESLHD) alleged 14 patients were harmed or vulnerable to future harm as a result of Dr Phadke's treatment decisions after probing a sample of his patient records.

Roughly 180 supporters surrounded Dr Phadke in the foyer of parliament house before packing the public gallery for the Legislative Council select committee hearing into off-protocol prescribing of chemotherapy.
Concert promoter Andrew McManus has told a court he lied to police about a suitcase containing $700,000 cash in return for an underworld loan.

But he walked free from the Sydney District Court on Friday after a judge found he had strong prospects of rehabilitation.

Andrew McManus leaves court after being sentenced on Friday. Credit:James Alcock

Police seized the suitcase in Sydney's Hilton Hotel in 2011 and followed the money to unravel an international drugs syndicate.

Its US leader Owen "O-Dog" Hanson, 34, was sentenced to 20 years jail in January.
A man who murdered a fellow ice user and dumped his body in a car boot near a Sydney cemetery has been jailed for at least 14 years.

Ting Huang's stabbed and decomposing body was found wrapped in a doona in a car boot near Rookwood cemetery in Lidcombe in September 2014.

Zhen Fang was arrested at the airport in 2013. Credit:NSW Police

Ten days earlier, his murderer, Zhen Fang, had told police he'd killed someone but he didn't know when or where, adding "that man gave me a lot of ice".

He had gone to a pastor the day before and said he'd "done something to another person", making a throat-slitting gesture.
The daughter of a woman murdered by her GP husband in order to be with his secret lover says she was shocked and saddened by his "heartless" behaviour in the days after her mother's death.

Brian Crickitt, 63, injected his wife Christine Crickitt, 61, with a fatal dose of insulin in their home, in Woodbine, in Sydney's south-west, between December 31, 2009, and January 1, 2010.

Tracey Wiggins, daughter of Christine Crickitt leaves the court with her husband, John, and family members on Friday. Credit:Peter Rae

After he "found" the body, Crickitt invited her adult daughter Tracey Wiggins to see him at the home of his lover, Linda Livermore, whom he introduced as a friend.

In a victim impact statement read to the NSW Supreme Court on Friday, Ms Wiggins described as callous the way Crickitt bluntly informed her: "I found your mother dead this morning when I got home."
They cultivated a reputation as modern-day bush rangers - living off the grid, carrying out moonlight raids and evading capture for years.

An anti-authoritarian belief system, according to one psychiatrist, only intensified when they made an appearance on the television program Australia's Most Wanted.

But any "such-is-life" bravado was nowhere to be seen when the notorious Stoccos were sentenced to a maximum of 40 years' jail for a raft of offences, including murdering a farm caretaker.

The father and son fugitives, who led police on a wild interstate chase before their dramatic arrest on a rural property, showed no reaction as they sat side by side in the dock while details of their descent into violent crime were heard in the NSW Supreme Court on Friday.
Rockhampton could be in the firing line for flooding next week, the Bureau of Meteorology warns.

BoM's Queensland regional director Bruce Gunn said there was concern for Rockhampton once water from the Fitzroy River and its tributaries arrives in the town, which could cause "some significant flooding next week".

But he said some drought-affected areas of Queensland would have found the rain very welcome.

"It probably didn't go as far west as we might have predicted earlier, but parts of the Central Highlands, particularly around Emerald, would have had some very useful falls without causing major flooding," Mr Gunn said.
Whitsunday Regional Council mayor Andrew Willcox condemned the "imbeciles" who looted businesses around Airlie Beach following the destruction of Cyclone Debbie.

"I have had reports," the mayor said.

"The residents and the businesses in my region have been through enough, so acts like that are just disgraceful."

An Airlie Beach restaurant was broken into, and a clothing store and a tourist shop were looted in the area.
A second man has been charged with murder over the suspicious disappearance of 22-year-old Samuel Thompson, whose body has not been found.

The 25-year-old Albany Creek man was taken into custody late Friday and has been charged with murder and interfering with a corpse.

Samuel Thompson's Ford Mustang was found on Wednesday. Credit:Glenn Hunt

He will face Brisbane Magistrates Court on Saturday.

Roberto Vincenzo Boscaino is already in custody after being charged on Thursday with murder and interfering with a corpse.
After deciding to sit Cyclone Debbie out in his bus with taped-up windows, with his pythons and Great Dane for company, Ayr resident Shane Borgas said he got off lightly.

"I mean the winds came up, no doubt about that, and the rain, but at the last minute the cyclone turned south and yeah, we dodged a bullet big-time," he said.

Cyclone Debbie was forecast to hit Ayr head-on on Tuesday morning, but the category 4 cyclone unleashed its fury on Airlie Beach and the Whitsunday Islands further south instead.

"We copped just the end so we didn't get the seven-metre surge we were expected to get, so we were very lucky," Mr Borgas said.
Giving criminal drug addicts footy tickets instead of jail? Sounds outrageous doesn't it.

Not according to the Victorian Alcohol and Drug Association, which has slammed shadow attorney-general John Pesutto, saying he misrepresented a program which uses incentives to get addicts' lives back on track.

Magistrate Tony Parsons speaks to a drug court participant in Dandenong last year. Credit:Simon Schluter

Mr Pesutto mocked the scheme, saying Premier Daniel Andrews had to "bribe" offenders to obey the law.

"If addicts who have broken the law need to be bribed with free footy tickets before they'll comply with their drug treatment orders, they shouldn't be on the program," Mr Pesutto said.
A man accused of groping a child at a Selena Gomez concert has had his bail revoked after allegedly exposing himself on public transport.

Police allege Martin Lathouwers, 30, groped a child and a woman at the US pop star's concert at Margaret Court Arena on August 6, 2016.

The man is accused of groping a child at a Selena Gomez concert. Credit:Gilaxia

The Altona Meadows man faced Melbourne Magistrates Court on Friday on fresh charges. He allegedly exposed his genital area twice on the 412 bus between Laverton and Footscray on March 6 while on bail.

He is also charged with possessing child pornography images and videos, as well as two counts of stalking.
Police have concerns for the welfare of a 14-year-old Melbourne girl who has been missing for two days.

Myrah Fitzgerald was last seen on Thursday just before midnight at a house in Noble Park.

Victoria Police are appealing for public assistance to help locate missing 14-year old teenager Myrah Fitzgerald. Credit:Victoria Police

Police have concerns for the teenager due to her age.

Myrah is described as being Caucasian with a slim build, shoulder-length black hair. She is about 150 centimetres tall.
Police have seized 300 kilograms of ice hidden in a shipment of large metal gates transported from China.

Anomalies in the gates were first spotted on March 24 at the Port of Melbourne by Australian Border Force officers using x-ray technology before a physical inspection revealed the illicit drug.

The drug was hidden inside metal gates shipped from China.

The package of drugs were found in bubble wrap inside the metal gates. The shipment has a street value of about $300 million.

Australian Federal Police officers then conducted a controlled delivery of the drugs to an address in Derrimut. Three men were then observed trying to access the shipment.
Hyderabad: Hyderabad traffic police has started yet another drive against obstructive parking and plans to impose upto Rs 1,000 fine if the vehicle is parked irresponsibly on the city roads.

On Wednesday, traffic police installed signboards warning against obstructive parking at no-parking zones across Marredpally, Raj Bhavan Road, CM camp office, Begumpet and few other parts of the city.

The drive targets traffic violators who block the carriageways on the city roads affecting the smooth flow of the traffic as well as endangering lives of the commuters.

The offenders who will be booked for blocking the roads by parking their vehicles in a wrong manner will have to pay a fine of Rs 1,000 against a challan for obstructive parking.

According to Hyderabad Traffic police, E-challans will be preferred in this case as violators argue a lot when the challans of higher amounts are booked manually. In cases where the vehicle was found in no-parking zones the fine is only Rs 200, so violators prefer to pay that fine amount.

Traffic DCP Ranganath said, We have just started yet another drive against obstructive parking in several parts in the city and this time, we are being strict against those blocking carriageways, obstructing the smooth flow of traffic and we have also started putting up the signboards to alert the public in the city.

While the traffic police started this drive to ensure the smooth flow of traffic, commuters on the other hand, are unhappy and asked where they should park when there is not enough parking spaces in the city.

D. Vinay, a commuter, said, Parking has been commercialised nowadays with each and every commercial buildings having their own parking fees. They charge as per their own will. To avoid the parking fees we try to park outside the buildings where there is some space. With this drive, people will be forced to park vehicles in private parking areas and pay the parking fee instead of getting penalised. First, traffic police and the GHMC should provide enough parking space and then they should regulate parking fee. It should be uniform all over the city so commuters will not be over charged by private parking handlers.
Some of the state's highest profile murder cases and others based heavily on DNA evidence have been thrown into doubt after it was revealed one of the state's top DNA scientists was sacked for "cutting corners" during testing.

Prominent Perth criminal lawyer Tom Percy said senior DNA analyst Laurance Webb was "the man" at state-run pathology centre PathWest for several years before he was sacked in mid-2016.

Mr Webb was reportedly involved in analysing DNA samples for dozens of major cases including the 2012 unsuccessful prosecution of Lloyd Rayney and the conviction of Cameron Mansell in 2011 over the murder of Perth businessman Craig Puddy.

Attorney General John Quigley told Mornings with Gareth Parker on Radio 6PR on Friday the sacking and breaches against Mr Webb were "unprecedented in Western Australia's criminal justice history".
Police are digging up the front and back yards of a Coolbellup home as part of their investigation into the death of Ian Baz Bosch who was stabbed while waiting for a bus on November 19.

The 43-year-old father-of-two was stabbed in the neck by an unknown offender on Cordelia Avenue in Coolbellup around 7.30am and died in hospital two days later.

Ian Baz Bosch, who left behind two young children.

Police have made several appeals for help from the public to catch his killer and on Friday detectives began searching a home in the same suburb Mr Bosch was attacked in.
London: Scotland's First Minister Nicola Sturgeon wrote to British Prime Minister Theresa May on Friday formally requesting a second referendum to be held on Scottish independence ahead of the United Kingdom's exit from the European Union.

The results of the June Brexit referendum called the country's future into question because England and Wales voted to leave the EU but Scotland and Northern Ireland voted to stay.

On Tuesday, Scotland's parliament voted to hold a referendum on secession in 2018 or 2019, but the UK government in Westminster must give its approval before any such poll can be held.

Writing in The Guardian on Friday, Ms Sturgeon said Mrs May's proclamation that the vote to leave was to "restore, as we see it, our national self-determination" meant Scotland has a "cast-iron democratic mandate" for a second vote on independence.
Rio de Janeiro: Eduardo Cunha, the conservative Brazilian political leader who led the push in 2016 to oust Dilma Rousseff, Brazil's former president, has been sentenced to more than 15 years in prison.

A federal judge in Brazil found the former speaker of the house guilty of corruption, money laundering and illegally sending money abroad, all in connection with a sprawling graft investigation involving the state-run oil company Petrobras.

Former Brazilian Speaker of the House Eduardo Cunha during the presentation of his defence last July. Credit:AP

In handing down one of stiffest penalties meted out to a top political figure in Brazil in recent years, the Judge Sergio Moro said Cunha violated his "enormous" responsibilities as a lawmaker.

"There can be no more serious offence than the betrayal for personal gain of a parliamentary mandate and the sacred trust of the people," said Judge Moro, a leading figure in the investigation who is simultaneously described as a hero to graft-weary Brazilians and as a crusading judge by political figures.
Bangkok: Twelve months after being swept into office on a wave of optimism, Myanmar's de-facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi has acknowledged disappointment over the state of her country, saying she is prepared to step down if people end up dissatisfied with her leadership.

"When I joined politics, I said 'I promise one thing; that I will do my best.' That's all. I can't do better than that," Ms Suu Kyi said in a televised speech.

Myanmar State Counsellor and Foreign Minister Aung San Suu Kyi, right, pays respect to a monk during a ceremony at Upatasanti Pagoda earlier this month. Credit:AP

"So if you think I am not good enough for our country and our people, if someone or some organisation can do better than us, we are ready to step down."

Ms Suu Kyi, once celebrated as a heroine of democracy, appealed for more time amid a myriad problems facing the country, including fighting with ethnic armed groups in border areas, atrocities on long persecuted Rohingya Muslims, a rise in hate speech and sluggish progress on reforming an economy shackled by 50 years of military rule.
Bangkok: Malaysia has allowed two North Koreans wanted for questioning over the assassination of Kim Jong-nam to leave the country accompanying his body as part of a complex deal brokered to end a bitter row between the two nations.

Japan's Kyodo news agency reported that Hyon Kwang Song, who is listed as second secretary at North Korea's embassy in Kuala Lumpur and Kim Uk-il, a staff member of North Korea's state airline Air Koryo, arrived in Beijing on Friday on a flight from Kuala Lumpur.

Malaysians stranded in Pyongyang arrive at Kuala Lumpur International airport on Friday as part of the deal. Credit:AP

The men were escorted through a VIP section of the airport and driven to North Korea's embassy in Beijing.

Photographs taken by Kyodo matched those released earlier by Malaysian police, Reuters reported.
Brussels: The top US diplomat and the Pentagon's chief stressed the importance of NATO and criticised Russia for meddling in other countries' affairs, easing European allies' concerns about President Donald Trump's commitment to trans-Atlantic security.

In his first appearance at a meeting of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), Secretary of State Rex Tillerson sought to ease worries that the new administration would seek closer ties with Russia at NATO's expense, particularly after Mr Trump said during the 2016 presidential campaign that the alliance was "obsolete."

"Let me be very clear at the outset of my remarks: the US commitment to NATO is strong and this alliance remains the bedrock for trans-Atlantic security," Mr Tillerson said in Brussels on Friday.
PHILIPSBURG:--- The House of Parliament will sit in an urgent plenary public session on March 31, 2017. The Minister of Justice will be present.

The urgent plenary public meeting requested by Members of Parliament, T.E. Leonard, F.A. Meyers, S.M. Bijlani, T.E. Heyliger and C.M.M. Connor, has been set for Friday, March 31, 2017, at 13.00 hrs in the General Assembly Chamber of the House at Wilhelminastraat #1 in Philipsburg.

The agenda point is:

Recent developments at the Prison / House of Detention.

Members of the public are invited to the House of Parliament to attend parliamentary deliberations.

The House of Parliament is located across from the Court House in Philipsburg.

The parliamentary session will be carried live on St. Maarten Cable TV Channel 120, via Pearl Radio FM 98.1, the audio via the Internet www.pearlfmradio.sx and via www.sxmparliament.org.
GREAT BAY (DCOMM):---- Collective Prevention Services (CPS), a department of the Ministry of Public Health, Social Development and Labour, says the World Health Organization (WHO) pointed out this week that the current measles outbreak across Europe threatens the progress towards eliminating the virus.

Over 500 measles cases were reported for January 2017 in the WHO European Region. Measles continues to spread within and among European countries, with the potential to cause large outbreaks wherever immunization coverage has dropped below the necessary threshold of 95%.

Two-thirds of the European Regions 53 countries have interrupted endemic transmission of measles; however, 14 remain endemic, according to the Regional Verification Commission for Measles and Rubella Elimination (RVC).

559 measles cases were reported in the Region for January 2017. Of these, 474 cases were reported in 7 of the 14 endemic countries (France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Romania, Switzerland and Ukraine). Preliminary information for February indicates that the number of new infections is sharply rising. In all of these countries, estimated national immunization coverage with the second dose of measles-containing vaccine is less than the 95% threshold.

The largest current measles outbreaks in Europe are taking place in Romania and Italy.

Romania has reported over 3400 cases and 17 deaths since January 2016 (as of 10 March 2017). The majority of cases are concentrated in areas where immunization coverage is especially low.

According to reported data, the three measles genotypes circulating in Romania since January 2016 were not spreading in the country before, but were reported in several other European countries and elsewhere in 2015. Comprehensive laboratory and epidemiological data are needed before the origin of infection and routes of transmission can be concluded.

Italy has seen a sharp rise in cases in the first weeks of 2017. With 238 cases reported so far for January 2017 and preliminary information indicating at least as many cases for February, the total number of cases reported for 2016 (approximately 850) may soon be surpassed.

Measles is a highly contagious virus that can cause potentially serious illness. As measles remains endemic in most parts of the world, it can spread to any country, including those that have eliminated the disease.

Every un- or under-immunized person regardless of age is therefore at risk of contracting the disease; this is especially true in those countries where persistently low immunization rates increase the risk of a large outbreak with possible tragic consequences.

National authorities should maximize their efforts to achieve and/or sustain at least 95% coverage with two doses of measles-containing vaccine to prevent circulation in the event of an importation.

The WHO Regional Office for Europe is working closely with the national health authorities of countries at risk and in the midst of large measles outbreaks to plan and implement appropriate response measures.

These include enhancing surveillance and identifying and immunizing those at heightened risk of infection, especially susceptible persons who may be or come in contact with infected persons, as well as engaging communities to encourage vaccination for all those who need it.

Travelers who are not up to date on their vaccinations are at higher risk of contracting measles when in close contact with travelers from countries where the viruses still circulate.

The Region of the Americas is the first in the world to have eliminated measles. The achievement culminates a 22-year effort involving mass vaccination against measles, mumps, and rubella throughout the Americas.

Measles is the fifth vaccine-preventable disease to be eliminated from the Americas, after the regional eradication of smallpox in 1971, poliomyelitis in 1994, and rubella and congenital rubella syndrome in 2015.

CPS advises guardians and parents to check their childrens vaccination status to see whether they are up to date, adding that it is important to keep the Americas Region measles-free.

If persons decide to travel, they should also check their vaccination status and to make use of every opportunity to get vaccinated according to the schedule. If you need additional information call CPS at 542-3003 or 2078.

The majority of people who get measles are unvaccinated.

Other individuals who should get their vaccination status checked are, health care workers, pregnant women, pre-and exam class students, as well as groups at risks such as waste/garbage handlers, the Police, hotel and restaurant workers, and others to verify and update their vaccination status, particularly on Hepatitis B and Tetanus.

Immunization averts an estimated two-three million deaths every year, protecting children from diphtheria, measles, pertussis (better known as whooping cough), pneumonia, polio, rotavirus diarrhea, rubella, tetanus and others.
Leonard wants to know what Minister did to Inspectorate for releasing information to SMN News.

PHILIPSBURG:--- Member of Parliament Franklin Meyers fired a number of questions to Minister of VSA Emil Lee on Friday morning during a meeting of parliament.

MP Meyers said since last year February 2016 he requested information from the Minister and again earlier in February 2017 he resubmitted those questions but only few days ago after the meeting was requested by the UPP members that he received some of the answers from the Minister. Meyers asked if the computers in Parliament are bugged, because the letter sent to the request to the chair of parliament on February 27th while his letter dated February 24th.

As for the agreement signed by VAMED and SZV MP Meyers asked for clarity on the agreement since it is not clear as to whether or not an agreement was signed. He further asked if SZV had the necessary contracts and legislations in place before SZV paid out monies to consultants. He asked if SZV had a contract to invest in the government building, and for the agreement signed between SZV and SMMC.

MP Meyers went on to ask if INSO has a local representative on St. Maarten and who is that person and or company?

MP Meyers fired questions about the audit the Minister of Health called for on February 8th and why that audit is now delayed. He asked who will be paying for the audit baseline study that the Minister requested to audit the entire health care chain, including SMMC. He asked what sparked that audit, and he also asked if health care institutions have the right to object to audits.

MP Meyers went on to ask about a number of specialists that are leaving SMMC and the workload placed on the nursing staff. He went on to ask if nursing staff was demoted from RN to LPN and if they are now receiving a lower salary. He asked the Minister to provide him information in writing regarding the radiologist that are currently working at SMMC.

MP Meyers went on to ask the Minister to inform with the names of the resorts where the water was tested and possible E-coli was found. He wants to know which resorts were tested positive, and who are the owners of these resorts?

MP Claret Connor also posed questions on the working conditions at SMMC, VAMED and SZV agreement and mostly about the working conditions at SMMC and the effects it is having on the staff.

While MP Tamara Leonard questioned the Minister about the LOB requests that the Inspectorate responded to regarding two cases of calamities, one of which claimed the life of a veteran journalist on St. Maarten. She asked the Minister if he took actions or measures against the Inspectorate for releasing information, and if there are pending court cases. Somehow MP Tamara Leonard failed to request the law the Inspectorate has on releasing information. She went on to say that the Minister promised SMMC that he would have conducted an independent audit and in the end the audit targeted SMMC. She claimed the staff of SMMC fear that they are being targeted. MP Leonard went on to ask why did the Minister went back on his word and then ordered audit at certain departments within the health care chain. She asked the Minister to further explain to her what transpired. She asked why does SMMC has to be audited while he knows that the institution lacks staff and proper equipment, nowhere did MP Tamara Leonard asked about the working conditions at SMMC and why specialists are leaving. She did not even ask about the the amount of incidents at SMMC that even claimed lives, or left people handicapped, and how many claims were filed against SMMC. The way the MP framed her questions it is clear that someone gave her partial information and the MP did not take the time to do the necessary research or either she is not interested in quality health care the people of St. Maarten gets even though they are the ones that put her in office to look out for their best interest.. It is indeed amazing to know that an MP who had to deal with severe health related issues that she obtained treatment for overseas, did not see it fit to pose questions that would guarantee the quality of care for the people of St. Maarten. MP Leonard also reminded the Minister of what he said on the campaign trail about renovating the current hospital which is contrary to what the UPP campaigned on for a new hospital, she asked the Minister to explain to parliament why he changed his mind on the renovations, and chose to go along with UPP with a new hospital.

MP Frans Richardson supported the audit, he said no one should be afraid of an audit because the quality of care must be guaranteed. MP Richardson further stated that he would have preferred the appeal filed by SZV had continued because in his opinion he felt that the judge overstepped his boundaries when he rendered his verdict when VAMED filed its court case against SZV.

Other speakers such as MP Perry Kerlings, and MP Hyacinth Richardson and Rudolph Samuel condemned VAMED for challenging St. Maarten because they did not get the bid. He said the company does not care about health care or about St. Maarten. He said he hoped that there is no MP backing the company that took St. Maarten to court because the country is getting a hospital too cheap. He said those that are backing the company also do not care about St. Maarten and its people and health care.

Before the MPs got the opportunity to pose their questions Minister Emil Lee addressed Parliament, he explained that the reasons SZV and his Ministry agreed to a settlement with VAMED. Minister Lee said that the final process of the agreement is not fully completed and in the agreement VAMED made clear that the amount of monies they are settling for has to remain confidential.

Minister Lee said that if SZV had continued with the court cases the construction of the new hospital would have been delayed for years. He said that he looked for a win-win situation because either company could have taken government to court in the event one or the other won.

Minister Lee said if he had done over the bidding process and VAMED had won then INSO could have sued government since they already won the bid. Besides the wait time, Minister Lee said monies would have been spent on court cases.

In responding to the questions, Minister Lee said that he had no problem making the agreement public. He said that what he understands is the agreement was signed by both parties, namely VAMED and SZV he said that the agreement was drafted by lawyers and the agreement has to complete such as ensuring that parties pull back all court cases.

Minister Lee said that any party that participated in the bidding could sue government and such he believed entering into an agreement is in the interest of the country.
Digerati Technologies, Inc. Comments On Recent Market Activity

SAN ANTONIO, TX  (Marketwired)  03/30/17  Digerati Technologies, Inc. (Digerati or the Company) (OTCQB: DTGI), announced today that OTC Markets Group Inc. (OTC Markets) informed the Company on March 28, 2017 of certain promotional activities concerning Digerati and its common stock traded on the OTCQB Marketplace. The Company was unaware of the promotional activity until informed by OTC Markets and is unaware of the full nature and content of this promotional activity, the responsible parties, or the extent of the dissemination.

Digerati, its officers, directors and, to the Companys knowledge, its controlling shareholders (i.e., shareholders owning 10% or more of the Companys securities) have not, directly or indirectly, authorized or been involved in any way (including payment to a third-party) with the creation or distribution of promotional materials of any kind with respect to the Company or its securities.

Since January 1, 2015, the Company has not issued any shares at a discount from market on the date of issuance or any options, warrants or convertible securities allowing exercise or conversion at a discount from the market on the date of issuance. Certain officers received stock in lieu of cash compensation on January 19, 2017 under the Companys 2015 Equity Compensation Plan filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Except for compensation grants, neither the Company, nor its officers, directors or controlling shareholders have sold or purchased the Companys securities within the past 2 years.

The Companys has reported on and provided disclosure of legitimate and ongoing corporate activity in its regular press releases and filings with the SEC. Management encourages those interested in the Company and its securities to rely solely on this information, stated Arthur L. Smith, CEO of Digerati.

Digerati has engaged The Eversull Group and the Steinberg-Valentino Group for investor relations services and Corporate Communications Center, Inc. for maintaining an investor database and distribution of Company press releases. Other than these firms, the Company has not engaged or authorized any person to provide marketing services, investor relations services, public relations services, or other related services.

Digerati is a publicly-traded holding company, with a track record of launching and managing successful subsidiary operations, and is a multi-year recipient of Deloittes Fast500 and Fast50 Awards, for recognition as one of the fastest growing technology companies in North America. Through its subsidiary, Shift8 Networks, the Company is meeting the global needs of businesses seeking simple, flexible, efficient, and cost effective communication solutions, including fully-hosted IP/PBX, VoIP transport, SIP trunking, and customized VoIP services, all delivered on its carrier grade network. Former subsidiaries include ATSI Communications, Inc., an international telecommunications operator serving emerging markets throughout Mexico and Latin America, and GlobalSCAPE, Inc., an Internet software company specializing in secure file transfer through its popular utility, CuteFTP. Other subsidiaries included a global VoIP carrier and oilfield service businesses operating in the Bakken Shale. For more information, please visit .

Contact:

Jack Eversull

The Eversull Group

(972) 571-1624

(214) 469-2361 fax
Lumenpulse Unveils Latest Lumentalk Control Features

MONTREAL, QUEBEC  (Marketwired)  03/30/17  Note to editors: There is a photo associated with this press release.

Lumentalk, Lumenpulses breakthrough patented technology that enables digital control of LED lighting over existing AC power lines, is now compatible with all control protocols, including DALI and possesses full color-changing and dynamic capabilities.

Lumentalk is a patented power line communication technology that uses existing AC mains as a bidirectional carrier for data, resulting in lower construction costs and shorter shutdown times. With Lumentalk, electrical wiring becomes a stable digital communications link, enabling LED fixtures to be individually controlled and dimmed which will increase energy savings.

Lumentalk has evolved further into the future, said Francois-Xavier Souvay, Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer of the Lumenpulse Group. The latest developments of added color functions and compatibility give lighting designers, architects, electrical engineers and electrical contractors the full flexibility of tuning color temperature and the ability to rethink how and where dynamic functions can be used.

Lumentalk provides a reliable, secure and cost-effective lighting network. Being protocol agnostic, Lumentalk is compatible with all standard control systems: TRIAC, 0-10V, DMX, and DALI. Using DMX over Lumentalk makes color-changing and dynamic capabilities more affordable because the purchasing and installation of new wiring is not required.

Since its 2012 launch, Lumentalk has garnered praise and received recognition from the lighting industry by winning at the Product Innovation Awards: Special Lighting and the Lux Middle East Control of the Year for its use in the project.

Lumentalk has since been specified for a number of high-profile projects, including ; in the Netherlands, and the in British Columbia.

According to Justin T. Brown, Associate Principal at Lam Partners, Lumentalk allowed greater possibilities during the re-design of the new exterior lighting scheme at Boston City Hall. The impressively thick concrete walls did not allow for easy installation of new data wiring. It was costly and a violation of the local historic building guidelines to run new conduit along the outside of the building. Very early on, Lumentalks advantages stood out because we could use the existing AC wiring as a digital addressable network of communication to achieve full-colour control capabilities.

For more information, visit .

About Lumentalk

Lumentalk is a breakthrough technology that enables digital control of LED lighting over existing AC power lines, maximising cost and energy savings. With Lumentalk, electrical wiring becomes a stable, high-speed communications network, enabling LED fixtures to be reliably controlled without additional wiring for data. The technology is protocol independent, making it compatible with common dimmer and control standards: TRIAC, 0-10V, DMX and DALI.

About Lumenpulse Group

Founded in 2006, the Lumenpulse Group designs, develops, manufactures and sells a wide range of high performance and sustainable specification-grade LED lighting solutions for commercial, institutional and urban environments. The Lumenpulse Group is a leading pure-play specification-grade LED lighting solutions provider and has earned many awards and recognitions, including several Product Innovation Awards (PIA), three Next Generation Luminaires Design Awards, two Red Dot Product Design Awards, a Lightfair Innovation Award, and an iF Design Award. The Lumenpulse Group now has 670 employees worldwide, with corporate headquarters in Montreal, Canada, and offices in Vancouver, Quebec City, Boston, Paris, Florence, London and Manchester. Lumenpulse Inc., the parent company of the Lumenpulse Group, is listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange under the symbol LMP. For more information, visit .

To view the photo associated with this press release, please visit the following link: .

Contacts:

Andreanne Sirois-Carey

Public Relations Manager

1 (514) 937-3003 ext. 294
ProPhotonix Announces Change of Registered Address

SALEM, NH  (Marketwired)  03/31/17  (OTC PINK: STKR) (LSE: PPIX), a high technology designer and manufacturer of LED illumination systems and laser diode modules, with operations in Ireland and the United Kingdom, announces that it has changed its registered office address to 13 Red Roof Lane, Suite 200, Salem, NH 03079, USA with effect from 1 April 2017.

ProPhotonix Limited, headquartered in Salem, New Hampshire, is a high technology designer and manufacturer of diode-based laser modules and LED systems for industry leading OEMs and medical equipment companies. In addition, the Company distributes premium diodes for Ushio (formerly Oclaro), Osram, QSI, Panasonic, and Sony. The Company serves a wide range of markets including the machine vision, industrial inspection, security, and medical markets. ProPhotonix has offices and subsidiaries in the U.S., Ireland, U.K., and Europe. For more information about ProPhotonix and its innovative products, visit the Companys web site at

Contact:

ProPhotonix Limited

Tim Losik

President and CEO

Stockdale Securities Limited

Tom Griffiths and David Coaten

Nominated Adviser and Broker

Tel: +1 603 893 8778

Tel: +44 (0) 20 7601 6100
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Justin Omans of Roseville said he was devastated to learn his mothers' body was discovered in the covered bed of a truck.
Federal fentanyl bust leads to arrest of two Elkhart men

Two Elkhart men are accused of conspiring to ship the fentanyl to Austin, Texas.
Georgetown, SC (29440)

Today

Sunshine and some clouds. High 71F. Winds NNE at 10 to 20 mph..

Tonight

Partly to mostly cloudy. Low 49F. Winds NNE at 10 to 20 mph.
Heading Out for a Spacewalk

ESA/NASA

NASA astronauts Shane Kimbrough and Peggy Whitson took a spacewalk on March 30. Whitson broke the record for cumulative spacewalk time by a woman, and Kimbrough accidentally lost a meteoroid shield that prompted some improvisational craftsmanship.

U.S. EVA #41

ESA/NASA

Cmdr. Shane Kimbrough was EV-1,

In the Airlock

ESA/NASA

Before the spacewalkers headed out for the day, European Space Agency astronaut Thomas Pesquet helped them suit up and head out the door. Pesquet took this photo of Kimbrough in the Quest airlock before the spacewalk.

Swapping Computers

NASA

Kimbrough replaces an old, external backup computer called Multiplexer-Demultiplexer (MDM) with a new computer unit called the Enhanced Processor and Integrated Communications (EPIC MDM).

A Ray of Sunshine

NASA

A beam of light shines on Whitson as she works to connect cables at the Pressurized Mating Adapter 3 (PMA-3).

PMA-3's Thermal Shield

NASA

Whitson removed and stowed PMA-3's thermal cover to make room for the new International Docking Adapter that is scheduled to arrive by 2018.

Teamwork

NASA

Kimbrough assists Whitson in stowing the thermal shield that she removed from PMA-3.

Pit Stop

NASA

Kimbrough's feet dangle out of the airlock as he retrieves axial shields to be installed on Node 3, where the removal of PMA-3 left the docking port exposed.

Oops!

NASA

"Peggy, I don't have a shield," Kimbrough said as the axial shield he had lugged to Node 3 drifted away into space. A mix-up between similar-looking straps may have been the reason for this runaway piece of equipment.

Runaway Shield

NASA

The white speck in the center of this photo is the axial shield that got away.

Enter the Problem-Solvers

NASA

The EVA (extravehicular activity, or spacewalk) task team "brought out some replicas of the equipment on board and figured out the exact dimensions and were able to come up [in] real-time  while the EVA was going on  all of these procedures to cover up that exposed spot," NASA TV commentator Gary Jordan said during the spacewalk.
From the unique viewing location of the International Space Station (ISS), Danish astronaut Andreas Mogensen captured what may be the first ever photographs of strange and rarely-seen features of thunderstorms.

Scientists on the Thor experiment used the astronaut's snapshots to observe elusive electrical activity whose existence researchers had long debated. The astronaut's finds included a shot of a pulsating blue jet that stretched 25 miles (40 kilometers), a rare feature that scientists have a hard time studying, said a statement from the European Space Agency (ESA).

"The viewing condition and the resolution of the camera Andreas used surpasses conventional satellite observation," Olivier Chanrion, lead author of a paper about the experiment, told Space.com by email. Chanrion, a researcher at Denmarks National Space Institute, led Thor, which required an astronaut on board the space station to photograph the hard-to-study upper layers of a thunderstorm. Results showed that powerful electrical discharges occurred at the top of the storms much more frequently than previously observed, the researchers said. [Astronaut Scott Kelly's Awesome Storm Photos from Space]

"The profuse activity Andreas Mogensen recorded from the ISS was new. We did not expect so much blue discharge sparking at the top of a cloud turret," Chanrion said.

Lightning striking again and again

Thunderstorms produce dazzling displays of lightning as seen from the ground, but the clouds shield other activity taking place in their uppermost layers. The electrical activity of these storms can affect the chemistry of the atmosphere, as anyone who has smelled ozone during a storm can attest; the strength of the effect depends on the strength, frequency, and types of electrical discharges.

As Mogensen flew over the Bay of Bengal aboard the station, traveling at 17,900 mph (28,800 km/h), he used the ISS's most sensitive camera to record the thunderstorm. His images were the first to capture pulsating discharges at the tops of storm clouds, the scientists said in a paper describing their research, which was published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.

"They show the astonishing variety of forms that electrical activity can take as we continue to discover new varieties of discharges in and above thunderstorms," the researchers wrote.

The images also revealed blue, blob-like discharges in the surface layer of the clouds, stretching anywhere from 2.5 to 5.5 square miles (4 to 9 square kilometers) and occurring about 90 times per minute. This is the first observation of blue surface-discharges with these characteristics, the scientists reported in the paper.

The study also revealed red-colored tendrils created by "sprites" (powerful electric discharges), which last only a few milliseconds. sSprites form from irregularities in Earth's upper atmosphere. Their brief duration makes them difficult to detect, according to study co-author Torsten Neubert, also of Denmark's National Space Institute,.

"The perspective of the ISS means everything, together with a high-resolution, color camera," Neubert told Space.com.

The incredible photographs astounded the scientists, they said, revealing thunderstorm-atmosphere interactions that are not well-understood. The electrical strikes can affect the concentrations of greenhouse gases, playing a significant role in moving gases between the layers of the atmosphere, Neubert said.

"We found the top of the thundercloud much more electrically active than anticipated," Neubert said. "That was a surprise. It means that thunderstorms affect the lower stratosphere more than we thought."

Two active regions of the cloud tops illuminated by lightning and photographed in observations from the ISS. (Image credit: hanrion, O. T. Neubert, A. Mogensen, Y. Yair, M. Stendel, R. Singh, and D. Siingh (2016), Profuse activity of blue electrical discharges at the tops of thunderstorms, Geophys. Res. Lett., 44, doi:10.1002/2016GL071311)

View from above

At any given moment, nearly 1,800 thunderstorms occur somewhere in the world, according to the National Weather Service. While making ground observations of these storms is fairly simple, studying the upper layers can be more challenging. The cloud itself can block activity at the top, absorbing the blue light created by the lightning, Chanrion said.

Thunderstorms "have been observed from aircraft, but usually the aircraft circles around a storm at some distance for safety reasons," Neubert said. "Furthermore, very few aircraft can get to the high altitudes required to look down on storm clouds."

The handful of aircraft that can travel to such high altitudes, whether they are piloted or drones, usually fly in the daylight, when it is harder to spot activity, Neubert said.

Balloons are another option, but they must be launched when the wind is quiet, Neubert said. That usually happens in the early morning, but thunderstorms are more apt to develop over the afternoon, he said.

"One has to be lucky to get the balloon to fly where it is interesting," he said.

Satellites can reach the necessary height, but often lack the necessary resolution to glimpse the details of the cloud structure, he said.

With these challenges in mind, Neubert proposed requesting that the first Danish astronaut on board the space station photograph thunderstorms for the Danish-led experiment. In September 2015, Mogensen captured brief videos of thunderstorms over India that he took in the cupola of the space station, sending them to ground within hours.

But the astronaut didn't rush to the window with his camera when he saw thunderstorms on Earth. The team on the ground had to accurately predict thunderstorms, then coordinate them with Mogensen's schedule at least three days in advance.

"Remember that thunderstorms come and go, and the Thor experiment time has to be when the ISS flies over a thunderstorm," Neubert said. "Most other experiments [the astronauts] do, do not have this complexity."

Thor's incredible images may provide a taste of things to come. The researchers said they still have questions about how common the activity observed in the single storm might be. The experiment was a precursor for ESA's Atmosphere-Space Interactions Monitor (ASIM) experiment, for which Neubert is the lead scientist. He said he expects that ASIM should be installed on the station at either the end of 2017 or the beginning of 2018.

"We hope to convince other astronauts to continue Thor when ASIM is installed on the ISS so we can get supplementary observations," Neubert said.

"It is not every day that you get to capture a new weather phenomena on film, so I am very pleased with the result  but even more so that researchers will be able to investigate these intriguing thunderstorms in more detail soon," Mogensen said in the statement.

Follow Nola Taylor Redd on Twitter @NolaTRedd Facebook or Google+. Follow us at @Spacedotcom, Facebook or Google+. Originally published on Space.com.
The Orbital ATK Cygnus spacecraft to launch NASA cargo on the OA-7 mission is seen here, inside its protective payload fairing, en route to be mated to its Atlas V rocket ahead of its launch from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.

WASHINGTON  A Cygnus cargo mission to the International Space Station delayed because of booster problems will not fly until at least the middle of April, a NASA official said March 28.

In a presentation to the NASA Advisory Council's Human Exploration and Operations Committee here, Robyn Gatens, deputy director of the ISS division at NASA Headquarters, said the delay will also push back a spacewalk planned to take place on the station next week.

The Orbital ATK Cygnus, on a mission designated OA-7, was scheduled to launch in mid-March on a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5, but was delayed several days, first by a hydraulics issue with the rocket's first stage and later by a problem with ground support equipment.

ULA announced March 22 that the launch would be postponed again, this time because of "a different issue with a booster hydraulic line," according to a company statement. No new launch date was announced.

Gatens said NASA was now expecting the Cygnus to launch to the station no earlier than the middle of April. "The Orbital launch, the next launch, has slipped due to an investigation of a hydraulic leak in the booster engine compartment that's in work," she said. "There are some components being replaced. The investigation is going on and we're currently targeting no earlier than, probably, a mid-April launch."

ULA spokeswoman Jessica Rye said March 28 that a new launch date has not been set yet for the mission. "Additional information will be provided once testing to resolve the booster hydraulic issue is complete," she said.

Among the cargo on the Cygnus is an avionics box that astronauts Thomas Pesquet and Peggy Whitson planned to install on the exterior of the ISS during a spacewalk scheduled for April 6. That spacewalk, Gatens said, will be postponed until after the Cygnus arrives as the ISS, adding that it is not critical to station operations or research. "We don't have a new date for that," she said of the spacewalk. "A team is currently assessing when that can be planned."

The delayed Cygnus mission comes during a busy time for space station operations. A Soyuz carrying NASA astronaut Shane Kimbrough and Roscosmos cosmonauts Sergey Ryzhikov and Andrey Borisenko is scheduled to leave the station and return to Earth April 10. A new Soyuz, with NASA astronaut Jack Fischer and Roscosmos cosmonaut Fyodor Yurchikhin on board, will launch to the ISS April 20.

A SpaceX Dragon mission, designed SpX-11 by NASA, is scheduled to launch to the station in May, Gatens said. She did not give a specific launch date, but Paul Hertz, director of NASA's astrophysics division, said during a presentation at the National Academies' Space Science Week here March 28 that the launch is currently scheduled for May 14. Among the payloads on that mission is an astronomical instrument, the Neutron star Interior Composition ExploreR (NICER), which will be installed on the station's exterior.

"Everything's on track for this mission," Gatens said of the SpX-11 mission. She also confirmed that this mission will be the first to use a previously-flown Dragon capsule.

This story was provided by SpaceNews, dedicated to covering all aspects of the space industry.
The total solar eclipse of Aug. 21, 2017 (whose path of totality is shown here) will be the subject of multiple presentations at the Northeast Astronomy Forum, held April 8-9 just north of New York City.

Scientists and stargazers are gearing up for what's billed as one of the biggest astronomy expos in the world.

The Northeast Astronomy Forum (NEAF) will be held April 8 and April 9 at SUNY Rockland Community College in Suffern, just north of New York City, and Space.com will be there to report on all the action.

"Each year, we focus on building upon the previous year's conference by continually adding new and exciting things," NEAF co-organizer Ed Siemenn told Space.com via email. Siemenn is also a member of the host organization, the Rockland Astronomy Club.

"In addition to live radio broadcasts and interviews with our speakers this year," Siemenn added, "we are expanding the reach of our NEAF Talks by adding live professional streaming on the internet, which will be available worldwide on our YouTube channel."

This year, a large emphasis will be placed on the total solar eclipse that will sweep across the continental United States on Aug. 21. This event was previewed at NEAF last year by eclipse expert and retired NASA astrophysicist Fred Espenak; this year, at least two NEAF talks will cover the solar eclipse.

One presenter, Michael Reynolds, an astronomy professor at Florida State College, will be "speaking about the science behind an eclipse and the compelling human fascination with them," Siemenn said. Following Reynolds will be a "lighthearted" discussion with Space.com skywatching columnist Joe Rao, whose discussion is called "How to Survive August's Total Eclipse."

Other featured speakers include:

Scott Bolton, principal investigator of NASA's Juno mission at Jupiter

Sara Seager, an astrophysicist and planetary scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Todd May, director of NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center

Caleb Weiss, United Launch Alliance's Commercial Crew Program manager

Frank DeMauro, vice president and general manager of advanced programs for Orbital ATK

James Albury and Dean Regas, co-hosts of PBS-TV series "Star Gazers"

Roberto Abraham, a professor at the University of Toronto who will speak about the Dragonfly Telephoto Array project

Organizers expect the NEAF to attract at least 4,000 attendees this year, Siemenn said.

The expo will feature lectures, workshops, planetarium shows, classes, demonstrations and a trade show with more than 100 vendors and exhibitors. For those looking to get involved in the science, there will also be conferences and workshops featuring astronomers from the Lowell Observatory in Arizona and other institutions.

To register, go to the NEAF website at http://www.rocklandastronomy.com/neaf.html.

This story was originally published on March 31.

Follow Elizabeth Howell @howellspace, or Space.com @Spacedotcom. We're also on Facebook and Google+. Original article on Space.com.
The first stage of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket comes back to Earth for a landing on March 30, 2017 during the launch of the SES-10 communications satellite. The booster now has flown, and landed, twice; it also launched SpaceX's Dragon cargo capsule in April 2016.

Elon Musk's Mars-colonization vision just got a step closer to reality.

On Thursday (March 30), Musk's company SpaceX successfully launched the SES-10 communications satellite to Earth orbit using a two-stage Falcon 9 rocket whose first stage already had one spaceflight under its belt.

The mission demonstrated the type of technology that could help make Mars settlement economically feasible, Musk said. ['Huge Revolution in Spaceflight': Elon Musk Comments on 1st Reused SpaceX Rocket (Video)]

"There needs to be at least a 100-fold, if not perhaps a 1,000-fold, reduction in the cost per ton to Mars  actually, maybe 10,000-fold," he said Thursday during a postlaunch teleconference with reporters.

"And reusability is absolutely fundamental to that goal," Musk added. "So this, I think, is a very helpful proof point that it's possible, and I hope people start to think of it as a real goal to which we should aspire  to establish a civilization on Mars."

Journey to Mars

Musk has long said that he founded SpaceX back in 2002 chiefly to help make humanity a multiplanet species.

In September, the billionaire entrepreneur unveiled the broad outlines of SpaceX's plans to do just that. The company aims to establish a million-person city on Mars using a rocket-spaceship combo called the Interplanetary Transport System (ITS), which is in the early development stage.

Both the ITS rocket and the spaceship will be reusable. Indeed, the booster will be designed to launch at least 1,000 times, Musk said Thursday.

That level of reusability may sound like an outrageous leap from the status quo of one-and-done rocket launches, but SpaceX's work with the Falcon 9 going forward could help to the bridge the gap.

"The design intent is that the rocket can be re-flown with zero hardware changes  in other words, the only thing that changes is, you reload propellant  10 times," Musk said Thursday, referring to the Falcon 9 first stage.

"And then, with moderate refurbishment that doesnt have a significant effect on the cost, it can be reflown at least 100 times," Musk added. "Actually, really, we could make 1,000, but it probably isn't quite there. I'm being careful."

Used rockets taking flight

Musk said he expects SpaceX to launch about six "proven" Falcon 9 first stages on orbital missions this year, and perhaps double that number in 2018. But those are just guesses; the decision to go with new or used on each mission resides with SpaceX's customers, Musk said.

The customers who choose a used booster going forward won't pay the full $62 million Falcon 9 launch price, but it's unclear exactly what the discount will be. (Luxembourg-based company SES, which will operate the SES-10 satellite, received an undisclosed discount for Thursday's flight.)

"We're trying to figure that out," Musk said. The reflight discount will be "meaningful," he added, but it "won't be as much as the cost savings, because we need to repay the massive development costs."

Those development costs probably exceed $1 billion, so it will take the company a while to pay them off, Musk said. However, the potential savings from reuse are sizeable; the first stage accounts for up to 70 percent of the cost of each Falcon 9 launch, Musk said. And it costs just $200,000 to $300,000 to refuel a first stage for further action, SpaceX representatives have said. (The company also plans to reuse Falcon 9 fairings  the nose cones that protect payloads during liftoff  down the road, and may attempt to recover and re-fly Falcon 9 upper stages at some point as well, Musk said Thursday. The company successfully recovered the $6 million fairing during the SES-10 launch.)

Thursday's launch therefore "opened the door into a whole new era of spaceflight," said SES chief technology officer Martin Halliwell.

If other launch providers don't match SpaceX's re-flight achievements, they risk getting priced out of the market, Halliwell suggested during Thursday's teleconference.

"When we did the SES-8 mission  the first commercial GTO mission that we did with SpaceX  I made the comment that the industry will be shaking in its boots," Halliwell said, referring to a 2013 launch to geosynchronous transfer orbit. "Oh, I think it's shaking now. I really do. But it's OK. It's for the better."

Follow Mike Wall on Twitter @michaeldwall and Google+. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook or Google+. Originally published on Space.com.
Watch enough science fiction movies and you'll probably come to the conclusion that humans are living on borrowed time. Whether it's HAL 9000's murderous meltdown in 2001: A Space Odyssey or Skynet's sadistic self-preservation tactics in the Terminator franchise, artificial intelligence usually comes off as a well-intentioned attempt to serve humanity thatthrough some overlooked technical flawends up trying to extinguish it.

The latest dystopian prophecy arrives Friday with the release of Ghost in the Shell, one of a few major releases this year to feature AI prominently in its plot. The filmbased on the 1995 anime movie and Kodansha Comics manga series of the same nametells the story of a special ops humancyborg hybrid known as the Major (Scarlett Johansson). She leads an elite crime-fighting task force whose main mission is to protect a company that makes AI robots. Ghost depicts a technologically advanced society in which a person's brainincluding the Major'sis susceptible to hacking, and one's consciousness can be copied into a new body. Over time the Major begins to question whether her memories are real or were implanted by someone else.

Hollywood's vision of AI is often entertaining, generally pessimistic and rarely realistic. With that in mind, Scientific American asked several prominent real-world AI researchers which movies, if any, have come closest to hitting the mark over the years.

[An edited transcript of the interviews follows.]

Selmer Bringsjord, director of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute's Rensselaer AI and Reasoning Laboratory

Year after year I keep holding out hope that someone will make a film to compete with the predictive power of Blade Runner, but it never happens. The point of my [1992 book] What Robots Can and Can't Be (opens in new tab) can be distilled to this stark but, by my lights, accurate claim: We are sliding inexorably toward a time when AI will supplydespite demanding tests of "unmasking" [like the movie's VoightKampff test]creatures behaviorally indistinguishable from human persons, such as Blade Runner's replicants. People used to object to this claim by saying: No, Selmer, there isn't any point in making embodied AIs look like us, so you're wrong there.' Well, not a lot of people express that objection any longer, and just as the long-term job prospects of driving for a living are dismal, the same prospectsas the Westworld television program showsare in place for the oldest profession, in which what one looks like can be regarded important by clients. This theme is more than touched upon in A.I. Artificial Intelligence, which I also regard to have an almost uncanny level of predictive power. It fails as high art despite the pretensions (and reputations) of some who brought it to life, but even a cursory scan today of the world of lifelike toys, and its history, shows plainly what track we're on.

Brian David Johnson, a professor at Arizona State University's School for the Future of Innovation in Society

The narrative is typically that once you create something that's sentient, it rises up and kills you. I look at what movies are giving us a different narrative. One recent example is Robot and Frankthis guy gets a health care robot, and he and his robot go and rob places. Another is Herit wasn't about a robot, it's about an AI that's awarebut didn't rise up and kill us. Instead it breaks up with us and moves on. It's about a person who's healed by his relationship with AI. The last I'll mention is Interstellar, in which robots with humor/honesty settings give the robot a personality. In that movie the characters are having social relationships with robots, even though they know they are robots. It shows you can have a working relationship with artificial intelligence and still be aware that it's AI. Those types of movies matter because they set our mental model for how we see our future.

Daniela Rus, director of Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab (CSAIL)

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is a visionary story about reprogramming the human brain, and how such a development could impact how we understand ourselves and interact with the world. The movie raises the question of what it would mean to reprogram our brains as if they were machines. Computer memory can be added, manipulated or wiped clean. Could similar things be done one day with human memory? Imagine if veterans could overcome their PTSD by "forgetting" battles or if abuse victims could "unexperience" traumas. Like any new technology, of course, it would be up to us to decide how to use it responsibly to help rather than harm. The film inspired me to think more about the nature of memory, and how unlocking its mysteries could help us better understand our own behaviors and motivations.

Yann LeCun, director of Facebook AI Research and founding director of the New York University Center for Data Science

I think one that reflects what might well happen, although not exactly, is Her. There's no major blatant mistakes that I saw in that movie. Of course, we're extremely far from having technology that's shown in the movie. We don't have truly intelligent machines, and I don't know how long it will take for us to get anywhere near that. But the idea that you would have a personal virtual assistant that you interact with, and with whom you have a relationship like a digital friendthat is something that is actually fairly realistic. Then there's a list of movies that depict all kinds of crazy stuff that there's no way in hell will happen. That's pretty much every movie that portrays AIThe Terminator, The Matrix, all the popular ones. Ex Machinathat's a beautiful film, but the AI depiction is completely wrong.

Manuela Veloso, head of Carnegie Mellon University's Machine Learning Department

I like Bicentennial Man and the television program Humans, without the complicated "bad" robots/synthetics. Robots coexist with people and are helpful. And I like Robot and Frank, except for the fact that the robot learns to rob.

Timothy Persons, chief scientist at the U.S. Government Accountability Office

I thought Steven Spielberg's A.I. Artificial Intelligence in 2001 was powerfulnot in the sense that it portrayed a dystopic, post-apocalyptic world. The context was dystopic, but it wasn't like the machines were all out to kill us or anything like that. Particularly compelling was the idea of having the machine be able to understand what you're feeling, and you being able to have love and affection for your machine. The powerful thing that Spielberg captured was the human compassion dimension to that, even when it's a machine.

Yoshua Bengio, head of the University of Montreal's Montreal Institute for Learning Algorithms (MILA)

2001, A Space Odyssey. Most of the recent science fiction movies about AI are not very good. Less bad than others: Her.

Andrew Moore, dean of the Carnegie Mellon University School of Computer Science and former director of Google Pittsburgh

I like Robot and Frank, which, like all great AI movies, is really about humans. It gently portrays a world that has intelligent devices in it and looks at the mismatch between what a naive engineer would consider a useful device versus what a real user values.

Stuart Russell, director of the University of California, Berkeley's Center for Human-Compatible Artificial Intelligence

My favorite movie AI is TARS, the robot in Interstellar. TARS does exactly what humans need it to do, including sacrificing itself to save the humans. There's no danger of confusing it with a human, and little temptation to think of it as consciouseven though the humans have a hard time letting it commit suicide. My favorite AI movie is Ex Machina. It is very effective in portraying some of the unanswered questions about consciousness in machines and our own reactions to machines, including the way those reactions are conditioned on our built-in response to the human forma really good reason not to build humanoid robots! The movie also conveys the difficulty of controlling a machine that can easily outwit you if it's designed with objectives that are eventually in conflict with yours. And it does all this with a seamless, low-key narrative that operates at several levels.

Tuomas Sandholm, creator of Carnegie Mellon's Libratus, the AI that recently outplayed four top poker pros

I liked Her for many reasons. It was refreshing to see an AI movie that was not about violent robots and raised many interesting AI issues in the broader public spheresuch as scalability (dating at massive scale), the realistic and sad aspect of human loneliness being filled by machines (already happening in China via chatbots) and the issues that arise as AI surpasses human intelligence. I also liked Blade Runner, a fun action movie that addressed the question of what it means to be human versus machine, and how one could tell, even about oneself.

Oren Etzioni, chief executive officer of the Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence

That is the hardest question you've asked me today because, for example, Ex Machina is fun in terms of discussing issues around the Turing test [in which a machine tries to convince an interrogator that it is human]. There are a lot of movies that I've enjoyed, but if you ask me what movie has done a good job depicting AI, I'm still waiting for that to come outif only because it's easy to cast AI as the villain. Ask me the three movies in the past 20 years where AI was the "good guy," and I can think of WALL-Eabout a robot that's trying to create peaceand then I draw a blank. If there's any Hollywood producers out there reading this, call me and we'll put together a script where AI does good things. There are very real possibilities, whether it's avoiding traffic accidents or preventing medical errors. I think there'd be a good script out there. At least it would be refreshing.

This article was first published at ScientificAmerican.com.  ScientificAmerican.com. All rights reserved Follow Scientific American on Twitter @SciAm and @SciamBlogs. Visit ScientificAmerican.com for the latest in science, health and technology news.
N. Korea could be in final preparations for nuclear test: report







Washington (AFP) March 29, 2017





Satellite images suggest North Korea could be in the final stages of preparations for a new nuclear test according to US-based analysts, who echoed similar conclusions by the US military. The images, taken Saturday, show up to four vehicles or equipment trailers continuously present at the entrance to the Punggye-ri Nuclear Test Site, with communications cables likely laid on the ground. "This equipment would likely be used to initiate the test, collect data from the explosion and process the d ... read more
The Illinois chapter of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, part of Everytown for Gun Safety, blamed "weak gun laws" in surrounding states - specifically Indiana and Wisconsin.

Police say the shooting may have been in retaliation after a pregnant woman was found earlier in the day shot and dead in a nearby apartment.

CHICAGO  Despite being home to the nation's toughest gun laws, the city of Chicago has drawn national attention for its ongoing gun and gang violence. A shooting Thursday afternoon at Chicago restaurant left four people dead.

"As documented in a report last June by Everytown and the National Urban League, weak gun laws in nearby states are one of the factors contributing to Chicagos gun violence," a Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense statement release Thursday afternoon said.

The group said three in five guns recovered at Chicago crime scenes were first sold in other states, according to a 2014 trace analysis by the city and the University of Chicago Crime Lab. The top out-of-state suppliers according to the analysis were Indiana, Mississippi and Wisconsin  none of which require a background check for every gun sale.

Volunteer spokesperson Brenna O'Brien called for laws to clamp down on guns in surrounding states.

Our thoughts tonight are with each of the families who are grieving. Too many families, in Chicago and across the country, have lost a loved one to gun violence, and their grief should push all of us to do everything that we can to address this crisis," O'Brien said.

"We have to do more to close the gaps in our countrys gun laws and to stop the tide of guns making their way to Chicago from states that dont require background checks for all gun sales.

Neighboring states continue to hold firm in protecting their citizens' Second Amendment rights to the dismay of gun control groups like Moms Demand Action.
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Turkey's Search for Incriminating Material

In his desire to convince the world that Gulen is a criminal, Erdogan has been demanding that the U.S. extradite Gulen for months. That also likely explains why the Turkish government is currently collecting information from all over the world. It needs incriminating evidence in order to substantiate the allegations against Gulen.

Earlier this week, German public broadcasters NDR and WDR, together with the Suddeutsche Zeitung newspaper, reported that Turkey's MIT intelligence service provided Germany's foreign intelligence agency, the BND, with a file on suspected Gulen supporters in Germany that included detailed lists of names, mobile and landline numbers and secretly taken photos of the people in question. The move is a clear indication that Turkey considers its espionage activities to be legal.

Most of the embassies also seemed more than willing to comply with the order from Ankara. Diplomats in Nouakchott in Mauretania, for example, reported that Feto there is largely active in the education sector, in trade and in the media branch. "For years, Feto schools have been presented as Turkish schools and have taken advantage of the country's love of Turkey."

In Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania, diplomats reported that a school believed to be affiliated with Gulen has been demanding "between $6,500 and $15,000" in tuition fees per year. Among the school's pupils, the report claims, are children of the president, government ministers, ministry officials and foreign diplomats. Turkish diplomats also reported that the Gulen movement deliberately seeks access to the rich and powerful. The Turkish ambassador, according to the report, has repeatedly demanded that action be taken against the infiltration of the educational institution, but that the Tasmanian side has taken no action.

In Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, a Turkish diplomat wrote, "Since 1994, Feto has been exploiting Turkey's good reputation in Mongolia and the religious values of our Muslim brothers. This organization is like a Trojan horse and is prepared to do anything to achieve its secret agenda."

Even the smallest of observations seem suspicious. The Turkish consul general in Salzburg even sees a hostile act in the swimming course for women offered by the Akaysa organization, which it believes to be Gulen-aligned. He wrote that the association had succeeded "through its education, cultural and charitable activities and events" in drawing attention to itself. "Through feigned interest in the problems of the people" and other "positive-sounding activities" the "terrorist organization Feto has attempted to create a good impression among our country's people," he wrote.

In Switzerland, a Turkish diplomat observed that Gulen sympathizers had "not been turning up in our mosques -- neither during the prayer times nor during Friday prayers," since the failed putsch.

'A Cancerous Growth'

When questioned about a report compiled by the Turkish Embassy in Sweden, the Turkish ambassador confirmed after initial hesitation that his embassy had written the cable for the religious authority Diyanet. He said information had been gathered about Gulen-aligned schools that had voiced criticism of the Turkish government. The ambassador described the Gulen movement as a "cancerous growth."

The documents also clearly prove that the Gulen movement maintains a global network that includes universities, schools, child-care centers, media, trade associations, aid organizations and youth groups. What the Turkish government hasn't succeeded in explaining so far is the alleged link between the Gulen movement and terrorism.

Despite this, parents in many countries have since pulled their children out of Gulen schools out of fear they will be subject to abuse from other members of local Turkish communities or that they will be banned from re-entering Turkey. In Belgium, a school bus was even set on fire.

The furthest-reaching allegations in the embassy reports are directed at the media. A report from the Turkish Embassy in Copenhagen claims that the Gulen movement operates newspapers in the country that have published "insulting and derisive news and articles against our honored president and against Turkey" in an attempt "to create a negative image of Turkey and to influence public opinion." It noted that the coup attempt and the "people's battle for democracy" was not the focus of the reporting, but rather the "fired government employees." Individual journalists are cited by name, including Hasan Cucuk, who works in Denmark and has now discovered that his name appears on the list as an enemy of Turkey.

"We assume that these people are threatened with arrest as soon as they travel to Turkey," says Austrian Green Party politician Peter Pilz. "Even the fact that they now have Austrian or German passports is insufficient to protect them." Pilz wants to establish an information and research center on the Erdogan regime to which people can turn if they are being spied on or threatened. "We need to apply legal means to crack down on the spying structures of the Turkish embassies and organizations," the politician says.

Since the coup attempt in July, the number of arrests of individuals arriving at the Istanbul Airport has increased dramatically. Those affected, including both Turks and citizens of other countries who have spoken critically of Erdogan, suspect that they were denounced by name. The Foreign Ministry in Berlin has confirmed that the month of February alone saw at least 10 incidents in which Germans were refused entry into Turkey.

Investigations in Germany and Austria

In Germany, the Turkish-Islamic umbrella organization DITIB is suspected of having placed Erdogan opponents in the country under observation. Several imams are believed to have spied on members of their congregations and six have been withdrawn from Germany after the spying allegations emerged.
Copenhagen, (Denmark) March 31st, 2017  Danish activists from the Campaign for free Western Sahara (Frit Vestsahara) and International Forum have organized Thursday demonstrations in various cities in Denmark; Arhus, Alborg and Copenhagen against the illegal investments of Siemens Denmark Branch in the last colony in Africa, Western Sahara.

In front of the venue where the Danish Wind Industry trade Organisation, that also includes Siemens Denmark Branch held its General Annual meeting in the City of Aarhus the Danish Activists denounced through Banners and pamphlets the illegal investments of Siemens in occupied Western Sahara.

Siemens Denmark Wind Power has built wind mills in Moroccos occupied Western Sahara in violation of Danish Parliaments resolutions, UN conventions and the European Justice Court recent verdict that excluded Western Sahara from EU-Morocco trade agreements.

The Spokesperson for the Campaign of free Western Sahara, Esben Hansen Said:

According to UN conventions Siemens Wind Power is doing illegal business in occupied Western Sahara and it is deeply reprehensible. Previously, the Danish Company Vistas was also invited to take orders for Africa's last colony, so the trade organization of Danish Wind Industry should in all ways come clean and denounce all cooperation with the Moroccan occupying power

The Candidate to Parliament, Anne Hegelund was also among the activists who participated at Aarhus demonstration. Anne Said: Its scary and extremely distasteful that a Danish company like Siemens Wind Power can bring itself to make a profit in Africa's last colony. Moroccos controlled Western Sahara is on Amnesty International's top five of the world's worst torture regimes, and the Danish Parliament advises Danish companies to not do business in and with the Moroccos colony. It is absolutely incomprehensible how Siemens Wind Power still finds it practical to make money from cooperating with torture regime. (SPS)

062/090/TRA
Anthony Kitson, who runs Kitson & Sons Butchers, which has three shops in North Yorkshire and Cleveland, will make history when he takes part in the 119th Paasvee, a famous open air cattle showpiece which this year takes place on Wednesday, April 5, in Schagen in the north of the country.

Hollands media have already picked up on Mr Kitsons pioneering mission to take on his Dutch counterparts at their own game, describing him as a trailblazer.

Only last week, he travelled over to visit three farms in southern Holland to pick the animal he has high hopes will make him the first-ever English butcher not only to compete at, but also hopefully win a prize at the annual Dutch highlight.

Mr Kitson settled on a pure-bred British Blue cow from Paul Van Driessen, who farms south-west of Rotterdam. He paid Euros 3,200 for the four-year-old, which has already given birth to two calves and will now carry the hopes of the Kitson team at Paasvee.

Mr Kitson is also out to change perceptions. He explained:

I have chosen the beast that I feel will best suit the UK market, one that I would and will sell in my own shops. However, the Dutch do things differently and do not seem to have the same confidence in their own product as we do, primarily because of the health lobby over there.

Their perception is that meat should have no fat, whereas UK butchers prefer fat to allow their customers to enjoy the full flavour of the meat. The cow I chose has a covering of fat on it and it remains to be seen if the adjudicators at Paasvee will pick up on the eatability of the animal or simply concentrate on the look and aesthetics of the cattle they are judging. I am hoping they will take heed of the fat covering and eatability.

I suppose I am trying to change mindsets here. While Dutch farmers are truly passionate about their livestock they are not as commercially minded as their British counterparts and their product fails to deliver the truly great experience a great British beef steak can.
Businessman Keith Pekau's feisty challenge of longtime Mayor Dan McLaughlin has drawn the attention of politicians at the national level and hundreds of thousands of dollars from outside funders.

ORLAND PARK - Next Tuesday's mayoral race in southwest suburban Orland Park has become Ground Zero in Illinois' April 4th municipal elections with a campaign that pits a longtime political insider against a local government reform challenger.

Thursday, an email from U.S. Senator Dick Durbin endorsing Orland Park's incumbent Mayor McLaughlin hit village voters' inboxes. Earlier in the week, McLaughlin was hailed in a letter from village trustee Jim Dodge, who challenged the late Judy Baar-Topinka in the 2010 State Comptroller Republican primary.

"In Illinois many municipalities are in financial crisis, and have seen their credit and bond ratings tumble," Durbin's letter says. "This is not the case in Orland Park. Under Dans leadership, the Village has operated with a balanced budget for 24 straight years and a AA+ Credit Rating  making your community one of the most financially sound municipalities in Illinois, with little debt.

"Dan has never lost sight of the special responsibility he has as mayor to do more with less and to live within the means taxpayers are already providing."

Durbin's letter fails to mention McLaughlin's recent triple salary boost to $150,000 annually, an issue that conservative talk show host Dan Proft's Liberty Principles PAC emphasizes in attack ads running continually on the area's major cable networks.

Those outsider funds reaching nearly $150,000 on their own are a sticking point for McLaughlin's "First Orland Party" slate, whose mailers critical of challenger Keith Pekau point to Proft, associate Brian Timpone, "fake news" and the Koch Brothers.

Trustee Jim Dodge's letter emphasized his support for the Democrat mayor and how they've worked together in a bi-partisan way.

"As the former Republican Township Committeeman and a Republican candidate for State Comptroller you might wonder why I choose to work with Dan...We don't focus on partisan labels - his or mine - in offices that have been non-partisan since 1892, when Orland was founded.

Dodge says the threat of outside takeover is a serious one - despite Durbin's intervention on McLaughlin's behalf.

"Dan [McLaughlin] and I both stand up to outside political influences who want to take over Orland Park for their selfish purposes. Trust me, the threat is very real," he writes after listing what he considers the board's financial accomplishments.

Challenger Pekau asserted in a videotaped speech with the Crystal Tree subdivision homeowners that the mayor intends to retire shortly and the salary hike was intended to boost his pension. The landscaper told the homeowners that if elected, he will refuse municipal benefits and work to reduce the mayor's salary back down to a more reasonable level.

In a town that leaned towards Donald Trump last fall, Orland Park will be a race to watch next Tuesday.
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BRIDGEPORT  The youth activity and meeting rooms at the Bridgeport Hospital REACH programs new space on Barnum Avenue have names like hope, heart, peace and freedom. And their colorful artwork is prominently displayed on the walls and in the hallways.

In the nearby adult wing, the hand-painted drawings are replaced with professional paintings, donated by General Electric when it left its former Fairfield headquarters for Boston last year. And the names change to lotus, zen and serenity.

The exception? The sun room, which is located in the adult wing, but features a large mural of a sun and its rays covered in the hand prints of patients and staff.

Each side also has a snoezelen room, a multisensory environment that provides things like stress balls, massage chairs and other features that can help soothe an individual dealing with a stressful moment.

This allows them to calm down, gather their thoughts and then we can talk about what the trigger was, said Juan Djuro, a REACH social worker who works with the youth.

The entire space is bright, inviting and brand-new. The contrast from where they were before is striking, said Bill Jennings, president and CEO of Bridgeport Hospital.

Until a few months ago, the REACH program had been housed at a much older structure at 305 Boston Ave. in Stratford.

The intensive outpatient program provides mental health services like medication management and group therapy to children as young as 5 years old, adolescents, adults and seniors.

Its former maze-like space was aging and not as accessible as the current location because the program had to adapt to an existing footprint when it moved in years ago.

So when the chance arose to move into the new structure that Northeast Building Supply, formerly Bridgeport Lumber, was building last year near its own property on Barnum Avenue, it was too good an opportunity to pass up, said Peter Majewski, senior project manager for Bridgeport Hospital in Yale New Haven Healths Facilities Design and Construction Department.

The new location has elicited positive reactions from patients who visited the older location first, said Dr. Patricia Rizzi, director of psychiatry at Bridgeport Hospital.

Although the space is only roughly 1,500 square feet bigger than the previous space, Rizzi said it feels much larger because it is laid out in a more appropriate way. She said the entire space was designed with the help and input from the programs staff.

The staff did this together, Rizzi said, noting that Majewski listened to their concerns and advice and even agreed to suggestions like knocking down a wall to enlarge an adult meeting room. Peter was the most patient person in the world.

Jennings said the move reinforces the hospitals commitment to its mission. There is still a fabric of everyones mission to help those who cant help themselves, he said.

He said the relocation also is a testament to the hospitals commitment to the city of Bridgeport. Its about our dedication to this community, Jennings said.

ktorres@hearstmediact.com; 203-330-6227
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STAMFORD  The co-defendant in the stabbing death of a man outside the downtown McDonalds in 2015 has accepted a plea agreement for a five-year jail term.

James McLamb, 24, who for the past two years has been held on a murder charge like co-defendant Marquest Hall, pleaded guilty Friday to a reduced charge of aiding and abetting a second-degree assault.

McLamb has already spent two years in jail for the death of 52-year-old Antonio Muralles.

Senior Assistant States Attorney Paul Ferencek said he reached an agreement with public defender Howard Ehring because McLamb cooperated with the investigation and since a murder conviction could not be achieved in Halls case.

Ferencek said after Hall stabbed Muralles the first time as the Guatemalan immigrant walked out of McDonalds on Bedford Street in March 2015, McLamb punched the older man several times in the face. It allowed Hall to take his final and fatal thrust to Muralles heart, Ferencek said.

Ehring said McLamb, of New Haven, did not realize what was happening when Hall initially confronted Muralles.

McLamb thought the older man was picking on Hall, who he only knew through his girlfriend, Ehring said. As a result, McLamb came to the defense of Hall, who at the time was only 15.

He certainly didnt realize Hall had stabbed him, Ehring said. Mr. McLamb overreacted to the situation. In my discussions with him in jail over the past two years, he realizes the loss of life. He is extremely remorseful.

Ferencek reduced the murder charge against Hall, 17, last week and allowed the teen to plead guilty to a first-degree manslaughter charge. Hall faces up to 20 years in jail.

McLamb is scheduled to be sentenced May 18.
I heard the door crash. Within a minute, I was in the Feds handcuffs, my wife and kids cowering in a bedroom.

I was marched off in front of TV camera crews, who had been alerted.

A suburban husband, Id switched from a suffocating job in a law firm to high-risk prop trading, making and losing tens of thousands a day.

Id rubbed shoulders with Ben Bernanke, Alan Greenspan and Leo DiCaprio (though Im no Wolf of Wall Street), downing cocktails of an evening.

Before it all came crashing down in 2009, I was offered a sweetheart probation deal but maintained my innocence. I was convicted of securities fraud and sentenced to 30 months at Lewisburg Penitentiary, which Al Capone once called home.

To roll back: Martin Shkreli and I didnt get on.

I happened to be on a trading floor when he was a mere day-trading mortal before morphing into the most hated man in the world for jacking up the price of the life-saving drug Daraprim.

He was attempting to demonstrate his biotech trading brilliance when I, ahem, expressed my opinion.

We ended up butting heads, almost coming to blows.

Unfortunately, the other guy he was showing off in front of happened also to be a wired FBI informant.

Later, my firm Incremental Capital was in desperate need of cash.

RBC Capital had pulled its dough.

On the hunt for alternative sources of funding, I scored a chance meeting with 50 Cent and his entourage. I remember walking into his office.

The door looked grenade-proof. The entrance was protected by an enormous guy wearing a baggy, dark denim outfit that could have housed a family of refugees.

To my surprise, Fiddy agreed to the deal but, just before signing it, I got cold feet.

My partner was raging, why pull it now? I responded: When my business deals go bad, I want a pinstriped lawyer coming after me with a Montblanc pen, not a gangster with a Glock 9.

In the end, Id got in with the wrong people in hedge-fund land, who turned on me.

I ended up in Lewisburg.

My cell was smaller than the SUV Id driven my kids to school in.

On being complimented (hey, Jew with the tattoo, you got a nice ass), I was told it might be wise to cover up until I was actually underneath the showerhead.

I broke up the drudgery by teaching prisoners to read and striking up an unlikely friendship with a lifer Aryan Nation inmate.

I was prisoner #62876054 and, after a career in numbers, thats one I wont forget.

Michael Kimelmans Confessions of a Wall Street Insider, written in prison, is available through Amazon
 We are leaving the European Union, but we are not leaving Europe. Thats how Theresa May put it in her Article 50 letter  and that is the simplest way to express the future of Britain.

We will be a detached part of Europe, as we have been since around 6,200BC, when Doggerland  the land mass connecting us to Holland and Germany  was submerged by rising sea levels.

Ive just written a 60,000-word book explaining why I think Britain voted for Brexit. But I could have done it in three words: the English Channel. For more than 8,000 years we have been like northern Continental Europeans, but a tiny bit different, because of the Channel.

Britain has a big population crammed on to a relatively small island. As a result, Bill Bryson has suggested, the British  like the occupants of that other packed island, Japan  are shy, private, sometimes antisocial and obsessed with class differences.

Its the Channel, too, that saved us over and over again  most recently in the Second World War, but dozens of times before.

Look at the animated, online maps that show the frequently changing Continental regimes and borders over the past millennium. Meanwhile, Britain stays much the same, but for the Union and independence of the constituent nations of the United Kingdom.

The Channel, and victory in the war, also meant the majority of the British never quite saw the EEC as a preserver of peace, like the war-torn countries of the Continent did. As a result, that majority doesnt have the same emotional attachment to the EU as the Continent.

Researching a recent book on Greece, I met only one Greek who wanted to leave the EU, even after the economic horrors theyve suffered for nearly a decade.

Greece had four centuries of Ottoman rule, a war of independence, a new monarchy, war with Turkey, dictatorship, Nazi occupation, civil war, a coup and the expulsion of the monarchy. When it joined the EEC in 1981 it was a welcome haven from chaos  and, still, on balance, most Greeks would prefer to remain within that haven, however battered it is.

Donald Tusk outlines EU guidelines for Brexit talks

The British think differently. When we joined the EEC in 1973 our economy was battered  as it was in 1975, when we voted to stay in. But as our economy improved  and as the EU moved towards ever-closer union with the Maastricht Treaty of 1992  our reason for joining lost its force. And there was less of that emotional attachment to our cross-Channel connections with Europe.

This feeling doesnt apply to all Britons: 48 per cent of voters, understandably, did feel that emotional attachment to Europe. But the 52 per cent who voted to leave are still a hefty symbol of British exceptionalism  an exceptionalism formed by the Channel.

Harry Mount is editor of The Oldie. His book, Summer Madness  How Brexit Split the Tories, Destroyed Labour and Divided the Country, is published by Biteback (12.99)
Y our leader [Mrs Mays EU divorce letter: lets be friends, Comment, March 29] was not, I am afraid, how the rest of the world sees it.

In short, Brexit hurts Britains influence, not just in Europe but across the world. While America appears to be disengaged and a bit scary under Donald Trump, and with the threat of Vladimir Putins Russia to our security, we need now a sense of common interest with the EU as we head towards even greater disunity.

I am sure Trump and Putin are both gleeful at the sight of a weakened Europe, as this means that the EU will have less influence in America over the long run.

These strategic issues have been little discussed or truly debated. This includes Wednesdays Commons debate and Theresa Mays statements and letter to the EU, which failed to recognise these major internal and external dangers.

It is not enough to say that It is time to come together or speak about liberal democratic values while acting in ways which undermine those values.

Harry C Blaney, Center for International Policy



In his press conference following the delivery of Theresa Mays letter triggering Brexit on Wednesday, President of the European Council Donald Tusk remarked We already miss you.

The sad fact is that had Tusk, Jean-Claude Juncker, Angela Merkel, Francois Hollande and the rest of the Eurocrats listened to the legitimate concerns voiced by the UK over the way the EU was heading, Brexit might well have never come to pass.

Instead, they stuck their heads in the sand and dismissed the UK as nothing more than a troublesome and irritating non-entity.

Brussels only has itself to blame for the fact that the UK people decided enough is enough and voted to quit their blinkered political union.

Robert Readman



While I concur with your editorial which stated that Brexit was a momentous day for Britain and for London, a further statement claiming most of us are sorry to leave the EU emphasises your pro-EU position.

While 59.9 per cent of Greater London electors voted to Remain, a sizeable proportion  40 per cent  voted for Brexit. It should be remembered that our withdrawal from the EU was a democratic decision made by the majority of the British people.

Regardless of ones political opinions, it is incumbent upon all concerned to now fully support the negotiators in their attempts over the next two years to obtain the most beneficial arrangements for the country.

Keeley-Jasmine Cavendish



UK needs to ensure research innovation

With Article 50 now invoked, the Government must ensure we continue to enhance and safeguard the UKS world-leading research, innovation and higher education systems.

Our continued partnership with Europe on matters of research and innovation must not only be protected  we must also invest to make it stronger.

We attract some of the finest research talent in Europe and the world. It is essential that the Government negotiates the right for EU research and higher education staff  currently employed and those accepting employment in the UK  to remain indefinitely.

Any discussions in relation to higher education and research should also take place at the earliest opportunity. This will ensure the UK remains a competitive environment and attractive proposition for the worlds most talented researchers.

Lord Stern of Brentford, president, British Academy



Council tax increase will hit the poorest

In London, 29 out of 33 local authorities will increase council tax next month, with half raising it by almost five per cent. This will hit the poorest families the hardest.

Following the localisation of council tax support in 2013, families previously deemed too poor to pay council tax would make a minimum payment. The financial squeeze on local authorities is putting upward pressure on council tax and will weaken protection afforded by local support schemes.

In the past three years Londons boroughs have instructed bailiffs to recover outstanding council tax from over 48,000 households. With this in mind, we strongly urge local authorities to abolish their minimum payments and introduce 100 per cent support, or reduce their minimum payments to under 10 per cent.

Despite the financial pressures they face, we hope they consider this to ease the financial burden on the capitals poorest.

Alison Garnham, chief executive, Child Poverty Action Group and Raji Hunjan, chief executive, Zacchaeus 2000 Trust

Join the conversation: #esnewsviews
L ondoners can browse the worlds first website or look up something on the original search engine at an interactive exhibition about the history of computers and the internet.

Visitors to 64 Bits will learn about the origins of the internet, the evolution of the computer and the key people involved.

The exhibition shows the first modem, created 35 years ago, and the dot-matrix printer, before visitors get the chance to look at Sir Tim Berners-Lees first website from 1991 and use original search engine Archie.

They can also place an order on the first e-commerce site, launched by Pizza Hut in 1994, read the original e-zine word.com, watch the first GIF and browse the first internet comic.

The exhibition, at Here East in the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, also features the first webcam stream, set up in 1991 by Cambridge University students who wanted to remotely monitor a nearby coffee machine to see if there was any left in the pot before making a trip down the corridor. Each exhibit is presented on a computer of a similar era, including the famous candy-coloured iMacs, launched in 1998.

Curator Jim Boulton, digital director of Aesop Agency, said most of the machines had been found through eBay or Freecycle.

He added: Nothing has been archived from the early days of the internet, so the early lessons of the web are in real danger of being lost for ever. Archiving the internet is as important as the first printed book. It is part of history. He said 64 Bits was also about the unsung heroes of the industry who shaped todays digital culture, including Alan Emtage, the Barbados-born inventor of search engine Archie, created in 1989. The work of Susan Kare, a designer of fonts and icons who created the first Macintosh icons and the Microsoft Solitaire playing cards, is celebrated.

Arts picks of the week: 28th March - 2nd April 1 /6 Arts picks of the week: 28th March - 2nd April Anish Kapoor Anish Kapoors towering reputation means that an exhibition of new work is definitely one for the diary. His sixteenth exhibition at Lisson Gallery, opening this week, features new sculptures from a series he has been working on for many years but only exhibiting in the last two.



March 31 - May 6, Lisson Gallery; lissongallery.com Consent Nina Raines latest play, to be staged in the National Theatres Dorfman, will follow a group of friends who take opposing briefs in a rape case. Directed by Roger Michell and starring Anna Maxwell Martin, its bound to ignite some strong feelings.



March 28 - May 17, National Theatre; nationaltheatre.org.uk Sarah Lee Jewels George Balanchines ballet inspired by gem stones is celebrating its fiftieth anniversary this year, so its the perfect time for a revival at the Royal Opera House. It made history by being the first abstract three-act ballet, and features music by Stravinksy, Faure and Tchaikovsky.



April 1-21, Royal Opera House; roh.org.uk Tristram Kenton/ROH 2011 Justin Mortimer: It Is Here This new exhibition of work from artist Justin Mortimer might sound all too familiar at the moment. His new collection of paintings show images of an uncertain world in a state of disorder; scenes of protest can be found next to depictions of war. Mortimer has made the move from in-demand painter (he won the BP National Portrait Award aged just 21) to acclaimed contemporary artist, and you can catch his new work at the Parafin Gallery.



March 30 - May 20, Parafin Gallery; parafin.co.uk Lucy McCormick: Triple Threat Lucy McCormicks show was one of the major hits of last years Edinburgh Fringe, and now is your chance to see it at Soho Theatre. Expect an absurd and surprising evening as McCormick retells the New Testament story cabaret style, casting herself in all of the main roles.



March 28 - April 22, Soho Theatre; sohotheatre.com Not a Split Second: Remembering the Docklands Bomb In 1996, an IRA bomb went off at South Quay - this free exhibition explores the impact it had on local residents and the architecture of the area. A short film exploring how the event is remember is accompanied by archive images.



March 31 - April 9, Republic Gallery; sohotheatre.com

These people should be household names, said Boulton. But no one knows who they are. We still use their work today, so this is also about giving them some credit.

On the walls are pieces of ASCII art, created from printing keyboard characters to form patterns, and the smiley face emoticon, created in 1982 and the forerunner of emojis.

Visitors can also use a digital media archiving service, supported by the British Library, which will convert media stored on obsolete formats. Lucy Bawden, programme manager at Here East, said: The exhibition will be the starting point for a programme of related workshops and talks at Here East around digital art and the connection of technology and creativity.

64 Bits is at Here East, Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, until April 21. For more details, visit 64bits.co.uk
T ate Britain has announced that its doors will stay open until midnight on the last weekend of May to accommodate the huge demand for its David Hockney retrospective. Here are five more roosts for wise old night owls to flock to.

Tate lates

Tonight you can admire Fujiko Nakayas fog sculpture at Tate Modern to the soundtrack of live DJs selected by NTS Radio, while at Tate Britain there are regular Hockney dinners, Californian wine evenings and late gallery openings.

Free, tonight, tate.org.uk

Quids in

This V&A Late celebrates the new 12-sided 1 coin with a peek at the history of money although the evening is, mercifully, free entry. Theres also the chance to design your own currency.

Free, tonight, vam.ac.uk

Museums that stay open late 1 /9 Museums that stay open late Royal Academy of Arts The Royal Academy is always home to the big hitters, from David Hockney to Ai Weiwei, and it stays open until 10pm every Friday and Saturday (normal hours 10am-6pm). Fraser Marr Tate Modern If you want your modern art fix and want to make sure you dont miss the Tates latest blockbuster exhibition, it is open until 10pm on Friday and Saturday (normal opening hours 10am-6pm). Tate Photography Wellcome Collection The Wellcome Collection bring science to the masses, and previous exhibitions on sex and drugs have had people queueing for hours. If you want a sneaky science fix in your evening, the Wellcome Collection stays open until 10pm on Thursdays (normal opening hours 10am-6pm, closed on Mondays). Wellcome Collection Barbican Centre's Art Gallery The Barbican Centre has so much going on that you can check out their latest exhibition and you might even fit in a theatre show afterwards. Their Art Gallery stays open until 9pm on Thursdays and Fridays (normal opening hours 10am-6pm). Barbican V & A Museum The V&A won 2016 Museum of the Year, and its exhibitions in recent years have been unmissable, from Alexander McQueen to Hollywood costumes. On Fridays, the haven of design and art is open until 10pm (normal opening hours 10am-.545pm). Victoria and Albert Museum, London Science Museum The Science Museum stays open late on the last Wednesday of every month. They host a themed evening full of talks, workshops, drinks and music until 10pm, and future lates will focus on topics as diverse as gaming, crime, and big data (normal opening hours 10am-6pm). Science Museum National Gallery The National Gallery, home to over 2,300 paintings that date from the mid-13th century to the 1900s, stays open until 9pm every Friday (normal opening hours 10am-6pm). The National Gallery, London British Museum The British Museum in Bloomsbury holds a vast collection of world art and artefacts, including the Rosetta Stone and the Elgin Marbles; its open until 8.30pm on Friday if you want to end your week with some world history (normal opening hours 10am-5.30pm). British Museum Natural History Museum The Natural History Museum stays open late on the last Friday of every month, until 10pm. Plenty of activities plus lots of drinks make it a not quite like your usual museum experience (normal opening hours 10am-5.50pm). Trustees of the Natural History Museum London

Macho?

The Wellcome Collections Friday Late Spectaculars invites you to join drag kings, testosterone-fuelled games and some of Londons finest male choirs to examine masculinity.

Free but requires booking, April 7, wellcomecollection.org

Sea Life after dark

Prosecco and seawater sound like unlikely bedfellows, but the London Aquariums Sea Life After Dark evenings are a chance to toast the stingrays, shark and jellyfish after dark.

29, April 13, visitsealife.com

Natural History Museum lates

Its all about food at this months Natural History Museum Late, from learning about flesh-eating beetles to human cannibals and parasitoid wasps, to cocktails and wine afterwards (and you might need a drink by then...).

Free, March 31, nhm.ac.uk
L ondon is driven by market forces. Springtime means blue-sky thinking and green shoots of recovery on show, so Londons foodies are stepping back outside, from KERB Camden in the north to Tooting in the south. The citys traders  the ones with the stalls, anyway  are back in business.

Theres a pivotal shift going on, says Henry Dimbleby, who has helped drive the capitals market scene as one of the founders of Street Feast, which has sites in Canada Water at Hawker House, Dalston Yard, Dinerama and Model Market and is opening a fifth site at Crossrail Place, Canary Wharf, early next month. Dimbleby describes it as a seven-day-a-week eating and drinking rooftopia.

To top it all, Hawker House will be holding some exclusive events during London Food Month, with details soon to be announced.

While you used to see chefs in London come through restaurants like the River Cafe or St John, now youre seeing real cooks being brought up on the streets, says Dimbleby. He points to Bao and Lucky Chip as examples of trade stalls that have proved so popular theyve set up shop. Its not just meaty guy food anymore. Londons street markets have got real sophistication.

Street food is the place to find the next hot chef (and try their food before they open a restaurant with an impossibly long queue). So where should you dine out this spring and beyond? Heres our guide to street food in the great outdoors.

Broadway Market, E8

This spot is bursting at the seams with delectables. While its thronging weekend crowd can be tough to navigate, the sheer volume of tasty stalls is testament to the markets reputation as one of the capitals big players (there have been traders here since the 1890s). Grab a pick-me-up Climpson & Sons coffee then dive in for burgers, fresh veg and sweets - while stocks last (its usually cleared out of the good stuff by 3pm). Highlights include Black Bears beef brisket burgers and cornish crab meat arancini from Fin + Flounder.

Hot dish: Traditional hand-rolled dumplings made to order at Dumpling Shack. The pork and crab soup versions make the world seem a better place.

Netil Market, E8

Tucked just behind its larger Broadway Market sibling, the team behind Netil Market have worked tirelessly (well, every Saturday) to help carve out their own niche, but the rewards are obvious. Hackney favourites Lucky Chip and Bao cut their chops here in the more relaxed, sedate setting  seating is always in plentiful supply here  and up to 30 stalls pop up on sunny days.

Hot dish: Modern African dishes inspired by the flavours of Asmara, the capital of Eritrea, at Lemlem Kitchen including korerima beef shin taco  meat braised in coffee and black cardamom and served on a simple wheat tortilla.

KERB Camden, NW1

Seven days a week, 365 days a year, KERB Camdens line-up is a sizzling street food smorgasbord next to Regents Canal (the cobbled bit behind Lock 17). Mother Clucker, with its tea-brined, buttermilk-soaked fried chicken strips, has a roost here, among 34 other traders: pizzas from Fundi; Korean and Mexican mash-ups from Kimchinary; tacos, burritos and tortas from Luardos. Then theres Petare, serving delicious hot pockets of Latino street food.

Try Venezuelan national dish El Pabellon, slow-cooked beef brisket, refried black beans, sweet fried plantain and cheddar cheese in a cornbread Arepa.

KERB Kings Cross is also worth a visit. It has just announced a fried chicken challenge called The Bucket List, encouraging visitors to try all eight of its most clucking good traders in just two days.

Hot dish: Moreish crispy fried squid with kewpie mayo at Ink.

Dinerama, EC2

London hit the jackpot with Dinerama, a market built in a former bullion truck depot in Shoreditch. With a more grown-up atmosphere than its sister site at Hawker House, the 1,000-capacity venue has a resident DJ and is open late. For a real feast, sink your teeth into the tomahawk chop, a massive pork chop from trader Lagom.

Hot dish: Yum Buns pork belly with lashings of hoisin sauce in a fluffy bao.

Maltby Street Market and Druid Street Market, SE1

With a vibrant mix of produce and street food traders, Maltby and neighbouring Druid Streets are makers markets, a credit to the blueprint for authenticity set out by its owners for a working market set up to discover unique food rather than draw in the large crowds. This is where you come for your cheese, fruit and veg, Dimbleby says of the Bermondsey salvage lumber yard, which is transformed on weekends.

The Ropewalk between Maltby Street and Millstream Road boasts, under the arches, arch reuben sandwiches from Montys Deli and seafood from the Cornish Grill. There are also hoppers from Weligama, Shoal Foods fishfinger sandwiches and new recruit Daja Chicken, with finger-lickin flavours inspired by Taiwan, Hong Kong, Japan and Malaysia.

These markets sit conveniently on the Bermondsey beer mile of innovative London breweries, for when you need refreshment.

Hot dish: Caramels, brownies and spectacular hot chocolate with marshmallow clouds on top from Fatties Bakery.

Flat Iron Square to open at London Bridge

Flat Iron Square, SE1

A new kid on the block, the Southwark market not only boasts the customary delights of a covered food court and a small fleet of food trucks, but is also home to a flea market and Omera, a newly opened music venue from Ben Lovett of Mumford & Sons.

Tucked beneath the railway arches, favourites include Where The Pancakes Are, which serves stacks of sweet and savoury buttermilk pancakes and buckwheat blinis alongside craft ciders and prosecco, and Bar Douro, a Portuguese bar led by well-known Porto chef Tiago Santos.

Hot dish: Baz & Freds stonebaked pizza made in a pizza oven designed by sculptor Dan Chadwick (Bazs godfather). The pizza flour comes from Italy and the pizza has a crispy base, a fluffy crust and plenty of fresh, sunny tomato on top.

Tooting Market, SW17

With a host of new openings and traders vying for slots, Tooting Market is enjoying a renaissance. Alongside freshly ground beans from Brickwood coffee and an outpost of the Brixton Market-born pizzeria Franco Manca, old hands such as Stannards butcher and the fishmonger have retained their pitches, maintaining the markets integrity.

Then there are brand-spanking new openings like Plot, a best of British small plates spot. Its a restaurant but in the heart of the market, with all the attendant atmosphere.

Hot dish: Braised beef cheek with pickled cabbage and onions at Plot.
T wo "barbaric and cruel" burglars who tortured an elderly couple by tying them up and pouring boiling water over their heads are facing years behind bars.

Kacey Adams, 33, and 32-year-old Daniel Wallace smashed their way into their victims' home in Halstead , Kent Police said.

The men subjected their victims, aged in their 60s, to a near-two-hour ordeal in which they beat them, poured boiling water from a kettle on them and threatened them with a knife and a hot iron.

They fled with cash and jewellery at around 11pm on April 26 2016.

Police were alerted shortly afterwards when the male victim managed to untie himself.

Both men were arrested at Heathrow Airport as they returned from a shopping trip to Dubai on May 31 2016.

Adams, of Covert Road, Hainault and Wallace, of no fixed address, both admitted aggravated burglary and causing grievous bodily harm with intent at an earlier hearing at Maidstone Crown Court.

A third man, 27-year-old Drew Morris, of Rayleigh, Essex, pleaded guilty to simple burglary at a separate hearing at Maidstone Crown Court.

Detective Inspector James Derham, of the Kent and Essex serious crime directorate said: "Adams and Wallace were responsible for crimes which can only be described as barbaric and cruel beyond words.

"The elderly woman had two kettles of boiling water poured onto her, inflicting horrific burns and injuries, which could quite easily have proved fatal.

"The psychological scars that both victims are continuing to deal with are unimaginable."

All three men are listed to be sentenced by Judge Charles Gratwicke at Chelmsford Crown Court on Friday.
A pedestrian has been killed after being hit by a moped in Dagenham.

Paramedics rushed to Green Lane on Thursday but the man, aged in his 50s, was pronounced dead at the scene.

A 17-year-old boy, believed to be a pillion passenger on the bike, was also found injured and was rushed to an east London hospital where he remains in a critical condition.

The rider fled the scene but was picked up by London Ambulance Service paramedics and taken to hospital where he is being treated for serious injuries.

Green Lane was closed off through the night as police investigated the crash. The road reopened in the early hours of Friday morning.

A Metropolitan Police spokesman said: Police were called at approximately 8.30pm on Thursday, 30 March to reports of a moped in collision with a pedestrian in Green Lane, near the junction with Grafton Lane.

The pedestrian - a man aged in his 50s - was pronounced dead at the scene. Next of kin have been informed.

A male - aged 17 - believed to be a pillion passenger on the moped has been taken to an east London hospital for treatment to his injuries. He remains there in a critical condition.

The rider of the moped did not remain at the scene.

Police were subsequently contacted by LAS to inform that a male - believed to the rider of the moped - was en route to an east London hospital with serious injuries. He remains in hospital.

No one has been arrested in connection with the incident.
A millionaire former Big Brother housemate who sparked an armed police response when fake guns were found in the boot of his Bentley today accused the Met of wasting time after charges against him were dropped.

Nightclub owner Chelsea Singh. a contestant on last years series of the reality show, was dining with film director Wayne Moseley when armed officers stormed the restaurant in Old Kent Road.

The pair were arrested after police searched Mr Singhs black convertible and found a replica Uzi and handgun, both props used earlier in the day during the filming of British gangster film Little Bastards.

Both men were charged with possession of an imitation firearm and were scheduled to appear at Camberwell magistrates court.

However, prosecutors on Thursday told magistrates that the charges had been dropped.

Mr Singh told the Standard he had known weeks ago the case would be thrown out of court, and accused police of being silly for arresting him on March 2.

He said: It was a waste of time. God knows why they did it, I think it was silly in the first place.

It was a big thing. They shut off all of the Old Kent Road.

"There were 10 armed officers outside, eight armed officers inside, about seven or eight cars outside.

It was proper naughty police that was. Every single one had a gun on them. They overreacted.

It is believe a member of the public called 999 after seeing Mr Singh and Mr Moseley, who works under the name Yuppie Wayne, placing the fake guns in the boot of the car outside the Rock Island restaurant.

Mr Singh, 49, was the fifth contestant to be evicted from the Big Brother house on last years series of the Channel 5 show.

He describes himself on his website as a multi-millionaire with business interests ranging from photographic studios to restaurants to consultancy to hotels to new inventions.

He recently opened INK bar in Windsor, which he describes as a celebrity hangout.

Despite his brush with the law, he said he was still planning to appear in Little Bastards, which is slated for release this year and also features former bare-knuckle boxer Paddy Doherty and former gangster Dave Courtney.

Mr Singh added: I think well just have to be more careful and make sure the police are really aware that we are filming. That should have been done beforehand, but I didnt expect that to happen.

Prosecutor Helen Reddy told the court that senior crown prosecutor Robert Short had discontinued the case on 13 March.
A gang of knife-wielding attackers stormed a barber's shop in east London before stabbing three men.

One of the victims, aged 25, remains in hospital after being knifed in the chest and abdomen, although his injuries are not thought to be life-threatening.

An 18-year-old was also cut in his arm during the incident in Forest Gate, while a 20-year-old was stabbed in his abdomen and hand.

Detectives in Newham have launched an investigation after the group entered the barbers on Katherine Road at 6.20pm on March 28.

No arrests have been made yet as enquiries into the stabbings continue.

A Met Police spokesman said: Detectives in Newham are appealing after three men were attacked and stabbed.

The incident happened at about 6.20pm on Tuesday, 28 March at a barbers in Katherine Road.

The victims were in the barbers when a group of men, who were armed with knives, ran in and attacked them.

Anyone with information is asked to call police on 101 or you can contact police via Twitter @MetCC

To give information anonymously contact Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111 or via the crimestoppers-uk.org.
 Terrified bystanders spoke of the moment a gang of screaming youths descended on a street in east London.

Scotland Yard confirmed police had been called to Balls Pond Road, in Dalston, to reports of a disturbance around 7pm on Friday.

One witness, who asked not to be named, described around 200 people screaming in the street.

The Balls Pond Road resident told the Standard: I was leaving my house and I heard a lot of sirens.

As I walked up Balls Pond Road I saw around 200 people gathered outside of the shops, they were mainly girls and were screaming.

It was terrifying. One of them smashed a bottle against a bin and they all ran.

I was walking on the other side of the road and people there started running away too.

Others took to social media to discuss the situation.

One user wrote: What's going on in #Dalston?

Another described hearing loads of sirens.

A Met Police spokeswoman said officers were unable to locate a disturbance while Hackney Police wrote on Twitter that they were monitoring the situation.

A statement read: We deployed units & group were also monitored on CCTV. Sometimes our presence can inflame situations so we move away.


A charity boss was knocked unconscious after a man smashed a Coca Cola bottle over his head in a daylight street attack outside his north London office.

Father-of-two Mohamed Nacer was rushed to hospital after being floored in Finsbury Park by a stranger who told him: I will open up your stomach.

Mr Nacer, 45, who runs community charity the Arab Advice Bureau, had confronted a group of men loitering outside his office on Seven Sisters Road at around 5.30pm on Thursday evening.

Witnesses described seeing a lot of blood on the pavement following the vicious attack outside shop Food City, which neighbours Mr Nacers office.

Victim: Charity boss Mohamed Nacer, 45.

CCTV footage from the shop shows the shocking moment the attacker raises his arm and smashes the glass bottle over Mr Nacers head.

The charity director clutches his head as he stumbles onto the ground, while the attacker turns and flees from the scene.

Mr Nacer told the Standard on Friday: I thought I was going to die, I was very scared, it was a very shocking situation. I couldnt sleep last night.

Altercation: The argument on Seven Sisters Road in Finsbury Park.

He said: Seven Sisters Road is a big area, lots of shops and obviously there is a high rate of crime here and recently I noticed there was a big rise of drug dealing in the area and around Wilberforce Road.

I have reported it to the police. They are selling drugs in daylight, you have to do something about it.

He said he saw a group of men loitering outside his office and went to confront them.

I saw them outside and I said please can you get away from my shop, Mr Nacer said.

They were saying I will open up your stomach. I was very scared because the guy was putting his hand inside his jacket.

I went to stand by the shop. I tried to speak Arabic to reason with one of the guys. I thought he would take that as a compliment and he would calm down.

The guy went inside the shop and grabbed a bottle of coke and hit me on the head.

I lost unconsciousness, I was on the floor.

Mr Nacer added: The message I want to get through is that various people are trying to work hard for the community, I work hard for the safety of people living in the area.

And we do not want to be the target."

One witness told the Standard she saw "a pool of blood and couple of groceries lying around it".

She added: "An alarming amount of blood."

Police told the Hackney Gazette they were called to the scene, near to the junction with Wilberforce Road, and put a police cordon in place. No arrests have been made.

The Arab Advice Bureau provides legal advice and support to people in Arabic and Northern African communities in London.

They provide immigration advice and help people get into work.
A Londoner who filmed four people smoking on the Tube was left "shocked and scared" after one of them allegedly shouted racist abuse and tried to attack him.

John Zang, 33, was told to go back to your own country after the group spotted him recording them so he could show police.

The incident began when he boarded a Jubilee line train at North Greenwich at around 10.20pm on Tuesday and immediately left because the carriage was filled with smoke.

His footage, shot through the window of the adjoining carriage, shows the moment the group notice they are being filmed and grow angry.

John Zang said he dodged two 'punches' through the carriage windows

One wraps a scarf around his face and walks to the end of the carriage, before lashing out through the windows in an apparent attempt to grab Mr Zangs phone.

He came over to me saying what the f*** are you doing, said Mr Zang.

He punched twice but he didnt really get me because I dodged the punches. But when I realised he could open the carriage doors I had to force it shut using my body. I was shocked and a bit scared.

Londoner John Zang poses with mayor Sadiq Khan

After trying to force his way through the carriage doors while the train was still moving, Mr Zang claims his attacker began shouting racist abuse.

He said you f***ing Chinese, f***ing Japanese, go back to your own country, Mr Zang told the Standard.

He then waited by the door to confront Mr Zang when the train arrived at Canary Wharf station, but apparently grew panicked and ran away due to the amount of people waiting on the platform.

Transport police are now scouring CCTV and looking for witnesses who may help their investigation into the incident.

Mr Zang, a personal assistant, added: Its a really bad image for London, I have a lot of Chinese clients who think of London as a really good city but this kind of thing will put them off.

PA John Zang lives in London and works with Chinese clients

A BTP spokesman told the Standard: We are investigating an incident of anti-social behaviour onboard a Jubilee service from Greenwich to Westminster.

Shortly after 10.20pm, a man reported seeing four men smoking on the tube train and started filming them.

One of the men then confronted him and tried to grab him, before walking off.

We are looking at CCTV available from the service.

Anyone with information is asked to contact British Transport Police on 0800 40 50 40 or text 61016.
A mother has accused her abusive boyfriend of forcing her on to a bus with the corpse of her dead child to frame her for the murder of the baby girl, a court heard.

Rosalin Baker, 25, wept in court as she described her controlling and violent relationship with cocaine and heroin addict Jeffrey Wiltshire.

Baker was given the "thumbs-up" by 52-year-old Wiltshire as she boarded the number 25 in Stratford, with the body of their daughter Imani in a sling, jurors were told.

It is alleged Baker appeared cold as she alerted horrified commuters that something was wrong with her 16-week-old child in an attempt to conceal the truth.

But giving evidence at the Old Bailey, Baker said she was "in a lot of shock" and "devastated" as she feared people would "think it's me".

During the journey, she told jurors she began to realise that "he tried to frame me for killing my own baby".

Baker said she had woken that day to find Imani lying at the bottom of the bed she shared with Wiltshire in Newham, east London.

She got up to prepare her milk and noticed she was "cold" and "still", with a "big black eye".

Baker said: "When I saw her I started screaming. I called Jeffrey and woke him up. He sat up and looked at her, put his hand on his head and goes 'Oh no, she's dead'."

Ian Henderson QC, defending, asked: "When you had touched Imani's face and touched her hands, what did you think about her state?"

Baker replied: "The first thing I thought was he's done something to her. When I looked at her she looked really bad. I thought she was dead."

The defendant described trying to phone for an ambulance and police but said Wiltshire snatched her phone away and stopped her from leaving, threatening to hurt her and her family.

She performed CPR on her daughter before Wiltshire gave her money and told her to go to her mother or her sister, allegedly saying: "Why didn't she die at your mum's house?"

Baker said: "I was crying and then he pushed me on the bed and said 'It's all your fault. I told you to give her up for adoption'."

On leaving the flat, Baker topped up her Oyster card and bought a drink and some food before she got on the bus to go to her sister's house, as Wiltshire had instructed, the court heard.

Mr Henderson asked why Wiltshire had kissed her as she got on the bus. Baker said she did not want it and was not expecting it.

The lawyer went on: "There's a thumbs-up gesture from Mr Wiltshire; do you know why he did that?"

Baker replied: "No."

She told the court that Wiltshire took drugs every day, would control their benefits payments and would regularly beat and threaten her.

In the week before Imani's death, Baker had taken the baby to live with Wiltshire in his bedsit, after leaving her mother's home in Colchester, Essex.

Imani, who was born prematurely and put on the Child Protection Register, was allegedly subjected to at least three severe attacks.

These left her with 40 fractures to her ribs, a fractured wrist and terrible head injuries.

But Baker said she did not notice anything wrong although Imani would scream and cry when left with Wiltshire while she went to the shops.

On the day of Imani's death, Baker said she had not taken any cocaine or heroin herself although she could not remember if she had taken drugs the day before.

Baker and Wiltshire, who claims to have fathered 23 children, deny murder and causing or allowing the death of their child.
P olice are appealing for witnesses after a passenger allegedly fired an imitation gun during an argument about begging on the Tube.

The incident happened on March 23 between 10.50pm and 11pm, onboard an eastbound Hammersmith & City line train at Bromley-by-Bow Underground station, police say.

Police say the incident happened after a 39-year-old passenger spoke to a man who he thought had been begging on the Tube.

The man then drew a fake handgun from his rucksack and fired, it is claimed.

The 39-year-old was left with a cut lip following the dispute.

Investigating officer Det Con Gerard Hughes said: I am keen to speak with anyone who may have witnessed the incident or has any information relating to the incident that could help with the investigation.

A man has been charged over the incident and is due to appear on April 21 at Blackfriars Crown Court.

Anyone with any information should contact British Transport Police 0800 40 50 40 or text 61016 citing reference 301 30/03/2017.
P olice have announced a clampdown on far-right protest marches planned through central London this weekend in order to prevent violence, disorder and disruption.

Both the EDL and Britain First are preparing to take to the streets on Saturday following last weeks terror attack on Westminster by knifeman Khalid Masood.

But the groups, who face a counter demo from Unite Against Fascism (UAF) on the same day, have been issued strict regulations by the Met.

They must leave at set times and follow exact routes, obeying the instructions of police officers throughout.

Participants can only join and leave the two marches at the designated start and finish point, while both rallies must finish by 3pm.

Chief Superintendent Catherine Roper warned that any protesters who break the conditions imposed under Section 12 and 14 of the Public Order Act face arrest.

She said: "The right to protest is a fundamental right in our democratic society, but this right must be balanced against the right of people to go about their day without fear of violence, disorder or disruption.

"Experience has shown us that when groups with conflicting views come together it can create tension and disorder, not just on the day itself but in the longer term.

"If you want to protest on Saturday we ask that you do so peacefully, no matter what your view. We will adopt a robust arrest policy on anyone who attends and is intent on violence and disorder, or is in breach of these conditions."

Fewer than 100 supporters are registered as attending the EDL protest, which will set off from Trafalgar Square towards the Victoria Embankment.

Britain First's march begins at Charing Cross station.

The UAF counter protest is due to take place at Victoria Embankment as police aim to keep the two groups apart.

The event page states: UAF calls on anti fascists to join us in mass opposition to the fascists - our unity is our strength.
D etectives have released an image of a passenger they want to trace after a prolonged sexual assault on a man in a packed Tube train.

A 38-year-old man, who was on his way to work in rush hour, boarded the busy Victoria line train from Finsbury Park when another passenger pressed himself against him, police say.

His attacker then began touching him inappropriately and did not stop until his shocked victim got off the train at Kings Cross, it is claimed.

Detectives have now released an image of a man they want to trace following the incident.

British Transport Police described the man as white, slender and around 5ft 7in tall.

He had blue eyes, blonde hair which was curly on top and is thought be in his mid-20s.

Clad in a camouflage jacket with black jeans and trainers, he also had a bright rucksack and a black earring in his left ear.

Officers continue to appeal for information on the March 22 assault, which took place at around 7.30am.

Investigating officer Detective Constable Suleman Yazdani, said: This was a disgraceful and prolonged assault committed on a busy commuter tube service.

As you can imagine this was a frightening experience for him as he quite rightly did not expect or want this man to touch him.

We are now in a position to release an image from CCTV of a man we would like to speak with in connection to this incident.

If you recognise him, then please make contact with us as we believe he holds vitally important information."

Anyone with information should contact police by texting to 61016 or by calling 0800 40 50 quoting reference 113 of 23/03/2017. Alternatively, call Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111.
A female police officer was kicked in the face and male officer was bitten during a violent incident at a hospital in west London.

The Metropolitan Police officers had arrested a 24-year-old man at a hospital in Hammersmith on Friday when he lashed out.

The man spat at both officers, getting saliva in their eyes and mouths, Hammersmith and Fulham police said.

He then kicked the female officer in the face leaving her with a bleeding nose and bruised cheeks.

Her colleague was also kicked in the face and bitten on the hand.

A police spokesman said: Both officers received medical treatment and medication for their injuries.

The male suspect still remains with police in hospital.


P olice are investigating an alleged sex assault at a school in north-west London.

The school was placed on lockdown for more than three hours shortly before home time on Wednesday as police held back students for inquiries.

Parents were left waiting for their children at the school gates in Pinner, and students were reportedly searched before being allowed to leave.

The school, which the Standard is not naming, has released a statement on Thursday revealing staff had called the police after a pupil made an allegation about another student.

It said: Police enquiries continue and no conclusions having been reached yet. The school continues to work with the police to ensure that the matter is resolved quickly.

As of this afternoon, the school has resumed back to normality.

We will keep you informed of investigative outcomes as and when we are able to.

Please rest assured that our focus remains on ensuring students safety and wellbeing.

A Met Police spokesman told the Standard: Police were called at around 2pm on Wednesday, March 29, to reports of an alleged offence.

Officers attended the location and have received an allegation of a sexual offence.

There has been no arrest at this stage. Enquiries continue to establish full circumstances.

The investigation is being led by detectives from the Sexual Offences, Exploitation and Children Abuse Command.

Parents told the Standard on Wednesday that pupils were held back until after 7pm  long past the normal going home time of 3.30pm.

One father of a child at the school said pupils were being let out in dribs and drabs and an email had been sent round to parents warning children were being delayed from leaving school.
H ealth chiefs and politicians are locked in a furious row over the future of a major London hospital.

NHS bosses accuse Hammersmith and Fulham council of scaring residents by spreading misinformation of a closure plan for Charing Cross Hospital.

Imperial College Healthcare trust claims the Labour-run council has spent significant sums of money fighting closure plans that do not exist and breaching accuracy rules on publicity.

But the council alleges the trust and clinical commissioning groups are misleading residents about the long-term plans to downgrade the A&E unit at Charing Cross and reduce the site to local hospital status.

The row was sparked when the council sent a campaign letter and poster to residents with its annual council tax demand. Locals were urged to put the Save Charing Cross Hospital poster in their windows.

Today Imperial published a letter it has sent to council leader Steve Cowan insisting there have never been any plans to close Charing Cross Hospital.

It said that the sustainability and transformation plan (STP) for north-west London gave a clear commitment not to reduce A&E or wider services within the lifetime of the plan, which runs until April 2021.

A source at Imperial said: The letter [from the council] says Charing Cross is closing. There is no plan to close it. There never has been. That letter ... its scaring people.

Council leaders believe their defence of the hospital is backed by voters. Mr Cowan said: Its not good enough to say they wont close Charing Cross until 2021 and replace its A&E with a clinic 13 per cent of the size. They need to be straight with the public and tell us what their plans are.

The STP aims to save NHS cash and prevent unnecessary hospital admissions. It proposes a 500 million shake-up including removing critical care, blue-light ambulances and potentially all surgery from Ealing Hospital, which is run by London North West Healthcare trust.

It excludes Imperials hospitals from the first phase of change.

This is due to uncertainty around the redevelopment of St Marys Hospital. The STP promises no changes at Charing Cross until out-of-hospital services are in place to enable more patients to be treated at home.

A total of 3,289 people were seen at Charing Crosss A&E last month, almost 500 more than in February last year.
A beautician to the stars is suing a top cosmetic surgeon for 300,000 over claims she was left disfigured and feeling like a freak after an operation to sculpt her thighs.

Tracie Giles says she was unable to go to the beach or spa after Dr Alexandra Chambers drained six litres of fat from her legs in a pioneering lipolysis procedure.

The 52-year-old was left top-heavy and needing a breast reduction operation, a court heard, and claims Dr Chambers branded her a weakling for not recovering quickly enough.

However, Dr Chambers, founding president of the British Association of Body Sculpting who has a practice in Wimpole Street, is fighting the claim.

She argues that Ms Giles was happy with the result of the 2012 operation and enjoyed multiple check-ups free of charge during her recovery.

She used ultrasound technology on Ms Giles to decompose the fat cells which were extracted from the body through a specialist extraction method, said her barrister Simon Butler.

Cosmetic surgeon: Dr Alexandra Chambers / Paul Keogh

Known as a Vaser treatment, it involved a unique and invasive fat elimination and body sculpting procedure, the court heard.

Knightsbridge beautician Ms Giles made her name with a permanent make-up treatment and counts Katie Price and Imogen Thomas among her celebrity clients. She told the High Court the operation was carried out grossly over-aggressively and had the effect of disfiguring her permanently and causing her to suffer pain and substantial post-operative complications.

She claims her legs were left discoloured and with a cobblestone appearance, and she later opted for breast reduction surgery as she felt far too top-heavy. I was advised to have that procedure as my upper body needed to be down-sized to match my lower body, she said.

At one point my calves were bigger than my thighs. I elected to feel more of a woman again and less of a freak. I feel very self-conscious about the horrific injuries I have been left with. My chest was too big. I had to try to shrink somehow to match my legs. She told Judge Graham Wood QC she no longer felt able to go to the beach or to a spa and struggled to find clothes she was comfortable in.

I didnt go to Dr Chambers to have this done to my legs. No sane person would do that, she said. However, Mr Butler said the amount of fat drained off had been exaggerated, claiming it was nearer four litres, and the experienced doctor had Ms Giless interests at the forefront of her mind all the time.

He added: Ms Giles was insistent on removing enough fat so that she could see all her active muscles.

Dr Chambers had advised her that this look might not be very attractive, added Mr Butler.

Ms Giles also told the court she felt like she was going to die after the procedure, and claims the doctor told me I was a weakling and that my healing was taking longer than anyone elses.

But Dr Chambers insists she never called Ms Giles weak and said her patient was very happy with the result at a post-op assessment in October 2012.

The hearing continues.
A survivor of the Westminster Bridge attack which claimed her husbands life smiles defiantly today as her family said: Shes getting stronger every day.

Melissa Cochran suffered terrible injuries when British-born terrorist Khalid Masood, 52, drove a rented car at 76mph through crowds outside Parliament. Three pedestrians were killed, including her husband Kurt, 54.

Her family has thanked well-wishers for the outpouring of love and generosity she has received. Images of Mrs Cochran, 46, recovering in a London hospital were posted on a GoFundMe page today set up to raise money for her and her children.

In one, she stands on crutches, with her leg sheathed in a brace and a gash visible on her forehead. In another she can be seen smiling surrounded by her parents Dimmon and Sandra Payne and brother Clint Payne as she lies in bed speaking to relatives by phone.

Clint said: Her health is steadily improving and she has been strengthened by the presence of her family. She is so grateful for the outpouring of love and generosity.

Kurt Cochran, of Utah, who was killed in the Westminster terror attack, pictured with his wife Melissa.

The couple, who were visiting London from the US to celebrate 25 years of marriage, were enjoying the final day of a trip of a lifetime when they were caught up in the atrocity. Mrs Cochran was left with a broken leg and rib and a badly cut head. She was comforted on the pavement in one of the defining images of the attack.

Relatives realised the couple were involved after seeing Mrs Cochran hurt in photographs posted online.

Clint said: The most difficult part of all of this is that Kurt is no longer with us, and we miss him terribly. He was an amazing individual who loved everyone and tried to make the world a better place.

The GoFundMe appeal has raised more than 56,000 since the attack on Wednesday last week.

Road to recovery: Melissa Cochran in hospital

Masood, who stabbed unarmed Pc Keith Palmer, 48, to death in Parliaments New Palace Yard before being killed, is understood to have been shot dead by one of Defence Secretary Sir Michael Fallons close protection team, which was waiting for the minister outside Parliament.

Today, Sir Michael signalled that a security clampdown could result in new restrictions on the public accessing parts of the parliamentary estate. He made clear a review would probe whether more armed officers are needed to protect Westminster and whether public access needed to be cut back to ensure MPs safety.

Tributes for Westminster & Parliament Attack 1 /26 Tributes for Westminster & Parliament Attack A police officer places flowers and a photo of Pc Keith Palmer on Whitehall near the Houses of Parliament in London Dominic Lipinski/PA A floral tribute to the victims of yesterday's terror attack is left at the security cordon near Westminster Abbey in central London Daniel Leal-Olivas/AFP/Getty Images Metropolitan Police in a minute's silence at New Scotland Yard Sky News A minute's silence is observed outside New Scotland Yard in London to pay respect to the victims of yesterday's terror attack in Westminster Jonathan Brady/PA MP's in a minute's silence at the House of Commons BBC Conservative MP James Cleverly pays an emotional tribute to his friend Pc Keith Palmer, telling the Commons he was a "strong, professional public servant". PA The flag above the Houses of Parliament in London flies at half mast the day after a terrorist attack Jeremy Selwyn People leave flowers at the scene after an attack on Westminster Bridge in London Hannah McKay/Reuters Flowers outside the Queen Elizabeth II Centre in London Gareth Fuller/PA Flowers at the Police Memorial after yesterday's terror attack on the Houses of Parliament in Westminste Alex Lentati Cressida Dick in a minute silence today at New Scotland Yard for Westminster terror victims Jeremy Selwyn A bunch of roses is layed at the Metropolitan Police headquarters at New Scotland Yard in central London Justin Tallis/AFP/Getty Images Flowers arrive in Westminster the day after the attack Jeremy Selwyn The Union Flag on Portcullis House flies at half mast following yesterday's attack Carl Court/Getty Images Flowers are laid at the scene after an attack on Westminster Bridge in London Hannah McKay/Reuters Terror attack: Flowers placed below a police cordon on Westminster Bridge Hannah McKay/Reuters Prime Minister Theresa May makes a statement in Downing Street, London Richard Pohle/The Times/PA Flowers are laid at the scene after an attack on Westminster Bridge in London Hannah McKay/Reuters Two policemen stand guard at a cordoned off area on the way to the Houses of Parliament in central London Matt Dunham/AP The royal standard at full mast above Buckingham Palace in London the day after a terrorist attack Jonathan Brady/PA

He also rejected criticism of Theresa Mays close protection team, stressing that the officers had taken her out of Parliament extremely quickly.

Two reviews of security at Westminster are under way following the attack. The first, an external independent review, will examine the perimeter security of the parliamentary estate, including out-buildings. The second will focus on how Parliament responded to the incident. Armed police have this week been visibly deployed at the Carriage Gates, through which Masood ran.

Victim of Westminster attack returns to the scene for vigil

The body of Pc Palmer will lie in rest at Westminsters St Mary Undercroft chapel ahead of his funeral  an honour normally reserved for heads of state. The father of one will be the first person to lie at the 13th-century chapel since Margaret Thatcher in 2013. His funeral will be held at Southwark Cathedral on April 10.

A 30-year-old man arrested in Birmingham last week on suspicion of preparation of terrorist acts was still being questioned in London today.
P arents at a London school are to be given advice on face masks for their children in an attempt to protect them from toxic air.

Governors at Archbishop Sumner Primary in Lambeth decided at a meeting last night to issue the guidance.

They are also inviting the British Lung Foundation to brief parents on how they can avoid roads with filthy air and on minimising pollution.

In addition, they are seeking to work with City Hall to monitor air pollution levels on roads near the school.

Chairman of governors Adam Matthews said: We want parents to decide what is most appropriate for their children. We felt it was best that the school provide as much information to them to make an informed decision both about their journeys to school and the options they have on pollution masks.

We want to inform all parents but its particularly focused on these parents travelling with their children on the most polluted routes to school.

He added that he is exploring getting face masks for his children, Scarlett, eight, and Arthur, six, who go to Archbishop Sumner, and Bram, four, who attends nearby Ethelred nursery.

The governors stopped short of providing parents with anti-pollution face covers for their children as they believe this is a decision for them rather than the school. Experts are also sceptical about the benefits of face masks, particularly some cheaper models.

The governors also agreed to support a Carnival for Clean Air in Kennington on the June 12.

Doctors are particularly concerned about the impact of toxic air on children because research has shown that it can stunt their lung growth, as well as being linked to other respiratory and cardiac problems.

Air pollution is significantly blamed on diesel vehicles. Camden council is now considering whether to follow Westminster in introducing a diesel surcharge to park in parking bays.

Meric Apak, Camdens cabinet member for sustainability and environment, said: Road transport is the single biggest contributor to air pollution in Camden, with nearly half of dangerous emissions coming from vehicles on our roads. Of these, the most polluting vehicles are diesels.

Investigating new charging for diesels using our paid-for parking bays is one of a range of measures that we are undertaking, which are aimed at reducing road traffic and moving Camden towards becoming a diesel free borough.

Westminster has launched a trial for diesel car drivers to have to pay an extra 2.45-an-hour to use 1,424 parking bays in Marylebone, and parts of Fitzrovia and the Hyde Park area, from Monday next week.
L ondons nightlife scene was dealt yet another blow as the popular Soho pub Molly Moggs closed its doors for good this week.

The venue is at the heart of the capitals gay scene on Old Compton Street, but its management announced the bar's closure on Thursday.

It is unclear whether the pub, which is renowned for its Sunday drag shows and loud evening events, will reopen as a similar venue.

Its sudden closure comes after a number of other venues that form Londons LGBT scene have been forced to shut up shop in recent years.

In an emotional goodbye post on Facebook, Molly Moggs management team wrote: It comes with a heavy heart that we have to inform you all of this situation.

Unfortunately today we say goodbye to the Molly Moggs that we've all loved for many years.

We can't thank our loyal customers and our new customers enough for sticking with us through the thick and thin and making it such a valuable part of Soho.

It added that the future of the well-loved venue is unclear, and that for now there will be no singing drag queens at Molly Moggs.

Richard Rhodes, a former performer at the popular boozer, expressed his sadness about the closure.

He wrote on social media: Yes, Molly's has closed. No I don't know what's happening with it.

I've been performing at Molly's as Cookie MonStar on and off for the past eight years so of course it's a sad day.

But things needed to change and with change come new beginnings, of which there are plenty that I'm excited about.

Pub regulars also took to social media, shocked and saddened by the news.

One wrote: This was one of my favourite places in London! My heart has been shattered.

Another said: Such a shame. Had many a great night in Molly's over the years. Will miss the best venue in Soho!

The Black Cap in Camden, The Joiners Arms in Hackney and Vauxhalls Barcode are among other LGBT venues to close across London in recent years.

Soho hotspots Shadow Lounge, Manbar, Madame Jojos and The Green Carnation also shut for good.
A council worker sued his employer claiming that he was racially discriminated against because of an overgrown pot plant.

Benyam Kenbata, 34, who worked for Westminster council, alleged he was deliberately being separated in an open-plan office when a colleague placed the plant on her desk.

According to court documents, Mr Kenbata was a capital programme manager in a team including a support officer named as Ms Denby-Mann. In December 2013 she put a plant on her desk, which was opposite him.

He complained to his boss, suggesting it was a form of racial segregation as it restricted the ease with which he could hold discussions with colleagues.

The human resources department denied any racial connotations, saying the problem was the plant had grown too high, documents state.

Mr Kenbata, who describes himself as a black British African, then went to an employment tribunal and made 29 allegations of direct discrimination, racial harassment and victimisation.

After a hearing in 2015, London Central Employment Tribunal was quite satisfied that the positioning of the plant and its growth was not an act of direct discrimination nor harassment directed towards the claimant.

Tribunal: Mr Kenbata made made 29 allegations of direct discrimination, racial harassment and victimisation

It found Mr Kenbata acted in bad faith in making the race discrimination complaint arising from the existence of the overgrown pot plant and ordered him to pay costs of 10,000.

Westminster had already spent more than 50,000 defending the claim. The tribunal did back Mr Kenbata on one count, ruling a discussion in an open-plan office about his complaint amounted to victimisation as it should have been carried out confidentially.

He was permitted to appeal and a judge ordered the tribunal to re-examine his complaints of direct racial discrimination and racial harassment. This hearing will be held at a date to be fixed.

Mr Kenbata said: I genuinely believed I was being unlawfully discriminated against. My complaint centred on the handling of a grievance and [its dismissal]. My claims of discrimination and harassment are yet to be determined at a remitted hearing.

His lawyer Nabila Mallick said: The victimisation took the shape of managers ridiculing his complaint in an open-plan office in front of his colleagues.

Westminster council said it does not comment on individual cases, however the council welcomes and champions diversity and equality.

Mr Kenbata is embroiled in a second case, against his new employer Brent council. He launched legal proceedings against Brent after it upheld claims that he verbally and physically abused a colleague, the Standard understands.

He was suspended before being given a written warning. Mr Kenbata said: Both parties are considering their position in respect of both internal and judicial mediation.

A spokesman for Brent council declined to comment about the case.
K EEP your eyes open for a new self-starter sharing a desk at the next Second Home. Rohan Silvas members club and office space in Shoreditch is opening a new site, this time in Holland Park. And it would be the ideal second home for Samantha Camerons new fashion brand Cefinn.

Silva is a former special adviser to David Cameron and columnist for the Standard. Since her husband stepped down as PM, Sam has been busy launching her womenswear range. Shes on the hunt for a new office and, as a Notting Hill local, would find Second Home a convenient base.

David Cameron has stayed in contact with his former adviser  he met him at Shoreditch Second Home. He knew all about our Holland Park space, says Silva. Wed obviously love to have him in there  it would be so much cooler than his St Jamess office. I think theres a good chance  and Sam is also looking for an office, so perhaps well have the whole family.

The Second Home website promises stunning private studios as well as tranquil flexible workspace... a poetry bookshop, cafe, a cultural venue, and ultra-fast broadband. Not to mention the free printing, luxury showers and free coffee. Its also the perfect place from which to run a fashion empire: the offices are a stones throw from the chi-chi boutiques of Westbourne Grove and Victoria Beckham and Stella McCartneys houses. Is this the beginning of a new W11 fashpack?

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Bee Shaffer, the daughter of Vogue editor Anna Wintour, is bringing a touch of London to New York City. The NY Posts Page Six reports that Shaffer will take a producer position at the Ambassadors Theatre Group, which is keen to expand its New York presence. She has the heritage: her grandfather Charles, a former editor of the Standard, conceived this papers theatre awards, which Anna will be co-hosting this year. A new theatre dynasty in the making?

Gove finally coughs up the bubbles

(Photo by Stefan Rousseau - WPA Pool/Getty Images) / Getty Images

Seventeen years ago young Times columnist Michael Gove predicted the sacking of then Labour Leader of the House, Ann Taylor. Ian McKenzie, her special adviser, understandably took umbrage with his forecast. He called Gove and the two agreed on a bet: champagne for whoevers prediction turned out to be correct. Taylor remained in post but Gove never handed over the champers, trying to appease him with lunch on the Times dime.

Last night Gove attended a Labour History Group event in Parliament, alongside Taylor and McKenzie. The room erupted with applause when Gove entered clutching two champagne bottles, which he duly presented to Taylor. Perhaps in 17 years he will pay up the 350 million a week for the NHS he promised voters after Brexit?

Quote of the day

(Photo by Sean Gallup/Getty Images) / Getty Images

If he goes on like that I am going to promote the independence of Ohio and Austin, Texas in the US

EU Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker on Donald Trump saying he was happy about Brexit.

Fundraising fun for the theatre crowd

ALL the worlds a stage, and all the men and women merely players. And sometimes they need to let their hair down. Last night Islingtons Almeida Theatre held its annual fundraising gala, where guests included Gemma Arterton and Anne-Marie Duff.

It was a welcome break for Andrew Scott and Jessica Brown Findlay, currently playing Hamlet and Ophelia at the theatre in an acclaimed production directed by Robert Icke. Its run has now been extended to a West End transfer. Whatever happened to brevity being the soul of wit?

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OVER to Apsley House for a party held by Don Cochrane, the owner of the re-launched family brand Vertex watches. So where do you buy one of these exclusive timepieces? You cant, you have to be invited. No doubt Peter Phillips and Nick Ashley were given an invitation. But one partygoer, when introducing the two, told Phillips: This is Laura Ashleys son. Nick rolled his eyes: Yes, Im Laura Ashleys son. To which Peter, the son of Princess Anne, said: I get that a lot.

Kim comes out for Armenia

(Photo by Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty Images)

An unusual alliance between Kim Kardashian, pictured, and Terry George, the Irish film director who made Hotel Rwanda and co-wrote In the Name of the Father, about the Birmingham pub bombings. His new film The Promise, about the Armenian genocide of 1915, comes out next month and Instagrams hottest asset is on board.

The genocide is hotly disputed by the Turks and at the films screening last night in Soho Square, George observed that previous attempts to make a film on the subject by both Clarke Gable and Sylvester Stallone had been stymied when the State Department put pressure on Hollywood film studios.

But George has tapped into the A-list of the Armenian diaspora. Kirk Kerkorian [the late Armenian billionaire] provided all the funding, he said, and we kept the filiming very low-key.George has high hopes for the US. Cher and Kim Kardashian are coming to the screening in LA, he said, and between them they have 80 million followers. Thats something else.

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Putdown of the day: Ann Treneman reviews Paul Masons play at the Young Vic in todays Times. If I could, I would have left, she writes. Ouch.

No one tequila, two tequila for George

EARLIER this week, George Clooney explained that wife Amal had vetoed the names Casa and Migos for their twins  a reference to his tequila brand. His friend, supermodel Cindy Crawford, pictured above, has other ideas. Yesterday, she showed off the personalised babygrows shes made ahead of the big day. Hopefully the twins wont be bottle-fed.
S ir Michael Fallon was today warned against playing fast and loose with Britains defence by cutting the number of Royal Marines.

The Defence Secretary said the balance between the number of sailors and Marines was being kept under review by Navy chiefs, but he stressed no decisions had yet been made on any cuts in the elite fighting force.

We have got 7,000 Royal Marines. The actual balance, the number of sailors and the number of marines, thats a matter for the First Sea Lord to keep under review, he told BBC radio.

However, former Liberal Democrat leader Lord Ashdown, an ex-Marine who served with the Special Boat Service, said: To cut the Royal Marines would be to play fast and loose with the nations defence.

"They have fought in more wars, carried more burdens, and won more victories for our nation than any other regiment or corps.

Sir Michael rebuffed a claim that the Ministry of Defence is facing a 10 billion funding shortfall over the next decade, as costs for several key projects, including planes for new aircraft carriers, could spiral.

He also joined US Defence Secretary James Mattis in insisting more Nato allies must move towards the target of spending two per cent of GDP on defence.

Those who failed to, despite their economies being in a healthy state, would be named and shamed, the Cabinet minister said.

Britain and the US are among five of Natos 28 members who meet the target.

At talks today in London, Sir Michael and Mr Mattis were due to discuss joint equipment projects including the F-35 Lightning joint strike fighter.
E uropean leaders today said trade talks with Britain will only begin this autumn after sufficient progress on a divorce settlement with Brussels.

In a tough response to the Prime Ministers Brexit letter, Donald Tusk, president of the European Council, rejected her request for parallel talks, saying that will not happen.

But he hinted that trade talks might begin before the deal was concluded if Mrs May was deemed to be co-operating. The severance terms will include a payment towards subsidies for French farmers and guaranteed rights for EU citizens living in the UK.

He jibed that there would be no extra punishment for Britain because Brexit in itself is already punitive enough.

He also failed to echo Mrs Mays call for a deep and special relationship, and brusquely pointed out: The United Kingdom is now on the other side of the negotiating table.

Warning: Donald Tusk / EPA

He stressed that the other 27 nations were united and warned Mrs May against trying to strike deals on the side to divide them.

Downing Street said Mr Tusk had shown a constructive approach to the talks. Tory euroscpetics added that they were encouraged he had shown a hint of compromise.

Joseph Muscat, the prime minister of Malta, which currently holds the EU presidency, said: It will be a tough negotiation, but it will not be a war.

In a keynote press conference in Malta, Mr Tusk did not spell out what progress would be regarded as sufficient. Reports suggest a bill of 50 billion will be presented to the UK.

Brexit: Article 50 Triggered - In pictures 1 /26 Brexit: Article 50 Triggered - In pictures Britain's ambassador to the EU Tim Barrow delivers British Prime Minister Theresa May's formal notice of the UK's intention to leave the bloc under Article 50 of the EU's Lisbon Treaty to European Council President Donald Tusk in Brussels AFP/Getty Images Prime Minister Theresa May speaks during Prime Minister's Questions in the House of Common PA Britain's ambassador to the EU Tim Barrow delivers British Prime Minister Theresa May's formal notice of the UK's intention to leave the bloc under Article 50 of the EU's Lisbon Treaty to European Council President Donald Tusk in Brussels AFP/Getty Images European Council President Donald Tusk holds a news conference after receiving British Prime Minister Theresa May's Brexit letter in notice of the UK's intention to leave the bloc under Article 50 of the EU's Lisbon Treaty to EU Council President Donald Tusk in Brussels, Belgium Yves Herman/Reuters Prime Minister Theresa May takes her seat after announcing in the House of Commons PA The time 12:20pm shows on Big Ben on March 29, 2017 in London, England. The British Prime Minister Theresa May addresses the Houses of Parliament as Article 50 is triggered and the process that will take the United Kingdom out of the European Union begins Carl Court/Getty Images D-day: pro-EU protesters outside of the Houses of Parliament today as Theresa May prepares to trigger Article 50 AFP/Getty Images EU Council President Donald Tusk holds British Prime Minister Theresa May's Brexit letter which was delivered by Britain's permanent representative to the European Union Tim Barrow (not pictured) that gives notice of the UK's intention to leave the bloc under Article 50 of the EU's Lisbon Treaty in Brussels, Belgium Yves Herman/Reuters PMQ's in The House of Commons PA Jeremy Corbyn speaking at PMQ's in The House of Commons Sky News Theresa May leaving for the House of Commons Jeremy Selwyn Mayor of London Sadiq Khan at the headquarters of Vivendi in Paris where he took part in TV interviews to discuss the imminent triggering of Article 50 by the UK to leave the EU Stefan Rousseau/PA Britain's permanent representative to the European Union Tim Barrow arrives at the EU Council headquarters for as meeting before hand delivering British Prime Minister Theresa May's notice of the UK's intention to leave the bloc under Article 50 of the EU's Lisbon Treaty to EU Council President Donald Tusk in Brussels, Belgium Yves Herman/Reuters Britain's ambassador to the EU Tim Barrow arrives at the British representation of the European Union in Brussels Aurore Belot/AFP/Getty Images A giant headed Theresa May in Parliament Square, London during a protest by Avaaz after PM signed a letter to trigger Article 50 that starts the formal exit process by the UK from the European Union David Mirzoeff/PA British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson walks down Whitehall Jack Taylor/Getty Images Britain's PM Theresa May signs the official letter to European Council President Donald Tusk, invoking Article 50. AFP/Getty Images

Starting parallel talks on both issues at the same time, as suggested by some in the UK, will not happen, he said. It must be clear that the EU, as 27, decides if sufficient progress has been achieved, probably in the autumn, at least I hope so.

Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson responded: I think we really are moving forward now. There is a lot of goodwill, a lot of willingness to achieve what the Prime Minister says she wants to achieve, which is an orderly transition then a deep and special partnership between a strong EU and strong UK.

Mr Tusk played down the storm over Mrs Mays bid to link trade and security agreements, saying he thought there had been a misunderstanding.

He added that security co-operation was in our common interest. Mr Muscat said the British Government had called EU leaders to explain that there was no threat to weaken cooperation.

Major demands from Brussels were for a cash payment and guarantees for companies and citizens.

We will need to make sure the UK honours all financial commitments and liabilities, Mr Tusk added. It is only fair towards all those people  communities, scientists, farmers and so on  to whom we, all 28, promised and owed this money.

He pledged flexible and creative solutions to avoid a hard border between Northern Ireland and the Republic. There could be transitional arrangements between Brexit in two years and a concluded trade deal, but these would be limited in time and subject to effective enforcement mechanisms.

UK hospitality chiefs today warned that the sector faces a shortfall of up to 60,000 workers a year if EU immigration is too tightly restricted by Brexit. The British Hospitality Association published a report by KPMG which stressed it would take a decade to fill the gap with people already in the UK.
H SBC customers will now be able to choose from 10 different gender neutral titles, including Myr, Ind, Mx, Sai and Ser, in an effort by the bank to be more transgender-friendly.

The bank has launched the new services for transgender and gender neutral customers to coincide with Transgender Day of Visibility.

The titles will be applied across the customers account including for all bank cards and correspondence.

The process of changing gender on your bank account has also been streamlined and training is to be given to all HSBC branch and contact centre staff to make it easier for trans customers to come out.

HSBC's new titles Mx Ind M Mre Msr Myr Pr Sai Ser Misc

To change their change on bank accounts, HSBC customers will now only need to present either a passport, driving licence or birth certificate that supports the change of gender to update their details in branch.

Stuart Barette, HSBC UK Pride Networks Trans Lead, said: The day that I went into the branch to change my name and my gender I was terrified to be honest.

Stuart Barette had to come out as trans to his bank (HSBC)

Coming out to anyone is difficult, as you don't know people are going to react. Thats why the changes weve been making are so important, so that our trans customers can feel confident that theyre going to have a good experience and be speaking with someone who has been trained to better understand them.

The changes in services were developed with the banks LGBT+ employee network, HSBC Pride, which advises on reflecting the financial needs of queer customers.

Trans visibility day ints with Uniqlo transgender model Munroe Bergdorf and Stonewall

HSBCs Head of Retail UK, Stuart Haire, explained: The changes announced today are part of a broader priority for us to ensure our products and services are relevant for the unique financial needs of all of our customers.

We want everyone to be able to access simple and smart banking solutions that work for them, and we will continue working with our LGBT+ colleagues and customers to ensure were getting it right.
P rince Charles touched down in Italy on the next leg of his post-Brexit charm offensive to be reunited with his wife.

He joined The Duchess of Cornwall in Florence after being greeted at Pisa Airport by British Culture Secretary Karen Bradley.

Charles and Camilla will pose for photos in front of the world famous Ponte Vecchio - the medieval stone closed-spandrel segmental arch bridge over the Arno River.

The royal couple then attended a reception in the famous renaissance city.

Charles and Camilla are in Italy for four days during which time he will receive a Renaissance Man of the Year award.

Prince Charles receives a hug from Valentine Blacker, during a visit to Bucharest, Romania. / Getty Images

Later in next week he and Camilla will meet the Pope in the Vatican.

On arrival in Florence Their Royal Highnesses will be greeted Ms. Illaria Borletti Buitoni, The Italian Undersecretary for Culture. He was also met by Mr Dario Nardella, The Mayor of Florence.

At the British Institute tonight Charles and Camilla viewed collections belonging to the British Institute, observed English education programmes and met Governors and Sponsors.

They unveiled an art installation and plaque at a reception attended by volunteers and supporters.

The Prince of Wales will attend a First World War commemoration during his first full day in Italy while the Duchess will visit a project supporting vulnerable people - based in a former mafia villa.

Charles will travel to north-east Italy where he will mark the centenary of the deployment of British Forces to the Austrian Front in 1917, and pay his respects to those, from all countries, who gave their lives in that conflict

During his time in the Vicenza area the heir to the throne will also tour a Commonwealth War Graves to pay his respects and visit the Italian front.

Meanwhile Camilla will visit Naples for a series of engagements, including a visit to 'La Gloriette', a project to support vulnerable people and help them integrate into their communities, which is based in a villa confiscated from the mafia.

The Duchess will also visit the ancient Roman site of Herculaneum, where she will hear how international expertise is supporting some of the excavations.

Later in Florence the royal couple will attend an event to showcase some of the best "slow food" from the Amatrice region and meet farmers and food producers affected by the earthquake.

Prince Charles nine-day tour also includes trips to Austria.
P resident Donald Trump has ordered a major shift on Syria to focus on fighting Islamic State rather than overthrowing the war-torn countrys embattled leader Bashar al-Assad, it was revealed on Friday.

The move is a departure from the Obama administrations stance on the six-year civil war and is also at odds with the view of most European nations, including Britain, who have urged Assad to step down.

By saying it will refocus to provide more resources to the battle against Islamic extremists, the US aligns more to Russian President Vladimir Putins policy of supporting the Syrian regime in its battle against anti-government rebels.

The policy switch was revealed by Americas United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley.

You pick and choose your battle and when were looking at this, its about changing up priorities and our priority is no longer to sit there and focus on getting Assad out, she said during a press conference in New York.

We cant necessarily focus on Assad the way that the previous administration did. Our priority is to really look at how do we get things done, who do we need to work with to really make a difference for the people in Syria, she added.

US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson struck a similar tone in Turkey yesterday, saying that Assads future will be decided by the Syrian people.

Critics blasted the u-turn and claimed it was playing into the hands of Russia.

Policy shift: Donald Trump / AP

Republican Senator Lindsey Graham called the shift a grave mistake.

To suggest that Assad is an acceptable leader for the Syrian people is to ignore the wholesale slaughter of the Syrian people by the Assad regime. Leaving him in power is also a great reward for Russia and Iran, he added. Assad is not and cannot be the future of his country.

Mr Trump controversially claimed during the election campaign that Assads government in Syria, Russia and Iran were leading the fight against IS. Moscow has openly backed Assad since the civil war broke out in 2011.

Mr Trump angered his own Republican Party supporters during the campaign when he spoke approvingly of Assad and Russia.

I dont like Assad at all, but Assad is killing Isis. Russia is killing Isis and Iran is killing Isis, he said in October.

Mr Trumps apparent acceptance was warmly met by Assad, who called him a natural ally in an interview with a Portuguese TV station.

Lets say if he is going to fight the terrorists, of course we are going to be ally, natural ally in that regard with the Russian, with the Iranian, with many other countries who wanted to defeat the terrorists, Assad said.

The Obama administration consistently demanded Assads removal in the wake of the uprising that led to the bloody war, which has killed an estimated 450,000 Syrians and seen five million more flee the country.

The resilient Syrian regime is said to be responsible for 92 per cent of civilian casualties, according to a November report from the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Americas new focus in Syria emerged as it was revealed that Mr Trumps former national security adviser Michael Flynn was reportedly willing to testify about alleged ties with Russia in exchange for immunity from prosecution.

Mr Flynn resigned after just 24 days when it became public that he had discussed Obama-era sanctions with the Russian ambassador before Mr Trump was inaugurated.

Now the Wall Street Journal claims Mr Flynn has contacted both the FBI and the House and Senate Intelligence Committees with his offer to testify about the Trump teams alleged ties to Moscow.

General Flynn certainly has a story to tell, and he very much wants to tell it, should the circumstances permit, said Mr Flynns lawyer Robert Kelner.

The FBI is currently investigating whether anyone in Mr Trumps election campaign colluded with the Russians in order to interfere with last years presidential race.


P amela Anderson has spoken of her love for rumoured partner Julian Assange, calling him the strongest person she knows.

The former Baywatch star, who has been pictured visiting Londons Ecuadorian Embassy on a number of occasions, gushed about the WikiLeaks founder in a new blog post.

My relationship with Julian - it's no secret. He is one of my favourite people and he might be the most famous, most politicised refugee of our time, the actress wrote.

Anderson said that she was concerned about the man that she has previously described as a dear friend.

Good friends? Pamela Anderson is 'concerned' about Julian Assange / PA

Famous for being persecuted is not a position of power but a position of vulnerability. I am concerned, she said.

Anderson went on to describe Assange as an extremely empathetic human being, who cares deeply about the world.

Julian Assange lawyers to appeal to Donald Trump to end US probe

And because of his work he has made some powerful enemies in a few countries, America especially, by exposing them, she added.

Julian is trying to free the world by educating it. It is a romantic struggle. I love him for this.

In the lengthy blog post, Anderson also touches on her new book, which is about sensuality  a sexy kindness.

Assange has been living in the embassy in Knightsbridge since 2012, over fears that he will be extradited to the US as part of an investigation into Wikileaks.

He is also wanted for questioning in Sweden over sexual assault allegations, which he denies .


T he widower of Peaches Geldof has told how looking after their sons helped him following her death.

The model died from a heroin overdose at home aged 25 in 2014, leaving behind her musician husband Thomas Cohen and the couples two young children, Astala and Phaedra.

Cohen told German newspaper Bild: When I found her, I was not surprised. I thought, Yes of course  you had to do that. It must have been an hour after that [that it was] time for the kids lunch.

So I took the childrens chairs to the table, took the yoghurts out of the fridge, the bananas ... the routine I had to keep up with the children helped me a lot.

Young family: Peaches Geldof with Thomas Cohen and their two children (Picture: Getty)

They have lived longer than they knew their mother. They were just one and two. Now they are four and five.

Cohen, 26, is now in a relationship with American actress Zoe Sidel, daughter of Rosanna Arquette.

He said of his children: I want them to be happy, I dont care what they end up doing. They are miraculously having happy childhoods, which hopefully leads to happy, fruitful lives.
The former X Factor judge, 41, reportedly feels it was unfair of Beckham, 42, to use the groups music to promote herself after refusing to take part in a reunion to mark their 20th anniversary, according to The Sun.

Mel is livid Victoria is all of a sudden embracing her Spice Girls past after years of trying to distance herself from the band, a source told the publication.

She was desperate for the girls to go on a very lucrative reunion tour to celebrate their music with millions of fans.

But once Posh pulled out, the idea began to crumble leaving the members of the band keen to perform having no choice but to ditch it.

Mel feels its unfair Victoria is now using their music to boost her own profile.

Beckham opened up on a reunion last year, saying she sends her best wishes to new group Geri Horner, Emma Bunton and Mel B.

James Corden's Mannequin Carpool Karaoke with Victoria Beckham 1 /26 James Corden's Mannequin Carpool Karaoke with Victoria Beckham This is the official trailer for the remake of 1987's 'Mannequin,' starring Victoria Beckham and James Corden The Late Late Show This is the official trailer for the remake of 1987's 'Mannequin,' starring Victoria Beckham and James Corden The Late Late Show This is the official trailer for the remake of 1987's 'Mannequin,' starring Victoria Beckham and James Corden The Late Late Show This is the official trailer for the remake of 1987's 'Mannequin,' starring Victoria Beckham and James Corden The Late Late Show This is the official trailer for the remake of 1987's 'Mannequin,' starring Victoria Beckham and James Corden The Late Late Show This is the official trailer for the remake of 1987's 'Mannequin,' starring Victoria Beckham and James Corden The Late Late Show This is the official trailer for the remake of 1987's 'Mannequin,' starring Victoria Beckham and James Corden The Late Late Show This is the official trailer for the remake of 1987's 'Mannequin,' starring Victoria Beckham and James Corden The Late Late Show This is the official trailer for the remake of 1987's 'Mannequin,' starring Victoria Beckham and James Corden The Late Late Show This is the official trailer for the remake of 1987's 'Mannequin,' starring Victoria Beckham and James Corden The Late Late Show This is the official trailer for the remake of 1987's 'Mannequin,' starring Victoria Beckham and James Corden The Late Late Show This is the official trailer for the remake of 1987's 'Mannequin,' starring Victoria Beckham and James Corden The Late Late Show This is the official trailer for the remake of 1987's 'Mannequin,' starring Victoria Beckham and James Corden The Late Late Show This is the official trailer for the remake of 1987's 'Mannequin,' starring Victoria Beckham and James Corden The Late Late Show This is the official trailer for the remake of 1987's 'Mannequin,' starring Victoria Beckham and James Corden The Late Late Show This is the official trailer for the remake of 1987's 'Mannequin,' starring Victoria Beckham and James Corden The Late Late Show This is the official trailer for the remake of 1987's 'Mannequin,' starring Victoria Beckham and James Corden The Late Late Show This is the official trailer for the remake of 1987's 'Mannequin,' starring Victoria Beckham and James Corden The Late Late Show This is the official trailer for the remake of 1987's 'Mannequin,' starring Victoria Beckham and James Corden The Late Late Show This is the official trailer for the remake of 1987's 'Mannequin,' starring Victoria Beckham and James Corden The Late Late Show

She told The Sunday Times: I do think they should sing their own material though, because what we did in the Spice Girls was so special. If they sang Spice Girls songs I think I might be a bit sad.

Beckham embraced her inner Posh Spice as she dusted off her vocal chords for The Late Late Shows Carpool Karaoke with James Corden, which saw them belt out Spice Up Your Life as they drove around Los Angeles.

The duo recreated a trailer for 80s film, Mannequin, which starred Kim Cattrall.

Beckham took on Cattralls role  a mannequin that comes to life  while Corden played Andrew McCarthy's character  the only person who can see her for who she truly is.

Corden received some questionable looks when he was spotted laughing with a mannequin and running through a parking lot with it tucked under his arm.

Introducing the skit on Thursday nights show, Corden said: Victoria and I have the oddest thing in common. We are both huge fans of the 80s movie Mannequin.

Victoria Beckham teases Carpool Karaoke appearance

Standard Online has contacted a representative for Mel B for comment.


F riday night seems like an odd time for Decline and Fall to be airing.

The new BBC comedy-drama boasts a period setting, a warm tone and an impressive cast that surely would nab it a Sunday evening slot  if Line of Duty wasnt already there to give us all heart palpitations with its fourth series.

But make sure you dont miss out on this three-parter  heres what you need to know.

1) Its based on an Evelyn Waugh novel

Decline and Fall is based on the novel of the same name by Evelyn Waugh  a 1928 satirical comedy about the life of Paul Pennyfeather.

The character is initially an Oxford student who gets expelled from his college after getting up to antics in the Bollinger Club, and experiences more misfortunes as the plot continues.

2) Its been adapted by the writer of Rev

The book has never been put on TV before  and taking on the first attempt is writer James Wood, known for his hit BBC comedy Rev.

It's a scary thing to do because its such a loved book, he says. Lots of people think it's the greatest comic novel in English fiction. So that's the challenge - living up to expectations.

Decline and Fall: Trailer - BBC One

3) There are some major actors involved

As with plenty of BBC dramas these days, theres a fantastic cast lined up here  in the lead role as Paul Pennyfeather is Jack Whitehall, while Desperate Housewives Eva Longoria plays his later-fiancee Margot Beste-Chetwynde.

David Suchet, aka Hercule Poirot, plays lunatic scholar Dr Fagan, while The Night Managers Douglas Hodge plays Captain Grimes.

Also popping up are Stephen Graham and Gemma Whelan (Yara Greyjoy from Game of Thrones).

BBC/Tiger Aspect

4) The three episodes are quite distinct

The novel follows three phases of Pennyfeathers life, and theyre channelled into three episodes of this adaptation.

The first episode is set in a horrendous minor Welsh public school, populated with lunatics and monsters, explains Wood.

The second episode is set in Margot's high society world and Kristian the production designer has built an amazing modernist home that Margot lives in. That world is all parties and decadence and has something of a Noel Coward feel. And the third episode largely takes place in a prison.

Paul Pennyfeather is the thread that pulls us through those worlds.

BBC/Tiger Aspect

5) Its relevant again  thanks to Brexit

A novel from 1928 might not immediately seem relevant, but director Guillem Morales saw a link to todays society  especially in the political upheavals of Brexit.

I found that it's a young man who goes through a society which is elitist, classist, xenophobic, racist, corrupt, amoral and I thought, well, maybe society hasn't changed so much since then, so maybe it's not so dated. Decline and Fall is about a generation ruining the next one, he says.

BBC/Tiger Aspect

Then the Referendum happened and the majority of young people voted to stay and the majority of old people voted to leave, and then I realised that it was disturbingly familiar.

6) It was filmed in Wales

A fair chunk of the drama is set in Wales, and thats where the TV adaptation was filmed. The series was partly shot at Pinewood Studios outside Cardiff, while some scenes were shot on location in the city itself.

BBC One, 9pm
A new program is about to begin at the Gering Public Library that promises to be fun and educational for children aged two to five.

LEAP (Learn, Explore, Achieve, Play) is an early literacy, math and school readiness program developed by Christie Clarke, youth services librarian at Gering Public Library. Clarke got the idea for the program after conducting surveys, asking patrons about their wants and needs. The results were clear: They wanted more programs focused on families and young children. The survey results helped her in making goals for the program.

As a librarian doing programming, its so difficult to predict what youre going to get and what people like and want, she said.

Clarke knew many families couldnt attend storytime during the day. LEAP fills that gap.

All of our programs are during the day, which rules out a lot of families, she said.

LEAP aims to cover the entire realm of early childhood, including the use of fine motor skills, social and emotional skills.

It will use exploratory, open-ended types of activities where they can use all of their hands and senses, she said.

Each program will begin with a mini storytime related to a theme. Then, children will be able to choose which station they would like to go to participate in one of several activities, where parents can assist or observe their child.

There might be an activity on a table the child might have difficulty with, but a parent can sit and work with them, Clarke said. Observation is also a form of involvement and we encourage parents to listen to their children during the activity.

Stations include learning these basic skills through sand, clay, paint and puppets.

We might have an activity using sand where they use their fine motor skills to write a number or letter, she said.

The program meets all children, including English language learners, at their level.

Two year olds are more exploratory instead of directed, but I will do directed activities, too, Clarke said. With the older ones, we could have colored sand where they can draw their name or letters.

Clarke has high hopes for the pilot program, which runs for eight weeks.

If it goes well, Id like to start again next year and go through the whole school year, she said.

In order for the program to be successful, parents and children will need to attend every week. LEAP is designed to incorporate participation from parents. If parents cannot attend consistently, Clarke has requested parents notify her in case there is a waiting list of people who would like to participate.

As part of the grant, Clarke will be collecting data, such as what parents expect at the beginning of the program as well as end surveys of what they thought.

Ill also be observing data skills on the children and their progress, she said. Eight weeks is not long to see much change, but I can find out if its worthwhile and see what to do for next year.

If the program is successful, Clarke said she would likely have to seek out more funding and sponsors to continue.

LEAP was funded by a Youth Grant for Excellence through the Nebraska Library Commission and the Friends of the Gering Library.

The friends have stepped in and been very supportive, Clarke said. Without them, we would not have this program.

The pilot program runs every Tuesday from April 4 to May 23 from 6-7 p.m. For more information, contact the Gering Public Library at 308-436-7433 or cclarke@geringlibrary.org.
With Arbor Day fast approaching, Gering is busy preparing a fitting tribute to the man who played an essential role in the development of the citys park system.

On Friday, April 28 at 1 p.m., the arboretum at Northfield Park will officially become the Northfield Park Charlie Fenster Arboretum.

Fenster, a Gering resident, spent most of his career with the University of Nebraska Research and Extension Center in Scottsbluff. He was an internationally recognized expert on dryland farming.

Fenster always said the primary method to avoid soil erosion in windy Nebraska was to plant vegetation cover, especially trees. He spent the rest of his life urging the planting of trees in urban environments.

Fenster was the longest serving member of the Gering Park, Cemetery and Tree Board, starting in the mid-1970s until his death in 2016 at the age of 96.

It was through Fensters leadership that Northfield Park, established in 1967, became the 35th affiliated member of the Nebraska Statewide Arboretum in 1986.

Last fall, Don Gentry, who is currently the second longest serving member of the Park Board, said that Fenster believed trees were an asset to the community. With an arboretum, the city can plant different species to determine which ones will or wont grow well in Gerings high PH alkaline soil.

Our soil is a lot heavier than across the river, said Gering Parks Director Ron Ernst. Its more like the Brule clay limestone that makes up the monument. Gering and Scottsbluff are two entirely different conditions for growing trees.

There are currently more than 90 species of trees in the arboretum and new ones are planted in both spring and fall as experiments to see how well they adapt. Park Board members also conduct a semi-annual evaluation and so far, the tree stock is healthy.

All the trees in Northfield Arboretum are labeled so people can see which ones they like, Ernst said. We hope the public will then plant some of those species in their yards.

Charlie Fenster was a big advocate of planting a wide variety of tree species for their overall health in an urban environment. His leadership had an influence on so many others.

Charlie was on the Park Board when I was hired about 40 years ago, Ernst said. He was one of the people who interviewed me and he was so full of knowledge and just a great guy.

Fensters children plan to join city officials in Northfield Park at 1 p.m. on Friday, April 28 for the official dedication and sign unveiling of the Charlie Fenster Arboretum  and the public is invited.

After the ceremony, an annual tradition will continue, one that Fenster took part in over the years. Fourth graders from neighboring Northfield Elementary School will join parks personnel to plant trees, continuing the legacy that Fenster left for the community.
Wearable technology is gaining more awareness in western Nebraska.

A three-day training session at the Panhandle Research and Extension Center was held March 27-29 with a lot of area extension educators in attendance. Around a dozen extension educators were being shown how to implement wearable technology into after-school programs or other 4-H programming.

Melissa Mracek, 4-H Extension Assistant for Sheridan County, described the program as cool and innovative.

We do robotics, which is very basic coding, but this would step that up a little more, Mracek said.

Mracek said the students who do the projects will see science concepts in the real world and it is also a way to develop problem solving skills.

Ann OConnor, instructional designer with Nebraska 4-H, said wearable technology is cutting edge and there arent very many states that are doing something with wearable technology.

Were the first ones that I know of who are trying the school-bridging model where we are working with after-school partnerships and the schools, OConnor said.

OConnor said the program called WearTec could extend the education day through giving students experience learning about wearable technology.

WearTec is a wearable technologies project that is being funded by the National Science Foundation for three years.

Our goal is to get students in grades 4-6 interested in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math), OConnor said. Particularly in underrepresented populations  so girls, minority populations.

OConnor said there hasnt been a lot of research with wearable technology but it is something that interests girls. She thinks that is because it uses textiles and fabrics.

With other STEM activities like robotics, participation by girls is almost 36 percent, according to OConnor. The amount of girls in WearTec programs is almost the opposite of what the robotics statistic is.

So far, there have been 429 students participate in the program during the second academic year. The first academic year there were 412 students.

There are 17 schools participating in the program this year. There were 15 schools involved in the program last year.

Scottsbluff has two schools participating in WearTec through after-school programs and Hay Springs is also involved in the program.

OConnor said they could teach anybody in the state of Nebraska about WearTec. The idea for the three-day training was to give extension educators ways that they could implement it into their after-school program next year or give them something to think about doing for summer camps.

Brad Barker, principal investigator with the state 4-H office, wrote the grant and established funding to get the program going. OConnor was hired to write the curriculum for the program and there was a graduate assistant to help write it.

There is an engineering journal that goes along with the curriculum. OConnor said they spent two years writing the curriculum and getting everything set up.

Its just about ready and eventually, we will be able to sell that curriculum, OConnor said.

The goal of the project the 4-H educators were doing in the training was to show the engineering design process. They were also learning about computer programming, circuitry and how they could teach the program.

One of the design challenges is to design something that tells me what I want to wear, which has to use a temperature sensor that detects the environment around them, OConnor said.

She said they were using LED lights, a temperature sensor, and they could also use a buzzer to play music if they wanted it to.

The goal was to create designs which could be used to solve certain problems. Cynthia Gill, extension educator in Cheyenne County, was making an educational display to illustrate the solar eclipse.

Its two-fold. It promotes the WearTec and workshops I hope to be doing in Sidney and Kimball, Gill said. At the same time, I hope to use it to educate what will happen during the solar eclipse and it will be a conversation starter about that as well.

Gill said the program encourages interest in STEM projects, especially with girls. She also said it marries two traditional projects. That would be sewing and circuitry or electricity.

Mracek said they could implement projects in steps. The first year they could introduce some of the electricity information, the next year go into using the lights and coding, then the next year finish with a final project.
The Nebraska State Patrol says a suspect in an Ogallala stabbing has turned himself in.

Amedeus L. Leroux, 15, turned himself in to Colorado authorities in Denver Thursday afternoon.

Leroux, who was wanted on outstanding Nebraska and Colorado warrants, will be charged with second-degree murder in the Tuesday, March 28 stabbing death of John Fratis, 25, of Ogallala.

The Keith County Attorneys Office is beginning the extradition process to have Leroux returned to Nebraska.

After a suspicious death in Ogallala on Tuesday morning, the Nebraska State Patrol Troop D released photos of Leroux. He was identified publicly as a suspect Thursday.

On Wednesday, authorities released that two people have been arrested and charged in the stabbing death of 25-year-old John Fratis.

The Nebraska State Patrol arrested 32-year-old Larry Derrera and 28-year-old Raylynn Garcia. An arrest affidavit says Fratis died after a fight with another man. An investigator says Derrera and Garcia lied or withheld information related to Fratis' death, hindering the investigation.

Both Derrera and Garcia were being held Wednesday without bail in the Keith County Jail. It's not clear whether they yet have attorneys.
First Baptist Church in Scottsbluff will be hosting The Messiah in the Passover on Friday, March 31.

The presentation will be held at 7 p.m. at the church located at 3009 Ave. I in Scottsbluff.

The Messiah in the Passover presentation is a powerful visual message not only of Israels freedom from slavery in Egypt, but of the redemption of individuals from the bondage of sin through the atoning work of Jesus. The program is designed to give participants a deeper understanding both of Passover and of the Communion Table.

The presenter will be Robynne B. from Tel Aviv, Israel, who is associated with Chosen People Ministries.

The public is cordially invited to attend. There is no cost to attend but a free-will offering will be taken during the program.

For questions, call the church at 308-635-2548, visit firstbaptistscottsbluff.com or follow the church on Facebook at First Baptist Church of Scottsbluff.
USDA Rural Development of Wyoming recently published its Top Ten List of Guaranteed Rural Housing (GRH) Lenders list for 2016. Pinnacle Bank announces it was the third largest Wyoming rural development lender, lending more than $11 million dollars with the loan program.

The GRH loan program is a program designed to help low to moderate income households secure funding for a home. This program has no down payment requirement for eligible-income. Eligible homes are located in rural communities with 35,000 or fewer residents.

The partnership we have with USDA affords us the ability to help more Wyoming residents buy their home, said Doug Weedin, CEO and President of Pinnacle Bank  Wyoming. This is important, as homeownership helps us build stronger, more vibrant communities.

For households interested in applying for a GRH loan, contact a local Pinnacle Bank branch or visit wypinnbank.com.
The Star Herald from Tuesday, March 21 had one of those political cartoons on the opinion page (4A) that are sometimes amusing. This one wasnt really very funny. It was titled The NEA for Dummies. Its the kind of thing that I would expect from media nasties like Limbaugh or Breitbart, not from my local newspaper. Did you actually pay for that cartoon?

I could have probably just ignored the cartoon but right across on the next page (5A) was an article about a local arts advocacy effort. What a great way to support the advocacy event. There are a lot of us that make our living in the arts and we pay our taxes just like farmers who were the subject of the editorial, A Day Without Agriculture, on the same page. Ag producers are facing funding cuts that will impact their businesses too.

Oh and by the way, Mr. Staman, your editorial has some comments that are not quite factual. Maybe farmers didnt turn out by the hundreds to protest this new president and his administration but in 1978, thousands of farmers showed up in DC to protest ag policy and they brought their tractors with them. They stayed for weeks. Then they did it again a year later. Good for them!

I guess its just your opinion that those who disagree with you are not entitled to speak out but maybe you should do a little research next time. Protesting is an American tradition. Meanwhile, artists like Willie Nelson, Dave Matthews, John Mellencamp and many others have been showing their support for farm families for decades. Remember Farm Aid concerts? Well, theyre still going on.

The arts are part of this American landscape and theyre pretty darned important to our rural lifestyle. Local arts organizations like Theatre West, Midwest Theater and West Nebraska Arts Center depend on funding and grants to put arts into our schools and provide experiences that many kids would otherwise not have access to. Just ask the teachers what they think of funding for the arts. Oh wait, funding for education is on the chopping block too.

It looks like well need to stick together folks, but then thats how we do things in western Nebraska.

Cmon, Star Herald, I think you can do better.

Becky Hughes McMillen

Scottsbluff
This page is archived. Data published after 5 April 2022 can be found on the renewed website. Go to the new statistics page

Published: 31 March 2017

General government deficit 1.9 per cent and debt 63.6 per cent relative to GDP in 2016

According to the preliminary data reported by Statistics Finland to Eurostat, general government deficit was 1.9 per cent relative to gross domestic product in 2016. Thus, the deficit was below the reference values of the European Unions Stability and Growth Pact, which is three per cent relative to gross domestic product. General government EDP debt, or consolidated gross debt, was 63.6 per cent at the end of 2016 relative to gross domestic product, that is, over the reference value of 60 per cent.

General government EDP deficit (-), ratio to GDP

In 2016, general government deficit, or net borrowing according to national accounts, was EUR 4.1 billion. Compared to 2015, the financial position of general government improved by EUR 1.6 billion. From the year before, central government deficit decreased by EUR 471 million and amounted to EUR 5.9 billion. Local government deficit was EUR 1.0 billion in 2016 and the deficit decreased by EUR 246 million from the year before. Social security funds are divided into employment pension schemes and other social security funds. Employment pension schemes were EUR 2.3 billion in surplus but their surplus declined similarly to previous years, now by EUR 397 million. Other social security funds showed a surplus after two years in deficit. Their financial position improved by EUR 1,310 million and the surplus for 2016 was EUR 491 million. The improved financial position of other social security funds was caused by a considerable increase in collected unemployment insurance contributions.

General government EDP debt, ratio to GDP

Consolidated general government gross debt (EDP debt) amounted to EUR 136.1 billion at the end of 2016. The debt grew by EUR 2.7 billion in 2016. Central government accounted for EUR 2.4 billion of the growth in debt, and local government for EUR 0.8 billion. The debt of social security funds decreased by EUR 0.8 billion, which was mainly caused by a decrease in received cash collateral related to employment pension schemes derivative contracts and securities lending. In addition, the decrease in consolidation within general government increased the debt by EUR 0.3 billion. The EDP debt describes general governments debt to the other sectors of the economy and to the rest of the world, and its development is influenced by changes in both the unconsolidated gross debt and the internal general government debt.

Preliminary data on general government deficit and debt in 2016 were released for the first time on 16 March 2017 in the National Accounts and statistics on general government debt by quarter. The now published data are the same so no revisions occurred in the data.

Eurostat will verify the deficit and debt figures reported by the Member States over the following weeks. In this process, changes may be made to the figures reported by Statistics Finland. In that case, the updated figures will be released on the pages of these statistics on the same day that Eurostat publishes the data (preliminarily on 24 April).

About the content and concepts of the statistics

General government surplus/deficit refers to net lending/borrowing according to the sector accounts of national accounts, which is the difference between the total revenue and expenditure. For instance, in the case of local government, the concept differs from the surplus/deficit of the accounting period according to the profit and loss accounts of municipalities and joint municipal authorities included in the sector. The key difference concerns investments, which are recorded in national accounts as expenditure as such.

In general government accounts, the European Financial Stability Facility EFSF is, based on Eurostat's decision, handled so that the EFSF's borrowing is recorded as part of the gross government debt of the countries that have provided guarantees. The loan received by the beneficiary country from the EFSF is recorded as if it had been received from the countries in the euro area that have provided guarantees and these countries in turn owe the corresponding amount to the EFSF. As a result, the EDP gross debt of the countries that provided guarantees grows but the net debt remains unchanged because the countries have a similar receivable from the beneficiary country. The gross government debt to be recorded for each country on the loans granted by the EFSF is calculated by dividing the loan granted to the beneficiary country by the contribution key (based on the share in the ECB's capital of each country participating in the support operations).

At the end of 2016, Finland's general government debt includes EUR 3,401 million of debt granted by the EFSF to beneficiary countries. At the end of 2015, the amount was the same. Corresponding treatment does not apply to the European Stability Mechanism (ESM).

Central government's EDP debt differs as a concept from the central government debt published by the State Treasury. Central government's EDP debt includes loans granted to beneficiary counties by the European Financial Stability Facility EFSF, received cash collateral related to derivative contracts, the capital of the Nuclear Waste Management Fund, debts generated from investments in central government's PPP (public-private partnership) projects, and coins that are in circulation. In national accounts, central government is also a broader concept than the budget and financial economy, in addition to which it includes, for example, universities, Solidium, the Finnish Broadcasting Company and Senate Properties. When these differences are taken into consideration we reach the central government non-consolidated gross debt in accordance with the EDP concept (Appendix table 2), i.e. in 2016, the State Treasury's central government debt of the budget and financial economy EUR 102.4 billion + conceptual differences of the debt EUR 9.8 billion + differences caused by the sector delimitation EUR 3.6 billion = central government gross debt EUR 115.8 billion. The valuation principle for both debt concepts is the nominal value, where the effect of interest-rate contracts and currency swaps is taken into account.

A list of units belonging to general government (only in Finnish) can be found at http://www.stat.fi/meta/luokitukset/_linkki/julkisyhteisot.html. Decisions on major sector classification cases (only in Finnish) are available at http://www.stat.fi/meta/luokitukset/_linkki/soveltamisp.html.

Source: General government deficit and debt. Statistics Finland

Inquiries: Niina Suutarinen 029 551 2307, Atte Virtanen 029 551 3685, financial.accounts@stat.fi

Director in charge: Ville Vertanen

Publication in pdf-format (237.3 kB)

Updated 31.3.2017

Referencing instructions: Official Statistics of Finland (OSF): General government deficit and debt [e-publication].

ISSN=1799-5914. 2016. Helsinki: Statistics Finland [referred: 8.11.2022].

Access method: http://www.stat.fi/til/jali/2016/jali_2016_2017-03-31_tie_001_en.html
Too many North Carolinians lack confidence in our courts, according to a recently concluded 15-month study initiated by Mark Martin, chief justice of our state Supreme Court. Fifty-three percent of the public believes court outcomes are fair only some of the time or not at all. Sixty-three percent say court cases are handled in a timely manner, but only 42 percent believe our courts are sensitive to the needs of the average person. Court reform is needed in North Carolina.
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When asked about Daniel Constantin's allegations according to which Co-Chairman of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats (ALDE) Calin Popescu-Tariceanu took over abusively the party, the latter stated on Friday at the meeting of the ALDE's locally elected officials, that was held at the Poiana Brasov, that he doesn't want to respond to such questions. "Ask someone else this type of questions, not me," Tariceanu responded.

Calin Popescu-Tariceanu who is attending the meeting of the ALDE Locally Elected Officials League at the Poiana Brasov, mentioned that the meeting's agenda features issues that mayors, vice-mayors, presidents of the County Councils deal with and aspects regarding the enforcement of the governing programme. "We meet with mayors, vice-mayors, presidents of the County Councils and vice-presidents, all the locally elected officials of the ALDE. We stay and discuss. Such meetings where we discuss problems, concerns of public interest which are part of the working agenda of my colleagues and of ours in general are ordinary. All these things and the agenda that we are discussing today divert from the governing programme," Tariceanu stated.

According to President of the ALDE Locally Elected Officials League and Vice President of the Bistrita-Nasaud County Council Ioan Tintean, out of the 2,700 locally elected officials, 17 are vice-presidents of the County Councils, 66 are mayors and the rest are vice-presidents of municipalities and cities and local counselors. "The meeting has three parts. In the first part there will be a meeting between the ministers who represent the Grindeanu-ALDE Government, namely Ministers Gratiela Gavrilescu and Viorel Stefan, where projects that are to be developed by City Halls within the administrative-territorial units will be discussed. The second issue that will be discussed refers to specific problems of the locally elected person according to the Law No.215/2001 with subsequent amendments, and the third problem is related to the Statute of locally elected persons. Within these amendments, propositions will be made regarding the position of the president of the Local Committee for Emergency Situations because in the current situation in which the locally elected persons are also mayors and presidents of the Local Committees for Emergency Situations, the attributions they have to implement in case such special situations occur are not clearly stipulated," Ioan Tintean stated.

Co-Chairman of the ALDE Daniel Constantin accused on Thursday his colleague Catalin Popescu-Tariceanu that "the political abuse is somehow part of his DNA" and denounced irregularities in the party that were led by the latter after the elections on 11 December. "The abuses continue there [in the party -e.n.] - people are changed, door locks are changed, things are seized. These are minor things that are related to a certain behavior and, unfortunately, everything started from Co-Chairman Tariceanu and it looks as if this attitude went to a part of my colleagues in the territory, which I certainly regret. It's not about me. There are colleagues in the territory, even in the organizations in Bucharest who are not allowed to enter the headquarters. Unfortunately, what is happening in the ALDE, especially coming form a man who wants to be a Liberal and poses as a Liberal in the public space, it's an abuse and a hostile takeover," Constantin stated on Thursday at the Digi 24 private television station.

Agerpres
Prince Charles on Friday afternoon ended a three-day official visit to Romania, where he met governmental officials, leaders of cultural oganistaions and NGOs. On the first day of his visit, the royal laid a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Warrior at Carol Park in Bucharest City and was awarded the Star of Romania in the rank of Grand Cross decoration by President Klaus Iohannis as a token of high esteem for the Prince's activity in Romania and for his promotion of Romania's picture abroad.

On Thursday, the Prince of Wales toured the Dimitrie Gusti Village Museum of Bucharest, the Vacaresti Delta Nature Park and the FARA Romania Foundation. Also on Thursday, he was welcomed by Prime Minister Sorin Grindeanu and Patriarch of the Romanian Christian Orthodox Church Daniel. In the evening, he went to Elisabeta Palace and he was celebrated at a reception party hosted by the Athenee Palace Hilton Hotel.

On Friday, the last day of the visit, the royal took a stroll in the capital city's old town, where he visited the Stavropoleos Church, after which he watched a show at the National Theatre. Prince Charles ended his visit with a call on the Cass Sperantei Hospice, which celebrated its 25th anniversary in Romania.

Agerpres
Prince Charles paid a brief visit to the Capital's Old Centre on Friday, among the landmarks visited by His Royal Highness being Manuc's Inn, one of the oldest in Europe, and Stavropoleos Church. His Royal Highness' itinerary began at Manuc's Inn, where he stayed for a few minutes. In fact, Prince Charles wanted to find out, from his guide, architectural historian Valentin Mandache, details about the manner in which the historic landmark was preserved in time.

On his stroll, Prince Charles admired the Old Court Voivodal Palace and Vlad the Impaler's bust. After having left Manuc's Inn, Prince Charles continued the walk on French Street and then on Post Street. On his way, he asked details especially on the architectural monuments that were in a state of decay, and discussed with the initiators of the "Monument Ambulance" project.

The Prince of Wales continued his walk to Stavropoleos Church, where he was greeted by priest Iustin Marchis. "Welcome back, after 20 years. We have changed our appearance a bit. We were under restoration, now we are in preservation, and we are more alive, there is more life," priest Marchis said. In Savropoleos Church, His Royal Highness witnessed a short religious music performance and visited a photo exhibition organised by "Pro Patrimonio" Foundation, and received from priest Iustin Marchis a book on Oltenia. Moreover, the Prince of Wales admired the old art collection of the church.

"You will suddenly fall in love with Oltenia," father Marchis told Prince Charles while offering him the book. At the end of the visit, the Prince signed the guest book of Stavropoleos Church. "We try to present what the situation is and the attempts we are making in Oltenia and Moldova," Pro Patrimonio representative Serban Sturdza told Agerpres, referring to the photography exhibition.

The time spent by His Royal Highness in Bucharest's Old Centre hasn't passed unnoticed by Bucharesters. Some awaited for him with curiosity in front of Stavropoleos Church, others took pictures from the windows of their homes. The stroll through the Old Centre of Bucharest was included in the schedule of the last day of the official visit His Royal Highness is paying to Romania.
His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales visited, on Friday, the headquarters of the Hospice Casa Sperantei (Hospice House of Hope) in the Capital, where he talked to the adult patients, but also the children that benefit from the services of the daycare centre, sitting with them at the table where they were decorating Easter eggs.

His Royal Highness was greeted by founder of the organization, Graham Perrols, and the executive director, Mirela Nemteanu. In the discussion with Graham Perrols, Prince Charles showed interest in the social-medical centre that will be opened near the Capital, in Adunatii Copaceni.

Once he reached the unit destined for adults, His Royal Highness shook hands with the staff and wanted to know how many nurses work in that section. Later, he entered two salons, where he discussed with patients, in order to find out more about the conditions they benefit from.

At the third floor of the Hospice Casa Sperantei headquarters, which hosts the paediatrics section, the psychologist and coordinator of the daycare center told His Royal Highness that the beneficiaries have recreative activities scheduled and invited them to join in. The Prince took a chair, next to Maria, a girl who extended her hand towards him. 'If you're Prince Charles, know that I made these for you. [...] They're not what I expected, but they're beautiful, I want to give them to you', said the girl, pointing to five decorated eggs.

HRH offered his thanks, and the girl replied that she knows "only a few words in English" and then rushed to prove it, counting to twelve. She then added the words 'milk' and 'book'. Prince Charles asked her if she also knows to count in Romanian and the girl responded she knows. A boy aged six gave the Prince of Wales an Easter greeting card, for which the Prince of Wales offered his thanks. "By the way, I am eleven", Maria intervened. "Eleven?", HRH asked.

Later, the Prince of Wales participated in a cake cutting ceremony on the occasion of the 25 year anniversary of Hospice Casa Sperantei's activity, thus marking a quarter century since a very small team, assembled on the initiative of an English volunteer, introduced the notion of palliative care to Romania, conducting house visits.

The Prince of Wales cut the first piece of cake, that he offered to one of the girls. HRH also spoke a bit with the mothers of the children from the daycare centre who were sat at a table, decorating Easter eggs. He wished to meet Maria's mother. The Prince conveyed that she liked Maria very much and that she is a very special girl. At the end of his visit, His Royal Highness met with supporters, sponsors and partners of Hospice Casa Sperantei, among them being also former Health Minister, Vlad Voiculescu, as well as film critic Irina Margareta Nistor. The same room hosted an exhibition of images from the social-medical center that will be opened near the Capital, at Adunatii Copaceni, where works are in full force.

Alongside Prince Charles, Ambassador of the UK to Romania Paul Brummell and Mayor of the District 2 Mugur Mihai Toader also visited the Hospice Casa Sperantei (Hospice House of Hope).

'Hospice Casa Sperantei' is a charitable foundation established in 1992 with the purpose of improving the quality of life for persons with incurable diseases and their families. The foundation has as a mission the development of palliative care services, through the formation of some professionals that would be active in Southeast Europe. Moreover, on a national level, the organization draws attention on these subjects through support, promotion, education and fundraising activities.

The first centre with integrated services of palliative care was opened in 2002 in Brasov, and in 2005 the Hospice services extended to Bucharest, through the implementation of mobile teams that would grant home care to the sick. In 2008, such mobile teams were implemented in Fagaras and Zarnesti too. 2014 saw the inauguration of a modern centre for palliative care, and two years later the paediatrics section with integrated care services opened.

Since its establishment in 1992, the organization offered services to more than 20,000 patients. The foundation is an authority in matters palliative care education, with over 11,000 graduates of specialty courses, both in Romania, as well as in neighboring states. The services of the foundation are free and offered unconditionally to patients and their families. The organization has over 200 employees and is also aided by 200 volunteers.

Agerpres
AWARDS

H&L Partners received 10 Adrian Awards from the Hospitality Sales and Marketing Association International and five ADDYs from the St. Louis American Advertising Awards for work with the Missouri Division of Tourism and Explore St. Louis.

Alliance Foods Inc. was named 2016 Broker of the Year by Hormel Foods.

Osborn Barr received the Brand Champion Award from the National 4-H Council.

EXPANDING

RubinBrown LLP is expanding into Las Vegas and joining forces with Stewart Archibald & Barney to grow its national gaming practice.

HELPING OUT

Monsanto donated $200,000 to support disaster relief efforts in parts of Colorado, Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas affected by wildfires.

MORE BUSINESS

Atira hotels assumed management of the Holiday Inn in Earth City.

Total Wheel Repair & Powder Coating LLC (8907 Natural Bridge Road) signed on as a U-Haul neighborhood dealer.

NEW BUSINESS

Real estate attorney Marc Jacob launched a new firm and online site, Home Sweet Legal (homesweetlegal.com), to provide free legal protection and guidance for homebuyers and sellers.

RECOGNITION

Nike IHM, a subsidiary of Nike Inc., was honored by the St. Charles County Workforce Development Board for its growth and global success.

Anders CPAs + Advisors tax partner Jenny L. Meyer was named one of the Top 100 St. Louisans to Know to Succeed in Business by St. Louis Small Business Monthly.

The following were named 2017 Trailblazers in labor and business by the University of MissouriSt. Louis: attorney Linda Brown Reed; Julie Hiblovic, audit partner at Anders CPAs + Advisors; Audrey Katcher, a partner in RubinBrowns business advisory services group; Lois Pierce, founding dean of the School of Social Work at UMSL; Ann Ross, founder of Anns Business Consulting; and UMSL engineering student Ellen Vehige.

Hampton Inn by Hilton Poplar Bluff, managed by Midas Hospitality, was named a 2017 Lighthouse award winner by Hampton Hotels.

Jim Butler Chevrolet was recognized nationally by General Motors as a Dealer of the Year for being the regions top-selling Chevrolet store and one of the top 21 nationwide in sales.
Westinghouse Electric Co., once synonymous with Americas industrial might, wagered its future on nuclear power  and lost.

On Wednesday, the unit of Japanese technology giant Toshiba Corp. filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, citing as much as $10 billion in debt. The company will continue operating while it comes up with a plan to repay at least part of what it owes.

The move marks a potential end to a troubled era, which began in the late 1990s, when the company made a series of sales that left it with only the nuclear business. Since then, atomic power has failed to take off in part because of cost overruns, cheaper alternatives and repercussions from an accident in Japan.

They placed a big bet on this hallucination of a nuclear renaissance, said Peter A. Bradford, a former Nuclear Regulatory Commission member who now teaches at Vermont Law School. Toshiba seemed to believe that all the nuclear plants were actually going to get built.

In earlier iterations, Westinghouse, based in Cranberry Township, a suburb of Pittsburgh, was an innovator on par with todays Microsoft and Apple. George Westinghouse, a prolific inventor and rival of Thomas Edison, founded the company in 1886. Its technological breakthroughs included the commercializing of alternating current generators and transformers. In no small measure, Westinghouse helped electrify the world.

Westinghouse supplied the worlds first commercial pressurized water reactor more than half a century ago in Pennsylvania. There are currently more than 430 nuclear power stations globally, with about half based on Westinghouse technology.

Westinghouse tried many strategies to stay relevant with changing times. Like one-time rival General Electric, the company diversified. In the 1980s, it offered financial services, suffering heavy losses. Westinghouse went into broadcasting when it bought CBS in 1995 and took its name two years later.

But it never found its footing. By the time CBS sold itself to Viacom in 2000, there was little left of Westinghouse but the nuclear business. (As CBS, the company started licensing the Westinghouse brand to makers of everything from microwave ovens to solar panels.)

About 10 years ago, Westinghouse came up with an approach it hoped would revolutionize nuclear power: a simplified modular design that could be sold to more than a dozen utilities at a lower cost. It had the less-than-catchy name of the AP1000.

The AP1000 was supposed to open a new era of reactors with a generic design that can be sold or licensed, said Mykel Schneider, a Paris-based nuclear energy consultant. What they did was move the problems from the factory to the construction site, where youre dealing with a labor force that hasnt built reactors in decades. And they used extremely optimistic cost and construction estimates.

Toshiba bought Westinghouse for $5.4 billion in 2006. The company foresaw a golden age for nuclear power in the U.S., U.K. and China. Instead, natural gas became cheaper and the 2011 nuclear disaster in Fukushima, Japan, further soured the public on nuclear.

The conglomerate has already lost $6 billion on the purchase and said Thursday that its full-year net loss could more than double to 1.01 trillion yen, from 390 billion yen forecast last month, following the Westinghouse bankruptcy filing.

In the U.S., only four of 30 applications for nuclear reactors using Westinghouse technology have moved forward, and even those are now at risk. Westinghouse has fallen behind on projects for U.S. utility companies Southern Co. and Scana Corp.

Scana and Southern could end up dealing with billions of dollars in additional cost overruns from the power plants they hired Westinghouse to build, according to analysts at Morgan Stanley. Scana faces as much as $5.2 billion in higher costs, while Southerns extra bills could reach $3.3 billion, Morgan Stanley has said.

Both utility owners said Wednesday that Westinghouse contractors would continue work on the four reactors while they determine how and when they will be completed. Westinghouse said it has lined up $800 million in financing to fund work during the restructuring.

Toshiba Chief Executive Satoshi Tsunakawa said there is no risk of additional losses to the company from overseas nuclear projects.

Todays filing by Westinghouse is an important step toward recovery, he said. It is also in-line with our goal of limiting risk from overseas nuclear operations.

David Rubenstein, an analyst at Shared Research Inc. in Tokyo, was skeptical of the atomic focus ever since he started covering Toshiba in 2007, just a year after the Westinghouse acquisition.

From the start I had a negative impression of the nuclear business, Rubenstein said. The purchase price didnt make sense. It looked like a huge risk, and that was without Fukushima.
"Prison Break," 8 p.m. Tuesdays on Fox beginning tonight (April 4)  Three stars (out of four)

Foxs new Prison Break isnt a reboot. Its a rebirth, says Robert Knepper, the delightfully evil Thomas T Bag Bagwell, whose own rebirth in the nine-episode limited series involves both getting out of prison and adding a fancy bionic hand with which to make mischief.

The whole gang is gleefully back together for Prison Break 2017, including stars Dominic Purcell (Lincoln Burrows) and Wentworth Miller (Michael Scofield).

(Its no spoiler to reveal that Michael isnt, in fact, dead. The whys and hows and what nexts are the story here.)

Purcell and Miller, who play half-brothers, became close during the original run from 2005 to 2009 on Fox. They hadnt seen each other for five years until Miller, as Captain Cold, joined Purcell, as Heat Wave, on the CWs Legends of Tomorrow.

The reunion felt as if no time had passed, Miller and Purcell agreed when Fox introduced its new Prison Break to TV critics this year in Los Angeles.

Suddenly, we are back on set. We are talking about old times, and out of that conversation came the possibility of revisiting Prison Break, Miller said.

The impetus from the actors filtered over to creator Paul Scheuring, who saw a whole new life for the show in todays brave new world of television.

TV has changed so much since we initially premiered, Scheuring said. When you put a show on network TV in 2005, you had to have 22 episodes, and the expectation was that you would subsequently have 22 episodes again and again and again and again.

The original Prison Break, in which Michael set out to free a wrongly incarcerated Lincoln by breaking into the prison where he was being held, should have had a beginning and an end, Scheuring said. Fortunately, In the new era of television, people are much more open to limited runs and event series.

Miller and Purcell, both of whom have producer credit on the new show, went to Scheuring and said, Lets do a limited run of this thing, the creator recalled. Ultimately, I said OK.

If the pitch had been for an open-ended 22, he wouldnt have been in, Scheuring said. But he thought, If we can tell a very tight, close-ended story as to why Michael might possibly still be alive, Im open to that. And so I started exploring reasons why, and it took me back about 2,500 years in literature, but I found a reason why.

Another possible deal-breaker was rounding up the original ensemble. Like Knepper, Sarah Wayne Callies was happy to return as Sara, Michaels widow and the mother of his adorable 7-year-old son, Mike (Christian Michael Cooper).

Rockmond Dunbar plays a pivotal role as C-Note, now a devout Muslim, and Amaury Nolasco pitches in as Sucre. Fans might not be as happy to see Paul Adelstein back as the devious G-man Kellerman, or Mark Feuerstein as Jacob, Saras new (gasp!) husband.

If we didnt have all of the people on this stage, I would not have done it, Scheuring said.

Hes still amazed that the production came together. All of these actors have gone on to varied careers. They are in demand everywhere, and they are all working on different shows.

In the end, I think we wound up with maybe 16 weeks or 15 weeks to shoot the whole thing, including full crews in Morocco (standing in for Yemen) and Vancouver simultaneously, Scheuring said.

Speaking of Yemen, thats where the story finds Michael, in a horrific prison called Ogygia. Seeing his brothers picture sends Lincoln, just out of jail himself, on a quest to save him  to break him out, if necessary. One roadblock is a raging civil war; another is Michael himself.

Meanwhile, back home, Sara is rocked by the news that the love of her life is looking very much alive. She also has good reason to fear for her family.

Dont be too concerned about not remembering everything about the original Prison Break. The new series begins with an excellent recap that will quickly bring everyone up to date.

Fans, of course, will be waiting for the moment Michael and Sara are reunited, but its not that easy, Callies said.

From her perspective, the question is, If you have been alive, why havent you raised our son? Where have you been? Because I almost died from grief.

Also, Callies said, speaking as Sara, Im married now. All that makes it unlikely to be a reunion where two people run at each other from opposite sides of the field full of butterflies and fall into each others arms.

Critical to the story, Scheuring said, is that Michael doesnt just come out of the gates the noble hero. The question is, who is this guy? Has he been compromised? Is he even Michael? Was he the Michael that we knew all along?

Twelve years after it premiered and seven years after the finale (plus two straight-to-DVD episodes), Prison Break is still popular around the world, and the stars are often recognized as their characters. Even Callies, who starred in the wildly popular The Walking Dead, said that when fans approach her, two out of three times its for Prison Break.

The short run makes the new incarnation of Prison Break action-packed, with just enough down time for the characters to ponder whats happening to them.

This is a very tight narrative, and its just constant thriller, cliffhanger, revelation, one after another, and it just feels very dense, Scheuring said. I think its for the better for the audience, this modern kind of culture in TV.

Although Scheuring described the making of the new Prison Break as a logistical nightmare, absolutely a million plates in the air, the stars had only positive things to say.

Theres a lot of history up here, Callies said. Everybodys life ... is monumentally different. And in some form, weve seen that through together. I think that brings it a texture and an immediacy to those relationships.

Her first scene, she said, was with Dom, and theres just a decade there. And thats kind of irreplaceable.

For Miller, It was like a high school reunion. You know these people. There is a shorthand. There is a degree of familiarity, and yet theyre different now. Were different now.

That, he said, speaks very specifically to the story that we address in the reboot. Who are these characters now? When they see each other, will they even recognize each other? This is the meat of the story.

Purcell, though, had the most succinct comment about getting back together with the old gang: It was easy.
ST. LOUIS  Six cattle escaped from a slaughterhouse in north St. Louis Thursday, interrupting traffic as they trotted through surrounding neighborhoods and led police and others on an hours-long chase.

The cattle slipped away from the Star Packing Co. in the 3800 block of Cote Brilliante Avenue through an unsecured door, according to Fourth District Capt. Renee Kriesmann. Police were called to the plant in the Hyde Park neighborhood about 1 p.m.

The cattle's bold dash for freedom prompted efforts to save them from the slaughterhouse.

One of the cattle was captured at 14th and Destrehan Street; two others at Little Sisters of the Poor in a fenced-in area; and three were in another area near 20th Street and Bremen Avenue.

SWAT officers responded with rifles as a precaution, Kriesmann said. Animal control officers and the Humane Society of Missouri were on hand to help, police said.

The cattle attracted groups of onlookers in each of the areas.

One of the animals managed a second escape after being penned at the Little Sisters of the Poor residence in the 3200 block of North Florissant Avenue about 3:45 p.m. It broke through a fence there and led pursuers on a chase of more than a mile. That chase finally ended near Sensient Colors LLC, in the 2500 block of North Jefferson Avenue, where the last of the escapees was captured about 6 p.m.

The animals' dash for freedom prompted the director of Farm Sanctuary, a New York-based animal rescue organization, to offer to take in the runaways.

"It's just so incredibly sad. They're just running for their life," said the director, Susie Coston.

She said she and the leader of New Jersey-based animal rescue organization Skylands would to travel to St. Louis to get the cattle.

Both of us are willing to come right now, Coston said, hours after the cattle took to the streets. She said each shelter would take in three cattle.

At 175 acres, the Farm Sanctuary has rescued hundreds of cattle and thousands of animals in its more than 30 years in operation, Coston said. The farm currently has 45 rescued cattle.

Some cattle are adopted out while others live on the farm well into their adult years. One of the oldest dairy cows on the farm lived to be 28, Coston said. Comedian Jon Stewart and his wife rescued a bull named Frank that escaped from a Queens slaughterhouse last year and turned it over to the sanctuary.

Slaughterhouse owner Omar Hamdan said the farm leaders can have the cattle, all of which he said were heifers, for a price.

If anyone wants to buy them thats fine, Hamdan said Thursday.

The cost of each animal is around $1,800 depending on the weight. Hamdan said they pick up cattle from a location in Greenville, Ill., for the kosher slaughterhouse, which was founded in the early 1950s. Thursdays escape attempt was a first for the plant, Hamdan said.

Asked about Hamdan's offer to sell the crafty cattle, Coston said the farm doesn't pay for any animals.

If they did, she said, "we would be perpetuating the system we're saying is not a good system."

But even if Coston's group won't pay for the cattle, perhaps others will. Adam Brewer, of Chesterfield, set up a gofundme account Thursday night in hopes of buying the animals' freedom.

Brewer said he saw the story about the loose cattle on social media and he wanted to help get the cattle to an animal sanctuary.

A self-proclaimed vegetarian of 10 years, Brewer said he has donated to local animal rescue efforts before, but felt compelled to begin efforts himself this time.

"I'm all in," he said by phone.

David Carson of the Post-Dispatch contributed to this report.
JEFFERSON CITY  Missouri Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft approved the wording of a petition this week that would put Missouris right to work law in front of voters for an up-or-down vote  a seldom-used maneuver backers hope will stall the controversial change from taking effect until voters weigh in.

Missouri residents can call a referendum on a new law by collecting signatures totaling 5 percent of voters from two-thirds of the states congressional districts. Supporters who feel right-to-work was an attempt to weaken union power have to collect an estimated 90,000 signatures by Aug. 28, the day the law is set to take effect.

I think we have plenty of time to get that done, Sen. Jake Hummel, secretary-treasurer for the Missouri AFL-CIO, told the Post-Dispatch.

If theyre successful, Missouri wont become the 28th right to ban union dues as condition of employment unless voters say so on a ballot in 2018.

The tactic was last used in 1982, when Missouri voters rejected a law that would have allowed larger trucks on the states major highways. Of the 26 referenda called since 1914, voters acted against the Legislatures wishes 24 times.

Still, the maneuver has its risks, said Hummel, D-St. Louis.

The danger is obviously that you spend this much time and effort on a campaign, but its not a constitutional change, so the Legislature can come back after the vote and do it all over again, he explained.

But the efforts organizers hope that if the petition is successful, it will send a message to state lawmakers and refute the argument that Missouri voters already had their say on right-to-work during the 2016 election, which saw widespread victory for Republican candidates who called the change a top priority on a pro-business agenda.

It makes it harder for whoever is in the Legislature once something like this has been successful, Hummel said.

Right-to-work opponents also filed initiative petitions that would amend the state constitution to give employers and employees the unalienable right to negotiate contracts requiring workers to pay fees to cover the cost of union representation.

They were promptly sued by the National Right to Work Foundation, who argues the language could confuse voters who dont realize theyre overturning an existing law.

A Cole County Circuit Court judge ruled in the foundations favor last week, ordering new language be written to add context now that Greitens has signed SB 19, the right-to-work bill, into law.

The central effects of the [initiative petitions] would be to repeal SB 19 indirectly, Judge Jon Beetem wrote.

Stricter rules

Meanwhile, state lawmakers in Jefferson City are weighing new rules to govern the citizen ballot initiative process.

Under proposals moving through the Legislature, petitions must be filed between Jan. 31 aftaer each general election and nine months before the election at which the proposed measure would appear on the ballot. Petition circulators would have to reside and be registered to vote in Missouri and would have to display a badge identifying whether theyre a volunteer or if theyre compensated.

The bills also prohibit paying circulators based on how many signatures they obtain. Additionally, they require a $500 fee for every petition filed, to be refunded only if the petition qualifies for the ballot, and 14-point Times New Roman font on each page.

A Senate version of the plan has been approved by a committee and is on the calendar to be debated by the full Senate. The House bill was heard in a committee on Wednesday, where supporters said it would make the petition process more transparent.

I think theres a difference between someone whos standing at the post office being paid $1 per signature versus a truly citizen-driven initiative petition, sponsoring Rep. Joe Don McGaugh, R-Carrollton, told the panel.

Supporters praised the proposed reform as a means to prevent people from being pressured to sign petitions purely so circulators bankrolled by special interests can earn money.

Woody Cozad, a former Republican official and party chairman who now works as a lobbyist, spoke against the bill. Having represented parties who have pushed ballot initiatives, he argued that the suggested restrictions could be unconstitutional and would ruin many petitioners chances for success.

Because this Legislature over the years has tightened and tightened and tightened the law on initiative petitions until it is virtually impossible to do it except with paid circulators in a pretty short period of time, if I can hold you up in court, I can make it impossible for you to get this thing passed, Cozad said.

The bills limit that time frame further, he said. And because its become common practice to file multiple versions of the same petition in the hope of getting one through, a $500 fee thats refundable only if it makes the ballot will discourage multiple petitions, he added.

I think were past the time to stop trying to restrict the peoples fundamental right to make law for themselves, Cozad said.

Other initiative petitions filed for 2018 include renewed efforts to legalize medical marijuana and amendments to allow cities to set their own minimum wage.
JEFFERSON CITY  In response to a complaint from a businessman in Bolivar, Mo., Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens announced this week that he will kill a crazy regulation affecting car dealers, saying he was listening to the people and not lobbyists or special interest groups.

But the political newcomers push to remove a requirement that dealers have a landline telephone already is a part of legislation introduced more than a month ago and backed by the lobbying group representing car sellers.

In a Facebook post Thursday, the governor said his office noticed a complaint about the cost of a landline phone from Mark Moak, who co-owns Moak Auto Group in Polk County.

The complaint was lodged on a Greitens post about cutting government red tape, which has become a popular cause among Republican governors in recent years.

The government shouldnt force small businesses to pay for landline phones, Greitens wrote in response to Moak. Thats just crazy! So, this afternoon, we asked the Department of Revenue to kill this requirement. That process is underway now.

Government needs to get out of the way, he added. You sent us here to do that. That means listening to YOU and getting results. No lobbyists. No special interests. Results!

A Greitens spokesman didnt immediately respond to questions about whether he was aware of the legislation filed Feb. 28 by Sen. Dan Hegeman, R-Cosby.

But Phillip Schnieders, a lobbyist for the Missouri Automobile Dealers Association, confirmed the legislation had the backing of his organization.

We have a bill filed this year, said Schnieders, whose group contributed $13,500 to Greitens during the 2016 campaign season.

Senate Bill 492, which is scheduled to be heard in a committee on Monday, addresses a requirement in state regulations that was written before mobile phones became commonplace.

Regardless of whether the rule is erased by Greitens or the Legislature, Moak said he was happy his complaints were being addressed. He said his telephone bill was $1,500 annually.

It doesnt sound like much, but a new business being required to spend that kind of money makes it hard, said Moak, who opened the business with his two brothers three years ago.

He said there were numerous other licensing rules on the books that address potential fraud, including regulations for buildings and signs.

There are so many other regulations in place that the phone isnt needed, Moak said.

The requirement, however, is not going to change any time soon.

Under state law, proposed changes to state regulations must go through the rule-making process, which can take months because time is set aside for public comments, hearings and consideration by a bipartisan panel of lawmakers.
JEFFERSON CITY  An effort to get Missouri drivers licenses into compliance with federal rules so people can work at federal facilities and board planes next year passed the House on Thursday, despite impassioned dissent about its potential threat to privacy.

The measure from Rep. Kevin Corlew, R-Kansas City, aims to resolve a long-standing controversy over the federal REAL ID Act, passed in 2005 in response to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, by allowing Missourians to choose whether or not they want a REAL-compliant license.

The law was meant to make the process for getting identification more secure. But lawmakers across the country objected to provisions requiring states to keep and share databases of personal documents they worried could be hacked or misused.

Missouri passed a law in 2009 forbidding the Department of Revenue from complying with the new regulations, joining more than a dozen other states enacting similar bans.

But now, contractors and truckers are having trouble getting into Fort Leonard Wood and Whiteman Air Force Base. And last year, the Department of Homeland Security said if Missouri and six other noncompliant states dont get in line, their residents will need passports to board planes on Jan. 22, 2018.

Corlew said his bill offered Missourians a choice whether or not they wanted a compliant ID, something Vermont, Connecticut and New York already do.

But Rep. Rick Brattin, R-Harrisonville, said the measure offered a false choice and acquiesced to federal overreach.

Its a complete infringement on our citizens constitutional rights, he said. It would create second-class citizens. Its crazy to think were going down this road for the sake of convenience.

Opponents of the bill have held out hope that the Trump administration would roll back the standards, making Corlews proposal unnecessary. Corlew had delayed Thursdays vote for a month to give them time.

When Gov. Eric Greitens told reporters Tuesday that the Trump administration actually may be considering a change, they saw even more reason for delay.

But Corlew noted the governor also said he was committed to making sure people have the option to get an ID to fly. And Rep. Steve Lynch, R-Waynesville, said that if the Legislature did nothing and people started getting kicked off planes next year, their representatives would have some explaining to do.

Until the battle is won, we have a responsibility to protect our constituents, he said.

The 99-40 vote in favor of Corlews measure sends it to the Senate, where the issue has sparked similar disagreement.

Sen. Ryan Silvey, R-Kansas City, who is sponsoring a Senate version of the bill, said hes hopeful he can get it passed next week. But Sen. Will Kraus, R-Lees Summit, filibustered a companion measure last month and has called the federal restrictions on air travel and entering military bases the boot on the back of the citizens neck.
The specific fate of six steers that gained national prominence after breaking out of a north St. Louis slaughterhouse was unclear Friday night, but they apparently wont meet their end at the slaughterhouse they escaped from a day earlier.

The steers led St. Louis police and others on pursuits that stretched over five hours and included charging through a wrought iron fence at a Catholic group residence home and escaping a corral of moving police cruisers. When the last one was finally trapped and led onto a livestock trailer, it was in front of dozens of onlookers who over the course of its romp dubbed him Chico and cheered for the escape.

On Friday, that steer was thought to be on its way to an undisclosed family farm in Lincoln County. Kelly Manno, a rescue organizer, said the steer's safety was ensured and its future secure. But late Friday, Manno was told in a text from the owner of the slaughterhouse that all six cattle were going elsewhere. He did not say where.

Another would-be rescuer was also left in the dark Friday about the cattles fate. Adam Brewer of Chicago raised more than $10,000 through his separate crowd-funding effort to help the six escaped animals.

All the money is still there. Its not being touched. Its not being used. Its strictly there for the initial purpose: to give to a legitimate non-for-profit, Brewer said.

But like Manno, he didnt know Friday night what had become of the cattle.

He said slaughterhouse owner Omar Hamdan had told him all six cattle would be going to a farm in Hillsboro. But that was unconfirmed.

He stopped communicating with people, Brewer said.

The Post-Dispatch was also unable to reach Hamdan on Friday night.

Brewer said that if he hadnt heard from Hamdan by Saturday morning, he planned to enlist a larger audience to demand answers. At this point if the cows arent located and intentions explained Ill reach out to national media, he said.

The fate of the steers was the subject of much debate and hand-wringing among crowd-funders trying to buy their safety and the national group Farm Sanctuary, which tries to negotiate rescues of escaped slaughterhouse animals, but, on principal, refuses to pay for their freedom.

Manno, a quasi radio personality, was watching her social media feeds fill up with news Thursday afternoon that cattle were running amok in the urban streets, playgrounds and parking lots of urban north St. Louis after slipping away from the Star Packing Co. in the 3800 block of Cote Brilliante Avenue.

As the cattle were captured, one by one, Manno took note of the one that kept getting away  the one who had been given the outlaw name Chico.

Manno, who classifies herself as an animal lover, said she thought it would be fun to document the escape and cheer on the cow.

She also thought it would be fun to don her dinosaur costume for the event, because, hey, the whole thing was a spectacle anyway.

But things got serious for Manno when police, slaughterhouse employees and animal control staff finally corralled Chico and put the steer in a steel livestock trailer headed back to the slaughterhouse. She knew Chico was soon to be a goner.

When they finally caught him, I tried to communicate to the officers, and nobody would answer me and, go figure, Im in a dinosaur suit, she said. I was trying to explain to them, I can get this cow to a rescue.

So Manno said she followed the trailer in her minivan. At one point Chico stuck his snout out of the vents, and they made eye contact.

It became real, and it wasnt funny anymore, Manno said.

In the aftermath, Manno was able to speak with the owner of Star Packing. She said he agreed to sell the steer to her for his expenses and what he would have earned for buying and processing the animal: $1,800.

Manno said a significant part of that was to be paid by her friend Lynn Backes, an animal welfare advocate and wife of former St. Louis Blues captain David Backes, and the rest through a crowd-funding website.

Manno had said the location of Chicos new home was not going to be made public. But after waiting for hours for Chicos delivery, Manno learned by text from slaughterhouse owner Hamdan that all the cattle were going to a buyer who was planning to keep them together.

A woman who answered the phone at the slaughterhouse about noon Friday said they were still there. She could not provide any further information on the future of the animals.

Meanwhile, there was much debate among those trying to help the animals and Farm Sanctuary.

That group began lobbying Thursday for the slaughterhouse to donate the cattle to a sanctuary. The group does not approve of the purchase of such animals for freedom. That pressure along with national media and social media attention seemed to have given all of the animals a reprieve from slaughter.

But rumors that the cattle were to be donated to a farm caused concern for Farm Sanctuary officials, who worried that the farms owners could turn around and sell the animals back to slaughterhouses. A Farm Sanctuary spokesman said slaughterhouses often further inflated the price of animals for purchase, much like ransom money.

There are many more animals just like the escaped six who are still suffering inside his facility and he will use that ransom to buy even more, the group said in a statement released Friday morning.

Despite being uncertain of the cattles fate Friday night, would-be rescuer Brewer said his goal remained keeping as many of the cattle as possible together in a sanctuary.

Theres all this money in place for cows that are now missing, he said.
As we have since July 2006, each Friday well post our sampling of cigar news and other items of interest from the week. Below is our latest, which is the 524th in the series.

1) Lawmakers have set their sights on tobacco use in the military. Legislators held hearings Wednesday on the issue, with Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin lashing out at the Pentagon for not working hard enough to curb tobacco use among young servicemembers, reports The Daily Caller. On the House side, members of the House Committee on Veterans Affairs directed their attention to legislation that would target veterans, instead of the usual practice of slapping the Pentagons hand regarding tobacco consumption. This new legislation, forwarded by Republican Rep. Brad Wenstrup, would ban smoking inside any VA health facility. Additionally, the bill would ban outdoor smoking at VA medical centers by 2022.

2) Famous Smoke Shop yesterday announced the debut of a new Cigar Smokers Rights Hub. According to a press release, the hub presents cigar enthusiasts with a history of legal actions affecting the tobacco industry and offers cigar smokers a detailed understanding of how FDAs new regulations will negatively impact the premium cigar industry, and the legal challenges that have been mounted against the agencys sweeping new rules.

3) According to an article published by Cigar Aficionado on Wednesday, 24 states have introduced some form of legislation this year that seeks to raise the minimum age to purchase tobacco to 21 years old. Currently, only Hawaii and California have enacted such laws, but the sheer amount of proposed legislation is an indication that more states could soon follow suit The states where active legislation is threatening an age hike to 21 years old include Arkansas, Connecticut, Florida, Indiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Mississippi, Nebraska, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Oregon, Rhode Island, Texas, Washington and West Virginia.

4) Inside the Industry: Perhaps no cigar company has more offerings than General Cigar, which boasts a portfolio of about 5,000 SKUs and 300 blends. According to reports, around fifty of those are being discontinued this year. One notable cut is the elimination of the entire Charlie Torano Captiva blend.

5) From the Archives: A great cigar shop is like an old friend. Here are some of the attributes that create a standout.

6) Deal of the Week: Tatuaje fans may be interested in this Tatuaje five-pack. The sampler features five classic Tatuaje blends (Red Label, Black Label, Cabaiguan, La Riqueza, and Tattoo) all in a size thats not regular production (5.5 x 55). Buy two, or simply add another $30 in product to your purchase, and you can add coupon code StogieDeal to land a free triple-flame table lighter.

The Stogie Guys

photo credit: U.S. Dept. of Veterans Affairs
Deauville Crystal clears the last in the 188BET St Mary's Lands 4YO Fillies' Handicap Hurdle. Photo: David Pratt (dwprattracingphotography.co.uk)

CHAMPION jockey Richard Johnson took up where he left off at the last meeting when Longtown brought up his 173 winner of the campaign in the opening race at Warwicks 188Bet Raceday on Thursday, writes David Hucker.

Johnson, who landed a four-timer at the course a week ago, had failed to add to his seasonal tally the day before when, having made the long trip from his Herefordshire home to Sedgefield, his only mount Little Miss Poet was headed at the last flight and could only finish second.

But, he had better luck here as, having taken the lead at the fourth-last flight, Longtown, who looks a chaser in the making, had too much power for the Dan Skelton trained Earlshill, who had looked a real threat turning for home.

Just four turned out for the novices handicap chase, with Bandon Bridge and Tommy The Rascal dominating the race from the start. It was Bandon Bridge who found an extra gear to go clear under Gavin Sheehan with two fences to jump and give Hay-on-Wye trainer Katy Price her first winner since October.

Devon trainer Nigel Hawke, who rode Seagram to victory in the Grand National back in 1991, has hit a rich vein of form and sent out Deauville Crystal, a winner at Newbury the previous Saturday, to land another good prize when scooping the feature 188Bet St Marys Lands 4-Y-O Fillies Handicap Hurdle.

Evening Hush took the field along at a good pace, until passed by Giveaway Glance at the third-last flight, Stalking the leader was Deauville Crystal and, after laying down a challenge at the penultimate flight, she quickened away, coming clear on the run-in for a comfortable success to give her jockey Sean Bowen his 75 winner in what is proving to be a breakthrough season.

Regal Flow, and After Hours fought a ding-dong battle over the last three fences in the 188Bet.co.uk Confined Handicap Chase over three miles and, with amateur jockey Sean Houlihan able to claim a valuable 7lb off his weight, it was After Hours who came out on top.

For trainer Bob Buckler, who is in his 27 season, this was a welcome change of fortune, with the win of Somerset Lias at Taunton in November his only other success in what has been a lean campaign.

Bookmakers were offering 7-1 the field in a wide-open betting market for the long-distance handicap hurdle but, at the end of the three and a quarter mile trip, there was only one horse in it, as 9-1 shot Doctor Look Here led into the straight and was always holding his rivals to score his first success since December 2015.

Late Shipment had been up with the leaders until dropping back four flights from home, but then ran on again to snatch second spot, with top-weight Easter Day in third.

There was plenty of market support for Puppet Warrior in the first division of the National Hunt Flat Race, which saw Arthurs Reuben withdrawn after behaving badly on the way to the start and Corzeam refusing to race.

Although handily placed from the off, Puppet Warrior had to settle for a place again, as Harry Skelton shot Whiskey InThe Jar, who had been runner-up on his only start at Roscommon in October, into the lead a furlong and a half out, drawing right away for seven-length success.

Johnson completed a first and last race double when landing the second division of the Flat Race on 155,000 purchase Mance Rayder, who made a winning racecourse debut in the well-known colours of Diana Whateley.
New Delhi, Mar 29 (IBNS): Werner Hoyer, President, European Investment Bank called on Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday.

He was accompanied by the senior officials of the Bank.

The Prime Minister had met a high level delegation of the European Investment Bank a year ago at the EU-India summit and promised support for establishment of the banks regional office in Delhi.

This office was inaugurated on Friday.

In course of the conversation today the Prime Minister explained Indias policies in the areas of climate change and environmental sustainability.

The European Investment Bank has lent over one billion Euros to India towards environmentally sustainable projects including the Lucknow Metro.

Hoyer appreciated Indias strong and proactive measures in the field of climate change, and expressed the banks continued support for Indias efforts in this direction.
Finance Minister Senator Mohammad Ishaq Dar has welcomed the agreements worth US$ 432.7 million signed with the World Bank on Thursday, saying these would support Financial Sector, Social Protection, Community and SME Development, Livelihood &Community Infrastructure and Services.

Tariq Mahmood Pasha, Secretary, Economic Affairs Division signed the Loans and Grants Agreements on behalf of Government of Pakistan while Project Agreements were signed by the representatives of Government of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and FATA Secretariat. Mr. Anthony Cholst, Acting Country Director signed the agreements on behalf of the World Bank.

The Finance Minister appreciated World Banks support for governments endeavors to achieve sustainable and inclusive economic development of the country. He said the government has taken a number of measures in line with its 4-Es manifesto that envisioned development of Economy, Energy, Education and fight against Extremism. He particularly mentioned series of reforms undertaken by the Government to improve macroeconomic stability and putting the economy on a higher growth trajectory.

Anthony Cholst stated that the agreements would strengthen the financial sector, bring about improvement in the Income Support Program and also contribute to economic development in different areas in the KP and FATA.

As per agreements signed, US$ 301.6 Million are earmarked for meeting the development objectives of Growth Development Policy Financing. The objectives will be achieved through improving access to finance, fostering long-term finance and enhancing transparency of the financial sector.

Social Safety Net (BISP) has been provide US$100 million under the agreements with the objective to strengthen the social safety net systems for the poor to enhance their human capital and access to complementary services. The program will support three elements of Pakistans Income Support System (i) the Basic Cash Transfer Program, delivered by the Benazir Income Support Program (BISP); (ii) the Waseela-e-Taleem (WeT) program to incentivize primary school enrolment of BISP beneficiary families children; and (iii) facilitation support to improve BISP beneficiaries access to complementary services.

Under MDTF grant agreements worth US$ 31.1 million for KP/FATA and Baluchistan, the following projects will be delivered:

i) Rural Livelihood and Community Infrastructure Project (RLCIP) US$ 8.1 million: The project aims to improve livelihood and access to basic service infrastructure in selected agencies in FATA and to support Temporarily Displaced Persons (TDPs) in the process of rehabilitation as they return back to their homes.

ii) Economic Revitalization for Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and FATA (ERKF) Project US$ 19.0 million: The objective of the Project is to support the government in the economic recovery and revitalization of the crisis affected areas of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and FATA by creating sustainable employment opportunities through rehabilitation of Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs), generating private sector investment, and laying the foundations for the future development of selected economic sectors.

iii) Southern Areas Development Project for Khyber Pakhtunkhwa US$ 4.0 million: The project aims to reach the un-served and underserved communities including women, youth and ultra-poor in the three Southern Districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, support them by investing in community development, community driven investment, strengthening local groups, improving access to social and productive infrastructure and providing context-based livelihood opportunities.
Malik Riaz, the owner of real estate giant Bahria Town, said Friday that his company will not take over Karachis iconic park  Bagh Ibn-e-Qasim  until all stakeholders, including mayor Waseem Akhtar agree to hand it over to them.

Riaz's statement is a response to Friday's news report saying the Sindh government had decided to hand over the park to Bahria Town for 10 years in a move which the provincial authorities claimed would save funds and encourage private organisations to carry out social work and public service.

The property tycoon said in a Twitter post that it was "really unfortunate" how some people had reacted to the news.

"I... want to clarify that we are not buying this park. We are not getting any penny from any government institution nor do we plan to," he said.

Riaz said Bahria Town has no commercial interest in the venture and will invest in the beautification and maintenance of the park, which is spread over 130 acres.

"We will not take over this park till all stakeholders agree to hand it over to us, rest assured."

Riaz also posted a copy of the agreement reached with Sindh government enlisting the responsibilities of Bahria Town regarding the park.

According to the agreement, Bahria Town will be responsible for renovating, improving and maintaining Bagh Ibn-e-Qasim for a period of 10 years on its own expenses.

Bahria Town intends to spend Rs100 million initially for the renovation of the park, the document says.

A notification issued by the Sindh local government ministry Thursday stated that the decision to hand over the park for adoption had been taken after its approval by a competent authority, but made it clear that salary of its staff would be paid by the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation (KMC).

For this handover, the Pakistan Peoples Party-led Sindh government first took over the control of the park from the citys municipal administration mainly dominated by the Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan.

In pursuance of notification of even number dated 21-11-2016 and with the approval of competent authority, Bagh Ibn-e-Qasim Park along with aquarium situated in Clifton has been taken over by the local government department from KMC and handed over to M/S Bahria Town Private Limited for adoption as per agreement executed on 30-03-2017, said the notification.

Karachi Mayor Waseem Akhtar told a television news channel that he had not been consulted on the handover of the park.

The park is in the vicinity of Bahria Icon Tower  an under-construction 60-storey building of the real estate tycoon which will be the countrys tallest structure after its completion.

But Sindh local bodies minister Jam Khan Shoro made it clear that the organisations adopting parks would not be allowed to use such facilities for commercial purposes.

The agreement between the provincial government and Bahria Town allowed the real estate company to take care of the park for the next 10 years considering its contribution to social and welfare projects, the local bodies minister told media. It would definitely save government funds to a large extent, he added.
Israels so-called security cabinet has unanimously voted in favor of construction of the regimes first new settlement in the occupied Palestinian territories in 25 years, drawing strong condemnation from Palestinians.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahus office released a statement on Thursday night, announcing that the new settlement will be built near the West Bank settlement of Emek Shilo and the Palestinian city of Ramallah, The Jerusalem Post reported.

The Israeli ministers also approved the construction of 2,000 settler homes out of the 5,700 units announced two months ago, and endorsed the expropriation of 90 hectares (222 acres) of Palestinian land near the Israeli settlement of Eli north of Ramallah.

The move was swiftly condemned by Palestinian officials, with Hanan Ashrawi, an executive committee member of the Palestine Liberation Organization, saying the announcement once again proves that Israel is more committed to appeasing its illegal settler population than to abiding by the requirements for stability and a just peace."

Earlier in the day, the Israeli prime minister said the new settlement was intended to house the residents of Amona, a wildcat outpost in the occupied West Bank that was evacuated under a court order in February.

The latest expansionist measures, which are in violation of last year's UN Security Council Resolution 2334, come as the Tel Aviv regime has been holding negotiations with the administration of US President Donald Trump on new settlement building plans.

Yoav Horowitz, Netanyahus chief of staff, Israeli Ambassador to the US Ron Dermer, and Jason Greenblatt, who heads the US team, have been leading the talks on settlement guidelines over the past three weeks, according to Israeli media reports.

Figures released by Israel's Central Bureau of Statistics showed last week that 2,630 settlement units were constructed in the West Bank last year, marking a rise of 40 percent from 2015.

The figures were released only a day after Netanyahu vowed to press ahead with building new settler units, stressing that the Tel Aviv regime has no plan to limit settlement construction in East Jerusalem al-Quds.

The UN resolution passed in December calls on Israel to immediately and completely cease all settlement activities in the occupied Palestinian territory, including East Jerusalem al-Quds.

About 600,000 Israelis live in over 230 illegal settlements built since the 1967 Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories of the West Bank and East Jerusalem al-Quds.

Palestinians want the West Bank as part of a future independent Palestinian state, with East Jerusalem al-Quds as its capital.

Since the January inauguration of Trump, the Tel Aviv regime has stepped up its construction of settler units on occupied Palestinian land in a blatant violation of international law.
A Syrian asylum seeker in Greece poured fuel on his body and set himself on fire on Thursday in front of others at a refugee camp on the island of Chios. The man in question was frustrated and desperate for asylum. Several Greek media outlets broadcasted the painful scenes of the Syrian refugee who attempted to take his own life.

The 29-year-old appears in the video, which has spread rapidly in the media, and explains to those gathered around him in the camp of more than 1,200 asylum seekers, why he intends to end his life. The young man stated that he suffered unfair injustice by the island authorities for repeatedly denying his requests for asylum and threatening to extradite him to Syria.

There were two policemen among the crowd who tried to talk him out of it and attempted to calm him down, but he lit a lighter which was in his hand and set himself on fire screaming painfully with agony.

The Greek ANA news agency reported that he was rushed for treatment at the islands hospital. His doctors discovered that 90 percent of his body was burnt and requested his immediate transfer to the burn unit in Athens. One of the officers who tried to stop him also suffered from burning cell tissue in his head and hands.

The agency reported in a separate segment that another Syrian refugee was found hanged last Monday in the port of Piraeus near Athens. The police opened an investigation into the circumstances of the incident. On another note, a 26-year-old Greek smuggler was put into custody for detaining 23 immigrants most of them Pakistanis, in a warehouse until their relatives paid for their entry into Greece after he and his accomplices, also wanted by the police, smuggled them across the land border in the Greek Northeast .

The human trafficker kept them in a warehouse in the town of Menemeni near the town of Salonika in the north of the country. Smugglers usually request 1500 to 3,000 euros per head. Currently, Greece has more than 14,000 asylum seekers from several nationalities, mostly from African and Arab countries.
Kuwaiti police have detained a woman for filming her Ethiopian domestic worker falling from the seventh floor in an apparent suicide attempt without trying to rescue her, media and a rights group said Friday.

The Kuwaiti woman filmed her domestic worker land on a metal awning and survive, then posted the incident on social media, Al-Seyassah newspaper reported.

The 12-second video shows the Ethiopian woman hanging outside the building, with one hand tightly gripping the window frame, as she begs for help in an apparent last-minute change of mind.

The woman holding the camera is heard telling the hanging woman: Oh crazy, come back.

The terrified Ethipian woman is seen screaming hold me, hold me, just before her hand slips and she falls down to hit the awning, which appears to soften the impact.

The employer made no reaction as she continued filming.

Later, paramedics rescued the domestic worker and rushed her to hospital where she was found to have suffered nose and ear bleeding and a broken arm, the newspaper said.

The criminal investigation police referred the employer to the prosecution over failing to help the victim, the daily said.

The reasons for the domestic worker's attempted suicide were not revealed.

The Kuwait Society for Human Rights on Friday called on the authorities to investigate the case and refer it to court.
University of Birmingham Official website

Birmingham, Mar 31 (IBNS): A study, published in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, describes a new treatment pathway for antibiotic resistant bacteria and infectious diseases with benefits for patients and healthcare providers.

Researchers from the University of Birmingham and Newcastle University found that the unusual approach of removing antibodies from the blood stream reduced the effects of chronic infections, the requirement for days spent in hospital and the use of antibiotics.

In this study, the team identified two patients with bronchiectasis who suffered with chronic Pseudomonas aeruginosa infections that were resistant to many antibiotics; a 64-year-old man, who was diagnosed with bronchiectasis aged 15, and a 69-year-old woman, who had bronchiectasis from childhood.

Bronchiectasis is a disease that leads to permanent enlargement of the airways in the lung and affects over 300,000 patients in the UK. Symptoms are debilitating for patients, and typically include a chronic cough, shortness of breath, coughing up blood, and chest pain. Bronchiectasis often affects patients beyond the age at which lung transplantation is possible.

Chronic Pseudomonas aeruginosa lung infections commonly occur in patients suffering from bronchiectasis. Pseudomonas aeruginosa is a common bacterium that can cause disease and is known as a multidrug resistant pathogen, recognised for its advanced antibiotic resistance mechanisms and association with serious illnesses.

The patients volunteered to be part of an explorative treatment that built on previous findings from the research group in 2014.

Professor Ian Henderson, Director of the Institute of Microbiology and Infection at the University of Birmingham, explained: These patients had an excess of a particular antibody in the bloodstream. In contrast to the protective effect normally associated with antibody, in these patients the antibody stopped the immune system killing the Pseudomonas aeruginosa bacterium and this worsened the patients lung disease. Perhaps counter-intuitively, we decided to remove this antibody from the bloodstream and the outcomes were wholly positive.

Dr Tony De Soyza, Bronchiectasis service lead, Newcastle Upon Tyne Hospitals Trust and Senior Lecturer at Newcastle University, explained: We needed a brand new way of tackling this problem. Working with kidney and immunology experts, we used a process known as plasmapheresis that is somewhat like kidney dialysis.

The plasmapheresis involved the removal, treatment, and return of blood plasma from circulation, and was done five times in a week in order to remove antibody from the patients. We then replaced antibodies with those from blood donations. This treatment restored the ability for the patients blood to kill their infecting Pseudomonas.

Both patients reported a rapid improvement in health and wellbeing, greater independence and improved mobility compared to any point in the previous two years.

Professor Henderson added: This shows that we can improve patient wellbeing significantly, by reducing the need for treatment and the numbers of days spent in hospital, which will also help to reduce the reliance on antibiotics. The next step is to do longer term studies to investigate whether an earlier intervention, with slightly less aggressive therapies, could help prevent disease progression in patients.

This is the first description of antibody-dependent enhancement of bacterial disease. It may be widely applicable to other bacterial infections and offers hope for the treatment of some antibiotic resistant infections.
Kolkata, Mar 28 (IBNS): PATH Welfare Society with support from aITC Mission SunehraKala organized a Childrenas Meet- a gathering of over 400 children & Child Cabinet members from 24 government schools in Kolkata.

The event aims at providing these children a platform to show case their learnings and share their experiences in terms of promoting health & hygiene in their schools & how they ensured operation & maintenance of water & sanitation facilities that have been provided to their schools by ITC MSK.

The newly elected child cabinet Shri SaraswatiVidyalaya took their oath during this event along with the inauguration of the new Water, Sanitation & Solar Panels that have been provided to this school by ITC MSK, implemented by PATH Welfare Society.

To ensure that the schools maintain these facilities - several initiatives have been made to strengthen Child Cabinets; School Management Committees and Parent Teacher Associations. WATSAN (Water & Sanitation) groups have also been formed to ensure promote & create awareness on the importance of personal & environmental health & hygiene

ITC, Mission SunehraKal has been supporting PATH Welfare Society for the School WASH Programme, which has improved access to child friendly water & sanitation facilities to several government schools across West Bengal.

Through these initiatives 15 child friendly schools have been developed including BALA (Building as Learning Aid) painting; provision of safe drinking water facilities; child friendly height appropriate hand washing stations; separate toilets for girls and boys; changing rooms & incinerators for adolescent girls among other activities like running of supplementary learning Centre for improving quality learning for weaker students and helping them to enhance their learning outcomes.

This programme has also trainedschoolteachers in creative and joyful learning focusing on formative assessment for continuous comprehensive evaluation.
Kolkata, Mar 31 (IBNS): XPD2470 - A 70 days journey by all women team from Coimbatore to London by Tata Hexa carrying Rotary India Literacy Missionas message of Total Literacy and Quality Education and raise awareness on Women Empowerment.

Flagged off from Hotel Park Plaza,Ballygunge on Friday, 8:30 am by - Usha Uthup and Shyamashree Sen (District Governor Rotary District 3291) for Kolkata Flag off.

Greetings to you from Rotary Club of Coimbatore Texcity, Team XPD2470 & Rotary India Literacy Mission! The team reached Kolkata on Mar 30.

XPD2470 is a 70-day road journey across 22 countries (24 including India and UK), over 24000 km, in 70 days, and 8 time zones.

This journey will be undertaken in a Tata Hexa Car by an All-Woman Team comprising of

Meenakshi Arvind, A Roadaholic 45 years, Married, Mother of 19 year old daughter Lives in Coimbatore,

Mookambikai Rathinam Age : 38 Single ,mother of an 8 year old daughter and

Priya Rajpal- An explorer on the journey called life, Age : 55 Single, Mother of a 21 year old daughter, which will be flagged off from Coimbatore on Mar 26, 2017 to arrive in London on June 2.

XPD2470 is an initiative of Rotary India Literacy Mission, ROTARY CLUB OF COIMBATORE TEXCITY& ROTARY CLUB OF AAKRUTHI (an All Women Rotary Club) to promote the T-E-A-C-H program of Rotary India Literacy Mission (RILM) and raise awareness on Women Empowerment.

This journey will raise funds along the way to make this the longest Literacy Charity Drive and aims to spread the message that Rotary India is promoting through its Literacy Mission. The official flag-off took place on March 3rd by our Minister of Human Resource Prakash Javadekar, in Chennai.
Kolkata, Mar 31 (IBNS): The U.S. Consulate General Kolkata and a city-based NGO, Jabala Action Research Organization, recently organised an interactive session with a newly trained group of community reporters.



But they were no ordinary reporters.

They were adolescent girls, from various districts of West Bengal, including Murshidabad, Birbhum, Alipurduar, Jalpaiguri, North 24 Parganas and Kolkata, who belonged to the poorer section of the society and had little or no information about rights.

Not only they had limited access to education and health services but were also vulnerable to child labour, trafficking, sexual abuse and child marriage.

The programme titled Amplifying Girls: Adolescent Girls Write Media Reports on Their Communities, held at the American Center in Kolkata, acquainted the audience about the girls' journeys in becoming community reporters.

Guided by American activist, Professor Geraldine Forbes of State University of New York Oswego, Jabala trained these young girls to become community reporters, reporting on women's rights.

Jabala trained them to become community reporters to empower them to make their own decisions.

Jabala Founder-Director Baitali Ganguly elaborated on the various aspects of the programme.

At the Kolkata meet, the girls spoke on how sensitive their families and communities were to the issues of womens empowerment, and also narrated their experiences as they worked through the program.

The girls selected for this program participated in workshops that trained them to collect evidence, story building, writing, and public speaking.

They learned how to collect evidence about incidents that deprive them of their rights like child marriage, trafficking and report on these incidents taking place in their communities.


Ron and Marion Chamberlain wanted compensation for what they describe as half a cruise line experience. Only half our cabin was useable, says Ron. So, he reasoned, it was worth just half a fare.

The Chamberlains would have accepted $2000  about half the value of their 12-day cruise.

But after turning down two much smaller cash offers and having their grievance thrown out by the Disputes Tribunal, the Otumoetai couple are left with nothing  except more questions and some homegrown advice to would-be cruisers.

Cut out the middle man, says Ron. Go straight past the travel agent to the cruise company when booking, because theyre accountable.

The travel agency involved, Flight Centre, has different advice.

Even after a trip is planned, things may not turn out exactly as expected, says Flight Centres Sue Matson. A flight is cancelled, luggage lost, a passport pilfered or someone falls ill while abroad, and when stuff happens, its reassuring to have someone who can provide advice and help resolve problems.

Flight Centre, says Sue, has a 24/7 assist line for this very reason.

For the Chamberlains stuff happened as soon as they embarked on The Golden Princess. A set of upper bunks attached to the wall in their cabin, almost directly above one side of the Chamberlains double bed. You couldnt walk past it without bending over.

The Chamberlains are nearing 80. And you couldnt get out of bed without cracking your head on it, says Ron

The Chamberlains called a steward  a very nice man  but he was unable to re-assign them another cabin. The ship was full. Thats it. So they endured half a cabin for the journey to Melbourne and around New Zealand.

When the Chamberlains got home he took up his grievance with Princess Cruises and Flight Centre. Flight Centre offered me $150 to go away. And Princess, he says, tried to appease him with $200. No deal, said Ron. I didnt think they would be so mean.

And because Ron paid the travel agent for the cruise he expected it to honour the terms of the agreement and took the matter to the Disputes Tribal.

But, said the Disputes Tribunal, it was clear the contract was between the Chamberlains and Princess Cruises. The booking terms and conditions make it clear the Flight Centre acts as an agent on behalf of travel service providers and does not provide the services itself.

However, in the comments section of the invoice Flight Centre noted that cabin types, deck and cabin numbers maybe requested and are issued upon the cruise companys discretion and are subject to change without notice prior to sailing.

The particular type of cabin allocated to Mr and Mrs Chamberlain was outside Flight Centres control, therefore the problem they experienced was not due to any fault on its part. It follows they have not established any claim against Flight Centre.

The cruising public needs to be aware that booking with a travel agent lets them off the hook when stuff hits the fan, says Ron. So one should book directly with the shipping line, which is responsible for the product you receive.

But Flight Centre says there are obvious advantages of working through a travel process with a travel agent. Instead of having to deal individually with separate airlines, cruise lines, insurance companies, transfer providers, this can all be easily and seamlessly managed by a travel expert, says Sue.

And there are somethings outside the control of a travel agent. For example, if a customers legs are too long and they are uncomfortable on a flight, or if they are tall and bang their heads on an overhead luggage compartment on plane, or when walking into a hotel room.

Another example floated to The Weekend Sun is if someone chooses to fly with a low cost carrier, with two stopovers and no meals on a journey they might not have as an enjoyable travel experience. But its a decision they will have made themselves.

A doctor suggested the Chamberlains proceed with their plans for the cruise but Rons now not sure of the benefits. He says both offers of compensation for half a cruise ship cabin were rubbish.
Renting out rooms on websites like Airbnb can be great little side earners, but ask yourself this question  have you told your insurance company?

A Coromandel homeowner is warning others who rent out rooms or properties via short-term rental accommodation websites to make sure their insurance covers them if the worst eventuates.

The Coroglen local, whos asked not to be named, had previously listed a sleepout located on her property on popular website Airbnb, but had not informed her insurance company.

Then the worst eventuated.

When the weather-bomb struck the Coromandel earlier in March about a metre of water swept through the sleepout, causing extensive damage to the building and destroying everything inside  the sofa, television, bed, and more.

But two years ago shed taken out house and content insurance with one New Zealands largest insurers. Everything would be okay, so she thought.

When we first took out insurance it was just a sleepout for our own private use, then about a year ago we thought we could make some money out of it and do some B&B which I know a lot of people are doing in Whitianga, particularly with Airbnb and other sites.

It didnt even occur to us to let the insurance company know.

Following the flooding, she called her insurer to register her claim, and during the call the companys service agent asked if they ran a B&B or rented any rooms from the property.

So she told them, Yes, we did.

Later they called me back saying they were unsure if they could cover us because we didnt inform them we were using it [the sleepout] for business purposes.

Several days later an insurance assessor visited the property to check the damage. During the visit the assessor intimated the homeowners content claim for the sleepout would likely be turned down due to her non-disclosure.

Then three days later, the insurance company notified her of their decision.

They turned down the entire claim for the structural repairs and content because we hadnt informed them wed rented out the sleepout, which apparently increases the risk.

I asked them why it increased the risk, just because it was rented out that didnt increase the risk of flood or natural disasters, theyre not exactly man-made.

They just said thats the policy, thats what the underwriters have decided.

While disappointed, and a wee bit miffed, the homeowner accepts she should have notified her insurance company that she was renting out the sleepout being as a B&B.

But she hopes her experience will serve as a warning to others.

Many people move out of their houses over Christmas and New Years, lock up their personal items and rent out the property. You just think gosh, what if there was a fire, they lose everything and the insurance company declines their claim because they did B&B and werent covered.

A lot of people said I should fight it, but honestly, I just want to fix the sleepout and move on. I also dont want to end up with a black mark on my insurance rating either, nobody wants that.
A plane bound for Christchurch was forced to return to Tauranga Airport after one of the pilots on board became unwell this morning.

An Air New Zealand spokeswoman says flight NZ8807 departed Tauranga at 6am and landed back at the airport shortly before 7am without incident.

This type of situation is one that all pilots train for, and the pilots followed standard operating procedure in returning to Tauranga.

Customers on-board the flight have since been provided road transport to Auckland where they will be accommodated on alternate services to their final destinations.

The spokeswoman was unable to provide details on the condition of the pilot due to privacy reasons.

Speaking to SunLive from the bus bound for Auckland, passenger Janelle Mark says they spent what seemed like 20 minutes in the air before returning to Tauranga.

We were turned back due to the pilot feeling faint. But the passengers, although disrupted, are pleased the pilot made this prudent decision.

The ambulance was waiting for the pilot on the tarmac when the flight landed and tended to him for about 30 minutes.

There were a few people going on to Singapore so they may have been disappointed to miss their connection. But majority of passengers felt the pilot did the right thing and Air NZ staff were accommodating.
The harvesting and processing of harakeke is among New Zealands early industries celebrated in the exhibition Building our Nation which opens in Katikati today.

Harakeke or flax, was used by early Maori for everything from fishing nets and lines, to clothing, building material and medicinal purposes, and features in the exhibition at the Western Bay of Plenty Museum.

The third exhibition staged by the museum since it opened last year, also focuses on kauri milling, brick making and the skills of carpenters, and is part of todays Blokes in Sheds Ramble in Katikati.

Thanks to the assistance of Lion Breweries archivist Edna Carson, the exhibition also marks 50 years since the end of The Six Oclock Swill when licensing laws meant public bars had to close their doors at 6pm. In 1967 the government changed the laws so hotels could stay open until 10pm.

Museum manager Paula Gaelic says the Western Bay Museums policy of changing exhibits is unique among museums in New Zealand but despite the considerable amount of time and effort required, it is paying off.

Visitors numbers are growing and by staging new exhibitions we offer people the opportunity to return to the museum several times a year.



An early brick from the NZ Brick, Tile & Pottery Co had paua shell insets and a silver fern pattern.

Housed in the former Katikati Fire Station, the museum does not have room to show its entire collection and so the exhibitions are a way of displaying items pertinent to a specific theme.

In addition to regular exhibitions, the museum hosts school tours where students have a hands-on experience of life in the early 1900s.

We could not do what we do without the tremendous support of so many sponsors, businesses and community groups and our team of volunteers. The level of support we have from the Katikati community is impressive and the envy of many other museums, says Paula.

The exhibition, sponsored by Claymark Ingrained Precision, was launched at an afternoon tea for invited guests yesterday and is now open to the public from 10 am to 4pm daily.

The Blokes in Sheds Ramble is on today, April 1, from 9am to 4pm and $10 per person tickets are available from the Katikati Information Centre.
New Delhi, Mar 31(IBNS) : Calcutta High Court Justice CS Karnan, whose standoff with the country's top judiciary earned him a warrant-a thing ever to have happened for the first time with a sitting judge-appeared before a seven-judge bench of the Supreme Court on Friday in a show of relent from his earlier position, but declared that he would not appear again unless his administrative and judicial work is restored.

"Restore my work or next time, I will not appear before your court," the judge said, adding the court was free to "send me to jail... I am not a terrorist or anti-social person," NDTV quoted him as telling the seven-judge bench, headed by Chief Justice J S Khehar.

The 61-year-old controversial judge had skipped previous hearings in the contempt case initiated against him by the Supreme Court, which finally issued a bailable warrant against him and asked the West Bengal police chief to execute the order.

The contempt case was filed against Karnan after he demanded probe against "20 corrupt judges."

Justice Karnan is arguing his case before the bench.

According to NDTV, on Friday, the bench gave the judge an opportunity to withdraw his complaint.

"Do you stand by your complaint against the 20 judges? Or do you wish to withdraw your complaint and unconditionally apologise," the bench asked him.

He refused the offer, insisting that the complaint that he had given was very much under the law".
On Wednesday afternoon, chief minister Fabian Picardo was at pains to reassure the people of Gibraltar that Brexit is not the end of the world for the Rock and that things may, in fact, even get better once Britain definitively leaves the EU in two years' time.

"Today is undoubtedly a sad day for Gibraltar," he told Parliament. "It is not the result we wanted from the referendum. Today is a day when we must be ready to work to turn sadness into optimism and hope."

"It is a day when we embark on a process we did not choose but are determined to make a success of.

"As the United Kingdom looks to establish itself as a truly global Britain that reaches beyond Europe, so do we, the British people of Gibraltar, look to establish ourselves also as a nation with commercial relationships well beyond Europe and in partnership with Britain.

"We are a resilient and entrepreneurial people. We will rise to the challenge. We will deliver a prosperous, outward looking, global British Gibraltar living in peace with its neighbours. And we will thrive as a people as we adapt to the new realities of post-Brexit trade and adopt its myriad opportunities," he concluded.

British support for Gibraltar post-Brexit was also expressed by the Under Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union, Robin Walker MP, who told Picardo that Gibraltar's priorities are fully understood and will be taken into account during negotiations with the EU, and that Gibraltar will be fully involved.

With regard to fears about the effect of Brexit on the border with Spain, the chief minister pointed out that the Spanish government has recently indicated that it is keen to ensure that Spanish workers and companies in Gibraltar are not prejudiced by Brexit, and Foreign Minister Alfonso Dastis has said there are no plans to close the border.
Until just a few months ago pupils at the Monterroso secondary school didn't know who Lydia was, nor did Lydia know about this school in Estepona. Now, however, a link has been formed between the two and has meant that this 13-year-old, who lives in Kenya, now has a heart which works properly.

By making and selling craft items the pupils were able to raise the sum of 1,300 euros, which made it possible for Lydia to travel to Spain for urgent heart surgery.

Lydia was released from hospital last week and is now convalescing in Cordoba, at the home of the family who is looking after her while she is in Spain. The pupils are delighted that everything went well and are hoping that when she has recovered she will come and visit them at the school. Before that, however, the pupils who were most involved in the project and gave up their break times for it, will be taken on a trip to Cordoba to see her.

"For us, Lydia seems like one of our students. The Infancia Solidaria association has kept us constantly informed and sends us photos, so she is part of our everyday life now," says Maria Jose Robles, a guidance counsellor at the Monterroso school, who has been responsible for this initiative.

It all began with a technique Maria Jose uses called 'group missions', which is intended to inculcate values in the pupils through different challenges throughout the school year.

"We want to give them responsibilities and for them to play an active role in society. We want them to see that with effort and dedication, they can change the world," she explains.

In this case, the objective was to help somebody through the Infancia Solidaria group, and that is how Lydia came into the lives of the pupils at Monterroso school.

The first part of their mission was to make craft items and then sell them. "We wanted to make recycled objects, to encourage the pupils to recycle things in general. They all did what they were best at, and some of them taught others how to make certain items," says Maria Jose.

These handicrafts, which included necklaces and decorative items , were then sold at a 'market' at the school. In one week, and only during their breaks from lessons, these pupils raised 1,300 euros, which was nearly enough to bring Lydia and her mother to Spain.

Other schools

During that week, an open day was held at the school, which helped with the fundraising. "We invited pupils and teachers from the Simon Fernandez, Maria Espinosa, Santo Tomas de Aquino andGarcia Lorca schools, because they will be coming to Monterroso in the future. It was a way of showing them the school , and some of the things we do here," says Maria Jose.

Lydia arrived in Spain on 1 March and was met in Madrid by volunteers from Infancia Solidaria, who accompanied her to Cordoba. On the 3rd she was admitted to the Infanta Sofia hospital for tests and remained there until last Thursday. Now she is feeling much better, and will soon be able to enjoy a few days seeing something of Andalucia before going home.

Despite the money raised by the Monterroso school, there were some unexpected problems because at the last minute doctors told Lydia she was too ill to travel. Finally, extra oxygen was carried on the plane so she could come to Spain for her heart surgery. When she returns to Kenya, one thing is certain: she will be taking a little piece of Cordoba, and another of Estepona, with her.
For many years Nerja, Malaga province's easternmost coastal town, has been attracting northern Europeans and in particular Britons, not just for holidays, but as permanent residents too. In fact, approximately one third of Nerja's population is made up of foreign residents, of whom a third are British.

PROGRAMME When and where. Sunday 2 April, Plaza de Espana, Nerja. 12pm. Welcome and Nerja Municipal Band. 12.30pm. Flamenco Dancing School Dani Romero. 1pm. The Costacord Singers 1.30pm. Flamenco Dancing School Elena 2pm. Shanty Choir Andalusia - German Choir 2.30pm. Cine Club Movie Theme Quiz 3pm. American Club donation. 3.05pm. Flamenco Fusion Dancing School Cristian 3.30pm. Mike Jingle Flamenco Guitar 4pm. Zumba Belen Gym Time Sport 4.30pm. Alborea dance school.

The town will be celebrating this multicultural atmosphere at its 18th Residents' Day this Sunday, with 34 stalls representing the wide variety of associations that are active in the town, from the Royal British Legion, to the International Lions Club, the 41 Club (former Round Tablers) as well as local charities and media.

Around 2,500 people are expected to attend the event which is to be held, as in previous years, in the Plaza de Espana, behind the town hall and Balcon de Europa. The event is organised by Nerja town hall and primarily by the foreigners' department, which has been run by Jacky Gomez for over 20 years. For a number of years Nerja has had its own dedicated foreign residents' councillor.

Jorge Bravo, who has held the position since 2015 and who speaks excellent English said: "For the town hall it's a very important event as the day demonstrates how the different nationalities that have chosen Nerja as their home live together and therefore gives us the opportunity to learn more about the activities that the different residents' associations do."

He went on to say that although the day focuses on foreign residents in the town, "It's also a day in which Spanish residents take part and it's about getting together under the umbrella of the same festivity."

As well as the stands, there will be six bars and a full programme of events, starting at 12pm with a welcome from Nerja's mayor, Rosa Arrabal, and Jorge Bravo.

Musical and dance performances will be given throughout the event, from Nerja's municipal band, different flamenco schools, local music groups, a quiz and a Zumba workout.

An attractive location

What makes Nerja so attractive to foreigners is not just the climate, but the wide choice of beaches with clear waters and the dramatic backdrop of the Maro cliffs that reach down to the Mediterranean.

Behind Nerja is the mountain range of the Sierras Tejeda, Almijara and Alhama, offering fantastic walking for those who enjoy exploring nature and local flora and fauna.

The Nerja caves, discovered in January 1959 by a group of five boys playing in the area, have provided the town and visitors with a connection to prehistory. The town hall has made the most this natural treasure chest, linking it to the local museum and holding the annual international music and dance festival inside the cave.

Following the earthquake that destroyed large parts of Malaga province on Christmas day 1884, King Alfonso XII visited Nerja and proclaimed that he was standing "on the balcony of Europe" as he looked out over the Mediterranean sea from what was then the site of a former fortress and watchtower. From then the site was developed into the Balcon de Europa.

A statue of the king can be found on the balcony and its creator is local artist, Francisco Martin, who is the name behind a number of well-known sculptures around not just Nerja, but Andalucia. He has also immortalised the Nerja cave discoverers and the popular character Chanquete, who currently resides in the tourist information centre.

Chanquete was the much loved fisherman from the 1980s Spanish television series, 'Verano Azul'. If foreigners flock to Nerja for the year-round sunshine, cuisine and beaches, Spaniards are drawn to the set of a television series that was a huge hit in their country's post-Franco years, following the adventures of a group of children whose families holidayed in the town.

Nerja's many beaches include the 800-metre Burriana to the east of the town, as well as El Playazo, which since 2016 has been the setting of the Chanquete International Music Festival. Torrecilla, Calahonda and Salon are other favourite sunbathing spots.

Maro is a small village belonging to Nerja and is most famous for Maro Cerro-Gordo cliffs, which lie between the village and neighbouring La Herradura, which is in Granada province. The cliffs are a popular diving and snorkelling spot, as they boast a wealth of marine flora and fauna and are among Andalucia's most important nature reserves.

The Chillar river has become as popular an attraction as Nerja's beaches, with visitors flocking to walk through the shallow waters of the river as the perfect way to cool down during the long, hot summer.

With a wide choice of restaurants, cafes and ice-cream parlours, beaches and mountains as far as the eye can see and a well-established foreign community, it is easy to understand why the population of northern Europeans continues to increase. In February 2017 alone, the number of Britons registering on the town hall population census rose by 20.

This Sunday they will be able to join fellow residents to celebrate their diverse international community.
"This way you'll be able to spend more time looking after your daughter." That was the most painful part of the justification given by a company's Human Resources director to a father who was dismissed because he had asked for a few days off to donate part of his liver to his sick child. The little girl's life depended on her father being genetically compatible.

UNPROTECTED ALTRUISM Who does it affect? Every year in Spain about 430 organs are transplanted from live donors. They are normally relatives of the patient, as they tend to be more compatible. 90 per cent are kidney donations and the remainder are part of a liver. The donor is not ill, so for insurers and the Social Security authorities there is a legal vacuum which leaves these people with no protection in terms of employment rights. What do they want? They are asking for employment law to be amended to protect donors' jobs and provide similar benefits to those received by pregnant women. Political groups in parliament are now considering this. Associations of liver and kidney patients say they want "maximum consensus."

"I asked for a few days off and to take some of my holiday allowance so I could go to Madrid for the operation," says the man, who is a member of the Spanish Association for Children with Liver Conditions and Transplants (HEPA). One week before the operation was due to be carried out he was sacked, with the excuse given above.

This was by no means the only case of its type. In Spain only five hospitals are authorised to carry out transplant operations on children. Another father from HEPA had to travel to the Spanish capital for tests to see if he was compatible with his son, and he brought back the medical certificates for his employers.

Some potential donors are reluctant to go ahead because they fear they will lose their jobs

"They said these had been voluntary tests and that I wasn't ill, so they wouldn't accept them. They said the only solution would be to apply for unpaid leave," he says. At least in this case he didn't actually lose his job. The HEPA association has decided not to reveal these people's names in case they suffer further retribution.

HEPA has started a petition on www.change.org to collect signatures to demand changes in the law so that living donors are given more protection. About 263,000 people have signed so far.

Spain is the model and most effective example in the world in terms of organ transplants. This success, of which the medical profession is justifiably proud, has resulted in people being more aware of the importance of organ donation and has made Spain the leading country in this field. The National Transplant Organisation (ONT) started in 1989 and by last year more than 100,000 transplants had been carried out in this country.

For decades, operations of this type involved removing healthy organs from corpses, but the waiting lists for transplants and, especially, medical advances in recent years, have resulted in live donations: healthy people who donate an organ or part of one to help someone else who is ill.

Science, ahead of the law

The legal aspect especially affects kidney or liver transplants, as the organs come from live donors. The laws have not been adapted to deal with this situation, and do not include any protection for healthy workers who voluntarily undergo operations of this type.

For many affected families, news of the most recent cases has been the final straw.

"About 60 per cent of liver donors are experiencing serious problems of this type, and between eight and ten per cent have lost their jobs," says the president of HEPA, Luis Torres.

The families complain that companies became less understanding with the onset of the economic crisis. "The support psychologists talk to us about the doubts that donors have and how the number of volunteers has dropped because people are afraid of what will happen. They don't want to be heroes, they just want to be treated fairly," explains Luis.

Every year more than 400 operations are carried out from live donors, and more than 90 per cent of these are kidney donations. The director general of the ALCER national federation, Juan Carlos Julian, says, "Nobody from our organisation has lost their job, but some people are concerned that it might happen or they postpone donating because they are worried that they risk being sacked."

In fact, a profile study shows that most people who offer to donate a kidney are civil servants, and therefore at less risk of losing their jobs.

There is absolute consensus about this among families and transplant professionals. This week sees the retirement of Rafael Matesanz, who has been the director of the ONT since it was founded nearly 30 years ago. This matter is of great concern to him, and he has fighting for a solution since 2012.

"Because it is something which involves the employment and health authorities, it has become complicated, but it is difficult for anyone to say "no" to donating in situations like this," he says.

On 8 March, World Kidney Day, he met with the Parliamentary Health Committee and believes that his argument was well received. Also, as he points out, "The change in the law would only affect about 400 people a year."

There are economic arguments to support the demands. "When people have had a transplant, they have much less time off sick, and it is always cheaper than the 50,000 euros it can cost to give a patient dialysis for a year," says Juan Carlos Julian.

The families and the National Transplant Organisation want living donors to be given the same legal status as pregnant women. "Their jobs need to be protected and companies' prejudices need to be overcome," insists Luis Torres.
Two entrepreneurs from Romania have shown that starting a new business in a foreign country does not have to be as daunting or as stressful as it seems.

Andreea Curca and her sister, Luisa Huttinger, have recently turned their business idea into a success in Spain, saying they found the procedure relatively easy.

Originally from Constanta, a city on the shores of the Black Sea, Andreea came to live in Malaga last year, whereas Luisa, who is based in Germany, spends just part of the year living on the Costa del Sol.

The sisters have been involved in the wedding decoration business for many years, so it was only natural for them to want to do something similar in Spain.

Their previous company supplied natural flowers and floral displays for weddings, communions and baptisms, but in Spain, with the soaring temperatures during the summer months, they realised that using fresh flowers had its drawbacks.

Andreea has been an entrepreneur and businesswoman for most of her professional life, so she soon set about the task of getting over this obstacle.

After doing some market research, and taking the climate into consideration, she realised that paper flowers were the answer.

Andreea and Luisa called on the services of another Romanian resident, Laura Socol, who has been in the wedding decoration business for more than 20 years.

Laura, originally from Bucharest, has lived in Benalmadena for three years and she jumped at the chance to help the sisters with their new venture.

Being citizens of a country belonging to the EU, they were not required to obtain a visa, however, the residency process caused them a few problems.

Andreea's husband, who is in charge of the logistics side of the business, had no problems with obtaining residency, but for Andreea, the process was slightly more difficult.

"It was harder for me, because the Spanish authorities have some peculiar rules regarding the validity of foreign documents, such as a marriage certificate, but we managed to sort everything out, although it was no easy task," Andreea told SUR in English.

After the paperwork was all in place, Andreea launched Paper Flowers Spain, a company that rents handmade flowers and floral decorations for any celebratory occasion.

"Setting up the actual business has been relatively easy, at least compared to other countries I've set up businesses in. The process of becoming 'autonomo' (self-employed), even for a foreign resident, is surprisingly easy and affordable here in Spain. This is very good news for entrepreneurial people who want to settle down and open a business here," Andreea explained.

Other red tape included registering the company name with the mercantile registry, obtaining the tax number (CIF) and preparing the incorporation documents.

Lifestyle and business

Laura admits that she, like Andreea, came to Spain for the weather, the food and the beach, although they both shared a desire to start a unique business offering a service that they feel is unique in Spain.

The team is well accomplished in the art of paper flower making, and they claim that, even though paper flowers are available in Spain, theirs are unequalled because of the process used to make them.

"Our flowers are all made with special crepe paper. We only use white paper because the dye used for the coloured paper is often too bold. We like to use subtle colours, so we paint the paper in order to achieve the shades we need," Laura pointed out.

The flowers are made with thin strips of paper, which are hand painted and then left to dry, before being transformed into flowers.

At the moment they concentrate on weddings, baptisms and communions, but they have plans to branch out into all forms of celebrations.

"We would be willing to undertake any type of celebrations, like the feria, or Semana Santa, and we have even thought about offering our service to funerals," said Laura.
The European Court of Justice in Luxembourg has confirmed that the rubbish tip behind Torremolinos is one of 61 in Spain where the site must be sealed up and the local landscape restored. The tip, currently unused, was opened in 1990 but has never met EU rules on health and safety and environmental damage. The town's previous PP-led council started a long-running legal battle in 2006, claiming it met guidelines. The new PSOE administration says it will cost five million euros to seal up.
Four students and two teachers from the Huelin school of secondary education in Malaga went to the city of Truro in Cornwall to meet and work with partners from Finland, Germany, United Kingdom, Italy and Poland earlier this month.

The four-day event, which was part of a European-funded Erasmus+ programme, was held at Penair School, a secondary academy school in Truro.

Students got involved in a broad range of activities, such as sharing open educational language resources and the financial plan from each school's mini company.

They also visited the fishing village of St Ives and the Eden Project, an environmental and sustainable educational centre in Cornwall.

Students also designed sustainable tourism projects, with the best ones being awarded prizes.
In an operation jointly carried out by the Guardia Civil and the National Police this week, seven members of a gang, estimated to have orchestrated and executed over 40 home robberies, have been arrested.

The police announced in a statement on Tuesday that they had raided over 11 houses in Malaga, Cadiz and Ceuta, where they seized firearms, jewellery, large amounts of cash, and forged documents.

From their findings, the police discovered that the gang, of Moroccan and Algerian nationality, are the perpetrators of the robberies recently reported in towns along the Costa del Sol.

The gang was very well structured and methodical, putting in place every type of security measure possible in order to remain undetected. For example, fake passports and drivers licences were used to hide their identities, enabling them to rent properties where they could store the stolen goods.

The gang members had also rigorously monitored the routines of the property dwellers, ensuring that they would not be in the house when they broke in via a a back door or window, usually at night. In just a few minutes they would ransack the house for all the jewellery and cash they could find.

In some cases, the gang would also swipe the keys of the homeowner's car, which would then be used to help them commit future robberies, before it was abandoned in order to remove traces of evidence.

The police finally caught and arrested seven of the gang members this week. They were charged on counts of armed robbery, illegal possession, vehicle theft, identity fraud and handling of stolen goods.
The Malaga branch of HappyBox, a company which specialises in express deliveries for businesses, including food, will take part in a pilot scheme this spring which involves using robots.

At least five of these autonomous robots will arrive in Malaga from the Estonian company Starship Technologies accompanied by an engineer who will help "teach" them to do their job.

Malaga will be the fourth city in the world to take part, with the scheme already set up in Tallinn, San Francisco and London.

When the order reaches its destination the customer is sent an unlock code to retrieve the parcel

The robots will operate in the pedestrian zone of the city's historic centre, with a delivery time of between 15 and 20 minutes.

Typically weighing around 18 kilogrammes, they will be able to deliver parcels as heavy as ten kilogrammes, and although they have the capacity to move at a speed of 16 kilometres per hour, that will be reduced to ten during the experimental period so that they can keep pace with pedestrians. Their operating range is around ten kilometres and their batteries last around five hours.

The robots will also be fitted with GPS systems, optical cameras, accelerometers and ultrasonic sensors, which will allow them eventually to move about autonomously in a designated area of the city.

However, the first step will involve an engineer helping them create a map of the area, which they will need before they are able to move around without any help. In Malaga, therefore, the engineer will be accompanying the machines during their first few deliveries.

The robots will be connected to the platform HappyBox uses to manage all of its deliveries, with a few slight changes.

When an order from a customer comes through, the address and the time it has to arrive at its destination is transmitted to the robot. Once the machine has arrived at its destination, the customer will be sent an unlock code which will allow them to open the compartment where the parcel has been placed.

The managing director of HappyBox, Chris Orejuela, stated that the next version of these robots will be able to communicate with humans through an application similar to Siri, the programme used by Apple.

Orejuela added that the robots will be accurately tracked at all times when they are out delivering parcels, while there will always be a human being monitoring closeby, to avoid them being stolen.
It is a dubious honour, but Malaga province continues to be near the top of the list in terms of traffic offences and the money raised from those who commit them. Despite being smaller in size than many other regions of Spain, it comes second only to Madrid in terms of income from traffic fines.

THE FIGURES 9.7 miillion euros were paid in traffic fines in Malaga province in 2016, the second highest amount in the whole of Spain. 224,386 traffic fines were issued in the province last year, the third highest number in the country.

The figures were revealed in parliament recently in response to a question from socialist MP Miguel Angel Heredia. In total, in 2016 drivers who committed traffic offences on the main road network of Malaga province (basically on the A-45 Las Pedrizas motorway, the A-7 dual carriageway and the Malaga city bypasses) paid nearly 9.7 million euros in fines.

The amount paid in the Spanish capital was more, around 11.4 million euros, and next on the list after Malaga came Murcia, with 9.2 million, and La Coruna and Seville, which were almost identical: 7.3 million and 7.4 million euros respectively. (It should be noted that the figures do not include Catalonia or the Basque Country).

In addition to the above, Malaga is also high on the list of fines issued. Many of these were the result of fixed and mobile speed traps, but in total 224,386 penalties were issued last year. Once again, Madrid topped the list in this respect with 377,878, followed by Murcia with 231,787, then Malaga, and Seville in fourth place with 217,998.

As well as the permanent speed cameras on the A-45 and A-7, which are also among those which produce most fines, something else partly explains this situation. Malaga is one of the Spanish provinces with the most traffic on its roads, because of tourism. The Daily Average Intensity (IMD), the indicator which is used to measure the use of roads, grew again last year by about 12 per cent over the whole network (until September, the last available figure), after several years in which it went down or barely changed.

Every day, an average of 222,000 vehicles drive on the access roads to Malaga city, one of the highest intensities of traffic in the country.

SUR has tried without success to obtain an explanation from the Traffic Department about why Malaga has such a high ratio of fines in comparison with the rest of the country.

MP Miguel Angel Heredia, who asked the question in parliament, asked how Malaga can be the second province in terms of income from traffic fines when it doesn't occupy the same position with regard to volume of traffic. He also pointed out that every year the government receives more money from this source: 5.7 million euros in 2013, 8.7 million in 2014, and last year the figure rose once again.

A money earner

"The radars aren't located in areas with the highest number of accidents. They just want to catch drivers speeding; the government is only interested in raising money," says Heredia, who wants the nearly 9.7 million euros the state receives to be spent on road safety, resurfacing, better signs and eliminating accident black spots in the province.

million euros were paid in traffic fines in Malaga province in 2016, the second highest amount in the whole of Spain.

traffic fines were issued in the province last year, the third highest number in the country.
Kolkata, Mar 31 (IBNS): Grandson of Bengali actor Soumitra Chatterjee, Ronodeep Bose, is critical after meeting a bike accident in New Alipore area, on Friday, according to media reports.

Ronodeep was riding a bike and hit a wall near his house and received severe injury in the skull.

He was immediately taken to a hospital.

The young actor is currently under observation.

Ronodeep is a Bengali actor who was seen in films like Dutta Vs Dutta, Khwato.

Image: Facebook
The UK officially triggered Article 50 on Wednesday, meaning that proceedings have started for the UK to leave the EU, rather ironically for some, on 1 April 2019.

Four days earlier, on Saturday, Rome was at the centre of celebrations, notably for the remaining 27 EU member countries. The date marked the 60th anniversary of the signing of the Treaty of Rome, one of the most significant documents in the evolution of the European Union, establishing it as the then European Economic Community (EEC).

A series of marches, the biggest being the Unite for Europe event in London, were organised to coincide with the celebrations in Rome and the Italian capital, as well as Madrid, also saw demonstrations against Brexit. Over 100,000 people attended the event in London and hundreds joined in Rome and Madrid to show their opposition to the UK's departure. The marches were also a message of solidarity towards the estimated 1.2 million Britons living in other European countries and the approximately three million Europeans living in the UK.

Among the participants at the London march were 50 members of the Spain-based Bremain in Spain group. Chair of the anti-Brexit movement, Sue Wilson, spoke at the march and joined big names in UK politics including the former leader of the Liberal Democrat party, Nick Clegg, and Alistair Campbell, former Downing Street Press Secretary.

In her speech Sue said, "The government is not acting in our best interests. It is not even listening to us - out of sight, out of mind. It is not even listening to the recommendations of its own Exiting the EU Select Committee. We are not bargaining chips or negotiating capital, nor are we trade or services - we are people."

Bremain in Spain estimates that far more Britons reside in Spain than the 308,821 that are officially registered and Spain is the country where most British expatriates, 30 per cent, live compared with other EU countries.

The group is also championing a petition, which must be signed by at least one million people across a minimum of seven member states, to ask the European Union to issue 'European Citizen' passports to the millions of Britons and other European citizens who are at risk of losing their rights post-Brexit.

Passport campaign

The European Citizens' Initiative is an EU scheme, established under the 2012 Treaty of Lisbon, which allows EU citizens to propose legislation. Bremain in Spain has used the initiative to launch the EU passport idea, Choose Freedom.

Existing EU legislation says the ability already exists (Regulation 1417/2013) for the EU to issue EU passports to diplomats and officials. The EU Commission has agreed that this form of passport, known as "laissez-passer", can be extended "on exceptional basis and upon due motivation, to special applicants". Britain in Europe announced in February 2017 that the Commission had "accepted that the Choose Freedom application was legally valid on this basis".

Currently, Britons, like other EU nationals living in Spain, are not entitled to dual citizenship and must fulfill a number of requisites in order to obtain Spanish nationality. The only nationalities that are eligible for dual passports are former Spanish colonies including the majority of south American countries, the Philippines, Equatorial Guinea and Portugal, as well as descendants of Sephardic Jews whose ancestors were expelled from Spain.

While groups like Bremain in Spain are intent on campaigning for the rights of Britons abroad, The Three Million is a group lobbying for the rights of EU citizens living in the UK. In her speech after invoking Article 50 on Wednesday, the prime minister Theresa May stated to MPs that it is her "fierce determination to get the right deal for every single person in this country".

Concern among expats

However, despite these words and the reassurances on Wednesday of both British Ambassador in Spain Simon Manley and the Spanish Embassy in London, which set up a help desk for Spanish nationals living in the UK on the same day, residents say they are still extremely concerned about what will happen to them.

There is only anecdotal evidence at the moment that Britons really are selling up and moving back home, but a number of town hall foreigners' departments in Malaga province, including Benalmadena and Frigiliana have spoken to SUR in English about such cases.

However, many people have spoken out about their own personal situations. They include James Machonachie, whose three children were born and brought up in Aragon. "I don't feel English anymore," says the father of three who has started the lengthy process of applying for Spanish nationality. He has passed the language and general knowledge tests and is currently waiting for criminal records checks to come through from the UK.

Between January and June 2016, only 70 applications were made by British nationals to become Spanish but since the referendum the number has risen to 500.

Meanwhile Ireland has seen the biggest rise in applications for citizenship, as anyone from Northern Ireland or with proven Irish ancestry is eligible for an Irish passport, which would allow the holder to retain rights as an EU citizen. Sweden and Denmark have also seen unprecedented spikes in passport applications from Britons in the last nine months.

In February, a leaked document from the European Parliament Legal Affairs Committee claimed that the future of Brits abroad would depend on the decisions of individual member states and on the rights given to EU nationals in the UK. However, according to John Muffett, a spokesperson for Bremain in Spain, "Spain won't want to build walls for those 310,000 Britons, although it would be difficult for it to do nothing."

Britons and Spaniards have been given assurances from their respective governments. They now have two years to decide if it's worth changing their passports, returning home or just waiting for the final outcome.

Sue Wilson, Chair of Bremain in Spain, is also leading the Freedom to Choose campaign, which is requesting that the EU introduces European citizen passports to all of those who are at risk of losing their rights and freedoms. The campaign must collect one million signatures from seven different EU member states to be able to be considered by the European Parliament. The web link for the organisation is:

www.bremaininspain.com

The percentage of Britons living in European countries who live in Spain. Higher than the Irish, who have an automatic right to dual nationality and therefore may remain European.

The percentage of Britons in Spain who are retired. Almost 110,000 pensioners have moved to Spain. The majority own homes and use the Spanish public health system.

The number of Spaniards who work in the UK and fear the return of the old work-visa system. The EU is against each country establishing its own agreement with the UK.

Bremain in Spain believes that the real number of Britons residing in Spain is twice the total that appears in official statistics. The other 300,000 people that are unaccounted for must also be concerned about the UK leaving the EU.

Health first

According to polls, the main concern among Britons living in Spain is healthcare. Many are worried that they would not be able to get private health insurance or that they wouldn't be able to afford it. What about Spanish companies and jobs?

Many are worried about having the right of freedom of movement taken away from them (thousands of Britons teach English in academies) and are concerned about businesses they have started.
The mini-scandal generated by Eurogroup president Jeroen Dijsselbloem's claim that southern European countries squander EU funds on drinking and chasing women will soon be forgotten. Ignition of Article 50 this week is, after all, a slightly more important matter than a few silly remarks from the Dutch finance minister. But speculation about who will take Dijsselbloem's place if he fails to win a second renewal of his position in January 2018 is now rife. Mariano Rajoy, of course, is convinced that the Spanish economy minister is the best man for the job, saying to reporters in Rome last Friday that Luis de Guindos is "one of the most important and competent personalities in the Eurogroup".

That may well be true. The more pertinent questions, though, are whether De Guindos actually wants the Eurogroup presidency or if he intends to nominate himself for the position. On the latter point, Spain's economy minister made a barely-credible claim on Tuesday, saying that he is "not a candidate for the presidency of the Eurogroup".

I'm almost certain that's not true. De Guindos lost out to Dijsselbloem in the summer of 2015, when the latter won a second term as boss of the eurozone countries' finance ministers. He was re-appointed despite the fact that his Spanish rival had the backing of Angela Merkel. Brussels insiders also reported a sense within the EU's top insitutions at the time that a minister from Spain was owed a big job after a smarting rejection by the European Central Bank (ECB) three years earlier.

In 2012, Luxembourg's Yves Mersch replaced Jose Manuel Gonzalez Paramo on the ECB's board, despite the fact that another Spaniard was put forward to replace Paramo. It was perceived as a snub by Spain, which became the largest eurozone country without representation at the bank's table. Four years on and that is still the case. If awarding the Spanish economy minister presidency of the Eurogroup in 2015 would have taken the sting out of that rejection, then Dijsselbloem's re-appointment must have been a doubly nasty surprise for De Guindos.

Indeed, last December the Spanish economy minister complained to reporters that Spain was not adequately represented in top EU committees. He also flagged up Spain's intention of trying to be "influential in all [EU] debates". Why on earth, then, would he not want another shot at the Eurogroup presidency?

Other than a sudden loss of political ambition, only one reason presents itself. Next year, the vice chairmanship of the ECB board becomes vacant when Portugal's Vitor Constancio steps down. De Guindos might well have his sights on this role rather than the less weighty one of Eurogroup president. Although he could, of course, follow the example set by former UK chancellor George Osborne - now the editor of a major newspaper as well as a politician and financial consultant - and put himself forward for both.
The Spanish prime minister, Mariano Rajoy, reminded Theresa May in a telephone conversation on Thursday that the EU will negotiate Brexit as a united front, government sources said.

The British prime minister telephoned her Spanish counterpart on Thursday "to comment on the letter from the UK to the EU about Brexit", wrote Rajoy himself on Twitter.

The conversation took place "cordially" said a government source and Rajoy expressed Spain's "support" for Michel Barnier, the European Commission's chief negotiator in the talks to establish the new relationship between London and the 27 remaining states. Rajoy stressed "the EU's united stance with respect to the negotiation" and the necessity to preserve the "integrity of the four freedoms of the European Union".

Rajoy insisted months ago that these four freedoms (movement of people, goods, capital and services) "go together" and the UK cannot select one or two and reject the others.

British Ambassador to Spain, Simon Manley, reiterated May's words in an interview with EFE, on Wednesday and said that there was "no change at the moment".

In a statement sent to members of the British Chamber of Commerce in Spain, Manley said: "We want the negotiation to avoid a prolonged situation of uncertainty for European businesses and citizens."

He highlighted the need for an agreement concerning the rights of EU citizens in the UK and Britons in the EU "as soon as possible".

The number of Britons who have started the process to become Spanish citizens. The figure has gone up sevenfold since the referendum in June 2016 resulted in Brexit.

The number of topics someone wanting to obtain Spanish nationality should study before taking the nationality test, from history and culture to politics and administration.

The number of Spaniards who have signed the petition asking the EU to introduce an EU citizen passport, in support of the 4.5 million Europeans and Britons at risk of losing rights.
A concert held on the 17 December 1870 was an important event for the Teatro Cervantes in Malaga; it marked the opening of the new theatre which had been built to replace the Teatro Principe Alfonso which had burned down 18 months earlier.

The expense of the new theatre was met by wealthy enthusiasts who got together to ensure that the new theatre was built as quickly as possible. The result is the beautiful building which continues to be a home for the arts.

Malaga town hall acquired the theatre in 1987 and carried out extensive work to update the technical and security systems, dressing rooms and other services. The reopening was celebrated with a special concert on 6 April that year, attended by Queen Sofia. To commemorate the occasion, the Malaga Symphony Orchestra performed 'The Creation' by Haydn.

The 30th anniversary will be celebrated on 6 and 7 April with Brahms' 'A German Requiem' by the Malaga Philharmonic Orchestra with soloists from the Carmina Nova and Opera de Malaga choirs under the direction of Manuel Hernandez-Silva.
New Delhi, Mar 31 (IBNS): Prime Minister Narendra Modi will address the students participating in Smart India Hackathon 2017 on Saturday through video conferencing.

The Smart India Hackathon is intended for promoting innovation, out-of-the-box thinking in young minds, especially engineering students.

It is focused on the problems of social importance as identified by 29 Ministries/Departments of Govt of India.



It is worth mentioning that the starting point of the Smart India hackathon is the Digital India, Start up India andMake in India campaigns, which need skilled and innovative workforce. With more than 10,000 programmers participating, this would be largest Hackathon anywhere in the world, read a government statement.

The Grand Finale of Smart India Hackathon will start at 8 a.m. on Apr 1 and would end at 8 p.m. on Apr 2 in 26 different locations in the Country with each location handheld by one department/Ministry of Govt of India.

Minister for Human Resource Development Prakash Javadekar is the Chief Patron of the campaign. Ministry of Human Resource Development spearheaded the campaign through AICTE as the main anchor.

Various departments and Ministries of the Government of India have identified 598 problems to which 7,531 teams of approximately 42,000 students responded.

In this 1266 teams of 10000 participants from 28 States were shortlisted for the finale. Some of the problems identified by the Ministry of Railways are such as the condition of Railway track is critical for safety of train operations.

The condition of tracks needs to be monitored proactively. A software solution which keeps track of the condition of the track and allied infrastructure and generates auto warning messages about the need of urgent maintenance can help in preventing untoward incidents.

As per statistics of World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO), India registers 40 patents per million population, so considering the intellectual capability of Indians, there is a lot that can be done in the field of innovation.

The Smart India Hackathon is an effort in the direction to improve innovation.

This can be done by encouraging students to apply knowledge to the real-life situations, and to find innovative solutions to the day-to-day problems.




RADFORD, VA - The New River Health District would like to announce that after an exhaustive nationwide search, Noelle Bissell, M.D., has been selected as the districts new health director.

We are confident that Noelles experience, knowledge, and integrity are a great match for the work, staff, and community of the New River Health Department, and that together we will continue to advance the mission in our local communities and spread the vision of healthy living for all, said Deputy Commissioner for Community Health Services Robert W. Hicks.

Dr. Bissell, a native of the Baltimore area, received her Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical Engineering in 1986 from Johns Hopkins University. She received her Doctor of Medicine degree in 1990 from the University of Maryland, then completed an internship and medical tour with the U. S. Navy and was stationed in Iceland and Japan.

While in the Navy she met her husband, Charles, and after marrying they moved to San Diego where she completed her internal medicine residency with Mercy Hospital/ University of California at San Diego. They moved to the New River Valley in 2003. Charles is a surgeon at Carilion-New River Valley Medical Center. The Bissells have four children.

Im honored to have been selected and have been eagerly learning about VDHs programs and community initiatives in the New River Valley, and meeting the many people who help make our work so meaningful, said Bissell.

To meet Noelle Bissell  and to tour the newly relocated and recently opened Radford City Health Department  all are invited to attend an open house at the new health department offices, at 220 E. Main St. in Radford, April 14 from 2 to 4 p.m. Light refreshments will be served.

For more information, visit www.vdh.virginia.gov/new-river, like us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/NewRiverHealthDistrict or call the New River Health Districts Radford City Health Department at 540-267-8255.
LockheedRadar

Lockheed Martin's Q-53 radar, mounted on a 5-ton truck, can be rapidly deployed, automatically leveled and remotely operated with a laptop computer or from a climate-controlled command vehicle. The U.S. Army has awarded Lockheed a contract to begin full production of the radars at its plant at Electronics Park in Salina, N.Y.

(Lockheed Martin)

WASHINGTON -- The U.S. Army has awarded Lockheed Martin's plant in suburban Syracuse the single largest contract in its history, a deal worth up to $1.58 billion for radars that track incoming rocket, mortar and artillery fire.

The five-year contract is a big victory for Lockheed's campus at Electronics Park in Salina, with the Army giving the green light for full-rate production of its workhorse Q-53 radar.

The company, which has 50 job openings in Salina that are not directly tied to the radar's production, said it did not anticipate any immediate hires resulting from the new contract.

Lockheed officials confirmed the Army contract today, but could not immediately provide details about the number of units that would be produced.

But Army officials informed U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., that full production would allow for the acquisition of 127 of the radar systems, including 50 to "satisfy evolving foreign military sales and/or U.S. requirements."

Until now, the truck-mounted mobile radar systems had been at a low rate of production. Lockheed celebrated the completion of its 100th unit in Salina this January.

Lockheed's solid-state radars can detect enemy fire from any direction, predict where an incoming round will strike and indicate where the round originated. The Army has used the radars in battle in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The Q-53 radar system is displayed at Lockheed Martin's plant at Electronics Park in Salina. The system scans the skies to pinpoint the source of enemy rockets, mortars and artillery.

The new contract will allow the Army to begin placing specific orders for the radar systems in larger quantities over the next five years.

The Q-53 radars (also known as the Counter Fire Target Acquisition Radar System) are manufactured at four Lockheed plants, including Salina and Owego in New York state.

The radar's final assembly point is at the sprawling Lockheed campus at Electronics Park in Salina, a northern suburb of Syracuse, which employs about 1,600 people.

Lockheed won the development contract for the radar in 2007 during the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, and the Army began deploying the systems in 2010.

So far, the Salina plant has fulfilled more than $1.5 billion worth of orders for the radar systems. One of those previous contracts from 2012 was worth about $881 million.

Before the order for the Q-53 radars, the single largest radar contract for Lockheed in Salina was a $625 million project to develop a missile defense system for the Army known as MEADS, the Medium Extended Air Defense System.

The Salina plant had been targeted for closing in 2013 as the nine-year MEADS project neared completion, but Schumer intervened and helped convince Lockheed to keep the facility open.

Employees at the Lockheed campus primarily develop and produce radar, sonar and other electronic warfare technology for the U.S. military, as well as U.S.-approved international sales to more than 40 countries around the world.

Contact Mark Weiner anytime: Email | Twitter | Facebook | 571-970-3751
Price Rite.JPG

Workers stock fresh produce at the Price Rite store at 611 South Ave. in Syracuse on Friday, March 31, 2017. The store is scheduled to open on Sunday, April 2, 2017.

(Rick Moriarty | rmoriarty@syracuse.com)

Syracuse, N.Y. -- The opening this Sunday of a Price Rite supermarket in a low-income Syracuse neighborhood took eight years of work by a nonprofit community organization -- and a big hand from state and local taxpayers.

Price Rite is set to open the 35,000-square-foot store at 8 a.m. Sunday at 611 South Ave., a low-income Southside neighborhood that's been described as a "food desert" because of its lack of full-service grocery stores. A ribbon-cutting is scheduled for 2 p.m. with store, city, county and state officials.

The $5 million cost of renovating, expanding and equipping an existing building to house the store is being subsidized by nearly $2.4 million in government grants and tax exemptions.

Workers stock shelves at the Price Rite store at 611 South Ave. in Syracuse on Friday, March 31, 2017. The store is scheduled to open Sunday, April 2, 2017.

The biggest single chunk of government assistance is coming from the state of New York. It is providing $1.2 million in grants.

Onondaga County is the next biggest contributor. It provided the building's owner, Jubilee Homes of Syracuse, with a $350,000 grant to purchase the property in 2009. It also provided $200,000 for the installation of permeable pavement in the store's parking lot to keep rainwater runoff from flowing into the county's sewage treatment system.

In addition, the Syracuse Industrial Development Agency granted Price Rite property tax breaks worth $329,140 over 10 years, an exemption worth $272,000 from sales taxes on construction materials and a mortgage recording tax exemption worth $30,000.

Josh Bartholomew, regional operations director for Price Rite, said the project would not have been possible without the government assistance because of the grocery business's historically slim profit margins and the need to keep prices low.

"It would have been very difficult because of our margins," he said. "It would have made it very difficult without the grant money."

Jubilee Homes Executive Director Walt Dixie, who recruited Price Rite to the location, said the government subsidies are money well spent. Without them, the project would not have been economically feasible and the low-income neighborhood along South Avenue would still not have a full-service supermarket, he said.

Dixie said the South Avenue area has been a food "desert" for decades because it has no supermarket -- just corner grocery stores that he said charge high prices and sell a very limited number of food items, and little or no fresh produce.

Price Rite will give residents of the area a place to buy competitively priced food, create some jobs (about 15 full time and 85 part time) and hopefully be the start of a commercial district that will attract more retailers to South Avenue, he said.

"If you don't have these anchors in your neighborhood, people won't want to live here," he said.

Jubilee Homes started 31 years ago as a private, nonprofit housing agency, using federal funds to renovate homes for low- to moderate-income families on the southwest side of Syracuse.

Registers are ready for customers at the Price Rite supermarket at 611 South Ave. in Syracuse. The 35,000-square-foot store is scheduled to open April 2, 2017.

As federal housing dollars have dried up, Jubilee has shifted toward offering workforce training services and, with the Price Rite project, has become a commercial property developer.

Eight years ago, the organization began looking for a way to attract a supermarket to South Avenue, something residents of the area have been seeking for many years. Using the $350,000 grant from the county, Jubilee bought a building at the southeast corner of South and Bellevue avenues that housed a Loblaws supermarket in the early 1970s and more recently was home to a painting contractor.

It then went on a three-year search for a supermarket company that would be willing to open a store in the building. In 2012, Price Rite, one of the few supermarket chains that likes to operate stores in inner-city neighborhoods, was opening one at the corner of Teall Avenue and Erie Boulevard East.

At the suggestion of former Rochester Mayor and then-Lt. Gov. Robert Duffy, Price Rite President Neil Duffy (no relation) agreed to meet with Dixie at Jubilee Homes' office on South Avenue to discuss opening a store in the building owned by Jubilee.

Two years earlier, Jubilee collected the signatures of more than 3,000 neighborhood residents on cards pledging to shop at a supermarket if one opened at the location. At the meeting with Duffy, Dixie dumped the 3,000 cards on a conference table to show the Price Rite president how eager neighborhood residents were to see a supermarket open nearby.

The presentation helped to convince Duffy and other Price Rite executives that a store would succeed at the location, but only if Jubilee could assist with the renovation costs, Dixie said.

Problem was, Jubilee did not have the money.

"We didn't have any other resources but the building itself," he said.

That's when Jubilee went to the state for a $600,000 grant for Price Rite and got it. As plans for the store progressed, it became apparent that grant wouldn't be enough, said Carolyn Evans-Dean, a business consultant to Jubilee.

So Jubilee asked the state for more aid for the project. The state came through with another $600,000 for the project, she said.

In addition to obtaining the state and county grants, Jubilee persuaded the city to seize 18 tax-delinquent properties -- 14 vacant lots and four vacant buildings -- and transfer them to Jubilee to provide space for Price Rite to expand the building and create parking areas.

Dixie said the government investment in the store is small compared with the public financial assistance that has been given recently to a string of high-end residential and commercial projects downtown, on University Hill and at the Syracuse Inner Harbor. None of those projects, he noted, are meant to service low- or moderate-income residents.

"We've got to make sure we don't leave these neighborhoods behind," he said of the South Avenue area.

Jubilee is retaining ownership of the building. Price Rite has signed a 10-year lease. Evans-Dean said the store will pay Jubilee $50,000 a year in the early years of the lease, with the amount increasing in later years.

"They're not paying a lot, especially in the first five years, but that's OK," Dixie said. "Our objective was to provide a service to the community."

Contact Rick Moriarty anytime: Email | Twitter | Facebook | 315-470-3148
SALINA, N.Y. -- Firefighters climbed into a chilly Salina creek Friday morning to rescue a driver who crashed a pickup truck into the water.

A man drove off of Old Liverpool Road just before 8 a.m. before driving down a slope and into a creek. The creek runs next to the Village Burger parking lot.

Assistant Liverpool Fire Chief John Laakso said it isn't clear exactly what led to the crash that ended with the pickup truck in the 4-foot-deep creek. The injured driver told firefighters he lost consciousness, he said.

"He was not able to get himself out, due to the water," Laakso said.

Donning cold-water suits, firefighters climbed down the slope and freed the man from the damaged truck. Laakso called the rescue "abnormal."

"It's not an everyday event," he said.

At the time of the crash, it was sprinkling and cold. Wind chills hovered around 22 degrees, according to the National Weather Service.

After he was rescued from his truck, the injured man was transported by American Medical Response to a hospital. In addition to paramedics and Liverpool firefighters, the Moyers Corners Fire Department and the Onondaga County Sheriff's Office responded to the accident.

The collision smashed the pickup truck's windshield, covering the glass with a web of cracks. Parts of the smashed vehicle -- including a lost headlight -- came to a rest on the pavement above the creek, while oil leaked out of the truck and into the water.

With about a dozen firefighters and bystanders watching, a tow truck driver eased the truck out of the water.
tubmanthumb_0218.jpg

This rare photograph of a young Harriet Tubman was bought by the Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture and the Library of Congress.

(Provided photo)

This is the full photograph of Harriet Tubman purchased by the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture and the Library of Congress.

Washington, D. C. -- The Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture and the Library of Congress Friday announced the joint acquisition of an album of 44 rare photographs, including a previously unrecorded portrait of abolitionist and Underground Railroad conductor Harriet Tubman.

The album that also contains the only known photograph of John Willis Menard, the first African American man elected to the U.S. Congress, was sold for $161,000 Thursday in New York City, according to Swann Galleries in New York City.

The Harriet Tubman Home in Auburn had raised nearly $29,000 online in an attempt to buy the Tubman photo.

The collaboration between the Smithsonian and the Library of Congress ensures these pieces of American history will be accessible to the public in perpetuity, a news release from the Library of Congress said.

"It is a distinct honor to have these photographs that tell an important part of America's history," said Lonnie Bunch, founding director of the National Museum of African American History and Culture. "We are pleased and humbled to work with the Library of Congress to ensure that this rare and significant collection will be preserved and made accessible to the American public."

"To have a new glimpse of such key figures in American history is rare indeed," said Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden. "Through this extraordinary collaboration, these images will be forever part of our shared heritage and will be a source of inspiration for many generations to come."

The images are part of the photo album of Emily Howland (1827-1929), a Quaker school teacher from Cayuga County who taught at Camp Todd, the Freedman's School in Arlington, Va.

The album contains 44 images taken circa 1860s, including the Tubman and Menard images, as well as a print of a more commonly known Tubman portrait taken later in life. It also contains images of Charles Sumner, Lydia Maria Child, Samuel Ely, William Ellery Channing, Colonel C.W. Folsom and Charles Dickens.

The National Museum of African American History and Culture opened Sept. 24 on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. The nearly 400,000-square-foot museum is the nation's largest and most comprehensive cultural destination devoted exclusively to exploring, documenting and showcasing the African American story and its impact on American and world history.

The Library of Congress is the world's largest library, offering access to the creative record of the United States--and extensive materials from around the world--both on site and online.

Contact Charley Hannagan anytime: Email | Twitter | Facebook | 315-470-2161.
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Frank Cetera and Ursula Rozum outside their Otisco St. home in Syracuse. They are getting married April 1 because she needs his health insurance. Dennis Nett | dnett@syracuse.com

(Dennis Nett)

Syracuse, N.Y. -- Ursula Rozum didn't consider herself the marrying kind. She didn't need a piece of paper to make her long-time relationship with Frank Cetera legit.

Then, a few months ago, she got a toothache. She'd already been to the dentist to have a filling. The tooth still hurt. Naturally, Cetera suggested marriage.

Rozum said yes.

"Frank, and his MVP insurance, is going to take good care of me," Rozum said.

Rozum, who also wears glasses, has no dental or eye insurance under her current plan, which she purchases from the state marketplace. It costs her $200 a month (using a $300 federal subsidy that could get cut) along with a $1,500 deductible. Cetera, who works for Onondaga County Community College, pays $4,339.44 with no annual deductible and small co-pays. The insurance include dental coverage that costs just $118.80 a year.

Rozum's current job is working on a campaign to get the New York Health Act through the state Legislature. The bill would make healthcare more affordable for New Yorkers despite discussed federal cuts, Rozum said.

The wedding is Saturday at 1 p.m. Rozum said she had trouble finding someone who would officiate at that time of day. Most officials would only do a Saturday wedding early in the morning, say 8:30.

"I can't get up that early. For yoga, I can. But not for a wedding," Rozum said.

She's not wearing a white dress. She might wear a veil, she said, if she can find one between now and Saturday afternoon.

The cake is ice cream, from Gannon's.

And the couple is getting married where they met in 2009: the lobby of the Syracuse Cooperative Federal Credit Union at 800 N. Salina St.

It was Sept. 9., 2009. County Executive Joanie Mahoney was there for an International Literacy Day event. Rozum saw Cetera across the lobby and thought he was cute, she said.

"I said, 'Hi. Nice to meet you,'" Rozum recalled.

They will be married by a humanist who will read a short quote from Walt Whitman.

Rozum said she doesn't believe people should have to luck out, like she did, and fall in love with a guy who has a "sweet job" and government benefits.

"Everyone should have access to affordable health care," Rozum said.

There are no plans for a honeymoon.

But Rozum does plan to use that new dental insurance soon to get her tooth checked out.
Guwahati, Mar 31 (IBNS) : President Pranab Mukherjee on Friday said that Assam is emerging as an economic hub of East India and South East Asia, while inaugurated the Namami Brahmaputra festival, biggest ever river festival in India in Guwahati.

President Mukherjee inaugurated the festival by lighting lamp at a mega function held on the banks of the Brahmaputra river at Kacharighat in the capital city of Assam.

Speaking on the occasion, President Mukherjee said that it is the gateway and most effective location to put into effect the Prime Minister's Act East policy.

South East Asia is an important destination for India's investment and trade. India will soon celebrate 25 years of its association with ASEAN. Assam has immense potential. It is rich in natural resources and its people are hard working. What is needed is strong drive, right policies and effective implementation, President Mukherjee said.

Referring to the diverse and distinctive culture of Assam, the President said that India's strength was its ability to manage diversity and forge unity in divergence.

It was not just the elites but also the common people who were firmly committed to trust, mutual understanding and harmony. Indians were argumentative but never intolerant. Our traditions, including the teachings of Assam's great scholar and social reformer Shankaradev never allowed the practice of intolerance, Mukherjee said.

The President said that Brahmaputra River is the lifeline of Assam and the region.

It is intertwined into the economy, culture and day-to-day life of the people of the area through which it flows, Mukherjee said.

President Mukherjee complimented the Assam government for having started Namami Brahmaputra as an annual festival to showcase Assams culture as well as potential.

Bhutan Prime Minister Tshering Tobgay, Assam governor Banwarilal Purohit, Assam Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal, state ministers Himanta Biswa Sarma, Chandramohan Patowary, ministers of Uttar Pradesh guest from Japan were also attended in the inaugural function.

The five-day long festival is celebrated on the banks of the Brahmaputra river covering 21 districts of the state.

On the other hand, Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama will present in the mega river festival on Apr 2.

Yoga guru Baba Ramdev is likely to present in closing ceremonial function of the festival on Apr 4.

Union ministers Nitin Gadkari, Uma Bharati, Mahesh Sarma and several prominent personalities including 40 VVIPs would likely to present in the river festival.

The mega river festival will showcase the culture, indigenous sports, arts, craft, skill industry, tourism, livelihood of tribes, traditional foods of the region.



(Reporting by Hemanta Kumar Nath)
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The Roman Catholic Diocese of Syracuse has begun enforcing a rule that priests step down from day-to-day parish administration when they turn 80. In this photo a Catholic priest prays at the altar during Mass.

(diego_cervo)

Syracuse, N.Y. -- The Roman Catholic Diocese of Syracuse has begun informing priests older than 80 that they must give up their day-to-day administration of parishes.



Thirteen priests are being asked to step down as Bishop Robert J. Cunningham moves to enforce a new policy that requires priests not to handle day-to-day parish administration once they turn 80.



The decision grew out of recommendations to the bishop by two groups made up of priests, the Presbyteral Council and The College of Consultors, said Danielle Cummings, chancellor of the diocese.



Canon law requires that a pastor, or bishop, submit his letter of resignation at age 75, she explained. At that point a bishop can decide to accept the resignation of a priest, or allow an extension, or in the case of a bishop the Vatican decides on extensions, Cummings said.

The Presbyteral Council and the College of Consultors made several recommendations regarding priest personnel, one of which is that priests who are over 75 should conclude their role as administrator of a parish at the age of 80, she said.

Cunningham accepted that recommendation and informed the priests in a letter written in February. He is now having conversations with priests who are administering parishes who are over the age of 80, Cunningham said.



The Syracuse Diocese is made up of 237,000 parishioners in 128 parishes in seven counties.



The first three of 13 priests older than 80 have been told that they are to step down, she said. The other older priests are being notified gradually that they have to step down to allow the diocese to absorb the change, Cummings said.



On March 23, Father John Finnegan of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Parish in Baldwinsville, who turned 86 in October, sent a letter to parishioners announcing his retirement as of June 30.



"Retirement has never been anything I ever thought would end my serving days," he said in the letter provided to Syracuse.com. "However, there is a new rule in the Diocese which makes clear that when one celebrates an eightieth birthday retirement will be mandatory."



Older priests are being asked to step away from the day-to-day responsibilities of running parishes, Cummings said. It does not, however, mean they give up being priests, and can still perform sacramental duties, such as performing Mass when another priest is away or anointing the sick, she said.



"It in no way diminishes the work that the pastor has done. He can continue to do ministry in other places," Cummings said. "This is purely about running a parish."



Filling priest positions is a challenge for Syracuse, as it is for many other dioceses, she said. More lay people have been invited to take on a greater role in churches. Greater numbers of men are becoming deacons, who can be married, and some parishes have lay administrators, she said.

Contact Charley Hannagan anytime: Email | Twitter | Facebook | 315-470-2161.
Kolkata, Mar 31 (IBNS): Based on a complaint, the Kolkata Police on Friday arrested one trader from city's Karaya area for allegedly selling 'plastic' made eggs to his customers, officials said.

According to reports, a middle-aged woman, Anita Kumar, lodged a complaint at Karaya Police Station against a local shopkeeper alleging that the man sold her artificial eggs, which were dangerous for health.

After starting probe into the matter, city police's enforcement branch on Thursday late evening detained the accused trader, Shamim Ansari, and after hour-long interrogation, he was arrested on Friday morning.

An senior official of Kolkata Police told IBNS that fraud and criminal conspiracy charges have been slapped on Shamim Ansari.

However, arrested seller of 'plastic' eggs was produced in a local court at Alipore on Friday and was sent to police custody for four days.

Meanwhile, understanding the importance of the matter, Kolkata Mayor Shovan Chatterjee has ordered his officials to investigate the issue and take necessary legal steps against the persons, involved in selling artificial eggs, and to trace out if there is any 'plastic' egg manufacturing unit in the city limits.

Following the direction, senior officials of Kolkata Police's enforcement branch and Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC), led by MMIC (Health) Atin Ghosh, carried out raid at an egg market at Sealdah on Friday.

"During the raid, we seized 3 crates of suspected eggs and have sent those for tests," Atin Ghosh told IBNS.

Meanwhile, Aparajita Das, a housewife from Canning in Kolkata's neighbouring South 24 Parganas district, claimed that plastic eggs were sold to her as she realized it while making omlet.

The woman, however, has informed local administration and an inquiry has been started into the matter, as an official said.

How to identify artificial 'plastic' made eggs:

According to the China Hush (www.chinahush.com), a website in mainland China where fake eggs are believed to have first originated, a person could distinguish artificial plastic eggs from original chicken eggs by using these seven methods:

1. After cracking the fake egg, the white and yolk will mix together quickly.

2. Fake eggs have slightly shinier shells than real ones.

3. The shells of the fake eggs feel slightly rougher.

4. You will hear sloshing sounds when you shake a fake egg as liquid will flow from the solid agent.

5. Real eggs smell like raw meat.

6. Tapping a real egg lightly will generate a crisp sound when compared to a fake egg.

7. When frying a fake egg, the yolk will spread without being touched.

(Reporting by Deepayan Sinha)
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Arkas Bunkering expands fleet

With the recent addition of two new tankers - 4,139 dwt Alacati and 3,799 dwt Bayrakli - Arkas Bunkering has increased its number of tankers to seven.

According to the Fuel Market Reports 2015 and 2016 issued by the local Energy Market Regulatory Authority, Arkas Bunkering was credited with the highest transit bunker fuel sales figures. The addition of the two new tankers increases the total capacity of the fleet to 18.888 dwt. Bayrakli Turkeys largest fuel oil bunker tanker, has high manoeuvring capabilities thanks to its main engine propeller and bow thruster. The vessel was also claimed to have a high loading and discharge capacity. Alacati has the same technical specifications as Cesme, which joined the fleet in 2016.




GloBallast finally comes to an end

A decade-long project to promote implementation of an international treaty stemming the transfer of potentially invasive species in ships ballast water reached its conclusion at a recent meeting of Government, industry and UN bodies stakeholders.

The IMO has been executing the GloBallast Partnerships Programme in collaboration with the Global Environment Facility (GEF) and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) since its launch in 2007 after an initial four-year phase. It has has also been assisting developing countries to reduce the transfer of harmful aquatic organisms and pathogens in ships ballast water and in the implementation of the IMO Ballast Water Management (BWM) Convention. The final meeting of the GloBallast Global Project Task Force (GPTF), held in Panama City, Panama (16th-17th March), highlighted the legacy elements of the GloBallast project, which are expected to be sustained by its main stakeholders following the formal closure of the project in June, 2017. Specific examples include GloBallast training packages to support the capacity-building needs of countries implementing the BWMC. The regular ballast water management R&D Fora, which promoted development of innovative ballast water treatment technologies, are also expected to continue after the projects closure.

The GloBallast project has developed a successful model of working with lead partnering countries, as well as the shipping industry and academia, to enable knowledge-sharing, training and capacity-building. Regional task forces were formed in 12 developing sub-regions and regional strategies and action plans on ballast water management were developed, involving more than 100 countries. To date, six of these action plans have been adopted through the regional co-operating institutions.

GloBallast has also facilitated capacity building at the national level, helping to establish national task forces and assisting with drafting and adopting the national legislation in 80% of its lead partnering countries. This has helped many of these countries to ratify the BWMC, which will enter into force in September, 2017.

The meeting in Panama promoted the key role of the projects lead partnering countries within their respective regions to sustain regional BWM implementation, and explored funding mechanisms that could finance future capacity-building needs.

The GloBallast project also pioneered a public/private sector partnership. The Global Industry Alliance for Marine Biosecurity (GIA) supported the formation of the Global Ballast Water Test Organisations Network (GloBal TestNet), which is formed of 19 organisations that test BWTS and aims to increase levels of standardisation, transparency and openness.

Dr Stefan Micallef, Director of IMOs Marine Environment Division, said the GloBallast project was an outstanding example of direct, large-scale action taken by IMO, together with other international entities, to address the global threat to the health of the worlds oceans from invasive species carried in ships ballast water.

Through GloBallast, Governments, industry and other stakeholders have acted to further improve the environmental and socio-economic sustainability of shipping and worked to reduce its negative impact on marine ecosystems. I have every hope that the GloBallast family will continue its championing efforts and collaboration to protect our oceans, in the spirit of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 14, Dr Micallef said.

Dr Andrew Hudson, Head of the Water & Ocean Governance Programme at UNDP, said the GloBallast project had pioneered a successful model for collaboration, cooperation and capacity-building, which was now being emulated through other Glo-X projects.

The GEF-UNDP-IMO GloBallast programme has played a key catalytic role in preparing countries and the shipping industry for the implementation of the BWM Convention, which will reduce the significant ecological and economic damage, lost livelihoods and human health impacts often caused by invasive species. The legacy and impacts of the project will go on long after it formally closes, Dr Hudson said.

Mr Chris Severin, GEF International Waters Co-ordinator, said the GEF is proud to have partnered with the UN, through IMO and UNDP, towards providing the world with a framework to start tackling one of the avenues - namely the BWMC - for spreading of invasive species.

I sincerely believe that the implementation of the BWM Convention will assist nations not only in delivering essential contributions to the sustainable development goals, but also offer an opportunity for unlocking the potential of the so-called blue economy.

The two GEF projects, totalling a grant of $12 mill, have been supporting the 17-year process leading to what we are celebrating today, namely the entry into force of the BWM Convention  a convention that, through strong partnerships with leading nations and private sector partners, will unlock an unprecedented estimated private-sector investment of a minimum of $30 bill, Severin said.






New Delhi, Mar 31 (IBNS): Upholding its previous order, the Supreme Court of India banned the sale of liquor shops along highways from April 1, media reports said on Friday.

The apex court ordered the ban of liquor sale at restaurant, shops, pub and bars as well as its advertisements along highways.

Previously, the Supreme Court banned liquor sale within 500 metres from national and state highways which had been reduced on Friday to 220 metres of an area with 20000 population.

Reiterating the order, the SC said: "The objective is to check drunken driving and so there is dilution of the original order passed by this court. Drunken driving as the objective is a major cause of road accidents in the country."

However, the bench headed by Chief Justice JS Khehar exempted hill states like Sikkim and Meghalaya from the order keeping in mind their mountainous terrain and thick jungles.

The order of the SC was followed by several petitions concerning over number of death that occurred on highway in recent past.
Lower oil prices could lead to supply shortfall

The impact of the OPEC led production cuts are being digested.

The cuts were originally hoped to push up prices whilst absorbing some of the excess global supply. Whilst the concern today is the oil excess, in the future the opposite could be true, said Gibson Research in a report. Lower oil prices have resulted in lower investment, leading the IEA to warn of a potential oil supply crunch in the next three to five years. Investment in conventional oil exploration and production has declined over the past two years - conventional oil refers to oil produced by traditional drilling methods both on land and offshore, which are often long term projects requiring high levels of CAPEX, with long payback periods. The IEA estimated that yearly global oil and gas investment dropped by a quarter in 2015 and by an additional 26% in 2016. Meanwhile, oil demand is forecast to grow steadily year-on-year at an average rate of 1.2 mill barrels per day per annum through 2022. While the oil majors have not stopped investing in oil and gas completely, a greater emphasis has been placed on investment in short-cycle projects, such as shale oil, which offer quicker returns and less long term risk. For example, Chevron recently announced it would focus spending on short-cycle projects in the US Permian Basin, a view echoed by ExxonMobil, who confirmed a $6.6 bill acquisition of oil fields in the same region. Although the potential of these projects is not in doubt, this is not considered enough to fill a potential future supply shortage at current oil price levels. If new oil supply is not brought on stream to meet future demand, markets will begin to place an ever greater reliance on Middle East OPEC producers. This could be good news for VLCC demand out of the region. However, the cost might be fewer loadings from West Africa and Caribbean/Latin America to the East, where investment levels have been trimmed over the past two years. Furthermore, OPEC spare capacity would be reduced, limiting its ability to intervene during times of market instability. Thankfully, oil industry costs are pro-cyclical and the cost of everything from labour to field services, raw material and spare parts tend to rise and fall with the price of oil, Gibson said. This cycle has helped reduce shale investment costs and also offers hope for future conventional oil investments. Royal Dutch Shell, Chevron and ExxonMobil have all recently signalled their intent to return to deep water drilling in the Gulf Mexico with large investments. It may be a little too early to tell what this means for the tanker markets and where the actual balance will lie in terms of the trade flows in the medium term. However, one thing is clear. The Middle East will continue to play an important role, with crude exports out of the region remaining one of the key demand drivers for the crude tanker market, Gibson concluded.




NKK (UK) receives ISO 9001 accreditation from UKAS

Nippon Kaiji Kyokai (UK), a subsidiary of class society, ClassNK, has become an accredited certification body, according to the UK national accreditation body UKAS (United Kingdom Accreditation Service).

The accreditation covers the certification of companies applying the ISO 9001 Management Standard.



Dr A Rahim, NKK(UK) director, explained, Whilst ClassNK does already provide a broad spectrum of accredited certification services, the accreditation of NKK(UK) offers a high level of service provided at a more local level. NKK(UK) is already building on this beginning and expects to be accredited for ISO 14001 very shortly. In addition, certification of OHSAS 18001 can also be performed directly through NKK(UK). Furthermore, by close co-operation with ClassNK and by having a common pool of auditors, we can ensure that other certification needs beyond these three standards, including all mandatory certification and surveys, are carried out in a co-ordinated and cost effective manner for all our clients, he said.



NKK(UK) said that this new service was expected to be of interest not only to clients in the UK, but also throughout Europe, Africa, and in countries, such as Singapore and India.




Image: 99hdwallpapers.com

Mumbai, Mar 31 (IBNS): Ayushmann Khurrana was paired with Bhumi Pednekar in her debut film, Dum Laga Ke Haisha (2015), which earned the pair much praise and acclaim. Now, the two are back together in Shubh Mangal Saavdhan, a remake of the Tamil comedy Kalyana Samayal Saadham (2013).

The film is currently being shot in Delhi, and according to a source, the crew has been having quite a few visitors on the sets.



A source says, Ayushmann and Bhumi are shooting in various parts of Delhi. Since they do not have a set and are shooting in real locations, a lot of people gather to watch the shoot. While the crew has made sure that the crowds do not disrupt the schedule, youngsters have dropped by to meet Ayushmann. In fact, the actor ended up singing a few songs for the audience after the shoot wrapped up.



RS Prasanna, the director of the film, says, When we needed a reaction from the crowd when we were in the Paharganj [neighbourhood], Ayushmann helped us get a reaction. He promised the people around that he would sing for them if they helped the crew get a good shot. The crowd was more than willing to oblige, and Ayushmann kept his word too. He sang a few songs and everyone was absolutely thrilled to hear him sing live.
Lexi Palmer is CEO of EquiSeq, a biotech firm that does genetic testing of horses.

EquiSeq CEO LexiPalmer

Palmer was brought on as CEO by the companys founder, genetic researcher Paul Szauter, in 2015.

EquiSeq, which tests horses for genetic diseases, is developing an equine genome database.

TechNewsWorld: How did you get involved with EquiSeq?

Lexi Palmer:

I met Paul Szauter at a community networking event hosted by 1 Million Cups. I was just finishing up my degree in interpersonal communications at the University of New Mexico, and he told me about the company hed started. I told him I knew everything about horses and said I could learn everything he did and market it.

Two weeks later we were discussing my title. He asked, Where do you see yourself? What title do you want? I said CEO, and he said, OK, is this something you want to do?

I knew I needed a challenge, and this was the challenge that presented itself. Since I came on in November 2015, weve launched our first four products and are about to publish our first patent. Paul was willing to give me an opportunity, and I took it and ran with it.

TNW: What is your background with horses?

Palmer:

Ive been riding horses since second grade, when I started taking lessons. The first horse I had was in sixth grade. He was abandoned in a backyard, and he was sold to us for a penny. I loved that horse, and I kept riding all through high school and have worked at horse camps and been involved with horses ever since.

A lot of the way I approach problems comes from horseback riding. When youre jumping, for example, it can be intimidating. Your trainer, though, will make you jump jumps that are higher than youre comfortable with, so that youll be ready for a show.

There are a couple of ways you can approach a jump when youre scared. You can shy away from it. You can fall over it. Or you can act like youre not scared at all and jump better than youve ever jumped before.

Thats my approach to everything. Its not that Im fearless. Its just that I know the worst that can happen is that I will fail. Thats my approach to everything. Go at it, and most of the time everything ends up working out.

TNW: What are some of the challenges youve faced as a young CEO of a biotech firm?

Palmer:

Some are because of age, and some because of gender. People think that millennials havent worked, havent paid their dues. Ive had a few instances where I was told that I need to pay my dues.

Ive also had men refuse to speak to me, saying theyll only talk to Paul. I get questioned a lot. The thing is, though, Im aware that Im young, and that theres a lot to learn  but Im making this company successful, and thats all that matters.

TNW: What are some of your daily tasks as CEO of EquiSeq?

Palmer:

A lot of isnt so glamorous. A lot is strategy. Were in the middle of fundraising, so a lot of it is following leads and talking with people. I do pitches at pitch competitions.

I do volunteer work to talk about STEM topics, and I stay active in the community.

I work with the team, strategize, and do customer service, making sure that orders are filled and things are getting paid.

I oversee all operations and work as the voice for the company. I present EquiSeq in a way that makes sense to others, explaining genetic testing to people.

I am just enthralled with everything that we do. Understanding your DNA is understanding your core, everything that makes you you.

TNW: In what ways can young girls be encouraged to go into biotech fields?

Palmer:

Im passionate about inspiring younger girls to go into tech. The best way to do that is to have role models out in the community whose merit is in their success.

Thats really resonated when Ive talked with young girls. Im not that much older than they are, and they can envision themselves in my shoes.

We need to have more stories like mine. We need to let girls know that its OK to feel beautiful by being smart. Its not just about looking pretty.

TNW: Whats in the future? How is EquiSeq evolving?

Palmer:

Our main goal is to help people stop breeding horses with diseases. Our entire business model is that you deserve a life with your best friend, so well do whatever we can to make sure that happens.

There are a few different potential directions we might go. There could be an eHarmony for breeders, for instance.

Our goal is to keep discovering things about the horse genome and harvesting that data. While were doing genetic tests were collecting data, so were also a data company.

That data might be of great interest to pharmaceutical and pet insurance companies. It could be great for a website that helps people vet horses. There are a lot of different applications.

Its all a matter of what opportunities present themselves, and what aligns with our company.
Apple poked a hornets nest when it removed the standard headphone jack from the iPhone 7. It may do it again by replacing the Lightning port with USB-C in the next iPhone.

The Lightning port, introduced in 2012, is used to charge and connect accessories to the iPhone, but Apple plans to swap it for USB-C, which the company has been introducing into its computer lines, The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday.

It would be a bold step for Apple, because it would mean Apple would be dependent on the advance of the USB-C standard for any innovations they may want to make around physical connectors, said IHS Markit Senior Director Ian Fogg.

In the past, Apple chose to use its own home-brewed connectors for the iPhone  first its dock connector, then Lightning.

Both of them allowed Apple to innovate more quickly than the industry because they werent dependent on standards, Fogg told TechNewsWorld, and it enabled them to have a business model around accessories through third-party companies, where Apple could ensure quality and collect a license fee.

USB-C: Good and Bad

Its not likely that Apple will scrap the Lightning connector, said David McQueen, a research director at ABI Research.

Theyd only put USB-C in if it allows them to make the phone thinner, he told TechNewsWorld.

A standard connector would be better, because you could share the cables for it with the new MacBook and with other devices, noted Kevin Krewell, a principal analyst at Tirias Research.

Thats a good thing, he said.

The bad thing is you have to buy another cable, Krewell told TechNewsWorld.

Apple will unveil three new iPhones in September, based on reports corroborated by the WSJ. The expected models are an iPhone 7s, a 7s Plus, and a 10th anniversary edition called iPhone 8 or X, which could have a curved 5.8-inch OLED display.

Switching from a Lightning connector to USB-C is a minor thing. Its not going to make large numbers of people buy an iPhone, said IHS Markits Fogg.

On the other hand, innovating with the display, having a wide-aspect ratio display that fills the face of the phone without increasing the volume of the phone, is good for consumers and good for the experience of using the phone, he observed.

OLED Offers VR Opportunity

Having an OLED in the next iPhone is a definite possibility, TiriasKrewell said.

Its just a matter of getting the right supply chain in place, he pointed out.

Apples wanted to switch to OLED, but getting the supply chain behind it to support their quality and standards and display resolution has been a challenge, added Krewell.

OLED screens not only offer a more vibrant display with richer colors and deeper blacks, but also have lower persistence than other types of displays, which reduces motion blur.

That makes OLEDs much more suited for things like virtual reality,  IHS Markits Fogg said.

Apple has resisted the temptation so far to make any play in that area, he continued, but a shift to an OLED, which we are expecting, would be an enabler for them to make a move to a VR experience if they want to.

A large, end-to-end display also could make the iPhone more competitive in the market, maintained Patrick Moorhead, principal analyst at Moor Insights and Strategy.

It would be exceptional and could bring them at parity with Samsung, he told TechNewsWorld.

A $1,000 iPhone?

One of the new iPhone models reportedly will have a stainless steel casing with a glass back. Apple tried glass backs on its iPhone 4 models, but durability was an issue. Now, with improved materials, the company may be ready to try the design again.

Phone makers are moving away from having a metal, unibody design to having a glass back, noted IHS Markits Fogg. Because of the robustness of glass now, its much tougher than when Apple offered it with the iPhone 4 and 4s.

Glass backs enable more varied industrial designs with attractive finishes, easier integration of more antennas needed to support faster wireless speeds, and easier wireless charging, he explained.

Wireless charging also has appeared in reports about the next iPhone. The question is whether it will be wireless charging through the air or by placing the phone on a charging pad.

Another rumored possibility is the inclusion of 3D sensors that enable the phone to recognize gestures.

All this new tech would come at a hefty price  perhaps $1,000 or more.

Pushing the price over $1,000 would be a deal breaker for a lot of people, Tirias Krewell said.

On the other hand, Apple has shown they can be successful at prices some considered outrageous, Moorhead remarked. If they can bring their best, I believe many would buy at that price.
We saw yet another government breach last week, and more secrets went out to WikiLeaks. Im of a mixed mind on this one, because the CIA tools disclosed likely were emulated by others, and WikiLeaks is helping consumer technology companies ensure they no longer work.

I dont know about you, but I really dont want any organization spying on me  not even my own government. Given how I often dress around the house, this is as much for their protection as my own.

When Steve Jobs took over, Apple also had a severe leak problem, and he was pragmatic about fixing it. Ironically, he used the U.S. governments approach as a template. As a side note, Jobs also had a WikiLeaks problem, but whether it really was a leak or was fake news was never determined. Now that is an interesting coincidence, given the topic.

Ill offer some suggestions about what Trump could learn from Steve Jobs, and Ill close with my product of the week: the Jetson TX2, an amazing high-speed drone that uses Nvidias value-priced digital brain, to ensure that it doesnt get you into trouble.

Steve Jobs Problem

When Steve came back to Apple, he had a massive problem in that he wanted to create excitement around his new products  but only when he actually had them to sell. He knew that product leaks tended to kill sales for existing products and made launches far less exciting because there was no mystery.

He also knew if that sometimes to get a product out the door you had to defeature it, and if folks expected a feature that didnt show up, they not only wouldnt be excited but also might avoid buying the product as a result of their disappointment.

Given that the products he started with were crap, in his opinion, he sure didnt want people to stop buying them until he had replacements in market. At the time, though, Apple was a sieve. People who worked there had developed relationships with reporters, and they used their inside knowledge on coming products to gain status.

Simply telling them to stop really didnt seem to have the intended effect  but since Apples survival was at stake, Jobs went full WWII.

Steve early on developed a reputation for firing people on the spot, often for what seemed to be trivial causes  employees referred to it as being Steved. So when Jobs made it clear that anyone caught leaking would be terminated immediately, folks took him seriously.

He also pulled posters out of the old-World War II campaigns, like loose lips sink ships and made it clear to the employees that keeping quiet could make the difference between whether Apple survived and prospered or failed.

He looked to others to report anyone they knew was leaking, for the good of the company. (In one instance, this firing thing supposedly backfired badly.)

Finally, Jobs would deliberately include slight alterations about coming products in internal memos, so that if anyone did leak, he could track the leak back to the group that leaked it and then locate the individual.

That not only was sneaky, but also made the leakers less reliable, because the facts they were leaking were inaccurate. It had the dual purpose of locating and discrediting the leaker at the same time.

Saved My Job

While I was at IBM, I ran security for my organization for a short while implemented something similar because I suspected some of my own reports  which were highly sensitive at the time  would be leaked. One was, and the SVP of sales wanted me fired.

Fortunately, I was able to track the leak to that same SVP, and I outlasted him as a result. Ill likely never forget this practice of altering reports so they can be tracked back, if leaked in whole or part.

Technology Approach

Since the Steve Jobs era, a host of tools that monitor access of information in real time, likeVaronis, have emerged. They can send out alerts if people gain access to data outside of their responsibility, start copying or printing sensitive documents, or suddenly show an interest in an area they never before accessed.

These tools address the kind of bulk information theft that the U.S. intelligence community has experienced, by identifying perpetrators so they can be caught quickly and punished. It continues to surprise me that solutions such as these either arent in place or have not been implemented properly, even after the Snowden breach.

I agree with Julian Assange that this latest breach showcases a level of incompetence that should be unacceptable in a small private company  let alone one of the most powerful and storied intelligence organizations in the world.

Trump Channeling Jobs

Here is where Trump needs to channel Steve Jobs. When a leak like this occurs, the career bureaucrats responsible for protecting the breached data should be terminated for cause. This would convey the seriousness of the problem. Clearly, if and when the perpetrator is located, that person has to be brought to justice definitively, so that the personal risks surrounding leaking exceed the benefit of leaking.

The government should implement an access-tracking tool like Varonis, and make sure the implementation is comprehensive so that in addition to document access, system access would be tracked, so that any related types of security breaches also would be caught.

Finally, the administration seriously needs to consider a WWII level of organizational attitude readjustment, so that employees recognize they are putting their nation at risk and help to ensure that other employees report any questionable things they observe in a timely way.

Wrapping Up: Taking Security Seriously

I do think there is one other aspect of this that should be addressed, and that is that there really needs to be a better way for employees of the intelligence community to report illegal activities other than leaking them. Much of this looks like an employee saw management do something wrong, and in a fit of conscience  and with no other recourse  leaked it to stop the activity.

I mean if the CIA is planning to take over and crash cars, then at the very least, Id like that exploit reported and fixed so that they dont accidentally kill me in the process, or enable someone else to do it on purpose.

In short, I think the Intelligence Community should reprioritize its goal to keep citizens safe and its goal to attack others, putting the keep us safe part first again. Or, put more bluntly, if they know of an exploit that puts me at risk, then Id like them to help fix it rather than keep it secret so they can kill someone else. (By the way this leaking thing doesnt appear to be stopping the illegal activity at all  something the leakers should reflect on.)

Given that the hacking techniques leaked likely could be used against a sitting president, who is by far a larger target than I am, fixing that priority should be compelling for President Trump. In the end, I think Trump could learn a lot from how Jobs secured Apple, and it would make all of us a lot safer if he did.

One other quote President Trump might want to consider from Jobs: If you want to make Apple great again, lets get going. If not, get the hell out.

I was at the Nvidia Jetson TX2 launch last week and up to my armpits in security technology, autonomous drones, and what looked like a 3D scanning Ray Gun.

However, I saw one thing I had to buy, and it was the new Teal drone, due to ship during the summer.

Teal Drone

At nearly US$1,300 it is not cheap date. Given how successful DJI is in this space, you have to ask yourself why anyone would want an expensive drone with no camera gimbal in the first place. The answer is this puppy is fast.

It goes from 0-60 in 1.2 seconds and has a top speed of 85 mph. The lack of a gimbal means you can fly this with a headset on and actually feel like you are flying. That said, if you hit something at 85 mph it will be expensive, which is where the Jetson TX2 comes in.

Effectively, when turned on, it gives you a capability similar to the guardian angel for self-driving cars. It provides a bubble of safety around the drone, helping to prevent that spectacular crash that could kill your drone and end your flying days for some time.

This thing is amazing. At top speed, it sounds like a howling banshee (which is what I would have named it had it been up to me).

It defaults to your phone as a controller, but it also will use a range of professional controllers if you prefer, and it will broadcast the video to several wireless headsets for that flying experience.

It is modular in design, so that if you break an arm or blade you can replace it. The body is a single streamlined piece without the breakable parts of a typical drone has in this class.

Because it uses an AI engine, things like being able to tell the person it is following is you, along with more advanced features  like followiong complex flight plans while avoiding obstacles  are possible. The Teal is one kick-ass drone. Yes, I ordered one, and it is my product of the week.
Samsung and Microsoft first signed a cross-license patent agreement in 2011 that resulted in Samsung paying licensing fees to Microsoft. The two reworked their deal in 2015, and though details were not made public, Samsung began preloading Microsoft apps on its phones and tablets. That's been the case with Samsung Galaxy S6 and Galaxy S7 too but Microsoft is doing things differently this time around.

The company has announced that it will sell a 'Microsoft Edition' of the Samsung Galaxy S8 or Galaxy S8 Plus, beginning April 21 at brick-and-mortar Microsoft Store locations across the US. Interestingly, the device will have to be unboxed in-store and connected to the retailer's Wi-Fi, which will start loading Microsoft apps into the device. The customization "ensures a best-in-class productivity experience with Microsoft applications such as Office, OneDrive, Cortana, Outlook and more."

"Microsoft Store is committed to empowering its customers to achieve more through Office and Microsoft applications. The new device customization is an example of bringing together Microsoft applications on more devices so customers can work, play and connect from their pockets," the company said.

It's worth noting that regular Samsung Galaxy S8 devices still come bundled with basic Microsoft apps like OneDrive, Skype, and Office. Microsoft Edition devices include a few additional apps, arranges those productivity applications on the home screen and provides additional accessibility to other Microsoft owned applications such as LinkedIn, Wunderlist and more.

The Galaxy S8 and S8+ Microsoft Edition devices will retail for $749.99 and $849.99, respectively, just like the normal carrier versions, with pre-orders beginning today.
The craze for making slime in DIY mode, with recipes taken from social media, is exposing children to high risk. An 11-year-old girl in Massachusetts recently received severe burns to her hands while making slime on her own.

Kathleen Quinn was making the sticky concoction when her skin started turning hot and tingly. She was working with ingredients such as Elmer's glue, water, and borax to make slime.

According to her parents, Kathleen's skin turned bright red. She was taken to the hospital, where doctors said her hands received second- and third-degree burns. The hands are full of blisters, her mother said.

"She was like crying in pain, 'My hands hurt, my hands hurt,'" said Kathleen's mother Siobhan Quinn.

Making homemade slime has become a wild fad, with children turning to YouTube and other social media for tips on do-it-yourself recipes.

"We've seen a variety of slime recipes oozing through cyberspace over the past few weeks," said Newell Brands, the parent company of Elmer's Glue, in a statement.

Liquid Glue Sales Up

According to Newell Brands, the demand for liquid glue has been going up. In the second half of 2016, sales started soaring and by December, sales had more than doubled.

DIY slime comes in many types, such as clear slime, sequin slime, glitter slime, puffy slime, glow-in-the-dark slime, and metallic slime. In most of these gooey concoctions, Elmer's glue is used as the main ingredient.

Borax Mixing Needs Care

Doctors attribute Kathleen's blisters to prolonged exposure to borax. It is a key ingredient and is toxic too. Borax needs to be handled with care and there must be proper dilution.

The schoolgirl is expected to recover fully. But her parents want her condition to be conveyed to people so that other children can stay safe while making slime at home, especially when handling borax.

Kathleen has missed school for a week as her hands are bandaged. Her message to other kids is "don't make it, don't play with it."

A doctor also wanted kids to exercise more caution on what they mix while making slime.

"You just have to really read the packages and know what you're mixing because there are certain things in the home that are just dangerous," said Dr. Megan Hannon, a physician at South Shore Hospital.

Safe Methods Of Making Slime

Parents are now looking for safer methods to make slime and still have fun.

James Diaz, of LSU Public Health, explains that there are ways of making slimy goo without putting children's safety at risk.

The materials required are glue, contact solution, baking soda, and food coloring. Put 4 ounces of glue in a bowl then add half a tablespoon of baking soda and a tablespoon of contact lens solution. Mix in the preferred food coloring. After mixing, it will thicken out. It can then be placed on a plate for further kneading until it becomes a stretchy product.

Diaz tells users to be careful about borax. Borax, when mixed with water, turns into boric acid and it can inflict burns. He said the risk must be taken seriously as third-degree burns may worsen into fourth-degree burns warranting a skin graft.

 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
The human papillomavirus vaccine is created to protect young women from cervical cancer and other types of tumors.

The vaccine, developed by Sanofi Pasteur and distributed under the market name Gardasil, is intended for girls and women aged between 9 and 26, but it's not recommended during pregnancy.

On a global scale, more than 72 million recipients have been inoculated with HPV vaccines. In the United States, Gardasil is produced by Merck.

In some cases, the patients prove to be already pregnant and without being aware of it at the time of the immunization, which experts say can occur quite frequently, considering the vaccine is administered in women's "reproductive window."

No Risk Of Major Birth Defects

Any potential concerns that vaccination during early pregnancy can be dangerous to the fetus and cause congenital abnormalities have now been put to rest by a recent Danish study.

Authored by researchers from the Statens Serum Institute in Copenhagen, the paper documents the quadrivalent HPV vaccine poses no health treats in the off-chance it is administered to pregnant women.

The team examined data from various national registries and analyzed all pregnancy files registered in Denmark in the span of seven years, from 2006 and 2013.

The investigation compared 1,665 women who received Gardasil during early pregnancy with 6,660 women who were not pregnant at the time of vaccination.

The results showed the HPV vaccine doesn't increase the chances of major birth defects, spontaneous miscarriage, preterm delivery, stillbirth, and low weight at birth or compared to the gestational age.

"Our results do not support that this exposure [to HPV vaccination] has an adverse effect on the unborn baby," Dr. Anders Hviid, study co-author and epidemiologist at the Danish institute, said in a statement.

Still Not Recommended During Pregnancy

The new study, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, offers valuable information concerning the safety of HPV vaccines for expecting mothers. Prior to this research, the available information on the subject was relatively scarce.

Yet, although the paper clearly states Gardasil is not harmful when inadvertently administered during pregnancy, health regulators don't intend to change the immunization guidelines. So far, the vaccine remains not recommended for pregnant women.

One reason is that further analysis is needed to cover all bases of the vaccine. For instance, the Danish study didn't assess the safety of Gardasil's bivalent version, which targets fewer strains of the virus.

A previous study linked this version of the HPV vaccine to a higher rate of spontaneous abortion for up to 90 days after immunization, although follow-up research didn't confirm the hypothesis.

 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
Mars may have all the elements that could support life billions of years ago but something catastrophic happened that transformed it into a lump of wasteland in space.

It was found that the Martian atmosphere, as thick as the Earth's, evaporated into space due to radiation and solar wind.

"We've determined that most of the gas ever present in the Mars atmosphere has been lost to space," Bruce Jakosky, principal investigator for the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution Mission (MAVEN) at the University of Colorado in Boulder, said.

Jakosky, also the lead author of the study, added that about 65 percent of argon present in the atmosphere has been lost to space.

The research was published in the journal Science on March 31.

The Mystery That Was Mars

The thin Martian atmosphere, with a density less than 1 percent of Earth's, makes it vulnerable to sudden daily changes of temperatures.

Previous studies have shown that Mars had the characteristics similar to Earth. The dry riverbeds and mineral formations pointed to one probable explanation  water was present on the planet.

The early Mars, as the presence of water suggests, was once covered with thick layer of gases enough to nurture life.

It has been a mystery for most what really happened through time.

Lost To Space

NASA launched in 2013 a robotic probe dubbed as MAVEN to help solve the mystery of the Red Planet.

The spacecraft began its orbit around Mars a year after its launching and had accomplished over 4,000 orbits skimming some 100 miles off the surface of the planet.

MAVEN had generated ample data for scientists to analyze. The study led researchers to focus on argon, a very stable element.

By looking into two types of argon isotopes  the lighter argon (Ar-36) and the heavier argon (Ar-38)  the scientists have found that Argon-36 was more abundant on a higher altitude, which led to being scraped by solar radiation and solar wind.

The team said the presence of two isotopes of argon at the different layers of Mars atmosphere could mean that some 66 percent of its argon had been evaporated to space since the planet's existence.

"The escape of gas to space might have played a major role...in changing the climate of Mars over time," Jakosky said.

A Process Called Sputtering

Researchers focused on argon because, as a "noble gas", it can only be scraped by the solar wind through sputtering. Sputtering happens when the particles picked up by the streams of protons and electrons from the sun would crash at high speed on Mars knocking the gas in the atmosphere in the process.

By determining how much argon was lost, the scientists could also determine the number of atoms and molecules in the atmosphere lost by sputtering.

"This discovery is a significant step toward unraveling the mystery of Mar's past environments," MAVEN program scientist Elsayed Talaat at NASA Headquarters, said.

This finding, Talaat said, could help explain not only what had caused the changes in Mars but also the "processes that can change a planet's habitability over time."

 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
Mumbai, Mar 31 (NITN): SOTC Travel has won the award for the Best Risk Management Practice in the Travel & Hospitality category in the 3rd edition of aICICI Lombard-CNBC TV18 India Risk Management Awards 2017, an official release stated.

The awards recognised companies like Tata Steel, Airtel, Tech Mahindra, Jubilant Food Works, Glenmark, Dabur, Mahindra & Mahindra, Hero Honda, Allcargo Logistics among others that have developed best in class risk management practices and capabilities across various business categories.

The selection process consisted of analysis of company data, systems and frameworks of organizations, judged by an independent panel of experts.

Speaking on the achievement, Vishal Suri, Managing Director, SOTC Travel said, It is indeed a significant achievement to be the only Travel Company to be honoured with this prestigious accolade. This success has been possible because of SOTCs strong commitment towards developing best in class business risk management practices. In a highly globalized and deeply integrated world, risk management is now becoming the most important strategic tool for the sustainable growth of organizations.

Speaking on winning the accolade, Brijesh Modi, Head-Finance & Commercial, SOTC Travel said, It is truly an honour to be felicitated with this award. The India Risk Management Awards is a unique platform that recognizes companies that have created best in class risk management practices. In the current global environment, identifying and managing risks across an organization has become important for the success and longevity of any business. The award serves as an inspiration and encouragement in enhancing and delivering future risk management practices at SOTC.
Scientists analyzing an X-ray image of the universe detected a large but unexplained explosion that occurred from a galaxy located about 10.7 billion light-years away in a region called the Chandra Deep Field-South.

From Faint To Super Bright

NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory, which has been monitoring the galaxy over the past 17 years, has not detected a similar event before. The galaxy was initially relatively faint but in October 2014, it became a thousand times brighter over a span of a few hours, before getting back into its old state again. Scientists cannot attribute this behavior with certainty to any known astronomical phenomenon.

The explosion was observed to be very powerful that the X-ray source generated a thousand times more energy than all the galaxy's stars in just a matter of minutes. Researchers said that they have not yet detected any similar event anywhere in the universe.

Kevin Schawinski, a researcher from ETH Zurich in Switzerland, said that what they have observed could be a completely new type of cataclysmic event. He said that more observations are needed to know what they saw.

Hypotheses

Although the nature of the explosion is still to be unveiled, researchers have proposed several hypotheses that may provide an explanation for the explosion. Two of the three main hypotheses involved gamma-ray bursts, or GRBs.

GRBs are the brightest electromagnetic events scientists have so far identified in the universe. Scientists think that these highly energetic explosions are released when a massive star collapses on itself, or when a black hole and a neutron star, or two neutron stars, merge.

"Lasting anywhere from a few milliseconds to several minutes, GRBs shine hundreds of times brighter than a typical supernova and about a million trillion times as bright as the Sun," NASA explains. "When a GRB erupts, it is briefly the brightest source of cosmic gamma-ray photons in the observable Universe."

When GRBs point toward Earth as they happen, astronomers can detect the bombarding jet of gamma-rays before this tapers and the Earth is flooded with the weaker radiation. It is possible that the mysterious X-ray explosion could be of a GRB that is not pointed to Earth so it looks new. It is also potentially an evidence of a GRB that occurs beyond the galaxy.

The other potential reason for the explosion could be that of a black hole shredding a white dwarf in the distant galaxy. Researchers, however, said that none of these ideas perfectly fit the data of the phenomenon.

"None of the above scenarios can completely explain all observed properties," study researcher Ezequiel Treister, from Chile's Pontifical Catholic University, and colleagues wrote in their study, set to be published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society in June.

"Although large uncertainties exist, the implied rate of such events is comparable to those of orphan and low-luminosity GRBs as well as rare TDEs, implying the discovery of an untapped regime for a known transient class, or a new type of variable phenomena whose nature remains to be determined."

 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
Amazon continues to roll the unified communications (UC) community. This week, it added call center services to its virtual offerings through Amazon Web Services (AWS). Combine with the February introduction of Amazon Chime  an offering for conducting virtual meetings  it is clear the company is building out a portfolio of business services. At some point, stock public switched phone services (PSTN) should be added in to support "legacy" users and systems, so acquisition of a voice provider such as Vonage provides both a business customer base and skilled personnel familiar with the ins and outs of VoIP.

Amazon Chime provides one-click audio and video meetings, including support for the usual laundry list of cloud UC services, including hosting a meeting, chat, and the ability to share content and screens across desktops, Apple IoS, and Android clients. Plenty of independents have offered UC services in this fashion before, so Amazon is less a trend setter than joining the status quo. But with AWS and the Amazon marketing engine behind it, Amazon Chime is a big party guest that can't be ignored.

Among the first resellers/companies offering Amazon Chime are Level 3 and Vonage. Level 3 will launch Chime in the second quarter of 2017 as a part of its suite of UC and collaboration solutions. Vonage is offering Amazon Chime Pro Edition to its business customers at no additional cost, rolling it in with its existing UC solutions. The Pro version normally costs $15 per user per month, and includes meetings with screen sharing and video for up to 100 users.

Image via Bigstock

So what is Vonage doing for Amazon that its customers get Chime Pro for free, hmmm?

Amazon and Vonage may be working together as part of a trial "marriage." If Amazon likes what it sees, it may move to acquire Vonage, getting a combination of consumer and business customers, Vonage's worldwide PSTN to VoIP network, and all the skilled VoIP people on Vonage's payroll.

Why would this make sense? There's been a lot of talk about Alexa gaining the ability to seamlessly make phone calls. Vonage has been in the VoIP service business pretty much since day one as a consumer-facing entity, so splicing its network with Amazon's would make a lot of sense to enable Alexa to make and receive phone calls from the PSTN network. Vonage customers (and its support staff) might welcome the idea of retiring all the consumer PSTN gear, swapping out phone adopters for a nice shiny Amazon Echo while keeping their same phone plans.

On the business side, Amazon and Vonage would presumably benefit from economies of scale in negotiating network and consumer long distance rates, enabling existing Vonage customers to get the same service but at lower internal costs, increasing profits per customer.

And both companies are moving towards more lucrative business customers. Vonage has purchased several business VoIP service providers over the past 5 years while Amazon's addition of self-service Amazon Connect cloud-based contact center would seem to be an ideal complement/supplement to Vonage's existing suite of business services. Again, Amazon is late to the cloud contact center market, but it is biggest customer at the party. Combine Amazon marketing with Vonage business support staff to get a winning combination of increased business UC customers and add in AWS services and Amazon's Lex AI speech recognition and natural language service to build a portfolio for SMBs to mid-market customers. Amazon benefits because it can sell more AWS-based services to an established Vonage customer base.

Is it crazy? Consider Amazon bought Zappos and let it remain a stand-alone entity within its empire. Vonage could be the business UC face of Amazon in the future.

Edited by Maurice Nagle
Toronto, Mar 31 (IBNS) Via Rail, Canada's flagship railway corporation, issued 1867 unlimited travel passes to commemorate the 150th anniversary of Canadian confederation.

This special 150 Youth Pass Program allows youths between 12 to 25 years to enjoy an unlimited travel this year.

According to a press release, VIA claims this exciting new offer will add a new edge for the Canadian youths in Canada to celebrate the countrys 150th year of confederation by travelling from coast to coast of Canada.

This luxury of unlimited travelling by rail for young people during the month of July costs only $150. The interest in this offer was unprecedented.

VIA Rail, originally planned to make 1,867 passes available but due to the incredible demand, they extended the offer past the original commitment. More than 4,000 Canadians purchased passes and all these passes will be honored to travel across Canada claims VIA.

The unprecedented flow of net traffic which is more than five times of the normal volume to avail the once in lifetime offer crashed the site, causing extended wait times for their customers.

There was also a scramble among the customers to correlate between unlimited passes and the number of trips as unlimited, admits VIA.

Finally, Via Rail tweeted around 3:30 a.m. on Thursday morning saying all available passes had been sold.

Canadas Transport Minister Marc Garneau said,VIA Rail allows Canadians to discover the country and travel to celebrate Canadas 150th anniversary. The Government of Canada is proud to participate in initiatives that contribute to making 2017 an exceptional and memorable year!

(Reporting Suman Das)
Venezuela and Colombia resumed air operations on Monday with an inaugural flight departing from Caracas to Bogota after more than two years of suspension, said the Caribbean country's... | Read More
New York, Mar 31 (Just Earth News): The worldas attention has moved away from Syria following the battle for Aleppo, despite the fact that the last few months have been asome of the worsta for civilians, the United Nations humanitarian chief on Thursday told the Security Council, reiterating calls for an end to the six year conflict.

Violence continues to rear its ugly head in various parts of the country, even if it largely disappeared from the worlds TV screens since the evacuation of East Aleppo, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator Stephen OBrien told the Council.

The last months have been some of the worst yet for civilians inside Syria, he added. For Syria, that is saying something.

On Thursdays humanitarian discussions in the Security Council come as political discussions are underway in Geneva, assisted by UN Special Envoy Staffan de Mistura. The latest discussions started on 23 March and will last through the week.

In on Thursdays comments, OBrien reiterated the importance of the intra-Syrian talks saying he cannot emphasize enough how high the stakes are, and voicing support for de Mistura.

Civilians threatened in Raqqa and Ghouta

As the conflict enters its seventh year, hundreds of civilians are believed to have been killed in the past weeks alone, with tens of thousands displaced and continued attacks on medical facilities and schools.

OBrien expressed deep concern about the safety and protection of more than 400,000 civilians threatened by military operations in Raqqa governorate, which includes the de facto capital of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL/Daesh).

As the fighting moves closer to Raqqa city, concerns about the fate of civilians will only grow, OBrien said.

I urge all parties to do everything in their power to protect and spare civilians from the effects of the hostilities as required, not just requested, under international humanitarian law.

The UN and partners have been prepositioning stocks to enable a rapid response access permitting.

In addition, OBrien also said he was extremely worried about the deteriorating security and humanitarian situation in the besieged parts of eastern Ghouta in Rural Damascus, where some 400,000 people are trapped by Government forces.

The tightening of the siege has started a time bomb for the people of eastern Ghouta

No UN humanitarian convoy was allowed access since October 2016 to eastern Ghouta, with some areas cut off since June prior.

In the past 10 days, Government forces have also reportedly prevented commercial trucks from entering, hiking up prices of staples and cutting informal trade.

This tightening of the siege has started a time bomb for the people of eastern Ghouta, OBrien said, calling for immediate access.

Delivery of humanitarian aid has been difficult throughout the country, the senior UN official lamented. He said that despite hopes that 2017 would lead to greater entry to besieged and hard-to-reach areas, the bottom line is, however, that with a quarter of the year gone, our current levels of access are no better than this time last year.

His comments come just days before an international pledging conference is due to be held in Brussels on 5 April. Entitled Supporting the future of Syria and the region, the conference is co-chaired by the UN.

OBrien thanked donors for going above and beyond this year, but stressed the critical needs in Syria and the neighbouring countries.

The UN and its humanitarian partners have released the 2017 Humanitarian Response Plan for Syria which outlines requirements of some $3.4 billion to undertake a comprehensive humanitarian response in Syria, including saving lives, enhancing protection and building peoples resilience.

Urging Governments to make good on promises of homes

Meanwhile, new figures show that fewer Syrian refugees were resettled in the past year than originally planned, even as the total number of people fleeing the violence surpasses five million.

Despite the call during that meeting in Geneva on 30 March 2016 to resettle and facilitate pathways for 500,000 refugees, to date 250,000 places have been made available, said Filippo Grandi, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees. His remarks reference the High-level Meeting on Syria, held in March 2016, where participating Governments agreed to resettle 10 per cent of all Syrian refugees by 2018.

UNHCR, the agency that Grandi heads, said that while 250,000 locations have been pledged, some have not yet been made available for the people who need them.

Grandi called on Governments to make good on their promises to find new homes for the most vulnerable refugees: We still have a long road to travel in expanding resettlement and the number and range of complementary pathways available for refugees.

Photo: UNHCR/James Park

Source: www.justearthnews.com
New York, Mar 31 (Just Earth News): The ongoing conflict in South Sudan is affecting food security in some of the country's more astablea states, the head of United Nations peacekeeping operation there has said.

Dwindling provisions arriving in the town and skyrocketing food prices have meant that places like Aweil, which are generally peaceful, have suffered the effects of the conflict taking part in other parts of the country, said David Shearer, the head of the UN Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS), during a visit to Aweil in the country's north.

It is imperative that fighting stops, so the citizens of the world's newest nation can live in peace and enjoy the benefits of independence, he added.

The insecurity has directly affected the cost of goods in greater Aweil. Shearer heard from UN humanitarian agencies working in the region how many families had migrated north to Sudan because they could either not produce crops or could not afford the high price of staple foods in the market.

Those agencies have stepped in to provide emergency humanitarian aid in a region where the UN Food and Agriculture Agency (FAO) says 52 per cent of people are food insecure.

The Governor of Aweil state, Ronald Ruay Deng, told Shearer that his administration was doing all it could to move our people from dependency on emergency food aid to a more resilient rural agricultural model of production, including the piloting of a new community farming approach to feed the most vulnerable people.

Shearer also heard about the efforts under way to build peaceful understanding between communities, particularly pastoral communities who arrive on a seasonal basis from Sudan to share water and grazing land with the residents of greater Aweil.

UNMISS is facilitating improved inter-communal understanding through dialogue.

Meanwhile, the World Food Programme (WFP) on Thursday began to move food assistance to reach famine-hit and food-insecure people in South Sudan by using a newly opened humanitarian corridor announced by the Government of Sudan earlier this week.

This new route will allow WFP to regularly reach famine-affected people in South Sudan with food assistance and help to avert the consequences of starvation, said WFP Sudan Representative and Country Director Matthew Hollingworth.

On Thursday, the first convoy of 27 trucks carrying an initial 1,200 metric tons of sorghum started moving from El Obeid in central Sudan towards Bentiu in South Sudan. The convoys will take at least five days to complete the 500 kilometre journey.

In the next few weeks, WFP plans to deliver 11,000 metric tons of sorghum  including 1,000 metric tons donated by the Government of Sudan  in seven convoys of 30 to 40 trucks. This is enough food to feed 300,000 people for three months.

Photo: UNICEF/Holt (file)

Source: www.justearthnews.com
New York, Mar 31 (Just Earth News): The United Nations Mission in Colombia is set to register some 7,000 weapons this weekend, but the search for other caches of weapons hidden by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia-Peopleas Army (FARC-EP) continues, the Missionas chief has said.

Jean Arnault, the head of the Mission, said yesterday: As for registration, we are at 85 percent of the weapons in the camps. This weekend we will reach a figure of approximately 7,000 registered weapons. On these weapons there are concerns: many are new and are short and long weapons, high calibre. It is a record that covers the range of FARC-EP weapons."

The weapons hand over has been in place since the beginning of the month and the UN hopes to possess 60 per cent of all FARC-EP arms by April 1. However, in a press conference on the topic yesterday, Arnault said accessing hidden and hard to reach caches could delay the process.

A further 1,000 weapons are set to be received from FARC-EP members participating in peace promotion or, pedagogia de paz, bringing the number of arms collected by the UN to 8,000.

It was also reported at the press conference that commitments made at the Cartagena meeting of the Follow up, Promotion and Implementation Commission (CSIVI) to make progress on preparation of registration zones and camps, security and legal guarantees and provision of health services would further accelerate the laydown of arms process.

In November last year, the Colombian Government and FARC-EP, the largest rebel group in the South American nation, signed a peace deal, ending a 50 year conflict.

Photo: UN Mission in Colombia

Source: www.justearthnews.com
Seoul, Mar 31 (IBNS): Former South Korean President Park Geun-hye has been arrested on Friday morning, local The Chosunilbo reported.

Park is facing 13 charges, which includes leaking of secrets, bribery, abuse of power and conspiring with her partners to extort money from conglomerates.

However, she has denied all charges.

After a heated debate over her arrest, The Seoul Central District Court said that she must be arrested to prevent her from either destroying evidence or fleeing the country.

Following her arrest, Park became the third South Korean former president, after Chun Doo-hwan and Roh Tae-woo, to face arrest on criminal charges.
Washington, Mar 31 (IBNS): US President Donald Trump has urged American companies to look for other alternatives and has warned against any further job losses, ahead of next week's meeting with China.

Trump conveyed his message in a two-part tweet.

"The meeting next week with China will be a very difficult one in that we can no longer have massive trade deficits..." his tweet read.

"...and job losses. American companies must be prepared to look at other alternatives," a subsequent tweet read.

Meanwhile, highlighting the role of women in society, the American President said, "Only by enlisting the full potential of women in our society will we be truly able to #MakeAmericaGreatAgain"


Toronto, Mar 31 (IBNS) The Federal Government in Canada will invest roughly $1.9 billion in the GO RER (Regional Express Railway) project thus upgrading the GO Transit train service, a move welcomed by Ontario.

Soon after Canada Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's announcement at an event at GO workshop in Toronto on Friday, Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne said:"When it comes to a person's everyday commute, every minute counts. That is why Ontario is undertaking the largest commuter rail transformation in the country. GO RER will provide new travel options for millions of commuters, build 12 new stations, drastically increase the frequency of service, cut travel times and help manage congestion in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area and surrounding communities."

"It will increase the number of weekly trips across the GO train network from 1,500 today to roughly 6,000 by 2025. And with more people taking transit, we can also reduce greenhouse gas emissions and fight climate change.



According to the government, Ontario's allocation of $13.5 billion to implement GO Regional Express Rail adds to the $7.8 billion investment for GO network upgrades and the extension of regular train service to Niagara and Bowmanville.

"This total $21.3 billion transformation of the GO network is creating thousands of jobs, bolstering Ontario's economy, and improving people's quality of life. The GO capital program is the largest commuter rail program in Canada. It is also part of the largest investment in public infrastructure in Ontario's history -- more than $160 billion over 12 years for roads, bridges, transit systems, schools and hospitals. We are building a thriving region that will continue to be a great place to live, work and raise a family," said Kathleen Wynne.

"Today, Ontario welcomes the federal government's investment of roughly $1.9 billion in our GO RER project. This federal contribution will help us build new track, upgrade stations and create grade separations along the Kitchener, Barrie and Lakeshore corridors.

"And because the federal government is making this contribution toward the $13.5 billion Ontario has allocated for GO RER, the province now has the ability to invest even more in other priority transit projects that will improve people's commutes," she said.



She added: "In order to get people where they need to go and meet the demands of a growing region it takes all levels of government pulling in the same direction, so I appreciate a federal partner who recognizes the value in building up transit and helping people in their everyday lives."



(Reporting by Asha Bajaj and Sujoy Dhar)


The substantial Parkville apartment complex, which made headlines in 2013 when it was revealed the now shelved East West Link road project would straddle it, is being sold by the Andrews government.

Arguably the highest profile site acquired as part of the infrastructure initiative, the Evo complex is expected to return a small windfall if it sells for the industry-speculated price of more than $95 million.

The former Liberal government spent about $91 million to pay out all the disgruntled owners of Evo's 175 dwellings in late 2013 shortly after many of them had finalised their purchases.

BusinessDay reported earlier this year the individual apartments in the complex were being readied for sale but the government has moved to sell all the units en masse as one complex.
We take it for granted now that Melbourne is a thriving 24-hour city, with bustling laneways full of bars, clubs, restaurants and ever-so-photogenic street art. We take it for granted that it's a place humming with a resident population and economic activity, with cyclists, pedestrians and trams jostling for position on a car-free Swanston Street. We take it for granted that Melbourne is alive.

But it wasn't always like this.

When I arrived in late 1990, fresh off the plane from London, Melbourne was a city in freefall. The unemployment rate was soaring, office blocks were emptying, businesses were closing. The manufacturing sector was being gutted and, after Jeff Kennett's government was elected in October 1992, with unemployment in Victoria north of 11 per cent, the public sector felt the sting of the axe too.

It was a grim time for the city.
The widespread flooding in northern NSW has prompted the Insurance Council of Australia to add the region to its catastrophe declaration in the wake of Cyclone Debbie.

Flood waters were expected to peak on Thursday afternoon for rivers in the state's north, with the Tweed, Wilsons and Richmond valleys of most concern.

Lismore, a major centre on the Wilsons River, had its 10.6 metre levee breached, with flood waters expected to peak at about 11.8 metres, the Bureau of Meteorology said.

The Insurance Council's declaration comes as some 7500 claims for damage had been lodged from Queensland alone after the category-four cyclone slammed into the coast near Bowen and the Whitsunday Islands on Tuesday.
Australia ranks last in the OECD for collaboration between universities and business, with research institutes drawing on average 30 per cent of their funding from the private sector. NICM director Alan Bensoussan said research into complementary medicine was critical given that 70 per cent of Australians used it and it was one of Australia's top exports. "The (National Health and Medical Research Council) spend much less than 1 per cent of their budget on researching these medicines that our patients are using all the time," Professor Bensoussan said. "We need better guidance  everyone agrees with that, even the skeptics  and that's what we're trying to do." The federal government has sought to exploit the booming vitamin industry and research capacity of NICM to exert soft power in China, where there is a voracious appetite for herbal medicine.

Former prime minister Tony Abbott and Chinese President Xi Jinping oversaw the signing of a partnership between NICM and the Beijing University of Chinese Medicine in 2014 to conduct clinical trials that would "validate and translate" Chinese medicines for the Australian market. Mr Blackmore said he did not mind how the money was spent, as long as it was on research. "They say it's untied," Mr Blackmore said. "I don't know what untied means but my own criteria was it can't be bricks and mortar. You can rent bricks and mortar but you can't rent intellectual capacity. "The better the research, the better the outcomes for our industry and our company specifically."

If any research found that a compound was harmful, it would be removed from Blackmores products, he said. Friends of Science in Medicine executive member Ken Harvey said Blackmores research had previously been presented to indicate a benefit to some of its products where there was none. This included a study on the effects of Lyprinol for children with ADHD, which found no improvements over a placebo, but was reported on A Current Affair as a "breakthrough" in a story that quoted the Swinburne University researchers. The study was funded by Pharmalink, which licenses Blackmores to sell the product. "I certainly support good research into traditional medicines but the dangers of it being funded by the Blackmores and Swisses of the world are fully evident in that ADHD 'breakthrough'," Dr Harvey said.

Mr Blackmore said his company had nothing to do with the way A Current Affair presented the story. Challenge for universities Universities are under increasing pressure to find new sources of revenue, but accepting funding from industry can be thorny, with various papers showing that studies sponsored by drug companies are more likely to have favourable results. The University of Sydney is yet to fill its $1.3 million Maurice Blackmore Chair in Integrative Medicine announced two years ago. Then medical dean Bruce Robinson's controversial decision to seek industry sponsorship for the chair was condemned by anti-pseudoscience activists and some of its own academics.

Emeritus professor of public health Simon Chapman was invited to chair a panel that would periodically review the relationship, and he recruited several academics who specialised in evaluating health claims, including the renowned evidence-based health care pharmacologist Lisa Bero and British complementary medicine researcher Edzard Ernst. But Professor Chapman said he later had second thoughts and pulled out of the project. "I just reached the point where I thought this is so much on the nose that I don't want anything to do with it," Professor Chapman said. "The industry craves respectability and they're not getting it and so they're trying to go to universities who will open the door to them. "If Western Sydney University produces research that shows the products are little more than expensive urine generators  or worse, that they interact adversely with other medications or are dangerous in their own right  are they confident that Blackmores wold change their processes?"

In any case, a global search has failed to turn out a suitable candidate for the chair, though it is understood one good applicant pulled out late in the selection process. Mr Blackmore said the money would go towards scholarships if the position could not be filled. "They're struggling to fill it, I can tell you," Mr Blackmore said. "It's a space that's not particularly attractive if you're very orthodox in your thinking." The University of Sydney said in a statement: "The recruitment of a suitable academic to undertake independent research and teaching as the Maurice Blackmore Chair in Integrative Medicine is ongoing.
A man charged over the violent sexual assault and death of Lynette Daley will face trial in Coffs Harbour after a judge dismissed an application for the case to be moved to Sydney.

Adrian Attwater claimed he could not receive a fair trial in northern NSW because of prejudicial publicity surrounding the case, including inflammatory comments on social media, including Facebook.

In an application to the NSW Supreme Court this week Mr Attwater said he would be safer living in Sydney during the five-to-six week trial than in Coffs Harbour, where he feared his residential address could be discovered by potential vigilantes.

The body of Ms Daley, 33, was found naked, bruised and bloodied on Ten Mile Beach north of Iluka, in northern NSW, in January 2011.
On August 23, 1831, just after breakfast, William Holmes shot himself in the chest with his own double-barrelled shotgun, while collecting a cockatoo. The cabinet maker and keen naturalist had been gathering "birds and other curiosities" on Stradbroke Island when stung. "Oh my God, I'm dead," he said, before becoming so.

The accidental death cut short his career as the inaugural custodian of Australia's first museum, which celebrated its 190th birthday this week. The long history of the Australian Museum boasts many a curious tail (sic). Of death and discovery, misadventure, music and a tiny Tasmanian snail called Attenborougharion rubicundus. Well, more of a slug really.

The Australian Museum's tyrannosaurus exhibition has won record attendance figures in North America. Credit:James Morgan

The colourful creature was named after Sir David Attenborough, who recently lauded the museum as a "scientific centre of world importance".

The natural history museum has come a long way since being set up in a shed and outhouse in Sydney.
He is languishing in jail and now former NSW Labor minister Eddie Obeid is pointing the finger at his former lawyers.

Obeid, 73, is asking the Court of Criminal Appeal to overturn his conviction for misconduct in public office on a range of grounds, including the alleged "incompetence" of his lawyers.

His new legal team appeared in the Local Court on Friday, seeking to delay the hearing of a second criminal case against their client because they needed more time to prepare.

Obeid and his middle son Moses have been charged with conspiracy to commit misconduct in public office over a $30 million coal deal involving the family's rural property in the Bylong Valley near Mudgee.
A Sydney man who stabbed his wife more than 30 times in front of their youngest daughter has been found guilty of her murder.

Haydar Haydar, 60, kept his head down while his three daughters comforted each other as the verdict was delivered in the NSW Supreme Court on Friday, almost two years to the day since Salwa Haydar, 45, was killed.

Ola with her mother, Salwa Haydar.

He had pleaded not guilty to murder but guilty to the manslaughter of the mother of his four children in her Bexley townhouse on March 30, 2015, claiming that he was substantially impaired at the time due to a depressive illness.

But Justice Peter Garling was not persuaded and found the "principal cause of the accused's conduct was his jealousy and anger".
The state's top fraud investigator says police want to clamp down on daily 'tap-and-go' bank card use amid soaring rates of crime linked to the technology.

Police data revealed there were more than 1000 deception offences every month in Victoria, with the rate of offending increasing by 60 per cent in just four years.

Police are calling for daily 'tap' limits on the cards. Credit:Eddie Jim

Detective Superintendent Patrick Boyle said in 2012 there were 23,590 offences but this soared to 36,985 in 2016.

Police also believed there were links between credit cards being used to foster other types of crime, including instances where cards were swapped for drugs.
Beijing: China's first anti-extremism law comes into effect on Saturday, enforcing bans on full-face veils and long beards in the restive far-western region of Xinjiang.

Such bans had previously only been applied ad hoc. The Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region sits along the ancient Silk Road and is home to around 10 million Muslim Uighurs, who have faced increasing restrictions after ethnic violence erupted in 2009.

The law bans 15 behaviours which are labelled extremist activities, including refusing to watch Chinese state television and radio news broadcasts.

"Expanding the concept of halal beyond food items", "abnormal" beards and names, "wearing veils and robes [and] symbols of extremism", marrying or divorcing through religious means instead of Chinese law, not allowing children to attend government schools and deliberately breaking the family planning policy are also banned.
Venice, Italy: Italian police announced on Thursday that they had dismantled a suspected jihadi cell whose members had discussed blowing up the Rialto Bridge, one of the top tourist attractions in Venice.

Three Kosovar men living in Italy were arrested in overnight raids, and one teenager, also from Kosovo, was held, police said.

The Rialto bridge along the Grand Canal, during the annual historical regatta, in Venice, Italy. Credit:AP

Police also conducted nearly a dozen raids in Venice, one in nearby Mestre on the mainland and one in Treviso.

In wiretapped conversations, the men celebrated the terrorist attack in London on March 22, in which a Briton mowed down pedestrians, killing three of them, and then fatally stabbed a police officer outside Parliament. They expressed their readiness to carry out a similar slaughter in Venice.
Cuenca, Ecuador: Venezuela's Supreme Court has stripped the country's elected Congress of any power, raising fears of President Nicolas Maduro has taken a final step towards dictatorship.

The court said it would assume all legislative functions amid its contention that legislators are operating outside of the law, in a move opposition leaders decried as a "coup".

Venezuela National Assembly President Julio Borges rips Supreme Court documents ruling that it can take over responsibilities assigned to Congress. Credit:AP

The move will undoubtedly increase tensions given the opposition-controlled Congress was seen as a last bastion of dissent. It is also a slap to the international community, which just this week was pressing the socialist administration to respect the role of the legislature and to hold new elections.

In a ruling published late on Wednesday local time, the Supreme Court said that while the National Assembly continued to defy court rulings all of its actions were "invalid" and that "the activities of the parliament would be exercised directly by [this court]".
LEARN MORE: Used Car Buyers Guide

SEATTLECarMax, Inc. , the nations largest retailer of used cars, today celebrated the grand opening of the companys new stores in Lynnwood and Puyallup, as its first locations in the Puget Sound region. These new stores bring more than 200 new jobs to the area, and will provide customers with a selection of between 200 and 400 vehicle options of nearly every make and model at each location.

For more than 20 years, CarMax has brought integrity to the used car industry by offering no-haggle pricing and a transparent car buying experience that customers want and deserve, said Bill Nash, president and CEO of CarMax. Our company is committed to making every step of the car buying process stress-free for our customers, and we look forward to serving the Puget Sound region with the great customer experience CarMax is known for.

During todays grand opening celebration, CarMax announced that The CarMax Foundation will invest approximately $95,000 to build a playground in the Puget Sound area. The playground is expected to be built next year through a partnership with KaBOOM!, a national nonprofit ensuring that all kids get the balance of play they need to become healthy and successful adults.

CarMax associates are passionate about supporting the communities where we live and work, said Chasidy Murphy, location general manager of the CarMax in Puyallup. CarMax is committed to making a positive impact on society and we take pride in giving back and volunteering in our local communities.

CarMax also announced that The CarMax Foundation will be providing $25,000 in grants and donations to local organizations, including Junior Achievement of Washington and Communities in Schools of Puyallup. CarMax associates in Lynnwood and Puyallup nominated these organizations to receive the contributions and have enjoyed participating in volunteer events with both groups. The CarMax Foundation has granted more than $35 million on behalf of associates across the country since 2003.

We are honored to support these organizations and admire their dedication to serving area youth, said David Thompson, location general manager of the CarMax in Lynnwood. The community has been very welcoming of CarMax and we look forward to being a great regional partner, while serving customers for years to come.

The Puyallup and Lynnwood stores will be located at 202 Valley Avenue NW and 21317 Highway 99, respectively. In addition to the vehicles in stock at each location, customers can request transfers of almost any vehicle from other CarMax locations nationwide. CarMaxs nationwide inventory of nearly 50,000 vehicles can be viewed online at CarMax.com.

About CarMax

CarMax is the nations largest retailer of used cars and operates more than 170 stores in 39 states nationwide. CarMax revolutionized the auto industry by delivering the honest, transparent and high-integrity car buying experience customers want and deserve. For more than 20 years, CarMax has made car buying more ethical, fair and stress-free by offering a no-haggle, no-hassle experience and an incredible selection of vehicles. CarMax makes selling your car easy too, by offering no-obligation appraisals good for seven days. At CarMax, well buy your car even if you dont buy ours. CarMax has more than 24,000 associates nationwide and for 12 consecutive years has been named as one of the FORTUNE 100 Best Companies to Work For. During the 12 months ending February 29, 2016, the company retailed 619,936 used cars and sold 394,437 wholesale vehicles at its in-store auctions. For more information, access the CarMax website at www.carmax.com.
Auto Lab Radio Talk - LIVE From New York City Saturday April 1, 2017 7-9AM







Auto Lab Talk Radio

The Auto Lab Radio Show is Broadcast every Saturday 7 to 9 AM On New York City's WNYM Radio AM 970 and Streamed Worldwide On The Auto Channel

This Weeks Show Broadcast Date: April 1, 2017

Car Question or Concern? Call Toll Free 888-692-7234

Auto Lab is a 28 year old interactive automotive-focused New York area radio call-in show hosted by Professor Harold Wolchok. Each week a cadre of experienced hands-on automotive experts are in-studio with advice for the New York area's 12 million people, providing listeners with honest, practical and street-smart car repair and buying advice.

Auto Lab is also about the automotive industry, its history, and its culture, presenting the ideas and advice of leading college faculty, authors, and automotive practitioners in a relaxed, conversational interactive format.

Listeners can hear the past 18 years of archived Auto Lab shows as simulcast on www.theautochannel.com.

Listen - Auto Lab Page (Includes Audio-on-Demand Archives, Auto Programs at Community College Database, Guests Pictures

This Weeks Show: April 1, 2017

Auto Lab In-Studio Auto Experts Discuss: Repairs, Second Opinions, Regular Maintenance, How To's, Safety, Used and New Car Buying, Ombudsmen Suggestions

Harold Bendell- Major Auto

Fred Bordoff-Bronx Community College-Automotive Technology Department, CUNY

Tim Cacace-Master Mechanix

Joseph Guarino-Joe Guarino's Auto Repairs

Jerry Pastore-D & J Diagnostic

Johanna Pastore-D & J Diagnostic

Joanne Porcelli, Esq

Michael Porcelli - Central Avenue Auto Repairs & I-CAR

Nicholas Prague- MTA and Rockland Community College, SUNY

Auto Lab Correspondents Report Auto Safety News, New Car Reviews, Technology and Latest Auto World Information That May effect You!

Broadcast Date: April 1, 2017

Robert Erskine, Senior European Correspondent, Suffolk England

GORGEOUS CURVES

Robert Sinclair-AAA Northeast

15 THINGS TO KEEP IN YOUR CARS AT ALL TIMES

Sharon Sudol & John Russell Senior Correspondents

2017 KIA CADENZA SXL REVIEW
Honda Futuristic Motorcycle In GHOST IN THE SHELL Based On NM4







In theaters from March 31st in the U.S. and more than 50 international markets.

Honda has supported the production of the feature film GHOST IN THE SHELL, produced by DreamWorks Pictures and Paramount Pictures, and provided its highly acclaimed large motorcycle model NM4, whose futuristic style has been very popular, as the base model for the hero bike in the film.

Based on the internationally acclaimed Japanese manga, Ghost in the Shell is set in the near future and stars Scarlett Johansson as Major, the first of her kind, a human saved from a terrible crash, who is cyber-enhanced to be a perfect soldier devoted to stopping the worlds most dangerous criminals. Beat Takeshi plays her boss, Aramaki. The film is produced by Avi Arad, Ari Arad, Steven Paul, and Michael Costigan. Tetsu Fujimura, Mitsuhisa Ishikawa, Jeffrey Silver and Yoshinobu Noma are the executive producers. The film is directed by Rupert Sanders.

The NM4 was developed under the keywords of the Neo-futuristic and COOL, and was launched in April 2014. The ideal fit between the concept and styling of the NM4 and the worldview of the film led to the provision of the vehicle for filming. The vehicle in the film was based on design sketches provided by Honda, finessed by the film production team, and subsequently placed in the film as the hero bike ridden by the lead character. The vehicle helps to make the futuristic world depicted in the film more realistic.

The film GHOST IN THE SHELL will be released in U.S. and in more than 50 countries and territories around the world on March 31st. The film will open in Japan on April 7th. Please visit the official website of http://www.ghostintheshellmovie.com for release dates and further details about the film.

The NM4-based vehicle used in the film is scheduled to be showcased at 33rd OSAKA MOTORCYCLE SHOW 2017 (Saturday, March 18th  Monday, 20th), and 44th TOKYO MOTORCYCLE SHOW (Friday, March 24th  Sunday, 26th).
Honoring the helpers Awards recognize those who support autism community

Thirteen community members and providers were recognized for their resilience, passion and heart at the 2022 Awesome in Autism Awards ceremony. The 14th annual event, hosted by Autism Society Ventura County, was held Oct. 20 at Wood Ranch Golf Club...

Go purple to support those diagnosed with pancreatic cancer November is the busiest month of the year for cancer awareness campaigns. Im going to focus on one of thempancreatic cancer because its a type weve seen a noticeable rise in over the last few years. And because it remains...

Hospital offers safe option to dispose of meds, narcotics Los Robles Health System is working to crush the opioid drug crisis by raising awareness about the dangers of opioid misuse and the importance of safe and proper disposal of unused or expired medications. Crush the Crisis will take place...

Alzheimers Foundation to host free conference The Alzheimers Foundation of America will host a free virtual educational conference from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Tues., Nov. 15. The event is part of the foundations 2022 national Educating America Tour. The conference, which is free and open...
House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes is a close acquaintance of Donald Trumps. And the California Republican, who harbors borderline obsessive anti-Democrat views while representing a gerrymandered district in one of the bluest states in the country, has seen his political profile dramatically increase since joining the Trump transition team. His cozy relationship with Team Trump has led to serious questions concerning his trustworthiness while overseeing the Houses investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, and possible ties between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin.For starters, Nunes was the first major House Republican to deny that the intelligence community had any intel linking the Trump campaign and Russian operatives in February, before the investigation was publicly announced. He has repeatedly stated he will not seek the release of Trumps tax returns. And he has said he has no interest in investigating former National Security Adviser Michael Flynns ties to Russiaeven after it was revealed that Flynn had numerous undisclosed meetings with Russian officials during and after the Trump campaign, leading him to resign.

Nuness curiously pro-Trump behavior reached a fever pitch last week, when he claimed that the intel community had incidentallyand legallycollected information concerning Trump officials and Russia, which would have sort of (but not really) backed up President Trumps unhinged (and still baseless) tweet-allegations that the Obama administration had wiretapped Trump Tower. Making matters worse, Nunes informed the White House of the alleged reveal before even briefing his fellow members of the House Intelligence Committee.

Hanging over everything Trump does is the ongoing Russia investigation, and in the House, the investigation is led by the Republican chairman of the intelligence committee, Devin Nunes, who has basically done everything he can to delay or interfere with his own investigationraising the question of whether he is investigating Trump, or working for Trump, said Seth Meyers.

Yes, on Thursday night, the Late Night host devoted his latest Closer Look segment to the still-developing Nunes-Trump scandal.

After his opening salvo, Meyers threw to a clip of Rep. Ted Yoho (R-FL), who told MSNBC on Thursday morning that Nunes works for the president, he answers to the president.

No, you dont! exclaimed Meyers. Congress does not work for the president! If Congress always did what the president told them to do, this guy [Obama] would not have left office looking like thisbefore throwing to a photo of a haggard-looking Obama.

The Nunes-Trump-Russia saga got significantly stranger Thursday afternoon, when The New York Times reported that two White House officials, Ezra Cohen-Watnick, the senior director for intelligence at the National Security Council, and Michael Ellis, a lawyer who works on national-security issues at the White House Counsels Office and was previously counsel to Mr. Nuness committee, appeared to have sought to use intelligence to advance the political goals of the Trump administration by leaking the aforementioned information to Nunes. Trump had previously fought to keep one of the two leakers, Cohen-Watnick, in the National Security Council against the wishes of current National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster.

That means Nunes went to the White House to brief Trump from information he got from the White House, said Meyers. Its like when you send yourself an email reminder and two minutes later go, Oh, a new email!

Then, also on Thursday afternoon, Whie House press secretary Sean Spicer was asked during a press conference if Trump directed anyone in the White House or on his national-security team to back up his false Obama wiretapping claim, and his stammering answer didnt exactly inspire the utmost confidence.

Um I dont Im not aware of anything, directly Id have to look into that in terms of Again, theres two sides of this: one is the information side, and two is the policy and the activities and the legal piece of what happened. Those are big buckets, if you will, said Spicer. Cue Meyers: I mean, Ill bet Sean Spicer fantasizes about having an easier joblike Bill Cosbys publicist.

With Trumps approval rating hovering around a historically low 35 percent, his administration is going to need to come up with some better answers.
A U.S. citizen who ICE detained for weeks is suing the agency, alleging it violated his Constitutional rights.

The lawsuit holds that Rony Chavez Aguilar was held in ICE custody for nearly three weeks without being able to see a judge, and without knowing why he was being detained.

Those officers initially arrested Aguilar on drug charges, according to Roth. He pleaded guilty, and spent about two weeks in county jail for the offense. After the two weeks were up, he would have been free to go. But ICE thought he was undocumented, and wanted to deport him.

The officers kept him in the county jail so agents with ICEs Chicago field office could take him into custody. According to the complaint, they picked him up on or around March 7 and moved him to the Boone County Jail in Burlington, Kentucky, where they contract out space to detain people facing deportation.

At that point, Aguilar told them he was a U.S. citizen. They didnt believe him.

He said, Hey, Im a citizen! said Charles Roth, who is representing Aguilar. And basically they said, Tell it to the judge.

Then they didnt let him see one.

Roth, who is also the litigation director for the National Immigrant Justice Center, said many other immigrants find themselves in the same situation as Aguilardetained for days or weeks without knowing what charges they face and without getting to defend themselves before a judgeand that he hopes a judge will let those people join Aguilar in a class action suit.

If Aguilar is successful, it could present a significant challenge for Trumps mass deportation efforts. ICE doesnt comment on ongoing litigation.

The suit comes at a time when President Donald Trump and Homeland Security Sec. John Kelly are moving rapidly to expand immigrant detention and deport more people. And the suit highlights one of the biggest challenges facing Americas immigration system: the massive backlog in immigration court that makes some immigrants wait months before they can see a judge.

It also highlights another ongoing challenge for ICE: accidentally arresting U.S. citizens. Syracuse Universitys Transactional Records Clearinghouse found that from 2008 to 2012, the agency asked local jails to detain 834 U.S. citizens so they could move to deport them. As Trumps efforts to speed up deportations continue, its likely more American citizens like Aguilar will be caught in the dragnet.

According to the complaint, Aguilar was born in Guatemala and came to the United States legally in 1991. His mother became a naturalized U.S. citizen when he was 14, according to the complaint, and he became a citizen on Feb. 27, 2001. In January, ICE asked Kentucky police officers who had arrested Aguilar to hold him in a jail there longer than they otherwise would have so the agency could pick him up.

When the complaint was filed, ICE hadnt yet filed whats called a Notice to Appear in immigration court against Aguilar. That notice would be the document officially charging him, and would require him to go to court.

ICE Chicago did not obtain a judicial warrant to arrest Plaintiff; has not provided a sworn, particularized statement of probable cause; has not promptly brought him before a detached and neutral judicial officer for a probable cause hearing; or has not brought him before a judge to understand the charges against him and receive important advisals regarding his due process rights, amongst other procedural protections, the complaint says.

Roth said Aguilar was released from detention shortly after they filed the suit on March 27.

Roth said Aguilars situation is fairly common, and he hopes a federal judge will declare that its illegal for ICE to detain immigrants for more than 48 hours without letting them see a judge.

Aguilars case isnt the only one moving through federal courts that could significantly upend the way immigrant detention works. A federal judge in Colorado recently ruled that upwards of 60,000 immigrants held in a facility managed by a for-profit prison company could launch a class action lawsuit against that company. The plaintiffs in the suit, Menocal v. GEO, allege that the company violated a federal anti-slavery statute by forcing them to do manual labor for low wages or no wages at all, under threat of solitary confinement.

As Trump detains more immigrants, lawsuits like this one will likely become more common. And as was the case with the travel ban, the federal judiciary could be the biggest hurdle for Trumps plans.